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«?  CENTURY 


ILLUSTRATED  MONTHLY 


MAGAZINE. 


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Mayl8$$,1o  October  1888 


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T¥?  CENTURY  C9  ,    NEW-YORK 

T.  FISHER  UNWIND  LONDON, 
Vol.  XXXVI.  NewSeries 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS. 


INDEX 

TO 

THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 

VOL.  XXXVI.  NEW    SERIES:    VOL.    XIV. 


PAGE 

"  ALBKMARLE,"  THE  CAREER  OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  RAM. 

1.  Her  Construction  and  Service.      By  her  Builder Gilbert  Elliott 420 

2.  The  "  Albemarle  "  and  the  "  Sassacus  " Edgar  Holden 427 

3.  The  Destruction  of  the  "  Albemarle  " Commander  W.  B.  Gushing.  432 

4.  Note  by  her  Captain A.  F.  Warley 439 

Illustrations  by  W.   Taber,  M.   H.  Hoke,  J.  O.  Davidson,  V.  Gribayedoff.     Plans  and  maps  prepared  by  Com- 
mander J.  R.  Bartlett.     Original  plans  and  specifications  lent  by  P.  E.  Smith. 

AMERICAN  MACHINE  CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE  GUNS Lieut.  William  R.  Hamilton.  885 

Illustrations  by  August  Will,  E.  J.  Meeker,  W.  Taber,  J.  F.  Runge,  and  C.  E.  S.  Rood. 

ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND  CASES.     MEMORANDA  AT  THE  TIME,  1863-66. . .  Walt  Whitman 825 

ARNOLD'S,  MATTHEW,  CRITICISM John  Burroughs 185 

ASTRONOMY,  SIDEREAL:  OLD  AND  NEW Edward  S.  Holden 602,  780 

Illustrated  with  diagram  and  charts. 

BEVERAGES,  FOOD  AND Professor  W.  O.  Atwater. . .  .   135 

BIBLE,  THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  THE T.  T.  Munger 709 

BIRD  Music Simeon  Pease  Cheney 

With  musical  notes  by  the  author. 

Partridges  and  Owls 147 

The  Oriole  and  the  Thrush 254 

Sparrows 416 

Yellow-breasted  Chat,  Bobolink,  and  Whip-poor-will 718 

BIRD  Music :  SONGS  OF  THE  WESTERN  MEADOW-LARK Charles  N.  Allen 908 

With  musical  notes  by  the  author. 

BY  TELEPHONE Brander  Matthews 305 

CAMPAIGN,  A  MEXICAN Thomas  A.  Janvier.  535, 736,  81 7 

CATHEDRALS Mrs.  Schuyler  van  Kensselaer. 

Illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennell. 

Lichfield 379 

Lincoln 583 

CATSKILLS,  THE  HEART  OF  THE  SOUTHERN John  Burroughs 610 

CHANCES,  THE,  OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE Colonel  William  F.  Fox  ...  93 

CHRISTIANITY  THE  CONSERVATOR  OF  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION Christopher  Stuart  Patterson.  855 

CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND,  THE,  IN  THE  COLONIES Edward  Egglestoti 107 

Illustrations  by  George  Gibson,  Allegra  Eggleston,  H.  C.  Edwards,  A.  Laurie,  and  others. 


jv  INDEX. 

PAGE 

COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES J°hn  Addison  Porter.  .  .   749 

Illustrations  by  Alfred  Brennan  and  W.  Taber. 

COLLEGE,  WOMEN  WHO  GO  TO •   7'4 

COLONIES,  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE .I'.dwant  Eggleston  .  .  .107 

Illustrations  by  George  Gibson,  A!legra  Eggleston,  H.  C.  Edwards,  A.  Laurie,  and  others. 

CONFEDERACY,  HARD  TIMES  IN  THE •<'.  C.  Gordon. .  761 

COURAGE,  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF General  Horace  Porter    .  246 

CULTURE  CLUBS,  HOME George  W,  Cable.  .  .  497 

DEER-PARK,  AN  ENGLISH Richard  Jcfferies 803 

Illustrations  by  Alfred  Parsons  and  Bryan  Hook. 

DISEASE  GERMS,  AND  How  TO  COMBAT  THEM Lucius  J'ilkin  .374 

With  diagrams  and  with  frontispiece  portrait  of  Pasteur  (facing  page  323). 
DOVES E-  s-  Starr.  .  .   698 

Illustrations  by  J.  C.  Beard  and  Ernest  E.  Thompson. 

DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND  SOMNAMBULISM J.  HI.  Buckley .443 

EAT,  WHAT  WE  SHOULD Professor  IV.  0.  Ahuater. ...   257 

Illustrations  from  photographs. 

EDUCATION,  THE  INDUSTRIAL  IDEA  IN .  Charles  M.  Carter.  .679 

EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS George  A'ennan    720 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  George  A.  Frost,  and  from  photographs. 

(See  also  page  792.) 

EXILES,  MY  MEETING  WITH  POLITICAL . .  George  Kennan 508 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  George  A.  Frost,  and  J.  A.  Fraser.     Maps  by  Jacob  Wells. 

EXILE  SYSTEM,  SIBERIA  AND  THE.     ACROSS  THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER.  ..  Georgt  A'cnnan  3 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  George  A.  Frost,  W.  Taber,  and  Irving  R.  Wiles.     Map  by  Jacob  Well:.. 

EXPERIMENTS  OF  Miss  SALLY  CASH,  THE Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  . .  547 

Illustrations  by  E.  W.  Kemble. 

FOODS  AND  BEVERAGES Professor  \V.  O.  Altoater.  . .  .    135 

FRATERNITIES,  COLLEGE John  Addison  Porter 749 

Illustrations  by  Alfred  Brennan  and  W.  Taber. 

FRONTIER  TYPES Theodore  Roosevelt 831 

Illustrations  by  Frederic  Remington. 

GENERATION,  A  NEW  POLITICAL Edward  P.  Clark .  .  851 

GRAYSONS,  THE  :  A  STORY  OF  ILLINOIS Edward  Eggleston 78 

Illustrations  by  Allegra  Eggleston.  265,  341,  528 

HARD  TIMES  IN  THE  CONFEDERACY A.  C.  Gordon 761 

HEART  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS,  THE John  Burroughs 610 

HOME  OF  THK  SILENT  BROTHERHOOD,  A.    THE  ABBEY  OF  LA  TRAPPE  ) 

IN  KENTUCKY \Ja,ncs  Lane  Allen 483 

Illustrations  by  J.  Alden  Weir,  Kenyon  Cox,  and  Otto  H.  Bacher. 

HOME  CULTURE  CLUBS George  W.  Cable 497 

IDYL  OF  "  SINKIN'  MOUNT'IN,"  AN H.  S.  Edwards 895 

Illustrations  by  E.  W.  Kemble. 

INDUSTRIAL  IDEA,  THE,  IN  EDUCATION   ...  Charles  M.  Carter 679 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham. 

IRTISH,  THE   STEPPES  OF  THE George  Kennan .   353 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  F.  H.  Lungren,  Irving  R.  Wiles,  and  George  A.  Frost.      Maps  by  Jacob  Wells. 

JOHNSTON,  RICHARD  MALCOLM Sophie  Bledsoe  Herrick 276 

With  portrait  from  photograph. 

KENNAN,  GEORGE Anna  Laurcns  Dauvs 625 

With  frontispiece  portrait  (facing  page  483). 

LA  TRAPPE,  THE  ABBEY  OF.     See  "A  Home  of  the  Silent  Brotherhood." 

LAZARUS,  EMMA 875 

With  frontispiece  portrait  (facing  page  803). 

LEO  XIII.,  THE  PERSONALITY  OF Maurice  Francis  Egan 90 

With  portrait  and  autograph. 


INDEX.  v 

PAGE 

LIAR,  THE.     IN  Two  PARTS Henry  James 123,  213 

LICHFIELD  CATHEDRAL Mrs.  Schuylcrvan  Rensselaer.  379 

Illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennell. 

LINCOLN,  ABRAHAM  :  A  HISTORY John  G.  Nicolay,  John  Hay. 

The  Border  States 56 

Illustrations  from  photographs. 

The  Advance  —  Bull  Run,  Fremont.     Military  Emancipation 281 

Lincoln  and  McClellan 393 

Illustrations  from  photographs. 

Tennessee  and  Kentucky 5^2 

The  Mississippi  and  Shiloh 658 

Plans  of  Campaign 912 

LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL Mrs.  Schuyler  van  Rensselaer.  583 

Illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennell,  and  plan  from  "  Murray's  Hand-Book  to  the  Cathedrals  of  England." 

LOCOMOTIVE  CHASE  IN  GEORGIA,  THE William  Piltenger 141 

Illustration  by  W.  Taber. 

LOVE  STORY  REVERSED,  A Edward  Bellamy 26 

MEETING  WITH  POLITICAL  EXILES,  MY George  Kennan 508 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  George  A.  Frost,  and  J.  A.  Fraser.      Maps  by  Jacob  Wells. 

MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN,  A.     IN  THREE  PARTS Thomas  A.  Janvier. 535,  736,  817 

MILITARY  SYSTEM,  OUR  NATIONAL. 

What  the  United  States  Army  should  be General  August  V.  Kautz. . .   934 

Military  Education  and  the  Volunteer  Militia  Col.  James  Montgomery  Rice.  939 

Comments  on  Colonel  Rice's  Paper General  George  W.  Wingate.  943 

Our  National  Guard Major  Edmund  Cone  Brust  .   944 

MILTON Matthew  Arnold 53 

MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT   MONTEAGLE,  THE.    . Martha  Colyar  Roseboro1 .  .    .771 

Illustrations  by  E.  W.  Kemble. 

NATIONAL  MILITARY  SYSTEM,  OUR. 

What  the  United  States  Army  should  be General  August  V.  Kautz. . .  934 

Military  Education  and  the  Volunteer  Militia Col.  James  Montgomery  Rice.  939 

Comments  on  Colonel  Rice's  Paper General  George  IV.  Wingate.  943 

Our  National  Guard Major  Edmund  Cone  Bmst .  944 

NIGHTMARE,  DREAMS,  AND  SOMNAMBULISM J.  M.  Buckley  443 

ON  THE   BATTLE-FIELD Brander Matthews 457 

PEACE,  A  NOTE  OF  :  REUNIONS  OF  THE  "  BLUE  AND  THE  GRAY  "  ....  George  L.  Kilmer. .    440 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE,  THE General  Horace  Porter 246 

PLAINS  AND  PRISONS  OF  WESTERN  SIBERIA George  Kennan 163 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  W.  Taber,  Irving  R.  Wiles,  and  George  A.  Frost. 

PLANTIN-MORETUS  MUSEUM.     See  "  A  Printer's  Paradise." 

POLITICAL  GENERATION,  A  NEW Edward  P.  Clark 851 

PRINTER'S  PARADISE,  A:  THE  PLANTIN-MORETUS  MUSEUM  AT  ANT- ) 

WERp  (  Theodore  L.  De  Vinne 225 

Illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennelt  and  Miss  A.  G.  Morse,  and  from  paintings  and  old  prints. 

PULPIT  FOR  TO-DAY,  THE  .Lyman  Abbott 618 

RANCH,  SHERIFF'S  WORK  ON  A Theodore  Roosevelt 39 

Illustrations  by  Frederic  Remington. 

RANCHMAN'S,  THE,  RIFLE  ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE Theodore  Roosevelt 200 

Illustrations  by  Frederic  Remington. 

SCHOOL.     See  "  Uppingham." 

SELINA'S  SINGULAR  MARRIAGE  "  Grace  Denio  Litchfield 194 

SHERIFF'S  WORK  ON  A  RANCH Theodore  Roosevelt 39 

Illustrations  by  Frederic  Remington. 

SIBERIA  AND  THE  EXILE  SYSTEM.    ACROSS  THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER.  ..  George  Kennan    3 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  W.  Taber,  Irving  R.  Wiles,  and  George  A.  Frost.    Map  by  Jacob  Wells. 


vi  INDEX. 

PAGE 
SIBERIA,  PLAINS  AND  PRISONS  OF  WESTERN George  Kennan 163 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  W.  Taber,  Irving  R,  Wiles,  and  George  A.  Frost. 

SIDEREAL  ASTRONOMY  :  OLD  AND  NEW Edward  S.  Ilolden 602,  780 

Illustrated  with  diagram  and  charts. 

SILL,  EDWARD  ROWLAND Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  .  .    .704 

With  portrait  from  photograph. 

SINAI  AND  THE  WILDERNESS Edward  L.  Wilson 323 

Illustrations  drawn  by  Harry  Fenn,  after  photographs  by  the  author. 

STEPPES  OF  THE  IRTISH,  THE George  Kennan 353 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham,  F.  H.  Lungren,  Irving  R.  Wiles,  and  George  A.  Frost.     Maps  by  Jacob  Wells. 

STRIKE,  A Maud  IIowc 843 

SOMNAMHULISM,    DREAMS,   NIGHTMARE   AND J.  J\I.  Buckley 443 

TELEPHONE,  BY Brandcr  Matthews 305 

THRING,  EDWARD.     See  "  Uppingham." 

TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON,  THE George  Kennan 857 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham  and  George  A.  Frost.     Map  by  Jacob  Wells. 

UNIVERSITY,  THE,  AND  THE   BIBLE T.  T.  Mnnger  709 

UITINGHA.M.     AN  ANCIENT  SCHOOL  WORKED  ON  MODERN  IDEAS George  K.  Parkin 643 

Illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennell  and  Irving  R.  Wiles,  and  with  frontispiece  portrait  of  Edward  Thring  (facing 
page  643). 

WHITE    COWL,  THE James  Lane  Allen 684 

Illustrations  by  Robert  Blum. 

WOMEN  WHO  GO  TO   COLLEGE Arthur  Oilman 714 

POETRY. 

ABSENCE  OF  LITTLE  WESLEY,  THE James  Whitcomb  Rilcy 53 

Illustration  by  E.  W.  Kemble. 

APART Orclia  Key  Bell 874 

ARNOLD,  MATTHEW  William  P.  Andrews 417 

"  As  A  BELL  IN  A  CHIME  " Robert  Underwood  Johnson .  . 933 

CITY,  THE Richard  E.  Burton 140 

CRICKET,  THE Charles  Edwin  Markham  ...  507 

CRY,  A Louise  Chandler  Monlton  ...  199 

CRYING  BOG,  THE  :  A  LEGEND  OF  NARRAGANSETT Caroline  Hazard 546 

DEATH Florence  Earle  Coales 527 

GOLDEN  PRIME,  THE Frances  Louisa  Bushncll 223 

GETTYSBURG,  THE  HIGH  TIDE  AT  Will  II.  Thompson 418 

How  THE  MOHAWKS  SET  OUT  FOR  MEDOCTEC Charles  G.  D.  Roberts 224 

INFINITE  DEPTHS Charles  Edwin  Markham.  .  .  184 

INTERLUDES.     FOUR  POEMS Thomas  Bailev  Aldrich 24 

KANSAS  BIRD  SONGS Amanda  T.  Jones 309 

KING'S  SEAT,  THE Mrs.  Annie  J-'ields 265 

KNIGHT  IN  SILVER  MAIL,  THE Minna  Irving 561 

LESSON  OF  THE  LEAVES,  THE Thos.  Wentworth  Higginson.  907 

LOVE  ASLEEP Philip  Bourke  Marston 280 

MAN'S  REPROACH,  A Arlo  Bates 496 

MASK,  THE £fyot  m/,/ Io6 

OLD  AGE'S  LAMBENT  PEAKS Walt  Whitman 735 

0  Muslc Harriet  Prescott  Spofford.         894 

ONLY  FOE,  THE cdia  Thaxter ' ^ 

PoEMS John  Vance  Chenev  .  747 

RAINBOW  STUDY,  A Frances  L.  Mace.    .  9,, 

RESTLESSNESS ' Emma  Lazanis 83O 

SAPPHO r Henry  W.  Austin 946 

'  SINCE  CLEOPATRA  DIED  " Thos_  Wentworth  Higginson.  256 

SolLACE Jnlie  M.  Lippmann  ....  26 

STAR  TEARS Etlgene  Ashton ^ 


INDEX.  vii 

PAGE 

STILL  DAYS  AND   STORMY Richard  E.  Burton 609 

THRING,  EDWARD Bliss  Carman  . . 

TWILIGHT  OF  THE  HEART,  THE Will  Wallace  Hartley 38 

UNSHED  TEARS J"lian  Hawthorne 212 

WAITING  FOR  THE  BUGLE Tfios.  Wentworth  Higginson.  418 

WAVES  AND  MIST William  II.  Hayne 788 

MEMORANDA  ON  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

LEE'S,  GENERAL,  VIEWS  ON  ENLISTING  THE  NEGROES Andrew  Hunter 599 

NEGROES,  GENERAL  LEE'S  VIEWS  ON  ENLISTING  THE Andrew  Hunter 599 

SHERMAN'S  "  GRAND  STRATEGY,"  SOME  ERRORS  IN  GENERAL IV.  Allen 601 

TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME. 

ADMINISTRATIVE  NOVELTY,  AN 63' 

AMERICAN  FLAG,  THE,  FOR  AMERICA 3'3 

AMERICAN  VOLUNTEER,  THE 949 

ART  REVIVAL  IN  AMERICAN  COINAGE 3'4 

CLERGY,  A  LAY  SERMON  TO  THE 469 

COINAGE,  ART  REVIVAL  IN  AMERICAN 3 '4 

COLLEGIATE  EDUCATION,  MODERN 7°9 

EDUCATION,  MODERN  COLLEGIATE 789 

FLAG,  THE  AMERICAN,  FOR  AMERICA 3'3 

INDEPENDENCE,  THE,  OF  LITERATURE 472 

INDIVIDUALITY  IN  TEACHING 79° 

ISSUE,  AN,  THAT  CANNOT  BE  IGNORED 149 

JUST  EMPLOYER,  A 791 

LEGISLATIVE  METHODS,  REFORM  IN  OUR 312 

LITERATURE,  THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF 472 

LITERATURE,  THE  NEWSPAPER  SIDE  OF 15° 

MANUAL  TRAINING , 951 

NEW  BRANCH,  A,  OF  AN  OLD  PROFESSION 471 

NEW  ENGLAND  DEFENDING  STATES  RIGHTS 151 

NEWSPAPER,  THE,  SIDE  OF  LITERATURE 15° 

PARTY  MAN,  WHO  is  THE  GENUINE?  951 

POLITICS,  THE  AMENITIES  OF 95° 

REFORM  IN  OUR  LEGISLATIVE  METHODS 312 

SCIENCE,  MODERN,  IN  ITS  RELATIONS  TO  PAIN 632 

SELFISHNESS  AND  SELF-INTEREST 47° 

SERMON,  A  LAY,  TO  THE  CLERGY 469 

SHERIDAN,  PHILIP  H 95° 

SOCIALISM  AND  THE  "  TRUSTS  " 634 

STATES  RIGHTS,  NEW  ENGLAND  DEFENDING I51 

TEACHING,  INDIVIDUALITY  IN 79° 

"  TRUSTS,"  SOCIALISM  AND  THE 634 

WARREN,  SAMUEL  D.     See  "  A  Just  Employer." 

WHO  is  THE  GENUINE  PARTY  MAN  ? '. 951 

OPEN  LETTERS. 

AMERICAN  HISTORY,  LECTURES  ON Mary  R.  Hargrove 953 

ARNOLD,  MR.,  AND  AMERICAN  ART Mrs.SchuylervanRensselaer.  314 

ARNOLD,  MATTHEW,  AND  FRANKLIN John  Bigcloiu 477 

ART,  AMERICAN,  MR.  ARNOLD  AND Mrs.  Sehuylervan  Rensselaer  314 

ART  EDUCATION W.  J.  Stillman 796 

BACON,  LORD,  AND  THE  VAIL  TELEGRAPHIC  CODE R.  D.  Mussey 9S9 

CALIFORNIA,  AN  ATTEMPTF.D  DIVISION  OF Leon  F.  Moss 318 

<  John  Banvard  and  ) 

CANAL,  THE,  AT  ISLAND  No.   10 j  General  John  C.  Fremont  \       ™ 

CHEROKKES,  ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY  BY  THE George  E.  Foster 638 

CHURCH,  THE  RIGHT  MAN  FOR  OUR Forrest  F.  Emerson 956 

COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES President  Julius  If.  Seelye  . .   798 

COLLEGES,  A  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE Charles  F.  Thwing 317 

COPYRIGHT,  THE  ETHICS  OF Washington  Gladden 472 

DAUGHTERS,  MAKE  YOUR,  INDEPENDENT G.  Andrews 152 

EDUCATION,  ART W.  J.  Stillman 796 

EXILE  SYSTEM,  Is  THE  SIBERIAN,  TO  BE  AT  ONCE  ABOLISHED  ? George  Kennan 792 

EMERSON'S  MESSAGE George  S.  Merriam 154 

FIFTY  TUCKS  INSTEAD  OF. ONE Julia  C.  R.  Dorr 954 

FRANKLIN  AND  MATTHEW  ARNOLD John  Bigelow 477 


INDEX. 

V1U  PAGE 

President  Julius  H.  Seelye    .   798 

FRATERNITIES,  COLLEGE '       james  Wallace  Fox 157 

GARTH  FUND,  THE •  General  R.  E.  Colston 791 

GETTYSBURG  TWENTY-FIVE  \ EARS  AFTEE -.  ...  ;  ; CAar/a  y,   Thwing 3,7 


. 

GOVERNMENT,  A  DEMOCRATIC,  IN  THE  COLLEGES  ...........  )A  ^^  .............  795 

GRANT,  GENERAL,  AND  MATIAS  ROMERO  ............  •  J/w_  /y  L_  Tobim  ........  958 

GRAYSON,  "  AUNT  MARTHA  "  .......................  J/(/n,  R_  j{argr<Ke  .........  953 

HISTORY,  LECTURES  ON  AMERICAN  •   G   Andrews  ..............  152 

•  •  • 


, 

INDEPENDENT,  MAKE  YOUR  DAUGHTERS  ........  •  •  •  M^  Ban,.ard  „„,,  i 

ISLAND  No.  10,  THE  CANAL  AT..  •    \  C^eneralJokn  C.  Frfnvmt.  J 

••  KINDERGARTEN,  FREE,  THE  WORKWOMAN'S  SCHOOL  AND  "  ^  ^  ^^  ...........  ^ 


LINCOLN  AND  SECESSION       ....................  /v,_  /x  j/llsst,y  .............  952 

LINCOLN  AS  A  MILITARY  MAN  ....................  •  James  llerbert  Morse  .......  952 

LOWELL'S  RECENT  WRITINGS  ..................  •/  •  .....................  477 

MAGDALENE,  MARY  ........  .  .  .......  •  •    •  •  •  •  •  .........  '  "n  '  ty  '  Compton  ............   154 

MANUAL  TRAINING  IN  THE  TOLEDO  SCHOOLS  ..................  .  p.F  Ilallock  .............  637 

MERIT  SYSTEM,  EXTEND  THE  .....................  '  p  W.  Tanssig  ............  476 

POSTAL  SERVICE,  THE  .............................  '  '  TAOHOJ  L.  Greene  .......     47& 

RAILWAY  POOLS,  THE  PROHIBITION  OF  .....    ..........  .    •_  •  ......  i  »                               ,,6 

"SCHOOL,   THE   WORKWOMAN'S,   AND    FREE   KINDERGARTEN      .  .  .                                        ...........    * 

SCHOOLS,  MANUAL  TRAINING  IN  THE  TOLEDO  ..............  •%  C.  RoM  ...........  47« 

" 


: 

TEACHER'S  VACATION,  THE  ................  •  ...............  ,,    n    •</..„...,  qcg 

TELEGRAPHIC  CODE,  THE  VAIL,  AND  LORD  BACON.. 

TELEGRAPH,  THE  STORY  OF  THE  FIRST  NEWS  MESSAGE  BY  ......  &  V..  •  ••  —  —  •  J'| 

VACATION,  THE  TEACHER'S  .................................  "  r'  r  'catletl  477 

"  WE-UNS  "  AND  "  YOU-UNS  "  ...........................  •  •  •  •  •  j^  D  SfyffS  and   , 

'  ' 


"  WE-UNS  "  AND  "  YOU-UNS,"  NOTES  ON  ............  .............  £    yal.  W.  Starnes  )  '  ' 

"  WORKINGMAN'S,   THE,   SCHOOL  AND    FREE   KINDERGARTEN  "  ..... 

BRIC-A-BRAC. 


BALLADE  OF  A  REJECTER  OF  MS  ..........  -  •&  'Brotherlon  '.  '.  960 

BALLADS  OF  BESEECHING  ................................  Blanched  .............  320 

BURROUGHS,  To  JOHN  .................................  .     »     .  ,59 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE  ..................................  Henderson  '.'.'.'.'.'.'..'..  800 

CONFESSION,  A  .........................................  "ME    W  640 

iNGL^^sE^HREEExAMPLEs'oF-:::::::::::::::::::::::::: 

DIVIDED  .....................................................  j     '    Whitcomb  Rilcy  .....  480 


v 

Hs  MOTHER  .................  ........................  Hek»  Gra>'  Cone 

HIS    MOTHER  .............  M    !•'     W 

'-  ' 


HATTAN>  THE 


YV  x::::::::.  :  •  •;:::.  .............................  %  a**-*.  KJ*  • 

I  KAP  YFAR  ...................  Kemper  Bocock  ...........  <->4° 

_  J_/c.Al-l  P.nK.    .............  •  .....  nrt~'nr/~*ri/  A  T\ 

MAC'S  OLD  HORSE  .................................................  M.  G-  A'<U<11'"1 

MINNIE  VERSUS  MINERVA  .........................................  /r,"ry,^^  ",'",'  r',   ",' 

NATURE,  How,  COMFORTED  THE  POET  .............................  EluateA  Gottwyck  Rrtert*.  r 

OBSERVATIONS  ...............................  Iva"  /><"""  • 

OLE  SETTLERS'  '  MEETUN  ..........................................  Richard  Lew  Da-uson    . 

POET,  How  NATURE  COMFORTED  THE  ...............................  Elizabeth  Goshvycke  Roberts  . 

REAL  REASON,  THE  ....................................  '   ^"?'?/  '  ">nif^t  ' 

TALE  OF  THE  TIGER,  THE  ......................................  M.S.  Hopson  .    .  . 

To  A  POET  IN  "  BRic-A-BRAC  "  ................................ 

Tn  T     W    R  ................  Patty  Caryl  ..............    4/9 

TORM  ..................    SarahA.Peplt  ...........      959 

UNCLE'  ESEK'S'  WISDOM'.'.  ...'..'  ......................................  Uncle  Esek  .     158,  320,  47»,  799 

VAIN  QUEST   A  ..................................  D.  M.  Jordan  .... 

Vis-A-Vis    A  ...........  .............................  Frank  Dempster  Sherman.  .  •   Soo 

VOICE    A  '  '.'.'..'.'  ....  ..'.'.  ....................................  Charles  Knmi'Ies  Ballon  .  . 

WAY,  THE,  '  TO'  WIN  .'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.....'.  .........................  Samuel  Minturn  Peck  . 

BRIC-A-BRAC  DRAWINGS. 
OscAR  ......................................  E.  llr.  KenMe  ............    159 

WHAT  's  'IN  'A'  NAME  '...'.  ..........................................  £•  W-  A'emiie  .............  639 


THE    BOUNDARY    POST. 


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i 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI.  MAY,   1888.  No.  i 


SIBERIA    AND    THE    EXILE   SYSTEM. 
AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

BEFORE  beginning  this  series  of  papers  upon  Siberia  and  the 
Exile  System,  it  seems  to  me  both  proper  and  necessary  that  I 
should  say  a  few  words  with  reference  to  the  circumstances 
under  which  I  made  the  journey  that  I  am  about  to  describe, 
and  the  opinions  concerning  Russian  affairs  which  I  held  at 
the  time  it  was  undertaken.  The  idea  of  exploring  some  of  the 
less  known  parts  of  Siberia,  and  of  making,  in  connection  with 
such  exploration,  a  careful  study  of  the  exile  system,  first  took 
definite  form  in  my  mind  in  the  year  1879.  From  such  ob- 
servations as  I  had  been  able  to  make  during  a  residence  of 
two  and  a  half  years  in  the  country,  and  a  subsequent  journey  of  five  thousand  miles 
overland  to  St.  Petersburg,  it  seemed  to  me  that  Siberia  offered  to  a  competent  investi- 
gator an  extremely  interesting  and  promising  field  of  research.  To  the  Russians,  who  had 
possessed  it  in  whole  or  in  part  for  nearly  three  centuries,  it  was,  of  course,  comparatively 
familiar  ground ;  but  to  the  average  American,  at  that  time,  it  was  almost  as  much  a  terra 
incognita  as  central  Africa  or  Thibet.  In  1881  the  assassination  of  Alexander  II.,  and  the 
exile  of  a  large  number  of  Russian  revolutionists  to  the  mines  of  the  Trans-Baikal,  increased 
my  interest  in  Siberia  and  intensified  my  desire  not  only  to  study  the  exile  system  on  the 
ground,  but  to  investigate  the  Russian  revolutionary  movement  in  the  only  part  of  the  empire 
where  I  thought  such  an  investigation  could  successfully  be  made, —  namely,  in  the  region 
to  which  the  revolutionists  themselves  had  been  banished.  It  seemed  to  me  a  hopeless  task 
to  look  for  nihilists  in  the  cities  of  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  or  to  seek  there  an  expla- 
nation of  the  political  events  and  the  social  phenomena  which  interested  me.  Most  of  the 
leading  actors  in  the  revolutionary  drama  of  1878-79  were  already  in  Siberia;  and  if  the 
Imperial  Police  could  not  discover  the  few  who  still  remained  at  large  in  European  Russia,  it 
was  not  at  all  likely  that  I  could.  In  Siberia,  however,  communication  with  exiled  nihilists 
might  perhaps  be  practicable ;  and  there,  if  anywhere,  was  to  be  obtained  the  information 
which  I  desired. 

Circumstances,  and  the  want  of  time  and  means  for  such  an  extended  journey  as  I  wished 
to  make,  prevented  me  from  taking  any  definite  steps  in  the  matter  until  the  summer  of  1884, 
when  the  Editor  of  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE  became  interested  in  my  plans,  and  proposed 
to  me  that  I  should  go  to  Siberia  for  that  periodical  and  give  to  it  the  results  of  my  work.  I 
thereupon  made  a  preliminary  excursion  to  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  for  the  purpose  of 
collecting  material  and  ascertaining  whether  or  not  obstacles  were  likely  to  be  thrown  in  my 
way  by  the  Russian  Government.  I  returned  in  October,  fully  satisfied  that  my  scheme  was 
a  practicable  one;  that  there  was  really  nothing  in  Siberia  which  needed  concealment;  and 
that  my  literary  record  —  so  far  as  I  had  made  a  record  —  was  such  as  to  predispose  the 
Russian  Government  in  my  favor,  and  to  secure  for  me  all  the  facilities  that  a  friendly  investi- 
gator might  reasonably  expect.  The  opinions  which  I  held  at  that  time  with  regard  to  the 
Siberian  exile  system  and  the  treatment  of  political  offenders  by  the  Russian  Government 
Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.  All  rights  reserved. 


4  SIBERIA   AND    THE  EXILE   SYSTEM. 

were  set  forth  fully  and  frankly  in  an  address  which  I  delivered  before  the  American  Geo- 
graphical Society  of  New  York  in  1882,  and  in  the  newspaper  controversy  to  which  that 
address  gave  rise.  I  then  believed  that  the  Russian  Government  and  the  exile  system  had  been 
greatly  misrepresented  by  such  writers  as  Stepniak  and  Prince  Krapotkin ;  that  Siberia  was 
not  so  terrible  a  country  as  Americans  had  always  supposed  it  to  be ;  and  that  the  descriptions 
of  Siberian  mines  and  prisons  in  the  just-published  book  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Lansdell  were 
probably  truthful  and  accurate.  I  also  believed,  although  I  did  not  say,  that  the  nihilists,  ter- 
rorists, and  political  malcontents  generally,  who  had  so  long  kept  Russia  in  a  state  of  alarm 
and  apprehension,  were  unreasonable  and  wrong-headed  fanatics  of  the  anarchistic  type  with 
which  we  in  the  United  States  have  recently  become  so  familiar.  In  short,  all  my  preposses- 
sions were  favorable  to  the  Russian  Government  and  unfavorable  to  the  Russian  revolution- 
ists. I  lay  stress  upon  this  fact,  not  because  my  opinions  at  that  time  had  intrinsically  any 
particular  weight  or  importance,  but  because  a  just  estimate  of  the  results  of  an  investigation  can- 
not be  formed  without  some  knowledge  of  the  preconceptions  and  personal  bias  of  the  investi- 
gator. I  also  lay  stress  upon  it  for  the  further  reason  that  it  partly  explains  the  friendly  attitude 
towards  me  which  was  taken  by  the  Russian  Government,  the  permission  which  was  given 
me  to  inspect  prisons  and  mines,  and  the  comparative  immunity  from  arrest,  detention,  and 
imprisonment  which  I  enjoyed,  even  when  my  movements  and  associations  were  such  as  justly 
to  render  me  an  object  of  suspicion  to  the  local  Siberian  authorities.  It  is  very  doubtful 
whether  a  traveler  who  had  not  already  committed  himself  to  views  that  the  Government 
approved  would  have  been  allowed  to  go  to  Siberia  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  investigating 
the  exile  system,  or  whether,  if  permitted  to  go  there,  he  would  have  escaped  serious  trouble 
when  it  was  discovered  that  he  was  associating  on  terms  of  friendly  intimacy  with  political 
criminals  of  the  most  dangerous  class.  In  my  frequent  skirmishes  with  the  police,  and  with 
suspicious  local  officials  in  remote  Siberian  villages,  nothing  but  the  letter  which  I  carried 
from  the  Russian  Minister  of  the  Interior  saved  me  from  summary  arrest  and  imprisonment, 
or  from  a  search  of  my  person  and  baggage  which  probably  would  have  resulted  in  my  expul- 
sion from  the  empire  under  guard  and  in  the  loss  of  all  my  notes  and  documentary  material. 
That  letter,  which  was  my  sheet-anchor  in  times  of  storm  and  stress,  would  never,  I  think, 
have  been  given  to  me,  if  I  had  not  publicly  defended  the  Russian  Government  against  some 
of  its  numerous  assailants,  and  if  it  had  not  been  believed  that  personal  pride,  and  a  desire  to 
seem  consistent,  probably  would  restrain  me  from  confessing  error,  even  should  I  find  the 
prison  and  exile  system  worse  than  I  anticipated,  and  worse  than  I  had  represented  it  to  be. 
How  far  this  belief  was  well  founded,  and  to  what  extent  my  preconceived  ideas  were  in 
harmony  with  the  facts,  I  purpose,  in  the  present  series  of  papers,  to  show. 

Before  closing  this  preface  I  desire  to  tender  my  most  sincere  and  hearty  thanks  to  the 
many  friends,  acquaintances,  and  well-wishers  throughout  European  Russia  and  Siberia 
who  encouraged  me  in  my  work,  cooperated  in  my  researches,  and  furnished  me  with  the 
most  valuable  part  of  my  material.  Some  of  them  are  political  exiles,  who  imperiled  even 
the  wretched  future  which  still  remained  to  them  by  writing  out  for  me  histories  of  their 
lives;  some  of  them  are  officers  of  the  Exile  Administration,  who,  trusting  to  my  honor  and 
discretion,  gave  me  without  reserve  the  results  of  their  long  experience;  and  some  of  them 
are  honest,  humane  prison  officials,  who,  after  reporting  again  and  again  upon  the  evils  and 
abuses  of  the  prison  system,  finally  pointed  them  out  to  me,  as  the  last  possible  means  of 
forcing  them  upon  the  attention  of  the  Government  and  the  world.  Most  of  these  people 
I  dare  not  even  mention  by  name.  Although  their  characters  and  their  services  are  such  as 
to  make  their  names  worthy  of  remembrance  and  honor,  it  is  their  misfortune  to  live  in  a 
country  where  the  Government  regards  a  frankly  expressed  opinion  as  an  evidence  of 
"  untnistworthiness,"  and  treats  an  effort  to  improve  the  condition  of  things  as  an  offense  to 
be  punished.  To  mention  the  names  of  such  people,  when  they  live  under  such  a  govern- 
ment, is  simply  to  render  them  objects  of  suspicion  and  surveillance,  and  thus  deprive 
them  of  the  limited  power  they  still  exercise  for  good.  All  that  I  can  do,  therefore,  to  show 
my  appreciation  of  their  trust,  their  kindness,  and  their  aid,  is  to  use  the  information  which 
they  gave  me  as  I  believe  they  would  wish  it  to  be  used,— in  the  interest  of  humanity,  freedom, 
and  good  government.  For  Russia  and  the  Russian  people  I  have  the  warmest  affection 
and  sympathy;  and  if,  by  a  temperate  and  well-considered  statement  of  the  results  of  my 
Siberian  investigations,  I  can  make  the  country  and  the  nation  better  known  to  the  world, 
and  ameliorate,  even  little,  the  lot  of  the  "  unfortunates"  to  whom  "  God  is  high  above  and 
the  Tsar  is  far  away,"  I  shall  be  more  than  repaid  for  the  hardest  journey  and  the  most 
trying  experience  of  my  life. 

George  Kennan. 


ACROSS    THE    RUSSIAN    FRONTIER. 


THE  Siberian  expedition  of  THE  CENTURY 
MAGAZINE  sailed  from  New  York  for 
Liverpool  on  the  second  day  of  May,  1885. 
It  consisted  of  Mr.  George  A.  Frost,  an  artist 
of  Boston,  and  the  author  of  this  paper.  We 
both  spoke  Russian,  both  had  been  in  Siberia 
before,  and  I  was  making  to  the  empire  my 
fourth  journey.  Previous  association  in  the 
service  of  the  Russian-American  Telegraph 
Company  had  acquainted  us  with  each  other, 
and  long  experience  in  sub-arctic  Asia  had 
familiarized  us  with  the  hardships  and  priva- 
tions of  Siberian  travel.  Our  plan  of  opera- 
tions had  been  approved  by  THE  CENTURY  ; 
we  had  the  amplest  discretionary  power  in 
the  matter  of  ways  and  means;  and  although 
fully  aware  of  the  serious  nature  of  the  work 
in  hand,  we  were  hopeful,  if  not  sanguine,  of 
success.  We  arrived  in  London  on  Sunday, 
May  10,  and  on  Wednesday,  the  i3th,  pro- 
ceeded to  St.  Petersburg  by  rail,  via  Dover, 
Ostend,  Cologne,  Hanover,  Berlin,  and  Eyd- 
kuhnen.  As  the  season  was  already  advanced, 
and  as  it  was  important  that  we  should  reach 
Siberia  in  time  to  make  the  most  of  the 
summer  weather  and  the  good  roads,  I  de- 
cided to  remain  in  the  Russian  capital  only 
five  days ;  but  we  were  unfortunate  enough 
to  arrive  there  just  at  the  beginning  of  a  long 
series  of  church  holidays,  and  were  able  to 
utilize  in  the  transaction  of  business  only  four 
days  out  of  ten. 

As  soon  as  I  could  obtain  an  interview  with 
Mr.  Vlangalli,  the  assistant  Minister  of  For- 
eign Affairs,  I  presented  my  letters  of  intro- 
duction and  told  him  frankly  and  candidly 
what  we  desired  to  do.  I  said  that  in  my 
judgment  Siberia  and  the  exile  system  had 
been  greatly  misrepresented  by  prejudiced 
writers;  that  a  truthful  description  of  the 
country,  the  prisons,  and  the  mines  would,  I 
thought,  be  advantageous  rather  than  detri- 
mental to  the  interests  of  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment; and  that,  inasmuch  as  I  had  already 
committed  myself  publicly  to  a  defense  of  that 
Government,  1  could  hardly  be  suspected  of 
an  intention  to  seek  in  Siberia  for  facts  with 
which  to  undermine  my  own  position.  This 
statement,  in  which  there  was  not  the  least 
diplomacy  or  insincerity,  seemed  to  impress 
Mr.  Vlangalli  favorably;  and  after  twenty  min- 
utes' conversation  he  informed  me  that  we 
should  undoubtedly  be  permitted  to  go  to 
Siberia,  and  that  he  would  aid  us  as  far  as 


possible  by  giving  us  an  open  letter  to  the 
governors  of  the  Siberian  provinces,  and  by 
procuring  for  us  a  similar  letter  from  the  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior.  Upon  being  asked  whether 
these  letters  would  admit  us  to  Siberian  pris- 
ons, Mr.  Vlangalli  replied  that  they  would  not ; 
that  permission  to  inspect  prisons  must  in  all 
cases  be  obtained  from  provincial  governors. 
As  to  the  further  question  whether  such  permis- 
sion probably  would  be  granted,  he  declined 
to  express  an  opinion.  This,  of  course,  was 
equivalent  to  saying  that  the  Government 
would  not  give  us  cartc-blanche,  but  would 
follow  us  with  friendly  observation,  and  grant 
or  refuse  permission  to  visit  prisons,  as  might 
from  time  to  time  seem  expedient.  I  foresaw 
that  this  would  greatly  increase  our  difficul- 
ties, but  I  did  not  deem  it  prudent  to  urge  any 
further  concession;  and  after  expressing  my 
thanks  for  the  courtesy  and  kindness  with 
which  we  had  been  received,  I  withdrew. 

At  another  interview,  a  few  days  later,  Mr. 
Vlangalli  gave  me  the  promised  letters,  and  at 
the  same  time  said  that  he  would  like  to  have 
me  stop  in  Moscow  on  my  way  to  Siberia  and 
make  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Katkoff,  the 
well-known  editor  of  the  Moscow  "  Gazette." 
He  handed  me  a  sealed  note  of  introduction 
to  Baron  Buhler,  keeper  of  the  Imperial 
Archives  in  Moscow,  and  said  that  he  had 
requested  the  latter  to  present  me  to  Mr.  Kat- 
koff,  and  that  he  hoped  I  would  not  leave 
Moscow  without  seeing  him.  I  was  not  un- 
familiar with  the  character  and  the  career  of  the 
great  Russian  champion  of  autocracy,  and  was 
glad,  of  course,  to  have  an  opportunity  of  meet- 
ing him;  but  I  more  than  suspected  that  the 
underlying  motive  of  Mr.  Vlangalli's  request 
was  a  desire  to  bring  me  into  contact  with  a 
man  of  strong  personality  and  great  ability, 
who  would  impress  me  with  his  own  views 
of  Russian  policy,  confirm  my  favorable  opin- 
ion of  the  Russian  Government,  and  guard 
me  from  the  danger  of  being  led  astray  by 
the  specious  misrepresentations  of  exiled  nihil- 
ists, whom  I  might  possibly  meet  in  the  course 
of  my  Siberian  journey.  This  precaution  —  if 
precaution  it  was — seemed  to  me  wholly  un- 
necessary, since  my  opinion  of  the  nihilists  was 
already  as  unfavorable  as  the  Government 
itself  could  desire.  I  assured  Mr.  Vlangalli, 
however,  that  I  would  see  Mr.  Katkoff  if  pos- 
sible ;  and  after  thanking  him  again  for  his 
assistance,  I  bade  him  good-bye. 


ACROSS    THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


THE  "FAIR-CITY"  OF  NIZHNI  NOVGOROD,  FROM  THE  SOUTHERN  BANK  OF  THE  OKA. 


In  reviewing  now  the  representations  which 
I  made  to  high  Russian  officials  before  leav- 
ing St.  Petersburg,  I  have  not  to  reproach 
myself  with  a  single  act  of  duplicity  or  insin- 
cerity. I  did  not  obtain  permission  to  go  to 
Siberia  by  means  of  false  pretenses,  nor  did  I 
at  any  time  assume  a  deceptive  attitude  for  the 
sake  of  furthering  my  plans.  If  the  opinions 
which  I  now  hold  differ  from  those  which  I 
expressed  to  Mr.  Vlangalli  in  1885,  it  is  not 
because  I  was  then  insincere,  but  because  my 
views  have  since  been  changed  by  an  over- 
whelming mass  of  evidence. 

On  the  afternoon  of  May  3 1 ,  having  selected 
and  purchased  photographic  apparatus,  ob- 
tained all  necessary  books  and  maps,  and  pro- 
vided ourselves  with  about  fifty  letters  of  in- 
troduction to  teachers,  mining  engineers,  and 
Government  officials  in  all  parts  of  Siberia,  we 
left  St.  Petersburg  by  rail  for  Moscow.  The 
distance  from  the  Russian  capital  to  the  Sibe- 
rian frontier  is  about  1600  miles;  and  the  route 
usually  taken  by  travelers,  and  always  by 
exiles,  is  that  which  passes  through  the  cities 
of  Moscow,  Nizhni  Novgorod,  Kazan,  Perm, 
and  Ekaterineburg.  The  eastern  terminus 
of  the  Russian  railway  system  is  at  Nizhni 
Novgorod,  but  in  summer  steamers  ply  con- 
stantly between  that  city  and  Perm  on  the 


rivers  Volga  and  Kama ;  and  Perm  is  connected 
with  Ekaterineburg  by  an  isolated  piece  of  rail- 
road about  1 80  miles  in  length,  which  crosses 
the  mountain  chain  of  the  Ural,  and  is  intend- 
ed to  unite  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Volga 
with  those  of  the  Ob.* 

Upon  our  arrival  in  Moscow  I  presented 
my  sealed  note  of  introduction  to  Baron  Buhler, 
and  called  with  him  at  the  office  of  the  Mos- 
cow "  Gazette  "  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
acquaintance  of  its  editor.  We  were  disap- 
pointed, however,  to  find  that  Mr.  Katkoff 
had  just  left  the  city  and  probably  would  be 
absent  for  two  or  three  weeks.  As  we  could 
not  await  his  return,  and  as  there  was  no 
other  business  to  detain  us  in  Moscow,  we 
proceeded  by  rail  to  Nizhni  Novgorod,  reach- 
ing that  city  early  on  the  morning  of  Thurs- 
day, June  4. 

To  a  traveler  visiting  Nizhni  Novgorod  for 
the  first  time  there  is  something  surprising,  and 
almost  startling,  in  the  appearance  of  what  he 
supposes  to  be  the  city,  and  in  the  scene  pre- 
sented to  him  as  he  emerges  from  the  railway 
station  and  walks  away  from  the  low  bank 
of  the  Oka  River  in  the  direction  of  the  Volga. 
The  clean,  well-paved  streets ;  the  long  rows 
of  substantial  buildings;  the  spacious  boule- 
vard, shaded  by  leafy  birches  and  poplars;  the 


*  During  our  stay  in  Siberia  this  railroad  was  ex-  rail  or  steamer,  with  points  in  Siberia  as  remote  as 
tended  to  Tiumen,  on  one  of  the  tributaries  of  the  Ob,  Semipalatinsk  and  Tomsk,  the  former  2600  and  the 
so  that  St.  Petersburg  is  now  in  communication,  by  latter  2700  miles  away. 


8 


ACROSS   THE   RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


canal, spanned  at  intervals  by  graceful  bridges; 
the  picturesque  tower  of  the  water- works;  the 
enormous  cathedral  of  Alexander  Nevski;  the 
Bourse ;  the  theaters ;  the  hotels ;  the  market 
places  —  all  seem  to  indicate  a  great  popu- 
lous center  of  life  and  commercial  activity ; 
but  of  living  inhabitants  there  is  not  a  sign. 
Grass  and  weeds  are  growing  in  the  middle  of 
the  empty  streets  and  in  the  chinks  of  the  travel- 
worn  sidewalks;  birds  are  singing  fearlessly 
in  the  trees  that  shade  the  lonely  and  deserted 
boulevard  ;  the  countless  shops  and  ware- 
houses are  all  closed,  barred,  and  padlocked; 
the  bells  are  silent  in  the  gilded  belfries  of  the 
churches;  and  the  astonished  stranger  may 
perhaps  wander  for  a  mile  between  solid  blocks 
of  buildings  without  seeing  an  open  door,  a 
vehicle,  or  a  single  human  being.  The  city 
appears  to  have  been  stricken  by  a  pestilence 
and  deserted.  If  the  new-comer  remembers 
for  what  Nizhni  Novgorod  is  celebrated,  he  is 
not  long,  of  course,  in  coming  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  he  is  on  the  site  of  the  famous  fair ; 
but  the  first  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  fair 
is  in  itself  a  separate  and  independent  city, 
and  a  city  which  during  nine  months  of  every 
year  stands  empty  and  deserted,  comes  to  him 
with  the  shock  of  a  great  surprise. 

The  fair-city  of  Nizhni  Novgorod  is  situ- 
ated on  a  low  peninsula  between  the  rivers 
Oka  and  Volga,  just  above  their  junction, 
very  much  as  New  York  City  is  situated  on 
Manhattan  Island  between  East  River  and  the 
Hudson.  In  geographical  position  it  bears 
the  same  relation  to  the  old  town  of  Nizhni 
Novgorod  that  New  York  would  bear  to  Jer- 
sey City  if  the  latter  were  elevated  on  a  steep 
terraced  bluff  four  hundred  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  Hudson.  The  Russian  fair-city,  how- 
ever, differs  from  New  York  City  in  that  it  is  a 
mere  temporary  market  —  a  huge  commercial 
caravansary  where  500,000  traders  assemble 
every  year  to  buy  and  to  sell  commodities.  In 
September  it  has  frequently  a  population  of 
more  than  100,000  souls,  and  contains  mer- 
chandise valued  at  $7  5, 000,000;  while  in  Janu- 
ary, February,  or  March  all  of  its  inhabitants 
might  be  fed  and  sheltered  in  the  smallest  of 
its  hotels,  and  all  of  its  goods  might  be  put 
into  a  single  one  of  its  innumerable  shops.  Its 
life,  therefore,  is  a  sort  of  intermittent  com- 
mercial fever,  in  which  an  annual  paroxysm  of 
intense  and  unnatural  activity  is  followed  by 
a  long  interval  of  torpor  and  stagnation. 

It  seems  almost  incredible  at  first  that  a 
city  of  such  magnitude  —  a  city  which  con- 
tains churches,  mosques,  theaters,  markets, 
banks,  hotels,  a  merchants'  exchange,  and 
nearly  seven  thousand  shops  and  inhabitable 
buildings,  should  have  so  ephemeral  a  life, 
and  should  be  so  completely  abandoned  every 


year  after  it  has  served  the  purpose  for  which 
it  was  created.  When  I  saw  this  unique  city 
for  the  first  time,  on  a  clear  frosty  night  in  Janu- 
ary, 1868,  it  presented  an  extraordinary  picture 
of  loneliness  and  desolation.  The  moonlight 
streamed  down  into  its  long  empty  streets 
where  the  unbroken  snow  lay  two  feet  deep 
upon  the  sidewalks;  it  touched  with  silver  the 
white  walls  and  swelling  domes  of  the  old  fair- 
cathedral,  from  whose  towers  there  came  no 
clangor  of  bells ;  it  sparkled  on  great  snow- 
drifts heaped  up  against  the  doors  of  the  empty 
houses,  and  poured  a  flood  of  pale  light  over 
thousands  of  snow-covered  roofs;  but  it  did  not 
reveal  anywhere  a  sign  of  a  human  being.  The 
city  seemed  to  be  not  only  uninhabited,  but 
wholly  abandoned  to  the  arctic  spirits  of  soli- 
tude and  frost.  When  I  saw  it  next,  at  the 
height  of  the  annual  fair  in  the  autumn  of  1870, 
it  was  so  changed  as  to  be  almost  unrecog- 
nizable. It  was  then  surrounded  by  a  great 
forest  of  shipping ;  its  hot,  dusty  atmosphere 
thrilled  with  the  incessant  whistling  of  steam- 
ers; merchandise  to  the  value  of  125,000,000 
rubles  lay  on  its  shores  or  was  packed  into 
its  6000  shops ;  every  building  within  its 
limits  was  crowded ;  60,000  people  were  cross- 
ing every  day  the  pontoon  bridge  which  con- 
nected it  with  the  old  town  ;  a  military  band 
was  playing  airs  from  Offenbach's  operas  on 
the  great  boulevard  in  front  of  the  governor's 
house ;  and  through  all  the  streets  of  the  re- 
animated and  reawakened  city  poured  a  great 
tumultuous  flood  of  human  life. 

I  did  not  see  the  fair-city  again  until  June, 
1885,  when  I  found  it  almost  as  completely 
deserted  as  on  the  occasion  of  my  first  visit, 
but  in  other  ways  greatly  changed  and  im- 
proved. Substantial  brick  buildings  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  long  rows  of  inflammable  wood- 
en shops  and  sheds ;  the  streets  in  many  parts 
of  the  city  had  been  neatly  paved ;  the  num- 
ber of  stores  and  warehouses  had  largely  in- 
creased ;  and  the  lower  end  of  the  peninsula 
had  been  improved  and  dignified  by  the  erec- 
tion of  the  great  Alexander  Nevski  cathedral, 
which  is  shown  in  the  center  of  the  illustration 
on  page  7,  and  which  now  forms  the  most 
prominent  and  striking  architectural  feature 
of  the  fair. 

It  was  supposed  that,  with  the  gradual  ex- 
tension of  the  Russian  railway  system,  and 
the  facilities  afforded  by  it  for  the  distribution 
of  merchandise  throughout  the  empire  in 
small  quantities,  the  fair  of  Nizhni  Novgorod 
would  lose  most  of  its  importance;  but  no 
such  result  has  yet  become  apparent.  During 
the  most  active  period  of  railway  construction 
in  Russia,  from  1868  to  1881,  the  value  of 
the  merchandise  brought  annually  to  the  fair 
rose  steadily  from  126,000,000  to  246,000,000 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER.  9 

rubles,*  and  the  number  of  shops  and  stores  in  old  town  on  the  other  side"  is  maintained  in 
the  fair- city  increased  from  5738  to  6298.  At  summer  by  means  of  a  steam  ferry,  or  a  long 
the  present  time  the  volume  of  business  trans-  floating  bridge  consisting  of  a  roadway  sup- 
acted  during  the  two  fair-months  amounts  to  ported  by  pontoons.  As  the  bndge,  at  the 
something  like  225,000,000  rubles,  and  the  time  of  our  arrival,  had  not  been  put  in  posi- 


A  STREET  IN  THE  OLD  TOWN  OF  NIZHNI  NOVGOROD. 


number  of  shops  and  stores  in  the  fair  ex- 
ceeds 7000. 

The  station  of  the  Moscow  and  Nizhni 
Novgorod  railway  is  situated  within  the  limits 
of  the  fair-city,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river 
Oka,  and  communication  between  it  and  the 

*  The  value  of  the  Russian  ruble  is  a  little  less 
than  half  a  dollar. 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 2. 


tion  for  the  season,  we  crossed  the  river  on 
a  low  flat  barge  in  tow  of  a  small  steamer. 

The  view  which  one  gets  of  the  old  forti- 
fied city  of  Nizhni  Novgorod  while  crossing 
the  Oka  from  the  fair  is  both  striking  and 
picturesque.  The  long  steep  bluff  upon  which 
it  is  situated  rises  abruptly  almost  from  the 
water's  edge  to  the  height  of  four  hundred 


10 


ACROSS   THE  R  US 'SI 'AN  FRONTIER. 


feet,  notched  at  intervals  by  deep  V-shaped 
cuts  through  which  run  the  ascending  roads 
to  the  upper  plateau,  and  broken  here  and 
there  by  narrow  terraces  upon  which  stand 
white  -  walled  and  golden  -  domed  cathedrals 
and  monasteries  half  buried  in  groves  of  trees. 
In  the  warm,  bright  sunshine  of  a  June  day  the 
snowy  walls  of  the  Byzantine  churches  scat- 
tered along  the  crest  of  the  bluff;  the  countless 
domes  of  blue,  green,  silver,  and  gold  rising 
out  of  dark  masses  of  foliage  on  the  terraces; 
the  smooth,  grassy  slopes  which  descend  here 
and  there  almost  to  the  water's  edge ;  and 
the  river  front,  lined  with  steamers 
and  bright  with  flags — all  make 
up  a  picture  which  is  hardly 
surpassed  in  northern  Russia. 
Fronting  the  Volga,  near 
what  seems  to  be  the  eastern 
end  of  the  ridge,  stands  the 
ancient  Kremlin,*  or  strong- 
hold of  the  city,  whose  high, 
crenelated  walls  descend  the 
steep  face  of  the  bluff  toward 
the  river  in  a  series  of  titanic 
steps,  and  whose  arched  gate- 
ways and  massive  round 
towers  carry  the  imagina- 
tion back  to  the  Middle  Ages. 
Three  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago  this  great  walled 
inclosure  was  regarded  as  an 
absolutely  impregnable  fort- 
ress, and  for  more  than  a 
century  it  served  as  a  secure 
place  of  refuge  for  the  peo- 
ple of  the  city  when  the  fierce 
Tartars  of  Kazan  invaded 
the  territories  of  the  Grand 
Dukes.  With  the  complete 
subjugation  of  the  Tartar 
khanate,  however,  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  it  lost  its 
importance  as  a  defensive 
fortification,  and  soon  began  to  fall  into  de- 
cay. Its  thirteen  towers,  which  were  origi- 
nally almost  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  are 
now  half  in  ruins ;  and  its  walls,  which  have 
a  circuit  of  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter,  would 
probably  have  fallen  long  ago  had  they  not 
been  extraordinarily  thick,  massive,  and  deep- 
ly founded.  They  make  upon  one  an  im- 
pression of  even  greater  solidity  and  strength 
than  do  the  walls  of  the  famous  Kremlin  in 
Moscow. 

*  A  Kremlin,  or,  to  use  the  Russian  form  of  the 
word,  a  "  Kremle,"  is  merely  a  walled  inclosure  with 
towers  at  the  corners,  situated  in  a  commanding  posi- 
tion near  the  center  of  a  city,  and  intended  to  serve  as 
a  stronghold,  or  place  of  refuge,  for  the  inhabitants  in 
time  of  war.  It  differs  from  a  castle  or  fortress  in  that 
it  generally  incloses  a  larger  area,  and  contains  a  num- 


Upon  landing  from  the  ferry-boat  in  the 
old  town  of  Nizhni  Novgorod,  we  drove  to  a 
hotel  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city,  and,  after 
securing  rooms  and  sending  our  passports  to 
the  chief  of  police,  we  walked  down  past 

the  Kremlin  £\  to  the  river  front. 
Under  the  J&J&A  ^onS  ^luff  upon 
which  the  /^P^|»  "')'  antl  tlic 
Kremlin  dm**i~\ 

tween  '  *-     ^M^       the  steep  escarp- 

ment VHt^dfl^i      and    the    river, 


f 

A    PEASANT    WOMAN    OF    SIMBIRSK. 


there  is  a  narrow  strip  of  level  ground  which 
is  now  given  up  almost  wholly  to  commerce 
and  is  known  as  the  "  lower  bazar."  Upon 
this  strip  of  land  are  huddled  together  in 
picturesque  confusion  a  multitude  of  build- 
ings of  the  most  heterogeneous  character  and 
appearance.  Pretentious  modern  stores,  with 
gilded  signs  and  plate-glass  windows,  stand  in 
neighborly  proximity  to  wretched  hucksters' 
stalls  of  rough,  unpainted  boards ;  banks, 
hotels,  and  steamship  offices  are  sandwiched 

her  of  buildings,  such  as  churches,  palaces,  treasuries, 
etc.,  which  are  merely  protected  by  it.  It  is  popularly 
supposed  that  the  only  Kremlin  in  Russia  is  that  of 
Moscow;  but  this  is  a  mistake.  Nizhni  Novgorod, 
Kazan,  and  several  other  towns  in  that  part  of  Russia 
which  was  subject  to  Tartar  invasion,  had  strongholds 
of  this  kind. 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


ii 


in  among  ship-chandlers'  shops,  old-clothes 
stalls  and  "  traktirs";  fantastic  highly  colored 
churches  of  the  last  century  appear  in  the 
most  unexpected  places,  and  give  an  air  of 
sanctity  to  the  most  disreputable  neighbor- 
hoods; and  the  entire  region,  from  the  river 
to  the  bluff,  is  crowded  with  wholesale,  re- 
tail, and  second-hand  shops,  where  one  can 
buy  anything  and  everything — from  a  paper 
of  pins,  a  wooden  comb,  or  a  string  of  dried 
mushrooms,  to  a  ship's  anchor,  a  church 
.bell,  or  a  steam-engine.  In  a  single  shop  of 
the  lower  bazar  I  saw  exposed  for  sale  a  set 
of  parlor  chairs,  two  wicker-work  baby-car- 
riages, a  rustic  garden  seat,  two  cross-cut  log 
saws,  half  a  dozen  battered  samovars,  a  child's 
cradle,  a  steam-engine,  one  half  of  a  pair  of 
elk  horns,  three  old  boilers,  a  collection  of 
telescopes,  an  iron  church-cross  four  feet  in 
height,  six  or  eight  watches,  a  dilapidated 
carriage  top,  feather  dusters,  opera-glasses, 
log  chains,  watch  charms,  two  blacksmith's 
anvils,  measuring  tapes,  old  boots,  stove  cov- 
ers, a  Caucasian  dagger,  turning  lathes,  sleigh 
bells,  pulleys  and  blocks  from  a  ship's  rigging, 
fire-engine  nozzles,  horse  collars,  an  officer's 
sword,  axe  helves,  carriage  cushions,  gilt  brace- 
lets, iron  barrel-hoops,  trunks,  accordions, 
three  or  four  soup  plates  filled  with  old  nails 
and  screws,  carving-knives,  vises,  hinges,  re- 
volvers, old  harnesses,  half  a  dozen  odd  lengths 
of  rusty  stove  pipe,  a  tin  can  of  "  mixed  bis- 
cuits "  from  London,  and  a  six-foot  bath  tub. 
This  list  of  articles,  which  I  made  on  the  spot, 
did  not  comprise  more  than  a  third  part  of  the 
dealer's  heterogeneous  stock  in  trade  ;  but  I 
had  not  time  for  a  careful  and  exhaustive  enu- 
meration. In  a  certain  way  this  shop  was  illus- 
trative and  typical  of  the  whole  lower  bazar, 
since  nothing,  perhaps,  in  that  quarter  of  the 
city  is  more  striking  than  the  heterogeneity  of 
buildings,  people,  and  trades.  The  whole  river 
front  is  lined  with  landing-stages  and  steam- 
ers :  it  is  generally  crowded  with  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  empire,  and  it  always  presents 
a  scene  of  great  commercial  activity.  Steamers 
are  departing  almost  hourly  for  the  lower 
Volga,  the  frontier  of  Siberia,  and  the  far- 
away Caspian ;  huge  black  barges,  which  lie 
here  and  there  at  the  landing-stages,  are  being 
loaded  or  unloaded  by  gangs  of  swarthy  Tar- 
tar stevedores;  small  unpainted  one-horse 
"  telegas,"  which  look  like  longitudinal  halves 
of  barrels  mounted  on  four  wheels,  are  carry- 
ing away  bags,  boxes,  and  crates  from  the 
piles  of  merchandise  on  the  shore ;  and  the 
broad  dusty  street  is  thronged  all  day  with 
traders,  peddlers,  peasants,  longshoremen,  pil- 
grims, beggars,  and  tramps. 

Even  the  children  seem  to  feel  the  spirit 
of  trade  which  controls  the  city;   and  as  I 


stood  watching  the  scene  on  the  river  front, 
a  ragged  boy,  not  more  than  eight  or  nine 
years  of  age,  whose  whole  stock  in  trade  con- 
sisted of  a  few  strings  of  dried  mushrooms, 
elbowed  his  way  through  the  crowd  with  all 
the  assurance  of  an  experienced  peddler, 
shouting  in  a  thin  childish  treble,  "  Mush- 
rooms! Fine  mushrooms !  Sustain  commerce, 
gentlemen  !  Buy  my  mushrooms  and  sustain 
commerce ! " 

The  diversity  of  popular  types  in  the  lower 
bazar  is  not  perhaps  so  great  in  June  as  it  is  in 
September,  during  the  fair, but  the  peculiarities 
of  dress  are  such  as  to  make  almost  every  fig- 
ure in  the  throng  interesting  and  noteworthy 
to  a  foreign  observer.  There  are  swarthy  Tar- 
tars in  round  skull  caps  and  long  loose  "  khal- 
ats " ;  Russian  peasants  in  greasy  sheepskin 
coats  and  huge  wicker-work  shoes,  with  their 
legs  swathed  in  dirty  bandages  of  coarse  linen 
cloth  and  cross-gartered  with  hempen  cords; 
disreputable-looking  long-haired,  long-beard- 
ed monks,  who  solicit  alms  for  hospitals  or 
churches,  receiving  contributions  on  small 
boards  covered  with  black  velvet  and  trans- 
ferring the  money  deposited  thereon  to  big  tin 
boxes  hung  from  their  necks  and  secured  with 
enormous  iron  padlocks ;  strolling  dealers  in 
"kvas,"  mead,  sherbet,  and  other  seductive 
bright-colored  drinks;  brazen-throated  ped- 
dlers proclaiming  aloud  the  virtues  of  brass 
jewelry,  salted  cucumbers,  strings  of  dried 
mushrooms,  and  cotton  handkerchiefs  stamped 
with  railroad  maps  of  Russia ;  and,  finally,  a 
surging  crowd  of  wholesale  and  retail  traders 
from  all  parts  of  the  Volga  River  basin. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  the  traveler  on 
the  threshold  of  south-eastern  Russia  is  the 
greatness  of  the  country — that  is,  the  enormous 
extent  of  its  material  resources,  and  the  intense 
commercial  activity  manifested  along  its  prin- 
cipal lines  of  communication.  The  average 
American  thinks  of  south-eastern  Russia  as  a 
rather  quiet,  semi-pastoral,  semi-agricultural 
country,  which  produces  enough  for  the  main- 
tenance of  its  own  half-civilized  and  not  very 
numerous  population,  but  which,  in  point  of 
commercial  activity,  cannot  bear  comparison 
for  a  moment  with  even  the  most  backward 
of  our  States.  He  is  not  a  little  astonished, 
therefore,  at  Nizhni  Novgorod,  to  find  the 
shipping  of  the  Volga  occupying  six  or  eight 
miles  of  river  front ;  to  learn  that  for  its  regu- 
lation there  is  in  the  city  a  shipping  court  with 
special  jurisdiction ;  that  the  "  pristan,"  or,  as  a 
Western  steamboatman  would  say,  the  levee,  is 
under  the  control  of  an  officer  appointed  by 
the  Minister  of  Ways  and  Communications 
and  aided  by  a  large  staff  of  subordinates ;  that 
the  number  of  steamers  plying  on  the  Volga 
and  its  tributaries  is  greater  than  the  number 


12 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


t    I     IN    A    I'KASAN  I     WLLAliK    ON    THK    VOLGA  — 
WATER-CARRIER    IN    THE    FOREGROUND. 


on  the  Mississippi;*  that  $15,000,000  worth 
of  products  annually  come  down  a  single  tribu- 
tary of  the  Volga  —  namely,  the  Kama,  a 
stream  of  which  few  Americans  have  ever 
heard;  and,  finally,  that  the  waters  of  the 
Volga  River  system  annually  float  nearly 
5,000,000  tons  of  merchandise,  and  furnish 
employment  to  7000  vesselsand  nearly  200,000 
boatmen.  It  may  be  that  an  ordinarily  well- 
educated  American  ought  to  know  all  these 
things ;  but  I  certainly  did  not  know  them,  and 
they  came  to  me  with  the  shock  of  a  complete 
surprise. 

On  the  morning  of  Saturday,  June  6,  after 
having  visited  the  fair-city  and  the  Kremlin 
and  made  as  thorough  a  study  of  Nizhni  Nov- 
gorod as  the  time  would  permit,  we  embarked 
on  one  of  the  Kamenski  Brothers'  steamers  for 
a  voyage  of  nearly  a  thousand  miles  down  the 
Volga  and  up  the  Kama  to  Perm. 

It  has  been  said  that  Egypt  is  the  creation 
of  the  Nile.  In  a  different  sense,  but  with 
equal  truth,  it  may  be  said  that  eastern  Russia 
is  the  creation  of  the  Volga.  The  ethnological 
composition  of  its  population  was  mainly  de- 
termined by  that  river ;  the  whole  history  of 
the  country  has  been  intimately  connected  with 
it  for  more  than  a  thousand  years ;  the  char- 
acter and  pursuits  of  all  the  east  Russian  tribes 
have  been  greatly  modified  by  it ;  and  upon  it 

*  In  1880  there  were  on  the  upper  and  the  lower 
Mississippi  68 1  steamers.  The  number  on  the  Volga 
and  its  tributaries  is  about  700. 


now  depend,  directly  or   indirectly, 
the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  more 
than   10,000,000  people.    From  any 
point  of  view,  the  Volga  must  be  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  great  rivers  of 
the  world.  Its  length,  from  the  Valdai 
hills  to  the  Caspian  Sea,  is  nearly  2300 
miles;  its  width  below  Tsaritsin,  in 
time  of  high  water,  exceeds  30  miles, 
so  that   a   boatman,  in    crossing   it, 
loses  sight  entirely  of  its  low  banks 
and  is  virtually  at  sea ;  it  washes  the 
borders  of  nine  provinces,  or  admin- 
istrative divisions  of  the  empire,  and 
on  its  banks  stand  39  cities  and  more 
than   1000  villages  and  settlements. 
The  most  important  part  of  the  river, 
commercially,  is  that  lying  between 
Nizhni  Novgorod  and  the  mouth  of 
the  Kama,  where  there  ply,  during 
the  season  of  navigation,  about  450 
steamers.     As  far    down  as  the  so- 
called  "  Samara  bend,"  the  river  pre- 
sents almost  everywhere  a  picture  of 
busy  life  and  activity,  and  is  full  of 
steamers,  barges,  and  great  hulks,  like 
magnified    canal-boats,  loaded  with 
goods  from  eastern  Russia,  Siberia, 
and  central  Asia.  The  amount  of  merchandise 
produced,  even  in  the  strip  of  country  directly 
tributary  to   the  Volga   itself,  is   enormous. 
Many  of  the   agricultural  villages,   such    as 
Liskovo,  which    the   steamer   swiftly   passes 
between  Nizhni  Novgorod  and  Kazan,  and 
which   seem,  from   a   distance,  to  be  insig- 
nificant clusters  of  unpainted  wooden  houses, 
load  with  grain  700  vessels  a  year. 

The  scenery  of  the  upper  Volga  is  much 
more  varied  and  picturesque  than  one  would 
expect  to  find  along  a  river  running  through 
a  flat  and  monotonous  country.  The  left  bank, 
it  is  true,  is  generally  low  and  uninteresting ; 
but  on  the  other  side  the  land  rises  abruptly 
from  the  water's  edge  to  a  height  of  400  or 
500  feet,  and  its  boldly  projecting  promonto- 
ries, at  intervals  of  two  or  three  miles,  break 
the  majestic  river  up  into  long  still  reaches, 
like  a  series  of  placid  lakes  opening  into  one 
another  and  reflecting  in  their  tranquil  depths 
the  dense  foliage  of  the  virgin  forest  on  one 
side  and  the  bold  outlines  of  the  half  moun- 
tainous shore  on  the  other.  White-walled 
churches  with  silver  domes  appear  here  and 
thereon  the  hills,  surrounded  by  little  villages 
of  unpainted  wooden  houses,  with  elaborately 
carved  and  decorated  gables ;  deep  valleys, 
shaggy  with  hazel  bushes,  break  through  the 
wall  of  bluffs  on  the  right  at  intervals,  and  af- 
ford glimpses  of  a  rich  farming  country  in  the 
interior;  and  now  and  then,  in  sheltered  nooks 
half  up  the  mountain-side  overlooking  the 


ACROSS   THE   RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


river,  appear  the  cream-white  walls  and  gilded 
domes  of  secluded  monasteries,  rising  out  of 
masses  of  dark-green  foliage.  Sometimes,  for 
half  an  hour  together,  the  steamer  plows  her 
way  steadily  down  the  middle  of  the  stream, 
and  the  picturesque  right  bank  glides  past  like 
a  magnificent  panorama  with  a  field  of  vision 
ten  miles  wide ;  and  then  suddenly,  to  avoid 
a  bar,  the  vessel  sweeps  in  towards  the  land, 
until  the  wide  panorama  narrows  to  a  sin- 
gle vivid  picture  of  a  quaint  Russian  ham- 
let which  looks  like  an  artistically  contrived 
scene  in  a  theater.  It  is  so  near  that  you  can 
distinguish  the  features  of  the  laughing  peas- 
ant girls  who  run  down  into  the  foreground 
to  wave  their  handkerchiefs  at  the  passing 
steamer ;  or  you  can  talk  in  an  ordinary  tone 
of  voice  with  the  ':  muzhiks  "  in  red  shirts  and 
black  velvet  trousers  who  are  lying  on  the 
grassy  bluff  in  front  of  the  green-domed  vil- 
lage church.  But  it  lasts  only  a  moment.  Be- 
fore you  have  fairly  grasped  the  details  of  the 
strange  Russian  picture  it  has  vanished,  and 
the  steamer  glides  swiftly  into  a  new  reach  of 
the  river,  where  there  is  not  a  sign  of  human 


the  blended  fragrance  of  flowery  meadows  and 
damp  forest  glens;  the  river  lay  like  an  ex- 
panse of  shining  steel  between  banks  whose 
impenetrable  blackness  was  intensified  rather 
than  relieved  by  a  few  scattered  spangles  of 
light;  and  from  some  point  far  away  in  the 
distance  came  the  faint  voice  of  a  timber 
rafter,  or  a  floating  fisherman,  singing  that  song 
dear  to  the  heart  of  every  Russian  boatman  — 
"  V  'nis  po  matushke  po  Volge"  ["Down  the 
Mother  Volga"]. 

After  drinking  a  few  tumblers  of  fragrant 
tea  at  the  little  center-table  in  the  steamer's 
small  but  cozy  cabin,  we  unrolled  the  blankets 
and  pillows  with  which  we  had  provided  our- 
selves in  anticipation  of  the  absence  of  beds, 
and  bivouacked,  as  Russian  travelers  are  ac- 
customed to  do,  on  the  long  leather-covered 
couches  which  occupy  most  of  the  floor  space 
in  a  Russian  steamer,  and  which  make  the 
cabin  look  a  little  like  an  English  railway  car- 
riage with  all  the  partitions  removed. 

About  5  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  was 
awakened  by  the  persistent  blowing  of  the 
steamer's  whistle,  followed  by  the  stoppage  of 


A    PEASANT    HAMLET   ON    THE    BANK    OF 


habitation,  and  where  the  cliffs  on  one  side 
and  the  forest  on  the  other  seem  to  be  parts  of 
a  vast  primeval  wilderness. 

Fascinated  by  the  picturesque  beauty  of  the 
majestic  Volga  and  the  ever-changing  novelty 
of  the  scenes  successively  presented  to  us  as 
we  crossed  from  side  to  side,  or  swept  around 
great  bends  into  new  landscapes  and  new 
reaches  of  tranquil  water,  we  could  not  bear 
to  leave  the  hurricane  deck  until  long  after 
dark.  The  fresh,  cool  air  was  then  filled  with 


the  machinery,  the  jar  of  falling  gang-planks, 
and  the  confused  trampling  of  a  multitude  of 
feet  over  my  head.  Presuming  that  we  had 
arrived  at  Kazan,  I  went  up  on  deck.  The 
sun  was  about  an  hour  high  and  the  river  lay 
like  a  quivering  mass  of  liquid  silver  between 
our  steamer  and  the  smooth,  vividly  green 
slopes  of  the  high  western  bank.  On  the 
eastern  side,  and  close  at  hand,  was  a  line  of 
the  black  hulls  with  yellow  roofs  and  deck- 
houses which  serve  along  the  Volga  as  land- 


H  ACROSS   THE   RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 

m-stages,  and  beside  them  lay  half  a  dozen  of  Kazan  stands  was  washed  by  the  waters  of 

passenger  steamers,  blowing  their  whistles  at  the  Volga ;  but  it  has  been  left  four  or  five 

intervals   and   flying  all  their   holiday  flags,  miles  inland  by  the  slow  shifting  of  the  river  s 

Bevond  them  and  just  above  high-water  mark  bed  to  the  westward;  and  the  distant  view  o 

on  the  barren,  sandy  shore  was  a  row  of  heter-  the  city  which  one  now  gets  from  the 

ogeneous  wooden  shops  and  lodging-houses,  is  only  just  enough  to  stimulate  the  imagir. 


A    SIliKWAN 


'ILLAGE    GATE-KKKl'IiK    (1'ASKUTMK 


which,  but  for  a  lavish  display  of  color  in 
walls  and  roofs,  would  have  suggested  a  street 
of  a  mining  settlement  in  Idaho  or  Montana. 
There  were  in  the  immediate  foreground  no 
other  buildings  ;  but  on  a  low  bluff  far  away 
in  the  distance,  across  a  flat  stretch  of  marshy 
land,  there  could  be  seen  a  mass  of  walls, 
towers,  minarets,  and  shining  domes,  which 
recalled  to  my  mind  in  some  obscure  way  the 
impression  made  upon  me  as  a  child  by  a  quaint 
picture  of"  Vanity  Fair  "  in  an  illustrated  copy 
of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  It  was  the  famous 
old  Tartar  city  of  Kazan.  At  one  time,  cen- 
turies ago,  the  bluff  upon  which  the  Kremlin 


tion  and    to    excite,  without    gratifying,  the 
curiosity. 

The  pristan,  or  steamer-landing  of  Kazan, 
however,  is  quite  as  remarkable  in  its  way  as 
the  city  itself.  The  builders  of  the  shops,  ho- 
tels, and  "rooms  for  arrivers"  on  the  river 
bank,  finding  themselves  unable,  with  the 
scanty  materials  at  their  command,  to  render 
their  architecture  striking  and  admirable  in 
form,  resolved  to  make  it  at  least  dazzling  and 
attractive  in  color;  and  the  result  is  a  sort 
of  materialized  architectural  aurora  bbrealis, 
which  astounds  if  it  does  not  gratify  the  be- 
holder. While  our  steamer  was  lying  at  the 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAJV  FRONTIER. 


'5 


landing  I  noted  a  chocolate-brown  house 
with  yellow  window-shutters  and  a  green 
roof;  a  lavender  house  with  a  shining  tin 
roof;  a  crimson  house  with  an  emerald  roof; 
a  sky-blue  house  with  a  red  roof;  an  orange 
house  with  an  olive  roof;  a  house  painted  a 
bright  metallic  green  all  over;  a  house  diver- 
sified with  dark-blue,  light-blue,  red,  green, 
and  chocolate-brown ;  and,  finally,  a  most  ex- 
traordinary building  which  displayed  the  whole 
chromatic  scale  within  the  compass  of  three 
stories  and  an  attic.  What  permanent  effect, 
if  any,  is  produced  upon  the  optic  nerves  of 
the  inhabitants  by  the  habitual  contemplation 
of  their  brilliantly  colored  and  sharply  con- 
trasted dwellings  I  am  unable  to  say ;  but  I 
no  longer  wonder  that  "  prekrasni,"  the  Rus- 
sian word  for  "beautiful,"  means  literally 
"very  red"  ;  nor  that  a  Russian  singer  imag- 
ines himself  to  be  using  a  highly  complimen- 
tary phrase  when  he  describes  a  pretty  girl  as 
"  krasnaya  devitsa  "  f"  a  red  maiden  "].  When 
I  think  of  that  steamboat-landing  at  Kazan  I 
am  only  surprised  that  the  Russian  language 
has  not  produced  such  forms  of  metaphorical 
expression  as  "  a  red-and-green  maiden,"  "  a 
purple-scarlet-and-blue  melody,"  or  "a  crim- 
son-yellow-chocolate-brown poem."  It  would 
be,  so  to  speak,  a  red-white-and-blue  conven- 
ience if  one  could  express  admiration  in  terms 
of  color,  and  use  the  whole  chromatic  scale  to 
give  force  to  a  superlative. 

About  7  o'clock  passengers  began  to 
arrive  in  carriages  and  droshkies  from  the 
city  of  Kazan,  and  before  8  o'clock  all 
were  on  board,  the  last  warning  whistle  had 
sounded,  the  lines  had  been  cast  off,  and  we 
were  again  under  way.  It  was  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  as  the  weather  was  clear  and  warm, 
we  spent  nearly  the  whole  day  on  the  hurri- 
cane deck,  enjoying  the  sunshine  and  the  ex- 
hilarating sense  of  swift  movement,  drinking  in 
the  odorous  air  which  came  to  us  from  the 
forest-clad  hills  on  the  western  bank,  and 
making  notes  or  sketches  of  the  strange  forms 
of  boats,  barges,  and  rafts  which  presented 
themselves  from  time  to  time,  and  which 
would  have  been  enough  to  identify  the  Volga 
as  a  Russian  river  even  had  we  been  unable 
to  see  its  shores.  First  came  a  long  stately 
"  caravan  "  of  eight  or  ten  huge  black  barges, 
like  dismantled  ocean  steamers,  ascending  the 
river  slowly  in  single  file  behind  a  powerful 
tug ;  then  followed  a  curious  kedging  barge, 
with  high  bow  and  stern  and  a  horse-power 
windlass  amidships,  pulling  itself  slowly  up- 
stream by  winding  in  cables  attached  to  kedge 
anchors  which  were  carried  ahead  and  dropped 
in  turn  by  two  or  three  boats'  crews;  and 
finally  we  passed  a  little  Russian  hamlet  of 
ready-made  houses,  with  elaborately  carved 


gables,  standing  on  an  enormous  timber  raft 
100  feet  in  width  by  500  in  length,  and  in- 
tended for  sale  in  the  treeless  region  along 
the  lower  Volga  and  around  the  Caspian  Sea. 
The  bare-headed,  red-shirted,  and  blue-gowned 
population  of  this  floating  settlement  were 
gathered  in  a  picturesque  group  around  a 
blazing  camp-fire  near  one  end  of  the  raft, 
drinking  tea;  and  I  could  not  help  fancying 
that  I  was  looking  at  a  fragment  of  a  peasant 
village  which  had  in  some  way  gotten  adrift 
in  a  freshet  and  was  miraculously  floating 
down  the  river  with  all  its  surviving  inhabit- 
ants. Now  and  then  there  came  to  us  faintly 
across  the  water  the  musical  chiming  of  bells 
from  the  golden-domed  churches  here  and 
there  on  the  right  bank,  and  every  few  mo- 
ments we  passed  a  large  six-oared  "lodka"  full 
of  men  and  women  in  bright-colored  costumes, 
on  their  way  to  church  service. 

About  ii  o'clock  Sunday  morning  we  left 
the  broad,  tranquil  Volga  and  turned  into  the 
swifter  and  muddier  Kama,  a  river  which  rises 
in  the  mountains  of  the  Ural  on  the  Siberian 
frontier,  and  pursues  a  south-westerly  course 
to  its  junction  with  the  Volga,  fifty  or  sixty 
miles  below  Kazan.  In  going  from  one  river  to 
the  other  we  noticed  a  marked  change,  not 
only  in  the  appearance  of  the  people,  villages, 
boats,  and  landing-stages,  but  in  the  aspect 
of  the  whole  country.  Everything  seemed 
stranger,  more  primitive,  and  in  a  certain  sense 
wilder.  The  banks  of  the  Kama  were  less 
thickly  inhabited  and  more  generally  covered 
with  forests  than  those  of  the  Volga;  the 
white-walled  monasteries,  which  had  given 
picturesqueness  and  human  interest  to  so  many 
landscapes  between  Nizhni  Novgorod  and 
Kazan,  were  no  longer  to  be  seen ;  the  barges 
were  of  a  ruder,  more  primitive  type,  with 
carved  railings  and  spirally  striped  red  and 
blue  masts  surmounted  by  gilded  suns;  and  the 
crowds  of  peasants  on  the  landing-stages  were 
dressed  in  costumes  whose  originality  of  de- 
sign and  crude  brightness  of  color  showed  that 
they  had  been  little  affected  by  the  sobering 
and  conventionalizing  influence  of  western 
civilization.  The  bright  colors  of  the  peasant 
costumes  were  attributable  perhaps,  in  part,  to 
the  fact  that,  as  it  was  Sunday,  the  youths  and 
maidens  came  down  to  the  steamer  in  holiday 
attire ;  but  we  certainly  had  not  before  seen  in 
any  part  of  Russia  young  men  arrayed  in  blue, 
crimson,  purple,  pink,  and  violet  shirts,  nor 
young  women  dressed  in  lemon-yellow  gowns, 
scarlet  aprons,  short  pink  over-jackets,  and 
lilac  head-kerchiefs. 

Our  four-days'  journey  up  the  river  Kama 
was  not  marked  by  any  particularly  noteworthy 
incident,  but  it  was,  nevertheless,  a  novel  and 
a  delightful  experience.  The  weather  was  as 


i6 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


perfect  as  June  weather  can  any  where  be;  the  the  hills.    So  comfortable,  pleasant,  and  care 

scenery  was  always  varied  and  attractive,  and  free  had  been  our  voyage  up  the  Kama  that 

sometimes  beautifully  wild  and  picturesque;  when,  on  Wednesday,  June  10,  it  ended  at  the 

the  foliage  of  the  poplars,  aspens,  and  silver-  city  of  Perm,  we  bade  the  little  steamer  Alex- 

birches  which  clothed  the  steep  river  banks,  ander  good-bye  with  a  feeling  of  sincere  regret. 


THE  CITV  OF   PERM. 


and  in  places  overhung  the  water  so  as  al- 
most to  sweep  the  hurricane  deck,  had  the 
first  exquisite  greenness  and  freshness  of  early 
summer;  and  the  open  glades  and  meadows, 
which  the  steamer  frequently  skirted  at  a  dis- 
tance of  not  more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  feet, 
were  blue  with  forget-me-nots  or  yellow  with 
the  large  double  flowers  of  the  European  trol- 
lius.  At  every  landing-place  peasant  children 
offered  for  sale  great  bunches  of  lilies  of  the 
valley,  and  vases  of  these  fragrant  flowers,  pro- 
vided by  the  steward,  kept  our  little  dining- 
saloon  constantly  filled  with  delicate  perfume. 
Neither  in  the  weather,  nor  in  the  scenery, 
nor  in  the  vegetation  was  there  anything  to 
suggest  an  approach  to  the  frontier  of  Sibe- 
ria. The  climate  seemed  almost  Californian  in 
its  clearness  and  warmth ;  flowers  blossomed 
everywhere  in  the  greatest  profusion  and  lux- 
uriance; every  evening  we  heard  nightingales 
singing  in  the  forests  beside  the  river ;  and  af- 
ter sunset,  when  the  wind  was  fair,  many  of 
the  passengers  caused  samovars  to  be  brought 
up  and  tables  to  be  spread  on  the  hurricane 
deck,  and  sat  drinking  tea  and  smoking  cigar- 
ettes in  the  odorous  night  air  Until  the  glow  of 
the  strange  northern  twilight  faded  away  over 


Perm,  which  is  the  capital  of  the  province 
of  the  same  name,  is  a  city  of  32,000  inhabit- 
ants, situated  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Kama, 
about  125  miles  from  the  boundary  line  of 
Asiatic  Russia.  It  is  the  western  terminus  of 
the  Ural  Mountain  railroad,  and  through  it 
passes  nearly  the  whole  of  the  enormous  vol- 
ume of  Siberian  commerce.  In  outward  ap- 
pearance it  does  not  differ  materially  from 
other  Russian  provincial  towns  of  its  class; 
and  although  cleaner  and  more  prosperous 
than  Nizhni  Novgorod,  it  is  much  less  pictur- 
esque, both  in  architecture  and  in  situation. 

In  Perm,  where  we  spent  only  one  night, 
we  had  our  first  skirmish  with  the  Russian 
police;  and  although  the  incident  has  intrin- 
sically little  importance,  it  is  perhaps  worth 
recital  as  an  illustration  of  the  suspicion  with 
which  strangers  are  regarded  on  the  great 
exile  route  to  Siberia,  and  of  the  unlimited 
power  of  the  Russian  police  to  arrest  and  ex- 
amine with  or  without  adequate  cause.  Late 
in  the  afternoon  on  the  day  of  our  arrival, 
Mr.  Frost  and  I  set  out  afoot  for  the  summit 
of  a  high  hill  just  east  of  the  town,  which 
we  thought  would  afford  a  good  point  of  view 
for  a  sketch.  In  making  our  way  towards  it 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


\ve  happened  to  pass  the  city  prison ;  and  as  this 
was  one  of  the  first  Russian  prisons  we  had 
seen,  and  was,  moreover,  on  the  exile  route 
to  Siberia,  we  naturally  looked  at  it  with  in- 
terest and  attention.  Shortly  after  passing  it 
we  discovered  that  the  hill  was  more  distant 
than  we  had  supposed  it  to  be;  and  as  the 
afternoon  was  far  advanced,  we  decided  to 
postpone  our  sketching  excursion  until  the 
following  day.  We  thereupon  retraced  our 
steps,  passed  the  prison  the  second  time,  and 
returned  to  our  hotel.  Early  the  next  morn- 
ing we  again  set  out  for  the  hill ;  and  as  we 
did  not  know  any  better  or  more  direct  route 
to  it,  we  took  again  the  street  which  led  past 
the  prison.  On  this  occasion  we  reached  our 
destination.  Mr.  Frost  made  a  sketch  of  the 
city  and  its  suburbs,  and  at  the  expiration  of 
an  hour,  or  an  hour  and  a  half,  we  strolled 
homeward.  On  a  large,  open  common  near 
the  prison  we  were  met  by  two  droshkies,  in 
which  were  four  officers  armed  with  swords 
and  revolvers,  and  in  full  uniform.  I  noticed 
that  the  first  couple  regarded  us  with  atten- 
tive scrutiny  as  they  passed;  but  I  was  not  as 
familiar  at  that  time  as  I  now  am  with  the 
uniforms  of  the  Russian  police  and  gendarmes, 
and  I  did  not  recognize  them.  The  two  offi- 
cers in  the  second  droshky  left  their  vehicle 
just  before  reaching  us,  walked  away  from  each 
other  until  they  were  forty  or  fifty  feet  apart,  and 
then  advanced  on  converging  lines  to  meet 
us.  Upon  looking  around  I  found  that  the  first 
pair  had  left  their  carriages  and  separated  in 
a  similar  way  behind  us,  and  were  converg- 
ing upon  us  from  that  direction.  Then  for  the 
first  time  it  flashed  upon  my  mind  that  they 
were  police  officers,  and  that  we,  for  some  in- 
conceivable reason,  were  objects  of  suspicion, 
and  were  about  to  be  arrested.  As  they  closed 
in  upon  us,  one  of  them,  a  good-looking  gen- 
darme officer  about  thirty  years  of  age,  bowed 
to  us  stiffly,  and  said,  "  Will  you  permit  me 
to  inquire  who  you  are  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  I  replied ;  "  we  are  American 
travelers." 

"  When  did  you  arrive  in  Perm  ?  " 

"  Yesterday." 

"  Where  did  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  From  Nizhni  Novgorod." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"  To  Siberia." 

"Ah!  To  Siberia!  Allow  me  to  inquire 
what  you  are  going  to  Siberia  for  ?  " 

"  We  are  going  there  to  travel." 

"  But  tourists  [with  a  contemptuous  into- 
nation] are  not  in  the  habit  of  going  to  Siberia. 
You  must  have  some  particular  object  in  view. 
What  is  that  object  ?  " 

I  explained  to  him  that  American  travelers 
—  if  not  tourists — are  in  the  habit  of  going 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 3. 


everywhere,  and  that  the  objects  they  usually 
have  in  view  are  the  study  of  people  and  places, 
and  the  acquirement  of  knowledge.  He  did  not 
seem,  however,  to  be  satisfied  with  this  vague 
general  statement,  and  plied  me  with  all  sorts 
of  questions  intended  to  elicit  a  confession  of 
our  real  aims  and  purposes  in  going  to  such  a 
country  as  Siberia.  Finally  he  said,  "Yester- 
day you  deigned  to  walk  past  the  prison." 

"  Yes,"  I  replied. 

"  What  did  you  do  that  for  ?  " 

I  explained. 

"  You  looked  at  it  very  attentively  ?  " 

"  We  did." 

"  Why  did  you  do  that  ?  " 

Again  I  explained. 

"  But  you  did  not  go  up  on  the  hill  —  you 
merely  went  a  little  way  past  the  prison  and 
then  came  back ;  and  in  going  and  returning 
you  devoted  all  your  attention  to  the  prison. 
This  morning  it  was  the  same  thing  over  again. 
Now,  what  were  you  looking  at  the  prison  in 
that  way  for  ?  " 

When  I  understood  from  these  questions 
how  we  happened  to  fall  under  suspicion,  I 
could  not  help  smiling  in  the  officer's  face ;  but 
as  there  was  no  responsive  levity,  and  as  all 
four  officers  seemed  to  regard  this  looking  at 
a  prison  as  an  exceedingly  grave  offense,  I 
again  went  into  explanations.  Finally  the  gen- 
darme officer,  to  whom  my  statements  were 
evidently  unsatisfactory,  said,  a  little  more 
peremptorily,  "Give  me  your  passport,  please." 
When  informed  that  our  passports  were  at 
the  hotel,  he  said  that  we  must  regard  our- 
selves as  under  arrest  until  we  could  satisfac- 
torily establish  our  identity  and  explain  our 
business  in  Perm.  We  were  then  separated, 
Frost  being  put  into  one  droshky  under  guard 
of  the  gendarme  officer,  and  I  into  another 
with  a  gray-bearded  official  whom  I  took  to 
be  the  chief  of  police,  and  we  all  proceeded 
to  the  hotel.  We  were  evidently  taken  for 
political  conspirators  meditating  an  attempt 
to  release  somebody  from  the  Perm  prison; 
and  as  I  politely  invited  our  captors  into  our 
room  at  the  hotel,  gave  them  cigarettes,  and 
offered  to  get  them  tea  to  drink  while  they 
examined  our  papers,  the  suspicious  young 
gendarme  officer  looked  at  me  as  if  I  were 
some  new  species  of  dangerous  wild  animal 
not  classified  in  the  books,  and  consequently 
of  unknown  power  for  evil.  Our  passports  did 
not  seem,  for  some  reason,  to  be  satisfactory; 
but  the  production  of  the  letter  of  recommen- 
dation from  the  Russian  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  brought  the  comedy  of  errors  to  an 
abrupt  termination.  The  gendarme  officer's 
face  flushed  a  little  as  he  read  it,  and  after  a 
whispered  consultation  with  the  chief  of  police 
he  came  to  me  with  some  embarrassment  and 


i8 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


said  that  he  hoped  we  would  pardon  what  was 
evidently  an  "  unfortunate  misunderstanding  " ; 
that  they  had  taken  us  for  two  important  Ger- 
man criminals  (!)  of  whom  they  were  in  search, 
and  that  in  detaining  us  they  were  only  doing 
what  they  believed  to  be  their  duty.  He  hoped 
that  they  had  not  treated  us  discourteously, 
and  said  that  it  would  gratify  them  very  much 
if  we  would  shake  hands  with  them  as  an  evi- 
dence that  we  did  not  harbor  any  resentment 
on  account  of  this  "  lamentable  mistake."  We 
shook  hands  solemnly  with  them  all,  and  they 
bowed  themselves  out.  This  little  adventure, 
while  it  interested  me  as  a  practical  illustra"- 
tion  of  Russian  police  methods,  made  me  feel 
some  anxiety  with  regard  to  the  future.  If  we 
were  arrested  in  this  way  before  we  had  even 
reached  the  Siberian  frontier,  and  for  merely 
looking  at  the  outside  of  a  prison,  what  prob- 
ably would  happen  to  us  when  we  should  seri- 
ously begin  our  work  of  investigation  ? 

On   Thursday,   June    n,    at   half -past    9 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  we  left  Perm  by  the 


A  VERST-POST  ON   THE    I'RAL    RAILROAD. 

Ural  Mountain  railroad  for  Ekaterineburg. 
As  we  were  very  tired  from  two  days  spent 
almost  wholly  in  walking  about  the  streets  of 
the  former  city,  we  converted  two  of  the  ex- 
tension seats  of  the  railway  carriage  into  a 
bed,  and  with  the  help  of  our  blankets  and 
pillows  succeeded  in  getting  a  very  comfort- 
able night's  rest. 

When  I  awoke,  about  8  o'clock  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  the  train  was  standing  at  the 
station  of  Biser  near  the  summit  of  the  Urals. 
The  sun  was  shining  brightly  in  an  unclouded 
sky;  the  morning  air  was  cool,  fresh,  and  laden 
with  the  odor  of  flowers  and  the  resinous 
fragrance  of  mountain  pines;  a  cuckoo  was 
singing  in  a  neighboring  grove  of  birches; 
and  the  glory  of  early  summer  was  over  all  the 
earth.  Frost  made  hasty  botanical  researches 
beside  the  railroad  track  and  as  far  away  from 
the  train  as  he  dared  to  venture,  and  came  back 
with  alpine  roses,  daisies,  wild  pansies,  trollius, 
and  quantities  of  other  flowers  to  me  unknown. 


The  scenery  of  the  Ural  where  the  railroad 
crosses  the  range  resembles  in  general  outline 
that  of  West  Virginia  where  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  railroad  crosses  the  Alleghanies;  but  it 
differs  somewhat  from  the  latter  in  coloring, 
owing  to  the  greater  preponderance  in  the 
Ural  of  evergreen  trees.  All  the  forenoon,  after 
leaving  Biser,  the  train  swept  around  great 
curves  in  a  serpentine  course  among  the  for- 
est-clad hills,  sometimes  running  for  an  hour 
at  a  time  through  a  dense  larch  wood,  where 
there  was  not  a  sign  of  human  life ;  sometimes 
dashing  past  placermining  camps,  where  hun- 
dreds of  men  and  women  were  at  work  wash- 
ing auriferous  gravel;  and  sometimes  coming 
out  into  beautiful  park-like  openings  diversi- 
fied with  graceful  clumps  of  silver-birch,  and 
carpeted  with  turf  almost  as  smooth  and  green 
as  that  of  an  English  lawn.  Flowers  were 
everywhere  abundant.  Roses,  dandelions,  vio- 
lets, wild  strawberries,  and  lilies  of  the  valley 
were  in  blossom  all  along  the  track,  and  oc- 
casionally we  crossed  an  open  glade  in  the 
heart  of  the  forest  where  the  grass  was  almost 
entirely  hidden  by  a  vivid  sheet  of  yellow 
trollius. 

We  were  greatly  surprised  to  find  in  this  wild 
mining  region  of  the  Ural,  and  on  the  very 
remotest  frontier  of  European  Russia,  a  rail- 
road so  well  built,  perfectly  equipped,  and  lux- 
uriously appointed  as  the  road  over  which  we 
were  traveling  from  Perm  to  Ekaterineburg. 
The  stations  were  the  very  best  we  had  seen 
in  Russia ;  the  road-bed  was  solid  and  well 
ballasted ;  the  rolling  stock  would  not  have 
suffered  in  comparison  with  thatof  the  bestlines 
in  the  empire;  and  the  whole  railroad  property 
seemed  to  be  in  the  most  perfect  possible  or- 
der. Unusual  attention  evidently  had  been 
paid  to  the  ornamentation  of  the  grounds  ly- 
ing adjacent  to  the  stations  and  the  track. 
Even  the  verst-posts  were  set  in  neatly  fitted 
mosaics  three  or  four  feet  in  diameter  of  col- 
ored Ural  stones.  The  station  of  Nizhni  Tagil, 
on  the  Asiatic  slope  of  the  mountains,  where 
we  stopped  half  an  hour  for  dinner,  would 
have  been  in  the  highest  degree  creditable  to 
the  best  railroad  in  the  United  States.  The 
substantial  station  building,  which  was  a  hun- 
dred feet  or  more  in  length,  with  acovered  plat- 
form twenty  feet  wide  extending  along  the 
whole  front,  was  tastefully  painted  in  shades 
of  brown  and  had  a  red  sheet-iron  roof.  It 
stood  in  the  middle  of  a  large,  artistically 
planned  park  or  garden,  whose  smooth,  velvety 
greensward  was  broken  by  beds  of  blossom- 
ing flowers  and  shaded  by  the  feathery  foli- 
age of  graceful  white-stemmed  birches  ;  whose 
winding  walks  were  bordered  by  neatly  trimmed 
hedges ;  and  whose  air  was  filled  with  the  per- 
fume of  wild  roses  and  the  murmuring  plash 


ACROSS    THE  Jtl'SSfAN  FRONTIER. 


<9 


A    Sl'KEKT    IN    EKATliKlNElil  HI,. 


of  falling  water  from  the  slender  jet  of  a 
sparkling  fountain.  The  dining-room  of  the 
station  had  a  floor  of  polished  oak  inlaid  in 
geometrical  patterns,  a  high  dado  of  dark 
carved  wood,  walls  covered  with  oak-grain 
paper,  and  a  stucco  cornice  in  relief.  Down 
the  center  of  the  room  ran  alongdining-table, 
beautifully  set  with  tasteful  china,  snowy  nap- 
kins, high  glass  epergnes  and  crystal  candela- 
bra, and  ornamented  with  potted  plants,  little 
cedar-trees  in  green  tubs,  bouquets  of  cut 
flowers,  artistic  pyramids  of  polished  wine- 
bottles,  druggists'  jars  of  colored  water,  and  an 
aquarium  full  of  fish,  plants,  and  artificial  rock- 
work.  The  chairs  around  the  table  were  of 
dark  hard  wood  elaborately  turned  and  carved ; 
at  one  end  of  the  room  was  a  costly  clock  as 
large  as  an  American  jeweler's  "  regulator,"  and 
at  the  other  end  stood  a  huge  bronzed  oven  by 
which  the  apartment  was  warmed  in  winter. 
The  waiters  were  all  in  evening  dress,  with 
low-cut  waistcoats,  spotless  shirt-fronts,  and 
white  ties;  and  the  cooks,  who  filled  the  waiters' 
orders  as  in  an  English  grill  room,  were  dressed 
from  head  to  foot  in  white  linen  and  wore 
square  white  caps.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  this  was  one  of  the  neatest,  most 
tastefully  furnished,  and  most  attractive  public 
dining-rooms  that  I  ever  entered  in  any  part 
of  the  world  ;  and  as  I  sat  there  eating  a  well- 
cooked  and  well-served  dinner  of  four  courses, 
I  found  it  utterly  impossible  to  realize  that  I 


was  in  the  unheard-of  mining  settlement  of 
Nizhni  Tagil,  on  the  Asiatic  side  of  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Ural.  This,  however,  was  our  last 
glimpse  of  civilized  luxury  for  many  long, 
weary  months,  and  after  that  day  we  did  not 
see  a  railway  station  for  almost  a  year. 

Early  in  the  evening  of  Friday,  June  12, 
we  reached  the  city  of  Ekaterineburg,  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Urals,  about  150  miles 
from  the  Siberian  frontier.  As  the  railway 
from  Ekaterineburg  to  Tiumen  had  not  then 
been  completed,  we  began  at  this  point  with 
horses  a  journey  which  lasted  nine  months, 
and  covered  in  the  aggregate  a  distance  of 
about  8000  miles.  At  the  time  when  we 
reached  Ekaterineburg  there  was  in  opera- 
tion between  that  city  and  Tiumen  an  ex- 
cellent horse  express  service,  by  means  of 
which  travelers  were  conveyed  over  the 
intervening  200  miles  of  country  in  the  com- 
paratively short  time  of  48  hours.  The  route 
was  let  by  the  Government  to  a  horse  ex- 
press company,  which  sold  through  tickets, 
provided  the  traveler  with  a  vehicle,  and  car- 
ried him  to  his  destination  with  relays  of 
horses  stationed  along  the  road  at  intervals 
of  about  eighteen  miles.  The  vehicle  furnished 
for  the  trnveler's  use  in  summer  is  a  large, 
heavy,  four-wheeled  carriage  called  a"taran- 
tas,"  which  consists  of  a  boat-shaped  body 
without  seats,  a  heavy  leathern  top  or  hood, 
and  a  curtain  by  which  the  vehicle  can  be 


20 


ACROSS    THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


,  V  V  • ' 


A   POST   STATION   ON   THE   GREAT   SIBERIAN   ROAD. 


closed  in  stormy  weather.  The  body  of  the 
tarantas  is  mounted  upon  two  or  more  long 
stout  poles,  which  unite  the  forward  with  the 
rear  axletree,  and  serve  as  rude  springs  to 
break  the  jolting  caused  by  a  rough  road. 
The  traveler  usually  stows  away  his  baggage 
in  the  bottom  of  this  boat-shaped  carriage, 
covers  it  with  straw,  rugs,  and  blankets,  and 
reclines  on  it  with  his  back  supported  by  one 
or  more  large  soft  pillows.  The  driver  sits 
sidewise  on  the  edge  of  the  vehicle  in  front 
of  the  passenger  and  drives  with  four  reins  a 
team  of  three  horses  harnessed  abreast.  The 
rate  of  speed  attained  on  a  good  road  is  about 
eight  miles  an  hour. 


On  the  evening  of  June  16,  having  bought 
through  tickets,  selected  a  tarantas,  and 
stowed  away  our  baggage  in  it  as  skillfully  as 
possible,  we  climbed  to  our  uncomfortable  seat 
on  Mr.  Frost's  big  trunk,  and  gave  the  signal 
for  a  start.  Our  gray-bearded  driver  gathered 
up  his  four  reins  of  weather-beaten  rope, 
shouted  "  Noo  rodneeya ! "  ["  Now,  then,  my 
relatives!"],  and  with  a  measured  jangle,  jangle, 
jangle  of  two  large  bells  lashed  to  the  arch 
over  the  shaft-horse's  back  we  rode  away 
through  the  wide  unpaved  streets  of  Ekaterine- 
burg,  across  a  spacious  parade-ground  in  front 
of  the  soldiers''  barracks,  out  between  two 
square  white  pillars  surmounted  by  double- 


ACROSS   THE  RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 


21 


headed  eagles,  and  then  into  a  dark,  gloomy 
forest  of  pines  and  firs. 

When  we  had  passed  through  the  gate  of 
Ekaterineburg  we  were  on  the  "  great  Sibe- 
rian road  "  —  an  imperial  highway  which  ex- 
tends from  the  mountains  of  the  Ural  to  the 
head-waters  of  the  Amur  River,  a  distance  of 
more  than  three  thousand  miles.  If  we  had 


large  wooden  pins.  Every  horse  is  fastened 
by  a  long  halter  to  the  preceding  wagon,  so 
that  a  train  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  obozes  forms 
one  unbroken  caravan  from  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  to  half  a  mile  in  length.  We  passed  538 
of  these  loaded  wagons  in  less  than  two  hours, 
and  I  counted  1445  in  the  course  of  our  first 
day's  journey.  No  further  evidence  was  needed 


A   TRAIN    OF    FREIGHT    WAGONS    (OBOZES)    ON    THE    SIBERIAN    ROAD. 


ever  supposed  Siberia  to  be  an  unproductive 
arctic  waste,  we  soon  should  have  been  made 
aware  of  our  error  by  the  long  lines  of  loaded 
wagons  which  we  met  coming  into  Ekater- 
ineburg from  the  Siberian  frontier.  These 
transport  wagons,  or  "  obozes,"  form  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  almost  every  landscape  on  the 
great  Siberian  road  from  the  Ural  Mountains 
to  Tiumen.  They  are  small  four-wheeled,  one- 
horse  vehicles,  rude  and  heavy  in  construction, 
piled  high  with  Siberian  products,  and  covered 
with  coarse  matting  securely  held  in  place  by 


of  the  fact  that  Siberia  is  not  a  land  of  desola- 
tion. Commercial  products  at  the  rate  of 
1500  tons  a  day  do  not  come  from  a  barren 
arctic  waste. 

As  it  gradually  grew  dark  towards  midnight, 
these  caravansbegan  tostop  forrest  and  refresh- 
ment by  the  roadside,  and  every  mile  or  two  we 
came  upon  a  picturesque  bivouac  on  the  edge 
of  the  forest,  where  a  dozen  or  more  oboz  driv- 
ers were  gathered  around  a  cheerful  camp-fire 
in  the  midst  of  their  wagons,  while  their  liber- 
ated but  hoppled  horses  grazed  and  jumped 


22 


ACROSS    THE    RUSSIAN  FRONTIER. 
K 


BIVOUAC   OK   A    PAKTY    OK   TEAMSTERS    (OBUZ    DRIVERS^. 


awkwardly  here  and  there  along  the  road  or 
among  the  trees.  The  gloomy  evergreen  for- 
est, lighted  up  from  beneath  by  the  flickering 
blaze  and  faintly  tinged  above  by  the  glow  of 
the  northern  twilight,  the  red  and  black  Rem- 
brandt outlines  of  the  wagons,  and  the  group 
of  men  in  long  kaftans  and  scarlet  or  blue  shirts 
gathered  about  the  camp-fire  drinking  tea, 
formed  a  strange,  striking,  and  peculiarly  Rus- 
sian picture. 

We  traveled  without  stop  throughout  the 
night,  changing  horses  at  every  post  station,  and 
making  about  eight  miles  an  hour  over  a  fairly 
good  road.  The  sun  did  not  set  until  half-past 
9  and  rose  again  about  half-past  2,  so  that 
it  was  not  at  any  time  very  dark.  The  villages 
through  which  we  passed  were  sometimes  of 


great  extent,  but  consisted  almost  invariably 
of  only  two  lines  of  log  houses  standing  with 
their  gables  to  the  road,  and  separated  one 
from  another  by  inclosed  yards  without  a  sign 
anywhere  of  vegetation  or  trees.  One  of  these 
villages  formed  a  double  row  five  miles  in 
length  of  separate  houses,  all  fronting  on 
the  Tsar's  highway.  Around  every  village 
there  was  an  inclosed  area  of  pasture  land, 
varying  in  extent  from  200  to  500  acres, 
within  which  were  kept  the  inhabitants'  cattle; 
and  at  the  point  where  the  inclosing  fence 
crossed  the  road,  on  each  side  of  the  village, 
there  were  a  gate  and  a  gate-keeper's  hut. 
These  village  gate-keepers  are  almost  always 
old  and  broken-down  men,  and  in  Siberia  they 
are  generally  criminal  exiles.  It  is  their  duty 


ACROSS    THE  JtUSSlAA'  FRONTIER. 


23 


to  see  that  none  of  the  village  cattle  stray  out 
of  the  inclosure,  and  to  open  the  gates  for 
passing  vehicles  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and 
night.  From  the  village  commune  they  re- 


grouped in  parties  and  sent  to  their  places 
of  banishment  on  foot.  Able-bodied  exiles  of 
both  sexes,  unless  they  belong  to  certain  privi- 
leged classes,  are  compelled  to  walk ;  but  rude 


ceive  for  their  services   a  mere    pittance  of   carts  or  telegas  are  provided  for  the  sick  and 


three  or  four  rubles  a  month,  and  live  in  a 
wretched  hovel  made  of  boughs  and  earth, 
which  throughout  the  year  is  warmed,  lighted, 


the  infirm.  As  I  did  not  have  an  opportunity 
to  travel  with  a  marching  party  of  exiles  un- 
til I  reached  Tomsk,  I  will  not  in  this  paper 


and  filled  with  smoke  by  an  open  fire  on  the 
ground. 

On  the  next  day  after  leaving  Ekaterineburg 
we  saw  for  the  first  time  an  etape,  or  exile 
station  house,  and  began  to  pass  parties  of 
criminals  on  their  way  to  Siberia.  Since  the 
establishment  of  regular  steam  communication 
between  Nizhni  Novgorod  and  Perm,  and 
the  completion  of  the  Ural  Mountain  rail- 
road, exiles  from  points  west  of  the  Urals  have 
been  transported  by  rail  and  barge  from  the 
forwarding  prisons  of  Moscow,  Nizhni  Nov- 
gorod, and  Kazan  to  Ekaterineburg.  None 
of  them  are  now  compelled  to  march  until  af- 
ter they  have  crossed  the  Urals,  when  those 
destined  for  points  in  western  Siberia  are 


attempt  to  describe  the  life  of  such  a  party  on 
the  road. 

On  the  second  day  after  our  departure  from 
Ekaterineburg,  as  we  were  passing  through 
a  rather  open  forest  between  the  villages  of 
Markova  and  Tugulimskaya,  our  driver  sud- 
denly pulled  up  his  horses,  and  turning  to  us 
said, "  Vot  granitsa  "  ["  Here  is  the  boundary"]. 
We  sprang  out  of  the  tarantas  and  saw,  stand- 
ing by  the  roadside,  a  square  pillar  ten  or 
twelve  feet  in  height,  of  stuccoed  or  plastered 
brick,  bearing  on  one  side  the  coat  of  arms 
of  the  European  province  of  Perm,  and  on  the 
other  that  of  the  Asiatic  province  of  Tobolsk. 
It  was  the  boundary  post  of  Siberia.  No  other 
spot  between  St.  Petersburg  and  the  Pacific 


INTERLUDES. 


is  more  full  of  painful  suggestions,  and  none 
has  for  the  traveler  a  more  melancholy  inter- 
est than  the  little  opening  in  the  forest  where 
stands  this  grief-consecrated  pillar.  Here  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  exiled  human  beings  — 
men,  women,  and  children;  princes,  nobles, 
and  peasants  —  have  bidden  good-bye  forever 
to  friends,  country,  and  home. 

No  other  boundary  post  in  the  world  has 
witnessed  so  much  human  suffering,  or  been 
passed  by  such  a  multitude  of  heart-broken 
people.  More  than  170,000  exiles  have  trav- 
eled this  road  since  1878,  and  more  than  half 
a  million  since  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century.  As  the  boundary  post  is  situated 
about  half-way  between  the  last  European 
and  the  first  Siberian  etape,  it  has  always  been 
customary  to  allow  exile  parties  to  stop  here 
for  rest  and  for  a  last  good-bye  to  home  and 
country.  The  Russian  peasant,  even  when  a 
criminal,  is  deeply  attached  to  his  native  land ; 
and  heart-rending  scenes  have  been  witnessed 
around  the  boundary  pillar  when  such  a  party, 
overtaken  perhaps  by  frost  and  snow  in  the 
early  autumn,  stopped  here  for  a  last  farewell. 
Some  gave  way  to  unrestrained  grief;  some 
comforted  the  weeping;  some  knelt  and 
pressed  their  faces  to  the  loved  soil  of  their 
native  country,  and  collected  a  little  earth  to 
take  with  them  into  exile  ;  and  a  few  pressed 
their  lips  to  the  European  side  of  the  cold 
brick  pillar,  as  if  kissing  good-bye  forever  to 
all  that  it  symbolized. 


At  last  the  stern  order  "Stroisa!  "  ["  Form 
ranks  !  "]  from  the  under  officer  of  the  convoy 
put  an  end  to  the  rest  and  the  leave-taking, 
and  at  the  word  "  March  !  "  the  gray-coated 
troop  of  exiles  and  convicts  crossed  them- 
selves hastily  all  together,  and,  with  a  con- 
fused jingling  of  chains  and  leg-fetters,  moved 
slowly  away  past  the  boundary  post  into 
Siberia. 

Until  recently  the  Siberian  boundary  post 
was  covered  with  brief  inscriptions,  good-byes, 
and  the  names  of  exiles  scratched  or  penciled 
on  the  hard  cement  with  which  the  pillar  was 
originally  overlaid.  At  the  time  of  our  visit, 
however,  most  of  this  hard  plaster  had  appar- 
ently been  pounded  off,  and  only  a  few  words, 
names,  and  initials  remained.  Many  of  the 
inscriptions,  although  brief,  were  significant 
and  touching.  In  one  place,  in  a  man's  hand, 
had  been  written  the  words  "  Praschai  Marya ! " 
["  Good-bye,  Mary  !  "]  Who  the  writer  was, 
who  Mary  was,  there  is  nothing  now  left  to 
show;  but  it  may  be  that  to  the  exile  who 
scratched  this  last  farewell  on  the  boundary 
pillar  "  Mary"  was  all  the  world,  and  that  in 
crossing  the  Siberian  line  the  writer  was  leav- 
ing behind  him  forever,  not  only  home  and 
country,  but  love. 

After  picking  a  few  flowers  from  the  grass 
at  the  base  of  the  boundary  pillar,  we  climbed 
into  our  carriage,  said  "  Good-bye"  to  Europe, 
as  hundreds  of  thousands  had  said  good-bye 
before  us,  and  rode  away  into  Siberia. 

George  Kennan. 


Mitt 


INTERLUDES. 

I.    MEMORY. 

MY  mind  lets  go  a  thousand  things, 
Like  dates  of  wars  and  deaths  of  kings, 
And  yet  recalls  the  very  hour  — 
'T  was  noon  by  yonder  village  tower, 
And  on  the  last  blue  noon  in  May  — 
The  wind  came  briskly  up  this  way, 
Crisping  the  brook  beside  the  road; 
Then,  pausing  here,  set  down  its  load 
Of  pine-scents,  and  shook  listlessly 
Two  petals  from  that  wild-rose  tree. 

II.    A    REFRAIN. 

HIGH  in  a  tower  she  sings, 

I,  passing  by  beneath, 

Pause  and  listen,  and  catch 

These  words  of  passionate  breath  — 

"  Asphodel,  flower  of  Life,  amaranth,  flower  of  Death  ! ' 


INTERLUDES.  25 

Sweet  voice,  sweet  unto  tears  ! 

What  is  this  that  she  saith  ? 

Poignant,  mystical  —  hark! 

Again,  with  passionate  breath  — 

"  Asphodel,  floiver  of  Life,  amaranth,  flower  of  Death!'' 


III.    ACT    V. 

FIRST,  two  white  arms  that  held  him  very  close, 
And  ever  closer  as  he  drew  him  back 
Reluctantly,  the  loose  gold-colored  hair 
A  thousand  delicate  fibers  reaching  out 
Still  to  detain  him ;  then  some  twenty  steps 
Of  iron  staircase  winding  round  and  down, 
And  ending  in  a  narrow  gallery  hung 
VI IV;  II [A  With  Gobelin  tapestries  —  Andromeda 

t  Rescued  by  Perseus,   and  the  sleek  Diana 

L-'  -,S.       With  her  nymphs  bathing;   at  the  farther  end 

w 

v- 


i. 
,  jfc 


A  door  that  gave  upon  a  starlit  grove 


Of  citron  and  dipt   palm-trees  ;  then  a  path 

Jii\\r%  As  bleached  as  moonlight,  with  the  shadow  of  leaves 

Stamped  black  upon  it;    next  a  vine-clad  length 
Of  solid  masonry  ;    and  last  of  all 
A  Gothic  archway  packed  with  night,  and  then  — 
A  sudden  gleaming  dagger  through  his  heart. 

IV.    ON    REVISING    A    DISCARDED  POEM. 

THE  Song  I  made  and  cast  away 
Comes  singing  to  my  heart  to-day, 
And  pleads  :  "  I  know  my  many  faults  ; 
I  know  that  here  's  a  rhythm  that  halts, 
And  there  —  a  thing  we  both  abhor  — 
A  very  much  -mixed  metaphor. 
In  certain  passages,  I  hold, 
My  story  is  not   clearly  told  ; 
Those  lack  dramatic  touch,  and  these 
Are  clouded  with   parentheses. 
And  yet,  by  dropping  here  and  there 
The  dactyls  that  I  well  may  spare, 
And  forging  new   ones,  just  to  bind 
The  sequence,  you  will  surely  find 
I  'm  not  so  poor  a   little  thing. 
I  pray  you,  sing  me  !  "    So  I  sing. 
And  if  these  random  couplets  seem 
Too  light  a  prelude   to  the  theme  — 
Why,  't  is  the  sun  that  casts  the  shade; 
Of  gall  and  honey  life  is  made  ; 
A  discord  helps  the  perfect  note 
On  harpstring  or  in  linnet's  throat  ; 
Crouched  in  the  blue  of  April  skies 
The  unleashed  lightning  somewhere  lies. 
So  let  Thalia  laugh  ;  anon 
Melpomene  comes  sweeping  on. 
One  actor  in  both  parts  appears  : 
The  self-same  eyes  that  smile,  shed  tears. 


Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich. 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 4. 


SOLACE. 

WHAT  though  you  lie,  like  the  still  pool  of  rain, 
Silent,  forgotten  in  some  lowly  place ; 
Or  if  remembered,  in  your  being  to  trace 
But  the  remainder  of  a  past  storm's  pain  ? 

What  though  the  storm-drops,  falling  fast  again, — 

Call  we  them  "  years  "  that  hasten  down  apace, — 
Smite  your  still  breast,  as  if  they  would  efface 
All  sign  of  peace,  and  leave  but  blot  and  stain  ? 

Look!  even  now  the  reaper-beams  appear, 

And  gather  in  the  clouds'  spare  aftermath, 
With  glancing  scythes,  of  silver  every  one. 

While  in  the  pool's  still  bosom,  mirror-clear 
Is  Heaven  pictured ;  and  a  mystic  path 
Strikes  from  its  heart's  clear  center  to  the  Sun. 


Julie  M.  Lippmann. 


A    LOVE    STORY    REVERSED. 


HE  golden  hands  of  the 
parlor  clock  point  glim- 
meringly  to  an  hour  after 
midnight  and  the  house  is 
still.  The  gas  is  turned  al- 
most out,  but  the  flickering 
of  the  dying  sea-coal  fire  in 
the  grate  fitfully  illumines 
the  forms  and  faces  of  two  young  women  who 
are  seated  before  it  talking  earnestly  in  low 
tones.  It  is  apparent  from  their  costumes  that 
they  have  been  spending  the  evening  out. 

The  fair  girl  in  the  low  chair,  gazing  pen- 
sively into  the  fire,  is  Maud  Elliott,  the  daughter 
of  the  house.  Not  generally  called  handsome, 
her  features  are  good  and  well  balanced,  and 
her  face  is  altogether  a  sweet  and  wholesome 
one.  She  is  rather  tall,  and  the  most  critical 
admit  that  she  has  a  fine  figure.  Her  eyes  are 
blue,  and  their  clear,  candid  expression  indi- 
cates an  unusually  sincere  and  simple  charac- 
ter. But,  unfortunately,  it  is  only  her  friends 
who  are  fully  conversant  with  the  expression 
of  her  eyes,  for  she  is  very  shy.  Shyness  in 
little  people  is  frequently  piquant,  but  its  ef- 
fect in  girls  of  the  Juno  style  is  too  often  that 
of  awkwardness.  Her  friends  call  Maud  Elliott 
stately ;  those  who  do  not  like  her  call  her  stiff; 
while  indifferent  persons  speak  of  her  as  rather 


too  reserved  and  dignified  in  manner  to  be 
pleasing.  In  fact,  her  excess  of  dignity  is  merely 
the  cloak  of  her  shyness,  and  nobody  knows 
better  than  she  that  there  is  too  much  of  it. 
Those  who  know  her  at  all  well,  know  that 
she  is  not  dull,  but  with  mere  acquaintances 
she  often  passes  for  that.  Only  her  intimate 
friends  are  aware  what  wit  and  intelligence, 
what  warmth  and  strength  of  feeling,  her  cold- 
ness, when  in  company,  conceals. 

No  one  better  understands  this,  because  no 
one  knows  her  better  or  has  known  her  longer, 
than  her  present  companion  before  the  fire, 
Lucy  Merritt.  They  were  room-mates  and 
bosom  friends  at  boarding-school ;  and  Lucy, 
who  recently  has  been  married,  is  now  on  her 
first  visit  to  her  friend  since  that  event.  She 
is  seated  on  a  hassock,  with  her  hands  clasped 
over  her  knees,  looking  up  at  Maud — an  atti- 
tude well  suited  to  her  petite  figure.  She  is 
going  home  on  the  morrow,  or  rather  on  the 
day  already  begun ;  and  this  fact,  together  with 
the  absorbing  nature  of  the  present  conversa- 
tion, accounts  for  the  lateness  of  the  session. 

"  And  so,  Maud,"  she  is  saying  while  she 
regards  her  friend  with  an  expression  at  once 
sympathetic  aad  amused — "  and  so  that  is  what 
has  been  making  your  letters  so  dismal  lately. 
I  fancied  that  nothing  less  could  suggest  such 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


27 


melancholy  views  of  life.  The  truth  is,  I  came 
on  this  visit  as  much  as  anything  to  find  out 
about  him.  He  is  a  good-looking  fellow,  cer- 
tainly; and,  from  what  little  chance  I  had  to 
form  an  opinion  to-night,  seems  sensible 
enough  to  make  it  quite  incredible  that  he 
should  not  be  in  love  with  such  a  girl  in  a 
thousand  as  you.  Are  you  quite  sure  he  is  n't  ?  " 

"  You  had  a  chance  to  judge  to-night,"  re- 
plied Maud,  with  a  hard  little  laugh.  "You 
overheard  our  conversation.  '  Good-evening, 
Miss  Elliott;  jolly  party,  is  n't  it  ?  '  That  was 
all  he  had  to  say  to  me,  and  quite  as  much  as 
usual.  Of  course,  we  are  old  acquaintances, 
and  he  's  always  pleasant  and  civil :  he  could 
n't  be  anything  else;  but  he  wastes  mighty 
little  time  on  me.  I  don't  blame  him  for  pre- 
ferring other  girls'  society.  He  would  show 
very  little  taste  if  he  did  not  enjoy  Ella  Perry's 
company  better  than  that  of  a  tongue-tied 
thing  like  me.  She  is  a  thousand  times  pret- 
tier and  wittier  and  more  graceful  than  I  am." 

"  Nonsense,"  exclaimed  Lucy.  "  She  is  a 
flirt  and  a  conceited  little  minx.  She  is  not 
to  be  mentioned  the  same  day  with  you ;  and 
he  would  think  so,  if  he  could  only  get  to 
know  you.  But  how  in  the  world  is  he  ever 
going  to  ?  Why,  you  seem  to  be  shyer  than 
ever,  poor  dear.  You  were  actually  distant, 
almost  chilling,  in  your  manner  towards  him 
to-night,  although  I  know  you  did  n't  mean 
to  be." 

"  I  know  it.  Don't  I  know  it ! "  groaned 
Maud.  "  I  always  am  shyer  and  stiffer  with 
him  than  with  any  one  else.  O  Lucy!  you 
can't  guess  what  a  dreadful  thing  it  is  to  be 
shy.  It  is  as  if  you  were  surrounded  by  a  fog 
which  benumbs  you,  and  chills  all  who  ap- 
.proach  you.  I  dare  say  he  thinks  that  I  act- 
ually dislike  him.  I  could  not  blame  him  if 
he  did.  And  I  can't  help  it.  I  could  never 
make  him  understand  anything  else,  unless  I 
told  him  in  so  many  words." 

The  tears  filled  her  eyes  as  she  spoke,  and 
hung  heavy  on  the  lashes.  Lucy  took  one  of 
her  hands  in  both  of  hers,  and  pressed  and 
stroked  it  caressingly. 

"  I  know  you  could  n't,  poor  dear,  I  know 
you  could  n't,"  she  said ;  "  and  you  cannot  tell 
him  in  so  many  words  because,  forsooth,  you 
are  a  woman.  I  often  think,  Maud,  what  a 
heap  of  trouble  would  be  saved  if  women, 
when  they  cannot  make  themselves  understood 
in  other  ways,  were  allowed  to  speak  out  as 
men  do,  without  fear  or  reproach.  Some  day 
they  will,  when  the  world  gets  wiser  —  at  least 
I  think  so.  Why  should  a  woman  have  to 
hide  her  love,  as  if  it  were  a  disgraceful  secret  ? 
Why  is  it  any  more  a  disgrace  to  her  than  to 
a  man  ?  " 

"  I  can't  quite  see  what  good  it  would  do 


me,"  said  Maud, "  even  if  women  could '  speak 
out,'  as  you  say.  If  a  man  did  n't  care  for  one 
already,  I  can't  see  how  it  would  make  him 
know  that  one  cared  for  him.  I  should  think 
she  would  prefer  to  keep  her  secret." 

"  That  is  n't  what  men  do,"  replied  Lucy. 
"  If  they  have  such  a  secret  they  tell  it  right 
away,  and  that  is  why  they  succeed.  The  way 
half  the  women  are  induced  to  fall  in  love  is 
by  being  told  the  men  are  in  love  with  them; 
you  know  that." 

"  But  men  are  different,"  suggested  Maud. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it:  they  're  more  so,  if  any- 
thing," was  the  oracular  response  of  the  young 
wife.  "  Possibly  there  are  men,"  she  contin- 
ued,— "  the  story-tellers  say  so,  anyhow, —  who 
are  attracted  by  repulsion  and  warmed  by  cold- 
ness, who  like  resistance  for  the  pleasure  of 
overcoming  it.  There  must  be  a  spice  of  the 
tyrant  in  such  men.  I  would  n't  want  to  marry 
one  of  them.  Fortunately,  they  're  not  com- 
mon. I  've  noticed  that  love,  like  lightning, 
generally  takes  the  path  of  least  resistance 
with  men  as  well  as  women.  Just  suppose  now, 
in  your  case,  that  Mr.  Burton  had  followed 
us  home  and  had  overheard  this  conversation 
from  behind  that  door." 

"  No,  no,"  she  added  laughing,  as  Maud 
looked  around  apprehensively;  "  he  is  n't  there. 
But  if  he  had  been  there  and  had  overheard 
you  own  that  you  were  pining  for  him,  what 
a  lucky  chance  it  would  have  been !  If  he,  or 
any  other  man,  once  knew  that  a  magnificent 
girl  like  you  had  done  him  the  honor  to  fall 
in  love  with  him,  half  the  battle  would  be  won, 
or  I  'm  no  judge  of  men.  But  such  lucky 
eavesdropping  only  happens  in  stories  and 
plays ;  and  for  lack  of  it  this  youth  is  in  a  fair 
way  to  marry  a  chit  of  a  girl,  who  does  not 
think  half  so  much  of  him  as  you  do,  and  of 
whom  he  will  never  think  a  quarter  what  he 
would  of  you.  He  is  not,  probably,  entirely 
stupid  either.  All  he  wants,  very  likely,  is  just 
a  hint  as  to  where  his  true  happiness  lies  :  but, 
being  a  woman,  you  can't  give  it  in  words; 
and,  being  Maud  Elliott,  you  can't  give  it  in 
any  other  way  if  you  died  for  it.  Really,  Maud, 
the  canon  which  makes  it  a  woman's  duty  to 
be  purely  passive  in  love  is  exasperating,  espe- 
cially as  it  does  not  represent  what  anybody 
really  believes,  but  only  what  they  pretend  to 
believe.  Everybody  knows  that  unrequited 
love  comes  as  often  to  women  as  to  men. 
Why,  then,  should  n't  they  have  an  equal 
chance  to  seek  requital  ?  Why  have  not  they 
the  same  right  to  look  out  for  the  happiness 
of  their  lives  by  all  honorable  means  that  men 
have  ?  Surely  it  is  far  more  to  them  to  marry 
the  men  they  love  than  to  a  man  to  marry  any 
particular  woman.  It  seems  to  me  that  mak- 
ing suitable  matches  is  not  such  an  easy  mat- 


28 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


ter  that  society  can  afford  to  leave  the  chief 
part  of  it  to  the  stupider  sex,  giving  women 
merely  the  right  of  veto.  To  be  sure,  even 
now  women  who  are  artful  enough  manage  to 
evade  the  prohibition  laid  on  their  lips  and 
make  their  preference  known.  I  am  proud  to 
say  that  1  have  a  royal  husband,  who  would 
never  have  looked  my  way  if  I  had  not  set 
out  to  make  him  do  so ;  and  if  I  do  say  it,  who 
should  n't,  I  flatter  myself  he  has  a  better 
wife  than  he  could  have  picked  out  without 
my  help.  There  are  plenty  of  women  who 
can  say  the  same  thing;  but,  unluckily,  it  is  the 
best  sort  of  women,  girls  like  you — simple,  sin- 
cere, noble,  without  arts  of  any  sort  —  who 
can't  do  this.  On  them  the  etiquette  that  for- 
bids women  to  reveal  their  hearts  except  by 
subterfuge  operates  as  a  total  disability.  They 
can  only  sit  with  folded  hands,  looking  on, 
pretending  not  to  mind,  while  their  husbands 
are  run  away  with  by  others." 

Maud  took  up  the  poker  and  carefully  ar- 
ranged the  coals  under  the  grate  in  a  heap. 
Then  she  said:  "Suppose  a  girl  did  what  you've 
been  speaking  of.  I  mean,  suppose  she  really 
said  such  a  thing  to  a  man, —  said  that  she 
cared  for  him,  or  anything  like  that, —  what 
do  you  suppose  he  would  think  of  her  ?  Don't 
you  fancy  she  would  be  in  danger  of  making 
him  think  very  cheaply  of  her  ?  " 

"If  she  thought  he  were  that  kind  of  a 
man,"  replied  Lucy,  "  I  can't  understand  her 
ever  falling  in  love  with  him.  Of  course,  I  'm 
not  saying  that  he  would  necessarily  respond 
by  falling  in  love  with  her.  She  would  have 
to  take  her  chance  of  that ;  but  I  'm  sure  if 
he  were  a  gentleman  she  need  have  no  fear  of 
his  thinking  unworthily  of  her.  If  I  had 
spoken  to  Dick  in  that  way,  even  if  he  had 
never  wanted  to  marry  me,  I  know  he  would 
have  had  a  soft  spot  for  me  in  his  heart  all 
the  rest  of  his  life,  out  of  which  even  his  wife 
would  not  have  quite  crowded  me.  Why,  how 
do  we  think  of  men  whom  we  have  refused? 
Do  we  despise  them?  Do  we  ridicule  them? 
Some  girls  may,  but  they  are  not  ladies.  A 
low  fellow  might  laugh  at  a  woman  who  re- 
vealed a  fondness  for  him  which  he  did  not 
return;  but  a  gentleman,  never.  Her  secret 
would  be  safe  with  him." 

"  Girls !  "  It  was  the  voice  of  Mrs.  Elliott 
speaking  from  the  upper  hall.  "  Do  you 
know  how  late  it  is?  It  is  after  i  o'clock." 

"  I  suppose  we  might  as  well  go  to  bed," 
said  Lucy.  "  There  's  no  use  sitting  up  to 
wait  for  women  to  get  their  rights.  They 
won't  get  them  to-night,  I  dare  say ;  though, 
mark  my  word,  some  day  they  will. 

"  This  affair  of  yours  may  come  out  all 
right  yet,"  she  said  hopefully,  as  they  went 
upstairs  together.  "  If  it  does  not,  you  can 


console  yourself  with  thinking  that  people  in 
general,  and  especially  girls,  never  know 
what  is  good  for  them  till  afterward.  Do 
you  remember  that  summer  1  was  at  the 
beach,  what  a  ninny  1  made  of  myself  over 
that  little  Mr.  Parker  ?  How  providential  it 
was  for  me  that  he  did  not  reciprocate.  It 
gives  me  the  cold  shivers  when  I  think  what 
might  have  become  of  me  if  he  had  proposed." 

At  the  door  of  her  room  Lucy  said  again : 
"  Remember,  you  are  to  come  to  me  in  New 
York  for  a  long  visit  soon.  Perhaps  you  will 
find  there  are  other  people  in  the  world  then." 

Maud  smiled  absently,  and  kissed  her  good- 
night. She  seemed  preoccupied,  and  did  not 
appear  to  have  closely  followed  what  her  lively 
friend  was  saying. 

The  following  afternoon,  as  she  was  walking 
home  after  seeing  Lucy  on  the  cars,  she  met 
a  gentleman  who  lifted  his  hat  to  her.  It  was 
Arthur  Burton.  His  office  was  on  the  one 
main  street  of  the  small  New  England  city 
which  is  the  scene  of  these  events,  and  when 
out  walking  or  shopping  Maud  often  met  him. 
There  was  therefore  nothing  at  all  extraordi- 
nary in  the  fact  of  their  meeting.  What  was 
extraordinary  was  its  discomposing  effect  upon 
her  on  this  particular  afternoon.  She  had  been 
absorbed  a  moment  before  in  a  particularly 
brown  study,  taking  no  more  notice  of  sur- 
rounding objects  and  persons  than  was  nec- 
essary to  avoid  accidents.  On  seeing  him  she 
started  perceptibly,  and  forthwith  became  a 
striking  study  in  red.  She  continued  to  blush 
so  intensely  after  he  had  passed,  that,  catch- 
ing sight  of  her  crimson  cheeks  in  a  shop  win- 
dow, she  turned  down  a  side  street  and  took  a 
quieter  way  home. 

There  was  nothing  particularly  remarkable, 
about  Arthur  Burton.  Fortunately  there  does 
not  need  to  be  anything  remarkable  about 
young  men  to  induce  very  charming  girls  to 
fall  in  love  with  them.  He  was  just  a  good- 
looking  fellow,  with  agreeable  manners  and 
average  opinions.  He  was  regarded  as  a  very 
promising  young  man,  and  was  quite  a  favorite 
among  the  young  ladies.  If  he  noticed  Maud's 
confusion  on  meeting  him,  he  certainly  did  not 
think  of  associating  it  in  any  way  with  him- 
self. For  although  they  had  been  acquaint- 
ances these  many  years,  and  belonged  to  the 
same  social  set,  he  had  never  entertained  the 
first  sentimental  fancy  concerning  her.  So  far 
as  she  had  impressed  him  at  all.  it  was  as  a 
thoroughly  nice  girl,  of  a  good  family,  not 
bad-looking,  but  rather  dull  in  society,  and 
with  very  little  facility  in  conversation  ;  at  least 
he  had  always  found  it  hard  to  talk  with  her. 

Ten  days  or  a  fortnight  after  Lucy  Merritt's 
departure  there  was  a  little  party  at  Ella 
Perry's,  and  both  Arthur  Burton  and  Maud 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


29 


were  present.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  place 
for  the  young  men  to  escort  the  girls  home 
after  evening  entertainments,  and  when  the 
couples  were  rightly  assorted  the  walk  home 
was  often  the  most  agreeable  part  of  the  even- 
ing. Although  they  were  not  engaged,  Arthur 
imagined  that  he  was  in  love  with  Ella  Perry, 
and  she  had  grown  into  the  habit  of  looking 
upon  him  as  her  particular  knight.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  evening  he  jestingly  asked  her 
whom  he  should  go  home  with,  since  he  could 
not  that  evening  be  her  escort. 

"  Maud  Elliott,"  promptly  suggested  Ella, 
selecting  the  girl  of  those  present  in  her  opin- 
ion least  likely  to  prove  a  diverting  compan- 
ion. So  it  chanced  that  Arthur  offered  his 
company  to  Maud. 

It  struck  him,  as  she  came  downstairs  with 
her  wraps  on,  that  she  was  looking  remarkably 
pale.  She  had  worn  a  becoming  color  during 
the  evening,  but  she  seemed  to  .have  lost  it  in 
the  dressing-room.  As  they  walked  away  from 
the  house  Arthur  began,  to  the  best  of  his  abil- 
ity, to  make  himself  agreeable,  but  with  very 
poor  success.  Not  only  was  Maud,  as  usual,  a 
feeble  contributor  of  original  matter,  but  her 
random  answers  showed  that  she  paid  little 
attention  to  what  he  was  saying.  He  was 
mentally  registering  a  vow  never  again  to  per- 
mit himself  to  be  committed  to  a  te'te-a-tete 
with  her,  when  she  abruptly  broke  the  silence 
which  had  succeeded  his  conversational  efforts. 
Her  voice  was  curiously  unsteady,  and  she 
seemed  at  first  to  have  some  difficulty  in  articu- 
lating, and  had  to  go  back  and  repeat  her  first 
words.  What  she  said  was : 

"It  was  very  good  in  you  to  come  home  with 
me  to-night.  It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me." 

"You  're  ironical,  this  evening,  Miss  Elliott," 
he  replied,  laughing,  and  the  least  bit  nettled. 

It  was  bore  enough  doing  the  polite  to  a 
girl  who  had  nothing  on  her  mind  without 
being  gibed  by  her  to  boot. 

"  I  'm  not  ironical, "  she  answered.  "  I  should 
make  poor  work  at  irony.  I  meant  just  what 
I  said." 

"  The  goodness  was  on  your  part  in  letting 
me  come,"  he  said,  mollified  by  the  unmistak- 
able sincerity  of  her  tone,  but  somewhat  em- 
barrassed withal  at  the  decidedly  flat  line  of 
remark  she  had  chosen. 

"  Oh, no,"  she  replied;  "  the  goodness  was 
not  on  my  side.  I  was  only  too  glad  of  your 
company,  and  might  as  well  own  it.  Indeed, 
I  will  confess  to  telling  a  fib  to  one  young 
man  who  offered  to  see  me  home,  merely  be- 
cause I  hoped  the  idea  of  doing  so  would  oc- 
cur to  you." 

This  plump  admission  of  partiality  for  his 
society  fairly  staggered  Arthur.  Again  he 
thought,  "  She  must  be  quizzing  me";  and,  to 


make  sure,  stole  a  sidelong  glance  at  her.  Her 
eyes  were  fixed  straight  ahead,  and  the  pallor 
and  the  tense  expression  of  her  face  indicated 
that  she  was  laboring  under  strong  excitement. 
She  certainly  did  not  look  like  one  in  a  quizz- 
ing mood. 

"  I  am  very  much  flattered,"  he  managed 
to  say. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  feel  so  or  not," 
she  replied.  "  I  'm  afraid  you  don't  feel  flat- 
tered at  all,  but  I —  I  wanted  to  —  tell  you." 

The  pathetic  tremor  of  her  voice  lent  even 
greater  significance  to  her  words  than  in  them- 
selves they  would  have  conveyed. 

She  was  making  a  dead  set  at  him.  There 
was  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  any  longer  about 
that.  As  the  full  realization  of  his  condition 
flashed  upon  him,  entirely  alone  with  her  and  a 
long  walk  before  them,  the  strength  suddenly 
oozed  out  of  his  legs,  he  felt  distinctly  cold 
about  the  spine,  and  the  perspiration  started 
out  on  his  forehead.  His  tongue  clung  to  the 
roof  of  his  mouth,  and  he  could  only  abjectly 
wonder  what  was  coming  next.  It  appeared 
that  nothing  more  was  coming.  A  dead  silence 
lasted  for  several  blocks.  Every  block  seemed 
to  Arthur  a  mile  long,  as  if  he  were  walking  in 
a  hasheesh  dream.  He  felt  that  she  was  ex- 
pecting him  to  say  something,  to  make  some 
sort  of  response  to  her  advances ;  but  what  re- 
sponse, in  Heaven's  name,  could  he  make !  He 
really  could  not  make  love.  He  had  none  to 
make;  and  had  never  dreamed  of  making  any 
to  Maud  Elliott,  of  all  girls.  Yet  the  idea  of 
letting  her  suppose  him  such  an  oaf  as  not 
to  understand  her,  or  not  to  appreciate  the 
honor  a  lady's  preference  did  him,  was  intoler- 
able. He  could  not  leave  it  so. 

Finally,  with  a  vague  idea  of  a  compromise 
between  the  impossible  alternative  of  making 
love  to  her,  which  he  could  n't,  and  seeming 
an  insensible  boor,  which  he  would  n't,  he  laid 
his  disengaged  hand  upon  hers  as  it  rested  on 
his  arm.  It  was  his  intention  to  apply  to  it  a 
gentle  pressure,  which,  while  committing  him 
to  nothing,  might  tend  to  calm  her  feelings 
and  by  its  vaguely  reassuring  influence  help 
to  stave  off  a  crisis  for  the  remainder  of  their 
walk.  He  did  not,  however,  succeed  in  carry- 
ing out  the  scheme ;  for  at  the  moment  of 
contact  her  hand  eluded  his,  as  quicksilver 
glides  from  the  grasp.  There  was  no  hint  of 
coquettish  hesitation  in  its  withdrawal.  She 
snatched  it  away  as  if  his  touch  had  burned 
her;  and  although  she  did  not  at  the  same 
time  wholly  relinquish  his  arm,  that  was 
doubtless  to  avoid  making  the  situation,  on 
the  street  as  they  were,  too  awkward. 

A  moment  before  only  concerned  to  evade 
her  apparent  advances,  Arthur  found  him- 
self in  the  position  of  one  under  rebuke  for 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


offering  an  unwarranted  familiarity  to  a  lady. 
There  was  no  question  that  he  had  utterly 
misconstrued  her  previous  conduct.  It  was 
very  strange  that  he  could  have  been  such  a 
fool;  but  he  was  quite  too  dazed  to  disen- 
tangle the  evidence  just  then,  and  there  was 
no  doubt  about  the  fact. 

"  Pardon  me,"  he  stammered,  too  much 
overcome  with  confusion  and  chagrin  to  be 
able  to  judge  whether  it  would  have  been  bet- 
ter to  be  silent. 

The  quickness  with  which  the  reply  came 
showed  that  she  had  been  on  the  point  of 
speaking  herself. 

"  You  need  not  ask  my  pardon,"  she  said. 
Her  tones  quivered  with  excitement  and  her 
utterance  was  low  and  swift.  "  I  don't  blame 
you  in  the  least  after  the  way  I  have  talked 
to  you  to-night.  But  I  did  not  mean  that  you 
should  think  lightly  of  me.  I  have  said 
nothing  right,  nothing  that  I  meant  to.  What 
I  wanted  to  have  you  understand  was  that 
I  care  for  you  very  much."  Her  voice 
broke  here,  but  she  caught  her  breath  and 
went  right  on.  "  I  wanted  you  to  know  it 
somehow,  and  since  I  could  not  make  you 
know  it  by  ways  clever  girls  might,  I  thought 
I  would  tell  you  plainly.  It  really  amounts 
to  the  same  thing;  don't  you  think  so? 
and  I  know  you  '11  keep  my  secret.  You 
need  n't  say  anything.  I  know  you  've  noth- 
ing to  say  and  may  never  have.  That  makes 
no  difference.  You  owe  me  nothing  merely 
because  1  care  for  you.  Don't  pity  me.  I  'm 
not  so  much  ashamed  as  you  'd  suppose.  It 
all  seems  so  natural  when  it  's  once  said.  You 
need  n't  be  afraid  of  me.  I  shall  never  say  this 
again  or  trouble  you  at  all.  Only  be  a  little 
good  to  me ;  that  's  all." 

She  delivered  this  little  speech  almost  in 
one  breath,  with  headlong,  explosive  utterance, 
as  if  it  were  something  she  had  to  go  through 
with,  cost  what  it  might,  and  only  wanted 
somehow  to  get  out  the  words,  regardless,  for 
the  time,  of  their  manner  or  effect.  She  ended 
with  an  hysterical  sob,  and  Arthur  felt  her 
hand  tremble  on  his  arm  as  she  struggled  with 
an  emotion  that  threatened  to  overcome  her. 
But  it  was  over  almost  instantly  ;  and  without 
t'.iving  him  a  chance  to  speak,  she  exclaimed, 
with  an  entire  alteration  of  tone  and  manner: 

"  Did  you  see  that  article  in  the  '  Gazette' 
this  morning  about  the  craze  for  collecting 
pottery  which  has  broken  out  in  the  big  cities  ? 
Do  you  suppose  it  will  reach  here  ?  What  do 
you  think  of  it  ?  " 

Now  it  was  perfectly  true,  as  she  had  told 
him,  that  Arthur  had  nothing  whatever  to  say 
in  response  to  the  declaration  she  had  made ; 
but  all  the  same  it  is  possible,  if  she  had  not 
just  so  abruptly  diverted  the  conversation, 


that  he  would  then  and  there  have  placed 
himself  and  all  his  worldly  goods  at  her  dis- 
posal. He  would  have  done  this,  although 
five  minutes  before  he  had  had  no  more  no- 
tion of  marrying  her  than  the  Emperor  of 
China's  daughter,  merely  because  every  manly 
instinct  cried  out  against  permitting  a  nice 
girl  to  protest  her  partiality  for  him  without 
meeting  her  half-way.  Afterward,  when  he 
realized  how  near  he  had  come  to  going  over 
the  verge  of  matrimony,  it  was  with  such 
reminiscent  terror  as  chills  the  blood  of  the 
awakened  sleep-walker  looking  up  at  the  dizzy 
ridge-pole  he  has  trodden  with  but  a  hair's 
breadth  between  him  and  eternity. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  way  to 
Maud's  door  the  conversation  upon  pottery, 
the  weather,  and  miscellaneous  topics  was  in- 
cessant—  almost  breathless,  in  fact.  Arthur 
did  not  know  what  he  was  talking  about,  and 
Maud  probably  no  better  what  she  was  say- 
ing, but  there  was  not  a  moment's  silence.  A 
stranger  meeting  them  would  have  thought, 
"  What  a  remarkably  jolly  couple  !  " 

"  I  'm  much  obliged  for  your  escort,"  said 
Maud,  as  she  stood  upon  her  doorstep. 

"  Not  at  all.  Great  pleasure,  I  'm  sure." 

"  Good-evening." 

"  Good-evening."  And  she  disappeared 
within  the  door. 

Arthur  walked  away  with  a  slow,  mechani- 
cal step.  His  fallen  jaw,  open  mouth,  and 
generally  idiotic  expression  of  countenance 
would  have  justified  his  detention  by  any  po- 
liceman \\ho  might  have  met  him,  on  suspi- 
cion of  being  a  feeble-minded  person  escaped 
from  custody.  Turning  the  first  corner,  he  kept 
on  with  the  same  dragging  step  till  he  came 
to  a  vacant  lot.  Then,  as  if  he  were  too  feeble 
to  get  any  farther,  he  stopped  and  leaned  his 
back  against  the  fence.  Bracing  his  legs  be- 
fore him  so  as  to  serve  as  props,  he  thrust  his 
hands  deep  in  his  pockets,  and  raising  his  eyes 
appealingly  to  the  stars,  ejaculated,  "  Proposed 
to,  by  Jove  !  "  A  period  of  profound  introspec- 
tion followed,  and  tiien  he  broke  forth  :  "  Well, 
I  '11  be  hanged  !  "  emphasizing  each  word 
with  a  slow  nod.  Then  he  began  to  laugh  — 
not  noisily;  scarcely  audibly,  indeed;  but  with 
the  deep  unctuous  chuckle  of  one  who  gloats 
over  some  exquisitely  absurd  situation,  some 
jest  of  many  facets,  each  contributing  its  ray 
of  humor. 

Yet,  if  this  young  man  had  tremblingly  con- 
fessed his  love  to  a  lady,  he  would  have  ex- 
pected her  to  take  it  seriously. 

Nevertheless,  let  us  not  be  too  severe  with 
him  for  laughing.  It  was  what  the  average 
young  man  probably  would  have  done  under 
similar  circumstances,  and  it  was  particularly 
stated  at  the  outset  that  there  was  nothing  at 


A    LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


all  extraordinary  about  Arthur  Burton.  For 
the  rest  it  was  not  a  wholly  bad  symptom. 
1  Lad  he  been  a  conceited  fellow,  he  very  likely 
would  not  have  laughed.  He  would  have 
stroked  his  mustache  and  thought  it  quite 
natural  that  a  woman  should  fall  in  love  with 
him,  and  even  would  have  felt  a  pity  for  the 
poor'  thing.  It  was,  in  fact,  because  he  was 
not  vain  that  he  found  the  idea  so  greatly 
amusing. 

On  parting  with  Arthur,  Maud  rushed  up- 
stairs and  locked  herself  in  her  room.  She 
threw  herself  into  the  first  chair  she  stumbled 
over  in  the  dimly  lighted  apartment,  and  sat 
there  motionless,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  empty 
air  with  an  expression  of  desperation,  her 
hands  clinched  so  tightly  that  the  nails  bit 
the  palms.  She  breathed  only  at  considerable 
intervals,  with  short,  quick  inhalations. 

Yet  the  act  which  caused  this  extraordi- 
nary revulsion  of  feeling  had  not  been  the 
result  of  any  sudden  impulse.  It  was  the  exe- 
cution of  a  deliberate  resolve  which  had  origi- 
nated in  her  mind  on  the  night  of  Lucy 
Merrill's  departure,  as  she  sat  with  her  before 
the  fire,  listening  to  her  fanciful  talk  about  the 
advantages  which  might  be  expected  to  attend 
franker  relations  in  love  affairs  between  men 
and  women.  Deeply  in  love,  and  at  the  same 
time  feeling  that  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
events  she  had  nothing  but  disappointment  to 
look  forward  to,  she  was  in  a  state  of  mind 
just  desperate  enough  to  catch  at  the  idea 
that  if  Arthur  Burton  knew  of  her  love  there 
would  be  some  chance  of  his  returning  it.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  if  he  did  not,  she  could  be 
no  worse  off  than  she  was  already.  She  had 
brooded  over  the  subject  day  and  night  ever 
since,  considering  from  every  point  of  view 
of  abstract  right  or  true  feminine  propriety 
the  question  whether  a  woman  might,  without 
real  prejudice  to  her  maidenly  modesty,  tell  a 
man  that  she  cared  for  him,  without  waiting 
for  him  to  ask  her  to  marry  him.  Her  conclu- 
sion had  been  that  there  was  no  reason,  apart 
from  her  own  feelings,  why  any  woman,  who 
dared  do  it,  should  not;  and  if  she  thought 
her  life's  happiness  dependent  on  her  doing  it, 
that  she  would  be  a  weak  creature  who  did 
not  dare. 

Her  resolve  once  taken,  she  had  only  waited 
an  opportunity  to  carry  it  out ;  and  that  even- 
ing, when  Arthur  offered  to  walk  home  with 
her,  she  felt  that  the  opportunity  had  come. 
Little  wonder  that  she  came  downstairs  from 
the  dressing-room  looking  remarkably  pale, 
and  that  after  they  had  started,  and  she  was 
trying  to  screw  up  her  courage  to  the  speak- 
ing point,  her  responses  to  his  conversational 
efforts  should  have  been  at  random.  It  was 
terribly  hard  work,  this  screwing  up  her  cour- 


age. All  the  fine  arguments  which  had  con- 
vinced her  that  her  intended  course  was 
justifiable  and  right  had  utterly  collapsed. 
She  could  not  recall  one  of  them.  What  she 
had  undertaken  to  do  seemed  shocking,  hate- 
ful, immodest,  scandalous,  impossible.  But 
there  was  a  bed-rock  of  determination  to  her 
character;  and  a  fixed,  dogged  resolve  to  do 
the  thing  she  had  once  made  up  her  mind  to, 
come  what  might,  had  not  permitted  her  to 
draw  back.  Hardly  knowing  what  she  was 
about,  or  the  words  she  was  saying,  she  had 
plunged  blindly  ahead.  Somehow  she  had  got 
through  with  it,  and  now  she  seemed  to  her- 
self to  be  sitting  amidst  the  ruins  of  herwoman- 
hood. 

It  was  particularly  remarked  that  Arthur 
Burton's  laughter,  as  he  leaned  against  the 
fence  a  square  away  in  convulsions  of  merri- 
ment, was  noiseless,  but  it  was  perfectly  audi- 
ble to  Maud,  as  she  sat  in  the  darkness  of  her 
chamber.  Nay,  more:  although  his  thoughts 
were  not  uttered  at  all,  she  overheard  them, 
and  among  them  some  which  the  young  man, 
to  do  him  justice,  had  the  grace  not  to  think. 

The  final  touch  to  her  humiliation  was  im- 
parted by  the  reflection  that  she  had  done  the 
thing  so  stupidly  —  so  blunderingly.  If  she 
must  needs  tell  a  man  she  loved  him,  could 
she  not  have  told  him  in  language  which  at 
least  would  have  been  forcible  and  dignified. 
Instead  of  that,  she  had  begun  with  mawkish 
compliments,  unable  in  her  excitement  to  think 
of  anything  else,  and  ended  with  an  incohe- 
rent jumble  that  barely  escaped  being  hys- 
terical. He  would  think  that  she  was  as 
lacking  in  sense  as  in  womanly  self-respect. 
At  last  she  turned  up  the  gas,  for  very  shame 
avoiding  a  glimpse  of  herself  in  the  mirror  as 
she  did  so,  and  bathed  her  burning  cheeks. 


ii. 

MEANWHILE  Arthur  had  reached  home  and 
was  likewise  sitting  in  his  room,  thinking  the 
matter  over  from  his  point  of  view,  with  the 
assistance  of  a  long-stemmed  pipe.  But  in- 
stead of  turning  the  gas  down,  as  Maud  had 
done,  he  had  turned  it  up,  and,  having  lighted 
all  the  jets  in  the  room,  had  planted  his  chair 
directly  in  front  of  the  big  looking-glass,  so  that 
he  might  enjoy  the  reflection  of  his  own  amuse- 
ment and  be  doubly  entertained. 

By  this  time,  however,  amazement  and 
amusement  had  passed  their  acute  stages.  He 
was  considering  somewhat  more  seriously,  but 
still  with  frequent  attacks  of  mirth,  the  practi- 
cal aspects  of  the  predicament  in  which  Maud's 
declaration  had  placed  him ;  and  the  more  he 
considered  it,  the  more  awkward  as  well  as  ab- 
surd that  predicament  appeared.  They  had 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


the  same  acquaintances,  went  to  the  same  par- 
ties, and  were  very  likely  to  meet  whenever 
they  went  out  of  an  evening.  What  if  she 
should  continue  to  pursue  him  ?  If  she  did, 
he  either  would  have  to  cut  society,  which 
had  promised  to  be  unusually  lively  that  win- 
ter, or  provide  himself  with  a  chaperon  for 
protection,  l-'or  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
was  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  courage 
of  American  girls,  who,  without  a  tremor,  ven- 
ture themselves,  year  in  and  year  out,  in  the 
company  of  gentlemen  from  whom  they  are 
exposed  at  any  time  to  proposals  of  a  tender 
nature.  It  was  a  pity  if  he  could  not  be  as  brave 
as  girls  who  are  afraid  of  a  mouse.  Doubtless  it 
was  all  in  getting  used  to  it. 

On  reflection,  he  should  not  need  a  chaperon. 
Had  she  not  assured  him  that  he  need  not  be 
afraid  of  her,  that  she  would  never  repeat  what 
she  had  said,  or  trouble  him  again  ?  How  her 
arm  trembled  on  his  as  she  was  saying  that,  and 
how  nearshe  came  to  breaking  down!  And  this 
was  Maud  Klliott,  the  girl  with  whom  he  had 
never  ventured  to  flirt  as  with  some  of  the 
others,  because  she  was  so  reserved  and  dis- 
tant. The  very  last  girl  anybody  would  ex- 
pert such  a  thing  from!  If  it  had  been  embar- 
rassing for  him  to  hear  it,  what  must  it  have 
cost  such  a  girl  as  Maud  Elliott  to  say  it!  How 
did  she  ever  muster  the  courage? 

I  Ie  took  the  pipe  from  his  mouth,  and  the  ex- 
ion  of  his  eyes  became  fixed,  while  his 
cheeks  reddened  slowly  and  deeply.  Inputting 
himself  in  Maud's  place  he  was  realizing  for 
the  first  time  how  strong  must  have  been  the 
feeling  which  had  nerved  her  to  such  a  step. 
His  heart  began  to  beat  rather  thickly.  There 
\\  is  something  decidedly  intoxicating  in  know- 
ing that  one  was  regarded  in  such  a  way  by  a 
girl,  even  if  it  were  impossible,  as  it  cer- 
tainly was  in  this  case,  to  reciprocate  the  feel- 
inn.  He  continued  to  put  himself  mentally  in 
Maud's  place.  No  doubt  she  was  also  at  that 
moment  sitting  alone  in  her  chamber,  thinking 
the  matter  over  as  he  was.  She  was  not  laugh- 
ing, however,  that  was  pretty  certain;  and  it 
required  no  clairvoyant's  gift  for  him  to  be 
sensible  that  her  chief  concern  must  be  as 
to  what  he  might  be  at  that  moment  think- 
ing about  her.  And  how  had  he  been  thinking 
about  her? 

As  this  question  came  up  to  his  mind  he 
saw  himself  for  a  moment,  through  Maud's 
eyes,  sitting  there  smoking,  chuckling,  mow- 
ing like  an  idiot  before  the  glass  because,  for- 
sooth, a  girl  had  put  herself  at  his  mercy  on 
the  mistaken  supposition  that  he  was  a  gen- 
tleman. As  he  saw  his  conduct  in  this  new 
light  he  had  such  an  access  of  self-contempt 
that,  had  it  been  physically  convenient,  it  would 
have  been  a  relief  to  kick  himself.  What 


touching  faith  she  had  shown  in  his  ability  to 
take  a  generous,  high-minded  view  of  what 
she  had  done,  and  here  he  had  been  guffaw- 
ing over  it  like  a  corner  loafer.  He  would 
not,  for  anything  in  the  world,  have  her  know 
how  he  had  behaved.  And  she  should  not.  She 
should  never  know  that  he  was  less  a  gentle- 
man than  she  believed  him. 

She  had  told  him,  to  be  sure,  that  he  owed 
her  nothing  because  she  loved  him;  but  it 
had  just  struck  him  that  he  owed  her  at  least, 
on  that  account,  a  more  solicitous  respect 
and  consideration  than  any  one  else  had  the 
right  to  expect  from  him. 

There  were  no  precedents  to  guide  him,  no 
rules  of  etiquette  prescribing  the  proper  thing 
for  a  young  man  to  do  under  such  circum- 
stances as  these.  It  was  a  new  problem  he 
had  to  work  out,  directed  only  by  such  gener- 
ous and  manly  instincts  as  he  might  have. 
Plainly  the  first  thing,  and  in  fact  the  only  thing 
that  he  could  do  for  her,  seeing  that  he  really 
could  not  return  her  affection,  was  to  show  her 
that  she  had  not  forfeited  his  esteem. 

At  first  he  thought  of  writing  her  a  note 
and  assuring  her,  in  a  few  gracefully  turned 
sentences,  of  his  high  respect  in  spite  of  what 
she  had  done.  But  somehow  the  gracefully 
turned  sentences  did  not  occur  to  his  mind 
when  he  took  up  his  pen,  and  it  did  occur  to 
him  that  to  write  persons  that  you  still  respect 
them  is  equivalent  to  intimating  that  their 
conduct  justly  might  have  forfeited  your  re- 
spect. Nor  would  it  be  at  all  easier  to  give 
such  an  assurance  by  word  of  mouth.  In  fact, 
quite  the  reverse.  The  meaning  to  be  conveyed 
was  too  delicate  for  words.  Only  the  unspoken 
language  of  his  manner  and  bearing  could 
express  it  without  offense.  It  might,  how- 
ever, be  some  time  before  chance  brought  them 
together  in  society,  even  if  she  did  not,  for  a 
while  at  least,  purposely  avoid  him.  Meant 
uncertain  how  her  extraordinary  action  had 
impressed  him,  how  was  she  likely  to  enjoy 
her  thoughts  ? 

In  the  generous  spirit  bred  of  his  new  con- 
trition, it  seemed  to  him  a  brutal  thing  to  leave 
her  weeks  or  even  days  in  such  a  condition  of 
mind  as  must  be  hers.  Inaction  on  his  part  was 
all  that  was  required  to  make  her  position  intol- 
erable. Inaction  was  not  therefore  permissible 
to  him.  It  was  a  matter  in  which  he  must  take 
the  initiative,  and  there  seemed  to  be  just  one 
thing  he  could  do  which  would  at  all  answer 
the  purpose.  A  brief  formal  call,  with  the  con- 
versation strictly  limited  to  the  weather  and 
similarly  safe  subjects,  would  make  it  possible 
for  them  to  meet  thereafter  in  society  without 
too  acute  embarrassment.  Had  he  the  pluck 
for  this,  the  nerve  to  carry  it  through  ?  That 
was  the  only  question.  There  was  no  doubt  as 


A   LOVE    STORY  REVERSED. 


33 


to  what  he  ought  to  do.  It  would  be  an 
awkward  call,  to  put  it  mildly.  It  would 
be  skating  on  terribly  thin  ice — a  little 
thinner,  perhaps,  than  a  man  ever  skated  on 
before. 

If  he  could  but  hit  on  some  pretext,  it 
scarcely  mattered  how  thin, —  for  of  course  it 
would  not  be  intended  to  deceive  her, —  the 
interview  possibly  could  be  managed.  As  he 
reflected,  his  eyes  fell  on  a  large  volume,  pur- 
chased in  a  fit  of  extravagance,  which  lay  on 
his  table.  It  was  a  profusely  illustrated  work 
on  pottery,  intended  for  the  victims  of  the  fash- 
ionable craze  on  that  subject,  which  at  the  date 
of  these  events  had  but. recently  reached  the 
United  States.  His  face  lighted  up  with  a  sud- 
den inspiration,  and  taking  a  pen  he  wrote  the 
following  note  to  Maud,  dating  it  the  next 
day: 

Miss  ELLIOTT  : 

Our  conversation  last  evening  on  the  subject  of  old 
china  has  suggested  to  me  that  you  might  be  interested 
in  looking  over  the  illustrations  in  the  volume  which  I 
take  the  liberty  of  sending  with  this.  If  you  will  be 
at  home  this  evening  I  shall  be  pleased  to  call  and 
learn  your  impressions. 

ARTHUR  BURTON. 

The  next  morning  he  sent  this  note  and  the 
book  to  Maud,  and  that  evening  called  upon 
her.  To  say  that  he  did  not  twist  his  mus- 
tache rather  nervously  as  he  stood  upon  the 
doorstep,  waiting  for  the  servant  to  answer  the 
bell,  would  be  to  give  him  credit  for  altogether 
more  nerve  than  he  deserved.  He  was  sup- 
ported by  the  consciousness  that  he  was  doing 
something  rather  heroic,  but  he  very  much 
wished  it  were  done.  As  he  was  shown  into 
the  parlor,  Maud  came  forward  to  meet  him. 
She  wore  a  costume  which  set  off  her  fine  fig- 
ure to  striking  advantage,  and  he  was  surprised 
to  perceive  that  he  had  never  before  appreci- 
ated what  a  handsome  girl  she  was.  It  was 
strange  that  he  should  never  have  particularly 
observed  before  what  beautiful  hands  she  had, 
and  what  a  dazzling  fairness  of  complexion 
was  the  complement  of  her  red-brown  hair. 
Could  it  be  this  stately  maiden  who  had  ut- 
tered those  wild  words  the  night  before? 
Could  those  breathless  tones,  that  piteous 
shamefacedness,  have  been  hers  ?  Surely  he 
must  be  the  victim  of  some  strange  self-delu- 
sion. Only  the  deep  blush  that  mantled  her 
face  as  she  spoke  his  name,  the  quickness  with 
which,  after  one  swift  glance,  her  eyes  avoided 
his,  and  the  tremor  of  her  hand  as  he  touched 
it,  fully  assured  him  that  he  had  not  dreamed 
the  whole  thing. 

A  shaded  lamp  was  on  the  center-table, 
where  also  Arthur's  book  on  pottery  lay  open. 
After  thanking  him  for  sending  it  and  express- 
ing the  pleasure  she  had  taken  in  looking  it 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 5. 


over,  Maud  plunged  at  once  into  a  discussion 
of  Sevres,  and  Cloisonne,  and  Palissy,  and  tiles, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  Arthur  bravely 
kept  his  end  up.  Any  one  who  had  looked 
casually  into  the  parlor  would  have  thought 
that  old  crockery  was  the  most  absorbing  sub- 
ject on  earth  to  these  young  people,  with  such 
eagerness  did  they  compare  opinions  and  de- 
bate doubtful  points.  At  length,  however, 
even  pottery  gave  out  as  a  resource,  especially 
as  Arthur  ceased,  after  a  while,  to  do  his  part, 
and  silences  began  to  ensue,  during  which 
Maud  rapidly  turned  the  pages  of  the  book  or 
pretended  to  be  deeply  impressed  with  the 
illustrations,  while  her  cheeks  grew  hotter  and 
hotter  under  Arthur's  gaze.  He  knew  that  he 
was  a  detestable  coward  thus  to  revel  in  her 
confusion,  when  he  ought  to  be  trying  to  cover 
it,  but  it  was  such  a  novel  sensation  to  occupy 
this  masterful  attitude  towards  a  young  lady 
that  he  yielded  basely  to  the  temptation. 
After  all,  it  was  but  fair.  Had  she  not  caused 
him  a  very  embarrassing  quarter  of  an  hour  the 
night  before  ? 

"  I  suppose  I  shall  see  you  at  Miss  Oswald's 
next  Thursday,"  he  said,  as  he  rose  to  take  his 
leave. 

She  replied  that  she  hoped  to  be  there.  She 
accompanied  him  to  the  door  of  the  parlor. 
There  was  less  light  there  than  immediately 
about  the  table  where  they  had  been  sitting. 
"  Good-evening,"  he  said.  "  Good-evening," 
she  replied ;  and  then,  in  a  lowered  voice,  hard- 
ly above  a  whisper,  she  added,  "  I  appreciate 
all  that  was  noble  and  generous  in  your  com- 
ing to-night."  He  made  no  reply,  but  took 
her  hand  and,  bending  low,  pressed  his  lips 
to  it  as  reverently  as  if  she  had  been  a 
queen. 

Now  Arthur's  motive  in  making  this  call 
upon  Maud,  which  has  been  described,  had 
been  entirely  unselfish.  Furthest  from  his 
mind,  of  all  ideas,  had  been  any  notion  of 
pursuing  the  conquest  of  her  heart  which  he 
had  inadvertently  made.  Nevertheless,  the 
effect  of  his  call,  and  that,  too,  even  before  it  was 
made, —  if  this  bull  maybe  pardoned, —  had 
been  to  complete  that  conquest  as  no  other 
device,  however  studied,  could  have  done. 

The  previous  night  Maud  had  been  unable 
to  sleep  for  shame.  Her  cheeks  scorched  the 
pillows  faster  than  her  tears  could  cool  them; 
and  altogether  her  estate  was  so  wretched  that 
Lucy  Merritt,  could  she  have  looked  in  upon 
her,  possibly  might  have  been  shaken  in  her 
opinion  as  to  the  qualifications  of  women  to 
play  the  part  of  men  in  love,  even  if  permitted 
by  society. 

It  had  been  hard  enough  to  nerve  herself  to 
the  point  of  doing  what  she  had  done  in  view 
of  the  embarrassments  she  had  foreseen.  An 


34 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


hour  after  she  uttered  those  fatal  words  her 
whole  thinking  was  summed  up  in  the  cry, 
"  If  I  only  had  not  done  it,  then  at  least  he 
would  still  respect  me."  In  the  morning  she 
looked  like  one  in  a  fever.  Her  eyes  were  red 
and  swollen,  her  face  was  pallid  but  for  a  hard 
red  spot  in  each  cheek,  and  her  whole  ap- 
pearance was  expressive  of  bodily  and  mental 
prostration.  She  did  not  go  down  to  breakfast, 
pleading  a  very  genuine  headache,  and  Arthur's 
note  and  the  book  on  pottery  were  brought  up 
to  her.  She  guessed  his  motive  in  a  moment. 
Her  need  gave  her  the  clew  to  his  meaning. 

What  was  on  Arthur's  part  merely  a  decent 
sort  of  thing  to  do,  her  passionate  gratitude 
instantly  magnified  into  an  act  of  chivalrous 
generosity,  proving  him  the  noblest  of  men 
and  the  gentlest  of  gentlemen.  She  exagger- 
ated the  abjectness  of  the  position  from  which 
his  action  had  rescued  her,  in  order  to  feel 
that  she  owed  the  more  to  his  nobility.  At 
any  time  during  the  previous  night  she  gladly 
would  have  given  ten  years  of  her  life  to 
recall  the  confession  that  she  had  made  to 
him;  now  she  told  herself,  with  a  burst  of  ex- 
ultant tears,  that  she  would  not  recall  it  if 
she  could.  She  had  made  no  mistake.  Her 
womanly  dignity  was  safe  in  his  keeping. 
Whether  he  ever  returned  her  love  or  not 
she  was  not  ashamed,  but  was  glad,  and 
always  should  be  glad,  that  he  knew  she 
loved  him. 

As  for  Arthur,  the  reverence  with  which  he 
bent  over  her  hand  on  leaving  her  was  as 
heartfelt  as  it  was  graceful.  In  her  very  dis- 
regard of  conventional  decorum  she  had  im- 
pressed him  the  more  strikingly  with  the 
native  delicacy  and  refinement  of  her  charac- 
ter. It  had  been  reserved  for  her  to  show 
him  how  genuine  a  thing  is  womanly  modesty, 
and  how  far  from  being  dependent  on  those 
conventional  affectations  with  which  it  is  in 
the  vulgar  mind  so  often  identified,  with  the 
effect  of  seeming  as  artificial  as  they. 

When,  a  few  evenings  later,  he  went  to 
Miss  Oswald's  party,  the  leading  idea  in  his 
mind  was  that  he  should  meet  Maud  there. 
His  eyes  sought  her  out  the  moment  he  en- 
tered the  Oswald  parlors,  but  it  was  some  time 
before  he  approached  her.  For  years  he  had 
been  constantly  meeting  her,  but  he  had  never 
before  taken  special  note  of  her  appearance 
in  company.  He  had  a  curiosity  about  her 
now  as  lively  as  it  was  wholly  new.  He  took 
a  great  interest  in  observing  how  she  walked 
and  talked  and  laughed,  how  she  sat  down 
and  rose  up  and  demeaned  herself.  It  gave 
him  an  odd  but  marked  gratification  to  note 
how  favorably  she  compared  in  style  and 
appearance  with  the  girls  present.  Even 
while  he  was  talking  with  Ella  Perry,  with 


whom  he  believed  himself  in  love,  he  was  so 
busy  making  these  observations  that  Ella 
dismissed  him  with  the  sarcastic  advice  to 
follow  his  eyes,  which  he  presently  proceeded 
to  do. 

Maud  greeted  him  with  a  very  fair  degree 
of  self-possession,  though  her  cheeks  were 
delightfully  rosy.  At  first  it  was  evidently 
difficult  for  her  to  talk,  and  her  embarrassment 
betrayed  uncertainty  as  to  the  stability  of  the 
conventional  footing  which  his  call  of  the 
other  evening  had  established  between  them. 
Gradually,  however,  the  easy,  nonchalant  tone 
which  he  affected  seemed  to  give  her  confi- 
dence, and  she  talkeij  more  easily.  Her  color 
continued  to  be  unusually  though  not  unbe- 
comingly high,  and  it  took  a  great  deal  of 
skirmishing  for  him  to  get  a  glance  from  her 
eyes,  but  her  embarrassment  was  no  longer 
distressing.  Arthur,  indeed,  was  scarcely  in  a 
mood  to  notice  that  she  did  not  bear  her  full 
part  in  the  conversation.  The  fact  of  con- 
versing on  any  terms  with  a  young  lady  who 
had  confessed  to  him  what  Maud  had  was 
so  piquant  in  itself  that  it  would  have  made 
talk  in  the  deaf-and-dumb  alphabet  viva- 
cious. All  the  while,  as  they  laughed  and 
talked  together  quite  as  any  other  two  young 
people  might  do,  those  words  of  hers  the 
other  night:  "  I  care  for  you  very  much," 
"  Be  a  little  good  to  me,"  were  ringing  in  his 
ears.  The  reflection  that  by  virtue  of  her  con- 
fession of  love  she  was  his  whenever  he 
should  wish  to  claim  her,  even  though  he 
never  should  claim  her,  was  constantly  in  his 
mind,  and  gave  him  a  sense  of  potential  pro- 
prietorship which  was  decidedly  heady. 

"  Arthur  Burton  seems  to  be  quite  fasci- 
nated. I  never  supposed  that  he  fancied 
Maud  Elliott  before,  did  you  ?  "  said  one  of 
the  young  ladies,  a  little  maliciously,  to  Ella 
Perry.  Ella  tossed  her  head  and  replied  that 
really  she  had  never  troubled  herself  about 
Mr.  Burton's  fancies,  which  was  not  true.  The 
fact  is,  she  was  completely  puzzled  as  well  as 
vexed  by  Arthur's  attentions  to  Maud.  There 
was  not  a  girl  in  her  set  of  whom  she  would 
not  sooner  Have  thought  as  a  rival.  Arthur 
had  never,  to  her  knowledge,  talked  for  five 
minutes  together  with  Maud  before,  and  here 
he  was  spending  half  the  evening  in  an  en- 
grossing tete-a-tete  with  her  to  the  neglect  of 
his  other  acquaintances  and  of  herself  in  par- 
ticular. Maud  was  looking  very  well,  co  be 
sure,  but  no  better  than  often  before,  when  he 
had  not  glanced  at  her  a  second  time.  What 
might  be  the  clew  to  this  mystery?  She  re- 
membered, upon  reflection,  that  he  had  escort- 
ed Maud  home  from  the  party  at  her  own 
house  the  week  before,  but  that  explained 
nothing.  Ella  was  aware  of  no  weapon  in 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


35 


the  armory  of  her  sex  capable  of  effecting  the 
subjugation  of  a  previously  quite  indifferent 
young  man  in  the  course  of  a  ten-minutes' 
walk.  If,  indeed,  such  weapons  there  had 
been,  Maud  Elliott,  the  most  reserved  and 
diffident  girl  of  her  acquaintance, — "  stiff  and 
pokerish,"  Ella  called  her, —  was  the  last  per- 
son likely  to  employ  them.  It  must  be,  Ella 
was  forced  to  conclude,  that  Arthur  was  try- 
ing to  punish  her  for  snubbing  him  by  devoting 
himself  to  Maud;  and,  having  adopted  this 
conclusion,  the  misguided  damsel  proceeded 
to  flirt  vigorously  with  a  young  man  whom 
she  detested. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  evening,  when  Ar- 
thur was  looking  again  for  Maud,  he  learned 
that  she  had  gone  home,  a  servant  having 
come  to  fetch  her.  The  result  was  that  he 
went  home  alone,  Ella  Perry  having  informed 
him  rather  crushingly  that  she  had  accorded 
the  honor  of  escorting  herself  to  another.  He 
was  rather  vexed  at  Ella's  jilting  him,  though 
he  admitted  that  she  might  have  fancied  she 
had  some  excuse. 

A  few  days  later  he  called  on  her,  expect- 
ing to  patch  up  their  little  misunderstanding,  as 
on  previous  occasions.  She  was  rather  offish, 
but  really  would  have  been  glad  to  make  up 
had  he  shown  the  humility  and  tractableness 
he  usually  manifested  after  their  tiffs ;  but  he 
was  not  in  a  humble  frame  of  mind,  and,  after  a 
brief  and  unsatisfactory  call,  took  his  leave. 
The  poor  girl  was  completely  puzzled.  What 
had  come  over  Arthur?  She  had  snubbed 
him  no  more  than  usual  that  night,  and  gen- 
erally he  took  it  very  meekly.  She  would  have 
opened  her  eyes  very  wide  indeed  if  she  had 
guessed  what  there  had  been  in  his  recent  ex- 
perience to  spoil  his  appetite  for  humble-pie. 

It  was  not  late  when  he  left  Ella,  and  as 
he  passed  Maud's  house  he  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  of  going  in.  This  time  he  did 
not  pretend  to  himself  that  he  sought  her  from 
any  but  entirely  selfish  motives.  He  wanted 
to  remove  the  unpleasantly  acid  impression 
left  by  his  call  on  Ella  by  passing  an  hour  with 
some  one  whom  he  knew  would  be  glad  to  see 
him  and  not  be  afraid  to  let  him  know  it.  In 
this  aim  he  was  quite  successful.  Maud's  face 
fairly  glowed  with  glad  surprise  when  he  en- 
tered the  room.  This  was  their  second  meet- 
ing since  the  evening  Arthur  had  called  to 
talk  pottery,  and  the  tacit  understanding  that 
her  tender  avowal  was  to  be  ignored  between 
them  had  become  so  well  established  that 
they  could  converse  quite  at  their  ease.  But 
ignoring  is  not  forgetting.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  implies  a  constant  remembering;  and  the 
mutual  consciousness  between  these  young 
people  could  scarcely  fail  to  give  a  peculiar 
piquancy  to  their  intercourse. 


That  evening  was  the  first  of  many  which 
the  young  man  passed  in  Maud's  parlor,  and 
the  beginning  of  an  intimacy  which  caused  no 
end  of  wonder  among  their  acquaintances. 
Had  its  real  nature  been  suspected,  that  won- 
der would  have  been  vastly  increased.  For 
whereas  they  supposed  it  to  be  an  entirely 
ordinary  love  affair,  except  in  the  abruptness 
of  its  development,  it  was,  in  fact,  a  quite  ex- 
traordinary variation  on  the  usual  social  rela- 
tions of  young  men  and  women. 

Maud's  society  had  in  fact  not  been  long  in 
acquiring  an  attraction  for  Arthur  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  peculiar  circumstances  under 
which  he  had  first  become  interested  in  her. 
As  soon  as  she  began  to  feel  at  ease  with  him 
her  shyness  rapidly  disappeared,  and  he  was 
astonished  to  discover  that  the  stiff,  silent  girl 
whom  he  had  thought  rather  dull  possessed 
culture  and  originality  such  as  few  girls  of  his 
acquaintance  could  lay  claim  to.  His  assur- 
ance beyond  possibility  of  doubt  that  she  was 
as  really  glad  to  see  him  whenever  he  called 
as  she  said  she  was,  and  that  though  his  speech 
might  be  dull  or  his  jests  poor  they  were  sure 
of  a  friendly  critic,  made  the  air  of  her  parlor 
wonderfully  genial.  The  result  was  that  he 
fell  into  a  habit  whenever  he  wanted  a  little 
social  relaxation,  but  felt  too  tired,  dispirited, 
or  lazy  for  the  effort  of  a  call  on  any  of  the 
other  girls,  of  going  to  Maud.  One  evening 
he  said  to  her  just  as  he  was  leaving,  "  If  I 
come  here  too  much,  you  must  send  me  home." 

"  I  will  when  you  do,"  she  replied,  with  a 
bright  smile. 

"  But  really,"  he  persisted,  "  I  am  afraid  I 
bore  you  by  coming  so  often." 

"  You  know  better  than  that,"  was  her  only 
reply,  but  the  vivid  blush  which  accompanied 
the  words  was  a  sufficient  enforcement  of  them ; 
and  he  was,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  very 
glad  to  think  he  did  know  better. 

Without  making  any  pretense  of  being  in 
love  with  her,  he  had  come  to  depend  on  her 
being  in  love  with  him.  It  had  grown  so 
pleasing  to  count  on  her  loyalty  to  him  that  a 
change  in  her  feelings  would  have  been  a  dis- 
agreeable surprise.  Getting  something  for 
nothing  is  a  mode  of  acquisition  particularly 
pleasing  to  mankind,  and  he  was  enjoying  in 
some  respects  the  position  of  an  engaged  man 
without  any  of  the  responsibilities. 

But  if  in  some  respects  he  was  in  the  posi- 
tion of  an  engaged  man,  in  others  he  was  far- 
ther from  it  than  the  average  unengaged  man. 
For  while  Maud  and  he  talked  of  almost 
everything  else  under  heaven,  the  subject  of 
love  was  tabooed  between  them.  Once  for  all 
Maud  had  said  her  say  on  that  point,  and  Ar- 
thur could  say  nothing  unless  he  said  as  much 
as  she  had  said.  For  the  same  reason,  there 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


was  never  any  approach  to  flirting  between 
them.  Any  trifling  of  that  sort  would  have 
been  meaningless  in  an  intimacy  begun,  as 
theirs  had  been,  at  a  point  beyond  where  most 
flirtations  end. 

Not  only  in  this  respect,  but  also  in  the  sin- 
gular frankness  which  marked  their  interchange 
of  thought  and  opinion,  was  there  something 
in  their  relation  savoring  of  that  of  brother 
and  sister.  It  was  as  if  her  confession  of  love 
had  swept  away  by  one  breath  the  whole  lat- 
tice of  conventional  affectations  through  which 
young  men  and  women  usually  talk  with  each 
other.  Once  for  all  she  had  dropped  her  guard 
with  him,  and  he  could  not  do  less  with  her. 
He  found  himself  before  long  talking  more 
freely  to  her  than  to  any  others  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, and  about  more  serious  matters.  They 
talked  of  their  deepest  beliefs  and  convictions, 
and  he  told  her  things  that  he  had  never  told 
any  one  before.  Why  should  he  not  tell  her 
his  secrets?  Had  she  not  told  him  hers?  It 
was  a  pleasure  to  reciprocate  her  confidence 
if  he  could  not  her  love.  He  had  not  supposed 
it  to  be  possible  for  a  man  to  become  so  closely 
acquainted  with  a  young  lady  not  a  relative. 
It  came  to  the  point  finally  that  when  they 
met  in  company,  the  few  words  that  he  might 
chance  to  exchange  with  her  were  pitched  in 
a  different  key  from  that  used  with  the  others, 
such  as  one  drops  into  when  greeting  a  rela- 
tive or  familiar  friend  met  in  a  throng  of 
strangers. 

Of  course,  all  this  had  not  come  at  once.  It 
was  in  winter  that  the  events  took  place  with 
which  this  narrative  opened.  Winter  had 
meantime  glided  into  spring,  and  spring  had 
become  summer.  In  the  early  part  of  June 
a  report  that  Arthur  Burton  and  Maud  Elliott 
were  engaged  obtained  circulation,  and,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  he  had  so  long  been  appar- 
ently devoted  to  her,  was  generally  believed. 
Whenever  Maud  went  out  she  met  congratu- 
lations on  every  side,  and  had  to  reply  a 
dozen  times  a  day  that  there  was  no  truth  in 
the  story,  and  smilingly  declare  that  she  could 
not  imagine  how  it  started.  After  doing  which, 
she  would  go  home  and  cry  all  night,  for 
Arthur  was  not  only  not  engaged  to  her,  but 
she  had  come  to  know  in  her  heart  that  he 
never  would  be. 

At  first,  and  indeed  for  a  long  time,  she  was 
so  proud  of  the  frank  and  loyal  friendship  be- 
tween them,  such  as  she  was  sure  had  never 
before  existed  between  unplighted  man  and 
maid,  that  she  would  have  been  content  to 
wait  half  her  lifetime  for  him  to  learn  to  love 
her,  if  only  she  were  sure  that  he  would  at  last. 
But,  after  all,  it  was  the  hope  of  his  love,  not 
his  friendship,  that  had  been  the  motive  of 
her  desperate  venture.  As  month  after  month 


passed,  and  he  showed  no  symptoms  of  any  feel- 
ing warmer  than  esteem,  but  always  in  the  midst 
of  his  cordiality  was  so  careful  lest  he  should 
do  or  say  anything  to  arouse  unfounded  ex- 
pectations in  her  mind,  she  lost  heart  and  felt 
that  what  she  had  hoped  was  not  to  be.  She 
said  to  herself  that  the  very  fact  that  he  was 
so  much  her  friend  should  have  warned  her 
that  he  would  never  be  her  lover,  for  it  is  not 
often  that  lovers  are  made  out  of  friends. 

It  is  always  embarrassing  for  a  young  lady 
to  have  to  deny  a  report  of  her  engagement, 
especially  when  it  is  a  report  she  would  will- 
ingly have  true;  but  what  made  it  particularly 
distressing  for  Maud  that  this  report  should 
have  got  about  was  her  belief  that  it  would  be 
the  means  of  bringing  to  an  end  the  relations 
between  them.  It  would  undoubtedly  remind 
Arthur,  by  showing  how  the  public  interpreted 
their  friendship,  that  his  own  prospects  in 
other  quarters,  and  he  might  even  think  jus- 
tice .to  her  future,  demanded  the  discontinu- 
ance of  attentions  which  must  necessarily  be 
misconstrued  by  the  world.  The  public  had 
been  quite  right  in  assuming  that  it  was  time 
for  them  to  be  engaged.  Such  an  intimacy  as 
theirs  between  a  young  man  and  a  young 
woman,  unless  it  were  to  end  in  an  engage- 
ment, had  no  precedent  and  belonged  to  no 
known  social  category.  It  was  vain,  in  the 
long  run,  to  try  to  live  differently  from  other 
people. 

The  pangs  of  an  accusing  conscience  com- 
pleted her  wretchedness  at  this  time.  The 
conventional  proprieties  are  a  law  written  on 
the  hearts  of  refined,  delicately  nurtured  girls; 
and  though,  in  the  desperation  of  unrecipro- 
cated and  jealous  love,  she  had  dared  to  vio- 
late them,  not  the  less  did  they  now  thoroughly 
revenge  themselves.  If  her  revolt  against  cus- 
tom had  resulted  happily,  it  is  not  indeed  likely 
that  she  would  ever  have  reproached  herself 
very  seriously ;  but  now  that  it  had  issued  in 
failure,  her  self-confidence  was  gone  and  her 
conscience  easily  convicted  her  of  sin.  The 
outraged  Proprieties,  with  awful  spectacles  and 
minatory,  reproachful  gestures,  crowded  night- 
ly around  her  bed,  the  Titanic  shade  of  Mrs. 
Grundy  looming  above  her  satellite  shams  and 
freezing  her  blood  with  a  Gorgon  gaze.  The 
feeling  that  she  had  deserved  all  that  was  to 
come  upon  her  deprived  her  of  moral  support. 

Arthur  had  never  showed  that  he  thought 
cheaply  of  her,  but  in  his  heart  of  hearts  how 
could  he  help  doing  so  ?  Compared  with  the 
other  girls,  serene  and  unapproachable  in  their 
virgin  pride,  must  she  not  necessarily  seem 
bold,  coarse,  and  common  ?  That  he  took  care 
never  to  let  her  see  it  only  proved  his  kind- 
ness of  heart.  Her  sense  of  this  kindness  was 
more  and  more  touched  with  abjectness. 


A   LOVE   STORY  REVERSED. 


37 


The  pity  of  it  was  that  she  had  come  to 
love  him  so  much  more  since  she  had  known 
him  so  well.  It  scarcely  seemed  to  her  now 
that  she  could  have  truly  cared  for  him  at  all 
in  the  old  days,  and  she  wondered,  as  she 
looked  back,  that  the  shallow  emotion  she  then 
experienced  had  emboldened  her  to  do  what 
she  had  done.  Ah,  why  had  she  done  it  ? 
Why  had  she  not  let  him  go  his  way  ?  She 
might  have  suffered  then,  but  not  such  heart- 
breaking misery  as  was  now  in  store  for  her. 

Some  weeks  passed  with  no  marked  change 
in  their  relations,  except  that  a  new  and 
marked  constraint  which  had  come  over  Ar- 
thur's manner  towards  her  was  additional  evi- 
dence that  the  end  was  at  hand.  Would  he 
think  it  better  to  say  nothing,  but  merely  come 
to  see  her  less  and  less  frequently  and  so  de- 
sert her,  without  an  explanation,  which,  after 
all,  was  needless  ?  Or  would  he  tell  her  how 
the  matter  stood  and  say  good-bye  ?  She 
thought  he  would  take  the  latter  course,  see- 
ing that  they  had  always  been  so  frank  with 
each  other.  She  tried  to  prepare  herself  for 
what  she  knew  was  coming,  and  to  get  ready 
to  bear  it.  The  only  result  was  that  she  grew 
sick  with  apprehension  whenever  he  did  not 
call,  and  was  only  at  ease  when  he  was  with 
her,  in  the  moment  that  he  was  saying  good- 
bye without  having  uttered  the  dreaded  words. 

The  end  came  during  a  call  which  he  made 
on  her  in  the  last  part  of  June.  He  appeared 
preoccupied  and  moody,  and  said  scarcely 
anything.  Several  times  she  caught  him  fur- 
tively regarding  her  with  a  very  strange  ex- 
pression. She  tried  to  talk,  but  she  could  not 
alone  keep  up  the  conversation,  and  in  time 
there  came  a  silence.  A  hideous  silence  it  was 
to  Maud,  an  abyss  yawning  to  swallow  up  all 
that  was  left  of  her  happiness.  She  had  no 
more  power  to  speak,  and  when  he  spoke  she 
knew  it  would  be  to  utter  the  words  she  had 
so  long  expected.  Evidently  it  was  very  hard 
for  him  to  bring  himself  to  utter  them  — almost 
as  hard  as  it  would  be  for  her  to  hear  them. 
He  was  very  tender-hearted  she  had  learned 
already.  Even  in  that  moment  she  was  very 
sorry  for  him.  It  was  all  her  fault  that  he  had 
to  say  this  to  her. 

Suddenly,  just  as  she  must  have  cried  out, 
unable  to  bear  the  tension  of  suspense  any 
longer,  he  rose  abruptly  to  his  feet,  uttering 
something  about  going  and  an  engagement 
which  he  had  almost  forgotten.  Hastily  wish- 
ing her  good-evening,  with  hurried  steps  he 
half- crossed  the  room,  hesitated,  stopped, 
looked  back  at  her,  seemed  to  waver  a  mo- 
ment, and  then,  as  if  moved  by  a  sudden  de- 
cision, returned  to  her  and  took  her  gently  by 
the  hand.  Then  she  knew  it  was  coming. 

For  a  long  moment  he  stood  looking  at  her. 


She  knew  just  the  pitifulness  that  was  in  his 
expression,  but  she  could  not  raise  her  eyes 
to  his.  She  tried  to  summon  her  pride,  her 
dignity,  to  her  support.  But  she  had  no  pride, 
no  dignity,  left.  She  had  surrendered  them 
long  ago. 

"  I  have  something  to  say  to  you,"  he  said, 
in  a  tone  full  of  gentleness,  just  as  she  had 
known  he  would  speak.  "  It  is  something 
I  have  put  off  saying  as  long  as  possible, 
and  perhaps  you  have  already  guessed  what 
it  is." 

Maud  felt  the  blood  leaving  her  face  ;  the 
room  spun  around  ;  she  was  afraid  she  should 
faint.  It  only  remained  that  she  should  break 
down  now  to  complete  her  humiliation  before 
him,  and  apparently  she  was  going  to  do  just 
that. 

"  We  have  had  a  most  delightful  time  the 
past  year,"  he  went  on ;  "  that  is,  at  least  I  have. 
I  don't  believe  the  friendship  of  a  girl  was 
ever  so  much  to  a  man  as  yours  has  been  to 
me.  I  doubt  if  there  ever  was  just  such  a 
friendship  as  ours  has  been,  anyway.  I  shall 
always  look  back  on  it  as  the  rarest  and  most 
charming  passage  in  my  life.  But  I  have 
seen  for  some  time  that  we  could  not  go  on 
much  longer  on  the  present  footing,  and  to- 
night it  has  come  over  me  that  we  can't  go  on 
even  another  day.  Maud,  I  can't  play  at 
being  friends  with  you  one  hour  more.  I  love 
you.  Do  you  care  for  me  still  ?  Will  you  be 
my  wife  ?  " 

When  it  is  remembered  that  up  to  his  last 
words  she  had  been  desperately  bracing  her- 
self against  an  announcement  of  a  most  op- 
posite nature,  it  will  not  seem  strange  that 
for  a  moment  Maud  had  difficulty  in  realiz- 
ing just  what  had  happened.  She  looked  at 
him  as  if  dazed,  and  with  an  instinct  of  be- 
wilderment drew  back  a  little  as  he  would 
have  clasped  her.  "  I  thought,"  she  stam- 
mered — "  I  thought  —  I  —  " 

He  misconstrued  her  hesitation.  His  eyes 
darkened  and  his  voice  was  sharpened  with  a 
sudden  fear  as  he  exclaimed,  "  I  know  it  was 
a  long  time  ago  you  told  me  that.  Perhaps 
you  don't  feel  the  same  way  now.  Don't  tell 
me,  Maud,  that  you  don't  care  for  me  any 
longer,  now  that  I  have  learned  I  can't  do 
without  you." 

A  look  of  wondering  happiness,  scarcely 
able  even  yet  to  believe  in  its  own  reality, 
had  succeeded  the  bewildered  incredulity  in 
her  face. 

"  O  Arthur !  "  she  cried.  "  Do  you  really 
mean  it  ?  Are  you  sure  it  is  not  out  of  pity 
that  you  say  this  ?  Do  you  love  me  after  all  ? 
Would  you  really  like  me  a  little  to  be  your 
wife?" 

"  If  you  are  not  my  wife,  I  shall  never  have 


THE    TWILIGHT  OF   THE  HEART. 


one,"  he  replied.  "  You  have  spoiled  all  other 
women  for  me." 

Then  she  let  him  take  her  in  his  arms,  and 
as  his  lips  touched  hers  for  the  first  time  he 
faintly  wondered  if  it  were  possible  he  had 
ever  dreamed  of  any  other  woman  but  Maud 
Elliott  as  his  wife.  After  she  had  laughed  and 
cried  awhile,  she  said : 

"  How  was  it  that  you  never  let  me  see  you 
cared  for  me  ?  You  never  showed  it." 

"  I  tried  not  to,"  he  replied ;  "  and  I  would 
not  have  shown  it  to-night  if  I  could  have 
helped  it.  I  tried  to  get  away  without  betray- 
ing my  secret,  but  I  could  not."  Then  he 
told  her  that  when  he  found  he  had  fallen  in 
love  with  her,  he  was  almost  angry  with  him- 
self. He  was  so  proud  of  their  friendship  that 
a  mere  love  affair  seemed  cheap  and  common 
beside  it.  Any  girl  would  do  to  fall  in  love 
with ;  but  there  was  not,  he  was  sure,  another 
in  America  capable  of  bearing  her  part  in  such 
a  rare  and  delicate  companionship  as  theirs. 
He  was  determined  to  keep  up  their  noble 
game  of  friendship  as  long  as  might  be. 

Afterward,  during  the  evening,  he  boasted 
himself  to  her  not  a  little  of  the  self-control 


he  had  shown  in  hiding  his  passion  so  long, 
a  feat  the  merit  of  which  perhaps  she  did  not 
adequately  appreciate. 

"  Many  a  time  in  the  last  month  or  two 
when  you  have  been  saying  good-bye  to  me 
of  an  evening,  with  your  hand  in  mine,  the 
temptation  has  been  almost  more  than  I  could 
withstand  to  seize  you  in  my  arms.  It  was 
all  the  harder,  you  see,  because  I  fancied  you 
would  not  be  very  angry  if  I  did.  In  fact,  you 
once  gave  me  to  understand  as  much  in  pretty 
plain  language,  if  I  remember  rightly.  Pos- 
sibly you  may  recall  the  conversation.  You 
took  the  leading  part  in  it,  I  believe." 

Maud  had  bent  her  head  so  low  that  he 
could  not  see  her  face.  It  was  very  cruel  in 
him,  but  he  deliberately  took  her  chin  in  his 
hands,  and  gently  but  firmly  turned  her  face 
up  to  his.  Then,  as  he  kissed  the  shamed  eyes 
and  furiously  blushing  cheeks,  he  dropped  the 
tone  of  banter  and  said,  with  moist  eyes,  in  a 
voice  of  solemn  tenderness : 

"  My  brave  darling,  with  all  my  life  I  will 
thank  you  for  the  words  you  spoke  that  night. 
But  for  them  I  might  have  missed  the  wife 
God  meant  for  me." 

Edward  Bellamy. 


THE    TWILIGHT    OF    THE     HEART. 


WHEN  day  is  dying  in  the  west, 
Through  shadows  faint  and  far, 
It  holds  upon  its  gentle  breast 

A  tender,  nursling  star, 
As  if  to  symbolize  above 
How  shines  a  fair  young  mother's  love. 
I  watch  the  sun  depart; 

A  whisper  seems  to  say : 
So  comes  the  twilight  of  the  heart, 
More  beautiful  than  day. 

The  listless  summer  sleeps  in  green 

Among  my  orange  flowers ; 
The  lazy  south  wind  steals  between 

The  lips  of  languid  hours, 
As  if  Endymion,  lapped  in  fern, 
Lay  dreaming  of  the  moon's  return. 
The  long  years  seem  to  part 

Like  shadows  cold  and  gray, 
To  show  the  twilight  of  the  heart 
More  beautiful  than  day. 


Old  hopes  and  wishes  seem  to  breathe 

The  gentle  evening  air, 
Of  love  and  sorrow  laid  beneath 

A  faded  fold  of  hair. 
Life  had  no  other  love  to  give, 
Love  had  no  other  life  to  live. 

What  though  the  tears  must  start 

For  sorrows  passed  away  ; 

There  is  a  twilight  of  the  heart 

More  beautiful  than  day. 

I  seem  to  see  the  smiling  eyes 

That  loved  me  long  ago 
Look  down  the  pure  and  tranquil  skies 

From  out  the  after-glow  ; 
The  still  delight,  the  smiles  and  tears, 
Come  back  through  all  the  silent  years 
In  which  we  are  apart, 

As  if  they  wished  to  say : 
This  is  the  twilight  of  the  heart, 
More  beautiful  than  day. 


Will  Wallace  Hartley. 


SHERIFF'S    WORK    ON    A    RANCH. 

BY    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT. 
ILLUSTRATIONS    BY   FREDERIC    REMINGTON. 


A    T£X»N    COWBOY. 


UP  to  1880  the  country 
through  which  the 
Little  Missouri  flows 
remained  as  wild  and 
almost  as  unknown  as 
it  was  when  the  old 
explorers  and  fur  trad- 
ers crossed  it  in  the 
early  part  of  the  cen- 
tury. It  was  the  last 
great  Indian  hunting- 
ground  across  which 
Grosventres  and  Man- 
dans,  Sioux  and  Chey- 
ennes,  and  even  Crows 
and  Rees  wandered  in 
chase  of  game,  and 
where  they  fought  one 
another  and  plundered 
the  small  parties  of  white  trappers  and  hunt- 
ers that  occasionally  ventured  into  it.  Once 
or  twice  generals  like  Sully  and  Custer  had 
penetrated  it  in  the  course  of  the  long,  tedious, 
and  bloody  campaigns  that  finally  broke  the 
strength  of  the  northern  Horse  Indians;  in- 
deed, the  trail  made  by  Custer's  baggage  train 
is  to  this  day  one  of  the  well-known  land- 
marks, for  the  deep  ruts  worn  by  the  wheels 
of  the  heavy  wagons  are  in  many  places  still 
as  distinctly  to  be  seen  as  ever. 

In  1 883  a  regular  long-range  skirmish  took 
place  just  south  of  us  between  some  Cheyennes 
and  some  cowboys,  with  bloodshed  on  both 
sides,  while  about  the  same  time  a  band  of 
Sioux  plundered  a  party  of  buffalo  hunters  of 
everything  they  owned,  and  some  Crows 
who  attempted  the  same  feat  with  another 
party  were  driven  off  with  the  loss  of  two  of 
their  number.  Since  then  there  have  been  in 
our  neighborhood  no  stand-up  fights  or  regu- 
lar raids ;  but  the  Indians  have  at  different 
times  proved  more  or  less  troublesome,  burn- 
ing the  grass,  and  occasionally  killing  stock 
or  carrying  off  horses  that  have  wandered 
some  distance  away.  They  have  also  them- 
selves suffered  somewhat  at  the  hands  of  white 
horse-thieves. 

Bands  of  them,  accompanied  by  their 
squaws  and  children,  often  come  into  the 
ranch  country,  either  to  trade  or  to  hunt,  and 
are  then,  of  course, perfectly  meek  and  peace- 


able. If  they  stay  any  time  they  build  them- 
selves quite  comfortable  tepees  (wigwams,  as 
they  would  be  styled  in  the  East),  and  an  In- 
dian camp  is  a  rather  interesting,  though  very 
dirty,  place  to  visit.  On  our  ranch  we  get 
along  particularly  well  with  them,  as  it  is  a  rule 
that  they  shall  be  treated  as  fairly  as  if  they 
were  whites:  we  neither  wrong  them  our- 
selves nor  allow  others  to  wrong  them.  We 
have  always,  for  example,  been  as  keen  in  put- 
ting down  horse-stealing  from  Indians  as  from 
whites — which  indicates  rather  an  advanced 
stage  of  frontier  morality,  as  theft  from  the 
"  redskins  "  or  the  "  Government "  is  usually 
held  to  be  a  very  trivial  matter  compared  with 
the  heinous  crime  of  theft  from  "  citizens." 

There  is  always  danger  in  meeting  a  band 
of  young  bucks  in  lonely,  uninhabited  country 
—  those  that  have  barely  reached  manhood  be- 
ing the  most  truculent,  insolent,  and  reckless. 
A  man  meeting  such  a  party  runs  great  risk 
of  losing  his  horse,  his  rifle,  and  all  else  he  has. 
This  has  happened  quite  frequently  during  the 
past  few  years  to  hunters  or  cowboys  who 
have  wandered  into  the  debatable  territory 
where  our  country  borders  on  the  Indian  lands; 
and  in  at  least  one  such  instance,  that  took 
place  two  years  ago,  the  unfortunate  individ- 
ual lost  his  life  as  well  as  his  belongings.  But 
a  frontiersman  of  any  experience  can  generally 
"  stand  off  "  a  small  number  of  such  assailants, 
unless  he  loses  his  nerve  or  is  taken  by- 
surprise. 

My  only  adventure  with  Indians  was  of  a 
very  mild  kind.  It  was  in  the  course  of  a  soli- 
tary trip  to  the  north  and  east  of  our  range,  to 
what  was  then  practically  unknown  country, 
although  now  containing  many  herds  of  cattle. 
One  morning  I  had  been  traveling  along  the 
edge  of  the  prairie,  and  about  noon  I  rode 
Manitou  up  a  slight  rise  and  came  out  on  a 
plateau  that  was  perhaps  half  a  mile  broad. 
When  near  the  middle,  four  or  five  Indians  sud- 
denly came  up  over  the  edge,  directly  in  front 
of  me.  The  second  they  saw  me  they  whipped 
their  guns  out  of  their  slings,  started  their 
horses  into  a  run,  and  came  on  at  full  tilt, 
whooping  and  brandishing  their  weapons.  I 
instantly  reined  up  and  dismounted.  The  level 
plain  where  we  were  was  of  all  places  the  one 
on  which  such  an  onslaught  could  best  be 


4o 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


met.  In  any  broken  country,  or  where  there 
is  much  cover,  a  white  man  is  at  a  great  dis- 
advantage if  pitted  against  such  adepts  in 
the  art  of  hiding  as  Indians;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  latter  will  rarely  rush  in  on  a 
foe  who,  even  if  overpowered  in  the  end,  will 
probably  inflict  severe  loss  on  his  assailants. 
The  fury  of  an  Indian  charge,  and  the  whoops 
by  which  it  is  accompanied,  often  scare  horses 
so  as  to  stampede  them;  but  in  Manitou  I 
had  perfect  trust,  and  the  old  fellow  stood  as 
steady  as  a  rock,  merely  cocking  his  ears  and 
looking  round  at  the  noise.  I  waited  until  the 
Indians  were  a  hundred  yards  off,  and  then 
threw  up  my  rifle  and  drew  a  bead  on  the 
foremost.  The  effect  was  like  magic.  The 
whole  party  scattered  out  as  wild  pigeons  or 
teal  ducks  sometimes  do  when  shot  at,  and 
doubled  back  on  their  tracks,  the  men  bend- 
ing over  alongside  their  horses.  When  some 
distance  off  they  halted  and  gathered  together 
to  consult,  and  after  a  minute  one  came  for- 
ward alone,  ostentatiously  dropping  his  rifle 
and  waving  a  blanket  over  his  head.  When 
he  came  to  within  fifty  yards  I  stopped  him, 
and  he  pulled  out  a  piece  of  paper — all  In- 
dians, when  absent  from  their  reservations,  are 
supposed  to  carry  passes  —  and  called  out, 
"How!  Me  good  Indian!"  I  answered"  How," 
and  assured  him  most  sincerely  I  was  very  glad 
he  was  a  good  Indian,  but  I  would  not  let 
him  come  closer;  and  when  his  companions 
began  to  draw  near,  I  covered  him  with  the 
rifle  and  made  him  move  off,  which  he  did 
with  a  sudden  lapse  into  the  most  canonical 
Anglo-Saxon  profanity.  I  then  started  to  lead 
my  horse  out  to  the  prairie ;  and  after  hover- 
ing round  a  short  time  they  rode  off,  while  I 
followed  suit,  but  in  the  opposite  direction.  It 
had  all  passed  too  quickly  for  me  to  have  time 
to  get  frightened ;  but  during  the  rest  of  my 
ride  I  was  exceedingly  uneasy,  and  pushed 
tough,  speedy  old  Manitou  along  at  a  rapid 
rate,  keeping  well  out  on  the  level.  However, 
I  never  saw  the  Indians  again.  They  may  not 
have  intended  any  mischief  beyond  giving  me 
a  fright ;  but  I  did  not  dare  to  let  them  come 
to  close  quarters,  for  they  would  have  probably 
taken  my  horse  and  rifle,  and  not  impossibly 
my  scalp  as  well.  Towards  nightfall  I  fell  in 
with  two  old  trappers  who  lived  near  Killdeer 
Mountains,  and  they  informed  me  that  my 
assailants  were  some  young  Sioux  bucks,  at 
whose  hands  they  themselves  had  just  suffered 
the  loss  of  a  couple  of  horses. 

However,  in  our  own  immediate  locality, 
we  have  had  more  difficulty  with  white  des- 
peradoes than  with  the  redskins.  At  times 
there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  cattle-killing 
and  horse-stealing,  and  occasionally  a  mur- 
der or  two.  But  as  regards  the  last,  a  man  has 


very  little  more  to  fear  in  the  West  than  in 
the  East,  in  spite  of  all  the  lawless  acts  one 
reads  about.  Undoubtedly  a  long-standing 
quarrel  sometimes  ends  in  a  shooting-match ; 
and  of  course  savage  affrays  occasionally  take 
place  in  the  barrooms;  in  which,  be  it  re- 
marked, that,  inasmuch  as  the  men  are  gener- 
ally drunk,  and,  furthermore,  as  the  revolver 
is  at  best  a  rather  inaccurate  weapon,  out- 
siders are  nearly  as  apt  to  get  hurt  as  are  the 
participants.  But  if  a  man  minds  his  own 
business  and  does  not  go  into  barrooms,  gam- 
bling saloons,  and  the  like,  he  need  have  no 
fear  of  being  molested;  while  a  revolver  is 
a  mere  foolish  incumbrance  for  any  but  a 
trained  expert,  and  need  never  be  carried. 

Against  horse-thieves,  cattle-thieves,  claim- 
jumpers,  and  the  like,  however,  every  ranch- 
man has  to  be  on  his  guard;  and  armed 
collisions  with  these  gentry  are  sometimes 
inevitable. 

The  fact  of  such  scoundrels  being  able  to 
ply  their  trade  with  impunity  for  any  length 
of  time  can  only  be  understood  if  the  absolute 
wildness  of  our  land  is  taken  into  account. 

The  country  is  yet  unsurveyed  and  un- 
mapped ;  the  course  of  the  river  itself,  as  put 
down  on  the  various  Government  and  railroad 
maps,  is  very  much  a  mere  piece  of  guesswork, 
its  bed  being  in  many  parts  —  as  by  my 
ranch  —  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  or  more,  away 
from  where  these  maps  make  it. 

White  hunters  came  into  the  land  by  1880  ; 
but  the  actual  settlement  only  began  in  1882, 
when  the  first  cattle-men  drove  in  their  herds, 
all  of  Northern  stock,  the  Texans  not  passing 
north  of  the  country  around  the  head-waters 
of  the  river  until  the  following  year,  while 
until  1885  the  territory  through  which  it  ran 
for  the  final  hundred  and  fifty  miles  before 
entering  the  Big  Missouri  remained  as  little 
known  as  ever. 

Some  of  us  had  always  been  anxious  to  run 
down  the  river  in  a  boat  during  the  time  of 
the  spring  floods,  as  we  thought  we  might  get 
good  duck  and  goose  shooting,  and  also  kill 
some  beaver,  while  the  trip  would,  in  addi- 
tion, have  all  the  charm  of  an  exploring  ex- 
pedition. Twice,  so  far  as  we  knew,  the  feat 
had  been  performed,  both  times  by  hunters, 
and  in  one  instance  with  very  good  luck  in 
shooting  and  trapping.  A  third  attempt, 
by  a  couple  of  men  on  a  raft,  made  the  spring 
preceding  that  on  which  we  made  ours,  had 
been  less  successful ;  for  when  a  score  or  so 
of  miles  below  our  ranch,  a  bear  killed  one 
of  the  two  adventurers,  and  the  survivor  re- 
turned. 

We  could  only  go  down  during  a  freshet; 
for  the  Little  Missouri,  like  most  plains'  riv- 
ers, is  usually  either  a  dwindling  streamlet,  a 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH.  41 

mere  slender  thread  of  sluggish  water,  or  else  bottom  ice  did  not  break  up,  and  a  huge 

a  boiling,  muddy  torrent,  running  over  a  bed  gorge,  scores  of  miles  in  length,  formed  in 

of  shifting  quicksand,  that  neither  man  nor  and  above  the  bend  known  as  the  Ox-bow, 

beast  can  cross.     It  rises  and  falls  with  ex-  a  long  distance  up-stream   from  my  ranch, 

traordinary  suddenness  and  intensity;  an  in-  About  the  middle  of  March  this  great  Ox-bow 

stance  of  which  has  just  occurred  as  this  very  jam  came  down  pnst  us.    It  moved  slowly, 


page  is  being  written.  Last  evening,  when 
the  moon  rose,  from  the  ranch  veranda  we 
could  see  the  river-bed  almost  dry,  the  stream 
having  shrunk  under  the  drought  till  it  was 
little  but  a  string  of  shallow  pools,  with  be- 
tween them  a  trickle  of  water  that  was  not 
ankle  deep,  and  hardly  wet  the  fetlocks  of  the 
saddle-band  when  driven  across  it;  yet  at 
daybreak  this  morning,  without  any  rain  hav- 
ing fallen  near  us,  but  doubtless  in  conse- 
quence of  some  heavy  cloudburst  near  its 
head,  the  swift,  swollen  current  was  foaming 
brim  high  between  the  banks,  and  even  the 
fords  were  swimming- deep  for  the  horses. 

Accordingly  we  had  planned  to  run  down 
the  river  sometime  towards  the  end  of  April, 
taking  advantage  of  a  rise ;  but  an  accident 
made  us  start  three  or  four  weeks  sooner  than 
we  had  intended. 

In  1886  the  ice  went  out  of  the  upper  river 
very  early,  during  the  first  part  of  February  ; 
but  it  at  times  almost  froze  over  again,  the 
Voi..  XXXVI.— 6. 


its  front  forming  a  high,  crumbling  wall,  and 
creaming  over  like  an  immense  breaker  on 
the  seashore :  we  could  hear  the  dull  roaring 
and  crunching  as  it  plowed  down  the  river- 
bed long  before  it  came  in  sight  round  the 
bend  above  us.  The  ice  kept  piling  and  toss- 
ing up  in  the  middle,  and  not  only  heaped 
itself  above  the  level  of  the  banks,  but  also  in 
many  places  spread  out  on  each  side  beyond 
them,  grinding  against  the  cotton  wood  trees 
in  front  of  the  ranch  veranda,  and  at  one  mo- 
ment bidding  fair  to  overwhelm  the  house 
itself.  It  did  not,  however,  but  moved  slowly 
down  past  us  with  that  look  of  vast,  resistless, 
relentless  force  that  any  great  body  of  moving 
ice,  as  a  glacier,  or  an  iceberg,  always  con- 
veys to  the  beholder.  The  heaviest  pressure 
from  the  water  that  was  backed  up  behind 
being,  of  course,  always  in  the  middle,  this  part 
kept  breaking  away,  and  finally  was  pushed 
on  clear  through,  leaving  the  river  so  changed 
that  it  could  hardly  be  known.  On  each 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


bank,  and  for  a  couple  of  hundred  feet  out 
from  it  into  the  stream,  was  a  solid  mass  of 
ice,  edging  the  river  along  most  of  its  length, 
at  least  as  far  as  its  course  lay  through  lands 
that  we  knew ;  and  in  the  narrow  channel 
between  the  sheer  ice-walls  the  water  ran  like 
a  mill-race. 

At  night  the  snowy,  glittering  masses,  tossed 


ONE   OF    THE    BOYS. 


and  heaped  up  into  fantastic  forms,  shone 
like  crystal  in  the  moonlight ;  but  they  soon 
lost  their  beauty,  becoming  fouled  and  black- 
ened, and  at  the  same  time  melted  and  set- 
tled down  until  it  was  possible  to  clamber  out 
across  the  slippery  hummocks. 

We  had  brought  out  a  clinker-built  boat 
especially  to  ferry  ourselves  over  the  river 
when  it  was  high,  and  were  keeping  our 
ponies  on  the  opposite  side,  where  there  was 
a  good  range  shut  in  by  some  very  broken 
country  that  we  knew  they  would  not  be  apt 
to  cross.  This  boat  had  already  proved  very 
useful  and  now  came  in  handier  than  ever, 
as  without  it  we  could  take  no  care  of  our 
horses.  We  kept  it  on  the  bank  tied  to  a  tree, 
and  every  day  would  carry  it  or  slide  it  across 
the  hither  ice  bank,  usually  with  not  a  little 
tumbling  and  scrambling  on  our  part,  lower 
it  gently  into  the  swift  current,  pole  it  across 
to  the  ice  on  the  farther  bank,  and  then  drag 
it  over  that,  repeating  the  operation  when 
we  came  back.  One  day  we  crossed  and 
walked  off  about  ten  miles  to  a  tract  of  wild 
and  rugged  country,  cleft  in  every  direction 
by  ravines  and  cedar  canyons,  in  the  deepest 
of  which  we  had  left  four  deer  hanging  a 
fortnight  before,  as  game  thus  hung  up  in  cold 
weather  keeps  indefinitely.  The  walking  was 


very  bad,  especially  over  the  clay  buttes ;  for 
the  sun  at  midday  had  enough  strength  to 
thaw  out  the  soil  to  the  depth  of  a  few  inches 
only,  and  accordingly  the  steep  hillsides  were 
covered  by  a  crust  of  slippery  mud,  with  the 
frozen  ground  underneath.  It  was  hard  to 
keep  one's  footing,  and  to  avoid  falling  while 
balancing  along  the  knife-like  ridge  crests,  or 
while  clinging  to  the  stunted  sage  brush  as  we 
went  down  into  the  valleys.  The  deer  had  been 
hung  in  a  thicket  of  dwarfed  cedars;  but 
when  we  reached  the  place  we  found  nothing 
save  scattered  pieces  of  their  carcasses,  and 
the  soft  mud  was  tramped  all  over  with  round, 
deeply  marked  footprints,  some  of  them  but 
a  few  hours  old,  showing  that  the  plunderers 
of  our  cache  were  a  pair  of  cougars — "  moun- 
tain lions,"  as  they  are  called  by  the  Western- 
ers. They  had  evidently  been  at  work  for 
some  time,  and  had  eaten  almost  every  scrap 
of  flesh ;  one  of  the  deer  had  been  carried  for 
some  distance  to  the  other  side  of  a  deep, 
narrow,  chasm-like  gully  across  which  the 
cougar  must  have  leaped  with  the  carcass  in 
its  mouth.  We  followed  the  fresh  trail  of  the 
cougars  for  some  time,  as  it  was  well  marked, 
especially  in  the  snow  still  remaining  in  the 
bottoms  of  the  deeper  ravines ;  finally  it  led 
into  a  tangle  of  rocky  hills  riven  by  dark  cedar- 
clad  gorges,  in  which  we  lost  it,  and  we  re- 
traced our  steps,  intending  to  return  on  the 
morrow  with  a  good  track  hound. 

But  we  never  carried  out  our  intentions, 
for  next  morning  one  of  my  men  who  was  out 
before  breakfast  came  back  to  the  house  with 
the  startling  news  that  our  boat  was  gone  — 
stolen,  for  he  brought  with  him  the  end  of  the 
rope  with  which  it  had  been  tied,  evidently  cut 
off  with  a  sharp  knife ;  and  also  a  red  woolen 
mitten  with  a  leather  palm,  which  he  had 
picked  up  on  the  ice.  We  had  no  doubt  as 
to  who  had  stolen  it ;  for  whoever  had  done  so 
had  certainly  gone  down  the  river  in  it,  and 
the  only  other  thing  in  the  shape  of  a  boat  on 
the  Little  Missouri  was  a  small  flat-bottomed 
scow  in  the  possession  of  three  hard  charac- 
ters who  lived  in  a  shack  or  hut  some  twenty 
miles  above  us,  and  whom  we  had  shrewdly 
suspected  for  some  time  of  wishing  to  get  out 
of  the  country,  as  certain  of  the  cattle-men 
had  begun  openly  to  threaten  to  lynch  them. 
They  belonged  to  a  class  that  always  holds 
sway  during  the  raw  youth  of  a  frontier  com- 
munity, and  the  putting  down  of  which  is  the 
first  step  towards  decent  government.  Dakota, 
west  of  the  Missouri,  has  been  settled  very  re- 
cently, and  every  town  within  it  has  seen 
strange  antics  performed  during  the  past  five 
or  six  years.  Medora,  in  particular,  has  had 
more  than  its  full  share  of  shooting  and  stab- 
bing affrays,  horse-stealing  and  cattle-killing. 


SHERIFF'S    WORK   ON  A   RANCH. 


43 


But  the  time  for  such  things  was  passing 
away ;  and  during  the  preceding  fall  the  vig- 
ilantes— locally  known  as  "  stranglers,"  in 
happy  allusion  to  their  summary  method  of 
doing  justice  —  had  made  a  clean  sweep  of 
the  cattle  country  along  the  Yellowstone  and 
that  part  of  the  Big  Missouri  around  and  be- 
low its  mouth.  Be  it  remarked,  in  passing,  that 
while  the  outcome  of  their  efforts  had  been 
in  the  main  wholesome,  yet,  as  is  always  the 
case  in  an  extended  raid  of  vigilantes,  several 
of  the  sixty  odd  victims  had  been  perfectly 
innocent  men  who  had  been  hung  or  shot  in 
company  with  the  real  scoundrels,  either 
through  carelessness  and  misapprehension  or 
on  account  of  some  personal  spite. 


case,  and  had  been  chief  actor  in  a  number  of 
shooting  scrapes.  The  other  two  were  a  half- 
breed,  a  stout,  muscular  man,  and  an  old 
German,  whose  viciousness  was  of  the  weak 
and  shiftless  type. 

We  knew  that  these  three  men  were  be- 
coming uneasy  and  were  anxious  to  leave  the 
locality;  and  we  also  knew  that  traveling  on 
horseback,  in  the  direction  in  which  they 
would  wish  to  go,  was  almost  impossible,  as 
the  swollen,  ice-fringed  rivers  could  not  be 
crossed  at  all,  and  the  stretches  of  broken 
ground  would  form  nearly  as  impassable  bar- 
riers. So  we  had  little  doubt  that  it  was  they 
who  had  taken  our  boat ;  and  as  they  knew 
there  was  then  no  boat  left  on  the  river,  and 


MOUNTAIN   LIONS   AT  THE   DEER   CACHE. 


The  three  men  we  suspected  had  long  been 
accused — justly  or  unjustly  —  of  being  impli- 
cated both  in  cattle-killing  and  in  that  worst  of 
frontier  crimes,  horse-stealing:  it  was  only  by 
an  accident  that  they  had  escaped  the  clutches 
of  the  vigilantes  the  preceding  fall.  Their 
leader  was  a  well-built  fellow  named  Finnigan, 
who  had  long  red  hair  reaching  to  his  shoul- 
ders, and  always  wore  a  broad  hat  and  a 
fringed  buckskin  shirt.  He  was  rather  a  hard 


as  the  country  along  its  banks  was  entirely 
impracticable  for  horses,  we  felt  sure  they 
would  be  confident  that  there  could  be  no 
pursuit. 

Accordingly  we  at  once  set  to  work  in  our 
turn  to  build  a  flat-bottomed  scow,  wherein 
to  follow  them.  Our  loss  was  very  annoying, 
and  might  prove  a  serious  one  if  we  were 
long  prevented  from  crossing  over  to  look 
after  the  saddle-band;  but  the  determining 


44 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


motive  in  our  minds  was  neither  chagrin  nor 
anxiety  to  recover  our  property.  In  any 
wild  country  where  the  power  of  the  law  is 
little  felt  or  heeded,  and  where  every  one  has 
to  rely  upon  himself  for  protection,  men  soon 
get  to  feel  that  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  un- 
wise to  submit  to  any  wrong  without  making 
an  immediate  and  resolute  effort  to  avenge  it 
upon  the  wrong-doers,  at  no  matter  what  cost 
of  risk  or  trouble.  To  submit  tamely  and 
meekly  to  theft,  or  to  any  other  injury,  is  to 
invite  almost  certain  repetition  of  the  offense, 
in  a  place  where  self-reliant  hardihood  and 
the  ability  to  hold  one's  own  under  all  cir- 
cumstances rank  as  the  first  of  virtues. 

Two  of  my  cowboys,  Seawall  and  Dow, 
were  originally  from  Maine,  and  were  mighty 
men  of  their  hands,  skilled  in  woodcraft  and 
the  use  of  the  ax,  paddle,  and  rifle.  They  set 
to  work  with  a  will,  and,  as  by  good  luck  there 
were  plenty  of  boards,  in  two  or  three  days 
they  had  turned  out  a  first-class  flat-bottom, 
which  was  roomy,  drew  very  little  water,  and 
was  dry  as  a  bone ;  and  though,  of  course,  not 
a  handy  craft,  was  easily  enough  managed 
in  going  down-stream.  Into  this  we  packed 
flour,  coffee,  and  bacon  enough  to  last  us  a 
fortnight  or  so,  plenty  of  warm  bedding,  and 
the  mess  kit;  and  early  one  cold  March 
morning  slid  it  into  the  icy  current,  took  our 
seats,  and  shoved  off  down  the  river. 

There  could  have  been  no  better  men  for 
a  trip  of  this  kind  than  my  two  companions, 
Seawall  and  Dow.  They  were  tough,  hardy, 
resolute  fellows,  quick  as  cats,  strong  as  bears, 
and  able  to  travel  like  bull  moose.  We  felt 
very  little  uneasiness  as  to  the  result  of  a 
fight  with  the  men  we  were  after,  provided 
we  had  anything  like  a  fair  show  ;  moreover, 
we  intended,  if  possible,  to  get  them  at  such  a 
disadvantage  that  there  would  not  be  any 
fight  at  all.  The  only  risk  of  any  consequence 
that  we  ran  was  that  of  being  ambushed ;  for 
the  extraordinary  formation  of  the  Bad  Lands, 
with  the  ground  cut  up  into  gullies,  serried 
walls,  and  battlemented  hilltops,  makes  it  the 
country  of  all  others  for  hiding-places  and 
ambuscades. 

For  several  days  before  we  started  the 
weather  had  been  bitterly  cold,  as  a  furious 
blizzard  was  blowing ;  but  on  the  day  we 
left  there  was  a  lull,  and  we  hoped  a  thaw- 
had  set  in.  We  all  were  most  warmly  and 
thickly  dressed,  with  woolen  socks  and  under- 
clothes, heavy  jackets  and  trousers,  and  great 
fur  coats,  so  that  we  felt  we  could  bid  defi- 
ance to  the  weather.  Each  carried  his  rifle, 
and  we  had  in  addition  a  double-barreled 
duck  gun,  for  water- fowl  and  beaver.  To 
manage  the  boat,  we  had  paddles,  heavy  oars, 
and  long  iron-shod  poles,  Seawall  steering 


while  Dow  sat  in  the  bow.  Altogether  we 
felt  as  if  we  were  off  on  a  holiday  trip,  and  set 
to  work  to  have  as  good  a  time  as  possible. 

The  river  twisted  in  every  direction,  wind- 
ing to  and  fro  across  the  alluvial  valley  bot- 
tom, only  to  be  brought  up  by  the  rows  of 
great  barren  buttes  that  bounded  it  on  each 
edge.  It  had  worn  away  the  sides  of  these 
till  they  towered  up  as  cliffs  of  clay,  marl,  or 
sandstone.  Across  their  white  faces  the  seams 
of  coal  drew  sharp  black  bands,  and  they  were 
elsewhere  blotched  and  varied  with  brown, 
yellow,  purple,  and  red.  This  fantastic  color- 
ing, together  with  the  jagged  irregularity  of 
their  crests,  channeled  by  the  weather  into 
spires,  buttresses,  and  battlements,  as  well  as 
their  barrenness  and  the  distinctness  with 
which  they  loomed  up  through  the  high,  dry 
air,  gave  them  a  look  that  was  a  singular  mixt- 
ure of  the  terrible  and  the  grotesque.  The 
bottoms  were  covered  thickly  with  leafless 
cottonwood  trees,  or  else  with  withered  brown 
grass  and  stunted,  sprawling  sage  bushes. 
At  times  the  cliffs  rose  close  to  us  on  either 
hand,  and  again  the  valley  would  widen  into 
a  sinuous  oval  a  mile  or  two  long,  bounded 
on  every  side,  as  far  as  our  eyes  could  see, 
by  a  bluff  line  without  a  break,  until,  as  we 
floated  down  close  to  its  other  end,  there  would 
suddenly  appear  in  one  corner  a  cleft  through 
which  the  stream  rushed  out.  As  it  grew  dusk 
the  shadowy  outlines  of  the  buttes  lost  noth- 
ing of  their  weirdness  ;  the  twilight  only  made 
their  uncouth  shapelessness  more  grim  and 
forbidding.  They  looked  like  the  crouching 
figures  of  great  goblin  beasts. 

Those  two  hills  on  the  right 

Crouched  like  two  bulls  locked  horn  in  horn  in  fight  — 
While  to  the  left  a  tall  scalped  mountain.    .    .   . 
The  dying  sunset  kindled  through  a  cleft : 
The  hills,  like  giants  at  a  hunting,  lay 
Chin  upon  hand,  to  see  the  game  at  bay — 

might  well  have  been  written  after  seeing  the 
strange,  desolate  lands  lying  in  western  Da- 
kota. 

All  through  the  early  part  of  the  day  we 
drifted  swiftly  down  between  the  heaped-up 
piles  of  ice,  the  cakes  and  slabs  now  dirty  and 
unattractive  looking.  Towards  evening,  how- 
ever, there  came  long  reaches  where  the  banks 
on  either  side  were  bare,  though  even  here 
there  would  every  now  and  then  be  necks 
where  the  jam  had  been  crowded  into  too  nar- 
row a  spot  and  had  risen  over  the  side  as  it 
had  done  up-stream,  grinding  the  bark  from 
the  big  cottonwoods  and  snapping  the  smaller 
ones  short  off.  In  such  places  the  ice-walls 
were  sometimes  eight  or  ten  feet  high,  con- 
tinually undermined  by  the  restless  current; 
and  every,  now  and  then  overhanging  pieces 
would  break  off  and  slide  into  the  stream  with 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


45 


a  loud  sullen  splash,  like  the  plunge  of  some 
great  water  beast.  Nor  did  we  dare  to  go  in 
too  close  to  the  high  cliffs,  as  bowlders  and 
earth  masses,  freed  by  the  thaw  from  the  grip 
of  the  frost,  kept  rolling  and  leaping  down 
their  faces  and  forced  us  to  keep  a  sharp  look- 
out lest  our  boat  should  be  swamped. 

At  nightfall  we  landed,  and  made  our  camp 
on  a  point  of  wood-covered  land  jutting  out 
into  the  stream.  We  had  seen  very  little  trace 
of  life  until  late  in  the  day,  for  the  ducks  had 
not  yet  arrived;  but  in  the  afternoon  a  sharp- 
tailed  prairie  fowl  flew  across  stream  ahead 
of  the  boat,  lighting  on  a  low  branch  by  the 
water's  edge.  Shooting  him,  we  landed  and 
picked  off  two  others  that  were  perched  high 
up  in  leafless  cottonwoods,  plucking  the  buds. 
These  three  birds  served  us  as  supper;  and 
shortly  afterward,  as  the  cold  grew  more  and 
more  biting,  we  rolled  in  under  our  furs  and 
blankets  and  were  soon  asleep. 

In  the  morning  it  was  evident  that  instead 
of  thawing  it  had  grown  decidedly  colder. 
The  anchor  ice  was  running  thick  in  the  river, 
and  we  spent  the  first  hour  or  two  after  sun- 
rise in  hunting  over  the  frozen  swamp  bot- 
tom for  white-tail  deer,  of  which  there  were 
many  tracks;  but  we  saw  nothing.  Then  we 
broke  camp  —  a  simple  operation,  as  we  had 
no  tent,  and  all  we  had  to  do  was  to  cord  up 
our  bedding  and  gather  the  mess  kit  —  and 
again  started  down-stream.  It  was  colder  than 
before,  and  for  some  time  we  went  along  in 
chilly  silence,  nor  was  it  until  midday  that  the 
sun  warmed  our  blood  in  the  least.  The  crooked 
bed  of  the  current  twisted  hither  and  thither, 
but  whichever  way  it  went  the  icy  north  wind, 
blowing  stronger  all  the  time,  drew  steadily 
up  it.  One  of  us  remarking  that  we  bade 
fair  to  have  it  in  our  faces  all  day,  the  steers- 
man announced  that  we  could  n't,  unless  it 
was  the  crookedest  wind  in  Dakota ; 
and  half  an  hour  afterward  we  over- 
heard him  muttering  to  himself  that 
it  was  the  crookedest  wind  in  Dakota. 
We  passed  a  group  of  tepees  on  one 
bottom,  marking  the  deserted  winter 
camp  of  some  Grosventre  Indians, 
which  some  of  my  men  had  visited  a 
few  months  previously  on  a  trading 
expedition.  It  was  almost  the  last 
point  on  the  river  with  which  we  were 
acquainted.  At  midday  we  landed  on 
a  sand-bar  for  lunch ;  a  simple  enough 
meal,  the  tea  being  boiled  over  a  fire 
of  driftwood,  that  also  fried  the  bacon, 
while  the  bread  only  needed  to  be 
baked  every  other  day.  Then  we 
again  shoved  off.  As  the  afternoon 
waned  the  cold  grew  still  more 
bitter,  and  the  wind  increased,  blow- 


ing in  fitful  gusts  against  us,  until  it  chilled 
us  to  the  marrow  when  we  sat  still.  But  we 
rarely  did  sit  still ;  for  even  the  rapid  current 
was  unable  to  urge  the  light-draught  scow 
down  in  the  teeth  of  the  strong  blasts,  and  we 
only  got  her  along  by  dint  of  hard  work  with 
pole  and  paddle.  Long  before  the  sun  went 
down  the  ice  had  begun  to  freeze  on  the  han- 
dles of  the  poles,  and  we  were  not  sorry  to 
haul  on  shore  for  the  night.  For  supper  we 
again  had  prairie  fowl,  having  shot  four  from 
a  great  patch  of  bulberry  bushes  late  in  the 
afternoon.  A  man  doing  hard  open-air  work 
in  cold  weather  is  always  hungry  for  meat. 

During  the  night  the  thermometer  went 
down  to  zero,  and  in  the  morning  the  anchor 
ice  was  running  so  thickly  that  we  did  not 
care  to  start  at  once,  for  it  is  most  difficult  to 
handle  a  boat  in  the  deep  frozen  slush.  Ac- 
cordingly we  took  a  couple  of  hours  for  a  deer 
hunt,  as  there  were  evidently  many  white-tail 
on  the  bottom.  We  selected  one  long,  isolated 
patch  of  tangled  trees  and  brushwood,  two 
of  us  beating  through  it  while  the  other 
watched  one  end ;  but  almost  before  we  had 
begun  four  deer  broke  out  at  one  side,  loped 
easily  off,  evidently  not  much  scared,  and  took 
refuge  in  a  deep  glen  or  gorge,  densely  wooded 
with  cedars,  that  made  a  blind  pocket  in  the 
steep  side  of  one  of  the  great  plateaus  bound- 
ing the  bottom.  After  a  short  consultation,  one 
of  our  number  crept  round  to  the  head  of  the 
gorge,  making  a  wide  detour,  and  the  other 
two  advanced  up  it  on  each  side,  thus  com- 
pletely surrounding  the  doomed  deer.  They 
attempted  to  break  out  past  the  man  at  the 
head  of  the  glen,  who  shot  down  a  couple,  a 
buck  and  a  yearling  doe.  The  other  two  made 
their  escape  by  running  off  over  ground  so 
rough  that  it  looked  fitter  to  be  crossed  by 
their  upland-loving  cousins,  the  black-tail. 


46 


SHERIFF'S    WORK   ON  A   RANCH. 


This  success  gladdened  our  souls,  insuring 
us  plenty  of  fresh  meat.  We  carried  pretty 
much  all  of  both  deer  back  to  camp,  and,  after 
a  hearty  breakfast,  loaded  ourscow  and  started 
merrily  off  once  more.  The  cold  still  continued 
intense,  and  as  the  day  wore  away  we  became 
numbed  by  it,  until  at  last  an  incident  occurred 
that  set  our  blood  running  freely  again. 


terest,  for  the  capture  itself  was  as  tame  as 
possible. 

The  men  we  were  after  knew  they  had  taken 
with  them  the  only  craft  there  was  on  the  river, 
and  so  felt  perfectly  secure ;  accordingly,  we 
took  them  absolutely  by  surprise.  The  only  one 
in  camp  was  the  German,  whose  weapons  were 
on  the  ground,  and  who,  of  course,  gave  up  at 


We  were,  of  course,  always  on  the  alert, 
keeping  a  sharp  lookout  ahead  and  around  us, 
and  making  as  little  noise  as  possible.  Finally 
our  watchfulness  was  rewarded,  for  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  afternoon  of  this,  the  third  day  we 
had  been  gone,  as  we  came  round  a  bend,  we 
saw  in  front  of  us  the  lost  boat,  together  with 
a  scow,  moored  against  the  bank,  while  from 
among  the  bushes  some  little  way  back  the 
smoke  of  a  camp-fire  curled  up  through  the 
frosty  air.  We  had  come  on  the  camp  of  the 
thieves.  As  I  glanced  at  the  faces  of  my  two 
followers  I  was  struck  by  the  grim,  eager  look 
in  their  eyes.  Our  overcoats  were  off  in  a  sec- 
ond, and  after  exchanging  a  few  muttered 
words,  the  boat  was  hastily  and  silently  shoved 
towards  the  bank.  As  soon  as  it  touched  the 
shore  ice  I  leaped  out  and  ran  up  behind  a 
clump  of  bushes,  so  as  to  cover  the  landing 
of  the  others,  who  had  to  make  the  boat 
fast.  For  a  moment  we  felt  a  thrill  of  keen  ex- 
citement, and  our  veins  tingled  as  we  crept 
cautiously  towards  the  fire,  for  it  seemed  likely 
there  would  be  a  brush ;  but,  as  it  turned  out, 
this  was  almost  the  only  moment  of  much  in- 


once,  his  two  companions  being  off  hunting. 
Wemadehimsafe,delegatingoneofournumber 
to  look  after  him  particularly  and  see  that  he 
made  no  noise,  and  then  sat  down  and  waited 
for  the  others.  The  camp  was  under  the  lee 
of  a  cut  bank,  behind  which  we  crouched,  and, 
after  waiting  an  hour  or  over,  the  men  we  were 
after  came  in.  We  heard 'them  a  long  way  off 
and  made  ready,  watching  them  for  some 
minutes  as  they  walked  towards  us,  their  rifles 
on  their  shoulders  and  the  sunlight  glinting 
on  the  steel  barrels.  When  they  were  within 
twenty  yards  or  so  we  straightened  up  from  be- 
hind the  bank,  covering  them  with  our  cocked 
rifles,  while  I  shouted  to  them  to  hold  up  their 
hands  —  an  order  that  in  such  a  case,  in  the 
West,  a  man  is  not  apt  to  disregard  if  he  thinks 
the  giver  is  in  earnest.  The  half-breed  obeyed 
at  once,  his  knees  trembling  as  if  they  had 
been  made  of  whalebone.  Finnigan  hesitated 
for  a  second,  his  eyes  fairly  wolfish;  then, 
as  I  walked  up  within  a  few  paces,  cover- 
ing the  center  of  his  chest  so  as  to  avoid 
overshooting,  and  repeating  the  command, 
he  saw  he  had  no  show,  and,  with  an  oath, 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


47 


"  TAKE   OFF    YOUR    BOOTS  !  " 


let  his  rifle  drop  and  held  his  hands  up  beside 
his  head. 

It  was  nearly  dusk,  so  we  camped  where  we 
were.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  col- 
lect enough  wood  to  enable  us  to  keep  a  blaz- 
ing fire  all  night  long.  While  Seawall  and 
Dow,  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  use  of  the 
ax,  chopped  down  dead  cottonwood  trees 
and  dragged  the  logs  up  into  a  huge  pile,  I 
kept  guard  over  the  three  prisoners,  who  were 
huddled  into  a  sullen  group  some  twenty  yards 
off,  just  the  right  distance  for  the  buckshot  in 
the  double-barrel.  Having  captured  our  men, 
we  were  in  a  quandary  how  to  keep  them. 
The  cold  was  so  intense  that  to  tie  them 
tightly  hand  and  foot  meant,  in  all  likelihood, 
freezing  both  hands  and  feet  off  during  the 
night;  and  it  was  no  use  tying  them  at  all 
unless  we  tied  them  tightly  enough  to  stop  in 
part  the  circulation.  So  nothing  was  left  for 
us  to  do  but  to  keep  perpetual  guard  over 
them.  Of  course  we  had  carefully  searched 
them,  and  taken  away  not  only  their  firearms 
and  knives,  but  everything  else  that  could 
possibly  be  used  as  a  weapon.  By  this  time 
they  were  pretty  well  cowed,  as  they  found 
out  very  quickly  that  they  would  be  well 
treated  so  long  as  they  remained  quiet,  but 
would  receive  some  rough  handling  if  they 
attempted  any  disturbance. 

Our  next  step  was  to  cord  their  weapons  up 
in  some  bedding,  which  we  sat  on  while  we 


took  supper.  Immediately  afterward  we  made 
the  men  take  off  their  boots  —  an  additional 
safeguard,  as  it  was  a  cactus  country,  in  which 
a  man  could  travel  barefoot  only  at  the  risk 
of  almost  certainly  laming  himself  for  life  — 
and  go  to  bed,  all  three  lying  on  one  buffalo 
robe  and  being  covered  by  another,  in  the  full 
light  of  the  blazing  fire.  We  determined  to 
watch  in  succession  a  half-night  apiece,  thus 
each  getting  a  full  rest  every  third  night.  I 
took  first  watch,  my  two  companions,  revolver 
under  head,  rolling  up  in  their  blankets  on  the 
side  of  the  fire  opposite  that  on  which  the  three 
captives  lay;  while  I,  in  fur  cap,  gantlets,  and 
overcoat,  took  my  station  a  little  way  back  in 
the  circle  of  firelight,  in  a  position  in  which 
I  could  watch  my  men  with  the  absolute  cer- 
tainty of  being  able  to  stop  any  movement,  no 
matter  how  sudden.  For  this  night-watching 
we  always  used  the  double-barrel  with  buck- 
shot, as  a  rifle  is  uncertain  in  the  dark ;  while 
with  a  shot-gun  at  such  a  distance,  and  with 
men  lying  down,  a  person  who  is  watchful 
may  be  sure  that  they  cannot  get  up,  no  mat- 
ter how  quick  they  are,  without  being  riddled. 
The  only  danger  lies  in  the  extreme  monotony 
of  sitting  still  in  the  dark  guarding  men  who 
make  no  motion,  and  the  consequent  tendency 
to  go  to  sleep,  especially  when  one  has  had  a 
hard  day's  work  and  is  feeling  really  tired.  But 
neither  on  the  first  night  nor  on  any  subsequent 
one  did  we  ever  abate  a  jot  of  our  watchfulness. 


48 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


Next  morning  we  started  down-stream,  hav- 
ing a  well-laden  flotilla,  for  the  men  we  had 
caught  had  a  good  deal  of  plunder  in  their 
boats,  including  some  saddles,  as  they  evidently 
intended  to  get  horses  as  soon  as  they  reached 
a  part  of  the  country  where  there  were  any, 
and  where  it  was  possible  to  travel.  Finnigan, 
who  was  the  ringleader,  and  the  man  I  was 
especially  after,  I  kept  by  my  side  in  our  boat, 
the  other  two  being  put  in  their  own  scow, 
heavily  laden  and  rather  leaky,  and  with  only 
one  paddle.  We  kept  them  just  in  front  of  us, 
a  few  yards  distant,  the  river  being  so  broad 
that  we  knew,  and  they  knew  also,  any  attempt 
at  escape  to  be  perfectly  hopeless. 

For  some  miles  we  went  swiftly  down-stream, 
the  cold  being  bitter  and  the  slushy  anchor 
ice  choking  the  space  between  the  boats; 
then  the  current  grew  sluggish,  eddies  forming 
along  the  sides.  We  paddled  on  until,  coming 
into  a  long  reach  where  the  water  was  almost 
backed  up,  we  saw  there  was  a  stoppage  at 
the  other  end.  Working  up  to  this,  it  proved 
to  be  a  small  ice  jam,  through  which  we 
broke  our  way  only  to  find  ourselves,  after  a 
few  hundred  yards,  stopped  by  another.  We 
had  hoped  that  the  first  was  merely  a  jam 
of  anchor  ice,  caused  by  the  cold  of  the  last 
few  days ;  but  the  jam  we  had  now  come  to 
was  black  and  solid,  and,  running  the  boats 
ashore,  one  of  us  went  off  down  the  bank  to 


ON   GUARD  AT  NIGHT, 


find  out  what  the  matter  was.  On  climbing  a 
hill  that  commanded  a  view  of  the  valley  for 
several  miles,  the  explanation  became  only  too 
evident — as  far  as  we  could  see,  the  river  was 
choked  with  black  ice.  The  great  Ox-bow  jam 
had  stopped  and  we  had  come  down  to  its  tail. 
We  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  pitch  camp, 
after  which  we  held  a  consultation.  The  Lit- 
tle Missouri  has  much  too  swift  a  current, — 
when  it  has  any  current  at  all, —  with  too  bad 
a  bottom,  for  it  to  be  possible  to  take  a  boat 
up-stream;  and  to  walk,  of  course,  meant  aban- 
doning almost  all  we  had.  Moreover  we  knew 
that  a  thaw  would  very  soon  start  the  jam, 
and  so  made  up  our  minds  that  we  had  best 
simply  stay  where  we  were,  and  work  down- 
stream as  fast  as  we  could,  trusting  that  the 
spell  of  bitter  weather  would  pass  before  our 
food  gave  out. 

The  next  eight  days  were  as  irksome  and 
monotonous  as  any  I  ever  spent :  there  is 
very  little  amusement  in  combining  the  func- 
tions of  a  sheriff  with  those  of  an  arctic  ex- 
plorer. The  weather  kept  as  cold  as  ever. 
During  the  night  the  water  in  the  pail  would 
freeze  solid.  Ice  formed  all  over  the  river, 
thickly  along  the  banks  ;  and  the  clear,  frosty 
sun  gave  us  so  little  warmth  that  the  melt- 
ing hardly  began  before  noon.  Each  day  the 
great  jam  would  settle  down-stream  a  few 
miles,  only  to  wedge  again,  leaving  behind  it  • 
several  smaller  jams,  through  which  we  would 
work  our  way  until  we  were  as  close  to  the 
tail  of  the  large  one  as  we  dared  to  go. 

We  had  to  be  additionally  cautious  on  ac- 
count of  being  in  the  Indian  country,  having 
worked  down  past  Killdeer  Mountains,  where 
some  of  my  cowboys  had  run  across  a  band  of 
Sioux — said  to  be  Tetons — the  year  before. 
Very  probably  the  Indians  would  not  have 
harmed  us  anyhow,  but  as  we  were  hampered 
by  the  prisoners,  we  preferred  not  meeting 

them;nordidwe, 
though  we  saw 
plenty  of  fresh 
signs,and  found, 
to  our  sorrow, 
that  they  had 
just  made  a 
grand  hunt  all 
down  the  river, 
and  had  killed 
or  driven  off  al- 
most every  head 
of  game  in  the 
country  through 
which  we  were 
passing.  As  our 
stock  of  provis- 
ions grew  scant- 
ier and  scant- 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


49 


ier,  we  tried  in  vain  to  eke  it  out  by  the 
chase ;  for  we  saw  no  game.  Two  of  us 
would  go  out  hunting  at  a  time,  while  the 
third  kept  guard  over  the  prisoners.  The  lat- 
ter would  be  made  to  sit  down  together  on  a 
blanket  at  one  side  of  the  fire,  while  the  guard 
for  the  time  being  stood  or  sat  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  yards  off.  The  prisoners  being  un- 


We  broke  camp  in  the  morning,  on  a  point  of 
land  covered  with  brown,  leafless,  frozen  cot- 
tonwoods ;  and  in  the  afternoon  we  pitched 
camp  on  another  point  in  the  midst  of  a  grove 
of  the  same  stiff,  dreary  trees.  The  discol- 
ored river,  whose  eddies  boiled  into  yellow 
foam,  flowed  always  between  the  same  banks 
of  frozen  mud  or  of  muddy  ice.  And  what 


DOWN-STREAM. 


armed,  and  kept  close  together,  there  was  no 
possibility  of  their  escaping,  and  the  guard  kept 
at  such  a  distance  that  they  could  not  overpow- 
er him  by  springing  on  him,  he  having  a  Win- 
chester or  the  double-barreled  shot-gun  always 
in  his  hands  cocked  and  at  the  ready.  So  long 
as  we  kept  wide-awake  and  watchful,  there 
was  not  the  least  danger,  as  our  three  men 
knew  us,  and  understood  perfectly  that  the 
slightest  attempt  at  a  break  would  result  in 
their  being  shot  down ;  but,  although  there 
was  thus  no  risk,  it  was  harassing,  tedious 
work,  and  the  strain,  day  in  and  day  out, 
without  any  rest  or  let  up,  became  very  tire- 
some. 

The  days  were  monotonous  to  a  degree. 
The  endless  rows  of  hills  bounding  the  valley, 
barren  and  naked,  stretched  along  without  a 
break.  When  we  rounded  a  bend,  it  was  only 
to  see  on  each  hand  the  same  lines  of  broken 
buttes  dwindling  off  into  the  distance  ahead 
of  us  as  they  had  dwindled  off  into  the  dis- 
tance behind.  If,  in  hunting,  we  climbed  to 
their  tops,  as  far  as  our  eyes  could  scan  there 
was  nothing  but  the  great  rolling  prairie, 
bleak  and  lifeless,  reaching  off  to  the  horizon. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 7. 


was,  from  a  practical  standpoint,  even  worse, 
our  diet  began  to  be  as  same  as  the  scenery. 
Being  able  to  kill  nothing,  we  exhausted  all 
our  stock  of  provisions  and  got  reduced  to 
flour,  without  yeast  or  baking-powder;  and  un- 
leavened bread,  made  with  exceedingly  muddy 
water,  is  not,  as  a  steady  thing,  attractive. 

Finding  that  they  were  well  treated  and 
were  also  watched  with  the  closest  vigilance, 
our  prisoners  behaved  themselves  excellently 
and  gave  no  trouble,  though  afterward,  when 
out  of  our  hands  and  shut  up  in  jail,  the  half- 
breed  got  into  a  stabbing  affray.  They  con- 
versed freely  with  my  two  men  on  a  number 
of  indifferent  subjects,  and  after  the  first 
evening  no  allusion  was  made  to  the  theft,  or 
anything  connected  with  it;  so  that  an  out- 
sider overhearing  the  conversation  would 
never  have  guessed  what  our  relations  to  each 
other  really  were.  Once,  and  once  only,  did 
Finnigan  broach  the  subject.  Somebody  had 
been  speaking  of  a  man  whom  we  all  knew, 
known  as  "  Calamity,"  who  had  been  recent- 
ly taken  by  the  sheriff  on  a  charge  of  horse- 
stealing.  Calamity  had  escaped  once,  but 
was  caught  at  a  disadvantage  the  next  time; 


RANCH. 


m 


'A    SHARP    PRELIMINARY    TUSSLE. 


nevertheless,  when  summoned  to  hold  his 
hands  up,  he  refused,  and  attempted  to  draw 
his  own  revolver,  with  the  result  of  having 
two  bullets  put  through  him.  Finnigan  com- 
mented on  Calamity  as  a  fool  for  "  not  know- 
ing when  a  man  had  the  drop  on  him " ; 
and  then,  suddenly  turning  to  me,  said,  his 
weather-beaten  face  flashing  darkly  :  "  If  I  'd 
had  any  show  at  all,  you  'd  have  sure  had  to 
fight,  Mr.  Roosevelt;  but  there  was  n't  any  use 
making  a  break  when  I  'd  only  have  got  shot 
myself,  with  no  chance  of  harming  any  one 
else."  I  laughed  and  nodded,  and  the  sub- 
ject was  dropped. 

Indeed,  if  the  time  was  tedious  to  us,  it 
must  have  seemed  never-ending  to  our  prison- 
ers, who  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  lie  still  and 
read,  or  chew  the  bitter  cud  of  their  reflections, 
always  conscious  that  some  pair  of  eyes  was 
watching  them  every  moment,  and  that  at 
least  one  loaded  rifle  was  ever  ready  to  be 
'used  against  them.  They  had  quite  a  stock 
of  books,  some  of  a  rather  unexpected  kind. 
Dime  novels  and  the  inevitable  "  History  of 
the  James  Brothers" — a  book  that,  together 
with  the  "  Police  Gazette,"  is  to  be  found  in  the 
hands  of  every  professed  or  putative  ruffian  in 
the  West — seemed  perfectly  in  place;  but  it 
was  somewhat  surprising  to  find  that  a  large 
number  of  more  or  less  drearily  silly  "  society  " 
novels,  ranging  from  Ouida's  to  those  of  The 


Duchess  and  Augusta  J.  Evans,  were  most 
greedily  devoured. 

Our  commons  grew  shorter  and  shorter; 
and  finally  even  the  flour  was  nearly  gone, 
and  we  were  again  forced  to  think  seriously 
of  abandoning  the  boats.  The  Indians  had 
driven  all  the  deer  out  of  the  country ;  occa- 
sionally we  shot  prairie  fowl,  but  they  were 
not  plentiful.  A  flock  of  geese  passed  us  one 
morning,  and  afterward  an  old  gander  settled 
down  on  the  river  near  our  camp ;  but  he  was 
over  two  hundred  yards  off,  and  a  rifle-shot 
missed  him. 

But  when  the  day  was  darkest  the  dawn 
appeared.  At  last,  having  worked  down  some 
thirty  miles  at  the  tail  of  the  ice  jam,  we  struck 
an  outlying  cow-camp  of  the  C  Diamond  (CO) 
ranch,  and  knew  that  our  troubles  were  al- 
most over.  There  was  but  one  cowboy  in  it, 
but  we  were  certain  of  his  cordial  help,  for  in 
a  stock  country  all  make  common  cause  against 
either  horse-thieves  or  cattle-thieves.  He  had 
no  wagon,  but  told  us  we  could  get  one  up  at 
a  ranch  near  Killdeer  Mountains,  some  fifteen 
miles  off,  and  lent  me  a  pony  to  go  up  there 
and  see  about  it  —  which  I  accordingly  did, 
after  a  sharp  preliminary  tussle  when  I  came 
to  mount  the  wiry  bronco.  When  I  reached 
the  solitary  ranch  spoken  of,  I  was  able  to 
hire  a  large  prairie  schooner  and  two  tough 
little  bronco  mares,  driven  by  the  settler 


SHERIFF'S    WORK  ON  A   RANCH. 


51 


himself,  a  rugged  old  plainsman,  who  evidently 
could  hardly  understand  why  I  took  so  much 
bother  with  the  thieves  instead  of  hanging 
them  off-hand.  Returning  to  the  river  the  next 
day,  we  walked  our  men  up  to  the  Killdeer 
Mountains.  Seawall  and  Dow  left  me  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  went  back  to  the  boats,  and 
had  no  further  difficulty,  for  the  weather  set  in 
very  warm,  the  ice  went  through  with  a  rush, 
and  they  reached  Mandan  in  about  ten  days, 
killing  four  beaver  and  five  geese  on  the  way, 
but  lacking  time  to  stop  and  do  any  regular 
hunting. 

Meanwhile  I  took  the  three  thieves  in  to 


with  them,  except  for  the  driver,  of  whom  I 
knew  nothing,  I  had  to  be  doubly  on  my 
guard,  and  never  let  them  come  close  to  me. 
The  little  mares  went  so  slowly,  and  the  heavy 
road  rendered  any  hope  of  escape  by  flogging 
up  the  horses  so  entirely  out  of  the  question, 
that  I  soon  found  the  safest  plan  was  to  put 
the  prisoners  in  the  wagon  and  myself  walk 
behind  with  the  inevitable  Winchester.  Ac- 
cordingly I  trudged  steadily  the  whole  time 
behind  the  wagon  through  the  ankle-deep 
mud.  It  was  a  gloomy  walk.  Hour  after  hour 
went  by  always  the  same,  while  I  plodded 
along  through  the  dreary  landscape  —  hunger, 


ON   THE    ROAD   TO    DICKINSON. 


Dickinson,  the  nearest  town.  The  going  was 
bad,  and  the  little  mares  could  only  drag  the 
wagon  at  a  walk,  so,  though  we  drove  during 
the  daylight,  it  took  us  two  days  and  a  night 
to  make  the  journey.  It  was  a  most  desolate 
drive.  The  prairie  had  been  burned  the  fall 
before,  and  was  a  mere  bleak  waste  of  black- 
ened earth,  and  a  cold,  rainy  mist  lasted 
throughout  the  two  days.  The  only  variety 
\vas  where  the  road  crossed  the  shallow  head- 
waters of  Knife  and  Green  rivers.  Here  the 
ice  was  high  along  the  banks,  and  the  wagon 
had  to  be  taken  to  pieces  to  get  it  over.  My 
three  captives  were  unarmed,  but  as  I  was  alone 


cold,  and  fatigue  struggling  with  a  sense  of 
dogged,  weary  resolution.  At  night,  when  we 
put  up  at  the  squalid  hut  of  a  frontier  granger, 
the  only  habitation  on  our  road,  it  was  even 
worse.  I  did  not  dare  to  go  to  sleep,  but 
making  my  three  men  get  into  the  upper  bunk, 
from  which  they  could  get  out  only  with  diffi- 
culty, I  sat  up  with  my  back  against  the  cabin- 
door  and  kept  watch  over  them  all  night  long. 
So,  after  thirty-six  hours'  sleeplessness,  I  was 
most  heartily  glad  when  we  at  last  jolted  in- 
to the  long,  straggling  main  street  of  Dickin- 
son, and  I  was  able  to  give  my  unwilling 
companions  into  the  hands  of  the  sheriff. 


Theodore  Roosevelt. 


, 


f.      '«.",•    • 


i*_^   »7 


f^,- 


THE    ABSEN'CE    OF    LITTLE    WESLEY. 

SKNCE  little  Wesley  went,  the  place  seems  all  so  strange  and  still  — 
W'y,  I  miss  liis  yell  o'  "  Gran'pap!  "  as  I  'd  miss  the  whipperwill! 
And  to  think  1  ust  to  scold  him  fer  his  everlastin'  noise, 
When  1  on'y  rickollect  him  as  the  best  o'  little  boys! 
I  wisht  a  hunderd  times  a  day  'at  he  'd  come  trompin'  in, 
And  all  the  noise  he  ever  made  was  twic't  as  loud  ag'in  !  — 
It  'u'd  seem  like  some  soft  music  played  on  some  fine  instrument, 
'Longside  o'  this  loud  lonesomeness,  sence  little  Wesley  went! 

Of  course  the  clock  don't  tick  no  louder  than  it  ust  to  do  — 
Yit  now  they  's  times  it  'pears  like  it  'u'd  bu'st  itself  in-two ! 
And,  let  a  rooster,  suddent-like,  crow  som'ers  clos't  around, 
And  seems  's  ef,  mighty  nigh  it,  it  'u'd  lift  me  off  the  ground ! 
And  same  with  all  the  cattle  when  they  bawl  around  the  bars, 
In  the  red  o'  airly  mornin',  er  the  dusk  and  dew  and  stars, 
When  the  neighbors'  boys  'at  passes  never  stop,  but  jes  go  on. 
A-whistlin'  kind  o'  to  theirse'v's  —  sence  little  Wesley  's  gone! 

And  then,  o'  nights  when  Mother  's  settin'  up  oncommon  late, 

A-bilin'  pears  er  somepin,  and  I  set  and  smoke  and  wait, 

Tel  the  moon  out  through  the  winder  don't  look  bigger  'n  a  dime, 

And  things  keeps  gittin'  stiller  —  stiller  —  stiller  all  the  time, — 

I  've  ketched  myse'f  a-wishin'  like  —  as  I  clumb  on  the  cheer 

To  wind  the  clock,  as  I  hev  done  fer  more  'n  fifty  year' — 

A-wishin'  'at  the  time  hed  come  fer  us  to  go  to  bed, 

With  our  last  prayers,  and  our  last  tears,  sence  little  Wesley  's  dead ! 


£' 

« 
\ 


? 


James    Whitcomb  Riley. 


MILTON.* 


BY    MATTHEW    ARNOLD. 


HE  most  eloquent  voice  of 
our  century  uttered, shortly 
before  leaving  the  world, 
a  warning  cry  against "  the 
Anglo-Saxon  contagion." 
The  tendencies  and  aims, 
the  view  of  life  and  the 
social  economy  of  the  ever- 
multiplying  and  spreading  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
wo'.ild  be  found  congenial,  this  prophet  feared, 
by  all  the  prose,  all  the  vulgarity  amongst 
mankind,  and  would  invade  and  overpower 
all  nations.  The  true  ideal  would  be  lost,  a 
general  sterility  of  mind  and  heart  would'set  in. 
The  prophet  had  in  view,  no  doubt,  in  the 
warning  thus  given,  us  and  our  colonies,  but 
the  United  States  still  more.  There  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  is  already  most  numerous,  there  it 
increases  fastest ;  there  material  interests  are 

*  An    address  delivered  in  St.   Margaret's  Church, 
Westminster,  on  the  131!)  of  February,  1888,  at  theun- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 8. 


most  absorbing  and  pursued  with  most  energy; 
there  the  ideal,  the  saving  ideal,  of  a  high  and 
rare  excellence,  seems  perhaps  to  suffer  most 
danger  of  being  obscured  and  lost.  Whatever 
one  may  think  of  the  general  danger  to  the 
world  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  contagion,  it 
appears  to  me  difficult  to  deny  that  the  grow- 
ing greatness  and  influence  of  the  United 
States  does  bring  with  it  some  danger  to  the 
ideal  of  a  high  and  rare  excellence.  The  aver- 
age man  is  too  much  a  religion  there  ;  his  per- 
formance is  unduly  magnified,  his  shortcomings 
are  not  duly  seen  and  admitted.  A  lady  in  the 
State  of  Ohio  sent  to  me  only  the  other  day, 
a  volume  on  American  authors;  the  praise 
given  throughout  was  of  such  high  pitch  that 
in  thanking  her  I  could  not  forbear  saying 
that  for  only  one  or  two  of  the  authors  named 
was  such  a  strain  of  praise  admissible,  and  that 

veiling  of  a  Memorial  Window  presented  by  Mr. 
George  W.  Childs  of  Philadelphia. 


54 


MILTON. 


we  lost  all  real  standard  of  excellence  by 
praising  so  uniformly  and  immoderately.  She 
answered  me  with  charming  good  temper,  that 
very  likely  I  was  quite  right,  but  it  was  pleas- 
ant to  her  to  think  that  excellence  was  com- 
mon and  abundant.  But  excellence  is  not  com- 
mon and  abundant ;  on  the  contrary,  as  the 
Greek  poet  long  ago  said,  excellence  dwells 
among  rocks  hardly  accessible,  and  a  man 
must  almost  wear  his  heart  out  before  he  can 
reach  her.  Whoever  talks  of  excellence  as 
common  and  abundant,  is  on  the  way  to  lose 
all  right  standard  of  excellence.  And  when 
the  right  standard  of  excellence  is  lost,  it  is 
not  likely  that  much  which  is  excellent  will  be 
produced. 

To  habituate  ourselves,  therefore,  to  approve 
as  the  Bible  says,  things  that  are  really  excel- 
lent, is  of  the  highest  importance.  And  some 
apprehension  may  justly  be  caused  by  a  ten- 
dency in  Americans  to  take,  or,  at  any  rate, 
attempt  to  take,  profess  to  take,  the  average 
man  and  his  performances  too  seriously,  to 
over-rate  and  over-praise  what  is  not  really 
superior. 

But  we  have  met  here  to-day  to  witness  the 
unveiling  of  a  gift  in  Milton's  honor,  and  a 
gift  bestowed  by  an  American,  Mr.  Childs  of 
Philadelphia;  whose  cordial  hospitality  so 
many  Englishmen,  I  myself  among  the  num- 
ber, have  experienced  in  America.  It  was 
only  last  autumn  that  Stratford  upon  Avon 
celebrated  the  reception  of  a  gift  from  the 
same  generous  donor  in  honor  of  Shakspere. 
Shakspere  and  Milton  —  he  who  wishes  to 
keep  his  standard  of  excellence  high,  cannot 
choose  two  better  objects  of  regard  and  honor. 
And  it  is  an  American  who  has  chosen  thein, 
and  whose  beautiful  gift  in  honor  of  one  of 
them,  Milton,  with  Mr.  Whittier's  simple  and 
true  lines  inscribed  upon  it,  is  unveiled  to-day. 
Perhaps  this  gift  in  honor  of  Milton,  of  which 
I  am  asked  to  speak,  is,  even  more  than  the 
gift  in  honor  of  Shakspere,  one  to  suggest  edi- 
fying reflections  to  us. 

Like  Mr.  Whittier,  I  treat  the  gift  of  Mr. 
Childs  as  a  gift  in  honor  of  Milton,  although 
the  window  given  is  in  memory  of  his  second 
wife,  Catherine  Woodcock,  the  "  late  espoused 
saint"  of  the  famous  sonnet,  who  died  in  child- 
bed at  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  her  marriage 
with  Milton,  and  who  lies  buried  here  with  her 
infant.  Milton  is  buried  in  Cripplegate,  but  he 
lived  for  a  good  while  in  this  parish  of  St.  Mar- 
garet's, Westminster,  and  here  he  composed 
part  of"  Paradise  Lost,"  and  the  whole  of"  Par- 
adise Regained"  and  "Samson  Agonistes." 
When  death  deprived  him  of  the  Catherine 
whom  the  new  window  commemorates,  Mil- 
ton had  still  some  eighteen  years  to  live,  and 
Cromwell,  his  "chief  of  men,"  was  yet  ruling 


England.  But  the  Restoration,  with  its  "  Sons 
of  Belial,"  was  not  far  off;  and  in  the  mean 
time  Milton's  heavy  affliction  had  laid  fast 
hold  upon  him,  his  eyesight  had  failed  totally, 
he  was  blind.  In  what  remained  to  him  of  life 
he  had  the  consolation  of  producing  the  "  Para- 
dise Lost"  and  the  "Samson  Agonistes,"  and 
such  a  consolation  we  may  indeed  count  as  no 
slight  one.  But  the  daily  life  of  happiness  in 
common  things  and  in  domestic  affections  —  a 
life  of  which,  to  Milton  as  to  Dante,  too  small 
a  share  was  given  —  he  seems  to  have  known 
most,  if  not  only,  in  his  one  married  year  with 
the  wife  who  is  here  buried.  Her  form  "  vested 
all  in  white,"  as  in  his  sonnet  he  relates  that 
after  her  death  she  appeared  to  him,  her  face 
veiled,  but,  with  "  love,  sweetness  and  good- 
ness" shining  in  her  person, —  this  fair  and 
gentle  daughter  of  the  rigid  sectarist  of  Hack- 
ney, this  lovable  companion  with  whom  Mil- 
ton had  rest  and  happiness  one  year,  is  a  part 
of  Milton  indeed,  and  in  calling  up  her  mem- 
ory, we  call  up  his. 

And  in  calling  up  Milton's  memory  we  call 
up,  let  me  say,  a  memory  upon  which,  in 
prospect  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  contagion  and 
of  its  dangers  supposed  and  real,  it  may  be 
well  to  lay  stress  even  more  than  upon  Shak- 
spere's.  If  to  our  English  race  an  inade- 
quate sense  for  perfection  of  work  is  a  real 
danger,  if  the  discipline  of  respect  for  a  high 
and  flawless  excellence  is  peculiarly  needed 
by  us,  Milton  is  of  all  our  gifted  men  the  best 
lesson,  the  most  salutary  influence.  In  the 
sure  and  flawless  perfection  of  his  rhythm  and 
diction  he  is  as  admirable  as  Virgil  or  Dante, 
and  in  this  respect  he  is  unique  amongst  us. 
No  one  else  in  English  literature  and  art  pos- 
sesses the  like  distinction.  ' 

Thomson,  Cowper,  Wordsworth,  all  of 
them  good  poets  who  have  studied  Milton, 
followed  Milton,  adopted  his  form,  fail  in 
their  diction  and  rhythm  if  we  try  them  by 
that  high  standard  of  excellence  maintained 
by  Milton  constantly.  From  style  really  high 
and  pure  Milton  never  departs;  their  depart- 
ures from  it  are  frequent. 

Shnkspere  is  divinely  strong,  rich,  and  at- 
tractive. But  sureness  of  perfect  style  Shak- 
spere himself  does  not  possess.  I  have  heard 
a  politician  express  wonder  at  the  treasures 
of  political  wisdom  in  a  certain  celebrated 
scene  of"  Troilus  and  Cressida  " ;  for  my  part  I 
am  at  least  equally  moved  to  wonder  at  the 
fantastic  and  false  diction  in  which  Shakspere 
has  in  that  scene  clothed  them.  Milton,  from 
one  end  of  "Paradise  Lost"  to  the  other,  is 
in  his  diction  and  rhythm  constantly  a  great 
artist  in  the  great  style.  Whatever  may  be 
said  as  to  the  subject  of  his  poem,  as  to  the 
conditions  under  which  he  received  his  subject 


MILTON. 


55 


and   treated   it,  that   praise,  at   any  rate,  is 
assured  to  him. 

For  the  rest,  justice  is  not  at  present  done, 
in  my  opinion,  to  Milton's  management  of 
the  inevitable  matter  of  a  Puritan  epic,  a 
matter  full  of  difficulties,  for  a  poet.  Justice 
is  not  done  to  the  architectonics,  as  Goethe 
would  have  called  them,  of  "  Paradise  Lost " ; 
in  these,  too,  the  power  of  Milton's  art  is 
remarkable.  But  this  may  be  a  proposition 
which  requires  discussion  and  development 
for  establishing  it,  and  they  are  impossible  on 
an  occasion  like  the  present. 

That  Milton,  of  all  our  English  race,  is  by 
his  diction  and  rhythm  the  one  artist  of  the 
highest  rank  in  the  great  style  whom  we  have ; 
this  I  take  as  requiring  no  discussion,  this  I 
take  as  certain. 

The  mighty  power  of  poetry  and  art  is  gen- 
erally admitted.  But  where  the  soul  of  this 
power,  of  this  power  at  its  best,  chiefly  resides, 
very  many  of  us  fail  to  see.  It  resides  chiefly 
in  the  refining  and  elevation  wrought  in  us 
by  the  high  and  rare  excellence  of  the  great 
style.  We  may  feel  the  effect  without  being 
able  to  give  ourselves  clear  account  of  its 
cause,  but  the  thing  is  so.  Now,  no  race  needs 
the  influences  mentioned,  the  influences  of 
refining  and  elevation,  more  than  ours;  and 
in  poetry  and  art  our  grand  source  for  them 
is  Milton. 

To  what  does  he  owe  this  supreme  distinc- 
tion ?  To  nature  first  and  foremost,  to  that 
bent  of  nature  for  inequality  which  to  the  wor- 
shipers of  the  average  man  is  so  unaccept- 
able ;  to  a  gift,  a  divine  favor.  "  The  older  one 
grows,"  says  Goethe,  "  the  more  one  prizes 
natural  gifts,  because  by  no  possibility  can 
they  be  procured  and  stuck  on."  Nature 
formed  Milton  to  be  a  great  poet.  But  what 
other  poet  has  shown  so  sincere  a  sense  of 
the  grandeur  of  his  vocation,  and  a  moral 
effort  so  constant  and  sublime  to  make  and 
keep  himself  worthy  of  it  ?  The  Milton  of  re- 
ligious and  political  controversy,  and  perhaps 
of  domestic  life  also,  is  not  seldom  disfigured 
by  want  of  amenity,  by  acerbity.  The  Milton 
of  poetry,  on  the  other  hand  is  one  of  those 
great  men, "  who  are  modest "  —  to  quote  a  fine 
remark  of  Leopardi,  that  gifted  and  stricken 
young  Italian,  who  in  his  sense  for  poetic  style 
is  worthy  to  be  named  with  Dante  and  Mil- 
ton — "  who  are  modest,  because  they  con- 
tinually compare  themselves,  not  with  other 
men,  but  with  that  idea  of  the  perfect  which 
they  have  before  their  mind."  The  Milton  of 
poetry  is  the  man,  in  his  own  magnificent 
phrase,  of  "  devout  prayer  to  that  Eternal 
Spirit  that  can  enrich  with  all  utterance  and 
knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  Seraphim  with 
the  hallowed  fire  of  his  altar,  to  touch  and  pu- 


rify the  lips  of  whom  he  pleases."  And  finally, 
the  Milton  of  poetry  is,  in  his  own  words  again, 
the  man  of  "  industrious  and  select  reading." 
Continually  he  lived  in  companionship  with 
high  and  rare  excellence,  with  the  great  He- 
brew poets  and  prophets,  with  the  great  poets 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  Hebrew  composi- 
tions were  not  in  verse,  and  can  be  not  inad- 
equately represented  by  the  grand,  measured 
prose  of  our  English  Bible.  The  verse  of  the 
poets  of  Greece  and  Rome  no  translation  can 
adequately  reproduce.  Prose  cannot  have  the 
power  of  verse;  verse-translation  may  give 
whatever  of  charm  is  in  the  soul  and  talent 
of  the  translator  himself,  but  never  the  specific 
charm  of  the  verse  and  poet  translated.  In 
our  race  are  thousands  of  readers,  presently 
there  will  be  millions,  who  know  not  a  word 
of  Greek  and  Latin  and  will  never  learn  those 
languages.  If  this  host  of  readers  are  ever  to 
gain  any  sense  of  the  power  and  charm  of  the 
great  poets  of  antiquity,  their  way  to  gain  it 
is  not  through  translations  of  the  ancients,  but 
through  the  original  poetry  of  Milton,  who 
has  the  like  power  and  charm,  because  he  has 
the  like  great  style. 

Through  Milton  they  may  gain  it,  for,  in 
conclusion,  Milton  is  English ;  this  master  in 
the  great  style  of  the  ancients  is  English.  Vir- 
gil, whom  Milton  loved  and  honored,  has  at 
the  end  of  the  "  ^Eneid  "  a  noble  passage,  where 
Juno,  seeing  the  defeat  of  Turnus  and  the 
Italians  imminent,  the  victory  of  the  Trojan 
invaders  assured,  entreats  Jupiter  that  Italy 
may  nevertheless  survive  and  be  herself  still, 
may  retain  her  own  mind,  manners,  and  lan- 
guage, and  not  adopt  those  of  the  conqueror. 

Sit  Latium,  sint  Albani  per  secula  reges ! 

Jupiter  grants  the  prayer ;  he  promises  per- 
petuity and  the  future  to  Italy  —  Italy  ree'n- 
forced  by  whatever  virtue  the  Trojan  race  has, 
but  Italy,  not  Troy.  This  we  may  take  as  a 
sort  of  parable  suiting  ourselves.  All  the  An- 
glo-Saxon contagion,  all  the  flood  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  commonness,  beats  vainly  against  the 
great  style  but  cannot  shake  it,  and  has  to  ac- 
cept its  triumph.  But  it  triumphs  in  Milton, 
in  one  of  our  own  race,  tongue,  faith,  and  mor- 
als. Milton  has  made  the  great  style  no  longer 
an  exotic  here;  he  has  made  it  an  inmate 
amongst  us,  a  leaven,  and  a  power.  Neverthe- 
less he,  and  his  hearers  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  are  English  and  will  remain  English  : 

Sermonem  Ausonii  patrium  moresque  tenebunt. 

The  English  race  overspreads  the  world, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  ideal  of  an  excel- 
lence the  most  high  and  the  most  rare  abides 
a  possession  with  it  forever. 

Matthew  Arnold. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY* 
THE    BORDER    STATES. 


BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 


REBELLIOUS     MARYLAND. 


O  sooner  had  the  secession 
ordinance  been  secretly 
passed  by  the  convention 
of  Virginia  than  Governor 
Letcher  notified  Jefferson 
Davis  of  the  event,  and 
(doubtless  by  preconcert) 
invited  him  to  send  a  com- 
missioner from  Montgomery  to  Richmond  to 
negotiate  an  alliance.  The  adhesion  of  Vir- 
ginia was  an  affair  of  such  magnitude  and  press- 
ing need  to  the  cotton-States,  that  Davis 
made  the  Vice- President  of  the  new  Confed- 
eracy, Alexander  H.  Stephens,  his  plenipoten- 
tiary, who  accordingly  arrived  at  Richmond  on 
the  22(1  of  April.  Here  he  found  everything 
as  favorable  to  liis  mission  as  he  could  possibly 
wish.  The  convention  was  filled  with  a  new- 
born zeal  of  insurrection  ;  many  lately  stub- 
born Union  members  were  willingly  accepting 
offices  in  the  extemporized  army  of  the  State ; 
the  governor  had  that  day  appointed  Robert 
E.  Lee  commander-in-chief  of  the  Virginia 
forces,  which  choice  the  convention  immedi- 
ately confirmed.  Stephens  was  shrewd  enough 
to  perceive  that  his  real  negotiation  lay  neither 
witli  the  governor  nor  the  convention,  but  with 
this  newly  created  military  chieftain.  That 
very  evening  he  invited  Lee  to  a  conference, 
at  which  the  late  Federal  colonel  forgot  the 
sentiment  written  by  his  own  hand  two  days 
before,  that  he  never  again  desired  to  draw  his 
sword  except  in  defense  of  his  native  State,t 
and  now  expressed  great  eagerness  for  the 
proposed  alliance.  Lee  being  willing,  the 
remainder  of  the  negotiation  was  easy;  and 
two  days  afterward  (April  24)  Stephens  and 
certain  members  of  the  convention  signed  a 
formal  military  league,  making  Virginia  an 
immediate  member  of  the  "  Confederate 
States,"  and  placing  her  armies  under  the 
command  of  Jefferson  Davis — thus  treating 
with  contempt  the  convention  proviso  that 
the  secession  ordinance  should  only  take  ef- 
fect after  ratification  by  the  people,  the  vote 
on  which  had  been  set  for  the  fourth  Thurs- 
day of  May.  Lee  and  others  endured  this 
military  usurpation,  under  which  they  became 

t  Lee  to  General  Scott,  April  20,  1861. 

t  Bird  to  Walker,  April  20,  1861.   War  Records. 


beneficiaries,  without  protest.  No  excuse  for 
it  could  be  urged.  Up  to  this  time  not  the 
slightest  sign  of  hostility  to  Virginia  had  been 
made  by  the  Lincoln  administration  —  no 
threats,  no  invasion,  no  blockade;  the  burn- 
ing of  Harper's  Ferry  and  Gosport  were  in- 
duced by  the  hostile  action  of  Virginia  herself. 
On  the  contrary,  even  after  these,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln repeated  in  writing,  in  a  letter  to  Reverdy 
Johnson  which  will  be  presently  quoted,  the 
declarations  made  to  the  Virginia  commis- 
sioners on  the  1 3th,  that  he  intended  no  war, 
no  invasion,  no  subjugation  —  nothing  but 
defense  of  the  Government. 

At  the  time  of  the  Baltimore  riot  the  tele- 
graph was  still  undisturbed;  and  by  its  help, 
as  well  as  by  personal  information  and  pri- 
vate letters,  that  startling  occurrence  and 
the  succeeding  insurrectionary  uprising  were 
speedily  made  known  throughout  the  entire 
South,  where  they  excited  the  liveliest  satis- 
faction and  most  sanguine  hopes.  All  the 
Southern  newspapers  immediately  became 
clamorous  for  an  advance  on  Washington ; 
some  of  the  most  pronounced  Richmond  con- 
spirators had  all  along  been  favorable  to  such 
an  enterprise;  and  extravagant  estimates  of 
possibilities  were  telegraphed  to  Montgomery. 
They  set  forth  that  Baltimore  was  in  arms. 
Maryland  rising,  Lincoln  in  a  trap,  and  not 
more  than  1 200  regulars  and  3000  volunteers  in 
Washington ;  that  the  rebels  had  3000  men  at 
Harper's  Ferry;  that  Governor  Letcher  had 
seized  three  to  five  steamers  on  the  James 
River ;  that  the  connecting  Southern  railroads 
could  carry  5000  to  7000  men  daily  at  the  rate 
of  350  miles  per  day. 

As  a  leader  we  want  Davis.  An  hour  now  is  worth 
years  of  common  fighting.  One  dash,  and  Lincoln  is 
taken,  the  country  saved,  and  the  leader  who  does  it  will 
be  immortalized,  t 

This,  from  a  railroad  superintendent  sup- 
posed to  have  practical  skill  in  transportation, 
looked  plausible.  The  Montgomery  cabinet 
caught  the  enthusiasm  of  the  moment,  and 
on  April  22  Jefferson  Davis  telegraphed  to 
Governor  Letcher  at  Richmond : 

In  addition  to  the  forces  heretofore  ordered,  ro|tii-i- 
tions  have  been  made  for  13  regiments;  8  to  rendez- 
vous at  Lynchburg,  4  at  Richmond,  and  I  at  Harper's 
Ferry.  Sustain  Baltimore,  if  practicable.  We  reen- 
force  you. 


"  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.    All  rights  reserved. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


57 


This  dispatch  shows  us  what  a  farce  even  the 
Virginia  military  league  was,  since  two  days 
before  its  conclusion  "  foreign  "  rebel  troops 
were  already  ordered  to  the  "  sacred  soil " 
of  the  Old  Dominion.  Governor  Letchcr  was 
doubtless  willing  enough  to  respond  to  the  sug- 
gestion of  Davis,  but  apparently  had  neither 
the  necessary  troops  nor  preparation.  He  had 
as  yet  been  able  to  muster  but  a  shadowy  force 
on  the  line  of  the  Potomac,  notwithstanding 
his  adjutant-general's  pretentious  report  of  the 
previous  December.  Nevertheless, hoping  that 
events  might  ripen  the  opportunity  into  better 
conditions  for  success,  he  lost  no  time  in  send- 
ing such  encouragement  and  help  as  were  at 
his  control.  The  rebel  commander  at  Harp- 
er's Ferry  had  already  communicated  with  the 
Baltimore  authorities  and  effected  a  cordial 
understanding  with  them,  and  they  promised 
to  notify  him  of  hostile  menace  or  approach.* 
Mason,  late  senator,  appears  thereupon  to  have 
been  dispatched  to  Baltimore,  t  He  seems  to 
have  agreed  to  supply  the  Maryland  rebels 
with  such  arms  as  Virginia  could  spare ;  and 
some  2000  muskets  actually  found  their  way  to 
Baltimore  from  this  source  during  the  follow- 
ing week,J  though  an  arrangement  to  send 
twenty  cannon  (32-pounders)  to  the  same  city 
from  the  Gosport  navy  yard  §  apparently  failed. 

But  it  would  appear  that  the  project  of  a 
dash  at  Washington  found  an  unexpected  ob- 
stacle in  the  counsels  of  Virginia's  new  mili- 
tary chief,  Robert  E.  Lee,  who  assumed  com- 
mand of  the  State  forces  April  23.  ||  He 
instructed  the  officers  at  Alexandria  and  along 
the  Potomac  to  act  on  the  defensive,  to  es- 
tablish camps  of  instruction,  and  collect  men 
and  provisions,  fl  This  course  was  little  to  the 
liking  of  some  of  the  more  ardent  rebels. 
They  telegraphed  (in  substance)  that  Davis's 
immediate  presence  at  Richmond  was  essen- 
tial ;  that  his  non-arrival  was  causing  dissatis- 
faction ;  that  the  troops  had  no  confidence  in 
Lee  and  were  murmuring;  that  there  were 
signs  of  temporizing,  hopes  of  a  settlement 
without  collision,  and  consequent  danger  of 
demoralization;  that  Lee  "dwelt  on  enthu- 
siasm North  and  against  aggression  from  us." 
Said  another  dispatch : 

Have  conversed  with  General  Robert  E.  Lee.  He 
wishes  to  repress  enthusiasm  of  our  people.  His 
troops  not  ready,  although  pouring  in  every  hour. 
They  remain  here.  General  Cocke  has  three  hundred 
and  no  more.  Corps  of  observation  on  Potomac  near 
Alexandria.  He  considers  Maryland  helpless,  need- 
ing encouragement  and  succor.  Believes  twenty  thou- 
sand men  in  and  near  Washington.** 

*  Harper  to  Richardson,  April  21,  l86t.  War 
Records. 

t  Blanchard  to  Howard,  April  23,  1861.  McPherson, 
"  History  of  Ihe  Rebellion." 

t  Stuart  to  Police  Board,  May  2,  1861.   Ibid.,  p.  394. 


In  no  State  were  the  secession  plot  tings 
more  determined  or  continuous  than  in  Mary- 
land. From  the  first  a  small  but  able  and 
unwearying  knot  of  Baltimore  conspirators 
sought  to  commit  her  people  to  rebellion  by 
the  empty  form  of  a  secession  ordinance. 
They  made  speeches,  held  conventions,  be- 
sieged the  governor  with  committees;  they 
joined  the  Washington  conspirators  in  trea- 
sonable caucus ;  they  sent  recruits  to  Charles- 
ton; they  incited  the  Baltimore  riot;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  in  these  doings  they 
reflected  a  strong  minority  sentiment  in  the 
State.  With  such  a  man  as  Pickens  or  Letcher 
in  the  executive  chair  they  might  have  suc- 
ceeded, but  in  Governor  Hicks  they  found  a 
constant  stumbling-block  and  an  irremovable 
obstacle.  He  gave  Southern  commissioners 
the  cold  shoulder.  He  refused  at  first  to  call 
the  legislature.  He  declined  to  order  a  vote 
on  holding  a  convention.  He  informed  Gen- 
eral Scott  of  the  rebel  plots  of  Maryland,  and 
testified  of  the  treasonable  designs  before  the 
investigating  committee  of  Congress.  His  en- 
emies have  accused  him  of  treachery,  and  cite 
in  proof  a  letter  which  they  allege  he  wrote  a 
few  days  after  Lincoln's  election  in  which  he 
inquired  whether  a  certain  militia  company 
would  be  "  good  men  to  send  out  to  kill  Lin- 
coln and  his  men."  If  the  letter  be  not  a 
forgery,  it  was  at  most  an  ill-judged  and  awk- 
ward piece  of  badinage;  for  his  repeated  dec- 
larations and  acts  leave  no  doubt  that  from 
first  to  last  his  heart  was  true  to  the  Union. 
He  had  the  serious  fault  of  timidity,  and  in 
several  instances  foolishly  gave  way  to  popular 
clamor;  but  in  every  case  he  soon  recovered 
and  resumed  his  hostility  to  secession. 

The  Baltimore  riot,  as  we  have  seen,  put  a 
stop  to  the  governor's  arrangements  to  raise 
and  arm  four  regiments  of  Maryland  volun- 
teers, of  picked  Union  men,  for  United  States 
service  within  the  State  or  at  Washington. 
Instead  of  this,  he,  in  the  flurry  of  the  upris- 
ing, called  out  the  existing  militia  companies, 
mainly  disloyal  in  sentiment  and  officered  by 
secessionists.  The  Baltimore  authorities  col- 
lected arms,  bought  munitions,  and  improvised 
companies  to  resist  the  passage  of  troops; 
they  forbade  the  export  of  provisions,  regu- 
lated the  departure  of  vessels,  controlled  the 
telegraph.  General  Stewart,  commanding  the 
State  militia,  established  posts  and  patrols,  and 
in  effect  Maryland  became  hostile  territory  to 
the  North  and  to  the  Government.  The  Union 
flag  disappeared  from  her  soil.  For  three  or 

$  Watts  to  Lee,  April  27,  lS6i.   MS. 
II  Lee,   General    Orders,    April    23,    1861.       War 
Records. 

If  Lee  to  Cocke,  April  24, 1861.  War  Records. 
**  Duncan  to  Walker,  April  26,  1861.  MS. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


four  days  treason  was  rampant;  all  Union 
men  were  intimidated;  all  Union  expression 
or  manifestation  was  suppressed  by  mob  vio- 
lence. The  hitherto  fearless  Union  newspa- 
pers, in  order  to  save  their  offices  and  mate- 
rials from  destruction,  were  compelled  to  drift 
with  the  flood,  and  print  editorials  advising, 
in  vague  terms,  that  all  must  now  unite  in 
the  defense  of  Maryland.  It  was  in  this  storm 
and  stress  of  insurrection  that  Governor  Hicks 
protested  against  Butler's  landing,  and  sent 
Lincoln  his  proposal  of  mediation;*  and  on 
the  same  day  (April  22),  and  by  the  same  in- 
fluence, he  was  prevailed  upon  to  notify  the 
legislature  to  meet  on  the  26th.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  the  seats  of  the  Baltimore  members 
were  vacant.  A  special  election,  dominated 
by  the  same  passions,  was  held  on  the  24th. 
Only  a  "States  Rights"  ticket  was  voted  for; 
and  of  the  30,000  electors  in  the  city  9244, 
without  opposition,  elected  the  little  knot  of 
secession  conspirators  —  the  Union  men  not 
daring  to  nominate  candidates  or  come  to 
the  polls. 

For  the  moment  the  leading  Unionists  of 
Maryland  deemed  their  true  role  one  of  pa- 
tience and  conciliation.  In  this  spirit  Reverdy 
Johnson,  a  lawyer  and  statesman  of  fame  and 
influence  both  at  home  and  abroad,  came  to 
Lincoln  upon  the  stereotyped  errand  to  ob- 
tain some  assurance  in  writing  that  he  medi- 
tated no  invasion  or  subjugation  of  the  South  ; 
to  which  the  President  confidentially  re- 
plied : 

I  forebore  to  answer  yours  of  the  22d  because  of  my 
aversion  (which  I  thought  you  understood)  to  getting 
on  paper  and  furnishing  new  grounds  for  misunder- 
standing. I  do  say  the  sole  purpose  of  bringing  troops 
here  is  to  defend  this  Capital.  I  do  say  I  have  no 
purpose  to  invade  Virginia  with  them  or  any  other 
troops,  as  I  understand  the  word  invasion.  But  sup- 
pose Virginia  sends  her  troops,  or  admits  others 
through  her  borders,  to  assail  this  Capital,  am  I 
not  to  repel  them  even  to  the  crossing  of  the  Poto- 
mac, if  I  can  ?  Suppose  Virginia  erects,  or  permits  to 
be  erected,  batteries  on  the  opposite  shore  to  bombard 
the  city,  are  we  to  stand  still  and  see  it  done  ?  In  a 
word,  if  Virginia  strikes  us,  are  we  not  to  strike  back, 
and  as  effectively  as  we  can  ?  Again,  are  we  not  to 
hold  Fort  Monroe  (for  instance),  if  we  can  ?  I  have 
no  'objection  to  declare  a  thousand  times  that  I  have 
no  purpose  to  invade  Virginia  or  any  other  State,  but 
I  do  not  mean  to  let  them  invade  us  without  striking 
back.t 

Mr.  Johnson  replied,  thanking  the  Presi- 
dent for  his  frankness,  and  indorsing  all  his 

*  War  Records. 

t  Lincoln  to  Johnson,  April  24,  1861.  Unpublished 
MS. 

t  Johnson  to  Lincoln,  April  24,  1861.  Unpublished 
MS. 

§  Campbell  to  Davis,  April  28,  1861.  Unpublished 
MS. 

||  As  the  legislature,  at  its  last  session,  had  unseated 


policy.  "  In  a  word,"  said  he,  "  all  that  your 
note  suggests  would  be  my  purpose  were  I 
intrusted  with  your  high  office."  He  also 
promised  that  the  President's  note  should 
"  be  held  perfectly  confidential."  J  But  it  ap- 
pears that  Mr.  Johnson  chose  his  confidants 
with  very  poor  judgment ;  for  within  four 
days  its  substance  was  written  from  Wash- 
ington direct  to  Jefferson  Davis.§ 

By  no  means  the  least  of  the  difficult  prob- 
lems before  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet 
was  the  question  how  to  deal  with  the  Mary- 
land legislature,  so  unexpectedly  called  to 
assemble.  The  special  election  in  Baltimore,]] 
held  under  secession  terrorism,  had  resulted 
in  the  unopposed  choice  of  ten  delegates 
from  the  city,  all  believed  to  be  disloyal, 
and  several  of  them  known  to  be  conspicu- 
ous secessionists.  With  this  fresh  element  of 
treason  suddenly  added  to  a  legislative  body 
so  small  in  numbers,  it  seemed  morally  cer- 
tain that  its  first  act  would  be  to  arm  the 
State,  and  pass  something  equivalent  to  a 
secession  ordinance.  Should  this  be  per- 
mitted ?  How  could  it  best  be  prevented  ? 
Ought  the  legislature  to  be  arrested  ?  Should 
it  be  dispersed  by  force?  General  Butler  was 
at  Annapolis,  where  it  was  expected  that 
the  session  would  be  held,  and  signified  his 
more  than  willingness  to  act  in  the  matter. 
The  plans  were  discussed  in  Cabinet  with 
great  contrariety  of  opinion.  Some  of  the 
least  belligerent  of  the  President's  councilors 
were  by  this  time  in  hot  blood  over  the 
repeated  disasters  and  indignities  which  the 
Government  had  suffered,  and  began  to  in- 
dulge in  the  unreasoning  temper  and  impa- 
tience of  the  irritated  public  opinion  of  the 
North,  where  one  of  the  largest  and  most  in- 
fluential journals  had  already  declared  that 
the  country  needed  a  dictator.  Mr.  Bates  filed 
a  written  opinion — in  spirit  a  protest — de- 
claring that  the  treasonable  acts  in  Virginia 
and  Maryland  were  encouraged  by  the  fact 
that  "  we  frighten  nobody,  we  hurt  nobody  "; 
though  he  failed  to  suggest  any  other  than 
merely  vindictive  remedies  that  were  imme- 
diately feasible.  Mr.  Chase  also  partook  of 
this  frame  of  mind,  and  wrote  the  President 
a  curt  little  note  of  querulous  complaint, 
eminently  prophetic  of  his  future  feelings 
towards  and  relations  to  Mr.  Lincoln  : 

Let  me  beg  you  to  remember  that  the  disunionists 
have  anticipated  us  in  everything,  and  that  as  yet  we 

the  delegates  from  Baltimore,  a  special  election  was 
held  in  that  city  on  April  24.  But  one  ticket  was  pre- 
sented, and  9244  ballots  were  cast  for  Messrs.  John 
C.  Brune,  Ross  Winans,  Henry  M.  Warfield,  J. 
Hanson  Thomas,  T.  Parkin  Scott,  H.  M.  Morfitt, 
S.  Teackle  Wallis,  Charles  H.  Pitts,  Wm.  G.  Harrison, 
and  Lawrence  Sangston,  the  States  Rights  candidates. 
—  Scharf,  "  History  of  Maryland,"  Vol.  III.,  p.  424. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


59 


have  accomplished  nothing  but  the  destruction  of  our 
own  property.  Let  me  beg  you  to  remember  also  that 
it  has  been  a  darling  object  with  the  disunionists  to  se- 
cure the  passage  of  a  secession  ordinance  by  Maryland. 
The  passage  of  that  ordinance  will  be  the  signal  for 
the  entry  of  disunion  forces  into  Maryland.  It  will 
give  a  color  of  law  and  regularity  to  rebellion  and 
thereby  triple  its  strength.  The  custom-housejn  Balti- 
more will  be  seized  and  Fort  Mcllenry  attacked — 
perhaps  taken.  What  next  ?  Do  not,  I  pray  you,  let 
this  new  success  of  treason  be  inaugurated  in  the  pres- 
ence of  American  troops.  Save  us  from  this  new 
humiliation.  A  word  to  the  brave  old  commanding 
general  will  do  the  work  of  prevention.  You  alone 
can  give  the  word.* 

The  had  taste  and  injustice  of  such  lan- 
guage consisted  in  its  assumption  that  the 
President  was  somehow  culpable  for  what  had 
already  occurred,  whereas  Mr.  Chase  had  in 
the  beginning  been  more  conciliatory  towards 
the  rebels  than  had  Mr.  Lincoln. 

With  a  higher  conception  of  the  functions 
of  the  presidential  office,  Mr.  Lincoln  treated 
public  clamor  and  the  fretfulness  of  Cabinet 
ministers  with  the  same  quiet  toleration.  Again, 
as  before,  and  as  ever  afterward,  he  listened 
attentively  to  such  advice  as  his  Cabinet  had 
to  give,  but  reserved  the  decision  to  him- 
self. He  looked  over  the  Attorney-General's 
legal  notes,  weighed  the  points  of  political 
expediency,  canvassed  carefully  the  proba- 
bilities of  military  advantage,  and  embodied 
his  final  directions  in  a  letter  to  General 
Scott  : 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  The  Maryland  legislature  assem- 
bles to-morrow  at  Annapolis,  and  not  improbably  will 
take  action  to  arm  the  people  of  that  State  against  the 
United  States.  The  question  has  been  submitted  to 
and  considered  by  me,  whether  it  would  not  be  justifi- 
able, upon  the  ground  of  necessary  defense,  for  you,  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  United  States  Army,  to  ar- 
rest or  disperse  the  members  of  that  body.  I  think  it 
would  not  be  justifiable,  nor  efficient  for  the  desired 
object.  First,  they  have  a  clearly  legal  right  to  assem- 
ble ;  and  we  cannot  know  in  advance  that  their  action 
will  not  be  lawful  and  peaceful.  And  if  we  wait  until 
they  shall  have  acted,  their  arrest  or  dispersion  will 
not  lessen  the  effect  of  their  action. 

Secondly,  we  cannot  permanently  prevent  their  ac- 
tion. If  we  arrest  them,  we  cannot  long  hold  them  as 
prisoners  ;  and,  when  liberated,  they  will  immediately 
reassemble  and  take  their  action.  And  precisely  the 
same  if  we  simply  disperse  them.  They  will  immedi- 
ately reassemble  in  some  other  place. 

I  therefore  conclude  that  it  is  only  left  to  the  com- 
manding general  to  watch  and  await  their  action,  which, 
if  it  shall  be  to  arm  their  people  against  the  United 
States,  he  is  to  adopt  the  most  prompt  and  efficient 
means  to  counteract,  even  if  necessary  to  the  bom- 
bardment of  their  cities;  and,  in  the  extremes!  neces- 
sity, the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  \ 

*  Chase  to  Lincoln,  April  24,  1861.  Schuckers, 
"Life  of  S.  P.  Chase." 

t  Lincoln  to  Scott,  April  25,  1861.  Unpublished  MS. 

\  Scott  to  Butler,  April  26,  1861.    War  Records. 

§  Hicks,  Special  Message,  April  27,  1861.  "  Rebel- 
lion Record." 


Thus  directed,  General  Scott  wrote  to  Gen- 
eral Butler  on  the  following  day : 

In  the  absence  of  the  undersigned,  the  foregoing  in- 
structions are  turned  over  to  Brigadier-General  B.  F. 
Butler  of  the  Massachusetts  Volunteers,  or  other  offi- 
cer commanding  at  Annapolis,  who  will  carry  them  out 
in  a  right  spirit;  that  is,  with  moderation  and  firmness". 
In  the  case  of  arrested  individuals  notorious  for  their 
hostility  to  the  United  States,  the  prisoners  will  be^ 
safely  kept  and  duly  cared  for,  but  not  surrendered! 
except  on  the  order  of  the  commander  aforesaid.  \. 

At  the  last  moment,  however,  conscious  of 
the  offenses  which  some  of  their  members  were 
meditating  against  the  Government,  the  Mary- 
land legislature  abandoned  the  idea  of  meet- 
ing at  Annapolis,  and  induced  the  governor 
to  convene  their  special  session  at  the  town 
of  Frederick.  Here  Governor  Hicks  sent  them 
his  special  message  on  the  27th,  reciting  the 
recent  occurrences,  transmitting  his  corre- 
spondence with  the  various  Federal  authorities, 
and  expressing  the  conviction  "  that  the  only 
safety  of  Maryland  lies  in  preserving  a  neutral 
position  between  our  brethren  of  the  North 
and  of  the  South."  At  the  same  time  he  ad- 
mitted the  right  of  transit  for  Federal  troops, 
and  counseled  "  that  we  shall  array  ourselves 
for  Union  and  peace."  §  The  lack  of  coherence 
and  consistency  in  the  message  was  atoned 
for  by  its  underlying  spirit  of  loyalty. 

Meanwhile  the  plentiful  arrival  of  volun- 
teers enabled  the  Government  to  strengthen 
its  hold  upon  Annapolis  and  the  railroad.|| 
The  military  "  Department  of  Annapolis  "  was 
created,  and  General  Butler  assigned  to  its 
command.  This  embraced  twenty  miles  on 
each  side  of  the  railroad  from  Annapolis  to 
Washington  ;fl  and  all  of  Maryland  not  in- 
cluded in  these  limits  was  left  in  General  Pat- 
terson's" Department  of  Pennsylvania."  Meas- 
ures were  taken  to  concentrate  sufficient  troops 
at  Harrisburg  and  at  Philadelphia  to  approach 
Baltimore  in  force  from  those  quarters  and 
permanently  to  occupy  the  city ;  and  to  give 
the  military  ample  authority  for  every  con- 
tingency, the  President  issued  the  following 
additional  order  to  General  Scott: 

You  are  engaged  in  suppressing  an  insurrection 
against  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  If  at  any  point 
on  or  in  the  vicinity  of  any  military  line  which  is  now 
or  which  shall  be  used  between  the  city  of  Philadel- 
phia and  the  city  of  Washington  you  find  resistance 
which  renders  it  necessary  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  for  the  public  safety,  you  personally,  or 
through  the  officer  in  command  at  the  point  at  which  re- 
sistance occurs,  are  authorized  to  suspend  that  writ.** 


||  Butler  to  Scott,  April  27,  1861.    War  Records. 

IT  General  Orders,  No.  12,  April  27,  1861.  War 
Records. 

**  Lincoln  to  Scott,  April  27,  1861.  McPherson, 
"History  of  the  Rebellion." 


6o 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Having  run  its  course  about  a  week  or  ten 
days,  the  secession  frenzy  of  Baltimore  rapidly 
subsided.  The  railroad  managers  of  that  city 
once  more  tendered  their  services  to  the  War 
Department;  but  Secretary  Cameron, instead 
of  giving  them  immediate  encouragement,  or- 
dered that  the  Annapolis  route  be  opened  for 
public  travel  and  traffic.  Their  isolation,  first 
created  by  the  bridge-burning,  was  thus  con- 
tinued and  soon  began  to  tell  seriously  upon 
their  business  interests,  as  well  as  upon  the 
general  industries  and  comfort  of  the  city. 
On  the  4th  of  May  General  Butler,  under 
Scott's  orders,  moved  forward  and  took  post 
with  two  regiments  at  the  Relay  House, 
eight  miles  from  Baltimore,  where  he  could 
control  the  westward  trains  and  cut  off  com- 
munication with  Harper's  Ferry.  The  signifi- 
cance of  all  these  circumstances  did  not  escape 
the  popular  observation  and  instinct.  The 
Union  neu'spapers  took  courage  and  once 
more  printed  bold  leaders;  the  city  govern- 
ment dismissed  the  rebel  militia  and  permitted 
bridges  and  telegraphs  to  be  repaired.  Gov- 
ernor Hicks  issued  a  proclamation  for  the 
election  of  members  of  Congress  to  attend  the 
coming  special  session  on  the  4th  of  July  ;  and 
also,  by  special  message  to  the  legislature  and 
publication  in  the  newspapers,  repudiated  the 
charge  that  he  had  consented  to  the  bridge- 
burning.  More  than  all,  the  Unionists  of  both 
city  and  State,  gaining  confidence  with  the 
strong  evidences  of  reaction,  began  to  hold 
meetings  and  conventions  vigorously  to  de- 
nounce secession,  and  to  demonstrate  that 
they  were  in  a  decided  majority. 

Little  by  little  loyalty  and  authority  assert- 
ed themselves.  About  the  ist  of  May -Gen- 
eral Scott  began  preparing  to  reestablish  the 
transit  of  troops  through  Baltimore,  and  on 
the  gth  the  first  detachment  since  the  riot 
of  April  19  successfully  made  the  journey. 
Some  1300  men  in  all,  including  Sherman's 
regular  battery  from  Minnesota  and  500  reg- 
ulars from  Texas,  were  brought  in  transports 
from  Perryville  and  landed  at  Locust  Point 
under  the  guns  of  the  Harriet  Lane,  embarked 
in  cars,  and  carried  through  South  Baltimore. 
The  city  authorities,  police,  and  a  large  con- 
course of  people  were  present;  and  the  pre- 
cautions and  arrangements  were  so  thorough 
that  not  the  slightest  disturbance  occurred. 
Four  days  after  this  (May  13)  the  railroad 
brought  the  first  train  from  Philadelphia  over 
its  repaired  track  and  restored  bridges. 

The  Maryland  legislature,  finding  its  occu- 
pation gone,  and  yet  nursing  an  obstinate  se- 
cession sympathy,  adjourned  on  May  14  to 
meet  again  on  the  4th  of  June.  About  the 
same  time  the  people  of  Baltimore  underwent 
a  surprise.  Late  on  the  evening  of  May  13, 


under  cover  of  an  opportune  thunder-storm, 
General  Butler  moved  from  the  Relay  House 
into  the  city  with  about  a  thousand  men,  the 
bulk  of  his  force  being  the  famous  Massachu- 
setts 6th,  which  had  been  mobbed  there  on  the 
i  gth  of  April.  The  movement  was  entirely  un- 
authorized and  called  forth  a  severe  rebuke 
from  General  Scott ;  but  it  met  no  opposition 
and  was  loudly  applauded  by  the  impatient 
public  opinion  of  the  North,  which  could 
ill  comprehend  the  serious  military  risk  it 
involved.  The  general  carried  his  spirit  of 
bravado  still  farther.  He  made  his  camp  on 
Federal  Hill,  which  he  proceeded  to  fortify ; 
and  on  the  afternoon  of  the  141)1  sent  a  de- 
tachment of  only  thirty-five  men  to  seize  a  lot 
of  arms  stored  near  the  locality  of  the  riot. 
The  little  squad  of  volunteers  found  the  ware- 
house and  were  given  possession  of  the  arms, — 
2200  muskets  sent  from  ^7irgitlia,  and  4020 
pikes  of  the  John  Brown  pattern,  made  for  the 
city  by  the  Winans  establishment  during  theriot 
week, —  and  loading  them  on  thirty-five  wagons 
and  drays  started  for  Fort  McHenry  over  some 
of  the  identical  streets  where  the  Massachusetts 
men  had  been  murdered  by  the  mob.  It  was  al- 
ready late  when  this  long  procession  got  un- 
der way;  large  crowds  collected,  and  riotous 
demonstrations  of  a  threatening  character  were 
made  at  several  points.  Fortunately,  the  police 
gave  efficient  assistance,  and  what  might  eas- 
ily have  become  an  unnecessary  sacrifice  of 
life  was  by  their  vigilance  averted. 

Also  coincident  with  this,  the  Union  cause 
gained  another  signal  advantage  in  Maryland. 
Governor  Hicks's  courage  had  risen  with  the 
ebb  of  disloyalty  throughout  the  State;  and 
as  soon  as  the  legislature  was  adjourned  he 
issued  his  proclamation  calling  into  the  service 
of  the  United  States  the  four  regiments  he 
originally  promised  under  the  President's  call. 
These  were  rapidly  formed,  and  became  a 
part  of  the  Union  army  under  a  new  call. 
Amidst  these  fluctuations  the  more  belligerent 
Maryland  rebels  also  formed  companies  and 
went  South  —  some  to  Richmond,  some  to 
the  rebel  camp  at  Harper's  Ferry.  But  the 
fraction  of  military  aid  which  Maryland  finally 
gave  to  the  rebellion  rose  to  no  special  signifi- 
cance. 

Out  of  these  transactions,  however,  there 
arose  a  noteworthy  judicial  incident.  A  man 
named  John  Merryman,  found  recruiting  as  a 
lieutenant  for  one  of  these  rebel  companies,  was 
arrested  (May  25)  and  imprisoned  in  Fort 
McHenry.  Chief-Justice  Taney,  then  in  Bal- 
timore, being  applied  to,  issued  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  to  bring  the  prisoner  before  him.*  Gen- 
eral Cadwalader,  at  this  time  in  command, 
made  a  respectful  reply  to  the  writ,  alleging 

*  Tyler,  "  Memoir  R.  B.  Taney,"  pp.  640-642. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


61 


GOVERNOR   T.  H.  HICKS.      (FROM  A   PHOTOGRAPH    BY  BRADY.) 

Merryman's  treason,  and  stating  further  that 
the  President  had  authorized  him  to  suspend 
the  writ  in  such  cases ;  and  requested  the 
Chief-Justice  to  postpone  further  action  till 
the  matter  could  be  referred  to  the  President.* 
This  avowal  aroused  all  the  political  ire  of  the 
Chief-Justice;  he  was  struck  with  a  judicial 
blindness  which  put  disloyalty,  conspiracy, 
treason,  and  rebellion  utterly  beyond  his  offi- 
cial contemplation.  He  saw  not  with  the  eye 
of  a  great  judge  the  offended  majesty  of  the 
law  commanding  the  obedience  of  all  citizens 
of  the  republic,  but  only,  with  a  lawyer's  mi- 
croscopic acuteness,  the  disregard  of  certain 
technical  forms  and  doubtful  professional 
dicta.  The  personal  restraint  of  one  'traitor  in 
arms  became  of  more  concern  to  him  than  the 
endangered  fate  of  representative  government 
to  the  world. 

The  Chief-Justice  immediately  ordered  an 
attachment  to  issue  against  General  Cadwal- 
ader  for  contempt ;  upon  which  the  marshal 
made  return  that  he  was  unable  to  serve  it, 
being  denied  entrance  to  Fort  McHenry. 
Thereupon  the  Chief-Justice  admitted  the  ex- 
istence of  a  superior  military  force,  but  de- 
clared "  that  the  President,  under  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  cannot  suspend 
the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  nor 
authorize  a  military  officer  to  do  it,"  and 

*  Tyler,  "  Memoir  R.  B.  Taney,"  pp.  643,  644. 
t  Ibid.,  pp.  644-659. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 9. 


that  Merryman  ought  therefore  to  be  im- 
mediately discharged;  and  went  on  to 
say  "  that  he  should  cause  his  opinion 
when  filed,  and  all  the  proceedings,  to  be 
laid  before  the  President,  in  order  that 
he  might  perform  his  constitutional  duty 
to  enforce  the  laws  by  securing  obedience 
to  the  process  of  the  United  States." 

To  this  general  purport  the  Chief-Jus- 
tice filed  his  written  opinion  on  the  ist  of 
June,t  and  caused  a  copy  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  the  President. 

Of  that  opinion  it  will  not  be  irrele- 
vant to  quote  the  criticism  of  one  of  the 
profoundest  and  most  impartial  jurists  of 
that  day: 

Chief-Justice  Taney's  opinion  in  Merryman's 
case  is  not  an  authority.  This,  of  course,  is 
said  in  the  judicial  sense.  But  it  is  not  even 
an  argument,  in  the  full  sense.  He  does  not 
argue  the  question  from  the  language  of  the 
clause,  nor  from  the  history  of  the  clause,  nor 
from  the  principles  of  the  Constitution,  except 
by  an  elaborate  depreciation  of  the  President's 
office,  even  to  the  extent  of  making  him,  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army,  called  from  the 
States  into  the  service  of  the  United  States,  no 
more  than  an  assistant  to  the  marshal's  posse  — 
the  deepest  plunge  of  judicial  rhetoric.  The  opin- 
ion, moreover,  has  a  tone,  not  to  say  a  ring,  of 
disaffection  to  the  President,  and  to  the  Northern 
and  Western  side  of  his  house,  which  is  not  com- 
fortable to  suppose  in  the  person  who  fills  the  central 
seat  of  impersonal  justice,  t 

To  this  estimate  of  the  spirit  of  Chief-Justice 
Taney's  view  we  may  properly,  by  way  of  an- 
ticipation, here  add  President  Lincoln's  own 
official  answer  to  its  substance.  No  attention 
was  of  course  paid  to  the  transmitted  papers ; 
but  the  President  at  the  time  of  their  receipt 
was  already  engaged  in  preparing  his  message 
to  the  coming  special  session  of  Congress, 
and  in  that  document  he  presented  the  justi- 
fication of  his  .act.  The  original  draft  of  the 
message,  in  Lincoln's  autograph  manuscript, 
thus  defines  the  executive  authority  with  that 
force  of  statement  and  strength  of  phraseology 
of  which  he  was  so  consummate  a  master: 

Soon  after  the  first  call  for  militia,  I  felt  it  my  duty 
to  authorize  the  commanding  general,  in  proper  cases, 
according  to  his  discretion,  to  suspend  the  privilege 
of  the  writ  of  liabeas  corpus  —  or,  in  other  words,  to 
arrest  and  detain,  without  resort  to  the  ordinary  proc- 
esses and  forms  of  law,  such  individuals  as  he  might 
deem  dangerous  to  the  public  safety.  At  my  verbal 
request,  as  well  as  by  the  general's  own  inclination, 
this  authority  has  been  exercised  but  very  sparingly. 
Nevertheless,  the  legality  and  propriety  of  what  has 
been  done  under  it  are  questioned  ;  and  I  have  been 
reminded  from  a  high  quarter  that  one  who  is  sworn 
to  "  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed  " 
should  not  himself  be  one  to  violate  them.  Of  course  I 
gave  some  consideration  to  the  questions  of  power  and 

t  Horace  Binney,  "  The  Privilege  of  the  Writ  of 
Habeas  Corpus,"  Part  I.,  p.  36. 


62 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


GOVERNOR  CLAIBORNE   F.    JACKSON. 

propriety  before  I  acted  in  this  matter.  The  whole  of 
the  laws  which  I  have  sworn  to  take  care  that  they  be 
faithfully  executed  were  being  resisted,  and  failing  to 
be  executed,  in  nearly  one-third  of  the  States.  Must 
I  have  allowed  them  to  finally  fail  of  execution,  even 
had  it  been  perfectly  clear  that  by  the  use  of  the  means 
necessary  to  their  execution  some  single  Jaw,  made  in 
such  extreme  tenderness  of  the  citizen's  liberty,  that 
practically  it  relieves  more  of  the  guilty  than  the  inno- 
cent, should,  to  a  very  limited  extent,  be  violated  ?  To 
state  the  question  more  directly,  are  all  the  laws  but 
one  to  go  unexecuted,  and  the  Government  itself  go  to 
pieces,  lest  that  one  be  violated  ?  Even  in  such  a  case 
I  should  consider  my  official  oath  broken,  if  I  should 
allow  the  Government  to  be  overthrown,  when  I  might 
think  the  disregarding  the  single  law  would  tend  to 
preserve  it.  But  in  this  case  I  was  not,  in  my  own 
judgment,  driven  to  this  ground.  In  my  opinion,  I 
violated  no  law.  The  provision  of  the  Constitution  that 
"  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not 
be  suspended  unless  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or 
invasion,  the  public  safety  may  require  it,"  is  equiva- 
lent to  a  provision — -is  a  provision  —  that  such  privi- 
lege may  be  suspended  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or 
invasion,  the  public  safety  does  require  it.  I  decided 
that  we  have  a  case  of  rebellion,  and  that  the  public 
safety  does  require  the  qualified  suspension  of  the 
privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  which  I  author- 
ized to  be  made.  Now  it  is  insisted  that  Congress,  and 
not  the  executive,  is  vested  with  this  power.  But  the 
Constitution  itself  is  silent  as  to  which,  or  who,  is  to 
exercise  the  power ;  and  as  the  provision  plainly  was 
made  for  a  dangerous  emergency,  I  cannot  bring  my- 
self to  believe  that  the  framers  of  that  instrument  in- 
tended that  in  every  case  the  danger  should  run  its 
course  until  Congress  could  be  called  together,  the 
very  assembling  of  which  might  be  prevented,  as  was 
intended  in  this  case  by  the  rebellion.* 

The  alterations  and  corrections  from  this 
first  draft  into  the  more  impersonal  form  as 
finally  sent  to  Congress  and  officially  printed, 

*  Lincoln,  Special  Message,  July  4,  1861.  Autograph 
MS.  of  original  draft. 


but  nowise  changing  its  argument  or  substance, 
are  also  entirely  in  Lincoln's  handwriting. 
That  second  and  corrected  form  better  befits 
the  measured  solemnity  of  a  State  paper. 
But  in  the  language  quoted  above  we  seem 
brought  into  direct  contact  with  the  living 
workings  of  Lincoln's  mind,  and  in  this  light 
the  autograph  original  possesses  a  peculiar  bi- 
ographical interest  and  value. 

MISSOURI. 

THE  governor  of  Missouri,  Claiborne  F. 
Jackson,  was  early  engaged  in  the  secession 
conspiracy,  though,  like  other  border-State 
executives,  he  successfully  concealed  his  ex- 
treme designs  from  the  public.  There  was  an 
intolerant  pro-slavery  sentiment  throughout 
the  State ;  but,  unlike  other  border  States, 
it  contained  a  positive  and  outspoken  minor- 
ity of  equally  strong  antislavery  citizens  in  a 
few  localities,  chiefly  in  the  great  commercial 
city  of  St.  Louis,  and  made  up  mainly  of  its 
German  residents  and  voters,  numbering  fully 
one-half  the  total  population,  which  in  1860 
was  160,000.  This  was  the  solitary  exception  to 
the  general  pro-slavery  reaction  in  the  whole 
South  during  the  decade.  Here,  in  1856,  a 
young,  talented,  courageous  leader  and  skill- 
ful politician,  Francis  P.  Blair,  Jr., though  him- 
self a  slaveholder,  had  dared  to  advocate  the 
doctrine  and  policy  of  gradual  emancipation, 
and  on  that  issue  secured  an  election  to  Con- 
gress. The  same  issue  repeated  in  1858 
brought  him  sufficiently  near  an  election  to  enti- 
tle him  to  contest  his  opponent's  seat.  In  1860 
Blair  and  his  followers,  now  fully  acting  with 
the  Republican  party,  cast  17,028  votes  for 
Lincoln,  while  the  remaining  votes  in  the  State 
were  divided  as  follows:  Douglas,  58,801 ;  Bell, 
58,372  ;  Breckinridge,  31,317-  Blair  was  also 
again  elected  to  Congress.  The  combined 
Lincoln,  Douglas,  and  Bell  vote  showed  an 
overwhelming  Union  majority ;  but  the  gov- 
ernor elected  by  the  Douglas  plurality  almost 
immediately  became  a  disunionist  and  seces- 
sion conspirator. 

With  Blair  as  a  leader,  and  such  an  organ- 
ized minority  at  his  call,  the  intrigues  of  Gov- 
ernor Jackson  to  force  Missouri  into  secession 
met  from  the  outset  with  many  difficulties, 
notwithstanding  the  governor's  official  powers, 
influential  following,  and  the  prevalent  pro- 
slavery  opinion  of  the  State.  The  legislature 
was  sufficiently  subservient  ;  it  contained  a 
majority  of  radical  secessionists,  and  only 
about  fifteen  unconditional  Union  members, 
who,  however,  were  vigilant  and  active,  and 
made  the  most  of  their  minority  influence. 
The  same  general  expedients  resorted  to  in 
other  States  by  the  conspirators  were  used  in 


THE  BORDER    STATES. 


Missouri — visits  and  speeches  from  Southern 
commissioners;  messages  and  resolutions  of 
"  Southern  "  rights  and  sympathy  and  strong 
enunciation  of  the  doctrine  of  non-coercion ; 
military  bills  and  measures  to  arm  and  con- 
trol the  State;  finally,  a  "sovereign"  State 
Convention.  Here  they  overshot  their  mark. 
A  strong  majority  of  Union  members  was 
elected.  The  convention  met  at  Jefferson  City, 
the  State  capital,  adjourned  to  the  healthier 
atmosphere  of  St.  Louis,  and  by  an  outspoken 
report  and  decided  votes  condemned  secession 
and  took  a  recess  till  December  following. 

The  secession  leaders,  however,  would  not 
accept  their  popular  defeat.  In  the 
interim  Sumter  fell,  and  Lincoln  « 
issued  his  call  for  troops.  Governor 
Jackson,  as  we  have  seen,  insulting- 
ly denounced  the  requisition  as 
"  illegal,  unconstitutional,  revolu- 
tionary, inhuman,  and  diabolical," 
and  again  convened  his  rebel  legis- 
lature in  extra  session  to  do  the 
revolutionary  work  which  the  "  sov- 
ereign "  Missouri  convention  had 
so  recently  condemned. 

It  was  an  essential  feature  of 
Governor  Jackson's  programme  to 
obtain  possession  of  the  St.  Louis 
arsenal,  and  as  early  as  January  he 
had  well-nigh  completed  his  intrigue 
for  its  surrender  to  the  State  by  a 
treacherous  officer.  But  suspicion 
was  aroused,  the  commandant 
changed,  and  the  arsenal  ree'n- 
forced;  by  the  middle  of  February 
the  garrison  had  been  increased  to 
488  regulars  and  recruits.  In  the 
mean  time  local  intrigue  was  active. 
The  secessionists  organized  bodies 
of  "Minute  men"  to  capture  it, 
while  the  Union  men  with  equal 
alertness  formed  a  safety  committee, 
and  companies  of  Home  Guards  to 
join  in  its  defense.  These  latter  were 
largely  drawn  from  the  German  part 
of  the  city,  to  which  the  arsenal 
lay  contiguous,  and  their  guardian- 
ship over  it  was  therefore  more 
direct  and  effective.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated, 
and  making  Montgomery  Blair  his  postmaster- 
general  and  Edward  Bates  his  attorney-gen- 
eral, Missouri  had  virtually  two  representatives 
in  the  Cabinet.  Francis  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  brother 
of  Montgomery,  therefore  found  no  great  dif- 
ficulty in  having  the  command  of  the  arsenal 
given  to  Captain  Nathaniel  Lyon,  not  only  a 
devoted  soldier,  but  a  man  of  thorough  anti- 
slavery  convictions.  Lyon  was  eager  to  forestall 
the  secession  conspiracy  by  extensive  prepar- 
ation and  swift  repression;  but  the  depart- 


ment commander,  General  Harney,  and  the 
ordnance  officer,  Major  Hagner,  whom  Lyon 
had  displaced,  both  of  more  slow  and  cautious 
temper,  and  reflecting  the  local  political  con- 
servatism, thwarted  and  hampered  Lyon  and 
Blair,  who  from  the  beginning  felt  and  acted 
in  concert.  No  great  difficulty  grew  out  of 
this  antagonism  till  the  President's  call  for 
troops;  then  it  created  discussion,  delay,  want 
of  cooperation.  Blair  could  not  get  his  volun- 
teers mustered  into  service,  and  Governor 
Yates  of  Illinois  could  get  no  arms.  The  Pres- 
ident finally  grew  impatient.  Harney  was 
relieved  and  called  to  Washington,  and  Lyon 


MAJOR-GENERAL   FRANCIS 


DM    A    PHOTOGRAPH    BY    BRADY.) 


directed  to  muster-in  and  arm  the  four  Mis- 
souri regiments  of  volunteers  with  all  expe- 
dition, and  to  send  the  extra  arms  to  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  while  three  Illinois  regiments 
were  ordered  to  St.  Louis  to  assist  in  guard- 
ing the  arsenal. 

These  orders  were  issued  in  Washington  on 
April  20.  By  this  time  St.  Louis,  like  the 
whole  Union,  was  seething  with  excitement, 
except  that  public  opinion  was  more  evenly 
divided  than  elsewhere.  There  were  Union 
speeches  and  rebel  speeches;  cheers  for  Lin- 


64 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


coin  and  cheers  for  Davis ;  Union  flags 
and  rebel  flags ;  Union  headquarters  and 
rebel  headquarters.  With  this  also  there 
was  mingled  a  certain  antipathy  of  na- 
tionality, all  the  Germans  being  deter- 
mined Unionists.  The  antagonism  quick- 
ly grew  into  armed  organizations.  The 
Unionists  were  mustered,  armed,  and 
drilled  at  the  arsenal  as  United  States 
volunteers.  On  the  other  hand  Governor 
Jackson,  having  decided  on  revolution, 
formed  at  St.  Louis  a  nominal  camp  of 
instruction  under  the  State  militia  laws. 
The  camp  was  established  at  Lindell's 
Grove,  was  christened  "  Camp  Jackson," 
in  honor  of  the  governor,  and  was  com- 
manded by  Brigadier-General  D.  M. 
Frost,  a  West  Point  graduate.  Two  reg- 
iments quickly  assembled,  and  a  third 
was  in  process  of  formation.  The  flag  of 
the  United  States  still  floated  over  it  and 
many  Unionists  were  in  the  ranks  of  the 
old  holiday  parade  militia  companies, 
but  the  whole  leadership  and  animating 
motive  were  in  aid  of  rebellion :  it  was 
already  literally  one  of  Jefferson  Davis's 
outposts.  As  soon  as  Governor  Jackson 
had  avowed  his  treason,  he  dispatched 
two  confidential  agents  to  Montgomery 
to  solicit  arms  and  aid,  by  whom  Jef- 
ferson Davis  wrote  in  reply : 


After   learning  as  well  as  I  could   from  the 
gentlemen  accredited  to  me  what  was  most  need- 
ful for  the  attack  on  the  arsenal,  I  have  directed 
that  Captains  Green  and  Duke  should  be  fur- 
nished with  two  12-pounder  howitzers  and  two 
32-pounder  guns,  with  the  proper  ammunition 
for  each.     These  from   the   commanding  hills 
will  be  effective,  both  against  the  garrison  and 
to  breach  the  inclosing  walls  of  the  place.       I 
concur  with  you  as  to  the  great  importance  of 
capturing  the  arsenal  and  securing  its  supplies, 
rendered  doubly  important  by  the  means  taken 
to  obstruct  your  commerce  and  render  you  unarmed 
victims  of  a  hostile  invasion.    We  look  anxiously  and 
hopefully  for  the  day  when  the  star  of  Missouri  shall 
be  added  to  the  constellation  of  the  Confederate  States 
of  America.  * 

In  reality  he  already  regarded  the  "star" 
as  in  the  "constellation."  Three  days  later 
the  rebel  Secretary  of  War  wrote  to  the  gov- 
ernor : 

Can  you  arm  and  equip  one  regiment  of  infantrjr 
for  service  in  Virginia  to  rendezvous  at  Richmond  ? 
Transportation  will  be  provided  by  this  Government. 
The  regiment  to  elect  its  own  officers,  and  must  enlist 
for  not  less  than  twelve  months,  unless  sooner  dis- 
charged, t 

In  face  of  the  overwhelming  Union  senti- 
ment of  Missouri,  so  lately  manifested  by  the 

*  Davis  to  Jackson,  April  23,  1861.  War  Records, 
t  Walker  to  Jackson,  April  26, 1861.  War  Records. 
}  Jackson  to  Walker,  May  5,  1861.  War  Records. 


BRIGADIER-UENEKAL   NATHANIEL   LVON. 

(FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRADY.) 

action  of  the  State  convention,  Governor 
Jackson  was  not  prepared  for  so  bold  a  pro- 
ceeding, and  therefore  wrote  in  reply : 

Yours  of  the  26th  ultimo,  via  Louisville,  is  received. 
I  have  no  legal  authority  to  furnish  the  men  you  de- 
sire. Missouri,  you  know,  is  yet  under  the  tyranny 
of  Lincoln's  government  —  so  far,  at  least,  as  forms  go. 
We  are  wofully  deficient  here  in  arms  and  cannot  fur- 
nish them  at  present;  but  so  far  as  men  are  concerned 
we  have  plenty  of  them  ready,  willing,  and  anxious  to 
march  at  any  moment  to  the  defense  of  the  South. 
Our  legislature  has  just  met,  and  I  doubt  not  will  give 
me  all  necessary  authority  over  the  matter.  If  you  can 
arm  the  men  they  will  go  whenever  wanted,  and  to 
any  point  where  they  may  be  most  needed.  I  send 
this  to  Memphis  by  private  hand,-being  afraid  to  trust 
our  mails  or  telegraphs.  Let  me  hear  from  you  by 
the  same  means.  Missouri  can  and  will  put  one  hun- 
dred thousand  men  in  the  field  if  required.  We  are 
using  every  means  to  arm  our  people,  and  until  we 
are  better  prepared  must  move  cautiously.  I  write 
this  in  confidence.  With  my  prayers  for  your  success, 
etc.t 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


First,  to  capture  the  arsenal  and  then  to 
reenforce  the  armies  of  Jefferson  Davis  was 
doubtless  the  immediate  object  of  Camp  Jack- 
son. It  would  be  a  convenient  nucleus  which 
at  the  given  signal  would  draw  to  itself  simi- 
lar elements  from  different  parts  of  the  State. 
Already  the  arsenal  at  Liberty — the  same  one 
from  which  arms  were  stolen  to  overawe  Kan- 
sas in  1855  —  had  been  seized  on  April  20 
and  its  contents  appropriated  by  secessionists 
in  western  Missouri.  Jeff  M.  Thompson  had 
been  for  some  weeks  drilling  a  rebel  camp  at 
St.  Joseph,  and  threatening  the  neighboring 
arsenal  at  Leavenworth.  The  legislature  was 
maturing  a  comprehensive  military  bill  which 
would  give  the  governor  power  to  concentrate 
and  use  these  scattered  fractions  of  regiments. 
Until  this  was  passed,  Camp  Jackson  had  a 
lawful  existence  under  the  old  militia  laws. 

But  the  Union  Safety  Committee,  and  es- 
pecially Mr.  Blair  and  Captain  Lyon,  followed 
the  governor's  intrigue  at  every  step,  and 
reporting  the  growing  danger  to  Washington 
received  from  President  Lincoln  extraordi- 
nary powers  to  overcome  it.  An  order  to 
Captain  Lyon  read  as  follows : 

The  President  of  the  United  States  directs  that 
you  enroll  in  the  military  service  of  the  United  States 
the  loyal  citizens  of  St  Louis  and  vicinity,  not  exceed- 
ing, with  those  heretofore  enlisted,  ten  thousand  in 
number,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  authority 
of  the  United  States  for  the  protection  of  the  peace- 
able inhabitants  of  Missouri ;  and  you  will,  if  deemed 
necessary  for  that  purpose  by  yourself  and  by  Messrs. 
Oliver  T.  Killey,  John  How,  James  O.  Broadhead, 
Samuel  T.  Glover,  J.  Witzig,  and  Francis  P.  Blair, 
Jr.,  proclaim  martial  law  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  etc.* 

It  was  upon  this  order,  with  certain  addi- 
tional details,  that  General  Scott  made  the 
indorsement,  "  It  is  revolutionary  times,  and 
therefore  I  do  not  object  to  the  irregularity 
of  this." 

The  Union  Safety  Committee  soon  had  in- 
disputable evidence  of  the  insurrectionary 
purposes  and  preparations.  On  the  night 
of  May  8  cannon,  ammunition,  and  several 
hundred  muskets,  sent  by  Jefferson  Davis, 
were  landed  at  the  St.  Louis  levee  from  a  New 
Orleans  steamer,  and  at  once  transferred  to 
Camp  Jackson.  They  had  been  brought  from 
the  arsenal  at  Baton  Rouge,  Louisiana, 
and  were  a  part  of  the  United  States  arms 
captured  there  in  January  by  the  governor  of 
that  State.  The  proceeding  did  not  escape 
the  vigilance  of  the  Safety  Committee,  but 
the  material  of  war  was  allowed  to  go  unob- 
structed to  the  camp.  The  next  day  Captain 
Lyon  visited  Camp  Jackson  in  disguise,  and 
thus  acquainting  himself  personally  with  its 
condition,  strategical  situation,  and  surround- 
ings matured  his  plan  for  its  immediate  cap- 
ture. All  legal  obstacles  which  had  been  urged 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 10. 


against  such  a  summary  proceeding  were  now 
removed  by  the  actual  presence  in  the  camp 
of  the  hostile  supplies  brought  from  Baton 
Rouge. 

At  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  May  10 
a  strong  battalion  of  regulars  with  six  pieces 
of  artillery,  four  regiments  of  Missouri  Vol- 
unteers, and  two  regiments  of  Home  Guards, 
all  under  command  of  Captain  Lyon,  were 
rapidly  inarching  through  different  streets  to 
Camp  Jackson.  Arrived  there,  it  was  but  a 
moment's  work  to  gain  the  appointed  posi- 
tions surrounding  the  camp,  and  to  plant  the 
batteries,  ready  for  action,  on  commanding 
elevations.  General  Frost  heard  of  their  com- 
ing, and  undertook  to  avert  the  blow  by  send- 
ing Lyon  a  letter  denying  that  he  or  his  com- 
mand, or  "  any  other  part  of  the  State  forces," 
meant  any  hostility  to  the  United  States — 
though  it  was  himself  who  had  endeavored 
to  corrupt  the  commandant  of  the  arsenal 
in  January,  t  and  who,  in  a  letter  to  the 
governor,  J  had  outlined  and  recommended 
these  very  military  proceedings  in  Missouri, 
convening  the  legislature,  obtaining  heavy 
guns  from  Baton  Rouge,  seizing  the  Liberty 
arsenal,  and  establishing  this  camp  of  instruc- 
tion, expressly  to  oppose  President  Lincoln. 

So  far  from  being  deterred  from  his  purpose, 
Lyon  refused  to  receive  Frost's  letter;  and, 
as  soon  as  his  regiments  were  posted,  sent  a 
written  demand  for  the  immediate  surrender 
of  Camp  Jackson,  "  with  no  other  condition 
than  that  all  persons  surrendering  under  this 
demand  shall  be  humanely  and  kindly  treated." 
The  case  presented  no  alternative ;  and  seeing 
that  he  was  dealing  with  a  resolute  man,  Frost 
surrendered  with  the  usual  protest.  Camp  and 
property  were  taken  in  possession ;  arms  were 
stacked,  and  preparation  made  to  march  the 
prisoners  to  the  arsenal,  where  on  the  follow- 
ing day  they  were  paroled  and  disbanded. 

Up  to  this  time  everything  had  proceeded 
without  casualty,  or  even  turbulent  disorder; 
but  an  immense  assemblage  of  the  street  popu- 
lace followed  the  march  and  crowded  about  the 
camp.  Most  of  them  were  peaceful  spectators 
whose  idle  curiosity  rendered  them  forgetful  of 
danger;  but  among  the  number  was  the  usual 
proportion  of  lawless  city  rowdies,  of  combat- 
ive instincts,  whose  very  nature  impelled  them 
to  become  the  foremost  elements  of  disorder 
and  revolution.  Many  of  them  had  rushed  to 
the  scene  of  expected  conflict  with  such  weap- 
ons as  they  could  seize;  and  now  as  the  home- 
ward march  began  they  pressed  defiantly  upon 
the  troops,  with  cheers  for  Jeff  Davis  and 

*  Cameron  to  Lyon,  April  30,  1861.   War  Records, 
t  Frost  to  Jackson,  January  24,  1861.     Peckham, 
"  General  Nathaniel  Lyon,"  p.  43. 
t  Frost  to  Jackson,  April  15,  1861.    Ibid.,  p.  147. 


66 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


insults  and  bitter  imprecations  upon  the  sol- 
diers. It  seems  a  fatality  that  when  a  city 
mob  in  anger  and  soldiers  with  loaded  guns 
are  by  any  circumstances  thrown  into  close 
contact  it  produces  the  same  incidents  and 
results.  There  are  insult  and  retort,  a  rush  and 
a  repulse;  then  comes  a  shower  of  missiles, 
finally  a  pistol-shot,  and  after  it  a  return  volley 
from  the  troops,  followed  by  an  irregular  fusil- 
lade from  both  sides.  Who  began  it,  or  how  it 
was  done,  can  never  be  ascertained.  It  so  hap- 
pened on  this  occasion,  both  at  the  head  and 
rear  of  the  marching  column  and  during  a 
momentary  halt ;  and,  as  usual,  the  guilty  es- 
caped, and  innocent  men,  women,  atid  chil- 
dren fell  in  their  blood,  while  the  crowd  fled 
pell-mell  in  mortal  terror.  Two  or  three  sol- 
diers and  some  fifteen  citizens  were  killed  and 
many  wounded. 

As  at  Baltimore,  the  event  threw  St.  Louis 
into  the  excitement  of  a  general  riot.  Gun 
stores  were  broken  into  and  newspaper  offices 
threatened ;  but  the  police  checked  the  out- 
break, though  public  tranquillity  and  safety 
were  not  entirely  restored  for  several  days. 

Aside  from  its  otherwise  deplorable  results, 
the  riot  produced,  or  rather  magnified,  a  mili- 
tary and  political  complication.  On  the  day 
after  the  capture  of  Camp  Jackson,  General 
Harney  returned  from  Washington,  and  once 
more  assumed  command.  His  journey  also 
was  eventful.  Arrested  by  the  rebels  at  Har- 
per's Ferry,  he  had  been  sent  to  Richmond ; 
there  the  authorities,  anxious  to  win  him 
over  to  secession  by  kindness,  set  him  at  lib- 
erty. Proof  against  their  blandishments,  how- 
ever, he  merely  thanked  them  for  their  cour- 
tesy, and,  loyal  soldier  as  he  was,  proceeded 
to  his  superiors  and  his  duty  at  Washington. 
This  circumstance  greatly  aided  his  explana- 
tions and  excuses  before  General  Scott,  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  and  the  Cabinet,  and  secured 
his  restoration  as  Department  Commander. 

But  his  return  to  St.  Louis  proved  ill  timed. 
His  arrival  there  in  the  midst  of  the  excitement 
over  the  capture  of  Camp  Jackson  and  the  riot 
emphasized  and  augmented  the  antagonism 
between  the  radical  Unionists,  led  by  Blair  and 
Lyon,  and  the  pro-slavery  and  conservative 
Unionists,  who  now  made  the  general  their 
rallying  point.  Paying  too  much  attention  to 
the  complaints  and  relying  too  blindly  upon 
the  false  representations  and  promises  of  se- 
cession conspirators  like  Frost,  and  greatly 
underrating  the  active  elements  of  rebellion 
in  Missouri,  Harney  looked  coldly  upon  the 
volunteers  and  talked  of  disbanding  the  Home 
Guards.  This  brought  him  into  conflict  with 
the  Union  Safety  Committee  and  President 
Lincoln's  orders.  Delegations  of  equally  influ- 
ential citizens  representing  both  sides  went  to 


Washington,  in  a  stubborn  mistrust  of  each  oth- 
er's motives.  In  their  appeal  to  Lincoln,  Lyon's 
friends  found  a  ready  advocate  in  Mr.  Blair, 
Postmaster-General,  and  Harney's  friends  in 
Mr.  Bates,  the  Attorney-General;  and  the  Mis- 
souri discord  was  thus  in  a  certain  degree, 
and  at  a  very  early  date,  transplanted  into  the 
Cabinet  itself.  This  local  embitterment  in  St. 
Louis  beginning  here  ran  on  for  several  years, 
and  in  its  varying  and  shifting  phases  gave 
the  President  no  end  of  trouble  in  his  endeavor 
from  first  to  last  to  be  just  to  each  faction. 

Harney  was  strongly  intrenched  in  the  per- 
sonal friendship  of  General  Scott ;  besides,  he 
was  greatly  superior  in  army  rank,  being  a 
brigadier-general,  while  Lyon  was  only  a  cap- 
tain. On  the  other  hand,  Lyon's  capture  of 
Camp  Jackson  had  shown  his  energy,  cour- 
age, and  usefulness,  and  had  given  him  great 
popular  eclat.  _  Immediately  to  supersede  him 
seemed  like  a  public  censure.  It  was  one  of 
the  many  cases  where  unforeseen  circum- 
stances created  a  dilemma,  involving  irritated 
personal  susceptibilities  and  delicate  questions 
of  public  expediency. 

President  Lincoln  took  action  promptly  and 
firmly,  though  tempered  with  that  forbear- 
ance by  which  he  was  so  constantly  en- 
abled to  extract  the  greatest  advantage  out 
of  the  most  perplexing  complications.  The 
delegations  from  Missouri  with  their  letters 
arrived  on  May  16,  a  week  after  the  Camp 
Jackson  affair.  Having  heard  both  sides,  Lin- 
coln decided  that  in  any  event  Lyon  must  be 
sustained.  He  therefore  ordered  that  Harney 
should  be  relieved,  and  that  Lyon  be  made  a 
brigadier-general  of  volunteers.  In  order,  how- 
ever, that  this  change  might  not  fall  too  harshly, 
Lincoln  did  not  make  his  decision  public,  but 
wrote  confidentially  to  Frank  Blair,  under  date 
of  May  18: 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  We  have  a  good  deal  of  anxiety 
here  about  St.  Louis.  I  understand  an  order  has  gone 
from  the  War  Department  to  you,  to  be  delivered  or 
withheld  in  your  discretion,  relieving  General  Harney 
from  his  command.  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  with  the 
order  when  it  was  made,  though  on  the  whole  I  thought 
it  best  to  make  it ;  but  since  then  I  have  become  more 
doubtful  of  its  propriety.  I  do  not  write  now  to  coun- 
termand it,  but  to  say  I  wish  you  would  withhold  it, 
unless  in  your  judgment  the  necessity  to  the  contrary 
is  very  urgent.  There  are  several  reasons  for  this. 
We  had  better  have  him  a  friend  than  an  enemy.  It 
will  dissatisfy  a  good  many  who  otherwise  would  be 
quiet.  More  than  all,  we  first  relieve  him,  then  restore 
him,  and  now  if  we  relieve  him  again  the  public  will 
ask,  "Why  all  this  vacillation  ?"  Still,  if  in  your  judg- 
ment it  is  indispensable,  let  it  be  so. 

Upon  receipt  of  this  letter  both  Blair  and 
Lyon,  with  commendable  prudence,  deter- 
mined to  carry  out  the  President's  suggestion. 
Since  Harney's  return  from  Washington  his 
words  and  acts  had  been  more  in  conformity 


TJIK  BORDER   STATES. 


67 


with  theirown  policy.  He  had  published  a  proc- 
lamation defending  and  justifying  the  capture 
of  Camp  Jackson,  and  declaring  that  "  Mis- 
souri must  share  the  destiny  of  the  Union,'' 
and  that  the  whole  power  of  the  United  States 
would  be  exerted  to  maintain  her  in  it.  Espe- 
cially was  the  proclamation  unsparing  in  its 
denunciation  of  the  recent  military  bill  of  the 
rebel  legislature. 

This  bill  cannot  be  regarded  in  any  other  light  than 
an  indirect  secession  ordinance,  ignoring  even  the 
forms  resorted  to  by  other  States.  Manifestly  its  most 
material  provisions  are  in  conflict  with  the  Constitu- 
tion and  laws  of  the  United  States.  To  this  extent  it 
is  a  nullity,  and  cannot,  and  ought  not  to,  be  up- 
held. .  .  .  Within  the  field  and  scope  of  my  com- 
mand and  authority  the  supreme  law  of  the  land 
must  and  shall  be  maintained,  and  no  subterfuges, 
whether  in  the  form  of  legislative  acts  or  otherwise,  can 
be  permitted  to  harass  or  oppress  the  good  and  law- 
abiding  people  of  Missouri.  I  shall  exert  my  authority 
to  protect  their  persons  and  property  from  violations 
of  every  kind,  and  I  shall  deem  it  my  duty  to  suppress 
all  unlawful  combinations  of  men,  whether  formed  un- 
der pretext  of  military  organizations,  or  otherwise.* 

He  also  suggested  to  the  War  Department 
the  enlistment  of  Home  Guards  and  the  need 
of  additional  troops  in  Missouri.  So  far  as 
mere  theory  and  intention  could  go,  all  this 
was  without  fault.  There  can  be  no  question 
of  Harney's  entire  loyalty,  and  of  his  skill 
and  courage  as  a  soldier  dealing  with  open 
enemies.  Unfortunately,  he  did  not  possess 
the  adroitness  and  daring  necessary  to  circum- 
vent the  secret  machinations  of  traitors. 

Governor  Jackson,  on  the  contrary,  seems 
to  have  belonged  by  nature  and  instinct  to 
the  race  of  conspirators.  He  and  his  rebel 
legislature,  convened  in  special  session  at  Jef- 
ferson City,  were  panic-stricken  by  the  news  of 
the  capture  of  Camp  Jackson.  On  that  night 
of  May  10  the  governor,  still  claiming  and 
wielding  the  executive  power  of  the  State, 
sent  out  a  train  to  destroy  the  telegraph  and  to 
burn  the  railroad  bridge  over  the  Osage  River, 
in  order  to  keep  the  bayonets  of  Lyon  and 
Blair  at  a  safe  distance.  At  night  the  legisla- 
ture met  for  business,  the  secession  members 
belted  with  pistols  and  bowie-knives,  with  guns 
lying  across  their  desks  or  leaning  against 
chairs  and  walls,  while  sentinels  and  soldiers 
filled  the  corridors  and  approaches.  The  city 
was  in  an  uproar;  the  young  ladies  of  the 
female  seminary  and  many  families  were  moved 
across  the  river  for  security .t  All  night  long 
the  secession  governor  and  his  secession  ma- 
jority hurried  their  treasonable  legislation 
through  the  mere  machinery  of  parliamentary 
forms.  It  was  under  these  conditions  that  the 

*  Harney,  Proclamation,  May  14, 1 86 1.  War  Records, 
t  Peckham, "  General  Nathaniel  Lyon,"  pp.  168-178. 
t  Price,  Harney  Agreement,  May  21,  1861.    War 
Records. 


famous  military  bill  and  kindred  acts  were 
passed.  It  appropriated  three  millions;  autho- 
rized the  issue  of  bonds;  diverted  the  school 
fund;  anticipated  two  years'  taxes;  made  the 
governor  a  military  dictator,  and  ignored  the 
Federal  Government.  It  was  in  truth, as  Harney 
called  it,  "an  indirect  secession  ordinance." 

Armed  with  these  revolutionary  enactments, 
but  still  parading  his  State  authority,  Gov- 
ernor Jackson  undertook  cautiously  to  con- 
solidate his  military  power.  Ex-Governor 
Sterling  Price  was  appointed  Major-General 
commanding  the  Missouri  State  Guard;  who, 
more  conveniently  to  cloak  the  whole  con- 
spiracy, now  sought  an  interview  with  Hamey, 
and  entered  with  him  into  a  public  agreement, 
vague  and  general  in  its  terms,  "  of  restoring 
peace  and  good  order  to  the  people  of  the 
State  in  subordination  to  the  laws  of  the 
general  and  State  governments." 

General  Price,  having  by  commission  full  authority 
over  the  militia  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  undertakes, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  governor  of  the  State,  already 
declared,  to  direct  the  whole  power  of  the  State  officers 
to  maintain  order  within  the  State  among  the  people 
thereof,  and  General  Harney  publicly  declares  that,  this 
object  being  thus  assured,  he  can  have  no  occasion1-, 
as  he  has  no  wish,  to  make  military  movements  which 
might  otherwise  create  excitements  and  jealousies, 
which  he  most  earnestly  desires  to  avoid. t 

Blinded  and  lulled  by  treacherous  profes- 
sions, Harney  failed  to  see  that  this  was  evad- 
ing the  issue  and  committing  the  flock  to  the 
care  of  the  wolf.  Price's  undertaking  to 
"  maintain  order  "  was,  in  fact,  nothing  else 
than  the  organization  of  rebel  companies  at 
favorable  points  in  the  State,  and  immediately 
brought  a  shower  of  Union  warnings  and 
complaints  to  Harney.  Within  a  week  the 
information  received  caused  him  to  notify 
Price  of  these  complaints,  and  of  his  intention 
to  organize  Union  Home  Guards  for  protec- 
tion^ More  serious  still,  reliable  news  came 
that  an  invasion  was  threatened  from  the  Ar- 
kansas border.  Price  replied  with  his  blandest 
assurances,  denying  everything.  The  aggres- 
sions, he  said,  were  acts  of  irresponsible  in- 
dividuals. To  organize  Home  Guards  would 
produce  neighborhood  collision  and  civil  war. 
He  should  carry  out  the  agreement  to  the 
letter.  Should  troops  enter  Missouri  from 
Arkansas  or  any  other  State  he  would  "  cause 
them  to  return  instanter."  || 

Harney,  taking  such  declarations  at  their 
surface  value,  and  yielding  himself  to  the 
suggestions  and  advice  of  the  St.  Louis  con- 
servatives who  disliked  Lyon  and  hated  Blair, 
remained  inactive,  notwithstanding  a  sharp 

§  Harney  to  Price,  May  27,  1861.    War  Records. 
||  Price    to    Harney,   May  28   and  May  29.   War 
Records. 


68 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


admonition  from  Washington.   The  Adjutant- 
General  wrote : 

The  President  observes  with  concern  that  not- 
withstanding the  pledge  of  the  State  authorities  to 
cooperate  in  preserving  peace  in  Missouri,  loyal 
citizens  in  great  numbers  continue  to  be  driven  from 
their  homes.  .  .  .  The  professions  of  loyalty  to 
the  Union  by  the  State  authorities  of  Missouri  are 
not  to  be  relied  upon.  They  have  already  falsified 
their  professions  too  often,  and  are  too  far  commit- 
ted to  secession,  to  be  entitled  to  your  confidence, 
and  you  can  only  be  sure  of  their  desisting  from  their 
wicked  purposes  when  it  is  out  of  their  power  to  pros- 
ecute them.  You  will  therefore  be  unceasingly  watchful 
of  their  movements,  and  not  permit  the  clamors  of  their 
partisans  and  opponents  of  the  wise  measures  already 
taken  to  prevent  you  from  checking  every  movement 
against  the  Government,  however  disguised,  under  the 
pretended  State  authority.  The  authority  of  the  United 
States  is  paramount,  and  whenever  it  is  apparent  that 
a  movement,  whether  by  color  of  State  authority  or 
not,  is  hostile,  you  will  not  hesitate  to  put  it  down.* 

Harney  had  announced  this  identical  policy 
in  his  proclamation  of  May  14.  The  difficulty 
was  that  he  failed  to  apply  and  enforce  his 
own  doctrines,  or  rather  that  he  lacked  pene- 
tration to  discern  the  treachery  of  the  State 
authorities.  He  replied  to  the  War  Department : 

My  confidence  in  the  honor  and  integrity  of  General 
Price,  in  the  purity  of  his  motives,  and  in  his  loyalty  to 
the  Government  remains  unimpaired.  His  course  as 
President  of  the  State  Convention  that  voted  by  a 
large  majority  against  submitting  an  ordinance  of  se- 
cession, and  his  efforts  since  that  time  to  calm  the 
elements  of  discord,  have  served  to  confirm  the  high 
opinion  of  him  I  have  for  many  years  entertained.! 

Lyon  and  Blair  were  much  better  informed* 
and  the  latter  wrote  to  Lincoln : 

...  I  have  to-day  delivered  to  General  Harney 
the  order  of  the  1 6th  of  May  above  mentioned  reliev- 
ing him,  feeling  that  the  progress  of  events  and  con- 
dition of  affairs  in  this  State  make  it  incumbent  upon 
me  to  assume  the  grave  responsibility  of  this  act,  the 
discretionary  power  in  the  premises  having  been  given 
me  by  the  President.  \ 

The  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War  duly 
sustained  the  act. 

This  change  of  command  soon  brought 
matters  in  Missouri  to  a  crisis.  The  State  au- 
thorities were  quickly  convinced  that  Lyon 
would  tolerate  no  evasion,  temporizing,  or  mis- 
understanding. They  therefore  asked  an  in- 
terview; and  Lyon  sent  Governor  Jackson 

'Thomas  to  Harney,  May  27,  1861.   War  Records. 

t  Harney  to  Thomas,  June  5,  1861.    War  Records. 

JF.  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  to  the  President,  May  30,  1861. 
Peckham,  "  General  Nathaniel  Lyon,"  p.  223. 

§  In  issuing  this  proclamation  I  hold  it  to  be  my 
solemn  duty  to  remind  you  that  Missouri  is  still  one 
of  the  United  States ;  that  the  Executive  Department 
of  the  State  government  does  not  arrogate  to  itself  the 
power  to  disturb  that  relation ;  that  that  power  has 
been  wisely  vested  in  a  convention  which  will  at 
the  proper  time  express  your  sovereign  will ;  and  that 
meanwhile  it  is  your  duty  to  obey  all  constitutional 're- 
quirements of  the  Federal  Government. 


and  General  Price  a  safeguard  to  visit  St.  Louis. 
They  on  the  one  part,  and  Lyon  and  Blair  on 
the  other,  with  one  or  two  witnesses,  held  an  in- 
terview of  four  hours  on  June  n.  The  gov- 
ernor proposed  that  the  State  should  remain 
neutral ;  that  he  would  not  attempt  to  organ- 
ize the  militia  under  the  military  bill,  on  con- 
dition that  the  Union  Home  Guards  should 
be  disarmed  and  no  further  Federal  troops 
should  be  stationed  in  Missouri.  Lyon  rejected 
this  proposal,  insisting  that  the  governor's 
rebel  "  State  Guards  "  should  be  disarmed  and 
the  military  bill  abandoned,  and  that  the  Fed- 
eral Government  should  enjoy  its  unrestricted 
right  to  move  and  station  its  troops  through- 
out the  State,  to  repel  invasion  or  protect  its 
citizens.  This  the  governor  refused. 

So  the  discussion  terminated.  Jackson  and 
Price  hurried  by  a  special  train  back  to  Jeffer- 
son City,  burning  bridges  as  they  went.  Ar- 
rived at  the  capital,  the  governor  at  once 
published  a  proclamation  of  war.  He  recited 
the  interview  and  its  result,  called  fifty  thou- 
sand militia  into  the  active  service  of  the 
State,  and  closed  his  proclamation  by  coupling 
together  the  preposterous  and  irreconcilable 
announcements  of  loyalty  to  the  United  States 
and  declaration  of  war  against  them  —  a  very 
marvel  of  impudence,  even  among  the  numer- 
ous kindred  curiosities  of  secession  literature.  § 

This  sudden  announcement  of  active  hostil- 
ity did  not  take  Lyon  by  surprise.  Thoroughly 
informed  of  the  conspirators'  plans,  he  had 
made  his  own  preparations  for  equally  ener- 
getic action.  Though  Jackson  had  crippled 
the  railroad,  the  Missouri  River  was  an  open 
military  highway,  and  numerous  swift  steam- 
boats lay  at  the  St.  Louis  wharf.  On  the  aft- 
ernoon of  June  13  he  embarked  one  of  his 
regular  batteries  and  several  battalions  of  his 
Missouri  Volunteers,  and  steamed  with  all 
possible  speed  up  the  river  to  Jefferson  City, 
the  capital  of  the  State,  leading  the  movement 
in  person.  He  arrived  on  the  isth  of  June, 
and,  landing,  took  possession  of  the  town  with- 
out resistance,  and  raised  the  Union  flag  over 
the  State-house.  The  governor  and  his  ad- 
herents hurriedly  fled,  his  Secretary  of  State 
carrying  off  the  great  seal  with  which  to  cer- 
tify future  pretended  official  acts. 

But  it  is  equally  my  duty  to  advise  you  that  your 
first  allegiance  is  due  to  your  own  State,  and  that  you 
are  under  no  obligation  whatever  to  obey  the  uncon- 
stitutional edicts  of  the  military  despotism  which  has 
enthroned  itself  at  Washington,  nor  to  submit  to  the 
infamous  and  degrading  sway  of  its  wicked  minions  in 
this  State.  No  brave  and  true-hearted  Missourian  will 
obey  one  or  submit  to  the  other.  Rise,  then,  and  drive 
out  ignominiously  the  invaders  who  have  dared  to 
desecrate  the  soil  which  your  labors  have  made  fruit- 
ful, and  which  is  consecrated  by  your  homes.  [Jack- 
son, Proclamation,  June  12,  1861.  Peckham, "  General 
Nathaniel  Lyon,"  p.  252.  ] 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


69 


There  had  been  no  time  for  the  rebellion  to 
gather  any  head  at  the  capital ;  but  at  the  town 
of  Boonville,  fifty  miles  farther  up  the  river, 
General  Price  was  collecting  some  fragments 
of  military  companies.  This  nucleus  of  op- 
position Lyon  determined  also  to  destroy. 
Leaving  but  a  slight  guard  at  the  capital,  he 
reembarked  his  force  next  day,  and  reaching 
Boonville  on  the  xytli  landed  without  diffi- 
culty, and  put  the  half-formed  rebel  militia 
to  flight  after  a  spirited  but  short  skirmish. 
General  Price  prudently  kept  away  from 
the  encounter;  and  Governor  Jackson,  who 
had  come  hither,  and  who  witnessed  the 
disaster  from  a  hill  two  miles  distant,  once 
more  betook  himself  to  flight.  Two  on  the 
Union  and  fifteen  on  the  rebel  side  were 
killed. 

This  affair  at  Boonville  was  the  outbreak  of 
open  warfare  in  Missouri,  though  secret  mili- 
tary aggression  against  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment had  been  for  nearly  six  months  car- 
ried on  by  the  treasonable  State  officials,  aided 
as  far  as  possible  by  the  conspiracy  in  the 
cotton-States. 

The  local  State  government  of  Missouri, 
thus  broken  by  the  hostility  of  Governor  Jack- 
son and  subordinate  officials,  was  soon  regu- 
larly restored.  It  happened  that  the  Missouri 
State  convention,  chosen,  as  already  related, 
with  the  design  of  carrying  the  State  into  re- 
bellion, but  which,  unexpectedly  to  the  con- 
spirators, remained  true  to  the  Union,  had, 
on  adjourning  its  sessions  from  March  to  De- 
cember, wisely  created  an  emergency  commit- 
tee with  power  to  call  it  together  upon  any  nec- 
essary occasion.  This  committee  now  issued  its 
call,  under  which  the  convention  assembled  in 
Jefferson  City  on  the  22d  of  July.  Many  of  its 
members  had  joined  the  rebellion,  but  a  full 
constitutional  quorum  remained,  and  took  up 
the  task  of  reconstituting  the  disorganized  ma- 
chinery of  civil  administration.  By  a  series  of 
ordinances  it  declared  the  State  offices  vacant, 
abrogated  the  military  bill  and  other  treason- 
able legislation,  provided  for  new  elections, 
and  finally,  on  the  3131  of  July,  inaugurated  a 
provisional  government,  which  thereafter  made 
the  city  of  St.  Louis  its  official  headquarters. 
Hamilton  R.  Gamble,  a  conservative,  was  made 
governor.  He  announced  his  unconditional 
adherence  to  the  Union,  and  his  authority  was 
immediately  recognized  by  the  greater  portion 
of  the  State.  Missouri  thus  remained  through 
the  entire  war,  both  in  form  and  in  substance, 
a  State  in  the  Union. 

Nevertheless  a  considerable  minority  of  its 
population,  scattered  in  many  parts,  was 
strongly  tinctured  with  sympathy  for  the  re- 
bellion. The  conspiracy  so  long  nursed  by 
Governor  Jackson  and  his  adherents  had  taken 


deep  and  pernicious  root.  An  anomalous  con- 
dition of  affairs  suddenly  sprung  up.  Amidst 
a  strongly  dominant  loyalty  there  smoldered 
the  embers  of  rebellion,  and  during  the  whole 
civil  war  there  blazed  up  fitfully,  often  where 
least  expected,  the  flames  of  neighborhood 
strife  and  guerrilla  warfare  to  an  extent  and 
with  a  fierceness  not  equaled  in  any  other 
State.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  narrate 
how,  under  cover  of  this  sentiment,  the  lead- 
ers of  secession  bands  and  armies  made  re- 
peated and  desolating  incursions;  and  how, 
some  months  later,  Governor  Jackson  with  his 
perambulating  State  seal  set  up  a  pretended 
legislature  and  State  government,  and  the 
Confederate  authorities  at  Richmond  enacted 
the  farce  of  admitting  Missouri  to  the  South- 
ern Confederacy.  It  was,  however,  from  first 
to  last,  a  palpable  sham ;  the  pretended  Con- 
federate officials  in  Missouri  had  no  capital  or 
archives,  controlled  no  population,  perma- 
nently held  no  territory,  collected  no  taxes; 
and  Governor  Jackson  was  nothing  more  than 
a  fugitive  pretender,  finding  temporary  refuge 
within  Confederate  camps. 

KENTUCKY. 

THE  three  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois,  forming  McClellan's  department,  were 
bounded  south  of  the  Ohio  River  by  the  single 
State  of  Kentucky,  stretching  from  east  to 
west,  and  occupying  at  least  four-fifths  of  the 
entire  Ohio  line.  Kentucky  was  a  slave  State. 
This  domestic  institution  allied  her  naturally 
to  the  South,  and  created  among  her  people 
a  pervading  sympathy  with  Southern  com- 
plaints and  demands.  Her  geographical  po- 
sition and  her  river  commerce  also  connected 
her  strongly  with  the  South.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  traditions  of  her  local  politics  bound 
her  indissolubly  to  the  Union.  The  fame  of 
her  great  statesman,  Henry  Clay,  rested  upon 
his  lifelong  efforts  for  its  perpetuity.  The 
compromise  of  1850,  which  thwarted  and  for 
ten  years  postponed  the  Southern  rebellion, 
was  his  crowning  political  triumph.  But 
Henry  Clay's  teaching  and  example  were 
being  warped  and  perverted.  A  feebler 
generation  of  disciples,  unable,  as  he  would 
have  done,  to  distinguish  between  honorable 
compromise  and  ruinous  concession,  under- 
took now  to  quell  war  by  refusing  to  take 
up  arms ;  desired  an  appeal  from  the  battle- 
field to  moral  suasion ;  proposed  to  preserve 
the  Government  by  leaving  revolution  un- 
checked. 

The  legislature,  though  appealing  to  the 
South  to  stay  secession,  and  though  firmly 
refusing  to  call  a  State  convention,  never- 
theless protested  against  the  use  of  force  or 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


coercion  by  the  General  Government  against 
the  seceding  States.  John  J.  Crittenden  took 
similar  ground,  counseling  Kentucky  to  stand 
by  the  Union  and  correctly  characterizing 
secession  as  simple  revolution.  Nevertheless 
he  advised  against  the  policy  of  coercion,  and 
said  of  the  seceded  States,  "  Let  them  go  on 
in  peace  with  their  experiment."*  A  public 
meeting  of  leading  citizens  at  Louisville  first 
denounced  secession  and  then  denounced 
the  President  for  attempting  to  put  down 
secession.  They  apostrophized  the  flag  and 
vowed  to  maintain  the  Union,  but  were 
ready  to  fight  Lincoln,  t  It  makes  one 
smile  to  read  again  the  childish  contradic- 
tions which  eminent  Kentucky  statesmen 
uttered  in  all  seriousness. 

A  people  that  have  prospered  beyond  example  in 
the  records  of  time,  free  and  self-governed,  without 
oppression,  without  taxation  to  be  felt,  are  now  going 
to  cut  each  other's  throats;  and  why?  Because  Presi- 
dents Lincoln  and  Davis  could  n't  settle  the  etiquette 
upon  which  the  troops  were  to  be  withdrawn  from 
Fort  Sumter.  t 

This  was  the  analysis  of  one.  Another  was 
equally  infelicitous : 

Why  this  war  ?  .  .  .  Because  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been 
elected  President  of  the  country  and  Mr.  Davis  could 
not  be,  and  therefore  a  Southern  Confederacy  was  to 
be  formed  by  Southern  demagogues,  and  now  they  are 
attempting  to  drag  you  on  with  them.  .  .  .  Let  us 
not  fight  the  North  or  South,  but,  firm  in  our  position, 
tell  our  sister  border  States  that  with  them  we  will 
stand  to  maintain  the  Union,  to  preserve  the  peace, 
and  uphold  our  honor  and  our  flag,  which  they  would 
trail  in  the  dust.  ...  If  we  must  fight,  let  us  fight 
Lincoln  and  not  our  Government.  § 

The  resolutions  of  the  meeting  were  quite 
as  illogical.  They  declared  that 

the  present  duty  of  Kentucky  is  to  maintain  her  pres- 
ent independent  position,  taking  sides  not  with  the 
Administration,  nor  with  the  seceding  States,  but  with 
the  Union  against  them  both  ;  declaring  her  soil  to  be 
sacred  from  the  hostile  tread  of  either;  and,  if  neces- 
sary, to  make  the  declaration  good  with  her  strong 
right  arm.  || 

The  preposterous  assumption  was  also 
greatly  strengthened  in  the  popular  mind  by 
the  simultaneous  publication  of  an  address 
of  the  same  tenor  in  Tennessee,  from  John 
Bell  and  others.  He  had  been  one  of  the 
four  candidates  for  President  in  the  election 
of  1860  —  the  one  for  whom  both  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  cast  their  electoral  votes ;  and 
as  the  standard-bearer  of  the  "  Constitutional 
Union  "  party  had  in  many  ways  reiterated 
his  and  their  devotion  to  "  the  Union,  the 


Constitution,  and  the  enforcement  of  the 
laws."  The  address  distinctly  disapproved 
secession  ;  it  condemned  the  policy  of  the 
Administration  ;  it  unequivocally  avowed  the 
duty  of  Tennessee  to  resist  by  force  of  arms 
the  subjugation  of  the  South.|j  What  shall  be 
said  when  men  of  reputed  wisdom  and  ex- 
perience proclaim  such  inconsistencies  ?  All 
these  incidents  are  the  ever-recurring  signs  of 
that  dangerous  demoralization  of  public  senti- 
ment, of  that  utter  confusion  of  political  prin- 
ciples, of  that  helpless  bewilderment  of  public 
thought,  into  which  portions  of  the  country 
had  unconsciously  lapsed. 

Governor  Magoffin  of  Kentucky  and  his 
personal  adherents  seem  to  have  been  ready 
to  rush  into  overt  rebellion.  His  official 
message  declared  that  Kentucky  would  resist 
the  principles  and  policy  of  the  Republican 
party  "to  the  death,  if  necessary";  that  the 
Union  had  practically  ceased  to  exist;  and  that 
she  would  not  stand  by  with  folded  arms 
while  the  seceded  States  were  being  "  subju- 
gated to  an  anti-slavery  Government."  With 
open  contumacy  he  replied  to  President  Lin- 
coln's official  call,  "  Kentucky  will  furnish  no 
troops  for  the  wicked  purpose  of  subduing 
her  sister  Southern  States."**  He  applied  to 
Jefferson  Davis  for  arms,  and  to  the  Louisville 
banks  for  money,  but  neither  effort  succeeded. 
The  existing  legislature  contained  too  many 
Union  members  to  give  him  unchecked  con- 
trol of  the  public  credit  of  the  State.  He  was 
therefore  perforce  driven  to  adhere  to  the 
policy  of  "neutrality,"  as  the  best  help  he 
could  give  the  rebellion.  Nevertheless,  he  was 
not  without  power  for  mischief.  The  militia 
of  Kentucky  had  recently  been  reorganized 
under  the  personal  influence  and  direction  of 
S.  B.  Buckner,  who,  as  inspector-general,  was 
the  legal  and  actual  general-in-chief.  Buck- 
ner, like  the  governor,  ex-Vice-President 
Breckinridge,  and  others,  was  an  avowed 
"  neutral  "  but  a  predetermined  rebel,  who  in 
the  following  September  entered  the  military 
service  of  Jefferson  Davis.  For  the  present 
his  occupation  was  rather  that  of  political  in- 
trigue to  forward  the  secession  of  Kentucky, 
which  he  carried  on  under  pretense  of  his  for- 
mal and  assumed  instructions  from  the  gov- 
ernor to  employ  the  "  State  Guard,"  or  rather 
its  shadow  of  authority,  to  prevent  the  vio- 
lation of  "  State  neutrality  "  by  either  the 
Southern  or  the  Northern  armies. 

The  public  declarations  and  manifestations 
in  Kentucky  were  not  reassuring  to  the  people 


*  Crittenden,  speech   before   Kentucky  legislature,  §  Archibald  Dixon,  speech  at  Louisville,  April  18, 

March  26,  1861.   New  York  "Tribune,"  March  30.  1861.     Ibid. 

t "  Rebellion  Record."  ||  "  Rebellion  Record." 

{ James  Guthrie,  speech  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  April  II  Ibid. 

18,  1861.     Ibid.  **  Magoffin  to  Cameron,  April  15,1861.  War  Records. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


north  of  the  Ohio  line.    Governor  Morton  of 
Indiana  wrote : 

The  country  along  the  Ohio  River  bordering  on 
Kentucky  is  in  a  state  of  intense  alarm.  The  people 
entertain  no  doubt  but  that  Kentucky  will  speedily  go 
out  of  the  Union.  They  are  in  daily  fear  that  maraud- 
ing parties  from  the  other  side  of  the  river  will  plunder 
and  burn  their  towns.* 

Even  after  the  lapse  of  some  weeks  this  fear 
was  not  dissipated.  General  McClellan  wrote : 

The  frontier  of  Indiana  and  Illinois  is  in  a  very  ex- 
cited and  almost  dangerous  condition.  In  Ohio  there  is 
more  calmness.  I  have  been  in  more  full  communica- 
tion with  the  people.  A  few  arms  have  been  supplied, 
and  all  means  have  been  taken  to  quiet  them  along  the 
frontier.  Special  messengers  have  reached  me  from 
the  governors  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  demanding  heavy 
guns  and  expressing  great  alarm.  I  sent  Lieutenant 
Williams  to  confer  with  Governor  Morton,  to  tell  him 
that  1  have  no  heavy  guns,  and  to  explain  to  him  the 
impropriety  of  placing  them  in  position  along  the 
frontier  just  at  the  present  time.  I  have  promised 
Governor  Yates  some  heavy  guns  at  Cairo  as  soon  as 
I  can  get  them. 

McClellan  himself  was  not  free  from  appre- 
hension : 

I  am  very  anxious  to  learn  the  views  of  the  Gen- 
eral [Scott]  in  regard  to  western  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri.  At  any  moment  it  may  become  neces- 
sary to  act  in  some  one  of  these  directions.  From 
reliable  information  I  am  sure  that  the  governor  of 
Kentucky  is  a  traitor.  Buckner  is  under  his  influ- 
ence, so  it  is  necessary  to  watch  them.  I  hear  to-night 
that  one  thousand  secessionists  are  concentrating  at  a 
point  opposite  Gallipolis.  Cairo  is  threatened.! 

He  proposed,  therefore,  to  reenforce  and 
fortify  Cairo,  place  several  gunboats  on  the 
river,  and  in  case  of  need  to  cross  into  Ken- 
tucky and  occupy  Covington  Heights  for  the 
better  defense  of  Cincinnati. 

This  condition  of  affairs  brought  another 
important  question  to  final  decision.  The 
governor  of  Illinois  had  ordered  the  summary 
seizure  of  war  material  at  Cairo,  and  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  formally  approved  it.  Ordi- 
nary river  commerce  was  more  tenderly  dealt 
with.  Colonel  Prentiss  wrote  : 

No  boats  have  been  searched  unless  I  had  been  pre- 
viously and  reliably  informed  that  they  had  on  board 
munitions  of  war  destined  to  the  enemies  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  in  all  cases  where  we  have  searched  we 
have  found  such  munitions.  My  policy  has  been  such 
that  no  act  of  my  command  could  be  construed  as  an 
insult,  or  cause  to  any  State  for  secession.  \ 

But  the  threatening  demonstrations  from 
the  South  were  beginning  to  show  that  this 
was  a  dangerous  leniency.  McClellan  there- 

*  Morton  to  Cameron,  April  28, 1861.  War  Records, 
t  McClellan   to   Townsend,    May    10,   1861.     War 
Records. 

J  Prentiss  to  Headquarters. 

$  McClellan  to  Scott,  May  7,  1861.    War  Records. 
||  Townsend  to  McClellan,  May  8,  1861.  Ibid. 


fore  asked  explicitly  whether  provisions  des- 
tined for  the  seceded  States  or  for  the  Southern 
army  should  longer  be  permitted  to  be  sent,§ 
to  which  an  official  order  came  on  May  8 : 
"  Since  the  order  of  the  2d,  the  Secretary  of 
War  decides  that  provisions  must  be  stopped 
at  Cairo."  || 

In  reality  matters  in  Kentucky  were  not 
quite  so  bad  as  they  appeared  to  the  public 
eye.  With  sober  second  thought,  the  underly- 
ing loyalty  of  her  people  began  to  assert  itself. 
Breckinridge  and  his  extreme  Southern  doc- 
trines had  received  only  a  little  more  than 
one-third  the  votes  of  the  State.fl  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  and  had  been  a 
consistent  Whig ;  their  strong  clanship  could 
not  quite  give  him  up  as  hopelessly  lost  in 
abolitionism.  Earnest  Unionists  also  quickly 
perceived  that  "  armed  neutrality  "  must  soon 
become  a  practical  farce ;  many  of  them  from 
the  first  used  it  as  an  artful  contrivance  to  kill 
secession.  The  legislature  indeed  declared 
for  "  strict  neutrality,"  and  approved  the  gov- 
ernor's refusal  to  furnish  troops  to  the  Presi- 
dent.** Superficially,  this  was  placing  the  State 
in  a  contumacious  and  revolutionary  attitude. 
But  this  official  action  was  not  a  true  expo- 
nent of  the  public  feeling.  The  undercurrent 
of  political  movement  is  explained  by  a  letter 
of  John  J.  Crittenden,  at  that  time  the  most 
influential  single  voice  in  the  State.  On  the 
1 7th  of  May  he  wrote  to  General  Scott : 

The  position  of  Kentucky,  and  the  relation  she  oc- 
cupies toward  the  government  of  the  Union,  is  not,  I 
fear,  understood  at  Washington.  It  ought  to  be  well 
understood.  Very  important  consequences  may  depend 
upon  it  and  upon  her  proper  treatment.  Unfortunately 
for  us,  our  governor  does  not  sympathize  with  Ken- 
tucky in  respect  to  the  secession.  His  opinions  and 
feelings  incline  him  strongly  to  the  side  of  the  South. 
His  answer  to  the  requisition  for  troops  was  in  its 
terms  hasty  and  unbecoming,  and  does  not  correspond 
with  usual  and  gentlemanly  courtesy.  But  while  she 
regretted  the  language  of  his  answer,  Kentucky  acqui- 
esced in  his  declining  to  furnish  the  troops  called  for, 
and  she  did  so,  not  because  she  loved  the  U  nion  the  less, 
but  she  feared  that  if  she  had  parted  with  those  troops, 
and  sent  them  to  serve  in  your  ranks,  she  would  have 
been  overwhelmed  by  the  secessionists  at  home  and 
severed  from  the  Union ;  and  it  was  to  preserve,  sub- 
stantially and  ultimately,  our  connection  with  the  Union 
that  induced  us  to  acquiesce  in  the  partial  infraction 
of  it  by  our  governor's  refusal  of  the  troops  required. 
This  was  the  most  prevailing  and  general  motive.  To 
this  may  be  added  the  strong  indisposition  of  our  peo- 
ple to  a  civil  war  with  the  South,  and  the  apprehended 
consequences  of  a  civil  war  within  our  State  and  among 
our  own  people.  I  could  elaborate  and  strengthen  all 
this,  but  I  will  leave  the  subject  to  your  own  reflection ; 
with  this  only  remark,  that  I  think  Kentucky's  excuse 


5[ The  vote  of1  Kentucky  in  1860  was:  Lincoln, 
1364;  Douglas,  25,651  ;  Breckinridge,  53,143;  Bell, 
66,058.  ["  Tribune  Almanac,"  1861.] 

**  Resolutions,  May  16, 1861.  Van  Home,"  History 
Army  of  the  Cumberland,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  7. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


is  a  good  one,  and  that,  under  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  complicated  case,  she  is  rendering  better  service  in 
her  present  position  than  she  could  by  becoming  an 
active  party  in  the  contest.* 

In  truth,  Kentucky  was  undergoing  a  severe 
political  struggle.  The  governor  was  constantly 
stimulating  the  revolutionary  sentiment.  The 
legislature  had  once  more  met,  on  May  6,  be- 
ing a  second  time  convened  in  special  session 
by  the  governor's  proclamation.  The  gov- 
ernor's special  message  now  boldly  accused 
the  President  of  usurpation,  and  declared  the 
Constitution  violated,  the  Government  sub- 
verted, the  Union  broken.  He  again  urged 
that  the  State  be  armed  and  a  convention  be 
called.  It  was  these  more  radical  and  dan- 
gerous measures  which  the  Union  members 
warded  off  with  a  legislative  resolution  of 
"  neutrality."  So  also  the  military  bill  which 
was  eventually  passed  was  made  to  serve  the 
Union  instead  of  the  secession  cause.  A  Union 
Board  of  Commissioners  was  provided  to  con- 
trol the  governor's  expenditures  under  it.  A 
"  Home  Guard"  was  authorized,  to  check  and 
offset  Buckner's  "  State  Guard  "  of  rebellious 
proclivities.  Privates  and  officers  of  both  or- 
ganizations were  required  to  swear  allegiance 
to  both  the  State  and  the  Union.  Finally,  it 
provided  that  the  arms  and  munitions  should 
be  used  neither  against  the  United  States  nor 
against  the  Confederate  States,  unless  to  pro- 
tect Kentucky  against  invasion.  Such  an  atti- 
tude of  qualified  loyalty  can  only  be  defended 
by  the  plea  of  its  compulsory  adoption  as  a 
lesser  evil.  But  it  served  to  defeat  the  con- 
spiracy to  assemble  a  "sovereignty  conven- 
tion "  to  inaugurate  secession ;  and  the  progress 
of  the  Kentucky  legislature,  from  its  "  anti- 
coercion  "  protest  in  January  to  its  merely 
defensive  "  neutrality  "  resolutions  and  laws  in 
May,  was  an  immense  gain. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion,  Lin- 
coln felt  that  Kentucky  would  be  a  turning 
weight  in  the  scale  of  war.  He  believed  he 
knew  the  temper  and  fidelity  of  his  native 
State,  and  gave  her  his  special  care  and  con- 
fidence. Though  Governor  Magoffin  refused 
him  troops,  there  came  to  him  from  private 
sources  the  unmistakable  assurance  that  many 
Kentuckians  were  ready  to  fight  for  the  Union. 
His  early  and  most  intimate  personal  friend, 
Joshua  F.  Speed,  was  now  an  honored  and 
influential  citizen  of  Louisville.  At  Washing- 
ton also  he  had  taken  into  a  cordial  acquaint- 
anceship a  characteristic  Kentuckian,  William 
Nelson,  a  young,  brave,  and  energetic  lieuten- 
ant of  the  United  States  Navy.  Nelson  saw 
his  usefulness,  and  perhaps  also  his  opportu- 
nity, in  an  effort  to  redeem  his  State,  rather  than 
in  active  service  on  the  quarter-deck.  He  pos- 
sessed the  social  gifts,  the  free  manners,  the 


impulsive  temperament  peculiar  to  the  South. 
Mr.  Lincoln  gave  him  leave  of  absence,  and 
sent  him  to  Kentucky  without  instructions. 
At  the  same  time  the  President  brought  an- 
other personal  influence  to  bear.  Major  An- 
derson was  the  hero  of  the  hour,  and  being  a 
Kentuckian,  that  State  rang  with  the  praise 
of  his  prudence  and  valor  in  defending  Sum- 
ter.  On  the  yth  of  May,  Lincoln  gave  him  a 
special  commission,  "  To  receive  into  the 
army  of  the  United  States  as  many  regiments 
of  volunteer  troops  from  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  from  the  western  part  of  the  State 
of  Virginia,  as  shall  be  willing  to  engage  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States,"  t  etc.,  and  sent 
him  to  Cincinnati,  convenient  to  both  fields 
of  labor.  These  three  persons,  Speed  and  Nel- 
son at  Louisville,  and  Anderson  within  easy 
consulting  distance,  formed  a  reliable  rallying- 
point  and  medium  of  communication  with  the 
President.  The  Unionists,  thus  encouraged, 
began  the  formation  of  Union  Clubs  and  Home 
Guards,  while  the  Government  gave  them  as- 
surance of  protection  in  case  of  need.  Wrote 
General  McClellan  : 

The  Union  men  of  Kentucky  express  a  firm  de- 
termination to  fight  it  out.  Yesterday  Garrett  Davis 
told  me:  "We  will  remain  in  the  Union  by  voting  if  we 
can,  by  fighting  if  we  must,  and  if  we  cannot  hold  our 
own,  we  will  call  on  the  General  Government  to  aid  us.  " 
He  asked  me  what  I  would  do  if  they  called  on  me 
for  assistance,  and  convinced  me  that  the  majority  were 
in  danger  of  being  overpowered  by  a  better-armed  mi- 
nority. I  replied  that  if  there  were  time  I  would  refer 
to  General  Scott  for  orders.  If  there  were  not  time, 
that  I  would  cross  the  Ohio  with  20,000  men.  If  that 
were  not  enough,  with  30,000;  and  if  necessary,  with 
40,000  ;  but  that  I  would  not  stand  by  and  see  the  loyal 
Union  men  of  Kentucky  crushed.  I  have  strong  hopes 
that  Kentucky  will  remain  in  the  Union,  and  the  most 
favorable  feature  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  the  Union 
men  are  now  ready  to  abandon  the  position  of  "  armed 
neutrality,"  and  to  enter  heart  and  soul  into  the  contest 
by  our  side,  t 

In  a  short  time  Nelson  quietly  brought  five 
thousand  Government  muskets  to  Louisville, 
under  the  auspices  and  control  of  a  committee 
of  leading  citizens.  Wrote  Anderson  to  Lincoln: 

I  had  the  pleasure  to  receive  yesterday  your  letter 
of  the  I4th  [May]  introducing  Mr.  Joshua  F.  Speed, 
and  giving  me  instructions  about  issuing  arms  to  our 
friends  in  Kentucky.  I  will  carefully  attend  to  the 
performance  of  that  duty.  Mr.  Speed  and  other  gen- 
tlemen for  whom  he  will  vouch,  viz.,  Hon.  James 
Guthrie,  Garrett  Davis,  and  Charles  A.  Marshall,  ad- 
vise that  I  should  not,  at  present,  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  raising  of  troops  in  Kentucky.  The  commit- 
tee charged  with  that  matter  will  go  on  with  the 
organization  and  arming  of  the  Home  Guard,  which 
they  will  see  is  composed  of  reliable  men.$ 

•  Unpublished  MS. 
t  War  Records. 

t  McClellan  to  Townsend,  May  17,  1861.  War 
Records. 


Anderson  to  Lincoln,  May  19,  1861.    Unpublished 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


73 


Under  date  of  May  28  Lincoln  received 
further  report  of  these  somewhat  confidential 
measures  to  counteract  the  conspiracy  in  his 
native  State : 

The  undersigned,  a  private  committee  to  distribute 
the  arms  brought  to  trie  State  of  Kentucky  by  Lieu- 
tenant William  Nelson,  of  the  United  States  Navy, 
among  true,  reliable  Union  men,  represent  to  the  Ex- 
ecutive Department  of  the  United  States  Government 
that  members  of  this  Hoard  have  superintended  the 
distribution  of  the  whole  quantity  of  five  thousand 
muskets  and  bayonets.  We  have  been  reliably  informed 
and  believe  that  they  have  been  put  in  the  hands  of 
(i  uc  and  devoted  Union  men,  who  are  pledged  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws;  and,  if  the  occasion  should 
arise,  to  use  them  to  put  down  all  attempts  to  take  Ken- 
tucky, by  violence  or  fraud,  out  of  the  Union.* 

The  committee  added  that  this  had  greatly 
strengthened  the  cause,  that  twenty  thousand 
more  could  be  safely  intrusted  to  the  Union 
men,  who  were  applying  for  them  and  eager  to 
get  them,  and  recommended  that  this  system 
of  arming  Kentucky  be  resumed  and  widely 
extended. f 

The  struggle  between  treason  and  loyalty 
in  the  Kentucky  legislature  had  consumed 
the  month  of  May, ending,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
decided  advantages  gained  for  the  Union,  and 
attended  by  the  important  understanding  and 
combination  between  prominent  Kentucky 
citizens  and  President  Lincoln  whereby  the 
loyalists  were  furnished  with  arms  and  as- 
sured of  decisive  military  support.  The  Ken- 
tucky legislature  adjourned  sine  die  on  May 
24,  and  the  issue  was  thereupon  transferred 
to  the  people  of  the  State.  The  contest  took 
a  double  form  :  first  an  appeal  to  the  ballot  in 
an  election  for  members  of  Congress,  which 
the  President's  call  for  a  special  session  on  the 
4th  of  July  made  necessary.  A  political  cam- 
paign ensued  of  universal  and  intense  excite- 
ment. Whatever  the  Union  sentiment  of  the 
State  had  hitherto  lacked  of  decision  and  bold- 
ness was  largely  aroused  or  created  by  this  con- 
test. The  Unionists  achieved  a  brilliant  and 
conclusive  triumph.  The  election  was  held  on 
the  2oth  of  June,  and  nine  out  of  the  ten  Con- 
gressmen chosen  were  outspoken  loyalists. 

The  second  phase  of  the  contest  was,  that 
ii  evoked  a  partial  show  of  military  force  on 
both  sides  of  the  question.  The  military  bill 
i  on  the  last  day  of  the  May  session 
provided  for  organizing  "  Home  Guards  "  for 
local  defense.  Whether  by  accident  or  design, 
Buckner's  old  militia  law  to  organize  the 
"State  Guards " had  required  an  oath  of  alle- 
giance from  the  officers  only.  The  new  law 

*  The  report  was  signed  bv  ( '.  A.  Wickliffe,  Garrett 
Davis,  J.  II.  Garrard,  J.  Harlan,  James  Speed,  and 
Thornton  F.  Marshall;  and  also  indorsed  by  J.  F.  Rob- 
inson, W.  B.  Houston,  J.  K.  Goodloe,  J.  B.  Brunner, 
and  J.  F.  Speed. 

tCommittee,  Report,May28, 1861.  Unpublished  MS. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— ii. 


required  all  the  members  to  swear  fidelity  to 
both  Kentucky  and  the  United  States,  and  a 
refusal  terminated  their  membership.!  This 
searching  touchstone  at  once  instituted  a 
process  of  separating  patriots  from  traitors. 
The  organization  of  Home  Guards  and  the 
reorganization  of  the  State  Guards  went  on 
simultaneously.  It  would  perhaps  be  more 
correct  to  say  disorganization  of  the  State 
Guards ;  for  many  loyal  members  took  advan- 
tage of  the  requirement  to  abandon  the  corps 
and  to  join  the  Home  Guards,  while  disloyal 
ones  seized  the  same  chance  to  go  to  rebel 
camps  in  the  South ;  and  under  the  action  of 
both  public  and  private  sentiment  the  State 
Guards  languished  and  the  Home  Guards  grew 
in  numerical  strength  and  moral  influence. 

Meanwhile,  as  a  third  military  organization, 
Kentuckians  wereenlistingdirectlyin  the  serv- 
ice of  the  United  States.  Even  before  the 
already  mentioned  commission  to  Anderson, 
Colonels  Guthrie  and  Woodruff  had  established 
"  Camp  Clay,"  on  the  Ohio  shore  above  Cin- 
cinnati, where  a  number  of  Kentuckians  joined 
a  yet  larger  proportion  of  Ohioans,  and  were 
mustered  into  the  three-months'  service  as  the 
ist  and  2d  regiments  Kentucky  Volunteer 
Infantry.§  These  regiments  were  afterward 
reorganized  for  the  three-years'  service ;  and 
this  time,  mainly  filled  with  real  Kentuckians, 
were  on  thegth  and  loth  of  June  remustered 
under  their  old  and  now  entirely  appropriate 
designations.  About  this  time  also  State  Sena- 
tor Rousseau,  who  had  made  a  brilliant  Union 
record  in  the  legislature,  obtained  authority 
to  raise  a  brigade.  On  consulting  with  the 
Union  leaders,  it  was  resolved  still  to  humor 
the  popular  "  neutrality  "  foible  till  after  the 
congressional  election ;  and  to  this  end  he 
established  "  Camp  Joe  Holt,"  on  the  In- 
diana shore,  where  he  gathered  his  recruits.|| 
The  same  policy  kept  the  headquarters  of 
Anderson  yet  in  Cincinnati. 

With  the  favorable  change  of  public  senti- 
ment, and  the  happy  issue  of  the  congres- 
sional election,  the  Union  men  grew  bolder. 
Nelson  had  all  this  while  been  busy,  and  had 
secretly  appointed  the  officers  and  enrolled 
the  recruits  for  four  regiments  from  central 
Kentucky.  At  the  beginning  of  July  he  threw 
off  further  concealment,  and  suddenly  assem- 
bled his  men  in  "  Camp  Dick  Robinson," 
which  he  established  between  Danville  and 
Lexington.  His  regiments  were  only  partly 
full  and  indifferently  armed,  and  the  transmis- 
sion of  proper  arms  to  his  camp  was  persist- 

t  Act  of  May  24,  1861.  "  Session  Laws,"  p.  6. 

$  Van  Home,  "  Army  of  the  Cumberland,"  Vol.  I., 
p.  14. 

||  Van  Home,  "  Army  of  the  Cumberland,"  Vol.  I., 
p.  1 6. 


74 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


ently  opposed  by  rebel  intrigue,  threats,  and 
forcible  demonstrations.  Nevertheless  the 
camp  held  firm,  and  by  equal  alertness  and 
courage  secured  its  guns,  and  so  far  sustained 
and  strengthened  the  loyal  party  that  at  the 
general  election  of  the  5th  of  August  a  new 
legislature  was  chosen  giving  the  Union  mem- 
bers a  majority  of  three-fourths  in  each  branch. 

Thus  in  a  long  and  persistent  contest,  ex- 
tending from  January  to  August,  the  secession 
conspirators  of  Kentucky,  starting  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  governor's  cooperation,  military 
control,  and  general  acceptance  of  the  "  neu- 
trality "  delusion,  were,  nevertheless,  outgen- 
eraled and  completely  baffled.  Meanwhile  the 
customary  usurpations  had  carried  Tennessee 
into  active  rebellion ;  and  now,  despairing  of 
success  by  argument  and  intrigue,  and  inspir- 
ited by  the  rebel  success  at  Bull  Run,  the 
local  conspiracy  arranged  to  call  in  the  assist- 
ance of  military  force.  On  the  iyth  of  August 
the  conspirators  assembled  in  caucus  in  Scott 
county,*  and,  it  is  alleged,  arranged  a  three- 
fold programme :  first,  the  governor  should 
officially  demand  the  removal  of  Union  camps 
and  troops  from  the  State;  secondly,  under 
pretense  of  a  popular  "  peace  "  agitation,  a 
revolutionary  rising  in  aid  of  secession  should 
take  place  in  central  Kentucky  ;  thirdly,  a  sim- 
ultaneous invasion  of  rebel  armies  from  Ten- 
nessee should  crown  and  secure  the  work. 

Whether  or  not  the  allegation  was  literally 
true,  events  developed  themselves  in  at  least 
an  apparent  conformity  to  the  plan.  Governor 
Magoffin  wrote  a  letter  to  the  President,  un- 
der date  of  August  19,  urging  "the  removal 
from  the  limits  of  Kentucky  of  the  military 
force  now  organized  and  in  camp  within  the 
State."  In  reply  to  this,  President  Lincoln, 
on  August  24,  wrote  the  governor  a  temper- 
ate but  emphatic  refusal : 

I  believe  it  is  true  that  there  is  a  military  force 
in  camp  within  Kentucky,  acting  by  authority  of 
the  United  States,  which  force  is  not  very  large,  and 
is  not  now  being  augmented.  I  also  believe  that 
some  arms  have  been  furnished  to  this  force  by  the 
United  States.  I  also  believe  this  force  consists  exclu- 
sively of  Kentuckians,  having  their  camp  in  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  of  their  own  homes,  and  not  assailing  or 
menacing  any  of  the  good  people  of  Kentucky.  In  all 
I  have  done  in  the  premises  I  have  acted  upon  the 
urgent  solicitation  of  many  Kentuckians,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  what  I  believed,  and  still  believe,  to  be  the 
wish  of  a  majority  of  all  the  Union-loving  people  of 
Kentucky.  While  I  have  conversed  on  this  subject 
with  many  eminent  men  of  Kentucky,  including  a  large 
majority  of  her  members  of  Congress,  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  any  one  of  them  or  any  other  person,  except 
your  Excellency  and  the  bearer  of  your  Excellency's 
letter,  has  urged  me  to  remove  the  military  force  from 
Kentucky,  or  to  disband  it.  One  other  very  worthy 
citizen  of  Kentucky  did  solicit  me  to  have  the  augment- 
ing of  the  force  suspended  for  a  time.  Taking  all  the 
means  within  my  reach  to  form  a  judgment,  I  do  not 
believe  it  is  the  popular  wish  of  Kentucky  that  this 


force  shall  be  removed  beyond  her  limits,  and  with  this 
impression  I  must  respectfully  decline  to  so  remove 
it.  I  most  cordially  sympathize  with  your  Excellency 
in  the  wish  to  preserve  the  peace  of  my  own  native- 
State,  Kentucky.  It  is  with  regret  I  search  and  cannot 
find  in  your  not  very  short  letter  any  declaration  or 
intimation  that  you  entertain  any  desire  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Federal  Union. 

The  other  features  of  the  general  plot  suc- 
ceeded no  better  than  Magoffin's  application 
to  Lincoln.  Three  public  demonstrations  were 
announced,  in  evident  preparation  and  prompt- 
ing of  a  popular  rebel  uprising  in  central  Ken- 
tucky. Under  pretense  of  an  ovation  to 
Vallandigham,  an  Ohio  congressman  and 
Democratic  politician,  who  had  already  made 
himself  notorious  by  speeches  of  a  rebel  ten- 
dency, a  meeting  was  held  in  Owen  county 
on  September  5.  On  September  10  a  large 
"peace"  mass  meeting  was  called  at  Frank- 
fort, the  capital,  to  overawe  the  newly  assem- 
bled loyal  legislature.  Still  a  third  gathering, 
of  "States  Rights"  and  "peace"  men,  was 
called  at  Lexington  on  September  20,  to  hold 
a  camp  drill  of  several  days,  under  supervision 
of  leading  secessionists.t 

The  speeches  and  proceedings  of  these 
treacherous  "peace"  meetings  sufficiently  re- 
vealed their  revolutionary  object.  They  were 
officered  and  managed  by  men  whose  prior 
words  and  acts  left  no  doubt  of  their  sympa- 
thies and  desires,  and  the  most  conspicuous  of 
whom  were  soon  after  in  important  stations 
of  command  in  the  rebel  armies.  The  reso- 
lutions were  skillfully  devised:  though  the 
phraseology  was  ambiguous,  the  arrangement 
and  inference  led  to  one  inevitable  conclusion. 
The  substance  and  process  were :  Firstly,  that 
peace  should  be  maintained ;  secondly,  to  main- 
tain peace  we  must  preserve  neutrality ;  thirdly, 
that  it  is  incompatible  with  neutrality  to  tax 
the  State  "  for  a  cause  so  hopeless  as  the  mili- 
tary subjugation  of  the  Confederate  States  " ; 
fourthly,  that  a  truce  be  called  and  commission- 
ers appointed  to  treat  for  a  permanent  peace. 

At  the  larger  gatherings,  where  the  proceed- 
ings were  more  critically  scanned,  prudence 
dictated  that  they  should  refrain  from  defi- 
nite committal ;  but  at  some  of  the  smaller 
preliminary  meetings  the  full  purpose  was 
announced  "  that  the  recall  of  the  invading 
armies,  and  the  recognition  of  the  separate  in- 
dependence of  the  Confederate  States,  is  the 
true  policy  to  restore  peace  and  preserve  the 
relations  of  fraternal  love  and  amity  between 
the  States." 

While  these  peace  meetings  were  in  course 
of  development,  the  second  branch  of  the  plot 
was  not  neglected.  In  the  county  of  Owen  an 

*  "Danville  Quarterly  Review,"  June,  1862. 
t "  Danville  Quarterly  Review, "June  and  September, 
1862,  pp.  245,  381,  385,  and'388. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


75 


insurrectionary  force  was  being  organized  by 
Humphrey  Marshall.  There  was  no  conceal- 
ment of  his  purpose  to  march  upon  Frankfort, 
where  the  legislature  of  the  State  had  lately 
met,  and  by  force  of  arms  to  scatter  it  and 
break  up  the  session.  Senator  Garrett  Davisof 
Kentucky  related  the  attendant  circumstances 

in  a  speech  in  the  United  States  Senate: 

.— 

I  reached  there  to  attend  a  session  of  the  Court  of 
Appeals  on  the  very  evening  that  it  was  said  Hum- 
"larshall  was  to  make  his  incursion  into  Frank- 


phrey  Ma 
lin  count! 


lin  county,  and  to  storm  the  capital.  Some  members, 
especially  secession  members  of  the  legislature,  and 
some  citizens  of  the  town  of  Frankfort,  and  one  or  two 
judges  of  our  Court  of  Appeals,  left  Frankfort  hurriedly 
in  the  expectation  that  it  was  to  be  sacked  that  night 
by  Humphrey  Marshall's  insurgent  hosts.  I  myself, 
with  other  gentlemen,  provided  ourselves  with  arms 
to  take  part  in  the  defense  of  the  legislature  and  the 
capital  of  the  State.  We  sent  to  Lexington,  where 
there  were  encamped  three  to  five  hundred  Union 
troops,  who  had  been  enlisted  in  the  Union  service  for 
the  defense  of  the  legislature  and  the  capital  of  our 
State,  and  had  them  brought  down  at  3  o'clock  in  the 
morning.* 

As  events  progressed,  both  these  branches 
of  the  plot  signally  failed.  The  peace  meet- 
ings did  not  result  in  a  popular  uprising ;  they 
served  only  to  show  the  relative  weakness  of 
the  secession  conspiracy.  Such  manifestations 
excited  the  Union  majority  to  greater  vigi- 
lance and  effort,  and  their  preparation  and 
boldness  overawed  the  contemplated  insur- 
rectionary outbreak.  A  decisive  turn  of  affairs 
had  indeed  come,  but  armed  conflict  was 
avoided.  Instead  of  the  Union  legislature 
being  driven  from  the  capital  and  dispersed. 
Vice- President  Breckinridge,  General  Buckner, 
William  Preston,  and  other  leaders  of  the  con- 
spiracy soon  after  hurriedly  left  Kentucky 
with  their  rebellious  followers  and  joined  the 
Confederate  army,  just  beyond  the  Tennessee 
border,  to  take  part  in  the  third  branch  of  the 
plot, —  a  simultaneous  invasion  of  Kentucky 
at  three  different  points. 


THE   CONFEDERATE    MILITARY    LEAGUE. 

IT  was  constantly  assumed  that  secession 
was  a  movement  of  the  entire  South.  The  fal- 
lacy of  this  assumption  becomes  apparent  when 
we  remember  the  time  required  for  the  full  or- 
ganization and  development  of  the  rebellion. 
From  the  1 2th  of  October,  when  Governor  Gist 
issued  his  proclamation  convening  the  South 
Carolina  legislature  to  inaugurate  secession, 
to  January  26,  when  Louisiana  passed  her  se- 
cession ordinance,  is  a  period  of  three  and 
a  half  months.  In  this  first  period,  as  it  may 
be  called,  only  the  six  cotton-States  reached 
a  positive  attitude  of  insurrection ;  and  they. 

*  Garrett  Davis,  Senate  speech,  March  13,  1862. 
"  Congressional  Globe,"  p.  1214. 


as  is  believed,  by  less  than  a  majority  of  their 
citixens.  Texas,  the  seventh,  did  not  finally 
join  them  till  a  week  later.  During  all  this 
time  the  eight  remaining  slave  States,  with 
certainly  as  good  a  claim  to  be  considered  the 
voice  of  the  South,  earnestly  advised  and  pro- 
tested against  the  precipitate  and  dangerous 
step.  But  secession  had  its  active  partisans 
in  them.  As  in  the  cotton-States,  their  several 
capitals  were  the  natural  centers  of  disunion ; 
and,  with  few  exceptions,  their  State  officials 
held  radical  opinions  on  the  slavery  question. 
With  the  gradual  progress  of  insurrection 
therefore  in  the  extreme  South  four  of  the 
interior  slave  States  gravitated  into  secession. 
Their  change  was  very  gradual;  perhaps 
principally  because  a  majority  of  their  people 
wished  to  remain  in  the  Union,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  wait  until  by  slow  degrees  the 
public  opinion  could  be  overcome. 

The  anomalous  condition  and  course  of 
Virginia  has  already  been  described  —  its 
Union  vote  in  January,  the  apparently  over- 
whelming Union  majority  of  its  convention, 
its  vacillating  and  contradictory  votes  during 
February  and  March,  and  its  sudden  plunge 
into  a  secession  ordinance  and  a  military  league 
with  Jefferson  Davis  immediately  after  the 
Sumter  bombardment.  The  whole  develop- 
ment of  the  change  is  explained  when  we  re- 
member that  Richmond  had  been  one  of  the 
chief  centers  of  secession  conspiracy  since 
the  Fremont  and  Buchanan  campaign  of 
1856. 

In  the  other  interior  slave  States  the  seces- 
sion movement  underwent  various  forms,  ac- 
cording to  the  greater  obstacles  which  its 
advocates  encountered.  North  Carolina,  it  will 
be  remembered,  gave  a  discouraging  answer 
to  the  first  proposal,  and  the  earliest  demon- 
strations of  the  conspiracy  elicited  no  popular 
response.  On  the  gth  and  loth  of  January  an 
immature  combination  of  State  troops  and  citi- 
zens seized  Forts  Caswell  and  Johnston,  but 
the  governor  immediately  ordered  their  res- 
toration to  the  Federal  authorities.  The  gov- 
ernor excused  the  hostile  act  by  alleging  the 
popular  apprehension  that  Federal  garrisons 
were  to  be  placed  in  them,  and  earnestly  dep- 
recated any  show  of  coercion.f  He  received 
a  conciliatory  response  from  the  War  Depart- 
ment (January  15,  1861)  that  no  occupation 
of  them  was  intended  unless  they  should  be 
threatened,  f 

Nevertheless  conspiracy  continued,  and, 
as  usual,  under  the  guise  of  solicitude  for 
peace ;  and  in  a  constant  clamor  for  additional 
guarantees,  the  revolutionary  feeling  was  aug- 
mented little  by  little.  There  seems  to  have 

t  Ellis  to  Buchanan,  Jan.  12,  1861.     War  Records. 
\  Holt  to  Ellis,  Jan.  15,  1861.  Ibid. 


76 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


been  great  fluctuation  of  public  opinion.  A  con- 
vention was  ordered  by  the  legislature  and  sub- 
sequently voted  down  at  the  polls.  Commis- 
sioners were  sent  to  the  peace  convention  at 
Washington,  and  also  to  the  provisional  rebel 
Congress  at  Montgomery,  with  instructions 
limiting  their  powers  to  an  effort  at  mediation. 
At  the  same  time  the  North  Carolina  House 
passed  a  unanimous  resolution  that  if  recon- 
ciliation failed,  North  Carolina  must  go  with 
the  slave  States.  Next  a  military  bill  was 
passed  to  reorganize  the  militia,  and  arm  ten 
thousand  volunteers.*  In  reality  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  same  struggle  which  took 
place  elsewhere ;  the  State  officials  and  radi- 
cal politicians  favoring  secession,  and  the  peo- 
ple clinging  to  the  Union,  but  yielding  finally 
to  the  arts  and  intrigues  of  their  leaders.  When 
Sumter  was  bombarded  and  President  Lincoln 
called  for  troops,  the  governor  threw  his 
whole  influence  and  authority  into  the  insur- 
rectionary movement.  He  sent  an  insulting 
refusal  to  Washington,  t  and  the  next  day 
ordered  his  State  troops  to  seize  Forts  Caswell 
and  Johnston.  A  week  later  (April  22)  he 
seized  the  Fayetteville  arsenal,  containing 
37,000  stands  of  arms,  3000  kegs  of  powder, 
and  an  immense  supply  of  shells  and  shot.  We 
may  also  infer  that  he  was  in  secret  league 
with  the  Montgomery  rebellion ;  for  the  rebel 
Secretary  of  War  at  once  made  a  requisition 
upon  him,  and  he  placed  his  whole  military 
preparation  at  the  service  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
sending  troops  and  arms  to  Richmond  and 
elsewhere.  It  was  a  bold  usurpation  of  ex- 
ecutive power.  Neither  legislature  nor  con- 
vention had  ordered  rebellion ;  but  from  that 
time  on  the  State  was  arrayed  in  active  hos- 
tility to  the  Union.  It  was  not  till  the  ist 
of  May  that  the  legislature  for  the  second 
time  ordered  a  convention,  which  met  and 
passed  an  ordinance  of  secession  on  the  2oth 
of  that  month,  also  formally  accepting  the  Con- 
federate States  Constitution. 

In  the  State  of  Arkansas  the  approaches  to 
secession  were  even  slower  and  more  difficult 
than  in  North  Carolina.  There  seems  to  have 
been  little  disposition  at  first,  among  her  own 
people  or  leaders,  to  embark  in  the  disastrous 
undertaking.  The  movement  appears  to  have 
been  begun  when,  on  December  20,  1860,  a 
commissioner  came  from  Alabama,  and  by  an 
address  to  the  legislature  invited  Arkansas  to 
unite  in  the  movement  for  separation.  No  di- 
rect success  followed  the  request,  and  the  de- 
ceitful expedient  of  a  convention  to  ascertain 
the  will  of  the  people  was  resorted  to.  All 
parties  joined  in  this  measure ;  the  fire-eaters 
to  promote  secession,  the  Unionists  to  thwart 
it.  An  election  for  or  against  a  convention 
took  place  February  18,  1861,  resulting  in 


27,412  votes  for  and  15,826  votes  against  it; 
though  as  compared  with  the  presidential 
election  it  was  estimated  that  at  least  10,815 
voters  did  not  go  to  the  polls.  At  a  later  elec- 
tion for  delegates  the  returns  indicated  a  Union 
vote  of  23,626  against  a  secession  vote  of 
17,927.  When  the  convention  was  organized, 
March  4,  1861,  the  delegates  are  reported  to 
have  chosen  Union  officers  by  a  majority  of 
six  ;  \  many  of  the  delegates  must  have  already  ' 
betrayed  their  constituents  by  a  change  of 
front.  Revolutionary  tricks  had  been  em- 
ployed, the  United  States  arsenal  at  Little 
Rock  had  been  seized  (February  8),  and  the 
ordnance  stores  at  Napoleon  (February  12), 
while  no  doubt  the  insurrectionary  influences 
from  the  neighboring  cotton-States  were  in- 
definitely multiplied.  With  all  this  the  progress 
of  the  conspirators  was  not  rapid.  A  condi- 
tional secession  ordinance  was  voted  down  by 
the  convention,  39  to  35.  This  ought  to  have 
effectually  killed  the  movement ;  but  it  shows 
the  greater  aggressiveness  and  persistence  of 
the  secession  leaders,  that,  instead  of  yielding 
to  their  defeat,  they  kept  alive  their  scheme, 
by  the  insidious  proposal  to  take  a  new  popu- 
lar vote  on  the  question  in  the  following  Au- 
gust. Meanwhile  there  were  a  continual  loss 
of  Union  sentiment  and  growth  of  secession 
excitement ;  and,  as  in  other  States,  when  the 
Sumter  catastrophe  occurred,  the  governor 
and  his  satellites  placed  the  State  in  an  atti- 
tude of  insurrection  by  the  refusal  to  comply 
with  Lincoln's  call  for  troops,  and  by  hostile 
military  organization.  Thereafter  disunion  had 
a  free  course.  The  convention  was  hastily 
called  together  April  20,  and,  meeting  on 
the  6th  of  May,  immediately  passed  the  cus- 
tomary ordinance  of  secession. 

In  no  other  State  did  secession  resort  to 
such  methods  of  usurpation  as  in  Tennessee. 
The  secession  faction  of  the  State  was  insig- 
nificant in  numbers,  but  its  audacity  was  per- 
haps not  equaled  in  any  other  locality ;  and 
it  may  almost  be  said  that  Governor  Harris 
carried  the  State  into  rebellion  single  handed. 
The  whole  range  of  his  plottings  cannot,  of 
course,  be  known.  He  called  a  session  of 
the  legislature  January  7,  1861,  and  sent 
them  a  highly  inflammatory  message.  A  con- 
vention bill  was  passed  and  approved  Janu- 
ary 19,  1861,  which  submitted  the  question 
of  "  convention  "  or  "  no  convention,"  and 
which  also  provided  that  any  ordinance  of 
disunion  should  be  ratified  by  popular  vote 
before  taking  effect.  At  the  election  held  on 
February  9  there  appeared  on  the  vote  for 
delegates  a  Union  majority  of  64,114,  and 

'"Annual  Cyclopedia,"  1861,  p.  538. 

t  Ellis  to  Cameron,  April  15,1861.      War  Records. 

t" Annual  Cyclopedia,"  1861,  p.  22. 


THE  BORDER   STATES. 


77 


against  holding  the  convention  a  majority  of 
11,875.  This  overwhelming  popular  decision 
for  a  time  silenced  the  conspirators.  The  fall 
of  Fort  Sumter  and  Lincoln's  call  for  troops 
afforded  the  governor  a  new  pretext  to  con- 
tinue his  efforts.  He  sent  the  President  a  de- 
fiant refusal,  and  responded  to  a  requisition 
from  Montgomery  for  troops,  being  no  doubt 
in  secret  league  with  the  rebellion.  In  the 
revolutionary  excitement  which  immediately 
followed,  the  governor's  official  authority,  and 
the  industrious  local  conspiracy  of  which  he 
was  the  head,  carried  all  before  them.  Since  it 
was  evident  that  he  could  not  obtain  a  con- 
vention to  do  his  bidding,  he  resolved  to  em- 
ploy the  legislature,  which  he  once  more  called 
together.  In  secret  sessions  he  was  able  to 
manipulate  it  at  his  will.  On  the  ist  of  May 
the  legislature  passed  a  joint  resolution  di- 
recting the  governor  to  appoint  commissioners 
"  to  enter  into  a  military  league  with  the 
authorities  of  the  Confederate  States,"  placing 
the  whole  force  of  the  State  at  the  control  of 
Jefferson  Davis,  and  on  the  7th  of  the  month 
a  formal  military  league  or  treaty  to  this  effect 
was  signed.*  Even  after  this  the  governor 
had  difficult  work.  Eastern  Tennessee  was 
pervaded  by  so  strong  a  Union  sentiment 
that  it  continued  to  labor  and  protest  against 
being  dragged  into  rebellion  contrary  to  its 
will,  but  the  opposition  was  of  little  direct 
avail.  Military  organization  had  its  grasp  on 
the  whole  State,  and  citizens  not  in  arms  had 
no  choice  but  to  submit  to  the  orders  issued 
from  Montgomery  and  Nashville. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  recital  that  the 
secession  movement  divides  itself  into  two 
distinct  periods.  The  first  group,  the  cotton- 
States,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama^ 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Texas, 
took  action  mainly  bet  ween  the  12th  of  Octo- 
ber, 1860,  and  February  4,  1861,  a  period  of 
a  little  more  than  three  and  a  half  months. 
The  second  group,  the  interior  slave  States, 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Ar- 
kansas, was  occupied  by  the  struggle  about 
three  months  longer,  or  a  total  of  six  months 
after  Lincoln's  election.  So  also  these  two 
periods  exhibited  separate  characteristics  in 
their  formative  processes.  The  first  group,  be- 
ing more  thoroughly  permeated  by  the  spirit 
of  revolt,  and  acting  with  greater  vigor  and 
promptness,  shows  us  the  semblance  at  least  of 
voluntary  confederation,  through  its  Provis- 
ional Congress  at  Montgomery.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  action  of  the  four  interior  slave  States 
*  "  Rebellion  Record." 


was,  in  each  case,  with  more  or  less  distinctness 
at  first,  merely  that  of  joining  the  original  nu- 
cleus in  a  military  league,  in  which  the  excite- 
ment of  military  preparation  and  allurement 
of  military  glory,  not  the  consideration  of 
political  expediency,  turned  the  scale. 

There  remained  still  the  third  group,  con- 
sisting of  the  border  slave  States  of  Delaware, 
Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri.  The  ef- 
forts of  the  conspirators  to  involve  Maryland 
in  secession  have  already  been  detailed,  as 
well  as  the  persistence  they  employed  to  gain 
control  of  Kentucky  and  Missouri.  In  these 
three  States,  however,  the  attempt  failed  be- 
cause of  the  direct  and  indirect  military  sup- 
port which  the  Government  was  able  to  give 
immediately  to  the  Union  sentiment  and  or- 
ganizations. Had  it  been  possible  to  extend 
the  same  encouragement  and  help  to  Arkan- 
sas and  Tennessee,  they  also  might  have  been 
saved.  This  becomes  more  apparent  when 
we  remember  how  quickly  half  of  Virginia 
was  reclaimed  and  held  steadfastly  loyal  dur- 
ing the  war.  The  remaining  slave  State,  Del- 
aware, was  so  slightly  tainted  with  treason 
that  her  attitude  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
been  in  doubt;  moreover,  her  geographical 
position  threw  her  destiny  inseparably  with 
the  free  States. 

The  adhesion  which  we  have  described 
of  the  four  interior  slave  States  of  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  to 
the  Confederate  States  at  once  wholly  changed 
the  scope  and  resources  of  the  rebellion.  It 
extended  its  territorial  area  nearly  one-third, 
and  almost  doubled  its  population  and  re- 
sources. It  could  now  claim  to  be  a  compact 
nation  of  eleven  States,  with  a  territory  more 
than  double  the  size  of  any  European  nation 
except  Russia,  and  with  a  population  of  five 
and  a  half  millions  of  whites  and  three  and  a 
half  millions  of  blacks.  It  had  a  long  sea-coast, 
several  fine  harbors,  and  many  navigable 
rivers.  It  contained  a  great  variety  of  lands, 
important  diversities  of  climate,  and  a  wide 
range  of  agricultural  products.  Its  country 
was  as  yet  sparsely  inhabited,  and  was  known 
to  include  very  considerable  mineral  wealth, 
while  its  manufacturing  capabilities  were  al- 
most wholly  untouched.  The  exultation  and 
enthusiastic  prophecies  of  the  rebel  chiefs 
at  the  successful  beginning  of  their  daring 
project  were  perhaps  not  unnatural  when  we 
reflect  that  their  mischievous  design  and  repre- 
hensible cause  had  secured  the  support  of  such 
fair  and  substantial  elements  of  national  great- 
ness and  power. 


[BEGUN  IN  THE  NOVEMBER  NUMBER.] 


THE    GRAYSONS:    A    STORY    OF    ILLINOIS* 

BY    EDWARD    EGGLESTON, 
Author  of  "  The  Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  "  The  Circuit  Rider,"  "  Roxy,"  etc. 


XX. 


LINCOLN    AND    BOB. 


AST  by  the  "  City  Hotel  " 
in  Moscow  stood  a.  beech- 
tree,  as  we  have  said,  and 
under  this  tree  were  two 
or  three  benches.  This  um- 
brageous spot  was  the  cool 
and  favorite  loafing-place 
of  the  villagers,  the  tryst- 
ing-place  for  making  bargains  or  meeting 
friends.  The  ground  was  beaten  by  many  feet 
to  the  hardness  of  a  floor,  and  the  village  boys 
delighted  to  play  marbles  in  this  convenient 
spot.  Their  cries  of  "  rounses,"  "  taw,"  "  dubs," 
"  back  licks,"  and  "  vent  "  might  often  be  heard 
there  before  and  after  school  hours.  On  one 
of  these  benches  under  the  beech-tree  Bob 
McCord  had  an  interview  with  Tom  Grayson's 
lawyer,  according  to  appointment,  on  the  day 
of  Lincoln's  return  from  court  at  Perrysburg. 
"  What 's  this  about  lynching  Tom  ?  "  Lin- 
coln inquired.  "  A  lot  of  fellows  rode  into 
Perrysburg  looking  for  him  last  Thursday 
night." 

"  Yes,"  said  Bob,  with  a  hearty  chuckle ;  "  I 
put  'em  onto  that  air  track  myself.  They  wuz 
comin'  down  h-yer,  but  I  made  'em  think  't 
Tom  wuz  moved  to  Perrysburg." 

"  Are  they  going  to  try  it  again  ?  "  asked 
Lincoln. 

"  Not  right  off;  they  're  sort-uh  discairaged 
like.  A  few  uv  'em  wuz  cocked  un  primed  to 
come  a  Sunday  night, —  sech  uv  'em  as  had  n't 
gin  it  up  arter  ridin'  over  to  Perrysburg, — but 
we  fooled  'em  ag'in.  Pete  Markham,  the  dep- 
itty  sher'f,  jes  sidled  over  to  camp-meetin'  un 
let  on  't  he  wuz  a-lookin'  fer  somebody  what 
knowed  sumpin  about  a  young  feller  weth  red 
whiskers  un  one  eye  a  leetle  crossed-like.  Ma- 
gill,  the  clerk,  went  over  to  camp-meetin'  un 
down  onto  the  Run,  un  gin  it  out  on  the  sly 
like  zif  he  could  n'  keep  it  in,  that  they  'd  dis- 
kivered  the  tracks  uv  a  young  feller  from  an- 
other k-younty  weth  red  whiskers,  un  so  on, 
that  had  done  the  shootin'.  The  story  run  like 
a  perrary  fire  in  a  high  wind  un  sort-uh  mixed 
'em  up  in  the'r  minds,  like.  I  've  got  it  fixed 
*  Copyright,  1887,  by  Edward 


so  as  they  can't  come  down  unbeknownst  to 
me;  un  ef  wust  comes  to  wust,  w'y,  I  've  got 
my  eye  sot  onto  a  crowbar." 

"  A  crowbar  ?  What  could  you  do  with  a 
crowbar,  Bob  ?  "  asked  Lincoln,  with  a  puzzled 
contraction  of  the  brows.  "  You  would  n't  try 
to  whale  the  whole  crowd  with  it,  would  you  ?  " 

"  W'y,  Abe,  I  'low,  ef  a  rale  tight  pinch 
comes,  to  try  a  tussle  weth  that  air  jail.  I  don't 
know  's  I  could  prize  out  one  uv  them  air  iron 
grates,  but  ef  't  wuz  to  come  to  that,  I  'd  try  to 
git  Tom  out  uv  harm's  way.  You  say  the 
word  un  I  '11  find  some  way  to  let  'im  out 
anyhow." 

"No,  no;  don't  do  that.  If  he  runs  away 
he  '11  be  caught,  and  then  he  '11  be  sure  to  be 
lynched,  or  hanged.  Let  me  try  the  law  first, 
and  then  it  '11  be  time  enough  to  use  crow- 
bars afterward  if  I  fail.  Do  you  know  Dave 
Sovine  ?  " 

"  When  I  see  'im.  He  's  an  ornery  kind  uv 
a  cuss.  I  don't  know  's  he  rickollecks  me." 

"  So  much  the  better  if  he  does  n't.  You 
must  get  him  to  tell  you  all  about  the  shoot- 
ing—  his  story  of  it.  Get  him  to  tell  more 
than  was  brought  out  at  the  inquest.  Make 
him  explain  it,  and  find  out  if  he  's  going  to 
lear  out  before  the  trial." 

"I  heern  tell  't  he  won't  talk,"  said  Bob. 
"  The  prosecutin'  attorney 's  shut  'im  up  tight  'z 
bees-wax,  they  say." 

Lincoln  mused  awhile.  "  If  the  prosecuting 
attorney  has  shut  him  up,  you  must  open  him. 
Contrive  some  way  to  get  his  story  and  find 
out  what  he  means  to  do." 

But  it  was  not  easy  to  encounter  Dave  in 
these  days.  Since  he  had  acquired  notoriety, 
as  the  only  witness  of  the  murder,  he  had  been 
seized  with  an  unprecedented  diffidence,  and 
kept  himself  out  of  public  gaze.  The  boys 
about  the  village  conjectured  that  he  was  "lay- 
ing low  for  big  game."  Bob,  however,  had  no 
objection  to  waiting  for  Sovine's  coming.  He 
liked  this  lurking  for  prey  as  a  cat  likes  the 
watching  at  a  mouse-hole.  Besides,  loafing  of 
any  sort  suited  Big  Bob's  genius.  He  could 
sit  astride  a  barrel  on  the  shady  side  of  a  gro- 
cery for  hours  with  no  sense  of  exhaustion. 
More  than  one  day  McCord  had  passed  in 

Eggleston.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


79 


this  way,  when  at  last  Dave  Sovine  came  in 
sight,  walking  rather  hurriedly  and  circum- 
spectly tovsard  the  center  of  the  village.  Bob 
was  in  the  middle  of  a  hunting  yarn  which 
he  was  lazily  telling  to  another  loafer  on  the 
next  barrel  as  he  whittled  a  bit  of  hickory 
stripped  from  one  of  the  hoops  in  front  of  him. 
Without  betraying  any  excitement,  he  aston- 
ished his  companion  by  bringing  the  story  to 
an  abrupt  conclusion.  Then  dismounting  from 
his  barrel  he  sauntered  across  the  street  in  such 
a  way  as  to  encounter  Dave  and  to  fall  in  with 
the  direction  in  which  the  latter  was  going. 

"  Hot  da)r !  "  Bob  said,  as  he  intersected 
Dave's  course  at  an  acute  angle. 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  other. 

"  How  's  the  corn  crap  out  your  way  ?  " 

"  Dunno,"  said  Dave. 

"  Coin'  to  be  in  town  long  ?  "  Bob  persisted. 

To  this  Dave  made  no  response.  He  only 
turned  off  abruptly  at  the  street-corner  and 
left  Bob  behind. 

"  A  feller  might  as  well  try  to  git  sugar-water 
by  tappin'  a  dead  sycamore  as  to  git  anything 
out  uv  him,"  Bob  said  to  himself,  as  he  turned 
and  took  the  road  toward  Hubbard  Township. 

As  he  walks  homeward  over  the  level  prai- 
rie, which  westwardly  has  no  visible  limit,  Bob 
can  only  think  of  one  way  to  persuade  Sovine 
to  talk,  and  that  way  is  out  of  the  reach  of  a  man 
so  impecunious  as  he.  It  is  in  vain  that  you 
thrust  your  great  fists  down  into  the  pockets 
of  your  butternut  trousers,  Bob.  You  know 
before  you  grope  in  them  that  there  is  no  money 
there.  You  have  felt  of  them  frequently  to-day 
and  found  them  empty ;  that  is  why  you  are  go- 
ing home  thirsty.  Money  willnot  bepersuaded 
to  remain  in  those  pockets.  Nevertheless,  all 
the  way  home  Bob  mechanically  repeats  the 
search  and  wonders  how  he  will  get  money  to 
carry  out  his  plan.  He  might  go  to  Lincoln, 
but  he  has  an  instinctive  feeling  that  Lincoln 
is  what  he  calls  "  high-toned,"  and  that  the 
lawyer  might  see  an  impropriety  in  his  new 
plan.  By  the  time  he  passes  into  his  own  cabin 
he  knows  that  there  is  no  other  way  but  to 
get  the  money  from  Mrs.  Grayson.  No  easy 
task,  Bob  reflects.  Mrs.  Grayson  has  never 
shown  any  readiness  to  trust  Bob  McCord's 
business  skill. 

But  the  next  morning  he  takes  the  path  to 
the  Grayson  house,  walking  more  and  more 
slowly  as  he  approaches  it,  with  head  dropped 
forward  and  fists  rammed  hard  into  his  pock- 
ets, while  he  whistles  doubtfully  and  intermit- 
tently. Now  and  then  he  pauses  and  looks  off 
scrutinizingly.  These  are  the  ordinary  physi- 
cal signs  of  mental  effort  in  this  man.  In  seek- 
ing a  solution  of  any  difficulty  he  follows  his 
habits.  He  searches  his  pockets,  he  looks  for 
tracks  on  the  ground,  he  scans  the  woods. 


He  approaches  the  back  of  the  Grayson 
house  and  is  relieved  to  see  Barbara  alone  in 
the  kitchen,  spinning. 

"  You  see,  Barb'ry,"  he  said,  as  he  half  ducked 
his  head  in  entering  the  door, — "  you  see,  I  'm 
in  a  fix." 

"  Won't  you  take  a  chair,  Mr.  McCord  ?  " 
said  Barbara,  as  she  wound  the  yarn  she  had 
been  spinning  on  the  spindle  and  then  stopped 
the  wheel. 

"  No,  I  'm  'bleeged  to  yeh,  I  won't  seddown," 
he  replied,  holding  himself  awkwardly  as  with 
a  sense  that  indoors  was  not  a  proper  or  con- 
genial place  for  him. 

"  Abe  Lincoln  sot  me  a  sum  un  I  can't  no- 
ways git  the  answer.  He  wanted  me  to  git  out 
uh  that  Dave  Sovine  a  full  account  uh  the  lie 
he  's  a-goin'  to  tell  agin  Tommy.  But  I  can't 
git  at  it  noways.  The  feller  won't  talk  to  me. 
I  've  thought  uv  ketchin'  'im  by  himself  un 
lickin'  'im  till  'e  'd  let  it  out,  but  I  'm  afeerd 
Abe  'u'd  think  ut  that  'u'd  flush  his  game  afore 
he  wuz  ready  to  shoot.  They  ain't  on'y  jest 
one  other  way,  un  that 's  to  gamble  weth  Dave 
un  coax  his  secret  that  away.  But  you  see  I  'm 
so  oncommonly  pore  this  year  't  I  could  n't 
gamble  at  a  cent  a  game  'thout  he  'd  trust  me, 
un  he  would  n't  do  that,  I  "low." 

After  cross-questioning  Bob  a  little,  Barbara 
went  into  the  sitting-room  to  her  mother  and 
Bob  went  to  the  outer  door  to  breathe  the 
open  air  while  he  waited.  Barbara's  mother 
positively  refused  to  let  go  of  a  dollar  of  her 
money. 

"  D'  you  think,  Barb'ry,  't  I  'd  let  a  shif  less 
kind  uv  a  man  like  Big  Bob  have  my  money 
to  gamble  it  away  to  that  Sovine  ?  No,  I 
won't,  and  that  's  all  there  is  about  it.  Dave 
got  a  lot  uv  my  money  a-gamblin'  with  Tom- 
my, an'  he  don't  git  no  more  uv  it,  that 's  as 
shore  as  my  name's  Marthy  Grayson.  They 
don't  no  good  come  uv  gamblin'  noways,  an' 
I  can't  bear  that  Dave  Sovine  should  git  some 
more  uv  our  money,  an'  him  a-tryin'  to  take 
Tommy's  life." 

Barbara  stood  still  a  minute  to  give  her 
mother's  indignation  time  to  spend  itself.  Then 
she  said : 

"  Well,  poor  Tom  '11  have  to  die,  I  suppose, 
if  you  can't  bring  yourself  to  give  Bob  some- 
thing to  help  Abraham  to  save  him." 

Mrs.  Grayson  stood  for  several  seconds  in 
self-conflict.  Then  she  replied,  "  Well,  Bar- 
b'ry, you  always  will  have  your  way."  Saying 
this  she  turned  irresolutely  toward  her  money- 
drawer.  "  I  s'pose  I  'd  jest  as  well  give  up  first 
as  last.  How  much  does  Bob  want?" 

"  Ten  dollars  '11  be  enough,  he  thinks." 

"  Ten  dollars !  Does  he  think  I  'm  made 
out  of  money  ?  Now,  looky  here,  Barb'ry ; 
I  'm  not  a-goin'  to  give  him  no  sech  amount. 


8o 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


Here  's  five,  an'  you  tell  him  I  won't  spare  an- 
other red  cent." 

Barbara  took  the  silver  pieces  and  went  out 
to  Bob. 

Possessed  of  funds,  Bob  again  set  out  to 
meet  Dave.  This  time  he  could  not  wait  for 
Dave  to  come  to  town,  but  boldly  sallied  out 
along  the  road  past  the  house  of  Sovine's 
father.  How  could  he  wait  ?  His  pockets  and 
his  fingers  were  burned  by  the  possession  of 
so  much  hard  cash.  He  felt  obliged  to  take 
it  out  and  count  it  once  or  twice,  and  to  make 
an  inspection  of  his  pockets,  which  had  a 
treacherous  way  of  coming  into  holes  under 
the  strain  of  the  big,  muscular  hands,  so  often 
rammed  into  their  depths  for  purposes  of 
meditation. 

After  walking  past  the  Sovine  house  once  or 
twice  without  encountering  Dave,  he  sat  down 
by  a  prairie  brook,  the  gentle  current  of  which 
slipped  noiselessly  along,  dragging  its  margins 
softly  against  the  grass,  whose  seed-laden 
heads  at  this  season  of  the  year  hung  over 
into  the  water,  the  matted  blades  lying  prone 
upon  the  unbroken  surface:  —  their  tips  all 
curved  in  one  way  mark  the  direction  of  the 
stream.  Bob  reclined  on  the  low  bank,  where 
he  was  concealed  from  the  road  by  a  little 
yellow-twigged  water-willow,  the  only  thing 
within  a  mile  or  two  that  could  be  called  a  tree. 

After  a  while  Dave  Sovine,  sauntering,  ru- 
minating tobacco,  and  looking  warily  about, 
as  was  his  way,  came  slowly  along  the  road. 
When  he  caught  sight  of  Bob  he  started,  and 
paused  irresolutely  as  though  about  to  retreat. 
But  seeing  that  Bob  was  looking  at  him,  he 
recovered  himself  and  came  toward  the  reclin- 
ing figure.  Truth  to  tell,  Dave  was  lonesome 
in  retirement,  and  the  sight  of  Bob  had  awak- 
ened a  desire  to  talk. 

"  Have  you  seed  a  man  go  a-past  h-yer 
weth  a  bag  of  wheat  on  his  hoss  ?  "  queried 
Bob.  "  1  '.m  a- waitin'  h-yer  to  buy  a  half-bushel 
uv  seed  wheat  fer  fall  sowin',  f'om  a  feller 
what 's  a-comin'  in  f'om  t*  other  eend  uv  the 
k-younty." 

The  story  was  impromptu,  and  Bob  had  no 
time  to  fill  in  details.  Dave  looked  at  him 
suspiciously,  and  only  replied  by  shaking  his 
head.  By  way  of  confirming  his  theory  of 
the  reason  for  his  waiting,  Bob  idly  jingled 
the  silver  coins  in  his  pocket  as  he  talked 
about  the  craps  and  the  relative  advantage 
of  living  in  the  timber,  where  you  can  raise 
winter  wheat,  or  on  the  perrary.  The  sound 
of  tinkling  silver  caught  Dave's  ear,  as  it  was 
meant  to. 

"  Play  a  game  of  seven-up  ?  "  said  Dave, 
languidly. 

"You  're  too  good  a  hand  fer  me,"  an- 
swered Bob,  with  affected  wariness. 


"  Oh  !  we  '11  only  try  small  stakes.  Luck  's 
ag'inst  me  here  lately";  and  he  pulled  out  a 
u  ell-worn  pack  of  cards  without  availing  for 
Bob  to  reply. 

"  No;  ef  I  play,  I  want  to  play  weth  my 
k-yards,"  said  Bob,  who  had  a  lurking  hope  of 
winning,  notwithstanding  Dave's  reputation. 

"  I  don't  mind  where  the  cards  come  from," 
said  Dave,  as  he  took  Bob's  pack,  which  was 
in  a  worse  state  than  his  own.  Then,  with 
habitual  secretiveness,  he  said,  "  Let 's  go  in- 
to the  corn-field." 

They  crossed  the  road  and  climbed  into  the 
corn-field,  seating  themselves  on  the  edge  of 
the  unplowed  grassy  balk  between  the  corn 
and  the  fence.  Here  they  were  hidden  and 
shaded  by  the  broad-leaved  horse  and  trumpet 
weeds  in  the  fence-row.  As  was  to  be  expected. 
Bob  won  rather  oftener  than  he  lost  at  first. 
After  a  while  the  luck  turned,  and  Bob  stopped 
playing. 

"  You  'd  better  go  on,"  said  Dave. 

"  I  d'  know,"  answered  Bob ;  "  I  'm  about 
as  well  off  now  as  I  wuz  in  the  beginnin'.  I 
'low  I  'd  better  hold  up." 

"Aw,  no;  let  's  go  on.  You  might  make 
sumpin." 

"  Well,"  said  Bob,  running  the  ends  of 
the  cards  through  his  fingers,  "  ef  you  '11 
tell  me  jest  how  that  air  shootin'  tuck  place, 
I  will." 

"  I  don'  keer  to  talk  about  that,"  said  Dave, 
with  a  nonchalant  air,  that  hardly  concealed 
his  annoyance.  "  The  prosecuting  attorney 
thought  I  'd  better  not." 

"  I  wuz  n't  at  the  eenques',"  Bob  pleaded, 
"  un  they  's  so  many  stories  a-goin'  that  I  want 
to  h-yer  it  f'om  you." 

"  Oh,  I  know  you"  said  Dave.  "  You  think 
I  have  n't  got  my  eye-teeth  cut  yet.  You  've 
been  a-layin'  for  me  and  I  know  what  you 
are  here  fer.  Do  you  think  I  don't  see  through 
your  winter  wheat  ?  I  know  you  're  on  Tom's 
side." 

"  Well,  in  course  I  am,"  said  Bob,  roused  to 
audacity  by  his  failure  to  deceive.  "  But  it  mout 
be  jest  as  well  fer  you  to  tell  me.  Un  maybe 
a  leetle  better.  It  mout  be  the  very  k-yard 
fer  you  to  throw  at  this  p'int  in  the  game." 
And  Bob's  face  assumed  a  mysterious  and  sug- 
gestive look  as  he  laid  his  cards  on  the  grass 
and  leaned  forward  regarding  Dave. 

"  Well,"  said  Dave,  in  a  husky  half-whisper, 
letting  his  eyes  fall  from  Bob's,  "  I  '11  tell  you 
what :  I  don't  really  keer  to  have  Tom  hung, 
un  I  've  been  feelin'  bad  un  wishin'  I  could 
git  out  uv  it.  Ef  I  had  anuff  money  to  go  to 
New  Orleans  like  a  gentleman,  I  'd  just  light 
out  some  night,  and  give  Tom  a  chance  for 
his  life." 

"  Maybe  you  mout  git  the  money,"  said 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


McCord,  picking  up  his  cards.  "  But  your 
story  would  n'  hang  him  nohow,  I  "low." 
Here  Bob  laid  down  half  a  dollar  for  a  new 
game,  and  Dave  covered  it. 

"  Of  course,  if  I  stay  he  's  got  to  swing,'' 
said  Dave  ;  and  by  way  of  proving  this  to  Bob, 
he  told  his  story  of  the  shooting  with  some 
particularity,  while  he  proceeded  to  win  one 
half-dollar  after  another  almost  without  inter- 
ruption. "  Now,"  he  said,  when  he  had  told  the 
story  and  answered  Bob's  questions,  "  you  can 
see  that  's  purty  tolerable  bad.  I  sh'd  think 
they  'd  ruther  I  'd  clear  out.  An'  if  somebody  'd 
give  you  a  hundred  dollars  an'  you  'd  let  me 
play  three  or  four  games  of  poker  with  you  some 
fine  day  I  'd  make  tracks,  an'  the  prosecuting 
attorney  'd  have  to  get  along  without  me." 

By  this  time  all  of  the  five  dollars  that  Bar- 
bara had  furnished,  except  the  last  twenty-five- 
cent  piece,  had  passed  from  Bob's  reluctant 
hands  to  Dave  Sovine's  greedy  pockets.  This 
one  quarter  of  a  dollar  Bob  had  prudently 
placed  in  the  great  pocket  of  his  hunting-shirt, 
that  he  might  have  something  to  fill  his  stone 
jug  with.  For  though  he  was  devoted  to  the 
Graysons' side  of  the  controversy,  Bob  McCord 
could  hardly  be  called  a  disinterested  philan- 
thropist ;  and  he  held  that  even  in  serving  one's 
friends  one  must  not  forget  to  provide  the  nec- 
essaries of  life. 

"  You  're  awful  good  on  a  game,"  said  Bob, 
with  a  rueful  face.  "  You  've  cleaned  me  out, 
by  hokey ;  I  '11  see  ef  I  can't  git  you  that  hun- 
derd  dollars,  so  's  you  kin  win  it.  But  it  '11  take 
time  fer  the  Widder  Grayson  to  raise  it,  I 
'low." 

"  Oh  !  they  ain't  no  partik'lar  hurry,"  said 
Dave,  cheerfully  counting  over  his  winnings 
and  stowing  the  silver  about  in  his  pockets 
as  a  ship-master  might  distribute  his  ballast. 
"  Only  if  I  don't  get  the  money  I  '11  have  to 
stay  h-yer  an'  go  to  court,  I  guess."  And  Dave 
hitched  up  his  trousers  and  walked  off  with  the 
air  of  a  man  who  has  a  master-stroke  of  busi- 
ness in  view. 

Lincoln  came  to  town  the  next  week  and  Bob 
told  him  the  story,  while  Lincoln  made  careful 
notes  of  Dave's  account  of  the  shooting. 

"  He  says  ef  Widder  Grayson  '11  let  me  have 
a  hunderd  dollars,  un  I  '11  let  him  play  draw 
poker  fer  it,  he  '11  light  out  fer  parts  onknown." 

"  Oh !  he  wants  pay,  does  he  ?  "  And  the 
young  lawyer  sat  and  thought  awhile.  Then 
he  turned  full  on  Bob  and  said : 

"  Could  I  depend  on  you  to  be  in  court  at 
the  trial  without  fail,  and  without  my  sending 
a  subpoena  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  '11  be  there  un  nowheres  else,"  said 
Bob.  "  You  need  n't  soopeeny  me.  I  '11  come 
'thout  callin'.  foller  'thout  tollin',un  stan'  'thout 
hitchin'." 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 12. 


"  Now  if  Dave  Sovine  comes  after  you  for 
that  hundred  dollars,  you  'd  better  put  him 
off,  as  easy  as  you  can.  If  we  should  buy  him 
off  we  would  n't  want  to  give  the  prosecution 
time  to  fetch  him  back." 

Bob  thought  he  saw  a  twinkle  in  Lincoln's 
eye  as  he  said  this ;  a  something  in  his  ex- 
pression that  indicated  more  than  he  said. 
But  though  he  looked  at  the  lawyer  curiously, 
he  got  no  further  light.  That  evening,  as 
Bob  passed  the  Grayson  farm-house,  he  told 
the  anxious  Barbara  something  about  it,  and 
added :  "  Abe  Lincoln 's  powerful  deep.  He 's 
got  sumpin  ur  nuther  in  'is  head  't  I  can't 
noways  see  into.  I  don't  half  believe  't  'e 
means  to  buy  up  that  low-lived  scoundrel 
arter  all.  He  acts  like  a  man  that 's  got  a 
deadfall  all  sot,  un  is  a-tryin'  to  honey-fugle 
the  varmint  to  git  'im  to  come  underneath." 

And  Barbara  took  what  comfort  she  could 
out  of  this  assurance. 

XXI. 

(9 

HIRAM   AND    BARBARA. 

To  Barbara,  indeed,  the  unrelieved  appre- 
hension and  suspense  of  those  long,  hot, 
August  days  were  almost  intolerable.  The 
frequent  excursions  to  the  Moscow  jail,  to 
carry  some  tidbits  of  home  cookery,  or  some 
article  for  Tom's  personal  comfort,  afforded 
a  practical  outlet  to  feeling  and  a  relief  from 
the  monotony  of  passive  suffering,  but  these 
journeys  also  brought  sharp  trials  of  their  own 
to  Barbara's  courage  and  self-control.  She 
might  not  betray  to  Tom  or  to  her  mother  how 
much  she  suffered ;  it  was  for  her  to  support 
both  the  one  and  the  other. 

Doubtless  it  would  have  been  a  relief  could 
she  have  told  Hiram  Mason  all  the  dreadful 
apprehensions  that  haunted  her  during  the 
long,  sleepless  nights.  But  from  the  hour  of 
Mason's  entering  the  house  he  had  avoided 
confidential  relations  with  Barbara.  Before 
and  after  school  Hiram  attended  to  all  those 
small  cares  that  about  a  farm-house  usually 
fall  to  the  lot  of  a  man.  Gentle  and  con- 
siderate to  Mrs.  Grayson  and  Barbara,  he 
preserved  toward  the  latter  a  careful  reserve. 
He  could  not  resume  the  subject  discussed 
the  evening  they  had  peeled  apples  by  the 
loom ;  it  seemed  out  of  the  question  that  he 
should  talk  to  Barbara  of  such  things  while 
her  mind  was  engrossed  with  the  curse  of  Cain 
impending  upon  her  brother.  He  might 
have  sought  to  renew  the  matter  under  cover 
of  giving  her  a  closer  sympathy  and  a  more 
cordial  support  in  her  sorrows,  but  he  saw  in 
her  demureness  only  the  same  sensitive  pride 
that  had  shrunk  from  his  first  advances  ;  and 
he  knew  that  this  pride  had  been  wounded 


82 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


to  the  quick  by  the  family  disgrace.  More- 
over, to  urge  his  claims  as  a  lover  at  such  a 
time  would  cover  all  his  services  to  the 
family  with  a  verdigris  of  self-interest ;  and  he 
thought  that  such  advances  would  add  to 
Barbara's  distress.  In  making  them  he  would 
be  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  the  obliga- 
tions she  might  feel  herself  under  to  him,  and 
the  more  he  thought  of  it  the  more  he  ab- 
horred to  put  himself  in  such  an  attitude. 
So  he  daily  strengthened  his  resolution  to  be 
nothing  but  Mrs.  Grayson's  next  friend  while 
he  remained  under  her  roof,  and  to  postpone 
all  the  rest  until  this  ordeal  should  be  past. 

In  many  ways  he  was  able  to  be  helpful  to 
the  two  troubled  women.  He  stood  between 
them  and  the  prying  curiosity  of  strangers, 
answering  all  questions  about  the  family, 
about  Tom,  and  about  the  case.  He  was 
their  messenger  on  many  occasions,  and  he 
went  with  them  every  Saturday  or  Sunday  to 
Moscow.  But  at  other  times  Barbara  saw  lit- 
tle of  him  except  at  the  table,  and  he  avoided 
all  conspicuous  attentions  to  her.  Even  Mely 
McCord,  though  often  at  the  house,  could  find 
no  subject  for  chaff  in  the  relations  of  the  two. 
When  the  matter  was  under  discussion  among 
the  young  gossips  at  the  Timber  Creek  school- 
house,  Mely  declared  that  she  "  did  n'  'low 
they  wuz  anything  in  the  talk  about  the  mas- 
ter un  Barbary, —  he  did  n'  pay  Barbary  no 
'tendon  't  all,  now 't  'e  'd  got  every  charfce." 
If  Mason  had  been  a  person  of  less  habitual 
self-repression  he  would  not  have  been  able  to 
house  his  feelings  so  securely ;  but  this  man 
came  of  an  austere  stock;  self-control  was 
with  him  not  merely  habitual,  it  was  hereditary. 

Hiram  had  besides  a  battle  of  his  own  to 
fight.  The  Monday  morning  after  the  killing 
of  Lockwood,  as  he  went  to  the  school-house, 
he  was  met  in  the  road  by  Lysander  Butts, 
next  neighbor  to  the  Graysons —  a  square-built 
man  with  a  cannon-ball  head.  Butts  was  from 
the  hill  country  of  New  Jersey,  a  man  of  nar- 
row prejudices  and  great  obstinacy. 

"  Looky  here,  Mr.  Mason,"  he  said, "  d'  you 
think  now  that  a  schoolmaster  ought  to  take 
up  for  a  rascal  like  Tom  Gray  son,  that 's  a  gam- 
bler, and  I  don'  know  what,  and  that  's  killed 
another  fellow,  like  a  sneak,  in  the  dark  ?  " 

"  I  have  n't  taken  up  for  Tom  any  more 
than  to  want  him  to  have  fair  play,"  said 
Mason.  "  But  I  thought  that  the  poor  old 
lady  needed  somebody  to  be  her  friend,  and 
so  I  went  there,  and  am  going  to  do  what  I 
can  for  her." 

"  Well,  I  know  the  Graysons  mighty  well, 
first  and  last,  this  many  a  ye'r,  and  they  're 
all  cut  oft"  of  the  same  piece;  and  none  of 'em 
is  to  be  overly  trusted,  now  you  mind  that." 

"  You  have  a  right  to  your  opinion,"  said 


Hiram  ;  "  but  I  am  Mrs.  Grayson's  friend,  and 
that  is  my  lookout." 

"  Mrs.  Grayson's  friend  ?  "  said  Butts,  with 
a  sneer.  "  Mrs.  Grayson,  ainh  ?  As  if  you 
could  make  me  believe  it  was  the  mother 
you  're  defending.  It  's  Barbary  you  're  after." 

Mason  colored  as  though  accused  of  a 
crime.  Then,  recovering  himself,  he  said : 
"  It  's  very  impudent  of  you  to  be  meddling, 
Mr.  Butts.  So  long  as  I  behave  myself  it  's 
none  of  your  business."  And  he  went  on  to- 
ward the  school. 

"  None  of  my  business,  ainh  ?  You  '11  find 
out  whose  business  it  is  mighty  shortly,"  Butts 
called  after  Hiram. 

The  quarrel  between  the  Buttses  and  the 
Graysons  dated  back  to  their  first  settle- 
ment in  Illinois.  Butts  had  regularly  cut  wild 
hay  on  the  low-lying  meadow  between  the 
two  farms.  Fond  of  getting  something  for 
nothing,  he  gave  out  among  his  neighbors 
that  this  forty  acres  was  his  own,  but  he  put 
off  entering  it  at  the  Land  Office.  When  Tom 
Grayson's  father  entered  his  farm  he  found 
this  piece  blank  and  paid  for  it.  From  that 
time  Butts  had  been  his  enemy,  for  there  was 
no  adjunct  to  a  farm  in  the  timber  so  highly 
prized  as  a  bit  of  meadow.  When  once  near 
neighbors  in  the  country  have  quarreled  their 
proximity  is  usually  a  guarantee  that  they 
will  never  be  reconciled  ;  —  there  are  so  many 
occasions  of  offense  between  people  who  must 
always  be  eating  off  the  same  plate.  It  was 
universally  known  that  "  the  Buttses  and  the 
Graysons  could  n't  hitch."  Where  two  of 
their  fields  joined  without  an  intervening  road 
they  had  not  been  able  even  to  build  a  line 
fence  together;  but  each  man  laid  up  a  rail 
fence  on  the  very  edge  of  his  own  land,  and 
the  salient  angles  of  the  two  hostile  fences 
stood  so  near  together  that  a  half-grown  pig 
could  not  have  passed  between.  This  is  what 
is  called,  in  the  phrase  of  the  country,  a  "  devil's 
lane,"  because  it  is  a  monument  of  bad  neigh- 
borhood. 

When  Mason  reached  the  school- house 
that  morning  Angeline  Butts  had  her  books 
and  those  of  her  younger  brother  and  two 
younger  sisters  gathered  in  a  heap,  and  the 
rest  of  the  scholars  were  standing  about-  her, 
while  she  did  her  best  to  propagate  the  fam- 
ily antagonism  to  the  master.  The  jealousy  of 
Lysander  Butts's  family  had  been  much  in- 
flamed by  Barbara's  swift  success  in  study. 
Angeline  had  never  been  able  to  get  beyond 
the  simple  rules  of  arithmetic  ;  her  feeble  bark 
had  quite  gone  ashore  on  the  sandy  reaches 
of  long  division.  The  Buttses  were  therefore 
not  pleased  to  have  Barbara  arrive  at  the 
great  goal  of  the  Rule  of  Three,  and  even  be- 
come the  marvel  of  the  neighborhood  by 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


passing  into  the  mysterious  realm  of  algebraic 
symbols.  For  Angeline's  part  she  "  could  n't 
see  no  kind-uv  good,  noways  you  could  fix  it, 
in  cipherin'  with  such  saw-bucks."  Figgers 
was  good  enough  for  common  folks,  she  said, 
and  all  this  gimcrack  work  with  x's  and  y's 
was  only  just  a  trick  to  ketch  the  master. 
For  her  part  she  would  n'  fool  away  time  set- 
tin'  her  cap  for  such  as  him,  not  if  he  was  the 
only  man  in  the  world. 

When  Tom  was  arrested  for  murder,  the 
Buttses  felt  that  their  day  had  come.  Folks 
would  find  out  what  sort  of  people  the  Gray- 
sons  were  now  ;  and  what  would  become  of 
all  Barbary's  fine  match  with  the  master  ? 
Hey  ?  But  when,  on  the  very  day  after  the 
shooting,  Angeline  came  home  bursting  with 
indignation,  that  the  master  'd  gone  and  took 
up  his  board  and  lodging  at  the  Graysons',  and 
had  put  John  Buchanan  into  his  place  for  a 
day  and  gone  off  down  to  the  jail  with  the 
Graysons,  their  exasperation  knew  no  bounds. 
Butts  rose  to  the  occasion,  and  resolved  to 
take  his  children  out  of  the  school.  It  is  the 
inalienable  right  of  the  free-born  American  cit- 
izen to  relieve  his  indignation  by  taking  his 
children  from  school, and  bystopping  hisnews- 
paper.  No  man  that  countenanced  murder 
could  teach  Butts's  children. 

When  Mason  entered  the  school-room  after 
his  encounter  with  the  father  he  was  not  sur- 
prised to  find  the  whole  battalion  of  Butts  in- 
fantry drawn  up  in  martial  array,  while  Ange- 
line held  forth  to  the  assembled  pupils  on  the 
subject  of  the  master's  guilt  in  countenancing 
Tom  Grayson,  and  the  general  meanness  of 
the  whole  Grayson  "  click,"  living  and  dead. 
When  the  auditors  saw  Hiram  come  in  they 
fell  away  to  their  seats ;  but  Angeline,  pleased 
to  show  her  defiance  of  the  master,  who  could 
no  longer  punish  her,  stood  bolt  upright  with 
her  bonnet  on  until  the  school  had  been  called 
to  order.  The  younger  Buttses  sat  down  from 
habitual  respect  for  authority,  and  the  brother 
pulled  off  his  hat;  but  Angeline  jammed 
it  on  his  head  again,  and  pulled  him  to  his 
feet.  She  might  have  left  before  the  school 
began ;  but  she  preferred  to  have  a  row, 
if  possible.  So  when  the  school  had  grown 
quiet,  she  boldly  advanced  to  the  space  in 
front  of  the  master's  desk,  with  the  younger  and 
more  timid  Buttses  slinking  behind  her. 

"  Mr.  Mason,  father 's  goin'  to  take  me  out 
of  school,"  she  said. 

"  So  he  told  me." 

"  He  wants  us  to  come  right  straight  home 
this  morning." 

'•  Well,  you  know  the  road,  don't  you  ?  "  said 
Hiram,  smiling.  "  If  he  's  in  a  hurry  for  you, 
I  should  have  thought  you  might  have  been 
there  by  this  time." 


This  reply  set  the  school  into  an  audible 
smile.  Angeline  grew  red  in  the  face,  but  the 
master  was  standing  in  silence  waiting  for  her 
to  get  out,  and  the  scholars  were  laughing  at 
her.  There  was  nothing  more  to  be  said,  and 
nothing  for  it  but  to  be  gone  or  burst.  In  her 
irritation  she  seized  her  youngest  sister,  who 
was  shamefacedly  sneaking  into  Angeline's 
skirts,  and  gave  her  a  sharp  jerk,  which  only 
gave  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  titter  of  the  schol- 
ars, and  Angeline  and  her  followers  were  forced 
to  scuffle  out  of  the  door  in  confusion. 

Lysander  Butts  was  not  a  man  to  give  over 
a  struggle.  Conflict  was  his  recreation,  and 
he  thought  he  could  "  spite  the  master  "  not 
only  by  refusing  payment  for  the  tuition  his 
children  had  already  received,  but  by  getting 
the  Timber  Creek  district  to  shut  Mason  out 
of  their  school-house.  There  were  those  in  the 
district  who  resented  Mason's  friendship  for 
the  Graysons,  but  they  were  not  ready  to  go 
so  far  as  Butts  proposed.  And  in  asking  Bu- 
chanan to  teach  school  for  him  a  single  day 
Mason  had  unwittingly  made  friends  against 
the  time  of  trouble ;  for  the  old  schoolmaster 
now  took  the  young  man's  part,  and  brought 
over  to  his  side  the  three  Scotch  families  in 
the  district,  who  always  acted  in  unison,  as  a 
sort  of  clan.  Butts  was  at  a  serious  disadvan- 
tage in  that  he  lived  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
Timber  Creek  district.  "  What  does  he  want 
to  come  a-maiddlin'  wi'  us  fer  ?  "  Buchanan 
demanded  of  the  Timber  Creekers.  "  Let  'im 
attaind  to  the  beesness  of  his  own  deestrict, 
and  not  go  to  runnin'  his  wee  crookit  daivils' 
lanes  doun  here."  Such  arguments,  with  the 
help  of  Mason's  good  nature,  his  popularity 
with  the  pupils,  and  his  inflexible  determination 
to  keep  his  own  gait,  caused  the  opposition  to 
weaken  and  die  out  gradually  without  doing 
serious  damage  to  the  school. 

To  this  favorable  issue  the  friendly  influence 
of  the  Albaugh  family,  who  were  outside  of 
the  district  on  the  other  side  from  Butts,  con- 
tributed something.  With  Rachel  Albaugh 
Mason  became  better  acquainted  through  her 
interest  in  Tom's  fate.  She  sought  a  conversa- 
tion with  the  master  almost  every  day  to  gain 
information  about  the  case.  The  placidity  of 
her  face  was  not  ruffled  by  solicitude,  the  glory 
of  her  eyes  was  not  dimmed  by  tears.  But  in- 
terest in  Tom's  fate  there  surely  was.  It  did 
not  greatly  matter  to  her  whether  Tom  had 
committed  the  deed  or  not :  in  any  case  he 
was  a  bold  and  daring  fellow  who  had  lifted 
himself  out  of  the  commonplace,  and  who 
was  proportionately  interesting  to  Rachel's 
imagination. 

But  the  people  generally  did  not  see  things 
through  the  eyes  of  a  romantic  young  woman. 
They  were  for  the  most  part  dead  against  Tom, 


84 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


and  the  ad  verse  tide  set  more  and  more  strongly 
against  him  when  the  long  August  days  had 
worn  themselves  away  and  September  with  its 
bursts  of  storm  had  come  in.  If  Tom  had  shot 
Lockwood  in  a  street  affray  there  would  have 
been  a  disposition  to  condone  the  offense, 
seeing  there  was  "  a  girl  in  the  case,"  a  cir- 
cumstance that  goes  for  much  in  the  minds 
of  pioneer  people ;  for  girls  and  horses  are 
two  things  accounted  well  worth  fighting  for 
in  a  new  country.  Some  philosophers  explain 
this  by  saying  that  both  the  one  and  the  other 
are  means  of  ascent  in  the  scale  of  civilization. 
But  the  fact  is,  that  new-country  people  set 
much  more  store  by  their  horses  and  their 
sweethearts  than  they  do  by  civilization,  for 
which,  in  the  abstract,  they  care  but  little. 
They  also  esteem  courage  very  highly.  But  to 
shoot  a  man  in  the  dark  as  Lockwood  had 
been  shot  was  cowardly,  and  cowardice  was  in 
itself  almost  ground  enough  forhangingaman. 

This  increased  momentum  in  the  popular 
feeling  against  Tom  could  not  escape  the 
knowledge  of  Mason,  to  whom  people  talked 
with  some  freedom,  but  he  managed  to  con- 
ceal it  from  Barbara  and  Mrs.  Grayson.  His 
own  situation  indeed  was  becoming  more  and 
more  difficult.  He  foresaw  that  the  main- 
tenance of  his  present  attitude  toward  Bar- 
bara might  soon  become  impossible.  To  be 
always  near  to  her,  and  yet  to  keep  him- 
self so  aloof,  was  more  than  even  his  nature 
would  bear.  Above  all,  to  see  her  consumed 
by  sorrow  and  to  be  afraid  to  speak  the  ten- 
derest  word  of  sympathy  was  torment.  The 
very  aspect  of  her  suffering  face  set  his  nerves 
in  a  tremor  ;  it  became  difficult  for  him  to  say 
good-morning  to  her  with  composure.  There 
is  the  uncontrollable  in  all  of  us;  and  self- 
contained  as  Hiram  was,  he  came  upon  the 
uncontrollable  in  himself  at  last. 

He  had  reached  the  closing  days  of  his 
school  term,  though  it  yet  lacked  a  fortnight 
of  the  September  "court  week"  at  Moscow. 
It  was  his  purpose  to  remain  and  see  the 
Graysons  through  their  trouble:  what  would 
become  of  his  own  trouble,  when  Tom's  fate 
should  have  been  settled  one  way  or  the  other, 
he  could  not  foretell.  And  he  was,  moreover, 
filled  with  the  worst  forebodings  in  regard  to 
the  issue  of  the  trial.  He  came  home  from 
school  a  little  earlier  than  usual  on  the  last 
day  but  one  of  his  school  session,  and  fear- 
ing to  trust  himself  too  much  in  Barbara's 
presence,  he  had  gone  past  the  house  directly 
to  the  barn,  to  do  those  night  and  morning 
things  which  are  classed  as  "  chores,"  or 
"  choores,"  according  to  the  accent  of  the 
region  in  which  you  chance  to  hear  the  word. 
On  entering  the  barn  he  was  surprised  to  find 
Barbara  sitting  on  the  "  draw-horse "  or 


shaving-bench.  She  had  fled  to  the  thresh- 
ing-floor, with  the  belief  that  she  was  seeking 
for  eggs,  but  really  to  find  relief  in  tears  that 
she  could  not  shed  in  the  house  without 
opening  the  great  deep  of  her  mother's  sor- 
rows. She  had  remained  longer  than  she 
intended,  weeping  heartily,  with  no  witness 
but  the  chattering  swallows  in  the  rafters 
above,  and  old  Blaze-face,  who  looked  plac- 
idly at  her  from  behind  the  bars  of  his  hay- 
rack. 

The  sight  of  Barbara  alone  in  the  dusky 
light  of  the  threshing-floor  awakened  in 
Hiram  an  inexpressible  longing  to  tell  her  of 
all  there  was  in  his  heart;  the  vision  of  Bar- 
bara in  tears  was  too  much  for  his  resolution. 
He  went  forward  and  sat  down  by  her;  he 
involuntarily  put  his  right  arm  about  her 
shoulders,  and  drew  her  to  him  in  a  gentle 
embrace ;  he  took  her  handkerchief  in  his 
left  hand  and  wiped  the  tears  from  her  cheeks 
and  said  softly : 

"  Dear  Barbara,  now  don't  cry  any  more ; 
I  'm  so  sorry  for  you." 

Barbara  sat  still;  whether  displeased  or 
not  Hiram  could  not  tell,  for  she  did  not  say 
a  word.  She  neither  accepted  nor  refused  his 
embrace.  Hiram  felt  a  powerful  impulse  to 
say  more,  but  he  suddenly  remembered  that 
Barbara's  grief  had  no  relation  to  him,  and 
it  seemed  hateful  that  he  should  intrude  his 
own  feelings  and  hopes  upon  her  in  her  all- 
engrossing  sorrow,  and  he  feared  to  offend 
again  a  pride  so  sensitive  as  he  knew  hers  to 
be.  But  he  allowed  himself  once  more  to  draw 
the  silent  Barbara  toward  him  with  a  gentle 
pressure;  then, with  a  resolute  effort  at  self- 
control,  he  climbed  into  the  mow  to  pitch 
down  some  hay  for  old  Blaze.  This  duty  he 
performed  as  quickly  as  possible,  blindly  in- 
tent on  returning  to  Barbara  once  more.  But 
when  he  came  down  again  Barbara  had  gone, 
and  he  sat  down  on  the  draw-horse  where 
she  had  been,  and  remained  there  long,  all 
alone  but  for  the  swallows  flitting  in  and  out 
through  the  openings  between  the  lower  ends 
of  the  rafters,  and  gossiping  from  one  mud- 
built  nest  to  another.  In  this  time  he  asked 
himself  questions  about  his  conduct  in  the 
difficult  clays  yet  to  come,  and  tried  to  re- 
proach himself  for  the  partial  surrender  he 
had  made  to  his  feelings  ;  though  now  he  had 
given  so  much  expression  to  his  affection,  he 
could  not  for  the  life  of  him  repent  of  it. 

If  he  had  known  how  much  strength  this 
little  outbreak  of  sympathy  on  his  part  had 
given  to  Barbara,  his  conscience  would  have 
been  quite  at  ease.  Even  Mrs.  Grayson  was 
sustained  by  the  girl's  accession  of  courage. 
In  the  darkest  days  that  followed,  Bar- 
bara liked  to  recall  Hiram's  voice  soothing 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


her,  and  begging  her  not  to  weep;  and  with 
blushes  she  remembered  the  pressure  of  his 
gentle  embrace  about  her  shoulders.  This 
memory  was  a  check  to  the  bitterness  of  her 
grief.  But  Hiram  had  lost  confidence  in  him- 
self. There  were  yet  two  more  weeks  to  be 
passed,  and  unless  he  should  desert  Barbara 
in  her  trouble,  he  would  have  to  spend  these 
weeks  in  unceasing  conflict. 

The  next  day  was  the  last  of  the  school- 
term,  and  according  to  immemorial  usage, 
the  last  Friday  afternoon  of  a  school-term 
was  spent  in  a  grand  spelling-match,  in  which 
others  than  the  regular  pupils  of  the  school 
were  free  to  engage.  It  was  while  this  ortho- 
graphical scrimmage  was  going  on  that  the 
county  clerk,  Magill,  sprucely  dressed,  and 
ruddy-faced  as  ever,  rode  up  to  the  school- 
house.  He  spent  many  of  his  days  in  rid- 
ing about  the  county,  palavering  the  farmers 
and  flattering  their  wives  and  daughters,  and, 
by  his  genial  Irish  manners,  making  friends 
against  the  time  of  need.  Who  could  tell 
whether  it  might  not  also  be  worth  while  to 
make  friends  with  the  grown-up  and  -grow- 
ing-up  pupils  of  the  Timber  Creek  school; 
there  would  be  elections  after  these  boys  came 
to  vote.  Besides,  he  remembered  that  Rachel 
Albaugh  was  one  of  Mason's  post-graduate 
scholars,  and  it  was  not  in  such  a  connoisseur 
of  fine  women  to  miss  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  the  finest  in  the  county.  So  he  went 
in  and  sat  for  an  hour  on  the  hard  bench  with 
his  back  against  the  stone  jamb  of  the  great 
empty  fire-place,  and  smilingly  listened  to  the 
scholars  wrestling  with  the  supreme  difficul- 
ties of  Webster's  Elementary ;  such,  for  ex- 
ample, as  "  incomprehensibility,"  and  other 
"  words  of  eight  syllables  accented  on  the 
sixth."  By  the  time  the  spelling-match  was 
over  and  the  school  was  ready  to  be  dismissed 
he  had  evolved  a  new  plan  relating  to  his 
own  affairs.  In  making  friends  and  election- 
eering no  one  could  excel  Magill;  but  for 
attending  to  the  proper  work  of  his  office 
he  had  neither  liking  nor  aptitude,  and  the 
youth  he  kept  there,  though  good  enough 
at  building  fires  and  collecting  fees,  was  not 
competent  to  transcribe  a  document.  The 
records  were  behind,  and  he  needed  some  one 
to  write  them  up.  He  was  too  prudent  to  take 
into  the  office  any  man  who  in  after  years 
could  use  the  experience  that  might  be 
gained  and  the  knowledge  of  his  own  dilatory 
habits  that  might  be  acquired  there  to  sup- 
plant him.  It  occurred  to  him  now  that  it 
would  be  a  good  stroke  to  engage  Mason, 
who  was  not  likely  ever  to  be  a  resident  of 
the  county,  and  who  could  therefore  never 
become  a  rival. 

While    these    thoughts  were   in    MagilPs 


mind,  Hiram  was  indulging  in  a  few  words  of 
that  sort  of  sentiment  to  which  schoolmas- 
ters are  prone  when  the  parting  time  comes. 
When  the  children  were  dismissed  they  formed 
themselves  into  two  rows  on  the  outside  of 
the  school-house  door,  according  to  an  an- 
tique and,  no  doubt,  Old-World  custom  still 
lingering  in  some  rural  places  at  that  time. 
When  the  master  made  his  exit  the  boys 
were  on  his  right  and  the  girls  were  on  his 
left, —  perhaps  because  of  Eve's  imprudence 
in  the  garden  of  Eden.  Between  the  two 
rows  Hiram  marched  slowly,  with  a  quiz/i- 
cal  look  on  his  face,  as  the  boys,  to  the 
best  of  their  knowledge  and  ability,  bowed  to 
him,  and  the  girls,  with  an  attempt  at  simul- 
taneousness,  dropped  "  curcheys  "  of  respect. 
Magill  stood  in  the  door  and  smiled  to  see 
some  of  the  boys  bend  themselves  to  stiff 
right  angles  on  their  middle  hinges,  while 
others  grinned  foolishly  and  bobbed  their 
heads  forward  or  sidewise,  according  to  the 
string  they  chanced  to  pull.  The  perform- 
ances of  the  other  row  were  equally  various ; 
some  of  the  girls  bent  their  knees  and  recov- 
ered themselves  all  in  one  little  jerk,  while 
others  dropped  s»  low  as  to  "  make  tubs  " 
of  their  dress-skirts.  When  these  _last  honors 
had  been  paid,  the  scholars  broke  ranks  and 
started  for  their  homes. 

As  Magill  put  one  foot  into  the  stirrup  he 
said:  "  Mason,  how  would  yeh  like  to  come 
down  to  Moscow  an'  help  me  write  up  me 
books  ?  I  'm  a  good  dale  behoind ;  an'  ef  you 
like  to  come  for  a  wake  or  two  an'  help  me 
to  ketch  up,  I  '11  give  yeh  four  bits  a  day  an' 
yer  board  at  the  tavern." 

Hiram's  finances  were  so  straitened  that 
this  offer  of  fifty  cents  a  day  was  very  wel- 
come to  him.  How  could  he  serve  the  Gray- 
sons  better  than  to  be  where  he  could  see 
Tom  every  day,  and  look  after  his  interest  in 
any  contingency  that  might  arise  ?  This  and 
the  recollection  of  his  embarrassing  situation 
in  the  Grayson  household  quickly  decided 
him ;  and  as  the  condition  of  Magill's  office 
was  distressing,  he  promised  to  come  to 
town  in  time  to  begin  by  9  o'clock  the  next 
morning. 

That  evening  he  explained  the  matter  to 
Barbara  and  her  mother  at  the  supper  table ; 
and  before  bedtime  he  had  arranged  with  Bob 
McCord  to  look  after  the  "  critters,"  as  Bob 
called  them.  The  next  morning,  Hiram  was 
off  by  daybreak.  Bob  McCord  took  him  half- 
way with  old  Blaze, — for  the  rest,  he  "rode 
shank's  mare,"  as  the  people  say, —  and  by  9 
o'clock  he  was  trying  to  thread  the  labyrinth 
of  confusion  in  Magill's  office. 

To  Barbara  it  seemed  the  greatest  good 
fortune  to  have  Mason  near  to  Tom,  but  the 


86 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


table  was  intolerably  lonely  when  only  two 
sorrow-smitten  women  sat  down  together. 

XXII. 
THE    FIRST    DAY    OF    COURT. 

THE  eventful  morning  of  the  opening  of  the 
'•  fall  term  "  of  the  court  at  Moscow  came  at 
length.  Mrs.  Grayson  again  put  her  house 
into  the  care  of  her  neighbor  Mely  McCord, 
and  she  arranged  that  Bob  McCord  should 
stay  at  home  so  as  to  feed  the  cattle  that 
night  and  the  next  morning.  It  was  thought 
that  Tom's  trial  would  take  place  on  the  sec- 
ond day.  Mrs.  Grayson  and  Barbara  drove 
into  Moscow  early  on  the  first  day  of  court 
that  they  might  give  Tom  all  the  sympathy 
and  assistance  possible. 

On  that  very  first  forenoon  the  grand  jury 
heard  such  fragments  of  evidence  as  the  pub- 
lic prosecutor  thought  necessary  to  bring  be- 
fore them,  and  found  an  indictment  against 
Thomas  Grayson,  Junior,  for  murder  in  the 
first  degree.  In  the  prevailing  state  of  public 
opinion  a  true  bill  would  almost  have  been 
found  if  no  evidence  had  been  before  them. 
Delay  in  such  cases  was  teot  to  be  thought 
of  in  that  time  of  summary  justice;  dilatory 
postponements  were  certainly  not  to  be  ex- 
pected in  a  court  presided  over,  as  this  one 
was,  by  Judge  Watkins.  He  was  a  man  ap- 
proaching sixty  years  of  age,  with  a  sallow, 
withered  face ;  a  victim  to  hot  biscuit  and  dys- 
pepsia; arbitrary  and  petulant,  but  with  deep- 
set,  intelligent  black  eyes.  Though  his  temper 
was  infirm,  his  voice  crabbed,  and  his  admin- 
istration of  justice  austere  and  unrelenting,  he 
was  eminently  just,  and  full  of  the  honorable 
if  somewhat  irascible  pride  of  a  Virginian  with 
a  superstitious  reverence  for  his  "family." 
Judge  Watkins  came  of  an  ancestry  who  were 
famous  only  for  courageously  holding  up  their 
heads  and  doing  nothing  that  they  consid- 
ered unworthy  of  gentlemen.  Their  greatest 
pride  was  that  they  had  always  been  proud. 
The  judge's  coat  hung  loosely  on  his  frame, 
and  his  trousers  were  generally  drawn  up  in 
wrinkles  so  as  to  show  the  half  of  his  boot-legs. 
His  garments  were,  moreover,  well-worn  and 
rather  coarse ;  like  his  planter  ancestors,  he 
never  fancied  that  dress  could  add  anything 
to  the  dignity  of  a  gentleman.  The  substantial 
distinction  of  a  gentleman,  in  his  estimation, 
consisted  in  being  of  a  "  good  family,"  and  in 
preferring  to  lose  one's  life  rather  than  to  lie, 
and  to  take  another  man's  life  rather  than  to 
suffer  the  reproach  of  falsehood  or  coward- 
ice. It  was  characteristic  of  a  Virginian  of 
this  type  to  have  something  like  a  detesta- 
tion for  clothes,  except  in  so  far  as  they  served 
for  decency  and  warmth ;  all  the  great  differ- 


ence between  a  respected  gentleman  and  a 
despised  fop  lay  in  this  fierce  contempt  for 
appearances.  Judge  Watkins  left  fine  coats 
and  gold  watches  for  those  who  needed  such 
decorations;  he  clothed  himself  in  homespun 
and  family  pride. 

When  the  indictment  was  read,  the  judge, 
looking  from  under  his  overhanging,  grizzled 
eyebrows,  said,  "  When  can  we  try  this  case  ?  " 
The  counsel  on  both  sides  knew  that  he  in- 
tended to  dispatch  this  disagreeable  business 
promptly.  As  he  put  the  question,  Judge 
Watkins  looked  first  at  Allen,  the  prosecuting 
attorney,  and  then  at  Lincoln. 

"  We  are  ready,  your  Honor,"  said  the  prose- 
cuting attorney,  a  little  man  with  a  freckled 
face  and  a  fidgety  desire  to  score  a  point  on 
every  occasion.  "  I  hope  there  '11  be  no  de- 
lay, your  Honor.  The  defense  knew  six  weeks 
ago  that  a  true  bill  would  be  found.  They  've 
had  time  enough  to  prepare,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  be  able  to  go  on." 

The  judge  listened  impatiently  to  this,  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  has  heard  so  much  clap- 
trap that  it  has  become  nauseous  to  him.  In- 
deed, before  Allen  had  completed  his  little 
speech  Judge  Watkins  had  turned  quite  away 
from  him  and  fastened  his  deep-set  eyes  on 
young  Lincoln,  who  rose  to  his  feet  without 
succeeding  in  getting  himself  quite  straight, — 
this  was  always  a  matter  of  time  with  him, — 
and  said  in  a  grave,  half-despondent  way  : 

"  Your  Honor,  we  are  ready." 

"  I  '11  set  the  case  for  to-morrow,  then," 
said  the  judge,  and  added  in  a  sharper  key. 
"  Sheriff,  command  silence !  "  This  last  in- 
junction was  prompted  by  an  incontinent 
rustle  of  interest  in  the  court-room  when  the 
time  for  the  murder  trial  was  fixed  for  the 
next  day.  The  judge's  high-strung,  irascible 
nerves,  and  his  sense  of  the  sacred  dignity  of 
his  court,  made  him  take  offense  at  the  slight- 
est symptom  of  popular  feeling. 

The  sheriff,  who  sat  at  the  judge's  left  a 
little  lower  than  the  judge,  now  stood  up  and 
rapped  with  a  mallet  on  the  plank  desk  in 
front  of  him,  and  cried  lustily,  "  Si — lence  in 
court ! " 

And  all  was  still  again. 

The  judge's  dignity  would  not  admit  of  his 
addressing  the  commonalty,  who,  since  they 
were  neither  members  of  the  bar,  court  offi- 
cers, witnesses,  nor  criminals,  were  beyond 
official  recognition,  but  he  said  to  the  sheriff 
in  a  severe  tone  : 

"  Sheriff,  you  will  arrest  any  person  who 
makes  any  kind  of  disturbance  in  the  court." 

Then  the  business  of  the  court  went  on. 
One  after  another  of  the  spectators,  whose  in- 
terest was  centered  in  the  next  day's  session, 
rose  and  tip-toed  softly  out  of  the  room. 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


87 


They  did  not  all  go  at  once,  nor  did  any  one 
of  them  go  noisily.  The  judge  had  been 
known  to  fine  a  man  for  treading  heavily,  and 
those  who  wore  squeaking  hoots  were  in  mis- 
ery until  they  were  quite  clear  of  the  door. 


xxni. 

BROAD    RUN    IN    ARMS. 

THE  popular  imagination  had  made  Tom 
into  something  monstrous.  Visitors  to  the 
village  went  to  the  jail  window  to  look  at 
him,  as  one  might  go  to  look  at  a  wild  beast. 
Confinement,  solicitude,  and  uncertainty  had 
worn  upon  him.  He  shrank  nervously  into 
the  darker  corners  of  the  jail  to  avoid  obser- 
vation. His  mind  was  a  very  shuttlecock 
between  the  battledores  of  hope  and  fear. 
He  knew  no  more  than  the  public  of  the 
purposes  or  expectations  of  his  lawyer.  All 
that  Lincoln  would  say  to  Tom  or  his  friends 
was  that  the  case  was  a  difficult  one,  and  that 
it  was  better  to  leave  the  line  of  defense 
wholly  to  himself.  But  in  proportion  as  Tom's 
counsel  was  uncommunicative  about  his  plans 
rumor  was  outspoken  and  confident,  though 
not  always  consistent  in  its  account  of  them. 
It  was  reported  that  Tom  was  to  plead  guilty 
to  manslaughter;  that  Lincoln  would  try  to 
clear  him  on  the  ground  of  justifiable  homi- 
cide in  self-defense  ;  and  that  the  lawyer  had 
found  a  man  willing  to  swear  that  he  was  in 
company  with  Tom  on  another  part  of  the 
ground  at  the  very  time  of  the  shooting.  In 
any  case,  it  was  decided  that  Lincoln  would 
move  for  a  change  of  venue,  for  it  was  well 
understood  that  in  Moscow  the  accused  did 
not  stand  "  a  ghost  of  a  chance." 

As  the  time  of  the  court  session  drew  on, 
a  new  and  more  exciting  report  had  got 
abroad.  It  was  everywhere  said  that  Dave 
Sovine  had  been  bought  off,  and  that  he  was 
to  get  his  money  and  leave  the  country  in 
time  to  avoid  testifying.  How  the  story  was 
set  a-going,  or  who  was  responsible  for  it,  no 
one  could  tell.  Dave  Sovine's  conferences 
with  Bob  McCord  may  have  raised  surmises, 
for  as  the  time  of  the  trial  approached,  Dave 
grew  more  and  more  solicitous  to  get  the  hun- 
dred dollars  and  be  off.  He  even  hinted  to 
Bob  that  he  might  refuse  to  accept  it,  if  it  did 
not  come  soon.  Bob  McCord  had  his  own 
notions  about  the  report.  He  thought  that 
either  Sovine  had  incontinently  let  the  matter 
out,  which  was  hardly  probable,  or  that  Abe 
Lincoln  for  some  reason  wanted  such  a  be- 
lief to  be  spread  abroad.  Secretive  and  tricky 
as  Bob  was,  there  was  a  finesse  about  Lincoln's 
plans  which  he  could  not  penetrate,  and  which 


led  him  more  than  once  to  remark  that  Abe 
was  "  powerful  deep  for  a  young  feller." 
Whether  the  rumor  was  launched  for  a  pur- 
pose or  not,  it  had  had  the  effect  of  waking  up 
Allen,  the  public  prosecutor,  who  put  a  watch 
on  Sovine's  movements,  and  gave  his  chief 
witness  to  understand  that  any  attempt  of  his 
to  leave  the  country,  by  night  or  day,  would 
bring  about  his  immediate  arrest. 

The  story  that  Sovine  had  been  bought  oft" 
produced  another  result  which  could  not  have 
been  desired  by  either  of  the  lawyers :  it 
fanned  to  a  blaze  the  slumbering  embers  of 
Broad  Run.  Jake  Hogan's  abortive  expedition 
to  Perrysburg  had  left  resentment  rankling  in 
his  manly  bosom.  He  had  reluctantly  given 
over  the  attempt  to  redeem  himself  by  making 
a  raid  on  Moscow  the  Sunday  night  following, 
when  Deputy  Sheriff  Markham  had  pretended 
to  look  up  a  hypothetical  wall-eyed,  red- 
whiskered  man,  who  was  believed  to  have  had 
some  reason  for  killing  George  Lockwood.  It 
was,  indeed,  only  by  degrees  that  Broad  Run 
came  to  understand  that  its  dignity  had  been 
again  trifled  with.  ^The  first  result  of  its  indig- 
nation was  that  the  Broad  Run  clan,  attribut- 
ing to  Sheriff  Plunkett  all  the  humiliation  put 
upon  it,  had  unanimously  resolved  to  compass 
his  defeat  at  the  next  election.  Plunkett,  hav- 
ing heard  of  this,  promptly  took  measures  to 
avert  the  defection  of  his  good  friends  on  the 
Run.  Markham,  as  the  principal  author  of  the 
difficulty,  was  dismissed  from  his  place  of 
deputy  on  some  trifling  pretext.  It  did  not 
cost  Sheriff  Plunkett  serious  pain  to  let  him 
go  ;  Markham  was  becoming  too  conspicuous 
a  figure.  It  is  the  way  of  shrewd  small  men  to 
cut  down  in  time  an  apprentice  who  is  likely 
to  overtop  the  master.  Then  Plunkett  told  his 
brother-in-law  to  go  out  to  Broad  Run  and 
explain  things.  Greater  diplomatists  than  he 
have  prepared  to  make  use  of  irresponsible 
ambassadors  when  they  had  that  to  say  which 
it  might  be  necessary  to  repudiate.  The 
brother-in-law  was  one  of  those  men  who  like 
to  take  a  hand  in  local  politics,  not  for  the 
sake  of  holding  office  themselves,  but  for  the 
pleasure  of  intrigue  for  its  own  sake.  He  first 
sought  Jake  Hogan  at  his  cabin,  and  sat 
and  whittled  with  him  at  his  wood-pile  in  the 
most  friendly  way,  laughing  at  Jake's  lank 
jokes,  flattering  his  enormous  self-love,  and  by 
every  means  in  his  power  seeking  to  appease 
Hogan's  wrath  against  the  sheriff.  The  sheriff" 
had  n't  anything  to  do  with  running  Tom  off 
after  the  inquest,  said  the  envoy, —  Markham 
had  done  that.  It  was  Markham  who  had 
peddled  around  the  story  of  the  man  with  red 
whiskers.  Markham  had  got  too  big-feeling 
for  his  place.  The  sheriff  saw  that  Markham 
was  against  the  Broad  Run  boys,  and  so  he 


88 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


put  him  out  —  dropped  him  like  a  hot  potato, 
you  know. 

"Just  consider,"  the  brother-in-law  urged, 
"  how  much  Plunkett  's  done  for  the  boys. 
He  's  refused  tee-totally  to  let  Tom  be  taken 
to  Perrysburg.  Plunkett  ain't  going  to  be  dic- 
tated to  by  rich  men  like  ole  Tom  Grayson. 
He  knows  who  elected  him.  And  he  don't  feel 
obliged  to  protect  a  murderer  after  the  coro- 
ner's jury  says  he  's  guilty." 

"  They  's  been  talk  of  his  shootin'  if  any  reg- 
'laters  come  around,"  said  Jake. 

"  Him  shoot  ?  "  answered  the  brother-in-law. 
"  He  's  done  everything  he  could  not  to  put 
out  the  boys,  and  what  'u'd  'e  shoot  for  ?  He 
ain't  anxious  to  have  the  job  of  hangin'  Tom 
Grayson.  He  's  heard  tell  of  sheriffs,  'fore 
now,  that  's  felt  themselves  ha'nted  as  long  's 
they  lived,  because  they  'd  hanged  a  man.  He 
ain't  goin'  to  fight  for  the  privilege  of  hangin' 
Tom,  and  he  ain't  the  kind  to  do  anythin' 
brash,  and  he  ain't  ag'inst  good  citizens  like 
the  boys  on  the  Run  —  depend  on  that.  Of 
course," — here  the  brother-in-law  picked  up  a 
new  splinter  and  whittled  it  cautiously  as  he 
spoke, — "  of  course  you  know  't  the  sheriff 's 
give  bonds.  He  's  got  to  make  a  show  of  de- 
fending his  prisoner.  He  's  took  'n  oath,  you 
see,  'n'  people  expect  him  to  resist.  But  if  a 
lot  of  men  comes,  what  can  one  man  do  ? 
S'posin'  they  wuz  to  tie  his  hands,  and  then 
s'pose  they  was  to  say  if  he  moved  they  'd 
shoot.  What  could  he  do  ?  " 

The  envoy  stopped  whittling  and  looked  at 
Jake,  giving  the  slightest  possible  wink  with 
one  eye.  Jake  nodded  his  head  with  the  air 
of  a  man  who  is  confident  that  he  is  not  such 
a  fool  as  to  be  unable  to  take  a  hint  enforced 
by  half  a  wink. 

"  What  does  'n  oath  amount  to  with  a  pistol 
at  your  head  ?  "  the  brother-in-law  inquired ; 
"  an'  what 's  the  use  of  bonds  if  your  hands 
are  tied?  You  can  talk  strong  ;  that  don't  hurt 
anybody." 

Jake  nodded  again,  and  said,  "  In  course." 

"  If  you  was  to  hear  about  the  sheriff's  say- 
in'  he  'd  ruther  die  than  give  up  his  prisoner, 
you  can  just  remember  that  he  's  got  to  talk 
that  way ;  he  's  under  bonds,  and  he  's  swore 
in,  and  the  people  expect  him  to  talk  about 
cloin'  his  dooty.  But  you  're  too  old  a  hand  to 
set  much  store  by  talk." 

"  Well,  I  'low  I  am,"  said  Hogan,  greatly 
pleased  that  his  experience  and  astuteness 
were  at  length  coming  in  for  due  recogni- 
tion. 

Then  when  Jake  was  pretty  well  mollified, 
the  brother-in-law  adjourned  himself  and  Jake 
to  the  grocery,  where  he  treated  the  crowd, 
and  in  much  more  vague  and  non-committal 
terms  let  all  the  citizens  that  resorted  thither 


understand  that  Sheriff  Plunkett  was  their 
friend,  and  that  Pete  Markham  was  the  friend 
of  the  rich  men  and  the  lawyers.  But  he  took 
pains  to  leave  the  impression  that  Tom  would 
certainly  meet  his  deserts  at  the  hands  of  the 
court,  for  the  sheriff  desired  to  avoid  the  em- 
barrassment of  a  mob  if  he  could. 

The  sweetness  of  Jake  Hogan's  spirit  had 
been  curdled  by  his  disappointment  and  re- 
verses, but  these  overtures  from  the  sheriff  to 
him  as  a  high-contracting  power  were  very  flat- 
tering and  assuring.  When,  a  little  later,  the 
startling  intelligence  reached  that  center  of 
social  and  intellectual  activity,  the  Broad  Run 
grocery,  that  Dave  Sovine  had  been  bought 
off,  Broad  Run  was  aroused,  and  Jake  Hogan 
left  off  sulking  in  his  tent  and  resumed  his 
activity  in  public  affairs. 

"  Did  n't  I  tell  you,"  he  asked,  leaning  his 
back  against  the  counter  and  supporting  him- 
self on  his  two  elbows  thrust  behind  him,  while 
one  of  his  legs,  ending  in  a  stogy  boot,  was 
braced  out  in  front  of  him,  "  you  can't  hang 
the  nephew  'v  a  rich  man  in  such  a  dodrotted 
country  as  this  yer  Eelenoys  ?  Dave  Sovine  's 
bought  off,  they  say,  by  an  ornery  young  law- 
yer un  that  air  Bob  McCord."  Jake  was  too 
prudent  to  apply  any  degrading  adjectives  to 
a  man  of  Bob's  size  and  renown.  "  Dave  '11 
light  out  the  day  afore  the  trial  with  rocks  in 
his  pockets,  un  that  air  young  coward  '11  git 
clean  off.  Where  's  yer  spunk,  I  'd  like  to 
know  ?  'F  you  're  go'n'  to  be  hornswogglcd 
by  lawyers  like  that  air  long-legged  Abe  Lin- 
coln, un  rich  men  like  ole  Seven-per-cent  Tom 
Grayson,  w'y,  you  kin,  that  's  all." 

Jake,  with  his  head  thrown  forward,  looked 
sternly  around  on  the  group  about  him,  and 
they  seemed  to  feel  the  reproach  of  his  supe- 
rior aggressiveness.  Bijy  Grimes  was  rendered 
so  uneasy  by  Jake's  regard  that  he  shut  his 
mouth  ;  and  then,  not  knowing  what  better  to 
do,  he  ventured  to  ask  humbly,  "  What  kin 
we  do  about  it,  Jake  ?  "  letting  his  mouth  drop 
open  again  in  token  that  he  waited  for  a  reply. 

"Do?"  said  Jake,  contemptuously.  "W'y, 
chain-lightin',  Bijy,  what  a  thing,  now,  to  ax ! 
Show  me  two  dozen,  ur  even  one  dozen,  men 
that  '11  stan'  at  my  back  tell  the  blood  runs, 
un  I  '11  show  'em  't  folks  can't  take  a  change 
of  venoo  out-uh  the  k-younty  that  knows  all 
about  the  rascality  into  one  that  don't.  I  '11 
show  'em  how  to  buy  off  witnesses,  un  I  '11 
larn  these  yer  dodrotted  lawyers  un  rich  men 
how  to  fool  weth  the  very  bone  un  sinoo  uv 
the  land." 

Notwithstanding  the  natural  love  of  these 
men  for  a  little  excitement,  they  had  been 
rendered  somewhat  unresponsive  by  Jake's 
failures.  The  most  of  them  thought  it  best  to 
go  to  town  on  the  day  of  the  trial  and  see 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


ZEKE  AND  S'MANTHY'S  OLDEST  SON. 


how  it  would  come  out.  But  at  6  o'clock  in 
the  evening  of  the  first  day  of  court,  Lew  Ba- 
ker, a  farmer  from  the  river  valley  beyond  the 
Run,  rode  past  the  door  of  the  grocery  on  his 
way  home,  and  said  a  collective  "  Howdy " 
to  the  three  or  four  who  stood  outside.  Bijy 
Grimes,  who  was  one  of  them,  came  out  to- 
wards the  middle  of  the  road  heading  off  the 
traveler. 

"  Hello,  Lew !  Any  nooze  about  the  trial  ?  " 
he  said,  dropping  his  lower  jaw  from  between 
his  fat  infantile  cheeks  and  waiting  for  a  re- 
ply, while  the  rest  of  the  group  moved  up  to 
hearing  distance. 

"  Well,  yes,"  said  Baker,  pulling  up  his  horse 

and  swinging  himself  round  in  the  saddle  so 

as  to  bring  the  most  of  his  weight  on  the  right 

stirrup,  while  he  rested  his  left  elbow  on  his 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 13. 


left  knee  and  his  right  hand  on  the  horse's 
mane.  "  I  heern  tell,  jest  as  I  come  away,  that 
Dave  what-ye-may-call-'im,  the  witness,  had 
sloped,  liker  'n  not.  He  hain't  been  seed  aroun' 
for  a  right  smart  while,  un  they  say  he  's  gone 
off  to  New  Ur/eans  ur  the  Injun  country. 
Moscow  's  stirred  up  about  it." 

"  Tu-lah ! "  said  Bijy.  "  They  'low  he  '11  be 
got  off,  don't  they  ?  " 

"They  're  shore  sumpin  's  fixed,  fer  the 
young  feller's  lawyer  hain't  soopeenied  a 
derned  witness." 

"  Tu-lah ! "  said  Bijy.    "  Is  that  a  fack  ?  " 

"Shore  's  shootin',  they  say.  He  's  to  be 
got  off  somehow,  I  s'pose." 

"  Tu-laws-a-massy  !  "  broke  out  Bijy  ;  and 
turning  to  his  fellow-loafers  he  said,  "  That  '11 
rile  Jake  purty  consid'able,  now  won't  it  ?  " 


9° 


THE  PERSONALITY  OE  LEO   XIII. 


It  did  stir  up  Jake  when  he  heard  of  it.    He  S'manthy's  oldest  son,  a  tow-headed  fellow  of 

promptly  set  to  work  to  form  a  company  to  sixteen,  was  one  of  these,  and  he  was  sent  over 

descend  at  once  on  Moscow  and  take  the  case  the  hill  to  warn  Zeke  Tucker,  who  was  still  at 

outof  the  hands  of  the  dodrotted  lawyers.   He  Britton's,  a  mile  away  from  the  borders  of 

could  not  at  so  late  an  hour  get  together  more  what  was  distinctively  called  "  the  Run  Neigh- 

than  twenty  or  twenty-five  men  from  Broad  borhood." 

Run  and  the  regions  within  warning  distance.        The  September  twilight  was  already  fading 

Some  of  these  joined  him  only  because  they  when  the  lad  arrived  and  communicated  his 

could  not  endure  to  have  anything  very  excit-  message  to  Zeke,  who  was  perched  on  the  top 

ing  take  place  in  their  absence :  it  would  en-  rail  of  a  fence,  for  rest  and  observation  after 

tail  the  necessity  of  their  hearing  for  the  rest  of  his  day's  work.    Mrs.  Britton  was  making  the 

their  lives  the  account  given  of  the  affair  by  the  house  over-warm  just  now,  and  Zeke  naturally 

participators,  who  would  always  value  them-  preferred  the  fresh  air.    He  was  notified  that 

selves  on  it.    Some  of  the  larger  boys,  whose  the  start  was  to  be  made  three  hours  after 

aid  had  been  rejected  in  the  previous  excur-  dark,  so  as  to  have  time  to  get  home  before 

sion  because  they  were  not  accounted  mature  dawn.    He  promised  to  come  "jest  as  soon  as 

enough  for  such  public  responsibilities,  were  possible,"  and  sent  word  to  Jake  not  to  go 

now  admitted :  the  company  would  be  small,  without  him,  hoping  to  delay  the  expedition 


and  a  boy  is  better  than  nobody  in  a  pinch,    by  this  means. 

(To  be  continued.) 


Edward  Eggleston, 


THE    PERSONALITY    OF    LEO    XIII. 


EO  XIII.  is  described  by 
the  Italian  publicist 
Bonghi  as  "  one  of  the 
most  finely  balanced  and 
vigorous  of  characters." 
Without  the  brilliancy  or 
the  geniality  of  Pius  IX., 
which  attracted  even  his 
enemies  to  him  personally,  he  has  qualities 
which  many  Catholics  believe  of  greater  use- 
fulness in  the  present  time.  He  is  little  of 
an  orator,  but  much  of  an  author.  He  uses 
the  pen  nrbi  et  orbi  (to  the  city  and  to  the 
world).  He  teaches  by  encyclicals ;  his  prede- 
cessor taught  by  allocutions.  To  the  culture 
of  Leo  X.  he  unites  the  spirituality  of  Pius  IX. 
He  possesses  all  that  is  good  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance  without  that  mixture  of  pa- 
ganism which  almost  put  the  classics  above 
the  Scriptures  and  valued  a  variation  in  a  line 
of  Horace  as  much  as  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 
He  never  forgets  the  weight  of  his  burden  as 
the  spiritual  ruler  in  matters  of  faith  and  morals 
of  the  Catholic  world.  When  he  speaks  in  his 
encyclicals,  which  are  models  of  classic  Latin- 
ity,  when  he  teaches  ex  catkedrd  on  subjects  of 
faith  or  of  those  principles  which  touch  faith, 
being  of  Christian  morality,  the  elegant  graces 
of  the  past  are  forgotten  and  his  words  flow 
solemnly,  gravely,  with  such  force  that  even 
those  who  reject  him  as  a  teacher  recognize 
his  knowledge,  broad  and  deep,  of  the  Script- 
ures, and  his  ardent  desire  for  the  welfare  of 
society. 


Joachim  Vincent  Raphael  Louis  Pecci  was 
born  on  March  2,  1810,  at  Carpineto, —  Car- 
pineto  Romagna,  to  be  accurate.  His  brother, 
Cardinal  Pecci,  calls  it  "an  eagle's  nest."  It 
is  placed  high  in  the  Monte  Lepini,  in  the 
Volscian  range.  Here,  in  this  aerie-like  town, 
much  out  of  the  course  of  the  ordinary  trav- 
eler, stands  the  country  house  of  the  Pecci 
family,  its  outlines  softened  by  the  boughs  of 
well-grown  trees.  Carpineto  is  still,  in  appear- 
ance, a  medieval  town,  and  even  the  lumber- 
ing stage-coach  hurrying  through  its  streets, 
ancient  as  that  vehicle  is,  seems  painfully  mod- 
ern. The  Pecci  are  of  Siennese  origin.  The 
mother  of  Leo  XIII.  was  Anna  Prosperi  Buzi, 
a  descendant  of  a  famous  Volscian  family. 
Count  Domenico,  his  father, —  of  a  race  which 
had  been  forced  to  flee  from  Sienna  for  having 
taken  sides  with  the  Medici, —  fought  for  a 
time  under  Napoleon  I.  But  while  Napoleon 
held  Pius  IX.  in  his  clutches,  Count  Domen- 
ico lived  quietly  in  his  home  at  Carpineto, 
little  dreaming  that  his  son  was  to  be  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  imprisoned  Pope. 

Vincent  Pecci,  as  he  was  called  during  his 
mother's  life,  spent  a  happy  childhood  in  "  the 
eagle's  nest,"  for  he  was  the  youngest  of  six 
children, —  four  boys  and  two  girls, —  and  the 
memories  of  that  peaceful  time  permeate  his 
poetical  work.  Like  most  boys  of  his  class,  he 
was  put  in  the  care  of  the  Jesuits.  In  their  es- 
tablishments at  Viterbo  and  Rome  he  showed 
a  marked  taste  for  the  classics.  He  resolved 
to  be  a  priest.  He  did  not  allow  himself,  in 


I'OI'E    LEO    XIII. 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  LEO  XIII. 


spite  of  his  bad  health,  many  hours  of  rest. 
His  life  was  absorbed  in  those  studies  which 
his  friend  Pope  Leo  XII.  had  done  so  much 
to  revive  in  Rome. 

In  the  Divinity  School  of  the  Roman 
College,  in  the  College  of  Nobles,  in  the 
University  of  the  Sapienza,  during  the  out- 
break of  cholera  in  1837,116  showed  his  courage, 
Christian  charity,  and  executive  ability  in  as- 
sisting Cardinal  Sala  in  fighting  the  scourge. 
On  December  31,  of  the  same  year,  he  was 
ordained  priest.  He  was  marked  at  once  by  the 
papal  authorities  as  a  man  of  mind  and  power. 

Appointed  Governor  of  Benevento,  a  hot- 
bed of  smuggling  and  brigandage,  connived 
at  by  treacherous  nobles,  he  virtually  purged 
the  place.  He  was  next  made  delegate  of 
Umbria,  of  which  his  beloved  Perugia  is  the 
capital.  Umbria  was  in  a  worse  condition 
than  Benevento.  His  practical  and  prompt 
reforms  there  gave  the  then  reigning  Pope, 
Gregory  XVI.,  the  greatest  satisfaction.  He 
was  consecrated  Archbishop  of  Damietta 
and  appointed  Nuncio  to  Belgium.  His  in- 
fluence on  the  progress  of  higher  education 
in  Belgium  was  felt  at  once.  But  Perugia 
needed  an  archbishop,  and  the  Perugians 
would  have  no  one  but  Mgr.  Pecci,  if  they 
could  help  it.  He  was  sent  from  Belgium  to 
London  and  Paris;  and  then  recalled  to 
Rome,  he  was  made  Archbishop  of  Perugia. 
Pius  IX.  succeeded  Gregory  XVI.  It  was 
not  long  before  Pecci  was  created  cardinal. 
His  model  was  St.  Charles  Borromeo, —  of 
that  famous  family  which  produced  the  Car- 
dinal Frederico  of"  I  Promessi  Sposi,"  —  and 
his  teacher  of  teachers,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 
He  believed  that  priests  should  be  learned  as 
well  as  virtuous.  He  enforced  his  belief  so  well 
that  Perugia  became  known  as  "  admirable." 

Pius  IX.  died.  The  conclave  opened.  Car- 
dinal Pecci  was  elected  Pope  in  the  third 
ballot,  by  a  vote  of  forty-four  out  of  sixty- 
one.  He  assumed  the  name  of  Leo  XIII. 
During  his  pontificate  the  Pope's  one  thought, 
iterated  and  reiterated,  has  been  the  salvation 
of  society  through  Christian  education. 

He  is  now  an  old  man.  He  has  just  cele- 
brated the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  ordination 
to  the  priesthood.  This  century  was  ten  years 


old  when  he  entered  it.  He  is  not  strong.  He 
lives  with  the  frugality  and  simplicity  of  a 
Spartan.  This  Pope,  who  in  great  functions 
wears  the  garments  of  a  Roman  patrician,  a 
tiara  more  splendid  than  that  of  emperors,  and 
moves,  upborne  by  the  arms  of  men,  with  more 
pomp  than  any  potentate  on  earth,  spends 
most  of  his  time  in  a  simple  white  robe,  and 
engaged  in  active  intellectual  labor.  He  finds 
time  to  bless  the  little  children  that  are  brought 
to  him ;  he  is  never  hurried  when  an  American 
Catholic,  or  non-Catholic,  is  introduced  to  him. 
The  hardest  work  of  his  day  is  that  done  with 
the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State.  The  problems 
which  foreign  governments  offer  him  can  only 
be  solved  by  the  keenest  insight  and  the  most 
consummate  knowledge.  Fortunately,  he  once 
ruled  in  Perugia  with  a  firm  hand,  and  he 
knows  the  difficulties  of  rulers.  He  also  visited 
foreign  courts,  and  he  understands  how  to 
meet  diplomacy  with  diplomacy.  Sir  Charles 
Dilke  says  that  the  diplomatic  service  of  the 
Vatican  is  the  most  complete  in  Europe,  and 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  knows  Europe  very  well.  But 
Leo  XIII.,  whose  only  recreation  is  a  walk  in 
the  Vatican  garden,  a  talk  with  an  old  friend, 
or  the  pleasure  he  finds  in  the  Psalms  of 
David,  is  the  director  of  the  policy  of  theVati- 
can  in  all  matters.  His  days  are  happy  when 
no  diplomatic  riddle  vexes  them.  Secluded  in 
his  own  palace,  with  no  soldiers  but  an  orna- 
mental troop,  helpless  so  far  as  physical  force  is 
concerned,  he  is  an  immensepower  in  the  world. 
The  poems  of  Leo  XIII.  are  remarkable 
for  their  exquisite  Latinity.  They  are  the  rec- 
ord of  his  feelings  at  various  periods  of  his 
existence.  In  1830  he  wrote  : 

Scarce  twenty  years  thou  numberest,  Joachim, 
And  fell  diseases  thy  young  life  invade  ! 
Yet  pains,  when  charmed  by  verse,  seem  half  allayed  — 
Record  thy  sorrows,  then,  in  mournful  hymn. 

He  anticipated  death,  but  death  has  spared 
him  longer  than  he  spares  most  men.  The 
elegance  of  the  Pope's  Latin  and  the  sincerity 
of  his  sentiments — pure,  warm,  hearty,  and  in 
the  cases  of  old  scenes  and  old  friends  even 
homely  —  make  his  poems  interesting.  He 
writes  lovingly  of  the  past  and  hopefully  of  the 
future. 

Maurice  Francis  Egan. 


THE    CHANCES    OF    BEING    HIT    IN    BATTLE. 


A   STUDY   OF. REGIMENTAL  LOSSES   IN   THE   CIVIL  WAR. 


F  a  man  enlist  in  rime  of 
war,  what  are  the  chances 
of  his  being  killed  ?  When 
a  new  regiment  leaves  for 
the  front,  how  many  of  its 
men  will  probably  lose  their 
lives  by  violent  deaths  ? 
What  are  the  battle  losses 
of  regimentsin  active  service — not  in  wounded 
and  captured,  but  in  killed  and  died  of  wounds? 
A  very  good  answer  to  these  or  similar  inquir- 
ies is  found  in  the  records  of  the  Northern 
troops  in  the  war  of  1861-65.  ^  was  a  war 
so  great,  so  long  and  desperate,  it  employed 
so  many  men,  that  these  records  furnish  of 
themselves  a  fair  reply. 

A  soldier  of  the  late  civil  war  is  often  ques- 
tioned as  to  how  many  men  his  regiment  lost. 
His  answer  is  always  something  like  this: 
"  We  left  our  barracks  1000  strong;  when  we 
returned  there  were  only  85  left."  Few  people 
have  the  hardihood  to  dispute  the  old  veteran, 
who  testily  fortifies  all  of  his  assertions  by  the 
argument  that  he  was  there  and  ought  to  know. 
So  the  story  of  the  1000  who  went  and  the  85 
who  returned  is  accepted  without  reply.  Now 
this  peculiar  form  of  statement  as  made  by 
the  old  soldier  is  apt  to  be  correct  so  far  as  it 
goes,  but  the  inferences  are  invariably  wrong. 
So  few  are  aware  of  the  many  causes  which 
deplete  a  regiment,  that  these  missing  men 
are  generally  thought  of  as  dead.  A  better 
way  for  the  veteran  to  answer  the  question 
would  be  to  state  that  in  round  numbers  his 
regiment  lost  100  men  killed;  that  200  died 
of  disease ;  that  400  were  discharged  for  sick- 
ness or  wounds;  that  100  deserted;  that  100 
were  absent  in  hospital  or  on  furlough;  and  so 
only  100  remained  as  present  at  the  muster- 
out.  Of  course,  there  are  many  regiments 
whose  brilliant  records  would  require  a  differ- 
ent statement,  but  as  regards  three-fourths  of 
the  troops  in  the  late  war  it  would  fairly  ap- 
proximate the  truth.  Of  the  2000  regiments 
or  more  in  the  Union  army,  there  were  45  * 
only  in  which  the  number  of  killed  and  mor- 
tally wounded  exceeded  200  men.  Such  state- 
ments must  not  be  regarded  as  derogatory  nor 
belittling ;  for  the  simple  facts  are  such  as  need 
no  exaggeration,  and  the  truth  only  need  be  told 
to  furnish  records  unrivaled  in  military  history. 
As  regards  the  number  killed  in  regiments, 
the  prevailing  ideas  are  indefinite  or  incorrect, 
seldom  approaching  the  truth.  Nor  are  these 
errors  confined  to  civilians  alone;  they  are 

*  Does  not  include  heavy  artillery  organizations. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 14. 


prevalent  among  the  officers  and  men  who 
were. there  and  would  be  supposed  to  know. 
All  this  is  largely  due  to  the  reckless  and  care- 
less statements  too  often  made  regarding  such 
losses.  The  error  is  a  somewhat  excusable  one, 
as  neither  officers  nor  men  have  the  means  of 
knowing  the  actual  loss  in  every  engagement. 
They  remember,  perhaps,  some  of  the  official 
reports  of  their  colonel  as  rendered  at  the  close 
of  certain  battles,  but  not  all  of  them.  These 
casualty  reports,  as  given  in,  are  divided  into 
killed,  wounded,  and  missing,  the  latter  term 
generally  including  thecaptured.  Many  of  these 
wounded  and  missing  return ;  some  of  them 
during  their  absence  die  in  hospitals  or  military 
prisons;  nothing  is  definitely  known  about 
them  at  the  time ;  so  the  tendency  is  to  con- 
sider only  the  total  of  these  casualties,  and  in 
time  to  think  of  them  as  all  killed  or  lost. 

There  is  fortunately,  however,  one  reliable 
source  of  information  as  to  the  number  of  men 
in  a  regiment  who  were  killed  in  action,  and 
that  is  the  regimental  muster-out  rolls.  Every 
regiment  before  disbanding  was  required  to 
hand  in  company  rolls,  made  out  in  triplicate, 
bearing  the  names  of  all  who  had  ever  be- 
longed to  the  company  from  first  to  last.  Op- 
posite each  name  were  remarks  showing  what 
became  of  the  man,  such  as:  "killed,"  "died 
of  wounds,"  "  died  of  disease,"  "  transferred," 
"discharged,"  "deserted,"  or  "present  at 
muster-out."  So  these  rolls,  when  properly 
made  out,  form  a  reliable  basis  for  ascertain- 
ing the  number  killed  in  a  regiment.  Many 
of  the  rolls,  however,  were  defective,  and  some 
were  lost.  But  the  various  States,  through 
their  respective  military  bureaus,  have  regained 
the  desired  information,  and,  with  few  excep- 
tions, have  completed  their  rolls,  although  this 
involved  in  some  States  years  of  clerical  re- 
search and  large  appropriations  of  money. 
Some  of  these  final  rolls  have  been  put  in 
print,  while  the  others  are  on  file  in  the  vari- 
ous offices  of  the  States'  adjutants  general.  In 
some  of  the  States  there  are  a  few  rolls  miss- 
ing, but  the  duplicates  are  on  file  in  the  War 
Department  at  Washington.  The  remark  has 
been  made  concerning  muster-out  rolls  that 
they  are  not  always  accurate.  This  was  true 
to  a  certain  extent  at  the  close  of  the  war,  but 
for  twenty  years  a  clerical  force  has  been  busy 
in  correcting  and  perfecting  them.  Certainly 
but  few  errors  can  remain  as  regards  the 
killed,  for  the  pension  claims  soon  called  at- 
tention to  nearly  all  of  such  omissions.  Hence 
these  rolls,  together  with  certain  other  sources 


94 


THE   CHANCES  OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


of  information,  furnish  a  reliable  source  for 
ascertaining  the  relative  losses  of  every  regi- 
ment and  battery  in  the  Northern  army. 

The  maximum  losses  possess  the  greatest 
interest,  and  so  invite  attention  first.  The 
greatest  loss  in  battle  of  any  one  regiment  in 
the  late  war  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  ist  Maine 
Heavy  Artillery,  in  which  423  were  killed,  or 
died  of  wounds,  out  of  2202  men"  enrolled. 
Just  here  it  is  necessary  to  state  that,  while  an 
infantry  regiment  consists  of  1000  men  with 
30  line  officers,  the  heavy  artillery  organiza- 
tion has  1800  men  with  60  line  officers,  there 
being  1 2  companies  of  1 50  each,  with  a  cap- 
tain and  four  lieutenants  to  each  company. 
The  2202  men  mentioned  here  as  enrolled  in- 
dicates that  about  400  recruits  were  received 
during  its  term  of  service.  The  heavy  artillery 
regiments  saw  no  active  service  while  on  duty 
in  that  line.  They  left  their  fortifications  near 
Washington  and  took  the  field  in  1864,  being 
armed  with  rifles,  drilled  and  manreuvred  the 
same  as  infantry,  the  only  difference  being  in 
their  larger  organization.  By  carefully  count- 
ing and  classifying  each  name  on  the  rolls  of 
the  ist  Maine  Heavy  Artillery  the  following 
abstract  is  obtained : 

IST  MAINE  HEAVY  ARTILLERY. 
Birney's  division,*   Second  Corps. 

(1)  Colonel  Daniel  Chaplin  (killed). 

(2)  "      Russell  B.  Shepherd,  Bvt.  Brigadier-General. 

LOSSES. 

Officers.    En.  Men.    Total. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds 23  400  423 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc 2  258  260 

2202  enrolled;  423  killed—  19.2  per  cent. 
Battles.  Killed. 

Spotsylvania,  Va 147 

North  Anna,  Va 3 

Totopotomoy,  Va 3 


was  really  heavy  in  proportion  to  their  num- 
bers. The  ist  Maine  Heavy  Artillery  is  re- 
markable for  holding  a  high  place  in  the  list, 
whether  tabulated  as  to  loss  by  percentage  or 
loss  numerically.  Although  this  organization 
enlisted  in  1862,  it  saw  no  fighting  until  May, 
1864,  all  of  its  losses  in  action  occurring  during 
a  period  of  less  than  a  year.  This  is  note- 
worthy, as  forming  a  proper  basis  for  compari- 
son with  regimental  losses  in  certain  /oreign 
wars — the  late  Franco-Prussian,  for  instance, 
in  which  the  duration  of  the  fighting  was  about 
the  same.  The  total  enrollment  of  this  regi- 
ment was  larger  than  the  number  just  stated, 
but  the  excess  was  caused  by  accessions  in 
June,  1865,  after  the  war  had  ended,  the  ad- 
ditions consisting  of  men  with  unexpired  terms 
of  enlistment,  transferred  from  disbanded  regi- 
ments. The  actual  number  belonging  to  the 
ist  Maine  Heavy  Artillery  during  the  war  was 
as  given  in  the  preceding  figures. 

The  next  largest  number  of  killed  is  found 
in  the  8th  New  York  Heavy  Artillery,  whose 
muster-out  rolls,  on  file  in  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's office  at  Albany,  show,  upon  a  careful 
examination  of  each  name,  the  casualties  upon 
which  the  following  summary  is  based : 

STH  NEW  YORK  HEAVY  ARTILLERY. 

Gibbon's  Division,  Second  Corps. 
(i)  Colonel   Peter  A.  Porter  (killed). 


lotopotomoy,  Va 

Petersburg,  Va.,  June  16,  17. 
Petersburg,  Va.,  June  18 


(2) 
(3) 
(4) 


Willard  W.  Bates  (killed). 
James  M.  Willett. 
Joel  B.  Baker. 


LOSSES. 

Officers,  En,  Men. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds 19  342 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc 4  298 


Total. 
361 
302 


Jerusalem  Road,  Va 5 

Siege  of  Petersburg,  Va 10 

Deep  Bottom,  Va 2 

Weldon  Railroad,  Va.,  Oct.  2 5 

Boydton  Road,  Va 10 

Hatcher's  Run,  Va.,  March  25 6 

Sailor's  Creek,  Va s 

Picket  duty 2 

Place  unknown 3 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds 423 

Total  of  killed  and  wounded 1 283 

In  their  assault  on  Petersburg,  June  18, 
1864,  they  lost  604!  killed  and  wounded  in 
less  than  twenty  minutes,  out  of  about  900 
engaged.  This  regiment  sustained  not  only 
the  greatest  numerical  loss,  but  its  percentage 
of  killed  as  based  upon  its  enrollment  is  also 
among  the  highest.  This  matter  of  percentage 
is  an  important  factor  in  the  subject  of  regi- 
mental loss,  especially  so  as  claims  to  gallant 
conduct  are  very  apt  to  be  based  upon  the 
size  of  the  casualty  list.  In  many  regiments 
the  losses  are  apparently  small,  when  an  exami- 
nation of  their  enrollment  shows  that  their  loss 

*  The  divisions  mentioned,  in  connection  with  regi- 
ments, are  the  ones  with  which  the  regiments  were  the 
most  prominently  identified. 


2575  enrolled  ;  361  killed  =  14  per  cent. 
Battles.  Killed. 

Spotsylvania,  Va  ................................  .........  10 

North  Anna,  Va  .........................................  2 

Cold  Harbor,  Va  .......................................   207 

Petersburg   (assault)  .....  ...............................  42 

Jerusalem   Road,  Va  ..........  .  ...........................  34 

Siege  of  Petersburg  ......................................  16 

Reams's  Station,  Va  ......................................  26 

Deep  Bottom,  Va  ........................................  4 

Boydton   Road,  Va  ......................................  13 

Hatcher's  Run,  Va  ......................................  I 

White  Oak  Road,  Va  ...................................  2 

Picket,  February  8,  i8f-5   ................  ...............  .  .  i 

Confederate  prison-guard  .....................    ...........  3 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds  .....................     361 

Total  of  killed  and  wounded  ........  ...........    1010 

The  loss  by  disease  includes  102  deaths  in  Confederate 
prisons. 

There  were  only  a  few  regiments  in  the 
heavy  artillery  service,  and  so  the  regiment 
which  stands  next  in  point  of  numerical  loss 
is  an  infantry  command.  The  infantry  con- 
stituted the  bulk  of  the  army,  more  than  four- 
fifths  of  the  troops  belonging  to  that  arm  of  the 
service.  After  examining  carefully  the  losses 
in  each  one  of  all  the  infantry  regiments  in 
the  Northern  army  it  appears  that  the  one 
which  sustained  the  greatest  loss  in  battle  was 

+  Maine  Reports,  1866.  The  War  Department's  fig- 
ures are  90  kilted,  459  wounded  (including  mortally 
wounded),  and  31  missing;  total,  580. 


THE    CHANCES   OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


95 


the  5th  New  Hampshire,  from  whose  muster- 
out  rolls,  after  due  correction  of  errors,  the 
following  summary  is  prepared  : 

5Tii    NEW   HAMi'biuKK    INFANTRY. 
Barlow's  Division,  Second  Corps. 

(1)  Colonel  Edward  E.  Cross  (killed). 

(2)  "        Charles  E.  Hapgood. 

(3)  "       Welcome  A.  Crafts. 

LOSSES. 

Officers.       En.  Men.        Total. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds 18  27?  »95 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc 2  176  178 

Original  roll,  976;  of  whom  175  were  killed  =17.9  per  cent. 
Unities.  Killed. 

Kair  Oaks,  Va 33 

Picket,    I  une  10,  1862 1 

Allen's  Farm,  Va 8 

Glendale,  Va $ 

Malvcrn   Hill,  Va 2 

Antietam,  Md 13 

Frcdericksburg,  Va   51 

Chancellorsville,  Va 5 

Gettysburg,  Pa   34 

Cold  Harbor,  Va 69 

Petersburg  (assault)  15 

Petersburg  (trenches) 14 

Jerusalem  Road,  Va ^ 4 

Deep    Bottom,  Va 5 

Reams's  Station,  Va 5 

Sailor's  Creek,  Va 6 

Farmville,  Va 20 

Place  unknown 2 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds. 295 

Total  of  killed  and  wounded 1051 

With  the  killed  are  included  a  few  who  are 
recorded  as, "Wounded  and  missing  in  ac- 
tion " ;  — men  who  never  returned,  were  never 
heard  from,  were  not  borne  on  any  of  the 
Confederate  prison  lists,  and  were  undoubt- 
edly killed.  They  fell  in  some  retreat,  unob- 
served by  any  comrade,  and,  like  wounded 
animals,  crawled  into  some  thicket  to  die;  or 
else  while  sinking  fast  under  their  death  hurt 
were  removed  by  the  enemy,  only  to  die  in 
some  field  hospital,  barn,  or  tent,  without  leav- 
ing word  or  sign  as  to  whom  they  were.  They 
are  now  resting  in  some  of  the  many  thou- 
sand nameless  graves  in  the  battle-field  ceme- 
teries—  graves  with  headstones  bearing  no 
other  inscription  than  that  shortest,  and  to 
soldiers  the  saddest,  of  all  epitaphs,  the  one 
word  "  Unknown." 

The  infantry  regiment  which  stands  second 
as  to  numerical  loss  is  the  83d  Pennsylvania. 
It  went  out  with  the  usual  ten  companies  of 
one  thousand  men  which  constituted  an  infan- 
try command,  but  as  its  ranks  became  depleted 
it  received  recruits,  until  from  first  to  last  over 
eighteen  hundred  men  were  carried  on  its 
rolls.  With  these,  however,  were  included  the 
non-combatants,  the  sick,  wounded,  and  ab- 
sentees. The  muster-out  rolls  of  this  gallant 
regiment  furnish  the  names  from  which  the 
following  abstract  is  made  : 

830   PENNSYLVANIA  INFANTRY. 
Griffin's  Division,  Fifth  Corps, 
(i)  Colonel  John  W.  McLane  (killed). 
Stronj 


LOSSKS. 
Officers.          En.  Men. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds II  271 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc.  2  151 

1808  enrolled;  282  killed  =  15.5  per  cent. 


Total. 
382 
'S3 

KilleJ. 


,g  Vincent  (killed),  Brigadier-General. 
O.  S.  Woodward,  Bvt  Brigadier-General. 
Chauncey  P.  Rogers. 


Battles. 

Hanover  Court  House,  Va ' 

Gaines's  Mill,  Va 61 

MaKvrn  Hill,  Va .  .      .  50 

Manassas,  Va 

Chancellorsville,  Va 

Frcdericksburg,  Va 

Gettysburg,  Pa 

Guerrillas,  Va.,  Dec.  10,    1863 

Wilderness,  Va  20 

Spotsylvania,  Va.,  May  8 57 

Spotsylvania,  Va.,  May  10 X 

North  Anna,  Va 2 

Bethesda  Church,  Va       i 

Siege  of  Petersburg,  Va.  . 15 

Peebles' s  Farm,  Va..    10 

Hatcher's  Run,  Va 5 

White  Oak  Road.  Va i 

Gravelly  Run,  Va 4 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds 282 

Total  of  killed  and  wounded  971 

The  83d  was  present  at  several  engage- 
ments in  addition  to  those  mentioned,  sustain- 
ing at  each  a  loss  in  wounded ;  but  it  does  not 
appear  from  their  rolls  that  any  of  the  wounded 
died  of  their  injuries.  This  applies  also  to  the 
other  regiments  whose  list  of  battles  may  be 
given  here. 

The  following-named  commands  also  sus- 
tained remarkable  losses  during  their  terms  of 
service.  They  were  all  infantry  organizations, 
and  the  loss  mentioned  represents  those  who 
were  killed  in  action  or  died  of  wounds  re- 
ceived there,  the  loss  including  both  officers 
and  men.  This  list  embraces  every  regiment 
in  the  Northern  army  whose  loss  in  killed  was 
two  hundred  or  more : 

Regiment.  Corps.  Killed.' 

5th  New  Hampshire Second 295 

83d  Pennsylvania Fifth 282 

7th  Wisconsin First  281 

5th  Michigan Third 263 

2oth  Massachusetts Second 260 

69th  New  York Second 259 

28th  Massachusetts Second 250 

i6th  Michigan .' .  Fifth 247 

losth  Pennsylvania Third 245 

6th  Wisconsin First 244 

I5th  Massachusetts Second 241 

1 5th  New  Jersey Sixth 240 

2d  Wisconsin  First 238 

4oth  New  York  Third 238 

6ist  Pennsylvania Sixth 237 

nth  Pennsylvania First  236 

48th  New  York Tenth 336 

45th  Pennsylvania Ninth 227 

i2ist  New  York Sixth 226 

27th  Michigan Ninth 225 

2d  Michigan  .  ...  Ninth 225 

rooth  Pennsylvania Ninth 324 

8th  Michigan Ninth 223 

2d  Vermont Sixth 221 

mth  New  York Second 220 

:8th  U.  S.  Infantry Fourteenth 218 

9th  Illinois Sixteenth 217 

22d  Massachusetts Fifth 216 

5th  Vermont Sixth 213 

i48th  Pennsylvania Second 210 

9th  Massachusetts Fifth 209 

8ist  Pennsylvania Second 208 

7thMichigan Second 208 

55th  Pennsylvania Tenth 208 

17th  Maine Third 207 

*  Compiled  from  State  records.  The  figures  on  61e  at  Washing- 
ton show :  7th  Wisconsin,  280  ;  8^d  Pennsylvania,  278 ;  5th 
New  Hampshire,  277;  5th  Michigan,  262;  2oth  Massachusetts, 
257  ;  but  these  figures  of  the  War  Department  do  not  include  any 
of  the  missing. 


96 


THE   CHANCES   OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


Regiment.  Corps.  Killed. 

3d    Vermont  ......................  Sixth  ................  206 

i45th  Pennsylvania  ..................  Second  ..............  205 

I4th  Connecticut  ..................   Second  ..............  205 

36th  Illinois  ......................  Fourth  ..............  204 

6th  Vermont  ....................  Sixth  ................  203 

4gth  Ohio  ......................  Fourth  .............  202 

5ist   New  York  ....................  Ninth  ................  202 

2oth  I  ndiana  .......................  Third  ...............  201 

57th  Massachusetts  ................  Ninth  ...............  201 

53d  Pennsylvania  .................  Second  .............  200 

The  following  heavy  artillery  regiments  also 
lost  over  two  hundred  killed  in  action  or  died 
of  wounds  during  their  term  of  service  : 


Corps. 


Killed. 


Regiment. 
ist  Maine   .........................  Second  ..............  423 

ist  Massachusetts  ..................  Second  ..............  241 

2d  Connecticut  .....................  Sixth  ................  254 

2d  New  York  ......................  Second  ............     211 

7th  New  York    ....................  Second  .............  291 

8th  New  York  ....................   Second  ..............  361 

gth  New  York  ......................  Sixth  ................  204 

I4th  New  York  ......................  Ninth  ...............  226 

2d  Pennsylvania  ...................  Ninth  ...............  240 

It  should  be  remembered  that  these  heavy 
artillery  commands  were  much  larger  organi- 
zations than  the  ordinary  infantry  regiment, 
and  that  their  extended  ranks  rendered  them 
liable  to  heavy  loss.  They  all  went  into  action 
for  the  first  time  in  Grant's  overland  campaign. 
They  entered  that  campaign  with  full  ranks, 
the  ist  Massachusetts  Heavy  Artillery  going 
into  the  fight  at  Spotsylvania  with  1617  men. 

In  giving  figures  here  on  the  number  killed, 
those  who  died  of  wounds  received  in  action 
are  included,  and  unless  otherwise  stated,  it 
will,  in  each  case,  be  so  understood.  The  figures, 
as  stated  in  connection  with  these  leading  regi- 
ments, should  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  maximum 
killed  in  American  regiments  during  the  civil 
war.  All  of  these  troops  belonged  to  the  infan- 
try, or  to  heavy  artillery  serving  as  infantry,  and 
were  three-years'  regiments,  many  of  them 
reenlisting  when  their  term  expired,  and  so 
were  in  service  during  the  whole  war.  Still,  as 
the  active  campaigning  did  not  begin,  to 
any  extent,  until  1862,  the  duration  of  the 
fighting  was  three  years  or  less.  The  three- 
years'  regiments,  for  the  most  part,  lost  about 
one  hundred  men  killed  in  action.  Some,  of 
course,  lost  many  more,  and  some  considerably 
less,  the  smaller  losses  being  represented  by  the 
tabulated  figures  which  run  in  close  gradations 
down  to  such  commands  as  were  fortunate 
enough  to  sustain  no  loss  whatsoever  in  action. 

The  total  of  killed  during  the  whole  war  was, 
on  the  Union  side,  110,070,  out  of  about 
2,200,000  men.  To  be  exact,  there  were  2,778,- 
304  enlistments  ;  but,  after  deducting  the  reen- 
listments  and  reducing  the  short-term  numbers 
to  a  three-years'  basis,  the  round  numbers 
would  not  be  very  much  in  excess  of  the  figures 
stated.  This  would  indicate  that  the  number 
killed  during  the  war  was,  on  the  Northern 
side,  very  close  to  five  per  cent,  of  those  en- 
gaged. and  which  is,  by  the  way,  a  greater  per- 
centage than  that  of  the  Crimean  or  Franco- 
Prussian  wars. 


Although  the  average  loss  of  the  whole  army 
was  five  per  cent.,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  percentage  was  very  unevenly  divided 
among  the  various  regiments,  ranging  from 
twenty  per  cent,  down  to  nothing.  In  most 
of  the  commands,  the  percentage  of  killed 
would  naturally  be  the  same  as  that  of  the 
whole  army,  but  there  were  some  in  which 
the  rate  was  necessarily  large  to  offset  that  of 
those  whose  ranks  sustained  little  or  no  loss. 
This  increased  percentage  fell  heavily  on  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  on  certain  divisions 
in  that  army. 

This  subject  of  percentage  is  an  interesting 
one,  creating  heroic  records  which  might  other- 
wise be  overlooked,  and  adding  fresh  laurels 
when  many  would  think  the  whole  story  had 
been  told.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the 
story  of  the  Pennsylvania  Reserves,  when  one 
studies  the  figures  and  thinks  how  thin  were 
the  ranks  that  furnished  so  many  dead  Penn- 
sylvanians.  The  percentage  list  also  shows 
plainly  that  the  brunt  of  battle  fell  much  heavier 
on  some  regiments  than  on  others,  and  requires 
that  such  ones  be  known,  so  that  the  credit  so 
justly  due  them  may  be  fully  acknowledged. 

First  of  all,  in  this  respect,  stands  the  2d 
Wisconsin  Infantry,  it  having  lost  the  most 
men,  in  proportion  to  its  numbers,  of  any  regi- 
ment in  the  whole  Union  army.  The  mort- 
uary records  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  furnish 
the  information  from  which  the  following  state- 
ment of  their  loss  is  made  : 

20  WISCONSIN  INFANTRY. 
Wadsworth's  Division,  First  Corps. 

(1)  Colonel  S.  Park  Coon. 

(2)  "       Edgar  O'Connor  (killed). 

(3)  "       Lucius  !•  airchild,  Brigadier-General. 

(4)  "      John  Mansfield. 

LOSSES. 
Officers.         En.  Men.          Total. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds 10  228  238 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc. .  77  77 

1 1 88  enrolled  ;  238  killed  =  20  per  cent. 
Battles.  Killed. 

Blackburn's  Ford,  Va x 

First  Bull  Run,  Va 29 

Catlett's  Station,  Va i 

Gainesville,  Va 81 

Manassas,  Va 2 

South  Mountain,  Md la 

Antietam,  Md 30 

Fredericksburg,  Va 3 

Gettysburg,  Pa 49 

Wilderness.  Va 13 

Spotsylvania,  Va 7 

Petersburg,  Va a 

Weldon  Railroad,  Va i 

Hatcher's  Run,  Va i 

Gun-boat,  Mound  City 6 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds 238 

Killed  and  wounded,  753;  missing  and  captured 132 

Another  extraordinary  percentage  of  killed 
occurred  in  the  57th  Massachusetts  Infantry, 
where  201  were  killed  out  of  an  enrollment 
of  1052,  or  19.1  per  cent.  This  case  cannot 
well  be  classed  with  the  others,  because  the 
57th  went  into  action  within  a  few  days  after 
leaving  Boston,  going  into  the  thick  of  the 


THE   CHANCES   OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


97 


Wilderness  fight  with  full  ranks,  while  most 
regiments  went  into  their  first  fight  with  ranks 
depleted  by  eight  months'  previous  campaign- 
ing. The  57th  was  recruited  largely  from  vet- 
eran soldiers,  being  known  also  as  the  "  Second 
Veteran,"  and  had  the  honor  of  being  com- 
manded by  Colonel  William  F.  Bartlett. 

The  next  largest  percentage  of  killed  is  found 
in  the  i4Oth  Pennsylvania  Infantry,  whose 
muster-out  rolls  tell  the  following  story ;  and, 
as  in  the  instances  previously  cited,  the  names 
of  each  one  of  the  dead  could  be  given,  were 
it  necessary,  in  verification  of  the  loss. 

I40TH  PENNSYLVANIA  INFANTRY. 
Caldwell's  Division,  Second  Corps. 

(1)  Colonel  Richard  P.  Roberts  (killed). 

(2)  "      John  Fraser,  Bvt.  Brigadier-General. 

LOSSES. 

Officers.     En.  Men.     Total. 

Killed,  or  died  of  wounds 10  188  198 

Died  of  diseases,  accidents,  etc i  127  128 

1132  enrolled;  198  killed  =17.4  per  cent. 
Kattles.  Killed. 

Chancellorsville,  Va 15 

Gettysburg,   Pa 61 

Mine  Run,  Va i 

Bristoe  Station,  Va.  . i 

Wilderness,   Va. 8 

Corbin's  Bridge,  Va 4 

Po  River,  Va 5 

Spotsylvania,    Va .52 

North  Anna,  V» 3 

Totopotomoy,  Va n 

Cold  Harbor,  Va 7 

Petersburg,   Va   14 

Deep  Bottom,  Va 5 

Reams's  Station,  Va i 

!  latchcr's  Run,  Va 4 

Sailor's  Creek,   Va i 

Farmville,  Va 5 

Total  of  killed  and  wounded 732 

Total  of  killed  and  died  of  wounds 198 

Died  of  disease  in  Confederate  prisons,  28  (included). 

The  following  regiments  were  also  remark- 
able for  their  percentage  of  killed  in  action;  re- 
markable because  the  general  average  was  five 
per  cent.  They  were  all  infantry  commands : 


Regiment* 

Corps. 

Enrolled. 

'< 

Percent. 

s6th  Wisconsin  (Germans)... 

Twentieth.. 
Fifth  

1089 

1  88 
1  06 

"7-3 

16  6 

i4zd    Pennsylvania  

First  
Third 

935 

J55 

.6.5 

* 

Twelfth 

\fl 

First.  . 

1218 

TPn 

Second  

8th  Pa.  Reserves  

ia6th  New   York  

Fifth  
Second  .... 
Fifteenth 

1062 

1036 

158 
IS3 

I4.8 
M-7 

Third 

186 

4th  Michigan    

Fifth  
Ninth 

J325 

189 

14.2 

ist    Michigan  
73d    Ohio  
6th  Iowa 

Fifth  
Twentieth.. 

1346 
1267 

187 
174 

13-8 
13-7 

44th  New  York    

Fifth  

13^5 

182 

13-3 

22d    Illinois  

*  Each  of  the  45  regiments  previously  mentioned  as  having  lost 
200  or  more  in  killed  has  a  place  in  this  t:il>lc. 


In  these  enrollments  no  account  is  taken  of 
men  transferred  to  a  regiment  after  the  war 
had  closed. 

But  the  above  enrollments  include  the 
non-combatants  and  absentees.  The  maxi- 
mum of  effective  strength  was  fully  one-fifth 
less  and  the  actual  percentage  of  loss  cor- 
respondingly greater.  A  new  regiment  may 
leave  its  barracks  1000  strong,  and  yet,  within 
30  days,  go  into  action  with  less  than  800 
muskets.  The  process  of  depletion  begins  with 
the  very  first  day  of  service.  Men  are  detailed 
as  cooks,  teamsters,  servants,  and  clerks;  the 
sick-list  then  appears,  and  the  thousand  mus- 
kets are  never  seen  together  again.  So  the 
percentage  of  killed,  as  based  on  a  total  en- 
rollment, does  not  render  justice  to  the  surviv- 
ors. Still,  it  is  the  only  definite  basis  for  such 
figures,  and  is  sufficient  in  estimating  the  com- 
parative losses  of  the  various  commands.  This 
point  is  better  understood  when  the  losses  in 
certain  actions  are  considered  by  themselves. 
There  are  many  regiments  which  lost  one- 
fourth  of  their  men  killed,  or  three-fourths, 
including  the  wounded,  in  some  one  engage- 
ment. The  6gth  Pennsylvania,  of  Gibbon's 
division,  Second  Corps,  lost  at  Gettysburg  55 
killed  out  of  258  present  at  morning  roll-call. 
The  5th  New  York,  Duryea  Zouaves,  of  Fitz- 
John  Porter's  corps,  at  Manassas  lost  117 
killed  out  of  490  present  for  duty,  and  had  22 1 
wounded  besides.  The  6th  United  States 
Colored  Infantry  at  New  Market  Heights  had 
367  present  at  roll-call,  of  whom  6  officers  and 
55  enlisted  men  were  killed,  besides  8  officers 
and  134  men  wounded.  The  24th  Michigan, 
of  the  Iron  Brigade,  went  into  the  first  day's 
fight  at  Gettysburg  with  496  rank  and  file, 
losing  79  killed  and  237  wounded,  many  of 
the  latter  mortally  so.  Among  their  killed 
were  8  officers  and  4  color  bearers. 

On  the  field  of  Gettysburg  there  is  a  bronze 
tablet  with  this  inscription  : 

FROM  THE  HILL  BF.HIND  THIS  MONUMENT 
ON  THE  MORNING  OF 

JULY  3,  1863, 

THE  SECOND  MASSACHUSETTS  INFANTRY 
MADE  AN  ASSAULT  UPON  THE 

CONFEDERATE  TROOPS 
IN  THE  WORKS  AT  THE   BASE   OF   GULP'S   HILL, 

OPPOSITE. 

THE  REGIMENT  CARRIED  TO  THE  CHARGE 

22  OFFICERS  AND  294  ENLISTED  MEN. 

IT  LOST  4  OFFICERS 

AND 

41    ENLISTED   MEN 
KILLED  AND   MORTALLY   WOUNDED, 

AND 
6   OFFICERS   AND   84   MEN   WOUNDED. 

This  inscription  has  a  historical  value,  on  ac- 
count of  the  precision  with  which  the  loss  is 
stated,  the  records  on  some  of  the  Gettysburg 
field  stones  being  very  loose  in  this  respect. 

But  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  all  is 


CHANCES  OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


98 

that  of  the  ist  Minnesota  Infantry,  at  Gettys- 
burg. It  was  coming  on  the  field  alone,  just 
at  the  time  when  General  Hancock  observed  a 
Confederate  column  advancing  through  his 
line  at  a  point  where  there  were  no  Union 
troops  to  confront  them.  In  order  to  delay 
the  Confederate  advance  until  some  brigade 
could  be  brought  up,  Hancock  ordered  the 
ist  Minnesota  alone  to  charge  the  enemy's 
line.  This  forlorn  hope  moved  forward  with 
only  252  *  officers  and  men,  accomplished  the 
purpose,  forced  back  the  Confederates,  and 
captured  their  flag;  but  when  it  was  over 
only  47  men  clustered  around  their  own 
colors,  while  205  lay  dead  or  wounded  on 
the  field.  The  muster-out  rolls  of  this  regi- 
ment bear  the  names  of  75  men  all  marked 
as  killed  at  Gettysburg,  or  died  of  wounds 
received  there,  a  loss  in  killed  of  29  per 
cent,  of  those  engaged.  Fifty-six  of  these  men 
are  buried  in  the  Gettysburg  cemetery ;  the 
others,  dying  of  their  wounds  in  hospitals  at 
Philadelphia  or  York,  were  buried  elsewhere. 

The  extent  of  these  losses  will  be  better  un- 
derstood if  compared  with  some  of  the  ex- 
traordinary cases  cited  in  the  histories  of  other 
wars.  Take,  for  instance,  the  charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade  at  Balaklava, —  the  charge  of 
the  Six  Hundred.  Lord  Cardigan  took 673  offi- 
cers and  men  into  that  action;  they  lostt  113 
killed  and  134  wounded;  total,  247,  or  36.7 
per  cent.  The  heaviest  loss  in  the  late  Franco- 
Prussian  war  occurred  at  Mars-la-Tour,  J  in 
the  i6th  German  Infantry  (3d  Westphalian), 
which  lost  49  per  cent.  But  the  14151  Penn- 
sylvania lost  76  per  cent,  at  Gettysburg,  while 
regimental  losses  of  60  per  cent,  were  a  fre- 
quent occurrence  in  both  Union  and  Confed- 
erate armies.  In  the  war  for  the  Union  there 
were  scores  of  regiments,  unknown  or  forgot- 
ten in  history,  whose  percentage  of  killed  and 
wounded  in  certain  actions  would  far  exceed 
that  of  the  much  praised  Light  Brigade ;  and 
nobody  blundered  either. 

Company  losses^show  still  greater  percent- 
ages in  certain  cases.  -In  this  same  ist  Minne- 
sota, one  company  lost,  at  Gettysburg,  13  killed 
and  17  wounded  out  of  35  engaged.  The  maxi- 
mum of  company  losses,  however,  both  numer- 
ically and  by  percentage,  is  reached  in  Com- 
pany I  of  the  83d  Pennsylvania  Infantry.  This 
company,  during  its  term  of  service,  carried  193 
names  on  its  rolls,  including  recruits,  out  of 

*  Two  of  the  companies  were  not  engaged  in  this 
affair,  having  been  detailed  elsewhere  on  the  field. 
The  loss  of  the  Ist  Minnesota  at  Gettysburg  for  botli 
days  —  July  2  and  3  —  was  50  killed,  173  wounded, 
and  i  missing;  total,  224,  or  about  83  per  cent,  of  the 
number  engaged. 

t  Kinglake. 

t  Dr.  Engel,  Direktor  der  koniglichen  preussischen 
statistischen  Bureaux. 


which  number  2  officers  and  45  enlisted  men 
were  killed.  With  the  killed  bear  in  mind  an 
additional  number,  of  nearly  three  times  as 
many  more,  who  were  wounded.  As  these  193 
names  embraced  all  the  non-combatants,  sick, 
and  absentees,  together  with  its  many  absent 
wounded,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  percentage 
of  loss  in  some  of  their  battles  must  have  been 
without  an  equal. 

The  following  instances  of  excessive  loss  in 
particular  actions  may  be  of  interest  in  con- 
nection with  this  topic.  They  represent  the 
maximum  of  loss,  and  may  be  of  interest  to 
such  historians  as  persist  in  telling  of  regi- 
ments that  were  all  cut  to  pieces  or  com- 
pletely annihilated. 


Regiment. 

Battle, 

Present. 

Killed  and 
•wounded.  * 

Per  cent.  \ 

25th 

Massachusetts.  .  .  . 

Cold  Harbor,  Va   

302 

215 

71 

36th 

Wisconsin  (4  co's) 

Bethesda  Church,  Va.. 

240 

166 

69 

i  zth 

Massachusetts.  .  .  . 

Antietam,  Md  

334 

224 

67 

8ist 

Pennsylvania  

Fredericksburg,  Va.  .  .  . 

261 

176 

67 

5tt 
iSth 

oth 

New  Hampshire-  . 
New  Jersey  
Illinois  

Frederick  sburg,  Va  .  .  .  . 
Spotsylvania,  Va  
Shiloh,  1'enn 

3°3 
432 
578 

193 

272t 

366 

f4 
63 
63 

y  , 
oth 

New  York;  (8  co's) 

Antietam,  Md  

373 

235 

63 

6oth 

New  York  

Antietam,  Md  ...    

317 

106 

6  1 

I2ISt 

New  York.  

Salem  Heights,  Va.... 

453 

276 

61 

97th 

Pennsylvania  

Bermuda  Hundred,  Va. 

311 

188 

60 

2d 

"\Visconsin  

Gettysburg,  Pa 

302 

i8i§ 

(» 

7th 

Ohio  

Cedar  Mountain,  Va  .. 

307 

182 

-9 

63d 

New  York  

Antietam,  Md  

341 

202 

59 

49th 
37th 
1  2th 

Pennsylvania  
Wisconsin  
New  Hampshire.  . 

Spotsylvania,  Va   
Petersburg  Mine   Va   . 
Cold  Harbor,  Va   

478 
251 
301 

=74ll 
MS 
167 

57 
57 

55 

14151 

New  York  

Peach  Tree  Creek,  Ga. 

142 

80 

5« 

I  nth 

New  York  

Gettysburg,  Pa  

450 

249 

=  ? 

26th 

8th 

Pennsylvania  
Kansas 

Gettysburg,  Pa  
Chickamauga,  Ga  

38s 
406 

2I3 

55 

^4 

1  4th 

Ohio  

Chickamauga,  Ga  

449 

245 

54 

i  oth 

Wisconsin  

Chaplin  Hills,  Ky  

276 

150 

S4 

Indiana 

Chaplin  Hills    Kv 

3zd 

Iowa 

Pleasant  Hill  La 

303 

'59 

5^ 

*  Includes  a  few  missing  ones ;  but  they  were,  undoubtedly, 
killed  or  wounded. 
I  Includes  116  killed  or  mortally  wounded. 

"  Hawkins's  Zouaves." 

All  killed  or  wounded  ;  missing  not  included. 

Includes  109  killed  or  mortally  wounded. 

The  foregoing  lists  indicate  fairly  the  limit 
of  injury  which  a  regiment  will  endure,  and 
also  the  capacity  of  modern  fire-arms  for  in- 
flicting the  same  when  used  subject  to  the 
varying  conditions  of  a  battle-field. 

Loss  in  action  properly  includes  all  of  the 
wounded,  and  so  where  only  the  number  of 
killed  is  stated,  as  in  some  instances  here, 
there  should  be  added  a  certain  proportion 
of  wounded,  in  order  fully  to  comprehend 
what  is  implied  in  the  statement.  This  pro- 
portion, after  deducting  from  the  wounded 
those  fatally  injured  and  adding  their  num- 
ber to  the  killed,  is  something  over  two 
wounded  to  one  killed  and  died  of  wounds. 
Before  such  deduction,  the  usual  proportion 
is  a  fraction  over  four  to  one.  The  number 
of  killed,  as  officially  reported  at  the  close 


THE    CHANCES   OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


99 


of  a  battle,  is  generally  increased  over  fifty 
per  cent,  by  those  who  die  of  their  wounds. 
This  statement  is  based  upon  an  extended  and 
careful  comparison  of  official  reports  with  final 
muster-out  rolls.  It  will  always  be  found  cor- 
rect as  to  an  aggregate  loss  of  any  large  num- 
ber of  regiments,  although  it  may  not  always 
hold  true  as  to  some  particular  one. 

The  battle  losses  of  a  regiment  are  always 
unevenly  distributed  among  the  various  en- 
gagements in  which  it  participates.  There  is 
generally  some  one  battle  in  which  its  losses 
are  unusually  severe,  some  one  which  the  men 
always  remember  as  their  Waterloo.  The  fol- 
lowing are  the  heaviest  losses  sustained  by 
regiments  in  any  one  battle,  and,  together  with 
the  instances  mentioned  elsewhere  in  this  ar- 
ticle, embrace  all  where  the  loss  in  killed  ex- 
ceeds eighty.  Do  not  grow  impatient  at  these 
statistics.  They  are  no  ordinary  figures.  They 
are  not  a  census  of  population  and  products, 
but  statistics  every  unit  of  which  stands  for  the 
pale,  upturned  face  of  a  dead  soldier. 


at  the  close  of  the  war,  they  made  out  their 
official  statement  of  losses,  and  appended  their 
signatures  thereto. 

The  three-months'  troops  did  not  always 
have  a  safe  pleasure  excursion.    For  instance : 


Batik. 

Regiment. 

Corps. 

1  Killed  and  mar- 
1  tally  -wounded. 

Cold  Harbor,  Va.     .  . 
Spotsylvania,  Va  
Cold  Harbor,  Va  

id  Conn.  H.  A.  .  .  . 
ist  Mass.  H.  A.  .  . 
7th  N.  Y.  H.  A.  .  .  . 

Sixth  
Second  
Second  

129 

120 

116 

Antietam,  Md  

15th  Mass,  (n  co's)* 

Second  

108 

Shiloh    '1'cnn 

gth  Illinois  

Sixteenth  .... 

103 

Stone's  River,  Tenn.. 

iSthU.  S.  Infantry. 

Fourteenth  .  . 

1  02 

Fort  Donelson,Tenn  . 

nth  Illinois  

Seventeenth.  . 

103 

S.dcm   Heights.  V:i.  . 

i2ist  New  York  

Sixth  

97 

Williamsburg,  Va.  . 

7oth  New  York. 

Third 

97 

Wilderness,  Va  

57th  Massachusetts.. 

Ninth...    . 

94 

Fair  Oaks,  Va  

6ist  Pennsylvania  .  . 

Sixth  

91 

Fredericksburg,  Va  .  . 
CeUysburg,  Pa  

1  45th  Pa.  (8  co's)  
i  nth  New  York  

Second  
Second  

91 

88 

t'hickninauga,  Ga... 

22d  Michigan  

Fourth  

88 

Gaines's  Mill,  Va.... 

9th  Massachusetts.. 

Fifth  

87 

Olustee,  Fla  

8th  U.  S.  Colored.. 

Tenth  

87 

Pleasant  Hill,  La.    . 

32d  Iowa  

Sixteenth  .... 

86 

Prairie  Grove,  Ark.  .  . 

zoth  Wisconsin  

Herron'sDiv. 

86 

Fort  Wagner,  S.  C.  .  . 

48th  New  York  

Tenth  

83 

Pickett's  Mills,  Ga... 

49th  Ohio  

Fourth  

83 

Gaines's  Mill,  Va.  .  .  . 

22d  Massachusetts.. 

Fifth  

84 

Chaplin  Hills,  Ky  .  .  . 

1  5th  Kentucky  

Fourteenth.  .  . 

82 

Wilderness,  Va  

4th  Vermont  

Sixth  

82 

Shiloh,  Tenn  

55th  Illinois  

Fifteenth  

82 

*  Includes  one  company  Andrew  Sharpshooters. 

In  the  preceding  figures  none  of  the  wound- 
ed are  counted,  except  the  mortally  wounded, 
who,  in  each  case,  are  included  with  the  killed. 
If  there  be  added  the  many  wounded  ones 
who  survived, —  the  maimed  and  crippled, — 
the  record  becomes  appalling,  and  unsurpassed 
in  all  the  annals  of  military  heroism. 

There  may  be  some  officers  who  will  dis- 
pute the  accuracy  of  certain  figures  given  here, 
and  will  claim  even  a  greater  loss.  If  so,  they 
should  bear  in  mind  that  if  their  regiments  did 
lose  more  men  killed,  they  themselves  failed  so 
to  state  the  fact  when,  twenty-three  years  ago, 


Regiment. 

Battle. 

Killtd. 

\rmndtd, 
including 
mot-tally. 

Miss-'Kf. 

69th  New  York  Infantry.  . 
ist  Missouri  Infantry.  .  .  . 
ist  Kansas  Infantry  

First  Bull  Run.. 
Wilson's  Creek. 
Wilson's  Creek. 

* 

77 

5? 
mi 

.87 

•• 
i  • 
. 

Their  rolls  bear  the  names  of  101  men  who 
are  recorded  as  killed  or  died  of  wounds  re- 
ceived at  Wilson's  Creek. 

The  Pennsylvania  nine-months'  troops,  also, 
were  in  service  long  enough  to  do  good  work 
at  Antietam,  Fredericksburg,  and  Chancel- 
lorsville.  The  sound  of  the  good-byes  had 
hardly  died  away  in  their  farm-houses  when 
hundreds  of  them  fell  in  that  terrible  crack- 
ling of  musketry  on  the  Sharpsburg  pike. 

CONFEDERATE    LOSSES. 

BUT  how  fared  the  Confederate  regiments 
amidst  all  this  fighting  ? 

The  official  casualty  lists  of  the  Confederate 
forces  are  not  so  trustworthy  as  those  of  the 
Union  side  because  they  have  not  had  the 
same  careful  revision  since  the  war  closed, 
but  the  tables,  now  accessible,  show  that  the 
Northern  aim  was  equally  true,  and  that  the 
Northern  nerve  was  equally  steady.  The 
26th  North  Carolina — Pettigrew's  Brigade, 
Heth's  Division — lost  at  Gettysburg  86  killed 
and  502  *  wounded  ;  total,  588,  not  including 
the  missing,  of  whom  there  were  about  120. 
In  one  company,  84  strong,  every  man  and 
officer  was  hit ;  and  the  orderly  sergeant  who 
made  out  the  list  did  it  with  a  bullet  through 
each  leg.  This  is  by  far  the  largest  regimental 
loss  on  either  side  during  the  war.  At  Fair 
Oaks  the  6th  Alabama,  John  B.  Gordon's 
regiment,  sustained  a_lo?s  of  91  killed,  277 
wounded,  and  5  missing;  total,  373.  One 
company  in  this  regiment  is  officially  reported 
as  having  lost  21  killed  and  23  wounded  out 
of  55  who  were  in  action.  The  ist  South 
Carolina  Rifles  encountered  the  Duryea  Zou- 
aves at  Gaines's  Mill,  and  retired  t  with  a  loss 
of  8 1  killed  and  225  wounded.  The  Zouaves, 
in  turn,  vacated  their  position  at  Manassas  in 
favor  of  the  sth  Texas,  but  not  until  they  had 
dropped  261  of  the  Texans. 

The  following  tabulation  of  remarkable  losses 

*  Including  mortally  wounded.  The  official  report 
states  that  the  regiment  "  went  in  (July  I )  with  over 
800  men." 

t  But  not  until  they  received  a  flank  fire  from  dis- 
engaged regiments  of  the  enemy. 


IOO 


THE   CHANCES   OF  BEING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


is  compiled  from  the  Confederate  official  reports 
of  regimental  commandants : 


Regiment. 

Battle, 

1 

1 

1 

4th  North  Carolina  

Fair  Oaks  

77 

286 
264 

363 

i4th  Alabama  
8th  Tennessee  
20th  North  Carolina  
Palmetto  Sharpshooters.. 
4th  Texas 

Seven  Dayst  
Stone's  River  
Gaines's   Mill  
Glendale  

7" 
4' 
70 

39 

253 
265 

202 

215 
208 

324 
306 
272 
254 

42d  Mississippi  
2gth  Mississippi  

Gettysburg  
Stone's  River  

60 
34 

205 

2O2 
183 

265 
236 

57th  North  Carolina  
45th  North  Carolina  

Fredericksburg,  1862 
Gettysburg  
Shiloh 

32 
46 

I92 

'73 
183 

224 
219 

48 

166 

2d  North  Carolina  
5th  Alabama  
3oth  Mississippi  
nth   Georgia  
1  7th  Mississippi  

Chancellorsville  .    .  . 
Fair  Oaks  
Stone's  River.  .  .    . 
Gettysburg  
Gettysburg  
First  Bull  Run 

47 
*9 
63 

42 
40 

167 

181 
,46 
162 
iCo 

214 

210 
209 
204 
2OO 

i6th  Tennessee  
2d  Florida  
3d  Arkansas  

ChapHn  Hills...    . 
Fair  Oaks  
Antietam  
Malvern  Hill  

37 
27 

3 

152 

155 

I92 
I89 
182 
l82 

*  Includes  the  mortally  wounded.  The  missing  are  not  in- 
cluded in  these  figures :  there  were  but  few  of  them,  and  in  most 
of  these  instances  there  were  none. 

t  This  loss  occurred  at  Gaines's  Mill  and  Glendale. 

There  were  other  losses  in  the  Confederate 
ranks  which  were  equally  severe  if  considered 
in  connection  with  the  number  engaged,  and 
the  percentage  of  loss  in  their  regiments  ap- 
pears to  have  been  as  large  as  that  of  their  ad- 
versaries. In  many  instances  the  Confederate 
colonels  in  their  official  reports  state,  together 
with  their  loss,  thenumberof  men  taken  into  ac- 
tion. In  making  a  compilation  from  these  re- 
ports, some  heroic  records  are  revealed.  For 
instance : 


Regiment. 

Battle. 

*l  Present  in 
action" 

Killed  and 
tvounded. 

ist  Texas    

Antietam  

226 

1  86 
184 

306 

i;th  South  Carolina  

Manassas  

284 

189 

44th  Georgia  
i6th  Mississippi  

Mechanicsville  
Antietam  

SM 
228 
128 

335 
144 

176 

RT 

i2th  Tennessee  

Stone's  River  

292 

164 

3d  Alabama  
7th  North  Carolina  
iSth  North  Carolina  
ist  S.   C.  Rifles  

Malvern  Hill  
Seven  Days.  ...  
Seven  Days  
Gaines's  Mill  
Fair  Oaks 

354 
450 
396 
537 
678 

20O 
253 
224 
306 

27th  Tennessee  
ist  South  Carolina  
4gth  Virginia  

Chaplin  Hills  
Manassas  
Fair  Oaks  
Fair  Oaks 

2IO 

283 
424 
408 

112 

IS* 

224 

7th  South  Carolina  
7th  Texas  

Antietam  
Raymond  
Glendale  

268 
306 

140 

158 

T«I 

With  these  should  be  again  mentioned  the 
26th  North  Carolina,  whose  official  report 
shows  a  loss  of  over  85  per  cent,  at  Gettys- 
burg. 

Many  important  instances  are  necessarily 
omitted  from  the  preceding  list,  as  the  Con- 
federates issued  an  order  in  May,  1863,*  for- 
bidding any  further  mention,  in  regimental 
battle-reports,  "  of  the  number  of  men  taken 
into  action,"  alleging  as  a  reason  "  the  impro- 
priety of  thus  furnishing  the  enemy  with  the 
means  of  computing  "  their  strength.  The  same 
order  required  "  that  in  future  the  reports  of 
the  wounded  shall  only  include  those  whose 
injuries,  in  the  opinion  of  the  medical  officers, 
render  them  unfit  for  duty,"  and  deprecated 
"  the  practice  of  including  cases  of  slight  inju- 
ries which  do  not  incapacitate  the  recipient  for 
duty." 

The  total  number  of  killed  in  the  Confeder- 
ate armies,  including  deaths  from  wounds,  will 
never  be  definitely  known.  From  a  careful  ex- 
amination of  their  official  reports,  or,  in  case 
of  the  absence  of  such  reports,  a  considera- 
tion of  the  accepted  facts,  it  appears  that 
their  mortuary  loss  by  battle  was  not  far  from 
94,000. 

In  1866,  General  Fry,  U.  S.  Provost  Mar- 
shal General,  ordered  a  compilation  made  from 
the  Confederate  muster-rolls,  then  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Government,  from  which  it  appears 
that  they  lost  2086  officers  and  50,868  enlisted 
men,killed;  1246  officers  and  20,324  enlisted 
men,  died  of  wounds;  total,  74,524.!  Deaths 
from  disease,  59,297.  These  rolls  were  incom- 
plete ;  the  rolls  of  two  States  were  almost  en- 
tirely missing;  and  none  of  them  covered  the 
entire  period.  Still  they  develop  the  fact  that 
the  number  of  killed  could  not  have  been  less 
than  the  figures  given  above. 

It  does  not  follow  that,  because  the  Con- 
federate armies  were  smaller,  their  losses  were 
smaller.  Their  generals  showed  a  remarkable 
ability  in  always  having  an  equal  number  of 
men  at  the  points  of  contact. 

Upon  tabulating  the  casualties  of  each 
battle,  using  official  reports  only, —  and,  in 
absence  of  such,  allowing  one  loss  to  offset 
the  other, —  the  aggregate  casualties  up  to 
April,  1864,  show  that  the  Union  loss  in  killed 
and  wounded  is  about  11,500  in  excess  of 
the  Confederate,  a  very  small  amount  as  com- 
pared with  the  totals.  But  this  difference  in 
favor  of  the  Confederates  would  disappear  if 
their  official  reports  were  subjected  to  a  revis- 
ion of  the  nominal  lists,  as  has  been  done 
lately  with  the  Union  reports.  For  several 
years  past  the  War  Department  has  had  a 

*  General  Orders,  No.  63,  Headquarters  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  May  14,  1863. 

t  Message  and  Documents,  Part  3, 1865-66. 


THE  CHANCES  OF  HI '.ING  HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


101 


clerical  force  at  work  in  comparing  the  official 
battle-reports  of  Union  generals  with  the  reg- 
imental nominal  lists  of  casualties,  and  in  each 
case  the  total  of  casualties,  as  reported  by  the 
general,  is  largely  increased. 

Up  to  1864  the  losses  on  each  side  were, 
in  the  aggregate,  substantially  the  same,  with 
a  slight  difference,  if  any,  in  favor  of  the 
Confederates.  Then  came  a  frightful  discrep- 
ancy. 

From  May  5  to  June  30,  in  their  oper- 
ations against  Richmond,  the  armies  of  the 
Potomac  and  the  James  lost  77,452*  men, — 
a  greater  number  than  were  in  Lee's  army. 
Of  this  number  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  lost 
54,925  in  its  return  to  the  Peninsula  by  the 
overland  "  line." 

Whatever  excess  there  may  be  in  killed  on 
the  Union  side  during  the  war  is  chargeable 
to  the  campaigns  of  1864-65. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  name  the  Confed- 
erate regiments  which  sustained  the  greatest 
losses  during  the  war,  as  their  rolls  are  incom- 
plete. The  loss  in  some,  however,  has  been 
ascertained,!  notably  those  in  Gregg's  South 
Carolina  Brigade,  A.  P.  Hill's  Division.  Their 
total  losses  during  the  war,  in  killed  and  mor- 
tally wounded,  were  : 


Officers. 

En.  Men, 
260 

Total. 
281 

16 

208 

ist  S.  C.  RiHes... 

.  .  .  IQ 

•Oi 

In  addition,  there  were  3735  wounded  in 
this  brigade. 

The  loss  in  a  Confederate  regiment  during 
the  whole  war  would  be  large,  as  the  Con- 
federacy did  not  organize  any  new  regiments 
after  1862,  but  distributed  their  successive 
levies  among  the  old  regiments.  With  these 
accessions  came  a  corresponding  increase  in 
the  regimental  casualty  lists. 

In  the  North  additional  troops  were  raised 
for  the  most  part  by  organizing  new  regiments, 
while  veteran  commands  were  allowed  to 
become  reduced  below  an  effective  strength. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  Which  corps 
did  the  most  fighting  in  the  war  ?  So  far  as 
the  casualty  lists  are  an  indication,  the  Second 
Corps  is  the  one  that  can  fairly  claim  that 
honor.  Of  the  100  Northern  regiments  which 
lost  the  most  men  killed  in  action  during  the 
war,  35  belonged  to  the  Second  Corps,  while 
17  is  the  highest  number  belonging  to  any 
other  corps. 


"10,242  killed,  52,043  wounded,  15,167  missing; 
total,  77,452  (Adjutant-General's  office,  Washington, 
l88i>).  Three-fourths  of  the  missing  were  killed  or 
wounded. 

t"  History  South  Carolina  Brigade,"  J.  F.  Caldwell. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 15. 


It  should  be  understood,  however,  that  the 
Second  was  a  very  large  corps,  containing  over 
90  regiments,  while,  for  instance,  the  Twelfth 
Corps  (Slocum's)  had  only  28.  Yet  the 
Twelfth  Corps  (the  Second  Corps,  Army  of 
Virginia)  rendered  brilliant  and  effective  serv- 
ice at  Cedar  Mountain,  Antietam,  Chancel- 
lorsville, Gettysburg,  and  Lookout  Mountain — 
also,  later  on,  in  the  Atlanta  campaign,  where 
it  was  commanded  by  Hooker  and  was  known 
as  the  Twentieth  Corps,  although  it  still  re- 
tained its  badge  and  for  the  most  part  its  or- 
ganization. This  depriving  the  Twelfth  Corps 
of  the  name  under  which  it  had  fought  so  long 
and  well  was  a  needless  act  of  injustice,  simi- 
lar to  the  one  which  wiped  out  the  names 
of  the  First  and  Third  corps.  In  the  latter 
cases  it  was  a  blunder,  as  subsequent  events 
proved,  as  well  as  a  heartless  blow  at  the 
corps  pride  of  the  officers  and  men.  It  is 
evident  that  such  a  thing  as  esprit  de  corps 
was  but  slightly  appreciated  by  the  gentle- 
men who  sat  in  the  War  Office  at  Washington 
in  those  days.  In  the  Western  armies,  the 
Fourth  Corps  (Gordon  Granger's)  is  de- 
servedly prominent.  The  regiments  whose 
losses  indicate  that  their  fighting  was  the  hard- 
est and  most  frequent  are  found  in  that  corps 
more  than  in  any  other,  although  some  hard 
fighting  was  done  by  them  before  their  organ- 
ization under  that  name. 

The  heaviest  losses  by  brigades  are  credited 
to  the  Iron  Brigade  of  the  First  Corps  and 
the  Vermont  Brigade  of  the  Sixth  Corps,  both 
having  a  continuous  unbroken  organization  as 
brigades,  which  was  a  rare  thing  in  the  war. 
Their  long  list  of  killed  was  but  the  natural 
result  of  the  courage  with  which  they  faced 
the  musketry  on  so  many  fields. 

It  may  be  noticed  by  some  that  the  regi- 
mental losses  in  killed,  as  stated  here,  are 
greatly  in  excess  of  the  figures  as  given  in  the 
"  Official  Records  of  the  Rebellion,"  now  in 
course  of  publication  by  the  War  Department. 
But  it  should  be  understood  that  those  official 
figures  are  the.  ones  which  were  reported  at 
the  close  of  each  action,  and  show  only  the 
nature  of  the  casualties  at  that  particular 
hour.  Such  reports  were  made  up  under 
the  headings  of  "  Killed,"  "  Wounded,"  and 
"  Missing."  The  number  of  those  who  died  of 
wounds  is  not  shown,  but  is  covered  up  in 
each  case  under  the  general  return  of  the 
wounded,  although  many  of  them  die  the 
same  day.  Again,  the  "  missing  "  is  an  indefi- 
nite quantity,  embracing,  as  it  does,  all  those 
who  were  captured,  together  with  a  certain 
class  which  always  turn  up  again  within  a  few 
days.  Official  reports  of  wounded  also  were 
often  far  from  correct,  as  in  some  commands 
men  were  not  allowed  to  be  considered  as 


102 


THE    CHANCES   OF  BEING   PUT  IN  BATTLE. 


wounded  unless  the  injury  was  a  severe  one, 
while  in  others  orders  were  received  to  report 
every  casualty,  however  slight.  On  account 
of  this  some  are  asking,  How  many  of  the 
regiment  were  actually  killed,  or  died  of  their 
wounds  ?  How  many  were  buried  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  fight  ?  They  know  that,  however 
doubtful  might  be  the  classification  of  a 
slightly  wounded  or  a  missing  man,  there  can 
be  no  question  as  to  the  definite  allotment  of 
one  that  is  buried.  The  "  Official  Records  " 
constitute  a  wonderful  work,  highly  credita- 
ble to  the  officer  in  charge,  and  of  a  magni- 
tude that  will  require  many  years  before  the 
last  volumes  can  be  printed.  Its  casualty  lists 
so  far  as  reached  possess  an  intense  interest 
and  are  tabulated  in  admirable  form.  Still, 
many  will  be  interested  in  going  farther,  and 
noting  the  actual  and  largely  increased  num- 
ber of  killed  as  developed  by  the  figures  gleaned 
from  the  muster-out  rolls. 

The  number  of  officers  killed  in  battle  was 
somewhat  greater  in  proportion  than  that  of 
the  enlisted  men,  but  often  failed  to  bear  any 
definite  ratio  to  the  loss  of  the  regiment  itself. 
In  the  2d  Vermont  Infantry  223  were  killed, 
of  whom  6  were  officers,  while  in  the  I2th 
Massachusetts  (Colonel  Fletcher  Webster) 
194  were  killed,  of  whom  18  were  officers. 
Again,  the  igth  Maine  lost  192  killed,  of 
whom  3  only  were  officers,  while  in  the  22d 
Indiana,  out  of  153  killed,  14  were  officers. 

In  the  aggregate,  the  proportion  of  officers 
to  enlisted  men  killed  was  i  officer  to  16  men, 
but  certain  regiments  and  certain  States  show 
a  wide  variation.  The  Connecticut  and  Dela- 
ware officers  had  either  an  excess  of  bravery 
or  a  lack  of  caution,  as  their  proportionate  loss 
in  battle  far  exceeds  the  average. 

The  largest  number  of  officers  killed  in  any 
infantry  regiment  belongs  to  the  6ist  Pennsyl- 
vania of  the  Sixth  Corps,  it  having  lost  19  offi- 
cers killed  in  battle.  The  ist  Maine  Heavy 
Artillery  lost  21  officers  in  action,  but  it  had 
just  twice  as  many  line  officers  as  an  infantry 
command.  The  8th  New  York  Heavy  Artil- 
lery lost  20  officers  killed,  but  is  also  subject 
to  the  same  remark  when  compared  with  the 
6ist  Pennsylvania.  It  was  seldom  that  an  in- 
fantry regiment  lost  more  than  6  officers  killed 
in  any  one  battle.  The  ytlr  New  Hampshire, 
however,  lost  1 1  officers  killed  in  the  assault 
on  Fort  Wagner,  it  being  the  greatest  regi- 
mental loss  of  officers  in  any  one  engagement. 
The  22d  New  York  lost  9  officers  at  Manas- 
sas;  the  5gth  New  York  lost  9  at  Antietam; 
and  the  i45th  Pennsylvania  lost  9  at  Freder- 
icksburg,  the  latter  regiment  taking  only  8 
companies  into  action  there.  Eight  officers 
were  killed  in  the  ist  Michigan  at  Manassns; 
in  the  I4th  New  Hampshire  at  Opequon ;  in 


the  87th  Indiana  at  Chickamauga;  and  in 
the  43d  Illinois  at  Shiloh.  In  some  regiments 
the  field  and  staff  sustained  severe  losses  dur- 
ing their  term  of  service.  The  95th  Pennsyl- 
vania lost  2  colonels,  2  lieutenant-colonels, 
a  major,  and  an  adjutant  killed  in  action.  The 
2oth  Massachusetts,  "  one  of  the  very  best  regi- 
ments in  the  service,"*  lost  also  6  of  its  field  and 
staff  in  battle,  a  colonel,  lieutenant-colonel,  2 
majors,  adjutant,  and  a  surgeon.  But  the  most 
peculiar  instance  of  loss  in  officers  occurred 
in  the  i48th  Pennsylvania,  where,  in  one  com- 
pany (Company  C)  there  were  killed  at  differ- 
ent times  7  line  officers.  It  must  have  required 
some  nerve  to  accept  a  commission  in  that 
company. 

The  surgeons  and  chaplains,  although  re- 
garded as  non-combatants,  were  not  exempt 
from  the  bloody  casualties  of  the  battle-field. 
The  medical  service  sustained  a  loss  of  40 
surgeons  killed  in  action  or  mortally  wounded. 
There  were  73  more  who  were  wounded  in  ac- 
tion, and,  as  in  the  case  of  those  killed,  they 
were  wounded  while  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties  on  the  field.  Many  of  the  chaplains  were 
also  killed  or  wounded  in  battle.  Some  of  them 
were  struck  down  while  attending  to  their 
duties  with  the  stretcher-bearers,  while  others, 
like  Chaplain  Fuller,  fell  dead  in  the  front  rank 
with  a  rifle  in  their  hands. 

Of  the  three  principal  arms  of  the  service, 
the  infantry  loses  the  most  men  in  action,  the 
cavalry  next,  and  the  light  artillery  the  least. 
The  heaviest  cavalry  loss  seems  to  have  fallen 
on  the  ist  Maine  Cavalry,  it  having  lost  15 
officers  and  159  enlisted  men  killed.  Next 
comes  the  ist  Michigan  Cavalry,  with  14  offi- 
cers and  150  enlisted  men  killed.  Of  the  260 
cavalry  regiments  in  the  Northern  army,  there 
were  1 5  others  whose  loss  in  killed  exceeded 
100.  The  percentages  of  killed  are  also  less 
in  this  part  of  the  service,  the  highest  being 
found  in  the  5th  Michigan  Cavalry  with  its 
8.9  percent.,  and  in  the  6th  Michigan  Cavalry 
with  8.3  per  cent, —  both  in  Custer's  brigade. 
Cavalrymen  go  into  action  oftener  than  in- 
fantrymen, and  so  their  losses,  being  distrib- 
uted among  a  larger  number  of  engagements, 
do  not  appear  remarkable  as  reported  for  any 
one  affair.  Still,  in  some  of  their  fights  the 
"  dead  cavalryman  "  could  be  seen  in  numbers 
that  answered  only  too  well  the  famous  ques- 
tion of  General  Hooker,  f  At  Reams's  Sta- 
tion the  nth  Pennsylvania  Cavalry  lost  27 
men  killed,  and  at  Todd's  Tavern  the  ist 
New  York  Dragoons  lost  24  killed, not  includ- 
ing the  additional  casualty  lists  of  wounded. 
The  number  of  cavalry  officers  killed  in  some 

*  General  Humphreys,  Chief  of  Staff,  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 
+  "  Who  ever  saw  a  dead  cavalryman  ?  " 


T/fE    CHANCES   OF  BEING   HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


regiments  was  excessive,  as  in  this  arm  of  the 
service,  more  than  in  any  other,  the  officers  arc 
expected  to  lead  their  men.  Although  the 
cavalry  did  not  suffer  in  killed  as  badly  as 
the  infantry,  still  they  participated  in  more  en- 
gagements, were  under  fire  much  more  fre- 
quently, and  so  were  obliged  to  exhibit  an 
equal  display  of  courage.  The  sth  New  York 
Cavalry  lost  8  officers  and  93  enlisted  men 
killed  in  action,  but  it  was  present  at  over  too 
engagements,  and  lost  men,  either  killed  or  dis- 
abled, in  88  of  them.  The  muster-out  rolls  of 
the  various  mounted  commands  show  that 
there  were  10,596  "dead  cavalrymen"  who 
were  killed  in  action  during  the  war,  of  whom 
67 1  were  officers,  the  proportionate  loss  of  offi- 
cers being  greater  than  in  the  infantry. 

The  casualties  in  the  light  artillery  were 
less  than  in  any  other  arm  of  the  service,  the 
engineers  excepted.  The  light  batteries,  or 
horse  artillery,  which  constituted  the  artil- 
lery proper  for  the  field  operations,  were  or- 
ganized for  the  most  part  as  independent 
batteries  or  commands.  In  some  States  twelve 
of  them  were  connected  by  a  regimental  or- 
ganization, but  even  then  they  operated  as 
independent  commands.  A  battery  or  com- 
pany of  light  artillery  consisted  generally  of 
150  men,  with  6  cannon  and  the  necessary 
horses.  There  were  some  four-gun  batter- 
ies, and  towards  the  close  of  the  war  most  of 
the  old  batteries  were  reorganized  on  that 
basis.  The  greatest  numerical  loss  in  any  one 
of  these  organizations  occurred  in  Cooper's 
battery  of  the  Pennsylvania  Reserves,  in 
which  2  officers  and  18  enlisted  men,  out  of 
332  names  enrolled,  were  killed  during  its 
term  of  service.  Weeden's  Rhode  Island  bat- 
tery also  sustained  a  severe  loss  in  its  many 
engagements,  19  being  killed  out  of  290  en- 
rolled; while  the  Pennsylvania  batteries  of 
Ricketts,  Easton,  and  Kerns  were  also 
prominent  by  reason  of  their  frequent,  effect- 
ive, and  courageous  actions,  with  the  con- 
sequent large  loss  in  killed.  The  highest  per- 
centage of  killed  is  found  in  Phillips's  sth 
Massachusetts  battery,  which  lost  19  killed 
out  of  1 94  members,  or  9. 7  per  cent.;  the  enroll- 
ment  taken  being  the  one  prior  to  the  transfer 
of  the  3d  Battery  near  the  close  of  the  war. 

The  nth  Ohio  Battery  sustained  the  great- 
est loss  in  any  one  action.  At  the  battle  of 
luka  it  lost  16  killed  and  39  wounded,  the 
enemy  capturing  the  battery,  but  the  gunners, 
refusing  to  surrender,  worked  their  pieces  to 
the  last  and  were  shot  down  at  the  guns.  The 
battery  went  into  this  action  with  54  gunners, 
46  of  whom  were  killed  or  wounded,  the  re- 
mainder of  the  casualties  occurring  among  the 
drivers  or  others. 

A  still  more  remarkable  artillery  fight  was 


that  of  Bigelow's  battery,  glh  Massachusetts, 
at  Gettysburg ;  remarkable,  not  only  for  the 
exceptional  loss,  but  also  for  the  efficiency 
with  which  the  guns  were  served  and  the 
valuable  service  rendered.  When,  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  second  day,  it  was  found  that  the 
Union  batteries,  on  the  cross-road  near  the 
Peach  Orchard,  could  no  longer  hold  their 
position,  "  it  became  necessary  to  sacrifice  one 
of  them  "by  leaving  it  there  in  action  and  work- 
ing it  to  the  last,  so  as  to  check  the  Confeder- 
ate advance  long  enough  to  enable  the  other 
batteries  to  fall  back  to  a  better  position. 
Major  McGil  very  selected  Bigelow  and  his  men 
for  this  duty,  ordering  him  to  fight  with  fixed 
prolonge,  an  arrangement  which  availed  but 
little,  for,  although  the  canister  from  his  light 
twelves  kept  his  front  clear  for  a  long  time  and 
successfully  detained  the  enemy,  he  could  not 
check  the  swarm  which  finally  came  in  on  each 
flank  and  rear,  some  of  whom,  springing  nim- 
bly on  his  limber-chests,  shot  down  his  horses 
and  then  his  men.  Bigelow  was  wounded,  and 
two  of  his  lieutenants  were  killed;  9  of  his 
gunners  were  killed,  14  were  wounded,  and  2 
were  missing.  The  battery  then  ceased  firing, 
four  of  its  guns  being  temporarily  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  Lieutenant  Milton,  who  brought 
the  battery  off  the  field,  states  in  his  official 
report  that  45  horses  were  killed  and  1 5  wound- 
ed in  this  affair ;  and  that  5  more  were  killed 
in  the  action  of  the  following  day.  This  is  the 
largest  number  of  horses  killed  in  any  battery 
action  of  the  war ;  at  least,  there  are  no  official 
reports  to  the  contrary.*  A  general  once 
criticised  a  gallant  but  unnecessary  charge 
which  he  happened  to  witness  with  the  re- 
mark :  "  It  is  magnificent,  but  it  is  not  war."  t 
The  fight  of  these  Massachusetts  cannoneers 
was  not  only  magnificent,  but  it  was  war. 
There  really  was  no  sacrifice.  There  was  a 
sad  loss  of  life,  considering  how  few  there  were 
of  the  battery  men,  but  each  man  killed  at 
those  guns  cost  Kershaw  and  Barksdale  a 
score.  Doubleday  quotes  a  statement  of  Mc- 
Laws',  that  "  one  shell  from  this  artillery  killed 
and  wounded  thirty  men."  If  the  shrapnel  was 
so  effective,  what  must  have  been  the  slaughter 
when  Bigelow's  smooth-bore  Napoleons  threw 
canister  so  rapidly  into  Kershaw's  masses ;  for 
the  gunners  in  this  battery  were  not  allowed 
side-arms,  but  had  been  carefully  instructed 
that  their  safety  lay  in  the  rapidity  with  which 
they  could  work  their  guns.  This  battery  held 
Barksdale's  advance  in  check  for  a  half-hour, 
from  6  to  6.30  p.  M.,  after  which  McGilvery's 
second  line,  consisting  of  Dow's,  Phillips's,  and 

*  There  may  have  been  a  greater  number  killed  in  a 
battery  at  Stone's  River  ;  but,  as  the  battery  was  cap- 
tured, the  exact  loss  cannot  besatisfactorilyasceitained. 

f'C'est  magnifique,  mais  ce  n'est  pas  la  guerre." 


104 


THE    CHANCES   OF  BEING   HIT  IN  BATTLE 


Thompson's  guns,  confronted  him  from  6.30  to 
7.15  p.  it.,  at  which  time  Willard  and  Stannaril, 
with  their  brigades,  made  the  advance  which 
drove  him  back  and  regained  Bigelow's  guns. 
This  is  not  put  forward  as  history  so  much 
as  an  illustration  of  the  losses  suffered  and  in- 
flicted by  the  light  artillery  when  at  its  best. 

The  light  artillery  service  lost  during  the 
war  1817  men  killed  and  mortally  wounded, 
of  whom  116  were  officers.  Their  smaller 
losses  only  emphasize  the  fact  that  it  is  a  valu- 
able arm  of  the  service  in  its  capability  of  in- 
flicting so  much  more  loss  than  it  receives. 

And  yet  the  artillery  are  largely  responsi- 
ble for  the  oft-quoted  remark  that  "  It  takes 
a  man's  weight  in  lead  to  kill  him."  This  old 
saw  has  always  been  considered  as  needing 
more  or  less  latitude,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it 
expresses  an  absolute  truth  devoid  of  exag- 
geration. As  regards  the  battles  of  modern 
warfare,  it  is  a  very  fair  way  of  stating  the  rel- 
ative weight  of  metal  thrown  and  men  killed. 
The  figures  pertaining  to  this  subject  are 
attainable  and  make  the  matter  very  plain. 
To  be  just,  we  will  pass  by  such  actions  as 
Fort  Sumter  and  certain  other  artillery  affairs 
in  which  not  a  man  was  killed,  and  turn  to 
the  field  engagements  where  the  loss  of  life 
was  greatest;  where,  according  to  the  rhetor- 
ical historians,  the  fields  were  swept  by  the 
storm  of  iron  sleet  and  leaden  hail;  where 
the  ranks  of  the  enemy  —  always  the  enemy  — 
were  mowed  down  like  grain  before  the  reaper; 
where  the  charging  masses  were  "  literally  " 
blown  from  the  mouths  of  the  guns;  where, 
according  to  a  statement  in  a  report  of  the 
New  York  Bureau  of  Military  Statistics,  "legs, 
arms,  and  large  pieces  of  bodies  filled  the 
air." 

As  the  truth  of  the  adage  referred  to  is 
purely  a  matter  of  figures,  we  will  turn  to  them, 
and,  for  the  present,  to  those  of  the  battle 
of  Stone's  River,  a  general  engagement  and 
one  in  which  some  of  the  best  fighting  of  the 
war  was  done  on  both  sides.  In  this  battle 
the  artillery  fired  20,307  rounds  of  ammuni- 
tion, as  officially  stated  by  General  Barnett, 
Chief  of  Artillery,  in  his  report,  which  was  an 
exhaustive  one  in  its  details,  and  gives  the 
exact  number  of  rounds  fired  by  each  battery. 
The  weight  of  these  20,307  projectiles  was 
fully  225,000  pounds.  The  infantry  at  the 
same  time  are  officially  reported  as  having 
fired  over  2,000,000  rounds,  and  which  con- 
sisted mostly  of  conical  bullets  from  .55  to 
.69  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  may  have  in- 
cluded some  buck-and-ball.  The  weight  of 
this  lead  fired  by  the  infantry  exceeded  150,- 
ooo  pounds.  Hence  the  combined  weight  of 
the  projectiles  fired  by  the  artillery  and  infan- 
try at  Stone's  River  was  375,000  pounds,  and 


fully  equal  to  that  of  the  2319  Confederates 
killed  or  mortally  wounded  by  the  same. 

General  Rosecrans,  in  his  official  report  of 
this  battle,  goes  into  this  curious  matter  also 
but  in  a  somewhat  different  direction,  and 
states  that  "of  14,560  rebels  struck  by  our 
missiles,  it  is  estimated  that  20,000  rounds  of 
artillery  hit  728  men;  2,000,000  rounds  of 
musketry  hit  13,832  men;  averaging  27.4 
cannon  shots  to  hit  one  man,  145  musket 
shots  to  hit  one  man."  But  in  this  statement  the 
term  "  hit,"  as  applied,  includes  the  wounded, 
while  the  old  saying  refers  only  to  the  killed. 
Again,  General  Rosecrans  makes  the  killed 
and  wounded  of  the  enemy  too  great,  putting 
it  at  14,560,  while  General  Bragg  reported 
officially  only  9000.  Still,  Rosecrans  need  not 
complain  of  this,  as  Bragg,  in  turn,  generously 
overestimates  Rosecrans'  loss.  Any  such  error, 
however,  would  not  affect  the  proportion  of 
wounds  inflicted  by  the  two  arms  of  the  serv- 
ice, according  to  the  report  quoted.  It  seems 
strange  that  20,000  artillery  missiles  should 
kill  or  wound  only  728  men,  and  that  of  the 
cannon  pointed  at  the  Confederate  columns 
it  should  take  27  shots  to  hit,  kill,  wound,  or 
scratch  one  man.  The  discussion  of  this  latter 
point  will  have  to  be  left  to  the  gallant  old 
general  and  such  of  his  veterans  as  wore  the 
red  trimming  on  their  jackets.  In  the  mean 
while  it  is  fair  to  infer  that  the  proportion  of 
bullet  wounds  to  shell  wounds  has  been  care- 
fully noted  in  the  hospital  returns,  and  that 
the  medical  staff  may  have  furnished  this  re- 
markable statement,  with  the  statistics  to  back 
it  up.  Lack  of  space  prevents  the  mention 
here  of  other  field  engagements  in  support  of 
this  old  maxim,  but  further  and  ample  proof 
is  found  in  a  mere  reference  to  the  noisy  clat- 
ter on  the  picket  lines;  the  long-range  artil- 
lery duels  so  popular  at  one  time  in  the  war; 
the  favorite  practice  known  as  shelling  the 
woods;  and  the  noisy  Chinese  warfare  indulged 
in  at  some  bombardments,  where  the  combat- 
ants, ensconced  within  their  bomb-proofs  or 
casemates,  hurled  at  each  other  a  month's 
product  of  several  foundries  with  scarcely  a 
casualty  on  either  side. 

Many  of  the  colored  regiments  sustained 
severe  losses  in  battle,  although  there  seems 
to  be  a  popular  impression  to  the  contrary, 
influenced  no  doubt  by  the  old  sneering  joke 
about  them  so  common  at  one  time.  The 
79th  United  States  Colored  Infantry  lost  5 
officers  and  174  enlisted  men  killed  in  action 
during  the  short  time  that  the  colored  troops 
were  in  service,  and  the  i3th  United  States 
Colored  Infantry  lost  221  men,  killed  and 
wounded,  in  one  fight  at  Nashville.  The  541)1 
Massachusetts  (colored)  lost  5  officers  and 
1 24  enlisted  men  in  various  actions,  all  killed, 


THE   CHANCES   OF  BEING   HIT  IN  BATTLE. 


or  missing  men  who,  never  returning  from  that 
fierce  assault  on  Wagner,  were  probably  thrown 
into  that  historic  trench  where  the  enemy 
buried  "  the  colonel  with  his  niggers."  The 
black  troops  were  largely  engaged  in  guard 
or  garrison  duty,  but  still  saw  enough  active 
service  to  contribute  2751  men  killed  in  bat- 
tle. This  does  not  include  their  officers,  who 
were  whites,  and  of  whom  143  were  killed. 

The  number  of  officers  killed  in  the  regu- 
lar regiments  was  in  excess  of  their  due  pro- 
portion, and  argues  plainly  better  selected 
material.  On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of 
enlisted  men  killed  in  the  regular  service  was 
less  in  proportion  to  enrollment  than  in  the 
volunteer.  This  may  be  due  to  the  larger  num- 
ber of  deserters  which  encumbered  their  rolls, 
or  it  may  be  that  the  regulars,  being  better 
officered,  accomplished  their  work  with  a 
smaller  loss,  avoiding  the  useless  sacrifice, 
which  occurred  too  often,  as  the  direct  result 
of  incompetency.  In  alluding  to  the  regulars 
as  being  better  officered,  they  are  referred  to 
as  a  whole,  it  being  fully  understood  that  in 
many  State  regiments  commissions  were  held 
by  those  equally  competent.  In  fact,  it  is 
doubtful  if  the  regular  army  has  a  regiment 
which  ever  had  at  any  time  a  line  of  officers 
which  could  equal  those  of  the  2d  Massachu- 
setts Volunteers.  The  number  killed  in  action 
in  the  regular  service  was  144  officers  and 
2139  enlisted  men,  the  heaviest  loss  occurring 
in  the  i8th  Infantry. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  regimental 
losses  there  is  the  important  one  of  loss  by 
disease.  In  our  army  there  were  twice  as  many 
deaths  from  disease  as  from  bullets.  In  the 
Confederate  army  the  loss  from  disease  was, 
for  obvious  reasons,  much  less,  being  smaller 
than  their  loss  in  battle.  This  loss  by  disease 
was,  in  our  Northern  regiments,  very  unevenly 
distributed,  running  as  low  as  30  in  some  and 
exceeding  500  in  others,  while  in  some  of  the 
colored  regiments  it  was  still  greater.  There 
seems  to  be  an  impression  that  the  regiments 
which  suffered  most  in  battle  lost  also  the  most 
from  disease.  This  is  an  error,  the  direct  op- 
posite being  the  truth.  The  Report  of  the  War 
Department  for  1866  says,  regarding  this  sub- 
ject, that  "  it  is  to  be  noted,  that  those  States 
which  show  large  mortality  on  the  battle-field 
likewise  show  large  mortality  by  disease." 
This  may  be  true  of  the  State  totals,  but  is 
wholly  incorrect  as  to  the  regiments  themselves ; 
for,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the  regiments 
which  sustained  the  heaviest  loss  in  battle 
show  the  smallest  number  of  deaths  from  dis- 
ease. As  an  illustration,  take  the  following 
commands,  all  of  which  were  crack  fighting 
regiments,  and  note  the  mortality  from  the 
two  causes: 


tl 

*f 

Regiment. 

Corps. 

1* 

•H 

"?« 

i'~ 

^i 

^•l 

Massachusetts 

Twelfth 

08 

,   ,,           i 

First 

§3 

2  ist  Massachusetts  

Ninth.  .  .  . 

J59 

9l 

37th  Massachusetts  
5th  N.  Y.  (Duryea  Zouaves)  

Sixth  

Fifth  

l6y 

177 

92 
3" 

1  80 

63d   New  York  (Irish  Brigade)  

Second  .  . 

161 

88 

7oth  N.  Y.  (Sickles's  Brigade)  

Third.... 

190 

64 

82d   N.  Y.  (2dN.  Y.  S.  M.)  

Second.  .  . 

176 

7« 

84th  N.  Y.  (nth  Brooklyn)  

First  .... 

6, 

i24th  N.  Y.  ("Orange  Blossoms  *')... 

Third.... 

IJI 

«9 

62d  Pennsylvania  

Fifth  
Second.  . 

169 

89 

Sixth 

182 

Sixth    . 

181 

82 

Twelfth 

Twelfth.. 

184 

89 

Third   ... 

32d  Indiana  (First  German)  

Fourth 

97 

26th  Wisconsin  (German  Regiment).. 

Eleventh. 

188 

77 

37th  Wisconsin  

Ninth  .  .  . 

IS« 

89 

ist  Minnesota  

Second  .  . 

,«7 

99 

In  addition  to  these,  there  are  the  forty-five 
leading  regiments  previously  mentioned, — 
leading  ones  as  regards  greatest  loss  in  action, 
—  whose  aggregate  of  killed  is  one-third 
greater  than  that  of  their  loss  by  disease. 
Then  there  might  be  cited  the  Pennsylvania 
Reserve  Corps,  an  effective  and  hard  fighting 
division,  in  which  every  regiment  sustained  a 
greater  loss  in  battle  than  by  disease,  with  the 
exception  of  the  7th  Reserves,  in  whose  case 
the  excess  from  disease  was  caused  by  seventy- 
four  deaths  in  Andersonville.  The  ist  Jersey 
Brigade,  the  zd  Jersey  Brigade,  and  the  Iron 
Brigade  were  all  hard  fighters,  with  the  conse- 
quent heavy  losses,  and  yet  each  regiment  in 
those  brigades  lost  less  by  disease  than  by 
battle. 

Still,  in  the  whole  army  the  aggregate  loss  by 
disease  was  double  the  loss  in  action,  and  the 
question  arises,  Where,  then,  did  it  occur? 

In  reply,  a  long  list  could  be  offered,  in  which 
regiments  with  a  comparatively  small  loss  in 
action  would  show  a  startling  mortality  from 
sickness ;  also  many  commands  which  per- 
formed garrison  or  post  duty,  and  which  show 
a  long  death-roll  without  having  been  engaged 
in  any  battle.  The  troops  in  the  Departments 
of  the  Gulf  and  the  Mississippi  were  exposed 
to  a  fatal  climate,  but  participated  in  few  bat- 
tles, the  fighting  there,  aside  from  a  few  minor 
engagements,  being  over  by  August,  1863. 
Though  but  few  battle  names  were  inscribed 
upon  their  colors,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  they  went  and  came  in  obedience  to 
orders ;  that  the  service  they  rendered  was  an 
important  one ;  and  that  their  comrades'  lives 
were  also  lost  while  in  the  line  of  duty. 


io6 


THE  MASK. 


Still,  the  inference  is  a  fair  one  that  the 
fighting  regiments  owed  their  exemption  from 
disease  to  that  same  pluck  which  made  them 
famous,  and  which  enabled  them  to  withstand 
its  encroachments  without  tamely  giving  up 
and  lying  down  under  its  attack.  It  was  a 
question  of  mental  as  well  as  bodily  stamina, 
and  hence  there  is  found  in  certain  black  reg- 
iments a  mortality  from  disease  exceeding  by 
far  that  of  any  white  troops,  a  fact  which  can- 
not be  accounted  for  by  climatic  reasons,  be- 
cause the  particular  regiments  referred  to  were 
recruited  from  blacks  who  were  born  and  raised 
along  the  Mississippi,  where  these  troops  were 
stationed,  and  where  the  loss  occurred. 

Throughout  -the  whole  army,  the  officers 
were  far  less  apt  to  succumb  to  the  fatalities  of 
disease  than  were  their  men.  While  the  pro- 
portionate loss  of  enlisted  men  in  battle  was 
1 6  men  to  one  officer,  the  loss  by  disease  was 
82  men,  and  in  the  colored  troops  214  men  — 
facts  with  ethnological  features  worth  noting. 

In  addition  to  deaths  from  battle  and  dis- 
ease there  were  other  prolific  sources  of  mor- 
tality, over  4000  being  killed  by  accidents, 
resulting  mostly  from  a  careless  use  of  fire- 
arms or  from  fractious  horses,  while  3000  more 
were  drowned  while  bathing  or  boating.  By 
the  explosion  of  the  steamer  Sultana,  loaded 
with  exchanged  prisoners,  homeward  bound 
after  the  war,  1400  Union  soldiers  were  killed  — 
a  loss  exceeded  in  only  a  few  battles  of  the  war. 

A  regiment's  greatest  loss  did  not  always 
occur  in  its  greatest  battle.  The  heaviest  blows 
were  often  received  in  some  fight  which  his- 
tory scarcely  mentions — some  reconnoissance, 
ambuscade,  or  wagon-guard  affair,  entirely 
disconnected  with  any  general  engagement. 
With  many  commands  this  has  been  a  mis- 
fortune and  a  grievance ;  something  akin'  to 
that  of  the  oft-quoted  aspirant  for  glory  who 
was  slain  in  battle,  but  whose  name  was  mis- 


spelled in  the  newspapers.  The  loyth  New 
York  went  through  Gettysburg  with  a  trivial 
loss,  only  to  have  170  men  struck  down  at 
Pumpkin  Vine  Creek,  Ga.  This  regiment 
erected  a  monument,  on  the  pedestal  of  which 
is  chiseled  a  long  list  of  battle  names,  re- 
markable for  their  euphony  as  well  as  their 
historic  grandeur.  The  hand  of  the  stone- 
cutter paused  at  Pumpkin  Vine  Creek,  and 
the  committee  substituted  New  Hope  Church, 
the  name  by  which  the  Confederates  desig- 
nate the  same  fight. 

The  word  Gettysburg  is  not  a  musical  com- 
bination, but  many  will  thank  fortune  that  the 
battle  was  fought  there  instead  of  at  Pipe  Creek, 
the  place  designated  in  the  general's  orders. 
As  it  is,  the  essayist  and  historian  will  delight 
in  referring  to  the  grand  victory  as  one  which 
preserved  unbroken  the  map  and  boundaries 
of  the  nation,  but  they  would  hardly  care  to 
do  so  if  they  were  obliged  to  add  that  all  this 
took  place  at  Pipe  Creek. 

Soldiers  love  to  point  to  the  battle  names 
inscribed  upon  their  colors,  and  glory  in  the 
luster  that  surrounds  them.  It  is  natural  that 
they  should  prefer  well-known  names  or  pleas- 
ant-sounding ones.  The  old  soldier  is  some- 
thing of  a  romancer  in  his  way,  and  is  alive 
to  the  value  of  euphony  as  an  adjunct  to  his 
oft-told  tale.  The  Michigan  cavalrymen  find 
willing  ears  for  the  story  of  their  fight  at  Fall- 
ing Waters,  while  the  Jersey  troopers  find  it 
difficult  to  interest  hearers  in  their  affair  at 
Hawes'  Shop.  The  veterans  of  the  West  find 
it  easier  to  talk  of  Atlanta  and  Champion's  Hill 
thanoftheYazoo  or  Buzzard's  Roost.  Through 
coming  years  our  rhyming  bards  will  tell  of 
those  who  fought  at  the  Wilderness,  or  Mal- 
vern  Hill,  but  cadence  and  euphony  will 
ignore  the  fallen  heroes  of  Pea  Ridge  and 
Bermuda  Hundred. 

William  F.  Fox. 


THE    MASK. 

WHY  am  I  still  unscarred  when  agony, 
Repeated  oft,  has  burnt  both  heart  and  brain, 
Till  all  my  being  seems  a  quivering  pain 
That  custom  but  renews  unceasingly  ? 

Abroad,  I  shrink,  dreading  lest  misery 

Have  so  defaced  my  face  that  once  again 
Men  turn,  and  look,  and  shuddering  be  fain 
To  say  with  Dante's  Florentines,  "  There,  see 

One  who,  though  living,  hath  known  death  and  hell." 
So,  when  thy  glance  has  glorified  my  face, 
And  joy,  transfigured,  all  in  life  seems  well, 

Methinks  my  mirror  then  will  show  no  trace 
Of  my  old  self,  but  one  supremely  fair. 
Insensate  flesh  !    I  find  no  beauty  there ! 


Elyot   Weld. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE  COLONIES. 


OF    THE    GOSPEL. 


IN     VIRGINIA     AND     MARYLAND. 

I '"THE  Church 
I  A  of  England 
took  root  in 
America  with 
the  first  colo- 
ny. Among  its 
earliest  minis- 
ters were  some 
men  of  ability 
and  unselfish 
devotion ;  such 
men,  for  exam- 
ple, as  Robert 
Hunt,  Alexan- 
der Whitaker, 
and  Thomas 
White.  The 
church  had  the 
advantages  of 
a  traditional 
hold  on  the  English  mind,  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  the  home  government,  and  the 
social  prestige  conferred  by  the  adhesion  of 
governors  and  other  crown  officers.  In  Vir- 
ginia, Maryland,  North  and  South  Carolina, 
and  Georgia  it  was  established  by  law ;  while 
in  New  York  it  had  always  a  legal  advantage 
over  its  rivals.  Yet  the  history  of  the  Church 
of  England  in  the  American  Colonies,  though 
not  quite  a  history  of  failure,  is  far  from  being 
a  story  of  success.  Its  ultimate  influence  upon 
the  character  of  the  colonists  was  probably 
less  than  that  of  Puritanism  or  Quakerism, 
perhaps  hardly  greater  than  that  of  the  Pres- 
byterianism  chiefly  brought  in  by  Irish  and 
Scotch  settlers  after  1700.  This  partial  de- 
fault of  the  English  Church  in  America  was 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that  a  main  persua- 
sive to  emigration  in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts 
had  been  English  laws  for  the  enforcement 
of  conformity :  the  stately  liturgy  lost  some 
of  its  beauty  and  dignity  when  propagated  by 
constables  and  jailers.  But  even  in  the  colo- 
nies settled  chiefly  by  adherents  of  the  establish- 
ment, the  church  in  most  places  sank  into  apa- 
thy, while  unresting,  dissenting  sects  drew  life 
and  prosperity  from  its  dissolving  elements. 

At  the  time  of  the  planting  of  the  James 
River  settlements,  the  impulse  given  by  the 
Reformation  to  religious  devotion  in  the  Eng- 
lish Church  had  not  spent  itself.  There  were 
many  men  in  its  priesthood  who  combined  a 


Puritan  strictness  in  morals  with  a  sentiment 
of  reverence  that  had  a  medieval  origin.  This 
religious  party  had  from  the  first  laid  hold  of 
the  scheme  of  English  planting  in  America  as 
a  sort  of  new  crusade  for  the  extension  of 
Christendom  and  the  overthrow  of  heathen- 
ism. Clergymen  like  Hakluyt  and  Purchas 
and  Symonds  ardently  promoted  the  colony ; 
noble-hearted  laymen  like  the  Ferrars  and  their 
friends  gave  time  and  money  with  unstinted 
liberality  to  the  religious  interests  of  the  plan- 
tation ;  and  there  were  those,  both  of  the  clergy 
and  laity,  who,  from  religious  motives,  "  left 
their  warm  nests"  in  England  "and  under 
took  the  heroical  resolution  to  go  to  Virginia," 
sharing  the  hardships,  and  even  losing  their 
lives  in  the  perils,  of  the  enterprise. 

The  line  of  demarcation  between  the  Pu- 
ritan and  the  old-fashioned  churchman  was 
not  yet  sharply  drawn,  so  that  the  Virginia 
church  long  retained  some  traits  which  in  Eng- 
land had  come  to  be  accounted  as  belonging 
to  the  Puritans  or  Presbyterians.  Indeed, 
some  of  the  parish  clergy,  in  1647,  were 
so  touched  with  Puritanism  as  to  refuse  to 
"  read  the  common  prayer  upon  the  Sabboth 
dayes."  For  more  than  a  hundred  years  after 
the  first  settlement  of  Virginia  the  surplice 
appears  to  have  been  quite  unknown ;  "  both 
sacraments "  were  performed  "  without  the 
habits  and  proper  ornaments  and  vessels  "  re- 
quired; parts  of  the  liturgy  were  omitted  "  to 
avoid  giving  offense";  marriages,  baptisms,  and 
churchings  of  women  were  held  and  funeral 
sermons  preached  in  private  houses;  and  in 
some  parishes,  so  late  as  1724,  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per was  received  by  the  communicants  in  a 
sitting  posture.  If  we  add  to  these  the  oppo- 
sition to  visitations  and  all  ecclesiastical  courts, 
the  claim  of  the  parishes  to  choose  and  dismiss 
their  own  ministers,  the  employment  of  unor- 
dained  lay  readers  or  "  ministers  "  in  a  major- 
ity of  the  parishes,  and  the  general  neglect  of 
most  of  the  church  festivals,  we  shall  under- 
stand how  peculiar  were  the  traits  of  the  Vir- 
ginia church.  These  had  their  origin  partly 
in  the  transitional  state  in  which  the  Anglican 
body  found  itself  at  the  birth  of  the  church  of 
Virginia,  and  were  partly  the  result  of  isolation. 
But  while  the  Church  of  England  in  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century  drew  religious 
life  at  the  same  time  from  ancient  and  medieval 
sources,  and  from  the  fresh  impulses  of  the  Ref- 
ormation period,  she  still  suffered  from  unre- 


io8 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND   IN  THE    COLONIES. 


formed  abuses.  There  were  still  "dumb  parsons" 
in  some  of  her  poorer  parishes,  who  never  es- 
sayed to  preach,  and  who  were  incapable  of 
any  other  functions  than  those  of  mumbling 
the  liturgy  and  receiving  the  tithes.  Many  of 
the  clergy  were  men  whose  morals  were  of 
the  most  debauched  character:  a  manuscript 
preserved  in  the  Duke  of  Manchester's  pa- 
pers gives  a  horrible  description  of  the  state 
of  the  clergy  in  the  county  of  Essex  in  1602. 
One  of  these  Essex  parsons  carried  his  diab- 
olism to  such  an  extreme  that  he  was 
familiarly  called  "  Vicar  of  Hell,"  a  title  which 
he  good-naturedly  accepted  in  lieu  of  his 
proper  name.  During  all  of  the  seventeenth 
and  much  of  the  eighteenth  century,  notwith- 
standing the  learning  and  virtue  of  many  of 
the  clergy,  the  altars  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land were  in  many  places  beset  by  men  of 
despicable  attainments  and  depraved  morals 
thrust  into  the  priest's  office  merely  that  they 
might  eat  of  the  shew-bread. 

From  this  state  of  things  the  colonies  ad- 
hering to  the  Church  of  England  were  the 
greatest  sufferers.  Sometimes  a  clergyman's 
abilities  and  education  were  so  mean,  or  the 
ill  fame  of  his  bad  living  was  so  rank,  that  even 
the  very  tolerant  public  opinion  of  the  day  in 
England  could  no  longer  abide  him.  In  this 
case  his  friends  would  seek  for  him  the  chap- 
laincy of  a  man-of-war,  or  pack  him  off  to  the 
colonies.  The  debauched  sons  of  reputable 
families,  incapable  of  any  other  use  in  the 
wide  world,  were  deemed  good  enough  to  read 
prayers  and  christen  children  in  Virginia  par- 
ishes for  sixteen  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 
a  year,  with  forty  shillings  for  every  funeral 
sermon  and  the  wedding-fees  'to  boot.  The 
cry  against  the  bad  lives  of  some  of  these  emi- 
grant parsons  was  heard  as  early  as  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century.  "  Many  came," 
says  Hammond,  in  1656,  "  such  as  wore  black 
coats  and  could  babble  in  a  pulpit,  swear  in  a 
tavern,  exact  from  their  parishioners,  and  rather 
by  their  dissoluteness  destroy  than  feed  their 
flocks." 

But  in  the  rising  against  the  despotism  of 
Sir  John  Harvey,  the  Virginia  clergy  of  1635 
appear  to  have  had  virtue  enough  to  take  the 
popular  side  under  the  lead  of  the  Rev.  Antony 
Panton,  who  also,  in  1641,  appeared  in  Lon- 
don as  "Agent  of  the  Church  of  England  in 
Virginia."  By  protests,  first  to  the  Commons 
and  then  to  the  Lords,  Panton  contrived  to 
delay  for  months  the  sailing  of  Sir  William 
Berkeley,  who  had  been  appointed  governor 
at  the  instance  of  Harvey  and  his  clique. 
During  the  Commonwealth  time  some  minis- 
ters of  a  better  class  sought  Virginia  as  a  ref- 
uge, and  some  of  the  most  dissolute  of  the 
parish  clergy  were  silenced  by  the  Assembly. 


There  was  a  general  improvement  in  manners 
at  this  time.  The  pioneer  Virginians  had  been 
noted  from  the  outset  for  excess  in  drinking ;  but 
growing  prosperous,  they  now  became,  "  not 
only  civil,  but  great  observers  of  the  Sabbath, 
and  to  stand  upon  their  reputations  and  to  be 
ashamed  of  that  notorious  manner  of  life  they 
had  formerly  lived  and  wallowed  in."  These 
reformed  colonists  in  1656  offered  a  bonus  of 
twenty  pounds  to  every  one  who  should  im- 
port "  a  sufficient  minister."  But  with  the  re- 
turn of  Berkeley  to  power  at  the  restoration, 
the  governmental  influence  on  the  clergy  must 
have  been  depressing.  "  The  king's  old  court- 
ier" that  he  was,  Sir  William  evidently  liked 
best  the  "  dumb  parsons,"  who  gave  the  peo- 
ple no  ideas  and  tyrants  no  trouble.  He  ex- 
presses his  regret  that  Virginia  ministers  would 
not  "pray  oftener  and  preach  less."  When 
Bacon's  rebellion  brought  Berkeley's  career 
to  an  infamous  close  there  was  no  Panton  left 
to  take  the  side  of  the  people;  all  the  par- 
sons in  Virginia  appear  to  have  been  partisans 
of  the  governor. 

Compton,  who  came  to  the  see  of  London 
in  1675,  made  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop 
of  London  over  the  colonies  something  more 
than  a  name.  He  appointed  Blair  commis- 
sary of  Virginia,  and  Bray  to  a  like  office 
in  Maryland;  under  his  auspices  William  and 
Mary  College  was  founded,  and  the  Propaga- 
tion Society  instituted ;  his  influence  with  his 
former  pupils,  Queen  Mary  and  Queen  Anne, 
enabled  him  to  secure  at  court  whatever  was 
desirable  for  the  colonial  church,  and  more 
than  one  governor  seems  to  have  lost  his 
place  through  Bishop  Compton's  displeasure. 
But  in  Compton's  time,  and  long  after,  the 
lives  of  many  of  the  colonial  clergy  were  dis- 
reputable, even  when  judged  by  the  standards 
of  that  day.  The  law  of  the  market  ruled  in 
these  things  :  what  could  find  no  purchaser  in 
England  was  put  off  upon  the  colonies.  Mor- 
gan Godwyn  declares  that  the  meanest  cu- 
rate in  England  had  "  far  more  considerable 
hopes"  than  a  Virginia  clergyman  about 
1675.  Some  of  the  least  acceptable  of  the 
parish  clergy  in  Virginia  were  Scotch  and 
Irish  adventurers,  who  thought  it  better  to 
get  an  out-of-the-world  parish,  with  or  with- 
out orders,  than  to  work  hard  and  live  pre- 
cariously as  school-masters.  The  case  was 
rendered  worse  in  Maryland,  since,  by  the 
constitution  of  the  church  in  that  province, 
there  was  for  a  long  time  no  power  on  earth 
that  could  legally  deprive  a  clergyman  when 
once  inducted.  "As  bad  as  a  Maryland  par- 
son," was  one  of  the  earliest  of  indigenous 
American  proverbs.  One  incumbent  of  a 
Maryland  parish  was  described  as,  "like  St. 
Paul,  all  things  to  all  men;  he  swears  with 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


109 


REV.    JONATHAN    BOUCHER    OF    MARYLAND. 

those  who  swear,  and  drinks  with  those  who 
drink."  But  swearing  and  drinking  were  but 
the  minor  faults  of  these  "  tithe-pig  parsons  " ; 
drunkenness  was  proverbially  called  the  "cler- 
gyman's vice."  In  1718  Commissary  Wilkin- 
son, of  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland,  forbade 
weddings  in  private  houses,  because  of  cler- 
gymen "being  drunk  at  such  times  and 
places."  Two  Virginia  clergymen,  in  1723, 
were  given  to  "  fighting  and  quarreling  pub- 
licly in  their  drink  "  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
was  said,  "  The  whole  country  rings  with  the 
scandal."  It  was  charged  that  some  of  the  clergy 
of  this  province  were  "  so  debauched  that  they 
are  foremost  in  all  manner  of  vices."  "  One 
Holt,  a  scandalous  and  enormous  wretch," 
was  deprived  by  the  commissary  of  Virginia, 
but  he  went  to  Maryland,  where  he  secured 
one  of  the  best  parishes.  Another  Virginia  par- 
son had  brought  a  servant-maid  aboard  ship, 
and  passed  her  off  as  his  wife ;  yet  another 
was  an  habitual  drunkard,  who  "  kept  an  idle 
hussy  he  brought  over  with  him."  Clergymen 
were  scarce  in  a  new  country,  and  discipline 
must  needs  be  lax  if  any  considerable  number 
were  to  be  retained.  In  the  case  last  men- 
tioned the  woman  was  packed  aboard  ship  and 
sent  home,  and  the  parson  was  "reformed  ";ap- 
parently  without  any  interruption  of  his  clerical 
duties.  When,  however,  we  read  of  two  Virginia 
parishes  that,  in  1740,  had  been  vacated  by 
the  lewdness  of  the  ministers,  we  have  some 
pain  to  conceive  of  the  degree  of  profligacy 
that  had  been  sufficient  to  drive  these  men 
from  the  altar.  Even  in  Maryland  one  man 
lost  his  place  by  adding  bigamy  to  habitual 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 16. 


inebriety.  Polygamy  was,  indeed,  on  more 
than  one  occasion  the  charge  brought  against 
a  Maryland  parson.  Commissary  Bray  found 
one  Maryland  incumbent  who  had  forged  a 
certificate  of  ordination,  as  a  Virginia  writing- 
master  had  done  at  an  earlier  period.  This  writ- 
ing-master wore  a  scarlet  hood  in  the  pulpit 
and  called  himself  a  doctor  of  divinity.  The 
forging  of  orders  seems,  indeed,  a  superfluous 
villainy  when  one  considers  with  what  facility 
wretches  like  these  were  able  in  that  day  to 
get  genuine  ordination.  At  a  later  period,  no 
man  from  the  colonies  was  admitted  to  orders 
unless  he  had  secured  a  title  to  a  parish.  But 
shrewd  adventurers,  who  had  been  brought 
over  sometimes  as  indentured  servants  or 
schoolmasters,  would  contrive  to  get  a  recom- 
mendation and  a  title  from  a  parish  that  was 
not  even  vacant,  the  vestry  taking  defeasance 
bonds  from  the  candidate  that  he  would  not 
claim  possession  under  a  bogus  title  —  meant 
only  to  deceive  the  Bishop  of  London.  Dis- 
cipline was  not  easy,  even  in  flagrant  cases. 
Brunskill,  a  Virginia  clergyman,  was  deposed 
with  difficulty,  in  1757,  though  he  was,  in  the 
words  of  Governor  Dmwiddie,"  almost  guilty 
of  every  sin  except  murder,"  and  he  must 
have  had  a  stomach  even  for  murder,  since 
he  tied  his  wife  to  a  bedpost  and  cut  her  with 
knives;  yet,  notwithstanding  all,  he  found 
two  or  three  of  his  order  to  defend  him.  It 
was  recognized  at  the  time  that  the  rapid 
growth  of  dissent  and  religious  skepticism  in 
the  Church  of  England  colonies  was  largely 
due  to  the  repulsive  morals  of  some  of  the 
clergy  and  the  sloth  and  neglect  of  others. 
One  good  clergyman  in  Virginia  cries  out  in 
1724,  that  "  even  miracles  could  not  maintain 
the  credit  of  the  church  where  such  lewd 
and  profane  ministers  are  tolerated  or  con- 
nived at." 

But  this  is  only  the  dark  side  of  the  pic- 
ture. There  were  always  in  the  Chesapeake 
colonies  clergymen  of  another  stamp,  whose 
character  shone  the  brighter  by  their  prox- 
imity to  sluggards  and  drunkards.  Barthol- 
omew Yates,  of  Christ  Church  parish,  in 
Middlesex  county,  Virginia,  who  died  in  1734, 
would  have  won  praise  for  his  virtues  any- 
where. Anthony  Garvin,  about  the  same  pe- 
riod, exchanged  an  easy  parish  for  a  destitute 
one  on  the  frontier,  where  he  preached  in 
widely  separated  places.  He  laments  that 
ministers  are  so  much  absorbed  in  farming 
and  buying  slaves, "  which  latter,  in  my  hum- 
ble opinion,  is  unlawful  for  any  Christian." 
Speaking  thus,  in  1738,  in  opposition  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  pastoral  letter  of  the  learned 
Bishop  Gibson,  his  own  diocesan,  Garvin 
showed  that  in  moral  judgment  he  was  a 
century  ahead  of  his  time.  Thomas  Bacon, 


no 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


the  editor  of  the  Maryland  laws,  and  William 
Stith,  the  painstaking  historian  of  Virginia, 
are  examples  of  clergymen  of  distinction  in 
literature.  One  should  add  to  this  list  the 
names  of  Clayton  the  naturalist,  of  Blair  the 
theologian,  of  the  diarist  Fontaine,  and  of 
the  versatile  Boucher.  Devereux  Jarratt,  a 
native  Virginian  of  humble  birth,  was  ordained 
in  1762,  and  was  long  illustrious  for  his  useful 
labors.  He  was  a  sort  of  connecting  link  be- 
tween what  was  best  in  the  colonial  church 


was  felt  to  be  very  burdensome,  and  in  1760 
it  was  reduced  to  thirty  pounds  of  inspected 
tobacco.  Under  this  system  of  payment  by 
a  capitation  tax,  the  increase  of  population 
rendered  some  of  the  parishes  valuable ;  that 
of  All  Saints  was  estimated  at  one  thousand 
pounds  sterling  a  year.  A  more  desirable  class 
of  clergymen  sought  these  good  livings,  and 
the  proverbial  Maryland  parson  was  for  the 
most  part  driven  to  the  wall  by  competi- 
tion. As  early  as  1718  there  was  among  the 
"missioners  "  of  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel  a  proneness  to  leave  their 
Northern  missions  for  the  tempting  tobacco 
parishes  of  Maryland.  Fear  was  expressed  by 
the  impetuous  Talbot,  of  Burlington,  that  the 
newly  built  churches  in  New  Jersey  and 
Pennsylvania  would  soon  be  quite  deserted 
by  the  missionaries,  and  would  become  '•  stalls 
and  stables  for  the  Quakers'  horses  when  they 
come  to  market  or  meeting."  Although  this 
catastrophe  never  befell  the  mission  churches, 


of  Virginia  and  the  religious  life  of  our  own 
time.  His  autobiography  is  a  reflection  of  the 
simplicity  and  disinterested  goodness  of  his 
nature. 

In  the  later  colonial  period  the  character 
of  the  Maryland  clergy  was  raised  merely  by 
the  action  of  the  law  of  the  market.  Instead 
of  providing,  as  in  Virginia,  a  definite  salary  in 
tobacco  for  each  incumbent,  the  law  of  Mary- 
land gave  the  clergyman  forty  pounds  of  to- 
bacco for  every  person  of  tithable  age  and 
condition,  whether  white  or  black.  This  tax 


the  character  of  the  Maryland  clergy  was 
so  far  advanced  that  Edmund  Burke,  in 
1757,  could  speak  of  them  as  "the  most 
decent  and  the  best  of  the  clergy  of  North 
America." 

In  Virginia  even  '-the  sweet-scented  par- 
ishes," as  they  were  called, —  those  where 
the  minister's  salary  was  paid  in  high-priced,, 
sweet-scented  tobacco, —  yielded  only  about 
a  hundred  pounds  sterling,  and  the  parishion- 
ers sometimes  refused  to  settle  a  clergyman 
unless  he  would  consent  to  serve  two  parishes 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND   IN   THE    COLONIES. 


in 


for  one  salary. 
The  salary  was 
rendered  precari- 
ous by  the  prev- 
alent custom  of 
"  hiring  "aclergy- 
man  for  a  year  at 
a  time.  Blair,  the 
able  Scotchman 
who  was  for  many 
years  the  Bishop 
of  London's  com- 
missary for  this 
province,  com- 
plained that  the 
insecurity  of  the 
livings  rendered 
it  impossible  for 
the  clergy  to 
"  match  so  much 
to  their  advantage 
as  if  they  were 
settled  by  induc- 
tion." A  wife  with 
a  dower  seems 
to  have  been  re- 
garded as  one 
of  the  natural 

and  legitimate  resources  of  a  settled  clergy- 
man. 

THE    CHURCH    IN    THE    CAROLINAS. 

THE  proprietors  of  Carolina  declared  at  the 
outset  of  their  enterprise  that  they  were  moved 
to  it  by  their  great  zeal  to  propagate  the  Chris- 
tian faith;  but  once  their  charter  had  passed 
the  seals,  their  zeal  enjoyed  a  peaceful  slumber 
for  forty  years.  They  accomplished  the  settle- 
ment of  their  provinces  under  the  broadest 
and  most  solemn  promises  of  religious  tolera- 
tion ;  but,  in  1704,  with  characteristic  bad 
faith,  and  by  the  use  of  shameless  trickery  in 
the  elections,  their  governor  procured  the  pas- 
sage, by  a  majority  of  one,  of  an  act  establishing 
the  Church  of  England  and  disabling  dissen- 
ters —  who  were  about  two-thirds  of  the  pop- 
ulation —  from  sitting  in  the  assembly.  By  the 
same  act  it  was  sought  to  wrest  the  ecclesias- 
tical power  from  the  Bishop  of  London  and 
put  it  into  the  hands  of  a  subservient  lay  com- 
mission of  twenty  members,  a  majority  of  whom 
were  not  even  habitual  communicants.  The 
Carolinian  dissenters  promptly  petitioned  the 
House  of  Lords  against  the  bill  on  account 
of  its  proscription  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
inhabitants,  the  Bishop  of  London  and  the 
Propagation  Society  detested  and  opposed  it 
on  account  of  the  lay  commission,  the  House 
of  Lords  addressed  the  Queen  against  it  on 
both  heads,  and  the  law  was  repealed  by  the 
alarmed  proprietors  and  declared  null  by  royal 


CANOPIED    PEW     IN    THE    OLD    CHURCH    AT     SHRKU  SBl'KV,    NEW   JERSEY. 

authority,  while  the  Lords  of  Trade  even  took 
steps  looking  to  the  vacating  of  the  lords  propri- 
etors' charter.  But  the  matter  was  so  managed 
by  the  assembly  that  their  church  establishment 
was  retained,  though  the  proscriptive  features 
of  the  bill  and  the  lay  commission  for  ecclesi- 
astical affairs  were  given  up. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  South  Carolina  that  nearly  all  its 
early  ministers  were  sent  out  under  the  au- 
spices of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel,  for  the  missionaries  of  this  society 
were  carefully  selected  and  were  the  most 
reputable  clergymen  that  came  to  the  colo- 
nies. Besides  the  aid  which  this  body  con- 
tinued to  give  until  1766,  the  South  Carolina 
clergy  received  salaries  from  the  provincial 
treasury  and  from  money  raised  by  a  tax  on 
exported  furs  and  deerskins.  They  also  had 
glebes,  which  were  in  some  instances  stocked 
with  cows,  and  even  in  a  few  cases  with  house- 
hold slaves.  South  Carolina  clergy  were  thus 
tolerably  independent,  their  election  by  the 
people  gave  some  security  for  their  character, 
and  they  had  besides  the  good  fortune,  after 
1726,  to  be,  for  about  thirty  years,  under  the 
supervision  of  Alexander  Garden,  an  efficient 
commissary.  The  province  thus  escaped,  for 
the  most  part,  the  church  scandals  of  Mary- 
land and  Virginia;  and  though  the  adherents 
of  the  establishment  never  constituted  a  ma- 
jority of  the  people,  the  church  was  able  to 
hold  its  own  against  "  the  meetners,"  as  dis- 


112 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


senters  were  called.  Eliza  Lucas  testifies, 
about  1740,  that  the  "generality  of  people  " 
in  Charleston  were  "  of  a  religious  turn  of 
mind,"  a  statement  sustained  by  the  large 
congregations  that  a  little  later  attended 
even  week-day  lectures  of  favorite  preachers. 
But  in  a  society  so  rich  and  gay  and  lax  re- 


'' 

PULPIT    OF    KING'S    CHAPEL,    BOSTON. 

ligion  among  the  upper  classes  was  probably 
never  very  intense.  Josiah  Quincy,  who  vis- 
ited Charleston  in  1774,  was  accustomed  to 
the  superabounding  amplitude  of  length  and 
breadth  and  depth  of  New  England  ministra- 
tions, and  he  did  not  estimate  highly  "  the 
young  coxcomb,"  as  he  calls  him,  whom  he 
heard  "  preach  flippantly  for  seventeen  and  a 
half  minutes  "  in  a  Charleston  pulpit.  But  the 
South  Carolina  clergy  were  not  generally  flip- 
pant, and  there  were  instances  of  noble  disin- 
terestedness and  public  spirit  among  them. 
One  of  them  refused  the  portion  of  his  salary 
promised  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel,  and  three  others  left  money 
to  public  uses.  The  clergy  of  South  Carolina 
manifested  a  genuine  interest  in  the  religious 
welfare  of  the  slaves,  whose  very  multitude 
made  their  lot  harder  than  that  of  the  negroes 
in  any  other  continental  colony.  Early  efforts 
were  made  to  Christianize  them,  and  an  ad- 
dress to  the  Bishop  of  London  from  the  South 
Carolina  clergy  on  the  subject  was  the  occa- 
sion of  Bishop  Gibson's  pastoral  letter  and  the 
deliverances  of  the  attorney  and  solicitor-gen- 


eral, all  of  which  were  meant  to  facilitate  the 
conversion  of  the  negroes. 

North  Carolina  was  long  a  barren  field  for 
the  Church  of  England.  A  church  establish- 
ment found  congenial  soil  among  the  landed 
aristocracy  of  the  Chesapeake  colonies  and 
South  Carolina;  but  the  early  North  Caro- 
linians were  a  rather  turbulent  democracy, 
fond  of  their  liberty,  holding  most  of  the  con- 
ventions of  society  in  detestation,  and  regard- 
ing with  some  impatience  almost  every  sort 
of  restraint.  The  Propagation  Society  made 
some  early  but  not  very  vigorous  efforts  to  se- 
cure a  lodgment  in  North  Carolina,  but  the 
ministers  whom  they  sent  suffered  much  from 
their  uncongenial  environment.  The  vivacious 
Colonel  Byrd  sneeringly  declared  that  North 
Carolina  was  "  a  climate  where  no  clergyman 
can  breathe  any  more  than  spiders  in  Ireland." 
Large  numbers  of  the  people  grew  up  without 
baptism,  and  this  was  regarded  in  that  day  as 
a  relapse  to  heathenism.  It  was  specially  la- 
mented by  Governor  Eden  that  so  many  hun- 
dreds of  the  children  slain  by  the  Tuscaroras 
were  unbaptized.  In  1728  the  Virginia  com- 
missioners who  ran  the  dividing  line  between 
that  province  and  Carolina  were  accompanied 
by  a  chaplain,  and  whole  families  of  North 
Carolina  people  intercepted  their  march,  seek- 
ing to  be  "made  Christians"  by  baptism. 
Stories  were  current  of  reckless  Virginia  cler- 
gymen making  junketing  trips  through  the 
neighboring  province,  and  defraying  their  ex- 
penses by  baptizing  the  people  at  so  much  a 
head.  Notwithstanding  the  laws  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  church  that  had  been  on  the 
statute-book  for  many  years,  there  was  not 
one  clergyman  of  the  English  Church  regularly 
settled  in  North  Carolina  in  1732.  The  prov- 
ince was  not,  however,  wholly  without  relig- 
ious service.  Schoolmasters  read  the  liturgy 
and  Tillotson's  Sermons  in  some  places,  and 
the  law  of  the  market  which  was  adverse  to 
the  Anglican  Church  acted  otherwise  upon 
the  over-supply  of  Puritan  divines.  "  Some 
Presbyterian  or  rather  independent  ministers 
from  New  England,"  says  Governor  Burring- 
ton,  "  have  got  congregations  " ;  and  he  ex- 
plains that  others  are  likely  to  come,  since 
there  are  some  out  of  employment  in  New 
England,  "  where  a  preacher  is  seldom  paid 
more  than  the  value  of  twenty  pounds  ster- 
ling." Even  earlier  than  the  Puritans  the 
Quakers  had  gained  a  hold  among  the  North 
Carolina  settlers,  George  Fox  himself  having 
visited  the  province  as  early  as  1672.  "The 
Quakers  of  this  government,"  says  Burring- 
ton,  "  are  considerable  for  their  numbers  and 
substance,  the  regularity  of  their  lives,  hos- 
pitality to  strangers,  and  kind  offices  to  new 
settlers  inducing  many  to  be  of  their  persua- 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


sion."  But  1732  marked  the  lowest  point  in 
the  fortunes  of  the  English  Church  in  North 
Carolina.  In  that  year  Boyd,  a  resident  of  the 
province,  went  to  England  and  took  orders. 
His  six  years  of  ministration  made  a  deep  im- 
pression. In  1743  Clement  Hall,  who  had 
been  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  a  lay-reader 
in  the  colony,  took  orders  and  returned  as  a 
missionary  to  win  for  himself,  by  his  self-de- 
nying toils,  his  evangelizing  journeys,  and  his 
popular  eloquence,  the  title  of  the  "  Apostle  of 
North  Carolina."  Notwithstanding  the  earlier 
acts  on  the  subject,  several  new  laws  were 
passed  in  1 745  and  later  for  the  better  estab- 
lishment of  the  church;  for  though  the  adher- 
ents of  the  Church  of  England  were  always 
a  minority  of  the  people  in  both  the  Carolinas, 
the  maintenance  of  an  established  form  of 
religious  worship  seems  to  have  been 
generally  regarded  as  an  essential  part 
of  a  fixed  and  orderly  government. 


tory, — Ecclesiii  in  Ecdcsui, —  a  church  growing 
within  a  church  that  had  lost  the  power  to  sat- 
isfy the  aspirations  of  the  human  spirit.  About 
1691,  a  dozen  years  after  their  beginning,  some 
of  these  associations  came  under  the  influence 
of  the  reformatory  impulse  set  a-going  by  the 
revolution  of  1688;  and  by  this  means  losing 
their  merely  pietistic  character,  they  undertook 
to  cooperate  for  the  suppression  of  the  preva- 
lent vices  of  the  time.  Three  or  four  years  later 
the  hidden  leaven  of  the  societies  began  to 
make  itself  felt  as  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with, 
and  Queen  Mary  and  Archbishop  Tillotson 
thought  it  worth  while  to  lend  their  approval 
to  this  new  movement,  which  had  grown  while 
sovereigns  and  prelates  slumbered  and  slept. 
By  1701  there  were  twenty  allied  societies  for 
the  reformation  of  manners  in  the  British 


THE    EPISCOPAL   PROPAGANDA. 

ALTHOUGH  the  Church  of  England 
appeared  to  have  lost  her  moral 
courage  and  her  spiritual  aspira- 
tions in  the  reaction  against  Puritan- 
ism, and  even  against  morality  and 
decency,  at  the  restoration  of  the 
Stuarts,  there  set  in  afterward  a  move- 
ment that  was  at  first  as  small  as  a 
mustard-seed,  and  so  well  hidden  that 
its  ultimate  importance  has  hitherto 
failed,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  excite  the 
attention  of  any  student  of  the  relig- 
ious history  of  that  age.  About  1679 
there 'sprang  up  in  England  what  were 
known  as  the  "religious  societies," 
and  though  a  great  part  of  the  relig- 
ious history  of  England  and  her  colo- 
nies in  the  eighteenth  century  lay  in 
embryo  in  that  movement,  we  cannot 
now  tell  the  name  of  its  originator 
or  the  source  of  his  inspirations.  It 
is  possible  that  some  stray  seed  from 
Spener's  pietistic  meetings  in  Germany 
had  been  wafted  across  the  Channel, 
but  it  is  more  probable  that  the  Eng- 
lish societies  were  indigenous.  The 
members  of  these  obscure  associations 
stirred  up  one  another  to  devotion, 
and  resorted  to  the  communion  of  the 
parish  churches  in  a  body.  It  was  the  phenom- 
enon so  often  seen  in  the  world's  religious  his- 

*  The  most  conspicuous  outgrowth  of  the  devout  so- 
cieties was  the  Methodist  movement  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  though  I  do  not  know  that  the  connection  has 
everbeforebeenpointedout.  The so-called"Holy Club" 
of  Oxford,  from  which  issued  the  Wesleys  and  White- 
field,  appears  to  have  been  merely  one  of  the  religious 


INTERIOR    OF    CHRIST    CIU'RCH,    BOSTON. 

Islands,  besides  forty  "devout  societies  "of 
the  original  kind.*  The  reformatory  societies 

societies  which  had  already  flourished  for  fifty  years,  and 
some  of  which  were  still  in  existence  thirty  years  later. 
l''rom  this  same  familiar  model  Wesley  doubtless  bor- 
rowed the  outlines  of  the  plan  that  resulted  in  the  more 
highly  organized  Methodist  societies  out  of  which  in 
time  have  come  the  great  Methodist  bodies. 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND   IN  THE   COLONIES. 


spread  as  far  as  to  New  York,  and  put  a  new 
weapon  into  the  hands  of  waning  Puritanism 
in  New  England,  where  they  obtained  a  vogue, 
even  in  the  country  towns,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Meantime,  in  spite  of 
much  unwisdom  and  misdirected  effort,  they 


societies  found  a  new  development.  Bray  had 
a  mind  of  great  acuteness,  inventive  rather 
than  original:  he  was  one  of  those  men  whose 
destiny  it  is  to  give  an  organic  body  to  ideas 
already  in  the  air.  One-sided  in  matters  of 
opinion,  as  becomes  a  propagandist,  he  was 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON,   D.D.,    FIRST   PRESIDENT  OF   KING  S  COLLEGE. 


had  acquired  such  influence  in  England  as  to 
be  able  to  suppress  a  great  number  of  disorderly 
houses,  and  drive  many  lewd  characters  from 
the  kingdom.  More  than  a  thousand  convic- 
tions for  vice  were  secured  in  1701.  The  fame 
of  the  movement  spread  over  Europe,  and  the 
published  accounts  of  the  societies  were  trans- 
lated into  other  languages.  In  England  great 
opposition  was  awakened,  and  the  promoters 
of  the  societies  met  with  the  common  fate 
of  reformers ;  they  were  "  balladed  in  the 
streets "  and  "  ridiculed  in  plays  and  on  the 
theaters." 

But  in  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century  there  rose  up  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas 
Bray,  in  whose  hands  the  voluntary  religious 


singularly  bold  and  comprehensive  in  practi- 
cal affairs.  The  English  Church  entirely  filled 
his  intellectual  horizon ;  all  the  rest  was  in 
the  outer  darkness  of  heresy,  schism,  apostasy, 
or  damnable  infidelity.  He  combated  Ro- 
manism and  he  detested  dissent.  The  regions 
settled  by  Quakers  were  to  him  hardly  better 
than  "  so  many  heathen  nations,"  and  he  joy- 
fully announced  in  one  of  his  publications 
that  "  many  Quakers  have  returned  to  the 
Christian  faith."  This  unsympathetic  narrow- 
ness gave  concentration  to  his  exertions,  which 
for  the  rest  were  sincere  and  disinterested. 
When  he  accepted  the  office  of  Commissary 
to  Maryland  he  sold  his  effects  and  borrowed 
money  to  reach  the  province,  at  the  same 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


time  refusing  eligible  benefices  at  home.  But 
knowing  the  ignorance  of  many  of  the  clergy 
and  their  destitution  of  hooks,  he  organized, 
before  he  set  out  for  Maryland,  a  society  for 
furnishing  the  clergy  in  the  colonies  and  in 
the  provinces  with  libraries ;  borrowing  his 
fundamental  idea,  no  doubt,  from  Tenison, 
then  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who,  when 
Vicar  of  St.  Martin's,  had  founded  a  library 
with  the  view  of  keeping  the  thirty  or  forty 
young  clergymen  resident  in  that  court  par- 
ish as  tutors,  and  in  other  capacities,  from 
spending  their  time  in  taverns.  This  society, 
at  first  merely  a  new  kind  of  voluntary  asso- 
ciation, was  chartered  in  1698  as  "The  Soci- 
ety for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge."  But 
the  schemes  of  such  a  man  as  Bray  enlarge- 
as  he  advances;  and  every  project  was  swiftly 
transmuted  into  an  organized  association. 
After  his  return  from  Maryland  he  developed 
another  private  society,  which  had  been 
"  formed  to  meet  and  consult  and  contribute 
toward  the  progress  of  Christianity,"  into  the 
Venerable  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  for  which  a  royal  charter  was  secured 
in  1701.  The  chief  work  of  this  corporation 
in  the  eighteenth  century  was  in  the  American 
colonies.  To  these  Dr.  Bray  added  another 
association,  for  the  special  work  of  promoting 
the  conversion  of  Indians  and  negroes.  He 
not  only  influenced  the  early  history  of  Amer- 
ican religious  life,  but  his  societies  became 
patterns  and  forerunners  of  all  those  propa- 
gandist and  philanthropic  associations  by 
which  Protestant  bodies  of  every  sort  have 
supplied  the  place  of  the  religious  orders  of 
the  Roman  Church. 

The  Propagation  Society  selected  for  its 
first  missionary  George  Keith,  perhaps  one 
of  the  most  disputatious  religionists  that  ever 
vexed  the  souls  of  his  fellow-men.  Born  in 
Aberdeen,  he  left  the  Scotch  Kirk  to  join  the 
Society  of  Friends,  the  most  aggressive  and 
the  most  sorely  beset  by  foes  of  all  the  sects 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  He  threw  him- 
self into  the  fray  for  years  as  their  apologist, 
and  endured  long  imprisonments  for  the  sake 
of  his  opinions.  While  teaching  the  Friends' 
School  in  Philadelphia,  he  won  notoriety  by 
out-quakering  the  Quakers,  assailing  the 
leading  members  of  the  society  for  their  sins 
in  keeping  slaves,  in  accepting  public  office, 
and  in  making  laws,  as  well  as  for  divers 
other  departures  from  what  he  deemed  the 
primitive  Quaker  way.  He  managed  to  make 
himself  pestiferous,  and  to  rend  the  little 
newly  planted  Pennsylvania  world  into  two 
parties,  leading  out  in  1691  a  sect  of  those 
who  modestly  distinguished  themselves  as  the 
Christian  Quakers,  but  who  were  popularly 
known  as  Keithian  Quakers.  These  he  de- 


serted in  turn  to  take  orders  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Returning  as  an  itinerant  mission- 
ary of  the  Venerable  Society,  he  had  the  sat- 
isfaction of  bedeviling  his  old  enemies  to  his 
heart's  content.  Thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  writings  and  usages  of  the  Quakers,  he 
thrust  himself  into  their  assemblies  with  the 
thick-skinned  indelicacy  of  a  hardened  po- 
lemic, assailing  their  most  cherished  doctrines 
and  denouncing  their  most  revered  leaders 
in  their  own  meeting-houses.  This,  it  is  true, 
was  only  rendering  measure  for  measure  to 
the  contentious  Quakers  of  that  day;  but  it 
was  a  mode  of  warfare  to  which  the  later 
and  more  dignified  Church  of  England  mis- 
sionaries would  not  have  resorted,  and  it  is 
to  the  credit  of  the  Society  for  Propagating 
the  Gospel  that  Keith  made  but  a  single 
brief  and  bitter  campaign.  On  his  return  to 
England  he  published  a  narrative  of  his  trav- 
els, wherein  he  related  his  doughty  combats 
with  illiterate  preachers,  ill-fitted  to  answer 
an  assailant  whose  expertness  had  been 
gained  in  warfare  on  so  many  sides  of  the 
question.  Then  after  all  these  stormy  years  of 
restless  disputations,  Keith  settled  down  in  an 
obscure  English  vicarage,  where,  besides  petty 
religious  disputes,  he  employed  his  leisure  in 
writing  a  work  on  longitude.  Some  of  the 
"  Keithians  "  in  Pennsylvania  followed  him 
into  the  Church  of  England;  many  others 
became  Baptists. 

One   of   the   chief  disadvantages   of  the 
English  Church  in   the  colonies   arose  from 


ANCIENT    SILVER    COMMUNION    SERVICE    BELONGING    TO 
CHRIST    CHURCH,    PHILADELPHIA. 


the  fact  that  many  of  its  ministers  held  Eng- 
lish notions  of  the  church's  position  and 
rights.  In  their  view  the  dissenters  could  at 
best  claim  only  the  barest  tolerance :  the 
church,  where  it  was  not  established,  was  the 
heir-at-law  unjustly  kept  out  of  an  entailed 
inheritance  by  usurpers.  From  their  stand- 
point there  was  no  reason  to  scruple  over  the 
appropriation  to  their  use  of  meeting-houses 


n6 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


put  into  their  hands  by  force,  as'  by  Andros 
in  Boston.  When,  in  1702,  Lord  Cornbury  fled 
to  Jamaica,  on  Long  Island,  from  an  epi- 
demic, he  accepted  from  the  Presbyterian 
minister  the  loan  of  the  parsonage  built  by 
the  town ;  but  when  Cornbury  left  Jamaica, 
he  politely  returned  the  house,  not  to  its 
former  occupant,  but  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land missionary,  alleging  that  since  the  house 
had  been  built  by  a  public  tax  it  ought  to  be- 
long to  the  Established  Church.  He  also  by 
mere  force,  without  process  of  law,  put  the 
Episcopal  party  into  possession  of  the  new 
stone  meeting-house  of  this  Puritan  town ; 
this  they  held  for  twenty-five  years.  Bigotry 
was  common  to  all  parties  in  that  age  :  it  was 
not  surprising  that  churchmen  should  regard 
Cornbury's  transaction  as  nothing  more  than 
the  giving  back  to  the  church  of  its  own 
again;  but  the  complicity  of  clergymen  in 
such  acts  of  arbitrary  injustice  begot  a  prej- 
udice against  the  church. 

The  "  missioners  "  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  were  generally 
chosen  with  care,  and  there  were  few  scandals 
among  them.  The  Propagation  Society,  in- 
deed, was  the  principal  agent  in  raising  the 
character  of  the  English  Church  clergy  in 
America.  A  large  proportion  of  the  mission- 
aries of  the  society  were  of  American  birth, 


BISHOP  BERKELEY'S  FLAGON,-  NOW  IN  POSSESSION  OF 
DANIEL  BERKELEY   UPDIKK,  ESQ. 

and  these  had  a  far  stronger  hold  on  the  col- 
onists than  an  equal  number  of  men  born  in 
England  could  have  gained.  There  were 
among  them  men  of  distinguished  ability  and 
high  character.  Such  divines  as  Cutler  and 
Johnson  and  Chandler  could  not  but  make 
the  Church  of  England  respected  even  where 
it  was  not  loved.  To  the  missionaries  of  the 


society  is  due  the  great  and  perennial  honor 
of  having  been  first  to  undertake,  in  any  sys- 
tematic way,  the  education  of  negro  slaves. 
The  very  first  missionary  sent  to  South  Caro- 
lina promptly  began  it,  and  it  was  carried  for- 
ward by  those  who  came  after  him  in  most  of 
the  parishes  in  that  province.  In  1742  Com- 
missary Garden  founded  a  negro  school  in 
Charleston,  in  which  slaves  were  taught  by 
slave  teachers  ;  these  last,  curiously  enough, 
were  the  property  of  the  Venerable  Society, 
trained  for  the  purpose.  That  no  great  result 
could  come  among  thousands  of  slaves  from 
the  teaching  of  reading  and  the  catechism  to 
a  few  house-servants  is  evident,  but  the  persist- 
ent efforts  to  do  what  could  be  done  were 
most  commendable.  More  hopeful  was  the 
work  of  "  honest  Elias  Neau,"  the  society's 
catechist  in  New  York.  Before  he  engaged  in 
teaching  negroes  he  bore  the  nickname  of"  the 
new  reformer,"  because  he  was  the  leader  of 
a  little  society  of  eight  people  "  for  the  refor- 
mation of  manners,"  in  the  rather  immoral 
and  very  polyglot  town  at  the  south  end  of 
Manhattan  Island.  Catechists  were  afterward 
employed  among  the  slaves  in  Philadelphia  and 
elsewhere,  but  Neau  was  without  doubt  the 
most  successful  teacher  of  negroes  in  the  colo- 
nies. In  order  to  stir  up  the  planters  to  in- 
struct their  slaves,  especially  to  teach  them  the 
rudiments  of  the  Christian  religion,  the  society 
circulated  many  thousand  copies  of  a  sermon 
preached  by  Bishop  Fleetwood  in  1711,  and 
of  Bishop  Gibson's  letters  on  the  subject,  issued 
in  1727.  To  this  exertion  for  the  slaves  must 
be  added,  in  any  summary  of  the  work  of  this 
excellent  society,  the  missions  to  the  Indians, 
which  cannot  be  treated  here.* 


DEAN    BERKELEY S    PROJECT. 

THE  most  curious  episode  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  America  is  the  at- 
tempt set  on  foot  by  the  famous  Dean  Berke- 
ley, afterward  Bishop  of  Cloyne,  to  convert  the 
Indians  and  to  better  the  religious  condition 
of  the  continent.  This  he  proposed  to  do  by 
founding  a  college  in  Bermuda  for  the  educa- 
tion of  American  savages  and  clergymen. 
The  proposition,  coming  from  a  man  of  his 
eminence,  attracted  much  attention ;  for  at 
the  age  of  twenty-five  Berkeley  had  made 
a  permanent  and  important  contribution  to 
scientific  speculation  in  his  "  Theory  of  Vis- 
ion," and  at  twenty-six  he  had  printed  his 
"  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  in  which 

*  I  am  much  indebted  to  the  Rev.  H.  W.  Tucker, 
the  present  able  Secretary  of  the  Propagation  Society, 
for  giving  me  the  opportunity  to  examine  the  manu- 
script records  of  the  society  and  the  White-Kennett 
library. 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE   COLONIES. 

he  pushed  idealism  to  its  logical  ex- 
treme, and  placed  himself  among 
the  founders  of  philosophic  systems. 
He  was  not  only  a  philosopher  of 
world-wide  fame,  but  a  poet  of  true 
inspiration  and  graceful  expression. 
His  renown,  his  handsome  person, 
and  his  amiable  temper,  as  well  as 
his  wide  knowledge  and  delightful 
gift  for  conversation,  made  him 
sought  after  in  society  and  a  favor- 
ite at  court,  while  the  purity  and 
manly  disinterestedness  of  his  char- 
acter gave  him  a  lustrous  singularity 
among  the  wits  of  his  time.  Fortune 
treated  him  kindly ;  he  inherited  four 
thousand  pounds  by  the  caprice  of 
a  lady  with  whom  he  had  but  slight 
acquaintance,  and  at  forty  years  of 
age  he  was  promoted  to  the  best 
deanery  in  Ireland.  But  in  the  height 
of  his  prosperity  he  published  in 
1724  his  "  Proposal  for  better  sup- 
plying of  Churches  in  our  Foreign 
Plantations."  His  plan  was  to  raise 
up  clergymen  and  educate  Indians 
by  means  of  a  training  college  in 
the  Bermudas,  and  he  offered  to  re- 
sign his  deanery  and  accept  a  paltry 
hundred  pounds  a  year  as  the  head 
of  this  enterprise.  Nothing  could 
have  surprised  the  world  of  that  day 
more  than  such  an  act  of  self- 
abnegation  on  the  part  of  a  church- 
man who  saw  the  highest  promotions 
thrown  in  his  way  by  the  favor  of  the 
great.  No  impulse  could  well  have 
been  nobler  than  this  to  plant  the 
seeds  of  learning  and  virtue  in  a 
new  continent,  while  few  schemes 
were  ever  so  utterly  visionary  as 
this  one  elaborated  by  Berkeley  with- 
out any  reckoning  with  the  tremen- 
dous difficulties  and  untoward  con- 
ditions of  his  task.  But  it  was  a 
"  bubble  period  "  in  philanthropy  as 
well  as  in  finance;  the  English  world 
was  in  a  state  of  hopefulness,  and 
a  project  was  rendered  plausible  to 
the  imagination  of  that  time  merely 
by  its  largeness  and  the  ingenuity 
with  which  it  was  constructed.  All 
kinds  of  social  and  agricultural  pro- 
jects for  America  were  rife.  English 
felons  were  to  be  reformed  by  fill- 
ing a  Virginia  county  with  them  and 
setting  them  to  raising  hemp  for  a 
livelihood ;  proposals  had  already  appeared  for 
planting  the  extreme  south  of  Carolina  with 
stranded  debtors  from  English  jails ;  Dr.  Bray 
and  his  associates,  and  the  dissenters  as  well, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 17. 


117 


(FROM 


DEAN    BERKELEY,    AFTERWARD    BISHOP   OF    CLOVNE. 
PAINTING  BY  JOHN    SMYBERT,    IN    POSSESSION   OF  YALE   UNIVERSITY.) 

were  for  converting  the  negroes  to  Christianity 
out  of  hand;  Oglethorpe,  with  his  bundle  of 
strange  socialistic  and  agricultural  projects, 
was  only  just  below  the  horizon ;  Wesley  and 


n8 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE    COLONIES. 


RUINS   OF   TRINITY    CHURCH,    NEW    YORK,    AFTER 
THE  GREAT  FIRE    IN    1776. 

his  quixotic  Indian  mission,  and  Whitefield  and 
his  expensive  orphanage,  were  soon  to  appear. 
Even  in  an  age  less  susceptible,  the  contagion 
of  Berkeley's  refined  enthusiasm,  supported  by 
his  eloquence,  might  have  won  over  cool  heads 
to  such  a  project.  The  cynical  Swift  laughed  at 
him  but  helped  him ;  the  wits  of  the  Scriblerus 
Club,  after  rallying  him,  surrendered  to  the 
captivating  eloquence  with  which  he  defended 
his  scheme  and  confessed  to  a  momentary  im- 
pulse to  go  with  him.  Statesmen  listened  to 
him,  and  George  I.  granted  him  a  charter,  and, 
with  the  assent  of  parliament,  set  apart  twenty 
thousand  pounds  of  the  proceeds  of  lands  in  St. 
Christopher  for  the  benefit  of  the  new  college 
in  the  Bermudas.  Berkeley  also  received  con- 
siderable sums  in  private  gifts  for  his  enterprise. 

In  order  to  show  to  all  the  sincerity  of  his 
intentions,  he  prepared  to  set  out  for  America 
without  waiting  to  receive  the  public  funds 
promised  to  him.  But  he  regarded  his  enter- 
prise rather  in  the  spirit  of  a  poet  than  in  that 
of  a  missionary.  Along  with  his  first  proposals, 
set  forth  in  plain  prose,  he  had  sent  to  Lord 
Perceval  as  early  as  1725  a  draft  of  his  noble 
prophetic  poem  on  America,  and  he 
persuaded  Pope  to  translate  Horace's 
description  of  the  Fortunate  Islands, 
which  he  considered  applicable  to 
the  Bermudas.  With  these  islands  he 
had  become  enamored  without  so 
much  as  ever  having  a  sight  of  them. 
To  his  bride,  who  sailed  with  him  in 
1728,  he  presented  a  spinning-wheel 
as  a  token  that  she  was  to  lead  the 
life  of  a  plain  farmer's  wife,  "  and 
wear  stuff  of  her  own  spinning." 

Instead  of  going  direct  to  Ber- 
muda he  set  out  for  Rhode  Island, 
touching  at  Virginia.  It  was  only  on 
arriving  in  America  that  the  absurd- 
ity of  a  scheme  of  propagandism 
constructed  in  thin  air.  by  a  specu- 
lative thinker  in  his  closet,  became 
apparent.  In  England,  Berkeley 
had  been  surrounded  by  people 
whose  ignorance  of  America  was 
more  dense  than  his  own.  He  might 


silence  the  raillery  of  the  wits  of  the  Scriblerus 
Club  by  his  eloquent  talk,  but  the  wits  of  Vir- 
ginia knew  the  Indians  too  well  to  be  for  a 
moment  beguiled.  The  attempt  to  educate 
young  savages  at  William  and  Mary  under  the 
patronage  of  Governor  Spotswood  had  but  re- 
cently proved  a  failure.  Most  of  the  Indian 
students  had  died  from  the  change  of  habit ;  the 
rest  had  relapsed  to  savagery  on  their  return 
to  their  tribes,  or  remained  as  menials  orvicious 
idlers  in  the  settlement.  Byrd,  the  brightest 
of  the  Virginians,  laughed  at  Berkeley  for  an- 
other Quixote,  and  wrote  to  Berkeley's  friend, 
Lord  Perceval,  that  the  dean  would  "  need  the 
gift  of  miracles  to  persuade  "  the  savages  "  to 
leave  their  country  and  venture  themselves 
on  the  great  ocean  on  the  temptation  of  being 
converted."  Colonel  Byrd  declared  his  belief 
that  it  was  Waller's  poetic  description  of  the 
islands  that  had  "  kidnapt"  Berkeley  "over  to 
Bermuda."  And  indeed  Berkeley  himself,  by 
the  time  he  was  fairly  settled  for  a  sojourn  at 
Newport,  had  begun  to  see  the  doubtfulness  of 
the  Bermuda  part  of  the  project,  and  to  con- 
sider the  question  of  translating  his  college  to 
Rhode  Island. 

During  his  residence  of  two  or  three  years 
at  Newport  he  made  many  friends,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  for  more  lovable  a  man  could 
not  well  be.  Such  of  the  Church  of  England 
missionaries  as  were  near  enough  met  from 
time  to  time  in  a  sort  of  synod  at  his  house 
and  came  strongly  under  his  influence,  but 
the  friendships  of  a  soul  so  catholic  were  not 
confined  to  his  own  communion.  He  waited 
in  vain  for  the  twenty  thousand  pounds  from 
the  Government.  When  at  last  his  patience 
was  exhausted,  Gibson,  the  Bishop  of  London, 


THE    OLD    NARRAGANSETT    CHURCH    IN    RHODE    ISLAND. 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE   COLONIES. 


119 


demanded  on  his  behalf  a  categorical  reply 
from  Walpole,  and  the  Prime  Minister,  in  dip- 
lomatic but  unmistakable  words,  declared  that 
the  money  would  never  be  paid. 

The  refusal  of  Walpole  gave  Berkeley  a 
pretext  to  return  to  England  and  take  up  his 
own  proper  career  once  more.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  he  regretted  it,  for  his  stay  in 
America  must  have  brought  him  many  cruel 
disenchantments.  He  found  the  once  compara- 
tively dense  Indian  population  of  Rhode  Island 
already  in  1730  dwindled  to  one  thousand, 
and  these  were  "  servants  and  laborers  for 
the  English,"  doomed  to  extermination  by 
their  hopeless  proclivity  for  drink.  The  ri- 
valry and  polemical  collisions  between  the  An- 
glican missionaries  and  the  established  Puritan 
clergy  were  doubtless  repulsive  to  him;  he 
certainly  appears  to  have  done  much  to  soften 
the  religious  asperities  growing  out  of  the 
situation.  With  his  prestige,  he  easily  might 
have  secured  from  private  munificence  suf- 
ficient money  to  begin  his  college  and  to 
carry  it  to  such  success  as  was  possible,  had 
he  been  made  of  missionary  stuff.  Indeed,  he 
afterward  wrote  to  the  first  head  of  King's 
College  in  New  York  :  "  Colleges  from  small 
beginnings  grow  great  by  subsequent  bequests 
and  benefactions."  But  there  had  probably 
come  to  him  in  these  years  of  retirement  that 
disillusion  which  is  hardest  of  all  to  bear  — 
the  discovery  that  in  following  an  impulse  en- 
tirely generous,  one  has  misunderstood  his 
vocation,  wasted  his  best  years,  and  spent  the 
never-to-be-recovered  forces  of  his  prime. 
Even  while  he  was  at  Newport,  Berkeley  had 
relapsed  into  philosophy  and  passed  his  time 
for  the  most  part  not  as  the  missionary  he 
wished  to  be,  but  as  the  thinker  nature  had 
made  him.  At  Newport  he  wrote  his  "  Al- 
ciphron,"  and  his  letters  thence  show  that  his 
chief  interest  lay  in  discussing,  not  the  abo- 
rigines or  the  rival  ecclesiastical  systems  of  the 
colonists,  but  Newton's  ideas  of  space  and 
Locke's  notions  of  matter.  It  could  not  have 
been  Walpole's  refusal  alone  that  sent  him 
back  to  Europe,  "touched"  in  "health  and 
spirits."  He  no  doubt  felt  keenly  his  mistake, 
and  perhaps  recognized  some  justice  in  that 
"  raillery  of  European  wits  "  which  he  would 
liked  to  have  despised. 

The  real  value  of  Berkeley's  visit  to  Amer- 
ica he  himself  probably  never  fully  understood. 
The  simple  presence  of  a  man  of  renown  con- 
secrated to  intellectual  pursuits  and  inspired 
by  the  most  genuine  philanthropy  was  of  in- 
estimable value  in  a  sordid  provincial  society 
where  the  leaders  had  been  chiefly  rich  specu- 
lators, successful  cod-fishermen,  Guinea  traders 
in  slaves,  and  rum-distillers, —  or  at  best  relig- 
ious disputants  and  provincial  politicians.  To 


the  religious  life  of  the  northern  colonies  the 
Dean  of  Derry  was  a  sort  of  dove  from  the 
skies.  He  impressed  upon  the  church  mission- 


PULPIT    OF    TRINITY    CHURCH,    NEWPORT,    R.    I. 

aries  the  loveliness  of  charity  and  forbearance, 
and  he  embraced  in  his  affections  those  for 
whom  he  invented  the  title,  "  Brethren  of  the 
Separation."  When  he  left  he  gave  a  noble 
pledge  of  his  good  feeling  toward  those  who 
differed  from  him,  in  making  liberal  gifts  in 
books  and  land  to  Yale  and  Harvard  colleges. 
This  was  propagating  a  sort  of  Christianity  that 
had  never  been  revealed  to  America  before. 
In  a  sermon  preached  before  the  Venerable 
Society  after  his  return,  he  praises  its  mission- 
aries particularly  in  that  they  were  at  that 
time  "  living  on  a  more  friendly  foot  with  their 
brethren  of  the  separation,  who  on  their  part 
are  very  much  come  off  from  that  narrowness 
of  spirit  which  formerly  kept  them  at  such 
a  distance  from  us."  Berkeley,  by  his  mere 
presence,  did  better  for  the  colonies  than  he 
could  have  done  with  a  college  six  hundred 
miles  off  the  coast. 


120 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  IN   THE   COLONIES. 


AN    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH 
WITHOUT    A    BISHOP. 

THE  most  salient  fact  in 
the  history  of  the  Church 
of  England  in  America  is 
that  in  the  whole  period  of 
its  existence  —  about  a  cen- 
tury and  three-quarters  — 
no  bishop  of  its  commun- 
ion ever  set  foot  in  this 
hemisphere,  no  church 
building  was  ever  episco- 
pally  consecrated,  no  cate- 
chumen ever  received  con- 
firmation, and  no  resident  of 
America  was  ever  ordained 
without  making  the  tedious 
voyage  to  England,  ex- 
posed to  the  dangers  of  the 
sea  and  to  the  tolerable  cer- 
tainty of  taking  the  small- 
pox upon  his  arrival  in 
Europe.  In  1638  Arch- 
bishop Laud,  with  charac- 
teristic directness,  proposed 
to  send  a  bishop  to  America, 
and  to  support  him  "  with 
some  forces  to  compel  if 
he  could  not  otherwise 
persuade  obedience."  But 
all  the  means  of  persua- 
sion at  Laud's  disposal  were 
soon  after  in  requirement  to 
compel  obedience  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland.  Laud's 
scheme,  in  its  spirit  and 
perhaps  in  some  of  its  de- 
tails, was  revived  in  the 
first  years  after  the  resto- 
ration, when,  in  1662,  Sir 
Robert  Carr  was  thought  of 
for  a  general  governor  of 
all  the  colonies.  He  was 
to  be  accompanied  by  a  major-general  and  a 
bishop  with  a  suffragan ;  *  but  this  dangerous 
procession  of  formidable  authorities,  by  whom- 
soever proposed,  was  prudently  laid  aside 
after  the  arrival  of  delegates  who  brought  the 
humble,  not  to  say  cringing,  submission  of 
Massachusetts  to  the  king.  In  1672  an  at- 
tempt was  made  to  establish  the  episcopate 
in  Virginia  with  Dr.  Alexander  Murray  for 
bishop. 

In  the  numerous  later  efforts  to  secure  a 


CARICATURE    ON    THE    PROPOSITION    TO    ESTABUS 

(FROM    A    COPY    IN     POSSESSION    OF    BISHOP     POTTER.) 


EPISCOPATE. 


bishop  many  devices  were  suggested  for  over- 
coming the  difficulty  about  his  support.  Long 
before  Dean  Berkeley  applied  for  part  of  the 
proceeds  of  lands  in  St.  Christopher  others 
had  thought  of  the  availability  of  this  source 
of  supply,  and  it  was  Queen  Mary's  design 
that  these  should  be  devoted  to  the  support 
of  four  American  bishops.  Quit  rents  in  that 
rogue's  refuge,  the  debatable  land  between 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  the  rents  and 
revenues  from  the  sale  of  lands  in  the  Dela- 


*  This  statement  is  made  on  the  authority  of  Hutch-  so  well  informed  as   Hawks  should  not  have  known 

inson,  who  cites  a  letter  of  Norton's.    Dr.  Hawks  ven-  that  the  famous  John  Norton's  mission  to  England  was 

tured  the  curious  suggestion  that   1662  was  a  mistake  in  1662,  and  equally  strange  that  he  should  suppose  a 

for   1672;  and  Bishop  Perry,  in  his  "History  of  the  letter   to  have  been  written  in   1672  by  Norton,  who 

American  Episcopal  Church,"  copies  Hawks's  sugges-  died  in  1663. 
tion  without  investigation.  It  seems  strange  that  a  writer 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND   IN  THE    COLONIES. 


121 


ware  counties,  and  those  derivable  from  the 
disputed  gore  between  New  York  and  Con- 
necticut were  all  suggested.  A  very  considera- 
ble fund  was  raised  by  private  contributions 
and  bequests  made  at  various  times  for  the 
endowment  of  bishoprics  in  America. 

From  the  time  of  the  organization  of  the 
Propagation  Society,  in  1701,  the  contention 
for  American  bishops  was  almost  without  in- 
tei mission.  At  one  time  1  )ean  Swift  had  hopes 
of  receiving  such  an  appointment ;  if  his  ex- 
lations  had  been  met,  the  biting  pen  that 
wrote  the  "  Proposal  for  the  Universal  Use  of 
Irish  Manufactures"  and  the  Drapier  letters 
might  have  found  in  the  abuses  of  the  colonial 
administration  occasions  for  tormenting  more 
than  one  government  at  London.  At  another 
time  the  Bishop  of  London  proposed  to  take 
the  matter  into  his  own  hands  and  ordain  as  a. 
surlragan  Colebatch,  who  had  been  selected  by 
the  clergy  of  Maryland;  but  the  provincial  au- 
thorities sued  out  a  writ  of  tie  exeat  regno,  and 
prevented  the  bishop-elect  from  going  to  Lon- 
don for  consecration. 

The  fatal  obstacle  to  the  development  of  the 
English  Church  in  America  was  the  lien  of  Si- 
amese twinship  that  bound  it  to  the  prevalent 
system  of  colonial  government.  Religious  or 
moral  considerations  had  small  weight  with 
cabinet  ministers.  "  Damn  their  souls,  let  them 
make  tobacco,"  said  one  of  these,  when  ap- 
pealed to  in  behalf  of  the  Virginians.  "  A  very- 
great  lord,"  when  addressed  in  favor  of  Berk- 
eley's project,  frankly  expressed  his  belief  that  it 
would  be  impolitic  for  the  English  government 
to  do  anything  to  remove  the  ignorance  which 
made  the  red  men  inferior,  or  the  sectarian  di- 
visions which  weakened  the  colonists.  There 
were  certain  political  forces  always  opposed  to 
the  setting  up  of  bishops  in  America.  Colonial 
governors  and  their  friends  dreaded  it,  partly 
from  that  jealousy  of  any  rival  authority  which 
involved  so  many  governors  in  quarrels  with 
the  Bishop  of  London's  commissaries,  and 
partly  because  English  precedents  gave  to 
bishops  the  fees  of  marriage  license  and  pro- 
bate, which  were  considerable  perquisites  of 
the  governors.  Thereswas  also  an  objection 
of  state-craft :  it  was  believed  by  English  min- 
isters of  that  time  that  to  give  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  American  churches  into  the  hands  of 
resident  bishops  would  tend  to  unite  the  col- 
onies and  lessen  their  dependence  on  the 
mother-country.  But  perhaps  the  most  for- 
midable obstacle  of  all  was  offered  by  the  un- 
tiring opposition  of  non-conformists  in  America 
and  their  friends  in  England. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize  with  de- 
vout and  zealous  adherents  of  the  English 
Church  who  desired  to  complete  its  organi- 
zation in  the  colonies  according  to  its  proper 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 18. 


and  essential  principles.  While  it  had  no 
bishops,  there  was,  as  Bishop  Sherlock  inti- 
mated, only  "  the  appearance  of  an  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  plantations."  Fair-minded  dis- 
senters, such  as  President  Davies  in  America 
and  Dr.  Doddridge  in  England, conceded  the 
justice  of  the  demand  for  American  bishops. 
On  the  other  hand  there  is  much  to  be  said 
for  those  who  so  zealously  opposed  an  Amer- 
ican episcopate.  The  Episcopal  Church  never 
renounced  its  claim  to  be  established  by  law 
and  supported  by  taxation  in  all  the  English 
dominions  ;  and  there  were  not  wanting  cler- 
gymen in  America  imprudent  enough  to  sug- 
gest that  the  English  parliament  should  fix 
the  stipend  of  incumbents  even  in  dissenting 
colonies  like  Pennsylvania.  So  long  a.s  parlia- 
ment insisted  on  its  paramount  right  to  legis- 
late for  the  American  provinces,  no  safeguard 
or  proviso  could  be  devised  by  human  inge- 
nuity strong  enough  to  allay  the  apprehensions 
of  non-conformists  that  the  ordination  of 
American  bishops  would  add  another  to  the 
authorities  in  America  responsible  only  to 
England,  and  thus  add  another  to  the  powers 
adverse  to  the  liberties  of  the  colonists.  Bish- 
ops Sherlock,  Seeker,  and  Butler  gave  the 
most  solemn,  and  doubtless  sincere,  assurances 
of  the  harmlessness  of  their  intentions;  but 
there  was  no  way  by  which  they  could  go 
bail  for  those  who  should  come  after  them. 
It  was  urged  that  the  common  law  of  Eng- 
land vested  a  great  deal  of  power  in  the  bish- 
ops, and  that  if  bishops  should  be  set  up  in 
America  without  limitations  of  their  powers 
by  statutory  enactment  of  parliament  they 
would  be  a  perpetual  menace  to  liberty. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  heavy  and 
aggressive  hand  of  the  church,  where  it  had 
power,  did  not  tend  to  quiet  the  fears  of  the 
colonists.  The  non-churchmen  in  the  province 
of  New  York  greatly  outnumbered  the  church- 
men :  they  claimed  to  be  fourteen-fifteenths  of 
the  population ;  but  the  assembly  strove  in  vain 
to  release  the  dissenters  of  New  York  City 
and  its  neighborhood  from  paying  taxes  for  the 
support  of  the  English  churches.  The  Epis- 
copalians in  Connecticut  complained,  with 
reason,  that  they  paid  tithes  to  support  the 
Puritan  clergy,  and  in  later  times  they  were 
able  to  evade  it;  but  the  Episcopal  clergy  in 
New  York  resisted  every  effort  of  the  mem- 
bers of  other  religious  bodies  to  relieve  them- 
selves'from  a  like  injustice,  and  the  dominance 
of  churchmen  in  the  governor's  council 
enabled  them  to  defeat  the  will  of  the  repre- 
sentative assembly.  Propositions  to  allow 
Presbyterians  to  make  oath  without  kissing 
the  Bible,  and  laws  to  enable  one  and  another 
of  the  non-Episcopal  bodies  to  hold  property, 
were  at  different  times  defeated  in  the  same 


122 


THE    CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND   IN  THE    COLONIES. 


way.  The  dissenting  churches  could  not  even 
gain  the  power  to  hold  their  burying-grounds. 
Against  a  law  to  enable  the  Presbyterian 
churches  to  hold  real  estate,  the  rector  and 
wardens  of  Trinity  Church  appeared  by  coun- 
sel in  r  720 ;  and  when  another  act  of  the  same 
kind  was  sent  to  England  for  confirmation,  in 
1766,  the  Bishop  of  London  appeared  twice 
before  the  Board  of  Trade  to  compass  its 
rejection.  Even  the  charter  of  a  Boston  mis- 
sionary society  intended  to  propagate  Chris- 
tianity among  the  Indians  was  defeated  in 
1762,  as  was  alleged,  by  the  influence  of  the 
primate;  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's 
objection  to  the  liberality  of  the  scheme  over- 
threw Whitefield's  project  for  getting  a  charter 
in  England  for  a  college  at  Bethesda.  All  the 
assurances,  solemnly  and  repeatedly  given, 
that  bishops  in  America  would  meddle  with 
nobody  but  their  own  clergy  went  for  nothing, 
so  long  as  prelates  in  England  and  church- 
men in  America  used  the  authority  of  the 
crown  to  prevent  dissenters,  even  where  they 
were  in  an  overwhelming  majority,  as  in  New 
York,  from  attaining  an  equality  of  legal  stand- 
ing with  the  English  Church.  When  the  Epis- 
copal clergy  in  the  Northern  and  Middle 
colonies  combined  to  secure  a  bishop,  they 
were  confronted  with  a  union  between  the 
Presbyterians  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Puri- 
tans of  Connecticut,  who  opposed  their  re- 
quest unless  the  appointment  should  be 
accompanied  by  a  statute  strictly  limiting  the 
power  of  American  bishops.  Some  were  un- 
willing that  bishops  should  come  even  under 
restrictions.  There  was  much  bigotry,  no 
doubt,  but  there  was  also,  under  the  circum- 
stances, an  appearance  of  reason  in  the  reso- 
lutions of  the  more  violent  dissenters  to  keep 
bishops  "  from  getting  their  feet  into  the  stir- 
rup at  all." 

The  protracted  struggle  over  this  question 
at  length  became  part  of  that  great  conflict 
which  was  formed  by  the  confluence  of  many 
tributary  rills  of  minor  exasperation,  and  which 
resulted  in  precipitating  the  independence  of 
the  British  settlements  in  America.  When  once 
party  passions  were  inflamed  to  a  white  heat 
by  the  aggressions  of  the  British  parliament, 
every  proposition  for  the  establishment  of 
bishops  in  the  colonies  added  to  the  violence 
of  the  convulsion  that  was  soon  to  overthrow 
not  only  the  English  Church,  but  the  English 
power  in  America.  . 

There  were  prudent  churchmen  who  saw 
that  the  times  were  inauspicious.  Dr.  Terrick, 
Bishop  of  London,  sent  a  paper  to  the  Board 


of  Trade,  in  which  he  intimated  a  doubt  that 
it  might  not  be  "  consistent  with  the  princi- 
ples of  true  policy  "  to  appoint  a  bishop  for 
America  under  the  existing  circumstances; 
and  he  suppressed  the  addresses  to  the  throne 
sent  to  him  by  the  English  Church  clergy  of 
Connecticut,  New  York,  and  New  Jersey. 
In  these  exigent  times  political  considerations 
came  to  outweigh  religious  preferences,  and 
Whig  churchmen  looked  on  the  American  epis- 
copate as  a  Tory  measure.  Many  even  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  in  the  Southern  colonies,  sym- 
pathizing with  the  struggle  for  liberty,  were 
opposed  to  the  establishment  of  an  American 
episcopate.  In  1771  few  of  the  Virginia  clergy 
could  be  persuaded  to  advocate  the  appoint- 
ment of  bishops  for  America;  four  of  them 
signed  a  declaration  that  the  establishment  of 
an  episcopate  so  unseasonably  "  would  tend 
greatly  to  weaken  the  connection  between  the 
mother-country  and  her  colonies,  .  .  .  and 
to  give  ill-disposed  persons  occasion  to  raise 
such  disturbances  as  may  endanger  the  very 
existence  of  the  British  Empire  in  America." 
For  this  the  patriotic  clergymen  received  the 
thanks  of  the  Virginia  assembly,  which  was 
largely  composed  of  churchmen. 

One  of  the  most  grievous  of  the  evils  re- 
sulting from  the  lack  of  bishops  was  that 
every  American  who  would  have  orders  must 
go  to  London  for  them,  and  it  was  estimated 
that  about  a  fifth  of  all  who  crossed  the  sea  for 
this  purpose  lost  their  lives  by  disease  or  ship- 
wreck. The  preponderance  of  Englishmen,  or 
rather  of  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen,  among 
the  clergy;  the  dependence  of  a  part  of  them 
on  English  contributions  for  support;  as  well 
as  the  derivation  of  ecclesiastical  authority 
from  a  "  bishop  at  one  end  of  the  world  and 
his  church  at  the  other,"  as  Bishop  Sherlock 
forcibly  put  it,  prevented  the  church  from 
becoming  rooted  in  America.  In  the  South- 
ern colonies  one  of  the  results  of  the  Revolu- 
tion was  the  disestablishment  of  the  church. 
In  the  Middle  and  Northern  colonies,  where 
the  clergymen  were  missionaries  sustained 
from  England,  and  always  on  the  defensive 
against  the  dominant  religion,  churchmen  in 
disproportionate  numbers  were  driven  to  side 
with  England  in  the  Revolution,  and  clergy- 
men were  expelled  from  their  cures  by  vio- 
lence, or  forced  to  close  their  churches 
because  they  could  not  in  conscience  omit 
the  prayers  for  the  king.  So  that  what  befell 
the  Anglican  Church  in  America  at  the  out- 
break of  the  Revolution  was  little  less  than 
sheer  ruin. 

Edward  Eggleston. 


THE    LIAR. 


JIV    HENRY     1AMKS. 


IN    TWO   PARTS.      1'AKl     I. 


HP',  train  was  half  an  hour 
late  and  the  drive  from 
the  station  longer  than  he 
had  supposed,  so  that  when 
he  reached  the  house  its 
inmates  had  dispersed  to 
dress  for  dinner,  and  he 
was  conducted  straight  to 
his  room.  The  curtains  were  drawn  in  this 
asylum,  the  candles  were  lighted,  the  fire  was 
bright,  and  when  the  servant  had  quickly  put 
out  his  clothes,  the  comfortable  little  place  be- 
came suggestive  —  seemed  to  promise  a  pleas- 
ant house,  a  various  party,  talks,  acquaintances, 
affinities,  to  say  nothing  of  very  good  cheer. 
He  was  too  occupied  with  his  profession  to 
pay  many  country  visits,  but  he  had  heard 
people  who  had  more  time  for  them  speak 
of  establishments  where  "  they  do  you  very 
well."  He  foresaw  that  the  proprietors  of 
Stayes  would  do  him  very  well.  In  his  bed- 
room, at  a  country  house,  he  always  looked 
first  at  the  books  on  the  shelf  and  the  prints 
on  the  walls;  he  considered  that  these  things 
gave  a  sort  of  measure  of  the  culture,  and 
even  the  character,  of  his  hosts.  Though  he 
had  but  little  time  to  devote  to  them  on 
this  occasion,  a  cursory  inspection  assured 
him  that  if  the  literature,  as  usual,  was  mainly 
American  and  humorous,  the  art  did  n't  con- 
sist either  of  the  water-color  studies  of  the 
children,  or  of  "  goody "  engravings.  The 
walls  were  adorned  with  old-fashioned  litho- 
graphs, principally  portraits  of  country  gen- 
tlemen with  high  collars  and  riding-gloves; 
this  suggested  —  and  it  was  encouraging  — 
that  the  tradition  of  portraiture  was  held  in 
esteem.  There  was  the  customary  novel  of 
Mr.  Le  Fanu,  for  the  bedside  (the  ideal  read- 
ing, in  a  country  house,  for  the  hours  after 
midnight).  Oliver  Lyon  could  scarcely  for- 
bear beginning  it  while  he  buttoned  his 
collar. 

Perhaps  that  is  why  he  not  only  found 
every  one  assembled  in  the  hall  when  he 
went  down,  but  perceived,  from  the  way  the 
move  to  dinner  was  instantly  made,  that  they 
had  been  waiting  for  him.  There  was  no 
delay,  to  introduce  him  to  a  lady,  for  he  went 
out,  in  a  group  of  unmatched  men,  without 
this  appendage.  The  men  straggling  behind 


sidled  and  edged,  as  usual,  at  the  door  of 
the  dining-room,  and  the  denouement  of  this 
little  comedy  was  that  he  came  to  his  place 
last  of  all.  This  made  him  think  that  he  was 
in  a  sufficiently  distinguished  company,  for  if 
he  had  been  humiliated  (which  he  was  not), 
he  could  not  have  consoled  himself  with 
the  reflection  that  such  a  fate  was  natural  to 
an  obscure,  struggling  young  artist.  He  could 
no  longer  think  of  himself  as  very  young, 
alas,  and  if  his  position  were  not  as  brilliant 
as  it  ought  to  be,  he  could  no  longer  justify 
it  by  calling  it  a  struggle.  He  was  something 
of  a  celebrity,  and  he  was  apparently  in  a 
society  of  celebrities.  This  idea  added  to  the 
curiosity  with  which  he  looked  up  and  down 
the  long  table  as  he  settled  himself  in  his 
place. 

It  was  a  numerous  party — five  and  twenty 
people ;  rather  an  odd  occasion  to  have  pro- 
posed to  him,  as  he  thought.  He  would  not 
be  surrounded  by  the  quiet  that  ministers  to 
good  work ;  however,  it  had  never  interfered 
with  his  work  to  see  the  spectacle  of  human 
life  before  him  in  the  intervals.  And  though 
he  did  n't  know  it,  it  was  never  quiet  at 
Stayes.  When  he  was  working  well  he  found 
himself  in  that  happy  state  —  the  happiest  of 
all  for  an  artist  —  in  which  things  in  general 
contribute  to  the  particular  idea  and  fall  in 
with  it  —  help  it  on  and  justify  it,  so  that  he 
feels,  for  the  hour,  as  if  nothing  in  the  world 
can  happen  to  him,  even  if  it  come  in  the 
guise  of  disaster  or  suffering,  that  will  not  be 
a  sort  of  addition  to  his  subject.  Moreover, 
there  was  an  exhilaration  (he  had  felt  it  be- 
fore) in  the  rapid  change  of  scene  —  the  jump, 
in  the  dusk  of  the  afternoon,  from  foggy  Lon- 
don and  his  familiar  studio  to  a  center  of 
festivity  in  the  middle  of  Hertfordshire  and  a 
drama  half  acted,  a  drama  of  pretty  women, 
and  noted  men,  and  wonderful  orchids  in 
silver  jars.  He  observed,  as  a  not  unimpor- 
tant fact,  that  one  of  the  pretty  women  was 
beside  him ;  a  gentleman  sat  on  his  other 
hand.  But  he  did  n't  go  into  his  neighbors 
much  as  yet ;  he  was  busy  looking  out  for  Sir 
David,  whom  he  had  never  seen  and  about 
whom  he  naturally  was  curious. 

Evidently,  however,  Sir  David  was  not  at 
dinner,  a  circumstance  sufficiently  explained 


124 


THE  LIAR. 


by  the  other  circumstance  which  constituted 
our  friend's  principal  knowledge  of  him  —  his 
being  ninety  years  of  age.  Oliver  Lyon  had 
looked  forward  with  great  pleasure  to  the 
chance  of  painting  a  nonagenarian,  and 
though  the  old  man's  absence  from  table  was 
something  of  a  disappointment  (it  was  an  op- 
portunity the  less  to  observe  him  before  go- 
ing to  work),  it  seemed  a  sign  that  he  was 
rather  a  sacred,  and  perhaps  therefore  an  im- 
pressive, relic.  Lyon  looked  at  his  son  with 
the  greater  interest  —  wondered  whether  the 
glazed  bloom  of  his  cheek  had  been  transmit- 
ted from  Sir  David.  That  would  be  jolly  to 
paint,  in  the  old  man  —  the  withered  ruddi- 
ness of  a  winter  apple,  especially  if  the  eye 
were  still  alive  and  the  white  hair  carried  out 
the  frosty  look.  Arthur  Ashmore's  hair  had 
a  midsummer  glow,  but  Lyon  was  glad  his 
commission  had  been  to  delineate  the  father 
rather  than  the  son,  in  spite  of  his  never  hav- 
ing seen  the  one,  and  the  other  being  seated 
there  before  him  now  in  the  happy  expansion 
of  successful  hospitality.  Arthur  Ashmore  was 
a  good,  fresh-colored,  thick-necked  English 
gentleman,  but  he  was  just  not  a  subject;  he 
might  have  been  a  farmer,  and  he  might  have 
been  a  banker  —  he  failed  of  homogeneity. 
Mrs.  Ashmore  did  n't  make  up  the  deficiency ; 
she  was  a  large,  bright,  negative  woman,  who 
had  the  same  air  as  her  husband  of  being 
somehow  tremendously  new;  a  sort  of  appear- 
ance of  fresh  varnish  (Lyon  could  n't  tell 
whether  it  came  from  her  complexion  or  from 
her  clothes),  so  that  one  felt  she  ought  to  sit 
in  a  gilt  frame,  suggesting  reference  to  a  cat- 
alogue or  a  price-list.  It  was  as  if  she  were 
already  rather  a  bad,  though  expensive,  por- 
trait, knocked  off  by  an  eminent  hand,  and 
Lyon  had  no  wish  to  copy  that  work.  The 
pretty  woman  on  his  right  was  engaged  with 
her  neighbor,  and  the  gentleman  on  his  other 
side  looked  shrinking  and  scared,  so  that  he 
had  time  to  lose  himself  in  his  favorite  diversion 
of  watching  face  after  face.  This  amusement 
gave  him  the  greatest  pleasure  he  knew,  and 
he  often  thought  it  a  mercy  that  the  human 
mask  did  interest  him,  or  that  it  was  not  less 
successful  than  it  was  (sometimes  it  ran  its 
success  very  close),  since  he  was  to  make  his 
living  by  reproducing  it.  Even  if  Arthur 
Ashmore  would  not  be  inspiring  to  paint  (a 
certain  anxiety  rose  in  him  lest  if  he  should 
make  a  hit  with  her  father-in-law,  Mrs.  Ar- 
thur should  take  it  into  her  head  that  he  had 
now  proved  himself  worthy  to  abordcr  her 
husband) ;  even  if  he  had  looked  a  little  less 
like  a  page  (fine  as  to  print  and  margin)  with- 
out punctuation,  he  would  still  be  a  refresh- 
ing, iridescent  surface.  But  the  gentleman 
four  persons  off —  what  was  he  ?  Would  he  be 


a  subject,  or  was  his  face  only  the  legible 
door-plate  of  his  identity,  burnished  with 
punctual  washing  and  shaving — the  least  thing 
that  was  decent  that  you  would  know  him 
by?  This  face  arrested  Oliver  Lyon  ;  it  struck 
him  at  first  as  very  handsome.  The  gentleman 
might  still  be  called  young,  and  his  features 
were  regular:  he  had  a  plentiful,  fair  mus- 
tache that  curled  up  at  the  ends ;  a  brilliant, 
gallant,  almost  adventurous  air;  and  a  big 
shining  breastpin  in  the  middle  of  his  shirt. 
He  appeared  a  fine,  satisfied  soul,  and  Lyon 
perceived  that  wherever  he  rested  his  friendly 
eye  there  fell  an  influence  as  pleasant  as  the 
September  sun  —  as  if  he  could  make  grapes 
and  pears,  or  even  human  affections,  ripen  by 
looking  at  them.  What  was  odd  in  him  was 
a  certain  mixture  of  the  correct  and  the  ex- 
travagant; as  if  he  were  an  adventurer  imi- 
tating a  gentleman  with  rare  perfection,  or  a 
gentleman  who  had  taken  a  fancy  to  go  about 
with  hidden  arms.  He  might  have  been  a  de- 
throned prince  or  the  war  correspondent  of  a 
newspaper;  he  represented  both  enterprise  and 
tradition,  good  manners  and  bad  taste.  Lyon 
at  length  fell  into  conversation  with  the  lady 
beside  him — they  dispensed,  as  he  had  had 
to  dispense  at  dinner  parties  before,  with  an 
introduction  —  by  asking  who  this  personage 
might  be. 

"  Oh,  he  's  Colonel  Capadose,  don't  you 
know  ?  "  Lyon  did  n't  know,  and  he  asked  for 
further  information.  His  neighbor  had  a  so- 
ciable manner,  and  evidently  was  accustomed 
to  quick  transitions ;  she  turned  from  her  other 
interlocutor  with  a  methodical  air,  as  a  good 
cook  looks  into  the  next  saucepan.  "  He  has 
been  a  great  deal  in  India  —  is  n't  he  rather 
celebrated  ?  "  she  inquired.  Lyon  confessed 
he  had  never  heard  of  him,  and  she  went  on, 
"  Well,  perhaps  he  is  n't ;  but  he  says  he  is,  and 
if  you  think  it,  that 's  just  the  same,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"If  you  think  it?"' 

"  I  mean  if  he  thinks  it  —  that 's  just  as  good, 
I  suppose  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  says  that  which  is 
not?" 

"Oh  dear,  no — because  I  never  know. 
He  is  exceedingly  clever  and  amusing  —  quite 
the  cleverest  person  in  the  house,  unless,  in- 
deed, you  are  more  so.  But  that  I  can't  tell  yet, 
can  I  ?  I  only  know  about  the  people  I  know; 
I  think  that 's  celebrity  enough  !  " 

"  Enough  for  them  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  see  you  're  clever.  Enough  for  me ! 
But  I  have  heard  of  you,"  the  lady  went  on. 
"  I  know  your  pictures ;  I  admire  them.  But  I 
don't  think  you  look  like  them." 

"They  are  mostly  portraits,"  Lyon  said; 
"  and  what  I  usually  try  for  is  not  my  own  re- 
semblance." 


THE   LIAR. 


"  I  see  what  you  mean.  But  they  have 
more  color.  And  now  you  are  going  to  do 
some  one  here  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  invited  to  do  Sir  David.  I  'm 
rather  disappointed  at  not  seeing  him  this 
evening." 

"  Oh,  he  goes  to  bed  at  some  unnatural 
]lour  —  8  o'clock,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
You  know  he  's  rather  an  old  mummy." 

"  An  old  mummy  ?  "  Oliver  Lyon  repeated. 

"  I  mean  he  wears  half  a  dozen  waistcoats, 
and  that  sort  of  thing.  He  's  always  cold." 

"  I  have  never  seen  him,  and  never  seen 
any  portrait  or  photograph  of  him,"  Lyon  said. 
"  I  'm  surprised  at  his  never  having  had  any- 
thing done  —  at  their  waiting  all  these  years." 

"  Ah,  that  's  because  he  was  afraid,  you 
know  ;  it  was  a  kind  of  superstition.  He  was 
sure  that  if  anything  were  done  he  would  die 
directly  afterward.  He  has  only  consented 
to-day." 

"  He  's  ready  to  die,  then  ?  " 

"  Oh,  now  he  's  so  old,  he  does  n't  care." 

"  Well,  I  hope  I  sha'n't  kill  him,"  said  Lyon. 
"  It  was  rather  unnatural  in  his  son  to  send 
for  me." 

"  Oh,  they  have  nothing  to  gain — every- 
thing is  theirs  already !  "  his  companion  re- 
joined, as  if  she  took  this  speech  quite  liter- 
ally. Her  talkativeness  was  systematic  —  she 
fraternized  as  seriously  as  she  might  have 
played  whist.  "  They  do  as  they  like  —  they 
fill  the  house  with  people  —  they  have  carte 
blanche." 

"  I  see  —  but  there  's  still  the  title." 

"  Yes,  but  what  is  it  ?  " 

Our  artist  broke  into  laughter  at  this,  where- 
at his  companion  stared.  Before  he  had  re- 
covered himself  she  was  scouring  the  plain 
with  her  other  neighbor.  The  gentleman  on 
his  left  at  last  risked  an  observation,  and  they 
had  some  fragmentary  talk.  This  personage 
played  his  part  with  difficulty ;  he  uttered  a 
remark  as  a  lady  fires  a  pistol,  looking  the 
other  way.  To  catch  the  ball  Lyon  had  to 
bend  his  ear,  and  this  movement,  after  some 
minutes,  led  to  his  observing  a  lady  who  was 
seated  on  the  same  side,  beyond  his  interlocu- 
tor. Her  profile  was  presented  to  him,  and  at 
first  he  was  only  struck  with  its  beauty ;  then 
it  produced  an  impression  still  more  agreeable 
—  a  sense  of  undimmed  remembrance  and  in- 
timate association.  He  had  not  recognized 
her  on  the  instant,  only  because  he  had  so  lit- 
tle expected  to  see  her  there;  he  had  not 
seen  her  anywhere  for  so  long,  and  no  news 
of  her  ever  came  to  him.  She  was  often  in  his 
thoughts,  but  she  had  passed  out  of  his  life. 
He  thought  of  her  twice  a  week ;  that  may  be 
called  often  in  relation  to  a  person  one  has 
not  seen  for  twelve  years.  The  moment  after 


he  recognized  her  he  felt  how  true  it  was  that 
it  was  only  she  who  could  look  like  that;  of 
the  most  charming  head  in  the  world  (and 
this  lady  hail  it)  there  could  never  be  a  rep- 
lica. She  was  leaning  forward  a  little;  she 
remained  in  profile,  apparently  listening  to 
some  one  on  the  other  side  of  her.  She  was 
listening,  but  she  was  also  looking,  and  after  a 
moment  Lyon  followed  the  direction  of  her 
eyes.  They  rested  upon  the  gentleman  who 
had  been  described  to  him  as  Colonel  Capa- 
dose  —  rested,  as  it  appeared  to  him,  with  a 
certain  serene  complacency.  This  was  not 
strange,  for  the  colonel  was  unmistakably 
formed  to  attract  the  sympathetic  gaze  of 
woman;  but  Lyon  was  slightly  disappointed 
that  she  could  let  Aim  look  at  her  so  long 
without  giving  him  a  glance.  There  was  noth- 
ing bet  ween  them  to-day,  and  he  had  no  rights, 
but  she  must  have  known  he  was  coming  (it 
was  of  course  not  such  a  tremendous  event, 
but  she  could  n't  have  been  staying  in  the 
house  without  hearing  of  it),  and  it  was  n't 
natural  that  that  should  absolutely  not  affect 
her. 

She  was  looking  at  Colonel  Capadose  as  if 
she  were  in  love  with  him  —  a  queer  accident 
for  the  proudest,  most  reserved  of  women. 
But  doubtless  it  was  all  right,  if  her  husband 
liked  it,  or  did  n't  notice  it ;  he  had  heard,  in- 
definitely, years  before,  that  she  was  married, 
and  he  took  for  granted  (as  he  had  not  heard 
that  she  had  become  a  widow)  the  presence 
of  the  happy  man  on  whom  she  had  conferred 
what  she  had  refused  to  Aim,  the  poor  art-stu- 
dent at  Munich.  Colonel  Capadose  appeared  to 
be  aware  of  nothing,  and  this  circumstance, 
incongruously  enough,  rather  irritated  Lyon 
than  gratified  him.  Suddenly  the  lady  turned 
her  head,  showing  her  full  face  to  our  hero. 
He  was  so  prepared  with  a  greeting  that  he 
instantly  smiled,  as  a  shaken  jug  overflows; 
but  she  gave  him  no  response,  turned  away 
again,  and  sank  back  in  her  chair.  All  that 
her  face  said  in  that  instant  was,  "  You  see 
I  'm  as  handsome  as  ever."  To  which  he  men- 
tally subjoined,  "  Yes,  and  as  much  good  it 
does  me ! "  He  asked  the  young  man  beside 
him  if  he  knew  who  that  beautiful  woman 
was  —  the  fifth  person  beyond  him.  The  young 
man  leaned  forward,  considered,  and  then 
said,  "  I  think  she  's  Mrs.  Capadose." 

"  Do  you  mean  his  wife  —  that  fellow's  ?  " 
And  Lyon  indicated  the  subject  of  the  infor- 
mation given  him  by  his  other  neighbor. 

"  Oh,  is  he  Mr.  Capadose  ?  "  said  the  young 
man,  who  appeared  very  vague.  He  admitted 
his  vagueness,  and  explained  it  by  saying  that 
there  were  so  many  people,  and  he  had  only 
come  the  day  before.  What  was  definite  to 
Lyon  was  that  Mrs.  Capadose  was  in  love 


126 


THE   LIAR. 


with  her  husband,  and  he  wished  more  than 
ever  that  he  had  married  her. 

••  She  's  very  faithful,"  he  found  himself 
saying,  three  minutes  later,  to  the  lady  on  his 
right.  He  added  that  he  meant  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose. 

"  Ah,  you  know  her  then  ?  " 

"I  knew  her  once  upon  a  time  —  when  I 
was  living  abroad." 

"  Why,  then,  were  you  asking  me  about  her 
husband  ?  " 

"  Precisely  for  that  reason.  She  married 
after  that — I  did  n't  even  know  her  present 
name." 

"  How,  then,  do  you  know  it  now  ?  " 

"This  gentleman  has  just  told  me  —  he 
appears  to  know." 

"  I  did  n't  know  he  knew  anything,"  said 
the  lady,  glancing  forward. 

"  I  don't  think  he  knows  anything  but  that." 

"  Then  you  have  found  out  for  yourself  that 
she  is  faithful.  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"  Ah,  you  must  n't  question  me  —  I  want  to 
question  you,"  Lyon  said.  "  How  do  you  all 
like  her  here  ?  " 

"  You  ask  too  much !  I  can  only  speak  for 
myself.  I  think  she  's  hard." 

"  That  's  only  because  she  's  honest  and 
straightforward." 

"  Do  you  mean  I  like  people  in  proportion 
as  they  deceive  ?  " 

"  I  think  we  all  do,  so  long  as  we  don't 
find  them  out,"  Lyon  said.  "  And  then  there 's 
something  in  her  face  —  a  sort  of  Roman 
type,  in  spite  of  her  having  such  an  English 
eye.  In  fact,  she  's  English  down  to  the  ground ; 
but  her  complexion,  her  low  forehead,  and 
that  beautiful  close  little  wave  in  her  dark 
hair  make  her  look  like  a  kind  of  glorified 
contadina" 

"  Yes,  and  she  always  sticks  pins  and  dag- 
gers into  her  head,  to  increase  that  effect.  I 
must  say  I  like  her  husband  better;  he  is 
so  clever." 

"  Well,  when  I  knew  her  there  was  no  com- 
parison that  could  injure  her.  She  was  alto- 
gether the  most  delightful  thing  in  Munich." 

"  In  Munich  ?  " 

"  Her  people  lived  there ;  they  were  not 
rich  —  in  pursuit  of  economy,  in  fact,  and  Mu- 
nich was  very  cheap.  Her  father  was  the 
younger  son  of  some  noble  house ;  he  had 
married  a  second  time,  and  had  a  lot  of  little 
mouths  to  feed.  She  was  the  child  of  the  first 
wife,  and  she  did  n't  like  her  stepmother,  but 
she  was  charming  to  her  little  brothers  and 
sisters.  I  once  made  a  sketch  of  her  as 
Werther's  Charlotte,  cutting  bread  and  butter 
while  they  clustered  all  round  her.  All  the 
artists  in  the  place  were  in  love  with  her,  but 
she  would  n't  look  at  '  the  likes '  of  us.  She 


was  too  proud  —  I  grant  you  that ;  but  she 
was  n't  stuck  up,  or  young  ladyish ;  she  was 
simple,  and  frank,  and  kind  about  it.  She  used 
to  remind  me  of  Thackeray's  Ethel  Newcome. 
She  told  me  she  must  marry  well ;  it  was  the 
one  thing  she  could  do  for  her  family.  I  sup- 
pose you  would  say  that  she  has  married 
well?" 

"  She  told  you  ?  "  smiled  Lyon's  neighbor. 

"  Oh,  of  course  I  proposed  to  her  too.  But 
she  evidently  thinks  so  herself!"  he  added. 

When  the  ladies  left  the  table,  the  host,  as 
usual,  bade  the  gentlemen  draw  together,  so 
that  Lyon  found  himself  opposite  to  Colonel 
Capadose.  The  conversation  was  mainly 
about  the  "run,"  for  it  had  apparently 'been 
a  great  day  in  the  hunting-field.  Most  of  the 
gentlemen  communicated  their  adventures 
and  opinions,  but  Colonel  Capadose's  pleas- 
ant voice  was  the  most  audible  in  the  chorus. 
It  was  a  bright  and  fresh  but  masculine  organ, 
just  such  a  voice  as,  to  Lyon's  sense,  such  a 
"  fine  man  "  ought  to  have  had.  It  appeared 
from  his  remarks  that  he  was  a  very  straight 
rider,  which  was  also  very  much  what  Lyon 
would  have  expected.  Not  that  he  swaggered, 
for  his  allusions  were  very  quietly  and  casually 
made  ;  but  they  were  all  to  dangerous  ex- 
periments and  close  shaves.  Lyon  perceived 
after  a  little  that  the  attention  paid  by  the 
company  to  the  colonel's  remarks  was  not 
in  direct  relation  to  the  interest  they  seemed 
to  offer;  the  result  of  which  was  that  the 
speaker,  who  noticed  that  he  at  least  was 
listening,  began  to  treat  him  as  his  particular 
auditor,  and  to  fix  his  eyes  on  him  as  he  talked. 
Lyon  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  look  sym- 
pathetic and  assent  —  Colonel  Capadose 
appeared  to  take  so  much  sympathy  and  as- 
sent for  granted.  A  neighboring  squire  had 
had  an  accident ;  he  had  come  a  cropper  in 
an  awkward  place  —  just  at  the  finish  —  with 
consequences  that  looked  grave.  He  had 
struck  his  head ;  he  remained  insensible,  up 
to  the  last  accounts;  there  had  evidently  been 
concussion  of  the  brain.  There  was  some  ex- 
change of  views  as  to  his  recovery  —  how 
soon  it  would  take  place,  or  whether  it  would 
take  place  at  all ;  which  led  the  colonel  to 
confide  to  our  artist,  across  the  table,  that  he 
should  n't  despair  of  a  fellow  even  if  he 
did  n't  come  round  for  weeks  —  for  weeks  and 
weeks  and  weeks  —  for  months.  He  leaned 
forward  ;  Lyon  leaned  forward  to  listen,  and 
Colonel  Capadose  mentioned  that  he  knew 
from  personal  experience  that  there  was  really 
no  limit  to  the  time  one  might  lie  unconscious 
without  being  any  the  worse  for  it.  It  had 
happened  to  him  in  Ireland,  years  before;  he 
had  been  pitched  out  of  a  dog-cart,  had  turned 
a  sheer  somersault  and  landed  on  his  head. 


TJIE  LIAR. 


127 


They  thought  he  was  dead,  but  he  was  n't ; 
they  carried  him  first  to  the  nearest  cabin, 
where  he  lay  for  some  days  with  the  pigs,  and 
then  to  an  inn  in  a  neighboring  town — it  was 
a  near  thing  they  did  n't  put  him  under  ground. 
He  had  been  completely  insensible  —  without 
a  ray  of  recognition  of  any  human  thing  — 
for  three  whole  months;  had  not  a  glimmer 
of  consciousness  of  any  blessed  thing.  It  was 
touch  and  go  to  that  degree  that  they  could  n't 
come  near  him,  they  could  n't  feed  him,  they 
could  scarcely  look  at  him.  Then  one  day 
he  had  opened  his  eyes  —  as  fit  as  a  flea ! 

"  I  give  you  my  honor  it  had  done  me 
good  —  it  rested  my  brain."  He  appeared  to 
intimate  that,  with  an  intelligence  so  active  as 
his,  these  periods  of  repose  were  providential. 
Lyon  thought  his  story  very  striking;  such  a 
prodigy  of  suspended  animation  reminded  him 
of  the  sleeping  beauty  in  the  wood.  He  hesi- 
tated, however,  to  make  this  comparison  —  it 
seemed  to  savor  of  irreverence,  especially 
when  Colonel  Capadose  said  that  it  was  the 
turn  of  a  hair  that  they  had  n't  buried  him 
alive.  That  had  happened  to  a.  friend  of  his 
in  India  —  a  fellow  that  was  supposed  to  have 
died  of  jungle  fever  —  they  clapped  him  into 
a  coffin.  He  was  going  on  to  recite  the  further 
fate  of  this  unfortunate  gentleman,  when  Mr. 
Ashmore  made  a  move  and  every  one  got  up 
to  adjourn  to  the  drawing-room.  Lyon  no- 
ticed by  this  time  no  one  was  heeding  what 
he  said  to  him.  They  came  round  on  either 
side  of  the  table  and  met,  while  the  gentlemen 
dawdled,  before  going  out. 

"  And  do  you  mean  that  your  friend  was 
literally  buried  alive  ?  "  asked  Lyon,  in  some 
suspense. 

Colonel  Capadose  looked  at  him  a  moment, 
as  if  he  had  already  lost  the  thread  of  the  con- 
versation. Then  his  face  brightened  —  and 
when  it  brightened  it  was  doubly  handsome. 
"  Upon  my  soul,  he  was  chucked  into  the 
ground !  " 

"  And  was  he  left  there  ?  " 

"  He  was  left  there  till  I  came  and  hauled 
him  out." 

"  You  came  ?  " 

"  I  dreamed  about  him  —  it 's  the  most  ex- 
traordinary story ;  I  heard  him  calling  to  me 
in  the  night.  I  took  upon  myself  to  dig  him 
up.  You  know  there  are  people  in  India  —  a 
kind  of  beastly  race,  the  ghouls  —  who  vio- 
late graves.  I  had  a  kind  of  presentiment  that 
they  would  get  at  him  first.  I  rode  straight, 
I  can  tell  you ;  and,  by  Jove,  a  couple  of  them 
had  just  broken  ground !  Crack  —  crack-,  from 
a  couple  of  barrels,  and  they  showed  me  their 
heels,  as  you  may  believe.  Would  you  credit 
that  I  took  him  out  myself?  The  air  brought 
him  to,  and  he  was  none  the  worse.  He  has 


got  his  pension  —  he  came  home  the  other 
day;  he  'd  do  anything  for  me." 

"  He  called  to  you  in  the  night  ?  "  said 
Lyon,  much  impressed. 

"  That 's  the  interesting  point.  Now,  what 
was  it  ?  It  was  n't  his  ghost,  because  he  was 
n't  dead.  It  was  n't  himself,  because  he 
could  n't.  It  was  something  or  other !  You 
see  India  's  a  strange  country  —  there  's  an 
element  of  the  mysterious ;  the  air  is  full  of 
things  you  can't  explain." 

They  passed  out  of  the  dining-room,  and 
Colonel  Capadose,  who  went  among  the  first, 
was  separated  from  Lyon ;  but  a  minute  later, 
before  they  reached  the  drawing-room,  he 
joined  him  again.  "Ashmore  tells  me  who  you 
are.  Of  course  I  have  often  heard  of  you  — 
I  'm  very  glad  to  make  your  acquaintance ; 
my  wife  used  to  know  you." 

"  I  'm  glad  she  remembers  me.  I  recog- 
nized her  at  dinner,  and  I  was  afraid  she 
did  n't." 

"  Ah,  I  dare  say  she  was  ashamed,"  said  the 
colonel,  with  indulgent  humor. 

"  Ashamed  of  me  ?  "  Lyon  replied,  in  the 
same  key. 

"  Was  n't  there  something  about  a  picture  ? 
Yes ;  you  painted  her  portrait." 

"  Many  times,"  said  the  artist;  "and  she 
may  very  well  have  been  ashamed  of  what  I 
made  of  her." 

"  Well,  I  was  n't,  my  dear  sir ;  it  was  the 
sight  of  that  picture,  which  you  were  so  good 
as  to  present  to  her,  that  made  me  first  fall  in 
love  with  her." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  one  with  the  children 
—  cutting  bread  and  butter  ?  " 

"  Bread  and  butter  ?  Bless  me,  no  —  vine- 
leaves  and  a  leopard  skin  —  a  kind  of  Bac- 
chante." 

"  Ah,  yes,"  said  Lyon  ;  "  I  remember.  It 
was  the  first  decent  portrait  I  painted.  I  should 
be  curious  to  see  it  to-day." 

"  Don't  ask  her  to  show  it  to  you  —  she  '11  be 
mortified !  "  the  colonel  exclaimed. 

"  Mortified  ?  " 

"  We  parted  with  it — in  the  most  disinter- 
ested manner,"  he  laughed.  "  An  old  friend 
of  my  wife's  —  her  family  had  known  him  in- 
timately when  they  lived  in  Germany  —  took 
the  most  extraordinary  fancy  to  it :  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Silberstadt-Schreckenstein,  don't  you 
know  ?  He  came  out  to  Bombay  while  we 
were  there,  and  he  spotted  your  picture  (you 
know  he 's  one  of  the  greatest  collectors  in 
Europe),  and  he  made  such  eyes  at  it  that, 
upon  my  word  — it  happened  to  be  his  birth- 
day —  she  told  him  he  might  have  it,  to  get 
rid  of  him.  He  was  perfectly  enchanted,  but 
we  miss  the  picture." 

"  It  is  very  good  of  you,"  Lyon  said.    "  If 


128 


THE   LIAR. 


it  's  in  a  great  collection  —  a  work  of  my  in- 
competent youth  —  I  am  infinitely  honored." 

"  Oh,  he  has  got  it  in  one  of  his  castles;  I 
don't  know  which  —  you  know  he  has  so  many. 
He  sent  us,  before  he  left  India, —  to  return  the 
compliment, —  a.  magnificent  old  vase." 

"  That  was  more  than  the  thing  was  worth," 
Lyon  remarked. 

Colonel  Capadose  gave  no  heed  to  this  ob- 
servation; he  seemed  to  be  thinking  of  some- 
thing. After  a  moment  he  said,  "  If  you  '11 
come  and  see  us  in  town,  she '11  show  you  the 
vase."  And  as  they  passed  into  the  drawing- 
room,  he  gave  the  artist  a  friendly  push.  "  Go 
and  speak  to  her;  there  she  is —  she  '11  be  de- 
lighted." 

Oliver  Lyon  took  but  a  few  steps  into  the 
wide  saloon  ;  he  stood  there  a  moment,  looking 
at  the  bright  composition  of  the  lamplit  group 
of  fair  women,  the  single  figures,  the  great 
setting  of  white  and  gold,  the  panels  of  old 
damask,  in  the  center  of  each  of  which  was  a 
single  celebrated  picture.  There  was  a  sub- 
dued luster  in  the  scene  and  an  air  as  of  the 
shining  trains  of  dresses  tumbled  over  the 
carpet.  At  the  furthest  end  of  the  room  sat 
Mrs.  Capadose,  rather  isolated ;  she  was  on  a 
small  sofa,  with  an  empty  place  beside  her. 
Lyon  could  n't  flatter  himself  she  had  been 
keeping  it  for  him  ;  her  failure  to  respond  to  his 
recognition  at  table  contradicted  that,  but  he- 
felt  an  extreme  desire  to  go  and  occupy  it. 
Moreover,  he  had  her  husband's  sanction  ;  so 
he  crossed  the  room,  stepping  over  the  tails 
of  gowns,  and  stood  before  his  old  friend. 

"  I  hope  you  don't  mean  to  repudiate  me," 
he  said. 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  an  expression  of 
indubitable  pleasure.  "  I  am  so  glad  to  see 
you.  I  was  delighted  when  I  heard  you  were 
coming." 

"  I  tried  to  get  a  smile  from  you  at  dinner — 
but  I  could  n't." 

"  I  did  n't  see  —  I  did  n't  understand.  .Be- 
sides, I  hate  smirking  and  telegraphing.  Also 
I  'm  very  shy  —  you  won't  have  forgotten  that. 
Now  we  can  communicate  comfortably."  And 
she  made  a  better  place  for  him  on  the  little 
sofa.  He  sat  down  and  they  had  a  talk  that 
he  enjoyed,  while  the  reason  for  which  he 
used  to  like  her  so  came  back  to  him,  as  well 
as  a  good  deal  of  the  very  same  old  liking. 
She  was  still  the  least  spoiled  beauty  he  had 
ever  seen,  with  an  absence  of  coquetry,  or  any 
insinuating  art,  that  seemed  almost  like  an 
omitted  faculty  ;  there  were  moments  when 
she  struck  her  interlocutor  as  some  fine 
creature  from  an  asylum  —  a  surprising  deaf- 
mute,  or  one  of  the  operative  blind.  Her 
noble  pagan  head  gave  her  privileges  that 
she  neglected,  and  when  people  were  admir- 


ing her  brow  she  was  wondering  whether 
there  were  a  good  fire  in  her  bedroom.  She 
was  simple,  kind,  and  good;  inexpressive,  but 
not  inhuman  or  stupid.  Now  and  again  she 
said  something  that  had  a  sort  of  sifted,  se- 
lected air  —  the  sound  of  an  impression  at 
first  hand.  She  had  no  imagination,  but  she- 
had  added  up  her  feelings.  Lyon  talked  of  the 
old  days  in  Munich,  reminded  her  of  inci- 
dents, pleasures,  and  pains,  asked  her  about 
her  father  and  the  others;  and  she  told  him, 
in  return,  that  she  was  so  impressed  with  his 
own  fame,  his  brilliant  position  in  the  world, 
that  she  had  n't  felt  very  sure  he  would  speak 
to  her,  or  that  his  little  sign  at  table  was 
meant  for  her.  This  was  plainly  a  perfectly 
truthful  speech — she  was  incapable  of  any 
other  —  and  he  was  affected  by  such  humility 
on  the  part  of  a  woman,  whose  grand  line 
was  unique.  Her  father  was  dead;  one  of 
her  brothers  was  in  the  navy,  and  the  other 
on  a  ranch  in  America ;  two  of  her  sisters 
were  married,  and  the  youngest  was  just  com- 
ing out,  and  very  pretty.  She  did  n't  men- 
tion her  stepmother.  She  asked  him  about 
his  own  personal  history,  and  he  said  that 
the  principal  thing  that  had  happened  to  him 
was  that  he  had  never  married. 

"  Oh,  you  ought  to,"  she  answered.  "  It 's 
the  best  thing." 

"  I  like  that  —  from  you  !  "  he  returned. 

"Why  not  from  me  ?  I  am  very  happy." 

"  That  's  just  why  I  can't  be.  It  's  cruel  of 
you  to  praise  your  state.  But  I  have  had  the 
pleasure  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  your 
husband.  We  had  a  good  bit  of  talk  in  the 
other  room." 

"You  must  know  him  better — you  must 
know  him  really  well,"  said  Mrs.  Capadose. 

"  I  am  sure  that  the  further  you  go  the 
more  you  find.  But  he  makes  a  fine  show, 
too." 

She  rested  her  good  gray  eyes  on  Lyon. 
"  Don't  you  think  he  's  handsome  ?" 

"  Handsome,  and  clever,  and  entertaining. 
You  see  I  'm  generous." 

"  Yes ;  you  must  know  him  well,"  Mrs. 
Capadose  repeated. 

"  He  has  seen  a  great  deal  of  life,"  said  her 
companion. 

"  Yes,  we  have  been  in  so  many  places. 
You  must  see  my  little  girl.  She  is  nine  years 
old  —  she  's  too  beautiful." 

"  You  must  bring  her  to  my  studio  some 
day  —  I  should  like  to  paint  her." 

"Ah,  don't  speak  of  that,"  said  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose.- "  It  reminds  me  of  something  so  dis- 
agreeable." 

"I  hope  you  don't  mean  \\\\e\\ you  used  to 
sit  to  me  —  though  that  may  well  have  bored 
you." 


THE  LIAR. 


129 


"  It 's  not  what  you  did  —  it 's  what  we  have 
done.  It  's  a  confession  I  must  make —  it  's 
a  weight  on  my  mind !  I  mean  about  that 
beautiful  one  you  gave  me  —  it  used  to  be  so 
much  admired.  Whim  you  come  to  sec  me 
in  London  (I  count  on  your  doing  that  very 
soon),  I  shall  see  you  looking  all  round.  I 
can't  tell  you  I  keep  it  in  my  own  room  be- 
cause I  love  it  so,  for  the  simple  reason  " — 
And  she  paused  a  moment. 

"  Because  you  can't  tell  wicked  lies,"  said 
Lyon. 

"  No,  I  can't.    So  before  you  ask  for  it" — 

"  Oh,  I  know  you  parted  with  it  —  the  blow 
has  already  fallen,"  Lyon  interrupted. 

"  Ah,  then  you  have  heard  ?  I  was  sure  you 
would !  But  do  you  know  what  we  got  for  it  ? 
Two  hundred  pounds." 

"  You  might  have  got  much  more,"  said 
Lyon,  smiling. 

"  That  seemed  a  great  deal  at  the  time.  We 
were  in  want  of  the  money  —  it  was  a  good 
while  ago,  when  we  first  married.  Our  means 
were  very  small  then,  but  fortunately  that  has 
changed  rather  for  the  better.  We  had  the 
chance,  it  really  seemed  a  big  sum,  and  I  am 
afraid  we  jumped  at  it.  My  husband  had  ex- 
pectations which  have  partly  come  into  effect, 
so  that  now  we  do  well  enough.  But  mean- 
while the  picture  went." 

"  Fortunately  the  original  remained.  But 
do  you  mean  that  two  hundred  was  the  value 
of  the  vase  ?  "  Lyon  asked. 

"  Of  the  vase  ?  " 

"  The  beautiful  old  Indian  vase  —  the  grand 
duke's  offering." 

"  The  grand  duke  ?  " 

"  What 's  his  name  ?  —  Silberstadt-Schreck- 
enstein.  Your  husband  mentioned  the  trans- 
action." 

"Oh,  my  husband,"  said  Mrs.  Capadose; 
and  Lyon  saw  that  she  colored  a  little. 

Not  to  add  to  her  embarrassment,  but  to 
clear  up  the  ambiguity,  which  he  perceived 
the  next  moment  he  had  better  have  left  alone, 
he  went  on :  "  He  tells  me  it 's  now  in  his 
collection." 

"  In  the  grand  duke's  ?  Ah,  you  know  its 
reputation  ?  I  believe  it  contains  treasures." 
She  was  bewildered,  but  she  recovered  herself, 
and  Lyon  made  the  mental  reflection  that  for 
some  reason,  which  would  seem  good  when  he 
knew  it,  the  husband  and  the  wife  had  prepared 
different  versions  of  the  same  incident.  It  was 
true  that  he  did  n't  exactly  see  Everina  Brant 
preparing  a  version  ;  that  was  not  her  line  of 
old,  and  indeed  it  was  not  in  her  eyes  to-day. 
At  any  rate  they  both  had  the  matter  too  much 
on  their  conscience.  He  changed  the  subject, 
said  Mrs.  Capadose  must  really  bring  the  lit- 
tle girl.  He  sat  with  her  some  time  longer, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 19. 


and  thought  —  perhaps  it  was  only  a  fancy  — 
that  she  was  rather  absent,  as  if  she  were  an- 
noyed at  their  having  been  even  for  a  moment 
at  cross-purposes.  This  did  n't  prevent  him 
from  saying  to  her  at  the  last,  just  as  the  ladies 
began  to  gather  themselves  together  to  go  to 
bed,  "You  seem  much  impressed,  from  what 
you  say,  with  my  renown  and  my  prosperity, 
and  you  are  so  good  as  greatly  to  exaggerate 
them.  Would  you  have  married  me  if  you  had 
known  that  I  was  destined  to  success  ?  " 

"  I  did  know  it!" 

"  Well,  I  did  n't !  " 

"  You  were  too  modest." 

"  You  did  n't  think  so  when  I  proposed  to 
you." 

"  Well,  if  I  had  married  you  I  could  n't  have 
married  him  —  and  he  's  so  nice,"  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose said.  Lyon  knew  she  thought  it, —  he 
had  learned  that  at  dinner, —  but  it  vexed 
him  a  little  to  hear  her  say  it.  The  gentleman 
designated  by  the  pronoun  came  up,  amid  the 
prolonged  handshaking  for  good-night,  and 
Mrs.  Capadose  remarked  to  her  husband,  as 
she  turned  away,  "  He  wants  to  paint  Amy." 

"  Ah,  she  's  a  charming  child,  a  most  inter- 
esting little  creature,"  the  colonel  said  to  Lyon. 
"  She  does  the  most  remarkable  things." 

Mrs.  Capadose  stopped,  in  the  rustling  pro- 
cession that  followed  the  hostess  out  of  the 
room.  "  Don't  tell  him,  please  don't,"  she 
said. 

"Don't  tell  him  what?" 

"  Why,  what  she  does.  Let  him  find  out  for 
himself."  And  she  passed  on. 

"She  thinks  I  brag  about  the  child  —  that 
I  bore  people,"  said  the  colonel.  "  I  hope 
you  smoke."  He  appeared  ten  minutes  later 
in  the  smoking-room,  in  a  brilliant  equipment, 
a  suit  of  crimson  foulard,  covered  with  little 
white  spots.  He  gratified  Lyon's  eye,  made 
him  feel  that  the  modern  age  has  its  splendor 
too,  and  its  opportunities  for  costume.  If  his 
wife. was  an  antique,  he  was  a  fine  specimen 
of  the  period  of  color;  he  might  have  passed 
for  a  Venetian  of  the  sixteenth  century.  They 
were  a  remarkable  couple,  Lyon  thought,  and 
as  he  looked  at  the  colonel  standing  in  bright 
erectness  before  the  chimney-piece,  while  he 
emitted  great  smoke- puffs,  he  did  n't  wonder 
that  Everina  could  n't  regret  she  had  n't  mar- 
ried him.  All  the  gentlemen  collected  at 
Stayes  were  not  smokers,  and  some  of  them 
had  gone  to  bed.  Colonel  Capadose  remarked 
that  there  probably  would  be  a  smallish  mus- 
ter, they  had  had  such  a  hard  day's  work. 
That  was  the  worst  of  a  hunting-house  —  the 
men  were  so  sleepy  after  dinner;  it  was  dev- 
ilish stupid  for  the  ladies,  even  for  those  who 
hunted  themselves  —  for  women  were  so  ex- 
traordinary, they  never  showed  it.  But  most 


130 


THE  LIAR. 


fellows  revived  under  the  stimulating  influ- 
ences of  the  smoking-room,  and  some  of  them, 
in  this  confidence,  would  turn  up  yet.  Some 
of  the  grounds  of  their  confidence  —  not  all  of 
them  —  might  have  been  seen  in  a  cluster 
of  glasses  and  bottles  on  a  table  near  the  fire, 
which  made  the  great  salver  and  its  contents 
twinkle  most  sociably.  The  others  lurked,  as 
yet,  in  various  improper  corners  of  the  minds 
of  the  most  loquacious.  Lyon  was  alone  with 
Colonel  Capadose  for  some  moments  before 
their  companions,  in  varied  eccentricities  of 
uniform,  straggled  in,  and  he  perceived  that 
this  wonderful  man  had  but  little  loss  of  vital 
tissue  to  repair. 

They  talked  about  the  house,  Lyon  having 
noticed  an  oddity  of  construction  in  the  smok- 
ing-room; and  the  colonel  explained  that  it 
consisted  of  two  distinct  parts,  one  of  which 
was  of  very  great  antiquity.  They  were  two 
complete  houses,  in  short,  the  old  one  and  the 
new,  each  of  great  extent,  and  each  very  fine 
in  its  way.  The  two  formed  together  an  enor- 
mous structure  —  Lyon  must  make  a  point 
of  going  all  over  it.  The  modern  portion  had 
been  erected  by  the  old  man,  when  he  bought 
the  property;  oh,  yes,  he  had  bought  it,  forty 
years  before  —  it  had  n't  been  in  the  family; 
there  had  n't  been  any  particular  family  for  it 
to  be  in.  He  had  had  the  good  taste  not  to 
spoil  the  original  house  —  he  had  n't  touched  it 
beyond  what  was  just  necessary  for  joining  it 
on.  It  was  very  curious  indeed  —  a  most  ir- 
regular, rambling,  mysterious  pile,  where  they 
every  now  and  then  discovered  a  walled-up 
room  or  a  secret  staircase.  To  his  mind  it  was 
essentially  gloomy,  however;  even  the  mod- 
ern additions,  splendid  as  they  were,  did  n't 
make  it  cheerful.  There  was  some  story  about 
a  skeleton  having  been  found,  years  before, 
during  some  repairs,  under  a  stone  slab  of  the 
floor  of  one  of  the  passages;  but  the  family 
were  rather  shy  of  its  being  talked  about.  The 
place  they  were  in  was,  of  course,  in  the  old 
part,  which  contained,  after  all,  some  of  the 
best  rooms ;  he  had  an  idea  it  had  been  the 
primitive  kitchen,  half  modernized  at  some 
intermediate  period. 

"My  room  is  in  the  old  part  too,  then  —  I  'm 
very  glad,"  Lyon  said.  "  It  's  very  comfort- 
able, and  contains  all  the  latest  conveniences, 
but  I  observed  the  depth  of  the  recess  of  the 
door,  and  the  evident  antiquity  of  the  corridor 
and  staircase — the  first  short  one  —  after  I 
came  out.  That  paneled  corridor  is  admi- 
rable ;  it  looks  as  if  it  stretched  away,  in  its 
brown  dimness  (the  lamps  did  n't  seem  to  me 
to  make  much  impression  on  it),  for  half  a 
mile." 

"  Oh,  don't  go  to  the  end  of  it !  "  exclaimed 
the  colonel,  smiling. 


"  Does  it  lead  to  the  haunted  room  ?  "  Lyon 
asked. 

His  companion  looked  at  him  a  moment. 
"  Ah,  you  know  about  that  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  speak  from  knowledge,  only 
from  hope.  I  have  never  had  any  luck  —  1 
have  never  staid  in  a  dangerous  house.  The 
places  I  go  to  are  always  as  safe  as  Charing 
Cross.  I  want  to  see  —  whatever  there  is,  the 
regular  thing.  Is  there  a  ghost  here  ?  " 

"  Of  course  there  is  —  a  rattling  good  one." 

"  And  have  you  seen  him  ?  " 

"Oh,  don't  ask  me  what  I've  seen — I 
should  tax  your  credulity.  I  don't  like  to  talk 
of  these  things.  But  there  are  two  or  three  as 
bad  —  that  is,  as  good! — rooms  as  you'll 
find  anywhere." 

"  Do  you  mean  in  my  corridor  ?  "  Lyon 
asked. 

"  I  believe  the  worst  is  at  the  far  end.  But 
you  would  be  ill-advised  to  sleep  there." 

"  Ill-advised  ?  " 

"  Until  you  've  finished  your  job.  You  '11 
get  letters  of  importance  the  next  morning, 
and  you  '11  take  the  10:20." 

"  Do  you  mean  I  will  invent  a  pretense  for 
running  away  ?  " 

"  Unless  you  are  braver  than  almost  any  one 
has  ever  been.  They  don't  often  put  people 
to  sleep  there,  but  sometimes  the  house  is  so 
crowded  that  they  have  to.  The  same  thing 
always  happens  —  ill-concealed  agitation  at 
the  breakfast-table,  and  letters  of  the  greatest 
importance.  Of  course  it  's  a  bachelor's  room, 
and  my  wife  and  I  are  at  the  other  end  of  the 
house.  But  we  saw  the  comedy  three  days 
ago — the  day  after  we  got  here.  A  young 
fellow  had  been  put  there  —  I  forget  his 
name —  the  house  was  so  full ;  and  the  usual 
consequence  followed.  Letters  at  breakfast  — 
an  awfully  queer  face  —  an  urgent  call  to 
town  —  so  very  sorry  his  visit  was  cut  short. 
Ashmore  and  his  wife  looked  at  each  other, 
and  off  the  poor  devil  went." 

"  Ah,  that  would  n't  suit  me;  I  must  paint 
my  picture,"  said  Lyon.  "  But  do  they  mind 
your  speaking  of  it  ?  Some  people  who  have 
a  good  ghost  are  very  proud  of  it,  you  know." 

What  answer  Colonel  Capadose  was  on  the 
point  of  making  to  this  inquiry  our  hero  was 
not  to  learn,  for  at  that  moment  their  host  had 
walked  into  the  room,  accompanied  by  three 
or  four  gentlemen.  Lyon  was  conscious  that 
he  was  partly  answered  by  the  colonel's  not 
going  on  with  the  subject.  This,  however,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  rendered  natural  by  the 
fact  that  one  of  the  gentlemen  appealed  to 
him  for  an  opinion  on  a  point  under  discussion, 
something  to  do  with  the  everlasting  history 
of  the  day's  run.  To  Lyon  himself  Mr.  Ash- 
more  began  to  talk,  expressing  his  regret  at 


THE  LIAR. 


having  had  so  little  direct  conversation  with 
him  as  yet.  The  topic  that  suggested  itself 
was  naturally  that  most  closely  connected  with 
the  motive  of  the  artist's  visit.  Lyon  remarked 
that  it  was  a  great  disadvantage  to  him  not  to 
have  had  some  preliminary  acquaintance  with 
Sir  David  —  in  most  cases  he  found  that  so  im- 
portant. But  the  present  sitter  was  so  far  ad- 
vanced in  life  that  there  was  doubtless  no  time 
to  lose.  "  Oh,  I  can  tell  you  all  about  him," 
said  Mr.  Ashmore;  and  for  half  an  hour  he 
told  him  a  good  deal.  It  was  very  interesting, 
as  well  as  very  eulogistic,  and  Lyon  could  see 
that  he  was  a  very  nice  old  man  to  have  en- 
deared himself  to  a  son  who  was  evidently  not 
a  sentimentalist.  At  last  he  got  up;  he  said 
he  must  go  to  bed,  if  he  wished  to  be  fresh  for 
his  work  in  the  morning.  To  which  his  host 
replied,  "Then  you  must  take  your  candle; 
the  lights  are  out;  I  don't  keep  my  servants 
up." 

In  a  moment  Lyon  had  his  glimmering 
taper  in  hand,  and  as  he  was  leaving  the 
room  (he  did  n't  disturb  the  others  with  a 
good-night;  they  were  absorbed  in  the  lemon- 
squeezer  and  the  soda-water  cork)  he  remem- 
bered other  occasions  on  which  he  had  made 
his  way  to  bed,  alone,  through  a  darkened 
country  house ;  such  occasions  had  not  been 
rare,  for  he  was  almost  always  the  first  to  leave 
the  smoking-room.  If  he  had  not  staid  in 
houses  conspicuously  haunted,  he  had,  none 
the  less  (having  the  artistic  temperament), 
sometimes  found  the  great  black  halls  and 
staircases  rather  "creepy";  there  had  been 
often  a  sinister  effect,  to  his  imagination,  in 
the  sound  of  his  tread  in  the  long  passages,  or 
the  way  the  winter  moon  peeped  into  tall  win- 
dows on  landings.  It  occurred  to  him  that  if 
houses  without  supernatural  pretensions  could 
look  so  wicked  at  night,  the  old  corridors  of 
Stayes  would  certainly  give  him  a  sensation. 
He  did  n't  know  whether  the  proprietors  were 
sensitive ;  very  often,  as  he  had  said  to  Colonel 
Capadose,  people  enjoyed  the  impeachment. 
What  determined  him  to  speak,  with  a  certain 
sense  of  the  risk,  was  the  impression  that  the 
colonel  told  queer  stories.  As  he  had  his  hand 
on  the  door  he  said  to  Arthur  Ashmore,  "  I 
hope  I  sha'n't  meet  any  ghosts." 

"  Any  ghosts  ?  " 

"You  ought  to  have  some — in  this  fine  old 
part." 

"  We  do  our  best,  but  que  voulez-vous  i  " 
said  Mr.  Ashmore.  "  I  don't  think  they  like  the 
hot-water  pipes." 

"  They  remind  them  too  much  of  their  own 
climate?  But  have  n't  you  a  haunted  room  — 
at  the  end  of  my  passage  ?  " 

"  Oh,  there  are  stories  —  we  try  to  keep 
them  up." 


"  I  should  like  very  much  to  sleep  there," 
Lyon  said. 

'•  Well,  you  can  move  there  to-morrow  if  you 
like." 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  wait  till  I  have  done 
my  work." 

"  Very  good  ;  but  you  won't  work  there,  you 
know.  My  father  will  sit  to  you  in  his  own 
apartments." 

"  Oh,  it  is  n't  that;  it 's  the  fear  of  running 
away,  like  that  gentleman  three  days  ago." 

"  Three  days  ago  ?  What  gentleman  ?  "  Mr. 
Ashmore  asked. 

"  The  one  who  got  urgent  letters  at  break- 
fast, and  fled  by  the  10:20.  Did  he  stand  more 
than  one  night  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about. 
There  was  no  such  gentleman  —  three  days 
ago." 

"  Ah,  so  much  the  better,"  said  Lyon,  nod- 
ding good-night  and  departing.  He  took  his 
course,  as  he  remembered  it,  with  his  waver- 
ing candle,  and,  though  he  encountered  a 
great  many  gruesome  objects,  safely  reached 
the  passage  out  of  which  his  room  opened. 
In  the  complete  darkness  it  seemed  to  stretch 
away  still  further,  but  he  followed  it,  for  the 
curiosity  of  the  thing,  to  the  end.  He  passed 
several  doors,  with  the  name  of  the  room 
painted  upon  them,  but  he  found  nothing  else. 
He  was  tempted  to  try  the  last  door — to 
look  into  the  room  of  evil  fame;  but  he  re- 
flected that  this  would  be  indiscreet,  since 
Colonel  Capadose  handled  the  brush  —  as  a 
raconteur —  with  such  freedom.  There  might 
be  a  ghost,  and  there  might  not;  but  the 
colonel  himself,  he  inclined  to  think,  was  the 
most  incalculable  figure  in  the  house. 


ii. 

LYON  found  Sir  David  Ashmore  a  capital 
subject,  and  a  very  comfortable  sitter  into  the 
bargain.  Moreover,  he  was  a  very  agreeable 
old  man,  tremendously  puckered  but  not  in 
the  least  dim ;  and  he  wore  exactly  the  furred 
dressing-gown  that  Lyon  would  have  chosen. 
He  was  proud  of  his  age,  but  ashamed  of  his 
infirmities,  which,  however,  he  greatly  exag- 
gerated and  which  did  n't  prevent  him  from 
sitting  there  as  submissive  as  if  portraiture 
had  been  a  branch  of  surgery.  He  demolished 
the  legend  of  his  having  feared  the  operation 
would  be  fatal,  and  gave  an  explanation  which 
pleased  our  friend  much  better.  He  held  that 
a  gentleman  should  be  painted  but  once  in 
his  life  —  that  it  was  eager  and  fatuous  to  be 
hung  up  all  over  the  place.  That  was  good 
for  women,  who  made  a  pretty  wall-pattern  ; 
but  the  male  face  did  n't  lend  itself  to  deco- 
rative repetition.  The  proper  time  for  the  like- 


132 


THE  LIAR. 


ness  was  at  the  last,  when  the  whole  man  was 
there  —  you  got  the  totality  of  his  experience. 
Lyon  could  n't  reply  that  that  period  was  not 
a  real  compendium  —  you  had  to  allow  so  for 
leakage ;  for  there  had  been  no  crack  in  Sir 
David's  crystallization.  He  spoke  of  his  por- 
trait as  a  plain  map  of  the  country,  to  be 
consulted  by  his  children  in  a  case  of  uncer- 
tainty. A  proper  map  could  be  drawn  up 
only  when  the  country  had  been  traveled. 
He  gave  Lyon  his  mornings,  till  luncheon, 
and  they  talked  of  many  things,  not  neglect- 
ing, as  a  stimulus  to  gossip,  the  people  in  the 
house.  Now  that  he  did  n't  "  go  out,"  as  he 
said,  he  saw  much  less  of  the  visitors  at  Stayes ; 
people  came  and  went  whom  he  knew  noth- 
ing about,  and  he  liked  to  hear  Lyon  describe 
them.  The  artist  sketched  with  a  fine  point, 
and  did  n't  caricature,  and  it  usually  befell 
that  when  Sir  David  did  n't  know  the  sons 
and  daughters  he  had  known  the  fathers  and 
mothers.  He  was  one  of  those  terrible  old 
gentlemen  who  are  a  repository  of  antece- 
dents. But  in  the  case  of  the  Capadose  fam- 
ily, at  whom  they  arrived  by  an  easy  stage, 
his  knowledge  embraced  two,  or  even  three, 
generations.  General  Capadose  was  an  old 
crony,  and  he  remembered  his  father  before 
him.  He  was  rather  a  smart  soldier,  but  in 
private  life  of  too  speculative  a  turn  —  always 
sneaking  into  the  city  to  throw  his  money 
away.  He  married  a  girl  who  brought  him 
something,  and  they  had  half  a  dozen  chil- 
dren. He  scarcely  knew  what  had  become  of 
the  rest  of  them,  except  that  one  was  in  the 
Church  and  had  found  preferment  —  was  n't 
he  Dean  of  Rockingham  ?  Clement,  the  fel- 
low who  was  at  Stayes,  had  some  military 
talent;  he  had  served  in  the  East,  he  had 
married  a  pretty  girl.  He  had  been  at  Eton 
with  his  son,  and  he  used  to  come  to  Stayes  in 
his  holidays.  Lately,  coming  back  to  England, 
he  had  turned  up  with  his  wife  again;  that 
was  before  he  —  the  old  man  —  had  been  put 
to  grass.  He  was  a  taking  dog,  but  he  had 
a  monstrous  foible. 

"  A  monstrous  foible  ?  "  said  Lyon. 

"  He  's  a  thumping  liar." 

Lyon's  brush  stopped  short,  while  he  re- 
peated, for  somehow  the  formula  startled 
him,  "A  thumping  liar  ?  " 

"  You  're  very  lucky  not  to  have  found  it 
out." 

"  Well,  I  confess  I  have  noticed  a  romantic 
tinge  —  " 

"  Oh,  it  is  n't  always  romantic  !  He  '11  lie 
about  the  time  of  day,  about  the  name  of 
his  hatter.  It  appears  there  are  people  like 
that." 

"  Well,  they  are  precious  scoundrels,"  Lyon 
declared,  his  voice  trembling  a  little  with  the 


thought  of  what  Everina  Brant  had  done  with 
herself. 

"  Oh,  not  always,"  said  the  old  man.  "  This 
fellow  is  n't  in  the  least  a  scoundrel.  There 
is  no  harm  in  him,  and  no  bad  intention  ;  he 
does  n't  steal,  or  cheat,  or  gamble,  or  drink ; 
he  's  very  kind  —  he  sticks  to  his  wife,  is  fond 
of  his  children.  He  simply  can't  give  you  a 
straight  answer." 

"  Then  everything  he  told  me  last  night,  I 
suppose,  was  mendacious;  he  delivered  him- 
self of  a  series  of  crams !  They  stuck  in  my 
gizzard  at  the  time,  but  I  never  thought  of 
so  simple  an  explanation." 

"  No  doubt  he  was  in  the  vein,"  Sir  David 
went  on.  "  It 's  a  natural  peculiarity  —  as  you 
might  limp,  or  stutter,  or  be  left-handed.  I 
believe  it  conies  and  goes,  like  intermittent 
fever.  My  son  tells  me  that  his  friends  usually 
understand  it,  and  don't  haul  him  up,  for  the 
sake  of  his  wife." 

"  Oh,  his  wife  —  his  wife !  "  Lyon  murmured, 
painting  fast. 

"I  dare  say  she  's  used  to  it." 

"  Never  in  the  world,  Sir  David.  How  can 
she  be  used  to  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  my  dear  sir,  when  a  woman's  fond !  — 
And  don't  they  mostly  handle  the  long  bow 
themselves  ?  They  are  connoisseurs,  and  have 
a  sympathy  for  a  fellow-performer." 

Lyon  was  silent  a  moment ;  he  had  no 
ground  for  denying  that  Mrs.  Capadose  was 
attached  to  her  husband.  But  after  a  little 
he  rejoined:  "  Oh,  not  this  one!  I  knew  her 
years  ago — before  her  marriage;  knew  her 
well  and  admired  her.  She  was  as  clear  as  a 
bell." 

"  I  like  her  very  much,"  Sir  David  said, 
"  but  I  have  seen  her  back  him  up." 

Lyon  considered  Sir  David  for  a  moment, 
not  in  the  light  of  a  model.  "  Are  you  very 
sure  ?  " 

"  The  old  man  hesitated ;  then  he  answered, 
smiling,  "  You  're  in  love  with  her." 

"  Very  likely.    God  knows  I  used  to  be  !  " 

"  She  must  help  him  out  —  she  can't  expose 
him." 

"  She  can  hold  her  tongue ! "  Lyon  re- 
marked. 

"  Well,  before  you  probably  she  will." 

"That's  what  I  'm  curious  to  see."  And 
Lyon  added,  privately,  "  Good  Heaven,  what 
he  must  have  made  of  her ! "  He  kept  this 
reflection  to  himself,  for  he  considered  that 
he  had  sufficiently  betrayed  his  state  of  mind 
with  regard  to  Mrs.  Capadose.  None  the  less 
it  occupied  him  now  immensely,  the  question 
of  how  such  a  woman  would  arrange  herself 
in  such  a  predicament.  He  watched  her  with 
a  deeply  quickened  interest  when  he  mingled 
with  the  company ;  he  had  had  his  own  trouble 


THE  LIAR. 


in  life,  but  he  had  rarely  been  so  anxious 
about  anything  as  lie  was  now  to  see  what 
the  loyalty  of  a  wife  and  the  infection  of  an 
example  would  have  made  of  an  absolutely 
truthful  mind.  Oh,  he  held  it  as  immutably 
established  that  whatever  other  women  might 
be  prone  to  do,  she,  of  old,  had  been  per- 
fectly incapable  of  a  deviation.  Even  if  she 
had  not  been  too  simple  to  deceive,  she  would 
have  been  too  proud  ;  and  if  she  had  not  had 
too  much  conscience,  she  would  have  had 
too  little  eagerness.  It  was  the  last  thing  she 
would  have  endured  or  condoned  —  the  par- 
ticular thing  she  would  n't  have  forgiven. 
Did  she  sit  in  torment  while  her  husband 
turned  his  somersaults,  or  was  she  now,  too, 
so  perverse  that  she  thought  it  a  fine  thing  to 
be  striking  at  the  expense  of  one's  honor?  It 
would  have  taken  a  wondrous  alchemy  — 
working  backwards,  as  it  were  —  to  produce 
this  latter  result.  Besides  these  two  alterna- 
tives (that  she  suffered  tortures  in  silence  and 
that  she  was  so  much  in  love  that  her  hus- 
band's humiliating  idiosyncrasy  seemed  to 
her  only  an  added  richness  —  a  proof  of  life 
and  talent),  there  was  still  the  possibility  that 
she  had  n't  found  him  out,  that  she  took  his 
fiction  at  his  own  valuation.  A  little  reflec- 
tion, however,  rendered  this  hypothesis  unten- 
able; it  was  too  evident  that  the  account  he 
gave  of  things  must  repeatedly  have  contra- 
dicted her  own  knowledge.  Within  an  hour 
or  two  of  his  meeting  them  Lyon  had  seen 
her  confronted  with  that  perfectly  gratuitous 
invention  about  the  disposal  they  had  made  of 
his  early  picture.  Even  then,  indeed,  she  had 
not,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  smarted,  and  — 
but  for  the  present  he  could  only  contemplate 
the  case. 

Even  if  it  had  not  been  interfused,  through 
his  uneradicated  tenderness  for  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose,  with  an  element  of  suspense,  the  ques- 
.  tion  would  still  have  presented  itself  to  him 
as  a  very  curious  problem,  for  he  had  not 
painted  portraits  during  so  many  years  with- 
out becoming  something  of  a  psychologist. 
His  inquiry  was  limited,  for  the  moment,  to 
the  opportunity  that  the  following  three  days 
might  yield,  as  the  colonel  and  his  wife  were 
going  on  to  another  house.  It  fixed  itself 
largely,  of  course,  upon  the  colonel  too  — this 
gentleman  was  such  a  rare  anomaly.  More- 
over, it  had  to  go  on  very  quickly.  Lyon 
was  too  scrupulous  to  ask  other  people  what 
they  thought  of  the  business  —  he  was  too 
afraid  of  exposing  the  woman  he  once  had 
loved.  It  was  probable,  too,  that  light  would 
come  to  him  from  the  talk  of  the  rest  of  the 
company ;  the  colonel's  queer  habit,  both  as 
it  affected  his  own  situation  and  as  it  affected 
his  wife,  would  be  a  familiar  theme  in  any 


house  in  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  stay- 
ing. Lyon  'had  not  observed,  in  the  circles 
in  which  he  visited,  any  marked  abstention 
from  comment  on  the  singularities  of  their 
members.  It  interfered  with  his  progress  that 
the  colonel  hunted  all  day,  while  he  plied  his 
brushes  and  chatted  with  Sir  David ;  but  a 
Sunday  intervened,  and  that  partly  made  it 
up.  Mrs.  Capadose  fortunately  did  n't  hunt, 
and  when  his  work  was  over  she  was  not  in- 
accessible. He  took  a  couple  of  longish  walks 
with  her  (she  was  fond  of  that),  and  beguiled 
her,  at  tea,  into  a  friendly  nook  in  the  hall. 
Regard  her  as  he  might,  he  couldn't  make  out 
to  himself  that  she  was  consumed  by  a  hidden 
shame ;  the  sense  of  being  married  to  a  man 
whose  word  had  no  worth  was  not,  in  her 
spirit,  so  far  as  he  could  guess,  the  canker 
within  the  rose.  Her  mind  appeared  to  have 
nothing  on  it  but  its  own  placid  frankness, 
and  when  he  looked  into  her  eyes  (deeply,  as 
he  occasionally  permitted  himself  to  do),  they 
had  no  uncomfortable  consciousness.  He 
talked  to  her  again,  and  still  again,  of  the 
dear  old  days  —  reminded  her  of  things  that 
he  had  not  (before  this  reunion)  the  least 
idea  that  he  remembered.  Then  he  spoke  to 
her  of  her  husband,  praised  his  appearance, 
his  talent  for  conversation,  professed  to  have 
felt  a  quick  friendship  for  him,  and  asked  (with 
an  inward  audacity  at  which  he  trembled  a 
little)  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  "What 
manner  ? "  said  Mrs.  Capadose.  "  Dear  me, 
how  can  one  describe  one's  husband  ?  I  like 
him  very  much." 

"  Ah,  you  have  told  me  that  already ! " 
Lyon  exclaimed,  with  exaggerated  ruefulness. 

"  Then  why  do  you  ask  me  again  ?  "  She 
added  in  a  moment,  as  if  she  were  so  happy 
that  she  could  afford  to  take  pity  on  him,  "  He 
is  everything  that  's  good  and  kind.  He  's 
a  soldier — and  a  gentleman — and  a  dear!  He 
has  n't  a  fault.  And  he  has  great  ability." 

"  Yes;  he  strikes  one  as  having  great  ability. 
But  of  course  I  can't  think  him  a  dear." 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  think  him,"  said 
Mrs.  Capadose,  looking,  it  seemed  to  him, 
as  she  smiled,  handsomer  than  he  had  ever 
seen  her.  She  was  either  deeply  cynical  or 
still  more  deeply  inscrutable,  and  he  had  little 
prospect  of  winning  from  her  the  intimation 
that  he  longed  for — some  hint  that  it  had 
come  over  her  that,  after  all,  she  had  better 
have  married  a  man  who  was  not  a  by-word 
for  the  most  contemptible,  the  least  heroic, 
of  vices.  Good  God !  had  n't  she  seen  — 
had  n't  she  felt  —  the  smile  go  round  when 
her  husband  threw  off  some  especially  charac- 
teristic improvisation  ?  How  could  a  woman 
of  her  quality  endure  that,  day  after  day,  year 
after  year,  except  by  her  quality's  altering  ? 


THE   LIAR. 


But  he  would  believein  the  alteration  only  when 
heshould  have  heard  her  lie.  He  was  fascinated 
by  his  problem,  and  yet  half  exasperated,  and 
he  asked  himself  all  kinds  of  questions.  Did 
n't  she  lie,  after  all,  when  she  let  his  falsehoods 
pass  without  a  protest  ?  Was  n't  her  life  a 
perpetual  complicity,  and  did  n't  she  aid  and 
abet  him  by  the  simple  fact  that  she  was  not 
disgusted  with  him  ?  Then  again,  perhaps  she 
was  disgusted,  and  it  was  the  mere  desperation 
of  her  pride  that  had  given  her  an  impene- 
trable mask.  Perhaps  she  protested  in  private, 
passionately ;  perhaps  every  night,  in  their 
own  apartments,  after  the  day's  hideous  per- 
formance, she  made  him  the  most  scorching 
scene.  But  if  such  scenes  were  of  no  avail  and 
he  took  no  more  trouble  to  cure  himself,  how 
could  she  regard  him,  and  after  so  many  years 
of  marriage  too,  with  that  perfectly  artless 
complacency  that  Lyon  had  surprised  in  her 
in  the  course  of  the  first  day's  dinner  ?  If  our 
friend  had  not  been  in  love  with  her  he  could 
have  taken  the  diverting  view  of  the  colonel's 
delinquencies;  but  as  it  was  they  turned  to 
the  tragical  in  his  mind,  even  while  he  had  a 
sense  that  his  solicitude  might  also  have  been 
laughed  at. 

The  observation  of  these  three  days  showed 
him  that  if  Capadose  was  an  abundant  he  was 
not  a  malignant  liar,  and  that  his  fine  faculty 
exercised  itself  mainly  on  subjects  of  small  di- 
rect importance.  "  He  is  the  liar  Platonic," 
he  said  to  himself;  "he  is  disinterested,  he 
does  n't  operate  with  a  hope  of  gain,  or  with  a 
desire  to  injure.  It  is  art  for  art,  and  he  is 
prompted  by  the  love  of  beauty.  He  has  an 
inner  vision  of  what  might  have  been,  of  what 
ought  to  be,  and  he  helps  on  the  good  cause 
by  the  simple  substitution  of  a  nuance.  He 
paints,  as  it  were,  and  so  do  I !  "  His  mani- 
festations had  a  considerable  variety,  but  a 
family  likeness  ran  through  them,  which  con- 
sisted mainly  of  their  singular  uselessness.  It 
was  this  that  made  them  offensive;  they  en- 
cumbered the  field  of  conversation,  took  up 
valuable  space,  converted  it  into  a  sort  of  brill- 
iant sun-shot  fog.  For  a  fib  told  under  press- 
ure a  convenient  place  can  usually  be  found, 
as  for  a  person  who  presents  himself  with  an 
author's  order  at  the  first  night  of  a  play.  But 
the  uninvoked  lie  is  the  gentleman  without  a 
voucher  or  a  ticket  who  accommodates  him- 
self with  a  stool  in  the  passage. 

In  one  particular  Lyon  acquitted  his  suc- 
cessful rival ;  it  had  puzzled  him  that,  irrepres- 
sible as  he  was,  he  had  not  got  into  a  mess  in 
the  service.  But  he  perceived  that  he  respected 
the  service  —  that  august  institution  was  sa- 
cred from  his  depredations.  Moreover,  though 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  swagger  in  his  talk, 
it  was,  oddly  enough,  rarely  swagger  about 


his  military  exploits.  He  had  a  passion  for  the 
chase,  he  had  followed  it  in  far  countries,  and 
some  of  his  finest  flowers  were  reminiscences 
of  lonely  danger  and  escape.  The  more  soli- 
tary the  scene,  the  bigger  of  course  the  flower. 
A  new  acquaintance,  with  the  colonel,  always 
received  the  tribute  of  a  bouquet ;  that  gen- 
eralization Lyon  very  promptly  made.  And 
this  extraordinary  man  had  inconsistencies 
and  unexpected  lapses  —  lapses  into  dull  ve- 
racity. Lyon  recognized  what  Sir  David  had 
told  him,  that  his  aberrations  came  in  fits  or 
periods  —  that  he  would  sometimes  keep  the 
beaten  path  for  a  month  at  a  time.  The  muse 
breathed  upon  him  at  her  pleasure ;  she  often 
left  him  alone.  He  would  neglect  the  finest 
openings  and  then  set  sail  in  the  teeth  of  the 
breeze.  As  a  general  thing  he  affirmed  the 
false  rather  than  denied  the  true;  yet  this 
proportion  was  sometimes  strikingly  reversed. 
Very  often  he  joined  in  the  laugh  against  him- 
self—  he  admitted  that  he  was  trying  it  on 
and  that  a  good  many  of  his  anecdotes  had 
an  experimental  character.  Still  he  never  com- 
pletely retracted  or  retreated  —  he  dived  and 
came  up  in  another  place.  Lyon  divined  that 
he  was  capable,  at  intervals,  of  defending  his 
position  with  violence,  but  only  when  it  was 
a  very  bad  one.  Then  he  might  easily  be  dan- 
gerous—  then  he  would  hit  out  and  become 
calumnious.  Such  occasions  would  test  his 
wife's  equanimity  —  Lyon  would  have  liked 
to  see  her  there.  In  the  smoking-room,  and 
elsewhere,  the  company,  so  far  as  it  was  com- 
posed of  his  familiars,  had  an  hilarious  protest 
always  at  hand  ;  but  among  the  men  who  had 
known  him  long  his  rich  tone  was  an  old  story. 
so  old  that  they  had  ceased  to  talk  about  it, 
and  Lyon  did  n't  care,  as  I  have  said,  to  elicit 
the  judgment  of  those  who  might  have  shared 
his  own  surprise. 

The  oddest  thing  of  all  was  that  neither  sur- 
prise nor  familiarity  prevented  the  colonel's 
being  liked;  his  largest  drafts  on  a  skeptical 
attention  passed  for  an  overflow  of  life  and 
gayety  —  almost  of  good  looks.  He  was  fond 
of  portraying  his  bravery,  and  used  a  very  big 
brush,  and  yet  he  was  unmistakably  brave. 
He  was  a  capital  rider  and  shot,  in  spite  of  his 
fund  of  anecdote  illustrating  these  accomplish- 
ments; in  short,  he  was  very  nearly  as  clever, 
and  his  career  had  been  very  nearly  as  won- 
derful, as  he  pretended.  His  best  quality,  how- 
ever, remained  that  indiscriminate  sociability, 
which  took  interest  and  credulity  for  granted, 
and  about  which  he  bragged  least.  It  made  him 
cheap,  it  made  him  even  in  a  manner  vulgar  ; 
but  it  was  so  contagious  that  his  listener  was 
more  or  less  on  his  side,  as  against  the  proba- 
bilities. It  was  a  private  reflection  of  Oliver 
Lyon's  that  he  not  only  lied  but  made  one 


FOODS  AND  BEVERAGES. 


J35 


feel  also  like  a  liar,  even  (or  especially)  if  one 
contradicted  him.  In  the  evening,  at  dinner, 
and  afterward,  our  friend  watched  his  wife's 
face,  to  see  if  a  faint  shade  or  spasm  did  n't 
pass  over  it.  But  she  showed  nothing,  and  the 
wonder  was  that  when  he  spoke  she  almost 
always  listened.  That  was  her  pride;  she 
wished  not  to  be  even  suspected  of  not  facing 
the  music.  Lyon  had  none  the  less  an  impor- 
tunate vision  of  a  veiled  figure  coming  the 
next  day,  in  the  dusk,  to  certain  places,  to  re- 
pair the  colonel's  ravages,  as  the  relatives  of 
kleptomaniacs  punctually  call  at  the  shops  that 
have  suffered  from  their  pilferings. 


"  I  must  apologize,  of  course  it  was  n't  true, 
I  hope  no  harm  is  done,  it  is  only  his  incor- 
rigible — "  Oh,  to  hear  that  woman's  voice  in 
that  deep  abasement !  Lyon  had  no  nefarious 
plan  —  he  did  n't  consciously  wish  to  practice 
upon  her  sensibility ;  but  he  did  say  to  him- 
self that  he  should  like  to  bring  her  round  to 
feel  that  there  would  have  been  more  dignity 
in  a  union  with  a  certain  other  person.  He 
even  dreamed  of  the  hour,  when,  with  a  burn- 
ing face,  she  should  ask  him  not  to  take  it  up. 
Then  he  should  be  almost  consoled,  he  would 
be  magnanimous. 

Henry  James. 


(To  be  concluded  in  the  next  number.) 


FOODS    AND    BEVERAGES. 


THE    CHEMISTRY    OF    FOODS    AND    NUTRITION.       VI. 


IN  addition  to  what  has  been  said  in  former 
articles,  I  ought  perhaps  to  explain  a  little 
more  fully  about  some  of  the  ingredients  of 
foods  and  add  a  few  statements  concerning 
some  of  the  more  common  beverages,  as  tea, 
coffee,  and  alcohol. 

GELATINE    AS    FOOD. 

WHEN  we  boil  bones,  or  scraps  of  meat,  or 
fish  to  make  a  soup  we  extract  considerable 
of  gelatinoids,  fats,  and  other  substances  of 
them.  The  gelatine  in  the  soup  thus  made,  like 
the  dried  gelatine  we  buy  in  packages  and  use 
for  jellies,  is  of  course  very  valuable.  It  will 
not  take  the  place  of  meat,  because  it  cannot 
do  all  that  is  done  by  the  albuminoids  which 
the  meat  contains.  But  it  does  part  of  their 
work ;  and  if  it  cannot  make  flesh  it  does  what 
is  next  best  in  that  it  saves  flesh-forming  ma- 
terial from  being  used  up.  One  moral  of  this 
is  that  bones  are  worth  saving  for  food.  In 
experimenting  to  find  how  much  nutritive 
material  is  extracted  from  bones  in  making 
soup,  as  it  is  ordinarily  prepared  in  the  house- 
hold, Dr.  Konig  found  that  beef  bones,  from 
which  the  flesh  had  been  removed,  yielded 
from  6  to  7  ^  per  cent,  of  their  weight  of  ma- 
terial, of  which  about  4}^  per  cent,  was  fat 
and  the  rest  nitrogenous  matter.  That  is  to 
say,  from  a  pound  of  bone  about  an  ounce 
of  nutritive  material  was  obtained,  of  which 
three-fourths  was  fat  and  the  rest  gelatinoids 
and  the  like.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  bones  which  the  butcher  trims  out  of  meat, 
or  which  are  left  on  our  tables  or  in  our  kitch- 


ens, usually  have  a  good  deal  of  adhering 
flesh.  This  is  apt  to  amount  to  several  times  as 
much  as  the  material  extracted  from  the  bone 
itself. 

MEAT    EXTRACT. 

ANOTHER  class  of  food  ingredients  which 
contain  nitrogen,  and  are  hence  commonly 
included  with  the  protein  compounds,  are  the 
so-called  "  extractives,"  known  to  chemists  by 
the  names  "creatin,"  "  creatinin,"  etc.  These 
are  very  remarkable  substances.  I  spoke  of 
them  at  some  length  in  a  former  article,  ex- 
plaining that  they  make  up  the  active  princi- 
ples of  beef-tea  and  of  meat  extract.  Meats 
and  fish  always  contain  a  small  amount  of 
these  extractives  along  with  their  albuminoids 
and  gelatinoids.  They  impart  flavor  to  meats. 
The  savory  odor  of  steak  and  roast  beef  is 
due  to  them.  When  lean  meat  or  fish  is 
chopped  fine  and  soaked  in  water  they  dis- 
solve out.  They  take  their  name  of  extractives 
from  being  thus  extracted  from  meat.  It  is  in 
this  way  that  they  are  dissolved  from  meat  in 
making  beef-tea.  The  meat  extract  of  com- 
merce, which  is  made  in  enormous  quantities 
where  meat  is  cheap,  as  in  South  America,  and 
is  used  all  over  the  world,  is  prepared  by  boil- 
ing down  such  a  solution  until  the  extractive 
matters  are  left  in  a  nearly  solid  form. 

Just  what  the  extractives  do  in  helping  to 
nourish  the  body  has  long  been  a  physiolog- 
ical puzzle.  At  times  they  appear  to  aid  di- 
gestion. It  is  certain  that  they  have  some 
effect  upon  the  nervous  system.  When  one  is 


i36 


FOODS  AND  BEVERAGES. 


weakened  by  illness  or  exhausted  by  hard 
work  they  are  wonderfully  invigorating.  They 
were  formerly  supposed  to  furnish  actual  nu- 
triment, but  the  tendency  of  opinion  in  later 
years  has  been  to  make  them  simply  stimu- 
lants, and  the  experiments  within  a  short  time 
past  have  indicated  very  clearly  that  they 
neither  form  tissue  nor  yield  energy;  that, 
indeed,  they  practically  pass  through  the  body 
unchanged,  and  are  not  food  at  all  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  use  the  word.*  In  other  words, 
when  a  convalescent  invalid  drinks  his  beef- 
tea,  or  a  tired  brain-worker  takes  meat  extract 
with  his  food,  though  he  is  greatly  refreshed 
thereby  and  really  benefited,  the  extractives 
neither  repair  his  tissues  nor  furnish  him 
warmth  or  strength.  But  in  some  unexplained 
way  they  help  him  to  utilize  the  other  mate- 
rials of  his  body  and  of  his  food  to  an  extent 
which  without  them  he  could  not  do.  Beef- 
tea  and  meat  extract  are  strengthening,  not 
by  what  they  themselves  supply,  but  by  help- 
ing the  body  to  get  and  to  use  strength  from 
other  materials  which  it  has.  Such  is  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  latest  experimental  research. 
If  we  leave  the  extractives  in  the  meat  and 
fish  instead  of  making  beef-tea  or  meat  ex- 
tract of  them ;  in  other  words,  if  we  eat  our 
meat  in  the  ordinary  way,  they  still  appear  to 
have  similar  effect.  Dogs  that  with  vegetable 
food  are  quiet  and  listless  become  lively  and 
sometimes  fierce  when  fed  on  meat.  Some 
people  find  meat  very  stimulating.  But  the 
doctrine  which  we  frequently  see  in  print,  and 
which  is  even  taught  at  times  from  the  pulpit, 
that  this  stimulating  property  of  meat  is  re- 
sponsible for  a  large  part  of  the  physical  evil 
and  injury  to  character  we  see  about  us,  seems 
to  me  gross  exaggeration. 

TEA,    COFFEE,    COCOA,    CHOCOLATE. 

TEA  and  coffee  are  not  foods  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  use  the  word.  They  contain,  it 
is  true,  very  small  quantities  of  materials  similar 
to  the  nutrients  of  ordinary  foods,  but  so  few 
of  these  get  into  the  decoctions  which  we 
drink  that  they  are  not  worth  taking  into 
account. 

The  aroma  of  tea  and  coffee  is  mainly,  and 
the  taste  largely,  due  to  minute  quantities  of 
oily  substances — essential  oils,  as  they  are 
called.  The  effect  of  tea  and  coffee  upon  the 
nerves  and  the  brain  seems  to  be  chiefly  due 
to  a  substance  called  caffein  when  it  comes 
from  coffee,  and  thein  when  it  comes  from  tea. 
It  is  the  same  chemical  compound  in  both, 
and  belongs  to  the  class  called  alkaloids. 
Like  the  extractives  of  meat,  it  has,  in  moder- 
ate quantities,  an  invigorating  effect,  and  may 

*Rubner,  "  Zeitschrift  fur  Biologic,"  XX.,  265. 


at  times  aid  digestion.  The  expression,  which 
long  usage  has  applied  to  tea  and  coffee,  "The 
cups  that  cheer  but  not  inebriate,"  is  a  true 
statement  of  fact. 

Tea  contains  tannic  acid,  or  tannin,  the  sub- 
stance which,  in  the  bark  of  trees,  like  oak  and 
hemlock,  is  used  to  tan  leather.  The  skins  of 
animals  contain  gelatinoid  substances  with 
which  the  tannin  unites,  giving  it  the  proper- 
ties of  leather.  Tannin  may  likewise  unite  with 
albuminoid  substances,  such  as  occur  in  meats, 
fish,  milk,  eggs,  and  so  on.  The  natural  infer- 
ence is  that  if  we  take  tea  with  albuminous 
foods,  the  tannin  will  unite  with  them  and 
form  indigestible  compounds.  The  newspaper 
statements  we  sometimes  see  about  tea  mak- 
ing leather  in  the  stomach  are  grossly  exag- 
gerated. But  experiments  imply  that  it  may 
sometimes  interfere  with  the  digestion  of  some 
albuminous  foods ;  and  I  have  heard  of  peo- 
ple, though  I  have  never  met  a  case,  with 
whom  tea  taken  along  with  fresh  meat  hin- 
ders digestion.  It  is  said,  however,  not  to  in- 
terfere at  all  with  the  digestion  of  dry  meats, 
such  as  ham  and  tongue. 

One  objection  to  steeping  tea  for  a  long 
time  is  that  the  longer  it  is  infused  the  more 
tannic  acid  is  extracted.  Coffee  contains  tan- 
nic acid,  but  less  than  tea. 

It  seems  a  bit  odd  that  so  many  people, 
either  from  lack  of  understanding  of  what 
gives  the  odor  and  flavor  to  coffee  and  tea,  or 
from  carelessness,  prepare  them  in  just  the  way 
that  is  calculated  to  get  rid  of  the  volatile 
matters  whose  aroma  and  taste  are  so  highly- 
prized.  The  chief  part  of  the  art  of  making 
good  coffee  or  tea  is  to  dissolve  the  soluble 
matters,  and  at  the  same  time  not  lose  those 
that  are  volatile.  The  long  steeping  at  high 
temperature,  commonly  practiced  in  making 
tea  and  coffee,  is  an  effective  way  for  expelling 
the  volatile  oils.  To  keep  them  in  hot  water 
just  long  enough  to  dissolve  out  the  alkaloids 
and  other  soluble  compounds,  and  in  a  tightly 
closed  vessel,  so  as  to  prevent  the  escape  of 
the  volatile  substances,  are  very  important 
factors  in  the  making  of  a  good  cup  of  tea  or 
coffee. 

I  well  remember  my  first  realization  of  the 
true  flavor  of  well-prepared  tea.  It  was  at  a 
hotel  in  Heidelberg.  The  waiter,  who  told 
me  he  had  learned  the  art  in  Russia,  steeped 
the  tea  at  the  table  by  pouring  hot  water  upon 
it  in  a  pot  made  for  the  purpose.  It  was  not 
over-steeped;  there  was  neither  boiling  to  drive 
the  volatile  matters  off  nor  long  lapse  of  time 
for  them  to  escape.  They  were  dissolved  out 
and  served  at  once,  and  made  the  decoction 
delicious.  The  guests  at  the  table  of  an  ac- 
quaintance of  mine,  not  long  since,  were  un- 
usually pleased  with  the  tea,  and  surprised  to 


FOODS  AND   BEVERAGES. 


'37 


learn  that  it  was  bought  at  the  same  store,  and 
was,  in  tact,  the  same  that  some  of  them  were 
using  at  home.  It  transpired  that  the  tea  had 
been  kept  in  a  tight  box  until  used,  and  had 
been  prepared  by  a  process  which  one  of  the 
family  had  learned  in  Germany.  This  con- 
sisted simply  in  pouring  boiling  water  upon 
the  tea,  covering  the  pot  tightly  with  a  cloth, 
setting  it  upon  a  part  of  the  stove  where  it 
would  not  boil,  and  serving  after  a  very  short 
time.  The  towel  helped  to  keep  the  water 
warm  and  the  aroma  from  escaping,  and  the 
tea,  when  brought  to  the  table,  was  most  ex- 
cellent. Of  course  things  of  this  sort  are  of 
no  great  consequence.  Perhaps  most  of  us 
would  be  better  off  if  we  did  not  drink  either 
tea  or  coffee ;  but  if  we  are  going  to  use  them 
we  might  as  well  have  the  flavor,  which,  I 
suppose,  is  the  least  injurious  part. 

Cocoa  and  chocolate  contain  theobromin 
and,  as  it  appears,  another  alkaloid,  similar 
to  the  alkaloid  of  tea  and  coffee.  With  these 
are  fatty  matters,  a  kind  of  starch,  and  other 
substances  which  occur  in  the  cacao  bean 
from  which  cocoa  and  chocolate  are  made. 
In  preparing  them  for  the  market,  part  of  the 
fat  is  extracted  and  othersubstancesare  added. 
For  chocolate  considerable  sugar  is  used. 
Thus  made  it  has  a  little  less  nitrogen,  more 
fat,  and  a  trifle  more  nutritive  matter  than 
flour.  Accordingly,  the  beverage  prepared 
from  cocoa  or  chocolate  supplies  considerable 
nutriment  in  addition  to  the  alkaloids,  which 
serve  as  stimulants,  and  the  flavoring  sub- 
stances, which  are  highly  prized. 

IS    ALCOHOL    FOOD? 

To  this  question  the  answer  of  the  latest 
and  most  reliable  experimental  research  is,  I 
think,  clearly,  yes.  But  its  action  as  food  is  so 
limited,  and  so  outbalanced  by  its  effects  upon 
the  nerves  and  the  brain,  that,  except  in  certain 
abnormal  conditions  of  the  body,  the  food 
value  of  alcohol  is  of  scarcely  enough  conse- 
quence to  be  taken  into  account. 

In  the  light  of  our  present  knowledge,  we 

*  Nearly  thirty  years  ago  a  series  of  experiments  were 
conducted  by  Lallemand,  Perrin,  and  Duroy  in  France, 
which  have  been  claimed  by  them,  and  by  numerous 
writers  since,  to  show  that  alcohol  taken  into  the  body 
is  not  consumed  like  ordinary  food,  but  is  eliminated 
by  the  lungs,  kidneys,  and  skin.  Other  experiments 
have  seemed  to  favor  this  view.  For  many  years  the  the- 
ory that  alcohol  is  not  consumed  has  served  as  a  stable 
argument  against  its  use,  not  only  by  the  less  thought- 
ful physiologists  and  temperance  agitators,  but  also  in 
text-books  and  even  in  the  later  official  publications  of 
temperance  organizations. 

Not  only  were  the  experiments  of  Lallemand,  Perrin, 

and  Ouroy  made  by  very  imperfect  methods,  but  the 

quantities  of  alcohol  used  were  very  large.    Dr.  J.  W. 

Warren  of  the  Medical  School  of  Harvard  University, 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 20. 


regard  food  as  that  which  either  builds  tissue, 
or  protects  tissue  or  other  food  from  con- 
sumption, or  supplies  energy  to  the  body. 
Our  ordinary  food-materials  do  all  these. 
Alcohol  does  not  form  tissue,  either  flesh 
(protein)  or  fat;  but  it  does  serve  as  fuel  to 
yield  energy,  and  in  so  doing  probably  pro- 
tects protein  and  fat  from  being  consumed. 
Such,  at  any  rate,  are  the  inferences  from  the 
best  evidence  at  hand,  and  that  evidence  is 
such  as  to  leave  little  doubt.  But  the  quantity 
of  alcohol  that  the  system  will  ordinarily  en- 
dure is  small ;  not  all  that  is  taken  is  always 
consumed;  its  potential  energy  is  relatively 
little  and  its  nutritive  effect  slight —  the  equiv- 
alent of  a  small  fragment  of  bread,  for  in- 
stance. Furthermore,  as  a  consequence  of  its 
action  upon  the  nerves,  alcohol  tends  to  pro- 
mote the  radiation  of  heat  from  the  body  and 
thus  to  counteract  the  nutritive  effect  it  does 
have.  In  a  very  cold  day  a  glass  of  brandy 
may  make  a  man  feel  warmer  for  a  time,  but 
his  sensations  deceive  him;  the  real  effect  of 
the  alcohol  is  to  make  his  body  colder.  In 
like  manner  alcohol  may  temporarily  stimu- 
late the  tired  muscles  and  brain  for  work,  but 
it  cannot  take  the  place  of  rest.  It  is  a  stim- 
ulus, and  as  such  it  is  like  the  spur  to  the 
wearied  horse  ;  instead  of  giving  new  strength, 
it  makes  new  drafts  upon  the  already  reduced 
supply. 

The  alcohol  which  is  taken  into  the  body 
appears  to  be  burned,  like  sugar  and  other 
nutritive  materials;  but  a  portion,  instead  of 
being  consumed,  is  given  off  again  by  the 
lungs,  skin,  and  kidneys.  The  quantity  thus 
eliminated  has  been  the  subject  of  no  little 
discussion  and  experiment.  The  theory  has 
been  held  that  the  larger  part  escapes  and  but 
little  is  consumed  for  fuel.  The  latest  and 
most  accurate  experiments,  however,  decid- 
edly oppose  this  view,  and  lead  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  although  when  alcohol  is  taken 
in  large  doses  a  considerable  portion  may  be 
eliminated,  as  is  likewise  the  case  with  sugar, 
yet  in  the  amounts  which  people  ordinarily 
drink  very  nearly  the  whole  is  oxidized.* 

who  has  given  an  admirable  resume  of  the  whole  sub- 
ject in  the  "  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,"  July 
7  and  July  14,  1887,  has  taken  the  pains  to  calculate 
the  amounts  of  alcohol  given  to  the  dogs  in  the  experi- 
ments just  named,  and  what  would  be  corresponding 
quantities  for  an  average  man,  taking  into  account  the 
difference  in  size.  He  finds  that  "  the  amount  of  alco- 
hol equivalent  to  a  whole  bottle  of  brandy  for  the  av- 
erage man  was  a  common  dose  for  the  dogs.  In  one 
experiment  the  equivalent  was  as  much  as  two  and  one- 
half  bottles,  and  in  another  case  three  bottles  of 
brandy."  The  experiments  of  Subbotin  in  Munich, 
which  were  made  by  more  accurate  methods,  are  some- 
times quoted  as  showing  considerable  secretion  of  al- 
cohol. They  were  made  with  rabbits,  which  likewise 
received  enormous  doses.  Even  sugar  and  albumen, 


FOODS   AND   BEVERAGES. 


As  food,  the  only  use  of  alcohol  is  to  serve 
as  fuel.  The  exact  fuel  value  of  alcohol,  its 
capacity  to  supply  the  body  with  heat  and 
muscular  energy,  cannot  be  stated  with  entire 
confidence.  In  the  case  of  the  principal  nutri- 
tive ingredients  of  food,  the  protein,  fats,  and 
carbohydrates,  the  potential  energy,  which  is 
taken  as  the  measure  of  their  fuel  value,  is 
proportioned  to  the  heat  produced  when  they 
are  burned  with  oxygen,  and  is  learned  by  use 
of  an  apparatus  for  the  purpose  called  the 
calorimeter.  It  is  found  by  experiments  with 
animals  that  these  nutritive  materials  yield 
energy  to  the  body,  in  the  forms  of  heat  and 
muscular  energy,  in  the  proportion  to  the  heats 
produced  by  their  combustion  in  the  calorim- 
eter. The  natural  inference  is  that  the  same 
will  be  the  case  with  the  alcohol  burned  in 
the  body.  Bodlander's  and  other  accurate  ex- 
periments confirm  this  view. 

The  potential  energy  of  the  fats  is  about 
double  that  of  the  protein  or  carbohydrates, 
which  latter  are  about  equal  to  one  another  in 
this  respect.  That  is  to  say,  a  given  weight  — 
for  instance,  an  ounce  of  myosin  of  lean  meat 
or  albumen  of  egg  —  would,  if  burned  in  the 
calorimeter,  yield  just  about  the  same  amount 
of  heat  as  an  ounce  of  sugar  or  starch;  while 
an  ounce  of  the  fat  of  meat  or  butter  would 
yield  twice  as  much.  The  best  evidence  im- 
plies that  when  these  substances  are  burned  in 
the  body  they  yield  heat  and  muscular  energy 
in  the  same  proportions.  The  heat  of  combus- 
tion of  alcohol  is  about  midway  between  that  of 
the  fats  and  that  of  the  carbohydrates  or  pro- 
tein, and  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  en- 
ergy it  would  yield  in  the  body  would  be  of 
corresponding  amount.  In  other  words,  if  the 
fuel  value  of  an  ounce  of  protein  or  an  ounce 
of  sugar  or  starch  is  one,  and  that  of  an  ounce 
of  fats,  two,  the  fuel  value  of  an  ounce  of 
alcohol  would  be  one  and  a  half.  But,  as  al- 


ready explained,  a  small  part  of  the  alcohol 
which  is  taken  into  the  body  leaves  it  uncon- 
sumed,  and  the  action  of  the  alcohol  upon  the 
nerves  may  counteract  part  of  its  nutritive  ef- 
fect. Since,  furthermore,  we  are  not  absolutely 
certain  as  to  the  ways  in  which  the  body  uses 
it,  we  should  be  hardly  justified  in  saying 
positively  that  the  energy  yielded  by  alcohol 
in  the  body  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the  heat 
of  combustion.  But  it  seems  extremely  prob- 
able that  alcohol  stands  somewhere  between 
carbohydrates  and  fats  in  fuel  value. 

Perhaps  these  facts  may  at  least  help  to- 
wards explaining  the  nutritive  effect  of  alcohol 
in  some  cases  of  disease  and  exhaustion.  When 
the  body  is  quiet  and  in  warm  surroundings, 
the  demand  for  protein  to  replace  muscle  used 
up  and  for  material  to  serve  as  fuel  is  small. 
Alcohol  does  not  require  the  action  of  digest- 
ive juices ;  it  is  ready  to  be  assimilated  with- 
out digestion,  and  its  fuel  value  appears  to  be 
considerable.  It  would  seem  that  it  might 
thus,  at  times,  serve  a  useful  purpose  in  sus- 
taining life,  when  the  bodily  functions  are  at 
a  low  ebb.  I  make  this  suggestion  with  some 
hesitancy,  realizing  very  fully  the  unwisdom 
of  a  chemist's  attempting  to  urge  theories 
which  it  is  outside  his  province  to  verify.  But 
I  have  often  heard  physicians  say  that  wine, 
for  instance,  is  very  helpful  in  some  cases  of 
sickness,  when  but  little  other  food  can  be 
taken ;  and  when  asked  the  chemical  expla- 
nation they  could  think  of  no  better  one  than 
this. 

Distilled  spirits,  such  as  whisky,  brandy, 
gin,  and  rum,  have  from  forty  to  sixty  per  cent, 
of  alcohol,  but  no  carbohydrates  or  other 
nutrients. 

As  whisky  is  ordinarily  sold  in  this  country 
by  the  drink,  a  gallon  is  said  to  make  about 
sixty  glasses,*  which  would  make,  roughly 
speaking,  about  an  ounce  of  alcohol  to  the 


when  taken  into  the  body  in  large  doses,  may  in  part 
escape  unconsumed.  When  we  consider  how  soluble 
alcohol  is,  and  how  easily  it  might  be  expected  to  make 
its  way  through  the  body,  it  is  not  strange  that  when 
so  much  is  taken  a  portion  should  escape. 

Soon  after  the  experiments  of  Lallemand,  Perrin,  and 
Duroy  were  published,  I)r.  Anstie,  in  England,  began 
a  series  of  careful  experiments  upon  this  question. 
They  were  continued  through  a  number  of  years,  and 
showed  very  clearly  that  when  alcohol  was  taken  in 
moderate  amounts  the  quantity  secreted  was  very 
small.  His  results  have  been  confirmed  by  other  in- 
vestigators. Within  a  short  time  past  extended  re- 
searches have  been  carried  out  by  Professor  Bin?., 
Bodliinder,  and  others  at  the  University  of  Bonn,  Ger- 
many. Appropriate  apparatus  and  the  refinements  of 
modern  research  were  used  to  insure  accuracy.  The 
conclusion  is  that  when  alcohol  is  not  taken  in  exces- 
sive doses  it  is  almost  wholly  consumed,  and  extremely 
little  is  secreted.  In  experiments  with  himself,  Bodlan- 
der  took  enough  absolute  alcohol,  diluted  with  water,  to 
be  equal  to  from  two-thirds  to  four-thirds  of  a  bottle 


of  claret ;  in  experiments  with  dogs,  the  equivalent  of 
from  one  and  a  half  to  four  bottles  of  claret  was 
used  for  a  dose.  The  average  quantity  given  off 
through  kidneys,  skin,  and  lungs,  as  indicated  by  ex- 
periments, was  three  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  the 
whole  by  the  dogs,  and  two  and  nine-tenths  per  cent. 
by  himself.  Making  a  very  liberal  allowance  for  i  r- 
rors  of  experimenting,  the  total  quantity  of  alcohol 
eliminated  could  not  exceed  five  per  cent,  of  the  amount 
taken.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  proportions 
of  alcohol  which  were  thus  given  off  unconsumed  were 
about  the  same  as  the  proportions  of  meats,  milk, 
bread,  and  vegetables  which  ordinarily  escape  diges- 
tion. (See  article  on  "The  Digestibility  of  Food"  in 
THE  CENTURY  for  September,  1887.) 

Alcohol,  in  the  quantities  which  people  ordinarily 
take  who  use  it,  appears  to  be  consumed  just  about  as 
completely  as  our  ordinary  foods. 

*  See  article  on  "  The  Nation's  Liquor  Bill,"  by  Mr. 
F.  N.  Barrett,  in  Quarterly  Report,  No.  2,  of  the 
Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  Treasury  Depart- 
ment. 


FOODS  AND   BEVERAGES. 


'39 


glass.  If  we  \vere  at  liberty  to  estimate  the 
fuel  value  from  the  potential  energy,  this  ounce 
of  alcohol  would  be  equal  in  this  respect  to  a 
little  more  than  an  ounce  of  sugar,  or  starch, 
or  protein,  or  to  less  than  an  ounce  of  fat.  lint 
we  are  uncertain  as  to  the  actual  amount  of 
energy  which  alcohol  yields  when  burned  in  a 
body,  and  its  influence  upon  the  body  through 
the  nervous  system  is  generally  such  as  to 
counteract  more  or  less  of  its  nutritive  effect. 
In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  there- 
fore, it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  food  value 
of  a  glass  of  whisky  would  be  at  all  consid- 
erable. The  same  would  be  true  of  brandy, 
gin,  rum,  and  other  distilled  liquors. 

Malt  liquors  —  porter,  ale,  and  lager  beer  — 
contain  usually  from  four  to  five  or  six  per  cent. 
of  alcohol.  Ordinary  white  wines  and  claret 
commonly  contain  eight  or  nine  per  cent.,  and 
champagne  nearly  ten  per  cent.;  while  the 
stronger  wines,  such  as  sherry,  will  average  as 
much  as  seventeen  per  cent.  A  pint  (pound) 
of  ale  or  beer  would,  therefore,  contain  about 
three-quarters  of  an  ounce,  and  the  same  quan- 
tity of  wine  from  one  to  two  and  a  half  ounces 
of  alcohol. 

Ale,  beer,  and  wine  contain  small  quanti- 
ties of  nutritive  material  in  addition  to  their 
alcohol  and  other  constituents.  That  of  wines 
consists  mainly  of  compounds  akin  to  carbo- 
hydrates, and  averages  a  trifle  over  three  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  weight.  That  of  ale  and 
beer  includes,  on  the  average,  a  little  over  a 
half  of  one  per  cent,  of  protein  and  other  nitro- 
geneous  compounds,  and  six  or  seven  per  cent, 
of  carbohydrates  and  allied  substances.  A  pint 
(pound)  of  ale  or  beer  would  contain,  roughly 
speaking,  about  as  much  of  these  nutritive  sub- 
stances as  one  and  one-fifth  ounces  of  bread ; 
and  a  pint  of  wine  about  as  much  as  three-quar- 
ters of  an  ounce  of  bread. 

In  all  this  discussion  we  should  remember 
that  the  alcohol  of  ordinary  liquors,  distilled 
spirits,  wine,  etc.,  is  not  all  the  common  ethyl 
alcohol.  In  speaking  of  the  effects  of  alcohol 
I  have  referred  to  ordinary  alcohol ;  or,  as  it 
is  called  in  the  chemical  laboratory,  ethyl 
alcohol.  But  there  are  other  kinds  of  alcohol, 
some  of  which,  like  those  contained  in  the 
fusel  oil  of  commercial  alcohol  and  whisky, 
appear  to  be  even  more  deleterious  to  health 
than  ethyl  alcohol.  These  alcohols  are  formed 
in  the  process  of  fermentation,  and  are  often 
very  imperfectly  separated  from  brandy, 
whisky,  and  other  spirits  in  the  process  of 
distillation  by  which  the  latter  are  prepared. 
It  is  said  that  the  materials  used  for  adulterat- 
ing wine  often  contain  considerable  quantities 
of  these  especially  deleterious  alcohols.  The 
injury  to  health  from  the  use  of  spirituous 
liquors  containing  these  is  believed  to  be  much 


greater  than  would  come  from  liquors  contain- 
ing only  ethyl  alcohol. 

From  the  evidence  at  hand  regarding  the 
use  of  alcohol,  the  following,  by  Dr.  E.  A. 
Parkus,  the  eminent  English  hygienist,  seems 
to  me  a  fair  and  judicious  statement  of  the 
facts,  although  I  should  be  inclined  to  lay  a 
little  more  stress  upon  the  principle  that,  in 
health  at  any  rate,  it  is  superfluous  or  worse, 
and  to  insist  more  strongly  upon  the  impor- 
tance, in  this  country  especially,  of  general 
abstinence  from  its  use. 

The  facts  now  stated  make  it  difficult  to  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  the  dietetic  value  of  alcohol  has  been 
much  overrated.  It  does  not  appear  to  me  possible  at 
present  to  condemn  alcohol  altogether  as  an  article  of 
diet  in  health ;  or  to  prove  that  it  is  invariably  hurt- 
ful, as  some  have  attempted  to  do.  It  produces  effects 
which  are  often  useful  in  disease,  and  sometimes  de- 
sirable in  health;  but  in  health  it  is  certainly  not  a  ne- 
cessity, and  many  persons  are  much  better  without  it. 
As  now  used  by  mankind,  it  is  infinitely  more  powerful 
for  evil  than  for  good  ;  and  though  it  can  hardly  be 
imagined  that  its  dietetic  use  will  cease  in  our  time, 
yet  a  clearer  view  of  its  effects  must  surely  lead  to 
a  lessening  of  the  excessive  use  which  now  prevails. 

Among  the  curious  side  issues  of  the  current 
temperance  discussion  is  the  question  whether 
alcohol  is  a  natural  product.  This  is,  I  believe, 
vigorously  denied  in  some  quarters.  Alcohol, 
like  bread,  is  manufactured  artificially  from  a 
natural  product.  In  each  case  fermentation, 
a  natural  process,  is  made  use  of.  But  while 
bread  is  known  only  as  a  product  of  manufac- 
ture, alcohol  appears  to  be  very  widely  dis- 
tributed in  nature,  though  in  extremely  minute 
quantities.  Nor  is  this  at  all  surprising.  If 
grapes  or  apples,  or  their  juice,  be  exposed  to 
the  air,  fermentation  sets  in  and  the  sugar  and 
other  carbohydrates  are  changed  to  alcohol. 
The  ferments  which  cause  the  change  are 
afloat  in  the  air  all  about,  and  might  not  un- 
naturally attack  similar  compounds  in  other 
vegetable  substances.  Professor  Miintz  of  the 
National  Agronomic  Institute  in  Paris  has, 
by  refined  chemical  tests,  discovered  evidences 
of  alcohol  in  cultivated  soils,  in  rain  water,  in 
sea  and  river  water,  and  in  the  atmosphere. 
He  finds  that  vegetable  molds  may  contain 
considerable  quantities,  and  it  appears  prob- 
able that  the  alcohol  "  originates  in  the  soil, 
from  the  fermentation  of  the  organic  matters 
in  it,  and  is  thence  diffused  as  vapor  in  the 
atmosphere." 

Another  side  issue  of  our  temperance  dis- 
cussion is  the  so-called  "  Bible  wine  "  theory, 
which  maintains  that  the  wine  used  in  Pales- 
tine in  the  time  of  Christ  was  not  alcoholic. 
I  have  been  unable  to  find  evidence  that  the 
composition  of  the  juice  of  the  grape,  the  laws 
of  fermentation,  or  the  practice  in  the  making 
and  using  of  wine,  were  different  in  that  coun- 


140 


THE    CITY. 


try  at  that  time  from  those  in  other  countries, 
or  in  that  country  at  other  times ;  and  believe 
it  safe  to  say  that  the  theory  that  Bible  wine 
was  different  from  other  wine,  that  it  had  not 
the  alcohol  which  other  wines  contain,  is  with- 
out any  basis  to  support  it,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  student  of  science. 

Of  the  inexpressibly  baneful  effects  of  al- 
cohol, that  have  made  its  excessive  use  one 
of  the  worst  of  the  evils  of  our  modern  civili- 
zation, this  is  not  the  place  to  speak.  But 
there  is  one  matter  in  this  connection  about 
which,  I  trust,  a  word  may  not  be  out  of  place. 
It  is  that,  great  as  is  the  physical  evil  of  alco- 
hol, the  moral  evil  is  incomparably  greater; 
that  true  temperance  reform  is  moral  reform; 
and  that,  like  every  other  moral  reform,  it  will 
be  best  furthered  by  the  closest  alliance  with 
the  truth. 

The  moral  argument  against  alcohol  seems 
to  me  invincible.  Is  it  not  certainly  strong 
enough  when  the  facts  are  adhered  to,  without 
the  exaggerations  into  which  earnest  reformers, 
in  the  intensity  of  their  convictions,  are  some- 
times led  ?  Is  it  not  best  to  accept  the  doc- 
trine, with  which  the  tests  of  science  as  in- 
terpreted by  the  consensus  of  specialists  and 
the  experience  of  mankind,  beginning  cent- 


uries before  the  miracle  at  Cana  and  reach- 
ing until  now,  alike  agree  that  beverages 
containing  alcohol  may  have  a  decided  value 
for  nourishment,  and  that,  in  moderate  quan- 
tities, they  are  not  always  of  necessity  harm- 
ful, but  may  at  times  be  positively  useful  ? 

We  wish  to  help  the  drunkard  to  reform ; 
but  is  it  necessary  to  tell  him  that  no  man  can 
touch  alcohol  without  danger?  To  build  up 
the  public  sentiment  upon  which  the  reform 
of  the  future  must  rest  we  wish  our  children 
to  understand  about  alcohol  and  its  terrible 
effects;  but  when  we  teach  them,  in  the  name 
of  science,  shall  we  not  teach  them  the  simple 
facts  which  science  attests  and  which  they 
can  hereafter  believe,  rather  than  exaggerated 
theories,  whose  errors,  when  they  learn  them, 
will  tend  to  undo  the  good  we  strive  to  do? 
In  short,  is  not  temperance  advisable  even  in 
the  teaching  of  the  temperance  doctrine  ? 

These  questions  are  asked  in  a  spirit  not 
of  unkind  criticism,  but  of  deep  interest  in  the 
cause.  Are  they  not  worthy  of  thoughtful 
consideration  ? 

In  the  great  effort  to  make  men  better,  there 
is  one  thing  that  we  must  always  seek,  one 
thing  that  we  need  never  fear  —  the  truth. 

W.   O.  Atwater. 


THE    CITY. 


I^HEY  do  neither  plight  nor  wed 
In  the  City  of  the  dead, 
In   the   city  where   they  sleep    away  the 

hours ; 

But  they  lie,  while  o'er  them  range 
Winter-blight  and  summer-change, 
And  a  hundred  happy  whisperings  of 

flowers. 

No,  they  neither  wed  nor  plight, 
And  the  day  is  like  the  night, 
For  their  vision  is  of  other  kind  than  ours. 


They  do  neither  sing  nor  sigh, 

In  that  burgh  of  by  and  by 

Where  the  streets  have  grasses  growing  cool 

and  long; 

But  they  rest  within  their  bed, 
Leaving  all  their  thoughts  unsaid, 
Deeming  silence  better  far  than  sob  or  song. 
No,  they  neither  sigh  nor  sing, 
Though  the  robin  be  a-wing, 
Though  the  leaves  of  autumn  march  a  million 

strong. 


There  is  only  rest  and  peace 

In  the  City  of  Surcease 

From  the  failings  and  the  wailings  'neath  the  Sun, 

And  the  wings  of  the  swift  years 

Beat  but  gently  o'er  the  biers, 

Making  music  to  the  sleepers  every  one. 

There  is  only  peace  and  rest; 

But  to  them  it  seemeth  best, 

For  they  lie  at  ease  and  know  that  life  is  done. 


Richard  E.  Burton. 


THE    LOCOMOTIVE    CHASE    IN    GEORGIA.* 


|HE  railroad  raid  to  Georgia,  in 
the  spring  of  1862,  has  always 
been  considered  to  rank  high 
among  the  striking  and  novel  in- 
cidents of  the  civil  war.  At  that 
time  General  O.  M.  Mitchel, 
under  whose  authority  it  was  organized,  com- 
manded Union  forces  in  middle  Tennessee, 
consisting  of  a  division  of  BuelPs  army.  The 
Confederates  .were  concentrating  at  Corinth, 
Mississippi,  and  Grant  and  Buell  were  advanc- 
ing by  different  routes  towards  that  point. 
Mitchel's  orders  required  him  to  protect  Nash- 
ville and  the  country  around,  but  allowed  him 
great  latitude  in  the  disposition  of  his  division, 
which,  with  detachments  and  garrisons,  num- 
bered nearly  seventeen  thousand  men.  His  at- 
tention had  long  been  strongly  turned  towards 
the  liberation  of  east  Tennessee,  which  he 
knew  that  President  Lincoln  also  earnestly 
desired,  and  which  would,  if  achieved,  strike 
a  most  damaging  blow  at  the  resources  of  the 
rebellion.  A  Union  army  once  in  possession 
of  east  Tennessee  would  have  the  inestimable 
advantage,  found  nowhere  else  in  the  South,  of 
operating  in  the  midst  of  a  friendly  popula- 
tion, and  having  at  hand  abundant  supplies  of 
all  kinds.  Mitchel  had  no  reason  to  believe 
that  Corinth  would  detain  the  Union  armies 
much  longer  than  Fort  Donelson  had  done, 
and  was  satisfied  that  as  soon  as  that  position 
had  been  captured  the  next  movement  would 
be  eastward  towards  Chattanooga,  thus  throw- 
ing his  own  division  in  advance.  He  deter- 
mined, therefore,  to  press  into  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country  as  far  as  possible,  occupying 
strategical  points  before  they  were  adequately 
defended  and  assured  of  speedy  and  powerful 

*  By  the  author  of 


reinforcement.  To  this  end  his  measures  were 
vigorous  and  well  chosen. 

On  the  8th  of  April,  1862, —  the  day  after 
the  battle  of  Pittsburg  Landing,  of  which,  how- 
ever, Mitchel  had  received  no  intelligence, — 
he  marched  swiftly  southward  from  Shelby- 
ville  and  seized  Huntsville,  in  Alabama,  on 
the  nth  of  April,  and  then  sent  a  detachment 
westward  over  the  Memphis  and  Charleston 
Railroad  to  open  railway  communication  with 
the  Union  army  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  An- 
other detachment,  commanded  by  Mitchel  in 
person,  advanced  on  the  same  day  seventy 
miles  by  rail  directly  into  the  enemy's  terri- 
tory, arriving  unchecked  with  two  thousand 
men  within  thirty  miles  of  Chattanooga, — 
in  two  hours'  time  he  could  now  reach  that 
point, —  the  most  important  position  in  the 
West.  Why  did  he  not  go  on  ?  The  story  of 
the  railroad  raid  is  the  answer.  The  night  be- 
fore breaking  camp  at  Shelby  ville,  Mitchel  sent 
an  expedition  secretly  into  the  heart  of  Geor- 
gia to  cut  the  railroad  communications  of  Chat- 
tanooga to  the  south  and  east.  The  fortune  of 
this  attempt  had  a  most  important  bearing  upon 
his  movements,  and  will  now  be  narrated. 

In  the  employ  of  General  Buell  was  a  spy 
named  James  J.  Andrews,  who  had  rendered 
valuable  services  in  the  first  year  of  the  war, 
and  had  secured  the  full  confidence  of  the 
Union  commanders.  In  March,  1862,  Buell 
had  sent  him  secretly  with  eight  men  to  burn 
the  bridges  west  of  Chattanooga;  but  the  fail- 
ure of  expected  cooperation  defeated  the  plan, 
and  Andrews,  after  visiting  Atlanta  and  in- 
specting the  whole  of  the  enemy's  lines  in  that 
vicinity  and  northward,  had  returned,  ambitious 
to  make  another  attempt.  His  plans  for  the 

Daring  and  Suffering." 


142 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE    CHASE  IN  GEORGIA. 


second  raid  were  submitted  to  Mitchel,  and 
on  the  eve  of  the  movement  from  Shelby  ville 
to  Huntsville  Mitchel  authorized  him  to  take 
twenty-four  men,  secretly  enter  the  enemy's  ter- 
ritory, and,  by  means  of  capturing  a  train,  burn 
the  bridges  on  the  northern  part  of  the  Georgia 
State  Railroad  and  also  one  on  the  East  Tennes- 
see Railroad  where  it  approaches  the  Georgia 
State  line,  thus  completely  isolating  Chatta- 
nooga, which  was  virtually  ungarrisoned. 

The  soldiers  for  this  expedition,  of  whom 
the  writer  was  one,  were  selected  from  the 
three  Ohio  regiments  belonging  to  General 
J.  W.  Sill's  brigade,  being  simply  told  that 
they  were  wanted  for  secret  and  very  danger- 
ous service.  So  far  as  known,  not  a  man 
chosen  declined  the  perilous  honor.  Our  uni- 
forms were  exchanged  for  ordinary  Southern 
dress,  and  all  arms  except  revolvers  were  left 
in  camp.  On  the  yth  of  April,  by  the  roadside 
about  a  mile  east  of  Shelbyville,  in  the  late 
evening  twilight,  we  met  our  leader.  Taking 
us  a  little  way  from  the  road,  he  quietly  placed 
before  us  the  outlines  of  the  romantic  and  ad- 
venturous plan,  which  was:  to  break  into  small 
detachments  of  three  or  four,  journey  east- 
ward into  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  then 
work  southward,  traveling  by  rail  after  we  were 
well  within  the  Confederate  lines,  and  finally, 
the  evening  of  the  third  day  after  the  start, 
meet  Andrews  at  Marietta,  Georgia,  more  than 
two  hundred  miles  away.  When  questioned,  we 
were  to  profess  ourselves  Kentuckians  going 
to  join  the  Southern  army. 

On  the  journey  we  were  a  good  deal  an- 
noyed by  the  swollen  streams  and  the  muddy 
roads  consequent  on  three  days  of  almost 
ceaseless  rain.  Andrews  was  led  to  believe 
that  Mitchel's  column  would  be  inevitably 
delayed ;  and  as  we  were  expected  to  destroy 
the  bridges  the  very  day  that  Huntsville  was 
entered,  he  took  the  responsibility  of  send- 
ing word  to  our  different  groups  that  our  at- 
tempt would  be  postponed  one  day  —  from 
Friday  to  Saturday,  April  12.  This  was  a  nat- 
ural but  a  most  lamentable  error  of  judgment. 

One  of  the  men  detailed  was  belated  and  did 
not  join  us  at  all.  Two  others  were  very  soon 
captured  by  the  enemy;  and  though  their  true 
character  was  not  detected,  they  were  forced 
into  the  Southern  army,  and  two  reached 
Marietta,  but  failed  to  report  at  the  rendez- 
vous. Thus,  when  we  assembled  very  early  in 
the  morning  in  Andrews's  room  at  the  Mari- 
etta Hotel  forfinal  consultation  before  the  blow 
was  struck  we  were  but  twenty,  including  our 
leader.  All  preliminary  difficulties  had  been 
easily  overcome  and  we  were  in  good  spirits. 
But  some  serious  obstacles  had  been  revealed 
on  our  ride  from  Chattanooga  to  Marietta  the 
previous  evening.*  The  railroad  was  found  to 


be  crowded  with  trains,  and  many  soldiers  were 
among  the  passengers.  Then  the  station — Big 
Shanty — at  which  the  capture  was  to  be  effected 
had  recently  been  made  a  Confederate  camp. 
To  succeed  in  our  enterprise  it  would  be  nec- 
essary first  to  capture  the  engine  in  a  guarded 
camp  with  soldiers  standing  around  as  specta- 
tors, and  then  to  run  it  from  one  to  two  hun- 
dred miles  through  the  enemy's  country,  and  to 
deceive  or  overpower  all  trains  that  should  be 
met  —  a  large  contract  for  twenty  men.  Some 
of  our  party  thought  the  chances  of  success  so 
slight,  under  existing  circumstances,  that  they 
urged  the  abandonment  of  the  whole  enter- 
prise. But  Andrews  declared  his  purpose  to 
succeed  or  die,  offering  to  each  man,  however, 
the  privilege  of  withdrawing  from  the  attempt 
—  an  offer  no  one  was  in  the  least  disposed  to 
accept.  Final  instructions  were  then  given,  and 
we  hurried  to  the  ticket  office  in  time  for  the 
northward  bound  mail-train,  and  purchased 
tickets  for  different  stations  along  the  line  in 
the  direction  of  Chattanooga. 

Our  ride,  as  passengers,  was  but  eight  miles. 
We  swept  swiftly  around  the  base  of  Kene- 
saw  Mountain,  and  soon  saw  the  tents  of  the 
Confederate  forces  camped  at  Big  Shanty 
gleam  white  in  the  morning  mist.  Here  we 
were  to  stop  for  breakfast  and  attempt  the 
seizure  of  the  train.  The  morning  was  raw  and 
gloomy,  and  a  rain,  which  fell  all  day,  had 
already  begun.  It  was  a  painfully  thrilling 
moment.  We  were  but  twenty,  with  an  army 
about  us,  and  along  and  difficult  road  before  us, 
crowded  with  enemies.  In  an  instant  we  were 
to  throw  off  the  disguise  which  had  been  our 
only  protection,  and  trust  our  leader's  genius 
and  our  own  efforts  for  safety  and  success.  Fort- 
unately we  had  no  time  for  giving  way  to  re- 
flections and  conjectures  which  could  only 
unfit  us  for  the  stern  task  ahead. 

When  we  stopped,  the  conductor,  the  en- 
gineer, and  many  of  the  passengers  hurried  to 
breakfast,  leaving  the  train  unguarded.  Now 
was  the  moment  of  action.  Ascertaining  that 
there  was  nothing  to  prevent  a  rapid  start,  An- 
drews, our  two  engineers,  Brown  and  Knight, 
and  the  fireman  hurried  forward,  uncoupling  a 
section  of  the  train  consisting  of  three  empty 
baggage  or  box  cars,  the  locomotive,  and  the 
tender.  The  engineers  and  the  fireman  sprang 
into  the  cab  of  the  engine,  while  Andrews,  with 
hand  on  the  rail  and  foot  on  the  step,  waited  to 
see  that  the  remainder  of  the  party  had  gained 
entrance  into  the  rear  box-car.  This  seemed  dif- 
ficult and  slow,  though  it  really  consumed  but  a 
few  seconds,  for  the  car  stood  on  a  considerable 

*  The  different  detachments  reached  the  Georgia 
State  Railroad  at  Chattanooga,  and  traveled  as  ordi- 
nary passengers  on  trains  running  southward. — 
EDITOR. 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE   CHASE  IN  GEORGIA. 


bank,  and  the  first  who  came  were  pitched  in  by 
their  comrades,  while  these  in  turn  dragged  in 
the  others,  and  the  door  was  instantly  closed. 
A  sentinel,  with  musket  in  hand,  stood  not  a 
dozen  feet  from  the  engine,  watching  the  whole 
proceeding ;  but  before  he  or  any  of  the  sol- 
diers or  guards  around  could  make  up  their 
minds  to  interfere  all  was  clone,  and  Andrews, 
with  a  nod  to  his  engineer,  stepped  on  board. 
The  valve  was  pulled  wide  open,  and  for  a 
moment  the  wheels  slipped  round  in  rapid, 
ineffective  revolutions;  then,  with  a  bound 
that  jerked  the  soldiers  in  the  box-car  from 
their  feet,  the  little  train  darted  away,  leaving 
the  camp  and  the  station  in  the  wildest  uproar 
and  confusion.  The  first  step  of  the  enter- 
prise was  triumphantly  accomplished. 

According  to  the  time-table,  of  which  An- 
drews had  secured  a  copy,  there  were  two 
trains  to  be  met.  These  presented  no  serious 
hindrance  to  our  attaining  high  speed,  for  we 
could  tell  just  where  to  expect  them.  There 
was  also  a  local  freight  not  down  on  the  time- 
table, but  which  could  not  be  far  distant.  Any 
danger  of  collision  with  it  could  be  avoided 
by  running  according  to  the  schedule  of  the 
captured  train  until  it  was  passed;  then  at  the 
highest  possible  speed  we  could  run  to  the 
Oostenaula  and  Chickamauga  bridges,  lay 
them  in  ashes,  and  pass  on  through  Chatta- 
nooga to  Mitchel,  at  Huntsville,  or  wherever 
eastward  of  that  point  he  might  be  found, 
arriving  long  before  the  close  of  the  day.  It 
was  a  brilliant  prospect,  and  so  far  as  human 
estimates  can  determine  it  would  have  been 
realized  had  the  day  been  Friday  instead  of 
Saturday.  On  Friday  every  train  had  been 
on  time,  the  day  dry,  and  the  road  in  perfect 
order.  Now  the  road  was  in  disorder,  every 
train  far  behind  time,  and  two  "  extras  "  were 
approaching  us.  But  of  these  unfavorable 
conditions  we  knew  nothing,  and  pressed  con- 
fidently forward. 

We  stopped  frequently,  and  at  one  point  tore 
up  the  track,  cut  telegraph  wires,  and  loaded 
on  cross-ties  to  be  used  in  bridge  burning. 
Wood  and  water  were  taken  without  difficulty, 
Andrews  very  coolly  telling  the  story  to  which 
he  adhered  throughout  the  run,  namely, that  he 
was  one  of  General  Beauregard's  officers,  run- 
ning an  impressed  powder  train  through  to  that 
commander  at  Corinth.  We  had  no  good  in- 
struments for  track-raising,  as  we  had  intended 
rather  to  depend  upon  fire ;  but  the  amount 
of  time  spent  in  taking  up  a  rail  was  not  ma- 
terial at  this  stage  of  our  journey,  as  we  easily 
kept  on  the  time  of  our  captured  train.  There 
was  a  wonderful  exhilaration  in  passing  swift- 
ly by  towns  and  stations  through  the  heart  of 
an  enemy's  country  in  this  manner.  It  pos- 
just  enough  of  the  spice  of  danger,  in 


this  part  of  the  run,  to  render  it  thoroughly 
enjoyable.  The  slightest  accident  to  our  en- 
gine, however,  or  a  miscarriage  in  any  part 
of  our  programme,  would  have  completely 
changed  the  conditions. 

At  Etowah  we  found  the  "  Yoriah,"  an  old 
locomotive  owned  by  an  iron  company,  stand- 
ing with  steam  up;  but  not  wishing  to  alarm 
the  enemy  till  the  local  freight  had  been  safely 
met,  we  left  it  unharmed.  Kingston,  thirty  miles 
from  the  starting-point,  was  safely  reached.  A 
train  from  Rome,  Georgia,  on  a  branch  road, 
had  just  arrived  and  was  waiting  for  the  morn- 
ing mail  —  our  train.  We  learned  that  the 
local  freight  would  soon  come  also,  and,  tak- 
ing the  side-track,  waited  for  it.  When  it  ar- 
rived, however,  Andrews  saw,  to  his  surprise 
and  chagrin,  that  it  bore  a  red  flag,  indicating 
another  train  not  far  behind.  Stepping  over 
to  the  conductor,  he  boldly  asked :  "  What 
does  it  mean  that  the  road  is  blocked  in  this 
manner  when  I  have  orders  to  take  this  pow- 
der to  Beauregard  without  a  minute's  delay  ?  " 
The  answer  was  interesting  but  not  reassur- 
ing: "Mitchel  has  captured  Huntsville  and 
is  said  to  be  coming  to  Chattanooga,  and  we 
are  getting  everything  out  of  there."  He  was 
asked  by  Andrews  to  pull  his  train  a  long 
way  down  the  track  out  of  the  way,  and 
promptly  obeyed. 

It  seemed  an  exceedingly  long  time  before 
the  expected  "  extra"  arrived,  and  when  it  did 
come  it  bore  another  red  flag.  The  reason 
given  was  that  the  "  local,"  being  too  great  for 
one  engine,  had  been  made  up  in  two  sec- 
tions, and  the  second  section  would  doubtless 
be  along  in  a  short  time.  This  was  terribly 
vexatious ;  yet  there  seemed  nothing  to  do  but 
to  wait.  To  start  out  between  the  sections  of 
an  extra  train  would  be  to  court  destruction. 
There  were  already  three  trains  around  us, 
and  their  many  passengers  and  others  were 
all  growing  very  curious  about  the  mysterious 
train,  manned  by  strangers,  which  had  arrived 
on  the  time  of  the  morning  mail.  For  an  hour 
and  five  minutes  from  the  time  of  arrival  at 
Kingston  we  remained  in  this  most  critical 
position.  The  sixteen  of  us  who  were  shut 
up  tightly  in  a  box-car, —  personating  Beau- 
regard's  ammunition, —  hearing  sounds  out- 
side, but  unable  to  distinguish  words,  had 
perhaps  the  most  trying  position.  Andrews 
sent  us,  by  one  of  the  engineers,  a  cautious 
warning  to  be  ready  to  fight  in  case  the  un- 
easiness of  the  crowd  around  led  them  to  make 
any  investigation,  while  he  himself  kept  near 
the  station  to  prevent  the  sending  off  of  any 
alarming  telegram.  So  intolerable  was  our 
suspense,  that  the  order  for  a  deadly  conflict 
would  have  been  felt  as  a  relief.  But  the  as- 
surance of  Andrews  quieted  the  crowd  until 


144 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE    CHASE   IN  GEORGIA. 


the  whistle  of  the  expected  train  from  the 
north  was  heard;  then,  as  it  glided  up  to  the 
depot,  past  the  end  of  our  side-track,  we  were 
oft"  without  more  words. 

But  unexpected  danger  had  arisen  behind 
us.  Out  of  'the  panic  at  Big  Shanty  t\vo  men 
emerged,  determined,  if  possible,  to  foil  the 
unknown  captors  of  their  train.  There  was  no 
telegraph  station,  and  no  locomotive  at  hand 
with  which  to  follow;  but  the  conductor  of 
the  train,  W.  A.  Fuller,  and  Anthony  Murphy, 
foreman  of  the  Atlanta  railway  machine  shops, 
who  happened  to  be  on  board  of  Fuller's  train, 
started  on  foot  after  us  as  hard  as  they  could 
run.  Finding  a  hand-car  they  mounted  it  and 
pushed  forward  till  they  neared  Etowah,  where 
they  ran  on  the  break  we  had  made  in  the 
road  and  were  precipitated  down  the  embank- 
ment into  the  ditch.  Continuing  with  more 
caution,  they  reached  Etowah  and  found  the 
"  Yonah,"  which  was  at  once  pressed  into 
service,  loaded  with  soldiers  who  were  at 
hand,  and  hurried  with  flying  wheels  towards 
Kingston.  Fuller  prepared  to  fight  at  that 
point,  for  he  knew  of  the  tangle  of  extra 
trains,  and  of  the  lateness  of  the  regular 
trains,  and  did  not  think  we  should  be  able 
to  pass.  We  had  been  gone  only  four  minutes 
when  he  arrived  and  found  himself  stopped 
by  three  long,  heavy  trains  of  cars,  headed 
in  the  wrong  direction.  To  move  them  out 
of  the  way  so  as  to  pass  would  cause  a  delay  he 
was  little  inclined  to  afford  —  would,  indeed, 
have  almost  certainly  given  us  the  victory.  So, 
abandoning  his  engine,  he  with  Murphy  ran 
across  to  the  Rome  train,  and,  uncoupling  the 
engine  and  one  car,  pushed  forward  with  about 
forty  armed  men.  As  the  Rome  branch  con- 
nected with  the  main  road  above  the  depot,  he 
encountered  no  hindrance,  and  it  was  now  a 
fair  race.  We  were  not  many  minutes  ahead. 

Four  miles  from  Kingston  we  again  stopped 
and  cut  the  telegraph.  While  trying  to  take 
up  a  rail  at  this  point  we  were  greatly  startled. 
One  end  of  the  rail  was  loosened,  and  eight 
of  us  were  pulling  at  it,  when  in  the  distance 
we  distinctly  heard  the  whistle  of  a  pursuing 
engine.  With  a  frantic  effort  we  broke  the  rail, 
and  all  tumbled  over  the  embankment  with 
the  effort.  We  moved  on,  and  at  Adairsville 
we  found  a  mixed  train  (freight  and  passenger) 
waiting,  but  there  was  an  express  on  the  road 
that  had  not  yet  arrived.  We  could  afford  no 
more  delay,  and  set  out  for  the  next  station, 
Calhoun,  at  terrible  speed,  hoping  to  reach 
that  point  before  the  express,  which  was  behind 
time,  should  arrive.  The  nine  miles  which  we 
had  to  travel  were  left  behind  in  less  than  the 
same  number  of  minutes.  The  express  was 
just  pulling  out,  but,  hearing  our  whistle, 
backed  before  us  until  we  were  able  to  take  the 


side-track.  It  stopped,  however,  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  completely  to  close  up  the  other  end 
of  the  switch.  The  two  trains,  side  by  side, 
almost  touched  each  other,  and  our  precipitate 
arrival  caused  natural  suspicion.  Many  search- 
ing questions  were  asked,  which  had  to  be 
answered  before  we  could  get  the  opportunity 
of  proceeding.  We  in  the  box-car  could  hear 
the  altercation,  and  were  almost  sure  that  a 
fight  would  be  necessary  before  the  conductor 
would  consent  to  "  pull  up  "  in  order  to  let  us 
out.  Here  again  our  position  was  most  critic- 
al, for  the  pursuers  were  rapidly  approaching. 

Fuller  and  Murphy  saw  the  obstruction  of 
the  broken  rail  in  time,  by  reversing  their 
engine,  to  prevent  wreck ;  but  the  hindrance 
was  for  the  present  insuperable.  Leaving  all 
their  men  behind,  they  started  for  a  second 
foot-race.  Before  they  had  gone  far  they  met 
the  train  we  had  passed  at  Adairsville,  and 
turned  it  back  after  us.  At  Adairsville  they 
dropped  the  cars,  and  with  locomotive  and 
tender  loaded  with  armed  men,  they  drove 
forward  at  the  highest  speed  possible.  They 
knew  that  we  were  not  many  minutes  ahead, 
and  trusted  to  overhaul  us  before  the  express 
train  could  be  safely  passed. 

But  Andrews  had  told  the  powder  story 
again  with  all  his  skill,  and  added  a  direct 
request  in  peremptory  form  to  have  the  way 
opened  before  him,  which  the  Confederate 
conductor  did  not  see  fit  to  resist ;  and  just  be- 
fore the  pursuers  arrived  at  Calhoun  we  were 
again  under  way.  Stopping  once  more  to  cut 
wires  and  tear  up  the  track,  we  felt  a  thrill  of 
exhilaration  to  which  we  had  long  been  stran- 
gers. The  track  was  now  clear  before  us  to 
Chattanooga ;  and  even  west  of  that  city  we 
had  good  reason  to  believe  that  we  should  find 
no  other  train  in  the  way  till  we  had  reached 
Mitchel's  lines.  If  one  rail  could  now  be  lifted 
we  would  be  in  a  few  minutes  at  the  Oosten- 
aula  bridge;  and  that  burned,  the  rest  of  the 
task  would  be  little  more  than  simple  manual 
labor,  with  the  enemy  absolutely  powerless. 
We  worked  with  a  will. 

But  in  a  moment  the  tables  were  turned. 
Not  far  behind  we  heard  the  scream  of  a  loco- 
motive bearing  down  upon  us  at  lightning 
speed.  The  men  on  board  were  in  plain  sight 
and  well  armed.  Two  minutes  —  perhaps 
one  —  would  have  removed  the  rail  at  which 
we  were  toiling;  then  the  game  would  have 
been  in  our  own  hands,  for  there  was  no  other 
locomotive  beyond  that  could  be  turned  back 
after  us.  But  the  most  desperate  efforts  were 
in  vain.  The  rail  was  simply  bent,  and  we 
hurried  to  our  engine  and  darted  away,  while 
remorselessly  after  us  thundered  the  enemy. 

Now  the  contestants  were  in  clear  view,  and 
a  race  followed  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of 


THE   LOCOMOTIVE    CHASE   IN  GEORGIA. 


'45 


war.  Wishing  to  gain  a  little  time  for  the 
burning  of  the  Oostemiula  bridge,  we  dropped 
one  car,  and,  shortly  after,  another;  but  they 
were  "picked  up"  and  pushed  ahead  to  Res- 
aca.  We  were  obliged  to  run  over  the  high 
trestles  and  covered  bridge  at  that  point  with- 
out a  pause.  This  was  the  first  failure  in  the 
work  assigned  us. 

The  Confederates  could  not  overtake  and 
stop  us  on  the  road;  but  their  aim  was  to  keep 
close  behind,  so  that  we  might  not  be  able  to 
damage  the  road  or  take  in  wood  or  water. 
In  the  former  they  succeeded,  but  not  in  the 
latter.  Both  engines  were  put  at  the  highest 
rate  of  speed.  We  were  obliged  to  cut  the 
wire  after  every  station  passed,  in  order  that 
an  alarm  might  not  be  sent  ahead;  and  we 
constantly  strove  to  throw  our  pursuers  off  the 
track,  or  to  obstruct  the  road  permanently  in 
some  way,  so  that  we  might  be  able  to  burn 
the  Chickamauga  bridges,  still  ahead.  The 
chances  seemed  good  that  Fuller  and  Murphy 
would  be  wrecked.  We  broke  out  the  end  of 
our  last  box-car  and  dropped  cross-ties  on  the 
track  as  we  ran,  thus  checking  their  progress 
and  getting  far  enough  ahead  to  take  in  wood 
and  water  at  two  separate  stations.  Several 
times  we  almost  lifted  a  rail,  but  each  time 
the  coming  of  the  Confederates  within  rifle 
range  compelled  us  to  desist  and  speed  on. 
Our  worst  hindrance  was  the  rain.  The  pre- 
vious day  (Friday)  had  been  clear,  with  a  high 
wind,  and  on  such  a  day  fire  would  have 
been  easily  and  tremendously  effective.  But 
to-day  a  bridge  could  be  burned  only  with 
abundance  of  fuel  and  careful  nursing. 

Thus  we  sped  on,  mile  after  mile,  in  this 
fearful  chase,  round  curves  and  past  stations 
in  seemingly  endless  perspective.  Whenever 
we  lost  sight  of  the  enemy  beyond  a  curve, 
we  hoped  that  some  of  our  obstructions  had 
been  effective  in  throwing  him  from  the  track, 
and  that  we  should  see  him  no  more ;  but  at 
each  long  reach  backward  the  smoke  was 
again  seen,  and  the  shrill  whistle  was  like  the 
scream  of  a  bird  of  prey.  The  time  could 
not  have  been  so  very  long,  for  the  terrible 
speed  was  rapidly  devouring  the  distance ; 
but  with  our  nerves  strained  to  the  highest 
tension  each  minute  seemed  an  hour.  On 
several  occasions  the  escape  of  the  enemy 
from  wreck  was  little  less  than  miraculous. 
At  one  point  a  rail  was  placed  across  the  track 
on  a  curve  so  skillfully  that  it  was  not  seen 
till  the  train  ran  upon  it  at  full  speed.  Fuller 
says  that  they  were  terribly  jolted,  and  seemed 
to  bounce  altogether  from  the  track,  but 
lighted  on  the  rails  in  safety.  Some  of  the 
Confederates  wished  to  leave  a  train  which 
was  driven  at  such  a  reckless  rate,  but  their 
wishes  were  not  gratified. 

Vol..   XXXVI.—  21. 


Before  reaching  Dalton  we  urged  Andrews 
to  turn  and  attack  the  enemy,  laying  an  am- 
bush so  as  to  get  into  close  quarters,  that  our 
revolvers  might  be  on  equal  terms  with  their 
guns.  I  have  little  doubt  that  if  this  had  been 
carried  out  it  would  have  succeeded.  But  either 
because  he  thought  the  chance  of  wrecking  or 
obstructing  the  enemy  still  good,  or  feared 
that  the  country  ahead  had  been  alarmed  by 
a  telegram  around  the  Confederacy  by  the 
way  of  Richmond  —  Andrews  merely  gave 
the  plan  his  sanction  without  making  any 
attempt  to  carry  it  into  execution. 

Dalton  was  passed  without  difficulty,  and 
beyond  we  stopped  again  to  cut  wires  and  to 
obstruct  the  track.  It  happened  that  a  regi- 
ment was  encamped  not  a  hundred  yards 
away,  but  they  did  not  molest  us.  Fuller 
had  written  a  dispatch  to  Chattanooga,  and 
dropped  a  man  with  orders  to  have  it  for- 
warded instantly,  while  he  pushed  on  to  save 
the  bridges.  Part  of  the  message  got  through 
and  created  a  wild  panic  in  Chattanooga, 
although  it  did  not  materially  influence  our 
fortunes.  Our  supply  of  fuel  was  now  very 
short,  and  without  getting  rid  of  our  pursuers 
long  enough  to  take  in  more,  it  was  evident 
that  we  could  not  run  as  far  as  Chattanooga. 

While  cutting  the  wire  we  made  an  attempt 
to  get  up  another  rail ;  but  the  enemy,  as 
usual,  were  too  quick  for  us.  We  had  no  tool 
for  this  purpose  except  a  wedge-pointed  iron 
bar.  Two  or  three  bent  iron  claws  for  pulling 
out  spikes  would  have  given  us  such  incontest- 
able superiority  that,  down  to  almost  the  last 
of  our  run,  we  should  have  been  able  to  escape 
and  even  to  burn  all  the  Chickamauga  bridges. 
But  it  had  not  been  our  intention  to  rely  on 
this  mode  of  obstruction  — an  emergency  only 
rendered  necessary  by  our  unexpected  delay 
and  the  pouring  rain. 

We  made  no  attempt  to  damage  the  long 
tunnel  north  of  Dalton,  as  our  enemies  had 
greatly  dreaded.  The  last  hope  of  the  raid  was 
now  staked  upon  an  effort  of  a  different  kind 
from  any  that  we  had  yet  made,  but  which,  if 
successful,  would  still  enable  us  to  destroy  the 
bridges  nearest  Chattanooga.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  its  failure  would  terminate  the  chase. 
Life  and  success  were  put  upon  one  throw. 

A  few  more  obstructions  were  dropped  on 
the  track,  and  our  own  speed  increased  so  that 
we  soon  forged  a  considerable  distance  ahead. 
The  side  and  end  boards  of  the  last  car  were  torn 
into  shreds,  all  available  fuel  was  piled  upon  it, 
and  blazing  brands  were  brought  back  from  the 
engine.  By  the  time  we  approached  a  long,  cov- 
ered bridge  a  fire  in  the  car  was  fairly  started. 
We  uncoupled  it  in  the  middle  of  the  bridge, 
and  with  painful  suspense  waited  the  issue. 
Oh  for  a  few  minutes  till  the  work  of  confla- 


146 


THE.   LOCOMOTIVE    CHASE  IN  GEORGIA. 


gration  was  fairly  begun !  There  was  still 
steam  pressure  enough  in  our  boiler  to  carry 
us  to  the  next  wood-yard,  where  we  could 
have  replenished  our  fuel  by  force,  if  necessary, 
so  as  to  run  as  near  to  Chattanooga  as  was 
deemed  prudent.  We  did  not  know  of  the 
telegraph  message  which  the  pursuers  had  sent 
ahead.  But,  alas!  the  minutes  were  not  given. 
Before  the  bridge  was  extensively  fired  the 
enemy  was  upon  us,  and  we  moved  slowly 
onward,  looking  back  to  see  what  they  would 
do  next.  We  had  not  long  to  conjecture.  The 
Confederates  pushed  right  into  the  smoke,  and 
drove  the  burning  car  before  them  to  the  next 
side-track. 

With  no  car  left,  and  no  fuel,  the  last  scrap 
having  been  thrown  into  the  engine  or  upon  the 
burning  car,  and  with  no  obstruction  to  drop  on 
the  track,  our  situation  was  indeed  desperate. 
A  few  minutes  only  remained  until  our  steed 
of  iron  which  had  so  well  served  us  would  be 
powerless. 

But  it  might  still  be  possible  to  save  our- 
selves. If  we  left  the  train  in  a  body,  and, 
taking  a  direct  course  towards  the  Union  lines, 
hurried  over  the  mountains  at  right  angles 
with  their  course,  we  could  not,  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  country,  be  followed  by  cavalry, 
and  could  easily  travel  —  athletic  young  men 
as  we  were,  and  fleeing  for  life — as  rapidly 
as  any  pursuers.  There  was  no  telegraph  in 
the  mountainous  districts  west  and  north-west 
of  us,  and  the  prospect  of  reaching  the  Union 
lines  seemed  to  me  then,  and  has  always 
since  seemed,  very  fair.  Confederate  pursu- 
ers with  whom  I  have  since  conversed  freely 
have  agreed  on  two  points  —  that  we  could 
have  escaped  in  the  manner  here  pointed  out, 
and  that  an  attack  on  the  pursuing  train 
would  likely  have  been  successful.  But  An- 
drews thought  otherwise,  at  least  in  relation 
to  the  former  plan,  and  ordered  us  to  jump 
from  the  locomotive  one  by  one,  and,  dis- 
persing in  the  woods,  each  endeavor  to  save 
himself.  Thus  ended  the  Andrews  railroad  raid. 

It  is  easy  now  to  understand  why  Mitchel 
paused  thirty  miles  west  of  Chattanooga.  The 
Andrews  raiders  had  been  forced  to  stop  eight- 
een miles  south  of  the  same  town,  and  no  fly- 
ing train  met  him  with  the  expected  tidings  that 

||  Below  is  a  list  of  the  participants  in  the  raid : 
James  J.  Andrews,*  leader;  William  Campbell,*  a 
civilian  who  volunteered  to  accompany  the  raiders; 
George  D.  Wilson,*  Company  B,  2d  Ohio  Volunteers ; 
Marion  A.  Ross,*  Company  A,  2d  Ohio  Volunteers; 
Perry  G.  Shadrack,*  Company  K,  2d  Ohio  Volunteers ; 
Samuel  Slavens,*  33d  Ohio  Volunteers  ;  Samuel  Rob- 
inson,* Company  G,  33d  Ohio  Volunteers ;  John 
Scott,*  Company  K,  2 1st  Ohio  Volunteers  ;  Wilson  W. 
Brown,  +  Company  F,  2 1st  Ohio  Volunteers  ;  William 
Knight,t  Company  E,  2lst  Ohio  Volunteers;  Mirk 
Wood.t  Company  C,  2ist  Ohio  Volunteers;  James  A. 
Wilson,!  Company  C,  2ist  Ohio  Volunteers;  John 


all  railroad  communications  of  Chattanooga 
were  destroyed,  and  that  the  town  was  in  a 
panic  and  undefended.  He  dared  advance  no 
farther  without  heavy  reinforcements  from 
Pittsburg  Landing  or  the  north ;  and  he  proba- 
bly believed  to  the  day  of  his  death,  six  months 
later,  that  the  whole  Andrews  party  had  per- 
ished without  accomplishing  anything. 

A  few  words  will  give  the  sequel  to  this 
remarkable  enterprise.  There  was  great  ex- 
citement in  Chattanooga  and  in  the  whole  of 
the  surrounding  Confederate  territory  for 
scores  of  miles.  The  hunt  for  the  fugitive 
raiders  was  prompt,  energetic,  and  completely 
successful.  Ignorant  of  the  country,  disorgan- 
ized, and  far  from  the  Union  lines,  they 
strove  in  vain  to  escape.  Several  were  capt- 
ured the  same  day  on  which  they  left  the 
cars,  and  all  but  two  within  a  week.  Even 
these  two  were  overtaken  and  brought  back 
when  they  supposed  that  they  were  virtually 
out  of  danger.  Two  of  those  who  had  failed 
to  be  on  the  train  were  identified  and  added 
to  the  band  of  prisoners. 

Now  follows  the  saddest  part  of  the  story. 
Being  in  citizens'  dress  within  an  enemy's 
lines,  the  whole  party  were  held  as  spies  and 
closely  and  vigorously  guarded.  A  court-mar- 
tial was  convened,  and  the  leader  and  seven 
others  out  of  the  twenty-two  were  condemned 
and  executed.  ||  The  remainder  were  never 
brought  to  trial,  probably  because  of  the 
advance  of  Union  forces  and  the  consequent 
confusion  into  which  the  affairs  of  the  Depart- 
ments of  East  Tennessee  and  Georgia  were 
thrown.  Of  the  remaining  fourteen,  eight  suc- 
ceeded by  a  bold  effort  —  attacking  their 
guard  in  broad  daylight  —  in  making  their  es- 
cape from  Atlanta,  Georgia,  and  ultimately  in 
reaching  the  North.  The  other  six  who  shared 
in  this  effort,  but  were  recaptured,  remained 
prisoners  until  the  latter  part  of  March,  1863, 
when  they  were  exchanged  through  a  special 
arrangement  made  with  Secretary  Stanton.  All 
the  survivors  of  this  expedition  received  medals 
and  promotion.  The  pursuers  also  received 
expressions  of  gratitude  from  their  fellow-Con- 
federates, notably  from  the  governor  and  the 
legislature  of  Georgia. 

William  Pittenger. 

Wollam.t  Company  C,  33d  Ohio  Volunteers;  D.  A. 
Dorsey,t  Company  H,  33d  Ohio  Volunteers;  Jacob 
Parrott,t  Company  K,  33d  Ohio  Volunteers;  Robert 
Bu(Tum,t  Company  H,  2ist  Ohio  Volunteers;  William 
Bensinger,}  Company  G,  2lst  Ohio  Volunteers;  Will- 
iam Reddick, \  Company  B,  33d  Ohio  Volunteers;  E. 
H.  Mason,t  Company  K,  2 1st  Ohio  Volunteers;  Will- 
iam Pittenger, t  Company  G,  2d  Ohio  Volunteers. 

J.  R.  Porter,  Company  C,  2lst  Ohio,  and  Martin  J. 
Hawkins,  Company  A,  33cl  Ohio,  reached  Marietta, 
but  did  not  get  on  board  of  the  train.    They  were  cap- 
tured and  imprisoned  with  their  comrades. —  EDITOR. 
*  Executed.  t  Escaped.  'Exchanged. 


BIRD    MUSIC:    PARTRIDGES    AND    OWLS. 


PARTRIDGES. 

HE  peculiar  interest  in  the 
partridge  is  owing  to  its 
close  kinship  with  our  do- 
mestic fowls. 

The  wild  and  the  tame 
hens  look  alike  and  act 
alike:  their  habits  are  simi- 
lar, their  eggs  differ  only  in 
size,  and  both  prefer  nests  on  the  ground ;  both 
gather  their  chickens  under  their  wings,  and 
both  call  them  with  like  clucks. 

The  partridge  seems  to  have  an  apprecia- 
tion of  all  this,  and  delights  in  coming  near 
our  buildings ;  even  lighting  upon  them  and 
on  the  well-curb,  and  flying  down  into  the 
door-yard.  Not  long  since,  a  young  miss  of 
the  village  where  I  dwell  drove  one  into  a 
shed,  and  caught  it  in  her  hands. 

Living  for  more  than  thirty  years  in  a  grove, 
I  have  had  interesting  experiences  with  these 
birds.  One  evening  last  summer,  on  going, 
just  at  dark,  to  see  what  disturbed  a  hen 
grouping  her  chickens  out-of-doors,  I  found  a 
partridge  sitting  in  her  nest,  refusing  to  be 
driven  out  by  the  proprietor,  who  was  both 
picking  it  and  striking  it  with  her  wings.  I 
took  it  up,  carried  it  into  the  house,  examined 
it,  and  placed  it  on  the  floor.  It  was  full  grown 
and  plump,  but  appeared  to  be  unable  to  stand, 
lying  quite  motionless,  as  is  the  habit  of  the 
young  in  time  of  danger.  The  next  morning, 
when  I  opened  the  door  of  the  wood-house, 
where  it  had  spent  the  night,  instantly  it 
hummed  by  my  head  and  disappeared.  The 
partridge  has  a  rapid  flight,  and  no  bird  sur- 
passes it  in  swift  sailing.  What  caused  this 
particular  one  to  seek  the  nest  of  the  brood- 
ing hen  at  that  hour  is  something  of  a  mys- 
tery ;  it  may  have  been  hotly  pursued  by  an 
owl. 

But  it  is  of  the  musical  powers  of  the  par- 
tridge that  I  wish  to  speak.  One  spring  the 
neighboring  children  came  in  companies  to 
see  a  partridge  on  her  nest  close  by  my  barn. 
The  novel  sight  was  highly  entertaining,  but 
their  eyes  opened  wider  still  when  they  saw 
and  heard  the  performances  of  her  mate  on 
his  favorite  log.  During  the  time  the  hen  was 
laying  her  eggs  and  sitting,  he  often  gave  us 
the  "  stormy  music  of  his  drum."  It  was  small 
trouble  to  arrange  bushes  on  a  fence  near  by 
so  that  one  could  creep  up  unseen,  and  get  a 


full  view  of  the  gallant  thunderer  perched  on 
a  knotty  old  hemlock  log,  mossy,  and  half 
buried  in  the  ground ;  and  "  children  of  a 
larger  growth,"  as  well  as  the  boys  and  girls, 
availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity.  Of  the 
many  who  saw  him  in  the  act  of  drumming,  I 
do  not  recall  one  who  had  a  correct  idea  before- 
hand of  the  way  in  which  the  "partridge  thun- 
der" is  produced.  It  was  supposed  to  be  made 
by  the  striking  of  the  bird's  wings  either  against 
the  log  or  against  his  body ;  whereas  it  was 
now  plainly  to  be  seen  that  the  performer  stood 
straight  up,  like  a  junk  bottle,  and  brought  his 
wings  in  front  of  him  with  quick,  strong  strokes, 
smiting  nothingbut  the  air — not  even  his  "own 
proud  breast,"  as  one  distinguished  observer 
has  suggested. 

Wilson  thinks  the  drumming  may  be  heard 
nearly  half  a  mile.  He  might  safely  have 
doubled  the  distance ;  though,  when  we  con- 
sider the  low  pitch,  B  flat,  second  line  in  bass 
staff,  the  fact  is  surprising.  The  tones  somewhat 


resemble  those  of  any  deep  drum,  being  very 
deceptive  as  to  distance,  often  sounding  near 
when  far  off,  and  far  off  when  near.  I  would 
describe  the  drumming  as  a  succession  of 
thumps,  the  first  dozen  of  which  may  be 
counted.  ' 

The  first  two  or  three  are  soft  and  compar- 
atively slow;  then  they  increase  rapidly  in 
force  and  frequency,  rushing  onward  into  a 
furious  whir,  the  whir  subsiding  into  a  sud- 
den but  graduated  diminish.  The  entire 
power  of  the  partridge  must  be  thrown  into 
this  exercise.  His  appearance  immediately 
afterwards  attests  this,  as  well  as  the  volume 
of  sound ;  for  he  drops  into  the  forlornest  of 
attitudes,  looking  as  if  he  would  never  move 
again.  In  a  few  minutes,  however,  perhaps 
five,  he  begins  to  have  nervous  motions  of  the 
head ;  up,  up  it  goes,  and  his  body  with  it,  till 
he  is  perfectly  erect  —  legs,  body,  neck,  and 
all.  And  then  for  the  thunder  once  more  : 


Thump,  thump,  thump, 


Whir 


The  partridge,  as  the  bass  drummer,  is  an 
important  member  of  the  feathered  orchestra. 


148 


BIRD  MUSIC:    PARTRIDGES  AND    OWLS. 


OWLS. 


"  WHO  ever  heard  an  owl  sing  ?  is  asked  in 
derision,"  says  a  delightful  writer  on  natural 
subjects;  and  he  himself  seems  almost  willing 
to  acknowledge  that  the  owl  does  not  sing, 
and  even  to  doubt  his  hoot.  However  it  may 
be  elsewhere,  up  here  among  the  Green 
Mountains  owls  hoot,  and  hoot  well,  with 
deep,  strong  voices  that  may  be  heard  dis- 
tinctly, of  a  calm  evening,  for  a  mile  or  more. 

One  winter,  after  six  weeks  of  cold,  perhaps 
the  severest  in  fifteen  years,  the  weather  mod- 
erated, and  the  30!  of  March  was,  compara- 
tively, a  mild  day.  An  owl  felt  the  change, 
and  in  his  gladness  sent  down  ponderous  ves- 
per notes  from  the  mountain,  which,  as  they 
came  booming  across  the  valley,  bore  joy  to 
all  that  heard  them. 

The  owl  did  not  change  the  weather,  but 
the  weather  changed  the  owl.  After  all  that 
has  been  said  for  and  against  the  ability  of 
inferior  creatures  to  foretell  changes  of  weath- 
er, the  sum  of  our  knowledge  amounts  to  about 
this :  the  senses  of  these  beings  are  keener 
than  our  own,  enabling  them  to  feel  the 
changes  sooner  than  we  can,  and  consequently 
to  get  a  little  before  us  with  their  predictions. 
On  the  present  occasion,  though  it  was  almost 
dark,  the  guinea  hens  chimed  in  with  their  rasp- 
ing voices,  and  the  turkeys  added  their  best 
gobbles  in  happy  proclamation  of  the  warm 
time  coming.  The  owl  gave  three  distinct 
hoots  in  succession,  repeating  them  at  inter- 
vals of  about  two  minutes  at  first,  afterwards 
with  longer  pauses.  The  first  of  these  tones 
was  preceded  by  a  grace  note ;  the  second 
was  followed  by  a  thread-like  slide  down  a 
fourth ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  third  was  a 
similar  descent  of  an  octave : 


oriole ;  but  he  surpasses  them  all  in  tender, 
dulcet  sentiment.  Never  attempting  a  bois- 
terous strain,  his  utterances  are  pensive  and 
subdued,  often  like  a  faint  cry  of  despair. 
Chary  of  his  powers,  the  screech-owl  cuts  his 
programme  tormentingly  short :  and  it  is  only- 
after  many  trials  that  one  is  able  to  collect 
the  disjointed  strains  that  make  his  medley 
entire.  Just  at  dark,  some  pleasant  evening, 
you  will  hear  his  low,  faint  tremors.  At  first 
they  may  be  heard  perhaps  every  other  min- 
ute, then  the  interim  gradually  lengthens, 
until  by  9  o'clock  his  pauses  become  intol- 
erably long.  The  tremors  or  trills  are  given 
with  a  swell,  the  crescendo  being  longer  than 
the  diminuendo: 


Hoc, 


Hoo, 


Hoo. 


Neither  slide,  however,  ended  in  a  firm  tone. 
White  of  Selborne  says  that  one  of  his  mu- 
sical friends  decided  that "  all  owls  hoot  in  B 
flat " ;  another,  that  "  they  vary  some,  almost 
a  half-note  below  A  "  ;  another  still,  that  "the 
owls  about  the  village  hoot  in  three  different 
keys  —  in  G  flat,  in  F  sharp,  in  B  flat,  and  in 
A  flat."  This  Yankee  owl,  true  to  the  instincts 
of  the  soil,  hooted  in  a  key  of  his  own,  E  flat. 
Though  all  owls  undoubtedly  indulge  in  vocal 
expression,  the  little  screech-owl  is  probably 
their  best  musical  representative.  Indeed,  in 
point  of  individuality  of  style,  this  artist  stands 
alone,  and  must  be  ranked  as  a  singer.  To  be 
sure,  he  has  nothing  of  the'spontaneous  joy 
of  the  robin,  of  the  frolic  flow  of  the  bobo- 
link, nothing  of  the  clear,  clean  vigor  of  the 


Ah 


Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr? 


This  is  repeated  and  repeated  each  even- 
ing without  variation  ;  but  after  long  waiting 
and  many  disappointments  comes  a  change 
that  is  at  once  a  surprise  and  a  delight  : 


Ah 


Ah  •  ee.         Ah  -  ee. 


Ah 


Ah  -  00,  Ah-  On, 


z£ 


rrrrrrrr 


This  owl  ascends  the  scale  generally  not 
more  than  one  or  two  degrees;  the  charm  lies 
in  his  manner  of  descent,  sometimes  by  a  third, 
again  by  a  fourth,  and  still  again  by  a  sixth. 
At  the  outset  one  is  inclined  to  decide  that 
the  descent  is  according  to  the  chromatic 
scale;  then  the  steps  will  seem  too  short, 
sounding  not  more  than  half  so  long  as  those 
of  this  scale.  I  can  best  describe  it  as  a  slid- 
ing tremolo  —  a  trickling  down,  like  water  over 
pebbles : 


oo,     Ah-oo,    Ah-oo, 

s.    Sf\ 


Ah-oo,    Ah-oo. 


^ 


So  rapidly  and  neatly  is  it  done  that  an 
expert  violinist  could  not  easily  reproduce  it. 
Perhaps  the  descent  of  the  whinny  of  a  horse 
comes  the  nearest  to  it  of  any  succession  of 
natural  sounds ;  and  this,  Gardner  says,  con- 
forms to  the  chromatic  scale. 

One  September  morning  something  woke 
me  at  2  o'clock.  My  head  was  soon  out  of 
the  window,  and  just  in  time  to  hear  what  I 
had  waited  for  for  more  than  a  year.  My  little 
screech-owl  had  come  to  make  amends  for 
his  tantalizing  delays.  I  had  heard  the  strains 


TOPICS   OF   THE    TIME. 


149 


before,  but  had  not  secured  them.   They  were 
as  follows : 

Ah  -  ee.          Ah  -  ee,          All  -ee,         Ah  -ee.        Ah-  ce. 


Ah  -  (io,          Ah  -oo,         All  -oo,         Ah  -  ce,        Ah-ee. 
n__     — ^     /^       — ^       /?*  ^  ^-^      ^       /•— ^  /***       ,"•"-' 

f—-^f — +m    •~-*g"  '4tm    ^     rt>— ir^-^     C^     B    «•     gs*     ff^ 

1)          *g-^=—J!g— rr "     »g — jS  g- 

Ah  -  oo.  Ah  -  oo,  Ah  -  oo.  Ah  -  oo oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. 


It  is  hard  to  believe  that  so  gentle  plead- 
ings can  accompany  thoughts  intent  on  plun- 
der and  blood.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look 
again  for  so  painful  a  contradiction  as  exists 
between  the  tones  of  this  bird  and  his  wicked 
work.  Wilson,  noticing  the  inconsistency  be- 
tween his  utterances  and  his  actions,  says  of 


one  he  had  in  confinement,  that  at  twilight 
he  "  flew  about  the  room  with  the  silence  of 
thought,  and,  perching,  moaned  out  his  mel- 
ancholy notes  with  many  lively  gesticulations 
not  at  all  in  accordance  with  the  pitiful  tone 
of  his  ditty,  which  reminded  one  of  a  half- 
frozen  puppy." 

The  naturalist  is  glad  to  be  a  "  companion 
of  owls"  for  a  season,  willingly  taking  the 
risk  of  their  making  night  hideous  and  keep- 
ing him  awake  with  their  "  snoring." 

Owls  have  always  been  hooted  at  as  well 
as  hooting.  "  As  stupid  as  an  owl,"  "  tough 
as  a  b'iled  owl"  —  these  expressions  of  re- 
proach are  still  in  vogue.  But  let  us  give  the 
owl  his  due.  An  intelligent  and  apparently 
honest  man  tells  me  that  he  once  ate  of  an 
owl — fattened  on  chickens,  by  the  way,  niched 
from  him  with  surpassing  cunning — and  found 
it  as  sweet  and  tender  fowl  as  he  had  ever 
tasted.  So,  it  seems,  the  owl  is  not  always 
stupid,  nor  always  tough.  Few  birds  are 
clad  in  finer  raiment,  and  no  other  inhabitants 
of  the  air  fly  with  so  velvet-like,  so  silent  wings. 

Simeon  Pease  Cheney. 


TOPICS   OF   THE   TIME. 


*, 
v 


An  Issue  that  cannot  be  Ignored. 

NOTHING  is  more  encouraging  to  the  advocates  of 
civil  service  reform  than  the  constantly  increasing 
sensitiveness  of  the  public  mind  upon  this  question. 
This  is  shown  with  striking  force  whenever  a  violation 
of  the  law  is  reported  in  any  quarter,  and  especially 
in  Washington.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  for  example, 
a  report  was  published  that  a  circular  had  been  sent 
from  Washington,  with  the  knowledge  and  approval 
of  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  of  the 
Public  Printer,  calling  upon  the  postmasters  of  New 
York  State  to  furnish  lists  of  voters  to  whom  political 
documents  could  be  sent.  Instantly  there  was  an  out- 
cry from  all  parts  of  the  country  against  this  proposal 
as  a  violation  of  the  civil  service  law.  The  two  officials 
who  were  charged  with  giving  their  approval  hastened 
to  say  that  they  had  done  so  only  in  the  most  informal 
way,  tlmt  they  had  not  signed  the  circular,  and  that 
they  had  no  intention  of  sanctioning  any  violation 
either  of  the  letter  or  the  spirit  of  the  law.  The  cir- 
cular itself  was  summarily  suppressed. 

To  realize  the  progress  which  has  been  made,  we 
have  only  to  contrast  the  spirit  in  which  the  public  re- 
ceived this  news  of  an  attempt  to  use  the  post  office 
for  political  purposes  with  that  which  it  would  have 
shown  towards  a  similar  effort  a  few  years  ago.  There 
would  have  been  no  protest  heard  then,  save  from  a 
few  persons  and  newspapers  with  whom  civil  service 
reform  was  a  "  hobby  "  or  "  fad,"  advocated  with  such 
persistency  as  to  be  in  danger  of  becoming  a  public 
bore.  Now  the  mere  suspicion  of  a  violation  of  the 


law,  either  in  the  appointment  of  a  person  to  office  or 
in  the  administration  of  a  department,  is  sufficient  to 
set  the  whole  country  a-talking. 

The  political  managers  who  are  mapping  out  the 
next  campaign  will  do  well  to  give  more  than  per- 
functory notice  to  this  new  attitude  of  public  senti- 
ment. A  mere  plank  of  approval  and  sympathy  in  the 
party  platforms  will  not  be  sufficient.  There  must  be  a 
specific  and  hearty  pledge  to  carry  forward  and  extend 
the  scope  of  the  reform,  and  there  must  be  put  on  the 
platforms  candidates  whose  characters  and  public  rec- 
ords will  be  such  as  to  give  promise  that  their  efforts 
will  be  earnestly  devoted  to  the  fulfillment  of  the 
pledge  in  case  of  election.  For  great  and  encouraging 
as  is  the  progress  which  has  been  made,  the  reform  is 
really  only  in  its  first  stage.  Only  a  very  small  pro- 
portion of  the  public  service  is  yet  within  the  limits 
of  our  civil  service  rules.  The  country  will  not  be 
freed  from  the  evils  of  the  spoils  system  till  the  whole 
public  service  is  so  completely  removed  from  the  reach 
of  the  politicians  that  we  can  hold  a  presidential  elec- 
tion with  the  certainty  that,  whatever  may  be  the  re- 
sult, not  a  single  subordinate  in  the  employ  of  our 
Government  need  to  fear  that  he  will  lose  his  place  so 
long  as  he  does  his  duty  faithfully  and  efficiently. 

It  will  be  a  great  mistake  for  the  political  managers 
to  think  that  the  tariff  issue,  important  and  absorbing 
as  it  is  in  public  interest,  can  be  depended  upon  to 
overshadow  that  of  civil  service  reform.  The  sensitive- 
ness of  the  public  mind,  to  which  we  have  alluded,  is 
due  in  great  measure  to  the  knowledge  that  at  heart  the 
mere  politicians  of  both  parties  have  never  had  any 


v/, 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


sympathy  with  the  reform,  and  are  ready  now,  as  they 
always  have  been,  to  desert  it  if  they  think  they  can  do 
so  safely.  Some  of  them  may  think  that  the  looked-for 
opportunity  has  arrived  this  year,  but  they  will  make 
a  serious  mistake  if  they  act  upon  that  supposition. 
The  American  people,  with  their  quick  intelligence, 
have  caught  a  glimpse,  from  what  has  been  accom- 
plished by  the  partial  application  of  the  reform  prin- 
ciples, of  the  immeasurable  gain  to  the  political  health 
of  the  country  which  would  follow  from  their  full  ap- 
plication. They  detest  the  spoils  system  as  they  have 
never  detested  it  before,  and  the  political  party  which 
ventures  at  this  late  day  to  attempt  to  stay  the  work  of 
that  system's  destruction  will  simply  be  trifling  with  its 
own  fortunes. 

We  say  this  deliberately  and  confidently.  The  golden 
time  of  the  mere  politician  —  that  is,  of  the  man  who  is  in 
politics  simply  for  the  money  that  is  in  it — has  passed 
in  this  country.  We  are  entering  upon  an  era  in  which 
he  must  necessarily  play  a  minor  part.  We  have  saved 
our  Union,  and  are  now  turning  our  attention  to  the 
problem  of  how  best  to  govern  it.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  about  the  fact  of  this  transition.  The  questions 
to  which  the  public  mind  turn  most  readily  are  con- 
clusive evidence  upon  this  point.  Proposals  for  reform 
in  our  election  methods,  for  the  regulation,  restric- 
tion, or  suppression  of  the  liquor-traffic  and  its  por- 
tentous trainof  evils,  and  for  intelligent  and  thoughtful 
consideration  of  the  tariff  problem  command  universal 
attention.  In  every  State  in  the  Union  these,  with  that 
of  the  elimination  of  the  public  service  from  politics, 
are  the  absorbing  topics.  They  show  that  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Ghosts  in  which  we  have  been  wrangling  so 
long  has  at  last  been  dissolved,  and  the  Parliament  of 
Living  Issues  has  been  opened  in  its  stead.  In  this 
new  field  of  discussion  the  intelligence  of  the  country 
must  take  the  lead  and  hold  it;  that  intelligence  will 
force  forward  the  work  of  civil  service  reform  at  the 
same  time  that  it  discusses  other  vital  questions,  and 
the  politicians  cannot  hinder  its  progress. 

The    Newspaper   Side   of  Literature. 

THE  student  of  our  first  half-century  of  national 
history  can  hardly  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  nerv- 
ous directness,  exactness,  and  consequent  force  of 
the  American  state  papers  of  that  time.  While  diplo- 
matic documents  in  every  other  part  of  the  world  were 
marked  by  circuitousness,  tergiversation,  and  a  style 
too  vicious  to  be  classed  even  as  slovenly,  the  Ameri- 
can proclamation,  petition,  or  diplomatic  or  political 
argument  was  quite  certain  to  be  marked  by  clear-cut 
purpose,  masculine  vigor  of  expression,  and  close  adap- 
tation of  words  to  ideas.  All  this  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  long  and  intense  thinking  on  subjects  of  the  highest 
importance  to  the  thinkers,  and  to  a  somewhat  narrow 
field  of  reading:  restricted  to  the  study  of  the  greater 
masters  of  English  style,  the  great  American  writers 
were  able  to  wing  every  word  with  an  exact  under- 
standing of  its  purport,  and  of  its  strongest  use. 

It  can  hardly  be  possible  to  overestimate  the  edu- 
cational influence  which  must  have  been  exerted  on 
the  American  people  by  the  constant  reading  or  their 
on-n  political  literature  at  a  time  when  there  was  little 
or  no  native  drama,  poetry,  or  history,  and  when  the 
attention  of  the  newspaper  reader  was  concentrated 


on  politics  and  state  papers.  If  the  American's  read- 
ing matter  was  limited,  it  was  marked  by  dignity,  by 
a  freedom  from  meanness  of  conception  or  treatment, 
and  by  a  copious  supply  of  sound  English  words  and 
an  evident  power  of  discrimination  in  the  use  of  them. 
If  Massachusetts  Bay  had  a  controversy  with  her  gov- 
ernor, the  case  of  the  commonwealth  was  stated  with 
a  precision  and  a  completeness  which  the  great  Greek 
orator  could  hardly  have  surpassed  ;  and  documents 
of  this  sort  fashioned  popular  discussion  in  every 
town-meeting  and  around  every  hearthstone  from 
Boston  to  the  Connecticut  River.  The  contemporary 
reader  of  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence 
could  not  well  help  seeing  that  those  phrases  which 
were  blistering  in  their  intensity  owed  much  of 
their  force  to  their  contrast  with  the  cold  exactness 
with  which  words  were  used  elsewhere  in  the  docu- 
ment. The  finest  specimen  of  those  political  pamphlets 
which  depend  on  their  simplicity  for  their  effectivem  >- 
with  the  people  is  Tom  Paine's  "  Common  Sense,"  but 
it  is  a  masterpiece  of  rhetoric:  there  is  not  a  flaw  in  t he- 
design,  nor  an  imperfection  in  the  workmanship,  to 
make  it  a  bad  literary  influence  upon  the  people  to 
whom  it  was  addressed.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
immediate  practical  effect  of  that  far  more  ambitions 
effort,  the  "  Federalist,"  shows  that  long  previous  train- 
ing had  produced  a  type  of  reader  of  very  high  mental 
caliber:  the  work  is  now  a  profound  treatise  on  our 
constitutional  law,  a  fair  appreciation  of  which  must 
be  confined  to  a  comparatively  small  and  specially 
educated  class ;  but  in  1 787-88  it  was  no  more  than  a 
series  of  newspaper  appeals  to  the  legal  voters  of  the 
State  of  New  York.  Common  schools  may  have  been 
few,  colleges  poor,  and  universities  non-existent ;  but 
the  documents  which  the  scanty  newspaper  literature 
of  the  time  gave  to  the  people  were  in  themselves  an 
education.  Even  those  writings  in  which  a  lack  of 
thorough  early  training  is  occasionally  betrayed  by  an 
over-fondness  for  long  words  or  labored  efforts,  though 
they  may  thereby  become  ponderous,  do  not  become 
turgid  or  inexact.  The  rule  was  that  the  American 
diplomatic  or  political  writer  said  what  he  meant  ID 
say,  and  said  it  in  the  fittest  words. 

Such  a  process  of  popular  education  ought  to  go  far 
to  explain  the  completeness  with  which  all  depart- 
ments of  American  literature  finally  blossomed  forth. 
The  people  had  been  versed  for  years  in  that  which, 
if  it  was  only  one  branch  of  literature,  had  been  han- 
dled in  a  manner  little  short  of  perfection.  If  the  pop- 
ular literary  standards  were  few,  they  were  of  a  very 
high  order  and  of  a  kind  particularly  serviceable  in 
the  detection  of  mere  show  and  pretense  ;  and  the 
men  who,  in  other  departments  of  literary  work,  were 
at  last  able  to  come  fully  up  to  these  standards,  were 
necessarily  men  of  such  power  that  their  work  at  once 
took  a  permanent  place  in  the  literature  of  the  race. 

But  not  all  the  credit  should  be  given  to  the  ability 
of  the  writers  ;  a  large  part  of  it  is  due  to  the  existence 
of  a  class  of  readers,  trained  to  high  demands  by  tin- 
quality  of  their  current  reading,  furnished  mainly  by 
the  newspapers.  If  the  strength  of  the  new  American 
literature  was  drawn  from  Shakspere,  from  the  prose 
of  Milton,  from  the  English  translators  of  the  Bible, 
it  had  come  through  the  declarations  of  colonial  rights 
and  the  petitions  of  the  Continental  Congress  to  the 
king,  through  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


speeches  of  Patrick  Henry  and  Fisher  Ames,  the 
pamphlet  wars  of  "  Helviditis  "  and  "  Pacificus,"  the 
protests  against  search  and  impressment :  narrow  as 
the  newspaper  channels  had  been,  they  had  carried 
into  the  new  American  literature  its  full  share  of 
Sliakspere's  exactness  and  of  Milton's  power. 

I  low  much  of  an  improvement  have  we  in  Hoe's 
wonderful  presses,  ill  the  steam  which  drives  them, 
and  in  the  electricity  which  makes  the  modern  news- 
paper "the  history  of  the  world  for  a  day"?  Its 
reader  has  his  ten  pages  a  day  and  perhaps  thirty-two 
i KIEL'S  on  Sundays  ;  he  has  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
advertisements  a  year,  and  is  himself  numbered  among 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  readers  ;  he  has  daily  news 
of  the  passing  illnesses  of  crowned  heads,  the  daily 
happenings  of  every  corner  of  his  own  and  other  coun- 
tries, everything  that  may  be  called  "new/'  no  matter 
how  inane  or  evil.  He  lays  his  newspaper  down  and 
rises  bewildered  by  a  phantasmagoria  of  unconnected 
facts  relating  to  every  part  of  the  universe,  with  his 
taste  vitiated  by  slang,  bad  English,  loose  information, 
everything  which  can  dissipate  his  mental  energies, 
and  with  his  heart,  it  may  be,  corrupted  by  grosser 
evils.  Is  he  a  clearer-headed,  a  wiser,  or  a  better  man 
than  the  New  Yorker  of  just  a  hundred  years  ago,  who, 
folding  up  his  "Independent  Gazetteer  "  and  not  car- 
ing a  jot  that  he  had  not  heard  from  Boston  in  two 
days  or  from  North  Carolina  in  two  weeks,  went  quietly 
home  to  meditate  on  or  discuss  an  essay  of  Hamilton, 
Madison,  or  Jay?  Does  the  "successful"  modern 
newspaper  make  its  readers  better  critics  than  were 
made  by  its  predecessors  of  years  ago  ?  The  newspa- 
per of  the  past  gave  us,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  a  litera- 
ture whose  names,  from  Bryant  to  Prescott  and  Motley, 
are  classic.  What  sort  of  literature  is  our  popular 
modern  newspaper  likely  to  give  us  ? 

It  would  be  unfair  to  ignore  the  fact  that  some  of  our 
newspapers  do  exert  the  best  literary  influence  on  their 
readers,  and  conscientiously  subordinate  other  feat- 
ures of  their  work  to  their  duties  as  educators.  But  the 
typical  modern  newspaper,  to  meet  the  taste  which  it 
lias  created,  must  surrender  whole  columns  to  writers 
who  aim  only  at  being  amusing,  and  often  succeed  only 
in  being  pert,  slangy,  or  scandalous;  and  it  must  find 
or  invent  "news  "  items  which  have  about  as  lofty  an 
influence  on  the  minds  of  readers  as  the  wonders  of  the 
fair  had  on  the  mind  of  Moses  Primrose.  A  continual 
flood  of  such  matter  is  not  to  be  offset  or  corrected 
by  an  occasional  brilliant  editorial,  or  a  half-column 
speech  by  a  public  man,  or  a  "  syndicate  "  story  by  a 
good  writer.  And  the  effects  are  cumulative  :  such 
newspapers  are  steadily  training  a  large  number  of 
readers  to  false  standards  in  the  only  literature  of 
which  they  have  close  and  daily  experience  ;  and  the 
newspapers  themselves  are  as  steadily  being  forced  to 
an  adoption  of  these  false  standards.  In  brief,  the  news- 
paper of  the  past,  by  reason  of  its  lack  of  opportunity, 
was  compelled  to  restrict  its  readers  to  matter  of  per- 
manent educational  value;  the  newspaper  of  the  pres- 
ent, through  its  superabundance  of  opportunity,  is  too 
often  training  its  readers  out  of  all  knowledge  of  or  care 
for  educational  standards. 

The  only  remedy  which  can  be  suggested  is  in  that 
which  will  naturally  work  itself  out  of  a  general  recog- 
nition of  the  evils  to  be  corrected.  As  the  sense  of 
public  duty  grows  keener,  as  it  comes  to  be  seen  that 


public  ol'tice  is  not  the  only  public  trust,  the  journalist 
will  cease  to  think  or  act  as  if  his  profession  had  no 
mission  ;  as  if  circulation  were  its  highest  good,  and 
advertisements  the  noblest  result  of  it.  It  cannot  but 
be  that  the  American  newspaper  shall  become  again  an 
educating  force,  higher  and  nobler  than  its  prototype, 
whose  virtue  was  based  in  impotence.  Notwithstand- 
ing all  the  evil  tendencies  of  current  journalism, —  the 
disregard  of  accuracy,  the  irreverence,  the  cruel  and 
impertinent  gossip, —  there  are  indications  which  are 
highly  encouraging. 

The  fact  must  be  recognized  that  not  all  the  successful 
methods  of  the  immense  dailies  are  bad  methods. 
There  is  a  certain  thoroughness  and  enterprise  about 
them  that  impresses,  and  which  will  be  a  feature  of 
the  management  of  the  ideal  "  newspaper  of  the  fu- 
ture." We  notice,  also,  a  tendency  in  some  of  the  most 
sensational  of  these  papers  towards  better  things  — 
towards  a  certain  legitimate  "sensationalism."  Man- 
ners and  methods  have  been  modified  under  an  in- 
creasing sense  of  responsibility  and  in  the  endeavor 
to  reach  a  solid  as  well  as  numerous  circulation.  We 
have  spoken  recently  of  the  growing  independence 
of  the  political  press,  of  which  independence  ex- 
amples accumulate.  The  sensational  newspaper's 
editorial  page  already  often  shows  a  gravity  and  pith 
of  style  evidencing  ability  and  conscience.  There  is  a 
growing  tendency  towards  the  fearless,  generous,  and 
public-spirited  discussion  of  living  questions.  Let  us 
hope  that  these  signs  indicate  a  reaction  against  a 
state  of  things  that  is  deprecated  by  the  best  men 
engaged  in  the  profession  of  daily  journalism. 

With  all  its  faults  the  newspaper  of  to-day  is  a  tre- 
mendous power  for  good;  for  the  perpetuation  of 
freedom;  for  the  criticism  and  reform  of  government ; 
for  the  betterment  of  social  conditions.  The  daily 
press  has  reformed  many  things,  and  ought  to  be, 
and  is,  fully  able  to  reform  itself. 

New   England    Defending   States   Rights. 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  our  national 
development  since  the  restoration  of  the  Union  is  the 
manner  in  which  the  two  sections  are  contributing  to 
the  preservation  of  our  common  inheritance.  It  is  a 
very  striking  and  suggestive  fact  that  a  conspicuous 
Union  soldier  from  New  England  should  now  come  to 
the  rescue  of  the  South  in  defense  of  a  sound  constitu- 
tional principle,  which,  although  always  associated  in  the 
popular  mind  with  the  South,  has  seemed  of  late  years 
to  be  losing  its  proper  hold  upon  Southern  men.  The 
debate  on  the  Blair  bill  in  the  Senate  a  few  weeks  ago 
was  rendered  notable  by  a  most  vigorous  States  rights 
speech  from  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  one  of  Con- 
necticut's representatives  in  the  upper  branch  of  Con- 
gress. It  is  true  that  General  Hawley  opposed  the 
scheme  of  Federal  aid  to  schools  in  the  South  upon  other 
grounds,  especially  on  the  theory  that  such  aid  from 
Washington  would  prove  demoralizing  to  the  spirit  of 
self-help ;  but  the  burden  of  his  speech  was  the  conten- 
tion that  the  proposed  system  would  involvean  encroach- 
ment by  the  General  Government  upon  the  rights  of 
the  States,  and  would  thus  pave  the  way  for  an  ultimate 
revolution  in  the  relations  between  them. 

The  necessities  of  the  war  and  the  exigencies  of  the 
reconstruction  period  vastly  strengthened  the  authority 


'S2 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


and  power  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  corre- 
spondingly weakened  the  influence  of  the  States.  After 
that  anomalous  period  ended,  two  other  motives  con- 
spired to  assist  these  tendencies.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  proper  and  reasonable  prerogatives  of  the  State 
suffered  from  having  a  bad  name  in  the  victorious  sec- 
tion. Northern  people  remembered  that "  States  rights  " 
had  been  the  plea  upon  which  secession  was  based, 
and  consequently  they  felt  a  not  unnatural  impatience 
whenever  they  heard  the  term  again  used.  On  the 
other  hand,  Southern  people  found  that  a  firm  adher- 
ence to  a  strict  theory  of  the  rights  of  the  States,  so 
far  from  being  "  money  in  their  pockets,"  might  mean 
the  loss  of  appropriations  from  the  Federal  treasury 
which  they  could  get  by  waiving  it.  The  province  of 
the  State  was  thus  assailed  by  Northerners  enamored 
of  Federal  power,  while  its  traditional  defenders  in  the 
South  were  tempted  to  forego  resistance  by  the  advan- 
tages in  the  shape  of  dollars  and  cents  which  would 
follow  their  surrender. 

The  layman  may  hesitate  to  express  an  opinion  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  Blair  bill  is  constitutional  when  he 
finds  distinguished  constitutional  lawyers  at  variance 
regarding  it ;  but  the  layman  cannot  fail  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  arguments  urged  in  defense  of  the 
measure,  if  pushed  to  their  logical  conclusion,  threaten 
accessions  to  Federal  power,  and  inroads  upon  the 
just  bounds  of  State  authority,  which  eventually  must 
disturb  the  harmony  of  our  dual  system  of  govern- 
ment. The  difficulty  in  resisting  this  tendency  was 
twofold.  In  the  first  place,  too  many  people  in  the 
North  resented  such  resistance  when  offered  by  South- 
erners as  only  another  manifestation  of  the  "  States 
rights  "  idea,  towards  which,  in  its  ante-bellum  form, 
they  had  conceived  a  violent  aversion  ;  in  the  second 
place,  too  many  people  in  the  South  were  inclined  to 
give  over  a  resistance  based  on  theory  in  order  to  grasp 
a  practical  advantage. 

In  such  a  situation  there  was  needed  a  bold,  vigor- 
ous, and  convincing  assertion  and  defense  of  just  States 


rights  by  a  Northern  man,  who,  as  a  Union  soldier,  had 
fought  against  an  unjust  theory  of  States  rights,  and 
whose  political  relations  relieved  him  from  the  impu- 
tation of  seeking  personal  or  partisan  ends  in  making 
such  a  deliverance.  General  Hawley  was  exactly  the 
man  needed.  He  had  been  a  prominent  officer  on  the 
Northern  side  in  the  civil  war ;  he  has  been  a  prominent 
leader  in  the  Republican  party  since  the  war ;  he  has 
been  often  enough  suggested  as  a  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent to  be  free  from  the  charge  of  trying  to  make  capital 
by  a  speech  which  was  altogether  too  pronounced  to  fit 
the  modern  standards  of  non-committal  "availability." 

The  speech  was  worthy  of  the  occasion,  and  there 
are  abundant  signs  that  it  has  produced  a  marked  effect. 
It  is  especially  noteworthy  and  encouraging  to  find 
evidence  that  this  defense  of  States  rights  by  a  Union 
soldier  from  the  North  is  strengthening  in  the  faith  of 
self-government  those  Southern  men  who,  having 
once  carried  the  theory  of  State  authority  too  far,  had 
seemed  of  late  in  danger  of  not  carrying  it  far  enough. 
All  the  circumstances  which  attended  the  delivery  of 
the  speech  combined  to  secure  for  it  the  attention  of 
thoughtful  men  throughout  the  country,  and  especially 
in  the  South,  and  a  candid  consideration  of  its  argu- 
ments could  not  fail  to  secure  a  wide  acceptance  of 
its  conclusions. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  nothing  could  have 
seemed  more  absurd  than  the  idea  that  the  South 
would  ever  waver  in  its  devotion  to  "  States  rights," 
unless  it  were  the  idea  that  it  would  need  the  appeal 
of  a  Northern  man  to  recall  it  to  its  senses.  Yet  we 
have  seen  both  of  these  things  come  to  pass.  We  have 
heard  men  who  tried  to  secede  from  the  Union,  be- 
cause they  thought  their  States  could  not  get  their 
alleged  rights  in  the  Union,  return  to  the  Union  and 
avow  their  readiness  to  surrender  the  actual  rights  of 
their  States  ;  and  then  we  have  heard  one  of  the  men 
who  fought  to  overthrow  secession  protesting  against 
such  surrender  of  State  rights  by  the  men  who  had 
tried  to  establish  secession. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


Make    your   Daughters    Independent. 

IT  is  the  refinement  of  cruelty  to  educate  girls  in  the 
aimless  fashion  of  to-day.  Boys  are  trained  to  look 
forward  to  a  career  of  usefulness  while  girls  grow  up 
without  any  fixed  purpose  in  life,  unless  indeed  their 
hopes  and  ambitions  center  upon  marriage,  as  is  most 
often  the  case. 

While  it  is  natural  and  right  for  girls  to  look  for- 
ward to  marriage,  it  will  be  well  for  them  all  when 
they  fully  appreciate  the  undeniable  fact  that  marriage 
is  a  remoter  possibility  now  than  it  was  in  the  days  of 
their  grandmothers,  and  that  even  those  whose 
fondest  dreams  may  one  day  be  realized  have  much  to 
do  and  to  learn  before  they  are  ready  for  the  life  upon 
which  they  will  enter  with  such  high  and  happy  hopes. 
No  woman  is  qualified  for  marriage  until  she  under- 
stands domestic  economy  in  all  its  branches  ;  the 
management  of  servants  and  the  care  of  the  sick 
and  children ;  is  proficient  in  needle-work  ;  and  be- 


sides all  this  possesses  a  thorough  knowledge  of  some 
business,  profession,  trade,  or  calling  which  will  insure 
her  independence  on  occasion.  Now,  as  a  rule,  none 
of  these  things  are  taught  in  school.  It  is  obvious, 
therefore,  that  if  they  are  to  be  learned  it  must  be  done 
after  school  life  is  over. 

How  often  one  hears  a  married  woman,  the  mother 
of  a  young  family  who  would  look  to  her  for  support 
if  suddenly  deprived  of  their  natural  protector,  deplore 
her  ignorance  of  any  one  accomplishment  that  would 
afford  her  a  competence.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
such  a  one  had  no  right  to  marry.  It  was  assuming  too 
great  a  risk ;  for  no  more  cruel  fate  can  befall  a  woman 
than  to  be  cast  upon  a  cold  and  heartless  world  with- 
out the  means  of  earning  a  livelihood  for  herself  and 
those  who  may  be  dependent  upon  her. 

A  time  is  liable  to  come  in  every  life  when  the  all- 
important  question  will  arise,  What  can  I  do  to  make 
money  ?  The  possession  of  wealth  is  one  of  the  most 


OPEX  f.ETTERS. 


'53 


uncertain  things  in  life,  especially  in  this  country.  ( >n 
tin'  other  side  of  tlic  water,  where  estates  remain  in 
the  same  family  from  one  generation  to  another,  there 
is  more  stability  in  riches.  But  here  a  man  may  be 
rich  to-day,  poor  to-morrow,  and  in  a  few  short  months 
or  years  his  children  may  see  want :  witness  the  se- 
ries of  financial  crashes  that  have  lately  visited  this 
country.  There  is  many  a  one  suffering  to-day  for 
the  common  necessaries  of  life  whose  future  seemed 
radiant  with  the  light  of  assured  prosperity  when  the 
\ew  Vear  dawned. 

Upon  none  does  the  weight  of  such  sore  trials  fall 
more  heavily  than  upon  the  women  who,  having  been 
reared  in  the  lap  of  luxury,  are  thus  suddenly  forced 
by  cruel  necessity  to  turn  their  attention  to  something 
that  will  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door.  But  why  did 
they  not  anticipate  misfortune  and  make  provision  for 
it  in  more  prosperous  days  ?  Simply  because  they  had 
not  the  courage  to  defy  public  opinion. 

There  is  a  class  of  women  who  need  more  sympathy 
and  get  less  than  their  share.  They  are  those  who  in 
girlhood,  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  led  the  list- 
less, aimless  life  already  described,  but  who  in  late 
years,  by  some  untoward  circumstance,  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  sad  realities  of  life.  Cultured, 
refined  women,  who  have  seen  better  days,  find  the 
struggle  for  life  far  more  bitter  than  their  more  fortu- 
nate sisters  whose  position  in  life  has  always  been 
such  as  to  necessitate  their  earning  their  own  livings. 
It  is  for  such  this  plea  is  made. 

Domestic  servants  are  well  off  in  America ;  they 
are  the  most  independent  class  of  women-workers. 
The  great  army  of  shop  girls,  factory  girls,  sewing 
girls,  those  engaged  in  trades  of  all  kinds,  may  con- 
gratulate themselves  upon  their  comparatively  happy 
lot.  They  often  look  with  envy  upon  those  who,  they 
fancy,  are  better  off  than  themselves.  Let  them  cul- 
tivate a  spirit  of  contentment.  There  are  trials  —  bitter, 
bitter  trials  —  in  the  lives  of  some  of  those  they  are  fool- 
ish enough  to  envy,  of  which  they  know  nothing. 
There  are  miseries  of  which  they  never  dream. 

An  accomplished  lady,  daughter  of  an  army  officer 
who  some  score  or  more  of  years  ago  served  his 
country  nobly  in  her  hour  of  peril,  is  to-day  learning 
the  art  of  telegraphy  in  one  of  our  Western  cities,  in 
the  hope  that  she  may  be  enabled  thereby  to  support 
her  little  children.  In  the  happy  home  of  her  youth 
no  expense  was  spared  upon  this  lady's  education. 
She  was  exceptionally  talented  and  won  an  enviable 
reputation  as  a  skillful  pianist.  It  was  not  surprising 
that  this  petted  favorite  of  fortune  contracted  a  bril- 
liant marriage.  Her  pathway  seemed  strewn  with 
roses,  and  for  years  not  a  cloud  of  care  or  sorrow 
shadowed  her  young  life.  But  trouble  came  at  last. 
1  )eath  robbed  her,  at  one  stroke,  of  her  noble  husband 
and  a  much  loved  child.  Then  financial  troubles  fol- 
lowed, and  in  a  few  short  monlhs  this  delicately  nur- 
tured gentlewoman  found  herself  bereft  of  fortune  also. 

Grief-stricken  as  she  was,  she  felt  that  there  was 
something  still  left  to  live  for ;  and,  for  the  sake  of 
her  two  little  ones,  she  took  up  the  burden  of  life 
and  faced  the  future  bravely.  Naturally  she  thought 
her  knowledge  of  music  would  afford  her  the  needed 
means  of  support.  But,  alas !  she  soon  found  that  ac- 
complishments are  of  small  avail  in  the  struggle  for 
a  living,  and  that  teaching  music  was  too  precarious  a 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 22. 


means  of  earning  money  to  be  depended  upon  with 
any  degree  of  certainty  lor  the  support  of  a  family. 
Although  so  costly  a  thing  to  acquire,  an  education 
cannot  always  be  made  to  yield  proper  returns  for  the 
time  and  money  expended  upon  it.  The  bitter  truth 
soon  forced  itself  upon  this  unfortunate  woman's  mind 
that  a  servant  in  anybody's  kitchen  was  better  off,  finan- 
cially, than  she.  She  must  therefore  learn  something 
at  once  that  will  be  of  more  marketable  value  than  the 
accomplishments  of  which,  until  now,  she  has  all  her 
life  been  justly  proud.  Hence  we  find  her  laboring  to 
master  a  new  and  difficult  art  at  an  age  when  study  is 
not  an  easy  matter.  Her  children,  meanwhile,  are 
being  cared  for  by  kind  friends. 

Would  it  not  be  wiser  far  to  induce  young  girls 
in  thousands  of  happy,  prosperous  homes  to  make 
ample  provision  for  any  and  all  emergencies  that  the 
future  may  have  in  store  for  them  ?  Could  a  better 
use  be  found  for  some  of  the  years  that  intervene 
between  the  time  a  girl  leaves  school  and  the  time 
she  may  reasonably  hope  to  marry?  The  field  for 
woman's  work  has  been  opened  up  of  late  years  in  so 
many  different  directions  that  a  vocation  can  easily  be 
found,  outside  the  profession  of  teaching,  that  will  be 
quite  as  congenial  to  refined  tastes,  and  considerably 
more  lucrative.  Book-keeping,  type-writing,  teleg- 
raphy, stenography,  engraving,  dentistry,  medicine, 
nursing,  and  a  dozen  other  occupations  might  be  men- 
tioned. Then,  too,  industrial  schools  might  be  estab- 
lished, where  the  daughters  of  wealthy  parents  could 
be  trained  in  the  practical  details  of  any  particular 
industry  for  which  they  displayed  a  special  aptitude. 
If  it  is  not  beneath  the  sons  and  daughters  of  a  mon- 
arch to  learn  a  trade,  it  ought  not  to  be  beneath  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  republican  America  to  emu- 
late their  good  example,  provided  they  possess  the 
requisite  ability  to  do  so. 

Two  years  will  suffice  to  make  any  bright,  quick 
girl  conversant  with  all  the  mysteries  of  the  art  of 
housekeeping,  especially  if  she  be  wise  enough  to 
study  the  art  practically  as  well  as  theoretically.  The 
management  of  servants  and  the  care  of  the  sick  and 
children  will  be  incidentally  learned  in  most  homes, 
and  can  be  supplemented  by  a  more  extended  study  of 
physiology,  hygiene,  etc.  than  was  possible  at  school. 
Sewing  need  not  be  neglected  either,  while  leisure  will 
readily  be  found  for  reading  or  any  other  recreation 
that  may  suit  individual  tastes.  Another  year,  or 
longer,  may  be  added  to  the  time  devoted  to  these  pur- 
suits, if  desired.  But,  above  all,  let  two  or  three  years 
be  conscientiously  set  apart  for  the  express  purpose  of 
acquiring  a  thorough  experimental  knowledge  of  some 
art  or  vocation  which  would  render  its  possessor  self- 
supporting  and,  consequently,  independent. 

If  the  tide  of  public  opinion  favoring  such  a  course 
would  but  set  in,  many  a  one  would  be  spared  untold 
suffering  and  misery  in  after  life.  Let  the  rich  set  the 
example  in  this  matter.  They  can  afford  to  do  what- 
ever pleases  them,  and,  therefore,  have  it  in  their  power 
to  mold  public  opinion.  Be  not  afraid,  girls,  that  you 
will  find  your  self-imposed  task  irksome.  Remember 
that  occupation  is  necessary  to  happiness,  and  that 
there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  dream  while 
you  work. 

The  cry  will  be  raised  that  there  is  danger  that 
such  a  plan  as  the  one  advocated  here  will  tend  to 


'54 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


give  girls  a  distaste  for  the  quiet  retirement  of  home, 
but  there  is  little  cause  for  fear.  Not  one  girl  in 
twenty  will  voluntarily  choose  a  business  life  in  pref- 
erence to  domestic  happiness.  Indeed,  it  is  absolutely 
certain  that  happy  marriages  would  be  promoted  by 
this  very  independence  among  women.  Not  being  at 
leisure  to  nurse  every  passing  fancy,  girls  would  elect 
to  wait  patiently  until  the  light  of  true  love  came 
into  their  lives. 

G.  Andmvs. 

Manual   Training   in   the   Toledo   Schools. 

THE  manual-training  branch  of  the  Toledo  city 
schools,  organized  over  five  years  ago,  has  steadily 
grown  in  popularity  and  usefulness.  It  was  looked 
upon  at  its  beginning  with  suspicion  and  distrust,  but 
its  projectors  determined  to  give  it  a  fair  trial.  The 
manual-training  work  began  in  a  humble  way  in  a 
small  room  with  sixty  boys  and  girls  in  the  classes. 
These  were  pupils  of  the  public  schools,  and  did 
their  regular  school  work  in  connection  with  free-hand 
and  mechanical  drawing,  and  carpentry  in  the  manual 
department.  The  school  began  to  make  friends  of  its 
enemies.  Those  who  had  indulged  in  hostile  criticism 
of  the  enterprise  gradually  grew  silent.  The  second 
year  a  large  four-story  brick  building  was  erected,  and 
equipped  with  steam  power,  benches,  tools,  lathes, 
and  forges.  Ample  room  was  provided  for  free-hand 
and  mechanical  drawing,  special  prominence  being 
given  to  architectural  and  perspective  work.  A  domes- 
tic economy  department  was  added,  in  which  girls  study 
the  chemistry  of  foods  and  their  preparation  for  the 
table.  A  sewing  class  has  been  organized,  in  which 
the  cutting  and  fitting  of  garments  is  taught.  A  class 
in  clay  modeling  mold  the  forms  and  designs  used  in 
the  arts.  The  students  have  increased  to  about  three 
hundred  in  all  departments,  and  from  the  beginning 
have  manifested  the  greatest  interest  and  enthusiasm  for 
the  work.  This  intense  interest  in  the  new  work  had 
at  first  to  be  so  modified  as  not  to  interfere  with  the 
regular  prosecution  of  the  intellectual  or  class-room 
work  proper.  After  some  experimenting,  the  two 
lines  of  work  were  harmoniously  adjusted  to  each 
other.  Boys  and  girls  pass  from  their  algebra  and  his- 
tory to  their  drawing,  wood-carving,  or  clay  modeling, 
and  from  these  again  to  geometry  and  English  litera- 
ture, with  a  hearty  zest  for  all.  The  girls  in  the 
domestic  economy  department  con  their  Vergils  or  don 
their  cooking  suits,  and  prepare  with  ease  and  grace 
such  savory  and  palatable  food  as  would  mollify  the 
most  radical  opponent  of  industrial  training.  In  short, 
there  is  such  a  harmonious  blending  of  the  useful 
and  the  practical  with  the  higher  intellectual  culture, 
that  the  unprejudiced  observer  needs  but  to  inspect 
the  work  to  be  convinced  of  the  reasonableness  and 
great  utility  of  such  training.  The  advantages  of  the 
manual  department  are  open  to  none  except  pupils  of 
the  public  schools.  Those  who  take  the  manual  work 
do  the  same  amount  of  mental  work  in  the  regular 
class-room  studies  as  those  who  have  no  work  in  the 
industrial  department. 

The  objection  was  raised  by  many  in  the  beginning 
that  the  manual  work  would  impede  the  pupils'  mental 
progress.  I  cannot  see  that  it  does,  and  no  one  here 
now  believes  that  it  does.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  con- 
vinced by  a  comparison  of  pupils'  records  in  the  dif- 


ferent departments  that  if  the  two  lines  of  work  are 
properly  adjusted  to  each  other  the  manual  work 
stimulates  and  quickens  the  intellectual  development, 
and  promotes  the  mental  progress  of  the  students. 
The  opposition  to  manual  training  manifested  in  vari- 
ous quarters  arises  largely  from  the  lamentable  igno- 
rance which  prevails  as  to  its  aims  and  results.  Many 
seem  to  think  that  the  sole  object  of  industrial  train- 
ing is  to  make  mechanics  and  train  them  to  mere 
manual  dexterity.  This  is  an  utterly  erroneous  idea. 
The  manual  work  is  to  train  the  senses,  to  quicken  the 
perceptive  power,  and  to  form  the  judgment  by  fur- 
nishing the  pupil  an  opportunity  to  study  at  the  bench, 
forge,  lathe,  and  engine  the  nature  of  matter  and  the 
manifestations  of  force.  It  is  purely  educational  in  its 
object.  It  first  teaches  the  pupils  to  portray  in  the 
drawing  a  variety  of  beautiful  and  useful  forms,  and 
then  to  embody  these  forms  in  wood,  clay,  and  metals. 
It  teaches  how  to  express  thought,  not  in  words  alone, 
but  in  things.  It  produces  nothing  for  the  market 
except  well-trained  minds,  seeing  eyes,  and  skillful 
hands.  In  the  ordinary  factory,  which  produces  for 
the  market,  the  individual  is  nothing,  the  article  is 
everything.  In  the  manual-training  school  the  articles 
made  are  of  no  moment,  the  boys  and  girls  are  all- 
important.  As  soon  as  a  pupil  makes  one  thing  well, 
he  is  led  on  to  something  higher  and  better.  The 
pupils  make  many  useful  and  beautiful  things,  but 
these  are  of  no  value  compared  with  the  knowledge 
gained,  the  symmetrical  mental  development  acquired. 
Some  of  the  advantages,  other  than  those  named,  appar- 
ent from  the  manual  work  combined  in  this  way  with 
the  public  school  studies,  are:  the  industrial  work 
holds  afar  greater  proportion  of  pupils  throughout  the 
entire  course  of  study,  and  thus  gives  them  the  benefits 
of  a  more  complete  education ;  it  conduces  to  their 
moral  welfare,  not  that  it  gives  them  "  a  passport  to 
heaven,"  but  employs  all  their  time  in  a  pleasant  and 
healthful  way,  thus  preventing  idleness  and  crowding 
out  impure  conceptions  that  might  find  a  harbor  in  the 
young  mind ;  it  dignifies  and  exalts  labor,  and  teaches 
respect  for  the  laboring  man ;  it  teaches  no  special 
trade  and  yet  lays  the  foundation  for  any  trade,  and 
gives  the  youth  such  knowledge  and  skill  that  he  be- 
comes a  sounder  and  better  judge  of  men  and  things 
in  whatever  business  or  profession  he  may  engage. 
Manual  training  is  a  successful  and  satisfactory  branch 
of  study  in  the  Toledo  schools,  not  because  it  is  theo- 
retically a  good  thing,  nor  because  it  is  given  undue 
prominence  and  special  advantages,  but  because  it  is 
in  harmony  with  the  nature  of  things,  has  a  noble 
purpose  in  view,  has  been  well  managed,  has  good 
instructors,  and  has  proved  itself  of  great  value  to  the 
pupils. 

//.   W.  Cotnptim, 
Superintendent  of  Schools,  Toledo,  Ohio. 

Emerson's   Message. 

MR.  BURROUGHS  remarks  that  the  main  ground  of 
kinship  between  Emerson  and  Carlyle  is  "the  heroic 
sentiment"  which  both  convey  to  their  readers.  The 
comparison  suggests  a  contrast.  Every  reader  of  the 
two  feels  this  essential  difference :  Carlyle  rouses 
courage,  but  Emerson  inspires  the  sense  of  triumph. 
In  Carlyle's  pages  man  seems  battling  against  the 
universe;  in  Emerson's  company  we  feel  that  man  is 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


victorious  because  the  universe  is  his  friend.  This  dif- 
ference is  very  deep, —  it  is  almost  the  difference  be- 
tween a  gospel  and  no  gospel.  It  is  indeed  a  grand 
thing  to  say,  "Gospel  or  no  gospel,  (!od  or  no  God, 
immortals  or  ephemeral*,  let  us  still  he  true  and  brave." 
The  whole  force  of  that  message  Carlyle  gives  us.  ilut 
Emerson  gives  something  more.  He  brings  ;,'/</</  ti- 
lini^'s,—  the  sense  of  victory ;  the  sense  that  life  and 
dM'.h  are  IIIMH'-,  friends  and  servants;  the  sense  of 
serene  and  radiant  joy.  The  essential  difference  be- 
iwrcn  the  two  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that 
Kmcrson  has  a  God,  and  Carlyle  has  none. 

I  have  not  the  least  disposition  to  hold  a  brief  as 
"devil's  advocate "  against  Carlyle  in  this  matter,  but 
he  seems  never  to  have  been  reconciled  with  life ; 
never  to  have  clearly  recognized  a  beneficent  order 
through  its  seeming  chaos,  or  felt  himself  at  home  and 
at  rest.  He  seems  always  shut  up  in  his  own  hunger- 
ings,  ambitions,  achievements,  megrims,  and  dyspepsia. 
His  own  personality  shut  him  in  like  a  prison-house; 
and  looking  out  from  its  windows,  he  saw  the  uni- 
verse as  only  a  vast  phantasmagoria.  Perhaps  I  mis- 
understand or  underrate  him.  Hut  as  regards  Emer- 
son, it  seems  to  be  this  consideration  alone  which  brings 
out  his  true  greatness  —  that  he  discerned  the  universe 
as  divine  to  its  inmost  core.  We  rightly  call  him  a  seer. 
And  what  did  he  see  ?  God,  everywhere.  It  is  the  sight 
of  God  that  he  helps  us  to, —  the  sense  of  God  that  he 
wakes  in  us.  The  truest  lover  of  Emerson  loves  him 
best  for  making  an  access  into  heaven, —  a  heaven  both 
present  and  eternal ;  and  it  is  not  Emerson's  person- 
ality, dear  though  that  be,  on  which  his  thought  most 
rests,  but  that  vision  of  the  heavenly  reality  to  which 
the  poet  has  helped  him. 

A  legend  relates  that  when  the  followers  of  Mahomet 
stood  mourning  beside  his  bier  one  of  them  roused 
the  other  by  the  question,  "  Is  it  then  Mahomet  that  you 
have  believed  in,  or  the  God  of  Mahomet  ?  "  It  is  not 
himself  merely  that  Emerson  makes  us  believe  in ;  nor 
is  it  ourself, —  but  something  infinitely  greater. 

Emerson  did  not  speak  the  speech  or  think  the 
thoughts  of  what  we  commonly  call  Christianity.  Yet 
Christianity  instinctively  recognizes  him  as  its  friend. 
Its  message  and  his  message  are  at  heart  the  same. 
Both  are  favorable  answers  to  the  one  supreme  ques- 
tion always  confronting  man :  "  Is  the  universe  my 
fiiend,  or  my  foe,  or  indifferent  to  me?"  While  so 
many  are  answering  the  question  mournfully  or  care- 
lessly by  "  Not  proven,"  the  strong  uplifting  answer 
of  faith  is  spoken  by  the  older  language  of  Christian- 
ity, and  in  new  tongues  of  to-day. 

It  is  the  newness  of  the  tongue  that  gives  occasion 
to  point  out  and  enforce  the  substance  of  Emerson's 
message.  How  far  his  opinions  were  from  the  theol- 
ogy of  Christianity  is  clear  enough.  Of  his  attitude 
towards  its  dogmas  Dr.  Holmes  has  said,  "  He  was  an 
iconoclast  without  a  hammer,  who  took  down  our  idols 
so  tenderly  that  it  seemed  like  an  act  of  worship." 
Hut  the  positiveness  and  greatness  of  his  faith  may  at 
first  elude  full  recognition,  because  of  the  unfamiliar- 
ity  of  its  forms  of  expression.  The  divine  reality  came 
home  to  him  with  such  freshness  and  power  that  it 
coined  new  names  and  phrases  for  itself. 

It  is  always  through  some  mediator,  something  di- 
rectly appreciable  to  its  human  faculties,  that  the  soul 
learns  to  discern  the  infinite.  The  mediator  whom 


( 'hristianity  offers  is  a  single  man,  so  human  that  every 
man  may  feel  his  kinship,  so  lovely  that  all  must  love 
him,  so  visibly  manifesting  a  divine  power  that  through 
him  we  see  God.  The  power,  the  genuineness  (if  this 
revelation  through  Christ,  as  an  experience  of  human 
souls,  must  alfect  with  inexpressible  reverence  and 
tenderness  even  those  to  whom  it  is  not  a  personal 
experience.  But  to  another  class  of  minds,  whom  Emer- 
son represents, the  revelation ounes  in  adifieicnt  chan- 
nel. The  mediums  through  which  Emerson  sees  God 
are  nature  and  humanity.  Through  nature,  beauty; 
through  humanity,  love.  It  is  a  wonderful,  newly 
awakened  sense  in  the  human  mind,  by  which  the 
majesty  of  the  external  world  is  felt  as  the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  spiritual  presence.  As  a  friend's  face  expresses 
to  us  the  friend,  so  earth  and  sea  and  sky  express  the 
divine  soul  within, —  the  "over-soul,"  as  Emerson  called 
it.  This  revealing,  sacramental  significance  of  nature 
seems  in  its  fullness  a  new  birth  of  recent  times.  Words- 
worth voices  it,  Emerson  voices  it,  but  they  and  such  as 
they  are  only  the  highest  peaks  that  catch  the  sunrise 
first.  The  response  which  their  words  waken  comes  be- 
cause in  other  minds  the  same  mystic  power  is  working. 

It  is  by  another  kind  of  insight  that  in  the  world  of 
mankind  —  so  strange,  so  troubled,  so  chaotic,  as  it 
often  seems  to  us  —  Emerson  sees  as  in  a  mirror  per- 
petual glimpses  and  reflections  of  the  divine.  It  is 
because  of  the  sympathy  with  which  he  regards  men  — 
a  sympathy  born  of  largeness  of  perception  and  sweet- 
ness of  feeling  —  that  he  discerns  in  them  such  sacred 
worth,  such  hint  of  divinity.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
he  seems  especially  near  to  Christianity's  founder. 
The  sentiment  we  see  in  Christ  towards  erring  men 
is  not  abhorrence  of  their  guilt,  but  pity,  and  infinite 
faith  in  their  possibilities,  and  closest  identification 
with  them.  Just  as  he  says,  "  My  Father,"  he  teaches 
the  people  about  him  to  say  "  Our  Father  "  ;  of  those 
who  seek  to  do  the  will  of  God  he  says,  "  Behold  my 
mother  and  my  sisters  and  my  brethren  "  ;  of  service 
done  to  the  wretched  he  declares,  "  Ye  have  done  it 
unto  me  " ;  looking  upon  young  children  he  exclaims, 
"  In  heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of 
my  Father. "  Who  of  us  has  not  sometimes  seen  heaven 
reflected  in  the  face  of  a  little  child  ?  To  catch  the  divine 
likeness  in  the  older  faces — care-worn,  haggard,  per- 
haps sin-stained  —  demands  a  finer  insight  than  most 
of  us  possess. 

In  one  of  the  finest  passages  of  Faust,  Goethe  gives 
grand  expression  to  a  poetic  conception  of  God,  in  the 
lines  beginning,  "Who  dare  express  Him  ?  "  But  in 
what  follows  there  is  a  fatal  omission  ;  the  ethical  ele- 
ment is  wholly  absent.  There  is  in  the  vision  of  that 
high-wrought  moment  not  one  trait  which  shall  rise  in 
awful  forbidding  between  Faust  and  the  victim  of  his 
selfish  desire.  There  is  no  such  defect  in  Emerson. 
The  crystalline  atmosphere  of  his  soul  is  purified  by 
ever-present  sense  of  right.  The  highest  place  among 
his  deities  belongs  to  justice,  purity,  love.  The  sense 
of  arduous  moral  combat,  indeed,  he  rarely  stirs  within 
us  ;  with  him  we  are  in  the  atmosphere  not  of  battle 
fought,  but  of  victory  serenely  enjoyed.  If  Carlyle 
gives  us  any  gospel  it  is,  as  has  been  well  said,  the 
gospel  of  combat.  But  Emerson  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  the  rarely  happy  souls  to  whom  ancestral  in- 
heritance, temperament,  health,  and  circumstances 
make  greatness  easy  and  natural. 


i  $6  OPEN  LETTERS. 

There  is  a  wonderful  combination  in  him  of  homely  S«pby  «^.  b«s  bad  to  good. 

reahtr  and  the  highest  ideality.   He  has  a  keen  eye  Si£»«»ap  ^tS?  "**" 

for  all  details.    He  looks  over  an  engine  like  a  me-  rti»r»»  »c««ts  of  km»»  ledge  pare, 

chanic,  and  on  crops  like  a  farmer.    In  every  nook  and  Tfc™«^  art.  to  ripo,  through  bem»  adme. 

cranny  of  the  world  he  is  familiarly  at  home.    And  it  For  Divinity  revealed  in  man,  and  for  a  great  deal 

is  all  a  divine  work!  to  him.    In  his  devotion  there  is  besides,  read  "Saadi." 

none  of  that  feverish  and  hectic  exaltation  to  which  Korso>or&e           Kraft 

one  is  hmble  whose  visits  to  the  upper  ether  are  rare  .                •  '-,_-        • 


andtramieBt.   There  is  BO  passion  m  his  afirmatioBs,  «;          -  =; 

— bets  too  certain  to  be  passionate.  Each  aspect  of  at-  ,         '--'-•-      - 

Lairs  in  tnrn — nature,  science,  art.  literature,  labor —  :  -  .        '  - 

. i f* _* Toe  ftpoa  of  cratn,  dbc  flood  cc  1*000, 

cootMes  to  am  its  nmer,  sptntBU  secret,   coence  ts  Tte  seraph's  imd  the  cherub's  faoA. 

to  BOB  the  investigatioa  of  thedmne  octkr.    Art  K  •         '  - 

-v- .-     ,     -«•«-_-    -..K.,  «-!-;-.      .»„  4 -  :  " 

•-._•..  :  j  u     ..        "         •   ~ 

iBtpmlse  and  towards  a  divine  model.    So  of  all  things.         For  the  sovereignty  of  the  ethical  sense,  it  may  he 

other  tcfafKMS  tochers  ts  his  cheer.  He  ts  as  cnetr- 
M  as  oatBre.  To  BBBBCC  sober  svbfaissaoo  to  the  tner- 
itmbie,  to  breed  stoic  fcvtitade,  to  assMge  sorrow  with 
the  gleam  of  a  dbtaat  hope, —  these  are  aot  his  Saac- 

-.*•-".        -  "  ~  .    >    - ;  ,          -  -: 

•YwwTaBB      I^BW>>    ^rw*wrU       •*•>•  wl     •krwBBr    *wkwl      ^^B«M 

****«  ^^^•le  •*»  *  *"Iter  ^"I1^  »•*•»»  r*nn»ir ;        Po,  <inple  and  pwre  defight  in  Xarore's  

Tfce%in*ofl»e  lati  God  is  wponnw;  becawsethe    raaBpniaatship,  take  "  WaHentsaaakeH.™  An  exultant 
MO  preach  good  tid«Bgs«B(o  the    JOT  in  the  svrrer  of  Ac  long   service  of  time  and 

•  _    «.?_  _«. .».          «.        _» •_ ^ J 

"*•    •tin    to  BUB  wads  voice  in  the  Song  of  Namre. 
TBC  seBje  of  a  Bmrersal.  nraveffia^  Deity  inspires 

--  --•  .-,  -  -.-..-.i.    -  -,. 

is  the  sotf  s 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


'57 


Had  active  hands  and  smiling  lips  ; 
And  yet  his  runes  he  rightly  read, 
And  to  his  folk  his  message  sped : 
Sunshine  in  his  heart  transferred, 
Lighted  each  transparent  word. 

The  sense  of  personal  communion  with  Deity  is 
expressed,  though  not  in  that  familiar  language  of 
devotion  which  has  come  to  have  a  certain  conven- 
tional stamp  in  poems  such  as  "  Worship." 

He  is  the  oldest  and  best  known, 

More  near  than  aught  thou  call'st  thy  own. 

Yet,  greeted  in  another's  eyes, 

Disconcerts  with  glad  surprise. 

This  is  Jove,  who,  deaf  to  prayers, 

Floods  with  blessings  unawares. 

Draw  if  thou  can'st  the  mystic  line 

Severing  rightly  his  from  thine, 

Which  is  human,  which  divine. 

The  tenderest  and  most  human  of  his  poems  is  the 
"  Threnody  " ;  it  is  fit  to  comfort  a  bereaved  mother. 

"  Recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,"  —  that  word 
best  describes  the  mission  of  Emerson.  He  recalls 
men  from  their  wearisome  effort  to  think  out  a  way  to 
God,  to  the  direct  and  happy  consciousness  of  him. 
For  that  mission  he  was  equipped  by  a  rare  natu- 
ral endowment,  and  a  most  felicitous  environment. 
To  very  few  is  given  the  possibility  of  such  abiding 
serenity  as  his.  But  the  secret  of  his  method  —  that 
seed-truth  to  which  his  circumstances  only  gave  soil 
and  air  —  is  free  to  all.  It  is  the  open  eye,  the  open 
heart,  the  open  hand.  It  is  the  temper  of  reverence, 
of  sympathy,  of  noble  action.  Emerson's  genius  is 
intellect  permeated  by  love. 

George  S.  Merriam. 

The    Garth    Fund. 

A    SUGGESTION    TO     THE    LIBERAL    RICH. 

A  STATEMENT  in  THE  CENTURY  to  the  effect  that 
many  people  of  means  would  do  large  acts  of  benefi- 
cence, if  they  knew  of  ways  of  applying  their  wealth, 
leads  me  to  give  a  practical  illustration  of  one  method 
that  may  find  its  field  in  every  community  in  the 
Union. 

In  1860  there  was  lost,  together  with  his  wife  and 
sister,  by  the  burning  of  the  Lady  Elgin,  William 
Garth,  a  citizen  of  Paris,  Kentucky,  a  childless  gen- 
tleman, who  left  a  will  which  directed  that  the  in- 
come of  his  fortune  should,  to  quote  his  homely  lan- 
guage, be  used  in  giving  an  education  to  the  "  poor, 
worthy,  sprightly  young  men  "of  his  native  (Bourbon) 
county.  This  property,  about  $40,000,  invested  in 


bank  stock,  yields  yearly  some  $3500,  whose  distribu- 
tion is  intrusted  to  three  commissioners,  appointed  by 
the  county  court,  who  meet  in  August  to  examine  ap- 
plicants, and  pass  upon  their  recommendations,  needs, 
and  worth,  and,  in  the  case  of  previous  beneficiaries, 
note  their  vouchers  for  expenditures  and  test  their 
progress.  The  income  is  distributed  in  sums  of  from 
$50  to  $250,  varying  as  the  boy  is  at  home  or  away, 
and,  in  the  case  of  the  studious  and  promising,  the  aid 
is  continued  till  graduation.  This  Garth  Fund,  as  it  is 
called,  can  now  point  to  its  score  of  alumni  of  various 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  colleges,  its  graduate  of  Har- 
vard, and  representative  at  Yale,  and  many  eminent 
physicians,  ministers,  professors,  lawyers,  journalists, 
and  legislators,  who  without  this  assistance  would  have 
walked  in  much  humbler  paths.  Many  a  young  man 
knows  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  to  prepare  for  col- 
lege than  to  maintain  himself  when  there,  where  he 
may  do  tutoring  or  secure  a  scholarship.  The  great 
merit,  then,  of  this  quiet  munificence  is  its  doing  this 
preparatory  work.  Every  beneficiary  of  this  fund  has 
frequent  occasion  to  say,  "  God  bless  the  memory  of 
Mr.  Garth,  and  raise  up  many  more  like  him."  An- 
other citizen  of  Bourbon  county,  stirred  by  this  good 
example,  has  in  contemplation  a  similar  disposition 
of  his  property,  in  providing  for  her  deserving  young 
women. 

I  may  add  that  a  crying  need,  especially  of  the  West 
and  the  South,  is  good  schools  preparatory  to  college. 
There  are  perhaps  three  colleges  to  one  good  preparatory 
school,  a  proportion  preposterous  and  without  reason, 
and  our  Croesuses  are  yearly  adding  to  the  number 
of  colleges.  We  don't  need  any  more  colleges ;  those 
we  have  are,  with  their  under  departments,  giving  one- 
third  their  time  and  teaching  force  to  preparing  four- 
teen-year-old boys  and  girls  for  the  freshman  class. 
South  of  the  latitude  of  the  Ohio  River,  the  country 
across,  there  are  perhaps  not  four  schools  that  can 
properly  prepare  a  boy  for  Harvard.  One  hundred 
thousand  dollars  would,  in  places  of  from  10,000  to 
25,000  people,  provide  suitable  grounds,  buildings,  and 
a  moderate  income  which  would  be  amply  supple- 
mented by  tuition  fees.  A  liberal  citizen  of  Lexington 
is  about  to  do  this  for  his  city.  Here,  then,  are  two 
avenues  for  doing  good. 

"  I  speak  as  to  wise  men ;  judge  ye  what  I  say." 


PARIS,  KENTUCKY. 


James   Wallace  Fox. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Three    Examples   of   English   Verse. 

"  Fifty  thousand  socialists  around  old  St.  Paul's,  and  English 
oets  are  writing  —  Triolets  !  ! !  " 

E.  C.  STEDMAN. 


WHILE  they  write  Triolets, 
The  masses  are  rising, 
With  curses  and  threats, 
While  they  write  Triolets  — 
(How  their  anger  it  whets  !) 

Nor  is  it  surprising, 
While  they  write  Triolets, 

That  the  masses  are  rising. 


IN    RE    RONDEAU. 

IN  corsets  laced,  in  high-heeled  shoes, 
Too  fine  a  woodland  way  to  choose, 
With  mincing  step  and  studied  strut, 
Is  this  an  English  goddess?   Tut  — 
Some  masker  from  the  Parlez-voos  ! 


O  Poet !  thou  of  sinewy  thews, 

Wilt  thou  free  ways  and  walks  refuse, 

To  mince  instead  through  paths  close  shut, 
In  corsets  laced? 


I  cannot  —  for  I  've  old-time  views  — 

Follow  the  poet  who  pursues 

The  Rondeau,  with  its  rabbit  scut, 
Or  triumphs  in  a  Triolet,  but  — 

There  may  be  those  who  like  the  muse 
In  corsets  laced ! 

in. 

VS.    THE    VILLANELLE. 

JEAN  PASSERAT,  I  like  thee  well  — 

Thou  sang'st  a  song  beyond  compare  — 
But  I  Ve  not  lost  a  tourterelle  : 

Nor  can  I  write  a  Villanelle  — 

Thou  did'st  —  and  for  that  jewel  rare, 
Jean  Passerat,  I  like  thee  well. 

Now  many  a  twittering  hirondelle 

The  plumes  of  thy  lost  dove  would  wear  — 
But  I  've  not  lost  a  tourterelle. 

Could  not,  indeed,  true  turtle  tell  — 

If  real  or  mock  I  could  not  swear: 
Jean  Passerat,  I  like  thee  well  — 

True  heart  that  would  go  "apres  elle  " — 

And  sure  thy  sentiment  I  'd  share  — 
But  I  've  not  lost  a  tourterelle. 

And  am  content  on  earth  to  dwell  — 

There  are  some  men  they  cannot  spare : 
Jean  Passerat,  I  like  thee  well, 
But  I  've  not  lost  a  tourterelle ! 

Charles  Henry   Webb. 


Uncle    Esek's    Wisdom. 
THE  minority  always  beat  the  majority  in  the  end. 

KVEN  if  there  were  no  profit  in  labor,  it  is  worthy 
of  all  acceptation  for  the  pleasure  it  affords. 

ALL  grab,  and  no  grip,  is  the  most  common,  as  well 
as  the  poorest,  kind  of  economy. 

VANITY  is  a  disease,  and  there  is  no  cure  for  it  this 
side  of  the  grave,  and  even  there  it  will  often  break 
out  anew  on  the  tombstone. 

FREEDOM  is  the  law  of  God,  and  yet  if  man  could 
have  his  way,  one  half  of  creation  would  be  abject 
slaves  to  the  other  half. 

THERE  is  learning  enough  in  the  world  just  now  to 
solve  any  question  that  may  arise ;  but  there  is  n't  wis- 
dom enough,  put  it  all  together,  to  tell  what  makes  one 
apple  sweet  and  the  next  one  sour. 

THERE  is  nothing  that  man  is  more  proud  of  than 
his  reason,  and  yet,  if  two  strange  dogs  fell  to  fighting 
in  the  streets,  he  will  take  sides,  with  one  dog  or  the 
other,  with  all  the  vehemence  of  his  passions. 

Uncle  Esek. 


jected 

.fpla- 


Ballade   of  a   Rejecter   of  MS. 

[With  apologies  to  the  author  of  the  "  Ballade  of  Rej 
Mb.,"  in  THE  CENTI-KY  for  March,  and  frank  confessions  o 
giarism  in  the  matter  of  rhymes,  etc.,  etc.] 

WE  have  read  both  your  verse  and  your  prose 

(I  am  one  of  the  "  reading  machines"), 

We  must  read  the  productions  of  those 

From  whom  we  protect  magazines, — 

The  "  talented  "  maids  in  their  teens, — 

And  we  're  shocked  at  your  —  let  us  say — "face! 

So  "we  know  what  the  editor  means 

By,  "  We  're  sorry  we  have  n't  the  space." 

Now,  that  madrigal  written  to  Rose  — 
Its  "  feet "  do  not  mate,  and  it  leans  ; 
And  those  "  triolets,  rondels,  rondeaux  " — 
We  've  read  Dobson  !   And  as  to  "  Fifines," 
Just  suppose  you  read  that  to  marines  ! 
Our  printer  would  flee  from  his  case, 
Which  is  one  thing  the  editor  means 
By,  "  We  're  sorry  we  have  n't  the  space." 

Those  tales,  iheywere  ghastly  —  but  Poe's, 

And  legends  !  — our  "  limit  which  screens  " 

Will  never  their  horror  disclose! 

Nor  unclasp  that  portfolio's  shagreens, 

At  least,  until  sense  supervenes  ! 

To  say  "  It  's  not  needed,"  with  grace, 

That  is  what  the  kind  editor  means 

By,"  We  're  sorry  we  have  n't  the  space." 

ENVOY. 

Contributor  !  —  back  of  the  scenes 
The  thoroughbreds  settle  the  pace  !  — 
That  is  what  the  good  editor  means 
By,  "  We  're  sorry  we  have  n't  the  space." 

Tudor  Jenks. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


'59 


Oscar  (reading  his  new  poem).     "What  more  encouragement  for  my  future  success  than  this,  that  you 

weep?  " 
Maittf.     "  Go  on,  go  on,  dearest.    I  am  so  silly  —  I  weep  at  nothing. " 


Circumstantial    Evidence. 

TF  our  readers  knew  as  well  as  we  do  the  two  ami- 
able and  upright  gentlemen  who  figure  in  this  actual 

pistle  to  the  president  of  one  of  our  best-known  New 
iTork  savings  banks,  the  letter  might  seem  to  them 
even  more  striking.  If  an  ordinary  visit  to  an  ordinary 
savings  bank,  of  plain  exterior  and  quite  undecorated 
and  business-like  interior,  could  suggest  such  a  bloody- 
gore  episode,  what  a  pity  that  the  imagination  thus 
easily  released  should  not  be  employed  to  light  the 
somber  wastes  of  modern  "realism.'' 

November  8,  1887. 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  see  by  the  bank-book  that  you  are  the 
president  of  "  The  Institution." 

I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  the  gentleman  who 
counts  the  money  of  depositors  is  not  honest.  Here  are 
my  reasons  : 

Last  time  I  handed  him  money  to  count  and  deposit, 
when  he  had  been  counting  for  some  time,  "  Ha,'  said 
he,  "  I  'd  have  a  good  thing  here."  A  little  after  he  re- 
,•(!  it,  "  Ha,  I  'd  have  a  good  thing  here."  At  this  I 
said  to  him,  "  Have  I  made  a  mistake  ?  Did  I  give  you 
too  much  ?  "  Again  he  says  for  the  third  time  and  after 
my  remark,  "  Ha,  I  'd  have  a  good  thing  here."  At  that 
a  person  inside  said  something  to  him.  I  could  not  hear 
what  it  was,  but  I  have  often  thought  since  that  it  was 
something  to  this  effect:  "  Don't  say  anything*ahout  it; 
keep  it,  and  we  will  divide  it  between  us.  "After  some  time 
lie  handed  me  my  book  with  the  amount  to  the  very  cent 
marked  upon  it  that  [  hnd  told  him  I  intended  to  deposit. 

"  \\Y11,"  said  I,  "  did  n't  I  make  a  mistake  ?  Did  n't  I 
Jzivo  you  too  much  ?  "  "  No,"  said  he,  "  it  was  correct." 
Of  course  I  could  say  nothing,  but  I  am  certain  he  acted 
dishonestly  on  the  occasion.  I  made  other  money  trans- 
actions on  that  same  day  and  before  night  found  out  I 


had  made  a  mistake,  but  then  I  could  not  positively  swear 
as  to  where  I  made  the  mistake,  nor  to  the  exact  amount, 
and  I  consequently  thought  it  a  folly  to  look  after  it ;  be- 
sides, my  profession  or  calling  in  life  would  prevent  me 
from  having  my  name  figuring  in  courts  of  law  or  in  news- 
papers. I  am  as  certain,  though,  as  I  am  of  mv  own  ex- 
istence that  he  deliberately  defrauded  me ;  and  from  my 
statements  (which  are  perfectly  true  and  correct)  you  will, 
I  think,  agree  with  me.  If  he  be  dishonest  to  your  depos- 
itors, he  will  be  dishonest  to  the  bank  also  if  he  gets  an 
opportunity. 

He  is  a  man,  I  would  suppose,  about  25  years  of  age, 
rather  tall,  and  dark  complexion.  The  screen  inclosing 
your  office  is  so  high,  though,  I  could  not  see  him  except 
when  he  came  to  the  aperture  or  little  window. 

I  am  one  of  your  depositors.  You  have  my  name,  etc., 
etc.,  on  your  books;  and  though  I  do  not  sign  my  name 
to  this,  it  is  no  less  true.  *  «  « 

A  Voice. 

THE  rain  makes  music  at  midnight, 
Dripping  from  rafter  and  eaves, 

Blown  hither  and  thither  by  mad-cap 
Wind  on  the  twittering  leaves. 

Its  sound  has  solace  for  sorrow, 

Touching  the  heart-cords  o'er 
So  softly,  oh,  so  softly  ! 

Sweet  as  the  lutes  of  yore : 

But  sweetest  of  all  sweet  music, 

Making  my  heart  rejoice, 
Comes  over  the  dew-damp  meadow 

Tenderly,  true  —  a  voice ! 

Charles  Knmvles  Bolton. 


i6o 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


A  Vain  Quest. 

WE  started  one  morn,  my  love  and  I, 

On  a  journey  brave  and  bold  : 

'T  was  to  find  the  end  of  the  rainbow, 

And  the  buried  bag  of  gold. 

Hut  the  clouds  rolled  by  from  the  summer  sky, 

And  the  radiant  bow  grew  dim, 

And  we  lost  (he  way  where  the  treasure  lay, 

Near  the  sunset's  golden  rim. 

The  twilight  fell  like  a  curtain 

Pinned  with  the  evening  star, 

And  we  saw  in  the  shining  heavens 

Tiie  new  moon's  golden  car. 

And  we  said,  as  our  hands  clasped  fondly, 

"  What  though  we  found  no  gold? 

Our  love  is  a  richer  treasure 

Than  the  rainbow's  sack  can  hold." 


A   Humbug. 

AN  old,  old  garden.    There  the  days 

Slipped  by  in  drowsy  quiet ; 
There  bees  were  busy  in  the  shade 

And  posy-buds  ran  riot; 
And  there  in  summer  Dolly  strayed, 

Plain-gowned,  in  cap  and  wimple, 
Her  frills  and  ruffles  laid  aside 

To  play  at  being  simple. 

The  wild-rose  hiding  in  her  curls 

Looked  somehow  pale  and  faded 
Beside  the  pink  and  dimpled  cheek 

Her  ancient  head-gear  shaded ; 
And  when  the  carping  bluebird  heard 

Her  dear  voice  lightly  thrilling 
Through  old-world  airs,  he  quite  forgot 

To  criticise  her  trilling. 


And  years,  with  their  joys  and  sorrows, 

Have  passed  since  we  lost  the  way 

To  the  beautiful  buried  treasure 

At  the  end  of  the  rainbow's  ray ; 

But  love  has  been  true  and  tender, 

And  life  has  been  rich  and  sweet, 

And  we  still  clasp  hands  with  the  olden  joy 

That  made  our  day  complete. 

D.  M.  Jordan. 

The   Real   Reason. 

"  Xo,  WE  did  n't  exactly  quarrel,"  he  said, 
"  But  a  man  can't  stand  quite  everything. 

I  thought  I  was  in  love  with  her,  dead, — 
But  that  was  away  last  spring. 

"  I  took  her  driving  —  she  liked  to  drive, 
Or  she  said  she  did ;   I  believed  her  then, 

But  I  '11  never,  as  sure  as  I  'm  alive, 
Believe  a  woman  again! 

"  I  'in  not  considered  a  talking  man, 

And  I  'm  willing  to  own  it ;  there  's  no  doubt 

A  man  can't  talk  like  a  woman  can, 
And  1  was  about  talked  out. 

"  I  had  n't  dared  yet  —  for  I  am  not  vain  — 

T»      ii  i -i i: _    J 


1  naci  11  t  uarcu  yet —  lui   i  am  nut  v; 
To  call  her  darling,  or  even  dear, 
So  I  just  remarked,  '  It 's  going  to  rai 
I  felt  a  drop  on  my  ear.' 


"  She  looked  at  the  clouds,  and  at  my  ear, 
And  this  is  what  she  saw  fit  to  say: 

'Oh, no!  That  rain  is  nowhere  near; 
It  is  half  a  mile  away!' 

"It  did  n't  strike  me  at  first,  you  know ; 

But  when  it  did,  why,  it  struck  me  strong! 
She  M  called  me  a  donkey  —  or  meant  it  so  — 

With  ears  a  half-mile  long! 


So  artless,  shy,  and  sweet  she  seemed 

That  I,  a  cynic  doubter 
Of  modest  ways  and  downcast  eyes, 

Went  fairly  wild  about  her ; 
And  falling  at  the  little  feet 

That  crushed  the  yellow  lilies 
I  wooed  as  Strephon  used  to  woo 

His  Lydian  Amaryllis. 

Ah  me !    Her  kerchiefs  rise  and  fall, 

Her  lashes'  tender  trembling, 
The  flush  that  dyed  her  cheek,  were  all 

But  part  of  her  dissembling  ; 
For  when  she  spoke  at  last,  in  tones 

As  sweet  as  Hybla's  honey, 
'T  was  but  to  say,  "  The  man  I  love 

Must  be  a  man  of  money. " 

M.  E.    W. 


How    Nature    Comforted    the    Poet. 

"  NATURE,  I  come  to  thee  for  rest, 

For  covert  cool  from  thought  and  strife ; 

Oh,  rock  me  on  thine  ample  breast, 
For  I  have  loved  thee  all  mv  life  !  " 


Then  Nature  hushed  me  in  her  arms, 

And  softly  she  began  to  sing 
A  legend  of  her  woodland  charms, 

A  lullaby,  a  soothing  thing. 

She  sang:  "  My  beech-leaves  fluttering  down 
Beneath  these  blue  September  skies 

Are  darkly  soft,  are  softly  brown, 

But  not  so  brown  as  some  one's  eyes !  " 

She  sang :   "  This  brook,  that  ripples  clear 
Where  bending  willow-boughs  rejoice, 

Is  very  sweet,  but  not  so  dear 

And  not  so  sweet  as  some  one's  voice  !  " 


"  We  both  kept  still  the  rest  of  the  way, 

And  you  might  have  thought  that  I  was  a  prince, 

She  was  so  polite  when  I  said  good-day — 
But  I  've  never  been  near  her  since !  " 

Margaret  Vandegrift. 


And  thus  she  sang  till  evening  dews, 
And  when  at  last  she  sang  no  more, 

I  said :  "  If  this  is  all  your  news, 
I  knew  it  all  too  well  before." 

Elizabeth  Gostieycke  Roberts. 


THE  DE  VINNB  PRE.iS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


AN     EXILE     PARTY     ON     A     MUDDY     ROAD     NEAR     TIUMEN. 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI. 


JUNE,   1888. 


No.  2. 


CONVICT    BAflGe    AWO    EXILE    PARTY. 


PLAINS    AND    PRISONS    OF    WESTERN    SIBERIA. 


SIBERIA'S  ENORMOUS  TERRITORY. 

[N  crossing  the  boundary  line 
between  the  provinces  of  Perm 
and  Tobolsk  we  entered  a  part 
of  the  Russian  empire  whose 
magnitude  and  importance  are 
almost  everywhere  underesti- 
mated. People  generally  seem 
CONVICT  TYPE.  fa  have  the  impression  that 
Siberia  is  a  sub-arctic  colonial  province  about 
as  large  as  Alaska;  that  it  is  everywhere 
cold,  barren,  and  covered  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  year  with  snow ;  and  that  its 
sparse  population  is  composed  chiefly  of  exiles 
and  half- wild  aborigines,  with  a  few  soldiers 
and  government  officials  here  and  there 
to  guard  and  superintend  the  "  ostrogs,"  the 
prisons,  and  the  mines.  Very  few  Ameri- 
cans, if  I  may  judge  from  the  questions  asked 
me,  fully  grasp  and  appreciate  the  fact  that 
Siberia  is  virtually  a  continent  in  itself,  and 
presents  continental  diversities  of  climate, 
scenery,  and  vegetation.  We  are  apt,  uncon- 
sciously, to  assume  that  because  a  country  is 
generally  mapped  upon  a  small  scale  it  must 
necessarily  occupy  only  a  small  part  of  the 
surface  of  the  globe ;  but  the  conclusion  does 


not  follow  from  the  premises.  If  a  geographer 
were  preparing  a  general  atlas  of  the  world, 
and  in  drawing  Siberia  should  use  the  same 
scale  which  is  used  in  Stieler's  Hand  Atlas 
for  England,  he  would  have  to  make  the  Si- 
berian page  of  his  book  nearly  twenty  feet  in 
width  to  accommodate  his  map.  If  he  should 
use  forSiberia  the  scale  adopted  for  New  Jersey 
by  Colton  in  his  Atlas  of  the  United  States, 
he  would  have  to  increase  the  width  of  his 
page  to  fifty-six  feet.  If  he  should  delineate 
Siberia  upon  the  scale  of  the  British  ordnance 
survey  maps  of  England  (the  "six-inch  maps"), 
he  would  be  compelled  to  provide  himself 
with  a  sheet  of  paper  2100  feet  wide,  and  his 
atlas,  if  laid  out  open,  would  cover  the  whole 
lower  part  of  New  York  City  from  the  Bat- 
tery to  Wall  street.  These  illustrations  are 
sufficient  to  show  that  if  Siberia  were  charted 
upon  a  scale  corresponding  with  that  em- 
ployed in  mapping  other  countries,  its  enor- 
mous geographical  extent  would  be  much 
more  readily  apprehended,  and  would  appeal 
much  more  strongly  to  the  imagination. 

In  its  extreme  dimensions  Siberia  extends 
from  latitude  40.17  (the  southern  boundary 
of  Semirechinsk)  to  latitude  77.46  (Cape 
Cheliuskin),  and  from  longitude  60  east  (the 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.     All  rights  reserved. 


164 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


Urals  to  longitude  190  west  (Behring  Strait). 
It  therefore  has  an  extreme  range  of  about 
37  degrees,  or  2500  miles,  in  latitude,  and  130 
degrees,  or  5000  miles,  in  longitude.  Even 
these  bare  statistics  give  one  an  impression 
of  vast  geographical  extent;  but  their  signifi- 
cance may  be  emphasized  by  means  of  a  sim- 
ple illustration.  If  it  were  possible  to  move 
entire  countries  from  one  part  of  the  globe  to 
another,  you  could  take  the  whole  United 
States  of  America,  from  Maine  to  California 
and  from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  set  it  down  in  the  middle  of  Siberia  with- 
out touching  anywhere  the  boundaries  of  the 
latter  territory.  You  could  then  take  Alaska 
and  all  the  states  of  Europe,  with  the  single- 
exception  of  Russia,  and  fit 
them  into  the  remaining  margin 
like  the  pieces  of  a  dissected 
map;  and  after  having  thus  ac- 
commodated all  of  the  United 
States,  including  Alaska,  and 
all  of  Europe,  except  Russia, 
you  would  still  have  more  than 
300,000  square  miles  of  Sibe- 
rian territory  to  spare  —  or,  in 
other  words,  you  would  still  leave  unoccupied 
in  Siberia  an  area  half  as  large  again  as  the 
empire  of  Germany. 

COMPARATIVE     AREAS. 


Siberia.              Square  Miles,          Europe.           $ 
Tobolsk  570,290    France    
Tomsk     333>542    Germany    .  .  .  . 

'quare  Miles. 
..    204,177 
211,196 
.  .     120,832 
.       25,014 
.     IIO,62O 

3.63° 
12,648 

..     32.528 
•  •     48-3°7 

Steppe  provinces    560,324    Great  Britain 
Yeniseisk  .        .  .     992,874    Greece      

Irkutsk  309,191     Italy    
Yakutsk  1,517,132    Montenegro  .  . 
Trans-Baikal  .  .       240,781    Netherlands  . 
Amur  region    .  .     239,471     Portugal   
Maritime  prov.       730,024    Roumania  .  .  .  . 

.  .     18,750 
.   193,199 

Total  .          .    .5,493,629    Spain  

I  70,070 

A  m.  &°  Europe.         Sq.  Miles.     Norway 
U.S.  and  Alaska  3,501,404    Switzerland.  .  . 
Austria-Hungary    240,942    European  Turk 
Belgium  n»373 
Denmark  14,124        Total  

Siberian  provinces  

.  .     123,205 
..        15,892 

ey   125,289 

.    5,184,109 

.    5,493.629 
.    5,184,109 

The  United  States,  Alaska,  and  Europe    . 

Difference  in  favor  of  Siberia. 


309,520 


The  single  province  of  Tobolsk,  which  in 
comparison  with  the  other  Siberian  provinces 
ranks  only  fourth  in  point  of  size, 
exceeds  in  area  all  of  our  north- 
ern states  from  Maine  to  Iowa 
taken  together.  The  province  of 
Yeniseisk  is  larger  than  all  of  the 
United  States  east  of  the  Missis-  , 
sippi  River,  and  the  province 
of  Yakutsk  is  thirteen  times  as 
large  as  Great  Britain,  thirty- 


four  times  as  large  as  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
might  be  cut  up  into  a  hun- 
dred and  eighty-eight  such 
States  as  Massachusetts;  and 
yet  Yakutsk  is  only  one  of 
eleven  Siberian  provinces. 

VARIETIES    OF    CLIMATE. 

IT  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  a  coun- 
try which  has  an  area  of  five  and  a  half 
million  square  miles,  and  which  extends  in 
latitude  as  far  as  from  the  southern  extrem- 
ity of  Greenland  to  the  island  of  Cuba,  must 
present  great  diversities  of  climate,  topog- 
raphy, and  vegetation,  and  cannot  be  every- 
where a  barren  arctic  waste.  A  mere  glance 
at  a  map  is  sufficient  to  show  that  a  consid- 
erable part  of  western  Siberia  lies  farther 
south  than  Nice,  Venice,  or  Milan,  and 
that  the  southern  boundary  of  the  Siberian 
province  of  Semirechinsk  is  nearer  the  equa- 
tor than  Naples.*  In  a  country  which  thus 
stretches  from  the  latitude  of  Italy  to  the  lati- 
tude of  central  Greenland  one  would  naturally 
expect  to  find,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  one 
does  find,  many  varieties  of  climate  and  scen- 
ery. In  some  parts  of  the  province  of  Yakutsk 
the  mean  temperature  of  the 
month  of  January  is  more  than 
50  degrees  below  zero,  Fahr., 
while  in  the  province  of  Scmi- 
palatinsk  the  mean  tempera- 
ture of  the  month  of  July  is 
72  degrees  above;  and  such 
maximum  temperatures  as  95 
and  100  degrees  in  the  shade 
are  comparatively  common. 
On  the  Taimyr  peninsula,  east 
of  the  Gulf  of  Ob,  the  permanently  frozen 
ground  thaws  out  in  summer  to  a  depth  of 
only  a  few  inches,  and  supports  but  a  scanty 
vegetation  of  berry  bushes  and  moss,  while 
in  the  southern  part  of  western  Siberia  water- 
melons and  cantaloupes  are  a  profitable 
crop,  tobacco  is  grown  upon  thousands  of 
plantations,  and  the  peasants  harvest  annu- 
ally more  than  50,000,000  bushels  of  grain. 
The  fact  which  I  desire  especially  to  im- 
press upon  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  that 
Siberia  is  not  everywhere  uniform  and  homo- 
geneous. The  northern  part  of  the  country 
differs  from  the  southern  part  quite  as  much 
as  the  Hudson  Bay  territory  differs  from 
Kentucky;  and  it  is  as  great  a  mistake  to 
attribute  the  cold  and  barrenness  of  the 

*  The  provinces  of  Akmolinsk  and  Semirechinsk 
did  not,  however,  belong  originally  to  Siberia.  They 
were  annexed  to  it  at  the  time  of  the  organization  of 
the  "Governor-Generalship  of  the  Steppes,"  in  1882. 


PLAINS  AND   PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


'65 


WEAK,    SICK,    AND    INFIRM    EXILES    IN    TELEGAS. 


Lena  delta  to  the  whole  of  Siberia  as  it 
would  be  to  attribute  the  cold  and  barren- 
ness of  King  William  Land  to  the  whole  of 
North  America. 

Generally  speaking,  the  winters  in  all  parts 
of  Siberia  are  severe;  but  as  the  annual  range 

*  In  some  places  tliei-e  is  a  difference  of  115  or  I2O 
degrees  Fahr.  between  the  average  temperature  of  Jan- 
uary and  that  of  July. 


of  temperature  from  the  one  extreme  to  the 
otheris  very  great,*  the  summers  are  dispropor- 
tionately hot.  In  the  fertile  and  arable  zone 
of  southern  Siberia,  which  is  a  belt  of  country 
four  or  five  hundred  miles  wide,  lying  along 
the  central  Asiatic  and  Mongolian  frontier, 
there  are  a  dozen  towns  which  have  a  higher 
mean  temperature  for  the  months  of  June, 
July,  and  August  than  the  city  of  London.  In 


i66 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


fact,  the  summer  temper- 
ature of  this  whole  belt  of 
country,  from  the  Urals  to 
the  Pacific,  averages  6  de- 
grees higher  than  the  mean 
summer    temperature     of 
England.    Irkutsk  is  5  de- 
grees warmer  in  summer 
than  Dublin;  Tobolsk   is 
4    degrees    warmer    than 
London;   Semipalatinsk  exactly  corresponds 
in  temperature  with  Boston;  and  Vierni  has 
as  hot  a  summer  as  Chicago. 


COMPARATIVE     SUMMER    TEMPERATURES. 


Siberia. 


Fakr.      A  merica  and  Europe.      Fahr. 


Vierni 70.7 

Blagoveshchensk    . .   68.6 

Semipalatinsk 68.2 

Khabarofka 67.3 

Vladivostock 65.6 

Akmolinsk 65.1 

Omsk   65.1 

Barnaul 63. 7 

Krasnoyarsk 63.0 

Tobolsk 62.4 

Tomsk ...   62.2 

Irkutsk 61.5 


Chicago,  111 71.3 

Buffalo,  N.  Y 69.0 

Milwaukee,  Wis...  68.6 

Boston,  Mass  ....  68.2 

Portland,  Me 66.6 

Moscow,    European 

Russia 65.0 

St.  Petersburg 61.0 

London,  England. . .  60.0 

Dublin, Ireland. .    ..  57.0 


Mean  summer  temperature  of  12  Siberian  cities 

and  towns  65.3 

Mean  summer  temperature  in  9  American  and 

European  cities 65.2 

To  the  traveler  who  crosses  the  Urals  for 
the  first  time  in  June  nothing  is  more  surpris- 
ing than  the  fervent  heat  of  Siberian  sunshine 
and  the  extraordinary  beauty  and  profusion 
of  Siberian  flowers.  Although  we  had  been 
partly  prepared,  by  our  voyage  up  the  Kama, 
for  the  experience  which  awaited  us  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mountains,  we  were  fairly 
astonished  upon  the  threshold  of  western  Si- 
beria by  the  scenery,  the  weather,  and  the  flora. 
In  the  fertile,  blossoming  country  presented 
to  us  as  we  rode  swiftly  eastward  into  the 
province  of  Tobolsk,  there  was  absolutely 
nothing  even  remotely  to  suggest  an  arctic 
region.  If  we  had  been  blindfolded  and  trans- 
ported to  it  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  a  sunny 
afternoon,  we  could  never  have  guessed  to 
what  part  of  the  world  we  had  been  taken. 
The  sky  was  as  clear  and  blue  and  the  air  as 
soft  as  the  sky  and  air  of  California ;  the  trees 
were  all  in  full  leaf;  birds  were  singing  over 
the  flowery  meadows  and  in  the  clumps  of 
birches  by  the  roadside ;  there  were  a  drowsy 
hum  of  bees  and  a  faint  fragrance  of  flowers 
and  verdure  in  the  air ;  and  the  sunshine  was 
as  warm  and  bright  as  that  of  a  June  after- 
noon in  the  most  favored  part  of  the  temper- 
ate zone. 


A     FARMING    REGION. 

THE  country  through  which  we  passed  be- 
tween the  post  stations  of  Cheremishkaya  and 
Sugatskaya  was  a  rich,  open,  farming  region, 
resembling  somewhat  that  part  of  western 
New  York  which  lies  between  Rochester  and 
Buffalo.  There  were  no  extensive  forests,  but 
the  gently  rolling  plain  was  diversified  here 
and  there  by  small  patches  of  woodland,  or 
groves  of  birch  and  poplar,  and  was  some- 
times cultivated  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 
Extensive  stretches  of  growing  wheat  and  rye 
alternated  with  wide  fields  of  black  plowed 
land  not  yet  sown,  and  occasionally  we  crossed 
great  expanses  of  prairie,  whose  velvety  green- 
sward was  sprinkled  with  dandelions,  butter- 
cups, and  primroses,  and  dotted  in  the  distance 
with  grazing  cattle  and  sheep.  Sometimes,  for 
miles  together,  the  road  ran  through  unfenced 
but  cultivated  land  where  men  and  women  in 
bright-colored  dresses  were  plowing,  harrow- 
ing, or  weeding  young  grain;  sometimes  we 
plunged  into  a  dense  cool  forest,  from  the 
depths  of  which  we  could  hear  the  soft  notes 
of  shy  cuckoos,  and  then  we  came  out  into  a 
great  sea  of  meadow  blue  with  forget-me-nots, 
where  field  sparrows  and  warblers  were  filling 
all  the  air  with  joyous  melody.  Flowers  met 
the  eye  everywhere  in  great  variety  and  in 
almost  incredible  profusion.  Never  had  we 
seen  the  earth  so  carpeted  with  them  even  in 
California.  The  roadside  was  bright  with  wild 
roses,  violets,  buttercups,  primroses,  marsh 
marigolds,  yellow  peas,  iris,  and  Tartar  honey- 
suckles; the  woods  were  whitened  here  and 
there  by  soft  clouds  of  wild-cherry  blossoms, 
and  the  meadows  were  literally  great  floral 
seas  of  color.  In  some  places  the  beautiful 
rose-like  flowers  of  the  golden  trollius  covered 
hundreds  of  acres  with  an  almost  unbroken 
sheet  of  vivid  yellow;  while  a 
few  miles  farther  on,  the  steppe 
to  the  very  horizon  was  a  blue 
ocean  of  forget-me-nots.  I  do 
not  mean  simply  that  the  ground 
was  sprinkled  with  them,  nor 
merely  that  they  grew  in  great 
abundance;  I  mean  that  the 
grass  everywhere  was  completely  hidden  by 
them,  so  that  the  plain  looked  as  if  a  sheet 
of  blue  gauze  had  been  thrown  over  it,  or  as 
if  it  were  a  great  expanse  of  tranquil  water 
reflecting  a  pale  blue  sky.  More  than  once 
these  forget-me-not  plains,  when  seen  afar, 
resembled  water  so  closely  as  to  deceive  us 
both. 

Throughout  the  whole  distance  from  Ekater- 
ineburg  to  Tiumen,  wherever  the  country  was 
open,  the  road  was  bordered  on  each  side  by 
a  double  or  triple  row  of  magnificent  silver- 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA.  167 


V, 


birches,  seventy  or  eighty  feet  in  height,  set 
so  closely  together  that  their  branches  inter- 
locked both  along  the  road  and  over  it,  and 
completely  shut  out  with  an  arched  canopy  of 
leaves  the  vertical  rays  of  the  sun.  For  miles  at 
a  time  we  rode  between  solid  banks  of  flowers 
through  this  beautiful  white  and  green  arcade, 
whose  columns  were  the  snowy  stems  of 
birches,  and  whose  roof  was  a  mass  of  deli- 
cate tracery  and  drooping  foliage.  The  road 
resembled  an  avenue  through  an  extensive 
and  well-kept  park,  rather  than  a  great  Sibe- 
rian thoroughfare,  and  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing as  if  I  might  look  up  at  any  moment  and 
see  an  English  castle  or  a  splendid  country 
villa.  According  to  tradition  these  birches 
were  planted  by  order  of  the  Empress  Cather- 
ine II.,  and  the  part  of  the  great  Siberian 
road  which  they  shade  is  known  as  "  Cath- 
erine's Alley."  Whether  the  object  of  the  great 
Tsaritsa  was  to  render  less  toilsome  and  op- 
pressive the  summer  march  of  the  exiles,  or 
whether  she  hoped  by  this  means  to  encour- 
age emigration  to  the  country  in  which  she 
took  so  deep  an  interest,  I  do  not  know;  but 
the  long  lines  of  beautiful  birches  have  for 
more  than  a  century  kept  her  memory  green, 
and  her  name  h;is  doubtless  been  blessed  by 
thousands  of  hot  and  tired  wayfarers  whom  her 
trees  have  protected  from  the  fierce  Siberian 
sunshine. 


Almost  the  first  peculiarity  of  a  west  Sibe- 
rian landscape  which  strikes  a  traveler  from 
America  is  the  complete  absence  of  fences 
and  farm-houses.  The  cultivated  land  of  the 
peasants  is  regularly  laid  out  into  fields,  but 
the  fields  are  not  inclosed,  and  one  may  ride 
for  two  or  three  hours  at  a  time  through  a 
fertile  and  highly  cultivated  region  without 
seeing  a  single  fence,  farm-house,  or  detached 
building.  The  absence  of  fences  is  due  to  the 
Siberian  practice  of  inclosing  the  cattle  in 
the  common  pasture  which  surrounds  the  vil- 
lage, instead  of  fencing  the  fields  which  lie 
outside.  The  absence  of  farm-houses  is  to 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  Siberian 
peasant  does  not  own  the  land  which  he  cul- 
tivates, and  therefore  has  no  inducement  to 
build  upon  it.  With  a  very  few  exceptions,  all  of 
the  land  in  Siberia  belongs  to  the  Crown.  The 
village  communes  enjoy  the  usufruct  of  it,  but 
they  have  no  legal  title,  and  cannot  dispose  of 
it  nor  reduce  any  part  of  it  to  individual  own- 
ership. All  that  they  have  power  to  do  is  to  di- 
vide it  up  among  their  members  by  periodical 
allotments,  and  to  give  to  each  head  of  a  fam- 
ily a  sort  of  tenancy  at  will.  Every  time  there 
is  a  new  allotment,  the  several  tracts  of  arable 
land  held  under  the  Crown  by  the  commune 
may  change  tenants ;  so  that  if  an  individual 
should  build  a  house  or  a  barn  upon  the  tract 
of  which  he  was  the  temporary  occupant,  he 


i68 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


might,  and  probably  would  be  forced,  sooner 
or  later,  to  abandon  it.  The  result  of  this 
system  of  land  tenure  and  this  organization 
of  society  is  to  segregate  the  whole  popula- 
tion in  villages,  and  to  leave  all  of  the  inter- 
vening land  unsettled.  In  the  United  States 
such  a  farming  region  as  that  between  the 
Urals  and  Tiumen  would  be  dotted  with 
houses,  granaries,  and  barns;  and  it  seemed 
very  strange  to  ride,  as  we  rode,  for  more 
than  eighty  miles,  through  a  country  which 
was  everywhere  more  or  less  cultivated,  with- 
out seeing  a  single  building  of  any  kind  out- 
side of  the  villages. 

Another  peculiarity  of  western  Siberia  which 
strongly  impresses  an  American  is  the  shabbi- 
ness  and  ch  eerlessness  of  most  of  its  settlements. 


In  a  country  so  fertile,  highly  cultivated,  and 
apparently  prosperous  as  this,  one  naturally 
expects  to  see  in  the  villages  some  signs  of 
enterprise,  comfort,  and  taste;  but  one  is  al- 
most everywhere  disappointed.  A  west  Si- 
berian village  consists  of  two  rows  of  unpainted 
one-story  log-houses  with  A-shaped  or  pyram- 
idal roofs,  standing  directly  on  the  street, 
without  front  yards  or  front  doors.  Between 
every  two  houses  there  is  an  inclosed  side 
yard  around  which  stand  sheds,  granaries,  and 
barns ;  and  from  this  side  yard  or  court  there 
is  an  entrance  to  the  house.  The  court-yard 
gate  is  sometimes  ornamented  with  carved  or 
incised  wood-work,  as  shown  in  the  illustration 
on  the  preceding  page;  the  window  shutters 
of  the  houses  are  almost  always  elaborately 
painted,  and  the  projecting  edges  of  the  gable 
roofs  are  masked  with  long  strips  of  carved  or 
decorated  board;  but  with  these  exceptions 
the  dwellings  of  the  peasants  are  simple  log 
structures  of  the  plainest  type,  and  a  large  pro- 
portion of  them  are  old,  weather-beaten,  and  in 
bad  repair.  The  wide  street  has  no  sidewalks; 
it  is  sometimes  a  sea  of  liquid  mud  from  the 
walls  of  the  houses  on  one  side  to  the  walls  of 
the  houses  on  the  other;  there  is  not  a  tree,  nor 
a.  bush,  nor  a  square  yard  of  grass  in  the  settle- 
ment. Bristly,  slab-sided,  razor-backed  pigs  lie 
here  and  there  in  the  mud,  or  wander  up  and 


down  the  street  in  search  of  food,  and  the  whole 
village  makes  upon  an  American  an  impression 
of  shiftlessness,  poverty,  and  squalor.  This  im- 
pression, I  am  glad  to  say,  is  in  most  cases 
deceptive.  There  is  in  all  of  these  villages  more 
or  less  individual  comfort  and  prosperity  ;  but 
the  Siberian  peasant  does  not  seem  to  take  any 
pridein  the  external  appearance  of  his  premises, 
and  pays  little  attention  to  beautifying  them  or 
keeping  them  in  order.  The  condition  of  the 
whole  village,  moreover,  indicates  a  lack  of 
public  spirit  and  enterprise  on  the  part  of  its 
inhabitants.  As  long  as  an  evil  or  a  nuisance 
is  endurable  there  seems  to  be  no  disposition 
to  abate  it,  and  the  result  is  the  general  neg- 
lect of  all  public  improvements.  Much  of  this 
seeming  indifference  is  doubtless  attributable 
to  the  paralyzing  influence  of  a  paternal  and 
all-regulating  government.  One  can  hardly 
expect  the  villagers  to  take  the  initiative,  or  to 
manifest  public  spirit  and  enterprise,  when  noth- 
ing whatever  can  be  done  without  permission 
from  the  official  representatives  of  the  Crown, 
and  when  the  very  first  effort  to  promote  the 
general  well-being  is  likely  to  be  thwarted  by 
some  bureaucratic  "regulation,"  or  the  ca- 
price of  some  local  police  officer.  All  that  the 
peasants  can  do  is  to  obey  orders,  await  the 
pleasure  of  the  higher  authorities,  and  thank 
God  that  things  are  no  worse. 

Almost  the  only  indication  of  taste  which 
one  sees  in  a  west  Siberian  settlement,  and 
the  only  evidence  of  a  love  of  the  beautiful 
for  its  own  sake,  is  furnished  by  the  plants  and 
flowers  in  the  windows  of  the  houses.  Although 
there  may  not  be  a  tree  nor  a  blade  of  grass  in 
the  whole  village,  the  windows  of  nine  houses 
out  of  ten  will  be  filled  with  splendid  blos- 
soming fuchsias,  oleanders,  cactuses,  gerani- 
ums, tea  roses,  and  variegated  cinnamon  pinks. 
One  rarely  finds,  even  in  a  florist's  greenhouse, 
more  beautiful  flowers  than  may  be  seen  in  the 
windows  of  many  a  poor  Siberian  peasant's 
dwelling.  Owing  to  some  peculiarity  in  the 
composition  of  the  glass,  these  windows  are 
almost  always  vividly  iridescent,  some  of  them 
rivaling  in  color  the  Cesnola  glass  from  Cyprus. 
Thecontrast  between  theblack,  weather-beaten 
logs  of  the  houses  and  the  brilliant  squares 
of  iridescence  which  they  inclose  —  between 
the  sea  of  liquid  mud  in  the  verdureless  streets 
and  the  splendid  clusters  of  conservatory 
flowers  in  the  windows  —  is  sometimes  very 
striking. 

FLOWERS    AND    MOSQUITOES. 

As  WE  approached  Tiumen  we  left  behind 
us  the  open  plains,  and  the  beautiful  farming 
country  which  had  so  much  surprised  and  de- 
lighted us,  and  entered  a  low,  swampy,  and 
almost  impenetrable  forest,  abounding  in  flow- 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS  OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


,69 


ers,  but  swarming  with  mosquitoes.  The  road, 
which  before  had  been  comparatively  smooth 
and  dry,  became  a  quagmire  of  black,  tena- 
cious mud,  in  which  the  wheels  of  our  heavy 
tarantas  sank  to  the  hubs,  anil  through  which 
our  progress  was  so  slow  that  we  were  four 
hours  in  traversing  a  single  stretch  of  about 
eighteen  miles.  Attempts  had  apparently 
been  made  here  and  there  to  improve  this 
part  of  the  route,  by  laying  down  in  the  soft 
marshy  soil  a  corduroy  of  logs;  but  the  logs 
had  sunk  unequally  under  the  pounding  wheels 
of  ten  thousand  loaded  freight  wagons, 
leaving  enormous  transverse  ruts  and  hol- 
lows filled  with  mud,  so  that  the  only  result 
of  the  "  improvement "  was  to  render  the  road 
more  nearly  impassable  than  before,  and  to 
add  unendurable  jolting  to  our  other  dis- 
comforts. At  last,  weary  of  lurches,  jolts,  and 
concussions,  we  alighted,  and  tried  walking 
by  the  roadside;  but  the  sunshine  was  so 
intensely  hot,  and  the  mosquitoes  so  fierce 
and  bloodthirsty,  that  in  twenty  minutes  we 
were  glad  to  climb  back  into  the  tarantas  with 
our  hands  full  of  flowers,  and  our  faces  scar- 
let from  heat  and  mosquito  bites.  Upon  com- 
paring our  impressions  we  found  that  we 
were  unanimously  of  opinion  that  if  we  had 
been  the  original  discoverers  of  this  country, 
we  should  have  named  it  either  Florida  or 
Culexia,  since  flowers  and  mosquitoes  are  its 
distinctive  characteristics  and  its  most  abun- 
dant products. 

At  the  gate-keeper's  lodge  of  one  of  the 
last  villages  that  we  passed  before  reaching 
Tinmen,  we  were  greeted  with  the  ringing 
of  a  large  hand-bell.  The  sound  was  strangely 
suggestive  of  an  auction,  but  as  we  stopped 
in  front  of  the  village  gate,  the  bell-ringer,  a 
bare-headed  man  in  a  long  black  gown,  with 
a  mass  of  flaxen  hair  hanging  over  his  shoul- 
ders and  a  "savings  bank"  box  suspended 
from  his  neck,  approached  the  tarantas  and 
called  our  attention  to  a  large  brownish  pict- 
ure in  a  tarnished  gilt  frame  resting  on  a  sort 
of  improvised  easel  by  the  road-side.  It  was 
evidently  an  ikon  or  portrait  of  some  holy 
saint  from  a  Russian  church;  but  what  was 
the  object  of  setting  it  up  there,  and  what  re- 
lation it  bore  to  us,  we  could  not  imagine. 
Finally  the  bell-ringer,  bowing,  crossing  him- 
self, and  invoking  blessings  on  our  heads, 
implored  us,  "  Khrista  radi "  ["  For  Christ's 
sake"],  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  the 
holy  saint's  church,  which,  it  appeared,  was 
situated  somewhere  in  the  vicinity.  This  com- 
bination of  an  auctioneer's  bell,  a  saint's  im- 
age, a  toll-gate,  and  a  church  beggar  greatly 
amused  Mr.  Frost,  who  inquired  whether  the 
holy  saint  owned  the  road  and  collected  toll. 
The  gate-keeper  explained  that  the  saint  had 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 24. 


nothing  to  do  with  the  road,  but  the  church 
was  poor,  and  the  "  noble  gentlemen "  who 
passed  that  way  were  accustomed  to  contrib- 
ute to  its  support ;  and  (removing  his  hat) 
"most  of  the  noble  gentlemen  remembered 
also  the  poor  gate-keeper."  Of  course  the  two 
noble  gentlemen,  with  mosquito-bitten  faces, 
rumpled  hair,  soiled  shirt-collars  and  mud- 
bespattered  clothing,  sitting  with  noble  dig- 
nity on  a  luxurious  steamer  trunk  in  a  miry 
tarantas,  could  not  resist  such  an  appeal  as 
this  to  their  noble  sympathies.  We  gave  the 
gate-keeper  a  few  copper  coins  with  directions 
to  put  half  of  them  into  the  savings  bank  of 
the  black-robed  deacon,  and  having  thus  con- 
tributed to  the  support  of  two  great  Russian 
institutions,  the  church  and  the  grog-shop,  we 
rode  on. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  Thursday,  June  18, 
we  came  out  of  the  forest  into  an  exten- 
sive marshy  plain,  tinted  a  peculiar  greenish- 
yellow  by  swamp  grass  and  buttercups,  and 
our  driver,  pointing  ahead  with  his  whip, 
said,  "  There  is  Tiumen."  All  that  we  could 
see  of  the  distant  city  was  a  long  line  of  py- 
ramidal board  roofs  on  the  horizon,  broken 
here  and  there  by  the  white  stuccoed  walls 
of  a  Government  building,  or  the  green- 
domed  belfries  and  towers  of  a  Russo-Greek 
church.  As  we  approached  it  we  passed  in 
succession  a  square  marble  column  marking 
the  spot  where  the  citizens  of  Tiumen  bade 
good-bye  to  the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir  in 
1868 ;  a  squad  of  soldiers  engaged  in  target 
practice,  stepping  forward  and  firing  volleys 
by  ranks  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  flourish 
of  bugles;  a  series  of  long,  low  sheds  sur- 
rounded by  white,  tilted  emigrant  wagons;  and 
finally,  in  the  suburbs,  the  famous  exile  for- 
warding prison. 

There  were  two  or  three  hotels  in  the 
town,  but  upon  the  recommendation  of  our 
driver  we  went  to  the  "  Rooms  for  Arrivers," 
or  furnished  apartments  of  one  Kovalski,  who 
occupied  a  two-story  brick  house  near  the 
bank  of  the  river  in  the  eastern  part  of  the 
city.  About  6  o'clock  in  the  evening  we 
finally  alighted  from  our  muddy  tarantas  in 
Kovalski's  court-yard,  having  made  a  journey 
of  204  miles  in  two  days  with  eleven  changes 
of  horses,  and  having  spent  more  than  forty 
hours  without  sleep,  sitting  in  a  cramped  and 
uncomfortable  position  on  Mr.  Frost's  trunk. 
My  neck  and  spine  were  so  stiff  and  lame 
from  incessant  jolting  that  I  could  not  have 
made  a  bow  to  the  Tsar  of  all  the  Russias, 
and  I  was  so  tired  that  I  could  hardly  climb 
the  stairs  leading  to  the  second  story  of 
Kovalski's  house.  As  soon  as  possible  after 
dinner  we  went  to  bed,  and  for  twelve  hours 
slept  the  sleep  of  exhaustion. 


170 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


TIUMEN. 


TIUMEN,  where  we  virtually  began  our  Si- 
berian journey,  as  well  as  our  investigation  of 
the  exile  system,  is  a  town  of  19,000  inhabit- 
ants, situated  1700  miles  east  of  St.  Petersburg, 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  river  Tura,  just  above 
the  junction  of  the  latter  with  the  Tobol.  The 
city  and  the  surrounding  country  have  much 
more  commercial  importance  than  is  gener- 
ally supposed.  Siberian  cold  and  Siberian 
desolation  have  been  so  much  talked  and 
written  about,  and  have  been  brought  so  forci- 
bly to  the  attention  of  the  world  by  the  terrible 
experience  of  De  Long  and  the  survivors  of 
the  Jeannette,  that  nine  readers  out  of  ten,  in 
forming  a  conception  of  the  country,  give 
undue  prominence  to  its  arctic  side  and  its 
winter  aspect.  When,  in  conversation  since 
my  return,  I  have  happened  to  refer  to  Sibe- 
rian tobacco,  Siberian  orchids,  or  Siberian 
camels,  my  remarks  have  even  been  received 
with  smiles  of  incredulity.  I  do  not  know 
any  better  way  to  overthrow  the  erroneous 
popular  conception  of  Siberia  than  to  assail 
it  with  facts  and  statistics,  even  at  the  risk  of 
being  wearisome.  I  will  therefore  say  briefly, 
that  the  province  of  Tobolsk,  which  is  the  part 
of  Siberia  with  which  a  traveler  from  Europe 
first  becomes  acquainted,  extends  from  the 
coast  of  the  Arctic  Ocean  to  the  sun-scorched 
steppes  of  Semipalatinsk  and  Akmolinsk,  and 
from  the  mountains  of  the  Ural  to  the  bound- 
ary line  of  Yeniseisk  and  Tomsk.  It  has  an 
area  of  590,000  square  miles  and  includes 
27,000,000  acres  of  arable  land.  It  contains 
8  towns  of  from  3000  to  20,000  inhabitants, 
and  its  total  population  exceeds  1,200,000. 
In  the  last  year  for  which  I  was  able  to  get 
statistics  the  province  produced  30,044,880 
bushels  of  grain  and  3,778,230  bushels  of  po- 
tatoes, and  contained  2,647,000  head  of  live 
stock.  It  sends  annually  to  European  Russia 
enormous  quantities  of  raw  products,  such 
as  hides,  tallow,  bristles,  furs,  bird  skins,  flax, 
and  hemp;  it  forwards  more  than  2,000,000 
pounds  of  butter  to  Constantinople  by  way 
of  Rostoff,  on  the  Don  ;  and  there  is  held  with- 
in its  limits,  at  Irbit,  a  commercial  fair  whose 
transactions  amount  annually  to  35,000,000 
rubles  ($17,500,000).  The  manufacturing  in- 
dustries of  the  province,  although  still  in 
their  infancy,  furnish  employment  to  6252 
persons  and  put  annually  upon  the  market 
goods  to thevalue  of  8, 517,000 rubles.  Besides 
the  workmen  employed  in  the  regular  manu- 
facturing establishments,  the  urban  population 
includes  27,000  mechanics  and  skilled  labor- 
ers. Cottage  industries  are  carried  on  exten- 
sively throughout  the  province,  and  produce 
annually,  among  other  things,  50,000  rugs 


and  carpets;  1,500,000  fathoms  of  fish  net- 
ting; 2,140,000  yards  of  linen  cloth;  50,000 
barrels;  70,000  telegas  and  sleighs;  leather 
manufactures  to  the  value  of  2,500,000  rubles; 
and  quantities  of  dressed  furs,  stockings,  mit- 
tens, belts,  scarfs,  laces,  and  ornamented  tow- 
els and  sheets.  The  quantity  of  fish  caught 
annually  along  the  Ob  and  its  tributaries  is 
estimated  at  8000  tons,  and  salt  to  the  amount 
of  3000  tons  is  used  in  curing  it.  Tiumen, 
which  is  the  most  important  town  in  the  prov- 
ince, stands  on  a  navigable  branch  of  the 
vast  Ob  river  system,  through  which  it  has 
steam  communication  with  the  greater  part 
of  western  Siberia,  from  Semipalatinsk  and 
Tomsk  to  the  shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
Fifty-eight  steamers  ply  on  the  Ob  and  its 
tributaries,  most  of  them  between  Tomsk  and 
Tiumen,  and  through  the  latter  city  is  trans- 
ported annually  merchandise  to  the  value  of 
thirty  or  forty  million  rubles.  Sixteen  million 
rubles'  worth  of  Siberian  products  are  brought 
every  year  to  the  Nizhni  Novgorod  fair,  and 
in  exchange  for  this  mass  of  raw  material 
European  Russia  sends  annually  to  Siberia 
nearly  300,000  tons  of  manufactured  goods. 

It  cannot,  I  think,  be  contended  that  a 
country  which  furnishes  such  statistics  as 
these  is  an  arctic  desert  or  an  uninhabited 
waste. 

On  the  next  day  after  our  arrival  in  Tiumen 
the  weather  furnished  us  with  convincing  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  that  the  Siberian  summer 
climate,  although  sometimes  as  mild  and  de- 
lightful as  that  of  California,  is  fickle  and 
untrustworthy.  During  the  night  the  wind 
changed  suddenly  to  the  north-east,  and  a  furi- 
ous storm  of  cold,  driving  rain  swept  down 
across  the  tundras  from  the  coast  of  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  turning  the  unpaved  and  unsewered 
streets  of  the  city  to  lakes  of  liquid  mud,  and 
making  it  practically  impossible  to  go  out  of 
doors.  We  succeeded,  with  the  aid  of  a  droshky, 
in  getting  to  the  post-office  and  back,  and  de- 
voted the  remainder  of  the  day  to  reading  and 
to  writing  letters.  On  Saturday,  during  lulls  in 
the  storm,  we  walked  and  rode  about  the  city, 
but  saw  little  to  reward  us  for  our  trouble. 
The  muddy,  unpaved  streets  did  not  differ 
much  in  appearance  from  the  streets  of  the 
villages  through  which  we  had  passed,  except 
that  some  of  them  had  plank  sidewalks,  and 
the  unpainted  log-houses  with  high,  steep,  py- 
ramidal roofs  were  larger  and  morepretentious. 
There  was  the  same  absence  of  trees,  shrub- 
bery, front  yards  and  front  doors  which  we 
had  noticed  in  all  of  the  Siberian  villages;  and 
but  for  the  white-walled  and  green-domed 
churches,  which  gave  it  a  certain  air  of  pict- 
uresqueness,  the  town  would  have  been  com- 
monplace and  uninteresting. 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS  OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


171 


The  only  letter  of  introduction  we  had  to 
deliver  in  Tiumen  was  from  a  Russian  gentle- 
man in  St.  Petersburg  to  Mr.  Slovtsof,  Director 
of  the  "  Realnoi  Uchilishche,"  an  institution 
which  is  known  in  Germany  as  a  "real  schule." 
Saturday  afternoon,  the  storm  having  broken, 
we  presented  this  letter  and  were  received  by 
Mr.  Slovtsof  with  great  cordiality.  The  edu- 
cational institution  over  which  he  presides  is  a 
scientific  and  technical  school  similar  in  plan 
to  the  Institute  of  Technology  in  Boston.  It 
occupies  the  largest  and  finest  edifice  in  the 
city  —  a  substantial  two-story  structure  of 
white  stuccoed  brick,  nearly  twice  as  large  as 
the  Executive  Mansion  in  Washington.  This 
building  was  erected  and  equipped  at  a  cost 
of  $85,000  by  one  of  Tiumen's  wealthy  and 
public-spirited  merchants,  and  was  then  pre- 
sented to  the  city  as  a  gift.  One  would  hardly 
expect  to  find  such  a  school  in  European  Rus- 
sia, to  say  nothing  of  Siberia,  and  indeed  one 
might  look  far  without  finding  such  a  school 
even  in  the  United  States.  It  has  a  mechan- 
ical department,  with  a  steam-engine,  lathes, 
and  tools  of  all  kinds;  a  department  of  phys- 
ics, with  fine  apparatus,  including  even  the 
Bell,  Edison,  and  Dolbear  telephones  and 
the  phonograph ;  a  chemical  laboratory,  with  a 
more  complete  equipment  than  I  have  ever 
seen,  except  in  the  Boston  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology; a  department  of  art  and  mechanical 
drawing;  a  good  library,  and  an  excellent 
museum  —  the  latter  containing,  among  other 
things,  900  species  of  wild  flowers  collected  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  city.  It  is,  in  short,  a  school 
which  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  credit- 
able to  any  city  of  similar  size  in  the  United 
States. 

From  Mr.  Slovtsof  we  obtained  the  address 
of  Mr.  Jacob  R.  Wardropper,  a  Scotch  gentle- 
man who  had  for  twenty  years  or  more  been 
engaged  in  business  in  Siberia;  and  feeling 
sure  that  Mr.  Wardropper  would  be  glad  to  see 
any  one  from  the  western  world,  we  ventured 
to  call  upon  him  without  the  formality  of  an 
introduction.  We  were  received  by  the  whole 
family  with  the  most  warm-hearted  hospitality, 
and  their  house  was  made  almost  a  home  to 
us  during  the  remainder  of  our  stay  in  the  city. 

The  chief  interest  which  Tiumen  had  for 
us  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  contains  the  most  im- 
portant exile  forwarding  prison  in  Siberia,  and 
the  "Prikaz  o  Sylnikh,"  or  Bureau  of  Exile 
Administration.  Through  this  prison  pass,  on 
their  way  southward  or  eastward,  all  criminals 
condemned  to  banishment  or  penal  servitude, 
and  in  this  administrative  bureau  are  kept  all 
the  records  and  statistics  of  the  exile  system. 
After  our  arrest  in  Perm  for  merely  looking  at 
the  outside  of  a  prison,  we  felt  some  doubt  as 
to  the  result  of  an  application  for  leave  to 


inspect  the  forwarding  prison  of  Tiumen  ;  but 
Mr.  Wardropper  thought  we  would  have  no 
trouble  in  gaining  admittance,  and  on  the 
following  day  (Sunday)  he  went  with  us  to 
call  upon  Mr.  Krassin,  the  ispravnik,  or  chief 
police  officer  of  the  district.  I  presented  to 
the  latter  my  open  letters  from  the  Russian 
Minister  of  the  Interior  and  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  and  was  at  once  received  with 
a  cordiality  which  was  as  pleasant  as  it  was 
unexpected.  Mr.  Krassin  invited  us  to  lunch, 
said  that  he  had  already  been  informed  by 
private  and  official  letters  from  St.  Petersburg 
of  our  projected  journey  through  Siberia,  and 
that  he  would  gladly  be  of  service  to  us  in 
any  way  possible.  He  granted  without  hesi- 
tation my  request  to  be  allowed  to  visit  the 
forwarding  prison,  and  promised  to  go  thither 
with  us  on  the  following  day.  We  would  find 
the  prison,  he  said,  greatly  overcrowded  and 
in  bad  sanitary  condition ;  but,  such  as  it  was, 
we  should  see  it. 


THE     FORWARDING    PRISON. 

MR.  KRASSIN  was  unfortunately  taken  sick 
Monday,  but,  mindful  of  his  promise,  he  sent 
us  on  Tuesday  a  note  of  introduction  to  the 
warden  which  he  said  would  admit  us  to  the 
prison;  and  about  10  o'clock  Wednesday 
morning,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Wardropper, 
and  Mr.  Ignatof,  a  former  member  of  the 
prison  committee,  we  presented  ourselves  at 
the  gate.  The  Tiumen  forwarding  prison  is 
a  rectangular  three-story  brick  building,  75 
feet  in  length  by  40  or  50  in  width,  covered 
with  white  stucco  and  roofed  with  painted 
tin.  It  is  situated  in  a  large  yard  formed  by 
a  whitewashed  brick  wall  12  or  15  feet  in 
height,  at  each  corner  of  which  stands  a  black 
and  white  zigzag-barred  sentry-box,  and  along 
each  face  of  which  paces  a  sentry  carrying 
a  loaded  Berdan  rifle  with  fixed  bayonet. 
Against  this  wall,  on  the  right-hand  side  of 
the  gate,  is  a  small  building  used  as  a  prison 
office,  and  in  front  of  it  stands  a  post  sur- 
mounted by  a  small  A-shaped  roof  under 
which  hangs  a  bell.  A  dozen  or  more  girls 
and  old  women  were  sitting  on  the  ground  in 
front  of  the  prison  with  baskets  full  of  black 
rye  bread,  cold  meat,  boiled  eggs,  milk,  and 
fish  pies  for  sale  to  the  imprisoned  exiles. 
The  Tiumen  prison  was  originally  built  to 
hold  500  prisoners,  but  was  subsequently  en- 
larged by  means  of  detached  barracks  so  that 
it  could  accommodate  800.  On  the  day  of 
our  visit,  as  we  were  informed  by  a  small 
blackboard  hanging  beside  the  office  door,  it 
contained  1741.  As  we  approached  the  en- 
trance we  were  stopped  by  an  armed  sentry, 
who,  upon  being  informed  that  we  desired 


172 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


admittance, shouted  through  asquare  port-hole 
in  the  heavy  gate,  "  Star-she-e-e  !  "  (the  usual 
call  for  the  officer  of  the  day).  A  corporal  or 
sergeant,  with  a  saber  at  his  side  and  a  Colt's 
revolver  in  a  holster  on  his  hip,  answered  the 
summons,  carried  our  note  to  the  warden, 
and  in  a  moment  we  were  admitted  to  the 
prison  yard.  Fifty  or  sixty  exiles  and  convicts 
were  walking  aimlessly  back  and  forth  in 
front  of  the  main  prison  building,  or  sitting 
idly  in  groups  here  and  there  on  the  ground. 
They  were  all  dressed  from  head  to  foot  in  a 
costume  of  gray,  consisting  of  a  visorless 
Scotch  cap,  a  shirt  and  trousers  of  coarse 
homespun  linen,  and  a  long  gray  overcoat 
with  one  or  two  diamond-shaped  patches  of 
black  or  yellow  cloth  sewn  upon  the  back  be- 
tween the  shoulders.  Nearly  all  of  them  wore 
leg-fetters,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  a  pe- 
culiar clinking  of  chains  which  suggested  the 
continuous  jingling  of  innumerable  bunches  of 
keys. 

The  first  "kamera"  or  cell  that  we  entered 
was  situated  in  a  one-story  log  barrack  stand- 
ing against  the  wall  on  the  left  of  the  gate,  and 
built  evidently  to  receive  the  overflow  from 
the  crowded  main  building.  The  room  was 
about  35  feet  in  length  by  25  in  width  and  12 
feet  high  ;  its  walls  of  hewn  logs  were  covered 
with  dirty  whitewash ;  its  rough  plank  floor 
was  black  with  dried  mud  and  hard-trodden 
filth;  and  it  was  lighted  by  three  grated  win- 
dows looking  out  into  the  prison  yard.  Down 
the  center  of  the  room,  and  occupying  about 
half  its  width,  ran  the  sleeping-bench  —  a 
wooden  platform  12  feet  wide  and  30  feet 
long,  supported,  at  a  height  of  2  feet  from 
the  floor,  by  stout  posts.  Each  longitudinal 
half  of  this  low  platform  sloped  a  little,  roof- 
wise,  from  the  center,  so  that  when  the  prison- 
ers slept  upon  it  in  two  closely  packed  trans- 
verse rows,  their  heads  in  the  middle  were 
a  few  inches  higher  than  their  feet  at  the 
edges.  These  sleeping-platforms  are  known 
as  "nares,"  and  a  Siberian  prison  cell  contains 
no  other  furniture  except  a  large  wooden  tub 
for  excrement.  The  prisoners  have  neither 
pillows,  blankets,  nor  bedclothing,  and  must 
lie  on  these  hard  plank  nares  with  no  covering 
but  their  overcoats.  As  we  entered  the  ceil, 
the  convicts,  with  a  sudden  jingling  of  chains, 
sprang  to  their  feet,  removed  their  caps,  and 
stood  silently  in  a  dense  throng  around  the 
nares.  "  Zdrastvuitui  rebiata  !  "  ["  How  do 
you  do,  boys  !  "]  said  the  warden.  "  Zdravie 
zhelaiem  vasha  vwisoki  blagarodie "  ["  We 
wish  you  health,  your  high  nobility"],  shouted 
a  hundred  voices  in  a  hoarse  chorus.  "  The 
prison,"  said  the  warden,  "  is  terribly  over- 
crowded. This  cell,  for  example,  is  only  35 
feet  long  by  25  wide,  and  has  air  space  for  35, 


or  at  most  40  men.  How  many  men  slept  here 
last  night  ?  "  he  inquired,  turning  to  the  pris- 
oners. 

"  A  hundred  and  sixty,  your  high  nobility," 
shouted  half  a  dozen  hoarse  voices. 

"You  see  how  it  is,"  said  the  warden,  again 
addressing  me.  "  This  cell  contains  more  than 
four  times  the  number  of  prisoners  that  it  was 
intended  to  hold,  and  the  same  condition  of 
things  exists  throughout  the  prison."  I  looked 
around  the  cell.  There  was  practically  no 
ventilation  whatever,  and  the  air  was  so  poi- 
soned and  foul  that  I  could  hardly  force  my- 
self to  breathe  it.  We  visited  successively  in 
the  yard  six  kamera  s  or  cells  essentially  like 
the  first,  and  found  in  every  one  of  them  three 
or  four  times  the  number  of  prisoners  for  which 
it  was  intended,  and  five  or  six  times  the  num- 
ber for  which  it  had  adequate  air  space.  In 
most  of  the  cells  there  was  not  room  enough 
on  the  sleeping-platforms  for  all  of  the  con- 
victs, and  scores  of  men  slept  every  night  on 
the  foul,  muddy  floors,  under  the  nares,  and  in 
the  gangways  between  them  and  the  walls. 
Three  or  four  pale,  dejected,  and  apparently 
sick  prisoners  crawled  out  from  under  the 
sleeping-platform  in  one  of  the  cells  as  we 
entered. 

From  the  log  barracks  in  the  prison  yard 
we  went  into  the  main  building,  which  con- 
tained the  kitchen,  the  prison  workshops,  and 
the  hospital,  as  well  as  a  large  number  of 
kameras,  and  which  was  in  much  worse  sani- 
tary condition  than  the  barracks.  It  was,  in 
fact,  a  building  through  which  Mr.  Ignatof — 
a  former  member  of  the  prison  committee  —  de- 
clined to  accompany  us.  On  each  side  of  the 
dark,  damp,  and  dirty  corridors  were  heavy 
wooden  doors,  opening  into  cells  which  va- 
ried in  size  from  8  feet  by  10  to  10  by  15, 
and  contained  from  half  a  dozen  to  thirty 
prisoners.  They  were  furnished  with  nares, like 
those  in  the  cells  that  we  had  already  in- 
spected; their  windows  were  small  and  heavily 
grated,  and  no  provision  whatever  had  been 
made  for  ventilation.  In  one  of  these  cells 
were  eight  or  ten  "  dvoryane,"  or  "  nobles," 
who  seemed  to  be  educated  men,  and  in  whose 
presence  the  warden  removed  his  hat.  Whether 
any  of  them  were  "  politicals  "  or  not  I  do  not 
know ;  but  in  this  part  of  the  prison  the  polit- 
icals were  usually  confined.  The  air  in  the 
corridors  and  cells,  particularly  in  the  second 
story,  was  indescribably  and  unimaginably 
foul.  Every  cubic  foot  of  it  had  apparently 
been  respired  over  and  over  again  until  it  did 
not  contain  an  atom  of  oxygen  ;  it  was  laden 
with  fever  germs  from  the  unventilatecl  hos- 
pital wards,  fetid  odors  from  diseased  human 
lungs  and  unclean  human  bodies,  and  the 
stench  arising  from  unemptied  excrement 


PLAINS  AND   PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


173 


THE    TIUMEN    FORWARDING    PRISON. 


buckets  at  the  ends  of  the  corridors.  I  breathed 
as  little  as  I  possibly  could,  but  every  respi- 
ration seemed  to  pollute  me  to  the  very  soul, 
and  I  became  faint  from  nausea  and  lack  of 
oxygen.  It  was  like  trying  to  breathe  in  an 
underground  hospital-drain.  The  "smatritel," 
or  warden,  noticing  perhaps  that  my  face  had 
grown  suddenly  pale,  offered  me  his  cigar- 
ette case,  and  said :  "  You  are  not  accustomed 
to  prison  air.  Light  a  cigarette :  it  will  afford 
some  relief,  and  we  will  get  some  wine  or 
"vodki"  presently  in  the  dispensary."  I  acted 
upon  this  suggestion  and  we  continued  our  in- 
vestigations. The  prison  workshops,  to  which 
we  were  next  taken,  consisted  of  two  small 
cells  in  the  second  story,  neither  of  them  more 
than  eight  feet  square,  and  neither  of  them  de- 
signed for  the  use  to  which  it  had  been  put. 
In  one,  three  or  four  convicts  were  engaged 
in  cobbling  shoes,  and  in  the  other  an  at- 
tempt was  being  made  to  do  a  small  amount 
of  carpenter's  work.  The  workmen,  however, 
had  neither  proper  tools  nor  suitable  appli- 
ances, and  it  seemed  preposterous  to  call 
the  small  cells  which  they  occupied  "  work- 
shops." 

*  According  to  the  report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile 
Transportation  for  1884,  the  cost  to  the  Government 
for  the  food  furnished  each  prisoner  in  the  Tiumen  for- 
warding prison  is  3^  cents  a  day  (7  kopeks).    Pris- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 25. 


We  then  went  to  the  prison  kitchen,  a  dark, 
dirty  room  in  the  basement  of  the  main  build- 
ing, where  three  or  four  half-naked  men  were 
baking  black  rye-bread  in  loaves  about  as  large 
as  milk-pans,  and  boiling  soup  in  huge  iron 
kettles  on  a  sort  of  brick  range.  I  tasted  some 
of  the  soup  in  a  greasy  wooden  bowl  which  a 
convict  hastily  cleaned  for  me  with  a  wad  of 
dirty  flax,  and  found  it  nutritious  and  good. 
The  bread  was  rather  sour  and  heavy,  but 
not  worse  than  that  prepared  and  eaten  by- 
Russian  peasants  generally.  The  daily  ration 
of  the  prisoners  consisted  of  two  and  a  half 
pounds  of  this  black  bread,  about  six  ounces 
of  boiled  meat,  and  two  or  three  ounces  of 
coarsely  ground  barley  or  oats,  with  a  bowl 
of  "kvas"  morning  and  evening  for  drink.* 

THE  HOSPITAL    WARDS. 

AFTER  we  had  examined  the  workshops,  the 
kitchen,  and  most  of  the  kameras  in  the  first 
and  second  stories,  the  smatritel  turned  to  me 
and  said,  "  Do  you  wish  to  go  through  the 
hospital  wards ?"  <; Certainly,"  I  replied;  "we 
wish  to  see  everything  that  there  is  to  be  seen 

oners  belonging  to  the  privileged  classes  (including 
politicals)  receive  food  which  costs  the  Government  5 
cents  a  day  per  man.  Of  course  the  quality  of  a  daily 
ration  which  costs  only  3%  cents  cannot  be  very  high. 


'74 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 

•     '   i  '  ft 


THE    COURT-YARD    OF 


SON.       (1-KU.M     A     SKETCH     MADE     BY    AN     EXILE.) 


in  the  prison."  The  warden  shrugged  his 
shoulders,  as  if  he  could  not  understand  a  curi- 
osity which  was  strong  enough  to  take  trav- 
elers into  a  Siberian  prison  hospital;  but, 
without  making  any  remarks,  he  led  the  way 
up  another  flight  of  stone  steps  to  the  third 
story,  which  was  given  up  entirely  to  the  sick. 
The  hospital  wards,  which  numbered  five  or 
six,  were  larger  and  lighter  than  any  of  the 
cells  that  we  had  previously  examined  in  the 
main  building,  but  they  were  wholly  unven- 
tilated,  no  disinfectants  apparently  were  used 
in  them,  and  the  air  was  polluted  to  the  last 
possible  degree.  It  did  not  seem  to  me  that 
a  well  man  could  live  there  a  week  without 


becoming  infected  with  disease,  and  that  a 
sick  man  should  ever  recover  in  that  awful 
atmosphere  was  inconceivable.  In  each  ward 
were  twelve  or  fifteen  small  iron  bedsteads, 
set  with  their  heads  to  the  walls  round  three 
sides  of  the  room,  and  separated  one  from 
another  by  about  five  feet  of  space.  Each 
bedstead  was  furnished  with  a  thin  mattress 
consisting  of  a  coarse  gray  bed-tick  filled  with 
straw,  a  single  pillow,  and  either  a  gray  blan- 
ket or  a  ragged  quilt.  Mr.  Frost  thought  that 
some  of  the  beds  were  supplied  with  coarse 
gray  linen  sheets  and  pillow-cases,  but  I  did 
not  notice  anything  of  the  kind.  Over  the 
head  of  each  bedstead  was  a  small  blackboard, 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


'75 


UP    A    PARTY    IN    THE    TIUMEN    PRISON. 


bearing  in  Russian  and  Latin  characters  the 
name  of  the  prisoner's  disease  and  the  date 
of  his  admission  to  the  hospital.  The  most 
common  disorders  seemed  to  be  scurvy,  ty- 
phus fever,  typhoid  fever,  acute  bronchitis, 
rheumatism,  and  syphilis.  Prisoners  suffering 
from  malignant  typhus  fever  were  isolated  in 
a  single  ward  ;  but  with  this  exception  no  at- 
tempt apparently  had  been  made  to  group  the 
patients  in  classes  according  to  the  nature  of 


their  diseases.  Women  were  separated  from 
the  men,  and  that  was  all.  Never  before  in 
my  life  had  I  seen  faces  so  white,  haggard, 
and  ghastly  as  those  that  lay  on  the  gray  pil- 
lows in  these  hospital  cells.  The  patients,  both 
men  and  women,  seemed  to  be  not  only  des- 
perately sick,  but  hopeless  and  heart-broken. 
I  could  not  wonder  at  it.  As  I  breathed  that 
heavy,  stifling  atmosphere,  poisoned  with  the 
breaths  of  syphilitic  and  fever-stricken  patients, 


i76 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


COURT-YARD    OF    THE    WOMEN  S    PRISON",    TIUMEN. 


loaded  and  saturated  with  the  odor  of  excre- 
ment, disease  germs,  exhalations  from  unclean 
human  bodies,  and  foulness  inconceivable,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  over  the  hospital  doors 
should  be  written,  "  All  hope  abandon  ye 
who  enter  here."* 

After  we  had  gone  through  the  women's 

*  The  cost  of  the  maintenance  of  each  patient  in  the 
hospital  of  the  Tiumen  forwarding  prison  in  1884,  in- 
cluding food,  medicines,  etc.,  was  27  cents  a  day. 
The  dead  were  buried  at  an  expense  of  $1.57  each. 
[Report  of  Inspector  of  Exile  Transportation  for  1884.] 


lying-in  ward  and  the  ward  occupied  by  pa- 
tients suffering  from  malignant  typhus  fever, 
I  told  the  smatritcl  that  I  had  seen  enough ; 
all  I  wanted  was  to  get  out  of  doors  where  I 
could  once  more  breathe.  He  conducted  us 
to  the  dispensary  on  the  ground  floor,  offered 
us  alcoholic  stimulants,  and  suggested  that  we 
allow  ourselves  to  be  sprayed  with  carbolic 
acid  and  water.  We  probably  had  not  been 
in  the  prison  long  enough,  he  said,  to  take 
any  infection ;  but  we  were  unaccustomed  to 
prison  air,  the  hospital  was  in  bad  condition, 


PLAINS  AND    /'A' /SOWS   OF  WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


'77 


we  had  visited  the  malignant  typhus  fever 
ward,  and  he  thought  that  the  measure  which 
he  suggested  was  nothing  more  than  a  proper 
precaution.  \Ve  of  course  assented,  and  were 
copiously  sprayed  from  head  to  foot  with  di- 
lute carbolic  acid,  which,  after  the  foulness  of 
the  prison  atmosphere,  seemed  to  us  almost  as 
refreshing  as  spirits  of  cologne. 

At  last,  having  finished  our  inspection  of 
the  mam  building,  we  came  out  into  the  prison- 
van  1,  where  I  drew  a  long,  deep  breath  of  pure 
air,  with  the  delicious  sense  of  relief  that  a  half- 
drowned  man  must  feel  when  he  comes  to  the 
surface  of  the  water. 

"  How  many  prisoners,"  I  asked  the  warden, 
'•  usually  die  in  that  hospital  in  the  course  of 
the  year  ?  " 

"  About  300,"  he  replied.  "  We  have  an 
epidemic  of  typhus  almost  every  fall.  What 
else  could  you  expect  when  buildings  that  are 
barely  adequate  for  the  accommodation  of 
800  persons  are  made  to  hold  1800  ?  A  prison 
so  overcrowded  cannot  be  kept  clean,  and  as 
for  the  air  in  the  cells,  you  know  now  what  it 
is  like.  In  the  fall  it  is  sometimes  much  worse. 
During  the  summer  the  windows  can  be  left 
open,  and  some  ventilation  can  be  secured  in 
that  way;  but  when  the  weather  becomes  cold 
and  stormy  the  windows  must  be  closed,  and 
then  there  is  no  ventilation  at  all.  We  suffer 
from  it  as  well  as  the  prisoners.  My  assistant 
has  only  recently  recovered  from  an  attack 
of  typhus  fever  which  kept  him  in  bed  for  six 
weeks,  and  he  caught  the  disease  in  the  prison. 
The  local  authorities  here  have  again  and 
again  urged  the  Government  to  make  ade- 
quate provision  for  the  large  number  of  exiles 
crowded  into  this  prison  during  the  season 
of  navigation,  but  thus  far  nothing  has 
been  done  beyond  the  building  of  two  log 
barracks."  * 

The  warden  spoke  naturally  and  frankly, 
as  if  the  facts  which  he  gave  me  were  known 
to  everybody  in  Tiumen,  and  as  if  there  was 
no  use  in  trying  to  conceal  them  even  from 
a  foreign  traveler  when  the  latter  had  been 
through  the  prison  and  the  prison  hospital. 

THE  WOMEN'S  PRISON. 

FROM  the  main  prison  building  we  went  to 
the  women's  prison,  which  was  situated  on  the 
other  side  of  the  road  in  a  court-yard  formed 
by  a  high  stockade  of  closely  set  and  sharp- 
ened logs.  It  did  not  differ  much  in  external 
appearance  from  the  men's  barracks  inside 
the  prison-wall,  which  we  had  already  ex- 

*  During  the  season  of  navigation  in  1884  the  Tin- 
men forwarding  prison  was  overcrowded  133  days  out 
of  151.  [Report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transpor- 
tation for  1884.] 


amined.  The  kameras  varied  in  si/e  from  10 
feet  by  12  to  30  feet  by  45,  and  contained 
from  three  to  forty  women  each.  They  were 
all  clean  and  well  lighted,  the  floors  and 
sleeping-platforms  had  been  scrubbed  to  a 
snowy  whiteness,  strips  of  coarse  carpet  had 
been  laid  down  here  and  there  in  the  gang- 
ways between  the  nares,  and  one  cell  even 
had  potted  plants  in  the  window.  The  women, 
like  the  men,  were  obliged  to  sleep  in  rows  on 
the  hard  platforms  without  pillows  or  blank- 
els,  but  their  cells  were  not  so  overcrowded 
as  were  those  of  the  men,  and  the  air  in  them 
was  infinitely  purer.  Most  of  the  women 
seemed  to  belong  to  the  peasant  class;  many 
of  them  were  accompanied  by  children,  and 
I  saw  very  few  hard  or  vicious  faces. 

From  the  women's  prison  we  went  to  the 
prison  for  exiled  families,  another  stockaded 
log  barrack  about  75  feet  in  length  which  had 
no  cell  partitions  and  which  contained  nearly 
300  men,  women,  and  children.  Here  again 
the  sleeping-platforms  were  overcrowded ;  the 
air  was  heavy  and  foul;  dozens  of  children 
were  crying  from  hunger  or  wretchedness ;  and 
the  men  and  women  looked  tired,  sleepless, 
and  dejected.  None  of  the  women  in  this 
barrack  were  criminals.  All  were  voluntarily 
going  into  banishment  with  their  criminal 
husbands,  and  most  of  them  were  destined 
for  points  in  western  Siberia. 

ABOUT  i  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  after  hav- 
ing made  as  thorough  an  examination  as  pos- 
sible of  all  the  prison  buildings,  Mr.  Frost, 
Mr.  Wardropper,  and  I  went  with  Mr.  Igna- 
tof  to  lunch.  Knowing  that  our  host  was  the 
contractor  for  the  transportation  of  exiles  east- 
ward by  barge,  and  that  he  had  been  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Tiumen  prison  committee, 
I  asked  him  if  the  Central  Government  in  St. 
Petersburg  was  aware  of  the  condition  of  the 
Tiumen  forwarding  prison,  and  of  the  sickness 
and  misery  in  which  it  resulted.  He  replied 
in  the  affirmative.  The  local  authorities,  the 
prison  committee,  and  the  Inspector  of  Ex- 
ile Transportation  for  western  Siberia  had 
reported  upon  the  condition  of  the  Tiumen 
prison,  he  said,  every  year;  but  the  case  of 
that  prison  was  by  no  means  an  exceptional 
one.  New  prisons  were  needed  all  over  Euro- 
pean Russia,  as  well  as  Siberia,  and  the  Govern- 
ment did  not  yet  feel  able  financially  to  make 
sweeping  prison  reforms,  nor  to  spend  perhaps 
ten  million  rubles  in  the  erection  of  new  prison 
buildings.  The  condition  of  the  Tiumen  prison 
was,  he  admitted,  extremely  bad,  and  he  him- 
self had  resigned  his  place  as  a  member  of  the 
prison  committee  because  the  Government 
would  not  authorize  the  erection  of  a  new 
building  for  use  as  a  hospital.  The  prison 


I78 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


EXILES   GOING  ON    BOARD   THE    BARGE. 


committee  had  strongly  recommended  it,  and 
when  the  Government  disapproved  the  rec- 
ommendation, he  resigned. 

Subsequent  conversation  with  other  citizens 
of  Tiumen  and  with  officers  of  the  Exile  Ad- 
ministration more  than  confirmed  all  that  had 
been  told  me  by  Mr.  Ignatof  and  the  warden. 
The  report  of  the  Medical  Department  of  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior,  extracts  from  which 
were  furnished  me,  showed  that  the  sick  rate 
of  the  Tiumen  forwarding  prison  for  1884  was 


28.4  per  cent. ;  or,  in  other  words,  nearly  one 
third  of  the  whole  prison  population  received 
hospital  treatment.  When  one  considers  that 
from  17,000  to  19,000  exiles  pass  every  year 
through  the  Tiumen  forwarding  prison,  and 
that  thousands  of  sick  are  treated  at  the  dis- 
pensary and  in  their  cells,  and  are  not  includ- 
ed therefore  in  the  hospital  records,  one  can 
partly  realize  the  human  suffering  and  misery 
of  which  that  prison  is  the  scene. 

In  order  fully  to  understand  the  scope  of 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


'79 


the  Siberian  exile  system  and  the  important 
place  occupied  in  that  system  by  the  Tinmen 
forwarding  prison,  the  reader  must  bear  in 
mind  that  there  are  in  Russia  no  penitentia- 
ries. If  the  penalty  affixed  by  the  Russian  penal 
code  to  a  crime  is  not  greater  than  imprison- 
ment for  four  years,  the  criminal  serves  out  his 
sentence  in  one  of  the  prisons  of  European 
Russia,  simply  because  it  would  be  unprofit- 
able to  send  him  to  Siberia  for  so  short  a  time. 
If,  however,  a  prisoner's  crime  calls  for  a  more 
severe  punishment  than  four  years  of  confine- 
ment —  to  Siberia  he  goes. 

Between  the  years  1823  and  1887,  inclusive, 
there  were  sent  to  Siberia  772,979  exiles,  as 
follows  : 


From  1823  to  1832. 
From  1833  to  1842. 
From  1843  to  1852 
From  1853  to  1862. 
From  1863  to  1872. 
From  1873  to  1877. 

Total     

•   98.725 
86,550 
69,764 
.  101,238 
•  146,380 
•  91,257 

Bro't  forward  593,914 
In   1878  17,790 
In  1879    18,255 
In   1880                1  7.660 

In   1881  ... 
In  1882  .  .  . 
In   1883  ... 
In   1884    . 
In   1885  .  .  . 

.  •  •    1  7«  1  8"^ 

•    16,945 
19,314 
.  .    17,824 
•  •  '8,843 

593-9  '4 

In  1886  .  . 

.    17,477 

In   1887  .  .  . 

17.774 

Total* 


772,979 


Exiles  to  Siberia  may  be  grouped  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  their  sentences  into  three 
great  classes,  namely : 

I.  Katorzhniki,  or  hard-labor  convicts. 

II.  Poselentse,  or  penal  colonists. 

III.  Sylni,  or  persons  simply  banished. 

To  these  must  be  added  a  fourth  class,  com- 
posed of  women  and  children,  who  go  to  Si- 
beria voluntarily  with  their  exiled  husbands 
or  parents.  Criminals  belonging  to  the  first 
two  classes  are  deprived  of  all  civil  rights  and 
must  remain  in  Siberia  for  life.  Offenders  of 
the  third  class  retain  some  of  their  civil  rights 
and  may  return  to  European  Russia  at  the 
expiration  of  their  terms  of  banishment.  Con- 
victs and  penal  colonists  go  to  their  places 
of  destination  in  five-pound  leg-fetters  and 
with  half-shaven  heads,  while  simple  exiles 
wear  no  fetters  and  are  not  personally  dis- 
figured. Exiles  of  the  third  class  comprise 

*  The  statistics  of  exile  in  this  article  are  all  from  offi- 
cial sources,  as  are  also  the  facts,  unless  otherwise  stated. 

t  The  records  of  the  Bureau  of  Exile  Administration 
for  the  four  years  ending  with  the  year  of  my  visit  to 
Siberia  showed  that  the  numbers  and  percentages  of 
women  and  children  who  voluntarily  accompanied  their 
husbands  and  fathers  to  Siberia  were  as  follows : 


Percentage. 

31 
33 


Year. 
1882    . 

Whole  number 
of  exiles. 

16,041; 

Women  and 
children. 

c  276 

1883 

IQ,^14 

1884 

17.024 

188:    . 

18,841 

c  £76 

a.  Vagrants  (persons  without  passports  who 
refuse  to  disclose  their  identity). 

l>.   Persons  banished  by  sentence  of  a  court. 

c.  Persons   banished  by  the  village   com- 
munes to  which  they  belong. 

d.  Persons  banished  by  order  of  the  Minis- 
ter of  the  Interior. 

The  relative  proportions  of  these  several 
classes  for  1885,  the  year  that  I  spent  in  Sibe- 
ria, may  be  shown  in  tabular  form  as  follows : 


Penal  Class. 

Men. 

Women. 

Total. 

I. 

Hard-labor  convicts  [Kator-  \ 
zhniki],   punished  by  sen-  > 
tence  of  a  court  ) 

M40 

in 

'.55' 

11 

Penal  colonists  [Poselentse],  1 

punished  by  sentence  of  a  > 
court                                      J 

2,526 

'33 

2,659 

a.  Vagrants  

1,646 

73 

I.7IO 

b.   Exiled  by  judicial 

••/•y 

sentence  

172 

10 

182 

in. 

Exiles      c.    Exiled  by   village 

communes  

3.535 

216 

3.751 

d.   Exiled  by   execu- 
tive order  

300 

68 

368 

IV. 

Voluntaries  [Dobrovolni]  ac-  ? 
companying  relatives  > 

2,068 

3.468 

5.536 

Totals  

11,687 

4  »O70 

15.766 

*tv/y 

Totals 


72,926 


An  analysis  of  this  classified  statement  re- 
veals some  curious  and  suggestive  facts.  It 
shows  in  the  first  place  that  the  largest  single 
class  of  exiles  (5536  out  of  15,766)  is  com- 
posed of  women  and  children  who  go  to  Si- 
beria voluntarily  with  their  husbands  and 
fathers,  t  It  shows  in  the  second  place  that 
out  of  the  10,230  persons  sent  to  Siberia  as 
criminals  only  4392,  or  less  than  a  half, 
have  had  a  trial  by  a  court,  while  5838  are 
exiled  by  "  administration  process  "  —  that  is, 
by  a  mere  order  from  the  Ministry  of  the  In- 
terior.f  Finally,  it  shows  that  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  involuntary  exiles  (3751  out  of 
10,230)  were  sent  to  Siberia  by  the  village 
communes,  and  not  by  the  Government. 

Every  "  mir,"  or  village  commune,  in  Rus- 
sia has  the  right  to  banish  any  of  its  members 
who,  through  bad  conduct  or  general  worth- 

t  The  proportion  of  the  judicially  sentenced  to  the 
administratively  banished  varies  little  from  year  to  year. 
In  the  ten-year  period  from  1867  to  1876,  inclusive, 
there  were  sent  to  Siberia  151,585  exiles:  48.80  per 
cent,  went  under  sentences  of  courts,  and  51.20  per 
cent,  were  banished  by  administrative  process.  In  the 
seven-year  period  from  1880  to  1886,  inclusive,  there 
passed  through  the  Tiumen  forwarding  prison  120,065 
exiles,  of  whom  64, 5 13,  or  53. 7  percent.,  had  been  tried 
and  condemned  by  courts,  and  55,552,  or  46.3  per  cent., 
had  been  banished  by  orders  from  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior.  A  prison  reform  commission  appointed  by 
Alexander  II.  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  decade  re- 
ported that  on  an  average45.6  per  cent,  of  all  the  exiles 
sent  to  Siberia  went  under  sentences  of  courts,  and  54.4 
per  cent,  were  banished  by  administrative  process. 


i8o 


PLAINS  AND   PRISONS   OF    WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


TIUMEN    LABORERS     WAITING    FOR    WORK    ON     "  THE     HILL    OF     LAZINESS. 


lessness,  have  rendered  themselves  obnoxious 
to  their  fellow-citizens  and  burdensome  to  so- 
ciety. It  has  also  the  right  to  refuse  to  receive 
any  of  its  members  who,  after  serving  out  terms 
of  imprisonment  for  crime,  return  to  the  "  mir  " 
and  ask  to  be  re-admitted.  Released  prisoners 
whom  the  mir  will  not  thus  re-admit  are  exiled 
to  Siberia  by  administrative  process. 

The  political  exiles  who  are  sent  to  Siberia 
do  not  constitute  a  separate  penal  class  or 
grade,  but  are  distributed  among  all  of  the 
classes  above  mentioned.  Their  number  is 
much  smaller  than  it  is  generally  supposed  to 
be,  and  does  not,  I  think,  average  more  than 
about  150  a  year.  One  hundred  and  forty 
passed  through  the  Tiumen  forwarding  prison 
in  1884  and  sixty  in  1885  up  to  the  time  of 
my  visit.  Owing,  however,  to  the  fact  that  until 
recently  they  have  not  been  classed  as  "  politi- 
cals "  in  the  prison  records  and  in  official  re- 
ports, it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  exactly  what 
proportion  they  make  of  the  whole  number  of 

*  According  to  the  report  of  the  Tiumen  Bureau  of 
Exile  Transportation  for  1887,  there  were  sent  to  Si- 
beria in  that  year  165  political  exiles,  as  follows: 
Belonging  to  the  noble  class.          Other  non-privileged  classes. 

Men 50    Men 70 

Women 17    Women 18 

Children 4    Children    6 


Total 71        Total 


....  94 


exiles.  I  believe,  however,  that  one  per  cent, 
is  a  fair  estimate.*  Up  to  the  time  of  my  visit 
to  the  Tiumen  prison  I  had  not  seen  a  polit- 
ical ;  and  acting  upon  the  advice  of  friends  in 
St.  Petersburg,  I  was  very  careful  and  guarded 
in  making  inquiries  about  them. 


AN     EXILE     MARCHING     PARTY. 

ON  the  morning  after  our  first  visit  to  the 
Tinmen  forwarding  prison  we  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  the  departure  of  a  marching 
exile  party.  We  went  to  the  prison  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  a  sketch  or  a  photo- 
graph of  it,  but  happened  to  be  just  in  time 
to  see  a  party  of  360  men,  women,  and  children 
set  out  on  foot  for  Yalutorfsk.  Our  attention 
was  attracted  first  by  a  great  crowd  of  people 
standing  in  the  street  outside  the  prison  wall. 
As  we  drew  nearer,  the  crowd  resolved  itself 
into  a  hundred  or  more  women  and  children 
in  bright-colored  calico  gowns,  with  kerchiefs 
over  their  heads,  and  about  250  men  dressed 
in  the  gray  exile  costume,  all  standing  close 
together  in  a  dense  throng,  surrounded  by  a 
cordon  of  soldiers.  In  the  street  near  them 
were  fifteen  or  twenty  one-horse  telegas,  or 
small  four-wheeled  wagons,  some  piled  high 
with  the  gray  bags  in  which  exiles  carry  their 
spare  clothing  and  personal  property,  and 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS    OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 


some  filled  with  men,  women,  and  children,  who, 
by  reason  of  age,  weakness,  or  infirmity,  could 
not  walk.  It  seemed  surprising  to  me  that  any- 
body should  be  able  to  walk  after  a  week's  con- 
finement in  that  prison.  The  air  was  filled  with 
a  continuous  hum  of  voices  as  the  exiles  talked 
eagerly  with  one  another,  and  occasionally  we 


"  What  's  the  matter  with  her  ankle  ?  "  in- 
quired the  officer  impatiently,  looking  down  at 
the  child's  thin  bare  feet  and  legs. 

"  I  don't  know ;  she  says  it  hurts  her," 
replied  the  mother.  "  Please  let  her  ride,  for 
God's  sake!" 

"She  can't  ride,  I  tell  you — there  's  no 


X 


//X/VVVVTTI 


MEN  S    CAGIi,    CONVICT    KARGE  —  EXILES    BUYING    FOOD. 


could  hear  the  wail  of  a  sick  child  from  one  of 
the  telegas,  or  a  faint  jingle  of  chains  as  some 
of  the  men,  tired  of  standing,  changed  their 
positions  or  threw  themselves  on  the  ground. 
The  officer  in  charge  of  the  party,  a  heavily 
built  man  with  yellowish  side-whiskers,  light- 
blue  eyes,  and  a  hard,  unsympathetic  face, 
stood  near  the  telegas,  surrounded  by  women 
and  children,  begging  him  to  let  them  ride. 

"  Please  put  my  little  girl  in  a  wagon,"  said 

one  pale-faced  woman,  as  I  approached  the 

group.  "  She  is  n't  ten  years  old  and  she  has  a 

lame  ankle;  she  can  never  walk  thirty  versts." 

Vol..  XXXVI.— 26. 


room,"  said  the  officer,  still  more  impatiently. 
"  1  don't  believe  there  's  anything  the  matter 
with  her  ankle,  and  anybody  can  see  that  she  's 
more  than  twelve  years  old.  Stoopaitye!" 
["Move  on!"]  he  said  sternly  to  the  child; 
"you  can  pick  flowers  better  if  you  walk." 

The  mother  and  the  child  shrank  away  with- 
out a  word,  and  the  officer,  to  escape  further  im- 
portunities, shouted  the  order  to  "  Form  ranks ! " 
The  hum  of  conversation  suddenly  ceased ; 
there  was  a  jingling  of  chains  as  the  prisoners 
who  had  been  lying  on  the  ground  sprang  to 
theirfeet;  the  soldiers  of  the  guard  shouldered 


182 


PLAINS  AND  PRISONS 


their  rifles ;  the  exiles  crossed  themselves  de- 
voutly, bowing  in  the  direction  of  the  prison 
chapel ;  and  at  the  word  "  March  !  "  the  whole 
column  was  instantly  in  motion.  Three  or 
four  Cossacks,  in  dark-green  uniforms  and  with 
rifles  over  their  shoulders,  took  the  lead;  a 
dense  but  disorderly  throng  of  men  and  wo- 
men followed,  marching  between  thin,  broken 
lines  of  soldiers  ;  next  came  the  telegas  with 


OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 

THE     CONVICT     BARGE. 

HAVING  witnessed  the  departure  of  one  of 
the  marching  parties,  we  went  down  Saturday 
afternoon  to  the  steamer-landing  to  see  the 
embarkment  of  seven  hundred  exiles  for 
Tomsk.  The  convict  barge,  which  we  were 
permitted  to  inspect,  did  not  differ  much  in 
general  appearance  from  an  ordinary  ocean 


INSIDE    THE    UOMI  N  S    CAGE,    CONUCT    BARGE. 


the  old,  the  sick,  and  the  small  children;  then 
a  rear-guard  of  half  a  dozen  Cossacks;  and 
finally  four  or  five  wagons  piled  high  with 
gray  bags.  Although  the  road  was  soft  and 
muddy,  in  five  minutes  the  party  was  out  of 
sight.  The  last  sounds  I  heard  were  the  jing- 
ling of  chains  and  the  shouts  of  the  Cossacks 
to  the  children  to  keep  within  the  lines.  These 
exiles  were  nearly  all  penal  colonists  and  per- 
sonsbanished  by  Russian  communes,  and  were 
destined  for  towns  and  villages  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  province  of  Tobolsk. 


steamer,  except  that  it  drew  less  water  and 
had  no  rigging.  The  black  iron  hull  was  about 
220  feet  in  length  by  30  in  width,  pierced  by  a 
horizontal  line  of  small  rectangular  port-holes 
which  opened  into  the  sleeping-cabins  on  the 
lower  deck.  The  upper  deck  supported  two 
large  yellow  deck-houses  about  seventy-five 
feet  apart,  one  of  which  contained  three  or 
four  hospital  wards  and  a  dispensary,  and  the 
other,  quarters  for  the  officers  of  the  convoy 
and  a  few  cells  for  exiles  belonging  to  the 
noble  or  privileged  class.  The  space  between 


A   CONVICT    BARCB. 


€ 


IU1J 


_  LiJfll. 
'   fT'TTT, 


1  It.,    i.     I'l.AN   OF   CAGE-DECK. 

\.  Men's  cage  ;   B.  Women's  <ML'<   ;    <",  H", pii.il  «  <-lls  an<l  dispensary; 
I),  OmcorV  quarters  and  ct-lls  f*»r  |>rivil<-i;     II        ;   1  ,  (  ciok's galley. 


FIG.   2.    PLAN    OF    LOWER-PI  < 


F,  Cabin  for  hard-Ulmr  cnnvirts  (men  ;  ;  (i.  ("al>in  for  exiles  and  [>etial 

olumsti     men);   II.  Wnim-ii's  i  ahin  ;  a,  h,  N.  ires,  or  sleeping-platforms. 


FIG.  J.    TRANSVERSE    SECTION    OF   BARGE. 

D  D.  Deck-houses ;  G.  Sleeping-cabin :  a,  b.  Cross-section  of  sleeping- 
platforms. 


PLAINS  AND  PRISON*   OF   WESTERN  SIBERIA. 

the  deck-houses  was  roofed  over  and  inclosed 
on  each  side  by  a  coarse  net-work  of  heavy 
iron  wire,  so  as  to  make  a  cage  30  feet  wide 
and  75  feet  long,  where  the  prisoners  could 
walk  and  breathe  the  fresh  air.  This  cage, 
which  is  known  to  the  common  criminal  ex- 
ik-s  as  the  "chicken-coop,"  was  divided  by 
a  net- work  partition  into  two  compartments 
of  unequal  size,  the  smaller  of  which  was  in- 
tended for  the  women  and  children,  and  the 
larger  for  the  men.  Companion-ladders  led 
down  into  the  sleeping-cabins, of  which  there 
were  three  or  four,  varying  in  length  from  30 
to  60  feet,  with  a  uniform  width  of  30  feet  and 
a  height  of  about  7.  One  of  these  cabins  was 
occupied  by  the  women  and  children,  and  the 
others  were  given  up  to  the  men.  Through 
the  center  of  each  cabin  ran  longitudinally 
two  tiers  of  double  sleeping- platforms,  pre- 
cisely like  those  in  the  Tinmen  prison  kameras, 
upon  which  the  exiles  lay  athwart-ship  in  four 
closely  packed  rows,  with  their  heads  together 
over  the  line  of  the  keel.  Along  each  side  of 
the  barge  ran  two  more  tiers  of  nares,  upon 
which  the  prisoner!  lay  lengthwise  head  to 
feet,  in  rows  four  or  five  deep.  A  reference  to 
the  plan  and  section  of  the  barge  will,  I  think, 
render  this  description  of  the  interior  of  the 
sleeping-cabins  fairly  intelligible.  The  vessel 
had  been  thoroughly  cleaned  and  disinfected 
after  its  return  from  a  previous  trip  to  Tomsk, 
and  the  air  in  the  cabins  was  pure  and  sweet. 
The  barge  lay  at  a  floating  landing-stage 
of  the  type  with  which  we  had  become  familiar 
on  the  rivers  Volga  and  Kama,  and  access  to 
it  was  gained  by  means  of  a  zigzag  wooden 
bridge  sloping  down  to  it  from  the  high  bank 
of  the  river.  When  we  reached  the  landing,  a 
dense  throng  of  exiles,  about  one-third  of  whom 
were  women,  were  standing  on  the  bank  wait- 
ing to  embark.  They  were  surrounded  by  a 
cordon  of  soldiers,  as  usual,  and  non-commis- 
sioned officers  were  stationed  at  intervals  of 
20  or  30  feet  on  the  bridge  leading  down  to 
the  landing-stage.  I  persuaded  Colonel  Vin- 
okurof,  Inspector  of  Exile  Transportation 
for  western  Siberia,  to  delay  the  embarkment 
a  little,  in  order  that  we  might  take  photo- 
graphs of  the  exiles  and  the  barge.  As  soon 
as  this  had  been  accomplished  the  order  was 
given  to  "  Let  them  go  on  board,"  and  the 
prisoners,  shouldering  their  gray  bags,  walked 
one  by  one  down  the  sloping  bridge  to  the 
landing-stage.  More  than  three-fourths  of  the 
men  were  in  leg-fetters,  and  for  an  hour  there 
was  a  continuous  clanking  of  chains  as  the 
prisoners  passed  me  on  their  way  to  the  barge. 
The  exiles,  although  uniformly  clad  in  gray, 
presented,  from  an  ethnological  point  of  view, 
an  extraordinary  diversity  of  types,  having 
evidently  been  collected  from  all  parts  of  the 


7>v 


vast  empire.  There  were  fierce,  wild-looking 
mountaineers  from  Daghestan  and  Circassia, 
condemned  to  penal  servitude  for  murders  of 
blood-revenge ;  there  were  Tartars  from  the 
lower  Volga,  who  had  been  sunburned  until 
they  were  almost  as  black  as  negroes;  Turks 
from  the  Crimea,  whose  scarlet  fezzes  contrasted 
strangely  with  their  gray  convict  overcoats; 
crafty  looking  Jews  from  1'odolia,  going  into 
exile  for  smuggling;  and  finally,  common 
peasants  in  great  numbers  from  all  parts  of 
European  Russia.  The  faces  of  the  prisoners 
generally  were  not  as  hard,  vicious,  and  de- 
praved as  the  faces  of  criminals  in  America. 
Many  of  them  were  pleasant  and  good-hu- 
mored, some  were  fairly  intelligent,  and  even 
the  worst  seemed  to  me  stupid  and  brutish 
rather  than  savage  or  malignant.  At  last  all 
were  on  board;  the  sliding  doors  of  the  net- 
work cages  were  closed  and  secured  with 
heavy  padlocks,  and  a  regular  Russian  bazar 
opened  on  the  landing-stage.  Male  and  female 
peddlers  to  the  number  of  forty  or  fifty  were 
allowed  to  come  down  to  the  side  of  the  barge 
to  sell  provisions  to  the  prisoners,  most  of 
whom  seemed  to  be  in  possession  of  money. 
In  one  place  might  be  seen  a  half-grown  girl 
passing  hard-boiled  eggs  one  by  one  through 
the  interstices  of  the  net-work ;  in  another, 
a  gray-haired  old  woman  was  pouring  milk 
through  a  tin  tube  into  a  tea-pot  held  by  a  con- 
vict on  the  inside  of  the  cage ;  and  all  along  the 
barge  men  were  buying  or  bargaining  for  loaves 
of  black  rye-bread,  salted  cucumbers,  pretzels, 
and  fish  turn-overs.  The  peddlers  seemed  to 
have  perfect  trust  in  the  convicts,  and  often 
passed  in  food  to  them  before  they  had  re- 
ceived pay  for  it.  The  soldiers  of  the  guard, 


184 


INFINITE  DEPTHS. 


who  were  good-looking,  fresh-faced  young 
fellows,  facilitated  the  buying  and  selling  as 
far  as  possible  by  handing  in  the  provisions 
and  handing  out  the  money,  or  by  opening 
the  sliding  doors  for  the  admission  of  such 
bulky  articles  as  loaves  of  bread,  which  could 
not  be  passed  through  the  net-work. 

While  we  stood  looking  at  this  scene  of  busy 
traffic,  a  long-haired  Russian  priest  in  a  black 
gown  and  a  broad-brimmed  felt  hat  crossed  the 
landing-stage  and  entered  one  of  the  deck- 
houses, followed  by  an  acolyte  bearing  his 
robes  and  a  prayer-book.  In  a  few  moments, 
having  donned  his  ecclesiastical  vestments,  he 
entered  the  women's  cage,  with  a  smoking 
censer  in  one  hand  and  an  open  book  in  the 
other,  and  began  a  "  moleben,"  or  service  of 
prayer.  The  women  all  joined  devoutly  in 
the  supplications,  bowing,  crossing  themselves, 
kneeling,  and  even  pressing  their  foreheads  to 
the  deck.  The  priest  hurried  through  the  serv- 
ice, however,  in  a.  perfunctory  manner,  swung 
the  censer  back  and  forth  a  few  times  so  as  to 
fill  the  compartment  with  fragrant  smoke,  and 
then  went  into  the  men's  cage.  There  much 
less  interest  seemed  to  be  taken  in  the  services. 
The  convicts  and  soldiers  removed  their  caps, 
but  only  a  few  joined  in  the  prayer,  and  buy- 
ing and  selling  went  on  without  interruption 
all  along  the  side  of  the  barge.  The  deep- 
voiced  chanting  of  the  priest  mingling  with 
the  high-pitched  rattle  of  chains,  the  chaffer- 
ing of  peddlers,  and  the  shouting  of  orders  to 
soldiers  on  the  roof  of  the  cage  produced  a 
most  strange  and  incongruous  effect.  Finally, 
the  service  ended,  the  priest  took  off  his  vest- 


ments, wished  the  commanding  officer  of  the 
convoy  a  pleasant  voyage,  and  returned  to  the 
city,  while  Mr.  Frost  and  I  walked  back  and 
forth  on  the  landing-stage  studying  the  faces 
of  the  prisoners.  With  few  exceptions  the  lat- 
ter seemed  cheerful  and  happy,  and  in  all  parts 
of  the  cage  we  could  hear  laughter,  joking, 
and  animated  conversation.  Mr.  Frost  finally 
began  making  sketches  in  his  note-book  of 
some  of  the  more  striking  of  the  convict  types 
on  the  other  side  of  the  net-work.  This  soon 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  prisoners,  and 
amidst  great  laughter  and  merriment  they  be- 
gan dragging  forward  and  arranging,  in  what 
they  regarded  as  artistic  poses,  the  convicts 
whom  they  thought  most  worthy  of  an  artist's 
pencil.  Having  selected  a  subject,  they  would 
place  him  in  all  sorts  of  studiously  careless 
and  negligent  attitudes,  comb  and  arrange 
the  long  hair  on  the  unshaven  side  of  his  head, 
try  the  effect  of  a  red  fez  or  an  embroidered 
Tartar  cap,  and  then  shout  suggestions  and 
directions  to  the  artist.  This  arranging  of  fig- 
ures and  groups  for  Mr.  Frost  to  draw  seemed 
to  afford  them  great  amusement,  arid  was  ac- 
companied with  as  much  joking  and  laughter 
as  if  they  were  school-boys  off  for  a  picnic, 
instead  of  criminals  bound  for  the  mines. 

At  last,  just  after  sunset,  a  steamer  made 
fast  to  the  barge,  the  order  was  given  to  cast 
off  the  lines,  the  exiles  all  crowded  against  the 
net-work  to  take  a  parting  look  at  Tinmen, 
and  the  great  black  and  yellow  floating  prison 
moved  slowly  out  into  the  stream  and  began  its 
long  voyage  to  Tomsk. 

George  Kennan. 


INFINITE    DEPTHS. 

THE  little  pool,  in  street  or  field  apart, 
Glasses  the  heavens  and  the  rushing  storm ; 
And  into  the  silent  depths  of  every  heart 
The  Eternal  throws  its  awful  shadow-form. 


Charles  Edwin  Markham. 


MATTHEW     ARNOLD'S    CRITICISM. 


KADERS  who  know  Mat- 
thew Arnold  only  as  an 
occasional  contributor  to 
British  periodical  litera- 
ture, or  as  a  lecturer  dur- 
ing his  brief  tour  in  this 
country,  in  the  fall  and 
winter  of  1883-84,  will  do 
well,  before  they  make  up  their  minds  about 
him,  to  give  him  a  hearing  as  he  appears  in 
his  collected  works,  recently  published  by 
Macmillan  &  Co.  A  writer  who  has  a  dis- 
tinct and  well-defined  point  of  view  of  his 
own,  like  Arnold,  suffers  by  being  read  frag- 
mentarily,  or  by  the  single  essay  or  discourse. 
His  effect  is  cumulative ;  he  hits  a  good  many 
times  in  the  same  place,  and  his  work  as  a 
whole  makes  a  deeper  impression  than  any 
single  essay  of  his  would  seem  to  warrant. 
He  is  not  in  any  sense  one  of  those  random 
and  capricious  minds  that  often  cut  such  a 
brilliant  figure  in  periodical  literature,  but  the 
distinguishing  thing  about  him  is  that  he 
stands  for  a  definite  and  well-grounded  idea 
or  principle,  an  idea  which  gives  a  certain 
unity  and  simplicity  to  his  entire  work.  The 
impression  that  a  fragmentary  and  desultory 
reading  of  Arnold  is  apt  to  give  one,  namely, 
that  he  is  one  of  the  scorners,  a  man  of  "a 
high  look,  and  a  proud  heart,"  gradually  wears 
away  as  one  grows  familiar  with  the  main 
currents  of  his  teachings.  He  docs  not  indeed 
turn  out  to  be  a  large,  hearty,  magnetic  man, 
but  he  proves  to  be  a  thoroughly  serious  and 
noble  one,  whose  calmness  and  elevation  are 
of  great  value.  His  writings,  as  now  published, 
in  a  uniform  edition,  embrace  ten  volumes, 
to  wit:  two  volumes  of  poems;  two  volumes 
of  literary  essays,  "  Essays  in  Criticism" 
and  a  volume  made  up  of  "  Celtic  Literature  " 
and  •'  On  Translating  Homer  ";  a  volume  of 
mixed  essays,  mainly  on  Irish  themes;  a 
volume  called  "  Culture  and  Anarchy  "  and 
"  Friendship's  Garland,"  mainly  essays  in  po- 
litical and  social  criticism;  three  volumes  of 
religious  criticism,  namely,  "  Literature  and 
Dogma,"  "God  and  the  Bible,"  and  "St. 
Paul  and  Protestantism  "  with  "  Last  Essays," 
and  one  volume  of"  Discourses  in  America." 
Of  this  body  of  work  the  eight  volumes  of 
prose  are  pure  criticism,  and  by  criticism,  when 
applied  to  Arnold,  we  must  mean  the  scien- 
tific passion  for  pure  truth,  the  passion  for 
seeing  the  thing  exactly  as  it  is  carried  into 
all  fields.  "  I  wish  to  decide  nothing  as  of  my 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 27. 


own  authority,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  earlier 
essays  ;  "  the  great  art  of  criticism  is  to  get 
one's  self  out  of  the  way  and  to  let  humanity 
decide."  "  A  free  play  of  mind  "  is  a  frequent 
phrase  with  him,  and  well  describes  much  of 
his  own  criticism.  He  would  play  the  role  of 
a  disinterested  observer.  Apropos  of  his  po- 
litical and  social  criticisms,  he  says : 

I  do  not  profess  to  be  a  politician,  but  simply  one 
of  a  disinterested  class  of  observers,  who,  with  no  or- 
ganized and  embodied  set  of  supporters  to  please, 
set  themselves  to  observe  honestly  and  to  report  faith- 
fully the  state  and  prospects  of  our  civilization. 

He  urges-that  criticism  in  England  has  been 
too  "  directly  polemical  and  controversial  "  ; 
that  it  has  been  made  to  subserve  interests  not 
its  own ;  the  interest  of  party,  of  a  sect,  of  a 
theory,  or  of  some  practical  and  secondary  con- 
sideration. His  own  effort  has  been  to  restore 
it  to  its  "  pure  intellectual  sphere  "  and  to  keep 
its  high  aim  constantly  before  him,  "  which  is 
to  keep  man  from  a  self-satisfaction  which  is 
retarding  and  vulgarizing;  to  lead  him  towards 
perfection,  by  making  his  mind  dwell  upon 
what  is  excellent  in  itself,  and  the  absolute 
beauty  and  fitness  of  things." 

The  spirit  in  which  he  approaches  Butler's 
"  Analogy "  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  spirit  in 
which  he  approaches  most  of  his  themes : 

Elsewhere  I  have  remarked  what  advantage  But- 
ler had  against  the  Deists  of  his  own  time,  in  the  line 
of  argument  which  he  chose.  But  how  does  his  argu- 
ment in  itself  stand  the  scrutiny  of  one  who  has  no 
counter-thesis,  such  as  that  of  the  Deists,  to  make  good 
against  Butler?  How  does  it  affect  one  who  has  no 
wish  at  all  to  doubt  or  cavil,  like  the  loose  wits  of  fash- 
ionable society  who  angered  Butler,  still  less  any  wish 
to  mock,  but  who  comes  to  the  "  Analogy  "  with  an 
honest  desire  to  receive  from  it  anything  which  he  finds 
he  can  use  ? 

Arnold  is  preeminently  a  critical  force,  a 
force  of  clear  reason  and  of  steady  discern- 
ment. He  is  not  an  author  whom  we  read  for 
the  man's  sake  or  for  the  flavor  of  his  person- 
ality, for  this  is  not  always  agreeable,  but  for 
his  unfailing  intelligence  and  critical  acumen ; 
and  because,  to  borrow  a  sentence  of  Goethe, 
he  helps  us  to  "  attain  certainty  and  security 
in  the  appreciation  of  things  exactly  as  they 
are."  Everywhere  in  his  books  we  are  brought 
under  the  influence  of  a  mind  which  indeed 
does  not  fill  and  dilate  us,  but  which  clears  our 
vision,  which  sets  going  a  process  of  crystal- 
lization in  our  thoughts,  and  brings  our  knowl- 
edge, on  a  certain  range  of  subjects,  to  a  higher 
state  of  clearness  and  purity. 


i86 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


Let  us  admit  that  he  is  not  a  man  to  build 
upon  ;  he  is  in  no  sense  a  founder ;  he  lacks 
the  broad,  paternal,  sympathetic  human  ele- 
ment that  the  first  order  of  men  possess.  He 
lays  the  emphasis  upon  the  more  select,  high- 
bred qualities.  All  his  sympathies  are  with  the 
influences  which  make  for  correctness,  for  dis- 
cipline, for  taste,  for  perfection,  rather  than 
those  that  favor  power,  freedom,  originality, 
individuality,  and  the  more  heroic  and  primary 
qualities.  The  more  vital  and  active  forces  of 
English  literature  of  our  century  have  been 
mainly  forces  of  expansion  and  revolution,  or 
Protestant  forces ;  our  most  puissant  voices 
have  been  voices  of  dissent,  and  have  been  a 
stimulus  to  individuality,  separatism,  and  to 
independence.  But  here  is  a  voice  of  another 
order ;  a  voice  closely  allied  to  the  best  spirit 
of  Catholicism ;  one  from  which  we  will  not 
learn  hero-worship,  or  Puritanism,  or  non-con- 
formity,  or  catch  the  spark  of  enthusiasm,  or  rev- 
olution, but  from  which  we  learn  the  beauty  of 
urbanity,  and  the  value  of  clear  and  fresh  ideas. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  get  at  Arnold's  point  of 
view ;  it  is  stated  or  implied  in  nearly  every 
page  of  his  works.  It  is  the  point  of  view  of 
Greek  culture  and  Greek  civilization.  From 
this  ground  the  whole  body  of  his  critical  work, 
religious,  political,  and  literary,  is  launched. 
His  appeal  is  constantly  made  to  the  classic 
type  of  mind  and  character. 

He  divides  the  forces  that  move  the  world 
into  two  grand  divisions  —  Hellenism  and  He- 
braism, the  Greek  idea  and  the  Jewish  idea, 
the  power  of  intellect  and  the  power  of  con- 
science. "  The  uppermost  idea  with  Hellenism 
is  to  see  things  as  they  really  are ;  the  upper- 
most idea  with  Hebraism  is  conduct  and 
obedience.  Nothing  can  do  away  with  this 
ineffaceable  difference.  The  Greek  quarrel 
with  the  body  and  its  desires  is  that  they  hin- 
der right  thinking  ;  the  Hebrew  quarrel  with 
them  is  that  they  hinder  right  acting."  "An 
unclouded  clearness  of  mind,  an  unimpeded 
play  of  thought,"  is  the  aim  of  the  one  ;  "strict- 
ness of  conscience,"  fidelity  to  principle,  is 
the  mainspring  of  the  other.  As,  in  this  classi- 
fication, Carlyle  would  stand  for  unmitigated 
Hebraism,  so  Arnold  himself  stands  for  pure 
Hellenism;  as  the  former's  Hebraism  upon 
principle  was  backed  up  by  the  Hebraic  type 
of  mind,  its  grandeur,  its  stress  of  conscience, 
its  opulent  imagination,  its  cry  for  judgment 
and  justice,  etc.,  so  Arnold's  conviction  of  the 
superiority  of  Hellenism  as  a  remedy  for  mod- 
ern ills  is  backed  up  by  the  Hellenic  type  of 
mind,  its  calmness,  its  lucidity,  its  sense  of 
form  and  measure.  Indeed,  Arnold  is  prob- 
ably the  purest  classic  writer  that  English  lit- 
erature, as  yet,  has  to  show ;  classic  not  merely 
in  the  repose  and  purity  of  his  style,  but  in 


the  unity  and  simplicity  of  his  mind.  What 
primarily  distinguishes  the  antique  mind  from 
the  modern  mind  is  its  more  fundamental 
singleness  and  wholeness.  It  is  not  marked 
by  the  same  specialization  and  development 
on  particular  lines.  Our  highly  artificial  and 
complex  modern  life  leads  to  separatism ;  to 
not  only  a  division  of  labor,  but  almost  to  a 
division  of  man  himself.  With  the  ancients, 
religion  and  politics,  literature  and  sciences, 
poetry  and  prophecy,  were  one.  These  things 
had  not  yet  been  set  apart  from  each  other  and 
differentiated.  When  to  this  we  add  vital  unity 
and  simplicity,  the  love  of  beauty,  and  the 
sense  of  measure  and  proportion,  we  have » 
the  classic  mind  of  Greece,  and  the  secret  of 
the  power  and  charm  of  those  productions 
which  have  so  long  ruled  supreme  in  the  world 
of  literature  and  art.  Arnold's  mind  has  this 
classic  unity  and  wholeness.  With  him  relig- 
ion, politics,  literature,  and  science  are  one, 
and  that  one  is  comprehended  under  the  name 
of  culture.  Culture  means  the  perfect  and 
equal  development  of  man  on  all  sides. 

"  Culture."  he  says,  giving  vent  to  his  Hel- 
lenism, "  is  of  like  spirit  with  poetry,  follows 
one  law  with  poetry" ;  the  dominant  idea  of 
poetry  is  "  the  idea  of  beauty  and  of  a  human 
nature  perfect  in  all  its  sides  "  ;  this  idea  is  the 
Greek  idea.  "  Human  life,"  he  says,  "  in  the 
hands  of  Hellenism,  is  invested  with  a  kind 
of  aerial  ease,  clearness,  and  radiancy ;  it  is 
full  of  what  we  call  sweetness  and  light." 
"The  best  art  and  poetry  of  the  Greeks,"  he 
says,  "  in  which  religion  and  poetry  are  one, 
in  which  the  idea  of  beauty  and  of  human 
nature  perfect  on  all  sides  adds  to  itself  a  re- 
ligious and  devout  energy,  and  works  in  the 
strength  of  that,  is  on  this  account  of  such 
surpassing  interest  and  instructiveness  for  us." 
But  Greece  failed  because  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious fiber  in  humanity  was  not  braced  and 
developed  also. 

But  Greece  did  not  err  in  having  the  idea  of  beauty, 
harmony,  and  complete  human  perfection  so  present 
and  paramount.  It  is  impossible  to  have  this  idea  too 
present  and  paramount ;  only,  the  moral  fiber  must 
be  braced  too.  And  we,  because  we  have  braced  the 
moral  fiber,  are  not  on  that  account  in  the  right  way, 
if  at  the  same  time  the  idea  of  beauty,  harmony,  and 
complete  human  perfection  is  wanting  or  misappre- 
hended amongst  us;  and  evidently  it  is  wanting  or 
misapprehended  at  present.  And  when  we  rely,  as 
we  do,  on  our  religious  organizations,  which  in  them- 
selves do  not  and  can  not  give  us  this  idea,  and  think 
we  have  done  enough  if  we  make  them  spread  and 
prevail,  then  I  say  we  fall  into  our  common  fault  of 
overvaluing  machinery. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  Greek  culture, 
and  the  ideal  of  Greek  life,  there  is  perhaps 
very  little  in  the  achievements  of  the  English 
race,  or  in  the  ideals  which  it  cherishes,  that 
would  not  be  pronounced  the  work  of  barba- 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITfCIS.ir. 


187 


nans.  From  the  Apollonarian  standpoint  Chris- 
tianity itself,  with  its  war  upon  our  natural  in- 
stincts, is  a  barbarous  religion.  But  no  born 
Hellene  from  the  age  of  Pericles  could  pro- 
nounce a  severer  judgment  upon  the  Eng- 
land of  to-day  than  Arnold  has  in  his  famous 
classification  of  his  countrymen  into  Barbari- 
ans, Philistines,  and  Populace,  an  upper  class 
materialized,  a  middle  class  vulgarized,  and  a 
lower  class  brutalized.  Arnold  has  not  the 
Hellenic  joyousness,  youthfulness,  and  spon- 
taneity. His  is  a  "  sad  lucidity  of  soul," 
whereas  the  Greek  had  a  joyous  lucidity  of 
soul.  "  O  Solon,  Solon ! "  said  the  priest  of 
Egypt,  "  you  Greeks  are  always  children." 
But  the  Englishman  has  the  Greek  passion  for 
symmetry,  totality,  and  the  Hellenic  abhor- 
rence of  the  strained,  the  fantastic,  the  obscure. 
His  are  not  merely  the  classical  taste  and  predi- 
lections of  a  scholar,  but  of  an  alert,  fearless, 
and  thorough-going  critic  of  life ;  a  man  who 
dare  lay  his  hands  on  the  British  constitution 
itself  and  declare  that  "  with  its  compromises, 
its  love  of  facts,  its  horror  of  theory,  its  studied 
avoidance  of  clear  thought,  it  sometimes  looks 
a  colossal  machine  for  the  manufacture  of 
Philistines."  Milton  was  swayed  by  the  Greek 
ideals  in  his  poetry,  but  they  took  no  vital  hold 
of  his  life;  his  Puritanism  and  his  temper  in  his 
controversial  writings  are  the  furthest  possible 
remove  from  the  serenity  and  equipoise  of  the 
classic  standards.  But  Arnold,  a  much  less 
poetic  force  certainly  than  Milton,  is  animated 
by  the  spirit  of  Hellenism  on  all  occasions ;  it 
is  the  shaping  and  inspiring  spirit  of  his  life. 
It  is  not  a  dictum  with  him,  but  a  force.  Yet 
his  books  are  thoroughly  of  to-day,  thoroughly 
occupied  with  current  men  and  measures,  and 
covered  with  current  names  and  allusions. 

Arnold's  Hellenism  speaks  very  pointedly  all 
through  "  Culture  and  Anarchy,"  in  all  those 
assaults  of  his  upon  the  "  hideousness  and  raw- 
ness" of  so  much  of  British  civilization,  upon 
the  fierceness  and  narrowness,  the  Jacobinism 
of  parties,  upon  "  the  Dissidence  of  Dissent, 
and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion "  ;  in  his  efforts  to  divest  the  mind  of 
all  that  is  harsh,  uncouth,  impenetrable,  ex- 
clusive, self-willed,  one-sided ;  in  his  efforts 
to  render  it  more  flexible,  tolerant,  free,  lucid, 
with  less  faith  in  individuals  and  more  faith  in 
principles.  They  speak  in  him  when  he  calls 
Luther  a  Philistine  of  genius;  when  he  says 
of  the  mass  of  his  countrymen  that  they  have 
"  a  defective  type  of  religion,  a  narrow  range 
of  intellect  and  knowledge,  a  stunted  sense 
of  beauty,  a  low  standard  of  manner";  that 
"  Puritanism  was  a  prison  which  the  English 
people  entered  and  had  the  key  turned  upon 
its  spirit  there  for  two  hundred  years";  when 
he  tells  the  dissenters  that  in  preferring  their 


religious  service  to  that  of  the  established 
church  they  have  shown  a  want  of  taste  and 
of  culture  like  that  of  preferring  Eliza  Cook 
to  Milton.  "  A  public  rite  with  a  reading  of 
Milton  attached  to  it  is  another  thing  from  a 
public  rite  with  a  reading  from  Eliza  Cook." 
His  ideas  of  poetry  as  expressed  in  the 
preface  to  his  poems  in  1853  are  distinctly 
Greek,  and  they  led  him  to  exclude  from  the 
collection  his  long  poem  called  "  Empedodes 
on  Etna,"  because  the  poem  was  deficient  in 
the  classic  requirements  of  action.  He  says  : 

The  radical  difference  between  tlie  poetic  theory 
of  the  Greeks  and  our  own  is  this:  that  with  them 
the  poetical  character  of  the  action  in  itself,  and  the 
concfuct  of  it,  was  the  first  consideration ;  with  us  at- 
tention is  fixed  mainly  on  the  value  of  the  separate 
thoughts  and  images  which  occur  in  the  treatment  of 
an  action.  They  regarded  the  whole ;  we  regard  the 
parts.  We  have  poems  which  seem  to  exist  merely  for 
the  sake  of  single  lines  and  passages,  not  for  the  sake 
of  producing  any  total  impression.  We  have  critics 
who  seem  to  direct  their  attention  merely  to  detached 
expressions,  to  the  language  about  the  action,  not  to 
the  action  itself.  I  verily  think  that  the  majority  of 
them  do  not  in  their  hearts  believe  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  total  impression  to  be  derived  from  a  poem 
at  all,  or  to  be  demanded  from  a  poet ;  they  think  the 
term  a  commonplace  of  metaphysical  criticism.  They 
will  permit  the  poet  to  select  any  action  he  pleases,  and 
to  suffer  that  action  to  go  as  it  will,  provided  he  grat- 
ifies them  with  occasional  bursts  of  fine  writing,  and 
with  a  shower  of  isolated  thoughts  and  images.  That 
is,  they  permit  him  to  leave  their  poetical  sense  un- 
gratified,  provided  that  he  gratifies  their  rhetorical  sense 
and  their  curiosity. 

Here  we  undoubtedly  have  the  law  as  de- 
ducible  from  the  Greek  poets,  and  perhaps  as 
deducible  from  the  principles  of  perfect  taste 
itself.  Little  wonder  Arnold  found  Emerson's 
poems  so  unsatisfactory, —  Emerson,  the  most 
unclassical  of  poets,  with  no  proper  sense  of 
wholeness  at  all,  no  continuity,  no  power  to 
deal  with  actions.  Emerson  has  great  project- 
ile power,  but  no  constructive  power.  His 
aim  was  mainly  to  shoot  a  thought  or  an  im- 
age on  a  line  like  a  meteor  athwart  the  imagi- 
nation of  his  reader,  to  kindle  and  quicken 
his  feeling  for  beautiful  and  sublime  truths. 
Valuable  as  these  things  are,  it  is  to  be  ad- 
mitted that  those  poems  that  are  concrete 
wholes,  like  the  organic  products  of  nature, 
will  always  rank  the  higher  with  a  pure  artistic 
taste. 

Whatever  be  our  opinion  of  the  value  of 
his  criticism,  we  must  certainly  credit  Arnold 
with  a  steady  and  sincere  effort  to  see  things 
whole,  to  grasp  the  totality  of  life,  all  the  parts 
duly  subordinated  and  brought  into  harmony 
with  one  another.  His  watch-word  on  all 
occasions  is  totality,  or  perfection.  He  has 
shown  us  the  shortcomings  of  Puritanism,  of 
Liberalism,  and  of  all  forms  of  religious  dis- 
sent, when  tried  by  the  spirit  of  Hellenism.  We 
have  been  made  to  see  very  clearly  wherein 


i88 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


John  Bull  is  not  a  Greek,  and  we  can  divine 
the  grounds  of  his  irritation  by  the  compar- 
ison. It  is  because  the  critic  could  look  in 
the  face  of  his  great  achievement  in  the  world 
and  blame  him  for  being  John  Bull.  The 
concession  that  after  all  he  at  times  in  his 
history  exhibited  the  grand  style,  the  style  of 
the  Homeric  poems,  was  a  compliment  he  did 
not  appreciate. 

English  civilization, —  the  humanizing,  the  bringing 
into  one  harmonious  and  truly  human  life  of  the 
whole  body  of  English  society, —  that  is  what  interests 
me.  I  try  to  be  a  disinterested  observer  of  all  which 
really  helps  and  hinders  that. 

He  recognizes  four  principal  needs  in  the 
life  of  every  people  and  community — the  need 
of  conduct,  the  need  of  beauty,  the  need  of 
knowledge,  and  the  need  of  social  life  and 
manners.  The  English  have  the  sense  of  the 
power  of  conduct,  the  Italians  the  sense  of 
the  power  of  beauty,  the  Germans  the  sense 
of  the  power  of  knowledge  or  science,  the 
French  the  sense  of  the  power  of  social  life 
and  manners.  All  these  things  are  needed 
for  our  complete  humanization  or  civilization; 
the  ancient  Greeks  came  nearer  possessing  the 
whole  of  them,  and  of  moving  on  all  these 
lines,  than  any  other  people.  The  ground  of 
his  preference  for  the  historic  churches,  the 
Catholic  and  the  Anglican,  over  the  dissent- 
ing churches  is  that,  while  they  all  have  a 
false  philosophy  of  religion,  the  former  ad- 
dress themselves  to  more  needs  of  human  life 
than  the  latter. 

The  need  for  beauty  is  a  real  and  now  rapidly  grow- 
ing need  in  man ;  Puritanism  cannot  satisfy  it ;  Cathol- 
icism and  the  English  Church  can.  The  need  for 
intellect  and  knowledge  in  him,  indeed,  neither  Puri- 
tanism, nor  Catholicism,  nor  the  English  Church  can 
at  present  satisfy.  That  need  has  to  seek  satisfaction 
nowadays  elsewhere, —  through  the  modern  spirit, 
science,  literature. 

He  avers  that  Protestantism  has  no  intel- 
lectual superiority  over  Catholicism,  but  only 
a  moral  superiority  arising  from  greater  seri- 
ousness and  earnestness.  Neither  have  the 
Greek  wholeness  and  proportion.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  one  towards  the  Bible  is  as  unrea- 
soning as  the  attitude  of  the  other  towards 
the  Church. 

The  mental  habit  of  him  who  imagines  that  Balaam's 
ass  spoke,  in  no  respect  differs  from  the  mental  habit 
of  him  who  imagines  that  a  Madonna,  of  wood  or 
stone,  winked. 

The  most  that  can  be  claimed  for  each  sect, 
each  church,  each  party  is  that  it  is  free  from 
some  special  bondage  which  still  confines  the 
mind  of  some  other  sect  or  party.  Those,  in- 
deed, are  free  whom  the  truth  makes  free  ;  but 
each  sect  and  church  has  only  a  fragment  of 
the  truth,  a  little  here  and  a  little  there.  Both 


Catholic  and  Protestant  have  the  germ  of 
religion,  and  both  have  a  false  philosophy  of 
the  germ. 

But  Catholicism  has  the  germ  invested  in  an  im- 
mense poetry,  the  gradual  work  of  time  and  nature,  and 
of  that  great  impersonal  artist,  Catholic  Christendom. 

The  unity  or  identity  of  literature  and  re- 
ligion, as  with  the  Greeks  —  this  is  the  ani- 
mating idea  of  "  Literature  and  Dogma."  In 
this  work  Arnold  brings  his  Hellenism  to  bear 
upon  the  popular  religion  and  the  dogmatic 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  upon  which  the 
churches  rest;  and  the  result  is  that  we  get 
from  him  a  literary  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  a 
free  and  plastic  interpretation,  as  distinguished 
from  the  hard,  literal,  and  historical  interpre- 
tation. He  reads  the  Bible  as  literature,  and 
not  as  history  or  science.  He  seeks  its  verifi- 
cation in  an  appeal  to  taste,  to  the  simple 
reason,  to  the  fitness  of  things.  He  finds  that 
the  Biblical  writers  used  words  in  a  large  and 
free  way,  in  a  fluid  and  literary  way,  and  not  at 
all  with  the  exactness  and  stringency  of  science 
or  mathematics;  or,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
said  of  his  own  works,  that  many  things  are 
to  be  taken  in  a  "  soft  and  flexible  sense." 

In  other  words,  the  aim  of  Arnold's  religious 
criticism  is  to  rescue  what  he  calls  the  natural 
truth  of  Christianity  from  the  discredit  and 
downfall  which  he  thinks  he  sees  overtaking 
its  unnatural  truth,  its  reliance  upon  miracles 
and  the  preternatural.  The  ground,  he  says, 
is  slipping  from  under  these  things  ;  the  time 
spirit  is  against  them,  and  unless  something  is 
done  the  very  heart  and  core  of  Christianity 
itself,  as  found  in  the  teachings  of  Christ,  will 
be  lost  to  the  mass  of  mankind.  But  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  how  Christianity,  as  a  people's 
religion,  can  be  preserved  by  its  natural  or  veri- 
fiable truth  alone.  This  natural  truth  the  world 
has  always  had;  it  bears  the  same  relation  to 
Christianity  that  the  primary  and  mineral  ele- 
ments bear  to  a  living  organism;  what  is  dis- 
tinctive and  valuable  in  Christianity  is  the 
incarnation  of  these  truths  in  a  living  system 
of  beliefs  and  observances  which  not  only 
take  hold  of  men's  minds  but  which  move 
their  hearts. 

We  may  extract  the  natural  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity, a  system  of  morality  or  of  ethics,  and 
to  certain  minds  this  is  enough ;  but  it  is  no 
more  Christianity  than  the  extract  of  lilies  or 
roses  is  a  flower-garden.  "  Religion,"  Arnold 
well  says,  "  is  morality  touched  with  emotion." 
It  is  just  this  element  of  emotion  which  we 
should  lose  if  we  reduced  Christianity  to  its 
natural  truths.  Show  a  man  the  natural  or 
scientific  truth  of  answer  to  prayer,  that  is, 
that  answer  to  prayer  is  a  purely  subjective  phe- 
nomenon, and  his  lips  are  sealed;  teach  him 
the  natural  truth  of  salvation  by  Jesus  Christ, 


MATTHEW  AK.\Ol.irS   CRITICISM. 


189 


namely,  that  self-renunciation,  that  love,  that 
meekness,  that  dying  for  others,  is  saving,  ami 
the  emotion  evaporates  from  his  religion. 

Another  form  which  Arnold's  Hellenism 
takes  is  that  it  begets  in  him  what  we  may 
call  the  spirit  of  institutionalism,  as  opposed 
to  the  spirit  of  individualism.  Greek  culture 
centers  in  institutions,  and  the  higli  character 
of  their  literary  and  artistic  productions  was 
the  expression  of  qualities  which  did  not 
merely  belong  to  individuals  here  and  there, 
but  were  current  in  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
With  the  Greek  the  state  was  supreme.  He 
lived  and  died  for  the  state.  He  had  no  pri- 
vate, separate  life  and  occupation,  as  has  the 
modern  man.  The  arts,  architecture,  sculpt- 
ure, existed  mainly  for  public  uses.  There  was 
probably  no  domestic  life,  no  country  life,  no 
individual  enterprises,  as  we  know  them.  The 
individual  was  subordinated.  Their  greatest 
men  were  banished  or  poisoned  from  a  sort 
of  jealousy  of  the  state.  The  state  could  not 
endure  such  rivals.  Their  games,  their  pas- 
times, were  national  institutions.  Public  senti- 
ment on  all  matters  was  clear  and  strong. 
There  was  a  common  standard,  an  unwritten 
law  of  taste,  to  which  poets,  artists,  orators, 
appealed.  Not  till  Athens  began  to  decay  did 
great  men  appear,  who,  like  Socrates,  had  no 
influence  in  the  state.  This  spirit  of  institu- 
tionalism is  strong  in  Matthew  Arnold ;  and 
it  is  not  merely  an  idea  which  he  has  picked 
up  from  the  Greek,  but  is  the  inevitable  out- 
cropping of  his  inborn  Hellenism.  This  alone 
places  him  in  opposition  to  his  countrymen, 
who  are  suspicious  of  the  state  and  of  state 
action,  and  who  give  full  swing  to  the  spirit 
of  individualism.  It  even  places  him  in  hos- 
tility to  Protestantism,  or  to  the  spirit  which 
begat  it,  to  say  nothing  of  the  dissenting 
churches.  It  makes  him  indifferent  to  the  ele- 
ment of  personalism,  the  flavor  of  character, 
the  quality  of  unique  individual  genius,  wher- 
ever found  in  art,  literature,  or  religion.  It  is 
one  secret  of  his  preference  of  the  establish- 
ment over  the  dissenting  churches.  The  dis- 
senter stands  for  personal  religion,  religion  as 
a  private  and  individual  experience;  the  es- 
tablished churches  stand  for  institutional  re- 
ligion, or  religion  as  a  public  and  organi/.ed 
system  of  worship  ;  and  when  the  issue  is  be- 
tween the  two,  Arnold  will  always  be  found  on 
the  side  of  institutionalism.  He  always  takes  up 
for  the  state  against  the  individual,  for  public 
and  established  forms  against  private  and  per- 
sonal dissent  and  caprice.  "  It  was  by  no  means 
in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  the  Hellenes," 
says  Dr.  Curtius, "  mentally  to  separate  and  view- 
in  the  light  of  contrast  such  institutions  as  the 
state  anil  religion,  which,  in  reality,  everywhere 
most  intimately  pervaded  one  another." 


What  Arnold  found  to  approve  in  this  coun- 
try was  our  institutions,  our  success  in  solving 
the  social  and  political  problems,  and  what  he 
found  to  criticise  was  our  excessive  individu- 
alism, our  self-glorification,  the  bad  manners 
of  our  newspapers,  and,  in  general,  the  crude 
state  of  our  civilization. 

One  would  expect  Arnold  to  prefer  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Old  Testament  to  that  of  the  New, 
for,  as  he  himself  says  :  "  The  leaning,  there, 
is  to  make  religion  social  rather  than  personal, 
an  affair  of  outward  duties  rather  than  of  in- 
ward dispositions";  and,  to  a  disinterested  ob- 
server, this  is  very  much  like  what  the  religion 
of  the  Anglican  Church  appears  to  be. 

Arnold  always  distrusts  the  individual;  he 
sees  in  him  mainly  a  bundle  of  whims  and 
caprices.  The  individual  is  one-sided,  fantas- 
tical, headstrong,  narrow.  He  distrusts  all 
individual  enterprises  in  the  way  of  schools, 
colleges,  churches,  charities;  and,  like  his 
teacher,  Aristotle,  pleads  for  state  action  in  all 
these  matters.  "  Culture,"  he  says  (and  by 
culture  he  means  Hellenism),  "  will  not  let  us 
rivet  our  attention  upon  any  one  man  and  his 
doings";  it  directs  our  attention  rather  to  the 
"  natural  current  there  is  in  human  affairs,"  and 
assigns  "  to  systems  and  to  system  makers  a 
smaller  share  in  the  bent  of  human  destiny 
than  their  friends  like." 

I  remember,  when  I  was  under  the  influence  of  a  mind 
to  which  I  feel  the  greatest  obligations,  the  mind  of  a 
man  who  was  the  very  incarnation  of  sanity  and  clear 
sense,  a  man  the  most  considerable,  it  seems  to  me, 
whom  America  has  yet  produced, —  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin,—  I  remember  the  relief  with  which,  after  long 
feeling  the  sway  of  Franklin's  imperturbable  com- 
mon sense,  I  came  upon  a  project  of  his  for  a  new 
version  of  the  Book  of  Job,  to  replace  the  old  version, 
the  style  of  which,  says  Franklin,  has  become  obsolete, 
and  hence  less  agreeable.  "  I  give,"  he  continues,  "  a 
few  verses,  which  may  serve  as  a  sample  of  the  kind 
of  version  I  would  recommend."  We  all  recollect  the 
famous  verse  in  our  translation:  "Then  Satan  an- 
swered the  Lord,  and  said,  Doth  Job  fear  God  for 
nought?"  Franklin  makes  this  :  "  Does  your  Majesty 
imagine  that  Job's  good  conduct  is  the  effect  of  mere 
personal  attachment  and  affection  ?  "  I  well  remember 
how,  when  first  I  read  that,  I  drew  a  deep  breath  of 
relief,  and  said  to  myself:  "After  all,  there  is  a  stretch 
of  humanity  beyond  Franklin's  victorious  good  sense!  " 
So,  after  hearing  Bentham  cried  loudly  up  as  the  reno- 
vator of  modern  society,  and  Bentham's  mind  and 
ideas  proposed  as  the  rulers  of  our  future,  I  open  the 
"  Deontology."  There  I  read  :  "  While  Xenophon  was 
writing  his  history  and  Kuclid  teaching  geometry,  Soc- 
rates and  Plato  were  talking  nonsense  under  pretense 
of  talking  wisdom  and  morality.  This  morality  of  theirs 
consisted  in  words  ;  this  wisdom  of  theirs  was  the  de- 
nial of  matters  known  to  every  man's  experience." 
From  the  moment  of  reading  that,  I  am  delivered  from 
the  bondage  of  Bentham !  the  fanaticism  of  his  adher- 
ents can  touch  me  no  longer.  I  feel  the  inadequacy  of 
his  mind  and  ideas  for  supplying  the  rule  of  human 
society,  for  perfection. 

The  modern  movement  seems  to  me  pecul- 
iarly a  movement  of  individualism,  a  move- 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


ment  favoring  the  greater  freedom  and  growth 
of  the  individual,  as  opposed  to  outward  au- 
thority and  its  lodgment  in  institutions.  It  is 
this  movement  which  has  given  a  distinctive 
character  to  the  literature  of  our  century,  a 
movement  in  letters  which  Goethe  did  more 
to  forward  than  any  other  man  —  Goethe,  who 
said  that  in  art  and  poetry  personal  genius 
is  everything,  and  that  "  in  the  great  work 
the  great  person  is  always  present  as  the  great 
factor."  Arnold  seems  not  to  share  this  feeling; 
he  does  not  belong  to  this  movement.  His 
books  give  currency  to  another  order  of  ideas. 
He  subordinates  the  individual,  and  lays  the 
emphasis  on  culture  and  the  claims  of  the 
higher  standards.  He  says  the  individual  has 
no  natural  rights,  but  only  duties.  We  never 
find  him  insisting  upon  originality,  self-reliance, 
character,  independence,  but,  quite  the  con- 
trary, on  conformity  and  obedience.  He  says 
that  at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble  of  all  the 
English  people  lies  the  notion  of  its  being  the 
prime  right  and  happiness  for  each  of  us  to 
affirm  himself  and  to  be  doing  as  he  likes.  One 
of  his  earliest  and  most  effective  essays  was  to 
show  the  value  of  academies,  of  a  central  and 
authoritative  standard  of  taste  to  a  national  lit- 
erature; and  in  all  his  subsequent  writings  the 
academic  note  has  been  struck  and  adhered 
to.  With  him  right  reason  and  the  authority  of 
the  state  are  one.  "  In  our  eyes,"  he  says,  "the 
very  framework  and  exterior  order  of  the  state, 
whoever  may  administer  the  state,  is  sacred." 
"  Every  one  of  us,"  he  again  says, "  has  the  idea 
of  country,  as  a  sentiment ;  hardly  any  one  of 
us  has  the  idea  of  the  state,  as  a  working  power. 
And  why  ?  Because  we  habitually  live  in  our 
ordinary  selves,  which  do  not  carry  us  beyond 
the  ideas  and  wishes  of  the  class  to  which  we 
happen  to  belong."  Which  is  but  saying  be- 
cause we  are  wrapped  so  closely  about  by  our 
individualism.  His  remedy  for  the  democratic 
tendencies  of  the  times,  tendencies  he  does  not 
regret,  is  an  increase  of  the  dignity  and  author- 
ity of  the  state.  The  danger  of  English  democ- 
racy is,  he  says,  "  that  it  will  have  far  too  much 
its  own  way,  and  be  left  far  too  much  to  itself." 
He  adds,  with  great  force  and  justness,  that 
"  Nations  are  not  truly  great  solely  because 
the  individuals  composing  them  are  numerous, 
free,  and  active,  but  they  are  great  when  these 
numbers,  this  freedom,  and  this  activity  are 
employed  in  the  service  of  an  ideal  higher 
than  that  of  an  ordinary  man,  taken  by  him- 
self." Or,  as  Aristotle  says,  these  things  must 
be  in"  obedience  to  some  intelligent  principle, 
and  some  right  regulation,  which  has  the 
power  of  enforcing  its  decrees." 

When  the  licensed  victualers  or  the  com- 
mercial travelers  propose  to  make  a  school 
for  their  children,  Arnold  is  unsparing  in  his 


ridicule.  He  says  that  to  bring  children  up 
"  in  a  kind  of  odor  of  licensed  victualism  or 
of  bagmanism  is  not  a  wise  training  to  give  to 
children."  The  heads  and  representatives 
of  the  nation  should  teach  them  better,  but 
they  do  nothing  of  the  kind ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  extol  the  energy  and  self-reliance  of  the 
licensed  victualers  or  commercial  travelers, 
and  predict  full  success  for  their  schools.  John 
Bull  is  suspicious  of  centralization,  bureau- 
cracy, state  authority,  which  carry  things  with 
such  a  high  hand  on  the  Continent.  Anything 
that  threatens,  or  seems  to  threaten,  his  indi- 
vidual liberty,  he  stands  clear  of.  The  sense  of 
the  nation  spoke  in  the  words  lately  uttered 
through  the  "  Times  "  by  Sir  Auberon  Herbert. 
He  says: 

All  great  state  systems  stupefy ;  you  cannot  make  the 
state  a  parent  without  the  logical  consequence  of  mak- 
ing the  people  children.  Official  regulation  and  free 
mental  perception  of  what  is  right  and  wise  do  not 
and  can  not  co-exist.  I  see  no  possible  \vay  in  which 
you  can  reconcile  these  great  state  services  and  the 
conditions  under  which  men  have  to  make  true  prog- 
ress in  themselves. 

But  to  preach  such  notions  in  England, 
Arnold  would  say,  is  like  carrying  coals  to 
Newcastle.  They  would  be  of  more  service 
in  France,  where  state  action  is  excessive.  In 
England  the  dangers  are  the  other  way. 

Our  dangers  are  in  exaggerating  the  blessings  of 
self-will  and  of  self-assertion ;  in  not  being  ready  enough 
to  sink  our  imperfectly  formed  self-will  in  view  of  a 
large  general  result. 

There  seems  to  be  nothing  in  Hellenism 
that  suggests  Catholicism,  and  yet  evidently 
it  is  Arnold's  classical  feeling  for  institutions 
that  gives  him  his  marked  Catholic  bias.  The 
Catholic  Church  is  a  great  institution,  the 
greatest  and  oldest  in  the  world.  It  makes  and 
always  has  made  short  work  of  the  individual. 
It  is  cold,  stately,  impersonal.  Says  Emerson : 

In  the  long  time  it  has  blended  with  everything  in 
heaven  above  and  the  earth  beneath.  It  moves  through 
a  zodiac  of  feasts  and  fasts,  names  every  day  of  the 
year,  every  town  and  market  and  headland  and  monu- 
ment, and  has  coupled  itself  with  the  almanac,  that  no 
court  can  be  held,  no  field  plowed,  no  horse  shod, 
without  some  leave  from  the  Church. 

It  appeals  to  Arnold  by  reason  of  these 
things,  and  it  appeals  to  him  by  reason  of  its 
great  names,  its  poets,  artists,  statesmen, 
preachers,  scholars;  its  imposing  ritual,  its 
splendid  architecture,  its  culture.  It  has  been 
the  conserver  of  letters.  For  centuries  the 
priests  were  the  only  scholars,  and  its  cere- 
monial is  a  kind  of  petrified  literature.  Arnold 
clearly  speaks  for  himself,  or  from  his  own  bias, 
when  he  says  that  "the  man  of  imagina- 
tion, nay,  and  the  philosopher  too,  in  spite  of 
her  propensity  to  burn  him,  will  always  have 
a  weakness  for  the  Catholic  Church  " ;  "  it  is 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


191 


because  of  the  rich  treasures  of  human  life 
which  have  been  stored  within  her  pale."  In- 
deed, there  is  a  distinct  flavor  of  Catholicism 
about  nearly  all  of  Matthew  Arnold's  writings. 
One  cannot  always  put  his  finger  on  it;  it  is 
in  the  air,  it  is  in  that  cool,  haughty  imper- 
sonalism,  that  ex  f,i//ii-ifni  tone,  that  contempt 
for  dissenters,  that  genius  for  form,  that  spirit 
of  organization.  His  mental  tone  and  temper 
ally  him  to  Cardinal  Newman,  who  seems  to 
have  exerted  a  marked  influence  upon  him, 
and  who  is  still,  he  says,  a  great  name  to 
the  imagination.  Yet  he  says  Newman  "has 
adopted,  for  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which 
beset  men's  minds  to-day,  a  solution,  which, 
to  speak  frankly,  is  impossible."  What,  there- 
fore, repels  Arnold  in  Catholicism,  and  keeps 
him  without  its  fold,  is  its  "ultramontanism, 
sacerdotalism,  and  superstition."  Its  cast-iron 
dogmas  and  its  bigotry  are  too  much  for  his 
Hellenic  spirit;  but  no  more  so  than  are  the 
dogmas  and  bigotry  of  the  Protestant  churches. 
It  is  clear  enough  that  he  would  sooner  be  a 
Catholic  than  a  Presbyterian  or  a  Methodist. 

Arnold's  Hellenism  is  the  source  of  both  his 
weakness  and  his  strength;  his  strength,  be- 
cause it  gives  him  a  principle  that  cannot  be 
impeached.  In  all  matters  of  taste  and  culture 
the  Greek  standards  are  the  last  and  highest 
court  of  appeal.  In  no  other  race  and  time  has 
life  been  so  rounded  and  full  and  invested  with 
the  same  charm.  "  They  were  freer  than  other 
mortal  races,"  says  Professor  Curtius,  "  from 
all  that  hinders  and  oppresses  the  motions  of 
the  mind." 

It  is  the  source  of  his  weakness,  or  ineffect- 
ualness,  because  he  has  to  do  with  an  unclas- 
sical  age  and  unclassical  people.  It  is  interesting 
and  salutary  to  have  the  Greek  standards  ap- 
plied to  modern  politics  and  religion,  and  to 
the  modern  man,  but  the  application  makes 
little  or  no  impression  save  on  the  literary- 
classes.  Well  may  Arnold  have  said,  in  his 
speech  at  The  Authors  Club  in  New  York,  that 
only  the  literary  class  had  understood  and  sus- 
tained him.  The  other  classes  have  simply  been 
irritated  or  bewildered  by  him.  His  tests  do 
not  appeal  to  them.  The  standards  which  the 
philosopher,  or  the  political  economist,  or  the 
religious  teacher  brings,  impress  them  more. 

The  Greek  flexibility  of  intellect  cannot  be 
too  much  admired,  but  the  Greek  flexibility 
of  character  and  conscience  is  quite  another 
thing.  Of  the  ancient  Hellenes  it  may  with 
truth  be  said  that  they  were  the  "  wisest,  bright- 
est, meanest  of  mankind."  Such  fickleness, 
treachery,  duplicity,  were  perhaps  never  be- 
fore wedded  to  such  aesthetic  rectitude  and 
wholeness.  They  would  bribe  their  very  gods. 
Such  a  type  of  character  can  never  take  deep 
hold  of  the  British  mind. 


U'hen  Arnold,  reciting  the  episode  of  Wragg, 
tells  his  countrymen  that  "  by  the  Ilissus  there 
was  no  Wragg,  poor  thing,"  will  his  country- 
men much  concern  themselves  whether  there 
was  or  not  ?  When  the  burden  of  his  indict- 
ment of  the  English  Liberals  is  that  they  have 
worked  only  for  political  expansion,  and  have 
done  little  or  nothing  for  the  need  of  beauty, 
the  need  of  social  life  and  manners,  and  the 
need  of  intellect  and  knowledge,  will  the  Kn- 
glish  Liberals  feel  convicted  by  the  charge  ? 
When  he  says  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers  that 
Shakspere  and  Vergil  would  have  found 
their  company  intolerable,  is  Puritanism  dis- 
credited in  the  eye  of  English  Puritans?  In- 
deed, literary  standards,  applied  to  politics  or 
religion,  are  apt  to  be  ineffectual  with  all  ex- 
cept a  very  limited  circle  of  artistic  spirits. 

Whether  it  be  a  matter  for  regret  or  for 
congratulation,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
man  and  all  his  faculties  are  becoming  more 
and  more  specialized,  more  and  more  differ- 
entiated ;  the  quality  of  unique  and  individual 
genius  is  more  and  more  valued,  so  that  we 
are  wandering  farther  and  farther  from  the 
unity,  the  simplicity,  and  the  repose  of  the 
antique  world. 

This  fact  may  afford  the  best  reason  in  the 
world  for  the  appearance  of  such  a  man  as 
Arnold,  who  opposes  so  squarely  and  fairly 
this  tendency,  and  who  draws  such  fresh  cour- 
age and  strength  from  the  classic  standards. 
But  it  accounts  in  a  measure  for  the  general 
expression  of  distaste  with  which  his  teachings 
have  been  received.  Still,  he  has  shown  us  very 
clearly  how  British  civilization  looks  to  Hellenic 
eyes,  where  it  needs  pruning  and  where  it  needs 
strengthening;  and  he  has  doubtless  set  going 
currents  of  ideas  that  must  eventually  tell  deeply 
upon  the  minds  of  his  countrymen. 

It  is  undoubtedly  as  a  critic  of  literature 
that  Arnold  is  destined  to  leave  his  deepest 
mark.  In  this  field  the  classic  purity  and 
simplicity  of  his  mind,  its  extraordinary  clear- 
ness, steadiness,  and  vitality  are  the  qualities 
most  prized.  His  power  as  a  critic  is  undoubt- 
edly his  power  of  definition  and  classification, 
a  gift  he  has  which  allies  him  with  the  great 
naturalists  and  classifiers.  Probably  no  other 
English  critic  has  thrown  into  literature  so 
many  phrases  and  definitions  that  are  likely  to 
become  a  permanent  addition  to  the  armory 
of  criticism  as  has  Arnold.  Directness  and 
definiteness  are  as  proper  and  as  easy  to  him 
as  to  a  Greek  architect.  He  is  the  least  be- 
wildering of  writers.  With  what  admirable 
skill  he  brings  out  his  point  on  all  occasions! 
Things  fall  away  from  it  till  it  stands  out 
like  a  tree  in  a  field,  which  we  see  all  around. 
His  genius  for  definition  and  analysis  finds 
full  scope  in  his  works  on  "  Celtic  Litera- 


192 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


ture,"  wherein  are  combined  the  strictness  of 
scientific  analysis  with  the  finest  literary 
charm.  The  lectures,  too,  on  "  Translating 
Homer,"  seem  as  conclusive  as  a  scientific 
demonstration. 

A  good  sample  of  his  power  to  pluck  out 
the  heart  of  the  secret  of  a  man's  influence 
may  be  found  in  his  essay  on  Wordsworth. 

Wordsworth's  poetry  is  great  because  of  the  extraor- 
dinary power  with  which  Wordsworth  feels  the  joy 
offered  to  us  in  nature,  the  joy  offered  to  us  in  simple 
elementary  affections  and  duties,  and  because  of  the 
extraordinary  power  with  which,  in  case  after  case,  he 
shows  us  this  joy  and  renders  it  so  as  to  make  us 
share  it. 

A  recent  English  reviewer  says  that  there 
are  but  two  English  authors  of  the  present 
day  whose  works  are  preeminent  for  quality 
of  style,  namely,  John  Morley's  and  Cardinal 
Newman's.  But  one  would  say  that  the  man 
of  all  others  among  recent  English  writers  who 
had  in  a  preeminent  degree  the  gift  of  what 
we  call  style  —  that  quality  in  literature  which 
is  like  the  sheen  of  a  bird's  plumage  —  was 
Matthew  Arnold.  That  Morley  has  this  qual- 
ity is  by  no  means  so  certain.  Morley  is  a 
vigorous,  brilliant,  versatile  writer,  but  his 
quality  is  not  distinctively  literary,  and  his 
sentences  do  not  have  a  power  and  a  charm 
by  virtue  of  their  very  texture  and  sequence 
alone.  Few  writers,  of  any  time  or  land,  have 
had  the  unity,  transparency,  centrality  of  Ar- 
nold's mind  —  the  piece  or  discourse  is  so  well 
cast,  it  is  so  homogeneous,  it  makes  such  a 
clear  and  distinct  impression.  Morley's  vo- 
cabulary is  the  more  copious ;  more  matters 
are  touched  upon  in  any  given  space ;  he  is 
more  fruitful  of  ideas  and  suggestions;  his 
writings  may  have  a  greater  political,  or  re- 
ligious, or  scientific  value  than  Arnold's.  But 
in  pure  literary  value,  they,  in  my  opinion,  fall 
far  below.  Arnold's  work  is  like  cut  glass ;  it  is 
not  merely  clear,  it  has  a  distinction,  a  prestige 
which  belongs  to  it  by  reason  of  its  delicate 
individuality  of  style.  The  writings  of  Cardi- 
nal Newman  have  much  of  the  same  qual- 
ity —  the  utmost  lucidity  combined  with  a  fresh, 
distinct  literary  flavor.  They  are  pervaded  by 
a  sweeter,  more  winsome  spirit  than  Arnold's; 
there  is  none  of  the  scorn,  contemptuousness, 
and  superciliousness  in  them  that  have  given 
so  much  offense  in  Arnold,  and  while  his  style 
is  not  so  crisp  as  the  latter's,  it  is  perhaps  more 
marvelously  flexible  and  magnetic. 

Arnold  is,  above  all  things,  integral  and 
consecutive.  He  seems  to  have  no  isolated 
thoughts,  no  fragments,  nothing  that  begins 
and  ends  in  a  mere  intellectual  concretion ; 
his  thoughts  are  all  in  the  piece  and  have  ref- 
erence to  his  work  as  a  whole;  they  are  entirely 
subordinated  to  plan,  to  structure,  to  total  re- 


sults. He  values  them,  not  as  ends,  but  as 
means.  In  other  words,  we  do  not  come  upon 
those  passages  in  his  works  that  are  like  iso- 
lated pools  of  deep  and  beautiful  meaning,  and 
which  make  the  value  to  us  of  writers  like  Lan- 
dor,  for  instance,  but  we  everywhere  strike 
continuous  currents  of  ideas  that  set  definitely 
to  certain  conclusions;  always  clear  and  lim- 
pid currents,  and  now  and  then  deep,  strong, 
and  beautiful  currents.  And,  after  all,  water  was 
made  to  flow  and  not  to  stand,  and  those  are  the 
most  vital  and  influential  minds  whose  ideas  are 
working  ideas,  and  lay  hold  of  real  problems. 
Certainly  a  man's  power  to  put  himself  in 
communication  with  live  questions,  and  to  take 
vital  hold  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  life 
of  his  age,  should  enter  into  our  estimate  of 
him.  We  shall  ask  of  a  writer  who  lays  claim 
to  high  rank,  not  merely  has  he  great  thoughts, 
but  what  does  he  do  with  his  great  thoughts  ? 
Is  he  superior  to  them  ?  Can  he  use  them  ? 
Can  he  bring  them  to  bear  ?  Can  he  wield 
them  to  clear  up  some  obscurity  or  bridge 
over  some  difficulty  for  us,  or  does  he  sit  down 
amid  them  and  admire  them  ?  A  man  who 
wields  a  great  capital  is  above  him  who  merely 
hoards  it  and  keeps  it.  Let  me  refer  to  Lan- 
dor,  in  this  connection,  because,  in  such  a 
discussion,  one  wants,  as  they  say  in  croquet, 
a  ball  to  play  on,  and  because  Lander's  works 
have  lately  been  in  my  hands,  and  I  have 
noted  in  them  a  certain  remoteness  and  inef- 
fectualness  which  contrast  them  well  with 
Arnold's.  Landor's  sympathies  were  mainly 
outside  his  country  and  times,  and  his  writings 
affect  me  like  capital  invested  in  jewels  and 
precious  stones,  rather  than  employed  in  any 
great  and  worthy  enterprise.  One  turns  over 
his  beautiful  sentences  with  a  certain  admi- 
ration and  enjoyment,  but  his  ideas  do  not 
fasten  upon  one,  and  ferment  and  grow  in  his 
mind,  and  influence  his  judgments  and  feelings. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  abstraction  or  of  disin- 
terestedness, but  of  seriousness  of  purpose. 
Emerson  is  more  abstract,  more  given  up  to 
ideal  and  transcendental  valuations,  than  Lan- 
dor;  but  Emerson  is  a  power,  because  he 
partakes  of  a  great  spiritual  and  intellectual 
movement  of  his  times;  he  is  unequivocally 
of  to-day  and  of  New  England.  So  with  Ar- 
nold, he  is  unequivocally  of  to-day  ;  he  is  une- 
quivocally an  Englishman,  but  an  Englishman 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Greek  art 
and  culture.  The  surprise  in  reading  Arnold  is 
never  the  novelty  of  his  thought  or  expression, 
or  the  force  with  which  his  ideas  are  projected, 
but  in  the  clearness  and  nearness  of  the  point 
of  view,  and  the  steadiness  and  consistency 
with  which  the  point  of  view  is  maintained. 
He  is  as  free  from  the  diseases  of  subtlety  and 
over-refinement  of  thought  or  expression,  and 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S   CRITICISM. 


'93 


from  anything  exaggerated  or  fanciful,  as  any 
of  the  antique  authors.  His  distinguishing  trait 
is  a  kind  of  finer  common-sense.  One  remem- 
bers his  acknowledgment  of  his  indebtedness 
to  the  sanity  and  clear  sense  of  Franklin.  It  is 
here  the  two  minds  meet ;  the  leading  trait  of 
each  is  this  same  sanity  and  clear  sense,  this 
reliance  upon  the  simple  palpable  reason. 

Arnold's  reliance  upon  the  near  and  obvious 
reason,  and  his  distrust  of  metaphysical  sub- 
tleties and  curious  refinements,  are  so  constant, 
that  he  has  been  accused  of  parading  the  com- 
monplace. Hut  the  commonplace,  when  used 
with  uncommon  cleverness  and  aptness,  is  al- 
ways the  most  telling.  He  thinks  the  great 
weakness  of  Christianity  at  the  present  time 
is  its  reliance,  or  pretended  reliance,  upon  the 
preternatural,  and  the  whole  burden  of  his  own 
effort  in  this  field  is  to  show  its  basis  upon 
common-sense,  upon  a  universal  need  and 
want  of  mankind.  For  ingenious,  for  abstruse 
reasons  Arnold  has  no  taste  at  all,  either  in  re- 
ligion, in  literature,  or  in  politics,  and  the  mass 
of  readers  will  sympathize  with  him.  "At  the 
mention  of  that  name  metaphysics"  he  says, 
"  lo,  essence,  existence,  substance,  finite  and 
infinite,  cause  and  succession,  something  and 
nothing,  begin  to  weave  their  eternal  dance 
before  us,  with  the  confused  murmur  of  their 
combinations  filling  all  the  region  governed  by 
her  who,  far  more  indisputably  than  her  late- 
born  rival,  political  economy,  has  earned  the 
title  of  the  Dismal  Science." 

The  dangers  of  such  steadiness  and  literary 
conservatism  as  Arnold's  are  the  humdrum 
and  the  commonplace;  but  he  is  saved  from 
these  by  his  poetic  sensibility.  How  homoge- 
neous his  page  is,  like  air  or  water!  There  is 
little  color,  little  variety,  but  there  is  an  inte- 
rior harmony  and  fitness,  that  are  like  good 
digestion,  or  good  health.  Vivacity  of  mind 
he  is  not  remarkable  for,  but  in  singleness  and 
continuity  he  is  extraordinary.  His  serious- 
ness of  purpose  seldom  permits  him  to  indulge 
in  wit ;  humor  is  a  more  constant  quality  with 
him.  But  never  is  there  wit  for  wit's  sake,  nor 
humor  for  humor's  sake;  they  are  entirely  in 
the  service  of  the  main  argument.  The  wit  is 
usually  a  thrust,  as  when  he  says  of  the  Non- 
conformist that  he  "  has  worshiped  his  fetich 
of  separatism  so  long  that  he  is  likely  to  wish 
to  remain,  like  Ephraim, '  a  wild  ass  alone  by 
himself.'"  The  book  in  which  he  uses  the 
weapons  of  wit  and  humor  the  most  con- 
stantly hecalls,  with  refined  sarcasm,"  Friend- 
ship's Garland  " —  a  garland  made  up  mainly 
of  nettles.  Like  all  of  his  books,  it  is  aimed 
at  the  British  Philistine,  but  it  is  less  Socratic 
than  the  other  books  and  contains  more  of 
Dean  Swift.  Arnold  is  always  a  master  of  the 
artful  Socratic  method,  but  this  book  has,  in 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 28. 


addition,  a  playful  humor  and  a  nettle-like 
irony, —  an  itch  which  ends  in  a  burn, —  that 
are  more  modern.  What  a  garland  he  drops  by 
the  hand  of  his  Prussian  friend  Arminius  upon 
the  brow  of  Hepworth  Dixon,  in  characteriz- 
ing his  style  as  "  Middle-class  Macaulayese  "  : 

"  I  call  it  Macaulayese,"  says  the  pedant,  "  because  it 
has  the  same  internal  and  external  characteristics  as 
Macaulay's  style;  the  external  characteristic  being  a 
hard  metallic  movement  with  nothing  of  the  soft  play 
of  life,  and  the  internal  characteristic  being  a  perpet- 
ual semblance  of  hitting  the  right  nail  on  the  head 
without  the  reality.  And  1  call  it  middle-class  Macau- 
layese because  it  has  these  faults  without  the  compen- 
sation of  great  studies  and  of  conversance  with  great 
affairs,  by  which  Macaulay  partly  redeemed  them." 

By  the  hand  of  another  character  he  crowns 
Mr.  Sala  thus: 

But  his  career  and  genius  have  given  him  somehow 
the  secret  of  a  literary  mixture  novel  and  fascinating 
in  the  last  degree:  he  blends  the  airy  epicureanism  of 
the  salms  of  Augustus  with  the  full-bodied  gayety  of 
our  English  Cider-cellar. 

Most  of  the  London  newspapers  too  re- 
ceive their  garland.  That  of  "  The  Times  "  is 
most  taking: 

"  Nay,"  often  this  enthusiast  continues,  getting  ex- 
cited as  he  goes  on,  '"The  Times'  itself,  which  so  stirs 
some  people's  indignation, —  what  is  '  The  Times  ' 
but  a  gigantic  Sancho  Panza,  following  by  an  attrac- 
tion he  cannot  resist  that  poor,  mad,  scorned,  suffer- 
ing, sublime  enthusiast,  the  modern  spirit;  following 
it,  indeed,  with  constant  grumbling,  expostulation, 'and 
opposition,  with  airs  of  protection,  of  compassionate 
superiority,  with  an  incessant  by-play  of  nods,  shrugs, 
and  winks  addressed  to  the  spectators ;  following  it, 
in  short,  with  all  the  incurable  recalcitrancy  of  a  lower 
nature,  but  still  following  it  ?  " 

In  "  Friendship's  Garland  "  many  of  the 
shafts  Arnold  has  aimed  at  his  countrymen 
in  his  previous  books  are  re-feathered  and  re- 
pointed  and  shot  with  a  grace  and  playful 
mockery  that  are  immensely  diverting.  He 
has  perhaps  never  done  anything  so  artistic 
and  so  full  of  genius.  It  fulfills  its  purpose  with 
a  grace  and  a  completeness  that  awaken  in  one 
the  feeling  of  the  delicious ;  it  is  the  only  one 
of  his  books  one  can  call  delicious. 

The  force  and  value  of  the  main  drift  of 
Arnold's  criticism  are  probably  greater  in 
England  than  in  this  country,  because,  in  the 
first  place,  the  cramped,  inflexible,  artificial 
and  congested  state  of  things  which  prevails  in 
England  does  not  prevail  to  anything  like  the 
same  extent  among  us;  and  because,  in  the 
second  place,  with  us  the  conscience  of  the 
race  needs  stimulating  more  than  the  reason 
needs  clearing.  We  are  much  more  hospitable 
to  ideas  than  is  the  British  Philistine,  but,  as  a 
people,  we  are  by  no  means  correspondingly 
sensitive  and  developed  on  the  side  of  conduct. 
We  need  Hebraizing  more  than  we  need  Hel- 
lenizing  ;  we  need  Carlyle  more  than  we  need 
Arnold.  Yet  we  need  Arnold  too. 


194 


SELINA 'S  SINGULAR  MARRIAGE. 


His  recent  utterances  upon  us  and  our  civ-  paper  press  partakes  of  this  condition  and  is, 

ilization  seem  to  me  just  and  timely.    They  in  a  measure,  responsible  for  it  —  who  can 

are  in  keeping  with  the  general  drift  of  his  deny  that?* 

teachings,  and  could  not  well  be  other  than         Moreover,  the  questions  of  culture,  of  right 

they  are.    That  beauty  and  distinction,  that  reason,  and  of  a  just  mean  and  measure  in  all 

reverence  and  truthfulness  and  humility  and  things,  are  always  vital  questions,  and  no  man 

good  manners  are  at  a  low  ebb  in  this  coun-  of  our  time  has  spoken  so  clear  and  forcible  a 

try  —  who  can  deny  it?  and  that  our  news-  word  upon  them  as  has  Matthew  Arnold. 


John  Burronglis. 


SELINA'S    SINGULAR    MARRIAGE. 


'T  is  a  common  enough  say- 
ing that  truth  is  stranger 
than  fiction  ;  and  indeed, 
though  I  have  read  many 
novels  in  my  time, —  I 
was  always  mad  for  novels, 
—  I  have  never  yet  come 
across  a  tale  in  any  book 
that  was  half  so  strange  as  the  story  of  Selina 
Jarvis's  marriage.  But  Selina  is  my  cousin, 
and  I  happened  to  be  there,  and  so  can  vouch 
that  every  word  of  it  is  true. 

It  happened  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  girl 
and  much  less  sensible  than  I  am  now,  and  I 
had  just  arrived  at  my  aunt's  on  my  yearly  visit. 
I  was  not  overfond  of  my  aunt,  nor  she  of 
me ;  for  my  father  was  a  rich  man,  and  I  was 
city*  bred,  and  had  had  advantages  of  educa- 
tion and  dress  and  society  such  as  with  her 
straitened  means  and  in  her  quiet  country 
home  were  totally  lacking  to  Selina,  and  Aunt 
Jarvis  was  one  of  those  who  consider  other 
people's  blessings  in  the  light  of  personal  af- 
fronts, as  if  they  were  so  many  flags  of  triumph 
wantonly  flaunted  in  her  face  by  the  victor. 
But  Selina  was  my  bosom  friend,  and  not  a 
thought  of  jealousy  or  envy  had  ever  troubled 
her  gentle  spirit. 

She  was  one  of  the  sweetest,  dearest,  love- 
liest girls  I  ever  saw;  fair  and  frail  and  dainty, 
with  great,  wondering  blue  eyes  full  of  the 
dreams  of  a  scarcely  forgotten  childhood.  Oh, 
how  pretty  she  was !  Yet,  in  looking  at  her,  one 
thought  not  so  much  of  her  and  her  delicate 
beauty  as  of  a  host  of  lovely  visionary  things 
of  which  one  seemed  suddenly  reminded — of 
soft  sunlight  stealing  through  summer  leaves ; 
of  drifting  snows;  of  pale  wind-flowers,  too  fra- 
gile for  perfume;  of  sweet,  far  strains  of  music 
that  one  held  one's  breath  to  hear  and  never 
fully  caught.  One  felt  instinctively  that  she 
was  destined  for  no  common  fate,  and  one 
longed  to  gather  her  in  one's  arms  and  shield 
her  with  one's  very  heart-blood  from  all  life's 
storms,  or  to  shut  her  up  safely,  like  the  beau- 
tiful princesses  of  the  fairy-tales,  in  some  lofty 
tower  beyond  reach  of  the  world's  toil  and 


soil,  where,  standing  at  its  base,  troops  of 
hopeless  lovers  should  woo  her  with  incessant 
song,  singing  to  her  through  the  noontide 
and  the  midnight,  beneath  blazing  suns  and 
beneath  cold  dim  stars,  turning  the  sweet  mad- 
ness of  their  despair  into  a  lovely  melody  to 
soothe  her  dreams.  Ah,  my  dear  little  Selina, 
how  I  loved  her! 

But  to  go  back  to  my  story.  A  simple 
enough  story,  too,  when  all  is  told. 

Well,  I  had  not  been  two  hours  in  my  aunt's 
house  before  I  felt  that  there  was  something 
unusual  in  the  atmosphere.  Selina  was  un- 
changed, greeting  me  with  the  tender  smile 
and  butterfly  kiss  fitted  to  her  sweet  lips;  but 
my  aunt  seemed  restless,  and  preoccupied,  and 
anxious,  and  ever  and  anon  glanced  in  my 
direction  with  a  disapprobation  she  was  at  no 
pains  to  hide. 

"What  is  it,  Aunt?"  I  abruptly  asked  at 
last.  "  Is  it  me  or  my  dress  that  you  don't 
like  ?  " 

"  It  's  your  dress,"  she  answered  shortly. 
"  You  '11  do  well  enough." 

By  which  I  knew  at  once  she  meant  that  I 
was  as  plain  as  ever,  but  altogether  too  well 
dressed.  I  got  up  and  surveyed  myself  in  the 
glass  with  a  little  laugh.  Not  being  gifted  with 
good  looks,  I  made  what  amends  I  could  to 
the  world  for  the  deficiency  by  uncommonly 
good  dressing;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  was 
just  a  little  vain  of  my  figure,  and  felt  that 
upon  the  whole  it  was  about  as  well  to  be 
stylish  as  to  be  handsome. 

"  Are  you  going  to  keep  that  on  ?  "  continued 
my  aunt,  with  increasing  disapproval.  "You 
had  better  change  it  for  tea.  That  gray  mo- 
hair you  used  to  wear  last  summer  would  do. 
We  've  company  coming,  and  that  's  your 
traveling  dress,  is  n't  it?" 

"  I  traveled  in  it  to-day,  but  it  was  not  fab- 
ricated exclusively  for  railway  purposes,"  I 
replied,  noting  with  considerable  satisfaction 
how  admirably  it  fitted  and  how  citified  and 
complete  my  whole  toilet  looked  beside  the 
home-made  costumes  of  my  aunt  and  cousin. 
"  Who  is  coming?" 


f  See  Mrs.  Schuyler  van  Rensselaer's  "  Open  Letter  "  in  this  number  of  THE  CENTURY. 


S/:  UNA'S  SINGULAR 


'95 


"  Oh,  it  's  only  two  gentlemen,"  said  Selina, 
fingering  my  buttons  admiringly.  "  They  won't 
notice  that  your  class  is  dark,  and  you  do  look 
so  nice  in  it.  Don't  change  it,  Janey." 

My  aunt  looked  hard  from  my  dress  back 
to  her  daughter's.  Selina  had  on  one  of  her 
lightest,  freshest  muslins,  the  only  one  in  her 
simple  wardrobe  that  had  thus  far  escaped 
that  deleterious  process  known  as  the  wash, 
and  there  was  a  suspicious  newness  about  her 
ribbons.  She  was  even  uncommonly  sweet 
and  dainty. 

"  No,  I  '11  not  change  just  for  two  gentle- 
men," I  said,  quite  as  conscious  as  was  Aunt 
Jarvis  that  no  other  dress  could  suit  me  bet- 
ter, and  that  I  looked  as  well  in  my  way  as 
Selina  did  in  hers.  "  And  1  am  happy  to  in- 
form you,  Aunt,  that  your  eyes  will  never  be 
tortured  by  seeing  me  in  that  odious  gray  mo- 
hair again.  It  was  preeminently  unadapted 
to  my  yellow  skin.  I  have  sent  it  to  the  mis- 
sionaries. Who  are  the  gentlemen,  Selina?  " 

"  Mr.  Eaton  and  his  friend.  They  are  going 
to  be  in  town  for  some  time,  and  he  brought 
a  letter  of  introduction  to  us,  so  Mamma 
wants  to  be  polite  to  him.  She  likes  him." 

"  Which  him  ?    Mr.  Eaton  or  his  friend  ?  " 

"Oh,  Mr.  Eaton  — not  Mr.  Opdyke.  Only 
Mr.  Opdyke  is  traveling  with  him,  so  of  course 
Mamma  has  to  ask  him  too." 

"  Jane  can  take  him  off  our  hands  now," 
interrupted  my  aunt.  "  I  don't  doubt  he  and 
she  will  get  on  capitally  together." 

I  instantly  comprehended  that  there  was 
some  particular  and  insuperable  objection  to 
Mr.  Opdyke.  I  looked  at  my  aunt  defiantly. 
"  What  is  it  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Is  he  poor  ?  " 

She  changed  color  a  little  and  looked  un- 
easily at  Selina. 

"  It  does  n't  matter  what  he  is,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,"  she  answered.  "  He  is  nothing 
to  us.  It  is  Mr.  Eaton  who  is  our  friend." 

I  looked  at  Selina  too.  She  was  busy 
smoothing  out  a  tiny  crease  in  her  flounces. 
The  droop  of  her  head  had  brought  a  faint 
pink  tinge  into  her  cheek. 

"  I  am  sorry  for  Mr.  Opdyke,"  she  said 
softly,  without  looking  up.  "  He  does  n't  seem 
to  have  many  friends.  He  is  quite  poor,  I 
believe;  and  he  's  ugly,  and  rather  old,  and  I 
am  afraid  he  is  not  very  good  either." 

"  A  brilliant  category  of  virtues  by  which 
to  commend  him  to  me,"  I  declared,  laughing. 
"  Poor,  old,  ugly,  and  wicked.  We  shall  be 
sworn  friends  in  five  minutes.  And  is  Mr. 
Eaton  young,  rich,  handsome,  and  good  ?  " 

It  was  Aunt  Jarvis  who  answered,  for  Se- 
lina was  still  busy  over  her  flounces,  and 
pinker  than  ever. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  emphatically.  "Harry  Eaton 
is  everything,  in  every  way  worthy  and  attract- 


ive. He  is  one  among  a  thousand.  I  don't  see 
a  thing  I  could  wish  changed  in  him." 

"  I  think  I  '11  get  a  bunch  of  sweet-peas," 
said  Selina  irrelevantly,  and  slipped  slyly 
away.  I  went  to  the  window  and  stood  watch- 
ing her  little  figure  in  the  garden  outside, 
flitting  here  and  there  over  the  lawn  lightly 
as  a  thistle-doun  blown  by  the  wind.  Aunt 
Jarvis  resumed  her  work, —  she  was  hemming 
kitchen  towels,  I  think,  or  something  equally 
serviceable  and  homely, — and  presently  I  heard 
a  faint  sigh  from  where  she  sat.  1  faced  about 
immediately.  It  was  so  very  odd  to  hear  Aunt 
Jarvis  sigh.  It  was  like  an  open  confession 
of  weakness,  and  that  was  the  last  thing  one 
expected  from  her. 

"  What  's  the  matter,  Aunt  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  kept  on  with  her 
ugly  work,  jerking  the  needle  sharply  through 
the  coarse  stuff  as  if  each  stitch  were  a  protest 
against  it.  Then  the  thread  broke,  and  she  took 
the  opportunity  to  reply,  while  hunting  in  her 
basket  for  a  stouter  spool : 

"  I  wish  that  man  and  you  were  in  Jericho 
together,"  she  remarked. 

"Mr.  Eaton  and  I,  Aunt?  If  he  is  so  uniquely 
delightful,  I  should  not  object." 

"  Look  here,  Jane,"  said  my  aunt  bluntly,  giv- 
ing a  vexed  push  to  her  basket  that  nearly  up- 
set it.  "  You  are  rich  and  well  placed.  You  don't 
lack  for  admirers  at  home,  while  my  Selina 
may  never  have  such  a  chance  as  this  in  all 
her  life  again.  She  will  certainly  never  meet 
another  man  like  Harry  Eaton  in  this  stupid 
little  town.  He  is  everything  I  could  desire 
for  her.  I  would  give  the  world  and  all  to  see 
her  safely  married  to  him." 

"  Make  your  mind  easy  as  to  me,  Aunt," 
I  replied  lightly.  "  I  never  consciously  inter- 
fere with  anyone's  ewe  lamb,  and  really  I  think 
I  should  prefer  this  wicked  Mr.  Opdyke  to 
even  the  angel  Gabriel  himself.  You  have 
no  idea  how  irresistible  a  fascinating  sinner  is 
to  me." 

"  I  beg  you  will  not  teach  Selina  any  such 
arrant  nonsense,"  said  my  aunt  sharply.  "  You 
are  not  my  daughter,  and  may,  therefore,  marry 
whom  you  please  without  my  consent,  and  I 
fancy  there  is  small  likelihood  of  the  angel 
Gabriel  entering  the  lists  against  any  of  your 
suitors  ;  but  I  would  rather  see  my  child  dead 
to-day  than  know  she  was  ever  to  become  the 
wife  of  Mr.  Opdyke.  I  wish  to  Heaven  he  had 
not  come  here." 

"  My  dear  Aunt,"  I  remonstrated,  surprised 
at  her  earnestness,  "  do  you  suppose  for  an 
instant  that  that  lovely,  innocent  girl  of  yours 
could  ever  be  attracted  towards  any  one  less 
pure  and  good  and  lovely  than  herself?  You 
may  trust  her  to  her  own  instincts  surely." 

Aunt  Jarvis  shook  her  head. 


196 


SELINA' S  SINGULAR  MARRIAGE. 


"  I  would  n't  trust  the  very  best  instincts 
in  the  world  around  the  corner  where  there  's 
a  man  in  the  case,"  she  said  gloomily.  "  There 
is  not  a  girl  living  but  will  fall  in  love  in  the 
wrong  place  if  she  can.  Trust  her  to  do  that. 
If  you  are  wanted  to  walk  one  way,  it  's  hu- 
man nature  to  want  to  walk  the  other.  As  a 
rule,  like  is  attracted  by  unlike  vastly  more 
than  by  like.  Did  you  ever  in  your  life  know 
a  girl  to  care  for  the  right  man  if  there  was  a 
wrong  one  anywhere  about  whom  she  could 
lose  her  heart  to  instead  ?  How  many  people 
marry  just  the  one  of  all  others  that  they 
should  ?  Are  not  half  the  unhappy  marriages 
one  sees  due  to  the  fact  that  the  girl  will  not 
be  guided  or  warned  by  those  who  know  bet- 
ter than  she  ?  " 

As  my  aunt  spoke  I  took  a  rapid  mental  sur- 
vey of  all  the  matrimonial  ventures  I  had  known 
of,  and  could  not  but  secretly  agree  with  her. 

"  Here 's  Mr.  Eaton,"  said  Selina's  soft  voice 
in  the  doorway.  "  Mr.  Opdyke  staid  outside 
to  finish  his  cigar." 

She  lingered  a  few  moments  on  the  thresh- 
old, playing  with  her  sweet-peas,  and  watching 
us  both  shyly  from  under  her  long  lashes  while 
her  mother  introduced  the  guest.  Then  she 
quietly  slipped  away  again.  Of  course,  she 
had  gone  back  to  Mr.  Opdyke. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  summer's  visit. 
The  two  young  men  were  at  the  house  daily. 
Morning,  noon,  or  night  there  was  always  some 
pretext  that  brought  them  both,  and  daily  Se- 
lina's voice  grew  sweeter,  her  smile  brighter, 
her  eyes  bluer,  her  cheeks  pinker.  She  was 
like  some  lovely  rosebud  unfolding  visibly  be- 
fore our  eyes  in  the  glow  of  a  radiant  mid- 
day. I  watched  her  with  growing  anxiety. 
How  could  any  one  help  loving  so  unuttera- 
bly lovely  a  thing  ?  I  laughed  to  myself  as  I 
looked  at  my  sallow  face,  with  its  marked  feat- 
ures, colorless  cheeks,  and  small,  deep-set  black 
eyes.  "  Aunt  Jarvis  may  be  without  fear  on 
my  score,"  I  thought  grimly ;  "  the  night  is 
no  rival  for  the  day." 

But  there  was  no  mistaking  Harry  Eaton's 
feelings.  The  blind  could  have  seen  them. 
My  advent  noways  affected  him.  He  was 
openly  and  irretrievably  in  love  with  Selina, 
just  as  everybody  wished  him  to  be.  Ah,  why 
could  she  not  care  for  him  ?  How  was  it  pos- 
sible for  her  to  resist  him  ?  In  her  place  I 
could  not  but  have  yielded  at  once.  He  was 
so  handsome  and  good,  and  so  charming  in 
every  way,  that  his  riches,  even  in  the  eyes  of 
the  less  wealthy,  were  accounted  the  least  of  his 
many  merits.  He  was  the  very  model  of  a  lover. 
He  would  be  the  very  model  of  a  husband. 
Why  should  gentle  little  Selina  be  the  only  one 
of  us  all  to  fail  to  appreciate  him  rightly  ? 

But  from  the  first  I  felt  that  it  was  utterly 


hopeless.  Harry  was  too  suitable.  Nature 
had  too  obviously  cut  them  out  for  each 
other.  Everybody  desired  the  match  too 
much.  It  was  too  exactly  what  Selina  ought 
to  do.  Had  there  been  but  a  breath  of  op- 
position !  As  it  was,  I  foresaw  that  the  natural 
perversity  of  things  would  inevitably  lead  her 
to  prefer  Mr.  Opdyke.  It  did  seem  too  hard. 
I  studied  Mr.  Opdyke  closely.  How  was  it 
possible  that  Selina  should  choose  him  in 
preference  to  Harry  Eaton  ?  He  was  an  old- 
ish young  man,  already  quite  bald,  and  so 
tall  and  thin  as  to  be  ungainly,  with  large, 
clumsy  features  that  were  not  of  any  particular 
shape,  and  a  provokingly  cynical  smile.  He 
was  poor  and  lazy,  and,  the  better  to  cope 
with  these  difficulties,  was  maliciously  en- 
dowed with  extravagant  habits  and  expensive 
tastes.  He  smoked  to  excess.  He  was  de- 
voted to  horses  and  never  missed  a  race,  not 
even  on  Sundays,  it  was  said.  In  short,  he  was 
notoriously  the  black  sheep  of  a  family  never 
remarkable  for  its  white  ones.  He  was  self- 
ish, morose,  fault-finding,  and  sharp-tongued. 
There  seemed  at  first  absolutely  no  redeeming 
quality  in  him,  and  yet  something  indefinable 
about  the  man  attracted  and  held  one  against 
one's  will, —  a  feeling,  perhaps,  that  after  all  he 
was  better  than  he  seemed,  that  beguiled  one 
into  an  unwilling  admiration  for  the  truthful- 
ness of  a  nature  which  at  least  never  dissem- 
bled or  glossed  over  its  weaknesses,  so  that, 
bad  as  he  was,  at  any  rate  one  knew  the  worst 
of  him  at  once,  while  whatever  extenuating 
virtues  he  had  (and  of  course  no  poor  wretch 
is  ever  wholly  without  good)  were  discover- 
able only  upon  further  acquaintance.  It  was 
impossible,  therefore,  altogether  to  dislike  him, 
try  as  one  would ;  and  in  the  face  of  one's  most 
violent  mental  protest,  one  found  one's  self  not 
only  enduring  him,  but  before  long  positively 
enjoying  his  sarcastic,  brilliant  talk,  and  think- 
ing other  people  commonplace  beside  him. 
Was  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  Selina,  our  in- 
nocent, white-souled  dove,  should  not  escape 
the  snare?  He  never  sought  her  out,  appar- 
ently; indeed,  he  seemed  as  indifferent  to  one 
human  being  as  to  another,  and  was  at  no 
trouble  to  please  anybody ;  and  yet,  day  by  day, 
hour  by  hour,  I  felt  more  and  more  what  an 
irresistible  power  of  fascination  the  man  pos- 
sessed. I  could  not  bear  to  see  my  darling 
with  him,  looking  up  in  his  ugly  face  with  her 
confiding,  trustful  smile.  I  could  not  have 
her  give  her  heart's  first  fresh  love  so  unwor- 
thily as  this.  She  was  too  precious,  too  rare, 
too  worshipful  for  such  a  fate.  I  did  all  that 
I  could  to  warn  her.  I  pointed  out  his  faults 
unsparingly,  and  in  her  sweet  charity  she  found 
some  unsuspected  virtue  in  him  to  counterbal- 
ance every  one  I  named.  I  declared  that  I 


SELINA'S  SINGULAR  MARRIAGE. 


197 


hated  and  despised  him  above  all  men  I  had 
ever  met,  and  she  only  pitied  and  excused 
him  the  more,  i  ridiculed  him,  made  fun  of 
his  awkwardness  and  his  ugliness,  and  mim- 
icked him  with  a  spirit  and  success  that  would 
have  made  my  fortune  on  the  stage.  She 
looked  at  me  with  reproachful  blue  eyes,  and 
said  never  a  word.  Then  I  contrasted  him 
with  Mr.  Eaton,  praising  the  one  as  ardently 
as  I  mercilessly  decried  the  other,  and  in  the 
middle  of  it  all  she  jumped  up,  throwing  her 
arms  around  me  and  rubbing  her  soft  cheek 
against  my  lips,  and  whispered,  "  O  Cousin 
Janey,  Cousin  Janey  !  Do  you  like  Mr.  Eaton 
so  very,  very  much  as  that  ?  " 

Then  she  ran  out  of  the  room,  and  when 
I  next  saw  her  she  was  seated  in  the  swing 
with  the  two  men  standing  by  her,  and  she 
was  talking  earnestly  with  Mr.  Opdyke,  her 
pretty  head  bent  towards  him  with  the  look 
of  a  child  waiting  to  be  kissed,  and  paying  no 
attention  whatever  to  Harry,  who  held  the 
rope  of  the  swing  not  an  inch  above  where  her 
tiny  white  fingers  clasped  it,  and  was  swaying 
her  gently  to  and  fro. 

Well,  I  did  what  I  could  to  avert  the  im- 
pending calamity.  I  am  no  flirt  by  nature,  but 
I  became  one  for  Selina's  sake.  I  set  myself 
deliberately  to  entice  the  monster  away  from 
her.  I  wore  my  most  stylish  dresses,  and  the 
ones  that  my  quick  perception  saw  best  pleased 
his  fastidious  fancy;  for,  as  he  never  paid  a 
compliment,  one  could  but  guess  at  his  likings. 
I  took  the  utmost  pains  to  smooth  my  crisp 
black  locks  into  silkiness,  and  to  remove  the 
freckles  from  my  skin, —  what  mistaken  genius 
first  called  them  beauty-spots? — and  to  keep 
my  hands  white  and  soft.  I  aired  my  every 
accomplishment  for  his  benefit.  I  left  my 
sketches  around  accidentally  in  places  where 
I  thought  he  would  find  them.  The  best  ones 
had  been  done  by  an  artist  friend  of  mine,  but 
I  scratched  my  initials  in  the  corner//?'  tern., 
and  strewed  them  around  with  the  rest.  I 
brought  my  German  and  French  books  down 
into  the  drawing-room,  leaving  the  dictiona- 
ries upstairs,  and  fished  out  one  or  two  abstruse 
works  from  the  library,  which  I  pretended  to 
read  for  pleasure.  I  sang  uninvited  in  the 
evenings,  knowing  instinctively  the  songs  that 
he  liked  best,  and  I  never  sang  so  well.  I  have 
not  much  of  a  voice  :  it  is  thin,  and  not  nearly 
so  sweet  as  Selina's ;  but  it  has  been  excellently 
trained,  and  when  it  is  carefully  used  —  in  a  sort 
of  suppressed,  reckless  way  that  presupposes 
I  might  do  wonders  did  I  but  choose  to  take 
pains  or  to  let  it  all  out  —  it  is  quite  -effective. 

I  was  singing  so  one  evening,  throwing  all 
the  smothered  passion  into  my  tones  of  which 
they  are  capable, —  that  broken-hearted  way  of 
singing  is  such  a  telling  trick,  though  any  four- 


dollar-the-lesson  singing-master  can  teach  it, — 
and  as  I  went  on,  all  talk  in  the  room  ceased, 
and  I  felt,  for  I  never  looked  at  him,  that  Mr. 
( )pdyke  had  drawn  away  from  everybody,  and 
was  standing  in  the  window  bay,  listening 
intently.  Then,  because  I  knew  I  was  grace- 
ful and  danced  well,  I  coaxed  Selina  to  play 
one  of  her  horrid  little  rattling  waltzes,  while 
Mr.  Eaton  and  I  pirouetted  slowly  around  the 
room,  passing  and  repassing  before  the  win- 
dow where  that  ungainly  figure  stood  drawn 
back  from  us  all,  while  Aunt  Jarvis  glared  at 
me  exasperatedly,  looking  at  me  as  if  she  were 
going  to  jump  up  any  moment  to  tear  my 
partner  from  me.  It  requires  an  uncommonly 
well-balanced  mind  to  discriminate  between  a 
girl's  dancing  with  one  man,  and  her  dancing 
for  another. 

Later  in  the  evening  we  all  went  out  on  the 
piazza,  and  Mr.  Opdyke  walked  off  to  the 
other  end  to  enjoy  his  inevitable  cigar.  At 
least  he  was  considerate  of  other  people's 
rights,  and  never  obtruded  his  failings  upon  us. 
Every  now  and  then  Selina  glanced  towards 
him  uneasily. 

"  It  seems  so  inhospitable  to  leave  him  off 
there  alone,"  she  said  at  last.  "  It  is  a  pity  that 
mother  minds  the  smoke  so  much,  or  he  could 
just  as  well  sit  here  with  us.  I  am  afraid  he  feels 
lonely." 

I  saw  that  she  would  go  to  him  in  another 
moment,  so  I  quietly  left  my  seat  and  saun- 
tered leisurely  down  the  piazza  towards  him, 
under  pretense  of  getting  a  better  view  of  the 
moonlit  lawn.  Selina  looked  quite  satisfied. 
All  city  people  are  supposed  to  rave  over  the 
moonlight,  as  if  the  country  had  a  monopoly  of 
it,  and  it  were  procurable  nowhere  else.  Nat- 
urally my  slow  walk  came  to  a  standstill  by  the 
time  I  reached  Mr.  Opdyke ;  but  for  a  while 
I  answered  him  only  in  monosyllables,  suf- 
fering myself,  however,  to  be  drawn' by  degrees 
into  more  and  more  animated  conversation, 
until  at  last  I  found  myself  talking  for  that 
one  man  as  I  had  never  talked  in  the  most 
brilliant  assembly  before.  I  could  not  tell 
whether  I  was  succeeding  or  not  in  my  well- 
meant  effort  to  convince  him  of  my  mental 
superiority  to  my  little  country-bred  cousin, 
but  at  least  I  was  keeping  him  from  her.  There 
was  safety  for  her  in  that. 

I  saw  Selina  watching  us,  and  even  at  that 
distance  I  could  detect  a  shade  of  surprise 
upon  her  lovely  face.  She  was  undoubtedly 
wondering  at  my  long  voluntary  tete-a-tcte 
with  a  man  whom  I  so  unsparingly  denounced 
to  her.  How  exquisite  she  looked  in  her  pale- 
tinted  dress,  with  a  lacey  shawl  wound  care- 
lessly around  her  head  and  shoulders  to  protect 
her  from  the  night  dews.  She  might  have 
been  Titania  herself.  Mr.  Opdyke  glanced 


198 


SELfNA'S  SINGULAR  MARRIAGE. 


towards  her  too,  then  turned  and  looked 
straight  down  at  me.  I  felt  the  cruel  moon- 
light playing  pitilessly  upon  my  face.  There 
was  nothing  of  Titania  about  we. 

"  Do  you  know,"  he  said,  slowly  knocking 
off  the  ashes  of  his  cigar  upon  the  balustrade 
against  which  we  leaned,  careless  that  the 
greater  portion  fell  over  my  dress,  "  I  think 
your  cousin  is  the  very  prettiest  little  thing  I 
haveeverseen.  I  particularly  admire  blondes." 

I  felt  myself  flushing  suddenly,  as  if  his 
words  had  been  an  impertinence  especially 
directed  against  my  brunette  plainness,  and 
I  was  all  the  more  indignant  because  I  fan- 
cied he  intended  me  to  understand  him  ex- 
actly as  I  had  done. 

"  Let  us  go  back,"  I  said.  "  Your  cigar 
spoils  the  moonlight." 

"As  you  please,"  he  answered,  tossing  it 
away.  "  I  do  not  in  the  least  mind  what  you 
do  with  me." 

At  this  I  felt  angrier  with  him  than  ever; 
so  angry,  that  the  next  day  I  could  not 
bring  myself  to  talk  civilly  with  him,  even  for 
Selina's  sake,  though  I  saw  her  abandon  Mr. 
Eaton  in  the  most  barefaced  manner  to  de- 
vote herself  to  this  moody  man,  from  whom 
even  she  could  scarcely  win  a  smile,  and  who 
forced  his  companionship  upon  us  for  no 
better  reason  than  to  be  a  little  less  bored 
with  himself.  He  was  particularly  unamiable 
that  day,  and  provoked  me  into  several  rude 
speeches,  and  by  evening  I  would  have  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  him.  If  Selina  chose 
to  rush  headlong  to  such  a  fate,  she  might.  I 
was  very,  very  sorry  for  her,  but  I  had  done 
what  I  could,  and  surely  need  no  longer  hold 
myself  responsible.  She  was  not  blindfold, 
and  despite  her  youth  she  was  quite  old  enough 
to  know  better  and  not  willfully  to  choose 
chaff  when  she  might  have  wheat. 

But  I  made  one  last  effort  even  then,  as  I 
sat  sulkily  in  the  window,  attired  in  my  most 
unbecoming  dress  and  my  hair  all  rough  and 
fuzzy :  what  was  the  use  of  taking  any  more 
pains  with  my  toilet  ?  All  my  city  fashions 
together  could  not  outshine  this  poor  child's 
fatal  beauty  that  seemed  leading  her  so  fast 
into  her  life's  mistake. 

"  Selina,"  I  said,  catching  her  hand  as  she 
passed  near  me,  "  why  will  you  devote  your- 
self to  that  man  ?  Do  go  back  to  Mr.  Eaton, 
and  leave  him  to  himself.  He  is  not  worth  a 
tithe  of  the  attention  you  bestow  upon  him." 

"  But  I  am  so  sorry  for  him,"  Selina  mur- 
mured back.  "  Every  one  likes  Mr.  Eaton, 
and  nobody  seems  to  like  Mr.  Opdyke  at  all 
but  just  me.  I  really  think  he  is  ever  so  much 
nicer  than  you  say." 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  I  rejoined,  shrugging  my 
shoulders.  "  If  you  like  bears,  by  all  means 


put  a  chain  on  him  and  lead  him  round. 
Perhaps,  by  and  by,  if  he  tame  down,  you 
can  get  him  to  dance  to  a  drum." 

"I'll  dance  now,  if  you  like, —  to  the  piano," 
said  the  bear's  voice,  directly  behind  us.  "  Miss 
Selina,  will  you  favor  me  with  a  turn  ?  " 

I  rose,  mortified  beyond  endurance  at  hav- 
ing been  overheard,  and  went  dully  to  the 
piano,  playing  mechanically  on  and  on  for  I 
did  not  know  or  care  how  long.  It  seemed  to 
me  the  cracked  old  instrument  had  never 
been  so  outrageously  out  of  tune.  Every  note 
set  me  on  edge. 

"  You  are  keeping  atrocious  time,"  said  a 
voice  in  my  ear  at  last.  "  I  don't  think  Miss 
Selina  can  do  much  worse.  Let  her  try." 

Then  Selina,  all  bright  and  breathless  with 
dancing,  took  my  place  with  a  gay  little  laugh, 
and  Harry  immediately  sat  down  by  her  to 
"beat  time,"  he  said,  and  in  another  moment 
I  found  myself  gliding  around  the  room  with 
Mr.  Opdyke.  He  danced  divinely,  I  will  say 
that  much  for  him, —  these  ungainly  men  some- 
times do, —  and  we  kept  on  and  on  and  on, 
with  never  a  word  spoken  between  us.  Aunt 
Jarvis  had  left  the  room,  quite  content  with 
the  present  division  of  couples,  and  the  pair 
at  the  piano  were  chatting  merrily,  but  we 
two  danced  on  in  utter  silence,  as  if  engaged 
in  some  solemn  ceremony  that  words  would 
desecrate.  It  was  unutterably  ridiculous,  and 
finally  I  stopped  short. 

"  It  is  too  silly,"  I  said  petulantly. 

Mr.  Opdyke  stopped  too,  but  without  re- 
leasing me. 

"  It  is  rather,"  he  said  coolly,  not  an  atom 
flushed  or  flurried  by  the  exercise.  "  Dancing 
is  always  foolish.  I  think  I  '11  go  and  smoke. 
But  tell  me  first  what  possessed  you  to  put  on 
that  hideous  dress  to-night?  I  never  saw  you 
look  so  badly." 

"  Thank  you,"  I  replied,  flashing  up  a  vin- 
dictive look  at  him.  "  I  think  I  have  capabili- 
ties of  ugliness  nearly  equal  to  your  own.  Will 
you  let  me  go,  please  ?  " 

Selina's  frightful  waltz  had  not  yet  come 
to  an  end.  She  and  Harry  were  improvising 
a  still  more  dreadful  duet  out  of  it,  and  were 
quite  wild  with  delight  over  their  success.  Mr. 
Opdyke  suddenly  drew  me  close  and  bent  low 
over  me. 

"Jane,"  he  whispered,  "  I  could  dance  on 
so  forever ! " 

With  a  cry  of  surprise  and  alarm  and  I 
know  not  what  emotion  beside,  I  broke  from 
him  and  fled  upstairs  to  my  own  room  like 
one  pursued  by  demons.  There  I  sat  all  the 
rest  of  the  evening  alone  in  the  dark,  with  my 
heart  beating  painfully,  while  footsteps  paced 
steadily  up  and  down  the  piazza  beneath  — 
Mr.  Opdyke's  footsteps.  He  was  having  his 


A    CRY. 


199 


cigar.  He  could  readier  forego  heaven  itself 
than  his  evening  smoke.  Then  the  sound  of 
voices  stole  up  to  me  indistinctly.  Somebody 
had  joined  him  there.  It  might  be  Selina  or 
Aunt  Jarvis,  I  could  not  tell  which,  and  I  said 
to  myself  that  it  did  not  at  all  matter  which, 
but  that  nothing  should  ever,  ever  tempt  me  to 
go  downstairs  again  when  I  knew  that  that 
man  was  there. 

Suddenly  my  door  opened  softly,  and  Se- 
lina ran  in  and  knelt  down  by  me,  burying 
her  face  in  my  dress.  I  could  feel  that  she 
was  trembling. 

"  O  Janey !  O  Janey!"  she  whispered.  "  I 
have  something  wonderful  to  tell  you.  I  am 
so  happy  I  can't  keep  it  to  myself.  Janey,  I 
am  engaged ! " 

Such  an  odd  sensation  shot  through  me !  I 
always  thought  before  it  was  a  figure  of  speech 
to  say  that  one's  heart  sank ;  but  as  the  child 
spoke,  I  absolutely  felt  my  heart  go  down, 
down,  down,  till  I  did  not  know  where  it 
would  bring  up.  There  is  nothing  idiomatic 
about  the  phrase.  The  thing  positively  hap- 
pens. 

I  pushed  the  child  involuntarily  a  little  away 
from  me. 

"  I  have  been  expecting  it,"  I  said  harshly. 
"  I  have  seen  it  all  along,  of  course.  If  you 
wish  to  throw  yourself  away  abominably,  do 
so,  but  don't  come  to  me  for  congratulations. 
There  's  not  a  man  in  this  world  that  I  hate 
so  intolerably  as  I  do  Alston  Opdyke." 

"  Alston  Opdyke !  "  repeated  Selina,  lifting 
her  sweet  face  in  utmost  amazement.  "  But 
Janey,  you  did  n't  suppose  I  ever  cared  for 
Mr.  Opdyke  in  that  way,  did  you  ?  Why,  I 
would  n't  marry  him  for  all  the  world,  though 
I  "m  just  as  sorry  for  him  as  I  can  be,  because 
he  is  so  disagreeable,  though  he  's  nothing  like 
so  bad  as  we  all  thought  him  at  first.  But,  O 
Janey,  Janey  !  how  could  you  think  it  ?  Why, 


I  have  loved  Harry  Eaton  with  all  my  heart 
ever  since  the  first  day  I  saw  him.  I  never 
for  one  moment  thought  of  anybody  but  him, 
and  I  think  he  guessed  it  all  along.  Do  kiss 
me,  Janey ! " 

Then  something  like  a  great  gush  of  relief 
swept  over  me  and  took  away  my  words,  and 
I  kissed  her  in  perfect  silence. 

So  that  was  the  singular  marriage  that 
Selina  made.  She  went  exactly  contrary  to 
the  time-old  custom  of  things,  which,  in 
every  case  is  that  they  turn  out  wrong,  of 
course.  She  outwitted  fate,  which,  having 
thrown  both  the  evil  and  the  good  in  her  way, 
made  it  clear  to  onlookers  that  she  would 
naturally  eschew  the  good  and  select  the  evil. 
She  married  precisely  as  she  should  have 
married,  and  entirely  in  accordance  with  the 
wishes  of  those  who  loved  her  most  and 
who  could  best  judge  for  her,  securing  her 
happiness  from  the  first  and  forever,  without 
a  struggle,  without  a  doubt,  and  without  a 
cross.  Fortunate  little  Selina !  Thrice  blessed 
little  Selina ! 

For,  alas  that  it  is  so,  but  how  many  of  us 
know  and  choose  the  best  when  it  is  within 
our  reach  ?  How  many  of  us,  holding  our 
fates  in  our  hands,  do  not  mar  rather  than 
make  our  fortunes  by  our  arrogance  and  pride 
of  willfulness  ?  Indeed,  it  is  a  marvel  to  me, 
to  this  day,  that  Selina  should  not  out  of 
sheer  contrariness  have  fallen  in  love  with  the 
thoroughly  unworthy  Mr.  Opdyke  instead, 
and  have  clung  to  him,  for  better,  for  worse, 
mainly  for  worse,  amid  the  shrieking  pro- 
testations of  her  entire  circle  of  outraged 
friends  and  relations.  For,  situated  as  she  was, 
that  is  what  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
girls  out  of  a  thousand  would  have  done,  to 
rue  it  their  lifelong  thereafter — as  I  have  rued 
it.  For  I  married  Mr.  Opdyke. 

Grace  Denio  Litchfield. 


A  CRY. 

O  WANDERER  in  unknown  lands,  what  cheer  ? 
How  dost  thou  fare  on  thy  mysterious  way  ? 
What  strange  light  breaks  upon  thy  distant  day, 
Yet  leaves  me  lonely  in  the  darkness  here  ? 

Oh,  bide  no  longer  in  that  far-off  sphere, 

Though  all  Heaven's  cohorts  should  thy  footsteps  stay. 
Break  through  their  splendid,  militant  array, 
And  answer  to  my  call,  O  dead  and  dear! 

I  shall  not  fear  thee,  howsoe'er  thou  come. 

Thy  coldness  will  not  chill,  though  Death  is  cold  — 
A  touch  and  I  shall  know  thee,  or  a  breath ; 

Speak  the  old,  well-known  language,  or  be.  dumb; 
Only  come  back !  Be  near  me  as  of  old, 
So  thou  and  I  shall  triumph  over  Death ! 


Louise    Chandler  Moulton. 


THE    RANCHMAN'S    RIFLE    ON 
CRAG   AND    PRAIRIE. 

BY    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT. 
ILLUSTRATIONS    BY    FKKUKKIC    REMINGTON. 


THE  TEXA3  TYPE  OF  COWBOY, 


THE  ranchman  owes 
to  his  rifle  not  only 
the  keen  pleasure  and 
strong  excitement  of 
the  chase,  but  also 
much  of  his  bodily 
comfort ;  for,  save  for 
his  prowess  as  a  hunter 
and  his  skill  as  a  marks- 
man with  this,  his  fav- 
orite weapon,  he  would 
almost  always  be  sadly 
stinted  for  fresh  meat. 
Now  that  the  buffalo 
have  gone,  and  the 
Sharps  rifle  by  which 
they  were  destroyed 
is  also  gone,  almost 
all  ranchmen  use  some 
form  of  repeater.  Personally  I  prefer  the  Win- 
chester, using  the  new  model,  with  a  4  5 -cali- 
ber bullet  of  300  grains,  backed  by  90  grains 
of  powder. 

From  April  to  August  antelope  are  the 
game  we  chiefly  follow,  killing  only  the  bucks; 
after  that  season,  black-tail  and  white-tail  deer. 
Occasionally  we  kill  white-tail  by  driving  them 
out  of  the  wooded  bottoms  with  the  help  of 
the  slow,  bell-mouthed,  keen-nosed  Southern 
track-hounds;  or  more  often  take  the  swift 
gazehounds  and,  on  the  open  prairie,  by  sheer 
speed,  run  down  antelope,  jack-rabbit,  coyotes, 
and  foxes.  Now  and  then  we  get  a  chance  at 
mountain  sheep,  and  more  rarely  at  larger 
game  still.  As  a  rule,  I  never  shoot  anything 
but  bucks.  But  in  the  rutting  season,  when  the 
bucks'  flesh  is  poor,  or  when  we  need  to  lay  in 
a  good  stock  of  meat  for  the  winter,  this  rule 
of  course  must  be  broken. 

A  small  band  of  elk  yet  linger  round  a  great 
patch  of  prairie  and  Bad  Lands  some  thirty- 
five  miles  off.  In  1885  I  killed  a  good  bull  out  of 
the  lot;  and  once  last  season,  when  we  were 
sorely  in  need  of  meat  for  smoking  and  drying, 
we  went  after  them  again.  At  the  time  most  of 
the  ponies  were  off  on  one  of  the  round-ups, 
which  indeed  I  had  myself  just  left.  However, 
my  two  hunting-horses,  Manitou  and  Sorrel 
Joe,  were  at  home.  The  former  I  rode  myself, 
and  on  the  latter  I  mounted  one  of  my  men 


who  was  a  particularly  good  hand  at  finding 
and  following  game.  With  much  difficulty  we 
got  together  a"  scrub  wagon  team  of  four 
as  unkempt,  dejected,  and  vicious-looking 
broncos  as  ever  stuck  fast  in  a  quicksand  or 
balked  in  pulling  up  a  steep  pitch.  Their 
driver  was  a  crack  whip,  and  their  load  light, 
consisting  of  little  but  the  tent  and  the  bed- 
ding ;  so  we  got  out  to  the  hunting-ground  and 
back  in  safety  ;  but  as  the  river  was  high  and 
the  horses  were  weak,  we  came  within  an  ace 
of  being  swamped  at  one  crossing,  and  the 
country  was  so  very  rough  that  we  were  only 
able  to  get  the  wagon  up  the  worst  pitch  by 
hauling  from  the  saddle  with  theriding-animals. 

We  camped  by  an  excellent  spring  of  cold, 
clear  water —  not  a  common  luxury  in  the  Bad 
Lands.  We  pitched  the  tent  beside  it,  getting 
enough  timber  from  a  grove  of  ash  to  make 
a  large  fire,  which  again  is  an  appreciated 
blessing  on  the  plains  of  the  West,  where  we 
often  need  to  carry  along  with  us  the  wood 
for  cooking  our  supper  and  breakfast,  and 
sometimes  actually  have  to  dig  up  our  fuel, 
making  the  fire  of  sage-brush  roots,  eked  out 
with  buffalo  chips.  Though  the  days  were 
still  warm,  the  nights  were  frosty.  Our  camp 
was  in  a  deep  valley,  bounded  by  steep  hills 
with  sloping,  grassy  sides,  one  of  them  marked 
by  a  peculiar  shelf  of  rock.  The  country  for 
miles  was  of  this  same  character,  much  broken, 
but  every  where  passable  for  horsemen,  and  with 
the  hills  rounded  and  grassy,  except  now  and 
then  for  a  chain  of  red  scoria  buttes  or  an  iso- 
lated sugar-loaf  cone  of  gray  and  brown  clay. 
The  first  day  we  spent  in  trying  to  find  the 
probable  locality  of  our  game ;  and  after  beat- 
ing pretty  thoroughly  over  the  smoother  coun- 
try, towards  nightfall  we  found  quite  fresh  elk 
tracks  leading  into  a  stretch  of  very  rough  and 
broken  land  about  ten  miles  from  camp. 

We  started  next  morning  before  the  gray 
was  relieved  by  the  first  faint  flush  of  pink, 
and  reached  the  broken  country  soon  after 
sunrise.  Here  we  dismounted  and  picketed 
our  horses,  as  the  ground  we  were  to  hunt 
through  was  very  rough.  Two  or  three  hours 
passed  before  we  came  upon  fresh  signs  of 
elk.  Then  we  found  the  trails  that  two,  from 
the  si/.e  presumably  cows,  had  made  the  pre- 


A'.-I.YC//.\fAJV'S  RIFLE   ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


201 


ceding  night,  and  started  to  follow  them,  care- 
fully and  noiselessly,  my  companion  taking 
one  side  of  the  valley  in  which  we  were,  and  I 
the  other.  The  tracks  led  into  one  of  the  wild- 
est and  most  desolate  parts  of  the  Had  Lands. 
It  was  now  the  heat  of  the  day,  the  bra/en 
sun  shining  out  of  a  cloudless  sky,  and  not  the 
least  breeze  stirring.  At  the  bottom  of  the 


could,  the  game  must  have  heard  or  smelt  us  ; 
for  after  a  mile's  painstaking  search  we  <  ame 
to  a  dense  thicket  in  which  were  two  beds, 
evidently  but  just  left,  for  the  twigs  and  bent 
grass-blades  were  still  slowly  rising  from  the 
ground  to  which  the  bodies  of  the  elk  had 
pressed  them.  The  long,  clean  hoof-prints 
told  us  that  the  quarry  had  started  off  at  a 


OUR  ELK  OUTFIT  AT  THE  FORD. 


valley,  in  the  deep,  narrow  bed  of  the  winding 
water-course,  lay  a  few  tepid  little  pools,  al- 
most dried  up.  Thick  groves  of  stunted  cedars 
stood  here  and  there  in  the  glen-like  pockets 
of  the  high  buttes,  the  peaks  and  sides  of  which 
were  bare,  and  only  their  lower,  terrace-like 
ledges  thinly  clad  with  coarse,  withered  grass 
and  sprawling  sage-bush;  the  parched  hill- 
sides were  riven  by  deep,  twisting  gorges,  with 
brushwood  in  the  bottoms ;  and  the  cliffs  of 
coarse  clay  were  cleft  and  seamed  by  sheer- 
sided,  canyon-like  gullies.  In  the  narrow  ra- 
vines, closed  in  by  barren,  sun-baked  walls, 
the  hot  air  stood  still  and  sultry ;  the  only  liv- 
ing beings  were  the  rattlesnakes,  and  of  these 
I  have  never  elsewhere  seen  so  many.  Some 
basked  in  the  sun,  stretched  out  at  their  ugly 
length  of  mottled  brown  and  yellow ;  others 
lay  half  under  stones  or  twined  in  the  roots  of 
the  sage-brush,  and  looked  straight  at  me 
with  that  strange,  sullen,  evil  gaze,  never  shift- 
ing or  moving,  that  is  the  property  only  of 
serpents  and  of  certain  men ;  while  one  or  two 
coiled  and  rattled  menacingly  as  I  stepped  near. 
Yet,  though  we  walked  as  quietly  as  we 
VOL.  XXXVI.  — 29. 


swinging  trot.  We  followed  at  once,  and  it 
was  wonderful  to  see  how  such  large,  heavy 
beasts  had  gone  up  the  steepest  hill-sides 
without  altering  their  swift  and  easy  gait,  and 
had  plunged  unhesitatingly  over  nearly  sheer 
cliffs  down  which  we  had  to  clamber  with 
careful  slowness. 

They  left  the  strip  of  rugged  Bad  Lands 
and  went  on  into  the  smoother  country  be- 
yond, luckily  passing  quite  close  to  where  our 
horses  were  picketed.  We  thought  it  likely 
they  would  halt  in  some  heavily  timbered 
coulies  six  or  seven  miles  off,  and  as  there 
was  no  need  of  hurry,  we  took  lunch  and  then 
began  following  them  up  —  an  easy  feat,  as 
their  hoofs  had  sunk  deep  into  the  soft  soil, 
the  prints  of  the  dew-claws  showing  now  and 
then.  At  first  we  rode,  but  soon  dismounted, 
and  led  our  horses. 

We  found  the  elk  almost  as  soon  as  we  struck 
the  border  of  the  ground  we  had  marked  as 
their  probable  halting-place.  Our  horses  were 
unshod  and  made  but  little  noise ;  and  coming 
to  a  wide,  long  coulie,  filled  with  tall  trees 
and  brushwood,  we  as  usual  separated,  I 


202 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE   ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


going  down  one  side  and  my  companion  the 
other.  When  nearly  half-way  down  he  sud- 
denly whistled  sharply,  and  I  of  course  at 
once  stood  still,  with  my  rifle  at  the  ready. 
Nothing  moved,  and  I  glanced  at  him.  He 
had  squatted  down  and  was  gazing  earnestly 
over  into  the  dense  laurel  on  my  side  of  the 
coulie.  In  a  minute  he  shouted  that  he  saw 
a  reel  patch  in  the  brush  which  he  thought 
must  be  the  elk,  and  that  it  was  right  between 
him  and  myself.  Elk  will  sometimes  lie  as  closely 
as  rabbits,  even  when  not  in  very  good  cover ; 
still  I  was  a  little  surprised  at  these  not  breaking 
out  when  they  heard  human  voices.  However, 
there  they  staid ;  and  I  waited  several  min- 
utes in  vain  for  them  to  move.  From  where  I 
stood  it  was  impossible  to  see  them,  and  I  was 
fearful  that  they  might  go  off  down  the  valley 
and  so  offer  me  a  very  poor  shot.  Meanwhile, 
Manitou,  who  is  not  an  emotional  horse,  and 


OUR    CAMP. 


is  moreover  blessed  with  a  large  appetite,  was 
feeding  greedily,  rattling  his  bridle-chains 
at  every  mouthful ;  and  1  thought  he  would 
act  as  a  guard  to  keep  the  elk  where  they 
were  until  I  shifted  my  position.  So  I  slipped 
back,  and  ran  swiftly  round  the  head  of  the 
coulie  to  where  my  companion  was  still  sit- 
ting. He  pointed  me  out  the  patch  of  red  in 
the  bushes,  not  sixty  yards  distant,  and  I  fired 
into  it  without  delay,  by  good  luck  breaking 
the  neck  of  a  cow  elk,  when  immediately 
another  one  rose  up  from  beside  it  and  made 
off.  I  had  five  shots  at  her  as  she  ascended 
the  hill-side  and  the  gentle  slope  beyond  ;  and 
two  of  my  bullets  struck  her  close  together  in 
the  flank,  ranging  forward — a  very  fatal  shot. 
She  was  evidently  mortally  hit,  and  just  as 
she  reached  the  top  of  the  divide  she  stopped, 
reeled,  and  fell  over,  dead. 

We  were  much  pleased  with  our  luck,  as  it 


secured  us  an  ample  stock  of  needed  fresh 
meat;  and  the  two  elk  lay  very  handily,  so 
that  on  the  following  day  we  were  able  to  stop 
for  them  with  the  wagon  on  our  way  home- 
ward, putting  them  in  bodily,  and  leaving  only 
the  entrails  for  the  vultures  that  were  already 
soaring  in  great  circles  over  the  carcasses. 

In  the  fall  of  1886  I  went  far  west  to  the 
Rockies  and  took  a  fortnight's  hunting  trip 
among  the  northern  spurs  of  the  Creur 
d'Alene,  between  the  towns  of  Heron  and 
Horseplains  in  Montana.  There  are  many 
kinds  of  game  to  be  found  in  the  least  known 
or  still  untrodden  parts  of  this  wooded  mount- 
ain wilderness — caribou,  elk,  ungainly  moose 
with  great  shovel  horns,  cougars,  and  bears. 
But  I  did  not  have  time  to  go  deeply  into  the 
heart  of  the  forest-clad  ranges,  and  devoted 
my  entire  energies  to  the  chase  of  but  one  ani- 
mal, the  white  antelope-goat,  at  present  the 
least  known  and  rarest  of  all 
American  game. 

We  started  from  one  of  those 
most  dismal  and  forlorn  of  all 
places,  a  dead  mining  town,  on 
the  line  of  the  Northern  Pacific 
Railroad.  My  foreman,  Merrifiekl, 
was  with  me,  and  as  guide  I  took 
a  tall,  lithe,  happy-go-lucky  mount- 
aineer, who,  like  so  many  of  the 
restless  frontier  race,  was  born  in 
Missouri.  Our  outfit  was  simple,  as 
we  carried  only  blankets,  a  light 
wagon  sheet,  the  ever-present 
camera,  flour,  bacon,  salt,  sugar, 
and  coffee;  canned  goods  are  very 
unhandy  to  pack  about  on  horse- 
back. Our  rifles  and  ammunition, 
with  the  few  cooking-utensils  and  a 
book  or  two,  completed  the  list. 
Four  solemn  ponies  and  a  ridicu- 
lous little  mule  named  Walla  Walla  bore  us 
and  our  belongings.  The  Missourian  was  an 
expert  packer,  versed  in  the  mysteries  of  the 
"  diamond  hitch,"  the  only  arrangement  of 
the  ropes  that  will  insure  a  load  staying  in  its 
place.  Driving  a  pack  train  through  the  wooded 
paths  and  up  the  mountain  passes  that  we  had 
to  traverse  is  hard  work  anyhow,  as  there  are 
sure  to  be  accidents  happening  to  the  animals 
all  the  time,  while  their  packs  receive  rough 
treatment  from  jutting  rocks  and  overhanging 
branches,  or  from  the  half-fallen  tree-trunks 
under  which  the  animals  wriggle;  and  if  the 
loads  are  continually  coming  loose,  or  slipping 
so  as  to  gall  the  horses'  backs  and  make  them 
sore,  the  labor  and  anxiety  are  increased 
tenfold. 

In  a  day  or  two  we  were  in  the  heart  of  the 
vast  wooded  wilderness.  A  broad,  lonely  river 
ran  through  its  midst,  cleaving  asunder  the 


THE   RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE   ON  CRAG   AND    1'R.llRIE. 


203 


IN    A    CANYON     OF    THE    CCEUR   D*ALENE. 


mountain  chains.  Range  after  range,  peak 
upon  peak,  the  mountains  towered  on  every 
side,  the  lower  timbered  to  the  top,  the  higher 
with  bare  crests  of  gray  crags  or  else  hooded 
with  fields  of  shining  snow.  The  deep  valleys 
lay  half  in  darkness,  hemmed  in  by  steep,  tim- 
bered slopes  and  straight  rock  walls.  The 
torrents,  broken  into  glittering  foam  masses, 


sprang  down  through  the  chasms  they  had 
rent  in  the  sides  of  the  high  hills,  lingered  in 
black  pools  under  the  shadows  of  the  scarred 
cliffs,  and  reaching  the  rank,  tree-choked  val- 
leys, gathered  into  rapid  streams  of  clear  brown 
water,  that  drenched  the  drooping  limbs  of 
the  tangled  alders.  Over  the  whole  land 
lay  like  a  shroud  the  mighty  growth  of  the 


204 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG   AND  PRAIRTE. 


unbroken  evergreen  forest  —  spruce  and  hem- 
lock, fir,  balsam,  tamarack,  and  lofty  pine. 

Yet  even  these  vast  wastes  of  shadowy 
woodland  were  once  penetrated  by  members 
of  that  adventurous  and  now  fast  vanishing 
folk,  the  American  frontiersmen.  Once  or 
twice,  while  walking  silently  over  the  spongy 
moss  beneath  the  somber  archways  of  the 
pines,  we  saw  on  a  tree-trunk  a  dim,  faint  ax- 
scar,  the  bark  almost  grown  over  it,  showing 


and  eager.  There  is  no  plain  so  lonely  that 
their  feet  have  not  trodden  it ;  no  mountain 
so  far  off  that  their  eyes  have  not  scanned  its 
grandeur. 

We  took  nearly  a  week  in  going  to  our 
hunting-grounds  and  out  from  them  again. 
This  was  tedious  work,  for  the  pace  was  slow, 
and  it  was  accompanied  with  some  real  labor. 
In  places  the  mountain  paths  were  very  steep 
and  the  ponies  could  with  difficulty  scramble 


where,  many  years  before,  some  fur-trapper 
had  chopped  a  deeper  blaze  than  usual  in 
making  out  a  "spotted  line"  —  man's  first 
highway  in  the  primeval  forest ;  or  on  some 
hill-side  we  would  come  across  the  more  recent, 
but  already  half-obliterated,  traces  of  a  miner's 
handiwork.  The  trapper  and  the  miner  were 
the  pioneers  of  the  mountains,  as  the  hunter 
and  the  cowboy  have  been  the  pioneers  of 
the  plains;  they  are  all  of  the  same  type, 
these  sinewy  men  of  the  border,  fearless  and 
self-reliant,  who  are  forever  driven  restlessly 
onward  through  the  wilderness  by  the  half- 
formed  desires  that  make  their  eyes  haggard 


along  them ;  and  once  or  twice  they  got  falls 
that  no  animals  less  tough  could  have  sur- 
vived, Walla  Walla  being  the  unfortunate  that 
suffered  most.  Often,  moreover,  we  would 
come  to  a  windfall,  where  the  fallen  trees  lay 
heaped  crosswise  on  one  another  in  the  wild- 
est confusion,  and  a  road  had  to  be  cleared 
by  ax  work.  It  was  marvelous  to  see  the  phi- 
losophy with  which  the  wise  little  beasts  be- 
haved, picking  their  way  gingerly  through 
these  rough  spots,  hopping  over  fallen  tree- 
trunks,  or  stepping  between  them  in  places 
where  an  Eastern  horse  would  have  snapped 
his  leg  short  off,  and  walking  composedly  along 


•J  HE   RANCHMAX'S   /,'//•/./•;    O.\  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE.  205 


CARRYING    FRESH    MEAT    TO    CAMP. 


narrow  ledges  with  steep  precipices  below. 
They  were  tame  and  friendly,  being  turned 
loose  at  night,  and  not  only  staying  near 
by,  but  also  allowing  themselves  to  be  caught 
without  difficulty  in  the  morning;  industri- 
ously gleaning  the  scant  food  to  be  found  in 
the  burnt  places  or  along  the  edges  of  the 
brooks,  and  often  in  the  evening  standing  in 
a  patient,  solemn  semicircle  round  the  camp 
fire,  just  beyond  where  we  were  seated.  Walla 
Walla,  the  little  mule,  was  always  in  scrapes. 
Once  we  spent  a  morning  of  awkward  indus- 
try in  washing  our  clothes;  having  finished, 
we  spread  the  partially  cleansed  array  upon 
the  bushes  and  departed  on  a  hunt.  On  re- 
turning, to  our  horror  we  spied  the  miserable 
Walla  Walla  shamefacedly  shambling  off  from 
the  neighborhood  of  the  wash,  having  partly 


chewed  up  every  individual  garment  and  com- 
pletely undone  all  our  morning's  labor. 

At  first  we  did  not  have  good  weather.  The 
Indians,  of  whom  we  met  a  small  band, —  said 
to  be  Flatheads  or  their  kin,  on  a  visit  from 
the  coast  region, — had  set  fire  to  the  woods  not 
far  away,  and  the  smoke  became  so  dense  as 
to  hurt  our  eyes,  to  hide  the  sun  at  midday, 
and  to  veil  all  objects  from  our  sight  as  com- 
pletely as  if  there  had  been  a  heavy  fog.  Then 
we  had  two  days  of  incessant  rain,  which  ren- 
dered our  camp  none  too  comfortable ;  but 
when  this  cleared  we  found  it  had  put  out 
the  fire  and  settled  all  the  smoke,  leaving  a 
brilliant  sky  overhead. 

We  first  camped  in  a  narrow  valley,  sur- 
rounded by  mountains  so  tall  that  except  at 
noonday  it  lay  in  the  shadow;  and  it  was 


206 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


only  when  we  were  out  late  on  the  higher  foot- 
hills that  we  saw  the  sun  sink  in  a  flame  be- 
hind the  distant  ranges.  The  trees  grew  tall 
and  thick,  the  underbrush  choking  the  ground 
between  their  trunks,  and  their  branches  inter- 


little  water  wrens  —  the  water-ousel  of  the 
books  —  made  this  brook  their  home.  They 
were  shaped  like  thrushes,  and  sometimes  war- 
bled sweetly,  yet  they  lived  right  in  the  torrent, 
not  only  flitting  along  the  banks  and  wading 


STALKING    GOATS. 


lacing  so  that  the  sun's  rays  hardly  came 
through  them.  There  were  very  few  open 
glades,  and  these  were  not  more  than  a  dozen 
rods  or  so  across.  Even  on  the  mountains  it 
was  only  when  we  got  up  very  high  indeed, 
or  when  we  struck  an  occasional  bare  spur,  or 
shoulder,  that  we  could  get  a  glimpse  into 
the  open.  Elsewhere  we  could  never  see  a 
hundred  yards  ahead  of  us,  and  like  all  plains- 
men or  mountaineers  we  at  times  felt  smoth- 
ered under  the  trees,  and  longed  to  be  where 
we  could  look  out  far  and  wide  on  every  side ; 
we  felt  as  if  our  heads  were  in  hoods.  A 
broad  brook  whirled  and  eddied  past  our 
camp,  and  a  little  below  us  was  caught  in  a 
deep,  narrow  gorge,  where  the  strangling 
rocks  churned  its  swift  current  into  spray  and 
foam,  and  changed  its  murmurous  humming 
and  splashing  into  an  angry  roar.  Strange 


in  the  edges,  but  plunging  boldly  into  mid- 
stream, and  half  walking,  half  flying  along 
the  bottom,  deep  under  water,  and  perching 
on  the  slippery,  spray-covered  rocks  of  the 
waterfall  or  skimming  over  and  through  the 
rapids  even  more  often  than  they  ran  along 
the  margins  of  the  deep,  black  pools. 

White-tail  deer  were  plentiful,  and  we  kept 
our  camp  abundantly  supplied  with  venison, 
varying  it  with  all  the  grouse  we  wanted,  and 
with  quantities  of  fresh  trout.  But  I  myself 
spent  most  of  my  time  after  the  quarry  I  had 
come  to  get  —  the  white  goat. 

White  goats  have  been  known  to  hunters 
ever  since  Lewis  and  Clarke  crossed  the  con- 
tinent, but  they  have  always  ranked  as  the 
very  rarest  and  most  difficult  to  get  of  all 
American  game.  This  reputation  they  owe  to 
the  nature  of  their  haunts,  rather  than  to  their 


///A'    KAXC//.\fAN'S  Kll'I.l:    OX   CRAG   AXD    /W.-//AYA. 


207 


own  wariness,  for  they  have  been  so  little  dis- 
turbed that  they  are  less  shy  than  either  deer 
or  sheep.  They  are  found  here  and  there  on 
the  highest,  most  inaccessible  mountain  peaks 
down  even  to  Arizona  and  New  Mexico;  but 
being  fitted  for  cold  climates,  they  are  ex- 
tremely scarce  everywhere  south  of  Montana 
and  northern  Idaho,  and  the  great  majority 
even  of  the  most  experienced  hunters  have 
hardly  so  much  as  heard  of  their  existence. 
In  Washington  Territory, northern  Idaho,  and 
north-western  Montana  they  are  not  uncom- 
mon, and  are  plentiful  in  parts  of  the  moun- 
tain ranges  of  British  America  and  Alaska. 
Their  preference  for  the  highest  peaks  is  due 
mainly  to  their  dislike  of  warmth,  and  in  the 
north — even  south  of  the  Canadian  line — they 
are  found  much  lower  down  the  mountains 
than  is  the  case  farther  south.  They  are  very 
conspicuous  animals,  with  their  snow-white 
coats  and  polished  black  horns,  but  their  pur- 
suit necessitates  so  much  toil  and  hardship 
that  not  one  in  ten  of  the  professional  hunters 
has  ever  killed  one ;  and  I  know  of  but  one 
or  two  Eastern  sportsmen  who  can  boast  a 
goat's  head  as  a  trophy.  But  this  will  soon 
cease  to  be  the  case ;  for  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway  has  opened  the  haunts  where  the 
goats  are  most  plentiful,  and  any  moderately 
adventurous  and  hardy  rifleman  can  be  sure 
of  getting  one  by  taking  a  little  time,  and  that, 
too,  whether  he  is  a  skilled  hunter  or  not,  since 
at  present  the  game  is  not  difficult  to  approach. 
The  white  goat  will  be  common  long  after  the 
elk  has  vanished,  and  it  has  already  outlasted 
the  buffalo.  Few  sportsmen  henceforth  —  in- 
deed, hardly  any  —  will  ever  boast  a  buffalo 
head  of  their  own  killing;  but  the  number  of 
riflemen  who  can  place  to  their  credit  the 
prized  white  fleeces  and  jet-black  horns  will 
steadily  increase. 

The  Missourian,  during  his  career  as  a 
Rocky  Mountain  hunter,  had  killed  five  white 
goats.  The  first  he  had  shot  near  Canyon 
City,  Colorado,  and  never  having  heard  of 
any  such  animal  before  had  concluded  after- 
ward that  it  was  one  of  a  flock  of  recently 
imported  Angora  goats,  and  accordingly,  to 
avoid  trouble,  buried  it  where  it  lay ;  and  it 
was  not  until  fourteen  years  later,  when  he 
came  up  to  the  Cceur  d'Alene  and  shot  an- 
other, that  he  became  aware  what  he  had  killed. 
He  described  them  as  being  bold,  pugnacious 
animals,  not  easily  startled,  and  extremely  te- 
nacious of  life.  Once  he  had  set  a  large  hound 
at  one  which  he  came  across  while  descending 
an  ice-swollen  river  in  early  spring.  The  goat 
made  no  attempt  to  flee  or  to  avoid  the  hound, 
but  coolly  awaited  its  approach  and  killed  it 
with  one  wicked  thrust  of  the  horns ;  for  the 
latter  are  as  sharp  as  needles,  and  are  used  for 


stabbing,  not  butting.  Another  time  he  caught 
a  goat  in  a  bear  trap  set  on  a  game  trail.  Its 
U-L;  was  broken,  and  he  had  to  pack  it  out  on 
pony-back,  a  two-days' journey,  to  the  settle- 
ment ;  yet  in  spite  of  such  rough  treatment  it 
lived  a  week  after  it  got  there,  when,  unfortu- 
nately, the  wounded  leg  mortified.  It  fought 
most  determinedly,  but  soon  became  recon- 
ciled to  captivity,  eating  with  avidity  all  the 
grass  it  was  given,  recognizing  its  keeper,  and 
grunting  whenever  he  brought  it  food  or  started 
to  walk  away  before  it  had  had  all  it  wished. 
The  goats  he  had  shot  lived  in  ground  where 
the  walking  was  tiresome  to  the  last  degree, 
and  where  it  was  almost  impossible  not  to 
make  a  good  deal  of  noise ;  and  nothing  but 
their  boldness  and  curiosity  enabled  him  ever 
to  kill  any.  One  he  shot  while  waiting  at  a 
pass  for  deer.  The  goat,  an  old  male,  came 
up,  and  fairly  refused  to  leave  the  spot,  walk- 
ing round  in  the  underbrush  and  finally  mount- 
ing a  great  fallen  log,  where  he  staid  snorting 
and  stamping  angrily  until  the  Missourian  lost 
patience  and  killed  him. 

For  three  or  four  days  I  hunted  steadily 
and  without  success,  and  it  was  as  hard  work 
as  any  I  had  ever  undertaken.  Both  Merrifield 
and  I  were  accustomed  to  a  life  in  the  saddle, 


DOWN    BRAKES ! 

and  although  we  had  varied  it  with  an  occa- 
sional long  walk  after  deer  or  sheep,  yet  we 
were  utterly  unable  to  cope  with  the  Missou- 
rian when  it  came  to  mountaineering.  When  we 
had  previously  hunted,  in  the  Big  Horn  moun- 
tains, we  had  found  stout  moccasins  most 
comfortable,  and  extremely  useful  for  still- 
hunting  through  the  great  woods  and  among 
the  open  glades;  but  the  multitudinous  sharp 
rocks  and  sheer,  cliff-like  slopes  of  the  Cceur 


208 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


THE    FIRST    SHOT. 


d'Alene  rendered  our  moccasins  absolutely 
useless,  for  the  first  day's  tramp  bruised  our 
feet  till  they  were  sore  and  slit  our  foot-gear 
into  ribbons,  besides  tearing  our  clothes.  Mer- 
rifield  was  then  crippled,  having  nothing  else 
but  his  cowboy  boots;  fortunately,  I  had  taken 
in  addition  a  pair  of  shoes  with  soles  thickly 
studded  with  nails. 

We  would  start  immediately  after  breakfast 
each  morning,  carrying  a  light  lunch  in  our 
pockets,  and  go  straight  up  the  mountain  sides 
for  hours  at  a  time,  varying  it  by  skirting  the 
broad,  terrace-like  ledges,  or  by  clambering 
along  the  cliff  crests.  The  climbing  was  very 
hard.  The  slope  was  so  steep  that  it  was  like 
going  up  stairs ;  now  through  loose  earth,  then 
through  a  shingle  of  pebbles  or  sand,  then 
over  rough  rocks,  and  again  over  a  layer  of 
pine  needles  as  smooth  and  slippery  as  glass, 
while  brittle,  dry  sticks  that  snapped  at  a  touch, 
and  loose  stones  that  rattled  down  if  so  much 
as  brushed,  strewed  the  ground  everywhere, 
the  climber  stumbling  and  falling  over  them 
and  finding  it  almost  absolutely  impossible  to 
proceed  without  noise,  unless  at  a  rate  of  prog- 
ress too  slow  to  admit  of  getting  anywhere. 
Often,  too,  we  would  encounter  dense  under- 
brush, perhaps  a  thicket  of  little  burnt  balsams, 
as  prickly  and  brittle  as  so  much  coral ;  or  else 
a  heavy  growth  of  laurel,  all  the  branches 
pointing  downward,  and  to  be  gotten  through 
only  by  main  force.  Over  all  grew  the  vast 


evergreen  forest,  ex- 
cept where  an  oc- 
casional cliff  jutted 
out,  or  where  there 
were  great  land- 
slides, each  perhaps 
half  a  mile  long  and 
a  couple  of  hundred 
yards  across,  cover- 
ed with  loose  slates 
or  granite  bowlders. 
We  always  went 
above  the  doir.ain 
of  the  deer,  and  in- 
deed saw  few  evi- 
dences of  life.  Once 
or  twice  we  came 
to  the  round  foot- 
prints of  cougars, 
which  are  said  to  be 
great  enemies  of  the 
goats,  but  we  never 
caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  sly  beasts  them- 
selves. Another  time 
I  shot  a  sable  from 
^^^^  a  spruce,  up  which 
the  little  fox-headed 
animal  had  rushed 

with  the  agility  of  a  squirrel.  There  were  plenty 
of  old  tracks  of  bear  and  elk,  but  no  new  ones  ; 
and  occasionally  we  saw  the  foot-marks  of  the 
great  timber  wolf. 

But  the  trails  at  which  we  looked  with  the 
most  absorbed  interest  were  those  that  showed 
the  large,  round  hoof-marks  of  the  white  goats. 
They  had  worn  deep  paths  to  certain  clay 
licks  in  the  slides,  which  they  must  have  vis- 
ited often  in  the  early  spring,  for  the  trails 


THE    LAST    SHOT. 


THE   RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


were  little  traveled  when  we  were  in  the  moun- 
tains during  September.  These  clay  licks  were 
mere  holes  in  the  banks,  and  were  in  spring- 
time visited  by  other  animals  besides  goats ; 
there  were  old  deer  trails  to  them.  The  clay 
seemed  to  contain  something  that  both  birds 
and  beasts  were  fond  of,  for  I  frequently  saw 
flocks  of  cross-bills  light  in  the  licks  and  stay 
there  for  many  minutes  at  a  time,  scratching 
the  smooth  surface  with  their  little  claws  and 
bills.  The  goat  trails  led  away  in  every  direc- 
tion from  the  licks,  but  usuaHy  went  up  hill, 
zigzagging  or  in  a  straight  line,  and  continu- 
ally growing  fainter  as  they  went  farther  off, 
where  the  animals  scattered  to  their  feeding- 
grounds.  In  the  spring-time  the  goats  are  clad 
with  a  dense  coat  of  long  white  wool,  and  there 
were  shreds  and  tufts  of  this  on  all  the  twigs 
of  the  bushes  under  which  the  paths  passed  ; 
in  the  early  fall  the  coat  is  shorter  and  less 
handsome. 

Although  these  game  paths  were  so  deeply 
worn  they  yet  showed  very  little  fresh  goat 
sign ;  in  fact,  we  came  across  the  recent  trails 
of  but  two  of  the  animals  we  were  after.  One 
of  these  we  came  quite  close  to,  but  never  saw 
it,  for  we  must  have  frightened  it  by  the  noise 
we  made;  it  certainly,  to  judge  by  its  tracks, 
which  we  followed  for  a  long  time,  took  itself 
straight  out  of  the  country.  The  other  I  finally 
got.  after  some  heart-breaking  work  and  a  com- 
plicated series  of  faults  committed  and  mis- 
fortunes endured. 

I  had  been,  as  usual,  walking  and  clamber- 
ing over  the  mountains  all  day  long,  and  in 
mid-afternoon  reached  a  great  slide,  with  half- 
way across  it  a  tree.  Under  this  I  sat  down 
to  rest,  my  back  to  the  trunk,  and  had  been 
there  but  a  few  minutes  when  my  companion, 
the  Missourian,  suddenly  whispered  to  me  that 
a  goat  was  coming  down  the  slide  at  its  edge, 
near  the  woods.  I  was  in  a  most  uncomfort- 
able position  for  a  shot.  Twisting  my  head 
round,  I  could  see  the  goat  waddling  down- 
hill, looking  just  like  a  handsome  tame  billy, 
especially  when  at  times  he  stood  upon  a  stone 
to  glance  around,  with  all  four  feet  close  to- 
gether. I  cautiously  tried  to  shift  my  position, 
and  at  once  dislodged  some  pebbles,  at  the 
sound  of  which  the  goat  sprang  promptly  up 
on  the  bank,  his  whole  mien  changing  into  one 
of  alert,  alarmed  curiosity.  He  was  less  than 
a  hundred  yards  off,  so  I  risked  a  shot,  all 
cramped  and  twisted  though  I  was.  But  my 
bullet  went  low  ;  I  only  broke  his  left  fore  leg, 
and  he  disappeared  over  the  bank  like  a  flash. 
We  raced  and  scrambled,  after  him,  and  the 
Missourian,  an  excellent  tracker,  took  up  the 
bloody  trail.  It  went  along  the  hill-side  for 
nearly  a  mile,  and  then  turned  straight  up  the 
mountain,  the  Missourian  leading  with  his  long, 
VOL.  XXXVI. —30. 


209 

free  gait,  while  I  toiled  after  him  at  a  dogged 
trot.  The  trail  went  up  the  sharpest  and  steep- 
est places,  skirting  the  cliffs  and  precipices.  At 
one  spot  I  nearly  came  to  grief  for  good  and 
all,  for  in  running  along  a  shelving  ledge,  cov- 
ered with  loose  slates,  one  of  these  slipped  as 
I  stepped  on  it.  throwing  me  clear  over  the 
brink.  However,  I  caught  in  a  pine  top, 
bounced  down  through  it,  and  brought  up  in 
a  balsam  with  my  rifle  all  right,  and  myself 
unhurt  except  for  the  shaking.  I  scrambled 
up  at  once  and  raced  on  after  my  companion, 
whose  limbs  and  wind  seemed  alike  incapable 
of  giving  out.  This  work  lasted  for  a  couple 
of  hours. 

The  trail  came  into  a  regular  game  path 
and  grew  fresher,  the  goat  having  stopped  to 
roll  and  wallow  in  the  dust  now  and  then. 
Suddenly,  on  the  top  of  the  mountain,  we 
came  upon  him  close  up  to  us.  He  had  just 
risen  from  rolling  and  stood  behind  a  huge 
fallen  log,  his  back  barely  showing  above  it 
as  he  turned  his  head  to  look  at  us.  I  was 
completely  winded,  and  had  lost  my  strength 
as  well  as  my  breath,  while  great  beadlike 
drops  of  sweat  stood  in  my  eyes ;  but  I 
steadied  myself  as  well  as  I  could  and  aimed 
to  break  the  backbone,  the  only  shot  open  to 
me,  and  not  a  difficult  one  at  such  a  short 
distance.  However,  my  bullet  went  just  too 
high,  cutting  the  skin  right  above  the  long 
spinal  bones  over  the  shoulders;  and  the 
speed  with  which  that  three-legged  goat  went 
down  the  precipitous  side  of  the  mountain 
would  have  done  credit  to  an  antelope  on  the 
level. 

Weary  and  disgusted,  we  again  took  up  the 
trail.  It  led  straight  down-hill,  and  we  fol- 
lowed it  at  a  smart  pace.  Down  and  down  it 
went,  into  the  valley  and  straight  to  the  edge 
of  the  stream,  but  half  a  mile  above  camp. 
The  goat  had  crossed  the  water  on  a  fallen 
tree  trunk,  and  we  .took  the  same  path.  Once 
across  it  had  again  gone  right  up  the  moun- 
tain. We  followed  it  as  fast  as  we  could,  al- 
though pretty  nearly  done  out,  until  it  was 
too  dark  to  see  the  blood  stains  any  longer, 
and  then  returned  to  camp,  dispirited  and  so 
tired  that  we  could  hardly  drag  ourselves 
along,  for  we  had  been  going  at  speed  fo'r 
five  hours,  up  and  down  the  roughest  and 
steepest  ground. 

But  we  were  confident  the  goat  would  not 
travel  far  with  such  a  wound  after  he  had 
been  chased  as  we  had  chased  him.  Next 
morning  at  daybreak  we  again  climbed  the 
mountain  and  took  up  the  trail.  Soon  it  led 
into  others  and  we  lost  it,  but  we  kept  up  the 
hunt  nevertheless  for  hour  after  hour,  making 
continually  wider  and  wider  circles.  At  last, 
about  midday,  our  perseverance  was  rewarded, 


210 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


for  coming  silently  outton  a  great  bare  cliff 
shoulder,  I  spied  the  goat  lying  on  a  ledge 
below  me  and  some  seventy  yards  off.  This 
time  I  shot  true,  and  he  rose  only  to  fall  back 
dead ;  and  a  minute  afterward  we  were  stand- 
ing over  him,  handling  the  glossy  black  horns 
and  admiring  the  snow-white  coat. 

After  this  we  struck  our  tent  and  shifted 
camp  some  thirty  miles  to  a  wide  valley  through 
whose  pine-clad  bottom  flowed  a  river,  hurry- 
ing on  to  the  Pacific  between  unending  forests. 
On  one  hand  the  valley  was  hemmed  in  by 
an  unbroken  line  of  frowning  cliffs,  and  on  the 
other  by  chains  of  lofty  mountains  in  whose 
sides  the  ravines  cut  deep  gashes. 

The  clear  weather  had  grown  colder.  At 
night  the  frost  skimmed  with  thin  ice  the 
edges  of  the  ponds  and  small  lakes  that  at  long 
intervals  dotted  the  vast  reaches  of  woodland. 
But  we  were  very  comfortable,  and  hardly 
needed  our  furs,  for  as  evening  fell  we  kindled 
huge  fires,  to  give  us  both  light  and  warmth ; 
and  even  in  very  cold  weather  a  man  can  sleep 
out  comfortably  enough  with  no  bedding  if 
he  lights  two  fires  and  gets  in  between  them, 
or  finds  a  sheltered  nook  or  corner  across 
whose  front  a  single  great  blaze  can  be  made. 
The  long  walks  and  our  work  as  cragsmen 
hardened  our  thews,  and  made  us  eat  and  sleep 
as  even  our  life  on  the  ranch  could  hardly  do : 
the  mountaineer  must  always  be  more  sinewy 
than  the  horseman.  The  clear,  cold  water  of 
the  swift  streams  too  was  a  welcome  change 
from  the  tepid  and  muddy  currents  of  the 
rivers  of  the  plains;  and  we  heartily  enjoyed 
the  baths,  a  plunge  into  one  of  the  icy  pools 
making  us  gasp  for  breath  and  causing  the 
blood  to  tingle  in  our  veins  with  the  shock. 

Our  tent  was  pitched  in  a  little  glade,  which 
was  but  a  few  yards  across,  and  carpeted 
thickly  with  the  red  kinnikinic  berries,  in  their 
season  beloved  of  bears,  and  from  the  leaves 
of  which  bush  Indians  make  a  substitute  for 
tobacco.  Little  three-toed  woodpeckers  with 
yellow  crests  scrambled  about  over  the  trees 
near  by,  while  the  great  log-cocks  hammered 
and  rattled  on  the  tall  dead  trunks.  Jays  that 
were  all  of  dark  blue  came  familiarly  round 
camp  in  company  with  the  ever-present  moose- 
birds  or  whisky  jacks.  There  were  many  grouse 
in  the  woods,  of  three  kinds, —  blue,  spruce,  and 
rutfed, —  and  these  varied  our  diet  and  also  fur- 
nished us  with  some  sport  with  our  rifles,  as 
we  always  shot  them  in  rivalry.  That  is,  each 
would  take  a  shot  in  turn,  aiming  at  the  head 
of  the  bird,  as  it  perched  motionless  on  the 
limb  of  a  tree  or  stopped  for  a  second  while 
running  along  the  ground;  then  if  he  missed 
or  hit  the  bird  anywhere  but  in  the  head,  the 
other  scored  one  and  took  the  shot.  The  re- 
sulting tally  was  a  good  test  of  comparative 


skill ;  and  rivalry  always  tends  to  keep  a  man's 
shooting  up  to  the  mark. 

Once  or  twice,  when  we  had  slain  deer,  we 
watched  by  the  carcasses,  hoping  that  they 
would  attract  a  bear,  or  perhaps  one  of  the 
huge  timber  wolves  whose  mournful,  sinister 
howling  we  heard  each  night.  But  there  were 
no  bears  in  the  valley ;  and  the  wolves,  those 
cruel,  crafty  beasts,  were  far  too  cunning  to 
come  to  the  bait  while  we  were  there.  We 
saw  nothing  but  crowds  of  ravens,  whose  hoarse 
barking  and  croaking  filled  the  air  as  they  cir- 
cled around  overhead,  lighted  in  the  trees,  or 
quarreled  over  the  carcass.  Yet  although  we 
saw  no  game  it  was  very  pleasant  to  sit  out, 
on  the  still  evenings,  among  the  tall  pines  or 
on  the  edge  of  the  great  gorge,  until  the  after- 
glow of  the  sunset  was  dispelled  by  the  beams 
of  the  frosty  moon.  Now  and  again  the  hush 
would  be  suddenly  broken  by  the  long  howl- 
ing of  a  wolf,  that  echoed  and  rang  under  the 
hollow  woods  and  through  the  deep  chasms 
until  they  resounded  again,  while  it  made  our 
hearts  bound  and  the  blood  leap  in  our  veins. 
Then  there  would  be  silence  once  more,  broken 
only  by  the  rush  of  the  river  and  the  low 
moaning  and  creaking  of  the  pines;  or  the 
strange  calling  of  the  owls  might  be  answered 
by  the  far-off,  unearthly  laughter  of  a  loon,  its 
voice  carried  through  the  stillness  a  marvelous 
distance  from  the  little  lake  on  which  it  was 
swimming. 

One  day,  after  much  toilsome  and  in  places 
almost  dangerous  work,  we  climbed  to  the 
very  top  of  the  nearest  mountain  chain,  and 
from  it  looked  out  over  a  limitless,  billowy 
field  of  snow-capped  ranges.  Up  above  the 
timber  line  were  snow-grouse  and  huge,  hoary- 
white  woodchucks,  but  no  trace  of  the  game 
we  were  after;  for,  rather  to  our  surprise,  the 
few  goat  signs  we  saw  were  in  the  timber.  I 
did  not  catch  another  glimpse  of  the  ani- 
mals themselves  until  my  holiday  was  almost 
over  and  we  were  preparing  to  break  camp. 
Then  I  saw  two.  I  had  spent  a  most  labo- 
rious day  on  the  mountain  as  usual,  following 
the  goat  paths,  which  were  well-trodden  trails 
leading  up  the  most  inaccessible  places ;  cer- 
tainly the  white  goats  are  marvelous  climbers, 
doing  it  all  by  main  strength  and  perfect 
command  over  their  muscles,  for  they  are 
heavy,  clumsy  seeming  animals,  the  reverse 
of  graceful,  and  utterly  without  any  look  of 
light  agility.  As  usual,  towards  evening  I  was 
pretty  well  tired  out,  for  it  would  be  difficult 
to  imagine  harder  work  than  to  clamber  un- 
endingly up  and  down  the  huge  cliffs.  I  came 
down  along  a  great  jutting  spur,  broken  by  a 
series  of  precipices,  with  flat  terraces  at  their 
feet,  the  terraces  being  covered  with  trees 
and  bushes,  and  running,  with  many  breaks 


THE  RANCHMAN'S  RIFLE    ON  CRAG  AND  PRAIRIE. 


and  interruptions,  parallel  to  each  other  across 
the  face  of  the  mountains.  On  one  of  these 
terraces  was  a  space  of  hard  clay  ground 
beaten  perfectly  bare  of  vegetation  by  the 
hoofs  of  the  goats,  with,  in  the  middle,  a 
hole,  two  or  three  feet  in  width,  that  was  evi- 
dently in  the  spring  used  as  a  lick.  Most  of 
the  tracks  were  old,  but  there  was  one  trail 
coming  diagonally  down  the  side  of  the  moun- 
tain on  which  there  were  two  or  three  that 
were  very  fresh.  It  was  getting  late,  so  I  did 
not  stay  long,  but  continued  the  descent. 
The  terrace  on  which  the  lick  was  situated 
lay  but  a  few  hundred  yards  above  the  valley, 
and  then  came  a  level,  marshy  plain  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  broad,  between  the  base  of  the 
mountain  and  the  woods.  Leading  down  to 
this  plain  was  another  old  goat-trail,  which 
went  to  a  small,  boggy  pool,  which  the  goats 
must  certainly  have  often  visited  in  the  spring; 
but  it  was  then  unused. 

When  I  reached  the  farther  side  of  the  plain 
and  was  about  entering  the  woods,  I  turned 
to  look  over  the  mountain  once  more,  and 
my  eye  was  immediately  caught  by  two  white 
objects  that  were  moving  along  the  terrace, 
about  half  a  mile  to  one  side  of  the  lick.  That 
they  were  goats  was  evident  at  a  glance,  their 
white  bodies  contrasting  sharply  with  the  green 
vegetation.  They  came  along  very  rapidly,  giv- 
ing me  no  time  to  get  back  over  the  plain,  and 
stopped  for  a  short  time  at  the  lick,  right  in 
sight  from  where  I  was,  although  too  far  off  for 
me  to  tell  anything  about  their  size.  I  think  they 
smelt  my  foot-prints  in  the  soil ;  at  any  rate  they 
were  very  watchful,  one  of  them  always  jump- 
ing up  on  a  rock  or  fallen  log  to  mount  guard 
when  the  other  halted  to  browse.  The  sun  had 
just  set ;  it  was  impossible  to  advance  across 
the  open  plain,  which  they  scanned  at  every 
glance ;  and  to  skirt  it  and  climb  up  any  other 
place  than  the  pass  down  which  I  had  come — 
itself  a  goat-trail  —  would  have  taken  till  long 
after  nightfall.  All  I  could  do  was  to  stay 
where  I  was  and  watch  them,  until  in  the 
dark  I  slipped  off  unobserved  and  made  the 
best  of  my  way  to  camp,  resolved  to  hunt 
them  up  on  the  morrow. ' 

Shortly  after  noon  next  day  we  were  at  the 
terrace,  having  approached  with  the  greatest 
caution,  and  only  after  a  minute  examination, 
with  the  field-glasses,  of  all  the  neighboring 
mountain.  I  wore  moccasins,  so  as  to  make 
no  noise.  We  soon  found  that  one  of  the 
trails  was  evidently  regularly  traveled,  prob- 
ably every  evening,  and  we  determined  to 
lie  in  wait  by  it,  so  as  either  to  catch  the 
animals  as  they  came  down  to  feed,  or  else  to 
mark  them  if  they  got  out  on  some  open  spot 
on  the  terraces  where  they  could  be  stalked. 
As  an  ambush  we  chose  a  ledge  in  the  cliff 


below  a  terrace,  with,  in  front,  a  breastwork 
of  the  natural  rock  some  five  feet  high.  It 
was  perhaps  fifty  yards  from  the  trail.  I  hid 
myself  on  this  ledge,  having  arranged  on  the 
rock  breastwork  a  few  pine  branches,  through 
which  to  fire,  and  waited,  hour  after  hour, 
continually  scanning  the  mountain  carefully 
with  the  glasses.  There  was  very  little  life. 
Occasionally  a  chickaree  or  chipmunk  scurried 
out  from  among  the  trunks  of  the  great  pines 
to  pick  up  the  cones  which  he  had  previously 
bitten  off  from  the  upper  branches ;  a  noisy 
Clarke's  crow  clung  for  some  time  in  the  top 
of  a  hemlock ;  and  occasionally  flocks  of 
cross-bill  went  by,  with  swift  undulating  flight 
and  low  calls.  From  time  to  time  I  peeped 
cautiously  over  the  pine  branches  on  the 
breastwork  ;  and  the  last  time  I  did  this  I  sud- 
denly saw  two  goats,  that  had  come  noise- 
lessly down,  standing  motionless  directly  op- 
posite to  me,  their  suspicions  evidently  aroused 
by  something.  I  gently  shoved  the  rifle  over 
one  of  the  boughs ;  the  largest  goat  turned 
its  head  sharply  round  to  look,  as  it  stood 
quartering  to  me,  and  the  bullet  went  fairly 
through  the  lungs.  Both  animals  promptly 
ran  off  along  the  terrace,  and  I  raced  after 
them  in  my  moccasins,  skirting  the  edge  of 
the  cliff,  where  there  were  no  trees  or  bushes. 
As  I  made  no  noise  and  could  run  very 
swiftly  on  the  bare  cliff  edge,  I  succeeded  in 
coming  out  into  the  first  little  glade,  or  break, 
in  the  terrace  at  the  same  time  that  the  goats 
did.  The  first  to  come  out  of  the  bushes  was 
the  big  one  I  had  shot  at,  an  old  she,  as  it 
turned  out ;  while  the  other,  a  yearling  ram, 
followed.  The  big  one  turned  to  look  at  me, 
as  she  mounted  a  fallen  tree  that  lay  across  a 
chasm-like  rent  in  the  terrace ;  the  light  red 
frothy  blood  covered  her  muzzle,  and  I  paid 
no  further  heed  to  her  as  she  slowly  walked 
along  the  log,  but  bent  my  attention  towards 
the  yearling,  that  was  galloping  and  scram- 
bling up  an  almost  perpendicular  path  that  led 
across  the  face  of  the  cliff  above.  Holding 
my  rifle  just  over  it,  I  fired,  breaking  its  neck, 
and  it  rolled  down  some  fifty  or  sixty  yards, 
almost  to  where  I  stood.  I  then  went  after  the 
old  goat,  which  had  lain  down;  as  I  ap- 
proached she  feebly  tried  to  rise  and  show 
fight,  but  her  strength  was  spent,  her  blood 
had  ebbed  away,  and  she  fell  back  lifeless  in 
the  effort.  They  were  both  good  specimens, 
the  old  one  being  unusually  large,  with  fine 
horns.  White  goats  are  squat,  heavy  beasts ; 
not  so  tall  as  black-tail  deer,  but  weighing 
more. 

Early  next  morning  I  came  back  with  my 
two  men  to  where  the  goats  were  lying,  taking 
along  the  camera.  Having  taken  their  photo- 
graphs and  skinned  them  we  went  back  to 


212 


UNSHED    TEARS. 


camp,  hunted  up  the  ponies  and  mules,  who 
had  been  shifting  for  themselves  during  the 
past  few  days,  packed  up  our  tent,  trophies, 
and  other  belongings,  and  set  off  for  the  set- 
tlements, well  pleased  with  our  trip. 

I  suppose  the  sport  to  be  had  among  the 
tremendous  mountain  masses  of  the  Hima- 
layas must  stand  above  all  other  kinds  of 


hill  shooting ;  yet  after  all  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  it  can  yield  much  more  pleasure  than  that 
felt  by  the  American  hunter  when  he  follows 
the  lordly  elk  and  the  grizzly  among  the  tim- 
bered slopes  of  the  Rockies,  or  the  big-horn 
and  the  white-fleeced,  jet-horned  antelope 
goat  over  their  towering  and  barren  peaks. 

Tlieodore  Roosevelt. 


[In  the  article  of  this  series  entitled  "The  Home  Ranch,"  published  in  THE  CENTURY  for  March,  the  origin 
of  the  word  "  saveyj'  should  have  been  ascribed  to  the  Spanish.] 


UNSHED    TEARS. 


WHEN  she  whom  I  loved  died  — 
She  whom  I  loved  full  well, 
Better  than  love  can  tell, 
More   than   the   lover  loves   his  untouched 
bride  — 

I  stood  beside  her  bed  ; 

Her  face  was  white  and  cold; 

Her  soft  hair  shone  like  gold, — 

A  pale  gold  fillet  for  her  sacred  head. 

I  looked,  but  did  not  weep  ; 

Only  a  dull  regret 

Shadowed  my  soul ;  and  yet 

She  was  gone  —  gone  to  the  unending  sleep  ! 

Nay,  and  the  very  thought  of  her 
Was  dim,  like  memory's  ghost, 
As  she  indeed  were  lost, 
And  even  the  world  beyond  held  naught  of 
her! 

My  live  heart  beat  unmoved, 

Though  hers  had  ceased  to  beat ; 

I  left  her :  in  the  street 

I  faced  the  crowd,  who  knew  not  her  I  loved. 

The  days  pass,  and  the  years  ; 

My  beard  is  touched  with  gray ; 

I  feel  my  powers  decay; 

And  still  I  have  not  found  my  unshed  tears. 

But,  O  my  heart !   I  know  — 
I  know  thy  time  will  come, 
When  thou,  no  longer  dumb, 
Wilt  break — wilt   break   and   utter  all   thy 
woe! 


To-day  thou  must  be  still, 

For  sin  has  hardened  thee, 

And  cares  have  burdened  thee, 

And  failure  checked  thy  pulse  with  sullen  chill. 

But  when  my  shadow  is  cast 

Eastward,  at  set  of  sun, 

And  all  my  deeds  are  done, — 

Or  evil  or  good, —  and  the  dull  day  is  past, 

And  when  the  imprisoning  years 

Shall  fetter  me  no  more, 

Then  open  wide  thy  door, 

O  heart !  the  secret  door  of  unshed  tears ! 

This  little  life  of  earth, 
These  moment-years  of  time, 
Insult  the  grief  sublime 

Of  the    immortal   soul,  that  waiteth  for  its 
birth  — 


Its  birth  to  that  domain 
Where  God  and  man  are  one, 
Whose  everlasting  sun 

Throws  an  eternal   shadow  over   memory's 
plain. 

There  break,  O  willing  heart ! 
Break,  and  at  last  be  free  ! 
No  dearer  liberty 

Ask,  than   to  shed   those  tears  that  vouch 
God's  human  part ! 

God  gave  man  love  and  light: 

Grief  is  man's  very  own; 

Nor  would  God's  shining  throne 

(But  for  man's  godlike  tears)  be  half  so  bright! 


Julian  Hawthorne. 


THE    LIAR. 


BY    HENRY    JAMES. 


IN    TWO    PARTS.      PART   II. 


CHAPTER     II. (Continued.) 

YON  finished  his  picture 
and  took  his  departure, 
after  having  worked  in  a 
glow  of  interest  which 
made  him  believe  in  his 
success,  until  he  found  he 
had  pleased  every  one, 
especially  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ashmore,  when  he  began  to  be  skeptical. 
The  party,  at  any  rate,  changed;  Colonel  and 
Mrs.  Capadose  went  their  way.  He  was  able 
to  say  to  himself,  however,  that  his  separation 
from  the  lady  was  not  so  much  an  end  as  a 
beginning,  and  he  called  on  her  soon  after  his 
return  to  town.  She  had  told  him  the  hours 
she  was  at  home  —  she  seemed  to  like  him. 
If  she  liked  him  why  had  n't  she  married  him, 
or,  at  any  rate,  why  was  n't  she  sorry  she  had 
n't  ?  If  she  was  sorry  she  concealed  it  too 
well.  Lyon's  curiosity  on  this  point  may  strike 
the  reader  as  fatuous,  but  something  must  be 
allowed  to  a  disappointed  man.  He  did  not  ask 
much,  after  all;  not  that  she  should  love  him 
to-day  or  that  she  should  allow  him  to  tell 
her  that  he  loved  her,  but  only  that  she  should 
give  him  some  sign  she  was  sorry.  Instead  of 
this,  for  the  present  she  contented  herself 
with  exhibiting  her  little  daughter  to  him. 
The  child  was  beautiful  and  had  the  prettiest 
eyes  of  innocence  he  had  ever  seen:  which 
did  not  prevent  him  from  wondering  whether 
she  told  horrid  fibs.  This  idea  gave  him  much 
entertainment — the  picture  of  the  anxiety 
with  which  her  mother  would  watch,  as  she 
grew  older,  for  the  symptoms  of  heredity. 
That  was  a  nice  occupation  for  Everina  Brant! 
Did  she  lie  to  the'  child  herself,  about  her 
father — was  that  necessary,  when  she  pressed 
her  daughter  to  her  bosom,  to  cover  up  his 
tracks?  Did  he  control  himself  before  the 
little  girl,  so  that  she  might  not  hear  him  say 
things  that  she  knew  to  be  other  than  he  said  ? 
Lyon  doubted  this:  his  genius  would  be  too 
strong  for  him  and  the  only  safety  for  the 
child  would  be  in  her  being  too  stupid  to  an- 
alyze. One  could  n't  judge  yet — she  was  too 
young.  If  she  should  grow  up  clever  she 
would  be  sure  to  tread  in  his  steps  —  a  de- 
lightful improvement  in  her  mother's  situation ! 


Her  little  face  was  not  shifty,  but  neither  was 
her  father's  big  one;  so  that  proved  nothing. 
Lyon  reminded  his  friends,  more  than  once, 
of  their  promise  that  Amy  should  sit  to  him, 
and  it  was  only  a  question  of  his  leisure.  The 
desire  grew  in  him  to  paint  the  colonel  also — 
an  operation  from  which  he  promised  himself 
a  rich  private  satisfaction.  He  would  draw 
him  out,  he  would  set  him  up  in  that  totality 
about  which  he  had  talked  with  Sir  David, 
and  none  but  the  initiated  would  know.  They, 
however,  would  rank  the  picture  high,  and  it 
would  be  indeed  six  rows  deep — a  master- 
piece of  subtle  characterization,  of  legitimate 
treachery.  He  had  dreamed  for  years  of  pro- 
ducing something  which  should  bear  the  stamp 
of  the  psychologist  as  well  as  of  the  painter, 
and  here  at  last  was  his  subject.  It  was  a  pity 
it  was  not  better,  but  that  was  not  his  fault.  It 
was  his  impression  that  already  no  one  drew 
the  colonel  out  more  than  he,  and  he  did  it 
not  only  by  instinct  but  on  a  plan.  There 
were  moments  when  he  was  almost  frightened 
at  the  success  of  his  plan — the  poor  gentle- 
man went  so  terribly  far.  He  would  pull  up 
some  day,  look  at  Lyon  between  the  eyes, 
guess  he  was  being  played  upon  —  which 
would  lead  to  his  wife's  guessing  it  also.  Not 
that  Lyon  cared  much  for  that,  however,  so 
long  as  she  did  n't  suppose  (and  she  could  n't) 
that  she  was  a  part  of  his  joke.  He  formed 
such  a  habit  now  of  going  to  see  her  of  a 
Sunday  afternoon  that  he  was  angry  when 
she  went  out  of  town.  This  occurred  often, 
as  the  couple  were  great  visitors  and  the 
colonel  was  always  looking  for  sport,  which 
he  liked  best  when  it  could  be  had  at  other 
people's  expense.  Lyon  would  have  supposed 
that  this  sort  of  life  was  particularly  little  to 
her  taste,  for  he  had  an  idea  that  it  was  in 
country-houses  that  her  husband  came  out 
strongest.  To  let  him  go  off  without  her,  not 
to  see  him  expose  himself —  that  ought,  prop- 
erly, to  have  been  a  relief  and  a  luxury  to 
her.  She  told  Lyon,  in  fact,  that  she  preferred 
staying  at  home;  but  she  did  n't  say  it  was  be- 
cause in  other  people's  houses  she  was  on  the 
rack:  the  reason  she  gave  was  that  she  liked 
so  to  be  with  the  child.  It  was  not  perhaps 
criminal  to  draw  such  a  bow,  but  it  was 
vulgar;  poor  Lyon  was  delighted  when  he 


214 


THE  LIAR. 


arrived  at  that  formula.  Certainly,  some  day, 
too,  he  would  cross  the  line  —  he  would 
become  a  noxious  animal.  Yes,  in  the  mean 
time  he  was  vulgar,  in  spite  of  his  talents,  his 
fine  person,  his  impunity.  Twice,  by  excep- 
tion, towards  the  end  of  the  winter,  when  he 
left  town  for  a  few  days'  hunting,  his  wife  re- 
mained at  home.  Lyon  had  not  yet  reached 
the  point  of  asking  himself  whether  the  desire 
not  to  miss  two  of  his  visits  had  something  to 
do  with  her  immobility.  That  inquiry  would 
perhaps  have  been  more  in  place  later,  when 
he  began  to  paint  the  child,  and  she  always 
came  with  her.  But  it  was  not  in  her  to  give 
the  wrong  name,  to  pretend,  and  Lyon  could 
see  that  she  had  the  maternal  passion,  in 
spite  of  the  bad  blood  in  the  little  girl's  veins. 
She  came  inveterately,  though  Lyon  mul- 
tiplied the  sittings :  Amy  was  never  intrusted 
to  the  governess  or  the  maid.  He  had  knocked 
off  poor  old  Sir  David  in  ten  days,  but  the 
portrait  of  this  simple-faced  child  bade  fair  to 
stretch  over  into  the  following  year.  He  asked 
for  sitting  after  sitting,  and  it  would  have  struck 
any  one  who  might  have  witnessed  the  affair  that 
he  was  wearing  the  little  girl  out.  He  knew 
better,  however,  and  Mrs.  Capadose  also  knew ; 
they  were  present  together  at  the  long  inter- 
missions he  gave  her,  when  she  left  her  pose 
and  roamed  about  the  great  studio,  amusing 
herself  with  its  curiosities,  playing  with  the  old 
draperies  and  costumes, having  unlimited  leave 
to  handle.  Then  her  mother  and  Mr.  Lyon 
sat  and  talked ;  he  laid  aside  his  brushes  and 
leaned  back  in  his  chair;  he  always  gave  her 
tea.  What  Mrs.  Capadose  did  n't  know  was 
the  way,  during  these  weeks,  he  neglected 
other  orders :  women  have  no  faculty  of  im- 
agination with  regard  to  a  man's  work  beyond 
a  vague  idea  that  it  does  n't  matter.  In  fact 
Lyon  put  off  every  thing  and  made  several  celeb- 
rities wait.  There  were  half-hours  of  silence, 
when  he  plied  his  brushes,  during  which  he 
was  mainly  conscious  that  Everina  was  sitting 
there.  She  easily  fell  into  that,  if  he  did  n't 
insist  on  talking,  and  she  was  not  embarrassed 
or  bored  by  it.  Sometimes  she  took  up  a  book — 
there  were  plenty  of  them  about;  sometimes, 
a  little  way  off,  in  her  chair,  she  watched  his 
progress  (though  without  in  the  least  advising 
or  correcting),  as  if  she  cared  for  every  stroke 
that  represented  her  daughter.  These  strokes 
were  occasionally  a  little  wild;  he  was  think- 
ing so  much  more  of  his  heart  than  of  his 
hand.  He  was  not  more  embarrassed  than  she 
was,  but  he  was  agitated ;  it  was  as  if,  in  the 
sittings  (for  the  child,  too,  was  beautifully 
quiet),  something  was  growing  between  them, 
or  had  already  grown  —  a  kind  of  confidence, 
an  inexpressible  secret.  He  felt  it  that  way ; 
but  after  all  he  could  n't  be  sure  that  she 


did.  What  he  wanted  her  to  do  for  him  was 
very  little;  it  was  not  even  to  confess  that  she 
was  unhappy.  He  would  be  superabundantly 
gratified  if  she  should  simply  let  him  know, 
even  by  a  silent  sign,  that  she  recognized  that 
with  him  her  life  would  have  been  finer. 
Sometimes  he  guessed — his  presumption  went 
so  far  —  that  he  might  see  this  sign  in  her  con- 
tentedly sitting  there. 


in. 

AT  last  he  broached  the  question  of  paint- 
ing the  colonel :  it  was  now  very  late  in  the 
season  —  there  would  be  little  time  before  the 
general  dispersal.  He  said  they  must  make 
the  most  of  it;  the  great  thing  was  to  begin; 
then  in  the  autumn,  with  the  resumption  of 
their  London  life,  they  could  go  forward.  Mrs. 
Capadose  objected  to  this ;  that  she  really 
could  n't  consent  to  accept  another  present 
of  such  value.  Lyon  had  given  her  the  portrait 
of  herself,  of  old,  and  he  had  seen  what  they 
had  had  the  indelicacy  to  do  with  it.  Now  he 
had  offered  her  this  beautiful  memorial  of  the 
child  —  beautiful  it  would  evidently  be  when 
it  was  finished,  if  he  could  ever  satisfy  him- 
self; a  precious  possession,  which  they  would 
cherish  forever.  But  his  generosity  must  stop 
there —  they  could  n't  be  so  tremendously  "be- 
holden" to  him.  They  could  n't  order  the  pict- 
ure—  of  course  he  would  understand  that 
without  her  explaining ;  it  was  a  luxury  be- 
yond their  reach,  for  they  knew  the  great  prices 
he  received.  Besides,  what  had  they  ever  done 
—  what,  above  all,  had  she  ever  done,  that 
he  should  overload  them  with  benefits?  No,  he 
was  too  dreadfully  good;  it  was  really  impos- 
sible that  Clement  should  sit.  Lyon  listened 
to  her  without  protest,  without  interruption, 
while  he  bent  forward  at  his  work,  and  at  last 
he  said :  "  Well,  if  you  won't  take  it,  why 
not  let  him  sit  for  me  for  my  own  pleasure  and 
profit  ?  Let  it  be  a  favor,  a  service  I  ask  of 
him.  It  will  do  me  a  lot  of  good  to  paint  him, 
and  the  picture  will  remain  in  my  hands." 

"  How  will  it  do  you  a  lot  of  good  ?  "  Mrs. 
Capadose  asked. 

"  Why,  he  's  such  a  rare  model  —  such  an 
interesting  subject.  He  has  such  an  expres- 
sive face.  It  will  teach  me  no  end  of  things." 

"  Expressive  of  what?"  said  Mrs.  Capadose. 

"  Why,  of  his  nature." 

"  And  do  you  want  to  paint  his  nature  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  do.  That  's  what  a  great  por- 
trait gives  you,  and  I  shall  make  the  colonel's 
a  great  one.  It  will  put  me  up  high.  So  you 
see  my  request  is  eminently  interested." 

"  How  can  you  be  higher  than  you  are  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  'm  insatiable !  Do  consent,"  said 
Lyon. 


THE  LIAR. 


215 


"  Well,  his  nature  is  very  noble,"  Mrs.  Cap- 
adose  remarked. 

'•  Ah,  trust  me,  I  shall  bring  it  out !  "  Lyon 
exclaimed,  feeling  a  little  ashamed  of  himself. 

Mrs.  Capadose  said  before  she  went  away 
that  her  husband  would  probably  comply  with 
his  invitation,  but  she  added,  "  Nothing 
would  induce  me  to  let  you  pry  into  me  that 
way !  " 

"  Oh,  you,"  Lyon  laughed  — "  I  could  do 
you  in  the  dark  !  " 

The  colonel  shortly  afterward  placed  his 
leisure  at  the  painter's  disposal,  and  by  the 
end  of  July  had  paid  him  several  visits.  Lyon 
was  disappointed  neither  in  the  quality  of  his 
sitter  nor  in  the  degree  to  which  he  himself 
rose  to  the  occasion ;  he  felt  really  confident 
that  he  should  produce  a  fine  thing.  He  was 
in  the  humor ;  he  was  charmed  with  his  motif, 
and  deeply  interested  in  his  problem.  The 
only  thing  that  troubled  him  was  the  idea 
that  when  he  should  send  his  picture  to  the 
Academy  he  should  not  be  able  to  give  the 
title,  for  the  catalogue,  as  simply  "  The  Liar." 
However,  it  little  mattered,  for  he  had  now 
determined  that  that  character  should  be  per- 
ceptible even  to  the  meanest  intelligence  — 
as  overtopping  as  it  had  become,  to  his  own 
sense,  in  the  living  man.  As  he  saw  nothing 
else  in  the  colonel  to-day,  so  he  gave  himself 
up  to  the  joy  of  painting  nothing  else.  How 
he  did  it  he  could  n't  have  told  you,  but  it 
seemed  to  him  that  the  mystery  of  how  to  do 
it  was  revealed  to  him  afresh  every  time  he 
sat  down  to  his  work.  It  was  in  the  eyes  and 
it  was  in  the  mouth,  it  was  in  every  line  of 
the  face  and  every  fact  of  the  attitude,  in  the 
indentation  of  the  chin,  in  the  way  the  hair 
was  planted,  the  mustache  was  twisted,  the 
smile  came  and  went,  the  breath  rose  and  fell. 
It  was  in  the  way  he  looked  out  at  a  bam- 
boozled world,  in  short  —  the  way  he  would 
look  out  forever.  There  were  half  a  dozen 
portraits  in  Europe  that  Lyon  rated  as  su- 
preme ;  he  regarded  them  as  immortal,  for 
they  were  as  perfectly  preserved  as  they  were 
consummately  painted.  It  was  to  this  small, 
everlasting  group  that  he  aspired  to  attach 
the  canvas  on  which  he  was  now  engaged. 
One  of  the  productions  that  helped  to  com- 
pose it  was  the  magnificent  Moroni  of  the 
National  Gallery  —  the  young  tailor  in  the 
white  jacket,  at  his  board,  with  his  shears. 
The  colonel  was  not  a  tailor,  nor  was  Moro- 
ni's model,  unlike  many  tailors,  a  liar ;  but  as 
regards  the  masterly  clearness  with  which  the 
individual  should  be  rendered  his  work  should 
be  on  the  same  line  as  that.  He  had,  to  a  de- 
gree in  which  he  had  rarely  had  it  before,  the 
satisfaction  of  feeling  life  grow  and  grow  tin- 
der his  brush.  The  colonel,  as  it  turned  out, 


liked  to  sit,  and  he  liked  to  talk  while  he  was 
sitting:  which  was  most  fortunate,  as  his  talk 
largely  constituted  Lyon's  inspiration.  Lyon 
put  into  practice  that  idea  of  drawing  him 
out  which  he  had  been  nursing  for  so  many 
weeks ;  he  could  not  possibly  have  been  in  a 
better  relation  to  him  for  the  purpose.  He 
encouraged,  beguiled,  excited  him,  manifested 
an  unfathomable  credulity,  and  his  only  in- 
terruptions were  when  the  colonel  did  not 
respond  to  it.  He  had  his  intermissions,  his 
hours  of  sterility,  and  then  Lyon  felt  that  the 
picture  also  languished.  The  more  flights  his 
companion  indulged  in  the  better  he  painted; 
he  could  n't  make  him  soar  high  enough.  He 
lashed  him  on  when  he  flagged ;  his  appre- 
hension became  very  real,  at  moments,  that 
the  colonel  would  discover  his  game.  But  he 
did  n't,  apparently ;  he  basked  and  expanded 
in  the  fine  steady  light  of  the  painter's  atten- 
tion. In  this  way  the  picture  grew  very  fast ; 
it  was  astonishing  what  a  short  business  it  was, 
compared  with  the  little  girl's.  By  the  fifth 
day  of  August  it  was  nearly  finished  —  that 
was  the  date  of  the  last  sitting  the  colonel 
was  for  the  present  able  to  give,  as  he  was 
leaving  town  the  next  day  with  his  wife.  Lyon 
was  amply  content  —  he  saw  his  way  so  clear ; 
he  should  be  able  to  do  at  his  convenience 
what  remained,  with  or  without  his  friend's 
attendance.  At  any  rate,  as  there  was  no  hurry, 
he  would  let  the  thing  stand  over  till  his 
own  return  to  London,  in  November,  when  he 
would  come  back  to  it  with  a  fresh  eye.  On 
the  colonel's  asking  him  if  his  wife  might  come 
and  see  it  the  next  day,  if  she  should  find  a 
minute, —  this  was  so  greatly  her  desire, — 
Lyon  begged,  as  a  special  favor,  that  she  would 
wait :  he  was  so  far  from  satisfied  as  yet.  This 
was  the  repetition  of  a  proposal  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose had  made  on  the  occasion  of  his  last  visit 
to  her,  and  he  had  then  asked  for  a  delay  — 
declared  that  he  was  by  no  means  content. 
He  was  really  delighted,  and  he  was  again  a 
little  ashamed  of  himself. 

By  the  5th  of  August  the  weather  was 
very  warm,  and  on  that  day,  while  the  col- 
onel sat  straight  and  gossiped,  Lyon  opened, 
for  the  sake  of  ventilation,  a  little  subsidiary 
door  which  led  directly  from  his  studio  into 
the  garden  and  sometimes  served  as  an  en- 
trance and  an  exit  for  models  and  visitors  of 
the  humbler  sort,  and  as  a  passage  for  can- 
vases, frames,  packing-boxes  and  other  pro- 
fessional gear.  The  main  entrance  was  through 
the  house  and  his  own  apartments,  and  this 
approach  had  the  charming  effect  of  admit- 
ting you  first  to  a  high  gallery,  from  which 
a  crooked  picturesque  staircase  enabled  you 
to  descend  to  the  wide,  decorated,  encum- 
bered room.  The  view  of  this  room,  beneath 


2l6 


THE  LIAR. 


them,  with  all  its  artistic  ingenuities  and  the 
objects  of  value  that  Lyon  had  collected, 
never  failed  to  elicit  exclamations  of  delight 
from  persons  stepping  into  the  gallery.  The 
way  from  the  garden  was  plainer,  and  at  once 
more  practicable  and  more  private.  I.yon's 
domain,  in  St.  John's  Wood,  was  not  vast,  but 
when  the  door  stood  open  of  a  summer's  day, 
it  offered  a  glimpse  of  flowers  and  trees;  you 
smelt  something  sweet  and  you  heard  the 
birds.  On  this  particular  morning  this  ingress 
had  been  found  convenient  by  an  unan- 
nounced visitor — a  youngish  woman  who 
stood  in  the  room  before  the  colonel  per- 
ceived her  and  whom  he  perceived  before  she 
was  noticed  by  his  friend.  She  was  very  quiet, 
and  she  looked  from  one  of  the  men  to  the 
other.  "Oh,  dear,  here's  another!"  Lyon 
exclaimed,  as  soon  as  his  eyes  rested  on  her. 
She  proved  to  belong  to  a  somewhat  import- 
unate class — the  model  in  search  of  employ- 
ment, and  she  explained  that  she  had  vent- 
ured to  come  straight  in  that  way  because,  very 
often,  when  she  went  to  call  upon  gentlemen, 
the  servants  played  her  tricks,  turned  her  away, 
would  n't  take  in  her  name. 

"  But  how  did  you  get  into  the  garden?" 
Lyon  asked. 

"The  gate  was  open,  sir — the  servants' 
gate.  The  butcher's  cart  was  there." 

"  The  butcher  ought  to  have  closed  it,"  said 
Lyon. 

"  Then  you  don't  require  me,  sir  ?  "  the 
lady  continued. 

Lyon  went  on  with  his  painting;  he  had 
given  her  a  sharp  look  at  first,  but  now  his 
eyes  turned  to  her  no  more.  The  colonel, 
however,  examined  her  with  interest.  She  was 
a  person  of  whom  you  could  scarcely  say 
whether  being  young  she  looked  old,  or  old 
she  looked  young;  she  had,  at  any  rate,  evi- 
dently turned  several  of  the  corners  of  life, 
and  had  a  face  that  was  rosy  but  that,  some- 
how, did  n't  suggest  freshness.  Nevertheless 
she  was  pretty  and  even  looked  as  if  at  one 
time  she  might  have  sat  for  the  complexion. 
She  wore  a  hat  with  many  feathers,  a  dress 
with  many  bugles,  long  black  gloves,  encir- 
cled with  silver  bracelets,  and  very  bad  shoes. 
There  was  something  about  her  that  was  not 
exactly  of  the  governess  out  of  place  nor 
completely  of  the  actress  seeking  an  engage- 
ment, but  that  savored  of  an  interrupted 
profession  or  even  of  a  blighted  career.  She 
was  rather  soiled  and  tarnished,  and  after  she 
had  been  in  the  room  a  few  moments  the  air, 
or  at  any  rate  the  nostril,  became  acquainted 
with  a  certain  alcoholic  waft.  She  was  un- 
practiced  in  the  /i,  and  when  Lyon  at  last 
thanked  her  and  said  he  did  n't  want  her — 
he  was  doing  nothing  for  which  she  could 


be  useful — she  replied  with  rather  a  wounded 
manner,  "  Well,  you  know  you  'ave  'ad  me!  " 

"  I  don't  remember  you,"  Lyon  answered. 

"Well,  I  dare  say  the  people  that  saw  your 
pictures  do!  I  have  n't  much  time,  but  I 
thought  I  would  look  in." 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you." 

"  If  ever  you  should  require  me,  if  you  just 
send  me  a  post-card  — " 

"  I  never  send  post-cards,"  said  Lyon. 

"  Oh,  well,  I  should  value  a  private  letter  I 
Anything  to  Miss  Geraldine,  Mortimer  Ter- 
race Mews,  Netting  'ill — " 

"Very  good;  I  '11  remember,"  said  Lyon. 

Miss  Geraldine  lingered.  "  I  thought  I  'd 
just  stop,  on  the  chance." 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  can't  hold  out  hopes,  I  'm 
so  busy  with  portraits,"  Lyon  continued. 

"  Yes ;  I  see  you  are.  I  wish  I  was  in  the 
gentleman's  place." 

"  I  'm  afraid  in  that  case  it  would  n't  look 
like  me,"  said  the  colonel,  laughing. 

"Oh,  of  course  it  could  n't  compare  —  it 
would  n't  be  so  'andsome!  But  I  do  hate 
them  portraits ! "  Miss  Geraldine  declared. 
"  It  's  so  much  bread  out  of  our  mouths." 

"  Well,  there  are  many  that  can't  paint 
them,"  Lyon  suggested,  comfortingly. 

"  Oh,  I  've  sat  to  the  very  first  —  and  only 
to  the  first!  There  's  many  that  could  n't  do 
anything  without  me." 

"  I  'm  glad  you  're  in  such  demand."  Lyon 
was  beginning  to  be  bored,  and  he  added  that 
he  would  n't  detain  her  —  he  would  send  for 
her  in  case  of  need. 

"Very  well;  remember  it  's  the  Mews  — 
more  's  the  pity !  You  don't  sit  so  well  as 
us/"  Miss  Geraldine  pursued,  looking  at  the 
colonel. 

"You  put  him  out;  you  embarrass  him," 
said  Lyon. 

"  Embarrass  him,  oh,  gracious  !  "  the  visitor 
cried,  with  a  laugh  which  diffused  a  fragrance. 

The  poor  woman  retreated,  with  an  uncer- 
tain step.  She  passed  out  into  the  garden,  as 
she  had  come. 

"  How  very  dreadful  —  she  's  drunk!  "  said 
Lyon.  He  was  painting  hard,  but  he  looked 
up,  checking  himself;  Miss  Geraldine,  in  the 
open  doorway,  had  thrust  back  her  head. 

"Yes,  I  do  hate  it  —  that  sort  of  thing!" 
she  cried,  with  an  explosion  of  mirth  which 
confirmed  Lyon's  declaration.  And  then  she 
disappeared. 

"What  sort  of  thing — what  does  she  mean?" 
the  colonel  asked. 

"  Oh,  my  painting  you,  when  I  might  be 
painting  her." 

"And  have  you  ever  painted  her?" 

"  Never  in  the  world ;  I  have  never  seen 
her.  She  is  quite  mistaken." 


THE  LIAR. 


217 


The  colonel  was  silent  a  moment ;  then  lie- 
remarked,  "  She  was  very  pretty  —  ten  years 
ago." 

"  I  dare  say,  but  she  's  quite  ruined.  For  me 
the  least  drop  too  much  spoils  them  ;  I  should 
n't  care  for  her  at  all." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  she  's  not  a  model,"  said 
the  colonel,  laughing. 

••  To-day,  no  doubt,  she  's  not  worthy  of 
the  name  ;  but  she  has  been  one." 

"  Jamais  </<•  /<.'  rie .'     That  's  all  a  pretext." 

"  A  pretext  ?  "  Lyon  pricked  up  his  ears  — 
he  began  to  wonder  what  was  coming  now. 

"  She  did  n't  want  you  —  she  wanted  me." 

"  I  noticed  she  paid  you  some  attention. 
What  does  she  want  of  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  to  do  me  an  ill  turn.  She  hates  me  — 
lots  of  women  do.  She  's  watching  me  —  she 
follows  me." 

Lyon  leaned  back  in  his  chair  —  he  did  n't 
believe  a  word  of  this.  He  was  all  the  more 
delighted  with  it  and  with  the  colonel's  bright, 
candid  manner.  The  story  had  bloomed, 
fragrant,  on  the  spot.  "  My  dear  colonel !  " 
he  murmured,  with  friendly  interest  and 
commiseration. 

"  I  was  annoyed  when  she  came  in  —  but  I 
was  n't  startled,"  his  sitter  continued. 

"  You  concealed  it  very  well,  if  you  were." 

"  Ah,  when  one  has  been  through  what  I 
have  !  To-day,  however,  I  confess  I  was  half 
prepared.  I  have  seen  her  hanging  about  — 
she  knows  my  movements.  She  was  near  my 
house  this  morning  —  she  must  have  followed 
me." 

"  But  who  is  she  then  —  with  such  a  toupet?  " 

"  Yes,  she  has  that,"  said  the  colonel ;  "  but 
as  you  observe,  she  was  primed.  Still,  there 
was  a  cheek,  as  they  say,  in  her  coming  in. 
Oh,  she  's  a  bad  un !  She  is  n't  a  model  and 
she  never  was  ;  no  doubt  she  has  known  some 
of  those  women,  and  picked  up  their  form. 
She  had  hold  of  a  friend  of  mine,  ten  years 
ago  —  a  stupid  young  gander  who  might  have 
been  left  to  be  plucked,  but  whom  I  was 
obliged  to  take  an  interest  in,  for  family  rea- 
sons. It  's  a  long  story  —  I  had  really  forgot- 
ten all  about  it.  She  's  thirty-seven  if  she 's  a 
day.  I  cut  in  and  made  him  get  rid  of  her  — 
I  sent  her  about  her  business.  She  knew  it  was 
me  she  had  to  thank.  She  has  never  forgiven 
mo  —  I  think  she  's  off  her  head.  Her  name 
is  n't  Geraldine  at  all,  and  I  doubt  very  much 
it"  that  's  her  address." 

"  Ah,  what  is  her  name  ?  "  Lyon  asked, 
most  attentive.  The  details  always  began  to 
multiply,  to  abound,  when  once  his  compan- 
ion was  well  launched  —  they  flowed  forth  in 
battalions, 

"  It  's  Pearson  —  Harriet  Pearson ;  but  she 
used  to  call  herself  Grenadine  —  was  n't  that 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  31. 


a  rum  appellation  ?  Grenadine — Geraldine — 
the  jump  was  easy."  Lyon  was  charmed  with 
the  promptitude  of  this  response,  and  his  in- 
terlocutor went  on  :  "I  had  n't  thought  of 
her  for  years  —  I  had  quite  lost  sight  of  her. 
I  don't  know  what  her  idea  is,  but  practically 
she  's  harmless.  As  I  came  in  I  thought  I 
saw  her,  a  little  way  up  the  road.  She  must 
have  found  out  I  come  here  and  have  arrived 
before  me.  I  dare  say  —  or,  rather,  I  'm  sure 
—  she  is  waiting  for  me  there  now." 

"  Had  n't  you  better  have  protection  ?  " 
Lyon  asked,  laughing. 

"  The  best  protection  is  five  shillings — I  'm 
willing  to  go  that.  Unless  indeed  she  has  a 
bottle  of  vitriol.  But  they  only  throw  vitriol 
on  the  men  who  have  deceived  them,  and  I 
never  deceived  her  —  I  told  her  the  first  time 
I  saw  her  that  it  would  n't  do.  Oh,  if  she  's 
there  we  '11  walk  a  little  way  together  and  talk 
it  over,  and,  as  I  say,  I  '11  go  as  far  as  five 
shillings." 

"Well, "said  Lyon,  "I  '11  contribute  an- 
other five."  He  felt  that  this  was  little  to  pay 
for  his  entertainment. 

That  entertainment  was  interrupted,  how- 
ever, for  the  time,  by  the  colonel's  departure. 
Lyon  hoped  for  a  letter,  recounting  the  fic- 
tive  sequel;  but  apparently  his  brilliant  sitter 
did  not  operate  with  the  pen.  At  any  rate  he 
left  town  without  writing ;  they  had  taken  a 
rendezvous  for  three  months  later.  Oliver 
Lyon  always  passed  the  holidays  in  the  same 
way ;  during  the  first  weeks  he  paid  a  visit  to 
his  elder  brother,  the  happy  possessor,  in  the 
south  of  England,  of  a  rambling  old  house, 
with  formal  gardens  in  which  he  delighted, 
and  then  he  went  abroad  —  usually  to  Italy 
or  Spain.  This  year  he  carried  out  his  cus- 
tom, after  taking  a  last  look  at  his  all  but 
finished  work  and  feeling  as  nearly  pleased 
with  it  as  he  ever  felt  with  the  translation  of 
the  idea  by  the  hand  —  always,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  a  pitiful  compromise.  One  yellow 
afternoon,  in  the  country,  as  he  was  smoking 
his  pipe  on  one  of  the  old  terraces,  he  was 
seized  with  the  desire  to  see  it  again  and  do 
two  or  three  things  more  to  it ;  he  had  thought 
of  it  so  often  while  he  lounged  there.  The 
impulse  was  too  strong  to  be  dismissed,  and 
though  he  expected  to  return  to  town  in  the 
course  of  another  week  he  could  n't  brook 
the  delay.  To  look  at  the  picture  for  five 
minutes  would  be  enough  —  it  would  clear  up 
certain  questions  which  hummed  in  his  brain ; 
so  that,  the  next  morning,  to  give  himself  this 
luxury,  he  took  the  train  for  London.  He 
sent  no  word  in  advance;  he  would  lunch  at 
his  club,  and  probably  return  into  Sussex  by 
the  5.45. 

In  St.  John's  Wood  the  tide  of  human  life 


2I8 


THE  LIAR. 


flows  at  no  time  very  fast,  and  in  the  first 
days  of  September  Lyon  found  unmitigated 
emptiness  in  the  straight  sunny  roads,  where 
the  little  plastered  garden- walls,  with  their  in- 
communicative doors,  looked  slightly  Oriental. 
There  was  definite  stillness  in  his  own  house, 
to  which  he  admitted  himself  by  his  pass-key, 
having  a  theory  that  it  was  well  sometimes  to 
take  servants  unprepared.  The  good  woman 
who  was  mainly  in  charge  and  who  cumu- 
lated the  functions  of  cook  and  housekeeper, 
was,  however,  quickly  summoned  by  his  step, 
and  (he  cultivated  frankness  of  intercourse 
with  his  domestics)  received  him  without  the 
confusion  of  surprise.  He  told  her  that  she 
need  n't  mind  the  place  being  not  quite 
straight,  he  had  only  come  up  for  a  few  hours 
— he  should  be  busy  in  the  studio.  To  this 
she  replied  that  he  was  just  in  time  to  see  a 
lady  and  a  gentleman  who  were  there  at  the 
moment — they  had  arrived  five  minutes  be- 
fore. She  had  told  them  he  was  away  from 
home,  but  they  said  it  was  all  right;  they  only 
wanted  to  look  at  a  picture  and  would  be 
very  careful  of  everything.  "  I  hope  it  is  all 
right,  sir,"  the  housekeeper  concluded.  "  The 
gentleman  says  he  's  a  sitter,  and  he  gave 
me  his  name  —  rather  an  odd  name ;  I 
think  he 's  a  colonel.  The  lady  's  a  very  fine 
lady,  sir ;  at  any  rate,  there  they  are." 

"  Oh.  it 's  all  right !  "  Lyon  said,  the  identity 
of  his  visitors  being  clear.  The  good  woman 
could  n't  know,  for  she  usually  had  little  to  do 
with  the  comings  and  goings;  his  man,  who 
showed  people  in  and  out,  had  accompanied 
him  to  the  country.  He  was  a  good  deal  sur- 
prised at  Mrs.  Capadose's  having  come  to  see 
her  husband's  portrait  when  she  knew  that 
the  artist  himself  wished  her  to  wait;  but  it 
was  a  familiar  truth  to  him  that  she  was  a 
woman  of  a  high  spirit.  Besides,  perhaps  the 
lady  was  not  Mrs.  Capadose;  the  colonel 
might  have  brought  some  inquisitive  friend,  a 
person  who  wanted  a  portrait  of  her  husband. 
What  were  they  doing  in  town,  at  any  rate,  at 
that  moment  ?  Lyon  made  his  way  to  the  stu- 
dio with  a  certain  curiosity;  he  wondered 
vaguely  what  his  friends  were  "  up  to."  He 
pushed  aside  the  curtain  that  hung  in  the 
door  of  communication — the  door  opening 
upon  the  gallery  which  it  had  been  found 
convenient  to  construct  at  the  time  the  studio 
was  added  to  the  house.  When  I  say  he 
pushed  it  aside  I  should  amend  my  phrase; 
he  laid  his  hand  upon  it,  but  at  that  moment 
he  was  arrested  by  a  very  singular  sound.  It 
came  from  the  floor  of  the  room  beneath  him, 
and  it  startled  him  extremely,  consisting  ap- 
parently as  it  did  of  a  passionate  wail  —  a 
sort  of  smothered  shriek — accompanied  by  a 
violent  burst  of  tears.  Oliver  Lyon  listened 


intently  a  moment,  and  then  he  passed  out 
upon  the  balcony,  which  was  covered  with  an 
old  thick  Moorish  rug.  His  step  was  noise- 
less, though  he  had  not  endeavored  to  make 
it  so,  and  after  that  first  instant  he  found  him- 
self profiting  irresistibly  by  the  accident  of  his 
not  having  attracted  the  attention  of  the  two 
persons  in  the  studio,  who  were  some  twenty 
feet  below  him.  In  truth  they  were  so  deeply 
and  so  strangely  engaged  that  their  uncon- 
sciousness of  observation  was  explained.  The 
scene  that  took  place  before  Lyon's  eyes  was 
one  of  the  most  extraordinary  they  had  ever 
rested  upon.  Delicacy  and  the  failure  to  com- 
prehend kept  him  at  first  from  interrupting 
it, — for  what  he  saw  was  a  woman  who  had 
thrown  herself,  in  a  flood  of  tears,  on  her 
companion's  bosom, —  and  these  influences 
were  succeeded  after  a  minute  (the  minutes 
were  very  few  and  very  quick)  by  a  definite 
motive,  which  presently  had  the  force  to 
make  him  step  back  behind  the  curtain.  I 
may  add  that  it  also  had  the  force  to  make 
him  avail  himself  for  further  contemplation 
of  a  crevice  formed  by  his  gathering  together 
the  two  halves  of  the  portiere.  He  was  per- 
fectly aware  of  what  he  was  about  —  he  was 
for  the  moment  an  eavesdropper,  a  spy;  but 
he  was  also  aware  that  a  very  odd  business,  in 
which  his  confidence  had  been  trifled  with, 
was  going  forward,  and  that  if  in  a  measure  it 
did  n't  concern  him  in  a  measure  it  very  defi- 
nitely did.  His  observation,  his  reflections, 
accomplished  themselves  in  a  flash. 

His  visitors  were  in  the  middle  of  the  room  ; 
Mrs.  Capadose  clung  to  her  husband,  weep- 
ing, sobbing  as  if  her  heart  would  break. 
Her  distress  was  horrible  to  Oliver  Lyon,  but 
his  astonishment  was  greater  than  his  horror 
when  he  heard  the  colonel  respond  to  it  by 
the  words,  vehemently  uttered,  "  Damn  him, 
damn  him,  damn  him !  "  What  in  the  world  had 
happened  ?  why  was  she  sobbing  and  whom 
was  he  damning?  What  had  happened, 
Lyon  saw  the  next  instant,  was  that  the  col- 
onel had  finally  rummaged  out  his  unfinished 
portrait  (he  knew  the  corner  where  the  artist 
usually  placed  it,  out  of  the  way,  with  its  face 
to  the  wall),  and  had  set  it  up  before  his 
wife,  on  an  empty  easel.  She  had  looked  at 
it  a  few  moments,  and  then  —  apparently  — 
what  she  saw  in  it  had  produced  an  explosion 
of  dismay  and  resentment.  She  was  too  busy 
sobbing  and  the  colonel  was  too  busy  holding 
her  and  reiterating  his  objurgation,  to  look 
round  or  look  up.  The  scene  was  so  unex- 
pected to  Lyon  that  he  could  not  take  it,  on 
the  spot,  as  a  proof  of  the  triumph  of  his 
hand  —  of  a  tremendous  hit :  he  could  only 
wonder  what  on  earth  was  the  matter.  The 
idea  of  the  triumph  came  a  little  later.  Yet  he 


THE  LIAR. 


219 


could  see  the  portrait  from  where  he  stood ; 
he  was  startled  with  its  look  of  life  —  he  had 
n't  thought  it  so  masterly.  Mrs.  Capadose 
flung  herself  away  from  her  husband  —  she- 
dropped  into  the  nearest  chair,  buried  her 
face  in  her  arms,  leaning  on  a  table.  Her 
weeping  suddenly  ceased  to  be  audible,  but 
she  shuddered  there  as  if  she  were  over- 
whelmed with  anguish  and  shame.  Her  hus- 
band remained  a  moment  staring  at  the 
picture ;  then  he  went  to  her,  bent  over  her, 
took  hold  of  her  again,  soothed  her.  "  What 
is  it,  darling,  what  the  devil  is  it  ?  "  he  de- 
manded. 

Lyon  heard  her  answer.  "  It  's  cruel  —  oh, 
it  's  too  cruel !  " 

"  Damn  him  —  damn  him  —  damn  him !  " 
the  colonel  repeated. 

"  It 's  all  there  —  it 's  all  there !  "  Mrs.  Cap- 
adose went  on. 

"  Hang  it,  what  's  all  there  ?  " 

"  Everything  there  ought  n't  to  be  —  every- 
thing he  has  seen  —  it 's  too  dreadful!  " 

"  Everything  he  has  seen  ?  Why,  ain't  I  a 
good-looking  fellow?  He  has  made  me  aw- 
fully handsome." 

Mrs.  Capadose  had  sprung  up  again ;  she 
had  darted  another  glance  at  the  painted  be- 
trayal. "  Handsome  ?  Hideous,  hideous !  Not 
that  —  never,  never!" 

"Not  what,  in  Heaven's  name  ?  "  the  colonel 
almost  shouted.  Lyon  could  see  his  flushed, 
bewildered  face. 

"  What  he  has  made  of  you  —  what  you 
know!  He  knows  —  he  has  seen.  Everyone 
will  know  —  every  one  will  see.  Fancy  that 
thing  in  the  Academy!" 

"  You  're  going  wild,  darling;  but  if  you 
hate  it  so,  it  need  n't  go." 

"  Oh,  he  '11  send  it  —  it 's  so  good !  Come 
away  —  come  away ! "  Mrs.  Capadose  wailed, 
seizing  her  husband. 

"  It 's  so  good  ?  "  the  poor  man  cried. 

"  Come  away  —  come  away,"  she  only  re- 
peated; and  she  turned  towards  the  staircase 
that  ascended  to  the  gallery. 

"  Not  that  way  —  not  through  the  house, 
in  the  state  you  're  in,"  Lyon  heard  the  col- 
onel object.  "  This  way  —  we  can  pass,"  he 
added ;  and  he  drew  his  wife  to  the  small 
door  that  opened  into  the  garden.  It  was 
bolted,  but  he  pushed  the  bolt  and  opened  the 
door.  She  passed  out  quickly,  but  he  stood 
there  looking  back  into  the  room.  "  Wait 
for  me  a  moment !  "  he  cried  out  to  her;  and 
with  an  excited  stride  he  reentered  the  studio. 
He  came  up  to  the  picture  again,  and  again 
stood  looking  at  it.  "  Damn  him  —  damn 
him  —  damn  him  !  "  he  broke  out  once  more. 
It  was  not  clear  to  Lyon  whether  this  invo- 
cation had  for  its  object  the  original  or  the 


painter  of  the  portrait.  The  colonel  turned 
away  and  moved  rapidly  about  the  room,  as  if 
he  were  looking  for  something;  Lyon  could  n't, 
for  the  instant,  guess  his  intention.  Then 
the  artist  said  to  himself,  below  his  breath, 
"  He  's  going  to  do  it  a  harm  !  "  His  first  im- 
pulse was  to  rush  down  and  stop  him ;  but  he 
paused,  with  the  sound  of  Everina  Brant's 
sobs  still  in  his  ears.  The  colonel  found  what 
he  was  looking  for — found  it  among  some 
odds  and  ends  on  a  small  table  and  rushed 
back  with  it  to  the  easel.  At  one  and  the 
same  moment  Lyon  perceived  that  the  object 
he  had  seized  was  a  small  Eastern  dagger,  and 
that  he  had  plunged  it  into  the  canvas.  He 
seemed  animated  by  a  sudden  fury,  for  with 
extreme  vigor  of  hand  he  dragged  the  in- 
strument down  (Lyon  kne.w  it  to  have  no 
very  fine  edge),  making  a  long,  abominable 
gash.  Then  he  plucked  it  out  and  dashed  it 
again  several  times  into  the  face  of  the  figure, 
exactly  as  if  he  were  stabbing  a  human  vic- 
tim ;  it  had  the  oddest  effect  —  that  of  a  sort 
of  constructive  suicide.  In  a  few  seconds 
more  the  colonel  had  tossed  the  dagger  away 
—  he  looked  at  it  as  he  did  so,  as  if  he  ex- 
pected it  to  reek  with  blood  —  and  hurried 
out  of  the  place,  closing  the  door  after  him. 

The  strangest  part  of  all  was — as  will  doubt- 
less appear —  that  Oliver  Lyon  made  no  move- 
ment to  save  his  picture.  But  he  did  n't  feel 
as  if  he  were  losing  it,  or  cared  not  if  he 
were,  so  much  more  did  he  feel  that  he  was 
gaining  a  certitude.  His  old  friend  was 
ashamed  of  her  husband,  and  he  had  made 
her  so,  and  he  had  scored  a  great  success, 
even  though  the  picture  had  been  reduced  to 
rags.  The  revelation  excited  him  so  —  as  in- 
deed the  whole  scene  did  —  that  when  he 
came  down  the  steps  after  the  colonel  had 
gone  he  trembled  with  his  happy  agitation ; 
he  was  dizzy,  and  had  to  sit  down  a  moment. 
The  portrait  had  a  dozen  jagged  wounds  — 
the  colonel  literally  had  hacked  it  to  death. 
Lyon  left  it  where  it  was,  did  n't  touch  it, 
scarcely  looked  at  it ;  he  only  walked  up  and 
down  his  studio,  still  excited,  for  an  hour.  At 
the  end  of  this  time  his  good  woman  came  to 
recommend  that  he  should  have  some  lunch- 
eon ;  there  was  a  passage,  under  the  staircase, 
from  the  offices. 

"  Ah,  the  lady  and  gentleman  have  gone, 
sir?  I  did  n't  hear  them." 

"  Yes ;  they  went  by  the  garden." 

But  she  had  stopped,  staring  at  the  picture 
on  the  easel.  "  Gracious,  how  you  'ave  served 
it,  sir!" 

Lyon  imitated  the  colonel.  "  Yes,  I  cut  it 
up  —  in  a  fit  of  disgust." 

"  Mercy,  after  all  your  trouble !  Because 
they  were  n't  pleased,  sir  ?  " 


220 


THE  LIAR. 


"Yes;  they  were  n't  pleased." 

"  Well,  they  must  be  very  grand !  Blessed 
if  I  would!" 

"  Have  it  chopped  up ;  it  will  do  to  light 
fires,"  Lyon  said.  He  returned  to  the  country 
by  the  3.30,  and  a  few  days  later  passed  over 
to  France.  During  the  two  months  that  he 
was  absent  from  England  he  expected  some- 
thing —  he  could  hardly  have  said  what ;  a 
manifestation  of  some  sort  on  the  colonel's 
part.  Would  n't  he  write,  would  n't  he  ex- 
plain, would  n't  he  take  for  granted  Lyon  had 
discovered  the  way  he  had,  as  the  cook  said, 
served  him,  and  deem  it  only  decent  to  take 
pity,  in  some  fashion  or  other,  on  his  bewilder- 
ment ?  Would  he  plead  guilty  or  would  he 
repudiate  suspicion  ?  The  latter  course  would 
be  difficult  and.make  a  considerable  draft 
upon  his  genius,  in  view  of  the  certain  testi- 
mony of  Lyon's  housekeeper,  who  had  ad- 
mitted the  visitors  and  would  establish  the 
connection  between  their  presence  and  the 
violence  wrought.  Would  the  colonel  proffer 
some  apology  or  some  amends,  or  would  any 
word  from  him  be  only  a  further  expression 
of  that  destructive  petulance  which  our  friend 
had  seen  his  wife  so  suddenly  and  so  potently 
communicate  to  him  ?  He  would  have  either 
to  declare  that  he  had  n't  touched  the  picture 
or  to  admit  that  he  had,  and  in  either  case  he 
would  have  to  tell  a  fine  story.  Lyon  was  im- 
patient for  the  story  and,  as  no  letter  came, 
disappointed  that  it  was  not  produced.  His 
impatience,  however,  was  much  greater  in 
respect  to  Mrs.  Capadose's  version,  if  version 
there  was  to  be ;  for  certainly  that  would  be 
the  real  test,  would  show  how  far  she  would 
go  for  her  husband  on  the  one  side  or  for 
him,  Oliver  Lyon,  on  the  other.  He  could 
scarcely  wait  to  see  what  line  she  would  take ; 
whether  she  would  simply  adopt  the  colonel's, 
whatever  it  might  be.  He  wanted  to  draw 
her  out  without  waiting,  to  get  an  idea  in 
advance.  He  wrote  to  her,  to  this  end,  from 
Venice,  in  the  tone  of  their  established  friend- 
ship, asking  for  news,  narrating  his  wander- 
ings, hoping  they  should  soon  meet  in  town, 
and  not  saying  a  word  about  the  picture. 
Day  followed  day,  after  the  time,  and  he  re- 
ceived no  answer;  upon  which  he  reflected 
that  she  could  n't  trust  herself  to  write  —  was 
still  too  much  under  the  influence  of  the  emo- 
tion produced  by  his  "  betrayal."  Her  husband 
had  espoused  that  emotion,  and  she  had  es- 
poused the  action  he  had  taken  in  consequence 
of  it,  and  it  was  a  complete  rupture,  and 
everything  was  at  an  end.  Lyon  considered 
this  prospect  rather  ruefully,  at  the  same  time 
that  he  thought  it  deplorable  that  such  charm- 
ing people  should  have  put  themselves  so 
grossly  in  the  wrong.  He  was  at  last  cheered, 


though  much  further  mystified,  by  the  arrival 
of  a  letter,  brief  but  breathing  good-humor, 
and  hinting  neither  at  a  grievance  nor  a  bad 
conscience.  The  most  interesting  part  of  it, 
to  Lyon,  was  the  postscript,  which  consisted 
of  these  words :  "  I  have  a  confession  to  make 
to  you.  We  were  in  town  for  a  couple  of  days 
the  ist  of  September,  and  I  took  the  occasion 
to  defy  your  authority  —  it  was  very  bad  of 
me,  but  I  could  n't  help  it.  I  made  Clement 
take  me  to  your  studio  —  I  wanted  so  dread- 
fully to  see  what  you  had  done  with  him, 
your  wishes  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
We  made  your  servants  let  us  in  and  I  took 
a  good  look  at  the  picture.  It  is  wonderful !  " 
"  Wonderful "  was  non-committal,  but  at  least, 
with  this  letter,  there  was  no  rupture. 

The  third  day  after  Lyon's  return  to  Lon- 
don was  a  Sunday,  so  that  he  could  go  and 
ask  Mrs.  Capadose  for  lunch.  She  had  given 
him,  in  the  spring,  a  general  invitation  to  do 
so  and  he  had  availed  himself  of  it  several 
times.  These  had  been  the  occasions  (before 
he  sat  to  him)  when  he  saw  the  colonel  most 
familiarly.  Directly  after  the  meal  his  host 
disappeared  (he  went  out,  as  he  said,  to  call 
on  his  women),  and  the  second  half-hour  was 
the  best,  even  when  there  were  other  people. 
Now,  in  the  first  days  of  December,  Lyon  had 
the  luck  to  find  the  pair  alone,  without  even 
Amy,  who  did  n't  come  to  luncheon.  They 
were  in  the  drawing-room,  waiting  for  the  re- 
past to  be  announced,  and  as  soon  as  he  came 
in  the  colonel  broke  out,  "  My  dear  fellow, 
I  "m  delighted  to  see  you !  I  'm  so  keen  to 
begin  again." 

"  Oh,  do  go  on,  it  's  so  beautiful,"  Mrs. 
Capadose  said,  as  she  gave  him  her  hand. 

Lyon  looked  from  one  to  the  other;  he 
did  n't  know  what  he  had  expected,  but  he 
had  n't  expected  this.  "  Ah,  then,  you  think 
I  've  got  something  ?  " 

"  You  've  got  everything,"  said  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose, smiling  from  her  golden-brown  eyes. 

"  She  wrote  you  of  our  little  crime  ?  "  her 
husband  asked.  "She  dragged  me  there — I 
had  to  go."  Lyon  wondered  for  a  moment 
whether  he  meant  by  their  little  crime  the 
assault  on  the  canvas;  but  the  colonel's 
next  words  did  n't  confirm  this  interpreta- 
tion. "You  know  I  like  to  sit  —  it  gives 
such  a  chance  to  my  bavardise.  And  just 
now  I  have  time." 

"You  must  remember  I  had  almost  fin- 
ished," Lyon  remarked. 

"  So  you  had.  More  's  the  pity.  I  should 
like  you  to  begin  again." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  I  shall  have  to  begin 
again ! "  said  Oliver  Lyon,  with  a  laugh,  look- 
ing at  Mrs.  Capadose.  She  did  n't  meet  his 
eyes  —  she  had  got  up  to  ring  for  luncheon. 


THE  LIAR. 


221 


"  The  picture  has  been  smashed,"  Lyon  con- 
tinued. 

"  Smashed  ?  Ah,  what  did  you  do  that  for  ?  " 
Mrs.  Capadose  asked,  standing  there  before 
him  in  all  her  clear,  rich  beauty.  Now  that 
she  looked  at  him  she  was  impenetrable. 

"I  did  n't — I  found  it  so  —  with  a  dozen 
holes  punched  in  it!  " 

"  I  say !  "  cried  the  colonel. 

Lyon  turned  his  eyes  to  him,  smiling.  "  I 
hopeynu  did  n't  do  it?" 

"  Is  it  ruined  ?  "  the  colonel  inquired.  He 
was  as  brightly  true  as  his  wife,  and  he  looked 
simply  as  if  Lyon's  question  could  n't  be  seri- 
ous. "  For  the  love  of  sitting?  My  dear  fel- 
low, if  I  had  thought  of  it,  I  would ! " 

"  Nor  you  either?"  the  painter  demanded 
of  Mrs.  Capadose. 

Before  she  had  time  to  reply  her  husband 
had  seized  her  arm,  as  if  a  most  suggestive 
idea  had  come  to  him.  "  I  say,  my  dear,  that 
woman  —  that  woman !  " 

"  That  woman  ?  "  Mrs.  Capadose  repeated; 
and  Lyon,  too,  wondered  what  woman  he 
meant. 

"  Don't  you  remember  when  we  came  out, 
she  was  at  the  door  —  or  a  little  way  from  it  ? 
I  spoke  to  you  of  her —  I  told  you  about  her. 
Geraldine  —  Grenadine  —  the  one  who  burst 
in  that  day,"  he  explained  to  Lyon.  "  We 
saw  her  hanging  about — I  called  Everina's 
attention  to  her." 

"  Do  you  mean  she  got  at  my  picture  ?  " 

"  Ah  yes,  I  remember,"  said  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose, with  a  sigh. 

"  She  burst  in  again  —  she  had  learned  the 
way  —  she  was  waiting  for  her  chance,"  the 
colonel  continued.  "  Ah,  the  little  brute ! " 

Lyon  looked  down;  he  felt  himself  coloring. 
This  was  what  he  had  been  waiting  for  — 
the  day  the  colonel  should  wantonly  sacrifice 
some  innocent  person.  And  could  his  wife  be 
a  party  to  that  final  atrocity  ?  Lyon  had  re- 
minded himself  repeatedly,  during  the  previ- 
ous weeks,  that  when  the  colonel  perpetrated 
his  misdeed  she  had  already  quitted  the  room ; 
but  he  had  argued  none  the  less  —  it  was  a 
virtual  certainty  —  that  he  had,  on  rejoining 
her,  immediately  made  his  achievement  plain 
to  her.  He  was  in  the  flush  of  performance ; 
and  even  if  he  had  not  mentioned  what  lie 
had  done,  she  would  have  guessed  it.  He 
did  n't  for  an  instant  believe  that  poor  Miss 
Geraldine  had  been  hovering  about  his  door, 
nor  had  the  account  given  by  the  colonel  the 
summer  before  of  his  relations  with  this  lady 
deceived  him  in  the  slightest  degree.  Lyon 
had  never  seen  her  before  the  day  she  planted 
herself  in  his  studio;  but  he  knew  her  and 
classified  her  as  if  he  had  made  her.  He  was 
acquainted  with  the  London  female  model  in 


all  her  varieties  —  in  every  phase  of  her  de- 
velopment and  every  step  of  her  decay.  When 
he  entered  his  house,  that  September  morning, 
just  after  the  arrival  of  his  two  friends,  there 
had  been  no  symptoms  whatever,  up  and 
down  the  road,  of  Miss  Geraldine's  reap- 
pearance. That  fact  had  been  fixed  in  his 
mind  by  his  recollecting  the  vacancy  of  the 
prospect  when  his  cook  told  him  that  a  lady 
and  a  gentleman  were  in  his  studio :  he  had 
wondered  there  was  n't  a  carriage  or  cab  at 
his  door.  Then  he  had  reflected  that  they 
would  have  come  by  the  underground  rail- 
way ;  he  was  close  to  the  Marlborough  Road 
station  and  he  knew  the  colonel,  coming  to 
his  sittings,  more  than  once  had  availed  him- 
self of  that  convenience.  "  How  in  the  world 
did  she  get  in  ?  "  He  addressed  the  question 
to  his  companions  indifferently. 

"Let  us  go  down  to  lunch,"  said  Mrs. 
Capadose,  passing  out  of  the  room. 

"  We  went  by  the  garden  —  without  troub- 
ling your  servant  —  I  wanted  to  show  my 
wife."  Lyon  followed  his  hostess  with  her 
husband,  and  the  colonel  stopped  him  at  the 
top  of  the  stairs.  "  My  dear  fellow,  I  can't 
have  been  guilty  of  the  folly  of  not  fastening 
the  door  ?  " 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know,  colonel,"  Lyon 
said  as  they  went  down.  "  It  was  a  very  de- 
termined hand  —  a  perfect  wild-cat." 

"Well,  she  is  a  wild-cat  —  confound  her! 
That  's  why  I  wanted  to  get  him  away  from 
her." 

"  But  I  don't  understand  her  motive." 

"She  's  off  her  head  —  and  she  hates  me; 
that  was  her  motive." 

"  But  she  does  n't  hate  me,  my  dear  fel- 
low! "  Lyon  said,  laughing. 

"  She  hated  the  picture  —  don't  you  re- 
member she  said  so  ?  The  more  portraits 
there  are,  the  less  employment  for  such  as 
her." 

"  Yes ;  but  if  she  is  not  really  the  model  she 
pretends  to  be,  how  can  that  hurt  her  ?  "  Lyon 
asked. 

The  inquiry  baffled  the  colonel  an  instant, 
but  only  an  instant.  "  Ah,  she  was  in  a  vicious 
muddle  !  As  I  say,  she  's  off  her  head." 

They  went  into  the  dining-room,  where 
Mrs.  Capadose  was  taking  her  place.  "  It 's 
too  bad,  it  's  too  horrid!"  she  said.  "You 
see  the  fates  are  against  you.  Providence 
won't  let  you  be  so  disinterested  —  painting 
masterpieces  for  nothing." 

"  Didjv0#  see  the  woman  ?  "  Lyon  demanded, 
with  something  like  a  sternness  that  he  could 
not  mitigate. 

Mrs.  Capadose  appeared  not  to  perceive  it, 
or  not  to  heed  it  if  she  did.  "  There  was  a 
person,  not  far  from  your  door,  whom  Clement 


222 


THE  LIAR. 


called  my  attention  to.  He  told  me  something 
about  her,  but  we  were  going  the  other  way." 

"And  do  you  think  she  did  it?" 

"  How  can  I  tell  ?  If  she  did,  she  was  mad, 
poor  wretch." 

"  I  should  like  very  much  to  get  hold  of 
her,"  said  Lyon.  This  was  a  false  statement, 
for  he  had  no  desire  for  any  further  conversa- 
tion with  Miss  Geraldine.  He  had  exposed 
his  friends  to  himself,  but  he  had  no  desire  to 
expose  them  to  any  one  else,  least  of  all  to 
themselves. 

"  Oh,  depend  upon  it,  she  will  never  show 
again.  You  're  safe! "  the  colonel  exclaimed. 

"  But  I  remember  her  address  —  Mortimer 
Terrace  Mews,  Netting  Hill." 

"  Oh,  that 's  pure  humbug ;  there  is  n't  any 
such  place." 

"  Lord,  what  a  deceiver ! "  said  Lyon. 

"  Is  there  any  one  else  you  suspect  ?  "  the 
colonel  went  on. 

"  Not  a  creature." 

"  And  what  do  your  servants  say  ?  " 

"  They  say  it  was  n't  them,  and  I  reply  that 
I  never  said  it  was.  That  's  about  the  sub- 
stance of  our  conferences." 

"  And  when  did  they  discover  the  havoc  ?  " 

"  They  never  discovered  it  at  all.  I  noticed 
it  first  —  when  I  came  back." 

"  Well,  she  could  easily  have  stepped  in," 
said  the  colonel.  "  Don't  you  remember  how 
she  turned  up  that  day,  like  the  clown  in  the 
ring?" 

"  Yes,  yes ;  she  could  have  done  the  job  in 
three  seconds,  except  that  the  picture  was  n't 
out." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  don't  curse  me !  — but  of 
course  I  dragged  it  out." 

"  You  did  n't  put  it  back  ? "  Lyon  asked, 
tragically. 

"Ah,  Clement,  Clement,  did  n't  I  tell  you 
to  ?  "  Mrs.  Capadose  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of 
exquisite  reproach. 

The  colonel  groaned,  dramatically ;  he  cov- 
ered his  face  with  his  hands.  His  wife's  words 
were,  for  Lyon,  the  finishing  touch;  they 
made  his  whole  vision  crumble  —  his  theory 
that  she  had  secretly  kept  herself  true.  Even 
to  her  old  lover  she  would  n't  be  so !  He  was 
sick ;  he  could  n't  eat ;  he  knew  that  he  looked 
very  strange.  He  murmured  something  about 
its  being  useless  to  cry  over  spilled  milk  —  he 
tried  to  turn  the  conversation  to  other  things. 
But  it  was  a  horrid  effort,  and  he  wondered 
whether  they  felt  it  as  much  as  he.  He  won- 
dered all  sorts  of  things:  whether  they  guessed 
he  disbelieved  them  (that  he  had  seen  them 
of  course  they  would  never  guess) ;  whether 
they  had  arranged  their  story  in  advance  or 
it  was  only  an  inspiration  of  the  moment; 
whether  she  had  resisted,  protested,  when  the 


colonel  proposed  it  to  her,  and  then  been  borne 
down  by  him ;  whether  in  short  she  did  n't 
loathe  herself  as  she  sat  there.  The  cruelty, 
the  cowardice,  of  fastening  their  unholy  act 
upon  the  wretched  woman  struck  him  as  mon- 
strous—  no  less  monstrous  indeed  than  the 
levity  that  could  make  them  run  the  risk  of 
her  giving  them,  in  her  righteous  indignation, 
the  lie.  Of  course  that  risk  could  only  excul- 
pate her  and  not  inculpate  them  —  the  prob- 
abilities protected  them  so  perfectly;  and 
what  the  colonel  counted  on  (what  he  would 
have  counted  upon  the  day  he  delivered  him- 
self, after  first  seeing  her,  at  the  studio,  if  he 
had  thought  about  the  matter  then  at  all  and 
not  spoken  from  the  pure  spontaneity  of  his 
genius),  was  simply  that  Miss  Geraldine  had 
really  vanished  forever  into  her  native  un- 
known. Lyon  wanted  so  much  to  quit  the 
subject  that  when,  after  a  little,  Mrs.  Capa- 
dose said  to  him,  "  But  can  nothing  be  done, 
can't  the  picture  be  repaired?  You  know 
they  do  such  wonders  in  that  way  now,"  he 
only  replied,  "  I  don't  know,  I  don't  care,  it  's 
all  over,  n'en  parlons phis !"  Her  hypocrisy 
revolted  him.  And  yet,  by  way  of  plucking 
off  the  last  veil  of  her  shame,  he  broke  out  to 
her  again,  shortly  afterward,  "And  you  did 
like  it,  really  ? "  To  which  she  returned, 
looking  him  straight  in  his  face,  without  a 
blush,  a  pallor,  an  evasion,  "Oh,  I  loved 
it!"  Truly  her  husband  had  trained  her  well. 
After  that  Lyon  said  no  more,  and  his  com- 
panions forebore  temporarily  to  insist,  like 
people  of  tact  and  sympathy,  aware  that  the 
odious  accident  had  made  him  sore. 

When  they  quitted  the  table  the  colonel 
went  away,  without  coming  upstairs;  but 
Lyon  returned  to  the  drawing-room  with  his 
hostess,  remarking  to  her,  however,  on  the 
way,  that  he  could  remain  but  a  moment.  He 
spent  that  moment — it  prolonged  itself  a  little 
—  standing  with  her  before  the  chimney-piece. 
She  did  n't  sit  down,  nor  ask  him  to ;  her  man- 
ner denoted  that  she  intended  to  go  out.  Yes, 
her  husband  had  trained  her  well ;  yet  Lyon 
dreamed  for  a  moment  that,  now  he  was  alone 
with  her,  she  would  perhaps  break  down,  re- 
tract, apologize,  confide,  say  to  him,  "  My  dear 
old  friend,  forgive  this  hideous  comedy  —  you 
understand  !  "  And  then  how  he  would  have 
loved  her  and  pitied  her,  guarded  her,  helped 
her  always !  If  she  were  not  ready  to  do  some- 
thing of  that  sort,  why  had  she  treated  him 
as  if  he  were  a  dear  old  friend;  why  had  she 
let  him,  for  months,  suppose  certain  things  — 
or  almost;  why  had  she  come  to  his  studio, 
day  after  day,  to  sit  near  him.  on  the  pretext 
of  her  child's  portrait,  as  if  she  liked  to  think 
what  might  have  been  ?  Why  had  she  come 
so  near  a  tacit  confession,  in  a  word,  if  she 


THE    GOLDEN  PRIME. 


223 


was  not  willing  to  go  an  inch  further?  And 
she  was  not  willing  —  she  was  not ;  he  could 
see  that  as  he  lingered  there.  She  moved  about 
the  room  a  little,  rearranging  two  or  three 
objects  on  the  tables,  but  she  did  nothing 
more.  Suddenly  he  said  to  her:  "  Which  way 
was  she  going,  when  you  came  out?" 

"  She  —  the  woman  we  saw  ?  " 

'•  Yes,  your  husband's  strange  friend.  It  's 
a  clew  worth  following."  He  did  not  wish  to 
frighten  her;  he  only  wished  to  communicate 
the  impulse  which  would  make  her  say,  "Ah, 
spare  me  —  and  spare  him!  There  was  no 
such  person." 

Instead  of  this  Mrs.  Capadose  replied,  "She 
was  going  away  from  us  —  she  crossed  the 
road.  We  were  coming  towards  the  station." 

"  And  did  she  appear  to  recognize  the  colo- 
nel —  did  she  look  around  ?  " 

"  Yes ;    she  looked  around,  but  I  did  n't 


notice  much.  A  hansom  came  along  and  we 
got  into  it.  It  was  n't  till  then  that  Clement 
told  me  who  she  was :  I  remember  he  saiil 
that  she  was  there  for  no  good.  I  suppose  we 
ought  to  have  gone  back." 

"  Yes;  you  would  have  saved  the  picture." 
For  a  moment  she  said  nothing;  then  she 
smiled.  "  For  you,  I  am  very  sorry.  But  you 
must  remember  that  I  possess  the  original !  " 
At  this  Lyon  turned  away.  "  Well,  I  must 
go,"  he  said;  and  he  left  her  without  any  other 
farewell  and  made  his  way  out  of  the  house. 
As  he  went  slowly  up  the  street  the  sense  came 
back  to  him  of  that  first  glimpse  of  her  he  had 
had  at  Stayes  —  the  way  he  had  seen  her  gaze 
across  the  table  at  her  husband.  Lyon  stopped 
at  the  corner,  looking  vaguely  up  and  down. 
He  would  never  go  back  —  he  could  n't.  She 
was  still  in  love  with  the  colonel  —  he  had 
trained  her  too  well. 

Henry  James. 


THE    GOLDEN    PRIME. 

' —  the  golden  prime  of  this  sweet  prince." 


NEVER  so  fair  a  May  was  seen, 
Never  an  evening  half  so  fair ; 
Then  first  I  knew  what  Maytimes  mean, 

First  deeply  breathed  the  vernal  air, 

First  looked  through  Nature's  sylvan  screen,    All  things  the  inward  mood  obeyed, 
And  saw  herself,  in  robe  of  green.  For  life  its  spell  upon  them  laid. 


The  world,  for  me,  was  newly  made. 
And  given  unto  my  heart  for  food  ; 

And  scent  and  blossom,  bud  and  blade, 
Were  in  its  waking  understood. 


The  breathing  dusk,  the  dreaming  sky, 
Were  with  a  thousand  meanings  fraught : 

But  all  my  thoughts  were  scented  by 
The  sweetness  of  a  single  thought. 

Wide  flew  my  heart,  yet  circled  nigh, 

As  happy  swallows  wheel  and  fly. 


Behind  the  budding  sycamore 

I  saw  the  new  moon's  golden  boat, 

Without  a  sail,  without  an  oar, 
Adown  the  leafy  lattice  float, 

And  touch  the  ether's  rosy  shore. 

Never  was  moon  so  new  before. 


Nor  far,  Love's  star  looked  trembling  through, 

As  if  but  then  it  learned  to  shine  ; 
And  Love's  first  smiles  shone  heavenly  true, 

They  were  so  newly,  freshly  mine. 
And  in  that  hour  my  soul  outgrew 
Itself,  and  found  itself  anew. 

Frances  Louisa  Bushnell. 


HOW    THE    MOHAWKS    SET    OUT    FOR    MEDOCTEC. 


GROWS  the  great  deed,  though  none 
Shout  to  behold  it  done! 
To  the  brave  deed  done  by  night 
Heaven  testifies  in  the  light! 

Stealthy  and  swift  as  a  dream, 
Crowding  the  breast  of  the  stream, 
In  their  paint  and  plumes  of  war 
And  their  war- canoes  four-score 

They  are  threading  the  Oolastook 
Where  his  cradling  hills  o'erlook. 
The  branchy  thickets  hide  them ; 
The  unstartled  waters  guide  them. 

ii. 

COMES  night  to  the  quiet  hills 
Where  the  Madawaska  spills, — 
To  his  slumbering  huts  no  warning, 
Nor  mirth  of  another  morning ! 

No  more  shall  the  children  wake 

As  the  dawns  through  the  hut-door  break  ; 

But  the  dogs,  a  trembling  pack, 

With  wistful  eyes  steal  back. 

And,  to  pilot  the  noiseless  foe 
Through  the  perilous  passes,  go 
Two  women  who  could  not  die, — 
Whom  the  knife  in  the  dark  passed  by. 

in. 

WHERE  the  shoaling  waters  froth, 
Churned  thick  like  devil's  broth, — 
Where  the  rocky  shark -jaw  waits, 
Never  a  bark  that  grates ! 

And  the  tearless  captives'  skill 
Contents  them.    Onward  still ! 
And  the  low-voiced  captives  tell 
The  tidings  that  cheer  them  well : 

How  a  clear  stream  leads  them  down 
Well-nigh  to  Medoctec  town, 
Ere  to  the  great  Falls'  thunder 
The  long  wall  yawns  asunder. 


IV. 

THE  clear  stream  glimmers  before  them  ; 
The  faint  night  falters  o'er  them ; 
Lashed  lightly  bark  to  bark, 
They  glide  the  windless  dark. 

Late  grows  the  night.    No  fear 
While  the  skillful  captives  steer  ! 
Sleeps  the  tired  warrior,  sleeps 
The  chief;  and  the  river  creeps. 

v. 

IN  the  town  of  the  Melicete 
The  unjarred  peace  is  sweet, 
Green  grows  the  corn  and  great, 
And  the  hunt  is  fortunate. 

This  many  a  heedless  year 
The  Mohawks  come  not  near. 
The  lodge-gate  stands  unbarred; 
Scarce  even  a  dog  keeps  guard. 

No  mother  shrieks  from  a  dream 
Of  blood  on  the  threshold  stream, — 
But  the  thought  of  those  mute  guides 
Is  where  the  sleeper  bides ! 

VI. 

GETS  forth  those  caverned  walls 
No  roar  from  the  giant  Falls, 
Whose  mountainous  foam  treads  under 
The  abyss  of  awful  thunder. 

But  —  the  river's  sudden  speed ! 
How  the  ghost-gray  shores  recede  ! 
And  the  tearless  pilots  hear 
A  muttering  voice  creep  near. 

• 

A  tremor !  The  blanched  waves  leap. 
The  warriors  start  from  sleep. 
Faints  in  the  sudden  blare 
The  cry  of  their  swift  despair, 

And  the  captives'  death-chant  shrills. 
But  afar,  remote  from  ills, 
Quiet  under  the  quiet  skies 
The  Melicete  village  lies. 


WINDSOR,  NOVA  SCOTIA. 


Charles  G.  D.  Roberts. 


A    PRINTER'S    PARADISK. 


THE     I'l.ANIIN-MdkKI  IS     MUSEUM     AT     ANTWERP. 


II  K  modern  print- 
ing-office is  not 
at  all  picturesque. 
Whether  it  be  old, 
with  grimy  hancl- 
piesses  and  dingy 
types,  or  new, 
with  huge  iron 
machines  and 
long  lanes  of 
cases  and  stones, 
it  does  not  invite 
the  artistic  pencil.  Without  doubt  the  cradle 
of  books,  but  can  one  see  any  poetry  about  the 
cradle  ?  The  eye  is  confused  with  strange 


sights;  the  ear  is  jarred  with  harsh  noise  ;  the 
air  itself  is  heavy  with  odors  of  ink  and  oil  and 
wet  paper.  Nor  does  the  imagination  expand 
in  the  office  of  the  manager,  in  which  the  prom- 
inent objects  are  always  chairs  and  desks,  and 
a  litter  of  ragged  papers  and  well-thumbed 
books  —  all  prosaic  and  factory-like. 

Was  it  always  so  ?  No  one  knows  of  the  in- 
terior of  Gutenberg's  office  in  the  '/.um  Juiigen 
house  at  Mayence,  for  no  artist  in  his  day  or 
ours  has  found  in  it  any  beauty  to  be  pre- 
served ;  but  we  do  know  that  this  birthplace 
of  a  great  art  is  now  a  beer-shop,  in  which  for 
a  few  pfennigs  one  may  get  a  refreshment  for 
the  body  not  to  be  had  for  the  mind.  The 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 32. 


THE    FRONT    OF     THE     MUSEUM. 


226 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


GUTENBERG'S  OFFICE  AT  MAYENCE. 

fate  that  fell  on  Gutenberg's  office  has  fallen 
on  the  offices  of  Aldus  and  the  Stephens  and 
the  Elzevirs.  Not  a  vestige  of  office  fittings  or 
working  material  remains. 

The  Plantin-Moretus  Museum  at  Antwerp  is 
the  only  printing-house  that  has  been  left  in- 
tact as  the  monument  of  a  great  departed  bus- 
iness. How  well  it  was  worth  having  may  be 
inferred  from  the  price  of  twelve  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  paid  for  it  bythecity,in  1876,10  the 
last  member  of  the  family  of  the  founder.  How 
well  it  is  worth  seeing  is  proved  by  the  steady 
tide  of  visitors  that  pass  through  it 
every  day.  Here  is  a  printing-house 
that  is  not  a  factory — a  house  that 
has  been  as  much  the  home  of  art 
and  education  as  a  place  for  work 
and  trade. 

It  is  not  an  imposing  structure. 
No  public  building  in  Antwerp  is 
more  unpretentious  as  to  its  exteri- 
or. Its  dull  front  on  the  Marche  du 
Vendredi  gives  but  one  indication 
of  the  treasures  behind  the  walls.  To 
him  who  can  read  it,  the  little  tablet 
over  the  door  is  enough  to  tell  the 
story;  for  it  is  the  device  of  Chris- 
topher Plantin,  "  first  printer  to  the 
king,  and  the  king  of  printers." 
Here  is  the  hand  emerging  from  the 
clouds,  holding  a  pair  of  compasses, 
one  leg  at  rest  and  one  describing  a 
circle ;  here  is  the  encircling  legend 
of  Lahore  ct  Constantia.  Heraldry  is 
overfull  of  devices  that  are  as  arro- 
gant as  they  are  absurd,  but  no  one 
dare  say  that  Plantin  did  not  fairly 
earn  the  right  to  use  the  motto  of 
labor  and  patience. 

Plantin  deserved  remembrance 
from  Antwerp.  He  did  much  for 
its  honor,  although  he  was  not  of 
Flemish  birth.  Born  in  France,  about 
1514,  taught  printing  and  book- 


binding at  Caun,  he  should  have  been  by  right, 
and  would  have  been  by  choice,  a  worthy  suc- 
cessor to  the  printers  of  Paris  who  did  admira- 
ble work  during  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  But  his  most  Christian  majesty  Henry 
II.  of  France  had  begun  his  reign  in  1547 
with  the  announcement  that  he  should  pun- 
ish heresy  as  worse  than  treason.  What  a 
drag-net  was  this  word  heresy  for  the  en- 
tanglement of  printers  !  Stephen  Dolet,  most 
promising  of  all,  had  been  recently  burned  at 
the  stake;  Robert  Stephens,  weary  of  end- 
less quarrels  with  meddlesome  ecclesiastics, 
was  meditating  the  flight  he  soon  afterward 
made  to  Geneva.  To  those  who  could  read 
the  signs  of  the  times,  there  were  even  then 
forewarnings  of  the  coming  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew.  France  was  a  good  country 
for  a  printer  to  leave,  and  Plantin  did  wisely 
to  forsake  Paris  in  1548  and  to  make  his 
home  in  Antwerp. 

Not  so  large  as  Paris  or  London,  Antwerp 
was  superior  in  wealth  and  commerce,  as  well 
as  in  its  artistic  development."  Printing  was 
under  restraint  here,  as  it  was  everywhere ;  but 
the  restraints  were  endurable,  and  printers 
were  reasonably  prosperous.  Antwerp  encour- 
aged immigration.  One  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  the  many  paintings  in  its  Hotel  de 


A    TRADE-MARK. 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


227 


Ville  is  that  of  the  ceremonious  naturalization 
of  an  Italian  and  his  family  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  was  as  the  principal  in  a  similar 
ceremony  that  Plantin  became  a  citixen  in 
11550,  and  was  enrolled  as  a  printer. 

\Vith  little  money  and  few  friends,  Plantin 
had  to  struggle  to  keep  his  foot-hold  in  a  city 
that  had  already  been  well  served  by  many 
master  printers.  It  did  not  appear  that  he 
was  needed  at  all  as  a  printer.  So  Plantin 


printing-office.  In  that  year  he  published  two 
little  books,  cautiously  dividing  the  risk  with 
other  publishers.  It  must  have  been  difficult  to 
get  books  that  were  salable,  for  his  first  book  * 
was  in  Italian  and  French,  his  second  in 
Spanish,  his  third  in  French, —  clear  evidences 
all  that  there  were  in  Antwerp  already  printers 
before  him  who  had  published  all  the  books 
called  for  in  Flemish. 

But  Plantin  went  to  Antwerp  to  stay.    In 


PAINTING    IN 


VILLE  —  ITALIAN 


IG    THE    OATH    OF    ALLEGIANCE.      (LAST    PAINTING    BY    HENRI     LEYS.) 


must  have  thought,  for  he  avoided  printing, 
and  opened  a  shop  in  which  he  sold  prints 
and  books,  and  his  wife  sold  haberdashery. 
To  fill  up  unemployed  time  he  bound  books 
and  decorated  jewel-boxes.  At  this  work  he 
prospered,  and  soon  earned  a  reputation  as 
the  most  skillful  decorator  in  the  city.  Before 
he  was  fairly  established  he  met  a  great  mis- 
fortune. Encountered  on  a  dark  night  by  a 
ruffian  who  mistook  him  for  another,  Plantin 
was  dangerously  stabbed,  and  forever  disabled 
from  handling  gilding-tools.  The  possible 
rivalry  that  might  have  arisen  between  him 
and  the  artistic  book-binders  of  Paris  was  ef- 
fectually prevented.  He  had  to  begin  anew, 
but  it  was  more  as  a  publisher  than  as  a  printer, 
for  it  is  not  certain  that  in  1555  he  owned  a 


1556  he  published  four  more  books,  two  of 
them  original;  in  1557  eight  books,  six  of 
them  original;  in  1558  fourteen  books,  many 
of  them  of  large  size  and  of  marked  merit. 
The  four  years  that  followed  show  steady  in- 
crease in  the  number  and  improvement  in 
the  quality  of  his  publications,  among  which 
were  several  Latin  classics,  a  Greek  text,  a 
Latin  Bible,  and  a  dictionary  in  four  lan- 
guages. 

His  ability  was  fully  recognized  in  1562, 
but  his  business  life  was  henceforward  a  suc- 
cession of  great  misfortunes  as  well  as  of  great 
achievements.  By  leaving  Paris  he  did  not 
escape,  he  only  postponed,  the  conflict  that 
had  begun  between  the  press,  the  state,  and 
the  church.  The  country  that  promised  to 


"  "  La  Institvtione  ill  vna  Fancivlla  nata  nobil-  that  three  hundred  years  after  his  death  a  copy  of  this 
mente."  It  was  a  small  I2mo  (now  rated  an  l8mo).  It  book  would  be  sold  for  more  than  one  hundred  dollars, 
would  have  greatly  cheered  him  if  he  could  have  known  He  had  to  be  content  with  one  sou  and  a  quarter. 


228 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


give  him  liberty  was  to  become  the  chosen 
battle-field  of  the  contestants,  and  the  result 
of  the  battle  was  to  be  undecided  even  at 
his  death.  In  1562  the  regent,  Margaret 
of  Parma,  ordered  search  for  the  unknown 


lent  him  money  to  found  a  printing-house,  in 
which  he  worked  hard.  At  the  end  of  the 
next  four  years  he  had  seven  presses  and 
forty  workmen  in  his  employ,  and  had  pub- 
lished 209  books.  What  to  him  was  of  more 


printer  of  a  heretical  prayer-book,  and  it  was    importance,  he  had  established  friendly  rela- 


proved  that  the  book  had  been  printed  in 
Plantin's  printing-office.    Forewarned  of  com- 


tions  with  the  authorities  of  the  state.  The 
city  of  Antwerp  gave  him  special  privileges 
as  printer;  the  Kingof  Spain 
in  1570  made  him  "Proto- 
typographe,"  the  ruler  of 
all  the  printers  of  the  city. 
He  was  in  correspondence 
with  many  of  the  great 
scholars  and  artists  of  his 
time,  and  was  by  them,  as 
well  as  by  every  one,  re- 
garded as  the  foremost 
printer  of  the  world.  The 
King  of  France  invited  him 
to  Paris;  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
offered  to  give  to  him  a  great 
printing-house  and  special 
rewards  if  he  would  go  to 
Turin.  But  he  kept  in  Ant- 
werp, and  enlarged  his  busi- 
ness. He  not  only  worked 
himself,  but  made  all  his 
household  help  him.  His 
daughters  kept  a  book-store 
in  the  cloisters  of  the  ca- 
thedral ;  he  established  an 
agency  in  Paris  under  the 
direction  of  his  son-in-law, 
Gilles  Beys.  Another  son- 
in-law,  Moretus,  was  his 
chief  clerk,  and  a  regular 
attendant  at  all  the  Ger- 
man book  fairs,  while  an- 
other, Raphelengius,  was  his 
ablest  corrector  of  the  press. 
Even  the  younger  daughters 
were  required  to  learn  to 
read  writing,  and  to  serve  as 
copy-holders,  often  on  books 
in  foreign  languages,  before 
ing  danger,  Plantin  escaped  to  Paris,  where  they  were  twelve  years  old. 
he  staid  for  twenty  months.  When  he  could  His  season  of  greatest  apparent  prosperity 
safely  return,  his  business  had  been  destroyed,  began  in  1570.  His  printing-house  was  soon 
and  his  printing-office,  and  even  his  household  after  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  literary  world, 
property,  had  been  sold  at  auction  to  satisfy  Twenty-two  presses  were  kept  at  work,  and 
the  demands  of  his  creditors.  Thirteen  years  two  hundred  crowns  in  gold  were  required 


JEAN    MORETUS    I,     SON-IN-LAW    OK    PLANTIN.       (FROM    A    i'AINTING     BY    HUBENS.) 


of  labor  had  been  lost. 
not  to  stay. 

Plantin  was  strongly  suspected  of  complic- 


He  was  down,  but  every  day  for  the  payment  of  his  workmen,  re- 
cites an  old  chronicler  with  awe  and  astonish- 
ment. His  four  houses  were  too  small.  He 


ity  in  this  matter  of  heretical  printing,  but  he  had  to  buy  and  occupy  the  larger  property 

had  not  been  condemned.    He  overcame  the  which    now  constitutes  the  Plantin- Moretus 

prejudices,  if  there  had  been  any,  of  ecclesias-  Museum.     Before  he  occupied  his  new  office 

tical  authorities,  and  made  them  active  friends  he  had  printed  the  largest  and  most  expensive 

forever,  although  he  was  frequently  afterward  book  then  known  to  the  world,  the  "  Royal 

denounced  as  a  Calvinist.    Four  wealthy  men  Polyglot,"  eight  volumes  folio,  in   four  Ian- 


A   PRINTER'S  PARA  DISK. 


229 


BUST    OF     BALTHAZAR    MORETUS,     IN    THE    COURT-YARD. 

guages,  with  full-page  illustrations  from  copper- 
plates. It  was  an  enterprise  that  earned  him 
more  of  honor  than  of  profit,  for  the  King  of 
Spain,  who  had  promised  liberal  help,  dis- 
appointed him.  Plantin  had  incurred 
enormous  expenses  and  was  harassed 
by  creditors,  and  had  to  sell  or  pledge 
his  books  at  losing  prices.  At  that 
time  the  patronage  of  the  king  was 
a  hindrance,  for  when  he  was  in  the 
greatest  straits  the  king  commanded 
him  to  print  new  service  books  for  the 
Church  that  would  be  of  great  cost 
and  of  doubtful  profit. 

The  king's  habitual  nejjlect  to  pay 
his  obligations  provoked  his  soldiers 
to  outrages  which  nearly  ruined 
Plantin.  Antwerp  had  been  for  years 
in  practical  mutiny  against  the  king. 
To  repress  this  mutiny  the  citadel 
was  filled  with  Spanish  soldiers  who 
were  furious  because  they  had  not 
been  paid,  and  were  threatening  to 
plunder  the  city  by  way  of  reprisal 
or  as  compensation.  On  the  fourth 
day  of  November,  1576,  when  Plan- 
tin  was  no  more  than  fairly  settled 
in  his  new  office,  the  threat  was  ex- 
ecuted. Joined  by  an  army  beyond 
the  walls,  and  by  treacherous  allies 
that  the  civic  authorities  had  hired  as 
defenders,  they  began  the  sack  of 
the  city.  Eight  thousand  citizens 
were  killed,  a  thousand  houses  were 


burned,  six  million  florins'  worth  of  property 
were  burned,  and  as  much  more  was  stolen, 
amid  most  atrocious  cruelties.  The  prosperity 
of  the  great  city,  which  had  been  the  pride  of 
Europe,  received  a  blow  from  uhichit  never  re- 
CO\  cred.  The  business  of  Plantin  was  crushed. 
"  Nine  times,"  he  said,  "  did  I  have  to  pay 
ransom  to  save  my  property  from  destruction ; 
it  would  have  been  cheaper  to  have  abandoned 
it."  But  his  despondency  was  but  for  a  day. 
In  the  ruins  of  the  sacked  city,  surrounded  by 
savage  soldiers,  discouraged  with  a  faithless 
king  who  would  not  protect  his  property  nor 
pay  his  debts,  ill  at  ease  with  creditors  who 
feared  to  trust  him, and  alarmed  at  the  absence 
of  buyers  who  dared  not  come  to  the  city,  Plan- 
tin  still  kept  at  work.  The  remainder  of  his 
life  was  practically  an  unceasing  struggle  with 
debt,  but  debt  did  not  make  him  abandon  his 
great  plans.  To  pay  his  debts  he  often  had  to 
sell  his  books  at  too  small  prices.  Sometimes 
he  had  to  sell  his  working-tools.  In  1581  he 
went  to  Paris  to  dispose  of  his  library,  costing 
16,000  francs,  for  less  than  half  its  value. 

Rich  enough  in  books,  in  tools,  in  promises  to 
pay,  he  had  little  of  money,  and  slender  cred- 
it. The  political  outlook  was  disheartening. 
Alexander  of  Parma  was  menacing  Flanders 
and  Brabant ;  there  was  reason  to  fear  a  siege 
of  Antwerp  and  the  destruction  of  his  printing- 
house.  With  the  consent  of  his  creditors 


230 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


BALTHAZAR 


Plantin  temporarily  transferred  his  office  to 
his  sons-in-law,  and  in  1582  went  to  Leyden, 
to  muse  as  he  went  on  the  warning,  "Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes."  There  he  was  cor- 
dially received  by  the  university,  and  at  once 
appointed  their  printer.  There  he  founded  a 
new  printing-house,  in  which  he  remained  for 
nearly  three  years.  When  the  siege  was  over, 
Plantin  returned  to  Antwerp,  but  it  was  never 
after  the  Antwerp  of  his  earlier  days.  Nor  was 
Plantin  himself  as  active.  The  king  had  made 
Antwerp  a  Catholic  city,  but  its  commerce  was 
destroyed. 

Plantin  died  on  the  first  day  of  July,  1589, 
and  was  buried  in  the  cathedral.  Although, 
by  reason  of  his  bold  undertakings,  he  had 
been  financially  embarrassed  for  many  years 
before  his  death,  he  left  a  good  estate,  at  least 


on  paper.  By  a  will  made  conjointly  with  his 
wife,  who  soon  followed  him,  he  gave  the 
management  of  his  printing-office  and  most 
of  his  property,  then  valued  at  135,718  florins 
(equal  to  $217,000),  to  his  son-in-law  Moretus 
and  his  wife,  burdened  with  legacies  to  chil- 
dren and  other  heirs,  with  the  injunction  that 
they,  at  their  death,  should  bequeath  the  undi- 
vided printing-office  to  the  son  or  successor  who 
could  most  wisely  manage  it.  If  they  had  no 
competent  son,  then  they  must  select  a  compe- 
tent successor  out  of  the  family.  This  injunc- 
tion was  fairly  obeyed.  Under  John  Moretus 
the  reputation  of  the  house  was  fully  main- 
tained, although  the  publications  were  not  so 
many  nor  so  meritorious.  But  this  falling-off 
was  largely  due  to  the  diminished  importance 
of  Antwerp  as  acommercial  city.  His  sons  Bal- 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


231 


tha/ar  and  John  Morctus  II.  carried 
the  olthe  to  the  highest  decree  of 
prosperity.  To  ISaltha/ar  1..  more 
than  to  any  other  member  of  the 
family,  the  world  is  indebted  for  the 
treasures  of  ait  and  learning  which 
now  grace  the  rooms  of  the  Plantin- 
Moretus  Museum.  A  very  large 
share  of  the  prosperity  of  the  house 
came  from  the  valuable  patents  and 
privileges  accorded  to  Plantin  and  his 
successors  by  the  King  of  Spain.  For 
more  than  two  hundred  years  they 
were  the  exclusive  makers  of  the  litur- 
gical books  used  in  Spain  and  its  de- 
pendencies. The  decline  of  the  house 
began  with  the  death  of  Balthazar  III. 
in  1696.  During  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury it  lost  its  preeminence  as  the  first 
printing-house  in  the  world,  and  was 
simply  a  manufactory  of  religious 
books.  In  1808  the  special  privileges 
they  had  for  making  these  books  for 
Spain  and  its  possessions  were  with- 
drawn, and  this  great  business  of  the 
house  was  at  an  end.  In  1867  it 
ceased  to  do  any  business. 

In  his  "Archeologie  Typograph- 
ique,"  Bernard  told  of  the  desolation 
of  the  house  as  he  saw  it  in  1850. 
Everything  was  in  decay.  That  the 
types  and  matrices  would  soon  go  to 
the  melting-kettle;  that  books  and 
prints,  furniture  and  pictures,  would 
find  their  way,  bit  by  bit,  to  bric-a- 
brac  shops ;  that  this  old  glory  of 
Antwerp  would  soon  be  a  story  of 
the  past  —  seemed  inevitable.  Fortu- 
nately there  were  in  Antwerp  men  who 
tried  to  save  the  collection.  Messrs. 
Emanuel  Rosseels  and  Max  Rooses 
(now  conservateur  of  the  Museum), 
under  the  zealous  direction  of  M. 
Leopold  de  Wael,  the  burgomaster  of 
the  city,  induced  the  city  and  the  state 
to  buy  the  property,  the  transfer  of 
which  was  formally  made,  as  we  read 
from  a  tablet  in  the  wall,  in  1875. 

The  Museum,  as  it  now  stands,  is 
not  as  Plantin  left  it.  His  successors, 
Balthazar  I.  especially,  made  many 
changes,  additions,  and  restorations, 
but  all  have  been  done  with  propriety. 
The  visitor  is  not  shocked  by  incon- 
gruities of  structure  or  decoration. 
The  difficult  task  of  re-arranging  the 
house  has  been  done  with  excellent 
taste  by  the  architect  Pierre  Dens. 
It  is  the  great  charm  of  the  Museum 
that  the  house  and  its  contents,  the 
books,  pictures,  prints,  windows,  walls, 


JEANNE   KIVlfeRE,    HER   SIX   DAUGHTERS,    AND  JOHN 
A    PAINTING   JN  THE  CATHEDRAL  BV   VAN 


THR    BAPTIST. 
DEN    BKOBCK.) 


(FROM 


232 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 

\\      \       I         I      I      /     / 


ROOM     OF    JUSTUS    L1PSIUS. 


types,  presses,  furniture,  are  all  in  their  places, 
and  with  proper  surroundings.  They  fit.  To 
pass  the  doorway  is  to  take  leave  of  the  nine- 
teenth century ;  to  put  ourselves  not  only  with- 
in the  walls,  but  to  surround  ourselves  with  the 
same  familiar  objects  which  artists  and  men  of 
letters  saw  and  handled  two  or  three  centuries 
ago.  Here  are  their  chairs  and  tables,  their 
books  and  candlesticks,  and  other  accessories 
of  every-day  office  and  domestic  life.  It  is  a 
new  atmosphere.  Standing  in  the  vestibule 
under  a  copper  lamp,  facing  a  statue  of  Apollo, 
surrounded  by  sculptured  emblems  of  art  and 
science,  the  visitor  at  once  perceives  that  he 
is  in  something  more  than  a  printing-house  — 
in  an  old  school  of  literature. 

Yet  there  is  little  that  is  bookish  in  the  first 
salon.  One's  attention  is  first  caught  by  the 
little  octagonal  window  lights  that  face  the 
inner  court,  bright  in  colors,  and  with  com- 
memorations of  John  Moretus  II.  and  Baltha- 
zar Moretus  II.  and  their  wives.  And  then 
one  has  to  note  the  heavy  beams  overhead, 
and  the  old  tapestries  on  the  walls,  the  great 


tortoise-shell  table,  and  the  buffet  of  oak  with 
its  queer  pottery,  and  the  still  queerer  painting 
of  an  old  street  parade  in  Antwerp. 

Over  the  chimney-piece  in  the  second  salon 
is  the  portrait  of  Christopher  Plantin  as  he 
appeared  at  sixty-four  years  of  age,  wrapped 
in  a  loose  black  robe,  with  a  broad  ruff  about 
his  neck — unmistakably  a  man  of  authority, 
and  of  severity  too.  There  is  nothing  dull, 
or  impassive,  or  Dutch,  about  this  head.  He 
is  a  Frenchman  of  the  old  school, —  muscular, 
courageous,  enduring, — a  man  of  the  type  of 
Conde  or  Coligny.  Here  too  is  Jeanne  Ri- 
viere, his  wife.  How  Flemish-looking  is  this 
French  woman  of  placid  face,  in  her  white 
cap  and  quilled  collar!  plainly  one  of  the 
grand  old  women  that  Rembrandt  loved  to 
honor.  The  portraits  of  some  of  Plantin's 
five  daughters  are  on  the  walls,  but  they  can 
be  seen  together  only  at  the  cathedral,  on  a 
panel  painted  by  Van  den  Broeck.  The  eldest, 
Marguerite,  was  married  in  1565,  to  Francis 
Raphelengius.*  Marline,  the  second  daugh- 
ter, in  1570  married  John  Moretus,  who  was 


*  The  wedding  festivities  lasted  one  week,  for  which  sous,  five  legs  of  mutton  at   I   florin,  twelve  sweet- 

Plantinmade  this  provision,  which  has  a  fine  medieval  breads  at  7^  sous  the  dozen,  three  beef  tongues  at  8 

flavor:  three  sucking  pigs  at  1 7  sous  each,  six  capons  at  sous,  four  almond  cakes,  six  calves'  heads,  three  legs 

22  sous,  twelve  pigeons  at  6  sous,  twelve  quails  at  4  of  mutton  browned,  six  (i6-lb. )  hams  at  2%  sous  the 


A   PRINTER'S   PARADISE. 


Plantin's  trusted  man  of  business  during 
his  life,  and  his  heir  and  successor.  Made- 
laine,  the  fourth  daughter,  brightest  of  all,  in 
1572  married  Kgidius  Beys,  who  was  Plantin's 
agent  in  Paris.  "  My  first  son-in-law."  wrote 
Plantin,  "  cares  for  nothing  but  books ;  my 


233 

in-law  who  complemented  each  other  and 
fully  served  him.  Beys  *  was  not  an  esteemed 
assistant,  nor  was  his  son. 

Here  too  are  the  portraits  of  many  of  the 
learned  friends  of  Plantin.  The  somber  face 
of  Arias  Montanus,  the  learned  confessor  of 


THE    CONFERENCE    CHAMBER. 


second  knows  nothing  but  business."  Not  a 
kindly  criticism  of  Moretus,  who  was  learned 
and  wrote  well  in  four  languages,  but  Plantin 
must  have  been  well  content  with  these  sons- 
pound,  Rhine  wine  valued  at  12  florins  5  sous,  red 
wine  valued  at  4  florins  2^  sous,  red  and  black 
cherries,  strawberries,  oranges,  capers,  olives,  apples, 
salads,  and  radishes  valued  at  3  florins  8^  sous, 
confectionery  valued  at  4  florins  9  sous,  two  pounds  of 
sugar-plums,  one  pound  of  anis,  and  three  pounds  of 
Milan  cheese.  The  gifts  to  Raphelengius  amounted 
to  32  florins  5  sous  ;  to  Plantin  (for  this  was  the  cus- 
tom of  the  period),  90  florins  l6^£  sous.  Plantin  gave 
to  his  workmen  on  this  occasion  a  pot  of  wine  valued 
at  7  florins. 

*  In  1587  the  eldest  son  of  Heys,  then  fourteen 
years  of  age,  lived  with  his  grandfather.  At  the  close 
of  a  day  of  alleged  misconduct,  Plantin  required  of 
him  the  task  to  compose  and  write  in  Latin  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  manner  in  which  he  had  spent  that  day. 
This  is  the  translation:  "The  occupations  of  Chris- 
tophe  Beys,  February  21,  1587.  I  got  up  at  half-past 
6  o'clock.  I  went  to  embrace  my  grandfather  and 
grandmother.  Then  I  took  breakfast.  Before  7 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 33. 


Philip  II.,  who  was  commissioned  by  the  king 
to  superintend  the  printing  of  the  great  poly- 
glot, glows  with  all  the  color  that  Rubens 
could  give.  By  the  same  painter  are  the  por- 

o'clock  I  went  to  my  class,  and  well  recited  my  lesson 
in  syntax.  At  8  o'clock  I  heard  mass.  At  half-past  8 
I  had  learned  my  lesson  in  Cicero  and  I  fairly  re- 
cited it.  At  II  o'clock  I  returned  to  the  house  and 
studied  my  lesson  in  phraseology.  After  dinner  I 
went  back  to  the  class  and  properly  recited  my  les- 
son. At  half-past  2  I  had  fairly  recited  my  lesson  in 
Cicero.  At  4  o'clock  I  went  to  hear  a  sermon.  Be- 
fore 6  o'clock  I  returned  to  the  house,  and  I  read 
a  proof  [held  copy  for]  Libellus  Sodalitatis  with  my 
cousin  Francis  [Raphelengius].  I  showed  myself  re- 
fractory while  reading  the  proofs  of  the  book.  Before 
supper,  my  grandfather  having  made  me  go  to  him, 
to  repeat  what  I  had  heard  preached,  I  did  not  wish  to 
go  nor  to  repeat ;  and  even  when  others  desired  me  to 
ask  pardon  of  grandfather,  I  was  unwilling  to  answer. 
Finally,  I  have  showed  myself  in  the  eyes  of  all,  proud, 
stubborn,  and  willful.  After  supper  I  have  written  my 
occupations  for  this  day,  and  I  have  read  them  to  my 
grandfather.  The  end  crowns  the  work." 


234 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


traits  of  Ortelius  and  Justus  Lipsius  and  Pan- 
tinus — grave,  scholarly,  dignified  faces  all. 
Of  greater  attraction  is  the  portrait,  so  often 
copied,  of  Gevartius,  the  clerk  of  the  city  of 
Antwerp.  A  showcase  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  contains  designs  by  Martin  de  Vos,  Van 
den  Broeck,  Van  der  Borcht,  Van  Noort,  Van 
der  Horst,  Rubens,  Quellyn,  and  other  illustra 
tors  of  books  for  the  Plantin  office,  all  famous 


ception  must  have  been  exercised  to  find 
heresy  in  the  Psalms !  This  was  not  the  only 
interference  with  the  printer  by  the  law,  for 
there  is  also  posted  a  tariff  made  by  the  magis- 
trates of  Antwerp,  by  which  a  fixed  price  is 
made  for  every  popular  book.  Whoever  dares 
sell  a  book  at  a  higher  price  is  warned  that 
he  shall  be  fined  twenty-five  florins.  In  the 
corner  near  the  window  is  the  chair  in  which 


PLANTIN  S    PROOF-READERS    AT    WORK. 
(FROM     A    PAINTING     BY    PIERRE    VAN    DER    OUDERA,     NOW    IN     POSSESSION     OF    FELIX    GRISAR,     ANTWERP.) 


in  their  time.  Not  the  least  curious  is  Rubens' 
bill  of  sale,  dated  1630,  to  Balthazar  Moretus 
I.,  of  328  copies  of  the  works  of  Hubert  Golt- 
zius,  the  great  archaeologist,  for  4920  florins, 
and  the  further  sum  of  1000  florins  for  the 
plates  of  the  same,  payable  in  books.  The 
opportunity  for  "  working  off  unsold  remain- 
ders "  was  not  neglected. 

Fronting  on  a  side  street  is  the  old  book- 
store, with  all  its  furniture,  including  the  old 
scales  by  which  light  gold  coin  was  tested. 
A  motley  collection  of  books  is  on  the  shelves 
— prayer-books  and  classic  texts,  amatory 
poems  and  polemical  theology.  Posted  up  is 
a  "  Catalogue  of  Prohibited  Books,"  a  pla- 
card printed  by  Plantin  himself  in  1569,  by 
the  order  of  the  Duke  of  Alva.  Two  of  the 
prohibited  books,  the  "  Colloquies  of  Eras- 
mus "  and  the  "  Psalms  of  Clement  Marot," 
came  from  the  Plantin  press.  What  keen  per- 


the  shop-boy  sat  and  announced  incoming  cus- 
tomers to  the  daughters  who  were  at  work  in 
the  rear  of  the  store,  from  which  it  was  sepa- 
rated by  a  glazed  partition.  Plainly  a  room 
for  work  and  trade,  but  how  differently  work 
and  trade  were  done  then !  No  doubt  there 
was  enough  of  drudgery,  but  to  the  young 
women  who  worked  in  the  glow  of  the  col- 
ored glass  windows,  and  listened  to  the  tick- 
ing of  the  tall  Flemish  clock,  and  saw  above 
them  on  the  wall  the  beautiful  face  of  a  stat- 
uette of  the  Madonna,  life  could  not  have 
had  the  grimy,  stony  face  it  presents  to  the 
modern  shop-girl. 

In  an  adjoining  room  is  the  salon  of  tap- 
estries, five  of  which  represent  shepherds, 
hunters,  market  women,  dancers, —  Flemish 
idyls  all.  One  has  to  make  another  compari- 
son, between  the  value  of  old  and  modern 
needle-work,  not  to  the  credit  of  Berlin  wools 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


235 


THE    PRESS-ROOM. 


and  South  Kensington  stitches.  Curious  fur- 
niture is  in  the  room — a  buffet  on  which  rests 
fine  old  china,  wardrobes  in  oak  and  ebony, 
chairs  and  tables  of  wonderful  carving,  all 
surmounted  by  a  chandelier  of  crystal.  Most 
interesting  of  all  is  an  old  harpsichord  with 
three  tiers  of  keys,  on  the  interior  of  which  is 
painted  a  copy  of  Rubens'  St.  Cecilia.  It 
bears  the  inscription,  "Johannes  Josephus 
Coenen,  priest  and  organist  of  the  cathedral, 
made  me,  Roermond,  1735."  Not  at  all  an 
old  piece, — just  midway  between  Plantin's 
time  and  ours, —  but  how  old  it  seems  by  the 
side  of  a  modern  piano ! 

Of  severer  simplicity  is  the  room  of  the 
Correctors  of  the  Press,  in  which  is  a  great 
oak  table  that  overlaps  the  two  diamond- 
paned  windows  opening  on  the  inner  court. 
On  the  walls  are  paintings  of  two  of  the  most 
famous  of  Plantin's  correctors  —  Theodore 
Poelman  and  Cornelius  Kilianus.  Poelman  is 
represented  as  a  scholar  at  work  on  his  books 
in  a  small,  mean  room,  in  which  his  wife  is 
spinning  thread  and  a  fuller  is  at  work.  And 
this  was  Poelman's  lot  in  life  :  to  work  as  a 
fuller  by  day,  and  to  correct  and  prepare  for 
press  classic  texts  at  night,  for  three  or  four 
florins  per  volume.  Kilianus  was  corrector  for 
the  Plantin  house  for  fifty  years.  Beginning 


as  a  compositor  in  1558,  at  the  very  modest 
salary  of  five  patards  a  day,  not  more  (per- 
haps less)  than  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  a 
week  in  our  currency,  he  ultimately  became 
Plantin's  most  trusted  general  proof-reader. 
Not  so  learned  as  Raphelengius,  he  was  more 
efficient  in  supervising  the  regular  work  of  the 
house.  He  wrote  good  Latin  verse,  composed 
prefaces  and  made  translations  for  many  books, 
and  compiled  a  Flemish  dictionary  of  which 
Plantin  seems  to  have  been  ungenerously 
envious.  His  greatest  salary  was  but  four 
florins  a  week,  but  little  more  than  was  then 
paid  to  Plantin's  expert  compositors.  The 
most  learned  of  Plantin's  regular  correctors 
was  his  son-in-law  Raphelengius,  who  had 
been  a  teacher  of  Greek  at  Cambridge.  He 
began  his  work  in  the  Plantin  office  at  forty 
florins  a  year  and  his  board.  Montanus  testified 
that  he  had  thorough  knowledge  of  many 
languages,  and  was  an  invaluable  assistant  on 
the  Polyglot  Bible.  His  greatest  salary,  in 
1581,  was  but  four  hundred  florins  a  year. 
As  a  rule  editing  and  proof-reading  were 
done  at  the  minimum  of  cost.  The  wages 
paid  to  a  scholarly  reader,  who  had  entire 
knowledge  of  three  or  four  languages,  was 
about  twelve  florins  a  month.  Ghisbrecht, 
one  of  these  correctors,  agreed  to  prepare 


236 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


copy  for  and  to  oversee  the  work  of  six  com- 
positors for  his  board  and  sixty  florins  a  year. 
Besides  the  regular  correctors  of  the  house, 
Plantin  had  occasionally  some  volunteer  or 
unpaid  correctors,  like  Montanus.  His  friend 
Justus  Lipsius  seems  to  have  been  the  only 
editor  who  was  fairly  paid  for  literary  work. 

The  printing-room  does  not  give  a  just  idea 
of  its  old  importance.  What  here  remains  is 
as  it  was  in  1576,  but  the  space  then  occu- 
pied for  printing  must  have  been  very  much 


workmanship  which  has  been  the  admiration 
of  the  world. 

Plantin  had  this  work  done  at  small  cost. 
His  account-books  show  that  the  average 
yearly  earnings  of  expert  compositors  were 
one  hundred  and  forty-two  florins,  and  of  the 
pressmen  one  hundred  and  five  florins.  The 
eight-hour  law  was  unknown.  Work  began 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  no  time  is 
stated  for  its  ending.  His  rules  were  hard. 
One  of  them  was  that  the  compositor  who 


THE     PROOF-READERS      ROOM. 


larger.  Plantin's  inventory,  taken  after  his 
death,  showed  that  he  had  in  Antwerp  seventy- 
three  fonts  of  type,  weighing  38,121  pounds. 
Now  seven  hand-presses  and  their  tables  oc- 
cupy two  sides  of  the  room,  and  rows  of  type- 
cases  and  stands  fill  the  remnant  of  space. 
How  petty  these  presses  seem !  How  small 
the  impression  surface,  how  rude  all  the  ap- 
pliances !  Yet  from  these  presses  came  the 
great  "  Royal  Polyglot,"  the  Roman  Missal, 
still  bright  with  solid  black  and  glowing  red 
inks,  and  thousands  of  volumes,  written  by 
great  scholars,  many  of  them  enriched  with 
designs  by  old  Flemish  masters.  "  The  man 
is  greater  than  the  machine,"  and  Plantin  was 
master  over  his  presses.  From  these  uncouth 
unions  of  wood  and  stone,  pinned  together 
with  bits  of  iron,  he  made  his  pressmen  extort 


set  three  words  or  six  letters  not  in  the  copy 
should  be  fined.  Another  was  the  prohibition 
of  all  discussions  on  religion.  Every  workman 
must  pay  for  his  entrance  a  bienvemie  of  eight 
sous  as  drink  money,  and  give  two  sous  to 
the  poor-box.  At  the  end  of  the  month  he 
must  give  thirty  sous  to  the  poor-box  and 
ten  sous  to  his  comrades.  This  bienvemie  was 
as  much  an  English  as  a  Flemish  custom,  as 
one  may  see  in  Franklin's  autobiography. 

The  presses  cost  about  fifty  florins  each.  In 
one  of  his  account-books  is  the  record  that 
he  paid  forty-five  florins  for  copper  platens  to 
six  of  his  presses.  This  is  an  unexpected  dis- 
covery. It  shows  that  Plantin  knew  the  value 
of  a  hard  impression  surface,  and  made  use 
of  it  three  centuries  before  the  printer  of  THE 
CENTURY  tried,  as  he  thought  for  the  first 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


237 


time,  the  experiment  of  iron 
and  brass  impression  surfaces 
for  inelastic  impression. 

The  proportion  of  readers  or 
correctors  to  compositors  \\.is 
large.  In  1575  Plantin  had, be- 
sides Raphelengius  and  More- 
tus,  five  correctors  for  twenty- 
four  compositors,  thirty-nine 
pressmen,  and  four  apprentices. 
Much  of  the  work  done  by  these 
correctors  was  really  editing, 
translating,  re- writing,  and  pre- 
paring copy.  With  all  these 
correctors,  proof-reading  prop- 
er was  not  too  well  done. 
Ruelens  notes  in  Plantin's  best 
work,  the  "  Royal  Polyglot," 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  errors 
of  paging  in  the  eight  folio 
volumes.  Yet  this  book  was 
supervised  by  Montanus  and 
Raphelengius,  and  in  some  por- 
tions by  eminent  scholars  and 
professors  of  the  Leyden  Uni- 
versity. 

To  publish  a  polyglot  with 
parallel  texts  in  Latin,  Greek, 
Hebrew,  and  Chaldee,  with 
Granvelle  and  ecclesiastics  of 
high  station  to  recommend  the 
proposed  work  to  the  king 
and  to  get  from  him  a  subvention,  Plan- 
tin's  first  estimate  for  the  six  volumes  which 
he  then  thought  enough  for  the  work  was 
24,000  florins,  exclusive  of  the  cost  of  new 
types  and  binding.  After  much  deliberation 
the  king  consented  to  advance  6000  ducats, 
for  which  he  was  to  receive  an  equal  value 
in  books  at  trade  rates.  But  the  work  grew 
on  Plantin's  hands ;  it  made  eight  volumes 
instead  of  six,  and  it  cost  100,000  crowns  be- 
fore it  was  completed.  Twelve  hundred  copies 
on  paper  were  printed  and  announced  to  the 
trade  in  the  style  of  the  modern  Parisian 
publisher. 

10  on  grand  imperial  paper  of  Italy,  .price  not  stated 

30  on  grand  imperial,  at  the  price  of 2OO  florins 

200  on  the  fine  royal  paper  of  Lyons 100  florins 

960  on  the  fine  royal  paper  of  Troyes 70  florins 

The  king  had  twelve  copies  on  vellum, 
which  required  more  skins  than  could  be  had 
in  Antwerp  or  Holland.  It  is  of  interest  to 
note  that  Plantin,  like  all  printers,  had  no 
enthusiasm  for  vellum.  To  an  application 
from  a  German  prince  who  asked  for  a  copy 
on  vellum,  Plantin  answered  that  none  could 
be  furnished,  but  that  the  copies  on  the  impe- 
rial Italian  paper  were  really  better  printed 
than  those  on  the  vellum.  In  the  matter  of 


| 


THE    ENTRANCE    TO    THE    ENGRAVING-KOOM  —  IN    BLACK    AND    GOLD. 


clean,  clear  printing   they  were   every  way 
better. 

This  "  Royal  Polyglot "  was  the  beginning 
of  Plantin's  financial  troubles,  from  which  he 
never  fairly  recovered.  The  king  would  not 
allow  the  work  to  be  published  until  it  had 
been  approved  by  the  pope,  who  refused  his 
consent.  Montanus  went  to  Rome  to  plead 
for  a  change  of  decision ;  but  it  was  not  until 
1573,  when  a  new  pope  was  in  the  chair,  that 
this  permit  was  granted.  Even  then  the  diffi- 
culties were  not  over.  A  Spanish  theologian 
denounced  the  work  as  heretical,  Judaistic,  the 
product  of  the  enemies  of  the  Church.  Then 
the  Inquisition  made  a  slow  examination,  and 
grudgingly  decided  in  1580  that  it  might  be 
lawfully  sold.  For  more  than  seven  years  the 
unhappy  book  was  under  a  cloud  of  doubt  as 
to  its  orthodoxy.  The  damage  to  Plantin  was 
severe.  Before  he  reached  the  concluding  vol- 
umes his  means  were  exhausted,  and  he  had 
to  mortgage  at  insufficient  prices  two-thirds 
of  the  copies  done.  The  king  was  fully  repaid 
in  books  for  all  money  he  had  advanced,  but 
Plantin  got  no  more.  With  the  generosity 
of  people  who  are  accustomed  to  give  what 
does  not  belong  to  them,  the  king  granted 
Plantin  an  annual  pension  of  four  hundred 
florins,  secured  on  a  confiscated  Dutch  estate ; 


238 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


but  the  perverse  Dutchman  who  owned  the 
estate  soon  retook  it,  and  as  the  king  could 
not  wrest  it  from  him,  the  pension  was  forever 
ineffective. 

Seven  rooms  or  lobbies  in  the  Museum  are 
devoted  to  the  exhibition  of  engravings  as  well 
as  of  their  blocks  or  plates,  of  which  there  are 
more  than  2000  on  copper  and  about  15,000 
on  wood.  It  is  a  most  curious  collection  of 
original  work,  more  complete  and  more  diver- 
sified than  that  of  any  printing-house  before 


was  in  his  trade,  and  who  loved  his  work  for 
the  work's  sake.  His  early  training  as  a  book- 
finisher  gave  him  decorative  inclinations. 
What  he  could  not  do  on  book  covers  with 
gilding-tools  he  tried  to  have  done  on  the 
printed  leaves  with  wood-cuts  from  designs  by 
eminent  artists. 

He  must  have  quickly  earned  good  reputa- 
tion as  a  skillful  printer  of  wood-cuts,  for  he 
was  chosen  by  the  authorities  of  Antwerp  over 
all  rivals  to  print  a  large  illustrated  book  de- 


THE    TYPE-FOUNDRY. 


the  nineteenth  century.  Indeed,  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  find  a  rival  as  to  quantity  and 
quality  among  modern  houses.  Here  are  etch- 
ings by  Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  Jordaens,Teniers; 
engravings  by  Bolswert,  Vorsterman,  Pontius, 
Edelinck.  One  looks  with  more  than  ordinary 
attention  on  the  St.  Catharine,  the  only  etch- 
ing known  to  have  been  done  by  the  hand  of 
Rubens,  as  well  as  on  the  wonderful  line  en- 
graving by  Edelinck  of  the  portrait  of  Phil- 
ippe de  Champagne.  The  prints  that  may 
be  most  admired  were  made  to  the  order 
of  Plantin's  successors,  who  were  contempo- 
raries of  the  greatest  Flemish  masters,  but 
their  preference  for  the  work  of  true  artists 
was  implanted  by  the  founder  of  the  house.  "  I 
never  neglected,"  Plantin  said,  "  when  I  had 
the  opportunity  and  the  ability,  to  pay  for  the 
work  of  the  best  engravers."  The  sparsity  of 
engravings  in  his  earlier  books  was,  no  doubt, 
caused  by  his  poverty ;  but  even  these  petty 
books  show  that  they  were  planned  by  a  man 
of  superior  taste — by  a  printer  whose  heart 


scribing  the  recent  obsequies  of  Charles  V. 
This  book  he  published  in  1559  in  the  form 
of  an  oblong  folio,  containing  thirty-three  large 
plates,  at  the  cost  of  2000  florins.  These  plates, 
although  separately  printed,  were  designed  to 
be  conjoined,  and  used  as  a  processional  frieze, 
In  planning  this  book  he  did  not  repeat  the 
folly  of  many  of  his  rivals,  who  were  still  imi- 
tating the  coarse  designs  and  rude  cutting  of 
the  obsolete  "  Biblia  Pauperum  "  and  "  Specu- 
lum Salutis."  He  gave  the  work  to  a  compe- 
tent designer,  and  was  equally  careful  with  the 
engraving  and  printing,  and  found  his  profit 
in  the  large  sale  of  many  editions  and  in 
five  languages.  After  this  he  made  increasing 
use  of  engravings  on  wood.  No  printer  of  his 
time  illustrated  books  so  freely  :  in  one  book. 
the  "  Botany"  of  Dodonseus,  the  cuts  would  be 
regarded  now  as  profusely  extravagant.  To 
this  day  they  are  models  of  good  line  draw- 
ing and  clean  engraving.  When  the  text  did 
not  call  for  descriptive  illustrations  he  made 
free  use  of  large  initial  letters,  head -bands,  and 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


239 


tail-pieces.  The  shelves  and  closets  of  the 
Museum  contain  thousands  of  initials  remark- 
able for  the  vigor  of  their  designs  or  the  inge- 
nuity of  their  backgrounds  or  interlacings.  One 
series  is  about  five  inches  square.  One  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  the  regret  that  so  many 
modern  designers  and  publishers  seem  to  be 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  beauty  of  some  of  the 
Plantin  initials,  and  prefer  elaborated  distor- 
tions of  the  alphabet,  which  are  every  way  un- 
worthy of  comparison.  But  Plantin  soon  found 
that  there  was  a  limit  to  the  effects  to  be  had 
from  engravings  on  wood  when  printed  on  his 
rough  paper  and  by  his  weak  presses.  He  be- 
gan to  develop  on  a  grand  scale  illustrations  on 
copper,  of  which  the  "  Humanae  Salutis  Monu- 
menta"  of  1571,  with  its  seventy-one  large 
plates,  was  his  earliest  and  most  noteworthy 
example. 

Two  rooms  contain  the  remnants  of  the 
type-foundry,  which  provoke  reflection  on  the 
difference  between  old  and  new  methods  of 
book-making.  The  modern  printer  does  not 
make  his  types ;  he  does  not  even  own  a  punch 
or  a  matrix.  Buying  his  types  from  many  foun- 
dries,he  has  great  liberty  of  selection, but, neces- 
sarily, a  selection  from  the  designs  of  other  men. 
It  follows  that  the  text  types  of  one  printer  may 
be  —  must  be,  often — just  the  same  as  those 
of  another  printer,  and  that  there  can  be  no 
really  strong  individuality  in  the  books  of  any 
house.  In  the  sixteenth  century  every  eminent 
printer  had  some  of  his  types  made  to  his  own 
order,  which  types  he  only  used.  This  was 
the  method:  He  hired  an  engraver  to  draw 
and  cut  in  steel  the  model  letters,  or  punches, 
and  to  provide  the  accompanying  mold  and 
matrices.  Keeping  the  punches,  he  took  the 
mold  and  matrices  to  men  who  cast  types  for 
the  trade,  who  furnished  him  all  he  needed. 
The  founders  who  made  Plantin's  earlier  types 
were  Guyot  and  Van  Everbrocht  of  Antwerp. 
The  designs  for  these  types  and  the  making 
of  the  punches  and  matrices  were  by  skilled 
engravers  in  different  cities  at  prices  which  now 
seem  incredibly  small  —  from  twenty  to  forty 
sous  for  punch  and  matrix  of  ordinary  letter. 
Robert  Granjon  of  Lyons  and  Guillaume  Le 
Be  of  Paris  did  much  of  his  best  work ;  Hau- 
tin  of  Rochelle,  Ven  der  Keere  of  Tours,  and 
Bomberghe  of  Cologne  were  also  employed. 
Plantin  had  types  cast  in  his  office  after  1563, 
but  the  foundry  was  not  an  important  part  of 
the  house  until  1600:  at  that  date  the  collec- 
tion of  punches  was  very  large. 

Here  are  some  of  the  common  tools  of 
type-making, —  the  vises,  grindstones,  files, 
gravers,  etc., —  and  rude  enough  they  seem. 
When  we  go  into  the  next  room,  and  scrutinize 
the  molds  and  punches  behind  the  wire  screens, 
and  the  justified  matrices  in  the  showcases, 


we  wonder  that  this  excellent  workmanship 
could  have  been  done  by  these  rough  tools. 
Printed  specimens  of  some  of  the  types  are 
shown  on  the  walls,  but  they  do  not  fairly 
show  the  full  merit  of  the  work.  It  is  true  that 
the  counters  are  not  as  deep  as  a  modern 
founder  would  require,  but  the  cutting  is  clean 
and  good.  Here  are  the  punches  of  the  great 
type  of  the  Polyglot,  of  the  music  of  the 
Antiphonary,  besides  Roman,  Italic,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew, —  of  many  sizes, —  all  out  of 
use,  out  of  style.  Do  we  make  better  types 
now  ?  From  the  mechanical  point  of  view, 
yes :  modern  types  are  more  truly  cut  and 
aligned,  more  solid  in  body,  than  those  cast 
by  hand  from  metal  poured  in  the  mold  with 
a  spoon.  From  the  utilitarian,  and  even  from 
the  artistic  standpoint,  one  cannot  say  yes  so 
confidently.  Modern  types  are  more  delicate, 
have  more  finish,  and  more  graceful  lines ;  but 
the  old  types  are  stronger  and  simpler,  more 
easily  read,  and  have  features  of  grace  that 
have  never  been  excelled. 

To  the  admirer  of  old  furniture,  the  room 
numbered  26  —  the  bed-chamber  of  the  last 
Moretus  —  is  attractive.  A  great  bedstead  of 
carved  oak,  black  with  age,  partly  covered 
with  an  embroidered  silk  coverlet  (a  marvel 
of  neat  handiwork  and  dinginess),  flanked  by 
a  grimy  prie-dieu  and  a  wardrobe  equally 
venerable,  is  dimly  reflected  in  a  tarnished 
mirror  of  the  last  century.  On  walls  covered 
with  stamped  and  gilt  leather  hang  two  old 
prints  and  a  carving  of  the  crucifixion.  Ele- 
gant in  its  day,  admirable  yet,  but  how  dead 
and  cheerless  is  this  little  room !  As  devoid 
of  life  and  warmth  as  the  crucibles  and  fur- 
naces in  the  foundry. 

There  is  no  room  in  the  Museum  deficient 
in  objects  of  interest,  for  in  all  are  paintings 
or  prints  or  old  typographic  bric-a-brac  enough 
to  evoke  enthusiasm  from  the  dullest  observer; 
but,  after  all,  the  great  charm  of  a  printer's 
museum  is  in  the  printer's  books,  and  the  li- 
brary is  properly  placed  at  the  end  of  all,  and  is 
the  culmination  of  all.  It  is  rich  in  rare  books. 
Here  is  the  Bible  of  thirty-six  lines,  which  is 
rated  by  many  bibliographers  as  the  first  great 
work  of  Gutenberg.  Here  are  first  editions  and 
fine  copies  from  the  offices  of  all  the  famous 
early  printers.  They  were  not  bought  for  show, 
nor  as  rarities  —  merely  as  texts  to  be  com- 
pared, collated,  or  referred  to  for  a  new  manu- 
script copy  to  be  put  in  the  compositors'  hands. 
The  collection  here  shown  of  the  books  printed 
by  Plantin  is  large,  probably  larger  than  can 
be  found  elsewhere,  but  not  entirely  complete. 
They  are  not  arranged  in  chronological  or- 
der ;  one  has  to  consult  Ruelens's  catalogue  to 
see  how  Plantin's  ambition  rose  with  oppor- 
tunity —  to  see  what  great  advances  he  made 


240 


A   POINTER'S  PARADISE. 


every  year  and  for  many  years,  not  only  in 
the  number  of  his  books,  but  in  their  greater 
size  and  merit,  and  in  steadily  increasing  im- 
provement of  workmanship.  "  He  is  all  spirit," 
wrote  Montanus ;  "  he  gives  little  thought  to 
food,  or  drink,  or  repose.  He  lives  to  work." 


published  by  Max  Rooses,  the  director  of  the 
Museum. 

In  these  records  may  be  found  his  corre- 
spondence with  artists,  scholars,  and  dignita- 
ries, both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as  well  as 
the  weekly  bills  of  his  workmen,  inventories 
of  stock,  accounts  of  sales,  of  profit  and  loss, 
memoranda  of  work  done  and  work  prepared 
—  everything  one  can  need  for  an  insight  into 
the  economy  of  an  old  printing-house.  Here 
is  his  letter  to  the  King  of  Spain  setting  forth  his 
grievances  from  the  king's  delayed  payments; 


PLANTIN  S    PRIVATE    OFFICE. 


But  the  most  valuable  part  of  this  collection 
of  14,000  books  is  not  in  its  printed  but  its 
written  treasures.  Plantin  was  a  model  man 
of  business,  who  carefully  preserved  records, 
accounts,  and  much  of  his  correspondence, 
and  taught  his  successors  to  exercise  similar 
diligence.  The  records  show  more  than  the 
business ;  they  show  the  man  and  his  motives. 
Many  are  in  Plantin's  handwriting ;  the  ac- 
counts in  Flemish,  the  correspondence  in 
Latin,  French,  and  sometimes  in  Spanish.  The 
more  valuable  papers  have  been  edited  and 


the  items  of  money  spent  at  the  wedding- 
feast  of  each  daughter  (and  curious  reading 
it  is) ;  the  bills  of  type-founders  and  engravers 
on  wood;  his  written  wrestlings  with  money- 
lenders who  wanted  too  much  of  interest  or 
of  security,  and  with  booksellers  who  wanted 
too  much  discount,  and  sold  books  below  reg- 
ular prices ;  his  bargainings  with  editors  and 
authors  for  manuscripts,  and  the  poiirboires 
he  had  to  pay  to  officials  of  high  and  low  sta- 
tion for  permission  to  print;  his  complaints 
against  the  intolerable  delays  of  artists  and 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


241 


engravers.*  Rich  as  it  is  in  relics  of  the  do-  keep  to  themselves  their  knowledge ;  in  the 
mestic  life  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  sixteenth  century  they  were  eager  to  publish 
centuries,  the  house  and  furniture  of  the  Mu-  it,  and  glad  to  get  an  opportunity .f  Many 
seum  does  not  show  that  domestic  life  with  seemed  to  think  that  they  were  under  moral 
the  clearness  that  the  business  life  can  be  seen  obligation  to  give  freely  what  they  knew. 
in  the  records.  What  is  missing  ?  Designing  and  engraving  were  relatively 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  make  a  wise  se-  cheaper  than  they  are  now.  From  four  to  seven 
lection  from  the  wealth  of  the  material  which  sous  was  the  price  for  designing  and  engraving 
M.  Rooses,  the  director  of  the  Museum,  has  a  beautiful  initial  letter,  not  to  be  had  as 
brought  to  light.  One  must  begin  with  the  good  now  for  as  many  dollars.  What 
unexpected  discoveries.  Contrary  to  the  pre-  modern  publisher  would  hesitate  to 
vailing  belief,  Plantin's  editions  were  not  small,  engage  Van  den  Broeck  to  fur- 
His  ordinary  edition  was  1250  copies;  his  nish  the  elaborate  and  beautiful 
largest  edition  was  3900  copies  of  the  Penta-  design,  "  Our  Lady  of  Seven 
tench  in  Hebrew.  He  refused  to  print  books  Sorrows  "  (a  full  folio  page), 
in  small  editions  unless  he  was  paid  the  cost  at  the  price  of  six 
of  the  work  before  it  was  begun.  He 
sold  few  single  copies;  the  retail  trade 
in  ordinary  books  was  done  by  wife  and 
daughters  in  shops  in  other  quarters 
of  the  city.  Nearly  all  his  books  went 
to  booksellers  at  fairs  or  in  other  cities, 
to  whom  he  gave  small  discounts,  about 
one-sixth  less  than  the  retail  price.  The 
retail  prices  were  very  small.  The  ordinary 
text-book,  in  an  octavo  (in  size  of  leaf  equivalent 
to  the  modern  i6mo)  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty  pages,  was  then  sold  at  retail  for  ten 
sous.  A  Horace  of  eleven  sheets  sold  for  one 
sou ;  a  Virgil  of  nineteen  and  a  half  sheets  for 
three  sous — of  thirty-eight  sheets  for  five  sous ; 
the  Bible,  1567,  in  Latin,  at  one  florin.  For 
large  quartos  and  folios,  for  texts  in  Greek,  and 
for  profusely  illustrated  books,  the  prices  were 
as  high  as,  or  even  higher  than,  they  are  now, 
considering  the  then  greater  purchasing  power 
of  money.  For  his  Polyglot  in  eight  volumes 
he  asked  seventy  florins,  equivalent  to  one  florins  ?  For  his  superb  engraving  of  this  de- 
hundred  and  twelve  dollars  of  American  sign  Plantin  overpaid  the  dissolute  Jerome 
money.  Wiericx  ninety-six  florins.  The  usual  price 

The  modern  publisher  is  amazed  at  the  of  the  brothers  Wiericx  for  engraving  a  plate 
low  prices  for  ordinary  books,  but  the  records  of  folio  size  was  thirty  florins, 
show  that  the  cost  of  a  book  was  in  proportion.  All  the  materials  of  the  book  were  cheap. 
Plantin  paid  very  little  to  authors  and  editors.  The  ordinary  paper  came  from  France  and 
Sometimes  they  were  required  to  contribute  cost,  according  to  weight  and  quality,  from 
to  the  cost  of  the  printing,  and  were  given  a  twenty-four  to  seventy-eight  sous  a  ream, 
few  copies  of  the  book  after  it  had  been  Even  the  large  vellum  skins  of  Holland, 
printed  as  a  full  make-weight.  As  a  rule  they  bought  for  the  "  Royal  Polyglot,"  cost  but 
contributed  nothing,  and  were  paid,  if  paid  at  forty-five  sous  the  do/en. 
all,  in  their  own  books.  Many  authors  got  but  He  paid  his  binders  for  the  labor  of  bind- 
ten  florins  for  the  copy  of  valuable  and  sal-  ing  (not  including  the  leather  or  boards)  an 
able  books.  The  literary  world  was  under-  octavo  in  full  sheep  one  sou  for  each  copy ; 
going  a  curious  transition.  In  the  fourteenth  for  a  quarto,  one  sou  and  a  half  to  two  sous; 
and  fifteenth  centuries  scholars  had  tried  to  for  a  folio,  in  full  calf,  from  seven  to  eleven 


ROOM     IN     PLANTIN  S     HOUSE. 


*  There  are  engravers  on  copper  here  who  offer  to 
work  for  eight  florins  a  day  in  their  own  houses. 
When  they  have  worked  one  or  two  days  they  go  to 
taverns  and  disreputable  houses,  and  carouse  with 
worthless  people.  There  they  pawn  their  goods  and 
tools.  Whoever  has  work  in  their  hands  is  obliged  to 
hunt  them  up  and  pay  their  debts.  [Plantin  to  Ferdi- 
nand Ximenes,  Jan.  2,  1587.] 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 34. 


t  Balzac  wrote  a  letter  to  Elzevir,  in  which  he 
thanked  Elzevir  effusively  for  his  piratical  reprint  of 
one  of  his  books.  Balzac  never  got  a  sou  from  this 
reprint,  not  even  thanks,  but  he  was  not  the  less 
grateful,  for  he  was  delighted  because  he  had  been 
introduced  in  the  good  society  of  the  great  authors, 
and  had  received  the  imprimatur  and  approval  of 
Elzevir. 


242 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


sous.*  Richly  gilt  books  were  paid  for  at 
higher  prices,  but  miserably  small  they  seem 
as  compared  with  present  prices. 

If  Plantin  had  done  no  more  than  to  found 
a  large  printing-house,  he  would  deserve  no 
more  consideration  than  any  other  successful 
trader  of  his  time.  He  was  not  an  ordinary 
trader :  he  has  right  to  an  honorable  place 
among  the  great  educators  of  his  century — 
not  for  what  he  wrote,  but  for  what  he  had 
written  or  created  for  him.  He  has  no  stand- 


A    CORNER    OF    THE    COURT-YARD. 

ing  as  a  scholar  or  as  an  editor,  but  as  a 
publisher  he  outranks  all  his  contemporaries. 
He  printed  more  than  sixteen  hundred  edi- 
tions, some  of  which  were  original  work  writ- 
ten at  his  request.  His  greatest  production 
was  eighty-three  editions  in  1575,  and  the 
lowest,  twenty-four  editions  in  1576,  the  year 
of  the  Spanish  Fury. 

One  of  the  difficulties  of  a  publisher  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  the  scarcity  of  books 

*  M.  Rooses  appraises  the  real  or  purchasing  value 
of  silver  in  the  time  of  Plantin,  at  its  maximum,  at  four 
times  its  stamped  or  nominal  value.  By  this  standard 
the  sou  should  be  rated  as  equal  to  eight  cents  of 
American  money,  and  the  florin  as  equal  to  $1.60. 


that  could  be  printed  to  profit.  To  this  could 
be  added  the  poverty  and  the  sparseness  of 
readers.  All  the  popular  classic  texts,  and 
all  ordinary  forms  of  school  books  and  of 
devotional  books,  had  been  printed  so  many 
times,  and  in  such  large  editions,  that  they 
often  had  to  be  sold  for  little  more  than  the 
cost  of  the  white  paper.  Yet  Plantin  entered 
this  overcrowded  field  with  confidence.  His 
books  of  devotion  were  more  carefully  printed 
and  more  richly  illustrated  ;  his  school  texts 
were  more  carefully 
edited  and  more  in- 
telligently arranged. 
All  were  of  the  first 
order;  he  did  not 
pander  to  low  appe- 
tites ;  his  aims  were 
always  high  and  his 
taste  was  severe. 

Before  the  year  1567 
he  had  printed  many 
editions  of  the  Bible 
in  Latin,  Flemish,  and 
Hebrew.  By  far  the 
largest  part  of  the  read- 
ing of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  theolog- 
ical, and  Plantin  saw- 
that  he  would  make 
his  greatest  success 
in  getting  an  ap- 
pointment as  the  rec- 
ognized or  official 
printer  of  the  liturgical 
books  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  His 
earliest  attempts  were 
beset  with  difficulties. 
He  had  to  solicit  the 
help  of  Cardinal  Gran- 
velle  and  Philip  II. 
The  permit  given  by 
the  pope  and  his  car- 
dinals was  grudgingly 
allowed  by  the  ec- 
clesiastical magnates  of  the  Netherlands. 
When  he  did  begin  to  print,  he  had  to  pay 
ten  per  cent,  of  his  receipts  to  Paul  Manutius 
of  Rome,  who  held  the  privilege.  He  had  to 
petition  the  King  of  Spain  to  get  the  exclusive 
privilege  he  desired  for  the  printing  of  the 
Church  on  Spanish  territory.  His  friend  Mon- 
tanus  told  the  king  that  Plantin's  prices  were 
more,  but  his  printing  was  better  than  that 
of  the  Italian  printers.  It  was  this  superior- 
ity in  workmanship,  as  well  as  in  business 
methods,  that  turned  the  scale  in  his  favor. 
Two  of  these  service  books,  the  great  Psalter 
and  the  Antiphonary  of  1571  and  1572,  are 
admirable  pieces  of  rubricated  printing.  For 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


many  years  the  printing  of  these  and  other 
books  kept  him  in  financial  embarrassment, 
but  the  result  demonstrated  the  wisdom  of 
his  foresight.  He  never  lived  to  enjoy  the 
fruits,  but  his  successors  were  made  rich  by 
a  monopoly  which  they  held  for  more  than 
two  hundred  years. 

Plantin's  printing  was  good,  but  it  has  been 
overpraised.  He  was  named  "  King  of  Print- 
ers" at  a  time  when  the  duties  most  admired 
in  a  printer  were  those  of  editor  and  publisher. 
Here  he  was  grand.  His  purposes  were  always 
far  beyond  those  of  his  rivals;  great  folios, 
many  volumes,  large  types,  difficult  works  in 
little-known  languages,  •'  lumping  patents " 
or  privileges,  profuse  illustrations  by  eminent 
artists — every  peculiarity  of  typography  that 
dazzled  or  astonished.  All  his  books  are  above 
mediocrity,  but  he  did  not  attain  the  highest 
rank,  either  in  his  arrangement  of  types  or 
in  his  press-work.  He  had  obscure  rivals  in 
France  and  the  Netherlands,  who  never  made 
showy  or  imposing  books,  but  who  did  better 
technical  work,  furnished  more  faultless  texts, 
and  showed  clearer  and  sharper  impressions 
from  types.  After  Balthazar  III.  a  decline  set 
in.  Some  of  the  later  books  of  the  house  are 
positively  shabby  —  a  disgrace  to  their  patent 
and  to  the  art. 

Was  Plantin  a  Catholic  ?  Prefaces  written 
by  him  in  some  books  are  fervid  with  pro- 
testations of  loyalty  to  the  old  Church.  Mon- 
tanus  and  Cardinal  Granvelle,  and  many 
prominent  ecclesiastics,  were  his  personal 
friends,  and  vouched  for  his  orthodoxy.  The 
suspicious  King  of  Spain  never  seems  to  have 
doubted  him,  not  even  when  he  went  to  Lou- 
vain,  that  home  of  heresy.  These  are  strong 
assurances ;  yet  he  was  often  denounced  as  a 
Calvinist:  he  printed  books  that  were  pro- 
scribed, and  for  which  he  lost  his  property. 
His  correspondence  with  heretics  proves  be- 
yond cavil  that  he  was  at  heart  a  member  of 
a  non-resisting  sect  not  unlike  that  of  the 
Friends, —  a  sect  which  taught  that  religion 
was  a  personal  matter  of  the  heart  and  life, 
and  not  at  all  dependent  on  churches,  creeds, 
or  confessions.  How  much  this  flexible,  non- 
resistant  faith  was  his  justification  for  the 
insincerity  of  his  professions  he  alone  can 
answer.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  insincere. 
He  was  not  the  stuff  martyrs  are  made  of. 

It  is  more  pleasant  to  turn  to  another  side 
of  his  character,  in  which  his  sincerity  is  above 
all  reproach.  To  the  last,  Plantin  was  true  to 
his  trade.  Too  many  successful  traders  make 
use  of  their  success  to  indulge  in  unsuspected 
propensities.  They  kick  away  the  ladder  they 
climbed  up  on ;  they  forswear  trade  and  ple- 
beian occupations  ;  they  take  their  ease  and 
display  their  wealth  ;  they  build  mansions  and 


STATl  ETTE    OF    MADONNA    AND    CHILD,  OVER    CANDLESTICK 

IN    THE    PRESS-ROOM.       (FROM    AN    ETCHING    MADE 

FOR    THIS    ARTICLE    BY    OTTO    H.    BACKER.) 

buy  estates;  they  seek  social  distinction  for 
themselves  and  their  families.  From  this  vain- 
glory Plantin  was  entirely  free.  His  ambition 
began  and  ended  in  his  printing-house.  To 
form  a  great  office  worthy  of  the  king  of 
printers,  in  which  the  largest  and  best  books 
should  be  printed  in  a  royal  manner,  was  the 
great  purpose  of  his  life.  Neither  the  Span- 
ish Fury,  nor  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  nor  the 
destruction  of  the  great  city's  privileges  and 
commerce,  nor  the  king's  neglect,  norhis  failure 
to  perpetuate  his  name  in  a  son,  nor  the  in- 
firmities of  old  age,  shook  his  purpose.  The 
future  fate  of  the  office  for  which  he  had  labored 
was  doubtful;  for  his  sons-in-law  were  not  in 
accord  with  one  another.  He  had  little  ready 
money  and  many  obligations.  He  had  only 
the  appearance  of  success ;  his  greatest  bequest 
was  the  means  by  which  unreached  success 
could  be  attained.  The  probabilities  were  that 
his  name,  fame,  and  estate  would  soon  disap- 
pear in  a  struggle  between  contentious  heirs ; 
but  with  all  the  odds  against  him,  he  did  carry 
his  point.  The  will  of  the  dying  old  man  had 
more  enduring  force  in  it  than  there  was  in  any 
decree  or  treaty  then  made  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  Spanish  dynasty.  The  Plantin- Moretus 
house  outlived  the  Spanish  house  of  Hapsburg. 
For  more  than  three  centuries  the  printing- 


KEl'RODUCHU     FROM    AN     ENGRAVING    BY     HENRI     GOLTZIl  S. 
C.    PLANTIN. 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


245 


office  was  kept  in  the  family  in  unbroken  line 
of  descent;  for  at  least  three  generations  it 
maintained  its  position  as  the  first  office  in  the 
world.  The  Plantin  types  and  presses  and 
office  are  still  the  pride  of  Antwerp,  but  the 
statue  of  the  king's  representative,  the  fierce 
Duke  of  Alva,  which  once  dominated  a  square 
in  the  city,  and  who  boasted  on  the  pedestal 
that  he  had  restored  order  and  preserved  re- 
ligion and  reconstructed  society,  was  long  ago 
overthrown.  No  overthrow  could  be  more  com- 
plete. It  was  not  merely  the  upsetting  of  statue 
or  dynasty,  but  of  the  foundations  of  medieval 
ideas  and  principles.  Plantin,  unwittingly  no 
doubt,  but  not  the  less  efficiently,  did  his  share 
in  bringing  down  this  thorough  destruction. 
The  books  which  he  and  others  printed 
aroused  the  mental  activity  and  inspired  the 
freedom  which  soon  made  the  Netherlands 
the  foremost  state  in  the  world.  Kings  die  and 
beliefs  change ;  the  bronze  statues  made  to  be 
imperishable  are  destroyed,  but  the  printed 
word  stands.  The  book  lives,  and  lives  forever. 
Horace  was  right :  it  is  more  enduring  than 
bronze. 

In  walking  through  the  Museum  the  eye 
does  not  weary  of  sight-seeing,  but  the  brain 
does  refuse  to  remember  objects  that  crowd 
so  fast.  To  remember,  one  must  rest  and  think 
of  what  he  has  seen.  It  is  a  relief  to  sit  down 
under  the  cool  arcade  and  look  out  on  the 
quiet  court,  and  think  of  the  men  who  trod 
these  stones.  For  here  Plantin  and  Moretus 
used  to  sit  in  the  cool  of  the  day ;  here  they 
matured  plans  for  great  books,  and  devised 
means  of  borrowing  money  to  pay  fast-coming 
obligations.  Was  the  end  worth  the  worry  ? 
Behind  those  latticed  windows,  obscured  with 
rampant  grape-vine  leaves,  the  great  Justus 


Lipsius  wrote  or  corrected  the  books  that  were 
the  admiration  of  all  the  universities  —  books 
now  almost  forgotten.  In  the  next  room 
Poelman  and  Kilianus  and  Raphelengius 
plodded  like  wheel-horses  in  dragging  ob- 
scure texts  out  of  the  muddy  roads  in  which 
copyists  and  compositors  had  left  them.  Who 
thinks  of  them  now  ?  Through  that  doorway 
have  often  passed  the  courtly  Van  Dyke  and 
the  clashing  Rubens,  gay  in  velvets  and  glit- 
tering with  jewels.  They,  at  least,  are  of  the 
immortals.  Dignitaries  of  all  classes  have 
been  here :  patriarchal  Jewish  rabbis  and 
steeple-crowned  Puritans;  the  ferocious  Duke 
of  Alva  and  the  wily  Cardinal  Granvelle ; 
cowled  ecclesiastics  from  Rome  and  black- 
gowned  professors  from  Leyden.  From  upper 
windows  not  far  away  Plantin's  daughters 
have  looked  out  in  terror,  on  the  awful  night 
of  the  Spanish  Fury,  as  they  heard  the  yells  of 
the  savage  soldiers  raging  about  the  court, 
and  listened  to  their  threats  of  "  blood  and 
flesh  and  fire,"  and  shuddered  at  the  awful 
fate  that  seemed  before  them.  Truly  a  sad 
time  for  the  making  of  books  or  the  cultiva- 
tion of  letters.  And  even  nine  years  after  this, 
the  boy  Balthazar  must  have  been  stopped  at 
study  by  the  roar  of  Farnese's  guns  during  that 
memorable  siege,  and  by  the  shrieks  of  the 
starving  defenders  of  the  doomed  city. 

The  evening  bell  sounds  its  warning :  it  is 
time  to  go.  At  our  request  the  obliging  con- 
cierge gives  us  a  few  leaves  from  the  grape- 
vine, and  we  take  our  places  in  the  outgoing 
procession.  Out  once  more  in  the  steaming 
streets  —  out  in  the  confused  roar  and  clatter 
of  modern  city  life.  But  the  memory  of  the 
Museum  is  like  that  of  the  chimes  of  Ant- 
werp's great  cathedral — never  to  be  forgotten. 

Theo.  L.  De  Vinne. 


19 


h" 


it 

z 

-J-j      Y      j      SI      j       30        j           «9 

»l     Ji 

PLAN   OF   THB    PLANTIN-  MORBTUS    MUSEUM. 

The  Ground  Floor  :    i,  a,  3,  Parlors  ;  4,  5,  Shops  ;  6,  Room  of  tapestries  :  7.  Room  of  the  correctors  ;  8.  Office  ;  o.  Room  of  Justus  Lipsius  ;  10,  Lobby  } 
H,  Room  for  the  letters  ;  12,  Printing-  room  ;  X,  Porter's  lodge  ;  Y,  Staircase  looking  out  on  the  court  ;   Z,  Servants'  r 


, 
'  room,  etc.      First  story  ! 


,  -  ,  ,  ,  , 

14,  Front  rooms;  15,  29,  30,  Library;  16,  18,  22.  Wood-emjravinifs;  17,  Lobby  ;  19,  Copper-plates  ;  ao.  24,  Parlors;  ai,  Room 
of  the  licenses  ;  23,  Room  of  the  Antwerp  engravers  ;  25,  Rear  room  ;  26,  Sleepinp-room  ;  31.  Hall  of  archives  ; 
X,  Reading-room  ;  Y,  Office  of  the  Director  ;  Z,  Staircase  leading  to  the  court. 


Vol..  XXXVL  — 35. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    COURAGE. 


FRENCH  writer  has  said 
that  every  mistake  made 
in  life  can  be  traced  to 
/ear.  Though  this  was 
doubtless  written  more  to 
shape  an  epigram  than  to 
state  a  fact, —  and  epigrams 
are  generally  regarded  as 
jewels  purchased  at  the  expense  of  veracity, — 
yet  the  more  we  reflect  upon  the  remark  the 
more  we  are  impressed  with  its  truth. 

Fear,  above  all  things  else,  enfeebles  the 
vigor  of  man's  actions,  supplants  decision  by 
vacillation,  and  opens  the  road  to  error.  When 
one  seeks  counsel  of  one's  fears,  judgment 
ceases  to  obtrude  advice. 

Courage,  on  the  other  hand,  is  universally 
recognized  as  the  manliest  of  all  human  attri- 
butes ;  it  nerves  its  possessor  for  resolute  at- 
tempts, and  equips  him  for  putting  forth  his 
supreme  efforts.  Powerful  aristocracies  have 
been  founded  with  courage  as  the  sole  patent 
of  nobility ;  kings  have  maintained  their  dy- 
nasties with  no  other  virtue  to  commend  them 
to  their  subjects.  A  once  popular  farce  set 
forth  these  two  opposite  traits  in  human  na- 
ture under  the  title  of  "  The  nervous  man  and 
the  man  of  nerve." 

Courage  has  so  many  different  natures,  as- 
sumes so  many  different  forms,  and  is  subject 
to  so  many  eccentricities,  that  it  is  hard  to  de- 
fine it.  To  separate  it  into  the  two  grand  di- 
visions of  moral  courage  and  physical  courage 
is  a  simple  matter,  but  when  the  subdivisions 
of  these  are  to  be  determined,  the  task  is  con- 
fronted with  formidable  difficulties. 

Few  men  possess  all  the  various  forms  of 
courage.  One  man  may  be  utterly  fearless  in 
the  most  perilous  storm  at  sea,  while  on  land 
he  may  be  afraid  to  travel  at  the  rate  of  twen- 
ty-five miles  an  hour  on  a  first-class  railroad, 
and,  sailor-like,  expends  his  sympathies  in  pity- 
ing "  poor  unhappy  folks  ashore."  A  locomo- 
tive engineer  on  an  Eastern  railway,  who  was 
always  selected  for  his  "  nerve "  when  a  fast 
"  special "  was  to  be  sent  out,  and  whose  cour- 
age, repeatedly  displayed  in  appalling  acci- 
dents, had  become  proverbial,  was  afraid  in 
the  quiet  of  his  own  home  to  go  upstairs  alone 
in  the  dark. 

In  ascending  a  Southern  river  on  a  steam- 
boat, towards  the  close  of  our  civil  war,  we 
had  an  officer  on  board  who,  during  three 
years  of  fighting,  had  treated  shot  and  shell  in 
action  with  an  indifference  that  made  him  a 


marvel  of  courage ;  but  on  this  expedition  he 
manifested  a  singular  fear  of  torpedoes,  put 
on  enough  life-preservers  to  float  an  anchor, 
and  stood  at  the  stern  of  the  boat  ready,  at 
the  first  sign  of  danger,  to  plunge  into  the 
water  with  the  promptness  of  a  Baptist  con- 
vert. He  once  came  very  near  jumping  over- 
board at  the  sound  of  a  sudden  escape  of  steam 
from  the  boiler.  He  made  no  disguise  of  his 
nervousness  at  this  new  form  of  danger.  I 
recollect  a  company  officer  of  infantry  who 
never  seemed  to  know  what  the  word  fear 
meant  under  any  circumstances  until  his  pro- 
motion to  a  higher  rank  compelled  him  to 
mount  a  horse,  and  then  his  mind  knew  no 
peace.  A  sudden  snort  from  the  beast  alarmed 
him  more  than  the  opening  of  a  battery,  and 
the  pricking  up  of  the  animal's  ears  had  more 
terrors  for  him  than  a  bayonet  charge. 

These  instances,  though  numerous,  are  the 
exceptions,  not  the  rule.  They  can  often  be 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the  victim  had 
suffered  a  severe  fright,  perhaps  in  childhood, 
which  produced  a  permanent  shock  to  his 
nerves,  and  made  him  timid  ever  after  respect- 
ing the  particular  form  of  danger  to  which 
he  had  been  exposed.  An  acquaintance  of 
mine  whose  repeated  acts  of  gallantry  in  the 
field  had  convinced  all  his  comrades  that  he 
had  been  born  without  the  sense  of  fear  was 
seen  to  give  a  wide  berth  to  any  horned  ani- 
mals that  came  in  sight.  Whenever  a  drove 
of  commissary's  cattle  were  encountered  on 
the  road,  he  began  a  series  of  well-timed  ma- 
neuvers with  a  view  to  getting  a  fence  be- 
tween himself  and  them  in  the  shortest  possible 
time.  Their  approach  seemed  to  demoralize 
him  as  much  as  a  cavalry  charge  of  the  en- 
emy elated  him.  The  providing  of  an  army 
with  "  beef  on  the  hoof"  was  one  of  the  meth- 
ods of  military  logistics  which  had  more  ter- 
rors for  him  than  a  prospect  of  starvation. 
When  twitted  on  the  subject,  he  one  day  said 
in  explanation,  that,  when  a  child,  a  cow  had 
once  chased  him,  thrown  him  down,  and  then 
tossed  him  on  her  horns,  and  he  had  never 
recovered  from  the  shock,  or  been  able  to 
banish  from  his  mind  the  sense  of  terror  the 
circumstance  produced.  It  was  the  burned 
child  dreading  the  fire. 

This  instinct  is  common  to  all  animals.  At 
a  country  station  on  one  of  our  railways  a 
pig  used  to  be  a  constant  visitor,  and  drove  a 
thriving  business  in  picking  up  stray  grains 
of  corn  which  dropped  from  the  bags  as  they 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  COURAGE. 


were  loaded  on  the  cars.  One  day  the  pig's 
greed  so  far  overmastered  his  discretion  that  his 
tail  got  nipped  between  the  brake-shoe  and  the 
car-wheel,  and  when  the  train  started  the  tail 
was  jerked  out  by  the  root.  The  victim  of  this 
sudden  catastrophe  was  now  confronted  with 
the  dismal  prospect  of  having  to  navigate 
through  the  rest  of  life  with  his  steering  ap- 
paratus a  total  wreck.  He  continued  coming  to 
the  station  after  that,  but  whenever  he  heard 
the  clatter  of  an  approaching  train,  he  hurried 
off  to  a  safe  distance  and  backed  up  close 
against  a  brick  wall  till  the  cars  had  passed ; 
he  was  never  going  to  permit  himself  to  be 
subject  to  the  risk  of  such  an  indignity  again, 
even  though  there  was  no  longer  any  tail  left 
to  be  pulled  out.  He  had  acquired  sufficient 
railroad  experience  to  appreciate  the  magni- 
tude of  the  loss  of  terminal  facilities. 

As  one's  physical  condition  is  affected  by 
circumstances  of  health  and  sickness,  so  does 
one's  courage  vary  under  different  surround- 
ings. Troops,  after  being  refreshed  by  a  rest 
and  a  good  meal,  have  stood  their  ground 
under  a  fire  from  which  they  would  have  fled 
in  confusion  if  tired  and  hungry.  An  empty 
stomach,  like  conscience,  makes  cowards  of  us 
all.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  proved  himself 
a  philosopher  when  he  said,  "  An  army  moves 
principally  upon  its  belly."  In  the  days  when 
personal  difficulties  were  settled  under  the 
"  code,"  the  parties  never  tried  to  screw  their 
courage  to  the  sticking-point  on  empty  stom- 
achs, but  "pistols  and  coffee"  always  went 
hand  in  hand. 

In  the  successful  attack  made  by  Admiral 
Du  Pont  with  his  fleet  upon  the  Confederate 
forts  which  commanded  Port  Royal  harbor, 
when  the  dinner  hour  arrived  the  admiral 
directed  rations  to  be  served  as  usual,  and  the 
crews  were  ordered  to  cease  loading  their 
guns  and  go  to  loading  their  stomachs  to  for- 
tify themselves  for  the  continuation  of  the 
battle.  The  commanding  officer  was  severely 
criticised  for  this  at  the  time,  but  it  was  after- 
wards generally  conceded  that  he  understood 
the  true  relations  between  the  nerves  and  the 
stomach,  and  gained  the  victory  all  the  sooner 
by  taking  time  to  lodge  that  dinner  where 
it  would  do  the  most  good.  An  attack  of 
dyspepsia  or  a  torpid  liver  will  sometimes  rob 
a  man  of  half  his  natural  courage ;  rabbits  in 
his  path  then  become  magnified  into  lions, 
and  mole-hills  into  mountains.  Napoleon  lost 
the  battle  of  Leipsic  from  eating  too  heavy  a 
dinner  and  being  seized  with  a  fit  of  the  blues 
brought  on  by  indigestion.  As  the  Latin  roots 
of  the  word  locate  the  source  of  courage  in 
the  heart,  and  as  the  seat  of  all  courage  is 
believed  by  many  to  be  in  the  mind,  no  one 
would  attempt  the  ungracious  and  unsenti- 


mental task  of  trying  to  transfer  its  location 
to  the  stomach,  but  facts  point  to  the  belief 
that  the  condition  of  the  stomach  has  some- 
tiling  to  do  even  with  this  high  attribute  of 
man. 

Courage,  like  everything  else,  wears  out. 
Troops  used  to  go  into  action  during  our  late 
war  displaying  a  coolness  and  steadiness  the 
first  day  that  made  them  seem  as  if  the  screech- 
ing of  shot  and  shell  was  .the  music  on  which 
they  had  been  brought  up.  After  fighting  a 
con  pie  of  days,  their  nerves  gradually  lost 
their  tension,  their  buoyancy  of  spirits  gave 
way,  and  dangers  they  would  have  laughed  at 
the  first  day  often  sent  them  panic-stricken  to 
the  rear  on  the  third. 

It  was  always  a  curious  sight  in  camp  after 
a  three-days'  fight  to  watch  the  effect  of  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  nerves  ;  men  would  start 
at  the  slightest  sound,  and  dodge  at  the  flight 
of  a  bird  or  a  pebble  tossed  at  them.  One  of 
the  chief  amusements  on  such  occasions  used 
to  be  to  throw  stones  and  chips  past  one  an- 
other's heads  to  see  the  active  dodging  that 
would  follow. 

Recruits  sometimes  rush  into  clangers  from 
which  veterans  would  shrink.  When  Thomas 
was  holding  on  to  his  position  at  Chickamauga 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day,  and  re- 
sisting charge  after  charge  of  an  enemy  flushed 
with  success,  General  Granger  came  up  with 
a  division  of  troops,  many  of  whom  had  never 
before  been  under  fire.  As  soon  as  they  were 
deployed  in  front  of  the  enemy,  they  set  up  a 
yell,  sprang  over  the  earth-works,  charged  into 
his  ranks,  and  created  such  consternation  that 
the  Confederate  veterans  were  paralyzed  by  the 
very  audacity  of  such  conduct.  Granger  said, 
as  he  watched  their  movements,  "  Just  look  at 
them  ;  they  don't  know  any  better;  they  think 
that 's  the  way  it  ought  to  be  done.  I  '11  bet 
they  '11  never  do  it  again."  Men,  like  children, 
are  often  ignorant  of  danger  till  they  learn  its 
terrors  in  the  school  of  experience. 

Every  soldier  understands  why  "  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning  "  courage  is  recognized  as  cour- 
age in  its  highest  form.  At  that  time  many  hours 
of  fasting  have  occurred  since  the  evening  meal ; 
enough  sleep  has  not  yet  been  had  to  restore 
the  nervous  system  to  its  normal  condition 
after  the  fatigue  and  excitement  of  the  previ- 
ous day ;  it  is  the  hour  of  darkness  and  silence, 
when  the  mind  magnifies  the  slightest  sounds. 
The  stoutest  nerves  require  a  great  deal  of 
bracing  when  a  camp  is  startled  out  of  its 
sleep  by  an  attack  at  such  an  hour. 

Nearly  all  persons  are  more  timid  when 
alone.  The  feeling  of  lonesomeness  is  akin 
to  fear.  At  Spotsylvania  a  staff  officer  flinched 
and  turned  back  when  bearing  a  message  to  a 
part  of  the  field  which  required  him  to  pass 


248 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


along  a  road  exposed  to  a  short-range  fire  from 
the  enemy.  His  courage  had  stood  every  test 
when  in  the  company  of  others,  but  on  this 
occasion  he  had  set  out  alone,  and  had  been 
seized  with  a  fear  which  at  the  time  completely 
unmanned  him. 

A  woman  when  quite  alone  in  a  house  at 
night  may  be  tortured  by  a  sense  of  fear  which 
completely  destroys  her  peace  of  mind ;  but 
let  there  be  a  child  in  the  same  room  with  her, 
and  she  will  feel  but  little  apprehension  of 
danger.  The  relief  comes  not  from  any  protec- 
tion she  believes  the  child  could  afford,  but 
from  her  release  from  the  fearful  sense  of  lone- 
someness  which  had  unnerved  her. 

There  is  a  peculiar  significance  in  "  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  "  courage.  It  springs  from  a 
sense  of  the  strength  which  comes  from  union, 
the  confidence  which  lies  in  comradeship,  the 
support  derived  from  a  familiar  "  touch  of  the 
elbow." 

A  battery  of  artillery  has  often  been  ordered 
to  open  fire  when  there  was  no  chance  of  do- 
ing the  enemy  any  damage,  merely  for  the 
moral  effect  upon  the  infantry,  whose  courage 
is  always  increased  by  feeling  that  they  have 
the  support  of  the  noise  of  the  sister  arm  of 
the  service,  if  nothing  else. 

Indifference  to  danger  is  not  always  the 
form  of  courage  which  should  entitle  its  pos- 
sessor to  the  highest  credit.  It  is  a  negative 
virtue  as  compared  with  the  quality  which 
enables  one  to  perform  a  dangerous  duty 
while  realizing  the  full  measure  of  the  peril 
encountered. 

These  two  traits  are  best  illustrated  by  the 
old  story  of  the  two  soldiers  whose  regiment 
was  charging  up  a  hill  in  a  desperate  attempt 
to  capture  a  battery.  When  half-way  up,  one 
of  them  turned  to  the  other  and  said,  "  Why, 
you  're  as  pale  as  a  sheet ;  you  look  like  a 
ghost ;  I  believe  you  're  afraid."  "  Yes,  I  am," 
was  the  answer;  "and  if  you  were  half  as 
much  afraid  as  I  am  you  'd  have  run  long  ago." 
It  is  something  higher  than  physical  courage, 
it  is  a  species  of  moral  courage,  which  recog- 
nizes the  danger  and  yet  overmasters  the 
sense  of  fear.  When  the  famous  mine  in  front 
of  Petersburg  had  been  completed,  and  the 
National  troops  drawn  up  ready  to  charge 
the  enemy's  works  as  soon  as  the  mine  had 
done  its  work  in  creating  a  breach,  the  signal 
was  given  just  before  daylight,  the  fuse  was 
lighted,  and  the  command  stood  waiting  with 
intense  anxiety  for  the  explosion  which  was  to 
follow.  But  seconds,  then  minutes,  then  tens 
of  minutes  passed,  and  still  no  sound  from  the 
mine.  The  suspense  became  painful,  and  the 
gloom  of  disappointment  overspread  the  anx- 
ious faces  of  officers  and  men.  The  fuse  had 
been  spliced  about  midway.  It  was  now 


thought  that  there  was  a  defect  in  the  splice, 
and  that  it  was  at  this  point  that  the  fuse  was 
hanging  fire.  The  day  was  breaking,  the 
enemy  was  becoming  alert  at  sight  of  our  un- 
masked columns,  there  was  not  a  moment  to 
be  lost.  Lieutenant  Doughty  and  Sergeant 
Rees,  of  the  48th  Pennsylvania  infantry,  now 
volunteered  to  examine  the  fuse.  They  en- 
tered the  long  dark  gallery  which  led  to  the 
mine,  and  without  stopping  to  calculate  the 
chances  of  life,  calmly  exposed  themselves  to 
one  of  the  most  horrible  forms  of  death.  With 
no  excitement  to  lend  them  its  intoxication, 
with  nothing  to  divert  their  minds  from  the 
fate  which  seemed  to  await  them,  they  fol- 
lowed the  course  of  the  fuse  through  the  long 
subterranean  passage,  found  the  defect  at 
which  the  spark  had  been  arrested,  and  made 
a  new  splice.  On  their  return  the  match  was 
again  applied,  and  the  train  was  now  prompt 
to  do  its  deadly  work.  These  men  displayed 
even  a  higher  order  of  courage  than  those 
who  afterwards  charged  into  the  breach. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  case  of  desperate 
and  deliberate  courage  which  the  history  of 
modern  warfare  has  furnished  was  witnessed 
at  Cold  Harbor.  The  men  had  been  repeat- 
edly repulsed  in  assaulting  earth-works,  had 
each  time  lost  heavily,  and  had  become  im- 
pressed with  the  conviction  that  such  attacks 
meant  certain  death.  One  evening,  after  a 
dangerous  assault  had  been  ordered  for  day- 
light the  next  morning,  I  noticed  in  passing 
along  the  line  that  many  of  the  men  had 
taken  off  their  coats  and  seemed  engaged  in 
mending  rents  in  the  back.  Upon  closer  ex- 
amination I  found  that  they  were  calmly  writ- 
ing their  names  and  home  addresses  on  slips 
of  paper,  and  pinning  these  slips  upon  the 
backs  of  their  coats,  so  that  their  dead  bodies 
might  be  recognized  upon  the  field  and  their 
fate  made  known  to  their  friends  at  home. 
Never  was  there  a  more  gallant  assault  than 
that  made  by  those  men  the  next  day,  though 
their  act  of  the  night  before  bore  painful  proof 
that  they  had  entered  upon  their  work  with- 
out a  hope  of  surviving.  Such  courage  is 
more  than  heroic;  it  is  sublime. 

Recklessness  often  masquerades  as  cour- 
age, but  it  is  made  of  different  mettle.  Plato, 
in  reasoning  upon  this  subject,  says :  "  As 
knowledge  without  justice  ought  to  be  called 
cunning  rather  than  wisdom,  so  a  mind  pre- 
pared to  meet  danger,  if  exerted  by  its  own 
eagerness  and  not  the  public  good,  deserves 
the  name  of  audacity  rather  than  of  courage." 

Courage  born  of  passion  or  excitement 
should  always  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion. 
It  may  fail  at  the  very  moment  it  is  most 
needed.  I  remember  a  soldier  in  one  of  the 
regular  batteries  in  the  Army  of  the  Cumber- 


Til!':  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


249 


land,  who  had  displayed  conspicuous  bravery 
in  a  dozen  engagements  while  serving  his  gun 
as  a  cannoneer.  At  the  battle  of  Chicka- 
mauga  he  was  assigned  to  duty  as  a  driver, 
and  instead  of  participating  in  the  excitement 
of  loading  and  firing,  he  had  nothing  to  do 
but  sit  quietly  on  his  horse  and  watch  the 
havoc  created  around  him  by  the  enemy's 
shot.  He  soon  became  sri/cd  with  a  terror 
which  completely  unmanned  him,  and  after 
the  battle  he  implored  his  commanding  officer 
to  send  him  back  to  his  gun,  saying  that  if  he 
ever  went  into  another  engagement  as  a  driver, 
he  felt  certain  he  should  run  away  and  lose  all 
the  reputation  he  had  ever  gained.  His  cour- 
age had  disappeared  with  the  excitement 
which  inspired  it. 

Men  have  performed  deeds  of  bravery  by 
being  goaded  on  by  anger  or  stung  with 
taunts,  but  those  who  require  to  be  lashed 
into  a  rage  before  they  can  key  up  their 
nerves  sufficiently  to  meet  danger  are  not  the 
possessors  of  a  courage  which  is  trustworthy. 
Fierce  fires  soon  burn  out.  According  to 
Shaftesbury, "  Rage  can  make  a  coward  fight, 
but  fury  or  anger  can  never  be  placed  to  the 
account  of  courage." 

It  is  a  fact  known  to  every  soldier  that  the 
most  courageous  men  indulge  the  least  in 
brutal  bullying,  and  those  who  exhibit  all 
the  pluck  necessary  to  make  them  leaders  in 
street  rows  and  prize  rings  are  the  first  to 
shirk  an  encounter  in  which  death  stares  them 
in  the  face.  During  our  civil  war  the  regiments 
which  were  composed  of  plug-uglies,  thugs, 
and  midnight  rounders,  with  noses  laid  over 
to  one  side  as  evidence  of  their  prowess  in  bar- 
room mills  and  paving-stone  riots,  were  gen- 
erally cringing  cowards  in  battle,  and  the  little 
courage  they  exhibited  was  of  an  exceedingly 
evanescent  order.  A  graduate  of  a  volunteer 
fire  company  arrived  in  Washington  one  day, 
in  the  ranks  of  a  regiment  in  which  he  had 
enlisted.  As  he  stepped  from  the  cars  he 
took  off  his  coat,  hung  it  over  his  arm,  tilted 
his  hat  a  little  farther  up  behind,  brushed  his 
soap-locks  forward  with  his  hand,  and  said  to 
a  midget  of  a  newsboy  standing  at  the  station, 
"  I  say,  sonny,  hev  you  seen  anything  of  Je- 
Jeff  Davis  around  h'yar?  Ve  're  lookin'  fur 
him." 

"  You  'd  better  go  down  to  Richmond  and 
do  yer  lookin',''  replied  the  boy. 

"  Well  now,  sonny,  don't  you  worry  none 
about  that,"  said  this  forerunner  of  destruction. 
"  That  's  de  very  town  ve  're  goin'  fur,  and 
ven  ve  gets  inside  of  it,  thar  von't  be  anything 
but  vacant  lots  around  thar,  you  bet." 

In  his  first  fight  this  same  plunging  swash- 
buckler suddenly  became  seized  with  a  feeling 
of  marked  tenderness  towards  his  fellow-be- 


ings generally,  concluded  he  did  not  want  to 
hurt  anybody,  and  soon  struck  his  best  gait 
in  an  effort  to  join  the  baggage-wagon  com- 
mittee in  the  rear. 

Courage,  like  most  other  qualities,  is  never 
assured  until  it  has  been  tested.  No  man 
knows  precisely  how  he  will  behave  in  battle 
until  he  has  been  under  fire,  and  the  mind  of 
many  a  gallant  fellow  has  been  sorely  per- 
plexed by  the  doubts  that  have  entered  it  pre- 
vious to  his  first  fight.  He  sometimes  fears  his 
courage,  like- Bob  Acres's,  may  ooze  out,  and 
that  he  may  behave  like  the  enthusiastic  young 
hunter  in  pursuit  of  his  first  bear,  who  followed 
the  trail  vigorously  all  day,  spoiling  for  a 
chance  to  get  to  close  quarters  with  the  ani- 
mal, but  in  the  evening  suddenly  turned  back, 
giving  as  an  explanation  of  his  abrupt  aban- 
donment of  the  hunt  that  the  bear's  tracks 
were  getting  too  fresh. 

At  the  beginning  of  our  war  officers  felt  that, 
as  untested  men,  they  ought  to  do  many  things 
for  the  sake  of  appearance  that  were  wholly 
unnecessary.  This,  at  times,  led  to  a  great 
deal  of  posing  for  effect  and  useless  exposure 
of  life.  Officers  used  to  accompany  assault- 
ing columns  over  causeways  on  horseback, 
and  occupy  the  most  exposed  positions  that 
could  be  found.  They  were  not  playing  the 
bravo:  they  were  confirming  their  own  belief 
in  their  courage,  and  acting  under  the  impres- 
sion that  bravery  ought  not  only  to  be  un- 
doubted, but  conspicuous.  They  were  simply 
putting  their  courage  beyond  suspicion. 

At  a  later  period  of  the  war,  when  men  be- 
gan to  plume  themselves  as  veterans,  they 
could  afford  to  be  more  conservative;  they 
had  won  their  spurs;  their  reputations  were 
established;  they  were  beyond  reproach.  Of- 
ficers then  dismounted  to  lead  close  assaults, 
dodged  shots  to  their  hearts'  content,  did 
not  hesitate  to  avail  themselves  of  the  cover 
of  earth-works  when  it  was  wise  to  seek  such 
shelter,  and  resorted  to  many  acts  which  con- 
served human  life,  and  in  no  wise  detracted 
from  their  efficiency  as  soldiers.  There  was 
no  longer  anything  done  for  buncombe;  they 
had  settled  down  to  practical  business.  One 
day,  in  the  last  year  of  the  war,  General 
Butler  rode  out  with  his  staff  to  see  how 
the  work  was  progressing  in  the  digging  of 
his  famous  Dutch  Gap  Canal,  that  was  to  cut 
off  a  bend  in  the  James  River.  He  stopped 
at  a  point  which  soon  became  a  conspicu- 
ous target  for  the  enemy's  batteries.  After 
a  while  a  staff  officer,  who  had  won  a  famous 
reputation  by  his  repeated  acts  of  personal 
courage,  saw  the  uselessness  of  the  exposure 
of  so  many  valuable  officers,  and  proposed  to 
the  general  to  move  to  another  position.  The 
general  turned  upon  him  sharply  and  said, 


250 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


"  Any  officer  of  the  staff  who  's  afraid  can  go 
back  to  camp."  The  officer  at  once  turned 
his  horse  about,  touched  his  hat,  and  with  a 
quizzical  look  at  his  commanding  officer  said, 
'•  Good  morning,  General,  I  'm  afraid,"  and 
rode  off  to  a  position  where  he  could  be  of 
just  as  much  service  and  not  be  a  party  to  an 
exhibition  of  recklessness.  Such  an  act  before 
his  courage  had  been  tested  would  have  cost 
him  his  commission.  Now  he  could  afford  to 
exercise  the  wisdom  of  a  veteran,  and  no  one 
dared  question  his  motives. 

There  have  been  many  instances  which  go 
to  prove  that  a  young  soldier  ought  not  al- 
ways to  be  hastily  sacrificed  for  flinching  in 
his  first  engagement.  Upon  one  occasion, 
during  a  desperate  assault  in  which  the  at- 
tacking column  was  under  a  withering  fire, 
I  saw  a  company  officer  desert  his  men,  and 
run  to  the  rear,  as  pale  as  a  corpse,  trembling 
like  an  aspen,  the  picture  of  an  abject  craven. 
He  even  tore  off  his  shoulder-straps  that  he 
might  not  be  recognized  as  an  officer.  He 
heeded  neither  urgings  nor  threats;  he  was 
past  all  shame ;  he  was  absolutely  demented. 
It  was  the  more  distressing  because  he  was  a 
man  of  great  intelligence  and  possessed  many 
good  qualities.  When  the  engagement  was 
over,  the  only  question  seemed  to  be  whether 
he  should  be  cashiered  or  shot ;  but  he  begged 
so  hard  of  his  commanding  officer  to  give 
him  another  trial,  to  grant  him  one  more 
chance  to  redeem  himself  from  disgrace,  and 
gave  such  earnest  pledges  for  his  future  con- 
duct, that  he  was  finally  released  from  arrest 
and  allowed  to  go  into  battle  again  with  his 
company.  He  fulfilled  his  pledges  most  re- 
ligiously. Wherever  there  was  danger  he  was 
seen  in  the  midst  of  it ;  his  conduct  in  every 
subsequent  fight  was  that  of  a  hero;  and  he  was 
finally  promoted  to  the  rank  of  a  field  officer. 
He  had  effaced  the  blot  from  his  escutcheon. 
The  man  was  no  coward  at  heart ;  he  had  for 
the  moment,  in  army  parlance,  "  lost  his  grip" 
under  that  first  murderous  fire. 

Boucicault,  in  his  play  called  the  "  Relief 
of  Lucknow,"  introduces  the  character  of  a 
young  English  officer  fired  with  professional 
ambition,  who  has  just  joined  the  service,  and 
finds  himself  in  the  beleaguered  city,  surround- 
ed by  rebels.  He  is  ordered  to  make  his  way 
through  the  enemy  and  carry  a  message  to 
the  column  advancing  to  the  garrison's  relief; 
but  his  heart  fails  him,  his  courage  deserts 
him,  and  he  turns  back  and  stands  before  a 
brother  officer  a  miserable  poltroon.  This  of- 
ficer brings  him  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the 
wretched  position  in  which  he  has  placed 
himself,  and  procures  him  an  opportunity  to 
wipe  out  his  disgrace.  He  embraces  it,  and 
afterwards  becomes  one  of  the  most  heroic 


figures  in  the  siege.  In  conversation  with  Mr. 
Boucicault,  I  once  asked  him  whether  this 
scene  was  founded  on  fact.  He  said  it  was  not, 
that  he  had  introduced  the  incident  merely  be- 
cause he  considered  it  dramatic,  and  somewhat 
novel  in  a  military  play.  I  then  told  him  the 
story  related  above,  about  the  company  officer 
whose  nerves  were  unstrung  in  his  first  encoun- 
ter with  danger,  as  confirmative  of  the  truth- 
fulness with  which  the  distinguished  author  had 
held  the  mirror  up  to  nature  in  his  admirable 
military  drama. 

The  cases  of  recovery,  however,  from  the 
disease  of  fear  are  rare.  Cowardice  is  gen- 
erally a  constitutional  malady,  and  has  to  be 
recognized  and  dealt  with  as  such.  General 
Sheridan  used  to  estimate  that  about  twenty- 
five  per  centum  of  the  men  were  lacking  in  the 
requisite  courage  for  battle,  and  he  at  times 
tried  to  have  the  weak-kneed  troopers  singled 
out  and  assigned  to  hold  the  horses  of  the  other 
men  when  the  cavalry  dismounted  to  fight  on 
foot.  He  said  we  had  this  complement  of  the 
faint-hearted  in  the  ranks ;  we  could  not  very 
well  deplete  the  forces  by  getting  rid  of  them, 
and  the  only  philosophical  plan  was  to  utilize 
them  by  giving  them  some  duty  which  their 
unsoldierly  nerves  could  stand. 

A  curious  characteristic  of  fear  is  that  it 
generally  affects  persons  when  death  is  threat- 
ened in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  value  of  their 
lives.  In  battle  an  officer  upon  whom  the 
fate  of  a  command  depends  will  risk  his  life 
generously  unmoved  by  a  sense  of  fear,  while 
a  shirk  whose  life  is  of  no  earthly  use  to  any- 
body will  skulk  in  the  rear  and  dodge  all 
danger.  When  encountering  heavy  weather 
in  a  sail-boat  an  able-bodied  young  fellow, 
with  every  prospect  of  a  career  of  usefulness 
before  him,  often  sits  calmly  through  the 
danger,  while  some  aged  invalid,  with  one 
foot  already  in  the  grave,  will  prove  himself  a 
martyr  to  his  fears,  squirm  at  every  lurch  of 
the  boat,  and  summon  all  hands  to  stand  by 
to  save  him. 

A  sense  of  cowardice  seems  to  rob  a  being 
of  all  his  manhood.  When  you  see  a  person 
acting  the  coward  you  may  sting  him  with 
reproach,  hurl  at  him  every  epithet  of  con- 
tempt, even  cudgel  him  as  you  would  a  cur, 
and  there  is  usually  not  enough  manhood  left 
in  him  to  resent  it ;  no  sense  of  shame  to  which 
appeal  can  be  made ;  no  sensibilities  to  wound. 

The  question  is  often  asked  whether  men 
in  battle,  when  they  break,  run  to  the  rear 
very  fast.  Usually  they  do  not ;  they  often  do 
not  run  at  all ;  the  most  provoking  part  of  it 
is  that  they  deliberately  walk  away;  and  as  to 
reasoning  with  them,  you  might  as  well  try  to 
reason  with  lobsters  when  they  scramble  out 
of  a  basket  and  start  for  the  water. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


There  was  one  soldier,  however,  in  a  West- 
ern army,  who  in  a  retreat  proved  an  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  and  showed  himself  still  master 
of  the  faculty  of  resentment.  An  irreverent 
general  officer,  who  was  famous  for  designating 
his  men  on  all  critical  occasions  by  a  title  which 
was  anything  but  a  pet  name,  called  out  to  this 
soldier  who  was  breaking  for  the  rear: 

"  Halt  there,  turn  round,  and  get  back  to 
the  front,  you ." 

"  Look-ee  here,  Gin'ral,"  said  the  man.  cock- 
ing his  gun  and  taking  aim  at  the  officer's  head, 
"  when  a  man  calls  me  a  name  sich  es  that,  it 's 
his  last  departin'  word." 

"  Oh,  put  up  your  gun,"  said  the  general. 
"  I  did  n't  mean  anything.  I  forgot  your  other 
name." 

Reasoning  dictated  by  fear  is  seldom  logi- 
cal. When  a  man  becomes  panic-stricken  he 
recognizes  but  one  principle  for  his  guidance, 
that  self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature, 
and  is  ready  to  repeat  the  cry,  "  I  would  give 
all  my  fame  for  a  pot  of  ale  and  safety."  The 
instincts  of  fear  do  not  always  guide  him  to  a 
safe  place.  In  his  confusion  he  often  rushes 
into  more  danger,  and  becomes  a  ludicrous 
object  to  watch.  In  one  of  our  prominent 
battles,  a  soldier  belonging  to  a  command 
which  was  supporting  a  battery  was  lying 
down  with  the  rest  of  his  regiment  to  obtain 
some  cover  afforded  by  a  bit  of  rolling  ground. 
The  fire  soon  became  so  hot  that  his  nerves 
could  no  longer  stand  the  strain  upon  them, 
and  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  started  for  the 
rear.  He  soon  found  himself  in  a  level  field 
that  was  being  plowed  by  the  shot  and  shell 
which  ricochetted  over  the  rolling  ground  in 
front,  and  saw  that  he  had  got  out  of  the 
frying-pan  into  the  fire. 

"  What  are  you  doing  there  ? "  cried  an 
officer. 

"  Well,"  said  the  man,  "  I  'm  looking  for 
the  rear  of  this  army,  but  it  don't  seem  to 
have  any." 

The  question  most  frequently  asked  of  sol- 
diers is,  "  How  does  a  man  feel  in  battle  ?  " 
There  is  a  belief,  among  some  who  have 
never  indulged  in  the  pastime  of  setting  them- 
selves up  as  targets  to  be  shot  at,  that  there 
is  a  delicious  sort  of  exhilaration  experienced 
in  battle,  which  arouses  a  romantic  enthu- 
siasm, surfeits  the  mind  with  delightful  sen- 
sations, makes  one  yearn  for  a  life-time  of 
fighting,  and  feel  that  peace  is  a  pusillanimous 
sort  of  thing  at  best.  Others  suppose,  on  the 
contrary,  that  one's  knees  rattle  like  a  Span- 
ish bai/arina's  castanets,  and  that  one's  mind 
dwells  on  little  else  than  the  most  approved 
means  of  running  away. 

A  happy  mean  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes would  doubtless  define  the  condition 


of  the  average  man  when  he  finds  that  as  a 
soldier  he  is  compelled  to  devote  himself  to 
stopping  bullets  as  well  as  directing  them. 
He  stands  his  ground  and  faces  the  dangers 
into  which  his  profession  leads  him,  under  a 
sense  of  duty  and  a  regard  for  his  self-respect, 
but  often  feels  that  the  sooner  the  firing  ceases 
the  better  it  would  accord  with  his  notion  of 
the  general  fitness  of  things,  and  that  if  the 
enemy  is  going  to  fall  back  the  present  mo- 
ment would  be  as  good  a  time  as  any  at  which 
to  begin  such  a  highly  judicious  and  commend- 
able movement.  Braving  danger,  of  course,  has 
its  compensations.  "  The  blood  more  stirs  to 
rouse  a  lion  than  to  start  a  hare."  In  the  ex- 
citement of  a  charge,  or  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
approaching  victory,  there  is  a  sense  of  pleas- 
ure which  no  one  should  attempt  to  under- 
rate. It  is  the  gratification  which  is  always 
born  of  success,  and,  coming  to  one  at  the 
supreme  moment  of  a  favorable  crisis  in  bat- 
tle, rewards  the  soldier  for  many  severe  trials 
and  perilous  risks. 

The  physical  effect  produced  upon  different 
men  in  the  presence  of  danger  forms  an  in- 
teresting study,  but  in  many  cases  the  out- 
ward signs  as  indicated  by  the  actions  of  the 
individual  in  no  wise  measure  the  degree  of 
his  courage  or  his  fear.  The  practice,  for  in- 
stance, of  dodging  shots,  "jackknifing"  under 
fire,  proceeds  from  a  nervousness  which  is  often 
purely  physical,  and  has  but  little  more  sig- 
nificance as  a  test  of  courage  than  winking 
when  something  is  thrown  in  one's  face.  The 
act  is  entirely  involuntary.  A  general  officer 
who  was  killed  at  the  second  battle  of  Bull 
Run  was  one  of  the  most  gallant  soldiers  that 
ever  drew  a  blade.  Everybody  had  predicted 
his  early  death  from  the  constant  and  unnec- 
essary exposure  to  which  he  subjected  him- 
self. When  under  fire,  the  agile  dodging  he 
performed  was  a  whole  gymnastic  exercise  in 
itself.  His  head  would  dart  from  side  to  side 
and  occasionally  bob  down  to  his  horse's 
neck  with  all  the  vigor  of  a  signal-flag  in  wav- 
ing a  message.  These  actions  were  entirely 
beyond  his  control,  and  were  no  indications 
whatever  of  fear.  Dodging  to  some  extent 
under  a  heavy  infantry  fire  is  very  common. 
I  can  recall  only  two  persons  who  throughout 
a  rattling  musketry  fire  always  sat  in  their 
saddles  without  moving  a  muscle  or  even 
winking  an  eye ;  one  was  a  bugler  in  the  reg- 
ular cavalry,  and  the  other  was  General  Grant. 

Two  general  officers  in  the  field,  conspicu- 
ous for  their  fearlessness,  possessed  such  ner- 
vous temperaments  physically  that,  under  the 
strain  to  which  they  were  subjected  in  the  face 
of  a  destructive  fire,  they  invariably  became 
affected  with  nausea,  and,  as  our  English  friends 
say  of  seasick  people,  they  frequently  became 


252 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


"  actively  ill."  It  was  a  source  of  great  mor- 
tification to  them,  but  it  was  constitutional ; 
they  could  not  control  it,  and  no  one  could 
attribute  it  to  fear. 

The  realization  of  danger  is  always  egotist- 
ical. Men  waiting  to  go  into  action  turn  their 
conversation  upon  their  previous  hair-breadth 
escapes  and  the  havoc  made  among  their 
comrades,  just  as  passengers  on  a  steamer  in- 
variably assemble  in  a  storm  and  relate  their 
former  harrowing  experiences  in  the  "  roaring 
forties,"  and  travelers  on  a  railway  train  as  soon 
as  it  gets  to  running  at  a  break-neck  speed  on 
a  dark  night  begin  to  tell  each  other  their  blood- 
curdling stories  of  fatal  telescopingsand  tangled 
wrecks.  These  recitals  are  not  calculated  to 
be  cheering  in  their  effects,  but  human  nature 
is  so  constituted  that  the  mind  will  dwell  upon 
the  horrors  which  the  presence  of  danger  al- 
ways conjures  up,  and  it  seems  to  find  a  melan- 
choly relief  in  expending  its  thoughts  in  words. 

Superstition,  which  is  the  child  of  fear,  is 
common  among  all  people  who  lead  a  life 
surrounded  by  dangers.  Sailors  are  prover- 
bially superstitious,  and  it  is  natural  that 
such  a  feeling  should  enter  an  army  and 
sometimes  warp  men's  courage.  Presenti- 
ments are  usually  common  with  recruits, 
but  after  repeatedly  finding  their  most  clearly 
defined  apprehensions  unrealized  they  lose 
faith  in  such  imaginings,  and  begin  to  look 
upon  these  things  as  so  lost  to  all  sense  of 
punctuality  that  they  no  longer  believe  in  their 
coming.  I  have  known  but  one  presentiment 
which  was  fulfilled,  and  that  was  accomplished 
in  such  a  bungling  way  as  to  be  robbed  of  all 
respect  for  its  methods. 

The  practical  questions  involved  in  this  dis- 
cussion are,  Can  courage  be  taught,  and,  if  so, 
what  are  the  best  means  of  education  ?  Numer- 
ous experiments  have  been  attempted  in  this 
direction.  I  knew  the  father  of  a  large  family 
of  boys  who  became  greatly  distressed  on  ac- 
count of  the  timidity  shown  by  several  of 
them,  and  set  about  educating  them  up  to  a 
higher  standard  of  courage  after  a  method 
which  he  had  practiced  successfully  with  dumb 
animals.  He  had  found,  for  instance,  that  when 
a  horse  showed  great  terror  at  sight  of  a  rail- 
way train  in  motion,  the  surest  way  to  break  him 
of  it  was  to  throw  him  down  close  to  the  track 
and  confine  him  in  that  position  till  the  train 
had  thundered  by.  After  subjecting  the  animal 
to  this  mode  of  discipline  two  or  three  times  its 
sense  of  fear  was  entirely  overcome.  He  ap- 
plied similar  lessons  to  his  boys.  If  one  was 
afraid  to  be  alone  in  the  dark,  the  father  made 
him  wander  repeatedly  through  the  attic  rooms 
at  midnight  without  a  light.  If  another  had  a 
dread  of  the  water,  he  compelled  him  to  swim 
swift  streams  and  dive  off  high  landings.  The 


practice  was  disagreeably  heroic  for  the  boys, 
but  the  father  insisted  that  it  finally  drove  all 
fear  from  the  most  timid  of  them.  He  proceeded 
upon  the  theory  that  fear  is  fed  by  the  imagi- 
nation, and  as  soon  as  any  one  is  convinced 
that  the  objects  dreaded  are  harmless,  all  fear 
of  them  will  vanish.  He  evidently  believed, 
with  Schiller,  that  the  chief  element  in  the 
sense  of  fear  is  the  unknown. 

Some  years  ago  a  gentleman  traveling  on  a 
European  steamer  became  such  a  victim  to 
his  terror  of  the  sea  that  he  attracted  univer- 
sal attention.  He  allowed  his  mind  to  dwell 
constantly  upon  the  objects  of  his  fears.  A 
morbid  curiosity  led  him  to  take  a  look  into 
the  boiler-room  and  watch  the  blazing  fires 
just  before  going  to  bed ;  every  few  hours  in 
the  night  he  would  open  his  state-room  door 
and  sniff  the  air  to  find  whether  he  could  no- 
tice the  smell  of  smoke,  and  prowl  around 
through  the  passage-ways  to  see  just  when  the 
expected  conflagration  was  going  to  break 
out.  In  a  storm  he  would  watch  the  waves  in 
an  agony  of  fear,  in  the  confident  belief  that 
each  one  was  going  to  swallow  up  the  ship. 
Finding  his  business  would  require  him  to 
make  frequent  ocean  trips,  he  set  himself  to 
work  on  the  "  mind  cure."  He  gradually 
schooled  his  mind  until,  by  a  strong  effort  of 
the  will,  it  could  be  in  a  great  measure  divert- 
ed from  dwelling  on  the  causes  of  his  fears. 
When  a  sense  of  terror  seized  him  he  struggled 
manfully  to  concentrate  his  thoughts  on  other 
subjects,  and  finally  he  so  far  succeeded  that, 
except  in  very  dangerous  gales,  his  fears  were 
completely  controlled,  and  he  began  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  popular  belief  that,  after  all, 
crossing  the  ocean  was  about  as  safe  as  cross- 
ing Broadway,  New  York,  in  the  era  of  om- 
nibuses. 

The  peculiarity  of  the-  cases  just  related, 
however,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  dangers  were 
mainly  unreal,  and  all  the  mind  required  was 
to  be  assured  of  the  harmlessness  of  the  ob- 
jects which  had  inspired  its  fears.  If  the 
dangers  had  been  real,  and  their  effects  had 
been  destructive,  the  training  by  which  the 
fear  was  expected  to  be  overcome  would  not 
have  been  so  effectual.  If  the  father  men- 
tioned above  had  attempted  to  silence  a 
son's  fear  of  being  shot  by  sending  him  into 
battle,  the  son,  instead  of  finding  his  appre- 
hensions unrealized  would  have  seen  that  shots 
were  fatal  and  that  there  was  actual  destruc- 
tion of  life  all  around  him;  his  worst  fears 
would  have  been  realized,  and  in  this  mode 
of  educating  him  to  a  higher  standard  of  cour- 
age the  lessons  taught  would  doubtless  have 
been  found  unprofitable. 

It  is  true  that  a  person  may  often  nerve 
himself  to  meet  danger  courageously  if  he  has 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  COURAGE. 


253 


time  to  contemplate  the  coming  peril,  philoso- 
phise upon  the  situation,  and  thus  avoid  the 
effects  of  the  shock  which  sudden  danger  al- 
ways brings.  A  spy  in  war,  or  a  criminal  who 
has  committed  a  capital  offense,  may  at  the 
moment  of  his  capture  evince  an  agony  of  fear 
and  become  totally  unmanned ;  but  after  un- 
dergoing trial  and  a  term  of  imprisonment, 
and  dwelling  upon  the  fate  which  awaits  him 
and  from  which  there  is  no  escape,  he  may  go 
to  his  execution  without  a  tremor,  and  face 
death  with  the  calmness  of  a  Spartan. 

Are  there,  then,  any  means  by  which  man 
can  be  educated  up  to  a  degree  of  courage 
which  will  brave  the  actual  danger  of  facing 
death  ?  While  heroes,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  are,  like  poets,  born,  not  made,  yet  cour- 
a  i;e  can  undoubtedly  be  acquired  in  many  ways. 
Take  two  youngsters  born  with  equal  degrees 
of  courage ;  let  one  remain  in  a  quiet  city,  play- 
ing the  milksop  in  a  modern  Capua,  leading 
an  unambitious,  namby-pamby  life,  surrounded 
by  all  the  safeguards  of  civilization,  while  the 
other  goes  out  on  the  frontier,  runs  his  chances 
in  encounters  with  wild  animals,  finds  that  to 
make  his  way  he  must  take  his  life  in  his  hand, 
and  assert  his  rights,  if  necessary,  with  deadly 
weapons,  and  knows  he  will  be  drummed  out 
of  the  community  if  he  is  once  caught  show- 
ing the  white  feather.  In  the  one  particular 
trait  of  personal  courage  the  frontiersman  will 
undoubtedly  become  the  superior  of  the  lad 
who  has  remained  at  home.  It  is  perhaps  a 
confirmation  of  Guizot's  remark, however,  that 
in  every  country  the  value  set  upon  human 
life  is  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  civiliza- 
tion. Take  the  case  of  military  schools,  in 
which  courage  is  inculcated  from  entrance  to 
graduation,  where  cowardice  is  recognized  as 
the  unpardonable  sin,  and  an  exhibition  of  fear 
on  the  part  of  a  lad  in  riding  a  bucking  horse, 
or  even  in  a  boyish  personal  encounter  with 
his  fellows,  makes  it  infamous  for  others  to  as- 
sociate with  him,  and  sends  him  like  a  leper 
outside  the  camp.  The  standard  of  courage 
under  such  circumstances  is  unquestionably 
raised  to  a  higher  grade  than  in  a  school  in 
which  this  quality  is  not  dwelt  upon  as  the 
saving  virtue. 

Ancient  Greece  made  her  sons  a  nation  of 
heroes  by  holding  up  valor  as  the  only  true 
badge  of  earthly  glory..  She  sought  out  every 
means  of  claiming  for  her  heroes  the  admira- 
tion of  the  people,  and  taught  courage  by  the 
force  of  example.  It  is  said  that  for  ages 
after  the  battle  of  Thermopylae  every  scholar 
in  the  public  schools  of  Greece  was  required 
each  day  to  recite  from  memory  the  names  of 
the  three  hundred  heroes  who  fell  in  defend- 
in  g  that  pass. 

Napoleon  taught  Frenchmen  that  the  sum 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 36. 


of  worldly  glory  was  the  reward  gained  by 
courage  on  the  field.  Kingdoms  were  be- 
stowed upon  victorious  marshals,  and  promo- 
tion and  decorations  evidenced  the  prompt 
recognition  of  every  gallant  deed.  When  La 
Tour  d'Auvergne,  accounted  the  bravest 
grenadier  in  the  ranks  of  the  grand  army, 
finally  fell,  pierced  by  the  bullets  of  the  ene- 
mies of  France,  a  general  order  was  issued 
directing  that  his  name  should  be  kept  on  the 
active  list  of  his  regiment,  that  it  should  be 
called  at  every  roll-call,  and  each  time  a  com- 
rade should  answer  from  the  ranks,  "  Dead 
on  the  field  of  honor."  By  every  device  that 
could  appeal  to  men's  ambition  this  wizard 
of  modern  warfare  educated  his  people  to  be 
paragons  of  valor,  and,  until  his  training-school 
closed  its  doors,  the  French  armies  set  all 
Europe  an  example  in  courage. 

Discipline,  that  well-spring  of  victory,  is  rec- 
ognized as  one  of  the  most  potent  means  of 
raising  the  standard  of  courage  in  an  army. 
It  teaches  men  that  their  best  reliance  is  in 
their  own  bravery;  gives  them  confidence  in 
each  other;  removes  the  fear  that  they  may 
not  be  properly  supported  in  emergencies; 
convinces  them  that  they  are  part  of  an  intel- 
ligent machine  moving  methodically,  under 
perfect  control  and  not  guided  by  incompe- 
tency,  and  establishes  that  esprit  de  corps  which 
goes  so  far  towards  making  armies  formidable 
in  war.  It  was  discipline  which  enabled  the 
commander  of  the  troops  on  board  the  English 
ship,  when  foundering,  to  form  his  men  in  line 
on  deck,  present  arms,  and  go  down  with  the 
vessel,  while  the  band  played  "  God  save  the 
King." 

The  moral  influence  of  the  prestige  which 
comes  from  past  success  does  much  towards 
developing  courage.  Instances  of  this  are  in- 
numerable. I  happened  to  be  in  Chicago  in 
May,  1886,  when  the  anarchists  attacked  the 
police  and  threw  the  destructive  bomb  into 
their  ranks,  and  when  that  force  rallied  so 
gallantly,  drove  the  anarchists  from  their 
strongholds,  scattered  them  like  chaff  before 
the  wind,  and  became  the  object  of  the  high- 
est honors  that  the  best  citizens  of  Chicago 
could  bestow.  Before  that  event  the  police 
had  been  strictly  on  the  defense ;  their  small 
squads  huddled  together  for  protection  had 
been  boldly  attacked,  and  they  had  been  or- 
dered from  pillar  to  post  to  rescue  their  com- 
rades from  the  fierce  onslaughts  that  were  being 
made  upon  them  by  a  foe  whose  reckless  acts 
and  exaggerated  numbers  had  almost  paralyzed 
the  community.  But  the  next  day  after  the 
suppression  of  the  Haymarket  riot  the  police 
went  forth  wearing  the  laurels  of  success ;  they 
swaggered  like  the  returned  heroes  of  Auster- 
litz ;  each  man  seemed  to  feel  two  feet  higher 


254 


BIRD  MUSIC: 


in  stature  and  competent  to  cope  single-handed 
with  an  army  of  anarchists.  One  of  these  po- 
licemen undertook  to  guard  a  railway  station 
where  a  dozen  were  required  the  day  before; 
they  searched  single-handed  for  anarchists  like 
ferrets  for  rats ;  the  city  was  safe  from  that 
hour.  The  prestige  born  of  that  memorable 
achievement  had  been  a  complete  education 
in  courage. 

Moral  courage  will  always  rank  higher  than 
physical.  The  one  is  a  daily  necessity,  while  the 
other  may  be  required  only  in  emergencies. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  crime  of 
embezzlement,  unhappily  becoming  so  com- 
mon among  employes  who  handle  money, 
is  mainly  due  to  lack  of  moral  courage. 
The  history  of  the  unfaithful  cashier  is  always 
the  same  old  story.  He  has  incurred  a  debt 
through  an  extra  bit  of  extravagance  or  tak- 
ing a  turn  in  the  stock  market,  in  the  certain 
belief  in  success.  If  he  had  the  moral  courage 


to  tell  his  employer  frankly  of  his  pressing 
necessities,  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and 
ask  advice  and  assistance  at  the  outset,  he 
would,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  if  a  valuable 
employe,  receive  good  counsel,  be  assisted  to 
a  loan,  helped  to  bridge  over  the  results  of 
his  indiscretion,  and  be  saved  from  ultimate 
ruin.  His  moral  cowardice  leads  him  to  steal 
money  with  which  to  silence  pressing  creditors 
or  to  gamble  in  the  hope  of  freeing  himself 
from  debt,  and,  when  matters  go  from  bad  to 
worse,  carries  him  panic-stricken  to  Canada 
to  end  his  days  as  a  branded  criminal  and  a 
fugitive  from  justice. 

Morality  cannot  flourish  without  courage; 
criminality  certainly  thrives  upon  the  lack  of 
it.  If  we  cannot  go  so  far  as  to  believe  with 
the  Frenchman  that  every  mistake  in  life  may 
be  traced  to  fear,  we  can  at  least  agree  with 
the  philosopher  who  said,  "  Great  talents  have 
been  lost  for  want  of  a  little  courage." 

Horace  Porter. 


BIRD    MUSIC:    THE    ORIOLE    AND    THE    THRUSH. 

It  proved  to  be  so,  and  it  became  with  me 
a  favorite  argument  for  the  old  form  of  the 
minor  scale  —  the  seventh  sharp  ascending, 
natural  descending. 

But  a  still  greater  deviation  from  the  usual 
vocal  delivery  of  orioles  was  noticed  here 
on  the  22d  of  May,  1884,  the  new  song  con- 
tinuing through  the  season.  A  remarkable 
feature  of  the  performance  was  the  distinct 
utterance  of  words  as  plainly  formed  as  the 
whippoorwill's  name  when  he  "tells"  it  "to 
all  the  hills." 


Baltimore  oriole  is  the 

,,  •  c  -,    c 

most  beautiful  of  our  spring 

visitors,  has  a  rich  and 
powerful  voice,  the  rarest 
skill  in  nest-building,  and 
is  among  the  happiest, 
most  jubilant  of  birds.  The 
male  generally  arrives  here 

a  few  days  in  advance  of  the  female  —  the 

first  week  in  May. 


The  melodic  structure  here  is  similar  to 
that  of  the  bluebird's  strain,  but  the  effect  is 
very  different.  Hardly  a  songster,  the  oriole 
is  rather  a  tuneful  caller,  a  musical  shouter; 
nevertheless,  as  will  appear,  he  sometimes 
vents  his  high  spirits  in  ingenious  variations 
indicative  of  great  melodic  possibilities.  Years 
ago  I  heard,  from  a  large,  tall  elm  standing 
in  an  open  field,  a  strain  the  beauty  of  which 
so  struck  me  that  it  is  often  wafted  through 
my  mind  to  this  day.  It  was  the  oriole's  voice, 
but  could  it  be  his  song? 


cliick  -or- way,  chew,     car  -  ly,    cur  -  ly,       cur  -  ly, 


kali,  kue.    Hey!  Chicker-way,  cliickerway,  chew. 


While  listening  to  this  song  I  could  not 
help  thinking  that  the  bird  had  been  trained. 
He  invariably  attacked  the  f  in  the  climax 
most  artistically,  taking  it  as  if  with  a  full 
sense  of  the  exclamation  Hey  !  We  hoped  the 
wandering  minstrel  would  summer  in  our 
grove  of  maples,  but  he  passed  on,  visiting 
the  neighbors  as  he  went,  finally  taking  quar- 
ters about  a  fourth  of  a  mile  away.  Nearly 
every  day  during  the  season,  however,  we 


THE    ORIOLE  AND    THE    THRUSH. 


25S 


were  greeted  with  at  least  one  vigorous  "  Hey ! 
chickerway,  chickerway,  chew  !  " 

The  oriole,  when  about  to  fly,  gives  a  suc- 
cession of  brisk,  monotonous  notes,  much  like 
those  of  the  kingfisher. 


The  first  notes  from  him  here  one  spring 
were: 


s= 


THE    WOOD   THRUSH. 

THIS  is  probably  the  most  popular  singer  of 
all  the  thrushes.  He  may  be  heard  at  any 
hour  of  the  day  during  the  mating  and  nesting 
season,  but  his  best  performances  are  at  morn- 
ing and  evening.  While  bis  melodies  are  not 
so  varied  as  those  of  the  brown  or  those  of  the 
hermit  thrush,  they  are  exquisite,  the  quality 
of  tone  being  indescribably  beautiful  and  fas- 
cinating. Chancing  to  hear  him  in  the  edge 
of  the  woods  at  twilight  as  he  sings : 


£if 


in  a  moment  you  will  be  oblivious  to  all  else, 
and  ready  to  believe  that  the  little  song  is  not 
of  earth,  but  a  wandering  strain  from  the  skies. 
"  How  is  it,"  you  will  ask,  "  that  a  bird  has 
that  inimitable  voice  ?  Whence  his  skill  in  the 
use  of  it  ?  Whence  the  inspiration  that,  with 
the  utmost  refinement,  selects  and  arranges 
the  tones  in  this  scrap  of  divine  melody  ?  " 
But  hark ! 


THE     HERMIT    THRUSH. 


IN  the  case  of  the  thrushes,  as  in  other  cases, 
it  is  not  easy  to  find  out  from  the  books 
"  which  is  which."  There  is  a  general  resem- 
blance in  their  voices,  in  their  color,  in  their 
nests  and  eggs.  Wilson  says  of  this  one,  "  In 
both  seasons  it  is  mute,  having  only,  in  spring, 
an  occasional  squeak  like  that  of  a  young, 
stray  chicken."  Dr.  Cones  says,  "  He  is  an 
eminent  vocalist."  Mr.  Flagg  holds  a  similar 
opinion.  After  no  little  research  in  the  books 
and  in  the  woods,  I  am  obliged  to  record  him 
not  only  as  the  greatest  singer  among  the 
thrushes,  but  as  the  greatest  singing  bird  of 
New  England.  The  brown  thrush,  or  "thrash- 
er," the  cat-bird,  and  the  bobolink  display  a 
wider  variety  of  songs;  the  bobolink  especially, 
who  sings  a  long,  snatchy  song,  in  a  rollicking 
style  altogether  foreign  to  that  of  the  hermit 
thrush.  He  never  indulges  in  mere  merriment, 
nor  ishis  music  sad ;  it  is  clear,  ringing,  spiritual, 
full  of  sublimity.  The  wood  thrush  does  not 
excel  his  hermit  cousin  in  sweetness  of  voice, 
while  he  by  no  means  equals  him  in  spirit  and 
compass.  The  hermit,  after  striking  his  first 
low,  long,  and  firm  tone,  startling  the  listener 
with  an  electric  thrill,  bounds  upwards  by 
thirds,  fourths,  and  fifths,  and  sometimes  a 
whole  octave,  gurgling  out  his  triplets  with 
every  upward  movement.  Occasionally,  on 
reaching  the  height,  he  bursts  like  a  rocket, 
and  the  air  is  full  of  silver  tones.  Soon  return- 
ing for  a  second  flight,  he  probably  takes  a 
new  key,  which  gives  a  fresh,  wild,  and  en- 
chanting effect.  The  hermit's  constant  and  ap- 
parently indiscriminate  modulations  or  changes 
of  tonic  lend  a  leading  charm  to  his  perform- 
ances. Start  from  what  point  he  may,  it  always 
proves  the  right  one.  When  he  moves  off  with 


It  is  a  new  key,  and  the  rapture  is  both  en- 
hanced and  prolonged. 

These  brief  strains,  precise  in  pitch,  contain 
the  leading  peculiarities  of  the  wood  thrush's 
song,  though  by  no  means  all  of  his  notes. 
His  compass  rarely  exceeds  an  octave.  The 
following  was  copied  about  10  o'clock  A.  M.  : 


and  then,  returning,  steps  up  a  degree  and  fol- 
lows it  with  a  similar  strain, 


it  is  like  listening  to  the  opening  of  a  grand 
overture.  Does  one  attempt  to  steal  the  en- 
chanter's notes  he  is  anticipated,  and  finds 
himself  stolen,  heart  and  all  the  senses.  But 
it  is  folly  to  attempt  a  description  of  the  music 
of  the  thrushes,  of  the  skill  and  beauty  of  their 
styles  of  singing;  and  all  as  vain  to  try  to  de- 
scribe their  matchless  voices.  The  following 
notes  of  the  hermit  thrush  are  very  meager 


256 


"SINCE   CLEOPATRA   DIED." 


and  unsatisfactory,  being  the  result  of  only    have  no  bird  that  sings  so  far  into  the  dark ; 


two  or  three  interviews  : 


I  have  heard  him  no  lower  in  the  staff  than 
B  flat : 


THE    TAWNY    THRUSH. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  Dr.  Coues's  silence,  and 
Wilson's  statement  that  this  bird  has  "  no 
song,  but  a  sharp  chuck,"  the  tawny  thrush  is 
a  charming  singer.  His  song  is  short,  but  very 
beautiful,  especially  at  evening.  I  think  we 


hence  his  popular  title  of  the  "  American 
nightingale."  It  is  particularly  difficult  to 
describe  his  quality  of  tone.  An  appreciative 
woman  perhaps  nearest  indicates  its  metal- 
lic charm  when  she  writes,  "  It  is  a  spiral, 
tremulous,  silver  thread  of  music."  There  are 
eight  tones  in  the  song,  the  last  two  being  on 
the  same  pitch  as  the  first  two.  The  begin- 
ning is  very  unusual,  the  first  tone  being  on 
the  second  degree  of  the  scale ;  and  there  is 
no  breaking  of  the  delicate  "  silver  thread  " 
from  beginning  to  end : 


This  succession  of  sounds,  so  simple  to  the 
eye,  becomes,  as  it  is  performed,  quite  intricate 
to  the  ear;  something  like  the  sweep  of  an 
accordion  through  the  air.  The  first  half  of 
the  song  is  deliberate,  while  the  last  is  slightly 
hurried. 

Simeon  Pease  Cheney. 


"SINCE    CLEOPATRA    DIED." 

"  Since  Cleopatra  died 

I  have  lived  in  such  dishonor,  that  the  world 
Doth  wonder  at  my  baseness." 

"  OINCE  Cleopatra  died!  "    Long  years  are  past, 
O    In  Antony's  fancy,  since  the  deed  was  done. 
Love  counts  its  epochs,  not  from  sun  to  sun, 
But  by  the  heart-throb.    Mercilessly  fast 

Time  has  swept  onward  since  she  looked  her  last 
On  life,  a  queen.    For  him  the  sands  have  run 
Whole  ages  through  their  glass,  and  kings  have  won 
And  lost  their  empires  o'er  earth's  surface  vast 

Since  Cleopatra  died.    Ah  !   Love  and  Pain 

Make  their  own  measure  of  all  things  that  be. 

No  clock's  slow  ticking  marks  their  deathless  strain; 

The  life  they  own  is  not  the  life  we  see; 
Love's  single  moment  is  eternity ; 
Eternity,  a  thought  in  Shakspere's  brain. 


Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 


WHAT    WE    SHOULD    EAT. 


The  ideal  diet  is  that  combination  of  foods  which,  while  imposing  the  least  burden  upon  the  body,  sup- 
plies it  with  exactly  sufficient  material  to  meet  its  wants. —  DR.  SCHUSTER. 

son  in  the  Arctic  region  requires  fuel  to  keep 
his  body  warm  which  would  be  superfluous 
in  a  warmer  climate.  The  demands  of  a  child 
are  not  those  of  an  adult,  and  the  food  of  an 
invalid  needs  to  be  very  different  from  that  of 
a  person  in  vigorous  health.  Even  for  healthy 
persons  of  like  age,  sex,  occupation,  and  sur- 
roundings individual  differences  require  dif- 
ferent diets.  A  food  which  agrees  with  one 
person  may  disagree  with  another — indeed, 
late  research  implies  that  it  is  literally  true  that 
"  one  man's  food  is  another  man's  poison  " ; 
and  what  is  enough  for  one  man  is  too  little 
for  another  and  too  much  for  a  third. 

Regarding  the  adaptation  of  food  to  the 
mental  and  nervous  organization  physiological 
chemistry  has  but  little  to  say ;  it  accepts  the 
hygienic  doctrine  that  health  of  mind  is  pro- 
moted by  health  of  body.  The  fitting  of  diet 
to  the  demands  of  health  and  work  and  purse 
is  a  matter  about  which  later  research  has 
b.rought  a  great  deal  of  definite  and  useful 
information. 

For  the  best  knowledge  of  this  special 
subject  we  have  to  go  to  Europe.  While  we 
may  learn  a  great  deal  from  what  has  been 
done  in  England,  France,  Italy,  and  other 
countries,  the  largest  part  of  the  accurate 
information  has  been  obtained  in  Germany. 
The  Germans  have  studied  the  science  of  food 
and  nutrition  as  they  have  the  sciences  of 
biblical  criticism  and  of  war.  Their  investiga- 
tions are  conducted  with  wonderful  patience 
and  thoroughness.  The.  Government  supplies 
the  means,  the  great  universities  furnish  the 
laboratories  and  the  opportunities  for  research, 
the  rewards  are  such  as  to  attract  the  ablest 
intellects,  and  the  amount  of  information  ac- 
quired within  a  comparatively  few  years  past 
is  remarkable. 

The  proper  adjusting  of  food  to  the  wants 
of  the  body  is  in  reality  a  balancing  of  in- 
come and  outgo.  The  body  has  certain  nec- 
essary expenditures.  To  maintain  it  in  health 
and  strength  it  must  have  income  to  meet 
these.  If  it  has  too  little  or  too  much  nutri- 
tive material  to  supply  its  wants,  or  if  the  pro- 
portions of  the  different  nutrients  are  not  right, 
injury  must  result  to  health  and  strength,  to 
say  nothing  of  purse. 

Standards  for  dietaries  are  commonly  cal- 
culated, not  in  pounds  of  meat,  or  bread,  or 


LOOD  and  muscle,  bone 
and  tendon,  brain  and 
nerve,  all  the  organs  and 
tissues  of  the  body,  are  built 
from  the  nutritive  ingredi- 
ents of  food.  As  the  child 
grows  to  the  man  the  parts 
of  his  body  are  formed  from 
food.  With  every  motion  of  the  body,  and  with 
exercise  of  feeling  and  thought  as  well,  material 
is  consumed  and  must  be  resupplied  by  food. 
The  above  definition  of  the  ideal  diet,  as  that 
which  supplies  the  ingredients  the  body  needs 
and  no  superfluous  material  to  burden  it,  ex- 
presses very  aptly  the  fundamental  principle 
with  which  we  have  now  to  deal. 

The  body  is  a  machine.  Like  other  ma- 
chines, it  requires  material  to  build  up  its  sev- 
eral parts,  to  repair  them  as  they  are  worn  out, 
and  to  serve  as  fuel.  In  some  ways  it  uses 
this  material  like  a  machine,  in  others  it  does 
not. 

The  steam-engine  gets  its  power  from  fuel ; 
the  body  does  the  same.  In  the  one  case,  coal 
or  wood,  in  the  other,  food,  is  consumed.  But 
the  body  uses  not  only  food,  but  its  own  sub- 
stance also,  for  its  fuel.  When  the  fuel  is  burned 
in  the  furnace,  only  part  of  its  latent  energy  is 
transformed  into  the  mechanical  power  which 
the  engine  uses  for  its  work;  the  larger  part 
is  changed  to  heat,  which  the  engine  does  not 
utilize.  A  large  part  of  potential  energy  of  the 
food  and  of  its  own  substance  which  the  body 
consumes  is  likewise  transformed  into  heat, 
but  this  heat  the  body  uses  and  must  have  to 
keep  it  warm.  And  finally,  metal  from  which 
an  ordinary  machine  is  built  and  repaired  is 
very  different  from  its  fuel,  but  the  same  food 
which  serves  the  body  for  fuel  also  builds  it  up 
and  repairs  its  wastes. 

The  body  is  more  than  a  machine.  We  have 
not  simply  organs  to  build,  and  keep  in  repair, 
and  supply  with  energy :  we  have  a  nervous 
organization;  we  have  sensibilities  and  the 
higher  intellectual  and  spiritual  faculties ;  and 
the  right  exercise  of  these  depends  upon  the 
right  nutrition  of  the  body. 

Different  people  differ  greatly  in  the  demands 
of  their  bodies  for  material  to  be  consumed. 
Those  with  active  exercise  need  more  material, 
both  to  repair  muscle  and  to  yield  muscular 
power,  than  those  of  sedentary  habits,  A  per- 


2S8 


WHAT   WE   SHOULD  EAT. 


other  food-materials,  but  in  quantities  of  the 
nutritive  ingredients,  protein,  fats,  and  carbo- 
hydrates. 

The  first  question,  then,  is  this:  What 
amounts  of  these  nutrients  are  appropriate  for 
different  classes  of  people  under  different  con- 
ditions of  life?  A  former  article  (THE  CEN- 
TURY, June,  1887)  described  experiments  for 
determining  the  amounts  of  income  and  outgo 
of  the  bodies  of  men  under  different  conditions. 
The  most  thorough  are  those  with  the  respira- 
tion apparatus.  In  these  not  only  the  food  and 
drink  and  its  solid  and  liquid  products  in  the 
body,  but  even  the  inhaled  and  exhaled  air  are 
measured,  weighed,  and  analyzed.  The  bal- 
ance, by  proper  chemical  calculation,  shows 
just  how  much  of  protein  and  fat  the  man's 
body  has  gained  or  lost.  If,  now,  we  can  find  a 
food-mixture  which  will  just  enable  the  man  to 
hold  his  own  when  he  is  at  rest  or  when  he 
is  hard  at  work,  we  have  the  quantities  of  nu- 
trients which  he  requires.  This  has  been  done 
in  a  number  of  cases,  but  the  apparatus  for 
experiments  of  this  sort  is  complicated  and 
costly,  and  the  experiments  are  laborious. and 
time-consuming,  so  that  comparatively  few 
have  been  made,  and  more  are  very  much  to 
be  desired.  Another  method  consists  in  observ- 
ing simply  the  amounts  of  food  used  by  people 
whose  circumstances  in  life  permit  of  reason- 
ably good  nourishment  and  at  the  same  time 
preclude  any  considerable  waste  of  food,  and 
estimating  the  quantities  of  nutrients  con- 
sumed. Hundreds  of  observations  of  this  sort 
have  been  made  in  Europe,  and  a  considerable 
number  in  the  United  States. 


STANDARDS    FOR    DAILY    DIETARIES. 

LET  us  take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  an  av- 
erage man — say  a  carpenter,  blacksmith,  or 
day  laborer — who  is  doing  a  moderate  amount 
of  muscular  work.  To  make  up  for  the  con- 
stant wear  and  tear  of  muscle,  tendon,  and 
other  nitrogenous  tissue,  he  needs  food  con- 
taining nitrogen.  That  is  to  say,  he  must  have 
protein,  in  the  gluten  of  bread,  in  the  myosin 
of  lean  meat  or  fish,  the  casein  of  milk,  the 
albumen  of  egg  or  other  food.  To  use  the 
muscles,  strength,  muscular  energy,  is  required. 
Furthermore,  his  body  must  be  kept  warm. 
These  two  kinds  of  energy,  muscular  energy 
and  heat,  his  body  gets  by  transforming  the 
potential  energy  of  either  protein,  or  fats,  or 
carbohydrates.  The  most  of  the  energy  is 
supplied  by  the  fats,  such  as  the  fat  of  meat 
and  butter,  and  the  carbohydrates,  such  as 
starch  of  bread  and  potatoes,  but  some  comes 
from  the  protein.  Our  working-man,  then, 
needs  in  his  daily  food  : 

(i)  Enough  of  protein  to  make  up  for  the 


protein  of  muscle  and  other  nitrogenous  tis- 
sues consumed  in  his  body; 

(2)  Enough  energy  to  supply  the  demand 
for  heat  and  muscular  work. 

The  problem,  then,  is  this:  How  much  pro- 
tein, fats,  and  carbohydrates  does  the  average 
man,  with  a  moderate  amount  of  manual  work 
to  do,  require  in  a  day's  food  ?  Here  are  esti- 
mates by  several  European  authorities.  Those 
by  Voit  are  based  upon  experiments  with  men 
in  the  respiration  apparatus  and  upon  simple 
examinations  of  the  food  eaten.  For  the 
other  standards  the  food  consumed  was  the 
principal  basis  of  the  calculations. 

STANDARDS   FOR   DAILY    DIETARIES    FOR    ORDI- 
NARY   MAN    DOING   MODERATE    MUS- 
CULAR  WORK. 


NUTRIENTS. 

I'nteutial 
Energy. 

Protein. 

Fats. 

Carl-o- 
kydratcs. 

Playfair  .. 

119  grams. 

51  grams. 

530  grams. 

3135  calories. 

Moleschott 

130       " 

40       " 

550       " 

3160        " 

Wolff  

120          " 

35       " 

540       " 

3032        " 

Voit  

118       " 

56       " 

500       " 

3"55 

These  four  dietaries,  which  have  for  a  long  while 
been  accepted  by  chemists  and  physiologists  as  prob- 
ably expressing  about  the  average  quantities  of  nutrients 
which  a  man  doing  moderately  hard  work  would  need 
in  his  food  each  day,  vary  considerably  from  one  an- 
other. That  of  Moleschott,  for  instance,  calls  for  130 
grams  of  protein;  that  of  Voit,  only  118.  There  are 
similar  differences  in  the  quantities  of  fat  and  carbo- 
hydrates. But  no  one  adjusts  his  food  exactly  to 
chemical  standards.  Different  people  consume  very 
different  foods  and  yet  they  get  on  very  well,  and  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  either  of  these  standards  may  be 
right  enough.  And  different  as  they  are,  a  remarkable 
agreement  between  them  has  lately  come  to  light. 

When  the  above  standards  were  proposed,  experi- 
mental science  had  not  taught  how  to  measure  the  fuel 
value  of  food  by  the  potential  energy  of  its  constituents. 
Late  research  has  told  how  this  may  be  done.*  The 
energy  is  measured  in  heat-units  called  calories.  A 
gram  of  protein  or  of  carbohydrates  is  assumed  to  con- 
tain 4. 1,  and  a  gram  of  fats,  9.3  calories.  Applying  this 
measure  to  these  dietaries  by  the  computations  in  the 
last  column  of  the  table,  the  extreme  variation  in  the 
four  is  only  from  3032  to  3160  calories.  That  is  to  say, 
four  of  the  most  prominent  investigators,  Playfair  in 
England  and  the  others  in  Germany  nnd  Italy,  work- 
ing with  different  people  and  by  more  or  less  different 
methods,  arrived  at  estimates  which  vary  somewhat 
in  the  proportions  of  the  nutrients,  but  when  the  differ- 
ent standards  are  reduced  to  terms  of  potential  energy, 
they  agree  almost  exactly.  The  closer  scientific  scru- 
tiny which  the  latest  and  most  painstaking  research 
has  made  practicable  serves  only  to  bring  the  apparent 
discrepancies  into  accord,  and  thus  confirm,  in  an  un- 
expected and  most  striking  way,  the  correctness  of  the 
standards. 


'  See  article  on  "  The  Potential  Energy  of  Food," 
in  THE  CENTURY  for  July,  1887. 


WHAT  WE   SHOULD  EAT. 


259 


Of  course  these  are  only  general  estimates. 
It  is  assumed  that  for  an  ordinary  laboring 
man,  doing  an  ordinary  amount  of  work,  such 
amounts  of  nutriment  as  these  standards  give 
will  suffice;  that  with  them  he  will  hold  his 
own  ;  and  that  any  considerable  excess  above 
these  quantities  will  be  supertluous.  No  one 
expects  any  given  man  to  adjust  his  diet  to 
these  figures.  He  may  need  more,  and  he  may, 
perhaps,  get  on  with  less.  He  may  eat  more 
fats  and  less  carbohydrates,  or  he  may.consume 
more  protein  if  he  is  willing  to  pay  for  it; 
though  it  is  worth  remembering  that  protein 
costs  several  times  as  much  as  the  other  nu- 
trients. But  if  he  has  less  protein  and  keeps 
up  his  muscular  exertion,  he  will  be  apt,  sooner 
or  later,  to  suffer. 

In  general,  the  larger  the  person, —  that  is  to 
say,  the  more  bulky  the  machine  and  the  more 
work  done, —  the  more  nutriment  is  needed. 
For  these  reasons  men  require  on  the  average 
more  than  women,  and  aged  people  less  than 
people  in  the  more  active  period  of  life.  Chil- 
dren need  less  than  adults,  although  they  must 
have  material  for  growth.  Of  the  dietary  stand- 
ards proposed  by  different  investigators,  those 
of  Professor  Voit  and  the  Munich  school  of 
physiological  chemists  are  most  generally  cur- 
rent. A  number  of  such  standards  are  given  in 
tabular  form  below. 

A  great  deal  more  of  accurate  experiment 
in  the  laboratory  and  of  observation  of  dietary 
habits  of  different  classes  of  people  is  needed 
before  such  standards  can  be  made  entirely 
accurate;  and  the  differences  in  individuals 
must  always  be  such  that  any  standard  can 
express  at  best  only  the  average  requirement 
for  people  of  a  given  class.  But  these,  such 
as  they  are,  are  probably  not  very  far  out  of 
the  way.  Perhaps  the  main  thing  to  criticise 
in  those  of  Voit  and  his  school  is  in  the  small 
proportions  of  fat.  They  are  based  largely  on 
food  consumed  by  people  in  Germany,  whose 


incomes  were  small  and  who  had  to  live  chiefly 
on  vegetable  food,  which  contains  but  little 
fat.  It  is  a  question  whether  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  animal  food  with  more  fat  would 
not  be  really  better.  Certainly  many  people 
in  this  country  would  be  very  ill  content  with 
such  food,  though  doubtless  many  of  us  would 
be  far  better  off  in  health  and  pocket  if  we 
were  to  bring  our  diet  nearer  to  these  stand- 
ards. Those  of  Playfair  make  more  of  protein 
as  a  source  of  muscular  power  than  later 
research  seems  to  warrant. 

AMERICAN    VS.    EUROPEAN    DIET. —  FOOD    AND 
WAGES. 

AFTER  the  correctness  of  the  standards  for 
dietaries  proposed  by  the  distinguished  Euro- 
pean authorities  above  named  has  been  so 
strikingly  confirmed,  it  may  seem  presumptu- 
ous for  me  to  propose  different  ones.  I  have, 
nevertheless,  ventured  to  do  so,  as  appears 
in  the  table.  The  standard  proposed  by  my- 
self for  a  "  man  at  moderate  work "  is  nearly 
equivalent  to  Voit's  (German)  for  a  "  man  at 
hard  work "  and  Playfair's  (English)  for  " active 
labor,"  while  mine  for  a  "  man  at  hard  work" 
is  larger  than  even  Playfair's  for  a  "  hard- 
worked  laborer."  The  reason  for  this  more 
liberal  allowance  is,  that  a  not  inconsiderable 
number  of  observations  of  dietaries  in  the 
United  States  reveal  very  much  larger  quan- 
tities of  both  protein  and  energy  in  them  than 
in  those  of  corresponding  classes  of  people  in 
Europe.  The  explanation  is  apparently  not  far 
to  seek.  We  live  more  intensely,  work  harder, 
need  more  food,  and  have  more  money  to  buy 
it.  The  better  wages  of  the  American  working- 
man  as  compared  with  the  European,  the  larger 
amount  of  work  he  turns  off  in  a  day  or  a  year, 
and  his  more  nutritious  food  are,  I  believe, 
inseparably  connected. 

The  main  difference  between  the  diet  of 


STANDARDS    FOR    DAILY    DIETARIES. 
"WEIGHTS  OF  NUTRIENTS  AND  CALORIES  OF  ENERGY   (HEAT-UNITS)    IN  NUTRIENTS  REQUIRED  IN   FOOD  PER   DAY. 


NUTRIENTS. 

Potential 
Extrfy. 

Prottttt, 

Fats. 

Carbohydrates. 

Total. 

Grams. 
28     (20  to  36) 
55     (36  to  70) 
75     (70  to  80) 

IOO 

92 

1x8 

M5 

119 

156 
185 

80 

IOO 

«5 
150 

Grams. 

37     (3°  '0  45) 
40     (35  to  48) 
43     (37  '0  5°) 
5° 
68 
44 
56 

IOO 

5' 
7t 
71 
80 

IOO 

125 

150 

Crams. 
75     (60  to  90) 
zoo     (lOO  to  250) 
325     (250  to  400) 
260 
350 
400 
500 
45° 

$ 

568 
300 
360 
45" 
500 

Grams. 
140 
395 
443 
390 

5I! 

E6 

£74 
695 

701 

III 
46o 
560 

z°° 

Boo 

<  lloriM, 

767 
1418 
2041 
'  1859 
"477 
2426 

3°S5 
3370 
3'39 
3629 

3748 
2300 
2820 
3520 
4060 

15.   Man  at  hard  work.     Writer.  

Nos.  i,  3,  4,  and  5  are  as  proposed  by  Volt  and  his  followers  of  the  Munich  school ;  No.  2,  by  the  writer.   One  ounce  =  28%  grams,  nearly. 


260 


WHAT   WE   SHOULD  EAT. 


people  of  moderate  means  here  and  in  Europe 
is  that  the  people  here  eat  more  meat  and 
other  animal  foods  and  more  sugar.  The  Eu- 
ropean wage-worker  usually  has  but  little 
meat,  butter,  or  sugar.  In  England  he  often 
enjoys  a  richer  diet,  I  suppose,  but  on  the 
Continent  ordinary  people  live  mainly  upon 
the  cheaper  vegetable  foods.  Meats  and  fish 
supply  a  good  deal  of  protein  and  fat.  The 
fats,  including  butter,  are  rich  in  energy,  and 
sugar  supplies  more  energy  than  most  vege- 
table foods.  While  the  energy  in  the  work- 
ing-people's dietaries  in  England,  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy,  as  reported  by  Playfair, 
Moleschott,  Voit,  and  others,  ranges  from 
2500  calories,  or  less,  to  a  maximum  of  5700, 
those  that  I  have  found  in  this  country  range 
from  a  minimum  of  3500  to  8000,  and  even 
higher.  The  differences  in  the  protein  in 
American  and  European  dietaries  are  similar, 
though  not  quite  as  large.  Without  doubt  we 
waste  more  of  our  food  than  the  Europeans 
do,  but  the  amount  which  we  do  eat  is  evi- 
dently very  much  larger.  And  though  many 
of  us  eat  far  too  much  meats  and  sweetmeats 
for  the  good  of  our  health  or  our  pockets,  the 
evidence  seems  to  me  to  imply  very  clearly 
that  we  must  keep  on  eating  more  than  our 
transatlantic  brethren  if  we  are  to  keep  on 
working  as  intensely  and  as  productively  as 
we  now  do.  The  question  of  high  wages  and 
short  hours  is  largely  a  question  of  nutritious 
diet.  Meats,  eggs,  milk,  butter,  and  sugar  can 
be  had,  when  there  is  money  to  pay  for  them. 
They  are  toothsome,  and  hence  people  who 
can  get  them  eat  a  great  deal.  They  are  eas- 
ily digested  and  rich  in  protein  and  energy, 
and  hence  sustain  a  high  degree  of  activity. 

COMBINATIONS    OF    FOOD. —  REASONS    FOR 
MIXED    DIET. 

THE  standards  for  proportions  of  nutrients 
help  to  explain  why  we  need  combinations 
of  different  food-materials  for  nourishment. 
Almost  any  one  kind  of  food  would  make  a 
one-sided  diet. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  a  working-man  is 
restricted  to  a  single  food-material,  as  beef  or 
potatoes.  Apound  and  thirteen  ounces  of  roast 
beef,  of  the  composition  here  assumed,  would 
furnish  the  required  125  grams  (0.28  Ib.)  of 
protein,  and  with  it  0.26  Ib.  of  fat,  but  it  has 
no  carbohydrates.  Yet  nature  has  provided 
for  the  use  of  these  in  his  food.  Three  pounds 
of  corn-meal  would  yield  the  protein  and  with- 
it  a  large  excess  of  carbohydrates  —  over  two 
pounds.  A  pound  and  three-quarters  of  cod- 
fish would  supply  the  same  protein,  but  it 
would  have  very  little  fat  and  no  carbohy- 
drates, to  furnish  the  body  with  heat  and 


strength.  Potatoes  or  rice  would  have  even 
a  greater  excess-of  the  fuel  which  the  beef  and 
fish  lack  than  has  corn-meal.  Assuming  that 
the  man  needs  3500  calories  of  potential 
energy  in  his  daily  food,  the  one  and  three- 
quarter  pounds  of  salt  codfish  which  would 
furnish  the  needed  protein  would  supply  only 
540,  while  to  get  the  needed  protein  from  the 
fat  pork  would  require  9.8  pounds,  which 
would  supply  iy2  pounds  of  fat  and  over 
32,000  calories  of  energy! 

Putting  the  matter  in  another  way,  we  might 
estimate  the  quantities  of  each  material  which 
would  furnish  the  required  energy.  A  ration 
made  up  exclusively  of  either  kind  of  food 
would  be  as  one-sided  in  this  case  as  before. 
The  fish  would  be  mostly  protein,  the  fat  pork 
nearly  all  fat,  and  the  potatoes  or  rice  little  else 
than  starch.  With  almost  any  one  of  these  food- 
materials,  in  quantities  to  meet  the  demand 
of  his  body  for  heat  and  muscular  strength, 
the  man  would  have  much  more  or  much  less 
protein  than  he  would  need  to  make  up  for 
the  consumption  of  muscle  and  other  tissues. 
If  he  were  obliged  to  confine  himself  to  any 
one  food-material,  oat-meal  would  come  about 
as  near  to  our  standard  as  any.  Wheat-flour 
with  a  little  fat — in  other  words,  bread  and 
butter  —  would  approach  very  close  to  Voit's 
standard  for  European  working-people  with 
chiefly  vegetable  diet,  but  it  would  need  a 
little  meat,  fish,  eggs,  milk,  beans,  pease,  or 
other  nitrogenous  food  to  bring  it  to  the  pro- 
portions that  the  American  standard  calls  for. 

Rice,  which  is  the  staple  food  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  human  race,  is  very  poor  in 
protein;  beans  have  a  large  quantity.  The 
different  plants  which  are  together  called  pulse 
are  botanically  allied  to  beans  and  are  similar 
in  chemical  composition.  We  have  here  a 
very  simple  explanation  of  the  use  of  pulse 
by  the  Hindus  with  their  rice.  The  Chinese 
and  the  Japanese,  whose  diet  is  almost  exclus- 
ively vegetable,  follow  a  similar  usage. 

The  codfish  and  potatoes  and  the  pork  and 
beans  which  have  long  been  so  much  used  in 
and  about  New  England  form  a  most  eco- 
nomical diet;  indeed,  scarcely  any  other  food 
available  in  that  region  has  supplied  so  much 
and  so  valuable  nutriment  at  so  little  cost. 
The  combination  is  likewise  in  accord  with 
the  highest  physiological  law.  Half  a  pound 
each  of  salt  codfish  and  pork,  two-thirds  of 
a  pound  of  beans,  and  three  pounds  of  pota- 
toes would  together  supply  almost  exactly  the 
125  grams  of  protein  and  3500  calories  of  en- 
ergy that  our  standard  for  the  day's  food  of  a 
working-man  calls  for. 

I  am  told  that  the  mixtures  of  these  mate- 
rials locally  known  as  fish-balls  and  baked  beans 
are  being  exported  from  Boston  in  large  quanti- 


II7/.I7'   //'/•;   SHOULD   EAT. 


261 


BARON    JUSTUS    VON    LIEBIG 


ties.  Possibly  this  is  an  indication  that  the  outer 
world  is  growing  wiser,  and  it  is  doubtless  a 
compliment  to  Massachusetts  legislators  that 
the  restaurant  under  the  gilded  dome  on  Bea- 
con Hill  is  popularly  called  "The  Beanery." 
Although  the  pride  of  a  loyal  son  of  New 
Kngland  may  perhaps  prejudice  his  opinion 
as  physiological  chemist,  I  venture  to  ask,  in 
all  seriousness,  whether  there  may  not  be,  be- 
tween the  intellectual,  social,  and  moral  force 
of  its  people  and  the  dietary  usages  of  which 
those  here  instanced  are  a  part,  an  important 
connection,  one  that  reaches  down  deep  into 
the  philosophy  of  human  living? 
Vol..  XXXVI.  — 37. 


To  those  interested  in  the  elevation  of  the 
poor  whites  and  the  negroes  of  the  South, 
whose  aliment  consists  so  largely  of  corn-bread 
and  bacon,  or,  in  purer  vernacular, "  hog  and 
hominy,"  I  would  suggest  the  consideration 
of  the  one-sidedness  of  such  diet.  A  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  bacon  and  two  pounds  of  corn- 
meal  would  furnish  4100  calories  of  energy 
and  85  grams  of  protein ;  in  other  words,  a 
large  excess  of  heat  and  force  yielding  sub- 
stances, and  about  two-thirds  the  muscle-form- 
ing material  the  standard  calls  for.  Instances 
of  the  connection  between  such  ill-balanced 
dietaries  and  a  low  standard  of  physical,  intel- 


262 


WHAT  WE   SHOULD   EAT. 


lectual,  and  moral  efficiency  are  sadly  frequent 
in  human  experience ;  but  the  cases  in  which 
the  highest  planes  have  been  reached  with 
such  bodily  nourishment  are,  I  think,  rare,  if 
not  unknown. 

The  grocer,  the  butcher,  and  the  fishmonger 
supply  us  with  a  great  variety  of  food-ma- 


CLALDli     bEKNARD. 
(FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH    DY    TKUCHELL'T    AND    VALKMAN.) 

terials,  and  the  practice  of  mankind  justifies 
their  use  in  still  more  varied  combinations. 
What  kinds  and  proportions  are  adapted  to  a 
healthful  and  economical  diet  ?  To  answer 
this  would  require  a  book  rather  than  a  maga- 
zine article,  but  I  may  say  that  it  is  the  com- 
parison of  the  food  consumed  by  people  in  this 
country  with  such  standards  for  dietaries  as 
those  here  given  and  with  the  food  consumed 
by  people  in  corresponding  circumstances  in 
other  countries,  especially  on  the  Continent 
of  Europe,  that  has  led  me  to  assert  so  confi- 
dently that  many  of  us  eat  far  too  much  of 
meats,  of  fats,  and  of  sweetmeats.  Not  only 
are  the  quantities  of  nutrients  in  the  dietaries 
of  our  working-people  very  large,  in  some  cases 
enormously  so,  but  those  of  people  whose  oc- 
cupation involves  little  muscular  work  sup- 
ply protein  and  fats  and  energy  far  in  excess 
of  what  the  best  evidence  indicates  as  the 
actual  demand,  even  for  active  exercise.  One 
of  the  instances  that  have  come  under  my  ob- 
servation was  that  of  a  well-to-do  professional 
man's  family.  None  of  the  members  except 
the  servants  were  engaged  in  at  all  active 
muscular  work.  The  estimates  were  of  food 
actually  consumed,  due  allowance  being  made 
for  waste,  which,  under  a  careful  mistress,  was 
unusually  little.  The  protein  exceeded  that 


of  either  Voit's  standard  or  the  writer's  for  a 
laboring  man  at  moderately  hard  muscular 
work.  The  energy,  the  amount  of  which  was 
made  very  large  by  the  fat  of  meat  and  butter 
and  the  sugar  consumed,  exceeded  the  amount 
called  for,  either  by  Playfair  for  a  "  hard- 
worked  laborer,"  or  by  Yoit  or  the  writer  for 
a  "  man  at  hard  work,"  and  was  over  fifty  per 
cent,  larger  than  that  of  any  of  the  few  Eu- 
ropean dietaries  of  people  of  similar  occupa- 
tion which  I  have  found  reported.  Yet  this 
family  regarded  themselves  as  rather  small 
eaters,  and  would  really  be  so  if  the  other 
American  dietaries  were  to  be  taken  for  the 
standard.  I  surmise  that  many  a  family  would, 
if  they  were  to  compare  their  daily  food  con- 
sumption with  the  figures  here  given,  find  simi- 
lar excess  of  food  and  of  nutritive  substance. 
In  a  large  number  of  dietaries  that  have  come 
under  my  observation  there  has  been,  in  nearly 
every  case,  an  excessive  quantity  of  fat ;  and 
in  several,  if  half  of  the  meats  and  sugar  had 
been  left  out,  there  would  have  remained  con- 
siderably more  of  both  nutrients  and  energy 
than  either  the  standards  above  given  calls 
for.  This  all  means  great  waste  of  money, 
and,  as  the  hygienists  tell  us,  still  greater  in- 
jury to  health. 

It  is  often  urged  that  appetite  is  the  proper 
measure  of  one's  wants.  As  regards  the  kinds 
of  food  best  for  each  of  us,  doubtless  rational 
experience  gives  the  most  reliable  information. 
A  man  ought  to  eat  that  which,  in  the  long 
run,  agrees  with  him.  But  either  the  concur- 
rent testimony  of  an  immense  amount  of  the 
most  accurate  experimenting  and  observation 
is  radically  wrong,  or  a  great  many  of  us  eat 
far  too  much.  Appetite  would  be  a  better  guide 
if  it  were  not  for  the  demands  of  the  palate. 

PROGRESS   OF   THE    SCIENCE    OF   NUTRITION. 

IT  is  very  interesting  to  note  how  the  sci- 
ence of  nutrition  has  passed  through  several 
clearly  marked  stages  of  development,  each  of 
which  corresponds  to  an  epoch  of  discovery 
in  chemical  and  physical  science. 

The  first  long  step  forward  was  made  near 
the  close  of  the  last  century,  when  Lavoisier, 
the  French  chemist,  explained  the  principle  of 
combustion  with  oxygen  and  applied  it  to  the 
consumption  of  food  in  the  body. 

The  next  important  epoch  was  ushered  in  by 
the  German  chemist  Liebig,  whose  researches 
and  whose  reasoning  give  him  a  place  among 
the  great  philosophers  of  our  time.  He  in- 
vented new  methods  of  chemical  analysis 
and  experimenting,  and  opened  up  new  fields 
of  research  in  chemistry  in  its  application  to 
physiology  and  to  agriculture,  and  as  part  of 
his  work  propounded  the  first  at  all  satisfac- 


WHAT  WE   SHOULD  EAT. 


263 


SIR    LVON    PLAVFAIR.       (FROM     A    PHOTOGRAPH     BY    BASSANO.) 


tory  doctrine  regarding  the  nutritive  sub- 
stances and  their  uses  in  the  body.  Claude 
Bernard,  the  French  physiologist,  by  the  dis- 
covery of  the  formation  of  glycogen  in  the 
liver,  gave  a  new  impulse  to  the  science ;  and 
Messrs.  Lawes  and  Gilbert,  in  England,  by 
feeding  experiments,  and  by  chemical  analysis 
of  the  bodies  of  the  animals,  contributed 
greatly  to  the  knowledge  of  the  subject.  The 
German  experimenters  Bischoff,  Pettenkoffer, 
Henneberg,  and  especially  Voit,  with  untiring 
patience,  elaborate  apparatus,  and  refined 
chemical  methods,  have  studied  the  changes 
that  go  on  in  the  animal  body.  Moleschott  in 
( iermany  and  Italy,  Payen  in  France,  and  Sir 
Lyon  Playfair  in  England  have  devoted  es- 
pecial attention  to  food  and  dietaries.  A  num- 
ber of  other  names  of  note  might  be  mentioned. 
By  far  the  greatest  of  all  was  Liebig,  who  died 
a  few  years  since.  Among  the  men  now  living 
Voit  has,  without  doubt,  rendered  the  most 
useful  service.  During  the  last  two  decades 
a  large  and  constantly  increasing  number  of 
gifted  and  zealous  workers  have  availed  them- 
selves of  the  fruits  of  chemical  research,  and 


pushed  their  investigations  farther  and  farther 
into  the  unknown  territory  into  whose  borders 
the  great  discoverers  first  penetrated. 

But  the  science  of  physics  has  been  grow- 
ing along  with  chemistry,  and  the  general 
principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy  has 
been  worked  out  with  notable  results.  This  too 
has  been  applied  to  the  nutrition  of  the  body, 
in  ways  such  as  those  pointed  out  in  these 
articles. 

Of  late,  biological  science  has  made  re- 
markable revelation  of  the  actions  of  the  en- 
zymes and  microbes,  which  together  are  classed 
as  ferments,  and  the  biological  chemists  are 
now  telling  us  that  back  of  the  chemical  activ- 
ity which  we  call  metabolism,  and  in  which 
the  transformation  of  energy  plays  so  impor- 
tant a  part,  the  ferments  are  at  work,  and 
that  a  considerable  part  of  the  chemical 
changes  that  go  on  in  the  body  are  caused 
by  them.  That  ferments  in  the  alimentary 
canal  are  the  chief  agents  in  the  digestion  of 
food  has  long  been  known,  but  investigators 
have  lately  been  finding  them  in  other  parts 
of  the  body,  and  we  are  beginning  to  think 


264 


WHAT   WE   SHOULD  EAT. 


ANSELME  PAYEN. 
(FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  PIERRE  PETIT.) 

that  they  work  almost  everywhere  within  us, 
and  that  the  complex  compounds  which  make 
up  our  food  and  our  tissues  must  to  some 
extent,  at  least,  be  broken  up  by  these  fer- 
ments before  they  can  unite  with  oxygen  and 
yield  heat  and  muscular  energy.  In  the  begin- 
nings of  the  modern  science  of  nutrition  it  was 
taught  that  oxygen  was  the  first  great  agent 
by  which  chemical  changes  in  the  body  were 
brought  about,  but  of  late  we  are  coming  to 
think  that  the  ferments  begin  the  work  and  the 
oxygen  ends  it.  The  ferments  thus  appear  as 
indispensable  to  the  functions  of  life  as  they 
are  direful  in  the  diseases  that  lead  to  death. 
While  it  seems  probable  to-day  that  the 
theories  here  so  briefly  and  imperfectly  set 
forth  will,  in  their  essential  features  at  least, 
stand  the  test  of  future  research,  nobody 
can  tell  in  just  what  minor  details  they  will 
be  changed,  and  past  experience  bids  us  be- 
ware of  being  too  positive  about  them. 


A  generation  ago  Lie-big  and  others  taught, 
and  it  was  generally  believed,  that  the  carbo- 
hydrates—  sugar,  starch,  etc. —  of  the  food 
were  transformed  into  the  fats  of  the  body. 
In  Liebig's  later  years  a  school  of  physiolo- 
gists arose  in  Munich,  with  Pettenkofifer,  and 
especially  Voit,  as  leaders,  who  denied,  or  at 
least  seriously  questioned,  the  formation  of  fat 
from  carbohydrates.  Though  much  of  the  talk 
in  the  laboratories  continued  to  favor  the  old 
theory,  and  many  physiological  chemists  pri- 
vately clung  to  it,  and  some,  like  Messrs. 
I. awes  and  Gilbert  in  England,  stoutly  main- 
tained it  in  public  and  defended  it  by  their 
experiments,  yet  so  powerful  was  the  later 
Munich  school  that  it  was  hardly  counted  in 
good  form  to  urge  that  carbohydrates  were 
transformed  into  fats.  Dr.  Gilbert,  some  years 
ago,  in  a  meeting  of  German  agricultural 
chemists,  explained  the  views  held  by  Mr. 
(now  Sir  John)  Lawes  and  himself,  but  his 
paper  was  scarcely  noticed  in  the  report  of 
the  meeting.  Since  then,  however,  evidence 
in  favor  of  the  view  maintained  by  Liebig, 
and  by  Lawes  and  Gilbert,  has  accumulated. 
Animals  have  in  numerous  cases  been  found 
to  store  in  their  bodies  large  amounts  of  fat, 
which  could  have  had  no  other  possible  source 
than  the  sugar  and  starch  of  their  food ;  in- 
deed, some  experiments  lately  made  in  the 
physiological  laboratory  at  Munich  with  the 
respiration  apparatus  have  given  convincing 
evidence  in  the  same  direction ;  and  a  short 
time  ago  Professor  Voit  presented  a  paper  to 
the  Bavarian  Academy  of  Sciences  review- 
ing the  history  of  the  question,  and  frankly 
avowing  that  there  is  no  longer  any  doubt 
that  not  only  herbivorous  animals,  but  car- 
nivorous animals  as  well,  are  able  to  trans- 
form very  considerable  quantities  of  sugar 
and  starch  into  fat,  and  store  this  fat  in  their 
bodies. 

W.  O.  Atwater. 


THE    KING'S   SEAT. 


T3RINCE  VLADIMIR  sat  with  his  knights 
I     In  Kief's  banquet  hall, 
And  boasted  of  ;irms  and  of  victories  won, 
And  the  joy  of  the  bugle  call. 

\Vliile  a  figure  gray  at  the  gate 

Knocked  once  and  twice  and  thrice, 

And  Vladimir  shouted,"  No  more  shall  comein 

Neither  for  love  nor  for  price!" 

!!ut  :i  breath  of  wind  blew  apart 

The  fringe  of  the  pilgrim's  cloak, 

And  beneath,  the  lute  of  the  singer  was  seen 

Before  the  singer  spoke. 

"  Ai,  little  minstrel,"  then  said 

The  great  Prince  Vladimir, 

"  The  top  of  the  earthen  oven  is  thine, 

The  minstrel's  place  is  here. 


"  A  small  and  a  lowly  place, 

For  my  heroes  all  have  come 

Bloody  with  wounds  and  with  honors  rare 

From  Ilza  of  Murom." 

The  minstrel  climbed  to  his  seat 
On  the  earthen  oven's  top, 
And  tuned  his  lute  and  began  his  song 
And  they  would  not  let  him  stop. 

For  his  song  of  battle  and  death 
He  sang  of  victories  won, 
Of  Deuk  and  his  Indian  steed, 
And  the  tale  of  Morga  the  Livan. 

And  there  as  he  sang,  as  he  sang, 
The  hearts  of  men  bowed  down, 
And  lo  !  the  top  of  the  oven 
Became  the  monarch's  throne. 

Annie  Fields. 


THE   GRAYSONS:    A   STORY    OF    ILLINOIS.* 

BV    EDWARD    EGGLESTON, 
Author  of  "  The  Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  "  The  Circuit  Rider,"  "  Roxy,"  etc. 


XXIV. 
FIRST   COME,    FIRST    SERVED. 

ilEKE  sat  restless  on  the 
fence  until  S'manthy's  boy, 
exultant  that  his  manhood 
was  to  be  recognized  by 
his  admission  to  the  band, 
had  gone  out  of  sight  in 
the  direction  of  the  gro- 
cery. Then  Zeke  sprang 
from  the  fence  and  started,  as  fast  as  his  legs 


could  carry,  along  an  old  Indian  trail,  hoping 
by  this  disused  and  in  some  places  obstructed 
short  cut  across  to  the  prairie  to  save  a  mile 
of  the  eight-miles'  journey  to  Bob  McCord's 
cabin.  Bob  was  already  abed  when  Zeke, 
badly  blown  by  his  rapid  walking,  knocked 
at  the  door. 

'•  Who 's  there?"  called  Bob,  emerging  from 
his  first  heavy  sleep. 

"It  's  me  —  Zeke  Tucker!    Git  up,  quick, 

*  Copyright,  1887,  by  Edward  Eggleston. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 38. 


Bob !  Jake  Hogan  's  off  at  ten  'r  'leven,  un 
it 's  nigh  onto  that  a'ready."  And  Zeke  impa- 
tiently rattled  the  door  of  the  cabin,  the  latch- 
string  of  which  had  been  drawn  in  to  lock  it. 

Bob  came  down  on  the  floor  with  a  thump, 
and  his  few  clothes  were  soon  pulled  on ;  then 
he  came  out  and  stood  in  the  fresh  air,  on  the 
"  butt-cut "  of  a  tulip-tree,  or  "  flowering  pop- 
lar," which,  to  compensate  for  the  descent  of 
the  hill-side,  had  been  laid  against  the  bottom 
log  of  his  cabin  for  a  front  doorstep.  Zeke  ex- 
plained to  him  how  urgent  the  case  was. 

"  Baub !  don't  you  go  'n'  go  off  down  to  Mos- 
cow to-night,"  called  Mrs.  McCord.  "  They 
hain't  nosort-uh  use  in  yourbotherin'  yourself 
so  much  about  other  folkses  business.  You  'd 
orter  stay  'n'  look  arter  your  own  wife  un  chil- 
dern."  It  was  Mrs.  McCord's  invariable  habit 
to  object,  in  herplaintive  and  impotent  fashion, 
to  everything  her  husband  proposed  to  do.  She 
had  not  the  slightest  expectation  that  he  would 
remain  at  home  in  consequence  of  anything 
All  rights  reserved. 


266 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


she  might  say,  nor  did  she  care  that  he  should; 
but  she  had  a  vocation  to  hold  in  check  his 
thriftless  propensities.  This  she  tried  to  do  by 
protests  uttered  indiscriminately  against  all  his 
outgoings  and  his  incomings,  his  downsittings 
and  his  uprisings. 

"  We  ain't  got  no  hoss,"  said  Bob,  replying 
to  Zeke,  and  paying  no  heed  to  his  wife.  "  Mrs. 
Grayson  un  Barb'ry  've  gone  un  gone  to  town 
weth  ole  Blaze,  so  's  to  be  weth  Tom  airly  in 
the  mornin'.  What  on  yerth  to  do  I  don't  no- 
ways see."  Bob  was  standing  with  his  fists  in 
his  pockets,  looking  off  anxiously  toward  the 
horizon. 

"  Can't  you  git  Butts's  ?  "  said  Zeke. 

"  Thunder !  No !  Buttses  un  Graysons 
don't  hitch.  Butts  don't  speak  to  none  uv  'em, 
un  he  hates  Tom  the  wust,  fer  throwin'  rocks 
at  his  geese  when  they  got  into  the  medder, 
un  dauggin'  his  hogs  out-uh  the  corn.  They  'd 
a  leetle  ruther  Tom  'd  be  lynched  un  not. 
By  blazes!  I  Ve  got  to  git  one  of  Butts's 
Jiosses  right  straight  off.  Buchanan's  hoss  is 
lame,  un  they  hain't  nary  nuther  one  to  be  got 
this  side  uv  Albaugh's,  and  that 's  too  fur  away. 
You  go  down  to  the  branch  un  wait  fer  me, 
un  I  '11  git  Butts's  little  wagon.  I  'low  they  '11 
be  hoppin'  mad  'f  they  fine  out  what  I  got  it 
fer,  but  I  've  got  to  git  it,  'f  I  have  to  steal  it. 
They  hain't  no  two  ways  about  it." 

"  I  don't  think  you  'd  ortuh  go  off  that  a- way, 
Baub,"  began  Mrs.  McCord  again.  "  Un  me 
more  'n  half  sick.  I  've  been  feelin'  kind-uh 
slarruppy  like  fer  two  'r  three  days.  Un  them 
air  taters  has  to  be  dug,  un  Mely  's  gone  away. 
You  'n'  Zeke  Tucker  '11  make  a  purty  fist  uv 
it  a-lickin'  all  Broad  Run,  now,  wonch  yeh? 
Wha'  choo  got  to  do  weth  Jake  — " 

But  Bob  did  not  hear  the  rest  of  it,  nor  was 
it  ever  uttered  indeed.  For  Mrs.  McCord, 
when  she  found  that  her  husband  had  gone, 
did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  finish  her 
lamentations ;  she  only  drew  a  sigh  of  com- 
placent long-suffering  and  submission  to  fate, 
and  went  to  sleep. 

Hardened  sinner  that  he  was,  Big  Bob  felt 
a  little  twinge  of  shame  as  he  made  his  way 
rapidly  to  Butts's  house.  His  wife's  set  speech 
about  being  more  than  half  sick,  often  as  he 
had  heard  it,  and  little  as  he  had  ever  heeded 
it,  had  now  made  a  sufficient  lodgment  in  his 
consciousness  to  suggest  a  way  out  of  his  dif- 
ficulty ;  but  it  was  a  way  which  a  loafer  of  the 
superior  sort,  such  as  Bob,  might  feel  ashamed 
to  take,  knowing  that  such  a  scheme  as  he  was 
concocting  would  be  an  outrage  on  all  the 
sacred  principles  of  good  neighborhood  —  an 
outrage  only  to  be  justified  by  military  ne- 
cessity. All  the  way  to  Butts's,  hurried  as  he 
was,  his  hands  were  ramming  his  trousers- 
pockets,  after  his  fashion  of  groping  there 


for  a  solution  of  his  difficulties.  It  was  per- 
haps the  carrying  over  into  other  affairs  the 
habitual  research  which  the  hunter  makes  for 
bullets,  caps,  patching,  or  jackknife  to  meet 
the  exigencies  of  the  forest. 

Arrived  at  the  unpainted,new  frame-house, 
which,  being  two  feet  longer  and  one  foot 
broader  than  any  other  in  the  neighborhood, 
was  the  particular  pride  of  the  Butts  family, 
he  noted  that  all  the  lights  were  out,  and  after 
hesitating  whether  to  capture  the  horse  by 
stealth  or  by  strategy,  he  went  to  the  front 
door  and  rapped.  The  head  of  the  proprietor 
came  out  of  one  of  the  lower  windows  with 
an  abrupt  "  Who  's  there  ?  "  spoken  with  that 
irritation  a  weary  man  is  prone  to  express 
when  awakened  from  his  first  nap  to  attend 
to  some  one  else's  wants. 

"  I  say,  Mr.  Butts,"  said  Bob,  pushing  his 
hands  harder  against  the  bottoms  of  his  pock- 
ets, "kin  I  git  the  loan  uv  one  uv  your 
hosses  un  your  leetle  wagon  to  fetch  the  doc- 
tor ?  My  ole  woman  's  purty  bad ;  been  sick 
ever  sence  the  sun  was  'n  'our  high,  un  we 
can't  git  nothin'  to  do  no  good." 

"  What  seems  to  be  the  matter  ?  "  said  Butts, 
wishing  to  postpone  an  unpleasant  decision. 

Bob  hesitated  a  moment:  lying  is  a  dan- 
gerous business  unless  it  is  carried  on  with 
circumspection.  "  Blamed  'f  I  know  jest  what 
it  is.  I  suspicion  it  's  the  dyspepsy." 

The  name  of  dyspepsia  was  new  to  the 
country  at  that  day,  though  the  complaint  was 
ancient  enough,  no  doubt.  Just  what  tfyspepsy 
might  be  Bob  did  not  know,  but  he  hit  on  it 
as  the  vaguest  term  he  could  recall  and  one  that 
had  a  threatening  sound.  It  would  not  have 
served  his  purpose  to  have  repeated  Mrs.  Mc- 
Cord's  diagnosis  of  her  own  case,  that  she  was 
"feelin' kind-uh  slarruppy  like."  "Whatever 
't  is,  she  don't  think  she  kin  git  through  till 
mornin'  'thout  I  git  a  doctor." 

"  Well,  I  doan  know.  The  sorrel's  lame;  un 
I  don't  like  to  let  the  bay  colt  go  noways, 
he  's  sech  a  sperrited  critter." 

Butts  drew  his  head  in  at  this  point  to  con- 
sult with  Mrs.  Butts  as  to  how  he  could  evade 
lending  the  cherished  bay  colt. 

"  Looky  h-yer,  Mr.  McCord,"  presently 
called  Mrs.  Butts,  keeping  her  nightcapped 
head  well  out  of  sight  as  she  spoke,  "you 
don't  want  no  doctor  nohow."  Mrs.  Butts 
had  come  by  virtue  of  superior  credulity  to 
hold  the  position  of  neighborhood  doctress, 
and  she  was  not  friendly  to  regular  physicians. 
"  You  jest  take  along  with  you  a  bottle  of 
my  new  medicine,  't  I  call  the  '  Scatter  Misery.' 
It  's  made  out-uh  roots  an'  yarbs,  an'  it 's  the 
best  thing  I  know  fer  mos'  every  kind  of  com- 
plaint. It  's  good  insides  an'  outsides.  You 
rub  the  Scatter  Misery  onto  the  outsides  un 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


267 


give  her  a  swaller  now  un  then  insides.  It  '11 
fetch  'er  'roun'  in  an  hour  or  two." 

Bob  felt  himself  fairly  entangled  in  his  own 
intrigue,  but  he  gave  his  great  fists  another 
push  into  his  trousers-pockets  and  said  : 

"  I  'm  much  obleeged,  Mrs.  Butts,  but  my 
ole  woman  tole  me  ez  I  wuz  n't  to  come 
back  'thout  a  doctor;  un  ef  you  hain't  got  no 
critter  you  kin  len'  me,  I  mus'  be  a-gittin" 
'long  down  to  Albaugh's  mighty  quick.  That 's 
a  powerful  ways  off,  though.  I  wish  I  'd  gone 
there  straight  un  not  come  over  h-yer." 

This  last  was  uttered  in  a  tone  of  plaintive 
disappointment  as  Bob  turned  away,  walking 
slowly  and  giving  the  family  council  time  to 
change  its  mind. 

"  Aw,  well,  Bob,"  called  Butts,  after  a  con- 
ference with  his  wife,  "  I  don't  like  to  diso- 
bleege  a  neighbor.  You  kin  have  the  bay  colt; 
but  you  must  drive  slow,  Bob.  He  's  a  young 
thing  un  the  fidgetiest  critter." 

Bob  would  drive  slow.  He  professed  that 
he  never  drove  faster  'n  a  slow  trot,  "  nohows 
you  can  fix  it."  And  he  helped  Butts  to  hitch 
up  with  no  sense  of  exultation,  but  rather  with 
a  sneaking  feeling  of  shame. 

However,  nothing  troubled  Bob  long  or 
deeply,  and  when  he  had  passed  the  branch 
and  taken  in  Zeke  Tucker,  and  got  out  of  the 
woods  to  the  smooth  prairie  road  beyond,  he 
forgot  his  scruples  and  tried  to  find  out  just 
how  much  speed  Butts's  bay  colt  might  have 
in  him.  Nor  did  he  slacken  pace  even  when 
he  got  into  the  village  streets;  but  remember- 
ing how  near  it  was  to  Jake's  time,  he  held 
the  horse  swiftly  on  till  he  reached  an  alley- 
way behindsome  village  stores.  Telling  Tucker 
to  tie  the  horse,  he  got  over  the  fence  and 
laid  hold  of  a  rusty  crowbar  that  he  had  long 
kept  his  mind  fixed  on.  Putting  this  on  his 
shoulder,  he  was  soon  at  the  jail. 

"  Tom ! "  he  called,  in  a  smothered  voice,  at 
the  grated  window  on  the  east  side.  But  all 
within  was  as  silent  as  it  was  dark.  For  a 
moment  Bob  stood  perplexed.  Then  he  went 
to  the  grating  at  the  back  of  the  jail — the 
window  that  opened  into  the  passage-way  at 
the  end  opposite  to  the  front  door. 

"  Tom,  where  air  you  ?  "  he  called,  putting 
his  hands  up  on  each  side  of  his  mouth,  that 
his  words  might  not  be  heard  in  the  street. 

"  In  the  dungeon."  Tom's  voice  sounded 
remote. 

Bob  spent  no  time  in  deliberating,  but  thrust 
the  crowbar  between  the  cross-bars  of  the  iron 
grating.  His  first  difficulty  was  similar  to  that 
of  Archimedes,  he  could  not  get  a  fulcrum; 
or,  as  he  expressed  it  less  elegantly  to  Zeke, 
"  he  could  n't  git  no  purchase  onto  the  daud- 
blasted  ole  thing."  But  by  persistently  ram- 
ming the  point  of  the  crowbar  against  the 


stone-work  at  the  side  of  the  window  he  suc- 
ceeded at  length  in  picking  out  a  little  mortar 
and  bracing  the  tip  of  the  crowbar  against  a 
projecting  stone.  He  had  great  confidence  in 
his  own  physical  strength,  but  the  grating  at 
first  was  too  much  for  him  ;  the  wrought-iron 
cross-bar  of  the  window  bent  under  the  strain  he 
put  upon  it,  but  it  would  not  loosen  its  hold  on 
the  masonry.  At  this  rate  it  would  take  more 
time  than  he  could  hope  to  have  to  push  the 
bars  apart  enough  to  admit  even  Zeke's  thin 
frame,  and  he  could  not  hope  to  bend  them 
far  enough  to  let  his  own  great  body  through. 
He  therefore  changed  his  mode  of  attack. 
Withdrawing  his  crowbar  from  the  grating, 
he  felt  for  a  seam  in  the  stones  at  the  base  of 
the  window  and  then  drove  the  point  of  the 
bar  into  this  over  and  over  again,  aiming  as 
well  as  he  could  in  the  dark  and  taking  the 
risk  of  attracting  the  attention  of  some  wake- 
ful villager  by  the  sound  of  his  ringing  blows. 
At  length,  by  drilling  and  prying,  he  had  loos- 
ened the  large  stone  which  was  in  some  sort 
the  key  to  the  difficulty.  This  accomplished, 
he  made  haste  to  insert  the  bar  again  into 
the  grating,  bracing  its  point  as  before  in  the 
seam  he  had  already  opened  in  the  stone- 
work at  the  side  of  the  window.  Then,  with 
his  feet  against  the  wall  of  the  jail,  he  crouched 
his  great  frame  and  put  forth  the  whole  of  his 
forces,  thrusting  his  mighty  strength  against 
the  crowbar,  as  blind  Samson  in  his  agony 
tugged  at  the  pillars  of  the  Philistine  temple. 
In  some  colossal  work  of  Michael  Angelo's  I 
have  seen  a  tremendous  figure  so  contorted, 
writhing  in  supreme  effort.  The  mortar  broke, 
some  of  the  stones  gave  way  at  length,  and  one 
barof  the  grating  was  wrenched  reluctant  from 
its  anchorage  in  the  wall  below.  Then,  letting 
the  crowbar  fall,  Bob  seized  the  rod  now 
loosened  at  one  end  and  tore  it  quite  out,  and 
then  threw  it  from  him  in  a  kind  of  fury.  The 
process  had  to  be  repeated  with  each  separate 
bar  in  the  grating,  though  the  breaking  up  of 
the  wall  about  the  window  made  each  rod 
come  more  easily  than  the  preceding  one. 
When  all  had  been  removed  he  squeezed 
through  the  window-opening,  feet  first,  and  felt 
his  way  down  the  passage  to  the  door  of  the 
dungeon,  where  Tom  was  anxiously  waiting 
for  his  deliverer.  Bob  made  what  a  surgeon 
would  call  a  "  digital  examination  "  of  the  dun- 
geon door,  and  found  its  strength  to  be  such 
that  to  break  it  down  would  require  the  rest 
of  the  night,  if,  indeed,  there  was  any  hope  of 
achieving  it  at  all  in  a  dark  hallway,  too  nar- 
row to  admit  of  a  free  use  of  the  crowbar. 

"  Dern  the  luck ! "  said  Bob,  pausing  a 
moment. 

"  What 's  the  matter,  Bob  ?  "  asked  Tom 
anxiously. 


268 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


But  Bob  did  not  seem  to  hear  the  question. 
"  We  must  git  a  cole-chisel,"  was  all  he  said ; 
and  he  hastened  to  creep  back  out  of  the  broken- 
up  window. 

"  Whach  yeh  go'n'  to  do  ?  "  asked  the  waiting 
Zeke,  as  Bob  emerged. 

But  Bob  only  said,  "  Come  on,  quick  !  "  and 
started  off  in  a  swinging  trot  toward  the  vil- 
lage blacksmith  shop,  a  low,  longish,  wooden 
building,  barely  visible  in  the  darkness.  He 
pulled  at  the  door,  but  it  was  firmly  closed  with 
a  padlock.  Then  he  felt  his  way  along  the 
side  of  the  building  to  a  window-sash,  which 
was  easily  taken  out  of  its  place. 

"  Heap  uh  use  uh  lockin'  the  door,"  he  mut- 
tered, as  he  climbed  in.  "  Blow  up  the  belluses 
there  un  see  ef  you  kin  make  a  light." 

Zeke,  who  had  followed  his  leader,  pumped 
away  on  the  bellows  in  vain,  for  the  fire  in  the 
forge  had  quite  gone  out,  though  the  ashes  were 
hot  to  Zeke's  touch.  Both  of  the  men  set  to 
work  to  find  a  blacksmith's  cold-chisel,  feeling 
and  fumbling  all  over  the  disorderly  shop.  As 
it  often  took  the  smith  half  an  hour  to  find  this 
particular  tool,  it  would  have  been  a  marvel 
for  two  strangers  to  find  it  at  all  in  the  dark- 
ness. 

"  We  '11  have  to  gin  up  the  c'nundrum," 
said  Bob,  with  his  hands  again  in  his  pockets. 
"  Did  n'  you  say  as  you  'lowed  the  sher'f  was 
expectin'  Jake  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  answered  Zeke.  "  Jake 's  got  a  kind- 
uv  a  secret  urrangement  weth  Plunkett's 
brother-in-law.  They  hain't  to  be  shootin'-work 
on  nary  side,  but  on'y  jist  a-plenty  uv  thun- 
derin'  loud  talk  fer  the  looks  uv  the  thing. 
Jake  's  to  make  the  derndest  kind  uv  a  row, 
un  the  sher'f 's  to  talk  about  dyin'  'n  'is  tracts  un 
all  that,  you  know.  That  's  some  weeks  ago  't 
the  sher'f 's  brother-in-law  fixed  all  that  up,  un 
Jake,  he  tole  us  they  would  n'  be  no  danger." 

"  Turn  your  coat  wrong  sides  out,"  said 
Bob,  turning  his  own.  "  Now  tie  your  han'ker- 
cher  acrost  yer  face,  so  's  to  kiver  all  below 
yer  eyes." 

When  these  directions  had  been  carried  out 
Bob  climbed  out  of  the  window,  and  stopped 
to  put  his  hands  into  his  pockets  again  and 
consider. 

"  Whach  yeh  go'n'  to  do  ?  "  asked  Zeke. 

But  Bob  only  asked,  "  What  '11  we  do  fer 
pistols?"  and  with  that  set  himself  to  feeling 
all  about  the  ground  in  front  of  the  smith's 
shop,  picking  up  and  rejecting  now  a  bit  of 
a  dead  bough  from  the  great  sycamore  under 
the  friendly  shade  of  which  the  smith  did  all 
his  horse-shoeing,  now  a  bit  of  a  board,  and 
again  a  segment  of  a  broken  wagon-tire,  and 
then  a  section  of  a  felloe.  At  last  Bob  came 
upon  the  broken  wheel  of  a  farmer's  wagon, 
leaning  against  the  side  of  the  shop  in  wait- 


ing for  repairs  to  its  wood-work  and  a  new 
tire.  From  this  he  wrenched  two  spokes  and 
gave  one  of  them  to  Zeke. 

"  There  's  your  pistol,  Zeke.  Put  it  jam  up 
agin  Plunkett's  head  un  tell  him  to  hole  still  ur 
die.  We  've  got  to  play  Jake  Hogan  onto  'im 
un  git  the  keys.  Th'  ain't  nary  nuther  way." 

As  Bob  passed  the  jail  in  going  towards 
the  sheriff's  house  he  took  along  the  crowbar. 
Plunkett  lived  in  a  two-story  frame  dwelling 
on  the  eastern  margin  of  the  village.  Bob  sent 
Zeke  to  run  around  it  and  pound  on  the  back 
door  and  bang  on  every  window  with  his 
wagon-spoke  and  his  fists,  while  Bob  himself 
dealt  rousing  blows  on  the  front  door  with 
his  crowbar.  When  Zeke  had  made  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  house,  Bob  put  the  crowbar  under 
the  door. 

"  We  must  n't  wait  fer  him  to  open,  he  '11 
see  how  few  we  air,"  he  whispered.  "  Prize 
away  on  this  yer."  Then,  while  Zeke  lifted  up 
on  the  bar,  Bob  hurled  his  whole  bull  weight 
against  the  door.  The  staple  of  the  lock  held 
fast,  but  the  interior  facing  of  the  door-jamb 
was  torn  from  its  fastenings  and  fell  with  a 
crash  on  the  floor,  letting  the  door  swing  open. 
Not  to  lose  the  advantage  of  surprise,  Bob 
and  Zeke  pushed  up  the  stairway,  guided  by 
the  noise  made  by  some  one  moving  about. 
By  the  time  they  reached  Plunkett's  sleeping- 
room  the  latter  had  struck  a  light  with  steel  and 
flint,  and  had  just  lighted  a  tallow  candle, 
which  was  beginning  to  shed  a  feeble  glimmer 
on  the  bed,  the  rag-carpeted  floor,  the  shuck- 
bottom  chairs,  and  the  half-dressed  man,  when 
Bob,  coming  up  quickly  behind  him,  blew  the 
light  out,  and  seizing  Plunkett  with  the  grip 
of  a  bear  crowded  him  clown  to  the  floor  with 
a  smothered  oath. 

"  Don't  kill  me,  boys,"  said  the  sheriff  in  a 
hoarse  whisper;  for  this  rough  usage  frightened 
him  a  little,  notwithstanding  his  good  under- 
standing with  the  mob. 

"  Say  one  word  un  you  're  a  dead  man," 
said  Zeke  Tucker,  pressing  the  cold  muzzle 
of  his  wagon-spoke  close  to  the  sheriff's  head. 
These  melodramatic  words  were,  I  am  glad 
to  say,  a  mere  plagiarism.  In  the  absence  of 
anything  better,  Zeke  repeated  the  speech 
of  a  highwayman  in  an  old-fashioned  novel 
he  had  heard  Mrs.  Britton  read  on  Sunday 
afternoons.  Then  he  added  on  his  own  ac- 
count: "We  won't  have  no  tricks;  d'  yeh 
h'yer?" 

"  They 's  mor'  'n  forty  uv  us,"  said  Bob,  "  un 
we  want  them  air  keys  right  straight." 

"  If  I  had  half  a  chance  I  'd  ruther  die  than 
give  'em  up,"  —  this  was  all  that  Plunkett 
could  remember  of  the  defiant  speech  he  was 
to  have  made  on  this  occasion, —  "but  there 
they  air,  at  the  head  of  my  bed  " ;  and  a  cold 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


269 


shudder  went  over  him  as  Zeke  again  touched 
him  ominously  with  the  end  of  the  wagon-spoke. 

The  sheriff's  wife,  though  she  had  every  as- 
surance of  the  secret  friendliness  of  the  mob, 
now  began  to  ^s 

"  Not  a  word  !  "  said  Bob,  who  was  continu- 
ally scuffling  his  feet,  in  order,  like  Hannibal 
and  other  great  commanders,  to  make  his 
forces  seem  more  numerous  than  they  were. 
"We  won't  hurt  you,  Mrs.  Plunkett,  ef you 
keep  still ;  but  ef  you  make  a  noise  while  we  're 
gone,  the  boys  outside  might  shoot." 

The  woman  became  silent. 

"  Some  of  our  men  '11  be  left  to  guard  your 
house  till  our  business  is  finished,"  said  Bob 
to  the  sheriff,  who  lay  limp  on  the  floor,  grow- 
ing internally  angry  that  the  Broad  Run  boys 
should  not  show  more  respect  for  his  dignity. 
"  Don't  you  move  ur  make  any  soun',  fer  yer 
life,"  added  Bob  when  he  reached  the  top  of 
the  stairs,  down  which  he  descended  with 
racket  enough  for  three  or  four. 

As  they  left  the  house  with  the  keys,  Bob 
and  Zeke  gave  orders  in  a  low  voice  to  an 
imaginary  guard  at  the  door. 

All  that  Tom  had  made  out  was  that  the 
irruption  of  Bob  McCord  into  the  jail  signi- 
fied imminent  danger  to  himself,  and  when 
Bob  had  gone  out  again,  Tom's  heart  failed 
him.  He  stood  still,  with  his  fingers  on  the 
iron  grating  in  the  dungeon  door.  For  this 
last  night  the  sheriff  had  taken  the  additional 
precaution  of  leaving  Tom's  manacles  on  when 
he  had  locked  him  in  the  dungeon,  and  the 
lack  of  the  free  use  of  his  hands  added  much 
to  his  sense  of  utter  helplessness  in  the  face 
of  deadly  peril.  He  could  not  see  any  light 
where  he  stood,  gripping  the  bars  and  staring 
into  the  passage-way;  but  he  could  not  en- 
dure to  leave  this  position  and  go  back  into 
the  darker  darkness  behind  him.  Confinement 
and  anxiety  had  sapped  the  physical  ground- 
work of  courage.  When  he  heard  Bob  and 
Zeke  come  past  the  jail  on  their  return  from 
the  blacksmith  shop  he  had  made  out  nothing 
but  the  sound  of  feet,  whether  of  friends  or 
foes  he  did  not  know ;  and  when  the  sounds 
died  away,  a  horror  of  deadly  suspense  fell 
upon  him.  All  black  and  repulsive  possibili- 
ties became  imminent  probabilities  in  the  time 
that  he  waited.  Over  and  over  again  he  heard 
men  and  horses  coming,  and  then  discovered 
that  he  was  hearkening  to  the  throbbing  of  his 
own  pulse.  At  last  he  heard  the  key  turning 
in  the  lock  of  the  front  door,  and  was  sure 
that  the  enemy  had  arrived.  It  was  not  till 
Bob  said,  when  he  had  got  into  the  hall  and 
was  trying  the  keys  in  the  dungeon  door, 
"  Quick,  Tom,  fer  God  A'mighty's  sake !  "  that 
his  spirit,  numb  with  terror,  realized  the  pres- 
ence of  friends. 


"What  's  the  matter?"  asked  Tom,  his 
teeth  chattering  with  reaction  from  the  long 
suspense. 

"  Jake  Hogan  '11  be  h-y er  in  less  'n  no  time  " ; 
and  with  that  Bob,  having  got  the  door  open, 
almost  dragged  the  poor  fellow  out,  taking 
time,  however,  to  shut  the  front  door  and  lock 
it,  and  taking  the  keys  with  him,  "fer  fenr 
somebody  might  git  in  while  we  're  away,"  as 
he  said,  laughing. 

Once  the  jail  was  cleared,  a  new  perplexity 
arose.  Until  this  moment  it  had  not  occurred 
to  Bob  to  consider  what  disposal  he  should 
make  of  the  prisoner. 

"  What  am  I  goin'  to  do  weth  you,  Tom  ?  " 
he  demanded,  when  they  stood  concealed  in 
the  thick  obscurity  under  an  elm-tree  on  the 
side  of  the  court-house  opposite  to  the  jail. 
"  I  wonder  'f  you  had  n'  better  light  out  ?  " 

"  Not  without  Abra'm  says  so,"  answered 
Tom,  still  shivering  and  feeling  a  strong  im- 
pulse to  run  away  in  the  face  of  all  prudence. 

"  Looky  h-yer,  Tom ;  when  I  got  the  keys 
from  the  sher'f,  I  brought  them  all  along. 
They  's  the  big  key  to  the  jail,  un  the  key  to 
the  dungeon.  Now,  h-yer,  I  've  got  two  more. 
It  seems  like  as  ef  one  uv  'em  had  orter  on- 
lock  the  east  room  of  the  jail,  un  liker  'n  not 
t"  other's  the  court-house  key.  S'pose 'n  I 
put  you  in  there ;  they  '11  never  look  there  in 
the  worl'." 

"  I  s'pose  so,"  said  Tom,  "  if  you  think  it 's 
safe."  But  in  his  present  state  he  shuddered 
at  the  idea  of  being  left  alone  in  the  dark. 
"  If  Abra'm  thinks  I  'd  better  not  clear  out, 
I  '11  be  where  I  'm  wanted  in  the  morning, 
and  they  can't  say  I  have  run  off,"  he  added. 

So  Tom  was  locked  in  the  court-house 
and  left  to  feel  his  way  about  in  the  dark.  He 
found,  at  length,  the  judge's  bench,  the  only 
one  with  a  cushion  on  it,  and  lay  down  there 
to  wait  for  daylight,  listening  with  painful  at- 
tention to  every  sound  in  the  streets.  When 
at  length  he  heard  the  tramp  of  horses  and 
conjectured  that  Jake's  party  were  actually 
looking  for  him,  he  could  not  overcome  the  un- 
reasonable terror  that  weakness  and  suspense 
had  brought  upon  him.  He  groped  his  way 
up  the  stairs  and  slunk  into  one  of  the  jury 
rooms  above  for  greater  security. 

XXV. 

LIKE    A  WOLF   ON   THE    FOLD. 

BARBARA,  at  her  uncle's  house,  had  not  been 
able  to  go  to  bed.  Tom's  fate,  she  knew,  would 
be  decided  the  next  day,  and  whatever  of 
hope  there  might  be  for  him  was  hidden  in 
the  mind  of  his  lawyer.  Mrs.  Grayson  had 
involuntarily  fallen  into  a  slumber,  and  the 
anxious  Barbara  sat  by  her  in  the  darkness, 


270 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


wishing  for  the  coming  of  the  day,  whose  com- 
ing was  nevertheless  dreadful  to  her.  The 
sound  of  a  wagon  rattling  in  another  street 
startled  her;  she  went  to  the  window  and 
strained  her  eyes  against  the  darkness  outside 
of  the  glass.  Though  she  could  not  suspect 
that  in  the  wagon  was  Bob  McCord  hurrying 
to  the  rescue  of  Tom,  she  was  yet  full  of 
vague  and  indistinct  forebodings.  She  wished 
she  might  have  passed  the  night  in  the  jail. 
A  little  after  midnight  she  thought  she  heard 
a  sound  as  of  horses'  feet :  again  she  went  to 
the  window,  but  she  could  not  see  or  hear  any- 
thing. Then  again  she  heard  it :  there  could 
be  no  mistake  now ;  she  could  make  out  plainly 
the  confused  thudding  of  many  hoofs  on  the 
unpaved  road.  Presently,  from  sound  rather 
than  from  sight,  she  knew  that  a  considerable 
troop  of  horsemen  were  passing  in  front  of  her 
uncle's  house.  She  left  the  room  quietly,  and 
spoke  to  her  uncle  as  she  passed  his  door;  but 
without  waiting  for  him  she  went  out  into  the 
street  and  ran  a  little  way  after  the  horsemen, 
stopping,  hearkening,  turning  this  way  and 
that  in  her  indecision,  and  at  length,  after  grop- 
ing among  the  trees  and  stumps  in  the  public 
square,  reached  the  jail. 

Jake  Hogan  had  sent  forward  two  men  to 
watch  the  prison,  while  he  with  his  main  force 
surrounded  Plunkett's  house.  The  sheriff  had 
obediently  kept  his  place  where  Bob  had  laid 
him,  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  until  he  got 
into  a  chill.  Then,  as  he  heard  no  sound  outside 
of  the  house,  his  courage  revived,  and  he  crept 
back  into  bed. 

Jake  had  come  prepared  to  play  the  bully, 
according  to  agreement,  in  order  to  save  Plun- 
kett's reputation  for  courage  and  fidelity,  but 
he  was  disconcerted  at  finding  the  door  of  the 
house  wide  open :  he  had  not  expected  that 
things  would  be  made  so  easy.  After  stum- 
bling over  the  fallen  door-facing,  he  boldly 
mounted  the  stairs  with  as  much  noise  as 
possible.  Entering  Plunkett's  bedroom,  he 
cried  out  in  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  most 
impressive  tones : 

"  Gin  up  the  keys  of  that  ar  jail,  ur  your  time 
has  come." 

"  What  air  you  up  to  now  ? "  cried  the 
sheriff,  angry  at  this  second  visit.  "  You 
knocked  me  down  and  got  the  keys  nigh  on 
to  an  hour  ago.  Now  what  in  thunderation 
does  this  hullabaloo  mean,  I  want  to  know." 

"  Wha'  choo  talkin'  ?  "  said  Jake.  "  We 
hain't  on'y  jest  got  yer." 

"  Only  just  got  here  ?  "  said  the  sheriff,  ris- 
ing up  in  bed.  "  Only  just  come  ?  Then  there  's 
another  crowd  that  must  'a'  done  the  business 
ahead  of  you.  There  was  more  'n  forty  men 
surrounded  this  house  awhile  ago,  and  beat 
down  my  door,  and  come  upstairs  here  in 


this  room,  and  knocked  me  down  and  choked 
me  black  and  blue  and  went  off  with  the  keys. 
I  guess  they  've  hung  Tom  and  gone  before 
this." 

"  Looky  h-yer  now,  we  don't  want  no  more 
uv  your  tricks.  We  're  the  on'y  party  out  to- 
night, sartin  shore,  un  we  're  boun'  to  have 
them  air  keys  ur  die,"  said  Jake,  tragically. 
"  You  might  's  well  gin  'em  up  fust  as  last, 
Hank  Plunkett,  un  save  yourself  trouble." 

"  Well,  if  you  want  'em,  you  '11  have  to  look 
'em  up,"  said  the  sheriff.  "  I  have  n't  got  'em, 
and  I  '11  be  hanged  if  I  know  who  has.  I  was 
knocked  down  and  nearly  killed  by  a  whole 
lot  of  men.  Kill  me,  if  you  've  got  a  mind  to, 
but  you  won't  find  the  keys  in  this  house.  So 
there  now."  And  he  lay  back  on  his  pillow. 

"  Come  on,  boys ;  we  '11  s'arch  the  jail.  Un 
ef  we  've  been  fooled  weth,  Hank  Plunkett  '11 
have  to  pay  fer  it." 

With  that  the  Broad  Run  boys  departed 
and  the  sheriff  got  up  and  dressed  himself. 
There  was  a  mystery  about  two  lynching  par- 
ties in  one  night;  and  there  might  be  some- 
thing in  it  that  would  affect  his  bond  or  his 
political  prospects  if  it  were  not  looked  into 
at  once.  He  resolved  to  alarm  the  town. 

At  the  jail  door  Hogan  encountered  Bar- 
bara piteously  begging  the  men  to  spare  her 
brother's  life. 

"  Looky  h-yer,"  he  said,  in  a  graveyard  voice, 
"this  ain't  no  kind  uv  a  place  fer  women 
folks.  You  go  "way." 

"  No,  I  won't  go  away.  I  'm  Tom's  sister 
and  I  won't  leave  him.  You  must  n't  shoot 
him.  He  did  n't  kill  George  Lockwood." 

"  You  mus'  go  'way,  ur  you  '11  git  shot  yer 
own  self,"  said  Jake. 

"  Well,  shoot  me  —  d'  you  think  I  care  ?  I  'd 
rather  die  with  Tom.  I  know  your  voice, 
Jake  Hogan ;  and  if  you  kill  Tom  you  '11  be  a 
murderer,  for  he  is  n't." 

"  Take  her  away,  boys,"  said  Jake,  a  little 
shaken  by  this  unexpected  appeal  to  his  sym- 
pathies. But  nobody  offered  to  remove  Bar- 
bara. All  of  these  rude  fellows  were  touched 
at  sight  of  her  tears.  It  had  not  occurred  to 
them  to  take  into  account  the  sister  or  the 
mother  when  they  thoughtlessly  resolved  to 
hang  Tom.  But  the  path  of  the  reformer  is 
always  beset  by  such  thorns. 

"  Down  weth  that  ar  door!  "  cried  Jake,  not 
to  be  baffled  in  his  resolution,  and  convinced 
by  Barbara's  solicitude  that  Tom  was  certainly 
within.  There  was  reason  for  haste  too,  for 
the  villagers  were  already  stirring,  and  there 
might  be  opposition  to  his  summary  proceed- 
ings. But  pompous  commands  have  not  much 
effect  on  heavy  doors,  and  Jake  found  that 
this  one  would  not  down  so  easily  as  he  hoped. 
Jake  began  pounding  on  it  with  the  poll  of 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


271 


an  ax  borrowed  from  a  neighboring  wood- 
pile, and  meanwhile  dispatched  two  men  to 
break  open  the  blacksmith  shop  and  fetch  a 
sledge-hammer.  But  some  of  his  men,  on  their 
own  motion,  went  around  to  the  back  of  the 
jail  with  the  purpose  of  trying  the  window. 
Finding  it  as  Bob  had  left  it,  with  the  grating 
torn  out,  they  entered  the  jail  and  penetrated 
to  the  dungeon,  coming  back  presently  to  tell 
fake  that  they  had  found  the  window  out,  the 
dungeon  door  open,  and  Tom  "clean  gone." 

"Thunder!"  said  Jake,  dropping  his  ax. 
"  Who  could  they  be  ?  The  shuruff  says  they 
wuz  more  'n  forty  on  'em ;  so  they  could  n't 
be  rescuers.  They  hain't  ten  men  in  the  wide 
worl'  'at  thinks  Tom  's  innercent.  Like  's  not 
it 's  a  lot  uv  fellers  f 'um  the  south-east  of  the 
k-younty,  down  towards  Hardscrabble,  whar 
Lockwood  had  some  kin.  They  've  hung  him 
summers.  Let 's  ride  'roun'  un  see  ef  we  kin 
fin'  any  traces.  Un  ef  Hank  Plunkett  has 
played  a  trick,  we  '11  git  squar'  some  day,  ur 
my  name  hain't  Jake  Hogan." 

The  men  mounted  and  rode  off.  Barbara, 
who  stood  by  in  agony  while  Jake  beat  upon 
the  door,  and  who  had  heard  the  report  that 
Tom  was  gone,  could  not  resist  the  despairing 
conclusion  that  he  must  have  suffered  death. 
In  her  broken-hearted  perplexity  she  could 
think  of  nothing  better  than  to  go  to  the  tav- 
ern where  Hiram  Mason  was  a  boarder.  Half 
the  people  of  the  village  were  by  this  time  in  the 
streets,  running  here  and  there  and  saying  the 
most  contradictory  things.  Mason  had  been 
awakened  with  the  rest,  and  by  the  time  Bar- 
bara reached  the  tavern  door,  she  encountered 
him  coming  out. 

"  W'y,  Barbara !  for  goodness'  sake,  what 
brought  you  out  ?  What  has  happened  ?  "  he 
said. 

"  O  Mr.  Mason !  I  'm  afraid  Tom  's  dead. 
I  ran  after  Jake  Hogan  and  his  men  when  I 
heard  them  pass,  and  begged  Jake  to  let  Tom 
off.  They  tried  to  drive  me  away,  but  I  staid ; 
and  when  they  got  into  jail,  Tom  was  n't 
there.  Jake  said  that  the  sheriff  said  he  had 
been  taken  away  and  lynched  by  more  than 
forty  men.  Oh,if  they  have  killed  thepoor  boy  1" 

"  Maybe  it  is  n't  so  bad,"  said  Hiram,  as  he 
took  her  left  hand  in  his  right  and  led  her, 
as  he  might  have  led  a  weeping  child,  along 
the  dark  street  towards  her  uncle's  house. 
"  Don't  cry  any  more,  Barbara ! " 

"  I  should  n't  wonder,"  he  said,  after  a  while, 
"  if  Bob  McCord  knows  something  of  this." 

"  But  we  left  him  at  home  to-night,"  said 
Barbara;  and  then  she  began  to  weep  again, 
and  to  say  over  and  over  in  an  undertone, 
"  O  my  poor  Tom ! " 

Mason  could  not  say  any  more.  He  only 
grasped  her  hand  the  more  firmly  in  his  and 


walked  on.  Presently  a  wagon  came  across  the 
walk  just  in  front  of  them,  issuing  from  an  alley. 

"  That  's  Butts's  wagon,  and  that  's  his  bay 
colt,  I  do  believe,"  said  Barbara,  looking  sharp- 
ly at  the  dark  silhouette  of  the  horse.  "  I  know 
the  way  that  horse  carries  his  head.  I  wonder 
if  Butts  has  been  mean  enough  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  this  wicked  business." 

What  Barbara  saw  was  Zeke  Tucker  hasten- 
ing to  replace  the  horse  in  the  stable,  while 
Bob  remained  in  town  to  keep  a  furtive  watch 
over  the  court-house  till  morning.  Mason 
thought  he  saw  some  one  moving  in  the  alley, 
and  a  detective  impulse  seized  him. 

"  Stay  here  a  moment,  Barbara,"  he  said, 
and  letting  go  of  her  hand  he  ran  into  the 
alley  and  came  plump  upon  the  burly  form 
of  Bob  McCord. 

"  It 's  all  right,  Mr.  Mason,"  chuckled  Bob. 
"  Tom 's  safe  'n'  soun'  where  they  '11  never  find 
him.  By  thunder!  "  And  Bob  looked  ready 
to  explode  with  laughter;  the  whole  thing 
was  to  him  one  of  the  best  of  jokes. 

"  Come  and  tell  Barbara,"  said  Mason. 

Bob  came  out  of  the  alley  to  where  Barbara 
was  standing  near  the  white-spotted  trunk  of  a 
young  sycamore,  and  recounted  briefly  how  he 
had  fooled  Butts,  and  how  he  had  got  the  keys 
from  Plunkett.  His  resonant  laughter  grated 
on  Barbara's  feelings,  but  she  was  too  grate- 
ful to  him  to  resent  the  rudeness  of  his  nature. 

"  Where  is  Tom  ?  "  Barbara  asked. 

"  Oh !  I  'm  a-playin'  Abe  Lincoln,"  said  Bob 
in  a  whisper.  "  The  fewer  that  knows,  the  bet- 
ter it  '11  be.  Tom  says  he  won't  light  out,  un- 
less Abra'm  says  to.  Speak'n'  of  Abe  Lincoln," 
he  said,  "  I  don't  want  to  be  seed  weth  him 
to-night.  You  go  back,  Mr.  Mason,  un  tell 
Abe 't  Tom 's  safe.  Ef  he  thinks  Tom's  chances 
is  better  to  stan'  trial,  w'y,  he  '11  find  'im  in  the 
court-house  to-morry  when  the  court  wants 
'im,  shore  as  shootin'.  He  's  on'y  out  on  bail 
to-night,"  said  Bob,  unwilling  to  lose  his  joke. 
"  But  ef  Abe  thinks  Tom  hain't  got  no  chance 
afore  a  jury,  let  'im  jest  wink  one  eye,  kind-uh, 
un  'fore  daybreak  I  '11  have  the  boy  tucked 
into  a  bear's  hole  't  I  know  of,  un  he  kin  lay 
there  safe  fer  a  week  un  then  put  out  for  Wis- 
consin, ur  Missouri,  ur  the  loway  country.  You 
go  'n'  let  Abe  know,  un  I  '11  see  Barb'ry  safe 
home — she  won't  gimme  the  mitten  to-night, 
I  'low."  And  Bob  chuckled  heartily ;  life  was 
all  so  droll  to  this  man,  blessed  with  a  perfect 
digestion  and  not  worried  by  any  considerable 
sense  of  responsibility. 

Mason  went  up  to  Lincoln's  room  and 
awakened  him  to  tell  him  the  story  of  the 
night.  The  lawyer's  face  relaxed,  and  at  length 
he  broke  into  a  merry  but  restrained  laughter. 
He  saw  almost  as  much  fun  in  it  as  Bob  Mc- 
Cord had,  and  Mason  felt  a  little  out  of  pa- 


272 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


tience  that  he  should  be  so  much  amused  over 
such  a  life-and-death  affair. 

"  Tom  does  n't  want  to  be  an  outlaw,"  said 
Lincoln  very  gravely,  when  the  question  of 
Tom's  going  or  staying  was  put  to  him.  "  I 
don't  believe  he  could  escape ;  and  if  he  did, 
life  would  hardly  be  worth  the  having.  There 
is  only  just  one  chance  of  proving  his  inno- 
cence, but  I  think  he  'd  better  stay  and  take 
that.  Maybe  we  '11  fail ;  if  we  do,  it  may  yet 
be  time  enough  to  fall  back  on  Bob  and  his 
bear's  hole.  By  the  way,  where  has  Bob 
stowed  Tom  for  the  night  ?  " 

"  Bob  won't  tell,"  said  Mason.  "  He  says  he's 
playing  Abe  Lincoln;  and  the  fewer  that  know, 
the  better." 

Lincoln  laughed  again,  and  nodded  his  head 
approvingly.  "  So  he  brings  Tom  to  court  in 
good  time,"  he  said. 

Mason  went  out  and  encountered  Bob  in 
the  street,  and  gave  him  Lincoln's  decision. 
Then  Hiram  went  and  told  Barbara  about  it, 
and  sat  with  her  and  her  mother  until  morn- 
ing. A  while  before  daybreak,  finding  the  town 
free  from  any  person  disposed  to  molest  Tom, 
Bob  came  to  Barbara  and  had  her  make  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  give  him  a  sandwich  or  two. 
These  he  took  out  of  the  back  gate  of  the 
Grayson  garden  and  left  them  with  Tom  in 
the  court-house. 

The  next  morning  at  half-past  6  o'clock 
the  lawyers  of  the  circuit  took  their  seats  at 
the  breakfast-table  in  the  meagerly  furnished, 
fly-specked  dining-room  of  the  tavern,  the 
windows  of  which  were  decorated  with  limp 
chintz  curtains,  and  the  space  of  which  was 
entirely  filled  with  the  odors  of  coffee  and  fried 
ham,  mingled  with  smells  emitted  by  the  rough- 
coat  plastering  and  the  poplar  of  the  wood- 
work :  this  compound  odor  of  the  building 
was  a  genius  of  the  place.  The  old  judge, 
who  sat  at  the  end  of  the  table  opposite  to 
that  occupied  by  the  landlady,  spread  his  red 
silk  handkerchief  across  his  lap  preparatory  to 
beginning  his  meal,  and  looked  up  from  under 
his  overhanging  brows  at  Lincoln,  who  was 
just  taking  his  seat. 

"  What 's  this;  Lincoln  ?  I  hear  your  client 
was  carried  off  last  night  by  a  mob  of  forty 
or  fifty  men  and  probably  hanged.  And  you 
don't  even  get  up  early  to  see  about  it." 

"  My  client  will  be  in  court  this  morning, 
Judge,"  said  the  lawyer,  looking  up  from  his 
plate. 

"  What ! " 

"  I  am  informed  that  he  is  in  a  safe  place, 
and  he  will  be  ready  for  trial  this  morning." 

"  Where  is  he  ?  "  asked  the  judge,  looking 
penetratingly  at  Lincoln. 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  tell  your  Honor;  but 
the  fact  is,  I  can't  manage  to  find  out  myself." 


Then  one  of  the  other  lawyers  spoke  up. 
"  Lincoln,  from  what  you  say,  I  suppose  the 
first  mob  took  Grayson  to  save  him  from  the 
second.  But  I  don't  see  how  the  Old  Boy 
you  raised  forty  men  on  your  side.  I  would  n't 
have  believed  that  the  poor  devil  had  so  many 
friends." 

"  I  ?  I  did  n't  raise  any  men.  I  was  sound 
asleep,  and  did  n't  know  a  word  about  it 
until  the  row  was  all  over." 

After  breakfast  there  was  much  discussion 
of  the  case  among  the  lawyers  standing  in  a 
group  in  the  bar-room.  What  would  Lincoln 
do  ?  Why  had  he  not  moved  for  a  change  of 
venue  ?  Why  had  he  subpoenaed  no  witnesses? 
Would  he  plead  necessary  self-defense,  or 
would  Tom  plead  guilty  and  throw  himself  on 
the  mercy  of  the  governor  ? 

The  sheriff  was  very  active  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  night  in  telling  his  story  and  in 
making  a  display  of  zeal.  It  was  he  who  had 
taken  time  by  the  forelock  by  telling  the  judge 
all  about  the  events  of  the  night;  how  his 
door  had  been  beaten  in  by  a  great  mob;  how 
he  had  been  rudely  knocked  down  and  choked 
until  he  was  almost  insensible;  and  how  pistols 
had  been  cocked  and  placed  against  his  head. 
Then  he  told  of  the  coming  of  the  second  mob. 
He  did  not  know  which  way  Tom  had  been 
taken,  or  whether  he  had  been  hanged  or  not, 
but  he  had  sent  a  deputy  to  make  inquiries. 

In  making  an  examination  of  the  prison 
after  daylight,  Sheriff  Plunkett  found  the  keys 
of  the  jail  inside  of  the  hallway,  as  though  they 
had  been  thrown  in  at  the  broken-down  win- 
dow. When  he  went  to  force  the  court-house 
door,  the  key  belonging  to  it  was  found  lying 
on  the  doorstep;  and  when  on  opening  the 
door  he  saw  Tom  with  his  manacles  on, 
awaiting  him,  his  surprise  was  complete. 

"  I  thought  you  'd  been  hung,"  he  said. 

"Not  yet,"  said  Tom,  grimly. 

"  Say,  where  did  that  mob  come  from  that 
got  you  out  ?  " 

"  You  can't  question  me,"  said  Tom.  "  I  'm 
not  a  witness  to-day  ;  I  'm  a  prisoner." 

Many  of  the  excited  people,  moved  by  the 
restive  longings  of  a  vague  curiosity,  had  fol- 
lowed the  sheriff  into  the  court-room,  and  the 
news  of  Tom's  presence  there  soon  spread 
throughout  the  village.  There  were  already 
all  sorts  of  contradictory  and  exciting  rumors 
in  the  streets  about  the  events  of  the  pre- 
ceding night;  women  let  their  breakfast  coffee 
boil  over  while  they  discussed  the  affair  across 
back  fences;  men  almost  forgot  to  eat  anything 
in  their  eagerness  for  news;  country  people  were 
flocking  in  by  all  the  roads  and  listening  to 
all  sorts  of  contradictory  tales  told  by  the  vil- 
lagers. When  it  became  known  that  Tom  was 
alive  and  awaiting  his  trial  there  was  a  gen- 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


273 


WHERE    IS    HE?'    ASKED    THE    JUDGE." 


eral  rush  to  secure  seats,  and  the  court-room 
was  rilled  long  before  the  bell  in  its  belfry  had 
announced  the  hour  for  the  trial  to  begin. 

XXVI. 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL    EVIDENCE. 

AT  last  the  sheriff's  new  deputy  went  up 
the  court-house  stairs,  and  pulled  away  on  the 
rope  that  rattled  the  bell  in  the  belfry  —  a  bell 
that  uttered  its  notes  in  irregular  groups,  now 
pausing  for  breath,  and  now  sending  one  hur- 
ried stroke  clattering  hard  on  the  heels  of  an- 
other. Its  clanking  had  no  more  dignity  than 
the  words  of  a  gossip  eagerly  tattling  small  news. 
While  the  bell  was  yet  banging,  Judge  Wat- 
kins's  iron-gray  head  and  stooped  shoulders 
appeared ;  he  pushed  his  way  slowly  through 
the  press,  his  brows  contracted  in  impatience  at 
finding  even  the  physical  progress  of  the  court 
obstructed  by  the  vulgar.  The  people  squeezed 
themselves  as  nearly  flat  as  possible  in  the  en- 
deavor to  make  way  for  his  Honor,  of  whom 
they  were  as  much  in  awe  as  school-boys  of  a 
stern  master.  Bob  McCord,  erect  in  the  aisle, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 39. 


was  an  island  in  the  very  channel,  and  the 
most  serious  obstacle  to  the  judge's  passage ; 
nor  did  it  help  things  for  Bob  to  turn  sidewise, 
for  he  was  equally  obtrusive  in  all  his  dimen- 
sions. The  judge  was  a  good  deal  ruffled  in  his 
endeavors  to  pull  by  him. 

"  I  wish  I  wnz  littler,  Jedge,"  said  Bob, 
with  a  fearless  laugh  that  startled  the  bystand- 
ers, "  but  I  can't  seem  to  take  myself  in  another 
eench." 

The  dyspeptic  judge  was  not  without  a 
sense  of  humor.  It  would  be  a  derogation  from 
his  dignity  to  say  that  he  smiled  at  Bob's  apol- 
ogy;  but  certainly  there  was  a  little  relaxation 
of  his  brows,  and  a  less  severe  set  to  his  lips, 
when  he  finally  edged  past  and  left  the  crowd 
to  close  around  Big  Bob  again. 

The  judge  began  the  session  by  ordering 
the  sheriff  to  bring  in  the  grand  jury.  This  in 
turn  was  no  easy  task ;  but  at  length  that  body 
succeeded  in  descending  the  stairs,  defiling 
through  the  aisle,  and  getting  into  the  jury 
box.  In  a  few  words,  precise  and  tart,  the 
judge  charged  the  grand  jurymen  to  inquire 
into  two  lawless  attacks  that  had  been  made 


274 


THE    GRAYSON  S. 


on  the  sheriff  during  the  night;  into  the  con- 
duct of  the  sheriff;  and  into  the  evidently  inse- 
cure condition  of  the  county  jail.  Then,  when 
the  members  of  the  grand  inquest  had  reluc- 
tantly made  their  painful  way  up  the  stairs  to 
their  room  overhead,  the  judge  called  the  case 
of  The  people  of  the  State  of  Illinois  versus 
Thomas  Gray  son,  Junior,  and  there  was  a  hush 
in  the  crowded  court-room. 

Tom  sat  regarding  the  crowd  with  such 
feelings  as  a  gladiator  doomed  to  mortal  com- 
bat might  have  had  in  looking  on  the  curious 
spectators  in  the  Coliseum.  Mrs.  Grayson  and 
Barbara  had  been  provided  with  chairs  within 
the  bar;  but  on  his  mother  and  sister  Tom 
did  not  dare  to  let  his  eyes  rest.  He  saw, 
however,  without  looking  directly  at  them, 
that  little  Janet  was  standing  by  Barbara,  and 
that  his  uncle  sat  with  crestfallen  face  by  his 
mother's  side,  and  that  his  Aunt  Charlotte 
had  not  come  at  all.  Just  outside  of  the  bar, 
but  immediately  behind  Mrs.  Grayson,  so  as 
to  form  one  of  the  group,  stood  Hiram  Mason, 
erect  and  unblushing.  One  of  the  landmarks 
on  which  Tom's  gaze  rested  oftenest  was  the 
burly  form  and  round,  ruddy  face  of  Big  Bob 
McCord,  half  way  between  the  judge  and  the 
door.  And  at  one  of  the  open  windows  there 
presently  appeared  the  lank  countenance  of 
Jake  Hogan,  who  had  climbed  up  from  the 
outside,  with  the  notion  that  he  was  somehow 
bound  to  supervise  the  administration  of  pub- 
lic justice.  He  managed  with  difficulty  to  get 
perching-room  on  the  window-sill.  Into  two 
of  the  raised  back  seats  a  group  of  women 
had  squeezed  themselves  to  their  last  density, 
and  among  them,  singular  and  conspicuous  as 
she  always  was,  sat  Rachel  Albaugh.  Tom's 
was  not  the  only  eye  that  observed  her ;  the 
lawyers  from  other  counties  were  asking  one 
another  who  she  was,  and  she  had  even  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  judge  himself;  for 
a  gallant  interest  in  good-looking  women 
lingers  late  in  a  Virginia  gentleman,  no  matter 
how  austere  his  mold.  At  a  pause  in  the  pre- 
liminary proceedings  the  judge  spoke  to  the 
clerk,  sitting  just  below  and  in  front  of  him,  at 
a  raised  desk. 

"  Magill,  who  is  that  girl  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Which  one,  Judge  ?  "  queried  Magill,  pre- 
tending to  be  in  doubt. 

"  You  need  n't  look  so  innocent.  Of  course 
I  mean  the  one  a  modest  man  can't  look  at 
without  being  a  little  ashamed  of  himself.  You 
know  her  well  enough,  I  'm  sure." 

"  I  s'pose  yer  Honor  manes  John  Albaugh's 
daughter,"  said  Magill.  "  She  's  the  one  that 's 
at  the  bottom  of  all  this  row,  they  say." 

As  soon  as  the  judge  heard  that  Rachel's 
beauty  had  something  to  do  with  the  case  in 
hand  he  fell  back  into  his  official  reserve,  as 


though  he  felt  a  scruple  that  to  talk  about  her, 
or  even  to  take  note  of  her  beauty,  might  be, 
in  some  sort,  a  receiving  of  evidence  not  prop- 
erly before  the  court. 

The  jury  was  very  soon  impaneled,  for  in 
that  day  entire  ignorance  of  the  matterin  hand 
was  not  thought  indispensable  to  a  wise  decis- 
ion. Lincoln  made  no  objection  to  any  of  file- 
names drawn  for  jurymen  except  that  of  Abi- 
jah  Grimes,  of  Broad  Run  Township.  The 
exclusion  of  Bijy's  open  countenance  from  the 
jury  box  was  another  blow  to  Jake  Hogan's 
faith  in  the  institutions  of  the  land.  His  brow 
visibly  darkened  ;  here  was  one  more  sign  that 
a  rich  man's  nephew  could  not  be  punished, 
and  that  a  poor  man  had  n't  no  kind  uv  a 
chance  in  sech  a  dodrotted  country.  No  time 
was  spent  in  an  opening  speech  ;  the  prelimi- 
nary orator}-,  by  which  our  metropolitan  bar- 
risters consume  the  time  of  an  indulgent  court 
and  make  a  show  of  earning  their  preposterous 
fees,  was  rarely  indulged  in  that  simpler  land 
and  time.  The  fees  paid,  indeed,  would  not 
have  justified  the  making  of  two  speeches. 

No  portion  of  the  crowd  tucked  into  the 
four  walls  of  the  Moscow  court-house  showed 
more  interest  in  the  trial  than  the  members 
of  the  bar.  The  unsolved  mystery  that  hung 
about  Lincoln's  line  of  defense,  the  absence 
of  any  witnesses  in  Tom's  behalf,  the  neglect 
of  all  the  ordinary  precautions,  such  as  the 
seeking  of  a  change  of  venue,  produced  a  kir.d 
of  flurry  of  expectation  inside  of  the  bar ;  and 
the  lawyers  in  their  blue  sparrow-tail  coats 
with  brass  buttons,  which  constituted  then  a 
kind  of  professional  uniform,  moved  about 
with  as  much  animation  as  uneasy  jay-birds, 
to  which  the  general  effect  of  their  costume 
gave  them  a  sort  of  family  likeness.  Their  at- 
tention was  divided,  it  is  true;  for  when  a 
member  of  the  bar  did  succeed  in  settling  him- 
self into  a  chair,  which  he  always  canted  back 
on  its  hind  legs,  he  was  pretty  sure  to  get  into 
a  position  that  would  enable  him  to  get  a 
glance  now  and  then  at  the  face  of  Rachel 
Albaugh,  who  was  interesting,  not  only  for 
her  beauty,  but  on  account  of  her  supposed 
relation  to  the  case  actually  before  the  court. 
Never  had  Rachel's  lustrous  eyes  seemed  finer, 
never  had  her  marvelous  complexion  shown 
a  tint  more  delicious  ;  her  interest  in  the  case 
lent  animation  to  her  expression,  and  her  at- 
titude of  listening  set  off  the  graceful  turn  of 
her  features. 

The  prosecuting  attorney  called  Henry  Mil- 
ler to  prove  that  Tom  had  been  irritated  with 
Lockwood  at  Albaugh's,  but  Henry  did  what 
he  could  for  Tom,  by  insisting  that  it  did  n't 
"  amount  to  anything  "  as  a  quarrel ;  it  was 
"  only  a  huff,"  he  said.  The  next  witness  called 
was  the  nervous  young  man  who  had  stood 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


275 


balancing  himself  on  the  threshold  of  Wooden 
&  Snyder's  store  when  Tom  had  threatened 
Lockwood,  in  paying  back  the  money  bor- 
rowed to  discharge  his  gambling  debt.  He  was 
a  habitual  gossip,  and  the  story  lost  nothing 
from  his  telling.  He  did  not  forget  to  mention 
with  evident  pleasure  that  Rachel  Albaugh's 
name  had  been  used  in  that  quarrel.  At  this 
point  Rachel,  finding  too  many  eyes  turned 
from  the  witness  to  the  high  seat  at  the  back 
of  the  room,  lowered  her  green  veil. 

Then  the  carpenter  who  had  bought  a  three- 
cornered  file  on  the  morning  of  Tom's  out- 
burst against  Lockwood  also  swore  to  the 
details  of  that  affair  as  he  remembered  them, 
and  the  villager  who  had  come  in  to  buy  nails 
to  repair  his  garden  fence  gave  a  third  version 
of  the  quarrel ;  but  Snyder,  the  junior  propri- 
etor of  the  store,  told  the  incident  as  it  was 
colored  by  his  partisanship  for  Lockwood  and 
in  a  way  the  most  damaging  to  Tom.  He  swore 
that  Lockwood  was  really  afraid  of  Tom,  and 
that  at  Lockwood's  suggestion  he  had  himself 
got  Blackman  to  speak  to  Tom's  uncle  about 
it.  The  young  men  followed  who  had  heard 
Tom  say,  as  he  left  town  after  his  break  with 
his  uncle,  that  George  Lockwood  was  the 
cause  of  all  his  troubles,  and  that  Lockwood 
"had  better  not  get  in  his  way  again,  if  he 
knew  what  was  good  for  him." 

Lincoln  sat  out  the  hours  of  that  forenoon 
without  making  a  note,  without  raising  an 
objection,  without  asking  the  witnesses  a  ques- 
tion, and  without  a  book  or  a  scrap  of  paper 
before  him.  He  did  not  break  silence  at  all, 
except  to  waive  the  cross-examination  of  each 
witness.  The  impression  made  in  Tom's  favor 
by  his  voluntary  appearance  at  the  trial,  when 
he  might  perhaps  have  got  away,  was  by  this 
time  dissipated,  and  the  tide  set  now  over- 
whelmingly against  him ;  and  to  this  tide  his 
self-contained  lawyer  had  offered  not  the 
slightest  opposition.  It  was  a  serious  question 
even  among  the  lawyers  whether  or  not  Lin- 
coln had  given  up  the  case.  But  if  he  had 
given  up  the  case,  why  did  he  not  fight  on 
every  small  point,  as  any  other  lawyer  would 
have  done,  for  the  sake  of  making  a  show  of 
zeal  ?  To  Allen,  the  public  prosecutor,  there 
was  something  annoying  and  ominous  in 
Lincoln's  silence;  something  that  made  him 
apprehensive  of  he  knew  not  what. 

When  the  court  took  its  noon  recess  Bar- 
bara and  her  mother  were  in  utter  despond- 
ency. It  seemed  to  them  that  Lincoln  was 
letting  the  case  go  by  default,  while  the  pros- 
ecuting attorney  was  full  of  energetic  activity. 

"  Abra'm,"  said  Mrs.  Grayson,  intercepting 
Lincoln  as  he  passed  out  of  the  bar  with  his 
hat  drawn  down  over  his  anxious  brows,  "  ain't 


ther'  nothin'  you  kin  do  for  Tom  ?  Can't  you 
show  'em  that  he  never  done  it  ?  " 

•'  I  '11  do  whatever  1  can,  Aunt  Marthy, 
but  you  must  leave  it  to  me."  So  saying,  he 
quickly  left  her  and  pushed  out  of  the  door, 
while  his  learned  brethren  gathered  into  a 
group  within  the  bar,  and  unanimously  agreed 
in  condemning  his  neglect  of  every  opportu- 
nity to  break  the  force  of  the  evidence  against 
Tom.  Why  had  he  not  objected  to  much  of 
it,  why  had  he  not  cross-questioned,  why  did 
he  not  ask  for  a  change  of  venue  yesterday  ? 

When  the  sheriff  and  his  deputy,  at  the 
close  of  this  forenoon  session,  passed  out  of 
the  court-house  with  Tom,  there  was  a  rush 
of  people  around  and  in  front  of  them.  Men 
and  boys  climbed  up  on  wagons,  tree  stumps, 
and  whatever  afforded  them  a  good  view  of 
the  criminal.  For  the  most  part  the  people 
were  only  moved  by  that  heartless  curiosity 
which  finds  a  pleasurable  excitement  in  the 
sight  of  other  people's  woes,  but  there  was 
also  very  manifest  an  increasing  resentment 
toward  Tom,  and  not  a  little  of  that  human 
ferocity  which  is  easily  awakened  in  time  of 
excitement  and  which  reminds  us  of  a  sort  of 
second  cousinship  that  subsists  between  a 
crowd  of  men  and  a  pack  of  wolves  —  or  be- 
tween a  pack  of  men  and  a  crowd  of  wolves. 

When  Tom  found  himself  at  length  landed 
within  the  friendly  prison  walls,  out  of  sight 
and  hearing  of  the  unfeeling  crowd,  he  was 
in  the  deepest  dejection.  For  what,  indeed, 
that  could  happen  now  would  be  sufficient  to 
turn  back  such  a  tide  of  popular  condemna- 
tion ?  Barbara  came  to  him  presently  with  a 
dinner  more  relishable  than  that  which  the 
sheriff  was  accustomed  to  serve  to  prisoners, 
and  all  the  way  to  the  jail  idle  people  had 
strolled  after  her ;  and  though  no  one  treated 
her  with  disrespect,  she  could  hear  them  say- 
ing, "That  's  his  sister,"  and  their  voices 
were  neither  sympathetic  nor  friendly.  When 
she  set  down  the  tray  on  one  of  the  stools  in 
front  of  Tom,  she  kept  her  eyes  averted  from 
his,  lest  he  should  detect  the  despondency 
that  she  knew  herself  to  be  incapable  of  hiding. 
On  his  part,  Tom  made  a  feint  to  eat  the  food, 
for  Barbara's  sake.  But  after  examining  first 
one  tid-bit  and  then  another,  essaying  to  nib- 
ble a  little  first  at  this  and  then  at  that,  he  got 
up  abruptly  and  left  the  whole. 

"  'T  is  n't  any  use,  Barb,"  he  said,  huskily. 
"  I  can't  eat." 

And  Barbara,  knowing  how  much  need  her 
brother  had  for  all  his  self-control,  did  not 
trust  herself  to  speak,  but  took  up  the  tray  and 
went  out  again,  leaving  Tom,  when  the  deputy 
had  locked  the  door,  sitting  alone  on  the 
bench,  with  his  head  between  his  hands. 


(To  be  continued.) 


Edward  Eggleston. 


T  the  second  of  the  recent  Authors'  Read- 
ings  in  Washington  in  aid  of  the  cause  of 
international  copyright,  Dr.  Edward  Eggle- 
ston,  introducing  one  of  the  readers,  said : 

"  A  few  years  ago  there  began  to  appear  in 
the  magazines  stories  in  dialect  by  an  unknown 
writer.  These  were  so  full  of  quaint  humor  and 
individuality  as  to  mark  the  arrival  of  a  new 
man  in  our  literature.  I  thought  I  saw  here 
the  hand  of  a  vigorous  young  man  destined 


to  make  a  name  in  our  literature,  and  to  pusli 
us  old  fellows  off  the  board,  when  once  he 
should  have  reached  his  maturity.  I  now  have 
the  pleasure  of  introducing  to  you  that  prom- 
ising young  man,  Colonel  R.  M.  Johnston." 
Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  was  born  in 
Hancock  County,  Georgia,  March  8,  1822. 
His  grandfather  was  the  son  of  an  Episcopal 
clergyman,  and  a  Virginian,  of  Charlotte 
County,  who  emigrated  to  Georgia  when  it  was 


RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON. 


277 


comparatively  new  ground.  On  the  side  of  his 
mother,  who  was  Catharine  Davenport  of  the 
same  county ,  his  ancestors  were  also  Virginians. 

His  father  was  a  large  planter,  for  that  part 
of  the  country.  He  began  with  a  farm  of  500 
acres,  which,  by  gradual  purchase, he  increased 
to  2500.  The  early  years  of  the  boy  were 
spent  upon  this  farm ;  and  here  he  received 
the  impressions  which  have  determined  his 
tastes  for  life. 

This  region,  called  middle  Georgia,  was  a 
strip  of  country  about  100  miles  long,  from 
east  to  west,  and  60  broad,  with  the  city  of 
Augusta  as  its  metropolis.  When  settled,  it 
\vas  a  mere  oasis  of  civilization  in  the  midst 
of  a  desert  of  barbarism.  The  country  round 
about  was  either  uninhabited  or  occupied  by 
Indian  tribes,  which  were  forced  back  on  all 
sides  as  the  settled  region  gradually  and  slowly 
enlarged  its  borders.  The  life  here  was  almost 
as  circumscribed  as  it  would  have  been  in  a 
desert  island.  These  conditions  may  account 
in  part  for  its  rugged  independence  and  charm- 
ing provincialism. 

As  society  settled  and  clarified,  the  classes 
naturally  separated.  Sinceno  violence  marked 
this  separation,  there  was  nothing  of  the 
strained  relation  so  often  found  in  our 
American  society.  Master  and  servant  were 
brought  into  direct  relation,  without  the 
intervention  of  the  hated  overseer.  The 
plantation  was  usually  not  too  large  for  the 
owner  to  take  direct  supervision  of  it, —  to 
know  his  servants  personally,  and  to  visit 
the  "  quarters,"  which  were  not  very  far  from 
the  "big  house."  The  perfect  healthfulness 
of  the  climate  made  life  possible  all  the  year 
round  on  the  plantations, —  for  white  master 
as  well  as  negro  servant.  In  many  parts  of 
the  South  the  arable  land  lay  in  river  bottoms, 
low  sea  coasts,  or  swampy  land,  almost  the 
counterpart  of  the  country  where  the  African 
race  had  been  acclimated  for  thousands  of 
years,  but  which  was  death  to  the  white  race. 
In  these  low-ground  plantations  the  master 
had  very  little  in  his  relations  with  his  slaves 
that  was  personal.  The  races  naturally  grew 
apart.  Many  of  the  large  planters  did  not 
even  know  all  of  their  own  slaves  by  sight,  and 
their  welfare  was  intrusted  to  an  overseer.  Of 
course,  under  these  conditions,  there  was  very 
little  chance  that  the  negroes,  huddled  together, 
and  away  from  the  helpful  association  with 
their  masters,  should  rise  much  above  their 
old  heathenism  and  barbarism.  Though  in 
the  main  fairly  well  fed,  well  clothed,  and  well 
housed, —  from  interest,  if  from  no  better  mo- 
tive,—  they  were  lamentably  ignorant.  Such 
plantations  were  very  hot-beds,  where  voo- 
dooism  and  witchcraft  flourished  mightily. 

In  the  middle  Georgia  region,  in  which 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 40. 


Richard  Johnston  was  growing  up  and  tak- 
ing his  earliest  impressions,  everything  was 
the  reverse  of  this.  On  his  father's  farm 
the  field  hands  were  on  the  kindliest  terms 
with  the  white  members  of  the  family,  espe- 
cially with  the  children,  who  delighted  to  visit 
the  quarters,  to  hear  the  stories  and  to  feast 
upon  the  crackling  bread  and  roast  sweet 
potatoes,  that  never  seemed  quite  so  perfect 
anywhere  else. 

The  children,  black  and  white,  grew  up  to- 
gether, getting  into  the  same  scrapes,  talking 
the  same  patois,  riding  double  in  going  to  mill 
for  the  weekly  grinding  of  meal  —  some- 
times the  white  boy  in  front,  but  quite  as  often 
the  other  way.  The  institution  of  slavery  ex- 
isted here  in  its  mildest  form ;  it  was,  in  the 
main,  the  patriarchal  institution  of  the  Bible, 
buying  and  selling  being  the  exception,  not  the 
rule.  Servants  and  their  families  descended 
from  father  to  son,  or  were  sometimes  willed 
away,  the  servant  being  given,  within  limits, 
his  choice  of  a  master. 

The  relations  between  the  field  hands  and 
their  owners  were  here  very  much  the  same  as 
they  were,  in  other  parts  of  the  South,  between 
the  household  servants  and  their  masters. 

Here  no  impassable  chasm  shut  off  the 
"  po'  whites,"  completely  ostracizing  them, 
as  was  the  case  in  many  parts  of  the  Southern 
States.  Life  was  almost  archaic  in  its  sim- 
plicity. The  poorer  classes  were  treated  by 
their  neighbors  of  the  better  class  with  the 
confidence  and  respect  that  their  sturdy  up- 
rightness and  self-respect  commanded.  They 
were  a  simple,  unlettered  folk,  full  of  hardi- 
hood and  loyalty.  They  "  did  what  they 
pleased  with  the  king's  English,  but  were 
true  to  the  behests  of  all  honor":  the  men 
were  brave  and  the  women  were  virtuous. 
This  is  utterly  unlike  the  picture  that  has  been 
so  often  drawn  of  the  Georgia  "  cracker." 

Among  the  children  of  this  gentle-hearted, 
simple-minded  people,  Richard  Johnston  grew 
up, "forming  friendships  which  colored  all  his 
future  life,  and  furnish  the  key-note  to  that 
life  and  work.  In  the  midst  of  the  anomalous 
conditions  of  this  society  a  group  of  charac- 
ter writers,  unsurpassed  by  any  others,  have 
arisen,  led  on  by  Judge  Longstreet  in  his 
rude  but  graphic  pictures  of  the  wholesome, 
jovial  life  of  its  earlier  days,  followed  by  Joel 
Chandler  Harris,  in  his  inimitable  Uncle  Re- 
mus, and  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston,  in  his 
equally  inimitable  stories  of  cracker  life.  The 
reason  is  not  far  to  seek,  why  just  here  this 
school  of  realistic  literature  took  rise  —  because 
the  material  was  here,  and  the  writers  were 
an  integral  part  of  the  life  they  undertook  to 
depict,  in  a  sense  true  of  perhaps  no  other  re- 
gion of  the  South.  The  school  lacks  the  ideal- 


RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON. 


ism  of  Cable  and  Page,  though  Page's  realism 
is  exquisitely  well  balanced  with  the  ideal; 
but  that  the  conditions  were  not  destructive 
of  the  growth  of  an  ideal  genius  perhaps  needs 
nothing  more  than  the  mention  of  one  name, 
reverently  honored  wherever  it  is  known  — 
Sidney  Lanier  came  also  from  this  same  mid- 
dle Georgia  country. 

Until  he  was  eight  years  old,  Richard  John- 
ston lived  in  the  midst  of  this  simply  happy, 
untrammeled  life,  absorbing  its  characteristics 
day  by  day,  and  being  molded  by  its  influ- 
ences. For  four  years  he  attended  what  is 
known  in  some  regions  of  the  South  as  an 
"  old  field  school."  Some  poor,  broken-down 
farmer,  or  business  man,  at  the  end  of  his  re- 
sources, would  betake  himself  to  teaching. 
For  a  mere  pittance  he  would  undertake  to 
impart  to  the  children  of  the  neighborhood 
his  small  store  of  knowledge ;  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  ciphering  was  usually  the  limit.  The 
teacher  did  not  possess  knowledge  enough  to 
hurt  the  sturdy  little  lads  and  lassies  who  came 
to  be  taught,  and  who  managed  between  times 
to  learn  many  a  lesson  in  kindliness  and  cour- 
tesy, especially  the  boys  in  helping  and  guard- 
ing the  girls,  of  whom  less  was  required,  both 
in  scholarship  and  behavior,  than  was  asked 
of  the  sterner  sex. 

"  The  Goose-pond  School,"  the  first  story  in 
the  earliest  series  of  "  The  Dukesborough 
Tales,"  is  a  genuine  picture  of  the  old  field 
school,  touched  with  the  quaint  humor  of  its 
writer.  No  one  can  read  the  story  without  feel- 
ing the  warm-hearted,  loving  recognition  of  all 
that  is  good  as  well  as  a  full  appreciation  of  all 
its  absurdities.  The  uncouthness  of  the  master, 
his  brutality  and  craven  cowardice,  were  ex- 
ceptional but  not  impossible,  and  they  serve 
to  bring  out  into  clearer  relief  the  system,  the 
school,  and  the  "scholars"  than  a  more  com- 
monplace and  peaceable  teacher  would  have 
done. 

In  1830,  when  the  boy  was  eight  years  old, 
Mr.  Johnston  moved  first  to  Crawfordvllle, 
then  to  Powelton,  the  "  Dukesborough  "  of  the 
tales.  This  he  did  to  give  his  younger  children 
the  benefit  of  better  schools  than  they  could 
find  in  the  country.  At  this  time  Powelton 
was  a  finished  town  of  never  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  inhabitants.  It  is  to-day 
not  larger  than  it  was  then,  while  Chicago,  at 
that  date  a  smaller  town  than  Powelton,  has  in 
the  mean  time  gone  up  to  —  Heaven  and  the 
census  takers  alone  know  where. 

Powelton,  however,  possessed  a  school  which 
was  a  successful  rival  of  the  town  proper;  it 
had  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  pupils,  besides 
teachers,  other  officials,  and  servants.  For 
many  years  this  school  was  carried  on  by  ex- 
cellent teachers,  usually  from  the  New  Eng- 


land States.  Here  the  boys  and  girls — for  it 
was  a  mixed  school  —  were  prepared  for  col- 
lege, or  were  "  finished,"  as  the  case  might  be. 

At  this  school  Mr.  Johnston's  children  en- 
tered and  began  serious  study.  "  At  thirteen," 
Colonel  Johnston  said,  in  talking  over  these 
old  times,  "  I  was  madly,  hopelessly,  intensely, 
bottomlessly  in  love  with  a  young  lady  of 
twenty-six,  one  of  my  teachers.  The  four 
years  that  must  elapse  before,  according  .to 
my  notions,  I  should  be  eligible  to  marry  her, 
I  thought  of  as  I  would  now  think  of  four 
thousand  standing  between  me  and  the  con- 
summation of  my  highest  earthly  hope." 

A  curious  friendship  had  existed  for  some 
time  between  the  boy  of  thirteen  and  a  whim- 
sical bachelor  of  forty  —  a  neighbor  of  the 
Johnston  family.  To  this  friend  the  boy  con- 
fided the  secret  of  his  passionate  attachment 
for  his  mature  lady-love,  with  all  its  attendant 
thrills  and  hopes,  woes  and  despairs.  His  friend 
received  the  confidence  with  the  utmost  grav- 
ity and  sympathy,  and  advised  him  to  confide 
in  his  mother  —  a  piece  of  advice  which  he  re- 
ligiously followed.  After  pouring  out  the  whole 
matter  in  her  sympathetic  ear,  she  said,  with 
a  curious,  suppressed  smile  : 

"  My  son,  I  would  advise  you,  whatever 
you  do,  not  to  let  your  father  know  the  state 
of  your  affections.  He  would  assuredly  give 
you  a  thrashing." 

This  suggestion  is  used  in  a  very  amusing 
way  in  "  The  Early  Majority  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Watts,"  one  of  the  first  series  of  "  The  Dukes- 
borough Tales." 

The  youthful  lover's  hopes  were  dashed  by 
his  inamorata's  marrying  some  one  else.  After 
the  proper  interim  of  desolation  and  dark  de- 
spair over  his  crushed  hopes,  the  lady  teacher 
of  twenty-six  had  a  successor  in  the  person 
of  a  young  girl  of  fifteen.  One  is  irresistibly 
reminded  of  David  Copperfield  and  the  eldest 
Miss  Larkins  in  this  experience. 

These  early  and  ardent  love  affairs,  as  in- 
tense and  serious  as  any  later  experience  could 
possibly  be,  were  very  characteristic  of  the 
Southern  boy  of  the  past.  They  sometimes 
ended  in  a  temporary  eclipse  of  the  youthful 
lover  in  desperation  and  impenetrable  gloom, 
and  sometimes  in  them  lay  the  germ  of  a 
happy  married  life.  They  were  as  different 
from  the  objectionable  flirtations  and  fastness, 
so  often  seen  among  the  children  of  the 
present  day,  as  the  light  is  different  from 
darkness:  full  of  ardent  dreams  of  self-im- 
molation, of  daring  courage,  of  tender  protec- 
tion, of  reverent  adoration  for  his  lady-love, 
worthy  of  any  knight  of  chivalry  —  beautiful 
they  were  and  touching  in  spite  of  their  ab- 
surd unreality. 

After  leaving  the  Powelton  school  the  boy 


RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON. 


279 


went  to  college,  where  he  was  graduated  in 
1841.  He  taught  two  years,  and  then  began 
the  practice  of  law  with  Linton  Stephens,  a 
younger  brother  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  as 
his  partner.  For  ten  years  he  continued  at  the 
bar,  in  the  northern  and  middle  circuits  of 
Georgia. 

A  lawyer's  life,  in  those  days,  when  the 
country  was  so  thinly  settled  that  no  one  small 
district  afforded  sufficient  litigation  to  support 
a  single  lawyer,  was  a  peculiar  one.  A  bevy 
of  practitioners  following  the  court  in  its  ses- 
sions made  a  peripatetic  society  for  themselves. 
The  scenes  in  court  were  sometimes  irresistibly 
funny  ;  the  peculiarities  of  the  people,  the  in- 
congruity of  setting,  all  supplied  material  for 
uproarious  mirth  in  the  symposium  that  fol- 
lowed each  day's  work. 

The  dialect,  so  familiar  to  these  men  in  their 
childhood,  became  indelibly  engraven  on  their 
memories  by  repetition  in  the  stories  they  told, 
and  their  native  gifts  as  raconteurs  found  an 
admirable  field  for  development  in  these  days 
filled  with  court  experience  and  the  nights 
filled  equally  with  laughter. 

In  answer  to  the  question,  "  How  is  it  that 
you  never 'slip  up'  in  the  dialect  of  the  crack- 
ers ?  "  Colonel  Johnston  replied,  "  Slip  up  in 
my  vernacular !  How  could  I  ?  I  talked  it  when 
I  was  a  boy  with  the  other  boys.  I  often,  now, 
find  myself  dropping  unconsciously  into  it. 
When  a  middle  Georgia  man  gets  '  mad,'  I 
assure  you  he  does  not  use  the  stately  anath- 
emas of  the  Charlestonian  or  Savannese;  he 
just  '  cusses '  roundly  in  the  cracker  '  lingo,' 
and  gets  an  immense  amount  of  satisfaction 
out  of  it." 

I  have  often  heard  native  Georgians  drop 
in  the  most  charming  way  into  this  dialect, 
when  they  were  in  a  light  or  tender  mood, 
particularly  when  talking  to  little  children. 

In  1844  Mr.  Johnston  was  married  to  Miss 
Frances  Mansfield,  of  the  same  county  (Han- 
cock), whose  father  was  from  the  State  of  Con- 
necticut. Twenty-two  was  quite  a  sober  age 
for  those  days,  but  his  wife  was  only  fifteen. 
Marriages  used  to  be  contracted  at  absurdly 
early  ages,  especially  in  the  Southern  States. 
There  was  something  besides  climate  to  ac- 
count for  this.  Housekeeping  there  was  such 
a  very  simple  affair.  If,  as  often  chanced  to  be 
the  case,  the  youthful  lovers  belonged  to  fam- 
ilies whose  plantations  adjoined,  a  slice  was 
taken  from  each,  a  modest  house  was  built, 
sometimes  of  the  timber  on  the  place  and  by 
domestic  carpenters,  and  with  the  overflow  of 
household  goods  from  the  homesteads  the  ar- 
rangements were  easily  and  cheaply  made, 
and  the  young  couple  were  married  and  took 
possession,  and  began  a  simple  happy  life  like 
that  from  which  they  had  detached  themselves. 


Their  homes  were  very  full  of  comfort,  their 
needs,  beyond  the  inevitable  education,  espe- 
cially the  college  course  for  the  boys,  made  no 
heavy  drain  upon  the  family  resources,  and  by 
the  time  the  boys  were  old  enough  for  that  the 
means  were  there. 

Certain  of  the  household  servants  from  one 
or  other  of  the  parent  homes  went  with  the 
young  people,  and  they,  with  their  children, 
formed  an  integral  part  of  the  new  household, 
and  grew  up  and  grew  old  with  it. 

After  ten  years  of  this  life  at  the  bar,  Mr. 
Johnston  was  offered  three  positions  almost 
at  the  same  time — a  judgeship  of  the  north- 
ern circuit,  the  presidency  of  one  college,  and 
a  professorship  in  another.  This  latter  offer, 
as  being  most  congenial,  he  accepted,  and 
was  made  professor  of  belles-lcltrts  in  the  State 
University,  Md.,  a  position  which  he  held  for 
four  years,  and  then  he  opened  a  boys'  school 
at  his  plantation  near  Sparta.  There  he  car- 
ried on  a  very  flourishing  school  in  connection 
with  his  farm  till  1867.  In  this  year  a  sad  do- 
mestic bereavement,  the  death  of  a  daughter 
just  grownup,  made  old  places  and  associations 
unbearable.  Giving  up  a  school  of  60  pupils, 
of  whom  he  took  40  with  him,  he  returned  to 
Maryland,  intending  to  form  a  school  there. 
This  he  did  a  few  miles  outside  of  Baltimore. 
Since  that  time  he  has  been  teaching,  lectur- 
ing, and  writing. 

His  first  story  appeared  under  the  nom  de 
plume  Philemon  Perch,  in  the  "Southern  Mag- 
azine," a  periodical,  largely  eclectic,  which  was 
published  in  Baltimore.  In  this,  as  in  all  his 
other  stories,  he  went  back  to  the  old  home 
life  of  his  early  childhood.  With  the  tendency 
to  classical  allusion  so  dear  to  the  Southern 
heart,  he  says :  "  Of  all  places  on  earth,  it  is 
the  dearest  to  me.  The  academy  grove  seems 
to  me  now  more  beautiful  than  anything  in 
Tempe  or  Arcadia  could  possibly  be." 

This  love  for  old  associations,  old  places, 
old  times,  shines  through  all  his  work ;  it  quali- 
fies the  fun  in  every  description.  No  touch  of 
ridicule  or  shade  of  contempt  for  the  primitive 
simplicity  of  living,  the  clumsy  laboring  after 
expression,  the  narrowness  of  thought  that 
marked  that  intensely  provincial  life,  ever  mars 
his  work.  A  loving,  tender  light  shines  through 
the  quaint  humor;  it  plays  over  every  incident, 
and  irradiates  every  homely  detail  of  life  he 
depicts,  lifting  it  above  all  touch  of  sordidness. 

The  merit  of  his  work  received  almost  im- 
mediate recognition.  No  one  was  so  surprised 
as  its  author  at  the  success  of  this  his  first  liter- 
ary venture ;  other  stories  followed,  but  it  did 
not  seem  to  occur  to  Colonel  Johnston  to  seek 
a  wider  field  for  his  work,  or  to  think  of  his 
writing  as  a  source  of  income,  for  he  had 
contributed  the  early  stories  without  asking 


280 


LOVE  ASLEEP. 


remuneration.  In  1879,  however,  his  dear  and 
valued  friend  Sidney  Lanier  persuaded  him  to 
submit  a  story  to  "  Scribner's  Magazine,"  now 
THE  CENTURY.  When  this  was  accepted  Mr. 
Lanier's  delight  was  unbounded,  both  because 
the  writer  was  his  friend,  and  because  the  life 
so  vividly  depicted  was  sweet  in  his  memory. 

This  story,  "  Mr.  Neelus  Peeler's  Condi- 
tions," forms  the  point  from  which  Colonel 
Johnston  dates  his  literary  career.  It  is  a  re- 
markable fact  that  an  author  who  has  deserv- 
edly attained  such  wide  recognition  for  the 
freshness,  broadness,  and  humor  of  his  work 
should  have  been  over  fifty  years  of  age  before 
he  attempted  it,  and  that  he  should  date  his 
literary  life  from  his  fifty-seventh  year. 

From  the  beginning  Colonel  Johnston  has 
loved  his  work  and  been  faithful  and  consci- 
entious in  it.  He  does  not  write  rapidly,  nor 
please  himself  easily.  The  stories  that  have 
such  an  easy,  impromptu  air  have  sometimes 
been  written  over  and  over  again.  Speaking 
of  the  principal  female  character  in  his  novel 
"Old  Mark  Langston,"  he  said:  "I  meant  to 
make  her  mean,  like  her  father;  but  before  I 
had  written  fifty  lines  about  her,  she  just  turned 
herself  out  of  my  hands"  [with  a  very  graphic 
gesture],  "and  there  she  was.  before  me;  she 
seemed  to  say  :  '  Don't  make  me  mean  !  I  am 
a  woman.  You  never  knew  a  woman  mean 
like  that';  and  I  had  to  stop.  I  just  could 
not  do  it.  I  cannot,  somehow,  be  rough  with 
my  women;  they  always  seem  to  reproach 
me.  I  cannot  forget  the  reverence  due  to  their 
feminity."  After  a  pause,  "  No,  I  cannot  do  it." 

There  is  no  plot  in  his  stories  carefully 
devised ;  it  is  not  so  much  a  story  he  has  to 
tell  as  a  life  he  has  to  depict.  The  nucleus 
of  each  sketch  is  not  a  thing,  but  a  person. 
He  takes  a  character  or  two,  perhaps;  as  he 
writes,  they  become  denned  and  grow  into 
roundness  and  reality  under  his  hand.  The 


incidents  are  for  the  sake  of  the  characters, 
not  the  characters  for  the  sake  of  the  incidents. 

The  mise  en  scene  is  always  photographic- 
ally accurate ;  every  detail  is  true.  "  As  long 
as  the  people  in  my  stories  have  no  fixed  sur- 
roundings, they  are  nowhere  to  me;  I  cannot 
get  along  with  them  at  all." 

Colonel  Johnston  has  it  in  view  to  write  a 
story  of  the  higher  village  life  about  Powelton, 
which  he  says  was  equal  in  refinement,  cult- 
ure, and  charm  to  any  society  he  has  ever 
known,  and  somewhat  peculiar.  It  is,  how- 
ever, always  difficult,  after  following  a  certain 
vein,  to  work  out  of  it.  The  demand  for  short 
stories  is  much  greater  than  for  novels,  either 
as  books  or  serials.  In  consequence  he  has 
been  rather  crowded  into  the  short  story  di- 
rection, and  especially  in  the  delineation  of 
the  cracker  type. 

Five  books  from  his  pen  have  been  pub- 
lished besides  "The  Dukesborough  Tales" — 
"  Old  Mark  Langston  ";  "Two  Gray  Tourists," 
a  book  of  sketches  of  travel ;  "  Mr.  Absalom 
Billingsbee  and  Other  Georgia  Folk  " ;  and, 
in  conjunction  with  William  Hand  Brown,  a 
history  of  English  literature,  and  the  Life  of 
Alexander  H.  Stephens. 

In  speaking  of  his  future  work,  Colonel 
Johnston  said :  "  In  going  back  to  my  past  life, 
and  in  attempting  to  make  a  worthy  record  of 
the  limited  provincial  life  in  the  midst  of  which 
my  childish  days  were  passed,  I  have  drawn  a 
sweet  solace  for  the  sadness  of  my  exile,  of 
being  so  far  from  old  places,  old  friends,  even 
old  graves.  The  stories  are  all  imaginary, 
but  they  are  in  harmony  with  what  I  have 
seen  and  of  which  I  have  sometimes  been  a 
part.  I  loved  this  people  and  this  district, 
and  in  doing  so  have  loved  many  of  the  most 
gifted  and  most  cultured  and  most  distin- 
guished men  in  dear  old  Georgia." 

Sophie  Bledsoe  Herrick. 


LOVE  ASLEEP. 

I  FOUND  Love  sleeping  in  a  place  of  shade. 
And  as  in  some  sweet  dream  his  sweet  lips  smiled; 
Yea,  seemed  he  as  a  lovely,  sleeping  child. 
Soft  kisses  on  his  full,  red  lips  I  laid, 

And  with  red  roses  did  his  tresses  braid ; 

Then  pure,  white  lilies  on  his  breast  I  piled, 
And  fettered  him  with  woodbine  fresh  and  wild, 
And  fragrant  armlets  for  his  arms  I  made. 

But  while  I,  gazing,  yearned  across  his  breast, 

Upright  he  sprang,  and  from  swift  hand,  alert, 
Sent  forth  a  shaft  that  lodged  within  my  heart. 

Ah!  had  I  never  played  with  Love  at  rest, 

/still  had  lived,  who  die  now  of  this  hurt, 
He  had  not  wakened  —  had  not  cast  his  dart. 


J'/ii/if  Bourke  Marston. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:     A    HISTORY.* 


BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,.  PRIVATE    SECRETARIES   TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 


THE    ADVANCE. 

ECESSION  sophistry  about 
oppression  and  subjuga- 
tion was  sufficiently  an- 
swered by  the  practical 
logic  of  the  Southern 
States  in  collecting  armies 
and  uniting  in  military 
leagues.  Military  neces- 
sity, not  political  expediency,  was  now  the 
unavoidable  rule  of  action.  The  Washington 
authorities  had  long  foreseen  that  merely  fill- 
ing the  National  capital  with  Northern  regi- 
ments would  not  by  itself  give  security  to  the 
Government  buildings  and  archives.  The  pres- 
idential mansion,  the  Capitol,  and  the  various 
department  offices  all  lay  within  easy  reach  of 
rebel  batteries  which  might  rise  in  a  single 
night  at  commanding  points  on  the  southern 
bank  of  the  Potomac,  and  from  which  hostile 
shot  and  shell  could  speedily  reduce  the  whole 
city  to  ruins.  As  early,  therefore,  as  the  3d  of 
May,  Scott  instructed  General  Mansfield,  the 
local  commander,  to  seize  and  fortify  Arlington 
Heights.  Various  causes  produced  a  postpone- 
ment of  the  design,  urgent  as  was  the  neces- 
sity ;  but  finally  the  needed  reinforcements 
arrived.  Under  plans  carefully  matured,  the 
Union  forces  commanded  by  Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Irvin  McDowell  on  the  morning  of  May 
24  made  their  advance  across  the  Potomac 
River  and  entered  Virginia.  Here  was  begun 
that  formidable  system  of  earth-works,  crown- 
ing every  hill  in  an  irregular  line  for  perhaps 
ten  miles,  extending  from  the  river-bend  above 
Georgetown  to  the  bay  into  which  Hunting 
Creek  flows,  below  Alexandria,  which  consti- 
tuted such  an  immense  military  strength, 
and  so  important  a  moral  support  to  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac,  and,  indeed,  to  the  Union 
sentiment  of  the  whole  country  during  the 
entire  war. 

Three  other  movements  of  troops  were  be- 
gun about  the  same  time.  General  Butler  was 
transferred  from  Baltimore  to  Fort  Monroe  to 
collect  nine  or  ten  regiments  for  aggressive 
purposes.  General  Robert  Patterson,  who 
was  organizing  the  Pennsylvania  militia,  as- 
sembled the  contingent  of  that  State  with  a 
view  to  a  movement  against  Harper's  Ferry. 


And  General  George  B.  McClellan,  appointed 
to  organize  the  contingent  from  the  State  of 
Ohio,  had  his  earliest  attention  directed  to- 
ward a  movement  into  western  Virginia. 

Prompted  by  many  different  shades  of  feel- 
ing, there  now  arose  throughout  the  North 
a  demand  for  military  action  and  military  suc- 
cess. Assuming  the  undeniable  preponderance 
of  men  and  means  in  the  free  States,  public 
opinion  illogically  also  assumed  that  they 
could  be  made  immediately  victorious.  Under 
bold  head-lines  a  leading  newspaper  kept 
"The  nation's  war  cry  "  standing  in  its  col- 
umns :  "  Forward  to  Richmond !  Forward  to 
Richmond !  The  rebel  Congress  must  not  be 
allowed  to  meet  there  on  the  zoth  of  July. 
By  that  date  the  place  must  be  held  by  the 
National  army !  "  t  Though  this  was  but  a  sin- 
gle voice,  it  brought  responsive  echoes  from 
all  parts  of  the  North. 

Two  months  of  the  first  three-months'  en- 
listment of  the  militia  called  into  service  were 
already  gone;  it  seemed  desirable  that  the 
remaining  third  of  their  term  should  be  util- 
ized in  .an  energetic  movement.  General 
Scott's  original  idea  had  been  that  this  ener- 
getic movement  should  occur  at  Harper's 
Ferry;  but  Johnston's  evacuation  of  that  place, 
and  Patterson's  over-caution  and  defensive 
strategy,  frustrated  the  design.  Under  the  in- 
creasing political  pressure,  the  most  promising 
alternative  was  thought  to  be  a  direct  advance 
from  Washington  against  Manassas  Junction, 
the  strategical  importance  of  which  the  Con- 
federates had  instinctively  recognized,  espe- 
cially its  relation  to  Harper's  Ferry.  Colonel 
Cocke  had  written  to  Lee,  May  15: 

These  two  columns,  one  at  Manassas  and  one  at 
Winchester,  could  readily  cooperate  and  concentrate 
upon  the  one  point  or  the  other ;  either  to  make  head 
against  the  enemy's  columns  advancing  down  the  val- 
ley, should  .he  force  (Harper's  Ferry,  or  in  case  we 
repulse  him  at  Harper's  Ferry,  the  Winchester  sup- 
porting column  could  throw  itself  on  this  side  of  trie 
mountains  to  cooperate  with  the  column  at  Manassas. 

On  the  29th  of  June  President  Lincoln 
called  his  Cabinet  and  principal  military  offi- 
cers to  a  council  of  war  at  the  Executive 
Mansion,  to  discuss  a  campaign  against  the 
rebels  at  Manassas.  General  Scott  took  occa- 

t  "  New  York  Tribune,"  June  2O,  1861. 


'  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 


282 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


sion  to  say  that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  such 
a  movement.  "  He  did  not  believe  in  a  little 
war  by  piecemeal.  But  he  believed  in  a  war 
of  large  bodies."  He  adhered  to  the  "  ana- 
conda "  policy,  and  a  decisive  campaign  down 
the  Mississippi  River  in  the  autumn  and  win- 
ter. "  We  were  to  go  down,  fight  all  the  bat- 
tles that  were  necessary,  take  all  the  positions 
we  could  find  and  garrison  them,  fight  a  bat- 
tle at  New  Orleans  and  win  it,  and  thus  end  the 
war."*  But  being  overruled  by  the  President 
and  Cabinet  in  favor  of  an  immediate  move- 
ment, the  old  soldier  gracefully  yielded  his 
preference,  and  gave  his  best  counsel  and  co- 
operation to  the  new  enterprise.  He  caused 
to  be  read  the  plan  matured  by  General  Mc- 
Dowell and  approved  by  himself. 

McDowell's  plan  stated  that  the  secession 
forces  then  at  Manassas  Junction,  under  com- 
mand of  General  Beauregard,  and  its  de- 
pendencies, were  estimated  at  twenty-five 
thousand.  When  threatened  they  would  call 
up  all  reinforcements  within  reach. 

If  General  J.  E.  Johnston's  force  is  kept  engaged 
by  Major-General  Patterson,  and  Major-General  Butler 
occupies  the  force  now  in  his  vicinity,  I  think  they  will 
not  be  able  to  bring  up  more  than  ten  thousand  men. 
So  we  must  calculate  on  having  to  do  with  about 
thirty-five  thousand  men.  .  .  .  Leaving  small  garri- 
sons in  the  defensive  works,  I  propose  to  move  against 
Manassas  with  a  force  of  30,000  of  all  arms,  organized 
into  3  columns,  with  a  reserve  of  10,000.  .  .  . 
After  uniting  the  columns  this  side  of  it,  I  pro- 
pose to  attack  the  main  position  by  turning  it,  if 
possible,  so  as  to  cut  off  communications  by  rail  with 
the  South,  t 

Before,  however,  the  preparation  for  this 
advance  had  even  been  completed,  the  first 
campaign  of  the  war,  though  not  an  extensive 
one,  was  already  finished  with  a  decided  suc- 
cess to  the  Union  arms. 

When  the  Richmond  convention  by  the 
secret  secession  ordinance  of  the  i7th  of 
April,  and  a  few  days  later  by  a  military  league 
with  Jefferson  Davis,  literally  kidnapped  Vir- 
ginia and  transferred  her,  bound  hand  and  foot, 
to  the  rebel  government  at  Montgomery,  the 
western  half  of  the  State  rose  with  an  almost 
unanimous  protest  against  the  rude  violation 
of  self-government,  and  resolved  to  secede 
from  secession.  A  series  of  popular  meetings 
was  held,  with  such  success  that  on  the  i3th 
of  May  delegates  from  twenty-five  counties 
met  for  consultation  at  Wheeling,  and  agreed 
on  such  further  action  and  cooperation  as 
would  enable  them  to  counteract  and  escape 
the  treason  and  alienation  to  which  they  had 
been  committed  without  their  consent.  The 
leaders  made  their  designs  known  to  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  at  Washington,  and  to  General 
McClellan  at  Cincinnati,  commanding  the 
*  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War. 


Department  of  the  Ohio,  and  were  not  only 
assured  of  earnest  sympathy,  but  promised 
active  help  from  the  Ohio  contingent  of  three- 
months'  volunteers,  whenever  the  decisive 
moment  of  need  should  arrive.  In  conform- 
ity with  this  understanding,  an  expedition  un- 
der McClellan's  orders  moved  against  and 
dispersed  a  little  nucleus  of  rebel  troops  at 
Philippi,  in  a  secluded  mountain  valley  about 
fifteen  miles  south  of  Grafton. 

Under  shelter  and  encouragement  of  this 
initial  military  success,  the  political  scheme 
of  forming  a  new  State  proceeded  with  accel- 
erated ardor.  As  early  as  June  1 1  a  delegate 
convention,  representing  about  forty  counties 
lying  between  the  crest  of  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Ohio  River,  met  and  organized  at 
Wheeling.  On  the  1 3th  of  June,  after  reciting 
the  various  treasonable  usurpations  of  the 
Richmond  convention  and  Governor  Letcher, 
it  adopted  a  formal  declaration  that  all  the 
acts  of  the  convention  and  the  executive  were 
without  authority  and  void,  and  declared  va- 
cated all  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial 
offices  in  the  State  held  by  those  "  who  ad- 
here to  said  convention  and  executive."  On 
the  i pth  of  June  an  ordinance  was  adopted 
creating  a  provisional  State  government,  un- 
der which  F.  H.  Peirpoint  was  appointed 
governor,  te  wield  executive  authority  in 
conjunction  with  an  executive  council  of  five 
members.  A  legislature  was  constituted  by 
calling  together  such  members-elect  as  would 
take  a  prescribed  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
United  States  and  to  the  restored  government 
of  Virginia,  and  providing  for  filling  the  va- 
cancies of  those  who  refused.  A  similar  pro- 
vision continued  or  substituted  other  State 
and  county  officers.  After  adding  sundry 
other  ordinances  to  this  groundwork  of  res- 
toration, the  convention  on  the  2 5th  took 
a  recess  till  August.  The  newly  constituted 
legislature  soon  met  to  enact  laws  for  the 
provisional  government;  and  on  July  9  it 
elected  two  United  States  senators,  who  were 
admitted  to  seats  four  days  later. 

So  far  the  work  was  simply  a  repudiation 
of  secession  and  a  restoration  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  whole  State  which  had  been 
usurped.  But  the  main  motive  and  purpose 
of  the  counter-revolution  was  not  allowed  to 
halt  nor  fail.  In  August  the  Wheeling  con- 
vention reassembled,  and  on  the  2oth  adopt- 
ed an  ordinance  creating  the  new  State  of 
Kanawha  (afterward  West  Virginia)  and  pro- 
viding for  a  popular  vote  to  be  taken  in  the  fol- 
lowing October  on  the  question  of  ratification. 

The  Richmond  government  had  no  thought 
of  surrendering  western  Virginia  to  the  Union 
without  a  struggle.  Toward  the  end  of  June 
t  McDowell  toTownsend,  June,  1861.  War  Records. 


A   HISTORY. 


'83 


they  sent  General  Garnett  to  oppose  the  Fed- 
eral forces.  He  took  position  in  a  mountain- 
pass  at  Laurel  Hill  with  3  or  4  regiments,  and 
stationed  Colonel  Pegram  in  another  pass  at 
Rich  Mountain,  17  miles  south,  with  a  regi- 
ment and  6  guns.  Early  in  July,  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  learning  the  weakness  of  the  rebels, 
resolved  to  drive  them  from  their  positions. 
He  sent  General  Morris  with  5  or  6  regiments 
against  Garnett,  and  himself  moved  with  some 
7  regiments  upon  Pegram's  intrenched  camp. 
General  Rosecrans,  commanding  McClellan's 
advance,  was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  a 
Union  mountaineer,  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  locality,  who  led  a  detachment  of  1900  men 
to  the  rear  of  the  rebel  position,  where  they 
easily  dispersed  an  outpost  of  300  men  with  2 
guns  stationed  near  the  summit.  This  victory 
made  Pegram's  position  untenable ;  and,  has- 
tily abandoning  his  intrenched  camp  and  guns, 
he  sought  to  join  Garnett  at  Laurel  Hill  by  a 
northward  march  along  the  mountain-top. 
Garnett,  however,  was  already  retreating ; 
and  Pegram,  unable  to  escape,  surrendered 
his  command  of  between  500  and  600  to  Mc- 
Clellan  on  the  morning  of  the  131)1  of  July. 

A  difficult  route  of  retreat  to  the  northward 
still  lay  open  to  Garnett,  and  he  made  diligent 
efforts  to  impede  the  pursuit,  which  was  pushed 
with  vigor.  About  noon  of  Jfuly  13  Captain 
Benham  with  three  Union  regiments  came  up 
with  the  rebel  wagon  train  at  Carrick's  Ford, 
one  of  the  crossings  of  Cheat  River,  twenty-six 
miles  north-west  of  Laurel  Hill.  Here  Garnett 
deployed  his  rear-guard  of  a  regiment  with  three 
guns  to  protect  his  train ;  but  by  a  sharp  at- 
tack the  Union  forces  drove  the  enemy,  captur- 
ing one  of  the  guns.  In  a  desultory  skirmish 
a  little  farther  on  Garnett  himself  was  killed  by 
a  sharpshooter,  and  that  incident  terminated, 
the  pursuit.  The  Unionists  secured  the  wagon 
train,  and  the  remnant  of  rebels  successfully 
continued  their  farther  retreat. 

Large  political  and  military  results  followed 
this  series  of  comparatively  slight  encounters. 
They  terminated  the  campaign  for  the  pos- 
session of  western  Virginia,  and  the  movement 
for  the  establishment  of  a  separate  State  there- 
after went  on  unchecked.  The  most  important 
result  was  upon  the  personal  fortunes  of  General 
McClellan.  These  were  the  first  decided  Union 


"  HUNTSVII.LK,  VA.,  July  14,  1861. 
COLONEL  TOWNSBND :  Garnett  and  forces  routed; 
his  baggage  and  one  gun  taken  ;  his  army  demoral- 
ized ;  Garnett  killed.  We  have  annihilated  the  enemy 
in  western  Virginia,  and  have  lost  13  killed  and  not 
more  than  40  wounded.  We  have  in  all  killed  at  least 
200  of  the  enemy,  and  their  prisoners  will  amount  to  at 
least  looo.  Have  taken  seven  guns  in  all.  I  still  look 
for  the  capture  of  the  remnant  of  Garnett's  army  by 
General  Hill.  The  troops  defeated  are  the  crack  regi- 
ments of  eastern  Virginia,  aided  by  Georgians,  Ten- 


victories  of  the  war,  and  they  were  hailed  by 
the  North  with  a  feeling  of  triumph  altogether 
disproportionate  to  their  real  magnitude.  \V  hen 
on  the  following  day  McClellan  summed  up  in 
a  single  laconic  dispatch  *  the  scattered  and 
disconnected  incidents  of  three  different  days, 
happening  forty  miles  apart,  the  impression, 
without  design  on  his  part,  was  most  natu- 
rally produced  upon  the  authorities  and  the 
country  that  so  sweeping  and  effective  a  cam- 
paign could  only  be  the  work  of  a  military 
genius  of  the  first  order.  McClellan  was  the 
unquestioned  hero  of  the  hour.  The  eclat  of 
this  achievement  soon  called  him  to  Washing- 
ton, and  in  a  train  of  events  which  followed 
had  no  insignificant  influence  in  securing  his 
promotion,  on  the  ist  of  November  follow- 
ing, without  further  victories,  to  the  command 
of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States. 

BULL  RUN.  t 

IT  had  been  arranged  that  McDowell's  ad- 
vance against  the  enemy  at  Manassas  should 
begin  on  July  9  :  by  dint  of  extraordinary  ex- 
ertions he  was  ready  and  issued  his  marching 
orders  on  July  16.  f  But  his  organization  was 
very  imperfect  and  his  preparations  were  far 
from  complete.  Many  of  his  regiments  reached 
him  but  two  days  before,  and  some  only  on 
the  day  he  moved.  He  started  with  barely 
wagons  enough  for  his  ammunition  and  hos- 
pital supplies ;  tents,  baggage,  and  rations  were 
to  follow.  §  The  utmost  caution  was"  enjoined 
to  avoid  another  Vienna  or  Big  Bethel  disas- 
ter. Three  things,  his  marching  orders  said, 
would  be  held  unpardonable  :  First,  to  come 
upon  a  battery  or  a  breastwork  without  knowl- 
edge of  its  position.  Second,  to  be  surprised. 
Third,  to  fall  back.  His  army  being  a  new, 
untried  machine,  his  men  unused  to  the  fa- 
tigues and  privations  of  a  march,  progress  was 
slow.  With  a  cumbersome  movement  it  felt 
its  way  toward  Fairfax  Court  House  and  Cen- 
treville,  the  outposts  of  the  enemy  having 
sufficient  time  to  retire  as  it  advanced.  Tyler 
commanded  his  first  division,  of  4  brigades; 
Hunter  the  second  division,  of  2  brigades; 
Heintzelman  the  third  division,  of  3  bri- 
gades; and  Miles  the  fifth  division,  of  2  bri- 
gades. The  fourth  division,  under  Runyon, 

nesseeans,-and  Carolinians.  Our  success  is  complete 
and  secession  is  killed  in  this  country. 

GEO.  B.  MCCLELIJVN, 
Major-General  Commanding. 
[War  Records.] 

t  For  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  see  Nicolay,  "  The  Outbreak  of  Rebellion,"  pp. 
169-197. 

t  War  Records. 

\  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War. 


284 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


was  left  behind  to  guard  his  communications. 
His  total  command  embraced  an  aggregate 
of  34,320  men;  his  marching  column  proper 
consisted  of  a  little  less  than  28,000  men,  in- 
cluding artillery,  a  total  of  49  guns,  and  a 
single  battalion  of  cavalry. 

When,  on  the  morning  of  July  18,  Tyler 
reached  Centreville,  he  found  that  the  enemy 
had  everywhere  retired  behind  the  line  of  Bull 
Run,  a  winding,  sluggish  stream  flowing  south- 
easterly toward  the  Potomac,  about  thirty-two 
miles  south-east  of  Washington.  While  it  is 
fordable  in  many  places,  it  generally  has  steep 
and  sometimes  precipitous  and  rocky  banks 
with  wooded  heights  on  the  west.  Three  miles 
beyond  the  stream  lies  Manassas  Junction  on 
a  high,  open  plateau.  Here  the  railroads,  from 
Richmond  on  the  south  and  the  Shenandoah 
Valley  on  the  west,  come  together.  To  pro- 
tect this  junction  the  rebels  had  some  slight 
field-works,  armed  with  14  or  15  heavy  guns, 
and  garrisoned  by  about  2000  men.  Beaure- 
gard,  in  command  since  the  ist  of  June,  had 
gathered  an  army  of  nearly  22,000  men  and  29 
guns.  The  independent  command  of  Holmes, 
called  up  from  Aquia  Creek,  augmented  his 
force  to  a  little  over  23,000  men  and  35  guns. 
Instead  of  keeping  this  about  the  Manassas 
earth- works  he  had  brought  it  close  down  to  the 
banks  of  Bull  Run  and  posted  it  along  a  line 
some  eight  miles  in  length,  extending  from  the 
Manassas  railroad  to  the  stone  bridge  on  the 
Warrenton  turnpike,  and  guarding  the  five 
intermediate  fords. 

The  enemy  retired  from  Centreville  as  Tyler 
approached  that  place ;  and  taking  a  light  de- 
tachment to  make  a  reconnaissance,  he  fol- 
lowed their  main  body  toward  the  crossing  of 
Bull  Run  at  Blackburn's  Ford,  near  the  cen- 
ter of  Beauregard's  extended  line.  Tyler  was 
under  express  orders  to  observe  well  the  roads, 
but  not  to  bring  on  an  engagement.*  Appar- 
ently lured  on,  however,  by  the  hitherto  easy 
approach,  his  reconnaissance  became  a  skir- 
mish, and  calling  up  support,  the  skirmish  be- 
came a  preliminary  battle.  Before  he  was  well 
aware  of  it  60  men  had  fallen,  2  exposed 
field-pieces  had  been  with  difficulty  extricated, 
i  regiment  had  retreated  in  confusion,  and 
3  others  were  deployed  in  line  of  battle,  to 
make  a  new  charge.  At  this  point  Tyler  re- 
membered his  instructions  and  called  off  his 
troops.  This  engagement  at  Blackburn's  Ford, 
so  apparently  without  necessity  or  advantage, 
greatly  exasperated  the  men  and  officers  en- 
gaged in  it,  and  seriously  chilled  the  fine 
spirit  in  which  the  army  started  on  its  march. 
The  attacking  detachment  did  not  then  know 
that  the  enemy  had  suffered  equal  loss  and 
demoralization,  t 

McDowell  began  his   campaign  with  the 


purpose  of  turning  the  flank  of  the  enemy  on 
the  south;  but  the  examinations  made  on  the 
1 8th  satisfied  him  that  the  narrow  roads  and 
rough  country  in  that  direction  made  such  a 
movement  impracticable.  When,  in  addition, 
he  heard  Tyler's  cannonade  on  the  same  day, 
he  hurried  forward  his  divisions  to  Centre- 
ville; and  the  report  of  that  day's  engagement 
also  seemed  to  prove  it  inexpedient  to  make 
a  direct  attack.t  That  night  McDowell  as- 
sembled his  division  commanders  at  Centre- 
ville and  confidentially  informed  them  that 
he  had  changed  his  original  plan,  and  resolved 
to  march  northward  and  turn  Beauregard's  left 
flank. t  All  of  Friday,  the  igth,  and  Saturday,  the 
2oth,  were  spent  in  an  effort  of  the  engineers 
to  find  an  unfortified  ford  over  Bull  Run  in 
that  direction;  and  thus  the  main  battle  was 
postponed  till  Sunday,  July  21.  During  those 
two  days,  while  McDowell's  army  was  re- 
freshed by  rest  and  supplied  with  rations,  the 
strength  of  the  enemy  in  his  front  was  greatly 
increased. 

McDowell's  movement  was  based  upon  the 
understanding  and  promise  that  Patterson 
should  hold  Johnston  in  the  Shenandoah  Val- 
ley, and  General  Scott  made  every  exertion 
to  redeem  this  promise.  On  the  i3th  he  di- 
rected Patterson  to  detain  Johnston  "  in  the 
valley  of  Winchester";  and  as  the  critical 
time  approached,  and  hearing  no  official  re- 
port from  him  for  three  whole  days,  he  sent 
him  a  sharp  admonition:  "  Do  not  let  the 
enemy  amuse  and  delay  you  with  a  small 
force  in  front,  whilst  he  reenforces  the 
[Manassas]  Junction  with  his  main  body.":): 
And  still  more  emphatically  on  the  i8th, 
while  the  engagement  of  Blackburn's  Ford 
was  being  fought  by  McDowell's  troops :  "  I 
.have  certainly  been  expecting  you  to  beat  the 
enemy.  If  not,  to  hear  that  you  had  felt  him 
strongly,  or  at  least  had  occupied  him  by 
threats  and  demonstrations.  You  have  been 
at  least  his  equal,  and,  I  suppose,  superior  in 
numbers.  Has  he  not  stolen  a  march  and 
sent  reinforcements  toward  Manassas  Junc- 
tion ?  A  week  is  enough  to  win  victories."  § 
Patterson  was  touched  by  the  implied  censure, 
and  answered  restively :  "  The  enemy  has 
stolen  no  march  upon  me.  I  have  kept  him 
actively  employed,  and  by  threats  and  re- 
connaissances in  force  have  caused  him  to  be 
reenforced."  ||  But  the  facts  did  not  bear  out 
the  assertion.  He  had  been  grossly  outwitted, 
and  the  enemy  was  at  that  moment  making  the 
stolen  march  which  Scott  feared,  and  of  which 

*  McDowell  to  Tyler,  July  18,  1861.    War  Records. 

t  War  Records. 

t  Scott  to  Patterson,  July  17,  1861.    War  Records. 

\  Scott  to  Patterson.     War  Records. 

II  Patterson  to  Scott,  July  18,  1861.     War  Records. 


A   HISTORY. 


285 


Patterson  remained  in  profound  ignorance  till 
two  days  later. 

Since  the  gth  of  July  his  readiness  to  "offer 
battle,"  or  to  "  strike  "  when  the  proper  mo- 
ment should  arrive,  had  oozed  away.  He 
became  clamorous  for  reinforcements,  and 
profuse  of  complaints.  Making  no  energetic 
reconnaissance  to  learn  the  truth,  and  credit- 
ing every  exaggerated  rumor,  he  became  im- 
pressed that  he  was  "  in  face  of  an  enemy 
far  superior  in  numbers."  Understanding  per- 
fectly the  nature  and  importance  of  his  assigned 
task,  and  admitting  in  his  dispatches  that "  this 
force  is  the  key-stone  of  the  combined  move- 
ments"; ambitious  to  perform  a  brilliant  act, 
and  commanding  abundant  means  to  execute 
his  plan,  his  courage  failed  in  the  trying  mo- 
ment. "  To-morrow  I  advance  to  Bunker  Hill," 
he  reported  on  July  14,  "  preparatory  to  the 
other  movement.  If  an  opportunity  offers,  I 
shall  attack."*  Reaching  Bunker  Hill  on  the 
iSth,  he  was  within  nine  miles  of  the  enemy. 
His  opportunity  was  at  hand.  Johnston  had 
only  1 2 ,000  men  all  told ;  Patterson,  from  1 8,000 
to  22,000.  All  that  and  the  following  day  he 
must  have  been  torn  by  conflicting  emotions. 
He  was  both  seeking  and  avoiding  a  battle. 
He  had  his  orders  written  out  for  an  attack. 
But  it  would  appear  that  his  chief  of  staff, 
Fitz-John  Porter,  together  with  Colonels  Aber- 
crombie  and  Thomas,  at  the  last  moment  per- 
suaded him  to  change  his  mind.  Making  only 
a  slight  reconnaissance  on  the  i6th,  he  late 
that  night  countermanded  his  orders,  and  on 
July  17  marched  to  Charlestown — nominally 
as  a  flank  movement,  but  practically  in  re- 
treat. Johnston,  the  Confederate  commander, 
was  at  Winchester,  in  daily  anticipation  of 
Patterson's  attack,  when  at  midnight  of  July 
17  he  received  orders  to  go  at  once  to  the 
help  of  Beauregard  at  Manassas.  By  9  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  i8th  his  scouts  brought 
him  information  that  Patterson's  army  was 
at  Charlestown.  Relieved  thus  unexpectedly 
from  a  menace  of  danger  which  otherwise  he 
could  neither  have  resisted  nor  escaped,  he 
lost  no  time.  At  noon  of  the  same  day  he  had 
his  whole  effective  force  of  9000  men  on  the 
march ;  by  noon  of  Saturday,  July  20,  6000 
of  them,  with  20  guns,  were  in  Beauregard's 
camp  at  Bull  Run,  ready  to  resist  McDowell's 
attack. 

The  Union  army  lay  encamped  about  Cen- 
treville;  from  there  the  Warrenton  turnpike 
ran  westward  over  a  stone  bridge,  crossing 
Bull  Run  to  Gainesville,  several  miles  beyond. 
Unaware  as  yet  that  Johnston  had  joined 
Beauregard,  McDowell  desired  to  seize 
Gainesville,  a  station  on  the  railroad,  to  pre- 

*  Patterson  to  Townsend,  July  14,  1861.  War 
Records. 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 41. 


vent  such  a  junction.  The  stone  bridge  was 
thought  to  be  defended  in  force,  besides  being 
mined,  ready  to  be  blown  up.  The  engineers, 
however,  late  on  Saturday,  obtained  informa- 
tion that  Sudley  Ford,  two  or  three  miles 
above,  could  be  readily  carried  and  crossed 
by  an  attacking  column. 

On  Saturday  night,  therefore,  McDowell 
called  his  officers  together  and  announced  his 
plan  of  battle  for  the  following  day.  Tyler's 
division  was  ordered  to  advance  on  the  War- 
renton turnpike  and  threaten  the  stone  bridge; 
while  Hunter  and  Heintzelman,  with  their  di- 
visions, should  make  a  circuitous  and  secret 
night  march,  seize  and  cross  Sudley  Ford,  and 
descending  on  the  enemy's  side  of  Bull  Run 
should  carry  the  batteries  at  the  stone  bridge 
by  a  rear  attack,  whereby  Tyler  would  be  able 
to  cross  and  join  in  the  main  battle. 

Beauregard,  on  his  part,  also  planned  an  ag- 
gressive movement  for  that  same  Sunday  morn- 
ing. No  sooner  had  Johnston  arrived  than  he 
proposed  that  the  Confederates  should  sally 
from  their  intrenchments,  cross  the  five  fords 
of  Bull  Run  they  were  guarding,  march  by  the 
various  converging  roads  to  Centreville,  and 
surprise  and  crush  the  Union  army  in  its 
camps.  The  orders  for  such  an  advance  and 
attack  were  duly  written  out,  and  Johnston,  as 
ranking  officer,  signed  his  approval  of  them  in 
the  gray  twilight  of  Sunday  morning.  But  it 
proved  wasted  labor.  At  sunrise  Tyler's  sig- 
nal guns  announced  the  Union  advance  and 
attack.  The  original  plan  was  thereupon  aban- 
doned, and  Beauregard  proposed  a  modifica- 
tion—  to  stand  on  the  defensive  with  their  left 
flank  at  the  stone  bridge,  and  attack  with  their 
right  from  the  region  of  Blackburn's  Ford.  This 
suggestion  again  Johnston  adopted  and  or- 
dered to  be  carried  out.  There  had  been  con- 
fusion and  delay  in  the  outset  of  McDowell's 
march,  and  the  flanking  route  around  by  Sud- 
ley Ford  proved  unexpectedly  long.  Tyler's 
feigned  attack  at  the  stone  bridge  was  so  fee- 
ble and  inefficient  that  it  betrayed  its  object; 
the  real  attack  by  Hunter  and  H  eintzelman ,  de- 
signed to  begin  at  daylight,  could  not  be  made 
until  near  1 1  o'clock.  The  first  sharp  encounter 
took  place  about  a  mile  north  of  the  Warren- 
ton  turnpike ;  some  five  regiments  on  each  side 
being  engaged.  The  rebels  tenaciously  held 
their  line  for  an  hour.  But  the  Union  column 
was  constantly  swelling  with  arriving  batteries 
and  regiments.  Tyler's  division  found  a  ford, 
and  crossing  Bull  Run  a  short  distance  above 
the  stone  bridge,  three  of  its  brigades  joined 
Hunter  and  Heintzelman.  About  12  o'clock 
the  Confederate  line,  composed  mainly  of 
Johnston's  troops,  wavered  and  broke,  and 
was  swept  back  across  and  out  of  the  valley 
of  the  Warrenton  turnpike,  and  down  the  road 


286 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


running  southward  from  Sudley  Ford  to  Ma- 
nassas  Junction. 

The  commanders  and  other  officers  on  both 
sides  were  impressed  with  the  conviction  that 
this  conflict  of  the  forenoon  had  decided  the 
fortunes  of  the  day.  Beauregard's  plan  to 
make  a  counter-attack  from  his  right  flank 
against  Centreville  had  failed  through  a  mis- 
carriage of  orders ;  and  leaving  Johnston  at 
headquarters  to  watch  the  entire  field,  he 
hastened  personally  to  endeavor  to  check  the 
tide  of  defeat.  Jackson,  afterward  known  by 
the  sobriquet  of  "  Stonewall,"  had  already 
formed  his  fresh  brigade,  also  of  Johnston's 
army,  on  the  crest  of  a  ridge  half  a  mile  south 
of  the  VVarrenton  turnpike.  Other  regiments 
and  batteries  were  hurried  up,  until  they  con- 
stituted a  semicircular  line  of  12  regiments, 
22  guns,  and  2  companies  of  cavalry,  strongly 
posted  and  well  hidden  in  the  edge  of  a  piece 
of  woods  behind  the  screen  of  a  thick  growth 
of  young  pines. 

At  half-past  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
McDowell  attacked  this  second  position  of 
the  enemy  with  an  immediately  available  force 
of  about  14  regiments,  24  guns,  and  a  single 
battalion  of  cavalry.  Here  the  advantages  of 
position  were  all  strongly  against  him.  The 
enemy  was  posted,  concealed,  and  his  artil- 
lery concentrated,  while  McDowell's  brigades 
were  at  the  foot  of  the  hill;  not  only  where  the 
ascent  must  be  made  in  open  view,  but  where 
the  nature  of  the  ground  rendered  a  united 
advance  impossible.  A  series  of  successive 
and  detached  assaults  followed.  Two  batteries 
were  lost  by  mistaking  a  rebel  for  a  Union 
regiment;  and  because  of  the  lax  organiza- 
tion and  want  of  discipline  in  the  raw  volun- 
teer regiments,  the  strength  of  McDowell's 
command  melted  away  in  a  rapid  demoraliza- 
tion and  disintegration.  The  scales  of  victory, 
however,  yet  vibrated  in  uncertainty,  when 
at  4  in  the  afternoon  the  remainder  of  John- 
ston's army  arrived,  and  seven  fresh  rebel 
regiments  were  thrown  against  the  extreme 
right  and  partly  in  rear  of  the  Union  line. 

This  heavy  numerical  overweight  at  a  de- 
cisive time  and  place  terminated  the  battle 
very  suddenly.  The  abundant  rumors  that 
Johnston  was  coming  to  the  help  of  Beaure- 
gard  seemed  verified;  and  the  Union  regi- 
ments, ignorant  of  the  fact  that  they  had  been 
successfully  fighting  part  of  his  force  all  day, 
were  now  seized  with  a  panic,  and  began  by 
a  common  impulse  to  move  in  retreat.  The 
suddenness  of  their  victory  was  as  unexpected 
to  the  rebel  as  to  the  Union  commanders. 
Jefferson  Davis,  who  had  come  from  Rich- 
mond, arriving  at  Manassas  at  4  o'clock,  was 
informed  that  the  battle  was  lost,  and  was  im- 
plored by  his  companions  not  to  endanger  his 


personal  safety  by  riding  to  the  front.  Never- 
theless he  persisted,  and  was  overjoyed  to  find 
that  the  Union  army  had,  by  a  sudden  and 
unexplained  impulse,  half  marched,  half  run 
from  the  field.  The  rebel  detachments  of 
cavalry  hung  about  the  line  of  retreat,  and 
by  sudden  dashes  picked  up  a  large  harvest 
of  trophies  in  guns  and  supplies,  but  they 
dared  not  venture  a  serious  attack  ;  and  so 
unconvinced  were  they  as  yet  of  the  final  re- 
sult, that  that  night  the  rebel  commanders  set 
a  strong  and  vigilant  guard  in  all  directions 
against  the  expected  return,  and  offensive 
operations,  by  McDowell  next  morning.  The 
precaution  was  needless,  for  the  Union  army 
was  so  much  demoralized  that  the  command- 
ers deemed  it  unsafe  to  make  a  stand  at  Cen- 
treville, where  the  reserves  were  posted ;  and 
a  rapid  though  orderly  retreat  was  continued 
through  the  night,  and  until  all  organized  regi- 
ments or  fragments  reached  their  old  camps 
within  the  fortifications  on  the  Potomac,  and 
the  scattered  fugitives  made  their  way  across 
the  river  into  the  city  of  Washington. 

McDowell's  defeat  was  wholly  due  to  Pat- 
terson's inefficiency.  He  was  charged  with 
the  task  of  defeating  or  holding  Johnston  in 
the  Shenandoah  Valley;  he  had  a  double 
force  with  which  to  perform  his  task.  Had  he 
done  so,  McDowell,  who  in  that  case  would 
have  been  superior  in  numbers  to  Beaure- 
gard,  and  whose  plans  were  in  the  main  judi- 
cious, could  easily  have  conquered.  It  was 
Johnston's  army,  which  Patterson  had  per- 
mitted to  escape,  that  principally  fought  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run  and  defeated  McDowell.* 
Nor  is  there  any  good  sense  in  that  criticism 
which  lays  the  blame  upon  General  Scott  and 
the  Administration  for  not  having  first  united 
the  two  Federal  armies.  The  Administration 
furnished  a  superior  force  against  Beaure- 
gard  at  Bull  Run,  and  an  overwhelming 
force  against  Johnston  at  Winchester,  and 
assured  victory  in  each  locality  by  the  only 
reliable  condition  —  other  things  being  equal 
—  an  excess  of  numbers.  Had  Patterson 
held  his  foe,  as  he  might,  and  McDowell 
defeated  Beauregard,as  he  would  have  done, 
the  capture  of  Johnston's  force  between  the 
two  Federal  armies  was  practically  certain,  as 
General  Scott  intended,  t 

*  The  following  analysis  of  the  forces  engaged  in  the 
main  and  decisive  phases  of  the  actual  fighting  shows 
it  conclusively: 


BEAVRECARD  S 
ARMY. 


RffS. 


Guns. 


JOHNSTON  S 
ARMY. 

Kegs.  Guns. 

Battle  of  the  morning 4  4               i                  2 

Battle  of  the  afternoon 9  16                3                  6 

Final  flank  attack  which  cre- 
ated the  panic 3  4               4 

16  24  8  8 

t  Scott  to  McCIellan,  July  18,  1861.    War  Records. 


A   HISTORY. 


287 


Scott  was  aware  of  the  danger  which  Pat- 
terson's negligence  had  created.  "  It  is  known 
that  a  strong  reinforcement  left  Winchester  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  i8th,  which  you  will  also 
have  to  beat,"  he  telegraphed  McDowell  on 
the  day  of  the  battle,  which  it  was  then  too 
late  to  countermand.*  He  also  promised  him 
immediate  reinforcements.  The  confidence 
of  the  General-in-Chief  remained  unshaken, 
and  he  telegraphed  McClellan  :  "  McDowell 
is  this  forenoon  forcing  the  passage  of  Bull 
Run.  In  two  hours  he  will  turn  the  Manassas 
Junction  and  storm  it  to-day  with  superior 
force."  t 

It  may  well  be  supposed  that  President 
Lincoln  suffered  great  anxiety  during  that 
eventful  Sunday;  but  General  Scott  talked 
confidently  of  success,  and  Lincoln  bore  his 
impatience  without  any  visible  sign,  and 
quietly  went  to  church  at  n  o'clock.  Soon 
after  noon  copies  of  telegrams  began  to 
come  to  him  at  the  Executive  Mansion  from 
the  War  Department  and  from  army  head- 
quarters. They  brought,  however,  no  certain 
information,  as  they  came  only  from  the  near- 
est station  to  the  battle-field,  and  simply  gave 
what  the  operator  saw  and  heard.  Toward 
3  o'clock  they  became  more  frequent,  and 
reported  considerable  fluctuation  in  the  ap- 
parent course  and  progress  of  the  cannonade. 
The  President  went  to  the  office  of  General 
Scott,  where  he  found  the  general  asleep,  and 
woke  him  to  talk  over  the  news.  Scott  said 
such  reports  were  worth  nothing  as  indications 
either  way  —  that  the  changes  in  the  currents 
of  wind  and  the  variation  of  the  echoes  made 
it  impossible  for  a  distant  listener  to  deter- 
mine the  course  of  a  battle.  He  still  expressed 
his  confidence  in  a  successful  result,  and  com- 
posed himself  for  another  nap  when  the  Pres- 
ident left. 

Dispatches  continued  to  come  about  every 
ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  still  based  on  hearing 
and  hearsay.  But  the  rumors  grew  more 
cheering  and  definite.  They  reported  that  the 
battle  had  extended  along  nearly  the  whole 
line;  that  there  had  been  considerable  loss; 
but  that  the  secession  lines  had  been  driven 
back  two  or  three  miles,  some  of  the  dis- 
patches said,  to  the  Junction.  One  of  General 
Scott's  aides  now  also  came,  bringing  the  tele- 
gram of  an  engineer,  repeating  that  McDow- 
ell had  driven  the  enemy  before  him,  that  he 
had  ordered  the  reserves  to  cross  Bull  Run, 
and  wanted  reinforcements  without  delay.J 

The  aide  further  stated  substantially  that 
the  general  was  satisfied  of  the  truth  of  this 

*Scott,Testimony,Committeeon  Conduct  of  the  War. 
t  Scott  to  McClellan,  July  21,  1861.     War  Records. 
t  Wendell  to  Thomas,  July  21,  1861,  4  P.  M.     War 
Records. 


report,  and  that  McDowell  would  immediately 
attack  and  capture  the  Junction,  perhaps  to- 
night, but  certainly  by  to-morrow  noon.  Deem- 
ing all  doubt  at  an  end,  President  Lincoln 
ordered  his  carriage,  and  went  out  to  take  his 
usual  evening  drive. 

He  had  not  yet  returned  when,  at  6  o'clock, 
Secretary  Seward  came  to  the  Executive  Man- 
sion, pale  and  haggard.  "  Where  is  the  Presi- 
dent ? "  he  asked  hoarsely  of  the  private 
secretaries.  "  Gone  to  drive,"  they  answered. 
"  Have  you  any  late  news  ?  "  he  continued. 
They  read  him  the  telegrams  which  an- 
nounced victory.  "  Tell  no  one,"  said  he. 
"That  is  not  true.  The  battle  is  lost.  The 
telegraph  says  that  McDowell  is  in  full  retreat, 
and  calls  on  General  Scott  to  save  the  capital. 
Find  the  President  and  tell  him  to  come  im- 
mediately to  General  Scott's."  Half  an  hour 
later  the  President  returned  from  his  drive, 
and  his  private  secretaries  gave  him  Seward's 
message — the  first  intimation  he  received  of 
the  trying  news.  He  listened  in  silence,  with- 
out the  slightest  change  of  feature  or  expres- 
sion, and  walked  away  to  army  headquarters. 
There  he  read  the  unwelcome  report  in  a  tele- 
gram from  a  captain  of  engineers :  "  General 
McDowell's  army  in  full  retreat  through  Cen- 
treville.  The  day  is  lost.  Save  Washington 
and  the  remnants  of  this  army.  .  .  .  The 
routed  troops  will  not  re-form. "§  This  infor- 
mation was  such  an  irreconcilable  contradic- 
tion of  the  former  telegram  that  General 
Scott  utterly  refused  to  believe  it.  That  one 
officer  should  report  the  army  beyond  Bull 
Run,  driving  the  enemy  and  ordering  up  re- 
serves, and  another  immediately  report  it 
three  miles  this  side  of  Bull  Run,  in  hopeless 
retreat  and  demoralization,  seemed  an  impos- 
sibility. Yet  the  impossible  had  indeed  come 
to  pass;  and  the  apparent  change  of  fortune 
had  been  nearly  as  sudden  on  the  battle-field 
as  in  Washington. 

The  President  and  the  Cabinet  met  at  Gen- 
eral Scott's  office,  and  awaited  further  news  in 
feverish  suspense,  until  a  telegram  from  Mc- 
Dowell confirmed  the  disaster.  ||  Discussion 
was  now  necessarily  turned  to  preparation  for 
the  future.  All  available  troops  were  hurried 
forward  to  McDowell's  support ;  Baltimore 
was  put  on  the  alert ;  telegrams  were  sent  to 
the  recruiting  stations  of  the  nearest  Northern 
States  to  lose  no  time  in  sending  all  their  or- 
ganized regiments  to  Washington ;  McClellan 
was  ordered  to  "  come  down  to  the  Shenan- 
doah  Valley  with  such  troops  as  can  be  spared 
from  western  Virginia."  fl  A  great  number  of 

$  Alexander,  July  21,  1861.  War  Records. 
||  McDowell  to  Townsend,  July  21,    1861.     War 
Records. 
II  Scott  to  McClellan,  July  21, 1861.  War  Records. 


288 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


civilians,  newspaper  correspondents,  and  sev- 
eral senators  and  representatives  had  followed 
McDowell's  army  to  Centreville ;  one  of  the 
latter,  Mr.  Ely  of  New  York,  went  to  the  bat- 
tle-field itself,  and  was  captured  and  sent  for 
a  long  sojourn  to  Libby  Prison  in  Richmond. 
Such  of  these  non-combatants  as  had  been 
fortunate  enough  to  keep  their  horses  and  ve- 
hicles were  the  first  to  reach  Washington,  arriv- 
ing about  midnight.  President  Lincoln  had  by 
this  time  returned  to  the  Executive  Mansion, 
and  reclining  on  a  lounge  in  the  Cabinet  room 
he  heard  from  several  of  these  eye-witnesses 
their  excited  and  exaggerated  narratives,  in 
which  the  rush  and  terror  and  unseemly  stam- 
pede of  lookers-on  and  army  teamsters  were 
altogether  disproportionate  and  almost  ex- 
clusive features.  The  President  did  not  go  to 
his  bed  that  night;  morning  found  him  still 
on  his  lounge  in  the  Executive  office,  hearing 
a  repetition  of  these  recitals  and  making  mem- 
oranda of  his  own  comments  and  conclusions. 

As  the  night  elapsed,  the  news  seemed  to 
grow  worse.  McDowell's  first  dispatch  stated 
that  he  would  hold  Centreville.  His  second, 
that "  the  larger  part  of  the  men  are  a  confused 
mob,  entirely  demoralized  " ;  but  he  said  that 
he  would  attempt  to  make  a  stand  at  Fairfax 
Court  House.*  His  third  reported  from  that 
point  that  "  many  of  the  volunteers  did  not 
wait  for  authority  to  proceed  to  the  Potomac, 
but  left  on  their  own  decision.  They  are  now 
pouring  through  this  place  in  a  state  of  utterdis- 
organization.  ...  I  think  now,  as  all  of  my 
commanders  thought  at  Centreville,  there  is  no 
alternative  but  to  fall  back  to  the  Potomac."  t 
Reports  from  other  points  generally  confirmed 
the  prevalence  of  confusion  and  disorganiza- 
tion. Monday  morning  the  scattered  fugitives 
reached  the  bridges  over  the  Potomac,  and 
began  rushing  across  them  into  Washington. 
It  was  a  gloomy  and  dismal  day.  A  drizzling 
rain  set  in  which  lasted  thirty-six  hours.  Many 
a  panic-stricken  volunteer  remembered  after- 
ward with  gratitude,  that  when  he  was  wan- 
dering footsore,  exhausted,  and  hungry  through 
the  streets  of  the  capital,  her  loyal  families 
opened  their  cheerful  doors  to  give  him  food, 
rest,  and  encouragement. 

One  of  the  principal  reasons  which  prevented 
McDowell's  making  a  stand  at  Centreville  or 
Fairfax  Court  House  was  the  important  fact 
that  the  term  of  service  of  the  three-months' 
militia,  organized  under  President  Lincoln's 
first  proclamation,  was  about  to  expire.  "  In 

*  McDowell  to  Townsend,  July  21,  1861.  War  Rec- 
ords. 

t  McDowell  to  Townsend,  July  22,  1861. 

t  McDowell,  Report,  August  4,  1861.  War  Rec- 
ords. 

§  Cameron  to  Stetson,  Grinell,  and  others,  July  22, 
1 86 1.  War  Records. 


the  next  few  days,"  says  McDowell  in  his  re- 
port, "  day  by  day  I  should  have  lost  ten 
thousand  of  the  best  armed,  drilled,  officered, 
and  disciplined  troops  in  the  army."J  This 
vital  consideration  equally  affected  the  armies 
at  other  points ;  and  bearing  it,  as  well  as  the 
local  exigency,  in  mind,  the  President  and  the 
Cabinet  determined  on  several  changes  of 
army  leadership.  McDowell  was  continued 
in  command  on  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Po- 
tomac, with  fifteen  regiments  to  defend  and 
hold  the  forts.  McClellan  was  called  to  Wash- 
ington to  take  local  command,  and  more  es- 
pecially to  organize  a  new  army  out  of  the 
three-years'  regiments  which  were  just  be- 
ginning to  come  in  from  the  various  States. 
Patterson  was  only  a  three-months'  general, 
appointed  by  the  governor  of  Pennsylvania; 
his  time  expired,  and  he  was  mustered  out  of 
service.  Banks  was  sent  to  Harper's  Ferry  to 
succeed  him.  Dix  was  put  in  command  at 
Baltimore,  and  Rosecrans  in  western  Virginia. 
By  noon  of  Monday  the  worst  aspects  of  the 
late  defeat  were  known;  and  especially  the  reas- 
suring fact  that  the  enemy  was  making  no  pur- 
suit; and  so  far  as  possible  immediate  dangers 
were  provided  against.  The  War  Department 
was  soon  able  to  reply  to  anxious  inquiries 
from  New  York : 

Our  loss  is  much  less  than  was  at  first  represented, 
and  the  troops  have  reached  the  forts  in  much  better 
condition  than  we  expected.  We  arc  making  most  vig- 
orous efforts  to  concentrate  a  large  and  irresistible 
army  at  this  point.  Regiments  are  arriving.  .  .  . 
Our  works  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Potomac  are  im- 
pregnable, being  well  manned  with  reinforcements. 
The  capital  is  safe.  $ 

On  the  following  day  Lincoln  in  person  vis- 
ited some  of  the  forts  and  camps  about  Arling- 
ton Heights,  and  addressed  the  regiments  with 
words  of  cheer  and  confidence. 

Compared  with  the  later  battles  of  the  civil 
war,  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  involved  but  a 
very  moderate  loss  ||  in  men  and  material.  Its 
political  and  moral  results, however,  were  wide- 
spread and  enduring.  The  fact  that  the  rebel 
army  suffered  about  equal  damage  in  numbers 
of  killed  and  wounded,  and  that  it  was  crip- 
pled so  as  to  be  unable  for  months  to  resume 
the  offensive, could  not  be  immediately  known. 
The  flushed  hope  of  the  South  magnified  the 
achievement  as  a  demonstration  of  Southern 
invincibility.  The  event  of  a  pitched  battle 
won  gave  the  rebellion  and  the  Confederate 
government  a  standing  and  a  sudden  respect- 

||  The  official  reports  show  a  loss  to  the  Union  side 
in  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  of  25  guns  (the  Confederates 
claim  28),  481  men  killed,  ion  men  wounded,  and 
1460  (wounded  and  other  Union  soldiers)  sent  as  pris- 
oners to  Richmond.  On  the  Confederate  side  the  loss 
was  387  killed,  1582  wounded,  and  a  few  prisoners 
taken. — War  Records. 


A   HISTORY. 


289 


ability  before  foreign  powers  it  had  hardly 
dared  hope  for.  With  the  then  personal  gov- 
ernment of  France,  and  with  the  commer- 
cial classes  whose  influence  always  rules  the 
government  of  England,  it  gained  at  once  a 
scarcely  disguised  active  sympathy. 

Upon  the  irritated  susceptibilities,  the 
wounded  loyalty,  the  sanguine  confidence  of 
the  North,  the  Bull  Run  defeat  fell  with  a 
cruel  bitterness.  The  eager  hopes  built  on  the 
victories  of  western  Virginia  were  dashed  to 
the  ground.  Here  was  a  fresher  and  deeper 
humiliation  than  Sumter  or  Baltimore.  But 
though  her  nerves  winced,  her  will  never  fal- 
tered. She  was  both  chastened  and  strength- 
ened in  the  fiery  trial.  For  the  moment,  how- 
ever, irritation  and  disappointment  found  vent 
in  loud  complaint  and  blind  recrimination. 
One  or  two  curious  incidents  in  this  ordeal 
of  criticism  may  perhaps  be  cited.  A  few  days 
after  the  battle,  in  a  conversation  at  the  White 
House  with  several  Illinois  members  of  Con- 
gress, in  the  presence  of  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  War,  General  Scott  himself  was 
so  far  nettled  by  the  universal  chagrin  and 
fault-finding  that  he  lost  his  temper  and  sought 
an  entirely  uncalled-for  self-justification.  "  Sir, 
I  am  the  greatest  coward  in  America,"  said 
he.  "  I  will  prove  it.  I  have  fought  this  bat- 
tle, sir,  against  my  judgment;  I  think  the 
President  of  the  United  States  ought  to  re- 
move me  to-day  for  doing  it.  As  God  is  my 
judge,  after  my  superiors  had  determined  to 
fight  it  I  did  all  in  my  power  to  make  the 
army  efficient.  I  deserve  removal  because  I 
did  not  stand  up,  when  my  army  was  not  in  a 
condition  for  fighting,  and  resist  it  to  the  last." 
The  President  said,  "  Your  conversation  seems 
to  imply  that  I  forced  you  to  fight  this  bat- 
tle." General  Scott  then  said,  "  I  have  never 
served  a  President  who  has  been  kinder  to 
me  than  you  have  been."  Richardson,  who 
in  a  complaining  speech  in  Congress  related 
the  scene,  then  drew  the  inference  that  Scott 
intended  to  pay  a  personal  compliment  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  but  that  he  did  not  mean  to  ex- 
onerate the  Cabinet;  and  when  pressed  by 
questions,  further  explained:  "Let  us  have 
no  misunderstanding  about  this  matter.  My 
colleagues  understood  that  I  gave  the  lan- 
guage as  near  as  I  could.  Whether  I  have 
been  correctly  reported  or  not  I  do  not  know. 
If  I  did  not  then  make  the  correct  statement, 
let  me  do  it  now.  I  did  not  understand  Gen- 
eral Scott,  nor  did  I  mean  so  to  be  under- 
stood, as  implying  that  the  President  had 
forced  him  to  fight  that  battle."*  The  inci- 
dent illustrates  how  easily  history  may  be  per- 
verted by  hot-blooded  criticism.  Scott's  petu- 
lance drove  him  to  an  inaccurate  statement 

""Globe,"  July24and  Aug.  1, 1861,  pp.  246  and  387. 


of  events;  Richardson's  partisanship  warped 
Scott's  error  to  a  still  more  unjustifiable  de- 
duction, and  both  reasoned  from  a  changed 
condition  of  things.  Two  weeks  before,  Scott 
was  confident  of  victory,  and  Richardson 
chafing  at  military  inaction.  The  exact  facts 
have  already  been  stated.  Scott  advised 
against  an  offensive  campaign  into  Virginia, 
but  consented  —  was  not  forced  —  to  prepare 
and  direct  it.  He  made  success  as  certain  as 
it  ever  can  be  made  in  war;  but  the  inefficiency 
of  Patterson  foiled  his  plan  and  preparation. 
Even  then  victory  was  yet  possible  and  prob- 
able but  for  the  panic,  against  which  there 
is  no  safeguard,  and  which  has  been  fatal  to 
armies  in  all  times  and  in  all  countries. 

Historical  judgment  of  war  is  subject  to  an 
inflexible  law,  either  very  imperfectly  under- 
stood or  very  constantly  lost  sight  of.  Military 
writers  love  to  fight  over  the  battles  of  history 
exclusively  by  the  rules  of  the  professional 
chess-board,  always  subordinating,  often  to- 
tally ignoring,  the  element  of  politics.  This  is 
a  radical  error.  Ever}' waris  begun, dominated, 
and  ended  by  political  considerations ;  without 
a  nation,  without  a  government,  without  money 
or  credit,  without  popular  enthusiasm  which 
furnishes  volunteers,  or  public  support  which 
endures  conscription,  there  could  be  no  army 
and  no  war  —  neither  beginning  nor  end  of 
methodical  hostilities.  War  and  politics,  cam- 
paigns and  statecraft,  are  Siamese  twins,  in- 
separable and  interdependent ;  and  to  talk  of 
military  operations  without  the  direction  and 
interference  of  an  Administration  is  as  absurd 
as  to  plan  a  campaign  without  recruits,  pay, 
or  rations.  Applied  to  the  Bull  Run  campaign, 
this  law  of  historical  criticism  analyzes  and 
fixes  the  relative  responsibilities  of  government 
and  commanders  with  easy  precision.  When 
Lincoln,  on  June  29,  assembled  his  council  of 
war,  the  commanders,  as  military  experts, 
correctly  decided  that  the  existing  armies 
could  win  a  victory  at  Manassas  and  a  vic- 
tory at  Winchester.  General  Scott  correctly 
objected  that  these  victories,  if  won,  would  not 
be  decisive;  and  that  in  a  military  point  of 
view  it  would  be  wiser  to  defer  any  offensive 
campaign  until  the  following  autumn.  Here 
the  President  and  the  Cabinet,  as  political  ex- 
perts, intervened,  and  on  theirpart  decided,  cor- 
rectly, that  the  public  temper  would  not  admit 
of  such  a  delay.  Thus  the  Administration  was 
responsible  for  the  forward  movement,  Scott 
for  the  combined  strategy  of  the  two  armies, 
McDowell  for  the  conduct  of  the  Bull  Run 
battle,  Patterson  for  the  escape  of  Johnston, 
and  Fate  for  the  panic;  for  the  opposing  forces 
were  equally  raw,  equally  undisciplined,  and  as 
a  whole  fought  the  battle  with  equal  courage 
and  gallantry. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


But  such  an  analysis  of  causes  and  such  an 
apportionment  of  responsibilities  could  not  be 
made  by  the  public,  or  even  by  the  best-in- 
formed individuals  beyond  Cabinet  circles,  in 
the  first  fortnight  succeeding  the  Bull  Run 
disaster.  All  was  confused  rumor,  blind  in- 
ference, seething  passion.  That  the  public  at 
large  and  the  touch-and-go  newspaper  writers 
should  indulge  in  harsh  and  hasty  language  is 
scarcely  to  be  wondered  at ;  but  the  unseemly 
and  precipitate  judgments  and  criticisms  of 
those  holding  the  rank  of  leadership  in  public 
affairs  are  less  to  be  excused.  Men  were  not 
yet  tempered  to  the  fiery  ordeal  of  revolu- 
tion, and  still  thought  and  spoke  under  the 
strong  impulse  of  personal  prejudice,  and  with 
that  untamed  and  visionary  extravagance 
which  made  politics  such  a  chaos  in  the  pre- 
ceding winter.  That  feeling,  momentarily 
quelled  and  repressed  by  the  rebel  guns  at 
Sumter,  was  now  in  danger  of  breaking  out 
afresh.  In  illustration  we  need  only  to  cite 
the  words  of  prominent  leaders  in  the  three 
parties  of  the  North,  namely :  Stanton,  late 
Buchanan's  attorney-general,  and  destined 
soon  to  become  famous  as  Lincoln's  War 
Secretary ;  Richardson,  who  had  been  the 
trusted  lieutenant  of  Douglas,  and  now,  since 
Douglas  was  dead,  the  ostensible  spokesman 
of  the  faction  which  had  followed  that  leader ; 
and  thirdly,  Horace  Greeley,  exercising  so 
prominent  an  influence  upon  the  public  opin- 
ion of  the  country  through  the  columns  of 
"  The  Tribune." 

The  Buchanan  cabinet  was  still  writhing 
under  the  odium  which  fell  upon  the  late  Ad- 
ministration, and  much  more  severely  upon 
the  Breckinridge  Democracy.  Mr.  Buchanan 
and  his  Cabinet  were  eager  to  seize  upon 
every  shadow  of  self-justification,  and  natu- 
rally not  slow  to  emphasize  any  apparent 
shortcoming  of  their  successors.  Stanton, 
with  his  impulsive  nature,  was  especially  se- 
vere on  the  new  President  and  Administration. 
In  his  eyes  the  only  hope  of  the  country  lay 
in  the  members  of  Buchanan's  reconstructed 
Cabinet.  Thus  he  wrote  to  his  colleague  Dix, 
on  June  u,  in  language  that  resembled  a 
stump  speech  of  the  presidential  campaign : 

No  one  can  imagine  the  deplorable  condition  of  this 
city  and  the  hazard  of  the  Government,  who  did  not 
witness  the  weakness  and  panic  of  the  Administration, 
and  the  painful  imbecility  of  Lincoln.  We  looked  to 
New  York  in  that  dark  hour  as  our  only  deliverance 
under  Providence,  and,  thank  God,  it  came.  .  .  .  But 
when  we  witness  venality  and  corruption  growing  in 
power  every  day,  and  controlling  the  millions  of  money 
that  should  be  a  patriotic  sacrifice  for  national  deliver- 
ance, and  treating  the  treasure  of  the  nation  as  a 
booty  to  be  divided  among  thieves,  hope  dies  away: 
deliverance  from  this  danger  also  must  come  from 
New  York.  ...  Of  military  affairs  I  can  form 
no  judgment.  Every  day  affords  fresh  proof  of  the 


design  to  give  the  war  a  party  direction.  The  army 
appointments  appear  (with  two  or  three  exceptions 
only)  to  be  bestowed  on  persons  whose  only  claim  is 
their  Republicanism  —  broken-down  politicians  with- 
out experience,  ability,  or  any  other  merit.  Democrats 
are  rudely  repulsed,  or  scowled  upon  with  jealous  and 
ill-concealed  aversion.  The  Western  Democracy  are 
already  becoming  disgusted,  and  between  the  corrup- 
tion of  some  of  the  Republican  leaders  and  the  self- 
seeking  ambition  of  others  some  great  disaster  may 
soon  befall  the  nation.  How  long  will  the  Democracy 
of  New  York  tolerate  these  things  ?  .  .  .  We  hoped 
to  see  you  here,  especially  after  you  had  accepted  the 
appointment  of  major-general.  But  now  that  the  Ad- 
ministration has  got  over  its  panic,  you  are  not  the 
kind  of  man  that  would  be  welcome.*  • 

This  letter  plainly  enough  shows  Mr.  Stan- 
ton's  attitude  toward  the  new  Administration. 
His  letter  of  the  following  day  to  ex- Presi- 
dent Buchanan  reveals  the  state  of  feeling 
entertained  by  Dix: 

The  recent  appointments  in  the  army  are  generally 
spoken  of  with  great  disapprobation.  General  Dix  is 
very  much  chagrined  with  the  treatment  he  has  re- 
ceived from  the  War  Department,  and  on  Saturday  I 
had  a  letter  declaring  his  intention  to  resign  immedi- 
ately.! 

Again,  July  16: 

General  Dix  is  still  here.  He  has  been  shamefully 
treated  by  the  Administration.  We  are  expecting  a 
general  battle  to  be  commenced  at  Fairfax  to-day,  and 
conflicting  opinions  of  the  result  are  entertained,  t 

And  once  more,  on  July  26  : 

The  dreadful  disaster  of  Sunday  can  scarcely  be 
mentioned.  The  imbecility  of  this  Administration 
culminated  in  that  catastrophe :  an  irretrievable  mis- 
fortune and  national  disgrace,  never  to  be  forgotten, 
are  to  be  added  to  the  ruin  of  all  peaceful  pursuits  and 
national  bankruptcy  as  the  result  of  Lincoln's  "  running 
the  machine  "  for  five  months.  You  perceive  that  Ben- 
nett is  for  a  change  of  the  Cabinet,  and  proposes  for 
one  of  the  new  Cabinet  Mr.  Holt.  ...  It  is  not  un- 
likely that  some  change  in  the  War  and  Navy  De- 
partments may  take  place,  but  none  beyond  these  two 
departments  until  Jefferson  Davis  turns  out  the  whole 
concern.  The  capture  of  Washington  seems  now  to  be 
inevitable :  during  the  whole  of  Monday  and  Tuesday 
it  might  have  been  taken  without  any  resistance.  The 
rout,  overthrow,  and  utter  demoralization  of  the  whole 
army  is  complete.  Even  now  I  doubt  whether  any 
serious  opposition  to  the  entrance  of  the  Confederate 
forces  could  be  offered.  While  Lincoln,  Scott,  and  the 
Cabinet  are  disputing  who  is  to  blame,  the  city  is  un- 
guarded and  the  enemy  at  hand.  General  Mcdellan 
reached  here  last  evening.  But  if  he  had  the  ability 
of  Caesar,  Alexander,  or  Napoleon,  what  can  he  ac- 
complish ?  Will  not  Scott's  jealousy,  Cabinet  intrigues, 
Republican  interference,  thwart  him  at  every  step  ? 
While  hoping  for  the  best,  I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  against 
the  dangers  that  beset  the  Government,  and  especially 
this  city.  It  is  certain  that  Davis  was  in  the  field 
on  Sunday,  and  the  secessionists  here  assert  that  he 
headed  in  person  the  last  victorious  charge.  General 
Dix  is  in  Baltimore.  After  three  weeks'  neglect  and 
insult  he  was  sent  there.t 


While  Stanton  and  Dix  were  thus  nursing 
their  secret  griefs  on  behalf  of  one  of  the  late 

*Dix,  "Memoirs  of  John  A.  Dix." 

t"  North  American  Review,"  November,  1879. 


A   HISTORY. 


291 


political  factions,  Richardson,  as  the  spokes- 
man of  the  Douglas  wing  of  the  Democracy, 
was  indulging  in  loud  complaints  for  the  other. 
Charging  that  the  division  of  the  Democratic 
party  at  Charleston  had  brought  the  present 
calamity  upon  the  Union,  he  continued : 

This  organization  of  the  Breckinridge  party  was  for 
the  purpose  of  destroying  the  Government.  That  was 
its  purpose  and  its  object.  What  do  we  see  ?  Without 
the  aid  and  cooperation  of  the  men  of  the  North  that 
party  was  powerless.  The  men  from  the  Northern 
States  who  aided  and  encouraged  this  organization 
which  is  in  rebellion  are  at  the  head  to-day  of  our 
army.  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  Dixof  New  York  and 
Patterson  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Cadwalader  —  all  of 
them  in  this  movement  to  break  down  and  disorganize 
the  Democratic  party  and  the  country.  Why  is  it  ? 
This  Douglas  party  furnished  you  one-half  of  your  en- 
tire army.  Where  is  your  general,  where  is  your  man 
in  command  to-day  who  belongs  to  that  party  ?  Why 
is  this  ?  Have  you  Republicans  sympathized  with 
this  Breckinridge  party  ?  Are  you  sympathizing  with 
them,  and  lending  your  aid  to  the  men  who  lead  our 
armies  into  misfortune  and  disgrace?* 

Richardson  was  easily  answered.  A  mem- 
ber correctly  replied  that  these  and  other 
three-months'  generals  had  been  selected  by 
the  governors  of  various  States,  and  not  by 
the  President;  moreover,  that  Patterson  had 
been  specially  recommended  by  General  Scott, 
whom  Richardson  was  eulogizing,  and  that 
there  would  be  plenty  of  opportunity  before 
the  war  was  over  for  the  Douglas  men  to  win 
honors  in  the  field.  But  all  this  did  not  soothe 
Richardson's  temper,  which  was  roused  mainly 
by  his  revived  factional  jealousy. 

Unjust  fault-finding  was  to  be  expected  from 
party  opponents ;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  it  was  a  genuine  surprise  to  the  Pres- 
ident to  receive  from  a  party  friend,  and  the 
editor  of  the  most  influential  newspaper  in  the 
Union,  the  following  letter,  conveying  an  in- 
direct accusation  of  criminal  indifference,  and 
proposing  an  immediate  surrender  to  rebellion 
and  consent  to  permanent  disunion  : 

NEW  YORK,  Monday,  July  29,  1861. 

Midnight. 

DEAR  SIR:  This  is  my  seventh  sleepless  night  — 
yours,  too,  doubtless  —  yet  I  think  I  shall  not  die, 
because  I  have  no  right  to  die.  I  must  struggle  to  live, 
however  bitterly.  But  to  business.  You  are  not  con- 
sidered a  great  man,  and  I  am  a  hopelessly  broken  one. 
You  are  now  undergoing  a  terrible  ordeal,  and  God 
has  thrown  the  gravest  responsibilities  upon  you.  Do 
not  fear  to  meet  them.  Can  the  rebels  be  beaten  after 
all  that  has  occurred,  and  in  view  of  the  actual  state 
of  feeling  caused  by  our  late,  awful  disaster  ?  If  they 
can,—  ami  it  is  your  business  to  ascertain  and  decide, — 
write  me  thnt  such  is  your  judgment,  so  that  I  may 
know  and  do  my  duty.  And  if  they  cannot  be  beaten, — 
if  our  recent  disaster  is  fatal, —  do  not  fear  to  sacrifice 
yourself  to  your  country.  If  the  rebels  are  not  to  be 
beaten, —  if  that  is  your  judgment  in  view  of  all  the 
light  you  can  get, —  then  every  drop  of  blood  hence- 
forth shed  in  this  quarrel  will  be  wantonly,  wickedly 


shed,  and  the  guilt  will  rest  heavily  on  the  soul  of 
every  promoter  of  the  crime.  I  pray  you  to  decide 
quickly  and  let  me  know  my  duty. 

If  the  Union  is  irrevocably  gone,  an  armistice  for 
30,60,90,  120  days  —  better  still  for  a  year — ought 
at  once  to  be  proposed,  with  a  view  to  a  peaceful 
adjustment.  Then  Congress  should  call  a  national 
convention,  to  meet  at  the  earliest  possible  day.  And 
there  should  be  an  immediate  and  mutual  exchange 
or  release  of  prisoners  and  a  disbandment  of  forces. 
I  do  not  consider  myself  at  present  a  judge  of  any- 
thing but  the  public  sentiment.  That  seems  to  in. 
everywhere  gathering  and  deepening  against  a  pros- 
ecution of  the  war.  The  gloom  in  this  city  is  fune- 
real,—  for  our  dead  at  Bull  Kun  were  many,  and  they 
lie  unburied  yet.  On  every  brow  sits  sullen,  scorching, 
black  despair.  It  would  be  easy  to  have  Mr.  Critten- 
den  move  any  proposition  that  ought  to  be  adopted,  or 
to  have  it  come  from  any  proper  quarter.  The  first 
point  is  to  ascertain  what  is  best  that  can  be  done  — 
which  is  the  measure  of  our  duty,  and  do  that  very 
thing  at  the  earliest  moment. 

This  letter  is  written  in  the  strictest  confidence,  and 
is  for  your  eye  alone.  But  you  are  at  liberty  to  say 
to  members  of  your  Cabinet  that  you  knma  I  will 
second  any  move  you  may  see  fit  to  make.  But  do 
nothing  timidly  nor  by  halves.  Send  me  word  what 
to  do.  I  will  live  till  I  can  hear  it  at  all  events.  If  it 
is  best  for  the  country  and  for  mankind  that  we  make 
peace  with  the  rebels  at  once  and  on  their  own  terms, 
do  not  shrink  even  from  that.  But  bear  in  mind  the 
greatest  truth :  "  Whoso  would  lose  his  life  for  my 
sake  shall  save  it."  Do  the  thing  that  is  the  highest 
right,  and  tell  me  how  I  am  to  second  you. 
Yours,  in  the  depths  of  bitterness, 

HORACE  GREELEY.  t 

These  few  citations  are  noteworthy,  because 
of  the  high  quarters  whence  they  emanated 
and  the  subsequent  relations  some  of  their 
authors  bore  to  the  war.  They  give  us  pene- 
trating glimpses  of  how  the  Bull  Run  disaster 
was  agitating  the  public  opinion  of  the  North. 
But  it  must  not  be  hastily  inferred  that  such 
was  the  preponderant  feeling.  The  great  tides 
of  patriotism  settled  quickly  back  to  their 
usual  level.  The  army,  Congress,  and  the 
people  took  up,  a  shade  less  buoyantly,  but 
with  a  deeper  energy,  the  determined  prose- 
cution of  the  war,  and  soon  continued  their 
cheerful  confidence  in  the  President,  Cabi- 
net, and  military  authorities.  The  war  gov- 
ernors tendered  more  troops  and  hurried 
forward  their  equipped  regiments;  the  Ad- 
ministration pushed  the  organization  of  the 
long-term  volunteers;  and  out  of  the  scattered 
debris  of  the  Bull  Run  forces  there  sprang  up 
that  magnificent  Army  of  the  Potomac,  which 
in  a  long  and  fluctuating  career  won  such  his- 
toric renown. 

Meanwhile,  in  this  first  shadow  of  defeat, 
President  Lincoln  maintained  his  wonted  equi- 
poise of  manner  and  speech.  A  calm  and 
resolute  patience  was  his  most  constant  mood ; 
to  follow  with  watchfulness  the  details  of  the 

*  Richardson,  Speech  in  House  of  Representatives, 
July  24,  1861. 

t  Unpublished  Autograph  MS. 


292 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


accumulation  of  a  new  army  was  his  most 
eager  occupation.  He  smiled  at  frettings  like 
those  of  Scott,  Dix,  and  Richardson  ;  but  let- 
ters like  that  of  Greeley  made  him  sigh  at  the 
strange  weakness  of  human  character.  Such 
things  gave  him  pain,  but  they  bred  no  resent- 
ment, and  elicited  no  reply.  Already  at  this 
period  he  began  the  display  of  that  rare  abil- 
ity in  administration  which  enabled  him  to 
smooth  mountains  of  obstacles  and  bridge  riv- 
ers of  difficulty  in  his  control  of  men.  From 
this  time  onward  to  the  end  of  the  war  his  touch 
was  daily  and  hourly  amidst  the  vast  machin- 
ery of  command  and  coordination  in  Cabinet, 
Congress,  army,  navy,  and  the  hosts  of  na- 
tional politics.  To  still  the  quarrels  of  factions, 
to  allay  the  jealousies  of  statesmen,  to  compose 
the  rivalries  of  generals,  to  soothe  the  vanity 
of  officials,  to  prompt  the  laggard,  to  curb  the 
ardent,  to  sustain  the  faltering,  was  a  substra- 
tum of  daily  routine  underlying  the  great 
events  of  campaigns,  battles,  and  high  ques- 
tions of  state. 

On  the  night  following  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  while  Lincoln  lay  awake  on  a  sofa  in  the 
Executive  office,  waiting  to  gather  what  per- 
sonal information  he  could  from  the  many 
officers  and  prominent  civilians  who  were  ar- 
riving at  Washington  after  their  flight  from  the 
battle-field,  he  already  began  sketching  a  pen- 
cil memorandum  of  the  policy  and  military 
programme  most  expedient  to  be  adopted  in 
the  new  condition  of  affairs.  This  memoran- 
dum sketch  or  outline  he  added  to  from  time 
to  time  during  the  succeeding  days.  On  the 
ayth  of  July  he  seems  to  have  matured  his 
reflections  on  the  late  disaster,  and  with  his 
own  hand  he  carefully  copied  his  memoran- 
dum in  this  completed  form : 

JULY  23,  1861. 

1.  Let  the  plan  for  making  the  blockade  effective  be 
pushed  forward  with  all  possible  dispatch. 

2.  Let  the  volunteer  forces  at  Fort  Monroe  and  vi- 
cinity, under  General  Butler,  be  constantly  drilled,  dis- 
ciplined, and  instructed  without  more  for  the  present. 

3.  Let  Baltimore  be  held  as  now,  with  a  gentle  but 
firm  and  certain  hand. 

4.  Let  the  force  now  under  Patterson  or  Banks  be 
strengthened  and  made  secure  in  its  position. 

5.  Let  the  forces  in  western  Virginia  act  till  further 
orders  according  to  instructions  or  orders  from  Gen- 
eral McClellan. 

6.  General  Fre'mont  push  forward  his  organization 
and  operations  in  the  West  as  rapidly  as  possible,  giv- 
ing rather  special  attention  to  Missouri. 

7.  Let  the  forces  late  before  Manassas,  except  the 
three-months'  men,  be  reorganized  as  rapidly  as  possi- 
ble in  their  camps  here  and  about  Arlington. 

8.  Let  the  three-months'  forces  who  decline  to  enter 
the  longer  service  be  discharged  as  rapidly  as  circum- 
stances will  permit. 

9.  Let  the  new  volunteer  forces  be  brought  forward 
as  fast  as  possible  ;  and  especially  into  the  camps  on 
the  two  sides  of  the  river  here. 


JULY  27,  1861. 


When  the  foregoing  shall  have  been  substantially 
attended  to, 

1.  Let  Manassas  Junction  (or  some  point  on  one  or 
other  of  the  railroads   nearest  it)  and  Strasburg  be 
seized,  and  permanently  held,  with  an  open  line  from 
Washington  to  Manassas,  and  an  open  line  from  Har- 
per's Ferry  to  Strasburg  —  the  military  men  to  find 
the  way  of  doing  these. 

2.  This  done,  a  joint  movement  from  Cairo  on  Mem- 
phis; and  from  Cincinnati  on  east  Tennessee.* 


FREMONT. 

MISSOURI  had  been  saved  from  organized 
rebellion,  but  the  smell  and  blackness  of  in- 
surrectionary fire  were  strong  upon  her.  While 
Governor  Jackson  and  General  Price,  flying 
from  the  battle  of  Boonville  as  fugitives,  were 
momentarily  helpless,  they  nevertheless  had 
reasonable  hope  of  quick  support.  Whatever 
of  latent  rebellion  and  secret  military  prepa- 
ration existed  were  set  in  motion  by  the  gov- 
ernor's proclamation  of  June  12  and  his 
order  dividing  the  State  into  nine  military 
districts  and  issuing  commissions  to  a  skeleton 
army  under  the  provisions  of  the  military  bill 
passed  by  his  rebel  legislature  before  their  ex- 
pulsion from  the  capital  by  Lyon.  Thus  every 
one  inclined  to  take  up  arms  against  the  Union 
had  the  plausible  excuse  of  authority  and  the 
guidance  of  a  designated  commander  and  ren- 
dezvous, and  a  simultaneous  movement  toward 
organization  long  preconcerted  immediately 
began.  Missouri  is  a  large  State.  She  had  over 
68,000  square  miles  of  territory,  and  a  popu- 
lation of  over  a  million  souls;  a  trifling  percent- 
age would  yield  a  formidable  force.  The  spirit 
and  impulse  of  revolution  were  at  fever  heat, 
and  all  the  fire  of  the  Border-Ruffian  days 
smoldered  along  the  frontier.  The  governor's 
brigadier-generals  designated  camps,  and  the 
hot-blooded  country  lads  flocked  to  them,  find- 
ing a  charm  of  adventure  in  the  very  privations 
they  were  compelled  to  undergo.  For  half  a 
year  disloyalty  had  gone  unpunished ;  the  re- 
cent reports  of  march  and  battle  served  rather 
to  sharpen  their  zeal. 

Three  railroads  radiated  from  St.  Louis  — 
one  toward  the  west,  with  its  terminus  at 
Sedalia;  one  toward  the  south-west,  with  ter- 
minus at  Rolla;  one  toward  the  south,  with  ter- 
minus at  Ironton.  The  first  of  these  reached 
only  about  three-fourths,  the  last  two  scarcely 
half-way,  across  the  State.  Western  Missouri, 
therefore,  seemed  beyond  any  quick  reach  of 
a  military  expedition  from  St.  Louis.  General 
Price,  proceeding  westward  from  Boonville, 
found  one  of  these  camps  at  Lexington ;  the 
governor,  proceeding  southward,  was  attended 
by  a  little  remnant  of  fugitives  from  the  bat- 

*  Lincoln,  Autograph  MS. 


A   HISTORY. 


293 


tie  of  Boonville.  With  such  following  as  each 
could  gather  both  directed  their  course  toward 
the  Arkansas  line,  collecting  adherents  as  they 
went.  Their  pathway  was  not  entirely  clear. 
Before  leaving  St.  Louis,  Lyon  had  sent  an 
expedition  numbering  about  twenty-five  hun- 
dred, commanded  by  Sweeny,  a  captain  of  reg- 
ulars, by  rail  to  Rolla  and  thence  by  a  week's 
march  to  Springfield,  from  which  point  he  had 
advanced  a  part  of  his  force  under  Sigel  to 
Carthage,  near  the  extreme  south-western  cor- 
ner of  the  State.  Jackson  and  Price,  having 
previously  united  their  forces,  thus  found  Sigel 
directly  in  their  path.  As  they  greatly  out- 
numbered him,  by  the  battle  of  Carthage,  July 
5 , — a  sharp  but  indecisive  engagement, —  they 
drove  him  back  upon  Springfield,  and  effected 
a  junction  with  the  rebel  force  gathered  in  the 
north-western  corner  of  Arkansas,  which  had 
already  assisted  them  by  demonstrations  and 
by  capturing  one  of  Sigel's  companies. 

Delayed  by  the  need  of  transportation,  Lyon 
could  not  start  from  Boonville  on  his  south- 
western march  until  the  3d  of  July.  The  im- 
provised forces  of  Jackson  and  Price,  moving 
rapidly,  because  made  up  largely  of  cavalry, 
or,  rather,  unorganized  horsemen,  were  far  in 
advance  of  him,  and  had  overwhelmed  Sigel 
before  Lyon  was  well  on  his  way.  Neverthe- 
less he  pushed  ahead  with  energy,  having 
called  to  him  a  detachment  of  regulars  from 
Fort  Leavenworth,  and  volunteers  from  Kan- 
sas numbering  about  2200.  These  increased 
his  column  to  about  4600  men.  By  July  13 
he  was  at  Springfield,  and  with  the  forces  he 
found  there  was  at  the  head  of  an  aggre- 
gate of  between  7000  and  8000  men. 

The  Confederate  authorities  had  ambitious 
plans  for  the  West.  They  already  possessed 
Arkansas  ;  the  Indian  Territory  was  virtually 
in  their  grasp;  Missouri  they  looked  upon 
with  somewhat  confident  eyes;  even  the  ulti- 
mate conquest  of  Kansas  seemed  more  than 
a  remote  possibility.  Nor  were  such  plans 
confined  to  mere  speculation.  Major-General 
Polk  was  stationed  at  Memphis  early  in  July 
to  command  the  Mississippi  region.  The  neu- 
trality policy  in  Kentucky  for  the  moment 
left  the  Tennessee  contingent  idle.  Being  ap- 
pealed to  by  Governor  Jackson,  Polk  made 
immediate  preparations  for  a  campaign  in 
Missouri.  On  July  23  he  reported  to  the 
Confederate  government  his  purpose  to  send 
two  strong  columns  into  that  State — one  under 
McCulloch,  of  about  25,000  men,  against  Lyon 
at  Springfield;  another,  under  Pillow  and  Har- 
dee,  to  march  upon  Ironton  in  south-east  Mis- 
souri, where  he  estimated  they  would  collect 
a  force  of  18,000.  He  wrote: 

They  ave  directed  to  pass  in  behind  Lyon's  force  by 
land,  or  to  proceed  to  St.  Louis,  seize  it,  and,  taking 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 42. 


•ion  of  the  boats  at  that  point,  to  proceed  up  the 

river  Missouri,  raining  the  Missimi  ians  a.s  they  gn  ;  and 
at  such  point  as  may  appear  most  suitable  to  detach  a 
force  to  cut  off  Lyon's  return  from  the  west.  ...  If, 
as  I  think,  I  can  drive  the  enemy  from  Missouri  with 
the  force  indicated,  I  will  then  enter  Illinois  and  take 
Cairo  in  the  rear  on  my  return." 

He  was  obliged  a  few  days  later  to  curtail 
this  extravagant  programme.  Governor  Jack- 
son, he  learned,  to  his  chagrin,  had  exag- 
gerated the  available  forces  fully  one-half,  t 
Although  he  had  already  sent  Pillow  to  New 
Madrid,  he  now  "  paused  "  in  the  execution 
of  his  plan;  and  the  rivalry  of  the  various 
rebel  commanders  seems  soon  to  have  com- 
pletely paralyzed  it.  The  "neutrality "attitude 
of  the  governors  of  both  Missouri  and  Ken- 
tucky greatly  delayed  the  progress  of  the  war 
in  the  West.  The  middle  of  June  came  before 
Lyon  chased  the  rebels  from  Jefferson  City, 
and  in  Kentucky  open  and  positive  military 
action  was  deferred  till  the  first  weeks  of  Sep- 
tember. Meanwhile,  however,  it  was  felt  that 
the  beginning  of  serious  hostilities  was  only  a 
question  of  time.  The  Mississippi  River  was 
blockaded,  commerce  suspended,  Cairo  gar- 
risoned and  fortified,  gun-boats  were  being 
built,  regiments  were  being  organized  and  sent 
hither  and  thither,  mainly  as  yet  to  keep  the 
neighborhood  peace.  In  the  East  the  several 
Virginia  campaigns  were  in  progress,  and 
General  Scott's  "  anaconda  "  plan  was  well 
understood  in  confidential  circles. 

This  condition  of  affairs  made  the  whole 
Mississippi  Valley  sensitive  and  restless.  The 
governors  of  the  North-west  met,  and,  by  me- 
morial and  delegation,  urged  the  Administra- 
tion to  make  the  Ohio  line  secure  by  moving 
forward  and  occupying  advanced  posts  in 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Especially  did  they 
urge  the  appointment  of  a  competent  com- 
mander who  could  combine  the  immense  re- 
sources of  the  West,  and  make  them  effective 
in  a  grand  campaign  southward  to  open  the 
Mississippi. 

Almost  universal  public  sentiment  turned 
to  John  C.  Fremont  as  the  desired  leader  for 
this  duty.  He  was  about  forty-eight  years  of 
age.  As  student,  as  explorer,  as  a  prominent 
actor  in  making  California  a  State  of  the  Un- 
ion, he  had  shown  talent,  displayed  energy, 
and  conquered  success  in  situations  of  diffi- 
culty and  peril.  As  senator  for  a  brief  term, 
his  votes  proved  that  the  North  could  rely  on 
his  convictions  and  principles.  As  the  presi- 
dential candidate  of  the  Republican  party  in 
1856,  his  name  had  broadened  into  national 
representative  value.  The  post  of  honor  then 
had  brought  him  defeat.  He  might  well  claim 
the  post  of  duty  for  a  chance  to  win  a  victory. 

*  Polk  to  Walker,  July  23,  1861.     War  Records. 
t  War  Records. 


294 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


The  dash  of  romance  in  his  career  easily  re- 
kindled popular  enthusiasm ;  political  sagac- 
ity indicated  that  he  should  be  encouraged  to 
change  this  popularity  into  armies,  and  lead 
them  to  military  success  in  aid  of  the  imperiled 
nation.  The  inclination  of  the  Administration 
coincided  with  the  sentiment  of  the  people. 
Seward  had  proposed  him  for  Secretary  of 
War,  and  Lincoln  mentioned  him  for  the 
French  mission  ;  but  in  the  recent  distribution 
of  offices  no  place  at  once  suitable  to  his 
abilities  and  adequate  to  his  claims  had  been 
found  available.  This  new  crisis  seemed  to 
have  carved  out  the  work  for  the  man. 

Hehad  passed  the  previous  winter  in  France, 
but  upon  the  outbreak  of  rebellion  at  once  re- 
turned to  his  country.  On  his  arrival  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  about  the  ist  of  July,  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  appointed  him  a  major-general 
in  the  regular  army,  and  on  the  ^d  created 
the  Western  department,  consisting  of  the 
State  of  Illinois  and  all  the  States  and  Terri- 
tories between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  placed  it  under  his  command, 
with  headquarters  at  St.  Louis. 

For  a  man  whose  genius  could  have  risen 
to  the  requirements  of  the  occasion  it  was  a 
magnificent  opportunity,  an  imperial  theater. 
Unfortunately,  the  country  and  the  Adminis- 
tration had  overrated  Fremont's  abilities.  In- 
stead of  proceeding  at  once  to  his  post  of  duty, 
he  remained  in  New  York,  absorbed  largely  in 
his  personal  affairs.  Two  weeks  passed  before 
he  sent  his  letter  of  acceptance  and  oath  of 
office.  "Please  proceed  to  your  command 
without  coming  here,"  telegraphed  General 
Scott,  two  days  later.  Postmaster-General 
Blair  testified : 

As  soon  as  he  was  appointed,  I  urged  him  to  go  to 
his  department.  .  .  .  The  President  questioned  me 
every  day  about  his  movements.  I  told  him  so  often 
that  Fremont  was  off,  or  was  going  next  day,  according 
tp  my  information,  that  I  felt  mortified  when  allusion 
was  made  to  it,  and  dreaded  a  reference  to  the  subject. 
Finally,  on  the  receipt  of  a  dispatch  from  Lyon  by  my 
brother,  describing  the  condition  of  his  command,  I  felt 
justified  in  telegraphing  General  Fremont  that  he  must 
go  at  once.  But  he  remained  till  after  Bull  Run;  and 
even  then,  when  he  should  have  known  the  inspiration 
that  would  give  the  rebels,  he  traveled  leisurely  to  St. 
Louis.* 

When,  on  July  25,  he  finally  reached  his 
headquarters,  and  formally  assumed  com- 
mand, he  did  not  find  his  new  charge  a  bed 
of  roses.  The  splendid  military  strength  of 
the  North-west  was  only  beginning  its  devel- 
opment. Recruiting  offices  were  full;  but 
commanders  of  departments  and  governors  of 
States  quarreled  over  the  dribblets  of  arms  and 
equipments  remaining  in  the  arsenals,  and 
which  were  needed  in  a  dozen  places  at  once. 

*  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War. 


The  educated  and  experienced  officers  and 
subalterns  of  the  old  regular  army,  familiar 
with  organization  and  routine,  did  not  suffice 
to  furnish  the  needed  brigadier-generals  and 
colonels,  much  less  adjutants,  commissaries, 
quartermasters,  and  drill-sergeants.  Error, 
extravagance,  delay,  and  waste  ensued.  Regi- 
ments were  rushed  off  to  the  front  without 
uniforms,  arms,  or  rations;  sometimes  without 
being  mustered  into  service.  Yet  the  latent 
resources  were  abundant  in  quantity  and  ex- 
cellent in  quality,  and  especially  in  the  qual- 
ities of  mind,  ambition,  earnestness,  and  talent 
competent  through  practical  service  to  rise 
to  every  requirement  of  duty  and  sacrifice  — 
genius  which  could  lead,  and  patriotic  devo- 
tion ready  to  serve,  suffer,  and  die.  What 
magnificent  capabilities  in  those  early  Western 
volunteers;  what  illustrious  talent  in  those 
first  regiments  found  by  Fremont  and  coming 
at  his  call !  —  Lyon,  Grant,  Blair,  McClernand, 
Pope,  Logan,  Schofield,  Curtis,  Sturgis,  Pal- 
mer, Hurlbut,  and  a  hundred  others  whose 
names  shine  on  the  records  of  the  war,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  thousands  who,  unheralded, 
went  gloriously  to  manful  duty  and  patriotic 
death. 

The  three  weeks  loitered  away  in  New 
York  already  served  to  quadruple  Fremont's 
immediate  task.  Lyon  had  taken  the  field, 
and  Blair  had  gone  to  Washington  to  take 
his  seat  in  the  special  session  of  Congress 
as  representative.  The  whole  service  immedi- 
ately felt  the  absence  from  headquarters  of 
these  two  inspiring  and  guiding  leaders.  At 
three  points  in  Fremont's  new  department 
matters  wore  a  threatening  aspect.  The  plen- 
tiful seeds  of  rebellion  sown  by  Governor  Jack- 
son throughout  Missouri  were  springing  up 
in  noxious  rankness.  Amidst  dominant  loy- 
alty existed  a  reckless  and  daring  secession 
minority,  unwilling  to  submit  to  the  control  of 
superior  sentiment  and  force.  Following  the 
battle  of  Boonville  there  broke  out  in  many 
parts  of  the  State  a  destructive  guerrilla  war- 
fare, degenerating  into  neighborhood  and 
family  feuds,  and  bloody  personal  reprisal  and 
revenge,  which  became  known  under  the  term 
of  "  bushwhacking.  "  Houses  and  bridges 
were  burned,  farms  were  plundered,  railroads 
were  obstructed  and  broken,  men  were  kid- 
napped and  assassinated.  During  the  whole 
period  of  the  war  few  organized  campaigns  dis- 
turbed the  large  territory  of  the  State ;  but  dis- 
order, lawlessness,  crime,  and  almost  anarchy 
were  with  difficulty  repressed  from  beginning 
to  end. 

The  local  administration  charged  with  the 
eradication  of  these  evils  was  greatly  embar- 
rassed and  often  thwarted  through  the  un- 
fortunate jealousy  and  rivalry  between  the 


A   HISTORY. 


295 


factions  of  radicals  and  conservatives,  both  ad- 
herents of  the  Union.  Equally  loyal,  equally 
sincere  in  their  devotion  to  the  Government, 
they  paralyzed  each  other's  efforts  by  a  blind 
opposition  and  recrimination.  As  events  pro- 
gressed these  factions  increased  in  their  ani- 
mosity toward  each  other,and  their  antagonistic 
attitude  was  continued  throughout  the  whole 
war  period.  This  conflict  of  local  sentiment  — 
personal,  political,  and  military — produced  no 
end  of  complications  requiring  the  repeated 
direct  interference  of  President  Lincoln,  and 
taxed  to  the  utmost  his  abounding  forbearance. 
Neighborhood  troubles  were  growing  in  north- 
ern Missouri  before  Fre'mont  left  New  York ; 
and  Lyon's  adjutant  selected  Brigadier- Gen- 
eral Pope  to  take  command  there  and  restore 
order.  Fremont  gave  the  permission  by  tele- 
graph ;  and  when  he  reached  St.  Louis,  Gen- 
eral Pope  had  eight  Illinois  regiments  employed 
in  this  duty.* 

Fremont's  second  point  of  difficulty  was 
the  strong  report  of  danger  to  Cairo.  The 
rebel  general  Polk,  at  Memphis,  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  preparations  for  his  Missouri  cam- 
paign, already  mentioned.  About  the  time  of 
Fremont's  arrival  Pillow  had  just  moved  six 
thousand  Tennesseeans  to  New  Madrid,  and 
reported  his  whole  force  "  full  of  enthusiasm 
and  eager  for  the  '  Dutch  hunt.'  "  News  of 
this  movement,  and  the  brood  of  wild  rumors 
which  it  engendered,  made  General  Premiss, 
the  Union  commander  at  Cairo,  exceedingly 
uneasy,  and  he  called  urgently  for  assistance. 
Cairo,  the  strategic  key  of  the  whole  Missis- 
sippi Valley,  was  too  important  to  be  for  a 
moment  neglected ;  and  in  a  few  days  after 
his  arrival  Fremont  gathered  the  nearest 
available  reinforcements,  about  eight  regi- 
ments in  all,  and,  loading  them  on  a  fleet  of 
steamboats,  led  them  in  person  in  a  some- 
what ostentatious  expedition  to  Cairo;  and 
the  demonstration,  greatly  magnified  by  ru- 
mor, doubtless  had  much  influence  in  check- 
ing the  hopes  of  the  rebel  commanders  for 
an  early  capture  of  Missouri  and  Illinois. 

The  reinforcement  of  Cairo  was  very  proper 
as  a  measure  of  precaution.  It  turned  out, 
however,  that  the  need  was  much  less  urgent 
than  Fremont's  third  point  of  trouble,  namely, 

*  General  Pope,  under  date  of  August  3,  makes  a 
graphic  statement  of  the  methods  of  the  bushwhack- 
ers :  "The  only  persons  in  arms,  so  far  as  I  could 
learn,  were  a  few  reckless  and  violent  men  in  parties 
of  twenty  or  ihirty,  who  were  wandering  about,  com- 
mitting depredations  upon  all  whose  sentiments  were 
displeasing,  and  keeping  this  whole  region  in  apprehen- 
sion and  uneasiness.  ...  So  soon  as  these  maraud- 
ers found  that  troops  were  approaching,  which  they 
easily  did,  from  the  very  persons  who  ask  for  pro- 
tection, they  dispersed,  each  man  going  to  his  home, 
and,  in  many  cases,  that  home  in  the  very  town  oc- 
cupied by  the  troops.  .  .  .  When  troops  were  sent 


the  safety  of  Lyon  at  Springfield,  in  south- 
western Missouri.  When  Lyon  left  St.  Louis 
he  had  conceived  this  campaign  to  the  south- 
west, not  merely  to  control  that  part  of  the 
State  and  to  protect  it  against  invasion,  but 
also  with  the  ultimate  hope  of  extending  his 
march  into  Arkansas.  For  this  he  knew  his 
force  in  hand  was  inadequate ;  but  he  be- 
lieved that  from  the  troops  being  rapidly  or- 
ganized in  the  contiguous  free  States  he  would 
receive  the  necessary  help  as  soon  as  it  was 
needed.  We  have  seen  that  he  reached  Spring- 
field with  an  aggregate  of  about  7000  or 
8000  men.  It  was,  for  those  early  days, 
a  substantial,  compact  little  army,  some- 
what seasoned,  well  commanded,  self-reliant, 
and  enthusiastic.  Unfortunately  it  also,  like 
the  armies  at  every  other  point,  was  under 
the  strain  and  discouragement  of  partial  disso- 
lution. The  term  of  enlistment  of  the  three- 
months'  militia  regiments,  raised  under  the 
President's  first  proclamation,  was  about  to 
expire.  In  every  detachment,  army,  and  at 
every  post,  throughout  the  whole  country, 
there  occurred  about  the  middle  of  July,  1861, 
the  incident  of  quick  succession  of  companies 
and  regiments  going  out  of  the  service.  Many 
of  these  corps  immediately  reorganized  under 
the  three-years'  call;  many  remained  tem- 
porarily in  the  field  to  take  part  in  some  im- 
pending battle.  But  despite  such  instances 
of  generous  patriotism,  there  was  at  all  points 
a  shrinkage  of  numbers,  an  interval  of  disor- 
ganization, a  paralysis  of  action  and  move- 
ment. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  Lyon  found  his  new 
position  at  Springfield  discouraging.  He  was 
1 20  miles  from  a  railroad;  provisions  and 
supplies  had  not  arrived  as  expected ;  half  his 
army  would  within  a  brief  period  be  mustered 
out  of  service;  McClellant  was  in  western  Vir- 
ginia, Fremont  in  New  York,  Blair  in  Wash- 
ington. He  scarcely  knew  who  commanded, 
or  where  to  turn.  The  rebels  were  in  for- 
midable force  just  beyond  the  Arkansas  line. 
The  dispatches  at  this  juncture  take  on  an 
almost  despairing  tone. 

All  idea  of  any  farther  advance  movement,  or  of 
even  maintaining  our  present  position,  must  soon  be 
abandoned,  unless  the  Government  furnish  us  promptly 

out  against  these  marauders,  they  found  only  men 
quietly  working  in  the  field  or  sitting  in  their  offices, 
who,  as  soon  as  the  backs  of  the  Federal  soldiers 
were  turned,  were  again  in  arms  and  menacing  the 
peace."  [Pope  to  Sturgeon,  August  3,  1861.  War 
Records.] 

t  While  McClellan  was  yet  at  Cincinnati,  organizing 
the  Ohio  contingent  of  three-months'  men,  Missouri 
had  been  temporarily  attached  to  his  department.  Be- 
yond a  few  suggestions  by  telegraph,  however,  he  did 
not  give  it  any  attention  in  detail,  because  his  hands 
were  already  full  of  work.  His  Virginia  campaign  soon 
required  his  presence  and  entire  time. 


296 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


with  large  reinforcements  and  supplies.  Our  troops 
are  badly  clothed,  poorly  fed,  and  imperfectly  supplied 
with  tents.  None  of  them  have  as  yet  been  paid.* 

Two  days  later  Lyon  wrote : 

If  it  is  the  intention  to  give  up  the  West,  let  it  be 
so ;  it  can  only  be  the  victim  of  imbecility  or  malice. 
Scott  will  cripple  us  if  he  can.  Cannot  you  stir  up  this 
matter  and  secure  us  relief?  See  Fremont,  if  he  has 
arrived.  The  want  of  supplies  has  crippled  me  so  that 
I  cannot  move,  and  I  do  not  know  when  I  can.  Every- 
thing seems  to  combine  against  me  at  this  point.  Stir 
•up  Blair,  t 

Lyon's  innuendoes  against  the  Administra- 
tion and  against  General  Scott  were  alike  un- 
just. Both  were  eager  to  aid  him, but  there  was 
here,  as  elsewhere,  a  limit  to  possibilities.  It 
was  Fremont  who  needed  stirring  up.  Ap- 
pointed by  the  President  on  July  i,  he  had 
not  even  sent  his  official  acceptance  till  the 
i6th,  the  day  before  Lyon  wrote  this  appeal; 
and,  after  final  and  emphatic  urging  by  Post- 
master-General Blair,  it  was  the  2ijth  before 
he  entered  on  his  duties  at  St.  Louis.  Three 
special  messengers  from  Lyon  awaited  him 
on  his  arrival,  and  repeated  the  tale  of  need 
and  of  danger.  But  Fremont  listened  languidly 
and  responded  feebly.  Urgent  calls  indeed 
came  to  him  from  other  quarters.  As  already 
stated,  Cairo  was  represented  to  be  seriously 
threatened,  and  he  had  chosen  first  to  insure 
its  safety.  He  had  the  means,  by  a  judicious 
rearrangement  of  his  forces,  to  have  aided  ef- 
fectually both  these  exposed  points.  Under 
the  critical  conditions  fully  pointed  out  to 
him,  he  could  at  least  have  recalled  Lyon 
and  assisted  his  safe  withdrawal  to  his  railroad 
base  at  Rolla.  But  he  neither  recalled  him 
nor  substantially  reenforced  him.  Two  regi- 
ments were  set  in  motion  toward  him,  but  it 
proved  the  merest  feint  of  help.  No  supplies 
and  no  troops  reached  Lyon  in  season  to  be 
of  the  slightest  service.  Lyon's  danger  lay  in 
a  junction  of  the  various  rebel  leaders  just 
beyond  the  Arkansas  line.  The  Confederate 
government  had  sent  Brigadier-General  Mc- 
Culloch  to  conciliate  or  conquer  the  Indian 
Territory  as  events  might  dictate,  and  had 
given  him  three  regiments — one  from  Louisi- 
ana, one  from  Texas,  and  one  from  Arkansas 
— for  the  work.  Finding  it  bad  policy  for  the 
present  to  occupy  the  Indian  Territory,  he 
hovered  about  the  border  with  permission  to 
move  into  either  Kansas  or  Missouri. 

Even  before  Folk's  ambitious  programme 
was  found  to  be  impracticable,  McCulloch 
made  haste  to  organize  a  campaign  on  his 
own  account.  On  July  30  he  reported  that  he 
was  on  his  way  toward  Springfield  with  his  own 

*  Schofield  to  Harding,  July  15,  1861.  War  Record";, 
t  Lyon  to  Harding,  July  17,  1861.    War  Records. 


brigade  of  3200  troops,  the  command  of  Gen- 
eral Pearce,  with  2500  Arkansas  State  troops, 
and  the  somewhat  heterogeneous  gathering 
of  Missourians  under  Price,  which  he  thought 
could  furnish  about  7000  effective  men,  gener- 
ally well  mounted,  but  badly  commanded,  and 
armed  only  with  common  rifles  and  shotguns. 
It  was  the  approach  of  this  large  force  which 
had  given  Lyon  such  uneasiness,  and  with  good 
cause.  Moving  steadily  upon  him,  they  soon 
approached  so  near  that  his  position  became 
critical.  His  own  command  had  dwindled  to 
less  than  five  thousand  effective  men;  the 
combined  enemy  had  nearly  treble  that  num- 
ber of  effectives,  and  probably  more  than 
three  to  one,  counting  the  whole  mass.  If  he 
remained  stationary,  they  would  slowly  en- 
velop and  capture  him.  If  he  attempted  to 
retreat  through  the  120  miles  of  barren  mount- 
ainous country  which  lay  between  him  and 
Rolla,  they  would  follow  and  harass  him  and 
turn  his  retreat  into  a  rout.  Counting  to  the 
last  upon  reinforcements  which  did  not  come, 
he  had  allowed  events  to  place  him  in  an 
untenable  position. 

As  a  final  and  desperate  resource,  and  the 
only  one  to  save  his  army,  he  resolved  to 
attack  and  cripple  the  enemy.  As  at  Bull 
Run,  and  as  so  often  happens,  both  armies, 
on  the  evening  of  August  9,  were  under 
orders  to  advance  that  night  and  attack  each 
other.  Some  showers  of  rain  in  the  evening 
caused  McCulloch  temporarily  to  suspend  his 
order;  but  Lyon's  little  army,  moving  at 
nightfall,  marched  ten  miles  south  of  Spring- 
field to  Wilson's  Creek.  At  midnight  they 
halted  for  a  brief  bivouac.  Dividing  into  two 
columns  they  fell  upon  the  enemy's  camp  at 
daylight,  Sigel,  with  1200  men  and  a  battery, 
marching  against  their  right  flank,  in  an  en- 
endeavor  to  get  to  the  rear,  while  Lyon  in  per- 
son led  the  remaining  3700  men,  with  two 
batteries,  to  a  front  attack  against  their  left 
center.  The  movement  was  a  most  daring  one, 
and  the  conflict  soon  became  desperate.  Sigel's 
attack,  successful  at  first,  was  checked,  his  de- 
tachment put  to  flight,  and  5  of  his  6  guns  cap- 
tured and  turned  against  Lyon. 

Lyon,  on  the  contrary,  by  an  impetuous 
advance,  not  only  quickly  drove  the  enemy 
out  of  their  camp,  but  gained  and  occupied  a 
strong  natural  position,  which  he  held  with 
brave  determination.  His  mixed  force  of  reg- 
ulars and  volunteers  fought  with  admirable 
cooperation.  McCulloch,  confident  in  his 
overwhelming  numbers,  sent  forward  line  after 
line  of  attack,  which  Lyon's  well-posted  reg- 
ular batteries  threw  back.  The  forenoon  was 
already  well  spent  when  a  final  unusually 
heavy  assault  from  the  enemy  was  thus  re- 
pulsed, largely  by  help  of  the  inspiriting  per- 


A    HISTORY. 


297 


sonal  example  of  Lyon  himself,  who  led  some 
fragments  of  reserves  in  a  bayonet  charge.  The 
charge  ended  the  conflict;  but  it  also  caused 
the  fall  of  the  commander,  who,  pierced  by 
a  ball,  almost  immediately  expired.  It  was 
his  fourth  wound  received  in  the  action. 
Though  the  battle  was  substantially  won, 
Sturgis,  upon  whom  the  command  devolved, 
deemed  it  too  hazardous  to  attempt  to  hold 
the  field,  and  a  retreat  to  Springfield  was 
agreed  upon  by  a  council  of  officers.  An 
unmolested  withdrawal  was  effected  in  the 
afternoon,  ami  upon  further  consultation  a 
definite  retreat  upon  Rolla  was  begun  the  fol- 
lowing day.  As  Lyon  had  anticipated,  the 
enemy  was  too  much  crippled  to  follow.  The 
Union  forces  had  223  killed,  721  wounded,and 
291  missing.  The  Confederate  loss  was  265 
killed,  800  wounded,  and  30  missing. 

The  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek,  the  death  of 
Lyon,  and  the  retreat  of  the  army  to  Rolla 
turned  public  attention  and  criticism  sharply 
upon  Fremont's  department  and  administra- 
tion, and  that  commander  was  suddenly 
awakened  to  his  work  and  responsibility.  He 
now  made  haste  to  dispatch  reinforcements 
to  Rolla,  and  sent  urgent  telegrams  for  help 
to  Washington  and  to  the  governors  of  the 
neighboring  free  States.  His  new  energy  par- 
took a  little  too  much  of  the  character  of  a 
panic.  He  declared  martial  law  in  the  city 
of  St.  Louis,  and  began  an  extensive  system 
of  fortifications;  which,  together  with  direc- 
tions to  fortify  Rolla,  Jefferson  City,  and  sev- 
eral other  places,  pointed  so  much  to  inaction, 
and  a  defensive  policy,  as  to  increase  rather 
than  allay  public  murmur. 

His  personal  manners  and  methods  excited 
still  further  and  even  deeper  dissatisfaction. 
A  passion  for  display  and  an  inordinate  love 
of  power  appeared  to  be  growing  upon  him. 
He  had  established  his  headquarters  in  an 
elegant  mansion  belonging  to  a  wealthy  se- 
cessionist ;  his  personal  staff  consisted  largely 
of  foreigners,  new  to  the  country,  and  unfa- 
miliar with  its  language  and  laws.  Their  fan- 
tastic titles  and  gay  trappings  seemed  devised 
for  show  rather  than  substantial  service.  He 
organized  a  special  body-guard.  Sentinels 
and  subordinates  unpleasantly  hedged  the 
approach  to  his  offices.  Instead  of  bringing 
order  into  the  chaotic  condition  of  military 
business,  he  was  prone  to  set  method  and 
routine  at  defiance,  issuing  commissions  and 
directing  the  giving  out  of  contracts  in  so 
irregular  a  way  as  to  bring  a  protest  from  the 
proper  accounting  officers  of  the  Government. 
Though  specially  requested  by  the  President 
to  cooperate  with  the  provisional  governor, 
he  continued  to  ignore  him.  A  storm  of  com- 
plaint soon  arose  from  all  except  the  little 


knot  of  flatterers  who  abused  his  favor  and 
the  newspapers  that  were  thriving  on  his 
patronage.  The  Unionists  of  Missouri  be- 
came afraid  that  he  was  neglecting  the 
present  safety  of  the  State  for  the  future 
success  of  his  intended  Mississippi  expedi- 
tion, and  wild  rumors  even  floated  in  the  air 
of  a  secret  purpose  to  imitate  the  scheme  of 
Aaron  Burr  and  set  up  an  independent  dic- 
tatorship in  the  West.* 

Reports  came  to  President  Lincoln  from 
multiplied  sources,  bringing  him  a  flood  of 
embarrassment  from  the  man  to  whom  he  had 
looked  with  such  confidence  for  administra- 
tive aid  and  military  success.  It  was  his 
uniform  habit,  when  he  had  once  confided 
command  and  responsibility  to  an  individual, 
to  sustain  him  in  the  trust  to  the  last  possible 
degree.  While  he  heard  with  pain  the  cumu- 
lating evidence  of  Fremont's  unfitness,  instead 
of  immediately  removing  him  from  command, 
he  sought  rather  to  remedy  the  defect.  In  this 
spirit  he  wrote  the  following  letter  to  General 
Hunter,  which  letter  peculiarly  illustrates  his 
remarkable  delicacy  in  managing  the  personal 
susceptibilities  of  men : 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  General  Fremont  needs  assistance 
which  it  is  difficult  to  give  him.  He  is  losing  the  con- 
fidence of  men  near  him,  whose  support  any  man  in 
his  position  must  have  to  be  successful.  His  cardinal 
mistake  is  that  he  isolates  himself,  and  allows  nobody 
to  see  him ;  and  by  which  he  does  not  knowjwhat  is  go- 
ing on  in  the  very  matter  he  is  dealing  with.  He  needs 
to  have  by  his  side  a  man  of  large  experience.  Will  you 
not,  for  me,  take  that  place  ?  Your  rank  is  one  grade 
too  high  to  be  ordered  to  it ;  but  will  you  not  serve 
the  country  and  oblige  me  by  taking  it  voluntarily  ?  t 

With  this  letter  of  the  President,  Postmas- 
ter-General Blair — hitherto  Fremont's  warm 
personal  friend  — and  Meigs,  the  quartermas- 
ter-general of  the  army,  went  to  St.  Louis,  to 
make  a  brief  inspection  and  report  of  matters, 
and  to  give  friendly  advice  and  admonition  to 
the  commander  of  the  Department  of  the  West. 
While  they  were  on  their  way,  Mrs.  Fremont 
was  journeying  toward  Washington,  bearing 
her  husband's  reply  to  a  letter  from  the  Presi- 
dent sent  him  by  special  messenger  about  a 
week  before. 

Her  mind  was  less  occupied  with  the  sub- 
ject of  the  missive  she  bore  than  with  the 
portent  of  a  recent  quarrel  which  the  general 
had  imprudently  allowed  to  grow  up  between 
Colonel  Frank  Blair  and  himself.  Blair  had 
finally  become  convinced  of  Fremont's  inca- 
pacity, and  in  public  print  sharply  criticised 
his  doings.  Indeed,  the  quarrel  soon  pro- 
gressed so  far  that  Fremont  placed  him  under 
arrest ;  then  Blair  preferred  formal  charges 
against  the  general  for  maladministration,  and 

*  Meigs,  Diary.  MS. 

t  Lincoln  to  Hunter,  Sept.  9, 1861.  Unpublished  MS. 


298 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


the  general  in  turn  entered  formal  counter- 
charges against  Blair. 

Arrived  at  her  destination  Mrs.  Fremont 
took  the  opportunity,  in  her  interview  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  to  justify  General  Fremont  in  all  he 
had  done,  and  to  denounce  his  accusers  with 
impetuous  earnestness.  She  even  asked  for 
copies  of  confidential  correspondence  con- 
cerning her  husband's  personal  embroilment. 
In  these  circumstances  it  was  no  light  task 
for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  at  once  patient,  polite, 
and  just;  yet  the  following  letter  will  testify 
that  he  accomplished  even  this  difficult  feat : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Sept.  12, 1861. 
MRS.  GENERAL  FREMONT. 

MY  DEAR  MADAM  :  Your  two  notes  of  to-day  are 
before  me.  I  answered  the  letter  you  bore  me  from 
General  Fre'mont,  on  yesterday,  and  not  hearing  from 


you  during  the  day,  I  sent  the  answer  to  him  by  mail. 
It  is  not  exactly  correct,  as  you  say  you  were  told  by 
the  elder  Mr.  Blair,  to  say  that  I  sent  Postmaster- 


General  Blair  to  St.  Louis  to  examine  into  that  de- 
partment and  report.  Postmaster-General  Blair  dul 
go,  with  my  approbation,  to  see  and  converse  with 
General  Fremont  as  a  friend.  I  do  not  feel  authorized 
to  furnish  you  with  copies  of  letters  in  my  possession, 
without  the  consent  of  the  writers.  No  impression 
has  been  made  on  my  mind  against  the  honor  or  integ- 
rity of  General  Fremont,  and  I  now  enter  my  protest 
against  being  understood  as  acting  in  any  hostility 
towards  him.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN.* 

It  will  be  interesting  to  read  in  addition  a 
graphic,  verbal  recapitulation  of  these  inci- 
dents, made  by  President  Lincoln  in  a  confi- 
dential evening  conversation  witha  few  friends 
in  the  Executive  office  a  little  more  than  two 
years  afterward,  and  which  one  of  his  secre- 
taries recorded : 

The  Blairs  have  to  an  unusual  degree  the  spirit  of 
clan.  Their  family  is  a  close  corporation.  Frank  is 
their  hope  and  pride.  They  have  a  way  of  going  with 
a  rush  for  anything  they  undertake ;  especially  have 
Montgomery  and  the  old  gentleman.  When  this  war 
first  began  they  could  think  of  nothing  but  Fremont ; 
they  expected  everything  from  him,  and  upon  their 
earnest  solicitation  he  was  made  a  general  and  sent  to 
Missouri.  I  thought  well  of  Fremont.  Even  now  I 
think  well  of  his  impulses.  I  only  think  he  is  the  prey 
of  wicked  and  designing  men,  and  I  think  he  has  abso- 
lutely no  military  capacity.  He  went  to  Missouri  the 
pet  and  protege'  of  the  Blairs.  At  first  they  corre- 
sponded with  him  and  with  Frank,  who  was  with  him, 
fully  and  confidentially,  thinking  his  plans  and  his 
efforts  would  accomplish  great  things  for  the  country. 
At  last  the  tone  of  Frank's  letters  changed.  It  was  a 
change  from  confidence  to  doubt  and  uncertainty. 
They  were  pervaded  with  a  tone  of  sincere  sorrow  and 
of  fear  that  Fremont  would  fail.  Montgomery  showed 
them  to  me,  and  we  were  both  grieved  at  the  prospect. 
Soon  came  the  news  that  Fremont  had  issued  his 
emancipation  order,  and  had  set  up  a  bureau  ol  aboli- 
tion, giving  free  papers,  and  occupying  his  time  appar- 
ently with  little  else.  At  last,  at  my  suggestion, 
Montgomery  Blair  went  to  Missouri  to  look  at  and 
talk  over  matters.  He  went  as  the  friend  of  Fremont. 
He  passed,  on  the  way,  Mrs.  Fremont,  coming  to  see 
me.  She  sought  an  audience  with  me  at  midnight,  and 
tasked  me  so  violently  with  many  things,  that  I  had  to 
exercise  all  the  awkward  tact  I  have  to  avoid  quarrel- 


ing with  her.  She  surprised  me  by  asking  why  their 
enemy,  Montgomery  Blair,  had  been  sent  to  Missouri. 
She  more  than  once  intimated  that  if  General  Fremont 
should  decide  to  try  conclusions  with  me,  he  could  set 
up  for  himself.t 


MILITARY    EMANCIPATION. 

NOT  only  President  Lincoln,  but  the  coun- 
try at  large  as  well,  was  surprised  to  find,  in 
the  newspapers  of  August  30,  a  proclamation 
from  the  commander  of  the  Department  of 
the  West  of  startling  significance.  The  ex- 
planations of  its  necessity  and  purpose  were 
altogether  contradictory,  and  its  mandatory 
orders  so  vaguely  framed  as  to  admit  of 
dangerous  variance  in  interpretation  and  en- 
forcement. Reciting  the  disturbed  condition 
of  society,  and  defining  the  boundaries  of  army 
occupation,  it  contained  the  following  impor- 
tant decrees : 

Circumstances,  in  my  judgment  of  sufficient  urgency, 
render  it  necessary  that  the  commanding  general 
of  this  department  should  assume  the  administrative 
powers  of  the  State.  ...  In  order,  therefore,  to 
suppress  disorder,  to  maintain  as  far  as  now  practica- 
ble the  public  peace,  and  to  give  security  and  protec- 
tion to  the  persons  and  property  of  loyal  citizens?!  do 
hereby  extend  and  declare  established  martial  law 
throughout  the  State  of  Missouri.  ...  All  persons 
who  shall  be  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  within 
these  lines  shall  be  tried  by  court-martial,  and,  if  found 
guilty,  will  be  shot.  The  property,  real  and  personal, 
of  all  persons  in  the  State  of  Missouri  directly 
proven  to  have  taken  an  active  part  with  their  enemies 
in  the  field  is  declared  to  be  confiscated  to  the  public 
use,  and  their  slaves,  if  any  they  have,  are  hereby  de- 
clared freemen.  .  .  .  The  object  of  this  declaration 
is  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  military  authorities  the 
power  to  give  instantaneous  effect  to  existing  laws, 
and  to  supply  such  deficiencies  as  the  conditions  of  war 
demand.  But  this  is  not  intended  to  suspend  the 
ordinary  tribunals  of  the  country,  where  the  law  will 
be  administered  by  the  civil  officers  in  the  usual  man- 
ner, and  with  their  customary  authority,  while  the 
same  can  be  peaceably  exercised.  \ 

Despite  its  verbiage  and  confusion  of  sub-  ' 
jects,  it  was  apparent  that  this  extraordinary 
document  was  not  a  measure  of  military  pro- 
tection, but  a  political  manoeuvre.  Since  the 
first  movement  of  the  armies  the  slavery 
question  had  become  a  subject  of  new  and 
vital  contention,  and  the  antislavery  drift  of 
public  opinion  throughout  the  North  was  un- 
mistakably manifest.  There  was  no  room  for 
doubt  that  General  Fremont,  apprehensive 
about  his  loss  of  prestige  through  the  disaster 
to  Lyon  and  the  public  clamors  growing  out 
of  his  mistakes  and  follies  in  administration, 
had  made  this  appeal  to  the  latent  feeling  in 
the  public  mind  as  a  means  of  regaining  his 
waning  popularity.  Full  confirmation  was  af- 
forded by  his  immediately  convening  under  his 

*  Unpublished  MS. 
t  Unpublished  MS. 
\  Fremont,  Proclamation.  War  Records. 


A   Hf STORY. 


299 


proclamation  a  military  commission  to  hear  evi- 
dence, and  beginning  to  issue  personal  deeds 
of  manumission  to  slaves.*  The  proceeding 
strongly  illustrates  his  want  of  practical  sense: 
the  delay  and  uncertainty  of  enforcement  under 
this  clumsy  method  would  have  rendered  the 
theoretical  boon  of  freedom  held  out  to  slaves 
rare  and  precarious,  if  not  absolutely  imprac- 
ticable. As  soon  as  an  authentic  text  of  the 
proclamation  reached  President  Lincoln,  he 
wrote  and  dispatched  the  following  letter : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.Sept.  2,  1861. 
MAJOR-GENERAL  FREMONT. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  Two  points  in  your  proclamation 
of  August  30  give  me  some  anxiety : 

first.  Should  you  shoot  a  man,  according  to  the 
proclamation,  the  Confederates  would  very  certainly 
shoot  our  best  men  in  their  hands  in  retaliation;  and 
so,  man  for  man,  indefinitely.  It  is,  therefore,  my 
order  that  you  allow  no  man  to  be  shot  under  the 
proclamation  without  first  having  my  approbation  or 
consent. 

Second.  I  think  there  is  great  danger  that  the  clos- 
ing paragraph,  in  relation  to  the  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty and  the  liberating  slaves  of  traitorous  owners, 
will  alarm  our  Southern  Union  friends  and  turn  them 
against  us  ;  perhaps  ruin  our  rather  fair  prospect  for 
Kentucky.  Allow  me,  therefore,  to  ask  that  you  will, 
as  of  your  own  motion,  modify  that  paragraph  so  as 
to  conform  to  the  first  and  fourth  sections  of  the  act 
of  Congress  entitled,  "  An  act  to  confiscate  property 
used  for  insurrectionary  purposes,"  approved  August 
6,  1861,  and  a  copy  of  which  act  I  herewith  send  you. 

This  letter  is  written  in  a  spirit  of  caution,  and  not 
of  censure.    I  send  it  by  special  messenger,  in  order 
that  it  may  certainly  and  speedily  reach  you. 
Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN.! 

It  was  the  reply  to  the  above  which  the 
general  sent  to  Washington  by  the  hand  of 
Mrs.  Fremont,  and  which  contained  a  very 
lame  apology  for  the  dictatorial  and  precipi- 
tate step  he  had  taken.  He  wrote: 

Trusting  to  have  your  confidence,  I  have  been  leav- 
ing it  to  events  themselves  to  show  you  whether  or 
not  I  was  shaping  affairs  here  according  to  your  ideas. 
The  shortest  communication  between  Washington  and 
St.  Louis  generally  involves  two  days,  and  the  em- 
ployment of  two  days  in  time  of  war  goes  largely 
towards  success  or  disaster.  I  therefore  went  along 
according  to  my  own  judgment,  leaving  the  result  of 
my  movements  to  justify  me  with  you.  And  so  in 
regard  to  my  proclamation  of  the  3Oth.  Between  the 
rebel  armies,  the  Provisional  Government,  and  home 
traitors,  I  felt  the  position  bad  and  saw  danger.  In 
the  night  I  decided  upon  the  proclamation  and  the 
form  of  it.  I  wrote  it  the  next  morning  and  printed  it 
tin:  same  day.  I  did  it  without  consultation  or  advice 
with  any  one,  acting  solely  with  my  best  judgment  to 
serve  the  country  and  yourself,  and  perfectly  willing 
to  receive  the  amount  of  censure  which  should  be 
thought  due  if  I  had  made  a  false  movement.  This  is 
as  much  a  movement  in  the  war  as  a  battle,  and  in 
going  into  these  I  shall  have  to  act  according  to  my 
judgment  of  the  ground  before  me,  as  I  did  on  this 
•>n.  If,  upon  reflection,  your  better  judgment 
still  decides  that  I  am  wrong  in  the  article  respecting 

""Rebellion  Record." 
t  War  Records. 


the  liberation  of  slaves,  I  have  to  ask  that  you  will 
openly  direct  me  to  make  the  correction.  The  implied 
censure  will  be  received  as  a  soldier  always  should  the 
reprimand  of  his  chief.  If  I  were  to  retract  of  my  own 
accord,  it  would  imply  that  I  myself  thought  it  wrong, 
and  that  1  had  acted  without  the  reflection  which  the 
gravity  of  the  point  demanded.  Hut  1  did  not.  I  acted 
with  full  deliberation,  and  upon  the  certain  conviction 
that  it  was  a  measure  right  and  necessary,  and  I  think 
so  still.  In  regard  to  the  other  point  of  the  proclama- 
tion to  which  you  refer,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  do  not 
think  the  enemy  can  cither  misconstrue  or  urge  any- 
thing against  it,  or  undertake  to  make  unusual  retalia- 
tion. The  shooting  of  men  who  shall  rise  in  arms 
against  an  army  in  the  military  occupation  of  a  country 
is  merely  a  necessary  measure  of  defense,  and  entirely 
according  to  the  usages  of  civilized  warfare.  The 
article  does  not  at  all  refer  to  prisoners  of  war,  and 
certainly  our  enemies  have  no  ground  for  requiring 
that  we  should  waive  in  their  benefit  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary advantages  which  the  usages  of  war  allow  to  us.  \ 

Fremont  thus  chose  deliberately  to  assume 
a  position  of  political  hostility  to  the  Presi- 
dent. Nevertheless  Mr.  Lincoln,  acting  still 
in  his  unfailing  spirit  of  dispassionate  fairness 
and  courtesy,  answered  as  follows: 

WASHINGTON,  Sept.  n,  1861. 
MAJOR-GENERAL  JOHN  C.  FREMONT. 

SIR  :  Yours  of  the  8th  in  answer  to  mine  of  the  ad 
instant  is  just  received.  Assuming  that  you,  upon  the 
ground,  could  better  judge  of  the  necessities  of  your 
position  than  I  could  at  this  distance,  on  seeing  your 
proclamation  of  August  30  I  perceived  no  general  ob- 
jection to  it.  The  particular  clause,  however,  in  relation 
to  the  confiscation  of  property  and  the  liberation  of 
slaves  appeared  to  me  to  oe  objectionable  in  its  non- 
conformity to  the  act  of  Congress  passed  the  6th  of 
last  August  upon  the  same  subjects  ;  and  hence  I  wrote 
you,  expressing  my  wish  that  that  clause  should  be 
modified  accordingly.  Your  answer,  just  received,  ex- 
presses the  preference  on  your  part  that  I  should  make 
an  open  order  for  the  modification,  which  I  very  cheer- 
fully do.  It  is  therefore  ordered  that  the  said  clause  of 
said  proclamation  be  so  modified,  held,  and  construed 
as  to  conform  to,  and  not  to  transcend,  the  provisions 
on  the  same  subject  contained  in  the  act  of  Congress 
entitled,  "  An  act  to  confiscate  property  used  for  insur- 
rectionary purposes,"  approved  August  6,  1861,  and 
that  said  act  be  published  at  length,  with  this  order. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN.} 

As  might  have  been  expected,  Fremont's 
proclamation  of  military  emancipation,  and 
Lincoln's  order  revoking  it,  produced  a  fresh 
and  acrimonious  discussion  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. The  incident  made  the  name  of  Fremont 
a  rallying  cry  for  men  holding  extreme  anti- 
slavery  opinions,  and  to  a  certain  extent  raised 
him  to  the  position  of  a  new  party  leader. 
The  vital  relation  of  slavery  to  the  rebellion 
was  making  itself  felt  to  a  degree  which  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  so  long  trained  to  a 
legal  tolerance  of  the  evil,  could  not  yet  bring 
themselves  to  acknowledge.  Men  hitherto 
conservative  and  prudent  were  swept  along  by 
the  relentless  logic  of  the  nation's  calamity 

{Fremont  to  Lincoln,  Sept.  8,  1861.    War  Records. 
$  War  Records. 


300 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


to  a  point  where  they  were  ready  at  once  to 
accept  and  defend  measures  of  even  the  last 
necessity  for  the  nation's  preservation. 

With  admirable  prudence  Lincoln  himself 
added  nothing  to  the  public  discussion,  but  a 
confidential  letter  written  to  a  conservative 
friend  who  approved  and  defended  Fremont's 
action  will  be  found  of  enduring  interest. 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  Sept.  22,  1861. 
HON.  O.  H.  BROWNING. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  Yours  of  the  1 7th  is  just  received; 
and  coming  from  you,  I  confess  it  astonishes  me. 
That  you  should  object  to  my  adhering  to  a  law,  which 
you  had  assisted  in  making,  and  presenting  to  me, 
less  than  a  month  before,  is  odd  enough.  But  this  is 
a  very  small  part.  General  Fremont's  proclamation, 
as  to  confiscation  of  property,  and  the  liberation  of 
slaves,  is  purely  political,  and  not  within  the  range  of 
military  law  or  necessity.  If  a  commanding  general 
finds  a  necessity  to  seize  the  farm  of  a  private  owner, 
for  a  pasture,  an  encampment,  or  a  fortification,  he  has 
the  right  to  do  so,  and  to  so  hold  it,  as  long  as  the 
necessity  lasts ;  and  this  is  within  military  law,  because 
within  military  necessity.  But  to  say  the  farm  shall 
no  longer  belong  to  the  owner,  or  his  heirs  forever, 
and  this,  as  well  when  the  farm  is  not  needed  for  mili- 
tary purposes  as  when  it  is,  is  purely  political,  without 
the  savor  of  military  law  about  it.  And  the  same 
is  true  of  slaves.  If  the  general  needs  them  he  can 
seize  them  and  use  them,  but  when  the  need  is  past,  it 
is  not  for  him  to  fix  their  permanent  future  condition. 
That  must  be  settled  according  to  laws  made  by  law- 
makers, and  not  by  military  proclamations.  The 
proclamation  in  the  point  in  question  is  simply 
"dictatorship."  It  assumes  that  the  general  may  do 
anything  he  pleases  —  confiscate  the  lands  and  free  the 
slaves  otloval  people,  as  well  as  of  disloyal  ones.  And 
going  the  whole  figure,  I  have  no  doubt,  would  be 
more  popular,  with  some  thoughtless  people,  than 
that  which  has  been  done !  But  I  cannot  assume 
this  reckless  position,  nor  allow  others  to  assume  it 
on  my  responsibility. 

You  speak  of  it  as  being  the  only  means  of  saving 
the  Government.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  itself  the  sur- 
render of  the  Government.  Can  it  be  pretended  that  it 
is  any  longer  the  Government  of  the  United  States  — 
any  government  of  constitution  and  laws  —  wherein 
a  general  or  a  president  may  make  permanent  rules 
of  property  by  proclamation  ? 

I  do  not  say  Congress  might  not,  with  propriety, 
pass  a  law  on  the  point,  just  such  as  General  Fremont 
proclaimed.  I  do  not  say  I  might  not,  as  a  member  of 
Congress,  vote  for  it.  What  I  object  to  is,  that  I,  as 
President,  shall  expressly  or  impliedly  seize  and  exer- 
cise the  permanent  legislative  functions  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

So  much  as  to  principle.  Now  as  to  policy.  No 
doubt  the  thing  was  popular  in  some  quarters,  and 
would  have  been  more  so  if  it  had  been  a  general  dec- 
laration of  emancipation.  The  Kentucky  legislature 
would  not  budge  till  that  proclamation  was  modified  ; 
and  General  Anderson  telegraphed  me  that  on  the  news 
of  General  Fremont  having  actually  issued  deeds  of 
manumission,  a  whole  company  of  our  volunteers  threw 
down  their  arms  and  disbanded.  I  was  so  assured  as 
to  think  it  probable  that  the  very  arms  we  had  fur- 
nished Kentucky  would  be  turned  against  us.  I  think 
to  lose  Kentucky  is  nearly  the  same  as  to  lose  the  whole 
game.  Kentucky  gone,  we  cannot  hold  Missouri,  nor, 
as  I  think,  Maryland.  These  all  against  us,  and  the 
job  on  our  hands  is  too  large  for  us.  We  would  as 
well  consent  to  separation  at  once,  including  the  sur- 
render of  this  capital.  On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  givi- 


up  your  restlessness  for  new  positions,  and  back  me 
manfully  on  the  grounds  upon  which  you  and  other 
kind  friends  gave  me  the  election,  and  have  approved 
in  my  public  documents,  we  shall  go  through  trium- 
phantly. 

You  must  not  understand  I  took  my  course  on  the 
proclamation  because  of  Kentucky.  I  took  the  same 
ground  in  a  private  letter  to  General  Fremont  before 
I  heard  from  Kentucky. 

You  think  I  am  inconsistent  because  I  did  not  also 
forbid  General  Fremont  to  shoot  men  under  the  proc- 
lamation. I  understand  that  part  to  be  within  military 
law,  but  I  also  think,  and  so  privately  wrote  General 
Fre'mont,  that  it  is  impolitic  in  this,  that  our  adversaries 
have  the  power,  and  will  certainly  exercise  it,  to  shoot 
as  many  of  our  men  as  we  shoot  of  theirs.  I  did  not 
say  this  in  the  public  letter,  because  it  is  a  subject  I 
prefer  not  to  discuss  in  the  hearing  of  our  enemies. 

There  has  been  no  thought  of  removing  General 
Fre'mont  on  any  ground  connected  with  his  proclama- 
tion, and  if  there  has  been  any  wish  for  his  removal  on 
any  ground,  our  mutual  friend  Sam.  Glover  can  prob- 
ably tell  you  what  it  was.  I  hope  no  real  necessity  for 
it  exists  on  any  ground.  .  .  . 

Your  friend,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN.* 

The  reader  will  not  fail  to  note  that  the 
argument  of  this  letter  seems  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  action  of  the  President,  when, 
exactly  one  year  later,  he  issued  his  prelimi- 
nary Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  as  well 
as  to  that  of  the  final  one,  on  the  first  day  of 
January,  1863.  Did  Mr.  Lincoln  change  his 
mind  in  the  interim  ?  The  answer  is  two-fold. 
He  did  not  change  his  mind  as  to  the  princi- 
ple; he  did  change  his  mind  as  to  the  policy 
of  the  case. 

Rightly  to  interpret  Mr.  Lincoln's  language 
we  must  imagine  ourselves  in  his  position,  and 
examine  the  question  as  it  presented  itself  to 
his  mind.  Congress,  by  the  act  of  August  6, 
1 86 1,  had  authorized  him  to  cause  property 
used  or  employed  in  aid  of  insurrection  to  be 
"  seized,  confiscated,  and  condemned  " ;  pro- 
viding, however,  that  such  condemnation 
should  be  by  judicial  proceeding.  He  saw 
that  Fremont  by  mere  proclamation  assumed 
to  confiscate  all  property,  both  real  and  per- 
sonal, of  rebels  in  arms,  whether  such  prop- 
erty had  been  put  to  insurrectionary  use  or 
not,  and,  going  a  step  further,  had  annexed  a 
rule  of  property,  by  decreeing  that  their  slaves 
should  become  free.  This  assumption  of  au- 
thority Lincoln  rightly  defined  as  "  simply 
dictatorship,"  and  as  being,  if  permitted,  the 
end  of  constitutional  government.  The  cast 
is  still  stronger  when  we  remember  that  Fre- 
mont's proclamation  began  by  broadly  assum- 
ing "the  administrative  powers  of  the  State"; 
that  its  declared  object  was  mere  individual 
punishment,  and  the  measure  a  local  police 
regulation  to  suppress  disorder  and  maintain 
the  peace;  also  that  it  was  to  operate  through- 
out Missouri,  as  well  within  as  without  the 

"MS.  Also  printed  in  "  Proceedings  of  Illinois  Bar 
Association,  1882,"  pp.  40,  41. 


A   HISTORY. 


301 


portions  of  the  State  under  his  immediate 
military  control.  Military  necessity,  therefore, 
could  not  be  urged  in  justification.  The  act 
\v:is  purely  administrative  and  political. 

The  difference  between  these  extra-military 
decrees  of  Fremont's  proclamation  and  Lin- 
coln's acts  of  emancipation  is  broad  and  es- 
sential. Fremont's  act  was  one  of  civil  admin- 
istration, Lincoln's  a  step  in  an  active  military 
campaign;  Fremont's  was  local  and  individual, 
Lincoln's  national  and  general ;  Fremont's 
partly  within  military  lines,  Lincoln's  alto- 
gether beyond  military  lines;  Fremont's  an 
act  of  punishment,  Lincoln's  a  means  of  war; 
Fremont's  acting  upon  property,  Lincoln's 
acting  upon  persons.  National  law,  "civil 
and  military,  knew  nothing  of  slavery,  and 
did  not  protect  it  as  an  institution.  It  only 
tolerated  State  laws  to  that  effect,  and  only 
dealt  with  fugitive  slaves  as  "persons  held 
to  service."  Lincoln  did  not,  as  dictator, 
decree  the  abrogation  of  these  State  laws; 
but  in  order  to  call  persons  from  the  mili- 
tary aid  of  the  rebellion  to  the  military  aid 
of  the  Union,  he,  as  Commander-in-Chief, 
armed  by  military  necessity,  proclaimed  that 
I icrs  >ns  held  as  slaves  within  rebel  lines 
should  on  a  certain  day  become  free  unless 
rebellion  ceased. 

Thus  no  real  distinction  of  principle  exists 
between  his  criticism  of  Fremont's  proclama- 
tion and  the  issuing  of  his  own.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  marked  and  acknowledged 
change  of  policy  between  the  date  of  the 
Browning  letter  and  the  date  of  his  prelimi- 
nary Emancipation  Proclamation.  In  Septem- 
ber, 1 36 1 ,  he  stood  upon  the  position  laid  down 
in  the  Chicago  platform ;  upon  that  expressed 
in  the  constitutional  amendment  and  indorsed 
in  his  inaugural ;  upon  that  declared  by  Con- 
gress in  July,  in  the  Crittenden  resolution, 
namely :  that  the  General  Government  would 
not  interfere  directly  or  indirectly  with  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  in  the  several  States.  This 
policy  Lincoln  undertook  in  good  faith  to 
carry  out,  and  he  adhered  to  it  so  long  as  it 
was  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  Govern- 
ment. His  Browning  letter  is  but  a  reaffirma- 
tion  of  that  purpose.  At  the  time  he  wrote  it 
military  necessity  was  clearly  against  military 
emancipation,  either  local  or  general.  The  rev- 
ocation of  Fremont's  decree  saved  Kentucky 
to  the  Union,  and  placed  forty  thousand  Ken- 
tucky soldiers  in  the  Federal  army.  But  one 
year  after  the  date  of  the  Browning  letter,  the 
situation  was  entirely  reversed.  The  Richmond 
campaign  had  utterly  failed;  Washington  was 
menaced;  the  country  was  despondent;  and 
military  necessity  now  justified  the  policy  of 
general  military  emancipation. 

Whatever  temporary  popularity  Fremont 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 43. 


gained  with  antislavery  people  by  his  procla- 
mation was  quickly  neutralized  by  the  occur- 
rence of  a  new  military  disaster  in  his  depart- 
The  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek  and  the 
retreat  of  the  Union  army  to  Rolla  left  t he- 
Confederate  forces  master  of  south-west  Mis- 
souri. The  junction  of  rebel  leaders,  however, 
which  had  served  to  gain  that  advantage  was 
of  short  duration.  Their  loosely  organized  and 
badly  supplied  army  was  not  only  too  much 
crippled  to  follow  the  Union  retreat,  but  in  no 
condition  to  remain  together.  Price,  as  major- 
general  of  Missouri  State  forces,  had  only 
temporarily  waived  his  rank  and  consented 
to  serve  under  McCulloch,  holding  but  a 
brigadier-general's  commission  from  Jefferson 
Davis.  Both  the  disagreement  of  the  leaders 
and  the  necessities  of  the  troops  almost  imme- 
diately compelled  a  separation  of  the  rebel 
army.  General  Pearce  with  his  Arkansas 
State  forces  returned  home,  and  General 
McCulloch  with  his  three  Confederate  regi- 
ments also  marched  back  into  Arkansas,  tak- 
ing up  again  his  primary  task  of  watching 
the  Indian  Territory.  General  Price  held 
his  numerous  but  heterogeneous  Missouri  fol- 
lowers together,  and,  busying  himself  for  a 
time  in  gathering  supplies,  started  back  in 
a  leisurely  march  northward  from  Spring- 
field toward  the  Missouri  River.  The  strong 
secession  feeling  of  south-western  Missouri 
rapidly  increased  his  force,  liberally  furnished 
him  supplies,  and  kept  him  fully  informed  of 
the  numbers  and  location  of  the  various 
Union  detachments.  There  were  none  in  his 
line  of  march  till  he  neared  the  town  of  Lex- 
ington, on  the  Missouri  River.  The  rebel 
governor,  Jackson,  had  recently  convened  the 
rebel  members  of  his  legislature  here,  but  a 
small  Union  detachment  sent  from  Jefferson 
City  occupied  the  place,  dispersing  them  and 
capturing  their  records,  and  the  great  seal  of 
the  State,  brought  by  the  governor  in  his  flight 
from  the  capital.  About  the  ist  of  September 
the  Union  commander  at  Jefferson  City  heard 
of  the  advance  of  Price,  and  sent  forward  the 
Chicago  Irish  Brigade  under  Colonel  Mulligan 
to  reenforce  Lexington,  with  directions  to  for- 
tify and  hold  it.  Mulligan  reached  Lexington 
by  forced  marches,  where  he  was  soon  joined 
by  the  Union  detachment  from  Warrensburg 
retreating  before  Price.  The  united  Federal 
force  now  numbered  2800  men,  with  8  guns 
Price  pushed  forward  his  cavalry,  and  made  a 
slight  attack  on  the  i2th,  but  was  easily  re- 
pulsed and  retired  to  await  the  arrival  of  his 
main  body,  swelled  by  continual  accessions  to 
some  20,000  with  13  guns;  and  on  the  i8th 
he  again  approached  and.  formally  laid  siege 
to  Lexington. 

Mulligan  made  good  use  of  this  interim, 


302 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


gathering  provisions  and  forage,  casting  shot, 
making  ammunition  for  his  guns,  and  inclosing 
the  college  building  and  the  hill  on  which  it 
stood,  an  area  of  some  fifteen  acres,  with  a 
strong  line  of  breastworks.  Price  began  his  at- 
tack on  the  1 8th,  but  for  two  days  made  little 
headway.  Slowly,  however,  he  gained  favor- 
able positions ;  his  sharp-shooters,  skilled  rifle- 
men of  the  frontier,  drove  the  Federals  into 
their  principal  redan,  cut  off  their  water  supply 
by  gaining  and  occupying  the  river  shore,  and 
finally  adopted  the  novel  and  effective  expe- 
dient of  using  movable  breastworks,  by  gradu- 
ally rolling  forward  bales  of  wet  hemp.  On 
September  20,  after  fifty-two  hours  of  gallant 
defense,  Mulligan's  position  became  untena- 
ble. The  reinforcements  he  had  a  right  to 
expect  did  not  come,  his  water  cisterns  were 
exhausted,  the  stench  from  dead  animals  bur- 
dened the  air  about  his  fort.  Some  one  at 
length,  without  authority,  displayed  a  white 
flag,  and  Price  sent  a  note  which  asked, 
"  Colonel,  what  has  caused  the  cessation  of 
the  fight?"  Mulligan's  Irish  wit  was  equal 
to  the  occasion,  and  he  wrote  on  the  back  of 
it,  "  General,  I  hardly  know,  unless  you  have 
surrendered."  The  pleasantry  led  to  a  formal 
parley;  and  Mulligan,  with  the  advice  of  his 
officers,  surrendered.* 

The  uncertainty  which  for  several  days  hung 
over  the  fate  of  Lexington,  and  the  dramatic 
incidents  of  the  fight,  excited  the  liveliest  in- 
terest throughout  the  West.  Newspaper  dis- 
cussion soon  made  it  evident  that  this  new 
Union  loss  might  have  been  avoided  by  rea- 
sonable prudence  and  energy  on  the  part  of 
Fremont,  as  there  were  plenty  of  disposable 
troops  at  various  points,  which,  during  the  slow 
approach  and  long-deferred  attack  of  Price, 
could  have  been  hurried  to  Mulligan's  support. 
There  were  universal  outcry  and  pressure  that 
at  least  the  disaster  should  be  retrieved  by  a 
prompt  movement  to  intercept  and  capture 
Price  on  his  retreat.  Fremont  himself  seems 
to  have  felt  the  sting  of  the  disgrace,  for,  re- 
porting the  surrender,  he  added  : 

"  I  am  taking  the  field  myself,  and  hope  to 
destroy  the  enemy,  either  before  or  after  the 
junction  of  forces  under  McCulloch.  Please 
notify  the  President  immediately." 

"  Your  dispatch  of  this  day  is  received," 
responded  General  Scott.  "  The  President 
is  glad  you  are  hastening  to  the  scene  of 
action ;  his  words  are,  '  he  expects  you  to 
repair  the  disaster  at  Lexington  without  loss 
of  time.'" 

This  hope  was  not  destined  to  reach  a  ful- 
fillment.   Price  almost  immediately  retreated 
southward  from  Lexington  with  his  captured 
booty,  among  which  the  pretentious  great  seal 
•"Rebellion  Record." 


of  the  State  figures  as  a  conspicuous  item  in 
his  report.  On  September  24  Fremont  pub- 
lished his  order,  organizing  his  army  of  five 
divisions,  under  Pope  at  Boonville,McKinstry 
at  Syracuse,  Hunter  at  Versailles,  Sigel  at 
Georgetown,  Asboth  at  Tipton.  On  paper  it 
formed  a  respectable  show  of  force,  figuring  as 
an  aggregate  of  nearly  39,000  ;  in  reality  it  was 
at  the  moment  well-nigh  powerless,  being 
scattered  and  totally  unprepared  for  the  field. 
Fremont's  chronic  inattention  to  details,  and 
his  entire  lack  of  methodical  administration, 
now  fully  revealed  themselves.  Even  under 
the  imperative  orders  of  the  general,  nearly  a 
month  elapsed  before  the  various  divisions 
could  be  concentrated  at  Springfield ;  and  they 
were  generally  in  miserable  plight  as  to  trans- 
portation, supplies,  and  ammunition.  Amidst 
a  succession  of  sanguine  newspaper  reports 
setting  forth  the  incidents  and  great  expecta- 
tions of  Fremont's  campaign,  the  convincing 
evidence  could  not  be  disguised  that  the 
whole  movement  would  finally  prove  worth- 
less and  barren. 

Meanwhile,  acting  on  his  growing  solicitude, 
President  Lincoln  directed  special  inquiry, 
and  about  the  1 3th  of  October  the  Secretary 
of  War,  accompanied  by  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral of  the  Army,  reached  Fremont's  camp  at 
Tipton.  His  immediate  report  to  the  Presi- 
dent confirmed  his  apprehension.  Secretary 
Cameron  wrote : 

I  returned  to  this  place  last  night  from  the  headquar- 
ters of  General  Fremont  at  Tipton.  I  found  there  and 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood  some  40,000  troops, 
with  I  brigade  (General  McKinstry's)  in  good  con- 
dition for  the  field  and  well  provided ;  others  not  ex- 
hibiting good  care,  and  but  poorly  supplied  with 
munitions,  arms,  and  clothing.  I  had  an  interview 
with  General  Fremont,  and  in  conversation  with  him 
showed  him  an  order  for  his  removal.  He  was  very 
much  mortified,  pained,  and,  I  thought,  humiliated. 
He  made  an  earnest  appeal  to  me,  saying  that  he  had 
come  to  Missouri,  at  the  request  of  the  Government,  to 
assume  a  very  responsible  command,  and  that  when  he 
reached  this  State  he  found  himself  without  troops  and 
without  any  preparation  for  an  army;  that  he  had  ex- 
erted himself,  as  he  believed,  with  great  energy,  and 
had  now  around  him  a  fine  army,  with  everything  to 
make  success  certain;  that  he  was  now  in  pursuit  of 
the  enemy,  whom  he  believed  were  now  within  his 
reach ;  and  that  to  recall  him  at  this  moment  would 
not  only  destroy  him,  but  render  his  whole  expendi- 
ture useless.  In  reply  to  this  appeal,  I  told  him  that  I 
would  withhold  the  order  until  my  return  to  Wash- 
ington, giving  him  the  interim  to  prove  the  reality  of 
his  hopes  as  to  reaching  and  capturing  the  enemy, 
giving  him  to  understand  that,  should  he  fail,  he  must 
give  place  to  some  other  officer.  He  assured  me  that, 
should  he  fail,  he  would  resign  at  once. 

It  is  proper  that  I  should  state  that  after  this  con- 
versation I  met  General  Hunter,  who,  in  very  distinct 
terms,  told  me  that  his  division  of  the  army,  although 
then  under  orders  to  inarch,  and  a  part  of  his  command 
actually  on  the  road,  could  not  be  put  in  proper  condi- 
tion for  marching  for  a  number  of  days.  To  a  question 
I  put  to  him,  "  whether  he  believed  General  Fremont 
fit  for  the  command,"  he  replied  that  he  did  not  think 


A   HISTORY. 


3°3 


that  he  was ;  and  informed  me  that  though  second  in 
command,  he  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  purposes 
or  plans  of  his  chief.* 

The  opinion  of  another  division  commander, 
General  Pope,  was  freely  expressed  in  a  letter 
of  the  previous  day,  which  Hunter  also  exhib- 
ited to  the  Secretary: 

I  received  at  I  o'clock  last  night  the  extraordinary 
order  of  General  Fremont  for  a  forward  movement  of 
his  whole  force.  The  wonderful  manner  in  which  the 
actual  facts  and  condition  of  things  here  are  ignored 
stupefies  me.  One  would  suppose  from  this  order  that 
divisions  and  brigades  are  organized,  and  are  under 
immediate  command  of  their  officers  ;  that  transporta- 
tion is  in  possession  of  all ;  that  every  arrangement 
of  supply  trains  to  follow  the  army  has  been  made ; 
in  fact,  that  we  are  in  a  perfect  state  of  preparation  for 
a  move. 

You  know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  the  exact  reverse 
is  the  fact ;  that  neither  brigades  nor  divisions  have 
been  brought  together,  and  that  if  they  were  there  is 
not  transportation  enough  to  move  this  army  one  hun- 
dred yards ;  that,  in  truth,  not  one  solitary  prepara- 
tion of  any  kind  has  been  made  to  enable  this  advance 
movement  to  be  executed.  I  have  never  seen  my  di- 
vision, nor  do  I  suppose  you  have  seen  yours.  I  have 
no  cavalry  even  for  a  personal  escort,  and  yet  this  or- 
der requires  me  to  send  forward  companies  of  pioneers 
protected  by  cavalry.  Is  it  intended  that  this  order  be 
obeyed,  or  rather,  that  we  try  to  obey  it,  or  is  the  or- 
der only  designed  for  Washington  and  the  papers  ? 
....  I  went  to  Jefferson  City,  the  last  time  I  saw 
you,  for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  transportation 
for  my  division,  and  explained  to  General  Fremont 
precisely  what  I  have  said  above.  How  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  he  knew  no  transportation  was  furnished, 
and  that  Kelton  has  none,  he  should  coolly  order  such 
a  movement,  and  expect  it  to  be  made,  I  cannot  under- 
stand on  any  reasonable  or  common-sense  hypothesis. 

Another  letter  to  the  President  from  a  more 
cautious  and  conservative  officer,  General  Cur- 
tis, exercising  a  local  command  in  St.  Louis, 
gave  an  equally  discouraging  view  of  the 

situation : 

Your  Excellency's  letter  of  the  7th  inst,  desiring 
me  to  express  my  views  in  regard  to  General  Fremont 
frankly  and  confidentially  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  was 
presented  by  him  yesterday,  and  I  have  complied  with 
your  Excellency's  request.'  .  .  .  Matters  have  gone 
from  bad  to  worse,  and  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  your 
Excellency's  letter,  which  breaks  the  restraint  of  mili- 
tary law,  and  enables  me  to  relieve  myself  of  a  painful 
silence.  In  my  judgment  General  Fremont  lacks  the 
intelligence,  the  experience,  and  the  sagacity  necessary 
to  his  command.  I  have  reluctantly  and  gradually 
been  forced  to  this  conclusion.  His  reserve  evinces 
vanity  or  embarrassment,  which  I  never  could  so  far 
overcome  as  to  fully  penetrate  his  capacity.  He  would 
talk  of  plans,  which,  being  explained,  only  related  to 
some  move  of  a  general  or  some  dash  at  a  shadow, 
and  I  am  now  convinced  he  has  no  general  plan. 
Forces  are  scattered  and  generally  isolated  without 
being  in  supporting  distance  or  relation  to  each  other, 
and  when  I  have  expressed  apprehension  as  to  some, 
I  have  seen  no  particular  exertion  to  repel  or  relieve, 
till  it  was  too  late.  I  know  the  demand  made  on  him 
for  force  everywhere  is  oppressive  ;  but  remote  posts 
have  improperly  stood  out,  and  some  still  stand,  invit- 
ing assault,  without  power  to  retreat,  fortify,  or  reen- 

*  Cameron  to  Lincoln,  Oct.  14,  1861.  Unpublished 
MS. 


force.  Our  forces  should  be  concentrated,  with  the 
rivers  as  a  base  of  operation  ;  and  these  rivers  and 
railroads  afford  means  for  sudden  and  salutary  assaults 
on  the  enemy.  .  .  .  The  question  you  propound, 
"  Ought  General  Fremont  to  be  relieved  from  or  re- 
tained in  his  present  command?"  seems  easily  an- 
swered. It  is  only  a  question  of  manner  and  time. 
Public  opinion  is  an  element  of  war  which  must  not 
be  neglected.  ...  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  pre- 
cipitate. A  few  days  are  not  of  vast  moment,  but  the 
pendency  of  the  question  and  discussion  must  not  be 
prolonged.  Controversies  in  an  army  are  almost  as 
pernicious  as  a  defeat,  t 

Thus  the  opinions  of  three  trained  and  ex- 
perienced army  officers,  who  had  every  means 
of  judging  from  actual  personal  observation, 
coincided  with  the  general  drift  of  evidence 
which  had  come  to  the  President  from  civilian 
officials  and  citizens,  high  and  low.  Fremont 
had  frittered  away  his  opportunity  for  useful- 
ness and  fame;  such  an  opportunity,  indeed,  as 
rarely  comes  to  men.  He  had  taken  his  com- 
mand three  months  before  with  the  universal 
good-will  of  almost  every  individual,  every  sub- 
ordinate, every  official,  every  community  in 
his  immense  department.  In  his  brief  incum- 
bency he  not  only  lost  the  general  public  con- 
fidence, but  incurred  the  special  displeasure  or 
direct  enmity  of  those  most  prominent  in  in- 
fluence or  command  next  to  him,  and  without 
whose  friendship  and  hearty  cooperation  suc- 
cess was  practically  impossible. 

Waiting  and  hoping  till  the  last  moment, 
President  Lincoln  at  length  felt  himself  forced 
to  intervene.  On  the  24th  of  October,  just 
three  months  after  Fremont  had  assumed  com- 
mand, he  directed  an  order  to  be  made  that 
Fre'mont  should  be  relieved  and  General  Hun- 
ter be  called  temporarily  to  take  his  command. 
This  order  he  dispatched  by  the  hand  of  a 
personal  friend  to  General  Curtis  at  St.  Louis, 
with  the  following  letter: 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  24,  1861. 
BRIGADIER-GENERAL  S.  R.  CURTIS. 

DEAR  SIR:  On  receipt  of  this,  with  the  accompany- 
ing inclosures,  you  will  take  safe,  certain,  and  suitable 
measures  to  have  the  inclosure  addressed  to  Major- 
General  Fremont  delivered  to  him  with  all  reasonable 
dispatch,  subject  to  these  conditions  only,  that  if,  when 
General  Fremont  shall  be  reached  by  the  messenger, — 
yourself  or  any  one  sent  by  you, —  he  shall  then  have, 
in  personal  command,  fought  and  won  a  battle,  or  shall 
then  be  actually  in  a  battle,  or  shall  then  be  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  the  enemy  in  expectation  of  a 
battle,  it  is  not  to  be  delivered,  but  held  for  further 
orders.  After,  and  not  till  after,  the  delivery  to  Gen- 
eral Fre'mont,  let  the  inclosure  addressed  to  General 
Hunter  be  delivered  to  him. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN.} 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  conditions  attend- 
ing the  deliver}'  of  this  order  were  somewhat 
peculiar.  If  General  Fre'mont  had  just  won 
a  battle,  or  were  on  the  eve  of  fighting  one, 

t  Curtis  to  Lincoln,  Oct.  12,  1861.    MS. 
JWar  Records. 


3°4 


ABRAHAM  'LINCOLN.- 


then  both  justice  to  himself,  and  more  espe- 
cially the  risk  or  gain  to  the  Union  cause, 
rendered  it  inexpedient  to  make  a  sudden 
change  in  command.  But  the  question  also 
had  another  and  possibly  serious  aspect.  Amid 
all  his  loss  of  prestige  and  public  confidence, 
Fremont  had  retained  the  clamorous  adhe- 
sion and  noisy  demonstrative  support  of  three 
distinct  elements.  First,  a  large  number  of 
officers  to  whom  he  had  given  irregular  com- 
missions, issued  by  himself,  "  subject  to  the 
approval  of  the  President."  These  commis- 
sions for  the  moment  gave  their  holders  rank, 
pay,  and  power;  and  to  some  of  them  he  had 
assigned  extraordinary  duties  and  trusts  under 
special  instructions,  regardless  of  proper  mili- 
tary usage  and  method.  The  second  class 
was  the  large  and  respectable  German  popu- 
lation of  St.  Louis,  and  other  portions  of 
Missouri,  forming  the  nucleus  of  the  radical 
faction  whose  cause  he  had  especially  es- 
poused. The  third  class  comprised  the  men 
of  strong  antislavery  convictions  throughout 
the  Union  who  hailed  his  act  of  military 
emancipation  with  unbounded  approval.  The 
first  class  composed  about  his  person  a  clique 
of  active  sycophants,  wielding  power  and  dis- 
pensing patronage  in  his  name ;  the  other  two 
supplied  a  convenient  public  echo.  Out  of 
such  surroundings  and  conditions  there  began 
to  come  a  cry  of  persecution  and  a  vague  hum 
of  insubordination,  coupled  with  adulations  of 
the  general.  Some  of  his  favorites  talked  im- 
prudently of  defiance  and  resistance  to  author- 
ity ;  *  occasional  acts  of  Fremont  himself  gave 
a  color  of  plausibility  to  these  mutterings. 
He  had  neglected  to  discontinue  the  expen- 
sive fortifications  and  barracks  when  directed 
to  do  so  by  the  Secretary  of  War.  Even  since 
the  President  ordered  him  to  modify  his  proc- 
lamation, he  had  on  one  occasion  personally 
directed  the  original  document  to  be  printed 
and  distributed.  Several  of  his  special  ap- 
pointees were  stationed  about  the  city  of  St. 
Louis,  "so  they  should  control  every  fort, 
arsenal,  and  communication,  without  regard 
to  commanding  officers  or  quartermasters."  t 
Suspicions  naturally  arose,  and  were  publicly 
expressed,  that  he  would  not  freely  yield  up  his 
command;  or,  if  not  actually  resisting  superior 
authority,  that  he  might  at  least,  upon  some 
pretext,  temporarily  prolong  his  power. 

There  was,  of  course,  no  danger  that  lie 
could  successfully  defy  the  orders  of  the  Pres- 
ident. The  bulk  of  his  army,  officers  and  sol- 

*  To  remove  Mr.  Fremont  will  be  a  great  wrong,  as 
the  necessary  investigation  following  it  will  prove.  It 
will  make  immense  confusion,  and  require  all  his 
control  over  his  friends  and  the  army  to  get  them  to 
do  as  he  will, —  accept  it  as  an  act  of  authority,  not  of 
justice, —  but  in  time  of  war  it  is  treason  to  question 
authority.  To  leave  him  here  without  money,  without 


diers,  would  have  .spurned  such  a  proposition. 
But  the  example  of  delay  or  doubt,  any  shadow 
of  insubordination,  would  have  had  an  ex- 
tremely pernicious  effect  upon  public  opinion. 
General  Curtis  therefore  sent  a  trusted  bearer 
of  dispatches,  who,  by  an  easy  stratagem, 
entered  Fremont's  camp,  gained  a  personal 
audience,  and  delivered  the  official  order  of 
removal.  Duplicates  of  the  President's  letters 
were  at  the  same  time,  and  with  equal  care, 
dispatched  to  the  camp  of  General  Hunter, 
at  a  considerable  distance,  and  he  traveled 
all  night  to  assume  his  new  duties.  When  he 
reached  Fremont's  camp,  on  the  following 
day,  he  learned  that  ostensible  preparations 
had  been  made  and  orders  issued  for  a  battle, 
on  the  assumption  that  the  enemy  was  at 
Wilson's  Creek  advancing  to  an  attack.  Tak- 
ing command,  Hunter  sent  a  reconnaissance 
to  Wilson's  Creek,  and  obtained  reliable  evi- 
dence that  no  enemy  whatever  was  there  or 
expected  there.  Fremont  had  been  duped  by 
his  own  scouts ;  for  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
conceive  that  he  deliberately  arranged  this 
final  bit  of  theatrical  effect. 

The  actual  fact  was  that  while  Price, 
retreating  southward,  by  "  slow  and  easy 
marches," J  kept  well  beyond  any  successful 
pursuit,  his  army  of  twenty  thousand  which  had 
captured  Lexington  dwindled  away  as  rapidly 
as  it  had  grown.  His  movement  partook  more 
of  the  nature  of  a  frontier  foray  than  an  organ- 
ized campaign:  the  squirrel-hunters  of  western 
Missouri,  whose  accurate  shaq>shooting drove 
Mulligan  into  his  intrenchments  to  starvation 
or  surrender,  returned  to  their  farms  or  their 
forest  haunts  to  await  the  occasion  of  some 
new  and  exciting  expedition ;  the  whole  pres- 
ent effort  of  General  Price,  now  at  the  head  of 
only  10,000  or  12,000  men,  being  to  reach  an 
easy  junction  with  McCulloch  on  the  Arkansas 
border,  so  that  their  united  force  might  make 
a  successful  stand,  or  at  least  insure  a  safe 
retreat  from  the  Union  army. 

President  Lincoln,  however,  did  not  intend 
that  the  campaign  to  the  south-west  should 
be  continued.  Other  plans  were  being  dis- 
cussed and  matured.  With  the  order  to  super- 
sede F'remont  he  also  sent  the  following 
letters,  explaining  his  well-considered  views 
and  conveying  his  express  directions : 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  24,  1861. 
BRIGADIER-GENERAL  S.  R.  CURTIS. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  Herewith  is  a  document  —  half 
letter,  half  order  —  which,  wishing  you  to  see,  but  not 


the  moral  aid  of  the  Government,  is  treason  to  the 
people.  I  cannot  find  smoother  phrases,  for  it  is  the 
death  struggle  of  our  nationality,  and  no  time  for  fair 
words.  [Mrs.  Fremont  to  Lamon,  St.  Louis,  Oct.  20, 
1861.  Unpublished  MS.] 

t  Curtis  to  Lincoln,  Nov.  I,  1861.    MS. 

i  Price,  Official  Report.     War  Records. 


BY    TELEPHONE. 


3°5 


to  make  public,  I  send  unsealed.  Please  read  it,  and 
then  inclose  it  to  the  officer  who  may  be  in  command 
of  the  Department  of  the  West  at  the  time  it  reaches 
him.  I  cannot  no\v  know  whether  Frcnxmt  or  Hun- 
ter will  then  l>e  in  command. 

Yours  truly, 

A.    LINCOLN.* 

\V.\sitlxi:  i<>.\,  Oct.  24,  iSdi. 

TO  TH1.   CiiMMANIIKR   OF   THE    DEPARTMENT   OK 
THK  WKST. 

SIR  :  The  command  of  the  Department  of  the  West 
having  devolved  upon  you,  1  propose  to  oiler  you  a 
few  suggestions.  Knowing  how  hazardous  it  is  to 
bind  down  a  distant  commander  in  the  field  to  s|«i  id. 
lines  and  operations,  as  so  much  always  depends  on  a 
knowledge  of  localities  and  passing  events,  it  is  in- 
tended, therefore,  to  leave  a  considerable  margin  for 
the  exercise  of  your  judgment  and  discretion. 

The  main  rebel  army  (Price's)  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi is  believed  lo  have  passed  Dade  County  in  full 
retreat  upon  north-western  Arkansas,  leaving  Missouri 
almost  freed  from  the  enemy,  excepting  in  the  south- 
east of  the  State.  Assuming  this  basis  of  fact,  it  seems 
desirable,  as  you  are  not  likely  to  overtake  Price,  and 
are  in  danger  of  making  too  long  a  line  from  your  own 
base  of  supplies  and  reenforccmenN,  that  you  should 
give  up  the  pursuit,  halt  your  main  army,  divide  it  into 
two  corps  ol  observation,  one  occupying  Scdalia  and 
the  other  Rolla,  the  present  termini  of  railroad ;  then 
recruit  the  condition  of  both  corps  by  reestablishing 
and  improving  their  discipline  and  instructions,  per- 
fecting their  clothing  anil  equipments,  and  providing 
less  uncomfortable  quarters.  Of  course  both  railroads 
must  be  guarded  and  kept  open,  judiciously  employ- 
ing just  so  much  force  as  is  necessary  for  this.  From 
these  two  points,  Sedalia  and  Rolla,  and  especially  in 
judicious  cooperation  with  Lane  on  the  Kansas  bor- 
der, it  would  be  so  easy  to  concentrate  and  repel  any 
army  of  the  enemy  returning  on  Missouri  from  the 
south-west  that  it  is  not  probable  any  such  attempt  to 
return  will  be  made  before  or  during  the  approaching 
cold  weather.  Before  spring  the  people  of  Missouri 
will  probably  be  in  no  favorable  mood  to  renew  for 
next  year  the  troubles  which  have  so  much  afflicted 


*  War  Records. 

t  Townsend  to  Curtis,  Nov.  6,  1861.    War  Records. 

t  McCulloch  to  Cooper,  Nov.  19, 1861.  War  Records. 


and  impoverished  them  during  this.  If  you  adopt  this 
line  of  policy,  and  if,  as  1  anticipate,  you  will  see  no 
enemy  in  great  force  approaching,  you  will  have  a 
surplus  of  force,  which  you  can  withdraw  from  \\- 
points  and  direct  to  others,  as  may  be  needed,  the 
railroads  furnishing  ready  means  of  recnforcing  their 
mam  points,  if  occasion  requires.  DoubtlCM  local 
uprisings  will  for  a  time  continue  to  occur,  but  these 
can  be  met  by  detachments  and  local  forces  of  our  own, 
and  will  ere  long  tire  out  of  themselves.  Whil1 
stated  in  the  beginning  of  the  letter,  a  large  discretion 
must  be  and  is  left  with  yourself,  I  feel  sure  that  an 
indefinite  pursuit  of  Trice,  or  an  attempt  by  this  long 
and  circuitous  route  to  reach  Memphis,  will  be  ex- 
haustive beyond  endurance,  and  will  end  in  the  loss 
of  the  whole  force  engaged  in  it. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN.* 

The  change  of  command  occasioned  nei- 
ther trouble  nor  danger.  Fremont  himself 
acted  with  perfect  propriety.  He  took  leave 
of  his  army  in  a  brief  and  temperate  address, 
and  returned  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  was  wel- 
comed by  his  admirers  with  a  public  meeting 
and  eulogistic  speeches.  The  demonstration 
was  harmless  and  unimportant,  though  care 
had  been  taken  to  send  authority  to  General 
Curtis  to  repress  disorder,  and  specially  to 
look  to  the  safety  of  the  city  and  the  arsenal,  t 

In  accordance  with  the  policy  outlined  by 
the  President,  General  Hunter  soon  drew 
back  the  Federal  army  from  Springfield  to 
Rolla,  and  the  greater  part  of  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  another  field  of  operations.  Hear- 
ing of  this  retrograde  movement,  McCulloch 
rapidly  advanced,  and  for  a  season  occupied 
Springfield.  One  of  the  distressing  effects  of 
these  successive  movements  of  contending 
forces  is  described  in  a  sentence  of  his  re- 
port, "The  Union  men  have  nearly  all  fled 
with  the  Federal  troops,  leaving  this  place 
almost  deserted."  | 


BY  TELEPHONE. 


T  was  a  suggestion  of  Haw- 
thorne's—  was  it  not?  — 
that  in  these  more  modern 
days  Cupid  has  no  doubt 
discarded  his  bow  and  ar- 
row in  favor  of  a  revolver. 
There  are  ladies  of  a  beauty 
so  destructive  that  in  their 
presence  the  little  god  would  find  a  Galling 
gun  his  most  useful  weapon.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  son  of  Venus  does  not  disdain  the  latest 
inventions  of  Vulcan  for  the  use  of  Mars,  and 
that  he  slips  off  his  bandage  whenever  he  goes 
forth  to  replenish  his  armory.  Lovers  are  quick 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  44. 


to  follow  his  example,  and  the  house  of  love 
has  all  the  modern  improvements.  Nowadays 
the  sighing  swain  may  tryst  by  telegraph  and 
the  blushing  bride  must  elope  by  the  lightning- 
express;  and  if  ever  there  were  an  Orlando 
in  the  streets  of  New  York,  he  would  have  to 
carve  his  Rosalind's  name  on  the  telegraph 
poles. 

If  the  appliances  of  modern  science  had 
been  at  the  command  of  Cupid  in  the  past  as 
they  are  in  the  present,  the  story  of  many  a 
pair  of  famous  lovers  would  be  other  than  it 
is.  Leander  surely  would  not  have  set  out  to 
swim  to  his  mistress  had  international  storm- 
warnings  been  sent  across  the  Atlantic,  which 
Hero  could  have  conveyed  to  him  by  the 


306 


BY  TELEPHONE. 


Hellespont  Direct  Cable  Company.  Paris 
might  never  have  escaped  scot-free  with  the 
fair  Helen  if  the  deserted  husband  and  mon- 
arch had  been  able  to  pursue  the  fugitives  at 
once  in  his  swift  steam  yacht,  the  Menclnns. 
And  had  Friar  Laurence  been  a  subscriber  to 
the  Verona  Telephone  Association,  that  worthy 
priest  would  have  been  able  to  ring  up  Romeo 
and  to  warn  him  that  the  elixir  of  death  which 
Juliet  had  taken  was  but  a  temporary  narcotic, 
and  then  might  Romeo  find  that 

Beauty's  ensign  yet 

Is  crimson  in  thy  lips  and  in  thy  cheeks, 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there. 


II. 

As  THE  centuries  succeed  one  another,  so- 
ciety becomes  more  complicated  and  science 
develops  in  all  directions;  thus  is  an  equi- 
librium maintained,  and  the  modern  lover  is 
aided  by  the  appliances  of  science  as  he  is 
hampered  by  the  intricacies  of  society.  Even 
the  charity  fair,  that  final  triumph  of  the  ama- 
teur swindler,  and  the  telephone,  that  unpoetic 
adjunct  of  the  shop  and  the  office,  can  be  forced 
to  do  love's  bidding  and  to  serve  as  instruments 
in  the  cunning  hands  of  Cupid. 

When  the  young  ladies  who  were  spending 
the  summer  at  the  seaside  hotel  at  Sandy 
Beach  resolved  to  get  up  a  fair  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Society  for  the  Supply  of  Missionaries 
to  Cannibal  Countries,  they  had  no  more  hearty 
helper  than  Mr.  Samuel  Brassey,  a  young 
gentleman  recently  graduated  from  Columbia 
College.  He  was  alert,  energetic,  ingenious, 
and  untiring ;  and  when  at  last  the  fair  was 
opened  the  young  ladies  declared  that  they 
did  not  know  what  they  would  have  done 
without  him.  He  it  was  who  helped  to  deco- 
rate the  ball-room,  and  to  arrange  it  as  a  mart 
for  the  vending  of  unconsidered  trifles.  He  it 
was  who  devised  the  Japanese  tea-stall  for  Mrs. 
Martin,  and  suggested  that  this  portly  and  im- 
posing dame  should  appear  in  a  Japanese 
dressing-gown.  He  it  was  who  aided  the  three 
Miss  Pettitoes,  then  under  Mrs.  Martin's 
motherly  wing,  to  set  up  their  stands  —  the 
Well,  where  Miss  Rebecca  drew  lemonade 
for  every  one  that  thirsted  ;  the  Old  Curiosity 
Shop,  where  Miss  Nelly  displayed  a  helter- 
skelter  lot  of  orts  and  ends;  and  the  Indian 
Wigwam,  in  the  dark  recesses  of  which  Miss 
Cassandra,  in  the  garb  of  Pocahontas,  told 
fortunes. 

To  Miss  Cassandra,  who  was  the  eldest  and 
most  austere  of  the  three  Miss  Pettitoes,  he 
suggested  certain  predictions  for  certain  young 
men  and  maidens  who  were  sure  to  apply  to 
the  soothsayer, —  predictions  which  seemed 
to  her  sufficiently  vague  and  oracular,  but 


which  chanced  to  be  pertinent  enough  to  ex- 
cite the  liveliest  emotions  when  they  were 
imparted  to  the  applicants.  For  Miss  Nelly 
he  wrote  out  many  autographs  of  many  famous 
persons,  from  Julius  Caesar  and  Cleopatra  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  George  Washington ; 
the  signatures  of  Shakspere,  of  which  there 
were  a  dozen,  he  declared  to  be  eminently 
characteristic's  no  two  were  spelled  alike;  and 
the  sign-manual  of  Confucius  he  authorized 
her  to  proclaim  absolutely  unique,  as  he  had 
copied  it  from  the  only  tea-chest  in  the  hotel. 
To  him  also  the  sirens  of  the  bazar  owed  their 
absolute  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  giving 
no  change.  Furthermore,  he  elaborated  a 
novel  reversal  of  the  principle  of  a  reduction 
on  taking  a  quantity :  the  autographs  at  the 
Old  Curiosity  Shop,  the  glasses  of  attenuated 
lemonade  at  the  well,  and  the  little  fans  at  the 
Japanese  tea-stall  were  all  twenty-five  cents 
each,  three  for  a  dollar.  This  device  alone 
stamped  him  as  a  young  man  with  a  most  prom- 
ising head  for  business;  and  so  Mr.  Martin  de- 
clared him,  after  asking  if  the  autographs  were 
genuine  and  being  promptly  offered  a  "  written 
guarantee  from  the  maker." 

From  these  details  it  will  be  seen  that  Mr. 
Samuel  Brassey  was  on  most  friendly  terms, 
not  to  say  familiar,  with  Mrs.  Martin  and  with 
her  charges,  the  three  Miss  Pettitoes.  He  was 
equally  frank  and  open  with  all  the  other 
young  ladies  in  the  hotel,  except,  it  may  be, 
with  Miss  Bessy  Martin.  In  his  relations  with 
Mrs.  Martin's  handsome  niece  a  persistent 
observer  might  have  detected  a  constraint, 
often  cast  aside  and  often  recurring.  The  rest 
of  the  girls  met  him  with  the  sincerity  and 
the  unthinking  cordiality  which  are  marked 
characteristics  of  the  young  women  of  Amer- 
ica, especially  when  they  chance  to  be  at  a 
summer  hotel.  So  indeed  did  Miss  Martin, — 
but  to  her  his  bearing  was  different.  Towards 
the  others  he  was  kindly.  To  her  he  was  de- 
voted and  yet  reserved  at  times,  as  though 
under  duress.  The  least  bashful  of  young  men 
ordinarily,  in  her  presence  he  found  himself 
shy  and  not  always  able  to  compel  his  tongue 
to  do  his  bidding.  If  she  looked  at  him  —  and 
he  was  a  pleasant-faced  young  fellow  —  he 
found  himself  wondering  whether  he  was 
blushing  or  not.  Out  of  her  sight  he  was 
often  miserable ;  and  under  her  eyes  he  suf- 
fered an  exquisite  agony.  He  hovered  about 
her  as  though  he  had  words  of  the  deepest 
import  trembling  on  his  tongue,  but  when  he 
sat  by  her  side  on  the  piazza,  or  danced  a 
Virginia  reel  opposite  to  her  of  a  Saturday 
night,  or  walked  with  her  to  church  of  a 
Sunday  morning,  he  had  nothing  to  say  for 
himself. 

Whether  or   not   Miss  Martin    had  noted 


BY   TELEPHONE. 


3°7 


these  symptoms,  or  what  her  opinion  of  Mr. 
Hrassey  might  be  or  her  feelings  towards  him, 
no  man  might  know  ;  these  things  were  locked 
in  her  breast.  The  face  of  a  virgin  before  the 
asking  of  the  question  is  a-,  inscrutable  as  the 
vi.-.age  of  the  Sphinx  propounding  its  riddle. 
Miss  Martin  treated  Sam  as  she  treated  the 
other  young  men.  She  allowed  him  to  help 
her  in  the  organization  of  the  post-office  de- 
partment of  the  fair.  She  was  to  be  the  post- 
mistress; and  with  Sam  aiding  and  abetting, 
a  letter  was  prepared  for  every  person  who 
could  possibly  apply  for  one, —  a  missive  not 
lacking  in  spice,  and  not  always  shown  about 
by  the  recipient. 

At  Sam  lirassey's  suggestion  the  post-office 
had  been  arranged  as  a  public  pay  station  of 
the  Seaside  Hotel  Telephone  Company  —  so 
a  blue  and  white  sign  declared  which  hung 
over  the  corner  of  the  ball-room  where  the 
letters  were  distributed.  He  had  set  up  a  toy 
telephone  in  the  post-office  with  a  line  ex- 
tending to  a  summer-house  in  the  grounds 
about  two  hundred  feet  from  the  hotel.  Any 
person  who  might  pay  twenty-five  cents  at  the 
post-office  was  entitled  to  go  to  the  summer- 
house  and  hold  a  conversation  by  wire.  The 
questions  which  this  casual  converser  might 
choose  to  put  were  answered  promptly  and 
pointedly,  for  Bessy  Martin  was  a  quick-witted 
and  a  keen-sighted  girl. 

So  it  happened  that  these  telephone  talks 
were  a  captivating  novelty,  and  during  the 
final  evening  of  the  fair  the  bell  in  the  post- 
office  rang  frequently,  and  Miss  Martin's  con- 
versation charmed  many  a  quarter  into  the 
little  box  which  Sam  Brassey  had  contrived 
for  her  to  store  her  takings. 

Sam  himself  was  constant  in  his  attendance 
at  the  post-office.  Although  Mrs.  Martin  or  the 
three  Miss  Pettitoes  might  claim  his  services, 
he  returned  to  Bessy  as  soon  as  he  could. 
Yet  he  did  not  seem  altogether  pleased  at  the 
continual  use  of  the  telephone.  As  the  even- 
ing wore  on,  a  shadow  of  resolution  deepened 
on  his  face.  It  was  as  though  he  had  made  a 
promise  to  himself  and  thereafter  was  only 
biding  his  time  before  he  should  keep  it. 

About  10  o'clock  the  ball-room  began  to 
empty  as  the  crowd  gathered  in  the  dining- 
room,  where  the  drawing  for  the  grand 
pri/e  was  to  take  place.  The  Committee  of 
Management  had  decided,  early  in  the  organ- 
ization of  the  fair,  not  to  allow  any  lotteries. 
Nevertheless  a  "  subscription "  had  been 
opened  for  a  handsome  pair  of  cloisonne  vases 
which  Mr.  Martin  had  presented,  and  every 
subscriber  had  a  numbered  ticket;  and  now 
on  the  last  evening  of  the  fair  there  was  to  be 
a  "  casting  of  lots  "  to  discover  to  whom  the 
vases  might  belong.  This  much  the  Committee 


of  Management  had  permitted.  The  interest 
in  the  result  of  the  "casting  of  lots"  was  so 
intense  that  most  of  the  ladies  who  had  charge 
of  stalls  abandoned  them  for  a  while  and  de- 
serted into  the  dining-room. 

Then  Sam  Brassey  stepped  up  to  the  win- 
dow of  the  post-office. 

"  Are  you  going  to  see  the  drawing  of  the 
prize,  Miss  Bessy  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,"  she  answered;  "  I  shall  stick  to  my 
post." 

"That  's  all  right!"  he  returned,  and  a 
smile  lightened  his  face.  "That  's  all  right. 
Then  here  's  my  quarter." 

So  saying,  he  placed  the  coin  before  her 
and  hurried  away. 

"  But  what 's  it  for?  "  she  cried.  There  was 
no  reply,  as  he  had  already  left  the  house. 

The  ball-room  was  almost  empty  by  this 
time.  Mr.  Harry  Brackett,  who  had  been  writ- 
ing most  amusing  letters  from  Sandy  Beach 
to  the  "  Gotham  Gazette,"  was  standing  be- 
fore the  well  and  sipping  a  glass  of  lemonade 
for  which  he  had  just  handed  Miss  Rebecca 
a  two-dollar  bill,  receiving  no  change. 

"  How  much  of  this  tipple  have  you  had  ?  " 
he  asked  her. 

"  Two  big  buckets  full,"  she  answered. 
"Why?" 

Mr.  Brackett  made  no  reply,  but  began  to 
peer  earnestly  among  the  vines  which  formed 
the  bower  and  draped  the  well. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  asked  Miss  Re- 
becca. 

"  I  was  looking  for  the  other  half  of  that 
lemon,"  he  replied. 

Then  he  offered  her  his  arm,  and  they  went 
off  together  into  the  dining-room  to  see  who 
should  win  the  prize. 

Miss  Bessy  Martin  was  left  quite  alone  in 
her  corner  of  the  ball-room.  She  was  count- 
ing up  her  gains  when  the  telephone  bell  rang 
sharply.  Before  she  could  put  the  money 
down  and  go  to  the  instrument,  there  came  a 
second  impatient  ting-a-ling. 

"  Somebody  seems  to  be  in  a  hurry,"  she 
said,  as  she  took  her  station  before  the  box 
and  raised  the  receiver  to  her  ear. 

Then  began  one  of  those  telephonic  conver- 
sations which  are  as  one-sided  as  any  discus- 
sion in  which  a  lady  takes  part,  and  which  are 
quite  as  annoying  to  the  listener.  The  torture 
of  Tantalus  was  but  a  trifle  compared  with 
the  suffering  of  an  inquisitive  person  who  is 
permitted  to  hear  the  putting  of  a  question 
and  debarred  from  listening  to  the  answer. 
Fortunately,  there  was  no  one  left  in  the  ball- 
room near  enough  to  the  post-office  corner  to 
hear  even  the  half  of  the  conversation  now  to 
be  set  down. 

"  Hello,  hello !  "  was  the  obligatory  remark 


308  BY  TELEPHONE. 

with  which  Bessy  Martin  began  the  colloquy  ......  ? 

across  the  wire.  "  Can  you  really  see  me  in  your  heart  ?  " 

Of  course  the  response  of  her  partner  in  the  ......  ? 

confabulation  was  as  inaudible  as  he  was  in-  "  How  poetic  you  are  to-night!  " 

visible.  ......  ? 

"  Oh,  it  's  you,  Mr.  Brassey,  is  it  ?  "  "I  just  doat  on  poetry  !  " 


"  Yes.    I  wondered  why  you  had  run  off  so  "  Well,  I  do  love  other  things  too." 

suddenly."  ......  ? 

......  ?  "O  Mr.  Brassey!" 

"  You  have  paid  your  quarter,  and  you  can  ......  ? 

talk  to  me  just  two  minutes."  "You  take  me  so  by  surprise!" 


"  I  like  to  listen  to  you  too."  "  You  really  have  startled  me  so  !  " 


"  Of  course,  I  did  n't  mean  that!    You  ought  "  I  never  thought  of  such  a  thing  at  all  !  " 

to  know  me  better."  ......  ? 

......  ?  "You  do/" 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  ......  ? 

......  ?  "Really?" 

"  Not  lately."  ......  ? 

......  ?  "  Very  much  ?  " 

"Yes,  she  had  on  a  blue  dress,  and  I  thought  ......  ? 

she  looked  like  a  fright  —  did  n't  you  ?  "  "  With  your  whole  heart  ?  " 


"  Who  were  you  looking  at  then  ?  "  "I  don't  know  what  to  say." 

......  ?  ......  ? 

"  At  me  ?    O  Mr.  Brassey  !  "  "  But  I  can't  say  '  yes  '  all  at  once  !  " 

......  ?  ......  ? 

"  No;  they  are  not  here  now."  "  Well  —  I  won't  say  '  no.'  " 

.....  '.  ?  ......  ? 

"There  's  nobody  here  at  all."  "  But  I  really  must  have  time  to  think.'" 


"Yes;  I'mrt//alone  —  there  is  n't  a  creat-        "An  hour?    No,  a  month  at  least  —  or  a 
ure  in  sight."  week,  certainly  !  " 


"  I  love  secrets!    Tell  me!  "  "  It  's  cruel  of  you  to  want  me  to  make  up 

......  ?  my  mind  all  at  once." 

"  Tell  me  now  !  "  ......  ? 

......  ?  "No  —  no  —  no!  I  can't  give  you  an  an- 

"Why  can't  you  tell  me  now?  I  'm  just    swer  right  now." 

dying  to  know."  ......  ? 

......  ?  "  Don't  be  so  unreasonable." 

"I  don't  believe  you  '11  die."  ......  ? 

......  ?  "  Well  —  of  course  —  I  don't  hate  you  !  " 

"  No,  there  is  n't  anybody  here  at  all  —  no-        ......  ? 

body,  nobody!"  "  Perhaps  I  do  like  you." 


"  Besides,  nobody  can  hear  you  but  me."  "Well  —  just  a  little,  little,  weeny,  teeny 

......  ?  bit." 

"  Of  course,  I  'm  glad  to  talk  ;  what  girl        ......  ? 

is  n't  ?  "  "  You  are  very  impatient." 


"  Well,  it  is  lonely  here,  just  now."  "  Well,   if   you   must,   you   can   speak   to 

......  ?  Aunty." 

"  I  can't  chat  half  as  well  through  a  tele-  ......  ? 

phone  as  I  can  face  to  face."  "  She  's  somewhere  about." 


"  Oh,  thank  you,  sir.    That  was  really  very        "  Of  course,  she  is  n't  going  away  all  of  a 
pretty   indeed!    If  you   could   see  me,  I  'd    sudden." 
blush!"  ......  ? 


KANSAS  BIRD-SONGS. 


3°9 


"  Yes,  I  '11  keep  her  if  she  conies  here." 


"  Yes  —  yes  —  I  'm  all  alone  still." 


"  Good-bye,  Sam  !  " 

Miss  Bessy  Martin  hung  up  the  receiver 
and  turned  away  from  the  instrument.  There 
was  a  Hush  on  her  cheeks  and  a  light  in  her 
eyes.  She  recognized  the  novelty  of  her  situa- 
tion. She  had  just  accepted  an  offer  of  mar- 
riage, and  she  was  engaged  to  a  young  man 
whom  she  had  not  seen  since  In-  asked  her  to 
wed  him.  Her  heart  was  full  of  joy  —  and  yet 
it  seemed  as  though  the  betrothal  were  incom- 
plete. She  was  vaguely  conscious  that  some- 
thing was  lacking,  although  she  knew  not 
what. 

Before  she  could  determine  exactly  what 
might  be  this  missing  element  of  her  perfect 
happiness,  Mr.  Samuel  Brassey  rushed  in 
through  the  open  door,  flew  across  the  ball- 
room, and  sprang  inside  the  partition  of  the 
post-office.  Ere  she  could  say  "  O  Sam  !  "  he 
had  clasped  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her. 

She  said  "  O  Sam  !  "  once  more  ;  but  she 
was  no  longer  conscious  of  any  lacking  ingre- 
dient of  an  engagement. 

A  minute  later  a  throng  of  people  began 
to  pour  back  from  the  dining-room,  and  there 
were  frequent  calls  for  "  Mr.  Brassey  "  and 
"  Sam." 


With  a  heightened  color,  and  with  an  ill- 
contained  excitement,  Mr.  Samuel  Brassey 
came  out  of  the  post-office  in  answer  to  this 
summons. 

He  found  himself  face  to  face  with  Mr. 
Martin,  who  held  out  his  hand  and  cried : 

"  I  congratulate  you,  Sam  !  " 

The  scarlet  dyed  the  countenances  of  both 
Bessy  and  Sam,  as  he  stammered, 

"  How  —  how  did  you  know  anything  about 
it?" 

Before  Mr.  Martin  could  answer,  the  three 
Miss  Pettitoes  and  Mr.  Harry  Brackett  came 
forward.  Mr.  Brackett  bore  in  his  arms  the 
pair  of  cloisonne  vases  for  which  there  had 
just  been  a  "  casting  of  lots." 

Then  Sam  Brassey  knew  why  Mr.  Martin 
had  congratulated  him. 

"  You  have  won  the  prize ! "  cried  Harry 
Brackett. 

"I  have  —  for  a  fact!"  Sam  Brassey  an- 
swered as  he  looked  at  Bessy  Martin.  Their 
eyes  met,  and  they  both  laughed. 


in. 

"  SOME  Cupid  kills  with  arrows,  some  with 
traps."  Some  he  compels  to  sign  the  bond 
with  pen  and  ink  in  black  and  white,  and 
some  he  binds  with  a  wire. 

Brander  Matthews. 


KANSAS    BIRD-SONGS. 


A  MOCKING-BIRD. 

YON  mocking-bird  that  whistling  soars 
Borrows  his  little  music-scores, 
And  mimics  every  piping  tone 
By  sylvan  lovers  lightly  blown, 
To  make  his  morning-gladness  known, — 
Till  down  that  molten  silver  pours, 
Globule  on  globule,  fast  and  faster : 
Dare  any  blame  the  blithe  tune-master, 
Who  counts  all  minstrelsy  his  own? 

But  daylight  ended  —  then  indeed, 
As  jet  by  jet  a  wound  will  bleed, 

His  very  singing  self  breaks  through  1 
Even  so  (lost  Eden  shut  from  view), 
Some  wildered  soul,  to  sighing  new, 
When  human  lips  first  touched  the  reed  — 
Heart-pierced  with  rending  love  and  sorrow- 
Breathed  notes  too  god-like  sweet  to  borrow. 
So,  poet,  shall  it  be  with  you. 


3,o  KANSAS  BIRD-SONGS. 

THE    THRUSH. 


half  a  June  day's  flight, 

A     Upon  the  prairie,  thirsting  for  the  showers, 
The  cactus-blooms  and  prickly  poppies  white, 
The  fox-gloves  and  the  pink-tinged  thimble-flowers, 

Drooped  in  the  Lord's  great  light. 
Now,  suddenly,  straight  to  the  topmost  spray 
Of  a  wild  plum-tree  (I  thereunder  lying), 

Darted  a  thrush  and  fifed  his  roundelay, 
Whimsey  on  whimsey  —  not  a  stave  denying. 

Quoth  I  :  "  From  regions  measureless  miles  away 
He  hears  the  soughing  winds  and  rain-clouds  flying; 
And,  gathering  sounds  my  duller  ears  refuse, 

He  sets  the  rills  a-rush, 
This  way  and  that,  to  ripple  me  the  news 
(Right  proud  to  have  his  little  singing  say!), 
And  brings  the  joy  to  pass  with  prophesying."  .    .    . 
So  gladly  trilled  the  thrush  ! 

Soon  was  I  made  aware 
Of  his  small  mate,  that  from  the  Judas-tree 

Dropped  softly,  flitting  here  and  flitting  there, 
And  would  not  seem  to  hear  or  seem  to  see. 

He,  in  that  upper  air, 
All  mindful  of  her  wayward  wandering 
(Primrose  and  creamy-petaled  larkspur  bending, 
And  yellow-blossomed  nettle,  prone  to  sting), 
Shook  out  his  red-brown  wings  as  for  descending, 

But  lightly  settled  back,  the  more  to  sing. 
"  O  bird!"  I  sighed,  "  thy  heedless  love  befriending 
With  that  celestial  song-burst  —  whirling  swift 

As  Phaeton's  chariot-rush  !  — 
Should  my  dear  angel's  voice  so  downward  drift, 
Quick  would  my  music-lifted  soul  take  wing  !  "    .    . 
Now  had  earth's  happiest  song  a  heavenly  ending  — 
Fled  with  his  mate  the  thrush. 


THE    PURPLE    FINCH. 

WHILE  lurked  the  coyote  in  his  root-bound  burrow, 
Through  haunts  of  the  hare  and  the  badger  gray, 
Where  never  the  share  of  a  plow  turned  furrow, 
I,  gathering  silk-flowers,  went  my  way. 

Wide-rimmed  were  the  trumpets  of  silver-blue, 
Their  slim  tubes  slipping  out,  wet  with  honey: 
Thence  blown  by  the  winds  through  the  spaces  sunny, 
White  butterflies  high  as  the  elm-tops  flew. 

The  ground-squirrel  under  the  elders  scampered, 
Or  wheeled  to  show  me  his  gold-brown  bars : 
Not  I  with  the  eggs  of  the  pedees  tampered, 

Nor  caught  the  green  beetles  that  blazed  like  stars. 

The  shy,  scarlet  birds,  where  the  long  boughs  meet, 
Looked  out,  and  went  on  with  their  trolling  merry, 
Till  down  came  the  finch  from  the  sun-burnt  prairie, 
And  silenced  them  all  with  a  chanson  sweet. 


KANSAS  BIRD-SONGS.  311 

So  secret  is  he,  not  a  hoy  discovers 

That  home  he  lias  built  for  the  nestlings  clear; 
So  softly  he  carols,  the  hawk  that  hovers, 
Intent  upon  murder,  can  hardly  hear. 

Now  trimming  his  crimson  in  coverts  dim, 
Now  perching  wherever  his  mood  was  suited, 
IK'  sang  in  the  sumac  velvet-fruited, 
Or  sprang  to  the  oak  of  the  twisted  limb. 

Till  "  Higher,  mount  higher,"  I  cried,  "dear  pleader! 

The  sum  of  delights  shall  be  granted  thee." 
Therewith,  from  the  height  of  the  one  dead  cedar, 
The  linnet  sped  out  like  a  soul  set  free. 

Ah,  why  need  the  souls  of  the  blest  fly  far!  — 
Pure  honey  the  humming-bird  moth  went  sipping; 
Pale  gold  was  the  sky  where  the  sun  was  dipping; 
Came  out  the  new  moon  and  a  great  white  star. 


CHE  WINK. 

SING  me  another  solo,  sweet  — 
I  have  learnt  the  one  by  rote; 
The  endless  merry-go-round  repeat 
Of  the  tuneful,  tender,  teasing  note: 
"  Che-wink,  che-wink  !  — 
Che-wink,  che-wink ! " 
A  moment's  rest  for  the  tired  throat 
(Just  long  enough  for  a  heart  to  beat), 

And  at  it  again  :  "  Che-wink,  che-wink ! " 

O  bird,  dear  bird  with  the  outspread  wings 

And  little  to  chant  about!  — 
When  death  reaches  over  the  wrecks  of  things 
To  stifle  the  soft,  delighted  shout : 
"Che-wink,  che-wink!  — 
Che-wink,  che-wink!" 
And,  all  unruffled  by  dread  or  doubt, 
Your  musical  mite  of  a  soul  upsprings, 

Will  you  still  go  crying:  "  Che-wink,  che-wink  "  ? 

Little  I  know;  but  this  I  hold: 

If  the  rushing  stars  should  meet, — 
Their  crystal  spheres  into  chaos  rolled, — 
Let  only  this  one  pure  voice  entreat: 
"  Che-wink,  che-wink !  — 
Che- wink,  che-wink!" 

Great  Love  would  answer  the  summons  sweet, 
And  a  universe  fresh  as  the  rose  unfold. 

So  —  at  it  again :  "  Che- wink,  che-wink ! " 

Amanda  T.  Jones. 


TOPICS   OF    THE   TIME. 


Reform  in  our  Legislative  Methods. 

IT  is  a  fact,  universally  admitted,  that  our  laws  are 
badly  drawn,  that  our  legislative  work  is  usually 
slip-shod  and  defective,  that  our  statute-books  are  full 
of  contradictions  because  new  laws  are  passed  without 
reference  to  old,  and  that  many  of  our  laws  are  merely 
disguised  schemes  for  public  plunder. 

The  reason  for  this  unsatisfactory  condition  of  af- 
fairs, as  has  repeatedly  been  pointed  out,  is  our  pres- 
ent legislative  system,  which  puts  the  delicate  business 
of  law-making  into  the  hands  of  men  who,  as  a  rule, 
are  wholly  unfitted  for  it.  Thus,  in  the  lower  house 
of  Congress  we  make  a  complete  change  of  member- 
ship every  two  years.  We  send  home  nearly  all  the 
men  who  have  become  possessed  of  a  knowledge  of 
the  legislative  business,  and  put  in  their  places  men 
who  have  no  knowledge  of  it  whatever.  A  few  of  them 
are  lawyers,  which  is  far  from  being  an  adequate  quali- 
fication for  the  work  before  them,  but  the  great  mass 
are  politicians,  with  no  expert  qualification  whatever 
for  their  new  duties.  These  men  are  divided  up  into 
committees,  without  sufficient  reference  to  their  fitness, 
and  into  their  hands  is  put  the  task  of  making  new 
laws  and  amending  old  ones.  At  Albany  the  case  is 
much  worse.  We  send  to  the  Senate  there  a  new  lot 
of  men  every  two  years  and  to  the  Assembly  a  new  lot 
every  year.  The  ratio  of  intelligence,  to  say  nothing 
of  expert  knowledge,  is  much  smaller  there  than  it  is 
at  Washington.  The  committees  are  divided  up  en- 
tirely on  the  basis  of  political  influence.  A  man  is 
chosen  Speaker  who  has  secured  his  election  by  prom- 
ising committee  chairmanships  and  positions  in  return 
for  members*  votes.  The  railway,  insurance,  and  other 
corporations  have  usually  taken  a  hand  also  and  picked 
out  in  advance  the  chairmen  for  those  committees 
which  are  to  have  corporate  interests  in  charge.  The 
result  is  that  the  Legislature  is  organized,  not  in  the 
interest  of  the  people,  but  against  it.  Thus  organized, 
Congress  and  the  Legislature  proceed  with  a  rush  to 
the  making  of  laws.  They  are  poured  into  the  com- 
mittees in  a  great  flood ;  they  there  receive  little  or 
no  expert  examination  and  criticism,  because  of  the 
committee's  incapacity,  and  they  are  returned  to  the 
House  for  action  without  ever  having  passed  anything 
like  an  adequate  scrutiny.  The  worst  of  them,  those 
the  defects  and  evils  of  which  are  so  great  as  lobe  per- 
ceptible in  even  an  ignorant  assemblage,  are  held  back 
till  the  closing  hours  of  the  session,  with  a  good  chance 
of  being  put  through  in  the  rush  of  unconsidered  legis- 
lation which  annually  occurs  then. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  under  such  a  system  we  have 
defective  laws.  Most  of  the  bills  are  not  drawn  by  the 
men  who  present  them,  and  at  no  time  from  the  moment 
of  their  inception  till  they  become  laws  do  many  of 
them  come  under  the  inspection  of  what  could  be  called 
expert  authority.  There  are,  of  course,  in  the  United 
States  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  a  few 
chairmen  and  committeemen  who,  through  long  experi- 
ence, have  become  experts  in  law-making.  These  are 


invaluable  public  servants,  but  they  are  exceptions  to 
the  general  rule.  But  even  if  we  had  better  committees 
and  better  chairmen,  we  should  still  be  in  trouble  with 
the  great  mass  of  local  and  private  legislation  which  is 
thrown  in,  in  almost  illimitable  mass,  side  by  side  with 
measures  of  the  highest  public  importance,  and  has 
equal  rights  in  demanding  consideration.  We  attempt 
to  legislate  upon  almost  every  subject  in  the  universe, 
and  to  have  the  work  done  by  men  who  have  neither 
knowledge  of  the  work  nor  fitness  for  it.  Moreover, 
we  try  to  do  within  a  few  months  work  which  could 
not  all  be  done  well  in  as  many  years. 

What  is  the  remedy  ?  Students  of  the  problem  who 
have  given  it  most  thought  agree  that  the  only  adequate 
remedy  to  be  found  is  in  the  application  to  American 
legislative  methods  of  the  principle  which  has  oper- 
ated successfully  in  English  parliamentary  procedure 
for  half  a  century.  This  is  the  remedy  which  was  very 
ably  advocated  by  Simon  Sterne  of  New  York  City,  in  a 
striking  paper  which  he  read  before  the  American  Bar 
Association  in  August,  1884;  and  he  subsequently  in- 
corporated it  in  a  report  which  he  drew  up  for  the  New 
York  City  Bar  Association,  and  which  that  body  for- 
mally accepted  in  March,  1885.  Under  the  English  sys- 
tem all  private  bills  are  kept  separate  from  public  bills, 
and  are  subjected  to  a  rigid  expert  scrutiny  of  so  judicial 
a  character  as  virtually  to  amount  to  a  court  inquiry,  be- 
fore coming  to  the  committees  of  Parliament  at  all.  Peti- 
tions for  private  bills  have  to  be  filed  sixty  days  before 
the  meeting  of  Parliament  and  ample  notice  given  to  all 
parties  in  any  way  interested,  in  order  that  they  may 
file  objections  if  they  desire.  A  sufficient  sum  of  money 
has  to  be  deposited  to  defray  all  the  expenses  of  this 
preliminary  procedure.  After  they  have  passed  this 
scrutiny  they  are  referred  to  the  committees  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  by  them  referred  to  joint-trial  committees 
which  are  composed  of  experts  in  the  technical  ele- 
ments of  the  subject-matter  of  the  bills.  When  a  bill 
finally  comes  from  these  bodies  it  is  known  to  be  cor- 
rectly drawn,  to  harmonize  rather  than  conflict  with 
existing  legislation,  and  to  be  desirable,  as  well  as  in 
proper  form  to  become  a  law.  As  a  result,  the  House 
usually  adopts  such  bills  without  question.  The  fees 
required  pay  all  the  expenses  of  such  legislation,  the 
time  of  Parliament  is  left  for  the  consideration  of  public 
measures  solely,  and  the  statute-books  of  England  are 
models  of  clearness. 

For  the  introduction  of  this  reform  in  this  country 
we  should  probably  need  amendments  both  to  our 
national  and  State  constitutions.  Senator  Edmunds 
and  Speaker  Carlisle,  at  the  close  of  the  session  of 
Congress  in  1885,  spoke  of  the  necessity  for  some 
method  being  adopted  to  relieve  Congress  of  the  bur- 
den of  private  legislation;  and  in  his  message  to  the 
Legislature  in  the  same  year,  Governor  Hill  of  New 
York  recommended  the  appointment  of  a  Counsel  to 
the  Legislature  to  act  as  an  adviser  in  the  drafting  of 
bills.  The  Bar  Association  report,  referred  to  above, 
recommended  for  New  York  State  a  Commission  of 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


Revision,  to  be  appointed  by  the  governor,  whose 
duty  it  should  be  to  decide  that  the  laws  were  properly 
drafted  and  were  not  inconsistent  with  existing  laws. 
It  also  recommended  the  complete  separation  of  pri- 
vate from  public  bills,  and  the  adoption  of  the  English 
principle  of  advance  notice,  examination,  and  fees. 
Something  of  this  kind  has  been  introduced  in  .Massa- 
chusetts and  is  working  satisfactorily.  Constitutional 
amendments  could  be  drawn  to  meet  the  case  com- 
pletely, and  this  is  probably  the  source  from  which 
relief  will  have  to  come. 

The   American    Flag  for  America. 

INSTITUTIONS  are  to  a  people  what  habits  are  to 
the  individual.  They  are  born  unperceived;  they 
strengthen  and  ripen  insensibly;  but,  in  their  ripened 
strength,  they  condition  the  people  on  every  side,  and 
are  as  completely  characteristic  of  them,  for  good  or 
evil,  as  habits  are  of  the  individual.  They  become  an 
integral  factor  of  the  people's  ways  of  thinking  and 
acting ;  and  they  thus  often  influence  or  even  control 
the  thought  and  action  of  the  mass  of  the  people  or  of 
its  parts,  at  every  point  of  daily  life,  as  well  as  in  the 
great  critical  moments  of  national  history. 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  word  "  institutions  "  is  very  far  from  being 
covered  by  the  mere  word  "  laws."  It  is  true  that  very 
many  of  the  naturally  developed  institutions  of  a 
country  are,  in  process  of  time,  crystallized  into  laws 
and  constitutions,  and  thus  become  tangible  to  the 
senses;  but  back  of  all  laws  and  constitutions  is  the 
mass  of  customary  and  habitual  thinking  and  acting, 
summed  up  in  this  convenient  word  "institutions," 
from  which  laws  and  constitutions  derive  all  their 
working  force.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
would  have  been  no  better  than  a  bit  of  waste  paper 
in  1 86 1  had  it  not  been  for  the  smoldering  but  in- 
tense popular  feeling  which  was  fanned  into  flame  by 
the  concrete  act  of  "  firing  on  the  flag."  In  so  far, 
the  flag  of  the  United  Stales  is  even  a  more  funda- 
mentally American  "institution"  than  the  Constitu- 
tion itself.  If  the  American  people  in  1876-77  pre- 
ferred to  compromise  an  insolvable  case  rather  than 
drift  into  war  about  it,  and  if  they  have  met  in  a  sim- 
ilar spirit  other  political  problems  upon  which  other 
systems  have  for  centuries  been  stultifying  themselves 
at  every  opportunity,  it  is  because  of  the  institutions 
which  have  come  down  to  each  American  generation 
through  centuries  of  consistent  political  thought  and 
action.  If  all  men  are  wiser  than  any  one  man,  it  is 
because  the  personal  passions  and  prejudices  of  a  mul- 
titude balance  and  neutralize  one  another,  leaving,  as 
the  only  safe  guide,  the  institutions  which  are  guaran- 
teed by  long  experience.  And  if  Americans  are  to 
have  any  such  measure  of  success  in  the  future,  it  be- 
hooves them  to  disdain  any  feeble  leaning  upon  laws 
and  constitutions  alone,  and  to  keep  clear  and  full  the 
institutional  springs  which  feed  our  whole  social  and 
political  system. 

One  may  well  agree,  then,  to  compromise  a  difficulty 
in  the  case  of  the  passage  or  interpretation  of  a  law  ; 
he  cannot  too  persistently  cavil  on  the  ninth  part  of  a 
hair  in  the  case  of  the  smallest  American  institution. 
If  it  is  worth  while  for  the  assailant  to  make  a  point  of 
it,  it  is  even  more  worth  while  for  the  American  to 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 45. 


make  a  point  of  it.  Our  forefathers,  said  Webster, 
"  went  to  war  against  a  preamble.  They  fought  seven 
years  against  a  declaration.  They  poured  out  their 
treasures  and  their  blood  like  water,  in  a  contest 
against  an  assertion  which  those  less  sagacious  and 
not  so  well  schooled  in  the  principles  of  civil  liberty 
would  have  regarded  as  barren  phraseology,  or  mere 
parade  of  words.  They  saw  in  the  claim  of  the  British 
Parliament  a  seminal  principle  of  mischief,  the  germ 
of  unjust  power ;  they  detected  it,  dragged  it  forth  from 
underneath  its  plausible  disguises,  struck  at  it ;  nor 
did  it  elude  either  their  steady  eye  or  their  well-di- 
rected blow  until  they  had  extirpated  and  destroyed  it 
to  the  smallest  fiber."  The  principle  of  self-govern- 
ment by  representatives  had  become  an  American  in- 
stitution in  1775  ;  and  the  jealousy  with  which  it  was 
guarded,  the  intensity  with  which  it  was  defended, 
by  the  men  who  then  had  to  deal  with  it,  may  well 
stand  as  a  lesson  in  political  science  to  their  descend- 
ants of  all  generations. 

There  remains,  however,  the  difficulty  that  so  large 
a  percentage  of  the  American  people  is  no  longer  Amer- 
ican, and  has  no  fitting  sense  of  the  nature  and  dignity 
of  the  underlying  American  institutions  ;  it  no  longer 
thinks  and  acts  instinctively  as  Americans  have  habit- 
ually thought  and  acted.  The  figures  submitted  by 
Mayor  Hewitt  to  the  New  York  Board  of  Aldermen  last 
winter,  showing  the  large  proportions  of  the  alien-born 
population  of  New  York  city,  seem  to  have  excited  an 
astonishment  which  is  an  evidence  of  an  unfortunate 
lack  of  public  interest  in  that  fascinating  and  suggest- 
ive work,  the  "Compendium  of  the  Tenth  Census." 
Similar  figures  will  be  found  in  it  for  some  fifty  cities 
of  the  United  States,  and  they  are  impressive.  They 
are  misleading  as  well,  as  figures  often  are.  "  Irish- 
born,"  "one  or  both  parents  Irish,"  "German-born," 
"one  or  both  parents  German,"  are  misleading  phrases 
when  used  under  this  head.  Thousands,  probably 
rather  millions,  whose  parents  were  foreign-born,  have 
breathed  in  the  American  spirit  with  every  breath  of 
their  life,  and  are  as  intense,  some  would  say  as  big- 
oted, in  their  American  feeling,  as  any  of  those  who 
fought  at  Concord  or  Bunker  Hill.  Even  the  phrase 
"foreign-born  "is misleading.  Were  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton or  Richard  Montgomery  less  American  than  Aaron 
Burr  or  Benedict  Arnold  ?  Figures,  in  this  case,  must 
be  taken  with  a  large  margin  of  allowance,  for  they 
were  meant  to  bear  on  entirely  different  questions.  This 
question  is  not  one  of  birth  merely,  but  of  feeling,  of 
training,  of  habits,  of  institutions. 

But  on  the  general  question,  the  mayor  was  right 
in  maintaining  the  dignity  of  the  American  flag  within 
the  American  jurisdiction.  Every  nation,  as  a  member 
of  the  great  family  of  nations,  must  show  a  proper  and 
cordial  respect  for  the  emblems  of  other  nationalities ; 
and  there  is  a  peculiar  propriety  in  the  occasional  ex- 
hibition, at  private  or  unofficial  gatherings,  of  the  em- 
blems of  those  nationalities  which  have  gone  to  make 
up  the  American  people.  But  the  case  is  vitally  differ- 
ent with  every  exhibition  of  a  foreign  flag  or  emblem 
which  goes  to  show,  or  is  intended  to  show,  that  the 
American  people  is  still  nothing  more  than  a  hetero- 
geneous mass  of  jarring  nationalities.  In  such  a  case, 
the  public  opinion,  of  adopted  no  less  than  of  native 
citizens,  should  promptly  and  unequivocally  condemn 
any  attempt  to  substitute  any  foreign  flag  in  the  place 


OPEN  LETTER^ 

•~j* 


^'beginning  of  this,  which  still  occasionally  appear 
any  img  oi  _m  cjrcuiatjon    are  by  no  means  devoid  of  excellence; 
les  ot  armed  conflicts,  may  disparae-rv, 

_c       K-f     r  i,  -  tlle     but  by  the  coinage  act  of  1873,  the  devices  and  de- 

ol   a  bit  of  bunting;   those  who  J  r  . 

saw   it     signs  of  current  coins  were  fixed  by  statute,  and  all 


which  belongs  properly  only  to  the  American  fla: 

new  generation,  which  has  never  known 

the  memories 

importance  of   a  Dit  ot    Bunting 

through  the  smoke  of  war,  or  in  the  trials  3:. 

of  1861-65,  w'"  "ot.    It  is  the  right  •> 

people  to  enjoy  a  monopoly  for  t1 

their  own  jurisdiction;  it  is  ,^".^  own  flag  within 

the  duty,  of  those  who  S",  Uie  "ght>  and  sh°uld  b° 

them  elsewhere.        „.-    'ollow  other  flags  to  follow 

The  case  becjut' 

the  Irish  vojn<-  /mes  stronger  with  the  appeals  to 
vote  V"  "•'•''  °'  ^e  German  vote,  or  any  other  alien 
Sta"  -  ''  *•  standing  have  such  appeals  in  the  United 
.;,-;.?es  ?  There  should  be  no  "  Know-Nothingism  "  in 
this  matter.  It  is  the  high  privilege  of  those  Ameri- 
cans who  are  foreign-born,  or  are  the  children  of  for- 
eign-born parents,  to  empty  the  vials  of  American  po- 
litical wrath  on  the  demagogues  who  undertake  to  rise 
by  fostering  anti-American  classes.  American  institu- 
tions have  made  us  what  we  are  ;  the  American  spirit 
is  as  the  breath  of  our  life  ;  and,  though  the  republic 
is  no  longer  menaced  by  open  foes,  there  are  enemies 
here  against  whom  we  may  all  vindicate  our  right  to 
speak  of  the  great  American  dead  as  our  forefathers. 
It  is  our  privilege,  in  Webster's  phrase,  to  detect  such 
enemies,  to  drag  them  forth  from  under  their  plausible 
disguises,  to  strike  at  them,  and  never  to  cease  until 
we  have  extirpated  and  destroyed  them  to  the  smallest 
fiber. 

Art    Revival    in    American    Coinage. 

THE  bill  to  secure  an  improvement  in  our  coinage, 
which  has  been  drawn  in  accordance  with  the  views  of 
Mr.  Kimball,  the  Director  of  the  Mint,  and  introduced 
simultaneously  in  the  Senate  and  the  House  by  Sena- 
tor Morrill  and  Mr.  Bland,  is  in  the  line  of  a  reform 
which  has  constantly  been  urged  by  those  intelligent 
in  such  matters.  The  United  States  does  not  issue  to- 
day a  single  coin  which  possesses  sound  artistic  merit, 
while  most  of  the  types  are  simply  grotesque  carica- 
tures. The  best  of  them,  the  so-called  "buzzard  dollar  " 
of  1878,  presents  manifest  crudities  of  design  which 
public  intuition  perceived  at  once  upon  its  appearance. 

The  responsibility  for  the  ugliness  of  our  coinage 
does  not  fall  entirely  upon  the  Mint.  Some  of  the  ear- 
lier types  of  American  coins,  seen,  for  instance,  in  the 
large  copper  cents  of  the  end  of  the  last  century  and 


power  to  change  or  modify  them  was  thus  removed 
from  the  authorities  of  the  Mint. 

The  present  bill  authorizes  the  Director  of  the  Mint 
to  employ  the  best  artists  and  to  select  new  designs 
for  all  coins,  with  the  approval  in  each  case  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  with  a  proviso  against 
too  frequent  changes  of  design.  The  bill  is  clear  and 
simple,  and  well  adapted  to  secure  the  improvement 
sought,  and  to  leave  us  free  to  make  our  coinage  again, 
as  was  that  of  the  ancients  and  the  work  of  the  Re- 
naissance medalists,  representative  of  the  best  art  of 
our  time.  The  hope  that  it  may  easily  become  thus 
representative  is  not  chimerical.  There  are  modern 
coins  —  as  some  of  Cromwell,  of  Napoleon  I.,  and  of 
the  French  Republic  —  which  are  satisfactory  exam- 
ples of  their  contemporary  art.  It  has  been  urged  that 
the  intrinsic  excellence  of  the  wonderful  coins  of  an- 
cient Greece — as  refined  and  dignified,  many  of  them, 
as  the  Parthenon  itself,  and  as  graceful  in  design  as  the 
Praxitelean  Hermes — lies  in  their  high  relief,  which 
is  incompatible  with  the  convenient  use  of  coins  un- 
der modern  requirements.  But  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  Greek  coins  are  in  sufficiently  low  relief; 
and  these  are  no  more  inferior  to  those  in  high  relief 
than  the  Phidian  frieze  is  inferior. 

If  ancient  needs  had  required  it,  we  may  be  sure  that 
all  Greek  coins  would  have  been  in  low  relief,  and 
that  with  no  sacrifice  of  beauty ;  and  now  that  Amer- 
ican sculpture  can  show  work  in  low  relief  so  admi- 
rable as  almost  to  constitute  a  new  discovery  in  art,  we 
shall  have  none  but  ourselves  to  blame  if  we  fail  to 
provide  for  ourselves  coins  of  which  even  the  Greeks 
need  not  have  been  ashamed. 

Coins,  from  their  great  number,  their  enduring  mate- 
rial, and  their  small  size,  are  among  the  most  lasting  of 
human  monuments  ;  and  those  which  to  our  regret  we 
now  have  will,  with  those  which  under  the  new  bill 
we  may  hope  to- produce,  remain  as  memorials  of 
America  in  our  time  when  most  of  our  other  material 
records  will  have  perished.  We  may  well  seek  to  re- 
deem, in  the  eyes  of  our  remote  posterity,  our  reputa- 
tion in  aesthetics,  which  none  could  wish  to  rest  on 
any  piece  of  money  which  we  use  to-day. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


Mr.  Arnold   and  American  Art. 

THE  announcement  of  the  sudden  death  of  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold,  at  an  age  when  one  hoped  he 
might  still  live  many  years  in  beneficial  activity,  must 
have  brought  a  sense  of  personal  bereavement  to  thou- 
sands. Arnold's  writings,  to  a  higher  degree,  perhaps, 
than  those  of  any  author  of  our  time  except  Carlyle, 
Emerson,  and  Ruskin,  are  infused  with  that  personal 
quality  which  excites  an  interest  in  the  man  no  less  than 
in  his  printed  pages ;  and,  like  Emerson's  and  Carlyle's 
and  Ruskin's  writings,  their  influence  has  been  both  in- 
tellectual and  moral.  Upon  many  of  the  younger  gen- 


eration in  America  they  have  had  an  extraordinarily 
tonic,  stimulating,  illuminating  effect  —  not  merely 
furnishing  the  mind  but  opening  the  eyes  of  the  soul. 
For  my  own  part  I  rejoice  in  this  opportunity  to  say 
that  to  no  book  in  the  world  do  I  owe  so  much  as  to 
"  Literature  and  Dogma,"  unless  it  be  to  the  great 
Book  with  which  it  so  largely  deals. 

Under  these  circumstances  —  with  Mr.  Arnold's  re- 
cent death  in  mind,  and  the  consciousness  of  our  im- 
mense debt  to  him  thereby  made  doubly  vivid  —  it  is 
not  the  most  pleasant  of  tasks  to  find  fault  with  any 
of  his  utterances,  or  to  take  him  to  task  for  any  short- 
comings in  his  methods  of  observation  and  exposition. 


(>/'/•:. V  I.l-.ITERS. 


3'5 


But  if  such  words  are  to  he  spoken  at  all,  they  must  he- 
spoken  at  once  ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  obligation 
to  speak  them, although  made  painful,  is  nol  remove.  1  by 
the  fact  of  our  fresh  sorrow. 

Remembering  the  severity  of  the  strictures  which 
Mr.  Arnold  passed  upon  the  civilization  of  his  own 
country,  Americans  surely  need  not  resent  the  fact 
that  in  one  of  his  last  published  article-,*  he  denied  to 
their  civilisation  the  quality  of  "interest"  —  more  espe- 
cially as  interest  is  a  quality  which  must  always  largely 
depend  upon  the  eye  of  the  observer  as  well  as  upon 
the  essence  of  the  things  observed.  Yet,  while  we  need 
not  protest  against  Mr.  Arnold's  general  verdict,  it  is 
M'-M-rtheless  worth  while  to  say  in  how  far  he  was 
mistaken  in  some  of  the  special  statements  of  fact  by 
which  he  endeavored  to  sustain  it.  It  is  worth  while, 
for  example,  briefly  to  review  his  dicta  with  regard  to 
American  art  and  to  the  conditions  of  American  civ- 
ilisation as  affecting  art. 

"  Americans  of  cultivation  and  wealth  visit  Europe 
more  and  more  constantly,"  writes  Mr.  Arnold,  in 
a  connection  which  explains  that  they  do  so  in  the 
search  for  aesthetic  gratification.  This  is  certainly 
true,  just  as  it  is  true  of  the  same  class  of  persons  in 
England  with  regard  to  continental  travel.  But  it  is 
a  mistake  to  say  that  "  American  artists  chiefly  live 
in  Europe."  Many  American  artists  live  in  Europe 
during  their  student  years,  some  remain  there  per- 
manently, and  others  make  frequent  visits  after  their 
return  to  America.  But  the  sum  total  which  results 
from  these  facts  by  no  means  justifies  Mr.  Arnold's 
"  chiefly  " ;  nor  is  it  justified  if  we  weigh  by  the  qual- 
ity of  the  work  produced  instead  of  by  the  numbers 
of  its  producers — I  mean,  of  course,  applying  the 
standards  of  intrinsic  excellence  and  not  of  that  Euro- 
pean reputation  which  as  yet  depends  almost  altogether 
upon  European  residence.  Nor  is  the  inference  which 
Mr.  Arnold  draws  from  his  statement  more  nearly 
correct  than  the  statement  itself.  American  condi- 
tions do  not  seem  to  all  observers  distinctly  worse  for  the 
artist  than  those  of  all  other  civilized  lands.  If  the  tu 
qitoqite  argument  were  not  so  disagreeable  a  one  to 
use,  I  might  cite  many  reasons  —  and  feel  sure  of  the 
agreement  of  many  artists  therein  —  why  New  York  is  a 
better  place  to-day  for  artists  with  high  aims  and  serious 
ambitions  than  London.  But  it  will  perhaps  be  better  to 
confine  myself  to  a  verdict  of  more  general  hearing,  pro- 
nounced by  an  observer  who  cannot  possibly  be  accused 
of  partiality  or  of  lack  of  insight  into  artistic  matters.  I 
met  not  long  ago  a  Japanese  gentleman  who  was  an 
artist  by  instinct,  as  seem  to  be  all  the  men  of  his  race, 
an  art-critic  by  profession,  a  profound  student  of  aesthetic 
theories  and  of  the  artistic  history  of  the  Western  as 
well  as  of  the  Eastern  world,  and  the  bearer  of  a  com- 
missmn  from  his  Government  to  inquire  into  the  present 
state  of  art  in  foreign  lands.  Arriving  for  the  second  time 
in  America  after  a  long  stay  in  Europe,  he  said, —  with 
the  use,  be  it  observed,  of  Mr.  Arnold's  own  word, — 
"  I  find  things  more  interesting  here  than  in  Europe." 
What  he  had  in  mind  was  not,  of  course,  the  compara- 
tive richness  of  Europe  and  America  in  the  accumu- 
lated treasures  of  other  days,  but  the  comparative  in- 
terest of  the  living  issues  of  to-day  —  of  the  conditions 
which  are  influencing  and  molding  art  at  this  moment, 

*"  Civilization  in  America."     "Nineteenth   Century,"    April, 


and  in  which  a  prophecy  of  future  developments  may 
be  read.  It  would  have  been  too  much  to  expect  that 
Mr.  Arnold  should  have  seen  things  from  this  point 
of  view  as  fully  and  clearly  as  this  Japanese  specialist ; 
hut  we  were  surely  justified  in  feeling  disappointed 
that  he  did  not  recognize  it  as  the  right  point  of  view 
from  which  to  look.  And  this  for  his  own  sake  as  a 
philosophic  observer  much  more  than  for  our  sake ; 
for  surely  the  vital  significance  of  our  civilization  is 
missed  by  one  who  thinks  the  backward  as  important 
as  the  forward  gaze  —  who  fails  to  take  great  account 
of  the  youth  of  the  country,  to  test  the  speed  of  its  ad- 
vance at  the  present  hour,  and  to  try  at  least  to  discern 
the  true  promise  of  the  future.  Had  Mr.  Arnold  seen 
that  this  was  the  right  point  of  view  while  he  was  in 
America,  and  after  his  return  home  had  he  asked  a  few 
questions  of  persons  whose  opportunities  for  observa- 
tion in  matters  of  art  and  whose  preparation  for  passing 
judgment  upon  them  had  been  greater  than  his  own  — 
then,  I  believe,  his  verdict  would  not  have  been  that  we 
had  as  yet  produced  "very  little"  of  the  "really  beau- 
tiful," or  that  our  conditions  were  such  as  to  discourage 
hopeful  prophecies.  It  would  have  been  well,  for  ex- 
ample, had  he  asked  the  most  famous  manufacturer  of 
stained-glass  in  France  what  he  thought  of  American 
stained-glass  as  compared  with  French,  or  English,  or 
German;  had  he  asked  the  proprietors  of  the  chief 
art-journal  of  Paris  what  they  thought  of  American 
wood-engraving  and  of  its  influence  upon  foreign  wood- 
engraving,  and  why  they  had  sent  their  representatives 
to  New  York  a  few  years  ago  to  study  methods  of  wood- 
cut printing ;  had  he  considered  to  how  great  a  degree 
the  success  of  our  popular  magazines  in  England  has 
been  due  to  the  quality  of  their  illustrations ;  had  he 
compared  the  works  of  monumental  sculpture  in  this 
country  with  those  erected  during  the  same  space  of 
time  in  England;  had  he  looked  into  such  books  as 
Andre's  "L'Art  des  Jardins"  and  Jaeger's  "Garten- 
kunst,"  to  see  what  their  authors  think  of  our  success 
in  the  once  preeminently  English  art  of  landscape-gar- 
dening, and  asked  himself  how  it  happens  that  there 
is  a  popular  journal  in  America  largely  devoted  to  this 
subject,  while  there  is  none  in  England,  France,  or  Ger- 
many ;  and  had  he  inquired  of  Parisian  professors  what 
are  the  aptitudes  and  the  early  productions  of  American 
as  compared  with  other  students.  And,  as  regards  that 
public  appreciation  of  art  which  is  largely  synonymous 
with  the  conditions  upon  which  the  success  of  art  de- 
pends, he  might  have  asked  Parisian  dealers  and  critics 
what  is  the  state  of  America  as  a  market  for  the  highest 
class  of  modern  paintings.  He  would  have  found  that 
the  old  sneer  of  the  French  artist, "  Bon  pour  l'Ame>- 
ique,"  is  as  out  of  date  as  the  old  sneer  of  the  English 
author,  "Who  reads  an  American  book  ?  "  If  he  had 
heard  the  words  at  all,  it  might  well  have  been  as 
meaning,  "  Too  good  to  be  kept  in  France." 

Mr.  Arnold's  most  definite  dictum  upon  a  question 
of  art  was  pronounced,  however,  with  regard  to  archi- 
tecture; and  of  all  his  dicta  it  is  the  one  which  has  the 
least  support  in  facts.  I  may  say  once  more  that  a 
really  philosophic  observer  would  have  weighed  to-day 
in  America  against  to-day  in  England  —  not  against 
that  past  which  produced  Somerset  House  and  White- 
hall. Yet  there  need  be  no  objection  on  our  part  to 
admitting  Somerset  House  and  Whitehall  as  standards 
of  comparison ;  for  an  observer  with  a  keener  artistic 


316 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


sense  than  Mr.  Arnold  would  assuredly  grant  that  they 
at  least  among  the  old  buildings  of  England  have  their 
equals  in  America — not  their  counterparts,  which  is 
what  Mr.  Arnold  seems  to  have  looked  for,  but  their 
equals  in  buildings  as  commendable  for  all  the  essen- 
tials of  architectural  excellence.  Such  an  observer 
would  also  have  found  something  else  to  say  of  our 
country-houses  than  that  they  are  often  "  original  and 
very  pleasing,"  but  are  "pretty  and  coquettish,  not 
beautiful."  He  would  have  said,  A  great  many  of  them 
are  not  even  this,  but  many  are  a  good  deal  more  than 
this.  Nor,  assuredly,  would  he  have  cited  our  country- 
houses  alone  as  witnesses  to  the  interest  of  the  recent 
renaissance  of  architectural  art  in  America ;  nor,  above 
all,  would  he  have  failed  to  remark  the  fact  of  this  re- 
naissance, to  contrast  the  work  of  to-day  as  a  whole 
with  the  work  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  as  a  whole, 
and  to  read  in  the  contrast  a  most  interesting  promise 
for  the  future  —  a  more  interesting  promise,  I  cannot 
but  think,  than  he  could  read  in  any  foreign  land. 

But  the  singularly  limited  field  of  observation  and 
inquiry  which  Mr.  Arnold  must  have  thought  sufficient 
to  serve  as  a  basis  for  emphatic  speech  is  nowhere  so 
distinctly  shown  as  in  the  few  lines  which  he  devotes 
to  Richardson.  Premising  that  he  was  our  one  "  archi- 
tect of  genius,"  he  adds  :  "  Much  of  his  work  was  in- 
jured by  the  conditions  under  which  he  was  obliged 
to  execute  it ;  I  can  recall  but  one  building,  and  that 
of  no  great  importance,  where  he  seems  to  have  had  his 
own  way,  to  be  fully  himself;  but  that  is  indeed  ex- 
cellent." It  would  be  hard  to  condense  into  words  so 
few  a  larger  amount  of  misconception.  It  is  probable 
that  no  architect  in  any  land,  in  any  age,  ever  expressed 
himself  in  so  unfettered  a  way,  was  so  little  dominated 
by  any  outside  influence,  as  Richardson.  This  is  clear 
to  every  one  who  knows  what  individuality  means  in 
architecture  and  who  has  looked  at  Richardson's  build- 
ings, and  it  is  doubly  clear  to  every  one  who  knew  the 
man  himself,  the  way  in  which  he  did  his  work,  and 
the  way  in  which  he  judged  of  the  conditions  under 
which  it  was  done.  If  any  of  Richardson's  buildings 
seem  uncharacteristic,  it  is  because  they  were  built  at 
a  time  when  he  had  not  yet  discovered  how  he  really 
wanted  to  express  himself  in  art ;  they  expressed  his 
personality  at  the  moment  just  as  truthfully  as  his 
later  buildings  expressed  the  fully  developed  person- 
ality which  to-day  we  recognize  as  his.  He  was  never 
under  the  influence  of  the  artistic  creeds  current  in 
America  or  in  foreign  lands,  and  was  never  swayed  by 
the  example  of  other  artists  ;  and  he  was  distinguished 
to  a  phenomenal  degree  by  his  power  of  persuading 
all  persons  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  to  give  him 
the  chance  to  do  what  he  wished  to  do. 

If  I  seem  to  speak  very  confidently  I  may  explain 
that  I  have  spent  many  months  in  a  careful  study  of 
Richardson's  works  and  of  the  conditions  under  which 
each  one  of  them  was  produced ;  and  I  may  add  that 
in  the  biography  which  has  been  the  outcome  of  this 
study  the  two  things  which  it  seemed  to  me  most  im- 
portant to  make  plaip  were,  that  his  talent  developed 
in  an  unfettered  way  to  which  the  history  of  modern 
architecture  offers  no  parallel,  and  that  he  gratefully 
realized  the  fact  and  was  never  tired  of  congratulating 
himself  that  he  had  bean  born  to  work  in  America  and 
not  in  Europe.  When,  during  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  he  visited  Europe  and  saw  the  work  of  French  and 


English  architects,  and  the  conditions  amid  which  it 
was  produced,  his  one  thought  was  a  thought  of  pity 
for  men  whose  talents  had  no  such  free  outlet  as  his 
own.  "  There  is  not  one  of  them,"  I  have  heard  him 
say  of  the  friends  of  his  student  years  in  Paris,  risen 
to  the  highest  places  in  their  profession, — "there  is 
not  one  of  them  who  can  find  out  exactly  what  he  wants 
most  to  do  and  then  venture  to  do  it.  What  might  they 
not  do  if  their  opportunities  were  only  as  good  as  ours ! ' ' 
No  one  can  have  been  so  surprised  at  Mr.  Arnold's 
description  of  Richardson  and  his  opportunities  as 
Richardson  himself  would  have  been  —  unless,  indeed, 
it  may  be  the  English  architects  who,  at  the  meeting  of 
the  Royal  Institute,  in  1884,  discussed  his  work  and 
American  work, and  American  conditions  in  genera!.* 
In  conclusion,  it  is  a  somewhat  curious  question : 
What  was  the  one  unimportant  building  which  to  Mr. 
Arnold  seemed  really  characteristic  of  this  man  of 
genius  ?  In  his  smallest  buildings  the  man  of  genius 
shows  clearly,  it  is  true,  but  in  his  more  important 
buildings  still  more  clearly ;  and  if  we  were  compelled 
to  judge  him  by  one  alone  we  might  well  select  the 
one  which  he  himself  declared  he  was  most  willing  to 
be  judged  by — the  largest  of  all,  the  Court-house  in 
Pittsburg. 

M.  G.  van  Rensselaer. 

"The  Workingman's  School  and  Free  Kindergarten." 

A  GREAT  step  is  taken  for  educational  reform  when 
public  interest  is  aroused  and  stimulated  by  discussion 
and  suggestion.  THE  CENTURY  has  taken  this  step, 
and  we  feel  justified  in  calling  the  attention  of  your 
readers  to  a  school  which  has  as  yet  received  no  no- 
tice in  your  pages  and  which  seems  to  us  to  invite 
special  study  from  all  who  would  further  this  great 
movement.  The  Workingman's  School  and  Free 
Kindergarten  has  been  in  existence  for  eight  years 
in  the  city  of  New  York.  As  its  name  implies,  it  is  in- 
tended for  the  children  of  the  working-people  who  are 
too  poor  to  pay  for  tuition ;  its  pupils  number  about 
three  hundred  and  seventy.  Although  a  philanthropic 
scheme  it  aims  at  the  same  time  to  be  a  model  and 
pioneer  school,  and  it  has  already  put  to  practical  test 
many  of  the  questions  which  are  now  forcing  them- 
selves upon  the  attention  of  our  public  educators.  Its 
basis  is  the  kindergarten,  about  which  a  few  words 
may  not  be  here  amiss,  for  among  Americans  gener- 
ally rather  vague  notions  prevail  in  regard  to  the  kin- 
dergarten. Most  persons,  even  parents,  look  upon  it 
as  a  place  where  they  may  send  their  children,  to  be 
amused  and  kept  out  of  mischief,  to  play  games  and 
sing,  and  learn,  perhaps,  to  fashion  little  shapes  and 
fancies  with  their  tiny  fingers.  The  system  has  been 
almost  universally  adopted,  and  yet  its  profound  psy- 
chological value  and  significance  have  been  but  little 
understood  or  appreciated. 

It  was  Pestalozzi  who  insisted  that  the  world  must 
be  made  afresh  for  each  fresh  mind ;  the  child  must 
discover  and  explore  it  for  himself,  and  make  himself 
acquainted,  not  with  the  names  of  things,  but  with  the 
things  themselves,  their  properties  and  laws.  Frrebel 
took  a  step  further  and  affirmed  that  it  is  as  natural 
and  as  necessary  to  create  as  to  observe,  and  that  from 

*  See  "  American  Architecture  in  English  Eyes,"  Topics  of  the 
Time,  in  this  magazine  for  March,  1888. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


3'7 


infancy  the  creative  faculty  is  latent  within  us,  only 
waiting  to  be  called  out  and  exercised.  The  world  is 
made  for  the  child's  use  as  well  as  for  his  study,  and 
this  very  use,  properly  trained  and  directed,  becomes 
mind-power,  intellectual  stimulus,  and  experience. 
Make  the  conditions  right,  the  atmosphere  and  sur- 
roundings suitable,  and  like  a  plant  the  child  will  grow, 
putting  forth  flower  and  fruit.  So  Knebel  devised  the 
kindergarten,  and  the  child-world  became  a  center  of 
resource  and  activity  and  of  beautiful  joyous  expres- 
sion. Since  Fraud's  time  the  kindergarten  has  been 
developed  and  perfected,  but  the  organic  and  funda- 
mental idea  underlying  it  has  been  allowed  to  remain 
in  embryo.  The  child  steps  out  of  this  fresh,  new  field 
back  again  into  the  old  routine  track  and  methods  of 
instruction.  The  Workingman's  School  is  a  notable 
attempt,  the  first  of  its  kind,  to  carry  the  principles  and 
practice  of  the  kindergarten  into  the  higher  branches 
of  education;  to  connect  the  development  of  the  child 
with  the  development  of  the  man  and  the  woman,  and 
to  secure  a  complete  and  harmonious  unfolding  of  the 
whole  humanity.  In  such  a  school  the  workshop  and 
the  art-room  are  the  salient  features,  for  here  are  the 
tools  and  material  as  well  as  the  field  for  production  ; 
here  the  child  is  trained,  not  to  be  a  carpenter,  a 
printer,  a  skilled  mechanic,  not  to  be  ticketed  with  any 
particular  trade, —  although  he  will  probably  learn  in 
this  way  what  he  is  best  fitted  to  do, —  but  to  come  to 
the  full  use  and  play  of  his  faculties. 

With  this  end  in  view  manual  training  becomes  an 
intimate  and  essential  process  of  mind-culture.  A  sys- 
tem of  work-instruction  has  been  planned  which  aims 
to  bring  into  constant  correlation  and  interdependence 
these  two  usually  distinct  factors.  Drawing  is  made,  as 
it  were,  "  the  common  denominator,"  the  basis  of  in- 
struction—  mechanical  drawing  in  the  workshop,  and 
free-hand  drawing  in  the  art-room.  Through  all  the 
classes,  and  consistently  with  the  intellectual  progress, 
the  drawing-exercises  connect  the  work  of  the  hand 
with  the  work  of  the  brain.  The  pupil  is  made  to  draw 
the  object  which  he  afterwards  reproduces  from  his 
own  drawing.  "  Thus  the  work  is  the  concrete  repre- 
sentation of  the  drawing,  the  drawing  is  the  abstract 
representation  of  the  work,"  and  both  are  the  symbol 
and  illustration  of  science  and  law.  Treated  in  this  way, 
the  so-called  dry  and  rigid  sciences,  mathematics,  geom- 
etry, and  the  like,  become  plastic  and  instinct  with  life 
and  form,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  manual  labor  is 
dignified  and  lifted  upon  the  plane  of  intellectual  achieve- 
ment. In  the  art-room  the  analogy  is  obvious,  for 
here  is  the  true  realm  of  expression.  In  the  perception 
and  reproduction  of  beautiful  forms  and  the  apprehen- 
sion of  harmony  and  design  man's  creative  insight  and 
freedom  fully  assert  themselves,  and  spirit  stands 
clearly  revealed. 

"  Through  the  idea,  lo,  the  immortal  reality !  Through 
the  reality,  lo,  the  immortal  idea  !  " 

To  bring  such  advantages  as  we  have  described  within 
reach  of  the  poor  —  of  the  poorest — isataskofnosmall 
difficulty  andmagnitude, and  one  which  we  think  should 
commend  itself  to  the  intelligent  sympathy  and  atten- 
tion of  all  who  ha\e  at  heart  the  better  status  and  ad- 
justment of  society,  for  it  is  to  this  larger  end  that  such 
a  scheme  finally  points.  Let  us  add,  however,  that  it 
is  the  children  of  the  rich  who  could  profit  most  by 
these  methods.  Unhampered  by  sordid  circumstance, 


they  could  respond  more  freely  to  the  improved  con- 
ditions and  lightly  lift  themselves  into  better  modes 
of  thought  and  action.  The  special  plea  which  we  would 
make  through  these  pages  is  for  a  wider,  more  liberal, 
and  "  disinterested  "  interest  in  education  in  general. 

"  Man  cannot  propose  a  higher  object  for  his  study 
than  education  and  all  that  pertains  to  education."  So 
says  Plato;  but  in  America,  in  spite  of  public  schools 
and  compulsory  instruction,  this  would  not  seem  to  be 
the  common  verdict  and  attitude.  Education  has  grown 
perfunctory,  political.  It  has  become  one  of  the  "  ma- 
chines" of  the  state  and  of  an  industrial  society. 
Teaching  is  too  often  looked  upon  as  a  drudgery,  a 
means  of  livelihood  when  all  others  fail.  "  Will  it  pay? 
Can  one  get  a  living  by  it  ?  "  This  is  the  test  to  which 
many  a  high  calling  must  descend  in  these  days. 
With  the  poor  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  for  the  stress  is 
always  upon  them,  and  the  cry  is  ever  ringing  in  their 
ears.  But  the  rich — have  they  no  place  to  fill,  and 
no  duties  to  perform  in  this  direction?  If  not  actually 
within  the  ranks,  why  should  they  not  take  the  lead  as 
superior  and  commanding  officers  ? 

We  have  captains  of  industry  and  finance.  Why 
have  we  not  captains  of  education  —  men  of  leisure 
and  culture,  capable  of  enthusiasm  and  initiative,  ready 
to  throw  themselves  into  such  a  cause  and  give  it  their 
earnestconsideration,  their  generous  and  active  support! 

Among  the  Greeks,  Plato,  Socrates,  and  Epictetus 
were  the  teachers.  Where  shall  we  look  for  our  great 
leaders,  masters,  patrons,  even,  who  will  see  education 
in  its  true  light,  and  force  us  to  recognize  teaching  as 
one  of  the  grandest  of  the  arts  —  the  art  of  arts,  for  it 
goes  to  the  building  up  of  the  artist  himself,  and  of  ever 
nobler  types  of  humanity  ? 

A  Democratic  Government  in  the  Colleges. 

THREE  general  systems  of  the  government  of  college 
students  are  now  practiced.  One  may  be  called  the 
monarchical.  It  is  the  traditional  and  the  more  common 
system.  Under  it  each  student  is  the  subject  of  cer- 
tain rules,  in  the  making  of  which  he  had  no  voice, 
and  obedience  to  which  is  a  condition  of  his  remaining 
in  college.  A  second  system  is  the  absence  of  any  sys- 
tem. Under  it  the  college  abdicates  all  attempts  at  the 
personal  supervision  of  the  moral  character  and  be- 
havior of  its  students.  It  tacitly  declares  that  its  pur- 
pose is  simply  intellectual.  When  it  has  provided 
instruction  and  offered  opportunities  for  examination, 
its  duty  is  done.  This  view  is  a  favorite  of  the  German 
universities.  A  professor  at  Halle  told  the  president 
of  an  American  college  that  "  the  professors  assume 
no  responsibility  for  the  personal  character  or  behavior 
of  students ;  they  are  employed  to  give  lectures  and 
not  to  govern  students."  The  third  system  may,  for  the 
lack  of  a  better  term,  be  called  the  republican  or  demo- 
cratic system.  According  to  its  provisions  the  student 
may  have  some  voice  in  forming  the  college  laws  ;  if 
he  breaks  these  laws,  he  may  be  judged  by  a  jury  of 
his  peers  ;  and  he  may  exert  a  constant  and  strong  in- 
fluence upon  the  official  action  of  the  college  Faculty. 

That  the  monarchical  system  of  college  government 
is  not  well  adapted  to  the  present  generation  of  stu- 
dents is  evident.  It  is  the  product  of  a  time  when  stu- 
dents were  boys  of  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  not  men  of 
nineteen,  as  they  now  are  at  the  close  of  their  fresh- 
man year.  Its  application  is  liable  to  result  in  the 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


"  rebellions,"  the  disorders,  and  the  disturbances,  either 
petty  or  serious,  which  characterize  too  many  colleges. 
It  is  also  evident  that  neither  the  college  nor  the  par- 
ent is  willing  for  the  student  to  pass  four  years  free 
from  all  guidance  and  restraint.  The  experience  of  the 
German  universities  in  granting  their  members  such 
liberty  does  not  furnish  a  recommendation  for  its  adop- 
tion in  the  American  college.  The  republican  system, 
however,  appears  to  possess  many  and  great  advan- 
tages and  few  and  slight  defects. 

As  long  ago  as  1870  the  students  of  the  Illinois  In- 
dustrial University,  at  the  suggestion  of  its  president, 
voted  to  try  the  experiment  of  self-government.  They 
made  laws  regarding  all  those  forms  of  disorder  to 
which  the  colleges  are  generally  subject.  The  penalties 
consisted  of  fines  varying  from  a  few  cents  to  five  dol- 
lars. Certain  officers  for  the  execution  of  these  provis- 
ions were  elected  by  the  students,  and  others  were 
appointed  by  the  president.  "  Obstinate  culprits," 
writes  the  president,  "  and  those  who  refuse  to  pay 
the  fines,  were  to  be  reported  to  the  Faculty,  who  re- 
tained all  power  to  suspend  or  expel  a  student."  Sev- 
eral years  ago  Amherst  College  introduced  a  similar 
system  into  the  government  of  its  students.  It  is  based 
upon  the  principle  that  a  man  admitted  to  the  college 
"is  received  as  a  gentleman,  and  as  such  is  trusted  to 
conduct  himself  in  truthfulness  and  uprightness,  in 
kindness  and  respect,  in  diligence  and  sobriety,  in  obe- 
dience to  law  and  maintenance  of  order,  and  regard 
for  Christian  institutions  as  becomes  a  member  of  a 
Christian  college.  The  privileges  of  the  college  are 
granted  only  to  those  who  are  believed  to  be  worthy 
of  this  trust,  and  are  forfeited  whenever  this  trust  is 
falsified."  This  principle,  so  admirably  conceived,  re- 
sulted in  granting  to  the  students  greater  liberties  than 
they  had  before  enjoyed,  and  also  allowed  them  to 
elect  a  representative  body  who  should  consult  about 
such  matters  as  the  president  might  bring  before  it. 

Although  Williams  College  and  Harvard  have  intro- 
duced no  system  of  such  elaborateness  as  are  the  meth- 
ods just  named,  yet  they  have  provided  for  a  standing 
committee  of  the  students  which  consults  with  the 
officers  relative  to  questions  of  mutual  interest.  The 
Harvard  body  consists  of  twenty-four  students,  and, 
if  its  influence  in  fostering  good  order  has  not  been 
great,  the  reason  is  that  of  late  years  the  college  has 
been  free  from  many  forms  of  disorder  with  which 
sister  institutions  are  afflicted.  The  representative  body 
of  Williams'  students  is  composed  of  three  members 
chosen  from  each  class.  Selected  at  first  to  consult 
with  the  Faculty  regarding  a  serious  college  disturb- 
ance, it  has  become  at  the  present  writing  a  permanent 
feature  of  the  administration. 

These  systems  of  college  democracy  differ.  Each 
possesses  peculiar  advantages  and  defects.  An  advan- 
tage common  to  all  is  that  they  tend  to  promote  right 
feeling  between  the  students  and  the  officers.  The  gen- 
eral method  tends  to  remove  that  misunderstanding 
which  lies  at  the  basis  of  most  disturbances.  It  tends 
to  dissipate  that  sentiment,  which  students  so  natur- 
ally entertain,  of  un]ust  treatment  on  the  part  of  their 
officers.  It  tends  to  assure  students  that  the  Faculty 
chiefly  desires  their  welfare.  In  the  common  relation 
of  professor  and  student  indifference  gives  way  to  re- 
gard, and  perhaps  antipathy  to  friendship.  The  system, 
also,  is  of  special  worth  in  fitting  students  for  the 


responsibilities  of  active  life.  It  fosters  a  proper  spirit 
of  independence.  By  it,  moreover,  the  officers  are  re- 
lieved of  many  harassing  cares  and  perplexities.  The 
task  of  administration  is  greatly  simplified  and  light- 
ened. The  greatest  advantage,  however,  consists  in 
the  simple  fact  that  the  order  and  discipline  of  the  col- 
lege are  promoted.  President  Seelye  writes  that  "  it  is 
believed  by  all  here  that  never  before  was  there  such 
good  and  healthy  work  done  in  college,  nor  such  pleas- 
ant relations  between  the  students  and  teachers,  or 
among  the  students  themselves,  as  since  the  new  sys- 
tem was  adopted." 

A  peril  to  which  this  system  is  liable  lies  in  the  dan- 
ger of  over-elaboration.  It  may  be  made  so  heavy  as 
to  fall  of  its  own  weight ;  so  intricate  that  only  an  un- 
due proportion  of  attention  can  secure  its  effective  op. 
eration.  To  this  peril  the  method  as  practiced  in  the 
Illinois  Industrial  University,  after  thirteen  years  of 
use,  finally  yielded.  Other  perils  also  might  be  pointed 
out ;  but  the  advantages  are  of  so  great  weight  that  the 
system  in  some  form  should  be  applied  in  every  one 
of  the  four  hundred  colleges  of  the  United  States. 

Charles  F.    Tinning. 
MINNEAPOLIS,  MINN. 

An    Attempted    Division    of  California. 

IN  the  History  of  Lincoln,  in  the  last  July  (1887) 
number  of  this  magazine,  the  authors  say: 

"  Still,  the  case  of  the  South  was  not  hopeless, .  .  .  there 
remained  the  possible  division  of  California." 

In  this  connection  it  maybe  of  interest  to  your  read- 
ers to  recall  a  fact  now  generally  forgotten,  even  by  the 
oldest  inhabitants  of  this  State,  that  the  "  division  of 
California  "  was  actually  attempted,  and  preliminary 
steps  thereto  consummated. 

In  "  The  Statutes  of  California,  passed  at  the  tenth  ses- 
sion, begun  on  Monday,  the  3d  day  of  January,  and  ended 
on  Tuesday,  the  igth  day  of  April,  1859,"  may  be  found 
an  act,  the  title  and  first  section  of  which  read  as  follows : 

"  Chapter  cclxxxviii :  An  act  granting  the  consent  of 
the  Legislature  to  the  formation  of  a  different  Govern- 
ment for  the  southern  counties  of  this  State. 

"  Approved  April  i8th,  1859. 

"  Be  it  enacted,  etc., 

"Section  i. —  That  the  consent  of  the  Legislature  of 
this  State  is  hereby  given,  to  the  effect  that  all  of  that  part 
or  portion  of  the  present  territory  of  this  State,  lying  all 
south  of  a  line  drawn  eastward  from  the  west  boundary 
of  the  State,  along  the  sixth  standard  parallel  south  of 
theMt.  Diabolo  Meridian,  east  to  the  summit  of  the  Coast 
Range ;  thence  southerly,  following  said  summit  to  the 
seventh  standard  parallel ;  thence  due  east  on  said  stand- 
ard, parallel  to  its  intersection  with  the  north-west  bound- 
ary of  Los  Angeles  County  ;  thence  north-east  along 
said  boundary  to  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  State,  in- 
cluding the  counties  of  San  Luis  Obispo,  Santa  Barbara, 
Los  Angeles,  San  Diego,  San  Bernardino,  and  a  part  of 
Buena  Vista,  be  segregated  from  the  remaining  portion 
of  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  the  formation  by  Congress, 
with  the  concurrent  action  of  said  portion, —  the  consent 
for  the  segregation  of  which  is  hereby  granted, —  of  a  ter- 
ritorial or  other  government,  under  the  name  of  the  '  Ter- 
ritory of  Colorado, '  or  such  other  name  as  may  be  deemed 
meet  and  proper." 

Under  this  statute  the  governor  submitted  the  ques- 
tion to  the  people  of  the  southern  part  of  the  State  at 
the  next  election.  The  two-thirds  vote  required  by  the 
act  was  cast  in  favor  of  a  division  of  the  State,  and  this 
result  was  duly  certified  by  the  governor  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


3'9 


Only  (he  "  southern  portion"  was  allowed  to  vote,  and 

there  was  the  ii-ual  beautiful  disregard  of  constitutions. 

Why  tin-  scheme  was  carried  no  further,  the  history 

of  Mi'hvequcut  events  shows. 

Lton  F.  flfoss. 
Los  ANGF.LES,  CAL. 


NOTE. 

SINCE  the  appearance  of  the  paper  on  Colonel  Rose's 
Tunnel  at  Libby  Prison,  in  this  magazine  for  March, 
we  have  been  informed  that  the  address  of  one  of  the 
participants  in  the  c"-ca]>e,  ( 'aptain  John  Lucas,  is  Row- 
land, Limestone  Co.,  Alabama. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Ole   Settlers'  Meetun. 

BE'N  to  that  ole  settlers'  meetun  ! 

An'  of  all  the  reg'lar  beatun 

Times,  I  think  'at  l>eat  'em  holler  ! 

I  jist  bust  that  paper  collar 

Into  flinters  —  I  jist  laft 

Till  1  thought  I  'd  go  plum  daft! 

Who  wus  there?  Now  ast  me  that  — 

Tell  ye  who  zva'n't  there,  right  spat! 

Ever'  man  I  ever  knowed 

Come  by  the  load. 

Down  ever'  road! 

Oh,  the  county  fair 

Wus  jist  nowhere  ! 

I  shuk  hands,  an'  shut,  an"  shut! 

Thought  't  wus  jist  my  ornry  luck 

To  shake  my  hands  off  then  an'  there ! 

Blame  sight  harder  'n  shuckun  corn — 

Biggest  time  sence  I  be'n  born  ! 

Well,  ole  Zenas  Gumper  thrum 
Hoosierville,  ye  know,  he  come  — 
Ole  Squire  Truitt  an'  his  darter  — 
Reason  Brown,  an'  Increase  Carter  — 
All  the  Jinkses!— ole  Aunt  Sue!  — 
Womern'  childern,  all  come  too!  — 
Amos  Cockefair  jist  sailed  in, 
Pullun  that  long  beard  on  his  chin — 
Then  Nat  Womsley —  you  know  how: 
Chawun  the  cood  jist  like  a  cow  ! 
Well,  I  could  n'  name  'em  thoo, 
They  wus  jist  a  reg'lar  sloo 
Of  the  Hinkles,  Potters,  Skinners  — 
With  their  famblies  an'  their  dinners ! 
An'  them  dinners  'd  cure  sore  eyes : 
Yaller-legged  chickens  'n'punkun  pies- 
Dumpluns  big  's  a  feller's  head  — 
Honey,  'n'  ole  salt-risun  bread ! 

Uncle  Johnny  tuk  the  cheer  — 
Did  n't  speak  o'  him  ?    Don't  keer, 
You  might  sposun  he  was  som'crs  near! 
Think  I  set  the  census  down 
Of  the  county  or  the  town  ? 
Talkun  'bout  the  census  now, 
Ole  Squire  Truitt  ups  an'  'low: 
"  I  jist  taken  the  fust  'at  ever 
Ware  tuk  on  the  Wabash  River, 
'Fore  the  ole  canal  ware  dug, 
When  the  Injuns  come  an'  drug 
Fellers  jist  right  outen  bed, 
By  the  top  ha'r  o'  their  head, 
Sculped  'em  thar  an'  killed  'em  dead! 
Nothun  like  the  ole  times  now  — 
Time  goes  bnck'ards  anyhow  ! 
Ole  folks  mostly  passed  away 
With  the  good  things  o'  their  day. 
When  we  all  wore  homespun  clothes 
Jist  as  happy,  I  suppose, 
As  the  young  folks  air  to-day, 
Jist  as  peart,  too,  ever'  way  ! 


Schools  ware  better  when  we  had 

Jist  log  cabins  an'  a  gad, 

Winders  jist  a  hole  'n  the  wall, 

An"  no  dests  or  books  at  all  ! 

Silver  dollars  then  was  scaice, 

Blame  sight  bigger  'n  full  moon's  face ! 

Whisky  ware  the  rulun  speart  — 

Coon-skins  good,  but  nothun  near  't, — 

Run  like  worter  at  elections 

An'  house  raisuns,  in  these  sections! 

Piety  ware  stronger  then  — 

Seemed  'at  hardships  mcllered  men, 

Made  'em  more  onselfish  like  — 

Best  uv  neighbors  you  could  strike — 

Set  on  the  fence  a-whittlun  sticks, 

Talkun  Scripter  'n'  polutics  — 

An'  they  sometimes  differed  too, 

An'  I  \K\\you 

Airvnts  sometimes  middlun  blue! 

But  they  'd  smooth  it  out  again, 

'N'  'en  swap  bosses  'n'  part  like  men!" 

Uncle  Johnny  tuk  the  prize 

As  the  oldest  settler  heur, 

An'  he  dainced  a  hornpipe  thur, 

Right  on  the  platform  'fore  our  eyes, 

Yessir,  'n'  'at  man  knows  more  lies 

'N  any  feller  anywhur  ! 

Killed  more  Injuns,  wolves,  an"  bear  — 

Built  first  cabin,  raised  first  corn, 

Hilt  first  meetun,  fit  first  fight, 

Got  up  the  first  county  fair  — 

Brung  first  circus  'n'  side-show  there, 

His  son  Ben  first  Hoosier  born, 

Uncle  Johnny  's  jist  a  sight ! 

Jist  to  show  ye  —  some  un  told 

How  they  laid  some  wolves  out  cold : 

Said  one  time  they  met  a  pack, 

They  jist  whack   em  in  the  back 

With  the  butt-eend  uv  their  gun, 

An'  they  killed  'em  ever"  one  — 

Well,  they  said, 

Wus  so  many  laid  thar  dead 

Could  n'  count  'em — not  one  lef', — 

They  wns  well  nigh  caved  theirse'f! 

Then  Uncle  Johnny  riz,  an'  holler: 

"  'At  'ere  yarn's  too  tough  to  swaller, 

But  /  know  one  'at  air  a  fack  ! 

Somp'm'  lack 

Forty  yur  back,  my  big  dog 

Fell  in  the  worter  off'n  a  log, 

Jist  up  heur  on  Raccoon  Crick  — 

Jist  that  quick 

Fish  as  big  as  ary  a  whale 

Grabbed  that  whelp  jist  by  the  tail  — 

Well,  I  mistook  ef  't  did  n   swaller 

That  dog  clean  to  its  arn  collar  ! 

Fish  swum  off  an'  dog  jist  ye'pt  — 

I  did  n'  see  how  't  could  be  he'pt ! 

Purty  soon  the  dog  got  mad  — 

Fish  ware  feelun  middlun  bad ! 

What  ye  think  that  'ere  dog  do? 


320 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Turned  an'  chained  'at  fish  in  two  ! 
Then  he  struck  out  fur  the  shore  — 
Never  gut  him  a-Jishiin  no  more  !  " 

While  the  ole  man  wus  a-tellun 

'At  'ere  tale  the  folks  kep'  yellun, 

Till  he  put  the  cap-sheaf  on, 

'En  he  seen  'at  he  had  gone 

Leetle  furcler  'an  he  orter  — 

If  ye  "d  th'ovved  a  st'eam  of  worter 

On  that  crowd  they  would  n'  be'n 

Any  glummer  'n  they  wus  then  ! 

You  'd  'a'  laft  like  anything 

If  you  'd  'a'  heern  ole  Aunt  Sue  sing 

Ole-time  love-songs  fur  a  prize  — 

Good  'eal  smoother  'n  you  'd  surmise! 

Cain't  jist  reecolleck  — 

1  cain't  carry  a  chune,  nohow  — 

Make  a  mess  uv  it,  I  speck  — 

Try  it  though,  I  vow, 

If  't  breaks  my  neck ! 

"  As  I  wus  a-walking  one  morning  in  June, 

Fur  to  view  the  fair  fields  an'  the  meadows  in  bloom, 

I  met  a  fair  damsel,  she  looked  like  a  queen, 

With  her  costly  fine  robes  an'  her  mantle  uv  green." 

That 's  as  near  as  I  can  git  — 

Hearun  her  was  funnier  yit ! 

Then  ole  Uncle  Johnny  got 

A  feller  —  kindo  heavy  sot  — 

Majors  was  his  name —  to  play 

Fiddle-chunes  the  rest  o'  the  day ; 

Played  ole  "  Rye- Straw  "  an'  "  Gray  Eagle." 

'N'  'en  the  geurls  commenced  to  giggle 

When  they  called  fur  "  Leather  Britches," 

An'  a  string  o'  ole  chunes  sich  as 

That,  an'  then  he  let  'er  loose 

On  "  Lost  Injun  "  an'  "  Wild  Goose," 

"  Big  Piny,"  "  Walls  o'  Jericho !  " 

Lord!  our  feet  commenced  to  go 

'Fore  he  'd  hardly  drawecl  his  bow  ! 

Cur'us  how  a  feller  feels 

Daincun  them  ole  rattlun  reels  ! 

Wusht  ye  could  'a'  seen  them  folks 

Hoppun  round  an'  crackun  jokes, 

Gray  ole  womern  an'  ole  men 

Jist  as  young 's  they  'd  ever  be'n, 

Rakun  up  the  ole-time  fun  : 

Apple-paruns  'n'  quiltun-bees, 

Spellun  matches,  an'  times  like  these  — 

Never  thinkun  of  the  sun 

Till  they  noticed  it  wus  gone 

An' the  night  wus  comun  on! 

An'  ole  Johnny  says  to  me, 

As  we  started  home,  says  'e : 

"  Now,  dog-on,  ef  't  did  n'  seem 

Ole  times  come  back  in  a  dream !  " 

Richard  Leiv  Dawson. 


A   Lost   Opportunity. 

"  SHE  comes  !  "    I  hear  the  murmur  of 
The  leaves  that  rush  to  meet  her, 
The  joyous  carol  of  a  thrush 
That  splits  his  throat  to  greet  her. 

Through  Autumn's  shimmering  mist  she  comes, 
That  veil  for  Summer's  dresses, 
With  Winter's  diamonds  at  her  throat, 
And  Spring  flowers  in  her  tresses. 

The  baby  stars  laugh  out  in  glee, 
The  jasmine  buds  wax  brightly, 
The  moonbeams  dance  about  her  feet, 
The  night-breeze  fans  her  lightly. 


Ah !  well  I  know  those  cloudy  skirts, 
And  laces  that  enfold  her  !  — 
That  graceful  poise  of  dainty  head, 
Those  curves  of  cheek  and  shoulder  ! 

With  rapturous  joy  I  think  that  I 
Shall  soon  have  held  and  kissed  her  — 

A  spring  —  a  clasp  —  a  little  shriek  — 
Confound  it !   't  was  my  sister  ! 

G.  Courtcnay  Walker. 

To  John  Burroughs. 

O  GENIAL  John  !   beneath  the  shade 

Why  do  you  grope  and  peer  and  creep  so  ? 

Aha!  you  seek  the  winsome  maid, 
The  dainty,  darling  nymph,  Calypso. 

But  vain  your  quest  from  east  to  west, 
From  Marblehead  to  Tallahassee  ; 

For  long  agone  I  sought  her,  John, 

And  found,  and  wooed,  and  won  the  lassie. 

She 's  mine !   she  's  mine  !   and  mine  has  been 
More  years  than  e'er  she  knew  Ulysses. 

For  me  she  waits  her  bower  within, 
For  me  she  keeps  her  ruby  kisses. 

In  Arbor  -;'i  tic's  deepest  shade 

With  other  fairy  forms  I  found  her. 

The  shamrock  was  her  waiting-maid, 

And  Hypnttm  splendent  nestled  round  her. 

So  coy,  so  pure,  my  word  upon  't 

Not  e'en  a  humble-bee  had  kissed  her  — 

But  come  in  May-time  to  Vermont, 
I  '11  introduce  you  to  her  sister. 


F.  Blanchard. 


PEACHAM,  VERMONT. 


June  2ist. 


SAID  he:  "  Did  you  recollect,  my  dear, 

That  this  is  the  longest  day  in  the  year, 

And  so  happy  a  one,  that  I  '11  never  regret  it  ?  " 

"  I  did  know,"  said  she, "  but  you  made  me  forget  it !  " 

George  Birdseye. 

Uncle    Esek's    Wisdom. 
VICES,  like  misfortunes,  seldom,  if  ever,  come  singly. 

HE  who  has  no  enemies  has  no  friends  —  that  he  can 
rely  upon. 

THE  most  economical  man  is  the  one  who  can  spend 
the  most  money  to  advantage. 

HUMOR  is  perennial,  but  a  jest  won't  bear  laughing 
at  but  once. 

BEAUTY  has  no  rules ;  or,  rather,  it  has  so  many  that 
no  one  can  define  them. 

DEBT  is  a  good  deal  like  the  old-fashioned  wire 
mouse-trap —  the  hole  to  get  in  is  four  times  as  big  as 
the  one  to  get  out  at. 

IF  I  could  write  three  lines  that  could  not  be  im- 
proved upon,  I  would  limit  my  literary  fame  to  them 
as  long  as  time  lasts. 

Uncle  Esek. 


THE  DB  V1NNB  PRESS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


.  .  Ill 


•    '- 


PAINTED  BY  L.  BONNAT. 


ENGRAVED   BY  T.  JOHNSON,   AFTER   THE    PHOTOGRAPH    BY   A3   BRAUN   AND  CO. 


PASTEUR   AND    HIS   GRANDDAUGHTER. 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI. 


JULY,   1888. 


No.  3. 


SINAI    AND    THE    WILDERNESS. 


SINCE  more  or 
less  peril  attends 
the  long  journey 
over  the  tradi- 
tional route  of  the 
Israelites  from  the 
"LandofGoshen" 
to  the  "  Mount  of 
God,"  the  first  care 
should  be  to  secure  an 
honestandbravedragoman. 
My  trust  was  placed  in  Mohammed  Ach- 
med  EfTendi  Hedayah  of  Alexandria.  We  left 
Cairo  one  morning  in  February  and  rode 
through  the  land  of  Goshen  by  rail.  We  ar- 
rived at  Suez  before  dark,  and  took  up  our 
quarters  in  a  street  as  curious  as  the  Mouskee 
in  Cairo.  Our  coming  had  been  heralded  by 
our  body-servant  Abdullah,  who  precede'd  us 
to  take  care  of  our  camp  equipage  and  to  se- 
cure a  boat  for  our  passage  across  the  Red  Sea. 
The  sail  was  a  lovely  one  of  about  two 
hours,  including  a  halt  at  quarantine.  Our 
camels  awaited  us  at  the  Asiatic  quay,  and 
in  an  hour  they  had  carried  us  to  the  "  Wells 
of  Moses."  Only  a  small  spring  of  brackish 
water  was  found  at  the  foot  of  a  palm,  but, 
said  our  devout  dragoman,  "it  is  the  very 
place  where  the  Israelites  first  encamped." 
Moses  here  sang  the  song  of  deliverance,  and 
here  Miriam's  sweet  tones  led  the  hearts  of  the 
Israelites  away  from  their  tribulations. 

What  an  event  in  my  life  it  was,  that  first 
night  in  the  desert !  Everything  looked  larger 
and  farther  off  than  usual,  except  the  stars, 
which  seemed  to  come  down  into  the  clear  at- 
mosphere like  incandescent  lights  inside  their 
globes.  The  pages  of  a  new,  great  volume 
were  turned  over  before  me.  presenting  all  the 
strange,  vague  images  of  the  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainment  with  lifelike  realism. 


The  Bedouin  attendants  had  arranged  their 
camels  on  the  ground  in  semicircular  groups. 
Against  the  inward-turned  haunches  of  the 
beasts  our  camp  luggage  was  placed  for  pro- 
tection from  marauders.  In  the  center  of  each 
semicircle  a  fire  of  brush  and  twigs  had  been 
kindled.  Around  these  fires  the  more  idle  of 
the  swarthy  fellows  squatted,  and  toasted  their 
bare  shins  while  they  spun  their  wondrous 
tales  and  waited  for  their  evening  meal  of  bar- 
ley cakes  to  bake  in  the  hot  ashes.  A  few  of 
the  more  industrious  pounded  beans  in  stone 
mortars  for  camel  fodder.  This  weird  night- 
scene  was  made  to  look  all  the  more  pictur- 
esque by  the  red  glare  caught  upon  the  faces 
of  the  Arabs,  and  by  the  twinkling  high-lights 
which  played  from  one  awkward,  protruding 
camel-joint  to  another. 

We  dined  at  6  o'clock  p.  M.  Our  first  meal  in 
the  desert  was  like  that  which  followed  at  the 
end  of  each  day  —  soup,  boiled  chicken,  mut- 
ton, beans,  potatoes,  lettuce,  bread  and  butter, 
rice  pudding,  oranges,  nuts,  figs,  mandarins, 
and  Mocha  coffee.  Of  course  as  the  days  went 
on  the  supply  of  delicacies  became  exhausted, 
but  we  always  had  food  enough  to  satisfy  our 
enormous  appetites.  Breakfast  consisted  of 
meat,  potatoes,  oatmeal,  fruit,  and  coffee.  At 
noon  a  halt  was  always  made,  a  small  tent 
pitched,  and  a  cold  lunch  partaken  of  chicken, 
eggs,  fruit,  and  tea  sufficient  to  sustain  life  until 
a  new  camp  was  reached  at  the  close  of  the  day. 

Our  tents  were  supplied  with  Persian  rugs, 
an  iron  bedstead,  a  small  table,  and  a  metal 
pitcher  and  basin. 

Our  first  sleep  under  cover  of  the  tent  was 
undisturbed  until  daybreak,  when  the  growl- 
ing of  the  camels  caused  us  to  abandon  all 
hope  of  further  rest.  An  early  start  was  made. 
When  our  caravan  rose  from  the  desert  I  could 
see  the  net  result  of  Hedayah's  care  and  tact 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.     All  rights  reserved. 


324 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


and  enterprise.  There  were  seventeen  camels 
and  twenty-one  attendants. 

When  I  first  saw  the  camels,  one  foreleg 
of  each  was  bent  up  and  a  strong  cord  tied 
around  the  joint,  so  that  the  beasts,  thus  hob- 
bled, could  not  stray  out  of  sight.  When  all 
was  made  ready  for  the  march,  these  bands 
were  loosened.  Upon  the  camels'  humps  were 
tied  our  tents  and  tent  poles;  casks  of  water,  pad- 
locked to  prevent  the  camel  drivers  from  steal- 
ing the  scanty  fluid ;  great  boxes  of  provisions; 
sacks  of  charcoal  and  a  sheet-iron  stove ;  crates 
of  oranges  and  hampers  with  eggs  and  cook- 
ing-utensils; coops  of  live  chickens,  pigeons, 
and  turkeys;  beds  and  bedding ;  and  twenty 
solid  leather  trunks  of  photographic  plates.  In 
the  caravan  went  two  live  sheep  to  provide 
fresh  mutton  when  wanted.  Six  riding-camels 
brought  up  the  rear.  These  last  were  saddled 
for  the  four  "howadji,"  Hedayah,  and  Abdul- 
lah, whenever,  tired  of  walking,  we  chose  to 
mount  them.  Each  camel  was  attended  by  its 
driver,  who  was  usually  its  owner  also,  and 
took  good  care  that  it  was  not  overtaxed. 

Every  night  all  this  "outfit"  had  to  be 
taken  apart,  assorted,  and  shaped  into  the 
conveniences  of  camp.  Every  morning  it  had 
to  be  loaded  for  the  day's  travel  amidst  the 
growls  of  the  camels,  the  screeches  of  the 


" 


THE    WELLS     OK    MOSES. 


Bedouins,  and  the  earnest  commands  of  our 
dragoman.  I  never  could  decide  which  was 
the  best  camel  or  who  the  least  profane  of  the 
Arabs.  If  I  fixed  upon  one  as  my  good  camel, 
the  next  morning  I  would  find  him  protest- 
ing against  every  pound  placed  upon  his  ugly 
hump.  If  I  ventured  to  call  Ali  or  Yusef  my 
good  boy,  the  next  time  we  broke  up  camp  I 
would  find  them  trying  to  sneak  off  with  a 
light  load.  Moreover,  it  cost  me  fifteen  days 
of  anxious  watching  to  find  the  rooster  whose 
crovving  awakened  me  before  light  every  morn 
ing.  Each  morning  on  hearing  him  outside  my 
tent  I  quickly  peered  through  the  door  and  de- 
tected him.  Abdullah  was  thereupon  ordered 
to  "  off  with  his  head  "  for  the  coming  lunch. 
The  next  morning  a. cheerful  voice  greeted  me 
as  usual.  Not  until  fifteen  premature  and  un- 
just executions  had  been  perpetrated  was  the 
correct  chanticleer  caught.  He  was  the  last 
of  his  company,  and  died  because  he  could 
not  take  a  hint. 

The  first  day  of  travel  was  one  of  rare  pleas- 
ures and  surprises.  Instead  of  having  to  plow 
knee-deep  through  desert  sand,  as  I  had  an- 
ticipated, there  was  a  gravelly  bottom  to  travel 
upon.  The  air  was  clear  and  fresh,  but  the  sun 
was  merciless  and  the  heat  reflected  from  be- 
low was  intense.  Nearly  all  day  the  blue  sea 
was  in  sight.  The  mirage 
lifted  long  groves  of  tall 
palm-trees,  which  seemed 
to  beckon  us  to  a  welcome 
shade ;  but  when  we  di- 
verged a  little  from  the  track 
to  see  if  they  were  real,  the 
delusion  disappeared  and 
only  the  mountains  of  Tih, 
far  over  on  the  Egyptian 
side,  were  seen. 

The  second  night  we  en- 
camped at  Wady  Siirdiir, 
where  the  bitter  wells  of 
Marah  were  visited.  Only 
by  digging  in  the  sand 
could  we  find  even  salt 
water.  But  at  Elim,  "  where 
were  twelve  wells  of  water 
and.  three-score  and  ten 
palm-trees,"  we  found  abun- 
dance of  fresh  water  and 
a  lovely  spot  upon  which 
to  pitch  our  tents  for  the 
third  night.  During  the  day 
we  met  a  caravan  of  fifty 
Russian  pilgrims  returning 
to  Suez  from  Mount  Sinai. 
All  but  three  were  women, 
and  all  were  mounted  upon 
camels.  They  came  from 
St.  Petersburg.  Halting, 


S/.YAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


325 


they  saluted  us  and  commended  us  for  our 
•'  holy  xeal  in  undertaking  the  dangerous  and 
difficult  pilgrimage  to  the  Mount  of  God." 

They  were  in  charge  of  a  number  of  Bed- 
ouins, headed  by  Sheik  Mousa,  the  king  of  all 
the  Bedouins  in  the  Sinai  peninsula.  He  had 
been  engaged  as  our  escort  and  now  joined  us. 
1  low  noble  and  pa- 
triarchal he  looked 
seated  upon  his  fleet 
dromedary !  He  was 
my  ideal  of  a  Bed- 
ouin chief.  For  forty- 
five  days  we  were  to- 
gether, and  I  found 
him  as  kind  and  true 
as  he  had  been  rep- 
resented to  me.  He 
came  to  our  lunch 
tent  at  noon  to  plan 
for  the  journey,  and 
after  the  usual  time- 
absorbing  salute  had 
been  made  a  presen- 
tation ceremony  fol- 
lowed. 

A  rich  scarlet  robe 
of  silk,  lined  with 
green,  had  been 
brought  from  Cairo 
as  a  gift  to  the  Arab 
king,  and  it  fell  to 
my  lot  to  make  the 
presentation  speech. 
At  the  close  I  was 
requested  by  the 
king  first  to  try  on 
the  royal  robe  that 
he  might  for  himself 
see  how  it  looked.  I 
was  a  little  taller  than 
he,  and  if  the  robe 

fitted  me  nicely,  it  would  do  for  him.  I  as- 
sented, whereupon  he  promised  me  a  brother's 
protection  through  the  tribes  of  his  kingdom, 
and  agreed  to  intercede  with  the  sheik  at 
Akabah  for  our  safe  conduct  to  Petra. 

This  ceremony  ended,  a  still  more  pictur- 
esque scene  followed  —  the  discussion  of  the 
journey  to  be  taken.  With  his  fingers  Mousa 
drew  upon  the  sand  a  map  of  the  pear-shaped 
Sinai  peninsula.  A  depression  at  the  right 
was  the  Red  Sea.  A  similar  one  on  the  left 
served  for  the  Gulf  of  Akabah.  An  English 
walnut  served  to  mark  the  locality  of  Mount 
Sinai,  and  the  oases  were  indicated  by  chicken- 
bones.  An  egg'shell  served  for  Akabah  and 
an  orange-peel  stood  for  Petra,  while  bits 
of  stones  served  to  show  where  tribes  of  Bed- 
ouins were  probably  encamped.  Winding 
lines  were  drawn  in  the  sand  to  represent  the 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 47. 


wadies  which  led  from  one  place  to  the  other, 
the  sand  which  rose  at  each  side  of  the  royal 
finger  serving  to  mark  the  chains  of  moun- 
tains over  which  we  must  travel.  Then  the 
whole  map,  thus  laid  out,  was  discussed,  and 
the  chances  of  escape  from  unfriendly  tribes 
were  considered.  The  map  I  could  readily 


THE    WELLS     OF    ELIM. 


understand,  and  the  eloquent  gestures  ot  my 
two  companions  —  for  such  they  became  — 
were  not  hard  to  interpret.  It  was  finally  de- 
cided to  follow  the  coast  where  practicable, 
and  at  other  times  to  keep  to  the  wadies  near- 
est to  the  sea. 

After  the  consultation  closed  we  moved 
on  through  Wady  Gharandel  to  Elim.  Each 
hour  the  country  about  us  grew  more  and 
more  picturesque.  The  red  light  of  the  setting 
sun  shone  upon  some  rocky  cliffs  in  the  dis- 
tance near  the  sea,  until,  the  sun  gone,  the 
Arabian  moon  changed  them  into  silvery  pro- 
files. At  about  8  p.  M.  we  found  our  tents  at 
Elim,  with  those  of  another  American  party 
pitched  near  them. 

The  hills  about  Elim  are  several  hundred 
feet  high.  The  oasis  seems  charming  to  one 
after  having  traveled  over  the  dead  desert  for 


326 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


several  days.   Groves  of  palm,  acacia,  juniper,  like  an  immense  wall,  a  great  mountain  range 

tamarisk,  and  colocynth  abound;  and  among  arose,  and  cast  a  grateful  shadow  over  our 

the  wells  is  one  living,  bubbling  spring,  from  pathway.    It  led  us  directly  to  the  gorgeous 

which  we  drank  and  took  a  fresh  supply  of  colored  side  of  Jebel  Taiyibeh,  whose  cones 

"  sweet  water."  and  cliffs  were  built  up  of  strata  running  diag- 

Here  and  there  tiny  wild-flowers  were  found,  onally  from  the  sea,  of  brown,  amber,  orange, 

At  every  turn  in  the  wady  the  hills  grew  more  red,  purple,  white,  gray,  marl  green,  and  black, 

shapely,  and  lovelier  in  color.   Elim  is  a  lovely  How  glorious  was  the  sight  of  so  much 

spot,  the  clear  waters  and  shade-giving  palms  water  once  more!    We  could  not  drink  it,  but 

of  which  delight  the  desert  traveler.    On  the  it  was  cool  and  clean,  and  we  could  enjoy  a 


BY    THE    RED    SEA. 


way  to  the  sea,  south  and  east,  two  rivals  to 
"  the  true  Elim  "  were  found.  The  first  is  but 
a  flat,  damp  spot,  scarcely  worth  mentioning; 
the  second  is  a  somewhat  extensive  oasis,  and 
has  a  tiny  stream  running  through  it  out  into 
the  wady  and  thence  to  the  sea.  But  our 
unanimous  vote  accorded  with  tradition  in 
believing  that  all  the  honors  of  Elim  belong 
to  the  first  oasis. 

Now  came  a  series  of  surprises.    As  we 
broke  through  the  grove  of  palms,  suddenly, 


bath  in  it.  It  united  its  hoarse  bass  notes  with 
the  plaintive  treble  of  the  tiny  stream  which 
near  by  gave  up  its  individuality  to  the  waves. 
Here  the  mountains  seemed  to  halt  and  draw 
back.  Passing  them,  we  turned  to  the  left  and 
followed  down  the  coast.  Beyond  a  long  line 
of  naked  peaks  we  caught  the  first  glimpse  of 
Mount  Serbal.  Over  the  sea,  we  could  once 
more  make  out  the  Egyptian  hills,  just  as  the 
murmuring  Israelites  saw  them  when  moving 
along  this  very  shore. 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


UEUUt-lN    TVPES. 


That  night  we  also  "  encamped  by  the  Red 
Sea,"  in  "  the  very  place,"  we  were  assured, 
"  where  the  children  of  Israel  encamped  after 
leaving  Elim."  An  extensive  plateau  is  here, 
bounded  on  three  sides  by  picturesque  hills 
and  on  the  west  by  the  Red  Sea.  It  is  an  en- 
chanting spot.  The  colored  hills  resemble 
long  rows  of  towers  with  pointed  roofs,  one 
tier  reaching  above  another,  while  the  peaks 
on  the  Egyptian  side  seemed  then  like  faint 
gray  clouds.  It  is  truly  a  desert  place  compared 
with  Elim.  It  proved  much  less  friendly  in 
its  treatment  of  the  stranger,  for  twice  during 
the  night  it  sent  airy  emissaries  ashore  to  pull 
out  my  tent- pins  from  the  conniving  sand  and 
to  tumble  my  tent  down  upon  my  head. 

Next  morning  the  camera  caught  the  choic- 
est of  the  curious  rock-pictures.  Nature  had 
been  in  a  freakish  mood  —  it  was  one  of  those 
efforts  of  hers  which  defy  pen,  palette,  and 
photography.  Sometimes  the  elevations  seemed 
like  the  heaped-up  refuse  of  a  foundry;  at 
other  times  as  if  the  entire  circuit  had  been 
undermined  and  thrown  back  by  the  searcher 
for  gems  as  he  delved  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  mountain.  The  spaces  between  gave  the 
shadows  a  chance  to  help  bring  out  the  ad- 
mirable forms  into  bold  relief.  Sometimes  the 
mountains  fairly  stepped  into  the  sea,  or  had 
tumbled  down  great  masses  from  their  steep 
inclines  to  make  it  rougher  for  the  pilgrim. 
The  sea,  too,  presented  some  fine  studies  in 
iridescence.  One  moment  the  glistening  water 
lies  as  calm  and  placid  as  a  lake  of  ice ;  sud- 
denly it  is  all  in  a  quiver,  and  its  broad  ex- 
panse becomes  broken  up  into  belts  of  the 
most  striking  colors. 

Towards  midday  we  began  to  move  in  an 
easterly  direction  and  our  path  ascended. 
Frequently  we  climbed  to  what  resembled  the 
crater  of  a  volcano.  Grouped  together  below 
was  usually  found  a  varied  collection  of  forms 


PtDDLING    IBEX     ill-AUS. 


328 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


like  spires,  pinnacles,  domes,  and  stalagmites 
of  color  reminding  one  of  the  scene  within  the 
awful  throat  of  Mount  Vesuvius. 

Towards  night  the  old-time  Egyptian  cop- 
per mines  of  Maghara,  in  Wady  Keneh,  were 
reached.  The  ruins  of  an  old  temple  near  by 
bear  the  cartouches  of  Rameses  II. 

We  encamped  that  night  in  a  deep  valley 
the  surroundings  of  which  reminded  me  of 
those  of  Crawford  Notch,  only  the  mountains 
were  bare  of  all  foliage,  and  there  was  no  lake 
nor  any  tumbling  cascade. 

During  the  next  day  we  passed  through  the 
"  Written  Valley,"  where  Sinaitic  inscriptions 
are  found  plentifully  upon  the  rocks.  In  other 
respects  the  surrounding  mountains  are  less 
interesting  than  those  already  passed  on. the 
way. 

A  small  land-slide  came  tumbling  down  on 
the  left.  It  was  started  by  a  line  of  sheep  and 
goats  which  stood,  with  an  amused  sort  of 
look,  watching  our  caravan.  Their  shepherd- 
ess attempted  to  hide  from  our  sight,  but  per- 
suasive backsheesh  induced  her  to  submit  to 
the  ordeal  of  the  camera.  She  refused  to  re- 
move her  face-veil,  but  permitted  a  full  view 
of  her  trinkets.  While  posing  her  I  made  the 
following  inventory  of  her  neck  and  head  gear. 
On  the  top  of  her  head  four  trousers-buttons 
were  united  by  cords  in  the  form  of  a  Greek 
cross.  Near  each  temple  was  an  iron  harness 
ring,  one  and  one-quarter  inch  in  diameter 
and  one-eighth  inch  thick,  tied  to  the  lower 
combination.  From  these  rings  down  to  the 
edges  of  the  face-veil  ran  two  pieces  of  iron 
and  brass  jack-chain.  From  the  rear  button, 
over  the  part  in  the  hair,  a  cord  ran  backwards. 
Bunches  of  beads  hung  from  the  cords  at  her 
temples,  and  a  lot  of  beads  with  a  silver  disk 
as  large  as  a  Bland  dollar  hung  from  each  ear. 
Three  bracelets  of  turquoise  and  amber  graced 
each  arm,  and  from  one  of  them  dangled  a 
brass  navy  button.  There  were  rings  on  her 
fingers  and  thumbs.  Nineteen  dazzling  neck- 
laces hung  around  her  neck  —  some  of  tur- 
quoise, some  of  amber,  while  some  were  of 
silver,  and  one  was  made  up  of  the  iron  fer- 
rules from  the  sticks  of  tourists'  umbrellas. 

Mount  Serbal  was  often  seen  during  this 
afternoon.  Before  night  we  came  to  "  the 
rock  struck  by  Moses,"  as  recorded  in  Ex- 
odus xvii.  6,  and  referred  to  so  graphically  in 
Numbers  xx.  7-11.  The  rock  is  isolated.  It 
is  20  feet  wide  by  12  feet  high.  A  deep  cut 
runs  down  its  side — "the  mark  of  Moses' 
rod" — whence  flowed  the  waters  of  Meribah 
and  Massah.  The  mountains  on  all  sides 
appeared  more  and  more  impressive  as  we 
climbed  the  steep  pass  which  led  us  to  the 
oasis  of  Pharan,  or  Wady  Feiran.  Above  all 
others  we  saw  the  jagged  peaks  of  the  giant 


Jebel  Serbal  —  different  in  form  and  in  color 
from  its  neighbors. 

Here  we  came  to  a  steep,  narrow  defile, 
and  our  carefully  stepping  camels  were  made 
more  careful  by  the  quick,  sharp  cries  of  their 
drivers — "Ooah!  edock!  hutta!"  ("Lookout! 
step  carefully !  ")  which  admonition  seemed  to 
be  repeated  to  us  by  the  echoing  peaks  as 
though  warning  us  not  to  approach.  But  the 
odor  of  apricot,  orange,  per.ch,  and  cherry 
persuaded  us  upward  and  onward.  Soon  we 
arrived  at  the  oasis  and  heard  the  song  of  a 
tiny  brook,  and  soon  saw  small  gardens  and 
rude  stone  houses.  A  lad  met  us  and  gave  us 
some  cherries  which  tasted  like  apples.  The 
lovely  bulbuls  were  flitting  among  the  trees, 
and  regaled  us  with  their  sweet,  wild  notes,  and 
for  the  first  time  we  heard  the  plaintive  bleat 
of  a  baby  carnel.  Our  baggage  camels  had 
arrived  before  us  and  our  tents  had  been 
pitched  near  the  stream.  My  own  tent  door 
opened  upon  the  wide,  steep  Wady  Aleyat, 
which  is  lined  by  lofty  peaks  of  gneiss,  the 
varied  colors  and  eccentric  shapes  of  which 
reminded  me  of  the  fantastic  trickery  of  the 
kaleidoscope. 

We  were  among  the  relics  of  the  ancient 
city  of  Pharan,  or  Paran,  and  could  see  mo- 
nastic ruins  on  nearly  every  mountain  incline. 
Carefully  irrigated  palm  groves,  rice  fields, 
and  fruit  orchards  abounded,  and  all  were  in 
their  spring-time  glory.  We  saw  a  Bedouin 
gathering  manna.  We  could  see  the  very 
crags  upon  which  the  sentinels  stood,  whence, 
in  olden  times,  when  danger  approached, 
they  gave  the  alarm  to  their  fellow-towns- 
men below.  It  was  here  that  Mr.  George 
Ebers  placed  the  scene  of  his  charming  ro- 
mance "Homo  Sum." 

In  front  of  my  tent,  at  the  right,  I  could 
see  the  battle-field  where  Israel  contested  with 
Amalek  for  possession  of  the  very  stream 
which  was  singing  to  me  at  that  moment.  In 
the  distance  the  five  points  of  majestic  Serbal 
rose  far  above  the  intervening  mountains.  I 
was  "pitched  in  Rephidim,"  and  remained  four 
days.  The  points  of  interest  there  are  almost 
as  numerous  as  they  are  at  Mount  Sinai. 

The  ruined  houses  of  ancient  Pharan  are  all 
built  closely  together,  and  are  of  unquarried 
stone,  except  the  doorways.  Here  dwelt  the 
persecuted  Christians  and  those  who  came 
here  to  shun  the  temptations  of  the  world  by 
hiding  from  them. 

Near  by,  in  the  face  of  a  neighboring  jebel, 
or  mountain,  are  the  caves  of  the  anchorites. 
In  each  of  these  numerous  narrow  excava- 
tions, sheltered  only  by  the  low  stone  roof, once 
dwelt,  year  after  year,  a  man  whose  only  bed 
was  of  dried  herbs,  and  whose  only  garment 
was  a  sheepskin.  Men  who  had  grown  tired  of 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDER  XKSS. 


329 


the  world  came  here  to  carry  out  their  own 
independence  and  particular  mode  of  penance 
without  subjection  to  any  other  authority  than 
their  own  conscience.  Almost  every  rock 
lias  been  an  altar  or  has  echoed  the  amens 
of  an  anchorite.  From  the  fertile  plateau  an 


summit  of  the  mountain  affords  a  magnificent 
view  of  the  surrounding  country.  The  wadies 
which  encircle  it  are  as  level  as  a  race-course. 
Joshua  and  Amalek  could  have  pursued  one 
another  endlessly  there  but  for  the  uplifted 
hands  of  Moses. 


,'£ 


isolated  hillock  rises  which,  seen  from  a  height, 
looks  like  an  island  in  the  oasis.  On  its  top 
:ire  the  ruins  of  a  church  and  of  the  "  Ora- 
torium."  Lining  the  pathway  leading  to  the 
church  are  several  ruined  chapels.  This  isl- 
and, so  to  speak,  is  Jebel  El  Meharret — the 
"  Mountain  of  Moses." 

Here  Moses  was  stationed  during  the  battle 
of  Rephidim,  and  prayed  for  the  success  of 
Joshua  against  Amalek,  while  Aaron  and 
Hur  held  up  his  hands.  On  all  sides  are 
remains  of  the  walls  constructed  by  the  citi- 
zens of  Pharan  to  fortify  themselves  against 
the  attacks  of  the  marauding  Saracens.  The 


The  whole  battle  could  be  witnessed  by  the 
great  commander,  no  matter  at  which  side 
of  the  mountain  the  skirmishes  took  place. 
The  largest  space,  and  therefore  the  most  prob- 
able place,  is  on  the  side  towards  Mount  Ser- 
bal.  Close  by,  still  full  of  life  and  health  and 
good  cheer,  is  "  the  innocent  cause  of  the 
war,"  the  lovely  brook  which  waters  the  palm 
groves  and  gardens  of  Wady  Feiran. 

The  climb  to  the  highest  peak  of  Mount 
Serbal  is  avoided  by  many  tourists  because 
they  do  not  believe  it  is  the  true  Sinai,  or  be- 
cause it  is  too  laborious.  We  started  up  the 
wady  on  camels,  at  5:40  A.  M.  The  nearly 


33° 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


THE     ASCENT    OF    MOUNT     SERBAL. 


full  moon  was  still  shining,  and  bathed  with  a 
tender  radiance  the  rugged  cliffs.  Two  hours 
of  slow  winding  and  climbing  over  the  por- 
phyry-strewn path  brought  us  to  a  deep  ravine 
between  two  of  the  five  peaks  of  the  noble 
mountain.  There  we  dismounted  and  con- 
tinued the  ascent  on  foot. 

The  ascent  grew  more  and  more  difficult  — 
sometimes  almost  perpendicular.  After  much 
hard  work  a  crag  was  mastered  that  looked 
from  below  as  though  it  reached  the  clouds ;  but 


beyond  it  was  disclosed  another  height  more 
difficult  to  gain  and  more  dangerous  than  the 
first.  Finally  a  narrowing  of  the  gorge  was 
reached,  and  we  turned  about  to  obtain  a 
backward  view.  We  could  then  overlook 
many  of  the  points  referred  to,  and  see  the 
whole  line  of  the  Wady  Aleyat,  up  which  we 
came  on  our  camels.  Beyond  are  hundreds  of 
peaks,  over  whose  granite  shapes  narrow  lines 
of  red  porphyry  creep  like  enormous  serpents. 
At  the  left  was  a  bare  perpendicular  cliff,  fully 


SI.VAI  AND    THE  WILDERNESS. 


three  thousand  feet  high,  with  not  an  inch 
friendly  enough  to  offer  a  foothold.  The  sight 
was  appalling.  \\'e  now  turned  to  our  work 
again  and  clambered  on,  sometimes  on  all 
lours,  resting  wherever  a  hospitable  rock  of- 
fered us  shade.  Frequently  we  found  small 
quantities  of  ice  and  snow,  and  made  some 
iced  tea. 

At  last  the  summit  of  the  highest  peak  was 
gained.  So  clear  was  the  atmosphere  that  we 
could  overlook  almost  the  whole  of  the  Sinai 
peninsula.  ( )n  the  one  side  was  the  sea  where 
Pharaoh's  host  wrestled  with  the  returning 
waves.  On  the  other,  Solomon  had  sailed  his 
tieets.  On  the  south  side  the  "  Mountain  of 
the  Law  "  stood  forth,  and  I  know  not  how  far 
one  could  see  through  the  clear  atmosphere 
beyond.  There  seemed  to  be  hundreds  of 
mountains  in  view  sleeping  at  our  feet. 
Among  them  crept  the  light  serpentine  wadies 
innumerable,  including  those  we  had  traveled 
during  our  journey  from  Suez  and  the  ones 
we  must  follow  to  reach  Mount  Sinai  and 
Akabah.  It  was  down  towards  the  south 
where  Moses  lost  his  way. 

To  me  the  most  expansive  view  seemed  to 
be  towards  the  west,  where  the  line  of  the  Red 
Sea  glistened  like  a  silver  cord  bordered  by  the 
mountains  beyond,  ami  fringed  more  roughly 
by  a  line  on  this  side.  We  saw  the  two  cara- 
van routes  which  led  through  deep  and  stony 
gorges  to  the  sea,  and  through  which  pilgrims 
for  thousands  of  years  had  come  to  worship 
God;  they  were  sometimes  followed  by  na- 
tives of  the  peninsula  who  came  to  sacrifice 
to  their  gods  —  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  — 
upon  the  very  peak  where  my  camera  was 
placed.  Upon  the  same  height  great  beacon- 
fires  were  often  kindled  to  guide  and  warn  the 
mariners  of  both  seas.  It  is  still  called  "  El 
Madhavvwa  "  (light-house)  by  the  Arabs.  Si- 
naitic  inscriptions  are  plentiful  upon  the  rocks. 

Grand  as  the  views  are,  they  did  not  im- 
press me  as  much  as  those  obtained  at  the 
base  of  the  perpendicular  cliff  during  the  as- 
cent. Several  hours  were  occupied  with  rest- 
ing, work,  and  observation,  and  then,  reluc- 
tantly, the  perilous  descent  was  undertaken. 
Sometimes  a  rock  was  started  that  would  crash 
and  split  into  a  thousand  pieces  as  it  rolled. 
Hedayah  called  it "  a  good  Roman  road,"  but 
our  attendants  were  nearer  right  when  they 
named  it  "  the  road  of  the  sweater."  Just  as 
we  reached  our  waiting  camels  at  the  base,  the 
sun  was  again  playing  upon  the  five  points 
of  Serbal.  Then  the  light  went  out ;  the  wady 
grew  cool.  With  delight  we  hailed  the  rising 
moon,  for  then  our  sure-footed  camels  stepped 
with  more  confidence  and  we  felt  safer. 

Next  day,  at  7 : 30  A.  M.,  we  broke  camp  at 
Wady  Feiran.  The  gardens  and  groves  of 


the  oasis  continued  for  over  a  mile.  A  fellah 
was  seen  irrigating  the  land  with  an  Egyptian 
shadoof.  Flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  were 
numerous.  Frequently  the  Sinai  group  could 
be  seen  for  a  moment,  though  far  to  the  south. 
The  day  was  so  hot  that  \ve  did  not  venture 
to  pitch  our  lunch  tent  at  noon.  We  ate  and 
rested  beneath  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock, 
much  to  the  amazement  of  a  Bedouin  shep- 
herdess who  watched  us  on  the  sly. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  we  reached  two 
perpendicular  cliffs  about  sixty  feet  high  and 
only  a  few  feet  apart.  They  form  the  "  Gate 
of  Sinai."  About  6  p.  M.  we  arrived  at  a  point 
in  Wady  Hawa  where  we  expected  to  find 
our  tents  ready  for  the  night,  but  no  tents  were 
to  be  seen.  Abdullah  had  misunderstood  his 
master,  and  had  camped  in  a  more  distant 
wady  with  a  similar  name.  We  were  not  lost, 
but  our  tents  were,  and  it  took  three  hours 
of  tired  riding  to  discover  our  camp. 

We  reached  Nagb  Hawa  the  next  after- 
noon. (A  nagb  is  a  rough  mountain  pass, 
filled  with  rocky  debris  driven  down  by  the 
torrents  from  the  steep  inclines  on  either  side.) 
No  one  who  has  climbed  it  will  ever  complain 
that  "Jordan  is  a  hard  road  to  travel."  More- 
over, he  will  acknowledge  that  one  of  the 
greatest  blessings  accorded  the  murmuring 
children  of  Israel  was  that  "their  shoes  waxed 
not  old  upon  their  feet."  Frequently,  while  as- 
cending this  nagb,  it  was  more  comfortable 
for  us  to  dismount  and  walk.  It  was  more 
merciful  to  the  camels  too.  The  ascent  of 
Mount  Serbal  was  scarcely  more  difficult.  At 
times  the  way  seemed  almost  past  finding  out, 
and  a  "dead-lock"  occurred.  Trees  had 
grown  up  among  the  rocks  so  as  to  form  an 
impregnable  wall  in  places.  To  flank  these 
was  the  only  way  to  advance. 

At  one  point  we  found  a  tiny  spring  among 
the  juniper  bushes.  There  we  quenched  our 
thirst,  lunched,  and  photographed  the  welcome 
little  "  fountain."  Then  the  camels  came,  and 
drank  the  spring  dry.  Some  of  the  camel 
drivers  were  indignant  that  we  did  not  allow 
the  camels  to  have  all  the  water.  Long  before 
emerging  from  the  nagb,  while  climbing  its 
last  ascent,  the  isolated  group  of  mountains 
called  the  "true  Sinai"  loomed  up  in  the 
distance. 

It  does  not  seem  high,  because  it  was  yet 
half  hidden  from  our  view  by  the  intervening 
hill.  As  soon  as  this  hill  was  mastered  the 
plain  of  El  Raha,  or  "  Plain  of  Assemblage," 
came  into  full  view,  with  the  Sinai  range  at 
its  southern  extreme.  The  combination  was 
satisfying  —  convincing.  Here  was  the  one 
great  feature  the  want  of  which  prevented 
Mount  Serbal  from  contesting  for  the  honors 
of  Sinai.  There  is  no  plain  in  the  vicinity  of 


332 


SINAI  AND    THE  WILDERNESS. 


Serbal  extensive 
enough  to  ac- 
commodate an 
assemblage  as 
large  as  Moses 
led.  But  here  is 
a  vast  plateau  of 
sufficient  extent, 
and,  as  we  shall 
presently  see 
when  we  view  it 
from  Mount  Sinai 
summit,  so  lo- 


driver,  sat  down  beside  me.  He  hardly  seemed 
to  understand  my  actions,  and  at  last  inter- 
rupted my  reverie  by  exclaiming,  as  he  pointed 
to  the  lofty  group,  "  Jebel  Mousa — Tayeeb !  " 
("  Mountain  of  Moses — good!")  He  also  rev- 
erenced it,  for  he  was  a  Mohammedan. 

What  impresses  the  American  traveler  most 
sensibly  here  is  the  fact  that  although  mountains 
abound,  and  stream-beds  are  more  plenty  than 
in  our  own  White  Hills,  a  cascade  or  a  water- 
fall is  never  heard.  When  the  rains  fall,  the 
water  rolls  down  these  bare,  rough  diagonals 
uninterrupted,  and  empties  into  the  wadies, 


3RKING    THE    ELEVATOR. 


•:  3 


" 

THE    WAY    INTO    THE    CONVENT    IN 
TIME    OF    TROUBLE. 


cated  that  Moses 
could  overlook  it 
all  when  he  read 
the  Law.  This 
must  be  the  "true 
Sinai," — the  very 
mountain  upon 
which  the  glory 
of  the  Lord  rest- 
ed in  the  sight  of 
the  people.  When 
facing  its  awful, 
stately  grandeur, 
I  felt  as  if  I  had 
come  to  the  end 
of  the  world. 
How  many  pil- 
grims had  come 
from  all  parts  of 
the  earth  to  this 
very  spot  to  rev- 
erence, to  sacri- 
fice, and  to  wor- 
ship ! 

I  dismounted 
to  contemplate 
the  sublime  pan- 
orama, and  Eli- 
huel,  my  camel 


which  in  turn  impetuously  roll  the  torrents  into 
the  sea  with  great  speed,  before  the  parched 
earth  has  time  to  absorb  more  than  a  mere 
surface  supply. 

What  a  surprise,  then,  when,  arrived  at  the 
highest  ridge  of  the  vast  plateau  of  Er  Raha, 
to  see  a  bright  oasis  full  of  trees  laden  with 
the  rich  blossoms  of  spring,  backed  by  the 
strange,  contrasting,  gloomy  walls  of  the  Con- 
vent of  Saint  Catherine.  No  location  could 
be  more  charming — in  the  narrowing  valley, 
nestled  at  the  feet  of  the  closely  protecting 
mountains.  Upon  the  highest  ramparts  are 
set  both  the  cannon  and  the  cross.  It  was 
both  castle  and  convent  we  were  approaching. 
More  than  once  the  inmates  have  been  obliged 
to  defend  themselves  against  the  marauder. 
At  one  time  every  monk  was  massacred.  Since 
then  more  care  has  been  exercised.  We  were 
obliged  to  prove  our  friendship  before  we  could 
gain  admittance.  We  could  not  even  encamp 
in  the  neighborhood  until  our  credentials  were 
examined  and  approved. 

Arriving  at  the  convent  wall  we  sent  up  a 
shout  to  the  top.  In  the  course  of  time  the 
voice  of  a  monk  sent  down  a  squeaky  response. 
To  a  point  near  the  top  of  the  wall  a  tiny 
structure  shaped  like  a  dog-kennel  is  attached. 
From  this  a  small  rope  was  let  down,  to  which 


.s/.V.l/  ,I.Y/)    Till:    \\ILDERNESS. 


333 


we  attached  our  finnan,  or  letter  of  introduc- 
tion, obtained  at  the  branch  institution  at 
Suez.  This  was  hauled  up  slowly  and  soon 
answered  by  a  great  noise  in  the  aerial  kennel. 
Then  a  thick  cable  was  lowered  to  us  and  we 


and  pounded  upon  by  mallets  to  call  the  de- 
vout monks  to  prayer. 

At  the  left  of  the  campanile  is  a  Mohamme- 
dan mosque,  suffered  here  to  pacify  the  Bed- 
ouins, but  not  used.  Under  the  curious  roofs 


were  asked  to  "  Get  in  and  come  up."  But  the 
low  gate  in  the  wall  was  swung  open  at  that 
moment,  and  we  chose  to  enter  the  convent  by 
it  rather  than  to  go  up  by  cable. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  quarters  of  the  su- 
perior we  saw  that  the  cable  was  not  let  down 
hand  over  hand,  but  that  a  clumsy  windlass, 
worked  and  turned  by  Bedouin  serfs,  was  the 
power  behind  the  throne.  The  combination  is 
believed  to  be  the  first  passenger  elevator  in 
the  world. 

From  the  veranda  near  the  "  lift "  a  fine 
view  of  the  convent  buildings  outside  the 
walls  was  had.  On  the  right  is  the  chapel,  with 
its  lead  roof,  built  more  than  1300  years  ago. 
Near  it  is  a  modern  campanile,  reminding  one 
of  Venice.  Several  bells  hang  in  it,  but  their 
ringing  irritates  the  Bedouins,  so  beams  of 
hard,  sonorous  wood  are  swung  from  ropes 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 48. 


of  other  buildings  are  the  living-rooms  of  the 
monks.  From  the  several  verandas  open  the 
dormitories.  A  waggish  sort  of  uncertainty 
prevails  in  the  architecture. 

The  plain  of  Er  Raha  lies  on  the  north  in 
full  view  from  the  superior's  piazza.  On  the 
left,  or  west,  is  the  "  Mount  of  God  and  of 
Moses."  It  seems  as  though  no  semblance 
of  humanity  should  remain  in  a  place  made 
sacred  by  so  many  holy  associations,  but  the 
convent  is  inhabited  by  about  sixty  monks 
varying  in  grades  of  sanctity.  Nine  of  them 
yielded  to  our  camera.  A  beardless  youth  af- 
forded us  considerable  amusement.  Repeat- 
edly he  came  to  me,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  and 
begged  for  some  recipe  to  make  his  beard 
grow.  He  said  that  he  would  not  be  allowed 
to  read  chapel  service  until  he  had  a  beard ; 
that  nearly  all  the  monks  but  him  had  beards, 


334 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


but  God  withheld  the  boon  from  him.  It 
looked  to  me  like  a  case  of  soap  and  water; 
but  I  desired  to  be  charitable,  and  suggested  a 
remedy,  for  which  he  gave  me  his  benediction. 
Few  places  are  more  interesting  than  the  in- 
terior of  the  chapel  of  the  convent.  Ever  since 
the  time  of  Justinian  royal  pilgrimages  have 


been  made  to  it,  and  many  a  costly  offering 
has  been  left  behind.  Hanging  here  is  one 
of  the  most  valuable  collections  of  lamps  in 
the  world,  of  gold  and  silver,  richly  jeweled. 
Screens  of  "  crazy-quilt "  wrought  by  queenly 
hands  adorn  the  altar,  while  candelabra  of 
richest  bronze  stand  on  either  side ;  the  stalls 
are  curiously  carved;  the  mosaic  floor  is  of 
Roman  richness;  an  old  pendulum  clock  is 
here  which  has  clicked  since  the  time  of  Gali- 
leo; paintings  and  architectural  decorations 
all  attest  to  the  wealth  of  those  who  have  wor- 
shiped here.  In  the  rear  of  the  chapel  is  "  the 
scene  of  the  burning  bush,"  backed  by  a  rock, 
through  a  rift  in  which  the  sun  enters  a  sin- 
gle cheerful  gleam  but  once  a  year.  In  the 
next  room,  in  an  alabaster  sarcophagus,  lie 
the  remains  of  St.  Catherine. 

The  chapel  services  are  frequent  and  exact- 
ing, often  requiring  the  monks  to  be  present 
in  the  small  hours  of  the  night.  Nasal  intona- 
tions, uneasy  undulations,  and  incense-swing- 
ing make  up  the  cheerless  performance. 

Many  valuable  books  and  manuscript  cop- 
ies of  the  Scriptures  are  in  the  convent  library. 
The  superior  has  been  very  chary  of  these 
since  Tischendorf  got  away  the  manuscript 
of'  the  Codex  Sinaiticus.  I  found  a  copy  of 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


335 


the  famous  "  Book  of  the  Gospels,"  dating 
from  the  time  of  Theoclosius  II.,  A.  I).  766. 
The  whole  work  was  written  in  Greek  letter^ 


The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  ascend  Mount 
Sinai.  There  are  three  or  four  routes,  all  of 
\\  hich  are  full  of  interest.  We  were  led  by  one 


with  gold  on  parchment.    The  cover  was  of    of  the  monks.    The  fraternity  had  construe  ted 
metal.    Colored  portraits  of  the  apostles  em-    a  rude  stone  stairway  part  of  the  distance. 


. 


PLAIN    OF    ASSEMBLAGE,    FROM    THE    CONVENT. 


bellished  it,  with  backgrounds  of  burnished 
gold.  I  asked  the  privilege  of  photographing 
some  of  the  pages,  but  the  superior  said,  "  i 
cannot  allow  it  to  go  out  of  my  hands." 

"  Very  well,  then,"  I  said  ;  "  bring  it  out  into 
the  light  of  the  r.ourt  and  hold  it  in  your  hands 
while  I  photograph  it." 

He  generously  assented  to  this,  and  I  thus  se- 
cured two  pages  of  the  precious  Codex  Aureus. 


which  out  of  respect  for  them  we  followed. 
The  morning  was  glorious.  We  started  early, 
that  we  might  have  the  help  of  the  clear,  cool, 
sweet  air  in  climbing  the  heights  before  the 
merciless  Asiatic  sun  had  so  shortened  the  shad- 
ows as  to  deprive  us  of  any  protection  by  them. 
After  twenty  minutes  the  old  "  Shrive  Gate" 
was  reached.  Here  in  former  days  the  pil- 
grims partook  of  the  sacrament,  received  ab- 


336 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


solution,  and  a  certificate  of  church  standing 
which  enabled  them  to  pass  the  second  gate 
unchallenged.  This  shrive  service  was  ren- 
dered for  many  years  by  an  old  monk  whose 
devotion  won  for  him  the  name  of  "  Saint 
Stephen."  His  skeleton  is  preserved  promi- 
nent among  the  bones  of  his  brethren  in  the 
crypt  near  the  garden  gate. 


party,  during  my  stay  in  the  neighborhood, 
preferred,  "  for  the  sake  of  novelty,"  to  live  in 
the  convent  rather  than  in  tents.  When  they 
made  their  departure  they  assured  me  that  they 
had  had  plenty  of  novelty,  including  a  start- 
ling abundance  that  seemed  to  prove  that  the 
good  work  of  the  Virgin  was  intended  for  a 
former  time. 


'THE  BOOK  OF  THE  GOSPELS,"  KEPT  IN  THE  CONVENT. 


The  crags  and  peaks  which  now  came  into 
view  ahead  and  on  every  side  were  all  the  more 
impressive  because  the  sun  had  not  yet  pene- 
trated the  shadows.  In  one  shady  place 
we  found  a  small  spring  called  "  Jethro's 
Well,"  but  not  believed  to  be  the  "  true"  well. 
The  monks  have  arranged  so  many  "  holy" 
places  convenient  to  their  convent  that  one 
may  have  the  privilege  of  making  a  selection. 

At  this  point  I  turned  and  looked  down  the 
gorge  we  had  been  climbing,  when  a  most 
startling  view  rewarded  me.  On  each  side 
were  the  dark  walls  of  the  ravine.  In  full  view 
below  was  the  monastery,  and  the  mountains 
east  covered  with  the  glory  of  the  morning 
sun.  The  coloring  was  superb.  I  could  not 
reproduce  it  by  my  art,  but  I  caught  the  light 
and  shade. 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  "  Chapel  of  the 
Virgin  "  was  reached.  It  is  a  small,  homely 
structure  of  granite,  and  was  erected  by  the 
grateful  monks  in  honor  of  the  occasion  when 
the  Virgin  relieved  the  convent  perpetually 
from  a  plague  of  fleas.  Another  American 


The  second  gateway  was  reached  just  as  the 
god  of  day  flamed  his  ruddy  glow  up  the  ravine 
at  our  left.  It  scarcely  changed  the  gray  old 
stones  of  the  massive  gateway,  but  through  its 
arch  we  saw  a  wondrous  display  of  shape  and 
color.  At  this  gate  the  ancient  pilgrim  pre- 
sented the  credentials  received  from  Saint 
Stephen.  Then,  with  sins  absolved  and  heart 
full  of  new  resolves  for  the  future,  he  was 
allowed  to  pass  and  to  finish  his  journey  to 
the  summit  of  the  "  holy  Mount  of  Moses." 

Two  little  chapels  erected  in  memory  of  the 
prophets  Elisha  and  Elijah  are  next  reached. 
In  one  the  grotto  where  Elijah  hid  after  he  had 
slain  the  priests  of  Baal  is  shown.  Near  at 
hand  is  a  depression  in  a  rock,  in  shape  resem- 
bling a  camel's  track.  "  It  is  the  foot-mark  of 
the  camel  of  Mohammed,  made  when  ascend- 
ing to  heaven  with  his  master  on  his  back." 

Climbing  on  amidst  the  natural  glories  which 
surrounded  us,  we  came  to  the  "  true  well  of 
Jethro."  A  tiny  oasis  surrounded  it,  where 
some  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  were  grazing. 
These  made  a  realistic  picture,  and  called  to 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


337 


'•"•:' 


THE    ASCENT    OF    MOL'NT    SINAI. 


mind  the  Bible  story  of  the  gallant  young  fugitive 
from  Pharaonic  justice  who  came  here  and  drove 
away  the  Arab  shepherds  that  annoyed  the  daughters 
of  Jethro  while  they  were  watering  their  flocks.   And 
here  it  must  have  been  that  Moses  wooed  Zipporah  and 
won  her  Arab  heart.    Surely  it  was  a  charming  trysting- 
place  for  patriarchal  lovers,  and  even  now  is  the  beauty- 
spot  of  the  climb,  kept  fresh  and  lovely  as  it  is  by  the  peren- 
nial snows  of  the  sacred  mountain. 

Only  the  rugged  beauties  of  nature  allured  during  the  next  half- 
hour.    The  hardest  climbing  of  all  followed,  for  the  blazing  sun 
was  full  upon  us  at  the  left. 

At  last  the  summit  of  Jebel  Mousa,  the  "  Mount  of  God  and 
of  Moses,"  was  reached,  and  we  could  look  beyond. 

In  the  Smaitic  group  there  are  three  points  which  are  claimed 
to  be  the  true  spot  where  Moses  met  Jehovah  and  received  the 
tablets  of  the  Law.   These  are  the  summits  of  "  Jebel  Mousa," 
"Jebel  Katherina,"  and  "Jebel  Sufsafeh."    On  the  summit  of 
Jebel  Mousa  is  a  rudechapeland  arudermosque,bothof  stone. 
Neither  would  afford  much  protection  to  a  traveler  during  a 
mountain  storm.    Any  one  of  the  three  caves  under  the 
rocks  shown  as  "  the  true  cave  where  Moses  hid  when 
Jehovah  passed  by  "  would  be  safer.  One  of  these  caves 
is  triangular  in  shape,  and  is  located  near  the  chapel. 

The  summit  of  Jebel  Mousa  is  7359  feet  above  sea 
level,  anil  2360  feet  higher  than  the  convent.  It  requires 
3000  steps  to  reach  it.   Jebel  Katherina  is  8526  feet 
high,  and  more  alpine  in  its  character  than  its  rivals. 
From  all  of  them  the  views  are  glorious.    But  the 
view  from  Jebel   Mousa  is  disappointing,  for  the 
same  reason  that  Jebel  Serbal's  outlook  is  —  there 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


THE    CONVENT,     FROM    MOUNT    SINAI. 


is  no  plain  in  sight  where  Israel  could  have  had 
room  to  assemble.  The  view  from  Jebel  Kath- 
erina  is  alike  unsatisfactory.  Let  us  make  an 
observation  from  the  summit  of  Jebel  Sufsafeh. 
To  obtain  it  we  retraced  our  steps  as  far  as 
Jethro's  Well  and  then  entered  a  \vady  to  the 
left.  Two  small  ravines  were  crossed  when  a 
third  and  deeper  one  was  found,  wherein  a  rude 
chapel  stands,  partly  shaded  by  a  small  willow- 
tree.  From  this  tree  the  peak  we  are  about  to 
ascend  takes  its  name —  Ras  es  Sufsafeh  (the 
"  Mount  of  the  Willow").  Climbing  the  steep 
and  rocky  gorge  ascending  from  the  tree,  we 
gained  the  summit  of  Sufsafeh.  From  that 
standpoint  one  mighty  prospect  of  barren 
peaks  is  presented,  bounded  only  by  the  desert 
and  the  seas ;  and  there,  at  the  foot  of  the 


mountain,  lies  a  vast  plateau  —  the  plain  of  Er 
Raha.  It  must  be  the  "  Plain  of  Assemblage," 
and  it  must  be  that  this  is  the  "  Mount  of  God 
and  of  Moses." 

I  could  hear  the  voices  of  the  natives  liv- 
ing in  the  tiny  oasis  at  the  base,  more  than  a 
mile  away. 

The  beauty  of  the  scene  is  very  great.  No 
accessories  of  snow  or  river  or  foliage  are 
there,  and  none  are  needed  —  nor  distance  — 
to  "lend  enchantment  to  the  view."  Would 
that  I  could  picture  what  I  saw !  The  rugged 
"  Rock  of  Moses"  lay  at  my  feet,  as  black  as 
the  shadow  at  its  side.  Across  the  plain,  on 
each  side,  the  crag-crowned  mountains  were 
glowing  with  streams  of  ruby  color.  Nature 
seemed  preparing  for  some  great  spectacle. 


S/N.-U  AXD    Till-.    \\-If.DERNESS. 


339 


PLAIN    OF    ASSEMBLAGE,     FROM    THE    ROCK    OF    MOSES. 


The  horizon  was  submerged  in  a  molten  sea 
of  flame,  while  the  sea,  now  blue,  now  green, 
now  golden,  now  as  red  as  blood,  was  all  in  a 
tremor.  Now  gray  veils  of  misty  fabric  began 
to  rise  from  the  shadowed  plain,  moving  to 
and  fro  like  specters.  Then  the  solid  amethyst 
of  the  western  sky  was  rent,  and  stripes  of  tur- 
quoise were  discovered  between.  There  was 
not  a  sound.  Quickly,  as  though  by  the  deft 
turning  of  some  mighty  wheel,  the  glorious  col- 
oring disappeared.  Not  even  the  sea  could  be 
discerned.  The  lights  went  out.  The  meta- 
morphosis was  hastened,  the  after-glow  was 
shortened,  by  the  prompt  appearance  of  the 
pale  Arabian  moon.  Its  soft  light  seemed  to 
have  no  influence  over  the  deeper  hollows  and 
shadows,  for  the  blackness  of  night,  now  spread 
over  them,  was  too  closely  set  for  such  gentle 
persuasion. 

Hut  the  glorious  peaks  about  us  were  clothed 
in  a  new  attire.  Catching  the  mellow  light  as 
it  arose,  half  their  height  was  submerged  by 
the  fog.  Like  a  sea  of  silver  it  caught  the  light, 
and  reminded  me  of  a  tented  field,  or  of  toss- 


ing mounds  of  snow  as  I  have  seen  them  from 
Mount  Washington  in  winter.  Who  wonders 
at  the  wild  fancies  of  a  people  whose  home  is 
amidst  such  scenes  ? 

How  reluctantly  I  gave  up  my  seat  on  the 
"  Rock  of  Moses! "  Again  and  again  I  turned 
to  look  upon  the  glories  surrounding,  and  then 
descended  to  my  tent. 

An  after-visit  was  made  to  the  willow-tree ; 
and  then,  instead  of  descending  by  the  monks' 
stone  stairway,  we  followed  the  gorge  down 
the  side  of  Jebel  Sufsafeh  opposite  to  the  one 
from  which  we  saw  the  "  Plain  of  Assemblage." 

Then  I  secured  an  isolated  view  of  the 
summit  of  Jebel  Sufsafeh  from  its  eastern  side. 
This  proved  a  prize.  On  the  right  of  the  fore- 
ground a  great  mass  of  rocky  debris  was  caught, 
which  had  thundered  down  from  the  steep  in- 
clines, no  one  could  tell  me  when.  The  monks 
say,  "  when  the  golden  calf  was  broken."  To 
the  left,  beneath  a  pile  of  huge  rocks,  is  the 
largest  spring  in  the  Sinai  district.  It  is  also 
called  "Jethro's  Well."  I  found  its  brink 
fringed  with  a  growth  of  maidenhair  fern  as 


340 


SINAI  AND    THE   WILDERNESS. 


green  and  lovely  as  any  I  had  ever  gathered 
in  the  Colosseum  or  in  the  White  Mountains. 
In  the  distance  is  Jebel  Sufsafeh.  Between 


Hill  of  the  Golden  Calf,"  is  located.  With- 
out a  single  trumpet-blast  to  warn  them,  the 
noisy  idolaters  were  destroyed  by  the  torrents 


the  two  peaks  is  "  the  very  ravine  down  which    which  came  down,  or  were  buried  under  the 
Moses  and   Joshua  were  picking  their  way    confusion  of  rocks  which  followed. 


FAS-SUFSAFEH,    FROM    AARG 


when  they  heard  the  shouts  of  the  worshipers 
of  the  golden  calf  come  up  from  the  base  of 
the  mountain."  Joshua,  soldier  that  he  was, 
declared  they  were  as  the  sounds  of  war. 
Moses,  with  a  clearer  knowledge  of  humanity, 
knew  better,  and  was  so  overcome  that  he 
dashed  the  tablets  of  the  Law  upon  the  rocks. 
The  monks  aver  that  it  was  at  the  very 
spring  I  have  described  that  this  scene  of  just 
and  mighty  wrath  took  place.  Here  the  forked 
lightning  flashed  from  the  hands  of  Jehovah. 
It  tore  open  the  earth,  twisted  and  turned  the 
veins  of  steel-hard  diorite  as  though  they  were 
but  ribbons  of  green,  fissured  the  great  cliffs 
of  granite  and  poured  into  them  from  the 
bursted  arteries  of  rough,  red  porphyry,  and 
sent  the  streams  boiling  and  seething  like  hot 
lava  to  the  base,  where  "Aaron's  Hill,"  or  the 


The  monks  tell  us  further  that  "  Moses  and 
Joshua  were  directed  by  Jehovah  to  stay  be- 
neath the  great  rocks  which  cover  '  Jethro's 
Well '  until  his  mighty  wrath  had  subsided, 
and  that  since  then  the  supply  of  water  has 
not  failed."  To  all  of  these  places  the  ages  of 
monks  have  had  abundance  of  time  to  fasten 
some  tradition.  "  Aaron's  Hill "  is  also  rev- 
erenced by  the  Bedouins,  who  come  once  a 
year  to  the  little  chapel  on  its  summit  to  sacri- 
fice a  camel. 

The  Sinai  mountains  and  their  wild  sur- 
roundings seem  to  be  just  as  the  Book  de- 
scribes them  —  as  the  Great  Architect  con- 
structed them.  No  change  appears  to  have 
taken  place  since  the  followers  of  Moses 
made  their  departure  for  the  Promised  Land. 

Edward  L.  Wilson. 


[BEGV.V  /.V  Till:  .\01'K.\1L:ER  .\UM£EK.} 


THE   GRAYSONS:    A   STORY    OF    ILLINOIS.' 


BY    EDWARD    EGGLESTOX, 
Author  of  "  Tiie  Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  "The  Circuit  Rider,"  "  Roxy,"  etc. 


XXVII. 


LIGHT    IN   A    DARK    PLACE. 


have  had  a  stack  of  law-books  in  front  of  him, 
as  a  sort  of  dam  against  the  flood.  But  Lin- 
coln had  neither  law-books  nor  so  much  as  a 

people  who  had  seats  scrap  of  pa]  >er. 

:he  court-room  were,  for  The  prosecuting  attorney,  with  a  taste  for 
the  most  part,  too  wise  in  climaxes,  reserved  his  chief  witness  to  the  last, 
their  generation  to  vacate  Even  now  he  was  not  ready  to  call  Sovine. 
them  during  the  noon  re-  He  would  add  one  more  stone  to  the  pyramid 
cess.  Jake  Hogan  clam-  of  presumptive  proof  before  he  capped  it  all 
bered  down  from  his  un-  with  certainty.  Markham  was  therefore  put 
comfortable  window-roost  up  to  identify  the  old  pistol  which  he  had 
for  a  little  while,  and  Bob  McCord  took  a  found  in  Tom's  room.  Lincoln  again  waived 
plunge  into  the  grateful  fresh  air,  but  both  got  cross-examination.  Blackmail  felt  certain  that 
back  in  time  to  secure  their  old  points  of  ob-  he  himself  could  have  done  better.  He  men- 
servation.  The  lawyers  came  back  early,  and  tally  constructed  the  questions  that  should  have 
long  before  the  judge  returned  the  ruddy-faced  been  put  to  the  deputy  sheriff.  Was  the  pistol 
Magill  was  seated  behind  his  little  desk,  fac-  hot  when  you  found  it  ?  Did  it  smell  of  pow- 
ing  the  crowd  and  pretending  to  write.  He  der?  Did  the  family  make  any  objection  to 
was  ill  at  ease;  the  heart  of  the  man  had  gone  your  search?  —  Even  if  the  judge  had  ruled  out 
out  to  Tom.  He  never  for  a  moment  doubted  such  questions  the  jury  would  have  heard  the 
that  Tom  killed  Lockwood,  but  then  a  sneak  questions,  and  a  question  often  has  weight  in 
like  Lockwood  "  richly  desarved  it,"  in  Ma-  spite  of  rulings  from  the  bench.  The  pros- 
gill's  estimation.  Judge  Watkins's  austere  face  ecuting  attorney  began  to  feel  sure  of  his 
assumed  a  yet  more  severe  expression;  for  own  case;  he  had  come  to  his  last  witness 
though  pity  never  interfered  with  justice  in  his  and  his  great  stroke. 

nature,  it  often  rendered  the  old  man  unhappy,  "  Call  David  Sovine,"  he  said,  wiping  his 

and  therefore  more  than  usually  irascible.  brow  and  looking  relieved. 

There  was  a  painful  pause  after  the  judge  "David   Sovine!    David    Sovine!    David 

had  taken  his  seat  and  ordered  the  prisoner  Sovine!"  cried  the  sheriff  in  due  and  ancient 

brought  in.    It  was  like  a  wait  before  a  fu-  form,  though  David  sat  almost  within  whis- 

neral  service,  but  rendered  ten  times  more  pering  distance  of  him. 

distressing  by  the  element  of  suspense.  The  The  witness  stood  up. 


judge's  quill  pen  could  be  heard  scratching 
on   the   paper   as   he    noted   points   for  his 


"  Ho  wld  up  your  roight  hand,"  said  the  clerk. 
Then  when  Dave's  right  hand  was  up  Ma- 


charge  to  the  jury.      To  Hiram  Mason  the  gill  rattled  off  the  form  of  the  oath  in  the  most 

whole  trial  was  unendurable.  The  law  had  the  approved  and  clerkly  style,  only  adding  to  its 

aspect  of  a  relentless  boa-constrictor,  slowly  effect  by  the  mild  brogue  of  his  pronunciation, 

winding  itself  about  Tom,  while  all  these  spec-  "Do  sol'm  swear  't  yull  tell  th' truth,  th' 

tators,  with  merely  a  curious  interest  in  the  hor-  'ole  truth,  en  nuthin'  b'  th'  truth,  s'  yilpye 

rible,  watched  the  process.  The  deadly  creature  God,"  said  the  clerk,  without  once  pausing  for 

had  now  to  make  but  one  more  coil,  and  then,  breath. 

in  its  cruel  and  deliberate  fashion,  it  would  Sovine  ducked  his  head  and  dropped  his 

proceed  to  tighten  its  twists  until  the  poor  hand,  and  the  solemnity  was  over, 

boy  should  be  done  to  death.    Barbara  and  Dave,  who  was  evidently  not  accustomed  to 

the  mother  were  awfully  entwined  by  this  fate  stand  before  such  a  crowd,  appeared  embar- 

as  well,  while  Hiram  had  not  a  little  finger  rassed.    He  had  deteriorated  in  appearance 

of  help  for  them.    He  watched  Lincoln  as  he  lately.    His  patent-leather  shoes  were  bright 

took  seat  in  moody  silence.   Why  had  the  as  ever,  his  trousers  were  trimly  held  down  by 

lawyer   not   done   anything   to  help   Tom  ?  straps,  his  hair  was  well  kept  in  place  by  bear's 

Any  other  lawyer  with  a  desperate  case  would  oil  or  what  was  sold  for  bear's  oil,  but  there 

*  Copyright,  1887,  by  Edward  Eggleston.     All  rights  reserved. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 49-50. 


342 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


was  a  nervousness  in  his  expression  and  car- 
riage that  gave  him  the  air  of  a  man  who  has 
been  drinking  to  excess.  Tom  looked  at  him 
with  defiance,  but  Dave  was  standing  at  the 
right  of  the  judge,  while  the  prisoner's  dock 
was  on  the  left,  and  the  witness  did  not  regard 
Tom  at  all,  but  told  his  story  with  clearness. 
Something  of  the  bold  assurance  which  he  dis- 
played at  the  inquest  was  lacking.  His  coarse 
face  twitched  and  quivered,  and  this  appeared 
to  annoy  him ;  he  sought  to  hide  it  by  an  af- 
fectation of  nonchalance,  as  he  rested  his 
weight  now  on  one  foot  and  now  on  the 
other. 

"Do  you  know  the  prisoner?"  asked  the 
prosecutor,  with  a  motion  of  his  head  toward 
the  dock. 

"  Yes,  well  enough  ";  but  in  saying  this  Dave 
did  not  look  toward  Tom,  but  out  of  the  win- 
dow. 

"You  've  played  cards  with  him,  have  n't 
you  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Tell  his  Honor  and  the  jury  when  and 
where  you  played  with  him." 

"  We  played  one  night  last  July,  in  Wooden 
&  Snyder's  store." 

"  Who  proposed  to  Tom  to  play  with  you  ?  " 

"  George  Lockwood.  He  hollered  up  the 
stove-pipe  for  Tom  to  come  down  an'  take  a 
•  game  or  two  with  me." 

"  What  did  you  win  that  night  from  Tom  ?  " 

"  Thirteen  dollars,  an'  his  hat  an'  coat  an' 
boots,  an'  his  han'ke'chi'f  an'  knife." 

"  Who,  if  anybody,  lent  him  the  money  to 
get  back  his  things  which  you  had  won  ?  " 

"  George  Lockwood." 

Here  the  counsel  paused  a  moment,  laid 
down  a  memorandum  he  had  been  using,  and 
looked  about  his  table  until  he  found  another; 
then  he  resumed  his  questions. 

"Tell  the  jury  whether  you  were  at  the 
Timber  Creek  camp-meeting  on  the  gth  of 
August." 

"  Yes;   I  was." 

"  What  did  you  see  there  ?  Tell  about  the 
shooting." 

Dave  told  the  story,  with  a  little  prompt- 
ing in  the  way  of  questions  from  the  law- 
yer, substantially  as  he  had  told  it  at  the 
coroner's  inquest.  He  related  his  parting  from 
Lockwood,  Tom's  appearance  on  the  scene, 
Tom's  threatening  speech,  Lockwood's  en- 
treaty that  Tom  would  not  shoot  him,  and 
then  Tom's  shooting.  In  making  these  state- 
ments Dave  looked  at  the  stairway  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  court-room  with  an  air  of  entire 
indifference,  and  he  even  made  one  or  two 
efforts  to  yawn,  as  though  the  case  was  a 
rather  dull  affair  to  him. 

"How  far  away  from  Grayson  and  Lcck- 


wood  were  you  when  the  shooting  took 
place  ?  "  asked  the  prosecutor. 

"  Twenty  foot  or  more." 

"  What  did  Tom  shoot  with  ?  " 

"  A  pistol." 

"  What  kind  of  a  pistol  ?  " 

"One  of  the  ole-fashion'  sort  —  flint-lock, 
weth  a  ruther  long  barrel." 

The  prosecuting  lawyer  now  beckoned  to 
the  sheriff,  who  handed  down  to  him,  from  off 
his  high  desk,  Tom's  pistol. 

"  Tell  the  jury  whether  this  looks  like  the 
pistol." 

"  'T  was  just  such  a  one  as  that.  I  can't  say 
't  was  that,  but  it  was  hung  to  the  stock  like 
that,  an'  about  as  long  in  the  barrel." 

"  What  did  Grayson  do  when  he  had  shot 
George,  and  what  did  you  do?  " 

"  Tom  run  off  as  fast  as  his  feet  could  carry 
him,  an'  I  went  up  towards  George,  who  'd  fell 
over.  He  was  dead  ag'inst  I  could  get  there. 
Then  purty  soon  the  crowd  come  a-runnin' 
up  to  see  what  the  shootin'  was." 

After  bringing  out  some  further  details 
Allen  turned  to  his  opponent  with  an  air  of 
confidence  and  said  : 

"You  can  have  the  witness,  Mr.  Lincoln." 

There  was  a  brief  pause,  during  which  the 
jurymen  changed  their  positions  on  the  hard 
seats,  making  a  liltle  rustle  as  they  took  their 
right  legs  from  off  their  left  and  hung  their  left 
legs  over  their  right  knees,  or  vice  versa.  In 
making  these  changes  they  looked  inquiringly 
at  one  another,  and  it  was  clear  that  their 
minds  were  so  well  made  up  that  even  a 
judge's  charge  in  favor  of  the  prisoner,  if  such 
a  thing  had  been  conceivable,  would  have 
gone  for  nothing.  Lincoln  at  length  rose 
slowly  from  his  chair,  and  stood  awhile  in 
silence,  regarding  Sovine,  who  seemed  excited 
and  nervous,  and  who  visibly  paled  a  little  as 
his  eyes  sought  to  escape  from  the  lawyer's 
gaze. 

"  You  said  you  were  with  Lockwood  just 
before  the  shooting  ?  "  the  counsel  asked. 

"  Yes."  Dave  was  all  alert  and  answered 
promptly. 

"  Were  you  not  pretty  close  to  him  when 
he  was  shot?" 

"  No,  I  was  n't,"  said  Dave,  his  suspicions 
excited  by  this  mode  of  attack.  It  appeared 
that  the  lawyer,  for  some  reason,  wanted  to 
make  him  confess  to  having  been  nearer 
to  the  scene  and  perhaps  implicated,  and  he 
therefore  resolved  to  fight  off. 

"  Are  you  sure  you  were  as  much  as  ten 
feet  away  ?  " 

"  I  was  more  than  twenty,"  said  Dave, 
huskily. 

"  What  had  you  and  George  Lockwood 
been  doing  together  ?  " 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


343 


"  We  'd  been  —  talking."  Manifestly  Dave 
took  fresh  alarm  at  this  line  of  questioning. 

"  Oh,  you  had  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  In  a  friendly  way  ?  " 

"  Yes,  tubby  shore;  we  never  had  any  fuss." 

"  You  parted  from  him  as  a  friend  ?  " 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

•'  My  the  time  Tom  came  up  you  'd  got  — 
how  far  away  ?  Be  careful  now." 

"  I  've  told  you  twiste.  More  than  twenty 
feet." 

"  You  might  have  been  mistaken  about  its 
being  Tom  then  ?  " 

"  No,  I  was  n't." 

"  Did  you  know  it  was  Tom  before  he 
fired?" 

"Tubby  shore,  I  did." 

"  What  time  of  night  was  it  ?  " 

"  Long  towards  10,  I  sh'd  think." 

"  It  might  have  been  1 1  ?  " 

"No,  't  wus  n't  later  'n  about  10."  This 
was  said  doggedly. 

"  Nor  before  9  ?  " 

"  No,  't  wus  nigh  onto  10, 1  said."  And  the 
witness  showed  some  irritation,  and  spoke 
louder  than  before. 

"  How  far  away  were  you  from  the  pulpit 
and  meeting-place  ?  " 

"  Twixt  a  half  a  mile  an'  a  mile." 

"  Not  over  a  mile  ?  " 

"  No,  skiercely  a  mile." 

"  But  don't  you  think  it  might  have  been 
a  little  less  than  half  a  mile  ?  " 

"  No,  it  "s  nigh  onto  a.  mile.  I  did  n't  meas- 
ure it,  but  it  's  a  mighty  big  three-quarters." 

The  witness  answered  combatively,  and  in 
this  mood  he  made  a  better  impression  than 
he  did  on  his  direct  examination.  The  prose- 
cuting attorney  looked  relieved.  Tom  listened 
with  an  attention  painful  to  see,  his  eyes  mov- 
ing anxiously  from  Lincoln  to  Dave  as  he 
wondered  what  point  in  Dave's  armor  the  law- 
yer could  be  driving  at.  He  saw  plainly  that 
his  salvation  was  staked  on  some  last  throw. 

"  You  did  n't  have  any  candle  in  your  hand, 
did  you,  at  any  time  during  the  evening  ?  " 

"  No ! "  said  Dave,  positively.  For  some  rea- 
son this  question  disconcerted  him  and  awak- 
ened his  suspicion.  "  What  should  we  have  a 
candle  for  ?  "  he  added. 

"  Did  either  George  Lockwood  or  Tom 
have  a  candle  ?  " 

"No,  of  course  not!  What  'd  they  have 
candles  for  ?  " 

"  Where  were  the  lights  on  the  camp- 
ground ?  " 

"  Closte  by  the  preachers'  tent." 

"  More  than  three-quarters  of  a  mile  away 
from  the  place  where  the  murder  took  place  ?  " 

"  Anyway  as  much  as  three-quarters,"  said 


Dave,  who  began  to  wish  that  he  could  mod- 
ify his  previous  statement  of  the  distance. 

"  How  far  away  were  you  from  Lockwood 
when  the  murder  took  place  ?  " 

"Twenty  feet." 

"  You  said  '  or  more '  awhile  ago." 

"  Well,  't  wus  n't  no  less,  p'r'aps,"  said  Dave, 
showing  signs  of  worry.  "  You  don't  think  I 
measured  it,  do  yeh  ?  " 

"There  were  no  lights  nearer  than  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  witness,  the  cold  perspira- 
tion beading  on  his  face  as  he  saw  Lincoln's 
trap  opening  to  receive  him. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  the  platform 
torches  up  by  the  preachers'  tent  gave  any 
light  three-quarters  of  a  mile  away  and  in  the 
woods  ? " 

"  No,  of  course  not." 

"  How  could  you  see  Tom  and  know  that 
it  was  he  that  fired,  when  the  only  light  was 
nearly  a  mile  away,  and  inside  a  circle  of 
tents  ?  " 

"Saw  by  moonlight,"  said  Sovine,  snap- 
pishly, disposed  to  dash  wildly  at  any  gap  that 
offered  a  possible  way  of  escape. 

"  What  sort  of  trees  were  there  on  the 
ground  ?  " 

"  Beech." 

"  Beech-leaves  are  pretty  thick  in  August  ?  " 
asked  Lincoln. 

"  Ye-es,  ruther,"  gasped  the  witness,  seeing 
a  new  pitfall  yawning  just  ahead  of  him. 

"And  yet  light  enough  from  the  moon 
came  through  these  thick  beech-trees  to  let 
you  know  Tom  Grayson  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  you  could  see  him  shoot  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  And  you  full  twenty  feet  away  ?  " 

"  Well,  about  that;  nearly  twenty,  anyhow." 
Dave  shifted  his  weight  to  his  right  foot. 

"  And  you  pretend  to  say  to  this  court  that 
by  the  moonlight  that  you  got  through  the 
beech-trees  in  August  you  could  even  see  that 
it  was  a  pistol  that  Tom  had  ?  " 

"  Ye-es."    Dave  now  stood  on  his  left  foot. 

"  And  you  could  see  what  kind  of  a  pistol 
it  was  ?  "  This  was  said  with  a  little  laugh 
very  exasperating  to  the  witness. 

"  Yes,  I  could,"  answered  Dave,  with  dogged 
resolution  not  to  be  faced  down. 

"And  just  how  the  barrel  was  hung  to  the 
stock  ?  "  There  was  a  positive  sneer'  in  Lin- 
coln's voice  now. 

"  Yes."   This  was  spoken  feebly. 

"  And  you  twenty  feet  or  more  away  ?  " 

"  I  've  got  awful  good  eyes,  an"  I  know  what 
I  see,"  whined  the  witness,  apologetically. 

Here  Lincoln  paused  and  looked  at  So- 
vine, whose  extreme  distress  was  only  made 


344 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


the  more  apparent  by  his  feeble  endeavor  to 
conceal  his  agitation.  The  counsel,  after  re- 
garding his  uneasy  victim  for  a  quarter  of  a 
minute,  thrust  his  hand  into  the  tail-pocket 
of  his  blue  coat,  and  after  a  little  needless  fum- 
bling drew  forth  a  small  pamphlet  in  blue 
covers.  He  turned  the  leaves  of  this  with  ex- 
treme deliberation,  while  the  court-room  was 
utterly  silent.  The  members  of  the  bar  had 
as  by  general  consent  put  their  chairs  down  on 
all-fours,  and  were  intently  watching  the  strug- 
gle between  the  counsel  and  the  witness.  The 
sallow-faced  judge  had  stopped  the  scratching 
of  his  quill,  and  had  lowered  his  spectacles  on 
his  nose,  that  he  might  study  the  distressed 
face  of  the  tormented  Sovine.  Mrs.  Grayson's 
hands  were  on  her  lap,  palms  downward;  her 
eyes  were  fixed  on  Abra'm,  and  her  mouth  was 
half  open,  as  though  she  were  going  to  speak. 

Barbara  found  it  hard  to  keep  her  seat,  she 
was  so  eager  for  Lincoln  to  go  on,  and  Tom 
was  leaning  forward  breathlessly  in  the  dock  ; 
his  throat  felt  dry,  and  he  choked  when  he 
tried  to  swallow;  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
would  smother  with  the  beating  of  his  heart. 
But  it  was  worth  while  to  turn  away  from  these 
more  interested  parties  to  look  for  a  moment 
at  the  ruddy  face  of  Bob  McCord,  which  was 
puckered  to  a  kind  of  focus  with  an  expression 
that  was  customary  with  him  in  a  moment  of 
supreme  interest,  as  when  he  was  drawing  a  sure 
bead  on  a  bear  or  a  deer.  It  was  worth  while 
to  regard  Rachel  Albaugh,  who  had  lifted  the 
veil  from  her  face  radiant  with  interest.  Lin- 
coln appeared  to  be  the  only  perfectly  deliber- 
ate person  in  the  room.  He  seemed  disposed 
to  protract  the  situation  as  long  as  possible. 
He  held  his  victim  on  the  rack  and  he  let  him 
suffer.  He  would  turn  a  leaf  or  two  in  his 
pamphlet  and  then  look  up  at  the  demoralized 
witness,  as  though  to  fathom  the  depth  of  his 
torture  and  to  measure  the  result.  At  last  he 
fixed  his  thumb  firmly  at  a  certain  place  on  a 
page  and  turned  his  eyes  to  the  judge. 

"  Now,  your  Honor,"  he  said  to  the  court, 
"  this  witness,"  with  a  half-contemptuous  gest- 
ure of  his  awkward  left  hand  toward  Sovine, 
"  has  sworn  over  and  over  that  he  recog- 
nized the  accused  as  the  person  who  shot 
George  Lockwood,  near  the  Union  camp- 
meeting  on  the  night  of  the  gth  of  last  Au- 
gust, and  that  he,  the  witness,  was  standing  at 
the  time  twenty  feet  or  more  away,  while  the 
scene  of  the  shooting  was  nearly  a  mile  dis- 
tant from  the  torches  inside  the  circle  of  tents. 
So  remarkably  sharp  are  this  witness's  eyes 
that  he  even  saw  what  kind  of  pistol  the  pris- 
oner held  in  his  hands,  and  how  the  barrel  was 
hung  to  the  stock,  and  he  is  able  to  identify  this 
pistol  of  Grayson's  as  precisely  like  and  prob- 
ably the  identical  weapon."  Here  Lincoln 


paused  and  scrutinized  Sovine.  "  All  these 
details  he  saw  and  observed  in  the  brief  space 
of  time  preceding  the  fatal  shot, —  saw  and 
observed  them  at  10  o'clock  at  night,  by 
means  of  moonlight  shining  through  the  trees 

—  beech-trees  in  full  leaf.    That  is  a  pretty 
hard  story.    How  much  light  does  even  a  full 
moon  shed  in  a  beech  woods  like  that  on  the 
Union  camp-ground  ?  Not  enough  to  see  your 
way  by,  as  everybody  knows  who  has  had 
to  stumble  through  such    woods."     Lincoln 
paused  here,  that  the  words  he  had  spoken 
might  have  time  to  produce  their  due  effect 
on    the  judge,  and  especially  on  the  slower 
wits  of  some  of  the  jury.    Meanwhile  he  turned 
the  leaves  of  his  pamphlet.    Then  he  began 
once  more :  "  But,  may  it  please  the  court,  be- 
fore proceeding  with  the  witness  I  would  like 
to  have  the  jury  look  at  the  almanac  which  I 
hold  in  my  hand.    They  will  here  see  that  on 
the  night  of  the  gth  of  last  August,  when  this 
extraordinary  witness  " — with  a  sneer  at  Dave, 
who  had  sunk  down  on  a  chair  in  exhaustion 

—  "  saw  the  shape  of  a  pistol  at  twenty  feet 
away,  at  10  o'clock,  by  moonlight,  the  moon 
did  not  rise  until  half-past  i  in  the  morning." 

Sovine  had  been  gasping  like  a  fish  newly 
taken  from  the  water  while  Lincoln  uttered 
these  words,  and  he  now  began  to  mutter 
something. 

"  You  may  have  a  chance  to  explain  when 
the  jury  get  done  looking  at  the  almanac," 
said  the  lawyer  to  him.  "  For  the  present  you  'd 
better  keep  silence." 

There  was  a  rustle  of  excitement  in  the 
court-room,  but  at  a  word  from  the  judge  the 
sheriff's  gavel  fell  and  all  was  still.  Lincoln 
walked  slowly  toward  the  jury-box  and  gave 
the  almanac  to  the  foreman,  an  intelligent 
farmer.  Countrymen  in  that  day  were  used 
to  consulting  almanacs,  and  one  group  after 
another  of  the  jurymen  satisfied  themselves 
that  on  the  night  of  the  gth,  that  is,  on  the 
morning  of  the  loth,  the  moon  came  up  at 
half-past  i  o'clock.  When  all  had  examined 
the  page,  the  counsel  recovered  his  little  book. 

"  Will  you  let  me  look  at  it  ?  "  asked  the 
judge. 

"  Certainly,  your  Honor"  ;  and  the  little  wit- 
ness was  handed  up  to  the  judge,  who  with 
habitual  caution  looked  it  all  over,  outside 
and  in,  even  examining  the  title-page  to  make 
sure  that  the  book  was  genuine  and  belonged 
to  the  current  year.  Then  he  took  note  on  a 
slip  of  paper  of  the  moon's  rising  on  the  night 
of  August  9  and  10,  and  handed  back  the  al- 
manac to  Lincoln,  who  slowly  laid  it  face 
downward  on  the  table  in  front  of  him,  open 
at  the  place  of  its  testimony.  The  audience  in 
the  court-room  was  utterly  silent  and  expectant. 
The  prosecuting  attorney  got  half-way  to  his 


Tit  I'.    GRAYSONS. 


345 


feet  to  object  to  Lincoln's  course,  but  he 
thought  better  of  it  and  sat  down  again. 

••  Now,  may  it  please  the  court,"  Lincoln 
went  on,  "  I  wish  at  this  point  to  make  a 
motion.  1  think  the  court  will  not  regard  it  as 
out  of  order,  as  the  case  is  ver  mal  — 

a  matter  of  life  and  death.  This  witness  has 
solemnly  sworn  to  a  story  that  has  manifestly 
not  one  word  of  truth  in  it.  It  is  one  unbroken 
falsehood.  In  order  to  take  away  the  life  of  an 
innocent  man  he  has  invented  this  atrocious 
web  of  lies,  to  the  falsity  of  which  the  very 
heavens  above  bear  witness,  as  this  almanac 
shows  you.  Now  why  does  David  Sovine  go 
to  all  this  trouble  to  perjure  himself?  Why 
does  he  wish  to  swear  away  the  life  of  that 
young  man  who  never  did  him  any  harm  ?" 
Lincoln  stood  still  a  moment,  and  looked  at 
the  witness,  who  had  grown  ghastly  pale  about 
the  lips.  Then  he  went  on,  very  slowly.  "  Be- 
cause that  witness  shot  and  killed  George 
Lockvvood  himself.  I  move,  your  Honor, 
that  David  Sovine  be  arrested  at  once  for 
murder." 

These  words,  spoken  with  extreme  delibera- 
tion and  careful  emphasis,  shook  the  audience 
like  an  explosion. 

The  prosecutor  got  to  his  feet,  probably 
to  suggest  that  the  motion  was  not  in  order, 
since  he  had  yet  a  right  to  a  re-direct  exam- 
ination of  Sovine,  but,  as  the  attorney  for  the 
State,  his  duty  was  now  a  divided  one  as  re- 
garded two  men  charged  with  the  same  crime. 
So  he  waved  his  hand  irresolutely,  stammered 
inarticulately,  and  sat  down. 

"  This  is  at  least  a  case  of  extraordinary  per- 
jury," said  the  judge.  "Sheriff,  arrest  David 
Sovine  1  This  matter  will  have  to  be  looked 
into." 

The  sheriff  came  down  from  his  seat,  and 
went  up  to  the  now  stunned  and  bewildered 
Sovine. 

"  I  arrest  you,"  he  said,  taking  him  by  the 
arm. 

The  day-and-night  fear  of  detection  in 
which  Dave  had  lived  for  all  these  weeks 
had  wrecked  his  self-control  at  last. 

"  God  !  "  he  muttered,  dropping  his  head 
with  a  sort  of  shudder.  "  T  ain't  any  use  keep- 
in' it  back  any  longer.  I  —  didn't  mean  to 
shoot  him,  an'  I  would  n't  'a'  come  here 
ag'inst  Tom  if  I  could  'a'  got  away." 

The  words  appeared  to  be  wrung  from  him 
by  some  internal  agony  too  strong  for  him  to 
master;  they  were  the  involuntary  result  of 
the  breaking  down  of  his  forces  under  pro- 
longed suffering  and  terror,  culminating  in  the 
slow  torture  inflicted  by  his  cross-examination. 
A  minute  later,  when  his  smsm  of  irresolu- 
tion had  passed  off,  he  would  have  retracted 
his  confession  if  he  could.  But  the  sheriff's 


deputy,  with  the  assistance  of  a  constable,  was 
already  leading  him  through  the  swaying 
crowd  in  the  aisle,  while  many  people  got  up 
and  stood  on  the  benches  to  watch  the  exit  of 
the  new  prisoner.  When  at  length  Sovine  had 
disappeared  out  of  the  door  the  spectators 
turned  and  looked  at  Tom,  sitting  yet  in  the 
dock,  but  with  the  certainty  of  speedy  release 
before  him.  The  whole  result  of  Lincoln's 
masterful  stroke  was  now  for  the  first  time 
realized,  and  the  excitement  bade  fair  to  break 
over  bounds.  McCord  doubled  himself  up 
once  or  twice  in  the  effort  to  repress  his  feelings 
out  of  respect  for  the  court,  but  his  emotions 
were  too  much  for  him ;  his  big  fist,  grasping 
his  ragged  hat,  appeared  above  his  head. 

"  Goshamity !  Hooray !  "  he  burst  out  with 
a  stentorian  voice ,  stamping  his  foot  as  he 
waved  his  hat. 

At  this  the  whole  court-roomful  of  people 
burst  into  cheers,  laughter,  cries,  and  waving 
of  hats  and  handkerchiefs,  in  spite  of  the 
sheriff's  sharp  rapping  and  shouts  of  "Order 
in  court ! "  And  when  at  length  the  people 
were  quieted  a  little,  Mrs.  Grayson  spoke  up, 
with  a  choking  voice  : 

"  Jedge,  ain't  you  a-goin'  to  let  him  go 
now  ?  " 

There  was  a  new  movement  of  feeling,  and 
the  judge  called  out, "  Sheriff,  order  in  court !  " 
But  his  voice  was  husky  and  tremulous.  He 
took  off  his  spectacles  to  wipe  them,  and  he 
looked  out  of  the  window  behind  him,  and  put 
his  handkerchief  first  to  one  eye,  then  to  the 
other,  before  he  put  his  glasses  back. 

"  May  it  please  the  court,"  said  the  tall 
lawyer,  who  had  remained  standing,  waiting  for 
the  tempest  to  subside,  and  who  now  spoke 
in  a  subdued  voice, "  I  move,  your  Honor,  that 
the  jury  be  instructed  to  render  a  verdict  of 
'  Not  guilty.' "  The  judge  turned  to  the  pros- 
ecuting attorney. 

"  I  don't  think,  your  Honor,"  stammered 
Allen,  "that  I  ought  to  object  to  the  motion 
of  my  learned  brother,  under  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances of  this  case." 

"  I  don't  think  you  ought,"  said  the  judge, 
promptly,  and  he  proceeded  to  give  the  jury 
instructions  to  render  the  desired  verdict. 
As  soon  as  the  jury,  nothing  loath,  had  gone 
through  the  formality  of  a  verdict,  the  sheriff 
came  and  opened  the  door  of  the  box  to  allow 
Tom  to  come  out. 

"  O  Tom !  they  are  letting  you  out,"  cried 
Janet,  running  forward  to  meet  him  as  he 
came  from  the  dock.  She  had  not  quite  un- 
derstood the  drift  of  these  last  proceedings 
until  this  moment. 

This  greeting  by  little  Janet  induced  an- 
other burst  of  excitement.  It  was  no  longer 
of  any  use  for  the  judge  to  keep  on  saying 


346 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


"  Sheriff,  command  order  in  court !  "  All  the 
sheriff's  rapping  was  in  vain ;  it  was  impossible 
to  arrest  and  fine  everybody.  The  judge  was 
compelled  to  avail  himself  of  the  only  means 
of  saving  the  court's  dignity  by  adjourning  for 
the  day,  while  Mrs.  Grayson  was  embracing 
her  Tommy. 

As  for  Barbara,  overcome  by  the  reaction 
of  feeling,  she  sat  still  in  passive  happiness 
which  she  did  not  care  to  show  to  this  crowd, 
whose  late  unfriendly  manifestations  toward 
Tom  she  could  not  yet  quite  forgive.  Hardly 
conscious  of  what  was  passing  around  her, 
she  did  not  observe  that  her  mother  had 
presently  let  go  her  hold  on  Tom,  and  that 
Tom  had  come  near  and  was  standing  in  front 
of  her.  Her  natural  reserve  made  her  wish  to 
avoid  a  scene  in  public,  but  there  are  times 
when  natural  reserve  is  not  a  sufficient  barrier. 
Tom  gently  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  and 
said  "  Barb,"  then  all  sense  of  the  presence 
of  others  was  obliterated  in  an  instant.  The 
only  fact  that  she  took  note  of  was  that  her 
brother  was  there  before  her  with  unmanacled 
hands,  free  to  go  where  he  listed  and  forever 
delivered  from  the  danger  that  had  hung  over 
him  so  imminently.  Of  what  she  did  you  must 
not  expect  a  description ;  embraces  and  pas- 
sionate kisses  of  joy  on  his  cheeks  would  seem 
hysterical  if  set  down  here  in  black  and  white  for 
readers  of  our  time,  who  like  the  color  washed 
out  of  human  passion  before  it  is  offered  to 
them.  No  !  no  !  let  us  turn  away  —  we  do 
not  like  such  things.  But  those  hearty  Illi- 
nois folk  who  looked  on  that  scene  between 
Barbara  and  Tom,  and  whose  quick  sym- 
pathies made  them  part  of  it,  did  not  feel  the 
slightest  disapproval  when  they  saw  the  faith- 
ful sister  put  her  arms  about  Tom's  neck; 
and  every  one  of  her  kisses  they  seconded 
with  clapping  of  hands  and  cheers,  and  some 
of  the  people  were  even  foolish  enough  to 
shed  tears. 

XXV1JI. 
FREE. 

THE  lawyers  presently  congratulated  Lin- 
coln, Barbara  tried  to  thank  him,  and  Judge 
Watkins  felt  that  Impartial  Justice  herself, 
as  represented  in  his  own  person,  could  afford 
to  praise  the  young  man  for  his  conduct  of  the 
case. 

"  Abr'am,"  said  Mrs.  Grayson,  "  d'  yeh 
know  I  kind  uv  lost  confidence  in  you  when 
you  sot  there  so  long  without  doin'  <7«ything." 
Then,  after  a  moment  of  pause :  "  Abr'am,  I  'm 
thinkin'  I  'd  ort  to  deed  you  my  farm.  You  've 
'arned  it,  my  son;  the  good  Lord  A'mighty 
knows  you  have." 

"  I  '11  never  take  one  cent,  Aunt  Marthy — 


not  a  single  red  cent " ;  and  the  lawyer  turned 
away  to  grasp  Tom's  hand.  But  the  poor  fel- 
low who  had  so  recently  felt  the  halter  about 
his  neck  could  not  yet  speak  his  gratitude. 
"  Tom  here,"  said  Lincoln,  "  will  be  a  help  in 
your  old  days,  Aunt  Marthy,  and  then  I  '11  be 
paid  a  hundred  times.  You  see  it  '11  tickle 
me  to  think  that  when  you  talk  about  this 
you  '11  say :  '  That  's  the  same  Abe  Lincoln 
that  I  used  to  knit  stockings  for  when  he  was 
a  poor  little  fellow,  with  his  bare  toes  sticking 
out  of  ragged  shoes  in  the  snow.'  " 

Mrs.  Grayson  tried  to  say  something  more, 
but  she  could  not. 

Tom  got  his  speech  at  length,  when  he  saw 
the  gigantesque  form  and  big  laughing  red  face 
of  Bob  McCord  approaching  him. 

"  Bob !  "  he  said,  "  you  dear  old  Bob !  God 
A'mighty  bless  you,  old  fellow." 

"  I  'm  that  tickled,"  said  Bob,  rocking  to  and 
fro  with  amusement.  "  Tom,  you  'd  orto  'a'  seed 
Jake  Hogan's  face.  I  watched  it  closte.  Go 
to  thunder !  How  it  did  git  mixed  about  the 
time  you  wuz  let  out!  I  'rn  a-goin'  to  find 
'im  un  see  how  he  feels  agin  this  time";  and 
Bob  let  go  of  Tom's  hand  and  moved  oft" 
through  the  crowd  to  look  for  Jake. 

Tom  took  mechanically  all  the  congratula- 
tions offered  to  him.  Rachel  came  with  the 
rest ;  there  were  some  traces  of  tears  about 
her  long  lashes  as  she  beamed  on  Tom  the 
full  effulgence  of  her  beauty  and  friendliness. 
Tom  gave  a  little  start  when  he  saw  her ;  then 
he  took  her  hand,  as  he  did  that  of  the  others, 
in  ahalf-unconscious  way.  He  was  everybody's 
hero  in  the  reaction  of  feeling,  but  he  had 
been  so  near  to  the  gallows  within  an  hour 
that  he  had  difficulty  yet  in  appreciating  the 
change. 

"  You  '11  come  back  into  the  office  again, 
won't  you,  Tom  ?  "  said  Blackmail,  in  a  spurt 
of  good  feeling. 

"  I  don't  know,  Mr.  Blackman.  I  must  go 
home  and  rest,  and  be  sure  I  'm  alive,  before  I 
know  what  I  shall  do." 

Tom's  uncle  had  been  utterly  surprised  by 
the  turn  affairs  had  taken,  for  he  had  never 
really  doubted  Tom's  guilt.  Now  he  was,  for 
the  first  time,  almost  effusive ;  he  gave  himself 
credit  that  he  had  stood  by  his  nephew. 

"  We  'd  like  to  have  you  back,  Tom,"  he 
said;  "  and  you  'd  be  a  general  favorite  now." 

"  I  want  to  go  home  first,  Uncle  Tom,  and 
get  the  place  out  of  debt,  so  mother  and 
Barb  '11  be  easy  in  their  minds.  Then  I  don't 
know  what  I  shall  do.  I  don't  feel  as  if  I 
could  ever  come  to  town  again  without  fetch- 
ing mother  with  me.  But  I  can't  tell ;  I  want 
to  get  out  of  this  town;  I  hate  the  very  sight 
of  it.  Come,  Barb ;  do  let 's  get  off.  Where  's 
the  horse  ?  I  want  to  get  home,  where  I  won't 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


347 


see  any  more  of  this  crowd,  and  where  I  can 
be  alone  with  you  and  mother." 

Before  they  had  made  their  way  to  the 
front  door  of  the  court-house  the  multitude 
outside  had  got  firm  hold  of  the  fact  of  Tom's 
acquittal  and  the  manner  of  it,  and  when  he 
appeared  they  set  up  a.  shout;  then  there  were 
cheers  and  more  cheers.  But  Tom  only  looked 
worried,  and  sought  to  extricate  himself  from 
the  people  who  followed  him.  At  length  he 
managed  to  get  away  from  the  last  of  them. 

"  You  have  n't  ate  anything  to-day,"  said 
Janet,  who  clung  to  his  hand  and  danced  along 
by  his  side.  "  Come  to  our  house  to  supper. 
I  expect  we  '11  have  warm  biscuits  and  honey." 

"  You  dear  little  body!"  said  Tom.  "  I  can't 
stop  for  supper  to-night,  Janet ;  I  must  go  home 
with  mother.  1  want  to  get  out  of  the  ugly 
town.  I  '11  come  and  see  you  sometimes,  and 
I  '11  have  you  out  at  the  farm  lots  of  times." 
He  stopped  to  put  his  pale,  trembling  hand 
under  her  pretty  chin  ;  he  turned  her  face  up 
to  his,  he  stooped  and  kissed  her.  But  no  en- 
treaty could  prevail  on  him  to  delay  his  de- 
parture. Not  even  the  biscuits  and  honey  on 
which  Janet  insisted.  Hiram  Mason  helped 
him  to  hitch  up  old  Blaze-face  to  the  wagon. 
Then  Tom  turned  to  Hiram  and  grasped  both 
his  arms. 

"  You  're  going  with  us,"  he  said  abruptly. 

"  Not  to-night,  Tom.  I  '11  come  in  a  few 
days,  when  I  've  finished  my  writing  in  the 
clerk's  office.  I  '11  stop  on  my  way  home." 

"  I  want  to  thank  you,  but  I  can't ;  confound 
it,"  said  Tom. 

"  Never  mind,  Tom;  I  'm  almost  happier 
than  you  are." 

"  I  'm  not  exactly  happy,  Mason,"  said  Tom ; 
"  I  've  got  that  plaguey  feeling  of  a  rope 
around  my  neck  yet.  I  can't  get  rid  of  it  here 
in  Moscow.  Maybe  out  at  the  farm  I  shall  be 
able  to  shake  it  off.  Janet,  won't  you  run  into 
the  house  and  tell  mother  and  Barbara  to 
come  out  quick  —  I  want  to  get  away." 

Tom  had  expected  that  Bob  McCord  would 
take  a  place  in  the  wagon,  but  Bob  was  not 
so  modest  as  to  forego  a  public  triumph.  He 
first  went  and  recovered  the  wagon-spoke 
from  beneath  the  court-house  steps,  where  he 
had  hidden  it  the  night  before.  This  he  put 
into  the  baggy  part  of  his  "  wamus,"  or  hunt- 
ing-jacket —  the  part  above  the  belt  into  which 
he  had  often  thrust  prairie-chickens  when  he 
had  no  game-bag.  Then  he  contrived  to  en- 
counter Jake  Hogan  in  the  very  thick  of  the 
crowd. 

"  O  Jake !  "  he  called,  "  what  's  the  price 
uh  rope  ?  How 's  the  hangin'  business  a-gittin' 
along  these  days  ?  Doin'  well  at  it,  ain't  yeh  ?  " 

"  \Vha'  joo  mean  ?  "  asked  Jake,  as  he  half 
turned  about  and  regarded  Bob  with  big  eyes. 


"  Seems  like 's  ef  you  'd  ort  to  be  'n  ole  han' 
by  this  time,  Jake.  You  sot  the  time  fer  Tom's 
funeral  three  deffer'nt  nights :  wunst  you  \vu/  a- 
goin'  to  have  it  over  't  I'errysburg,  un  wunst  the 
Sunday  night  that  Pete  Markham  throwed  you 
oft"  the  track  weth  that  air  yarn  about  a  wall- 
eyed man  weth  red  whiskers,  un  wunst  ag'in 
las'  night.  Ev'ry  time  you  sot  it  they  wuz  some 
sort  uv  a  hitch ;  it  did  n't  seem  to  come  off 
rightly.  S'pose  un  you  try  yer  hand  on  Dave 
Sovine  awhile.  They  's  luck  in  a  change." 

"  I  hain't  had  no  han'  in  no  hangin's  nor 
nuthin'  uh  that  sort,"  snarled  Jake. 

"  You  hain't  ?  Jest  you  go  un  tell  that  out 
on  Broad  Run,  sonny.  Looky  h-yer,  Jake. 
I  've  got  the  evidence  agin  you,  un  ef  you 
dare  me  I  '11  go  afore  the  gran'  jury  weth  it. 
I  jest  dare  you  to  dare  me,  <-/"you  dare." 

But  Jake  did  not  dare  to  dare  him.  He 
only  moved  slowly  away  toward  his  horse, 
the  excited  crowd  surging  after  him,  to  his 
disgust. 

"  Looky  h-yer,  Jake,"  Bob  went  on,  follow- 
ing his  retreat.  "  I  want  to  gin  you  some  aJ- 
vice  as  a  well-wishin'  friend  un  feller-citizen. 
Barb'ry  knowed  your  v'ice  las'  night,  un 
Barb'ry  Grayson  hain't  the  sort  uv  a  gal  to 
stan'  the  sort  uv  foolin'  't  you  've  been  a-doin' 
about  Tom." 

"  Aw,  you  shet  up  yer  jaw,  now  wonchoo  ?  " 
said  Jake. 

"  I  say,  Jake,"  said  McCord,  still  pursuing 
the  crestfallen  leader  of  Broad  Run,  while  the 
crowd  moved  about  Big  Bob  as  a  storm  cen- 
ter. "  I  say  there,  Jake;  liker  'n  not  Barb'ry 
'11  stay  in  town  to-night  un  go  afore  the  gran' 
jury  to-morry.  Now  ef  I  wuz  you  I  'd  cl'ar 
the  county  this  very  /dentical  night.  Your  or- 
nery lantern-jawed  face  would  n'  look  half  's 
han'some  as  Tom's  in  that  air  box  in  front  uv 
the  sher'f." 

"  You  shet  up ! "  said  Jake. 

"  Come  un  shet  me  up,  wonch  you  ?  "  said 
Bob,  rubbing  his  hands  and  laughing. 

Jake  had  reached  his  horse  now,  and  with- 
out another  word  he  mounted  and  rode  away. 
But  Bob  kept  walking  about  with  his  fists  in 
his  pockets,  his  big  elbows  protruding,  and  his 
face  radiant  with  mischief  until  Sheriff  Plun- 
kett  came  out  of  the  court-house. 

"  I  say,  Sher'f,"  he  called, "  how  many  men  'd 
you  say  they  wuz  in  that  air  fust  mob?" 

"  Nigh  onto  forty,  I  should  think,"  said 
Plunkett;  "but  of  course  I  can't  just  exactly 
say."  And  he  walked  away,  not  liking  to  be 
catechised.  There  was  something  mysterious 
about  that  mob,  and  he  was  afraid  there  might 
be  something  that  would  count  in  the  next 
election. 

'•  They  had  pistols,  did  n't  they  ?  "  Bob  con- 
tinued, following  him. 


348 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


"  Yes,  to  be  sure,"  said  Plunkett,  pausing 
irresolutely. 

"  Now  looky  h-yer,  Sher'f;  I  know  sumpin' 
about  that  air  mob.  They  wuz  n't  but  jest 
on'y  two  men  in  the  whole  thing.  I  don't  say 
who  they  wuz";  and  here  Bob  looked  about 
on  the  crowd,  which  showed  unmistakable 
signs  of  its  relish  for  this  revelation. 

"  Un  as  fer  pistols,  they  did  have  'em.  I  Ve 
got  one  of  'em  h-yer."  Bob  here  pulled  the 
wagon-spoke  from  the  depths  of  his  hunting- 
shirt.  "  That  's  one  of  the  z'dentical  pistols 
that  wuz  p'inted  at  your  head  las'  night.  Felt 
kind-uh  cold  un  creepy  like,  did  n't  it  now, 


Hank  Plunkett,  when  its  muzzle  was  agin  yer    county. 


Broad  Run.  Now  you  're  come  up  weth,  ole 
hoss.  Markham  '11  be  the  nex'  sher'f.  You  jest 
cut  a  notch  in  a  stick  to  remember  't  Big  Bob 
McCord  tole  you  so.  Ef  't  had  n'  been  fer  me 
'n'  Abe  Lincoln,  you  'n'  Jake,  'twext  and  'tween 
yeh,  'd  'a'  hung  the  wrong  feller.  Now  I  jest 
want  to  see  you  fetch  me  afore  the  court  wunst. 
Ef  you  pester  me  too  much,  I  'm  derned  'f  I 
don't  go  on  m'  own  hook." 

"  You  've  been  drinking,  Bob,"  said  Plunkett, 
as  he  hurried  away;  but  the  people  evidently 
sided  with  McCord,  whose  exploit  of  mobbing 
the  sheriff  almost  single-handed  had  made 
him  more  than  ever  the  champion  of  the 


head,  un  it  cocked,  besides ?    Ha-a!  ha! 

The  crowd  jeered  and  joined  in  Bob's  wild 
merriment. 


That  night  Jake  Hogan,  afraid  of  arrest,  suc- 
ceeded in  trading  his  cabin,  with  the  front  door 
still  unhinged,  and  his  little  patch  of  rugged 


;  I  "11  have  you  arrested,"  said  the  sheriff    ground  for  a  one-horse  wagon  and  some  pro- 


severely.    "  You  've  confessed  enough  now  to 
make  the  grand  jury  indict  you." 

"  Fer  what?  Fer  savin'  the  life  uv  a  inner- 
cent  man?  That  'd  be  a  purty  howdy-do, 
now  would  n't  it  ?  Un  it  would  be  a  lovely 


visions.  Over  the  wagon  he  stretched  his  only 
two  bed-sheets  of  unbleached  domestic  for 
covering.  Before  noon  the  next  day,  he  had 
passed  safely  out  of  the  county.  The  raw- 
boned  horse,  the  rickety  wagon,  the  impov- 


story  to  tell  at  my  trial,  that  the  sher'f  uv  this    erished  and  unwilling  cow  tied  on  behind,  the 
yere  county  gin  up  his  keys  to  two  men,  two    two  yellow  mongrel  pups  between  the  wagon 


lonesome  men  weth  on'y  wagon-spokes.'  He-e! 
An'  the  wagon-spokes  cocked!  A  wagon- 
spoke  's  a  mighty  bad  thing  when  it  does  go 
off,  especially  ef  it  's  loaded  with  buckshot." 

Plunkett  came  close  to  McCord,  and  said 
in  an  undertone  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by 
others:  "  Ah,  Bob,  I  knowed  it  wuz  your  voice, 
un  I  knowed  your  grip.  They  ain't  any  other 
man  in  this  county  that  can  put  me  down  the 
way  you  did  las'  night.  But  don't  you  tell 
Jake  ur  any  of  his  crowd  about  it";  and  he 
winked  knowingly  at  Bob. 

"  Aw,  go  to  thunder,  now ! "  said  Bob, 
speaking  loudly  and  not  to  be  cajoled  into 
giving  up  his  fun.  "  Sher'f,  you  can't  come  no 
gum  games  on  me.  By  jeementley  crickets, 
you  wuz  skeered,  un  that 's  all  they  is  about 
it.  You  wilted  so  't  I  wuz  afeerd  you  'd  clean 
faint  away  afore  I  could  git  out  uv  yeh  where 
the  keys  was.  Why  did  n't  you  hide  Tom 


wheels,  and  the  frowsy-headed  wife  alongside 
of  him  were  token  enough  to  every  experi- 
enced eye  that  here  was  a  poor  whitey  on  his 
travels.  To  all  inquiries  regarding  his  destina- 
tion, Jake  returned: 

"  I  'm  boun'  fer  Messouri.  Yeh  see  they 
hain't  no  kind  of  a  chance  fer  a  poor  man  in 
this  yer  daudrautted  Eelinoys  country." 

Once  an  example  of  migration  had  been  set, 
his  neighbors  grew  restless  also,  and  in  a  year 
or  two  nearly  all  of  them  had  obeyed  their 
hereditary  instinct  and  followed  him  to  Pike 
County  in  Missouri.  The  most  of  the  Broad 
Run  neighborhood  is  now  included  in  a  great 
grazing  farm ;  here  a  few  logs,  there  some 
tumble-down  ruins  of  a  stick-chimney,  and  in 
another  place  a  stone  hearth,  only  remain  to 
indicate  the  resting-place  for  a  few  years  of  a 
half-nomadic  clan,  whose  members  or  their 
descendants  are  by  this  time  engaged,  proba- 


summers?    You  wuz  afeerd  Broad  Run 'd  vote    bly,  in  helping  to  rid  the  Pacific  coast  of  its 
agin  you,  un  you  as  good  as  tole  Jake  Hogan 
ut  you  would  n'  make  no  trouble  when  he 
come  to  lynch  Tom." 

"  No,  I  did  n't;  I  did  n't  have  anything  to 
say  to  Jake." 

"  Ef  you  take  my  case  afore  the  gran'  jury 
un  I  'm  tried,  I  '11  prove  it  on  yeh.  Now,  Hank 
Plunkett,  they  's  two  things  that  '11  never  hap- 
pen." Here  Bob  smote  his  right  fist  into  his 
left  palm.  "  One  is  't  you  '11  ever  fetch  my 


unchristian  Chinese.    For  the  poor  whitey  can 
tolerate  no  heathens  but  those  of  his  own  sort. 

XXIX. 
THE    CLOSE    OF    A    CAREER. 

DAVE  SOVINE'S partial  confession,  which  had 
served  to  acquit  Tom,  was  sufficient  at  the 
next  term  of  the  court  to  condemn  him,  for 
no  plea  of  accidental  shooting  could  save  him 


case  afore  the  gran'  jury.    That  's  as  shore  's    after  he  had  tried  to  escape  at  the  expense  of 
you  're  born.    T'  other  is  that  you  '11  ever  be 
elected  ag'in!  Wha  'd  joo  turn  off  Pete  Mark- 
ham  fer  ?    Fer  tryin'  to  save  Tom,  un  to  please 


another  man's  life.  During  his  trial  the  motive 
for  shooting  Lockwood  remained  an  inexplica- 
ble mystery.  But  when  once  Dave  was  con- 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


349 


vinced  that  his  execution  was  inevitable  and 
there  was  an  end  to  all  the  delights  of  deviltry, 
he  proceeded  to  play  the  only  card  remaining 
in  his  hand,  and  to  euchre  Justice  on  her  own 
deal.  Like  other  murderers  of  his  kind  he  be- 
came religious,  and  nothing  could  be  more 
enrour. >..;ing  to  criminals  than  the  cleanups 
and  fervor  of  his  religious  experience,  and  his 
absolute  certainty  of  the  rewards  of  paradise, 
uperiority  in  wickedness  had  made  him 
the  hero  of  all  the  green  goslings  of  the  vil- 
lage ;  his  tardy  conversion  and  shining  pro- 
fessions made  him  an  object  of  philanthropic 
interest  to  sentimental  people  and  gave  him 
the  consolations  of  conspicuity  to  the  last. 

It  was  during  this  lurid  sunset  period  of  his 
unnecessary  existence  that  Dave  made  con- 
fesMiins.  These  were  not  always  consistent 
one  with  another ;  the  capacity  for  simple  and 
direct  truth-telling  is  a  talent  denied  to  men 
of  Sovine's  stamp,  nor  can  it  be  developed  in 
a  brief  season  of  penitence.  It  is  quite  proba- 
ble that  Sovine  failed  to  state  the  exact  truth 
even  when  narrating  his  religious  experiences. 
But  by  a  comparison  of  his  stories,  with  some 
elimination  of  contradictory  elements,  the 
main  facts  regarding  the  death  of  George 
Lockwood  were  made  out  with  passable  clear- 
ness. Being  of  a  thrifty  turn  of  mind,  Lock- 
wood  had,  by  a  series  of  careful  observations, 
detected  one  of  the  principal  tricks  employed 
by  Dave  to  win  the  money  of  the  unwary.  It 
h.id  been  Lockwood's  purpose  to  play  the 
trick  back  on  Dave  at  some  favorable  oppor- 
tunity, but  this  he  found  quite  impossible.  To 
bring  himself  to  Dave's  proficiency  in  manipu- 
lation no  end  of  assiduous  practice  would  be 
needful.  There  remained  one  other  way  in 
which  he  might  utilize  his  discovery.  It  was 
an  established  rule  in  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try that  he  who  detected  his  opponent  in  the 
very  act  of  cheating  at  cards  might  carry  off 
the  stakes. 

When  Lockvvood  went  to  the  camp-meeting 
he  put  into  his  pocket  a  bit  of  candle,  in  order 
to  have  a  game  with  Dave;  and  when  on 
encountering  him  Dave  proposed  the  game, 
the  two  went  out  into  the  woods,  remote  from 
the  meeting,  Lockwood  lighted  his  candle 
and  they  sat  down  on  a  log  to  play.  Lock- 
wood  won  at  first  and  doubled  the  stakes  at 
every  game,  until  Dave,  seeing  that  his  pocket- 
money  was  running  short,  and  the  candle 
fast  wasting  in  the  breezes,  concluded  to 
sweep  in  the  stakes  with  his  favorite  trick. 
George  Lockwood  exposed  the  cheat  at  the 
very  instant,  and  put  the  stakes  in  his  pocket. 
But  Dave  had  received  his  education  in  its 
higher  branches  in  the  South-west  of  half  a 
century  ago,  and  he  had  no  notion  of  suffer- 
ing himself  to  be  bankrupted  so  easily.  He 


drew  his  pistol  and  demanded  the  stakes, 
following  Lockwood  with  reiterated  threats, 
until,  in  a  moment  of  exasperation,  he  shot 
him.  A  crowd  came  quickly  at  the  sound  of 
the  pistol,  and  Dave  had  the  shrewdness  not 
to  run  away  and  not  to  attempt  to  take  any 
money  from  George  Lockwood's  person.  Re- 
membering Tom  Grayson's  threats,  he  de- 
clared, with  his  usual  alertness  in  mendacity, 
that  he  had  seen  Grayson  do  the  shooting 
and  thus  diverted  attention  from  himself. 

He  had  no  further  thought  at  the  time  than 
to  get  out  of  a  present  difficulty ;  it  was  his  pur- 
pose to  leave  the  country  before  the  trial  should 
come  on.  But  he  found  himself  watched,  and 
he  imagined  that  he  was  suspected.  He  saw 
no  chance  to  move  without  making  sure  of 
his  own  arrest ;  he  became  alarmed  and  un- 
fitted for  decision  by  the  sense  of  his  peril ; 
as  the  trial  approached,  his  nerves,  shaken  by 
dissipations,  were  unstrung  by  the  debate  with- 
in him.  He  saw  ghosts  at  night  and  his  sleep 
almost  entirely  forsook  him.  This  horror  of 
a  doom  that  seemed  perpetually  to  hang  over 
him  was  greatly  enhanced  by  the  cross-ex- 
amination to  which  he  was  subjected ;  from 
the  first  he  misdoubted  that  Lincoln  had  pene- 
trated his  whole  secret  and  possessed  the 
means  of  making  it  known.  And  when  he 
heard  himself  charged  publicly  with  the  mur- 
der and  as  publicly  arrested,  he  believed  that 
some  evidence  against  him  had  been  found ; 
he  did  not  draw  the  line  between  the  charge 
and  the  proof,  and  the  half  confession  escaped 
him  in  the  first  breakdown  produced  by  sud- 
den despair. 

But  at  the  last  he  spoke  edifyingly  from  the 
scaffold,  and  died  with  as  much  composure  and 
more  self-complacency  than  Tom  would  have 
shown  had  he  fallen  a  victim  to  Dave's  ras- 
cality. What  becomes  of  such  men  in  another 
world  is  none  of  my  business.  But  I  am  rather 
pleased  to  have  them  depart,  be  it  to  paradise, 
or  purgatory,  or  limbo,  or  any  other  compart- 
ment of  the  world  of  spirits.  In  some  moods 
I  could  even  wish  them  a  prosperous  voyage 
to  the  Gehenna  of  our  forefathers,  now  some- 
what obsolescent,  if  only  they  would  begone 
and  cease  to  vex  this  rogue-ridden  little  world 
of  ours. 

XXX. 

TOM    AND    RACHEL. 

WHEN  Tom  rode  home  from  the  trial  with 
his  mother  and  Barbara,  his  emotions  were 
not  just  what  one  might  expect;  the  events 
of  the  day  and  the  tremendous  strain  on  his 
nerves  had  benumbed  him.  He  was  only  con- 
scious that  it  gave  him  a  great  pleasure  to 
leave  the  village  behind,  and  to  get  once  more 


35° 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


upon  the  open  prairie,  which  was  now  glori- 
fied by  the  tints  and  shadows  of  the  setting 
sun.  The  fields  of  maize,  with  their  tassels 
growing  brown  and  already  too  ripe  and  stiff 
to  wave  freely,  and  with  their  long  blades  be- 
coming harsh  and  dry,  so  that  the  summer 
rustle  had  changed  to  a  characteristic  autum- 
nal rattling,  seemed  to  greet  him  like  old 
friends  who  had  visibly  aged  in  his  absence. 
Tom  found  his  mind,  from  sheer  strain  and 
weariness,  fixing  itself  on  unimportant  things  ; 
he  noted  that  the  corn-silk  which  protruded 
from  the  shucks  was  black,  and  that  the  shucks 
themselves  were  taking  on  that  sear  look  which 
is  the  sure  token  of  the  ripeness  of  the  ear 
within  the  envelope.  Now  and  then  he  marked 
an  ear  that  had  grown  so  long  as  to  push  its 
nose  of  cob  quite  beyond  the  envelope.  The 
stretches  of  prairie  grass  too  showed  a  mix- 
ture of  green  and  brown ;  the  September  rains 
had  freshened  a  part  of  the  herbage,  giving  it 
a  new  verdure,  but  the  riper  stalks  and  blades 
had  maintained  their  neutral  colors.  These 
things  interested  Tom  in  a  general  way,  as 
marking  the  peaceful  changes  that  had  taken 
place  in  the  familiar  face  of  nature  during  his 
period  of  incarceration.  What  he  felt  in  re- 
garding these  trifles  was  simply  that  he  was 
alive  and  once  more  free  to  go  where  he 
pleased.  He  said  little,  and  replied  to  the  re- 
marks of  his  mother  and  Barbara  briefly,  and 
he  drove  old  Blaze-face  at  a  speed  quite  un- 
becoming a  horse  at  his  time  of  life.  The  peo- 
ple whom  he  passed  cheered  him,  or  called  out 
their  well-meant  congratulation,  or  their  bitter 
remarks  about  Dave  Sovine,  but  Tom  on  his 
part  was  not  demonstrative;  he  even  drove 
past  Rachel  Albaugh  and  her  brother  Ike  with 
only  a  nod  of  recognition.  To  any  remark  of 
his  mother  and  Barbara  about  Dave's  villainy, 
and  to  any  allusion  to  the  case,  he  returned 
the  briefest  answers,  giving  the  impression 
that  he  wished  to  get  mentally  as  well  as  phys- 
ically away  from  the  subject.  When  he  got 
home  he  asked  for  an  old-fashioned  country 
hoe-cake  for  supper,  and  he  would  have  the 
table  set  out  on  the  kitchen  porch ;  he  said  it 
seemed  so  delightful  to  be  permitted  to  go 
out-of-doors  again.  After  supper  he  turned 
old  Blaze  into  the  pasture,  with  a  notion  that 
he  too  might  prefer  his  liberty,  and  he  sought 
the  barnyard,  where  he  patted  the  cows.  Then, 
in  the  cool  night  air,  he  strolled  up  and  down 
the  road  in  front  of  the  house,  and  at  length, 
whan  Barbara  besought  him  to  come  in,  he 
only  sat  down  on  the  front  steps.  It  was  after 
10  o'clock  when  he  persuaded  Barbara  to  walk 
with  him  down  the  meadow  path  to  the  brook, 
and  at  1 1  he  reluctantly  consented  to  go  to 
bed. 

"  It  feels  good  to  be  free,  Barb,"  he  said,  as 


he  went  upstairs.  This  was  his  only  allusion 
to  his  feelings. 

In  reflecting  on  the  events  of  the  day,  Bar- 
bara remembered  with  pleasure  that  Rachel 
had  congratulated  Tom.  It  made  his  vindica- 
tion complete  that  the  young  woman  who  had 
refused  his  attentions  when  he  was  accused 
of  nothing  worse  than  foolish  gambling  had 
now  taken  pains  to  show  her  good-will  in  pub- 
lic. But  when  the  question  of  a  possible  re- 
newal of  the  relations  between  Tom  and  his 
old  sweetheart  came  up  in  Barbara's  mind, 
there  was  always  a  doubt.  Not  that  there 
was  anything  objectionable  about  Rachel  Al- 
baugh. Barbara  said  to  her  mother  over  and 
over  again,  in  the  days  that  followed  Tom's 
acquittal,  that  there  was  nothing  against 
Rachel.  If  Rachel  was  not  very  industrious 
she  was  certainly  "  easy-tempered."  In  her 
favor  it  could  be  said  that  she  had  a  beauti- 
ful face,  and  that  she  would  be  joint  heiress 
with  her  brother  to  a  large  and  well-improved 
prairie  farm,  to  say  nothing  of  her  father's 
tract  of  timber-land. 

After  a  while  Barbara  came  to  wish  that 
Tom's  old  affection  for  Rachel  might  be  kin- 
dled again.  She  did  not  like  to  see  him  so 
changed.  He  plodded  incessantly  at  farm 
work,  and  he  seemed  to  have  lost  his  relish 
for  society.  If  any  one  came  to  the  house, 
he  managed  to  have  business  abroad.  He 
was  not  precisely  gloomy,  but  the  change  in 
him  was  so  marked  that  it  made  his  sister 
unhappy. 

"  Why  don't  you  go  to  see  Rachel  ?  "  she 
asked,  a  week  after  the  trial.  Barbara  was 
straining  her  eyes  down  the  road,  as  she  often 
did  in  those  days.  "  Rachel  would  be  glad  to 
see  you  again,  Tom,  like  as  not." 

"  Maybe  she  would,"  answered  Tom,  as  he 
picked  up  the  pail  and  started  to  the  spring 
for  water  by  way  of  cutting  off  all  further  talk 
on  the  question. 

The  days  went  by  without  Tom's  showing 
by  any  sign  that  he  cared  to  see  Rachel,  and 
to  Barbara's  grief  the  days  went  by  without 
Hiram  Mason's  promised  arrival  at  the  Gray- 
sons'.  But  there  came  presently  a  note  from 
Hiram  to  Barbara,  saying  that  he  had  been 
detained  by  the  necessity  he  was  under  of 
finishing  Magill's  writing,  and  by  the  difficulty 
he  found  in  getting  his  pay  from  the  easy-go- 
ing clerk  for  what  he  had  done.  But  he  hoped 
to  stop  on  his  way  home  in  three  or  four  days. 
This  note  was  brought  from  Moscow  by  Bob 
McCord,  who  also  brought  Janet.  The  child 
had  teased  her  father  into  letting  her  come 
out  in  Aunt  Martha's  wagon  with  Bob,  whom 
she  had  seen  driving  past  the  house  on  his 
way  in. 

Janet  spent  her  time  in  the  country  wholly 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


35' 


with  Tom.  She  followed  him  afield,  she 
climbed  with  him  into  the  barn  lofts,  she  sat 
on  the  back  of  old  Blaze  when  Tom  led  him 
to  water,  she  went  into  the  forest  when  Tom 
went  to  fell  trees  for  fire-wood,  she  helped 
him  to  pick  apples,  and  she  was  as  happy  in 
all  this  as  she  would  have  been  in  the  Elysian 
Fields. 

"  Cousin  Tom,"  she  said,  the  day  after  her 
arrival,  as  she  leaned  out  of  the  high,  open 
window  of  the  hay-loft, "yonder  's  a  lady  get- 
ting down  on  the  horse-block  at  the  house." 

Tom  climbed  up  from  the  threshing-floor 
to  the  mow,  and,  standing  well  back  out  of 
sight  in  the  gloom  of  the  loft,  he  recognized 
Rachel  Albaugh's  horse.  Then  he  went  back 
again  to  his  wheat-fanning  on  the  threshing- 
flooi. 

"  Are  n't  you  going  to  go  and  help  her?  " 
said  Janet,  when  Tom  stopped  the  noisy  fan- 
ning-mill  to  shovel  back  the  wheat  and  to 
rake  away  the  cheat. 

"  Pshaw ! "  said  Tom.  "  A  country  girl  does 
n't  need  any  help  to  get  off  a  horse." 

Rachel  had  come  to  call  on  Barbara,  nor 
did  she  admit  to  herself  that  her  visit  had 
anything  to  do  with  Tom.  But  she  found  her- 
self in  an  attitude  to  which  she  was  unac- 
customed. From  the  moment  that  Tom  had 
been  charged  with  murder  her  liking  for  him 
increased.  The  question  of  his  guilt  or  inno- 
cence did  not  disturb  her  —  except  in  so  far 
as  it  jeoparded  his  life;  he  was  at  least  a  dash- 
ing fellow,  out  of  the  common  run.  And  now 
that  he  had  been  acquitted,  and  was  a  hero  of 
everybody,  Rachel  found  in  herself  a  passion 
that  was  greater  than  her  vanity,  and  that  over- 
mastered even  her  prudence.  She  was  tor- 
mented by  her  thoughts  of  Tom  in  the  day, 
she  dreamed  of  him  at  night.  Tom  would  not 
come  to  her,  and  she  felt  herself  at  length 
drawn  by  a  force  she  could  not  resist  to  go 
to  him. 

Barbara  asked  Rachel  to  stay  to  dinner, 
and  promised  that  Tom  would  put  away  her 
horse  as  soon  as  he  knew  that  she  had  come. 
This  was  but  the  common  hospitality  of  the 
country,  but  Barbara  hoped  that  Rachel's 
presence  might  evoke  Tom's  old  buoyant  self 
again.  And  so,  while  Barbara  sat  on  the  loom- 
bench  weaving  a  web  of  striped  linsey,  Rachel 
sat  by  her  side  knitting.  It  appeared  to  Bar- 
bara that  Rachel  had  undergone  almost  as 
great  a  change  as  Tom.  She  had  lost  her 
taciturnity.  Her  tongue  kept  pace  with  the 
click  of  her  needles.  She  only  broke  the 
thread  of  her  talk  when  she  paused  to  take 
the  end  of  one  needle  out  of  the  quill  of  her 
knitting-case  and  put  another  in.  Undercolor 
of  sympathy  for  the  Graysons  in  their  troubles 
she  talked  of  what  was  in  her  mind.  How 


dreadful  it  must  have  been  for  Tom  to  be  in 
jail!  How  anxious  he  must  have  been  at  the 
trial !  How  well  he  bore  up  under  it  all !  How 
proud  he  must  have  been  when  he  was  ac- 
quitted !  These  and  such  remarks  were  web 
and  woof  of  her  talk,  while  Barbara  was 
throwing  her  nimble  shuttle  to  and  fro  and 
driving  the  threads  home  with  the  double- 
beat  of  her  loom-comb. 

By  half-past  1 1  the  early  farm  dinner 
was  almost  ready,  and  Mrs.  Grayson  blew  a 
blast  on  the  tin  horn  which  hung  outside  of 
the  door,  to  let  Tom  and  Janet  know  that 
they  were  to  come  in. 

When  Tom  heard  the  horn  he  went  and 
led  Rachel's  horse  to  the  stable,  after  perch- 
ing Janet  in  the  saddle ;  and  then  he  delayed 
long  enough  to  shuck  out  and  give  him  eight 
or  ten  ears  of  corn.  After  this  he  came  to  the 
house  and  washed  his  hands  and  face  in  the 
country  way,  with  much  splash  and  spatter, 
in  a  basin  that  sat  on  a  bench  outside  of  the 
door,  and  Janet  washed  hers,  imitating  to  the 
best  of  her  ability  Tom's  splattering  way  of 
dashing  the  water  about.  Then  the  two  used 
the  towel  that  hung  on  a  roller  in  the  kitchen 
porch,  and  Tom  entered  the  kitchen  with  his 
clothes  soiled  by  labor  and  with  that  look  of 
healthful  fatigue  which  comes  of  plentiful  ex- 
ercise in  the  open  air. 

"  Howdy,  Rachel  ?  All  well 't  your  house  ?  " 
This  was  the  customary  and  almost  invariable 
formula  of  country  politeness,  and  it  was  ac- 
companied by  a  faint  smile  of  welcome  and  a 
grasp  of  her  hand. 

"  Howdy,  Tom  ?  "  said  Rachel,  cordially. 
"  I  hope  you  are  well."  Rachel  regarded  him 
a  moment,  and  then  let  her  eyes  droop.  Had 
Rachel  discovered  that  her  face  was  at  its 
best  when  her  long  eyelashes  were  lowered 
in  this  fashion,  or  was  the  action  merely  in- 
stinctive ? 

"  Oh,  so-so ! "  answered  Tom,  uneasily,  as 
he  seated  himself  with  the  rest  at  the  table. 
Rachel  sat  next  to  him,  and  he  treated  her 
with  hospitable  politeness,  but  she  looked  in 
vain  for  any  sign  of  his  old  affection.  She 
hardly  once  fairly  encountered  his  eye  during 
the  meal.  He  seemed  more  indifferent  to  her 
attractions  than  she  had  ever  known  any  man, 
old  or  young,  to  be.  And  yet  she  knew  that  her 
charms  had  lost  nothing  of  their  completeness. 
That  very  morning  she  had  gone  into  the 
rarely  opened  Albaugh  parlor  and  examined 
herself  in  the  largest  looking-glass  in  the 
house  —  the  one  that  hung  between  the  parlor 
windows,  and  that  had  a  print  of  Mount  Ver- 
non  in  the  upper  panel  of  the  space  inclosed 
between  the  turned  frames.  Her  fresh  and 
yet  delicate  complexion  was  without  a  speck 
or  flaw,  her  large  eyes  were  as  lustrous  as 


352 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


ever,  and  there  was  the  same  exquisite  sym-  house,  but  stopped  half-way  and  plucked  a 
metry  and  harmony  of  features  that  had  made  ripe  seed-pod  from  the  top  of  a  poppy-stalk, 
her  a  vision  of  loveliness  to  so  many  men.  and  rubbed  it  out  between  his  two  hands  as 
But  Tom  seemed  more  interested  in  his  cousin,  he  looked  a  little  regretfully  after  Rachel  until 
whom  he  kept  laughing  with  a  little  childish  by-  she  disappeared  over  the  hill.  Then  he  turned 
play  while  talking  to  his  sister's  guest.  Rachel  and  saw  Barbara  standing  on  the  porch  regard- 
felt  herself  baffled,  and  by  degrees,  though  ing  him  inquiringly. 

treated  cordially,  she  began  to  feel  humiliated.  "  You  are  n't  like  yourself  any  more,  Tom," 

When   dinner  was   finished  by  a  course  of  she  said. 

pumpkin  pie  and  quince  preserves,  served  with  "  I  know  that,"  he  answered,  meditatively,  at 

cream,  Tom  pushed  back  his  chair  and  ex-  the  same  time  filliping  the  minute  poppy-seeds 

plained  that  he  was  just  going  to  begin  building  away,  half  a  dozen  at  a  time,  with  his  thumb. 

some  rail  pens  to  hold  the  corn  when  it  should  "  I  don't  seem  to  be  the  same  fellow  that  I 

be  gathered  and  shucked,  and  that  he  could  was  three  months  ago.    Then  I  'd  'a'  followed 


not  allow  himself  the  usual  noon-time  rest. 
The  days  were  getting  so  short,  you  know. 
Would  Rachel  excuse  him  ?  Barbara  would 


blow  the  horn  so  that  he  could  put  the  saddle    been  in  love  before." 


Rachel  like  a  dog  every  step  of  the  way  home." 
She  's  awfully  in  love  with  you,  poor  girl." 
"  Oh !  she  '11  get  over  that,  I  suppose.  She 's 


on  Rachel's  horse  when  she  wanted  it.   But 
would  n't  she  stay  to  supper? 

Rachel  declined  to  stay  to  supper,  and  she 
was  visibly  less  animated  after  dinner  than  she 
had  been  before.  The  conversation  flagged  on 


"  And  you  don't  care  for  her  any  more  ?  " 
•'  I  don't  seem  to  care  for  anything  that  I 

used  to  care  for.    I  would  n't  like  to  be  what 

I  used  to  be." 
This  sentence  was  rather  obscure,  and  Bar- 


both  sides ;  Barbara  became  preoccupied  with  bara  still  looked  at  Tom  inquiringly  and  waited 

her  winding-blades,  her  bobbins,  and  her  shut-  for  him  to  explain.    But  he  only  went  on  in 

tie,  while  Rachel  was  absorbed  in  turning  the  the  same  inconsequential  way,  as  he  plucked 

heel  of  her  stocking.    By  half-past  i  o'clock  and  rubbed  out  another  poppy-head.   "  I  don't 

the  guest  felt  bound  to  go  home;  the  days  care  for  anything  nowadays,  but  just  to  stay 

were  getting  shorter  and  there  was  much  to  with  you  and  mother.    When  a  fellow  's  been 

be  done  at  home,  she  remembered.   The  horn  through  what  I  have,  I  suppose  he  is  n't  ever 

was  blown,  and  Tom  led  her  horse  out  to  the  the  same  that  he  was;  it  takes  the  ambition 

block  and  helped  her  to  mount.    As  he  held  out  of  you.    Hanging  makes  an  awful  change 

her  stirrup  for  her  to  place  her  foot,  it  brought  in  your  feelings,  you  know";  and  he  smiled 

to  his  memory,  with  a  rush,  her  refusal  to  let  grimly, 
him  ride   home   with    her  from  the   Timber 
Creek  school-house  after  the  "  singing."  When 


Don't  say  that ;  you  make  me  shiver,"  said 
Barbara. 


he  looked  up  he  saw  that  Rachel's  mind  had  "  But  I  say,  Barb,"  and  with  this  Tom 
followed  the  same  line  of  association;  both  sowed  broadcast  in  the  dooryard  all  the  poppy- 
of  them  colored  at  this  manifest  encounter  of  seed  in  his  hand,  "  yonder  comes  somebody 


their  thoughts. 


over  the  hill  that  '11  get  a  warmer  welcome 


"  I  suppose  I  ought  n't  to  have  said  'no'  than  Rachel  did,  I  '11  guarantee." 
that  day  at  the  school-house."    Rachel  spoke        How  often  in  the  last  week  had  Barbara 

with  feeling,  moved  more  by  the  desperate  looked  to  see  if  somebody  were  not  coming 

desire  she  felt  to  draw  Tom  out  than  by  any  over  the  hill !    Now  she  found  her  vision  ob- 

calculation  in  making  the  remark.  structed  by  a  "  laylock  "  bush,  and  she  came 

"  Yes,  you  ought,"  said   Tom.    "  I  never  down  the  path  to  where  her  brother  stood, 

blamed  you."  As  soon  as  she  had  made  out  that  the  pedes- 

Then  there  was  an  awkward  pause.  trian  was  certainly  Hiram  Mason,  she  turned 

"  Good-bye,  Tom,"  said  Rachel,  extending  and  went  into  the  house,  to  change  her  apron 

her  hand.    "  Won't  you  come  over  and  see  us  for  a  fresher  one,  and  with  an  instinctive  wish 

sometime  ?  "  to  hide  from  Mason  a  part  of  the  eagerness 

"  I  'm  generally  too  tired  when  night  comes,  she  had  felt  for  his  coming.    But  when  he  had 

Good-bye,  Rachel";  and  he  took  her  hand  in  a  reached  the  gate  and  was  having  his  hand 

friendly  way.  But  this  was  one  of  those  adieux  cordially  shaken  by  Tom,  Barbara  came  back 

that  are  aggravated  by  mental  contrast,  and  to  the  door  to  greet  him;  and  just  because  she 

Rachel  felt,  as  she  looked  at  Tom's  serious  could  n't  help  it,  she  went  out  on  the  porch, 

and  preoccupied  face,  that  it  was  to  her  the  then  down  the  steps  and  half-way  to  the  gate 

end  of  a  chapter.  to  tell  him  how  glad  she  was  to  see  him. 

Tom  started  up  the   pathway  toward  the 

(To  be  continued.)  Edward  Eggleston. 


THE    STEPPES    OF   THE    IRTISH. 


DECIDED,  after  careful  con- 
sideration, to  proceed  from  Tiu- 
men  to  Tomsk  through  the 
steppes  of  the  Irtish  by  way  of 
Omsk,  Pavlodar,  Semipalatinsk, 
Ust-Kamenogorsk,  and  Bar- 
naul. This  route  would  take  us  through  the 
best  agricultural  part  of  the  provinces  of  To- 
bolsk and  Tomsk,  as  well  as  the  districts  most 
thickly  settled  by  exiles;  it  would  enable  us  to 
see  something  of  the  Mohammedan  city  of 
Semipalatinsk  and  of  the  great  nomadic  and 
pastoral  tribe  of  natives  known  as  the  Kirghis; 
and  finally  it  would  afford  us  an  opportunity  to 
explore  a  part  of  the  Russian  Altai  —  a  high, 
picturesque,  mountainous  region  on  the  Mon- 
golian frontier,  which  had  been  described  to 
me  by  Russian  army  officers,  in  terms  of  enthu- 
siastic admiration,  as  "  the  Siberian  Switzer- 
land." I  had,  moreover,  another  reason  for 
wishing  to  keep  as  far  away  as  possible  from  the 
regular  through  routes  of  travel.  I  supposed 
when  we  left  St.  Petersburg  that  we  should 
be  obliged  to  go  from  Tiumen  to  Tomsk  either 
by  steamer  or  over  the  great  Siberian  road. 
The  Minister  of  the  Interior  understood  that 
such  would  be  our  course,  and  he  caused  let- 
ters to  be  written  to  all  the  local  officials  along 
these  routes,  apprising  them  of  our  coming 
and  furnishing  them  with  such  instructions  con- 
cerning us  as  the  circumstances  seemed  to  re- 
quire. What  these  instructions  were  I  could 
never  ascertain ;  but  they  anticipated  us  at 
every  important  point  on  the  great  Siberian 
road  from  Tiumen  to  the  capital  of  the  Trans- 
Baikal.  In  eastern  Siberia  the  local  author- 
ities knew  all  about  us  months  before  we 
arrived.  I  first  became  aware  of  these  letters 
and  this  system  of  official  surveillance  at 
Tiumen ;  and  as  they  seemed  likely  to  inter- 
fere seriously  with  my  plans, —  particularly  in 
the  field  of  political  exile, —  I  determined  to 
escape  or  elude  them  as  far  as  possible,  by 
leaving  the  regular  through  route  and  going 
into  a  region  where  the  authorities  had  not 
presumably  been  forewarned  of  our  coming. 
I  had  reason  after.vard  to  congratulate  my- 
self upon  the  exercise  of  sound  judgment  in 
making  this  decision.  The  detour  to  the 
southward  brought  us  not  only  into  the  part 
of  Siberia  where  the  political  exiles  enjoy 
most  freedom,  and  where  it  is  easiest  to  make 
their  acquaintance,  but  into  a  province  which 
was  then  governed  by  a  liberal  and  humane 
man. 


On  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  June  30, 
having  made  our  farewell  calls,  purchased  a 
tarantas,  and  provided  ourselves  with  a"pad- 
orozhnaya,"  or  order  for  horses,  we  left  Tiumen 
for  Semipalatinsk  by  the  regular  Government 
post.  The  Imperial  Russian  Post  is  now  per- 
haps the  most  extensive  and  perfectly  organ- 
ized horse-express  service  in  the  world.  From 
the  southern  end  of  the  peninsula  of  Kam- 
tchatka  to  the  most  remote  village  in  Finland, 
from  the  frozen,  wind-swept  shores  of  the  Arctic 
Ocean  to  the  hot,  sandy  deserts  of  central  Asia, 
the  whole  empire  is  one  vast  net-work  of  post 
routes.  You  may  pack  your  portmanteau  in 
Nizhni  Novgorod,  get  apadorozhnayafromthe 
postal  department,  and  start  for  Petropavlovsk, 
Kamtchatka,  seven  thousand  miles  away,  with 
the  full  assurance  that  throughout  the  whole 
of  that  enormous  distance  there  will  be  horses, 
reindeer,  or  dogs  ready  and  waiting  to  carry 
you  on,  night  and  day,  to  your  destination.  It 
must,  however,  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
Russian  post  route  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  old  English  post  route,  and  that  the 
Russian  horse  express  differs  widely,  not  only 
from  our  own  western  "  pony  express,"  but 
from  the  horse  expresses  of  most  other  coun- 
tries. The  characteristic  feature  of  the  west 
European  and  American  systems  is  the  stage- 
coach or  diligence,  which  leaves  certain 
places  at  certain  stated  hours,  or,  in  other 
words,  runs  upon  a  prearranged  time  sched- 
ule. It  is  precisely  this  feature  which  the 
Russian  system  does  not  have.  There  are, 
generally  speaking,  no  stage-coach  lines  in 
Russia;  the  vehicles  which  carry  the  mails  do 
not  carry  passengers,  and,  away  from  the  rail- 
roads, there  is  no  such  thing  as  traveling  upon 
a  fixed  time  schedule.  You  are  never  obliged, 
therefore,  to  wait  for  a  public  conveyance 
which  leaves  at  a  certain  stated  hour,  and 
then  go  through  to  your  destination  in  that 
conveyance,  stopping  when  it  stops  and  start- 
ing when  it  starts,  without  regard  to  your  own 
health,  comfort,  or  convenience.  On  the  con- 
trary, you  may  ride  in  your  own  sleigh  or  car- 
riage, and  have  it  drawn  by  post  horses.  You 
may  travel  at  the  rate  of  175  miles  in  24  hours, 
or  24  miles  in  175  hours,  just  as  you  feel  in- 
clined. You  may  stop  when  you  like,  where 
you  like,  and  for  as  long  a  time  as  you  like, 
and  when  you  are  ready  to  move  on,  you  have 
only  to  order  out  your  horses  and  get  into 
your  vehicle.  It  makes  no  difference  in  what 
part  of  the  empire  you  may  happen  to  be,  nor 


354 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


SKETCH   MAP    OF    SIBERIA,    SHADED    PORTION    SHOWING    ROUTE 
DESCRIBED    IN    THIS    ARTICLE. 


to  what  part  you  may  wish  to  go.  Send  your 
padoro/chnaya  to  the  nearest  post  station,  and 
in  twenty  minutes  you  will  be  riding  away  at 
the  rate  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  with  your  postal 
order  in  your  pocket  and  a  hundred  relays  of 
fresh  horses  distributed  at  intervals  along  your 
route. 

The  established  rate  of  payment  for  trans- 
portation over  the  post  routes  of  western  Si- 
beria seems  to  an  American  absurdly  low.  It 
amounts,  including  the  compensation  of  the 
driver,  to  i  */fj  cents  per  mile  for  every  horse, 
or  3^4  cents  per  mile  for  the  usual  "  troika," 
or  team  of  three.  In  other  words,  two  persons 
can  travel  in  their  own  carriage  with  a  team 
of  3  horses  a  distance  of  20  miles  for  68 
cents,  or  34  cents  each.  I  used  to  feel  al- 
most ashamed  sometimes  to  wake  up  a  driver 
at  a  post  station,  in  the  middle  of  a  stormy 
night,  compel  him  to  harness  three  horses  and 
drive  us  20  miles  over  a  dark,  miry,  and  per- 
haps dangerous  road,  and  then  offer  him  for 
this  service  the  pitiful  sum  of  68  cents. 
Trifling  and  inadequate,  however,  as  such 
compensation  may  seem,  it  is  large  enough  to 
tempt  into  this  field  of  enterprise  hundreds  of 
peasant  farmers  who  compete  with  the  Gov- 
ernment post  by  furnishing  what  are  known 
as  "  volni  "  or  "  free  "  horses,  for  the  transpor- 
tation of  travelers  from  one  village  to  another. 
As  these  free  horses  are  generally  better  fed 
and  in  better  condition  than  the  over-driven 
animals  at  the  post  stations,  it  is  often  advan- 
tageous to  employ  them;  and  your  driver,  as 
you  approach  a  village,  will  almost  always  turn 
around  and  inquire  whether  he  shall  take  you 
to  the  Government  post  station  or  to  the  house 
of  a  "  friend."  Traveling  with  "  drushki,"  or 
"  friends,"  costs  no  more  than  traveling  by  post, 
and  it  enables  one  to  see  much  more  of  the 
domestic  life  of  the  Siberian  peasants  than  one 
could  see  by  stopping  and  changing  horses 
only  at  regular  post  stations. 

The  first  part  of  our  journey  from  Tinmen 
to  Omsk  was  comparatively  uneventful  and 
uninteresting.  The  road  ran  across  a  great 
marshy  plain,  full  of  swampy  lakes,  and  cov- 


ered with  a  scattered  growth  of 
willow  and  alder  bushes,  small  birch- 
trees,  and  scrubby  firs  and  pines, 
which  in  every  direction  limited  the 
vision  and  hid  the  horizon  line.  All 
this  part  of  the  province  of  Tobolsk 
seems  to  have  been,  within  a  com- 
paratively recent  geological  period, 
the  bottom  of  a  great  inland  sea 
which  united  the  Caspian  and  the 
sea  of  Aral  with  the  Arctic  Ocean, 
along  the  line  of  the  shallow  depres- 
sion through  which  now  flow  the  rivers 
Irtish  and  Ob.  Everywhere  between 
Tiumen  and  Omsk  we  saw  evidences,  in  the 
shape  of  sand-banks,  salt-marshes,  beds  of  clay, 
and  swampy  lakes,  to  show  that  we  were  trav- 
eling, over  a  partly  dried  up  sea  bottom. 

About  a  hundred  versts  from  Tiumen,  just 
beyond  the  village  of  Zavodo-ukofskaya,  we 
stopped  for  two  hours  early  in  the  evening  at 
the  residence  and  estate  of  a  wealthy  Siberian 
manufacturer  named  Kolmakoff,  to  whom  I 
had  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a  Russian 
friend.  I  was  surprised  to  find  in  this  remote 
part  of  the  world  so  many  evidences  of  com- 
fort, taste,  and  luxury  as  were  to  be  seen  in 
and  about  Mr.  Kolmakoff 's  house.  The  house 
itself  was  only  a  two-story  building  of  logs, 
but  it  was  large  and  comfortably  furnished, 
and  its  windows  looked  out  over  an  artificial 
lake,  and  a  beautiful  garden,  with  winding 
walks,  rustic 
arbors,  long 
lines  of  currant 
and  raspberry 
bushes, '  and 
beds  of  flower- 
ing plants.  At 
one  end  of  this 
garden  was  a 
spacious  con- 
servatory, filled 
with  gerani- 
ums, verbenas, 
hydrangeas, 
cacti,  orange 
and  lemon 
trees,  pine-ap- 
ples, and  all 
sorts  of  tropical 
and  semi- tropi- 
cal shrubs,  and 
near  at  hand 
was  a  large  hot- 
house, full  of 
cucumbers  and 
ripening  can- 
taloupes. In 
the  middle  of 
the  garden 


Tium 


Ust  Z.aostrofskaya 
AcHairskaya 
Pokrofskaya, 
Salyanskaya 
Cherbkbl'skaya 
el^zihskaya 


t2ilba'shskay 
Urliutiupskay; 
Piatorizhskaya' 


CHdrnaya 


jfPavloda'r 

pYamishe'fskaya 
Lebia'zhia 

SSemiarskaya    ty        d 
Grachevsksya'ft'  \/ 

Dolo'nskayaV 

Semipalaiinsk 


ENLARGED    MAP    OF     ROUTE    COVEKtU 
BY     THIS     ARTICLE. 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


355 


stood  a  square  building,  sixty  feet  long  by 
forty  or  fifty  feet  wide,  which  was  con 
almost  entirely  of  glass,  which  had  no  floor 
except  the  earth,  and  which  served,  Mr.  Kol- 
makotT  said,  as  a  sort  of  winter  garden  and 
a  place  of  recreation  during  cold  or  stormy 
weather.  In  this  miniature  Crystal  Palace 
stood  a  perfect  grove  of  bananas  and  young 
palms,  through  which  ran  winding  walks  bor- 
derei  1  by  beds  of  flowers,  with  here  and  there 
amidst  the  greenery  a  comfortable  lounging- 
place  or  rustic  seat.  The  trees,  flowers,  and 
shrubs  were  not  planted  in  tubs  or  pots,  but 
grew  directly  out  of  the  earthen  floor  of  the 
greenhouse,  so  that  the  effect  was  almost  pre- 
cisely that  of  a  semi-tropical  garden  inclosed 
in  glass. 

"  Who  would  have  thought,"  said  Mr.  Frost, 
as  he  threw  himself  into  one  of  the  rustic  seats 
beside  a  bed  of  blossoming  verbenas,  "  that 
we  should  come  to  Siberia  to  sit  under  palm- 
trees  and  in  the  shade  of  bananas !  " 

After  a  walk  through  the  spacious  wooded 
park  which  adjoined  the  garden,  we  returned 
to  the  house,  and  were  served  with  a  lunch  or 
cold  supper  consisting  of  caviar,  pickled  mush- 
rooms, salmon,  cold  boiled  fo.wl,  white  bread, 
sweet  cakes,  and  wild  strawberries,  with  vodka, 
two  or  three  kinds  of  wine,  and  tea. 

It  had  grown  quite  dark  when,  about  n 
o'clock,  the  horses  which  we  had  ordered  in 
the  neighboring  village  arrived,  and  bidding 
our  courteous  host  good-bye,  we  climbed  into 
the  tarantas  and  set  out  for  a  long,  dark,  and 
dreary  night's  ride.  The  road,  which  had  never 
been  good,  was  in  worse  condition  than  usual, 
owing  to  recent  and  heavy  rains.  Our  driver 
urged  four  powerful  horses  over  it  at  break- 
neck speed,  and  we  were  so  jounced,  jolted, 
and  shaken  that  it  was  utterly  impossible  to  get 
any  sleep,  and  difficult  enough  merely  to  keep 
our  seats  in  the  vehicle.  Early  in  the  morning, 
sleepy,  jaded,  and  exhausted,  we  reached  the 
village  of  Novo  Zaimskaya,  entered  the  little 
log-house  of  our  driver's  "friend,"  threw  our- 
selves on  the  bare  floor,  where  half  a  dozen 
members  of  the  friend's  family  were  already 
lying,  and  for  two  or  three  hours  lost  con- 
sciousness of  our  aching  spinal  columns  in 
the  heavy  dreamless  slumber  of  physical  ex- 
haustion. 

Throughout  the  next  day  and  the  following 
night  we  traveled,  without  rest,  and  of  course 
without  sleep,  over  a  terribly  bad  steppe  road, 
and  at  6  o'clock  Thursday  morning  arrived 
in  a  pelting  rain-storm  at  the  circuit  town  of 
Ishim.  No  one  who  has  not  experienced  it 
can  fully  realize  the  actual  physical  suffering 
which  is  involved  in  posting  night  and  day 
at  high  speed  over  bad  Siberian  roads.  We 
made  the  200  miles  between  Tiumen  and 


Ishim  in  about  35  hours  of  actual  travel,  with 
only  4  hours  of  sleep,  and  were  so  jolted  and 
shaken  that  every  bone  in  our  bodies  ached, 
and  it  was  with  difficulty  that  we  could  climb 
into  and  out  of  our  mud-bespattered  tarantas 
at  the  post  stations. 

It  had  been  our  intention  to  make  a  short 
stop  at  Ishim,  but  the  bad  weather  discouraged 
us,  and  after  drinking  tea  at  a  peasant's  house 
on  the  bank  of  the  Ishim  river,  we  resumed 
our  journey.  As  we  rode  out  of  the  town 
through  a  thin  forest  of  birch-trees,  we  began 
to  notice  large  numbers  of  men,  women,  and 
children  plodding  along  on  foot  through  the 
mud  in  the  same  direction  that  we  were  going. 
Most  of  them  were  common  "  muzhiks,"  with 
trousers  inside  their  boots  and  shirt-flaps  out- 
side their  trousers,  or  sun-burned  peasant 
women  in  red  and  blue  gowns,  with  white 
kerchiefs  over  their  heads;  but  there  were 
also  a  few  pedestrians  in  the  conventional 
dress  of  the  civilized  world,  who  manifestly 
belonged  to  the  higher  classes,  and  who  even 
carried  umbrellas. 

About  four  miles  from  the  town  we  saw 
ahead  a  great  crowd  of  men  and  women 
marching  towards  us  in  a  dense,  tumultuous 
throng,  carry  ing  big  three-armed  crosses,  white 
and  colored  banners,  and  huge  glass  lanterns 
mounted  on  long  black  staves.  As  they  came 
nearer  I  could  see  that  the  throng  was  den- 
sest in  the  middle  of  the  muddy  road,  under 
what  seemed  to  be  a  large  gilt- framed  picture 
which  was  borne  high  in  air  at  the  end  of  a 
long,  stout  wooden  pole.  The  lower  end  of 
this  pole  rested  in  a  socket  in  the  middle  of 
a  square  framework  which  had  handles  on 
all  four  sides,  and  which  was  carried  by  six 
bare-headed  peasants.  The  massive  frame  of 
the  portrait  was  made  either  of  gold  or  of 
silver  gilt,  since  it  was  manifestly  very  heavy, 
and  half  a  dozen  men  steadied,  by  means  of 
guy  ropes,  the  standard  which  supported  it, 
as  the  bearers,  with  their  faces  bathed  in  per- 
spiration, staggered  along  under  their  burden. 
In  front  of  the  picture  marched  a  bare-headed, 
long-haired  priest  with  a  book  in  his  hands, 
and  on  each  side  were  four  or  five  black- 
robed  deacons  and  acolytes,  carrying  em- 
broidered silken  banners,  large  three-armed 
gilt  crosses,  and  peculiar  church  lanterns,  which 
looked  like  portable  street  gas-posts  with  can- 
dles burning  in  them.  The  priest,  the  dea- 
cons, and  all  the  bare-headed  men  around  the 
picture  were  singing  in  unison  a  deep,  hoarse, 
monotonous  chant  as  they  splashed  along 
through  the  mud,  and  the  hundreds  of  men 
and  women  who  surged  around  the  standard 
that  supported  the  portrait  were  constantly 
crossing  themselves,  and  joining  at  intervals 
in  the  chanted  psalm  or  prayer.  Scores  of 


356 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


peasant  women  had  taken  off  their  shoes  and 
stockings  and  slung  them  over  their  shoul- 
ders, and  were  wading  with  bare  feet  and 
legs  through  the  black,  semi-liquid  mire,  and 
neither  men  nor  women  seemed  to  pay  the 
slightest  attention  to  the  rain,  which  beat  upon 
their  unprotected  heads  and  trickled  in  little 
rivulets  down  their  hard,  sun-burned  faces. 
The  crowd  numbered,  I  should  think,  four 
or  five  hundred  persons,  more  than  half  of 
whom  were  women,  and  as  it  approached  the 
town  it  was  constantly  receiving  accessions 
from  the  groups  of  pedestrians  that  we  had 
overtaken  and  passed. 

Since  entering  Siberia  I  had  not  seen  such  a 
strange  and  medieval  picture  as  that  presented 
by  the  black-robed  priest  and  acolytes,  the 
embroidered  banners,  the  lighted  lanterns,  the 
gilded  crosses,  and  the  great  throng  of  bare- 
headed and  bare-legged  peasants,  tramping 
along  the  black,  muddy  road  through  the  for- 
est in  the  driving  rain,  singing  a  solemn  ec- 
clesiastical chant.  I  could  almost  imagine 
that  we  had  been  carried  back  to  the  eleventh 
century  and  were  witnessing  the  passage  of  a 
detachment  of  Christian  villagers  who  had 
been  stirred  up  and  excited  by  the  eloquence 
of  Peter  the  Hermit,  and  were  marching  with 
crosses,  banners,  and  chanting  to  join  the  great 
host  of  the  crusaders. 

When  the  last  stragglers  in  the  rear  of  the 
procession  had  passed,  and  the  hoarse,  monoto- 
nous chant  had  died  away  in  the  distance,  I 
turned  to  Mr.  Frost  and  said,  "  What  do  you 
suppose  is  the  meaning  of  all  that  ?  " 

"  I  have  n't  the  least  idea,"  he  replied.  "  It 
is  evidently  a  church  procession,  but  what  it 
has  been  doing  out  here  in  the  woods,  I  can't 
imagine." 

By  dint  of  persistent  questioning  I  finally 
succeeded  in  eliciting  from  our  driver  an 
intelligible  explanation  of  the  phenomenon. 
There  was,  it  appeared,  in  one  of  the  churches 
of  Ishim,  a  very  old  ikon,  or  portrait  of  "  the 
Mother  of  God,"  which  was  reputed  to  have 
supernatural  powers  and  to  answer  the  prayers 
of  faithful  believers.  In  order  that  the  coun- 
try people  who  were  unable  to  come  to  Ishim 
might  have  an  opportunity  to  pray  to  this 
miracle-working  image,  and  to  share  in  the 
blessings  supposed  to  be  conferred  by  its  mere 
presence,  it  was  carried  once  a  year,  or  once 
in  two  years,  through  all  the  principal  villages 
of  the  Ishim  okrug,  or  district.  Special  services 
in  its  honor  were  held  in  the  village  churches, 
and  hundreds  of  peasants  accompanied  it  as 
it  was  borne  with  solemn  pomp  and  ceremony 
from  place  to  place.  It  had  been  on  such  a 
tour  when  we  saw  it  and  was  on  its  way  back 
to  the  church  in  Ishim  where  it  belonged,  and 
our  driver  had  stated  the  fact  in  the  simplest 


and  most  direct  way  when  he  said  that  "  the 
Mother  of  God  was  coming  home." 

Rain  fell  at  intervals  throughout  the  day 
Thursday,  but  we  pushed  on  over  a  muddy- 
steppe  road  in  the  direction  of  Tiukalinsk, 
changing  horses  at  the  post  stations  of  Borof- 
skaya,  Tushnolobova,  Abatskaya,  and  Kamy- 
shenka,  and  stopping  for  the  nightat  apeasant's 
house  in  the  village  of  Orlova.  In  the  60  hours 
which  had  elapsed  since  our  departure  from 
Tiumen  we  had  traveled  280  miles,  with  only 
4  hours  of  sleep,  and  we  were  so  much  ex- 
hausted that  we  could  not  go  any  farther  with- 
out rest.  The  weather  during  the  night  finally 
cleared  up,  and  when  we  resumed  our  journey 
on  the  following  morning  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing brightly  in  an  almost  unclouded  sky,  and 
the  air  was  fresh,  invigorating,  and  filled  with 
fragrant  odors. 

Although  the  road  continued  bad,  the  coun- 
try as  we  proceeded  southward  and  eastward 
steadily  improved  in  appearance,  and  before 
noon  we  were  riding  across  a  beautiful  fertile 
and  partly  cultivated  prairie,  which  extended 
in  every  direction  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach, 
with  nothing  to  break  the  horizon  line  except 
an  occasional  clump  of  small  birch-trees  or  a 
dark-green  thicket  of  willow  and  alder  bushes. 
The  steppe  was  bright  with  flowers,  and  here 
and  there  appeared  extensive  tracts  of  black, 
newly  plodded  land,  or  vast  fields  of  waving 
grain,  which  showed  that  the  country  was  in- 
habited ;  but  there  was  not  a  fence,  nor  a  barn, 
nor  a  house  to  be  seen  in  any  direction,  and  I 
could  not  help  wondering  where  the  village  was 
to  which  these  cultivated  fields  belonged.  My 
curiosity  was  soon  to  be  satisfied.  In  a  few  mo- 
ments our  driver  gathered  up  his  muddy  rope 
reins,  braced  himself  securely  in  his  seat,  threw 
out  behind  and  above  his  head  the  long 
heavy  lash  of  his  short-handled  knout,  and 
bringing  it  down  with  stinging  force  across  the 
backs  of  his  four  horses  shouted,  in  a  high  fal- 
setto and  a  deep  bass,  "  Heekh-ya-a-a  !  "  The 
whole  team  instantly  broke  into  a  frantic,  tear- 
ing gallop,  which  made  me  involuntarily  hold 
my  breath,  until  it  was  suddenly  jounced  out 
of  me  by  a  terrific  jolt  as  the  tarantas,  going 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  dropped  into 
a  deep  rut  and  rebounded  with  tremendous 
force,  throwing  me  violently  out  of  my  seat, 
and  making  my  head  and  back  throb  with  the 
shock  of  the  unexpected  concussion.  I  needed 
no  further  evidence  that  we  were  approaching 
a  village.  A  Siberian  team  never  fully  shows 
what  it  can  do  until  it  is  within  half  a  mile 
of  its  destination,  and  then  it  suddenly  be- 
comes a  living  tornado  of  energy.  I  shouted 
to  the  driver,  "  Pastoi !  Teeshei !  "  ["  Hold  on ! 
Don't  go  so  fast !  "]  but  it  was  of  no  use.  Both 
driver  and  horses  knew  that  this  was  the  final 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


357 


THE   RETURN    OF    THE    MIRACLE-WORKING    IKON. 


spurt,  and  exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost, 
the  horses  laying  back  their  ears  and  tearing 
ahead  as  if  pursued  by  a  prairie  fire,  while  the 
driver  lashed  them  fiercely  with  his  heavy 
knout  to  an  accompaniment  of  shrill,  wild 
cries,  whoops,  whistles,  and  shouts  of  "  Ya-a- 
a-va !  "  "  Ay  doorak  !  "  "  Noo-oo-oo  ! "  (with 
a  falling  inflection)  "  Heekh-ya-a-a  !  "  All  that 
we  could  do  was  to  shut  our  eyes,  trust  in 
Providence,  and  hold  on.  The  tarantas  was 
pelted  with  a  perfect  storm  of  mud  from  the 
flying  hoofs  of  four  galloping  horses,  and 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 51. 


if,  putting  out  my  head,  I  opened  my  mouth 
to  expostulate  with  the  driver,  I  ran  great 
risk  of  having  it  effectually  closed  by  a  tea- 
cupful  of  tenacious  black  mire,  thrown  like 
a  semi-liquid  ball  from  the  catapult  of  a 
horse's  hoof.  In  a  moment  we  saw,  barring 
the  way  ahead,  a  long  wattled  fence  extend- 
ing for  a  mile  or  more  to  the  right  and  left, 
with  a  narrow  gate  at  the  point  where  it  inter- 
sected the  road.  It  was  the  fence  which  in- 
closed the  pasture  ground  of  the  village  that 
we  were  approaching.  As  we  dashed,  with  a 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


COSSACK    PEASANT    GIKL. 


wild  whoop  from  our  driver,  through  the  open 
gateway,  we  noticed  beside  it  a  curious  half- 
underground  hut,  roofed  partly  with  bushes 
and  partly  with  sods,  out  of  which,  as  we  passed, 
came  the  village  gate-keeper — a  dirty,  forlorn- 
looking  old  man  with  inflamed  eyes  and  a  long 
white  beard,  who  reminded  me  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle  after  his  twenty-years'  sleep.  While  he 
was  in  the  act  of  bowing  and  touching  the 
weather-beaten  remains  of  what  was  once  a 
hat,  we  whirled  past  and  lost  sight  of  him,  with 
a  feeling  of  regret  that  we  could  not  stop  and 
take  a  photograph  of  such  a  wild,  neglect- 
ed, picturesque  embodiment  of  poverty  and 
wretchedness  clothed  in  rags.  Just  inside  the 
gate  stood  an  unpainted  sign-post,  upon  the 
board  of  which  had  been  neatly  inscribed  in 
black  letters  the  words 

VILLAGE  OF  KRUTAYA. 
Distance  from  St.  Petersburg,  2992  versts. 
Distance  from  Moscow,  2526  versts. 
Houses,  42.   Male  souls,  97. 

Between  the  gate  and  the  village  there  was 
a  grassy  common  about  half  a  mile  wide,  upon 
which  were  grazing  hundreds  of  cattle  and 


sheep.  Here  and  there  stood  a  huge 
picturesque  windmill,  consisting  of 
a  small  gable-roofed  house  with 
four  enormous  wind-vanes  mounted 
on  a  pivot  at  the  apex  of  a  pyramid 
of  cross-piled  logs.  Beyond  the 
windmills  appeared  the  village,  a 
small  collection  of  gray,  weather- 
beaten  log-houses,  some  with  roofs 
of  boards,  some  with  a  roofing  of 
ragged  birch-bark  held  in  place  by 
tightly  lashed  poles,  some  thatched 
with  straw,  and  some  the  flat  roofs  of 
which  had  been  overlaid  with  black 
earth  from  the  steppe  and  supported 
a  thrifty  steppe  flora  of  weeds,  but- 
tercups, and  wild  mustard. 
Through  thisclusterofgraylog- 
houses  ran  one  central  street, 
which  had  neither  walks  nor 
gutters,  and  which,  from  side 
to  side  and  from  end  to  end, 
was  a  shallow  lake  of  black, 
liquid  mud.  Into  this  wide 
street  we  dashed  at  a  tearing 
gallop ;  and  the  splattering  of 
the  horses'  hoofs  in  the  mud,  the  rumble 
of  the  tarantas,  and  the  wild  cries  of  our 
driver  brought  the  whole  population  to  the 
windows  to  see  whether  it  was  the  governor- 
general  or  a  special  courier  of  the  Tsar  who 
came  at  such  a  furious  pace  into  the  quiet 
settlement.  Presently  our  driver  pulled  up 
his  reeking,  panting  horses  before  the 
court-yard  gate  of  one  of  his  friends 
and  shouted,  "  Davai  losheday !  "  ["  Bring 
out  the  horses !  "]  Then  from  all  parts  of 
the  village  came,  splashing  and  "thlupping" 
through  the  mud,  idlers  and  old  men  to  see 
who  had  arrived  and  to  watch  the  changing 
of  teams.  Strange, 
picturesque  fig- 
ures the  old  men 
were,  with  their 
wrinkled  faces, 
matted,  neglect- 
ed hair,  and 
long  stringy  gray 
beards.  Some 
were  bare-head- 
ed, some  bare- 
footed, some  wore 
tattered  sheepskin 
"shubas"  and  top- 
boots,  and  some 
had  on  long-tailed 
butternut  coats, 
girt  about  the 
waist  with  straps 
or  dirty  colored 
sashes.  While 


A    WEALTHY    KIRGHIS. 


/•//A'    .SVA/'/'A-.V    ()/•-    THE   IRTISH. 


359 


A    STEPPE    VILLAGE. 


they  assembled  in  a  group  around  the  tarantas, 
our  driver  climbed  down  from  his  high  seat  and 
began  to  unharness  his  horses.  The  owner  of 
the  house  in  front  of  which  we  had  stopped 
soon  made  his  appearance,  and  inquired 
whether  we  wished  to  drink  tea  or  to  go  on  at 
once.  I  replied  that  we  desired  to  go  on  at 
once.  "  Andre !  "  he  shouted  to  one  of  his  sons, 
"  ride  to  the  pasture  and  drive  in  the  horses." 
Andre  sprang  on  a  bare-backed  horse  which 
another  boy  brought  out  of  the  court-yard 
and  galloped  away  to  the  village  common. 
In  the  mean  time  the  assembled  crowd  of  idlers 
watched  our  movements,  commented  upon 
our  "  new-fashioned  "  tarantas,  and  tried  to 
ascertain  from  our  driver  who  we  were  and 
where  we  were  going.  Failing  to  get  from 
that  source  any  precise  information,  one  of 
them,  a  bare-headed,  gray-haired  old  man,  said 
to  me,  "  Bahrin!  Permit  us  to  ask  —  where  is 
God  taking  you  to?"  I  replied  that  we  were 
going  to  Omsk  and  Semipalatinsk.  "  A-a-ah !  " 
murmured  the  crowd  with  gratified  curiosity. 

"  Where  do  you  condescend  to  come  from  ?  " 
inquired  the  old  man,  pursuing  the  investiga- 
tion. 

"  From  America,"  I  replied. 

"A  a-ah  !  "  breathed  the  crowd  again. 

"  Is  that  a  Russian  town  ?  "  persisted  the 
old  man. 

"  America  is  n't  a  town,"  shouted  a  bright- 
faced  boy  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  "  It 's 
a  country.  All  the  world,"  he  continued  me- 
chanically, as  if  reciting  from  a  school-book, 
"  is  divided  into  five  parts,  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
America,  and  Australia.  Russia  occupies  two- 
thirds  of  Europe  and  one-half  of  Asia."  Be- 


yond this  even  the  school-boy's  geographical 
knowledge  did  not  extend,  and  it  was  evident 
that  none  of  the  old  inhabitants  of  the  village 
had  even  so  much  as  heard  of  America.  A 
young  man,  however,  who  had  happened  to 
be  in  Omsk  when  the  bodies  of  the  dead 
members  of  the  Jeannette  Arctic  expedition 
were  carried  through  that  city,  undertook  to 
enlighten  the  crowd  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Americans,  who,  he  said,  "  were  the  wisest 
people  that  God  had  ever  created,  and  the 
only  people  that  had  ever  sailed  into  the  great 
Icy  Sea."  One  of  the  old  inhabitants  con- 
tended that  Rus- 
sian navigators 
had  also  pene- 
trated the  Icy  Sea, 
and  that  although 
they  might  not  be 
so  "  wise "  as  the 
Americans,  they 
were  quite  as  good 
sailors  in  icy  waters. 
This  gave  rise  to 
an  animated  dis- 
cussion of  polar 
exploration,  in  the 
midst  of  which  the 
young  fellow  who 
had  been  sent  after 
the  horses  came 
back  with  whistle 
and  whoop,  driv- 
ing the  animals 
before  him  into 
the  court-yard, 
where  they  were 


36° 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE   IRTISH. 


soon  harnessed,  and  were  then  brought  out  and 
fastened  with  long  rope  traces  to  the  tarantas. 
Our  new  driver  mounted  the  box,  inquired 
whether  we  were  ready,  and  gathering  up  his 
rope  reins  shouted  "  Noo-oo !  "  to  his  horses ; 
and  with  a  measured  jangle  of  bells  from  the 
arch  over  the  thill-horse's  back,  and  a  "  splash- 
spatter-splash  "  of  hoofs  in  the  mud,  we  rolled 
out  of  the  settlement. 

Such,  with  trifling  variations  in  detail,  was 
the  regular  routine  of  arrival  and  departure  in 


foreground  with  millions  of  wild  roses,  white 
marguerites,  delicate  five-angled  harebells,  and 
dark  red  tiger-lilies.  Between  the  villages  of 
Krutaya  and  Kalmakova,  on  Friday,  we  rode 
across  a  steppe  which  was  literally  a  great 
ocean  of  flowers.  One  could  pick  twenty  dif- 
ferent species  and  a  hundred  specimens  within 
the  area  of  a  single  square  yard.  Here  and 
there  we  deserted  the  miry  road  and  drove 
for  miles  across  the  smooth,  grassy  plain, 
crushing  flowers  by  the  score  at  every  revo- 
lution of  our  carriage- 
wheels.  In  the  middle 
of  the  steppe  I  had 
our  driver  stop  and 
wait  for  me  while  I 
alighted  and  walked 
away  into  the  flowery 
solitude  to  enjoy  the 
stillness,  theperfumed 
air,  and  the  sea  of  ver- 
dure through  which 
ran  the  long,  sinuous 
black  line  of  the 
muddy  highway.  On 
my  left,  beyond  the 


all  of  the  steppe 
villages  where  we 
changed  horses 
between  Tiumen 
and  Omsk.  The 
greater  number 
of  these  villages 
were  dreary,  for- 
lorn- looking 
places,  contain- 
ing neither  yards, 

walks,  trees,  grass-plots,  nor  shrubbery,  and 
presenting  to  the  eye  nothing  but  two  parallel 
•  lines  of  gray,  dilapidated  log-houses  and  tum- 
ble-down court-yard  walls  rising  directly  out  of 


AN    OASIS    IN    THE     IRTISH     STEPI'E. 


road,  was  a  wide,  shallow  depression  six 
or  eight  miles  across,  rising  on  the  opposite 
side  in  a  long,  gradual  sweep  to  a  dark  blue 
line  of  birch  forest  which  formed  the  horizon. 


the  long  pool  of  jet-black  mud  which  formed    This  depression  was  one  smooth  expanse  of 


the  solitary  street. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  intense  pleasure  and 
relief  that  one  leaves  such  a  village  and  rides 
out  upon  the  wide,  clean,  breezy  steppe  where 
the  air  is  filled  with  the  fragrance  of  clover 
and  the  tinging  of  birds,  and  where  the  eye 
is  constantly  delighted  with  great  sweeps  of 
smooth,  velvety  turf,  or  vast  undulating  ex- 
panses of  high  steppe  grass  sprinkled  in  the 


close,  green  turf  dotted  with  grazing  cattle 
and  sheep,  and  broken  here  and  there  by  a 
silvery  pool  or  lake.  Around  me,  upon  the 
higher  ground,  the  steppe  was  carpeted  with 
flowers,  among  which  I  noticed  splendid 
orange  asters  two  inches  in  diameter,  spotted 
tiger-lilies  with  strongly  reflexed  petals,  white 
clover,  daisies,  harebells,  spirea,  astragalus, 
melilotus,  and  a  peculiar  flower  growing  in 


THE  STEPPES   OF  THE   IRTISH. 


361 


POLICE    STATION    AND    FIRE    TOWER    IN    OMSK. 


long,  slender,  curved  spikes  which  suggested 
flights  of  miniature  carmine  sky-rockets  sent 
up  by  the  fairies  of  the  steppe.  The  air  was 
still  and  warm,  and  had  a  strange,  sweet  fra- 
grance which  I  can  liken  only  to  the  taste  of 
wild  honey.  There  were  no  sounds  to  break 
the  stillness  of  the  great  plain  except  the 
drowsy  hum  of  bees,  the  regular  measured 
"  Kate-did-Kate-did  "  of  a  few  katydids  in 
the  grass  near  me,  and  the  wailing  cry  of  a 
steppe  hawk  hovering  over  the  nest  of  some 
field-mice.  It  was  a  delight  simply  to  lie  on 
the  grass  amidst  the  flowers  and  see,  hear,  and 
breathe. 

We  traveled  all  day  Friday  over  flowery 
steppes  and  through  little  log  villages  like 
those  that  I  have  tried  to  describe,  stopping 
occasionally  to  make  a  sketch,  collect  flowers, 
or  talk  with  the  peasants  about  the  exile  sys- 
tem. Now  and  then  we  met  a  solitary  traveler 
in  a  muddy  tarantas  on  his  way  to  Tiumen, 
or  passed  a  troop  .of  exiles  in  gray  overcoats 
plodding  along  through  the  mud,  surrounded 
by  a  cordon  of  soldiers ;  but  as  we  were  off 

*  An  okroog.or  circle,  bears  something  like  the  same 
relation  to  a  province  that  an  American  county  bears 
to  a  State,  except  that  it  is  proportionately  much  larger. 
The  province  of  Tobolsk,  with  an  area  of  590,000 
square  miles,  has  only  10  okroogs,  so  that  the  average 
area  of  these  subdivisions  is  about  that  of  the  State  of 
Michigan.  If  all  of  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio* 
River  and  the  Potomac  and  east  of  the  Mississippi 


the  great  through  line  of  travel,  we  saw  few 
vehicles  except  the  telegas  of  peasants  going 
back  and  forth  between  the  villages  and  the 
outlying  fields. 

The  part  of  the  province  of  Tobolsk  through 
which  we  traveled  from  Tiumen  to  Omsk  is 
much  more  productive  and  prosperous  than  a 
careless  observer  would  suppose  it  to  be  from 
the  appearance  of  most  of  its  villages.  The 
four  "  okroogs,"  or  "  circles,"  *  of  Tiumen, 
Yalutorfsk,  IsTiim,  and  Tiukalinsk,  through 
which  our  road  lay,  have  an  aggregate  popu- 
lation of  650,000  and  contain  about  4,000,000 
acres  of  cultivated  land.  The  peasants  in  these 
circles  own  1.500,000  head  of  live  stock,  and 
produce  perhaps  two-thirds  of  the  30.000,000 
bushels  of  grain  raised  annually  in  the  province. 
There  are  held  every  year  in  the  four  circles 
220  town  and  village  fairs  or  local  markets,  to 
which  the  peasants  bring  great  quantities  of 
products  for  sale.  The  transactions  of  these 
fairs  in  the  circle  of  Yalutorfsk,  for  example, 
amount  annually  to  $2,000,000;  in  the  circle 
of  Ishim,  to  $3,500,000 ;  and  in  the  whole 

were  one  State,  and  each  of  the  existing  States  were  a 
county,  such  State  and  counties  would  bear  to  each 
other  and  to  the  United  States  something  like  the 
same  relation  which  the  province  and  okroogs  of  To- 
bolsk bear  to  each  other  and  to  Siberia.  The  highest 
administrative  officer  in  a  Siberian  province  is  the  gov- 
ernor, who  is  represented  in  every  okroog  by  an 
ispravnik. 


362 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


I 


province,  to  about 
$14,000,000.  From 
these  statistics,  and 
from  such  inquiries 
and  observations  as 
we  were  able  to  make 
along  the  road,  it 
seemed  to  me  that 
if  the  province  of 
Tobolsk  were  honest- 
ly and  intelligently 
governed,  and  were 
freed  from  the  heavy 
'  burden  of  criminal 
exile,  it  would  in  a 
comparatively  short 
time  become  one  of 
the  most  prosperous 
and  flourishing  parts 
of  the  empire. 

We  drank  tea  Fri- 
day afternoon  at  the 
circuit  town  of  Tiuk- 
alinsk,  and  after  a 
short  rest  resumed 

our  journey  with  four  "  free  "  horses.  The 
road  was  still  muddy  and  bad,  and  as  we 
skirted  the  edge  of  the  great  marshy  steppe 
of  Baraba  between  Tiukalinsk  and  Bekisheva, 
we  were  so  tormented  by  huge  gray  mosquitoes 
that  we  were  obliged  to  put  on  thick  gloves, 
cover  our  heads  with  calico  hoods  and  horse- 
hair netting,  and  defend  ourselves  constantly 


A    KIRGHIS    BRIDE. 


with  leafy  branches.  Between  the  mosquitoes 
and  the  jolting  we  had  another  hard,  sleepless 
night;  but  fortunately  it  was  the  last  one,  and 
at  half-past  10  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
Saturday,  July  4,  our  tarantas  rolled  into  the 
streets  of  Omsk.  Both  we  and  our  vehicle 
were  so  spattered  and  plastered  with  black 
steppe  mud  that  no  one  who  had  seen  us  set 
out  from  Tiumen  would  have  recognized  us. 
We  had  been  four  days  and  nights  on  the  road, 
and  had  made  in  that  time  a  journey  of  420 
miles,  with  only  1 1  hours  of  sleep. 

Omsk,  which  is  a  city  of  about  30,000  inhab- 
itants, is  the  capital  of  the  "  oblast,"  or  terri- 
tory, of  Akmolinsk,  and  the  seat  of  government 
of  the  steppe  provinces.  It  is  an  administra- 
tive rather  than  a  commercial  or  a  manufac- 
turing town,  and  its  population  is  largely 
composed  of  officials  and  clerks  employed  in 
the  various  Government  bureaus  and  depart- 
ments. It  has  a  few  noticeable  public  build- 
ings, among  which  are  the  enormous  white 
"  cadet  school,"  the  house  of  the  governor- 
general,  the  police  station, —  a  rather  pictur- 
esque log  building  surmounted  by  a  fire-alarm 
tower, —  and  the  "  krepast,"  or  fortress.  The 
streets  of  the  city  are  wide  and  unpaved ;  the 
dwelling-houses  are  generally  made  of  logs ; 
there  is  the  usual  number  of  white-walled 
churches  and  cathedrals  with  green,  blue,  or 
golden  domes ;  and  every  building  which 
would  attract  a  traveler's  attention  belongs  to 
the  Government.  If  I  were  asked  to  charac- 


KXILE     HILL     IN     OMSK. 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


363 


KIRGHtS    WOMAN. 


lations 
former 


terize  Omsk  in  a 
few  words,  I  should 
describe  it  as  a  city 
of  30,000  inhabit- 
ants, in  which  the 
largest  building  is 
a  military  academy 
and  the  most  pict- 
uresque building 
a  police  station  ; 
in  which  there  is 
neither  a  news- 
paper nor  a  public 
library,  and  in 
which  one-half  the 
population  wears 
the  Tsar's  uniform 
and  makes  a  busi- 
ness of  governing 
the  other  half.  The 
nature  of  the  re- 

between  the  latter  half  and  the 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
an  intelligent  and  reputable  citizen  of  this 
chinovnik-dominated  city,  who  had  been  kind 
and  useful  to  us,  said  to  me  when  he  bade  me 
good-bye,  "  Mr.  Kennan,  if  you  find  it  neces- 
sary to  speak  of  me  by  name  in  your  book, 
please  don't  speak  of  me  favorably." 

"  For  Heaven's  sake,  why  not  ?  "  I  inquired. 
"  Because,"  he  replied,  "  I  don't  think  your 
book  will  be  altogether  pleasing  to  the  Gov- 
ernment ;  and  if  I  am  mentioned  favorably  in 
it,  I  shall  be  harried  by  the  officials  here  more 
than  I  am  now.  My  request  may  seem  to  you 
absurd,  but  it  is  the  only  favor  I  have  to  ask."  * 
We  found  little  to  interest  us  in  Omsk  ex- 
cept a  small  museum  in  the  rooms  of  the  Geo- 
graphical Society,  to  which  we  were  kindly 
taken  by  Colonel  Pevtsof,  and  a  wretched  sub- 
urban colony  of  poor  criminal  exiles,  living 
in  half-underground 
huts  on  a  steep  hillside 
north  of  the  river  Om. 
I  tried  to  find  the  os- 
trog,  or  prison,  where 
the  gifted  Russian 
novelist  Dostoyefski 
spent  so  many  years  of 
penal  servitude  and 
where  he  was  twice 
flogged  with  the  knout, 
but  I  was  told  that  it 
had  long  before  been 
torn  down.  I  did  not 
wonder  that  the  Gov- 
ernment should  have 
torn  down  walls  which 
had  witnessed  such 
scenes  of  misery  and 
cruelty  as  those  de- 


scribed in  Dostoyefski's  "  Notes  from  a  House 
of  the  Dead."  There  was  one  other  building 
in  Omsk  which  we  greatly  desired  to  inspect, 
and  that  was  the  Omsk  prison ;  but  we  were 
treated  with  such  contemptuous  discourtesy 
by  the  governor  of  the  province  when  we  called 
upon  him  and  asked  permission  to  examine 
this  prison,  that  we  could  only  retire  without 
even  having  taken  seats  in  his  High  Excel- 
lency's office. 

On  Wednesday,  July  8,  having  fully  recov- 
ered from  the  fatigue  of  our  journey  from  Tiu- 
men,  we  left  Omsk  with  three  post  horses  and 
a  Cossack  driver  for  Semipalatinsk.  The  road 
between  the  two  cities  runs  everywhere  along 
the  right  bank  of  the  Irtish  through  a  line  of 
log  villages  not  differing  materially  from  those 
north  of  Omsk,  but  inhabited  almost  exclu- 
sively by  Cossacks.  Whenever  the  Russian 
Government  desires  to 
strengthen  a  weak  fron- 
tier line  so  as  to  pre- 
vent the  incursions  of 
hostile  or  predatory  na- 
tives, it  forcibly  colonizes 
along  that  line  a  few 
hundred  or  a  few  thou- 
sand families  of  armed 
Cossacks.  During  the 
last  century  it  formed  in 
this  way  the  "  armed  line 
of  the  Terek,"  to  protect 
south-eastern  Russia 
from  the  raids  of  the 
Caucasian  mountaineers, 
and  the  armed  line  of  the 
Irtish,  to  hold  in  check  • 
the  Kirghis.  The  dan- 
ger which  was  appre- 
hended from  these  half- 
wild  tribes  long  ago  passed  away,  but  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Cossack  colonists  still  remain 
in  the  places  to  which  their  parents  or  their 
grandparents  were  transported.  They  have 
all  the  hardy  virtues  of  pioneers  and  frontiers- 
men, are  ingenious,  versatile,  and  full  of  re- 
sources, and  adapt  themselves  quickly  to 
almost  any  environment.  There  are  thirty  or 
forty  settlements  of  such  Cossacks  along  the 
line  of  the  Irtish  between  Omsk  and  Semipa- 
latinsk, and  as  many  more  between  Semipa- 
latinsk and  the  Altai. 

Almost  immediately  after  leaving  Omsk  we 
noticed  a  great  change  in  the  appearance  of 


JEBOGA. 


A    MIDDLE-CLASS    KIRGHIS. 


*  This  was  said  to  me  upon  our  return  from  eastern 
Siberia  in  the  following  winter,  and  was  called  out  by 
an  account  which  I  had  given  to  Mr.  X of  our  ex- 
perience and  the  results  of  our  observations.  I  should 
be  glad  to  give  some  illustrations  of  the  "harrying" 

to  which  Mr.  X referred,  if  I  could  do  so  without 

disclosing  his  identity. 


364 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


A    KIKGHIS    ENCAMPMENT. 


the  country.  The  steppe,  which  in  the  province 
of  Tobolsk  had  been  covered  either  with  fresh 
green  grass  or  with  a  carpet  of  flowers,  here 
became  more  bare  and  arid,  and  its  vegetation 
was  evidently  withering  and  drying  up  under 
the  fierce  heat  of  the  midsummer  sun.  Flowers 
were  still  abundant  in  low  places  along  the 
river,  and  we  crossed  now  and  then  wide  areas 
of  grass  which  was  still  green,  but  the  prevail- 
ing color  of  the  high  steppe  was  a  sort  of  old 
gold  —  a  color  like  that  of  ripe  wheat.  The 
clumps  of  white-stemmed  birch-trees,  which 
had  diversified  and  given  a  park-like  charac- 
ter to  the  scenery  north  of  Omsk,  became  less 
and  less  frequent ;  cultivated  fields  disappeared 
altogether,  and  the  steppe  assumed  more  and 
more  the  aspect  of  a  central  Asiatic  desert. 

A  few  stations  beyond  Omsk,  we  saw  and 
visited  for  the  first  time  an  "  aoul,"  or  encamp- 
ment of  the  wandering  Kirghis,  a  pastoral  tribe 
of  natives  who  roam  with  their  flocks  and 
herds  over  the  plains  of  south-western  Siberia 
from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  mountains  of  the 
Altai,  and  who  make  up  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  population  of  the  steppe  prov- 
inces. The  aoul  consisted  of  only  three  or 
four  small  "  kibitkas,"  or  circular  tents  of  gray 
felt,  pitched  close  together  at  a  distance  from 
the  road  in  the  midst  of  the  great  ocean-like 
expanse  of  dry,  yellowish  grass  which  stretched 
away  in  every  direction  to  the  horizon.  There 


was  no  path  leading  to  or  from  the  encamp- 
ment, and  the  little  gray  tents,  standing  alone 
on  that  boundless  plain,  seemed  to  be  almost 
as  much  isolated,  and  as  far  removed  from  all 
civilized  human  interests,  as  if  they  were  so 
many  frail  skin  coracles  floating  in  the  watery 
solitude  of  the  Pacific. 

It  was  evident  from  the  commotion  caused 
by  our  approach  that  the  encampment  had 
not  often  been  visited.  The  swarthy,  half- 
naked  children,  who  had  been  playing  out  on 
the  grass,  fled  in  affright  to  the  shelter  of  the 
tents  as  they  saw  our  tarantas  coming  towards 
them  across  the  steppe ;  women  rushed  out  to 
take  a  startled  look  at  us  and  then  disappeared ; 
and  even  the  men,  who  gathered  in  a  group 
to  meet  us,  appeared  to  be  surprised  and  a 
little  alarmed  by  our  visit.  A  few  words  in 
Kirghis,  however,  from  our  Cossack  driver  re- 
assured them,  and  upon  the  invitation  of  an 
old  man  in  a  red  and  yellow  skull-cap,  who 
seemed  to  be  the  patriarch  of  the  band,  we 
entered  one  of  the  kibitkas.  It  was  a  circular 
tent  about  fifteen  feet  in  diameter  and  eight 
feet  high,  made  by  covering  a  dome-shaped 
framework  of  smoke-blackened  poles  with 
large  overlapping  sheets  of  heavy  gray  felt. 
The  slightly  curved  rafters  which  formed  the 
roof  radiated  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel  from 
a  large  wooden  ring  in  the  center  of  the  dome, 
and  were  supported  around  the  circumference 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


INSIDE    THE    TENT. 


of  the  tent  by  a  skeleton  wall  of  wooden  lat- 
tice-work in  which  there  was  a  hinged  door. 
The  ring  in  the  center  of  the  dome  outlined 
the  aperture  left  for  the  escape  of  smoke  and 
the  admission  of  air,  and  directly  under  this 
aperture  a  fire  was  smoldering  on  the  ground 
inside  a  circle  of  flat  stones,  upon  which  stood 
a  few  pots,  kettles,  and  other  domestic  uten- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 52. 


sils.  The  furniture  of  the  tent  was  very  scanty, 
and  consisted  of  a  narrow,  unpainted  bedstead 
opposite  the  door,  two  or  three  cheap  Russian 
trunks  of  wood  painted  blue  and  decorated 
with  strips  of  tin,  and  a  table  about  four  feet 
in  diameter  and  eight  inches  high,  intended 
evidently  to  be  used  by  persons  who  habitu- 
ally squatted  on  the  ground.  Upon  the  table 


366 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


were  a  few  dirty  wooden  bowls  and  spoons 
and  an  antique  metal  pitcher,  while  here  and 
there,  hanging  against  the  lattice  wall,  were 
buckets  of  birch  bark,  a  harness  or  two,  a 
flint-lock  rifle,  a  red,  white,  and  golden  saddle 
of  wood  with  silver  inlaid  stirrups,  and  a  pair 
of  carpet  saddle-bags. 

The  first  duty  which  hospitality  requires  of 
a  Kirghis  host  is  the  presentation  of  koumiss 
to  his  guests,  and  we  had  no  sooner  taken 
seats  on  a  sheet  of  gray  felt  beside  the  fire 
than  one  of  the  women  went  to  the  koumiss 


L 


another;  and  when  I  told  him  that  a  single 
quart  was  all  that  I  permitted  myself  to  take 
at  one  time,  and  suggested  that  he  reserve  the 
second  bowlful  for  my  comrade,  Mr.  Frost,  he 
looked  so  pained  and  grieved  that  in  order 
to  restore  his  serenity  I  had  to  go  to  the  tar- 
antas,  get  my  banjo,  and  sing  "  There  is  a 
Tavern  in  the  Town."  Mr.  Frost,  meanwhile, 
had  shirked  his  duty  and  his  koumiss  by  pre- 
tending that  he  could  not  drink  and  draw 
simultaneously,  and  that  he  wanted  to  make 
a  likeness  of  the  patriarch's  six-yeac-old  son. 
This  seemed  to  be  a  very 
adroit  scheme  on  Mr.  Frost's 
part,  but  it  did  not  work 
as  well  as  he  had  expected. 
No  sooner  had  he  begun 
to  make  the  sketch  than  the 
boy's  mother,  taking  alarm 
at  the  peculiar,  searching 
way  in  which  the  artist 
looked  at  his  subject,  and 
imagining  perhaps  that  her 
offspring  was  being  mes- 


KIRGHIS     GRAVES. 

churn, —  a  large, 
black,  greasy  bag 
of  horse-hide  hang- 
ing against  the  lat- 
tice wall, — worked 
a  wooden  churn- 
dasher  up  and 
down  in  it  vigor- 
ously fora  moment, 
and  then  poured 
out  of  it  into  a 
greasy  wooden 
bowl  fully  a  quart 
of  the  great  na 
tional  Kirghis  bev- 
erage for  me.  It  did  not  taste  as  much  like 
sour  milk  and  soda-water  as  I  expected  that  it 
would.  On  the  contrary,  it  had  rather  a  pleas- 
ant flavor ;  and  if  it  had  been  a  little  cleaner 
and  cooler,  it  would  have  made  an  agreeable 
and  refreshing  drink.  I  tried  to  please  the  old 
Kirghis  patriarch  and  to  show  my  appreciation 
of  Kirghis  hospitality  by  drinking  the  whole 
bowlful;  but  I  underestimated  the  quantity  of 
koumiss  that  it  is  necessary  to  imbibe  in  order 
to  show  one's  host  that  one  does  n't  dislike  it 
and  that  one  is  satisfied  with  one's  entertain- 
ment. I  had  no  sooner  finished  one  quart 
bowlful  than  the  old  patriarch  brought  me 


A     STEPPE     GRAVEYARD. 


merized,  paralyzed,  or  bewitched,  swooped 
down  upon  the  ragged  little  urchin,  and  kiss- 
ing him  passionately,  as  if  she  had  almost  lost 
him  forever,  carried  him  away  and  hid  him. 
This  untoward  incident  cast  such  a  gloom 
over  the  subsequent  proceedings  that  after 
singing  four  verses  of  "  Solomon  Levi,"  in  a 
vain  attempt  to  restore  public  confidence  in 
Mr.  Frost,  I  put  away  my  banjo  and  we  took 
our  departure.  I  should  like  to  know  what 
traditions  are  now  current  in  that  part  of  the 
Kirghis  steppe  with  regard  to  the  two  plau- 
sible but  designing  Giaours  who  went  about 
visiting  the  aouls  of  the  faithful,  one  of  them 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


367 


WASHING-DAY. 


singing  unholy  songs  to  the  accompaniment 
of  a  strange  stringed  instrument,  while  the 
other  cast  an  "  evil  eye  "  upon  the  children, 
and  tried  to  get  possession  of  their  souls  by 
making  likenesses  of  their  bodies. 

For  four  days  and  nights  we  traveled  swiftly 
southward  over  a  good  road  through  the 
illimitable  steppes  of  the  Irtish,  stopping  now 
and  then  to  pick  snowy  pond-lilies  in  some 
reed-fringed  pool,  to  make  a  hasty  sketch  of 
a  lonely,  fort-shaped  Kirghis  grave,  or  to  visit 
an  aoul  and  drink  koumiss  with  the  hospitable 
nomads  in  their  gray  felt  tents.  Sometimes 
the  road  ran  down  into  the  shallow  valley  of 
the  Irtish,  through  undulating  seas  of  golden- 
rod  and  long  wild  grass  whose  wind-swept 
waves  seemed  to  break  here  and  there  in 
foaming  crests  of  snowy  spirea ;  sometimes  it 
made  a  long  detour  into  the  high,  arid  steppe 
back  from  the  river,  where  the  vegetation  had 
been  parched  to  a  dull  uniform  yellow  by 
weeks  of  hot  sunshine;  and  sometimes  it  ran 
suddenly  into  a  low,  moist  oasis  around  a  blue 
steppe-  lake,  where  we  found  ourselves  in  a 
beautiful  natural  flower-garden  crowded  with 
rose-bushes,  hollyhocks,  asters,  daisies,  fringed 


pinks,  rosemary,  flowering  pea,  and  splendid 
dark  blue  spikes  of  aconite  standing  shoulder 
high. 

After  we  passed  the  little  Cossack  town  of 
Pavlodar  on  Friday,  the  weather,  which  had 
been  warm  ever  since  our  departure  from 
Omsk,  became  intensely  hot,  the  thermometer 
indicating  ninety-one  degrees  Fahrenheit  at  i 
p.  M.  As  we  sat,  without  coats  or  waistcoats, 
under  the  sizzling  leather  roof  of  our  tarantas, 
fanning  ourselves  with  our  hats,  panting  for 
breath,  fighting  huge  •  green-eyed  horseflies, 
and  looking  out  over  an  illimitable  waste  of 
dead  grass  which  wavered  and  trembled  in 
the  fierce  glare  of  the  tropical  sunshine,  we 
found  it  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  we 
were  in  Siberia. 

Many  of  the  Cossack  villages  along  this  part 
of  our  route  were  situated  down  under  the 
high,  steep  bank  of  the  Irtish  at  the  very  water's 
edge,  where  the  soil  was  moist  enough  to 
support  a  luxuriant  vegetation.  As  the  result 
of  such  favorable  situation,  these  villages  were 
generally  shaded  by  trees  and  surrounded  by 
well-kept  vegetable  and  flower  gardens.  After 
a  ride  of  twenty  miles  over  an  arid  steppe  in 


368 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


the  hot,  blinding  sunshine  of  a  July  afternoon,  it 
was  indescribably  pleasant  and  refreshing  to 
come  down  into  one  of  these  little  oases  of 
greenery,  where  a  narrow  arm  of  the  Irtish 
flowed  tranquilly  under  the  checkered  shade 
of  leafy  trees ;  where  the  gardens  of  the  Cos- 
sack housewives  were  full  of  potato,  cucumber, 
and  melon  vines,  the  cool,  fresh  green  of  which 
made  an  effective  setting  for  glowing  beds  of 
scarlet  poppies ;  and  where  women  and  girls 
with  tucked-up  skirts  were  washing  clothes  on 
a  little  platform  projecting  into  the  river,  while 
half-naked  children  waded  and  splashed  in  the 
clear,  cool  water  around  them. 

We  made  the  last  stretches  of  our  journey 
to  Semipalatinsk  in  the  night.  The  steppe  over 


which  we  approached  the  city  was  more 
naked  and  sterile  than  any  that  we  had  crossed, 
and  seemed  in  the  faint  twilight  to  be  merely 
a  desert  of  sun-baked  earth  and  short  dead 
grass,  with  here  and  there  a  ragged  bush  or 
a  long,  ripple-marked  dune  of  loose,  drifting 
sand.  I  fell  asleep  soon  after  midnight,  and 
when  I  awoke  at  half-past  2  o'clock  Sunday 
morning  day  was  just  breaking,  and  we  were 
passing  a  large  white  building  with  lighted  lan- 
terns hung  against  its  walls,  which  I  recognized 
as  a  city  prison.  It  was  the  "  tiuremni  zamok," 
or  "  prison  castle  "  of  Semipalatinsk.  In  a  few 
moments  we  entered  a  long,  wide,  lonely  street, 
bordered  by  unpainted  log-houses,  the  board 
window-shutters  of  which  were  all  closed,  and 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


369 


the  steen,  pyramidal  roofs  of  which  loomet  1  high 
and  black  in  the  first  gray  light  of  dawn.  The 
street  was  full  of  soft,  drifted  sand,  in  which  the 
hoofs  of  our  horses  fell  noiselessly,  and  through 
which  our  tarantas  moved  with  as  little  jar  as 
if  it  were  a  gondola  floating  along  a  watery 
street  in  Venice.  There  wassomethingstrangely 
weird  and  impressive  in  this  noiseless  night  ride 
through  the  heart  of  a  ghostly  and  apparently 
deserted  city,  in  the  streets  of  which  were  the 
drifted  sands  of  the  desert,  and  where  there  was 
not  a  sound  to  indicate  the  presence  of  lift- 
save  the  faint,  distant  throbbing  of  a  watch- 
man's rattle,  like  the  rapid,  far-away  beating  of 
a  wooden  drum.  We  stopped  at  last  in  front 
of  a  two-story  building  of  brick,  covered  with 
white  stucco,  which  our  driver  said  was  the 
hotel  "  Sibir."  After  pounding  vigorously  for 
five  minutes  on  the  front  door,  we  were  ad- 
mitted by  a  sleepy  waiter,  who  showed  us  to  a 
hot,  musty  room  in  the  second  story,  where  we 
finished  our  broken  night's  sleep  on  the  floor. 

The  city  of  Semipalatinsk, 
which  has  a  population  of 
about  15,000  Russians,  Kirg- 
his,  and  Tartars,  is  situated 
on  the  right  bank  of  the 
river  Irtish,  480  miles  south- 
east of  Omsk  and  about  900 
miles  from  Tiumen.  It  is 
the  seat  of  government  of 
the  province  of  Semipala- 
tinsk, and  is  commercially  a 
place  of  some  importance, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  it 
stands  on  one  of  the  caravan 
routes  to  Tashkend  and  cen- 
tral Asia,  and  commands  a 
large  part  of  the  trade  of  the 
Kirghis  steppe.  The  country 
tributary  to  it  is  a  pastoral 
rather  than  an  agricultural 
region,  and  of  its  547,000 
inhabitants  497,000  are 
nomads  who  live  in  m,ooo 
kibitkas  or  felt  tents,  and 
own  more  than  3,000,000 
head  of  live  stock,  includ- 
ing 70,000  camels.  The 
province  produces  annually, 
among  other  things,  45,000 
pounds  of  honey,  370,000 
pounds  of  tobacco,  100,000 
bushelsof  potatoes, and  more 
than  12,000,000  bushels  of 
grain.  There  are  held  every 
year  within  the  limits  of  the 
province  1 1  commercial  fairs, 
the  transactions  of  which 
amount  in  the  aggregate  to 
about  $1,000,000.  Forty  or 


fifty  caravans  leave  the  city  of  Semipalatinsk 
every  year  for  various  points  in  Mongolia  and 
central  Asia,  carrying  Russian  goods  to  the 
value  of  from  $150,000  to  $200,000. 

It  is  hardly  necessary,  I  suppose,  to  call  the 
attention  of  persons  who  think  that  all  of  Si- 
beria is  an  arctic  waste  to  the  fact  that  honey 
and  tobacco  are  not  arctic  products,  and  that 
the  camel  is  not  a  beast  of  burden  used  by 
Eskimos  on  wastes  of  snow.  If  Mr.  Frost  and 
I  had  supposed  the  climate  of  south-western 
Siberia  to  be  arctic  in  its  character,  our  minds 
would  have  been  dispossessed  of  that  erroneous 
idea  in  less  than  twelve  hours  after  our  arrival 
in  Semipalatinsk.  When  we  set  out  for  a  walk 
through  the  city  about  i  o'clock  Sunday  after- 
noon, the  thermometer  indicated  eighty-nine 
degrees  Fahrenheit  in  the  shade  with  a  north 
wind,  and  the  inhabitants  seemed  to  regard 
it  as  rather  a  cool  and  pleasant  summer  day. 
After  wading  around  in  the  deep  sand  under 
a  blazing  sun  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  we  were 


37° 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


A    CAMEL    TEAM    CROSSING    A    FORD. 


more  than  ready  to  seek  the  shelter  of  the 
hotel  and  call  for  refrigerating  drinks.  The 
city  of  Semipalatinsk  fully  deserves  the  nick- 
name which  has  been  given  to  it  by  the  Rus- 
sian officers  there  stationed,  viz.,  "The  Devil's 
Sand-box."  From  almost  any  interior  point 
of  view  it  presents  a  peculiar  gray,  dreary  ap- 
pearance, owing  partly  to  the  complete  ab- 
sence of  trees  and  grass,  partly  to  the  ashy, 
weather-beaten  aspect  of  its  unpainted  log- 
houses,  and  partly  to  the  loose,  drifting  sand 


with  which  its  streets  are  filled.  We  did  not 
see  in  our  walk  of  an  hour  and  a  half  a  single 
tree,  bush,  or  blade  of  grass,  and  we  waded  a 
large  part  of  the  time  through  soft,  dry  sand 
which  was  more  than  ankle-deep,  and  which 
in  places  had  been  drifted,  like  snow,  to  a 
depth  of  four  or  five  feet  against  the  walls  of 
the  gray  log-houses.  The  whole  city  made 
upon  me  the  impression  of  a  Mohammedan 
town  built  in  the  middle  of  a  north  African 
desert.  This  impression  was  deepened  by  the 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


Tartar  mosques  here  and  there  with  their  brown 
candle-extinguisher  minarets;  by  the  groups 
of  long-bearded,  white-turbaned  mullas  who 
stood  around  them;  and  by  the  appearance 
in  the  street  now  and  then  of  a  huge  two- 
humped  Hadrian  camel,  ridden  into  the  city 
by  a  swarthy,  sheepskin-hooded  Kirghis  from 
the  steppes. 

Monday  morning  I  called  upon  General 
Tseklinski,  the  governor  of  the  province,  pre- 
sented my  letters  from  the  Russian  Minister 
of  the  Interior  and  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  was  gratified  to  find  that  he  had 
apparently  received  no  private  instructions 
with  regard  to  us  and  knew  nothing  whatever 
about  us.  He  welcomed  me  courteously, 
granted  me  permission  to  inspect  the  Semi- 
palatinsk  prison,  said  he  would  send  the  chief 
of  the  police  to  go  with  us  to  the  mosques  and 
show  us  about  the  city,  and  promised  to  have 
prepared  for  us  an  open  letter  of  recommen- 
dation to  all  the  subordinate  officials  in  the 
Semipalatinsk  province. 

From  the  house  of  the  governor  I  went, 
upon  his  recommendation,  to  the  public  library, 
an  unpretending  log-house  in  the  middle  of 
the  town,  where  I  found  a  small  anthropolog- 
ical museum,  a  comfortable  little  reading-room 
supplied  with  all  the  Russian  newspapers  and 
magazines,  and  a  well-chosen  collection  of 
about  one  thousand  books,  among  which  I 
was  somewhat  surprised  to  find  the  works  of 
Spencer,  Buckle,  Lewes,  Mill,  Taine,  Lubbock, 
Tylor,  Huxley,  Darwin,  Lyell,  Tyndall,  Al- 
fred Russel  Wallace,  Mackenzie  Wallace,  and 
Sir  Henry  Maine,  as  well  as  the  novels  and 
stories  of  Scott,  Dickens,  Marryat,  George 
Eliot,  George  MacDonald,  Anthony  Trollope, 
Justin  McCarthy,  Erckmann-Chatrian,  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  and  Bret  Harte.  The  library  was 
particularly  strong  in  the  departments  of 
science  and  political  economy,  and  the  col- 
lection of  books,  as  a  whole,  was  in  the  highest 
degree  creditable  to  the  intelligence  and  taste 
of  the  people  who  made  and  used  it.  It  gave 
me  a  better  opinion  of  Semipalatinsk  than  any- 
thing that  I  had  thus  far  seen  or  heard.* 

From  the  library  I  strolled  eastward  along 
the  bank  of  the  Irtish  to  the  pendulum  ferry 
by  which  communication  is  maintained  be- 
tween Semipalatinsk  and  a  Kirghis  suburb  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river.  The  ferry-boat 
starts  from  a  wooded  island  in  mid-stream, 
which  is  reached  either  by  crossing  a  foot- 

*  Most  of  the  works  of  the  scientific  authors  above 
named  were  expurgated  Russian  editions.  Almost 
every  chapter  of  Lecky's  "  History  of  Rationalism  " 
had  been  defaced  by  the  censor,  and  in  a  hasty  exam- 
ination of  it  I  found  gaps  where  from  ten  to  sixty  pages 
had  been  cut  out  bodily.  Even  in  this  mutilated  form, 
and  in  the  remote  Siberian  town  of  Semipalatinsk,  the 
book  was  such  an  object  of  terror  to  a  cowardly  Gov- 


bridge,  or  by  fording  the  shallow  channel 
which  separates  it  from  the  Semipalatinsk 
shore.  Just  ahead  of  me  were  several  Kirghis 
with  three  or  four  double-humped  camels,  one 
of  which  was  harnessed  to  a  Russian  telega. 
Upon  reaching  the  ford  the  Kirghis  released 
the  draught  camel  from  the  telega,  lashed  the 
empty  vehicle,  wheels  upward,  upon  the  back 
of  the  grunting,  groaning  animal,  and  made 
him  wade  with  it  across  the  stream.  A  Bactrian 
camel,  with  his  two  loose,  drooping  humps,  his 
long  neck,  and  his  preposterously  conceited 
and  disdainful  expression  of  countenance,  is 
always  a  ridiculous  beast,  but  he  never  looks 
so  absurdly  comical  as  when  crossing  a  stream 
with  a  four-wheeled  wagon  lashed  bottom  up- 
ward on  his  back.  The  shore  of  the  Irtish 
opposite  Semipalatinsk  is  nothing  more  than 
the  edge  of  a  great  desert-like  steppe  which 
stretches  away  to  the  southward  beyond  the 
limits  of  vision.  I  reached  there  just  in  time 
to  see  the  unloading  of  a  caravan  of  camels 
which  had  arrived  from  Tashkend  with  silks, 
rugs,  and  other  central  Asiatic  goods  for  the 
Semipalatinsk  market. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  I  retraced  my  steps 
to  the  hotel,  where  I  found  Mr.  Frost,  who 
had  been  sketching  all  day  in  the  Tartar  or 
eastern  end  of  the  town.  The  evening  was 
hot  and  sultry,  and  we  sat  until  1 1  o'clock 
without  coats  or  waistcoats,  beside  windows 
thrown  wide  open  to  catch  every  breath  of  air, 
listening  to  the  unfamiliar  noises  of  the  Tartar 
city.  It  was  the  last  night  of  the  great  Mo- 
hammedan fast  of  Ramazan,  and  the  whole 
population  seemed  to  be  astir  until  long  after 
midnight.  From  every  part  of  the  town  came 
to  us  on  the  still  night  air  the  quick  staccato 
throbbing  of  watchmen's  rattles,  which  sound- 
ed like  the  rapid  beating  of  wooden  drums,  and 
suggested  some  pagan  ceremony  in  central 
Africa  or  the  Fiji  Islands.  Now  and  then  the 
rattles  became  quiet,  and  then  the  stillness 
was  broken  by  the  long-drawn,  wailing  cries 
of  the  muezzins  from  the  minarets  of  the  Tar- 
tar mosques. 

Tuesday  morning  when  we  awoke  we  found 
the  streets  full  of  Tartars  and  Kirghis  in  gala 
dress,  celebrating  the  first  of  the  three  holi- 
days which  follow  the  Mohammedan  Lent. 
About  noon  the  chief  of  police  came  to  our 
hotel,  by  direction  of  the  governor,  to  make 
our  acquaintance  and  to  show  us  about  the  city, 
and  under  his  guidance  we  spent  two  or  three 

eminent,  that  it  had  been  quarantined  by  order  of  the 
Tsar  and  could  not  be  issued  to  a  reader  without 
special  permission  from  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
A  similar  taboo  had  been  placed  upon  the  works  of 
Spencer,  Mill,  Lewes,  Lubbock,  Huxley,  and  Lyell, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  censor  had  cut  out  of 
them  everything  that  seemed  to  him  to  have  a  "dan- 
gerous "  or  "  demoralizing  "  tendency. 


A     TARTAR     WRESTLING     MATCH. 


THE   STEPPES   OF  THE  IRTISH. 


373 


hours  in  examining  the  great  Tartar  mosque 
and   making  ceremonious  calls  upon   mullas 
and  Tartar  officials.    He  then  asked  us  if  we 
would  not  like  to  see  a  Tartar  and  Kirghis 
wrestling  ma  tch.  \V'e  repl  led,  of  course,  in  the  af- 
firmative, and  were  at  once  driven  in  his  droshky 
to  an  open  sandy  common  at  the  eastern  end 
of  the  city,  where  we  found  a  great  crowd  as- 
sembled and  where  the  wrestling  had  already 
begun.    The   dense   throng   of  spectators  — 
mostly   Kirghis  and  Tartars  —  was  arranged 
in  concentric  circles  around  an  open  s| 
twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  in  diameter.  The  in- 
ner circle  was  formed  by  two  or  three  lines  of 
men,  squatting  on  their  heels ;    then   came 
three  or  four  lines  of  standing  men,  and  be- 
hind the  latter  was  a  close  circle  of  horsemen 
sitting  in  their  saddles,  and  representing  the 
gallery.    The  chief  of  police  made  a  way  for 
us  through  the  crowd  to  the  inner  circle,  where 
we  took  orchestra  seats  in  the  sand  under  a 
blazing  sun  and  in  a  cloud  of  fine  dust  raised 
by  the  wrestlers.    The  crowd,  as  we  soon  dis- 
covered, was  divided  into  two  hostile  camps, 
consisting  respectively  of  Kirghis  and  Tartars. 
Ours  was  the  Kirghis  side,  and  opposite  us 
were  the  Tartars.   There  were  four  masters  of 
ceremonies,  who  were  dressed  in  long  green 
"  khalats  "  and  carried  rattan  wands.  The  two 
Tartar  officials  would  select  a  champion  in 
their  corner,  throw  a  sash  over  his  head,  pull 
him  out  into  the  arena,  and  then  challenge 
the  Kirghis  officials  to  match  him.    The  latter 
would  soon  find  a  man  about  equal  to  the 
Tartar  champion  in  size  and  weight,  and  then 
the  two  contestants  would  prepare  for  the 
struggle.    The  first  bout  after  we  arrived  was 
between  a  good-looking,  smooth-faced  young 
Kirghis,  who  wore  a  blue  skull-cap  and  a  red 
sash,  and  an  athletic,  heavily  built  Tartar,  in  a 
yellow  skull-cap  and  a  green  sash.    They  eyed 
each   other  warily  for  a  moment,  and  then 
clinched  fiercely,  each  grasping  with  one  hand 
his  adversary's  sash,  while  he  endeavored  with 
the  other  to  get  an  advantageous  hold  of  wrist, 
arm,  or  shoulder.   Their  heads  were  pressed 
closely  together,  their  bodies  were  bent  almost 
into  right  angles  at  their  waists,  and  their  feet 
were  kept  well  back  to  avoid  trips.    Presently 
both  secured  sash  and  shoulder  holds,  and  in 
a  bent  position  backed  each  other  around  the 
arena,  the  Kirghis  watching  for  an  opportu- 
nity to  trip  and  the  Tartar  striving  to  close 
in.    The  veins  stood  out  like  whip-cords  on 
their  foreheads  and  necks,  and  their  swarthy 


faces  dripped  with  perspiration  as  they  strug- 
gled and  maneuvered  in  the  scorching  sun- 
shine, but  neither  of  them  seemed  to  be  able 
to  find  an  opening  in  the  other's  guard  or  to 
get  any  decided  advantage.  At  last,  however, 
the  Tartar  backed  away  suddenly,  pulling  the 
Kirghis  violently  towards  him;  and  as  the  lat- 
ter stepped  forward  to  recover  his  balance,  he 
was  dexterously  tripped  by  a  powerful  side-blow 
of  the  Tartar's  leg  and  foot.  The  trip  did  not 
throw  him  to  the  ground,  but  it  did  throw  him 
off  his  guard;  and  before  he  could  recover 
himself,  the  Tartar  broke  the  sash  and  shoul- 
der hold,  rushed  in  fiercely,  caught  him  around 
the  body,  and,  with  a  hip-lock  and  a  tremen- 
dous heave,  threw  him  over  his  head.  The 
unfortunate  Kirghis  fell  with  such  violence 
that  the  blood  streamed  from  his  nose  and 
mouth  and  he  seemed  partly  stunned;  but 
he  was  able  to  get  up  without  assistance  and 
walked  in  a  dazed  way  to  his  corner,  amidst  a 
roar  of  shouts  and  triumphant  cries  from  the 
Tartar  side. 

As  the  excitement  increased  new  champions 
offered  themselves,  and  in  a  moment  two 
more  contestants  were  locked  in  a  desperate 
struggle,  amidst  a  babel  of  exclamations,  sug- 
gestions, taunts,  and  yells  of  encouragement 
or  defiance  from  their  respective  supporters. 
The  hot  air  was  filled  with  a  dusty  haze  of 
fine  sand,  which  was  extremely  irritating  to 
the  eyes;  our  faces  and  hands  burned  as 
if  they  were  being  slowly  blistered  by  the 
torrid  sunshine ;  and  the  odors  of  horses,  of 
perspiration,  and  of  greasy  old  sheepskins, 
from  the  closely  packed  mass  of  animals  and 
men  about  us,  became  so  overpowering  that 
we  could  scarcely  breathe ;  but  there  was  so 
much  excitement  and  novelty  in  the  scene,  that 
we  managed  to  hold  out  through  twelve  or  fif- 
teen bouts.  Two  police  officers  were  present 
to  maintain  order  and  prevent  fights,  but  their 
interference  was  not  needed.  The  wrestling 
was  invariably  good-humored,  and  the  van- 
quished retired  without  any  manifestations  of 
ill-feeling,  and  often  with  laughter  at  their  own 
discomfiture.  The  Kirghis  were  generally 
overmatched.  The  Tartars,  although  perhaps 
no  stronger,  were  quicker  and  more  dexterous 
than  their  nomadic  adversaries,  and  won  on 
an  average  two  falls  out  of  every  three.  About 
5  o'clock,  although  the  wrestling  still  continued, 
we  made  our  way  out  of  the  crowd  and  re- 
turned to  the  hotel,  to  bathe  our  burning  faces 
and,  if  possible,  get  cool. 

George  Kennan. 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 


53- 


DISEASE    GERMS,   AND    HOW    TO    COMBAT    THEM.* 


T  the  very  confines  of  or- 
ganic nature,  the  lowliest 
of  the  low  among  plants, 
comes  a  series  of  minute 
and  simply  formed  bodies 
called  bacteria.  From  them 
we  receive  great  benefits, 
and  from  them  also  pro- 
ceed some  of  our  greatest  evils.  They  are  the 
active  agents  in  producing  that  circulation  of 
matter  so  essential  to  the  continuance  of  or- 
ganic life,  since  by  the  decompositions  they 
effect  the  earth  is  freed  from  the  dead  matter 
which  would  otherwise  encumber  it,  while  the 
matter  itself  is  turned  into  the  great  reservoir 
from  which  all  life  draws.  In  addition  to  this, 
recent  experiments  make  it  doubtful  whether 
our  seeds  could  germinate  without  their  aid; 
and  yet,  it  must  be  confessed  that,  as  a  class, 
they  are  not  in  good  repute.  They  spoil  our 
meats  in  warm  weather,  turn  sour  our  milk,  and 
vex  the  housewife  by  exciting  revolt  among 
her  choicest  preserves  ;  and  we  are  now  in 
possession  of  facts  which  prove  that  some 
among  them  actually  cause  disease  of  an  in- 
fectious nature.  This  is  no  longer  inferential, 
but  proved  for  at  least  half  a  dozen  diseases ; 
and  the  proof  is  positive  and  absolute  in  that 
number  of  cases,  while  in  many  others  we  need 
but  a  few  more  facts  that  we  may  be  equally 
assured. 

Taking  a  little  filtered  beef  bouillon,  clear  as 
crystal  to  the  eye,  and  showing  under  the  mi- 
croscope not  a  trace  of  life,  let  us  place  it  in  a 
glass  flask  and,  boiling  it  repeatedly  to  destroy 
any  germs  it  may  contain,  set  it  aside  in  a 
warm  place  with  the  mouth  of  the  flask  open. 
In  a  few  days  the  liquid  previously  so  limpid 
becomes  very  turbid.  If  we  take  a  drop  and 
magnify  it  1000  diameters  we  shall  see  that  the 
liquid  is  crowded  with  life,  and  the  few  ounces 
of  bouillon  contain  a  vaster  population  than 
our  greatest  city  can  boast.  All  is  incessant 
activity ;  the  whole  field  of  the  microscope  is 
crowded  with  moving  bodies,  some  shooting 
rapidly  past  in  straight  lines,  others  moving 
slowly  backward  and  forward,  while  others 
twirl  and  spin  during  the  whole  time  of  obser- 
vation. The  sight  itself  is  interesting,  but  the 
question  that  springs  at  once  to  the  mind  is 
still  more  so.  Whence  comes  all  this  active 
life  ?  It  was  here  that  the  theory  of  sponta- 
neous generation  took  its  last  stand ;  it  was 

*  When  not  otherwise  credited,  the  drawings  were 
made  by  the  author  directly  from  the  microscope. 


here  that  it  made  its  most  desperate  resistance; 
here  also  it  has  been  most  signally  defeated. 
Has  the  life  sprung  from  some  new  arrange- 
ment of  the  complex  principles  in  the  broth  ? 
No.  Science  again  reiterates  the  dictum  that 
there  can  be  no  life  without  antecedent  life. 
The  broth  has  been  contaminated  by  air  germs, 
and  from  a  few  falling  into  it  has  come  this 
prodigal  life.  Starting  from  no  matter  how 
complex  a  substance,  once  kill  all  the  germs  it 
contains  and  supply  it  with  air  freed  from 
germs,  and  no  life  will  everappear.  Here,  then, 
is  a  test  for  the  number  of  germs  air  or  water 
may  contain  in  seeing  how  much  is  required  to 
startlife  in  an  infusion  perfectly  free  from  germs. 
On  this  principle  the  numbers  presently  to  be 
stated  have  been  obtained.  We  must  clearly 
understand,  lest  we  become  needlessly  alarmed, 
that  the  majority  of  bacterial  life,  as  such,  is 
perfectly  harmless  to  man.  Almost  every  fer- 
mentation and  putrefaction  has  a  special  bac- 
terium inducing  it.  The  ripening  of  cheese  is 
produced  by  bacteria  and  yet  is  perfectly  harm- 
less. What,  then,  does  it  signify  to  count  bac- 
teria in  air  and  in  water  ?  It  is  useful  simply 
because  where  harmless  bacteria  are  found 
multiplying  there  we  are  assured  conditions 
are  generally  favorable  for  the  increase  of 
harmful  varieties  too. 


,    *•  x  <> 

%      0      <?         00        / 


I.  Bacterium  Temio  X  1000  Diameters.  2.  Hay  Bacillus  X  1000  U.  3.  Same 
(zoogloea)  X  1000  D.     4.  Bacterium  Tcnno  X  3000  D.  (Dallinger.) 

Returning  to  our  infusions  and  microscope, 
let  us  look  more  closely  at  this  lowly  life.  \\"e 
have  shown  in  Figure  i  the  appearance  of 
beef  bouillon  in  which  bacteria  called  "  bac- 
terium termo  "  are  growing,  while  Figures  2  and 
3  show  a  growth  of  what  is  called  "  hay  ba- 
cillus," since  the  germs  are  very  abundant  in 
hay ;  and  here,  so  our  readers  may  not  become 


DISEASE    GERMS,  AND  HOW  TO    COMBAT  THEM. 


375 


confused  with  the  different  names,  we  will  say 
that  bacteria  are  divided  according  to  their 
s /i  life  into  four  classes :  the  micrococci  (the 
word  means  little  grains)  are  round,  bacteria 
proper  are  very  short  cylinders,  bacilli  are 
longer,  while  the  spirillum  is  shown  in  Figure 
6.  The  micrococci,  of  which  we  show  the  spe- 
cies inhabiting  the  mouth  in  health  (Figure 
5),  are  always  seen  as  small  spherical  bodies 
about  ij0Ju(j  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  Like  all 
the  bacteria,  they  are  little  masses  of  vegeta- 
ble protoplasm  surrounded  by  a  thin  cell  wall. 
Their  number  in  the  mouth  is  almost  incred- 
ible, but  to  human  beings  they  are  perfectly 
harmless ;  however,  if  we  inoculate  a  few  drops 
of  saliva  under  the  skin  of  a  rabbit,  in  about 
two  days  it  dies  and  we  find  its  blood  crowded 
with  these  minute  cells. 


5.  Micrococci  from  Mouth  X  1000  D.  6.  Spirillum  Volutans  X  500  D.  (Cohn.) 

The  bacterium  and  the  bacillus  (Figures  i, 
2,  and  3)  resemble  one  another,  the  bacterium 
being  shorter,  however,  while  the  spirillum  is 
totally  different,  much  larger  and  twisted,  and 
in  the  species  figured  attains  a  length  of  -s±0 
of  an  inch,  which  makes  it  a  giant  among  the 
bacteria.  The  method  by  which  these  little 
plants  multiply  deserves  notice.  The  chains 
formed  by  the  micrococcus  (Figure  5)  first 
attract  attention,  and  show  a  very  common 
method  of  growth  among  the  bacteria.  This 
is  called  fission :  the  cell  elongates  and  then 
divides,  the  new  cell  does  likewise,  and  so  a 
long  string  is  formed,  the  micrococci  under 
the  microscope  looking  like  minute  pearls. 
Sometimes  the  division  takes  place  in  two  di- 
rections, and  we  then  have — what  Figure  7 
shows  very  plainly  —  a  grouping  in  squares. 
The  method  which  interests  us  most,  however, 
is  reproduction  by  spores,  which  are  to  the 
adult  bacilli  as  seeds  to  a  plant;  and  as  the 
seed  can  survive  what  will  kill  the  plant,  so 
spores  withstand  degrees  of  heat,  dryness,  and 
disinfection  fatal  to  full-grown  bacteria:  the 


spores  forming  in  the  bacilli  look  sometimes 
like  peas  in  a  pod,  and  escape  through  the  cell 
wall. 

Some  of  the  bacteria  are  motionless;  others 
seem  to  possess  untiring  activity,  caused  in 
some  cases  by  fiagellata,  as  shown  in  Figures  4 
and  6. 

Let  us  now  pass  to  some  of  the  forms  ac- 
companying disease.  Those  figured  are  the 
bacillus  anthracis,  causing  splenic  fever,  in 
Figure  8;  the  comma  bacillus,  the  probable 
cause  of  cholera,  according  to  Koch,  shown 
in  Figure  9;  the  spirillum,  causing  relapsing 
fever,  in  Figure  n;  while  in  No.  10  is  seen 
the  bacillus  tuberculosis  of  consumption. 


7.  Sarcina  Ventriculi  X  1000  D.   8.  Bacillus  Anthracis  X  1000  D.   9.  Comma 
Bacillus  ( Cholera)  X  1000  D.     10.  Bacillus  of  Consumption  X  1000  D. 

It  will  be  asked,  How  do  these  minute  plants 
kill?  In  diseases  like  splenic  fever  their  rapid 
multiplication  actually  fills  and  plugs  the  capil- 
laries ;  in  their  life  processes  many  of  the  dis- 
ease germs  evolve  poisonous  products.  The 
mechanical  effect  of  foreign  matter  in  the 
blood  must  not  be  overlooked ;  and,  as  bacte- 
ria cannot  grow  without  nutriment,  all  this 
must  come  from  the  fluids  and  the  tissues  of 
the  body. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  methods  of  growth 
and  must  now  mention  its  marvelous  rapidity. 
Cohn  has  seen  the  hay  bacillus  in  infusions  at 
blood  heat  divide  every  twenty  minutes.  We 
have  calculated  this  rate  for  twenty-four  hours, 
and  have  found  that  at  the  end  of  the  first 
clay  there  would  be  as  the  descendants  of  a  sin- 
gle bacillus  4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696  in- 
dividuals ;  and  though  we  can  pack  a  trillion 
(1,000,000,000,000)  in  a  cubic  inch,  this  num- 
ber would  fill  about  2,500,000  cubic  feet.  This 
is  clearly  not  what  they  do,  but  simply  what 
they  are  capable  of  for  a  short  time  when 
temperature  and  food  supply  are  favorable. 

Since  the  multiplication  of  bacteria  is  so 
favored  by  warmth,  the  summer  season  re- 
quires special  sanitary  precautions ;  but  plants 


376 


DISEASE    GERMS,  AND  HOW  TO    COMBAT  THEM. 


need  soil  as  well  as  warmth,  and  the  soil  which 
best  fosters  these  is  an  accumulation  of  vege- 
table or  animal  refuse.  The  longer  such  gar- 
bage is  kept,  the  better  for  their  growth  and 
the  worse  for  the  neighborhood.  In  summer, 
therefore,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  gar- 
bage should  be  removed  daily.  A  great  step 
would  be  gained  if  garbage  could  be  burned  as 
soon  as  made ;  and  as  this  is  almost  impossible 
in  its  wet  state,  we  notice  with  pleasure  an  in- 
vention by  which  it  is  dried  and  then  burnt, 
a  water  seal,  it  is  claimed,  preventing  the  es- 
cape of  all -odors  in  either  operation.  This 
is  certainly  a  desideratum  in  country  places 
with  no  garbage  collection,  where  from  this 
cause  the  immediate  surroundings  of  a  house 
often  nullify  the  benefits  of  the  otherwise  pure 
air.  Miquel  has  found  that  air  at  Montsouris 
(outside  of  Paris)  contains,  as  an  average, 
1092  microbes,  while  in  a  Paris  street  there 
are  in  a  cubic  meter  (35  cubic  feet)  9750.  The 
upper  air  in  a  city  is,  however,  much  purer 
than  that  of  the  streets.  Thus  Miquel  found 
on  top  of  the  Pantheon  but  364  germs  to  the 
meter,  which  is  thus  freer  than  country  air  near 
the  ground.  But  if  street  air  is  so  full  of  germs, 
what  can  be  said  of  the  houses  ?  In  Miquel's 
own  house  each  cubic  meter  contained  in  sum- 
mer 49,800,  while  in  winter  there  were  84,500. 
This  increase  in  winter  over  summer  is  due  to 
the  much  smaller  ventilation  allowed.  In  free 
air,  country  or  city,  the  germs  are  three  to  four 
times  more  numerous  in  summer  than  in  win- 
ter. These  figures  help  us  to  appreciate  the  ne- 
cessity for  thorough  ventilation,  especially  in 
cases  of  infectious  disease.  Tightly  closing  the 
room  to  prevent  the  contagion  from  spreading 
will  but  add  to  its  concentration  and  greatly  in- 
crease the  danger  to  the  attendants.  Doors  and 
windows  opening  into  halls  or  other  rooms  are 
wisely  closed,  but  those  communicating  with 
outside  air  should  be  opened  as  widely  as  pos- 
sible, and  if  the  patient  is  in  an  upper  room, 
much  of  the  danger  of  infection  is  avoided. 
It  would  seem  best,  where  hospitals  are  built 
in  a  thickly  inhabited  section  of  the  city,  to  take 
the  air  supply  used  in  ventilation,  especially  of 
the  surgical  wards,  from  a  superior  level  by 
means  of  a  tall  chimney.  With  such  air,  and 
with  walls  of  glazed  brick  instead  of  absorbent 
plaster,  unfavorable  results  after  operations, 
already  so  reduced  in  number  by  antiseptic 
methods,  would  be  still  further  diminished. 

That  sunshine  is  a  germicide  as  well  as  a 
tonic  has  but  recently  been  proved:  if  we  take 
twoflasks  containingthebacillusanthracis  with 
spores,  and  keep  one  in  the  direct  sunshine  for 
a  long  time,  while  the  other  exposed  to  the  same 
heat  is  kept  from  the  sun,  we  find  the  sun-ex- 
posed spores  have  lost  their  virulence,  while 
the  others  remain  active.  Is  there  need  to 


further  press  so  patent  a  lesson  ?  As  bacteria 
grow  best  in  the  presence  of  considerable 
moisture,  we  may  expect  to  encounter  them 
in  greater  abundance  in  water  than  in  air. 
Rain  water  contains  60,000  to  a  quart,  the 
Vanne  four  times  as  many,  while  the  polluted 
Seine  from  5,000,000  to  12,000,000. 

Our  readers  will  wish  to  know  if  sewage  it- 
self can  be  worse;  but  this,  when  fresh, contains 
75,000,000  to  a  quart,  and,  allowed  to  stag- 
nate, would  soon  show  itself  a  hundred  times 
as  bad,  since  it  contains  an  abundant  food  sup- 
ply for  the  microbes.  The  necessity,  therefore, 
for  rapid  and  complete  removal  of  all  bodies 
entering  the  sewer  becomes  apparent :  this  is 
best  effected  by  having  the  sewer  of  compara- 
tively small  size  (which  will  admit  of  frequent 
flushing),  of  sufficient  pitch,  and  as  smooth  as 
possible  within.  It  is  in  putrefaction  that  the 
danger  to  health  resides.  Fresh  sewage  can- 
not to  any  great  extent  pollute  the  air,  since 
the  germs  have  no  way  of  reaching  the  at- 
mosphere; but  in  putrefying,  bubbles  of  gas 
rise  and  produce  each  its  little  spray.  These 
small  particles  of  water,  carrying  the  germs  of 
the  sewage,  evaporate,  and  leave  their  germs 
floating.  This  it  is  which  makes  sewer  gas  a 
carrier  of  disease.  While  sewers  should  be 
properly  ventilated,  the  practice  of  leaving 
the  end  of  a  large  sewer  directly  open  to  the 
wind,  as  is  often  done,  permits  during  gales 
considerable  back  pressure,  which  is  a  grave 
source  of  peril. 

The  minute  size  of  the  bacteria  renders  it 
very  difficult  to  effect  by  mechanical  means 
the  purification  of  waters  containing  them. 
While  strongly  insisting  upon  the  use  of  the 
purest  water  attainable,  necessity  may  forbid 
a  choice  and  compel  the  use  of  a  doubtful 
supply.  Two  methods  are  then  open  for 
improvement  —  filtration  and  boiling.  No 
disease-producing  bacteria  or  spore  can  with- 
stand a  boiling  temperature  for  an  hour,  so 
that  it  is  advisable  to  boil  all  doubtful  water. 
To  the  question  whether  filtration,  which  is 
much  more  convenient  than  boiling,  and 
which  also  avoids  the  flat  taste,  will  not  pu- 
rify, I  would  answer  both  yes  and  no.  Yes, 
if  done  rightly;  no,  as  generally  effected.  Fig- 
ure 12  shows  filter  paper  and  bacteria  sub- 
mitted to  the  same  magnification.  The  folly 
of  using  a  small  filter  of  some  loose  material 
to  purify  a  large  stream  of  water  is  at  once 
apparent;  it  may  stop  off  sand  or  straws,  but 
not  disease  germs.  A  filter  close  grained 
enough  properly  to  purify  must  be  of  good 
size  to  supply  a  family  with  drinking-water. 
Tiles  of  unglazed  porous  porcelain  give  by 
filtration  water  free  from  germs,  but  for  an 
adequate  quantity  a  good  size  must  be  used. 
Animal  charcoal  was  formerly  in  good  repute, 


DISEASE    GERMS,  ANJ)    HOW  TO    COMBAT  THEM. 


377 


but  porous  iron  has  great  oxidizing  power,  will 

last  longer,  and  yields  nothing,  while  chan  <>al 
yields  much  to  the  water.  Small  filters  yielding 
a  large  amount  of  water  are  to  be  uniformly 
mistrusted;  spongy  iron,  unglazed  porcelain, 
and  close-grained  natural  porous  stones  are 
among  our  best  filtering  agents,  and  all  filter 
slowly.  The  filtering  material,  whatever  the 
form  used,  should  be  accessible  for  cleaning, 
since  in  time  all  become  fouled.  If  water  is 
positively  bad,  boiling  is  the  safer  course. 


tt. 


II.  Blood-Corpuscles  ami  Spirilla  Obcrmeyeri  X  700  P.   Relapsing  Fever. 
I  Koch.)     u.  Filter  I'apcr  ami  Bacterium  TcnitoX  sco  D. 

It  is  certainly  fighting  fire  with  fire  to  combat 
an  infectious  malady  with  its  own  contagium, 
but  it  has  now  been  demonstrated  past  cavil 
that  in  splenic  fever  and  fowl  cholera,  both  due 
to  specific  germs,  we  can  so  mitigate  the  virus 
that  by  its  inoculation  animals  and  fowls  may 
be  protected  against  the  original  severe  form. 
Mitigating  virus  is  simply  reducing  the  vital 
power  of  the  bacteria  by  surrounding  them 
with  unfavorable  conditions  of  growth.  Oxy- 
gen is  not  congenial  to  some  bacteria ;  hence 
Pasteur,  in  modifying  the  virus  of  fowl  cholera, 


exposed  cultures  of  this  microbe  to  air  for 
weeks  and  months.  In  the  case  of  the  bacillus 
anthracis  of  splenic  fever,  heat  and  antiseptic 
substances  have  both  been  used  with  success. 
Two  vaccinations  with  varying  strengths  of 
this  modified  virus  protect  for  at  least  a  year 
against  the  acute  form  of  the  disease.  As  the 
virulence  is  diminished  by  unfavorable  so  will 
it  return  by  cultivation  under  specially  favor- 
able circumstances.  Unsanitary  conditions 
may  thus  not  only  afford  a  suitable  medium 
for  multiplying  the  germs,  but  may  also  increase 
their  virulence.  In  regard  to  hydrophobia, 
Pasteur,  proceeding  on  the  supposition  of  its 
germ  origin,  has  endeavored  to  modify  the 
virus  by  exposure  to  dry  air.  The  results  ob- 
tained, especially  in  his  experiments  on  animals, 
go  far  to  prove  the  supposition  true  and  the  mit- 
igation real;  but  since  the  germ  has  not  been 
differentiated  nor  obtained  in  pure  cultures,  we 
think  the  time  for  presenting  the  subject  to  the 
public  among  things  proved  in  bacteriology  is 
not  yet  come.  Will  protective  inoculation  be- 
come in  the  future  our  great  safeguard  against 
disease  ?  We  confess  that  we  are  not  so  san- 
guine as  Pasteur,  who,  having  contributed  so 
much  to  our  knowledge  of  the  subject,  is  natu- 
rally enthusiastic  at  its  promise.  The  most  ex- 
tensive experiments  in  this  direction  have  been 
in  protecting  animals  from  splenic  fever,  which, 
successful  in  the  majority  of  cases,  has  so  far 
been  accompanied  by  a  percentage  of  deaths 
not  altogether  insignificant.  There  is  thus  the 
chance  of  the  germ  regaining  its  lost  virulence 
and  spreading  the  disease  among  unprotected 
animals,  so  that  protection,  while  possible  in 
anthrax,  may  not  be  so  expedient  as  a  vigor- 
ous warfare  by  means  of  isolation  and  thorough 
disinfection.  The  method  will  prove  of  value, 
we  think,  rather  in  special  cases  than  as  a  uni- 
versal safeguard.* 

Not  so,  however,  is  it  with  disinfection  and 


*  The  life-history  of  Louis  Pasteur  belongs  to  the 
romance  of  science. 

Il'Tii  in  the  French  town  of  Dole  in  1822,  his  father, 
the  village  tanner,  had  hopes  and  plans  for  his  boy  far 
:d  the  common. 

"  He  shall  be  a  professor  at  Arbois,"  the  father 
would  say  ;  and  a  professor  he  indeed  became,  but  not 
for  Arbois,  a  small  provincial  college,  but  in  the  fac- 
ulty of  the  celebrated  fccole  Normalt.  Here  it  was 
that  lie  attended  as  a  scholar,  devoting  himself  chiefly 
to  chemistry,  and  accepting  the  position  of  assistant 
in  that  department  in  1846.  Duringthenext  few  years 
Pasteur  was  occupied  by  investigations  on  tartaric 
acid,  and  at  the  age  of  thirty-two  was  made  Dean  of 
the  l-'aculte  </.'.>•  Seitncti  at  Lille,  one  of  the  chief  in- 
dustries of  which  is  the  manufacture  of  alcohol.  Desir- 
ous of  rendering  his  course  popular,  Pasteur  devoted 
his  time  to  the  study  of  fermentation,  and  hencefor- 
ward his  life  was  to  be  connected  with  that  microscopic 
life  which,  according  to  its  character,  induces  here  a  fer- 
mentation, there  a  putrefaction,  and  again  a  di- 

Studying  first  the  ferment  of  lactic  acid,  Pasteur  soon 


advanced  to  acetic  fermentation  —  that  by  winch  vinegar 
is  produced.  Both  of  these  he  proved  to  be  due  to  mi- 
croscopic life,  and  his  researches  led  not  only  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  old  theories  of  fermentation,  but  also 
to  practical  improvements  in  the  manufacture  of  vine- 
gar. In  1857  Pasteur  was  called  to  Paris,  and  given  a 
chair  in  the  Ecolf  Normale,  and  was  soon  in  the  thick 
of  the  fight  concerning  spontaneous  generation,  carry- 
ing off  the  prize  offered  in  that  subject  by  the  Academy 
of  Sciences. 

Resuming  his  studies  on  fermentation,  the  diseases 
of  wine  were  investigated  and  found  to  be  caused  by 
microbes,  each  special  disease  having  its  own  germ, 
and  the  cause  once  known  the  remedy  was  not  long  in 
forthcoming. 

The  silk  industries  of  France  are  so  enormous  that 
when  an  epidemic  appeared  among  the  silk-worms  in 
1849,  and  steadily  increased,  it  became  a  national  dis- 
aster. By  the  entreaties  of  Dumas,  Pasteur  was  in- 
duced to  study  the  disorder,  and  again  microscope  life 
was  found  at  the  root  of  the  disease,  again  was  a  rem- 
edy indicated  and  the  industry  saved;  but  Pasteur 


DISEASE    GERAfS,  AND  HOW  TO    COMBAT  THEM. 


isolation.  The  latter  needs  no  discussion ;  and 
while  the  value  of  disinfection  is  as  universally 
admitted,  its  practice  is  in  most  cases  exceed- 
ingly faulty.  The  policy  of  intimidation  does 
not  affect  disease  germs,  and  the  smell  of  car- 
bolic acid  from  a  little  in  a  saucer  on  the  man- 
tel does  not  so  much  frighten  them  as  annoy 
us.  The  solutions  and  methods  recommended 
are  from  actual  experiments  on  germs  by  the 
American  Public  Health  Association  com- 
mittee on  disinfection.  As  to  the  many  solu- 
tions and  preparations  sold  in  the  pharmacies 
for  disinfecting  purposes,  this  committee  re- 
ports that  of  fourteen  such  articles  tried  nine  of 
them  failed  in  a  fifty  per  cent,  solution,  while 
of  the  five  showing  disinfecting  power  three 
owed  their  strength  to  corrosive  sublimate, 
which,  while  a  good  disinfectant,  is  much 
cheaper  to  buy  under  its  proper  name.  This 
disinfectant  we  recommend,  but  it  is  a  powerful 
poison  and  must  be  kept  out  of  children's  reach. 
The  high  price,  odor,  and  low  germ-destroy- 
ing power  of  carbolic  acid  accounts  for  its  omis- 
sion in  the  list  of  disinfectants,  although  as  an 
antiseptic  it  may  have  considerable  value.  To 
the  directions  appended  to  this  article  we  re- 
fer those  who  require  the  detailed  information 
given;  the  more  general  reader  we  will  not 
weary,  but  conclude  by  saying  that  as  all  germ 
diseases  are  contests  for  supremacy  between 
the  normal  cells  of  the  body  and  the  foreign 
cells  invading  it,  all  that  tends  to  heighten  our 
vitality  is  of  direct  aid  in  enabling  us  to  with- 
stand the  inception  of  these  maladies.  It  is  by 
depressing  the  system  that  fear  operates  so  in- 
juriously in  epidemics.  He  who  fears,  there- 
fore, in  such  crises  more  than  the  fear  which  is 
the  parent  of  caution  is  simply  surrendering  to 
the  enemy  before  being  attacked.  Looking  to 
the  future  we  can  at  least  hope  for  the  time  when 
such  a  fear  will  be  as  impossible  as  it  is  now 
injurious — impossible  because  of  the  conquests 
made  in  the  realm  of  preventable  disease  by 
our  further  study  of  microorganisms. 

himself,  worn  out  by  incessant  work,  was  stricken  by 
paralysis  (October,  1868).  Then  came  the  war,  and 
for  several  years,  broken  in  health  and  crushed  in 
spirits  by  his  country's  disasters,  but  little  was  done; 
but  with  returning  strength  work  was  again  begun, 
and  after  a  couple  of  years  at  his  old  favorite  fermen- 
tation studies,  the  problem  of  contagious  disease  was 
attacked.  Pasteur's  paper  on  splenic  fever  was  read 
in  1877,  and  since  that  time  this  department  of  research 
has  absorbed  all  his  energies.  The  later  work  on 
hydrophobia  is  well  enough  known  through  the  news- 
papers, but  before  beginning  this  an  exhaustive  in- 
vestigation of  fowl  cholera  was  made. 

Pasteur  was  not  the  first  to  enter  his  later  field,  the 
German  Koch  having,  in  1876,  contributed  a  very  re- 
markable paper  on  splenic  fever,  and  since  that  time 
has  been,  so  to  speak,  Pasteur's  rival,  the  work  of 
Koch  on  cholera  and  consumption  being  marked  by 
the  clearness  and  conclusiveness  which  were  the  prom- 
inent characteristics  of  Pasteur's  earlier  researches. 


PRACTICAL  HINTS  ON  DISINFECTION. 

First.  Corrosive  sublimate  (mercuric  chlo- 
ride), sulphate  of  copper,  and  chloride  of  lime 
are  among  our  best  disinfectants,  the  first  two 
being  poisonous.  At  wholesale  drug  houses  in 
New  York  single  pounds  can  be  obtained, 
mercuric  chloride  costing  seventy-five  cents, 
the  others  ten  cents,  a  pound. 

Second.  A  quarter  of  a  pound  of  corrosive 
sublimate  and  a  pound  of  sulphate  of  copper 
in  one  gallon  of  water  makes  a  concentrated 
solution  to  keep  in  stock.  We  will  refer  to  it 
as  "  solution  A." 

Third.  For  the  ordinary  disinfecting  solu- 
tion add  half  a  pint  of  "  solution  A  "  to  a  gallon 
of  water.  This,  while  costing  less  than  a  cent 
and  a  half  per  gallon,  is  a  good  strength  for 
general  use.  Use  in  about  equal  quantity  in 
disinfecting  choleraic  or  typhoid  fever  excreta. 

Fourth.  A  four  per  cent,  solution  of  good 
chloride  of  lime  or  a  quarter  pint  of  "solu- 
tion A  "  to  a  gallon  of  water  is  used  to  wash 
wood-work,  floors,  and  wooden  furniture,  after 
fumigation  and  ventilation. 

Fifth.  For  fumigating  with  sulphur,  three  to 
four  pounds  should  be  used  to  every  thousand 
cubic  feet  air  space.  Burn  in  an  old  tin  basin 
floating  in  a  tub  of  water;  keep  room  closed 
twelve  hours,  to  allow  the  fumes  to  penetrate 
all  cracks.  Then  open  a  window  from  the  out- 
side and  allow  fumes  to  escape  into  air. 

Sixth.  Soak  sheets,  etc.,  in  chloride  of  lime 
solution,  wring  out,  and  boil. 

Seventh.  Cesspools,  etc.,  should  be  well 
covered  on  top  with  a  mixture  of  chloride  of 
lime  with  ten  parts  of  dry  sand. 

Eighth.  Isolate  the  patient  in  an  upper 
room  from  which  curtains,  carpets,  and  stuffed 
furniture  have  been  removed. 

Ninth.  The  solution  of  mercuric  chloride 
must  not  be  placed  in  metal  vessels,  since  the 
mercury  would  plate  them. 

Lucius  Pitkin. 

The  technique  of  the  German  school  of  bacteriology 
differs  considerably  from  the  method  in  vogue  in 
France,  and  commands  greater  confidence  among  sci- 
entific men.  The  important  feature  of  Pasteur's  later 
work  has  been  his  discovery  of  the  mitigation  of  virus 
and  its  possible  use  as  a  "  vaccine,"  which  is  briefly 
outlined  in  the  article.  Viewed  both  as  to  their  scien- 
tific and  their  commercial  value,  the  discoveries  made 
and  the  results  achieved  by  Pasteur  rank  very  high. 
Professor  Huxley  is  quoted  as  saying  that  the  in- 
demnity of  5,000,000,000  francs  paid  to  Germany  is 
covered  by  the  value  to  France  of  Pasteur's  discover- 
ies. But  France  alone  has  not  been  the  gainer,  nor  in- 
deed can  the  future  prove  less  in  value  than  the  past. 
Concerning  what  has  been  done  for  humanity,  it  will 
be  enough  to  say  that  the  antiseptic  system  of  Lister 
was,  according  to  its  author,  based  on  the  researches 
of  Pasteur.  For  what  of  suffering  has  been  saved  to 
mankind  by  this  improvement  in  surgery  thanks  must 
be  given  not  only  to  Lister  but  also  to  Louis  Pasteur. 


LICHFIKLD    CATHEDRAL. 


FROM  the  Norman  cathe- 
drals of  the  eastern  coun- 
ties it  was  a  natural  step 
to  the  cathedral  of  Salis- 
bury, which  explains  the 
earliest  Gothic  style.  From 
Salisbury  it  is  as  natural  a 
step  to  Lichficld,  where  the 
next  succeeding  style,  the 
Decorated  Gothic,  rules. 
But  even  if  there  were 

SEAL  OF   THE   SEE.        nQ     sucn     C'loSC     histOHC    SC- 

quence,  memory  would  take  us  the  same  road. 
To  think  of  the  unequaled  single  spire  at 
Salisbury  is  to  think  perforce  of  the  unri- 
valed group  of  three  at  Lichfield  ;  and  to  re- 
member the  majestic  power,  the  great  viril- 
ity, which  marks  most  of  England's  greatest 
churches  means  instinctively  to  recall  in  con- 
trast the  lovelier,  more  feminine  grandeur  of 
these  two. 


LICHFIELD  is  neither  a  large,  nor  a  busy,  nor 
an  attractive  town.  Its  site  shows  no  striking 
natural  features,  and  the  country  through  which 
we  approach  it  pleases  by  placid  greenness 
only.  Nor  is  its  history  much  more  interesting 
than  its  aspect.  The  guide-book  tells  us,  indeed, 
that  it  is  "  rich  in  associations  with  Samuel 
Johnson";  but  this  means  little  more  than 
that  he  was  born  here,  that  we  may  see  the 
house  where  the  event  took  place,  and  find  a 
monument  to  him  in  the  market-square  which 
for  pure  ugliness  and  artistic  imbecility  is  the 
most  extraordinary  work  in  England.  Those 
who  really  care  about  their  Johnson  can  walk 
more  closely  with  his  spirit  in  London  than 
in  Lichfield ;  the  same  may  be  said  of  Garrick, 
who  also  chanced  to  be  born  here,  and  of  Ad- 
dison,  who  studied  at  the  grammar-school ;  and 
the  attractions  of  a  dismal  hostelry  are  not  viv- 
idly enhanced  by  the  information  that  it  was  the 
scene  of  Farquhar's  play,  "The  Beau's  Strat- 
agem." In  short,  the  literary  associations  of 
Lichfield  are  of  a  third-rate,  musty  sort;  it 
never  made  dramatic  appearance  before  the 
world  except  in  the  sieges  of  Cromwellian 
times;  and  these  sieges  concern  the  history 
of  the  cathedral,  not  of  the  town  itself.  The 
cathedral,  and  the  cathedral  only,  makes  Lich- 
field wortli  visiting  or  remembering.  And  the 
fact  is  curiously  typified  by  the  station  of  the 


church,  which  does  not  stand  in  the  middle 
of  the  city  but  beside  it,  a  broad  stretch  of 
water  called  the  Cathedral  Pool  dividing  its 
precincts  from  the  torpid  streets. 


n. 

LICHFIELD  lay  of  old  in  the  center  of  Mer- 
cia — the  Middle  Kingdom  —  and  thus  lies 
to-day  in  the  very  center  of  united  England. 
As  we  find  so  frequently,  a  church  first  marked 
the  site  and  then  a  town  grew  up  around  it. 
Tradition  says  that  the  name  is  derived  from 
the  Old-English  /if  (a  dead  body)  and  perpetu- 
ates the  martyrdom  of  a  thousand  Roman  or 
British  Christians  who  suffered  under  Diocle- 
tian on  the  spot  where  the  cathedral  stands. 
But  it  is  a  far  cry  from  Diocletian's  time  to 
the  time  when  the  light  of  actual  history  first 
falls  on  Lichfield  and  shows  Christianity  ex- 
isting. The  Middle  Kingdom  was  slow  to  be 
converted  after  the  heathen  conquest ;  it  was 
not  until  half  a  century  later  than  the  landing 
of  St.  Augustine  that  it  had  a  baptized  prince 
and  a  consecrated  bishop.  In  669  Ceadda, 
or  St.  Chad,  a  holy  man  of  extensive  fame, 
succeeded  as  fourth  bishop  to  the  still  unlo- 
cated  chair.  He  fixed  his  seat  at  Lichfield, 
and  the  cathedral  church  still  bears  his  name 
conjointly  with  the  Blessed  Virgin's.  In  the 
eighth  century  the  bishop  of  Lichfield  was 
given  archiepiscopal  rank  with  jurisdiction  over 
six  sees,  all  but  four  being  taken  away  from 
Canterbury.  But  another  pope  soon  undid  the 
act  of  his  predecessor;  and  in  the  eleventh 
century  fate  took  its  reprisals,  and  Lichfield 
was  left  without  even  the  episcopal  name. 
The  unprotected  little  town  in  the  middle  of 
its  wide  flat  country  seemed  to  William  the 
Conqueror  no  proper  center  of  a  diocese.  The 
first  Norman  bishop  migrated  to  Chester,  and 
the  second  moved  again  to  Coventry  —  being 
attracted,  it  is  said,  by  the  riches  of  the  mon- 
astery which  had  been  founded  by  Godiva  and 
her  repentant  earl.  Lichfield,  however,  still 
preserved  its  prominence;  its  church  seems 
to  have  been  again  considered  the  cathedral 
church  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury; and  —  apparently  without  special  de- 
cree, by  mere  force  of  its  central  position  —  it 
gradually  overshadowed  Coventry  until  the 
latter's  rdle  in  the  diocese  became  nominal 
only.  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  the 


38o 


LICHFIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


bishops  of  the  see  still  styled  themselves  "  of 
Lichfield  and  Coventry,"  but  for  generations 
no  one  had  questioned  where  their  chair 
should  stand. 

Coventry's  house  was  monastic,  Lichfield's 
was  collegiate,  and  there  were  hot  jealousies 
between  them.  Just  before  the  year  1 200  Bishop 
Hugh  determined  to  drive  out  the  monks 
from  Coventry  and  succeeded  by  force  of  arms, 
being  wounded  himself  as  he  stood  by  the 
high-altar.  A  few  years  later  they  came  back 
again,  and  jealousies  grew  to  bitter  quarrels, 
especially  when  a  bishop's  election  befell.  But 
the  story  of  such  wranglings  grows  duller  in 
proportion  to  the  growth  of  civilized  man- 
ners ;  and  dull,  too,  it  must  be  confessed,  is 
the  story  of  most  of  the  prelates  who  filled 
this  chair.  Walter  Langton  (1296-1321)  led 
a  stormily  picturesque  life  as  an  outspoken 
enemy  of  Edward  II.;  Robert  Stretton,  a.pro- 
te'ge  of  the  Black  Prince,  had  a  certain  queer 
prominence  in  his  day  as  a  bishop  who  could 
not  read  or  write ;  and  Rowland  Lee  is  even 
yet  remembered,  because  he  assisted  Cranmer 
at  the  marriage  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  as  Presi- 
dent of  Wales  secured  the  franchise  for  its 
inhabitants.  But  most  of  their  fellows  were 
inconspicuous  at  Lichfield,  and  only  after  the 
Reformation  were  many  of  them  translated  to 
more  prominent  chairs.  . 


in. 

THE  little  church  of  St.  Chad  stood  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Pool,  at  some  distance  from 
the  site  of  the  present  cathedral.  When  this 
site  was  first  built  upon  we  do  not  know,  but 
a  Norman  church  preceded  the  one  we  see 
to-day.  No  great  catastrophe  seems  to 
have  overtaken  it;  it  was  simply  pulled 
down  piece  by  piece  until  not  a  visible  stone 
of  its  fabric  remained.  Eastward  it  ended  in 
a  semicircular  apse.  Beyond  this  apse  a  large 
chapel  was  erected  in  the  Transitional  period, 
and  soon  afterwards  the  Norman  choir  and 
apse  were  removed,  and  the  whole  east  limb 
was  brought  into  architectural  concord.  In  the 
first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  transepts 
were  reconstructed  in  the  Lancet-Pointed 
style,  and  in  the  second  half  the  nave  and 
west-front  in  the  Decorated.  Then  about  1300 
another  chapel  was  thrown  out  to  the  east- 
ward; and  finally  the  Transitional  chapel,  and 
for  the  second  time  the  choir,  were  demolished 
and  rebuilt.  These  last  alterations  also  befell 
in  the  Decorated  period,  so  that  the  whole 
longer  arm  of  the  cross  illustrates  this  style — 
westward  in  its  earlier,  eastward  in  its  later 
phases  —  while  the  shorter  arm  is  still  Early 
English.  In  the  latest  days  of  Gothic  art  Per- 
pendicular windows  were  freely  inserted  in 


the  choir  and  transepts,  and  the  central  tower 
was  rebuilt  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  after  the 
restoration  of  the  monarchy. 


IV. 

DEPLORABLE  indeed  must  have  been  the 
condition  of  the  church  when  the  second 
Charles  came  back  to  his  own.  The  wildest 
havoc  wrought  elsewhere  by  the  civil  war 
was  little  to  the  ruin  wrought  at  Lichfield. 
Bishop  Langton — he  who  was  so  long  at 
feud  with  King  Edward  II. —  had  seen  fit  to 
embattle  the  Close,  around  which  the  town  lay 
flat  and  defenseless.  But  as  a  knight  of  old 
was  sometimes  slain  by  the  weight  of  his  pro- 
tecting armor,  so  the  walls  of  Lichfield  worked 
its  undoing.  When  Lord  Brooke,  with  his 
Puritans,  was  coming  from  Warwick  in  1643, 
the  royalists  threw  themselves  into  the  Close, 
manned  the  causeways  across  the  Pool,  pierced 
the  ecclesiastical  houses  for  cannon  and  mus- 
ket-barrels, and  made  the  church  itself  their 
chief  redoubt.  Brooke  prayed  fervently  in  front 
of  his  troops  that  God  would  assist  him  to 
destroy  the  House  of  God  which  man  had 
now  made  a  stronghold  of  tyranny  as  well  as 
a  haunt  of  superstition.  His  prayers  were  an- 
swered by  a  shot  from  the  spire  which  ended 
his  own  life;  but  the  next  day  the  spire  and 
tower  fell  into  the  church,  and  the  next  the 
Close  was  surrendered.  Then  for  a  month 
there  was  riot  and  ravage.  Everything  break- 
able was  broken,  everything  valuable  was 
purloined.  The  organ  was  shattered  like  the 
windows,  the  seats,  the  monuments,  and  even 
the  floor,  which  had  been  curiously  paved  with 
lozenge-shaped  blocks  of  cannel-coal  and  ala- 
baster. In  the  tomb  of  a  bishop  some  lucky 
thief  found  a  silver  cup  and  a  crozier ;  and  this 
meant,  of  course,  that  no  other  tomb  remained 
unpiliaged,  no  saint's  ashes  undisturbed.  But 
in  the  midst  of  the  sacrilegious  revelry  word 
came  that  Prince  Rupert  was  near.  Again 
there  was  a  siege,  this  time  lasting  for  ten 
days ;  again  a  surrender  and  an  occupation 
by  the  royalist  troops  when  King  Charles 
tarried  with  them  for  a  moment  after  his  de- 
feat at  Naseby;  and  then  a  third  and  still 
longer  siege  and  final  possession  by  the  Par- 
liament army. 

John  Hacket  was  the  first  bishop  after  the 
Restoration.  He  found  the  roof  of  his  cathe- 
dral almost  altogether  gone,  its  exterior  scarred 
by  iconoclastic  axes  and  pock-marked  by  can- 
non-ball and  musket-shot,  and  its  interior  a 
mass  of  rain-washed  rubbish  —  piled  with  the 
fragments  of  the  furniture  and  the  great  stones 
of  the  spire.  Its  piteous  appeal  for  immediate 
action  fell  upon  a  sympathetic  ear.  The  very 
next  morning  after  his  arrival  Hacket  set  to 


LICIIFIELD   CATHEDRAL. 


38' 


work,  and  the  very  first  work  was  done  by  his 
episcopal  fingers.  From  year  to  year  he  con- 
tributed generously  in  money  too  —  some  ten 
thousand  pounds  in  all  —  while  the  canons  gave 
up  half  their  income,  and  King  Charles  sent 
timber  from  his  forests.  In  eight  years  the 
whole  work  was  done,  including  Sir  Christo- 


qualities  which  mark  it  and  in  the  quantity 
of  the  work  which  it  has  left  us. 

The  lines  of  architectural  effort  ran  pretty 
close  together  in  all  the  north  of  Europe  dur- 
ing the  Norman  period.  Then  for  a  while 
they  diverged,  Germany  still  clinging  to  her 
Romanesque  and  England  developing  her 


VHEDRAL     FROM    THE    EAST. 


pher's  spire, and  just  before  his  death,  in  1675, 
the  doughty  bishop  joyfully  reconsecrated  his 
cathedral.  The  days  of  Romish  consecrations 
were  of  course  long  since  past;  but  even  a 
Catholic  may  have  rejoiced  to  see  the  havoc 
of  the  Puritan  thus  partly  made  good. 


v. 

THE  essays  of  the  great  Renaissance 
architect  with  what  we  may  call  posthu- 
mous Gothic  were  not  always  successful  ; 
but  his  Lichfield  spire  is  singularly  good,  and 
the  church  as  he  left  it  goes  far  to  satisfy 
one's  wish  for  an  illustration  of  what  the 
Decorated  style  could  achieve  in  English 
hands. 

It  is  not  a  style  which  interests  us  so  much 
in  England  as  those  which  came  before  and 
after — the  Lancet- Pointed  and  the  Perpen- 
dicular. It  is  not  less  beautiful ;  indeed,  it 
is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  Gothic  styles,  the 
true,  complete,  and  perfect  Gothic ;  but  it  is 
less  characteristically  English,  alike  in  the 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 54. 


Lancet-Pointed  manner,  while  France  began 
at  once  to  master  the  difficulties  of  full-blown 
traceried  Gothic.  Then  they  converged  again, 
through  the  nearer  approach  of  Germany  and 
England  to  the  ideas  of  France ;  and  finally 
once  more  parted,  England  creating  the  Per- 
pendicular and  France  the  Flamboyant  Gothic. 
The  height  of  the  Decorated  style  thus  means 
in  England  the  least  individual  manifestation 
of  national  taste.  Lancet-Pointed  and  Per- 
pendicular work  we  can  study  nowhere  but 
here;  pure  full-blown  Gothic  we  can  study 
elsewhere,  and,  it  must  be  confessed,  to  better 
advantage.  France  not  only  practiced  it  much 
longer,  but  in  many  ways  more  ambitiously 
and  more  beautifully.  Her  great  superiority 
in  figure-sculpture  might  alone  almost  suffice 
to  give  her  the  foremost  place,  and  she  had 
other  superiorities  to  add  to  this. 

Then,  as  has  been  said,  the  Decorated 
work  of  England  seems  somewhat  deficient 
in  quantity,  even  when  we  compare  it,  not  with 
the  same  kind  of  work  in  France,  but  with 
work  of  other  kinds  at  home.  The  era  during 


382 


LICHF1ELD    CATHEDRAL. 


which  it  reigned  — 1300  may  stand  as  the  cen- 
tral date — was  not  a  great  church-building 
era.  Such  an  one  had  opened  with  the  coming 
of  the  Norman  and  had  lasted  until  the  mid- 
dle of  the  thirteenth  century.  By  this  time 
almost  a  sufficiency  of  great  churches  had 
been  built  —  at  least  what  seemed  almost  a 
sufficiency  to  a  generation  whose  minds  and 
purse-strings  the  Church  no  longer  undispu- 
tedly  controlled.  It  was  the  time  of  the  first 
vague  stirrings  of  Protestant  sap,  the  time  of 
the  first  strong  consciousness  of  national  unity 
a.id  of  its  correlative  —  national  independ- 
ence. It  was  the  time  of  the  first  Edward  — 
the  first  truly  English  king  since  Harold — and 
of  his  two  namesakes,  marked  by  splendid 
wars,  legislative  innovations,  and  a  half-revolt 
against  the  dictatorship  of  Rome.  The  mili- 
tary and  the  domestic  spirit  now  began  to 
play  a  greater  part  in  determining  architectural 
effort.  Not  since  the  reign  of  the  Norman 
Williams  had  there  been  so  great  a  castle- 
building  reign  as  that  of  Edward  I. ;  but  it 
saw  the  founding  of  no  cathedral  churches, 
and  the  most  prolific  time  of  church  alteration 
did  not  begin  till  later.  A  few  cathedrals  show 
more  or  less  conspicuous  portions  in  the 
Decorated  style ;  but  none  comes  so  near  to 
being  wholly  in  this  style  as  Lichfield,  nor 
is  there  any  Decorated  non-cathedral  church 
which  rivals  it  save  Beverley  Minster  in 
Yorkshire.  This  is  quite  as  large  as  Lichfield 
Cathedral  and,  except  for  its  lack  of  spires  and 
its  prosaic  situation, —  two  very  large  excep- 
tions,—  it  is  perhaps  more  beautiful.  Cer- 
tainly its  interior  has  a  vaster,  grander  air,  an 
air  more  in  accord  with  the  sound  of  the  word 
cathedral. 

VI. 

LICHFIELD  is  the  smallest  of  the  English 
cathedrals  —  115  feet  shorter  than  Salisbury, 
for  example,  and  some  50  feet  less  in  the  spread 
of  its  transepts.  Outside  it  looks  larger  than  it 
is,  but  inside  still  smaller.  Even  a  length  of 
336  feet  will  still  be  enough,  we  imagine,  to 
give  great  spaciousness  and  majesty.  But  on 
entering  the  west  portal  it  is  charm,  not  size, 
that  strikes  us.  We  see  a  beautiful,  noble, 
dignified  church,  but  the  words  immensity, 
power,  magnificence,  do  not  occur  to  us,  and 
hardly  the  word  cathedral  in  the  sense  which 
other  sees  have  taught  us  to  read  into  it.  It 
takes  us  some  time  to  realize  how  long  a  reach 
of  choir  lies  beyond  the  crossing  and  the 
screen  —  a  longer  reach  than  that  of  the  nave 
itself;  and  when  we  realize  it,  the  structure 
still  lacks  majesty,  for  its  breadth  is  only  66 
feet  and  its  height  is  barely  60.  Then  this  height 
means,  of  course,  merely  the  apex  of  a  vault 
which  thence  curves  steeply  downward;  and 


upon  examination  we  find  it  is  decreased  to  the 
eye  by  the  character  of  the  wall-design.  The 
three  stories  of  the  nave  of  Lichfield  are  very 
beautiful  stories,  individually  considered.  On 
each  side  between  the  nave  and  aisles  stretch 
eight  somewhat  sharply  pointed  arches,  deeply 
cut,  and  encircled  by  many  moldings  borne  on 
lovely  clusters  of  slender  shafts.  Above  each 
of  these  arches  stand  two  in  the  triforium- 
gallery,  still  more  richly  molded,  and  subdi- 
vided into  smaller  lights  by  delicate  columns 
bearing  open  traceries;  and  above  each  trifo- 
rium-group  is  a  triangular  clere-story  window, 
entirely  filling  the  three-cornered  space  made 
by  the  curves  of  the  vaulting  and  filled  itself  by 
traceries  which  form  three  circular  lights,  each 
cusped  inside  into  a  trefoil  shape.  Yet  con- 
sidered altogether,  as  a  composition,  these 
beautiful  stories  fail  to  satisfy  the  eye,  espe- 
cially if  it  has  been  trained  upon  French  work 
with  its  wonderful  feeling  for  proportion  and 
for  the  organic  interdependence  of  adjacent 
parts.  The  slender  shafts  which  rise  between 
the  main  arches  from  floor  to  cornice  and 
support  the  chief  ribs  of  the  vaulting  hardly 
suffice  to  bring  the  three  superimposed  ranges 
of  openings  into  vital  unity.  Then  there  is  not 
an  inch  of  plain  wall  between  these  ranges; 
the  apex  of  each  arch 
touches  the  string- 
course which  forms 
the  support  of  the 
range  above  it,  and 
an  air  of  crushing 
and  crowding  is  the 
result — an  air 
as  of  an  at- 
tempt to  fit 
in  features 
which  are  too 
large  for  their 
places.  And 
finally  there 
is  no  clear 
subordination 
of  one  story 
to  another  — 
no  strong  ac- 
centuation of 
one  or  of  two  as  be- 
ing of  prime  impor- 
tance. The  triforium 
seems  too  important 
for  the  main  arcade, 
and  with  regard  to  the 
clere-story  it  is  hard 
to  say  whether  it  is 
too  important  or  not 
important  enough.  nM  QF  LICHFIELD  CATHED«AI. 

Given  SO  low  a  main       (FROM  MURRAY'S  "  HANU-HOOK 

1          ',  •     1  11  TO    THE    CATHEDRALS    OF 

arcade,  It  might  well  ENGLAND.") 


LIC  It  FIELD   CATHEDRAL. 


383 


THE    CATHEDRAL    BY    MOONLIGHT. 


be  more  modest  in  expression ;  but  given  so 
noble  a  triforium,  it  ought  to  be  much  higher. 
In  short,  while  no  one  could  better  have  known 
what  a  beautiful  feature  should  mean  than  the 
man  who  built  this  nave,  we  can  hardly  call 
him  a  great  architect ;  for  this  name  implies  a 
stronger  feeling  for  the  architecturalwhole  than 
for  its  parts,  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  virtues 
of  accentuation  and  subordination,  a  frank 
acceptance  of  the  chosen  dimensions,  and  a 
knowledge  of  how  to  make  the  very  most  of 
them.  Low  as  Lichfield  is,  it  would  not  have 
seemed  so  low  had  a  great  master  built  its 
walls.  As  it  stands  we  are  glad  to  turn  from 
a  study  of  its  proportions  to  a  close  examina- 
tion of  its  lovely  triforium-gallery,  the  richness 
of  which  is  in  interesting  contrast  to  the  sever- 
ity of  Salisbury's  features.  Here,  instead  of 
simply  molded  capitals  we  have  round  clus- 
ters of  graceful,  overhanging  foliage,  while 
along  the  arch-lines  run  repeated  rows  of  that 
"  dog-tooth  "  molding  which  was  the  happiest 
decorative  motive  that  had  been  invented 
since  the  days  of  Hellenic  art — rows  of  deli- 
cate little  cone-shaped  forms  set  zigzag,  and 
shining  as  bright  gleams  of  light  against  the 
dark  hollows  behind  them.  The  traceried 
heads  of  these  triforium  openings,  and  of  the 
aisle  windows  which  we  see  through  the  main 
arcade  as  we  stand  in  the  nave,  well  explain 
the  character  of  Decorated  as  distinct  from  the 
earlier  forms  of  medieval  art. 


To  follow  the  development  of  the  true 
Gothic  traceried  window  from  the  simple  win- 
dow of  the  Normans  is  the  prettiest  of  all 
architectural  problems  —  the  points  of  start- 
ing and  arriving  lie  so  far  asunder,  yet  the 
steps  between  are  so  clear  and  in  retrospect 
seem  to  have  been  so  inevitable. 

Fancy  first  a  plain  tall  window  with  a  round- 
arched  head ;  then  the  round  exchanged  for 
a  pointed  head ;  then  two,  or  three,  or  five 
perhaps,  of  these  pointed  windows  set  close 
together;  and  then  a  projecting  molding  in 
the  shape  of  an  arch  drawn  around  them,  in- 
cluding them  all  and  thus  including,  of  neces- 
sity, a  plain  piece  of  wall  above  their  heads. 
Then  fancy  this,  piece  of  wall  pierced  with  a 
few  small  openings,  and  we  have  a  group  of 
connected  lights  in  which,  as  a  plant  in  its 
embryo,  lies  the  promise  of  all  after-develop- 
ments. But  we  have  not  yet  a  true  compound 
window  —  a  single  great  window  of  many 
parts  all  vitally  fused  together.  A  process  of 
gradual  accretion  has  brought  its  elements  to- 
gether; a  process  of  gradual  change  in  the 
treatment  of  these  elements  now  does  the  rest 
of  the  work. 

The  small  lights  in  the  upper  field  enlarge 
and  multiply  until  they  form  a  connected  pat- 
tern which  fills  its  whole  area,  and  the  jambs 
of  the  main  lights  diminish  into  narrow  strips 
or  very  slender  columns.  The  great  arch, 
which  in  the  first  place  did  but  encircle  the 


LICHFIELD   CATHEDRAL. 


windows,  thus  becomes  itself  the  window  — 
the  "  plate-traceried "  *  window  which  was 
richly  developed  in  early  P'rench  Gothic  but 
less  richly  in  English,  owing  to  the  persistent 
local  love  for  mere  groups  of  lancets.  Then 
all  the  stone- work  shrinks  still  farther — the 
columnar  character  of  the  uprights  is  lost,  and 
the  flat  surfaces  between  the  upper  openings 
change  into  moldings  of  complex  section. 
Thus  the  original  tall  lights  and  upper  pierc- 


A    CORNER    IN    THE    CATHEDRAL. 

ings  surrender  their  last  claim  to  independence; 
the  uprights  are  no  longer  jambs  or  bits  of 
wall  but  mullions,  the  arch-head  is  filled  with 
genuine  traceries,  and  all  the  elements  of  the 
design  are  vitally  fused  together  within  the 
sweep  of  the  great  window  to  form. its  multi- 
ple yet  organic  beauty. 

At  first  simple  geometrical  patterns  were 
adhered  to  in  the  traceries ;  such  combinations 
of  trefoiled  circles,  for  example,  as  we  find  in 
the  aisle  windows  at  Lichfield  and  on  a  larger 
scale  in  the  clere-story  windows;  and  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  moldings  which  form  each  of 
the  openings  was  strictly  respected.  But  as 
time  went  on  "  geometrical "  developed  into 
"flowing"  tracery.  The  lights  were  multi- 
plied and  their  shapes  more  widely  varied; 
and  the  moldings  were  given  freer  play — were 
treated  as  plastic  strips  which  might  be  bent 
in  any  direction,  and  were  carried  over  and 
under  each  other,  so  that  we  may  choose  a  line 
at  the  window-sill,  follow  it  thence  to  the 
arch-head  and  find  it  forming  part  of  the 
boundary  of  several  successive  lights.  This 
was  the  noblest,  most  imaginative,  most  beau- 
tiful period  of  window-design,  and  by  gradual 
steps  it  passed  into  the  latest  —  the  Perpen- 
dicular period. 

When  we  thus  trace  in  words  the  genesis 

*  This  term  is  unfortunately  compounded.  "  Plate  " 
clearly  expresses  the  character  of  the  upper  part  of 
the  window  —  a  flat  surface  pierced  with  openings; 
but  there  are  no  true  "traceries"  while  it  remains 
appropriate. 


of  Gothic  windows  it  seems  as  though  the 
most  important  step  was  taken  when  the  in- 
cluding arch  and  the  pierced  tympanum  were 
imagined.  But  when  we  study  all  the  succes- 
sive steps  in  the  stone  itself  we  find  that  the 
step  from  plate  to  geometrical  tracery  meant 
the  most  radical  change;  for  it  meant  a  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  conception  of  a  window's 
character  considered  as  a  piece  of  design, 
considered  not  for  its  utility  but  for  its  effect 
upon  the  eye.  Originally,  I  may  say,  it  was 
the  lights  as  such  which  made  the  window; 
later  on  it  was  the  stone-work  that  framed 
the  lights.  Look  from  the  inside  at  any  early 
window  (whether  it  has  the  simple  Norman 
shape  or  well-developed  plate-traceries)  and 
the  form  of  the  openings  will  attract  your  eye; 
you  will  not  notice  the  forms  of  the  stone- 
work around  them.  But  look  thus  at  a  Deco- 
rated or  a  Perpendicular  window,  and  your 
eye  will  dwell  upon  the  stone-work  itself — 
upon  the  delicate  lines  of  the  upright  mullions 
and  of  the  circling  moldings  in  the  head,  join- 
ing and  parting  and  projecting  into  slender 
points  to  define  the  pattern  —  and  will  take 
small  account  of  the  shape  of  the  openings 
themselves.  That  is,  in  the  first  case  you  will 
see  the  window  as  a  group  of  bright  spots 
upon  the  shadowed  wall,  as  a  pattern  cut  out 
in  light  upon  a  darker  surface;  in  the  second 
case  you  will  see  it  as  a  tracery  of  dark  lines 
upon  a  wide  bright  field,  as  a  pattern  done 
in  black  upon  a  lighter  background.  The  dif- 
ference is  immense,  radical  even,  for  it  is  a 
difference  not  in  the  degree  but  in  the  kind 
of  beauty  which  has  been  sought.  To  study 
its  genesis,  therefore,  teaches  us  an  architect- 
ural truth  of  broad  and  deep  significance.  It 
teaches  us  that  a  process  of  slow  gradual  ex- 
periment may  mean  a  change  from  one  artistic 
idea  to  another  of  an  opposite  sort  —  may 
mean  a  revolution  while  appearing  to  be  no 
more  than  a  process  of  mere  development. 

VII. 

IN  the  transepts  of  Lichfield  we  find  beau- 
tiful Lancet-Pointed  work,  but  so  altered  by 
the  insertion  of  great  Perpendicular  windows 
that  the  general  effect  is  hardly  more  the 
effect  of  the  earliest  than  of  the  latest  Gothic 
style.  The  lower  portions  of  the  three  choir- 
bays  next  the  tower  are  the  oldest  fragments 
of  the  cathedral  —  remaining  not  from  the 
original  Norman  choir,  but  from  that  later 
Transitional  one  which  was  likewise  swept 
away.  Even  a  few  bits  of  decoration  of  this 
period  still  exist —  as  in  the  arch  which  leads 
from  the  aisle  of  the  north  transept  into  the 
adjoining  choir-aisle.  On  the  face  of  the  arch 
towards  the  choir-aisle  there  is  a  large  zigzag 


LICHFIELD    CA  THEDRAL. 


385 


molding  of  the  real  Norman  sort ;  the  capitals 
of  the  piers  towards  the  transept  are  of 
the  Norman  scallop-shape  (more  elaborately 
treated),  and  the  square  Norman  abacus  al- 
ternates very  curiously  with  the  round  Marly 
English  form. 

The  design  of  the  late- Decorated  choir  is 
wholly  different  from  that  of  the  early- Deco- 
rated nave.  Instead  of  three  stories  each 
of  great  importance,  we  find  two  of  even 
greater  importance,  while  the  third  has  shrunk 
to  a  mere  semblance  of  itself.  The  whole 
height  is  divided  into  two  almost  equal  por- 
tions, which  are  given  up  to  the  main  arcade 
and  to  a  range  of  vast  clere-story  windows, 
the  triforium-gallery  being  in  the  strictest  sense 
a  gallery  and  nothing  more  —  open  behind  a 
rich  parapet  in  front  of  the  clere-story  windows, 
and  running  through  the  thick  walls  between 
them.  We  may  regret  for  its  own  sake  the 
beautiful  triforium  of  the  nave,  but  considered 
in  its  entirety  the  design  of  the  choir  is  more 
beautiful  and  is  much  more  ap- 
propriate under  so  low  a  roof. 
The  main  arcade,  moreover,  is  far 
finer  than  in  the  nave,  the  clusters 
of  shafts  and  the  arch-moldings 
being  still  more  numerous  and 
graceful,  and  the  piers  being 
broad  enough  to  give  room  be- 
tween arch  and  arch  for  a  splen- 
did corbel  of  richly  ornamented 
colonettes  which  bears  a  great 
statue  surmounted  by  a  canopy  — 
features  that  we  find  more  fre- 
quently in  continental  than  in  En- 
glish churches.  The  huge  clere- 
story windows  have  very  deep 
slanting  jambs  covered  with  a 
lace-like  pattern  of  quatrefoils, 
and  the  original "  flowing  "  tracery 
which  remains  in  two  of  them 
is  very  charmingly  designed.  The 
others  are  filled  with  Perpendic- 
ular traceries  which  appear  to 
have  been  inserted  long  after 
the  true  Perpendicular  period, 
when  Bishop  Racket  took  his 
shattered  church  in  hand.  At 
this  time  also  the  ceiling  of  the 
nave  had  to  be  in  greater  part 
rebuilt.  Just  how  the  work  was 
done  I  can  nowhere  find  record- 
ed ;  the  present  sham  vaults  of 
wood  and  plaster  were  the  work  of 
our  old  friend  Wyatt  in  the  later 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

VIII. 

BUT  all  the  while  we  are  ex- 
amining the  nave  and  choir  of 


I.ichfield,  the  eye  is  irresistibly  drawn  east- 
ward, where  the  Lady-Chapel  shines  as  a 
splendid  jewel  —  as  a  splendid  great  crown 
of  jewels  —  at  the  end  of  the  long  dusk  per- 
spective. No  east-end  we  have  seen  else- 
where has  had  a  similar  effect  —  not  more 
as  regards  form  than  color.  A  glance  at 
the  plan  will  show  why.  At  Peterborough 
there  was  a  semicircular  Norman  apse  with 
a  later  construction  dimly  discernible  beyond 
it,  at  Ely  a  flat  east-end,  and  at  Salisbury  a 
straight  line  of  great  arches  bearing  a  flat  wall 
above  and  showing  beneath  their  curves  an  out- 
lying chapel,  also  rectangular  in  shape;  but 
here  at  Lichfield  there  is  a  polygonal  termina- 


THE    NAVE    AND    THE    WEST-END    FROM    WITHIN    THE    CHOIR. 


386 


LIC H FIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


tion,  a  true  Gothic  apse — in  name  a  Lady- 
Chapel  merely,  but  of  equal  height  with  the 
choir  itself  and  forming  to  the  eye  its  actual  end. 
This  is  the  only  cathedral  in  England  where 
we  find  a  Gothic  apse,  and  the  only  ancient 
church  in  England  where  we  find  it  in  just  this 
shape.  At  Westminster  and  in  one  or  two 
smaller  churches  we  have  the  French  apse- 
form  with  the  choir-aisles  carried  around  the 
polygon  to  make  encircling  chapels.  At  Lich- 
field the  German  type  is  followed  —  there  are 
no  aisles,  and  a  single  range  of  lofty  windows 
absorbs  the  whole  height,  rising  into  the  curves 


\ 


THE    LADY-CHAPEL    FROM    THE     HIGH-ALTAR, 


of  the  vaulting,  and  filled  with  geometrical  tra- 
ceries. This  is  enough  to  surprise  us  and — since 
there  is  nothing  which  the  tourist  likes  so  well 
as  novelty  —  to  delight  us  also.  But  we  marvel 
indeed  when  we  see  the  beautiful  glass  with 
which  this  beautiful  apse  is  lined,  and  remem- 
ber again  how  Hacket  found  his  church.  In 
truth,  these  magnificent  harmonies  of  purple 
and  crimson  and  blue  —  of  blue,  it  may  better 
be  said,  spangled  with  purple  and  crimson  — 
never  threw  their  light  on  English  Catholic, 
on  Anglican  or  Puritan  plunderer,  or  on  Sir 
Christopher's  workmen.  While  these  were 
building  and  shattering  and 
building  again,  the  glass  upon 
which  Lichfield  now  prides 
itself  almost  as  much  as  upon 
its  three  stately  spires  was 
glorifying  a  quiet  abbey  of 
Cistercian  nuns  in  Belgium. 
Only  in  1802,  at  the  disso- 
lution of  the  abbey,  was  it 
purchased  by  Sir  Brooks 
Boothby  (surely  one  should 
not  forget  his  name)  and  set 
up  at  Lichfield.  It  is  late  in 
date  —  not  earlier  than  1530 
—  but  unusually  good  for  its 
time  in  both  design  and 
color;  and  nowhere  in  the 
world  could  it  serve  beauty 
better  than  in  just  this  En- 
glish church.  The  rich  del- 
icacy, the  feminine  loveli- 
ness, of  Lichfield's  interior 
needs  such  a  final  jewel  more 
than  does  the  severer  charm 
of  most  English  cathedrals. 
And  the  qualities  which  need 
its  help,  help  in  return  its 
own  effect ;  the  apse  reveals  it 
better  than  a  flat  wall  could, 
and  the  color  of  the  whole  in- 
terior— from  which  all  traces 
of  the  ancient  paint  have 
been  removed — is,  fortu- 
nately, not  the  pale  yellow 
or  the  shining  white  we  most 
often  see,  but  a  dull  soft 
red  of  very  delightful  tone. 
Thanks  largely  to  this  color, 
as  well  as  to  the  apse  and  its 
glass,  we  find  that  after  all 
we  do  not  much  regret  at 
Lichfield  the  grandeur  of 
which  we  dreamed  but  which 
failed  to  greet  us.  When  a 
church  is  so  beautiful,  what 
matter  whether  it  looks  like 
a  cathedral  church  or  not? 
If  it  were  only  a  little  broader 


I.ICHI'IEI.D   CATHEDRAL. 


387 


WATCHING    GALLERY       OVER    THE    SACRISTV    DOOR. 


and  a  good  bit  loftier,  we  should  indeed 
lie  content  with  the  interior  of  Lichfield; 
and,  it  must  be  added,  if  the  destroyer 
had  done  his  work  less  well,  and  the 
restorer  had  done  his  a  great  deal 
better  —  for  much  of  that  richness 
which  looks  like  beauty  at  a  dis- 
tance proves  very  poor  stuff  on 
near  inspection,  judged  even  by 
restorers'  standards.  This  is  not- 
ably the  case  with  the  vaulting, 
of  course,  and  with  the  statues 
in  the  choir.  Nor  are  most  of 
the  monuments  introduced  dur- 
ing the  last  century  and  a  half 
to  be  considered  works  of  art. 
There  is  one  exception,  how- 
ever —  Chantrey's  famous  group 
of  two  sleeping  children.  Cer- 
tain works  of  art,  and  this  is 
one  of  them,  are  so  famous  — 
are  famous,  rather,  in  so  popular 
a.  way  —  that  it  is  hard  to  credit 
them  with  genuine  excellence. 
Knowing  the  average  level  of 
English  sculpture  in  the  first 
years  of  this  century  —  knowing, 
indeed,  the  average  level  of 
Chantrey's  own  productions  — 
and  reading  the  sentimental  de- 
light of  every  tourist  in  this  senti- 
mental-sounding piece  of  work,  how  should  determine  whether  the  shining  water  at  Lich- 
we  believe  beforehand  that  it  is  so  genuinely  field  or  the  green  lake  of  turf  at  Salisbury 
good  —  so  graceful  in  design,  so  pleasing  if  makes  the  lovelier  foreground.  Standing  on 
not  strong  in  execution,  and  so  full  of  true  the  causeway  which  leads  towards  the  west- 
and  simple  feeling;  so  full  of  sentiment  yet  ern  entrance  of  the  Close,  it  is  not  merely  a  fine 
so  free  from  the  feeble  sentimentality  of  the  view  that  we  have  before  us  —  it  is  a  picture 
time  ?  so  complete  and  perfect  that  the  keenest  art- 

The  chapter-house  at  Lichfield  is  another  ist  need  not  ask  to  change  one  detail.  Per- 
beautiful  piece  of  early-Decorated  work  sadly  haps  accident  has  had  more  to  do  than  design 
marred  by  ruin  and  renewal  —  an  elongated  with  the  planting  of  the  greenery  which 
octagon  with  a  central  column  to  support  its  borders  the  lake  and  above  which  spring  the 
vaulting,  and  connected  with  the  choir  by  a  daring  spires.  But  it  is  planting  that  a  land- 
well-designed  vestibule.  Above  it  is  the  library,  scape-gardener  might  study  to  his  profit,  and 
wholly  stripped  of  its  contents  in  the  civil  if  there  is  one  wish  we  make  when  we  see  or 
war,  but  now  filled  again  with  a  goodly  as-  think  of  Lichfield  from  this  point  of  view,  it  is 
sortment  of  treasures.  Chief  among  them  is  that  the  tall  poplar  may  be  as  long-lived  as  the 
the  so-called  Gospel  of  St.  Chad,  a  superb  tree  Ygdrasil  —  so  pretty  a  measure  does  it 
manuscript  of  Hibernian  workmanship  which  give  of  the  tallness  of  the  spires,  so  exquisite  is 
may  possibly  be  as  old  as  the  saint's  own  day.  the  completing  accent  which  it  brings  into  the 

scene. 

If  it  is  from  the  south-east  that  we  approach 

the  church,  we  cross  another  causeway  on 
MR.  PENNELL,  inhis  pictures,  will  show  more  either  hand  of  which  the  lake  spreads  out 
clearly  than  I  can  in  words  the  exterior  look  widely,  and  see  not  only  the  spires  but  the 
of  Lichfield.  It  stands  on  somewhat  higher  apse  and  the  long  stretch  of  the  southern  side. 
ground  than  the  town,  the  very  dullness  and  Enormously  long  it  looks;  longer,almost,  than 
insignificance  of  which  throws  its  beauty  into  those  cathedrals  which  are  actually  greater, 
bright  relief.  Whether  we  approach  it  from  one  owing  to  its  peculiar  lowness ;  too  long,  almost, 
street  or  another  we  see  it  suddenly  across  the  for  true  beauty,  especially  as  so  much  of  its 
silver  stretches  of  its  Pool,  and  it  is  hard  to  extent  falls  to  the  share  of  the  choir. 


IX. 


388 


LICHFIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


THE    SPIRES    OF     LICHFIELD    FROM     THE     SOUTH-WEST. 


To  the  north  of  the  church  the  ground  rises 
quickly  into  a  broad,  terrace-like  walk  flanked 
by  rows  of  vast  and  ancient  yet  graceful  lin- 
dens; and  beyond  the  trees,  behind  low  walls 
and  verdurous  gardens,  lies  a  range  of  canons' 
homes.  The  place  is  not  very  picturesque  to 
one  who  has  come  from  Canterbury's  pre- 
cincts or  from  Peterborough's  ;  but  it  is  very 
charming,  with  a  homely,  sober,  shadowy 
charm  that  makes  a  New  Knglander  feel  sud- 


denly much  at  home.  He  may  almost  fancy 
himself  at  home,  in  fact,  if  he  turns  his  back  on 
the  cathedral  and  sees  only  the  trees  and  the 
houses  — and  if  he  knows  so  little  of  trees  as 
to  be  able  to  take  limes  for  elms  or  maples ; 
for  the  row  of  sedate  square  dwellings,  and 
even  the  Deanery  in  the  middle,  are  similar  in 
size  and  form  to  many  in  his  own  older  towns, 
and  are  not  more  dignified  in  aspect.  Indeed, 
there  are  certain  streets  in  Salem,  to  name  no 


LICn 'FIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


389 


others,  which  show  ;i  much  statelier  succession 
of  homes  than  this  —  than  this,  which  we  like- 
all  the  better  because  it  tempts  us  into  draw- 
ing such  comparisons  and  yet  allows  us  to 
draw  them  to  our  own  exalting. 

There  are  no  ruined  buildings  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  this  cathedral.  As  a  collegiate 
establishment  it  had  no  cloisters  or  important 
accessory  structures  to  tempt  King  Henry's 
or  Cromwell's  wreckers,  or  to  fall  into  gradual 
decay. 


but  that  much  has  perished  to  be  replaced  by 
imitations  of  a  particularly  futile  and  distress- 
ing sort.  The  Early-English  door  into  the 
north  transept  still  remains  nearly  intact,  and 
is  one  of  the  most  singular  and  lovely  bits  of 
work  in  England,  but  its  southern  counterpart 
has  been  much  injured;  and  though  in  design 
the  west-front  is  one  of  the  best  in  the  coun- 
try, its  present  adornments  are  without  rivalry 
the  worst. 

It  is  only  a  small  west-front  —  or  would  be 
so  called  across  the  Channel  —  but  it  is  a  true 
front  to  the  church,  not  a  mendacious  screen, 
and  its  design  has  coherence  and  dignity  and 
charm  although  no  paramount  degree  of  orig- 
inality, force,  or  grace.  Its  doors  are  the  chief 


THE  SOUTH  SIDE  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL. 


In  any  and  every  aspect,  but  more  espe- 
cially when  foliage  comes  close  about  it,  Lich- 
field's  color  assists  its  other  beauties.  Gray  is 
the  rule  in  English  churches  —  dark  cold  gray 
at  Ely,  for  example,  light  yellow  gray  at  Can- 
terbury, pale  pearly  gray  at  Salisbury ;  and 
although  dark  grayness  means  great  solem- 
nity and  grandeur,  and  light  grayness  great 
delicacy  and  charm,  they  both  need  the  hand 
of  time  —  the  stain  of  the  weather  and  the 
web  of  the  lichen  — to  give  them  warmth  and 
"tone";  and  the  work  of  the  hand  of  time 
has  almost  everywhere  in  England  been  un- 
done by  the  hand  of  the  restorer.  Red  stone 
is  warm  and  mellow  in  itself,  and  Lichfield  is 
red  with  a  beautiful  soft  ruddiness  tliat  could 
hardly  be  overmatched  by  the  sandstone  of 
am-  land. 


x. 


A  XARKOWKK  examination  of  the  exterior 
of  the  church  shows  that  much  beauty  remains, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 55. 


entrances  to  the  church  —  small  ones,  but  de- 
lightful in  shape  and  feature;  and  we  may 
offset  the  too  great  heaviness  of  the  corner 
pinnacles  of  the  towers  by  noting  the  beauty 
of  their  parapets.  The  traceries  of  the  great 
window  were  renewed  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury—  a  gift  from  King  James  II.;  and  the 
big  statue  in  the  gable  above  pictures  that 
very  saintly  monarch,  the  second  Charles. 

The  statues  which  filled  the  multitudinous 
niches  were  defaced  by  the  Puritans,  but  were 
not  removed  until  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. About  1820  those  which  still  remained 
were  restored  —  which  much-abused  word 
could  not  possibly  be  more  abused  than  by 
setting  it  in  this  connection.  The  restoration 
of  Lichfield's  statues  meant  that  the  ruined 
remnants  of  the  ancient  figures  were  overlaid 
with  cement  which  was  then  molded  into 
simulacra  of  the  human  form.  For  some 
years  past  attempts  have  been  made  to  sup- 
plement these  atrocities  by  better  works ;  but 


39° 


LICHFIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


..  •*."•'•    '  /  ?••'  ': 


DOORWAY  IN  THE  NORTH  TRANSEPT, 

it  cannot  be  truthfully  reported  that  many 
of  even  the  newest  comers  are  worthy  of 
their  places.  The  present  royal  lady  of  En- 
gland stands  in  a  conspicuous  niche,  portrayed 
by  one  of  her  royal  daughters;  and  this 
piece  of  amateur  art  is  not  the  worst  of  the 
company. 

XI. 

PERHAPS  the  New  England  tourist  whom  I 
have  just  imagined  may  find  time  to  rest  a 
while  on  some  bench  beneath  the  giant  lime- 
trees  of  Lichfield,  turning  his  back  now  on  the 
canons'  homes  and  his  face  to  the  church  it- 
self. Perhaps  from  contemplation  he  will  be  led 
to  introspection  —  will  think  over  the  courses 
he  has  traveled  and  weigh  the  changes  in  his 
mental  attitude  that  they  have  brought  about. 
Then  it  will  be  strange  if  the  figure  of  the 
seventeenth-century  Puritan  does  not  surge  up 
in  his  thought,  striking  him  with  surprise,  yea, 
smiting  him  with  compunction.  Here  is  a  fig- 
ure, typifying  much  more  than  itself,  with  re- 
gard to  which  his  mental  attitude  will  indeed 
seem  a  new  one.  At  home  the  Puritan  had 
been  honored  and  revered.  Patriotic  pride 
and  religious  habit  had  joined  to  make  him 
seem  as  venerable  as  mighty.  His  faults  and 
shortcomings  were  acknowledged,  but  were 
piously  laid  to  the  spirit  of  his  age ;  his  virtues, 
so  much  greater  than  all  his  faults,  were  as 
piously  credited  to  his  personal  account.  The 


work  which  he  had  done 
was  thought  the  noblest, 
almost,  that  man  had 
ever  done  —  this  break- 
ing through  a  dogmat- 
ic, pinching  creed,  this 
oversetting  of  a  mis- 
used, tyrant  throne,  this 
planting  beyond  the  sea 
of  a  greater  common- 
wealth whose  blazon 
should  mean  freedom  of 
action  in  the  present 
world,  freedom  of  ac- 
countability with  the 
world  to  come.  And  if 
a  contemptuous  shrug  at 
his  narrowness  or  a  half- 
smile  at  his  grim  formal- 
ity was  permitted,  it  was 
as  though  before  the  por- 
trait of  some  excellent 
grandsire  whose  defects 
might  be  criticised  under 
the  breath,  but  should 
...  ..  not  be  made  a  text  for 

public  reprobation. 

But  here,  amidst  these 
cathedrals,  what  is  the 
Puritan  to  his  descendant's  thought  ?  A  rude 
destroyer  of  things  ancient  and  therefore  to 
be  respected ;  a  vandal  devastator  of  things  rare 
and  beautiful  and  too  precious  ever  to  be  re- 
placed; a  brutal  scoffer,  drinking  at  the  altar, 
firing  his  musket  at  the  figure  of  Christ,  parad- 
ing in  priests'  vestments  through  the  market- 
place, stabling  his  horses  amidst  the  handiwork 
of  beauty  under  the  roof  of  God. 

Yet  if  the  traveler  takes  time  to  think  a  little 
he  will  find  that  it  is  not  his  inner  mental  at- 
titude which  has  changed  so  much  as  his  outer 
point  of  view.  The  political,  the  moral,  was 
the  point  of  view  at  home ;  the  artistic  point 
of  view  is  that  of  the  cathedral  precinct.  He 
has  not  really  come  to  think  that  the  great  ben- 
efits which  the  Puritan  bought  for  him  with  a 
price  were  bought  with  too  high  a  price.  He 
merely  grumbles  at  being  called  upon  to  pay 
a  part  of  it  again  out  of  his  own  pocket  —  to 
pay  in  loss  of  the  eye's  delight  for  the  oppor- 
tunities which  made  him  a  freeman.  But  grum- 
bling always  grows  by  its  own  expression,  and 
moreover,  the  very  pain  of  the  reaction  in  our 
feelings  towards  the  Puritan  leads  us  imper- 
ceptibly into  an  exaggeration  of  his  crimes. 
Surprised  at  first,  then  shocked,  enraged,  by 
the  blood  of  art  which  stains  his  footsteps,  we 
lose  our  tempers,  forget  to  make  judicial  in- 
quiry, and  end  by  crediting  him  with  all  the 
slaughter  that  has  passed.  And  our  injustice 
is  fostered  by  the  wholesale  charges  which  are 


LICH FIELD   CATHEDRAL. 


39* 


brought  against  him  by  the  Anglican  guardi- 
ans of  the  temples  where  his  hammer  and  ax 
were  plied.  It  is  less  trying  to  the  soul  of  the 
verier,  and,  I  may  say,  of  his  local  superiors 
and  of  commentators  in  print,  to  abuse  the 
alien  1'uritan  than  the  fellow- Anglican  of  the 
sixteenth  or  the  eighteenth  century.  Thus 
natural  enemy  and  outraged  friend  unite  in 
burdening  the  Puritan's  broad  shoulders  with 
a  load  that  in  greater  part  should  be  borne 
by  others. 

I  thought  that  in  the  course  of  these  chap- 
ters I  had  avoided  such  injustice,  though  I 


desecration  of  good  churchmen  in  the  cen- 
tury before  our  own,  and  how  much  by  the 
well-meant  but  often  inartistic  renovations  of 
the  good  churchmen  of  quite  recent  years. 
I  thought  I  had  made  it  plain  that  if  we  should 
add  all  their  sins  together,  the  sins  of  the  Puri- 
tan would  seem  small  in  comparison.  But  it 
seems  I  was  mistaken,  for  a  kindly  critic  writes 
me  from  England  that  I  am  unjust  to  the 
Puritan,  and  even  explains  —  to  a  descendant 
of  New  England  pioneers !  —  that  he  was  in 
fact  a  worthy  personage,  thoroughly  conscien- 
tious after  his  lights  and  most  serviceable  to 


THE    CATHEDRAL    FROM    THE    NORTH-WEST. 


freely  confess  that  there  were  moments  in  my 
English  journey  when  I  hated  the  Puritan 
with  a  holy  hatred  and  wished  that  he  had 
never  shown  his  surly  face  to  the  world  —  a 
wish,  however,  which  included  the  Anglican, 
too,  as  his  fellow-fiend  in  destruction,  his 
fellow-pillager  of  Catholic  rights  and  destroyer 
of  Catholic  charms  and  graces.  I  thought  I 
had  explained  how  much  of  the  ruin  we  see 
was  wrought  by  the  good  churchmen  of  King 
Henry's  reign  and  of  Somerset's  protectorate, 
how  much  by  the  hideous  neglect  or  wanton 


the  best  interests  of  humanity.  I  believe  it  as 
I  believe  in  the  worth  and  value  of  few  other 
human  creatures;  and  I  hereby,  acknowledge 
that  artistic  sins  and  virtues  are  not  those 
which  the  recording  angel  will  place  at  the 
top  of  his  tablets  when  he  sums  up  the  acts 
of  men  either  as  individuals  or  as  citizens  of 
the  world.  But  it  is  impossible  for  any  one 
merely  human  to  hold  all  points  of  view  at 
once  —  difficult  for  a  mere  recording  tourist 
to  remember  that  the  artistic  point  of  view  is 
not  of  paramount  interest. 


392 


LICHFIELD    CATHEDRAL. 


THE    MAIN     DOORWAY,     WEST    FRONT. 


Yet  I  will  try  once  more 
to  be  impartial  —  to  give  my 
hereditary  enemy  his  just 
meed  of  blame  and  to  give 
no  more  than  his  just  meed  to 
that  honored  sire  whose  sins 
I  may  have  exaggerated  just 
because  I  could  not  perceive 
them  without  a  feeling  of  per- 
sonal abasement.  I  will  point 
out  more  plainly,  for  example, 
that  many  of  the  beautiful  or- 
naments of  Lichfield  had  been 
shattered  or  removed  by  order 
of  the  early  Anglican  reform- 
ers; and  that  although  Puritan 
shots  ruined  the  spire,  it  was 
churchmen  who  had  made  the 
church  a  castle.  I  will  repeat 
that  the  breaking  of  the  statues 
of  the  front  was  a  minor  injury 
compared  with  their  removal 
and  their  so-called  restoration 
by  Anglican  hands,  and  will 
add  that  pages  of  sad  descrip- 
tion would  be  needed  to  tell 
what  was  done  by  these  hands 
inside  the  church  and  inside 
every  great  church  in  England 
—  to  tell  of  the  big  pews  that 
were  built,  the  coats  of  white- 
wash that  were  roughly  given. 
the  chisels  that  were  plied  in 
senseless  alterations,  the  glass 
that  was  destroyed,  the  birds 
that  were  allowed  to  enter 
through  the  broken  panes,  to 
nest  in  the  sculptured  capitals, 
to  be  fired  at  with  shots  each  re- 
bound of  which  meant  another 
item  of  beauty  gone.  It  is  a 
piteous  chronicle  read  all  to- 
gether ;  and  read  all  together  — 
I  am  glad  and  proud  to  say 
once  more  —  the  Puritan's 
pages  do  not  seem  the  worst. 
If  I  have  cited  them  more 
often  than  the  others,  it  is  sim- 
ply because  they  are  more  pic- 
turesque, more  dramatic,  more 
incisive  in  their  interest.  The 
work  of  the  Anglican  ravager 
was  done  gradually,  quietly, 
almost  secretly  —  half  by  act- 
ual act,  half  by  mere  stupidity 
and  neglect.  The  Puritan's 
was  done  all  at  .once,  and  to 
the  sound  of  the  blaring  trum- 
pet of  war. 

M.  G.  van  Rensselaer. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.* 
LINCOLN    AND    McCLELLAN. 

BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 


IHE    ARMY    OF   THE    POTOMAC. 

he  clav after  tlie 

of  Bull  Run,  General  Mc- 
Clellan  was  ordered  to 
Washington.  He  arrived 
there  on  the  26th  of  July, 
and  the  next  day  assumed 
command  of  the  division 
of  the  Potomac,  compris- 
ing the  troops  in  and  around  Washington  on 
both  banks  of  the  river.  In  his  report  he  says : 

There  were  about  50,000  infantry,  less  than  1000 
cavalry,  and  650  artillerymen,  with  9  imperfect  field- 
batteries  of  30  pieces.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing  to 
prevent  the  enemy  shelling  the  city  from  heights  within 
easy  range,  which  could  be  occupied  by  a  hostile 
column  almost  without  resistance.  Many  soldiers  had 
deserted,  and  the  streets  of  Washington  were  crowded 
with  straggling  officers  and  men,  absent  from  their 
stations  without  authority,  whose  behavior  indicated 
the  general  want  of  discipline  and  organization.! 

This  picture  is  naturally  drawn  in  the  dark- 
est colors,  but  the  outlines  are  substantially 
accurate.  There  was  great  need  of  everything 
which  goes  to  the  efficiency  of  an  army.  There 
was  need  of  soldiers,  of  organization,  of  drill, 


soon  reduced  the  place  to  perfect  order,  which 
was  never  again  disturbed  during  the  war.  De- 
serters were  arrested,  stragglers  sent  back  to 
their  regiments,  and  the  streets  rendered  more 
quiet  and  secure  than  those  of  most  cities  in 
profound  peace. 

A  great  army  was  speedily  formed.  The 
50,000  that  General  McClellan  found  in 
Washington  were  reenforced  by  the  stalwart 
men  of  the  North  as  fast  as  steam  could  bring 
them  by  water  or  land.  Nothing  like  it  had 
ever  before  been  seen  on  the  continent.  The 
grand  total  of  officers  and  men  of  the  regu- 
lar army  before  the  war  consisted  of  17,000 
souls.  On  the  2;th  of  October,  exactly  three 
months  after  General  McClellan  assumed 
command,  he  reported  an  aggregate  of  strength 
for  the  army  under  him  of  168,318,  of  which 
there  were,  he  said,  present  for  duty  147,695  ;  J 
and  he  reported  several  other  bodies  of  troops 
en  route  to  him.  The  Adjutant-General's 
report,  three  days  later,  shows  present  for  duty 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  inclusive  of 
troops  in  the  Shenandoah,  on  the  Potomac, 
and  at  Washington,  162,737,  wlt;h  an  aggre- 
gate present  and  absent  of  198,238.  This  vast 


of  a  young  and  vigorous  commander  to  give    army  was  of  the  best  material  the  country 


impulse  and  direction  to  the  course  of  affairs. 
All  these  wants  were  speedily  supplied. 
The  energy  of  the  Government  and  the  patriot- 
ism of  the  North  poured  into  the  capital  a 
constant  stream  of  recruits.  These  were  taken 


could  afford.  The  three-months'  regiments— 
which  were,  as  a  rule,  imperfectly  organized 
and  badly  officered,  their  officers  being,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  product  of  politics  and  per- 
sonal influence — had  been  succeeded  by  the 


in  hand  by  an  energetic  and  intelligent  staff,    volunteer  army  of  three-years'  men,  which 

1  contained  all  the  best  element*  of  the  militia, 
with  very  desirable  additions.  Only  the  most 
able  of  the  militia  generals,  those  whom  the 
President  had  recognized  as  worthy  of  per- 
manent employment,  returned  to  the  field 
after  the  expiration  of  their  three-months' 
service.  The  militia  organization  of  brigades 
and  divisions  had  of  course  disappeared.  The 
governors  of  the  States  organized  the  regi- 

als  Fitz  John  Porter,  Ambrose  E.  Burnside,  ments,  and  appointed  regimental  and  company 
and  Silas  Casey.  The  cavalry  and  the  artillery,  officers  only.  The  higher  organization  rested 
as  they  arrived,  reported  respectively  to  Gen-  with  the  President,  who  also  had  the  appointing 
erals  George  Stoneman  and  William  F.  Barry,  of  general  and  staff  officers.  A  most  valuable 
chiefs  of  those  arms.  Colonel  Andrew  Porter  element  of  the  new  army  was  the  old  regular 
wasmadeProvost-MarshalofWashington,and  organization,  largely  increased  and  improved 

by  the  addition  of  eleven  regiments,  constitut- 
t  McClellan,  Report,  p.  9.  \ ibid.,  p.  7.       ing  two  divisions  of  two  brigades  each.   This 

*  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 
Voi,  XXXVI.— 56. 


assigned  to  brigades  and  divisions,  equipped 
and  drilled,  with  the  greatest  order  and  celer- 
ity. The  infantry  levies,  on  their  first  arrival, 
were  sent  to  the  various  camps  in  the  suburbs, 
and  being  there  formed  into  provisional  bri- 
gades were  thoroughly  exercised  and  instructed 
before  being  transferred  to  the  forces  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river.  These  provisional  bri- 
gades were  successively  commanded  by  Gener- 


394 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


created  a  great  many  additional  vacancies, 
which  were  filled  partly  from  the  old  army 
and  partly  from  civil  life,  giving  to  the  service  a 
large  number  of  valuable  officers.  Two  classes 
of  cadets  were  that  year  graduated  from  the 
military  academy  at  West  Point,  many  of 
whom  became  useful  and  distinguished  in  the 
regular  and  the  volunteer  service. 

In  brief,  for  three  months  the  Government 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  young  general 
more  than  a  regiment  a  day  of  excellent 
troops.  The  best  equipments,  the  best  arms, 
the  best  artillery,  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  old  officers,  the  most  promising  of  the 
young,  were  given  him.  The  armies  in  every 
other  part  of  the  country  were  stinted  to  sup- 
ply this  most  important  of  all  the  departments; 
and  at  first  it  was  with  universal  popular  as- 
sent that  this  bountiful  provision  was  made 
for  him.  He  had  gained  for  the  country  the 
only  victory  it  had  yet  to  its  credit.  He  en- 
joyed a  high  character  for  military  learning 
and  science,  founded  upon  the  report  of  his 
friends.  He  was  capable  of  great  and  long- 
continued  industry  in  executive  affairs.  He 
was  surrounded  by  an  able  and  brilliant  staff, 
all  heartily  devoted  to  him,  and  inclined  to 
give  him  the  greater  share  of  the  credit  for 
their  own  work.  His  alert  and  gallant  bear- 
ing, as  he  rode  from  camp  to  camp  about 
Washington,  surrounded  by  a  company  of 
aides  in  uniforms  as  yet  untarnished  by  cam- 
paign life,  impressed  the  imagination  of  tour- 
ists and  newspaper  correspondents,  who  at 
once  gave  him,  on  this  insufficient  evidence, 
the  sobriquet  of  "  the  young  Napoleon."  In 
addition  to  these  advantages,  he  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  personal  attractiveness;  stran- 
gers instinctively  liked  him,  and  those  who 
were  thrown  much  in  his  company  grew  very 
fond  of  him.  In  every  one,  from  the  President 
of  the  United  States  to  the  humblest  orderly 
who  waited  at  his  door,  he  inspired  a  remarka- 
ble affection  and  regard,  a  part  of  which  sprang, 
it  is  true,  from  the  intense  desire  prevalent  at 
the  time  for  success  to  our  arms,  which  nat- 
urally included  an  impulse  of  good-will  to 
our  foremost  military  leaders ;  but  this  impulse, 
in  the  case  of  General  McClellan,  was  given 

*  General  W.  T.  Sherman  writes  in  his  "  Memoirs  " : 
"  General  McClellan  arrived.  .  .  .  Instead  of  coming 
over  the  river,  as  we  expected,  he  took  a  house  in 
Washington,  and  only  came  over  from  time  to  time  to 
have  a  review  or  inspection.  .  .  .  August  was  pass- 
ing and  troops  were  pouring  in  from  all  quarters; 
General  McClellan  told  me  he  intended  to  organize  an 
army  of  100,000  men,  with  loo  field  batteries,  and  I 
still  hoped  he  would  come  on  our  side  of  the  Potomac, 
pitch  his  tent,  and  prepare  for  real  hard  work,  but  his 
headquarters  still  remained  in  a  house  in  Washington 
City."  Vol.  I.,  pp.  191,  192. 

To  show  how  differently  another  sort  of  general 
comprehended  the  duties  before  him  at  this  time,  we 


a  peculiar  warmth  by  his  unusually  winning 
personal  characteristics.  In  consequence  he 
was  courted  and  caressed  as  few  men  in  our 
history  have  been.  His  charm  of  manner, 
enhanced  by  his  rising  fame,  made  him  the 
idol  of  the  Washington  drawing-rooms;  and 
his  high  official  position,  his  certainty  of  speedy 
promotion  to  supreme  command,  and  the 
probability  of  great  political  influence  to  fol- 
low, made  him  the  target  of  all  the  interests 
and  ambitions  that  center  in  a  capital  in  time 
of  war.* 

He  can  hardly  be  blamed  if  this  sudden  and 
dazzling  elevation  produced  some  effect  upon 
his  character  and  temper.  Suddenly,  as  by  a 
spell  of  enchantment,  he  had  been  put  in  com- 
mand of  one  of  the  greatest  armies  of  modern 
times;  he  had  become  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous figures  of  the  world  ;  his  portrait  had 
grown  as  familiar  as  those  of  our  great  historic 
worthies;  every  word  and  act  of  his  were  taken 
up  and  spread  broadcast  by  the  thousand 
tongues  of  publicity.  He  saw  himself  treated 
with  the  utmost  deference,  his  prejudices  flat- 
tered, and  his  favor  courted  by  statesmen  and 
soldiers  twice  his  age.  We  repeat  that  he  can 
hardly  be  blamed  if  his  temper  and  character 
suffered  in  the  ordeal. 

He  has  left  in  his  memoirs  and  letters  un- 
questionable evidence  of  a  sudden  and  fatal 
degeneration  of  mind  during  the  months  he 
passed  in  Washington  in  the  latter  half  of 
i86i.t  At  first  everything  was  novel  and  de- 
lightful. On  the  27th  of  July  he  wrote:  "I 
find  myself  in  a  new  and  strange  position 
here;  President,  Cabinet,  General  Scott,  and 
all  deferring  to  me.  By  some  strange  opera- 
tion of  magic  I  seem  to  havebecome  the  power 
of  the  land."  Three  days  later  he  wrote : 
"  They  give  me  my  way  in  everything,  full 
swing  and  unbounded  confidence.  .  .  .  Who 
would  have  thought  when  we  were  married 
that  I  should  so  soon  be  called  upon  to  save 
my  country  ?  "  A  few  days  afterward  :  "  I 
shall  carry  this  thing  on  en  grand  and  crush 
the  rebels  in  one  campaign."  By  the  gth  of 
August  his  estimate  of  his  own  importance 
had  taken  such  a  morbid  development  that 
he  was  able  to  say:  "  I  would  cheerfully  take 

give  another  sentence  from  Sherman's  "Memoirs": 
"  I  organized  a  system  of  drills,  embracing  the  evolu- 
tions of  the  line,  all  of  which  was  new  to  me,  and  I 
had  to  learn  the  tactics  from  books ;  but  I  was  con- 
vinced that  we  had  a  long,  hard  war  before  us,  and 
made  up  my  mind  to  begin  at  the  very  beginning  to 
prepare  for  it." 

t  "  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  82.  We  should  hesi- 
tate to  print  these  pathetic  evidences  of  McClellan's 
weakness  of  character,  contained  as  they  are  in  private 
letters  to  his  family,  if  they  had  not  been  published  by 
Mr.  W.  C.  Prime,  with  a  singular  misconception  of  their 
true  bearing,  as  a  basis  for  attacking  the  administra- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln. 


A    HISTORY. 


395 


the  dictatorship  and  agree  to  lay  down  my 
lite  when  the  country  is  saved  "  ;  yet  he  added 
in  the  same  letter,*  "  I  am  not  spoiled  by  my 
unexpected  new  position."  This  pleasing 
delirium  lasted  only  a  few  weeks,  and  was 
succeeded  by  a  strange  and  permanent  hal- 
lucination upon  two  points :  one  was  that  the 
enemy,  whose  numbers  were  about  one-third 
his  own,  vastly  exceeded  his  army  in  strength ; 
and  the  other,  that  the  Government  —  which 
was  doing  everything  in  its  power  to  support 
him  —  was  hostile  to  him  and  desired  his  de- 
struction. On  the  1 6th  of  August  he  wrote  : 
"  I  am  here  in  a  terrible  place ;  the  enemy 
have  from  three  to  four  times  my  force ;  the 
President,  the  old  general,  can  not  or  will  not 
see  the  true  state  of  affairs. "  He  was  in  terror 
for  fear  he  should  be  attacked,  in  doubt  whether 
his  army  would  stand.  "  If  my  men  will  only 
fight  I  think  I  can  thrash  him,  notwithstand- 
ing the  disparity  of  numbers.  ...  I  am 
weary  of  all  this."  Later  on  the  same  day  he 
wrote  with  exultation  that  "  a  heavy  rain  is 
swelling  the  Potomac;  if  it  can  be  made  im- 
passable for  a  week,  we  are  saved."  All  through 
the  month  he  expected  battle  "  in  a  week." 
By  the  end  of  August  his  panic  passed  away; 
he  said  he  was  "  ready  for  Beauregard,"  and  a 
week  later  began  to  talk  of  attacking  him. 

By  this  time  he  had  become,  to  use  his  own 
language,  "  disgusted  with  the  Administration 
—  perfectly  sick  of  it."  t  His  intimate  friends 
and  associates  were  among  the  political  op- 
ponents of  the  men  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and 
their  daily  flatteries  had  easily  convinced  him 
that  in  him  was  the  only  hope  of  saving  the 
country,  in  spite  of  its  incapable  rulers.  He 
says  in  one  place,  with  singular  naivete,  that 
Mr.  Stanton  gained  his  confidence  by  pro- 
fessing friendship  for  himself  while  loading  the 
President  with  abuse  and  ridicule. \  He  pro- 
fessed especial  contempt  for  the  President; 
partly  because  Mr.  Lincoln  showed  him  "  too 
much  deference." §  In  October  he  wrote: 
"  There  are  some  of  the  greatest  geese  in  the 
Cabinet  I  have  ever  seen  —  enough  to  tax  the 
patience  of  Job."  In  November  his  disgust  at 
the  Government  had  become  almost  intoler- 
able :  "  1 1  is  sickening  in  the  extreme,  and  makes 
me  feel  heavy  at  heart,  when  I  see  the  weak- 
ness and  unfitness  of  the  poor  beings  who  con- 
trol the  destinies  of  this  great  country."  The 
affair  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  with  which  he 
had  no  concern,  and  upon  which  his  advice 
was  not  asked,  agitated  him  at  this  time.  He 
feels  that  his  wisdom  alone  must  save  the 
country  in  this  crisis ;  he  writes  that  he  must 


spend  the  day  in  trying  to  get  the  Government 
to  do  its  duty.  He  does  not  quite  know  what 
its  duty  is — but  must  first  "go  to  Stanton's 
to  ascertain  what  the  law  of  nations  "  has  to 
say  on  the  matter,  Stanton  being  at  this  time 
his  friend,  and,  as  he  thinks,  Lincoln's  oppo- 
nent. He  had  begun  already  to  rank  the 
President  as  among  his  enemies.  He  was  in 
the  habit  of  hiding  at  Stanton's  when  he  had 
serious  work  to  do,  "to  dodge,"  as  he  said, 
"  all  enemies  in  the  shape  of  '  browsing ' 
Presidents,"  etc.  "  I  am  thwarted  and  de- 
ceived by  these  incapables  at  every  turn."  || 

He  soon  began  to  call  and  to  consider  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  as  his  own.  He  assumed 
the  habit,  which  he  never  relinquished,  of  ask- 
ing that  all  desirable  troops  and  stores  be  sent 
to  him.  Indeed,  it  may  be  observed  that  even 
before  he  came  to  Washington  this  tendency 
was  discernible.  While  he  remained  in  the 
West  he  was  continually  asking  for  men  and 
money.  But  when  he  came  to  the  Potomac 
he  recognized  no  such  need  on  the  part  of  his 
successor,  and  telegraphed  to  Governor  Denni- 
son  to  "  pay  no  attention  to  Rosecrans's  de- 
mand "  for  reinforcements.  |f  In  the  plan  of 
campaign  which  he  laid  before  the  President 
on  the  4th  of  August,  1861,  which  was,  in  gen- 
eral objects  and  intentions,  very  much  the 
same  plan  already  adopted  by  General  Scott 
and  the  Government,  he  assigned  the  scantiest 
detachments  to  the  great  work  of  conquering 
the  Mississippi  Valley;  20,000,  he  thought, 
would  be  enough,  with  what  could  be  raised 
in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  "  to  secure  the 
latter  region  and  its  railroads,  as  well  as  ulti- 
mately to  occupy  Nashville  " —  while  he  de- 
manded for  himself  the  enormous  aggregate 
of  273,000  men.**  He  wanted  especially  all 
the  regular  troops;  the  success  of  operations 
elsewhere,  he  said,  was  relatively  unimportant 
compared  with  those  in  Virginia.  These  views 
of  his  were  naturally  adopted  by  his  immedi- 
ate associates,  who  carried  them  to  an  extent 
probably  not  contemplated  by  the  general. 
They  seemed  to  regard  him  as  a  kind  of 
tribune,  armed  by  the  people  with  powers 
independent  of  and  superior  to  the  civil  au- 
thorities. On  the  2oth  of  August  his  father- 
in-law,  Colonel  R.  B.  Marcy,  being  in  New 
York,  and  not  satisfied  with  what  he  saw  in 
the  way  of  recruitment,  sent  General  McClel- 
lan  a  telegram  urging  him  "  to  make  a  positive 
and  unconditional  demand  for  an  immediate 
draft  of  the  additional  troops  you  require." 
"  The  people,"  he  says,  "  will  applaud  such  a 
course,  rely  upon  it."  The  general,  seeing 


"  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  85.  If  McClellan  to    Dennison,  Aug.    12,    1861.     War 

Ibul.,  p.  168.  $  Ibid.,  p.  91.  Records. 

:lbid.,  p.  152.  ||  Ibid.,  p.  177.  *'  McClellan  to  Lincoln.     War  Records. 


396 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


nothing  out  of  the  way  in  this  explosive  com- 
munication of  his  staff-officer,  sent  it  to  the 
Secretary  of  War  with  this  indorsement: 
"  Colonel  Marcy  knows  what  he  says,  and  is 
of  the  coolest  judgment  " ;  and  recommended 
that  his  suggestion  be  carried  into  effect.  All 
this  time  every  avenue  of  transportation  was 
filled  with  soldiers  on  their  way  to  Washing- 
ton. 

In  connection  with  his  delusion  as  to  the 
number  of  the  enemy  in  front  of  him,  it  grew 
a  fixed  idea  in  his  mind  that  all  the  best 
troops  and  all  the  officers  of  ability  in  the 
army  should  be  placed  under  his  orders.  On 
the  8th  of  September  he  wrote  a  remarkable 
letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War  embodying 
these  demands.  He  begins,  in  the  manner 
which  at  an  early  day  became  habitual  with 
him  and  continued  to  the  end  of  his  military  ca- 
reer, by  enormously  exaggerating  the  strength 
of  the  enemy  opposed  to  him.  He  reports 
his  own  force,  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
Washington,  at  85,000,  and  that  of  the  enemy 
at  130,000,  which  he  says  is  a  low  estimate, 
and  draws  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  "  this 
army  should  be  reenforced  at  once  by  all  the 
disposable  troops  that  the  East  and  West  and 
North  can  furnish.  ...  I  urgently  recom- 
mend," he  says,  "  that  the  whole  of  the  regu- 
lar army,  old  and  new,  be  at  once  ordered  to 
report  here,"  with  some  trifling  exceptions. 
He  also  demands  that  the  choicest  officers  be 
assigned  to  him,  especially  that  none  of  those 
recommended  by  him  be  sent  anywhere  else.* 
Most  of  these  requests  were  granted,  and 
General  McClellan  seems  to  have  assumed  a 
sort  of  proprietary  right  over  every  regiment 
that  had  once  come  under  his  command. 
When  General  T.  W.  Sherman's  expedition 
was  about  sailing  for  the  South,  he  made  an 
earnest  request  to  the  Government  for  the  ygth 
New  York  Highlanders.  The  matter  being 
referred  to  General  McClellan,  he  wrote  in  the 
most  peremptory  tone  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, forbidding  the  detachment  of  those 
troops.  "  I  will  not  consent,"  he  says  roundly, 
"  to  one  other  man  being  detached  from  this 
army  for  that  expedition.  I  need  far  more 
than  I  now  have,  to  save  this  country.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  task  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  to 
decide  the  question  at  issue."  t  The  President 
accepted  this  rebuke,  and  telegraphed  to  Gen- 
eral Sherman  that  he  had  promised  General 
McClellan  "  not  to  break  his  army  here  with- 
out his  consent."  f 

Such  an  attitude  towards  the  military  and 
civil  authorities  is  rarely  assumed  by  a  gen- 


eral so  young  and  so  inexperienced,  and  to 
sustain  it  requires  a  degree  of  popular  strength 
and  confidence  which  is  only  gained  by  rapid 
and  brilliant  successes.  In  the  case  of  General 
McClellan  the  faith  of  his  friends  and  of  the 
Government  had  no  nourishment  for  a  long 
time  except  his  own  promises,  and  several 
incidents  during  the  late  summer  and  autumn 
made  heavy  drafts  upon  the  general  confidence 
which  was  accorded  him. 

From  the  beginning  of  hostilities  the  block- 
ade of  the  Potomac  River  below  Washington 
was  recognized  on  both  sides  as  a  great  ad- 
vantage to  be  gained  by  the  Confederates, 
and  a  great  danger  to  be  guarded  against  by 
the  national  Government.  For  a  while  the 
navy  had  been  able  to  keep  the  waters  of  the 
river  clear  by  the  employment  of  a  few  pow- 
erful light-draft  steamers;  but  it  soon  became 
evident  that  this  would  not  permanently  be  a 
sufficient  protection,  and  even  before  the  bat- 
tle of  Bull  Run  the  Navy  Department  sug- 
gested a  combined  occupation,  by  the  army 
and  the  navy,  of  Mathias  Point,  a  bold  and 
commanding  promontory  on  the  Virginia  side, 
where  the  Potomac,  after  a  horse-shoe  bend  to 
the  east,  flows  southward  again  with  its  width 
greatly  increased.  On  the  2oth  of  August 
the  Navy  Department  renewed  its  importuni- 
ties to  the  War  Department  to  cooperate  in 
the  seizure  of  this  most  important  point,  which 
was  "absolutely  essential  to  the  unobstructed 
navigation  of  the  Potomac. "§  Eleven  days 
later  these  suggestions  were  still  more  press- 
ingly  presented,  without  effect.  In  October, 
however,  when  rebel  batteries  were  already 
appearing  at  different  points  on  the  river,  and 
when  it  was  in  contemplation  to  send  to  Port 
Royal  the  steamers  which  had  been  policing 
the  Potomac,  an  arrangement  was  entered 
into  between  the  army  and  the  navy  to  occupy 
Mathias  Point.  Orders  were  sent  to  Captain 
Craven  to  collect  at  that  place  the  necessary 
boats  for  landing  a  force  of  4000  men.  He 
waited  all  night  and  no  troops  appeared.  Cap- 
tain Fox,  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
who  had  taken  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  the 
expedition,  went  in  deep  chagrin  to  the  Presi- 
dent, who  at  once  accompanied  him  to  Gen- 
eral McClellan's  quarters  to  ask  some  expla- 
nation of  this  failure.  The  general  informed 
him  that  he  had  become  convinced  it  would 
not  be  practicable  to  land  the  troops,  and  that 
he  had  therefore  not  sent  them.  Captain  Fox 
assured  him  that  the  navy  would  be  responsi- 
ble for  that;  and,  after  some  discussion,  it  was 
concluded  that  the  troops  should  go  the  next 


*  McClellan  to  Cameron.     War  Records, 
t  McClellan   to   Thomas  A.  Scott,  Oct.    17,    1861. 
War  Records. 


t  Lincoln 
Records. 

§  Welles  to  Cameron. 


to    Sherman,    October    18,    1861. 
War  Records. 


War 


A   HISTORY. 


397 


night.  Captain  Craven  was  again  ordered  to 
be  in  readiness;  the  troops  did  not  go.  Craven 
came  to  Washington  in  great  agitation,  threw 
up  his  command,  and  applied  for  sea-serv- 
ice, on  the  ground  (hat  his  reputation  as  an 
officer  would  be  ruined  by  the  closing  of  the 
river  while  he  was  in  command  of  the  flotilla.* 
The  vessels  went  out  one  by  one;  the  rebels 
put  up  their  batteries  at  their  leisure,  and  the 
blockade  of  the  river  was  complete.  When 
General  McClellan  was  examined  as  to  this 
occurrence  by  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct 
of  the  War,  he  did  not  remember  the  specific 
incidents  as  recited  by  Captain  Fox,  and  as 
reported  above,  but  said  he  never  regarded 
the  obstruction  of  the  Potomac  as  of  vital  im- 
portance; its  importance  was  more  moral 
than  physical.! 

General  McClellan  was  perhaps  inclined  to 
underrate  moral  effects.  The  affair  at  Ball's 
Bluff,  which  occurred  on  the  2ist  of  October, 
produced  an  impression  on  the  public  mind 
and  affected  his  relations  with  the  leading 
spirits  in  Congress  to  an  extent  entirely  out 
of  proportion  to  its  intrinsic  importance. 
He  had  hitherto  enjoyed  unbounded  pop- 
ularity. The  country  saw  the  army  rapidly 
growing  in  numbers  and  improving  in  equip- 
ment and  discipline,  and  was  content  to  allow 
the  authorities  their  own  time  for  accomplish- 
ing their  purposes.  The  general  looked  for- 
ward to  no  such  delays  as  afterward  seemed 
to  him  necessary.  He  even  assumed  that  the 
differences  between  himself  and  Scott  arose 
from  Scott's  preference  "  for  inaction  and  the 
defensive.''^  ®n  the  loth  of  October  he  said 
to  the  President :  "  I  think  we  shall  have  our 
arrangements  made  for  a  strong  reconnais- 
sance about  Monday  to  feel  the  strength  of 
the  enemy.  I  intend  to  be  careful  and  do  as 
well  as  possible.  Don't  let  them  hurry  me,  is 
all  I  ask."  The  President,  pleased  with  the 
prospect  of  action,  replied:  "  You  shall  have 
your  own  way  in  the  matter,  I  assure  you."§ 
On  the  1 2th  he  sent  a  dispatch  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln from  the  front,  saying  that  the  enemy 
was  before  him  in  force,  and  would  probably 
attack  in  the  morning.  "  If  they  attack,"  he 
added,  "  I  shall  beat  them."  ||  Nothing  came 
of  this.  On  the  i6th  the  President  was,  as 
usual,  at  headquarters  for  a  moment's  conver- 
sation with  General  McClellan,  who  informed 
him  that  the  enemy  was  massing  at  Manassas, 
and  said  that  he  was  "  not  such  a  fool  as  to 
buck  against  that  place  in  the  spot  designated 
by  the  rebels."  But  he  seemed  continually  to 
be  waiting  merely  for  some  slight  additional 

"  Report  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War.  G.  V. 
Kox,  Testimony. 

t  Report  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War.  Mc- 
Clellan, Testimony. 


increment  of  his  force,  and  never  intending 
any  long  postponement  of  the  offensive;  while 
he  was  apparently  always  ready,  and  even  de- 
sirous, for  the  enemy  to  leave  their  works  and 
attack  him,  being  confident  of  defeating  them. 
In  this  condition  of  affairs,  with  all  his  force 
well  in  hand,  he  ordered,  on  the  igth  of  Oc- 
tober, that  General  McCall  should  marchfrom 
his  camp  at  Langley  to  Dranesville,  to  cover 
a  somewhat  extensive  series  of  reconnaissances 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  the  position  of  the 
enemy,  and  of  protecting  the  operations  of  the 
topographical  engineers  in  making  maps  of 
that  region.  The  next  day  he  received  a  dis- 
patch from  General  Banks's  adjutant-general, 
indicating  that  the  enemy  had  moved  away 
from  Leesburg.  This  information  turned  out  to 
be  erroneous ;  but  upon  receiving  it  General 
McClellan  sent  a  telegram  to  General  Stone 
at  Poolesville  informing  him  that  General 
McCall  had  occupied  Dranesville  the  day  be- 
fore and  was  still  there,  that  heavy  recon- 
naissances would  be  sent  out  the  same  day  in 
all  directions  from  that  point,  and  directing 
General  Stone  to  keep  a  good  lookout  upon 
Leesburg,  to  see  if  that  movement  had  the 
effect  to  drive  them  away.  "  Perhaps,"  he  adds, 
"  a  slight  demonstration  on  your  part  would 
have  the  effect  to  move  them. "if  General 
McClellan  insists  that  this  order  contemplated 
nothing  more  than  that  General  Stone  should 
make  some  display  of  an  intention  to  cross,  and 
should  watch  the  enemy  more  closely  than 
usual.  But  General  Stone  gave  it  a  much 
witler  range,  and  at  once  reported  to  General 
McClellan  that  he  had  made  a  feint  of  cross- 
ing at  Poolesville,  and  at  the  same  time  started 
a  reconnoitering  party  towards  Leesburg  from 
Harrison's  Island,  and  that  the  enemy's  pickets 
had  retired  to  their  intrenchments.  Although 
General  McClellan  virtually  holds  that  this 
was  in  effect  a  disobedience  of  his  orders,  he  did 
not  direct  General  Stone  to  retire  his  troops — 
on  the  contrary,  he  congratulated  him  upon 
the  movement ;  but  thinking  that  McCall 
would  not  be  needed  to  cooperate  with  him, 
he  ordered  the  former  to  fall  back  from  Dranes- 
ville to  his  camp  near  Prospect  Hill,  which 
order,  though  contradicted  by  later  instruc- 
tions which  did  not  reach  him  until  his  return 
to  Langley,  was  executed  during  the  morning 
of  the  2 1 st.  But  while  McCall,  having  com- 
pleted his  reconnaissance,  was  marching  at 
his  leisure  back  to  his  camp,  the  little  detach- 
ment which  General  Stone  had  sent  across  the 
river  had  blundered  into  battle. 

A  careful  reading  of  all  the  accounts  in  the 

t "  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  170. 

$  J.  H.,  Diary. 

||  Ibid. 

fl  McClellan,  Report,  p.  32. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


archives  of  the  War  Department  relating  to 
this  affair  affords  the  best  possible  illustra- 
tion of  the  lack  of  discipline  and  intelligent 
organization  prevailing  at  that  time  in  both 
armies.  The  reports  of  the  different  command- 
ers seem  hardly  to  refer  to  the  same  engage- 
ment ;  each  side  enormously  exaggerates  the 
strength  of  the  enemy,  and  the  descriptions 
of  the  carnage  at  critical  moments  of  the  fight 
read  absurdly  enough  when  compared  with 
the  meager  official  lists  of  killed  and  wounded. 
We  will  briefly  state  what  really  took  place. 

On  the  evening  of  the  2oth  General  Gor- 
man made  a  demonstration  of  crossing  at 
Edwards  Ferry,  and  a  scouting  party  of  the 
20th  Massachusetts  crossed  from  Harrison's 
Island  and  went  to  within  about  a  mile  of  Lees- 
burg,  returning  with  the  report  that  they  had 
found  a  small  camp  of  the  enemy  in  the  woods. 
General  Stone  then  ordered  Colonel  Charles 
Devens,  commanding  the  2oth  Massachusetts, 
to  take  four  companies  of  his  regiment  over 
in  the  night  to  destroy  this  camp  at  day- 
break. Colonel  Devens  proceeding  to  execute 
this  order  found  that  the  report  of  the  scout- 
ing party  was  erroneous,  and  reporting  this 
fact  waited  in  the  woods  for  further  orders. 
General  Stone  sent  over  a  small  additional 
detachment  which  he  afterward  reenforced  by 
a  larger  body,  the  whole  being  in  command 
of  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker  of  the  California  regi- 
ment— a  Senator  from  Oregon,  an  officer  of 
the  highest  personal  and  political  distinction, 
and,  as  we  have  already  related,  not  without 
experience  in  the  Mexican  war.  General 
Stone  had  now  evidently  resolved  upon  a  re- 
connaissance in  force,  and  in  case  an  engage- 
ment should  result  he  confidently  expected 
Colonel  Baker  to  drive  the  enemy  from  his 
front,  at  which  juncture  General  Stone  ex- 
pected to  come  in  upon  their  right  with  Gor- 
man's troops,  which  he  was  pushing  over  at 
Edwards  Ferry,  and  capture  or  rout  the  en- 
tire command.  He  gave  Colonel  Baker  dis- 
cretionary authority  to  advance  or  to  retire 
after  crossing  the  river,  as  circumstances  might 
seem  to  dictate. 

Colonel  Baker  entered  upon  the  work  as- 
signed to  him  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm 
and  intrepidity.  The  means  of  transportation 
were  lamentably  inadequate;  but  working  en- 
ergetically, though  without  system,  the  greater 
part  of  the  troops  assigned  for  the  service 
were  at  last  got  over,  and  Baker  took  com- 
mand on  the  field  a  little  after  2  o'clock.  The 
battle  was  already  lost,  though  the  brave  and 
high-spirited  orator  did  not  suspect  it,  any 
more  than  did  General  Stone,  who,  at  Edwards 
Ferry,  was  waiting  for  the  moment  to  arrive 
when  he  should  attack  the  enemy's  right  and 
convert  his  defeat  into  rout.  Colonel  Devens, 


who  had  been  skirmishing  briskly  with  con- 
tinually increasing  numbers  of  the  Confeder- 
ates all  the  morning,  had  by  this  time  fallen 
back  in  line  with  Baker's,  Lee's,  and  Cogs- 
well's regiments,  and  a  new  disposition  was 
made  of  all  the  troops  on  the  ground  to  re- 
sist the  advancing  enemy.  The  disposition 
was  as  bad  as  it  could  well  be  made ;  both 
flanks  were  exposed,  and  the  reserves  were 
placed  in  an  unprotected  position  immediately 
in  rear  of  the  center,  where  they  were  shot 
down  without  resistance,  and  were  only  dan- 
gerous to  their  comrades  in  front  of  them. 
Colonel  Baker,  whose  bravery  marked  him 
for  destruction,  was  killed  about  4  o'clock, 
being  struck  at  the  same  moment  by  several 
bullets  while  striving  to  encourage  his  men, 
and  after  a  brief  and  ineffectual  effort  by 
Colonel  Cogswell  to  move  to  the  left,  the  Na- 
tional troops  retreated  to  the  river  bank. 
They  were  closely  followed  by  the  Confeder- 
ates; the  wretched  boats  into  which  many  of 
them  rushed  were  swamped ;  some  strong 
swimmers  reached  the  Maryland  shore,  some 
were  shot  in  the  water,  a  large  number  threw 
their  arms  into  the  stream  and,  dispersing  in 
the  bushes,  escaped  in  the  twilight;  but  a 
great  proportion  of  the  entire  command  was 
captured.  The  losses  on  the  Union  side 
were  10  officers  and  39  enlisted  men  killed, 
15  officers  and  143  enlisted  men  wounded, 
26  officers  and  688  enlisted  men  missing.* 
The  Confederate  loss  in  killed  and  wounded 
was  almost  as  great — 36  killed  and  117 
wounded.* 

As  soon  as  the  news  of  the  disaster  began 
to  reach  General  Stone,  he  hurried  to  the 
right,  where  the  fugitives  from  the  fight  were 
arriving,  did  what  he  could  to  reestablish 
order  there,  and  sent  instructions  to  Gorman 
to  intrench  himself  at  Edwards  Ferry  and  act 
on  the  defensive.  General  Banks  arrived  with 
reinforcements  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
the  22d  and  assumed  command.  The  Confed- 
erates made  an  attack  upon  Gorman  the  same 
day  and  were  easily  repulsed;  but  General 
McClellan,  thinking  "  that  the  enemy  were 
strengthening  themselves  at  Leesburg,  and 
that  our  means  of  crossing  and  recrossing 
were  very  insufficient,"  withdrew  all  the  troops 
to  the  Maryland  side.t  It  seems  from  the 
Confederate  reports  that  he  was  mistaken  in 
concluding  that  the  enemy  were  strengthening 
themselves ;  they  were  also  getting  out  of 
harm's  way  as  rapidly  as  possible.  General 
Evans,  their  commander,  says: 

Finding  my  brigade  very  much  exhausted,  I  left 
Colonel  Barksdale  with  his  regiment,  with  2  pieces 


*  War  Records. 

t  McClellan  to  Secretary  of  War.    War  Records. 


,•/    HISTORY. 


399 


of  artillery  and  a  cavalry  force,  as  a  grand  guard,  and 
'  red  the  other  3  regiments  lo  fall  hack  towards 

i  'ai -tor's  Mills  to  rest  and  to  be  collected  in  order." 

The  utter  inadequacy  of  means  for  cross- 
ing was  of  course  a  sufficient  reason  to  justify 
the  cessation  of  active  operations  at  that  time 
and  place. 

Insignificant  as  was  this  engagement  in  it- 
self, it  was  of  very  considerable  importance  in 
immediate  effect  and  ultimate  results.  It  was 
the  occasion  of  enormous  encouragement  to 
the  South.  The  reports  of  the  Confederate  offi- 
cers engaged  exaggerated  their  own  prowess, 
and  the  numbers  and  losses  of  the  National 
troops  tenfold.  General  Beauregard,  in  his 
congratulatory  order  of  the  day,  claimed 
that  the  result  of  this  action  proved  that  no 
disparity  of  numbers  could  avail  anything  as 
against  Southern  valor  assisted  by  the  "  mani- 
fest aid  of  the  God  of  battles."!  It  will  prob- 
ably never  be  possible  to  convince  Confederate 
soldiers  that  here,  as  at  Bull  Run,  the  num- 
bers engaged  and  the  aggregate  killed  and 
wounded  were  about  equal  on  both  sides  —  a 
fact  clearly  shown  by  the  respective  official 
!s.  At  the  North  the  gloom  and  afflic- 
tion occasioned  by  the  defeat  were  equally 
out  of  proportion  to  the  event.  Among  the 
killed  and  wounded  were  several  young  men 
of  brilliant  promise  and  distinguished  social 
connections  in  New  England,  and  the  useless 
sacrifice  of  their  lives  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  wide  circles  of  friends  and  kindred. 
The  death  of  Colonel  Baker  greatly  affected 
the  public  mind.  He  had  been  little  known 
in  the  East  when  he  came  as  Senator  from 
Oregon,  but  from  the  moment  that  he  began 
to  appear  in  public  his  fluent  and  impas- 
sioned oratory,  his  graceful  and  dignified 
bearing,  a  certain  youthful  energy  and  fire 
which  contrasted  pleasantly  with  his  silver 
hair,  had  made  him  extremely  popular  with 
all  classes.  He  was  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
dearest  friends ;  he  was  especially  liked  in  the 
Senate  ;  he  was  one  of  the  most  desirable  and 
effective  speakers  at  all  great  mass-meetings. 
A  cry  of  passionate  anger  went  up  from  every 
part  of  the  country  over  this  precious  blood 
wasted,  this  dishonor  inflicted  upon  the  Na- 
tional flag. 

The  first  and  most  evident  scape-goat  was, 
naturally  enough,  General  Stone.  Hecannotbe 
acquitted  of  all  blame,  even  in  the  calmest  re-, 
view  of  the  facts  ;  there  was  a  lack  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  fight,  a  lack  of  thorough  supervision 
after  it  had  begun.  But  these  were  the  least  of 
the  charges  made  against  him.  The  suspicions 
which  civil  war  always  breeds,  and  the  calum- 
nies resulting  from  them,  were  let  loose  upon 

*  Evans  to  Jordan,  Oct.  3,  1861.     War  Record  . 
\  Beauregard,  Orders,  Oct.  23, 1861.  War  Records. 


him.  They  grew  to  such  proportions  by  con- 
stant repetition,  during  the  autumn  and  winter 
following,  that  many  people  actually  thought 
he  was  one  of  a  band  of  conspirators  in  the 
Union  army  working  in  the  interest  of  rebel- 
lion. This  impression  seixed  upon  the  minds 
of  some  of  the  most  active  and  energetic  men 
in  Congress,  friends  and  associates  of  Colonel 
Baker.  They  succeeded  in  convincing  the 
Secretary  of  War  that  General  Stone  was 
dangerous  to  the  public  welfare,  and  on  the 
28th  of  January  an  order  was  issued  from  the 
War  Department  to  General  McClellan  direct- 
ing him  to  arrest  General  Stone.  He  kept  it 
for  several  days  without  executing  it;  but  at 
last,  being  apparently  impressed  by  the  evi- 
dence of  a  refugee  from  Leesburg  that  there 
was  some  foundation  for  the  charges  made 
by  the  committee  of  Congress,  he  ordered  the 
arrest  of  General  Stone,  saying  at  the  same 
time  to  the  Secretary  of  War  that  the  case 
was  too  indefinite  to  warrant  the  framing 
of  charges,  f  The  arrest  was  made  without 
consulting  the  President.  When  Mr.  Stanton 
announced  it  to  him  the  President  said :  "  I 
suppose  you  have  good  reasons  for  it;  and 
having  good  reasons,  I  am  glad  I  knew  noth- 
ing of  it  until  it  was  done."  General  Stone  was 
taken  to  Fort  Lafayette,  where  he  remained 
in  confinement  six  months ;  he  was  then  re- 
leased and  afterward  restored  to  duty,  but 
never  received  any  satisfaction  to  his  repeated 
demands  for  reparation  or  trial. 

For  the  moment,  at  least,  there  seemed  no 
disposition  to  censure  General  McClellan  for 
this  misfortune.  Indeed,  it  was  only  a  few  days 
after  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff  that  he  gained 
his  final  promotion  to  the  chief  command  of 
the  armies  of  the  United  States.  A  brief  re- 
view of  his  relations  to  his  predecessor  may 
be  necessary  to  a  proper  understanding  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  he  succeeded  to 
the  supreme  command. 

Their  intercourse,  at  first  marked  by  great 
friendship,  had  soon  become  clouded  by  mis- 
understandings. The  veteran  had  always  had 
a  high  regard  for  his  junior,  had  sent  him 
his  hearty  congratulations  upon  his  appoint- 
ment to  command  the  Ohio  volunteers,  and 
although  he  had  felt  compelled  on  one  occa- 
sion to  rebuke  him  for  interference  with  mat- 
ters beyond  his  jurisdiction, §  their  relations 
remained  perfectly  friendly,  and  the  old  gen- 
eral warmly  welcomed  the  young  one  to 
Washington.  But  once  there,  General  Mc- 
Clellan began  to  treat  the  General-in-Chief 
with  a  neglect  which,  though  probably  unin- 
tentional, was  none  the  less  galling.  On  the 
8th  of  August,  General  McClellan  sent  to 

J  NfcClellan  to  Stone,  Dec.  5,  1862.    War  Records. 
$  War  Records. 


400 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


General  Scott  a  letter*  to  the  effect  that  he 
believed  the  capital  "  not  only  insecure,"  but 
"  in  imminent  danger."  As  General  McClel- 
lan  had  never  personally  communicated  these 
views  to  his  chief,  but  had,  as  Scott  says, 
"  propagated  them  in  high  quarters,"  so  that 
they  had  come  indirectly  to  the  old  general's 
ears,  his  temper,  which  was  never  one  of  the 
meekest,  quite  gave  way,  and  declining  to  an- 
swer General  McClellan's  letter,  he  addressed 
an  angry  note  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  scout- 
ing the  idea  of  Washington  being  in  danger, 
calling  attention  to  "  the  stream  of  new  regi- 
ments pouring  in  upon  us,"  complaining  bit- 
terly of  the  reticence  and  neglect  with  which 
his  junior  treated  him,  and  begging  the  Presi- 
dent, as  soon  as  possible,  to  retire  him  from  the 
active  command  of  the  army,  for  which  his  age, 
his  wounds,  and  his  infirmities  had  unfitted  him. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  greatly  distressed  by  this 
altercation  between  the  two  officers.  He  pre- 
vailed upon  General  McClellan  to  write  him 
a  conciliatory  note,  withdrawing  the  letter  of 
the  8th  ;  and  armed  with  this,  he  endeavored  to 
soothe  the  irritation  of  Scott,  and  to  induce 
him  to  withdraw  his  angry  rejoinder  of  the 
gth.  But  youth,  sure  of  itself  and  the  future, 
forgives  more  easily  than  age;  and  Scott  re- 
fused, respectfully  but  firmly,  to  comply  with 
the  President's  request.  He  waited  two  days 
and  wrote  again  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  giv- 
ing his  reasons  for  this  refusal.  He  believed 
General  McClellan  had  deliberately,  and  with 
the  advice  of  certain  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
offended  him  by  the  letter  in  question,  and 

"This  letter  deserves  a  careful  reading.  It  is  ex- 
tremely characteristic,  as  showing,  in  the  first  place, 
how  early  McClellan  began  to  exaggerate  the  number 
of  the  enemy  in  front  of  him,  and  how  large  were  his 
ideas  as  to  the  force  necessary  for  the  protection  of 
Washington  so  long  as  the  duty  of  protecting  the  capi- 
tal devolved  upon  him. 

HEADQUARTERS  DIVISION  OF  THE  POTOMAC, 

WASHINGTON,  Aug.  8,  1861. 
LIEUT.-GEN.  WINFIELD  SCOTT, 

Commanding  U.  S.  Army. 

GENERAL:  Information  from  various  sources  reach- 
ing me  to-day,  through  spies,  letters,  and  telegrams, 
confirms  my  impressions,  derived  from  previous  ad- 
vices, that  the  enemy  intend  attacking  our  positions 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  as  well  as  to  cross  the 
Potomac  north  of  us.  I  have  also  received  a  telegram 
from  a  reliable  agent  just  from  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  that 
large  reenforcements  are  still  passing  through  there 
to  Richmond.  I  am  induced  to  believe  that  the  enemy 
has  at  least  100,000  men  in  front  of  us.  Were  I  in 
Beauregard's  place  with  that  force  at  my  disposal,  I 
would  attack  the  positions  on  the  other  side  of  the  Po- 
tomac, and  at  the  same  time  cross  the  river  above  this 
city  in  force.  I  feel  confident  that  our  present  army 
in  this  vicinity  is  entirely  insufficient  for  the  emer- 
gency, and  it  is  deficient  in  all  the  arms  of  the  service 
—  infantry,  artillery,  and  cavalry.  I  therefore  respect- 
fully and  most  ^irnestly  urge  that  the  garrisons  of  all 
places  in  our  rear  be  reduced  at  once  to  the  minimum 
absolutely  necessary  to  hold  them,  and  that  all  tlie 


that  for  the  last  week,  though  many  regiments 
had  arrived  and  several  more  or  less  impor- 
tant movements  of  troops  had  taken  place, 
General  McClellan  had  reported  nothing  to 
him,  but  had  been  frequently  in  conversation 
with  various  high  officers  of  the  Government. 
'•'That  freedom  of  access  and  consultation," 
he  continued,  "  has,  very  naturally,  deluded 
the  junior  general  into  a  feeling  of  indiffer- 
ence towards  his  senior."  He  argues  that  it 
would  be  "  against  the  dignity  of  his  years  to 
be  filing  daily  complaints  against  an  ambitious 
junior,"  and  closes  by  reiterating  his  unfitness 
for  command. t 

The  two  generals  never  became  reconciled. 
The  bickerings  between  them  continued  for 
two  months,  marked  with  a  painful  and  grow- 
ing bitterness  on  the  part  of  Scott,  and  on  the 
part  of  McClellan  by  a  neglect  akin  to  con- 
tempt. The  elder  officer,  galled  by  his  sub- 
ordinate's persistent  disrespect,  published  a 
general  order  on  the  i6th  of  September,  which 
he  says  was  intended  "  to  suppress  an  irregu- 
larity more  conspicuous  in  Major-General 
McClellan  than  in  any  other  officer,"  forbid- 
ding junior  officers  on  duty  from  corresponding 
with  their  superiors  except  through  inter- 
mediate commanders;  the  same  rule  apply- 
ing to  correspondence  with  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  War,  unless  by  the  President's 
request.  General  McClellan  showed  how  little 
he  cared  for  such  an  order  by  writing  two 
important  letters  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
within  three  days  after  it  was  issued.  On  the 
same  day  a  special  order  was  given  General 

troops  thus  made  available  be  forthwith  forwarded  to 
this  city;  that  every  company  of  regular  artillery 
within  reach  be  immediately  ordered  here  to  be 
mounted ;  that  every  possible  means  be  used  to  expe- 
dite the  forwarding  of  new  regiments  of  volunteers  to 
this  capital  without  one  hour's  delay.  I  urge  that  noth- 
ing be  left  undone  to  bring  up  our  force  for  the  defense 
of  this  city  to  100,000  men,  before  attending  to  any 
other  point.  I  advise  that  at  least  eight  or  ten  good 
Ohio  and  Indiana  regiments  may  be  telegraphed  for 
from  western  Virginia,  their  places  to  be  filled  at  once 
by  the  new  troops  from  the  same  States,  who  will  be 
at  least  reliable  to  fight  behind  the  intrenchments 
which  have  been  constructed  there.  The  vital  impor- 
tance of  rendering  Washington  at  once  perfectly  se- 
cure, and  its  imminent  danger,  impel  me  to  urge  these 
requests  with  the  utmost  earnestness,  and  that  not  an 
hour  be  lost  in  carrying  them  into  execution.  A  sense 
of  duly  which  I  cannot  resist  compels  me  to  state  that 
in  my  opinion  military  necessity  demands  that  the 
departments  of  North-eastern  Virginia,  Washington, 
•the  Shenandoah,  Pennsylvania,  including  Baltimore, 
and  the  one  including  Fort  Monroe,  should  be  merged 
into  one  department,  under  the  immediate  control  of 
the  commander  of  the  main  army  of  operations,  and 
which  should  be  known  and  designated  as  such. 
Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
GEO.  B.  MCCLELLAN, 
Major-  General,  Commanding. 
[War  Records.] 

t  Scott  to  the  President,  Aug.   12,  1861. 


A   HISTORY. 


401 


McClellan  to  report  to  army  headquarters  the 
number  and  position  of  troops  under  his  com- 
mand, to  which  order  he  paid  no  attention 
whatever.  General  Scott  felt  himself  helpless 
in  the  face  of  this  mute  and  persistent  disobe- 
dience, but  he  was  not  able  to  bear  it  in  si- 
lence. On  the  4th  of  October  lie  addressed 
another  passionate  remonstrance  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  War,  setting  forth  these  facts,  asking 
whether  there  were  no  remedy  for  such  offenses, 
adverting  once  more  to  his  physical  infirmities, 
-and  at  last  divulging  the  true  reason  why  he 
lad  borne  so  long  the  contumely  of  his  junior — 
that  he  was  only  awaiting  the  arrival  of  Gen- 
eral  Halleck,  whose  presence  would  give  him 
increased  confidence  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  and  thus  permit  him  to  retire.* 
On  the  3131  of  October  he  took  his  final  reso- 
lution, and  addressed  the  following  letter  to 
the  Secretary  of  War : 

For  more  than  three  years  I  have  been  unable, 
from  a  hurt,  to  mount  a  horse  or  to  walk  more  than  a 
few  paces  at  a  time,  and  that  with  much  pain.  Other 
and  new  infirmities  —  tlropsy  and  vertigo  —  admonish 
me  that  repose  of  mind  and  body,  with  the  appliances 
of  surgery  and  medicine,  are  necessary  to  add  a  little 
more  to  a  life  already  protracted  much  beyond  the  usual 
span  of  man.  It  is  under  such  circumstances,  made 
doubly  painful  by  the  unnatural  and  unjust  rebellion 
now  raging  in  the  Southern  States  of  our  so  late  pros- 
perous and  happy  Union,  that  I  am  compelled  to  re- 
quest that  my  name  be  placed  on  the  list  of  army  officers 
retired  from  active  service.  As  this  request  is  founded 
on  an  absolute  right  granted  by  a  recent  act  of  Con- 
gress, I  am  entirely  at  liberty  to  say  it  is  with  deep 
regret  that  I  withdraw  myself,  in  these  momentous 
times,  from  the  orders  of  a  President  who  has  treated 
me  with  distinguished  kindness  and  courtesy,  whom  I 
know  among  much  personal  intercourse  to  be  patriotic, 
without  sectional  partialities  or  prejudices,  to  be  highly 
conscientious  in  the  performance  of  every  duty,  and 
of  unrivaled  activity  and  perseverance.  And  to  you, 
Mr.  Secretary,  whom  I  now  officially  address  for  the 
last  time,  I  beg  to  acknowledge  my  many  obligations 
for  the  uniform  high  consideration  I  have  received  at 
your  hands." 

His  request  was  granted,  with  the  usual 
compliments  and  ceremonies,  the  President 
and  Cabinet  waiting  upon  him  in  person  at  his 
residence.  General  McClellan  succeeded  him 
in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  his  order  of  the  ist  of  Novem- 
ber he  praised  in  swelling  periods  the  war- 
worn veteran  t  whose  latest  days  of  service 
he  had  so  annoyed  and  embittered.  When  we 
consider  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  offi- 
cers—  the  years,  the  infirmities,  the  well-earned 
glory  of  Scott,  his  former  friendship  and  kind- 
ness towards  his  junior;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  youth,  the  strength,  the  marvelous  good 
fortune  of  McClellan,  his  great  promotion,  his 
certainty  of  almost  immediate  succession  to  su- 
preme command — it  cannot  be  said  that  his 
demeanor  towards  his  chief  was  magnanimous. 
Although  General  Scott's  unfitness  for  com- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 57. 


mand  had  become  obvious,  although  his  dispo- 
sition, which  in  his  youth  had  been  arrogant 
and  naughty,  had  been  modified  but  not  im- 
proved by  age  into  irascibility,  it  would  cer- 
tainly not  have  been  out  of  place  for  his  heir 
presumptive  to  dissemble  an  impatience  which 
was  not  unnatural,  and  preserve  some  appear- 
ance at  least  of  a  respect  he  did  not  feel. 
Standing  in  the  full  sunshine,  there  was  some- 
thing due  fromhimto  an  old  and  illustrious  sol- 
dier stepping  reluctant  into  hopeless  shadow. 
The  change  was  well  received  in  all  parts 
of  the  country.  At  Washington  there  was  an 
immediate  feeling  of  relief.  The  President 
called  at  General  McClellan's  headquarters 
on  the  night  of  the  ist  of  November  and  gave 
him  warm  congratulations.  "  I  should  feel 
perfectly  satisfied,"  he  said,  "  if  I  thought  that 
this  vast  increase  of  responsibility  would  not 
embarrass  you."  "  It  is  a  great  relief,  sir," 
McClellan  answered.  "I  feel  as  if  several 
tons  were  taken  from  my  shoulders  to-day.  I 
am  now  in  contact  with  you  and  the  Secre- 
tary. I  am  not  embarrassed  by  intervention." 
"  Very  well,"  said  the  President ;  '•  draw  on 
me  for  all  the  sense  and  information  I  have. 
In  addition  to  your  present  command  the  su- 
preme command  of  the  army  will  entail  an 
enormous  labor  upon  you."  "  I  can  do  it  all," 
McClellan  quickly  answered,  f  Ten  days  later 
Blenker's  brigade  organized  a  torchlight  pro- 
cession, a  sort  of  Fackel-tanz,  in  honor  of  the 
event.  The  President,  after  the  show  was 
Aover,  went  as  usual  to  General  McClellan's, 
*and  referring  to  the  Port  Royal  expedition 
thought  this  "  a  good  time  to  feel  the  enemy." 
"  I  have  not  been  unmindful  of  that,"  Mc- 
Clellan answered;  "we  shall  feel  them  to- 
morrow.'^ Up  to  this  time  there  was  no 
importunity  on  the  part  of  the  President  for 
an  advance  of  the  army,  although  for  several 
weeks  some  of  the  leading  men  in  Congress 
had  been  urging  it.  As  early  as  the  26th  of 
October,  Senators  Trumbull,  Chandler,  and 
Wade  called  upon  the  President  and  earnestly 
represented  to  him  the  importance  of  imme- 
diate action.  Two  days  later  they  had  an- 
other conference  with  the  President  and  Mr. 
Seward,  at  the  house  of  the  latter.  They  spoke 
with  some  vehemence  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sity for  energetic  measures  to  drive  the  enemy 
from  in  front  of  Washington.  The  President 
and  the  Secretary  of  State  both  defended  the 
general  in  his  deliberate  purpose  not  to  move 
until  he  was  ready.  The  zealous  senators  did 
not  confine  their  visits  to  the  civil  authorities. 
They  called  upon  General  McClellan  also, 

*  Scott  to  Cameron.     War  Records. 

t  McClellan,  Order,  Nov.  I,  1861.    War  Records. 

t  J.  H.,  Diary,  Nov.  I,  1861. 

$'lbid.,  Nov.  II,  1861. 


4O2 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


and  in  the  course  of  an  animated  conversa- 
tion Mr.  Wade  said  an  unsuccessful  battle  was 
preferable  to  delay;  a  defeat  would  be  easily 
repaired  by  the  swarming  recruits — a  thrust 
which  McClellan  neatly  parried  by  saying  he 
would  rather  have  a  few  recruits  before  a  vic- 
tory than  a  good  many  after  a  defeat.*  There 
was  as  yet  no  apparent  hostility  to  McClellan, 
even  among  "  these  wretched  politicians,"  as 
he  calls  them.  On  the  contrary,  this  conference 
of  the  z6th  was  not  inharmonious;  McClellan 
represented  General  Scott  as  the  obstacle  to 
immediate  action,  and  skillfully  diverted  the 
zeal  of  the  senators  against  the  General-in- 
Chief.  He  wrote  that  night: 

For  the  last  three  hours  I  have  been  at  Montgomery 
Blair's,  talking  with  Senators  Wade,  Trumbull,  and 
Chandler  about  war  matters.  They  will  make  a  des- 
perate effort  to-morrow  to  have  General  Scott  retired 
at  once  ;  until  this  is  accomplished,  I  can  effect  but  lit- 
tle good.  He  is  ever  in  my  way,  and  I  am  sure  does 
not  desire  effective  action.t 

The  President,  while  defending  the  gener- 
als from  the  strictures  of  the  senators,  did  not 
conceal  from  McClellan  the  fact  of  their  ur- 
gency. He  told  him  it  was  a  reality  not  to  be 
left  out  of  the  account;  at  the  same  time  he 
was  not  to  fight  till  he  was  ready.  "  I  have 
everything  at  stake,"  the  general  replied.  "  If 
I  fail,  I  will  never  see  you  again."  At  this 
period  there  was  no  question  of  more  than  a 
few  days'  delay. 

The  friendly  visits  of  the  President  to  army 
headquarters  were  continued  almost  every 
night  until  the  i3th  of  November,  when  an 
incident  occurred  which  virtually  put  an  end 
to  them.f  On  that  evening  Mr.  Lincoln 
walked  across  the  street  as  usual,  accompanied 
by  one  of  his  household,  to  the  residence  of 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  after  a  short  visit 
there  both  of  them  went  to  General  McClel- 
lan's  house,  in  H  street.  They  were  there  told 
that  the  general  had  gone  to  the  wedding  of 
an  officer  and  would  soon  return.  They  waited 
nearly  an  hour  in  the  drawing-room,  when  the 
general  returned,  and,  without  paying  any 
special  attention  to  the  orderly  who  told  him 
the  President  was  waiting  to  see  him,  went 
upstairs.  The  President,  thinking  his  name 
had  not  been  announced  to  the  general,  again 
sent  a  servant  to  his  room  and  received  the  an- 
swer that  he  had  gone  to  bed.  Mr.  Lincoln 
attached  no  special  importance  to  this  incident, 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  never  asked  nor  re- 
ceived any  explanation  of  it.  But  it  was  not 
unnatural  that  he  should  conclude  his  frequent 
visits  had  become  irksome  to- the  general,  and 
that  he  should  discontinue  them.  There  was 
no  cessation  of  their  friendly  relations,  though 

*  J.  H.,  Diary,  Oct.  26,  27,  1861.     t  J.  H.,  Diary. 
t  "  McClellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  171. 


after  this  most  of  their  conferences  were  held 
at  the  Executive  Mansion. 

On  the  20th  of  November  a  grand  review 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  took  place  at 
Upton's  Hill.  There  were  about  50.000  men 
in  line,  drawn  up  on  a  wide,  undulating  plain, 
which  displayed  them  to  the  best  advantage, 
and  a  finer  army  has  rarely  been  seen.  The 
President,  accompanied  by  Generals  McClel- 
lan  and  McDowell,  and  followed  by  a  brilliant 
cavalcade  of  a  hundred  general  and  staff  offi- 
cers, rode  up  and  down  the  entire  extent  of 
the  embattled  host.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  good 
horseman,  and  was  received  with  hearty  cheers 
by  the  troops,  thousands  of  whom  saw  him 
that  day  for  the  first  and  last  time.  The  re- 
viewing officers  then  took  their  stand  upon  a 
gentle  acclivity  in  the  center  of  the  plain,  and 
the  troops  filed  past  in  review  through  the 
autumnal  afternoon  until  twilight.  It  had  cer- 
tainly all  the  appearance  of  a  great  army  ready 
for  battle,  and  there  was  little  doubt  that  they 
would  speedily  be  led  into  action.  But  after  the 
review  drilling  was  resumed  ;  recruits  contin- 
ued to  pour  in,  to  be  assigned  and  equipped 
and  instructed.  The  general  continued  his  or- 
ganizing work ;  many  hours  of  every  day  he 
passed  in  the  saddle,  riding  from  camp  to  camp 
with  tireless  industry,  until  at  last  he  fell  seri- 
ously ill,  and  for  several  weeks  the  aimy  rested 
almost  with  folded  hands  awaiting  his  recovery. 

EUROPEAN    NEUTRALITY. 

ONE  of  the  gravest  problems  which  beset 
the  Lincoln  administration  on  its  advent  to 
power  was  how  foreign  nations  would  deal 
with  the  fact  of  secession  and  rebellion  in  the 
United  States;  and  the  people  of  the  North 
endured  a  grievous  disappointment  when  they 
found  that  England  and  France  were  by 
active  sympathy  favorable  to  the  South.  This 
result  does  not  seem  strange  when  we  con- 
sider by  what  insensible  steps  the  news  from 
America  had  shaped  their  opinion. 

Europeans  were  at  first  prepared  to  accept 
the  disunion  threats  of  Southern  leaders  as 
mere  transient  party  bravado.  The  non- 
coercion  message  of  President  Buchanan, 
however,  was  in  their  eyes  an  indication  of 
serious  import.  Old  World  statesmanship  had 
no  faith  in  unsupported  public  sentiment  as  a 
lasting  bond  of  nationality.  The  experience 
of  a  thousand  years  teaches  them  that,  under 
their  monarchical  system,  governments  and 
laws  by  "  divine  right "  are  of  accepted 
and  permanent  force  only  when  competent 
physical  power  stands  behind  them  to  compel 
obedience.  Mr.  Buchanan's  dogma  that  the 
Federal  Government  had  no  authority  to 
keep  a  State  in  the  Union  was  to  them,  in 


A    HISTORY. 


4°3 


theory  at  least,  the  end  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States.  When,  further,  they  saw 
that  this  theory  was  being  translated  into 
practice  by  acquiescence  in  South  Carolina's 
revolt;  by  the  failure  to  reenforce  Sumter; 
by  the  President's  quasi-diplomacy  with  the 
South  Carolina  commissioners  as  foreign 
agents ;  and  finally  by  his  practical  abdica- 
tion of  executive  functions,  in  the  message  of 
January  8,*  "  referring  the  whole  subject  to 
Congress,"  and  throwing  upon  it  all  "  the 
responsibility," —  they  naturally  concluded 
that  the  only  remaining  question  for  them  was 
one  of  new  relations  with  the  divided  States. 
From  the  election  of  Lincoln  until  three  da\ -s 
preceding  his  inauguration,  a  period  of  nearly 
four  months,  embracing  the  whole  drama  of 
public  secession  and  the  organization  of  the 
Montgomery  confederacy,  not  a  word  of  in- 
formation, explanation,  or  protest  on  these 
momentous  proceedings  was  sent  by  the 
Buchanan  cabinet  to  foreign  powers.  They 
were  left  to  draw  their  inferences  exclusively 
from  newspapers,  the  debates  of  Congress,  and 
the  President's  messages  till  the  last  day  of 
February,  1861,  when  Secretary  Black,  in  a 
diplomatic  circular,  instructed  our  ministers 
at  foreign  courts  "  that  this  Government  has 
not  relinquished  its  constitutional  jurisdiction 
within  the  territory  of  those  seceded  States 
and  does  not  desire  to  do  so,"  and  that  a 
recognition  of  their  independence  must  be 
opposed.  France  and  England  replied  courte- 
ously that  they  would  not  act  in  haste,  but 
quite  emphatically  that  they  could  give  no 
further  binding  promise. 

Mr.  Seward,  on  assuming  the  duties  of 
Secretary  of  State,  immediately  transmitted  a 
circular,  repeating  the  injunction  of  his  pred- 
ecessor and  stating  the  confidence  of  the 
President  in  the  speedy  restoration  of  the 
harmony  and  unity  of  the  Government.  Con- 
siderable delay  occurred  in  settling  upon  the 
various  foreign  appointments.  The  new  min- 
ister to  France,  Mr.  Dayton,  and  the  new 
minister  to  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Adams,  did 
not  sail  for  Europe  till  about  the  ist  of  May. 
Before  either  of  them  arrived  at  his  post, 
both  governments  had  violated  in  spirit  their 
promise  to  act  in  no  haste.  On  the  day  Mr. 
Adams  sailed  from  Boston,  his  predecessor, 
Mr.  Dallas,  yet  in  London,  was  sent  for  by 
Lord  John  Russell,  her  Britannic  Majesty's 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  "  He  told  me," 
wrote  Mr.  Dallas,  "  that  the  three  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were 
here;  that  he  had  not  seen  them,  but  was  not 
unwilling  to  do  so,  unofficially ;  that  there 
existed  an  understanding  between  this  Gov- 
ernment and  that  of  France  which  would 
*"  Globe,"  Jan.  9,  l86r,p.  294. 


lead  both  to  take  the  same  course  as  to 
recognition,  whatever  that  course  might  be." 
The  step  here  foreshadowed  was  soon  taken. 
Three  days  later  Lord  Russell  did  receive  the 
three  representatives  of  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy; and  while  he  told  them  he  could  not 
communicate  with  them  "  officially,"  his  lan- 
guage indicated  that  when  the  South  could 
maintain  its  position  England  would  not  be 
unwilling  to  hear  what  terms  they  had  to 
propose.  When  Mr.  Adams  landed  in  Eng- 
land he  found,  evidently  to  forestall  his  arrival, 
that  the  Ministry  had  published  the  Queen's 
proclamation  of  neutrality,  raising  the  Con- 
federate States  at  once  to  the  position  and 
privilege  of  a  belligerent  power ;  and  France 
soon  followed  the  example. 

In  taking  this  precipitate  action,  both  pow- 
ers probably  thought  it  merely  a  preliminary 
step:  the  British  ministers  believed  disunion 
to  be  complete  and  irrevocable,  and  were 
eager  to  take  advantage  of  it  to  secure  free 
trade  and  cheap  cotton ;  while  Napoleon 
III.,  Emperor  of  the  French,  already  har- 
boring far-reaching  colonial  designs,  ex- 
pected not  only  to  recognize  the  South,  but 
to  assist  her  at  no  distant  day  by  an  armed 
intervention.  For  the  present,  of  course,  all 
such  meditations  were  veiled  under  the  bland 
phraseology  of  diplomatic  regret  at  our  mis- 
fortune. The  object  of  these  pages  is,  how- 
ever, not  so  much  to  discuss  international 
relations  as  to  show  what  part  President  Lin- 
coln personally  took  in  framing  the  dispatch 
which  announced  the  answering  policy  of  the 
United  States. 

When  the  communication  which  Lord  Rus- 
sell made  to  Mr.  Dallas  was  received  at  the 
State  Department,  the  unfriendly  act  of  the 
English  Government,  and  more  especially  the 
half-insulting  manner  of  its  promulgation,  filled 
Mr.  Seward  with  indignation.  In  this  mood 
he  wrote  a  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams,  which,  if 
transmitted  and  delivered  in  its  original  form, 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  endanger  the 
peaceful  relations  of  the  two  countries.  The 
general  tone  and  spirit  of  the  paper  were  ad- 
mirable; but  portions  of  it  were  phrased  with 
an  exasperating  bluntness,  and  certain  direc- 
tions were  lacking  in  diplomatic  prudence. 
This  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  irrita- 
tion under  which  he  wrote.  It  was  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's  ordinary  habit  personally  to  read  his 
dispatches  to  the  President  before  sending 
them.  Mr.  Lincoln,  detecting  the  defects  of 
the  paper,  retained  it,  and  after  careful  scru- 
tiny made  such  material  corrections  and  altera- 
tions with  his  own  hand  as  took  from  it  all 
offensive  crudeness  without  in  the  least  low- 
ering its  tone,  but,  on  the  contrary,  greatly 
increasing  its  dignity. 


404  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 

SEWARD'S   ORIGINAL   DISPATCH,   SHOWING   MR.  LINCOLN'S   CORRECTIONS. 

[All  words  by  Lincoln  in  margin  or  in  text  are  in  italics.    All  matter  between  brackets  was  marked  out.] 

No.   10.  DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  May  zist,  1861. 
SIR: 

Mr.  Dallas  in  a  brief  dispatch  of  May  2d  (No.  333)  tells  us  that  Lord 
John  Russell  recently  requested  an  interview  with  him  on  account  of  the 
solicitude  which  His  Lordship  felt  concerning  the  effect  of  certain  meas- 
ures represented  as  likely  to  be  adopted  by  the  President.  In  that  conver- 
sation the  British  Secretary  told  Mr,  Dallas  that  the  three  Representatives 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were  then  in  London,  that  Lord  John  Russell 
had  not  yet  seen  them,  but  that  he  was  not  unwilling  to  see  them 
unofficially.  He  farther  informed  Mr.  Dallas  that  an  understanding  exists 
between  the  British  and  French  Governments  which  would  lead  both  to 
take  one  and  the  same  course  as  to  recognition.  His  Lordship  then 
referred  to  the  rumor  of  a  meditated  blockade  by  us  of  Southern  ports,  and 
a  discontinuance  of  them  as  ports  of  entry.  Mr.  Dallas  answered  that  he 
knew  nothing  on  those  topics  and  therefore  could  say  nothing.  He  added 
that  you  were  expected  to  arrive  in  two  weeks.  Upon  this  statement 
Lord  John  Russell  acquiesced  in  the  expediency  of  waiting  for  the  full 
knowledge  you  were  expected  to  bring. 

Mr.  Dallas  transmitted  to  us  some  newspaper  reports  of  Ministerial 
explanations  made  in  Parliament. 

You  will  base  no  proceedings  on  parliamentary  debates  farther  than  to 
seek  explanations  when  necessary  and  communicate  them  to  this  Depart- 
Leave  out.          ment.     [We  intend  to  have  a  clear  and  simple  record  of  whatever  issue 
may  arise  between  us  and  Great  Britain.] 

The  President  fis  surprised  and  grieved]  regrets  that  Mr.  Dallas  did  not 

Leave  out,  be-  protest  against  the   proposed   unofficial  intercourse  between  the  British 

cause  it  does  not  Government  and  the  missionaries  of  the  insurgents,  [as  well  as  against  the 

appear  that  such  demand  for  explanations  made  by  the  British  Government].     It  is  due 

explanations  were  however  to  Mr.  Dallas  to  say  that  our  instructions  had  been  given  only 

demanded.  to  you  and  not  to  him,  and  that  his  loyalty  and  fidelity,  too  rare  in  these 

Leave  out.          times    [among   our  late   representatives  abroad    are  confessed   and]   are 

appreciated. 

Intercourse  of  any  kind  with  the  so-called  Commissioners  is  liable  to  be 
construed  as  a  recognition  of  the  authority  which  appointed  them.     Such 
intercourse  would  be  none  the  less  [wrongful]  hurtful  to  us,  for  being  called 
unofficial,  and  it  might  be  even  more  injurious,  because  we  should  have  no 
means  of  knowing  what  points  might  be  resolved  by  it.     Moreover,  un- 
official intercourse  is  useless  and  meaningless,  if  it  is  not  expected  to  ripen 
into  official  intercourse  and  direct  recognition.     It  is  left  doubtful  here 
whether  the  proposed  unofficial  intercourse  has  yet  actually  begun.     Your 
own  [present]  antecedent  instructions  are  deemed  explicit  enough,  and  it  is 
hoped  that  you  have  not  misunderstood  them.     You  will  in  any  event  desist 
from  all  intercourse  whatever,  unofficial  as  well  as  official  with  the  British 
Government,  so  long  as  it  shall  continue  intercourse  of  either  kind  with  the 
Leave  out.          domestic  enemies  of  this  country,  [confining  yourself  simply  to  a  delivery 
of  a  copy  of  this  paper  to  the  Secretary  of  State.     After  doing  this]*  you 
*  When    inter-  will  communicate  with  this  Department  and  receive  farther  directions. 
course  shall  have       Lord  John  Russell  has  informed  us  of  an  understanding  between  the 
betn  arrested  for  British  and  French  Governments  that  they  will  act  together  in  regard  to 
this  cause,  our  affairs.     This  communication  however  loses  something  of  its  value 

from  the  circumstance  that  the  communication  was  withheld  until  after 
knowledge  of  the  fact  had  been  acquired  by  us  from  other  sources.  We 
know  also  another  fact  that  has  not  yet  been  officially  communicated  to 
us,  namely  that  other  European  States  are  apprized  by  France  and  Eng- 
land of  their  agreement  and  are  expected  to  concur  with  or  follow  them  in 
whatever  measures  they  adopt  on  the  subject  of  recognition.  The  United 
States  have  been  impartial  and  just  in  all  their  conduct  towards  the  several 


A   HISTORY.  405 

nations  of  Europe.  They  will  not  complain  however  of  the  combination 
now  announced  by  the  two  loading  powers,  although  they  think  they  had 
a  right  to  expect  a  more  independent  if  not  a  more  friendly  course  from 
e;n  ii  of  them.  You  will  take  no  notice  of  that  or  any  other  alliance. 
Whenever  the  European  governments  shall  see  fit  to  communicate  directly 
with  us  we  shall  be  as  heretofore  frank  and  explicit  in  our  reply. 

As  to  the  blockade,  \ou  will  say  that  by  [the]  our  own  laws  [of  nature] 
and  Hie  laws  of  nature  and  the  laws  of  nations  this  government  has  a  clear 
right  to  suppress  insurrection.  An  exclusion  of  commerce  from  national 
purls  which  have  been  sei/.ed  by  the  insurgents,  in  the  equitable  form  of 
blockade,  is  a  proper  means  to  that  end.  You  will  [admit]  not  insist  that 
our  blockade  is  [not]  to  be  respected  if  it  be  not  maintained  by  a  competent 
force  —  but  passing  by  that  question  as  not  now  a  practical  or  at  least  an 
urgent  one  you  will  add  that  [it]  the  blockade  is  now  and  it  will  continue  to 
be  so  maintained,  and  therefore  we  expect  it  to  be  respected  by  Great 
Britain.  You  will  add  that  we  have  already  revoked  the  exequatur  of  a 
Russian  Consul  who  had  enlisted  in  the  Military  service  of  the  insurgents, 
and  we  shall  dismiss  or  demand  the  recall  of  every  foreign  agent,  Con- 
sular  or  Diplomatic,  who  shall  either  disobey  the  Federal  laws  or  disown 
the  Federal  authority. 

As  to  the  recognition  of  the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy  it  is  not  to 
be  made  a  subject  of  technical  definition.  It  is  of  course  \quasi\  direct  recog- 
nition to  publish  an  acknowledgment  of  the  sovereignty  and  independence 
of  a  new  power.  It  is  [quasi]  direct  recognition  to  receive  its  ambassadors, 
Ministers,  agents,  or  commissioners  officially.  A  concession  of  belligerent 
rights  is  liable  to  be  construed  as  a  recognition  of  them.  No  one  of  these 
proceedings  will  [be  borne]  pass  [unnotited]  unquestioned  by  the  United 
States  in  this  case. 

Hitherto  recognition  has  been  moved  only  on  the  assumption  that  the 
so-called  Confederate  States  are  de  facto  a  self-sustaining  power.  Now 
after  long  forbearance,  designed  to  soothe  discontent  and  avert  the  need 
of  civil  war,  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  have  been  put 
in  motion  to  repress  the  insurrection.  The  true  character  of  the  pre- 
tended new  State  is  at  once  revealed.  It  is  seen  to  be  a  Power  existing  in 
pronunciamento  only.  It  has  never  won  a  field.  It  has  obtained  no  forts 
that  were  not  virtually  betrayed  into  its  hands  or  seized  in  breach  of  trust. 
It  commands  not  a  single  port  on  the  coast  nor  any  highway  out  from  its 
pretended  Capital  by  land.  Under  these  circumstances  Great  Britain  is 
called  upon  to  intervene  and  give  it  body  and  independence  by  resisting  our 
measures  of  suppression.  British  recognition  would  be  British  intervention 
to  create  within  our  own  territory  a  hostile  state  by  overthrowing  this  Repub- 
lic itself.  [When  this  act  of  intervention  is  distinctly  performed,  we  from  that  [Leave  cut.] 
hour  shall  cease  to  be  friends  and  become  once  more,  as  we  have  twice 
before  been  forced  to  be  enemies  of  Great  Britain.] 

As  to  the  treatment  of  privateers  in  the  insurgent  service,  you  will  say 
that  this  is  a  question  exclusively  our  own.  We  treat  them  as  pirates. 
They  are  our  own  citizens,  or  persons  employed  by  our  citizens,  preying 
on  the  commerce  of  our  country.  If  Great  Britain  shall  choose  to  recog- 
nise them  as  lawful  belligerents,  and  give  them  shelter  from  our  pursuit 
and  punishment,  the  laws  of  nations  afford  an  adequate  and  proper  rem- 
edy, [and  we  shall  avail  ourselves  of  it.  And  while  you  need  not  to  say  (Ms 
in  advance,  be  sure  that  you  say  nothing  inconsistent  -with  it.\ 

Happily,  however,  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  can  avoid  all 
these  difficulties.  It  invited  us  in  1856  to  accede  to  the  declaration  of  the 
Congress  of  Paris,  of  which  body  Great  Britain  was  herself  a  member, 
abolishing  privateering  everywhere  in  all  cases  and  for  ever.  You  already 
have  our  authority  to  propose  to  her  our  accession  to  that  declaration.  If 
she  refuse  to  receive  it,  it  can  only  be  because  she  is  willing  to  become 
the  patron  of  privateering  when  aimed  at  our  devastation. 

These  positions  are  not  elaborately  defended  now,  because  to  vindicate 
them  would  imply  a  possibility  of  our  waiving  them. 


406 

\Drop  all  from 
this  line  to  the  end, 
and  in  lieu  of  it 
write 

"  This  paper  is 
foryour  own  guid- 
ance only,  and  not 
[sic]  to  be  read  or 
shown  to  any  one.] 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 

We  are  not  insensible  of  the  grave  importance  of  this  occasion.  We 
see  how,  upon  the  result  of  the  debate  in  which  we  are  engaged,  a  war 
may  ensue  between  the  United  States,  and  one,  two,  or  even  more  Euro- 
pean nations.  War  in  any  case  is  as  exceptionable  from  the  habits  as  it 
is  revolting  from  the  sentiments  of  the  American  people.  But  if  it  come 
it  will  be  fully  seen  that  it  results  from  the  action  of  Great  Britain,  not  our 
own,  that  Great  Britain  will  have  decided  to  fraternize  with  our  domestic 
enemy,  either  without  waiting  to  hear  from  you  our  remonstrances,  and 
our  warnings,  or  after  having  heard  them.  War  in  defense  of  national 
life  is  not  immoral,  and  war  in  defense  of  independence  is  an  inevitable 
part  of  the  discipline  of  nations. 

The  dispute  will  be  between  the  European  and  the  American  branches 
of  the  British  race.  All  who  belong  to  that  race  will  especially  deprecate 
it,  as  they  ought.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  men  of  every  race  and 
kindred  will  deplore  it.  A  war  not  unlike  it  between  the  same  parties 
occurred  at  the  close  of  the  last  century.  Europe  atoned  by  forty  years 
of  suffering  for  the  error  that  Great  Britain  committed  in  provoking 
that  contest.  If  that  nation  shall  now  repeat  the  same  great  error  the 
social  convulsions  which  will  follow  may  not  be  so  long  but  they  will  be 
more  general.  When  they  shall  have  ceased,  it  will,  we  think,  be  seen, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  fortunes  of  other  nations,  that  it  is  not  the 
United  States  that  will  have  come  out  of  them  with  its  precious  Constitu- 
tion altered  or  its  honestly  obtained  dominion  in  any  degree  abridged. 
Great  Britain  has  but  to  wait  a  few  months  and  all  her  present  inconven- 
iences will  cease  with  all  our  own  troubles.  If  she  take  a  different  course 
she  will  calculate  for  herself  the  ultimate  as  well  as  the  immediate  conse- 
quences, and  will  consider  what  position  she  will  hold  when  she  shall  have 
forever  lost  the  sympathies  and  the  affections  of  the  only  nation  on  whose 
sympathies  and  affections  she  has  a  natural  claim.  In  making  that  calcu- 
lation she  will  do  well  to  remember  that  in  the  controversy  she  proposes 
to  open  we  shall  be  actuated  by  neither  pride,  nor  passion,  nor  cupidity, 
nor  ambition;  but  we  shall  stand  simply  on  the  principle  of  self-preserva- 
tion, and  that  our  cause  will  involve  the  independence  of  nations,  and  the 
rights  of  human  nature. 

I  am  Sir,  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
CHA.RLES   FRANCIS  ADAMS,  ESQ.,  etc.,"  etc.,  etc.  W.   H.   S. 


[It  is  quite  impossible  to  reproduce  in  type 
the  exact  form  of  the  manuscript  of  the  dis- 
patch with  all  its  interlineations  and  correc- 
tions; but  the  foregoing  shows  those  made  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  with  sufficient  accuracy.  Such 
additional  verbal  alterations  of  Mr.  Se ward's 
as  merely  corrected  ordinary  slips  of  the  pen 
or  errors  of  the  copyist  are  not  noted.  When 
the  President  returned  the  manuscript  to  his 
hands,  Mr.  Seward  somewhat  changed  the 
form  of  the  dispatch  by  prefixing  to  it  two 
short  introductory  paragraphs  in  which  he 
embodied,  in  his  own  phraseology,  the  Presi- 
dent's direction  that  the  paper  was  to  be 
merely  a  confidential  instruction  not  to  be 
read  or  shown  to  any  one,  and  that  he  should 
not  in  advance  say  anything  inconsistent  with 
its  spirit.  This  also  rendered  unnecessary  the 
President's  direction  to  omit  the  last  two  para- 
graphs, and  accordingly  they  remained  in  the 
dispatch  as  finally  sent.] 

THE  mere  perusal  of  this  document  shows 
how  ill-advised  was  Mr.  Seward's  original  di- 


rection to  deliver  a  copy  of  it  to  the  British 
foreign  office  without  further  explanation,  or 
without  requesting  a  reply  in  a  limited  time. 
Such  a  course  would  have  left  the  American 
minister  in  a  position  of  uncertainty  whether 
he  was  still  in  diplomatic  relations  or  not,  and 
whether  the  point  had  been  reached  which 
would  justify  him  in  breaking  off  intercourse  ; 
nor  would  he  have  had  any  further  pretext 
upon  which  to  ascertain  the  disposition  or 
intention  of  the  British  Government.  It 
would  have  been  wiser  to  close  the  legation 
at  once  and  return  to  America.  Happily, 
Mr.  Lincoln  saw  the  weak  point  of  the  in- 
struction, and  by  his  changes  not  only  kept 
it  within  the  range  of  personal  and  diplomatic 
courtesy,  but  left  Mr.  Adams  free  to  choose 
for  himself  the  best  way  of  managing  the 
delicate  situation. 

The  main  point  in  question,  namely,  that  the 
United  States  would  not  suffer  Great  Britain 
to  carry  on  a  double  diplomacy  with  Washing- 
ton and  with  Montgomery  at  the  same  time  — 
that  if  she  became  the  active  friend  of  the  re- 


A   HISTORY. 


407 


bellion  she  must  become  the  enemy  of  the 
United  States,  was  partly  disposed  of  before 
the  arrival  of  the  amended  dispatch  at  Lon- 
don. Several  days  before  it  was  written  Mr. 
Adams  had  his  hrst  official  interview  (May 
18)  with  Lord  John  Russell,  and  in  the  usual 
formal  phraseology,  but  with  emphatic  dis- 
tinctness, told  him  that  if  there  existed  on  the 
part  of  Great  Britain  "an  intention  more  or 
less  marked  to  extend  the  struggle "  by  en- 
couragement in  any  form  to  the  rebels,  "  I 
was  bound  to  acknowledge  in  all  frankness 
that  in  that  contingency  I  had  nothing  further 
left  to  do  in  Great  Britain."  The  British  min- 
ister denied  any  intention  to  aid  the  rebellion, 
and  explained  that  the  Queen's  proclamation 
was  issued  merely  to  define  their  own  attitude 
of  strict  neutrality,  so  that  British  naval  offi- 
cers and  other  officials  might  understand  how 
to  regulate  their  conduct.* 

When  the  dispatch  finally  reached  Mr. 
Adams,  he  obtained  another  interview  with 
Lord  John  Russell,  to  ascertain  definitely 
the  status  of  the  rebel  commissioners  in 
London.  He  told  him  that  a  continuance 
of  their  apparent  relation  with  the  British 
Government  "could  scarcely  fail  to  be  view- 
ed by  us  as  hostile  in  spirit,  and  to  require 
some  corresponding  action  accordingly." 
Lord  John  Russell  replied  that  he  had  only 
seen  the  rebel  commissioners  twice,  and 
"had  no  expectation  of  seeing  them  any 
more."t 

So  early  as  the  year  1854,  when  the  shadow 
of  the  Crimean  war  was  darkening  over 
Europe,  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
submitted  to  the  principal  maritime  nations 
the  propositions,  first,  that  free  ships  should 
make  free  goods,  and  second,  that  neutral 
property  on  board  an  enemy's  vessel  should 
not  be  subject  to  confiscation  unless  contra- 
band of  war.  These  propositions  were  not 
immediately  accepted,  but  when  the  powers 
assembled  in  congress  at  Paris  in  1856,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  peace,  Great  Britain 
and  the  other  nations  which  took  part  in  the 
congress  gave  them  their  assent,  adding  to 
them,  as  principles  of  international  law,  the 
abolition  of  privateering  and  the  obligation 
that  blockades,  to  be  respected,  must  be  effect- 
ive. The  adhesion  of  the  United  States  hav- 
ing been  invited  to  these  four  propositions, 
the  Government  of  that  day  answered  that 
they  would  accede  to  them  if  the  other  powers 
would  accept  a  fifth  principle  —  that  the  goods 
of  private  persons,  non-combatants,  should  be 
exempt  from  confiscation  in  maritime  war. 
This  proposition  was  rejected  by  the  British 
Government,  and  the  negotiations  were  then 
suspended  until  after  Mr.  Lincoln  became 
1'resident.  A  few  weeks  after  his  inauguration 


the  suspended  negotiations  were  taken  up  by 
Mr.  Seward,  who  directed  Mr.  Adams  to 
signify  to  the  British  Government  that  the 
United  States  were  now  ready  to  accept  with- 
out reserve  the  four  propositions  adopted  at 
the  Congress  of  Paris.  \  After  some  delay, 
Lord  John  Russell  remarked  to  Mr.  Adams 
that  in  case  of  the  adhesion  of  the  United 
Slates  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  the  engage- 
ment on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  would  be 
prospective  and  would  not  invalidate  any- 
thing done.  This  singular  reserve  Mr.  Adams 
reported  to  his  Government,  and  was  directed 
by  Mr.  Seward  to  ask  some  further  elucida- 
tion of  its  meaning.  But  before  this  dispatch 
was  received,  the  strange  attitude  of  the  Brit- 
ish Government  was  explained  by  Lord  Rus- 
sell's §  submitting  to  Mr.  Adams  a  draft  of 
a  supplementary  declaration  on  the  part  of 
England  that  her  Majesty  did  not  intend,  by 
the  projected  convention  for  the  accession  of 
the  United  States  to  the  articles  of  the  Con- 
gress of  Paris, "  to  undertake  any  engagement 
which  shall  have  any  bearing,  direct  or  in- 
direct, on  the  internal  differences  now  prevail- 
ing in  the  United  States."  The  President, 
having  been  informed  of  this  proposed  decla- 
ration, at  once  instructed  Mr.  Adams  ||  that  it 
was  inadmissible,  as  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  could  not  accede  to  this  great 
international  act  except  upon  the  same  equal 
footing  upon  which  all  the  other  parties  stood. 
It  afterward  transpired  that  the  British  Gov- 
ernment had,  at  the  same  time  that  these 
important  negotiations  were  going  on  with 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  ap- 
proached the  new  Confederate  Government 
upon  the  same  subject,  sending  communica- 
tions in  a  clandestine  manner  through  the 
British  Legation  in  Washington  to  Mr. 
Bunch,  the  English  consul  at  Charleston, 
through  whom  they  were  in  the  same  furtive 
and  unofficial  manner  laid  before  the  author- 
ities at  Richmond.  The  French  Government 
joined  in  this  proceeding,  at  the  invitation  of 
England.  Mr.  Davis  at  once  recognized  the 
great  importance  of  such  quasi-recognition 
of  his  Government,  and  he  himself  drafted 
resolutions  declaring  the  purpose  of  the  Con- 
federates to  observe  the  principles  towards 
neutrals  embodied  in  the  second  and  third 
rules  of  the  Declaration  of  Paris  —  that  block- 
ades to  be  binding  must  be  effectual,  but 

*  Adams  to  Seward,  May  21,  1861. 

t  Adams  to  Seward,  June  14.  1861. 

t  See  Mr.  Seward's  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams,  April 
24,  1861 ;  Seward  to  Adams,  May  17, 1861  ;  and  papers 
relating  to  Treaty  of  Washington,  Vol.  I.,  p.  33,  et 
sea. 

$  Lord  John  Russell  was  raised  to  the  peerage, 
under  the  title  of  Earl  Russell,  July  30,  1861. 

||  Seward  to  Adams,  Sept.  7,  1861. 


408 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


that  they  "maintained  the  right  of  priva- 
teering."* These  resolutions  were  passed  in 
the  Confederate  Congress,  and  Mr.  Bunch, 
conveying  the  news  of  this  result  to  Lord 
Lyons,  said: 

The  wishes  of  her  Majesty's  Government  would 
seem  to  have  been  fully  complied  with,  for  as  no  pro- 
posal was  made  that  the  Confederate  Government 
should  abolish  privateering,  it  could  not  be  expected 
that  they  should  do  so  of  their  own  accord,  particularly 
as  it  is  the  arm  upon  which  they  most  rely  for  the 
injury  of  the  extended  commerce  of  their  enemy. 

The  American  Government  held  itself  justly 
aggrieved,  therefore,  that  its  accession  to  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  was  impeded  by  condi- 
tions which  it  could  not,  consistently  with  its 
dignity,  accept ;  that  the  British  Government 
was  secretly  negotiating  at  the  same  time  with 
the  insurgents  upon  the  same  subject ;  that 
while  the  United  States  were  invited  to  ac- 
cede to  all  four  of  the  articles  of  Paris  the 
Confederate  Government  was  given  its  choice 
by  the  British  Cabinet  to  accept  only  three. 
The  Government  of  the  United  States  said 
afterward  in  its  case  at  Geneva  that 

The  practical  effect  of  this  diplomacy,  had  it  been 
successful,  would  have  been  the  destruction  of  the 
commerce  of  the  United  States  or  its  transfer  to  the 
British  flag,  and  the  loss  of  the  principal  resource  of 
the  United  States  upon  the  ocean  should  a  continua- 
tion of  this  course  of  insincere  neutrality  unhappily 
force  the  United  States  into  a  war.  Great  Britain  was 
thus  to  gain  the  benefit  to  its  neutral  commerce  of  the 
recognition  of  the  second  and  third  articles,  the  rebel 
privateers  and  cruisers  were  to  be  protected  and  their 
devastation  legalized,  while  the  United  States  were  to 
be  deprived  of  a  dangerous  weapon  of  assault  upon 
Great  Britain. 

The  action  of  Mr.  Bunch  in  this  matter  was 
properly  regarded  by  the  President  as  a  vio- 
lation of  the  laws  of  the  United  States  to  which 
he  was  accredited,  and  his  exequatur  was  re- 
voked. A  long  discussion  followed,  in  which 
neither  side  succeeded  in  convincing  the  other 
of  its  wrong;  and  the  next  year,  pending  an 
attack  upon  Charleston,  a  British  man-of-war 
entered  that  port  and  took  Mr.  Bunch  away. 


THE    "  TRENT  "    AFFAIR. 

THE  public  mind  would  probably  have 
dwelt  with  more  impatience  and  dissatisfac- 
tion upon  the  present  and  prospective  inaction 
of  the  armies  but  for  an  event  which  turned 
all  thoughts  with  deep  solicitude  into  an  en- 
tirely different  channel.  This  was  what  is 
known  as  the  Trent  affair,  which  seriously 
threatened  to  embroil  the  nation  in  a  war 
with  Great  Britain.  The  Confederate  Gov- 

*  Papers  relating  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  36. 


eminent  had  appointed  two  new  envoys  to 
proceed  to  Europe  and  renew  its  application 
for  recognition,  which  its  former  diplomatic 
agents  had  so  far  failed  to  obtain.  For  this 
duty  ex-Senator  Mason  of  Virginia  and  ex- 
Senator  Slidell  of  Louisiana  were  selected,  on 
account  of  their  political  prominence,  as  well 
as  their  recognized  abilities.  On  the  block- 
ade runner  Theodora,  they,  with  their  secre- 
taries and  families,  succeeded  in  eluding  the 
Union  cruisers  around  Charleston,  and  in 
reaching  Havana,  Cuba.  Deeming  them- 
selves beyond  danger  of  capture,  they  made 
no  concealment  of  their  presence  or  mission, 
but  endeavored  rather  to  "  magnify  their  of- 
fice." The  British  consul  showed  them  marked 
attention,  and  they  sought  to  be  presented 
officially  to  the  Captain-General  of  Cuba ; 
but  that  wary  functionary  explained  that  he 
received  them  only  as  "  distinguished  gentle- 
men." They  took  passage  on  board  the 
British  mail  steamer  Trent  for  St.  Thomas, 
intending  there  to  take  the  regular  packet  to 
England. 

Captain  Wilkes,  commanding  the  United 
States  war  steamer  San  Jacinto,  just  returned 
from  an  African  cruise,  heard  of  the  circum- 
stance, and,  going  to  Havana,  fully  informed 
himself  of  the  details  of  their  intended  route. 
The  Trent,  he  learned,  was  to  leave  Havana 
on  November  7.  That  day  found  him  stationed 
in  the  old  Bahama  channel,  near  the  northern 
coast  of  Cuba,  where  he  had  reason  to  belitve 
she  would  pass.  At  about  noon  of  the  8th 
the  lookout  announced  the  approach  of  the 
Trent,  and  when  she  was  sufficiently  near,  the 
San  Jacinto  fired  a  rouncUshot  across  her 
course,  and  displayed  the  American  colors. 
The  British  steamer  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  accept  the  warning  and  failed  to  slacken 
her  speed,  whereupon  Captain  Wilkes  ordered 
a  shell  to  be  fired  across  her  bows,  which  at 
once  brought  her  to.  Lieutenant  Fairfax,  with 
two  officers  and  a  guard  of  marines,  left  the  San 
Jacinto  and  rowed  to  the  mail  steamer;  the 
lieutenant  mounted  to  the  deck  alone,  leaving 
his  officers  and  men  in  the  boat.  He  was 
shown  to  the  quarter-deck,  where  he  met  Cap- 
tain Moirofthe  Trent,  and,  informing  him  who 
he  was,  asked  to  see  his  passenger-list.  Captain 
Moir  declined  to  show  it.  Lieutenant  Fairfax 
then  told  him  of  his  information  that  the  rebel 
commissioners  were  on  board  and  that  he  must 
satisfy  himself  on  that  point  before  allowing 
the  steamer  to  proceed.  The  envoys  and  their 
secretaries  came  up,  and,  hearing  their  names 
mentioned,  asked  if  they  were  wanted.  Lieu- 
tenant Fairfax  now  made  known  in  full  the 
purport  of  his  orders  and  the  object  of  his 
visit. 

The  altercation   and   commotion  called  a 


A   HISTORY. 


409 


CHARLES    FRANCIS    ADAMS.      (FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH 

considerable  number  of  passengers  around 
the  group.  All  of  them  manifested  open  se- 
cession sympathy,  and  some  indulged  in  abus- 
ive language  so  loud  and  demonstrative  that 
the  lieutenant's  two  officers,  and  six  or  eight 
armed  men  from  the  boat,  without  being 
called,  mounted  to  the  lieutenant's  assist- 
ance. In  these  unfriendly  demonstrations  the 
mail  agent  of  the  Trent,  one  Captain  Williams, 
a  retired  British  naval  officer,  made  himself 
especially  conspicuous  with  the  declaration 
that  he  was  the  "  Queen's  representative," 
and  with  various  threats  of  the  consequences 
of  the  affair.  The  captain  of  the  Trent  firmly 
but  quietly  opposed  all  compliance  or  search, 
and  the  envoys  and  their  secretaries  protested 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 58. 


BY    THEODORE     F.     UWIGHT,    ESO..) 


against  arrest,  whereupon  Lieutenant  Fairfax 
sent  one  of  his  officers  back  to  the  San  Jacinto 
for  additional  force.  In  perhaps  half  an  hour 
the  second  boat  returned  from  the  San  Ja- 
cinto with  some  twenty-four  additional  men. 
Lieutenant  Fairfax  now  proceeded  to  execute 
his  orders  without  actual  violence,  and  with 
all  the  politeness  possible  under  the  circum- 
stances. Mason  and  Slidell,  and  their  secre- 
taries, foreseeing  the  inevitable,  had  retired 
to  their  state-rooms  to  pack  their  luggage ; 
thither  it  was  necessary  to  follow  them,  and 
there  the  presence  of  the  families  of  Slidell 
and  Eustis  created  some  slight  confusion,  and 
a  few  armed  marines  entered  the  cabin,  but 
were  sent  back.  The  final  act  of  capture  and 


4io 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


removal  was  then  carried  out  with  formal  stage 
solemnity.* 

Captain  Wilkes's  first  instruction  to  Lieu- 
tenant Fairfax  was  to  seize  the  Trent  as  a  prize, 
but,  as  he  afterward  explained : 

I  forbore  to  seize  her,  however,  in  consequence  of 
my  being  so  reduced  in  officers  and  crew,  and  the  de- 
rangement it  would  cause  innocent  persons,  there  be- 
ing a  large  number  of  passengers,  who  would  have  been 
put  to  great  loss  and  inconvenience  as  well  as  disap- 
pointment from  the  interruption  it  would  have  caused 
them  in  not  being  able  to  join  the  steamer  from  St. 
Thomas  for  Europe. t 

The  Trent  was  allowed  to  proceed  on  her 
voyage,  while  the  San  Jacinto  steamed  away 
for  Boston,  where  she  arrived  on  the  24th  of 


REAR-ADMIRAL    CHARLES    WILKES,     U.    S.    N 
(FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH      BY    ANTHONY.) 

November,  and  transferred  her  prisoners  to 
Fort  Warren. 

The  whole   country  rang  with    exultation 

*  "  When  the  marines  and  some  armed  men  had  been 
formed,"  reports  Lieutenant  Fairfax,"  just  outside  of  the 
main  deck  cabin,  where  these  four  gentlemen  had  gone 
to  pack  up  their  baggage,  I  renewed  my  efforts  to  in- 
duce them  to  accompany  me  on  board,  they  still  refus- 
ing to  accompany  me  unless  force  was  applied.  I  called 
in  to  my  assistance  four  or  five  officers,  and  first  taking 
hold  of  Mr.  Mason's  shoulder,  with  another  officer  on 
the  opposite  side,  I  went  as  far  as  the  gang-way  of  the 
steamer,  and  delivered  him  over  to  Lieutenant  Greer, 
to  be  placed  in  the  boat.  I  then  returned  for  Mr. 
Slidell,  who  insisted  that  I  must  apply  considerable 
force  to  get  him  to  go  with  me.  Calling  in  at  last 
three  officers,  he  also  was  taken  in  charge  and  handed 
over  to  Mr.  Greer.  Mr.  McFarland  and  Mr.  Eustis, 
after  protesting,  went  quietly  into  the  boat."  "  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  excitement  on  board  at  this  time," 
says  another  report,  "  and  the  officers  and  passengers 


over  the  exploit.  The  feeling  was  greatly 
heightened  by  the  general  public  indignation 
at  the  unfriendliness  England  had  so  far  mani- 
fested to  the  Union  cause ;  but  perhaps  more 
especially  because  the  two  persons  seized  had 
been  among  the  most  bitter  and  active  of  the 
secession  conspirators.  The  public  press  lauded 
Captain  Wilkes,  Boston  gave  him  a  banquet, 
and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  wrote  him  a 
letter  of  emphatic  approval.  He  congratu- 
lated him  "  on  the  great  public  service "  he 
had  rendered  in  the  capture,  and  expressed 
only  the  reservation  that  his  conduct  in  omit- 
ting to  capture  the  vessel  must  not  be  allowed 
to  constitute  a  precedent.  \  When  Congress 
met  on  the  2d  of  December  following,  the 
House  of  Representatives  immediately  passed 
a  resolution,  without  a  dissenting  voice,  thank- 
ing Captain  Wilkes  for  his  "brave,  adroit,  and 
patriotic  conduct " ;  while  by  other  resolutions 
the  President  was  requested  to  order  the  pris- 
oners into  close  confinement,  in  retaliation  for 
similar  treatment  by  the  rebels  of  certain  pris- 
oners of  war.  The  whole  strong  current  of 
public  feeling  approved  the  act  without  quali- 
fication, and  manifested  an  instant  and  united 
readiness  to  defend  it. 

President  Lincoln's  usual  cool  judgment  at 
once  recognized  the  dangers  and  complica- 
tions that  might  grow  out  of  the  occurrence.  A 
well-known  writer  has  recorded  what  he  said 
in  a  confidential  interview  on  the  day  the  news 
was  received : 

I  fear  the  traitors  will  prove  to  be  white  elephants. 
We  must  stick  to  American  principles  concerning  the 
rights  of  neutrals.  We  fought  Great  Britain  for  insist- 
ing, by  theory  and  practice,  on  the  right  to  do  precisely 
what  Captain  Wilkes  has  done.  If  Great  Britain  shall 
now  protest  against  the  act,  and  demand  their  release, 
we  must  give  them  up,  apologize  for  the  act  as  a  viola- 
tion of  our  doctrines,  and  thus  forever  bind  her  over  to 
keep  the  peace  in  relation  to  neutrals,  and  so  acknowl- 
edge that  she  has  been  wrong  for  sixty  years.  $  || 

The  Cabinet  generally  coincided  in  express- 
ing gratification  and  approval.  The  interna- 
tional questions  involved  came  upon  them  so 
suddenly  that  they  were  not  ready  with  de- 

of  the  steamer  were  addressing  us  by  numerous  oppro- 
brious epithets,  such  as  calling  us  pirates,  villains, 
traitors,  etc."  (Report  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Dec.  2, 
1861.)  The  families  of  Slidell  and  Eustis  had  mean- 
while been  tendered  the  use  of  the  cabin  of  the  San 
Jacinto,  if  they  preferred  to  accompany  the  prisoners  ; 
but  they  declined,  and  proceeded  in  the  Trent. 

t  Report  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Dec.  2,  1861. 

t  Welles,  in  "  The  Galaxy,"  May,  1873,  pp.  647-649. 

\  Lossing,  "  Civil  War  in  the  United  States,"  Vol. 
II.,  p.  156. 

||  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Welles  corroborated  the 
statementin  "  The  Galaxy  "  for  May,  i873,p.647:"The 
President,  with  whom  I  had  an  interview  immediately 
on  receiving  information  that  the  emissaries  were  capt- 
ured and  on  board  the  San  Jacinto,  before  consultation 
with  any  other  member  of  the  Cabinet  discussed  with 
me  some  of  the  difficult  points  presented.  His  chief 


/    HISTORY. 


411 


cided  opinions  concerning  the  law 
and  policy  of  the  case;  besides,  the 
true  course  obviously  was  to  await 
the  action  of  Great  Britain. 

The  passengers  on  board  the 
Trent,  as  well  as  the  reports  of  her 
officers,  carried  the  news  of  the  capt- 
ure directly  to  England,  where  the 
incident  raised  a  storm  of  public 
opinion  even  more  violent  than  that 
in  the  United  States,  and  very  nat- 
urally on  the  opposite  side.  The 
Government  of  England  relied  for 
its  information  mainly  upon  the 
official  report  of  the  mail  agent, 
Captain  Williams,  who  had  made 
himself  so  officious  as  the  "  Queen's 
representative,"  and  who,  true  to  the 
secession  sympathies  manifested  by 
him  on  shipboard,  gave  his  report  a 
strong  coloring  of  the  same  charac- 
ter. English  public  feeling,  popular 
and  official,  smarted  under  the  idea 
that  the  United  States  had  perpe- 
trated a  gross  outrage,  and  the  clamor 
for  instant  redress  left  no  room  for 
any  calm  consideration  of  the  far- 
reaching  questions  of  international 
law  involved.  Thereseemed  littlepos- 
sibility  that  a  war  could  be  avoided, 
and  England  began  immediate  prep- 
arations for  such  an  emergency.  Some  eight 
thousand  troops  were  dispatched  to  Canada, 
ships  were  ordered  to  join  the  English  squad- 
rons in  American  waters,  and  the  usual  procla- 
mation issued  prohibiting  the  export  of  arms 
and  certain  war  supplies. 

Two  days  after  the  receipt  of  the  news 
Lord  Palmerston,  in  a  note  to  the  Queen, 
formulated  the  substance  of  a  demand  to  be 
sent  to  the  United  States.  He  wrote : 

The  general  outline  and  tenor  which  appeared  to 
meet  the  opinions  of  the  Cabinet  would  be,  that  the 
Washington  Government  should  be  told  that  what 
has  been  done  is  a  violation  of  international  law 
and  of  the  rights  of  Great  Britain,  and  that  your  Maj- 
esty's Government  trusts  that  the  act  will  be  disa- 
vowed, and  the  prisoners  set  free  and  restored  to 
British  protection ;  and  that  Lord  Lyons  should  be 
instructed  that,  if  this  demand  is  refused,  he  should 
retire  from  the  United  States." 

On  the  following  day  the  formal  draft  of  the 
proposed  dispatch  to  Lord  Lyons  was  laid 
before  the  Queen,  who,  together  with  Prince 
Albert,  examined  it  with  unusual  care.  The 
critical  character  of  the  communication,  and 
the  imminent  danger — the  almost  certainty 


JOHN     SLIDEI.I.. 

—  of  a  rupture  and  war  with  America  which  it 
revealed,  made  a  profound  impression  upon 
both.  Prince  Albert  was  already  suffering 
from  the  illness  which  terminated  his  life  two 
weeks  afterward.  This  new  and  grave  political 
question  gave  him  a  sleepless  night.  "  He 
could  eat  no  breakfast,"  is  the  entry  in  her 
Majesty's  diary,  "and  looked  very  wretched. 
But  still  he  was  well  enough  on  getting  up 
to  make  a  draft  for  me  to  write  to  Lord  Rus- 
sell, in  correction  of  his  draft  to  Lord  Lyons, 
sent  me  yesterday,  which  Albert  did  not  ap- 
prove." 

The  Queen  returns  these  important  drafts,  which 
upon  the  whole  she  approves ;  but  she  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  main  draft  —  that  for  communication 
to  the  American  Government  —  is  somewhat  meager. 
She  should  have  liked  to  have  seen  the  expression  of  a 
hope  that  the  American  captain  did  not  act  under  instruc- 
tions, or,  if  he  did,  that  he  misapprehended  them  — 
that  the  United  States  Government  must  be  fully  aware 
that  the  British  Government  could  not  allow  its  flag 
to  be  insulted,  and  the  security  of  her  mail  communi- 
cations to  be  placed  in  jeopardy;  and  her  Majesty's 
Government  are  unwilling  to  believe  that  the  United 
States  Government  intended  wantonly  to  put  an  insult 
upon  this  country,  and  to  add  to  their  many  distressing 


anxiety — for  his  attention  had  never  been  turned  to  whelming  against  the  chief  conspirators  that  he  feared 

admiralty  law  and  naval  captures  —  was  as  to  the  dis-  it  would  be  difficult  to  prevent  severe  and  exemplary 

position  of  the  prisoners,  who,  to  use  his  own  expres-  punishment,  which  he  always  deprecated." 
sion,  would  be  elephants  on  our  hands,  that  we  could         *  Martin,  "  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,"  Vol.  V.,  p. 

not  easily  dispose  of.    Public  indignation  was  so  over-  420. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


J.    M.     MASON. 

complications  by  forcing  a  question  of  dispute  upon 
us  ;  and  that  we  are  therefore  glad  to  believe  that  upon 
a  full  consideration  of  the  circumstances  of  the  un- 
doubted breach  of  international  law  committed,  they 
would  spontaneously  offer  such  redress  as  alone  could 
satisfy  this  country,  viz.,  the  restoration  of  the  unfor- 
tunate passengers  and  a  suitable  apology.  * 

It  proved  to  be  the  last  political  memoran- 
dum he  ever  wrote.  The  exact  language  of 
his  correction,  had  it  been  sent,  would  not  have 
been  well  calculated  to  soothe  the  irritated  sus- 
ceptibilities of  Americans.  To  the  charge  of 
"  violating  international  law,"  to  which  Pal- 
merston's  cold  note  confined  itself,  he  added 
the  accusation  of"  wanton  insult,"  though  dis- 
claiming a  belief  that  it  was  intended.  But  a 
kind  and  pacific  spirit  shines  through  his  mem- 
orandum as  a  whole,  and  it  is  evident  that  both 
the  Queen  and  himself,  gratefully  remembering 
the  welcome  America  had  lately  accorded  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  shrank  from  the  prospect  of 
an  angry  war.  In  this  the  Queen  unconsciously 
responded  to  the  impulse  of  amity  and  good- 
will which  had  induced  the  President  to  modify 
so  materially  his  foreign  secretary's  dispatch  of 
the  2ist  of  May,  the  unpremeditated  thought 
of  the  ruler,  in  each  case,  being  at  once  wiser 
and  more  humane  than  the  first  intention  of 
the  diplomatists.  It  was  from  the  intention 
rather  than  the  words  of  the  Prince  that  the 


Queen's  ministers  took  their  cue 
and  modified  the  phraseology  into 
more  temperate  shape.  Earl  Russell 
wrote: 

Her  Majesty's  Government,  bearing  in 
mind  the  friendly  relations  which  have  long 
subsisted  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  are  willing  to  believe  that 
the  United  States'  naval  officer  who  com- 
mitted this  aggression  was  not  acting  in 
compliance  with  any  authority  from  his 
Government,  or  that  if  he  conceived  himself 
to  be  so  authorized,  he  greatly  misunder- 
stood the  instructions  he  had  received.  For 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  must 
be  fully  aware  that  the  British  Government 
could  not  allow  such  an  affront  to  the 
national  honor  to  pass  without  full  repa- 
ration, and  her  Majesty's  Government  are 
unwilling  to  believe  that  it  could  be  the 
deliberate  intention  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  unnecessarily  to  force 
into  discussion  between  the  two  Govern- 
ments a  question  of  so  grave  a  character,  and 
with  regard  to  which  the  whole  British 
nation  would  be  sure  to  entertain  such  una- 
nimity of  feeling.  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment, therefore,  trust  that  when  this  matter 
shall  have  been  brought  under  the  consider- 
ation of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  that  Government  will  of  its  own  ac- 
cord offer  to  the  British  Government  such 
redress  as  alone  would  satisfy  the  British 
nation,  namely,  the  liberation  of  the  four 
gentlemen  and  their  delivery  to  your  Lord- 
ship, in  order  that  they  may  again  be  placed 
under  British  protection,  and  a  suitable 
apology  for  the  aggression  which  has  been 
committed.  Should  these  terms  not  be  offered  by 
Mr.  Seward,  you  will  propose  them  to  him.  t 

In  the  private  note  accompanying  this  for- 
mal dispatch  further  instruction  was  given, 
that  if  the  demand  were  not  substantially 
complied  with  in  seven  days,  Lord  Lyons 
should  break  off  diplomatic  relations  and  re- 
turn with  his  whole  legation  to  London.  Yet 
at  the  last  moment  Lord  Russell  himself  seems 
to  have  become  impressed  with  the  brow-beat- 
ing precipitancy  of  the  whole  proceeding,  for  he 
added  another  private  note,  better  calculated 
than  even  the  Queen's  modification  to  soften 
the  disagreeable  announcement  to  the  Ameri- 
can Government.  He  wrote  to  Lord  Lyons : 

My  wish  would  be,  that  at  your  first  interview  with 
Mr.  Seward  you  should  not  take  my  dispatch  with  you, 
but  should  prepare  him  for  it  and  ask  him  to  settle  it 
with  the  President  and  the  Cabinet  what  course  they 
will  propose.  The  next  time  you  should  bring  my  dis- 
patch and  read  it  to  him  fully.  If  he  asks  what  will  be 
the  consequence  of  his  refusing  compliance,  I  think 
you  should  say  that  you  wish  to  leave  him  and  the 
President  quite  free  to  take  their  own  course,  and  that 
you  desire  to  abstain  from  anything  like  menace.} 

*  Martin,  "  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,"  Vol.  V.,  p. 
422. 

tEarl  Russell  to  Lord  Lyons,  Nov.  30,  1861.  Brit- 
ish "Blue  Book." 

t  Inclosure  in  No.  49.    British  "  Blue  Book." 


./    HISTORY. 


This  last  diplomatic  touch  reveals  that  the 
Ministry,  like  the  Queen,  shrank  from  war,  but 
that  it  desired  to  reap  all  the  advantages  of  a 
public  menace,  even  while  privately  disclaim- 
ing one. 

The  British  demand  reached  Washington 
on  the  i  gth  of  December.  It  happened,  for- 
tunately, that  Lord  Lyons  and  Mr.  Seward 
were  on  excellent  terms  of  personal  friendship, 
and  the  British  envoy  was  therefore  able  to 
present  the  affair  with  all  the  delicacy  which 
had  been  suggested  by  Lord  Russell.  The 
(Government  at  Washington  had  carefully  ab- 
stained from  any  action  other  than  that  already 
mentioned.  Lord  Lyons  wrote : 

Mr.  Seward  received  my  communication  seriously 
and  with  dignity,  but  without  any  manifestation  of  dis- 
satisfaction. Some  further  conversation  ensued  in 
consequence  of  questions  put  by  him  with  a  view  to 
ascertain  the  exact  character  of  the  dispatch.  At  the 
conclusion  he  asked  me  to  give  him  to-morrow  to 
consider  the  question,  and  to  communicate  with  the 
President." 

Another  dispatch  from  Lord  Lyons  shows 
that  Mr.  Seward  asked  a  further  delay,  and 
that  Lord  Russell's  communication  was  not 
formally  read  to  him  till  Monday,  the  23d  of 
December,  t 

If  we  may  credit  the  statement  of  Secretary 
Welles,  Mr.  Seward  had  not  expected  so  seri- 
ous a.  view  of  the  affair  by  the  British  Gov- 
ernment ;  and  his  own  language  implies  as 
much  when,  in  a  private  letter  some  months 
afterward,  he  mentions  Lord  Lyons's  com- 
munication as  "  our  first  knowledge  that  the 
British  Government  proposed  to  make  it  a 
question  of  offense  or  insult,  and  so  of  war," 
adding:  "  If  I  had  been  as  tame  as  you  think 
would  have  been  wise  in  my  treatment  of  af- 
fairs with  that  country,  I  should  have  no  stand- 
ing in  my  own."  J  But  while  Mr.  Seward,  like 
most  other  Americans,  was  doubtless  elated 
by  the  first  news  that  the  rebel  envoys  were 
captured,  he  readily  discerned  that  the  inci- 
dent was  one  of  great  diplomatic  gravity  and 
likely  to  be  fruitful  of  prolonged  diplomatic 
contention.  Evidently  in  this  spirit,  and  for  the 
purpose  of  reserving  to  the  United  States 
every  advantage  in  the  serious  discussion 
which  was  unavoidable,  he  prudently  wrote 
in  a  confidential  dispatch  to  Mr.  Adams,  on 
November  27 : 

I  forbear  from  speaking  of  the  capture  of  Messrs. 
Mason  and  Slidell.  The  act  was  done  by  Commodore 
Wilkes  without  instructions,  and  even  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  Government.  Lord  Lyons  lias  judi- 
ciously refrained  from  all  communication  with  me  on 

*  Lyons  to  Russell,  Dec.  19,  1861. 

t  Lyons  to  Russell,  Dec.  23,  1861.  British  "Blue 
Book." 

{  Seward  to  Weed,  March  2,  1862.  "  The  Galaxy," 
August,  1870. 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 59. 


I  he  subject,  and  I  thought  it  equally  wise  to  reserve 
mirM-lves  until  we  hear  what  the  British  Government 
may  have  to  say  on  the  subject. 

Of  the  confidential  first  interviews  between 
the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  President  on 
this  important  topic  there  is  no  record.  From 
what  remains  we  may  easily  infer  that  the 
President  clearly  saw  the  inevitable  necessities 
surrounding  the  question,  and  was  anxiously 
searching  some  method  of  preserving  to  the 
United  States  whatever  of  indirect  advani 
might  accrue  from  compliance  with  the  Brit- 
ish demand, and  of  making  that  compliance  as 
palatable  as  might  be  to  American  public  opin- 
ion. In  this  spirit  we  may  presume  he  wrote  the 
following  experimental  draft  of  a  dispatch, pre- 
served in  his  autograph  manuscript.  Its  chief 
proposal  is  to  arbitrate  the  difficulty,  or  in  the 
alternative  seriously  to  examine  the  question 
in  all  its  aspects,  andout  of  them  to  formulate 
a  binding  rule  for  both  nations  to  govern  sim- 
ilar cases.  It  was  an  honest  and  practical  sug- 
gestion to  turn  an  accidental  quarrel  into  a. 
great  and  durable  transaction  for  the  better- 
ment of  international  law. 

The  dispatch  of  her  Majesty's  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs, dated  the  3Oth  of  November,  1 86 1,  and  of  which 
your  Lordship  kindly  furnished  me  a  copy,  has  been 
carefully  considered  by  the  President ;  and  he  directs 
me  to  say  that  if  there  existed  no  fact  or  facts  perti- 
nent to  the  case,  beyond  those  staled  in  said  dispatch, 
the  reparation  sought  by  Great  Britain  from  the  United 
States  would  be  justly  due,  and  should  be  promptly 
made.  The  President  is  unwilling  to  believe  that  her 
Majesty's  Government  will  press  for  a  categorical  an- 
swer upon  what  appears  to  him  to  be  only  a  partial  rec- 
ord, in  the  making  up  of  which  he  has  been  allowed 
no  part.  He  is  reluctant  to  volunteer  his  view  of  the 
case,  with  no  assurance  that  her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment will  consent  to  hear  him;  yet  this  much  he  di- 
rects me  to  say,  that  this  Government  has  intended  no 
affront  to  the  British  flag,  or  to  the  British  nation ;  nor 
has  it  intended  to  force  into  discussion  an  embarrass- 
ing question,  all  which  is  evident  by  the  fact  hereby 
asserted,  that  the  act  complained  of  was  done  by  the 
officer  without  orders  from,  or  expectation  of,  the  Gov- 
ernment. But  being  done,  it  was  no  longer  left  to  us 
to  consider  whether  we  might  not,  to  avoid  a  contro- 
versy, waive  an  unimportant  though  a  strict  right ;  be- 
cause we  too,  as  well  as  Great  Britain,  have  a  people 
justly  jealous  of  their  rights,  and  in  whose  presence 
our  Government  could  undo  the  act  complained  of 
only  upon  a  fair  showing  that  it  was  wrong,  oral  least 
very  questionable.  The  United  States  Government 
and  people  are  still  willing  to  make  reparation  upon 
such  showing. 

Accordingly  I  am  instructed  by  the  President  to  in- 
quire whether  her  Majesty's  Government  will  hear  the 
United  States  upon  the  matter  in  question.  The  Presi- 
dent desires,  among  other  things,  to  bring  into  view, 
and  have  considered,  the  existing  rebellion  in  the  United 
States ;  the  position  Great  Britain  has  assumed,  includ- 
ing her  Majesty's  proclamation  in  relation  thereto; 
the  relation  the  persons  whose  seizure  is  the  subject 
of  complaint  bore  to  the  United  States,  and  the  object 
of  their  voyage  at  the  time  they  were  seized ;  the 
knowledge  which  the  master  of  the  Trent  had  of  their 
relation  to  the  United  States,  and  of  the  object  of  their 
voyage,  at  the  time  he  received  them  on  board  for  the 


414 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 


voyage  ;  the  place  of  the  seizure ;  and  the  prece- 
dents and  respective  positions  assumed,  in  analogous 
cases,  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 

Upon  a  submission,  containing  the  foregoing  facts, 
with  those  set  forth  in  the  before-mentioned  dispatch 
to  your  Lordship,  together  with  all  other  facts  which 
either  party  may  deem  material,  I  am  instructed  to 
say,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  will,  if 
agreed  to  by  her  Majesty's  Government,  go  to  such 
friendly  arbitration  as  is  usual  among  nations,  and  will 
abide  the  award. 

Or,  in  the  alternative,  her  Majesty's  Government 
may,  upon  the  same  record,  determine  whether  any, 
and  if  any,  what,  reparation  is  due  from  the  United 
States  ;  provided  no  such  reparation  shall  be  different 
in  character  from,  nor  transcend,  that  proposed  by  your 
Lordship,  as  instructed  in  and  by  the  dispatch  aforesaid ; 
and  provided  further,  that  the  determination  thus  made 
shall  be  the  law  for  all  future  analagous  cases  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.* 

We  may  suppose  that  upon  consultation 
with  Mr.  Seward,  Mr.  Lincoln  decided  that, 
desirable  as  this  proceeding  might  be,  it  was 
precluded  by  the  impatient,  inflexible  terms 
of  the  British  demand.  Only  three  days  of 
the  seven-days'  grace  remained ;  if  they  should 
not  by  the  coming  Thursday  agree  to  deliver 
Mason  and  Slidell,the  British  legation  would 
close  its  doors,  and  the  consternation  of  a 
double  war  would  fill  the  air.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  that  even  while  writing  this  draft, 
Lincoln  had  intimated  to  his  Secretary  of 
State  the  need  of  finding  good  diplomatic 
reasons  for  surrendering  the  prisoners. 

A  note  of  Mr.  Seward  shows  us  that  the 
Cabinet  meeting  to  consider  finally  the  Trent 
question  was  appointed  for  Tuesday  morning, 
December  24 ;  but  the  Secretary  says  that, 
availing  himself  of  the  President's  permission, 
he  had  postponed  it  to  Wednesday  morning 
at  10  A.  M.,  adding,  "I  shall  then  be  ready." 
It  is  probably  true,  as  he  afterward  wrote,  t 
that  the  whole  framing  of  his  dispatch  was 
left  to  his  own  ingenuity  and  judgment,  and 
that  neither  the  President  nor  any  member 
of  the  Cabinet  had  arrived  at  any  final  deter- 
mination. The  private  diary  of  Attorney- 
General  Bates  supplies  us  some  additional 
details : 

Cabinet  council  at  10  A.  M.,  December  25,  to  con- 
sider the  relations  with  England  on  Lord  Lyons's  de- 
mand of  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell ;  a  long 
and  interesting  session,  lasting  till  2  P.  M.  The  in- 
structions of  the  British  Minister  to  Lord  Lyons  were 
read.  .  .  .  There  was  read  a  draft  of  answer  by  the 
Secretary  of  State. 

The  President's  experimental  draft  quoted 
above  was  not  read;  there  is  no  mention  of 

*  Lincoln,  unpublished  MS. 

t  The  consideration  of  the  Trent  case  was  crowded 
out  by  pressing  domestic  affairs  until  Christmas  Day. 
It  was  considered  on  my  presentation  of  it  on  the  25th 
and  26th  of  December.  The  Government,  when  it  took 
the  subject  up,  had  no  idea  of  the  grounds  upon  which 
it  would  explain  its  action,  nor  did  it  believe  it  would 


either  the  reading  or  the  points  it  raised.  The 
whole  discussion  appears  to  have  been  con- 
fined to  Seward's  paper.  There  was  some  des- 
ultory talk,  a  general  comparing  of  rumors 
and  outside  information,  a  reading  of  the  few 
letters  which  had  been  received  from  Europe. 
Mr.  Sumner,  chairman  of  the  Senate  Com- 
mittee on  Foreign  Relations,  was  invited  in, 
and  read  letters  he  had  received  from  John 
Bright  and  Richard  Cobden,  liberal  members 
of  the  British  Parliament  and  devoted  friends 
of  the  Union.  During  the  session  also  there 
was  handed  in  and  read  the  dispatch  just  re- 
ceived from  his  Government  by  M.  Mercier, 
the  French  minister,  and  which,  in  substance, 
took  the  English  view  of  the  matter.  The 
diary  continues: 

Mr.  Seward's  draft  of  letter  to  Lord  Lyons  was 
submitted  by  him,  and  examined  and  criticised  by  us 
with  apparently  perfect  candor  and  frankness.  All  of 
us  were  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of  the  subject, 
and  believed  that  upon  our  decision  depended  the 
dearest  interest,  probably  the  existence,  of  the  nation. 
I,  waiving  the  question  of  legal  right, —  upon  which 
all  Kurope  is  against  us,  and  also  many  of  our  own 
best  jurists, —  urged  the  necessity  of  the  case;  that  to  go 
to  war  with  England  now  is  to  abandon  all  hope  of 
suppressing  therebellion,  as  wehave  not  the  possession 
of  the  land,  nor  any  support  of  the  people  of  the  South. 
The  maritime  superiority  of  Britain  would  sweep  us 
from  all  the  Southern  waters.  Our  trade  would  be  ut- 
terly ruined,  and  our  treasury  bankrupt;  in  short,  that 
we  must  not  have  war  with  England. 

There  was  great  reluctance  on  the  part  of  some  of 
tlir  members  of  the  Cabinet  —  and  even  the  1'n-i- 
dent  himself — to  acknowledge  these  obvious  trulhs  ; 
but  all  yielded  to,  and  unanimously  concurred  in,  Mr. 
Sewmd's  letter  to  Lord  Lyons,  after  some  verbal 
and  formal  amendments.  The  main  fear,  I  believe, 
was  the  displeasure  of  our  own  people  —  lest  they 
should  accuse  us  of  timidly  truckling  to  the  power 
of  England.  \ 

The  published  extracts  from  the  diary  of 
Secretary  Chase  give  somewhat  fully  his  opin- 
ion on  the  occasion : 

Mr.  Chase  thought  it  certainly  was  not  too  much  to 
expect  of  a  friendly  nation,  and  especially  of  a  nation  of 
the  same  blood,  religion,  and  characteristic  civilization 
as  our  own,  that  in  consideration  of  the  great  rights 
she  would  overlook  the  little  wrong;  nor  could  he 
then  persuade  himself  that,  were  all  the  circumstances 
known  to  the  English  Government  as  to  ours,  the  sur- 
render of  the  rebel  commissioners  would  be  insisted 
upon.  The  Secretary  asserted  that  the  technical  right 
was  undoubtedly  with  England.  .  .  .  Were  the  cir- 
cumstances reversed,  our  Government  would,  Mr. 
Chase  thought,  accept  the  explanation,  and  let  England 
keep  her  rebels  ;  and  he  could  not  divest  himself  of  the 
belief  that,  were  the  case  fairly  understood,  the  Brit- 
ish Government  would  do  likewise.  "But,"  contin- 
ued Secretary  Chase,  "  we  cannot  afford  delays.  While 


concede  the  case.  Vet  it  was  heartily  unanimous  in 
the  actual  result  after  two  days'  examination,  and  in 
favor  of  the  release.  Remember  that  in  a  council  like 
ours  there  are  some  strong  wills  to  be  reconciled. 
L  Seward  to  Weed,  Jan.  22,  1862.  Weed,  "Autobiog- 
raphy," Vol.  II.,  p.  409.] 

t  Bates,  Diary.    Unpublished  MS. 


A   HISTORY. 


the  matter  hangs  in  uncertainty  the  public  mind  will 
remain  disquieted,  our  commerce  will  suffer  serious 
harm,  our  action  against  the  rebels  must  be  greatly 
hindered,  and  the-  resloration  of  our  prosperity  — 
largely  identified  with  that  of  all  nations — must  be 
delayed.  [Setter,  then,  to  make  now  the  sacrifice  of  feel- 
ing involved  in  the  surrender  uf  these  rebels,  than 
even  avoid  it  by  the  delays  which  explanations  must 
occasion.  I  give  my  adhesion,  therefore,  to  ihe  con- 
clusion at  which  the  Secretary  of  State  has  arrived. 
It  is  gall  and  wormwood  to  me.  Rather  than  consent 
to  the  liberation  of  the^e  men,  I  would  sacrifice  every- 
thing I  possess.  Hut  I  am  consoled  by  the  reflection 
that  while  nothing  but  severest  retribution  is  due  to 
them,  the  surrender  under  existing  circumstances  is 
but  simply  doing  right — simply  proving  faithful  to 
our  own  ideas  and  traditions  under  strong  temptations 
to  violate  them  ;  simply  giving  to  England  and  the 
world  the  most  signal  proof  that  the  American  nation 
will  not  under  any  circumstances,  for  the  sake  of  in- 
flicting just  punishment  on  rebels,  commit  even  a  tech- 
nical wrong  against  neutrals."* 

In  these  two  recorded  opinions  are  reflected 
the  substantial  tone  and  temper  of  the  Cabinet 
discussion,  which  ended,  as  both  Mr.  Batesand 
Mr.  Seward  have  stated,  in  a  unanimous  con- 
currence in  the  letter  of  reply  as  drawn  up  by 
the  Secretary  of  State.  That  long  and  re- 
markably able  document  must  be  read  in  full, 
both  to  understand  the  wide  range  of  the  sub- 
ject which  he  treated  and  the  clearness  and 
force  of  his  language  and  argument.  It  con- 
stitutes one  of  his  chief  literary  triumphs. 
There  is  room  here  only  to  indicate  the  con- 
clusions arrived  at  in  his  examination.  First, 
he  held  that  the  four  persons  seized  and  their 
dispatches  were  contraband  of  war;  secondly, 
that  Captain  Wilkes  had  a  right  by  the  law 
of  nations  to  detain  and  search  the  Trent ; 
thirdly,  that  he  exercised  the  right  in  a  lawful 
and  proper  manner;  fourthly,  that  he  had  a 
right  to  capture  the  contraband  found.  The 
real  issue  of  the  case  centered  in  the  fifth 
question :  "  Did  Captain  Wilkes  exercise  the 
right  of  capturing  the  contraband  in  conform- 
ity with  the  law  of  nations  ?  "  Reciting 
the  deficiency  of  recognized  rules  on  this 
point,  Mr.  Seward  held  that  only  by  taking 
the  vessel  before  a  prize  court  could  the  ex- 
istence of  contraband  be  lawfully  established; 
and  that  Captain  Wilkes  having  released  the 
vessel  from  capture,  the  necessary  judicial 
examination  was  prevented,  and  the  capture 
left  unfinished  or  abandoned. 

Mr.  Seward's  dispatch  continued : 

I  trust  that  I  have  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
British  Government,  by  a  very  simple  and  natural 
statement  of  the  facts  and  analysis  of  the  law  appli- 
cable to  them,  that  this  Government  has  neither  medi- 
tated, nor  practiced,  nor  approved  any  deliberate  wrong 

*  Warden,  "  Life  of  Chase,"  pp.  393, 394. 

t  Seward  to  Lyons,  Dec.  26,  1861. 

t  In  a  dispatch  to  Lord  Lyons  of  Jan.  23,  1862,  in 


which  he  discusses  the  questions  at  some  length,  Lord     against  the  law  of  nations. 


in  the  transaction  to  which  they  have  called  its  atten- 
tion, and,  on  the  contrary,  that  what  has  happened 
has  been  simply  an  imuhertency,  consisting  in  a  de- 
parture by  the  naval  officer,  free  from  any  wrongful 
motive,  from  a  rule  uncertainly  established,  ami  prob- 
ably by  the  several  parties  concerned  either  imperfectly 
understood  or  entirely  unknown.  Kor  this  error  the 
British  Government  has  a  right  to  expect  the  same 
reparation  that  we.  as  an  independent  State,  should 
expect  from  Great  Britain  or  from  any  other  friendly  na- 
tion in  a  similar  case.  ...  If  I  decide  this  case  in 
favor  of  my  own  Government,  I  must  disavow  its  most 
cherished  principles,  and  reverse  and  forever  abandon 
its  essential  policy.  The  country  cannot  afford  the 
sacrifice.  If  I  maintain  those  principles  and  adhere  to 
that  policy,  I  must  surrender  the  case  itself.  .  .  . 
The  four  persons  in  question  are  now  held  in  military 
custody  at  Fort  Warren,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 
They  will  be  cheerfully  liberated. t 

With  the  formal  delivery  of  Mason  and 
Slidell  and  their  secretaries  to  the  custody 
of  the  British  minister,  the  diplomatic  incident 
was  completed  on  the  part  of  the  United  States. 
Lord  Russell,  on  his  part,  while  announcing 
that  her  Majesty's  Government  differed  from 
Mr.  Seward  in  some  of  the  conclusions  \  at 
which  he  had  arrived,  nevertheless  acknowl- 
edged that  the  action  of  the  American  Govern- 
ment constituted  "  the  reparation  which  her 
Majesty  and  the  British  nation  had  a  right 
to  expect."  §  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
not  merely  the  rulers  and  Cabinets  of  both 
nations,  but  also  those  of  all  the  great  Euro- 
pean powers,  were  relieved  from  an  oppress- 
ive apprehension  by  this  termination  of  the 
affair. 

If  from  one  point  of  view  the  United  States 
suffered  a  certain  diplomatic  defeat  and  hu- 
miliation, it  became,  in  another  light,  a  real  in- 
ternational victory.  The  turn  of  affairs  placed 
not  only  England,  but  France  and  other  na- 
tions as  well,  distinctly  on  their  good  behavior. 
In  the  face  of  this  American  example  of  mod- 
eration they  could  no  longer  so  openly  brave 
the  liberal  sentiment  of  their  own  people  by 
the  countenance  they  had  hitherto  given  the 
rebellion.  So  far  from  improving  or  enhancing 
the  hostile  mission  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  the 
adventure  they  had  undergone  served  to  di- 
minish their  importance  and  circumscribe  their 
influence.  The  very  act  of  their  liberation 
compelled  the  British  authorities  sharply  to 
define  the  hollow  pretense  under  which  they 
were  sent.  In  his  instructions  to  the  British 
Government  vessel  which  received  them  at 
Provincetown  and  conveyed  them  to  England, 
Lord  Lyons  wrote : 

It  is  hardly  necessary  that  I  should  remind  you  that 
these  gentlemen  have  no  official  character.    It  will  be 

seizure,  were  not  contraband  ;  secondly,  that  the  bring- 
ing of  the  Trent  before  a  prize  court,  though  it  would 
alter  the  character  would  not  diminish  the  offense 


Russell  held :   first,  that   Mason  and  Slide!!  and  their 
supposed  dispatches,  under  the  circumstances  of  their 


$  Russell  to  Lyons,  Jan.  10, 1862. 


416 


BIRD   MUSIC:    SPARROWS. 


right  for  you  to  receive  them  with  all  courtesy  and  re- 
spect as  private  gentlemen  of  distinction  ;  but  it  would 
be  very  improper  to  pay  to  them  any  of  those  honors 
which  are  paid  to  official  persons.* 

The  same  result  in  a  larger  degree  awaited 
their  advent  in  Europe.  Under  the  intense 
publicity  of  which  they  had  been  the  subject, 
officials  of  all  degrees  were  in  a  measure  com- 


pelled to  avoid  them  as  political  "  suspects." 
Mason  was  received  in  England  with  cold  and 
studied  neglect ;  while  Slidell  in  France,  though 
privately  encouraged  by  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon III. .finally  found  himself  a  victim  instead 
of  a  beneficiary  of  his  selfishness. 

'Lyons    to    Commander    Hewett,  Dec.    lo,    1861 
British  "Blue  Book." 


BIRD    MUSIC:    SPARROWS. 


THE     SONG     SPARROW. 

THE  sparrow  family  is  a  large  one.  There 
may  be  twenty  species,  half  of  which,  at 
least,  spend  their  summer  in  New  England. 
The  song  sparrows  are  the  most  numerous, 
sing  the  most,  and  exhibit  the  greatest  variety 
of  melody.  Standing  near  a  small  pond  re- 
cently, I  heard  a  song  sparrow  sing  fourdistinct 
songs  within  twenty  minutes,  repeating  each 
several  times. 


I  have  more  than  twenty  songs  of  this  spar- 
row, and  have  heard  him  in  many  other  forms. 
He  generally  gives  a  fine  trill  at  the  beginning 
or  end  of  his  song.  Sometimes,  however,  it  is 
introduced  in  the  middle,  and  occasionally  is 
omitted,  especially  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
season.  There  is  a  marked  difference  in  the 
quality  and  volume  of  the  voices  of  different  in- 
dividuals. During  the  season  of  1885  I  listened 
almost  daily  to  the  strongest  and  best  sparrow 
voice  that  I  have  ever  heard.  There  was  a 
fullness  and  richness,  particularly  in  the  trills, 
that  reminded  one  of  the  bewitching  tones  of 
the  wood-thrush.  These  are  some  of  his  songs : 


*. — la — S1 


That  the  singers  of  any  species  sing  ex- 
actly alike,  with  the  same  voice  and  style,  and 
in  the  same  key  always,  is  a  great  mistake. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  sing- 
ing of  old  and  young  birds.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  oriole,  tli  r,  and  the  bobo- 

link. The  voice  of  a  bird  four  years  old  is 
very  much  fuller  and  better  than  that  of  a 
yearling;  just  us  his  plumage  is  deeper  and 
richer  in  color. 

The  song  sparrow  comes  soon  after  the 
bluebird  and  the  robin,  and  sings  from  the 
time  of  his  coming  till  the  close  of  summer. 
Unlike  his  cousin,  the  field  sparrow,  he  seems 
to  seek  the  companionship  of  man.  Sitting 
near  an  open  window  one  day  last  summer, 
as  was  my  habit,  my  attention  was  attracted 
by  the  singing  of  a  song  sparrow  perched  upon 
a  twig  not  far  away.  Fancying  that  he  ad- 
dressed himself  to  me  individually,  I  responded 
with  an  occasional  whistle. 

He  listened  with  evident  interest,  his  head 
on  one  side  and  his  eye  rolled  up.  For  many 
days  in  succession  he  came  at  about  the  same 
hour  in  the  afternoon,  and  perching  in  the  same 
place  sung  his  cheery  and  varied  songs,  listen- 
ing in  turn  to  my  whistles. 

THE    FIELD   SPARROW. 

THIS  sparrow,  less  common  than  the  song 
or  the  chipping  sparrow,  resembles  these  in 
appearance  and  habits.  He  is  not  so  social, 
preferring  the  fields  and  pastures  and  bushy 
lots.  When  Wilson  wrote,  "  None  of  our  birds 
have  been  more  imperfectly  described  than 
the  family  of  the  finch  tribe  usually  called 
sparrows,"  he  wrote  well;  but  when  he  wrote 
of  this  one,  "  It  has  no  song,"  he  brought 
himself  under  his  own  criticism.  And  when 
Dr.  Coues,  on  the  contrary,  describes  him  as 
"  very  melodious,  with  an  extensive  and  varied 


score  to  sing  from, "and  further,  as  possessing 
"  unusual  compass  of  vocal  powers,"  he  much 
better  describes  the  song  sparrow.  The  field 
sparrow  is  surely  a  fine  singer,  anil  he  may 
have  several  songs.  I  have  heard  him  in  one 
only  ;  but  that  one,  though  short,  it  would  be 
hard  to  equal.  As  a  scientific  composition  it 
stands  nearly  if  not  quite  alone.  Dr.  Coues 
quotes  Mr.  Minot  on  the  singing  of  this  bird. 
"They  open  with  a  few  exquisitely  modulated 
whistles,  each  higher  and  a  little  louder  than 
the  preceding,  and  close  with  a  sweet  trill." 
The  song  does  begin  with  two  or  three  well- 
separated  tones  —  or  "whistles,"  if  you  please; 
but  I  discover  no  modulation,  nor  is  each 
higher  than  the  preceding,  the  opening  tones 
being  on  the  same  pitch.  However,  the  song, 
both  in  power  and  rapidity,  increases  from  be- 
ginning to  end.  It  by  no  means  requires  "  un- 
usual compass";  simply  the  interval  of  a  minor 
third. 

When  we  consider  the  genius  displayed  in 
combining  so  beautifully  the  essence  of  the 
three  grand  principles  of  sound,  length,  pitch, 
and  power,  its  brevity  and  limited  compass 
make  it  all  the  more  wonderful.  Scarcely  any- 
thing in  rhythmics  and  dynamics  is  more  diffi- 
cult than  to  give  a  perfect  accelerando  and 
crescendo ;  and  the  use  of  the  chromatic  scale 
by  which  the  field  sparrow  rises  in  his  lyric 
flight  involves  the  very  pith  of  melodic  ability. 
This  little  musician  has  explored  the  whole 
realm  of  sound,  and  condensed  its  beauties  in 
perfection  into  one  short  song. 


Accelerando  et  Crescendo. 


Simeon  Pease  Cheney. 


MATTHEW    ARNOLD. 

"  Such,  poets,  is  your  bride,  the  Muse  !  .  .  . 

a  hidden  ground 

Of  thought  and  of  austerity  within." 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD,  Austerity  of  Poetry. 

AUSTERE,  sedate,  the  chisel  in  his  hand, 
He  carved  his  statue  from  a  flawless  stone, 

That  faultless  verse,  whose  earnest  undertone 

Echoes  the  music  of  his  Grecian  land. 
Like  Sophocles  on  that  ^Egean  strand 

He  walked  by  night,  and  watched  life's  sea  alone, 

Amid  a  temperate,  not  the  tropic  zone, 

Girt  round  by  cool  waves  and  a  crystal  sand. 
And  yet  the  world's  heart  in  his  pulses  stirred ; 

He  looked  abroad  across  life's  wind-swept  plain, 

And  many  a  wandering  mariner  has  heard 
His  warning  hail,  and  as  the  blasts  increase, 

Has  listened,  till  he  passed  the  reefs  again, 

And  floated  safely  in  his  port  of  Peace. 

William    P.  Andrews. 


WAITING    FOR   THE    BUGLE. 

WE  wait  for  the  bugle  ;  the  night-dews  are  cold, 
The  limbs  of  the  soldiers  feel  jaded  and  old, 
The  field  of  our  bivouac  is  windy  and  bare, 
There  is  lead  in  our  joints,  there  is  frost  in  our  hair, 
The  future  is  veiled  and  its  fortunes  unknown 
As  we  lie  with  hushed  breath  till  the  bugle  is  blown. 

At  the  sound  of  that  bugle  each  comrade  shall  spring 
Like  an  arrow  released  from  the  strain  of  the  string : 
The  courage,  the  impulse  of  youth  shall  come  back 
To  banish  the  chill  of  the  drear  bivouac, 
And  sorrows  and  losses  and  cares  fade  away 
When  that  life-giving  signal  proclaims  the  new  day. 

Though  the  bivouac  of  age  may  put  ice  in  our  veins, 
And  no  fiber  of  steel  in  our  sinew  remains ; 
Though  the  comrades  of  yesterday's  march  are  not  here, 
And  the  sunlight  seems  pale  and  the  branches  are  sear, — 
Though  the  sound  of  our  cheering  dies  down  to  a  moan, 
We  shall  find  our  lost  youth  when  the  bugle  is  blown. 


Thomas  Wcntworth  Higginson. 


THE    HIGH    TIDE    AT    GETTYSBURG. 

BY   AN    EX-CONFEDERATE    SOLDIER. 

A  CLOUD  possessed  the  hollow  field, 
The  gathering  battle's  smoky  shield. 
Athwart  the  gloom  the  lightning  flashed, 
And  through  the  cloud  some  horsemtn  dashed, 
And  from  the  heights  the  thunder  pealed. 

Then  at  the  brief  command  of  Lee 
Moved  out  that  matchless  infantry, 
With  Pickett  leading  grandly  down, 
To  rush  against  the  roaring  crown 
Of  those  dread  heights  of  destiny. 

Far  heard  above  the  angry  guns 

A  cry  across  the  tumult  runs, — 

The  voice  that  rang  through  Shiloh's  woods 

And  Chickamauga's  solitudes, 

The  fierce  South  cheering  on  her  sons ! 

Ah,  how  the  withering  tempest  blew 
Against  the  front  of  Pettigrew ! 
A  Kamsin  wind  that  scorched  and  singed 
Like  that  infernal  flame  that  fringed 
The  British  squares  at  Waterloo ! 

A  thousand  fell  where  Kemper  led ; 
A  thousand  died  where  Garnett  bled  : 
In  blinding  flame  and  strangling  smoke 
The  remnant  through  the  batteries  broke 
And  crossed  the  works  with  Armistead. 


THE  HIGH  TIDE  AT  GETTYSBURG.  419 

"  Once  more  in  Glory's  van  with  me !  " 
Virginia  cried  to  Tennessee: 
"  We  two  together,  come  what  may, 
Shall  stand  upon  these  works  to-day!" 
(The  reddest  day  in  history.) 

Brave  Tennessee !    In  reckless  way 

Virginia  heard  her  comrade  say  : 
"  Close  round  this  rent  and  riddled  rag! " 
What  time  she  set  her  battle-flag 
Amid  the  guns  of  Doubleday. 

But  who  shall  break  the  guards  that  wait 
Before  the  awful  face  of  Fate  ? 
The  tattered  standards  of  the  South 
Were  shriveled  at  the  cannon's  mouth, 
And  all  her  hopes  were  desolate. 

In  vain  the  Tennesseean  set 
His  breast  against  the  bayonet ! 
In  vain  Virginia  charged  and  raged, 
A  tigress  in  her  wrath  uncaged, 
Till  all  the  hill  was  red  and  wet ! 

Above  the  bayonets,  mixed  and  crossed, 
Men  saw  a  gray,  gigantic  ghost 
Receding  through  the  battle-cloud, 
And  heard  across  the  tempest  loud 
The  death-cry  of  a  nation  lost ! 

The  brave  went  down  !    Without  disgrace 
They  leaped  to  Ruin's  red  embrace. 
They  only  heard  Fame's  thunders  wake, 
And  saw  the  dazzling  sun-burst  break 
In  smiles  on  Glory's  bloody  face! 

They  fell,  who  lifted  up  a  hand 
And  bade  the  sun  in  heaven  to  stand ! 
They  smote  and  fell,  who  set  the  bars 
Against  the  progress  of  the  stars, 
And  stayed  the  march  of  Motherland  ! 

They  stood,  who  saw  the  future  come 
On  through  the  fight's  delirium ! 
They  smote  and  stood,  who  held  the  hope 
Of  nations  on  that  slippery  slope 
Amid  the  cheers  of  Christendom  ! 

God  lives !    He  forged  the  iron  will 
That  clutched  and  held  that  trembling  hill. 
God  lives  and  reigns !    He  built  and  lent 
The  heights  for  Freedom's  battlement 
Where  floats  her  flag  in  triumph  still ! 

Fold  up  the  banners !    Smelt  the  guns ! 
Love  rules.    Her  gentler  purpose  runs. 
A  mighty  mother  turns  in  tears 
The  pages  of  her  battle  years, 
Lamenting  all  her  fallen  sons ! 

Will  H.   Thompson. 


THE  CAREER  OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  RAM  "ALBEMARLE." 

I.     HER     CONSTRUCTION     AND     SERVICE. 
BY    HER    BUILDER. 


TOURING  the  spring  of  1863, 
i  •«-'  having  been  previously  en- 
gaged   in  unsuccessful   efforts 
to    construct  war  vessels,    of 
one  sort   or  another,  for   the 
Confederate    Government,   at 
different     points      in     eastern 
North   Carolina  and  Virginia, 
I  undertook  a  contract  with  the 
Navy  Department  to  build  an 
iron-clad    gun-boat,    intended, 
if  ever  completed,  to  operate 
on  the  waters  of  Albemarle  and 
Pamlico  Sounds.    A  point  on 
the  Roanoke  River,  in  Halifax 
'™"™\™£',,IIT  County,  North  Carolina,  about 
thirty  miles  below  the  town  of 
Weldon,  was  fixed  upon  as  the  most  suitable 
for  the  purpose.   The  river  rises  and  falls,  as 
is  well  known,  and  it  was  necessary  to  locate 
the  yard  on  ground  sufficiently  free  from  over- 
flow to  admit  of  uninterrupted  work  for  at  least 
twelve  months.  No  vessel  was  ever  constructed 
under  more  adverse  circumstances.   The  ship- 
yard was  established  in  a  corn-field,  where 
the  ground  had  already  been  marked  out  and 
planted  for  the  coming  crop,  but  the  owner 
of  the   land  was   in    hearty  sympathy  with 
the  enterprise,  and  aided  me  then  and  after- 
wards, in  a  thousand  ways,  to  accomplish  the 
end  I  had  in  view.    It  was  next  to  impossible 
to  obtain  machinery  suitable  for  the  work  in 


hand.  Here  and  there,  scattered  about  the  sur- 
rounding country,  a  portable  saw-mill,  black- 
smith's forge,  or  other  apparatus  was  found, 
however,  and  the  citizens  of  the  neighborhoods 
on  both  sides  of  the  river  were  not  slow  to 
render  me  assistance,  but  cooperated,  cordially, 
in  the  completion  of  the  iron-clad,  and  at  the 
end  of  about  one  year  from  the  laying  of  the 
keel,  during  which  innumerable  difficulties 
were  overcome  by  constant  application,  de- 
termined effort,  and  incessant  labor,  day  and 
night,  success  crowned  the  efforts  of  those  en- 
gaged in  the  undertaking. 

Seizing  an  opportunity  offered  by  compara- 
tively high  water,  the  boat  was  launched, 
though  not  without  misgivings  as  to  the  re- 
sult, for  the  yard  being  on  a  bluff  she  had  to 
take  a  jump,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  was 
"  hogged "  in  the  attempt,  but  to  our  great 
gratification  did  not  thereby  spring  a  leak. 

The  plans  and  specifications  were  prepared 
by  John  L.  Porter,  Chief  Constructor  of  the 
Confederate  Navy,  who  availed  himself  of  the 
advantage  gained  by  his  experience  in  con- 
verting the  frigate  Merrimac  into  the  iron- 
clad Virginia  at  the  Gosport  Navy  Yard. 

The  Albemarle  was  152  feet  long  between 
perpendiculars;  her  extreme  width  was  45 
feet ;  her  depth  from  the  gun-deck  to  the 
keel  was  9  feet,  and  when  launched  she  drew 
6%  feet  of  water,  but  after  being  ironed  and 
completed  her  draught  was  about  8  feet.  The 


PLAN    OF     THE    "ALBEMARLE." 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


421 


keel  was  laid,  and  construction  was  commenced 
by  bolting  down,  across  the  center,  a  piece  of 
frame  timber,  which  was  of  yellow  pine,  eight 
by  ten  inches.  Another  frame  of  the  same  size 
was  then  dovetailed  into  this,  extending  out- 
wardly at  an  angle  of  45  degrees,  forming  the 
side,  and  at  the  outer  end  of  this  the  frame 
for  the  shield  was  also  dovetailed,  the  angle 


Oak  knees  were  bolted  in,  to  act  as  braces  and 
supports  for  the  shield. 

The  armament  consisted  of  two  rifled 
"  Brooke  "  guns  mounted  on  pivot-carriages, 
each  gun  working  through  three  port-holes, 
as  occasion  required,  there  being  one  port- 
hole at  each  end  of  the  shield  and  two  on 
each  side.  These  were  protected  by  iron 


THE  "ALBEMARLE"  GOING  DOWN  THE  ROANOKB. 


being  35  degrees,  and  then  the  top  deck  was 
added,  and  so  on  around  to  the  other  end  of 
the  bottom  beam.  Other  beams  were  then 
bolted  down  to  the  keel,  and  to  the  one  first 
fastened,  and  so  on,  working  fore  and  aft,  the 
main-deck  beams  being  interposed  from  stem 
to  stern.  The  shield  was  60  feet  in  length  and 
octagonal  in  form.  When  this  part  of  the 
work  was  completed  she  was  a  solid  boat, 
built  of  pine  frames,  and  if  calked  would  have 
floated  in  that  condition,  but  she  was  after- 
wards covered  with  4-inch  planking,  laid  on 
longitudinally,  as  ships  are  usually  planked,  and 
this  was  properly  calked  and  pitched,  cotton 
being  used  for  calking  instead  of  oakum,  the 
latter  being  very  scarce  and  the  former  almost 
the  only  article  to  be  had  in  abundance. 
Much  of  the  timber  was  hauled  long  distances. 
Three  portable  saw-mills  were  obtained,  one 
of  which  was  located  at  the  yard,  the  others 
being  moved  about  from  time  to  time  to  such 
growing  timber  as  could  be  procured. 

The  iron  plating  consisted  of  two  courses, 
7  inches  wide  and  2  inches  thick,  mostly 
rolled  at  the  Tredegar  Iron  Works,  Richmond. 
The  first  course  was  laid  lengthwise,  over  a 
wooden  backing,  16  inches  in  thickness,  a  2- 
inch  space,  filled  in  with  wood,  being  left  be- 
tween each  two  layers  to  afford  space  for  bolt- 
ing the  outer  course  through  the  whole  shield, 
and  the  outer  course  was  laid  flush,  forming  a 
smooth  surface,  similar  to  that  of  the  Virginia. 
The  inner  part  of  the  shield  was  covered  with 
a  thin  course  of  planking,  nicely  dressed, 
mainly  with  a  view  to  protection  from  splinters. 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 60. 


covers  lowered  and  raised  by  a  contrivance 
worked  on  the  gun- deck.  She  had  two  pro- 
pellers driven  by  two  engines  of  2oo-horse 
power  each,  with  2o-inch  cylinders,  steam 
being  supplied  by  two  flue  boilers,  and  the 
shafting  was  geared  together. 

The  sides  were  covered  from  the  knuckle, 
four  feet  below  the  deck,  with  iron  plates  two 
inches  thick. 

The  prow  was  built  of  oak,  running  18  feet 
back,  on  center  keelson,  and  solidly  bolted, 
and  it  was  covered  on  the  outside  with  iron 
plating,  2  inches  thick  and,  tapering  off  to  a 
4-inch  edge,  formed  the  ram. 

The  work  of  putting  on  the  armor  was 
prosecuted  for  some  time  under  the  most  dis- 
heartening circumstances,  on  account  of  the 
difficulty  of  drilling  holes  in  the  iron  intended 
for  her  armor.  But  one  small  engine  and  drill 
could  be  had,  and  it  required,  at  the  best, 
twenty  minutes  to  drill  an  inch  and  a  quarter 
hole  through  the  plates,  and  it  looked  as 
if  we  would  never  accomplish  the  task.  But 
"  necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention,"  and 
one  of  my  associates  in  the  enterprise,  Peter 
E.  Smith,  of  Scotland  Neck,  North  Carolina, 
invented  and  made  a  twist-drill  with  which  the 
work  of  drilling  a  hole  could  be  done  in  four 
minutes,  the  drill  cutting  out  the  iron  in  shav- 
ings instead  of  fine  powder. 

For  many  reasons  it  was  thought  judicious 
to  remove  the  boat  to  the  town  of  Halifax, 
about  twenty  miles  up  the  river,  and  the  work 
of  completion,  putting  in  her  machinery,  ar- 
mament, etc.,  was  done  at  that  point,  although 


422 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


CAPTAIN    J.    W.    COOKE,    C.    S.    N. 

the  actual  finishing  touches  were  not  given 
until  a  few  days  before  going  into  action  at 
Plymouth. 

Forges  were  erected  on  her  decks,  and  black- 
smiths and  carpenters  were  kept  hard  at 
work  as  she  floated  down  the  river  to  her 
destination. 

Captain  James  W.  Cooke,  of  the  Confed- 
erate Navy,  was  detailed  by  the  department 
to  watch  the  construction  of  the  vessel  and  to 
take  command  when  she  went  into  commis- 
sion. He  made  every  effort  to  hasten  the  com- 
pletion of  the  boat.  He  was  a  bold  and  gallant 
officer,  and  in  the  battles  in  which  he  subse- 
quently engaged  he  proved  himself  a  hero. 
Of  him  it  was  said  that  "  he  would  fight  a 
powder  magazine  with  a  coal  of  fire,"  and  if 
such  a  necessity  could  by  any  possibility  have 
existed  he  would,  doubtless,  have  been  equal 
to  the  occasion. 

In  the  spring  of  1864  it  had  been  decided 
at  headquarters  that  an  attempt  should  be 
made  to  recapture  the  town  of  Plymouth. 
General  Hoke  was  placed  in  command  of  the 
land  forces,  and  Captain  Cooke  received  or- 
ders to  cooperate.  Accordingly  Hoke's  divis- 
ion proceeded  to  the  vicinity  of  Plymouth 
and  surrounded  the  town  from  the  river  above 
to  the  river  below,  and  preparation  was  made 
to  storm  the  forts  and  breastworks  as  soon 
as  the  Albemarle  could  clear  the  river  front 
of  the  Federal  war  vessels  protecting  the  place 
with  their  guns. 

On  the  morning  of  April  18,  1864,  the  Al- 
bemarle left  the  town  of  Hamilton  and  pro- 
ceeded down  the  river  towards  Plymouth, 
going  stern  foremost,  with  chains  dragging 
from  the  bow,  the  rapidity  of  the  current 
making  it  impracticable  to  steer  with  her  head 


down-stream.  She  came  to  anchor  about  three 
miles  above  Plymouth,  and  a  mile  or  so  above 
the  battery  on  the  bluff  at  Warren's  Neck,  near 
Thoroughfare  Gap,  where  torpedoes,  sunken 
vessels,  piles,  and  other  obstructions  had  been 
placed.  An  exploring  expedition  was  sent  out, 
under  command  of  one  of  the  lieutenants, 
which  returned  in  about  two  hours,  with  the 
report  that  it  was  considered  impossible  to 
pass  the  obstructions.  Thereupon  the  fires 
were  banked,  and  the  officers  and  crew  not 
on  duty  retired  to  rest. 

Having  accompanied  Captain  Cooke  as  a 
volunteer  aide,  and  feeling  intensely  dissatis- 
fied with  the  apparent  intention  of  lying  at 
anchor  all  that  night,  and  believing  that  it 
was  "  then  or  never  "  with  the  ram  if  she  was 
to  accomplish  anything,  and  that  it  would 
be  foolhardy  to  attempt  the  passage  of  the 
obstructions  and  batteries  in  the  day-time, 
I  requested  permission  to  make  a  per- 
sonal investigation.  Captain  Cooke  cordially 
assenting,  and  Pilot  John  Luck  and  two  of 
the  few  experienced  seamen  on  board  volun- 
teering their  services,  we  set  forth  in  a  small 
lifeboat,  taking  with  us  a  long  pole,  and  arriv- 
ing at  the  obstructions  proceeded  to  take 
soundings.  To  our  great  joy  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  there  was  ten  feet  of  water  over 
and  above  the  obstructions.  This  was  due  to 
the  remarkable  freshet  then  prevailing;  the 
proverbial  "  oldest  inhabitant "  said,  after- 
wards, that  such  high  water  had  never  before 
been  seen  in  Roanoke  River.  Pushing  on 
down  the  stream  to  Plymouth,  and  taking 


COMMANDER    C.    W.    FLUSSER,    U.    S.    N. 


THE   CAREER   OE   THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


THE    SINKING    OF    THE    "  SOUTHPIELD." 


advantage  of  the  shadow  of  the  trees  on  the 
north  side  of  the  river,  opposite  the  town,  we 
watched  the  Federal  transports  taking  on  board 
the  women  and  children  who  were  being  sent 
away  for  safety,  on  account  of  the  approach- 
ing bombardment.  With  muffled  oars,  and 
almost  afraid  to  breathe,  we  made  our  way 
back  up  the  river,  hugging  close  to  the  north- 
ern bank,  and  reached  the  ram  about  i 
o'clock,  reporting  to  Captain  Cooke  that  it 
was  practicable  to  pass  the  obstructions  pro- 
vided the  boat  was  kept  in  the  middle  of  the 
stream.  The  indomitable  commander  in- 
stantly aroused  his  men,  gave  the  order  to 
get  up  steam,  slipped  the  cables  in  his  impa- 
tience to  be  off,  and  started  down  the  river. 
The  obstructions  were  soon  reached  and  safely 
passed,  under  a  fire  from  the  fort  at  Warren's 
Neck  which  was  not  returned.  Protected  by 
the  iron-clad  shield,  to  those  on  board  the 
noise  made  by  the  shot  and  shell  as  they 
struck  the  boat  sounded  no  louder  than  peb- 
bles thrown  against  an  empty  barrel.  At 
Boyle's  Mill,  lower  down,  there  was  another 
fort  upon  which  was  mounted  a  very  heavy 
gun.  This  was  also  safely  passed,  and  we 
then  discovered  two  steamers  coming  up 
the  river.  They  proved  to  be  the  Miami  and 
the 


*  The  Miami  carried  6  g-inch  guns,  I  loo-pounder 
Parrott  rifle,  and  I  24-pounder  S.  B.  howitzer,  and 
the  ferry-boat  Southfiela  5  g-inch,  I  loo-pounder  Par- 
rott, and  I  12-pounder  howitzer.  —  EDITOR. 

t  Of  the  officers  and  men  of  the  Sonlhfield,  seven  of 


The  two  ships  were  lashed  together  with  long 
spars,  and  with  chains  festooned  between  them. 
The  plan  of  Captain  Flusser,  who  commanded, 
was  to  run  his  vessels  so  as  to  get  the  Albe- 
marle  between  the  two,  which  would  have 
placed  the  ram  at  a  great  disadvantage,  if  not 
altogether  at  his  mercy ;  but  Pilot  John  Luck, 
acting  under  orders  from  Captain  Cooke,  ran 
the  ram  close  to  the  southern  shore;  and  then 
suddenly  turning  toward  the  middle  of  the 
stream,  and  going  with  the  current,  the  throt- 
tles, in  obedience  to  his  bell,  being  wide  open, 
he  dashed  the  prow  of  the  Albemarle  into  the 
side  of  the  Southfield,  making  an  opening  large 
enough  to  carry  her  to  the  bottom  in  much 
less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  the  story.  Part 
of  her  crew  went  down  with  her.t 

The  chain-plates  on  the  forward  deck  of  the 
Albemarle  became  entangled  in  the  frame  of 
the  sinking  vessel,  and  her  bow  was  carried 
down  to  such  a  depth  that  water  poured  into 
her  port-holes  in  great  volume,  and  she  would 
soon  have  shared  the  fate  of  the  Southfield,  had 
not  the  latter  vessel  reached  the  bottom,  and 
then,  turning  over  on  her  side,  released  the 
ram,  thus  allowing  her  to  come  up  on  an  even 
keel.  The  Miami,  right  alongside,  had  opened 
fire  with  her  heavy  guns,  and  so  close  were  the 
vessels  together  that  a  shell  with  a  ten-second 

the  former,  including  Acting  Volunteer  Lieutenant  C. 
A.  French,  her  commander,  and  forty-two  of  her  men 
were  rescued  by  the  Miami  and  the  other  Union 
vessels;  the  remainder  were  either  drowned  or  cap- 
tured.—  EDITOR. 


THE   CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


425 


fuse,  fired  by  Captain  Flusser,  after  striking  the 
All'cmarle  rebounded  and  exploded,  killing 
the  gallant  man  who  pulled  the  laniard,  tear- 
ing him  almost  to  pieces.  Notwithstanding  the 
death  of  Flusser,  an  attempt  was  made  to 
hoard  the  ram,  which  was  heroically  resisted 
by  as  many  of  the  crew  as  could  be  crowded 
on  the  top  deck,  who  were  supplied  with 
loaded  muskets  passed  up  by  their  comrades 
below.  The  Miami,  a  powerful  and  very  fast 
side-wheeler,  succeeded  in  eluding  the  Albe- 
iiMi'li-  without  receiving  a  blow  from  her  ram, 
and  retired  below  Plymouth,  into  Albemarle 
Sound.* 

Captain  Cooke  having  successfully  carried 
out  his  part  of  the  programme,  General  Hoke 
attacked  the  fortifications  the  next  morning 
and  carried  them;  not, however,  without  heavy 
loss,  Ransom's  brigade  alone  leaving  500 
dead  and  wounded  on  the  field,  in  their  most 
heroic  charge  upon  the  breastworks  protect- 
ing the  eastern  front  of  the  town.  General 
Wessells,  commanding  the  Federal  forces,  made 
a  gallant  resistance,  and  surrendered  only  when 
further  effort  would  have  been  worse  than 
useless.  During  the  attack  the  Albemarle  held 
the  river  front,  according  to  contract,  and  all 
day  long  poured  shot  and  shell  into  the  resist- 
ing forts  with  her  two  guns. 

On  May  5,  1864,  Captain  Cooke  left  the 
Roanoke  River  with  the  Albemarle  and  two 


tenders,  the  Hombshi-ll  and  Cot/on  l^lant,  and 
entered  the  Sound  with  the  intention  of  re- 
covering, if  possible,  the  control  of  the  two 
Sounds,  and  ultimately  of  Hatteras  Inlet.  He 
proceeded  about  sixteen  miles  on  an  east-north- 
easterly course,  when  the  Federal  squadron, 
consisting  of  seven  well-armed  gun-boats,  the 
Mattabesett,  Sassacus,  Wyalusing,  Whiteht-ad, 
Miami,  Commodore  Hull,  and  Ceres,  all  under 
the  command  of  Captain  Melancton  Smith, 
hove  in  sight,  and  at  2  o'clock  that  afternoon 
approached  in  double  line  of  battle,  the  Mat- 
tabesett being  in  advance.  They  proceeded  to 
surround  the  Albemarle,  and  hurled  at  her 
their  heaviest  shot,t  at  distances  averaging 
less  than  one  hundred  yards.  The  Albemarle 
responded  effectively,  but  her  boats  were  soon 
shot  away,  her  smoke-stack  was  riddled,  many 
iron  plates  in  her  shield  were  injured  and 
broken,  and  the  after-gun  was  broken  off 
eighteen  inches  from  the  muzzle,  and  rendered 
useless. '  This  terrible  fire  continued,  without 
intermission,  until  about  5  p.  M.,  when  the  com- 
mander of  the  double-ender  Sassacus  selected 
his  opportunity,  and  with  all  steam  on  struck 
the  Albemarle  squarely  just  abaft  her  starboard 
beam,  causing  every  timber  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  blow  to  groan,  though  none  gave  way. 
The  pressure  from  the  revolving  wheel  of 
the  Sassacus  was  so  great  that  it  forced  the 
after  deck  of  the  ram  several  feet  below  the 


*  The  following  admirably  clear  and  succinct  account 
of  the  fight  is  given  by  Acting  Master  William  N. 
Wells,  of  the  Miami,  in  his  report  of  April  23  to 
Admiral  Lee: 

"  The  siege  commenced  Sabbath  afternoon,  April 
17,  by  an  artillery  fire  upon  Fort  Gray.  Early  in  the 
morning  of  April  18,  between  the  hours  of  3  and  5, 
the  enemy  tried  to  carry  by  storm  Fort  Gray,  but  were 
repulsed.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  i8th  heavy  artillery 
opened  fire  upon  the  town  and  breastworks.  Then 
the  fight  became  general.  Up  to  this  time  the  gun- 
boats Sonthfield  and  Miami  were  chained  together  in 
preparation  to  encounter  the  ram.  They  were  then 
separated.  The  South/if  hi,  moving  up  the  river,  opened 
fire  over  the  town.  The  Miami,  moving  down  the 
river,  opened  a  cross-fire  upon  the  enemy,  who  were 
charging  upon  Fort  Williams.  The  firing,  being  very 
exact,  caused  the  enemy  to  fall  back.  After  three  at- 
tempts to  storm  the  fort,  at  9  o'clock  the  firing  ceased 
from  the  enemy,  they  having  withdrawn  from  range. 
Commander  Klusser  dispatched  a  messenger  to  Gen- 
eral Wessells  to  learn  the  result  of  the  day's  fight. 
The  messenger  returned  at  10  P.  M.,  having  delivered 
the  message,  and  bearing  one  from  General  Wessells 
to  Commander  Flusser,  stating  that  the  fire  from  the 
naval  vessels  was  very  satisfactory  and  effective  —  so 
much  so  that  the  advancing  columns  of  the  enemy 
broke  and  retreated ;  also  desired  that  the  Miami 
might  be  kept  below  the  town  to  prevent  a  flank  move- 
ment by  the  enemy.  At  10:  30  P.  M.,  steamer  Southfield 
came  down  and  anchored  near.  At  I2:2O  A.  M.,  April 
19,  the  Sonthfield  came  alongside  to  rechain  the  two 
steamers  as  speedily  as  possible  ;  the  ram  having  been 
seen  by  Captain  Barrett,  of  the  Whitehead,  and  re- 
ported by  him  as  coming  down  the  river.  At  3:45  A. 
M.  the  gun-boat  Ceres  came  down,  passing  near,  giving 


the  alarm  that  the  ram  was  close  upon  her.  I  immedi- 
ately hastened  to  acquaint  Commander  Flusser  of  the 
information.  He  immediately  came  on  deck,  and  or- 
dered both  vessels  to  steam  ahead  as  far  as  possible 
and  run  the  ram  down.  No  sooner  than  given  was  the 
order  obeyed.  Our  starboard  chain  was  slipped  and 
bells  rung  to  go  ahead  fast.  In  obedience  to  the  order, 
the  steamers  were  in  one  minute  moving  up  the  river, 
the  ram  making  for  us.  In  less  than  two  minutes  from 
the  time  she  was  reported,  she  struck  us  upon  our  port 
bow  near  the  water-line,  gouging  two  planks  nearly 
through  for  ten  feet;  at  the  same  time  striking  the 
Southfield  with  'her  prow  upon  the  starboard  bow, 
causing  the  Sonthfeld  to  sink  rapidly.  As  soon  as  the 
battery  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  ram,  both 
steamers,  the  Southfield  and  Miami,  commenced  firing 
solid  shot  from  the  loo- pound  Parrott  rifles  and  1 1-inch 
Dahlgren  guns  ;  they  making  no  perceptible  indenta- 
tions in  her  armor.  Commander  Flusser  fired  the 
first  three  shots  personally  from  the  Miami,  the  third 
being  a  ten-second  Dahlgren  shell,  n-inch.  It  was 
directly  after  that  fire  that  he  was  killed  by  pieces  of 
shell ;  several  of  the  gun's  crew  were  wounded  at  the 
same  time.  Our  bow  hawser  being  stranded,  the 
Miami  swung  round  to  starboard,  giving  the  ram  a 
chance  to  pierce  us.  Necessity  required  the  engine  to 
be  reversed  in  motion  to  straighten  the  vessel  in  the 
river,  to  prevent  going  upon  the  bank  of  the  river,  and 
to  bring  the  rifle  gun  to  bear  upon  the  ram.  During 
the  time  of  straightening  the  steamer  the  ram  had  also 
straightened,  and  was  making  for  us.  From  the  fatal 
effects  of  her  prow  upon  the  Sonthfield  and  of  our 
sustaining  injury,  I  deemed  it  useless  to  sacrifice  the 
Miami  in  the  same  way." 

t  The  Union  fleet  had  32  guns  and  23  howitzers,  a 
total  of  55. —  EDITOR. 


426 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


surface  of  the  water,  and  created  an  impres- 
sion on  board  that  she  was  about  to  sink. 
Some  of  the  crew  became  demoralized,  but  the 
calm  voice  of  the  undismayed  captain  checked 
the  incipient  disorder,  with  the  command, 
"  Stand  to  your  guns,  and  if  we  must  sink  let 
us  go  down  like  brave  men." 

The  Albemarle  soon  recovered,  and  sent  a 
shot  at  her  assailant  which  passed  through 
one  of  the  latter's  boilers,  the  hissing  steam 
disabling  a  number  of  the  crew.  Yet  the  disci- 
pline on  the  Sassacus  was  such  that,  notwith- 
standing the  natural  consternation  under  these 
appalling  circumstances,  two  of  her  guns  con- 
tinued to  fire  on  the  Albemarle  until  she  drifted 
out  of  the  arena  of  battle.  Two  of  the  fleet 
attempted  to  foul  the  propellers  of  the  ram 
with  a  large  fishing-seine  which  they  had  pre- 
viously procured  for  the  purpose,  but  the  line 
parted  in  paying  it  out.  Then  they  tried  to 
blow  her  up  with  a  torpedo,  but  failed.  No 


equal  conflict  continued  until  night.  Some  of 
the  Federal  vessels  were  more  or  less  disabled, 
and  both  sides  were  doubtless  well  content  to 
draw  off.  Captain  Cooke  had  on  board  a 
supply  of  bacon  and  lard,  and  this  sort  of  fuel 
being  available  to  burn  without  draught  from 
a  smoke-stack,  he  was  able  to  make  sufficient 
steam  to  get  the  boat  back  to  Plymouth,  where 
she  tied  up  to  her  wharf  covered  with  wounds 
and  with  glory. 

The  Albemarle  in  her  different  engagements 
was  struck  a  great  many  times  by  shot  and 
shell,*  and  yet  but  one  man  lost  his  life,  and 
that  was  caused  by  a  pistol-shot  from  the 
Miami,  the  imprudent  sailor  having  put  his 
head  out  of  one  of  the  port-holes  to  see  what 
was  going  on  outside. 

Captain  Cooke  was  at  once  promoted  and 
placed  in  command  of  all  the  Confederate 
naval  forces  in  eastern  North  Carolina.  The 
Albemarle  remained  tied  to  her  wharf  at  Plym- 


I    \    \\\\\   \    .'" 

INSIDE   THE    "ALBEMARLE"  CASEMATE. 


better  success  attended  an  effort  to  throw  a 
keg  of  gunpowder  down  her  smoke-stack,  or 
what  was  left  of  it,  for  it  was  riddled  with 
holes  from  shot  and  shell.  This  smoke-stack 
had  lost  its  capacity  for  drawing,  and  the  boat 
lay  a  helpless  mass  on  the  water.  While  in 
this  condition  every  effort  was  made  by  her 
numerous  enemies  to  destroy  her.  The  un- 


outh  until  the  night  of  October  27,  1864, 
when  Lieutenant  William  B.  Gushing,  of  the 
United  States  Navy,  performed  the  daring  feat 
of  destroying  her  with  a  torpedo.  Having 
procured  a  torpedo-boat  so  constructed  as  to 
be  very  fast,  for  a  short  distance,  and  with  the 

*  The  upper  section  alone  of  the  smoke-stack  has 
1 14  holes  made  by  shot  and  shell. —  G.  E. 


CAREER   OF  THE  " ALBEAfARLE." 


427 


exhaust  steam  so  arranged  as  to  he  noiseless, 
he  proceeded,  with  a  crew  of  fourteen  men, 
up  the  Ronnoke  River.  Guards  had  been  sta- 
tioned by  the  Confederate  military  commander 
on  the  wreck  of  the  Southficld,  whose  top  deck 
was  then  above  water,  but  they  failed  to  see 
the  boat.  A  boom  of  logs  had  been  arranged 
around  the  Albemarle,  distant  about  thirty  feet 
from  her  side.  Captain  Cooke  had  planned 
and  superintended  the  construction  of  this  ar- 
rangement before  giving  up  the  command  of 
the  vessel  to  Captain  A.  !•'.  \Vnrley.  Cushing 
ran  his  boat  up  to  these  logs,  and  there,  under 
a  hot  fire,  lowered  and  exploded  the  torpedo 
under  the  Albemarle's  bottom,  causing  her  to 
settle  down  and  finally  to  sink  at  the  wharf. 
The  torpedo-boat  and  crew  were  captured; 
but  Cushing  refusing  to  surrender,  though 
twice  called  upon  so  to  do,  sprang  into  the 
river,  dived  to  the  bottom,  and  swam  across 
to  a  swamp  opposite  the  town,  thus  making 
his  escape;  and  on  the  next  night,  after  hav- 
ing experienced  great  suffering,  wandering 
through  the  swamp,  he  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  small  canoe,  and  made  his  way  back  to  the 
fleet.  being  available,  on  October  31  the  Federal 

The  river  front  being  no  longer  protected,    forces   attacked   and   captured  the  town  of 
and  no  appliances  for  raising  the  sunken  vessel    Plymouth.* 

Gilbert  Elliott. 

n.   THE  "ALBEMARLE"  AND  THE  "SASSACUS." 

AN    ATTEMPT  TO    RUN    DOWN    AN     IRON-CLAD    WITH    A    WOODEN    SHIP. 


CAPTAIN    ALEXANDER    F.    WARLEY,   C.    S.    N. 


THE  United  States  steamer  Sassacus  was 
one  of  several  wooden  side-wheel  ships, 
known  as  "  double-enders,"  built  for  speed, 
light  draught,  and  ease  of  manreuvre  in  battle, 
as  they  could  go  ahead  or  back  with  equal 
facility.  She  carried  four  g-inch  Dahlgren 
guns  and  two  loo-pounder  Parrott  rifles.  On 
the  5th  of  May,  1864,  this  ship,  while  engaged, 
together  with  the  Mattabesett,  Wyalitsing,  and 
several  smaller  vessels,  with  the  Confeder- 
ate iron-clad  Albemarle  in  Albemarle  Sound, 
was,  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant-Com- 
mander F.  A.  Roe,  and  with  all  the  speed 
attainable,  driven  down  upon  the  ram,  strik- 
ing full  and  square  at  the  junction  of  its  ar- 
mored roof  and  deck.  It  was  the  first  attempt 
of  the  kind  and  deserves  a  place  in  history. 
This  sketch  is  an  endeavor  to  recall  only  the 
part  taken  in  the  engagement  by  the  Sassacus 
in  her  attempt  to  run  down  the  ram. 

One  can  obtain  a  fair  idea  of  the  magni- 
tude of  such  an  undertaking  by  remembering 
that  on  a  ship  in  battle  you  are  on  a  floating 
target,  through  which  the  enemy's  shell  may 
bring  not  only  the  carnage  of  explosion  but 


an  equally  unpleasant  visitor  —  the  sea.  To 
hurl  this  egg-shell  target  against  a  rock  would 
be  dangerous,  but  to  hurl  it  against  an  iron- 
clad bristling  with  guns,  or  to  plant  it  upon 
the  muzzles  of  roo-pounder  Brooke  or  Par- 
rott rifles,  with  all  the  chances  of  a  sheer- 
ing off  of  the  iron-clad,  and  a  subsequent 
ramming  process  about  which  no  two  opin- 
ions ever  existed,  is  more  than  dangerous. 

On  the  iyth  of  April,  1864,  Plymouth,  N.  C., 
was  attacked  by  the  Confederates  by  land 
and  river.  On  the  2oth  it  was  captured,  the 
ram  Albemarle  having  sunk  the  Sotithfidd 
and  driven  off  the  other  Union  vessels. 

On  the  5th  of  May  the  Albemarle,  with  the 
captured  steamer  Bombshell,  and  the  steamer 
Cotton  Plant,  laden  with  troops,  came  down  the 
river.  The  double-enders  Matiabesett,  Sassa- 
cus, Wyalusing,  and  Miami,  together  with  the 
smaller  vessels,  Whitehead,  Ceres,  and  Commo- 
dore Hull,  steamed  up  to  give  battle. 

The  Union  plan  of  attack  was  for  the  large 
vessels  to  pass  as  close  as  possible  to  the  ram 
without  endangering  their  wheels,  deliver  their 
fire,  and  then  round  to  for  a  second  discharge. 


"The  Albemarle  was  subsequently  raised  and  towed     of  her  armament,  machinery,  etc.,  she  was  sold,  Oct. 
to  the  Norfolk  Navy  Yard,  and  after  being  stripped     15, 1867,  to  J.  N.  Leonard  &  Co.,  for  $3200. —  EDITOR. 


428 


THE    CAREER    OF   THE   "ALBEMARLE." 


The  smaller  vessels  were  to  take  care  of  thirty 
armed  launches,  which  were  expected  to  ac- 
company the  iron-clad.  The  Miami  carried  a 
torpedo  to  be  exploded  under  the  enemy,  and 
a  strong  net  or  seine  to  foul  her  propeller. 

All  eyes  were  fixed  on  this  second  Merri- 
mac  as,  like  a  floating  fortress,  she  came  down 
the  bay.  A  puff  of  smoke  from  her  bow  port 
opened  the  ball,  followed  quickly  by  another, 
the  shells  aimed  skillfully  at  the  pivot-rifle  of 
the  leading  ship,  Mattabesett,  cutting  away 


REAR-ADMIRAL    F.    A.    ROE,    U.    S.    N. 

rail  and  spars,  and  wounding  six  men  at  the 
gun.  The  enemy  then  headed  straight  for  her, 
in  imitation  of  the  Merrimac,  but  by  a  skill- 
ful management  of  the  helm  the  Mattabesett 
rounded  her  bow,*  closely  followed  by  our 
own  ship,  the  Sassacus,  which  at  close  quar- 
ters gave  her  a  broadside  of  solid  g-inch  shot. 
The  guns  might  as  well  have  fired  blank  car- 
tridges, for  the  shot  skimmed  off  into  the  air, 
and  even  the  loo-pound  solid  shot  from 
the  pivot-rifle  glanced  from  the  sloping  roof 
into  space  with  no  apparent  effect.  The  feel- 
ing of  helplessness  that  comes  from  the  failure 
of  heavy  guns  to  make  any  mark  on  an  ad- 
vancing foe  can  never  be  described.  One  is 
like  a  man  with  a  bodkin  before  a  Gorgon  or 
a  Dragon,  a  man  with  straws  before  the  wheels 
of  Juggernaut. 

To  add  to  the  feeling  in  this  instance,  the 

*  If  the  Maltabesett  rounded  the  bow  of  the  A  lie- 
mark,  the  latter  must  have  been  heading  up  the  sound 
at  the  time;  in  other  words,  she  must  have  turned 
previous  to  the  advance  of  the  Union  fleet.  Upon  this 
point  the  reports  of  the  captains  of  the  double-enders 
give  conflicting  testimony.  Commander  Febiger  rep- 


rapid  firing  from  the  different  ships,  the  clouds 
of  smoke,  the  changes  of  position  to  avoid 
being  run  down,  the  watchfulness  to  get  a  shot 
into  the  ports  of  the  ram,  as  they  quickly 
opened  to  deliver  their  well-directed  fire, 
kept  alive  the  constant  danger  of  our  ships 
firing  into  or  entangling  each  other.  The 
crash  of  bulwarks  and  rending  of  exploding 
shells  which  were  fired  by  the  ram,  but  which 
it  was  utterly  useless  to  fire  from  our  own  guns, 
gave  confused  sensations  of  a  general  and  pro- 
miscuous melee,  rather  than  a  well-ordered 
attack;  nevertheless  the  plan  designed  was 
being  carried  out,  hopeless  as  it  seemed.  As 
our  own  ship  delivered  her  broadside,  and 
fired  the  pivot-rifle  with  great  rapidity  at  roof, 
and  port,  and  hull,  and  smoke-stack,  trying  to 
find  a  weak  spot,  the  ram  headed  for  us  and 
narrowly  passed  our  stern.  She  was  foiled  in 
this  attempt,  as  we  were  under  full  headway, 
and  swiftly  rounding  her  with  a  hard-port  helm, 
we  delivered  a  broadside  at  her  consort,  the 
Bombshell,  each  shot  hulling  her.  We  now 
headed  for  the  latter  ship,  going  within  hail. 

Thus  far  in  the  action  our  pivot-rifle  astern 
had  had  but  small  chance  to  fire,  and  the  cap- 
tain of  the  gun,  a  broad-shouldered,  brawny 
fellow,  was  now  wrought  up  to  a  pitch  of  des- 
peration at  holding  his  giant  gun  in  leash,  and 
as  we  came  up  to  the  Bombshell  he  mounted 
the  rail,  and,  naked  to  the  waist,  he  brandished 
a  huge  boarding-pistol  and  shouted,  "  Haul 
down  your  flag  and  surrender,  or  we  '11  blow 
you  out  of  the  water!  "  The  flag  came  down, 
and  the  Bombshell  was  ordered  to  drop  out 
of  action  and  anchor,  which  she  did.  Of  this 
surrender  I  shall  have  more  to  say  farther  on. 

Now  came  the  decisive  moment,  for  by 
this  action,  which  was  in  reality  a  manoeuvre 
of  our  commander,  we  had  acquired  a  distance 
from  the  ram  of  about  four  hundred  yards, 
and  the  latte%  to  evade  the  Mattabesett,  had 
sheered  off  a  little  and  lay  broadside  to  us. 
The  Union  ships  were  now  on  both  sides  of 
the  ram  with  engines  stopped.  Commander 
Roe  saw  the  opportunity,  which  an  instant's 
delay  would  forfeit,  and  boldly  met  the  crisis 
of  the  engagement.  To  the  engineer  he  cried, 
"  Crowd  waste  and  oil  in  the  fires  and  back 
slowly  !  Give  her  all  the  steam  she  can  carry !  " 
To  Acting-Master  Boutelle  he  said,  '•  Lay  her 
course  for  the  junction  of  the  casemate  and 
the  hull !  "  Then  came  four  bells,  and  with 
full  steam  and  open  throttle  the  ship  sprang 
forward  like  a  living  thing.  It  was  a  moment 

resents  the  ram  as  retreating  towards  the  Ronnoke, 
while  Lieutenant-Commander  Roe  describes  her  as  in 
such  a  position  that  she  would  necessarily  have  been 
heading  towards  the  advancing  squadron.  The  con- 
flict of  opinion  was  doubtless  due  to  the  similarity  in 
the  two  ends  of  the  ram. —  EDITOR. 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


429 


of  intense  strain  and  anxiety.  The  guns  ceased  ward  to  the  designated  spot.    Then  came  the 

firing,  the  smoke  lilted  from  the  ram,  and  we  order,  "All  hands  lie  down  !  "  and  with  a  crash 

saw  that  every  effort  was  being  made  to  evade  that  shook  the  ship  like  an  earthquake,  we 

the  shock.    Straight  as  an  arrow  we  shot  for-  struck  full  and  square  on  the  iron  hull,  careen- 

UN1ON   FORCE    IN  THE  ACTION   IN   ALBEMARLE  SOUND,  MAY   5,  1864. 
CAPTAIN  MELANCTON  SMITH,  COMM. \NDINM,. 

Dnrm.E-ENDEKs:  Mattatesett,  Commander  John  C.  Febiger;  Sassacus,  Lieutenant-Commander  Francis  A.  Roe;   WyalusiHg, 
Lieutenant-Commander  Walter  W.  Queen;  Miami,  Acting  Volunteer  Lieutenant  Charles  A.  French.    FERRY-BOAT:  Commodore  Hull, 
\\, i>[ci-  rr.uins  Jusselyn.     (ir.NboATS;    Whitthcad,  Acting  Ensign  C-.  W.  Uarrctt;    Ceres,  Acting  Master  H.  H.  Foster. 


BATTER  V. 

Gl'NS. 

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*  Thirteen  of  these  were  scalded. 


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S»,a.tuie  Miles. 


CHART    OF    THE     ENGAGEMENT    IN     ALBEMARLE     SOUND. 

A,  Albcmarle  ;  B,  Bombshell ;  C  P,  Cotton  Plant ;  M.  Mittahcsett ;  S,  Sassacus ;  Wy,  Wyalusing  ;  Mi,  Miami ;  C,  Ceres  ; 
Wh,  Whitehead ;  C  H,  Commodore  Hull. 

VOL.  XXXVI.—  61. 


43° 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE: 


ing  it  over  and  tearing  away  our  own  bows, 
ripping  and  straining  our  timbers  at  the  water- 
line.  The  enemy's  lights  were  put  out,  and 
his  men  hurled  from  their  feet,  and,  as  we 
learned  afterward,  it  was  thought  for  a  moment 
that  it  was  all  over  with  them.  Our  ship  quiv- 
ered for  an  instant,  but  held  fast,  and  the  swift 
plash  of  the  paddles  showed  that  the  engines 
were  uninjured.  My  own  station  was  in  the 
bow,  on  the  main-deck,  on  a  line  with  the 


ACTING    MASTER    CHARLES    A.    BOUTELLE,    U.    S.    N. 

enemy's  guns.  Through  the  starboard  shutter, 
which  had  been  partly  jarred  off  by  the  con- 
cussion, I  saw  the  port  of  the  rain  not  ten 
feet  away.  It  opened ;  and  like  a  flash  of 
lightning  I  saw  the  grim  muzzle  of  a  cannon, 
the  straining  gun's-crew  naked  to  the  waist 
and  blackened  with  powder ;  then  a  blaze,  a 
roar  and  rush  of  the  shell  as  it  crashed  through, 
whirling  me  round  and  dashing  me  to  the 
deck. 

Both  ships  were  under  headway,  and  as  the 
ram  advanced,  our  shattered  bows  clinging  to 
the  iron  casemate  were  twisted  round,  and  a 
second  shot  from  a  Brooke  gun  almost  touch- 
ing our  side  crashed  through,  followed  im- 
mediately by  a  cloud  of  steam  and  boiling 
water  that  filled  the  forward  decks  as  our 
overcharged  boilers,  pierced  by  the  shot,  emp- 
tied their  contents  with  a  shrill  scream  that 
drowned  for  an  instant  the  roar  of  the  guns.  The 
shouts  of  command  and  the  cries  of  scalded, 
wounded,  and  blinded  men  mingled  with  the 
rattle  of  small  arms  that  told  of  a  hand-to- 
hand  conflict  above.  The  ship  surged  heavily 
to  port  as  the  great  weight  of  water  in  the 
boilers  was  expended,  and  over  the  cry,  "  The 
ship  is  sinking !  "  came  the  shout,  "  All  hands 
repel  boarders  on  starboard  bow !  " 


The  men  below,  wild  with  the  boiling 
steam,  sprang  to  the  ladder  with  pistol  and 
cutlass,  and  gained  the  bulwarks;  but  men 
in  the  rigging  with  muskets  and  hand  gre- 
nades, and  the  well-directed  fire  from  the  crews 
of  the  guns,  soon  baffled  the  attempt  of  the 
Confederates  to  gain  our  decks.  To  send  our 
crew  on  the  grated  top  of  the  iron-clad  would 
have  been  madness. 

The  horrid  tumult,  always  characteristic  of 
battle,  was  intensified  by  the  cries  of  agony 
from  the  scalded  and  frantic  men.  Wounds 
may  rend,  and  blood  flow,  and  grim  heroism 
keep  the  teeth  set  firm  in  silence;  but  to  be 
boiled  alive  —  to  have  the  flesh  drop  from  the 
face  and  hands,  to  strip  off  in  sodden  mass 
from  the  body  as  the  clothing  is  torn  away  in 
savage  eagerness  for  relief,  will  bring  screams 
from  the  stoutest  lips.  In  the  midst  of  all  this, 
when  every  man  had  left  the  engine  room,  our 
chief  engineer,  Mr.  Hobby,  although  badly 
scalded,  stood  with  heroism  at  his  post;  nor 
did  he  leave  it  till  after  the  action,  when  he 
was  brought  up,  blinded  and  helpless,  to  the 
deck.  I  had  often  before  been  in  battle ;  had 
stepped  over  the  decks  of  a  steamer  in  the 
Merrimac  fight  when  a  shell  had  exploded, 
covering  the  deck  with  fragments  of  human 
bodies,  literally  tearing  to  pieces  the  men 
on  the  small  vessel  as  she  lay  alongside  the 
Minnesota,  but  never  before  had  I  experienced 
such  a  sickening  sensation  of  horror  as  on  this 
occasion,  when  the  bow  of  the  Sassacus  lay  for 
thirteen  minutes  on  the  roof  of  the  Albemarle. 
An  officer  of  the  Wyalusing  says  that  when 
the  dense  smoke  and  steam  enveloped  us  they 
thought  we  had  sunk,  till  the  flash  of  our  guns 
burst  through  the  clouds,  followed  by  flash 
after  flash  in  quick  succession  as  our  men  re- 
covered from  the  shock  of  the  explosion. 

In  Commander  Febiger's  report  the  time  of 
our  contact  was  said  to  be  "some  few  minutes." 
To  us,  at  least,  there  seemed  time  enough  for 
the  other  ships  to  close  in  on  the  ram  and 
sink  her,  or  sink  beside  her,  and  it  was  thirteen 
minutes  as  timed  by  an  officer,  who  told  me; 
but  the  other  ships  were  silent,  and  with 
stopped  engines  looked  on  as  the  clouds 
closed  over  us  in  the  grim  and  final  struggle. 

Captain  French  of  the  Miami,  who  had 
bravely  fought  his  ship  at  close  quarters,  and 
often  at  the  ship's  length,  vainly  tried  to  get 
bows  on,  to  come  to  our  assistance  and  use 
his  torpedo;  but  his  ship  steered  badly,  and  he 
was  unable  to  reach  us  before  we  dropped  away. 
In  the  mean  time  the  Wyalusing  signaled  that 
she  was  sinking  —  a  mistake,  but  one  that 
affected  materially  the  outcome  of  the  battle. 
We  struck  exactly  at  the  spot  for  which  we  had 
aimed ;  and,  contrary  to  the  diagram  given  in 
the  naval  report  for  that  year,  the  headway  of 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE   '•  ALBEMARLE." 


"ALL  HANDS   LIE  DOWN!" 


both  ships  twisted  our  bows,  and  brought  us 
broadside  to  broadside  —  our  bows  at  the  en- 
emy's stern  and  our  starboard  paddle-wheel 
on  the  forward  starboard  angle  of  his  casemate. 
Against  the  report  mentioned,  I  not  only 
place  my  own  observation,  but  I  have  in  my 
possession  the  written  statement  of  the  navi- 
gator, Boutelle,  now  a  member  of  Congress 
from  Maine. 

At  length  we  drifted  off  the  ram,  and  our 
pivot-gun,  which  had  been  fired  incessantly 
by  Ensign  Mayer,  almost  muzzle  to  muzzle 
with  the  enemy's  guns,  was  kept  at  work  till 
we  were  out  of  range. 

The  official  report  says  that  the  other  ships 
were  then  got  in  line  and  fired  at  the  enemy, 
also  attempting  to  lay  the  seine  to  foul  his  pro- 
peller—  a  task  that  proved,  alas,  as  impracti- 
cable as  that  of  injuring  him  by  the  fire  of  the 
guns.  While  we  were  alongside,  and  had 
drifted  broadside  to  broadside,  our  g-inch 
Dahlgren  guns  had  been  depressed  till  the 
shot  would  strike  at  right  angles,  and  the 
solid  iron  would  bound  from  the  roof  into  the 
air  like  marbles,  and  with  as  little  impression. 
Fragments  even  of  our  loo-pound  rifle-shots, 
at  close  range,  came  back  on  our  own  decks. 

At  dusk  the  ram  steamed  into  the  Roanoke 
River.  Had  assistance  been  rendered  during 
the  long  thirteen  minutes  that  the  Sassacus 
lay  over  the  ports  of  the  Albemarle,  the  hero- 
ism of  Commander  Roe  would  have  electrified 
the  public  and  made  his  name,  as  it  should 
be,  imperishable  in  the  annals  of  naval  war- 
fare. There  was  no  lack  of  courage  on  the 


other  ships,  and  the  previous  loss  of  the 
Southfield,  the  signal  from  the  WyafosatgftM, 
she  was  sinking,  the  apparent  loss  of  our  ship, 
and  the  loss  of  the  sounds  of  North  Carolina 
if  more  were  disabled,  dictated  the  prudent 
course  they  adopted. 

Of  the  official  reports,  which  gave  no  prom- 
inence to  the  achievement  of  Commander 
Roe  and  have  placed  an  erroneous  record  on 
the  page  of  history,  I  speak  only  with  regret. 
He  was  asked  to  correct  his  report  as  to  the 
speed  of  our  ship.  He  had  said  we  were  go- 
ing at  a  speed  of  ten  knots,  and  the  naval 
report  says,  "  He  was  not  disposed  to  make 
the  original  correction."  I  should  think  not!  — 
when  the  speed  could  only  be  estimated  by 
his  own  officers,  and  the  navigator  says  clearly 
in  his  report  eleven  knots.  We  had  perhaps 
the  swiftest  ship  in  the  navy.  We  had  backed 
slowly  to  increase  the  distance ;  with  furious 
fires  and  a  gagged  engine  working  at  the  full 
stroke  of  the  pistons, —  a  run  of  over  four 
hundred  yards,  with  eager  and  excited  men 
counting  the  revolutions  of  our  paddles ;  who 
should  give  the  more  correct  statement  ? 

The  ship  first  in  the  line  claimed  the  cap- 
ture of  the  Bombshell.  The  captain  of  that 
vessel,  afterward  a  prisoner  on  our  ship,  said 
he  surrendered  to  the  second  ship  in  the  line, 
viz.,  the  Sassacus  ;  that  the  flag  was  not  hauled 
down  till  he  was  ordered  to  do  so  by  Com- 
mander Roe ;  and  that  no  surrender  had  been 
intended  till  the  order  came  from  the  second 
vessel  in  the  line. 

Another  part  of  the  official  report  states  that 


432 


THE  CAREER  OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE: 


THE    "  SASSACUS  "    DISABLED    AFTER 


the  bows  of  the  double-enders  were  all  frail, 
and  had  they  been  armed  would  have  been  in- 
sufficient to  have  sunk  the  ram.  If  this  were 
so,  then  was  the  heroism  of  the  trial  the  greater. 
Our  bow,  however,  was  shod  with  a  bronze 
beak,  weighing  fully  three  tons,  well  secured  to 
prow  and  keel;  and  this  was  twisted  and  al- 
most entirely  torn  away  in  the  collision. 

But  what  avails  it  to  a  soldier  to  dash  over 
the  parapet  and  seize  the  colors  of  the  enemy 
if  his  regiment  halts  outside  the  chevaux-de- 


frise  ?  We  have  always  felt  that  a  similar  blow 
on  the  other  side,  or  a  close  environment  of 
the  heavy  guns  of  the  other  ships,  would  have 
captured  or  sunk  the  ram.  As  it  was,  she  re- 
tired, never  again  to  emerge  for  battle  from 
the  Roanoke  River,  and  the  object  of  her  com- 
ing on  the  day  of  our  engagement,  viz.,  to  aid 
the  Confederates  in  an  attack  on  New  Berne, 
was  defeated;  but  her  ultimate  destruction 
was  reserved  for  the  gallant  Lieutenant  Gush- 
ing, of  glorious  memory. 

Edgar  Holden,  M.  £>.,  late  U.  S.  N. 

NOTE.     The  Navy  Department  was  not  satisfied  with  the  first  official  reports,  and  new  and  special  reports 
were  called  for.    As  a  result  of  investigation,  promotions  of  many  of  the  officers  were  made. — EDITOR. 


THE     DESTRUCTION     OF     THE     "  ALBEMARLE." 
UNPUBLISHED   MANUSCRIPT  BY  THE   LATE   W.    B.    GUSHING,   COMMANDER,   U.    S.    N. 


IN  September,  1864,  the  Government  was 
laboring  under  much  anxiety  in  regard  to 
the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  sounds  of  North 
Carolina.  Some  months  previous  (April  igth) 
a  rebel  iron-clad  had  made  her  appearance, 
attacking  Plymouth,  beating  our  fleet,  sinking 
the  Sout/ifield,  and  killing  the  gallant  Captain 
Flusser,  who  commanded  the  flotilla.  General 
Wessells's  brigade  had  been  forced  to  surren- 
der, and  all  that  section  of  country  and  the  line 
of  Roanoke  River  had  fallen  again  into  rebel 
hands.  Little  Washington  and  the  Tar  River 
were  thus  outflanked  and  lost  to  us.  Some  time 
after  (May  5th),  this  iron-clad,  the  Albemarle, 
had  steamed  out  into  the  open  sound  and  en- 
gaged seven  of  our  steamers,  doing  much  dam- 


age and  suffering  little.  The  Sassacus  had  at- 
tempted to  run  her  down,  but  had  failed,  and 
had  had  her  boiler  exploded  by  one  of  the 
loo-pound  shells  fired  from  the  Confederate. 

The  Government  had  no  iron-clad  that 
could  cross  Hatteras  bar  and  enter  the 
sounds,*  and  it  seemed  likely  that  our  wooden 
ships  would  be  defeated,  leaving  New  Berne, 
Roanoke  Island,  and  other  points  endangered. 
At  all  events,  it  was  impossible  for  any  number 
of  our  vessels  to  injure  her  at  Plymouth,  and 
the  expense  of  our  squadron  kept  to  watch 
her  was  very  great. 

At  this  stage  of  affairs  Admiral  S.  P.  Lee 

*  Several  lisjht-draught  monitors  were  in  course  of  con- 
struction at  this  time,  butwere  not  yet  completed. —  ED. 


THE   CAREER    OE  THE   "  AL/iEMARLE." 


433 


spoke  to  me  of  the  case,  when  I  proposed  a  plan 
for  her  capture  or  destruction.  I  submitted  in 
writing  two  plans,  either  of  which  I  was  willing 
to  undertake. 

The  first  was  based  upon  the  fact  that 
through  a  thick  swamp  the  iron-clad  might 
be  approached  to  within  a  few  hundred  yards, 
whence  India-rubber  boats,  to  be  inflated,  and 
carried  upon,  men's  backs,  might  transport  a 
boarding-party  of  a  hundred  men;  in  the  sec- 
ond plan  the  offensive  force  was  to  be  con- 
veyed in  two  low-pressure  and  very  small 
steamers,  each  armed  with  a  torpedo  and 
howitzer. 

In  this  last  named  plan  (which  had  my 
preference),  I  intended  that  one  boat  should 
dash  in,  while  the  other  stood  by  to  throw  can- 
ister and  renew  the  attempt  if  the  first  should 
fail.  It  would  also  be  useful  to  pick  up  our 
men  if  the  attacking  boat  were  disabled.  Ad- 
miral Lee  believed  that  the  plan  was  a  good 
one,  and  ordered  me  to  Washington  to  submit 
it  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Mr.  Fox, 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  doubted 
the  merit  of  the  project,  but  concluded  to 
order  me  to  New  York  to  "purchase  suit- 
able vessels." 

Finding  some  boats  building  for  picket 
duty,  I  selected  two,  and  proceeded  to  fit 
them  out.  They  were  open  launches,  about 
thirty  feet  in  length,  with  small  engines,  and 
propelled  by  a  screw.  A  i2-pounder  how- 
itzer was  fitted  to  the  bow  of  each,  and  a 
boom  was  rigged  out,  some  fourteen  feet  in 
length,  swinging  by  a  goose-neck  hinge  to 
the  bluff  of  the  bow.  A  topping  lift,  carried 
to  a  stanchion  inboard,  raised  or  lowered  it, 
and  the  torpedo  was  fitted  into  an  iron  slide 
at  the  end.  This  was  intended  to  be  detached 
from  the  boom  by  means  of  a  heel-jigger 
leading  inboard,  and  to  be  exploded  by  an- 
other line,  connecting  with  a  pin,  which  held 
a  grape-shot  over  a  nipple  and  cap.  The  tor- 
pedo was  the  invention  of  Engineer  Lay  of  the 
navy,  and  was  introduced  by  Chief-Engineer 
Wood. 

Everything  being  completed,  we  started  to 
the  southward,  taking  the  boats  through  the 
canals  to  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  losing  one  in 
going  down  to  Norfolk.  This  was  a  great 
misfortune,  and  I  have  never  understood  how 
it  occurred.  I  forget  the  name  of  the  volun- 
teer ensign  to  whose  care  it  was  intrusted; 
he  was  taken  prisoner  with  his  crew. 

My  best  boat  being  thus  lost,  I  proceeded 
with  one  alone  to  make  my  way  through  the 
Chesapeike  and  Albemarle  canals  into  the 
sounds. 

Half-way  through,  the  canal  was  filled  up, 
but  finding  a  small  creek  that  emptied  into  it 
below  the  obstruction,  I  endeavored  to  feel 


my  way  through.  Encountering  a  mill-dam, 
we  waited  for  high  water,  and  ran  the  launch 
over  it ;  below  she  grounded,  but  I  got  a  flat- 
boat,  and,  taking  out  gun  and  coal,  succeeded 
in  two  days  in  getting  her  through.  Passing 
with  but  seven  men  through  the  canal,  where 
for  thirty  miles  there  was  no  guard  or  Union 
inhabitant,  I  reached  the  sound,  and  ran  be- 
fore a  gale  of  wind  to  Roanoke  Island.  Here 
I  pretended  that  we  were  going  to  Beaufort, 
and  engaged  to  take  two  passengers  along. 
This  deception  became  necessary,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  close  proximity  of  the  rebel 
forces.  If  any  person  had  known  our  destina- 
tion, the  news  would  have  reached  Plymouth 
long  before  we  arrived  to  confirm  it. 

So,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  I  steamed 
off  into  the  darkness,  and  in  the  morning  was 
out  of  sight.  Fifty  miles  up  the  sound,  I  found 
the  fleet  anchored  off  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
and  awaiting  the  ram's  appearance.  Here,  for 
the  first  time,  I  disclosed  to  my  officers  and 


COMMANDER    W.    B.    GUSHING,    U.    S.    N. 

men  our  object,  and  told  them  that  they  were 
at  liberty  to  go  or  not,  as  they  pleased.  These, 
seven  in  number,  all  volunteered.  One  of  them, 
Mr.  Howarth  of  the  Monticello,  had  been  with 
me  repeatedly  in  expeditions  of  peril.  Eight 
were  added  to  my  original  force,  among  whom 
was  Assistant  Paymaster  Francis  H.  Swan,  who 
came  to  me  as  we  were  about  to  start  and 
urged  that  he  might  go,  as  he  had  never  been 
in  a  fight.  Disregarding  my  remark  that  "  it 
was  a  bad  time  for  initiation,"  he  still  made 
the  request,  and  joined  us.  He  found  an  event- 


434 


THE  CAREER  OF  THE  "  ALBEMAKLE." 


ful  night  of  it,  being  wounded,  and  spending 
his  next  four  months  in  Libby  Prison. 

The  Roanoke  River  is  a  stream  averaging 
150  yards  in  width,  and  quite  deep.  Eight 
miles  from  the  mouth  was  the  town  of  Plym- 
outh, where  the  ram  was  moored.  Several 
thousand  soldiers  occupied  town  and  forts, 
and  held  both  'banks  of  the  stream.  A  mile 
below  the  ram  was  the  wreck  of  the  South- 
jrelrf,  with  hurricane  deck  above  water,  and 
on  this  a  guard  was  stationed,  to  give  notice 


her  alive,"  having  in  the  two  boats  twenty  men 
well  armed  with  revolvers,  cutlasses,  and  hand- 
grenades.  To  be  sure,  there  were  ten  times  our 
number  on  the  ship  and  thousands  near  by; 
but  a  surprise  is  everything,  and  I  thought  if 
her  fasts  were  cut  at  the  instant  of  boarding, 
we  might  overcome  those  on  board,  take  her 


FIG.    I.       CUSHING  S    I.ArNCH     AND    TORPEDO — SHOWING     MliTHOD    OF    WORKING. 


A  long  spar  A  (Fig.  i)  was  pivoted  by  means  of  a  universal 
joint  on  its  inboard  end  into  the  bracket  B,  the  bracket  being  se- 
curely fastened  to  the  outside  of  the  boat.  The  spar  was  raised  or 
lowered  by  means  of  a  halliard  e,  which  passed  through  a  block 
at  the  head  of  the  stanchion  C,  and  thence  down  to  the  drum  of  a 
small  windlass  D,  situated  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  directly  abaft 
the  stanchion.  On  the  outboard  end  of  the  spar  was  a  socket,  or 
head,  which  carried  the  shell.  The  shell  was  held  in  place  only  by 
a  small  pin  g,  which  passed  through  a  lug  /*,  protruding  from  the 
lower  side  of  the  shell,  and  thence  through  an  inclined  plane  /, 
which  was  attached  to  the  socket.  The  lug  and  pin  are  clearly 
shown  in  Fig.  2.  To  detach  the  shell  the  pin  g  was  pulled, 
which  forced  the  shell  gently  out  of  the  socket.  This  was  accom- 
plished by  a  laniard  J,  which  led  from  the  boat  to  the  head  of  the 
socket,  passing  back  of  the  head  of  the  shell  through  the  lugs 
aa,  so  that  when  the  laniard  was  tautened  it  would  force  the  shell 
out.  A  smaller  laniard  /,  leading  to  the  pin  g,  was  spliced  to  the 
laniard _/  in  such  a  manner  that  when  the  laniard  j  was  pulled,  first 
the  pin  and  then  the  shell  would  come  out. 

of  anything  suspicious,  and  to  send  up  fire- 
rockets  in  case  of  an  attack.  Thus  it  seemed 
impossible  to  surprise  them,  or  to  attack,  with 
hope  of  success. 

Impossibilities  are  for  the  timid:  we  deter- 
mined to  overcome  all  obstacles.  On  the  night 
of  the  ayth  of  October*  we  entered  the  river, 
taking  in  tow  a  small  cutter  with  a  few  men, 
the  duty  of  whom  was  to  dash  aboard  the 
[wreck  of  the]  Southfield  at  the  first  hail,  and 
prevent  any  rocket  from  being  ignited. 

Fortune  was  with  our  little  boat,  and  we  ac- 
tually passed  within  thirty  feet  of  the  pickets 
without  discovery  and  neared  the  wharf,  where 
the  rebels  lay  all  unconscious.  I  now  thought 
that  it  might  be  better  to  board  her,  and  "  take 

*  The  first  attempt  was  made  on  the  previous  night,  but 
after  proceeding  a  short  distance  the  launch  grounded, 
and  the  time  lost  in  getting  her  off  made  it  too  late  to 
carry  out  the  purpose  of  the  expedition. — EDITOR. 


The  shell  (Fig.  2)  contained  an  air  chamber  X  and  a  powder 
chamber  Z.  The  result  of  this  arrangement  was  that  when  the 
shell  was  detached  it  assumed  a  vertical  position,  with  the  air 
chamber  uppermost,  and,  being  lighter  than  its  volume  of  water, 
it  floated  gradually  towards  the  surface.  At  the  top  of  its  central 
shaft  or  tube  was  a  grape-shot,  held  in  place  by  a  pin  p,  to  which 
was  attached  the  laniard  s.  The  pin  was  a  trigger,  and  the  laniard 
was  known  as  the  trigger-line.  Upon  pulling  the  laniard  the  pin 
came  out,  the  shot  fell  by  its  own  weight  upon  the  nipple  n,  which 
was  covered  by  a  percussion  cap  and  connected  directly  with  the 
powder  chamber,  and  the  torpedo  exploded. 

When  the  spar  was  not  in  use  it  was  swung  around  by  means 
of  a  stern  line,  bringing  the  head  of  the  spar  to  the  stern  of  the 
boat.  To  use  the  apparatus,  the  shell  was  put  in  place  and  the 
spar  was  swung  around  head  forward ;  it  was  then  lowered  by 
means  of  the  halliard  e  to  the  required  depth  ;  the  laniard  j  was 
pulled,  withdrawing  the  pin  g,  and  forcing  out  the  shell ;  finally, 
when  the  floating  shell  had  risen  to  its  place,  the  trigger-line  s  was 
pulled  and  the  torpedo  fired. 

into  the  stream,  and  use  her  iron  sides  to  pro- 
tect us  afterward  from  the  forts.  Knowing  the 
town,  I  concluded  to  land  at  the  lower  wharf. 
creep  around  and  suddenly  dash  aboard  from 
the  bank ;  but  just  as  I  was  sheering  in  close  to 
the  wharf,  a  hail  came,  sharp  and  quick,  from 
the  iron-clad,  and  in  an  instant  was  repeated. 
I  at  once  directed  the  cutter  to  cast  off,  and  go 
down  to  capture  the  guard  left  in  our  rear,  and 
ordering  all  steam  went  at  the  dark  mountain 
of  iron  in  front  of  us.  A  heavy  fire  was  at  once 
opened  upon  us,  not  only  from  the  ship,  but 
from  men  stationed  on  the  shore.  This  did 
not  disable  us,  and  we  neared  them  rapidly.  A 
large  fire  now  blazed  upon  the  bank,  and  by  its 
light  I  discovered  the  unfortunate  fact  that 
there  was  a  circle  of  logs  around  the  Albe- 
inarlc,  boomed  well  out  from  her  side,  with 
the  very  intention  of  preventing  the  action 
of  torpedoes.  To  examine  them  more  closely, 


THE  CAREER  OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE? 


43S 


I  ran  alongside  until  amidships,  received  the  against  the  iron  ribs  and  into  the  mass  of  men 
enemy's  tire,  and  sheered  off  for  the  purpose  of  standing  by  the  fire  upon  the  shore.  In  an- 
Utrning,  a  hundred  yards  away,  and  going  at  other  instant  we  had  struck  the  logs  and  were 


THK     BLOWING-UP     OF    THE     "  ALBEMAKLE." 


the  booms  squarely,  at  right  angles,  trusting 
to  their  having  been  long  enough  in  the  water 
to  have  become  slimy — in  which  case  my 
boat,  under  full  headway,  would  bump  up 
against  them  and  slipover  into  the  pen  with  the 
ram.  This  was  my  only  chance  of  success,  and 
once  over  the  obstruction  my  boat  would 
never  get  out  again ;  but  I  was  there  to  ac- 
complish an  important  object,  and  to  die,  if 
needs  be,  was  but  a  duty.  As  I  turned,  the 
whole  back  of  my  coat  was  torn  out  by  buck- 
shot, and  the  sole  of  my  shoe  was  carried  away. 
The  fire  was  very  severe. 

In  a  lull  of  the  firing,  the  captain  hailed  us, 
again  demanding  what  boat  it  was.  All  my 
nv.'n  gave  some  comical  answers,  and  mine 
was  a.  dose  of  canister,  which  I  sent  among 
them  from  the  howitzer,  buzzing  and  singing 


over,  with  headway  nearly  gone,  slowly  forg- 
ing up  under  the  enemy's  quarter-port.  Ten 
feet  from  us  the  muzzle  of  a  rifle  gun  looked 
into  our  faces,  and  every  word  of  command 
on  board  was  distinctly  heard. 

My  clothing  was  perforated  with  bullets  as 
I  stood  in  the  bow,  the  heel-jigger  in  my  right 
hand  and  the  exploding-line  in  the  left.  We 
were  near  enough  then,  and  I  ordered  the 
boom  lowered  until  the  forward  motion  of 
the  launch  carried  the  torpedo  under  the  ram's 
overhang.  A  strong  pull  of  the  detaching-line, 
a  moment's  waiting  for  the  torpedo  to  rise 
under  the  hull,  and  I  hauled  in  the  left  hand, 
just  cut  by  a  bullet.* 

The  explosion  took  place  at  the  same  in- 
stant that  100  pounds  of  grape,  at  10  feet 
range,  crashed  in  our  midst,  and  the  dense 


*  In  considering  the  merits  of  Caching's  success  witti  preparation  could  keep  its  mechanism  in  working- 
this  exceedingly  complicated  instrument,  it  must  be  order;  that  in  making  n-ndy  to  use  it,  it  \vas  necessary 
remembered  that  nothing  short  of  the  utmost  care  in  to  keep  the  end  of  the  spar  elevated  until  the  boat  had 


436 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


mass  of  water  thrown  out  by  the  torpedo 
came  down  with  choking  weight  upon  us. 

Twice  refusing  to  surrender,  I  commanded 
the  men  to  save  themselves;  and  throwing  off 
sword,  revolver,  shoes,  and  coat,  struck  out 
from  my  disabled  and  sinking  boat  into  the 
river.  It  was  cold,  long  after  the  frosts,  and 
the  water  chilled  the  blood,  while  the  whole 
surface  of  the  stream  was  plowed  up  by 
grape  and  musketry,  and  my  nearest  friends, 
the  fleet,  were  twelve  miles  away,  but  any- 
thing was  better  than  to  fall  into  rebel  hands. 
Death  was  better  than  surrender.  I  swam  for 
the  opposite  shore,  but  as  I  neared  it  a  man,* 
one  of  my  crew,  gave  a  great  gurgling  yell  and 
went  down. 

The  rebels  were  out  in  boats,  picking  up  my 
men;  and  one  of  these,  attracted  by  the  sound, 
pulled  in  my  direction.  I  heard  my  own  name 
mentioned,  but  was  not  seen.  I  now  "  struck 
out "  down  the  stream,  and  was  soon  far  enough 
away  to  again  attempt  landing.  This  time,  as 
I  struggled  to  reach  the  bank,  I  heard  a  groan 
in  the  river  behind  me,  and,  although  very 
much  exhausted,  concluded  to  turn  and  give 
all  the  aid  in  my  power  to  the  officer 
or  seaman  who  had  bravely  shared  the 
danger  with  me  and  in  whose  peril  I 
might  in  turn  partake. 

Swimming  in  the  night,  with  eye  at 
the  level  of  the  water,  one  can  have  no 
idea  of  distance,  and  labors,  as  I  did, 
under  the  discouraging  thought  that  no 
headway  is  made.    But  if  I  were  to 
drown  that  night,  I  had  at  least  an  op- 
portunity of  dying  while  struggling  to 
aid  another.    Nearing  the  swimmer,  it 
proved  to  be  Acting   Master's   Mate 
Woodman,   who  said  that   he   could 
swim  no  longer.    Knocking   his  cap 
from  his  head,  I  used  my  right  arm 
to  sustain  him,  and  ordered  him  to  strike  out. 
For  ten  minutes  at  least,  I  think,  he  managed 
to  keep  afloat,  when,  his  presence  of  mind  and 
physical  force  being  completely  gone,  he  gave 
a  yell  and  sunk  like  a  stone,  fortunately  not 
seizing  upon  me  as  he  went  down. 

Again  alone  upon  the  water,  I  directed  my 

surmounted  the  boom  of  logs,  and  to  judge  accurately 
the  distance  in  order  to  stop  the  boat's  headway  at 
the  right  point ;  that  the  spar  must  then  be  lowered 
with  the  same  precision  of  judgment;  that  the  detach- 
ing laniard  must  then  be  pulled  firmly,  but  without  a. 
jerk ;  that,  finally,  the  position  of  the  torpedo  under 
the  knuckle  of  the  ram  must  be  calculated  to  a  nicety, 
and  that  by  a  very  gentle  strain  on  a  line  some  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  feet  long  the  trigger-pin  must  be  with- 
drawn. When  it  is  reflected  that  Gushing  had  attached 
to  his  person  four  separate  lines,  viz.,  the  detaching 
laniard,  the  trigger-line,  and  two  lines  to  direct  the 
movements  of  the  boat,  one  of  which  was  fastened  to 
the  wrist  and  the  other  to  the  ankle  of  the  engineer; 
that  he  was  also  directing  the  adjustment  of  the  spar 


course  towards  the  town  side  of  the  river,  not 
making  much  headway,  as  my  strokes  were 
now  very  feeble,  my  clothes  being  soaked  and 
heavy,  and  little  chop-seas  splashing  with  a 
choking  persistence  into  my  mouth  every  time 
that  I  gasped  for  breath.  Still,  there  was  a 
determination  not  to  sink,  a  will  not  to  give 
up ;  and  I  kept  up  a  sort  of  mechanical  mo- 
tion long  after  my  bodily  force  was  in  fact  ex- 
pended. 

At  last,  and  not  a  moment  too  soon,  I 
touched  the  soft  mud,  and  in  the  excitement 
of  the  first  shock  I  half  raised  my  body  and 
made  one  step  forward ;  then  fell,  and  re- 
mained half  in  the  mud  and  half  in  the  water 
until  daylight,  unable  even  to  crawl  on  hands 
and  knees,  nearly  frozen,  with  brain  in  a  whirl, 
but  with  one  thing  strong  in  me — the  fixed 
determination  to  escape.  The  prospect  of 
drowning,  starvation,  death  in  the  swamps  — 
all  seemed  lesser  evils  than  that  of  surrender. 

As  day  dawned,  I  found  myself  in  a  point 
of  swamp  that  enters  the  suburbs  of  Plymouth, 
and  not  forty  yards  from  one  of  the  forts.  The 
sun  came  out  bright  and  warm,  proving  a 


THE    WRECK    OF    THE     "  ALBEMARLE." 

most  cheering  visitant,  and  giving  me  back  a 
good  portion  of  the  strength  of  which  I  had 
been  deprived  before.  Its  light  showed  me 
the  town  swarming  with  soldiers  and  sailors, 
who  moved  about  excitedly,  as  if  angry  at 
some  sudden  shock.  It  was  a  source  of  satis- 
faction to  me  to  know  that  I  had  pulled  the 

by  the  halliard ;  that  the  management  of  all  these  lines, 
requiring  as  much  exactness  and  delicacy  of  touch  as 
a  surgical  operation,  where  a  single  error  in  their 
employment,  even  a  pull  too  much  or  too  little,  would 
render  the  whole  expedition  abortive,  was  carried  out 
under  a  fire  of  musketry  so  hot  that  several  bullets 
passed  through  his  clothing  and  directly  in  front  of 
the  muzzle  of  a  loo-pounder  rifle,  and  carried  out 
with  perfect  success,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  naval  his- 
tory of  the  world  affords  no  other  example  of  such 
marvelous  coolness  and  professional  skill  as  that 
shown  by  Gushing  in  the  destruction  of  the  Albe- 
marle. — J.  R.  SOLEY. 

*  Samuel  Higgius,  fireman. 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE." 


437 


wire  that  set  all  these  figures  moving  (in  a 
manner  quite  as  interesting  as  the  best  of  the- 
atricals), but  as  I  had  no  desire  of  being  dis- 
covered by  any  of  the  rebs  who  were  so 
plentiful  around  me,  I  did  not  long  remain  a 
spectator.  My  first  object  was  to  get  into  a 
dry  fringe  of  rushes  that  edged  the  swamp; 
but  to  do  this  required  me  to  pass  over  thirty 
or  forty  feet  of  open  ground,  right  under  the 
eye  of  the  sentinel  who  walked  the  parapet. 

Watching  until  he  turned  for  a  moment,  I 
made  a  dash  to  cross  the  space,  but  was  only 
half-way  over  when  he  turned,  and  forced  me 
to  drop  down  right  between  two  paths,  and 
almost  entirely  unshielded.  Perhaps  I  was 
unobserved  because  of  the  mud  that  covered 
me,  and  made  me  blend  in  with  the  earth ;  at 
all  events  the  soldier  continued  his  tramp  for 
Mime  time,  while  I,  flat  on  my  back,  awaited 
;her  chance  for  action.  Soon  a  party  of 
four  men  came  down  the  path  at  my  right, 
two  of  them  being  officers,  and  passed  so  close 
to  me  as  almost  to  tread  upon  my  arm.  They 
were  conversing  upon  the  events  of  the  pre- 
vious night,  and  were  wondering  "  how  it  was 
done,"  entirely  unconscious  of  the  presence 
of  one  who  could  give  them  the  information. 
This  proved  to  me  the  necessity  of  regaining 
the  swamp,  which  I  did  by  sinking  my  heels 
and  elbows  into  the  earth  and  forcing  my 
body,  inch  by  inch,  towards  it.  For  five  hours 
then,  with  bare  feet,  head,  and  hands,  I  made 
my  way  where  I  venture  to  say  none  ever  did 
before,  until  I  came  at  last  to  a.  clear  place, 
where  I  might  rest  upon  solid  ground.  The 
cypress  swamp  was  a  network  of  thorns  and 
briers,  that  cut  into  the  flesh  at  every  step  like 
knives,  and  frequently,  when  the  soft  mire 
would  not  bear  my  weight,  I  was  forced  to 
throw  my  body  upon  it  at  length,  and  haul  it 
along  by  the  arms.  Hands  and  feet  were  raw 
when  I  reached  the  clearing,  and  yet  my  dif- 
ficulties were  but  commenced.  A  working- 
party  of  soldiers  was  in  the  opening,  engaged 
in  sinking  some  schooners  in  the  river  to  ob- 
struct the  channel.  I  passed  twenty  yards  in 
their  rear  through  a  corn  furrow,  and  gained 
some  woods  below.  Here  I  encountered  a 
iH'gro,  and  after  serving  out  to  him  twenty 
dollars  in  greenbacks  and  some  texts  of  Script- 
ure (two  powerful  arguments  with  an  old 
darky),  I  had  confidence  enough  in  his  fidel- 
ity to  send  him  into  town  for  news  of  the 
ram. 

\\  hen  he  returned,  and  there  was  no  longer 
doubt  that  she  had  gone  down,  I  went  on 
again,  and  plunged  into  a  swamp  so  thick  that 
I  had  only  the  sun  for  a  guide  and  could  not 
see  ten  feet  in  advance.  About  2  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  I  came  out  from  the  dense  mass 
of  reeds  upon  the  bank  of  one  of  the  deep, 
Vol..  XXXVI.— 62. 


narrow  streams  that  abound  there,  and  right 
opposite  to  the  only  road  in  the  vicinity.  It 
seemed  providential  that  I  should  come  just 
there,  for,  thirty  yards  above  or  below,  I  never 
should  have  seen  the  road,  and  might  have 
struggled  on  until  worn  out  and  starved  —  found 
a  never-to-be-discovered  grave.  As  it  was,  my 
fortune  had  led  me  to  where  a  picket  party 
of  seven  soldiers  were  posted,  having  a  little 
flat-bottomed,  square-ended  skiff  toggled  to 
the  root  of  a  cypress-tree  that  squirmed  like  a 
snake  into  the  inky  water.  Watching  them  until 
they  went  back  a  few  yards  to  eat,  I  crept  into 
the  stream  and  swam  over,  keeping  the  big  tree 
between  myself  and  them,  and  making  for  the 
skiff. 

(jaining  the  bank,  I  quietly  cast  loose  the 
boat  and  floated  behind  it  some  thirty  yards 
around  the  first  bend,  where  I  got  in  and 
paddled  away  as  only  a  man  could  where  lib- 
erty was  at  stake. 

Hour  after  hour  I  paddled,  never  ceasing  for 
a  moment,  first  on  one  side,  then  on  the  other, 
while  sunshine  passed  into  twilight  and  that 
was  swallowed  up  in  thick  darkness,  only  re- 
lieved by  the  few  faint  star  rays  that  penetrated 
the  heavy  swamp  curtain  on  either  side.  At 
last  I  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Roanoke,  and 
found  the  open  sound  before  me. 

My  frail  boat  could  not  have  lived  a  moment 
in  the  ordinary  sea  there,  but  it  chanced  to  be 
very  calm,  leaving  only  a  slight  swell,  which 
was,  however,  sufficient  to  influence  my  boat, 
so  that  I  was  forced  to  paddle  all  upon  one 
side  to  keep  her  on  the  intended  course. 

After  steering  by  a  star  for  perhaps  two 
hours  for  where  I  thought  the  fleet  might  be, 
I  at  length  discovered  one  of  the  vessels,  and 
after  a  long  time  got  within  hail.  My  "  Ship 
ahoy ! "  was  given  with  the  last  of  my  strength, 
and  I  fell  powerless,  with  a  splash,  into  the 
water  in  the  bottom  of  my  boat,  and  awaited 
results.  I  had  paddled  every  minute  for  ten  suc- 
cessive hours,  and  for  four  my  body  had  been 
"  asleep,"  with  the  exception  of  my  two  arms 
and  brain.  The  picket  vessel,  Valley  City, — 
for  it  was  she, —  upon  hearing  the  hail  at  once 
slipped  her  cable  and  got  under  way,  at  the 
same  time  lowering  boats  and  taking  precau- 
tion against  torpedoes. 

It  was  some  time  before  they  would  pick 
me  up,  being  convinced  that  I  was  the  rebel 
conductor  of  an  infernal  machine,  and  that 
Lieutenant  Gushing  had  died  the  night 
before. 

At  last  I  was  on  board,  had  imbibed  a  little 
brandy  and  water,  and  was  on  my  way  to 
the  flag-ship,  commanded  by  Commander 
Macomb. 

As  soon  as  it  became  known  that  I  had  re- 
turned, rockets  were  thrown  up  and  all  hands 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "ALBEMARLE: 


called  to  cheer  ship ;  and  when  I  announced 
success,  all  the  commanding  officers  were 
summoned  on  board  to  deliberate  upon  a 
plan  of  attack. 

In  the  morning  I  was  again  well  in  every 
way,  with  the  exception  of  hands  and  feet,  and 
had  the  pleasure  of  exchanging  shots  with  the 
batteries  that  I  had  inspected  on  the  day 
previous. 

I  was  sent  in  the  Valley  City  to  report  to 
Admiral  Porter  at  Hampton  Roads,  and  soon 
after  Plymouth  and  the  whole  district  of  the 
Albemarle,  deprived  of  the  iron-clad's  protec- 
tion, fell  an  easy  prey  to  Commander  Macomb 
and  our  fleet.* 

I  again  received  the  congratulations  of  the 
Navy  Department,  and  the  thanks  of  Con- 
gress, and  was  also  promoted  to  the  grade  of 
Lieutenant-Commander. 


Engineer-in-Chief  William  W.  W.  Wood,  of 
the  United  States  Navy,  in  describing  the  con- 
struction and  fitting  out  of  the  launch  with 
which  Captain  Gushing  blew  up  the  Albemarle, 
says: 

When  I  was  on  duty  in  New  York  in  connection  with 
the  construction  of  the  iron-clad  fleet  and  other  ves- 
sels, I  was  also  engaged  in  devising  means  to  destroy 
the  Confederate  iron-clads,  and  to  remove  the  liarbor 
obstructions  improvised  by  the  Southerners  to  prevent 

*  Lieutenant  C'ushing  reached  the  Valley  City  about 
midnight  on  the  night  of  October  28-29,  and  an- 
nounced the  destruction  of  the  Albemarle.  On  the 
next  day,  the  291!),  at  11.15  A-  M-.  Commander  Ma- 
comb  got  under  way,  and  his  fleet  proceeded  up 
the  Roanoke  River  in  the  following  order :  Commo- 
dore Hull,  Shamrock  (flag-ship),  Chicopee,  Otsego, 
Wyalusing,  and  Tacony  ;  the  Valley  City  being  sent 
at  the  same  time  up  Middle  River,  which  joined  the 
Roanoke  above  Plymouth,  to  intercept  any  vessels  com- 
ing out  with  stores.  Upon  the  arrival  of  the  fleet  at 
the  wreck  of  the  Southfield,  after  exchanging  shots 
with  the  lower  batteries,  it  was  found  that  the  enemy 
had  effectually  obstructed  the  channel  by  sinking 
schooners  alongside  of  the  wreck,  and  the  expedition 
was  therefore  compelled  to  return.  The  Valley  City, 
hearing  the  firing  cease,  concluded  that  Plymouth  had 
been  captured,  and  continuing  her  course  up  Middle 
River  reached  the  Roanoke ;  but  on  approaching  the 
enemy's  works,  and  learning  her  mistake,  she  withdrew 
as  she  had  come.  It  was  upon  her  course  up  Middle 
River,  shortly  after  noon,  that  the  Valley  City  picked 
up  Houghton,  the  only  member  of  the  crew  of  the 
picket-boat,  beside  Gushing,  who  escaped  death  or 
capture.  He  had  swum  across  the  river,  and  had  re- 
mained hidden  for  thirty-six  hours  in  the  swamp  that 
separates  the  two  streams. 

On  the  next  day,  Commander  Macomb,  having  as- 
certained from  the  experience  of  the  Valley  City  that 
Middle  River  offered  a  clear  passage,  determined  to 
approach  Plymouth  by  that  route.  The  fleet  was  pre- 
ceded by  the  tug  Baz/ey,  \v\lh  Pilot  Alfred  Everett, of 
the  Wyalusing,  on  board.  Following  the  Bazley  were 
the  Shamrock,  Otsego,  Wyalusing,  Taconv,  and  Com- 
modore If  nil.  The  Valley  City  had  been'  detailed  to 
take  Lieutenant  Gushing  to  Hampton  Roads,  and  the 
Ckicoptt  had  gone  to  New  Berne  for  repairs.  The  ex- 
pedition threaded  successfully  the  channel,  shelling 
Plymouth  across  the  woods  on  the  intervening  neck  of 


access  of  our  vessels  to  the  harbors  and  approaches  in 
Southern  waters. 

About  this  time  experiment  had  developed  the  feasi- 
bility of  using  torpedoes  from  the  bows  of  ordinary 
steam-launches,  and  there  had  been  already  two  such 
launches  constructed,  which  were  then  lying  at  the 
Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  N.  Y.,  having  torpedoes  fitted  to 
them. 

While  sitting  at  my  desk  at  the  iron-clad  office  in 
Canal  street,  New  York  (the  office  of  Rear-Admiral 
K.  H.  Gregory,  the  general  superintendent),  a  young 
man  (a  mere  youth)  came  in  and  made  himself  known 
as  Lieutenant  W.  B.  Gushing,  United  States  Navy. 

He  stated  to  me,  in  strict  confidence,  that  he  was 
North  on  a  secret  mission,  under  the  sanction  of  the 
Honorable  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  the  object  being  to 
cut  out  or  destroy  the  rebel  iron-clad  ram  Albemarle, 
then  lying  at  Plymouth,  N.  C.,  and  he  had  been  look- 
ing for  small  and  swift  low-pressure  tug-boats  for  the 
purpose  of  throwing  a  force  on  board,  capturing,  and 
cutting  her  out,  and  that,  should  he  fail  in  this  object, 
to  destroy  her;  that  so  far  he  had  been  unable  to  find 
just  such  vessels  as  he  required;  and,  further,  he  had 
been  at  the  Navy  Yard  and  there  saw  a  steam-launch 
being  fitted  with  a  torpedo,  and  had  called  on  me  to 
make  inquiry  as  to  what  was  designed  to  be  accom- 
plished by  its  use,  etc. 

I  gave  him  all  the  particulars  and  urged  him  to  avail 
himself  of  the  opportunity  presented,  which  he  without 
hesitation  did.  He  sat  down  at  my  desk  and  wrote  to 
the  Secretary,  stating  that  he  had  found  what  he  desired 
for  his  purpose,  and  requested  an  order  from  the  De- 
partment to  be  furnished  with  two  of  the  torpedo  boats 
or  launches ;  and  in  going  out  said :  "  I  will  visit  my 
mother  at  Frcdonia,  N.  Y.,  and  when  they  are  ready 
inform  me,  and  I  will  come  down  and  learn  how  to  use 
this  thing." 

land  on  its  way  up,  until  it  reached  the  head  of  Middle 
River  and  passed  into  the  Roanoke,  where  it  lay  all 
night. 

At  9.30  on  the  morning  of  the  list  ofOctoberthe  line 
was  formed,  the  Commodore  Jhill  being  placed  in  ad- 
vance, as  her  ferry-boat  construction  enabled  her  to  fire 
ahead.  The  U'hitehcad,  which  had  arrived  with  stores 
just  before  the  attack,  was  lashed  to  the  Tacony,  and  the 
tugs  Bazley  and  Belle  to  the  Shamrock  and  Otsego,  to 
afford  motive  power  in  case  of  accident  to  the  ma- 
chinery. Signal  was  made  to"Goahead  fast,"  and  soon 
after  n  the  fleet  was  hotly  engaged  with  the  batteries 
on  shore,  which  were  supported  by  musketry  from 
rifle-pits  and  houses.  After  a  spirited  action  of  an 
hour  at  short  range,  receiving  and  returning  a  sharp 
fire  of  shell,  grape,  and  canister,  .the  Shamrock  planted 
a  shell  in  the  enemy's  magazine,  which  blew  up,  and  the 
Confederates  hastily  abandoned  their  woiks.  A  landing- 
party  was  at  once  sent  ashore  and  occupied  the  batteries, 
capturing  the  last  of  the  retreating  garrison.  In  a  short 
time  Plymouth  was  entirely  in  possession  of  the  Union 
forces.  Twenty-two  cannon  were  captured,  with  a 
large  quantity  of  small-arms,  stores,  and  ammunition. 
The  casualties  on  the  Union  side  were  six  killed  and 
nine  wounded. 

The  vessels  engaged  were  as  follows  :  Dorin.K- 
ENDERS  :  Shamrock,  Commander  W.  H.  Macomb, 
commanding  division,  Lieutenant  Rufus  K.  lJuer, 
executive  officer;  Otsego,  Lieutenant-Commander  H. 
N.  T.  Arnold;  Wyalusing,  Lieutenant-Commander 
Karl  English ;  Tacony,  Lieutenant-Commander  W. 
T.  Truxtun.  FERRY-BOAT  :  Commodore  Hull,  Act- 
ing-Master Francis  Josselyn.  GUN-BOAT  :  White- 
head,  Acting-Master  G.  W.  Barrett.  TUGS  :  Bell,; 
Acting-Master  James  G.  Green;  Bazley,  Acting- 
Master  Mark  D.  Ames.  The  Chicopee,  Commander 
A.  D.  Harrell,  and  Valley  City,  Acting-Master  J.  A. 
J.  Brooks,  as  already  stated,  were  not  present  at  the 
second  and  final  demonstration. — J.  R.  SOLEY. 


THE    CAREER    OF  THE  "  ALBEMARLE." 


439 


I  did  so.  Lieutenant  Gushing  came  to  New  York, 
the  launch  was  taken  out  into  tlie  North  River,  and 
one  or  more  torpedo  shells  exploded  by  Lieutenant 
Cnshini:  himself. 

\Ve  stopped  at  the  same  hotel  (the  old  United  Slates, 
corner  of  Pearl  and  Fulton  streets)  until  his  depart- 
ure, where  I  became  well  acquainted  with  this  gallant 
and  brave  officer,  and  discussed  frequently  the  resources 
of  the  torpedo  steam-launches. 

I  was  not  disappointed  when, a  short  time  afterwards, 
Barry,  the  clerk  of  the  hotel,  told  me  one  morning  on  my 
making  my  appearance  that  "Cushing  had  done  the 
work,"  and  handed  me  the  morning  paper  containing 
dishing' s  report  to  the  Honorable  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

The  dimensions  of  these  two  launches  wen 
lows :   45   in  47  feet  long;  9  feet  6  inches  beam,  and 
carried  a  howitzer  forward.    Draught  of  water,  about 
40  to  42  inches." 

Cushing's  visit  to  his  mother,  referred  to  by 
Eiigineer-in-Chief  Wood,  is  thus  described  by 
Mrs.  Cushing: 


Well  do  I  remember  that  dreary  day  in  the  fall  of 
1864  when  Will,  home  on  a  brief  visit,  united  me  to 
ride  with  him  over  the  Arkwright  hills;  the  only  lime 
1  was  there,  but  in  memory  forever  associated  with  the 
destruclion  of  the  Albemarle.  It  was  a  dark, cloudy  day, 
and  looked  lonely ;  but  where  no  one  could  hear  or  see 
us  Will  said  to  me,  "  Mother,  I  have  undertaken  a 
great  project,  and  no  soul  must  know  until  it  is  accom- 
plished. I  must  tell  you,  for  1  need  your  prayers."  He 
then  informed  me  that  the  Navy  Department  had  com- 
missioned him  to  destroy  the  rebel  ram  Albemarlt. 
How,  when,  and  where,  he  told  me  all  particulars, 
while  I  tried  to  still  the  beatings  of  my  heart  and  listen 
in  silence.  At  last  I  said,  "  My  son,  1  believe  you  will  ac- 
complish it,  but  you  cannot  come  out  alive.  Why  did 
they  call  upon  you  to  do  this?  "  I  felt  that  it  was  asking 
too  much.  "  Mother,  it  shall  be  done  or  you  will  have 
no  son  Will.  If  I  die,  it  will  be  in  a  good  cause."  After 
that  I  spoke  only  words  of  encouragement,  but,  oh  ! 
those  days  of  suspense,  shared  by  no  one,  every  hour 
an  age  of  agony,  until  from  my  son  Howard  came  the 
glad  telegram,  "  William  is  safe  and  successful." 


NOTE  ON  THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  "  ALBEMARLE." 

BY    HER    CAPTAIN,  A.    F.    WARLEV,    C.    S.    N. 


WHKN  I  took  command  of  the  Confederate  States 
iron-clad  Albemarle,  I  found  her  made  fast  to  the 
river  bank  nearly  abreast  of  the  town  of  Plymouth.  She 
was  surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  single  cypress  logs 
chained  together,  about  ten  feet  from  her  side. 

I  soon  found  why  the  very  able  officer  whom  I  suc- 
ceeded (Captain  J.  X.  Maffitt)  was  willing  to  give  up 
the  command.  There  was  no  reason  why  the  place 
might  not  be  recaptured  any  day:  the  guns  command- 
ing the  river  were  in  no  condition  for  use,  and  the 
troops  in  charge  of  them  were  worn  down  by  ague, 
and  were  undrilled  and  worthless. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  river,  at  pistol  range,  was  a 
low  island  heavily  timbered,  and  said  to  be  almost  im- 
penetrable. As  it  fully  commanded  our  position,  I  sent 
an  active  officer  with  a  few  hardy  men  to"  explore  it." 

*  The  two  "  picket-boats,"  as  they  were  officially  des- 
ignated, were  delivered  completely  fitted  to  Lieutenant 
Gushing,  in  New  York,  on  the  2Oth  of  September,  by 
Admiral  F.  II.  Gregory,  Superintendent  of  Construc- 
tion, with  orders  to  send  them  directly  to  Hampton 
Roads  by  way  of  the  canals.  Cushing,  not  having  any 
desire  to  make  a  canal  voyage  in  an  open  launch,  had 
obtained  permission  to  proceed  by  land.  Picket-boat 
No.  I  was  under  the  command  of  Acting  Ensign  Will- 
iam L.  Howarth,  and  No.  2  under  Acting  Ensign  An- 
drew  Stockholm.  The  two  boats  left  New  York  on 
the  22d.  Both  of  them  struck  on  the  rocks  near  Ber- 
gen Point,  X.  J.,  and  remained  there  sunk  for  some 
hours.  They  arrived  on  the  25th,  badly  damaged,  at 
New  Brunswick,  where  they  were  repaired.  No.  2 
sank  again  in  the  canal,  and  was  again  repaired  in 
Philadelphia,  where  the  boats  arrived  on  the  28th. 
Leaving  Philadelphia,  they  reached  Baltimore  in  safety; 
and  after  having  "been  inspected  by  Cushing,  they  re- 
sumed their  voyage  on  the  4th  of  October  down  Chesa- 
Hay. 

Soon  alter  leaving  Baltimore,  No.  I's  engine  broke 
down,  and  she  was  towed  into  Annapolis  by  No.  2  on 
the  5th.  Leaving  Annapolis  the  next  day  in  a  heavy 
.  the  boats  worked  over  first  to  one  shore  and  then 
to  the  other.  Presently  the  machinery  of  No.  2  was 
disabled,  and  she  put  into  Great  Wicomico  Hay  for 
repairs.  Ilowarth's  anxiety  to  reach  Fort  Monroe 
led  him  to  press  on,  leaving  his  consort  to  follow  as 
soon  as  possible.  On  the  8th,  however,  when  the  re- 
pairs had  been  completed,  and  just  as  Stockholm  was 


His  report  on  his  return  showed  that  we  were  under 
constant  espionage.  Acting  on  this  information  the 
same  officer  (Mr.  Long),  with  ten  men,  ambuscaded 
and  captured  a  Federal  man-of-war  boat,  and  for  the 
time  being  put  a  stop  to  the  spy  system. 

When  1  had  been  about  a  month  at  Plymouth  the 
troops  were  relieved  by  anew  set.  On  the  day  of  their  ar- 
rival I  heard  of  a  steam-launch  having  been  seen  in  the 
river,  and  I  informed  the  officer  in  command  of  the  fact, 
and  at  the  same  time  told  him  that  the  safety  of  the 
place  depended  on  the  Albemarle,  and  the  safety  of  the 
Albemarle  depended  on  the  watchfulness  of  his  pickets. 

The  crew  of  the  Albemarle  numbered  but  sixty,  too 
small  a  force  to  allow  me  to  keep  an  armed  watch  on 
deck  at  night  and  to  do  outside  picketing  besides. 
Moreover,  to  break  the  monotony  of  the  life  and  keep 

about  to  get  away,  he  was  attacked  by  guerrillas.  In 
trying  to  get  out  into  the  open  water  the  boat  unfor- 
tunately grounded;  and  Stockholm,  after  using  up  his 
ammunition,  set  her  on  fire  and  surrendered.  The 
prisoners  were  sent  to  Richmond,  but  were  soon  after 
paroled,  and  Stockholm  on  his  return  was  dismissed. 
No.  I  arrived  safely  at  her  destination,  and  was  used 
by  Cushing  in  the  expedition  against  the  Albemarle. 
The  list  of  officers  and  men  on  board  Picket-boat 
No.  I,  on  the  expedition  of  October  27, 1864,  with  the 
vessels  to  which  they  were  officially  attached,  was  as 
follows :  Lieutenant  William  B.  Cushing,  command- 
ing, Monticelh;  Acting  Assistant  Paymaster  Francis 
H.  Swan,  Otsego ;  Acting  Ensign  William  L.  Howarth, 
Monticello ;  Acting  Master's  Mate  John  Woodman, 
Commodore  Hull;  Acting  Master's  Mate  Thomas  S. 
Gay,  Otsego;  Acting  Third  Assistant  Engineer  William 
Stotesbury,  Picket-boat ;  Acting  Third  Assistant  En- 
gineer Charles  L.  Steever,  Otsego ;  Samuel  Higgins, 
first-class  fireman,  Picket-boat;  Richard  Hamilton, 
coal-heaver,  Shamrock;  William  Smith,  ordinary  sea- 
man, Chicopee;  Bernard  Harley,  ordinary  seaman, 
Chicopee ;  Edward  T.  Houghton,  ordinary  seaman, 
Chicopee;  Lorenzo  Deming,  landsman,  Picket-boat; 
Henry  Wilkes,  landsman,  Picket-boat ;  Robert  H. 
King,  landsman,  Picket-boat.  Cushing  and  Howarth, 
together  with  those  designated  as  attached  to  the 
"Picket-boat,"  were  the  original  seven  who  brought 
the  boat  down  from  New  York.  Cushing  and  Hough- 
ton  escaped,  Woodman  and  Higgins  were  drowned, 
and  the  remaining  eleven  were  captured. 


44° 


A   NOTE    OF  PEACE. 


down  ague,  I  had  always  out  an  expedition  of  ten 
men,  who  were  uniformly  successful  in  doing  a  fair 
amount  of  damage  to  the  enemy.  All  were  anxious 
to  be  on  these  expeditions  and  to  keep  out  of  the 
hospital. 

The  officer  in  command  of  the  troops  was  inclined 
to  give  me  all  assistance,  and  sent  a  picket  of  twenty- 
five  men  under  a  lieutenant;  they  were  furnished  with 
rockets  and  had  a  field-piece.  This  picket  was  stationed 
on  board  of  a  schooner  about  gun-shot  below  the  Albe- 
?rf<rr/e,  where  an  attempt  was  being  made  to  raise  a 
vessel  (the  Southfield*)  sunk  at  the  time  of  Commander 
Cooke's  dash  down  the  river.  Yet  on  the  night  of  the 
27th  of  October  Cushing's  steam-launch  ran  quietly 
alongside  of  the  schooner  unobserved  by  the  picket, 
without  a  sound  or  signal,  and  then  steamed  up  to  the 
Albemarle. 

It  was  about  3  A.  M.  The  night  was  dark  and  slightly 
rainy,and  the  launch  was  close  tons  when  we  haile<l  and 
the  alarm  was  given  —  so  close  that  the  gun  could  not  be 
depressed  enough  to  reach  her ;  so  the  crew  were  sent 
in  the  shield  with  muskets,  and  kept  up  a  heavy  fire  on 
the  launch  as  she  slowly  forced  her  way  over  the  chain 
of  logs  and  ranged  by  us  within  a  few  feet.  As  she 
reached  the  bow  of  the  Albemarle  I  heard  a  report  as 
of  an  unshotted  gun,  and  a  piece  of  wood  fell  at  my 
feet.  Calling  the  carpenter,  I  told  him  a  torpedo  had 
been  exploded,  and  ordered  him  to  examine  and  report 
to  me,  saying  nothing  to  any  one  else.  He  soon  re- 
ported "  a  hole  in  her  bottom  big  enough  to  drive  a 
wagon  in." 

By  this  time  I  heard  voices  from  the  launch  — 
"We  surrender,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  I  stopped  our  fire 
and  sent  out  Mr.  Long,  who  brought  back  all  those 
who  had  been  in  the  launch  except  the  gallant  cap- 


tain and  three  of  her  crew,  all  of  whom  took  to  the 
water. 

Having  seen  to  their  safety,  I  turned  my  attention  to 
the  Albemarle  and  found  her  resting  on  the  bottom  in 
eight  feet  of  water,  her  upper  works  above  water.  The 
very  men  who  had  destroyed  her  had  no  idea  of  their 
success,  for  I  heard  one  say  to  another,  "We  did  our 
best,  but  there  tha  d d  old  thing  is  yet." 

That  is  the  way  the  Albemarle  was  destroyed,  and 
a  more  gallant  thing  was  not  done  during  the  war. 
After  her  destruction,  failing  to  convince  the  officer  in 
command  of  the  troops  that  he  could  not  hold  the 
place,  I  did  my  best  to  help  defend  it.  Half  of  my  crew 
went  down  and  obstructed  the  river  by  sinking  the 
schooner  at  the  wreck,  and  with  the  other  half  I  had 
two  8-inch  guns  commanding  the  upper  river  put  in 
serviceable  order,  relaid  platforms,  fished  out  tackles 
from  UK:  ,  llb<:i}ia)'U',  got  a  few  shells,  etc.,  and  waited.  I 
did  not  have  to  wait  long.  The  fleet  steamed  up  to  the 
obstructions,  fired  a  few  shells  over  the  town,  steamed 
down  again,  and  early  next  morning  rounding  the 
island  were  in  the  river  and  opened  fire. 

The  two  8-inch  guns  worked  by  Mr.  Long  and 
Mr.  Shelley  did  their  duty,  and  I  think  did  all  that  was 
done  in  the  defense  of  Plymouth.  The  fire  of  the  fleet 
was  concentrated  on  us,  and  one  at  least  of  the  steamers 
was  so  near  that  I  could  hear  the  orders  given  to  elevate 
or  depress  the  guns.  When  I  felt  that  by  hanging  on  I 
could  only  sacrifice  my  men  and  achieve  nothing,  I  or- 
dered our  guns  spiked  and  the  men  sent  round  to  the 
road  by  a  ravine. 

The  crew  left  me  by  Captain  Maffitt  were  good  and 
true  men,  and  stuck  by  me  to  the  last.  If  any  failed  in 
his  duty,  I  never  heard  of  it ;  and  if  any  of  them  still 
live,  I  send  them  a  hearty  "  God  bless  you !  " 


A    NOTE    OF   PEACE. 


REUNIONS  OF  "THE  BLUE  AND  THE  GRAY. 


LTHOUGH  the  horrors 
of  war  are  the  more  con- 
spicuous where  the  con- 
flict is  between  brothers 
and  the  struggle  is  a  long 
and  desperate  one,  the 
evidences  are  numerous 
that,  underneath  the  pas- 
sion and  bitterness  of  our  civil  war,  there  were 
counter  currents  of  kindly  feeling,  a  spirit  of 
genuine  friendliness  pervading  the  opposing 
camps.  This  friendliness  was  something  deeper 
than  the  expression  of  mere  human  instinct; 
the  combatants  felt  that  they  were  indeed 
brothers.  Acts  of  kindness  to  wounded  ene- 
mies began  to  be  noted  at  Bull  Run,  while  in 
every  campaign  useless  picket  firing  was  al- 
most uniformly  discountenanced,  and  the  men 
shook  hands  at  the  outposts  and  talked  con- 
fidingly of  their  private  affairs  and  their  trials 
and  hardships  in  the  army.  This  feeling,  con- 
fined, perhaps,  to  men  on  the  very  front  line, 
culminated  at  Appomattox,  where  the  victors 
shared  rations  with  their  late  antagonists  and 


generously  offered  them  help  in  repairing  the 
wastes  of  battle.  When  the  Union  veteran  re- 
turned to  the  North  he  did  not  disguise  his 
faith  in  the  good  intentions  of  the  Southern 
fighting  man,  and  for  a  number  of  years  after 
peace  was  made,  the  process  of  fraternization 
went  quietly  forward.  The  business  relations 
of  the  sections  and  the  interchange  of  settlers 
brought  into  close  communication  the  rank 
and  file  of  both  armies,  and  the  spirit  of  good- 
will that  had  been  manifested  in  a  manner  so 
unique  at  the  front  was  found  to  be  a  hearty 
and  general  sentiment. 

Out  of  this  state  of  things  was  developed, 
naturally,  a  series  of  formal  meetings  of  vete- 
rans of  the  Blue  and  the  Gray.  The  earliest 
reunions  of  which  I  find  record  were  held  in 
1881  (the  year  of  the  Yorktown  Centennial  and 
of  Garfield's  death).  The  first  was  a  meeting  of 
Captain  Col  well  Post,  Grand  Army  of  the  Re- 
public, of  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  ex- 
Confederates  of  Luray  Valley,  Virginia.  The 
Southern  veterans  appointed  special  commit- 
tees to  welcome  the  comrades  of  the  Carlisle 


A   NOTE   OF  PEACE. 


441 


post  to  the  soil  of  Virginia,  and  received  them 
accordingly  on  the  2ist  of  July.  In  Septem- 
ber following,  the  post,  in  turn,  invited  the 
Southerners  to  visit  Carlisle,  and  greeted  them 
with  a  public  reception.  The  meeting  was  held 
on  the  Fair  Ground,  in  the  presence  of  a  large 
assemblage,  and  Governor  Henry  M.  Hoyt 
welcomed  the  Virginians;  General  James  A. 
IJeaviT  and  Grand  Army  Posts  58  and  116,  of 
Harrisburg,  took  part  in  the  reunion. 

In  October  of  that  year,  the  members  of 
Aaron  \Vilkcs  Post,  of  Trenton,  New  Jersey, 
on  their  journey  to  the  Vorktown  Centennial 
celebration,  visited  Richmond,  and  were  en- 
tertained in  a  fraternal  manner  by  the  Veteran 
Association  of  the  Old  ist  Virginia  regiment 
and  by  other  ex-Confederates.  In  each  case, 
at  I.uray  and  at  Richmond,  the  meeting  was 
brought  about  by  overtures  on  the  part  of  the 
Northern  veterans.  Lee  Camp,  Confederate 
Veterans,  at  Richmond,  was  formed  soon  after 
this  visit  of  Aaron  Wilkes  Post.  The  list  of  the 
more  prominent  formal  reunions  includes  the 
following: 

1881. —  July  21,  Luray,  Virginia.  Participants:  Cap- 
tain Colwell  Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania, 
and  ex-Confederates  of  the  Valley  of  Virginia. 

1881. —  September  28,  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania.  The 
same  organizations  participating. 

1881. —  October  17  and  18,  Richmond.  Aaron  Wilkes 
Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  and  the 
Veteran  Association  of  the  Old  ist  Virginia  Infan- 
try, Otey  Battery,  and  Richmond  Howitzers,  of 
Richmond. 

1882. — April  12  and  13,  Trenton.  Return  visit  of  the 
Richmond  ex-Confederates. 

1882. —  October,  Gettysburg.  Officers  and  soldiers  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  of  the  Army  of  North- 
ern Virginia.  The  exercises  extended  over  three 
days,  and  among  the  participants  were  Generals 
Sickles,  Crawford,  and  Stannard,  of  the  Union  side, 
and  Generals  Forney,  Trimble,  and  others,  of  the 
Confederate  Army. 

1883. —  October  15-18,  Richmond.  Lincoln  Post, 
G.  A.  R.,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  Phil  Kearny 
Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Richmond,  and  Lee  Camp,  Con- 
federate Veterans. 

1884. —  May  30,  Fredericksburg,  Virginia.  Union  Vet- 
eran Corps,  Washington  Continentals,  and  George 
G.  Meade  Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Washington,  D.  C, 
and  Lee  Camp,  C.  V.,  of  Richmond,  and  MauryCamp, 
C.  V.,  of  Fredericksburg.  Among  the  participants 
were  Generals  Rosecrans,  Slocum,  Newton,  Double- 
day,  and  Roy  Stone,  and  Colonel  H.  W.  Jackson  of 
the  Union  side,  and  General  Longstreet,  Colonels 
W.  C.  Dates,  and  Hilary  A.  Herbert,  and  Captain 
Robert  E.  Lee  of  the  Confederates. 

1884. —  June  17,  Newark,  New  Jersey.  Return  visit 
of  Phil  Kearny  Post  and  Lee  Camp,  of  Richmond, 
to  Lincoln  Post,  of  Newark. 

1885. —  May  7  and  8,  Baltimore.  Society  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac,  and  Lee  Camp,  of  Richmond. 

1885.—  May  20,  Richmond.    Aaron  Wilkes  Post,  of 


Trenton,  and  Lee  Camp.  Dedication  of  the  Rich- 
mond Home  for  ex-Confederates,  and  Memorial  Kx- 
ercises  at  Hollywood  Cemetery. 

1885. —  May  30,  Annapolis,  Maryland.  Meade  P'»t, 
i  .  \.  R.,  and  other  Union  veterans, and  the  ex-Con- 
federates of  Annapolis.  Memorial  Day  reunion. 

1885. —  July  4,  Auburn,  New  York.  Seward  Post, 
( '.  A.  R.,  of  Auburn,  and  Lee  Camp. 

1885. —  October  19,  Richmond.     The  same. 

1885.  —  October  22,  23,  and  24,  Owensboro,  Ken- 
tucky. "  Ex-Federal  and  Kx- Con  federate  "  Soldiers' 
Association,  of  Davis  County,  Kentucky,  and  Union 
veterans  and  ex-Confederates  of  the  West. 

1886. — July  3,  Gettysburg.  Cavalry  Reunion  on  the 
field  of  the  battle  of  July  3,  1863,  between  Stuart 
and  Gregg.  Generals  D.  McM.  Gregg,  Wade  Hamp- 
ton, J.  B.  Mclntosh  were  present,  also  Major  H.  B. 
McClellan,  of  Stuart's  staff. 

1886. —  October  12,  13,  and  14,  Richmond.  Lee  Camp, 
and  John  A.  Andrew  Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Boston. 

1887.  —  June  9,  Staunton,  Virginia.  Confederate  Me- 
morial Exercises  conducted  jointly  by  the  Blue  and 
the  Gray;  Generals  W.  W.  Averell,  Fitzhugh  Lee, 
and  John  D.  Imboden  took  part  in  the  ceremonies. 

1887. — June  16, 17, 18,  and  19,  Boston,  Massachusetts. 
John  A.  Andrew  Post,  of  Boston,  and  Lee  Camp. 
The  Southern  veterans  took  part  in  the  ceremonies 
at  the  Bunker  Hill  anniversary  on  the  171)1,  and  in 
the  evening  attended  a  banquet  at  Faneuil  Hall, 
where  the  State  shield  of  Virginia  was  displayed  be- 
side that  of  Massachusetts.  Among  those  present 
were  Governor  Oliver  ,Ames,  Senator  George  F. 
Hoar,  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  and  Colonel  Henry  O. 
Kent,  of  Massachusetts,  and  John  Goode,  George 
D.  Wise,  and  Major  N.  B.  Randolph,  of  Virginia. 

1887. —  June  18,  Lynn,  Massachusetts.  General  Lan- 
der Post,  G.  A.  R.,of  Lynn,  John  A.  Andrew  Post, 
and  Lee  Camp. 

1887. — July  3,  Gettysburg.  Pickett's  Division  Asso- 
ciation and  the  Philadelphia  Brigade.  A  large  num- 
ber of  veterans  of  both  armies  accompanied  these 
organizations  and  took  part  in  the  memorial  meeting. 

1887. —  September  14,  Mexico,  Missouri.  Reunion  of 
ex-Confederates  of  Missouri,  participated  in  by 
Union  veterans  and  local  posts  of  the  Grand  Army. 

1887.— September  15,  16,  and  17,  Antietam  Battle- 
field, Maryland.  Antietam  Post,G.  A.  R.,of  Sharps- 
burg,  Maryland,  U.  S.  Grant  Post,  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
the  Veteran  Association  of  the  5oth  New  York  Vol- 
unteers, and  Confederate  veterans  of  Maryland  and 
Virginia. 

1887. —  September  27,  Evansville,  Indiana.  Veterans 
of  both  armies  under  a  general  invitation  from  a 
national  committee,  headed  by  General  James  M. 
Shackleford.  Letters  of  indorsement  breathing  the 
spirit  of  fraternity  were  sent  by  Generals  John  B. 
Gordon,  James  Longstreet,  and  Basil  W.  Duke. 

1887. —  October  II,  Kenesaw  Mountain  Battle-field, 
Georgia.  Excursion  and  reunion  of  Confederate  and 
Union  veterans. 

The  meetings  here  enumerated,  with  two 
or  three  exceptions,  were  devoted  mainly  to 
the  interchange  of  social  courtesies.  On  other 
noteworthy  occasions  the  Southerners  have 
extended  less  formal  attentions  to  Northern 


442 


A    NOTE    OF  PEACE. 


veterans  while  visiting  the  old  battle-fields,  par- 
ticularly at  Pea  Ridge,  Chickamauga,  Chatta- 
nooga, Petersburg,  Antietam,  Ball's  Bluff,  and 
the  region  around  Richmond.  One  of  the 
practical  results  of  the  personal  acquaintance- 
ship that  sprung  up  at  these  reunions  was  the 
cooperation  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic 
with  the  Confederate  Veterans  in  raising  funds 
to  erect  a  home  for  disabled  Southern  soldiers 
at  Richmond.  The  movement  to  establish  the 
home  originated  with  Lee  Camp,  and  was 
promptly  indorsed  by  the  Grand  Army  posts 
of  Virginia. 

In  March,  1884,  J.  F.  Berry,  of  Phil  Kearny 
Post,  and  A.  A.  Spitzer,  of  Lee  Camp,  Rich- 
mond, visited  New  York  to  confer  with  mem- 
bers of  the  Grand  Army,  and  a  meeting  was 
held  on  the  igth  at  the  St.  James  Hotel,  re- 
sulting in  the  creation  of  a  joint  committee 
with  General  John  B.  Gordon,  of  Georgia,  as 
chairman,  and  General  James  R.  O'Beime, 
of  Farragut  Post,  G.  A.  R.,  of  New  York,  as 
vice-chairman.  Acting  on  the  suggestion  of 
the  ex-Confederate  members,  the  committee 
published  a  call  for  a  mass  meeting  to  be  held 
at  Cooper  Institute,  April  9,  the  anniversary 
of  Lee's  surrender,  and  General  Grant  was 
called  upon  to  preside.  His  response  to  the 
invitation  was  as  follows : 

WASHINGTON,  April  3,  1884. 

GENERAL  J.   B.   GORDON,   Chairman   Central  Com- 
mittee, New  York : 

Your  letter  of  March  31,  informing  me  that  I  had 
been  chosen  to  preside  at  a  meeting  of  the  different 
posts  of  the  G.  A.  R.  and  ex-Confederates  in  the  city 
of  New  York,  is  received. 

The  object  of  the  meeting  is  to  inaugurate,  under 
the  auspices  of  soldiers  of  both  armies,  a  movement 
in  behalf  of  a  fund  to  build  a  home  for  disabled  ex- 
Confederate  soldiers. 

I  am  in  hearty  sympathy  with  the  movement,  and 
would  be  glad  to  accept  the  position  of  presiding  of- 
ficer, if  I  were  able  to  do  so.  You  may  rely  on  me, 
however,  for  rendering  all  aid  I  can  in  carrying  out 
the  designs  of  the  meeting. 

I  am  here  under  treatment  for  the  injury  I  received 
on  Christmas  Eve  last,  and  will  not  be  able  to  leave 
here  until  later  than  the  gth,  and  cannot  tell  now  how 
soon  or  when  I  shall  be  able  to  go. 

I  have  received  this  morning  your  dispatch  of  last 
evening  urging  that  I  must  be  there  to  preside,  but  I 
have  to  respond  to  that,  that  it  will  be  impossible  for 
me  to  be  there  on  the  gth,  and  I  cannot  now  fix  a  day 
when  I  could  certainly  be  present. 

Hoping  that  your  meeting  will  insure  success,  and 
promising  my  support  financially  and  otherwise  to  the 
movement,  I  am,  very  truly  yours, 

U.  S.   GRANT. 

Following  this  mass  meeting  a  fund  of  sev- 
eral thousand  dollars  was  raised  by  local  com- 
mittees of  the  G.  A.  R.  posts  of  New  York, 

*  What  will  doubtless  prove  to  be  the  greatest  de- 
monstration (up  to  this  date)  of  the  fraternal  feelings 
existing  among  veterans,  is  the  meeting  of  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  with  the  survivors 
of  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  at  Gettysburg,  July 


Brooklyn,  Boston,  and  elsewhere.  Literary  and 
dramatic  entertainments  were  given  in  aid  of 
the  fund.  The  first  of  these  took  place  on  the 
3oth  of  April,  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House,  New  York.  At  that  date  General  Grant 
had  returned  to  his  home  in  Sixty-sixth  street, 
though  he  was  still  suffering  from  the  injuries 
referred  to  in  his  letter  to  General  Gordon. 
He  wrote  to  the  committee  of  Grand  Army 
veterans  that  he  was  physically  unable  to  at- 
tend the  entertainment,  inclosed  a  check  for 
$50,  and  indorsed  their  action. 

The  record  here  presented  is  not  the  whole 
story  of  the  work  that  has  been  done  since 
the  war  closed.  The  spirit  that  moved  Lin- 
coln to  say  in  his  last  inaugural,  "  With  malice 
toward  none,"  has  continued  its  holy  in- 
fluence. That  which  must  appear  to  the 
world  at  large  a  startling  anomaly,  is  in  truth 
the  simple  principle  of  good-will  unfolding 
itself  under  favorable  conditions.  The  war, 
that  is,  the  actual  encounter  on  the  field, 
taught  the  participants  the  dignity  of  Ameri- 
can character.  On  the  occasion  of  the  recep- 
tion of  Lee  Camp  by  the  Society  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  at  Baltimore,  in  1885,  General 
H.  W.  Slocum  said  to  the  assembled  veterans  : 
"  This  incident  that  occurred  here  to-day 
proves  the  truth  of  the  old  saying  that  there 
is  nothing  so  makes  men  respect  one  another 
as  standing  up  in  the  ranks  and  firing  at  one 
another."  In  closing  his  remarks  the  same 
speaker  gave  the  key-note  to  this  whole  matter 
of  the  fraternization  of  former  foes,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  Unionist.  The  words  were 
these  :  "  The  men  of  those  armies  [Union 
and  Confederate]  respected  one  another,  and 
when  General  Grant  said  to  General  Lee, 
'  when  your  men  go  home  they  can  take  their 
horses  to  work  their  little  farms,'  he  spoke  the 
sentiments  of  every  man  in  the  army."  The 
propriety  of  such  declarations  can  hardly  be 
questioned,  and  the  Northern  promoters  of 
reunions  of  "  The  Blue  and  the  Gray  "  are 
pursuing  the  course  marked  out  by  Grant, 
and  they  may,  in  sincerity,  point  to  him  as 
their  leader  and  exemplar.*  On  the  other 
hand,  the  sympathy  of  the  ex- Confederates 
with  the  sufferings  of  General  Grant,  at  the 
close  of  his  life,  and  their  notable  action  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  may  be  cited  as  evi- 
dence for  the  Southerners  of  the  lasting  sen- 
timents of  good-will  they  hold  toward  their 
former  opponents. 

George  L.  Kilmer^ 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  POST,  G.  A.  R., 
NEW  YORK,  1888. 

2d,  3d  and  4th.  This  gathering  originated  in  a  pro- 
posal made  by  the  Third  Corps  Society,  at  their  re- 
union in  May,  1887,  and  the  matter  was  taken  in 
charge  by  the  Society  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  at 
their  reunion  in  the  June  following.  —  G.  L.  K. 


DREAMS,    NIGHTMARE,    AND    SOMNAMBULISM. 


EVERAL  men  and  women, 
most  of  whom  were  in- 
tellectual and  cultivated, 
were  conversing  upon 
some  of  the  more  unusual 
phases  of  human  nature. 
Various  incidents,  some 
of  thrilling  interest,  had 
been  narrated,  when  a  dream  was  related  of 
such  remarkable  detail  —  with  which,  as  it  was 
alleged,  subsequent  events  corresponded  — 
that  it  seemed  as  though  "  it  were  not  all  a 
dream";  and  during  the  remainder  of  a  long 
evening  similar  tales  were  told,  until  it  ap- 
peared that  all  except  two  or  three  dreamed 
frequently.  Finally  it  was  proposed  to  ascer- 
tain the  opinions  of  every  one  present  on  the 
subject. 

One  plainly  said  that  he  did  not  believe  in 
them  at  all.  When  he  was  suffering  from  in- 
digestion, or  was  overtired,  or  had  a  great 
deal  on  his  mind,  he  dreamed ;  and  when  he 
was  well  and  not  overworked,  he  did  not,  and 
"  that  is  all  there  is  in  it."  But  he  added  that 
there  was  one  which  he  could  never  quite  un- 
derstand, and  gave  an  account  of  a  dream 
which  his  brother  had  had  about  the  wrecking 
of  a  steamer.  This  caused  him  not  to  take  pas- 
sage on  it,  and  the  vessel  was  lost,  and  every 
person  in  the  cabin  was  either  seriously  in- 
jured or  drowned.  At  this  a  lady  said  that 
she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  dreaming  all  her 
life,  and  nearly  everything  good  or  bad  that 
ha  1  happened  to  her  had  been  foreshadowed 
in  dreams. 

It  was  soon  apparent  that  three  out  of  four 
did  not  believe  dreams  to  be  supernatural,  or 
preternatural,  or  that  they  have  any  connection 
with  the  events  by  which  they  are  followed ;  but 
nearly  every  one  had  had  a  dream  or  had  been 
the  subject  of  one ;  or  his  mother,  or  grand- 
mother, or  some  other  relative  or  near  friend, 
had  in  dreams  seen  things  which  seemed  to 
have  been  shadows  of  coming  events. 

One  person  affirmed  that  he  had  never 
dreamed :  he  was  either  awake  or  asleep  when 
he  was  in  bed  ;  and  if  he  were  asleep,  he  knew 
nothing  from  the  time  he  closed  his  eyes  un- 
til he  awoke. 

Some  expressed  the  belief  that  minds  influ- 
ence each  other  in  dreams,  and  thus  knowl- 
is  communicated  which  could  never  have 
been  obtained  by  natural  means.  One  gentle- 
man thought  that  in  this  way  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  frequently  communicate  with  the  living; 


and  another,  a  very  devout  Christian,  sug- 
gested that  in  ancient  times  God  spoke  to  his 
people  in  dreams,  and  warned  them;  and  for 
his  part  he  could  see  no  good  reason  why  a 
method  which  the  Deity  employed  then  should 
not  be  used  now.  At  all  events,  he  had  no 
sympathy  with  those  who  were  disposed  to 
speak  slightingly  of  dreams,  and  say  that  there 
is  nothing  in  them;  he  considered  it  but  a 
symptom  of  the  skeptical  spirit  that  is  de- 
stroying religion.  Whereupon  a  lady  said  that 
this  was  her  opinion  too,  and,  turning  to  one 
of  those  who  had  stoutly  ridiculed  dreams, 
said,  "  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt  of  in  your 
philosophy." 

THE    HISTORY   AND    PHENOMENA    OF    DREAMS. 

IN  this  paper,  by  dreams  is  meant  the  visions 
which  occur  in  natural  sleep ;  by  nightmare,  a 
dream  unusually  intense,  involving  a  terrify- 
ing sense  of  danger  and  a  physical  condition 
to  be  more  fully  described;  and  by  somnam- 
bulism, talking,  walking,  or  performing  other 
actions  under  the  influence  of  a  dream  attend- 
ing natural  sleep. 

Dreams  are  frequently  spoken  of,  and  in 
almost  every  possible  aspect,  by  the  oldest 
books  of  the  world.  In  the  Bible,  God  speaks 
in  a  dream  to  Jacob  about  the  increase  of 
the  cattle,  and  warns  Laban  not  to  obstruct 
Jacob's  departure.  The  dreams  of  Joseph, 
unsurpassed  even  from  a  literary  point  of 
view,  and  of  Pharaoh,  with  a  history  of  their 
fulfillment,  occupy  a  large  part  of  the  first  book. 
The  dream  of  Solomon  and  the  dreams  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  the  warning  of  Joseph  to 
take  the  young  Child  into  Egypt,  are  parts  of 
the  history  of  the  Christian  religion.  These 
being  attributed  to  supernatural  influence  can 
reflect  no  light  upon  ordinary  phenomena. 

But  the  Bible  itself  distinguishes  between 
natural  dreams  and  such  as  these.  It  states 
very  clearly  the  characteristics  of  dreams. 
The  hypocrite  "  shall  fly  away  as  a  dream,  and 
shall  not  be  found :  yea,  he  shall  be  chased 
away  as  a  vision  of  the  night."  David  says, 
"  As  a  dream  when  one  awaketh,"  the  Lord 
shall  despise  the  image  of  the  proud.  Solomon 
speaks  of  the  character  of  dreams  thus:  "  For 
in  the  multitude  of  dreams  and  many  words 
there  are  also  divers  vanities  "  ;  of  their  gen- 
eral causes  he  says,  "  For  a  dream  cometh 
through  the  multitude  of  business." 


444 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


Cicero  says  that  men  of  greatest  wisdom 
among  the  Romans  did  not  think  it  beneath 
them  to  heed  the  warnings  of  important 
dreams,  and  affirms  that  in  his  time  the  senate 
ordered  Lucius  Junius  to  erect  a  temple  to 
Juno  Sospita,  in  compliance  with  a  dream 
seen  by  Cecilia.  Scipio's  dream,  philosophical, 
imaginative,  grand,  published  in  the  works  of 
Cicero,  called  the  most  beautiful  thing  of  the 
kind  ever  written,  has  from  its  origin  until  now 
been  the  subject  of  discussion  as  to  whether 
it  was  composed  by  Cicero  for  a  purpose  or  is 
the  veritable  account  of  a  dream. 

Almost  all  the  great  characters  described 
by  Herodotus  believed  that  dreams  were  of 
supernatural  origin.  Kings  resigned  their 
scepters ;  Cambyses  assassinated  his  brother ; 
priests  attained  great  power  as  commanders; 
cities  which  had  been  destroyed  were  re- 
stored by  men  who  changed  their  plans  and 
performed  these  acts  because  warned,  as  they 
supposed,  in  dreams;  and  with  the  invasion 
of  Greece  by  Xerxes  such  night  visions  had 
much  to  do.  Plato  and  Socrates  believed  in 
dreams,  and  even  Aristotle  admitted  that  they 
might  have  a  supernatural  origin. 

There  are  persons  who  affirm  that  they  have 
never  dreamed.  It  is  obvious  that  all  to  which 
they  can  testify  is  that  they  have  never  remem- 
bered a  dream.  Their  evidence  is  therefore  un- 
trustworthy as  to  the  fact  of  dreaming;  for  it 
is  known  that  the  recollections  of  dreams,  as  a 
general  rule,  are  very  imperfect.  Countless 
details  have  fled  away;  the  scenes  have  been 
inextricably  interwoven  with  each  other.  A 
dreamer  may  be  confident  that  he  has  dreamed 
hundreds  of  dreams,  during  any  given  night, 
and  yet  not  be  able  to  recall  with  distinctness 
more  than  one  or  two.  Besides,  observation 
of  some  persons  who  declare  that  they  never 
dream  has  demonstrated  the  contrary ;  for  not 
only  have  they  moved  in  ways  which  indicated 
that  they  were  dreaming,  but  talked,  and  even 
responded  to  questions. 

Upon  only  one  phase  of  the  subject  is  there 
substantial  agreement  among  investigators, 
and  that  is  upon  the  general  characteristics  of 
dreams.  Time  and  space  are  annihilated,  and 
all  true  estimates  confounded.  As  a  rule,  to 
which  there  are  occasional  exceptions,  noth- 
ing appears  strange,  and  the  impressions  which 

*  Those  who  desire  to  see  the  opinions  of  leading 
writers,  ancient  and  modern,  down  to  the  year  1865, 
and  have  not  time  to  consult  them  in  their  own  works, 
may  find  in  Seafield's  "Literature  and  Curiosities  of 
Dreams  "  a  very  extensive  collection.  This  work  has 
been  criticised  within  a  year  or  so  as  containing  a  large 
amount  of  valuablebutOTw'/j-i'.rto/inforination.  The  crit- 
icism is  not  just,  for  it  does  not  profess  to  have  digested, 
but  to  present  all  for  the  digestion  of  others.  The  author 
expressly  declares  that  he  has  "  foregone  such  chances 
of  greater  credit  and  importance,  as  would  have  been 


would  be  made  by  similar  events  in  the  wak- 
ing state  are  not  made ;  or,  if  at  all,  so  slightly 
as  not  to  produce  their  customary  effects. 
Identity  being  often  lost,  no  surprise  is  pro- 
duced by  a  change  of  sex,  age,  name,  country, 
or  occupation.  A  young  lady  dreamed  of  see- 
ing herself  in  her  coffin,  of  listening  to  the 
observations  of  the  mourners,  and  was  not 
astonished  to  find  herself  dead,  nor,  that  being 
dead,  she  could  hear.  She  was  not  even  sur- 
prised when  the  funeral  services  closed  without 
the  coffin  lid  being  shut  down ;  nor  when,  in  a 
very  short  time,  she  dreamed  of  being  alive  and 
engaged  in  her  usual  pursuits. 

But  the  moment  we  pass  beyond  general 
statements  of  this  character,  opinions  the 
most  incongruous  and  even  contradictory  are 
held,  and  strenuously  advocated  by  represen- 
tative writers  in  every  profession.* 

Nightmare  is  something  so  terrible  that  its 
very  name  attributes  its  origin  to  the  devil. 
The  meaning  of  "  mare  "  is  an  incubus,  as  of 
a  spirit  which  torments  persons  in  sleep.  In 
nightmare  the  mind  is  conscious  of  an  impos- 
sibility of  motion,  speech,  or  respiration,  with 
a  dreadful  sense  of  pressure  across  the  chest, 
and  an  awful  vision  of  impending  danger. 
The  victim  sometimes  realizes  his  peril,  gath- 
ers all  his  forces,  struggles  vainly,  and  endeav- 
ors to  shout  for  help.  At  last,  by  a  desperate 
effort,  he  succeeds  in  screaming.  If  then  some 
friendly  touch  or  voice  awaken  him,  the  vision 
flees,  and  he  is  left  stertorously  breathing,  per- 
spiring, and  more  tired  than  if  he  had  broken 
stone  or  worked  in  a  tread-mill  for  as  many 
hours  as  the  nightmare  lasted  minutes.  If  he 
be  not  aroused,  he  may  be  awakened  by  his 
own  screams;  otherwise  the  incubus  may  not 
depart  for  a  considerable  period,  which,  though 
short  in  actual  time,  seems  like  ages  to  him. 

A  young  man  under  the  writer's  care  was 
subject  to  attacks  so  harrowing  that  it  was 
excruciating  to  be  in  the  room  with  him  dur- 
ing the  paroxysm.  Sometimes  after  he  was 
awakened  the  terrifying  vision  would  not 
wholly  fade  away  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
or  more,  during  which  his  shrieks  and  groans 
and  appeals  to  God  and  the  unutterable  ex- 
pression of  agony  upon  his  face  were  terrible. 
In  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  but  a  few  months 
since,  a  lad,  having  been  exceptionally  healthy 

open  to  him  if  he  had  seemed  to  claim  the  whole  as 
original,  by  incorporating  the  several  theories  and  an- 
ecdotes with  textual  commentary  of  his  own." 

More  recent  investigations  of  great  presumptive  im- 
portance have  introduced  an  immense  amount  of  new- 
matter  into  the  literature  and  considerable  into  the 
"  curiosities  "  of  dreams,  or  at  least  of  dream  investi- 
gations. I  have  found  that  some  of  the  passages  quoted 
by  Seafield,  read  in  their  original  setting,  or  compared 
with  all  the  authors  have  said,  require  important  modi- 
fications, if  taken  as  expressions  of  mature  opinion. 


DREAMS,   NIGHT.\fARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


445 


from  birth,  was  attacked  with  nightmare  when 
fourteen  years  old.  After  a  few  attacks  his 
father  slept  with  him  for  the  purpose  of  awak- 
ening him  if  there  should  be  occasion.  ( )ne 
night  the  lather  was  startled  by  the  voice  of 
his  boy  calling  in  terrified  tones,  "  Pop  !  Pop  ! 
I  am  afraid!"  He  felt  the  hand  of  his  son 
nervously  clutching  his  wrist.  Then  the  boy 
fainted,  and  died  instantly.  The  post-mortem 
examination  showed  a  large  clot  of  blood  a  i  »>• it 
the  heart,  caused  by  paralysis  due  to  fear. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  such  instances 
are  numerous  enough  to  make  nightmare 
worthy  of  serious  medical  investigation. 

In  nightmare,  as  A.  Brierre  de  Boismont 
shows,  the  incubus  takes  different  forms.  Some- 
times the  subject  fancies  he  flies  in  the  air.  He 
gives  the  case  of  a  distinguished  writer,  whom 
he  had  seen  in  that  state,  uttering  inarticulate 
sounds  —  his  hair  bristling,  his  countenance 
full  of  terror.  At  such  times  he  would  exclaim, 
"  How  surprising !  I  fly  like  the  wind !  1  pass 
over  mountains  and  precipices  !  "  For  several 
seconds  after  awaking  he  still  imagined  him- 
self floating  in  the  air.  Others  skim  over  the 
ground,  pursued  or  threatened  by  dangers. 

In  childhood  and  youth,  according  to  the 
same  author,  the  individual  is  upon  the  edge 
of  precipices,  about  to  fall.  In  later  years, 
robbers  are  breaking  into  the  house,  or  the 
victim  supposes  himself  condemned  to  death. 
Occasionally  cats,  or  some  other  animals  or 
monsters,  place  themselves  upon  the  stomach. 
"  The  weight  of  this  imaginary  being  stifles, 
while  it  freezes  the  blood  with  horror."  While 
not  every  case  of  nightmare  is  attended  with 
motion  or  sound,  the  reader  will  observe  that 
nightmare  passes  into  somnambulism  when 
the  victim  shrieks  or  leaps  from  his  bed,  or 
makes  any  motion. 

St>Hittttmt>ii/isin,  in  its  simplest  form,  is  seen 
when  persons  talk  in  their  sleep.  They  are 
plainly  asleep  and  dreaming;  yet  the  connec- 
tion, ordinarily  broken,  between  the  physical 
organs  and  the  images  passing  through  the  mind 
is  retained  or  resumed,  in  whole  or  in  part.  It 
is  very  common  for  children  to  talk  more  or 
less  in  their  sleep  ;  also  many  persons  who  do 
not  usually  do  so  are  liable  to  mutter  if  they 
have  overeaten,  or  are  feverish  or  otherwise  ill. 
Slight  movements  are  very  frequent.  Many 
who  do  not  fancy  that  they  have  ever  exhibited 
the  germs  of  somnambulism  groan,  cry  out, 
whisper,  move  the  hand,  or  foot,  or  head, 
plainly  in  connection  with  ideas  passing 
through  the  mind.  From  these  incipient  man- 
ifestations of  no  importance  somnambulism 
reaches  frightful  intensity  and  almost  incon- 
ceivable complications. 

Somnambulists  in  this  country  have  recently 
perpetrated  murders,  have  even  killed  their 
Vol..  XXXVI.— 63. 


own  children ;  they  have  carried  furniture 
out  of  houses,  wound  up  clocks,  ignited  con- 
flagrations. A  carpenter  not  long  since  arose 
in  the  night,  went  into  his  shop,  and  began  to 
file  a  saw ;  but  the  noise  of  the  operation 
awoke  him.  The  extraordinary  feats  of  som- 
nambulists in  ascending  to  the  roofs  of  hou 
threading  dangerous  places,  and  doing  many 
other  things  which  they  could  not  have  done 
while  awake  have  often  been  described,  and 
in  many  cases  made  the  subject  of  close  inves- 
tigation. Formerly  it  was  believed  by  many 
that  if  they  were  not  awakened  they  would  in 
process  of  time  return  to  their  beds,  and 
that  there  would  not  be  any  danger  of  seri- 
ous accident  happening  to  them.  This  has 
long  been  proved  false.  Many  have  fallen  out 
of  windows  and  been  killed ;  and  though  some 
have  skirted  the  brink  of  danger  safely,  the 
number  of  accidents  to  sleeping  persons  is 
great. 

Essays  have  been  written  by  somnambulists. 
A  young  lady,  troubled  and  anxious  about  a 
prize  for  which  she  was  to  compete,  involving 
the  writing  of  an  essay,  arose  from  her  bed  in 
sleep  and  wrote  a  paper  upon  a  subject  upon 
which  she  had  not  intended  to  write  when 
awake ;  and  this  essay  secured  for  her  the 
prize.  The  same  person,  later  in  life,  while 
asleep  selected  an  obnoxious  paper  from  among 
several  documents,  put  it  in  a  cup,  and  set  fire 
to  it.  She  was  entirely  unaware  of  the  trans- 
action in  the  morning. 

Intellectual  work  has  sometimes  been  done 
in  ordinary  dreams  not  attended  by  somnam- 
bulism. The  composition  of  the"  KublaKhan" 
by  Coleridge  while  asleep  and  of  the  "  Devil's 
Sonata,"  by  Tartini,  are  paralleled  in  a  small 
way  frequently.  Public  speakers  often  dream 
out  discourses ;  and  there  is  a  clergyman  now 
residing  in  the  western  part  of  New  York  State 
who,  many  years  ago,  dreamed  that  he  preached 
a  powerful  sermon  upon  a  certain  topic,  and 
delivered  that  identical  discourse  the  following 
Sunday  with  great  effect.  But  such  composi- 
tions are  not  somnambulistic  unless  accom- 
panied by  some  outward  action  at  the  time. 

SEARCHING     FOR    ANALOGIES. 

THREE  different  views  of  dreams  are  possi- 
ble, and  all  have. been  held  and  strenuously 
advocated.  The  first  is  that  the  soul  is  never 
entirely  inactive,  and  that  dream  images  pro- 
ceed all  the  time  through  the  mind  when  in 
sleep.  Richard  Baxter  held  this  view  and  at- 
tempted to  prove  it  by  saying,  "  I  never 
awaked,  since  I  had  the  use  of  memory,  but  I 
found  myself  coming  out  of  a  dream.  And  I 
suppose  they  that  think  they  dream  not,  think 
so  because  they  forget  their  dreams."  Bishop 


446 


DREAMS,   NIGHTMARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


Newton  says  that  the  deepest  sleep  which  pos- 
sesses the  body  cannot  affect  the  soul,  and 
attempts  to  prove  it  by  showing  that  the  im- 
pressions are  often  stronger  and  the  images 
more  lively  when  we  are  asleep  than  when 
awake.  Dr.  Watts  held  the  same  view,  and  de- 
voted a  great  deal  of  attention  to  it  in  his  phil- 
osophical essays.  Sir  William  Hamilton  was 
inclined  to  the  same  belief,  because,  having 
had  himself  waked  up  on  many  occasions,  he 
always  found  that  he  was  engaged  in  dreaming. 

Baxter's  theory  is  an  assumption  of  which  no 
adequate  proof  can  be  offered;  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  test  is  inadequate,  because  an  in- 
stant of  time,  even  the  minute  fraction  that 
elapses  between  the  time  that  a  man's  name 
is  called  or  his  body  touched  for  the  purpose 
of  awaking  him  and  the  resumption  of  con- 
sciousness, may  be  long  enough  for  a  dream 
of  the  most  elaborate  character.  Sir  Henry 
Holland  fell  asleep  while  a  friend  was  reading 
to  him.  He  heard  the  first  part  of  a  sentence, 
was  awake  in  the  beginning  of  the  next  sen- 
tence, and  during  that  time  had  had  a  dream 
which  would  take  him  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to 
write  clown. 

Lord  Brougham  and  others  have  maintained 
that  we  never  dream  except  in  a  state  of  tran- 
sition from  sleeping  to  waking.  Sir  Benjamin 
Brodie,  in  speaking  of  this,  says  : 

There  is  no  sufficient  proof  of  this  being  so;  and 
we  have  a  proof  to  the  contrary  in  the  fact  that  nothing 
is  more  common  than  for  persons  to  moan,  and  even 
talk,  in  their  sleep  without  awaking  from  il. 

The  third  theory  is  that  in  perfect  sleep 
there  is  little  or  no  dreaming.  This  is  sup- 
ported by  various  considerations.  The  natural 
presumption  is  that  the  object  of  sleep  is  to 
give  rest,  and  that  perfect  sleep  would  imply 
the  cessation  of  brain  action ;  and  it  is  found 
that  "  the  more  continuous  and  uninterrupted 
is  our  dreaming,  the  less  refreshing  is  our 
sleep."  Recent  experiments  of  great  interest 
appear  to  confirm  this  view.  The  effect  of 
stimuli,  whether  of  sound,  touch,  smell,  sight, 
or  hearing,  in  modifying  the  dreams  without 
awaking  the  sleeper — or  in  awaking  him  — 
all  point  in  the  same  direction  ;  and  though 
there  is  always  some  sense  of  time  when  awak- 
ing, which  proves  that  the  mind  has  to  some 
extent  been  occupied,  in  the  soundest  sleep, 
it  is  so  slight  as  to  seem  as  if  the  person  had 
just  lain  down,  though  many  hours  may  have 
passed.  Whereas,  just  in  proportion  as  the 
dreams  are  remembered,  or  as  the  fact  of 
dreaming  can  be  shown  by  any  method,  is 
the  sense  of  time  the  longer.  I  do  not  speak 
of  the  heavy,  dull  sleep  which,  without  appar- 
ent dreams,  results  from  plethora,  or  some- 
times accompanies  an  overloaded  stomach, 
or  is  the  result  of  overexhaustion,  or  occasion- 


ally supervenes  after  protracted  vigils,  but  of 
the  very  sound  sleep  enjoyed  by  the  work- 
ing classes  when  in  health,  or  by  vigorous 
children. 

Tin;  most  interesting  question  is.  Can  a 
theory  of  dreams  be  constructed  which  will 
explain  them  upon  natural  principles,  without 
either  the  assumption  of  materialism,  or  an 
idealism  akin  to  superstition?  It  is  to  be 
understood  that  no  phenomena  can  be  ex- 
plained at  the  last  analysis;  but  a  theory 
which  will,  without  violence,  show  the  facts 
to  be  in  harmony  with  natural  laws,  or  bring 
them  within  the  range  of  things  natural,  so 
that  they  are  seen  to  belong  to  a  general  class, 
and  to  be  subject  to  the  relation  of  anteced- 
ents and  consequents,  is  an  explanation.  For 
example,  electricity  defies  final  analysis ;  but 
its  modes  of  action  are  known,  and  even  the 
greatest  of  mysteries,  the  form  of  induction 
which  now  surprises  the  world  in  the  recently 
invented  process  of  telegraphing  from  moving 
trains,  is  as  susceptible  of  this  kind  of  expla- 
nation as  the  action  of  steam  in  propelling  a 
train  or  a  steamship. 

We  begin  with  analogies,  and  find  these  in 
the  effect  of  drugs,  such  as  opium,  alcohol, 
nitrous-oxide  gas,  hasheesh,  etc.  De  Quincey 
describes  all  the  experiences  of  dreams,  both 
before  and  after  he  entered  into  a  state  of 
sleep,  as  resulting  from  the  use  of  opium;  and 
the  peculiar  sleep  produced  by  that  drug  is 
attended  by  dreams  marked  by  all  the  char- 
acteristics of  those  which  occur  in  natural 
sleep.  The  effect  of  alcohol  in  setting  up  a 
dream  state  in  the  mind  while  the  senses  are 
not  locked  in  sleep  is,  unfortunately,  too  well 
known.  When  a  certain  point  is  reached  in 
intoxication  the  will  is  weakened,  the  auto- 
matic machinery  takes  control,  the  judgment 
is  dethroned,  and  images  —  some  grotesque 
and  others  terrible  —  having  the  power  of 
exciting  the  corresponding  emotions  hurry 
through  the  mind  until  frenzy  is  reached,  sub- 
sequent to  which  a  heavy  stupor  ends  the 
scene.  When  the  drunken  man  becomes  so- 
ber, his  recollections  of  what  he  has  done  are 
as  vague  and  uncertain  as  those  of  dreamers; 
and  a  similar  inability  to  measure  the  flight 
of  time,  to  perceive  the  incongruity  of  images, 
the  moral  character  of  actions,  and  the  value 
and  force  of  words,  characterizes  this  state 
which  attends  dreaming.  Ether,  and  chloro- 
form, and  nitrous-oxide  gas.  when  the  amount 
administered  is  not  sufficient  to  produce  un- 
consciousness, cause  similar  effects.  The  writer, 
being  compelled  to  undergo  a  surgical  opera- 
tion at  a  time  when  he  was  greatly  absorbed 
in  the  then  impending  civil  war,  by  the  advice 
of  physicians  took  ether,  the  effect  of  which 
was  to  lead  to  a  harangue  upon  abolitionism, 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


in  which  some  profane  language  was  used. 
As  the  effect  deepened,  though  it  was  at  no 
time  sufficient  to  produce  absolute  uncon- 
sciousness, the  scene  changed,  and  devotional 
hymns  were  sung,  and  a  solemn  fan-well 
taken  of  the  physicians  and  surgeon,  who  were 
warned  to  prepare  to  die.  Of  all  this  the  re- 
membrance was  analogous  to  that  of  dreams. 

The  influence  of  hasheesh  has  received 
much  attention,  and  has  been  outlined  in 
scientific  works  and  literary  compositions. 
The  most  striking  account  of  its  effects  is  that 
of  M.  Thiiophile  (Jautier,  originally  published 
in  "  La  1'resse  "  and  quoted  in  many  works. 
Under  the  influence  of  hasheesh  his  eyelashes 
seemed  to  lengthen  indefinitely,  twisting  them- 
selves like  golden  threads  around  little  ivory 
wheels.  Millions  of  butterflies,  whose  wings 
rustled  like  fans,  flew  about  in  the  midst  of  a 
confused  kind  of  light.  More  than  five  hundred 
clocks  chimed  the  hour  with  their  flute-like 
voices.  Goat-suckers,  storks,  striped  geese, 
unicorns,  griffins,  nightmares,  all  the  menag- 
erie of  monstrous  dreams,  trotted,  jumped,  flew, 
or  glided  through  the  room.  According  to 
his  calculation  this  state,  of  which  the  above 
quotations  give  but  a  feeble  representation, 
must  have  lasted  three  hundred  years;  for  the 
sensations  succeeded  each  other  so  numer- 
ously and  powerfully  that  the  real  apprecia- 
tion of  time  was  impossible.  When  the  attack 
was  over,  he  found  that  it  had  occupied  about 
a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

These  drugs  operate  only  upon  the  circula- 
tion, the  nervous  system,  and  the  brain.  They 
are  physical  agents,  operating  upon  a  physi- 
cal basis,  and  yet  they  produce  phenomena 
analogous  to  those  of  dreams,  with  the  ex- 
ception that  they  do  not  in  every  case  divorce 
the  motor  and  sensory  nerves  from  the  sen- 
sorium  as  perfectly  as  in  ordinary  dreaming 
sleep. 

Delirium  is  analogous  in  most  respects  to 
the  conditions  produced  by  these  drugs.  Its 
stages  are  often  very  similar  to  those  of  in- 
toxication ;  so  that  it  requires  a  skilled  physi- 
cian to  determine  whether  the  patient  is  under 
the  influence  of  delirium,  insanity,  or  intoxi- 
cation. Delirium  results  from  a  change  in  the 
circulation,  or  a  defective  condition  of  the 
blood;  and  in  most  instances  there  is  no  dif- 
ficulty, when  the  disease  is  understood,  of  as- 
signing the  exact  approximate  cause  of  the 
delirium.  The  analogy  between  delirium  and 
dreams  and  the  partial  recollection  or  com- 
plete forgetfulness  of  what  was  thought,  felt, 
said,  or  done  in  the  delirium  and  similar  rec- 
ollection or  forgetfulness  of  dream  images  is 
well  known  by  all  who  have  experienced  both, 
or  closely  observed  them.  And  the  analogy 
between  delirium  and  intoxication  loses  noth- 


447 

ing  in  value  from  the  fact  that  the  drug  is  ad- 
ministered. Disease  in  the  human  system  can 
engender  intoxicating  poisons  as  well  as  others. 

AVr.v  i  is  a  natural  condition,  so  common 
to  children  that  they  are  hardly  able  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  reports  from  the  exter- 
nal world  and  the  images  presented  by  their 
imagination.  But  reveryis  a  common  experi- 
ence of  the  human  race  in  all  stages  of  devel- 
opment. It  (litters  from  abstraction  in  the  fact 
that  the  latter  is  the  intense  pursuit  of  a  train 
of  reasoning  or  observation,  which  absorbs  the 
mind  to  such  an  extent  that  there  is  no  atten- 
tion left  for  the  reports  of  the  senses.  Hence 
the  abstracted  man  neither  looks  nor  listens, 
and  a  noise  or  an  impulse,  far  greater  than 
would  suffice  to  awaken  the  same  man  if 
asleep,  may  be  insufficient  to  divert  him  from 
the  train  of  thought  which  he  pursues.  Revery 
is  literally  day-dreaming.  It  is  not  reasoning. 
The  image-making  faculty  is  set  free  and  it 
runs  on.  The  judgment  is  scarcely  attentive, 
hardly  conscious,  and  the  tear  may  come  into 
the  eye,  or  the  smile  to  the  lip,  so  that  in  a 
crowded  street-car,  or  even  in  an  assembly, 
attention  may  be  attracted  to  the  person  who 
is  wholly  unconscious  of  the  same.  A  person 
may  imagine  himself  other  than  he  is,  and 
derive  great  pleasure  from  the  change,  and 
pass  an  hour,  a  morning,  or  a  day  uncon- 
sciously. In  revery  persons  frequently  become 
practical  somnambulists ;  that  is,  they  speak 
words  which  others  hear  that  they  would  not 
have  uttered  on  any  account,  strike  blows, 
move  articles,  gesticulate,  and  do  many  other 
things,  sometimes  with  the  effect  of  immedi- 
ately recalling  them  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
situation,  when  they,  as  well  as  others,  are 
amused,  but  often  without  being  aware  that 
they  are  noticed.  In  extreme  cases  the  only 
distinctions  between  revery  and  dreaming 
sleep  are  regular  breathing  and  the  suspen- 
sion of  the  senses  which  accompany  the  latter. 

The  passage  from  revery  into  dreaming  sleep 
is  to  be  scrutinized,  as  the  line  of  demarcation 
is  less  than  the  diameter  of  a  hair.  When  per- 
sons lie  down  to  sleep,  their  thoughts  take  on 
the  dream  character  before  they  can  sleep. 
"  Look,"  says  Sir  Henry  Holland,  "  to  the 
passage  from  waking  to  sleeping,  and  see  with 
what  rapidity  and  facility  these  states  often 
alternate  with  each  other."  Abstract  reason 
gives  place  to  images  that  begin  to  move  at 
random  before  the  mind's  eye ;  if  they  are 
identified  and  considered,  wakefulness  contin- 
ues. But  at  last  they  become  vague,  the  atten- 
tion relaxes,  and  we  sleep.  It  is  possible  to 
realize  that  one  is  sleeping,  and  to  make  an 
effort  to  awake  and  seize  the  mental  train. 
But  the  would-be  sleeper  resumes  the  favora- 
ble position,  the  head  drops,  the  senses  lose 


448 


DREAMS,    NIGHTMARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


their  sensibility,  and  he  who  spent  the  last 
hour  of  the  evening  in  revery  in  a  darkened 
room  has  undergone  but  a  very  slight  change 
when  he  passes  into  sleep.  The  images  still 
run  on  while  the  body  reposes,  until,  accord- 
ing to  his  temperament  and  habits,  the  brain 
becomes  calm,  and  the  soporific  influence  pen- 
etrates, we  cannot  tell  how  far,  into  the  higher 
regions  of  the  sensorium. 

If  we  consider  the  passing  from  tlie  divam 
state  into  tlie  waking  state,  several  analogies 
are  to  be  noted.  Sometimes  an  amusing  sense 
of  the  last  dream  occupies  the  attention  deli- 
ciously  for  a  few  moments.  Again,  it  is  not  un- 
common to  pass  out  of  a  dream  into  a  perception 
of  the  hour  of  the  night  and  of  the  situation, 
retract  into  the  dream,  and  sleep  and  take  up 
the  thread  where  it  was  left  at  the  moment  of 
consciousness.  But  more  frequently  the  dream, 
if  resumed,  will  be  modified  by  physical  con- 
ditions. At  other  times  a  painful  consciousness 
of  a  fearful  dream  remains. 

From  these  analogies  the  conclusion  is  rea- 
sonable that  dreaming  is  a  phenomenon  of  the 
mind,  dependent  upon  changes  in  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood,  and  in  the  condition  of  the 
brain  and  the  nervous  system,  whereby  the 
higher  powers  of  the  mind,  including  the  judg- 
ment, the  conscience,  and  the  will,  are  prevent- 
ed from  exercising  their  usual  jurisdiction,  the 
senses  from  reporting  the  events  of  the  exter- 
nal world,  by  which  to  a  great  extent  time  is 
measured  and  space  relations  determined, 
while  the  image-making  faculty  and  the  animal 
instincts  are  to  a  less  degree  affected ;  and  that 
the  images  constructed  in  dreams  are  the 
working  up  of  the  capital  stock,  the  raw  mate- 
rial of  sensations,  experiences,  and  ideas  stored 
in  the  mind. 


MORE    DIRECT    EVIDENCE. 

OF  the  truth  of  this  view  I  will  submit  fur- 
ther evidence. 

First.  There  is  no  proof  that  babes  dream 
at  all.  The  interpretation  of  the  smile  of  the 
infant  of  a  few  months,  which  in  former  times 
led  fond  mothers  to  suppose  that  "  an  angel 
spoke  to  it,"  is  now  of  "spirit"  in  the  original 
sense  of  the  word,  which  connects  it  with  in- 
ternal gaseous  phenomena.  Aristotle  says, 
"  Man  sleeps  the  most  of  all  animals.  Infants 
and  young  children  do  not  dream  at  all,  but 
dreaming  begins  in  most  at  four  or  five  years 
old." 

Pliny,  however,  does  not  agree  with  Aris- 
totle in  this,  and  gives  two  proofs  that  in- 
fants dream.  First,  they  will  instantly  awake 
with  every  symptom  of  alarm;  secondly,  while 
asleep  they  will  imitate  the  action  of  sucking. 
Neither  of  these  is  of  any  value  as  proof.  As 


to  the  first,  an  internal  pain,  to  which  infants 
appear  to  be  much  subject,  will  awaken  them ; 
and  as  they  are  incapable  of  being  frightened  by 
any  external  object  until  they  are  seme  months 
old,  the  symptom  is  not  of  alarm,  but  of  pain. 
The  imitation  while  asleep  of  the  action  of 
sucking  is  instinctive,  and  an  infant  will  do  so 
when  awake,  and  when  there  is  obviously  not 
the  slightest  connection  between  the  state  of 
mind  and  the  action.  The  condition  of  the  babe 
in  sleep  is  precisely  such  as  might  be  expected 
from  its  destitution  of  recorded  sensations. 

Second.  Animals  dream.  Aristotle's  history 
of  animals  declares  that  horses,  oxen,  sheep, 
goats,  dogs,  and  all  viviparous  quadrupeds 
dream.  Dogs  show  this  by  barking  in  their 
sleep.  He  says  further  that  he  is  not  quite  cer- 
tain from  his  observations  whether  animals 
that  lay  eggs,  instead  of  producing  their  young 
alive,  dream  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  they  sleep. 
Pliny,  in  his  natural  history,  specifies  the  same 
animals.  Buffon  describes  the  dreams  of  ani- 
mals. Macnish  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
horses  neigh  and  rear  in  their  sleep,  and  affirms 
that  cows  and  sheep,  especially  at  the  period 
of  rearing  their  young,  dream.  Scott,  in  the 
"  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  says: 

The  stag-hounds,  weary  with  the  chase, 
Lay  stretched  upon  the  rushy  floor, 
And  urged  in  dreams  the  forest  race 
From  Teviot-stone  to  Eskdale  Moor. 

Tennyson  also  speaks  of  dogs  that  hunt  in 
dreams.  Darwin,  in  the  "  Descent  of  Man," 
Vol.  I.,  p.  44,  says  that  "  dogs,  cats,  horses, 
and  probably  all  the  higher  animals,  even 
birds,  as  is  stated  on  good  authority  (Dr.  Jer- 
don, '  Birds  of  India'),  have  vivid  dreams,  and 
this  is  shown  by  their  movements  and  voice." 
George  John  Romanes,  in  his  "  Mental  Evo- 
lution in  Animals,"  says  that  the  fact  that  dogs 
dream  is  proverbial,  and  quotes  Seneca  and 
Lucretius,  and  furnishes  proof  from  Dr.  Lau- 
der  Lindsay,  an  eminent  authority,  that  horses 
dream.  Cuvier,  Jerdon,  Houzeau,  Bechstein, 
Bennett,  Thompson,  Lindsay,  and  Darwin 
assert  that  birds  dream;  and,  according  to 
Thompson,  among  birds  the  stork,  the  canary, 
the  eagle,  and  the  parrot,  and  the  elephant  as 
well  as  the  horse  and  the  dog  are  "  incited  "  in 
their  dreams.  Bechstein  holds  that  the  bullfinch 
dreams,  and  gives  a  case  where  the  dream  took 
on  the  character  of  nightmare  and  the  bird  fell 
from  its  perch ;  and  four  great  authorities  say 
that  occasionally  dreaming  becomes  so  vivid 
as  to  lead  to  somnambulism.  Guer  gives  a  case 
of  a  somnambulistic  watch-dog  which  prowled 
in  search  of  imaginary  strangers  or  foes,  and 
exhibited  toward  them  a  whole  series  of  pan- 
tomimic actions,  including  barking.  Dryden 
says : 

The  little  birds  in  dreams  the  songs  repeat, 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


449 


and  Dendy's  "  Philosophy  of  Mystery"  quotes 
from  the  "  Domestic  Habits  of  JJinls"  in  proof 
of  this. 

We  have  often  observed  this  in  a  wild  bird.    On  the 
ii  of  the  6th  (if  April,  iSi  I,  about  10  o'clock,  a.  dun- 
tUtck(At€itHforilt£4ufarit)  was  heard  in  the  t;anl> 

jrnugh  its  usual    sun;;   nioic   than   a   ilo/en   times 
fainlly,  but  distinctly  enough  for  the  species  to  be 
i  ,'iiizcd.    The  night  was  cold  and  frosty,  but  might 
it  not  be  that  the  little  musician  was  dreaming  of  sum- 
mer and  sunshine  ?    Aristotle,  indeed,  proposes  the 
question  —  whether  animals   hatched  from   eggs  ^  \ '  i' 
dream?    Macgrave,  in    reply,  expressly   say-,   that  his 
"  parrot  Lnura  often   arose  in   the  night  and  prattled 
while  half  u-lrep." 

Third.  'J'he  dreams  of  the  blind  are  of  great 
importance,  and  the  fact  that  persons  bom 
blind  never  dream  of  seeing  is  established  by 
the  investigations  of  competent  inquirers.  So 
far  as  we  know,  there  is  no  proof  of  a  single 
instance  of  a  person  born  blind  ever  in  dreams 
fancying  that  he  saw.  Since  this  series  of  ar- 
ticles was  begun,  the  subject  has  been  treated 
by  Joseph  Jastrow  in  the  "  Presbyterian  Re- 
view." He  has  examined  nearly  two  hundred 
persons  of  both  sexes  in  the  institutions  for  the 
blind  in  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore.  Thirty- 
two  became  blind  before  completing  their  fifth 
year,  and  not  one  of  these  thirty-two  sees  in 
dreams.  Concerning  Laura  Bridgman,  the 
blind  and  deaf  mute,  Professor  G.  Stanley 
Hall,  quoted  by  Mr.  Jastrow,  says,  "  Sight  and 
hearing  are  as  absent  from  her  dreams  as  they 
are  from  the  dark  and  silent  world  which  alone 
she  knows." 

Fourth.  The  testimony  is  the  same  with  re- 
gard to  those  born  deaf.  The  celebrated  Har- 
vey P.  Peet,  LL.  D.,  in  his  researches,  among 
the  most  philosophical  ever  made,  places  this 
fact  beyond  rational  doubt;  but  other  investi- 
gators furnish  equally  valuable  evidence.  In 
visiting  institutions  for  the  blind  and  the  deaf 
I  have  made  inquiry,  and  have  never  found  an 
instance  of  a  person  born  deaf,  or  of  a  child 
who  lost  his  hearing  before  he  was  four  years 
of  age,  dreaming  of  hearing.  Among  the  re- 
sults of  recent  inquiries  I  present  the  follow- 
ing from  the  principal  of  the  State  Institution 
for  the  Blind  and  Deaf  at  St.  Augustine, 
Florida : 

I  have  closely  questioned  the  deaf  children  here  as 
to  whether  they  have  ever  dream  fit  of  hearing,  and  the 
invariable  answer  is  i\'o.  I  have  asked  the  same  ques- 
tion of  upwards  of  fifty  deaf  persons  with  the  same  re- 
sult, except  where  the  person  interrogated  had  lost  his 
hearing  after  learning  to  talk.  These  last  mentioned 
are  all  persons  of  some  education  who  understood  the 
question  fully  and  were  very  positive  that  they  had 
never  dreamed  of  hearing  more  than  a  rumbling  sound. 
Very  sincerely, 

PARK  TERRKU.. 

I  was  one  of  the  members  of  a  committee 
of  three  to  visit  the  State  institution  of  Michi- 


gan for  the  blind  and  deaf,  at  Flint,  where  there 
were  hundreds  of  pupils.  The  method  of 
awakening  them  in  the  morning  and  of  call- 
ing them  to  recitations  and  to  chapel  services 
was  by  beating  a  base-drum,  which,  of  course, 
the  blind  could  hear.  But  it  was  curious  to 
•  •rve  the  deaf  awaking  from  a  sound  sleep 
at  5  in  the  morning,  or  (ailed  to  chapel  and 
recitation  at  other  hours  of  the  day.  by  the 
beating  of  a  base  drum  in  the  central  hall. 
Those  who  could  not  have  heard  the  rev<  T 
beration  of  all  the  artillery  in  the  world  felt 
the  vibration  of  the  building  produced  by  the 
beating  of  the  drum  and  obeyed  the  signal. 
Some  of  them  dreamed  of  vibration;  none 
born  deaf  of  hearing. 

In  further  elucidation  of  the  subject  I  ad- 
dressed a  letter  to  Professor  J.  W.  Chickering, 
Jr.,  of  the  National  Deaf  Mute  College  at 
Washington,  D.  C.,  and  under  date  of  Feb- 
ruary 3,  1888,  received  the  following: 

Deaf  mutes  of  all  grades  dream  frequently,  though 
they  are  not  given  to  imagination.  As  to  the  question 
whether  they  dream  about  anything  involving  sound, 
I  have  made  diligent  inquiry,  and  have  been  answered 
in  the  negative  except  in  the  case  of  the  Rev.  Job 
Turner.  He  says  that  he  once  dreamed  of  being  coun- 
sel for  a  prisoner,  and  being  greatly  delighted  to  find 
himself  making  a  very  eloquent  speech  in  his  behalf. 

The  question  of  dreaming  about  sounds  in  the  case 
of  semi-mutes  was  discussed  in  the"  American  Annals  " 
some  years  ago  by  Professor  Greenberger  of  New 
York,  and  some  statistics  were  given  ;  but  he  dismisses 
your  inquiry  (i.  e.,  whether  persons  born  deaf  ever 
dream  of  hearing)  very  abruptly  by  saying,  "  This 
question  was  put  to  a  number  of  congenital  deaf  mutes, 
and,  as  might  have  been  expected,  their  answers  were 
all  in  the  negative." 

I  may  state  to  you,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  one  of  our 
deaf-mute  teachers,  who  has  no  memory  of  hearing, 
has  waked  from  sleep  in  a  fright  by  the  report  of  fire- 
arms ;  but  that  would  be  accounted  for  by  the  concus- 
sion and  consequent  action  upon  the  nerves  of  general 
sensation.  Truly  yours, 

J.  W.  CHICKERING,  JR. 

Upon  the  above  letter  I  may  remark  that 
the  single  case  of  the  Rev.  Job  Turner,  an 
educated  man,  accustomed  to  read  and  imag- 
ine spoken  oratory,  can  be  accounted  for  with- 
out assuming  that  he  dreamed  of  hearing 
sounds,  the  speechmaking  being  a  movement 
of  his  mind  involving  an  act  rather  than  a 
perception.  The  being  wakened  by  the  ex- 
plosion of  firearms  is,  as  Professor  Chickering 
justly  says,  explicable  on  the  same  principle 
as  that  which  accounts  for  the  awaking  of  the 
deaf  and  the  communication  of  information 
by  the  rhythmical  vibration  of  a  building. 

Leaving  out  of  account  the  question  of  the 
dreamless  state  of  infants  and  very  young 
children,  I  deem  the  facts  that  animals  dream, 
that  the  congenital  blind  and  deaf  never  dream 
of  seeing  or  hearing,  conclusive  proof  that 
dreams  are  phenomena  of  the  physical  basis 
of  mind,  dependent  upon  changes  in  the  cir- 


45° 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND    SOMNAMBULISM. 


dilation  of  the  blood,  and  the  condition  of  the 
brain  and  the  nervous  system ;  and  that  the 
images  constructed  in  dreams  are  the  auto- 
matic combinations  of  the  sensations,  experi- 
ences, ideas,  and  images  stored  in  the  mind. 

Three  further  collateral  evidences  can  be  ad- 
duced. First,  the  modification  of  dreams  by 
physical  conditions.  With  this  all  are  familiar. 
These  are  plainly,  so  to  speak,  efforts  of  the 
image-making  faculty,  active  in  dreams  to  ac- 
count without  the  aid  of  the  judgment  for  a 
physical  sensation.  Every  one  knows  that  the 
condition  of  the  digestive  organs,  the  position 
of  the  head  or  any  other  part  of  the  body,  will 
affect  the  dreams. 

Another  fact  is  that  the  dreams  of  the  very 
aged,  unless  something  unusually  agitating  is 
anticipated  or  occurs,  generally  recur  to  the 
scenes  of  former  years,  and  therein  greatly  re- 
semble their  conversation.  Even  when  the 
intellectual  faculties  are  unimpaired,  and  the 
aged  person  is  much  interested  in  current 
events,  and  pursues  a  train  of  study  and  re- 
flection by  day  under  the  control  of  the  will, 
when  at  night  the  imagination  is  set  free  the 
scenes  of  early  life  or  childhood  furnish  the 
materials  of  the  images  much  more  frequently 
than  contemporaneous  events.  This  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  known  laws  of  memory. 

In  regard  to  the  dreams  of  the  insane,  the 
"Medical  Critic  and  Psychological  Journal" 
of  April,  1862,  says: 

The  dreams  of  the  insane  are  generally  characteris- 
tic of  the  nature  of  the  aberration  under  which  they 
labor ;  those  of  the  typho-maniac  are  gloomy  and 
frightful  ;  of  the  general  paralytic,  gay  and  smiling :  of 
the  maniac,  wild,  disordered,  pugnacious;  in  stupidity 
they  are  vague,  obscure,  and  incoherent ;  in  dementia, 
few  and  fleeting;  in  hypochondria  and  hysteria  the 
sleep,  especially  during  indigestion,  is  disturbed  and 
painful. 

This  is  in  accordance  with  all  the  indications. 


ACCOUNTING     FOR   THE    CHARACTERISTICS    OF 
DREAMS. 

IN  dreams,  time  and  the  limitations  of  space 
are  apparently  annihilated.  This  is  to  be  ex- 
plained by  the  fact  that  the  reports  of  the 
senses  and  the  movements  of  external  bodies 
by  which  we  measure  time  are  shut  out,  and 
the  mind  is  entirely  absorbed  in  a  series  of 
images. 

I  entered  the  South  Kensington  Museum  in 
London  and  saw  a  painting  of  an  Alderney 
bull,  cow,  and  calf  in  a  field,  which  produced  so 
extraordinary  an  illusion  that  I  advanced  sev- 
eral steps  towards  it  in  broad  daylight,  under 
the  belief  that  I  was  looking  out  of  a  window 
into  the  park.  The  same  phenomenon  occurs 
under  the  spell  of  an  orator  of  the  highest  grade ; 
and  it  is  the  charm  of  a  theater  to  make  an 


audience  think  and  feel  that  a  series  of  events 
which  would  ordinarily  occupy  many  years  is 
taking  place  before  them.  That  which,  under 
these  circumstances,  is  accomplished  to  'some 
extent  by  abstraction  or  external  means  in 
dreams  is  done  entirely  by  cutting  off  all  pos- 
sibility of  estimating  time  or  space. 

The  mind  is  supposed  to  move  more  rapidly 
in  dreams  than  in  waking  thoughts.  Dreams 
certainly  are  more  diversified  and  numerous 
than  the  waking  thoughts  of  busy  men  and 
women  absorbed  in  a  particular  routine  of 
work,  or  in  the  necessary  cares  of  the  body, 
or  in  conversation  circumscribed  by  conven- 
tional laws,  the  slow  rate  of  speech,  and  the 
duty  of  listening.  But  it  is  an  error  to  think 
that  dream  images  are  more  numerous  than 
those  of  revery.  In  a  single  hour  of  revery 
one  may  see  more  images  than  he  could  fully 
describe  in  a  volume  of  a  thousand  pages.  It 
is  as  true  of  the  waking  as  of  the  dreaming 
state,  that 

Lulled  in  the  countless  chambers  of  the  brain, 
Our  thoughts  are  linked  in  many  a  hidden  chain  ; 
Wake  but  one,  and  lo  !   what  myriads  rise : 
Each  stamps  its  image  as  the  other  flies. 

The  apparent  loss  of  identity  in  dreams,  and 
the  finding  one's  self  in  impossible  positions,  is 
the  result  of  the  entire  occupation  of  the  per- 
ceptive faculties  with  one  image  at  a  time.  A 
dream  that  a  man  is  a  clergyman  may  change 
into  one  that  he  is  a  general  commanding  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  he  will  see  no  incon- 
gruity. He  may  even  imagine  himself  to  be 
two  persons  at  the  same  time,  as  in  Dr.  John- 
son's case  when  he  contended  with  a  man,  and 
was  much  chagrined  to  feel  that  his  opponent 
had  the  better  of  him  in  wit.  He  was  consoled, 
however,  when  on  waking  he  reasoned  that  he 
had  furnished  the  wit  for  both. 

The  vividness  of  dreams  is  to  be  explained 
in  the  same  way.  If  a  man  sees  that  his  own 
house  is  on  fire,  and  his  family  in  danger,  he 
looks  at  the  scene  in  such  a  way  that  he  be- 
comes for  the  time  as  unconscious  of  anything 
else  as  though  there  were  nothing  in  his  brain 
but  the  picture.  So  in  the  dream,  as  he  sees 
nothing  but  the  picture,  it  must  -be  more  vivid 
than  any  ordinary  reality  can  possibly  be;  only 
from  the  most  extraordinary  scenes  can  an  an- 
alogy be  drawn. 

In  dreams  circumstances  often  appear  which 
had  been  known  by  the  dreamer,  but  practi- 
cally forgotten.  Men  have  sworn  that  they 
never  knew  certain  things,  and  maintained 
that  they  had  been  revealed  to  them  in  dreams, 
when  subsequent  investigation  proved  indubi- 
tably that  they  had  known,  but  had  forgotten 
them.  The  recurrence  is  precisely  like  ordinary 
waking  experiences.  Events  which  have  not 
emerged  into  consciousness  for  a  score  of  years, 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


45 1 


'•n  a  hall-century,  and  phrases,  parts  of 

words,  expressions  of  countenance,  tones  of 

..  analogies  stumbled  upon  in  the  most 

out-of-the -\v.-iv  ]  .hires,  may  in  a  single  moment 

bring  an  entire  scene  with  several  series  of  re- 

;  9  before  the  mind. 

The  testimony  of  the  mind  excited  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  activity  by  the  tear  of  death  by 
.shipuru  k  or  fire,  or,  as  \Vhyniper  has  shown 
in  his  '-Scrambles  among  the  Alps,"  the  imme- 
diate expectation  of  a  fatal  fall,  is  that  it 
to  see  at  a  glance  the  whole  of  the  past  life. 
This  is  sufficient  to  show  what  it  can  do  in  an 
entirely  normal  state,  and  nothing  can  ever 
occur  in  dreams  more  vivid  than  this,  though 
it  is  to  be  considered  that  we  have  only  the 
statements  of  these  persons  in  regard  to  what 
they  think  was  their  mental  condition ;  nor  in 
any  case  could  they  know  that  they  saw  every- 
thing. 

\V  hen  one  dreams  that  he  is  dreaming,  which 
occasionally  occurs,  he  is  approaching  the  wak- 
ing state;  but  since  he  cannot  at  that  time  sit 
in  judgment  on  what  he  dreams  fully  without 
waking  himself,  it  is  equally  clear  that  his  state 
resembles  that  of  a  delirious  person  who  may 
perceive  that  he  is  delirious  and  acknowledge 
it,  but  in  a  few  seconds  be  absorbed  again  in 
what  he  sees. 

Some  of  the  most  interesting  achievements 
of  the  mind  in  dreams  are  the  composition  of 
poetry  and  the  working  out  of  mathematical 
problems.  Dr.  Abercrombie  says  that  his 
friend  Dr.  Gregory  told  him  that  thoughts 
and  even  expressions  which  had  occurred  to 
him  in  dreams  seemed  to  him  so  good  when 
he  awoke  that  he  used  them  in  his  college  lect- 
ures. Condorcet.  having  gone  to  bed  before 
finishing  certain  profound  calculations,  said 
afterwards  that  sometimes  the  conclusions  of 
the  work  had  been  revealed  to  him  in  dreams. 
Dr.  Abercrombie  says  that  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, than  whose  a  more  well-balanced  and 
self-controlled  mind  never  existed,  assured 
Cabanis  that  the  bearing  and  issue  of  political 
events  which  puzzled  him  when  awake  were  not 
unfrequently  unfolded  to  him  in  his  dreams. 
Dr.  Carpenter  attempts  to  explain  this  by  the 
theory  well  known  as  "unconscious  cerebra- 
tion." Like  the  terms  of  the  phrenologists,  this 
may  describe  but  does  not  explain  the  proc- 
ess ;  and  what  it  describes  occurs  frequently 
while  we  are  awake.  Not  only  in  questions 
of  memory,  but  in  the  profoundest  thought, 
how  often,  when  we  have  been  compelled  to 
turn  from  one  class  of  work  to  another,  and 
are,  so  far  as  our  consciousness  reports,  en- 
tirely  absorbed  in  it,  in  an  instant  a  thought- 
germain  to  the  first  problem  which  was  oc- 
cupying the  mind  appears  with  such  clearness 
as  to  surpass  in  pertinency  and  value  anything 


which  we  had  previously  reached.  We  are 
compelled  to  take  note  of  it,  and  in  the  case 
of  defective  recollection  the  best  of  all  nv 
is  to  cease  to  think  about  the  matter,  and  in 
a  short  time  it  will  appear  almost  with  the  in- 
telligence of  a  messenger  bringing  something 
tor  which  he  had  been  sent. 

It  would  not  be  surprising,  when  one  has 
wearied  himself,  and  his  perceptions  have  been 
somewhat  obscured,  even  though  nothing  had 
occurred  of  the  nature  of  unconscious  cere- 
bration, if  after  a  refreshing  sleep  the  first  ef- 
fort of  his  mind  should  classify  and  complete 
the  undigested  work  of  the  day  before.  The 
dream  imagery  under  which  such  things  are 
done  frequently  invests  the  operation  with  a 
mysterious  aspect,  which,  on  analysis,  appears 
most  natural.  I  am  informed  by  one  of  the  par- 
ticipants that  some  time  since  two  gentlemen 
in  Pennsylvania  were  conversing  concerning 
an  intricate  mathematical  problem.  One  of 
them  succeeded  in  its  solution  by  algebraic 
methods.  The  other  insisted  that  it  could  be 
done  by  arithmetic,  but,  after  making  many 
efforts,  gave  up  the  problem,  and  retired  for 
the  night.  In  the  morning  he  informed  his 
friend  that  in  the  night,  while  he  was  asleep, 
an  old  Scotch  schoolmaster,  who  had  been  his 
instructor  many  years  before,  appeared  to  him 
and  said,  "  I  am  ashamed  of  you  that  you  could 
not  do  that  sum.  It  can  be  worked  out  by  arith- 
metic, and  I  will  show  you  how  now."  And  he 
added  that  he  had  immediately  done  so,  and  in 
the  morning  when  he  awoke  he  had  put  the 
figures  on  paper  just  as  his  schoolmaster  had 
done  in  the  dream;  and  there  they  were,  a 
complete  solution  of  the  example. 

It  was  a  very  impressive  dream,  but  easily 
explained.  It  was  a  workable  problem.  The 
man,  ashamed  of  himself  that  he  could  not  do 
it  and  exhausted  with  his  efforts,  had  sunk  into 
a  troubled  sleep.  His  mind  undoubtedly  had 
recurred  to  his  old  teacher  and  the  rule;  and  as 
he  dreamed  about  the  matter  the  working  out 
of  the  problem  had  to  come  in  some  form. 
What  more  natural  than  that  the  image  of  the 
teacher  who. taught  him  the  greater  part  of 
what  he  knew  of  the  subject  of  arithmetic, 
especially  in  difficult  problems,  should  have 
come  in  to  give  bodily  shape  to  the  shame 
which  he  felt,  and  that  his  fancy  should  attrib- 
ute the  information  to  him.  So  that,  instead 
of  such  a  dream  being  extraordinary,  it  is  the 
most  natural  method  in  which  it  could  occur. 

The  mind  when  awake  is  capable,  by  an 
effort  of  the  imagination,  of  conceiving  the 
most  grotesque  ideas.  For  example,  a  man 
sees  before  him  a  huge  rock.  He  may  con- 
ceive the  idea  that  that  rock  is  transformed 
into  pure  gold,  and  that  upon  it  is  a  raised 
inscription  made  of  diamonds  promising  the 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


452 

rock  as  a  reward  for  the  guessing  of  a  conun- 
drum. Being  awake,  he  perceives  both  clear- 
ly —  the  rock  in  its  original  character,  and 
the  image  of  the  gold  rock  with  the  raised 
letters  in  diamonds.  Perceiving  both,  he 
knows  the  rock  to  be  real,  and  the  other  to  be 
fantastic.  If  the  faculties  by  which  he  identi- 
fies the  granite  rock  were  to  be  stupefied,  leav- 
ing those  by  which  he  conceives  the  idea  of 
the  gold  and  diamonds  in  full  exercise,  it  is 
clear  that  he  would  believe  that  the  granite 
rock  was  gold.  If  awake,  in  this  state,  he 
would  be  insane ;  if  asleep,  he  would  be  dream- 
ing. So,  if  the  dreamer  be  absorbed  in  images 
which  seem  to  him  real,  if  the  faculties  by 
which  he  would  distinguish  an  ideal  concep- 
tion from  an  objective  reality  were  restored, 
he  would  take  cognizance  of  his  surroundings, 
and  though  the  image  might  remain  it  would 
not  seem  real.  The  statement  of  this  self-evi- 
dent fact  is  sufficient  to  show  what  all  the 
evidence  I  have  collated  combines  to  prove, 
that  Mercutio,  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  was 
scientifically  correct  when  he  said : 

True,  I  talk  of  dreams, 
Which  are  the  children  of  an  idle  brain, 
Begot  of  nothing  but  vain  fantasy. 

Nightmare,  with  all  its  horrors,  is  but  a  va- 
riety of  dreams.  The  causes  for  its  peculiari- 
ties are  various  —  position;  pressure  upon  the 
stomach,  whereby  the  sympathetic  nerves  are 
affected,  and  through  them  the  brain;  ex- 
treme fatigue,  etc.  When  a  person  is  awake 
and  has  precisely  the  same  unfavorable  phys- 
ical sensations  which  would  produce  night- 
mare, he  refers  them  to  their  proper  source, 
changes  his  position,  measures  the  probable 
consequences,  resorts  to  medical  aid,  or  ab- 
sorbs himself  in  work;  but  when  asleep,  the 
mind  attempts  to  account  for  the  sensation,  and 
will  perhaps  construct  an  image  of  Bunker 
Hill  Monument  pressing  upon  his  chest  to  ac- 
count for  a  sensation  which,  if  he  were  awake, 
he  would  have  no  difficulty  in  explaining. 

The  relation  of  sleeping  on  the  back  to 
nightmare  is  so  simple  as  hardly  to  need  an 
explanation.  Many  persons  never  have  an 
attack  unless  they  get  into  this  petition. 

Somnambulism  differs  from  dreams  in  the 
fact  that  one  or  more  of  the  senses  may  be 
in  an  active  condition,  and  that  one  or  more 
of  the  organs  may  respond  to  the  idea  which 
absorbs  the  mind.  A  merchant  of  New  York, 
traveling  on  the  Mississippi  River,  occupied 
the  same  state-room  with  a  stranger  of  highly 
respectable  appearance.  In  the  morning  the 
stranger,  taking  up  his  stockings,  said  sadly, 
"  I  see  I  have  been  at  my  old  tricks  again." 
"  To  what  do  you  refer  ?"  asked  the  merchant. 
"  My  stockings  are  wet,  and  I  must  have 


arisen  in  the  night  and  traveled  all  over  the 
ship." 

As  already  remarked,  talking  in  the  sleep 
is  the  simplest  form  in  which  somnambulism 
appears.  Usually  dreamers  do  not  move  their 
limbs,  and  especially  are  incapable  of  rising 
or  walking,  because  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances the  impulse  to  do  these  things  is  cre- 
ated by  the  will,  and  it  requires  a  strong 
exertion  thereof  to  overcome  the  inertia  of 
the  body  and  to  begin  the  complex  series  of 
motions  necessary  to  move  from  place  to  place. 
In  sleep  the  image  is  not  sufficiently  vivid  to 
take  control  of  the  muscles. 

Cicero  says  that  if  it  had  been  so  ordered 
by  nature  that  we  should  actually  do  in  sleep 
all  that  we  dream  of  doing,  every  man  would 
have  to  be  bound  to  the  bed  before  going  to 
sleep.  The  justice  of  this  remark  is  illustrated 
in  the  case  of  somnambulism. 

The  peculiarity  of  somnambulism  which 
identifies  it  with  dreaming  is  complete  absorp- 
tion of  all  the  powers  and  faculties  in  the 
image.  A  voice  falling  in  with  that  may  be 
heard  ;  one  speaking  of  other  matters  is  unno- 
ticed. Dreamers  who  have  never  been  som- 
nambulists could,  by  a  process  of  training,  be 
transformed  into  such;  and,  what  is  more 
important,  the  tendency  can  be  destroyed  if 
taken  in  time. 

Sir  Henry  Holland  says  that  it  is  an  old 
trick  to  put  the  hand  into  cold  water,  or  to 
produce  some  other  sensation  not  so  active  as 
to  awaken,  but  sufficient  to  draw  the  mind 
from  a  more  profound  to  a  lighter  slumber ; 
thus  the  sleeper  may  be  made  to  answer 
questions. 

Great  light  has  been  reflected  upon  natural 
by  artificial  somnambulism,  known  by  the 
various  names  of  mesmerism,  animal  magnet- 
ism, electro-biology,  hypnotism,  etc.  It  is  a 
very  astonishing  fact  that  in  these  states  a  par- 
ticular sense  may  be  exalted  so  as  to  give 
results  which  in  a  normal  condition  would  be 
impossible;  and  which  to  a  superficial  ob- 
server, and  even  to  an  investigator  if  he  be  in- 
experienced, appear  to  transcend  the  bounds 
of  the  human  faculty.* 

MYSTERIOUS    DREAMS    ANALYZED. 

IF  the  foregoing  attempt  at  explanation 
covered  all  the  actual  phenomena  of  dreams, 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  would  be 
satisfactory  to  readers  of  intelligence;  but  it 
is  claimed  by  many  that  in  dreams  premoni- 

*  Abnormal  states,  involving  changes  radically  differ- 
ent from  dream  somnambulism,  happen  spontaneously 
when  awake,  occur  in  delirium,  and  at  rare  intervals 
the  somnambulist  may  pass  into  them.  It  is  not  the 
purpose  of  this  paper  to  consider  such. 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,    AND 


453 


lions  of  future  events  are  given,  especially  of 
death ;  that  events  which  have  taken  place, 
of  interest  to  the  person  whoreceives  the  com- 
munication, are  made  known  ;  anil  that  the 
knowledge  of  current  events  is  frequently  im- 
parted when  the  dreamer  is  at  a  great  distance. 

I  will  give  an  example  of  a  dream  of  pre- 
monition which  has  occurred  in  the  United 
within  three  years.  A  young  man,  nine- 
teen years  of  age,  a  student  in  a  large  semi- 
nary about  sixty  miles  from  New  York,  was 
strongly  attached  to  a  teacher.  The  teacher 
died,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  student.  Some 
time  afterward  the  young  man  dreamed  that 
the  teacher  appeared  to  him  and  notified  him 
that  he  would  die  on  a  certain  day  and  hour, 
lie  informed  his  mother  and  friends  of  the 
dream,  and  expressed  a  firm  belief  that  when 
that  time  came  he  should  die.  The  family  con- 
sidered it  a  delusion;  and  as  no  alarming 
change  took  place  in  his  health,  they  were 
not  worried.  When  the  day  arrived  they 
noticed  nothing  unusual ;  but  after  dining  and 
seeming  to  enjoy  the  meal  and  to  be  quite 
cheerful,  he  went  to  his  room,  lay  down,  and 
died  without  a  struggle. 

The  following  case  is  said  to  be  authentic. 
The  father  of  a  certain  lady  died.  About  a 
year  afterward  she  aroused  her  husband  by 
sobbing  and  trembling  violently,  while  tears 
ran  down  her  cheeks.  She  explained  that  she 
had  just  had  a  vivid  dream,  in  which  she  had 
seen  her  father  assemble  all  his  children  in  his 
room  in  the  old  house,  and  tell  them  that  the 
family  heirlooms  were  being  disposed  of  to 
strangers.  The  same  dream  recurred  the  next 
night.  A  day  or  two  afterward  this  lady,  while 
walking  in  the  town  where  she  lived,  saw  her 
father's  walking-stick,  with  a  gold  band  bear- 
ing an  inscription,  a  gift  from  all  his  children, 
in  the  hands  of  a  stranger.  The  sight  so  af- 
fected her  that  she  fainted.  Later  inquiries 
proved  that  the  stick  had  changed  hands  on 
the  day  previous  to  her  first  dream. 

The  case  of  William  Tennent  is  in  point. 
Mr.  Tennent,  a  remarkable  preacher  of  Free- 
hold, N.  J.,  zealous  in  promoting  revivals,  had 
a  particular  friend,  the  Rev.  David  Rowland, 
who  was  exceedingly  successful.  A  notorious 
man  named  Thomas  Bell,  guilty  of  theft,  rob- 
bery, fraud,  and  every  form  of  crime,  greatly 
resembled  Mr.  Rowland.  Passing  himself  off 
for  him.  he  imposed  upon  citizens  of  Hunter- 
don  County,  N.  J.,  robbed  them  and  fled, 
everywhere  representing  himself  as  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Rowland.  At  the  time  he  perpetrated 
this  robbery  in  Hunterdon  County,  "  Messrs. 
Tennent  and  Rowland,  accompanied  by  two 
laymen,  Joshua  Anderson  and  Benjamin  Ste- 
vens, went  into  Pennsylvania  or  Maryland  to 
conduct  religious  services.  When  Mr.  Row- 
Voi..  XXXVI.— 64. 


land  returned,  he  was  charged  with  the  rob- 
bery committed  by  Bell.  He  gave  bonds  to 
appear  at  the  court  of  Trenton,  and  tin-  affair 
ma  tie  a  gmtf  innsc  throughout  the  culi'iiy.  Ten- 
nent, Anderson,  and  Stevens  appeared,  and 
swore  that  they  were  with  Mr.  Rowland  and 
heard  him  preach  on  that  very  day  in  Penn- 
sylvania or  Maryland.  He  was  at  once  ac- 
quitted.'1 Hut  months  afterward  Tennent, 
Anderson,  and  Stevens  were  arraigned  for 
perjury.  Anderson  was  tried  and  found  guilty. 
Tennent  and  Stevens  were  summoned  to 
appear  before  the  next  court.  Stevens  took 
advantage  of  a  flaw  in  the  indictment  and  was 
discharged.  Tennent  refused  to  do  that,  or 
to  give  any  assistance  to  his  counsel,  relying 
upon  God  to  deliver  him.  The  authorized 
"  Life  of  Tennent "  now  gives  the  particulars  : 

Mr.  Tennent  had  not  walked  far  in  the  street  (the 
bell  had  rung  summoning  them  to  court),  before  he  met 
a  man  and  his  wife,  who  stopped  him,  and  asked  if  his 
name  was  not  Tennent.  He  answered  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  begged  to  know  if  they  had  any  business 
with  him.  The  man  replied,  "You  best  know."  He 
told  his  name,  and  said  that  he  was  from  a  certain 
place  (which  he  mentioned)  in  Pennsylvania  or  Mary- 
land ;  that  Messrs.  Rowland,  Tennent,  Anderson, and 
Stevens  had  lodged  either  at  his  house,  or  in  a  house 
wherein  he  and  his  wife  had  been  servants  (it  is  not 
now  certain  which),  at  a  particular  time  which  he 
named  ;  that  on  the  following  day  they  heard  Messrs. 
Tennent  and  Rowland  preach ;  that  some  nights  be- 
fore they  left  home.he  and  his  wife  waked  out  of  a  sound 
sleep,  and  each  told  the  other  a  dream  which  had  just 
occurred,  and  which  proved  to  be  the  same  in  substance ; 
to  wit,  that  he,  Mr.  Tennent,  was  at  Trenton,  in  the 
greatest  possible  distress,  and  that  it  was  in  their 
power,  and  theirs  only,  to  relieve  him.  Considering  it 
as  a  remarkable  dream  only,  they  again  went  to  sleep, 
and  it  was  twice  repeated,  precisely  in  the  same  man- 
ner, to  both  of  them.  This  made  so  deep  an  impres- 
sion on  their  minds,  that  they  set  off,  and  here  they 
were,  and  would  know  of  him  what  they  were  to  do. 

On  the  trial  the  evidence  of  these  persons, 
and  of  some  others  who  knew  Bell,  and  were 
acquainted  with  his  resemblance  to  Mr.  Row- 
land, was  sufficient  to  secure  Mr.  Tennent's 
acquittal. 

To  explain  such  dreams  as  these  some  in- 
troduce a  supernatural  element,  claiming  that 
they  are  sent  by  God  to  warn  his  people ; 
others  adopt  the  hypothesis  now  known  as 
telepathy;  while  still  others  content  them- 
selves with  vague  references  to  "  clairvoy- 
ance." 

A  personal  and  close  investigation  of  a  great 
number  of  alleged  premonitions  of  death,  reve- 
lations of  current  and  past  facts,  and  predic- 
tions of  the  future  has  afforded  me  no  ground 
for  a  scientific  presumption  either  of  super- 
natural interference,  of  telepathy,  or  of  clair- 
voyance. That  is,  authentic  cases  can  be  more 
reasonably  explained  without  than  with  any  of 
these  assumptions. 

The  English  Society  of  Psychical  Research 


454 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,  AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


was  founded  in  1882,  and  has  pursued  its  in- 
vestigations since  that  time.  The  names  of 
its  president,  vice-presidents,  corresponding 
members,  and  council  include  men  justly  dis- 
tinguished in  various  fields  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation, and  some  occupying  high  religious 
positions ;  and  the  list  of  members  is  also  very 
imposing.  It  is  proper  to  say,  however,  that  the 
investigations,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  have 
been  committed  to  a  few  persons,  enthusiasts 
in  the  matter,  and  many  of  the  most  learned 
and  conservative  members  of  the  body  appear, 
from  the  reports  of  all  the  proceedings  which 
I  have  carefully  read,  to  take  no  active  part  in 
the  work.  Indeed,  Professor  G.  Stanley  Hall, 
Professor  of  Psychology  and  Pedagogics  in 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  who  is  one  of  the 
corresponding  members,  regrets,  in  an  elabo- 
rate review  of  the  proceedings,  the  absence 
from  the  investigations  of  the  most  distin- 
guished alienists.  The  Society,  having  to  a 
great  extent  surrendered  the  investigations  to 
certain  persons,  has  practically  committed  it- 
self to  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy,  or  the  abil- 
ity of  one  mind  to  impress  or  to  be  impressed 
by  another  mind  otherwise  than  through  the 
recognized  channels  of  sense.  Of  course 
dreams  have  a  bearing  upon  this  subject,  and 
to  dreams  the  Society  has  paid  a  great  deal 
of  attention. 

The  subject  of  telepathy  I  shall  not  treat 
in  this  article,  for  the  Society  as  represented 
in  the  two  bulky  volumes  entitled  "  Phan- 
tasms of  the  Living,"  edited  by  Edmund 
Gurney,  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  and  Frank 
Pod  more,  does  not  claim  that  the  cases  which 
they  have  presented,  drawn  from  dreams, 
would  be  sufficient  to  prove  the  truth  of  telep- 
athy. They  confess  that  they  are  on  doubt- 
ful ground,  and  say : 

For  (t)  the  details  of  the  reality,  when  known,  will 
be  very  apt  to  be  read  back  into  the  dream,  through 
the  general  tendency  to  make  vague  things  distinct; 
anil  (2)  the  great  mi4ltitttde  of  dreams  may  seem  to 
afford  almost  limitless  scope  for  accidental  correspond- 
ences of  a  dream  with  an  actual  occurrence  resembling 
the  one  dreamt  of.  Any  answer  to  this  last  objection 
must  depend  on  statistics,  which,  until  lately,  there  has 
been  no  attempt  to  obtain;  and  though  an  answer  of 
a  sort  can  be  given,  it  is  not  such  a  one  as  would 
justify  us  in  basing  a  theory  of  telepathy  on  the  facts 
of  dreams  alone. 

They  acknowledge  that  dreams,  being  often 
somewhat  dim  and  shapeless  things,  "  subse- 
quent knowledge  of  events  may  easily  have 
the  effect  of  giving  body  and  definiteness  to 
the  recollection  of  a  dream."  They  concede 
that  "  millions  of  people  dream  every  night, 
and  in  dreams,  if  anywhere,  the  range  of  pos- 
sibilities seems  infinite."  But  when  they  come 
to  present  the  subsequent  cases,  their  reason- 
ing upon  them  is  in  many  instances  almost 


puerile,  and  is  unscientific  in  its  destitution  of 
rigor.  For  example,  in  cases  of  partial  fulfill- 
ment where  a  person  dreamed  of  death,  and 
the  dream  did  not  occur  until  a  number  of 
hours  after  the  death,  they  call  that  a  defer- 
ment of  percipience.  They  say  that  the  im- 
pression when  it  first  arrived  "  was  unable  to 
compete  at  the  moment  with  the  vivid  sensory 
impressions  and  the  crowd  of  ideas  and  im- 
ages that  had  belonged  to  normal  senses  and 
waking  life,  and  that  it  may  thus  remain  latent 
until  darkness  and  quiet  give  a  chance  for  its 
development."  The  same  sort  of  reasoning 
might  be  applied  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
such  information  is  not  universally  communi- 
cated. It  is  flying  about  loose  in  the  heavens 
and  in  the  earth;  but,  not  being  able  to  com- 
pete with  the  crowd  of  images  in  any  except 
few  cases,  does  not  generally  materialize. 

When  they  come  to  cases  where  the  dreams 
contain  the  general  feature  of  conversation 
between  the  dreamer  and  the  agent  they  say, 
"  This  is,  of  course,  a  clear  instance  of  some- 
thing superadded  by  the  dreamer's  own  activ- 
ity " ;  and  when  the  circumstances  of  the 
death  do  not  concur  with  it  they  claim  a  ful- 
fillment, and  attribute  a  failure  to  agree  to  a 
death  imagery  superadded  by  the  independ- 
ent activity  of  the  dreamer. 

Where  a  woman  dreams  twice  of  death  and 
it  is  fulfilled,  and  she  also  has  the  candor  to 
state  that  on  another  occasion  she  dreamed 
of  a  death  and  nothing  came  of  it,  they  say : 

The  absence  of  any  ascertained  coincidence  on  the 
third  occasion  might  be  represented  as  an  argument  for 
regarding  the  correspondence  on  the  two  previous  oc- 
casions as  accidental,  but  it  would  be  a  very  weak  one  ; 
since  even  if  the  dream  had  recurred  a  thousand  times, 
the  chances  against  the  accidental  occurrences  of  two 
such  coincidences  would  still  remain  enormous. 

Many  of  the  cases  they  cite  depend  upon 
vague  memory,  and  others  do  not  supply  ade- 
quate particulars. 

Their  general  method  of  writing  about  these 
dreams  and  of  the  whole  theory  of  telepathy 
is  that  of  an  affectionate  mother  lingering  over 
her  own  child,  and  wherever  coddling  is  nec- 
essary doing  it  con  amore.  There  are  two  rad- 
ical defects  to  be  seen  in  the  entire  method : 
First,  not  a  twentieth  part  of  the  care  is  taken 
in  the  investigation  of  the  cases  and  their 
authentication  which  would  be  required  for  a 
case  of  ordinary  importance  in  a  court  of  jus- 
tice; secondly,  the  use  of  the  so-called  doctrine 
of  chances  is  so  ludicrous  as  to  be  practically 
a  burlesque  of  science.  They  sent  to  5360 
persons  taken  at  random,  asking  them  to  state 
whether  they  had  ever  had  a  dream  of  the 
death  of  some  person  known  to  them,  which 
dream  was  an  exceptionally  vivid  one,  and  of 
which  the  distressing  impression  lasted  an 


DREAMS,  NIGHTMARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


455 


hour  after  arising  in  the  morning,  at  any  time 
within  the  twelve  years  1874  to  1885  inclusive. 
Of  these  173  answered  ''Yes.1'  It  would  be 
difficult  to  believe,  if  it  were  not  published  to 
the  world  on  the  authority  of  the  Society,  that 
any  one  should  conclude  that  that  number 
could  furnish  a  basis  upon  which  to  ascertain 
an  average  to  be  applied  to  the  whole  popu- 
lation ;  yet  they  do  so,  and  say  that  it  is  as 
satisfactory  as  the  proof  that  a  similar  number 
of  persons  taken  at  random  would  afford  on 
the  average  number  of  cases  of  short-sight  or 
color-blindness. 

Short-sight  and  color-blindness  are  physical 
conditions,  depending  upon  physical  causes  ; 
dreams  are  evanescent,  irregular,  depending 
upon  phenomenal  causes,  and  the  dream  im- 

*•$  of  a  single  family  in  a  single  week  may 
amount  to  millions,  of  which  any  one  under 
the  operations  of  laws  not  subject  to  statistics 
may  be  vividly  remembered. 

But  of  the  whole  number  of  173  who  had 
vivid  dreams  of  death,  there  were  only  24 
where  the  event  fell  within  12  hours  of  the 
dream.  By  an  application  of  the  law  of  chance 
they  endeavor  to  maintain  that  there  would 
not  be  more  than  one  such  coincidence  in 
that  time,  and  that,  therefore,  "  twenty-four  is 
twenty-four  times  larger  than  the  doctrine  of 
chance  would  have  allowed  us  to  expect." 
As  well  might  the  law  of  chance  be  applied  to 
the  determination  of  the  number  of  thoughts 
on  any  given  subject  that  would  naturally 
arise  in  one  or  more  minds  in  a  given  period. 

As  shown  in  an  article  on  "Astrology,  Divi- 
nation, and  Coincidences,"  published  in  THE 
CENTURY  for  February,  1888,  the  "law  of 
chance  "  is  not  capable  of  application  to  such 
subjects.  Events  are  continually  occurring, 
whether  attention  is  directed  to  them  or  not. 
Of  all  possible  occurrences,  the  time,  place, 
and  manner  of  death  are  most  uncertain.  Hu- 
man lives  revolve  about  a  few  central  points  — 
home,  business,  health,  friends,  travel,  religion, 
country.  Dream  images  are  about  persons 
and  things.  That  there  can  be  millions  of 
images  portrayed  in  the  gallery  of  dreams, 
and  that  the  great  majority  deal  with  these 
pivotal  points  of  human  life  and  human 
thought,  taken  in  connection  with  the  fact  that 
all  the  events  of  human  history,  past,  current, 
and  future,  revolve  about  these  same  points, 
make  it  absolutely  certain  that  the  number 

»of  coincidences  must  be  vast.  It  is,  in  fact, 
smaller  rather  than  larger  than  might  reason- 
ably be  expected. 

It  is  natural  that  a  large  proportion  of 
dreams  of  a  terrifying  nature  should  be  about 
deaths,  because  in  deaths  center  all  grounds 
of  anxiety  about  one's  self  or  one's  friends. 
As  death  is  the  king  of  terrors  and  the  dream 


state  often  a  disturbed  state,  death  would  be 
also  the  king  of  dreams. 

Out  of  the  173  who  declare  that  they  have 
had  distressing  dreams,  there  have  been  only 
24  cases  of  fulfillment.  An  exact  statement 
of  the  situation  of  the  twenty-four  persons 
dreanu-d  ;:bout,  or  their  physical  condition 
and  circumstances,  would  be  as  essential  to  a 
scientific  estimate  as  the  condition  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  dreamer. 

The  recollection  of  dreams  depends  much 
upon  habit  and  upon  the  practice  of  relating 
them.  I  found  by  experience  that  this  had  a 
tendency  to  perpetuate  a  particular  dream. 
For  twenty-five  years  I  was  visited  at  irregu- 
lar intervals  by  the  dream  of  the  death,  by 
drowning,  of  my  brother  who  is  still  living. 
It  frequently  recurred  soon  after  I  had  told  it 
with  elaborateness  of  detail  to  another.  The 
number  of  appalling  dreams  that  come  to 
nothing  is  very  great,  where  the  vividness  of 
details  sometimes  fairly  compels  belief.  In 
many  instances  a  dream  of  one's  death  origi- 
nates in  a  profound  derangement  of  the  nerv- 
ous system,  and  the  effect  of  such  a  dream 
upon  that  weakened  condition  may  be  fatal. 
The  young  student  to  whom  reference  has  been 
made  came  of  a  family  peculiarly  liable  to  in- 
stant death  from  heart  disease.  Since  that  pe- 
riod his  only  brother  died  without  warning, 
when  quietly, as  it  wassupposed, reposing  upon 
his  bed.  The  dream  was  so  vivid  that  the  young 
man  believed  it,  and  prepared  himself  for  it  in 
mind  while  his  body  was  depressed  by  the 
natural  physical  effect.  If  he  had  been  treated 
as  another  young  man  was  who  had  a  similar 
dream,  and  believed  it  as  implicitly,  he  might 
have  lived.  In  that  case  a  sagacious  physi- 
cian, finding  evidences  that  death  was  near, 
and  believing  the  symptoms  to  be  caused 
wholly  by  the  impression  that  he  was  to  die, 
administered  a  heavy  dose  of  chloroform. 
When  the  young  man  became  conscious  and 
found  the  hour  fixed  upon  for  his  death  long 
passed,  he  speedily  recovered. 

The  repetition  of  dreams  on  the  same  night 
or  on  other  nights  is  explained  by  the  im- 
pression which  they  make ;  and  doubtless  the 
number  3  has  literary  and  religious  asso- 
ciations which  have  an  effect  upon  some 
dreamers.  If  they  have  a  notion  that  3  is 
the  number  for  significant  dreams,  they,  hav- 
ing dreamed  the  same  thing  thrice,  are  now 
fully  aroused  and  sleep  no  more.  This  is  not 
always  the  case.  A  member  of  Congress 
dreamed  that  his  only  daughter  died;  he 
awoke  in  great  agitation,  and  on  composing 
himself  to  sleep  the  dream  returned.  This 
continued  for  the  fourth  time,  and  even  until 
the  ninth,  and  after  each  recurrence  he  was 
awakened;  and  in  the  morning,  though  not  a 


4S6 


DREAAIS,  NIGHTMARE,   AND   SOMNAMBULISM. 


believer  in  dreams,  he  hastened  to  his  home  in 
a  western  State,  feeling  assured  that  something 
terrible  had  happened  or  was  about  to  happen. 
The  first  person  whom  he  met  was  his  daughter, 
in  perfect  health. 

Coinciding  dreams  of  two  persons  about  a 
third  are  often  not  fulfilled.  Abercrombie 
gives  the  case  of  a  young  man  and  his  mother 
dreaming  substantially  the  same  dream  the 
same  night,  in  which  he  told  her  that  he  was 
going  on  a  long  journey,  and  she  said,  "  Son, 
thou  art  dead."  But  nothing  came  of  the 
dream.  A  young  man  not  far  from  New  York 
dreamed  that  his  father  was  being  burned  to 
death  in  a  hotel.  The  same  night  a  lady,  a 
friend  of  the  family,  dreamed  the  same.  Noth- 
ing came  of  it. 

In  regard  to  the  dream  of  William  Tennent's 
witnesses,  the  following  points  may  be  noticed : 
First,  "  the  affair  made  a  great  noise  in  the 
colony  ";  secondly,  Tennent,  Stevens,  and  An- 
derson all  knew  where  they  had  been  in  Penn- 
sylvania or  Maryland,  and  it  was  easy  for  them 
to  procure  witnesses  who  could  conclusively 
prove  their  innocence,  and  a  supernatural  in- 
terference was  not  necessary ;  thirdly,  the  de- 
lay between  the  trial  of  Rowland  and  that  of 
Tennent  at  a  period  when  information  was 
principally  distributed  by  word  of  mouth, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  general  interest 
in  the  subject  of  religion  at  that  time  and  the 
excitement  produced  by  the  preceding  trial, 
rendered  it  highly  probable  that  every  per- 
son in  any  community  where  Rowland  had 
preached  knew  about  these  facts.  The  account 
cannot  tell  much  about  these  witnesses,  or  even 
whether  the  preaching  and  the  dream  occurred 
in  Pennsylvania  or  Maryland.  The  natural 
explanation  of  the  whole  proceeding  is  that 
they  knew  the  facts  and  had  talked,  or  heard 
others  talk,  about  the  trial;  and  so  far  as  evi- 
dence goes  they  had  themselves  talked  about 
it,  and  the  double  dream  was  a  mere  coinci- 
dence. Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  the  facts 
that  the  accounts  are  so  defective,  contradic- 
tory, and  improbable,  and  that  Mr.  Anderson 
was  allowed  to  be  convicted  and  punished 
when  he  was  as  innocent  as  Mr.  Tennent, 
greatly  strengthen  the  natural  explanation  of 
the  entire  proceedings,  for  it  is  certain  that 
fortunate  coincidences  have  as  often  helped 
sinners  as  saints. 

The  possibilities  of  coincidence  in  human 
affairs  are  incomputable.  A  gentleman  resid- 
ing near  New  York  remarked  to  a  friend  on 
the  4th  of  February,  1888,  "We  shall  have 
snow  to-day."  There  was  not  a  sign  of  it  then, 
but  before  they  separated  the  snow  began  to 
fall.  "  How  did  you  know  that  it  would  snow  ?  " 
asked  the  friend.  The  sad  and  singular  answer 
was,  "  Forty- three  years  ago  to-day  I  buried 


my  only  son.  It  snowed  that  day  and  has 
snowed  on  the  4th  day  of  February  every  year 
since,  and  I  felt  sure  that  it  would  snow  to- 
day." Let  those  who  fancy  that  the  law  of 
probabilities  is  of  any  value  when  applied  to 
a  particular  day  ascertain  how  many  chances 
there  were  that  it  would  snow  for  forty-three 
consecutive  years  in  a  certain  part  of  the 
country  on  the  4th  day  of  February. 

Inquiry  of  the  passengers  on  many  ocean 
voyages  has  shown  that  not  a  ship  crosses  the 
sea  upon  which  there  is  not  some  passenger 
who  had  a  dream  that  the  ship  would  be  de- 
stroyed, which  strongly  tempted  him  to  remain 
at  home ;  or  was  warned  by  a  friend,  who, 
after  such  a  dream,  prophesied  disaster;  or 
which  had  not  left  behind  some  intending  pas- 
senger deterred  by  a  dream. 

Many  of  the  supposed  cases  of  fulfillment 
of  dreams,  and  where  the  coincidences  are 
most  startling,  relate  to  events  which  neither 
man  nor  devil,  disembodied  spirit  nor  angel, 
could  foreknow  if  true,  since  neither  the  events 
nor  their  causes  were  in  existence  in  the  uni- 
verse; and  the  fulfillment  depended  upon 
actions  involving  juxtapositions  which  could 
not  have  been  foreseen  by  any  finite  being,  as 
they  were  themselves  coincidences,  and  only 
conceivable  as  foreknown  by  God,  because  of 
the  assumption  of  his  infinity. 

THE  RATIONAL  USE  OF  DREAM6. 

BY  some  it  is  maintained  that  dreams  are  of 
great  value  in  the  argument  for  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul;  the  short  method  being 
that  they  prove  the  soul  immaterial  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  body,  and  if  immaterial  then 
immortal.  If  this  has  any  value  it  would 
apply  equally  to  animals. 

Others  have  held  that  we  are  responsible 
for  our  dreams.  An  article  in  the  "Journal  of 
Psychological  Medicine,"  for  July,  1849,  says 
that  we  are  as  responsible  for  our  dreams  as 
for  our  waking  thoughts;  just  as  much  so  as 
we  are  told  we  shall  be  at  the  great  tribunal 
for  every  idle  word.  And  another  writer  af- 
firms that  in  dreams  each  man's  character  is 
disintegrated  so  that  he  may  see  the  elements 
of  which  it  is  composed.  But  few  dreams  are 
more  absurd  than  such  conceptions  of  them 
as  these.  Gluttony,  evil  thoughts,  intemper- 
ance, vigils,  and  anxiety  may  affect  dreams, 
but  the  responsibility  is  for  the  gluttony  and 
other  vices  and  sins;  these  are  simply  the  in- 
cidental results.  Many  of  the  most  devout 
and  religious  persons  who  have  been  unduly 
excited  in  religious  work  have  been  terrified 
and  driven  almost  to  doubt  their  acceptance 
with  God  by  the  fearful  dreams  of  an  impure 
or  immoral  character  which  have  made  their 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


457 


nights  hideous.  Religious  biography  abounds 
with  such  accounts.  These  persons  have  at- 
tributed them  to  the  devil,  of  whom  one  of 
them  naively  said,  "  The  evil  spirit,  having  no 
hope  of  succeeding  with  me  by  day,  attacks 
me  in  sleep.''  Intellectual  persons  of  seden- 
tary habits  have  also  been  troubled  in  this 
way.  The  explanation  in  such  cases  is  simple. 
The"  lournal  of  Psychological  Medicine, "for 
January,  1857,  says: 

When  persons  have  been  much  engaged  during  the 
whole  day  on  subjects  which  require  the  continued  ex- 
ercise of  the  intellectual  and  moral  attributes,  they  may 
induce  so  much  fatigue  and  exhaustion  of  those  pow- 
ers that  when  they  are  asleep,  to  their  subsequent  sor- 
row and  surprise,  they  may  have  the  most  sensual  and 
most  vicious  dreams. 

The  writer  proceeds  to  explain  the  fact  upon 
the  natural  principle  that  the  exhausted  intel- 
lectual faculties,  not  being  active  and  vigorous 
in  the  dream,  the  intellect  received  imperfect 
impressions ;  while  the  animal  propensities 
having  been  in  a  state  of  comparative  inac- 
tivity, manifested  greater  activity. 

In  the  case  of  great  religious  excitement, 
the  principle  embodied  in  the  stern  saying  of 
a  writer  that  "  When  one  passion  is  on  fire, 
the  rest  will  do  well  to  send  for  the  buckets  " 
is  a  sufficient  explanation.  The  intellect  and 
the  will  being  subdued  by  sleep,  the  generally 
excited  condition  of  the  brain  and  the  nervous 
system  produces  a  riot  in  the  imagination. 

Some  persons  rely  upon  dre'ams  for  evi- 
dence of  acceptance  with  God,  and  of  God's 
love.  Where  they  have  other  evidences  and 
sound  reason,  they  do  not  need  the  help  of 
dreams.  When  destitute  of  other  evidences, 
it  has  been  observed  that  their  conduct  is 
frequently  such  as  no  Christian,  and  some- 
times as  no  moral  person,  could  safely  imitate. 

One  of  the  best  things  said  in  favor  of 
dreams  is  by  David  Hartley,  M.  D. 


The  wildness  of  our  dreams  seems  of  singular  use 
to  us,  by  interrupting  and  breaking  the  course  of  our 
associations.  For  if  we  were  always  nwake,  some  acci- 
dental associations  would  be  so  much  cemented  by 
continuance,  as  that  nothing  could  afterwards  disjoin 
them,  which  would  be  math, 

Notwithstanding,  I  would  prefer  to  take  the 
risk  of  dreamless  sleep. 

Any  marked  increase  in  the  number  or 
change  in  the  character  of  dreams  should  be 
seriously  considered.  They  are  sometimes  the 
precursors  of  a  general  nervous  and  mental 
prostration.  In  such  cases  habits  of  diet  and 
exercise,  work  and  rest,  should  be  examined. 
If  dreams  which  depress  the  nervous  energies 
and  render  sleep  unrefreshing  recur  frequently, 
medical  counsel  should  be  taken.  The  habit 
of  remembering  and  narrating  dreams  is  per- 
nicious; to  act  upon  them  is  to  surrender 
rational  self-control. 

A  gentleman  of  Boston  who  travels  much 
is  in  the  habit  of  dreaming  often  of  sickness 
and  death  in  his  family.  He  always  telegraphs 
for  information,  but  has  had  the  misfortune 
never  to  dream  of  the  critical  events,  and  to 
be  away  from  home  when  most  needed.  Still, 
like  the  devotee  of  a  lottery,  he  continues  to 
believe  in  dreams.  Another,  whose  dreams 
are  equally  numerous  and  pertinent,  never  so 
much  as  gives  them  a  thought,  and  has  had 
the  good  fortune  to  be  near  his  family  when 
needed. 

An  extraordinary  dream  relating  to  prob- 
able or  possible  events  may  be  analyzed,  and 
anything  which  seems  of  importance  in  it 
from  its  own  nature  or  the  way  things  are 
stated,  may  be  made  a  matter  of  reflection 
without  superstition.  But  to  take  a  step  upon 
a  dream  which  would  not  be  taken  without  it 
allies  the  person  who  does  it  to  every  form  of 
superstition  that  stultifies  the  god-like  faculty 
of  reason. 

J.  M.  Buckley. 


ON    THE    BATTLE-FIELD. 


i. 


ROBERT  WHITE  GOES  IN  SEARCH  OF  A  STORY. 

NE  afternoon  late  in  Sep- 
tember,   as    Mr.    Robert 
White  was  about  to  leave 
the  private  office  of  the 
editor  of  the  "  Gotham  Ga- 
zette," having  settled  on 
; '    the  subject  of  the  editorial 
•      irticle  he  was  to  write  for 
ng's  paper,  the  chief  called 


the  next   IT 
him  back. 

"  By  the  way,  White,"  he  asked, 


'have 


you  a  story  or  a  sketch  you  could  give  us  for 
Sunday  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  answered  White ;  "  that 
is  to  say,  I  have  n't  one  concealed  about  my 
person  just  now  —  but  perhaps  I  can  scare 
up  something  before  you  need  it." 

"  I  wish  you  would,"  the  editor  returned. 
"  You  know  that  we  are  making  a  feature  of 
the  short  story  in  the  Sunday  paper,  and  we 
are  running  short  of  copy.  We  have  several 
things  promised  us,  but  they  are  slow  in  com- 
ing. Rudolph  Vernon,  for  example,  was  to 
have  given  me  a  tragic  tale  for  this  week ;  but 
here  I  have  a  letter  from  him,  begging  off  on 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


the  plea  that  his  wife's  grandmother  has  just 
died,  and  —  " 

"  And  so  he  's  not  attuned  for  tragedy, 
eh  ?  "  interrupted  White,  smiling.  "  Well,  I  '11 
try  to  turn  out  something;  but  a  good  idea 
for  a  short  story  is  a  shy  bird,  and  does  n't 
come  for  the  calling.  It  is  only  now  and 
then  I  can  get  within  reach  of  one  to  put 
salt  on  its  tail.  The  trouble  is  that  all  I  could 
lime  I  have  served  up  already  in  the  dainty 
dish  I  called  '  Nightmare's  Nests.'  " 

"  I  don't  know  that  we  really  need  any- 
thing as  peculiar  or  as  striking  as  most  of 
those  stories  were,"  said  the  editor,  medita- 
tively. "  I  doubt  sometimes  whether  the 
sketch  from  real  life  is  n't  really  more  popu- 
lar than  the  most  daringly  original  fantasy 
of  Foe's  or  Hawthorne's.  The  simple  little 
story,  with  a  touch  of  the  pathetic  about  it, 
that 's  what  the  women  like;  and  after  all,  you 
know,  fiction  is  meant  to  please  the  women 
mostly." 

"  I  do  know  it,"  said  White,  with  a  sad- 
dened smile.  "  Woman  likes  the  cut-and-dried 
better  than  the  unconventional  and  unex- 
pected ;  it  is  only  in  the  fashions  that  she  wants 
the  latest  novelty." 

"  Then  your  task  is  the  easier,"  suggested 
the  editor. 

"  Not  for  me,"  White  returned.  "  I  can't 
do  the  Dying  Infant  at  will,  or  the  Deserted 
Wife,  or  the  Cruel  Parent  and  the  Lovely 
Daughter.  Some  fellows  find  it  easy  enough 
to  turn  on  the  water-works  and  make  the 
women  weep ;  but  I  never  could.  The  grew- 
some,  now,  or  the  gleeful,  I  can  tackle  when 
I  'in  in  the  mood,  but  the  maudlin  evades  me." 

"  Well,  I  '11  leave  it  to  you,"  said  the  editor, 
turning  back  to  his  work.  "  Do  the  best  you 
can  for  us.  You  know  what  we  want." 

"  But  I  don't  know  where  I  'm  going  to 
get  it,"  was  White's  final  remark,  as  he  left 
the  chief's  office  and  went  to  his  own  desk. 

Sitting  down,  he  took  up  his  pen,  thought 
for  a  minute  or  two,  laughed  gently  to  him- 
self once  or  twice,  made  a  few  incomprehen- 
sible notes  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  then 
wrote  a  column  of  brevier  on  the  subject 
assigned  to  him — "Philadelphia  as  a  Rest- 
Cure."  After  reading  this  over  carefully  and 
making  a  correction  here  and  there,  he  sent 
it  up  to  the  composing-room.  Then  he  took 
his  hat  and  left  the  building,  his  day's  work 
done. 

When  he  reached  Madison  Square,  in  his 
walk  up-town,  it  was  about  6  o'clock.  His 
family  was  still  in  the  country  —  the  lovely 
September  weather  was  too  tempting,  and 
White  had  not  the  heart  to  recall  his  wife  to 
town,  although  he  heartily  hated  his  condition 
of  grass- widower.  With  a  feeling  of  disgusted 


loneliness  he  went  to  the  College  Club  and 
had  a  solitary  meal,  which  he  ate  with  an  ill 
grace.  But  a  good  dinner  and  a  good  cup  of 
coffee  after  it,  and,  a  good  cigar,  combined  to 
make  another  man  of  him.  He  lingered  in 
the  smoking-room  for  a  while,  lazily  glancing 
over  the  evening  paper.  Then  he  threw  aside 
the  crackling  sheet  and  tried  to  devise  a  plot 
for  a  possible  story,  or  to  recall  a  character 
about  whom  a  tale  might  be  told.  But  his 
invention  was  sluggish  and  he  made  no  head- 
way in  his  work.  Feeling  that  his  recumbent 
posture  might  be  tending  to  increase  his  men- 
tal inertia,  he  arose ;  and,  throwing  away  his 
cigar,  he  went  out  for  a  walk,  in  the  hope  that 
the  exercise  might  stimulate  his  dormant  fac- 
ulties, or  that,  in  his  rambles,  he  might  hap- 
pen on  a  suggestion. 

The  evening  was  warm  but  not  unpleasant; 
a  refreshing  breeze  was  blowing  up  from  the 
bay  and  clearing  the  atmosphere  of  the  foul 
odors  of  streets  everywhere  torn  up  by  the 
excavations  of  a  new  company,  until  they 
looked  as  though  French  rioters  had  been 
building  barricades  or  veterans  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  had  been  throwing  up  tem- 
porary intrenchments.  Just  as  this  military 
suggestion  occurred  to  Robert  White,  the 
illusion  was  strengthened  by  the  martial  notes 
of  "  Marching  through  Georgia,"  which  rang 
across  the  Square  as  a  militia  regiment 
with  its  band  tramped  up  Broadway.  While 
he  was  thus  attuned  for  war's  alarms,  he 
found  himself  before  a  huge  iron  rotunda,  as 
devoid  of  all  architectural  beauty  as  might  be 
a  gigantic  napkin-ring,  capped  by  an  inverted 
saucer.  A  coronet  of  electric  lights  circled 
the  broad  roof,  and  a  necklace  of  these  glar- 
ing gems  was  suspended  over  the  sidewalk  in 
front  of  the  entrance,  illuminating  many  bold 
advertisements  to  the  effect  that  a  cyclorama 
of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  on  exhibition 
within. 

As  it  happened,  Robert  White  had  not  yet 
seen  this  cyclorama,  which  had  only  been 
recently  opened  to  the  public.  Obeying  the 
impulse  of  the  moment,  he  crossed  the  street 
and  entered  the  building. 

He  passed  down  a  long  dim  tunnel,  and 
mounted  a  winding-stair,  coming  out  at  last 
upon  an  open  platform  —  and  the  effect  was 
as  though  he  had  been  sitting  upon  King 
Solomon's  carpet  and  by  it  had  been  instantly 
transported  through  time  and  space  to  the 
center  of  a  battle-field  and  into  the  midst  of 
the  fight.  To  an  imaginative  spectator  the 
impression  of  reality  was  overpowering,  and 
White  found  himself  waiting  for  the  men  to 
move,  and  wondering  why  the  thunder  of  the 
cannon  did  not  deafen  him.  He  felt  himself 
in  the  very  thick  of  the  tussle  of  war  —  an 


ON   THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


459 


on-looker  at  the  great  game  of  battle.  He 
ill  me  ;it  first,  and  there  was  a  subdued 
hush  which  lent  a  mysterious  solemnity  to  the 
noiseless  combat.  The  Pennsylvania  hills 
stretched  away  from  him  on  all  sides  and  the 
July  sun  beat  down  on  the  dashing  cavalry, 
on  the  broken  ranks  ill  sheltered  by  the  low 
stone  walls,  on  the  splendid  movement  of 
l'i<  kett's  division,  on  the  swiftly  served  bat- 
teries, on  the  wounded  men  borne  quickly  to 
the  rear,  and  on  the  surgeons  working  rapidly, 
bare-armed  and  bloody.  Here  and  there  the 
smoke  hung  low  over  the  grass,  a  lingering 
witness  to  the  artillery  duel  which  preceded 
the  magnificent  advance  of  the  Southern  in- 
fantry. On  all  sides  were  heroic  devotion, 
noble  bravery,  dogged  persistence,  and  awful 
carnage. 

As  White  stood  silent  in  the  midst  of  this 
silent  warfare,  he  felt  as  though  he  could 
count  the  cost  of  this  combat  in  precious  lives, 
for  he  knew  how  few  were  the  families  of  this 
wide  nation  but  had  one  of  its  best  beloved 
clad  in  gray  in  the  long  lines  of  Lee,  or  massed 
in  blue  on  Cemetery  Ridge  to  stand  the  shock 
of  the  charging  Virginians. 

The  platform  slowly  filled  up  with  later  ar- 
rivals, and  Robert  White  was  aroused  from 
his  revery  ;  he  began  to  study  the  canvas  be- 
fore him  more  carefully.  His  own  interest 
was  rather  in  the  navy  than  in  the  army,  but 
he  was  familiar  with  the  chief  movements  on 
this  field.  He  recognized  the  generals  and  he 
noted  the  details  of  the  picture.  The  art  of 
the  painter  delighted  him ;  the  variety,  the 
movement,  the  vivacity  of  the  work  appealed 
to  his  appreciation  ;  with  the  relish  of  a  Yan- 
kee he  enjoyed  the  ingenious  devices  by  which 
the  eye  of  the  spectator  was  deceived ;  he 
detected  one  or  two  of  the  tricks  —  a  well, 
for  instance,  half  painted  and  half  real,  and 
a  stretcher  carried  by  one  soldier  in  the 
picture  itself  and  by  another  out  in  the  fore- 
ground with  real  grass  springing  up  under 
his  feet;  and,  although  he  discovered,  he 
almost  doubted  —  the  illusion  was  well-nigh 
perfect. 

Jiy  this  time  the  throng  on  the  platform 
had  thickened.  It  was  densest  on  the  oppo- 
site side  ;  and  White  slowly  became  conscious 
that  a  lecturer  was  there  explaining  to  the 
gathering  group  the  main  lines  of  the  battle 
and  its  chief  episodes.  Remembering  that 
when  he  entered  he  had  seen  a  figure  in  blue 
with  an  empty  sleeve  pinned  across  the  breast 
sitting  apart  in  the  center  of  the  platform, 
he  recalled  the  custom  of  most  cycloramas 
to  have  a  veteran,  a  wounded  survivor  of  the 
smt-'gle,  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  day  and  to  fight 
his  battles  o'er  every  hour  to  changing  com- 
panies of  visitors. 


"  It  was  just  there,"  said  the  lecturer,  "  that 
Colonel  Delancey  Jones  and  Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Oliphant  of  our  regiment  were  killed 
within  less  than  five  minutes;  and  not  ten 
minutes  later  our  Major  Laurence  Laugh  ton 
was  badly  wounded.  Few  know  how  terrific 
was  the  loss  of  life  on  this  bloody  field.  There 
were  more  men  killed  in  this  single  battle  than 
in  the  whole  Crimean  war,  which  lasted  more 
than  eighteen  months." 

As  White  listened  he  found  himself  invol- 
untarily remarking  something  unusual  in  this 
fragment  of  the  lecturer's  little  speech.  It  was 
not  the  manner,  which  was  confident  enough, 
nor  the  delivery,  which  was  sufficiently  intel- 
ligent, but  rather  the  voice  of  the  speaker. 
This  did  not  sound  like  the  voice  of  an  old 
soldier;  it  was  fresher,  younger,  and,  indeed, 
almost  boyish. 

"  That  little  building  there  is  an  exact  repro- 
duction of  the  farm-house  of  old  John  Burns  of 
Gettysburg : 

Must  where  the  tide  of  battle  turns, 

Krect  and  lonely  stood  old  John  Burns. 

How  do  you  think  the  man  was  dressed  ? 

He  wore  an  ancient  long  buff  vest, 

Yellow  as  saffron  —  but  his  best ; 

And,  buttoned  over  his  manly  breast, 

Was  a  bright  blue  coat,  with  a  rolling  collar, 

And  large,  gilt  buttons  —  size  of  a  dollar  ; 

He  wore  a  broad-brimmed,  bell-crowned  hat, 

White  as  the  locks  on  which  it  sat. 

But  Burns,  unmindful  of  jeer  and  scoff, 

Stood  there  picking  the  rebels  off — 

With  his  long,  brown  rifle  and  bell-crowned  hat, 

And  the  swallow-tails  they  were  laughing  at. 

In  fighting  the  battle,  the  question  's  whether 

You  '11  show  a  hat  that  's  white,  or  a  feather  !  ' 

"  That 's  John  Burns's  house  there,  with  the 
gable  towards  you,  and  those  are  his  bees  and 
his  cows  that  the  poet  mentions.  Farther 
away  to  the  right  is  General  Meade  with  his 
staff—" 

Involuntarily  White  had  drawn  nearer  to 
the  speaker;  and  the  lecturer,  in  his  rotation 
around  the  platform,  now  advanced  three  or 
four  paces  towards  the  journalist.  Then  for 
the  first  time  White  got  a  good  view  of  him ; 
he  saw  a  slight  figure,  undeveloped  rather 
than  shrunk,  about  which  hung  loosely  a  faded 
blue  uniform  with  the  empty  sleeve  of  the  left 
arm  pinned  across  the  breast.  The  lecturer's 
walk  as  he  passed  from  one  point  to  another 
was  alert  and  youthful;  his  face  was  long  and 
thin ;  his  dark  eyes  were  piercing  and  restless; 
his  hair  was  so  light  that  it  might  be  white; 
his  chin  was  apparently  clean  shaven,  and  he 
did  not  wear  even  a  military  mustache.  Alto- 
gether he  produced  upon  the  journalist  an  in- 
explicable impression  of  extreme  juvenility; 
he  could  not  believe  that  this  Boy  in  Blue  was 
old  enough  to  have  been  at  the  battle  of  Get- 
tysburg, fought  just  a  quarter  of  a  century 


460 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


ago.  Even  if  the  North,  like  the  South,  had 
robbed  the  cradle  and  the  grave,  a  drummer- 
boy  of  fifteen  at  the  battle  would  now  be  a 
man  of  forty,  and  it  seemed  impossible  that 
the  lecturer  had  attained  half  that  age.  The 
journalist  could  not  but  think  that  the  soldier 
was  only  a  youth,  with  a  strangely  aged  look 
for  one  so  young,  it  is  true,  and  worn  with 
pain,  it  may  be,  and  without  an  arm  —  and 
yet,  for  all  this,  but  little  more  than  a  boy. 

While  White  had  been  coming  to  this  con- 
clusion the  lecturer  had  been  drawing  nearer 
to  him,  and  was  now  standing  not  five  feet 
distant. 

"That  clump  of  trees  there  was  the  point 
Pickett  had  told  his  men  to  go  for,  and  they 
did  get  to  it  too  —  but  they  could  n't  hold  it. 
Those  trees  mark  the  spot  farthest  north  ever 
reached  by  the  Southern  soldiers  at  any  time 
during  the  battle.  There  was  pretty  hot  fight- 
ing in  among  those  bushes  for  a  while,  and 
then  the  Johnnies  began  to  fall  back.  It  was 
just  then  that  we  were  sent  in." 

"Were  you  there,  sir?"  asked  an  awed 
young  lady,  as  much  overdressed  as  the  red- 
haired  young  man  with  her. 

"  Yes,  miss,"  was  the  prompt  answer. 

White  was  now  close  to  the  speaker,  and  he 
examined  him  again  carefully.  Despite  the 
uniform  and  the  empty  sleeve  and  a  certain 
appearance  of  having  undergone  hardships,  it 
was  simply  impossible  that  the  fellow  should 
be  telling  the  truth. 

"  Where  did  you  stand  ?  "  asked  the  young 
lady. 

"Just  back  of  that  clump  of  trees  there, 
miss.  When  the  rebs  broke  we  were  told  to 
go  in,  and  we  went  in  at  once ;  and,  as  I  told 
you,  Colonel  Delancey  Jones  was  killed  first 
and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Oliphant  next  and 
Major  Laughton  was  wounded,  and  it  was 
Captain  Bryce  that  took  us  through  the  fight 
after  that." 

"  O  Charley  !  "  said  the  young  lady  to  her 
red-haired  companion.  "  Just  think !  He  was 
there ;  is  n't  it  perfectly  awful  ?  " 

"  I  guess  it  was  pretty  lively  for  him,"  re- 
sponded the  young  man ;  "  but  when  there  's  a 
war  a  fellow  feels  he  must  go,  you  know." 

"  Did  you  lose  your  arm  there  ?  "  asked 
the  young  lady. 

"  Yes,  miss.  It  was  taken  off  by  a  ball  from 
Mason's  battery.  That 's  Mason's  battery  over 
there  on  the  hill ;  in  the  woods,  almost." 

As  White  heard  this  answer,  which  seemed 
to  him  a  repulsive  falsehood,  he  looked  the 
lecturer  full  in  the  face. 

"  O  Charley !  "  said  the  young  lady  to  her 
red-haired  companion.  "  He  did  lose  his  arm 
there  !  Is  n't  it  perfectly  dreadful  ?  And  he  is 
so  young  too !  " 


"  I  guess  he  's  older  than  he  looks,"  Charley 
jauntily  replied. 

The  lecturer  caught  White's  gaze  fixed  full 
upon  him,  and  he  returned  the  glance  without 
the  slightest  suggestion  of  embarrassment. 

"  So  you  were  wounded  there,  were  you  ?  " 
queried  White. 

"  Yes,  sir ;  just  in  front  of  those  trees,  as  the 
boys  went  on." 

"  And  how  did  you  feel  ?  "  pursued  White. 

"  I  did  n't  know  anything  for  a  few  min- 
utes, and  then  I  felt  sorry  that  we  had  been 
beaten ;  they  say  a  wounded  man  always 
thinks  that  his  side  has  got  the  worst  of  it." 

The  speaker  was  now  close  to  White,  and 
the  journalist  no  longer  doubted  that  the  Boy 
in  Blue  was  a  boy  in  fact,  masquerading  as  a 
man  and  as  a  soldier.  To  White  this  seemed 
like  trading  on  patriotism  —  a  piece  of  des- 
picable trickery.  The  fellow  bore  it  off  bravely 
enough,  as  though  unconscious  of  the  con- 
temptible part  he  was  playing.  He  stood  the 
close  scrutiny  of  the  journalist  with  impertur- 
bable calm.  His  face  was  coldly  serious;  and 
even  his  eyes  did  not  betray  any  guilty  knowl- 
edge of  his  false  position;  their  glance  was 
honest  and  open. 

"  The  boy  is  a  good  actor,"  thought  White, 
"  but  what  is  the  object  of  this  queer  per- 
formance ?  Surely  there  are  old  soldiers  enough 
in  the  city  to  explain  a  battle  picture  without 
the  need  of  dressing  up  a  slim  youth  in  the 
cast-off  clothes  of  a  wounded  veteran." 

Taking  a  place  by  the  railing  of  the  plat- 
form just  alongside  White,  the  mysterious 
lecturer  pointed  to  a  group  of  horsemen  and 
said: 

"That  's  General  Hancock  there,  with  his 
staff." 

White  interrupted  with  the  sudden  ques- 
tion: 

"  Were  you  in  the  war  ?  " 

The  youth  looked  at  White  in  surprise  and 
answered  simply : 

"  Of  course." 

"  In  what  regiment  ?  "  White  continued. 

"  The  4ist,  Colonel  Delancey  Jones,"  the 
boy  replied.  "  They  used  to  call  us  the 
Fighting  4ist." 

"And  you  were  at  the  battle  of  Gettys- 
burg ?  "  pursued  White. 

"  Of  course,"  was  the  reply,  accompanied 
by  a  strange  look  of  surprise.  "  Have  n't  I 
been  telling  you  about  it  ?  " 

"  Were  you  also  at  the  battle  of  Buena 
Vista  ?  "  asked  White,  sarcastically. 

This  question  seemed  to  puzzle  the  young 
man.  "  Buena  Vista  ?  "  he  repeated  slowly, 
with  dazed  expression.  "  I  don't  know." 

"  Perhaps  you  took  part  also  in  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill  ?  "  White  went  on. 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


"  Oh,  no,"  replied  the  young  fellow  quickly, 
his  face  lighting  at  once.  "No — you've  been 
getting  things  mixed.  Bunker  Hill  was  in  the 
Revolutionary  War  and  Gettysburg  was  in 
the  Rebellion.  The  Revolutionary  \Var  was 
over  long  before  I  was  born." 

••  \nd  how  old  were  you  when  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg  was  fought  ? "  was  White's  next 
question. 

Again  a  puzzled  look  came  into  the  face  of 
the  lecturer. 

"  How  old  was  I  ?  I  don't  know  how 
old  I  was  then.  But  I  was  there  !  "  he  added 
with  sudden  emphasis,  as  though  he  were 
defying  the  lurking  smile  which  flitted  across 
White's  mouth. 

"  And  it  was  at  Gettysburg  you  lost  your 
arm  by  a  cannon-ball  ?  "  White  asked. 

"  Yes  —  yes !  "  was  the  impatient  reply. 
"  Did  n't  I  tell  you  so  before  ?  " 

And  with  a  suggestion  of  defiance  the  Boy 
in  Blue  passed  behind  White  and  resumed  his 
description  of  the  combatants. 

White  asked  no  more  questions,  and  he  lis- 
tened in  silence  for  a.  few  minutes.  He  did 
not  feel  quite  as  sure  that  the  young  fellow 
was  a  humbug  as  he  had  at  first.  There  was 
an  air  of  good  faith  about  him,  as  though  he 
believed  what  he  was  saying.  It  did  not  seem 
possible  that  this  was  a  mere  piece  of  acting ; 
and  if  it  were,  what  might  be  its  motive  ? 
That  the  boy  had  been  at  Gettysburg  was 
simply  impossible ;  and  why  he  should  dress 
as  a  soldier,  and  pretend  to  have  taken  part 
in  the  fight,  was  a  puzzle  to  which  White  did 
not  see  the  solution. 

On  entering  the  building  the  journalist  had 
bought  an  illustrated  description  of  the  battle, 
proffered  by  a  page  at  the  door ;  and  now,  as 
he  mechanically  turned  the  leaves  of  this,  his 
eyes  fell  on  the  name  of  the  business  man- 
ager of  the  Gettysburg  Cyclorama  —  Mr. 
Harry  Brackett.  White  knew  Brackett  well 
when  the  present  manager  had  been  a  reporter 
of  the  "  Gotham  Gazette  " ;  and  when  he  saw 
Brackett's  name  he  knew  to  whom  he  could 
apply  for  information.  It  was  at  all  times  a 
weakness  of  White's  to  spy  out  a  mystery.and 
he  deemed  the  present  circumstances  too  curi- 
ous not  to  demand  investigation. 

At  the  door  of  the  manager's  office,  near 
the  entrance,  he  found  Harry  Brackett,  who 
greeted  him  with  great  cordiality. 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  White,"  he  said.  "  Good 
show  upstairs,  is  n't  it  ?  1  wish  you  could  give 
us  a  column  of  brevier  in  the  '  Gazette,'  just  to 
boom  it,  now  that  people  are  coming  back  to 
town  again.  A  good  rattling  editorial  on  ob- 
ject-lessons in  the  teaching  of  American  history 
would  be  very  timely,  would  n't  it  ?  " 

White  laughed.  "  If  you  want  a  reading 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 65. 


notice  on  the  fourth  page,  you  had  better  ap- 
ply to  the  publisher  for  his  lowest  column  rates. 
I  won't  volunteer  a  good  notice  for  you,  be- 
cause I  don't  approve  of  your  Infant  Phenom- 
enon, the  Boy  Warrior." 

"So  you  have  tumbled  to  it,  have  you?" 
returned  Brackett,  smiling. 

"  Well,"  said  White,  "  it  does  n't  take  ex- 
traordinary acumen  to  '  tumble,'  as  you  call  it. 
The  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  fought  in  1863, 
and  it  is  now  1888;  and  if  that  boy  upstairs 
was  only  a  babe  in  arms  then,  he  would  be 
twenty-live  now  —  and  he  is  n't.  That  's  as 
simple  as  the  statement  of  the  clever  French 
woman  who  was  asked  her  age,  and  who  an- 
swered that  she  must  be  at  least  twenty-one, 
as  her  daughter  was  twenty." 

"That  boy  does  look  odd,  I  '11  allow," 
Brackett  remarked.  "  Lots  of  people  ask  me 
about  him." 

"  And  what  do  you  tell  them  ?  "  was  White's 
natural  query. 

"  I  stand  'em  off  somehow;  I  give  'em 
some  kind  of  a  ghost-story.  They  're  not  par- 
ticular, most  of  'em.  Besides,  it  's  only  when 
going  out  that  they  ask  questions  —  and  they 
paid  their  money  coming  in." 

"  Then  as  I  'm  coming  out,  I  suppose  there 
is  no  use  in  my  requesting  information,"  sug- 
gested White. 

"  You  're  one  of  the  boys,"  replied  Harry 
Brackett.  "  You  are  a  friend  of  mine ;  you  are 
a  newspaper  man  too,  and  you  may  give  us  a 
paragraph,  so  I  don't  care  if  I  do  tell  you  the 
story." 

"  Then  there  is  a  story  to  tell  ?  " 

"Rather!"  Harry  Brackett  rejoined,  em- 
phatically. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  White.  "  Come  over  to  the 
Apollo  House  and  give  me  the  latest  particu- 
lars. A  story  is  just  what  I  have  been  looking 
for  all  day." 

ii. 

THE    STORY    MR.    ROBERT   WHITE    FOUND. 

EARLY  in  the  spring  certain  old-fashioned 
houses,  low  and  wide-spreading,  standing 
alone,  each  in  a  garden  that  came  for  ward  to  the 
broad  avenue,  having  long  lingered  as  remind- 
ers of  an  earlier  time  when  New  York  was 
not  as  huge  as  it  is  now,  nor  as  heaped  to- 
gether, nor  as  hurried,  were  seized  by  rude 
hands  and  torn  down  ruthlessly.  After  the 
dust  of  their  destruction  had  blown  away,  the 
large  rectangle  of  land  thus  laid  bare  was 
roughly  leveled  and  smoothed.  Within  this 
space,  which  was  almost  square,  an  enormous 
circle  was  drawn  ;  and  soon  a  ring  of  solid 
brick-work  arose  a  foot  or  more  above  the 
surface  of  the  lot.  Upon  this  foundation  swift 


462 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


workmen  soon  erected  the  iron  skeleton  of  a 
mighty  rotunda,  which  stood  out  against  the 
evening  sky,  well  knit  and  rigid,  like  a  gigan- 
tic rat-trap.  In  the  perfect  adaptation  of  the 
means  to  the  end,  in  the  vigor  and  symmetry 
of  its  outlines,  in  its  simple  strength  and  its 
delicate  firmness,  in  the  marvelous  adjustment 
of  its  strain  whereby  there  was  not  a  super- 
fluous pound  of  metal,  this  iron  framework 
was  a  model  of  American  skill  in  the  noble  art 
of  the  smith.  But  soon  the  beauty  of  this 
supple  skeleton  was  hidden  under  a  dull  cov- 
ering of  wrinkled  sheet-iron  ;  and  the  building 
as  it  drew  to  completion  became  uglier  and 
uglier  day  by  day. 

The  erection  of  an  edifice  so  unusual  as  this 
inflated  round-tower  aroused  the  greatest  curi- 
osity among  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood. 
But  no  boy  followed  the  labors  of  the  work- 
men with  keener  interest  than  Dick  Harmony, 
a  lad  of  seventeen,  who  tended  the  newspaper- 
stand  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  avenue.  On 
a  board  supported  by  a  folding  trestle  the 
journals  of  the  day  were  displayed  every 
morning  and  every  afternoon  under  the  charge 
of  Dick  Harmony.  This  stand  was  a  branch 
of  a  more  important  establishment  two  blocks 
farther  up  the  avenue.  Newspapers  are  the 
most  perishable  of  commodities ;  they  spoil  on 
the  vender's  hands  in  a  very  few  hours;  and 
Dick  Harmony  found  that  his  trade  was  brisk 
only  in  the  mornings  and  afternoons,  and  that 
in  the  middle  of  the  day,  from  1 1  to  3,  there 
was  a  slack  time.  This  intermission  Dick  had 
been  wont  to  utilize  in  long  walks ;  but  he  now 
spent  it  wholly  on  the  other  side  of  the  avenue, 
in  rapt  contemplation  of  the  progress  of  the 
strange  building  which  had  aroused  his  inter- 
est from  the  first. 

In  the  very  beginning,  indeed,  he  had  hated 
the  intruding  edifice,  from  loyal  love  for  its 
predecessors.  He  had  always  liked  the  looks 
of  the  old  houses,  now  swept  aside  by  the  ad- 
vancing besom  of  improvement.  He  had  taken 
pleasure,  more  or  less  unconsciously,  in  noting 
their  differences  from  the  taller,  smarter,  and 
newer  houses  by  which  they  were  surrounded. 
He  had  admired  the  dignity  of  their  dingy  yel- 
low bricks.  He  had  had  a  fondness  for  the  few 
faded  and  dusty  flowers  that  grew  along  the 
paths  of  the  gardens  in  front,  and  around  the 
basin  of  the  dried-up  fountains.  He  had  liked 
to  see  the  vines  clambering  over  the  shallow 
cast-iron  balconies.  Once  he  had  even  ven- 
tured to  wish  that  he  were  rich  enough  to  own 
one  of  those  houses, —  the  one  on  the  corner 
was  the  one  he  would  choose, —  and  if  he  lived 
in  it,  he  would  open  the  gate  of  the  garden, 
and  let  other  boys  in  to  enjoy  the  restful  green. 
It  was  a  daring  dream,  he  knew ;  probably 
the  man  who  dwelt  in  that  little  old  house  on 


the  corner  was  worth  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars, or  maybe  a  million.  Dick  Harmony  made 
two  dollars  and  a  half  a  week. 

It  may  be  that  the  newsboy  was  as  rich  on 
his  two  dollars  and  a  half  a  week  as  was  the 
man  who  had  been  living  in  the  house  on 
the  corner,  now  torn  down  and  replaced  by 
the  circular  iron  building;  for  Dick  was  all 
alone  in  the  world ;  he  had  nobody  dependent 
on  him;  he  was  an  orphan,  without  brother  or 
sister,  or  any  living  relative,  so  far  as  he  knew ; 
he  could  spend  his  weekly  wages  as  he  chose. 
His  wants  were  few  and  simple  and  easily 
satisfied.  When  he  had  a  dime  or  a  quarter  to 
spare  he  might  do  what  he  pleased  with  the 
money ;  he  could  go  to  the  theater  or  to  the 
minstrels  or  to  the  circus.  .  He  wondered 
whether  the  new  building  was  to  be  a  circus. 

He  expressed  to  a  casual  acquaintance,  a 
bootblack,  his  hope  that  it  might  prove  to  be 
a  circus. 

"  What  are  ye  givin'  me  ?  "  cried  this  young 
gentleman.  "  Na  —  that  ain't  no  circus." 

"  It  's  round,  like  a  circus,"  returned  Dick, 
"  an'  if  it  ain't  a  circus,  what  is  it  ?  " 

"  I  '11  give  ye  the  steer.  I  shined  a  young 
feller  this  mornin'  an'  he  said  it  was  to  be  a 
cyclonehammer — a  sort  of  pianneraimer.  he 
said.  Ye  go  in  the  door  and  up  in  the  mid- 
dle somehow,  and  there  you  are  bang  on  the 
battle-field  right  in  with  the  soldiers  a-fightin' 
away ! " 

"  What  battle-field  ?  "  asked  Dick. 

"  Battle  o'  Gettysburg,  o'  course,"  an- 
swered the  bootblack.  "  Did  n't  I  tell  ye  it 
was  a  pianneraimer  o'  Gettysburg?  Shine?" 

This  final  syllable  was  addressed,  not  to  the 
guardian  of  the  news-stand,  but  to  a  gentleman 
on  the  other  side  of  the  avenue ;  and,  as  this 
gentleman  nodded,  the  bootblack  cut  short 
the  conversation  with  his  friend. 

Dick  Harmony  had  but  scant  teaching;  but 
he  had  studied  a  brief  history  of  the  United 
States, and  from  this  he  derived  his  sole  notions 
of  the  history  of  the  world.  Like  not  a  few 
American  boys  who  have  had  more  chances 
to  learn  better,  he  was  inclined  to  think  that 
1492  was  the  date  of  the  creation  of  the  uni- 
verse, which,  however,  had  not  really  got  going 
until  1776.  He  recalled  vaguely  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg  as  having  taken  place  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  1863. 

The  news  that  the  circular  building  in  proc- 
ess of  erection  before  his  eyes  was  to  contain 
some  sort  of  picture  or  reproduction  of  this 
famous  fight  quickened  his  desire  to  learn 
more  about  Gettysburg.  As  it  happened,  long 
before  the  building  was  roofed  in  a  call  was 
issued  for  a  reunion  of  the  veterans  of  both 
sides,  and  the  newspapers  were  frequent  in 
allusions  to  the  battle.  At  last  a  boys'  paper, 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


463 


which  Dick  read  regularly  every  week,  gave 
an  illustrated  account  of  Gettysburg  and  re- 
printed Lincoln's  speech.  As  the  boy  read 
the  story  of  Pickett's  charge  and  ol  its  repulse, 
his  blood  tingled  with  martial  ardor;  he  wished 
he  had  been  a  man  then  to  have  a  share  in 
the  hard  .struggle  tor  Little  Round  Top  and 
to  have  a  hand  in  the  bloody  cookery  of  the 
Devil's  Kitchen.  But  the  fighting  is  all  over, 
the  boy  knew;  this  was  years  ago;  the  bat- 
tles are  ended,  the  country  is  at  peace  again, 
anil  everybody  is  glad.  None  the  less  did  Dick 
regret  that  he  had  not  lived  in  those  times, 
that  he  might  see  so  great  a  fight.  Then  he 
wondered  what  a  panorama  or  a  cyclorama 
might  be,  and  he  longed  to  see  at  least  the 
picture  since  he  had  missed  the  real  battle. 

Thereafter  Dick  Harmony  spent  as  much 
time  as  he  could  spare  from  his  news-stand  in 
watching  the  completion  of  the  building.  As 
soon  as  the  morning  demand  for  newspapers 
slackened  the  boy  closed  his  trestle,  stowed 
it  away,  and  crossed  the  avenue.  After  a  few 
days  the  workmen  came  to  know  him,  and 
the  foreman  tolerated  his  presence  where  other 
boys  were  not  allowed  to  enter.  He  was  shy 
and  silent  generally ;  but  now  and  again  his 
curiosity  got  the  better  of  him,  and  he  asked 
questions  about  the  battle  —  questions  which 
the  workmen  were  puzzled  to  answer,  and 
which  they  merely  laughed  at.  He  bore  their 
rude  jesting  without  anger;  a  reproachful 
glance  from  his  dark  eyes  was  his  only  retort. 
He  was  persistent  in  his  attendance,  and  al- 
ways obliging.  He  was  never  unwilling  to 
run  on  an  errand  for  the  foreman  or  for  one 
of  the  men.  At  noon  he  went  to  the  nearest 
saloon  and  came  back  with  their  cans  of  beer 
balanced  along  a  stick.  Everybody  knew  him 
at  last,  and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  he  was  tac- 
itly granted  the  freedom  of  the  place. 

He  saw  the  roof  put  on  with  its  broad  ring 
of  heavy  glass  in  thick  panes.  He  watched 
the  fungus  growth  of  the  central  platform, 
which  at  one  time  came  to  look  like  the  skel- 
eton of  a  wooden  mushroom.  He  examined 
its  twin  set  of  spiral  stairs,  one  within  the  other, 
like  a  double  corkscrew.  He  looked  on  while 
the  passage  was  built  from  the  platform  to  the 
main  door,  a  long  wooden  tunnel.  He  walked 
around  the  inner  circumference  of  the  edifice 
as  the  men  laid  the  broad  ties  and  single  rail 
of  a  circular  track.  He  wondered  at  the  huge 
wooden  tower  on  wheels  —  not  unlike  those 
used  by  the  ancients  in  an  assault  on  a  walled 
city  —  which  was  built  to  run  upon  the  primi- 
tive railroad.  He  was  present  when  there  was 
thrust  into  the  building  the  canvas  of  the  pict- 
ure, a  long  limp  roll  like  a  Gargantuan  sau- 
sage. He  was  there  when  the  spool  upon 
which  this  canvas  had  been  reeled  was  raised 


up  perpendicularly  and  fastened  to  pivots  at 
the  top  and  bottom  of  the  moving  tower.  He 
was  permitted  to  see  the  picture  unrolled  and 
made  fast  to  a  great  iron  ring,  just  under  the 
edge  of  the  roof,  as  the  tower  was  wheeled 
slowly  around  the  rotunda.  He  saw  the  can- 
vas tightened  by  another  iron  ring  joined  in 
sections  to  its  lower  edge.  He  looked  on  while 
the  men  stretched  the  canopy  which  was  to 
spread  over  the  heads  of  the  spectators  as 
they  might  stand  on  the  platform,  and  which 
hung  from  the  apex  of  the  building  for  a  week 
at  least  neglected  and  limp,  like  the  umbrella 
of  a  gigantic  Mrs.  Gamp.  He  gazed  with  won- 
der as  the  artist  touched  up  the  painting  here 
and  there,  as  need  was,  heightening  the  brill- 
iancy of  a  cannon  in  one  place  or  toning  down 
the  glitter  of  a  button  in  another. 

This  painter  was  not  the  chief  painter  of 
the  cyclorama,  which  was  the  work  of  a  dis- 
tinguished Frenchman,  a  famous  depicter  of 
battle-scenes.  The  man  Dick  saw  was  a  burly 
Alsatian,  who  had  been  one  of  the  principal 
assistants  of  the  French  artist,  and  who  on 
the  return  of  the  great  painter  to  France  had 
been  deputed  to  set  the  cyclorama  in  New 
York.  He  spoke  English  like  a  Frenchman 
and  French  like  a  German.  His  huge  bulk 
and  his  shock  of  iron-gray  hair  pave  him  a  for- 
bidding appearance;  and  his  voice  was  so 
harsh  that  Dick  Harmony  was  afraid  of  him 
and  kept  out  of  his  way,  while  following  his 
operations  with  unfailing  interest. 

Among  the  many  ingenious  devices  for 
concealing  from  the  spectator  the  exact  junc- 
tion of  the  real  foreground  with  the  painted 
cloth  of  the  picture  was  a  little  pond  of 
water  in  a  corner  of  a  stone  wall,  cunningly 
set  off  by  aquatic  plants,  some  of  them  genu- 
ine and  some  of  them  merely  painted.  One 
morning  when  Dick  entered  the  building  he 
started  back  as  he  heard  the  big  Alsatian  loud- 
ly swearing  in  German-French  and  French- 
English,  because  the  workmen  had  carelessly 
crushed  a  little  group  of  these  plants. 

"  Sacre  dunder ! "  he  cried  in  stentorian 
tones.  "  The  brute  who  spoild  my  cad-dails, 
vere  is  he  ?  Vere  is  the  idiod,  dad  I  breag  his 
head  ?  " 

Dick  crept  around  behind  the  central  plat- 
form and  soon  discovered  the  cause  of  this 
portentous  outbreak.  In  constructing  a  few 
feet  of  real  stone  wall,  a  cluster  of  cat-tails 
just  at  the  edge  of  the  pond  had  been  tram- 
pled and  broken  beyond  repair. 

"  Dunder  of  heafen  !  "  the  Alsatian  roared; 
"  if  I  attrap  the  workman  beasd  who  did  me 
dad  drick,  I  breag  his  neg!  Vere  vil  I  find 
more  cad-dails  now  ?  " 

For  some  time  the  human  volcano  continued 
thus;  and  its  eruption  of  trilingual  profanity 


464 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


did  not  wholly  intermit  until  the  shrill  whis- 
tles of  the  neighboring  factories  proclaimed 
the  noontide  recess.  Even  then  the  artist 
muttered  spasmodically  as  he  went  out  to  his 
lunch.  Dick  did  not  dare  to  address  him  then. 
But  nearly  an  hour  later  the  Alsatian  re- 
turned, having  made  a  satisfactory  midday 
meal,  as  his  smiling  face  testified.  Dick  stood 
afar  off  until  the  painter,  leaning  back  on  a 
grassy  mound,  had  lighted  his  cigarette,  and 
then  he  ventured  to  approach. 

"  If  you  want  some  more  of  those  cat-tails," 
he  said  timidly,  "  I  think  I  know  where  you 
can  get  them." 

Then  he  drew  back  a  few  paces,  doubt- 
fully. 

"  You  dink  you  know  vere  to  ged  dem  ?  " 
answered  the  artist,  rising  from  the  ground 
and  towering  over  the  lad;  "den  I  shall  go 
vid  you  all  ad  once." 

"  They  may  be  gone  now,  but  I  don't  think 
they  are ;  for  the  man  used  to  have  'em  reg- 
ularly, and  I  guess  he  's  got  'em  still,"  the 
boy  returned,  with  rising  courage. 

"  Ve  sail  go  see,"  was  the  Frenchman's  reply. 

As  it  happened,  Dick  was  thus  able  to  be  of 
service  to  the  artist.  In  his  wanderings  dur- 
ing his  noon  leisure,  before  he  spent  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day  in  the  cyclorama,  he  had  marked 
a  florist  who  kept  cat-tails.  To  this  man's  shop 
he  guided  the  painter,  who  was  enabled  to 
replace  the  broken  plants.  Dick  carried  the 
tall  stems  as  he  walked  back  to  the  cyclo- 
rama by  the  side  of  the  artist,  whose  rough- 
ness had  waned  and  who  spoke  gently  to  the 
boy.  In  a  few  minutes  Dick  was  answering 
questions  about  himself —  who  he  was,  what  he 
did  for  a  living,  how  he  came  to  be  off  duty 
in  the  very  busiest  part  of  the  day,  how  he 
liked  the  cyclorama.  When  the  boy  declared 
that  he  thought  the  picture  of  the  battle  the 
most  wonderful  thing  he  had  ever  seen,  the 
man  smiled  not  unkindly  as  he  said,  "  You 
haf  not  seen  much  of  dings.  But  id  is  nod 
badd — nod  so  badd — I  haf  seen  vorse,  per- 
habs.  Id  is  nod  so  badd." 

And  from  that  morning  the  American  boy 
and  the  big  Alsatian  were  on  friendly  terms. 
After  his  lunch  the  artist  liked  to  smoke  a 
cigarette  before  returning  to  work,  and  then 
he  would  talk  to  Dick,  explaining  the  details 
of  the  great  picture  and  dwelling  on  the  diffi- 
culty they  had  had  to  get  at  the  exact  facts 
of  the  mighty  combat.  As  he  told  of  the  suc- 
cessive movements  of  the  two  armies  during 
the  three-days'  fighting,  the  boy's  face  would 
flush  and  his  eyes  would  flash,  and  he  would 
hold  himself  erect  like  a  soldier. 

Seeing  these  things,  one  day  the  artist 
asked,  "  You  vould  vish  to  haf  been  ad  de 
baddle,  eh  ?  " 


"  There  ain't  anything  I  'd  like  better,"  re- 
plied Dick.  "  To  be  a  real  soldier  and  to  see 
a  real  fight  in  a  real  war — that 's  what  I  'd 
like." 

"  Bud  de  war  is  nod  veridably  amusing," 
returned  the  artist.  "  For  my  pard,  I  lofed 
it  nod." 

"  Were  you  a  real  soldier  ?  "  cried  the  boy 
eagerly. 

The  Alsatian  nodded,  as  he  rolled  another 
cigarette. 

"  In  a  real  war  ?  "  pursued  Dick. 

"  Id  vas  a  real  var,  I  assure  you."  the 
painter  responded. 

"  Did  you  ever  kill  anybody  ?  "  the  lad  in- 
quired next,  with  growing  excitement. 

"  I  don't  know  " — 

Dick  was  evidently  disappointed  at  this. 

"  Bud  dey  haf  me  almost  killed  vonce.  I 
haf  a  Prussian  saber-cud  on  my  shoulder 
here." 

"  Did  you  get  wounded  at  Gettysburg  ?  " 
Dick  asked. 

"  Bud  no  —  bud  no,"  answered  the  French- 
man. "  Id  vas  at  the  siege  of  Paris  —  I  vas  a 
Mobile  —  and  ve  fought  vid  de  Germans." 

"  They  were  Hessians,  I  suppose  ?  "  Dick 
suggested. 

"  Dey  vere  Hessians  and  Prussians  and 
Bavarians  and  Saxons  —  bud  de  Prussians 
vere  de  vorse." 

For  a  few  seconds  Dick  was  silent  in 
thought. 

"  I  knew  the  French  helped  us  lick  the 
Hessians  over  here  in  the  Revolutionary 
War,  but  I  did  n't  know  that  the  Hessians 
had  been  fighting  the  French  over  in  Europe 
too,"  he  said  at  last.  "  I  suppose  it  was  to 
get  even  for  their  having  been  beat  so  bad 
over  here." 

This  suggestion  seemed  humorous  even  to 
the  Alsatian,  who  smiled,  and  rolled  another 
cigarette  meditatively. 

"  Should  you  lofe  to  be  painded  in  de  pic- 
dure  ? "  he  asked  suddenly. 

"Would  n't  I!"  cried  Dick.  "There  ain't 
anything  I  'd  like  better." 

"  Dere  's  a  drummer-boy  vounded  dere  in 
de  veal-field  and  he  is  all  dorn.  I  will  paind 
him  once  more.  You  will  pose  for  him." 

"  But  I  have  n't  any  uniform,"  said  the 
boy. 

"  Dere  are  uniforms  dere  in  dat  case.  Dake 
a  jacked  and  a  cap." 

Dick  sprang  to  the  large  box  which  the 
artist  had  pointed  out.  There  were  all  sorts 
of  uniforms  in  it  —  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artil- 
lery, volunteers'  and  regulars',  bright  zouave 
red  and  butternut  gray.  In  a  minute  the 
boy  had  found  the  jacket  and  fez  of  a  zouave 
drummer. 


ON  THE   BATTLE-FIELD. 


465 


"  Is  this  what  I  am  to  wear  ?  "  he  asked. 

The  artist  nodded.  Dick  threw  off  his  own 
coarse  coat  and  donned  the  trim  jacket  of 
the  drummer-boy.  As  he  put  it  on,  he  drew 
himself  up  and  stood  erect,  in  soldierly  fashion, 
with  his  shoulders  well  squared.  Then  he  ad- 
justed the  fez  and  inarched  back  to  the  Al- 
satian. 

"  1  ),id  's  veil,"  said  the  artist,  examining 
him  critically.  "  Now  go  lie  down  in  de  veat- 
field  and  I  paind  you." 

Never  had  an  artist  a  more  patient  model. 
Uncomplainingly  the  lad  lay  in  the  position 
assigned  to  him  until  every  muscle  in  his 
body  ached.  Even  then  it  was  the  French- 
man who  bade  him  rise  and  rest,  long  before 
the  American  would  have  confessed  his  fatigue 
at  the  unwonted  strain.  Dick  had  never  in 
his  life  been  as  happy  as  he  was  when  first 
he  put  on  that  uniform.  With  a  boy's  faculty 
of  self-deception,  he  felt  as  though  he  were 
in  very  truth  a  soldier,  and  as  though  the  fate 
of  the  day  might  depend  on  his  bearing  him- 
self bravely. 

The  sharp  eyes  of  the  artist  quickly  dis- 
covered the  delight  Dick  took  in  wearing  the 
zouave  jacket  and  the  fez,  and  to  please  the 
boy  the  good-natured  Alsatian  devised  ex- 
cuses to  let  the  boy  try  on  almost  every  uni- 
form in  the  box,  until  at  last  it  came  to  be 
understood  that  while  Dick  was  in  the  cyclo- 
rama  he  might  wear  whatever  military  cos- 
tume he  liked. 

One  morning  Dick  was  able  to  get  to  the 
building  a  little  earlier  than  usual.  He  put 
on  the  dark  blue  uniform  of  a  New  York  regi- 
ment and  then  looked  about  for  the  artist, 
whom  he  found  at  last  high  up  on  the  wheeled 
tower,  engaged  in  freshening  the  foliage  of  a 
tall  tree.  Dick  climbed  up  and  sat  down  be- 
side him,  watching  his  labors  with  never-fail- 
ing interest.  The  painter  greeted  him  pleas- 
antly, paused  in  his  work  long  enough  to  roll 
a  cigarette,  asked  the  boy  a  question  or  two, 
and  then  returned  to  his  task.  When  the 
midday  whistle  shrilled  through  the  air  the 
Frenchman  did  not  lay  aside  his  brush  at 
once,  saying  that  he  had  almost  finished  what 
he  had  in  hand  and  he  wanted  to  spare  him- 
self the  bother  of  clambering  again  to  the  top 
of  the  tower.  The  workmen  left  the  building 
to  eat  their  dinners. 

"  I  vill  finish  in  dree  minudes  now,"  the 
Alsatian  remarked  as  he  threw  away  his  cigar- 
ette half-smoked  and  worked  with  increased 
energy. 

A  minute  later  Dick  gave  a  sudden  cry  of 
alarm  and  disappeared  over  the  side  of  the 
tower.  The  artist's  cigarette  had  fallen  among 
the  shavings  that  littered  the  ground ;  it  had 
smoldered  there  for  a  few  seconds  until  some 


chance  breath  of  wind  had  fanned  it  into 
flame.  When  Dick  happened  to  look  down 
he  saw  a  tiny  little  bonfire  sparkling  exactly 
under  the  inflammable  canvas  of  the  cyclo- 
rama.  He  called  to  the  painter, —  there  was 
no  one  else  in  the  building  to  hear  his  startled 
shout, —  and  he  set  out  for  the  ground  as  fast 
as  he  could.  As  he  came  down  the  ladder  he 
saw  the  flames  brightening  and  beginning  to 
blaze  up,  and  he  feared  that  he  might  be  too 
late.  He  quickened  his  descent,  but  another 
glance  below  showed  him  the  flames  growing 
taller  and  thrusting  their  hot  tongues  towards 
the  tinder-like  picture.  With  boyish  reckless- 
ness, half  intentionally  and  half  unconsciously, 
he  loosened  his  hold  on  the  ladder  down  which 
he  was  climbing  and  sprang  to  the  ground. 
He  plunged  through  the  air  for  twenty  feet 
or  more;  but  in  his  unexpected  start  he  lost 
his  balance  and  fell,  with  turning  body,  and 
with  arms  and  legs  extending  wildly.  Then  at 
last  he  landed  heavily  exactly  on  the  fire,  which 
had  been  the  cause  of  his  self-sacrificing  move- 
ment and  which  was  instantly  extinguished  by 
the  weight  of  his  body  and  by  the  shock  of 
his  fall.  Where  he  had  dropped  he  lay  motion- 
less. He  had  struck  on  his  right  hand  and  on 
his  head. 

The  painter  reached  the  ground  a  few  sec- 
onds after  the  boy,  and  he  found  him  lying  in 
a  heap  on  a  mass  of  loose  earth  and  shavings 
and  like  rubbish.  Dick  was  insensible.  Some 
of  the  workmen  soon  came  running  in  at  the 
loud  call  of  the  Alsatian,  and  one  of  them 
rang  for  an  ambulance. 

The  boy  had  not  moved  when  the  doctor 
came. 

"  Is  he  dead  ?  "  asked  the  Alsatian,  as  the 
doctor  arose  from  his  examination. 

"  He  "s  pretty  badly  hurt,"  was  the  answer, 
"  but  I  don't  believe  he  '11  die.  The  right  arm 
seems  to  be  broken,  and  there  are  severe  con- 
tusions on  the  head.  We  '11  take  him  to  the 
hospital,  and  we  '11  soon  see  what  is  the  mat- 
ter with  him." 

With  a  little  aid  from  the  doctor,  the  strong 
Alsatian  raised  the  boy's  body  in  his  arms  and 
bore  it  gently  to  the  ambulance.  As  Dick  was 
placed  on  the  stretcher  he  opened  his  eyes 
and  asked,  "  Did  I  save  the  panorama  ?  " 

"  Bud  yes  —  bud  yes,"  cried  the  artist. 

The  boy  smiled  and  closed  his  eyes  and 
again  became  unconscious,  as  the  doctor  took 
his  seat  in  the  ambulance  and  it  drove  off. 

The  artist  came  to  the  hospital  that  after- 
noon and  left  instructions  to  give  the  boy 
every  attention  and  every  delicacy  that  might 
be  good  for  him.  They  refused  to  let  him  see 
Dick,  who  was  still  insensible. 

The  next  day  the  painter  called  again.  He 
was  then  told  that  the  boy's  right  arm  had 


466 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


been  amputated,  that  the  injuries  to  the  head 
were  serious  but  probably  not  fatal,  and  that 
the  patient  could  receive  no  one.  He  was  in- 
formed that  it  would  be  useless  to  see  the  boy, 
who  was  delirious  with  fever  and  not  able  to 
recognize  any  one. 

The  painter  went  to  the  hospital  every  day, 
and  in  time  he  began  to  get  good  news.  Dick 
was  a  strong,  healthy  lad,  and  he  was  bearing 
up  bravely.  As  soon  as  the  fever  abated  and 
the  boy  came  out  of  his  delirium,  the  Alsatian 
brought  a  bunch  of  flowers  with  him  on  his 
daily  visit  and  sent  them  up  to  the  boy's  bed- 
side, but  it  was  long  before  Dick  had  strength 
or  desire  to  ask  whence  they  came. 

And  so  the  days  passed  and  the  weeks. 
The  spring  had  grown  into  the  summer. 
Decoration  Day  had  been  celebrated,  and  the 
Fourth  of  July  was  near  at  hand.  The  cyclo- 
rama  was  finished  after  a  while,  and  thrown 
open  to  the  public.  And  the  boy  still  lay  on 
a  bed  in  the  hospital. 

At  last  a  day  came  when  the  doctor  told 
the  burly  Alsatian  with  the  gruff  voice  that 
Dick  Harmony  could  begin  to  see  his  friends 
now;  the  artist  was  the  only  friend  he  had 
who  cared  enough  for  him  to  ask  to  see  him. 

The  doctor  conducted  him  to  the  bedside 
and  stood  by,  lest  the  excitement  might  be 
more  than  the  patient  could  bear. 

As  Dick  saw  the  Frenchman  his  eyes 
brightened,  he  moved  the  stump  of  his  right 
arm  as  though  to  hold  out  his  hand,  he  tried 
to  rise  from  the  bed,  and  he  fell  back,  feeble 
but  happy. 

"  Is  the  cyclorama  all  right  ?  "  he  cried,  be- 
fore his  visitor  could  say  a  word. 

"Bud  yes — bud  yes,"  answered  the  Alsa- 
tian. "  Id  vas  you  dad  safed  him." 

The  smile  brightened  on  Dick's  face  as  he 
asked,  "  Is  it  finished  yet  ?  " 

The  artist  nodded. 

"  Can  I  see  it  soon  ?  "  inquired  the  boy. 

The  artist  looked  at  the  physician. 

"  We  can  let  him  out  in  less  than  a  month, 
I  think,"  said  the  doctor  in  reply  to  this  mute 
interrogation. 

"  Den  in  less  dan  a  mond  you  vill  see  it," 
the  Frenchman  declared. 

"  Will  they  let  me  in  now  that  it  is  finished  ?  " 
asked  Dick,  doubtfully. 

"  I  vill  dake  you  in  myself,"  responded  the 
painter.  "  Or  how  vill  you  lofe  to  come  vid 
us  —  ve  need  a  boy  dere  now  ?  " 

Dick  looked  at  him  for  a  moment  speech- 
less. It  seemed  to  him  as  though  this  offer 
opened  the  portals  of  Paradise. 

"  Do  you  mean  it,  honest  ?  "  he  was  able  to 
ask  at  last. 

The  artist  nodded  again,  smiling  at  the  joy 
he  saw  in  the  boy's  eyes. 


"  Of  course  I  should  like  it,"  Dick  went  on. 
"  I  should  like  it  better  than  anything  else  in 
the  world.  I  don't  care  what  wages  you  pay ; 
I  '11  come  for  less  than  any  other  boy  you  can 
get." 

The  Frenchman  was  engaged  in  rolling  a 
cigarette  which  he  now  put  between  his  lips, 
at  the  same  time  drawing  a  match-box  from 
his  pocket.  Suddenly  he  remembered  where 
he  was. 

"  Veil,  den,"  he  said,  rising,  "  dad 's  all  right. 
Ven  you  are  all  veil,  you  come  to  us  and  ve 
gif  you  a  place." 

"  I  '11  get  well  pretty  quick,  I  tell  you,"  re- 
plied the  boy.  "  I  'm  in  a  hurry  to  see  how 
it  looks  now  it  is  all  done." 

And  this  favorable  prognostic  was  duly 
fulfilled.  From  the  day  of  the  artist's  visit,  and 
encouraged  by  the  glad  tidings  he  brought, 
the  boy  steadily  improved.  The  arm  made  a 
good  healing  and  there  was  no  recurrence  of 
the  delirium.  Just  how  serious  might  be  the 
injury  to  the  head  the  doctors  had  not  been 
able  to  determine,  but  they  were  encouraged 
to  hope  that  it  would  not  again  trouble  him. 

A  fortnight  later  the  convalescent  was  re- 
leased, pale  and  feeble,  but  buoyed  up  by 
delightful  anticipations.  The  good-natured 
Alsatian  took  him  at  once  to  the  cyclorama, 
and  supported  his  weak  steps  as  he  tottered 
up  the  spiral  staircase  and  out  upon  the  center 
platform,  from  which  the  battle-field  stretched 
away  on  every  side. 

"  Oh  !  "  he  cried,  with  an  outbreak  of  joy 
as  he  gazed  about  him,  "  is  n't  it  beautiful  ? 
This  is  a  real  battle,  is  n't  it  ?  I  did  n't  think 
anything  could  be  so  pretty.  I  could  stay 
here  forever  looking  at  it  and  looking  at  it." 

The  artist  led  him  to  one  of  the  benches 
and  the  boy  sank  down  on  it,  as  though  the 
excitement  had  been  too  much  for  him  in  his 
enfeebled  state. 

It  was  then  about  3  in  the  afternoon,  and 
at  that  hour  Captain  Carroll  was  accustomed 
to  deliver  a  brief  lecture  to  the  spectators  who 
might  be  assembled,  in  which  he  set  forth  the 
story  of  the  battle  with  the  fervent  floridity 
of  Hibernian  eloquence. 

Dick  Harmony  listened  to  the  periods  of 
the  orator  with  awe-stricken  attention. 

"  Was  Captain  Carroll  really  at  Gettys- 
burg ?  "  he  inquired  of  the  Alsatian,  who  had 
taken  a  seat  by  his  side. 

"  But  yes  —  bud  yes.  It  vas  dere  he  lose 
his  arm." 

Then  for  the  first  time  the  boy  saw  that 
the  old  soldier  had  an  empty  sleeve  pinned 
across  the  right  breast  of  his  uniform. 

"  He  lost  his  arm  fighting  and  I  lost  mine 
by  accident,"  cried  Dick,  bitterly.  "  I  had  n't 
the  luck  to  be  a  soldier." 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


467 


The  painter  looked  at  the  boy  in  surprise- ; 
then  'he  said  gravely  : 

"  He  is  as  you  —  you  bode  lost  your  arms 
on  the  field  of  bacidle;  Capdain  Carroll  ad 
de  real  Gecldysburg  and  you  ad  dis  Geddys- 
burg  here." 

Dick  gazed  earnestly  at  the  artist  as  this 
was  said  ;  but  the  large  face  of  the  Frenchman 
was  placid  and  without  a  smile.  Then  the 
newsboy  drew  himself  up  and  replied: 

'•  Ves,  that  's  true  enough.  I  was  wounded 
on  the  battle-field  of  Gettysburg,  was  n't  it?" 

And  thereafter  this  idea  remained  with  him 
and  was  never  abandoned. 

As  Dick's  strength  returned  he  was  put  on 
duty.  He  was  to  sell  descriptive  pamphlets 
to  the  spectators  on  the  central  platform.  A 
uniform  was  provided  for  him.  To  his  delight 
it  was  not  unlike  that  worn  by  Captain  Carroll, 
and  the  boy  proceeded  at  once  to  pin  his 
sleeve  across  his  breast  as  the  old  soldier  had 
done.  In  other  things  also  did  he  imitate  the 
captain  immediately  —  in  his  upright  carriage, 
in  his  walk,  in  his  manner  of  speech,  and  even 
in  his  special  phrases. 

From  the  old  officer  the  boy  learned  the  vo- 
cabulary of  the  American  soldier,  developed 
during  the  long  marches  and  hard  fights  of 
four  years  of  civil  war.  He  spoke  of  the  Con- 
federate soldiers  as  "Johnnies";  he  called 
an  infantry  musket  a  "howitzer";  he  knew 
that  "salt-horse"  and  "cow-feed"  were  nick- 
names for  corned-beef  and  vegetables ;  and 
he  referred  to  coffee  as  "  boiled  rye." 

Captain  Carroll  was  conscious  that  he 
served  as  a  model  for  Dick,  and  he  was  flat- 
tered by  it.  He  took  a  fancy  to  the  lad,  and 
talked  to  him  about  the  war  by  the  hour  on 
the  rainy  days  when  the  visitors  to  the  cyclo- 
rama  were  scant. 

"  Were  you  in  any  battle  besides  Gettys- 
burg ?  "  Dick  asked,  one  morning. 

'•  I  was  in  all  of  them,  I  think,"  was  the 
Irishman's  answer ;  "  and  I  was  wounded  at 
most.'" 

"  Have  you  been  hit  more  than  once  ?"  was 
the  boy's  eager  question. 

"  I  had  me  thumb  shot  off  at  Bull  Run,  and 
the  whole  hand  taken  oft'  at  Antietam,  and  the 
rest  of  the  arm  went  at  Gettysburg,  as  ye  see. 
I  come  of  a  good  stock,  and  I  had  to  be  eco- 
nomical of  me  mimbers.  There  's  some  who 
never  get  wounded  at  all,  at  all,  and  there  's 
more  that  get  killed  in  every  contemptuouslittle 
fi.^ht  they  go  into — not  lhat  I  regret  me  ex- 
pariencc  at  all;  I  ped  dear  for  it,  but  it  was 
worth  it.  Ah,  but  there  wasilligant  fightin'  at 
Gettysburg!" 

"  I  'm  sure  it  was  the  greatest  battle  ever 
fought,"  declared  Dick  enthusiastically. 

"  I  dunno,"  returned  the  Irishman.  "There 


was  pretty  work  at  Cold  Harbor  and  in  the 
Seven  Days.  It  was  then  the  Fightin'  4ist  was 
thinned  out  a  bit;  I  got  me  wound  in  me 
lung  there,  and  a  bullet  in  me  leg." 

Dick  gazed  with  awe  at  the  veteran,  who 
discovered  a  fresh  wound  whenever  the  tale 
of  a  new  battle  was  told.  He  believed  it  all, 
and  he  did  the  Irishman  little  more  than  jus- 
tice. The  body  of  Captain  Carroll  was  scarred 
with  many  a  cicatrix,  indelible  records  of  his 
devotion  to  the  adopted  country  in  whose  serv- 
ice he  had  lost  his  health. 

In  the  hottest  days  of  the  summer  Dick  was 
at  his  post,  although  he  confided  to  Captain 
Carroll  that  his  head  "  felt  queer  sometimes," 
and  the  old  soldier  immediately  returned  that 
the  bullet  in  his  leg  was  giving  him  more 
trouble,  and  he  was  afraid  the  wound  was 
going  to  open. 

In  the  last  week  of  June  there  came  three 
days  of  intense  heat,  which  greatly  distressed 
both  the  veteran  and  the  lad  who  kept  him 
company  on  the  central  platform.  On  the 
fourth  day  of  the  hot  spell  Harry  Brackett, 
who  had  left  the  "  Gotham  Gazette,"  to  become 
the  manager  of  the  cyclorama,  was  detained 
by  private  affairs  and  did  not  arrive  at  the  of- 
fice until  r  o'clock.  Then  he  found  awaiting 
him  a  letter  from  Captain  Carroll  announcing 
the  sudden  re-opening  of  the  wound  in  the  leg, 
which  would  confine  the  veteran  to  the  house 
for  a  week  at  least. 

"  What  shall  we  do  for  a  lecturer?  "  Brackett 
asked  of  the  Alsatian  painter,  whom  he  had 
happened  to  find  in  the  office. 

"  Is  he  necessary  ?  "  returned  the  artist. 

"  Is  n't  he  ?  "  was  the  journalist's  reply. 
"  The  people  pay  their  money  not  only  to  see 
a  picture  of  the  battle,  but  to  hear  an  old 
soldier  speak  a  piece  about  it,  and  stoke  it  up 
to  them  for  all  it  's  worth." 

"Dey  haf  none  to-day,"  the  painter  re- 
marked, smiling. 

"  That 's  so,"  said  Brackett.  "  Let 's  go  up  on 
the  mushroom  and  see  how  they  like  it  without 
a  speech." 

The  Alsatian  threw  his  cigarette  away  and 
followed  the  journalist  down  the  long  tun- 
nel which  led  to  the  spiral  stairs.  As  they 
reached  the  steps  they  heard  a  sound  of  ap- 
plause. 

"  What 's  that  for  ?  "  asked  Brackett. 

"  I  don'  know,"  answered  the  French- 
man. 

" Sounds  as  though  some  one  had  been 
making  a  speech  and  had  got  an  encore." 

"  Hush  !  "  said  the  artist,  suddenly  grasping 
Brackett's  arm.  "  Lisden !  " 

From  the  platform  above  them  came  down 
the  familiar  periods  of  Captain  Carroll's  lec- 
ture. 


468 


ON  THE  BATTLE-FIELD. 


Brackett  stared  at  the  painter  in  great  sur- 
prise. "  It  is  n't  the  Irishman,  is  it  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  Hush  !  "  said  the  artist  again.  "  Lisden  a 
liddle." 

The  voice  from  above  was  speaking  again. 
"  It  is  as  though  you  were  now  gazing  on  a 
vision  of  the  decisive  onslaught  of  the  supreme 
moment  of  the  greatest  civil  war  known  to  the 
history  of  man  —  a  mighty  war  of  a  mighty 
people  who  fought  their  battles,  not  with  hire- 
lings and  not  with  mercenaries,  but  with  their 
own  right  arms,  and  who  spent  their  own  blood 
freely,  and  their  children's  blood  and  the  blood 
of  their  children's  children  !  " 

Again  the  applause  broke  forth. 

"  It  is  the  captain's  speech,"  cried  Brackett; 
"  but  it  does  n't  sound  like  the  captain's 
voice." 

"  It  is  de  boy,"  said  the  artist,  mounting 
the  steps. 

As  they  came  out  on  top  of  the  platform, 
they  saw  Dick  Harmony  standing  by  the  rail 
on  one  side,  as  Captain  Carroll  was  wont  to 
do ;  and  they  heard  him  delivering  the  cap- 
tain's speech,  to  which  he  had  listened  so 
often  that  he  had  unconsciously  committed 
it  to  memory. 

The  artist  and  the  journalist  heard  him  out. 

"  The  young  feller  's  got  it  down  fine,  has  n't 
he  ?  "  said  Brackett.  "He  takes  himself  seri- 
ously too ;  he  's  talking  just  as  though  he  had 
been  in  the  battle  himself." 

"And  vat  harm  is  id?"  asked  the  French- 
man. 

When  the  lecture  was  ended  Dick  gravely 
answered  the  questions  of  some  of  the  spec- 
tators, and  then  joined  his  friend  in  the  center 
of  the  platform. 

"  You  've  done  us  a  good  turn,  Dick,"  said 
Brackett ;  "  and  you  've  done  it  very  well  too. 
I  've  no  doubt  some  of  the  people  think  you 
really  were  at  the  battle." 

"  Was  n't  I  ?  "  asked  Dick,  doubtfully. 

The  journalist  looked  at  the  boy  in  aston- 
ishment and  gave  a  low  whistle.  He  was 
about  to  answer  when  the  painter  grasped  his 
arm  and  led  him  aside. 

"  You  say  de  boy  did  veil,"  he  whispered ; 
"  vy  not  let  him  alone  ?  He  is  not  lying ;  he 
believes  he  vas  dere." 

"  But  he  is  n't  telling  the  truth  either," 
replied  Brackett.  "  Still,  we  shall  have  to  let 
him  lecture  till  the  captain  gets  on  his  legs 
again." 

But  the  captain  never  got  on  his  legs 
again.  His  wound  refused  to  heal,  and  under 
the  exhaustion  of  the  pain  the  old  soldier 
died  at  last,  after  an  illness  of  less  than  a 
fortnight. 

During   his  absence   Dick   Harmony  had 


delivered  his  lecture  whenever  there  was  a 
sufficient  gathering  of  spectators.  By  frequent 
repetition  of  the  words  he  had  been  confirmed 
in  his  belief  that  he  was  speaking  of  what  he 
had  seen  himself.  There  was  a  mental  me- 
tempsychosis by  which  he  transformed  himself 
into  the  old  soldier.  He  knew  that  he  was 
Dick  Harmony,  but  he  felt  also  that  he  was 
a  veteran  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He 
had  assimilated  the  information  derived  from 
the  captain,  and  with  the  knowledge  he  seemed 
to  think  that  he  had  acquired  also  the  person- 
ality of  the  elder  man. 

in. 

WHY    MR.    ROBERT  WHITE    DID    NOT    USE    THE 
STORY    HE    HAD    FOUND. 

THE  next  afternoon  as  Mr.  Robert  White 
was  again  leaving  the  office  of  the  editor  of 
the  "  Gotham  Gazette,"  the  chief  checked  him 
once  more  with  a  query. 

"  By  the  way,  White,  have  you  found  a 
story  for  us  yet  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  think  I  have,"  was  White's  answer.  "  But 
I  want  to  get  expert  testimony  before  I  write 
it." 

"  Don't  make  it  too  scientific  —  the  simply 
pathetic  is  what  the  women  like  best,  you 
know." 

"  Well,"  rejoined  White,  "  the  story  that  I 
hope  to  tell  is  simple  enough  certainly,  and 
I  don't  know  but  what  it  is  pathetic  too  in  a 
way,  although  I  confess  I  thought  it  comic  at 
first." 

"  I  'm  not  sure,"  said  the  editor,  "  that  I 
altogether  approve  of  a  story  about  which 
the  author  is  in  doubt,  for  then  he  is  likely  to 
puzzle  the  reader,  and  no  woman  likes  that. 
However,  I  know  I  can  rely  on  you.  Good 
afternoon." 

Robert  White  went  to  his  desk  and  wrote 
his  daily  article, —  it  was  on  "  Boston  as  the 
True  Site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden," —  and  he 
sent  it  up  to  the  composing-room.  Then  he 
walked  up-town  briskly  and  entered  the  Col- 
lege Club,  where  he  found  Doctor  Cheever 
awaiting  him.  Doctor  Cheever  made  a  spe- 
cialty of  diseases  of  the  mind.  He  was  also 
White's  family  physician,  and  he  and  the 
journalist  were  old  friends ;  they  had  been 
class-mates  at  college. 

"  Am  I  late  ?  "  White  inquired. 

"You  asked  me  for  6:30  and  it  is  now 
6:31,"  Doctor  Cheever  answered. 

"  Let  us  proceed  to  the  dining-room  at 
once,"  White  replied.  "  The  dinner  is  or- 
dered." 

"  Then,  as  your  mind  is  now  at  rest  about 
that  most  important  matter,  perhaps  you  can 
inform  me  why  you  asked  me  here." 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


469 


"  Sit  down,  and  you  shall  know,"  said 
White ;  and  he  told  the  doctor  the  story  of 
Dick  Harmony's  accident  and  its  conse- 
quences, and  the  strange  delusion  under  which 
the  boy  was  laboring. 

Doctor  Cheever  listened  most  attentively, 
now  and  again  interrupting  to  put  a  pertinent 
question. 

When  White  had  finished  his  story  his 
friend  said,  "  This  is  a  very  interesting  case 
you  have  been  describing.  I  should  like  to 
see  the  boy  for  myself." 

"  That 's  just  what  I  was  going  to  suggest," 
replied  White. 

And  so,  when  their  dinner  was  over,  they 
walked  down  the  broad  avenue  to  the  cyclo- 
rama.  A  throng  was  already  gathered  on  the 
platform,  and  the  young  voice  of  Dick  Har- 
mony could  be  heard  indicating  the  main 
features  of  the  great  light. 

When,  in  his  revolving  around  the  outer 
rail,  the  boy  came  near  Doctor  Cheever,  the 
physician  asked  a  few  questions  about  the 
battle-field,  and  so  led  the  conversation  easily 
to  Dick's  own  share  in  it.  The  answers  were 
not  unlike  those  the  boy  had  given  Robert 
White  on  the  preceding  evening.  Doctor 
Cheever  was  gentle  and  kindly,  but  his  ques- 
tions were  more  searching  than  White's  had 
been. 

When  they  had  seen  and  heard  enough,  the 
doctor  and  the  journalist  came  out  into  the 
street. 

"  Well  ?  "  asked  Doctor  Cheever. 

"  I  wanted  you  to  come  here,"  White  an- 
swered, "  and  examine  the  boy  for  yourself." 


"  Why  ?  "  queried  the  doctor. 

"Because  I  think  you  can  give  me  special 
information  as  to  his  mental  status." 

"It  is  an  interesting  case,  certainly,"  Doc- 
tor Cheever  replied,  "  but  not  altogether  ab- 
normal. The  boy  is  perfectly  honest  in  his 
false  statements ;  he  is  saying  only  what  he 
now  believes  to  be  strictly  true.  He  wanted 
to  have  been  at  that  battle;  and  after  the  in- 
jury to  his  head,  his  will  was  able  to  master 
his  memory.  That  he  now  thinks  and  asserts 
that  he  was  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  you 
may  call  an  astounding  example  of  self-decep- 
tion, and  so  should  I,  perhaps,  if  I  had  not 
seen  other  instances  quite  as  startling." 

"Just  as  George  IV.  came  to  believe  that 
he  was  present  in  the  flesh  at  Waterloo,"  sug- 
gested White. 

"Precisely,"  the  doctor  returned;  "but 
sometimes  it  happens  without  a  broken  head 
or  insanity." 

"  I  'm  glad  to  have  your  opinion  as  to  the 
boy's  mental  condition." 

"  What  did  you  want  it  for  ?  "  was  Doctor 
Cheever's  next  question. 

"  To  use  in  a  story,"  said  the  journalist. 
"  I  think  I  can  work  this  up  into  a  sketch  for 
the  Sunday  paper  —  a  sketch  which  would 
not  be  lacking  in  a  certain  novelty." 

"  Better  not,"  remarked  the  doctor,  dryly. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  inquired  White,  a  little  pro- 
voked by  his  friend's  manner. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  Doctor  Cheever  repeated. 
'•Why  not?  —  why,  because  the  boy  might 
read  it." 

Brander  Matthews. 


TOPICS   OF   THE   TIME. 


A  Lay  Sermon  to  the  Clergy. 

AS  a  rule  the  clergyman  in  partisan  politics  is  a 
dupe  and  a  danger,  but  a  clergyman  concerning 
himself,  without  cant,  rancor,  or  extravagance,  in  the 
questions  of  the  day  on  the  moral  side, —  none  the  less 
if  these  questions  are  to  be  dealt  with  by  legislation, — 
such  a  clergyman  is  a  boon  to  the  community.  We 
are  well  aware  that  the  clergyman's  first  and  chief  duty 
is  the  spiritual  betterment  of  the  individual,  and  that 
a  nation  of  saints,  if  wise  saints,  would  be  a  nation  of 
good  citizens.  Hut  good  citizenship  is  to  be  promoted 
not  only  directly  by  "saving  the  soul  "  of  the  individ- 
ual citizen,  but  also  indirectly  by  all  sorts  of  social  and 
political  and  legislative  devices. 

No  one  can  say  that  the  clergy  are  not  interesting 

!ves  in  temperance  reform,  and  in  many  other 

reforms.    The  sermon    preached  last  winter  in  New 

York  and  Washington  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Van  Dyke,  of 

the  Brick  Church,  on  "  The  National  Sin  of  Literary 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 66. 


Piracy,"  is  a  notable  evidence  of  the  active  interest  of 
the  pulpit  in  public  morals.  The  preacher  took  for  his 
text :  "  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation  ;  but  sin  is  a 
reproach  to  any  people,"  and  by  his  treatment  of  the 
subject  fully  justified  his  theme. 

"  It  matters  not,"  he  said,  "  what  theory  of  the 
origin  of  government  you  adopt,  if  you  follow  it  out 
to  its  legitimate  conclusions  it  will  bring  you  face 
to  face  with  the  moral  law."  "  The  refusal  of  our 
country  to  protect  all  men  equally  in  the  product  of 
their  mental  labor,  and  the  consequent  practice  of 
reprinting  and  selling  the  books  of  foreigners  with- 
out asking  their  consent,  or  offering  them  any  pay- 
ment, has  been  generally  regarded  as  a  question  of 
politics,  of  economy,  of  national  courtesy.  But  at 
bottom,  as  Mr.  Lowell  has  said,  it  is  a  question  of  right 
and  wrong ;  and  therefore  it  needs  to  be  separated  from 
the  confusions  of  partisanship  and  the  considerations 
of  self-interest,  and  brought  into  contact  with  the  Ten 
Commandments." 


470 


TOPICS   OF   THE    TIME. 


But  it  is  not  only  in  the  pulpit  that  ministers  can 
make  themselves  felt  in  the  reform  of  public  morals, 
but  also  in  their  action  and  conversation  elsewhere,— 
in  becoming,  on  all  proper  private  and  public  occasions, 
advocates  of  those  political  and  social  reforms  which 
all  good  and  disinterested  citizens  favor  the  moment 
that  they  are  brought  to  their  thoughtful  attention. 
Inertia  is  the  friend  and  promoter  of  all  public  abuses. 
The  minister  should  be  among  the  first  to  examine 
the  schemes  which  are  constantly  being  brought  for- 
ward for  the  purification  of  government,  throwing 
aside  all  that  savor  of  the  wild-cat  and  the  crank, 
selecting  those  most  wise,  and  earnestly  urging  their 
adoption. 

There  is  no  reform  more  pressingly  needed  through- 
out the  country  than  that  which  aims,  through  legal 
devices  already  tested,  at  the  purity  of  elections.  A 
free  ballot  is  the  foundation  of  modern  society ;  but 
at  this  moment,  in  many  cases,  how  far  the  ballot  is 
from  being  free,  how  foully  and  effectively  the  briber 
does  his  work,  are  facts  too  widely  and  too  hope- 
lessly accepted.  A  remedy  for  this  stale  of  things  is 
at  hand,  and  the  people  only  need  awakening  and  in- 
forming in  order  that  this  remedy  may  be  universally 
applied.* 

And  there  is  the  reform  of  the  civil  service.  That 
reform  has  in  the  last  dozen  years  made  great  advances 
in  legislation,  in  executive  practice,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  the  public, —  but  its  further  extension  in  legislation 
and  in  executive  practice  is  apparently  awaiting  its 
further  extension  in  public  opinion.  The  "  machine  " 
man  of  both  of  the  great  parties,  either  privately  or 
publicly,  or  both  privately  and  publicly,  venomously 
denounces  every  advocate  of  the  reform,  and  the  very 
principle  involved  in  the  reform.  The  offices  are  his 
tools  of  trade,  and  he  will  not  let  himself  be  deprived 
of  them  without  a  furious  struggle.  Wherever  he 
dares,  he  sets  the  principle  of  the  reform  at  defiance, 
and  even  the  laws  based  upon  this  principle.  Those 
whose  desire  as  well  as  duty  it  is  to  enforce  the  spirit 
no  less  than  the  letter  of  the  reform  programme  com- 
plain that  public  sentiment,  or,  at  least,  the  public 
sentiment  of  their  particular  party,  does  not  at  all 
times  and  places  sustain  them  in  their  efforts.  Now, 
waiving  the  question  whether  such  sustaining  should 
be  waited  upon, —  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  human 
nature  and  politics  being  what  they  are,  the  merit  sys- 
tem will  not  be  put  into  universal  practice  without  a 
legal  necessity.  Nor  will  new  laws  be  passed,  extend- 
ing the  system  under  our  city,  state,  and  national  gov- 
ernment until  public  opinion  is  much  further  advanced 
on  this  question  than  it  is  to-day.  Not  only  is  it  unsafe 
to  cease  the  agitation,  but  greater  efforts  than  ever 
must  be  made  if  the  spoils  system  is  to  be  thoroughly 
driven  out  and  away.  Organized  agencies  are  at  work 
in  this  direction,  but  these  can  effect  little  without  the 
spontaneous  assistance  of  the  great  army  of  disinter- 
ested, public-spirited  men  and  women  throughout  the 
country.  Every  good  man  and  woman  can  help  this 
initial  reform  of  all  political  reforms ;  and  perhaps 
more  than  all  others  those  natural  leaders  of  the  com- 
munity in  whatever  is  highest  and  most  ideal  —  the 
clergy  of  all  creeds  and  denominations. 

*See  "Honesty  at  .Elections,"   "Topics  of  the  Time,"  THE 
CENTURY  for  February,  1888. 
tTHE  CENTURY  for  April,  1888,  p.  963. 


Selfishness   and   Self-interest. 

NOT  many  distinctions  have  more  difficulty  to  most 
men  than  that  which  is  properly  to  be  made  between 
selfishness  and  self-interest,  as  social  and  economic 
forces.  A  sentence  in  a  recent  issue  of  this  magazine  t 
may  serve  as  a  case  in  point:  "  He  who  has  retired 
with  a  snug  fortune  has  been  engaged  in  a  life-long 
struggle  to  provide  dry-goods  for  the  public  a  cent  a 
yard  cheaper  than  they  were  before."  Very  many 
readers  will  be  prompt  to  object :  "He  has  been  doing 
nothing  of  the  sort ;  he  has  been  engaged  in  a  life-long 
struggle  to  provide  dry-goods  at  the  greatest  possible 
profit  to  himself  allowed  by  competition  and  the  limit 
which  prices  put  upon  sales."  And,  as  the  latter  state- 
ment is  in  the  main  correct,  it  might  easily  seem  to 
involve  the  falsehood  of  the  former. 

Only  the  suggestion  will  probably  be  needed  to 
show  that  the  two  statements  are  made  in  regard  to 
entirely  different  phases  of  the  same  series  of  actions; 
that  the  first  has  regard  only  to  the  can  sequences  of  the 
seller's  life-work,  while  the  second  looks  as  exclusively 
to  the  tizotiTe.  The  two  are  not  mutually  exclusive. 
The  consequence  stated  in  the  first,  the  decrease  in 
the  price  of  dry-goods,  might  result  indifferently  either 
from  pure  philanthropy  or  from  the  seller's  eager  and 
intense  competition  with  rival  sellers.  The  motive 
stated  in  the  objection  need  not  necessarily  result  in 
any  decrease  of  price  or  increase  of  fortune :  it  might 
result  otherwise,  according  to  circumstances,  eilhcr  in 
increase  of  price  or  in  the  bankruptcy  of  the  seller. 
The  two  statements,  while  equally  true,  are  not  cor- 
relative :  those  who  think  only  of  either  as  their  textnre 
arguing  from  different  premises  and  can  never  come 
to  an  agreement,  or  even  to  a  common  understanding. 
We  must  either  find  some  statement  which  shall  cover 
both,  or  some  valid  reason  why  one  of  the  two  should 
be  excluded  from  consideration. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  essential  feature  of  the 
counter-statement,  the  motive  of  the  seller's  life-work, 
is  of  very  great  importance  in  legal  discussions,  more 
particularly  in  criminal  law.  Every  essential  feature 
in  the  mere  act  of  firing  a  gun  at  a  crowd  of  persons 
may  be  exactly  the  same,  whether  the  firing  is  done 
by  a  militiaman  under  orders,  by  a  peaceful  citizen  in 
self-defense,  by  a  passionate  man  under  slight  provo- 
cation, or  by  sheer  accident  or  carelessness  ;  the  only 
point  to  which  the  law  can  look  in  deciding  responsi- 
bility is  the  motive  which  controlled  the  will  in  doing 
the  act.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  law  often  seems  to 
regard  the  consequences  rather  than  the  motive;  that 
it  will  hang  a  man  who  sacrifices  his  child,  though  the 
motive  of  the  sacrifice  be  a  religious  desire  to  imitate 
the  purpose  of  Abraham  in  the  case  of  Isaac;  but  this 
is,  after  all,  rather  a  judicial  decision  upon  the  admis- 
sibility  of  the  motive  than  an  examination  of  die  con- 
sequences. 

In  social  and  economic  questions,  on  the  contrary, 
whether  they  are  considered  by  themselves  or  as  the 
basis  of  legal  discussions,  the  controlling  factor  is  as 
evidently  the  consequences  of  the  act.  If  a  contract 
based  on  an  immoral  consideration  v\  voided,  it  is  not 
by  reason  of  the  motives  of  the  parties,  but  by  reason 
of  the  consequences  to  the  public;  decisions  based  on 
"public  policy"  turn  commonly  on  such  social  or 
economic  questions.  English  law  once  forbade  "  fore- 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


47' 


stalling,  rcgrating,  and  engrossing";  that  is,  roughly, 
the  accumulation  of  stocks  of  goods  by  middle-men  in 
expectation  of  a  higher  price.  The  prohibition  has 
been  gradually  abandoned,  not  because  themoti\rs  nf 
middle-men  had  become  purer,  sweeter,  or  more  phil- 
anthropic, but  because  the  judges,  as  they  came  1" 
understand  the  course  of  trade  more  clearly,  began  to 
see  that  the  consequences  of  the  success  of  such  a  pro- 
hibition would  bean  increased  possibility  of  famine. 
The  ordinary  criterion  upon  which  experience  teaches 
us  to  rely  in  such  cases  is  not  the  motive  of  the  indi- 
vidual who  claims  a  privilege,  but  the  consequences 
to  the  public  which  grants  it,  either  through  legal  or 
through  social  channels. 

Much  of  the  fallacy  and  futility  which  have  crept  into 
the  discussion  of  social  and  economic  questions  has 
come  from  the  admission  of  an  element,  the  motive  of 
the  individual,  which,  however  important  in  criminal 
law,  is  quite  out  of  place  here.  Very  many  well-mean- 
ing arguments  for  or  against  Mr.  Henry  George's 
proposal  to  confiscate  rent  have  been  based  on  the 
grasping  avarice  of  landlords  or  of  Mr.  George; 
whereas  the  question  is  mainly  one  of  consequences, 
whether  the  public  is  benefited  by  individual  owner- 
ship or  by  nationalization  of  land.  Modern  society  has 
grown  into  a  stronger  anxiety  for  freedom  of  individ- 
ual competition  through  its  clearer  perception  that  the 
consequences  are  in  the  highest  degree  beneficial  to  the 
public  and  to  the  world.  While  the  leanings  of  English 
law  were  against  the  middle-man  and  his  "  selfish  "  ef- 
forts to  accumulate  wealth  by  anticipating  the  hunger 
of  his  fellow-men,  the  price  of  wheat  was  often  at  nom- 
inal and  at  famine  rates  in  the  same  country  within  a 
single  year.  Now  a  complicated  system  of  daily  tele- 
grnph  reports  keeps  the  whole  English-speaking  por- 
tion of  humanity  informed  as  to  the  demand  for  wheat 
in  every  country,  and  as  to  the  visible  supply,  whether 
in  Russia,  in  the  elevators  of  Dakota  or  Illinois,  or  in 
transit  by  sea ;  and  the  first  remote  indication  of  famine 
turns  a  great  current  of  food  in  that  direction  in  which 
the  higher  price  shows  that  it  is  most  needed.  All  this 
enormous  and  expensive  system  has  been  developed  by 
individuals  whose  motive,  while  it  may  very  prop- 
erly be  called  "selfishness,"  so  far  as  they  themselves 
are  concerned,  must  be  taken  as  self-interest  alone,  so 
far  as  the  public  is  concerned  with  it.  The  public  is 
of  the  belief  that  it  is  far  better  served  in  such  cases 
by  the  self-interest  and  consequent  competition  of  in- 
dividuals than  by  any  governmental  agencies.  The 
difficulty  with  men  of  socialist  leanings — for  these  far 
outnumber  the  down-right  and  out-right  Socialists—  is 
that  they  look  only  at  the  "  selfishness  "  of  the  middle- 
mnn,  and  are  ready  to  welcome  any  governmental 
agency  which  will,  to  outward  seeming  at  least,  reduce 
the  success  of  selfishness  as  an  economic  force. 

Even  if  we  should  admit  that  the  substitution  of 
governmental  for  individual  forces  would  in  so  far 
abolish  selfishness,  we  might  safely  appeal  to  the  ex- 
perience of  the  race  in  support  of  the  assertion  that  the 
governmental  forces  would  be  inferior  in  efficiency: 
self-interest,  in  the  various  phases  of  its  operation, 
has  decreased  the  price  of  dry-goods  far  more  than  any 
governmental  agency  ever  did  while  it  had  the  oppor- 
tunity. But  it  may  be  worth  while  to  ask  attention  to 
the  fact  that  any  such  change  would  not  abolish  selfish- 
ness ;  it  would  merely  transfer  it  from  the  individual 


to  the  government  agent.  The  efficient  government 
agent  would  be  as  thoroughly  selfish  in  all  his  motives 
for  activity  as  the  individual  middle-man  ever  was  in 
his  ;  there  would  be  only  a  thin  veneering  laid  over  the 
underlying  motive,  and  a  decrease  in  efficiency,  which 
the  public  would  be  the  first  to  feel  and  resent. 

It  is  impossible  to  exclude  selfishness  as  a  social  and 
economic  motive;  and  the  public  would  only  waste  time 
by  taking  into  consideration  t  hat  which  it  cannot  exclude. 
The  choice  is  between  adopting  the  services  of  selfish 
government  agents  or  of  selfish  individuals ;  and,  as 
competition  can  have  little  effect  upon  the  former,  while 
it  works  with  the  very  greatest  force  upon  the  latter, 
modern  civilization  has  shown  the  keenest  sense  of  its 
own  self-interest  in  its  disregard  of  the  individual's 
selfish  motives,  and  its  progressive  transfer  of  more 
and  more  of  its  daily  work  to  individual  self-interest 
and  competition.  The  public,  in  other  words,  is  not 
interested  in  the  motive  of  the  individual  dry-goods 
dealer,  his  desire  to  make  profits,  but  in  the  conse- 
quence —  the  decrease  of  price. 

A    New   Branch  of  an  Old  Profession. 

IN  the  United  States  the  highest  type  of  mind,  es- 
pecially among  men,  has  not  as  a  rule  turned  to 
the  teaching  profession,  because  of  the  inadequacy  of 
its  rewards  and  the  uncertainty  of  advancement.  By 
mere  force  of  habit  or  custom  this  tendency  away  from 
teaching  as  a  life  occupation  continues,  though  the  re- 
wards increase  in  value  almost  yearly,  and  promotion 
is  becoming  both  rapid  and  sure.  The  success  of  the 
manual-training  movement  will,  it  is  fair  to  assume, 
exert  a  powerful  influence  in  attracting  well  trained 
and  broadly  cultured  men  to  the  service  of  the  school. 
The  ablest  graduates  of  the  scientific  schools  and  poly- 
technic institutes  are  the  men  who  should  respond  to 
the  call  now  being  heard  all  over  the  country  for  trained 
teachers  of  manual  training.  Their  equipment  in  draw- 
ing, and  wood  and  metal  working,  when  supplement- 
ed by  a  short  pedagogic  course,  is  precisely  what  is 
required  of  a  principal  or  instructor  in  the  manual- 
training  school.  Furthermore,  the  salaries  attached  to 
these  positions  are  very  fair,  and  will  naturally  increase 
as  the  experience  of  incumbents  makes  them  more 
valuable.  Mechanics  will  not  do  for  these  positions. 
Mere  tool-men  cannot  teach.  Their  sole  aim  is  the 
finished  product,  and  their  method  is  to  urge  imitation 
by  the  pupil  of  their  own  skill.  The  real  teacher  of 
manual  training,  on  the  other  hand,  will  desire  first  of 
all  the  development  of  his  pupil,  and  his  method  will 
be  to  stimulate  the  student's  own  activity  and  power 
of  thought.  For  him  a  well-finished  product  will  be 
but  an  incident — a  necessary  incident,  it  is  true — of 
successful  teaching.  The  well-developed  pupril  will  be 
the  first  product  for  which  he  will  strive. 

That  this  new  branch  of  an  old  profession  is  al- 
ready established  admits  of  no  question.  Educational 
thought  is  all  but  unanimous  in  its  favor.  Public  senti- 
ment demands  it.  Favorable  legislative  action  in  New 
Jersey,  and  the  pending  or  projected  legislation  in 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  several  of 
the  western  States,  have  created  a  demand  for  trained 
teachers  of  this  kind,  which  it  is  just  now  impossible 
to  supply.  At  least  one  institution  has  been  estab- 
lished for  the  purpose  of  training  young  men  for  this 


472 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


work.  It  will  doubtless  be  some  time  before  the  proper 
candidates  for  these  positions  are  forthcoming  in  suf- 
ficient numbers.  The  lack  of  rapid  adaptability  to 
changed  circumstances  explains  why  this  expectation 
is  justifiable.  Yet  the  demand  will  eventually  create  a 
supply,  and  the  trained  student  of  nature's  forces  and 
materials  \\  ill  find  awaiting  him  a  field  worthy  of  his 
noblest  efforts. 

For  women  there  is  a  similar  opening.  Domestic 
economy,  including  instruction  in  the  care,  prepara- 
tion, and  constituents  of  food  materials,  and  sewing, 
are  being  offered  to  girls  just  as  constructive  work 
with  tools  is  prescribed  for  boys.  Careful  and  sys- 
tematic teaching  is  necessary  if  these  branches  are  to 
yield  the  educational  results  hoped  for,  and  which  it 
is  perfectly  possible  for  them  to  yield.  So  for  women 
teachers, —  and  women  constitute  more  than  four- 
fifths  of  our  320,000  teachers, —  there  is  also  an  en- 
larged opportunity.  Busy-work,  sewing,  and  cooking 
will  take  their  place  by  the  side  of  arithmetic,  geog- 
raphy, and  history.  Already  a  score  or  more  of  cities 
have  schools  in  which  this  step  has  been  taken.  Every- 
where the  results  are  successful.  The  handling  of 
things  stimulates  the  pupil  to  careful  observation  and 
correct  expression.  It  awakens  interest  where  merely 
verbal  exercises  had  brought  on  an  intellectual  paraly- 
sis. It  gives  power  and  a  consciousness  of  power.  It 
educates.  As  one  reads  the  numerous  reports  on 
manual  training  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  New 
Haven  and  St.  Paul,  Albany  and  Cleveland,  New  Or- 
leans and  St.  Louis,  and  a  score  more  cities  and  towns, 
and  becomes  fully  aware  of  the  hold  it  has  gained,  he 
is  convinced  that  for  the  healthy  development  of  the 
movement  not  arguments,  but  trained  teachers,  are  now 
necessary. 

The  Independence    of  Literature. 

THE  Rev.  Dr.  Gladden's  "Open  Letter"  on  copy- 
right in  this  number  of  THE  CENTURY  makes  a  needed 


explanation  of  the  principle  involved  in  all  copyright, 
as  no  one  can  accept  the  principle  of  copyright  and 
consistently  oppose  international  copyright.  The  re- 
cent discussion  of  international  copyright  has  shown 
the  necessity  of  making  clear  this  principle. 

The  fact  is  that  the  copyright  method  of  supporting 
and  encouraging  literary  activity  is  the  modern  and 
democratic  method  as  opposed  to  the  ancient  feudal 
method.  Kither  the  author  must  win  his  living  by  the 
simple  and  easy  means  of  popular  sales,  or  he  must, 
as  in  the  old  days,  look  for  his  support  to  some  "  pa- 
tron,"—  private,  ecclesiastical,  governmental,  or  what 
not.  In  claiming  governmental  "protection  "  by  inter- 
national copyright  law  American  authors  have  asked 
not  for  "  patronage  "  and  "protection,"  as  in  the  old 
days;  on  the  contrary,  they  have  merely  asked  for  their 
right  to  gain  their  own  living  unhampered  by  the  un- 
natural competition  of  stolen  goods.  They  haye  asked 
not  for  the  "protection"  of  the  appraiser,  but  of  the 
policeman.  They  wish  to  be"  free  "  to  earn  their  bread 
and  butter  under  natural  conditions.  As  Dr.  Eggle- 
ston  said  in  his  speech  before  the  Senate  committee, 
American  authors  do  not  ask  what  several  foreign 
governments  give  to  their  authors, —  sinecure  posi- 
tions and  literary  pensions  as  a  means  of  support ; 
they  only  ask  to  be  put  on  the  same  footing  with  other 
workmen.  The  opposition  to  international  copyright 
has  inevitably  ended  in  denying  the  principle  of  all 
copyright.  But  when  copyright  is  properly  understood 
it  will  be  found,  as  we  have  said  above,  to  be  the 
manly,  honest,  and  democratic  method  as  opposed  to 
the  aristocratic  and  feudal  method  of  supporting  the 
profession  of  letters. 

The  independence  of  literary  expression  needs  to  be 
carefully  guarded.  "  Patronage  "  is  much  more  out 
of  place  in  this  domain  than  in  that  of  the  plastic  arts. 
Those  who  have  opposed  the  principle  of  copyright 
have  been,  without  knowing  it,  promoting  a  tendency 
which  would  result  in  a  system  reactionary  and  un- 
American. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


The   Ethics   of  Copyright. 


THE  debate  about  international  copyright  has  raised 
the  question  whether  authors,  native  or  foreign, 
have  any  rights  which  the  laws  are  bound  to  protect. 
The  prompt  answer  of  the  advocates  of  international 
copyright,  when  they  are  challenged  to  give  a  reason 
for  their  demand,  is  that  the  reprinting  of  an  author's 
books  in  a  foreign  country,  without  asking  his  con- 
sent or  offering  him  remuneration,  is  an  act  of  piracy; 
that  it  is  simply  helping  yourself  to  another  man's 
property.  Mr.  Lowell's  verse  sums  up  the  common 
argument : 

In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 

And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing; 

The  Ten  Commandments  will  not  budge, 
And  stealing  'will  continue  stealing. 

I  confess  that  to  my  own  mind  this  has  seemed  per- 
fectly clear  and  obvious, —  almost  axiomatic.  But  now 
arise  some  who  dispute  all  these  assumptions.  They 


deny  that  the  property  right  expressed  in  copyright  is 
a  natural  right;  they  say  that  it  is  only  a  civil  right, 
the  creation  of  law;  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  sell  his 
book,  but  not  to  monopolize  the  sale  of  it ;  that  this 
right  to  control  the  sale  is  a  privilege  conferred  on 
him  by  law ;  that  it  may  be  expedient  to  extend  this 
privilege  to  authors,  for  the  sake  of  encouraging  liter- 
ary production,  but  that  there  are  no  rights  in  the 
case  except  those  which  are  created  by  the  statute. 
Inasmuch  as  the  statute  is  in  force  only  within  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  State  by  which  it  is  enacted,  no  rights  are 
infringed  when  an  author's  books,  copyrighted  at  home, 
are  reprinted  in  a  foreign  country.  The  argument  for 
international  copyright  which  rests  upon  the  equities 
of  the  case  is  thus  opposed  by  the  assertion  that 
there  are  no  equities  in  the  case;  and  that  while  it 
may  be  expedient,  for  public  reasons,  to  extend  certain 
privileges  to  our  own  authors,  we  are  under  no  obli- 
gation to  extend  these  privileges  even  to  them ;  much 
less  to  the  authors  of  foreign  countries. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


473 


Tin1  opponents  of  international  copyright,  at  a  con- 
vention in  Philadelphia,  in  1872,  issued  this  manifesto: 

'•  i.  That  thought,  unless  expressed,  is  the  prop- 
erty of  the  thinker;  when  given  lo  the  world  it  is  as 
light,  free  lo  all. 

"2.  As  property  it  can  only  demand  the  protection 
of  the  municipal  law  of  the  country  to  which  the  thinker 

iS    Mlbiect." 

1  il<>  not  know  the  name  of  the  humorist  who  fabri- 
cated these  propositions,  but  he  must  be  a  very  funny 
fellow.  1  le  says  that  thought  can  only  be  property  while 
it  remains  unexpressed;  and  that  as  property  it  can 
only  demand  the  protection  of  the  municipal  law  of 
the  country  to  which  the  thinker  is  subject.  This 
lhat  a  man's  unexpressed  thoughts  are  not 
legally  his  own  when  he  visits  a  foreign  country.  The 
Knglishman  who  travels  in  the  United  States  has  no 
right  to  the  protection  of  our  laws  in  thinking  those 
thoughts  which  he  never  expresses !  The  American, 
on  the  other  hand,  may  demand  the  protection  of  his 
own  government  in  thinking,  so  long  as  he  does  not 
express  his  thoughts  !  Just  how  the  Knglishman's prop- 
erty right  in  his  own  secret  thoughts  could  be  invali- 
dated, or  the  American's  confirmed,  by  statute,  this 
philosopher  does  not  deign  to  instruct  us.  But  it  is 
ple.isant  to  find  this  bit  of  American  humor  perma- 
nently preserved  for  us  in  the  august  pages  of  the 
great  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.'' 

If  these  American  opponents  of  international  copy- 
right are  somewhat  nebulous  in  their  definitions  they  are, 
nevertheless,  logical  in  basing  their  denial  of  this  right 
to  foreigners  upon  the  theory  that  no  such  right  exists. 
That  no  man,  native  or  foreigner,  has  any  right  to 
control  the  product  of  his  own  mind,  after  it  has  been 
put  in  print,  is  an  intelligible  statement.  Most  of  those 
who  dispute  the  equity  of  copyright  disagree,  how- 
ever, with  the  Philadelphia  moralists  to  a  certain 
extent ;  they  insist  that  an  author  has  a  perfect  prop- 
erty in  his  thought  after  it  has  been  expressed  in 
writing :  that  his  manuscript  belongs  to  him,  and  that 
the  man  who  steals  it  from  him  should  be  punished. 
But  just  as  soon  as  it  is  put  in  print  they  declare  that 
the  author  ought  to  have  no  longer  any  effective  con- 
trol of  it;  that  it  is  now  "given  to  the  world,"  and 
that  "  it  is  as  light,  free  to  all."  "Certainly,"  they  say, 
"a  man  has  a  right  to  the  fruit  of  his  own  labor  until 
he  has  sold  it;  but  when  he  has  sold  it,  his  right 
ceases  and  determines."  But  what  does  this  mean? 
Sold  what  ?  Sold  how  much  ? 

Suppose  that  I  devote  the  labor  of  a  year  to  the  writ- 
ing of  a  book ;  and  when  it  is  written  proceed  to  print, 
at  my  own  expense,  five  thousand  copies  of  the  book. 
I'lic  year's  labor  is  presumably  worth  something;  the 
cost  of  printing  the  five  thousand  copies  is,  at  any  rate, 
considerable.  If  I  can  sell  this  whole  edition,  I  may 
get  profit  enough  on  the  sales  to  pay  for  the  printing 
and  binding,  and  to  afford  me  some  remuneration  for 
the  work  of  writing  the  book.  In  all  probability  the 
recompense  will  be  very  small,  not  so  much  as  the 
year's  wages  of  an  ordinary  mechanic.  But,  according 
to  the  theories  of  our  Philadelphia  friends,  I  ought  not 
to  have  any  legal  security  whatever  in  this  undertaking. 
1  IK-  lirst  copy  df  this  bonk  that  is  issued  from  the  press 
may  be  purchased  by  some  enterprising  printer,  who 
sees  that  there  is  sure  to  be  a  large  demand  for  the 
book ;  within  a  week,  in  the  absence  of  copyright,  he 


may  put  an  edition  of  his  own  upon  the  market.  He 
can  afford  to  sell  it  cheaper  than  I  can,  because  nil  he 
requires  is  a  fair  profit  on  the  cost  of  the  manufacture. 
He  seeks  no  return  for  the  production  of  the  book, 
which  has  cost  him  nothing.  Thus  he  drives  me  out 
of  the  market,  and  leaves  me  with  my  five  thousand 
copies  unsold,  and  my  year's  work  unrewarded.  He 
takes  the  product  of  my  industry,  makes  merchandise 
of  it,  reaps  a  large  profit  from  it,  and  prevents  me  from 
obtaining  any  return  for  it.  And  in  this,  say  our  Phil- 
adelphia philosophers,  he  violates  no  rights  of  mine; 
because,  just  as  soon  as  I  have  sold  the  first  copy  of 
this  book,  all  my  rights  in  the  premises  are  canceled. 
This  seems  to  me  a  queer  kind  of  ethics.  This  book 
is  my  product  —  in  a  far  more  profound  and  compre- 
hensive sense  my  product  than  is  the  bushel  of  wheat 
that  the  farmer  has  raised,  or  the  horseshoe  that  the 
blacksmith  has  made.  It  is  much  more  truly  a  creation 
of  wealth  than  is  any  material,  fabric,  or  commodity. 
That  it  is  wealth  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  it  has  ex- 
change value  —  men  are  ready  to  exchange  their 
money  for  it.  The  particular  collocation  of  words  and 
sentences  which  constitute  my  book  is  the  fruit  of  my 
industry.  The  purchasers  and  readers  of  this  book, 
every  one  of  them,  owe  to  me  whatever  benefit  or 
satisfaction  they  may  derive  from  the  reading  of  this 
book.  But  we  are  told  that  a  state  of  things  might, 
with  perfect  equity,  exist,  in  which  the  natural  remu- 
neration of  this  industry  would  be  forcibly  taken  away 
from  me;  in  which  others  might  enter  into  the  fruit 
of  my  labors  and  prevent  me  from  sharing  it ;  in 
which  others  could  take  the  goods  provided  by  me, 
and  enjoy  them,  and  enrich  themselves  by  traffic  in 
them,  while  I  was  left  without  reward.  For  myself  I 
have  no  desire  to  be  a  citizen  of  a  community  in  which 
such  views  of  equity  prevail. 

That  the  products  of  one's  brain  are  as  truly  his  prop- 
erty as  the  products  of  his  hands  seems  to  me  an  in- 
dubitable proposition.  To  this  the  answer  is  made 
that  spoken  words  as  well  as  written  words  could  then 
be  copyrighted ;  thata  man  might  claim  the  right  to  pre- 
vent others  from  copying  or  publishing  a  speech.  Most 
certainly.  That  right  is  enjoyed  and  confirmed  bylaw 
in  England.  A  lecture  or  a  sermon  may  be  as  dis- 
tinctly protected  by  law  as  is  a  history  or  a  novel. 
That  is  the  English  law,  and  the  equity  is  as  clear  in 
one  case  as  in  another.  Suppose  I  prepare,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  year's  labor,  a  course  of  lectures  which  I 
wish  to  deliver  at  colleges  and  before  lyceums,  mak- 
ing them  a  source  of  income.  Will  any  one  say  that  a 
newspaper  publisher  might  equitably  send  his  stenog- 
rapher to  report  these  lectures  at  their  first  delivery, 
and  publish  them  through  his  columns  and  in  pam- 
phlet form,  thus  depriving  me  of  livelihood,  and  using 
my  labor  for  his  own  enrichment  ?  It  strikes  me  that 
such  a  proceeding  would  be  highly  inequitable.  How 
far  the  law  may  undertake  to  go  in  securing  speakers 
against  the  appropriation  of  their  utterances  by  others 
may  be  a  question.  It  may  be  said  that  the  case  is  one 
of  such  difficulty  that  it  is  not  expedient  to  attempt 
the  enforcement  of  these  rights ;  but  the  equities  of 
the  case  are  clear,  and  the  English  law,  as  I  have  said, 
affirms  and  secures  them.  I  think  that  the  American 
law  could  well  afford  to  do  the  same. 

But  the  very  form  of  the  copyright  law,  it  is  alleged, 
shows  that  this  right  is  only  a  creation  of  law ;  for 


474 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


copyright  runs  only  forty-two  years  at  the  longest;  at 
the  end  of  this  time  the  author's  control  of  the  sale  of  his 
book  is  terminated  by  law.  "  How,"  it  is  demanded, 
"could  a  natural  right  be  thus  canceled  by  a  statute?" 

This  question  is  by  some  assumed  to  be  unanswer- 
able, but  it  is  not  such  a  poser  after  all.  The  right  of 
liberty  is  conceded  to  be  a  natural  right,  but  we  have 
had  plenty  of  statutes  in  the  course  of  history  which 
canceled  that  right.  Was  the  existence  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  conclusive  proof  that  the  slaves  of  the  South 
had  no  natural  right  to  liberty  ?  Suppose  we  put  the 
question  in  this  way  :  "  What  right  has  the  legisla- 
ture to  deprive  the  author  of  the  right  to  control  the 
sale  of  his  book  after  it  is  forty-two  years  old  ?  " 

It  is  true  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
seems  to  regard  copyright  as  a  privilege  and  not  as  a 
right;  it  is  granted, as  that  instrument  phrases  it,"  to 
promote  the  progress  of  science  "  ;  but  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  is  not  infallible  in  its  ethical 
pronouncements.  What  it  proclaims  to  be  a  gratuity 
may,  after  all,  be  something  more  than  a  gratuity. 

For  one,  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  say  that  I  desire 
no  gratuities  or  subventions  from  the  Government,  and 
have  never  considered  myself  as  in  any  sense  the  re- 
cipient of  alms.  The  small  reward  that  has  come  to 
me  as  an  author,  through  the  copyright  laws,  I  have 
supposed  myself  to  be  fully  entitled  to,  not  only  legally, 
but  also  morally.  The  fact  is  that  the  language  of  the 
Constitution  embodies  an  unsound  philosophy  upon 
this  question  ;  it  implies  that  authors  are  not  produ- 
cers, but  paupers.  Probably  the  phraseology  of  this 
section  has  had  much  to  do  in  vitiating  the  ideas  of 
our  people  with  respect  to  this  fundamental  right.  If 
the  Constitution  had  said  that  "  in  order  to  promote 
the  raising  of  iv/h'tif,  farmers  should  be  secured,  for 
certain  months  in  the  year,  against  the  raiding  of  their 
wheat-fields  by  freebooters,"  the  notion  might,  per- 
haps, have  been  conveyed  to  the  legal  mind  that 
farmers  had  no  natural  right  to  the  wheat  produced 
by  their  labor  ;  that  property  in  growing  wheat  was 
only  a  creation  of  the  statute. 

A  little  study  of  the  history  of  copyright  in  England 
might  be  instructive  to  those  who  assume  that  statutes 
are  the  source  of  all  such  property.  Long  before  there 
were  any  statutes  on  the  subject,  authors  sued  and 
recovered,  under  the  common  law  of  England,  for  the 
infringement  of  their  right  to  control  the  publication 
of  their  own  books.  Finally  a  statute  regulating  copy- 
right was  passed,  during  the  reign  of  Anne;  and  in  a 
case  arising  under  this  statute  it  was  decided  by  the 
judges  of  the  House  of  Lords,  seven  to  four,  that  the 
author  and  his  heirs  had,  at  common  law,  the  sole 
right  of  publication  forever ;  but  that  the  statute  ot 
Anne  had  deprived  him  of  this  right,  limiting  his  con- 
trol of  the  publication  of  his  book  to  the  term  of 
twenty-eight  years.  So  far  as  English  law  is  con- 
cerned, the  author's  property  right  was  not,  then,  cre- 
ated or  confirmed  by  statute;  it  has  been  limited  and 
curtailed  by  statute. 

But  it  is  said  that  if  the  author  has  the  same  right 
to  the  product  of  his  mind  that  any  workman  has  to 
the  product  of  his  hands, —  if  literary  property  rests  on 
the  same  basis  as  other  property, —  then  the  author 
may  bequeath  this  copyright  to  his  heirs  forever. 
Undoubtedly.  Such  was  the  common  law  of  England, 
as  we  have  seen;  such  was  formerly  the  law  of  Hol- 


land and  Belgium,  of  Denmark  and  Sweden.  In  all 
these  countries  the  right  of  bequest  is  now  limited,  for 
reasons  of  public  policy.  The  right  to  bequeath  prop- 
erty of  any  sort  is  not  a  natural  right ;  no  man  has  a 
right  to  control  his  property  after  he  is  dead.  For 
certain  public  reasons,  it  may  be  expedient  to  grant 
the  privilege  of  bequest;  for  other  reasons,  it  may  be 
expedient  to  limit  this  privilege.  But  so  far  as  the 
ethics  of  the  case  is  concerned,  literary  property  must 
stand  or  fall  before  the  laws  of  bequest  with  every 
other  kind  of  property. 

In  England,  at  the  present  day,  the  copyright  is 
vested  in  the  author  until  his  death,  and  in  his  heirs 
for  seven  years  after  his  death,  unless  this  term  of 
seven  years  shall  expire  before  the  end  of  forty-two 
years  from  the  first  publication  of  the  book  ;  in  which 
case  it  is  extended  to  forty-two  years.  A  book  pub- 
lished after  the  author's  death  by  his  heirs  is  secured 
by  copyright  for  forty-two  years.  This  is  the  shortest 
period  of  English  copyright:  while  if  an  English 
author  publishes  a  book  at  the  age  of  twenty  and  lives 
to  be  eighty  years  old,  the  copyright  of  this  book  runs 
for  sixty-seven  years.  In  most  other  civilized  coun- 
tries the  copyright  is  continued  for  a  considerable 
period  after  the  author's  death  :  in  France  and  Spain, 
for  fifty  years ;  in  Prussia  and  Austria,  for  thirty 
years  ;  in  Holland  and  Belgium,  for  twenty  years. 

It  is  said  that  copyright  is  a  monopoly,  and,  for  this 
reason,  ought  not  to  be  tolerated  by  the  State.  But  it 
is  not  a  monopoly  in  the  ordinary  use  of  that  word. 
Certain  publishing  rights  that  were  monopolies  were 
granted  in  former  days  in  England:  to  one  man  was 
given  by  law  the  exclusive  privilege  of  printing  the 
Bible ;  to  another,  all  law  books ;  to  another,  all 
music  books;  to  another,  all  almanacs.  But  this  is  a 
very  different  matter  from  permitting  an  author  to 
control  the  publication  of  his  own  books.  If  I  write  a 
history  of  Ohio,  my  copyright  does  not  forbid  any 
other  man  to  write  or  publish  the  history  of  Ohio: 
every  man  in  the  State  may  write  and  publish  such  a 
history  if  he  chooses.  Nor  does  my  copyright  bind 
anybody  to  purchase  my  book,  or  guarantee  any  mar- 
ket for  my  book.  It  simply  says,  "  This  particular  his- 
tory of  Ohio,  which  this  man  has  written,  is  his  prop- 
erty :  no  man  can  print  or  publish  it  for  a  term  of 
forty-two  years  without  permission  from  him ;  you 
are  under  no  obligation  to  use  his  book ;  but  if  you 
do  so  you  must  make  your  bargain  with  him,  or  with 
those  whom  he  empowers  to  act  for  him."  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  is  no  more  a  monopoly  than  the  right 
of  the  shoe  manufacturer  to  contract  for  the  sale  of  the 
shoes  manufactured  by  him  is  a  monopoly.  It  is  the 
right  to  control  the  sale  of  his  own  product. 

I  come  back,  therefore,  to  the  ground  from  which  I 
started,  finding  that  it  is  well  taken  and  strongly  forti- 
fied by  reason  and  experience.  The  author's  property 
in  his  book  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that  of  any  other 
worker  in  his  product.  The  protection  of  this  property 
is  not  a  gratuity  conferred  on  him  by  the  State  for  the 
promotion  of  literature  or  learning;  it  is  a  right  to 
which  he,  with  every  other  producer,  is  entitled.  The 
author  is  not  a  mendicant  or  a  pensioner ;  he  wants 
no  favors ;  all  he  wants  is  justice  —  to  enjoy  the  fruit 
of  his  own  labors.  That  he  is  entitled  to  this  as  long 
as  he  lives  seems  obvious;  the  law  of  nearly  every 
civilized  country,  except  America,  confirms  this  right. 


01' EN  LETTERS. 


475 


How  long  tliis  property  shall  be  extended  after  his 
death  is  a  question  of  expediency;  all  laws  regulating 
bequest  are  based  upon  expediency. 

One  reason  why  our  legislators  have  been  so  slow 
to  grant  international  copyright  is  found  in  the  prev- 
alence of  the  false  notion  thai  the  author  lias  no  valid 
claim  even  upon  his  own  government  for  the  protec- 
tion of  his  property;  Ilint  the  power  to  control  tin- 
publication  of  his  own  works  is  not  a  right  secured  to 
him,  but  a  privilege  conferred  on  him. 

/  Vash  /  /;  ;.'/•  'it  (  !  /nil  Jen  . 


'i 


,  OHIO. 


The  Story    of  the   First    News    Message  ever   sent   by 
Telegraph. 

ON  the  morning  of  May  I,  1844,  the  Whig  conven- 
tion organised  in  Baltimore,  and  working  connection 
'ablished  for  the  first  time  by  telegraph  between 
Wellington  and  Annapolis  Junction,  Professor  Morse 
being  at  the  former  and  Mr.  Vail  at  the  latter  place. 
Morse  sat  that  afternoon  in  the  room  at  Washing. 
ton,  waiting  for  the  signal  from  Mr.  Vail,  when 
suddenly  there  came  an  animated  clicking  at  the  in- 
strument. He  bent  forward,  in  his  eagerness  almost 
devouring  the  little  strip  of  paper  that  crept  only 
too  slowly  from  between  the  rollers  of  the  register, 
until,  the  message  completed,  he  rose,  and  said  to  the 
friends  who  were  present  :  "  Gentlemen,  the  con- 
vention has  adjourned.  The  train  for  Washington 
from  Baltimore,  bearing  that  information,  has  just  left 
Annapolis  Junction,  and  Mr.  Vail  has  telegraphed  me 
the  ticket  nominated,  and  it  is  "  —  he  hesitated,  hold- 
ing in  his  hand  the  final  proof  of  the  victory  of 
science  over  space  —  "it  is  —  it  is  Clay  and  Freling- 
huysen!  " 

'•  You  are  quizzing  us,"  was  the  quiet  retort.  "  It  's 
easy  enough  for  you  to  guess  that  Clay  is  at  the 
head  of  the  ticket  ;  but  Frelinghuysen  —  who  the  devil 
is  Frelinghuysen?" 

"  I  only  know,"was  the  dignified  answer,"  that  is  the 
name  Mr.  Vail  has  sent  me  from  Annapolis  Junction, 
where  he  had  the  news  five  minutes  ago,  from  the 
train  that  is  bound  this  way,  bringing  the  delegates." 

In  those  days  the  twenty-two  miles  from  the  Junction 
to  Washington  required  an  hour  and  a  quarter  in  mak- 
ing, even  for  the  exceptionally  fast  trains,  such  as  that 
which  was  taking  the  delegates  to  Washington. 

Long  before  the  journey  was  over,  the  newspapers  — 
enterprising  even  in  those  days  —  had  "  extras"  upon 
tin'  -I  reels,  and  the  newsboys  were  lustily  crying  the 
news  the  telegraph  had  brought  flashing  through  twenty- 
two  miles  of  space.  A  great  crowd  of  people  was  at 
the  station.  The  extras,  with  their  cabalislic  heading, 
"  By  Telegraph,"  had  whetted  public  curiosity  to  the 
keenest  edge.  Out  of  the  train  crime  the  delegates, 
each  one  anxious  to  be  foremost  in  sending  abroad  the 
inspiriting  news  that  fortune  was  with  "  Harry  of  the 
But  consternation  struck  them  dumb  when, 
upon  alighting,  they  found  in  type,  before  their  eyes, 
the  very  story  they  had  believed  exclusively  their  own, 
but  which  had  preceded  them  "  By  Telegraph."  as  they 
read  in  the  head-lines  of  the  journals.  They  had  seen 
the  wires  stretching  along  the  side  of  the  track  all 
the  way  from  Annapolis  Junction  into  Washington, 
and  they  had  joked  about  it  glibly. 


The  Hon.  Ralph  Plumb,  a  member  of  the  present 
Congress  from  Illinois,  was  one  of  the  delegates  from 
Ohio  to  that  (lay  convention,  and  was  on  the  train 
which  bore  the  first  news  of  the  nominations,  as  was 
supposed,  io  Washington,  and  in  a  mm  inimical  ion  to  the 
writer,  under  date  ol  Washington,  February  iN,  1888, 
he  writes :  "  It  seems  like  a  real  romance  to  me  to 
think  that  a  son  of  the  then  young  man  who  was  send- 
ing what  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  the  first  impor- 
tant message  by  telegraph  that  was  ei'fr  tr<insmitlt'tl,  is 
asking  of  ont yet  alive  respecting  what  happened  on 
that  occasion.  During  these  (orty-four  years,  see 
what  has  been  accomplished,  as  a  result  of  this  first 
^sful  effort !  What  civilized  country  is  there  now 
that  has  not  the  telegraph,  and  how  many  of  them  are 
covered  by  telegraph  lines  as  by  a  network!  " 

In  referring  to  the  journey  from  Baltimore  to  Wash- 
ington of  the  delegates  to  the  convention  at  Baltimore, 
he  says:  "I  remember  the  little  shed  at  the  Junction 
where  we  stopped  on  our  way,  and  I  saw  the  man  (Mr. 
Vail)  in  it,  who  was  ticking  away  upon  a  little  brass 
machine.  1  saw  him,  and  I  talked  with  him,  for  I 
wanted  to  know  what  strange  thing  he  was  doing;  and 
he  answered  that  he  was  'telegraphing  to  Morse  in 
Washington  about  our  convention,' — and  he  pointed 
towards  the  wire  overhead,  running  in  the  direction  of 
that  city, —  'over  the  first  wire  ever  erected  or  used  for 
public  telegraphing,  and  the  message  I  have  just  sent 
is  the  first  news  ever  transmitted  for  the  public  benefit.' 
In  common  with  all  the  rest  of  the  real  wise  ones  of  the 
day,  I  hailed  the  affair  as  a  huge  joke  until  we  landed 
at  the  station  in  Washington,  when,  sure  enough, 
Morse  had  received  the  news  an  hour  or  more  before, 
and  the  whole  city  was  informed  of  the  fact  that  we 
had  put  a  dark  horse  on  the  ticket  with  our  hero, 
Clay.  The  evidence  could  not  be  disputed,  of  course. 
The  most  prejudiced  of  us  could  not  presume  to  sug- 
gest that  Morse's  work  was  guessing ;  for  no  man  alive 
would  have  imagined  that  Frelinghuysen  could  be 
made  the  nominee  for  Vice- President." 

Mr.  Vail  preserved  with  much  care  the  recording- 
register  used  by  him  at  Washington  and  Annapolis 
Junction,  and  later  at  Baltimore,  as  a  priceless  me- 
mento of  the  days  of  which  we  have  written,  and  at 
his  (leathj)equeathed  it  to  his  eldest  son,  Stephen  Vail, 
by  whom  it  was  loaned,  some  years  since,  to  the  National 
Museum  at  Washington,  where  it  has  attracted  much  at- 
tention. Professor  Morse,  some  years  before  his  death, 
certified  to  its  identity,  and  to  the  fact  that  the  similar 
one  used  by  him  at  his  end  of  the  line  had  not  been 
preserved,  and  that  he  did  not  know  what  had  become 
of  it. 

s.  y. 

The   Postal   Service. 

THE  postal  service  presents  two  distinct  prob- 
lems to  the  civil-service  reformer:  one  as  to  the 
large  post-offices  in  the  cities,  and  quite  another  as 
to  the  fifty  thousand  small  offices  scattered  through 
the  country. 

As  to  the  first  class,  the  beginnings  of  a  solution 
have  been  made.  The  system  of  competitive  examina- 
tion is  being  applied  with  success  to  the  selection  of 
clerks  and  subordinate  employees.  We  have  made 
less  progress  in  the  selection  of  the  postmasters  them- 
selves, the  heads  of  the  large  offices ;  yet  there  has 
been  an  advance,  and  there  is  the  prospect  of  a  further 


476 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


advance.  The  one  thing  here  to  be  insisted  on,  to  be 
impressed  on  public  opinion  and  forced  on  public  men, 
is  that  the  management  of  a  great  post-office  is  a 
specific  business  requiring  training  and  experience, 
and  not  fit  to  be  intrusted  at  hap-hazard  to  any 
active  politician  or  broken-down  business  man  who 
happens  to  have  friends  at  court.  This  branch  of 
the  postal  service  should  be  treated  as  a  separate 
profession,  such  as  it  is.  It  is  sharing  in  the  devel- 
opment which  is  taking  place  in  almost  all  branches  of 
industry — the  development  towards  specialization.  In 
all  directions,  business  is  becoming  more  technical, 
and  new  professions  are  arising.  Railroading  is  now 
a  business  by  itself;  so  are  the  various  branches 
of  manufacturing;  the  management  of  a  public  li- 
brary is  becoming  a  distinct  profession.  Everywhere 
the  general  rule  is  that  men  must  begin  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  work  their  way  by  promotion  towards  the 
top.  In  the  postal  service,  as  elsewhere,  those  should 
be  appointed  to  the  higher  administrative  positions 
who  have  shown  capacity  and  have  acquired  training 
in  the  lower.  The  Administration  has  followed  this 
principle  in  the  selection  of  Mr.  Pearson  in  New  York. 
Unfortunately  the  principle  is  not  yet  imbedded  in 
our  habitual  attitude  towards  government  administra- 
tion, and  we  must  wait  for  the  gradual  hardening  of 
public  opinion  on  civil-service  reform  before  we  can 
expect  its  uniform  and  consistent  application.  It  is  to 
public  opinion  rather  than  to  legislation  that  we  must 
look,  in  the  main,  for  this  result;  for  the  need  of  re- 
garding the  personal  equation  in  positions  of  manage- 
ment and  responsibility  stands  in  the  way  of  setting 
up  for  these  offices  any  machinery  like  that  of  com- 
petitive examinations.  Yet  the  end  would  be  furthered 
by  the  repeal  of  the  irrational  statute  that  limits  to  four 
years  the  terms  of  postmasters  appointed  by  the 
President. 

As  to  the  small  offices,  where  the  salary  is  less  than 
$1000  and  the  appointment  is  made  by  the  Postmaster- 
General,  nothing  has  been  done.  The  plan  of  competi- 
tive examination  is  again  not  readily  applicable ;  not 
because  an  examination  would  fail  to  test  sufficiently 
well  the  qualifications  of  candidates,  but  because  so 
many  examinations  would  be  necessary,  and  in  so  many 
different  places  at  different  times,  that  the  system  would 
be  too  cumbrous.  Some  other  device  for  applying 
reform  principles  must  be  sought,  and  various  plans 
have  been  suggested.  It  has  been  proposed  that  the 
postmaster  be  elected ;  but  this,  quite  apart  from  con- 
stitutional difficulties,  would  serve  only  to  throw  an- 
other prize  into  the  scramble  for  party  nomination 
and  election,  and  surely  would  fail  to  bring  about  the 
essential  end  —  the  separation  of  offices  from  politics. 
A  system  of  boards  or  commissions,  one  for  each 
State  or  judicial  circuit,  has  been  brought  forward,  the 
members  to  be  appointed  by  the  Civil-Service  Com- 
missioners and  to  have  the  duty  of  recommending  to  the 
President  and  Postmaster-General  fit  persons  for  the 
smaller  post-offices.  Such  a  scheme  was  advocated  in 
this  magazine  for  May,  1883.  A  strong  objection 
against  it  is  that  everything  is  necessarily  left  to  the 
judgment  of  the  local  commissioners,  (he  machinery 
not  being  self-acting,  like  that  applied  by  the  existing 
Federal  and  State  commissions.  It  would,  moreover, 
subject  the  present  Federal  commission  to  a  strain  sim- 
ilar to  that  felt  by  the  judiciary  when  judges  are  called 


on  to  make  appointments  :  the  appointing  office,  which 
has  patronage  and  discretion,  becomes  a  prize  for  poli- 
ticians, and  a  tempting  point  of  attack  for  those  who 
wish  to  evade  the  spirit  of  the  law.  Another  proposed 
remedy  is  the  rigid  prohibition  of  advice  or  solicitation 
by  congressmen  to  the  Postmaster-General ;  and  no 
doubt  some  good  would  be  done  in  that  way. 

But  at  bottom,  here  and  everywhere,  the  essential 
thing  is  to  bring  a  strong  public  feeling  to  bear  in 
favor  of  non-partisan  appointments.  Methods  of  com- 
petitive examination  aid  such  a  feeling  in  working  out 
its  object,  in  those  cases  where  they  can  be  brought 
to  bear.  Where  that  or  any  other  intermediate  ma- 
chinery is  inapplicable,  as  seems  to  be  the  case  with 
the  fourth-class  postmasterships,  the  fundamental 
agency  of  public  opinion  must  act  directly. 

F.  IV.  Taussig. 
The  Prohibition  of  Railway  Pools. 

OBSERVERS  have  noted  the  present  tendency  of 
opinion  towards  an  increasing  interference  with  or  con- 
trol of  public  industries  on  the  part  of  government;  or, 
in  other  words,  the  spread  of  state  socialism.  The 
message  of  Mayor  Hewitt  advocating  the  building  of 
rapid-transit  lines  by  the  city  of  New  York  is  a  strik- 
ing illustration.  Ten  years  ago  such  a  proposal  would 
have  been  met  with  a  great  outcry,  with  an  insistence 
upon  the  Jeffersonian  maxim,  "That  government  is 
best  which  governs  least,"  and  with  a  warning  that 
we  were  departing  from  the  democracy  of  our  fathers. 
The  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Bridge  does  not  earn 
interest  upon  its  cost,  and  hence  all  real  estate  is  taxed 
to  provide  comparatively  free  transportation  for  a 
certain  portion  of  our  citizens.  The  bridge  and  the 
rapid-transit  plan  excite  no  opposition  as  to  the  princi- 
ple, but  only  as  to  details.  From  such  instances  as  these 
to  the  state  management  or  more  strict  control  of  our 
other  public  industries,  like  the  telegraph  and  the  rail- 
roads, is  a  step  of  little  difficulty  as  to  the  theory,  how- 
ever great  the  practical  difficulties  may  be. 

No  section  of  the  interstate  commerce  law  has  met 
with  more  censure  on  the  part  of  some  students  of  our 
transportation  problem  than  the  one  prohibiting  rail- 
road pooling.  Pools,  they  say,  have  brought  uniform- 
ity and  comparative  steadiness  into  our  railway  system 
where  everythingbefore  was  chaotic :  pool  failures  arose 
from  the  fact  that  they  could  not  enforce  their  agree- 
ments ;  hence  the  solution  of  our  difficulties  lay  in  legal- 
izing, not  abolishing,  these  combinations.  The  credit 
claimed  for  the  pooling  system  in  bringing  harmony  of 
administration  out  of  confusion  is  justly  due  it.  But 
transportation  methods  should  be  evolutionary,  and 
it  may  well  be  that  we  should  now  pass  beyond  pool- 
ing and  allow  pool  questions  —  the  division  of  the  traf- 
fic and  the  fixing  of  rates  —  to  be  settled  by  more  nat- 
ural methods  and  through  more  real  competition.  The 
legitimatizing  of  railroad  combinations  by  law  would 
shortly  compel  the  direct  interference  of  the  same  law- 
making  power  with  the  tariffs  or  special  rates  of  the 
pools  thus  legalized,  for  logically  Congress  would  be 
held  responsible  for  any  and  all  transportation  charges 
made  by  its  creatures.  This  would  be  a  long  step  to- 
wards strict  control  and  eventual  ownership.  As  mat- 
ters stood  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  interstate 
commerce  act,  the  pools  were  gaining  strength  greatly, 


O/V-.V  LETTERS. 


477 


so  much  so  that  astute  men  were  looking  forward  to  :\ 
pool  of  pools  which  sliouM  cover  the  larger  part  of  the 
country.  Even  allowing  for  the  indirect  competition 
of  our  water-ways,  there  would  be  power  enough  in 
such  a  gigantic  pool,  when  formed,  to  require  govern- 
mental action  to  restrain  it.  In  this  view  of  the  case 
the  prohibition  of  pools  might  be  described  as  an  ef- 
fort of  the  American  people  to  avert  government  ov,  n- 
ersliip,  or.at  least,  exacting  regulation  of  railroads. 

U'eare  witnessing  a  struggle  between  the  theories  of 
competition,  or  individualism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on 
the  other  of  state  control  of  those  monopolies  which  are 
public  in  their  character  and  chartered  by  the  Govern- 
ment. As  before  remarked,  in  municipal  affairs  we 
are  rapidly  deciding  against  individual  and  in  favor 
of  city  administration.  Around  the  railroads  of  the 
country  will  finally  be  fought  a  battle  which,  on  ac- 
count of  the  difficulties  and  conflicting  interests  in- 
volved, will  be  the  fiercest  of  all.  If  this  prohibition 
of  pooling,  which  is  but  an  experiment,  shall  prove 
disastrous  to  investments  and  to  commerce  through 
repeated  railway  wars ;  or  if,  which  is  its  undoubted 
tendency,  it  unduly  favor  a  consolidation  of  existing 
independent  lines  into  fewer  great  systems,  so  as  thus 
in  time  to  defeat  its  own  hopes  of  introducing  enough 
honest  competition  to  be  a  regulator  of  charges;  if,  in 
short,  we  must  confess  that  the  abolition  of  a  division 
of  the  earnings  between  rival  railroads  has  proved  a 
failure,  then  the  great  question  of  individual  versus  gov- 
ernmental control  of  transportation  will  be  upon  us: 
if  this  question  be  squarely  presented  to  our  citizens, 
judging  from  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  we  cannot 
doubt  what  the  issue  will  be.  The  prohibition  of 
railroad  pooling,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  at  least  postpone 
that  conflict  until,  through  a  better  civil  service  and  in 
other  ways,  the  nation  is  ready  for  the  question. 

The  legalizing  of  pools  would  have  precipitated  the 
struggle;  ignoring  them  would  have  delayed  it ;  pro- 
hibiting them  has  postponed  and  may  avoid  it:  while 
in  the  event  of  its  coming  we  have  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  we  have  done  what  we  could  towards 
keeping  the  simpler  forms  of  our  government. 

Thomas  L.  Greene. 
Matthew  Arnold  and  Franklin. 

IN  the  reference  to  Franklin's  project  for  a  new  ver- 
sion of  the  Book  of  Job  (quoted  by  Burroughs  in  the 
June  CENTURY,  p.  189)  Matthew  Arnold  has  rather 
ludicrously  mistaken  the  entire  point  of  Franklin's/<r« 
if  esprit,  a  little  satire  on  the  court  of  George  III.,  for 
such  only  it  was,  and  as  far  as  possible  from  a  serious 
project  for  a  new  version  of  the  Book  of  Job.  Franklin, 
under  pretext  of  modernizing  the  language  of  the 
Bible,  sought  to  expose  the  purely  selfish  character  of 
the  devotion  of  the  English  courtiers  to  their  sovereign 
and  the  degrading  terms  upon  which  only  that  devotion 
was  perpetuated. 

The  point  is  disclosed  in  the  last  three  verses  of  his 
paraphrase : 

"9.  And  Satan  answered,  Does  your  Majesty  imagine 
that  his  good  conduct  is  the  effect  of  mere  personal 
attachment  and  affection  ? 

"  10.  Have  you  not  protected  him,  and  heaped  your 
benefits  upon  him,  till  he  is  grown  enormously  rich? 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 67.  • 


"II.  Try  him.  Only  withdraw  your  favor,  turn  him 
out  of  his  places  and  withhold  his  pensions,  and  you 
will  soon  find  him  in  opposition." 

John  Jiigflow. 


Mary    Magdalene. 

THE  Rev.  P.  11.  Temple,  of  Los  Gatos,  California, 

having  taken  exception  to  Mr.  Kennan's  allusion  (in 
his  article  on  Russian  State  Prisons,  in  the  March 
CENTURY)  to  Mary  Magdalene  as  the  woman  of  whom 
Christ  said,  "  She  hath  done  what  she  could,"  Mr. 
Kennan  writes  as  follows  : 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Temple  seems  to  be  right  about  Mary 
Magdalene;  but  as  the  mistake  is  a  very  old  and  a  very 
general  one,  and  has  even  gotten  itself  intrenched  in  lit- 
erature and  in  art,  1  trust  that  I  shall  be  excused  for  the 
slip.  The  old  masters  often  represented  Mary  Magdalene 
with  long  and  abundant  hair  and  with  a  box  of  ointment 
in  her  hands.  (See  Brewer,  under  head  of"  Mary  Magda- 
lene.") Furthermore,  if  Mary  Magdalene  was  not  the 
woman  referred  to  by  Luke  as  anointing  Christ's  feet, 
then  there  is  not  so  much  as  an  intimation  in  all  the  New 
Testament  that  Mary  Magdalene  was  a  repentantcourte- 
san  ;  and  the  artists  and  lexicographers  are  all  wrong  in 
calling  a  certain  class  of  women  "  Magdalens."  If  the 
woman  with  the  ointment  was  not  Mary  Magdalene,  then 
Mary  Magdalene  was  not  the  repentant  sinner,  since 
both  suppositions  rest  upon  precisely  the  same  evidence. 

It  is  manifest  upon  investigation  that  for  many  cen- 
turies at  least  the  sinful  but  repentant  woman  who 
anointed  Christ's  feet,  as  described  in  Luke  vii.  37-50, 
has  been  erroneously  confused  with  Mary  Magdalene. 
Even  Brewer  says,  "  Mary  Magdalene,  patron  saint 
of  penitents,  being  herself  the  model  penitent  of  Gospel 
history."  This  is  not  true,  unless  the  woman  who 
anointed  Christ's  feet  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair,  as 
related  by  Luke,  was  Mary  Magdalene. 

I  am  satisfied  upon  examination,  first,  that  Mr.  Tem- 
ple is  right ;  secondly,  that  the  Gospels  contain  accounts 
of  at  least  two  anointings  by  different  women  ;  thirdly, 
that  neither  of  these  women  was  intended  by  the  chroni- 
cler for  Mary  Magdalene ;  and  fourthly,  that  Mary 
Magdalene  was  neither  the  anointer  nor  the  repentant 
courtesan,  although  she  has,  forcenturies,  been  regarded, 
described,  and  pictured  as  both. 

On  this  subject  a  Bible  commentator  writes  to  us  : 

I  do  not  think  there  is  anything  more  to  say  than  that 
Mr.  Kennan,  in  his  letter,  has  correctly  stated  the  facts. 
Mary  Magdalene  is  described  as  a  woman  out  of  whom 
Jesus  cast  seven  devils ;  and  has  been  ecclesiastically 
identified  with  the  "  woman  which  was  a  sinner  "  who 
anointed  Christ's  feet  with  an  ointment,  etc.  (Luke  vii.  36- 
50).  But  there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  identifying  Mary 
Magdalene  with  this  woman.  This  anointing,  again,  is 
by  some  critics  identified  with  the  anointing  by  Mary, 
the  sister  of  Martha,  described  in  Matthew,  chapter  xxvi., 
Mark,  chapter  xiv.,  and  John,  chapter  xii.  Nearly  all 
evangelical  critics,  however,  and  I  think  all  the  better  bib- 
lical scholarship,  regard  these  as  two  distinct  anointings. 
Thus  there  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  Mary  of 
whom  Christ  said,  "  She  hath  done  what  she  conld,"  is 
the  "  woman  which  was  a  sinner,"  and  none  whatever 
for  supposing  that  the  "  woman  which  was  a  sinner  "  is  to 
be  identified  with  Mary  Magdalene.  Mr.  Kennan's  slip, 
however,  is  wholly  immaterial  and  one  hardly  now  call- 
ing for  any  correction.  If  you  thought  otherwise,  you 
could  not  make  the  correction  better  than  by  quoting 
from  Mr.  Kennan's  letter,  which  I  return  toyou'herewith. 

"We-uns"  and  "You-uns." 

I  HAVE  noticed  that  some  writers  in  THE  CENTURY 
make  Southern  people  say  "  we-uns  "  and  "you-uns." 
This  is  notably  the  case  in  the  "  Recollections  of  a  Pri- 
vate," by  Warren  Lee  Goss.  Mr.  Goss  attributes  this 
peculiarity  of  speech  to  the  people  of  one  of  the  Vir- 
ginia peninsulas,  consisting  of  the  counties  of  Elizabeth 


478 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


City,  Warwick,  York,  and  James  City.  I  was  born  and 
reared  in  Gloucester  County,  which  is  separated  from 
York  and  James  City  counties  by  the  York  River.  I 
know  the  people  of  those  counties.  I  have  taught  in 
two  counties  of  Virginia,  and  I  also  taught  some 
months  in  South  Carolina.  I  spent  several  months  in 
Florida  in  1883.  While  at  college  in  Richmond,  Va., 
I  met  representatives  from  every  section  of  this  State. 
I  know  all  classes  of  people  in  Tidewater  Virginia,  the 
uneducated  as  well  as  the  educated.  I  have  never  heard 
anyone  say  "we-uns"  or  "you-uns."  I  have  asked 
many  people  about  these  expressions.  I  have  never 
yet  found  any  one  who  ever  heard  a  Virginian  use  them. 
The  people  of  Tidewater  Virginia  have  some  provin- 
cialisms, but  on  the  whole  they  use  better  English 
than  is  generally  spoken  in  the  United  States. 


L.   C.  Catletl. 


GLOUCESTER  C.  H.,  VA. 


Lincoln  and  Secession. 

WHEN  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  those  suggestive  questions 
as  to  the  relative  rights  of  State  and  county,  pointing 
the  inevitable  conclusion  that  if  a  State  were  permitted 
to  treat  the  bond  between  itself  and  the  General  Gov- 
ernment as  "  no  regular  marriage,  but  a  sort  of  free- 
love  arrangement,"  *  then  a  county  might  assume  that 
its  relation  to  the  States  was  of  the  same  nature,  he  per- 


haps had  no  thought  that  before  the  end  of  the  year 
the  logic  of  his  deduction  would  have  the  attestation  of 
fact.  But  one  county  at  least  did  so  interpret  and 
practice  the  doctrine  of  secession.  When  Tennessee 
was  halting  between  loyalty  and  rebellion,  the  seces- 
sion element  grew  very  impatient ;  and  in  Franklin 
County,  on  the  southern  border  of  the  State,  this  im- 
patience finally  culminated  in  an  indignant  county  con- 
vention, and  the  passage  —  by  acclamation,  I  believe  — 
of  "  a  solemn  ordinance  of  secession  from  the  State  of 
Tennessee." 

That  it  did  not  indulge  in  mere  idle  vaporing,  the 
county  gave  prompt  proof  by  putting  into  the  field  a 
force  equal  to  two-thirds  of  its  entire  voting  popula- 
tion. 

Amidsttheexcitingevents  and  rapidly  moving  scenes 
of  that  first  act  in  our  great  drama,  this  rather  comic- 
looking  bit  of  tragedy  (the  actors  found  it  to  be  that) 
escaped  general  notice. 

But  it  is  interesting  as  another  illustration  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  unfailing  clear-headedness.  It  gives  curious 
proof,  too,  of  the  madness  that  was  then  epidemic  in 
even  the  more  sober-minded  of  the  Southern  States. 

M.   C.  Roseboro. 


*See  page  266  of  THE  CENTURY  for  December,  18 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Folly   Land. 

IN  Folly  land  what  witchery  ! 
What  pretty  looks,  what  eyes  there  be  ; 
What  gamesome  ways,  what  dimpled  smiles ; 
What  lissome  limbs,  what  frolic  wiles ; 
What  easy  laughter,  fresh  and  clear  ; 
What  pranks  to  play,  what  jests  to  hear ! 
Old  Time  forgets  to  shake  his  sand  ; 
The  Days  go  tripping,  hand  in  hand, 
In  Folly  land,  in  Folly  land. 

In  Folly  land,  one  idle  hour, 

The  moonlight  had  a  wizard  power ; 

Its  fairy  glamour  turned  my  brain: 

I  would  that  I  were  there  again  ! 

We  stood  together,  'neath  the  sky ; 

A  bird  was  chirping  drowsily ; 

He  smiled,  he  sighed,  he  held  my  hand. 

Ah  me  !   Ah  well, —  we  understand, 

'T  was  Folly  land,  't  was  Folly  land  ! 

My  sober  friend,  how  worn  your  looks ! 

Your  heart  is  in  your  moldy  books. 

Here  's  half  a  cobweb  on  your  brow ! 

I  seldom  see  you  jovial  now. 

Fling  down  your  volumes  and  be  free 

To  take  a  pleasure-trip  with  me. 

Come,  "Here  's  my  heart,  and  here  's  my  hand!  " 

We  Ml  launch  our  skiff,  and  seek  the  strand 

Of  Folly  land,  of  Folly  land. 

Danske  Dandridge. 


Uncle    Esek's    Wisdom. 

THE  man  who  knows  the  most  of  himself  is  the  best 
judge  of  his  neighbor. 

WHAT  mankind  want  is  mercy.  Justice  would  ruin 
most  of  them. 

HABITS,  reputations,  and  opinions  are  ever  chang- 
ing, but  character  is  always  the  same. 

THERE  are  heroes  in  every  department  of  life, —  a 
faithful  servant  is  one  of  them. 

HE  who  is  a  fool  and  knows  it  can  very  easily  pass 
himself  off  for  a  wise  man. 

THE  man  who  has  a  little  more  to  do  than  he  can 
attend  to  has  no  time  to  be  miserable  in. 

IT  may  be  possible  for  three  persons  to  keep  a  se- 
cret, provided  two  of  them  are  dead. 

METAPHYSICS  seems  to  be  the  science  of  knowing 
more  than  we  can  tell,  and  at  the  same  time  telling 
more  than  we  know. 

WHATEVER  we  get  in  this  world  we  not  only  have 
got  to  ask  for,  but  to  insist  upon  ;  giving  away  tilings 
is  not  a  human  weakness. 

THE  city  is  the  place  to  study  character.  After  you 
have  measured  the  postmaster,  the  blacksmith,  and  the 
justice  of  the  peace  in  the  country  village,  you  have 
got  the  size  of  the  whole  town. 

Uncle  Esek. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


479 


To  J.   W.    R. 


IN  summer  I  'm  a-raisin'  flowers, 

An'  gardenin',  an'  weedin', 
But  iliirin'  o'  tlie  winter  hours 

I  do  a  deal  o'  readin' ; 
An'  Ihr'  's  "lie  man  with  scch  an  art 

O'sittin'  ihoujrhls  a-i  liyniin', 
I-.,-  in.iUrs  a  lei'lin'  in  my  heart 

!•'./.  swret  <•/.  hells  a-cliimin'. 

I  read  a  piece  o'  his  to-day 

(It  's  goin'  'round  the  papers) — 
Tin-  words  wuz  dancin'  all  tlie  way 

An'  cuttin'  happy  capers, 
An'  shinin'  up  to  meet  my  eye 

Jes  like  my  blushin1  roses 
A-smilin'  as  I  pass  'em  by  — 

The  dearest  o'  my  posies. 

A-hummin'  right  along  it  goes, 

Like  bees  among  the  clove'r  ; 
li  says  the  honeysuckle-blows 

Are  vases  tippin'  over 
An"  spillin'  odors  all  around 

Upon  the  breezes  floatin'. 
That 's  jes  the  sense,  an'  not  the  sound  - 

I  "m  ruther  poor  at  quotin". 

One  piece  was  in  a  magazine, 

It  made  my  old  eyes  water 
(The  man  with  naught  to  say,  I  mean, 

\Vho  said  it  to  his  daughter) ; 
But  when  I  read,  "  Take  keer  yerse'f," 

An'  how  poor  Jim  lay  dyin', 
I  flung  the  paper  on  the  shelf 

An'  boo-hooed  out  a-cryin'. 

I  'm  jes  a  plain,  hard-workin'  man 

An'  lackin'  eddication, 
An'  writin'  things  ez  some  folks  can 

Puts  'em  above  my  station  ; 
But,  arter  all,  I  'm  some  like  him 

Whose  rhymin's  please  me  highly, 
For  jes  to  think  I  ain't  like  him 

Does  sort  o'  make  me  Riley. 


Patty  Caryl. 


Mac's  Old  Horse. 


horse  is  that  away  by  the  railin', 

Lookin'  so  gayly,  an"  sleek,  an'  fat  ? 
(Ircat  Scotland,  man  !   Why  never,  surely! 

You  can't  be  askin'  what  horse  is  that! 
Not  know  him  ?  Old  Billy  ?   Mac's  pony  ! 

Whar  'd  you  come  from,  stranger  —  say? 
Some  outlandish  divide,  I  reckon, 

Or  else  you  'd  a-hearn  o'  the  good  old  bay. 

New  to  the  country,  I  'm  thinkin',  stranger? 

Tenderfoot !     Fresh  on  the  range,  o'  course. 
There  is  n't  a  fellow  in  western  Texas 

But  tumbles  to  chat  about  that  old  horse. 
A  good  one  ?     Yes,  he  's  a  dandy,  surely ; 

They  raise  none  better  whar  that  un  grew, 
Mac  an'  the  boys  would  smile  to  hear  me 

Introducin'  that  nag  to  you. 

A  pioneer?     Well,  I  should  n't  wonder 

If  he  was  a  sort  of  a  one  out  here. 
Mac's  own  "  locale  "  ain't  a  recent  issue, 

And  Billy  's  beat  him  a  good  nine  year. 
Thar  is  n't  a  trail  on  the  prairie  yonder, 

Rollin'  away  thar  beyond  your  view, 
Nor  a  wagon  track,  nor  a  foot  of  country, 

Unfamiliar  to  that  old  shoe. 


Knowin'  ?     You  bet !     Why,  the  boys  was  tellin' 

A  tale  o'  the  old  horse  here  one  day, 
That  freezes  intelligence  merely  human 

Out  of  the  country  —  clean  away. 
Anxious  to  hear  it  ?     Well,  r'a'ly,  stranger, 

I  'm  green  at  the  business  o'  yarnin' —  still, 
If  you  're  sot  —  Here's  luck!  Nowyer  pipe  needs  fillin'; 

Fasten  yer  boots  to  the  window-sill. 

More  than  a  year  agone  this  season 

Mac  was  abroad  on  a  big  survey, 
Away  beyond  the  Canadian  country 

Campin'  out  with  the  good  old  bay. 
The  feelin'  a  man  on  the  border  ranges 

Gives  to  his  horse  is  a  love  so  true, 
An'  stout  o'  grip,  that  an  Kastern  coot,  sir, 

Could  n't  begin  fur  to  gauge  it  through. 

Darkness  out  on  the  prairie,  stranger, 

Drops  on  the  earth  like  a  funeral  pall, 
An'  travelers  peltin'  along  seem  borin" 

A  tunnel  out  through  a  big,  black  wall. 
It  's  lonely,  too,  in  the  depth  o'  midnight, 

When  stars  up  yonder  are  burnin"  dim 
An'  the  wind  an'  you  are  the  sole  things  movin" 

In  the  belt  o'  the  far  horizon  rim. 

Over  the  border  ranges  speedin' 

Mac  an'  the  outfit  came  thai  night, 
Strainin'  to  make  the  post  by  daybreak  — 

Ridin'  by  faith,  fur  the  lack  o'  sight. 
Splittin'  along  through  the  dark  an'  silence 

All  of  a  sudden  the  old  bay  horse 
Stood  in  his  tracks  like  a  graven  image, 

Thar  in  the  midst  o'  his  headlong  course. 

Mac,  he  coaxed,  an'  he  spurred,  an'  grumbled, 

Billy  was  holdin"  the  fort,  you  bet ; 
Muscles  steady,  an*  sinews  strung,  sir, 

Head  thrown  back'rd,  an'  forefeet  set. 
Mac  cussed  hard  as  he  peered  around  him, 

Nary  a  thing  could  he  find  or  see; 
Never  a  ghost,  nor  a  witch,  nor  spirit, 

Nor  even  the  trunk  of  a  blasted  tree. 

Well,  sir,  findin'  the  horse  meant  business, 

Mac  dismounted  an'  rustled  round, 
Huntin'  a  hole,  or  an  old  dog  village, 

Or  anythin'  else  to  be  felt  or  found ; 
An'  thar  right  away  in  the  track  before  him 

The  prairie  yawned,  an'  the  ground  just  fell 
Sheer  in  a  canon  a  hundred  fathoms  — 

Deep  an'  black  as  the  mouth  of  hell. 

Killed  ?     Well,  I  reckon  a  fall  like  that,  sir, 

Over  the  side  of  a  canon  wall, 
Ain't  quite  so  healthy  a  pastime,  maybe, 

As  snakin'  a  leg  at  a  rancher's  ball. 
An'  sure  as  a  gun,  that  night  I  tell  of, 

Mac  an'  the  brute  would  'r  shaped  a  course, 
Freight  close  laid,  fur  a  better  country, 

But  fur  the  sense  o'  the  old  bay  horse. 

Sell that  horse  !  Old  Billy!     Now,  stranger, 

You  must  be  runnin'  insurance  high 
To  ask  a  question  like  that  in  Texas, 

An'  look  to  a  man  for  a  soft  reply : 
Or  else  you  're  jokin' !    A  poor  jest,  surely, 

An'  one  unbecomin'  a  man  to  make; 
I  would  n't  repeat  it  to  Mac  exactly, 

Unless  I  was  willing  to  move  my  stake. 

M.  G.  McClelland. 

[A  crude  version  of  the  above  by  the  author  ap- 
peared in  a  newspaper  several  years  ago.  ] 


480 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Gladness. 

MY  ole  man  named  Silas :  he 
Dead  long  To'  ole  Gin'l  Lee 
S'rendah,  whense  de  Wall  wuz  done. 
Yanks  dey  tuk  de  plantation  — 
Mos'  high-handed  evah  you  see  !  — 
Das  rack  roun',  an'  fiah  an'  bu'n, 
An'  jab  de  beds  wid  deir  baynet-gun, 
An'  sweah  \ve  niggahs  all  scotch-free. — 
An'  massali  John  C.   Pemberton 
Das  tuk  an'  run ! 

"  Gord  Armighty,  marm  !  "  he  'low, 
"  He'p  you  an'  de  chillcn  now  !  " 
Blaze  crack  out  'n  de  roof  inside 
Tel  de  big  house  all  das  charified! 
Smoke  roll  out  "n  de  ole  hay-mow 
An'  de  wa'house  do' — an'  de  fiah  das  roah — 
An'  all  dat 'backer,  'bout  half  dried, 
Hit  smell  das  fried ! 

Nelse,  my  ol'est  boy,  an'  John  — 
Alter  de  baby  das  wuz  bo'n, 
Erlongse  dem  times,  an'  lak  ter  a-died, 
An'  Silas  he  be'n  slip  an'  gone 
'Bout  eight  weeks  ter  de  Union  side, — 
Dem  two  boys  dey  start  fo'  ter  fine 
An'  jine  deir  fader  acrost  de  line. 
Ovahseeah  he  wade  an'  tromp 
Evah-which-way  fo'  ter  track  'em  down  — 
Sic  de  bloodhoun'  fro'  de  swamp  — 
An'  bring  de  news  dat  John  he  drown' — 
But  dey  save  de  houn' ! 

Someway  ner  Nelse  git  fro', 
An'  fight  fo'  de  ole  Red,  White,  an'  Blue, 
Lak  his  fader  is,  ter  er  heart's  delight  — 
An'  nen  crope  back  wid  de  news,  one  night, 
Sayes,  "  Fader  's  killed  in  a  skrimmage- fight, 
An'  saunt  farewell  ter  ye  all,  an'  sayes 
Fo'  ter  name  de  baby  '  Gladness,'  caze 
Mighty  nigh  she  'uz   be'n  borned  free  !  " 
An'  de  boy  he  smile  so  strange  at  me 
I  sayes,  "  Yo  's  hurt,  yo'se'f!  "  an'  he 
Sayes,  "  I  's  killed,  too  —  an'  dat  's  all  else !  " 
An'  dah  lay  Nelse ! 

Hope  an'  Angrish,  de  twins,  be'n  sole 
'Fo'  dey  mo  'n  twelve-year-ole  : 
An1  Mary  Magdeline  sole  too. 
An'  dah  I  's  lef,  wid  Knox  Andrew, 
An'  Lily,  and  Maje,  an'  Margaret, 
An'  little  gal-babe,  'at  's  borned  dat  new 
She  scaisely  ole  fo'  ter  be  named  yet  — 
Less  'n  de  name  'at  Si  say  to  — 
An'  co'se  hit  do. 

An'  I  taken  dem  chillen,  evah  one 
(An'  a-oh  my  Mastah's  will  be  done  !  ), 
An'  I  break  fo'  de  Norf,  wha  dey  all  raised  free, 
(An'  a-oh  good  Mastah,  come  git  me !  ) 
Knox  Andrew,  on  de  day  he  died, 
Lef  his  fambly  er  shop  an"  er  lot  berside ; 
An'  Maje  die  ownin'  er  team — an"  he 
LeP  all  ter  me. 

Lily  she  work  at  de  Gran'  Hotel  — • 

( Mastah !   Mastah  !   Take  me  —  do  !  ) 

An'  Lily  she  ain'  married  well  — 

He  stob  a  man  —  an'  she  die  too ; 

An'  Margaret  she  too  full  er  pride 

Ter  own  her  kin  tel  er  day  she  died  ! 

But  Gladness  !  —  'tain  soun'  sho-nuff  true, 

Yit  she  teached  school !  —  an'  er  white  folks,  too, 

Ruspec'  dat  gal  'mos'  high  es  I  do ! 


Caze  she  uz  de  bes'  an  de  mos'  high  bred  — 
De  las'  chile  bo'n,  an'  de  las'  chile  dead 
O'  all  ten  head ! 


Gladness  !   Gladness  !  a-oh  my  chile ! 
Wa'm  my  soul  in  yo'  sweet  smile ! 
Daughter  o'  Silas !  o-rise  an'  sing 
Tel  er  heart-beat  pat  lak  er  pigeon-wing ! 
Sayes,  O  Gladness  !  wake  dem  eyes  — 
Sayes,  a-lif  dem  folded  han's,  an'  rise  — 
Sayes,  a-coax  me  erlong  ter  Paradise, 
An'  a-hail  de  King, 
O  Gladness ! 

James  Wliitcomb  Riley. 


The   Way   to    Win. 

IF  on  the  field  of  love  you  fall, 

With  smiles  conceal  your  pain ; 
Be  not  to  Love  too  sure  a  thrall, 

But  lightly  wear  his  chain. 
Don't  Kiss  the  hem  of  Beauty's  gown, 

Or  tremble  at  her  tear, 
And  when  caprices  weight  you  down, 
A  word  within  your  ear  : 
Another  lass,  another  lass, 

With  laughing  eyes  and  bright  — 
Make  love  to  her, 
And  trust  me,  sir, 
"T  will  set  your  wrongs  aright. 

Whene'er  a  sweetheart  proves  unkind     . 

And  greets  you  with  a  frown, 
Or  laughs  your  passion  to  the  wind, 

The  talk  of  all  the  town, 
Plead  not  your  cause  on  bended  knee 

And  murmured  sighs  prolong, 
But  gather  from  my  minstrelsy 
The  burden  of  my  song : 

Another  lass,  another  lass. — 
There  's  always  beauty  by, — 
Make  love  to  her, 
And  trust  me,  sir, 
'T  will  clear  the  clouded  sky. 

Samuel  Minium  Peck. 


Minnie  vs.  Minerva. 

"  LOVE  me  and  I  will  bring  you  as  my  dower 
Knowledge  and  wisdom  and  perpetual  power." 
So  speaks  Minerva  of  the  azure  eyes, 
Wooing  me  boldly  to  be  overwise. 

Now,  Minnie,  who  is  not  a  Grecian  myth, 
But  a  young  lady  by  the  name  of  Smith, 
Never  says  "  Love  me  "  in  so  bold  a  way, 
But  when  I  rise  to  leave  her  begs  me  stay ; 
Blushes,  or  pales  a  little,  and  lets  down 
Her  long  black  lashes  o'er  her  eyes  of  brown. 

And  so  I  linger ;   though  I  must  admit, 

Delicious  nonsense  is  her  highest  wit ; 

And  what  she  does  n't  know  would  fill  more  books 

Than  Boston's  library  holds  in  all  its  nooks. 

Yet  the  good  humor  of  her  turned-up  face 

Outshines  Minerva's  mass  of  marble  grace; 

And  in  the  race  for  this  weak  heart  of  mine 

Between  fair  Minnie  and  Minerva  fine, 

Although  to  jilt  a  goddess  were  a  sin, 

I  'in  very  much  afraid  that  Minnie  '11  win. 


Henry   W.  Austin. 


DE  VINNE  PRESS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


DRAWN    BY   HENRY   SAND 


GEORGE    KENNAN. 


MIDSUMMER    HOLIDAY   NUMBER. 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI. 


AUGUST,  1888. 


No.  4. 


A    HOME    OF    THE    SILENT    BROTHERHOOD. 


THE    ABBEY   OF    LA   TRAPPE    IN    KENTUCKY. 


ORE  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  have  passed 
away  since  the  Cardinal 
de  Richelieu  stood  at  the 
baptismal  font  as  sponsor 
to  a  name  that  within  the 
pale  of  the  Church  was 
destined  to  become  more 
famous  than  his  own. 
But  the  world  has  well- 
nigh  forgotten  Richelieu's  godson.  Perhaps 
only  the  tireless  student  of  biography  now 
turns  the  pages  that  record  his  extraordinary 
career,  ponders  the  strange  unfolding  of  his 
moral  nature,  is  moved  by  the  deep  pathos 
of  his  dying  hours.  The  demands  of  historic 
clearness  and  perspective  which  enforce  some 
mention  of  him  here  may  not,  therefore,  ap- 
pear unfortunate.  Dominique  Armand-Jean 
le  Bouthillier  de  Ranee !  How  cleverly,  while 
scarcely  out  of  short-clothes,  did  he  puzzle 
the  king's  confessor  with  questions  on  Homer, 
and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  publish  an  edition 
of  Anacreon!  Of  ancient,  illustrious  birth,  and 
heir  to  an  almost  ducal  house,  how  tenderly 
favored  was  he  by  Marie  de  Medicis;  hap- 
py-hearted, kindly,  suasive,  how  idolized  by 
a  gorgeous  court !  In  what  affluence  of  rich 
laces  did  he  dress ;  in  what  irresistible  violet- 
colored  close  coats,  with  emeralds  at  his  wrist- 
bands, a  diamond  on  his  finger,  red  heels  on 
his  shoes !  How  nimbly  he  capered  through 
the  dance  with  a  sword  on  his  hip !  How 
bravely  he  planned  quests  after  the  manner 
of  knights  of  the  Round  Table,  meaning  to 
take  for  himself,  doubtless,  the  part  of  Lan- 
celot! How  exquisitely,  and  ardently,  and  ah ! 
how  fatally  he  flirted  with  the  incomparable 
ladies  in  the  circle  of  Madame  de  Rambouillet ! 


And  with  a  zest  for  sport  as  great  as  his  unc- 
tion for  the  priestly  office,  how  wittily —  laying 
one  hand  on  his  heart  and  waving  the  other 
through  the  air — could  he  bow  and  say,  "This 
morning  I  preached  like  an  angel;  I  '11  hunt 
like  the  devil  this  afternoon !  " 

All  at  once  his  life  broke  in  two  when  half 
spent.  He  ceased  to  hunt  like  the  devil,  to 
adore  the  flesh,  to  scandalize  the  world ;  and 
retiring  to  the  ancient  Abbey  of  La  Trappe 
in  Normandy, — the  sponsorial  gift  of  his  Em- 
inence and  favored  by  many  popes, —  there 
undertook  the  difficult  task  of  reforming  the 
relaxed  Benedictines.  The  old  abbey  —  situ- 
ated in  a  great  fog- covered  basin  encompassed 
by  dense  woods  of  beech,  oak,  and  linden,  and 
therefore  always  gloomy,  unhealthy,  and  for- 
bidding—  was  in  ruins.  One  ascended  by 
means  of  a  ladder  from  floor  to  rotting  floor. 
The  refectory  had  become  a  place  where  the 
monks  assembled  to  play  at  bowls  with  world- 
lings. The  dormitory,  exposed  to  wind,  rain, 
and  snow,  had  been  given  up  to  owls.  Each 
monk  slept  where  he  could  and  would.  In  the 
church  the  stones  were  scattered,  the  walls 
unsteady,  the  pavement  was  broken,  the  bell 
ready  to  fall.  As  a  single  solemn  reminder 
of  the  vanished  spirit  of  the  place,  which  had 
been  founded  by  St.  Stephen  and  St.  Bernard 
in  the  twelfth  century,  with  the  intention  of 
reviving  in  the  Western  Church  the  bright 
examples  of  primitive  sanctity  furnished  by 
Eastern  solitaries  of  the  third  and  fourth,  one 
read  over  the  door  of  the  cloister  the  words 
of  Jeremiah :  Sedebit  solitarius  el  tacebit.  The 
few  monks  who  remained  in  the  convent 
were,  as  Chateaubriand  says,  also  in  a  state 
of  ruins.  They  preferred  sipping  ratafia  to 
reading  their  breviaries;  and  when  De  Ranc6 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.     All  rights  reserved. 


484 


A   HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


undertook  to  enforce  a  reform,  they  threatened 
to  whip  him  well  for  his  pains.  He,  in  turn, 
threatened  them  with  the  royal  interference, 
and  they  submitted.  There,  accordingly,  he 
introduced  a  system  of  rules  that  a  sybarite 
might  have  wept  over  even  to  hear  recited; 
carried  into  practice  cenobitical  austerities 
that  recalled  the  models  of  pious  anchorites 
in  Syria  and  Thebais ;  and  gave  its  peculiar 
meaning  to  the  word  "  Trappist,"  a  name 
which  has  since  been  taken  by  all  Cistercian 
communities  embracing  the  reform  of  the  first 
monastery. 

In  the  retirement  of  this  mass  of  woods  and 
sky  De  Ranee  passed  the  rest  of  his  long  life, 
doing  nothing  more  worldly,  perhaps,  than 
quoting  Aristophanes  and  Horace  to  Bossuet, 
and  allowing  himself  to  be  entertained  by 
Pellisson,  carefully  exhibiting  the  accomplish- 
ments of  his  educated  spider.  There,  in  acute 
agony  of  body  and  perfect  meekness  of  spirit, 
a  worn  and  weary  old  man,  with  time  enough 
to  remember  his  youthful  ardors  and  emeralds 
and  illusions,  he  watched  his  mortal  end  draw 
slowly  near.  And  there,  asking  to  be  buried  in 
some  desolate  spot, —  some  old  battle-field, — 
he  died  at  last,  extending  his  poor  macerated 
body  on  the  cross  of  blessed  cinders  and  straw, 
and  commending  his  poor  penitent  soul  to  the 
pure  mercy  of  Heaven. 

A  wonderful  spectacle  to  the  less  fervid 
Benedictines  of  the  closing  seventeenth  cen- 
tury must  have  seemed  the  work  of  De  Ranee 
in  that  old  Norman  abbey.  A  strange  com- 


pany of  human  souls,  attracted  by  the  former 
distinction  of  the  great  abbot  as  well  as  by 
the  peculiar  vows  of  the  institute,  must  have 
come  together  in  its  silent  halls!  One  hears 
many  stories,  in  the  lighter  vein,  regarding 
some  of  its  inmates.  Thus,  there  was  a  certain 
furious  ex-trooper,  lately  reeking  with  blood, 
it  seems,  who  got  himself  much  commended 
by  living  on  baked  apples,  and  a  young  noble- 
man who  devoted  himself  to  the  work  of  wash- 
ing daily  the  monastery  spittoons.  One  brother, 
the  story  runs,  having  one  day  said  there  was 
too  much  salt  in  his  scalding-hot  broth,  im- 
mediately burst  into  tears  of  contrition  for  his 
wickedness  in  complaining;  and  another  went 
for  so  many  years  without  raising  his  eyes  that 
he  knew  not  a  new  chapel  had  been  built,  and 
so  quite  cracked  his  skull  one  day  against  the 
wall. 

The  abbey  was  an  asylum  for  the  poor  and 
helpless,  the  shipwrecked,  the  conscience- 
stricken,  and  the  broken-hearted  —  for  that 
meditative  type  of  fervid  piety  which  for  ages 
has  looked  upon  the  cloister  as  the  true  earth- 
ly paradise  wherein  to  rear  the  difficult  edifice 
of  the  soul's  salvation.  Much  noble  blood 
sought  De  Ranee's  retreat,  to  wash  out,  if 
might  be,  its  terrifying  stains;  and  more  than 
one  reckless  spirit  went  thither  to  take  upon 
itself  the  yoke  of  purer,  sweeter  usages. 

De  Ranee's  work  remains  an  influence  in 
the  world.  His  monastery  and  his  reform  con- 
stitute the  true  background  of  material  and 
spiritual  fact  against  which  to  outline  the 


BROTHERS. 


,/    IIOMI-:    ()/•'    Till-.    SILEXT  BROTHERHOOD. 


485 


A    FOLLOWER    OF    ST.    JOSEPH. 

present  Abbey  of  La  Trappe  in  Kentucky. 
Even  when  thus  clearly  viewed,  it  seems 
placed  where  it  is  only  by  some  freak  of  his- 
tory. An  abbey  of  La  Trappe  in  Kentucky  ! 
How  utterly  inharmonious  with  every  element 
of  its  environment  appears  this  fragment  of 
old  French  monastic  life!  It  is  the  twelfth 
century  touching  the  last  of  the  nineteenth 
—  the  Old  World  reappearing  in  the  New. 
Here  are  French  faces  —  here  is  the  French 
tongue.  Here  is  the  identical  white  cowl  pre- 
sented to  blessed  St.  Alberick  in  the  forests 
of  Burgundy  nine  hundred  years  ago.  Here 
is  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  patriarch  of  the 
Western  monks  in  the  sixth  century.  When 
one  is  put  out  at  the  wayside  station,  amidst 
woodlands  and  fields  of  Indian-corn,  and,  leav- 
ing all  the  world  behind  him,  turns  his  foot- 
steps across  the  country  towards  the  abbey 
more  than  a  mile  away,  the  seclusion  of  the 
region,  its  ineffable  quietude,  the  infinite  spir- 
itual isolation  of  the  life  passed  by  the  silent 
brotherhood  —  all  bring  vividly  before  the 
mind  the  image  of  that  ancient  distant  abbey 
with  which  this  one  holds  connection  so  sacred 
and  so  close.  Is  it  not  the  veritable  spot  in 
Normandy  ?  Here  too  is  the  broad  basin  of 
retired  country;  here  are  the  densely  wooded 
hills,  shutting  it  in  from  all  the  world ;  here 
the  orchards  and  vineyards  and  gardens  of 
the  ascetic  devotees;  and  as  the  night  falls 
from  the  low  blurred  sky  of  ashen-gray,  and 
cuts  short  a  silent  contemplation  of  the  scene, 
here  too  one  finds  one's  self,  like  some  belated 
traveler  in  the  dangerous  forests  of  old,  hurry- 
ing on  to  reach  the  porter's  lodge  and  ask  ad- 
mission within  the  sacred  walls  to  enjoy  the 


hospitality  of  the  venerable 
abbot.  It  is  interesting  to  in- 
quire how  this  religious  exotic 
from  another  clime  and  an- 
other age  ever  came  to  be 
planted  in  such  a  spot. 

n. 

FOR  nearly  a  century  after 
the  death  of  De  Ranee  it  is 
known  that  his  followers 
faithfully  maintained  his  re- 
form at  La  Trappe.  Then  the 
French  Revolution  drove  the 
Trappists  as  wanderers  into 
various  countries,  and  the  ab- 
bey was  made  a  foundry  for 
cannon.  A  small  branch  of 
the  order  came  in  1804  to  the 
United  States  and  established 
itself  for  a  while  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, butsoon  turned  its  eyes 
towards  the  greater  wilds  and 
solitudes  of  Kentucky.  For  this  there  was  suf- 
ficient reason.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
Kentucky  was  early  a  great  pioneer  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States.  Here 
the  first  episcopal  see  of  the  West  was  erect- 
ed, and  Bardstown  held  spiritual  jurisdiction, 
within  certain  parallels  of  latitude,  over  all 
States  and  Territories  between  the  two  oceans. 
Here  too  were  the  first  Catholic  missionaries  of 
the  West,  except  those  who  were  to  be  found 
in  the  French  stations  along  the  Wabash  and 
the  Mississippi.  Indeed,  the  Catholic  popula- 
tion of  Kentucky,  which  was  principally  de- 
scended from  the  colonists  of  Lord  Baltimore, 
had  begun  to  enter  the  State  as  early  as  1775, 
the  nucleus  of  their  settlements  soon  becoming 
Nelson  County,  the  locality  of  the  present  ab- 
bey. Likewise  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  es- 
pecially that  portion  of  it  in  Kentucky,  owes 
a  great  debt  to  the  zeal  of  the  exiled  French 
clergy  of  those  early  clays.  That  buoyancy  and 
elasticity  of  the  French 
character  which  nat- 
urally adapts  it  to 
every  circumstance 
and  emergency  was 
then  most  demanded 
and  most  efficacious. 
From  these  exiles  the 
infant  missions  of  the 
State  were  supplied 
with  their  most  de- 
voted laborers. 

Hither,  according- 
ly, the  Trappists  re- 
moved from  Pennsyl- 


486 


A   HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


OFFICE    OF    THE    FATHER    PRIOR. 

vania,  establishing  themselves  on  Pottinger's 
Creek,  near  Rohan's  Knob,  several  miles 
from  the  present  site.  But  they  remained 
only  a  few  years.  The  climate  of  Kentucky 
was  deemed  ill  suited  to  their  life  of  unre- 
laxed  asceticism,  and,  moreover,  their  restless 
superior  had  conceived  a  desire  to  Chris- 
tianize Indian  children,  and  so  removed  the 
languishing  settlement  to  Missouri.  There 
is  not  space  for  following  the  solemn  march 
of  those  austere  exiles  through  the  wilder- 
nesses of  the  New  World.  From  Missouri 
they  went  to  an  ancient  Indian  burying- 
ground  in  Illinois  and  there  built  up  a  sort 
of  village  in  the  heart  of  the  prairie ;  but  the 
great  mortality  from  which  they  suffered  and 
the  subsidence  of  the  fury  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution recalled  them  in  1813  to  France,  to 
reoccupy  the  establishments  from  which  they 
had  been  banished. 

It  was  of  this  body  that  Dickens,  in  his 
"  American  Notes,"  wrote  as  follows : 

Looming  up  in  the  distance, as  we  rode  along,  was  an- 
other of  the  ancient  Indian  burial-places,  called  Monk's 
Mound,  in  memory  of  a  body  of  fanatics  of  the  order 
of  La  Trappe,  who  founded  a  desolate  convent  there 
many  years  ago,  when  there  were  no  settlements 
within  a  thousand  miles,  and  were  all  swept  off  by  the 
pernicious  climate;  in  which  lamentable  fatality  few 
rational  people  will  suppose,  perhaps,  that  society  ex- 
perienced any  very  severe  deprivation. 

But  it  is  almost  too  late  to  say  that  in  these 
"  Notes "  Dickens  was  not  always  either 
kindly  or  correct. 

This  is  a  better  place  in  which  to  state  a 
miracle  than  to  discuss  it;  and  the  following 
account  of  a  heavenly  portent,  which  is  re- 
lated to  have  been  vouchsafed  the  Trappists 
while  sojourning  in  Kentucky,  may  be  given 
without  comment: 

In  the  year  1808  the  moon,  being  then  about  two- 
thirds  full,  presented  a  most  remarkable  appearance. 
A  bright,  luminous  cross,  clearly  denned,  was  seen  in 
the  heavens,  with  its  arms  intersecting  the  center  of 


the  moon.  On  each  side  two  smaller  crosses  were  also 
distinctly  visible,  though  the  portions  of  them  most 
distant  from  the  moon  were  more  faintly  marked. 
This  strange  phenomenon  continued  for  several  hours 
and  was  witnessed  by  the  Trappists  on  their  arising, 
as  usual,  at  midnight,  to  sing  the  Divine  praise. 

The  present  monastery,  which  is  called  the 
Abbey  of  Gethsemane,  owes  its  origin  imme- 
diately to  the  Abbey  of  La  Meilleraye,  of  the 
department  of  the  Loire-Inferieure,  France. 
The  abbot  of  the  latter  had  concluded  arrange- 
ments with  the  French  Government  to  found 
a  house  in  the  island  of  Martinique  on  an  es- 
tate granted  by  Louis  Philippe;  but  this  mon- 
arch's rule  having  been  overturned,  the  plan 
was  abandoned  in  favor  of  a  colony  in  the 
United  States.  Two  fathers,  with  the  view  of 
selecting  a  site,  came  to  New  York  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1848,  and  naturally  turned  their  eyes  to 
the  Catholic  settlements  in  Kentucky  and  to 
the  domain  of  the  pioneer  Trappists.  In  the 
autumn  of  that  year,  accordingly,  about  forty- 
five  "  religious  "  left  the  mother-abbey  of  La 
Meilleraye,  set  sail  from  Havre  de  Grace  for 
New  Orleans,  went  thence  by  boat  to  Louis- 
ville, and  from  this  point  walked  to  Gethsem- 
ane, a  distance  of  some  sixty  miles.  Although 
scattered  among  various  countries  of  Europe, 
the  Trappists  have  but  two  convents  in  the 
United  States — this,  the  oldest,  and  one  near 
Dubuque,  Iowa,  a  colony  from  the  abbey  in 
Ireland. 


" 


BY    THE     WALL. 


A   HOME   OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


487 


in. 


THE  domain  of  the  abbey  comprises  some 
seventeen  hundred  acres  of  land,  part  of  which 
is  tillable,  while  the  rest  consists  of  a  range  of 
wooded  knobs  that  furnish  timber  to  the  mon- 
astery steam  saw-mill.  Around  this  domain 
lie  the  homesteads  of  Kentucky  farmers,  who 
make,  alas  !  indifferent  monks.  One  leaves  the 
public  road  that  winds  across  the  open  coun- 
try and  approaches  the  monastery  through  a 
long  level  avenue,  inclosed  on  each  side  by 
a  hedge-row  of  cedars  and  shaded  by  nearly 
a  hundred  beautiful  English  elms,  all  the  off- 
spring of  a  single  parent  stem.  Traversing 
this  dim,  sweet  spot,  where  no  sound  is  heard 
but  the  waving  of  boughs  and  the  softened 
notes  of  birds,  one  reaches  the  porter's  lodge, 
a  low  brick  building,  on  each  side  of  which 
extends  the  high  brick  wall  that  separates 
the  inner  from  the  outer  world.  Passing  be- 
neath the  archway  of  the  lodge,  one  discov- 
ers a  graceful  bit  of  landscape  gardening  — 
walks  fringed  with  cedars,  elaborately  de- 
signed beds  for  flowers,  pathways  so  thickly 
strewn  with  sawdust  that  the  heaviest  foot- 
fall is  unheard,  a  soft  turf  of  green  traversed 
only  by  the  gentle  shadows  of  the  pious-look- 
ing Benedictine  trees :  a  fit  spot  for  recrea- 
tion and  meditation.  It  is  with  a  sort  of 
worldly  start  that  you  come  upon  an  inclos- 
ure  at  one  end  of  these  grounds  wherein  a 
populous  family  of  white-cowled  rabbits  tip 
around  in  the  most  noiseless  fashion. 

Architecturally  there  is 
little  to  please  the  aes- 
thetic sense  in  the  monas- 
tery building,  along  the 
whole  front  of  which  these 
grounds  extend.  It  is 
a  great  quadrangular  pile 
of  brick,  three  stories 
high,  heated  by  furnaces 
and  lighted  by  gas  — 
modern  appliances  which 
heighten  the  contrast  with 
the  ancient  life  whose 
needs  they  subserve.  With- 
in the  quadrangle  is  a 
green  inner  court,  also 
beautifully  laid  off.  One 
side  of  it  consists  of  two 
chapels,  the  one  appropriated  to  the  ordinary 
services  of  the  Church  and  entered  from  with- 
out the  abbey- wall  by  all  who  desire;  the 
other,  consecrated  to  the  offices  of  the  Trap- 
pist  order,  entered  only  from  within,  and  ac- 
cessible exclusively  to  males.  It  is  here  that 
one  finds  occasion  to  remember  the  Trappist's 
vow  of  poverty.  The  vestments  are  far  from 
rich,  the  decorations  of  the  altar  far  from  splen- 


WITHIN    THE    GATES. 


did.  The  crucifixion  scene  behind  the  altar 
consists  of  wooden  figures  carved  by  one  of 
the  monks  now  dead  and  painted  with  little  art. 
No  tender  light  of  many  hues  here  streams 
through  long  windows  rich  with  holy  remi- 
niscence and  artistic  fancy.  The  church  has, 
albeit,  a  certain  beauty  of  its  own — that 
charm  which  is  inseparable  from  fine  propor- 
tion in  stone  and  from  gracefully  disposed 
columns  growing  into  the  arches  of  the  lofty 
roof.  But  the  cold  gray  of  the  interior,  severe 
and  unrelieved,  bespeaks  a  place  where  the 
soul  comes  to  lay  itself  in  simplicity  before  the 
Eternal  as  it  would  upon  a  naked,  solitary  rock 
of  the  desert.  Elsewhere  in  the  abbey,of  course, 
greater  evidences  of  votive 
poverty  occur — in  the  vari- 
ous statues  and  shrines  of 
the  Virgin,  in  the  pictures 
and  prints  that  hang  in  the 
main  front  corridor  —  in 
all  that  appertains  to  the 
material  life  of  the  com- 
munity. 

Just  outside  the  church, 
beneath  the  perpetual  ben- 
ediction of  the  cross  on  its 
spire,  is  the  quiet  ceme- 
tery garth  where  the  dead 
are  side  by  side,  their 
graves  covered  with  myr- 
tle, and  each  having  for 


THE    COOK. 


488 


A   HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


its  headstone  a  plain  wooden  crucifix  bear- 
ing the  religious  name  and  the  station  of  him 
who  lies  below  —  Father  Honorius,  Father 
Timotheus,  Brother  Hilarius,  Brother  Eutro- 
pius.  Who  are  they  ?  And  whence  ?  And  by 
what  familiar  names  were  they  greeted  on 
the  old  play-grounds  and  battle-fields  of  the 
world  ? 

The  Trappists  do  not,  as  it  is  commonly 
understood,  daily  dig  a  portion  of  their  own 


f 


BEFORE    THE    MADONNA. 


graves.  When  one  of  them  dies  and  has  been 
buried,  a  new  grave  is  begun  beside  the  one 
just  filled,  as  a  reminder  to  all  the  survivors 
that  one  of  them  must  surely  take  his  place 
therein.  So,  too,  when  each  seeks  the  ceme- 
tery inclosure,  in  hours  of  holy  meditation, 
and,  standing  bare-headed  among  the  graves, 
prays  softly  for  the  souls  of  his  departed  breth- 
ren, he  may  come  for  a  time  to  this  unfin- 
ished grave,  and,  kneeling  on  the  rude  board 
placed  at  the  head,  pray  Heaven,  if  he  be  next, 
to  dismiss  his  soul  in  peace. 


Nor  do  they  sleep  in  the  dark,  abject  ken- 
nel, which  the  imagination,  in  the  light  of 
medieval  history,  constructs  as  the  true  monk's 
cell.  By  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  they  sleep 
apart  but  in  the  same  place,  and  the  dormi- 
tory is  a  great  upper  room,  well  lighted  and 
clean,  in  the  body  of  which  a  general  frame- 
work several  feet  high  is  divided  into  parti- 
tions that  look  like  narrow  berths. 

It  is  while  going  from  place  to  place  in  the 
abbey  and  considering  the  other  buildings  con- 
nected with  it  that  one  grows  deeply  inter- 
ested in  a  subject  but  little  understood  —  the 
daily  life  of  the  monks. 


IV. 

WE  have  all  acquired  poetical  and  pictorial 
conceptions  of  monks — praying  with  wan 
faces  and  upturned  eyes  half  darkened  by  the 
shadowing  cowl,  the  coarse  serge  falling  away 
from  the  emaciated  neck,  the  hands  press- 
ing the  crucifix  close  to  the  heart;  and  along 
with  this  type  has  always  been  associated  a 
certain  idea  of  cloistral  life  —  that  it  was  an 
existence  of  vacancy  and  idleness,  or  at  best 
of  deep  meditation  of  the  soul  broken  only  by 
express  spiritual  devotions.  There  is  another 
kind  of  monk,  of  course,  with  all  the  marks 
of  which  we  seem  traditionally  familiar;  the 
monk  with  the  rubicund  face,  sleek  poll, 
good  epigastric  development,  and  slightly 
unsteady  gait,  with  whom,  in  turn,  we  have 
connected  a  different  phase  of  conventual  dis- 
cipline—  fat  capon  and  stubble  goose,  and 
midnight  convivial  chantings  growing  ever 
more  fast  and  furious,  but  finally  dying  away 
in  a  heavy  stertorous  calm.  Poetry,  art,  the 
drama,  the  novel,  have  each  portrayed  human 
nature  in  orders ;  the  saint-like  monk,  the  in- 
tellectual monk,  the  bibulous,  the  felonious,  the 
fighting  monk  (who  loves  not  the  hermit  of 
Copmanhurst  ?),  until  the  memory  is  stored 
and  the  imagination  preoccupied. 

Living  for  a  while  in  a  Trappist  monastery  in 
modern  America,  one  gets  a  pleasant  infusion 
of  actual  experience,  and  is  disposed  to  insist 
upon  the  existence  of  other  types  no  less  pic- 
turesque and  on  the  whole  much  more  accept- 
able. He  finds  himself,  for  one  thing,  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  working  monk.  Idleness 
to  the  Trappist  is  the  enemy  of  the  soul,  and 
one  of  his  vows  is  manual  labor.  Whatever  a 
monk's  previous  station  may  have  been,  he 
must  perform,  according  to  abbatial  direction, 
the  most  menial  services.  None  are  exempt 
from  work;  there  is  no  place  among  them  for 
the  sluggard.  When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that 
the  abbey  is  a  self-dependent  institution, 
where  the  healthy  must  be  maintained,  the 
sick  cared  for,  the  dead  buried,  the  necessity 


A    HOME   OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


489 


AMONG   THE    GRAVES. 


for  much  work  becomes  manifest.  In  fact,  the 
occupations  are  about  as  various  as  those  of 
a  modern  factory.  There  is  scope  for  intel- 
lects of  all  degrees  and  talents  of  well-nigh 
every  order.  Daily  life,  unremittingly  from 
year  to  year,  is  an  exact  system  of  duties 
and  hours.  The  building,  covering  about  an 
acre  of  ground  and  penetrated  by  corridors, 
must  be  kept  faultlessly  clean.  There  are 
three  kitchens, —  one  for  the  guests,  one  for  the 
community,  and  one  for  the  infirmary, —  that 
require  each  a  coquinarius  and  separate  as- 
sistants. There  is  a  tinker's  shop  and  a  phar- 
macy ;  a  saddlery,  where  the  broken  gear  used 
in  cultivating  the  monastery  lands  is  mended ; 
a  tailor's  shop,  where  the  worn  garments  are 
patched ;  a  shoemaker's  shop,  where  the  coarse, 
heavy  shoes  of  the  monks  are  made  and  cob- 
bled; and  a  barber's  shop,  where  the  Trap- 
pist  beard  is  shaved  twice  a  month  and  the 
Trappist  head  is  monthly  shorn. 

Outdoors  the  occupations  are  even  more 
varied.  The  community  do  not  till  the  farm. 
The  greater  part  of  their  land  is  occupied  by 
tenant  farmers,  and  what  they  reserve  for 
their  own  use  is  cultivated  by  the  so-called 
"  family  brothers,"  who,  it  is  due  to  say,  have 
no  families,  but  live  as  celibates  on  the  abbey 
domain,  subject  to  the  abbot's  authority,  with- 
out being  members  of  the  order.  The  monks, 
however,  do  labor  in  the  ample  gardens,  or- 
chards, and  vineyard  from  which  they  de- 
rive their  sustenance,  in  the  steam  saw-mill 
and  grain-mill,  in  the  dairy  and  the  cheese 
factory.  Thus  picturesquely  engaged  one  may 
find  them  in  autumn  :  monks  gathering  apples 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 69. 


and  making  barrel  after  barrel  of  pungent 
cider,  which  is  stored  away  in  the  vast  cellar 
as  their  only  beverage  except  water;  monks 
repairing  the  shingle  roof  of  a  stable  ;  monks 
feeding  the  huge  swine  which  they  fatten 
for  the  board  of  their  carnal  guests,  or  the 
fluttering  multitude  of  chickens  from  the 
eggs  and  young  of  which  they  derive  a  slen- 
der revenue;  monks  grouped  in  the  garden 
around  a  green  and  purple  heap  of  turnips, 
to  be  stored  up  as  a  winter  relish  of  no  mean 
distinction. 

Amidst  such  scenes  one  forgets  all  else  while 
enjoying  the  wealth  and  freshness  of  artistic 
effects.  What  a  picture  is  this  young  Belgian 
cheese-maker,  his  sleeves  rolled  up  above  the 
elbows  of  his  brawny  arms,  his  great  pinkish 
hands  buried  in  the  golden  curds,  the  cap  of 
his  serge  cloak  falling  back  and  showing  his 
closely  clipped  golden-brown  hair,  blue  eyes, 
and  clear  delicate  skin !  Or  this  Australian 
ex-farmer,  as  he  stands  by  the  hopper  of  grist 
or  lays  on  his  shoulder  a  bag  of  flour  for  the 
coarse  brown  bread  of  the  monks.  Or  this 


GOING    TO     WORK. 


49° 


A    HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


THK     FORTNIGHTLY     SHAVE. 


dark  old  French  opera-singer,  who  strutted 
his  brief  hour  on  many  a  European  stage, 
but  now  hobbles  around,  all  hoary  in  his  cowl 
and  blanched  with  age,  to  pick  up  a  handful 
of  garlic.  Or  this  athletic,  superbly  formed 
young  Irishman,  thrusting  a  great  iron  prod 
into  the  glowing  coals  of  the  saw-mill  fur- 
nace. Or  this  slender  Switzer,  your  attend- 
ant in  the  refectory,  with  great  keys  dangling 
from  his  leathern  cincture,  who  stands  by 
with  folded  hands  and  bowed  head  while 
you  are  eating  the  pagan  meal  he  has  pre- 


pared, and  prays  that  you  may  be  forgiven 
for  enjoying  it. 

From  various  countries  of  the  Old  World 
men  find  their  way  into  the  Abbey  of  Geth- 
semane,  but  among  them  are  no  Americans. 
Repeatedly  the  latter  have  made  the  experi- 
ment, and  have  always  failed  to  persevere  up 
to  the  final  consecration  of  the  white  cowl. 
The  fairest  warning  is  given  to  the  postulant. 
He  is  made  to  understand  the  entire  extent 
of  the  obligation  he  has  assumed ;  and  only 
after  passing  through  a  novitiate,  prolonged 


A    HOME   OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


491 


at  the  discretion  of  the  abbot,  is  he  admitted 
to  the  vows  that  must  be  kept  unbroken  till 
death. 


v. 


[•'ROM  the  striking  material  aspects  of  their 
daily  life,  however,  one  is  soon  recalled  to  a 
sense  of  their  subordination  to  spiritual  aims 


and  half  of  cream.  The  guest-master,  whose 
business  it  is  to  act  as  your  guide  through  the 
abbey  and  the  grounds,  is  warily  mindful  of  his 
special  functions  and  requests  you  to  address 
none  but  him.  Only  the  abbot  is  free  to  speak 
when  and  as  his  judgment  may  approve.  It 
is  silence,  says  the  Trappist,  that  shuts  out 
new  ideas,  worldly  topics,  controversy.  It  is 


THE    REFECTORY. 


and  pledges ;  for  upon  them  all,  like  a  spell 
of  enchantment,  lies  the  sacred  silence.  The 
honey  has  been  taken  from  the  bees  with  so- 
lemnity ;  the  grapes  have  been  gathered  with- 
out song  and  mirth.  The  vow  of  life-long 
silence  taken  by  the  Trappist  must  of  course 
not  be  construed  literally ;  but  after  all  there 
are  only  two  occasions  during  which  it  is  com- 
pletely set  aside  —  when  confessing  his  sins 
and  when  singing  the  offices  of  the  Church. 
At  all  other  times  his  tongue  becomes,  as  far 
as  possible,  a  superfluous  member ;  he  speaks 
only  by  permission  of  his  superior,  and  always 
simply  and  to  the  point.  The  monk  at  work 
with  another  exchanges  with  him  only  the  few 
low,  necessary  words,  and  those  that  provoke 
no  laughter.  Of  the  three  so-called  monastic 
graces,  Simplidfas,  Benignitas,  Hilaritas,  the 
last  is  not  his.  Even  for  necessary  speech  he 
is  taught  to  substitute  a  language  of  signs,  as 
fully  systematized  as  the  speech  of  the  deaf 
and  dumb.  Should  he,  while  at  work,  wound 
his  fellow-workman,  sorrow  may  be  expressed 
by  striking  his  breast.  A  desire  to  confess  is 
show*i  by  lifting  one  hand  to  the  mouth  and 
striking  the  breast  with  the  other.  The  maker 
of  cheese  crosses  two  fingers  at  the  middle  point 
to  let  you  know  that  it  is  made  half  of  milk 


silence  that  enables  the  soul  to  contemplate 
with  singleness  and  mortification  the  infinite 
perfections  of  the  Eternal. 

In  the  abbey  it  is  this  all-pervasive  hush 
that  falls  like  a  leaden  pall  upon  tne  stranger 
who  has  rushed  in  from  the  talking  universe 
and  this  country  of  free  speech.  Are  these 
priests  modern  survivals  of  the  rapt  solitaries 
of  India  ?  The  days  pass,  and  the  world,  which 
seemed  in  hailing  distance  to  you  at  first,  has 
receded  to  dim  remoteness.  You  stand  at  the 
window  of  your  room  looking  out,  and  hear 
in  the  autumn  trees  only  the  flute-like  note  of 
some  migratory  bird,  passing  slowly  on  towards 
the  south  with  all  its  kind.  You  listen  within, 
and  hear  but  a  key  turning  in  distant  locks 
and  the  slow-retreating  footsteps  of  some  dusky 
figure  returning  to  its  lonely  self-communings. 
The  utmost  precaution  is  taken  to  avoid  noise; 
in  the  dormitory  not  even  your  guide  will  speak 
to  you,  but  explains  by  gesture  and  signs.  Dur- 
ing the  short  siesta  the  Trappists  allow  them- 
selves, if  one  of  them,  not  wishing  to  sleep, 
gets  permission  to  read  in  his  so-called  cell, 
he  must  turn  the  pages  of  his  book  inaud- 
ibly.  In  the  refectory,  while  the  meal  is  eaten 
and  the  appointed  reader  in  the  tribune  goes 
through  a  service,  if  one  through  carelessness 


492 


A   HOME   OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 

ISliliill 


READING     IN     THE    CHAPTER     ROOM. 


makes  a  noise  by  so  much  as  dropping  a  fork 
or  a  spoon,  he  leaves  his  seat  and  prostrates 
himself  on  the  floor  until  bidden  by  the  supe- 
rior to  arise.  The  same  penance  is  undergone 
in  the  church  by  any  one  who  should  distract 
attention  with  the  clasp  of  his  book. 

A  hard  life,  to  purely  human  seeming,  does 
the  Trappist  make  for  the  body.  He  thinks 
nothing  of  it.  It  is  his  evil  tenement  of  flesh, 


whose  humors  are  an  impediment  to  sancti- 
fication,  whose  propensities  are  to  be  kept 
down  by  the  practice  of  all  austerities.  To  it 
in  part  all  his  monastic  vows  are  addressed — 
perpetual  and  utter  poverty,  chastity,  manual 
labor,  silence,  seclusion,  penance,  obedience. 
The  perfections  and  glories  of  his  monastic 
state  culminate  in  the  complete  abnegation 
and  destruction  of  animal  nature,  and  in  the 


A   HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


493 


correspondence  of  his  earthly  life  with  the 
holiness  of  divine  instruction.  The  war  of  the 
Jesuit  is  with  the  world  ;  the  war  of  the  Trap- 
pist  is  with  himself.  From  his  narrow  bed,  on 
which  are  simply  a  coarse  thin  mattress,  pil- 
low, sheet,  and  coverlet,  he  rises  at  2  o'clock, 
on  certain  days  at  i,  on  others  yet  at  12.  He 
has  not  undressed,  but  has  slept  in  his  daily 
garb,  with  the  cincture  around  his  waist. 

This  dress  consists,  if  he  be  a  brother,  of 
the  roughest  dark-brown  serge-like  stuff,  the 
over-garment  of  which  is  a  long  robe ;  if  a 
father,  of  a  similar  material,  but  white  in  color, 
the  over-garment  being  the  cowl,  beneath 
which  is  the  black  scapular.  He  changes  it 
only  once  in  two  weeks.  The  frequent  use  of 
the  bath,  as  tending  to  luxuriousness,  is  forbid- 
den him,  especially  if  he  be  young.  His  diet 
is  vegetables,  fruit,  honey,  cider,  cheese,  and 
brown  bread.  Only  when  sick  or  infirm  may 
he  take  even  fish  or  eggs.  His  table-service  is 
pewter,  plain  earthernware,  a  heavy  wooden 
spoon  and  fork  of  his  own  making,  and  the 
bottom  of  a  broken  bottle  for  a  salt-cellar.  If 
he  wears  the  white  cowl,  he  eats  but  one  such 
frugal  repast  a  day  during  part  of  the  year; 
if  the  brown  robe,  and  therefore  required  to 
do  more  work,  he  has  besides  this  meal  an 
early  morning  luncheon  called  "  mixt."  He 
renounces  all  claim  to  his  own  person,  all  right 


over  his  own  powers.  "  I  am  as  wax,"  he  ex- 
claims; "mold  me  as  you  will."  By  the  law 
of  his  patron  saint,  if  commanded  to  do  things 
too  hard,  or  even  impossible,  he  must  still 
undertake  them. 

For  the  least  violations  of  the  rules  of  his 
order;  for  committing  a  mistake  while  recit- 
ing a  psalm,  responsory,  antiphon,  or  lesson; 
for  giving  out  one  note  instead  of  another, 
or  saying  dominus  instead  of  domino;  for 
breaking  or  losing  anything,  or  committing 
any  fault  while  engaged  in  any  kind  of  work 
in  kitchen,  pantry,  bakery,  garden,  trade,  or 
business  —  he  must  humble  himself  and  make 
public  satisfaction  forthwith.  Nay,  more : 
each  by  his  vows  is  forced  to  become  his 
brother's  keeper,  and  to  proclaim  him  publicly 
in  the  community  chapter  for  the  slightest 
overt  transgression.  For  charity's  sake,  how- 
ever, he  may  not  judge  motives  nor  make 
vague  general  charges. 

The  Trappist  does  not  walk  beyond  the 
inclosures  except  by  permission.  He  must 
repress  all  those  ineffably  tender  yearnings 
that  visit  and  vex  the  human  heart  in  this 
life.  The  death  of  the  nearest  kindred  is  not 
announced  to  him.  Forgotten  by  the  world, 
by  him  it  is  forgotten.  Yet  not  wholly.  When 
he  lays  the  lashes  of  the  scourge  on  his  flesh  — 
it  may  be  on  his  carious  bones  —  he  does  it 


494 


A   HOME    OF  THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


not  for  his  own  sins  alone,  but  for  the  sins  of 
the  whole  world ;  and  in  his  searching,  self- 
imposed  humiliations,  there  is  a  silent,  broad 
out-reaching  of  sympathetic  effort  in  behalf 
of  all  his  kind.  Sorrow  may  not  depict  itself 
freely  on  his  face.  If  a  suffering  invalid,  he 
must  manifest  no  interest  in  the  progress  of  his 
malady,  feel  no  concern  regarding  the  result. 
In  his  last  hour,  he  sees  ashes  strewn  upon  the 


been  the  realization  of  the  infinite  loveliness 
and  beauty  of  personal  purity ;  and  the  saint 
in  the  desert  was  the  apotheosis  of  the  spirit- 
ual man."  However  this  may  be,  here  at  Geth- 
semane  you  see  one  of  the  severest  expressions 
of  its  faith  that  the  soul  has  ever  given,  either 
in  ancient  or  in  modern  times ;  and  you  cease 
to  think  of  these  men  as  members  of  a  relig- 
ious order,  in  the  study  of  them  as  exponents 


IN   THE    SMITHY. 


floor  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  a  thin  scattering 
of  straw  made  over  them,  and  his  body  ex- 
tended thereon  to  die ;  and  from  this  hard  bed 
of  death  he  knows  it  will  be  borne  on  a  bier 
by  his  brethren  and  laid  in  the  grave  without 
coffin  or  shroud. 

VII. 

BUT  who  can  judge  such  a  life  save  him 
who  has  lived  it  ?  Who  can  say  what  un- 
dreamt-of spiritual  compensations  may  not 
come  even  in  this  present  time  as  a  reward 
for  all  bodily  austerities  ?  What  fine  realities 
may  not  body  themselves  forth  to  the  eye  of 
the  soul,  strained  of  grossness,  steadied  from 
worldly  agitation,  and  taught  to  gaze  year 
after  year  into  the  awfulness  and  mystery  of 
its  own  being  and  deep  destiny  ?  "  Monasti- 
cism,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  we  believe  to  have 


of  a  common  humanity  struggling  with  the 
problem  of  its  relation  to  the  Infinite.  One 
would  wish  to  lay  hold  upon  the  latent  ele- 
ments of  power  and  truth  and  beauty  in  their 
system  which  enables  them  to  say  with  quiet 
cheerfulness,  "  We  are  happy ,  perfectly  happy." 
To  them  there  is  no  gloom. 

Excepting  this  ceaseless  war  between  flesh 
and  spirit,  the  abbey  seems  a  peaceful  place. 
Its  relations  with  the  outside  world  have  al- 
ways been  kindly.  During  the  civil  war  it  was 
undisturbed  by  the  forces  of  each  party.  Food 
and  shelter  it  has  never  denied  even  to  the 
poorest,  and  it  asks  no  compensation,  accept- 
ing such  as  the  stranger  may  give.  The  savor 
of  good  deeds  extends  beyond  its  walls,  and 
near  by  is  a  free  school  under  its  control, 
where  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
boys  of  all  creeds  have  been  educated. 


A   HOME   OF   THE   SILENT  BROTHERHOOD. 


495 


THE    GARDEN. 


There  comes  some  late  autumnal  afternoon 
when  you  are  to  leave  the  place.  With  a 
strange  feeling  of  farewell,  you  grasp  the  hands 
of  those  whom  you  have  been  given  the  privi- 
lege of  knowing,  and  walk  slowly  out  past  the 
meek  sacristan,  past  the  noiseless  garden,  past 
the  porter's  lodge  and  the  misplaced  rabbits, 
past  the  dim  avenue  of  elms,  past  the  great 
iron  gateway,  and,  walking  along  the  seques- 
tered road  until  you  have  reached  the  sum- 
mit of  a  wooded  knoll  half  a  mile  away,  turn 
and  look  back.  Half  a  mile !  The  distance  is 
infinite !  The  last  rays  of  the  sun  seem  hardly 
able  to  reach  the  pale  cross  on  the  spire  which 
anon  fades  into  the  sky ;  and  the  monastery 
bell,  that  sends  its  mellow  tones  across  the 
shadowy  landscape,  is  rung  from  an  imme- 
morial past. 


It  is  the  hour  of  the  Compline,  the  Salve, 
and  the  Angelas — the  last  of  the  seven  services 
that  the  Trappist  holds  between  2  o'clock  in 
the  morning  and  this  hour  of  early  nightfall. 
Standing  alone  in  the  silent  darkness  you  al- 
low imagination  to  carry  you  once  more  into 
the  church.  You  sit  in  one  of  the  galleries  and 
look  down  upon  the  stalls  of  the  monks  ranged 
along  the  walls  of  the  nave.  There  is  no  light 
except  the  feeble  gleam  of  a  single  low  red 
cresset  that  swings  ever-burning  before  the 
altar.  You  can  just  discern  a  long  line  of 
nameless  dusky  figures  creep  forth  from  the 
deeper  gloom  and  glide  noiselessly  into  their 
seats.  You  listen  to  the  cantus  p/enus  gravi- 
tate —  those  long,  level  notes  with  sorrowful 
cadences  and  measured  pauses,  sung  by  a  full, 
unfaltering  chorus  of  voices,  old  and  young. 


496 


A   MAN'S  REPROACH. 


It  is  the  song  that  smote  the  heart  of  Bossuet 
with  such  sadness  in  the  desert  of  Normandy 
two  and  a  half  centuries  ago. 

Anon  by  some  unseen  hand  two  tall  candles 
are  lighted  on  the  altar.  The  singing  is  hushed. 
From  the  ghostly  line  of  white-robed  fathers 
a  shadowy  figure  suddenly  moves  towards  the 
spot  in  the  middle  of  the  church  where  the 
bell-rope  hangs,  and  with  slow,  weird  move- 
ments rings  the  solemn  bell  until  it  fills  the 
cold,  gray  arches  with  quivering  sound.  One 
will  not  in  a  lifetime  forget  the  impressiveness 


of  the  scene — the  long  tapering  shadows  that 
stretch  out  over  the  dimly  lighted,  polished 
floor  from  this  figure  silhouetted  against  the 
brighter  light  from  the  altar  beyond ;  the  bowed, 
moveless  forms  of  the  monks  in  brown  almost 
indiscernible  in  the  gloom;  the  spectral  gla- 
mour reflected  from  the  robes  of  the  bowed 
fathers  in  white ;  the  ghastly,  suffering  scene 
of  the  Saviour,  strangely  luminous  in  the  glare 
of  the  tall  candles.  It  is  the  daily  climax  in 
the  devotions  of  the  Old  World  monks  at 
Gethsemane. 

James  Lane  Allen. 


A  MAN'S    REPROACH. 


WHEN  into  my  life  you  came 
You  gave  me  no  promise,  yet  still 
Dare  I  charge  on  you  the  shame 

Of  a  pledge  you  have  failed  to  fulfil. 

Said  not  each  tone  of  your  voice, 
Said  not  each  look  of  your  eye, 

"  Measure  my  truth  at  your  choice  ; 
No  means  of  proof  I  deny." 


Was  it  for  nothing  your  glance 
Held  itself,  flame  pure,  to  mine  ? 

Needed  there  speech  to  enhance 
The  strength  of  its  promise  divine  ? 

Was  there  no  pledge  in  that  smile, 
Dazzling  beyond  all  eclipse  ? 

Only  God  measures  your  guile 

When  you  could  lie  with  those  lips  ! 


You  fail  me,  in  spite  of  it  all, 

And  smile  that  no  promise  you  break. 
No  word  you  have  need  to  recall ; 

Your  self  is  the  vow  you  forsake  ! 


Arlo  Bales. 


HOME    CULTURE    CLUBS. 


FIRST  THOUGHT:  "THE  MASSES. 

H  ERE  is  perhaps,  says  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  in  a  recent 
paper,  "  no  more  hopeful 
sign  of  progress  among  us 
in  the  last  half-century 
than  the  steadily  increas- 
ing devotion  which  has 
been  and  is  directed  to 
inrasures  for  promoting  physical  and  moral 
welfare  among  the  poorer  classes."  And  just 
before,  he  says,  as  to  the  necessity  for  such 
measures,  "  Natural  science  and  religious  en- 
thusiasm rarely  go  hand  in  hand,  but  in  this 
matter  their  concord  is  complete." 

I  do  not  purpose  to  write  very  gravely  on 
this  subject.  But  here  is  the  scientist's  verdict, 
that  the  proposition  to  "elevate  the  masses" 
is  good  science;  and  I  quote  it  to  gain,  what 
1  particularly  covet,  the  attention  of  minds 
that,  with  or  without  "  religious  enthusiasm," 
need  this  kind  of  assurance. 

To  such  especially  I  purpose  simply  to  tell 
of  a  scheme  of  "  elevation,"  now  working  well 
in  its  second  year,  kept  for  a  time  purposely 
within  narrow  limits,  but  growing,  and  capa- 
ble, I  believe,  of  indefinite  expansion. 

It  sprang  from  certain  merely  colloquial 
efforts  to  point  out  some  very  common  and 
rather  subtle  errors  which  help  to  explain  why, 
in  so  vast  a  field,  human  sympathy,  large  self- 
sacrifice,  and  gracious  condescensions  so 
often  reap  the  slender  harvest  they  do. 

For  example,  it  was  admitted  that  there  is 
much  truth  in  the  stern  statement  that  the 
"  masses  "  we  purpose  to  lift  sink  to  where 
they  are  by  their  own  specific  gravity ;  that 
they  lack  the  buoyancy  to  float,  the  intelli- 
gence, virtues,  aspirations,  which  are  the  up- 
holding powers  in  human  life,  and  that  they 
are  where  they  are  because  of  what  they  are 
and  what  they  inwardly  lack. 

Yet  this  is  only  part  of  the  truth,  and  at  best 
it  is  not  final.  People  are  also,  in  ^reat  part, 
•what  they  are  because  of  where  they  are,  their 
inward  lack  <  hie  much  to  their  outward.  More- 
over, both  what  one  is  and  where  one  is  depend 
much  on  what  and  where  others  are  with  whose 
fate  one's  own  is  entangled. 

It  may  be  just  as  hard,  but  it  is  also  just  as 

to  keep  human  merit,  as  to  keep  water, 

from  finding  its  level :   with   this  difference, 

that  human  character  may  have,  may  acquire, 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 70. 


lose,  and  regain,  elasticity.  And  so  we  say, 
even  when  one  is  only  equal  to  the  station  he 
fills,  that  the  fact  is  not  final.  New  influences 
from  without  may  produce  new  inner  powers 
and  merits,  which  may  not  only  earn  better 
place  for  self  but  may  liberate  others  from  con- 
ditions unworthy  of  them,  to  which  his  own 
conditions  had  undeservedly  confined  them. 
Though  a  sunken  ship  may  be  mainly  of  iron, 
and  might  never  stir  to  raise  itself,  we  may  go 
down  to  it  and  by  driving  air  in  and  water 
out  may  see  it,  of  its  own  motion,  rise  again 
to  noble  uses.  So  with  a  man. 

But  in  the  various  groups  into  which  the 
relations  or  fortunes  of  life  gather  us  we  are 
not,  each  one,  a  separate  ship,  but  are  bound 
together  more  like  the  various  parts  of  one  or 
another  ship.  And  while  it  is  mostly  by  good 
or  bad  management  that  ships  float  or  sink, 
yet  in  every  ship  that  floats  are  many  parts 
that  of  themselves  would  sink,  and  in  every 
ship  that  sinks  are  many  parts  that  but  for 
fastenings  or  entanglements  would  float.  The 
chances  of  fortune  and  the  force  of  merit  are 
not  enough  to  secure  "  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number";  and  without  that 
we  cannot  get  the  highest  good  of  any.  Even 
of  wrecked  ships  we  save  what  we  can.  To 
fortune  and  merit  must  be  added  the  factor 
of  rescue,  whether  we  call  it  salvage  or  sal- 
vation. To  leave  the  unfortunate  to  fight  ill- 
fortune  with  only  their  handicapped  merit  is 
to  leave  them  to  an  unintelligent  and  merci- 
less natural  selection  to  which  we  would  think 
it  inhuman  to  leave  shipwrecked  voyagers, 
and  stupid  to  leave  our  cattle.  So,  then,  our 
failures  to  "  elevate  the  masses  "  are  not  be- 
cause any  and  every  intervention  is  a  med- 
dling with  selective  forces  already  adequate  to 
the  best  results. 

Misguided  benevolence  has  its  well-known 
faults.  We  know  the  benevolence  that  does 
not  "help  a  man  to  help  himself"  is  not  be- 
neficent. We  know  that  nothing  is  at  its  best 
which  puts  needless  obligations  upon  the  ben- 
eficiary. We  know  that  to  produce  merit  is 
at  least  as  good  as  to  find  it;  that  to  aug- 
ment it  is  better  than  merely  to  reward  it ; 
that  its  best  rewards  are  simple  recognition,  en- 
couragement, and  opportunity  ;  and  that  even 
in  giving  these,  all  gratuitousness  is  danger- 
ous ;  and,  especially,  that  there  are  great  risks 
in  all  sudden  abundance.  Benevolence  has 
learned  that  even  in  social  science  there  is 
room  and  need  for  sentiment,  but  that  sen- 


49s 


HOME   CULTURE    CLUBS. 


timent  must  follow  and  obey  reason,  not  lead 
and  rule  it.  All  these  things  we  know  by 
heart,  and  yet  our  failures  go  on. 

Some  say  that  charity  has  still  too  much 
sentiment.  But  in  fact  it  has  not  yet  enough. 
Some  say  that  it  has  taken  on  too  much  science. 
But  really  it  has  not  enough.  There  ought  to 
be  no  lack  of  sentiment  in  the  word  science. 
Yet  many  regard  science  as  something  that 
complicates  simple  things,  whereas  it  simpli- 
fies complex  things.  If  science  deals  with 
complex  things,  so  does  every  other  province 
of  human  life ;  but  our  mental  indolence 
loosely  treats  complexities  as  though  they 
were  simple,  and  science  as  the  breeder  of 
complexities.  Human  benevolence  still  needs 
a  more  scientific  thoughtfulness  to  see  the 
complexity  of  things  too  often  thus  far  treated 
as  simple,  and  a  greater  depth  of  sentiment  to 
remember  it.  Our  efforts  are  still  crude. 

n. 

NOT    THE    MASS  :    THE    INDIVIDUAL. 

WE  shall  never  have  any  great  success  in 
"  elevating  the  mass "  until  we  get  beyond 
treating  it  merely  as  a  mass.  Even  political 
science,  impersonal  as  it  is,  never  secures  a 
safe  self-government  till  it  recognizes  the  in- 
dividual citizen  and  his  rights.  But  in  the 
"  elevation  of  the  mass  "  a  treatment  is  re- 
quired that  must  go  much  further  from  mass- 
treatment  than  the  true  functions  of  the  state 
will  allow  it  to  go.  General  legislation  must 
not  know  one  man  from  another ;  and  ad- 
ministrative government  may  distinguish  only 
between  those  who  break,  and  those  who  keep, 
the  law.  Individual  conditions  and  relationsit 
recognizes;  but  individuals  it  cannot  justly  con- 
sider save  impersonally  and  merely  as  units  of 
the  community.  It  is  only  when  by  crime  or  in- 
firmity one  is  disqualified  as  a  simple  civil  unit 
that  government,  not  by  benevolent  choice, 
but  for  the  protection  of  society  at  large,  en- 
ters into  personal  considerations  with  him,  in 
order  that  by  disciplinary  or  sanitary  treatment 
adjusted  to  his  peculiar,  personal,  inward 
needs  he  may  as  soon  as  possible  be  restored 
to  the  precious  liberty  of  impersonal  citizen- 
ship. We  can  neither  ask  nor  allow  civil  gov- 
ernment to  go  further.  But  something  must 
go  further.  Something  must  take  personal 
knowledge  of  those  whose  inward  and  out- 
ward conditions  may  be  bettered  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  all,  and  yet  who  are  not  in  those 
plights  that  alone  should  make  them  wards  of 
the  state.  What  will  do  it  ? 

Commerce,  trade,  all  the  material  industries, 
have  to  do  with  masses  as  masses,  and  with 
individuals  both  impersonally  and  personally. 
Sometimes  not  merely  the  personal  capacities 


but  even  the  social  qualities  of  the  individual 
must  be  taken  account  of  in  these  provinces 
of  life,  and  so  we  see  the  commercial  and  the 
social  realms  overlapping  and  in  no  small  de- 
gree dominating  each  other,  man  making  the 
not  always  noble  discovery  that  commercial 
ties  have  their  social,  and  social  ties  their  com- 
mercial, values;  with  this  severe  limitation, 
however,  that  personal  relations,  qualities,  or 
wants  cannot  be  set  up  by  or  for  any  one  as 
actual  commercial  claims  save  for  their  actual 
commercial  values. 

So,  then,  we  cannot  intrust  to  government 
nor  demand  of  commerce  the  exercise  of  per- 
sonal benevolence.  In  commerce  we  have, 
and  must  have,  limited  only  by  moral  law  and 
the  laws  of  the  land,  the  supreme  rule  of 
commercial  selection,  to  which  all  personal 
considerations  must  remain  subordinate.  A 
far-sighted  commercial  selection  may  see  com- 
mercial values,  qualified  by  personal  consider- 
ations, far  out  to  right  and  left  of  its  trodden  , 
path,  and  the  most  we  can  rightly  demand  of 
commerce  is  that  it  follow  those  values  as  far 
as  they  reach.  Both  government,  and  com- 
merce with  virtually  all  her  kindred  industries, 
are  incalculably  beneficent.  Without  them 
how  should  we  "  elevate  the  masses  "  ?  Yet 
they  are  not  enough.  We  may  conceive  of 
government  or  commerce  springing  from  the 
most  benevolent  motives,  but  even  so,  govern- 
ment may  not  rightly  go  beyond  the  most 
obvious  common  welfare  ;  and  commerce  and 
her  kin,  the  moment  they  step  beyond  the 
circle  of  gain,  loss,  and  rectitude,  cease  to  be 
themselves. 

We  turn  to  society.  Will  it  supply  the  de- 
ficiency ?  Let  us  first  be  sure  what  we  mean. 
A  nation  is  a  social  group.  So  are  three 
friends  at  a  fireside.  But  public  society  (if  I 
may  presume  to  quote  a  sentence  or  two  of 
my  own  lately  printed)  comprises  one  group 
of  relations,  and  private  society  entirely  an- 
other, and  it  is  simply  and  only  evil  to  con- 
fuse thetwo.  Public  society,  civil  society,  com- 
prises all  those  relations  that  are  impersonal, 
unselective,  and  in  which  all  men,  of  what- 
ever personal  inequality,  should  stand  equal. 
Private  society  is  its  antipode.  It  is  personal, 
selective,  assertive;  ignores  civil  equality,  and 
forms  itself  entirely  upon  mutual  preferences 
and  affmiljes.  Our  civil  social  status  has  of 
right  no  special  value  in  private  society,  and 
our  private  social  status  has  of  right  no  special 
value  in  our  civil  social  relations.  We  make 
the  distinction  here  in  order  to  set  aside  the 
idea  of  public  society  :  we  mean,  now,  private 
society.  Government  can  make  among  men 
only  a  civil  selection,  commerce  only  a  com- 
mercial selection  ;  but  in  society  we  find  at 
last  the  operations  of  a  personal  selection. 


HOME    CULTURE    CLUBS. 


499 


in. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY. 

AT  first  glance  we  who  are  unlearned  on 
the  great  deep  of  social  science  might  suppose 
that  a  perfectly  normal  social  movement  ought 
to  work  the  results  we  are  seeking.  Why  not  ? 
Has  one  not  liberty  to  choose  his  social  com- 
panions as  he  will  ?  If  he  will  but  put  away  all 
foolish  prides, —  pride  of  place,  of  purse,  of 
blood,  of  mind,  and  that  worst  pride  of  all, 
the  pride  of  morals, —  may  he  not  bring  him- 
self into  benevolent  and  beneficent  personal 
intercourse  with  whom  he  will  ? 

No.  We  presently  find  that  we  are  overrating 
our  liberty  and  our  power  over  certain  laws  that 
He  in  the  very  nature  of  private  social  relations. 
What  makes  the  social  circle  ?  As  the  key-note 
of  commerce  is  gain,  so  that  of  society  is  pleas- 
ure. As  a  normal  commerce  requires  that  gains 
be  mutual  and  approximately  equal,  society  re- 
quires that  pleasures  be  the  same.  Sociality  is 
normally  and  rightly  only  a  sort  of  commerce, 
a  social  exchange,  from  which  we  find  we  must 
withdraw  as  soon  as  we  realize  our  inability  to 
render  a  quid  pro  quo  of  social  values.  Normally 
it  ignores  material  values,  and  is  totally  uncom- 
mercial. Yet  we  discover  that  though  its  move- 
ments, too,  are  immensely  beneficent,  neither 
can  it,  with  any  good  effect,  let  benevolent  in- 
tentions sharply  oppose  themselves  to  the  nat- 
ural operations  of  social  selection. 

The  merely  formative  state  of  a  large  part 
of  society  in  America  accounts  for  some  broad 
and  frequent  errors  made  by  us  as  to  the  true 
province  and  limits  of  private  sociality.  In 
one  great  belt  of  our  country  there  is  the 
strangest  confusion  of  thought  as  to  where 
public  social  relations,  over  which  the  indi- 
vidual has  no  private  right  of  control,  and 
private  social  relations,  over  which  the  pub- 
lic voice  has  no  right  of  control,  touch  and 
bound  each  other;  while  in  another  belt 
there  is  almost  equal  confusion  as  to  what  pri- 
vate society  might  do  for  public  society  if  it 
would.  But  wherever  in  the  world  we  see  pop- 
ulation dense  enough  for  private  society  to  be 
selective,  we  find  it  broken  into  countless  small 
groups,  "  circles,"  each  of  which,  however 
they  may  overlap  one  another,  owes  its  con- 
tinuance to  the  ability  of  its  members  to  sup- 
ply mutual  entertainment.  This  ability  lacking, 
no  amount  of  benevolence  can  hold  them,  so- 
cially, together. 

Benevolence,  self-sacrifice,  condescension, 
become  repellant  forces  in  the  social  circle 
wherever  they  cannot  be  paid  for  in  kind.  So- 
cial selection  does  not  spare  even  the  family- 
circle,  but  draws  its  various  members  apart 
from  one  another  frequently,  and  at  length 
permanently.  As  the  century-plant  constantly 


disintegrates  and  absorbs  its  old  leaves  and  of 
their  substance  sends  out  new,  society  divides 
and  absorbs  the  old  family  circle  and  sends 
out  the  germs  of  more  numerous  new  ones. 
Not  in  a  mean  sense  only,  but  in  a  very  noble 
way  private  society  is  a  mart.  In  commerce 
and  the  industries  the  prime  necessity  laid  by 
each  upon  himself  is  that  he  get  for  all  he  gives. 
In  society  he  requires  of  himself  to  give  for  all 
he  gets.  In  the  commercial  exchange  the  man 
without  commercial  resources  is  intolerable. 
In  the  social  exchange  the  man  without  social 
resources  equal  to  its  demands  is  not  nearly 
so  intolerable  to  it  as  it  is  to  him, —  not  only 
because  its  condescensions  put  debts  upon  him 
that  he  feels  he  cannot  pay,  but  also  because 
the  social  circle  that  does  not  prize  his  social 
resources  has  probably  few  or  none  to  offer 
that  he  wants. 

What  fattens  the  ox  would  starve  the  fox ; 
Yet  the  fox  has  food  that  would  starve  the  ox. 

That  is  to  say,  no  one  is  wholly  without  so- 
cial resources,  only  let  those  resources  find 
their  right  social  market  by  a  rational  social 
selection. 

Now,  if  social  selection  were  always  rational, 
we  should  see  it  reaching  out  generously  across 
the  lines  of  life  and  the  accidents  of  fortune, 
and  selecting,  rejecting,  and  assorting  men 
and  women  according  to  their  abilities  to  make 
fairly  even  exchange  with  one  another  of  so- 
cial pleasures  and  such  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual enlargements,  small  or  great,  as  these 
pleasures  may  yield.  But  other  forces  enter 
and  make  confusion.  Family  ties,  parental  and 
fraternal  affection  and  pride,  hold  out  more  or 
less  stubbornly  for  the  social  equality  of  all 
the  family's  members,  often  in  the  face  of  gross 
inequalities.  On  the  other  hand,  society  often 
crudely  assesses  the  individual  socially  by  the 
accidents  of  family  relationship,  and  counts 
him  far  above  or  below  his  own  true  value. 
Commercial,  political,  and  other  outside  values 
intrude  themselves,  and  seek  and  make  all 
degrees  of  false  appraisements  above  and  be- 
low the  just  mark.  Then  there  is  our  prone- 
ness  to  prize  superficial  graces  and  conventional 
forms  more  than  inner  merit.  And  there,  too, 
are  the  spirit  of  mere  caste,  and  the  often  still 
narrower  one  of  coterie;  and  again  our  selfish 
fear  of  making  unlucky  selections,  and  the 
greater  ease  of  keeping  the  strait  and  narrow 
way  of  social  orthodoxy ;  these  all  mar  the 
proper  workings  of  social  distribution. 

Hence  we  find  no  plane  of  private  society, 
however  exalted,  where  we  may  not  encounter 
the  boor,  the  fool,  and  the  knave,  holding  or 
held  in  their  unearned  station  on  false  claims; 
and  none,  however  humble,  where  we  may 
not  meet  the  wise,  the  good,  the  gentle,  over- 


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looked  by  the  social  groups  into  which  their 
merits  ought  to  bring  them,  and  themselves 
and  the  world  robbed  of  their  best  values 
by  accidental  conditions  that  might  easily  be 
removed. 

IV. 
SOCIAL    SELECTION    KILLED   AND    STUFFED. 

SOCIAL  selection  being  thus  wild  and  er- 
ratic, we  naturally  utter  much  fine  indigna- 
tion against  it  and  demand  repair  of  the  evil 
wrought.  Our  benevolent  sentiment  hurries 
forward  to  ask  why,  since  the  comfortable 
ranks  of  society  have  not  kept  up  an  intelli- 
gent and  faithful  discrimination,  but  let  their 
processes  of  selection  be  more  or  less  warped 
by  all  manner  of  ignoble  motives,  why  should 
they  hold  themselves  aloof  from  and  above 
less  fortunate  humanity,  to  its  estrangement, 
embitterment,  and  degradation  ?  And  then 
we  set  about  to  mend  the  wrong  by  methods 
that  too  often  only  add  to  the  confusion. 

We  feel  that  a  moral  duty  has  been  neg- 
lected and  must  now  be  performed.  We  join 
hands  with  others  who  propose  to  correct  the 
same  evils  because,  for  their  part,  they  see  in 
them  a  menace  to  the  order  and  safety  of  pub- 
lic society ;  and  with  yet  others,  distinctively 
"  religionists,"  who  see  religion  dammed  up, 
making  progress  and  gathering  numbers  only 
in  the  ranks  of  comfortable  respectability,  and 
irreligion,  vulgarity,  and  bad  morals  widening 
like  a  flood  and  threatening  every  guard  that 
the  God-fearing  can  throw  around  their  own 
children.  And  so  we  join  to  "  elevate  the 
masses." 

With  what  result  ?  To  find  out  speedily, 
with  mortification  and  resentment,  that  the 
sorts  of  people  we  attempt  to  elevate  either 
openly  spurn  or  secretly  despise  any  such  at- 
tempts made  in  order  to  satisfy  our  sense  of 
duty,  or  to  subserve  the  public  interest,  or  to 
promote  the  cause  and  fortunes  of  religion. 
They  will  not  be  used  either  to  wipe  our  con- 
science clear,  or  to  abate  a  public  nuisance,  or 
as  a  filling  even  for  churches  and  church  sta- 
tistics. We  recoil  from  the  effort,  bruised  and 
sore. 

Then  when  our  benevolence  and  pride  have 
recovered  from  their  wounds,  we  try  another 
plan :  we  offer  them  personal  friendship.  We 
see  this  is  what  we  owe  them,  and  that  the 
real  or  suspected  absence  of  this  is  what  they 
resent.  Now,  friendship  implies  fellowship  ; 
and  we  lightly  assume,  contrary  to  our  best 
knowledge,  that  friendship  means  private  so- 
cial companionship,  and  offer  them  personal 
friendship  in  this  form.  And  ninety-nine  times 
in  a  hundred  they  decline  this  also. 

The  trouble  is,  of  course,  not  in  the  friend- 
ship; it  is  in  the  form  the  friendship  takes. 


And  the  difficulty  stands,  whether  the  form  be 
genuine  or  specious.  If  genuine,  the  form  will 
consist  in  the  one  to  be  helped,  as  well  as  ihe 
helper,  generously  putting  away  all  false  pride 
and  unworthy  suspicions,  and  each  receiving 
from  the  other  at  least  one  social  visit  under 
his  or  her  own  roof.  Most  likely  one  such  ex- 
change will  show  that  neither  is  able  to  offer  a 
social  companionship  that  is  not  an  unprofit- 
able weariness  to  the  other.  If  the  effort  drags 
on,  how  it  drags! 

If  only  there  were  pain  to  relieve  or  sorrow 
to  comfort,  what  new  life  the  forced  relation 
would  at  once  display !  "  In  sooth,"  says  the 
young  prince  to  Hubert,  "  I  would  you  were 
a  little  sick,  that  I  might  sit  all  night  and 
watch  with  you."  Actual,  present  distress 
makes  fellowships,  while  it  lasts,  that  cannot 
be  made  without  it.  But  in  such  a  case  the 
visit  is  one  of  mercy,  not  of  sociality,  whereas 
we  are  seeking  a  scheme  that  will  not  have  to 
wait  for  people  to  fall  into  pitiful  distress  or 
languish  when  the  distress  is  gone.  Sociality 
cannot  be  other  than  a  burden,  with  its  weight 
resting  most  heavily  on  the  one  who  was  to 
be  helped  by  it,  unless  it  has  its  own  natural, 
inherent  reasons  for  being. 

To  condescend  and  manage  socially  is  not 
so  hard ;  to  be  socially  condescended  to  and 
managed  —  that  is  what  cannot  last.  Such  de- 
formed social  fellowship  soon  and  rightly  goes 
and  hangs  itself.  The  most  that  such  effort 
can  ever  do  is  by  rare  chance  to  find  some 
one  out  of  his  true  social  sphere  and  bring  him 
into  it.  It  can  never  have  any  appreciable  ef- 
fect to  fit  for  any  sort  of  true  promotion  any 
one  who  is  unfit.  In  the  vast  majority  of  such 
cases  prompt  failure  puts  the  friend  and  the 
befriended  only  further  apart,  and  makes  the 
betterment  of  the  lowly  seem  more  nearly  im- 
possible than  it  ever  seemed  before. 

But  generally  the  offers  of  friendship  from 
the  fortunate  to  those  less  so  are  less  genuine 
even  than  this.  We  are  in  haste  for  results, 
choose  easy  methods  rather  than  thorough 
ones,  and  have  among  us  many  who  only  half 
want  and  half  do  not  want  the  results  that  for 
one  reason  or  another  they  join  with  us  to  get. 
Hence  specious  offers  of  social  attention  such 
as  we  could  not  be  guilty  of  making  to  those 
who  are  already  on  our  own  social  plane ; 
proposals  to  gather  our  beneficiaries  together 
and  meet  them  numerously  without  having  met 
or  tried  to  meet  them  individually ;  ignoring 
the  fact  that  there  are  broad  social  divergencies 
among  them — ranks  and  circles,  as  there  should 
be,  and  the  spirits  of  class  and  coterie,  as  there 
ought  not  to  be  ;  extending  social  attentions 
that  might  at  least  be  genuine  if  offered  per- 
sonally and  in  our  own  drawing  or  sitting 
rooms,  but  are  only  flimsy  counterfeits  when 


HOME    CULTURE   CLUBS. 


tendered  promiscuously  and  in  some  public 
or  semi-public  place,  some  society's  rooms,  or 
church  parlors,  or  other  social  neutral  ground. 
What  wonder,  if  those  to  whom  we  so  con- 
descend turn  away  saying,  "  You  may  mean 
well,  but  we  don't  shake  hands  with  anybody's 
forefinger." 

Another  trouble  :  in  this  sort  of  lump  treat- 
ment there  is  often  as  little  discrimination  con- 
cerning who  shall  make  these  tenders  of  so- 
ciality as  concerning  who  shall  receive  them. 
Fortune  and  station  decide,  and  an  indiscrim- 
ination that  would  insure  failure  to  any  private 
enterprise  characterizes  an  effort  which  really 
demands  the  most  careful  selection  of  persons 
for  their  wisdom,  tact,  and  social  experience. 
Instead,  we  see  the  young,  the  giddy,  the  old, 
the  stupid,  the  self-seeking,  and  the  worldly 
thrown  together,  and  social  selections,  elimina- 
tions, and  separations  reasserting  themselves 
on  the  spot;  unless  —  as  is  more  likely — the 
intended  beneficiaries  are  wholly  absent. 

Such  schemes,  so  far  from  "  elevating  the 
masses,"  only  estrange  and  offend  them  with 
no  end  of  unfair  conditions,  and  delude  the 
benevolent  with  the  notion  that  they  are  doing 
their  best  to  effect  what  they  are  really  doing 
their  best  to  prevent.  Only  in  the  pure  democ- 
racy and  unassorted  meagerness  of  numbers 
of,  for  instance,  a  New  England  farm-village, 
where  there  is  no  distinct  "  mass  "  to  elevate, 
can  such  schemes  be  apparently  harmless. 
Even  there  they  are  not  really  so ;  for  at  any 
time  the  establishment  of  manufacturing  or 
large  commercial  interests  may  develop  class 
and  mass,  and  both  sides  be  found  handicapped 
with  false  notions  of  how  true  friendship  is  to 
make  itself  effective  between  them.  Or  if  no 
such  material  development  take  place,  then 
those  who  go  out  into  the  larger  world  seek- 
ing better  fortune,  and  find  the  conditions  of 
class  and  mass,  carry  with  them  the  most  mis- 
chievous misconceptions  of  what  private  so- 
ciety can  and  ought  to  do  for  the  masses,  by 
virtue  of  their  commercial,  church,  and  other 
relations,  and  how  it  should  be  done. 

Here,  then,  are  certainly  two  truths:  (i) 
That  the  masses  cannot  be  elevated  by  mere 
mass  treatment,  and  (2)  that  —  be  it  mass 
treatment  or  personal  treatment — mere  so- 
ciality would  be  quite  inadequate  even  if 
practicable,  and  quite  impracticable  even  if 
adequate. 

v. 

CLASS   TREATMENT,   THEN? 

ALL  mass  treatment  belongs  rightly  to  leg- 
islation and  government.  The  "  mass,"  as  a 
mnss  has  no  wants  except  its  rights.  To  pre- 
sume to  accord  these  by  any  sort  of  private 


condescension  is  extremely  offensive  to  count- 
less minds  that  may  not  be  able  to  define  why 
it  is  so.  Yet  naturally  one  will  find  himself 
largely  disqualified  for  any  salutary  treatment 
of  the  lowly  if  he  is  known  to  be  opposed  to 
any  clear  right  of  the  mass. 

There  is  a  kind  of  benevolent  effort  midway 
between  mass  treatment  and  personal  treat- 
ment. In  nations  where  arbitrary  class  dis- 
tinctions are  made  and  sustained  by  law,  even 
private  efforts  at  the  elevation  of  others  may 
have  a  limited  effectiveness  though  made  in 
the  guise  of  class  treatment. 

Yet  even  where  society  is  thus  broken  up 
into  classes  recognized  by  law  and  ancient 
custom,  class  wants  are  class  rights.  Only  law 
can  properly  supply  them.  A  want  which  leg- 
islation cannot  lawfully  supply  is  clearly  not 
a  class  want,  and  private  effort  to  supply  it 
ought  not  to  take  the  form  of  class  treatment ; 
that  is,  it  should  not  be  offered  to  people  in 
and  by  and  as  classes. 

Now,  in  our  own  country  the  idea  of  classes 
differing  from  one  another  in  their  rights  is 
intolerable  to  the  very  ground  principles  of 
the  nation's  structure.  No  one  who  is  not 
helpless  or  criminal  belongs  to  a  class.  Every 
one  belongs  to  the  whole  people,  the  whole 
people  to  him,  and  he,  first  and  last,  to  him- 
self. No  American  principle  is  better  known 
or  more  dearly  prized  by  every  American  in 
humble  life.  Occupations,  religious  creeds, 
accidents  of  birth  and  fortune,  may  have  their 
inevitable  classifying  effect;  but  no  one  rela- 
tion of  life  has  any  power  arbitrarily  to  deter- 
mine one's  class  in  any  other  relation,  and 
any  treatment,  whether  by  intention  or  over- 
sight, of  persons  whom  any  accident  of  life 
has  grouped  together,  as  being  all  of  a  sort, 
is  sure  to  be,  and  ought  to  be,  resented  as  at 
least  a  blunder.  In  any  private  effort,  then,  to 
"  elevate  the  masses,"  in  this  country  at  least, 
class  treatment  is  out  of  the  question. 

Very  exact  persons  may  say  that  the  sup- 
port of  public  education  and  public  charities 
by  public  taxation  supplies  class  wants  that 
cannot  truly  be  called  class  rights.  But  in  fact 
these  benefactions  are  supported  by  public  tax 
not  because  they  are  charities  to  classes,  but 
because  they  are  provisions  for  the  common 
public  peace,  safety,  and  welfare.  Though  the 
needs  they  supply  are  wants  of  class,  they  are 
defensive  rights  of  the  whole  public,  and  as 
such  are  properly  met  by  public  treatment. 
Even  foundlings  given,  into  the  arms  of  private 
charity  are  so  assigned,  not  for  class  treatment, 
but  to  reduce  their  class  treatment  to  the  ex- 
treme practicable  minimum  and  give  them 
the  most  that  can  be  given  of  personal  con- 
sideration. Now,  if  individual  treatment  be 
best  for  those  whom  dependency  or  delin- 


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quency  has  classified,  how  much  more  is  it 
imperative  for  those  who  rightly  refuse  to  be 
impersonally  classed  at  all  and  need  rather 
to  unlearn  their  own  inconsistent,  numerous, 
rude,  and  unjust  classifications  of  one  another. 


VI. 


PRIVATE    PERSONAL    PROFIT    AND    PLEASURE. 

THUS  we  drop  into  our  true  limitations. 
Private  effort  for  the  elevation  of  the  non-de- 
pendent and  the  non-delinquent  lowly  is  right 
and  highly  necessary.  But  it  must  be  for  each 
helped  one's  own  sake,  and  not  merely  for  the 
promotion  of  some  good  cause  or  abatement 
of  some  general  evil. 

Not  even  for  the  advancement  of  Christian- 
ity ?  No!  If  the  great  fraternity  of  man  will 
seek  each  other's  best  advancement,  Christian- 
ity will  advance  itself  never  so  fast.  No  mass 
treatment,  no  class  treatment,  no  cause  treat- 
ment. 1 1  must  be  individual,  personal  treatment. 
It  is  not  the  mass,  the  class,  or  the  cause,  it  is 
the  individual,  that  we  must  elevate.  Hence 
you — I  —  must  know  the  individual.  I  must 
learn  four  things  about  him  —  his  capabilities, 
his  needs,  his  desires,  and  his  surroundings. 
There  is  one  thing  I  must  give  him  —  true 
friendship;  and  one  thing  I  must  get  of  him  — 
his  confidence ;  and  two  that  I  must  exchange 
with  him  —  profit  and  pleasure. 

Not  pleasure  alone,  for  I  cannot  long  give 
him.  or  he  give  me,  as  much  mere  pleasure 
as  he  can  get  without  me.  Yet  not  profit 
alone;  for  most  likely  uncommercial  profit 
without  pleasure  is  in  his  eye  not  worth  its 
effort.  Nor  yet  mere  profit  and  pleasure  sepa- 
rately, side  by  side,  or  in  alternation ;  but  profit 
yielding  pleasure.  A  profit  he  may  not  as 
easily  get  without  me,  and  a  pleasure  not 
sought  for  its  own  sake,  but  dependent  on  the 
profit.  And  the  profit  not  merely  given,  but 
exchanged.  For  to  know  that  the  profit  is 
mutual  makes  the  pleasure  mutual,  heightens 
it,  and  so  animates  and  sustains  the  rela- 
tion; while,  also,  to  require  mutual  profit  re- 
strains each  side  'from  reaching  out  farther 
across  social  lines  than  is  good  for  the  best 
results. 

So,  the  first  step  with  him  whom  I  would 
elevate  is  to  seek  a  speaking  acquaintance 
with  him.  This  must  be  got;  but  in  getting 
it  I  shall,  if  I  am  wise,  keep  every  good  social 
rule  that  I  need  not  break.  Then,  not  with 
rash  haste,  yet  promptly,  and  on  the  first 
personal  contact,  I  would  set  about  to  dis- 
cover what  he  would  like  to  get  that  I  can 
give,  with  only  gain  to  him  and  no  apparent 
loss  to  me.  Even  within  this  limit  he  may  not 
wish  for  what  I  most  wish  to  give  him.  But 
I  must  begin  with  what  he  wants  —  so  it  be 


good  —  to  bring  him  to  what  I  wish  him  to 
want. 

Unless  he  is  in  some  dire  distress  I  must  lay 
no  sudden  or  heavy  burden  of  debt  or  effort 
upon  him.  I  must  be  even  more  careful  to 
keep  the  obligation  small  than  to  make  the 
benefaction  large.  My  aim  must  be  to  pro- 
duce the  most  comfortable  maximum  of  benefi- 
cence from  the  most  comfortable  minimum 
of  benevolence.  I  must  offer  no  benefit  for 
nothing  for  which  he  can  in  any  way  pay 
something.  He  will  like  this  the  better,  or  if, 
gently  and  silently,  I  have  to  teach  him  to 
like  this  the  better,  that  is  one  of  the  greatest 
benefits  I  can  do  him.  Unearned  benefits 
are  doubtful  benefits;  earned  benefits  live 
and  grow.  Yet  they  need  not  always  be  paid 
for.  The  child  in  school  must  earn  every  line 
of  his  education  by  study;  some  one  else, 
perhaps  the  state,  pays  for  it,  and  ultimately 
he  repays  the  state. 

So  I  make  nothing  gratuitous  that  can, 
without  discouragement,  be  made  otherwise; 
and  even  what  is  a  mere  gratuity  from  me 
may  be  no  mere  gratuity  to  him.  I  give  him 
no  gratuitous  elevation  nor  even  any  gratui- 
tous social  promotion ;  but  only  the  oppor- 
tunity, stimulation,  and  guidance  which  he  is 
not  able,  or  perhaps  does  not  yet  prize  enough, 
to  pay  for.  Now,  plainly,  under  these  limita- 
tions, the  only  elements  of  true  elevation  and 
enlargement  that  I  can  enable  him  to  get  by 
earning  and  yet  without  paying  for  them  are 
the  various  sorts  of  education  and  culture  of 
hand,  head,  and  heart. 

VII. 

CULTURE. 

EVEN  here  we  are  narrowly  hedged  in.  I 
have  little  leisure ;  he  has  less.  I  am  tired  ; 
he  is  more  so.  He  is  probably  not  a  strug- 
gling genius,  hungering  and  thirsting  for  men- 
tal food  and  drink.  He  has  not  the  confident 
hope,  the  strong  ambition,  the  natural  bent, 
the  habit,  nor  yet,  perhaps,  the  physical  stam- 
ina, that  sustain  a  man  in  hard  study  after 
eight,  nine,  ten  hours  of  hard  or  confining 
work.  It  is  those  who  are  not  equal  to  this 
who  need  help  most. 

Whatever  he  and  I  are  going  to  undertake, 
its  burden  must  be  light.  It  must  be  of  his 
choosing,  in  kind  and  quantity,  and  yet  of  a 
kind  that  I  can  help  him  with,  and  in  quantity 
so  moderate  that  it  might  very  comfortably 
to  either  of  us  be  more.  Again,  it  must  not 
lay  any  large  tax  upon  hours  of  relaxation. 
Yet  must  neither  quantity  nor  frequency  be 
so  scant  as  to  attenuate  the  sense  of  profit 
and  the  interest  in  the  pursuit. 

But  the  tax  of  regularity  and  punctuality 


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5°3 


must  he  levied  and  paid.  \Ve  must  meet  each 
other  on  a  regularly  recurring  day  —  and  no 
other  recurrenre  is  so  good  as  the  weekly 
return  —  with  a  fixed  and  closely  observed 
hour  for  meeting,  and  another,  just  as  strictly 
kept,  for  separating.  And,  lastly,  the  pursuit 
must  be  such  that  I,  too,  shall  visibly  gain 
some  pleasure  and  profit  from  it ;  for  reasons 
already  given,  and  also  because  thus  it  will 
gain  more  value  in  his  esteem,  and  because 
thus,  too,  may  I  induce  others  the  more  nu- 
merously to  follow  my  example. 

And  now  are  we  ready  to  begin  ?  We  have 
provided  unburdensome,  inexpensive,  pleas- 
urable, and  elevating  profit.  Thus  I  am  offer- 
ing tangible  friendship,  inviting  confidence, 
and  [Hitting  myself  in  a  way  to  learn  his  capa- 
bilities, needs,  desires,  and  —  stop!  I  have 
not  provided  for  knowing  his  habitual  sur- 
roundings. Until  I  know  them  I  cannot 
really  know  him.  How  shall  I  learn  what 
they  are  and  learn  it  as  soon  as  possible  ? 
Manifestly,  by  observing  him  in  them.  But 
I  must  not  dream  of  secretly  spying  into  them, 
nor  of  indirectly  inquiring  into  them,  nor  yet 
of  openly  and  formally  investigating  or  recon- 
noitering  them.  There  is  a  wiser,  kindlier, 
friendlier,  and  far  more  effective  way.  It  is 
to  hold  our  weekly  meetings  in  his  house. 

VIII. 
HOME    CULTURE. 

WE  must  meet  in  his  home.  But  will  not 
that  seem  to  him  like  holding  him  at  arms- 
length  ?  Will  it  not  tax  his  confidence  to 
see  that  I  do  not  ask  him  to  my  house  ?  It 
might.  So  we  had  better  alternate ;  one  week 
at  his  house,  the  next  at  mine,  the  third  at 
his,  and  so  on.  But  first  at  his.  His  courage 
might  fail  him  to  come  first  to  me ;  mine  need 
not  fail  to  go  first  to  him. 

Suppose  that,  after  the  first,  he  should  want 
all  our  meetings  to  be  at  my  house.  That 
would  be  good,  but  not  best.  Besides  my 
need  to  know  his  habitual  surroundings,  there 
are  two  other  strong  reasons  why  I  should 
meet  him  under  his  own  roof:  first,  to  keep 
the  home  in  his  world ;  and,  secondly,  to  bring 
some  little  of  my  world  into  his  home. 

Book-learning  and  the  like  are  but  a  scant 
third  of  education  and  culture.  Our  home 
contacts  are  a  full  third,  and  our  world  con- 
tacts another  third.  Therefore,  to  get  the 
best  results  in  culture  from  him  whom  I  pur- 
pose to  elevate,  I  must  keep  these  three  chan- 
nels open.  To  try  to  lift  him  only,  and  not 
his  home,  would  be  for  me  to  pull  one  way 
while  his  home  pulls  another  way.  If  I  suc- 
ceed in  lifting  him,  and  he  still  holds  on  to 
his  home  as  he  should,  then  the  lift  is  a  dead 


lift,  and  either  a  great  strain  or  a  poor  result. 
And  if,  as  I  lift  him,  1  loosen  the  hold  between 
him  and  his  home,  it  is  a  hazardous  benefit 
that  estranges  him  from  his  family  circle. 
For  the  hearth-stone  is  the  key-stone  of  all  the 
world's  best  order  and  happiness.  The  easi- 
est, best,  quickest  way  to  lift  almost  any  one 
is  to  lift  him,  house,  and  all. 

Moreover,  so  many  other  things  —  the  gas- 
lit  street,  the  theater,  the  public  dance,  the 
club,  the  saloon,  the  reading-room,  so  many 
things,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent — tend  to  rob 
the  lowly  home  ot  its  brightest  ornaments,  that 
it  behooves  me  to  work  the  other  way.  Those 
who  must  stay  at  the  fireside,  the  aged  and  the 
little  ones,  have  some  rights.  They  may  lack 
the  time,  the  wits,  or  the  wish,  to  come  form- 
ally under  my  care;  and  yet  they  may  get 
large  benefit, —  stimulations,  aspirations, — 
though  it  be  only  by  virtue  of  the  new  outside 
"  atmosphere,"  the  mere  odor  of  better  things, 
that  I  unconsciously  bring  with  me  when  I 
come  thus  somewhat  within  their  own  home 
circle :  not  with  mere  condescension,  but  on  a. 
definite  business  with  one  of  its  number,  may- 
hap the  pride  of  the  flock;  a  business,  too, 
which  they  shall  see  that  I  myself  rightly  en- 
joy. It  is  far  best,  for  him  and  for  all,  that  the 
culture  I  bring  to  my  one  beneficiary  be  given 
and  received  in  the  home.  The  more  any 
sort  of  true  culture  is  shared  the  more  there 
is  for  each  and  every  one,  especially  when  it 
is  shared  with  those  we  love  and  who  love  us. 
Hence  "/tome  culture." 

But  there  is  still  unprovided  the  third  me- 
dium of  culture ;  to  wit,  healthful  contact  with 
the  outlying  world.  It  is  true,  he  whom  I 
seek  to  help  will  often  meet  me  in  my  own 
home.  But  this  will  give  him  but  a  slight  con- 
tact with  my  world,  for  several  reasons.  First, 
we  meet  to  .pursue  an  appointed  task  which 
will  take  up  the  whole  time  of  our  meeting. 
And  then,  even  if  there  were  time  to  bring 
him  socially  into  the  company  of  my  intimates, 
he  is,  most  likely,  not  equipped  for  that  kind 
of  contact,  even  with  me ;  and  much  less  with 
them,  he  alone  and  they  in  the  plural.  He 
would  shun  its  repetition,  and  we  should  soon 
be  driven  apart.  Again,  himself  is  not  his 
whole  self;  his  domestic  ties  are  a  large  part 
of  him.  And  so,  as  well  for  his  own  sake  as 
for  his  home's  own  sake,  his  home  must  get 
this  outer  contact.  My  visits  bring  a  little, 
but  not  as  much  as  is  good.  How  may  more 
be  brought  ? 

I  see  we  must  avoid  mere  sociality  here 
also,  and  anything  likely  to  run  into  it.  I 
see,  too,  that,  very  rightly,  the  sense  of  disad- 
vantage is  so  plainly  with  my  beneficiary  and 
his  household  that  I  must  all  the  time  do  all 
I  can  to  make  him,  as  nearly  as  I  can,  master 


5°4 


HOME   CULTURE    CLUBS. 


of  the  situation.   Under  his   roof  the    only  count  each  time  in  their  case  for  two.    Let  us 

larger  contact  with  the  world  without  that  he  say  then  that  four  or  six  should  be  about  the 

will  like  will  be  with  that  part  already  near-  number  of  homes  represented  by  the  total 

est  to  him  in  taste  and  culture.    I  must  let  membership,  whatever  that  number  may  be. 

him  choose  the  persons.  On  the  other  hand,  if  even  so  few  as  four  or 

Even  then  he  will  not  like,  nor  would  it  five  members  are  hard  to  find,  there  is  no  rea- 

be  best,  for  them  to  be  mere  lookers-on.  They  son  why  a  beginning  may  not  be  made  with 

must  join  us  in  our  task.    Hence  they  must  two  or  three.  Yet  we  must  be  watchful  to 

be  always  the  same  persons,  and  their  homes  add  others  whenever  we  can.    To  put  all  in 

also  must  be  open  to  the  weekly  meetings  of  two  words,  we  must  have  and  keep  the  group, 

the  group,  in  regular  routine.   By  these  pro-  and  we  must  keep  it  small.   Hence  not  mere 

visions  we  shall  largely  guard  against  any  es-  self-culture,  but  home-culture ;    and  not  the 

trangements  of  any  humble  household  from  home  culture  society  or  association,  but  each 

the  friends  and  neighbors   of  its  own  sort,  time,  however  often  repeated,  a  home    cul- 

make  the  movement  seem  less  mine  than  the  ture  club, 
group's  own  —  their  self-provision  rather  than  ix. 

my  benefaction,  and  ward  off  especially  that  CULTURE  CLUBS. 

rude,  envious,  or  frivolous  criticism  of  unsym- 
pathetic daily  associates  which  always   puts        NEVERTHELESS  we  find  ample  room  for  larger 

so  heavy  a  strain  upon  the  moral  courage  of  aggregations  also.    If  one  group  of  four  or  five 

the  uncultured.    Other  good  effects  will  sug-  persons  under,  or  rather  around,  a  leader  can 

gest  themselves,  without  mention  here.  make  a  home  culture  club,  the  chance  is  that 

Working  thus  in  group  we  shall  have  other  three  or  five  or  ten  clubs  may  be  formed  within 

provisions  to  make,  but  we  can  make  them,  reach  of  one  another.    In  such  a  case  great 

Different  members  of  the  group  may  show  stimulation  may  come  to  each  club  through 

varying   degrees   of  energy  for  the   pursuit  knowledge  of  what  the  other  clubs  are  doing, 

of  the  matter  we  take  up.   In  that  case,  for  and  a  friendly  comparison  of  one  another's 

those  to  whom  a  single  weekly  hour  of  read-  methods,  mistakes,  and  successes, 
ing  is  not  enough  we  can  supply  additional 

collateral  reading  (or  other  sources  of  infor-  • 

mation,  but  generally  books),  on  the  same  REPORT  OF  HOME  CULTURE  CLUB  NO.  — 
subject  as  that  in  hand  at  the  group's  sessions. 
This  collateral  work,  apart  from  the  sessions 

of  the  group,  such  members  can  pursue  as  far  weekly  meeting  (of}. ... 

they  may  find  it  convenient,  in  their  own  pri-  Number  of 'members present 

vacy,  and  so  sustain  and  enliven  their  interest  Title  of  book  read  in  the  meeting: 
and  continue  to  prize  their  own  attendance 
at  the  regular  meetings. 

Under  this  group  arrangement  the  house  of  7"*"»  "'***  *- 

each  member  will  receive  our  visitation  much  Tttl"  °f  bmt:s  "ad out  of  meeting: 

less  often  than  if  we  were  but  two  persons ; 

but  when  it  comes  it  will  be  a  more  stim-  

ulating  event.  And  my  own  usefulness  will  thus 
be  brought  to  its  best;  for  what  I  can  impart 

to  one  at  a  time  I  may  just  as  well  impart  to  

four  Or  six  at  once.  No.  of  pages  read  by  each  member  out  of  meeting  : 

Four  or  six ;  hardly  more.  More  might  em-  

barrass  some  households  even  to  seat  them.  NamHOf  visitors  present  from  other  Clubs: 
It  would  make  the  visits  of  the  group  at  the 
house  of  each  member  too  infrequent  for  best 

effect,  and  would  diminish  that  mutual  per-  

sonal  acquaintanceship  and  influence  which  Whole  number  belonging  to  the  Club 

is  the  thing  most  needed  for  the  results  we  Next  meetins  held  at 

seek.   Yet  the  number  need  never  be  arbitrary. 
There  may  be  this  reason  or  that  why  some 

member  will  be  really  unable  to  receive  the  Remarks  and  leaders  signature: 

group  at  his  domicile.   He  may  live,  for  in-  

stance,   in   an   inhospitable   boarding-house.  Jtt*^S3£S£&±TS*^£Si 

Yet  should  he,  least  of  all,  be  excluded  from  meeting. 

the  group.    Two  or  more  members  may  be-  

long  to  one  household,   and  one  visitation  A  POSTAL-CARD  BLANK. 


HOME    CULTURE   CLUBS.  505 

RECORD  OF   HOME  CULTURE  CLUBS. 

WEEK  KNDIMI  SATURDAY,  APRIL  21,  1888.     Numbers  of  Clubs,  with  Titles  of  Hooks  Kead. 

No.  I. ..  .Read  in  meeting:  Not  to  Ourselves,  70  pages.  Rend  out  of  meeting:  Ben  Hur,  miscellaneous; 
40,  150  pages. 

"       2.  ...  Read  in  meeting:    1,'Univers  Illustre,  one  column. 

"  3....!;  ''"£:  ''c'n  Pictures  of  Modem  Authors,  20  pages.  Road  nut  of  meeting:  Slmndon 

l'»  II  ,  \ '"I .:ii'l'-,  George  Eliot,  miscellaneous;  50,  270,  302,  150  pages. 

"  4  .  .  Read  out  of  meeting:  Personal  Memoirs  of  U.  S.  Grant,  Triumphant  Democracy,  miscellaneous ; 
150,  75,  200  pages. 

"  5. . .  .Read  in  meeting:  The  Sunset  Land,  30  pages.  Also  discussed  the  question :  Is  it  ever  Justifiable 
to  Tell  a  Lie?  Read  out  of  meeting:  The  Fair  God,  His  One  Fault,  The  Sunset  Land;  200, 
150,  612  pages. 

"       6.  ..  .Business  meeting.    Read  out  of  meeting:    Life  of  Longfellow,  miscellaneous ;   I  oo,  330  pages. 

"       7. ...  \<>  meeting,  on  account  of  illness  of  members. 

«  8...  Read  in  meeting:  The  Twenty-ninth  of  February,  36  pages.  Read  out  of  meeting :  Humboldt's 
Travels,  Tlieodolf  the  Icelander,  Life  of  Hegel,  Hegel's  Lectures  on  Philosophy  of  History, 
Life  of  Humboldt,  Life  of  Fichte,  Undine;  428,  638,  300,  250,  325,  191  pages. 

"  9....  Read  in  meeting:  What  Social  Classes  Owe  to  Each  Other,  50  pages.  Read  out  of  meeting: 
Miu-cn  Money,  Yoke  of  the  Thora,  Caleb  Field,  Hawthorne's  Tales,  Tolstoi's  Stories,  miscel- 
l.uioms;  500,  250,  ioo,  136,  200  pages. 

"  10.  ...  Kead  in  meeting:  Longfellow's  Life  and  Poems,  25  pages.  Readout  of  meeting:  German  Litera- 
ture, Christian  Science,  Longfellow,  United  States  History,  Assyria,  miscellaneous;  300,225, 
500,  300,  424  pages. 

"  II ....  Read  in  meeting:  Harold,  the  Last  of  the  Saxon  Kings,  30  pages.  Read  out  of  meeting :  Uni- 
versal History,  Feudal  England;  20,  15  pages. 

"  12 Read  in  meeting:  United  States  History,  12  pages.  Read  out  of  meeting:  Girls  who  became 

Famous  Women,  193  pages. 

"  13  ..  .Read  in  meeting:  Boy  Travelers  in  Russia,  43  pages.  Read  out  of  meeting:  Our  Boys  of  India, 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin ;  320, 65  pages. 

"  14....  Read  in  meeting:  Pickwick  Papers,  50  pages.  'Read  out  of  meeting:  Through  Storm  to  Sun- 
shine, From  Hand  to  Mouth,  Vice  Versa,  Under  the  Shield,  Romance  of  the  Republic,  Some 
Other  Folks  of  Woodstock,  Gold  of  Chickoree,  miscellaneous;  1592,  914,  836  pages. 

"     15.  ..  .Read  out  of  meeting:    History  of  California,  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  magazines;  200,175,150, 

75  PaBes- 
"     l6....Read  in  meeting:    Soldier  and  Servant,  43  pages.    Read  out  of  meeting:    History  of  England, 

History  of  the  World,  miscellaneous;   1000,  IK,  500  pages. 
"     17   ...Read  in  meeting:    Faust,  47  pages.    Read  out  of  meeting:    Trumps,   Don  Quixote,  Juan  and 

Juanita,  Les  Mise>ables,The  Fair  God,  Peveril  of  the  Peak;  392,  234,  98,  236,  176,  210  pages. 
"     18   .    .No  meeting.    Read  out  of  meeting:    Sweet  Cicely,  miscellaneous ;   120,  80  pages. 
"     19.  ...  PARKVIU.E,  Mo. — No  report  received  this  week. 
"    20. ...  BALTIMORE,  MD. — No  report  received  this  week. 

[Here  follows  a  tabulated  summary.] 

Even  merely  to  convene  at  occasional  in-  whom  it  is  most  desirable  to  see  the  clubs  made 

tervals  in  a  common  gathering  of  all  the  clubs,  up ;  and  probably  both  the  best  and  the  readi- 

not  in  private  sociality,  but  either  as  an  audi-  est  way  to  insure  this  is  to  allow  every  jnem- 

ence  to  some  elevating  public  entertainment,  ber,  leaders  and  all,  the  right  to  give  the  same 

or  for  each  club  to  make  its  own  report,  and  appointed  number  of  invitations  to  persons  of 

hear  the  aggregated  report,  of  work  done;  nay,  his  choice  not  yet  in  any  home  culture  club, 
even  the  mere  sight  of  their  own  numbers  will 

kindle  enthusiasm,  inspiration,  esprit  de  corps,  HERE,  then,  seems  to  be  a  complete  scheme 

public  esteem,  and  new  energy  and  effort.  for  the  continuous,  safe,  true  befriending  of 

Hence  the  plural,  the  home  culture  clubs,  the  less  fortunate  by  the  moderately  more  for- 

with  their  secretary  —  one  for  all  —  receiving  tunate,  applicable  to  all  sorts  and  conditions 

weekly  from  every  club  a  postal-card  report  of  life  that  do  not  justify  the  deprivation  or 

of  its  own  work  done, — as  far  as  mere  figures  surrender  of  personal  liberty.  It  appears  to  be 

can  tell  it, —  and  sending  weekly  to  every  club  free  from  the  flaws  and  drawbacks  that  depre- 

an  engrossed  record  of  the  whole  work  of  the  ciate  so  many  generous  efforts  to  reach  across 

previous  week  in  all  the  clubs,  as  gathered  from  the  gross  inequalities  of  fortune  and  rank  and 

these  postal-cards.    Hence,  too,  the  general  establish  a  mutually  elevating  human  fraternity 

meetings  of  all  the  clubs  together,  as  often  as  without  risk  of  mischievous  social  confusion, 

once  in  every  six  or  eight  weeks.  It  offers  no  gratuitous  promotion  of  any  sort, 

And  these  general  meetings  maybe  given  nor  even  any  enervating  opportunity;  but  only 
another  value  —  they  may  provoke  the  forma-  opportunity  of  the  stimulating  sort,  opportu- 
tion  of  new  clubs.    To  this  end  invitations  to  nity  to  earn  and  achieve  true  elevation.  It  pur- 
Represent  may  be  given  numerously  to  those  of  poses  to  elevate  the  individual  not  out  from 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 71. 


506 


HOME   CULTURE    CLUBS. 


the  home  circle,  but  in  it,  and,  as  much  as  may 
be,  by  the  participation  of  the  home  circle  it- 
self in  that  elevation.  It  purposes,  under  the 
best  safeguards,  to  bring  those  who  may  be 
severed  from  family  ties  into  contact  with 
family  circles,  as  nearly  as  may  be  of  their  own 
best  affinity.  It  does  not  purpose  to  put  any 
one  in  any  burdensome  degree  under  anoth- 
er's condescension,  nor  does  it  call  upon  any 
one  for  tasks  wholly  unprofitable  to  self.  It 
involvesno  chance  of  unwisely  sudden  changes 
in  any  one's  condition.  It  purposes  to  be  prac- 
ticable for  as  few  as  two  or  three  persons,  or 
for  as  many  thousands ;  to  be  good  and  prof- 
itable as  far  as  it  goes,  little  or  much,  whether 
in  effort,  duration,  or  numbers,  and  to  involve 
no  possible  loss  in  case  of  possible  failure.  In 
any  community  where  books  may  be  borrowed 
from  private  hands  or  public  library  the  ex- 
pense involved  may  be  made  so  slight  as  not 
to  require  the  question  of  ways  and  means 
to  be  broached  beyond  the  circle  of  a  very 
few  friends  in  sympathy  with  any  such  work. 

x. 

WILL   THEY   WORK  ? 

Two  questions  remain  to  be  met:  First, 
would  this  scheme,  put  into  practice,  be  effect- 
ive ?  But  the  scheme  has  been  tried.  It  is 
working.  As  in  the  nature  of  all  things,  partic- 
ular clubs  will  have,  are  having,  their  birth, 
life,  and  death,  and  while  they  live  one  will  dif- 
fer from  another  in  effectiveness ;  but  the  plan 
works  and  the  work  is  growing. 

The  experiment  has  been  cautiously  made. 
Each  step  has  been  studied  both  before  and 
after  it  was  taken,  before  another  has  been 
proposed.  Proposals  to  start  clubs  in  many 
towns  far  apart  from  one  another  have  been 
held  in  suspense,  and  the  venture  until  very 
lately  has  been  intentionally  and  entirely  con- 
fined to  one  place,  the  town  of  Northampton, 
Massachusetts.  Here  there  have  been  started 
one  by  one,  from  time  to  time  during  the 
year  1887  and  the  winter  and  spring  of  1888, 
twenty  home  culture  clubs.  Eighteen  still 
exist,  and  the  only  two  that  have  disbanded 
have  done  so  by  reason  of  changes  beyond 
control,  and  not  for  lack  of  interest  or  from 
any  discovered  fault  in  the  scheme.  Many 
thousands  of  pages  of  standard  literature  have 
been  read  and  heard  around  the  evening 
lamp,  or  in  "  collateral  readings,"  by  those 
with  whom  reading  had  been  no  habit.  Two 
other  clubs  have  lately  been  admitted,  though 
meeting  in  distant  towns.  The  total  member- 
ship is  at  present  one  hundred  and  forty-four, 
and  the  aggregate  number  of  pages  read  weekly 
averages  about  eighteen  thousand.  But  it  is 
recognized  that  an  arithmetical  count  is  but  a 


crude  way  of  indicating  the  work  done,  only 
justified  by  the  absence  of  any  other  simple 
method.  Many  pages  have  been  not  merely 
read,  but  studied,  recounted,  debated.  All 
ranks  of  society  are  represented,  with  those 
who  move  in  the  plainer  walks  of  life  distinctly 
in  the  majority,  and  it  is  believed  that  the  mem- 
bers are  being  brought  into  a  helpful  contact 
with  others  from  more  or  less  fortunate  and  re- 
fined planes  than  their  own,  and  are  getting 
that  knowledge  of  and  proper  regard  for  one 
another  and  one  another's  widely  divergent 
social  conditions  which  every  true  interest  of 
society  must  commend. 

And  the  second  question :  What  errors  or 
abuses  is  the  scheme  in  danger  of?  One,  un- 
doubtedly, is  fashion.  In  view  of  this  the 
greatest  pains  have  been  taken  to  avoid  en- 
listing any  sudden  enthusiasm,  or  appealing, 
in  the  fortunate  ranks  of  society,  to  the  sorts 
of  persons  likely  to  be  attracted  by  mere 
novelty  or  vogue.  However,  should  the  sys- 
tem anywhere,  at  any  time,  so  rise  into  the 
favor  of  people  of  leisure  as  to  become  fashion- 
able, and  thus  tempt  light-minded  peisons  of 
fortune  to  take  it  up  for  their  own  mere  diver- 
sion, it  will  meet  the  failure  it  will  merit;  but 
the  failure  need  not  extend  much  beyond  the 
time  and  place  of  such  misuse. 

Another  abuse  to  be  guarded  against  islet- 
ting  the  work  degenerate  into  class  treatment. 
We  need  not  expand  the  thought  again.  Class 
treatment,  in  this  country  at  least,  will  merely 
fail  to  reach  the  classes  reached  after. 

The  one  great  danger  is  the  error  of  private 
sociality.  It  may  work  in  two  ways:  persons 
may  form  clubs  of  really  diverse  social  ele- 
ments,—  which  will  be  proper, —  but  in  an 
indiscreet  and  impatient  goodness  of  heart 
undertake  to  build  up  a  mutual  friendship  and 
acquaintanceship  by  socialities,  or  let  clubs 
idly  drift  into  them.  This  would  be  bad,  and 
only  bad,  whether  for  the  club  itstlf  or  as  a 
precedent.  For  the  consequent  social  confu- 
sion would  either  break  up  the  club  or  alienate 
more  or  less  of  its  members,  and  leave  the  re- 
mainder a  petty  social  clique  getting  no  good 
across  the  ordinary  social  lines.  Or  persons 
may  form  a  club  or  clubs  with  members  drawn 
all  from  one  social  rank,  either  in  humbler  or 
in  higher  life.  In  such  a  case  they  may  find 
much  profit;  but  the  foremost  object  of  the 
whole  scheme  would  thus  be  overlooked  from 
the  very  start,  and  a  new  force  added  to  con- 
firm, where  the  design  should  be  to  offset,  the 
crude  assortments  made  by  uncertain  fortune 
and  the  caprices  of  private  social  selection. 

To  start  these  clubs  anywhere  requires  no 
outlay  nor  any  wide  cooperation.  Wherever 
any  man  or  woman  of  the  most  ordinary  at- 
tainments can  gather  two,  three,  or  four  others, 


THE   CRICKET. 


5°7 


in  any  sort  or  degree  less  accomplished,  a  club 
may  be  formed,  and  if  necessary  can  be  com- 
plete in  itself;  or  it  may  join  itself  by  corre- 
spondence to  some  group  of  clubs  elsewhere, 
and  have  the  benefit  of  making  weekly  reports 
and  getting  weekly  the  aggregated  record  of 
the  whole  group  of  clubs.  Wherever  there  is 
such  a  group  of  clubs  there  should  be  a  presi- 
dent and  a  secretary,  and  it  will  probably  al- 
ways be  for  the  best  that  the  secretary  receive 
some  small  quarterly  or  semi-yearly  compen- 
sation in  consideration  of  a  business-like  at- 
tention to  his  or  her  duties.  An  unpaid  sec- 
retaryship is  probably  too  old  a  snare  to  need 
warning  against  here. 

The  home  culture  clubs  are  not  recom- 
mended for  filling  churches,  emptying  chari- 
table institutions,  or  eradicating  any  great 
visible  public  evil,  but  as  means  for  proving 
practically  our  love  and  care  for  our  less  for- 
tunate brother  or  sister.  If  the  scheme,  when 
time  and  diverse  regions  have  fairly  tried  it, 
wins  our  needy  fellow-man's  confidence  and 


kindles  his  higher  desires;  if  it  helps  us  to 
correct  somewhat  the  misfortunes  of  others 
and  to  make  human  fraternity  something  wider 
than  mere  social  affinity  will,  or  social  assort- 
ment ought  to,  stretch,  it  will  live;  if  not,  it 
will  drag  no  one  with  it  into  the  grave. 

The  home  culture  clubs  are  recommended 
not  to  zealots  only,  but  to  those  generous 
thousands  who  have  seen  the  poor  success  of 
so  many  efforts  to  commend  the  Christianity 
of  the  fortunate  to  the  hearts  of  the  unfortu- 
nate, and  have  seen  the  cause  of  failure  in  the 
neglect  to  secure  personal  acquaintance  and  to 
carry  unprofessional  friendly  offices  into  the 
home,  free  from  the  burden  of  charity  on  the 
one  hand  and  of  sociality  on  the  other.  The 
plan  is  submitted  to  all  who  believe  that  to 
help  a  lowlier  brother  to  supply  any  worthy 
craving  of  the  mind  that  he  may  already  have 
is  the  shortest,  surest  way  to  implant  those 
highest  cravings  of  the  soul  which  seek  and 
find  repose  only  in  harmony  with  the  Divine 
will. 

G.    W.  Cable. 


fW>> 

ilrtv   ^     -*S  ^f     ,/>   *  r 


THE    CRICKET. 

THE  twilight  is  the  morning  of  his  day. 
While  Sleep  drops  seaward  from  the  fading  shore, 
With  purpling  sail  and  dip  of  silver  oar, 
He  cheers  the  shadowed  time  with  roundelay, 

Until  the  dark  east  softens  into  gray. 

Now  as  the  noisy  hours  are  coming  —  hark  ! 
His  song  dies  gently  —  it  is  getting  dark  — 
His  night,  with  its  one  star,  is  on  the  way. 

Faintly  the  light  breaks  over  the  blowing  oats  — 
Sleep,  little  brother,  sleep :  I  am  astir. 
Lead  thou  the  starlit  nights  with  merry  notes, 

And  I  will  lead  the  clamoring  day  with  rhyme: 
We  worship  Song,  and  servants  are  of  her  — 
I  in  the  bright  hours,  thou  in  shadow-time. 


Charles  Edwin  Markham. 


MY    MEETING    WITH    THE    POLITICAL    EXILES. 


|UR  first  meeting  with  political 
exiles  in  Siberia  was  brought 
about  by  a  fortunate  accident, 
and,  strangely  enough,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. Among  the  many 
officers  whose  acquaintance  we  made  in  Semi- 
palatinsk  was  an  educated  and  intelligent  gen- 
tleman named  Pavlovski,*  who  had  long  held 
an  important  position  in  the  Russian  service, 
and  who  was  introduced  to  us  as  a  man  whose 
wide  and  accurate  knowledge  of  Siberia,  es- 
pecially of  the  steppe  provinces,  might  ren- 
der him  valuable  to  us,  both  as  an  adviser 
and  as  a  source  of  trustworthy  information. 
Although  Mr.  Pavlovski  impressed  me  from 
the  first  as  a  cultivated,  humane,  and  liberal 
man,  I  naturally  hesitated  to  apply  to  him 
for  information  concerning  the  political  exiles. 
The  advice  given  me  in  St.  Petersburg  had 
led  me  to  believe  that  the  Government  would 
regard  with  disapprobation  any  attempt  on 
the  part  of  a  foreign  traveler  to  investigate  a 
certain  class  of  political  questions  or  to  form 
the  acquaintance  of  a  certain  class  of  political 
offenders;  and  I  expected,  therefore,  to  have 
to  make  all  such  investigations  and  acquaint- 
ances stealthily  and  by  underground  methods. 
I  was  not  at  that  time  aware  of  the  fact  that 
Russian  officials  and  political  exiles  are  often 
secretly  in  sympathy,  and  it  would  never  have 
occurred  to  me  to  seek  the  aid  of  the  one 
class  in  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  other. 
In  all  of  my  early  conversations  with  Mr. 
Pavlovski,  therefore,  I  studiously  avoided  the 
subject  of  political  exile,  and  gave  him,  I 
think,  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  I 
knew  anything  about  the  Russian  revolution- 
ary movement,  or  felt  any  particular  interest 
in  the  exiled  revolutionists. 

In  the  course  of  a  talk  one  afternoon  about 
America,  Mr.  Pavlovski,  turning  the  conver- 
sation abruptly,  said  to  me,  "  Mr.  Kennan, 
have  you  ever  paid  any  attention  to  the  move- 
ment of  young  people  into  Siberia?  " 

I  did  not  at  first  see  the  drift  nor  catch  the 
significance  of  this  inquiry,  and  replied,  in  a 
qualified  negative,  that  I  had  not,  but  that 
perhaps  I  did  not  fully  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  his  question. 

"  I  mean,"  he  said,  "  that  large  numbers 
of  educated  young  men  and  women  are  now 
coining  into  Siberia  from  European  Russia ; 

*  I  am  forced  to  conceal  this  gentleman's  identity 
under  a  fictitious  name. 


I  thought  perhaps  the  movement  might  have 
attracted  your  attention." 

The  earnest,  significant  way  in  which  he 
looked  at  me  while  making  this  remark,  as  if 
he  were  experimenting  upon  me  or  sounding 
me,  led  me  to  conjecture  that  the  young  peo- 
ple to  whom  he  referred  were  the  political  ex- 
iles. I  did  not  forget,  however,  that  I  was 
dealing  with  a  Russian  officer;  and  I  replied 
guardedly  that  I  had  heard  something  about 
this  movement,  but  knew  nothing  of  it  from 
personal  observation. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  looking  at  me 
with  the  same  watchful  intentness,  "  that  it 
is  a  remarkable  social  phenomenon,  and  one 
that  would  naturally  attract  a  foreign  travel- 
er's attention." 

I  replied  that  I  was  interested,  of  course,  in 
all  the  social  phenomena  of  Russia,  and  that 
I  should  undoubtedly  feel  a  deep  interest  in 
the  one  to  which  he  referred  if  I  knew  more 
about  it. 

"  Some  of  the  people  who  are  now  coming 
to  Siberia,"  he  continued,  "are  young  men 
and  women  of  high  attainments  —  men  with 
a  university  training  and  women  of  remark- 
able character." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "so  I  have  heard;  and  I 
should  think  that  they  might  perhaps  be  in- 
teresting people  to  know." 

"  They  are,"  he  assented.  "  They  are  men 
and  women  who,  under  other  circumstances, 
might  render  valuable  services  to  their  coun- 
try; I  am  surprised  that  you  have  not  be- 
come interested  in  them." 

In  this  manner  Mr.  Pavlovski  and  I  con- 
tinued to  fence  cautiously  for  five  minutes, 
each  trying  to  ascertain  the  views  of  the  other, 
without  fully  disclosing  his  own  views,  con- 
cerning the  unnamed,  but  clearly  understood, 
subject  of  political  exile.  Mr.  Pavlovski's 
words  and  manner  seemed  to  me  to  indicate 
that  he  himself  regarded  with  great  interest 
and  respect  the  "  young  people  now  coming 
to  Siberia  " ;  but  that  he  did  not  dare  to  make 
a  frank  avowal  of  such  sentiments  until  he 
should  feel  assured  of  my  discretion,  trust- 
worthiness, and  sympathy.  I,  on  my  side,  was 
equally  cautious,  fearing  that  the  uncalled-for 
introduction  of  this  topic  by  a  Russian  official 
might  be  intended  to  entrap  me  into  an  ad- 
mission that  the  investigation  of  political  ex- 
ile was  the  real  object  of  our  Siberian  journey. 
The  adoption  of  a  quasi-friendly  attitude  by 
an  officer  of  the  Government  towards  the 


MY  MKETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


5«>9 


exiled  enemies  of  that  Government  seemed  to 
me  an  extraordinary  and  unprecedented  phe- 
nomenon, and  I  naturally  regarded  it  with 
some  suspicion. 

At  last,  tired  of  this  conversational  beating 
about  the  bush,  I  said  frankly,  "  Mr.  Pav- 
lovski,  are  you  talking  about  the  political  ex- 
iles ?  Are  they  the  young  people  to  whom 
you  refer  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  ;  "  I  thought  you  under- 
stood. It  seems  to  me  that  the  banishment  to 
Siberia  of  a  large  part  of  the  youth  of  Russia 
is  a  phenomenon  which  deserves  a  traveler's 
attention." 

"  Of  course,"  I  said,"  I  am  interested  in  it, 
but  how  am  I  to  find  out  anything  about  it  ? 
I  don't  know  where  to  look  for  political  exiles, 
nor  how  to  get  acquainted  with  them  ;  and  I 
am  told  that  the  Government  does  not  regard 
with  favor  intercourse  between  foreign  travel- 
ers and  politicals." 

"  Politicals  are  easy  enough  to  find,"  re- 
joined Mr.  Pavlovski.  "  The  country  is  lull  of 
them,  and  [with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders] 
there  is  nothing,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  prevent 
you  from  making  their  acquaintance  if  you  feel 
so  disposed.  There  are  thirty  or  forty  of  them 
here  in  Semipalatinsk,  and  they  walk  about  the 
streets  like  other  people :  why  should  n't  you 
happen  to  meet  them  ?  " 

Having  once  broken  the  ice  of  reserve  and 
restraint,  Mr.  Pavlovski  and  I  made  rapid  ad- 
vances towards  mutual  confidence.  I  soon 
became  convinced  that  he  was  not  making  a 
pretense  of  sympathy  with  the  politicals  in 
order  to  lead  me  into  a  trap  ;  and  he  appar- 
ently became  satisfied  that  I  had  judgment 
and  tact  enough  not  to  get  him  into  trouble 
by  talking  to  other  people  about  his  opinions 
and  actions.  Then  everything  went  smoothly. 
I  told  him  frankly  what  my  impressions  were 
with  regard  to  the  character  of  "  nihilists " 
generally,  and  asked  him  whether,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  they  were  not  wrong-headed  fa- 
natics and  wild  social  theorists,  who  would 
be  likely  to  make  trouble  in  any  state. 

"  On  the  contrary,"  he  replied, "  I  find  them 
to  be  quiet,  orderly,  reasonable  human  be- 
ings. We  certainly  have  no  trouble  with  them 
here.  Governor  Tseklinski  treats  them  with 
great  kindness  and  consideration ;  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  they  are  good  citizens." 

In  the  course  of  further  conversation,  Mr. 
Pavlovski  said  that  there  were  in  Semipala- 
tinsk, he  believed,  about  forty  political  exiles,* 
including  four  or  five  women.  They  had 
all  been  banished  without  judicial  trial,  upon 
mere  executive  orders,  signed  by  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  and  approved  by  the  Tsar. 
Their  terms  of  exile  varied  from  two  to  five 
years;  and  at  the  expiration  of  such  terms,  if 


their  behavior  meanwhile  had  been  satisfac- 
tory to  the  local  Siberian  authorities,  they 
would  be  permitted  to  return,  at  their  own 
expense,  to  their  homes.  A  few  of  them  had 
found  employment  in  Semipalatinsk  and 
were  supporting  themselves;  others  received 
money  from  relatives  or  friends ;  and  the  re- 
mainder were  supported  —  or  rather  kept  from 
actual  starvation  —  by  a  Government  allow- 
ance, which  amounted  to  six  rubles  ($3.00) 
a  month  for  exiles  belonging  to  the  noble  or 
privileged  class,  and  two  rubles  and  seventy 
kopecks  ($1.35)  a  month  for  non -privileged 
exiles. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Mr.  Pavlovski,  "  such 
sums  are  wholly  inadequate  for  their  support. 
Nine  kopecks  [four  and  a  half  cents]  a  day 
won't  keep  a  man  in  bread,  to  say  nothing  of 
providing  him  with  shelter;  and  if  the  more 
fortunate  ones,  who  get  employment  or  receive 
money  from  their  relatives,  did  not  help  the 
others,  there  would  be  much  more  suffering 
than  there  is.  Most  of  them  are  educated  men 
and  women,  and  Governor  Tseklinski,  who 
appreciates  the  hardships  of  their  situation, 
allows  them  to  give  private  lessons,  although, 
according  to  the  letter  of  the  law,  teaching 
is  an  occupation  in  which  political  exiles  are 
forbidden  to  engage.  Besides  giving  lessons, 
the  women  sew  and  embroider,  and  earn  a 
little  money  in  that  way.  They  are  allowed 
to  write  and  receive  letters,  as  well  as  to  have 
unobjectionable  books  and  periodicals;  and 
although  they  are  nominally  under  police  sur- 
veillance, they  enjoy  a  good  deal  of  personal 
freedom." 

"  What  is  the  nature  of  the  crimes  for  which 
these  young  people  were  banished  ?  "  I  in- 
quired. "  Were  they  conspirators  ?  Did  they 
take  part  in  plots  to  assassinate  the  Tsar  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no !  "  said  Mr.  Pavlovski  with  a  smile ; 
"  they  were  only  neblagonadezhni  [untrust- 
worthy]. Some  of  them  belonged  to  forbidden 
societies,  some  imported  or  were  in  possession 
of  forbidden  books,  some  had  friendly  rela- 
tions with  other  more  dangerous  offenders, 
and  some  were  connected  with  disorders  in 
the  higher  schools  and  the  universities.  The 
greater  part  of  them  are  administrative  exiles 
—  that  is,  persons  whom  the  Government,  for 
various  reasons,  has  thought  it  expedient  to 
remove  from  their  homes  and  put  under 
police  surveillance  in  a  part  of  the  empire 
where  they  can  do  no  harm.  The  real  con- 
spirators and  revolutionists  —  the  men  and 
women  who  have  actually  been  engaged  in 
criminal  activity  —  are  sent  to  more  remote 
parts  of  Siberia  and  into  penal  servitude.  Ban- 
ishment to  the  steppe  provinces  is  regarded 

*  This  estimate  proved  to  be  too  large ;  the  number 
was  twenty-two. 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL  EXILES. 


MAP    OF    ROUTE    TRAVELED    IN    THIS    ARTICLE. 


as  a  very  light  punishment;  and,  as  a  rule, 
only  administrative  exiles  are  sent  here." 

In  reply  to  further  questions  with  regard  to 
the  character  of  these  political  exiles,  Mr.  Pav- 
lovski  said,  "  I  don't  know  anything  to  their 
discredit;  they  behave  themselves  well  enough 
here.  If  you  are  really  interested  in  them,  I 
can,  perhaps,  help  you  to  an  acquaintance 
with  some  of  them,  and  then  you  can  draw 
your  own  conclusions  as  to  their  character." 

Of  course  I  assured  Mr.  Pavlovski  that  an 
introduction  to  the  politicals  would  give  me 
more  pleasure  than  any  other  favor  he  could 
confer  upon  me.  He  thereupon  suggested  that 
we  should  go  at  once  to  see  a  young  political 
exile  named  Lobonofski,  who  was  engaged 
in  painting  a  drop-curtain  for  the  little  town 
theater. 

"  He  is  something  of  an  artist,"  said  Mr. 
Pavlovski,  "  and  has  a  few  Siberian  sketches. 
You  are  making  and  collecting  such  sketches: 
of  course  you  want  to  see  them." 

"  Certainly,"  I  replied,  with  acquiescent  di- 
plomacy. "  Sketches  are  my  hobby,  and  I  am 
a  connoisseur  in  drop-curtains.  Even  although 
the  artist  be  a  nihilist  and  an  exile,  I  must  see 
his  pictures." 

Mr.  Pavlovski's  droshky  was  at  the  door, 
and  we  drove  at  once  to  the  house  where 
Mr.  Lobonofski  was  at  work. 

I  find  it  extremely  difficult  now,  after  a 
whole  year  of  intimate  association  with  polit- 
ical exiles,  to  recall  the  impressions  that  I  had 


of  them  before  I 
made  the  acquain  t- 
ance  of  the  exile 
colony  in  Semi- 
palatinsk.  I  know 
that  I  was  preju- 
dicedagainstthem, 
and  that  I  expected 
them  to  be  wholly 
unlike  the  rational, 
cultivated  men  and 
women  whom  one 
meets  in  civilized 
society ;  but  I  can- 
not, by  any  exer- 
cise of  will,  bring 
back  the  unreal, 
fantastic  concep^ 
tion  of  them  which 
I  had  when  I 
crossed  the  Sibe- 
rian frontier.  As 
nearly  as  I  can 
now  remember,  I 
regarded  the  peo- 
ple whom  I  called 
"  nihilists  "  as  sul- 
len, and  more  or 
less  incomprehensible  "  cranks,"  with  some 
education,  a  great  deal  of  fanatical  courage, 
and  a  limitless  capacity  for  self-sacrifice,. but 
with  the  most  visionary  ideas  of  government 
and  social  organization,  and  with  only  the  faint- 
est trace  of  what  an  American  would  call "  hard 
common-sense."  I  did  not  expect  to  have  any 
more  ideas  in  common  with  them  than  I  should 
have  in  common  with  an  anarchist  like  Louis 
Lingg;  and  although  I  intended  to  give  their 
case  against  the  Government  a  fair  hearing,  I 
believed  that  the  result  would  be  a  confirma- 
tion of  the  judgment  I  had  already  formed. 
Even  after  all  that  Mr.  Pavlovski  had  said 
to  me,  I  think  I  more  than  half  expected  to 
find  in  the  drop-curtain  artist  a  long-haired, 
wild-eyed  being,  who  would  pour  forth  an 
incoherent  recital  of  wrongs  and  outrages, 
denounce  all  governmental  restraint  as  brutal 
tyranny,  and  expect  me  to  approve  of  the 
assassination  of  Alexander  II. 

The  log-house  occupied  by  Mr.  Lobonof- 
ski as  a  work-shop  was  not  otherwise  tenanted, 
and  we  entered  it  without  announcement. 
As  Mr.  Pavlovski  threw  open  the  door,  I 
saw,  standing  before  a  large  square  sheet  of 
canvas  which  covered  one  whole  side  of  the 
room,  a  blonde  young  man,  apparently  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  dressed  from  head  to  foot 
in  a  suit  of  cool  brown  linen,  holding  in  one 
hand  an  artist's  brush,  and  in  the  other  a 
plate  or  palette  covered  with  freshly  mixed 
colors.  His  strongly  built  figure  was  erect 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


and  well  proportioned  ;  his  bearing  was  that 
of  a  cultivated  gentleman;  and  he  made  upon 
me,  from  the  first,  a  pleasant  and  favorable 
impression.  He  seemed,  in  fact,  to  be  an  ex- 
cellent specimen  of  the  blonde  type  of  Russian 
young  manhood.  His  eyes  were  clear  and 
blue;  his  thick  light  brown  hair  was  ill  cut,  and 
rumpled  a  little  in  a  boyish  way  over  the  high 
forehead;  the  full  blonde  beard  gave  man- 
liness and  dignity  to  his  well-shaped  head ; 
and  his  frank,  open,  good-tempered  face, 
Hushed  a  little  with  heat  and  wet  with  per- 
spiration, seemed  to  me  to  be  the  face  of  a 
warm-hearted  and  impulsive,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  strong  and  well-balanced  man.  It  was, 
at  any  rate,  a  face  strangely  out  of  harmony 
with  all  my  preconceived  ideas  of  a  nihilist. 

Mr.  Pavlovski  introduced  me  to  the  young 
artist  as  an  American  traveler,  who  was  inter- 
ested in  Siberian  scenery,  who  had  heard  ot 
his  sketches,  and  who  would  like  very  much 
to  see  some  of  them.  Mr.  Lobonofski  greeted 
me  quietly  but  cordially,  and  at  once  brought 
out  the  sketches  —  apologizing,  however,  for 
their  imperfections,  and  asking  us  to  remem- 
ber that  they  had  been  made  in  prison,  on 
coarse  writing-paper,  and  that  the  outdoor 
views  were  limited  to  landscapes  which  could 
be  seen  from  prison  and  etape  windows. 
The  sketches  were  evidently  the  work  of  an 
untrained  hand,  and  were  mostly  representa- 
tions of  prison  and  etape  interiors,  portraits 
of  political  exiles,  and  such  bits  of  towns  and 
villages  as  could  be  seen  from  the  windows 
of  the  various  cells  that  the  artist  had  occu- 
pied in  the  course  of  his  journey  to  Siberia. 
They  all  had,  however,  a  certain  rude  force  and 
fidelity,  and  one  of  them  served  as  material 
for  the  sketch  illustrating  the  Tiumen  prison- 
yard  in  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE  for  June. 

My  conversation  with  Mr.   Lobonofski  at 
this  interview  did  not  touch  political 
questions,  and  was  confined,  for  the 
most  part,  to  topics  suggested  by  the 
sketches.    He  described  his  journey 
to  Siberia  just  as  he  would  have  de- 
scribed it  if  he  had  made  it  volunta- 
rily, and  but  for  an  occasional  refer- 
ence to  a  prison  or  an  etape,  there 
was  nothing  in  the  recital  to  remind 
one  that  he  was  a  nihilist  and  an  exile. 
His  manner  was  quiet,  modest,  and 
frank;    he   followed   any  conversa- 
tional lead  with  ready  tact,  and  al- 
though   I    watched   him   closely,  I 
could  not  detect  the  slightest  indi- 
cation of  eccentricity  or  "  crankiness."    He 
must  have  felt  conscious  that  I  was  secretly 
regarding  him  with  critical  curiosity, —  looking 
at  him,  in  fact,  as  one  looks  for  the  first  time 
at  an  extraordinary  type  of  criminal, —  but 


he  did  not  manifest  the  least  awkwardness, 
embarrassment,  or  self-consciousness.  He  was 
simply  a  quiet,  well-bred,  self-possessed  gen- 
tleman. 

When  we  took  our  leave,  after  half  an  hour's 
conversation,  Mr.  Lobonofski  cordially  invited 
me  to  bring  Mr.  Frost  to  see  him  that  even- 
ing at  his  house,  and  said  that  he  would  have  a 
few  of  his  friends  there  to  meet  us.  1  thanked 
him  and  promised  that  we  would  come. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Pavlovski,  as  the  door 
closed  behind  us,  "  what  do  you  think  of 
the  political  exile  ?  " 

"  He  makes  a  very  favorable  impression 
upon  me,"  I  replied.  "  Are  they  all  like 
him  ?  " 

"  No,  not  precisely  like  him ;  but  they  are 
not  bad  people.  There  is  another  interesting 
political  in  the  city  whom  you  ought  to  see  — 
a  young  man  named  Leontief.  He  is  em- 
ployed in  the  office  of  Mr.  Makovetski,  a 
justice  of  the  peace  here,  and  is  engaged  with 
the  latter  in  making  anthropological  researches 
among  the  Kirghis.  I  believe  they  are  now 
collecting  material  for  a  monograph  upon 
Kirghis  customary  law.*  Why  should  n't  you 
call  upon  Mr.  Makovetski  ?  I  have  no  doubt 
that  he  would  introduce  Mr.  Leontief  to  you, 
and  I  am  sure  that  you  would  find  them  both 
to  be  intelligent  and  cultivated  men." 

This  seemed  to  me  a  good  suggestion ;  and 
as  soon  as  Mr.  Pavlovski  had  left  me  I  paid 
a  visit  to  Mr.  Makovetski,  ostensibly  for  the 
purpose  of  asking  permission  to  sketch  some 
of  the  Kirghis  implements  and  utensils  in 
the  town  library,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the 
directors.  Mr.  Makovetski  seemed  pleased 
to  learn  that  I  was  interested  in  their  little 
library,  granted  me  permission  to  sketch  the 
specimens  of  Kirghis  handiwork  there  exhib- 
ited, and  finally  introduced  me  to  his  writ- 


MAP    OF    SIBERIA.        SHADED    PORTION    SHOWS    ROUTE 
TRAVELED    IN    THIS    ARTICLE. 

ing-clerk,   Mr.  Leontief,  who,  he  said,  had 
made   a   special  study  of  the   Kirghis,  and 

*  This  monograph  has  since  been  published  in  the 
•'  Proceedings  of  the  West  Siberian  Branch  of  the  Im- 
perial Geographical  Society." 


S'2 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


could  give  me  any  desired  information  con- 
cerning the  natives  of  that  tribe. 

Mr.  Leontief  was  a  good-looking  young 
fellow,  apparently  about  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  rather  below  the  medium  height,  with 
light  brown  hair  and  beard,  intelligent  gray 
eyes,  a  slightly  aquiline  nose,  and  a  firm,  well- 
rounded  chin.  His  head  and  face  were  sug- 
gestive of  studious  and  scientific  tastes,  and 
if  I  had  met  him  in  Washington  and  had  been 
asked  to  guess  his  profession  from  his  appear- 
ance, I  should  have  said  that  he  was  probably 
a  young  scientist  connected  with  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey,  the  Smithsonian 
Institution,  or  the  National  Museum.  He 
was,  as  I  subsequently  learned,  the  son  of  an 
army  officer  who  at  one  time  commanded  the 
Cossack  garrison  in  this  same  city  of  Semi- 
palatinsk.  As  a  boy  he  was  enrolled  in  the 
corps  of  imperial  pages,  and  began  his  edu- 
cation in  the  large  school  established  by  the 
Government  for  the  training  of  such  pages  in 
the  Russian  capital.  At  the  age  of  eighteen 
or  nineteen  he  entered  the  St.  Petersburg  Uni- 
versity, and  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  stu- 
dent life  was  arrested  and  exiled  by  "  admin- 
istrative process  "  to  western  Siberia  for  five 
years,  upon  the  charge  of  having  had  secret 
communication  with  political  prisoners  in  the 
fortress  of  Petropavlovsk. 

Although  Mr.  Leontief 's  bearing  was  some- 
what more  formal  and  reserved  than  that  of 
Mr.  Lobonofski,  and  his  attitude  toward  me 
one  of  cool,  observant  criticism,  rather  than 
of  friendly  confidence,  he  impressed  me 
very  favorably ;  and  when,  after  half  an  hour's 
conversation,  I  returned  to  my  hotel,  I  was 
forced  to  admit  to  myself  that  if  all  nihilists 
were  like  the  two  whom  I  had  met  in  Semipal- 
atinsk,  I  should  have  to  modify  my  opinions 
with  regard  to  them.  In  point  of  intelligence 
and  education  Mr.  Lobonofski  and  Mr.  Leon- 
tief seemed  to  me  to  compare  favorably  with 
any  young  men  of  my  acquaintance. 

At  8  o'clock  that  evening  Mr.  Frost  and  I 
knocked  at  Mr.  Lobonofski's  door,  and  were 
promptly  admitted  and  cordially  welcomed. 
We  found  him  living  in  a  small  log-house  not 
far  from  our  hotel.  The  apartment  into  which 
we  were  shown,  and  which  served  in  the 
double  capacity  of  sitting-room  and  bedroom, 
was  very  small  —  not  larger,  I  think,  than  ten 
feet  in  width  by  fourteen  feet  in  length.  Its  log 
walls  and  board  ceiling  were  covered  with 
dingy  whitewash,  and  its  floor  of  rough  un- 
matched planks  was  bare.  Against  a  rude 
unpainted  partition  to  the  right  of  the  door 
stood  a  small  single  bedstead  of  stained  wood, 
covered  with  neat  but  rather  scanty  bed-cloth- 
ing, and  in  the  corner  beyond  it  was  a  triangu- 
lar table,  upon  which  were  lying,  among  other 


books,  Herbert  Spencer's  "Essays:  Moral, 
Political,  and  Esthetic,"  and  the  same  author's 
"  Principles  of  Psychology."  The  opposite  cor- 
ner of  the  room  was  occupied  by  a  what-not, 
or  etagere,  of  domestic  manufacture,  upon  the 
shelves  of  which  were  a  few  more  books,  a 
well-filled  herbarium,  of  coarse  brown  wrap- 
ping-paper, an  opera-glass,  and  an  English 
New  Testament.  Between  two  small  deeply 
set  windows  opening  into  the  court-yard  stood 
a  large  unpainted  wooden  table,  without  a 
cloth,  upon  which  was  lying,  open,  the  book 
that  Mr.  Lobonofski  had  been  reading  when 
we  entered  —  a  French  translation  of  Balfour 
Stewart's  "  Conservation  of  Energy."  There 
was  no  other  furniture  in  the  apartment  ex- 
cept three  or  four  unpainted  wooden  chairs. 
Everything  was  scrupulously  neat  and  clean; 
but  the  room  looked  like  the  home  of  a  man 
too  poor  to  afford  anything  more  than  the 
barest  essentials  of  life. 

After  Mr.  Lobonofski  had  made  a  few  pre- 
liminary inquiries  with  regard  to  the  object 
of  our  journey  to  Siberia,  and  had  expressed 
the  pleasure  which  he  said  it  afforded  him  to 
meet  and  welcome  Americans  in  his  own  house, 
he  turned  to  me  with  a  smile  and  said,  "  I 
suppose,  Mr.  Kennan,  you  have  heard  ter- 
rible stories  in  America  about  the  Russian 
nihilists?" 

"  Yes,"  I  replied ;  "  we  seldom  hear  of  them 
except  in  connection  with  a  plot  to  blow  up 
something  or  to  kill  somebody,  and  I  must 
confess  that  I  have  had  a  bad  opinion  of  them. 
The  very  word 'nihilist'  is  understood  in  Amer- 
ica to  mean  a  person  who  does  not  believe  in 
anything  and  who  advocates  the  destruction 
of  all  existing  institutions." 

" '  Nihilist '  is  an  old  name,"  he  said ;  "  and  it 
is  no  longer  applicable  to  the  Russian  revolu- 
tionary party,  if,  indeed,  it  was  ever  applicable. 
I  don't  think  you  will  find  among  the  politi- 
cal exiles  in  Siberia  any  '  nihilists,'  in  the 
sense  in  which  you  use  the  word.  Of  course 
there  are,  in  what  may  be  called  the  anti-Gov- 
ernment class,  people  who  hold  all  sorts  of 
political  opinions.  There  are  a  few  who  be- 
lieve in  the  so-called  policy  of  'terror' — 
who  regard  themselves  as  justified  in  resorting 
even  to  political  assassination  as  a  means  of 
overthrowing  the  Government ;  but  even  the 
terrorists  do  not  propose  to  destroy  all  exist- 
ing institutions.  Every  one  of  them  would,  I 
think,  lay  down  his  arms,  if  the  Tsar  would 
grant  to  Russia  a  constitutional  form  of  gov- 
ernment and  guarantee  free  speech,  a  free 
press,  and  freedom  from  arbitrary  arrest,  im- 
prisonment, and  exile.  Have  you  ever  seen 
the  letter  sent  by  the  Russian  revolutionists 
to  Alexander  III.  upon  his  accession  to  the 
throne  ?  " 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


5'3 


FIRST    VIEW    OF    THE    ALTAI     MOUNTAINS. 


"  No,"  I  replied ;  "  I  have  heard  of  it,  but 
have  never  seen  it." 

"  It  sets  forth,"  he  said,  "the  aims  and  ob- 
jects of  the  revolutionary  party,  and  contains 
a  distinct  promise  that  if  the  Tsar  will  grant 
freedom  of  speech  and  summon  a  national 
assembly  the  revolutionists  will  abstain  from 
all  further  violence,  and  will  agree  not  to  op- 
pose any  form  of  government  which  such 
assembly  may  sanction.*  You  can  hardly 
say  that  people  who  express  a  willingness  to 
enter  into  such  an  agreement  as  this  are  in 
favor  of  the  destruction  of  all  existing  institu- 
tions. I  suppose  you  know,"  he  continued, 
"  that  when  your  President  Garfield  was  as- 
sassinated, the  columns  of  'The  Messenger 
of  the  Will  of  the  People '  [the  organ  of  the 
Russian  revolutionists  in  Geneva]  were  bor- 
dered with  black  as  a  token  of  grief  and 
sympathy,  and  that  the  paper  contained  an 
eloquent  editorial  condemning  political  assas- 
sination as  wholly  unjustifiable  in  a  country 
where  there  are  open  courts  and  a  free  press, 
and  where  the  officers  of  the  Government  are 
chosen  by  a  free  vote  of  the  people  ?  " 

"  No,"  I  replied ;  "  I  was  not  aware  of  it." 

"  It  is  true,"  he  rejoined.  "  Of  course  at 
that  time  Garfield's  murder  was  regarded  as 
a  political  crime,  and  as  such  it  was  con- 
demned in  Russia,  even  by  the  most  extreme 
terrorists." 

Our  conversation  was  interrupted  at  this 
point  by  the  entrance  of  three  young  men 

*  I  now  have  in  my  possession  a  copy  of  this  letter. 
A  part  of  it  may  be  found   translated  in  Stepniak's 
"  The  Russian  Storm  Cloud,"  p.  6. 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  72. 


and  a  lady,  who  were  introduced  to  us  as 
Mr.  Lobonofski's  exile  friends.  In  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  young  men  there  was  noth- 
ing particularly  striking  or  noticeable.  One 
of  them  seemed  to  be  a  bright  university  stu- 
dent, twenty-four  or  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
and  the  other  two  looked  like  educated  peas- 
ants or  artisans,  whose  typically  Russian  faces 
were  rather  heavy,  impassive,  and  gloomy, 
and  whose  manner  was  lacking  in  animation 
and  responsiveness.  Life'  and  exile  seemed 
to  have  gone  hard  with  them,  and  to  have 
left  them  depressed  and  embittered.  The 
lady,  whose  name  was  Madame  Dicheskula, 
represented  apparently  a  different  social  class, 
and  had  a  more  buoyant  and  sunny  disposi- 
tion. She  was  about  thirty  years  of  age,  tall 
and  straight,  with  a  well-proportioned  but 
somewhat  spare  figure,  thick,  short  brown 
hair  falling  in  a  soft  mass  about  the  nape  of 
her  neck,  and  a  bright,  intelligent,  mobile 
face,  which  I  thought  must  once  have  been 
extremely  pretty.  It  had  become,  however,  a 
little  too  thin  and  worn,  and  her  complexion 
had  been  freckled  and  roughened  by  exposure 
to  wind  and  weather  and  by  the  hardships 
of  prison  and  etape  life.  She  was  neatly  and 
becomingly  dressed  in  a  Scotch  plaid  gown 
of  soft  dark  serge,  with  little  ruffles  of  white 
lace  at  her  throat  and  wrists;  and  when  her 
face  lighted  up  in  animated  conversation, 
she  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  very  attractive 
and  interesting  woman.  In  her  demeanor 
there  was  not  a  suggestion  of  the  boldness, 
hardness,  and  eccentricity  which  I  had  ex- 
pected to  find  in  women  exiled  to  Siberia  for 


5*4 


MY  MEETING    WITH   THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


political  crime.  She  talked  rapidly  and  well; 
laughed  merrily  at  times  over  reminiscences 
of  her  journey  to  Siberia;  apologized  for  the 
unwomanly  shortness  of  her  hair,  which,  she 
said,  had  all  been  cut  off  in  prison  ;  and  re- 
lated with  a  keen  sense  of  humor  her  adven- 
tures while  crossing  the  Kirghis  steppe  from 
Akmola  to  Semipalatinsk.  That  her  natural 


About  9  o'clock  Mr.  Lobonofski  brought 
in  a  steaming  samovar,  Madame  Dicheskula 
made  tea,  and  throughout  the  remainder  of 
the  evening  we  all  sat  around  the  big  pine 
table  as  if  we  had  been  acquainted  for  months 
instead  of  hours,  talking  about  the  Russian 
revolutionary  movement,  the  exile  system,  lit- 
erature, art,  science,  and  American  politics. 


buoyancy  of  dispo- 
sition was  tempered 
by  deep  feeling 
was  evident  from 
the  way  in  which 
she  described  some 
of  the  incidents  of 
her  Siberian  experi- 
ence. She  seemed 
greatly  touched,  for 
example,  by  the 
kindness  shown  to 
her  party  by  the 
peasants  of  Kami- 
shlova,  a  village 
through  which  they 
passed  on  their  way 
from  Ekaterineburg  to  Tiumen.  They  hap- 
pened to  arrive  there  on  Trinity  Sunday, 
and  were  surprised  to  find  that  the  villagers, 
as  a  manifestation  of  sympathy  with  the  polit- 
ical exiles,  had  thoroughly  scoured  out  and 
freshened  up  the  old  village  etape,  and  had 
decorated  its  gloomy  cells  with  leafy  branches 
and  fresh  wild-flowers.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
tears  came  to  her  eyes  as  she  expressed  her 
deep  and  grateful  appreciation  of  this  act  of 
thoughtfulness  and  good-will  on  the  part  of 
the  Kamishlova  peasants. 


THE    ALTAI     STATION    AND    OUR     HOUSE    THERE. 


The  cool,  reasonable  way  in  which  these 
exiles  discussed  public  affairs,  problems  of 
government,  and  their  personal  experience 
impressed  me  very  favorably.  There  was  none 
of  the  bitterness  of  feeling  and  extravagance 
of  statement  which  I  had  anticipated,  and  I 
did  not  notice  in  their  conversation  the  least 
tendency  to  exaggerate  or  even  to  dwell  upon 
their  own  sufferings  as  a  means  of  exciting  our 
sympathy.  Madame  Dicheskula,  for  instance, 
had  been  robbed  of  most  of  her  clothing  and 
personal  effects  by  the  police  at  the  time  of 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


5'5 


her  arrest ;  had  spent  more  than  a  year  in 
solitary  confinement  in  the  Moscow  forward- 
ing prison  ;  had  then  been  banished,  without 
trial,  to  a  dreary  settlement  in  the  Siberian 
province  of  Akmolinsk  ;  and.  finally,  had  been 
brought  across  the  great  Kirghis  steppe  in 
winter  to  the  city  of  Semipalatinsk.  In  all  this 
experience  there  must  have  been  a  great  deal 
of  intense  personal  suffering ;  but  she  did  not 
lay  half  as  much  stress  upon  it  in  conversation 
as  she  did  upon  the  decoration  of  the  old  etape 
with  leafy  branches  and  flowers  by  the  people 
of  Kamishlova,  as  an  expression  of  sympathy 
with  her  and  her  exiled  friends.  About  1 1 
o'clock,  after  a  most  pleasant  and  interesting 
evening,  we  bade  them  all  good-night  and  re- 
turned to  our  hotel. 

On  the  following  morning  Mr.  Lobonofski, 
Madame  Dicheskula,  Mr.  Frost,  and  I  took 
droshkies  and  drove  down  the  right  bank  of 
the  Irtish  a  mile  or  two,  to  a  small  grove  of 
poplars  and  aspens  near  the  water's  edge, 
where  six  or  eight  political  exiles  were  spend- 
ing the  summer  in  camp.  A  large  Kirghis 
"  yourt"  of  felt,  and  two  or  three  smaller  cot- 
ton tents,  had  been  pitched  on  the  grass  under 
the  trees,  and  in  them  were  living  two  or  three 
young  women  and  four  or  five  young  men, 
who  had  taken  this  means  of  escaping  from 
the  heat,  glare,  and  sand  of  the  verdureless 
city.  Two  of  the  women  were  mere  girls,  sev- 
enteen or  eighteen  years  of  age,  who  looked 
as  if  they  ought  to  be  pursuing  their  educa- 
tion in  a  high  school  or  a  female  seminary, 
and  why  they  had  been  exiled  to  Siberia  I 
could  not  imagine.  It  did  not  seem  to  me 
possible  that  they  could  be  regarded  in  any 
country,  or  under  any  circumstances,  as  a  dan- 
gerous menace  to  social  order  or  to  the  sta- 
bility of  the  government.  As  I  shook  hands 
with  them  and  noticed  their  shy,  embarrassed 
behavior,  and  the  quick  flushes  of  color  which 
came  to  their  cheeks  when  I  spoke  to  them, 
I  experienced  for  the  first  time  something  like 
a  feeling  of  contempt  for  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment. "  If  I  were  the  Tsar,"  I  said  to  Mr. 
Frost, "  and  had  an  army  of  soldiers  and  police 
at  my  back,  and  if,  nevertheless,  I  felt  so  afraid 
of  timid,  half-grown  school-girls  that  I  could  n't 
sleep  in  peaceful  security  until  I  had  banished 
them  to  Siberia,  I  think  I  should  abdicate  in 
favor  of  some  stronger  and  more  courageous 
man."  The  idea  that  a  powerful  government 
like  that  of  Russia  could  not  protect  itself 
against  seminary  girls  and  Sunday-school 
teachers  without  tearing  them  from  their  fami- 
lies, and  isolating  them  in  the  middle  of  a  great 
Asiatic  desert,  seemed  to  me  not  only  ludicrous, 
but  absolutely  preposterous. 

\Ve  spent  in  the  pleasant  shady  camp 
of  these  political  exiles  nearly  the  whole  of 


the  long,  hot  summer  day.  Mr.  Frost  made 
sketches  of  the  picturesquely  grouped  tents, 
while  I  talked  with  the  young  men,  read  Ir- 
ving aloud  to  one  of  them  who  was  studying 
English,  answered  questions  about  America, 
and  asked  questions  in  turn  about  Siberia 
and  Russia.  Before  the  day  ended  we  were 
upon  as  cordial  and  friendly  a  footing  with 
the  whole  party  as  if  we  had  known  them  for 
a  month. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  returned  to  the 
city,  and  in  the  evening  went  to  the  house  of 
Mr.  Leontief,  where  most  of  the  political  ex- 
iles whom  we  had  not  yet  seen  had  been 
invited  to  meet  us.  The  room  into  which 
we  were  ushered  was  much  larger  and  better 
furnished  than  that  in  which  Mr.  Lobonofski 
lived;  but  nothing  in  it  particularly  attracted 
my  attention  except  a  portrait  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  which  hung  on  the  wall  over  Mr. 
Leontief 's  desk.  There  were  twelve  or  fifteen 
exiles  present,  including  Mr.  Lobonofski, 
Madame  Dicheskula,  Dr.  Bogomolets, —  a 
young  surgeon  whose  wife  was  in  penal  ser- 
vitude at  the  mines  of  Kara, —  and  the  two 
Prisedski  sisters,  to  whom  reference  was  made 
in  my  article  upon  the  "  Prison  Life  of  the 
Russian  Revolutionists,"  in  THE  CENTURY 
MAGAZINE  for  December.  The  general  con- 
versation which  followed  our  introduction  to 
the  assembled  company  was  bright,  animated, 
and  informal.  Mr.  Leontief,  in  reply  to  ques- 
tions from  me,  related  the  history  of  the  Semi- 
palatinsk library,  and  said  that  it  had  not 
only  been  a  great  boon  to  the  political  exiles, 
but  had  noticeably  stimulated  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  city.  "  Even  the  Kirghis,"  he  said, 
"  occasionally  avail  themselves  of  its  privi- 
leges. I  know  a  learned  old  Kirghis  here, 
named  Ibrahim  Konobai,  who  not  only  goes 
to  the  library,  but  reads  such  authors  as 
Buckle,  Mill,  and  Draper." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say,"  exclaimed  a 
young  university  student,  "  that  there  is  any 
old  Kirghis  in  Semipalatinsk  who  actually  reads 
Mill  and  Draper !  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  replied  Mr.  Leontief,  coolly. 
"  The  very  first  time  I  met  him  he  astonished 
me  by  asking  me  to  explain  to  him  the  differ- 
ence between  induction  and  deduction.  Some 
time  afterward  I  found  out  that  he  was  really 
making  a  study  of  English  philosophy,  and 
had  read  Russian  translations  of  all  the  au- 
thors that  I  have  named." 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  he  understood  what 
he  read?"  inquired  the  university  student. 

"  I  spent  two  whole  evenings  in  examining 
him  upon  Draper's  '  Intellectual  Develop- 
ment of  Europe,'"  replied  Mr.  Leontief;  "and 
I  must  say  that  he  seemed  to  have  a  very  fair 
comprehension  of  it." 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


I'ICNIC     GKOUND,     VALLEY     OF     THE     BUKHTAKMA. 


"  I  notice,"  I  said, "  that  a  large  number  of 
books  in  the  library  —  particularly  the  works 
of  the  English  scientists — have  been  with- 
drawn from  public  use,  although  all  of  them 
seem  once  to  have  passed  the  censor.  How 
does  it  happen  that  books  are  at  one  time 
allowed  and  at  another  time  prohibited  ?  " 

"  Our  censorship  is  very  capricious,"  re- 
plied one  of  the  exiles.  "  How  would  you 
explain  the  fact  that  such  a  book  as  Adam 
Smith's  '  Wealth  of  Nations  '  is  prohibited, 
while  Darwin's  '  Origin  of  Species '  and  '  De- 
scent of  Man  '  are  allowed  ?  The  latter  are 
certainly  more  dangerous  than  the  former." 

"  It  has  been  suggested,"  said  another,"  that 
the  list  of  prohibited  books  was  made  up  by 
putting  together,  without  examination,  the 
titles  of  all  books  found  by  the  police  in  the 
quarters  of  persons  arrested  for  political  of- 
fenses. The  '  Wealth  of  Nations  '  happened  to 
be  found  in  some  unfortunate  revolutionist's 
house,  therefore  the  '  Wealth  of  Nations ' 
must  be  a  dangerous  boqk." 

"  When  I  was  arrested,"  said  Mr.  Lobonof- 
ski, "  the  police  seized  and  took  away  even  a 
French  history  which  I  had  borrowed  from 
the  public  library.  In  looking  hastily  through 
it  they  noticed  here  and  there  the  word 
'  revolution,'  and  that  was  enough.  I  tried  to 
make  them  understand  that  a  French  history 
must,  of  course,  treat  of  the  French  Revolution, 
but  it  was  of  no  use.  They  also  carried  off, 


under  the  impression  that  it  was  an  infernal 
machine,  a  rude  imitation  of  a  steam-engine 
which  my  little  brother  had  made  for  amuse- 
ment out  of  some  bits  of  wood  and  metal  and 
the  tubes  of  an  old  opera-glass."  Amidst  gen- 
eral laughter,  a  number  of  the  exiles  related 
humorous  anecdotes  illustrating  the  methods 
of  the  Russian  police,  and  then  the  conversa- 
tion drifted  into  other  channels. 

As  an  evidence  of  the  intelligence  and  cul- 
ture of  these  political  exiles,  and  of  the  wide 
range  of  their  interests  and  sympathies,  it 
seems  to  me  worth  while  to  say  that  their  con- 
versation showed  more  than  a  superficial  ac- 
quaintance with  the  best  English  and  American 
literature,  as  well  as  a  fairly  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  American  institutions  and  history. 
Among  the  authors  referred  to,  discussed,  or 
quoted  by  them  that  evening  were  Shakspere, 
Mill,  Spencer,  Buckle,  Balfour  Stewart,  Heine, 
Hegel,  Lange,  Irving,  Cooper,  Longfellow, 
Bret  Harte,and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  They 
knew  the  name  and  something  of  the  record 
of  our  newly  elected  President ;  discussed 
intelligently  his  civil-service  reform  policy 
and  asked  pertinent  questions  with  regard 
to  its  working,  and  manifested  generally  an 
acquaintance  with  American  affairs  which 
one  does  not  expect  to  find  anywhere  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  least  of  all  in 
Siberia. 

After  a  plain  but  substantial  supper,  with 


MY  J/A/.Y/.W;  irrrif  THE  POLITICAL  EXILES. 


S'7 


delicious  overland  tea,  the  exiles  sang  for  us 
in  chorus  some  of  the  plaintive  popular  mel- 
odies of  Russia,  and  Mr.  Frost  and  I  tried, 
in  turn,  to  give  them  an  idea  of  our  college 
song-,  our  \\ar  songs,  and  the  music  of  the 
American  negroes.  It  must  have  been  nearly 
midnight  when  we  reluctantly  bade  them  all 
good-bye  and  returned  to  the  Hotel  Sibir. 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  within  the  limits 
of  a  single  magazine  article,  to  give  even  the 


men  and  women,  with  warm  affections,  quick 
sympathies, generous  impulses,  and  high  stand- 
ards of  honor  and  duty.  They  are,  as  Mr.  Pav- 
lo\  ski  said  to  me,  •'  men  and  women  who,  under 
other  circumstances,  might  render  valuable 
services  to  their  country."  If,  instead  of  thus 
serving  their  country,  they  are  living  in  exile, 
it  is  not  because  they  are  lacking  in  the  vir- 
tue and  the  patriotism  which  are  essential  to 
good  citizenship,  but  because  the  Government, 


SSACK    PICKET    OF    JINGISTAI. 


substance  of  the  long  conversations  concern- 
ing the  Russian  Government  and  the  Russian 
revolutionary  movement  which  I  had  with 
the  political  exiles  in  Semipalatinsk.  All  that  I 
aim  to  do  in  the  present  paper  is  to  describe, 
as  fairly  and  accurately  as  possible,  the  impres- 
sion which  these  exiles  made  upon  me.  If  I 
may  judge  others  by  myself,  American  readers 
have  had  an  idea  that  the  people  who  are 
called  nihilists  stand  apart  from  the  rest  of 
mankind  in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  that 
there  is  in  their  character  something  fierce, 
gloomy,  abnormal,  and,  to  a  sane  mind,  incom- 
prehensible, which  alienates  from  them,  and 
which  should  alienate  from  them,  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  civilized  world.  If  the  political  ex- 
iles in  Semipalatinsk  be  taken  as  fair  represen- 
tatives of  the  class  thus  judged,  the  idea  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  wholly  mistaken  one.  I  found 
them  to  be  bright,  intelligent,  well-informed 


which  assumes  the  right  to  think  and  act  for 
the  Russian  people,  is  out  of  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  time. 

On  Saturday,  July  1 8,  after  having  inspected 
the  city  prison,  obtained  as  much  information 
as  possible  concerning  the  exile  system,  and 
made  farewell  calls  upon  our  friends,  we 
provided  ourselves  with  a  new  padorozhnaya 
and  left  Semipalatinsk  with  three  post-horses 
for  the  mountains  of  the  Altai.  The  wild  al- 
pine region  which  we  hoped  to  explore  lies 
along  the  frontier  of  Mongolia,  about  350 
miles  east  of  Semipalatinsk  and  nearly  600 
miles  due  south  from  Tomsk.  The  German 
travelers  P'insch  and  Brehm  went  to  the  edge 
of  it  in  1876,  but  the  high  snowy  peaks 
of  the  Katunski  and  Chuiski  Alps,  east  of 
the  Altai  Station,  had  never  been  seen  by  a 
foreigner,  and  had  been  visited  by  very  few 
Russians. 


Si8  MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 

For  nearly  two  hundred  versts,  after  leaving  desert.  The  thermometer  ranged  day  after  day 

Semipalatinsk,  we  rode  up  the  right  bank  of  from  90  to  103°  in  the  shade;  the  atmosphere 

the  Irtish,  through  a  great  rolling  steppe  of  dry  was  suffocating ;  every  leaf  and  every  blade  of 

yellowish  grass.    Here  and  there,  where  this  grass,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  had  been 

steppe  was  irrigated  by  small  streams  running  absolutely  burned  dead  by  the  fierce  sunshine ; 

into  the  Irtish,  it  supported  a  luxuriant  vege-  great  whirling  columns  of  sand,  100  to  150 

tation,  the  little  transverse  valleys  being  filled  feet  in  height,  swept  slowly  and  majestically 

with  wild  roses,  hollyhocks,  golden-rod,  wild  across  the  sun-scorched  plain;  and  we  could 

currant  and  gooseberry  bushes,  and  splendid  trace    the    progress    of    a    single    mounted 

spikes,  five  feet  in  height,  of  dark  blue  aconite;  Kirghis    five    miles   away  by  the    cloud   of 


but  in  most  places  the  great  plain  was  sun- 
scorched  and  bare.  The  Cossack  villages 
through  which  we  passed  did  not  differ  ma- 
terially from  those  between  Semipalatinsk  and 
Omsk,  except  that  their  log-houses  were  newer 
and  in  better  repair,  and  their  inhabitants 
seemed  to  be  wealthier  and  more  prosperous. 
The  Russian  love  of  crude  color  became  again 
apparent  in  the  dresses  of  the  women  and 
girls;  and  on  Sunday,  when  all  of  the  Cossacks 
were  in  holiday  attire,  the  streets  of  these 
villages  were  bright  with  the  red,  blue,  and 
yellow  costumes  of  the  young  men  and  women, 
who  sat  in  rows  upon  benches  in  the  shade 
of  the  houses,  talking,  flirting,  and  eating 
melon  seeds,  or,  after  the  sun  had  gone  down, 
danced  in  the  streets  to  the  music  of  fiddles 
and  triangular  guitars. 

The  farther  we  went  up  the  Irtish  the  hot- 
ter became  the  weather  and  the  more  barren 
the  steppe,  until  it  was  easy  to  imagine  that 
we  were  in  an  Arabian  or  a  north  African 


dust  which  his  horse's  hoofs  raised  from  the 
steppe.  I  suffered  intensely  from  heat  and 
thirst,  and  had  to  protect  myself  from  the 
fierce  sunshine  by  swathing  my  body  in  four 
thicknesses  of  blanket  and  putting  a  big  down 
pillow  over  my  legs.  I  could  not  hold  my 
hand  in  that  sunshine  five  minutes  without 
pain,  and  wrapping  my  body  in  four  thick- 
nesses of  heavy  woolen  blanketing  gave  me 
at  once  a  sensation  of  coolness.  Mine  was 
the  southern  or  sunny  side  of  the  tarantas, 
and  I  finally  became  so  exhausted  with  the 
fierce  heat,  and  had  such  a  strange  feeling 
of  faintness,  nausea,  and  suffocation,  that  I 
asked  Mr.  Frost  to  change  sides  with  me,  and 
give  me  a  brief  respite.  He  wrapped  him- 
self up  in  a  blanket,  put  a  pillow  over  his 
legs,  and  managed  to  endure  it  until  evening. 
Familiar  as  I  supposed  myself  to  be  with 
Siberia,  I  little  thought,  when  I  crossed  the 
frontier,  that  I  should  find  in  it  a  north 
African  desert,  with  whirling  sand-columns, 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


ASCENT    OF    MOUNTAIN-TRAIL    PSOM    BEREL, 


and  sun- 
shine from 
which  I 
should  be 
obliged  to 
protect  my 
limbs  with 
blankets.  I 
laughed  at 

a    Russian     officer    in 
Omsk  who  told  me  that 
the  heat  in  the  valley  of 
the  Irtish  was  often  so 
intense     as     to     cause 
nausea     and     fainting, 
and  who   advised    me 
not   to  travel  between 
1 1  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  3  in  the  after- 
noon, when  the  day  was 
cloudless  and  hot.   The 
idea  of  having  a  sun- 
stroke in  Siberia,   and 
the   suggestion  not  to 
travel  there  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day,  seemed 
to  me  so  preposterous 
that  I  could  not  restrain 
a  smile  of  amusement. 
He   assured  me,  how- 
ever, that  he  was  talk- 
ing   seriously,  and  said 
that  he  had   seen  sol- 
diers unconscious  for   hours  after  a   fit   of 
nausea  and  fainting,  brought  on  by  marching 
in  the  sunshine.    He  did  not  know  sunstroke 
by  name,  and  seemed  to  think  that  the  symp- 
toms which  he  described  were  peculiar  effects 
of  the  Irtish  valley  heat,  but  it  was  evidently 
sunstroke  that  he  had  seen. 

At  the  station  of  Voroninskaya,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  this  parched  desert,  we  were  overtaken 
by  a  furious  hot  sand-storm  from  the  south- 
west, with  a  temperature  of  103°  in  the  shade. 
r'  -~  ^ 


for  breath  for  more 
than  two  hours;  and 
when  we  arrived  at 
the  station  of  Cher- 
emshanka,  it  would 
have  been  hard  to 
tell,  from  an  inspec- 
tion of  our  faces, 
whether  we  were 


Kirghis    or    Amer- 

;•--  -> — i~.~..ui^  wi  ,^_)    111  mi;  onauc.  icans  —  black  men  or  white.    I  drank  nearly 

I  he  sand  and  fine  hot  dust  were  carried  to  a  a  quart  of  cold  milk,  and  even  that  did  not 

Might  of  a  hundred  feet,  and  drifted  past  us  fully  assuage  my  fierce  thirst.    Mr.  Frost,  after 

dense,  suffocating  clouds,  hiding  everything  washing  the  dust  out  of  his  eyes  and  drink- 

from  sight  and  making  it  almost  impossible  ing  seven  tumblers  of  milk,  revived  sufficiently 

breathe.    Although  we  were  riding  with  to  say,"  If  anybody  thinks  that  it  does  n't  get 

storm,  and  not  against  it,  I  literally  gasped  hot  in  Siberia,  just  refer  him  to  me ! " 


52° 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


At  the  station  of  Malo  Krasnoyarskaya  we 
left  the  Irtish  to  the  right  and  saw  it  no  more. 
Late  that  afternoon  we  reached  the  first  foot- 
hills of  the  great  mountain  range  of  the  Altai, 
and  began  the  long,  gradual  climb  to  the  Al- 
tai Station.  Before  dark  on  the  following  day 
we  were  riding  through  cool,  elevated  alpine 
meadows,  where  the  fresh  green  grass  was 
intermingled  with  bluebells,  fragrant  spirea, 
gentians,  and  delicate  fringed  pinks,  — ^ 


and 


9000  feet  in  height,  crowned  with  1000  feet 
of  fresh,  brilliantly  white  snow,  and  belted 
with  a  broad  zone  of  evergreen  forest ;  beneath 
lay  a  beautiful,  park-like  valley,  through  which 
ran  the  road,  under  the  shade  of  scattered 
larches,  across  clear  rushing  mountain  streams 
which  came  tumbling  down  in  cascades  from 
the  melting  snows  above,  and  over  grassy  mead- 
ows sprinkled  with  wild  pansies,  gentians, 
fringed  pinks,  and  ripening  strawberries.  After 


KIRGH1S     ENCAMPMENT     ON     THE     SUMMIT. 


where  the  mountain  tops  over  our  heads  were 
white,  a  thousand  feet  down,  with  freshly  fallen 
snow.  The  change  from  the  torrid  African 
desert  of  the  Irtish  to  this  superb  Siberian 
Switzerland  was  so  sudden  and  so  extraordi- 
nary as  to  be  almost  bewildering.  I  could 
not  help  asking  myself  every  fifteen  minutes, 
"  Did  I  only  dream  of  that  dreary,  sun-scorched 
steppe  yesterday,  with  its  sand  spouts,  its 
mountains  of  furnace  slag,  its  fierce  heat,  and 
its  whitening  bones,  or  is  it  really  possible 
that  I  can  have  come  from  that  to  this  in 
twenty-four  hours  ?  "  To  my  steppe-wearied 
eyes  the  scenery,  as  we  approached  the  Altai 
Station,  was  indescribably  beautiful.  On  our 
left  was  a  range  of  low  mountains,  the  smooth 
slopes  of  which  were  checkered  with  purple 
cloud  shadows  and  tinted  here  and  there  by 
vast  areas  of  flowers;  on  our  right,  rising  al- 
most from  the  road,  was  a  splendid  chain  of 
bold,  grandly  sculptured  peaks  from  7000  to 


three  thousand  miles  of  almost  unbroken 
plain,  or  steppe,  this  scene  made  upon  me  a 
most  profound  impression.  We  reached  the 
Altai  Station  —  or,  as  the  Kirghis  call  it, "  Koton 
Karaghai  "  —  about  6  o'clock  in  the  cool  of  a 
beautiful,  calm,  midsummer  afternoon.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  enthusiastic  delight  which  I  felt 
as  I  rode  up  out  of  a  wooded  valley  fragrant 
with  wild-flowers,  past  a  picturesque  cluster 
of  colored  Kirghis  tents,  across  two  hundred 
yards  of  smooth  elevated  meadow,  and  then, 
stopping  at  the  entrance  to  the  village,  turned 
back  and  looked  at  the  mountains.  Never,  I 
thought,  had  I  seen  an  alpine  picture  which 
could  for  a  moment  bear  comparison  with 
it.  I  have  seen  the  most  beautiful  scenery  in 
the  mountains  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  of  Nica- 
ragua, of  Kamtchatka,  of  the  Caucasus,  and 
of  the  Russian  Altai,  and  it  is  my  deliber- 
ate opinion  that  for  varied  beauty,  pictur- 
esqueness,  and  effectiveness  that  mountain 


MY  MEETING    WITH   THE  POLITICAL    EXILES. 


S21 


DISTANT    VIEW    OF    THE    KATUNSKI    ALPS. 


landscape  is  absolutely  unsurpassed.  If  there 
exist  a  more  superbly  situated  village  than 
the  Altai  Station,  I  am  ready  to  cross  three 
oceans  to  see  it. 

The  station  itself  is  a  mere  Cossack  outpost 
with  seventy  or  eighty  log-houses,  with  wide, 
clean  streets  between  them  and  with  a  quaint 
wooden  church  at  one  end ;  but  to  a  traveler 
just  from  the  hot,  arid  plains  of  the  Irtish  even 
this  insignificant  Cossack  hamlet  has  its  pe- 
culiar charm.  In  front  of  every  house  in  the 
settlement  is  a  little  inclosure,  or  front  yard, 
filled  with  young  birches,  silver-leafed  aspens, 
and  flowering  shrubs ;  and  through  all  of  these 
yards,  down  each  side  of  every  street,  runs  a 
tinkling,  gurgling  stream  of  clear,  cold  water 
from  the  melting  snows  on  the  mountains. 
The  whole  village,  therefore,  go  where  you 
will,  is  filled  with  the  murmur  of  falling  water ; 
and  how  pleasant  that  sound  is,  you  must 
travel  for  a  month  in  the  parched,  dust-smoth- 
ered, sun-scorched  valley  of  the  Irtish  fully 
to  understand.  The  little  rushing  streams 
seem  to  bring  with  them,  as  they  tumble  in 
rapids  through  the  settlement,  the  fresh,  cool 
atmosphere  of  the  high  peaks  where  they  were 
born  two  hours  before ;  and  although  your 
thermometer  may  say  that  the  day  is  hot  and 
the  air  sultry,  its  statements  are  so  persistently, 
so  confidently,  so  hilariously  controverted  by 
the  joyous  voice  of  the  stream  under  your 
window  with  its  half-expressed  suggestions  of 
You  XXXVI.— 7;. 


snow  and  glaciers  and  cooling  spray,  that 
your  reason  is  silenced  and  your  imagination 
accepts  the  story  of  the  snow-born  brook. 

We  remained  at  the  Altai  Station  three  or 
four  days,  making  excursions  into  the  neigh- 
boring mountains  with  the  Russian  commander 
of  the  post  and  his  wife,  visiting  and  photo- 
graphing the  Kirghis  who  were  encamped 
near  the  village,  and  collecting  information 
with  regard  to  the  region  lying  farther  to  the 
eastward  which  we  purposed  to  explore. 

On  Monday,  July  27,  we  started  fora  trip  of 
about  two  hundred  versts,  on  horseback,  to  the 
Katunski  Alps,  or"  Beilki,"  which  are  said  to  be 
the  highest  and  wildest  peaks  of  the  Russian 
Altai.  The  day  of  our  departure  happened 
to  be  the  namesday  of  Captain  Maiefski,  the 
Russian  commander  of  the  post ;  and  in  order 
to  celebrate  that  namesday,  and  at  the  same 
time  give  us  a  pleasant  "  send  off,"  he  invited 
a  party  of  friends  to  go  with  us  as  far  as  the 
rapids  of  the  Bukhtarma  River,  about  fifteen 
versts  from  the  station,  and  there  have  a  pic- 
nic. When  we  started,  therefore,  we  were  ac- 
companied by  Captain  Maiefski  and  his  wife 
and  daughter,  the  Cossack  ataman  and  his 
wife,  a  political  exile  named  Zavalishin  and 
his  wife,  and  three  or  four  other  officers  and 
ladies.  The  party  was  escorted  by  ten  or  fif- 
teen mounted  Kirghis  in  bright-colored  "  besh- 
mets,"  girt  about  the  waist  with  silver-studded 
belts ;  and  the  cavalcade  of  uniformed  officers, 


522 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


gayly  dressed   ladies,   and    hooded    Kirghis  newly  built  log-houses  situated  in  the  shallow, 

presented,  at  least  to  our  eyes,  a  most  novel  flower-carpeted  valley  of  the  Bukhtarma;  and 

and  picturesque   appearance,  as  it  cantered  on  Tuesday  we  passed  through  the   pictur- 

away  across  the  grassy  plateau  upon  which  esque  village  of  Arul  and  reached  a  Cossack 

the  station  is  situated,  and  descended  into  the  station  called  Berel,  where  we  expected   to 

green,  flowery  valley  of  the  Bukhtarma.    Cap-  leave  the  Bukhtarma  valley  and  plunge  into 

tain  Maiefski  had  sent  forward  to  the  rapids  the  mountains. 


. 


THE     RAKHMANOFSK1     HOI'     SPRINGS. 


early  in  the  morning  two  Kirghis  yourts,  a 
quantity  of  rugs  and  pillows,  and  his  whole 
housekeeping  outfit;  and  when  we  arrived 
we  found  the  tents  pitched  in  a  beautiful 
spot  among  the  trees  beside  the  Bukhtarma, 
where  camp-fires  were  already  burning,  where 
rugs  and  pillows  were  spread  for  the  ladies, 
and  where  delicious  tea  was  all  ready  for  our 
refreshment.  After  an  excellently  cooked  and 
served  dinner  of  soup,  freshly  caught  fish,  roast 
lamb,  boiled  mutton,  cold  chicken,  pilau  of 
rice  with  raisins,  strawberries,  and  candies,  we 
spent  a  long,  delightful  afternoon  in  botaniz- 
ing, fishing,  rifle-shooting,  catching  butterflies, 
telling  riddles,  and  singing  songs.  It  was,  I 
think,  the  most  pleasant  and  successful  picnic 
that  I  ever  had  the  good  fortune  to  enjoy; 
and  when,  late  in  the  afternoon,  Mr.  Frost 
and  I  bade  the  party  good-bye,  I  am  sure  we 
both  secretly  wished  we  could  stay  there  in 
camp  for  a  week,  instead  of  going  to  the  Ka- 
tunski  Alps. 

We  spent  that  night  at  the  little  Cossack 
picket  of  Jingistai,   which  consisted  of  two 


Wednesday  morning,  with  two  Cossack 
guides,  five  Kirghis  horses,  a  tent,  and  a 
week's  provisions,  we  forded  the  milky  current 
of  the  Berel  River,  and  climbed  slowly  for 
two  hours  in  zigzags  up  a  steep  Kirghis  trail 
which  led  to  the  crest  of  an  enormous  mound- 
shaped  foot-hill  behind  the  village.  After 
stopping  for  a  few  moments  at  a  Kirghis  en- 
campment on  the  summit,  two  or  three  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  bottom  of  the  Bukhtarma 
valley,  we  tightened  our  saddle-girths  and 
plunged  into  the  wilderness  of  mountains, 
precipices,  and  wild  ravines  which  lay  to  the 
northward. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  after  an  extremely 
difficult  and  fatiguing  journey  of  25  or  30 
versts,  we  rode  2000  or  3000  feet  down  a 
steep,  slippery,  break-neck  descent,  into  the 
beautiful  valley  of  the  Rakhmanofski  Hot 
Springs,  where,  shut  in  by  high  mountains, 
we  found  a  clear  little  alpine  lake,  framed  in 
greenery  and  flowers,  and  two  untenanted  log- 
houses,  in  one  of  which  we  took  up  our  quar- 
ters for  the  night.  When  we  awoke  on  thefol- 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 

lowing  morning  rain  was  falling  heav- 
ily, and  horseback  travel  in  such  a 
country  was  evidently  out  of  the 
question.  The  storm  continued,  with 
an  occasional  brief  intermission,  for 
two  days  ;  but  on  the  morning  of 
the  third  the  weather  finally  cleared 
up,  and  without  waiting  for  the 
mountain  slopes  to  become  dry,  we 
saddled  our  horses  and  went  on. 

The  last  sixty  versts  of  our  journey 
were  made  with  great  difficulty  and 
much  peril,  our  route  lying  across  tre- 
mendous mountain  ridges  and  deep 
valleys  with  almost  precipitous  sides, 
into  which  we  descended  by  follow- 
ing the  course  of  foaming  mountain 
torrents,   or   clambering   down   the 
moraines   of  extinct   glaciers,   over 
great    heaped-up   masses   of  loose, 
broken  rocks,  through  swamps,  tan- 
gled jungles  of  laurel   bushes   and 
fallen  trees,  and  down  slopes  so  steep 
that  it  was  almost  impossible  to  throw 
one's  body  far  enough  back  to  keep 
one's  balance  in  the  saddle.  Half  the 
time  our  horses  were  sliding  on  all 
four  feet,  and  dislodging  stones  which 
rolled  or  bounded  for  half  a  mile 
downward,  until  they  were  dashed  to 
pieces   over  tremendous  precipices. 
I  was  not  wholly  inexperienced   in 
mountain  travel,  having  ridden   on 
horseback  the  whole  length  of  the 
mountainous    peninsula    of    Kamt- 
chatka  and  crossed  three  times  the 
great  range  of  the  Caucasus,  once 
at    a    height    of    twelve    thousand 
feet;  but  I  must  confess  that  during  our  de- 
scents into  the  valleys  of  the  Rakhmanofski, 
the  Black  Berel,  the  White  Berel,  and  the 
Katun  my  heart  was  in  my  mouth  for  hours 
at  a  time.   On  any  other  horses  than  those  of 
the  Kirghis  such  descents  would  have  been 
utterly  impossible.  My  horse  fell  with  me  once, 
but  I  was  not  hurt.   The  region  through  which 
we  passed  is  a  primeval  wilderness,  traversed 


523 


THE    DESCENT    INTO    THE    VALLEY    OF    THE    WHITE    BEREL. 

scores  of  other  flowers  that  I  had  never  before 
seen,  many  of  them  very  large,  brilliant,  and 
showy.  Among  plants  and  fruits  which  with  us 
are  domesticated,  but  which  in  the  Altai  grow 
wild,  I  noticed  rhubarb,  celery,  red  currants, 
blackcurrants,  gooseberries,  raspberries,  straw- 
berries, blackberries,  wild  cherries,  crab-apples, 
and  wild  apricots.  Most  of  the  berries  were 
ripe,  or  nearly  ripe,  and  the  wild  currants  were 


only  by  the  "  Diko-Kammenni  Kirghis,"  or    as  large   and    abundant  as  in  an  American 


"  Kirghis  of  the  Wild  Rocks,"  and  abounding 
in  game.  We  saw  "  marals,"  or  Siberian  elk, 
wolves,  wild  sheep,  and  many  fresh  trails  made 
by  bears  in  the  long  grass  of  the  valley  bot- 
toms. On  horseback  we  chased  wild  goats, 
and  might  have  shot  hundreds  of  partridges, 
grouse,  ducks,  geese,  eagles,  and  cranes.  The 
flora  of  the  lower  mountain  valleys  was  ex- 
tremely rich,  varied,  and  luxuriant,  comprising 
beautiful  wild  pansies  of  half  a  dozen  varieties 


garden.  The  scenery  was  extremely  wild  and 
grand,  surpassing,  at  times,  anything  that  I 
had  seen  in  the  Caucasus. 

On  Saturday,  August  i ,  we  reached  the  foot 
of  the  last  great  ridge,  or  water-shed,  which 
separated  us  from  the  main  chain  of  the  Ka- 
tunski  Alps,  and  camped  for  the  night  in  a 
high  mountain  valley  beside  the  White  Berel, 
a  milky  stream  which  runs  out  from  under  a 
great  glacier  a  few  miles  higher  up.  The  air 


and  colors,  fringed  pinks,  spirea,  two  species  was  clear  and  frosty,  but  we  built  a  big  camp- 
of  gentian,  wild  hollyhocks,  daisies,  forget-me-  fire  and  managed  to  get  through  the  night  with- 
nots,  alpine  roses,  trollius,  wild  poppies,  and  out  much  discomfort.  Sunday  morning  we 


524 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


climbed  about  two  thousand  feet  to  the  sum- 
mit of  the  last  ridge,  and  looked  over  into  the 
wild  valley  of  the  Katun,  out  of  which  rise 
the  "  Katunski  Pillars,"  the  highest  peaks  of 
the  Russian  Altai.  I  was  prepared,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  for  grandeur  of  scenery,  because 
I  had  already  caught  glimpses  of  these  peaks 
two  or  three  times,  at  distances  varying  from 
twenty-five  to  eighty  miles ;  but  the  near  view, 
from  the  heights  above  the  Katun,  so  far  sur- 
passed all  my  anticipations  that  I  was  simply 
overawed.  I  hardly  know  how  to  describe  it 


mous  glaciers,  the  largest  of  them  descending 
from  the  saddle  between  the  twin  summits  in 
a  series  of  ice  falls  for  at  least  4000  feet.  The 
glacier  on  the  extreme  right  had  an  almost 
perpendicular  ice  fall  of  1200  or  1500  feet,  and 
the  glacier  on  the  extreme  left  gave  birth  to  a 
torrent  which  tumbled  about  800  feet,  with  a 
hoarse  roar,  into  the  deep  narrow  gorge.  The 
latter  glacier  was  longitudinally  divided  by 
three  moraines,  which  looked  from  our  point 
of  view  like  long,  narrow,  A-shaped  dumps  of 
furnace  slag  or  fine  coal  dust,  but  which  were 


THE     "  KATL'NSKI     PILLARS" — SOURCE    OK    THE     KATUN     RIVER. 


without  using  language  which  will  seem  ex- 
aggerated. The  word  which  oftenest  rises  to 
my  lips  when  I  think  of  it  is  "  tremendous." 
It  was  not  beautiful,  it  was  not  picturesque ; 
it  was  tremendous  and  overwhelming.  The 
narrow  valley,  or  gorge,  of  the  Katun,  which 
lay  almost  under  our  feet,  was  between  2000 
and  3000  feet  deep.  On  the  other  side  of  it 
rose,  far  above  our  heads,  the  wild,  mighty 
chain  of  the  Katunski  Alps,  culminating  just 
opposite  us  in  two  tremendous  snowy  peaks 
whose  height  I  estimated  at  15,000  feet.* 
They  were  white  from  base  to  summit,  except 
where  the  snow  was  broken  by  great  black 
precipices,  or  pierced  by  sharp,  rocky  spines, 
or  aiguilles.  Down  the  sides  of  these  peaks, 
from  vast  fields  of  neve  above,  fell  seven  enor- 

*  Captain  Maiefski's  estimate  of  their  height  was 
18,000  feet  above  the  sea  level.  They  have  never  been 
climbed  nor  measured,  and  I  do  not  even  know  the 
height  above  the  sea  of  the  valley  bottom  from  which 
they  rise. 


in  reality  composed  of  black  rocks,  from  the 
size  of  one's  head  to  the  size  of  a  freight  car, 
and  extended  4  or  5  miles,  with  a  width  of 
300  feet  and  a  height  of  from  50  to  75  feet 
above  the  general  level  of  the  glacier.  The 
extreme  summits  of  the  two  highest  peaks 
were  more  than  half  of  the  time  hidden  in 
clouds ;  but  this  rather  added  to  than  detracted 
from  the  wild  grandeur  of  the  scene,  by  giving 
mystery  to  the  origin  of  the  enormous  glaciers, 
which  at  such  times  seemed  to  the  imagina- 
tion to  be  tumbling  down  from  unknown 
heights  in  the  sky  through  masses  of  rolling 
vapor.  All  the  time  there  came  up  to  us  from 
the  depths  of  the  gorge  the  hoarse  roar  of 
the  waterfall,  and  with  it  blended,  now  and 
then,  the  deeper  thunder  of  the  great  glaciers, 
as  masses  of  ice  gave  way  and  settled  into 
new  positions  in  the  ice  falls.  This  thundering 
of  the  glaciers  continued  for  nearly  a  minute 
at  a  time,  varying  in  intensity,  and  resembling 
occasionally  the  sound  of  a  distant  but  heavy 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 

and  rapid  cannonade.  No  move- 
ment of  the  ice  in  the  falls  was  per- 
ceptible to  the  eye  from  the  point 
at  which  we  stood,  but  the  sullen, 
rumbling  thunder  was  evidence 
enough  of  the  mighty  force  of  the 
agencies  which  were  at  work  be- 
fore us. 

After  looking   at  the  mountains 
for  half  an  hour,  we  turned  our  at- 
tention to  the  valley  of  the  Katun 
beneath  us,  with  the  view  to  ascer- 
taining whether  it  would  be  possible 
to  get  down  into  it  and  reach  the 
foot  of  the  main  glacier,  which  gave 
birth  to  the  Katun  River.    Mr.  Frost 
declared  the  descent  to  be  utterly 
impracticable,  and  almost  lost  pa- 
tience with  me  because  I  insisted 
upon  the  guides  trying  it.  "  Anybody 
can  see,"  he  said,  "  that  this  slope 
ends  in  a  big  precipice ;  and  even  if 
we  get  our  horses  down  there,  we 
never  can  get  them  up  again.    It  is 
foolish  to  think  of  such  a  thing." 
I  had  seen  enough,  however,  of  Kir- 
ghis  horses  to  feel  great  confidence 
in  their  climbing  abilities;  and  al- 
though the  descent  did  look   very 
dangerous,  I  was  by  no  means  satis- 
fied  that   it   was   utterly  impracti- 
cable.    While  we  were    discussing 
the  question,  our  guide  was  making 
a  bold  and  practical  attempt  to  solve 
it.    We  could  no  longer  see  him  from  where 
we  stood,  but  every  now  and  then  a  stone  or 
small  bowlder,  dislodged  by  his  horse's  feet, 
would  leap  suddenly  into  sight  300  or  400 
feet  below  us,  and   go   crashing   down  the 
mountain   side,  clearing   200  feet   at   every 
bound,  and  finally  dashing  itself  to  pieces 
against  the  rocks  at  the  bottom,  with  a  noise 
like  the  distant  rattling  discharge  of  musketry. 
Our  guide  was  evidently  making  progress. 
In  a  few  moments  he  came  into  sight  on  a 
bold,  rocky  buttress  about  six  hundred  feet 
below   us   and   shouted   cheerfully,   "  Come 
on!    This  is  nothing!    You  could  get  down 
here  with  a  telega! "    Inasmuch  as  one  could 
hardly  look  down  there  without  getting  dizzy, 
this  was  rather  a  hyperbolical  statement  of 
the  possibilities  of  the  case;  but  it  had  the 
effect  of  silencing  Mr.  Frost,  who  took  his 
horse  by  the  bridle  and  followed  me  down  the 
mountain  in  cautious  zigzags,  while  I  kept  as 
nearly  as  I  could  in  the  track  of  our  leader. 
At  the  buttress  the  guide  tightened  my  forward 
and  after  saddle-girths  until  my  horse  groaned 
and  grunted  an  inarticulate  protest,  and   I 
climbed  again  into  the  saddle.    It  seemed  to 
me  safer,  on  the  whole,  to  ride  down  than  to 


525 


THE    DESCENT    INTO    THE    GORGE    OF    THE    KATUN. 

try  to  walk  down  leading  my  horse,  since  in  the 
latter  case  he  was  constantly  sliding  upon  me, 
or  dislodging  loose  stones  which  threatened 
to  knock  my  legs  from  under  me  and  launch 
me  into  space  like  a  projectile  from  a  catapult. 
The  first  hundred  feet  of  the  descent  were  very 
bad.  It  was  almost  impossible  to  keep  in  the 
saddle  on  account  of  the  steepness  of  the  in- 
cline, and  once  I  just  escaped  being  pitched 
over  my  horse's  head  at  the  end  of  one  of  his 
short  slides.  We  finally  reached  a  very  steep 
but  grassy  slope,  like  the  side  of  a  titanic  em- 
bankment, down  which  we  zigzagged,  with 
much  discomfort  but  without  any  danger,  to 
the  bottom  of  the  Katun  valley.  As  we  rode 
towards  the  great  peaks,  and  finally,  leaving 
our  horses,  climbed  up  on  the  principal  glacier, 
I  saw  how  greatly  we  had  underestimated  dis- 
tances, heights,  and  magnitudes  from  the  ele- 
vated position  which  we  had  previously  occu- 
pied. The  Katun  River,  which  from  above 
had  looked  like  a  narrow,  dirty  white  ribbon 
that  a  child  could  step  across,  proved  to  be  a 
torrent,  thirty  or  forty  feet  wide,  with  a  current 
almost  deep  and  strong  enough  to  sweep  away 
a  horse  and  rider.  The  main  glacier,  which  I 
had  taken  to  be  about  300  feet  wide,  proved 


S26 


MY  MEETING    WITH  THE  POLITICAL   EXILES. 


to  have  a  width  of  more  than  half  a  mile  :  and  We  spent  all  the  remainder  of  the  day  in 
its  central  moraine,  which  had  looked  to  me  sketching,  taking  photographs,  and  climbing 
like  a  strip  of  black  sand  piled  up  to  the  height  about  the  glacier  and  the  valley,  and  late  in 


PART  OF  GREAT  GLACIER  FROM  CENTRAL  MORAINE 
KATUNSKI  WATERFALL. 


of  6  or  7  feet  like  a  long  furnace  dump,  proved 
to  be  an  enormous  mass  of  gigantic  rocks,  3  or 
4  miles  long  and  from  300  to  400  feet  wide, 
piled  up  on  the  glacier  in  places  to  the  height 
of  75  feet.  Mr.  Frost  estimated  the  width  of 
this  glacier  at  two-thirds  of  a  mile,  and  the 
extreme  height  of  the  moraine  at  a  hundred 
feet. 

I  took  the  photographic  apparatus,  and  in 
the  course  of  an  hour  and  a  half  succeeded 
in  climbing  up  the  central  moraine  about  two 
miles  towards  the  foot  of  the  great  ice  fall ;  but 
by  that  time  I  was  tired  out  and  dripping 
with  perspiration.  I  passed  many  wide  cre- 
vasses into  which  were  running  streams  of 
water  from  the  surface  of  the  glacier;  and 
judging  from  the  duration  of  the  sound  made 
by  stones  which  I  dropped  into  some  of  them, 
they  must  have  had  a  depth  of  a  hundred  feet, 
perhaps  much  more.  This  was  only  one  of 
eleven  glaciers  which  I  counted  from  the 
summit  of  the  high  ridge  which  divides  the 
water-shed  of  the  Irtish  from  that  of  the  Ob. 
Seven  glaciers  descend  from  the  two  main 
peaks  alone. 


the  afternoon  returned  to  our  camp  in  the 
valley  of  the  White  Berel.  That  night — the 
2d  of  August  —  was  even  colder  than  the  pre- 
ceding one.  Ice  formed  to  the  thickness  of 
more  than  a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  our  tea-ket- 
tle, and  my  blankets  and  pillow,  when  I  got 
up  in  the  morning,  were  covered  with  thick 
white  frost. 

Monday  we  made  another  excursion  to  the 
summit  of  the  ridge  which  overlooks  the  val- 
ley of  the  Katun,  and  succeeded  in  getting  a 
good  photograph  of  the  two  big  peaks,  against 
a  background  of  cloudless  sky.  Our  little  in- 
strument, of  course,  could  not  take  in  a  quar- 
ter of  the  mighty  landscape,  and  what  it  did 
take  in  it  reduced  to  so  small  a  scale  that  all 
of  the  grandeur  and  majesty  of  the  mountains 
was  lost ;  but  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  feel  that 
we  could  carry  away  something  which  would 


DEATH. 


527 


suggest  and  recall  to  us  in  later  years  the  sub-    for  the  Rakhmanofski  Hot  Springs;  and  on 
limity  of  that  wonderful  alpine  picture.  the  sth  of  August,  afteran  absence  of  ten  days, 

Monday  noon  we  broke  camp  and  started    we  returned  to  the  Altai  Station. 


George  Kennan. 


DEATH. 

I  AM  the  key  that  parts  the  gates  of  Fame ; 
I  am  the  cloak  that  covers  cowering  Shame; 
I  am  the  final  goal  of  every  race ; 
I  am  the  storm-tossed  spirit's  resting-place : 

The  messenger  of  sure  and  swift  relief, 
Welcomed  with  waitings  and  reproachful  grief; 
The  friend  of  those  that  have  no  friend  but  me, 
I  break  all  chains,  and  set  all  captives  free. 

I  am  the  cloud  that,  when  Earth's  day  is  done, 
An  instant  veils  an  unextinguished  sun ; 
I  am  the  brooding  hush  that  follows  strife, 
The  waking  from  a  dream  that  Man  calls  —  Life ! 


Florence  Earle  Coates. 


[BEGUN  IN  THE  NOVEMBER  NUMBER.] 

THE    GRAYSONS:    A   STORY    OF    ILLINOIS* 

BY    EDWARD    EGGLESTON, 
Author  of  "  The  Hoosler  Schoolmaster,"  "  The  Circuit  Rider,"  "  Roxv."  etc. 


••  SAV,    TOM,   WON'T  YOU   WAIT 


XXXI. 
HIRAM    AND    BARBARA. 

HE  cordiality  of  his  wel- 
come was  a  surprise  to 
Mason;  he  could  hardly 
tell  why.  The  days  had 
dragged  heavily  since  his 
separation  from  Barbara, 
and  his  mind  had  been 
filled  with  doubts.  The 
delay  imposed  upon  him  by  Barbara's  circum- 
stances and  then  by  his  own  was  unwhole- 
some; love  long  restrained  from  utterance 
is  apt  to  make  the  soul  sick.  During  his 
last  week  in  Moscow  he  had  copied  court 
minutes  and  other  documents  into  the  folio 
records  in  an  abstracted  fashion,  while  the 


conscious  part  of  his  intellect  was  debating 
his  chance  of  securing  Barbara's  consent.  He 
fancied  that  she  might  hold  herself  more  than 
ever  aloof  from  him  now ;  that  her  pride  had 
been  too  deeply  wounded  to  recover,  and  that 
she  would  never  bring  herself  to  accept  him. 
When  he  had  at  length  finished  all  there  was 
for  him  to  do  in  the  clerk's  office  at  Moscow, 
and  Magill  had  contrived  to  borrow  enough 
money  to  pay  him  his  fifty  cents  a  day,  Mason 
was  too  impatient  to  wait  for  some  wagon 
bound  for  the  Timber  Creek  neighborhood. 
He  started  on  foot,  intending  to  pass  the  night 
under  the  friendly  roof  of  the  Graysons,  and 
to  push  on  homeward  in  the  morning;  for  he 
would  already  be  a  month  late  in  beginning 
his  college  year.  His  mind  was  revolving  the 
plan  of  his  campaign  against  Barbara's  pride 


1  Copyright,  1887,  by  Edward  Eggleston.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GKAYSONS. 


529 


all  the  way  over  the  great  lonely  level  prairie, 
the  vista  of  which  stretched  away  to  the  west 
until  it  was  interrupted  by  a  column  of  omi- 
nous black  smoke,  which  told  of  the  beginning 
of  the  autumnal  prairie  fires  that  annually 
sweep  the  great  grassy  plains  and  keep  them 
free  of  trees.  At  length  the  tantali/ing  forest, 
so  long  in  sight,  was  reached,  and  he  entered 
the  pale  fringe  of  slender  poplar-trees  —  that 
forlorn  hope  thrown  out  by  the  forest  in  its  per- 
petual attempt  to  encroach  on  the  prairie  an- 
nually tire-swept.  Hut  when  at  last  lie  entered 
the  greater  forest  itself,  now  half  denuded  of  its 
shade,  the  problem  was  still  before  him.  He 
contrived  with  much  travail  of  mind  what 
seemed  to  him  an  ingenious  device  for  over- 
coming Barbara's  fear  of  his  family.  He  would 
propose  that  his  mother  should  write  her  a 
letter  giving  a  hearty  assent  to  his  proposal  of 
marriage.  If  that  failed,  he  could  not  think  of 
any  other  plan  likely  to  be  effective. 

Like  many  conversations  planned  in  ab- 
sence, this  one  did  not  seem  so  good  when  he 
had  the  chance  to  test  it.  The  way  in  which 
Tom  welcomed  him  at  the  gate,  shaking  his 
hand  and  taking  hold  of  his  arm  in  an  affec- 
tionate, informal  way,  gave  him  an  unexpected 
pleasure,  though  nothing  could  be  more  nat- 
ural under  the  circumstances  than  Tom's 
gratitude.  And  when  Tom  said,  "  Barbara  '11 
be  awful  glad  to  see  you,  an'  so  '11  Mother," 
Mason  was  again  surprised.  Not  that  he  knew 
any  good  reason  why  Barbara  and  her  mother 
should  not  be  glad  to  see  him,  but  he  who 
broods  long  over  his  feelings  will  hatch  fore- 
bodings. When  Hiram  looked  up  from  Tom 
at  the  gate,  he  saw  Barbara's  half-petite  figure 
and  piquant  face,  full  as  ever  of  force  and 
aspiration,  waiting  half-way  down  the  walk. 
Barbara  paused  there,  half-way  to  the  gate, 
but  she  could  not  wait  even  there;  she  came 
on  down  farther  and  met  him,  and  looked  in 
his  eyes  frankly  and  told  him  —  with  some  re- 
serve in  her  tone,  it  is  true,  but  with  real  cor- 
diality— that  she  was  glad  to  see  him.  And  by 
the  time  he  reached  the  porch,  Mother  Gray- 
son  herself — kindly,  old-fashioned  soul  that 
she  was  —  stood  in  the  door  and  greeted  Ma- 
son with  tears  in  her  eyes. 

After  a  little  rest  and  friendly  talk  in  the 
cool,  well-kept,  home-like  sitting-room,  Hiram 
went  out  with  Tom  to  look  about  the  familiar 
place.  The  fruit  trees  were  pretty  well  stripped 
of  their  foliage  by  a  recent  wind  and  the 
ground  was  carpeted  with  brown  and  red  and 
yellow  leaves,  while  the  rich  autumn  sunlight, 
which  but  half  warmed  the  atmosphere,  gave 
one  an  impression  of  transientness  and  of 
swift-impending  change.  It  was  one  of  those 
days  on  which  the  seasons  are  for  the  instant 
arrested — a  little  moment  of  repose  and  res- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 74. 


pile  before  the  inevitable  catastrophe.  The 
busiest  man  can  hardly  resist  the  influence  of 
such  a  day;  farmers  are  prone  to  bask  in  the 
skint  sunlight  at  such  times  and  to  talk  to  one 
another  over  line-fences  or  seated  on  top-rails. 
The  crows  fly  hither  and  thither  in  the  still 
air,  and  the  swallows,  gathered  in  noisy  con- 
course, seem  reluctant  to  set  out  upon  their 
southward  journey.  But  Mason  soon  left  Tom 
and  entered  the  kitchen,  where  he  sat  himself 
down  upon  a  bench  over  against  the  loom  and 
watched  the  swift  going  to  and  fro  of  Barba- 
ra's nimble  shuttle,  and  listened  to  the  muffled 
pounding  of  the  loom-comb,  presently  find- 
ing a  way  to  make  himself  useful  by  winding 
bobbins. 

The  two  were  left  alone  at  intervals  during 
the  afternoon,  but  Mason  could  not  summon 
courage  to  reopen  the  question  so  long  closed 
between  them.  His  awkward  reserve  reacted 
on  Barbara,  and  conversation  between  them  be- 
came difficult,  neither  being  able  to  account  for 
the  mood  of  the  other. 

After  a  while  Janet,  tired  with  following 
Tom  the  livelong  day,  came  into  the  kitchen 
and  besought  Barbara  to  sing  "that  song 
about  Dick,  you  know";  and  though  Mason 
did  not  know  who  Dick  might  be,  he  thought 
he  would  rather  hear  Barbara  sing  than  to  go 
on  trying  to  keep  up  a  flagging  conversation; 
so  he  seconded  Janet's  request.  When  Bar- 
bara had  tied  a  broken  string  in  the  "  har- 
ness" of  the  loom,  she  resumed  her  seat  on 
the  bench  and  sang  while  she  wove. 

BARBARA'S  WEAVING  SONG. 

Fly,  shuttle,  right  merrily,  merrily, 
Carry  the  swift-running  thread ; 
Keep  time  to  the  fancy  that  eagerly 
Weaveth  a  web  in  my  head. 

For  Dick  he  will  come  again,  come  again, 
Dick  he  will  come  again  home  from  afar 
With  musket  and  powder-horn, 

Musket  and  powder-horn,  home  from  the  war. 

Beat  up  the  threads  lustily,  lustily, 

Weave  me  a  web  good  and  strong; 
Heart  brimful  and  flowing  with  joyousness 

Ever  is  bursting  with  song. 

For  Dick  he  will  come  again,  etc. 

Warp,  hold  the  woof  lovingly,  lovingly, 

Taking  and  holding  it  fast; 
Hearts  bound  together  in  unity 
Love  with  a  love  that  will  last. 

For  Dick  he  will  come  again,  come  again, 
Dick  he  will  come  again  home  from  afar 
With  musket  and  powder-horn, 

Musket  and  powder-horn,  home  from  the  war. 

By  the  time  the  ditty  was  ended,  Mrs.  Gray- 
son  was  setting  the  supper-table  by  the  fire- 
place, doing  her  best  to  honor  her  guest.  She 
took  down  the  long-handled  waffle-irons  and 
made  a  plate  of  those  delicious  cates  unknown 


53° 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


since  kitchen  fire-places  went  out,  and  the  like 
of  which  will  perhaps  never  be  known  again 
henceforth.  She  got  out  some  of  the  apple- 
butter,  of  which  half  a  barrel  had  been  made 
so  toilsomely  but  the  week  before,  and  this 
she  flanked  with  a  dish  of  her  peach  preserves, 
kept  sacredly  for  days  of  state.  The  "  chancy  " 
cups  and  saucers  were  also  set  out  in  honor 
of  Hiram,  and  the  almost  transparent  pre- 
served peaches  were  eaten  with  country 
cream,  from  saucers  thin  enough  to  show  an 
opalescent  translucency,  and  decorated  with 
a  gilt  band  and  delicate  little  flowers.  This 
china,  which  had  survived  the  long  wagon- 
journey  from  Maryland,  was  not  often  trusted 
upon  the  table. 

"  My  !  What  a  nice  supper  we  've  got,  Aunt 
Marthy !  "  said  Janet,  clapping  her  hands,  as 
they  took  their  seats  at  the  table. 

"  It  seems  to  me  you  're  making  company 
out  of  me,"  said  Mason,  in  a  tone  of  protest. 

"  We  sha'  n't  have  you  again  soon,  Mason," 
said  Tom,  "  and  we  don't  often  see  the  like 
of  you." 

The  words  were  spontaneous,  but  Tom 
ducked  his  head  with  a  half-ashamed  air 
when  he  had  spoken  them.  Barbara  liked 
Tom's  little  speech :  it  expressed  feelings  that 
she  could  not  venture  to  utter ;  and  it  had,  be- 
sides, a  touch  of  Tom's  old  gayety  of  feeling 
in  it. 

When  supper  was  well  out  of  the  way 
Hiram  proposed  a  walk  with  Barbara,  but  it 
did  no  good.  They  talked  mechanically  about 
what  they  were  not  thinking  about,  and  by 
the  time  they  got  back  to  the  house  Mason 
was  becoming  desperate.  He  must  leave  in 
the  morning  very  early,  and  he  had  made  no 
progress;  he  could  not  bring  himself  to 
broach  the  subject  about  which  Barbara 
seemed  so  loath  to  speak,  and  concerning 
which  he  dreaded  a  rebuff  as  he  dreaded 
death. 

They  entered  the  old  kitchen  and  found 
no  one  there;  the  embers  were  flickering  in 
the  spacious  fire-place  and  peopling  the  room 
with  grotesque  shadows  and  dancing  lights. 

"  Let  us  sit  here  awhile,  Barbara."  he  said, 
with  a  strange  note  of  entreaty  in  his  tone, 
as  he  swung  the  heavy  door  shut  and  put 
down  the  wooden  latch — relic  of  the  pioneer 
period. 

"  Just  as  you  please,  Mr.  Mason,"  answered 
Barbara. 

"Oh!  say  Hiram,  won't  you?"  He  said 
this  with  a  touch  of  impatience. 

"  Hiram !  "  said  Barbara,  laughing. 

He  led  her  to  the  loom-bench. 

"  Sit  there  on  high,  as  you  did  the  night 
you  put  me  into  a  state  of  misery  from  which 
I  have  n't  escaped  yet.  There,  put  your  feet 


on  the  chair-rung,  as  you  did  that  night." 
He  spoke  with  peremptoriness,  as  he  placed 
a  chair  for  her  feet,  so  that  she  might  sit  with 
her  back  to  the  loom.  Then  he  drew  up  an- 
other shuck-bottomed  chair  in  such  a  way  as 
to  sit  beside  and  yet  half  facing  her,  but  lower. 

"  Now,"  he  said  doggedly,  "  we  can  finish 
the  talk  we  had  then." 

"  That  seems  ages  ago,"  said  Barbara, 
dreamily;  "so  much  has  happened  since." 

"  So  long  ago  that  you  don't  care  to  renew 
the  subject?" 

"I  — "  But  Barbara  stopped  short.  The 
feeble  blaze  in  the  fire-place  suddenly  went  out. 

Hiram  did  not  know  where  to  begin.  He 
got  up  and  took  some  dry  chips  from  a  bas- 
ket and  threw  them  on  the  slumbering  coals, 
so  as  to  set  the  flame  a-going  again.  Then  he 
sat  down  in  his  chair  and  looked  up  at  the 
now  silent  Barbara,  and  tried  in  vain  to  guess 
her  mood.  But  she  remained  silent  and  waited 
for  him  to  take  the  lead. 

"  Do  you  remember  what  you  said  then  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  No  !  how  can  I  ?  It  seems  so  long  ago." 

"You  said  a  pack  of  nonsense."  As  he 
blurted  out  this  charge  Mason  turned  his  head 
round  obliquely,  still  regarding  Barbara. 

"  Did  I  ?  That 's  just  like  me,"  Barbara  an- 
swered, with  a  little  laugh. 

"  No,  it  is  n't  like  you,"  he  replied,  almost 
rudely.  "  You  're  the  most  sensible  woman  I 
ever  knew,  except  on  one  subject." 

"  What  's  that  ?  "  Barbara  was  startled  by 
the  vehemence  and  abruptness  of  his  speech, 
and  she  asked  this  in  a  half-frightened  voice. 

"  Your  pride.  I  looked  up  to  you  then,  as  I 
do  now.  You're  something  above  me  —  I 
just  worship  you."  To  a  man  of  maturity  this 
sort  of  talk  seems  extravagant  enough.  But 
one  must  let  youth  paint  itself  as  it  will,  with 
all  its  follies  on  its  head.  You  've  said  sillier 
things  than  that  in  your  time,  sober  reader — 
you  know  you  have  ! 

"  I  do  just  worship  you,  Barbara  Grayson," 
Hiram  went  on;  "  but  you  talked  a  parcel  of 
fool  stuff  that  night  about  the  superiority  of 
my  family,  and  about  your  not  being  able  to 
bear  it  that  my  people  should  look  down  on 
you,  and —  well,  a  pack  of  tomfoolery  ;  that 's 
what  it  was,  Barbara,  and  there  's  no  use  of 
calling  it  anything  else." 

Barbara  was  silent. 

"  Now,  I  'm  not  going  to  give  you  a  chance 
to  make  any  more  such  speeches.  But  I  want 
to  ask  you' whether,  if  I  should  send  you  a 
letter  from  my  mother  when  I  get  home,  and 
maybe  from  my  sisters  too,  after  I  have 
told  them  the  whole  truth,  urging  you  to  ac- 
cept me  and  become  one  of  our  family — I 
want  to  know  whether,  then,  you  would  be 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


S3' 


willing ;  whether  you  'd  take  pity  on  a  poor 
fellow  who  can't  get  along  without  you.  Would 
that  suit  you  ?  " 

"  No,  it  would  n't,"  said  Barbara,  looking  at 
the  now  blazing  chips  in  the  fire-place  with 
her  head  bent  forward. 

"  Well,  what  on  earth  would,  then  ?  "  And 
Mason  tilted  back  his  chair  in  the  nervousness 
of  desperation  and  brought  his  eyes  to  a  focus 
on  her  face,  which  was  strangely  illuminated 
in  the  flickering  foot-lights  from  the  hearth. 

"Did  I  talk  that  way  last  summer  ?  " 

"  Yes,  you  did." 

"  It  must  have  hurt  you.  I  can  see  it  hurt 
you.  from  the  way  you  speak  about  it." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mason ;  "  I  've  been  in  a.  sort 
of  purgatory  ever  since." 

"  And  I  did  n't  mean  to  hurt  your  feelings. 
I  'd  rather  do  anything  than  to  hurt  your  feel- 
ings." Here  she  paused,  unable  to  proceed  at 
once,  but  he  waited  for  her  to  show  the  way. 
Presently  she  went  on: 

"  Now,  Mr.  Mason, —  Hiram,  I  mean, — I  'm 
going  to  punish  myself  for  my  foolish  pride.  I 
must  have  felt  very  differently  then  to  what 
I  do  now.  The  more  I  have  seen  of  you  the 
more  I  have — admired  you."  Barbara  stopped 
and  took  up  the  hem  of  her  apron  and  picked 
at  the  stitches  as  though  she  would  ravel 
them.  Then  she  proceeded,  dropping  her  head 
lower,  "  Somehow,  I  hate  to  say  it, —  but  I  'm 
going  to  punish  myself, —  the  more  I  have 
seen  of  you  the  more  I  have  —  liked  you.  It 
don't  matter  much  to  me  now  whether  your 
mother  likes  me  or  not,  and  I  really  don't 
seem  to  care  what  your  sisters  think  about 
your  loving  a  poor  girl  from  the  country." 

"  Hush !  Don't  talk  that  way  about  yourself," 
said  Hiram.  But  Barbara  was  so  intent  on  fin- 
ishing what  she  had  resolved  to  say  that  she 
did  not  give  any  heed  to  him,  but  only  went 
on  pulling  and  picking  at  the  hem  of  her 
apron. 

"  I  only  want  to  know  one  thing,  Mr.  Mason, 
and  that  is  whether  you  —  whether  you  really 
and  truly  want  me  ? "  Her  face  blushed 
deeply,  she  caught  her  breath,  her  head  bowed 
lower  than  before,  as  though  trying  in  vain  to 
escape  from  Hiram's  steadfast  gaze. 

"  God  only  knows  how  I  do  love  you,  Bar- 
bara," said  Hiram,  speaking  softly  now  and 
letting  his  eyes  rest  on  the  floor. 

"  Well,"  said  Barbara,  "  as  good  a  man  as 
you  deserves  to  have  what  he  wants,  you 
know";  and  here  she  smiled  faintly.  "I  "11 
put  in  the  dust  all  the  wicked  pride  that  hurts 
you  so."  And  Barbara  made  a  little  gesture. 
Then  after  a  moment  she  began  again,  stam- 
meringly,  "  If —  if  you  really  want  me,  Hiram 
Mason, —  why — then  —  I  '11  face  anything 
rather  than  miss  of  being  yours.  Now  will 


that  do  ?  And  will  you  forgive  me  for  keep- 
ing you  in  purgatory,  as  you  call  it,  all  this 
time  ?  "  There  were  tears  in  her  eyes  as  she 
spoke ;  partly  of  penitence,  perhaps,  but  more 
than  half  of  happiness. 

When  she  had  finished,  Mason  got  up  and 
pushed  his  chair  away  and  came  and  sat 
down  on  the  loom-bench  beside  her,  Barbara 
making  room  for  him,  as  for  the  first  time  she 
lifted  her  eyes  timidly  to  his. 

"  I  've  been  a  goose,  Barbara,  not  to  under- 
stand you  before.  What  a  woman  you  are  ! " 

XXXII. 
THE    NEXT    MORNING. 

WHEN  Tom  waked  up  the  next  morning  in 
the  gray  daybreak,  he  found  that  Mason,  who 
should  have  shared  his  room,  had  not  come 
to  bed  at  all.  And  when  Tom  came  down  to 
uncover  the  live  coals  and  build  up  the  kitchen 
fire,  he  found  that  the  embers  had  not  been 
covered  under  the  ashes  as  usual ;  there  were 
instead  smoking  sticks  of  wood  that  had  nearly 
burned  in  two,  the  ends  having  canted  over 
backward  outside  of  the  andirons.  The  table 
stood  in  the  floor  set  with  plates  and  cups  and 
saucers  for  two,  and  there  were  the  remains 
of  an  early  breakfast.  There  was  still  heat  in 
the  coffee-pot  when  Tom  touched  it,  and  from 
these  signs  he  read  the  story  of  Barbara's  be- 
trothal to  Mason;  he  conjectured  that  this 
interview,  which  was  to  precede  a  separation 
of  many  months,  had  been  unintentionally  pro- 
tracted until  it  was  near  the  time  for  Mason's 
departure.  The  debris  of  the  farewell  love- 
feast,  eaten  in  the  silent  hour  before  daybreak, 
seemed  to  have  associations  of  sentiment. 
Tom  regarded  these  things  and  was  touched 
and  pleased,  but  he  was  also  amused.  This 
sitting  the  night  out  seemed  an  odd  freak  for 
a  couple  so  tremendously  serious  and  proper 
as  the  little  sister  and  the  schoolmaster. 

An  hour  later,  when  Tom,  having  finished  his 
chores,  came  in  for  his  breakfast,  Barbara  had 
reappeared  below  stairs  with  an  expression  of 
countenance  so  demure  —  so  entirely  innocent 
and  unconscious — that  Tom  could  not  long 
keep  his  gravity ;  before  he  had  fairly  begun 
to  eat  he  broke  into  a  merry,  boyish  laugh. 

"  What  are  you  laughing  about  ?  "  demand- 
ed Barbara,  looking  a  little  foolish  and  man- 
ifesting a  rising  irritation,  that  showed  how 
well  she  knew  the  cause  of  his  amusement. 

"  Oh  !  nothing ;  but  why  don't  you  eat  your 
breakfast,  Barb  ?  You  seem  to  have  lost  your 
appetite." 

"  Don't  tease  Barb'ry  now,"  said  Mrs. 
Grayson. 

"  I  'm  not  teasing,"  said  Tom;  "  but  I  de- 
clare, Barb,  it  must  have  seemed  just  like 


532 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


going  to  housekeeping  when  you  two  sat  down 
to  eat  breakfast  by  yourselves  this  morning." 

"  O  Tom  !  "  broke  in  Janet,  who  could  n't 
quite  catch  the  drift  of  the  conversation, 
"Barbara  went  to  bed  with  her  clothes  on 
last  night.  When  I  waked  up  this  morning 
she  was  lying  on  the  bed  by  me  with  her 
dress  on." 

Tom  now  laughed  in  his  old  unrestrained 
fashion. 

"  Say,  Barbara,"  Janet  went  on,  "  are  you 
going  to  marry  that  Mr.  Mason  that  was  here 
yesterday  ?  " 

Knowing  that  she  could  not  get  rid  of 
Janet's  inquiries  except  by  answering,  Barbara 
said  :  "  Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  as  she  got  up  to 
set  the  pot  of  coffee  back  on  the  trivet  and 
hide  a  vexation  that  she  knew  to  be  foolish. 

"  Don't  you  know  whether  you  're  going  to 
marry  him  or  not  ?  "  put  in  Janet.  "  I  sh'd 
think  you  'd  know.  And  I  sh'd  think  he  'd  be 
a  real  nice  husband."  Then  after  a  few  mo- 
ments of  silence,  Janet  turned  on  Tom.  "  Tom, 
who  's  your  sweetheart  ?  " 

"  Have  n't  got  any,"  said  Tom. 

"  Is  n't  that  purty  girl  that  was  here  yester- 
day your  sweetheart?" 

"  No  ! " 

"  Are  n't  you  ever  going  to  get  married  ?  " 

"  Maybe,  some  day.  Not  right  off,  though." 

"  I  wish  you  would  find  a  good  wife,  Tom," 
said  Barbara,  without  looking  from  her  plate. 
"  It  would  cheer  you  up."  Barbara  felt  a  lit- 
tle guilty  at  the  thought  of  leaving  the  brother 
who  had  always  seemed  her  chief  responsi- 
bility. 

"  Say,  Tom,  won't  you  wait  for  me  ?  "  said 
Janet,  solemnly. 

"  Yes,  that 's  just  what  I  '11  do,"  said  Tom, 
looking  at  her.  "  I  had  n't  thought  of  it  before ; 
but  that 's  just  exactly  what  I  '11  do,  Janet. 
I  '11  wait  for  you,  now  you  mention  it." 

"  Will  you,  indeed,  and  double  deed  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,  and  deed  and  double  deed, 
I  '11  wait  for  you,  Janet." 

"  That  '11  be  nice,"  said  Janet,  continuing 
her  breakfast  with  meditative  seriousness. 
"  Now  I  'm  your  sweetheart,  ain't  I  ?  " 

XXXIII. 

POSTSCRIPTUM. 

IT  was  in  the  last  days  of  October,  a  few 
weeks  after  the  proper  close  of  the  story 
which  I  have  just  related,  when  Henry  Mil- 
ler —  the  most  matter-of-fact  and  unsensa- 
tional  of  young  men  —  threw  his  family  into 
a  state  of  excitement  and  supplied  the  gossip 
of  the  neighborhood  with  a  fresh  topic  by 
announcing  at  home  and  abroad  that  he  was 
going  to  leave  the  country,  either  for  the 


Iowa  country  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
or  for  the  fertile  bottom-lands  up  north  on 
the  "  Wisconse  "  River,  as  it  was  called.  He 
was  the  only  son  of  his  father,  and  had  inher- 
ited the  steady,  plodding  industry  and  frugality 
so  characteristic  of  a  "  Pennsylvania  Dutch  " 
race.  Until  he  was  of  age  he  was  bound,  not 
only  by  law,  but  by  the  custom  of  the  country, 
to  serve  his  father  much  as  a  bondman  or  an 
apprentice  might  have  served,  for  an  able- 
bodied  son  was  distinctly  recognized  as  an 
available  and  productive  possession  in  that 
day.  When  he  became  of  age  his  close- 
fisted  father  made  no  new  arrangement  with 
him,  offered  him  no  start,  paid  him  no  wages, 
and  gave  him  no  share  in  the  produce  of  the 
fields.  It  was  enough,  in  the  father's  estima- 
tion, that  Henry  would  succeed  to  a  large  part 
of  the  property  at  his  death.  But  Henry,  on 
mature  reflection,  had  made-up  his  mind  that 
emigration  would  be  better  than  a  reversion- 
ary interest  that  must  be  postponed  to  the 
death  of  so  robust  a  man  as  his  father,  who 
was  yet  in  middle-life  and  who  came  of  a 
stock  remarkable  for  longevity.  Was  not  his 
grandfather  yet  alive  in  Pennsylvania,  while 
his  great-grandfather  had  not  been  dead  many 
years?  It  was  after  calculating  the  "expecta- 
tion of  life  "  in  the  Miller  family  that  Henry 
notified  his  father  of  his  intention  to  go 
where  land  was  cheap  and  open  a  large  farm 
for  himself.  In  vain  the  father  urged  that  he 
could  not  get  on  without  him,  and  that 
there  would  be  no  one  to  look  after  things 
if  the  father  should  die.  Henry  persisted  that 
he  must  do  something  for  himself  and  that 
his  father  would  have  to  hire  a  man,  for  he 
should  surely  leave  as  soon  as  the  crops  were 
gathered,  so  as  to  get  land  enough  open  in 
some  frontier  country  to  afford  him  a  small 
crop  of  corn  the  first  year. 

Henry's  mother  and  sisters  were  even  more 
opposed  to  his  going  than  his  father  was,  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  blame  the  senior  Mil- 
ler with  great  severity  for  not  having  "  done 
something  "  for  Henry.  Henry's  father  had 
never  before  known  how  unpleasant  a  man's 
home  may  come  to  be.  He  was  reminded  that 
Henry  had  not  an  acre,  nor  even  a  colt,  that 
he  could  call  his  own,  and  that  other  farmers 
had  done  better  than  that.  This  state  of  siege 
became  presently  quite  intolerable,  and  the 
elder  Miller  resolved  not  only  "  to  do  some- 
thing "  for  Henry,  but  to  do  it  in  such  a  way 
that  his  son  would  begin  life  very  well  pro- 
vided for.  He  wanted  to  silence  the  clamor 
of  the  house  and  the  neighborhood  once  for 
all,  and  prove  to  his  critics  how  much  they 
were  mistaken. 

It  was  about  a  week  after  Henry's  first  res- 
olution was  taken  that  he  and  his  father  were 


THE    GRAYSONS. 


533 


finishing  the  corn-gathering.  They  were  throw- 
ing the  unshuckeil  ears  into  a  great  wagon  of 
the  Pennsylvania  pattern  —  a  wagon  painted 
blue,  the  "  bed  "  of  which  rose  in  a  great  sweep 
at  each  end  as  though  some  reminiscence  of  the 
antique  forms  of  marine  architecture  had  af- 
fected its  construction.  When  all  the  corn 
within  easy  throwing  distance  had  been  gath- 
ered, Henry,  who  was  on  the  near  side,  would 
slip  the  reins  from  the  standard  over  the  fore 
wheel  and  drive  forward  the  horses,  which 
even  in  moving  bit  off  the  ends  of  corn  ears  or 
nibbled  at  the  greenest-looking  blades  within 
their  reach. 

"  Let  's  put  on  the  sideboards,"  said  the 
elder,  "  and  we  can  finish  the  field  this  load." 
Though  Miller's  ancestors  had  come  to  this 
country  with  the  Palatine  immigration,  away 
back  in  1710,  there  was  a  little  bit  of  Ger- 
man in  his  accent ;  he  said  something  like 
"  gorn  "  for  corn.  The  sideboards  were  put  up, 
and  these  were  so  adjusted  that  when  they 
were  on  the  wagon  the  inclosing  sides  were 
rendered  level  at  the  top  and  capable  of  hold- 
ing nearly  double  the  load  contained  without 
the  boards. 

"  Henry,"  said  the  father,  when  the  two 
were  picking  near  together  and  throwing  corn 
over  the  tail-gate  of  the  wagon,  "if  you  give 
up  goin"  away  an'  git  married  right  off,  an' 
settle  toun  here,  I  'm  a-mine  to  teed  you 
that  east  eighty  an'  a  forty  of  timber. 
Eh?" 

"  That  's  purty  good,"  said  Henry ;  "  but 
if  your  deed  waits  till  I  find  a  wife,  it  may  be  a 
good  while  coming." 

"  That  eighty  lays  'longside  of  Albaugh's 
medder  an'  lower  gorn-field,"  said  the  father, 
significantly. 

"  You  mean  if  I  was  to  marjy  Rache,  Albaugh 
might  give  us  another  slice." 

"  Of  gourse  he  would ;  an'  I  'd  help  you 
put  up  a  house,  an'  maybe  I  'd  let  you  hav' 
the  roan  golt.  You  'd  hav'  the  red  heifer  any- 
how." 

"  But  I  never  took  a  shine  to  Rache ;  and 
if  I  did,  I  could  n't  noways  come  in.  They  's 
too  many  knocking  at  that  door." 

"  But  Rachel  ain't  no  vool,"  said  the  elder. 
"  She  knows  a  good  piece  of  lant  w'en  she  sees 
it,  an'  maybe  she  's  got  enough  of  voolin' 
rount." 

All  that  afternoon  Henry  revolved  this  prop- 
osition in  his  mind,  and  he  even  did  what  he 
had  never  done  before  in  his  life — he  lay  awake 
at  night.  The  next  day,  after  the  midday  din- 
ner, he  said  to  himself:  "  I  might  as  well  resk 
it.  Albaugh  's  got  an  all-fired  good  place, 
and  all  out  of  debt.  And  that 's  a  tre-men- 
dous  nice  eighty  father  's  offered  to  give 
me." 


So  he  went  upstairs  and  put  on  a  new  suit  of 
blue  jeans  fresh  from  his  mother's  loom.  Then 
he  walked  over  to  Albaugh's,  to  find  Rachel 
seeing  on  the  front  porch. 

Rachel  had  been  "  kindah  dauncey  like,"  as 
her  mother  expressed  it,  ever  since  her  visit 
to  Barbara.  She  had  received  as  many  atten- 
tions as  usual,  but  they  seemed  flat  and  un- 
relishable  to  her  now.  She  began  seriously  to 
reflect  that  a  girl  past  twenty-three  was  grow- 
ing old  in  the  estimation  of  the  country,  and 
yet  she  was  further  than  ever  from  being  able 
to  make  a  choice  between  the  lovers  that  paid 
her  court,  more  or  less  seriously. 

When  she  looked  up  and  saw  Henry  Miller 
coming  in  at  the  gate  she  felt  a  strange  sur- 
prise. She  had  never  before  seen  him  in  Sun- 
day clothes  or  visiting  on  a  week-day. 

"Hello,  Henry!  Looking  for  Ike?"  she 
asked,  with  neighborly  friendliness. 

"  No,  not  as  I  know  of.  I  've  come  to  talk 
to  you,  Rache." 

"To  me?  Well,  you  're  the  last  one  I  'd 
look  for  to  come  to  talk  to  me;  and  in  day- 
time, and  corn-shucking  not  begun  yet."  There 
was  an  air  of  excited  curiosity  in  her  manner. 
It  was  plain  to  be  seen  that  she  was  inwardly 
asking,  "What  can  Henry  Miller  be  up  to, 
anyhow  ? "  but  to  him  she  said,  "  Come  in, 
Henry,  an'  take  a  cheer." 

"  No,  I  '11  sed  down  here,"  he  answered, 
taking  a  seat  on  the  edge  of  the  porch,  like 
the  outdoor  man  that  he  was,  approaching  a 
house  with  half  reluctance. 

The  relations  between  Henry  and  Rachel 
were  unconstrained.  They  had  played  "  hide 
and  whoop  "  together  in  childhood,  and  times 
innumerable  they  had  gone  on  blackberrying 
and  other  excursions  together ;  he  had  swung 
her  on  long  grape-vine  swings  on  the  hill-side; 
they  had  trudged  to  and  from  school  in  each 
other's  company,  exchanging  sweet-cakes  from 
their  lunch-baskets,  and  yet  they  had  never 
been  lovers. 

"  Rache,"  he  said,  locking  his  broad,  brown 
hands  over  his  knee,  "  father  says  he  '11  give 
me  that  east-eighty  whenever  I  get  married, 
if  I  won't  go  off  West." 

"  You  '11  be  a  good  while  getting  married, 
Henry.  You  never  was  a  hand  to  go  after  the 
girls." 

"  No,  but  I  might  chance  to  get  married 
shortly,  for  all  that.  The  boys  that  do  a  good 
deal  of  sparking  and  the  girls  that  have  a 
lot  of  beaux  don't  always  get  married  first. 
You  'd  ought  to  know  that,  Rache,  by  your 
own  experience." 

Rachel  laughed  good-naturedly,  and  waited 
with  curiosity  to  discover  what  all  this  was 
leading  up  to. 

"What  I  'm  thinking,"  said  Henry,  with  the 


534 


THE   GRAYSONS. 


air  of  a  man  approaching  a  horse-trade  cau- 
tiously, lest  he  should  make  a  false  step,  "  is 
this :  that  eighty  of  our'n  jines  onto  your  med- 
der  and  west  corn-field." 

"  Do  you  want  to  sell  it  ? "  said  Rachel. 
"You  might  see  father;  he  'd  like  to  have  it, 
I  expect." 

"  Can't  you  guess  what  it  is  that  I  'in  com- 
ing at?" 

"No,  I  can't"  said  Rachel;  "not  to  save 
my  life." 

"  Looky  here,  Rache,"  and  Henry  gave  his 
shoulders  a  twitch,  "  the  two  farms  jine ;  now, 
what  if  you  and  me  was  to  jine  ?  " 

"  Well,  Henry  Miller,  if  you  don't  beat  the 
Dutch!  I  never  heard  the  like  of  that  in  all 
my  born  days!"  Rachel  had  heard  many 
propositions  of  marriage,  but  this  sort  of  love- 
making,  with  eighty  acres  of  prairie  land  for  a 
buffer,  was  a  novelty  to  her. 

"  Looky  here,  Rache,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of 
protest,  "  I  've  knew  you  ever  since  you  was 
knee-high  to  a  grasshopper.  Now,  what 's  the 
use  of  fooling  and  nonsense  betwixt  you  and 
me  ?  You  know  what  /am —  a  good,  stiddy- 
going,  hard-working  farmer,  shore  to  get  my 
sheer  of  what  's  to  be  had  in  the  world  with- 
out scrouging  anybody  else.  And  I  know  just 
if^actly  what  you  air.  We  've  always  got  along 
mighty  well  together,  and  if  I  have  n't  ever 
made  a  fool  of  myself  about  your  face,  w'y,  so 
much  the  better  for  me.  Now,  whaddy  yeh 
say  ?  Let 's  make  it  a  bargain." 

"  W'y,  Henry  Miller,  what  a  way  of  talking!  " 

"  Rache,  come,  go  along  with  me  and  see 
where'bouts  I  'm  going  to  put  up  a  house. 
Father 's  promised  to  help  me.  It 's  down  by 
the  spring,  just  beyand  your  meclder  fence. 
Will  you  go  along  down  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  care  if  I  do  go  down  with 
you,  Henry.  But  it  's  awful  funny  to  come 
to  such  a  subject  in  that  way." 

Rachel  put  on  her  sun-bonnet,  and  they 
went  through  the  orchard  together. 

"  We  could  put  up  a  nice  house  there. 
Father  's  willing  to  throw  in  a  forty  of  timber 
too  —  the  forty  that  joins  this  eighty  over  yan- 
der.  We  'd  be  well  fixed  up  to  begin,  no  mat- 
ter what  your  father  done  or  did  n't  do  for  us. 
Whaddy  you  think  of  the  plan  ?  " 

"You  —  you  have  n't  said  you  loved  me, 
or  anything,"  said  Rachel,  piqued  at  having 
her  charms  quite  left  out  of  the  account.  But 
she  could  not  hide  from  herself  that  Henry's 
proposition  had  substantial  advantages.  She 
only  added,  "What  a  curious  man  you  are!" 

"  Don't  you  believe  I  'd  make  a  good  hus- 
band?" 

"  Yes,  of  course  you  would." 

"And  a  good  provider?" 

"  Yes,  I  'm  shore  of  that." 


"  Well,  now,  I  'm  not  going  to  pretend  I  'm 
soft  on  you.  If  you  say  '  No,'  well  and  good; 
there  's  an  end.  I  sha'n't  worry  myself  into 
consumption.  You  've  got  a  right  to  do  as 
you  please.  I  'm  not  going  to  have  folks  say 
that  I  'm  another  of  the  fools  that 's  broke  their 
hearts  over  Rache  Albaugh.  Once  you  're 
mine,  I  '11  set  my  heart  on  you  fast  enough. 
But  I  never  set  my  heart  on  anything  I 
might  n't  be  able  to  get." 

Rachel  did  not  say  anything  to  this  bit  of 
philosophy.  She  had  in  the  last  two  weeks 
recognized  the  advisability  of  her  getting  mar- 
ried as  soon  as  she  could  settle  herself.  But 
on  taking  an  inventory  of  her  present  stock 
of  beaux,  she  had  mentally  rejected  them  all. 
They  were  prospectively  an  unprosperous  lot, 
and  Rachel  was  too  mature  to  marry  adver- 
sity for  the  sake  of  sentiment.  She  found 
herself  able  to  listen  to  Henry  Miller's  cool- 
blooded  proposition  with  rather  more  tolerance 
than  she  felt  when  hearing  the  kind  of  love- 
talk  she  had  been  used  to.  Why  not  get  her 
father  to  do  as  well  by  her  as  the  Millers 
would  by  Henry,  or  to  do  better,  seeing  he  was 
the  richer  and  had  but  two  children  ?  Then 
they  might  begin  life  with  plenty  of  acres  and 
a  good  stock  of  butter  cows. 

Henry  showed  her  where  they  could  put 
their  house,  where  the  barn  would  be  placed, 
and  where  they  would  have  a  garden.  Rachel 
felt  a  certain  pleasure  in  fancying  herself  the 
mistress  of  such  a  place.  But  it  was  contrary 
to  all  the  precedents  laid  down  in  the  few 
romances  she  had  read  for  a  woman  to  marry 
a  man  who  was  not  her  "  slave  "  :  that  was 
the  word  the  old  romancers  took  delight  in. 
She  tried  to  coquet  with  Henry,  in  order  to 
draw  from  him  some  sort  of  professions  of 
love.  A  flirtatioji  with  a  lay  figure  would 
have  been  quite  as  successful.  He  was  plain 
prose,  and  she  presently  saw  that  if  she  ac- 
cepted him  it  must  be  done  in  prose.  She 
could  n't  help  liking  his  very  prose ;  she  was 
a  little  tired  of  slaves;  it  seemed,  on  the 
whole,  better  to  have  a  man  at  least  capable 
of  being  master  of  himself. 

In  much  the  same  tone  —  the  tone  of  a 
man  buying,  or  selling,  or  proposing  a  co- 
partnership for  business  purposes  —  Henry 
Miller  carried  on  the  conversation  all  the 
way  back  until  they  reached  the  corn-crib, 
where  he  came  to  a  stand-still. 

"  Whaddy  yeh  say,  Rachel  ?  Is  it  a  bar- 
gain ?  " 

"  Well,  Henry,  it 's  sudden  like.  I  want  to 
take  time  to  think  it  over." 

"  Then  I  '11  take  back  the  offer  and  put  out 
for  the  loway  country.  I  'm  not  a-going  to 
have  my  skelp  a-hanging  to  your  belt  for 
days  and  days,  like  the  rest  of  them.  What  's 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


535 


the  use  of  thinking  ?  You  don't  want  to  take 
Magill,  do  you  ?  " 

"  He  's  too  old,  and  his  nose  is  rather  red," 
laughed  Rachel. 

••  Nor  Tom  (irayson,  I  suppose?  "  Henry 
mentioned  Torn  as  the  second  because  he  was 
the  one  about  whom  he  had  misgivings. 

"  I  give  him  the  sack  before  the  shooting, 
and  I  'm  not  going  to  go  back  to  him  now." 

K.K  hel  faltered  a  little  in  this  reply,  but 
she  spoke  with  that  resolute  insincerity  for 
which  women  hold  an  indulgence  in  advance 
when  their  hearts  are  being  searched. 

••  Well,"  said  Henry,  "  if  you  think  you  can 
do  better  by  waiting,  I  'm  off.  If  you  think 
I  'm  about  as  good  a  man  as  you  're  likely  to 
pick  up,  here  's  your  chance.  It  's  going,  go- 
ing, gone  with  me.  Either  I  marry  you  and 
take  father's  offer,  or  I  put  out  for  the  loway 
country.  I  don't  ask  you  to  think  I  'm  per- 
fection, but  just  to  take  a  sober,  common- 
sense  look  at  things." 

Rachel  saw  that  it  was  of  no  use  to  expect 


Henry  to  court  her,  and  she  could  not  help 
liking  him  the  better  for  his  honest  straight- 
forwardness. She  looked  down  a  minute, in  tlu- 
hope  that  he  would  say  something  that  might 
make  it  easier  for  her  to  answer,  but  he  kept 
his  silence. 

"  Henry,"  she  said  at  length,  rolling  a 
corn-cob  over  and  over  under  the  toe  of  her 
shoe,  "  I  Ve  got  a  good  mind  to  say  '  Yes.' 
You  don't  make  me  sick,  like  the  rest  of  them. 
Father  'II  be  struck  when  he  hears  of  it.  He 's 
always  said  I  'd  marry  some  good-for-nothing 
town-fellow." 

"  Is  it  a  bargain,  good  and  fast  ? "  said 
Henry,  holding  out  his  hand,  as  he  would 
have  done  to  clinch  the  buying  of  a  piece  of 
timber  land  or  a  sorrel  horse. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rachel,  laughing  at  the  odd- 
ness  of  it  and  the  suddenness  of  it,  "  I  'm 
tired  of  fooling.  It  's  a  bargain,  Henry." 

"  Good  fer  you,  Rache !  Now  I  begin  to 
like  you  better  than  ever." 

END.  Edward  Eggleston. 


A    MEXICAN     CAMPAIGN. 

BY   THOMAS    A.   JANVIER,    AUTHOR   OF   THE   IVORY    BLACK    STORIES. 


IN   THREE   PARTS.      PART   I. 


THE    MOBILIZATION    OF   THE   TROOPS. 

CR.PEMBERTON  LOGAN 
SMITH  was  a  member 
of  the  Philadelphia  Sketch 
Club;  and  by  his  associates 
in  that  eminently  democratic 
organization  it  generally  was 
conceded  that  if  he  had  not 
been  handicapped  by  the 
first  two-thirds  of  his  name,  and  if  he  had  not 
been  born  constitutionally  lazy,  he  probably 
would  have  made  rather  a  shining  light  of 
himself  as  a  landscape  painter. 

When  this  opinion  was  advanced  in  his 
presence,  as  it  very  frequently  was,  Pem  usually 
laughed  in  his  easy-going  way  and  said  that 
quite  possibly  it  possessed  some  of  the  elements 
of  truth.  For  Mr.  Pemberton  Logan  Smith 
knew  very  well  that  he  was  constitutionally 
lazy,  and  he  as  frankly  gloried  in  his  double- 
barreled  Philadelphia  name  as  he  did  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  Philadelphian  to  the  back- 
bone. 

"  You  see,  old  man,"  he  once  explained 
to  his  New  York  friend,  the  eminent  young 


figure-painter  Vandyke  Brown,  "  you  New 
York  people  have  n't  much  notion  of  birth, 
and  family  connection,  and  that  sort  of  thing, 
anyway.  There  are,  I  believe,"  said  Pem,  airily, 
"  a  few  good  families  in  New  York,  but  most 
of  your  so-called  best  people  have  n't  the 
least  notion  in  the  world  who  their  grand- 
fathers were ;  or  else — and  this  amounts  to  the 
same  thing — they  know  so  much  about  them 
that  they  want  to  keep  them  as  dark  as  possi- 
ble. All  you  care  for  over  here  is  money.  Now 
that  is  n't  our  way  at  all.  Of  course  we  don't 
object  to  a  man's  having  money  ;  but  the  first 
thing  we  want  him  to  have  is  birth.  If  he  can 
show  that  his  people  came  over  with  Penn, — 
or  before  Penn,  as  mine  did, —  and  if  he  be- 
longs to  the  Assembly,  and  is  certain  of  his 
invitation  to  the  Charity  Ball,  and  a  few  things 
of  that  sort,  we  take  him  in ;  but  if  he  has  n't 
this  sort  of  a  record  —  well,  we  think  about  it. 
Of  course,  now  and  then  a  fellow  who  has 
only  money  works  his  way  into  good  society, 
provided  he  knows  how  to  give  a  really  good 
dinner  and  doesn't  stint  the  terrapin.  Butthese 
are  the  exceptions;  the  rule  is  the  other 
way." 


536 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


But  while  Brown  and  some  of  the  Sketch 
Club  men  regretted  that  Pern  did  not  buckle 
down  to  painting  and  accomplish  some  of  the 
good  work  that  he  undoubtedly  was  capable 
of,  Pern  himself  took  the  matter  very  easily. 
He  had  succeeded  in  developing  enough  en- 
ergy to  paint  two  or  three  pictures  which  de- 
served the  praise  that  they  received,  and  with 
this  much  accomplished  he  seemed  to  be  quite 
contented  to  let  his  case  rest. 

In  the  Social  Art  Club,  where  the  artistic 
element  was  infinitesimal,  and  where  Pern's 
social  high  qualifications  were  accepted  at  their 
proper  high  value,  he  was  regarded  as  an  ar- 
tistic genius  of  considerable  magnitude.  But 
this  was  only  natural,  for  he  really  knew  some- 
thing about  pictures  —  instead  of  only  partly 
knowing  how  to  talk  about  them. 

And  in  both  of  his  clubs,  and  pretty  gener- 
ally by  his  somewhat  extensive  personal  ac- 
quaintance, Pern  was  set  down  —  quite  apart 
from  his  qualifications  as  an  artist  —  as  a  thor- 
oughly good  fellow.  As  a  rule  a  popular  ver- 
dict of  this  nature  may  be  critically  examined 
without  being  reversed.  In  certain  quarters 
the  fact  was  recognized  that  he  had  been  a 
little  narrowed  by  the  circumstances  of  hisbirth 
and  environment ;  but  even  in  these  quarters 
it  was  admitted  that  there  was  something  very 
pleasant  about  him  — when  he  was  not  shying 
cocoa-nuts  from  the  heights  of  his  Philadelphia 
family  tree.  And  finally  the  three  or  four  people 
who  really  knew  him  well,  among  whom  was 
his  friend  Brown,  believed  that  there  was  an 
underlying  strength  and  earnestness  in  his 
character  which  would  be  aroused,  and  so 
fully  as  to  become  the  governing  force  of  his 
life  should  any  great  joy  or  great  calamity 
overtake  him  that  would  stir  his  nature  to  its 
depths. 

A  good-looking  young  fellow  of  five  or  six 
and  twenty,  with  pleasant  manners,  plenty  of 
money,  a  faculty  for  taking  odd  and  amusing 
views  of  life,  and  having  at  least  a  spark  of 
genius  in  his  composition — a  young  fellow 
of  this  sort,  I  say,  is  not  to  be  met  with  on 
every  street  corner;  and  when  he  is  encoun- 
tered, commonplace  humanity,  without  pre- 
cisely knowing  why,  rejoices  in  him;  and  un- 
commonplace  humanity,  knowing  precisely 
why,  rejoices  in  him  too. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  was  very  natural, 
when  the  Browns  were  casting  about  them  for 
an  eligible  man  to  whom  to  offer  the  tenth  sec- 
tion in  the  car  that  they  had  chartered  for  their 
Mexican  expedition,  that  Mr.  Pemberton  Lo- 
gan Smith  should  have  been  accorded  the 
suffrages  of  the  Mexican  expeditioners  with  a 
flattering  unanimity.  Quite  as  naturally,  when 
this  offer  to  join  what  promised  to  be  an  ex- 
ceptionally pleasant  party  in  an  exceptionally 


pleasant  undertaking  was  made  known  to  him, 
Mr.  Pemberton  Logan  Smith  promptly  ac- 
cepted it.  And  he  was  the  more  disposed  to 
Mexican  adventure  because  he  had  acquired 
a  very  satisfactory  command  of  Spanish  in  the 
course  of  a  recently  passed  delightful  year  in 
Spain. 

The  projector  of  the  Mexican  campaign 
was  Mr.  Mangan  Brown.  Through  his  leather 
connection  in  Boston,  Mr.  Brown  had  been 
induced  to  invest  a  considerable  sum  of  money 
in  what  his  Boston  friends  had  described  to 
him,  at  the  time  when  the  investment  was 
made,  as  the  highly  philanthropic  and  very 
lucrative  work  of  aiding  in  the  railway  devel- 
opment of  Mexico.  A  fabulously  rich  country 
was  waiting,  they  told  him,  to  be  aroused  into 
active  commercial  life  by  the  provision  of  ade- 
quate means  of  internal  transportation ;  a  sis- 
ter Republic,  they  added,  was  pining  to  be 
bound  to  the  great  nation  of  the  north  by 
bonds  of  steel.  Honor  awaited  the  men 
who  would  accomplish  this  magnificent  in- 
ternational work,  while  the  substantial  return 
for  their  philanthropy  would  be  unlimited 
dividends  in  hard  cash.  It  was  a  picturesque 
way  of  presenting  a  commercial  enterprise, 
and  Mr.  Brown  was  moved  by  it.  Pleased 
with  the  prospect  of  figuring  to  future  genera- 
tions in  the  guise  of  a  continental  benefactor, 
and  not  averse  to  receiving  unlimited  divi- 
dends, which  would  be  all  the  more  acceptable 
because  they  were  so  honorably  earned,  he 
listened  to  the  voice  of  the  Boston  charmers 
—  and  drew  his  check  in  his  customary  lib- 
eral way. 

His  desire  to  go  to  Mexico,  in  part  at  least, 
grew  out  of  his  not  altogether  unnatural  wish 
to  find  out  why  some  of  the  promised  gener- 
ous dividends  had  not  been  declared.  But 
aside  from  his  financial  interest  in  the  sister 
republic,  the  erratic  visitation  of  Miss  Violet 
Carmine  —  now  Mrs.  Rowney  Mauve  —  had 
inspired  him  with  a  strong  curiosity  to  visit  a 
country  that  was  capable  of  producing  so  ex- 
traordinary a  type  of  womanhood.  And  point 
had  been  given  to  this  curiosity  by  the  fre- 
quent warm  invitations  extended  to  him  by  his 
remote  kinsman.  Violet's  father,  to  come  to 
Mexico  for  a  visit  of  indefinite  length,  accom- 
panied by  his  family  and  a  working  majority 
of  his  friends.  Hospitality  of  so  boundless  a 
type,  Mr.  Brown  considered,  in  itself  was  a 
phase  of  sociology  the  study  of  which  very  well 
was  worth  a  journey  of  three  thousand  miles. 

And  finally,  with  an  eye  to  business,  Mr. 
Brown  believed  that  a  visit  to  Mexico  might 
be  made  to  redound  very  materially  to  his  in- 
terest in  the  matter  of  the  direct  importation 
of  Mexican  hides. 

"  The  leather  business  is  not  what  it  used 


A   MEXICAN-  CAMPAIGN. 


537 


to  be,  Van,"  he  remarked  somewhat  gloomily 
to  his  nephew,  when  this  feature  of  the  expedi- 
tion was  touched  upon.  "  When  I  was  a  young 
man,  serving  my  time  with  the  late  Mr.  Orpi- 
ment's  father,  there  were  chances  in  leather 
that  nowadays  nobody  would  even  dream  of. 
I  remember,  in  '46,  our  firm  brought  in  two 
shiploads  of  hides  from  Buenos  Ayres,  which 
were  worth  almost  their  weight  in  gold.  They 
were  made  right  up  into  shoes  for  Scott's  army, 
you  see.  It  always  has  rested  a  little  heavily  on 
my  conscience,  Van,  that  those  hides  were 
made  up  green  that  way.  The  shoes  that  they 
made  of  them  must  have  worn  out,  Ishouldsay, 
in  rather  less  than  a  week.  But  I  was  n't  really 
responsible  for  it,  for  I  was  only  a  boy  in  the 
counting-room  ;  and  even  Mr.  Orpiment  was 
n't  responsible  for  what  was  done  with  the 
hides  after  they  were  sold.  And  our  firm  cer- 
tainly made  a  pot  of  money  out  of  the  trans- 
action. Of  course,  I  can't  hope  now  for  any- 
thing as  good  as  that  was,  no  matter  what  I 
find  in  Mexico;  but  I  am  sure,  all  the  same, 
that  the  Mexican  leather  market  is  worth 
looking  into  —  and  if  all  the  Mexicans  are  like 
our  cousin  Carmine,  they  must  be  worth  look- 
ing into  also. 

"  By  the  way,  I  had  a  letter  from  Carmine 
to-day  —  he  writes  extraordinary  English  — 
in  answer  to  mine  telling  him  when  we  are 
likely  to  get  there  ;  and  instead  of  being  hor- 
rified at  the  prospect  of  having  such  a  lot  of 
us  bowling  down  on  him,  as  I  should  be,  I 
know,  he  says  that  his  only  regret  is  that 
there  are  not  more  of  us  coming.  You  'd 
think  that  being  called  upon  this  way  to  en- 
tertain twelve  people,  with  only  one  in  the 
whole  party  that  he  ever  has  laid  eyes  on,  and, 
besides  Violet,  only  four — you  and  I,  Verona 
and  your  aunt  Caledonia  —  that  have  the 
smallest  claim  of  blood  relationship,  would 
upset  even  a  Mexican's  extended  notions  of 
hospitality.  But  it  does  n't  a  bit.  He  writes  in 
the  friendliest  way  that  he  is  looking  forward 
with  delight  to  having  us  all  with  him  for 
three  or  four  months  anyway,  and  urges  us  to 
hurry  down  as  quickly  as  possible. 

"  I  confess,  Van,"  Mr.  Brown  went  on  self- 
reproachfully,  "  that  this  whole-souled  sort  of 
welcome  makes  me  feel  a  little  mean  about 
the  half-hearted  way  in  which  we  welcomed 
Violet.  And  I  really  am  ashamed  to  remem- 
ber how  thankful  I  was  when  she  ran  off  with 
your  friend  Rowney  Mauve  and  got  married. 
To  be  sure,  Violet  would  n't  have  been  such 
a  —  such  an  abnormity,  if  it  had  n't  been  for 
that  confounded  parrot.  Thank  Heaven,  she 
has  consented  to  leave  the  parrot  at  home 
this  time.  I  don't  think  that  I  could  have 
gone  myself  if  Violet  had  insisted,  as  at  first 
she  seemed  disposed  to,  upon  taking  along  that 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 75. 


detestable  bird.  Parrots  —  parrots  are  awful 
things,  Van  !  "  And  Mr.  Brown  obviously  per- 
mitted his  thoughts  to  wander  back  ruefully 
into  a  parrot-stricken  past. 

As  to  the  party  at  large,  it  may  be  said  — 
with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Pemberton  Logan 
Smith  —  to  have  organized  itself.  Van  and 
Rose,  Verona  and  young  Orpiment,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Gamboge,  were  so  closely  bound  by 
blood,  marriage,  and  friendship  to  each  other 
and  to  Mr.  Mangan  Brown  that  they  were  as 
much  a  part  of  his  plan  as  he  was  himself. 
Rowney  Mauve  and  Violet,  the  son-in-law 
and  the  daughter  of  their  prospective  host  in 
Mexico,  naturally  could  not  be  left  out.  That 
Jaune  d'Antimoine  and  his  wife  Rose  (nee 
Carthame)  should  come  along  was  taken  for 
granted  by  everybody.  Indeed,  these  young 
French  people  were  very  close  to  the  hearts 
of  their  American  friends,  and  leaving  them 
out  of  any  plan  as  pleasant  as  this  Mexican 
plan  promised  to  be  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 

Jaune,  by  the  way,  had  made  a  great  suc- 
cess in  art  since  that  day  when  Mr.  Badger 
Brush  had  given  him  his  first  order.  To  be 
sure,  as  an  animal-painter  he  could  not  hope 
to  do  work  that  would  rank  with  Van's 
figure-painting;  but  he  considered  himself, 
and  his  wife  considered  him,  as  ranking  far 
above  young  Orpiment.  In  this  opinion,  very 
naturally,  neither  young  Orpiment  nor  Ve- 
rona concurred.  As  to  Verona,  she  entertained 
the  profound  conviction  that  landscape-paint- 
ing was  the  very  crown  and  glory  of  all  forms 
of  artistic  expression ;  and  she  not  less  firmly 
believed  that  her  husband  was  the  highest  ex- 
positor of  that  highest  form  of  art.  There  was 
a  little  "  Evening  on  the  Hills  "  that  young 
Orpiment  had  painted,  while  they  were  on 
their  wedding  journey  in  the  Catskills,  that 
Verona  never  permitted  him  to  sell,  and  that 
she  was  accustomed  to  compare  —  to  her  hus- 
band's advantage  —  with  the  finer  work  of 
Claude.  It  will  be  observed  that  some  years 
of  married  life  had  not  in  the  least  degree  di- 
minished—  it  could  not  well  have  augmented 
—  the  strength  of  Verona's  wifely  affection. 

The  party  thus  constituted  comfortably 
filled,  with  one  section  to  spare,  the  Pullman 
car  that  Mr.  Mangan  Brown,  who  cared  a 
great  deal  for  comfort  and  very  little  for  ex- 
pense, had  chartered  for  the  expedition. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gamboge,  out  of  respect  to 
their  superior  age,  and  because  of  the  need 
for  superior  privacy  involved  in  the  com- 
mercial peculiarity  of  Mrs.  Gamboge's  back 
hair,  were  accorded  the  cranny  that  the  Pull- 
man people  dignify  with  the  name  of  a  "  draw- 
ing-room " ;  and  each  of  the  other  members 
of  the  party  had  a  section  apiece. 

There  was  some  little  debate  as  to  what 


533 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


should  be  done  with  the  spare  section ;  for 
they  all  were  agreed  that  another  nice  person 
would  be  welcome  ;  and  equally  agreed  that 
it  would  be  a  pity,  in  the  interest  of  nice  per- 
sons abstractly,  to  leave  vacant  a  place  that  so 
many  people  very  gladly  would  fill.  The  sug- 
gestion made  by  Rose  to  Van,  somewhat  tim- 
idly, it  must  be  confessed,  that  old  Madder 
should  be  invited,  never  came  before  the 
house  at  all.  It  was  voted  down  promptly  in 
committee.  Van  had  a  great  deal  of  theoret- 
ical devotion  to  his  father-in-law,  but  he  did 
not  see  his  way  clear  to  this  form  of  its  prac- 
tical expression.  With  a  wise  diplomacy,  how- 
ever, he  refrained  from  making  the  matter 
personal.  After  Rose  was  married  old  Madder 
had  taken  a  little  apartment,  and  his  sister 
kept  house  for  him.  It  was  here  that  little 
Madder  and  Caledonia  were  to  remain  while 
Rose  and  Van  were  in  Mexico.  What  would 
become  of  the  children,  Brown  asked,  if  their 
grandfather  went  away  ?  And  this,  of  course, 
settled  it. 

A  similar  suggestion,  similarly  made  in  pri- 
vate by  his  wife  to  Jaune  d'Antimoine,  in  re- 
gard to  Madame  Carthame,  similarly  received 
a  firm  though  less  skillful  negative. 

Old  Madder  probably  never  knew  that  his 
name  had  been  mentioned  in  connection  with 
the  Mexican  expedition  at  all ;  arid  the  dip- 
lomatic Madame  d'Antimoine  certainly  did 
not  permit  her  severe  maternal  relative  to  im- 
agine for  a  moment  that  she  had  been  weighed 
in  her  son-in-law's  balance  and  found  wanting. 
But  after  the  party  had  started,  old  Madder 
certainly  did  say  to  Cremnitz  White  and  Rob- 
ert Lake,  and  one  or  two  more  of  his  especial 
cronies,  that  nothing  under  heaven  could  have 
induced  him  to  accompany  to  Mexico,  or  to 
any  other  part  of  the  world,  a  gang  of  painters 
that  had  n't  a  single  artist  among  them.  And 
Madame  Carthame  likewise  remarked,  ad- 
dressing her  first-floor  lodger,  that  she  would 
not  under  any  circumstances  have  permitted 
herself  to  associate  with  these  her  daughter's 
friends  among  the  iiouveatix  riches. 

It  really  looked  as  though  the  odd  section 
in  the  Pullman  would  remain  vacant  —  or  that 
it  would  be  utilized  only,  as  Rose  suggested, 
as  a  cattery.  Rose  was  very  fond  of  cats,  and 
to  her  mind  the  suggestion  seemed  to  be  a 
very  reasonable  one ;  for  she  wanted  greatly 
to  take  her  Persian  cat,Beaux-yeux,  along. 

However,  the  feline  member  was  not  added 
to  the  party,  for  at  this  stage  of  proceedings 
Van  put  a  large  spoke  in  the  wheel  of  his 
Philadelphia  friend's  fate  by  suggesting  Mr. 
Pemberton  Logan  Smith  as  an  eminently  fit 
person  to  fill  the  vacancy.  And  so  the  organ- 
ization of  the  friendly  army  of  invasion  was 
made  complete. 


THE  ENGAGEMENT  AT  THE  FRONTIER. 

MRS.  GAMBOGE  approached  the  Mexican 
border  with  a  heavy  heart. 

"  Are  the  —  the  custom-house  examinations 
very  strict  ?  "  she  asked  of  Mr.  Gamboge,  as 
they  waited  at  the  station  in  El  Paso  for  the 
train  that  was  to  back  across  from  the  Mexi- 
can side  of  the  river  and  hook  on  their  car. 

There  was  something  in  the  tone  of  the 
lady's  voice  that  caused  her  husband  to  look 
at  her  sharply,  and  to  observe  with  some  as- 
perity, "  You  're  not  trying  to  smuggle  any- 
thing, I  hope  ?  " 

"  N — no,"  responded  Mrs.  Gamboge,  wilh  a 
manifest  hesitation.  "  But  it  —  it  's  so  horrid 
to  have  one's  things  all  pulled  to  pieces,  you 
know." 

"  You  've  got  to  make  the  best  of  it.  You  'd 
have  done  better  if  you  'd  taken  my  advice 
and  not  brought  along  such  a  lot  of  things 
to  pull,"  replied  Mr.  Gamboge,  unfeelingly. 
"What  possible  use  you  can  have  for  two  big 
trunks  on  a  trip  of  this  sort  I  'in  sure  I  can't 
imagine." 

Mrs.  Gamboge  did  not  respond  to  this  un- 
kind remark.  She  retired  at  first  into  a  pained 
and  dignified  silence,  and  then  into  the  pri- 
vacy of  the  so-called  drawing-room.  A  few 
minutes  later,  when  Mr.  Gamboge —  who  was 
a  most  amiable  little  round  man  —  followed 
her  to  this  their  joint  apartment  to  make  amends 
for  his  mild  severity,  he  found  the  door  locked ; 
nor  would  Mrs.  Gamboge  for  some  moments 
suffer  him  to  enter.  When  she  emerged  from 
her  retreat  there  was  an  expression  of  anxiety 
upon  her  usually  placid  face ;  and  until  the 
custom -house  examination  was  ended  —  which 
was  in  a  very  few  minutes,  for  the  customs 
officials  were  refreshingly  perfunctory  in  their 
methods  —  it  was  evident  that  there  was  a 
weight  upon  her  mind. 

As  the  train  moved  away  southward  from 
Paso  del  Norte,  Mr.  Gamboge  went  into  the 
"  drawing-room  "  for  his  cigar-case,  and  was 
startled  as  he  entered  the  apartment  by  a  little 
shriek  of  alarm. 

"Oh!  I  thought  I  'd  locked  the  door," 
said  Mrs.  Gamboge,  speaking  with  some  con- 
fusion, and  at  the  same  time  hastily  throwing 
a  shawl  over  a  cage-like  structure  that  was 
lying  on  the  seat.  "  Do  go  out,  dear.  You  can 
come  back  in  a  moment." 

"  Caledonia,"  said  Mr.  Gamboge,  seriously, 
"  I  hope  that  you  have  not  really  been  smug- 
gling. Let  me  see  what  you  have  under  that 
shawl." 

"  I  have  n't  been  smuggling.  Indeed  I 
have  n't  —  at  least  nothing  that  I  have  n't  a 
perfect  right  to.  Do  go  away  —  only  for  a 
moment,  but  do  go  away." 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


539 


All  this  was  so  out  of  keeping  with  the 
character  of  his  wife  —  who,  excepting  in  re- 
gard to  the  purely  conventional  secret  of  the 
commercial  genesis  of  her  back  hair,  never  had 
made  even  an  approach  towards  having  a  se- 
cret from  him — that  Mr.  Gamboge  was  seri- 
ously discomposed. 

"  Indeed,  my  dear,  you  must  let  me  see 
what  you  are  hiding,"  he  said,  at  the  same 
time  making  a  step  forward  and  extending  his 
hand  towards  the  shawl. 

"  Oh,  don't !  don't,  I  beg  you  ! "  Mrs.  Gam- 
boge implored,  fairly  wringing  her  plump  little 
white  hands.  "It  's  —  it  's  only  my  —  my 
bustle.  I  've  been  taking  it  off." 

"  A  bustle  !  "  replied  Mr.  Gamboge  with 
both  scorn  and  indignation.  "  Bustles  are  ab- 
surdities and  monstrosities,  and  you  very  well 
may  be  ashamed  of  having  anything  to  do 
with  them.  But  as  you  have  to  my  certain 
knowledge  abandoned  yourself  to  this  species 
of  deformity  for  several  years  past,  and  never 
have  even  remotely  hinted  that  you  wanted 
to  make  a  mystery  of  your  folly,  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  understand  why  you  want  to  make  a 
mystery  of  it  now.  Come,  my  dear,  you  must 
let  me  see  what  you  have  hidden  here.  I  don't 
want  to  hurt  your  feelings,  Caledonia,  but  in- 
deed I  must  look."  And  speaking  this  firmly, 
Mr.  Gamboge  gently  disengaged  himself  from 
his  wife's  restraining  arms  and  lifted  the  shawl. 

"  It  is  a.  bustle,  sure  enough,"  he  said  with 
some  confusion.  "  But  what  's  this  inside  of 
it  ?  "  he  added  in  a  different  tone,  as  he  per- 
ceived in  the  interior  of  the  structure  a  care- 
fully tied  up  little  package  of  some  apparently 
soft  substance.  Mrs.  Gamboge  made  no  reply. 
She  was  seated  upon  the  sofa,  gently  sobbing. 

"  Why,  Caledonia,"  cried  Mr.  Gamboge  in 
astonishment,  as  he  unwrapped  the  parcel, "  it 's 
your  back  hair!  And  yet  you  have  your  hair 
on,  just  as  usual.  I  —  I  am  very  sorry,  Cale- 
donia," he  went  on  humbly,  being  overcome 
by  the  conviction  that  he  had  contrived  at 
one  and  the  same  time  to  make  a  fool  and  a 
brute  of  himself.  "  Indeed,  indeed,  dear,  I 
had  n't  the  least  notion  in  the  world  w/iat  it 
was;  I  had  n't,  upon  my  word.  Will  you  — 
will  you  forgive  me,  Caledonia  ?  "  Mr.  Gam- 
boge seated  himself  on  the  little  sofa,  placed 
his  arm  about  his  wife's  plump  waist,  and  gently 
drew  her  towards  him.  He  was  very  contrite. 

Mrs.  Gamboge,  however,  resisted  his  ad- 
vances. "  Go  away,"  she  said  between  her 
sobs.  "  Go  away !  After  all  these  years  that 
you  have  been  so  good  to  me  I  never  thought 
that  you  would  do  a  thing  like  this.  Now  go 
and  smoke  your  cigar.  Of  course,  after  a 
while,  I  shall  get  over  it,  but  you  had  better 
leave  me  now." 

Mr.  Gamboge,  however,  being  truly  peni- 


tent, was  not  to  be  thus  repulsed.  "  I  have 
been  very  rude,"  he  said,  "  and,  without  mean- 
ing to  be,  very  unkind.  But  I  beg  of  you, 
Caledonia,  to  forgive  me.  You  know  how  1 
love  you,  and  you  know  that  I  would  love 
you  just  as  much  if  you  were  absolutely  bald 
—  which  you  are  not,  nor  anything  like  it," 
Mr.  Gamboge  hastened  to  add,  perceiving 
that  the  expression  of  his  affection  in  these 
terms  was  unfortunate.  "Your  front  hair  is 
quite  thick,  positively  thick,  and  that  is  the 
important  place  to  have  hair,  after  all."  He 
spoke  with  more  assurance,  feeling  that  he 
was  getting  upon  firmer  ground.  "  So  won't 
you  try  to  forgive  me,  Caledonia;  won't  you 
try,  dear  ?  " 

"  Will  you  solemnly,  solemnly  promise," 
asked  Mrs.  Gamboge,  still  sobbing  gently,  but 
nestling  her  head  a  little  closer  on  his  shoul- 
der as  she  spoke,  "  never  to  say  a  word  about 
what  has  happened  ?  I  know  that  you  won't 
speak  about  it  to  anybody  else;  but  will  you 
promise,  on  your  sacred  word  of  honor,  never 
to  speak  about  it  again  to  me  ?  " 

Mr.  Gamboge  gave  the  desired  pledge,  and 
so  peace  was  restored. 

"  I  was  so  —  so  afraid  that  the  custom-house 
man  might  find  it,  you  see,"  Mrs.  Gamboge 
explained  a  little  later,  as  she  still  sat,  with  her 
husband's  arm  around  her,  on  the  sofa.  "  I 
would  n't  perhaps  have  minded  the  custom 
man,"  she  continued,  "  nor  even  Verona,  and 
not  much  Rose;  but  I  could  n't  bear  the 
thought  that  that  French  young  woman,  Mrs. 
d'Antimoine,  you  know,  should  see  it,  for  I 
know  how  Violet  and  she  would  have  laughed." 

And  then  she  added,  "It's  —  it 's  my  spare 
hair,  you  know.  Don't  you  think  that  I  did 
right  to  bring  my  spare  hair  along,  dear?" 

Mr.  Gamboge  kissed  her,  and  said  that  he 
thought  she  did. 

THE  PARLEY  UNDER  FALSE  COLORS. 

THAT  Mrs.  Gamboge  was  a  trifle  melan- 
choly during  the  day  following  her  entry  into 
Mexico  cannot  be  denied;  but  her  gloom  was 
of  a  gentle,  unobtrusive  sort,  and  by  no  means 
affected  the  general  high  spirits  of  the  party 
at  large. 

Violet  Mauve,  to  be  sure,  was  disposed  to 
consider  herself  personally  injured  by  her  ar- 
rival at  El  Paso  without  having  had  the  op- 
portunity to  enjoy  the  enlivening  experience 
of  a  train  robbery  in  Texas.  Her  earnest  de- 
sire had  been  to  come  down  to  Vera  Cruz  in 
Rowney's  yacht  and  join  the  expedition  in  the 
City  of  Mexico ;  for  she  was  convinced  that 
Lafitte  still  sailed  the  Gulf,  and  it  was  the 
highest  ambition  of  her  life  to  be  captured  by 
a  real  pirate.  Rowney's  diplomatic  suggestion 


540 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


that  their  train  was  pretty  certain  to  be  held 
up  and  robbed  by  Texan  desperadoes  alone 
had  reconciled  her  to  making  the  journey  by 
rail;  and  as  this  pleasant  possibility  had  not 
been  realized  she  felt  herself  to  be  a  person 
whose  rights,  as  a  lover  of  spirited  adventure, 
had  been  trampled  upon. 

"  Don't  you  think  that  Rowney  has  treated 
me  very  badly,  Mr.  Smith  ?  "  she  asked  with 
a  good  deal  of  indignation,  when  the  safe  ar- 
rival of  the  party  in  El  Paso  had  made  further 
chances  for  encounters  with  desperadoes  im- 
possible. "  He  as  good  as  promised  me  that 
we  should  have  a  train  robbery, —  and  I  al- 
ways have  so  wanted  to  be  in  one, —  and  for 
all  that  we  have  had  in  the  way  of  adventure, 
excepting  the  horrible  risks  of  our  lives  at  the 
railway  restaurants,  we  might  as  well  have 
been  spending  our  time  in  riding  backward 
and  forward  between  Philadelphia  and  New 
York.  Oh,  how  I  wish  now  I  'd  insisted  upon 
coming  down  in  the  yacht !  Meeting  a  pirate 
in  a  long  black  schooner,  with  a  black  flag 
and  a  skull  and  crossbones  and  a  desperately 
wicked  crew,  would  have  been  so  delightful ! 
Don't  you  think  so?  And  don't  you  think 
that  I  have  been  very  badly  used  indeed  ?  " 

"  Well,  in  the  matter  of  train-robbers  and 
pirates,  Mrs.  Mauve,  I  can't  say  that  I  have 
had  enough  personal  experience  to  justify  me 
in  venturing  on  a  very  positive  opinion,  though 
I  've  no  doubt  they  are  great  fun,  just  as  you  say. 
But  as  a  Philadelphia!!  I  do  know  about  eat- 
ing,"—  Pern  spoke  with  much  feeling, — "and 
I  must  say  that  on  that  score  I  think  that  you 
and  all  the  rest  of  us  have  been  treated  abom- 
inably. It  is  not  so  much  that  the  food  is  so 
wretched  at  these  railway  places,  you  know  — 
for  at  some  of  them  it  really  was  n't;  but  it's 
this  horrible  fashion  the  railway  people  have 
of  treating  their  passengers  as  though  they 
were  locomotives  —  things  that  food  and  drink 
can  be  shoveled  into  and  pumped  into  at  the 
end  of  a  section  with  a  rush.  But  even  a 
locomotive,  I  fancy,"  said  Pem,  gloomily, 
"would  resent  having  all  the  coal  and  water 
that  is  to  keep  it  going  for  the  next  six  hours 
poked  under  and  into  its  boiler  in  twenty  min- 
utes ;  and  that  's  just  what  happens  to  the 
passengers,  you  know.  I  assure  you,  Mrs. 
Mauve,  I  have  n't  had  the  faintest  approach 
to  a  comfortable  meal  since  we  left  the  Mis- 
souri River;  and  I  know  that  I  have  made  a 
long  start  towards  ruining  my  digestion  for  the 
rest  of  my  life. 

"  Of  course  the  railway  officials  themselves 
must  feed  in  this  shocking  way  when  they  're 
traveling  on  their  own  trains.  Now  I  wonder," 
continued  Pem,  meditatively,  "  I  wonder  what 
a  railway  official  is  like  ?  Do  you  suppose, 
Mrs.  Mauve,  that  he  has  an  inside,  you  know, 


like  ordinary  people ;  or  that  he  is  some  form 
of  highly  specialized  life  from  which  environ- 
ment, and  selection,  and  that  sort  of  thing 
has  eliminated  the  digestive  function  alto- 
gether? I  wish  Darwin  was  n't  dead;  I  'd 
write  and  ask  him." 

Violet,  whose  knowledge  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  was  somewhat  limited,  was  rather 
mystified  by  the  turn  that  Pem  had  given  to 
the  conversation ;  but  she  accepted  his  sug- 
gestions in  good  part,  and,  seeing  her  way 
clear  to  answering  a  portion,  at  least,  of  his 
utterance,  asked  him,  with  a  very  fair  show  of 
sympathy,  if  his  friend  had  been  dead  long. 

Violet  did  not  always  quite  understand 
what  Pem  was  talking  about ;  but  she  recog- 
nized the  fact  that  he  was  a  good  deal  of  a 
piece,  in  his  lazy,  easy-going,  queer  ways,  with 
her  own  husband,  and  she  liked  him  accord- 
ingly. Indeed,  the  disposition  of  the  entire 
party  towards  its  Philadelphia  member  was  of 
the  friendliest  sort.  In  speaking  of  his  great- 
great-great-uncle,  a  distinguished  Philadel- 
phian  of  the  past  century,  he  had  pleased  and 
interested  Mr.  Mangan  Brown  by  stating  that 
this  gentleman  had  been  extensively  engaged 
in  the  leather  business.  He  had  won  the  heart 
of  Mrs.  Gamboge  by  telling  her  —  shortly  after 
Mr.  Gamboge  had  been  giving  one  of  his  rather 
frequent  funny  little  exhibitions  of  extreme 
vacillation  of  purpose  —  that  he  greatly  ad- 
mired her  husband  because  of  his  firmness 
of  character.  He  commended  himself  to  Mr. 
Gamboge  by  the  thorough  soundness  of  his 
rather  old-fashioned  views  upon  dinners.  The 
young  women  of  the  party  liked  him  because 
he  had  the  knack  of  doing  and  saying  just 
the  right  things  at  the  right  time;  of  never 
being  in  the  way,  and  of  always  being  amus- 
ing. And  the  young  men  liked  him  because 
he  could  talk  shop  with  them  intelligently, 
and  took  a  lively  interest — since  the  work 
was  to  be  done  by  somebody  else  —  in  their 
several  artistic  projects.  In  short,  Pem  found 
himself,  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  finding  him- 
self, a  general  favorite. 

"  \^hat  a  pity  it  is,  Van,"  Rose  observed  to 
her  husband  in  the  privacy  of  their  chamber 
in  the  little  Hotel  Central  in  Aguas  Calientes, 
"  that  your  friend  Mr.  Smith  does  not  get  mar- 
ried. I  'm  sure  that  he  has  the  making  of  a 
very  good  husband.  Of  course  he  would  n't 
be  a  husband  like  you,  dear,  and  his  wife 
could  n't  expect  to  be  as  happy  as  I  am  with 
you.  But  for  just  the  ordinary  sort  of  hus- 
band I  'm  sure  that  he  'd  be  much  better  than 
the  average." 

"  He'd  be  obliged  to  you  if  he  heard  that 
somewhat  qualified  expression  of  approval." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  he  would,"  Rose  answered 
in  good  faith.  "  But  I  think  that  he  quite  de- 


A    MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


541 


serves  it,  for  I  believe  that  he  would  make  a 
very  good  husband  indeed.  And  do  you  know, 
Van,"  she  continued  presently,  "  I  think  that 
there  arc  a  givat  many  happy  marriages  in 
the  world.  1  mean,"  she  added,  by  way  of 
making  the  matter  quite  clear,  "  marri, 
which  are  happy  when  they  seem  as  if  they 
certainly  must  n't  be.1' 

Van  looked  a  little  puzzled. 

"  Now  you  know  those  people  we  have 
noticed  sitting  opposite  to  us  in  the  restau- 
rant: the  nice  little  Mexican  woman,  you 
know,  and  the  German-looking  man  in  black 
with  the  big  nose  ?  " 

"  The  man  like  an  underdone  undertaker, 
who  drinks  beer,  and  who  never  opens  his 
mouth  except  to  give  an  order  to  the  waiter? 
You  don't  mean  to  say  that  that  is  a  happy 
marriage,  do  you,  Rose  ?  " 

"  Indeed  I  do,  and  it  was  because  I  was 
thinking  about  those  people  that  I  said  that 
a  great  many  marriages  which  did  n't  seem 
happy  really  were.  She  is  a  dear  little  woman, 
Van,  and  her  life  has  been  a  regular  romance. 
She  has  had  such  heavy  sorrows;  and  now 
everything  has  come  right,  and  she  is  as  happy 
as  the  day  is  long." 

"  Why,  what  do  you  know  about  her,  child? 
Has  she  been  telling  you  her  life's  history?" 

"  That  's  just  what  I  'm  coming  to.  It  is  so 
interesting — just  like  a  heroine  in  an  old- 
fashioned  novel.  This  morning  —  while  you 
were  gone  to  look  at  those  horrid  dead,  dried- 
up  monks,  you  know — I  wanted  Luciano  to 
bring  me  some  drinking-water.  I  never  shall 
get  used  to  having  chambermen  instead  of 
chambermaids,  Van  :  I  quite  agree  with  Aunt 
Caledonia  —  I  think  it 's  horrid.  Well,  I  went 
out  into  the  gallery  and  clapped  my  hands, 
and  when  Luciano  came  I  said  agua,  and  then 
I  pointed  to  my  mouth.  And  he  said  some- 
thing in  Spanish,  and  pointed  to  the  full  water- 
bottle  on  the  wash-stand.  '  But  I  want  fresh 
water,  cool  water,'  I  said.  And  Luciano  did 
not  understand  at  all,  and  only  grinned  at 
me.  And  just  then  that  dear  little  Mrs. 
Heintzbach  came  out  of  her  room  and  said 
in  such  nice  English  — she  's  lived  part  of  her 
life  in  California,  she  told  me  —  that  I  needed 
a  little  help.  And  then  she  made  Luciano 
understand  what  I  wanted.  So,  of  course,  we 
got  into  talk  then,  and  I  invited  her  into  our 
room,  and  she  came,  and  she  was  so  ladylike 
and  so  sweet  that  we  got  to  be  friends  almost 
immediately." 

"  What !  you  made  friends  with  that  woman 
in  that  off-hand  way!"  Van  seemed  to  be  a 
good  deal  horrified,  and  he  also  seemed  to 
be  inclined  to  burst  out  laughing. 

"  1  must  say  that  1  don't  see  what  there  was 
very  remarkable  about  it,"  Rose  responded. 


with  some  dignity.    "  She  is  a  very  charming 
woman,  and  not  a 'that  woman'  sort  of  per- 
son at  all.    She  belongs  to  very  nice  p. 
1  'm  sure." 

"  Yes,  I  'm  sure  she  does  too  —  on  her  hus- 
band's side,  especially,"  Van  answered,  with  a 
chuckle.  "Go  on,  Kosey;  1  'm  immensely 
interested." 

"It  's  about  her  husband  that  I  was  gnini; 
to  tell  you.  For  all  his  silent,  grave  w  a\ , he  is 
a  delightful  man,  Van ;  as  good  and  as  kind 
as  he  can  be.  You  see,  when  Mrs.  Heint/bach 
was  a  young  girl,  a  mere  child  of  sixteen,  her 
father  and  mother  made  her  marry  a  horrid, 
rich  Mexican,  a  friend  of  theirs,  old  enough  to 
be  her  grandfather.  He  led  her  a  perfectly 
shocking  life.  His  jealousy  was  terrible!  \\.liy, 
he  would  n't  even  let  her  look  out  of  a  win- 
dow on  the  street.  He  had  all  the  front  win- 
dows of  their  house  bricked  up,  and  never  let 
her  stir  outside  of  the  front  door  unless  he 
went  along  with  her.  She  told  me,  with  tears 
in  her  eyes,  that  she  knew  that  it  was  very 
wicked,  but  she  could  n't  help  being  so  glad 
when  he  died  that  she  wanted  to  dance !  It 
was  pretty  horrible,  when  you  come  to  think 
of  it,  to  want  to  dance  because  your  husband 
is  dead;  but,  really,  considering  what  sort 
of  husband  he  was,  I  don't  know  that  1  can 
blame  her." 

"  And  then  she  married  the  gam  —  Mr. 
Heintzbach,  I  mean?" 

"Yes  —  at  least  in  a  little  while.  She  met 
him  soon  after  her  husband's  death.  And  she 
had  a  chance  to  get  to  know  him  then  because 
she  was  a  widow  and  it  was  all  right  for  her 
to  see  him  alone  and  talk  with  him  comfort- 
ably. I  never  shall  get  used  to  the  way  women 
are  treated  here,  Van ;  young  girls  kept  per- 
fect prisoners,  and  only  married  women  and 
widows  and  very  old  maids  given  the  least  bit 
of  freedom.  It  's  shocking. 

"  Well,  she  saw  a  good  deal  of  him,  and  she 
liked  him  from  the  first;  and  of  course  he 
liked  her.  And  so,  as  soon  as  he  decently 
could,  he  told  her  that  he  loved  her;  and  the 
end  of  it  was  that  in  less  than  a  year  they 
were  married.  And  he  has  made  her  such  a 
good  husband,  Van !  He  is  so  loving  and 
trustful  and  affectionate,  so  unlike  her  first 
husband,  she  says." 

Brown  was  chuckling  softly.  "  Did  she  say 
anything  about  her  husband's  business  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"  No,  not  directly.  She  spoke  about  his  go- 
ing every  evening  to  the  bank,  I  remember. 
But  it  can't  be  managed  like  our  banks,"  Rose 
added  reflectively ;  "  for  our  banks  are  not 
open  in  the  evening,  are  they  ?  " 

Brown  continued  to  chuckle.  "Some  of 
them  are,"  he  answered. 


542 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


"  And  she  spoke  about  his  being  kept  out 
very  late  —  till  2  or  3  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
That  is  n't  like  our  banks,  I  'm  sure.  And 
they  are  traveling  almost  constantly.  She 
says  that  there  is  not  a  large  city  in  Mexico 
that  she  has  not  visited  with  her  husband. 
Her  own  home  is  in  Guanajuato,  and  she  has 
promised  to  give  us  letters  of  introduction  to 
her  people  there ;  they  must  be  very  important 
people,  from  the  way  she  spoke  about  them. 
Won't  it  be  nice,  Van,  to  have  letters  to  the 
best  people  in  Guanajuato?  I  thanked  her 
ever  so  much;  and  I  asked  her  to  come  and 
see  us  when  she  is  in  New  York,  and  she  said 
she  certainly  would.  And  early  to-morrow 
morning,  after  she  comes  back  from  church, — 
she.  is  a  very  religious  woman,  and  goes  to 
church  every  morning,  she  says, —  we  are  to 
take  a  walk  together  in  the  little  San  Marcos 
park.  She  is  very  lonely  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, she  says,  for  her  husband  never  gets  up 
till  10  o'clock.  Aren't  you  pleased,  Van,  that 
all  by  myself  I  have  made  such  a  pleasant 
friend?" 

Brown  was  silent  for  a  moment  or  two,  and 
then  startled  his  wife  by  exclaiming :  "  Well, 
by  Jove !  Rosey,  you  have  excelled  yourself! 
You  've  picked  up  some  queer  friends  at  one 
time  and  another,  but  I  never  thought  you  'd 
ring  in  this  way  with  the  wife  of  a  Dutch 
gambler! " 

Rose  sprang  up  with  a  little  gasp.  "  Van  ! 
What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  cried. 

But  her  husband,  instead  of  answering  her, 
burst  into  such  fits  of  laughter  that  he  fairly 
held  his  sides.  "  Oh,  what  a  commentary  on 
all  the  tracts  of  the  Tract  Society,"  he  said 
at  last,  speaking  with  difficulty.  "  Upon  my 
word,  I  '11  write  a  tract  myself  and  call  it,  'The 
Mexican  Gambler's  Wife;  or,  The  Happy 
Home  ' —  the  gambler  a  model  of  all  the  do- 
mestic virtues,  you  know,  and  his  wife  a 
shining  example  of  simple,  unostentatious 
piety !  O  Rosey !  Rosey !  what  a  treasure- 
house  of  unexpected  delights  you  are ! "  And 
Brown  threw  himself  on  one  of  the  little  beds 
and  laughed  until  the  tears  rolled  from  his 
eyes. 

"  When  you  are  quite  done  laughing,  Van," 
said  Rose  with  severity,  but  at  the  same  time 
with  a  decidedly  frightened  look,  "  will  you 
please  tell  me  just  what  you  mean  ?  I  know, 
of  course,  that  this  good  Mr.  Heintzbach  is 
not  a  gambler;  but  he  may  be  something  — 
something  perhaps  a  little  queer.  Oh,  have  I 
done  anything  very  silly,  Van  ?  "  And  Rose 
manifested  symptoms  of  collapse,  which  were 
intensified  as  her  husband  enfolded  her  in  his 
arms. 

"  It  is  as  true  as  gospel,  Rose,"  said  Van,  still 
laughing  gently.  "  Your  friend's  husband  is 


a  gambler,  and  no  mistake.  His  visits  to  the 
principal  cities  of  Mexico  are  strictly  profes- 
sional. He  has  come  to  Aguas  Calientes  for 
the  fair,  and  just  at  present  he  is  the  dealer 
at  the  table  here  in  the  hotel ;  that  's  the 
'  bank  '  he  goes  to  every  evening  and  stays  at 
until  3  o'clock  the  next  morning.  And  I  don't 
doubt  that  every  word  his  wife  said  about  his 
domestic  virtues  was  the  literal  truth.  In  his 
way  Mr.  Heintzbach  is  a  person  of  the  ut- 
most respectability;  but  —  but  perhaps  when 
you  see  your  friend  again  you  might  say  some- 
thing about  our  return  to  New  York  being  a 
little  uncertain ;  and  I  don't  think  I  'd  say 
anything  more  about  their  visiting  us,  if  I  were 
you.  If  Mr.  Heintzbach  were  on  Wall  street, 
now,  it  would  be  all  right;  but  as  his  game 
isn't  in  stocks,  it  might  be  as  well  —  yes,  I  'm 
sure,  quite  as  well  —  for  us  to  fight  a  little  shy 
of  him.  But  oh,  Rose,  my  angel,  what  a  de- 
lightful thing  this  is  that  you  have  done  !  And 
what  a  perfect  howl  there  will  be  to-morrow 
when  I  tell  how  you  and  the  gambler's  wife 
have  become  sworn  friends !  " 

"Van!"  cried  Rose,  springing  away  from 
him  and  facing  him  with  every  sign  of  energy 
and  determination,  "if  you  ever  breathe  so 
much  as  the  first  syllable  of  this  to  anybody 
I'll  — I '11  drown  myself!" 

"  No,  don't  drown  yourself,  Rose.  Think 
how  draggled  you  'd  look.  Do  it,  if  you  really 
think  you  must  do  it,  in  some  way  that  will 
be  becoming.  Why,  my  poor  little  girl !  "  — 
Rose  was  beginning  to  sob, —  "  it 's  wicked  to 
laugh  at  you,"  and  Brown  succeeded  by  an 
heroic  effort  in  mastering  another  outburst. 
"  After  all,  it  was  a  natural  enough  sort  of 
thing  to  do;  and  nothing  will  come  of  it  to 
bother  you,  child,  for  we  shall  leave  here  day 
after  to-morrow,  and  of  course  you  '11  never 
lay  eyes  on  the  gambler's  wife  again  ;  and  I  '11 
never  speak  about  it  to  a  soul,  1  give  you  my 
word.  But —  but  don't  you  think  there  is 
something  just  a  little  funny  in  it  all,  Rose  ?  " 

It  was  one  of  the  small  trials  of  Vandyke 
Brown's  life  that  his  wife  never  saw*the  amus- 
ing side  of  this  adventure.  As  for  Mrs.  Heintz- 
bach, she  set  down  to  the  general  queerness 
of  Americans  the  peculiarity  of  Mrs.  Brown's 
manner  when,  next  day,  she  presented  to  that 
lady  the  promised  letters  to  her  Guanajuato 
relatives.  For  while  Rose  strove  hard  to  main- 
tain a  tone  of  friendly  cordiality,  the  under- 
lying consciousness  that  she  did  not  really 
want  to  be  cordial  and  friendly  rather  marred 
the  general  result.  Nor  was  Mrs.  Heintzbach 
ever  able  to  formulate  a  satisfactory  hypoth- 
esis that  would  account  for  the  fact  that  while 
the  American  party  certainly  visited  Guana- 
juato, the  letters  of  introduction  as  certainly 
remained  unused. 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


543 


THE    SKIRMISH    AT    BUENA    VISTA. 

MR.  MANGAN  BROWN  and  Mr.  Gamboge 
ligated  the  tanneries  of  Leon  with  much 
interest.  In  regard  to  the  quality  of  the  raw- 
hides,! hey  expressed  en  tire  approval;  hut  their 
strictures  upon  the  tanning  process,  and  upon 
the  product  in  dressed  leather,  were  severe. 

"  1  am  glad  that  the  late  Mr.  Orpimentisnot 
with  us,  Brown,"  M  r.  ( iamboge  remarked,  with 
some  li'eling.  "The  mere  sight  of  such  sole- 
leather  as  we  have  been  looking  at  this  morn- 
ing would  have  given  him  an  attack  of  bilious 
dyspepsia  ;  it  would,  upon  my  word !  I  re- 
gard tanning  like  this,"  he  added  slowly  and 
impressively,  "  as  positively  immoral.  I  am 
not  at  all  surprised,  Brown, —  not  the  least  bit 
in  the  world  surprised, —  that  a  nation  that  ac- 
cords its  tacit  approval  to  tanning  of  this  sort 
is  incapable  of  achieving  a  stable  government. 
I  may  add  that  I  am  sure  that  Mexico  will 
lag  behind  all  other  nations  in  the  march  of 
progress  until  its  leather  business  has  been  rad- 
ically remodeled  and  reformed."  And  in  this 
possibly  extreme  opinion  Mr.  Mangan  Brown, 
who  also  was  deeply  moved  by  what  he  had 
seen,  entirely  concurred. 

But  the  rest  of  the  party,  being  blissfully 
ignorant  of  the  tanning  iniquities  of  Leon, 
were  disposed  to  think  the  bustling  little  city 
altogether  charming.  Rowney  Mauve  de- 
scribed it  happily  as  a  mixture  of  the  Bowery 
and  the  Middle  Ages ;  young  Orpiment  de- 
lightedly made  the  studies  for  his  well-known 
picture,  "  A  Mexican  Calzada"  —  the  picture 
that  made  such  a  sensation  when  it  subse- 
quently was  exhibited  in  New  York;  and 
while  Brown  was  disappointed  by  his  failure 
to  discover  so  much  as  a  single  good  picture 
in  any  of  the  churches,  his  heart  was  gladdened 
by  finding  all  around  him  a  rich  abundance 
of  material  out  of  which  good  pictures  might 
be  made. 

On  the  whole  the  verdict  of  the  party 
already  was  strongly  in  favor  of  Mexico; 
and  after  its  several  members  had  enjoyed 
the  perfect  picturesqueness  of  Guanajuato  — 
where  the  noble  paintings  by  Vallejo  in  the 
parish  church,  and  the  still  finer  work  by 
Cabrera  in  the  Compania,  suddenly  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  artists  to  the  greatness  of 
Mexican  art  —  this  pleasing  sentiment  ex- 
panded into  and  thereafter  remained  (with 
the  exceptions  noted  below)  one  of  unmixed 
approval. 

Mr.  Pemberton  Logan  Smith  avowedly 
pined  for  the  flesh-pots  of  Philadelphia.  "  I 
am  not  at  all  particular  about  my  food,  you 
know.  Mauve,"  he  said  plaintively;  "  but  hang 
it,  you  know,  I  do  like  a  solid  meal  now  and 
then  ;  and  except  at  that  queer  little  place  at 


Lagos,  where  things  certainly  were  capital, 
I  '11  be  shot  if  I  '\  e  had  a  solid,  well-cooked 
meal  since  I  came  into  Mexico." 

"Have  n't  you  though?"  Mauve  asked, 
with  a  slight  air  of  skepticism.  "  Now,  1  was 
under  the  impression  that  I  had  seen  you  sev- 
eral times  doing  some  tolerably  serious  peck- 
ing. Anyhow,  you  stowed  away  enough  at 
Lagos  to  last  till  you  get  home  again." 

"  Yes,"  Pern  answered,  "  1  did  have  some 
satisfactory  feeding  there.  Jove  !  what  a  heav- 
en-born genius  in  the  cooking  line  that  jolly 
old  Gascon  is!  And  don't  I  just  wish  that  I 
knew  where  I  could  get  as  good  a  claret  for  as 
little  money  in  Philadelphia  or  New  York!" 
And  Pern  smacked  his  lips  feelingly  as  he  re- 
membered Don  Pedro's  inspiring  food  and 
drink.  But  even  sustained  by  this  cheering 
memory,  it  was  not  until  he  was  come  to  the 
City  of  Mexico  and  reposed,  as  it  were,  in  the 
culinary  bosom  of  Father  Gatillon  at  the  Ca.fi 
Anglais  that  Pern  really  was  comforted. 

The  other  exception  in  the  matter  of  entire 
approval  of  Mexico  was  Mrs.  Gamboge ;  and 
the  point  of  issue  in  her  case  was  a  delicate 
one.  To  state  it  plainly,  it  was  the  bare  legs 
of  the  agricultural  laborers.  In  confidence 
she  confessed  to  Verona  that  had  she  been 
informed  of  the  custom  of  excessively  rolling 
up  their  cotton  trousers  prevalent  among  the 
lower  classes  of  male  Mexicans,  she  certainly 
would  have  remained  at  home.  What  with 
this  and  the  equally  objectionable  custom 
prevalent  among  the  female  Mexicans  of  the 
lower  classes  of  insufficiently  covering  the 
upper  portions  of  their  bodies,  Mrs.  Gam- 
boge declared  that  the  average  of  dress  among 
the  lower  classes  of  Mexico  was  reduced  to  a 
point  considerably  below  that  at  which  inad- 
equacy of  apparel  became  personally  shocking 
and  morally  reprehensible.  And  all  the  way 
from  Silao  to  the  City  of  Mexico  —  which 
journey,  from  point  to  point,  was  made  by  the 
day  train — Mrs.  Gamboge  sat  retired  within 
her  prison-like  "  drawing-room,"  her  face  res- 
olutely turned  away  from  the  windows,  and 
both  the  blinds  close-drawn.  Not  even  the 
beautiful  canon  south  of  Quer£taro,  not  even 
the  extraordinary  loveliness  of  the  Tula  Val- 
ley, could  tempt  her  forth  from  the  rigid  pro- 
priety of  her  retreat. 

"  Either  the  railroad  company  should  take 
the  necessary  legal  measures  to  compel  these 
men  to  wear  trousers  as  they  are  intended  to 
be  worn,"  Mrs.  Gamboge  declared,  "or  else 
it  should  build  a  high  board  fence  on  each 
side  of  the  track."  And  neither  from  this  de- 
cided opinion  nor  from  her  self-imposed  se- 
clusion could  she  be  stirred. 

It  was  with  a  feeling  of  some  slight  relief, 
therefore,  that  Mrs.  Gamboge  found  herself, 


544 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


at  the  end  of  the  long  run  from  Quere'taro, 
delivered  from  the  prominent  presence  as  a 
feature  of  the  landscape  of  unduly  bare-legged 
laborers  by  the  arrival  of  the  train  at  the 
Buena  Vista  station  in  the  City  of  Mexico. 
She  thought  it  highly  probable  that  other 
shocks  might  here  await  her;  but  she  had  at 
least  the  sustaining  conviction  that  the  male 
members  of  the  Mexican  lower  classes  dwell- 
ing in  cities  as  a  rule  kept  their  trousers  rolled 
down. 

As  the  party  moved  away  from  their  car 
towards  the  gates,  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
station,  they  passed  the  night  express  train 
that  in  a  few  minutes  would  start  for  the 
north.  A  little  group  stood  by  the  steps  of 
the  Pullman  car,  and  the  central  feature  of 
this  group  was  a  young  woman  whose  travel- 
ing-dress betokcnedthe  fact  that  she  was  about 
to  depart  on  the  train.  "  See  what  stunning 
eyes  she 's  got,  Rose,"  Vandyke  Brown  said  in 
a  discreetly  low  tone,  "  and  look  how  well  she 
carries  herself.  I  'd  like  to  paint  her.  She  'd 
make  no  end  of  an  exhibition  portrait." 

Just  at  this  moment  Violet,  who  was  a  few 
steps  ahead  of  them,  gave  a  little  shriek  ;  and 
then  the  strange  young  woman  gave  a  little 
shriek,  and  then  they  rushed  into  each  other's 
arms.  Rowney,  from  whom  Violet  had  broken 
away  to  engage  in  this  rather  pronounced 
exhibition  of  affection,  stood  by  placidly  until 
it  should  come  to  an  end.  He  was  accustomed 
to  Violet's  rather  energetic  methods,  and 
in  the  present  instance  his  only  regret  was 
that  he  was  not  in  the  running  himself.  But 
even  Rowney's  placidity  was  a  little  disturbed 
when  Violet,  having  detached  herself  from  the 
young  woman,  proceeded  with  a  similar  vehe- 
mence to  cast  herself  first  into  the  arms  of  an 
elderly  lady,  then  into  those  of  an  elderly 
gentleman,  then  into  those  of  a  middle-aged 
gentleman,  and  finally  into  the  arms  of  two 
quite  young  gentlemen,  all  of  whom  em- 
braced her  with  what  Rowney  considered,  es- 
pecially upon  the  part  of  the  young  men,  most 
unnecessary  fervor,  the  while  patting  her  vig- 
orously upon  the  back. 

If  Rowney  had  contemplated  lodging  a  re- 
monstrance in  regard  to  this,  from  a  New  York 
standpoint,  abnormal  exhibition  of  friendship, 
he  had  no  opportunity  to  do  so.  Before  he 
could  open  his  mouth  Violet  seized  upon  him 
and  dragged  him  into  the  midst  of  the  little 
group,  where  his  demoralization  for  the  time 
being  was  made  complete  by  finding  himself 
passed  rapidly  from  one  pair  of  arms  to  an- 
other and  embraced  by  these  friendly  strangers 
with  quite  as  much  enthusiasm  as  they  had 
manifested  in  embracing  his  wife.  During 
this  confusing  experience  he  was  conscious 
that  for  a  moment  he  was  clasped  in  the  soft 


arms  of  the  handsome  young  woman,  and  real- 
ized, as  he  remembered  his  wish  of  but  a 
moment  before,  that  the  fulfillment  of  human 
desires  is  not  necessarily  attended  with  per- 
fect happiness. 

"  O  Rowney  !  "  cried  Violet,  "  do  be  glad 
to  see  them;  don't  look  so  scandalized  and 
horrified.  They  are  ever  so  glad  to  see  you. 
Don't  you  understand  ?  This  is  my  very  dear- 
est, dearest  friend,  Carmen  Espinosa,  and  this 
is  her  uncle,  Senor  Antonio  Ochoa,  and  this  is 
his  younger  brother,  Senor  Manuel  Ochoa, 
and  this  is  her  aunt,  Dona  Catalina, —  Don 
Antonio's  wife,  you  know, —  and  these  are  her 
cousins,  Rafael  and  Rodolfo.  Oh !  is  n't  it 
perfectly  delightful!  And  to  think  if  our  train 
had  n't  come  in  exactly  on  time  we  should 
have  missed  them;  for  Carmen  and  all  of 
them  are  going  to  Guanajuato  to-night !  "  And 
Violet  once  more  threw  herself  into  her  friend 
Carmen's  arms. 

Meanwhile  the  American  party  had  halted 
and  had  gazed  at  Violet's  demonstrative  pro- 
ceedings with  a  very  lively  astonishment,  that 
became  a  less  serious  emotion  as  they  contem- 
plated the  ill  grace  with  which  Rowney  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  inducted  into  the  amicable 
customs  of  Mexico. 

"  Upon  my  soul,  Gamboge,"  said  Mr.  Brown 
in  some  alarm,  "  we  'd  better  get  out  of  this,  or 
Violet  will  be  turning  her  friends  loose  at  hug- 
ging us  too.  I  hope  that  I  should  get  through 
with  the  performance,  with  the  pretty  girl,  any- 
way, better  than  young  Mauve  did,  but  there  's 
no  telling;  and,  I  must  say,  I  don't  want  to  try." 
That  Violet  would  have  introduced  her  friends 
is  quite  certain,  but  just  as  she  was  about  to 
begin  this  ceremony,  and  while  Rowney  was 
endeavoring  to  atone  for  his  want  of  animation 
during  the  period  of  the  embraces  by  making 
such  civil  speeches  as  were  possible  with  the 
limited  stock  of  Spanish  at  his  command,  the 
starting-bell  sounded,  and  the  Pullman  con- 
ductor summoned  the  pafty  with  a  firm  civil- 
ity to  enter  the  train.  This  time,  greatly  to  his 
relief,  Rowney  found  that  nothing  more  than 
an  ordinary  shaking  of  hands  was  expected 
of  him;  and  as  he  knew  in  a  general  way  the 
proper  speeches  to  make  on  such  an  occasion, 
he  got  through  with  the  business  of  leave- 
taking  in  fairly  creditable  form. 

"  Only  you  ought  n't  to  have  said  '  Adios,' 
Rowney,"  said  Violet,  correctingly.  "  That  is 
the  same  thing  as  the  French  adieu,  you  know. 
You  should  have  said  '  Hasta  luego,'  for  that 
meanstf//  rtvoir,  and  they  had  just  told  you  that 
they  would  be  back  in  the  city  in  a  week.  It  is 
dreadfully  stupid  the  way  in  English  you  say 
just  as  much  of  a  '  good-bye  '  to  a  person  you 
are  going  to  see  again  in  two  hours  as  you  say 
to  a  person  who  is  just  starting  on  a  journey 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


545 


around  the  world.  But  is  n't  it  lovely  that  we 
met  them  ?  And  don't  you  think,  Rouncy, 
that  Carmen  is  the  dearest  dear  that  ever  was  ? 
It 's  the  Carmen  I  've  told  you  of  a  thousand 
times,  Rowney ;  the  one  who  was  in  the  Sis- 
ters' school  with  me.  If  I  were  good  at  letter- 
writing  1  should  have  written  to  her  every 
week;  but  I  'm  not  very  good  that  way,  you 
know,  and  I  don't  believe  she  is  either,  and 
so  we've  never  heard  a  single  word  about 
'iach  other  in  two  years.  She  did  n't  even 
know  I  was  married  ;  and  when  I  said  I  was 
married  to  '  that  handsome  man,  there  ' —  yes, 
I  did  say  that,  and  you  ought  to  be  very  much 
obliged  to  me,  Rowney  —  and  pointed  to  where 
you  all  were  standing,  she  actually  thought 
I  meant  Mr.  Smith !  Was  n't  that  a  funny 
mistake  ?  Mr.  Smith  certainly  is  a  nice-look- 
ing man ;  but  he  is  not  so  nice-looking  as  you 
are,  Rowney,  even  if  I  do  say  it  myself  and 
puff  you  all  up  with  conceit.  And  now  do  let 
us  hurry  to  the  hotel.  I  know  that  we  '11  get 
something  good,  and  I  'm  so  hungry  that  I 
could  eat  trunk-straps  and  top-boots,  like  the 
people  who  are  wrecked  and  spend  forty-seven 
days  in  an  open  boat  at  sea." 

And  as  Violet's  condition  of  incipient  star- 
vation was  that  of  the  whole  party, —  for  they 
had  breakfasted  at  i  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
at  San  Juan  del  Rio,  and  it  now  was  after  8 
o'clock  in  the  evening, —  the  move  towards 
the  Cafe  Anglais  and  dinner  was  made  with 
the  least  possible  delay. 

Pern  sat  next  to  Violet  at  dinner,  and  be- 
fore she  had  swallowed  her  soup  he  began  to 
ask  rather  pointed  questions  about  her  charm- 
ing Mexican  friend. 

"  Now  I  tell  you  frankly,  Mr.  Smith,"  Vio- 
let declared  with  much  positiveness,  "that 
until  I  have  had  something  to  eat  I  shall  not 
say  a  single  word.  I  have  a  perfectly  clear 
conscience,  and  that  means,  of  course,  that 
I  've  got  a  good  appetite;  and  I  have.  If 
you  've  got  a  bad  conscience,  and  conse- 
quently a  bad  appetite,  that 's  no  fault  of  mine  ; 
and  I  don't  intend  to  suffer  for  your  sins.  So, 
there ! " 

But  even  when  Violet,  having  satisfied  the 
cravings  of  hunger,  was  disposed  to  be  com- 
municative concerning  her  friend,  her  commu- 
nication was  eulogistic  rather  than  informing. 
Beyond  the  fact  that  Carmen  Espinosa  be- 
longed to  very  nice  people  whose  home  was 
an  hacienda  up  in  the  Bajfo,  she  had  very  lit- 
tle to  tell.  They  had  been  together  in  the 
school  of  the  Sagrado  Corazon  for  two  years. 
Then  Violet  had  gone  back  to  her  father's 
hacienda,  and  a  year  later  had  gone  on  her 
expedition  to  New  York,  that  had  ended  in 
keeping  her  there  as  the  wife  of  Rowney 
Mauve.  A  letter  or  two  during  the  first  six 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 76. 


months  after  their  separation  had  been  their 
only  attempt  at  correspondence.  Of  her 
friend's  life  during  the  past  two  and  a  half 
years  she  knew  nothing.  But  she  was  the 
best  and  sweetest  and  dearest  girl  that  ever 
lived  — and  so  on,  and  so  on. 

Pern  was  rather  silent  as  he  smoked  his 
cigar  with  the  other  men  over  their  coffee, 
after  the  ladies  had  retired  to  their  rooms. 
There  was  some  talk  among  the  artists  about 
the  work  that  they  intended  doing ;  and  pres- 
ently Pern  roused  up  and  said: 

"  Well,  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  'm  going  to  do. 
I  'm  going  to  Guanajuato  to  paint  that  view  of 
the  Bufa  from  up  by  the  highest  of  the  presas. 
It 's  the  finest  thing  I  've  seen  in  Mexico,  and 
I  mean  to  get  it.  I  'm  going  to-morrow." 

There  was  a  stir  of  astonishment  at  this 
outburst  of  vigor  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Smith, 
and  his  announcement  was  met,  not  unnatu- 
rally, with  comment  tending  towards  skeptical 
criticism. 

"I  did  think  that  you  was  resolved,  Mr. 
Smeeth,  not  to  touch  one  brush  while  in  thees 
land,"  said  Jaune  d'Antimoine,  seriously. 

"And  so  did  I,"  added  Brown.  "What 's 
got  into  you,  old  man,  to  break  down  your 
virtuous  resolution  to  be  lazier  than  usual  ?  " 

"  Look  here,  my  dear  fellow,"  Rowney 
Mauve  put  in,  "  I  'd  like  to  know  what 's  to 
become  of  me  if  you  take  to  working?  Don't 
you  see  that  I  rely  on  you  for  moral  sup- 
port ?  But  you  don't  mean  it,  I  'm  sure." 

"  I  do  mean  it,  and  I  tell  you  I  'm  going 
to-morrow.  I  've  always  meant  to  take  home 
one  picture  from  Mexico ;  at  least,  I  've  al- 
ways rather  thought  I  would.  And  the  more 
I  think  about  that  view  of  the  Bufa,  the  more 
I  'm  determined  that  that  shall  be  what  I  '11 
paint." 

Pern  had  been  known  to  make  resolutions 
of  this  sort  before  without  any  very  startling 
practical  results  ensuing,  and  not  much  faith 
was  placed  by  anybody  in  his  stout  assertion. 
But  faith  was  compelled,  early  the  next  even- 
ing, when  he  stated  that  he  was  about  to  have 
an  early  dinner  in  order  to  catch  the  north- 
bound train,  and  then  bade  everybody  good* 
bye.  And  off  he  went,  with  the  parting  shot 
from  Brown  that  Saul  among  the  prophets 
was  n't  a  touch  to  him. 

In  the  privacy  of  their  respective  chambers 
that  night  Brown  and  Mauve  expressed  to 
their  respective  wives  their  astonishment  at 
this  extraordinary  manifestation  of  energy  on 
the  part  of  their  Philadelphia  friend. 

Rose  smiled  in  a  superior  way  and  said: 
"  Really,  Van,  I  sometimes  think  that  you  are 
about  as  stupid  as  even  a  man  can  be  !  Why, 
don't  you  see  that  Mr.  Smith  has  gone  after 
that  pretty  Mexican  girl  ?  " 


546 

And  Violet,  in  response  to  very  similar  ut- 
terances on  the  part  of  Rovvney  Mauve,  very 
similarly  replied:  "You  are  a  great  goose, 
Rowney.  Mr.  Smith  has  gone  after  Carmen, 
of  course.  I  knew  what  he  was  up  to  at  once, 
and  I  thought  I  'd  help  him  a  little,  and  so  I 


THE    CRYING  BOG. 


—  I  asked  him  if  it  would  be  too  much  trouble, 
since  he  was  going  to  Guanajuato  anyway,  to 
take  a  letter  from  me  to  my  friend.  And  you 
just  ought  to  have  seen  how  very  grateful  the 
poor  fellow  was  !  But  you  must  n't  tell,  Row- 
ney; that  would  n't  be  the  square  thing." 


(To  be  continued.) 


Thomas  A.  Janvier. 


THE    CRYING    BOG. 


A    LEGEND    OF    NARRAGANSETT. 


THE  sun  sinks  slowly  to  the  west, 
The  night  comes  veiled  in  fleecy  mist 
It  rolls  across  the  ocean's  breast, 

Each  swelling  wave  is  lightly  kissed, 
It  pauses  at  the  sunlit  land, 
Then  softly  covers  sea  and  strand. 

Beside  the  Petaquamscutt  shore, 

Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  hill, 
A  traveler  passes,  and  once  more 

Looks  toward  the  mist  so  white  and  still. 
With  hurried  steps  his  way  he  makes 
Among  the  rushes  and  the  brakes. 

His  foot  is  on  the  oozy  marsh, 

He  backward  starts  in  wild  affright, 

Above  his  head  he  hears  the  harsh. 

Strange  cry  of  hawks:  down  comes  the  night, 

The  whispering  rushes  bode  of  ill ; 

Down  comes  the  night,  soft,  pale,  and  chill. 

Sudden  he  hears  from  out  the  dark 

A  baby's  cry.   Poor  little  child, 
What  does  it  here  ?  Again,  and  hark, 

The  cry  is  clear,  and  strong,  and  wild; 
Some  frightened  child  is  surely  near, 
A  child  who  cries  a  cry  of  fear. 

He  plunges  onward  through  the  reeds, 
Relief  and  succor  fain  would  bring  — 

The  fog  is  thick,  but  some  one  needs, 
He  strives  to  find  the  suffering  thing. 

Though  beast  or  bird,  his  manly  breast 

Would  give  it  shelter,  warmth,  and  rest. 


Lo,  on  the  bare  and  humid  ground 
A  woman  crouches,  dark  of  face, 

An  Indian  woman :  all  unbound, 

Her  black  hair  falls  in  maiden  grace  ; 

Her  ghastly  looks  are  wan  and  wild, 

Beside  her  lies  a  newborn  child. 

The  baby  cries  its  plaintive  cry, 
The  mother  answers  with  a  groan  ; 

Recoils  in  terror,  then  draws  nigh. 

And  lifts  the  child  with  sobbing  moan. 

She  drags  her  wearied  limbs  with  pain, 

The  baby  cries  its  cry  again. 

She  feebly  hastens  toward  the  shore, 
With  horror  scans  her  baby's  face. 

Then  hastens  faster  than  before — 
The  child  is  of  an  alien  race. 

They  reach  the  marsh,  the  water's  nigh, 

The  baby  cries  its  plaintive  cry. 

The  traveler  shudders,  strives  to  run, 
His  spell-bound  feet  his  will  refuse. 

This  dreadful  deed  must  not  be  done, 
His  muscles  tense  he  cannot  use. 

He  strives  to  give  a  warning  cry  — 

He  utters  it,  a  voiceless  sigh. 

Alone  he  sees  the  dreadful  deed: 

Far  in  the  marsh  the  child"  is  thrown ; 

Caught  in  strange  spell,  he  cannot  plead. 
And  now  the  mother  stands  alone 

In  solitude,  despair,  and  shame, 

In  wretchedness  without  a  name. 


Men  call  the  place  the  Crying  Bog, 
And  hasten  by  its  tangled  reeds ; 

When  night  comes  veiled  in  fleecy  fog 
The  ghostly  child  for  pity  pleads — 

The  child  whose  voice  can  never  die, 

Whose  only  life  is  in  its  cry. 


Caroline  Hazard. 


THE    EXPERIMENTS    OF    MISS    SALLY   CASH. 


I!V    RICHARD    MALCOLM    JOHNSTON. 


H  E  front  gate  of  Mr.  Single- 
ton Hooks  opened  almost 
immediately  upon  the  pub- 
lic road.  Several  large 
white-oaks  stood  just  out- 
side the  yard,  each  with  its 
couple  of  horse-shoes,  for 
the  accommodation  both  of 
visitors  and  of  those  who  came  on  business. 
For  one  of  his  negro  men  constantly  worked  in 
the  blacksmith's  shop  at  the  intersection  with 
the  main  thoroughfare  of  a  neighborhood  road 
that,  coursing  alongside  the  garden  and  front 
yard,  crossed  and  continued  on  in  a  south- 
easterly direction  towards  the  county-seat. 

Half  a  mile  farther  west,  equally  near  to 
the  road,  but  on  the  south  side  of  it,  dwelt 
Mr.  Matthew  Tuggle.  Claiming  to  be  only  a 
farmer,  yet,  by  trading  in  horses  and  by  other 
speculations,  he  kept  himself  about  even  with 
his  next  neighbor  in  prosperity,  and  it  would 
not  have  been  easy  to  say  which  of  the  two 
owned  the  more  valuable  property. 

Different  as  they  were,  good  friends  they 
had  been  always.  They  ought  to  have  been 
indeed ;  for  their  wives  were  cousins,  and  fond 
to  affection  of  each  other,  as  were  their  daugh- 
ters, Emeline  Hooks  and  Susan  Ann  Tuggle. 
The  difference  between  the  heads  of  these 
families  may  have  served  as  a  foil  to  unite 
them  more  closely.  Mr.  Hooks,  tall,  slender, 
whose  long  iron-gray  hair  and  solemn  port 
made  him  look  above  though  he  was  some- 
what under  forty-five;  a  justice  of  the  peace; 
a  sometimes  reader  of  books  judicial,  medical, 
and  theological ;  a  deacon,  even  an  occasional 
exhorter  — imagined  that  he  would  have  more 
loved  and  respected  his  kinsman  by  marriage 
but  for  his  worldliness.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mr.  Tuggle,  stubby,  but  active  as  a  cat,  with- 
out a  single  white  streak  in  his  fair  bushy  hair, 
professed  in  every  company  affection,  admi- 
ration, even  reverence  for  his  Unk  Swingle, 
as,  in  spite  of  some  not  very  urgent  remon- 
strances, he  always  called  him. 

The  most  besetting  of  Mr.  Tuggle's  sins 
\vas  dancing.  Mourning,  as  Mr.  Hooks  often 
did,  the  prevalence  of  this  amusement,  even 
among  many  leading  families,  yet  he  neither 
would  nor  could  deny  that,  even  after  he  had 
become  a  married  man,  he  had  liked  both  the 
cotillon  and  the  reel,  and  sometimes  indulged 
even  in  the  jig.  Mortifying  as  it  was  to  confess, 


down  to  this  very  time  the  sound  of  the  fiddle 
was  so  pleasing  to  his  ears  that  he  had  to  keep 
himself  beyond  its  reach.  Yet  he  was  truly 
thankful  that  before  it  was  everlastingly  too 
late  he  had  seen  himself  a  sinner  in  the  broad 
road,  and  betaken  himself  to  the  strait  and 
narrow  way.  Often  in  his  affectionate  solici- 
tude for  Mr.  Tuggle,  he  would  say  about  thus : 

"  Now  there 's  Matthy  Tuggle:  as  everybody 
that  know  Matthy  is  ableegedto  acknowledge, 
he 's  a  toler'ble,  passable,  good-hearted  creeter, 
ef  he  could  jes  ric'lect  that  his  young  days  is 
over,  and  a  man  'ith  a  family  of  his  age  ought 
to  set  a'  egzample  by  good  rights  to  the  risin' 
generations  of  his  own  and  other  people,  'slid 
of  prancin'  his  legs,  short  as  they  might  be, 
to  the  fiddle,  and  no  great  shakes  at  dancin' 
at  that  which,  because  he  '11  tell  you  hisself 
that,  in  them  times  when  I  followed  the  prac- 
tice, he  never  much  as  hilt  a  light  to  the  foot 
I  slung  in  a  quintillion  when  my  dander  were 
up,  the  fiddle  chuned  accordin'  to  the  scale, 
and  my  pard'nter  ekal  to  her  business.  But, 
the  deffunce  betwix'  me  and  Matthy,  /see  they 
were  a  jumpin'-off  place  to  sech  as  that,  and  I 
had  the  jedgment  to  git  out  o'  the  way  o'  the 
wrath  to  come ;  but  Matthy  let  his  legs,  duck- 
legs  ef  they  might  be,  keep  on  a-runnin'  off 
'ith  him ;  and  which  exceptin'  o'  that,  Matthy 
Tuggle  might  be'n  one  o'  the  pillars  o'  the 
church ;  because  he  not  a  bad  man  in  his 
heart,  and  Brer  Roberts  give  his  opinions 
he  '11  git  conwerted  from  his  ways ;  but  ef  so, 
seem  to  me  like  high  time;  and,  tell  the  truth, 
a  body  can't  help  prayin'  for  him,  ef  it  do  look 
like  flingin'  away  powder  and  shot.  As  for 
him  a-callin'  me  his  Unk  Swingle,  everybody 
know  Matthy  will  have  his  jokes,  spite  o'  his 
knowin'  they  ain't  more  'n  a  munt  in  me  and 
his  age.  Yit  I  can't  help  lovin'  Matthy,  spite 
o'  his  young,  childless  ways.  When  a  man 
want  adwices  in  his  business  he  know  how  to 
give  it ;  and  when  a  body  need  sech  a  thing, 
they  ain't  nobody  got  a  better  back -bone  to 
prize  him  out  o'  de-ficulties.  That 's  Matthy 
Tuggle,  and  ef  he  jes  had  grace,  they  — 
positively,  they  ain't  no  tellin'." 

Mr.  Tuggle,  far  less  loquacious,  yet  indulged 
in  an  occasional  antiphon. 

"  Unk  Swingle  is  a  good  man,  a'  excellent 
good  man.  Fact,  Unk  Swing  Hooks  what  I 
call  righteous  man,  well  as  bein'  of  a  smart 
man.  I  got  nothin',  course,  ag'in  his  right- 


THE   EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


eousness,  but  yit  I  cannot  foller  him  in  makin' 
out  dancin'  sech  a  devilish,  oudacious  piece  o' 
business  all  of  a  suddent,  and  special  when  I 
ain't  forgot  before  he  were  conwerted,  and  his 
ekal  on  the  floor  1  have  yit  to  see;  but  yit  he 
were  then  jest  as  honest  as  he  is  now ;  and, 
natchel  supple  as  them  legs  o'  his'n  is,  I 
would  n't  swear  he  'cl  never  spread  'em  ag'in 
to  the  fiddle,  prowided  he  's  overtook  some- 
time and  he  can  do  it  ruther  onbeknownst. 
He  ain't  the  old  man  he  make  out  like,  not 
nigh." 

Each  of  the  young  ladies  had  inherited  her 
father's  most  striking  characteristics,  physical 
and  moral.  Miss  Hooks,  serious,  tall,  al- 
though religious,  was  rather  more  charitable 
than  her  father  towards  the  worldly-minded. 
Miss  Tuggle,  petite  and  gay,  was  fond  of  the 
dance  and  other  sports  that  she  believed  to  be 
innocent.  Both  were  handsome  and  nearing 
to  twenty  years  of  age.  It  had  come  to  be 
understood  that  whoever  was  to  marry  either 
would  have  to  bring  other  things  besides  good 
looks,  good  habits,  and  good  social  standing. 
Nobody  could  have  foreseen  that  the  confi- 
dence and  affection  between  these  young 
ladies,  so  fine,  so  closely  knit  in  sentiment  and 
in  kin,  would  give  place  to  coldness,  suspicion, 
and  jealousy.  Indeed  nobody,  however  wise 
and  prudent,  can  foretell  upon  any  sort  of  per- 
sons, to  say  nothing  of  young  ladies  in  special, 
the  effect  of  domestic  afflictions  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  the  settlement  in  the 
neighborhood  of  a  new  marriageable  man, 
giving  promise  of  a  successful  career  in  an  in- 
teresting business. 


n. 

THE  plantations,  each  comprising  several 
hundreds  of  acres,  lay  on  both  sides  of  the 
road,  and  were  adjoined,  east  of  Mr.  Tuggle, 
south-east  of  Mr.  Hooks,  by  that  of  Miss  Sally 
Cash,  near  by  whose  residence  led  the  neigh- 
borhood way  aforementioned  and  another,  be- 
ginning at  a  point  on  the  main  thoroughfare 
a  mile  east  from  Mr.  Hooks.  Here  a  country 
store  had  been  set  up  lately. 

Professing  to  be  as  independent  a  woman 
as  ever  drew  the  breath  of  life,  yet  Miss  Cash, 
partly  for  company's  sake,  partly  for  conveni- 
ence, usually  had  with  her  one  or  another  of 
the  young  sons  of  her  cousin,  Mr.  Abram  Grice. 
Left,  when  a  young  child,  an  orphan  and  poor, 
with  the  work  of  her  hands  she  had  paid  fully 
for  the  care  bestowed  by  her  kinsfolk  during 
her  minority,  and  afterwards,  by  industry, 
economy,  and  judicious  investments,  become 
owner  of  a  good  plantation  and  about  a  dozen 
slaves,  all  paid  for.  For  some  years  last  past 
upon  her  countenance  and  in  her  deportment 


had  been  visible  the  air  of  conscious  pros- 
perity. 

A  tall  woman  was  she,  somewhat  thin,  blue- 
eyed,  reddish-haired.  It  was  only  lately  that 
had  appeared  on  her  cheek  the  blush  that 
through  her  earlier  years  had  delayed.  This 
advent  was  due,  she  claimed,  to  release  from 
her  most  arduous  work,  but  perhaps  mainly 
to  the  fact  of  her  never  having  had  a  man 
about  the  house  to  delve  and  work  for,  and 
try  to  please,  and  be  hectored  over,  and  so- 
forths  of  various  sorts.  Hitherto  she  had  not 
been  supposed  to  be  or  wish  herself  on  the 
matrimonial  carpet.  For  men  in  the  abstract 
I  don't  remember  that  she  ever  had  been 
heard  to  express  either  earnest  hostility  or 
contempt,  because,  as  often  in  conversation 
she  frankly  admitted,  her  own  father  before 
his  death  had  been  a  man ;  not  only  so,  but 
her  own  blessed,  dear  brother,  if  she  had  ever 
had  one,  must  have  belonged  to  the  same  sex. 
But  when  the  question  came  to  taking  one  of 
these  creatures  into  her  house,  and  giving  up 
to  him  not  only  her  name,  but  the  property  for 
which  so  long  and  laboriously  she  had  toiled, 
that,  to  use  one  of  her  favorite  metaphors, 
was  a  gray  horse  of  entirely  another  color. 

Of  late,  however,  contemporaneously  with 
the  new  sheen  upon  her  face,  the  tone  of  her 
remarks  touching  the  male  sex  had  begun  to 
show  some  change.  Sometimes, after  remarks 
sounding  of  sarcasm,  she  would  moderate 
their  sharpness,  and  say  about  as  follows : 

"  And  yit,"  smiling  in  the  careless  manner 
so  common  and  so  secure  in  ladies  of  property, 
"  don't  you  know,  thes  here  lately  I  be'n  a- 
studyin',  and  I  be'n  a-runnin'  over  in  my 
mind,  that  ef —  that 's  that  I  did  n't  know  but 
what — good  opechunity,  you  mind  —  I  might 
make  a  expeermunt,  ef  thes  only  to  see  what  they 
is  in  it  that  make  so  many  women  go  through 
what  they  go  through  with,  ruther  than  they  '11 
run  the  resk  of  being  called  old  maids,  and  ex- 
act' the  same  of  widders  when  their  husbands 
has  died  off  and  left  'em.  Now,  fur  as  the  being  - 
of  dead  in  love  with  any  man  person  as  ever 
trod  the  ground,  like  warous  women  that  I  have 
knew,  and  that  no  matter  how  much  trouble 
and  sickness,  and  hives  and  measles,  and 
whoopin'-cough,  and  the  ackuil  dyin'  o'  their 
offsprings  and  childern,  and  husbands  in  the 
bargain,  and  then  afterwards  gittin'  of  another, 
which  of  course  my  expeunce  have  nothin'  to 
do  'ith  all  nor  none  of  sech;  am/,  as  fur  my 
a-sendin'  roses  and  pinks,  and  bubby-blossoms, 
and  even  makin'  pincushions  and  knittin' 
money-pusses  for  their  beaux,  as  some  girls 
does  these  days,  of  course  sech  as  that  and 
them  is  not  to  be  expected  of  me,  a  not'ith- 
standin'  they  are  a  plenty  o'  women  older  than 
what  I  call  for,  and  them  not  married  at  that; 


Till-.    EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


549 


but  it  would  not  suit  my  ideesof  dilicate.  sech 
as  that  and  them.  And  — yit  —  well,  thes  here 
lately,  a  thes  a-settin'  by  myself,  I  be'n,  er 
ruther  my  mind  be'n,  a-consatin'  what  sech 
mi;;ht  be  if  it  was  to  happen  onexpected  like. 
Because,  don't  you  know,  when  a  person  of  my 
time  o'  life,  and  special  when  she  's  a  female 
person,  and  which  I  "ve  freckwent  thought, 
though  of  course  I  know  that  were  not  the  fault 
of  my  parrents,  although  it  look  right  hard  some- 
w/icres,  that  a  orphin  child  'ith  no  more  prop'ty 
than  she  have,  nother  father  ner  mother,  ner 
brother  ner  sister,  she  were  left  in  the  female 
kinditions  I  be'n  every  sence  I  knewed  myself, 
and  have  to  scuffle  and  baffle  my  own  way  along 
and  up  to  my  present  ockepation  o'  life,  which, 
a  not'ithstandin'  I  am  thankful  that  not  a  dollar 
nor  a  cent  do  I  owe  for  this  plantation  and  nig- 
gers, hous'le  and  kitchen  furnichurs,  stock  ner 
utenchul.  But  —  and  ah !  there  come'  in  the 
question  —  to  who  ?  And  my  meaning  is  : 
'ith  a  female  person  in  my  kinditions,  who 
shall  the  said  prop'ty  of  sech  warous  kind  go 
to,  when,  as  the  Scriptur'  say,  the  thief  knock- 
eth  at  the  door  when  he  ain't  be'n  a-expectin'; 
because  prop'ty  cannot  foller  a  body  in  the 
ground,  and  it  would  n't  be  no  use  ner  enjoy- 
ment ef  it  could.  So  you  see  fur  yourself,  that 
they  is  more  than  thes  one  views  to  take  of  thes 
one  loned  female,  ef  indeed  she  may  try  to  keep 
herself  perfect  cool,  spite  of  iduil  thoughts  oc- 
casional. I  try  to  be  thankful  to  the  good  Lord 
ef  1  've  be'n  a  person  that  had  to  work  hard, 
I  Ve  be'n  a  person  as  had  appetites  for  my 
victuals  and  a  plenty  o'  them.  But  it  go  to 
show  what  warous  thoughts  a  female  person 
like  me  their  mind  will  run  on  sometimes,  that 
she  live  by  her  lone  self,  a  not  countin'  Aboni 
Grice's  Tony,  and  special  these  long  nights, 
that  it  's  too  soon  to  go  to  bed,  and  she  git 
through  the  reelin'  of  broaches  and  windin'  of 
balls,  and  she  got  more  stockin's  now  than  she 
have  any  use  fur,  and  then  to  thes  set  and 
study  in  their  mind  till  they  git  sleepy,  which 
I  'm  honest  thankful  that  don't  take  more  'n 
9  o'clock  never;  and  when  my  head  do  once 
touch  the  piller,  then  '  Farewell,  world,'  tell 
the  chickens  crow  next  mornin'." 

Talks  like  these,  new  to  Miss  Cash,  but  be- 
coming more  and  more  oft  repeated,  led  in  time 
to  the  suspicion  that  her  mind,  however  resist- 
ant theretofore  to  love's  influences,  was  ap- 
proaching a  reasonable  degree  of  receptivity 
thereto.  But  I  advance  no  opinion  on  the  pos- 
sible connection  between  the  late  diversion  in 
her  views  touching  her  own  possible  change 
of  condition  and  the  unexpected  demise  of 
Mrs.  Tuggle. 

For  a  time  the  loss  of  so  dear  a  companion 
depressed  Mr.  Tuggle  to  a  degree  that  hopes 
were  indulged  by  Mr.  Hooks  that  his  afflic- 


tion might  prove  a  blessing  in  disguise,  and 
lead  him  to  knock  at  the  .door  of  the  church. 
Much  of  his  time  was  spent  with  the  Hooks 
family,  from  whom,  particularly  the  ladies,  he 
sought  the  consolation  that  his  daughter  had  not 
the  heart  to  offer.  These  occasions,  and  others 
whereat  he  may  have  been  present,  Mr.  Hooks 
essayed  to  improve  by  such  counsel  and  warn- 
ings as  seemed  needful  and  apposite.  By  de- 
grees, however,  it  appeared  likely  that  the 
mourner  would  look  for  his  most  satisfactory 
relief  in  substituting,  if  one  every  way  suited 
could  be  found  and  obtained,  another  woman 
in  the  place  of  her  who  had  departed  from  him. 
Not  that  Mr.  Tuggle  made  any  great  change 
in  his  dress,  or  indulged  in  unseemly  gayeties. 
It  was  mostly  that,  when  in  the  company  of 
marriageable  ladies,  or  when  being  only  among 
gentlemen  the  subject  of  marriageable  ladies 
was  under  discussion,  his  face  evinced  an  atten- 
tiveness  that  was  believed  to  indicate  that  his 
mind  was  not  only  interested  but  decently  alert. 

Mr.  Hooks  was  sorry  to  have  to  admit  that 
he  was  disappointed. 

"  It  do  look  like,"  he  said  one  day  to  his 
wife  and  daughter,  "  that  Matthy,  'slid  of 
takin'  of  warnin'  from  his  affliction  and  look- 
in'  forrards  to  his  own  latter  end,  is  a-makin' 
of  prip'rations  for  another  lease  o'  his  life, 
which  he  ought  to  know  he  can't  count  on  no 
great  lenks;  but  it  only  go  to  show  when  a 
worldly  man  like  him  git  to  be  widowers,  what 
they  '11  be  fur  up  and  doin'  before  grace  can 
git  a  holt  on  'em.  Now,  I  'm  not  a-denyin' 
that  him  and  Sally  Cash  jinds  plantations,  as 
both  o'  'em  jinds  along  'ith  me ;  and  ef  it  's 
their  desires  to  fling  both  into  one,  that  's 
their  business.  And,  tell  the  truth,  Sally  a 
good,  industrous  woman  that  have  a  good 
prop'ty,  and  I  'm  not  a-findin'  fau't  'ith  her 
for  sprucin'  up  so  fine  lately  and  carryin'  about 
'ith  her  so  much  red  o'  one  kind  and  another. 
For  Matthy  Tuggle  a  man  worth  all  her 
whiles.  But  it  do  seem  to  me,  ef  I  was  in 
Matthy's  place,  I  should  ask  the  question, 
and  I  should  ask  it  on  my  knees  — " 

"  Pshaw,  Mr.  Hooks! "  interrupted  his  wife. 
"  It  's  easy  enough  asking  questions.  The 
thing  is  answerin'  'em.  As  for  widowers  get- 
ting married  again,  they  '11  all  do  it,  and  them 
generally  does  it  the  quickest  that 's  the  surest 
they  won't  in  their  mind  when  their  wives  is 
a-living.  As  for  Cousin  Matthy,  I  think  he 
behave  very  decent,  considering,  and  Emeline 
think  the  same.  He  have  told  us  both  that  if 
it  may  n't  be  impossible  for  him  to  look  out  for 
another  companion,  he  have  made  up  his  mind 
to  be  keerful ;  and  a  better  husband  no  woman 
ever  had  than  poor  Cousin  Betsy.  But  Mr. 
Hooks,  I  wish  you  would  n't  be  supposening 
you  was  in  Matthy's  place." 


55° 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


"  I  was  only  a-sayin',  my  dear  wife,  how  in 
sech  a  case  it  would.be  grace,  and  nothin'  but 
grace  would  let  me  stand  it;  and  ef  I  could 
only  make  you  more  keerful  about  your  1 — " 

"  Do,  pray,  Mr.  Hooks,  don't  begin  on  that 
everlasting  subject." 

Then  she  rose  and  left  the  room. 

"Pa,"  said  Emeline,  "if  I  was  in  your 
place,  I  would  n't  talk  to  Ma  so  much  about 
her  bad  health,  and  specially  what  she  says 
you  are  always  bringing  up  about  her  liver." 

"  Emeline,  my  darlin',"  he  said  with  mourn- 
ful remonstrance,  "  you  know  what  your  ma 
is  to  me  and  you  too,  and  that  what  make  me 
so  anxious,  and  try  to  make  her  take  better 
keer  of  herself.  You  think  your  ma  hain't 
acknowledged  to  me,  time  and  time  ag'in,  that 
not  untwell  she  were  married  to  me  and  I  told 
her,  that  folks  had  livers,  when  it  's  the  very 
importantest,  and  dilicatest,  and  clanjousest 
cons'tution  o'  people  ?  My  adwices  to  you  is 
to  try  to  conwince  her  of  the  needcessity  of 
whut  she  eat,  and  how  she  eat.  Her  appetites 
is  not  large,  but  they  is  resky." 


in. 

THE  changes  in  the  tone  of  conversation 
and  other  deportment  of  Miss  Cash  were  fol- 
lowed by  another  that  was  particularly  grati- 
fying to  Mr.  Abner  Hines,  a  young  man  any- 
where between  thirty  and  forty,  who  not  long 
before  had  come  into  the  community  and  set 
up  the  store  aforementioned.  The  merchant 
was  polite,  courteous,  social,  obliging,  reason- 
ably easy  to  be  intreated  about  his  prices, 
and  it  soon  appeared  that  in  time  he  would 
do  better  than  had  been  expected.  In  the 
case  of  Miss  Cash,  who  from  the  first  had  re- 
garded the  enterprise  with  considerable  inter- 
est, her  purchases,  careful,  even  stinted  at 
first,  lately  had  been  growing  notably  more 
generous.  Mr.  Hines  had  an  ambition  to  get 
as  much  as  possible  of  her  ready  specie,  con- 
sistently of  course  with  the  rendering  of  just 
equivalent,  and  he  began  to  believe  that  he 
had  cause  to  congratulate  himself. 

"  Not,"  he  would  say  confidentially  to  sev- 
eral customers,  one  at  a  time, —  "  it 's  not  that 
Miss  Sally  don't  yit  beat  you  down  in  the  price, 
like  she  always  have.  But  here  lately  she  go 
for  a  finer  article,  and  a  article  that 's  fashion- 
abler  than  what  she  used  to  be  willin'  to  put 
up  with.  She  want  the  best,  she  say ;  and  know- 
in'  I  got  to  fall,  I  generally  raises  on  her  in 
the  askin'  price,  so  as  to  leave  room  for  not 
droppin'  too  fur  not  to  make  a  livin'  profit." 

Mr.  Tuggle  was  one  of  those  who  had  com- 
mented, though  always  without  any  sarcasm, 
on  some  of  the  lady's  peculiarities.  Yet  now 
he  spoke  of  her  invariably  in  terms  not  only  of 


much  respect  but  of  admiration.  Respecting 
his  daughter's  feelings  and  neighborhood  opin- 
ions of  decency,  he  did  not  yet  go  to  Miss 
Cash's  house;  but  whenever  lie  saw  her  rid- 
ing-nag standing  at  a  neighbor's  gate  or  at  the 
store  he  would  alight,  and  deport  himself  now 
as  if  recently  he  had  been  studying  manners 
with  special  reference  to  her.  Outsiders  be- 
lieved that  they  could  see  in  both  a  tendency 
towards  each  other  that  understood  itself 
enough  not  to  be  in  special  haste.  Mr.  Tuggle, 
although  improved  in  his  dress,  behaved  with 
more  decency  than  is  common  with  widowers. 
The  seriousness  that  he  took  on  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  bereavement  continued,  and  it  was 
gratifying  to  all  the  Hookses;  for  the  ladies  of 
the  family,  like  their  head,  if  coming  short  of 
his  outward  degree,  were  religious.  Fora  man 
that  had  not  studied  the  art  of  music  specially, 
he  was  a  good  singer;  and  often,  on  Sunday 
evenings,  when  perhaps  Mr.  Hines  (who  was 
fond  of  visiting,  particularly  at  these  two  houses) 
may  have  called  on  Susan  Ann,  and  their  con- 
versation was  not  very  interesting  to  one  in  his 
lonely  condition,  he  strolled  to  his  next  neigh- 
bor's, and  he  and  Emeline,  joined  by  her 
mother,  when  well  enough,  would  spend  quite 
a  time  in  the  singing  of  hymns.  Mr.  Hooks 
liked  these  exercises,  mainly  for  the  hope,  fee- 
ble as  it  had  become,  that  before  his  serious 
season  had  fully  passed,  Mr.  Tuggle  might  see 
the  need  of  diverging  from  the  broad  road 
along  which  he  had  been  traveling  for.  lo! 
those  so  many  years. 

"  Ef  Matthy,"  he  said  one  evening  after  Mr. 
Tuggle  had  left — "ef  he  only  had  the  sperrit 
ekal  to  his  woices,  they  'd  be  some  hopes  of 
his  conwictions  and  conwersions,  in  course 
under  grace;  for  everybody  that  have  studied 
Scriptur'  know  that  'ithout  grace  't  ain't  worth 
whiles  for  a  sinner  to  try  to  move  one  blessed 
peg.  But  I  do  think  the  idee  a  man  at  his  time 
o'  life  a-wishin'  and  n-wantin'  and  a  actuil'  a- 
desirin'  to  git  married  ag'in  —  " 

"  Need  n't  talk  to  me  about  widowers."  ab- 
ruptly put  in  Mrs.  Hooks.  "  They  're  as  certain 
to  marry  again  #s  the  days  is  long.  The  thing 
is  for  'em  to  try  to  marry  suitable." 

"  Well,  ef  it  's  to  be  Matthy  and  Sally,  the 
question  '11  be  how  she  and  Susan  Ann  is  to 
congeal  together ;  because  they  *ve  both  of  'em 
got  a  temper  o'  their  own,  that  nary  one  of 
'em  is  willin'  to  be  runned  over,  jes  dry  so." 

"  My  opinions  is,"  said  Mrs.  Hooks,  "  that 
right  there  '11  be  the  difficulty,  and  I  have  told 
Matthy  so  in  them  words." 

"  What  Matthy  say  ?  " 

"He  said  nothing;  but  he  look  like  he 
were  pestered  and  jubous  in  his  mind." 

"  Umph,  humph !  Well,  I  'm  thankful  it 
ain't  me ;  and  I  should  never  expect  it  to  be 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   Ol-   MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


551 


me  ef  my  adwices  would  be  took  for  the  rig'- 
lations — " 

lint  he  again,  though  reluctantly,  suspended 
\vhrn  approaching  a  subject  painful  to  his  wife 
to  hear  discussed. 

Many  such  conversations  were  had  between 
this  loving  husband  and  his  wife,  always  inter- 
spersed with  affectionate  .salutary  admonitions. 
Mr.  Hooks  used  to  say  —  that  is,  before  he 
hail  become  a  church-member  —  that  really  he 
had  his  doubts  which  he  was  most  cut  out  for, 
a  lawyer  or  a  doctor ;  but  since  that  momen- 
tous epoch,  he  was  confident  in  his  mind  that 
his  proper  sphere,  had  he  only  known  it  in 
time,  would  have  been  that  the  center  whereof 
was  the  pulpit ;  and  he  used  almost  to  intimate 
what  he  might  do  therein  even  now  but  for  his 
justice  bench,  his  blacksmith's  shop,  and  his 
large  gin  house,  in  which  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  public  had  interests  coordinate  with 
his  own. 

During  all  this  while  Susan  Ann  Tuggle  had 
grown  more  and  more  anxious  at  the  thought 
of  the  marriage  of  her  father,  especially  with 
Miss  Cash.  Confidence  between  parent  and 
child  had  been  checked  by  the  former's  prompt 
rebukeof  some  sharp  words  spoken  by  the  latter 
touching  the  lady  in  question,  and  afterwards 
they  had  gotten  into  the  habit  of  carrying  their 
burdens  separately  to  their  relations  down  the 
road. 

"O  Emeline!  Emeline!  If  Pa  brings  an- 
other woman  to  our  house  to  hector  over  me, 
and  special'  old  Miss  Sally,  I  leave  for  the  — 
for  the  first  place  I  can  find  a  home  at  with 
respectable  people." 

"  Be  calm,  Susan  Ann,  and  don't  be  scared 
and  go  to  fretting  before  the  time  comes.  I 
think  Cousin  Matthy  have  behaved  right  well 
so  far,  considering.  I  never  heard  a  parrent 
talk  more  affectionate  of  their  daughter  than 
he  have  been  talking  about  you  here  lately." 

"  Oh,  these  widowers  can  be  affectionate 
enough,  but  the  more  affectionate  they  are, 
the  more  they  go  on  the  idea  that  they  must 
have  a  mother  for  their  orphan  children ;  but 
1  want  nobody  in  Ma's  place,  and  special' 
old  Miss  Sally.  Yet  I  mean  to  try  to  hope  for 
the  best ;  but  I  tell  you  now,  Emeline,  that  if 
it  come  to  the  worst,  I  shall  take  the  first 
chance  that  comes  that 's  decent,  and  get  mar- 
ried myself." 

More  serious,  far  more  pious,  than  her 
cousin,  Miss  Hooks  was  accustomed  to 
employ  Scriptural  phrases  for  her  own  and 
others'  comfort.  With  calm  earnestness  she 
counseled  Susan  Ann  to  possess  her  soul  in 
patience,  and  endeavor  to  remember  in  all 
circumstances  that  afflictions,  though  they 
seem  severe,  are  oft  in  mercy  sent. 

"  And  which,  Susan  Ann,"  she  said  in  con- 


clusion, "  no  longer  than  last  Sunday  evening, 

when  me  and  Cousin  Matthy  were  sinking  for 
Ma,  who  was  n't  well  enough  to  join  in  with 
us,  and  we  were  a-singing  that  veriest  hymn, 
and  I  happen  to  look  at  Cousin  Matthy,  I 
think  I  SLV  his  eyes  water,  and  I  know  I  see  his 
mouth  trimble." 

IV. 

PROFOUND  as  was  the  sense  of  loss  in  the 
breast  of  Mr.  Hooks,  when,  a  few  weeks  after 
the  events  last  herein  told,  his  wife  followed 
her  cousin  on  the  old-fashioned,  unavoidable- 
way,  there  was  no  telling  to  what  deeper  depths 
it  might  have  descended  but  for  the  merciful 
fact  that  he  was  thoroughly  cognizant  of  the 
cause  to  which  mainly  her  departure  was  at- 
tributable. Her  pious  resignation,  he  hoped, 
was  credited  for  all  that  it  had  contributed  to 
the  comfort  that  he  was  enabled  to  take. 
But  that  which  seemed  the  controlling  ele- 
ment in  that  behalf  was  the  recollection  of 
having  made  an  unerring  diagnosis  of  the  mal- 
ady which  had  torn  her  from  his  arms. 

"  The  de-ficulty  'ith  my  poor,  dear  Malviny," 
with  calm  melancholy  he  said  often  during  the 
season  of  mourning,  "  were  her  liver,  that 
kyard  her  off  from  this  spears  of  action  like  the 
thief  of  a  night  when  no  man  can  work,  but 
people 's  asleep  and  a  not  a-lookin'  for  no  sech. 
I  have  saw,  and  I  have  freckwent  noticed,  and 
that  more  than  a  munt  before  she  taken  down ; 
and  it  were  her  complexions  aijd  weak  stom- 
ach she  have  for  her  victuals,  because  her  ap- 
petites, ever  sence  I  have  knowed  her,  and 
special'  lately,  they  has  not  been  large,  but 
they  has  been  resky ;  and  I  has  told  her  so 
time  and  time  again,  in  course  in  a  affection- 
ate way;  and  when  the  doctor  have  to  be  sent 
fur,  I  told  him,  plain  as  I  could  speak,  no 
matter  what  he  give,  'ithout  they  'd  rig'late  her 
liver  they  would  n't  fetch  her  back  to  her 
wanted  healths.  And  I  give  him  the  credic, 
he  done  his  lev'lest  best ;  not  only  bleedin', 
but  calomel  and  jalap.  In  course,  I  'm  not 
a-denyin'  that  my  poor,  dear  wife  had  to 
go  when  her  time  come ;  but  yit,  I  can't  but 
be  thankful  I  knewd  the  de-ficulty,  and  I 
left  down  no  gaps  in  the  tryin'  to  powide 
ag'inst  it." 

The  consolations  from  this  benignant  source 
supported  Mr.  Hooks  to  a  degree  that  made 
him  extremely  thankful.  Recognizing  that 
duties  to  the  living  could  not  be  paid  fully 
by  a  man  (especially  with  his  various  vast 
responsibilities)  who  went  about  mourning  all 
his  days,  he  turned,  after  a  brief  while,  his 
back  upon  the  graveyard,  and  tried  to  present, 
first  a  resigned,  soon  a  cheerful,  face  to  the 
world  outside  of  it.  It  began  to  be  remarked 
that  his  conversation,  general  carriage,  even 


S52 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


his  person,  were  brighter  than  for  years.  For 
now  he  dressed  and  brushed  himself  with 
much  care;  and  before  long,  instead  of  bestow- 
ing monitory  looks  and  words  upon  jests  and 
other  frivolities  of  the  young  and  the  gay, 
he  not  only  smiled  forgivingly,  but  occasion- 
ally with  his  own  mouth  put  forth  a  harm- 
less anecdote  at  which  he  laughed  as  cordially 
as  he  knew  how,  and  seemed  gratified  when 
others  enjoyed  it. 

Singular  as  was  the  contrast,  the  serious- 
ness in  the  whole  being  of  Mr.  Tuggle  seemed 
to  deepen  after  the  affliction  that  had  fallen 
upon  the  Hooks  family. 

"The  fack  is,  Emeline,"  he  said  one  Sunday 
evening,  "  sorry  as  I  'm  obleeged  to  be  fur 
myself,  I  can't  help  symp'thizin'  'ith  you,  a- 
knowin'  what  your  ma  were  to  you,  and  how 
you  miss  her.  Now  Susan  Ann,  poor  girl,  she 
look  to  me  like  she  think  l?ss  about  her  ma 
than  about  her  who  's  to  take  her  place." 

"  Cousin  Matthy,"  answered  Emeline,  "  if 
anybody  ever  stood  in  need  of  symp'thy  in 
this  wide  and  sorrowful  world,  it 's  me.  Law, 
Cousin  Matthy,  you  think  Pa  mean  anything 
by  his  jokes  and  getting  so  many  Sunday 
clothes  ?  " 

"  Less  said  about  'em,  Emeline, —  that  is, 
by  me, —  soonest  mended." 

After  reflecting  a  while,  she  said,  "  I  think 
Miss  Sally  a  fine  woman,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Remockable,  remockable ;  and  so  do 
your  pa." 

"  O  Cousin  Matthy !  Do,  pray,  please,  Cousin 
Matthy,  don't  let  Pa  go  to  courting  —  at  least 
before  poor  Ma  have  been  in  her  grave  a  de- 
cent time,  and  special'  that  —  oh  me!  What 
is  a  poor  orphan  girl  to  do  like  me! " 

"  What  to  do,  Emeline  ?  Why,  wait  and  see. 
Your  pa  not  an  old  man,  by  no  manner  o' 
means,  and  it 's  natchel  he  may  not  be  will  in' 
to  pass  for  one  before  the  time  come.  But 
wait  and  see,  and  be  cool  and  keerful.  Any 
adwices  I  can  give,  you  know  I  '11  do  it." 

Much  of  other  like  conversation  was  had 
after  they  had  been  singing  together  for  some 
time.  For  a  while  Mr.  Hooks,  while  sitting  or 
promenading  on  his  piazza,  had  listened  with 
more  or  less  interest,  until  by  some  chance  the 
selections  began  to  grow  extremely  sorrowful ; 
when,  taking  his  new  hat  and  his  new  cane, 
he  walked  up  the  road. 

"  Evenin',  Susan  Ann.  I  left  your  pa  and 
Emeline  a-singin'  of  hymes.  I  listened  to  'em 
tell  they  got  on  them  solemn  and  solemcholy 
ones,  that  somehow  don't  congeal  along  'ith 
me  in  the  troubles  be'n  on  my  mind,  and  I 
come  up  here  to  see  ef  you  could  n't  stir  up 
somethin'to  help  out  a  feller's  feelings.  What's 
all  the  liveliest  times  'ith  you,  Susan  Ann  ?  " 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  Cousin  Sing'ton,"  Susan 


Ann  said  cordially.  "  Well,  now,  let  me  see. 
Ay,  I  've  got  it!  Did  n't  Miss  Sally  look 
nice  and  young  to-day  at  church  with  her  new 
red  frock,  and  her  new  green  calash,  and  her 
new  pink  parasol,  and  her  new  white  crane- 
tail  fan,  and  her  new  striped  ribbons,  and 
her  cheeks  that  just  blazed  like  a  peach,  did 
n't  she?" 

"  That  she  did !  that  she  did !  Miss  Sally 
begin  to  look  these  days  nigh  same  as  a  young 
girl,  special'  sence  they  have  got  to  be  more 
marryin'  men,  ah  ha !  I  notice  her  startin'  to 
spruce  up  soon  arfter  your  —  howbe'ever,  a 
man  ought  n't  to  express  hisself  undilicate  to 
them  that  's  interested  in  the  case,  ahem ! " 

Her  tone  changed  instantly. 

"  Cousin  Sing'ton,  you  don't  mean  Pa?  I  'm 
sure  —  that  is,  I  think  —  Miss  Sally  is  setting 
her  cap  for  you,  and  seem  to  me  she  'd  suit ; 
she  certain'  have  been  more  dressy  and  pink  in 
the  face  since  —  since  you  come  on  the  carpet." 

"  Well,  it  only  go  to  show  the  deflunce  they 
is  in  people.  Now  Emeline  say  she  shore  in 
her  mind  Miss  Sally,  ef  she  had  to  choose  be- 
tvvix'  us,  she  'd  lay  ch'ice  on  your  pa." 

"  Did  Emeline  say  that,  Cousin  Sing'ton  ?  " 
she  asked  with  darkling  brow. 

"  Now,  Susan  Ann,"  with  prudent  tone,  "  I 
don't  say  them  was  her  wery  langwidge,  and 
I  don't  know  as  I  were  ad-zactly  in  order  to 
name  to  you  them  words  o'  Emeline,  because 
it  would  seem  like  a  pity  fur  you  and  her  not 
to  keep  on  o'  bein'  the  affection't'  couples 
you  've  always  be'n." 

"  If  Emeline  Hooks  is  trying  to  marry  off 
Pa  to  that  —  the  fact  of  the  business,  it  is  n't 
fair  all  around,  nowhere,  Cousin  Sing'ton." 

"  As  for  suitin'  all  parties,  fur  your  pa  and 
Sally  to  jind  in  banes,  Susan  Ann,  I  might 
have  my  doubts  —  that  is,  in  my  own  minds, 
and  not  a-expressin'  'em.  Thar,right  thar,  they 
is  a  deffunce,  and  I  should  n't  wish  by  no  man- 
ner o'  means  for  even  these  few  priminary  re- 
marks to  be  named,  either  to  Emeline  or  your 
pa." 

Susan  Ann  was  silent  for  a  while,  then  said, 
"  Don't  you  think  Mr.  Hines  wants  to  court 
Emeline,  Cousin  Sing'ton  ?  " 

"Well,  now,  Susan  Ann,"  he  answered,  in 
the  manner  of  one  desirous  to  avoid  full  dis- 
closures of  family  secrets,  "  ef  Mr.  Hines  do, 
him  ner  Emeline  have  named  sech  to  me.  I 
would  n'  be  thunderstruck  surprised  ef  he 
might  desires  sech  a  thing  ef  he  had  the 
prop'ty  to  put  it  through.  They  both  know,  I 
supposen,  that  a  man  that  have  the  prop'ty 
I  pay  taxes  on,  and  it  a-increasin'  every  con- 
stant in  warous  way,  I  should  expect  a  son- 
in-law  to  fetch,  ef  he  can't  fetch  land,  fur  him, 
besides  of  what  goods  he  have  wisible  in  his 
stow,  to  fetch  along  a  reason'ble,  size'ble  pile 


/•//A'   EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


553 


"EVENIN',   SUSAN  ANN." 


o'  niggers.  These  would  be  my  adwices  to 
Emeline  and  to  all  young  wimming.  I  don't 
know  how  freckwent  the  times  I  've'membered 
what  my  father  used  to  say  freckwent  when  he 
was  a-livin',  about  people  a  not  allays  bein' 
keerful  enough  who  they  got  married  to, 
and  that  is  that  people  ought  to  be  allays 
keerful  not  only  to  look  whar  they  leap,  but 
whar  they  lope.  As  for  me,  that  is,  my  own 
self,  a  not'ithstandin'  I  feel  a'most  a  right 
young  man  jes  grown,  sech  is  my  healths,  and 
my  strength,  and  my  sperrit,  yit  my  intentions 
is  to  look  same  as  a  hawk  whar  I  'm  a-leapin' 
and  whar  I  'm  a-lopin'  both ;  and  as  I  can't 
talk  'ith  any  satisfaction  along  'ith  Emeline,  I 
shall  'casionaF  consult  your  adwices,  which, 
my  opinions  is,  you  have  a  stronger  jedgment 
than  her  on  them  important  subjects." 

The  words  of  Mr.  Hooks  during  this  and 
much  other  conversation  were  interpreted  by 
Susan  Ann  as  intimating  his  wish  for  her  in- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 77. 


fluence  in  his  behalf  with  Miss  Cash,  count- 
ing upon  her  exerting  it  freely  after  learning 
that  Emeline  was  rendering  like  service  to 
Mr.  Tuggle. 

v. 

FRIEND  as  well  as  neighbor  Miss  Cash 
had  been  to  both  the  ladies  lately  deceased. 
A  famous  nurse  in  sickness,  she  had  tended 
their  decline  with  assiduous,  tender  care,  and 
the  tears  shed  by  her  at  their  departure  were 
as  hearty  as  they  were  copious.  Yet,  while 
observing  proper  decorum  whenever  in  the 
company  of  the  bereaved,  she  grew  constantly 
more  lively  in  gait  and  conversation,  more 
addicted  to  visiting,  and  far  more  expensive 
and  pronounced  in  apparel. 

"  It  ruther  astonish,"  Mr.  Mines  one  day 
said  to  Mr.  Hooks,  after  selling  to  him  the 
materials  for  yet  another  suit,  "  and  it  put  me 
up  to  get  things  fine  enough  for  Miss  Sally." 


554 


THE   EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


"  Right,  Mr.  Hines,  she 's  right.  A'  excellent, 
a  fine,  a  what  I  call  a  superfine  woman,  and 
I  would  n't  object  anybody  a-tellin'  her  I  made 
them  remarks.  And  how  young  she  look  !  and 
her  jaws  red  same  as  a  rose.  My,  my  !  what 
a  wife  and  kimpanion,  'ith  them  looks,  and 
them  ways,  and  them  niggers,  and  warous 
prop'ty,  she  would  make !  Think  she  have  a 
notion  or  idees  that  way,  Mr.  Hines  ?  " 

"  That  question  oversize  my  information, 


she  won't  hizitate.  A  superfine  female !  No 
man,  sir, —  I  say  it  bold  and  above-bode, —  no 
man  that 's  either  too  old  or  wo'  out  ought  to, 
dares  n't  to  offer  hisself  to  be  a  party  o'  the 
second  part  in  Miss  Sally  Cash  expeermunts, 
or  whatsomeever  she  mind  to  name  "em." 

Interesting  to  all  the  neighbors,  most  espe- 
cially to  Mr.  Hines,  became  movements  made 
by  the  two  widowers,  their  daughters,  and  Miss 
Cash.  For  Mr.  Hines,  as  was  believed,  hoped  to 


i  m 


"THAT  QUESTION  OVERSIZE  MY  INFORMATION,   SIR." 


sir;  but  I  have  heard  her  say  that  her  mind 
been  running  on  a  expeermunt,  as  she  call  it, 
and  she  don't  know  what  she  might  do  if  the 
right  man  was  to  come,  and  he  did  n't  prove 
to  be  too  old  and  wore  out." 

"  Umph,  humph  !  I  suppose  not,  of  course; 
young  female,  like  her.  Yaas.  I  'm  told  she 
drap  in  your  stow  right  freckwent  these  days. 
When  she  come  next  time,  Mr.  Hines,  you 
may  'member  my  respects,  and  tell  her  any- 
thing I  can  help  her  in  any  her  business  of 
all  kind,  my  requestes  is,  and  also  is  my  desires, 


be  able  to  win  for  himself  that  one  of  the  young 
ladies  whose  father  Miss  Cash  would  accept 
eventually.  The  coolness  and  reserve  that  had 
risen  between  the  cousins  neither  Miss  Cash 
nor  the  gentlemen  objected  to.  Indeed,  there 
was  no  doubt  that  every  one  of  the  six  felt 
that  the  hand  that  he  or  she  held  had  to  be 
played  with  utmost  discretion.  Miss  Cash 
manifested  great  respect  for  the  late  serious 
conversations  of  Mr.  Tuggle,  and  she  laughed 
consumedly  at  the  new  jokes  of  Mr.  Hooks. 
Nobody  doubted  that  she  could  choose  be- 


THE   EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


555 


tween  the  two;  and  each  of  these,  conscious 
that  the  other  was  his  equal,  or  nearly  so, 
advanced  with  slowness  and  caution.  As 
for  the  young  ladies,  each  convinced  that  the 
other  was  working  against  her  wishes  and  in- 
terests in  the  case  of  Miss  Cash,  and  perhaps 
remotely  in  that  of  Mr.  Hines,  they  became  re- 
served to  the  degree  that,  not  visiting  each 
other  at  all,  whenever  they  happened  to  meet 
they  spoke,  but  nothing  more.  With  entire 
coolness  Miss  Cash  seemed  to  contemplate 
their  cross-firing,  and  not  infrequently  she  in- 
dulged in  partly  confidential  chat  about  it 
with  Mr.  Hines  at  the  store,  or  at  her  house, 
to  which,  in  answer  to  her  kind  invitations, 
he  sometimes  went. 

"  Yes,"  Miss  Cash  said  one  day,  "  ef  you 
have  ever  heard  two  girls  praise  up  fathers 
that  's  not  their 'n,  it  's  them.  Look  like  they 
don't  count  their  own  fathers  no  shakes  at  all 
hardly,  but  it  's  they  of  the  other.  I  agrees 
with  both  what  they  say ;  because  both  their 
parrents  is  excellent  good  men,  and  them  fine, 
good  girls." 

"  People  say,  Miss  Sally,"  here  Mr.  Hines 
ventured  to  remark, "  that  in  all  prob'bility  the 
Cash  plantation  will  jind  in  either  with  the 
Hooks  or  the  Tuggle." 

"  They  all  three  jinds  now  already,  Mr. 
Hines ;  but  I  know  what  your  meanin's  is  in 
your  mischievious.  It  take  more  than  one  con- 
sents for  sech  as  that,  Mr.  Hines;  which  a 
young  lady  like  me,  that  have  no  expeunce, 
even  ef  she  do  think  sometimes  in  a  iduil  hour 
of  makin"  sech  a  expeermunt,  yit  she  can't 
but  have  her  doubts,  I  may  even  say  she  can't 
but  be  jubous,  and  in  fact  downright  hizitate 
on  sech  a  dilicate,  and  I  might  actuil'  say 
skeary  kinclusion  she  might  have  on  the  sub- 
jectsof ourpresentremarks.  But, Mr. Hines," — 
and  now  she  smiled  distantly  and  pleasantly, — 
"  a  person  might  have  more  than  thes  one  ex- 
peermunt in  her  mind-eye,  as  the  preacher  say, 
and  when  the  time  come,  you  '11  see  ef  Sairey 
Cash,  which  people  in  gener'l  call  her  Sally, 
but  you  '11  see  ef  she  's  the  young  lady  she 
took  herself,  ef  she  understan'  herself,  and  she 
think  she  do.  For,  somehow,  I  talk  with  you 
freer  than  I  talk  with  some.  But  I  actuil'  do 
want  to  see  them  girls  do  well,  and  for  who- 
ever gets  'em  to  not  have  to  wait  for  prop'ty 
as  I  am  now  thankful  that  I  ain't  hendered 
from  the  havin'  of  comforts,  and  even  lugjuries 
when  I  want  "em." 

Noticing  his  interest  in  the  conversation, 
she  continued  to  talk  at  much  length,  saying, 
among  other  things : 

"  I  'm  older  than  them  girls,  Mr.  Hines, — 
that  is,  I  'm  some  older ;  and  I  know  their 
fathers  better  than  they  do,  and  I  know  them 
better  than  their  fathers  do.  Both  them  girls 


MR.     MATTHEW     TUGGLE. 


think  they  know  me  perfic',  and  their  fathers 
has  their  sispicions  about  me,  which  their 
sispicions  is  pine  blank  derTernt.  It  would  all 
be  ruther  funny  if  my  mind  were  made  up, 
which  it  ain't,  and  it  look  hard  a  loned  female 
person  have  nobody  to  go  to  for  adwices. 
But  ef  you  name  those  few  remarks  to  any  or 
every  body,  Mr.  Hines,  I  shall  never  forgive 
you  while  the  breath  is  in  my  body,  as  in  the 
good  healths  I  always  enjoys,  I  should  hope 
would  be  for  many  a  years  yit  to  come." 

The  neighbors  at  last  were  growing  impa- 
tient at  the  delay  of  a  consummation  the  more 
eagerly  looked  for  because  of  its  uncertainty. 

"  It  look  like  nip  and  tuck  betwix'  Sing'ton 
and  Matthy,"  said  old  Mr.  Pate  several  times, 
"  and  ut  'pear  to  me  like  they  both  of  'em  a- 
expectin'  and  a-countin'  on  officiatin'  Sally, 
so  to  speak.  Sing'ton  —  well,  I  don't  'member 
as  I  ever  see  a  yearlin'  boy  livelier  and  jokier. 
I  tell  him  sometimes  don't  look  out  they  '11 
fetch  him  up  in  the  church  about  his  world'y 
ways.  But  sher!  that  jes  only  make  him  go 
on  yit  more  livelier.  As  for  Matthy,  he  ain't 


556 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


OLD     MR.     PATE. 


peart  and  gaily  as  he  used  to  wus ;  but  he  look 
solid  and  studdy  as  a  jedge  that  have  the  case 
done  made  up  in  his  head,  and  he  ain't  a- 
pesterin'  hisself  about  how  much  them  law- 
yers palavvers,  and  jaws,  and  jowers  'ith  one 
'nother  and  the  jury.  I  jokes  Sally  too  some- 
times, and  ask  her  which  she  goin'  take;  but 
she  smile,  and  say  them  that  astes  the  fewest 
queschins  gits  told  the  fewest  lies.  But  —  and 
you  may  take  my  words  for  it  —  people  ain't 
a-goin"  to  be  kept  waitin'  much  longer,  to  my 
opinions.  Sing'ton  and  Matthy,  both  of  'em, 
is  men  that  when  they  means  business  they 
bound  to  bring  it  to  a  head,  and  see  if  there 
any  prone  in  it  or  not.  You  mind  what  I  tell 
you." 


VI. 


Miss  CASH  gave  a  party. 

By  candlelight  the  guests  arrived.  The  host- 
ess shone  in  a  white  frock  whose  flounces, 
furbelows,  and  gathers —  if  these  be  their 
names —  I  feel  it  to  be  vain  at  my  time  of  life 
to  undertake  to  describe.  Her  hair,  I  admit, 
was  red;  but  her  cheeks  —  well,  she  would  have 
contended,  if  necessary,  that  their  color  was 
her  business ;  and  certain  it  is,  that  for  every 
stick  of  cinnamon  that  may  have  been  used  by 
her  for  any  purpose  under  the  sun  the  hard 
cash  had  been  paid  down  on  Mr.  Hines's 
counter  and  no  grumbling. 

Whoever   had   supposed  that  Mr.   Hooks 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS   SALLY  CASH. 


557 


would  have  declined  an  invitation  to  a  party 
at  that  house,  even  when  it  was  understood 
that  there  was  to  be  dancing,  knew  not  the 
man.  That  very  evening  he  had  ridden  down 
to  the  store  and  purchased  not  only  the  shini- 
est pair  of  silk  stockings  that  could  be  found 
in  the  whole  store,  and  the  sleekest  pair  of 
pumps,  but  the  longest,  widest,  stripedest  silk 
cravat;  and  the  latter  he  had  Mr.  Hines  to 
tie  around  his  neck,  enjoining  him  to  come  as 
nigh  the  Augusta  knot  as  was  possible  in  a 
provincial  region  so  remote  from  that  great 
metropolis. 

"  Them  feet  and  them  legs,"  contemplating 
these  interesting  objects,  he  remarked  at  the 
party  to  several  ladies  and  gentlemen,  as  if 
imparting  a  pleasant  secret — "them  legs  and 
them  feet  'pear  like  they  forgot  tell  here  lately 
what  they  made  fur;  but  my  intenchuins  is, 
before  they  git  much  older,  to  conwince  'em 
o'  their  ric'lection." 

He  sat  by  Susan  Ann,  and  Mr.  Tuggle  by 
Emeline ;  and  it  was  evident  that  each  of  these 
young  ladies  was  intent  upon  exhibiting  before 
Miss  Cash  her  own  especial  knight  to  the  best 
possible  advantage. 

To  one  who  loves  the  sound  of  the  fiddle, 
there  is  something  in  its  voice  that  imparts  an 
exhilaration  seldom  coming  from  any  other 
music.  In  the  breast  of  Mr.  Hooks  on  the 
present  occasion  that  emotion  was  perhaps 
the  more  pronounced  because  of  several  years' 
suppression.  When  Morris,  a  negro  man  be- 
longing to  the  rich  Mr.  Parkinson,  was  called 
in,  even  while  putting  his  instrument  in  tune, 
the  eyes  of  Mr.  Hooks  were  lit  up  into  fiery 
brilliancy  ;  his  face  quivered  with  almost  angry 
smiles ;  and  he  had  to  breathe,  and  that  hotly, 
through  his  nostrils  alone ;  while  his  elevated 
mouth  was  puckered  in  every  possible  ap- 
proach to  a  point,  in  order  to  hold  within  its 
accumulating  waters. 

It  was  pleasant  to  everybody  to  notice  how 
well  Mr.  Hines  looked  and  behaved.  On  the 
whole  he  was  better  dressed  —  that  is,  more 
stylishly  and  perhaps  expensively  —  than  any 
other  gentleman  present.  But  of  course  he 
had  been  to  Augusta  far  more  often  than  any- 
body else  there ;  and  besides,  being  his  own 
buyer  as  well  as  seller,  he  could  afford  to  dress 
as  he  pleased.  Having  confessed  to  Miss  Cash 
that  his  early  education  in  dancing  had  been 
neglected,  she,  with  kind  thoughtfulness  for 
the  embarrassment  that  he  must  feel  otherwise, 
deputed  him  to  assist  in  the  entertainment  of 
her  guests,  in  which  office  he  deported  him- 
self with  a  satisfaction  that  hardly  could  have 
been  greater  if  it  had  been  his  own  house. 

"  Choose  pardners!"  at  length  cried  Morris 
in  the  commanding,  menacing  tone  that  only 
negro-fiddlers  ever  knew  fully  how  to  employ. 


Instantly  rose  Mr.  Hooks,  and,,  violently 
seizing  the  hand  of  Susan  Ann,  led  her  forth. 
Mr.  Tuggle  glanced  at  Emeline,  then  lowered 
his  head  far  down,  as  if  to  be  more  able  thus 
to  control  his  feelings.  Emeline  did  the  same. 

The  surprise  manifested  by  the  whole  com- 
pany at  the  prompt  rise  of  Mr.  Hooks  and  his 
march  to  the  head  of  the  cotillon  was  feeble 
compared  with  that  experienced  when  they 
witnessed  what  he  could  do  in  that  line.  At 
first,  as  the  figures  were  called,  he  moved  with 
measured  dignity,  his  long  arms  with  deliber- 
ate exactitude  describing  immense,  majestic 
arcs,  both  in  the  preliminaries  of  rotary  move- 
ments and  in  their  consummation.  Susan  Ann 
was  a  noted  dancer,  and  the  sight  of  her 
agility  and  grace,  together  with  her  apprecia- 
tive words,  inspired  her  partner  to  repetition 
of  the  noblest  exploits  of  his  youth. 

"  You  are  the  best  partner  I  ever  danced 
with,"  she  whispered. 

"  Laws,  girl !"  he  answered,  indifferent, "  wait 
tell  I  git  warm,  and  come  down  'ith  a  few  o' 
my  double  dimmersimmerquibbers." 

"  Give  them  some,"  she  replied,  looking  at 
Miss  Cash,  whom  she  saw  already  running  over 
with  admiration. 

"  Sashay  W  all !  " 

When  came  the  turn  of  Mr.  Hooks  to  obey 
the  command,  if  ever  a  pair  of  human  legs 
exhibited  suppleness,  sprightliness,  precision 
of  calculation,  the  faculty  to  intertwine  and 
outertwine,  to  wrap  themselves  around  each 
other  when  high  lifted  from  the  floor,  unwrap 
themselves  at  the  instant  of  return,  and  after- 
wards to  reverse  these  apparently  reckless 
spires,  then  surely  was  the  time.  There  were 
moments  when  all,  including  Susan  Ann, 
evinced  apprehension  that  in  one  of  these 
audacious  exaltations  a  man  so  tall  and  slender, 
so  long  disused  to  such  exercise,  might  lose  his 
balance  and  fall  bodily,  perchance  head-fore- 
most, in  the  arena.  But  no !  The  arm  of  the 
daring  vaulter,  sometimes  both,  sometimes  al- 
ternately extended,  sometimes  pointing  to  the 
zenith,  sometimes  to  the  horizon,  sometimes 
at  various  angles  intermediate  to  horizon 
and  zenith,  kept  him  true  as  any  gyroscope. 
His  countenance  the  while  wore  a  serious, 
even  threatening,  aspect.  When  Morris,  pant- 
ing and  dripping  with  sweat,  gave  the  last 
shrieking  note  and  called,  "  Honors  to  pard- 
ners," the  hero  descended  heavily  on  one  foot, 
and,  extending  the  other,  rested  its  toes  easily 
on  their  extreme  points,  and  while  one  hand 
hung  in  the  direction  towards  these,  the  other's 
forefinger,  far  above  all  heads,  pointed  to  the 
heavens.  Amidst  the  applause  that  rose  irresist- 
ibly, after  conducting  Susan  Ann  to  her  seat, 
not  taking  that  by  her  side,  he  promenaded 
around  the  room  for  some  minutes  suffering 


558 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


himself  to  be  admired.  Then,  pausing  in  front 
of  his  rival,  he  said  : 

"  Matthy,  ain't  you  goin'  to  j'in  in  the  eg- 
zitin'  spote  Miss  Sally  have  powided  so  liberT 
fur  the  enj'yments  and  'ospital'ties  of  us  all  ?  " 

"  Now  that,"  on  his  way  home  said  Mr. 
Pate, "  it  did  n't  look  like  quite  fa'r  in  Sing'ton, 
him  a-knowin'  Matthy,  'ith  his  duck-legs,  were 
onpossible  to  foller  him  in  them  climbin's,  the 
oudaciousest  I  ever  'spected  to  live  to  see.  Yit 


MISS    SALLY    CASH. 


Matthy  not  a  man  people  can  skeer.  He  look 
like  he  know  what  he  were  about,  and  he  smile 
and  answer  calm,  he  have  made  up  his  minds 
to  quit  dancin'." 


VII. 


DURING  the  last  wane  of  the  evening,  some- 
what of  abstraction,  not  wholly  unattended 
by  embarrassment,  began  to  be  noticeable  in 
the  carriage  of  Miss  Cash.  She  was  observed 
to  whisper  several  times  alternately  with  Mr. 


Hooks  and  Mr.  Tuggle,  who  nodded  respect- 
fully. As  the  party  was  breaking  up,  Mr.  Pate, 
apparently  reluctant  to  leave,  in  view  of  the 
briefness  of  human  life,  especially  the  fewness 
of  occasions  similar  to  the  present  that  were 
likely  to  occur  during  his  own  briefer  remnant, 
full  of  good  wishes  as  of  things  good  to  eat 
and  to  drink,  felt  that  he  ought  not  to  go  away 
without  a  few  valedictory  words. 

"  Sally,"  he  said,  with  moistened  eyes,  '•  a 
better  party,  and  a  more  liberT  powided,  J 
never  should  hope  to  put  on  my  Sunday  close 
and  go  too ;  no,  never  endurin'  what  little  bal- 
ance o'  time  they  is  left  me  to  be  'ith  you  all, 
which  I  hope  the  good  Lord,  ef  he  spar'  my 
life,  he  '11  find  he  hain't  so  very  many  better 
friends  than  what  I  've  tried  to  be.  And  I  '11 
say  for  Sing'ton  Hooks  and  Matthy  Tuggle, 
I  've  knewed  'em  from  babies,  and  their  ekals 
for  a  marry'n'  female  person  to  make  their 
ch'ice  betwix',  other  people  may  know,  /don't. 
And,  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  'member  as  ever  I 
have  wish',  before  here  lately,  they  was  more  'n 
one  Sally  Cash  to  diwide  betwix'  'em  —  boys, 
as  I  call  'em,  compar'd  to  me.  And  my  adwices 
is  for  you  not  to  be  forever  and  deternal  a-hiz- 
itatin'  about  a  marter  which  it  ain't  possible 
no  way  to  make  any  big  mistakes.  Because 
them  boys  is,  both  of  'em,  business  boys,  and 
natchel'  speakin'  they  don't  want  to  be  al'ays 
hilt  betwix'  hawk  and  buzzard  in  this  kind  o' 
style.  Good-bye ;  good-bye.  Good-bye,  Sin- 
g'ton ;  I  did  not  know  you  was  ekal  to  sech 
awful  performance.  Good-bye,  Matthy;  you 
done  right  not  follerin'  Sing'ton  on  that  line; 
but  a  dignifieder  behavior  than  you  I  would 
never  wish  to  go  to  nobody's  party.  And  it 's 
a  pleasure  to  see  how  honer'ble  you  and  Sin- 
g'ton has  been  in  the  whole  case.  And  my 
ricommends  to  both  you  boys,  is  to  keep  on 
standin'  squar'  up  to  the  rack  tell  the  fodder 
fall;  and  when  she  do,  let  him  that  's  dis- 
app'inted,  ef  he  can't  be  satisfied,  let  him  least- 
ways try  to  git  riconciled,  and  then  gether 
up  his  fishin'-pole,  his  hook  and  line,  and  his 
bait-gourd,  and  move  to  some  other  hole  in 
the  mill-pond ;  because  you  both  got  sense 
enough  to  know  that  the  good  Lord  ain't  one 
that  make  jes'  one  lone  fish  by  itself.  Good- 
bye, Sing'ton ;  good-bye,  Matthy ;  good-bye, 
all." 

When  all  had  departed  except  the  Hookses 
and  the  Tuggles,  who  were  requested  to  re- 
main for  a  few  minutes,  the  gentlemen  were 
asked  to  take  seats  on  one  side  of  the  room 
and  Emeline  and  Susan  Ann  on  the  opposite, 
while  Miss  Cash  took  her  position,  from  which 
she  could  command,  in  rlank,  the  view  of  all. 

After  several  modest,  significant  coughs,  she 
began : 

"  I  ast  you  all  to  stay  behind  because  I 


THE   EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


559 


wanted  to  make  these  few,  feeble,  and  inter- 
esting remarks  about  me  and  you  all.  You  are 
all  my  neighbors,  and  1  've  tried  to  be  you-all's 
friends,  and  none  of  you  has  knew  the  extents. 
I  ain't  a-blamin'noneof  you;  because  I  never 
yit  has  told  you,  nary  one.  And  1  never  told 
not  even  myself,  not  untell  here  lately,  because 
not  untell  here  lately  did  I  know  the  ewents 
and  how  they  would  all  turns  out ;  and  I  has 
never  be'n  so  much  conwinced  in  my  own 
minds  that  the  good  Lord  know  more  about 
me  than  I  do  about  myself  than  I  be'n  thes 
here  lately.  Howbe'ever,  let  me  and  them 
keep  behind  for  the  present  time  a-bein'. 

"  Mr.  Hooks,  you  and  Susan  Ann  has  be'n 
a-thinkin'  that  me  and  Mr.  Tuggle  was  a-goin" 
to  nunite  in  the  banes  of  mattermony.  And 
then  again,  Mr.  Tuggle,  you  and  Emeline 
has  be'n  a-countin'  on  the  same  'ith  me  and 
Mr.  Hooks,  which  1  needs  not  say  you  has  all 
be'n  mistakened,  but  in  a  deffer'nt  and  warous 
way.  In  nary  case  have  I  let  on  ef  it  was  to 
be,  or  not  so :  one  reason,  because  a  lady  owe 
it  to  herself  not  to  be  kickin'  before  she  have 
be'n  spurred,  and  not  to  say  yea  nor  nay  tell 
she  's  ast ;  which  both  of  you  all  may  n't  be 
surprised  hain't  never  be'n  done  by  none  of 
them  gent'men  here  on  the  present  occasion 
in  this  very  same  room.  And  I  am  thankful 
they  did  n't.  Because  I  am  a  person  that  have 
my  own  p'ints  o'  views  and  my  own  ch'ices  o' 
kimpanions  like  other  people,  and,  not  ef  I 
know  myself,  would  it  be  my  desires  to  pass 
for  the  mothers  of  childern  which  is  not  my 
ownd;  nernot  their  step- mothers  even,  ef  some 
has  be'n  a-sispicionin'  to  the  kin-traries." 

Looks  of  surprise  went  around  at  the  close 
of  this  paragraph.  Slightly  shifting  her  posi- 
tion, the  speaker  resumed : 

"  And  yit,  both  you  men  has  be'n  a-co'tin' 
close  and  heavy,  a'most  amejiant  when  their 
wife  deparched  from  the  famblies  in  their 
charges,  and,  not  to  save  my  life,  could  I  turn 
my  backs  when  both  o'  you  ast  me  to  help 
you  out;  and  it's  because,  I  sometimes  be'n  a- 
supposenin',  they  is  or  they  may  be  somethin' 
in  the  a'r  that,  in  sech  times,  make  sech  things 
interestin'  and  ketchin',  even  to  a  moduest  fe- 
male like  me." 

During  the  bashful  pause  ensuing  here,  the 
gentlemen  looked  at  each  other  inquiringly, 
and  the  young  ladies,  moving  their  chairs 
some  space  farther  apart,  turned  and  faced 
alternately  the  opposite  walls. 

"Yes,  sirs,  and  yes,  ma'ams,  you  girls;  you 
knewed  yourselves,  but  you  knewed  not 
t'  other  couple  ;  and  nary  one,  nor  nary  couple 
betwix'  you,  has  knewed  Sally  Cash,  what  little 
time  may  be  left  she  may  call,  or  t'  other  peo- 
ple may  call,  her  by  them  fambiliar  names. 
Yit,  before  I  come  as  fur  downd  as  myself, 


I  want  to  settle  up  the  expeerimmts  I  be'n 
a-makin'  a  clean  a  outside  o'  Sally  Cash; 
and  which  I  '11  begin  by  askin'  of  you,  Mr. 
Hooks,  a  certing  queschin,  and  that  is,  is 
you  willin'  or  is  you  not,  to  give  Emeline  to 
Mr.  Tuggle  ?  " 

1 1  ere  Susan  Ann  turned  and  stared  at  Em- 
eline as  if  she  were  a  ghost,  while  Emeline 
kept  her  eyes  upon  the  wall,  studying  it  curi- 
ously, as  if  it  were  covered  all  over  with  fres- 
coes from  the  most  ancient  masters. 

"Well;  now,  Sally,"  began  Mr.  Hooks  in 
much  calmness,  considering  the  situation, "  the 
queschin  —  it  ketch  me  by  surprises,  and  —  I 
may  say — " 

"  That  you  '11  have  to  hear,"  Miss  Cash  in- 
terrupted, "  what  Mr.  Tuggle  '11  say  to  the 
queschin  I  'm  a-goin'  to  put  to  him  in  the 
amejiant  spurs  o'  the  awful  an'  interestin'  min- 
utes; and  which,  that  is,  Mr.  Tuggle,  will  you 
let  Mr.  Hooks  have  Susan  Ann  ?  There  's  the 
whole  case  betwix'  you  all." 

"  Jes  so ;  perpendic'lar ;  the  same  as  a  gate- 
post," said  Mr.  Hooks,  with  deliberate  yet 
utmost  emphasis. 

Then  Emeline,  turning,  sought  the  face  of 
Susan  Ann,  which  by  this  time  had  become 
absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  the  master- 
pieces on  her  wall.  In  another  moment  they 
were  weeping,  hugged  in  each  other's  arms. 

"Come,  come;  set  down,  set  down,"  said 
Miss  Cash,  "and  let  me  git  through  'ith  the 
rest  o'  my  tale.  It  won't  be  so  very  much  to 
you,  but  it  's  everything  to  me." 

Then  the  native  blood  rose  even  through 
the  cinnamon,  and  a  something  much  like 
beauty  overspread  her  face. 

"  When  I  first  begun  to  talk  about  makin' 
a'  expeermunt  of  the  gittin'  of  married  myself, 
it  were  mostly  iduil  talk.  But  somehows,  or 
somehows  else,  I  don't  know  as  I  may  never 
know  how  sech  things  comes  about,  yit  I  got 
to  ruther  love  to  let  my  mind  runned  on  the 
interestin'  subjects.  And  then,  it  come  to  me, 
and  I  begin  to  think,  mayby, —  who  knows  ?  — 
ef  it  were  the  will  of  the  good  Lord,  that 
him,  a-knowin'  how  I  have  always  be'n  a 
orphin  and  had  to  work  hard  to  help  take 
keer  of  myself,  and  that  a'most  every  sence  I 
were  a  baby  —  that,  I  say,  mayby  it  were  His 
will  for  me  not  to  git  old  thes  by  myself,  and 
never  have  any  pleasant  siciety,like  other  peo- 
ple, o'  them  to  keer  anything  about,  exceptin' 
o'  them  might  natchil'  expects  to  git  whut  prop- 
'ty  I  got,  and  then  a  possible  a-wantin'  me  out 
o'  the  way  before  my  time  come  to  deparch,  like 
poor  Betsy  Tuggle,  and  poor  Malviny  Hooks, 
good  friends  as  they  wus  to  me,  and  me  to 
them.  And  not  that  Abom  Grice  never  even 
hint  sech  a  thing,  but  he  have  freckwent  told 
me  that  it  were  my  very  first  juty  to  look  out 


S6° 


THE  EXPERIMENTS   OF  MISS  SALLY  CASH. 


'AFTER   A  DECENT  MOMENT  STEPPED   FORTH   MR.   ABNER   HINES. 


for  myself.  Yit,  I  know,  because  I  have  saw 
what  it  is  for  women  to  git  old  thes  by  their- 
selves,  'ith  no  husband,  and  no  childern,  and 
no  nobody  o'  the  kinds ;  and  even  when  their 
kinfolks  may  n't  want  'em  to  die,  they  sispic- 
ions  'em  of  it.  And  so  I  thought  mayby  it 
were  the  will  o'  the  good  Lord  to  hender  sech 
as  that  to  me,  him  a-knowin'  how  I  've  had 
to  scuffle  and  baffle  every  sence  I  were  a 
little  bit  of  a  orphin  child,  and  ef  anybody 
ever  loved  me  thes  for  myself,  the  good  Lord 
know  I  don't  know  who  it  was — untell  now. 
And  —  O  Mr.  Hooks,  don't  ask  me  yit,  not 
quite  yit!  I  '11  acknowledge  everything,  and 
then  tell  you  what  I  want  you  to  do,  when  I 
can  git  a  little  more  compoged  in  my  mind." 
Rising,  she  went  to  a  table  whereon  were 
tumblers  and  a  pitcher  of  water.  As  she  lifted 
the  latter  with  tottering  hand,  Mr.  Hooks  went 
briskly  and  took  it  just  as  it  would  have 
dropped.  He  poured  a  glass  that  with  diffi- 
culty she  drank;  then,  reseating  herself,  con- 
tinued : 


"When  I  see  you  two  men  a-courtin'  of 
them  girls,  it  got  to  be  that  interestin'  to  me, 
that  I  got  so  I  could  n't  go  to  sleep  o'  nights, 
tell  away  yonder  a'most  midnight;  a  thes  a- 
layin'  and  a-thinkin'  ef  you  two  men,  that 
have  be'n  young  and  happy  before,  can  be 
young  and  happy  ag'in,  why  not  me,  thes  one 
time,  that  have  al'ays  be'n  a  loned  female 
by  myself." 

She  paused,  and  the  tears  streamed  from 
her  eyes.  Emeline  and  Susan  Ann  wept  in 
genuine  sympathy,  and  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Tug- 
gle  were  very  moist.  Mr.  Hooks  looked  down 
at  his  pumps  and  silk  stockings,  and,  perhaps 
because  he  recognized  the  incongruity  be- 
tween what  they  had  been  doing  so  lately  and 
any  degree  of  sadness  which  he  might  express, 
simply  rose  from  his  chair. 

"Set  down,  Mr.  Hooks;  set  down.  I  'm 
a'most  thoo.  But,  and,  I  tell  you  now,  all  of 
you,  I  'd  of  died  before  I  'd  of  even  peached 
sech  a  thing  to  ary  man  person  that  ever  pre- 
ambulated  on  top  o'  the  ground,  first.  And 


THE  KNIGHT  IN  SILVER  MAIL. 


when  one  o'  that  same  seek  of  people  name 
to  me  the  very  subjects  I  be'n  a-thinkin'  and 
a  actuil'  a-dreamin'  about,  ef  it  did  n't  "pears 
like  to  me  the  good  Lord  sent  him  a-purpose." 

\\  ith  hand  yet  trembling,  she  took  from  her 
bosom  a  marriage-license,  and,  handing  it  to 
Mr.  Hooks,  said : 

'•  There  's  a  paper  for  you,  Mr.  Hooks, 
which  people  is  now  ready  and  a-waitin'  for 
you  to  'tend  to  it." 

Turning  her  face  towards  the  dining-room, 
she  called  aloud : 

"  Mimy,  you  may  come  in,  and  the  balance 
of  'em." 

The  door  opened,  Mimy  and  the  other  ne- 
groes, having  on  every  item  of  Sunday  clothes 
that  that  plantation  had  on  hand,  filed  in  and 
took  position  near  the  walls.  After  a  decent 


moment,  a-tiptoe,  his  arm  already  curved  to 
receive  that  of  his  bride,  stepped  forth  Mr. 
Abner  Hines. 

"  And  I  do  believe,  on  my  soul,"  Mr.  Hooks 
said  some  time  afterwards,  "  that  arfter  I  have 
jinded  them  two  together,  hard  and  fast, 
a'cordin'  to  law  and  gospul,  that  it  were  in 
me  to  make  prob'ble  the  biggest,  everlastin'est 
speech  I  ever  spread  myself  before  a  augence ; 
but  the  fact  were,  everybody  got  to  laughin' 
and  cryin'  so  they  drownded  my  woices.  Ah, 
well!  it  were  a  ruther  egzitin'  time  all  thoo. 
But  everything  have  swaged  down  peaceable. 
Thebreth'en  they  forgive  me  for  dancin',  when 
Susan  Ann  give  in  the  pootty  expeunce  she 
told,  and  it  were  give'  out  I  would  n't  do  so 
no  more." 

R.  M.  Johnston. 


THE    KNIGHT    IN    SILVER    MAIL. 


SHE  left  the  needle  in  the  rose 
And  put  her  broidery  by, 
And  leaning  from  her  casement  tall 

She  heard  the  owlets  cry. 
The  purple  sky  was  thick  with  stars, 

And  in  the  moonlight  pale 
She  saw  come  riding  from  the  wood 
A  knight  in  silver  mail. 

His  plume  was  like  the  snowy  foam 

That  wreathes  the  roaring  tide, 
The  glory  of  his  golden  locks 

His  helmet  could  not  hide. 
She  took  the  lily  from  her  breast 

(Like  hers,  its  beauty  frail), 
And  dropped  it  as  he  rode  beneath  — 

The  knight  in  silver  mail. 

About  her  gown  of  crimson  silk 

She  drew  a  mantle  dark. 
She  saw  the  stately  castle-towers 

Uprising  from  the  park, 
And  on  the  lake  the  mated  swans, 

Asleep  in  shadow,  sail, 
But  left  it  all  to  follow  him, 

The  knight  in  silver  mail. 


"  Oh,  I  would  see  thy  face,  my  love, 

Oh,  I  would  see  thy  face  ! 
Why  dost  thou  keep  thy  visor  down  ? 

It  is  a  lonely  place." 
His  voice  was  like  the  hollow  reeds 

That  rustle  in  the  gale : 
"  'T  is  lonelier  in  my  castle,"  said 

The  knight  in  silver  mail. 

He  let  his  steed  go  riderless, 

He  took  her  by  the  hand 
And  led  her  over  brake  and  brier 

Into  a  lonesome  land. 
"  Oh,  are  they  headstones  all  a-row 

That  glimmer  in  the  vale?" 
"  My  castle-walls  are  white,"  replied 

The  knight  in  silver  mail. 

"  So  close  unto  thy  castle-doors 

Why  buryest  thou  the  dead  ?  " 
"  For  ten  long  years  I  've  slept  with  them : 

Ah,  welcome  home  !  "  he  said. 
He  clasped  her  dainty  waist  around, 

And  in  the  moonlight  pale 
Upraised  his  visor,  and  she  saw 

The  knight  in  silver  mail. 


At  dawn  her  father's  men-at-arms 

Went  searching  everywhere, 
And  found  her  with  the  churchyard  dews 

A-sparkle  in  her  hair. 
And  lo  !  a  sight  to  make  the  best 

And  bravest  of  them  quail, 
Beside  her  in  the  tangled  grass, 

A  skeleton  in  mail. 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 78. 


Minna   Irving. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.* 
TENNESSEE    AND    KENTUCKY. 

BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY   AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO   THE    PRESIDENT. 


HALLECK. 

'N  sending  General  Hunter 
to  relieve  Fremont,  the 
President  did  not  intend 
that  he  should  remain  in 
charge  of  the  Department 
of  the  West.  Out  of  its  vast 
extent  the  Department  of 
Kansas  was  created  a  few 
days  afterward,  embracing  the  State  of  Kan- 
sas, the  Indian  Territory,  and  the  Territories 
of  Nebraska,  Colorado,  and  Dakota,  with  head- 
quarters at  Fort  Leavenworth,  and  Hunter  was 
transferred  to  its  command.  General  Halleck 
was  assigned  to  the  Department  of  the  Mis- 
souri, embracing  the  States  of  Missouri,  Iowa, 
Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Arkansas,  and 
that  portion  of  Kentucky  west  of  the  Cumber- 
land River. 

Henry  Wager  Halleck  was  born  in  Oneida 
County,  New  York,  January  15,  1815.  Edu- 
cated at  Union  College,  he  entered  the  mili- 
tary academy  at  West  Point,  where  he  grad- 
uated third  in  a  class  of  thirty-one,  and 
was  made  second  lieutenant  of  engineers 
July  i,  1839.  While  yet  a  cadet  he  was  em- 
ployed at  the  academy  as  assistant  professor 
of  engineering.  From  the  first  he  devoted 
himself  with  constant  industry  to  the  more 
serious  studies  of  his  profession.  He  had  at- 
tained a  first  lieutenancy  when  the  Mexican 
war  broke  out,  and  was  sent  to  the  Pacific 
coast.  Valuable  services  in  the  military  and 
naval  operations  prosecuted  there  secured  him 
the  brevet  of  captain  from  May  i,  1847.  On 
the  conquest  of  California  by  the  United 
States  forces,  he  took  part  in  the  political  or- 
ganization of  the  new  State,  first  as  Secretary 
of  State  under  the  military  governors,  and 
afterward  as  leading  member  of  the  conven- 
tion which  framed  the  constitution  under  which 
California  was  admitted  to  the  Union. 

He  remained  in  the  army  and  in  charge  of 
various  engineering  duties  on  the  Pacific  coast 
until  August  i,  1854,  having  been  meanwhile 
promoted  captain  of  engineers.  At  that  date 
he  resigned  his  commission  to  engage  in  civil 
pursuits.  He  became  a  member  of  a  law  firm, 
and  was  also  interested  in  mines  and  railroads, 


when  the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion  called  him 
again  into  the  military  service  of  the  Govern- 
ment. He  was  not  only  practically  accom- 
plished in  his  profession  as  a  soldier,  but  also 
distinguished  as  a  writer  on  military  art  and 
science.  Halleck's  high  qualifications  were 
well  understood  and  appreciated  by  General 
Scott,  at  whose  suggestion  he  was  appointed 
a  major-general  in  the  regular  army  to  date 
from  August  19,  1861,  with  orders  to  report 
himself  at  army  headquarters  in  Washington. 
A  phrase  in  one  of  Scott's  letters,  setting  forth 
McClellan's  disregard  for  his  authority,  creates 
the  inference  that  the  old  general  intended  that 
Halleck  should  succeed  him  in  chief  command. 
But  when  the  latter  reached  Washington,  the 
confusion  and  disasters  in  the  Department  of 
the  West  were  at  their  culmination,  and  urgent 
necessity  required  him  to  be  sent  thither  to 
succeed  Fremont. 

General  Halleck  arrived  at  St.  Louis  on 
November  18,  1861,  and  assumed  command 
on  the  igth.  His  written  instructions  stated 
forcibly  the  reforms  he  was  expected  to  bring 
about,  and  his  earlier  reports  indicate  that 
his  difficulties  had  not  been  overstated  —  ir- 
regularities in  contracts,  great  confusion  in 
organization,  everywhere  a  want  of  arms  and 
supplies,  absence  of  routine  and  discipline. 
Added  to  this  was  reported  danger  from  the 
enemy.  He  telegraphs  under  date  of  Novem- 
ber 29: 

I  am  satisfied  that  the  enemy  is  operating  in  and 
against  this  State  with  a  much  larger  force  than  was 
supposed  when  I  left  Washington,  and  also  that  a  gen- 
eral insurrection  is  organizing  in  the  counties  near  the 
Missouri  River,  between  Boonville  and  Saint  Joseph. 
A  desperate  effort  will  be  made  to  supply  and  winter 
their  troops  in  this  State,  so  as  to  spare  their  own  re- 
sources for  a  summer  campaign. 

An  invasion  was  indeed  in  contemplation, 
but  rumor  had  magnified  its  available  strength. 
General  Price  had,  since  the  battle  of  Lexing- 
ton, lingered  in  south-western  Missouri,  and 
was  once  more  preparing  for  a  northward 
march.  His  method  of  campaigning  was 
peculiar,  and  needed  only  the  minimum  of 
organization  and  preparation.  His  troops 
were  made  up  mainly  of  young,  reckless, 
hardy  Missourians,  to  whom  a  campaign  was 


'Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


563 


an  adventure  of  pastime  and  excitement,  and 
who  brought,  each  man,  his  own  horse,  gun, 
and  indispensable  equipments  and  clothing. 
The  usual  burdens  of  an  army  commissariat 
and  transportation  were  of  little  moment  to 
these  partisans,  who  started  up  as  if  by  magic 
from  every  farm  and  thicket,  and  gathered 
their  supplies  wherever  they  went.  To  quote 
the  language  of  one  of  the  Missouri  rebel 
leaders:  "Our  forces,  to  combat  or  cut  them 
off,  would  require  only  a  haversack  to  where 
the  enemy  would  require  a  wagon."  The  evil 
of  the  system  was,  that  such  forces  vanished 
quite  as  rapidly  as  they  appeared.  The  en- 
thusiastic squads  with  which  Price  had  won 
his  victory  at  Lexington  were  scattered  among 
their  homes  and  haunts.  The  first  step  of  a 
campaign,  therefore,  involved  the  gathering 
of  a  new  army,  and  this  proved  not  so  easy 
in  the  opening  storms  of  winter  as  it  had  in 
the  fine  midsummer  weather.  Onjhe  26th 
of  November,  1861,  Price  issued  a  call  for 
50,000  men.  The  language  of  his  proclama- 
tion, however,  breathed  more  of  despair  than 
of  confidence.  He  reminded  his  adherents  that 
only  one  in  forty  had  answered  to  the  former 
call,  and  that  "  Boys  and  small  property- 
holders  have  in  main  fought  the  battles  for 
the  protection  of  your  property."  He  repeated 
many  times,  with  emphasis,  "  I  must  have 
50,000  men."  *  His  prospects  were  far  from 
encouraging.  McCulloch,  in  a  mood  of  stub- 
born disagreement,  was  withdrawing  his  army 
to  Arkansas,  where  he  went  into  winter  quar- 
ters. Later  on,  when  Price  formally  requested 
his  cooperation,  McCulloch  as  formally  re- 
fused. For  the  moment  the  Confederate 
cause  in  south-western  Missouri  was  languish- 
ing. Governor  Jackson  made  a  show  of  keep- 
ing it  alive  by  calling  the  fugitive  remnant 
of  his  rebel  legislature  together  at  Neosho, 
and  with  the  help  of  his  sole  official  relic  — 
the  purloined  State  seal  —  enacting  the  well- 
worn  farce  of  passing  a  secession  ordinance, 
and  making  a  military  league  with  the  Con- 
federate States. 

The  Confederate  Congress  at  Richmond 
responded  to  the  sham  with  an  act  to  admit 
Missouri  to  the  Confederacy.  An  act  of  more 
promise  at  least,  appropriating  a  million  dol- 
lars to  aid  the  Confederate  cause  in  that  State, 
had  been  passed  in  the  preceding  August. 
Such  small  installment  of  this  fund,  however, 
as  was  transmitted  failed  even  to  pay  the 
soldiers,  who  for  their  long  service  had  not 
as  yet  received  a  penny.  In  return  the  Rich- 
mond authorities  asked  the  transfer  of  Mis- 
souri troops  to  the  Confederate  service ;  but 
with  this  request  the  rebel  Missouri  leaders 

*  War  Records. 

t  Davis  to  Jackson,  Jan.  8,  1862.    Ibid. 


were  unable  immediately  to  comply.  When, 
under  date  of  December  30,  1861,  Gov- 
ernor Jackson  complained  of  neglect  and 
once  more  urged  that  Price  be  made  com- 
mander in  Missouri,  Jefferson  Davis  respond- 
ed sarcastically  that  not  a  regiment  had 
been  tendered,  and  that  he  could  not  ap- 
point a  general  before  he  had  troops  for  him.t 
From  all  these  causes  Price's  projected  winter 
campaign  failed,  and  he  attributed  the  failure 
to  McCulloch's  refusal  to  help  him.J 

The  second  part  of  the  rebel  programme 
in  Missouri,  that  of  raising  an  insurrection 
north  of  the  Missouri  River,  proved  more  ef- 
fective. Halleck  was  scarcely  in  command 
when  the  stir  and  agitation  of  depredations 
and  the  burning  of  bridges,  by  small  squads  of 
secessionists  in  disguise,  were  reported  from 
various  counties  of  northern  Missouri.  Fed- 
eral detachments  went  promptly  in  pursuit, 
and  the  perpetrators  as  usual  disappeared, 
only  however  to  break  out  with  fresh  out- 
rages when  quiet  and  safety  had  apparently 
been  restored.  It  was  soon  evident  that  this 
was  not  merely  a  manifestation  of  neighbor- 
hood disloyalty,  but  that  it  was  part  of  a  delib- 
erate system  instigated  by  the  principal  rebel 
leaders.  "  Do  you  intend  to  regard  men," 
wrote  Price  to  Halleck,  January  12,  1862, 
"  whom  I  have  specially  dispatched  to  de- 
stroy roads,  burn  bridges,  tear  up  culverts,  etc., 
as  amenable  to  an  enemy's  court-martial,  or 
will  you  have  them  to  be  tried  as  usual,  by 
the  proper  authorities,  according  to  the  stat- 
utes of  the  State  ?  "  §  Halleck,  who  had  placed 
the  State  under  martial  law,  to  enable  him  to 
deal  more  effectually  with  this  class  of  offend- 
ers, stated  his  authority  and  his  determination, 
with  distinct  emphasis,  in  his  reply  of  January 
22,  1862: 

You  must  be  aware,  general,  that  no  orders  of  yours 
can  save  from  punishment  spies,  marauders,  robbers, 
incendiaries,  guerrilla  bands,  etc.,  who  violate  the  laws 
of  war.  You  cannot  give  immunity  to  crime.  But  let 
us  fully  understand  each  other  on  this  point.  If  you 
send  armed  forces,  wearing  the  garb  of  soldiers  and 
duly  organized  and  enrolled  as  legitimate  belligerents, 
to  destroy  railroads,  bridges,  etc.,  as  a  military  act, 
we  shall  kill  them,  if  possible,  in  open  warfare ;  or,  if 
we  capture  them,  we  shall  treat  them  as  prisoners  of 
war.  But  it  is  well  understood  that  you  have  sent 
numbers  of  your  adherents,  in  the  garb  of  peaceful 
citizens  and  under  false  pretenses,  through  our  lines 
into  northern  Missouri,  to  rob  and  destroy  the  prop- 
erty of  Union  men  and  to  burn  and  destroy  railroad 
bridges,  thus  endangering  the  lives  of  thousands,  and 
this,  too,  without  any  military  necessity  or  possible 
military  advantage.  Moreover,  peaceful  citizens  of 
Missouri,  quietly  working  on  their  farms,  have  been 
instigated  by  your  emissaries  to  take  up  arms  as  in- 
surgents, and  to  rob  and  plunder,  and  to  commit 
arson  and  murder.  They  do  not  even  act  under  the 
garb  of  soldiers,  but  under  false  pretenses  and  in  the 

t  Price  to  Polk,  Dec.  23,  1861.    Ibid. 
$  Price  to  Halleck.    Ibid. 


5*4 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


guise  of  peaceful  citizens.  You  certainly  will  not  pre- 
tend that  men  guilty  of  such  crimes,  although  "  specially 
appointed  and  instructed  by  you,"  are  entitled  to  the 
rights  and  immunities  of  ordinary  prisoners  of  war. 

One  important  effect  which  Price  hoped  to 
produce  by  the  guerrilla  rising  he  was  instigat- 
ing was  to  fill  his  army  with  recruits.  "  The 
most  populous  and  truest  counties  of  the 
State,"  he  wrote,  "  lie  upon  or  north  of  the 
Missouri  River.  ...  I  sent  a  detachment  of 
1 1  oo  men  to  Lexington,  which  after  remain- 
ing only  a  part  of  one  day  gathered  togeth- 
er about  2500  recruits,  and  escorted  them 
in  safety  to  me  at  Osceola."  His  statement 
was  partly  correct,  but  other  causes  contrib- 
uted both  to  this  partial  success  and  the  par- 
tial defeat  that  immediately  followed.  Just  at 
the  time  this  expedition  went  to  Lexington, 
the  various  Federal  detachments  north  of  the 
Missouri  River  were  engaged  in  driving  a 
number  of  secession  guerrilla  bands  south- 
ward across  that  stream.  Halleck  was  di- 
recting the  joint  movements  of  the  Union 
troops,  and  had  stationed  detachments  of 
Pope's  forces  south  of  the  Missouri  River, 
with  the  design  of  intercepting  and  capturing 
the  fugitive  bands.  A  slight  failure  of  some 
of  the  reports  to  reach  him  disconcerted  and 
partly  frustrated  his  design.  The  earliest 
guerrilla  parties  which  crossed  at  and  near 
Lexington  escaped  and  made  their  way  to 
Price,  but  the  later  ones  were  intercepted  and 
captured  as  Halleck  had  planned.  Pope  re- 
ports, September  19: 

Colonel  Davis  came  upon  the  enemy  near  Milford 
late  this  afternoon,  and  having  driven  in  his  pickets 
assaulted  him  in  force.  A  brisk  skirmish  ensued,  when 
the  enemy,  finding  himself  surrounded  and  cut  off, 
surrendered  at  discretion.  One  thousand  three  hundred 
prisoners,  including  3  colonels  and  17  captains,  1000 
stand  of  arms,  looo  horses,  65  wagons,  tents,  baggage, 
and  supplies  have  fallen  into  our  hands.  Our  loss  is  2 
killed  and  8  wounded.* 

On  the  next  day  he  found  his  capture  was 
still  larger,  as  he  telegraphs :  "  Just  arrived 
here.  Troops  much  embarrassed  with  nearly 
2000  prisoners  and  great  quantity  of  captured 
property." 

In  anticipation  of  the  capture  or  dispersion 
of  these  north-western  detachments  of  rebels, 
Halleck  had  directed  the  collection  of  an  army 
at  and  about  Rolla,  with  the  view  to  move  in 
force  against  Price.  General  Samuel  R.  Cur- 
tis was,  on  December  25,  assigned  to  the 
command  of  the  Union  troops  to  operate  in 
the  south-western  district  of  Missouri.  Some 
10,000  men  were  gathered  to  form  his  col- 
umn ;  and  had  he  known  Price's  actual  con- 
dition, the  possibility  of  a  short  and  successful 
campaign  was  before  him.  But  the  situation 

*  Pope  to  Halleck.    War  Records. 


was  also  one  of  difficulty.  The  railroad  ended 
at  Rolla;  Springfield,  the  supposed  location 
of  Price's  camp,  was  a  hundred  and  twenty 
miles  to  the  south-west,  with  bad  roads,  through 
a  mountainous  country.  Rebel  sentiment  and 
sympathy  were  strong  throughout  the  whole 
region,  and  the  favoring  surroundings  enabled 
Price  to  conceal  his  designs  and  magnify  his 
numbers.  Rumors  came  that  he  intended  to 
fight  at  Springfield,  and  the  estimates  of  his 
strength  varied  from  20,000  to  40,000.  The 
greatest  obstacle  to  a  pursuit  was  the  severity 
of  the  winter  weather;  nevertheless  the  Union 
soldiers  bore  their  privations  with  admirable 
patience  and  fortitude,  and  Halleck  urged  a 
continuance  of  the  movement  through  every 
hindrance  and  discouragement.  He  writes  to 
McClellan,  January  14,  1862  : 

I  have  ordered  General  Curtis  to  move  forward, 
with  all  his  infantry  and  artillery.  His  force  will  not 
be  less  than  12,000.  The  enemy  is  reported  to  have 
between  35  and  40  guns.  General  Curtis  has  only  24; 
but  I  send  him  6  pieces  to-morrow,  and  will  send  6 
more  in  a  few  days.  I  also  propose  placing  a  strong  re- 
serve at  Rolla,  which  can  be  sent  forward  if  necessary. 
The  weather  is  intensely  cold,  and  the  troops,  supplied 
as  they  are  with  very  inferior  clothing,  blankets,  and 
tents,  must  suffer  greatly  in  a  winter  campaign,  and  yet 
I  see  no  way  of  avoiding  it.  Unless  Price  is  driven 
from  the  State,  insurrections  will  continually  occur  in 
all  the  central  and  northern  counties,  so  as  to  prevent 
the  withdrawal  of  our  troops. 

A  few  days  later  (January  18)  Halleck 
wrote  to  Curtis  that  he  was  about  to  reen- 
force  him  with  an  entire  division  from  Pope's 
army,  increasing  his  strength  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand; that  he  would  send  him  mittens  for  his 
soldiers : 

Get  as  many  hand-mills  as  you  can  for  grinding 
corn.  .  .  .  Take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  I  will  back 
you  in  such  forced  requisitions  when  they  become  nec- 
essary for  supplying  the  forces.  We  must  have  no 
failure  in  this  movement  against  Price.  It  must  be  the 
last. 

And  once  more,  on  January  27,  he  repeated 
his  urgent  admonition : 

There  is  a  strong  pressure  on  us  for  troops,  and  all 
that  are  not  absolutely  necessary  here  must  go  else- 
where. Pope's  command  is  entirely  broken  up;  4000 
in  Davis's  reserve  and  6ooe  ordered  to  Cairo.  Push 
on  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  end  the  matter  with 
Price. 

This  trying  winter  campaign  led  by  General 
Curtis,  though  successful  in  the  end,  did  not 
terminate  so  quickly  as  General  Halleck  had 
hoped.  Leaving  the  heroic  Western  soldiers 
camping  and  scouting  in  the  snows  and  cut- 
ting winds  of  the  bleak  Missouri  hills  and 
prairies,  attention  must  be  called  to  other  in- 
cidents in  the  Department  of  the  Missouri. 
While  Halleck  was  gratifying  the  Government 
and  the  Northern  public  with  the  ability  and 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


565 


vigor  of  his  measures,  one  point  of  his  admin- 
istration had  excited  a  wide-spread  dissatis- 
faction and  vehement  criticism.  His  military 
instincts  and  methods  were  so  thorough  that 
they  caused  him  to  treat  too  lightly  the  polit- 
ical aspects  of  the  great  conflict  in  which  he 
was  directing  so  large  a  share.  Fremont's  treat- 
ment of  the  slavery  question  had  been  too 
radical ;  Halleck's  now  became  too  conserva- 
tive. It  is  not  probable  that  this  grew  out  of 
his  mere  wish  to  avoid  the  error  of  his  prede- 
cessor, but  out  of  his  own  personal  conviction 
that  the  issue  must  be  entirely  eliminated  from 
the  military  problem.  He  had  noted  the  dif- 
ficulties and  discussions  growing  out  of  the 
dealings  of  the  army  with  fugitive  slaves,  and 
hoping  to  rid  himself  of  a  perpetual  dilemma, 
one  of  his  first  acts  after  assuming  command 
was  to  issue  his  famous  General  Order  No.  3 
(November  20,  1861),  the  first  paragraph  of 
which  ran  as  follows : 

It  has  been  represented  that  important  information 
respecting  the  numbers  and  condition  of  our  forces  is 
conveyed  to  the  enemy  by  means  of  fugitive  slaves 
who  are  admitted  within  our  lines.  In  order  to  rem- 
edy this  evil,  it  is  directed  that  no  such  persons  be 
hereafter  permitted  to  enter  the  lines  of  any  camp  or 
of  any  forces  on  the  march,  and  that  any  now  within 
such  lines  be  immediately  excluded  therefrom." 

This  language  brought  upon  him  the  in- 
dignant protest  of  the  combined  antislavery 
sentiment  of  the  North.  He  was  berated 
in  newspapers  and  denounced  in  Congress, 
and  the  violence  of  public  condemnation 
threatened  seriously  to  impair  his  military 
usefulness.  He  had  indeed  gone  too  far.  The 
country  felt,  and  the  army  knew,  that  so  far 
from  being  generally  true  that  negroes  carried 
valuable  information  to  the  enemy,  the  very 
reverse  was  the  rule,  and  that  the  "  contra- 
bands "  in  reality  constituted  one  of  the  most 
important  and  reliable  sources  of  knowledge 
to  the  Union  commanders  in  the  various  fields, 
which  later  in  the  war  came  to  be  jocosely 
designated  as  the  "  grape-vine  telegraph." 
Halleck  soon  found  himself  put  on  the  de- 
fensive, and  wrote  an  explanatory  letter  to 
the  newspapers.  A  little  later  he  took  occa- 
sion officially  to  define  his  intention  : 

The  object  of  these  orders  is  to  prevent  any  person 
in  the  army  from  acting  in  the  capacity  of  negro-catcher 
or  negro-stealer.  The  relation  between  the  slave  and 
his  master,  or  pretended  master,  is  not  a  matter  to  be 
determined  by  military  officers,  except  in  the  single 
case  provided  for  by  Congress.  This  matter  in  all 
other  cases  must  be  decided  by  the  civil  authorities. 
One  object  in  keeping  fugitive  slaves  out  of  our  camp 
is  to  keep  clear  of  all  such  questions.  .  .  .  Orders 
No.  3  do  not  apply  to  the  authorized  private  servants 
of  officers  nor  the  negroes  employed  by  proper  author- 


'  War  Records. 

t  Halleck  to  Asboth,  Dec.  26,  1861.    Ibid. 


ity  in  the  camps.  It  applies  only  to  fugitive  slaves. 
The  prohibition  to  admit  them  within  our  lines  does 
not  prevent  the  exercise  of  all  proper  offices  of  human- 
ity in  giving  them  food  and  clothing  outside  where 
such  offices  are  necessary  to  prevent  suffering.t 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Missouri 
State  Convention  in  the  month  of  July  ap- 
pointed and  inaugurated  a  provisional  State 
government.  This  action  was  merely  designed 
to  supply  a  temporary  executive  authority  un- 
til the  people  could  elect  new  loyal  State  offi- 
cers, which  election  was  ordered  to  be  held  on 
the  first  Monday  in  November.  The  conven- 
tion also,  when  it  finished  the  work  of  its  sum- 
mer session,  adjourned  to  meet  on  the  third 
Monday  in  December,  1861,  but  political  and 
military  affairs  remained  in  so  unsettled  a  con- 
dition during  the  whole  autumn  that  anything 
like  effective  popular  action  was  impracticable. 
The  convention  was  therefore  called  together 
in  a  third  session  at  an  earlier  date  (October 
1 1, 1 86 1 ),  when  it  wisely  adopted  an  ordinance 
postponing  the  State  election  for  the  period  of 
one  year,  and  for  continuing  the  provisional 
government  in  office  until  their  successors 
should  be  duly  appointed. 

With  his  tenure  of  power  thus  prolonged, 
Governor  Gamble,  also  by  direction  of  the 
convention,  proposed  to  the  President  to 
raise  a  special  force  of  Missouri  State  militia 
for  service  within  the  State  during  the  war 
there,  but  to  act  with  the  United  States  troops 
in  military  operations  within  the  State  or  when 
necessary  to  its  defense.  President  Lincoln 
accepted  the  plan  upon  the  condition  that 
whatever  United  States  officer  might  be  in 
command  of  the  Department  of  the  West 
should  also  be  commissioned  by  the  governor 
to  command  the  Missouri  State  militia ;  and 
that  if  the  President  changed  the  former,  the 
governor  should  make  the  corresponding 
change,  in  order  that  any  conflict  of  authority 
or  of  military  plans  might  be  avoided.  This 
agreement  was  entered  into  between  President 
Lincoln  and  Governor  Gamble  on  November 
6,  and  on  November  27  General  Schofield  re- 
ceived orders  from  Halleck  to  raise,  organize, 
and  command  this  special  militia  corps.  The 
plan  was  attended  with  reasonable  success, 
and  by  the  isth  of  April,  1862,  General  Scho- 
field reports,  "  an  active  efficient  force  of 
13,800  men  was  placed  in  the  field,"  nearly 
all  of  cavalry. 

The  raising  and  organizing  of  this  force, 
during  the  winter  and  spring  of  1861-62, 
produced  a  certain  degree  of  local  military 
activity  just  at  the  season  when  the  partisan 
and  guerrilla  operations  of  rebel  sympathiz- 
ers were  necessarily  impeded  or  wholly  sus- 
pended by  severe  weather;  and  this,  joined  with 
the  vigorous  administration  of  General  Hal- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


566 

leek,  and  the  fact  that  Curtis  was  chasing  the 
army  of  Price  out  of  south-western  Missouri, 
gave  a  delusive  appearance  of  quiet  and  order 
throughout  the  State.  We  shall  see  how  this 
security  was  rudely  disturbed  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1862  by  local  efforts  and  uprisings, 
though  the  rebels  were  not  able  to  bring  about 
any  formidable  campaign  of  invasion,  and  Mis- 


tion  became,  in  the  public  estimation,  rather 
a  sign  of  suspicion  than  an  assurance  of  hon- 
esty and  good  faith.  It  grew  into  one  of  the 
standing  jests  of  the  camps  that  when  a  Union 
soldier  found  a  rattlesnake,  his  comrades 
would  instantly  propose  with  mock  gravity, 
"  Administer  the  oath  to  him,  boys,  and  let 
him  go." 


sjacp^pe- 

:  -  .^$§g% 

X/  /^^'k  ^f-1^ 


or*       J!:^M:^ 


souri  as  a  whole  remained  immovable  in  her 
military  and  political  adherence  to  the  Union. 

With  the  view  still  further  to  facilitate  the 
.  restoration  of  public  peace,  the  State  con- 
vention at  the  same  October  (1861)  session, 
extended  amnesty  to  repentant  rebels  in  an 
ordinance  which  provided  that  any  person 
who  would  make  and  file  a  written  oath  to 
support  the  Federal  and  State  governments, 
declaring  that  he  would  not  take  up  arms 
against  the  United  States,  or  the  provisional 
government  of  Missouri,  nor  give  aid  and 
comfort  to  their  enemies  during  the  present 
civil  war,  should  be  exempt  from  arrest  and 
punishment  for  previous  rebellion. 

Many  persons  doubtless  took  this  oath  and 
kept  it  with  sincere  faith.  But  it  seems  no  less 
certain  that  many  others  who  also  took  it  so 
persistently  violated  both  its  spirit  and  letter 
as  to  render  it  practically  of  no  service  as  an 
external  test  of  allegiance  to  the  Union.  In 
the  years  of  local  hatred  and  strife  which  en- 
sued, oaths  were  so  recklessly  taken  and  so 
willfully  violated  that  the  ceremony  of  adjura- 


THE    TENNESSEE    LINE. 

IN  the  State  of  Kentucky  the  long  game 
of  political  intrigue  came  to  an  end  as  the 
autumn  of  1861  approached.  By  a  change 
almost  as  sudden  as  a  stage  transformation- 
scene,  the  beginning  of  September  brought  a 
general  military  activity  and  a  state  of  quali- 
fied civil  war.  This  change  grew  naturally 
out  of  the  military  condition,  which  was  no 
longer  compatible  with  the  uncertain  and  ex- 
pectant attitude  the  State  had  hitherto  main- 
tained. The  notes  of  preparation  for  i're- 
mont's  campaign  down  the  Mississippi  could 
not  be  ignored.  Cairo  had  become  a  great 
military  post,  giving  the  Federal  forces  who 
held  it  a  strategical  advantage  both  for  de- 
fense and  offense  against  which  the  Confed- 
erates had  no  corresponding  foothold  on  the 
great  river.  The  first  defensive  work  was 
Fort  Pillow,  215  miles  below,  armed  with 
only  twelve  32-pounders.  To  oppose  a  more 
formidable  resistance  to  Fremont's  descent 
was  of  vital  importance,  which  General 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


567 


Folk's  West  Point  education  enabled  him  to 
realize. 

But  the  Mississippi,  with  its  generally  level 
banks,  afforded  relatively  few  points  capable 
of  effective  defense.  The  one  most  favorable 
to  the  Confederate  needs  was  at  Columbus, 
in  the  State  of  Kentucky,  eighteen  miles  be- 
low Cairo,  on  a  high  bluff  commanding  the 
river  for  about  five  miles.  Both  the  Union  and 
Confederate  commanders  coveted  this  situa- 
tion, for  its  natural  advantages  were  such  that 
when  fully  fortified  it  became  familiarly  known 
as  the  "  Gibraltar  of  the  West."  So  far,  through 
the  neutrality  policy  of  Kentucky,  it  had  re- 
mained unappropriated  by  either  side.  On 
the  first  day  of  September,  the  rebel  General 
Polk,  commanding  at  Memphis,  sent  a  mes- 
senger to  Governor  Magoffin  to  obtain  con- 
fidential information  about  the  "  future  plans 
and  policy  of  the  Southern  party  in  Kentucky," 
explaining  his  desire  to  "  be  ahead  of  the  en- 
emy in  occupying  Columbus  and  Paducah." 
Buckner  at  the  same  time  was  in  Richmond, 
proposing  to  the  Confederate  authorities  cer- 
tain military  movements  in  Kentucky,  "in 
advance  of  the  action  of  her  governor."  On 
September  3  they  promised  him,  as  definitely 
as  they  could,  countenance  and  assistance  in 
his  scheme ;  and  a  week  after,  he  accepted  a 
brigadier-general's  commission  from  Jefferson 
Davis.  While  Buckner  was  negotiating,  Gen- 
eral Polk  initiated  the  rebel  invasion  of 
Kentucky.  Whether  upon  information  from 
Governor  Magoffin  or  elsewhere,  he  ordered 
Pillow  with  his  detachment  of  six  thousand 
men  to  move  up  the  river  from  New  Madrid 
and  occupy  the  town  of  Columbus. 

The  Confederate  movement  created  a  gen- 
eral flurry  in  neutrality  circles.  Numerous 
protests  went  to  both  Polk  and  the  Richmond 
authorities,  and  Governor  Harris  hastened  to 
assure  Governor  Magoffin  that  he  was  in  en- 
tire ignorance  of  it,  and  had  appealed  to  Jef- 
ferson Davis  to  order  the  troops  withdrawn. 
Even  the  rebel  Secretary  of  War  was  mysti- 
fied by  the  report,  and  directed  Polk  to  order 
the  troops  withdrawn  from  Kentucky.  Jeffer- 
son Davis  however,  either  with  prior  knowl- 
edge or  with  truer  instinct,  telegraphed  to 
Polk:  "The  necessity  justifies  the  action."* 
In  his  letter  to  Davis,  the  general  strongly 
argued  the  propriety  of  his  course :  "  I  be- 
lieve, if  we  could  have  found  a  respectable 
pretext,  it  would  have  been  better  to  have 
seized  this  place  some  months  ago,  as  I  am 
convinced  we  had  more  friends  then  in  Ken- 
tucky than  we  have  had  since,  and  every  hour's 
delay  made  against  us.  Kentucky  was  fast 

*  Davis  to  Polk,  Sept.  4,  1861.    War  Records, 
t  Davis  to  Polk,  Sept.  15,  1861.    Ibid, 
t  Davis  to  Harris,  Sept.   13,  1861.    Ibid. 


melting  away  under  the  influence  of  the  Lin- 
coln Government."  He  had  little  need  to 
urge  this  view.  Jefferson  Davis  had  already 
written  him,  "We  cannot  permit  the  indeter- 
minate quantities,  the  political  elements,  to 
control  our  action  in  cases  of  military  neces- 
sity";! and  to  Governor  Harris,  "  Security 
to  Tennessee  and  other  parts  of  the  Confed- 
eracy is  the  primary  object.  To  this  all  else 
must  give  way."| 

To  strengthen  further  and  consolidate  the 
important  military  enterprises  thus  begun, 
Jefferson  Davis  now  adopted  a  recommenda- 
tion of  Polk  that 

They  should  be  combined  from  west  to  east  across 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  placed  under  the  direction 
of  one  head,  and  that  head  should  have  large  discre- 
tionary powers.  Such  a  position  is  one  of  very  great 
responsibility,  involving  and  requiring  large  experience 
and  extensive  military  knowledge,  and  I  know  of  no 
one  so  well  equal  to  that  task  as  our  friend  General 
Albert  S.  Johnston. 

Johnston,  with  the  rank  of  general,  was  duly 
assigned,  on  September  10,  to  the  command 
of  Department  No.  2,  covering  in  general  the 
States  of  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  part  of  Missis- 
sippi, Kentucky,  Missouri,  Kansas,  and  the 
Indian  Territory.  Proceeding  at  once  to 
Nashville  and  conferring  with  the  local  au- 
thorities, he  wrote  back  to  Richmond,  under 
date  of  September  16: 

So  far  from  yielding  to  the  demand  for  the  with- 
drawal of  our  troops,  I  have  determined  to  occupy 
Bowling  Green  at  once.  ...  I  design  to-morrow 
(which  is  the  earliest  practicable  moment)  to  take 
possession  of  Bowling  Green  with  five  thousand  troops, 
and  prepare  to  support  the  movement  with  such  force 
as  circumstances  may  indicate  and  the  means  at  my 
command  may  allow. 

The  movement  was  promptly  carried  out. 
Buckner  was  put  in  command  of  the  expedi- 
tion ;  and  seizing  several  railroad  trains,  he 
moved  forward  to  Bowling  Green  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  i8th,  having  sent  ahead  five  hundred 
men  to  occupy  Munfordville,  and  issuing  the 
usual  proclamation,  that  his  invasion  was  a 
measure  of  defense.  Meanwhile  the  third  col- 
umn of  invaders  entered  eastern  Kentucky 
through  Cumberland  Gap.  Brigadier-General 
Zollicoffer  had  eight  or  ten  thousand  men  un- 
der his  command  in  eastern  Tennessee,  but, 
as  elsewhere, much  scattered,  and  badly  armed 
and  supplied.  Under  his  active  supervision, 
during  the  month  of  August  he  somewhat 
improved  the  organization  of  his  forces  and 
acquainted  himself  with  the  intricate  topog- 
raphy of  the  mountain  region  he  was  in. 
Prompted  probably  from  Kentucky,  he  was 
ready  early  in  September  to  join  in  the  com- 
bined movement  into  that  State.  About  the 
loth  he  advanced  with  six  regiments  through 


S68 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Cumberland  Gap  to  Cumberland  Ford,  and 
began  planning  further  aggressive  movements 
against  the  small  Union  force,  principally 
Home  Guards,  which  had  been  collected  and 
organized  at  Camp  Dick  Robinson. 

The  strong  Union  legislature  which  Ken- 
tucky elected  in  August  met  in  Frankfort,  the 
capital,  on  the  2d  of  September.  Polk,  hav- 
ing securely  established  himself  at  Columbus, 
notified  the  governor  of  his  presence,  and  of- 
fered as  his  only  excuse  the  alleged  intention 
of  the  Federal  troops  to  occupy  it.  The  legis- 
lature, not  deeming  the  excuse  sufficient, 
passed  a  joint  resolution  instructing  the  gov- 
ernor "  to  inform  those  concerned  that  Ken- 
tucky expects  the  Confederate  or  Tennessee 
troops  to  be  withdrawn  from  her  soil  uncon- 
ditionally." *  The  governor  vetoed  the  resolu- 
tion, on  the  ground  that  it  did  not  also  embrace 
the  Union  troops;  the  legislature  passed  it 
over  his  veto.  Governor  Magoffin  now  issued 
his  proclamation,  as  directed.  Polk  and  Jeffer- 
son Davis  replied  that  the  Confederate  army 
would  withdraw  if  the  Union  army  would  do 
the  same.  To  this  the  legislature  responded 
with  another  joint  resolution,  that  the  condi- 
tions prescribed  were  an  insult  to  the  dignity 
of  the  State,  "  to  which  Kentucky  cannot  list- 
en without  dishonor,"  and  "that  the  invad- 
ers must  be  expelled."  The  resolution  further 
required  General  Robert  Anderson  to  take  in- 
stant command,  with  authority  to  call  out  a 
volunteer  force,  in  all  of  which  the  governor 
was  required  to  lend  his  aid.  Kentucky  was 
thus  officially  taken  out  of  her  false  attitude 
of  neutrality,  and  placed  in  active  cooperation 
with  the  Federal  Government  to  maintain  the 
Union.  Every  day  increased  the  strength  and 
zeal  of  her  assistance.  A  little  later  in  the  ses- 
sion a  law  was  enacted  declaring  enlistments 
under  the  Confederate  flag  a  misdemeanor 
and  the  invasion  of  Kentucky  by  Confederate 
soldiers  a  felony,  and  prescribing  heavy  pen- 
alties for  both.  Finally,  the  legislature  author- 
ized the  enlistmentof  forty  thousand  volunteers 
to  "  repel  invasion,"  providing  also  that  they 
should  be  mustered  into  the  service  of  the 
United  States  and  cooperate  with  the  armies 
of  the  Union.  This  was  a  complete  revolution 
from  the  anti-coercion  resolutions  that  the  pre- 
vious legislature  had  passed  in  January. 

Hitherto  there  were  no  Federal  forces  in 
Kentucky  except  the  brigade  which  Lieuten- 
ant Nelson  had  organized  at  Camp  Dick 
Robinson  ;  the  Home  Guards  in  various  coun- 
ties, though  supplied  with  arms  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  were  acting  under  State 
militia  laws.  General  Robert  Anderson,  com- 
manding the  military  department  which  em- 
braced Kentucky,  still  kept  his  headquarters 
*  War  Records. 


at  Cincinnati,  and  Rousseau,  a  prominent 
Kentuckian,  engaged  in  organizing  a  brigade 
of  Kentuckians,  had  purposely  made  his  camp 
on  the  Indiana  side  of  the  Ohio  River.  Never- 
theless President  Lincoln,  the  governors  of 
Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  the  various  military 
commanders  had  for  months  been  ready  to  go 
to  the  assistance  of  the  Kentucky  Unionists 
whenever  the  emergency  should  arise.  Even  if 
the  neutral  attitude  of  Kentucky  had  not  been 
brought  to  an  end  by  the  advance  of  the  Con- 
federate forces,  it  would  have  been  by  that  of 
the  Federals.  A  point  had  been  reached  where 
further  inaction  was  impossible.  Three  days 
before  General  Pillow  occupied  Hickman, 
Fremont  sent  General  Grant  to  south-eastern 
Missouri,  to  concentrate  the  several  Federal 
detachments,  drive  out  the  enemy,  and  de- 
stroy a  rumored  rebel  battery  at  Belmont.  His 
order  says  finally,  "  It  is  intended,  in  connec- 
tion with  all  these  movements,  to  occupy  Co- 
lumbus, Kentucky,  as  soon  as  possible."  It 
was  in  executing  a  part  of  this  order  that  the 
gun-boats  sent  to  Belmont  extended  their  re- 
connaissance down  the  river,  and  discovered 
the  advance  of  the  Confederates  on  the  Ken- 
tucky shore.  An  unexpected  delay  in  the 
movement  of  one  of  Grant's  detachments  oc- 
curred at  the  same  rime;  and  that  command- 
er, with  the  military  intuition  whidh  afterward 
rendered  him  famous,  postponed  the  continu- 
ance of  the  local  operations  in  Missouri,  and 
instead  immediately  prepared  an  expedition 
into  Kentucky,  which  became  the  initial  step 
of  his  brilliant  and  fruitful  campaign  in  that 
direction  a  few  months  later.  He  saw  that 
Columbus,  his  primary  objective  point,  was 
lost  for  the  present ;  but  he  also  perceived 
that  another,  of  perhaps  equal  strategical 
value,  yet  lay  within  his  grasp,  though  clearly 
there  was  no  time  to  be  wasted  in  seizing  it. 
The  gun-boat  reconnaissance  on  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  which  revealed  the  rebel  occupa- 
tion of  Kentucky,  was  begun  on  September  4. 
On  the  following  day  General  Grant,  having 
telegraphed  the  information  to  Fremont  and 
to  the  Kentucky  legislature,  hurriedly  organ- 
ized an  expedition  of  2  gun-boats,  1800  men, 
1 6  cannon  for  batteries,  and  a  supply  of  pro- 
visions and  ammunition  on  transports.  Tak- 
ing personal  command,  he  started  with  the 
expedition  from  Cairo  at  midnight  of  the  5th, 
and  proceeded  up  the  Ohio  River  to  the  town 
of  Paducah,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tennessee, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  morning  of  the  6th. 
A  contraband  trade  with  the  rebels,  by  means 
of  small  steamboats  plying  on  the  Tennessee 
and  Cumberland  rivers,  had  called  special  at- 
tention to  the  easy  communication  between  this 
point  and  central  Tennessee.  He  landed  with- 
out opposition  and  took  possession,  making 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


569 


arrangements  to  fortify  and  permanently  hold 
the  place;  having  done  which,  he  himself  re- 
turned to  Cairo  the  same  afternoon,  to  report 
his  advance  and  forward  rel-nforcements.  The 
importance  of  the  seizure  was  appreciated  by 
the  rebels,  for,  on  the  i3th  of  September,  Buck- 
ner wrote  to  Richmond.  "  Our  possession  of 
Columbus  is  already  neutralized  by  that  of 
Paducah." 

Tin-  culmination  of  affairs  in  Kentucky  had 
been  carefully  watched  by  the  authorities  in 
Washington.  From  a  conference  with  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  Anderson  returned  to  Cincin- 
nati on  September  i,  taking  with  him  two 
subordinates  of  exceptional  ability,  Brigadier- 
( ienerals  Sherman  and  Thomas.  A  delegation 
of  prominent  Kentuckians  met  him,  to  set 
forth  the  critical  condition  of  their  State.  He 
dispatched  Sherman  to  solicit  help  from  Fre- 
mont and  the  governors  of  Indiana  and  Illinois, 
and  a  week  later  moved  his  headquarters  to 
Louisville,  also  sending  Thomas  to  Camp 
Dick  Robinson,  to  take  direction  of  affairs  in 
that  quarter.  By  the  time  that  Sherman  re- 
turned from  his  mission  the  crisis  had  already 
developed  itself.  The  appearance  of  Folk's 
forces  at  Columbus,  the  action  of  the  legisla- 
ture, the  occupation  of  Paducah  by  Grant,  and 
the  threatening  rumors  from  Buckner's  camp, 
created  a  high  degree  of  excitement  and  appre- 
hension. On  September  16  Anderson  reported 
Zollicoffer's  invasion  through  Cumberland 
Gap,  upon  which  the  President  telegraphed 
him  to  assume  active  command  in  Kentucky 
at  once.  Added  to  this,  there  came  to 
Louisville  on  the  i8th  the  positive  news  of 
Buckner's  advance  to  Bowling  Green.  This 
information  set  all  central  Kentucky  in  a  mili- 
tary ferment;  for  the  widely  published  an- 
nouncement that  the  State  Guards,  Buckner's 
secession  militia,  would  meet  at  Lexington 
on  September  20,  to  have  a  camp  drill  under 
supervision  of  Breckinridge,  Humphrey  Mar- 
shall, and  other  leaders,  seemed  too  plainly 
coincident  with  the  triple  invasion  to  be  de- 
signed for  a  mere  holiday.  A  rising  at  Lex- 
ington and  a  junction  with  Zollicoffer  might 
end  in  a  march  upon  Frankfort,  the  capital, 
to  disperse  the  legislature;  a  simultaneous 
advance  by  Buckner  in  force  and  capture  of 
Louisville  would,  in  a  brief  campaign,  com- 
plete the  subjugation  of  Kentucky  to  the  re- 
bellion. There  remains  no  record  to  show 
whether  or  not  such  a  plan  was  among  the 
movements,  "  in  advance  of  the  governor's 
action,"  which  Buckner  discussed  with  Jeffer- 
son Davis  on  September  3  at  Richmond. 
The  bare  possibility  roused  the  Unionists  of 
Kentucky  to  vigorous  action.  With  an  evi- 
dent distrust  of  Governor  Magoffin,  a  caucus 
of  the  Union  members  of  the  legislature  as- 
V  >u  XXXVI.— 79. 


sumed  quasi-executive  authority,  and  through 
the  speakers  of  the  two  Houses  requested 
General  Thomas,  at  Camp  Dick  Robinson,  to 
send  a  regiment,  "  fully  prepared  for  fight,"  to 
Lexington  in  advance  of  the  advertised  "  camp 
drill "  of  the  State  Guards ;  also  promising 
that  the  Home  Guards  should  rally  in  force 
to  support  him.  Thomas  ordered  the  move- 
ment, and,  in  spite  of  numerous  obstacles, 
Colonel  Bramlette  brought  his  regiment  to 
the  Lexington  fair  ground  on  the  night  of 
the  igth  of  September.  His  advent  was  so 
sudden  that  he  came  near  making  important 
arrests.  Breckinridge,  Humphrey  Marshall, 
Morgan,  and  other  leaders  were  present,  but, 
being  warned,  fled  in  different  directions,  and 
the  "camp  drill,"  shorn  of  its  guiding  spirits, 
proved  powerless  for  the  mischievous  ends 
which  had  evidently  been  intended. 

At  Louisville,  General  Anderson  lost  no 
time  in  the  effort  to  meet  Buckner's  advance. 
There  were  no  organized  troops  in  the  city, 
but  the  brigade  Rousseau  had  been  collecting 
on  the  Indiana  shore  was  hastily  called  across 
the  river  and  joined  to  the  Louisville  Home 
Guards,  making  in  all  some  2500  men,  who 
were  sent  out  by  the  railroad  towards  Nashville, 
under  the  personal  command  of  Sherman.  An 
expedition  of  the  enemy  had  already  burned 
the  important  railroad  bridges,  apparently, 
however,  with  the  simple  object  of  creating 
delay.  Nevertheless,  Sherman  went  on  and 
occupied  Muldraugh's  Hill,  where  he  was  soon 
reenforced;  for  the  utmost  efforts  had  been 
used  by  the  governors  of  Ohio  and  Indiana 
to  send  to  the  help  of  Kentucky  every  avail- 
able regiment.  If  Buckner  meditated  the  cap- 
ture of  Louisville,  this  show  of  force  caused 
him  to  pause;  but  he  remained  firm  at  Bowling 
Green,  also  increasing  his  army,  and  ready  to 
take  part  in  whatever  movement  events  might 
render  feasible. 

No  serious  or  decisive  conflicts  immediately 
followed  these  various  moves  on  the  military 
chess-board.  For  the  present  they  served 
merely  to  define  the  hostile  frontier.  With 
Polk  at  Columbus,  Buckner  at  Bowling  Green, 
and  Zollicoffer  in  front  of  Cumberland  Gap, 
the  Confederate  frontier  was  practically  along 
the  northern  Tennessee  line.  The  Union 
line  ran  irregularly  through  the  center  of 
Kentucky.  One  direct  result  was  rapidly  to 
eliminate  the  armed  secessionists.  Humphrey 
Marshall,  Breckinridge,  and  others  who  had 
set  up  rebel  camps  hastened  with  their  fol- 
lowers within  the  protection  of  the  Confeder- 
ate line.  Before  further  operations  occurred, 
a  change  of  Union  commanders  took  place. 
The  excitement,  labors,  and  responsibilities 
proved  too  great  for  the  physical  strength  of 
General  Anderson.  Relieved  at  his  own  re- 


57° 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


quest,  on  October  8,  he  relinquished  the 
command  to  General  Sherman,  who  was 
designated  by  General  Scott  to  succeed  him. 
The  new  and  heavy  duties  which  fell  upon 
him  were  by  no  means  to  Sherman's  liking. 
"  I  am  forced  into  the  command  of  this  De- 
partment against  my  will,"  he  wrote.  Look- 
ing at  his  field  with  a  purely  professional  eye, 
the  disproportion  between  the  magnitude  of 
his  task  and  the  immediate  means  for  its  ac- 
complishment oppressed  him  like  a  nightmare. 
There  were  no  troops  in  Kentucky  when  he 
came.  The  recruits  sent  from  other  States 
were  gradually  growing  into  an  army,  but  as 
yet  without  drill,  equipments,  or  organization. 
Kentucky  herself  was  in  a  curious  transition. 
By  vote  of  her  people  and  her  legislature,  she 
had  decided  to  adhere  to  the  Union ;  but  as 
a  practical  incident  of  war,  many  of  her  en- 
ergetic and  adventurous  young  men  drifted  to 
Southern  camps,  while  the  Union  property- 
holders  and  heads  of  families  were  unfit  or 
unwilling  immediately  to  enlist  in  active  ser- 
vice to  sustain  the  cause  they  had  espoused. 
The  Home  Guards,  called  into  service  for  ten 
days,  generally  refused  to  extend  their  term. 
The  arms  furnished  them  became  easily  scat- 
tered, and,  even  if  not  seized  or  stolen  by  young 
secession  recruits  and  carried  to  the  enemy, 
were  with  difficulty  recovered  for  use.  Now 
that  the  General  Government  had  assumed 
command  and  the  State  had  ordered  an  army, 
many  neighborhoods  felt  privileged  to  call  for 
protection  rather  than  furnish  a  quota  for  of- 
fense. Even  where  they  were  ready  to  serve, 
the  enlistment  of  the  State  volunteers,  recently 
authorized  by  the  legislature,  had  yet  scarcely 
begun. 

About  the  middle  of  October,  Mr.  Cameron, 
Secretary  of  War,  returning  from  a  visit  to 
Fremont,  passed  through  Louisville  and  held 
a  military  consultation  with  Sherman.  Gen- 
eral Sherman  writes : 

I  remember  taking  a  large  map  of  the  United  States, 
and  assuming  the  people  of  the  whole  South  to  be  in 
rebellion,  that  our  task  was  to  subdue  them,  showed 
that  McClellan  was  on  the  left,  having  a  frontage  of  less 
than  100  miles,  and  Fremont  the  right,  about  the  same; 
whereas  I,  the  center,  had  from  the  Big  Sandy  to 
Paducah,  over  300  miles  of  frontier ;  that  McClellan 
had  100,000  men,  Fremont  60,000,  whereas  to  me 
had  only  been  allotted  about  18,000.  I  argued  that  for 
the  purpose  of  defense  we  should  have  60,000  men 
at  once,  and  for  offense  would  need  200,000  before  we 
were  done.  Mr.  Cameron,  who  still  lay  on  the  bed, 
threw  up  his  hands  and  exclaimed,  "  Great  God !  where 
are  they  to  come  from  ?  "  I  asserted  that  there  were 
plenty  of  men  at  the  North,  ready  and  willing  to  come 
if  he  would  only  accept  their  services ;  for  it  was  no- 
torious that  regiments  had  been  formed  in  all  the 
North-western  States  whose  services  had  been  refused 
by  the  War  Department,  on  the  ground  that  they  would 
not  be  needed.  We  discussed  all  these  matters  fully, 

*  Sherman,  "  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  203. 


in  the  most  friendly  spirit,and  I  thought  I  had  aroused 
Mr.  Cameron  to  a  realization  of  the  great  war  that 
was  before  us,  and  was  in  fact  upon  us.* 

While  recognizing  many  of  the  needs  which 
Sherman  pointed  out,  the  Secretary  could  not 
immediately  promise  him  any  great  augmen- 
tation of  his  force. 

Complaints  and  requests  of  this  character 
were  constantly  coming  to  the  Administration 
from  all  the  commanders  and  governors,  and 
a  letter  of  President  Lincoln,  written  in  reply 
to  a  similar  strain  of  fault-finding  from  Indiana, 
plainly  indicates  why  such  requirements  in  all 
quarters  could  not  be  immediately  supplied : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Sept.  29,  1861. 

His  EXCELLENCY  Gov.  O.  P.  MORTON:  Your 
letter  by  the  hand  of  Mr.  Prunk  was  received  yester- 
day. I  write  this  letter  because  I  wish  you  to  believe 
of  us  (as  we  certainly  believe  of  you)  that  we  are  do- 
ing the  very  best  we  can.  You  do  not  receive  arms 
from  us  as  fast  as  you  need  them ;  but  it  is  because 
we  have  not  near  enough  to  meet  all  the  pressing 
demands,  and  we  are  obliged  to  share  around  what 
we  have,  sending  the  larger  share  to  the  points  which 
appear  to  need  them  most.  We  have  great  hope  that 
our  own  supply  will  be  ample  before  long,  so  that 
you  and  all  others  can  have  as  many  as  you  need.  I 
see  an  article  in  an  Indianapolis  newspaper  denoun- 
cing me  for  not  answering  your  letter  sent  by  special 
messenger  two  or  three  weeks  ago.  I  did  make  what 
I  thought  the  best  answer  I  could  to  that  letter.  As 
I  remember,  it  asked  for  ten  heavy  guns  to  be  dis- 
tributed with  some  troops  at  Lawrenceburgh,  Madi- 
son, New  Albany,  and  Evansville ;  and  I  ordered  the 
guns  and  directed  you  to  send  the  troops  if  you  had 
them.  As  to  Kentucky,  you  do  not  estimate  that  State 
as  more  important  than  I  do;  but  I  am  compelled 
to  watch  all  points.  While  I  write  this  I  am  if  not 
in  range  at  least  in  hearing  of  cannon  shot,  from  an 
army  of  enemies  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  strong. 
I  do  not  expect  them  to  capture  this  city;  but  I  know 
they  would  if  I  were  to  send  the  men  and  arms  from 
here  to  defend  Louisville,  of  which  there  is  not  a  sin- 
gle hostile  armed  soldier  within  forty  miles,  nor  any 
force  known  to  be  moving  upon  it  from  any  distance. 
It  is  true  the  army  in  our  front  may  make  a  half-cir- 
cle around  southward  and  move  on  Louisville ;  but 
when  they  do,  we  will  make  a  half-circle  around  north- 
ward and  meet  them  ;  and  in  the  mean  time  we  will 
get  up  what  forces  we  can  from  other  sources  to  also 
meet  them. 

I  hope  Zollicoffer  has  left  Cumberland  Gap  (though 
I  fear  he  has  not),  because,  if  he  has,  I  rather  infer  he 
did  it  because  of  his  dread  of  Camp  Dick  Robinson, 
reenforced  from  Cincinnati,  moving  on  him,  than  be- 
cause of  his  intention  to  move  on  Louisville,  But  if  he 
does  go  round  and  reenforce  Buckner,  let  Dick  Rob- 
inson come  round  and  reenforce  Sherman, and  the  thing 
is  substantially  as  it  was  when  Zollicoffer  left  Cum- 
berland Gap.  I  state  this  as  an  illustration  ;  for  in  fact 
I  think  if  the  Gap  is  left  open  to  us  Dick  Robinson 
should  take  it  and  hold  it;  while  Indiana,  and  the 
vicinity  of  Louisville  in  Kentucky,can  reenforce  Sher- 
man faster  than  Zollicoffer  can  Buckner.  .  .  . 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. t 

The  conjectures  of  the  President  proved 
substantially  correct.  Great  as  was  the  need  of 
arms  for  Union  regiments,  the  scarcity  among 
the  rebels  was  much  greater.  Of  the  30,000 

t  Unpublished  MS. 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


57' 


stands  which  Johnston  asked  for  when  he  as- 
sumed command,  the  rebel  War  Department 
could  only  send  him  1000.  Ammunition  and 
supplies  were  equally  wanting.  He  called  out 
50,000  volunteers  from  Tennessee,  Mississippi. 
and  Arkansas,  but  reinforcements  from  this 
and  other  sources  were  slow.  His  greatest 
immediate  help  came  by  transferring  Hardee 
with  his  division  from  Missouri  to  Bowling 
Green.  If,  as  Sherman  surmised,  a  concentra- 
tion of  his  detachments  would  have  enabled 
him  to  make  a  successful  march  on  Louisville, 
he  was  unwilling  to  take  the  risk.  The  contin- 
gency upon  which  the  rebel  invasion  was 
probably  based,  the  expected  rising  in  Ken- 
tucky, had  completely  failed.  Johnston  wrote 
to  Richmond  : 

\Ve  have  received  but  little  accession  to  our  ranks 
since  the  Confederate  forces  crossed  the  line ;  in  fact, 
no  such  enthusiastic  demonstration  as  to  justify  any 
movements  not  warranted  by  our  ability  to  maintain 
our  own  communications.* 

One  of  his  recruiting  brigadiers  wrote : 

The  Kentuckians  still  come  in  small  squads ;  I  have 
induced  the  most  of  them  to  go  in  for  the  war.  This 
requires  about  three  speeches  a  day.  When  thus  stirred 
up  they  go,  almost  to  a  man.  Since  I  have  found  that 
I  can't  be  a  general,  I  have  turned  recruiting  agent 
and  sensation  speaker  for  the  brief  period  that  I  shall 
remain.! 

For  the  present  Johnston's  policy  was  purely 
defensive ;  he  directed  Cumberland  Gap  to 
be  fortified,  and  completed  the  works  at  Co- 
lumbus, "  to  meet  the  probable  flotilla  from  the 
North,  supposed  to  carry  two  hundred  heavy 
guns,"  while  Buckner  was  vigorously  admon- 
ished to  "  Hold  on  to  Bowling  Green."  He 
made  this  order  when  Buckner  had  six  thou- 
sand men;  but  even  when  that  number  was 
doubled,  after  the  arrival  of  Hardee,  Johnston 
was  occupied  with  calculations  for  defense 
and  asking  for  further  reenforcements.J 


LINCOLN    DIRECTS    COOPERATION. 

AT  the  beginning  of  December,  1861,  the 
President  was  forced  to  turn  his  serious  per- 
sonal attention  to  army  matters.  Except  to 
organize,  drill,  and  review  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  to  make  an  unfruitful  reconnaissance 
and  to  suffer  the  lamentable  Ball's  Bluff  dis- 
aster, McClellan  had  nothing  to  show  for  his 
six  months  of  local  and  two  months  of  chief 
command.  The  splendid  autumn  weather, 
the  wholesome  air  and  dry  roads,  had  come 
and  gone.  Rain,  snow,  and  mud,  crippling 
clogs  to  military  movements  in  all  lands  and 

*  War  Records. 

tAlcorn    to  Buckner,  Oct.  21, 1861.    Ibid. 

t  Johnston  to  Cooper,  Oct.  17, 1861.    Ibid. 


epochs,  were  to  be  expected  for  a  quarter  if 
not  for  half  of  the  coming  year.  Worse  than  all, 
McClellan  had  fallen  seriously  ill.  With  most 
urgent  need  of  early  action,  every  prospect 
of  securing  it  seemed  to  be  thus  cut  off.  In 
this  dilemma  Lincoln  turned  to  the  Western 
commanders.  "  General  McClellan  is  sick," 
he  telegraphed  to  Halleck  on  the  last  day  of 
the  year.  "Are  General  Buell  and  yourself  in 
concert?"  The  following  day,  being  New 
Year's,  he  repeated  his  inquiry,  or  rather  his 
prompting  suggestion,  that,  McClellan  being 
incapable  of  work,  Buell  and  Halleck  should 
at  once  establish  a  vigorous  and  hearty  co- 
operation. Their  replies  were  not  specially 
promising.  "  There  is  no  arrangement  between 
General  Halleck  and  myself,"  responded 
Buell,  adding  that  he  depended  on  McClellan 
for  instructions  to  this  end;  while  Halleck 
said,  "  I  have  never  received  a  word  from 
General  Buell.  I  am  not  ready  to  cooperate 
with  him";  adding,  in  his  turn,  that  he  had 
written  to  McClellan,  and  that  too  much 
haste  would  ruin  everything.  Plainly,  there- 
fore, the  military  machine,  both  East  and 
West,  was  not  only  at  a  complete  standstill, 
but  was  without  a  programme. 

Of  what  avail,  then,  were  McClellan's  of- 
fice and  function  of  General-in-Chief,  if  such 
a  contingency  revealed  either  his  incapacity 
or  his  neglect?  The  force  of  this  question  is 
immensely  increased  when  we  see  how  in  the 
same  episode  McClellan's  acts  followed  Lin- 
coln's suggestions.  However  silent  and  con- 
fiding in  the  skill  and  energy  of  his  generals, 
the  President  had  studied  the  military  situa- 
tion with  unremitting  diligence.  In  his  tele- 
gram of  December  31  to  Halleck,  he  started 
a  pregnant  inquiry.  "  When  he  [Buell]  moves 
on  Bowling  Green,  what  hinders  it  being  re- 
enforced  from  Columbus  ? "  And  he  asked 
the  same  question  at  the  same  time  of  Buell. 
Halleck  seems  to  have  had  no  answer  to 
make;  Buell  sent  the  only  reply  that  was 
possible :  "  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  Bowl- 
ing Green  being  reenforced  from  Columbus  if 
a  military  force  is  not  brought  to  bear  on  the 
latter  place." 

Lincoln  was  not  content  to  permit  this  know- 
nothing  and  do-nothing  policy  to  continue.  "  I 
have  just  been  with  General  McClellan,  and  he 
is  much  better,"  he  wrote  the  day  after  New 
Year's;  and  in  this  interview  the  necessity 
for  action  and  the  telegrams  from  the  Western 
commanders  were  fully  discussed,  as  becomes 
evident  from  the  fact  that  the  following  day 
McClellan  wrote  a  letter  to  Halleck  containing 
an  earnest  suggestion  to  remedy  the  neglect  and 
need  pointed  out  by  Lincoln's  dispatch  of  De- 
cember3i.  In  this  letter  McClellan  advised  an 
expedition  up  the  Cumberland  River,  a  dem- 


572 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


onstration  on  Columbus,  and  a  feint  on  the 
Tennessee  River,  all  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting reinforcements  from  joining  Buckner 
and  Johnston  at  Bowling  Green,  whom  Buell 
was  preparing  to  attack. 

Meanwhile  Lincoln's  dispatch  of  inquiry 
had  renewed  the  attention,  and  perhaps 
aroused  the  ambition,  of  Buell.  He  and  Hal- 
leek  had,  after  Lincoln's  prompting,  inter- 
changed dispatches  about  concerted  action. 
Halleck  reported  a  withdrawal  of  troops  from 
Missouri  "almost  impossible";  to  which  Buell 
replied  that  "  the  great  power  of  the  rebell- 
ion in  the  West  is  arrayed  "  on  a  line  from 
Columbus  to  Bowling  Green,  and  that  two 
gun-boat  expeditions  with  a  support  of  20,000 
men  should  attack  its  center  by  way  of  the 
Cumberland  and  Tennessee  rivers,  and  that 
"  whatever  is  done  should  be  done  speedily, 
within  a  few  days."  Halleck,  however,  did 
not  favorably  entertain  the  proposition.  His 
reply  discussed  an  altogether  different  ques- 
tion. He  said  it  would  be  madness  for  him 
with  his  forces  to  attempt  any  serious  opera- 
tion against  Camp  Beauregard  or  Columbus ; 
and  that  if  BuelPs  Bowling  Green  movement 
required  his  help  it  ought  to  be  delayed  a 
few  weeks,  when  he  could  probably  furnish 
some  troops.  Leaving  altogether  unanswered 
BuelPs  suggestion  for  the  movement  up  the 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee,  Halleck 
stated  his  strong  disapproval  of  the  Bowling 
Green  movement,  and  on  the  same  day  he 
repeated  these  views  a  little  more  fully  in 
a  letter  to  the  President.  Premising  that  he 
could  not  at  the  present  time  withdraw  any 
troops  from  Missouri,  "  without  risking  the 
loss  of  this  State,"  he  said : 

I  know  nothing  of  General  Buell's  intended  oper- 
ations, never  having  received  any  information  in  regard 
to  the  general  plan  of  campaign.  If  it  be  intended 
that  his  column  shall  move  on  Bowling  Green  while 
another  moves  from  Cairo  or  Paducah  on  Columbus 
or  Camp  Beauregard,  it  will  be  a  repetition  of  the 
same  strategic  error  which  produced  the  disaster  of 
Bull  Run.  To  operate  on  exterior  lines  against  an 
enemy  occupying  a  central  position  will  fail,  as  it 
always  has  failed,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun- 
dred. It  is  condemned  by  every  military  authority  I 
have  ever  read.  General  Buell's  army  and  the  forces 
at  Paducah  occupy  precisely  the  same  position  in  re- 
lation to  each  other  and  to  the  enemy  as  did  the  armies 
of  McDowell  and  Patterson  before  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run. 

Lincoln,  finding  in  these  replies  but  a  con- 
tinuation of  not  only  the  system  of  delay,  but 
also  the  want  of  plans,  and  especially  of 
energetic  joint  action,  which  had  thus  far  in 
a  majority  of  cases  marked  the  operations  of 
the  various  commanders,  was  not  disposed 
further  to  allow  matters  to  remain  in  such  un- 
fruitful conditions.  Under  his  prompting  Mc- 
Clellan,  on  this  same  6th  of  January,  wrote  to 


Buell, "  Halleck,  from  his  own  account,  will  not 
soon  be  in  a  condition  to  support  properly  a 
movement  up  the  Cumberland.  Why  not 
make  the  movement  independently  of  and 
without  waiting  for  that  ?  "  And  on  the  next 
day  Lincoln  followed  this  inquiry  with  a  still 
more  energetic  monition :  "  Please  name  as 
early  a  day  as  you  safely  can,  on  or  before 
which  you  can  be  ready  to  move  southward 
in  concert  with  Major-General  Halleck.  Delay 
is  ruining  us,  and  it  is  indispensable  for  me  to 
have  something  definite.  I  send  a  like  dis- 
patch to  Major-General  Halleck."  This  some- 
what peremptory  order  seems  to  have  brought 
nothing  except  a  reply  from  Halleck :  "  I  have 
asked  General  Buell  to  designate  a  day  for  a 
demonstration  to  assist  him.  It  is  all  I  can 
do  till  I  get  arms."  Three  days  later,  Halleck's 
already  quoted  letter  of  the  6th  reached  Wash- 
ington by  mail,  and  after  its  perusal  the  Presi- 
dent indorsed  upon  it,  with  a  heart-sickness 
easily  discernible  in  the  words,  "  The  within 
is  a  copy  of  a  letter  just  received  from  General 
Halleck.  It  is  exceedingly  discouraging.  As 
everywhere  else,  nothing  can  be  done." 

Nevertheless,  something  was  being  done  : 
very  little  at  the  moment,  it  is  true,  but  enough 
to  form  the  beginning  of  momentous  results. 
On  the  same  day  on  which  Halleck  had  writ- 
ten the  discouraging  letter  commented  upon 
above  by  the  President,  he  had  also  transmit- 
ted to  Grant  at  Cairo  the  direction,  "  I  wish 
you  to  make  a  demonstration  in  force  on  May- 
field  and  in  the  direction  of  Murray."  The  ob- 
ject was,  as  he  further  explained,  to  prevent 
reinforcements  being  sent  to  Buckner  at 
Bowling  Green.  He  was  to  threaten  Camp 
Beauregard  and  Murray,  to  create  the  im- 
pression that  not  only  was  Dover  (Fort  Don- 
elson)  to  be  attacked,  but  that  a  great  army 
to  be  gathered  in  the  West  was  to  sweep  down 
towards  Nashville,  his  own  column  being 
merely  an  advance  guard.  Commodore  Foote 
was  to  assist  by  a  gun-boat  demonstration. 
"  Be  very  careful,  however,"  added  Halleck, 
"  to  avoid  a  battle ;  we  are  not  ready  for  that ; 
but  cut  off  detached  parties  and  give  your  men 
a  little  experience  in  skirmishing." 

If  Halleck's  order  for  a  demonstration 
against  Mayfield  and  Murray,  creating  an  in- 
direct menace  to  Columbus  and  Dover,  had 
gone  to  an  unwilling  or  negligent  officer,  he 
could  have  found  in  his  surrounding  con- 
ditions abundant  excuses  for  evasion  or  non- 
compliance.  There  existed  at  Cairo,  as  at 
every  other  army  post,  large  or  small,  lack  of 
officers,  of  organization,  of  arms,  of  equip- 
ments, of  transportation,  of  that  multitude  of 
things  considered  necessary  to  the  efficiency 
of  moving  troops.  But  in  the  West  the  sud- 
den increase  of  armies  brought  to  command, 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


573 


and  to  direction  and  management,  a  large 
proportion  of  civilians,  lacking  methodical  in- 
struction and  experience,  which  was  without 
question  a  serious  defect,  but  which  left  them 
free  to  invent  and  to  adopt  whatever  expedi- 
ents circumstances  might  suggest,  or  which 
rendered  them  satisfied,  and  willing  to  enter 
upon  undertakings  amidst  a  want  of  prepara- 
tion and  means  that  better  information  might 
have  deemed  indispensable. 

The  detailed  reports  and  orders  of  the  ex- 
pedition we  are  describing  clearly  indicate 
these  latter  characteristics.  We  learn  from 
them  that  the  weather  was  bad,  the  roads 
heavy,  the  quartermaster's  department  and 
transportation  deficient,  and  the  gun-boats 
without  adequate  crews.  Yet  nowhere  does 
it  appear  that  these  things  were  treated  as  im- 
pediments. Halleck's  instructions  dated  Janu- 
ary 6  were  received  by  Grant  on  the  morning 
of  the  8th,  and  his  answer  was  that  immediate 
preparations  were  being  made  for  carrying 
them  out,  and  that  Commodore  Foote  would 
cooperate  with  three  gun-boats.  "The  con- 
tinuous rains  for  the  last  week  or  more,"  says 
Grant,  "  have  rendered  the  roads  extremely 
bad,  and  will  necessarily  make  our  move- 
ment slow.  This  however  will  operate  worse 
upon  the  enemy,  if  he  should  come  out  to 
meet  us,  than  upon  us."  The  movement  began 
on  the  evening  of  January  9,  and  its  main 
delay  occurred  through  Halleck's  orders.  It 
was  fully  resumed  on  the  i2th.  Brigadier- 
General  McClernand,  with  five  thousand 
men,  marched  southward,  generally  parallel 
to  the  Mississippi  River,  to  Mayfield,  midway 
between  Fort  Henry  and  Columbus,  and 
pushed  a  reconnaissance  closely  up  to  the 
latter  place.  Brigadier-General  Smith,  start- 
ing from  Paducah,  marched  a  strong  column 
southward,  generally  parallel  to  the  Tennessee 
River,  to  Galloway,  near  Fort  Henry.  Foote 
and  Grant,  with  three  gun-boats,  two  of  them 
new  iron-clads,  ascended  the  Tennessee  to 
Fort  Henry,  drew  the  fire  of  the  fort,  and 
threw  several  shells  into  the  works.  It  is  need- 
less to  describe  the  routes,  the  precautions,  the 
marching  and  counter-marching  to  mystify  the 
enemy.  While  the  rebels  were  yet  expecting  a 
further  advance,  the  several  detachments  were 
already  well  on  their  return.  "The  expedi- 
dition,"  says  Grant,  "if  it  had  no  other  effect, 
served  as  a  fine  reconnaissance."  But  it  had 
more  positive  results.  Fort  Henry  and  Co- 
lumbus were  thoroughly  alarmed  and  drew  in 
their  outposts,  while  the  Union  forces  learned 
from  inspection  that  the  route  offered  a  feasi- 
ble line  of  march  to  attack  and  invest  Colum- 
bus, and  demonstrated  the  inherent  weakness 
and  vulnerability  of  Fort  Henry.  This,  be  it 
remembered,  was  done  with  raw  forces  and 


without  preparation,  but  with  officers  and 
men  responding  alike  promptly  to  every  or- 
der and  executing  their  task  more  than  cheer- 
fully, even  eagerly,  with  such  means  as  were 
at  hand  when  the  order  came.  "The  recon- 
naissance thus  made,"  reports  McClernand, 
"completed  a  march  of  140  miles  by  the  cav- 
alry, and  75  miles  by  the  infantry,  over  icy 
or  miry  roads,  during  a  most  inclement 
season."  He  further  reports  that  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  "  prevented  me  from  tak- 
ing, on  leaving  Cairo,  the  five-days'  supply  of 
rations  and  forage  directed  by  the  command- 
ing officer  of  this  district ;  hence  the  necessity 
of  an  early  resort  to  other  sources  of  supply. 
None  other  presented  but  to  quarter  upon  the 
enemy  or  to  purchase  from  loyal  citizens.  I 
accordingly  resorted  to  both  expedients  as  I 
had  opportunity." 

Lincoln's  prompting  did  not  end  with  merely 
having  produced  this  reconnaissance.  The  Pres- 
ident's patience  was  well-nigh  exhausted ;  and 
while  his  uneasiness  drove  him  to  no  act  of 
rashness,  it  caused  him  to  repeat  his  admoni- 
tions and  suggestions.  In  addition  to  his  tel- 
egrams and  letters  to  the  Western  commanders 
between  December  31  and  January  6,  he 
once  more  wrote  to  both,  on  January  13,  to 
point  out  how  advantage  might  be  taken  of 
the  military  condition  as  it  then  existed.  Hal- 
leek  had  emphasized  the  danger  of  moving 
on  "  exterior  lines,"  and  insisted  that  it  was 
merely  repeating  the  error  committed  at  Bull 
Run  and  would  as  inevitably  produce  disas- 
ter. Lincoln  in  his  letter  shows  that  the  de- 
feat at  Bull  Run  did  not  result  from  move- 
ment on  exterior  lines,  but  from  failure  to  use 
exterior  lines  with  judgment  and  concert ;  and 
he  further  illustrated  how  the  Western  armies 
might  now,  by  judicious  cooperation,  secure 
important  military  results. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  *  Your  dispatch  of  yesterday  is 
received,  in  which  you  say,  "  I  have  received  your 
letter  and  General  McClellan's,  and  will  at  once 
devote  all  my  efforts  to  your  views  and  his."  In  the 
midst  of  my  many  cares  I  have  not  seen  nor  asked 
to  see  General  McClellan's  letter  to  you.  For  my 
own  views,  I  have  not  offered,  and  do  not  now  offer, 
them  as  orders ;  and  while  I  am  glad  to  have  them 
respectfully  considered,  I  would  blame  you  to  follow 
them  contrary  to  your  own  clear  judgment,  unless 
I  should  put  them  in  the  form  of  orders.  As  to 
General  McClellan's  views,  you  understand  your  duty 
in  regard  to  them  better  than  I  do.  With  this  pre- 
liminary, I  state  my  general  idea  of  this  war  to  be,  that 
we  have  the  greater  numbers,  and  the  enemy  has  the 
greater  facility  of  concentrating  forces  upon  points  of 
collision ;  that  we  must  fail  unless  we  can  find  some 
way  of  making  our  advantage  an  overmatch  for  his ; 
and  that  this  can  only  be  done  by  menacing  him  with 
superior  forces  at  different  points  at  the  same  time,  so 
that  we  can  safely  attack  one  or  both  if  he  makes  no 


*  This  letter  was  addressed  to  Buell,  but  a  copy  of 
it  was  also  sent  to  Halleck.    [War  Records.] 


574 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


change;  and  if  he  weakens  one  to  strengthen  the  other, 
forbear  to  attack  the  strengthened  one,  but  seize  and 
hold  the  weakened  one,  gaining  so  much.  To  illus- 
trate :  Suppose  last  summer,  when  Winchester  ran 


lose  confidence  in  McDowell,  and  I  think  less  harshly 
of  Patterson  than  some  others  seem  to.  In  application 
of  the  general  rule  I  am  suggesting,  every  particular 
case  will  have  its  modifying  circumstances,  among 
which  the  most  constantly  present  and  most  difficult 
to  meet  will  be  the  want  of  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
enemy's  movements.  This  had  its  part  in  the  Bull 
Run  case ;  but  worse  in  that  case  was  the  expiration 
of  the  terms  of  the  three-months'  men.  Applying  the 
principle  to  your  case,  my  idea  is  that  Halleck  shall 
menace  Columbus  and  "down  river"  generally,  while 
you  menace  Bowling  Green  and  east  Tennessee.  If 
the  enemy  shall  concentrate  at  Bowling  Green  do  not 
retire  from  his  front,  yet  do  not  fight  him  there  either ; 
but  seize  Columbus  and  east  Tennessee,  one  or  both,  left 
exposed  by  the  concentration  at  Bowling  Green.  It 
is  a  matter  of  no  small  anxiety  to  me,  and  one  which 
I  am  sure  you  will  not  overlook,  that  the  east  Tennes- 
see line  is  so  long  and  over  so  bad  a  road. 

Buell  made  no  reply  to  this  letter  of  Lin- 
coln's; but  Halleck  sent  an  indirect  answer 
a  week  later,  in  a  long  letter  to  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  under  date  of  January  20.  The  com- 
munication is  by  no  means  a  model  of  corre- 
spondence when  we  rememberthat  it  emanates 
from  a  trained  writer  upon  military  science. 
It  is  long  and  somewhat  rambling;  it  finds 
fault  with  politics  and  politicians  in  war,  in 
evident  ignorance  of  both  politics  and  poli- 
ticians. It  charges  that  past  want  of  success 
"  is  attributable  to  the  politicians  rather  than 
to  the  generals,"  in  plain  contradiction  of  the 
actual  facts.  It  condemns  "pepper-box  strat- 
egy," and  recommends  detached  operations 
in  the  same  breath.  The  more  noticeable 
point  of  the  letter  is  that,  while  reiterating 
that  the  General-in-Chief  had  furnished  no 
general  plan,  and  while  the  principal  com- 
manders had  neither  unity  of  views  nor  con- 
cert of  action,  it  ventures,  though  somewhat 
feebly,  to  recommend  a  combined  system  of 
operations  for  the  West.  Says  Halleck,  in  this 
letter: 

The  idea  of  moving  down  the  Mississippi  by  steam 
is,  in  my  opinion,  impracticable,  or  at  least  premature. 
It  is  not  a  proper  line  of  operations,  at  least  now.  A 
much  more  feasible  plan  is  to  move  up  the  Cumberland 
and  Tennessee,  making  Nashville  the  first  objective 
point.  This  would  turn  Columbus  and  force  the  aban- 
donment of  Bowling  Green.  .  .  .  This  line  of  the 
Cumberland  or  Tennessee  is  the  great  central  line  of  the 
western  theater  of  war,  with  the  Ohio  below  the  moutli 
of  Green  River  as  the  base,  and  two  good  navigable 
rivers  extending  far  into  the  interior  of  the  theater  of 
operations.  But  the  plan  should  not  be  attempted  with- 
out a  large  force — not  less  than  60,000  effective  men. 

The  idea  was  by  no  means  new.  Buell  had 
tentatively  suggested  it  to  McClellan  as  early 
as  November  27;  McClellan  had  asked  fur- 
ther details  about  it  December  5 ;  Buell  had 


again  specifically  elaborated  it,  "  as  the  most 
important  strategical  point  in  the  whole  field 
of  operations,"  to  McClellan  on  December 
29,  and  as  the  "  center "  of  the  rebellion 
front  in  the  West,  to  Halleck  on  January  3. 
Yet,  recognizing  this  line  as  the  enemy's 
chief  weakness,  McClellan  at  Washington. 
Buell  at  Louisville,  and  Halleck  at  St.  Louis,- 
holding  the  President's  unlimited  trust  and 
authority,  had  allowed  nearly  two  months 
to  elapse,  directing  the  Government  power  to 
other  objects,  to  the  neglect,  not  alone  of 
military  success,  but  of  plans  of  cooperation, 
of  counsel,  of  intention  to  use  this  great  and 
recognized  military  advantage,  until  the  coun- 
try was  fast  losing  confidence  and  even  hope. 
Even  now  Halleck  did  not  propose  immedi- 
ately to  put  his  theory  into  practice.  Like 
Buell,  he  was  calling  for  more  troops  for  the 
"  politicians "  to  supply.  It  is  impossible  to 
guess  when  he  might  have  been  ready  to 
move  on  his  great  strategic  line,  if  subordi- 
nate officers,  more  watchful  and  enterprising, 
had  not  in  a  measure  forced  the  necessity 
upon  his  attention. 

GRANT   AND   THOMAS   IN    KENTUCKY. 

IN  the  early  stage  of  military  organization 
in  the  West,  when  so  many  volunteer  col- 
onels were  called  to  immediate  active  duty  in 
the  field,  the  West  Point  education  of  Grant 
and  his  practical  campaign  training  in  the 
Mexican  war  made  themselves  immediately 
felt  and  appreciated  at  the  department  head- 
quarters. His  usefulness  and  superiority  were 
at  once  evident  by  the  clearness  and  brevity 
of  his  correspondence,  the  correctness  of  rou- 
tine reports  and  promptness  of  their  transmis- 
sion, the  pertinence  and  practical  quality  of 
his  suggestions,  the  readiness  and  fertility  of 
expedient  with  which  he  executed  orders. 
Any  one  reading  over  his  letters  of  this  first 
period  of  his  military  service  is  struck  by  the 
fact  that  through  him  something  was  always 
accomplished.  There  was  absence  of  excuse, 
complaint,  or  delay ;  always  the  report  of 
a  task  performed.  If  his  means  or  supplies 
were  imperfect,  he  found  or  improvised  the 
best  available  substitute ;  if  he  could  not  exe- 
cute the  full  requirement,  he  performed  so 
much  of  it  as  was  possible.  He  always  had 
an  opinion,  and  that  opinion  was  positive,  in- 
telligible, practical.  We  find  therefore  that 
his  allotted  tasks  from  the  very  first  rose 
continually  in  importance.  He  gained  in 
authority  and  usefulness,  not  by  solicitation 
or  intrigue,  but  by  services  rendered.  He  was 
sent  to  more  and  more  difficult  duties,  to  larger 
supervision,  to  heavier  responsibilities.  From 
guarding  a  station  at  Mexico  on  the  North 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


575 


Missouri  railroad,  to  protecting  a  railroad 
terminus  at  Ironton  in  south-east  Missouri ; 
from  there  to  brief  inspection  duty  at  Jeffer- 
son City,  then  to  the  command  of  the  military 
district  of  south-east  Missouri;  finally  to  the 
command  of  the  great  military  depot  and 
rendezvous  at  Cairo,  Illinois,  with  its  several 
outlying  posts  and  districts,  and  the  supervis- 
ion of  its  complicated  details  about  troops, 
arms,  and  supplies  to  be  collected  and  for- 
warded in  all  directions, — clearly  it  was  not 
chance  which  brought  him  to  such  duties, 
but  his  fitness  to  perform  them.  It  was  from 
the  vantage  ground  of  this  enlarged  com- 
mand that  he  had  checkmated  the  rebel  oc- 
cupation of  Columbus,  by  immediately  seizing 
Paducah  and  Southland.  And  from  Cairo 
also  he  organized  and  led  his  first  experiment 
in  field  fighting,  at  what  is  known  as  the  bat- 
tle of  Belmont. 

Just  before  Fr6mont  was  relieved,  and  while 
he  was  in  the  field  in  nominal  pursuit  of  Price, 
he  had  ordered  Grant  to  clear  south-eastern 
Missouri  of  guerrillas,  with  the  double  view 
of  restoring  local  authority  and  preventing 
reinforcements  to  Price.  Movements  were 
in  progress  to  this  end  when  it  became  ap- 
parent that  the  rebel  stronghold  at  Columbus 
was  preparing  to  send  out  a  column. 

Grant  organized  an  expedition  to  counter- 
act this  design,  and  on  the  evening  of  No- 
vember 6  left  Cairo  with  about  3000  men 
on  transports,  under  convoy  of  2  gun-boats, 
and  steamed  down  the  river.  Upon  informa- 
tion gained  while  on  his  route,  he  determined 
to  break  up  a  rebel  camp  at  Belmont  Land- 
ing, on  the  Missouri  shore  opposite  Columbus, 
as  the  best  means  of  making  his  expedition 
effective.  On  the  morning  of  the  7th  he  had 
landed  his  troops  at  Hunter's  Point,  three 
miles  above  Belmont,  and  marched  to  a  favor- 
able place  for  attack  .back  of  the  rebel  en- 
campment, which  was  situated  in  a  large  open 
field  and  was  protected  on  the  land  side  by  a 
line  of  abatis.  By  the  time  Grant  reached 
his  position  the  rebel  camp,  originally  con- 
sisting of  a  single  regiment,  had  been  ree'n- 
forced  by  four  regiments  under  General  Pillow, 
from  Columbus.  A  deliberate  battle,  with  about 
equal  forces,  ensued.  Though  the  Confederate 
line  courageously  contested  the  ground,  the 
Union  line,  steadily  advancing,  swept  the  reb- 
els back,  penetrating  the  abatis  and  gaining 
the  camp  of  the  enemy,  who  took  shelter  in 
disorder  under  the  steep  river-bank.  Grant's 
troops  had  gained  a  complete  and  substantial 
victory,  but  they  now  frittered  it  away  by  a 
disorderly  exultation,  and  a  greedy  plunder 
of  the  camp  they  had  stormed.  The  record 
does  not  show  who  was  responsible  for  the 
unmilitary  conduct,  but  it  quickly  brought  its 


retribution.  Before  the  Unionists  were  aware 
of  it,  General  Polk  had  brought  an  additional 
reenforcement  of  several  regiments  across 
the  river  and  hurriedly  marched  them  to  cut 
off  the  Federal  retreat,  which,  instead  of  an 
orderly  march  from  the  battle-field,  became  a 
hasty  scramble  to  get  out  of  danger.  Grant 
himself,  unaware  that  the  few  companies  left 
as  a  guard  near  the  landing  had  already  em- 
barked, remained  on  shore  to  find  them,  and 
encountered  instead  the  advancing  rebel  line. 
Discovering  his  mistake,  he  rode  back  to  the 
landing,  where  "  his  horse  slid  down  the 
river-bank  on  its  haunches  and  trotted  on 
board  a  transport  over  a  plank  thrust  out  for 
him."  *  Belmont  was  a  drawn  battle ;  or, 
rather,  it  was  first  a  victory  for  the  Federals 
and  then  a  victory  for  the  Confederates.  The 
courage  and  the  loss  were  nearly  equal :  79 
killed  and  289  wounded  on  the  Union  side; 
105  killed  and  419  wounded  on  the  Confed- 
erate side. 

Brigadier- General  McClernand,  second  in 
command  in  the  battle  of  Belmont,  was  a  fel- 
low-townsman of  the  President,  and  to  him 
Lincoln  wrote  the  following  letter  of  thanks 
and  encouragement  to  the  troops  engaged  v 

This  is  not  an  official  but  a  social  letter.  You  have 
had  a  battle,  and  without  being  able  to  judge  as  to  the 
precise  measure  of  its  value,  I  think  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  you,  and  all  with  you,  have  done  honor  to  your- 
selves and  the  flag,  and  service  to  the  country.  Most 
gratefully  do  I  thank  you  and  them.  In  my  present 
position,  I  must  care  for  the  whole  nation  ;  but  I  hope 
it  will  be  no  injustice  to  any  other  State  for  me  to  in- 
dulge a  little  home  pride,  that  Illinois  does  not  disap- 
point us.  I  have  just  closed  a  long  interview  with  Mr. 
Washburne,  in  which  he  has  detailed  the  many  diffi- 
culties you  and  those  with  you  labor  under.  Be  as- 
sured, we  do  not  forget  or  neglect  you.  Much,  very 
much,  goes  undone  ;  but  it  is  because  we  have  not  the 
power  to  do  it  faster  than  we  do.  Some  of  your  forces 
are  without  arms;  but  the  same  is  true  here,  and  at 
every  other  place  where  we  have  considerable  bodies 
of  troops.  The  plain  matter-of-fact  is,  our  good  peo- 
ple have  rushed  to  the  rescue  of  the  Government  faster 
than  the  Government  can  find  arms  to  put  into  their 
hands.  It  would  be  agreeable  to  each  division  of  the 
army  to  know  its  own  precise  destination  ;  but  the 
Government  cannot  immediately,  nor  inflexibly  at  any 
time,  determine  as  to  all;  nor,  if  determined,  can  it  tell 
its  friends  without  at  the  same  time  telling  its  enemies. 
We  know  you  do  all  as  wisely  and  well  as  yon  can  ;  and 
you  will  not  be  deceived  if  you  conclude  the  same  is 
true  of  us.  Please  give  my  respects  and  thanks  to  all.t 

Belmont  having  been  a  mere  episode,  it 
drew  after  it  no  further  movement  in  that  di- 
rection. Grant  and  his  command  resumed 
their  routine  work  of  neighborhood  police  and 
observation.  Buelland  Halleck,  both  coming 
to  their  departments  as  new  commanders 
shortly  afterward,  were  absorbed  with  diffi- 
culties at  other  points.  Secession  was  not  yet 

*  Force,  "  From  Fort  Henry  to  Corinth,"  p.  23. 
t  Lincoln  to  McClernand,  Nov.  10,  1861.    Unpub- 
lished MS. 


576 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


quieted  in  Kentucky.  The  Union  troops  at 
Cairo,  Paducah,  Smithland,  and  other  river 
towns  yet  stood  on  the  defensive,  fearing  rebel 
attack  rather  than  preparing  to  attack  rebels. 
Columbus  and  Bowling  Green  were  the  prin- 
cipal Confederate  camps,  and  attracted  and 
received  the  main  attention  from  the  Union 
commanders. 

The  first  noteworthy  occurrence  following 
Belmont,  as  well  as  the  beginning  of  the  suc- 
cession of  brilliant  Union  victories  which  dis- 
tinguished the  early  months  of  the  year  1862, 
was  the  battle  of  Mill  Springs,  in  eastern 
Kentucky.  It  had  been  the  earnest  desire  of 
President  Lincoln  that  a  Union  column  should 
be  sent  to  seize  and  hold  east  Tennessee,  and 
General  McClellan  had  urged  such  movement 
upon  General  Buell  in  several  dispatches  al- 
most peremptory  in  their  tone.  At  first  Buell 
seemed  to  entertain  the  idea  and  promised 
compliance;  but  as  his  army  increased  in 
strength  and  discipline  his  plans  and  hopes 
centered  themselves  in  an  advance  against 
Bowling  Green,  with  the  design  to  capture 
Nashville.  General  Thomas  remained  posted 
in  eastern  Kentucky,  hoping  that  he  might  be 
called  upon  to  form  his  column  and  lead  it 
through  the  Cumberland  Gap  to  Knoxville ; 
but  the  weeks  passed  by,  and  the  orders  which 
he  received  only  tended  to  scatter  his  few 
regiments  for  local  defense  and  observation. 
With  the  hesitation  of  the  Union  army  at  this 
point,  the  Confederates  became  bolder.  Zolli- 
cofifer  established  himself  in  a  fortified  camp 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  Cumberland  River, 
where  he  could  at  the  same  time  defend 
Cumberland  Gap  and  incite  eastern  Kentucky 
to  rebellion.  Here  he  became  so  troublesome 
that  Buell  found  it  necessary  to  dislodge  him, 
and  late  in  December  sent  General  Thomas 
orders  to  that  effect.  Thomas  was  weak  in 
numbers,  but  strong  in  vigilance  and  courage. 
He  made  a  difficult  march  during  the  early 
weeks  of  January,  1862,  and  halted  at  Logan's 
Cross  Roads,  within  ten  miles  of  the  rebel 
camp,  to  await  the  junction  of  his  few  regi- 
ments. The  enemy,  under  Zollicoffer  and  his 
district  commander,  Crittenden,  resolved  to 
advance  and  crush  him  before  he  could  bring 
his  force  together.  Thomas  prepared  for  and 
accepted  battle.  The  enemy  had  made  a  fa- 
tiguing night  march  of  nine  miles,  through  a 
cold  rain  and  over  muddy  roads.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  January  19  the  battle,  begun  with  spirit, 
soon  had  a  dramatic  incident.  The  rebel 
commander,  Zollicoffer,  mistaking  a  Union 
regiment,  rode  forward  and  told  its  command- 
ing officer,  Colonel  Speed  S.  Fry,  that  he  was 
firing  upon  friends.  Fry,  not  aware  that  Zol- 
licoffer was  an  enemy,  turned  away  to  order 
his  men  to  stop  firing.  At  this  moment  one  of 


Zollicoffer's  aides  rode  up,  and  seeing  the  true 
state  of  affairs  drew  his  revolver  and  began 
firing  at  Fry,  wounding  his  horse.  Fry,  wheel- 
ing in  turn,  drew  his  revolver  and  returned  the 
fire,  shooting  Zollicoffer  through  the  heart.* 
The  fall  of  the  rebel  commander  served  to 
hasten  and  complete  the  defeat  of  the  Con- 
federates. They  retreated  in  disorder  to  their 
fortified  camp  at  Mill  Springs.  Thomas  or- 
dered immediate  pursuit,  and  the  same  night 
invested  their  camp  and  made  preparations 
to  storm  their  intrenchments  the  following 
morning.  When  day  came,  however,  it  was 
found  that  the  rebels  had  precipitately  crossed 
the  Cumberland  River  during  the  night,  aban- 
doning their  wounded,  twelve  pieces  of  artil- 
lery, many  small-arms,  and  extensive  supplies, 
and  had  fled  in  utter  dispersion  to  the  moun- 
tains. It  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
Union  victories  of  the  war.  General  Thomas's 
forces  consisted  of  a  little  over  six  regiments, 
those  of  Crittenden  and  Zollicoffer  something 
over  ten  regiments,  t  It  was  more  than  a  de- 
feat for  the  Confederates.  Their  army  was 
annihilated,  and  Cumberland  Gap  once  more 
stood  exposed,  so  that  Buell  might  have  sent 
a  Union  column  and  taken  possession  of  east- 
ern Tennessee  with  but  feeble  opposition.  It 
is  possible  that  the  brilliant  opportunity  would 
at  last  have  tempted  him  to  comply  with  the 
urgent  wishes  of  the  President  and  the  express 
orders  of  the  General-in-Chief,  had  not  unex- 
pected events  in  another  quarter  diverted  his 
attention  and  interest. 

There  was  everywhere,  about  the  months  of 
December,  1861,  and  January,  1862,  apercep- 
tible  increase  of  the  Union  armies  by  fresh 
regiments  from  the  Northern  States,  a  better 
supply  of  arms  through  recent  importations, 
an  increase  of  funds  from  new  loans,  and  the 
delivery  for  use  of  various  war  material,  the 
product  of  the  summer's  manufacture.  Of  prime 
importance  to  the  military  operations  which 
centered  at  Cairo  was  the  completion  and 
equipment  of  the  new  gun-boats.  A  word  of 
retrospect  concerning  this  arm  of  the  military 
service  is  here  necessary.  Commander  John 
Rodgers  was  sent  West  in  the  month  of  May, 
1 86 1,  to  begin  the  construction  of  war  vessels 
for  Western  rivers.  Without  definite  plans  he 
had  purchased,  and  hastily  converted,  and 
armed  as  best  he  might,  three  river  steamers. 
These  were  put  into  service  in  September. 
They  were  provided  with  cannon,  but  had 
no  iron  plating.  They  were  the  Tyler,\  of  7 
guns  ;  the  Lexington,  of  6  guns ;  and  the  Con- 

*  Cist,  "Army  of  the  Cumberland,"  pp.  17,  1 8. 

+  Van  Home,  "  History  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumber- 
land," Vol.  I.,  p.  57. 

I  This  vessel  seems  to  have  been  named  the  Tyler  at 
one  time  and  the  Taylor  at  another. 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


577 


fsfoga,  of  3  guns.  Making  Cairo  their  cen- 
tral station,  they  served  admirably  in  the  lighter 
duties  of  river  police,  in  guarding  transports, 
and  in  making  hasty  trips  of  reconnaissance. 
I  u  the  great  expedition  down  the  Mississippi, 
projected  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  1861, 
a  more  powerful  class  of  vessels  was  provided.* 
The  distinguished  civil  engineer  James  B. 
Kads  designed  and  was  authorized  to  build 
7  new  gun-boats,  to  carry  13  guns  each, 
and  to  be  protected  about  the  bows  with  iron 
plating  capable  of  resisting  the  fire  of  heavy 
artillery.  They  were  named  the  Caiiv,  Caron- 
Jelef,  Cincinnati,  Lnnisrill<-,  M<>und  City,  I^itls- 
burg,  and  St.  Louis.  Two  additional  gun-boats 
of  the  same  type  of  construction,  but  of  larger 
size, —  the  Benton,  of  16  guns,  and  the  Essex, 
of  5  guns, —  were  converted  from  other  vessels 
about  the  same  time.  At  the  time  Flag-Officer 
Foote  finally  accepted  the  first  seven  (January 
15,  1862),  it  had  been  found  impossible  to 
supply  them  with  crews  of  Eastern  seamen. 
Resort  was  had  to  Western  steamboatmen,and 
also  to  volunteers  from  infantry  recruits.  The 
joint  reconnaissance  of  Grant  and  Foote  to 
Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee  River,  January 
14,  has  been  related.  A  second  examination 
was  made  by  General  Smith,  who  on  January 
22  reports  that  he  had  been  within  two  miles 
and  a  half  of  the  fort;  that  the  river  had  risen 
fourteen  feet  since  the  last  visit,  giving  a  better 
opportunity  to  reconnoiter;  more  important, 
that  the  high  water  had  drowned  out  a  trouble- 
some advance  battery,  and  that,  in  his  opinion, 
two  iron-clad  gun-boats  could  make  short  work 
of  it.  It  is  evident  that,  possessed  of  this  ad- 
ditional information,  Grant  and  Foote  imme- 
diately resolved  upon  vigorous  measures. 
Grant  had  already  asked  permission  to  visit 
Halleck  at  St.  Louis.  This  was  given ;  but 
Halleck  refused  to  entertain  his  project.  So 
firmly  convinced  was  Grant,  however,  that  his 
plan  was  good,  that,  though  unsuccessful  at 
first,  he  quickly  renewed  the  request. t  "  Com- 
manding-General Grant  and  myself,"  tele- 
graphed Foote  to  Halleck  (January  28,  1862), 
"  are  of  opinion  that  Fort  Henry  on  the  Ten- 
nessee River  can  be  carried  with  four  iron-clad 
gun-boats  and  troops  to  permanently  occupy. 
Have  we  your  authority  to  move  for  that  pur- 
pose when  ready  ?  "  To  this  Grant  on  the 
same  day  added  the  direct  proposal,  "  With 
permission,  I  will  take  Fort  Henry  on  the  Ten- 

*To  show  the  unremitting  interest  of  the  President 
in  these  preparations,  and  how  his  encouragement  and 
prompting  followed  even  their  minor  details,  we  quote 
from  his  autograph  manuscript  a  note  to  the  Secretary 
of  War: 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  Jan.  24,  1862. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  WAR. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:    On  reflection  I  think  you  bettor 
make  a  peremptory  order  on  the  ordnance  officer  at 
Vol..  XXXVI.— 80. 


nessee,  and  establish  and  hold  a  large  camp 
there."  It  would  appear  that  no  immediate 
answer  was  returned,  for  on  the  following 
day  Grant  renews  his  proposition  with  more 
emphasis.! 

It  is  easy  to  perceive  what  produced  the 
sudden  change  in  Halleck's  mind.  Grant's 
persistent  urging  was  evidently  the  main  in- 
fluence, but  two  other  events  contributed 
essentially  to  the  result.  The  first  was  the 
important  victory  gained  by  Thomas  at  Mill 
Springs  in  eastern  Kentucky  on  January  19, 
the  certain  news  of  which  was  probably  just 
reaching  him ;  the  second  was  a  telegram 
from  VVashington,  informing  him  that  Gen- 
eral Beauregard,  with  fifteen  regiments  from 
the  Confederate  army  in  Virginia,  was  being 
sent  to  Kentucky  to  be  added  to  Johnston's 
army.§  "  I  was  not  ready  to  move,"  explains 
Halleck  afterward,  "  but  deemed  best  to  an- 
ticipate the  arrival  of  Beauregard's  forces." 
It  is  well  also  to  remember  in  this  connection 
that  two  days  before,  President  Lincoln's  War 
Order  No.  i  had  been  published,  ordering  a 
general  movement  of  all  the  armies  of  the 
Union  on  the  coming  22d  of  February.  What- 
ever induced  it,  the  permission  now  given 
was  full  and  hearty.  "  Make  your  prepara- 
tions to  take  and  hold  Fort  Henry,"  Halleck 
telegraphed  to  Grant  on  the  3oth  of  January. 
"  I  will  send  you  written  instructions  by 
mail." 

Grant  and  Foote  had  probably  already  be- 
gun their  preparation.  Receiving  Halleck's 
instructions  on  February  i,  Grant  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  started  his  expedition  of  15,000 
men  on  transports,  and  Foote  accompanied 
him  with  7  gun-boats  for  convoy  and  attack. 
Their  plan  contemplated  a  bombardment  by 
the  fleet  from  the  river,  and  assault  on  the 
land  side  by  the  troops.  For  this  purpose 
General  McClernand,  with  a  division,  was 
landed  four  miles  below  the  fort  on  February 
4.  They  made  a  reconnaissance  on  the  5th, 
and  being  joined  by  another  division,  under 
General  Smith,  were  ordered  forward  to  invest 
the  fort  on  the  6th.  This  required  a  circui- 
tousmarch  of  eight  miles,  during  which  the  gun- 
boats of  Flag-Officer  Foote,  having  less  than 
half  the  distance  to  go  by  the  river,  moved  on 
and  began  the  bombardment.  The  capture 
proved  easier  than  was  anticipated.  General 
Tilghman,the  Confederate  commander  of  the 

Pittsburg  to  ship  the  ten  mortars  and  two  beds  to  Cairo 
instantly,  and  all  others  as  fast  as  finished,  till  ordered 
to  stop,  reporting  each  shipment  to  the  Department 
here.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

t  Grant,  "  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  287. 

t  Ibid. 

$  McClellan  to  Halleck  and  Buell,  January  29,  1862. 
War  Records. 


578 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


fort,  had,  early  that  morning,  sent  away  his 
3000  infantry  to  Fort  Donelson,  being  con- 
vinced that  he  was  beset  by  an  overpowering 
force.  He  kept  only  one  company  of  artiller- 
ists to  work  the  eleven  river  guns  of  the  fort; 
with  these  he  defended  the  work  about  two 
hours,  but  without  avail.  Foote's  4  iron- 
plated  gun-boats  steamed  boldly  within  600 
yards.  The  bombardment,  though  short,  was 
well  sustained  on  both  sides,  and  not  without 
its  fluctuating  chances.  Two  of  the  heaviest 
guns  in  the  fort  were  soon  silenced,  one  by 
bursting,  the  other  being  rendered  useless  by 
an  accident  with  the  priming  wire.  At  this 
point  a  rebel  shot  passed  through  the  case- 
mate and  the  boiler  of  the  gun-boat  Essex,  and 
she  drifted  helplessly  out  of  the  fight.  But 
the  remaining  gun-boats  continued  theirclose 
and  fierce  attack,  and  five  more  of  the  rebel 
guns  being  speedily  disabled,  General  Tilgh- 
man  hauled  down  his  flag  and  came  on  board 
to  surrender  the  fort.  McClernand's  troops, 
from  the  land  side,  soon  after  entered  the 
work  and  took  formal  possession.  On  the  same 
day  Grant  telegraphed  to  Halleck,  "  Fort 
Henry  is  ours";  and  his  dispatch  bore  yet 
another  significant  announcement  eminently 
characteristic  of  the  man,  "  I  shall  take  and 
destroy  Fort  Donelson  on  the  8th." 

FORT  DONELSON. 

THE  news  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Henry 
created  a  sudden  consternation  among  the 
Confederate  commanders  in  Tennessee.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  key-stone  had  unexpectedly 
fallen  out  of  their  arch  of  well-planned  de- 
fenses. Generals  Johnston,  Beauregard,  and 
Hardee  immediately  met  in  a  council  of  war 
at  Bowling  Green,  and  after  full  discussion 
united  in  a  memorandum  acknowledging  the 
disaster  and  resolving  on  the  measures  which 
in  their  judgment  it  rendered  necessary.  They 
foresaw  that  Fort  Donelson  would  probably 
also  fall;  that  Johnston's  army  must  retreat  to 
Nashville  to  avoid  capture;  that  since  Colum- 
bus was  now  separated  from  Bowling  Green, 
the  main  army  at  Columbus  must  retreat  to 
Humboldt,  or  possibly  to  Grand  Junction, 
leaving  only  a  sufficient  garrison  to  make  a  des- 
perate defense  of  the  works  and  the  river ;  * 
and  immediate  orders  were  issued  to  prepare  for 
these  movements.  Nevertheless,  Johnston,  to 
use  his  own  language,  resolved  "  to  fight  for 
Nashville  at  Donelson."  For  this  purpose  he 
divided  the  army  at  Bowling  Green,  starting 
8000  of  his  men  under  Generals  Buckner 
and  Floyd,  together  with  4000  more  under 

*  Beauregard,  Memorandum,  Feb.  7,  1862.  War 
Records. 

t  Johnston  to ,  March  1 7, 1862.   War  Records. 


Pillow  from  other  points,  on  a  rapid  march  to 
reenforce  the  threatened  fort,t  while  General 
Hardee  led  his  remaining  14,000  men  on  their 
retreat  to  Nashville,  f  This  retreat  was  not 
alone  a  choice  of  evils.  Even  if  Fort  Henry 
had  not  fallen  and  Donelson  been  so  seriously 
menaced,  the  overwhelming  force  of  Buell 
would  have  compelled  a  retrograde  move- 
ment. Had  Buell  been  a  commander  of 
enterprise  he  would  have  seized  this  chance 
of  inflicting  great  damage  upon  the  dimin- 
ished enemy  in  retreat.  His  advance  guard, 
indeed,  followed;  but  Johnston's  remnant, 
marching  night  and  day,  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing the  Cumberland  River  opposite  Nashville, 
where,  after  preparations  to  cross  in  haste, 
the  rebel  commander  awaited  with  intense 
eagerness  to  hear  the  fate  of  Donelson. 

Of  the  two  commanders  in  the  West,  the 
idea  of  the  movement  up  the  Tennessee  and 
Cumberland  rivers  was  more  favorably 
thought  of  by  Halleck  than  by  Buell.  Buell 
pointed  out  its  value,  but  began  no  movement 
that  looked  to  its  execution.  Halleck,  on  the 
contrary,  not  only  realized  its  importance, 
but  immediately  entertained  the  design  of 
ultimately  availing  himself  of  it;  thus  he 
wrote  at  the  time  he  ordered  the  reconnais- 
sance which  demonstrated  its  practicability  : 
"  The  demonstration  which  General  Grant  is 
now  making  I  have  no  doubt  will  keep  them 
[the  enemy]  in  check  till  preparations  can  be 
made  for  operations  on  the  Tennessee  or 
Cumberland."  §  His  conception  of  the  neces- 
sary preparations  was,  however,  almost  equiv- 
alent to  the  rejection  of  the  plan.  He  thought 
that  it  would  require  a  force  of  60,000  men ;  and 
to  delay  it  till  that  number  and  their  requisite 
material  of  war  could  be  gathered  or  detached 
under  prevailing  ideas  would  amount  to  indefi- 
nite postponement. 

When  at  last,  through  Grant's  importunity, 
the  movement  was  actually  begun  by  the  ad- 
vance to  capture  Fort  Henry,  a  curious  inter- 
est in  the  expedition  and  its  capabilities 
developed  itself  among  the  commanders. 
Grant's  original  proposition  was  simply  to 
capture  Fort  Henry  and  establish  a  large 
camp.  Nothing  further  was  proposed,  and 
Halleck's  instructions  went  only  to  the  same 
extent,  with  one  addition.  As  the  reported 
arrival  of  Beauregard  with  reenforcements 
had  been  the  turning  influence  in  Halleck's 
consent,  so  he  proposed  that  the  capture  of 
Fort  Henry  should  beimmediatelyfollowedby 
a  dash  at  the  railroad  bridges  across  the  Ten- 
nessee and  their  destruction,  to  prevent  those 
reenforcements  from  reaching  Johnston.  But 

t  Johnston  to  Benjamin,  Feb.  8, 1862.   War  Records. 
$  Halleck  to  McClellan,  Jan.   14,  1862.    War  Rec- 
cords. 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENl^UCKY. 


579 


with  the  progress  of  Grant's  movement  the 
chances  of  success  brightened,  and  the  plan 
began  correspondingly  to  expand.  On  the 
ad  of  1'ebruary,  when  Grant's  troops  were 
preparing  to  invest  Fort  Henry,  Halleck's 
estimate  of  coming  possibilities  had  risen  a 
little.  He  wrote  to  Buell: 

At  present  it  is  only  proposed  to  take  and  occupy 
Fort  Henry  anil  Dover  [  Donelson],  and,  if  possible, 
cut  the  railroad  from  Columbus  to  Bowling  Green. 

Here  we  have  Donelson  added  to  Henry 
in  the  intention  of  the  department  com- 
mander. That  the  same  intention  existed  in 
Grant's  mind  is  evident,  for,  as  already  re- 
lated, on  the  fall  of  Henry  on  the  6th,  he 
immediately  telegraphed  to  Halleck:  "Fort 
Henry  is  ours.  ...  I  shall  take  and  destroy 
F'ort  Donelson  on  the  8th  and  return  to  Fort 
Henry."  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  in 
proposing  to  destroy  Fort  Donelson,  he  still 
limits  himself  to  his  original  proposition  of  an 
intrenched  camp  at  Fort  Henry. 

At  the  critical  moment  Halleck's  confidence 
in  success  at  Fort  Henry  wavered,  and  he 
called  upon  Buell  with  importunity  for  suffi- 
cient help  to  make  sure  work  of  it.  Buell's 
confidence  also  seems  to  have  been  very 
weak;  for, commanding  72.502  men, — 46,150 
of  them  "in  the  field," — he  could  only  bring 
himself  to  send  a  single  brigade  *  to  aid  in  a 
work  which  he  had  described  as  of  such  mo- 
mentous consequence.  Afterward,  indeed,  he 
sent  eight  regiments  more ;  but  these  were  not 
from  his  70,000  in  the  field.  They  were  raw 
troops  from  Ohio  and  Indiana,  which  McClel- 
lan,  with  curious  misconception  of  their  use- 
fulness, had  ordered  to  Buell,  who  did  not 
need  them,  instead  of  to  Halleck,  who  was 
trying  to  make  every  man  do  double  duty. 

Out  of  this  uncertainty  about  the  final  re- 
sult at  Fort  Henry,  the  indecision  of  Buell's 
character  becomes  deplorably  manifest.  Mc- 
Clellan,  satisfied  that  Buell  could  not  ad- 
vance against  Johnston's  force  at  Bowling 
Green  over  the  difficult  winter  roads,  and 
having  not  yet  heard  of  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Henry,  suggested  to  both  Buell  and  Halleck 
the  temporary  suspension  of  operations  on 
other  lines  in  order  to  make  a  quick  combined 
movement  up  the  Tennessee  and  the  Cumber- 
land. This  was  on  February  6.  Buell's  fancy 
at  first  caught  at  the  proposal,  for  he  replied 
that  evening: 

This  whole  move,  right  in  its  strategical  bearing, 
but  commenced  by  General  Halleck  without  apprecia- 
tion, preparative  or  concert,  has  now  become  of  vast 
magnitude.  I  was  myself  thinking  of  a  change  of 
the  line  to  support  it  when  I  received  your  dispatch. 
It  will  have  to  be  made  in  the  face  of  50,000,  if  not 
60,000  men,  and  is  hazardous.  I  will  answer  definitely 
in  the  morning.t 


Halleck  was  more  positive  in  his  convic- 
tions. He  telegraphed  to  McClellan  on  the 
same  day : 

If  you  can  give  me,  in  addition  to  what  I  have  in  this 
department,  10,000  men,  I  will  take  Fort  Henry,  nil  the 
enemy's  line,  and  paralyze  Columbus.  Give  111625,000, 
and  I  will  threaten  Nashville  and  tut  off  railroad  com- 
munication, so  as  to  force  the  enemy  to  abandon  Bowl- 
ing  Green  without  a  battle. 

News  of  the  fall  of  Fort  Henry  having 
been  received  at  Washington,  McClellan 
twenty-four  hours  later  telegraphed  to  Hal- 
leck :  ''  Either  Buell  or  yourself  should  soon 
go  to  the  scene  of  operations.  Why  not  have 
Buell  take  the  line  of  [the]  Tennessee  and 
operate  on  Nashville,  while  your  troops  turn 
Columbus?  These  two  points  gained,  a  com- 
bined movement  on  Memphis  will  be  next  in 
order."  The  dispatch  was  in  substance  re- 
peated to  Buell,  who  by  this  time  thought  he 
had  made  up  his  mind,  for  two  hours  later  he 
answered :  "  I  cannot,  on  reflection,  think  a 
change  of  my  line  would  be  advisable.  .  .  . 
I  hope  General  Grant  will  not  require  further 
reenforcements.  I  will  go  if  necessary."  Thus 
on  the  night  of  the  7th,  with  the  single  drilled 
brigade  from  Green  River  and  the  eight  raw 
regiments  from  Ohio  and  Indiana,  he  pro- 
posed to  leave  the  important  central  line  on 
which  Grant  had  started  to  its  chances. 

A  night's  reflection  made  him  doubt  the 
correctness  of  his  decision,  for  he  telegraphed 
on  the  morning  of  the  8th,  "  I  am  concen- 
trating and  preparing,  but  will  not  decide 
definitely  yet."  Halleck's  views  were  less 
changeable:  at  noon  on  the  8th,  he  again 
urged  that  Buell  should  transfer  the  bulk  of 
his  forces  to  the  Cumberland  River,  to  move 
by  water  on  Nashville.  To  secure  this  coop- 
eration, he  further  proposed  a  modification 
of  department  lines  to  give  Buell  command 
on  the  Cumberland  and  Hitchcock  or  Sher- 
man on  the  Tennessee,  with  superior  com- 
mand for  himself  over  both. 

No  immediate  response  came  from  Wash- 
ington, and  three  days  elapsed  when  Halleck 
asked  Buell  specifically  :  "  Can't  you  come 
with  all  your  available  forces  and  command 
the  column  up  the  Cumberland  ?  I  shall  go 
to  the  Tennessee  this  week."J  Buell's  desire, 
vibrating  like  a  pendulum  between  the  two 
brilliant  opportunities  before  him,  now  swings 
towards  Halleck's  proposal,  but  with  provoking 
indefiniteness  and  fatal  slowness.  He  an- 
swers that  he  will  go  either  to  the  Cumberland 
or  to  the  Tennessee,  but  that  it  will  require  ten 
days  to  transfer  his  troops.§  In  this  emergency, 

*  Buell  to  McClellan,  Feb.  5,  1862.    War  Records. 
tBuell  to  AfcClellan,  Feb.  6,  1862.    War  Records. 
j  llalleck  to  Buell,  Feb.  n,  1862.    War  Records. 
§  Buell  to  Halleck,  Feb.  12,  1862.    War  Records. 


58o 

when  hours  counted  as  weeks,  Buell  showed 
himself  almost  as  helpless  and  useless  as  a 
dismasted  ship,  rolling  uneasily  and  idly  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea.  With,  by  this  time, 
nearly  100,000  men*  in  the  field,  and  with 
certainly  a  larger  proportion  of  drilled  and  in- 
structed regiments  than  could  be  found  either 
in  the  camp  of  Grant  or  in  the  camps  of  the 
enemy,  he  could  not  make  himself  felt  in  any 
direction ;  he  would  neither  attack  the  enemy 
in  front  nor  send  decisive  help  to  Grant.  He 
gives  forth  the  everlasting  cry  of  preparation, 
of  delay,  of  danger. 

During  his  painful  hesitation,  events  forced 
him  to  a  new  conclusion.  News  came  that 
the  rebels  had  evacuated  Bowling  Green,  and 
he  telegraphed : 

The  evacuation  of  Bowling  Green,  leaving  the  way 
open  to  Nashville,  makes  it  proper  to  resume  my 
original  plan.  I  shall  advance  on  Nashville  with  all 
the  speed  I  can. 

From  this  last  determination,  Halleck  ap- 
pealed beseechingly  to  the  General-in-Chief. 
He  announced  that  Grant  had  formally  in- 
vested Fort  Donelson  and  that  the  bombard- 
ment was  progressing  favorably,  but  he  further 
explained  that  since  the  evacuation  of  Bowl- 
ing Green,  the  enemy  were  concentrating 
against  Grant.  He  claimed  that  it  was  bad 
strategy  for  Buell  to  advance  on  Nashville 
over  broken  bridges  and  bad  roads,  and  this 
point  he  reiterated  with  emphasis.  He  tele- 
graphed on  February  16: 

I  am  still  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  Buell  should 
not  advance  on  Nashville,  but  come  to  the  Cumberland 
with  his  available  forces.  United  to  Grant  we  can  take 
and  hold  Fort  Donelson  and  Clarksville,  and  by  an- 
other central  movement  cut  off  both  Columbus  and 
Nashville.  .  .  .  Unless  we  can  take  Fort  Donelson 
very  soon  we  shall  have  the  whole  force  of  the  enemy 
on  us.  Fort  Donelson  is  the  turning-point  of  the  war, 
and  we  must  take  it,  at  whatever  sacrifice. 

But  his  appeal  was  unavailing.  McClellan 
took  sides  with  Buell,  insisting  that  to  occupy 
Nashville  would  be  most  decisive.  Buell  had, 
indeed,  ordered  Nelson's  division  to  go  to  the 
help  of  Grant ;  but  in  the  conflict  of  his  own 
doubts  and  intentions  the  orders  had  been  so 
tardy  that  Nelson's  embarkation  was  only  be- 
ginning on  the  day  when  Donelson  surren- 
dered. McClellan's  further  conditional  order 
to  Buell,  to  help  Grant  if  it  were  necessary,  of- 

*  The  following  is  the  force  in  the  whole  of  the  late 
Department  of  the  Ohio,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascer- 
tained at  present :  92  regiments  infantry,  60,882  for 
duty ;  79,334.  aggregate,  present  and  absent.  1 1  regi- 
ments, I  battalion,  and  7  detached  companies  cavalry, 
9222  for  duty;  11,496  aggregate,  present  and  absen't. 
28  field  and  2  siege  batteries,  3368  for  duty ;  3953 
aggregate,  present  and  absent.  [Buell  to  Thomas,  Feb- 
ruary 14,  1862.  War  Records.] 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


fered  a  yet  more  distant  prospect  of  succor. 
If  the  siege  of  Donelson  had  been  prolonged, 
assistance  from  these  directions  would  of 
course  have  been  found  useful.  In  the  actual 
state  of  facts,  however,  they  show  both  Buell 
and  McClellan  incapable,  even  under  con- 
tinued pressure,  of  seizing  and  utilizing  the 
fleeting  chances  of  war  which  so  often  turn 
the  scale  of  success,  and  which  so  distinctly 
call  out  the  higher  quality  of  military  leader- 
ship. 

Amidst  the  sluggish,  counsels  of  commanders 
of  departments,  the  energy  of  Grant  and  the 
courage  and  intrepidity  of  his  raw  Western 
soldiers  had  already  decided  one  of  the  great 
crises  of  the  war.  Grant  had  announced  to 
Halleck  that  he  would  storm  Fort  Donelson 
on  the  8th  of  February,  but  he  failed  to  count 
one  of  the  chances  of  delay.  "  I  contemplated 
taking  Fort  Donelson  to-day  with  infantry 
and  cavalry  alone,"  reported  he,  "  but  all  my 
troops  may  be  kept  busily  engaged  in  saving 
what  we  now  have  from  the  rapidly  rising 
waters. "t  This  detention  served  to  change 
the  whole  character  of  the  undertaking.  If 
he  could  have  marched  and  attacked  on  the 
8th,  he  would  have  found  but  6000  men  in 
the  fort,  which  his  own  troops  largely  outnum- 
bered; as  it  turned  out,  the  half  of  Johnston's 
army  sent  from  Bowling  Green  and  other 
points,  conducted  by  Generals  Pillow,  Floyd, 
and  Buckner,  arrived  before  the  fort  was  in- 
vested, increasing  the  garrison  to  an  aggregate 
of  17,000  and  greatly  extending  the  lines  of 
rifle-pits  and  other  defenses,  f  This  presented 
an  altogether  different  and  more  serious  prob- 
lem. The  enemy  before  Grant  was  now,  if 
not  superior,  at  least  equal  in  numbers,  and 
had  besides  the  protection  of  a  large  and  well- 
constructed  earth-work,  armed  with  seventeen 
heavy  and  forty-eight  field-guns.  It  is  prob- 
able that  this  changed  aspect  of  affairs  was 
not  immediately  known  to  him ;  if  it  was,  he 
depended  on  the  reenforcements  which  Hal- 
leck had  promised,  and  which  soon  began  to 
arrive.  Early  on  the  morning  of  the  i2th  he 
started  on  his  march,  with  the  divisions  of 
McClernand  and  Smith,  numbering  15,000. 
At  noon  they  were  within  two  miles  of  Donel- 
son. That  afternoon  and  all  the  following  day, 
February  13,  were  occupied  in  driving  in  the 
rebel  pickets,  finding  the  approaches,  and 
drawing  the  lines  of  investment  around  the 

t  Grant  to  Cullum,  February  8,  1862.  War  Rec- 
ords. 

t  General  Grant's  estimate  of  the  Confederate  forces 
is  21,000.  He  says  he  marched  against  the  fort  with 
but  15,000,  but  that  he  received  reenforcements  be- 
fore the  attack,  and  their  continued  arrival  had,  at 
the  time  of  the  surrender,  increased  his  army  to  about 
27,000.  Grant,  "Personal  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I., pp.  299 
and  315. 


TENNESSEE  AND  KENTUCKY. 


fort.  A  gallant  storming  assault  by  four  Illi- 
nois regiments  upon  one  of  the  rebel  batteries 
was  an  exciting  incident  of  the  afternoon's 
advance,  but  was  unsuccessful. 

To  understand  the  full  merit  of  the  final 
achievement,  the  conditions  under  which  the 
siege  of  Donelson  was  thus  begun  must  be 
briefly  mentioned.  The  principal  fort,  or  earth- 
work which  bore  the  military  name,  lay  on  the 
west  bank  of  the  Cumberland  River,  half  a 
mile  north  of  the  little  town  of  Dover.  The 
fort  occupied  the  terminal  knoll  of  a  high 
ridge  ending  in  the  angle  between  the  river 
and  the  mouth  of  Hickman  Creek.  This  main 
work  consisted  of  two  batteries  of  heavy  guns, 
primarily  designed  to  control  the  river  navi- 
gation. But  when  General  Johnston  resolved 
to  defend  Nashville  at  Donelson  and  gathered 
an  army  of  17,000  men  for  the  purpose,  the 
original  fort  and  the  town  of  Dover,  and  all 
the  intervening  space,  were  inclosed  by  a  long, 
irregular  line  of  rifle-pits  connecting  more  sub- 
stantial breastworks  and  embankments  on  the 
favorable  elevations,  in  which  field-batteries 
were  planted ;  the  whole  chain  of  intrench- 
ments,  extending  from  Hickman  Creek  on  the 
north  till  it  inclosed  the  town  of  Dover  on 
the  south,  having  a  total  length  of  about  two 
and  a  half  miles.  Outside  the  rifle-pits  were 
the  usual  obstructions  of  felled  trees  and 
abatis,  forming  an  interlacing  barrier  difficult 
to  penetrate. 

The  Union  troops  had  had  no  fighting  at 
Fort  Henry ;  at  that  place  the  gun-boats  had 
done  the  whole  work.  The  debarkation  on 
the  Tennessee,  the  reconnaissance,  the  march 
towards  Donelson,  the  picket  skirmishing 
during  the  I2th  and  131)1,  had  only  been  such 
as  to  give  them  zest  and  exhilaration.  When, 
on  the  morning  of  the  I2th,  the  march  began, 
the  weather  was  mild  and  agreeable ;  but  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  i3th,  while  the  army  was 
stretching  itself  cautiously  around  the  rebel  in- 
trenchments,  the  thermometer  suddenly  went 
down,  a  winter  storm  set  in  with  rain,  snow, 
sleet,  ice,  and  a  piercing  north-west  wind, 
that  made  the  men  lament  the  imprudence 
they  had  committed  in  leaving  overcoats 
and  blankets  behind.  Grant's  army  was  com- 
posed entirely  of  Western  regiments;  fifteen 
from  the  single  State  of  Illinois,  and  a  further 
aggregate  of  seventeen  from  the  States  of  Ken- 
tucky, Ohio,  Indiana,  Missouri,  and  Iowa. 
Some  of  these  regiments  had  seen  guerrilla 
fighting  in  Missouri,  some  had  been  through 
the  battle  of  Belmont,  but  many  were  new  to 
the  privations  and  dangers  of  an  active  cam- 
paign. Nearly  all  the  officers  came  from  civil 
life;  but  a  common  thought,  energy,  and  will 
animated  the  whole  mass.  It  was  neither  dis- 
cipline nor  mere  military  ambition;  it  was 


patriot  work  in  its  noblest  and  purest  form. 
They  had  left  their  homes  and  varied  peaceful 
occupations  to  defend  the  Government  and 
put  down  rebellion.  They  were  in  the  Hush 
and  exaltation  of  a  common  heroic  impulse : 
in  such  a  mood,  the  rawest  recruit  was  as 
brave  as  the  oldest  veteran ;  and  in  this  spirit 
they  endured  hunger  and  cold,  faced  snow 
and  ice,  held  tenaciously  the  lines  of  the  siege, 
climbed  without  flinching  through  the  tangled 
abatis,  and  advanced  into  the  deadly  fire  from 
the  rifle-pits  with  a  purpose  and  a  devotion 
never  excelled  by  soldiers  of  any  nation  or 
epoch. 

Flag-Officer  Foote,  with  six  gun-boats,  ar- 
rived the  evening  of  the  i3th;  also  six  regi- 
ments sent  by  water.  Fort  Henry  had  been 
reduced  by  the  gun-boats  alone,  and  it  was 
resolved  first  to  try  the  effect  of  these  new 
and  powerful  fighting  machines  upon  the 
works  of  Donelson.  Accordingly  on  Friday, 
February  14,  the  assault  was  begun  by  an 
attack  from  the  six  gun-boats.  As  before,  the 
situation  of  the  fort  enabled  the  four  iron- 
clads to  advance  up-stream  towards  the  bat- 
teries, the  engines  holding  them  steadily 
against  the  swift  current,  presenting  their 
heavily  plated  bows  as  a  target  for  the  enemy. 
The  attack  had  lasted  an  hour  and  a  half. 
The  iron-clads  were  within  400  yards  of  the 
rebel  embankments,  the  heavy  armor  was 
successfully  resisting  the  shot  and  shell  from 
the  fort,  the  fire  of  the  enemy  was  slackening, 
indicating  that  the  water-batteries  were  be- 
coming untenable,  when  two  of  the  gun-boats 
were  suddenly  disabled  and  drifted  out  of  the 
fight,  one  having  her  wheel  carried  away,  and 
the  other  her  tiller-ropes  damaged. 

These  accidents,  due  to  the  weakness  and 
exposure  of  the  pilot-houses,  compelled  a  ces- 
sation of  the  river  attack  and  a  withdrawal 
of  the  gun-boats  for  repairs,  and  gave  the 
beleaguered  garrison  corresponding  exulta- 
tion and  confidence.  Flag-Officer  Foote  had 
been  wounded  in  the  attack,  and  deeming 
it  necessary  to  take  his  disabled  vessels  tem- 
porarily back  to  Cairo,  he  requested  Grant  to 
visit  him  for  consultation.  Grant  therefore 
went  on  board  one  of  the  gun-boats  before 
dawn  on  the  morning  of  the  isth,  and  it  was 
arranged  between  the  commanders  that  he 
should  perfect  his  lines  and  hold  the  fort  in 
siege  until  Foote  could  return  from  Cairo  to 
assist  in  renewing  the  attack. 

During  all  this  time  there  had  been  a  fluc- 
tuation of  fear  and  hope  in  the  garrison  —  from 
the  repulse  of  McClernand's  assault  on  the 
1 3th,  theprompt  investment  of  the  fort,  the  gun- 
boat attack  and  its  repulse.  There  was  want 
of  harmony  between  Floyd,  Pillow,  and  Buck- 
ner,  the  three  commanders  within  the  fort. 


582 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Prior  to  the  gun-boat  attack  a  bold  sortie  was 
resolved  upon,  which  project  was,  however, 
abandoned  through  the  orders  or  non-compli- 
ance of  Pillow.  That  night  the  second  council 
of  war  determined  to  make  a  serious  effort  to 
extricate  the  garrison.  At  6  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  I5th  the  divisions  of  Pillow 
and  Buckner  moved  out  to  attack  McCler- 
nand's  division,  and  if  possible  open  an  avenue 
of  retreat  by  the  road  running  southward  from 
Dover  to  Charlotte.  The  Confederates  made 
their  attack  not  only  with  spirit  but  with  su- 
perior numbers.  Driving  back  McClernand's 
right,  they  were  by  1 1  o'clock  in  the  forenoon 
in  complete  possession  of  the  coveted  Charlotte 
road.  Buckner,  who  simultaneously  attacked 
McClernand's  left,  did  not  fare  so  well.  He 
was  repulsed,  and  compelled  to  retire  to  the 
intrenchments  from  which  he  had  issued.  At 
this  critical  point  Grant  returned  from  his 
visit  to  Foote.  What  he  found  and  what  he 
did  is  stated  with  brevity  in  the  message  he 
hastily  sent  back : 

If  all  the  gun-boats  that  can  will  immediately  make 
their  appearance  to  the  enemy  it  may  secure  us  a  victory. 
Otherwise  all  may  be  defeated.  A  terrible  conflict  en- 
sued in  my  absence,  which  has  demoralized  a  portion 
of  my  command,  and  I  think  the  enemy  is  much  more 
so.  If  the  gun-boats  do  not  show  themselves,  it  will 
reassure  the  enemy  and  still  further  demoralize  our 
troops.  I  must  order  a  charge,  to  save  appearances. 
I  do  not  expect  the  gun-boats  to  go  into  action,  but 
to  make  appearance  and  throw  a  few  shells  at  long 
range." 

In  execution  of  the  design  here  announced, 
Grant  sent  an  order  to  General  C.  F.  Smith, 
commanding  the  second  division,  who  held 
the  extreme  left  of  the  investing  line,  to  storm 
the  intrenchments  in  front  of  him.  His  men 
had  as  yet  had  no  severe  fighting,  and  now 
went  forward  enthusiastically  to  their  allotted 
task,  carrying  an  important  outwork  with  im- 
petuous gallantry.  Learning  of  his  success, 
Grant  in  turn  ordered  forward  the  entire  re- 
mainder of  his  force  under  Wallace  and  Mc- 
Clernand.  This  order  was  also  executed  during 
the  afternoon,  and  by  nightfall  the  whole  of 
the  ground  lost  by  the  enemy's  morning  attack 
was  fully  regained.  There  is  a  conflict  of  tes- 
timony about  the  object  of  the  attack  of  the 
enemy.  Buckner  says  it  was  to  effect  the  im- 
mediate escape  of  the  garrison ;  Pillow  says 
he  had  no  such  understanding,  and  that  neither 
he  nor  any  one  else  made  preparation  for  de- 
parture. The  opportunity,  therefore,  which  his 
division  had  during  the  forenoon  to  retire  by 
the  open  road  to  Charlotte  was  not  improved. 
By  evening  the  chance  was  gone,  for  the  Fed- 
erals had  once  more  closed  that  avenue  of 
escape. 

*  Grant  to  Foote,  Feb.  15,  1862.    War  Records. 


During  the  night  of  the  isth,  the  Confed- 
erate commanders  met  in  council  to  decide 
what  they  should  do.  Buckner,  the  junior, 
very  emphatically  gave  the  others  to  under- 
stand that  the  situation  of  the  garrison  was 
desperate,  and  that  it  would  require  but  an 
hour  or  two  of  assault  on  the  next  morning 
to  capture  his  portion  of  the  defenses.  Such  a 
contingency  left  them  no  practical  alternative. 
Floyd  and  Pillow,  however,  had  exaggerated 
ideas  of  the  personal  danger  they  would  be  in 
from  the  Government  if  they  permitted  them- 
selves to  become  prisoners,  and  made  known 
their  great  solicitude  to  get  away.  An  agree- 
ment was  therefore  reached  through  which 
Floyd,  the  senior  general,  first  turned  over  his 
command  to  Pillow  ;  then  Pillow,  the  second 
in  command,  in  the  same  way  relinquished 
his  authority  to  Buckner,  the  junior  general. 
This  formality  completed,  Floyd  and  Pillow 
made  hasty  preparations,  and  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  arrival  of  a  rebel  steamer  boarded  it, 
with  their  personal  followers,  during  the  night, 
and  abandoned  the  fort  and  its  garrison. 

As  usual,  the  active  correspondents  of  West- 
ern newspapers  were  with  the  expedition, 
and  through  their  telegrams  something  of  the 
varying  fortunes  of  the  Kentucky  campaign 
and  the  Donelson  siege  had  become  known 
to  the  country,  while  President  Lincoln  at 
Washington  gleaned  still  further  details  from 
the  scattering  official  reports  which  came  to 
the  War  Department  through  army  channels. 
His  urgent  admonitions  to  Buell  and  Halleck 
in  the  previous  month  to  bring  about  efficient 
cooperation  have  already  been  related.  The 
new  and  exciting  events  again  aroused  his 
most  intense  solicitude,  and  prompted  him  to 
send  the  following  suggestion  by  telegraph  to 
Halleck : 

You  have  Fort  Donelson  safe,  unless  Grant  shall  be 
overwhelmed  from  outside,  to  prevent  which  latter 
will,  I  think,  require  all  the  vigilance,  energy,  and  skill 
of  yourself  and  Buell,  acting  in  full  cooperation.  Co- 
lumbus will  not  get  at  Grant,  but  the  force  from  Bowl- 
ing Green  will.  They  hold  the  railroad  from  Bowling 
Green  to  within  a  few  miles  of  Fort  Donelson,  with 
the  bridge  at  Clarksville  undisturbed.  It  is  unsafe  to 
rely  that  they  will  not  dare  to  expose  Nashville  to 
Buell.  A  small  part  of  their  force  can  retire  slowly  to- 
wards Nashville,  breaking  up  the  railroad  as  they  go, 
and  keep  Buell  out  of  that  city  twenty  days.  Mean- 
time Nashville  will  be  abundantly  defended  by  forces 
from  all  South  and  perhaps  from  here  at  Manassas. 
Could  not  a  cavalry  force  from  General  Thomas  on 
tin;  Upper  Cumberland  dash  across,  almost  unresisted, 
and  cut  the  railroad  at  or  near  Knoxville,  Tennessee? 
In  the  midst  of  a  bombardment  at  Fort  Donelson,  why 
could  not  a  gun-boat  run  up  and  destroy  the  bridge  at 
Clarksville  ?  Our  success  or  failure  at  Fort  Donelson 
is  vastly  important,  and  I  beg  you  to  put  your  soul  in 
the  effort.  I  send  a  copy  of  this  to  Buell. 

Before  this  telegram  reached  its  destination, 
the  siege  of  Donelson  was  terminated. 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


583 


On  Sunday  morning,  the  i6th  of  February, 
when  the  troops  composing  the  Federal  line 
of  investment  were  preparing  for  a  final  as- 
sault, a  note  came  from  Buckner  to  Grant, 
proposing  an  armistice  to  arrange  terms  of 
capitulation.  The  language  of  Grant's  reply 
served  to  crown  the  fame  of  his  achievement : 

Yours  of  this  date,  proposing  armistice  and  appoint- 
ment of  commissioners  to  settle  terms  of  capitulation, 
is  just  received.  No  terms  except  unconditional  and 
immediate  surrender  can  be  accepted.  I  propose  to 
move  immediately  upon  your  works. 

His  resolute  phrase  gained  him  a  prouder 
title  than  was  ever  bestowed  by  knightly 
accolade.  Thereafter,  the  army  and  the  coun- 
try, with  a  fanciful  play  upon  the  initials  of 
his  name,  spoke  of  him  as  "  Unconditional 
Surrender  Grant."  Buckner  had  no  other 
balm  for  the  sting  of  his  defeat  than  to  say 
that  Grant's  terms  were  ungenerous  and  un- 
chivalric,  but  the  necessity  compelled  him  to 
accept  them.  That  day  Grant  was  enabled 
to  telegraph  to  Halleck: 

We  have  taken  Fort  Donelson  and  from  12,000  to 
15,000  prisoners,  including  Generals  Buckner  and 
Bushrod  R.  Johnson ;  also  about  20,000  stand  of 


arms,  48  pieces  of  artillery,  17  heavy  guns,  from  2000 
to  4000  horses,  and  large  quantities  of  commissary 
stores. 

By  this  brilliant  and  important  victory 
Grant's  fame  sprang  suddenly  into  full  and 
universal  recognition.  Congress  was  in  session 
at  Washington  ;  his  personal  friend  and  repre- 
sentative, Hon.  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  member 
from  the  Galena  district  of  Illinois,  lost  no 
time  in  proposing  a  resolution  of  thanks  to 
Grant  and  his  army,  which  was  voted  without 
delay  and  with  generous  gratitude.  With  even 
more  heartiness,  President  Lincoln  nominated 
him  major-general  of  volunteers,  and  the  Sen- 
ate at  once  confirmed  the  appointment.  The 
whole  military  service  felt  the  inspiring  event. 
Many  of  the  colonels  in  Grant's  army  were 
made  brigadier-generals ;  and  promotion  ran, 
like  a  quickening  leaven,  through  the  whole 
organization.  Halleck  also  reminded  the 
Government  of  his  desire  for  larger  power. 
"  Make  Buell,  Grant,  and  Pope  major-generals 
of  volunteers,"  he  telegraphed  the  day  after 
the  surrender,  "and  give  me  command  in  the 
West.  I  ask  this  in  return  for  Forts  Henry 
and  Donelson." 


LINCOLN    CATHEDRAL. 


SEAL  OF  THE  SEE  OF  LINCOLN. 


IO  man  by  taking  thought 
can  add  a  cubit  to  his 
stature,  but  dignity  of  car- 
riage and  a  masterful  air 
may  accomplish  many 
inches ;  —  the  yard-stick 
bears  false  witness  to  a 
Louis  Quatorze,  a  Napo- 
leon, or  a  Nelson.  And  as 
it  is  with  men,  so  it  is  with 
cities.  Canterbury  counts 
twenty  thousand  souls  and  looks  small,  weak, 
and  rural.  Lincoln  counts  only  a  few  thousand 
more,  but,  domineering  on  its  hill-top,  makes  so 
brave  a  show  of  municipal  pride,  has  so  trucu- 
lent an  air  and  attitude,  that  no  tourist  thinks 
to  patronize  it  as  a  mere  provincial  town.  Itis  a 
city  to  his  eye;  and  the  greatness  of  its  church 
simply  accentuates  the  fact.  Canterbury's  ca- 
thedral almost  crushes  Canterbury,  asleep  in 
its  broad  vale.  Durham's  rock-borne  minster 
projects  so  boldly  from  the  town  behind  it  that 
it  still  seems  what  it  really  was  in  early  years  — 


at  once  the  master  of  Durham  and  its  bulwark 
against  aggression.  But  Lincoln's  church, 
though  quite  as  big  and  as  imperial  as  the 
others,  seems  but  the  crown  and  finish  of  the 
city  which  bears  it  aloft  in  a  close,  sturdy 
grasp.  Like  Durham  cathedral,  it  stands  on  a 
promontory  beneath  which  runs  a  river.  But 
the  hill  is  very  much  higher,  and  the  town, 
instead  of  spreading  away  behind  the  church, 
tumbles  steeply  down  the  hill  and  far  out  be- 
yond the  stream.  Here  for  the  first  time  in 
England  we  feel  as  we  almost  always  do  in 
continental  countries — not  that  the  cathedral 
church  has  gathered  a  city  about  it,  but  that 
the  city  has  built  a  cathedral  church  for  its 
own  glory  and  profit. 


IN  truth,  the  importance  of  Lincoln  as  a 
town  long  antedates  its  importance  as  an  ec- 
clesiastical center.  We  cannot  read  far  enough 
back  in  its  history  to  find  a  record  of  its  birth. 
When  the  Romans  came  —  calling  it  Lindum 


584 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


Colonia,  making  it  mark  the  meeting-place  of 
two  of  their  great  roads,  and  fortifying  it  as 
one  of  their  chief  stations  —  a  British  town 
was  already  lying  a  little  to  the  northward 
of  the  spot  they  chose.  After  their  departure 
and  the  coming  of  the  English,  Lindum  flour- 
ished again,  and  still  more  conspicuously 
when  the  Danes  took  and  kept  it.  At  the  ad- 
vent of  William  the  Norman  it  was  one  of  the 
four  chief  towns  in  England,  ruled  in  almost 
entire  independence  by  a  Danish  oligarchy 
of  twelve  hereditary  "  lawmen,"  and  con- 
taining 1150  inhabited  houses,  many  of 
them  mansions  according  to  the  standard  of 
the  age.  William  came  from  the  north  after 
his  conquest  of  York  and  probably  entered 
by  that  Roman  gate-way  which  still  stands 
not  far  from  the  cathedral;  and  with  his 
coming  began  a  new  and  yet  more  prosper- 
ous era  for  the  town.  In  one  corner  of  the 


PLAN    OF    LINCOLN 
CATHEDRAL. 

SCALE    100    FEET    TO 
I     INCH. 


A,  Norman  Recesses  in  West  Front; 
B,  C.  D.  Porches  in  Norman  Front;  E, 
Chapels  in  Early-Entflish  Wings ;  F.  Nave : 
G,  H,  Chapels;  K,  Crossing  under  Central 
Tower ;  L,  M,  Great  Transepts ;  N,  Galilee- 
porch  ;  O,  Choir ;  P.O.  Choir-aisles ;  R,  S, 
Minor  (Eastern)  Transepts;  T,  Retro- 
Clioir;  U.V.X,  Chantries;  W,  Southeast 
porch  ;  Y,  Cloisters ;  Z,  Chapter-house ; 
28.  Vestry ;  33,  Vestibule  to  Chapter-house ; 
34,  Staircase  to  Library. 

Roman  inclosure  a  great 
Norman  castle  soon  began 
to  rear  its  walls,  and  in 
another  corner  the  first 
Norman  bishop  laid  the 
foundations  of  a  vast  ca- 
thedral church. 

This   part    of   England 
had   received   the   gospel 


from  Paulinus,  the  famous  archbishop  of  the 
north,  and  was  at  first  included  in  the  wide 
diocese  of  Lichfield.  In  678  a  new  see  was 
formed  which  was  called  of  Lindsey  after  the 
province,  or  of  Sidnacester  after  the  episco- 
pal town  —  probably  the  modern  town  of 
Stow.  Two  years  later  it  was  divided,  an- 
other chair  being  set  up  at  Leicester.  About 
the  year  870  this  chair  was  removed  to  Dor- 
chester, and  hither  about  950  the  chair  of 
Sidnacester  was  likewise  brought.  When  the 
Normans  took  control  the  chief  place  of  the 
united  sees  was  changed  again,  Lincoln  being 
chosen  because  of  that  dominant  station  and 
that  civic  importance  which  to  continental 
eyes  seemed  characteristic  of  the  episcopal 
name. 

ii. 

REMIGIUS  was  the  first  Norman  bishop  of 
Dorchester,  the  first  bishop  of  Lin- 
coln ;  and  about  the  year  1075,  "  in 
a  place  strong  and  fair,"  he  began 
"  a  strong   and  fair  church  to   the 
Virgin  of  virgins,   which  was  both 
pleasant  to  God's  servants  and,  as 
the  time  required,  invincible  to  his 
enemies  "  ;  and  he  gave  it  in  charge 
to  secular  canons,  although  he  w;is 
himself  a  Benedictine.   It  was 
injured  by  a  great  fire  in  1141, 
quickly    repaired    by    Bishop 
Alexander  in    the   later 
Norman  style,  and  then 
almost  utterly  destroyed 
in     1185    by    an    earth- 
quake which  "  split  it  in 
two  from  top  to  bottom." 
Nothing  remains  of  the 
first  cathedral  of  Lincoln 
to-day  except  a  portion 
of  Remigius's  west-front 
(built  into  the  vast  Early- 
English  facade),  and  the 
lower  stages  of  the  west- 
ern   towers,  which,  like 
the  doorways  in  the  front 
itself,  were  parts  of  Alex- 
ander's reconstructions. 

Bishop  Hugh  of  Avalon  or 
of  Burgundy  —  in  the  calendar, 
St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln  —  began 
the  present  church,  building  the 
choir,  the  minor  transepts,  and 
a  piece  of  the  great  transepts; 
and  his  immediate  successors, 
by  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  had  completed  these 
transepts,  together  with  the 
nave,  the  west  facade  and  its 
turrets  and  chapels,  the  great 


1. 1. \COLN  CATHEDRAL. 


585 


Galilee-porch  on  the  southern  side,  the  vestry, 
the  chapter-house,  and  the  two  lower  stones 
of  the  central  tower.  These  parts  are  all  still 
the  same  and  are  all  in  the  Lancet-Pointed 
(Early-English)  style.  The  presbytery  beyond 
the  minor  transepts  —  the 
famous  "Angel  Choir" — 
was  built  between  1255 
and  1280,  the  cloisters  be- 
fore 1300,  and  the  upper 
stages  of  the  central  tower 
immediately  after,  all  in 
the  Decorated  style.  The 


and  Perpendicular  art  brings  its  accent  into 
the  majestic  whole. 

in. 

IF  the  traveler  is  wise  he  will  not  choose  a 
hostelry  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
town,  for  it  is  a  long  walk  thence 
to  the  cathedral,  and  a  walk  that 
means  a  climb  up  the  steepest 
streets  I  saw  in  England.  P'ortu- 
nately  there  is  a  very  good  inn  just 
beyondthecathedral  precincts,  with- 
in the  precincts  of  the  old  Roman 


THE  EXCHEQUER  GATE  AND  THE  WEST-I-'KONT  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL. 


earliest  Perpendicular  manner  —  close  akin  to 
the  latest  Decorated  —  is  revealed  in  the 
upper  stories  of  the  western  towers ;  and  in 
many  of  the  older  portions  of  the  church 
both  Decorated  and  Perpendicular  windows 
were  inserted. 

The  church  of  Lincoln  is  thus  a  most  inter- 
esting one  to  study  after  we  have  been  at  Salis- 
bury and  Lichfield.  At  Salisbury  we  found 
a  church  wholly  in  the  Early-English  manner 
with  a  Decorated  spire.  At  Lichfield  we  found 
one  almost  wholly  in  the  Decorated  manner 
with  Early-English  transepts.  At  Lincoln 
Lancet-Pointed  work  is  again  preponderant, 
but  Decorated  work  is  very  conspicuous  and 
singularly  fine,  Norman  features  still  remain. 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  81. 


station.  As  we  leave  its  door  we  turn  a  corner, 
where  a  curious  half-timbered  house  overhangs 
the  street,  and  see  to  the  westward  the  Roman 
gate  and  the  Norman  castle,  and  to  the  east- 
ward the  "  Exchequer  Gate,"  a  tall  three- 
storied  structure  of  the  Decorated  period. 
This  admits  us  into  a  small  paved  square  — 
the  Minster  Yard — surrounded  on  three  sides 
by  low  ecclesiastical  dwellings.  Filling  the 
whole  of  the  fourth  side,  just  in  front  of  us, 
rises  the  enormous  facade  of  the  church,  pe- 
culiarly English  in  conception,  and  individ- 
ual in  its  naive  incorporation  of  inharmonious 
Norman  features. 

The  front  which  remained  after  the  earth- 
quake—  with    five   great,  round-arched   re- 


586 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


^ 


THE    FACADE    FROM    THE    MINSTER    YARD. 


cesses  of  graduated  height,  three  of  them 
inclosing  low,  round-arched  portals  —  was 
made  the  nucleus  of  the  new  fagade.  Wide 
wings  finished  by  turrets  were  thrown  out  on 
each  side  of  it  and  a  high  reach  of  wall  was 
built  up  above,  all  covered  with  Lancet- Pointed 
arcades  in  close-set  rows;  and  to  bring  some 
semblance  of  unity  into  the  effect,  the  round 
top  of  the  tall  central  recess  was  altered  into 
a  pointed  shape  and  surmounted  by  an  ar- 
caded  gable. 

What  are  we  to  say  of  such  a  front  as  this  ? 
It  is  not  a  design  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word, 
and  we  may  believe  that  it  would  not  have 
been  even  had  the  architect  been  unhampered 
by  the  Norman  wall.  Like  the  contemporary 
fagade  at  Salisbury,  which  was  built  under  no 
constraint,  the  newer  part  is  simply  a  huge 
screen,  misrepresenting  the  breadth,  and  still 
more  grossly  the  height,  of  the  church  behind 
it ;  and  even  as  a  screen  it  is  ungraceful  in  out- 
line and  weak  in  composition  —  elaborately 
decorated,  but  almost  devoid  of  architectural 
sinew  and  bone.  When  we  study  it  on  paper 
there  is  only  one  verdict  to  give  —  a  very  big 
piece  of  work  but  a  very  bad  one.  Yet  when 
we  stand  in  its  mighty  shadow  our  indictment 


weakens.  Then  we  see  how  hugely  big  it  is 
and  how  its  bigness  — its  towering,  frowning, 
massive,  and  imperious  air — redeems  its  lack 
of  dignity  in  design.  We  see  that  its  great 
Norman  arches  preserve  their  due  importance 
despite  the  wide  fields  of  alien  work  around 
them.  We  see  that  although  the  towers  be- 
hind it  have  no  true  connection  with  its  mass, 
they  yet  supplement  that  mass  superbly.  We 
see  that  the  endless  repetition  of  similar  niches 
is  at  least  a  successful  decorative  device,  greatly 
to  be  preferred  to  such  a  counterfeit  of  archi- 
tectural designing  as  the  blank  windows  of 
the  Salisbury  fagade; —  although  on  paper 
they  may  seem  but  to  reveal  a  want  of  invent- 
ive power,  in  actuality  they  give  a  wonderful 
effect  of  repose  combined  with  richness.  In 
short,  we  see,  when  face  to  face  with  Lincoln, 
that  there  maybe  such  a  thing  in  architecture 
as  successful  sin  —  that  if  a  bad  piece  of  work 
is  only  big  and  bold  enough  it  may  appear 
wholly  grand  and  almost  beautiful.  The  front 
of  Lincoln  is  not  a  good  church-front.  It  is 
not  an  organic  composition.  It  is  not  even  a 
very  clever  attempt  to  unite  alien  elements 
in  an  harmonious  whole.  But  all  the  same 
it  is  a  splendid  stretch  of  wall,  and  one  which 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


587 


gives  the  observer  an  emotion  such  as  stirs 
him  very  seldom  when  he  views  an  English 
cathedral  from  the  west. 


IV. 

P.KN'K.vni  the  central  arch  we  enter  a  square 
porch  out  of  which  opens  on  each  hand  an- 
other of  smaller  si/e.  Lying  under  the  Nor- 
man towers  these  porches  are  Xormanin  body 
themselves,  but  are  covered  with  Perpendicu- 
lar vaults,  lined  with  Perpendicular  carvings, 
and  encumbered  by  eighteenth-century  con- 
structions which  the  tottering  state  of  the 


archei  between  them  are  so  widely  spread, 
that  the  effect  of  the  long  perspective  is  a  lit- 
tle too  open  and  empty,  and  the  triforium 
seems  a  little  too  heavy  by  contrast.  The 
vaulting,  moreover,  is  far  from  satisfactory. 
Diverging  ribs  in  fan-like  groups  start  from 
each  vaulting-shaft  and  end  at  equal  intei  \.-il-. 
along  a  longitudinal  mid-rib.  The  effect  of 
such  a  design  (a  common  one  in  large  English 
churches)  is  never  so  pleasing  as  that  of  a  de- 
sign which  shows  transverse  ribs  spanning  the 
nave  from  shaft  to  shaft  with  diagonal  ribs 
crossing  between  them ;  for  it  accords  less 
logically  with  walls  that  are  conspicuously 


THE  SOUTH  SIDE  OF  THE  CATHKDRAL. 


towers  prescribed.  Beyond  them  lie  large 
chapels,  forming  the  Early-English  wings  of 
the  facade;  and  behind  these  but  uncon- 
nected with  them,  and  divided  from  the  nave- 
aisles  by  a  low  wall  only,  are  again  two  chapels 
of  a  somewhat  later  date. 

The  nave  itself  is  more  richly  adorned  than 
the  contemporary  Early-English  nave  at  Salis- 
bury, and  is  more  majestic  than  the  still  richer 
Decorated  nave  at  Lichfield.  But  its  piers  are 
so  widely  spaced  and,  in  consequence,  the 


divided  into  compartments,  it  accentuates 
length  too  evidently,  and  its  great  conical 
masses  have  a  heavy  and  crushing  look.  The 
lower  the  church,  the  more  these  faults  offend ; 
and  Lincoln  is  very  low  indeed.  Its  nave  is 
but  eighty  feet  in  height  and  its  choir  is  eight 
feet  lower  still. 

The  central  tower  opens  above  the  cross- 
ing as  a  lofty  lantern.  Its  lower  stages  were 
built  early  in  the  thirteenth  century,  but  al- 
most immediately  fell,  to  be  at  once  rebuilt, 


S88 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


before  the  year  1250,  in  exact  repetition  of  the    that  surrounds  them.   The  "Bishop's   Eye" 


first  design. 


dates  from  about  1330,  when  the  Decorated 


The  most  noteworthy  features  in  the  great  style  was  no  longer  young  and  had  passed 

transept  are  the  two  rose-windows  which,  close  from  its   "geometrical"  into   its  "flowing" 

beneath  the  vaulting,  face  each  other  across  stage.    In  design  it  does  not  deserve  unstinted 

its  length — the  "Bishop's  Eye"  shining  at  praise,  for  its  shape  is  not  strongly  enough  ac- 

the  southern  end  and  overlooking  "  the  quar-  centuated  by  the  main  lines  of  the  traceries. 


ON    THE    BANKS    OF    THE     VV1THAM. 


ter  of  the  Holy  Spirit "  to  invite  its  influence, 
the  "  Dean's  Eye  "  shining  at  the  northern  end 
and  watching  "the  region  of  Lucifer"  to 
guard  against  his  advances.  Circular  windows 
of  later  than  a  Norman  date  are  not  very  com- 
mon in  England,  and  when  we  see  how  beau- 
tiful are  these  and  how  interesting  in  their 
contrast,  we  do  not  wonder  that  their  fame  is 
wide. 

The  "  Dean's  Eye "  is  an  Early-English 
window  of  about  1220, —  a  wheel-window 
rather  than  arose,  a  perfect  example  of  plate- 
tracery  applied  to  a  round  opening.  The 
stone-work  is  light  and  graceful,  but  it  is  a  flat 
plate  pierced,  not  an  assemblage  of  curved 
and  molded  bars ;  and  the  design  which  im- 
presses itself  upon  the  eye  —  the  pattern  which 
makes  the  window's  beauty  —  is  formed  by  the 
openings  themselves,  not  by  the  stone-work 


But  apart  from  this  want  of  perfect  adapta- 
tion, the  traceries  are  very  beautiful ;  and  no 
one  can  mistake  the  share  they  play  in  the  ef- 
fect of  the  window.  The  pattern  which  makes 
the  beauty  of  this  window  is  not  encircled  by 
the  delicate  bars  of  stone,  but  is  composed  by 
these  bars.  The  plate-traceried  window  (if  I 
may  repeat  a  phrase  already  used  in  a  simi- 
lar connection  *)  appears  as  a  beautiful  design 
done  in  large  spots  of  light  upon  an  opaque 
ground.  The  true  traceried  window  appears 
as  a  beautiful  design  etched  in  black  upon  a 
luminous  ground.  Fortunately,  both  the  lu- 
minous pattern  in  the  Dean's  window  and  the 
luminous  background  in  the  Bishop's  are  still 
formed  by  ancient  glass,  royally  magnificent 
in  color. 

*  See  "  Lichfield  Cathedra],"  THE  CKNTURY  MAGA- 
ZINE, July,  1888. 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


589 


THE    CATHEDRAL    FROM    THE    POOL. 


V. 


THE  original  choir-screen  —  or,  at  least,  a 
rich  and  massive  choir-screen  of  the  Deco- 
rated period,  a  veritable  bit  of  wall  —  still 
stands  at  Lincoln  between  the  angle-piers  to 
the  eastward  of  the  crossing.  Only  when  we 
enter  beneath  its  doorway  is  the  full  glory  of 
the  vast  east-limb  revealed.  Two  distinct  de- 
signs unite  in  harmony  in  this  east-limb  — 
St.  Hugh's  Early-English  design  of  the  choir 
proper  and  the  later  Decorated  design  of 
the  so-called  Angel  Choir  beyond  the  minor 
transepts.* 

No  fiercer  architectural  battle  has  ever  been 
fought  than  the  one  for  which  the  choir  of  St. 
Hugh  has  supplied  the  field.  The  question  at 
issue  is  one  which  appeals  to  something  more 
than  cold  antiquarian  curiosity.  When  it  is 
asked  whether  the  choir  of  Lincoln  may  rightly 
be  called  "  the  earliest  piece  of  pure  Gothic 
work  in  the  world,"  how  shall  national  pride, 
international  prejudice  and  jealousy,  fail  of 

*  As  will  he  seen  from  the  plan,  the  "  ritual  choir  " 
with  the  high-altar  at  its  eastern  end  is  carried  beyond 
these  transepts  ;  but,  architecturally  speaking,  the  space 
beyond  them  forms,  first  the  presbytery  and  then  the 


their  effect  upon  the  answer  ?  In  truth,  they 
have  variously  tinged  so  many  different  an- 
swers that  in  reading  about  this  choir  we 
almost  feel  as  though  no  point  in  the  history  of 
medieval  art  had  been  accurately  established 
nor  the  relative  value  of  any  of  its  character- 
istics definitely  appraised.  But  it  is  just  this 
fact  which  gives  the  subject  its  interest  for 
the  transatlantic  traveler.  He  might  care  little 
about  the  claims  set  up  for  Lincoln  if  they 
were  merely  claims  between  English  church 
and  church.  But  it  is  worth  his  while  to  try 
to  understand  them  for  the  sake  of  better 
understanding  how  the  course  of  architectural 
development  varied  between  land  and  land. 

It  is  impossible  to  formulate  a  definition  of 
"  pure  Gothic "  work  which  would  satisfy 
both  sides  of  the  Channel.  If  we  were  to  say- 
both  pure  and  complete,  and  speak  in  a  very 
abstract  way,  we  might,  no  doubt,  succeed. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  give  even  an  abstract  defi- 
nition of  purity  alone,  leaving  completeness 
out  of  sight — fora  mere  lack  of  some  one  char- 
retro-choir.  Architecturally  speaking  the  Angel  Choir 
is  not  the  choir  of  Lincoln,  but  a  vast  accessory  space 
constructed,  as  so  often,  to  meet  the  needs  of  relic- 
worship. 


59° 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


THE    CATHEDRAL    FROM    THE     HIGH     STR 


acteristic  is,  in  the  eyes  of  many,  as  great  a  blot, 
as  conspicuous  a  mark  of  the  Transitional  stage, 
as  the  presence  of  an  alien  characteristic.  And  in 
any  case  it  is  hard  to  make  theories  —  theories 
in  which  taste  must  come  to  the  aid  of  logic 
in  many  decisions  —  fit  so  complicated  a  de- 
velopment as  that  of  Pointed  architecture. 
Whether  a  feature  or  detail  is  perfectly  pure, 
perfectly  harmonious  with  the  Gothic  ideal, 
or  only  approximately  pure,  only  Transitional; 


which  features  and  details  are  of  prime  and 
which  of  secondary  importance ;  how  many, 
if  any  at  all,  that  are  not  perfectly  pure  may 
consist  with  a  general  effect  which  is  entitled 
to  the  perfect  name  —  all  these  are  questions 
that  arise  in  ever-changing  application  as  we 
pass  from  church  to  church,  and  that  men 
must  answer  differently  in  accordance  with 
those  aesthetic  leanings  which,  among  Euro- 
peans, are  often  merely  ingrained  preposses- 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


59' 


sions  for  familiar  local  types.  The  best  thing 
an  . \merican  can  do  is  to  notice  just  how 
Kivnchmen  worked  in  the  year  1200  and  just 
how  Englishmen  worked  ;  and  then,  if  he  cares- 
tor  i  ut-and-dncd  beliefs,  to  decide  for  himself 
which  of  them  it  was  whose  work  was  purest. 
To  the  mind  of  a  French  architect  in  the 
ve  ir  i  200  the  chief  essential,  1  should  say,  was 
the  general  impression  which  his  building 
would  produce;  and  this,  he  felt,  depended 
more  upon  its  proportions  and  tin:  shape  and 
disposition  of  its  main  constructional  elements 
than  upon  details  of  form  and  decoration.  It 
seemed  to  him  much  more  important  that  his 
church  should  be  very  lofty  and  that  all  its 
stories  should  form  inseparable  parts  of  a  single 
architectural  conception,  than  that  no  round 
arch  should  appear  even  in  those  minor  situa- 
tions where  its  shape  could  not  affect  the 
structural  design.  He  did  not  feel,  as  Eng- 
lish critics  say  he  should  have  felt,  that  his 
result  would  be  inharmonious  if  the  square 
abacus,  instead  of  the  round  or  polygonal  aba- 
cus, were  used  in  the  capitals  of  his  piers;  or 
if  some  of  these  piers  were  simply  columnar  — 
were  devoid  of  attached  shafts  or  moldings. 
But  he  did  feel  that  his  vaulting-shafts  should 
be  integrally  united  in  some  way  with  the 
pier:;,  while  even  above  the  most  richly  molded 
pier  an  Englishman  could  contentedly  let 
his  vaulting-shafts  be  borne  by  independent 
corbels.  He  was  not  so  quick  as  the  English- 
man to  see  that  the  more  complicated  new 
system  of  construction  required  more  compli- 
cated sections  for  jamb  and  arch-line,  and  that 
the  effect  would  be  more  harmonious  were 
these  sections  gently  rounded  instead  of  being 
square  and  sharp.  But  he  more  quickly  saw 
that  the  greater  importance  which  the  new 
system  of  vaulting  gave  to  the  chief  points 
of  support  decreased  the  importance  of  the 
walls  between  them ;  that  this  fact  ought  to 
be  explained,  and  that  wide  windows  filled 
with  traceries  explained  it  more  fully  than 
mere  groups  of  lancets.  And  a  church  in  the 
Pointed  style  unvaultecl,  covered  by  a  level 
ceiling,  would  have  seemed  to  him  the  nega- 
tion of  all  good  sense  and  taste.  Occidental 
builders  had  first  used  the  Pointed  arch  in  their 
vaults,  in  answer  to  the  constructional  neces- 
sity for  making  curves  of  different  lengths 
meet  at  a  common  height.  From  the  vault  it 
had  descended  to  the  other  portions  of  the 
fabric,  in  answer  to  the  aesthetic  need  for  har- 
mony and  the  growing  wish  for  altitude  and 

"It  would  be  hopeless  in  the  space  here  at  command 
to  report  the  various  opinions  which  have  been  ad- 
vanced with  regard  to  the  exact  age  of  this  work  or 
the  degree  to  which  it  was  affected  by  foreign  example. 
Even  among  English  critics  there  are  one  or  two  who 
doubt  whether  the  whole  choir  was  built  by  St.  Hugh, 
although  all  agree  that  it  was  purely  English  in  its 


vertical  accentuation.  From  there  it  had 
worked  with  creative  touch  to  guide  the  new 
development  and  dictate  its  every  feature. 
How,  then,  could  it  be  omitted  there,  in  a 
work  in  the  new  style,  except  by  committing 
a  patent  sin  against  constructional  logic  on 
the  one  hand,  purity  of  aesthetic  effect  on  the 
other? 

Let  us  look  now  at  the  choir  of  Lincoln 
and  see  in  what  its  purity  consists.  All  its 
arches  are  pointed.  The  great  piers  of  the 
main  arcade  are  richly  shafted,  and  the  lesser 
piers  of  the  triforium  still  more  richly.  All  the 
sections  are  defined  by  complex  and  gently 
rounded  moldings.  All  the  main  capitals  have 
the  round  abacus,  and  where  it  does  not  oc- 
cur a  polygonal  form  is  used;  and  all  the 
sculptured  foliage  is  of  that  true  Early-English 
type  which  is  so  markedly  distinct  from  any 
type  of  Romanesque  —  upright  stalks  encircle 
the  capital  and  bear  coronals  of  curling  leaves. 

If  this  choir  was  really  built  when  English 
critics  (apparently  with  clear  facts  to  back 
them)  say  it  was — just  before  the  year  1200 — 
it  is  certainly  both  purer  and  richer  in  detail 
than  any  contemporary  work  in  France.*  But 
does  this  mean  that  it  is  purer  in  general  ef- 
fect, more  truly  and  distinctively  Gothic  in 
feeling,  farther  on  the  path  towards  that  stage 
in  development  which  means  perfect  purity 
and  completeness  both  —  the  entire  as  well 
as  the  impeccable  realization  of  the  highest 
Gothic  ideal  ? 

There  are  many  reasons  why  a  French 
critic  may  well  answer,  No.  Although  all  its 
arches  are  pointed,  those  of  the  main  arcade 
are  so  very  slightly  pointed  that  their  effect 
differs  to  a  scarcely  perceptible  degree  from 
the  effect  of  semicircles,  and  those  of  the 
triforium  are  but  a  trifle  more  acute,  so  that 
these  two  stories  might  be  rebuilt  with  round 
arches  and  yet  their  proportions  remain  the 
same  —  their  design,  constructionally  con- 
sidered, be  almost  unchanged.  Again,  the 
sweep  of  the  vault  is  so  low  and  its  diverging 
ribs  bear  so  little  relation  to  the  design  of  the 
wall-compartments,  that  it  seems  rather  to 
crush  the  choir  than  to  soar  above  it,  and  act- 
ually conflicts  with  that  expression  of  vertic- 
ality  which  should  be  the  animating  spirit  of 
every  line  in  a  work  of  Pointed  architecture. 
Moreover,  we  are  told  by  some  authorities 
that  even  this  vault  was  not  built  until  after 
the  fall  of  the  tower — that  a  ceiling  of  flat 
boards  was  the  covering  St.  Hugh  bestowed 

origin.  Among  foreign  critics  many  have  asserted  some 
continental  influence  imported  by  St.  Hugh  or  by  his 
architect,  while  Viollet-le-Duc  declares  that  everything 
is  purely  English,  but  decides,  therefore,  that  the  year 
1 200  must  have  seen  the  beginning  rather  than  the 
completing  of  the  work. 


592 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


a  very  much  taller  structure  covered 
by  a  vault  of  soaring  effect  designed 
in  intimate  accord  with  the  wall-de- 
sign.   In  the  main  arcade  we  find 
columns  alternating  with  true  piers. 
But  these  true  piers  are  beautifully 
shafted  and  molded ;    they  rise  in 
unbroken  lines  to  the  base  of  the 
clerestory  windows ;  here  their  cap- 
itals are  matched  by  the  capitals  of 
the  vaulting-shafts  which  stand  on 
the  intermediate  columns,  and  thus 
all  the  stories  are  united  as  parts  of 
a  single  structural  idea.  Square  sec- 
tions everywhere  appearin  the  arches, 
and  round  arches  appear  in  the  clere- 
story and  in   a  little  arcade  which 
runs  beneath  it.    But  the  arches  of 
the  two  lower  stories  are  very  much 
taller  and  more  sharply  pointed  than 
at  Lincoln.    It  would  be  impossible 
to  rebuild  these  stories  without  con- 
spicuously altering  either  their  height 
or  the  width  of  their  bays,  or  leav- 
ing in  each  a  broad, plain 
field    of  wall — without 
tearing  the  whole  design 
apart  and  producing  a 
new  design  of  utterly  dif- 
ferent aspect.    In  short, 
the  constructional  skele- 
ton of  Noyon's  nave  may 
be    called    much    more 
purely  or,   at  the  very 
least,  much   more    em- 
phatically  Gothic   than 
the  skeleton  of  Lincoln's 
choir, although  the  deco- 
rative integument  at  Lin- 
coln is  both  more  richly 
and  more  harmoniously 
developed. 

However,  the  chief 
'  -  thing  to  remember  in 
connection  with  this  fa- 
mous quarrel  is  that  even 
if  Lincoln  be  counted 
upon  his  choir.  If  this  be  true  then  a  contem-  "  the  earliest  piece  of  pure  Gothic  work  in  the 
porary  Frenchman  might  well  have  called  it  world,"  the  fact  cannot  sustain  the  claim  that 
incomplete  in  style,  inharmonious  in  effect,  English  architects  "invented"  or  "intro 
and  thought  its  purity  and  perfection  of  detail  duced  "  the  Pointed  style.  This  claim  has 
matters  of  secondary  moment.  And  even  if  often  been  made  in  the  past  and  even  now 
it  be  not  true,  he  might  still  have  been  willing  is  sometimes  made;  but  it  is  untenable  to  a 
to  point  to  churches  of  his  own  and  ask  im-  point  beyond  the  need  for  serious  discussion, 
partiality  to  decide  whether  they  were  not  No  facts  in  all  architectural  history  are  more 
further  on  the  road  to  complete  purity  than  certain  than  that  in  twelfth-century  France  — 


ONE    BAY    OF    THE     ANGEL    CHOIR. 


St.  Hugh's. 


in  the  central  districts  of  what  we  now  call 


If  we  look  at  the  nave  of  Noyon  Cathedral,  France,  in  the  domaine  royal,  the  province 

for  instance, —  which  I  choose  because  it  was  of  the  Ile-de-France  — pointed   arches  were 

built  some   thirty   years   before    the  earliest  first  used  as  the  basis  of  a  consistent  archi- 

date  claimed  for  the  choir  of  Lincoln. —  we  see  tectural  scheme,  and  that  thence  their  use 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


593 


was  spread  abroad,  northward  to  England, 
eastward  to  Germany,  southward  to  Italy 
and  Spain.  \Ve  need  not  go  for  dates  in 
confirmation  to  the  soil  of  France  itself. 
\Ve  have  seen  the  character  of  the  late-Tran- 
sitional choir  at  Canterbury  and  know  how 
nearly  it  approaches  to  true  Gothic  in  feature 
and  effect ;  and  we  know  that  it  was  built  by 
Frenchmen  while  Englishmen  were  building 
the  Norman  naves  of  Peterborough  and  Ely. 


The  most  that  can  be  claimed  for  English 
architects  is  that,  after  borrowing  the  new 
idea,  they  developed  it  in  an  independent 
way  and,  as  regards  certain  forms  and  details, 
more  rapidly  than  their  Gallic  rivals. 


VI. 

Tin.  minor  or  eastern  transepts  of  Lincoln 
belong  also  to  the  time  of  St.  Hugh  and 
show  a  lingering  Norman  in- 
fluence in  their  polygonal 
chapels.  Beyond  them  lies 
the  Angel  Choir,  which  was 
completed  about  the  year 
1280,  in  the  noblest  period 
of  the  Decorated  style. 

Few  disparities  between 
feature  and  feature  now  mark 
off  English  work  from  French, 
yet  insular  independence  still 
speaks  from  the  general  effect. 


594 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


The  lo\v  proportions  of  the  Angel  Choir  suf- 
fice to  make  it  almost  as  unlike  any  contem- 
porary foreign  work  as  the  choir  of  St.  Hugh 
is  unlike  the  nave  of  Noyon.  Its  beauty  best 
appears  when  we  study  one  of  its  bays  in 
isolation,  forgetting  that  it  is  a  part  of  so 
immensely  long  a  church.  Then  the  design 
seems  to  have  but  a  single  fault  —  the  vault- 
ing-shafts are  not  integral,  vital  parts  of  it. 
Their  supporting  corbels  are  simply  intruded 
between  the  main  , 

arches ;  and  their 
capitals  are  intrud- 
ed between  the  tri- 
forium  arches,  ap- 
pearing as  if  the 
vault  had  pressed 


them  from  their  proper  station  on  the  clere- 
story string-course.  So  in  truth  it  did,  not  in 
the  actual  stone,  of  course,  but  in  the  design- 
er's thought.  A  vault  of  this  form  and  height 
could  not  have  started  from  a  loftier  point. 

There  is  no  Lady-Chapel  at  Lincoln;  the 
whole  cathedral  was  dedicated  to  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  as  had  been  the  church  of  an  Eng- 
lish congregation  which  occupied  the  site  be- 
fore the  Normans  came.  The  presbytery  was 
built  with  its  great  retro-choir  in  honor  of  St. 
Hugh.  Hither  his  wonder-working  shrine  was 
translated,  with  all  pomp  and  circumstance, 
in  the  year  1280,  being  brought  from  the 
north-east  transept  and  placed  just  back  of 
the  high-altar;  and  here  he  slept  for  centuries 
in  a  fame  and  sanctity  greater  than  those 
which  enwrapped  any  saint  on  English  ground 
save  Thomas  of  Canterbury  alone. 

To-day  we  look  for  his  sepulcher  in  vain. 
Yet  the  allied  besoms  of  destruction  and  res- 
toration have  passed  with  comparative  light- 
ness over  Lincoln.  Many  other  splendid 
tombs  and  chantries  are  preserved,  often  with 
much  of  their  sculptured  ornament  intact. 
The  Decorated  stalls  which  encircle  the  choir 


THE    CENTRAL    TOWER    AND    THE    GALILEE-PORCH. 


L/.\'CO/..\-   CATHEDRAL. 


595 


proper  are  of  admirable 
workmanship  anil  strik- 
ing effort.  'I'liL-  altar- 
snven  is  likewise  of  the 
Decorated  period,  al- 
though painfully  re- 
stored. The  blank 
arcades  in  the  aisles 
seem  surprisingly  rich, 
even  after  one  has  seen 
those  in  the  "Nine  Al- 
tars "  at  Durham.  The 
minor  transepts  are  shut 
off  from  the  choir  by 
tall  screens  of  iron 
tracery,  lovely  and  yet 
vigorous  as  only  ham- 
mered iron-work  can 
be.  Architectural  carv- 
ing is  everywhere  pro- 
fuse and  usually  of  the 
greatest  beauty,  and  the 
figures  in  the  triforium 
spandrels,  which  have 
given  the  Angel  Choir 
its  popular  name,  are 
of  unique  importance  in 
English  interior  deco- 
ration. The  effect  of  all 
this  lavish  adornment 
is  greatly  increased  by 
the  diversified  plan  of 
the  structure,  which  at 
every  step  gives  varying 
lights  and  shadows,  new 
combinations  of  form, 
fresh  perspectives  with 
fresh  accords  and  con- 
trasts; and  altogether 
the  east-limb  of  Lincoln 
dwells  in  my  mind  as 
more  richly  pictorial  in  aspect  than  any  part 
of  any  other  English  cathedral.  Of  course  the 
mood  of  the  moment  has  much  to  do  with  im- 
printing such  impressions;  yet  I  venture  to 
record  this  one  with  the  claim  that  it  cannot 
be  very  far  away  from  the  truth. 

VII. 

BUT  it  is  only  when  we  pass  outside  the 
church  again  and  make  its  mighty  circuit  that 
the  full  value  of  its  complex  plan  and  its  rich 
adornment  is  made  clear.  I  would  not  say  that 
Lincoln  is  the  most  beautiful  of  English  ca- 
thedrals inside.  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  it  is  the 
most  impressive  outside  when  seen  from  a 
distance.  But  I  am  certain  that  it  is  the  most 
beautiful  and  the  most  interesting  outside 
when  studied  foot  by  foot  under  the  shadow 
of  its  walls.  It  is  more  varied  in  outline  and 


THE    SOUTH-EAST    TORCH. 


feature  than  Canterbury  itself,  and  it  is  vastly 
more  ornate. 

Even  the  west-front  is  extraordinarily  in- 
teresting in  detail,  especially  in  its  Norman 
portions;  and  when  we  turn  its  southern 
shoulder,  beauty  and  charm  increase  at  every 
step.  First  we  see  the  flanks  of  the  Norman 
towers  and  on  a  line  with  them  the  low  Early- 
English  chapels ;  and  then,  set  considerably 
back,  the  long  stretch  of  the  nave  with  lancet- 
windows  and  graceful  flying-buttresses,  a  deli- 
cate arcade  above  the  clerestory,  and  over 
this  an  open  parapet  bearing  great  canopied 
niches  of  the  Decorated  period.  Then  comes 
the  side  of  the  transept  with  the  Galilee- 
porch  in  bold  projection  —  richly  shafted,  ex- 
quisitely vaulted,  and  peculiar  by  reason  of 
its  cruciform  plan;  then  the  transept-end 
where  the  Bishop's  Eye  looks  out  beneath 
a  lofty  gable ;  then  a  deep  and  shadowy  re- 


596 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


cess  between  this  greater  and  the  minor  tran-  construction  of  some  other  chapter-house,  con- 
sept  ;  then  the  projecting  vestry,  the  gabled  fessing  that  the  buttresses  of  this  one  show 
front  of  the  minor  transept  with  its  beautiful  too  clearly  that  they  are  later  additions  which 
lancet-groups,  and  another  recess  varied  by  merely  rest  against  its  walls.  But  the  group 
the  polygonal  faces  of  the  little  lowly  chapels ;  as  a  whole  is  magnificent ;  and  when  we  stand 
and  then  the  buttresses  and  the  traceried  a  little  way  off  to  the  south-east  so  that  we 
windows  of  the  Angel  Choir  rising  over  a  can  encompass  it  in  a  single  gaze  with  the 
great  pinnacled  porch  and  two  Perpendicular  perspective  of  the  whole  south-side  —  then 
chantries.  Carven  ornament  has  been  growing  indeed  we  may  learn  what  architectural  corn- 
more  and  more  profuse  as  we  have  passed  position  means. 


thus  eastward  from  the  earlier  to  the  later 
work ;  and  here  in  this  south-eastern  porch 
the  climax  is  reached.  There  is  no  other  large 
porch  in  a  similar  situation  in  England,  and, 
I  think,  no  porch  at  all  which  is  so  ornate  in 
design. 

Nor  is  there  any  falling  off  in  beauty  of 
general  effect  when  we  turn  to  the  northward 
and  view  the  east-end  of  the  church  and  the 
polygonal  chapter-house  beyond.  We  may 
prefer  the  treatment  of  some  other  east-end, 
granting  that  here  the  upper  window  (which 
lights  the  space  between  the  vaulting  and  the 
high-pitched  outer  roof)  is  so  large  that  it 
injures  the  effect  of  the  principal  window,  and 
that  the  aisle-gables  are  shams,  representing 
nothing  behind  them  ;  and  we  may  prefer  the 


Low  as  are  the  vaulted  ceilings  of  Lincoln, 
its  outer  roofs,  in  the  six  great  arms  formed 
by  nave  and  choir  and  doubled  transepts,  are 
unusually  high  and  steep;  and,  beautifully 
supported  by  the  lesser  roofs  — lower  in  vary- 
ing degree  —  of  the  many  chapels,  aisles,  and 
porches,  they  as  beautifully  support  the  three 
tall  towers.  Far  off  to  the  westward  rise  the 
sturdy  Norman  pair  with  their  delicate  early- 
Perpendicular  tops,  harmonizing  well  with 
their  greater  brother  —  that  central  tower 
which  is  the  crown  in  beauty  as  in  construc- 
tional importance  of  the  whole  splendid  pile. 
This  late-Decorated  central  tower  of  Lincoln 
has  but  one  real  rival  —  the  Perpendicular 
central  tower  of  Canterbury.  Built  to  bear  a 
lofty  wooden  spire,  while  the  Canterbury  tower 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


597 


was  meant  to  be  spireless  from  the  first,  it  is 
nevertheless  almost  as  fine  in  form,  almost  as 
superbly  complete  in  its  present  spireless  state, 
while  in  loveliness  of  feature  and  enrichment 
it  is  beyond  compare. 


VIII. 

i;   is  no  such  wide-spreading  Close 

around  Lincoln  as  around  most  English  ca- 
thedrals, yet  even  here  a  green  environment 
does  not  lack.  Along  the  south  side  of  the 
church  runs  a  border  of  grass  with  a  street 
beyond  it,  and  the  low  walls  of  the  Vicar's 
Court,  flanked  by  ecclesiastical  houses.  To 
the  eastward  the  grass  stretches  out  into  a 
wide  lawn,  again  with  a  street  as  its  boundary ; 
and  to  the  northward  chapter-house  and  clois- 
ters look  on  a  still  broader  reach  of  turf. 

The  cloisters  were  from  the  first  almost  as 
purely  ornamental,  as  little  required  by  actual 
needs,  as  they  are  to-day  ;  for  there  was  never 
a  monastic  chapter  at  Lincoln,  But  whatever 
the  chapter,  a  house  for  its  councils  was  re- 
quired ;  and  a  singularly  beautiful  one  was 
built  by  the  canons  of  Lincoln.  It  is  decago- 
nal in  shape  and  about  sixty  feet  in  diameter, 
with  a  complex  vault  supported  by  a  central 
pillar,  from  which  the  ribs  diverge  like  palm- 
branches  from  a  palm.  There  are  other  chap- 
ter-houses which  resemble  it  in  general  design 
—  as  at  Salisbury,  Wells,  and  Westminster; 
but  to  my  mind  there  is  no  other  so  perfect. 
Its  proportions  are  faultless  and  the  sweep  of 
its  ceiling  is  graceful  beyond  words.  The  cen- 
tral pier,  with  its  circle  of  ten  isolated  marble 
shafts;  the  sharply  pointed  blank  arcade,  which 
surrounds  its  walls  above  the  stone  benches; 
the  lancet  windows,  which  in  groups  of  two 
fill  every  face  except  the  one  that  opens  by  its 
whole  width  into  the  stately  vestibule;  the 
rich  vaulting-shafts,  which  rise  between  smaller 
blank  lancets  in  every  angle  —  all  are  perfect 
in  themselves  and  in  perfect  harmony,  in  close 
architectural  union,  with  each  other.  What- 
ever may  be  the  case  in  their  larger  construc- 
tions, no  one  ever  surpassed  the  English  in 
constructions  such  as  this.  There  is  nothing 
lovelier  in  the  world  than  this  little  interior,  and 
there  is  nothing  better  as  a  work  of  Gothic  art. 

From  the  mere  position  of  chapter-house 
and  cloisters  we  might  almost  feel  sure  that 
they  were  not  built  as  parts  of  a  great  monas- 
tic establishment,  for  in  such  an  establishment 
their  proper  place  would  have  been  on  the 
south  side  of  the  nave.  Three  sides  of  the  clois- 
ters still  stand  in  their  original  Decorated  form; 
but  the  north  side,  with  the  library  above,  was 
burned  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  was 
reconstructed  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren.  Of 
course  this  piece  of  Renaissance  work  is  out 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 83. 


of  keeping  with  all  else,  yet  it  is  not  wholly 
unwelcome,  for  it  adds  to  the  historic  interest 
of  a  richly  historic  spot.  Where  these  cloisters 
stand  once  ran  the  wall  of  the  Roman  station, 
and  within  them  are  preserved  fragments  of  a 
tessellated  Roman  floor.  Beginning,  therefore, 
with  these  fragments,  running  the  eye  over 
the  huge,  near  body  of  the  church,  and  then 
coming  back  to  Sir  Christopher's  walls,  we  find 
signs  and  symbols  of  almost  all  the  generations 
which  make  England's  glory  when  she  counts 
her  treasures  of  art.  There  is  but  one  great 
gap  —  no  sign  or  token  appears  of  that  sturdy 
race  of  English  builders  who  had  their  Church 
of  Mary  on  this  same  spot  between  the  going 
of  the  Roman  and  the  coming  of  the  Norman. 
"  Saxons  "  or  "  Anglo-Saxons  "  these  builders 
are  popularly  called,  but  they  were  the  first 
Englishmen,  the  men  of  true,  undiluted  Eng- 
lish blood.  And  if  names  were  always  applied 
in  accordance  with  facts,  the  name  of  "  Early- 
English  architecture  "  would  be  given  to  their 
primitive  round-arched  work,  and  not  to  the 
Lancet- Pointed  work  of  those  thirteenth-cen- 
tury Englishmen  whose  blood  was  tinged  with 
a  Norman  strain. 

IX. 

BUT  if  no  relics  of  the  first  phase  of  Eng- 
lish art  remain  in  or  about  Lincoln  Cathedral, 
down  in  the  town  of  Lincoln  we  may  find 
them.  Here  stand  two  tall  church-towers, 
built  in  that  primitive  round-arched  style 
which  had  once  been  used  by  all  western 
Europe,  which  before  the  Conquest  the  Nor- 
man had  already  altered  into  another  round- 
arched  style  of  quite  different  aspect,  but  which 
the  German  was  still  employing.  In  Germany 
it  was  never  abandoned  —  only  developed  — 
until  it  was  exchanged  for  the  Pointed  style  of 
France.  But  in  England  it  was  at  once  sup- 
pressed by  the  conquerors'  style,  and  not  out 
of  it  but  out  of  the  Norman  style  grew  the 
Early- English  Pointed.  Here  at  Lincoln  we 
may  be  almost  sure  that  we  see  its  last  gasp 
for  life;  for  these  towers  were  built  by  an 
English  colony  from  the  upper  town  after  the 
architects  from  over-sea  had  there  begun  the 
great  cathedral-church. 

Nor  are  these  the  only  relics  of  remote  an- 
tiquity in  the  low  valley  and  steep,  climbing 
streets  of  Lincoln.  The  trace  of  the  Roman 
is  everywhere;  not  merely  in  excavated  bits 
of  pavement  and  carving,  but  in  the  great 
"  Newport  Gate  "  near  castle  and  church,  in 
the  line  of  the  far-stretching  highways,  in  the 
twelve  miles  of  "  Foss  Dyke "  which,  con- 
necting the  Witham  with  the  Trent,  still  serve 
the  purposes  of  commerce.  And  the  trace  of 
the  Norman  is  still  more  plainly  seen ;  not 
only  in  his  hill-top  church  and  castle,  but  in 


LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


several  dwellings  on  the  hill-side  streets.  All 
of  these  are  yet  in  use  and  one  of  them  still 
keeps,  in  its  name  of  the  "Jew's  house,"  a 
record  of  the  fact  that  few  but  Jews  were 
able  in  the  twelfth  century  to  dwell  in  hab- 
itations of  hewn  and  carven  stone.  Timbers 
sheltered  the  Christian  citizen  ;  only  God  and 
his  priests  and  the  Hebrew  pariah  could  af- 
ford the  costlier  material. 

The  Jews,  in  truth,  played  as  conspicuous 
and  at  times  as  martyr-like  a  role  in  medieval 
Lincoln  as  in  medieval  York.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  tell  of  their  dramatic  persecu- 
tion in  the  fourteenth  century  were  there  not 
in  Lincoln's  history  so  many  chapters  of  still 
greater  significance,  and  had  not  the  architect- 
ural chapter  been  so  long  in  the  telling.  The 
diocese  was  an  immense  one,  even  after  the 
Normans  set  off  Cambridgeshire  to  form  the 
diocese  of  Ely,  for  besides  its  present  territory 
it  included,  until  Reformation  times,  what  are 
now  the  sees  of  Peterborough  and  Oxford; 
and  the  size  and  strength  of  the  episcopal  city, 
and  its  situation  in  the  center  of  England  on 
the  high  road  to  the  north,  helped  to  insure 
the  permanence  of  its  early  renown.  Whether 
we  look  at  its  burghers'  record  or  its  bishops', 
there  is  never  an  age  when  great  names  and 
deeds  are  wanting. 

Here,  for  example,  King  Stephen  was  de- 
feated and  imprisoned  in  1141;  here  was  a 
focus  of  conflict  in  the  critical  reign  of  King 
John,  and  again  in  the  early  tempestuous 
years  of  King  Henry  III.;  here  was  a  Royal- 
ist defense,  a  Parliamentary  siege  and  triumph, 
in  1 644  ;  and  always  the  burghers  as  a  body 
were  more  influential  actors  than  has  often 
been  the  case  on  English  soil. 

Among  the  bishops  who  here  held  sway 
was  first  Remigius,  the  cathedral  founder; 
then  Robert  Bloet,  the  chancellor  of  William 
Rufus,  who  was  called  akin  in  nature  to  his 
patron  and  thought  to  be  rightly  punished 
when  "  his  sowle,  with  other  walking  spretes," 
was  compelled  to  haunt  the  cathedral  aisles ; 
then  Alexander,  who  repaired  the  church  of 
Remigius,  and,  although  "  called  a  bishop, 
was  a  man  of  vast  pomp  and  great  boldness 
and  audacity,"  and  "  gave  himself  up  to  mili- 
tary affairs  "  in  the  wars  of  Stephen.  Then, 
after  a  long  interregnum,  came  one  who  was 
never  consecrated  but  enjoyed  the  temporali- 
ties of  the  see  for  seven  years — Geoffrey  Plan- 
tagenet,  the  illegitimate  son  of  Henry  II. 
From  1 186  to  1200  ruled  St.  Hugh,  the  builder 
—  perfect,  we  are  told,  in  his  daily  life,  and 
a  model  bishop  before  the  world.  Another 
Hugh,  who  came  from  Wells,  soon  followed 
him,  and  then  in  1235,  Robert  Grosseteste, 
than  whom  no  man  of  his  time  was  more  re- 
markable in  himself  or  more  conspicuously  be- 


fore the  nation  —  a  scholar,  a  builder,  a  stern 
disciplinarian  in  his  diocese,  and  a  bold-fronted 
upholder  of  the  rights  of  the  English  Church 
against  the  king  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
pope  on  the  other.  Thus  the  list  runs  on, 
often  a  great  name,  never  a  quite  inconspic- 
uous one,  until  in  the  year  1395  we  reach 
Henry  Beaufort,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester and  Cardinal  of  Rome,  immortalized 
in  a  rather  unjust  light  by  Shakspere's  hand. 
He  was  followed  by  Philip  of  Repington,  at 
first  an  outspoken  Wickliffite,  then  a  truckling 
recanter,  and,  in  consequence,  a  man  whom 
princes  delighted  to  honor;  and  he  by  Rich- 
ard Fleming,  who  was  the  executive  of  the 
Roman  Church  in  that  act  of  the  results  of 
which  the  poet  says  : 

The  Avon  to  the  Severn  runs, 

The  Severn  to  the  sea; 
And   Wickliffe's  dust  shall  spread  abroad, 

Wide  as  the  waters  be. 

Here  at  Lincoln,  coming  from  the  chair 
of  Rochester,  sat  John  Russell,  who  played 
an  important  political  part  just  before  Henry 
VII.  gained  the  throne;  and  here  for  a  twelve- 
month ere  he  went  to  York  and  became  a 
cardinal,  Henry  VIII. 'sill-used  great  servant, 
Wolsey.  After  the  Reformation,  bishops  of 
political  fame  everywhere  grew  fewer,  but 
Lincoln's  succession  kept  well  to  the  front  in 
the  more  peaceful  walks  of  intellectual  life, 
and  furnished  many  archbishops  to  the  neigh- 
boring chair  at  York.  An  honored  name  oc- 
curs in  our  own  day  —  the  name  of  Christopher 
Wordsworth,  who  was  first  canon  and  arch- 
deacon at  Westminster,  and  died  as  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  in  1885. 

x. 

THE  south  side  of  Lincoln,  wrote  Fuller, 
in  his  "  Worthies  "  many  generations  since, 
"meets  the  travelers  thereunto  twenty  miles 
off,  so  that  their  eyes  are  there  many  hours 
before  their  feet."  We  count  by  minutes  now 
where  Fuller  counted  by  hours;  yet  they  must 
be  dull  eyes  to  which  Lincoln  does  not  speak 
with  entrancing  power  as  the  railroad  crosses 
the  flat  wolds  towards  the  base  of  the  roof- 
piled  hill,  as  they  see  it  ever  nearer  and 
nearer,  tremendously  crowned  yet  not  crushed 
by  its  three-towered  church,  until  the  encir- 
cling river  is  in  the  immediate  foreground, 
until  at  last  the  church  shows  paramount  as  the 
rail  is  left  and  the  steep  and  twisting  streets 
are  climbed. 

Upon  second  thoughts  I  am  inclined  to  say 
in  very  positive  fashion  that  when  thus  be- 
held, and  not  only  when  beheld  quite  near  at 
hand,  Lincoln  shows  the  finest  exterior  in 
England.  Certainly  Durham,  apart  from  its 
environment,  is  not  its  peer,  and  Durham  is 


MEMORANDA    ON  THE    CIVIL    WAR. 


599 


its  only  rival  in  dignity  of  site.  Durham,  in- 
trinsically, is  grand,  majestic,  and  imposing ; 
but  Lincoln  is  all  this  and  very  beautiful  as 
well.  No  other  cathedral  has  so  strong  yet 
graceful  a  skyline,  and  no  other  so  fine  a  group 
ofspirelesstowers.  Individually  each  tower  may 
be  surpassed  elsewhere,  but  all  three  together 
they  are  matchless.  Not  even  the  knowledge 
that  they  once  bore  spires  which  now  are 
gone  hurts  their  air  of  perfect  fitness  to  the 
church  they  finish  and  the  site  they  crown. 
And  as  to  sites,  while  Durham  is  made  more 
picturesque  by  the  trees  about  it  and  the  cas- 
tle walls  beside  it,  Lincoln's  loftier  perch  and 
closer  union  with  the  town  give  it  the  nobler 
look.  Hut  comparisons  are  futile.  Durham 
stands  superbly  in  front  of  its  city ;  Lincoln 
stands  superbly  above  its  city  ;  each  is  unpar- 
alleled in  its  way,  and  it  is  hopeless  to  deter- 
mine which  way  is  really  finer. 

Of  course  with  such  a  cathedral  one  need 


not  pick  one's  point  of  view;  the  difficulty 
would  be  to  find  a  place  above  the  horizon 
whence  the  church  of  Lincoln  could  not  be 
well  seen.  But  to  my  mind  there  is  one  point 
of  view  from  which  it  is  almost  better  worth 
seeing  than  from  very  near  or  from  very  far. 
This  is  from  the  Vicar's  Court  —  a  beautiful 
walled  garden  sloping  down  the  hill  to  the 
southward  of  the  choir.  Seen  from  here  in 
summer,  a  mass  of  trees  conceals  the  greater 
part  of  the  long  body;  but  the  tall  transept- 
fronts  show  clearly,  and  the  roof-lines,  and 
above  them  the  great  tower  at  just  the  right 
distance  for  appreciating  its  majesty  of  form 
and  its  loveliness  of  decoration. 

Almost  all  the  old  ecclesiastical  dwellings 
have  disappeared  except  for  frequent  frag- 
ments built  into  newer  walls.  But  we  scarcely 
regard  their  absence,  Lincoln  the  church  and 
Lincoln  the  secular  town  have  so  much  else 
to  show  us  in  so  many  shapes  and  styles. 

M.  G.  Tan  Rensselaer. 


MEMORANDA    ON    THE    CIVIL    WAR. 


General  Lee's  Views  on  Enlisting  the  Negroes. 

[THE  subjoined  letters,  which  contain  their  own 
explanation,  are  sent  to  us  through  the  Hon.  W.  L. 
Wilson,  M.  C.,by  the  Hon.  Andrew  Hunter,  of  Charles- 
town,  West  Virginia,  who  assures  us  that  they  have 
not  before  appeared  in  print. —  EDITOR.] 

RICHMOND,  January  7,  1865. 
To  GENERAL  R.  E.  LKK. 

DEAR  GENERAL:  I  regret  that  in  the  succession 
of  stirring  events  since  the  commencement  of  the  pres- 
ent war  I  have  had  so  little  opportunity  to  renew  our 
former,  to  me  at  least,  exceedingly  agreeable  acquaint- 
ance, and  particularly  that  I  have  so  rarely,  if  ever,  met 
with  a  suitable  occasion  to  interchange  views  with  you 
upon  the  important  public  questions  which  have  been 
and  are  still  pressing  on  us  with  such  intense  interest. 

It  would  have  demanded,  indeed,  in  view  of  the 
scarcely  less  than  awful  weight  of  care  and  responsi- 
bility Providence  and  your  country  have  thrown  upon 
you,  and  which  you  will  pardon  me  for  saying  has 
been  grandly  met,  no  ordinarily  favorable  opportunity 
to  have  induced  me  to  intrude  upon  your  over-bur- 
dened time  and  attention  for  such  a  purpose;  and  in 
approaching  you  now,  in  this  form,  upon  a  subject 
which  I  deem  of  vital  importance,  I  ofler  no  other  apol- 
ogy than  the  momentous  character  of  the  issue  fixed 
upon  the  hearts  and  minds  of  every  Southern  patriot. 

I  refer  to  the  great  question  now  stirring  the  pub- 
lic mind  as  to  the  expediency  and  propriety  of  bring- 
ing to  bear  against  our  relentless  enemy  the  element 
of  military  strength  supposed  to  be  found  in  our  ne- 
gro population  ;  in  other  words,  and  more  precisely, 
the  wisdom  and  sound  policy,  under  existing  circum- 
stances, of  converting  such  portions  of  this  popula- 


tion as  may  be  required  into  soldiers,  to  aid  in  maintain- 
ing our  great  struggle  for  independence  and  national 
existence. 

The  subject  is  one  which  recent  events  have  forced 
upon  our  attention  with  intense  interest,  and  in  my 
judgment  we  ought  not  longer  to  defer  its  solution ; 
and  although  the  President  in  his  late  annual  message 
has  brought  it  to  the  attention  of  Congress,  it  is  mani- 
festly a  subject  in  which  the  several  States  of  the  Con- 
federacy must  and  ought  to  act  the  most  prominent 
part,  both  in  giving  the  question  its  proper  solution 
and  in  carrying  out  any  plans  that  he  may  devise  on 
the  subject.  As  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Senate,  hav- 
ing to  act  upon  the  subject,  I  have  given  it  much  ear- 
nest and  anxious  reflection,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
here,  in  advance  of  the  full  discussion  which  it  will 
doubtless  undergo,  that  the  general  objections  to  the 
proposition  itself,  as  well  as  the  practical  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  carrying  it  out,  have  been  greatly  lessened 
as  I  have  more  thoroughly  examined  them.  But  it  is 
not  to  be  disguised  that  public  sentiment  is  greatly 
divided  on  the  subject ;  and  besides  many  real  objec- 
tions, a  mountain  of  prejudice  growing  out  of  our  an- 
cient modes  of  regarding  the  institution  of  Southern 
slavery  will  have  to  be  met  and  overcome,  before  we 
can  attain  to  anything  like  that  degree  of  unanimity  so 
extremely  desirable  in  this  and  all  else  connected  with 
our  great  struggle.  In  our  former  contest  for  liberty 
and  independence,  he  who  was  then  at  the  head  of  our 
armies,  and  who  became  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
did  not  hesitate  to  give  his  advice  on  all  great  subjects 
involving  the  success  of  that  contest  and  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  his  country,  and  in  so  doing  perhaps  ren- 
dered more  essential  service  than  he  did  in  the  field ; 
nor  do  I  perceive  why,  upon  such  a  subject  and  in  such 
a  crisis  as  the  present,  we  should  not  have  the  benefit 


6oo 


MEMORANDA    ON  THE    CIVIL    WAR. 


of  your  soundjudgment  and  matured  wisdom.  Pardon 
me  therefore  for  asking,  to  be  used  not  only  for  my 
own  guidance,  but  publicly  as  the  occasion  may  require: 
Do  you  think  that  by  a  wisely  devised  plan  and  judi- 
cious selection  negro  soldiers  can  be  made  effective 
and  reliable  in  maintaining  this  war  in  behalf  of  the 
Southern  States?  Do  you  think  that  the  calling  into 
service  of  such  numbers  of  this  population  as  the  exi- 
gency may  demand  would  affect  injuriously,  to  any 
material  extent,  the  institution  of  Southern  slavery  ? 
Would  not  the  introduction  of  this  element  of  strength 
into  our  military  operations  justify  in  some  degree  a 
more  liberal  scale  of  exemptions  or  details,  and  by  thus 
relieving  from  active  service  in  the  field  a  portion  of 
the  intelligent  and  directing  labor  of  the  country  (as 
seems  to  be  needed)  have  a  beneficial  bearing  upon 
the  question  of  subsistence  and  other  supplies  ? 

Would  not,  in  your  judgment,  the  introduction  of 
such  a  policy  increase,  in  other  regards,  our  power  of 
defense  against  the  relentless  warfare  the  enemy  is 
now  waging  against  us  ? 

These  are  but  some  of  the  leading  inquiries  which 
suggest  themselves.  But  I  beg,  General,  if  from  a 
sense  of  duty  and  the  promptings  of  your  elevated  pa- 
triotism, overriding  unwise  and  ill-timed  delicacy,  you 
consent  to  reply  to  these  inquiries,  for  the  purpose  be- 
fore frankly  indicated,  that  you  will  give  me  your  views, 
as  fully  as  your  engagements  will  allow,  upon  every 
other  question  that  may  occur  to  you  as  likely  to  con- 
duce to  a  wise  decision  of  this  grave  and,  as  deemed  by 
many,  vitally  important  subject.  With  highest  esteem, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

A nd ma  Hunter. 

HEADQUARTERS  ARMY  NORTH   VIRGINIA, 

nth  January,  1865. 
HON.  ANDREW  HUNTER,  RICHMOND,  VA. 

DEAR  SIR:  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  7th 
inst.,  and,  without  confining  myself  to  the  order  of  your 
interrogatories,  will  endeavor  to  answer  them  by  a 
statement  of  my  views  on  the  subject.  I  shall  be  most 
happy  if  I  can  contribute  to  the  solution  of  a  question 
in  which  I  feel  an  interest  commensurate  with  my  de- 
sire for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  our  people.  Con- 
sidering the  relation  of  master  and  slave,  controlled 
by  humane  laws  and  influenced  by  Christianity  and  an 
enlightened  public  sentiment,  as  the  best  that  can  ex- 
ist between  the  white  and  black  races  while  inter- 
mingled as  at  present  in  this  country,  I  would  deprecate 
any  sudden  disturbance  of  that  relation,  unless  it  be 
necessary  to  avert  a  greater  calamity  to  both.  I  should 
therefore  prefer  to  rely  upon  our  white  population  to 
preserve  the  ratio  between  our  forces  and  those  of  the 
enemy  which  experience  has  shown  to  be  safe.  But 
in  view  of  the  preparations  of  our  enemies  it  is  our 
duty  to  provide  for  continued  war,  and  not  for  a  battle 
or  campaign,  and  I  fear  that  we  cannot  accomplish 
this  without  overtaxing  the  capacity  of  our  white  pop- 
ulation. Should  the  war  continue,  under  existing  cir- 
cumstances, the  enemy  may  in  course  of  time  penetrate 
our  country  and  get  access  to  a  large  part  of  our  negro 
population.  It  is  his  avowed  policy  to  convert  the 
able-bodied  men  into  soldiers,  and  to  emancipate  all. 

The  success  of  the  Federal  arms  in  the  South  was 
followed  by  a  proclamation  of  President  Lincoln  for 
two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  men,  the  effect  of 


which  will  be  to  stimulate  the  Northern  States  to  pro- 
cure as  substitutes  for  their  own  people  the  negroes 
thus  brought  within  their  reach.  Many  have  already 
been  obtained  in  Virginia,  and  should  the  fortune  of 
war  expose  more  of  her  territory,  the  enemy  would 
gain  a  large  accession  to  his  strength. 

His  progress  will  thus  add  to  his  numbers  and  at 
the  same  time  destroy  slavery  in  a  manner  most  per- 
nicious to  the  welfare  of  our  people.  Their  negroes 
will  be  used  to  hold  them  in  subjection,  leaving  the  re- 
maining force  of  the  enemy  free  to  extend  his  conquest. 
Whatever  may  be  the  effect  of  our  employing  negro 
troops,  it  cannot  be  as  mischievous  as  this.  If  it  end  in 
subverting  slavery,  it  will  be  accomplished  by  our- 
selves, and  we  can  devise  the  means  of  alleviating  the 
evil  consequences  to  both  races.  I  think,  therefore,  we 
must  decide  whether  slavery  shall  be  extinguished  by 
our  enemies  and  the  slaves  be  used  against  us,  or  use 
them  ourselves  at  the  risk  of  the  effects  which  may  be 
produced  upon  our  social  institutions.  I  believe  that 
with  proper  regulations  they  can  be  made  efficient 
soldiers.  They  possess  the  physical  qualifications  in 
an  eminent  degree.  Long  habits  of  obedience  and 
subordination,  coupled  with  the  moral  influence  which 
in  our  country  the  white  man  possesses  over  the  black, 
furnish  an  excellent  foundation  for  that  discipline 
which  is  the  best  guarantee  of  military  efficiency.  Our 
chief  aim  should  be  to  secure  their  fidelity. 

There  have  been  formidable  armies  composed  of 
men  having  no  interest  in  the  cause  for  which  they 
fought  beyond  their  pay  or  hope  of  plunder.  But  it 
is  certain  that  the  surest  foundation  upon  which  the 
fidelity  of  an  army  can  rest,  especially  in  a  service 
which  imposes  peculiar  hardships  and  privations,,  is 
the  personal  interest  of  the  soldier  in  the  issue  of  the 
contest.  Such  an  interest  we  can  give  our  negroes  by 
giving  immediate  freedom  to  all  who  enlist,  and  free- 
dom at  the  end  of  the  war  to  the  families  of  those  who 
discharge  their  duties  faithfully  (whether  they  survive 
or  not),  together  with  the  privilege  of  residing  at  the 
South.  To  this  might  be  added  a  bounty  for  faithful 
service. 

We  should  not  expect  slaves  to  fight  for  prospective 
freedom  when  they  can  secure  it  by  going  to  the  ene- 
my, in  whose  service  they  will  incur  no  greater  risk 
than  in  ours.  The  reasons  that  induce  me  to  recom- 
mend the  employment  of  negro  troops  at  all  render 
the  effects  of  the  measures  I  have  suggested  upon  slav- 
ery immaterial,  and  in  my  opinion  the  best  means  of 
securing  the  efficiency  and  fidelity  of  this  auxiliary 
force  would  be  to  accompany  the  measure  with  a  well- 
digested  plan  of  gradual  and  general  emancipation.  As 
that  will  be  the  result  of  the  continuance  of  the  wnr, 
and  will  certainly  occur  if  the  enemy  succeed,  it  seems 
to  me  advisable  to  adopt  it  at  once,  and  thereby  secure 
all  the  benefits  that  will  accrue  to  our  cause. 

The  employment  of  negro  troops  under  regulations 
similar  in  principle  to  those  above  indicated  would,  in 
my  opinion,  greatly  increase  our  military  strength,  and 
enable  us  to  relieve  our  white  population  to  some  ex- 
tent. I  think  we  could  dispense  with  our  reserve  forces 
except  in  cases  of  necessity. 

It  would  disappoint  the  hopes  which  our  enemies 
base  upon  our  exhaustion,  deprive  them  in  a  great 
measure  of  the  aid  they  now  derive  from  black  troops, 
and  thus  throw  the  burden  of  the  war  upon  their  own 


MEMORANDA    ON  THE    CIVIL    WAR. 


601 


people.  In  addition  lo  the  great  political  advantages 
that  would  ivsult  to  our  cause  from  the  adoption  ol  a 
system  of  emancipation,  it  would  exercise  a  salutary 
influence  upon  our  whole  negro  population,  by  ren- 
dering more  secure  the  fidelity  of  those  w! 
soldiers  and  diminishing  the  inducements  to  the  rest 
to  abscond. 

I  can  only  say,  in  conclusion,  that  whatever  n. 
are  to  be  adopted  should  be  adopted  at  once.     I-'  very 
day's  delay  increases  the  difficulty.    Much  time  will  be 
required  to  organize  and  discipline  the  men,  and  ac- 
tion may  be  deferred  until  it  is  too  late. 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
R.  /'.'.  J,i-f, 


Some  Errors   in  General    Sherman's  "  Grand 
Strategy." 

I.v  the  February  (_'K.vi  TRY  is  a  paper  from  General 
Sherman  on  "The  Grand  Strategy  of  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion."  Near  the  outset  of  this  paper  the  dis- 
tinguished author  makes  a  statement  as  to  "the  two 
great  antagonist  forces  "  of  which  the  following  is  the 
gist: 

first.  That  the  belligerent  populations,  leaving  out 
Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  were  in  round 
numbers  nineteen  and  nine  millions  respectively. 

Second.  That  while  the  entire  Federal  army  aver- 
aged (from  January,  '62-May,  '65)  from  500,000  to 
800,000  "present,"  the  Confederate  army  averaged 
about  569,000  men  —  this  last  number  being  deter- 
mined by  taking  one-sixteenth  of  the  nine  millions  which 
is  assumed  as  the  total  population  of  the  Confederacy. 

Third.  That  the  three  States  of  Maryland,  Ken- 
tucky, and  Missouri  furnished  to  each  belligerent  a 
"  fair  quota,"  and  may  be  left  out  of  the  count. 

First.  To  get  a  population  of  nine  millions  in  the 
Confederate  States,  General  Sherman  has  included  the 
entire  slave  population  of  these  States  in  1860.  By  the 
Census  of  that  year,  the  1  1  Confederate  States  had  in 
round  numbers  5,450,000  whites  and  3,650,000  blacks. 
Now  the  slave  population  of  these  States  not  only 
furnished  no  soldiers  to  the  South,  —  it  supplied  much 
the  larger  part  of  the  178,975  colored  troops  which 
were  enrolled  during  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  North. 
Nay  more  —  the  records  of  the  War  Department  show 
that  besides  some  22,000  white  Union  troops  obtained 
from  scattered  points  throughout  the  South,  the  State 
of  Virginia  (West  Virginia)  furnished  31,872,  and  that 
of  Tennessee  31,092  men  to  the  Federal  army.  Hence, 
in  setting  down  the  belligerent  populations,  not  only 
is  it  misleading  to  include  the  slaves  on  the  Confeder- 
ate side,  but  large  sections  of  West  Virginia  and  East 
Tennessee  should  be  transferred  from  the  Southern  to 
the  Northern  side.  Considering  population  with  refer- 
ence to  the  men  contributed  to  the  two  armies,  is  it 
not  evident  that  (omitting  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and 
Maryland)  the  two  belligerents  drew  from  populations 
which  were  in  the  neighborhood  of  twenty  millions  and 
five  millions,  instead  of  nineteen  millions  and  nine  mill- 
ions ?  It  is  not  intended  here  to  ignore  the  fact  that 
the  slave  population  of  the  South  was  in  many  ways  a 
source  of  strength  to  that  section,  and  that  its  pres- 
ence enabled  the  South  to  send  to  the  field  a  larger 
percentage  of  white  men  than  could  otherwise  have 


be.  ii  spared.  Hut  it  is  absurd  to  estimate,  as  General 
Sherman  does,  that  tin  Broached,  in  the  value 

of  their  contributions  to  the  struggle,  an  cijual  num. 
while  people. 

Stfcini.  The  total  number  of  men  furnished  to  the 
Federal  armies  was  2,778,304  (or  about  2,300,000 
when  reduced  to  a  three-year  standard);  and  of  these, 
as  General  Sherman  states,  there  was  an  average  after 
January  I, '62  of  from  500,000  to  800,000  present  in  the 
field.  No  report  of  the  total  number  of  Confederates 
enrolled  exists,  but  General  Sherman  would  have  us 
believe  that  the  Conf<  \ernment  was  able  to 

keep  an  average  of  569,000  men  actually  in  the  field. 
Its  limited  resources  in  the  way  of  armament  and 
supplies  would  have  made  this  impossible  —  but  look 
at  it  simply  as  a  question  of  population.  It  appears 
from  Phisterer's  figures  that  the  average  strength  of 
the  Federal  armies  present  in  the  field  was  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  number  of  troops  furnished.  If  the 
Confederates  showed  the  same  proportion  between 
enrolled  men  and  those  "  present,"  there  must  have 
been  over  2,000,000  Confederate  troops  enrolled  dur- 
ing the  war  out  of  a  total  white  population  of  about 
five  millions  f 

This  result  might  have  given  the  author  pause.  But 
while  the  Confederate  records  are  defective,  there  was 
no  necessity  for  such  wild  statements  as  General 
Sherman  makes.  Many  returns  of  the  Confederate 
armies  exist,  and  from  these  an  approximate  estimate  of 
the  total  Confederate  strength  can  be  obtained.  There 
never  was  a  time,  for  instance,  when  the  Army  of  North- 
ern Virginia  numbered  100,000  men  present.  It  rarely 
even  approached  it ;  and  yet  this  army  generally  ex- 
ceeded in  strength  the  main  western  Confederate  army. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  there  was  at  any  date,  through- 
out the  Confederacy,  more  than  half  the  men  "  present " 
that  General  Sherman  assumes  as  the  average  strength 
of  the  Southern  armies,  and  it  is  very  certain  that  their 
real  average  strength  was  less  than  half  of  the  numbers 
he  gives.  The  total  number  of  Confederates  enrolled 
during  the  war  was  probably  between  600,000  and 
700,000  men.  The  former  estimate  was  given  by  a 
Northern  writer  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  rec- 
ords twenty  years  ago,  and  the  best  estimates  at  the 
War  Records  office  to-day  do  not  vary  greatly  from 
that  number. 

Third.  It  is  certain  that  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and 
Maryland  furnished  far  more  troops  to  the  Northern 
than  to  the  Southern  side,  which,  considering  the  fact 
thatthese  States  were  occupied  almost  entirely  by  Union 
troops,  is  not  surprising.  Phisterer  credits 

Maryland  with  46,638  Union  troops. 
Missouri        "  109,111     " 
Kentucky       "     75.760     "  " 

IfGeneral  Sherman  means  by  "fair  quota"that  these 
States  contributed  forces  to  the  two  armies  in  the  same 
proportion  as  that  existing  between  the  total  Northern 
and  Southern  armies,  he  may  be  near  the  truth.  But  if 
he  means,  as  seems  probable,  that  they  contributed 
equal  or  nearly  equal  numbers  to  the  two  sides,  he  is  as 
wide  of  the  mark  as  he  is  in  the  points  above  noted. 


McDoNOUGH,  MARYLAND,  April  14,  18 


W.  Allan. 


SIDEREAL    ASTRONOMY:     OLD    AND    NEW." 


I.    THE    DATA    IT    HAS    COLLECTED. 


HEN  did  astronomy  have 
its  beginnings  on  the 
earth  ?  There  have  been 
many  learned  attempts  to 
answer  this  question.  They 
all  have  led  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  long  before  the 
historic  period  there  was 
a  large  common  stock  of  knowledge  ;  so  large, 
in  fact,  that  one  distinguished  writer  finds  it 
simplest  to  ascribe  the  origin  of  astronomy 
to  the  teaching  of  an  extinct  race  :  "  Ce  peu- 
ple  ancien  qui  nous  &  tout  appris  —  excepte 
son  nom  et  son  existence,"  his  commentator 
adds. 

Astronomy  is  older  than  the  first  records 
of  any  nation.  In  order  that  the  records  might 
exist,  it  was  first  necessary  to  divide  the  years 
and  times  by  astronomical  observations.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  believe  the  travelers  of  to- 
day have  found  no  tribe  so  degraded  as  to  be 
without  some  knowledge  of  the  sort. 

It  is  extremely  doubtful  if  animals  notice 
special  celestial  bodies.  Birds  seem  to  be  in- 
spired by  the  approach  of  day  and  not  by  the 
actual  presence  of  the  sun.  It  is  a  question 
whether  dogs  "  bay  the  moon  "  or  only  the 
moon's  light.  A  friend  maintains  that  her 
King  Charles  spaniel  watched  the  progress 
of  an  occultation  of  Venus  by  the  crescent 
moon  with  the  most  vivid  interest.  This  is 
the  only  case  which  I  have  been  able  to  col- 
lect in  which  the  attention  of  animals  has  been 
even  supposed  to  have  been  held  by  a  celes- 
tial phenomenon.  The  actions  of  the  most 
ignorant  savages  during  a  total  solar  eclipse, 
compared  with  those  of  animals,  throw  much 
light  on  the  question  of  whereabouts  in  the 
scale  of  intelligence  the  attention  begins  to 
be  directed  to  extra-terrestrial  occurrences. 
The  savages  are  appalled  by  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  sun  itself,  while  animals  seem 
to  be  concerned  with  the  advent  of  darkness 
simply. 

I  am  told  that  the  Eskimos  of  Smith's  Sound 
have  names  for  a  score  or  more  of  stars,  and 
that  their  long  sledge-journeys  are  safely  made 
by  the  guidance  of  these  stars  alone.  I  have 
myself  seen  a  Polynesian  islander  embark  in 
a  canoe,  without  compass  or  chart,  bound  for 
an  island  three  days'  sail  distant.  His  course 

*  This  article  contains  only  a  reference  to  the  im- 
portant advances  in  sidereal  astronomy  which  have 
been  made  by  the  aid  of  photography  during  the  past 
two  years. 


would  need  to  be  so  accurately  laid  that  at  the 
end  of  his  three  days  he  should  find  himself 
within  four  or  five  miles  of  his  haven  ;  if  he 
passed  the  low  coral  island  at  a  greater  dis- 
tance, it  could  not  be  seen  from  his  frail  craft. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  he  used  the 
sun  by  day  and  the  stars  by  night  to  hold  his 
course  direct. 

There  must  have  been  centuries  during 
which  such  knowledge  was  passed  from  man 
to  man  by  word  of  mouth,  woven  into  tales 
and  learned  as  a  part  of  the  lore  of  the  sailor, 
the  hunter,  or  the  tiller  of  the  soil.  No  one 
can  say  how  early  this  knowledge  of  the  sky 
was  put  into  the  formal  shape  of  maps,  globes, 
or  catalogues.  Eudoxus  is  said  to  have  con- 
structed a  celestial  globe  B.  C.  366.  Globes 
would  naturally  precede  maps,  and  maps  mere 
lists  or  catalogues. 

The  prototype  of  all  sidereal  catalogues  is 
the  Almagest  of  Ptolemy  (A.  D.  150),  which 
includes  not  only  the  observations  of  Ptolemy, 
but  those  of  the  great  Hipparchus  (B.  C.  127). 
It  contains  the  description  of  1022  stars,  their 
positions,  and  their  brightness.  Here  we  meet 
for  the  first  time  the  name  magnitude  of  a  star. 
Ptolemy  divides  all  the  stars  into  magnitudes  — 
degrees  of  brightness.  Sirius,  Capella,  are  of 
the  first  magnitude  ;  the  faintest  stars  visible 
to  the  eye  are  of  the  sixth.  But  Ptolemy  has 
gone  further,  and  divides  each  magnitude  into 
three  parts.  The  moderns  divide  each  class 
into  ten  parts,  that  is,  decimally. 

SCALE    OF    MAGNITUDES. 

IN  assigning  magnitudes  in  this  way,  we 
have  unconsciously  adopted  a  scale.  A  star 
of  the  third  magnitude  is  brighter  than  one  of 
the  fourth.  How  much  brighter  ?  Sirius  and 
the  brightest  stars  are  about  one  hundred  times 
more  brilliant  than  the  very  faintest  stars  which 
can  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye.  In  general 
a  star  of  any  magnitude,  as  fifth,  is  four-tenths 
as  bright  as  the  star  of  the  next  brighter  mag- 
nitude, as  fourth.  Ten  fifth-magnitude  stars 
taken  together  are  as  bright  as  four  fourth- 
magnitude  stars,  and  so  on.  This  relation  be- 
tween the  brightness  of  stars  of  consecutive 
magnitudes  givus  us  a  means  of  computing  the 
total  amount  of  light  received  from  stars.  For 
example,  there  are  ten  stars  in  our  sky  as  bright 
as  the  brilliant  star  Vega,  or  Alpha  Lyra;,  which 
we  see  in  our  zenith  during  the  summer  months. 
The  collective  light  of  these  ten  first-magnitude 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND  NEW. 


603 


stars  is  ten  times  that  of  Vega.  The  37  second- 
magnitude  stars  are  together  7.4  times  as  bright 
as  Vega;  the  128  third-magnitude  stars  are  10.2 
times  as  bright;  and  so  on  down  to  the  4328 
sixth-magnitude  stars,  which,  taken  together, 
are  22.1  times  as  bright.  Taking  all  the  stars 
visible  to  us  without  a  telescope  and  adding 
their  brilliancy,  we  find  that  all  the  naked-eye 
stars  give  us  a  light  67.6  times  as  bright  as 
that  from  Vega.  Now  the  stars  of  the  seventh 
and  eighth  magnitudes  have  been  counted  ; 
there  are  13,593  of  the  seventh,  57,960  of 
the  eighth,  and  they  too  send  light  to  us, 
although  they  are  individually  invisible.  All 
the  seventh-magnitude  stars  taken  together 
give  us  27.8  times  as  much  light  as  Vega,  and 
the  eighth  give  us  47.4  as  much ;  so  that  we 
have  from  both  of  these  classes  75.2  times  the 
light  of  Vega ;  that  is,  actually  more  light  comes 
to  us  from  stars  so  faint  as  to  be  individually  in- 
visible than  from  the  less  numerous  and  brighter 
stars  that  we  see  with  the  naked  eye.  We  may 
recollect  that  more  than  half  of  the  light  of  a 
star-lit  night  conies  from  the  collective  luster 
of  stars,  each  of  which  is  totally  invisible  ex- 
cept in  the  telescope. 

METHODS   OF    NAMING   THE    STARS. 

IN  Ptolemy's  Alfiagesi,  and  for  fifteen  cen- 
turies later,  there  were  two  and  but  two  ways 
of  designating  a  particular  star.  Some  few  of 
the  brighter  stars  had  special  names. 

By  far  the  greater  number  were  described 
by  their  situation  in  their  constellation.  The 
brightest  star  in  Taurus  was  the  eye  of  the 
Bull,  and  so  for  others,  as  the  belt  and  sword 
of  Orion.  This  was  all  very  well  for  the  brighter 
stars,  and  it  did  not  require  that  the  boundaries 
of  the  constellations  should  be  very  accurately 
fixed.  There  was  no  mistaking  Regulus,  Cor 
Leonis  —  the  heart  of  the  lion.  But  when  we 
come  to  the  small  pairs  of  stars  which  make 
the  paws  of  the  Great  Bear,  or  to  some  of  the 
stars  in  the  windings  of  Serpens,  then  it  is  evi- 
dent that  Ptolemy  must  have  had  accurately 
bounded  constellations  laid  down  on  charts 
or  globes.  Not  a  single  ancient  globe  or  chart 
has  come  down  to  us.  The  oldest  extant  are 
but  Arabian  copies  of  the  tenth  century. 

Where,  then,  do  we  derive  our  figures  of  the 
constellations  ?  If  any  one  of  my  readers  will 
ask  some  astronomical  friend  to  show  him  a 
copy  of  Flamsteed's  Atlas  Cxlestis  he  will  see 
the  beautiful  and  spirited  drawings  of  the  con- 
stellation figures,  and  be  charmed  and  de- 
lighted with  their  vigor  and  character.  Who 
could  have  drawn  these  outlines,  instinct  with 
life?  Who  of  the  ancients  knew  the  whole 
character  of  the  timid  hare,  or  who  could  draw 
Andromeda,  and  put  a  modern  resignation  in 


her  chained  despair  ?  These  figures  were 
drawn  by  a  master  indeed,  for  they  are  from 
the  hand  of  Albert  Diirer  himself.  If  we  follow 
the  history  of  how  he  came  to  make  them 
for  an  edition  of  Ptolemy,  and  think  of  him 
patiently  fitting  his  marvelously  free  outlines 
to  match  the  stars  in  the  sky  and  the  crabbed 
descriptions  in  Ptolemy's  book,  the  pleasure 
does  not  diminish.  About  1603  Bayer  intro- 
duced the  practice  of  designating  the  bright <  i 
stars  of  each  constellation  by  the  letters  of  the 
Greek  alphabet,  so  that  Cor  Leonis  or  Regu- 
lus became  a  Leonis ;  Aldebaran  became  « 
Tauri,  and  so  on.  As  the  number  of  the  well- 
determined  stars  has  vastly  increased,  the 
practice  of  referring  to  them  by  their  numbers 
in  some  well-known  catalogue  has  come  into 
vogue;  so  that  a.  Leonis,  for  example,  might 
be  known  as  Bradley,  1406,  from  its  number 
in  Bradley 's  catalogue;  orasLalande,  i9;755- 
and  so  on.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  astro- 
nomical nomenclature  in  this  direction  could 
be  greatly  improved. 

URANOMETRIES. 

THE  word  Uranometry  has  received  a  lim- 
ited technical  meaning  in  astronomy.  It  is 
used  to  denote  a  description  of  the  fixed  stars 
which  are  visible  to  the  naked  eye  only.  The 
description  of  each  star  places  it  in  its  proper 
constellation,  assigns  its  latitude  and  longitude, 
and  gives  its  brightness  or  magnitude.  Vari- 
able stars,  which  change  their  brightness  peri- 
odically,—  and  there  are  many  such, —  are 
treated  separately. 

Ptolemy's  Almagest  (1022  stars)  was  an  in- 
complete uranometry,  since  there  were  more 
than  3000  stars  visible  to  him.  Al-Sufi's  revision 
of  it,  in  the  tenth  century,  added  no  stars,  but 
simply  revised  the  magnitudes  given  by  Ptol- 
emy. Bayer  (1603)  gave  1200  stars.  None 
of  the  very  important  works  of  Flamsteed 
(1753),  Harris  (1725),  Wollaston  ( 1 81 1 ),  Hard- 
ing ( r822),  were  complete.  That  is,  no  one  gave 
every  star  down  to  a  certain  brightness.  It  was 
reserved  for  Argelander  (1843)  to  give  in  the 
Uranometria  Nova  the  position  of  brightness 
of  every  star  visible  to  the  naked  eye  at  Bonn. 
This  was  a  picture  of  the  sky ;  changes  could 
no  longer  occur  without  detection.  This  work 
gave  the  places  of  3256  stars,  from  first  to  sixth 
magnitudes,  and  very  careful  eye-estimates  of 
their  magnitudes.  Argelander's  work  has  been 
repeated  by  Heis  (1872).  The  southern  sky  has 
been  treated  in  the  same  way  by  Dr.  Gould, 
in  the  Uranometria  Argentina  (1879),  contain- 
ing 6694  southern  and  991  northern  stars,  of 
magnitudes  between  the  first  and  seventh. 
Houzeau,  during  a  residence  in  Jamaica,  made 
a  uranometry  which  embraces  every  star  in 


604 


SIDEREAL  ASTRONOMY:     OLD   AND  NEW. 


both  hemispheres,  and  which  has  a  special 
value  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  estimates 
of  magnitude  were  all  made  by  a  single 
person. 

We  have,  then,  a  complete  picture  of  our 
sky,  as  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  based  on  eye- 
estimates  of  the  brightness  of  the  stars.  It 
should  be  said  that  the  magnitudes  so  deter- 
mined are  extremely  accurate,  approaching 
closely  to  the  exactness  which  can  be  reached 
with  the  best  photometers,  or  instruments  for 
measuring  the  relative  brightness  of  stars. 

THE     HARVARD     PHOTOMETRY. 

UP  to  1877,  when  Professor  Pickering  be- 
came director  of  the  Harvard  University  Ob- 
servatory, there  was  no  single  observatory 
devoted  to  photometry  as  a  chief  end.  The 
important  works  of  this  nature  had  been  done 
as  a  part  of  other  duties.  Professor  Pickering 
turned  the  whole  strength  of  the  observatory  in 
this  direction,  and  by  means  of  new  methods 
and  new  instruments  he  and  his  assistants  have 
just  completed  a  work  of  the  first  importance — 
the  Harvard  Photometry .  It  contains  the  posi- 
tions and  the  measured  brightness  of  4260  stars 
visible  at  Cambridge,  together  with  a  compari- 
son with  the  magnitudes  of  all  other  observ- 
ers. The  actual  number  of  single  observations 
is  95,000.  Each  one  of  these  consists  in  a 
direct  photometric  comparison  of  the  relative 
brightness  of  a  star  with  one  of  the  polar  stars. 
The  polar  stars  are  always  visible;  the  stars  to 
be  measured  were  taken  as  they  crossed  the 
meridian ;  and  these  direct  measures,  suitably 
combined,  give  the  relative  brightness  of  each 
of  the  stars  of  the  list.  We  have  now  a  sure 
basis  for  all  future  work,  and  a  perfect  picture 
of  the  sky  at  this  time. 

THE     NUMBER     OF     THE     STARS. 

THE  total  number  of  stars  one  can  see  will 
depend  very  largely  upon  the  clearness  of  the 
atmosphere  and  the  keenness  of  the  eye.  There 
are  in  the  whole  celestial  sphere  about  6000 
stars  visible  to  an  ordinarily  good  eye.  Of 
these,  however,  we  can  never  see  more  than 
a  fraction  at  any  one  time,  because  a  half 
of  the  sphere  is  always  below  the  horizon.  If 
we  could  see  a  star  in  the  horizon  as  easily  as 
in  the  zenith,  a  half  of  the  whole  number, 
or  3000,  would  be  visible  on  any  clear  night. 
But  stars  near  the  horizon  are  seen  through 
so  great  a  thickness  of  atmosphere  as  greatly 
to  obscure  their  light,  and  only  the  brightest 
ones  can  there  be  seen.  As  a  result  of  this  ob- 
scuration, it  is  not  likely  that  more  than  2000 
stars  can  ever  be  taken  in  at  a  single  view  by 
any  ordinary  eye.  About  2000  other  stars  are 


so  near  the  South  Pole  that  they  never  rise  in 
our  latitudes.  Hence,  out  of  6000  supposed 
to  be  visible,  only  4000  ever  come  within  the 
range  of  our  vision,  unless  we  make  a  journey 
towards  the  equator. 

As  telescopic  power  is  increased,  we  still  find 
stars  of  fainter  and  fainter  light.  But  the  num- 
ber cannot  go  on  increasing  forever  in  the  same 
ratio  as  with  the  brighter  magnitudes,  because, 
if  it  did,  the  whole  sky  would  be  a  blaze  of  star- 
light. If  telescopes  with  powers  far  exceeding 
our  present  ones  were  made,  they  would  no 
doubt  show  new  stars  of  the  twentieth  and 
twenty-first,  etc.,  magnitudes.  But  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  number  of  such  successive 
orders  of  stars  would  not  increase  in  the  same 
ratio  as  is  observed  in  the  eighth,  ninth,  and 
tenth  magnitudes,  for  example.  The  enormous 
labor  of  estimating  the  number  of  stars  of  such 
classes  will  long  prevent  the  accumulation  of 
statistics  on  this  question  ;  but  this  much  is 
certain,  that  in  special  regions  of  the  sky,  which 
have  been  searchingly  examined  by  various 
telescopes  of  successively  increasing  apertures, 
the  number  of  new  stars  found  is  by  no  means 
in  proportion  to  the  increased  instrumental 
power.  If  this  is  found  to  be  true  elsewhere, 
the  conclusion  may  be  that,  after  all,  the  stel- 
lar system  can  be  experimentally  shown  to  be 
of  finite  extent  and  to  contain  only  a  finite 
number  of  stars.  In  the  whole  sky  an  eye  of 
average  power  will  see  about  6000  stars,  as  I 
have  just  said.  With  a  telescope  this  number 
is  greatly  increased,  and  the  most  powerful 
telescopes  of  modern  times  will  show  more 
than  60,000,000  stars.  Of  this  number,  not 
one  out  of  one  hundred  has  ever  been  cata- 
logued at  all. 

In  ArgelandeT'sDitn/imus/eriirtgof  the  stars 
of  the  northern  heavens,  there  are  recorded  as 
belonging  to  the  northern  hemisphere : 


io  stars  between  the  i.o  magnitude  and 
2.0 


1,016 

4.328 

'3,593 

57,9*0 

237,S44 


4.0 

5-o 
6.0 
7-0 
8.0 
9.0 


the  1.9  magn 
2.9 
3-9 
4-9 
5-9 
6.9 

7-9 
8.9 

9-5 


iuide. 


In  all  314,926  stars,  from  the  first  to  the  9^ 
magnitudes,  are  contained  in  the  northern  sky  ; 
or  about  600,000  in  both  hemispheres.  All  of 
these  can  be  seen  with  a  3-inch  object-glass. 

THE    CHARTS    OF    THE    BERLIN    ACADEMY. 

IN  1824  Bessel  wrote  to  the  Academy  of 
Berlin  somewhat  as  follows : 

It  is  of  the  highest  astronomical  interest  that  every 
fixed  star  in  the  sky  should  be  known,  and  its  position 
fixed.  Completeness  in  this  task  is  unattainable;  but 
when  we  once  have  maps  of  all  the  stars  down  to  a 


SIDKREAL   ASTRONOMY.-     OLD  AND  NEW. 


605 


certain  magnitude,  then  the  object  will  be  attained. 
The  limit  I  set  is  at  those  stars  which  can  ju-t  In 
plainly  seen  in  one  of  Fraonhofer'l  excellent  comet- 
seekers;  "  that  is,  at  about  the  ninth  or  tenth  magnitude. 

Bessel  then  gives  briefly  the  reasons  why 
such  a  complete  list  would  he  valuable,  in 
addition  to  its  importance  as  a  finished  pic- 
lure  of  the  sky  so  far  as  it  went;  and 
continues  : 

For  all  these  reasons  I  have  often  expressed  my  hope 
that  we  might  have  such  a  complete  list,  if  even  over 
only  a  portion  of  the  sky  ;  and  1  think  the  time  of  an 
astronomer,  and  of  an  observatory,  could  not  be  better 
spent  than  in  aiding  a  systematic  attempt  to  carry  out 
this  plan.  I  myself  designed  the  instruments  of  the 
Koenigsberg  Observatory  for  such  apurpose,  and  since 
1821  1  have  observed  as  many  as  possible  of  the  stars 
from  15°  north  to  15-  south  of  the  equator.  In  all 
there  are  36,000  observations  of  32,000  stars.  If  the 
stars  are  equally  numerous  over  the  whole  sky,  there 
are  125,000  such.  I  am  about  to  carry  on  these  zones 
up  to  45°  from  the  equator. 

With  this  introduction  Bessel  unfolds  his 
plan,  which  was  to  have  24  astronomers  join  in 
an  undertaking  to  make  the  24  separate  charts 
required  to  extend  round  the  whole  24  hours, 
and  in  width  over  the  30°  from  15°  north  to 
15°  south  of  the  equator.  He  himself  made  a 
small  chart  as  a  beginning,  "  to  break  the 
path,"  and  as  a  model.  The  Academy  wel- 
comed Bessel's  plan,  and  the  work  began  in 
1825. 

The  first  two  charts  were  received  in  1828, 
and  the  work  on  the  others  continued  slowly. 
One  of  these  charts  has  a  great  history.  It  had 
been  engraved  but  not  yet  distributed,  and  was 
lying  in  the  Berlin  Observatory  for  examination. 
On  the  evening  of  September  23, 1846,  LeVer- 
rier's  letter,  giving  the  place  of  a  new  planet, 
Neptune,  was  received  in  Berlin.  The  planet 
had  never  been  seen,  but  its  existence  had 
been  predicted  from  the  otherwise  inexplica- 
ble motions  of  Uranus.  The  predicted  place 
of  the  planet  fell  within  the  limit  of  the  lately 
finished  chart,  which  was  taken  to  the  tele- 
scope. In  very  truth  there  was  an  eighth- 
magnitude  star  in  the  sky  which  was  not  on 
the  chart.  This  star  was  in  motion;  it  had  the 
planetary  light  and  disc ;  it  was,  in  fact,  Nep- 
tune. The  proposal  of  Bessel  had  borne  splendid 
fruit.  Besides  this  major  planet,  many  of  the 
minor  planets  (asteroids)  were  discovered  by 
these  maps.  Finally,  in  1859,  thirty-five  years 
after  Bessel's  letter,  this  series  was  finished. 
But  before  it  was  finished  a  greater  under- 
taking was  begun,  of  which  we  must  give  a 
short  account.  One  thing  must  be  continually 
kept  in  sight.  Every  one  of  the  systematic 
Durchmusterungen,  as  the  Germans  say, — 
we  have  no  word  for  them, —  is  the  direct  out- 
come of  Bessel's  original  proposition. 
Vol..  XXXVI.— 84. 


AKI-.KLANDER'S  "  DURCHMUSTKKUNG." 

ARC.EI.ANDKR  was  Bessel's  pupil.  In  the  great 
zones  of  Koenigsberg,  Bessel  had  pointed  the 
telescope  on  the  stars  as  they  passed,  and  Ar- 
gelander  read  the  verniers  which  showed  their 
position.  Finally  Argelander  had  an  observ- 
atory of  his  own  at  Bonn,  and  his  two  young 
assistants,  Drs.  Krueger  and  Schoenfeld,  wen 
all  to  him  that  he  had  been  to  Bessel.  The 
years  1852  to  1862  were  spent  in  the  tremen- 
dous task  of  observing  every  star  plainly 
visible  in  such  a  comet-seeker  as  we  have 
described,  over  more  than  half  of  the  whole 
heavens.  The  telescope  was  pointed  and  fixed 
in  position.  The  time  of  the  passage  of  every 
star  over  a  wire  in  the  field  of  view  was  noted ; 
the  part  of  the  wire  crossed  by  the  star  was  also 
noted,  and  finally  the  brightness  of  the  star. 


The  circle  shows  the  field  of  view  of  the 
telescope.  Half  of  it  is  covered  with  a  thin 
plate  of  glass  with  a  scale  painted  on  it :  a,  l>, 
f,  d  are  stars  moving  in  the  direction  of  the 
arrow.  The  telescope  itself  is  fixed.  As  each 
one  comes  to  the  edge,  A  B,  the  time  is 
noted  to  the  nearest  half  of  a  second.  The 
division  of  the  scale  is  also  noted  where 
each  star  touches  it  (+  4,  for  a,  -  5,  for  d). 
Finally  the  brightness  in  magnitudes  is  re- 
corded (a,  8th  mag. ;  d,  9.3  mag.).  The  observer 
at  the  telescope  records  the  magnitude  and 
the  scale.  The  time  is  called  out  by  him  and 
noted  by  an  assistant  on  a  chronometer. 

Not  counting  the  time  for  the  computations, 
the  observations  alone  lasted  seven  years  and 
one  month.  1797  hours  were  spent  in  observ- 
ing the  comet-seeker  zones,  on  625  nights; 
and  227  other  nights  were  used  in  part  or 
wholly  in  revision  zones  to  correct  errors  of 
one  nature  or  another,  or  to  solve  doubts. 

*  A  telescope  with  about  3  inches  aperture,  magni- 
fying 10  times. 


606  SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND  NEW. 

In  the  comet-seeker  zones  850,000  single  observations  were  made,  or  on  the  average  473 
stars  per  hour,  or  8  per  minute.  In  specially  rich  parts  of  the  Milky  Way  more  than  16  stars 
per  minute  were  often  observed,  and  the  richest  zone  had  1226  stars  in  the 
hour,  or  20%  per  minute — one  every  3  seconds.  Counting  all  the 
observations  together  they  were  no  less  than  1,065,000,  and 
this  million  of  observations  gave  the  positions  and  the 
brightness  of  324,198  stars — that  is,  the  position 
and  brightness  of  every  star  plainly  visible  in  the 
telescope  used,  from  the  North  Pole  down  to 
2°  south  of  the  equator. 

The  very  enumeration   of  the  observa- 
tions makes  one  fatigued.    Only  the  as- 
tronomer can  know  the  multifarious 
nature  of  the  calculations  connected 
with  the  observations  themselves. 
Millions  on  millions  of  figures 
had  to  be  made,  and  made  cor- 
rectly; and,  finally,  every  star 
had  to  be  engraved  on  charts, 
and  engraved  correctly  both 
as  to  position  and  magni- 
tude. 

How  this  work  could 
havebeen  finished  in  ten 
years,  one  does  not  see. 
That   Argelander   and 
his  two  assistants  had 
the  courage  to  perse- 
vere  in  this  tremen- 
dous task  is  itself  a 
marvel.  But  the  work 
is    done,  is    printed, 
and  is  in  daily  use  by 
scores  of  astronomers. 
Its   value   will  never 
be  less.    Itwillremain 
forever    as  a    picture 
of  the   sky,  available 
for  every  purpose. 

Mr.  Proctorhas  done 
a  very  useful  work  in  rep- 
resenting the  results  of 
Argelander's  Diirchmuster- 
ttngin  a  single  chart,  which 
isherereproduced.  Forevery 
starin  Argelander'scatalogue 
Mr.  Proctor  has  laid  down  a 
dot,  correct  as  to  position  and 
magnitude  —  324,198  dots  in  all. 
The  resulting  map  is  here  photo- 
graphed down  so  that  the  individual 
dots  are,  in  general,  hard  to  distinguish, 
but  the  law  of  aggregation  of  the  stars  is 
all  the  better  brought  out.  The  map  is  most 
interesting,  not  only  in  relation  to  the  mere 
positions  and  brilliancy  of  the  stars,  but  as  show- 
ing, better  than  any  other   means  can,  the  appar- 
ently capricious  manner  in  which  the  stars  are  spread 
over  the  surface  of  the  sky.   Some  evidences  of  law  can 
be  made  out,  and,  in  the  original,  the  great  features    of  the 


R.    A.    PROCTOR  S    CHART    OF    THE    STARS 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND   NE\V.  607 

Milky  Way  come  forth  in  a  most  striking  manner.    It  must  be  remembered  that  this  map 
contains,  besides  the   stars  visible  to  the   naked  eye,  all  those  visible  in  an  ordinary  three- 
inch  telescope. 

SCHOENFELD'S   "  DURCHMUSTERUNG." 

ARC.ELANDER'S  original  plan  was  to  extend  his  observa- 
tions to  23°  south  of  the  equator.  Professor  Schoen- 
feld,  his  successor  at  Bonn,  and  his  aid  in  the 
original  undertaking,  in   1885  completed  the 
plan  projected  by  Bessel  in  1824,  and  so 
nobly  followed  at  Bonn   from    1852   to 
1860.   From  1876  to  1884  he  has  cata- 
logued the  stars  from  2°  to  23°  south 
of  the  equator,  and  the  work  is  just 
finished.   Soon  we  shall  have  this 
new  Ditrchmusteritng,  with   its 
charts,   showing  the  position 
and    brightness    of  133,658 
southern  stars. 

It  is  most  desirable  that 
this  enumeration  should 
be   extended  over     the 
whole  southern  sky.  So 
long  ago  as  1866  the 
work  was  begun  in  the 
Southern  Hemisphere, 
but  apparently  it  was 
abandoned,     though 
there  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  observ- 
atory   of    the    Ar- 
gentine Republic  at 
Cordoba     may    be- 
gin anew.    Professor 
Stone,  at  Cincinnati, 
has  partly  completed 
the     zone     between 
23°  and  31"  (south). 
A  recognition  of  the 
enormous     advantages 
which          photography 
would  have  over  ordinary 
visual  methods  of  charting 
is  now  leading  several  ob- 
servatories to  attempt  the 
cataloguing    of  stars    from 
photographic  negatives. 
The  difficulties  are  many,  but 
success  seems  to  be  tolerably  cer- 
tain, and  the  observatories  of  Har- 
vard University  and  of  Paris  have 
already  produced  wonderful  results  in 
this  direction.    The  observatory  of  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  also,  has  seriously 
begun  a  southern  Ditrchmustcrung  by  photo- 
graphic methods. 

SYSTEMATIC  OBSERVATORIES  OF  THE  STARS  IN  ZONES. 

THESE  Durchmusterungen  are  most  important.    They  give 
us  an  index  to  the  stars  of  the  whole  sky.     But  it  is  clear  that 


OF    THE     NORTHERN     HEMISPHERE. 


6o8 


SIDEREAL  ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND   NEW. 


the  positions  of  the  separate  stars  cannot  be 
accurate  when  so  many  as  eight  or  ten  per  min- 
ute are  observed.  What  the  astronomer  wants 
is  the  accurate  position  of  a  star  —  its  latitude 
and  longitude,  as  it  were.  We  shall  see  how 
much  pains  is  necessary  to  fix  the  position  of  a 
single  star  with  real  precision.  Scores  of  obser- 
vations are  needed,  and  each  observation  re- 
quires at  least  five  minutes  to  make  and  an 
hour  to  calculate.  When  we  say  that  many 
thousand  stars  have  their  positions  known 
with  this  high  precision,  we  shall  be  giving  a 
feeble  idea  of  the  amount  of  labor  devoted  to 
this  question. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  fix  the  position  of  every 
one  of  the  600,000  stars  of  the  Durchmusler- 
uiigfn  with  this  last  degree  of  precision,  and 
yet  it  is  important  to  know  very  closely  the 
place  of  each  star.  The  positions  of  all  faint 
comets,  of  asteroids,  etc.,  are  known  by  refer- 
ring them  to  neighboring  stars.  We  must  know 
the  positions  of  these  stars.  These  positions  are 
determined  by  a  special  kind  of  observations — 
zone  observations,  so  called.  A  telescope  is 
fixed  in  the  meridian  so  that  it  can  only  move 
north  and  south.  A  divided  circle  is  attached 
to  this,  the  indications  of  which  give  the  altitude 
of  the  stars  seen  in  the  field.  One  observer  at 
the  telescope  moves  it  slowly  up  and  down 
until  some  star  enters  the  field.  The  motion 
is  stopped.  The  transit  of  the  star  is  observed 
over  spider  lines  stretched  in  the  field,  while 
a  second  observer  reads  the  altitude  of  this 
star  from  the  divided  circle.  In  this  way  it  is 
possible  to  obtain  very  accurate  positions,  and 
by  confining  the  work  to  a  narrow  zone 
the  observations  are  increased  as  to  number, 
and  the  subsequent  computations  are  much 
simplified. 

Before  the  days  of  the  Berlin  charts,  or  of 
the  Durchmiisfemng,  Lalande  in  Paris  (1790) 
had  fixed  the  places  of  more  than  50,000  stars 
in  this  way,  and  the  Abb£  Lacaille  (1751)  had 
made  a  special  expedition  to  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  to  determine  the  places  of  9766  south- 
ern stars.  Bessel  took  up  the  same  research 
in  the  years  1821—33,  and  his  results  are  given 
in  two  magnificent  catalogues,  which  include 
62,000  of  the  most  important  stars  from  15° 
south  to  45°  north  of  the  equator.  He  made 
75,011  single  observations,  employing  868 
hours  in  observing  alone.  That  is,  about  84 
stars  per  hour  were  observed.  Argelander  read 
the  altitudes  of  the  stars  from  the  circle  while 
Bessel  observed  their  transits.  One  of  Arge- 
lander's  first  works,  when  he  took  charge  of 
the  observatory  at  Bonn,  was  to  continue  this 
series  of  zones  from  45°  up  to  80°  north  of 
the  equator — that  is,  to  within  10°  of  the 
Pole.  In  this  region  he  made  26,424  observa- 
tions of  22,000  stars,  or  83  stars  per  hour. 


Not  content  with  this  extension  of  Bessel's 
zones  to  the  north,  Argelander  next  began 
a  series  of  southern  zones  from  15°  to  31° 
south  of  the  equator.  This  task  he  also  com- 
pleted, with  23,250  observations  of  17,600 
stars,  or  83  stars  per  hour. 

Bessel  and  Argelander  alone  had  pushed 
their  zones  from  31°  south  to  80°  north  of 
the  equator,  making  nearly  125,000  separate 
observations  and  fixing  the  positions  of  101,- 
600  stars.  We  have  no  space  to  speak  of  the 
38,000  observations  made  at  the  Naval  Ob- 
servatory in  Washington  in  the  years  1846- 
49,  or  of  the  zones  observed  by  Lieutenant 
Gilliss,  of  our  navy,  in  Chili  (1850),  which 
covered  the  region  for  25°  round  the  South 
Pole  (27,000  stars).  It  is  most  unfortunate  for 
the  credit  of  American  astronomers,  as  well 
as  for  the  good  of  the  science,  that  these  col- 
lections are  not  yet  suitably  published. 

One  would  think  that  the  100,000  stars  of 
Bessel  and  Argelander  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient for  the  needs  of  astronomy.  But  the 
German  Astronomical  Society,  at  its  meeting 
in  Bonn  in  1867,  deliberately  resolved  upon 
the  task  of  accurately  determining  the  position 
of  every  star  as  bright  as  the  ninth  magnitude 
contained  in  Argelander's  Durchmusterung. 

The  veteran  Argelander  presided  at  this 
meeting,  and  it  is  curious  to  note  how  serious 
the  undertaking  appeared  to  be  to  him.  No 
one  knew  better  how  gigantic  a  task  it  was. 
The  plan  was  well  laid.  A  set  of  539  very  well 
determined  stars  was  assumed  as  fundamental, 
and  the  society  resolved  that  the  position  of 
the  stars  to  be  determined  should  be  referred 
to  these.  The  sky  was  cut  up  into  zones  five 
degrees  wide,  and  various  observatories  under- 
took to  finish  one  or  more  of  these  zones.  The 
Polar  Zone  (90°  to  80°  north  of  the  equator) 
had  lately  been  completed  by  Carrington,  in 
England,  and  did  not  need  revision. 

The  observatories  of  Kazan  (800-75°),  Dor- 
pat  (75°-7o°),  Christiania  (700-65°),  Hel- 
singfors  (650-55°),  Harvard  University  (55°- 
50°),  Bonn  (500-40°),  Lund  (400-35°),  Ley- 
den  (35°-3o°),  Cambridge,  England  (30°- 
250),  Berlin  (250-150),  Leipzig  (150-5°), 
Albany  (5°-!°),  Nikolaief  (i°  to  2°  south), 
joined  in  the  work,  and  to-day  it  is  nearly- 
completed. 

But  this  is  only  a  beginning.  Schoenfeld'.s 
Durchmusterung  to  23°  south  will  soon  be 
printed,  and  it  is  the  intention  of  the  German 
Astronomical  Society  to  push  the  zones  to  this 
point,  to  join  on  to  the  great  series  of  south- 
ern zones  printed  by  our  countryman  Dr. 
B.  A.  Gould,  at  the  National  Observatory  of 
the  Argentine  Republic.  Dr.  Gould  is  him- 
self a  pupil  of  Argelander,  and  his  magnificent 
work  may  be  fairly  called  an  outcome  of  the 


STILL   DAYS  AXD   STORMY. 


609 


spirit  of  Hesscl,  the  master.  105,000  observa- 
tions of  some  73,000  stars,  from  23°  south  to 
65°  south  of  the  equator,  have  been  printed 
by  Dr.  Gould  as  part  of  the  results  of  fourteen 
years'  labor  in  a  foreign  country.  Thus  from 
the  North  to  the  South  poles  the  labors  of 
Canington,  Argelander,  Bessel,  Gould,  and 
Gilliss  *  have  given  us  an  almost  complete 
catalogue  of  accurate  positions  of  nearly  all 
the  principal  stars.  Besides  this  we  shall  shortly 
have  the  region  from  80°  north  to  2°  south 
completely  re-observed,  and  by  1900  the  re- 
gion to  23°  south  will  be  done  also. 

SPECIAL    CATALOGUES    OF    STARS. 

BESIDES  these  gigantic  undertakings  there 
have  been  scores  of  separate  catalogues  pre- 
tending to  greater  precision  even,  the  very 
names  of  which  we  cannot  mention.  The 
observatories  of  Greenwich,  Oxford,  Edin- 
burg,  Paris,  Poltava,  Dorpat,  Bonn,  Berlin, 
Palermo,  Washington,  Harvard  University, 
Melbourne,  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  many 
others  have  issued  such  accurate  collections. 

It  is  also  necessary  to  say  that  a.  certain 
small  number  of  stars  —  several  thousands  — 
have  had  their  positions  and  motions  deter- 
mined with  extreme  precision ;  and  of  these 
again,  a  few  hundreds  of  the  brightest  stars 
have  been  observed  for  so  long,  and  for  so 
many  times,  that  their  resulting  positions  are 
now  almost  as  accurate  as  they  can  be  made, 
and  their  motions  so  well  known  as  to  admit 
of  very  little  improvement  by  the  work  of  the 
next  generation.  These  are  our  fundamental 
stars,  so  called. 

Such,  then,  are  our  data :  a  few  hundred 
stars  determined  with  the  last  degree  of  pre- 
cision, a  few  thousand  nearly  as  well,  two 
hundred  thousand  with  considerable  accuracy, 
and  nearly  a  half  a  million  separate  stars 
known  by  the  approximate  positions  of  the 
Durcftmusterungeit,  or  additional  to  these  from 
*  Two  Germans,  one  Englishman,  two  Americans. 


the  southern  zones.  We  can  add  to  these 
too  the  two  hundred  thousand  or  more  stars 
laid  down  in  the  ecliptic  charts  of  Paris,  Vienna, 
and  Clinton  (New  York),  which  serve  as  nets 
to  catch  the  minor  planets  just  now,  but  which 
have  an  incalculable  value  as  accurate  pic- 
tures of  the  sky  at  a  given  instant. 

The  brightness  of  some  10,000  stars  is  very 
accurately  known,  and  that  of  nearly  half  a 
million  has  been  very  approximately  fixed. 
Lastly,  the  distances  of  some  fifteen  of  the 
brighter  stars  from  the  earth  are  known  with 
tolerable  certainty,  and  that  of  a  few  more 
with  a  good  degree  of  approximation. 

These  are  the  materials  available  —  mighty 
monuments  to  human  ingenuity,  skill,  pa- 
tience, devotion.  But  what  further  problems 
will  they  solve  for  us  ?  What  far-reaching 
conclusions  can  be  drawn?  In  a  succeeding 
artiv  le  I  will  try  to  show  to  what  results  a 
combination  of  the  data  so  painfully  accumu- 
lated may  lead,  and  what  conclusions  may 
safely  be  drawn  even  now. 

Thje  science  of  the  positions  and  the  mo- 
tions of  the  stars  is  not  so  young  as  that  other 
science  so  well  described  by  Professor  Lang- 
ley  in  his  admirable  articles  on  "  The  New 
Astronomy"  (THE  CENTURY  for  September, 
October,  December,  1884,  and  March,  1885), 
but  it  has  its  modern  period  as  well  as  the  his- 
torical one  which  has  been  here  set  forth. 
The  old  astronomy  has  set  itself  to  solve  such 
problems  as  these:  What  is  the  rate  at  which 
the  whole  solar  system  is  moving  on  through 
space  ?  What  are  the  distances  and  what  are 
the  masses  of  the  stars  ?  What  is  the  shape 
of  the  stellar  cluster  to  which  our  sun  be- 
longs ?  Are  the  stars  in  general  broken  up 
into  subordinate  universes?  or  do  they,  as  a. 
whole,  form  one  mighty  system,  with  one 
common  motion  ? 

Some  of  these  and  other  such  questions  are 
answered ;  some  seem  almost  unanswerable ; 
some  are  still  in  the  way  of  solution. 

Edward  S.  Holden. 


STILL    DAYS   AND    STORMY. 


YESTERDAY  the  wind  blew 

Down  the  garden  walks : 
Marigolds,  the  day  through, 
Trembled  on  their  stalks. 

But  to-day  the  wind  's  dead, 

Marigolds  are  still : 
Miss  they  what  the  wind  said, 

Do  they  take  it  ill  ? 


Yesterday  my  love  stood 
Hearkening  to  me ; 

Fair  flower  of  womanhood, 
All  a-tremble  she. 

But  to-day  she  's  sad,  still, 
Makes  no  true-love  sign  : 

Is  her  lover  to  her  will, 
Is  she  yet  mine  ? 


Vol..  XXXVI.— 85. 


Richard  E.  Button. 


THE    HEART    OF    THE    SOUTHERN    CATSKILLS. 


^  looking  at  the  southern 
and  more  distant  Catskills 
from  the  Hudson  River  on 
the  east,  or  on  looking  at 
them  from  the  west,  from 
some  point  of  vantage  in 
Delaware  County,  you  see, 
amidst  the  group  of  mount- 
ains, one  that  looks  like  the  back  and  shoul- 
ders of  a  gigantic  horse.  The  horse  has  his 
head  clown  grazing;  the  shoulders  are  high, 
and  the  descent  from  them  clown  his  neck  very 
steep;  if  he  were  to  lift  up  his  head,  one  sees 
that  it  would  be  carried  far  above  all  other  peaks, 
and  that  the  noble  beast  might  gaze  straight 
to  his  peers  in  the  Adirondacks  or  the  White 
Mountains.  But  the  head  and  neck  never  come 
up :  some  spell  or  enchantment  keeps  them 
down  there  amidst  the  mighty  herd;  and  the 
high,  round  shoulders  and  the  smooth,  strong 
back  of  the  steed  are  alone  visible.  The  peak 
to  which  I  refer  is  Slide  Mountain,  the  highest 
of  the  Catskills  by  some  two  hundred  feet,  and 
probably  the  most  inaccessible;  certainly  the 
hardest  to  get  a  view  of,  it  is  hedged  about 
so  completely  by  other  peaks.  The  greatest 
mountain  of  them  all,  and  apparently  the  least 
willing  to  be  seen,  only  at  a  distance  of  thirty 
or  forty  miles  is  it  seen  to  stand  up  above  all 
other  peaks.  It  takes  its  name  from  a  land- 
slide which  occurred  many  years  ago  down 
its  steep  northern  side,  or  down  the  neck  of 
the  grazing  steed.  The  mane  of  spruce  and 
balsam  fir  was  stripped  away  for  many  hundred 
feet,  leaving  a  long  gray  streak  visible  from 
afar. 

Slide  Mountain  is  the  center  and  the  chief  of 
the  southern  Catskills.  Streams  flow  from  its 
base  and  from  the  base  of  its  subordinates 
to  all  points  of  the  compass:  the  Rondout 
and  the  Neversink  to  the  south ;  the  Beaver- 
kill  to  the  west;  the  Esopus,  or  Big  Ingin,  to 
the  north ;  and  several  lesser  streams  to  the  east. 
With  its  summit  as  the  center,  a  radius  of  ten 
miles  would  include  within  the  circle  described 
but  very  little  cultivated  land ;  only  a  few  poor, 
wild  farms  here  and  there  in  the  numerous  val- 
leys. The  soil  is  poor,  a  mixture  of  gravel  and 
clay,  and  subject  to  slides.  It  lies  in  the  valleys 
in  ridges  and  small  hillocks  as  if  dumped  there 
from  a  huge  cart.  The  tops  of  the  southern 
Catskills  are  all  capped  with  a  kind  of  con- 
glomerate or  pudding-stone,  a  rock  of  ce- 
mented quartz  pebbles  which  underlies  the 
coal  measures.  This  rock  disintegrates  under 


the  action  of  the  elements,  and  the  sand  and 
gravel  which  result  are  carried  into  the  val- 
leys and  make  up  most  of  the  soil.  From  the 
northern  Catskills,  so  far  as  I  know  them, 
this  rock  has  been  swept  clean.  Low  down 
in  the  valleys  the  old  red  sandstone  crops  out, 
and  as  you  go  west  into  Delaware  County, 
in  many  places  it  alone  remains  and  makes 
up  most  of  the  soil,  all  the  superincumbent 
rock  having  been  carried  away. 

Slide  Mountain  had  been  a  summons  and  a 
challenge  to  me  for  many  years.  I  had  fished 
every  stream  that  it  nourished,  and  had 
camped  in  the  wilderness  on  all  sides  of  it, 
and  whenever  I  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  its 
summit  I  had  promised  myself  to  set  foot 
there  before  another  season  had  passed.  But 
the  seasons  came  and  went,  and  my  feet  got 
no  nimbler  and  Slide  Mountain  no  lower,  until 
finally,  one  July,  seconded  by  an  energetic 
friend,  we  thought  to  bring  Slide  to  terms  by 
approaching  him  through  the  mountains  on 
the  east.  With  a  farmer's  son  for  guide  we 
struck  in  by  way  of  Weaver  Hollow,  and,  after 
a  long  and  desperate  climb,  contented  our- 
selves with  the  Wittenburg,  instead  of  Slide. 
The  view  from  the  Wittenburg  is  in  many  re- 
spects more  striking,  as  you  are  perched  im- 
mediately above  a  broader  and  more  distant 
sweep  of  country,  and  are  only  about  two  hun- 
dred feet  lower.  You  are  here  on  the  eastern 
brink  of  the  southern  Catskills,  and  the  earth 
falls  away  at  your  feet  and  curves  down  through 
an  immense  stretch  of  forest  till  it  joins  the 
plain  of  Shokan,  and  thence  sweeps  away  to 
the  Hudson  and  beyond.  Slide  is  south-west 
of  you,  six  or  seven  miles  distant,  but  is  visi- 
ble only  when  you  climb  into  a  tree-top.  1 
climbed  and  saluted  him,  and  promised  to 
call  next  time. 

We  passed  the  night  on  the  Wittenburg, 
sleeping  on  the  moss,  between  two  decayed 
logs,  with  balsam  boughs  thrust  into  the 
ground  and  meeting  and  forming  a  canopy 
over  us.  In  coming  off  the  mountain  in  the 
morning  we  ran  upon  a  huge  porcupine,  and 
I  learned  for  the  first  time  that  the  tail  of  a 
porcupine  goes  with  a  spring  like  a  trap.  It 
seems  to  be  a  set-lock,  an'd  you  no  sooner 
touch  with  the  weight  of  a  hair  one  of  the 
quills  than  the  tail  leaps  up  in  the  most  sur- 
prising manner,  and  the  laugh  is  not  on  your 
side.  The  beast  cantered  along  the  path  in 
my  front,  and  I  threw  myself  upon  him, 
shielded  by  my  roll  of  blankets.  He  submitted 


THE   HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


611 


quietly  to  the  indignity,  and  lay  very  still 
under  my  blankets,  with  his  broad  tail  pressed 
close  to  the  ground.  This  I  proceeded  to  in- 
vestigate, but  had  not  fairly  made  a  begin- 
ning when  it  went  off  like  a  trap,  and  my 
hand  and  wrist  were  full  of  quills.  This  caused 
me  to  let  up  on  the  creature,  when  it  lum- 
bered away  till  it  tumbled  down  a  precipice. 
The  quills  were  quickly  removed  from  my 
hand,  and  we  gave  chase.  When  we  came 
up  to  him  he  had  wedged  himself  in  between 
the  rocks  so  that  he  presented  only  a  back 
bristling  with  quills,  with  the  tail  lying  in  am- 
bush below.  He  had  chosen  his  position  well, 
and  seemed  to  defy  us.  After  amusing  our- 
selves by  repeatedly  springing  his  tail  and  re- 
ceiving the  quills  in  a  rotten  stick,  we  made 
a  slip-noose  out  of  a  spruce  root,  and  after 
much  manoeuvring  got  it  over  his  head  and 
led  him  forth.  In  what  a  peevish,  injured 
tone  the  creature  did  complain  of  our  unfair 
tactics !  He  protested  and  protested,  and 
whimpered  and  scolded  like  some  infirm  old 
man  tormented  by  boys.  His  game  after  we 
led  him  forth  was  to  keep  himself  as  much 
as  possible  in  the  shape  of  a  ball,  but  with 
two  sticks  and  the  cord  we  finally  threw  him 
over  on  his  back  and  exposed  his  quilless  and 
vulnerable  under  side,  when  he  fairly  surren- 
dered and  seemed  to  say,  "  Now  you  may  do 
with  me  as  you  like."  His  great  chisel-like 
teeth,  which  are  quite  as  formidable  as  those 
of  the  woodchuck,  he  does  not  appear  to  use 
at  all  in  his  defense,  but  relies  entirely  upon 
his  quills,  and  when  those  fail  him  he  is  done 
for. 

After  amusing  ourselves  with  him  a  while 
longer,  we  released  him  and  went  on  our  way. 
The  trail  to  which  we  had  committed  our- 
selves led  us  down  into  Woodland  Valley,  a 
retreat  which  so  took  my  eye  by  its  fine  trout 
brook,  its  superb  mountain  scenery,  and  its 
sweet  seclusion,  that  I  marked  it  for  my  own, 
and  promised  myself  a  return  to  it  at  no  dis- 
tant day.  This  promise  I  kept,  and  pitched 
my  tent  there  twice  during  that  season.  Both 
occasions  were  a  sort  of  laying  siege  to  Slide, 
but  we  only  skirmished  with  him  at  a  dis- 
tance ;  the  actual  assault  was  not  undertaken. 
But  the  following  year,  reenforced  by  two 
other  brave  climbers,  we  determined  upon 
the  assault,  and  upon  making  it  from  this,  the 
most  difficult,  side.  The  regular  way  is  by 
Big  Ingin  Valley,  where  the  climb  is  compar- 
atively easy,  and  where  it  is  often  made  by 
ladies.  But  from  Woodland  Valley  only  men 
may  essay  the  ascent.  Larkins  is  the  upper 
inhabitant,  and  from  our  camping-ground 
near  his  clearing  we  set  out  early  one  June 
morning. 

One  would  think  that  nothing  could  be  easier 


to  find  than  a  big  mountain,  especially  when 
one  is  encamped  upon  a  stream  which  he 
knows  springs  out  of  its  very  loins.  But,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  we  had  got  an  idea  that 
Slide  Mountain  was  a  very  slippery  customer 
and  must  be  approached  cautiously.  We  had 
tried  from  several  points  in  the  valley  to  get 
a  view  of  it,  but  were  not  quite  sure  we  had 
seen  its  very  head.  When  on  the  Witten- 
burg,  a  neighboring  peak,  the  year  before, 
I  had  caught  a  brief  glimpse  of  it  only  by 
climbing  a  dead  tree  and  craning  up  for  a 
moment  from  its  topmost  branch.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  mountain  had  taken  every  pre- 
caution to  shut  itself  off  from  a  near  view. 
It  was  a  shy  mountain  and  we  were  about  to 
stalk  it  through  six  or  seven  miles  of  primitive 
woods,  and  we  seemed  to  have  some  unrea- 
sonable fear  that  it  might  elude  us.  We 
had  been  told  of  parties  who  had  essayed 
the  ascent  from  this  side,  and  had  returned 
baffled  and  bewildered.  In  a  tangle  of  primi- 
tive woods,  the  very  bigness  of  the  mountain 
baffles  one.  It  is  all  mountain;  whichever 
way  you  turn  —  and  one  turns  sometimes  in 
such  cases  before  he  knows  it  —  the  foot  finds 
a  steep  and  rugged  ascent. 

The  eye  is  of  little  service;  one  must  be 
sure  of  his  bearings  and  push  boldly  on  and 
up.  One  is  not  unlike  a  flea  upon  a  great 
shaggy  beast,  looking  for  the  animal's  head, 
or  even  like  a  much  smaller  and  much  less 
nimble  creature:  he  may  waste  his  time  and 
steps,  and  think  he  has  reached  the  head 
when  he  is  only  upon  the  rump.  Hence  I 
closely  questioned  our  host,  who  had  several 
times  made  the  ascent.  Larkins  laid  his  old 
felt  hat  upon  the  table,  and,  placing  one  hand 
upon  one  side  and  the  other  hand  upon  the 
other  side,  said :  "  There  Slide  lies,  between  the 
two  forks  of  the  stream,  just  as  my  hat  lies  be- 
tween my  two  hands.  David  will  go  with  you 
to  the  forks,  and  then  you  will  push  right  on 
up."  But  Larkins  was  not  right,  though  he 
had  traversed  all  those  mountains  many  times 
over.  The  peak  we  were  about  to  set  out  for 
did  not  lie  between  the  forks,  but  exactly  at 
the  head  of  one  of  them;  the  beginnings  of 
the  stream  are  in  the  very  path  of  the  Slide, 
as  we  afterward  found.  We  broke  camp  early 
in  the  morning,  and,  with  our  blankets  strapped 
to  our  backs  and  rations  in  our  pockets  for 
two  days,  set  out  along  an  ancient,  and  in 
places  obliterated,  bark  road  that  followed 
and  crossed  and  re-crossed  the  stream.  The 
morning  was  bright  and  warm,  but  the  wind 
was  fitful  and  petulant,  and  I  predicted  rain. 
What  a  forest  solitude  our  obstructed  and 
dilapidated  wood  road  led  us  through! — five 
miles  of  primitive  woods  before  we  came  to 
the  forks,  three  miles  before  we  came  to  the 


6l2 


THE  HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


"burnt  shanty"  (a  name  merely  —  no  shanty 
there  now  for  twenty-five  years  past).  The 
ravages  of  the  bark  peelers  were  still  visible, 
now  in  a  space  thickly  strewn  with  the  soft  and 
decayed  trunks  of  hemlock-trees  and  over- 
grown with  wild  cherry,  then  in  huge  mossy 
logs  scattered  through  the  beech  and  maple 
woods :  some  of  these  logs  were  so  soft  and 
mossy  that  one  could  sit  or  recline  upon 
them  as  upon  a  sofa. 

But  the  prettiest  thing  was  the  stream  so- 
liloquizing in  such  musical  tones  there  amidst 
the  moss-covered  rocks  and  bowlders.  How 
clean  it  looked,  what  purity  !  Civilization  cor- 
rupts the  streams  as  it  corrupts  the  Indian. 
Only  in  such  remote  woods  can  you  now  see 
a  brook  in  all  its  original  freshness  and  beauty. 
Only  the  sea  and  the  mountain  forest  brook 
are  pure;  all  between  is  contaminated  more 
or  less  by  the  work  of  man.  An  ideal  trout 
brook  was  this,  now  hurrying,  now  loitering, 
now  deepening  around  a  great  bowlder,  now 
gliding  evenly  over  a  pavement  of  green-gray 
stone  and  pebbles ;  no  sediment  or  stain  of  any 
kind,  but  white  and  sparkling  as  snow  water, 
and  nearly  as  cool.  Indeed,  the  water  of  all 
this  Catskill  region  is  the  best  in  the  world. 
For  the  first  few  days  one  feels  as  if  he  could 
almost  live  on  the  water  alone ;  he  cannot 
drink  enough  of  it.  In  this  particular  it  is  in- 
deed the  good  Bible  land,  "  a  land  of  brooks 
of  water,  of  fountains  and  depths  that  spring 
out  of  valleys  and  hills." 

Near  the  forks  we  caught,  or  thought  we 
caught,  through  an  opening,  a  glimpse  of  Slide. 
Was  it  Slide  ?  Was  it  the  head,  or  the  rump, 
or  the  shoulder  of  the  shaggy  monster  we  were 
in  quest  of?  At  the  forks  there  was  a  bewil- 
dering maze  of  underbrush  and  great  trees,  and 
the  way  did  not  seem  at  all  certain ;  nor  was 
David,  who  was  then  at  the  end  of  his  reck- 
oning, able  to  reassure  us.  But  in  assaulting 
a  mountain,  as  in  assaulting  a  fort,  boldness 
is  the  watch-word.  We  pressed  forward,  fol- 
lowing a  line  of  blazed  trees  for  nearly  a  mile ; 
then  turning  to  the  left,  we  began  the  ascent 
of  the  mountain.  It  was  steep,  hard  climbing. 
We  saw  numerous  marks  of  both  bears  and 
deer ;  but  no  birds,  save  at  long  intervals  the 
winter  wren  flitting  here  and  there  and  dart- 
ing under  logs  and  rubbish  like  a  mouse.  Oc- 
casionally its  gushing  lyrical  song  would  break 
the  silence.  After  we  had  climbed  an  hour  or 
two,  the  clouds  began  to  gather,  and  presently 
the  rain  began  to  come  down.  This  was  dis- 
couraging; but  we  put  our  backs  up  against 
trees  and  rocks,  and  waited  for  the  shower  to 
pass. 

"  They  are  wet  with  the  showers  of  the 
mountain  and  embrace  the  rock  for  want  of 
a  shelter,"  as  they  did  in  Job's  time.  But  the 


shower  was  light  and  brief,  and  we  were  soon 
under  way  again.  Three  hours  from  the  forks 
brought  us  out  on  the  broad  level  back  of  the 
mountain  upon  which  Slide,  considered  as  an 
isolated  peak,  is  reared.  After  a  time  we  en- 
tered a  dense  growth  of  spruce,  which  covered 
a  slight  depression  in  the  table  of  the  mount- 
ain. The  moss  was  deep,  the  ground  spongy, 
the  light  dim,  the  air  hushed.  The  transition 
from  the  open,  leafy  woods  to  this  dim,  silent, 
weird  grove  was  very  marked.  It  was  like  the 
passage  from  the  street  into  the  temple.  Here 
we  paused  awhile  and  ate  our  lunch,  and  re- 
freshed ourselves  with  water  gathered  from  a 
little  well  sunk  in  the  moss. 

The  quiet  and  repose  of  this  spruce  grove 
proved  to  be  the  calm  that  goes  before  the  storm. 
As  we  passed  out  of  it  we  came  plump  upon  the 
almost  perpendicular  battlements  of  Slide.  The 
mountain  rose  like  a  huge  rock-bound  fortress 
from  this  plain-like  expanse.  It  was  ledge 
upon  ledge,  precipice  upon  precipice,  up  which 
and  over  which  we  made  our  way  slowly  and 
with  great  labor,  now  pulling  ourselves  up  by 
our  hands,  then  cautiously  finding  niches  for 
our  feet  and  zigzagging  right  and  left  from 
shelf  to  shelf.  This  northern  side  of  the  mount- 
ain was  thickly  covered  with  moss  and  lichens, 
like  the  north  side  of  a  tree.  This  made  it 
soft  to  the  foot  and  broke  many  a  slip  and 
fall.  Everywhere  a  stunted  growth  of  yellow 
birch,  mountain-ash,  and  spruce  and  firopposed 
our  progress.  The  ascent  at  such  an  angle 
with  a  roll  of  blankets  on  your  back  is  not 
unlike  climbing  a  tree ;  every  limb  resists 
your  progress  and  pushes  you  back,  so  that 
when  we  at  last  reached  the  summit,  after 
twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  feet  of  this  sort  of 
work,  the  fight  was  about  all  out  of  the  best 
of  us.  It  was  then  nearly  2  o'clock,  so  that  we 
had  been  about  seven  hours  in  coming  seven 
miles. 

Here  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  we  over- 
took spring,  which  had  been  gone  from  the 
valley  nearly  a  month.  Red  clover  was  open- 
ing in  the  valley  below  and  wild  strawberries 
were  just  ripening;  on  the  summit  the  yellow 
birch  was  just  hanging  out  its  catkins,  and  the 
claytonia,  or  spring  beauty,  was  in  bloom.  The 
leaf-buds  of  the  trees  were  just  bursting,  mak- 
ing a  faint  mist  of  green,  which,  as  the  eye 
swept  downward,  gradually  deepened  until  it 
became  a  dense,  massive  cloud  in  the  valleys. 
At  the  foot  of  the  mountain  the  Clinton,  or 
northern  green  lily,  and  the  low  shad  bush 
were  showing  the  berry,  but  long  before  the 
top  was  reached  they  were  found  in  bloom. 
I  had  never  before  stood  amidst  blooming 
claytonia,  a  flower  of  April,  and  looked  down 
upon  a  field  that  held  ripening  strawberries. 
Every  thousand  feet  of  elevation  seemed  to 


THE  HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


613 


make  about  ten  days'  difference  in  the  vegeta- 
tion, so  that  the  season  was  a  month  or  more 
later  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  than  at  its 
base.  A  \ery  pretty  flower  which  we  began 
to  meet  well  up  on  the  mountain-side  was  the 
painted  trillium,  the  petals  white,  veined  with 
pink. 

The  low,  stunted  growth  of  spruce  and  fir 
which  clothes  the  top  of  Slide  has  been  cut 
away  over  a  small  space  on  the  highest  point, 
laying  open  the  view  on  nearly  all  sides.  Here 
we  sat  down  and  enjoyed  our  triumph.  We  saw 
Ihe  world  as  the  hawk  or  the  balloonist  sees 
it  when  he  is  3000  feet  in  the  air.  How  soft 
and  flowing  all  the  outlines  of  the  hills  and 
mountains  beneath  us  looked !  The  forests 
dropped  down  and  undulated  away  over  them, 
covering  them  like  a  carpet.  To  the  east  we 
looked  over  the  near-by  Wittenburg  range  to 
the  Hudson  and  beyond;  to  the  south  Peak- 
o'-Moose,  with  its  sharp  crest,  and  Table 
Mountain,  with  its  long  level  top,  were  the  two 
conspicuous  objects ;  in  the  west,  Mt.  Gra- 
ham and  Double  Top,  about  3800  feet  each, 
arrested  the  eye  ;  while  in  our  front,  to  the 
north,  we  looked  over  the  top  of  Panther 
Mountain  to  the  multitudinous  peaks  of  the 
northern  Catskills.  All  was  mountain  and 
forest  on  every  hand.  Civilization  seemed  to 
have  done  little  more  than  to  have  scratched 
this  rough,  shaggy  surface  of  the  earth  here 
and  there.  In  any  such  view,  the  wild,  the 
aboriginal,  the  geographical  greatly  predomi- 
nate. The  works  of  man  dwindle,  and  the 
original  features  of  the  huge  globe  come  out. 
Every  single  object  or  point  is  dwarfed  ;  the 
valley  of  the  Hudson  is  only  a  wrinkle  in  the 
earth's  surface.  You  discover  with  a  feeling 
of  surprise  that  the  great  thing  is  the  earth 
itself,  which  stretches  away  on  every  hand  so 
far  beyond  your  sight. 

The  Arabs  believe  that  the  mountains 
steady  the  earth  and  hold  it  together ;  but 
they  had  only  to  get  on  the  top  of  a  high 
one  to  see  how  insignificant  they  are,  and  how 
adequate  the  earth  looks  to  get  along  without 
them.  To  the  imaginative  Oriental  people 
mountains  seemed  to  mean  much  more  than 
they  do  to  us.  They  were  sacred ;  they  were 
the  abodes  of  their  divinities.  They  offered 
their  sacrifices  upon  them.  In  the  Bible 
mountains  are  used  as  a  symbol  of  that  which 
is  great  and  holy.  Jerusalem  is  spoken  of  as 
a  holy  mountain.  The  Syrians  were  beaten  by 
the  children  of  Israel  because,  said  they, 
"  Their  gods  are  gods  of  the  hills ;  therefore 
were  they  stronger  than  we."  It  was  on 
Mount  Horeb  that  God  appeared  to  Moses 
in  the  burning  bush,  and  on  Sinai  that  he 
delivered  to  him  the  law.  Josephus  says  that 
the  Hebrew  shepherds  never  pasture  their 


flocks  on  Sinai,  believing  it  to  be  the  abode 
of  Jehovah.  The  solitude  of  mountain-tops 
is  peculiarly  impressive,  and  it  is  certainly 
easier  to  believe  that  the  Deity  appeared  in  a 
burning  bush  there  than  in  the  valley  below. 
When  the  clouds  of  heaven  too  come  down 
and  envelop  the  top  of  the  mountain  —  how- 
such  a  circumstance  must  have  impressed  the 
old  God-fearing  Hebrews!  Moses  knew  well 
how  to  surround  the  law  with  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  that  would  inspire  the  deepest 
awe  and  reverence. 

But  when  the  clouds  came  down  and  en- 
veloped us  on  Slide  Mountain  the  grand- 
eur, the  solemnity,  was  gone  in  a  twinkling ; 
the  portentous-looking  clouds  proved  to  be 
nothing  but  base  fog,  that  wet  us  and  extin- 
guished the  world  for  us.  How  tame,  and 
prosy,  and  humdrum  the  scene  instantly  be- 
came !  But  when  the  fog  lifted,  and  we  looked 
from  under  it  as  from  under  a  just-raised  lid, 
and  the  eye  plunged  again  like  an  escaped 
bird  into  those  vast  gulfs  of  space  that  opened 
at  our  feet,  the  feeling  of  grandeur  and  solem- 
nity quickly  came  back. 

The  first  want  we  felt  on  the  top  of  Slide, 
after  we  had  got  some  rest,  was  a  want  of 
water.  Several  of  us  cast  about,  right  and  left, 
but  no  sign  of  water  was  found.  But  water 
must  be  had;  so  we  all  started  off  determined 
to  hunt  it  up.  We  had  not  gone  many  hundred 
yards  before  we  chanced  upon  an  ice-cave 
beneath  some  rocks  —  vast  masses  of  ice,  with 
crystal  pools  of  water  near.  This  was  good 
luck  indeed,  and  put  a  new  and  brighter  face 
on  the  situation. 

Slide  Mountain  enjoys  a  distinction  which 
no  other  mountain  in  the  State,  so  far  as  is 
known,  does —  it  has  a  thrush  peculiar  to 
itself.  This  thrush  was  discovered  and  de- 
scribed by  Eugene  Bicknell  of  New  York  in 
1880,  and  has  been  named  Bicknell's  thrush. 
A  better  name  would  have  been  Slide  Mount- 
ain thrush,  as  the  bird,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
only  been  found  on  that  mountain.  I  did  not 
see  or  hear  it  upon  the  Wittenburg,  which  is 
only  a  few  miles  distant.  In  its  appearance  to 
the  eye  among  the  trees  one  would  not  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  gray-cheeked  thrush  of 
Baird,  or  the  olive-backed  thrush,  but  its  song 
is  totally  different.  The  moment  I  heard  it  I 
said,  "  There  is  a  new  bird,  a  new  thrush,"  as 
the  quality  of  all  thrush  songs  is  the  same.  A 
moment  more  and  I  knew  it  was  Bicknell's 
thrush.  The  song  is  in  a  minor  key,  finer,  more 
attenuated,  and  more  under  the  breath  than 
that  of  any  other  thrush.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
bird  was  blowing  in  a  delicate,  slender,  golden 
tube,  so  fine  and  yet  so  flute-like  and  resonant 
the  song  appeared.  At  times  it  was  like  a 
musical  whisper  of  great  sweetness  and  power. 


614 


THE   HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


The  birds  were  numerous  about  the  summit, 
but  we  saw  them  nowhere  else.  No  other 
thrush  was  seen,  though  a  few  times  during 
our  stay  I  caught  a  mere  echo  of  the  hermit's 
song  far  down  the  mountain-side.  A  bird  I 
was  not  prepared  to  see  or  hear  was  the  black 
poll  warbler,  a  bird  usually  found  much  farther 
north,  but  here  it  was  amidst  the  balsam  firs 
uttering  its  simple,  lisping  song. 

The  rocks  on  the  tops  of  these  mountains 
are  quite  sure  to  attract  one's  attention,  even 
if  one  have  no  eye  for  such  things.  They  are 
masses  of  light  reddish  conglomerate,  com- 
posed of  round,  wave-worn  quartz  pebbles. 
Every  pebble  had  been  shaped  and  polished 
upon  some  ancient  sea-coast,  probably  the 
Devonian.  The  rock  disintegrates  where  it  is 
most  exposed  to  the  weather  and  forms  a  loose 
sandy  and  pebbly  soil.  These  rocks  form  the 
floor  of  the  coal  formation,  but  in  the  Catskill 
region  only  the  floor  remains ;  the  superstruc- 
ture has  never  existed  or  has  been  swept  away; 
hence  one  would  look  for  a  coal  mine  here 
over  his  head  in  the  air,  rather  than  under 
his  feet. 

This  rock  did  not  have  to  climb  up  here 
as  we  did ;  the  mountain  stooped  and  took  it 
upon  its  back  in  the  bottom  of  the  old  seas, 
and  then  got  lifted  up  again.  This  happened 
so  long  ago  that  the  memory  of  the  oldest 
inhabitant  of  these  parts  yields  no  clew  to  the 
time. 

A  pleasant  task  we  had  in  re-flooring  and 
re-roofing  the  log  hut  with  balsam  boughs 
against  the  night.  Plenty  of  small  balsams 
grew  all  about,  and  we  soon  had  a  huge  pile 
of  their  branches  in  the  old  hut.  What  a  trans- 
formation, this  fresh  green  carpet  and  our 
fragrant  bed,  like  the  deep-furred  robe  of 
some  huge  animal  wrought  in  that  dingy  in- 
terior! Two  or  three  things  disturbed  our 
sleep.  A  cup  of  strong  beef-tea  taken  for 
supper  disturbed  mine ;  then  the  porcupines 
kept  up  such  a  grunting  and  chattering  near 
our  heads,  just  on  the  other  side  of  the  logs, 
that  sleep  was  difficult.  In  my  wakeful  mood 
I  was  a  good  deal  annoyed  by  a  little  rabbit 
that  kept  whipping  in  at  our  dilapidated  door 
and  nibbling  at  our  bread  and  hard-tack.  He 
persisted  even  after  the  gray  of  the  morning 
appeared.  Then  about  4  o'clock  it  began 
gently  to  rain.  I  think  I  heard  the  first  drop 
that  fell.  My  companions  were  all  in  sound 
sleep.  The  rain  increased,  and  gradually  the 
sleepers  awoke.  It  was  like  the  tread  of  an 
advancing  enemy  which  every  ear  had  been 
expecting.  The  roof  over  us  was  of  the  poor- 
est, and  we  had  no  confidence  in  it.  It  was 
made  of  the  thin  bark  of  spruce  and  balsam, 
and  was  full  of  hollows  and  depressions.  Pres- 
ently these  hollows  got  full  of  water,  when 


there  was  a  simultaneous  downpour  of  big- 
ger and  lesser  rills  upon  the  sleepers  beneath. 
Said  sleepers,  as  one  man,  sprang  up,  each 
taking  his  blanket  with  him  ;  but  by  the  time 
some  of  the  party  had  got  themselves  stowed 
away  under  the  adjacent  rock,  the  rain  ceased. 
It  was  little  more  than  the  dissolving  of  the 
night-cap  of  fog  which  so  often  hangs  about 
these  heights.  With  the  first  appearance  of  the 
dawn  I  had  heard  the  new  thrush  in  the  scat- 
tered trees  near  the  hut  —  a  strain  as  fine  as  if 
blown  upon  a  fairy  flute,  a  suppressed  musical 
whisper  from  out  the  tops  of  the  dark  spruces. 
Probably  never  did  there  go  up  from  the  top 
of  a  great  mountain  a  smaller  song  to  greet 
the  day,  albeit  it  was  of  the  purest  harmony. 
It  seemed  to  have  in  a  more  marked  degree 
the  quality  of  interior  reverberation  than 
any  other  thrush  song  I  had  ever  heard. 
Would  the  altitude  or  the  situation  account 
for  its  minor  key  ?  Loudness  would  avail  little 
in  such  a  place.  Sounds  are  not  far  heard  on 
a  mountain-top ;  they  are  lost  in  the  abyss 
of  vacant  air.  But  amidst  these  low,  dense, 
dark  spruces,  which  make  a  sort  of  canopied 
privacy  of  every  square  rod  of  ground,  what 
could  be  more  in  keeping  than  this  delicate 
musical  whisper?  It  was  but  the  soft  hum  of 
the  balsams,  interpreted  and  embodied  in  a 
bird's  voice. 

It  was  the  plan  of  two  of  our  companions 
to  go  from  Slide  over  into  the  head  of  the 
Rondout,  and  thence  out  to  the  railroad  at  the 
little  village  of  Shokan,  an  unknown  way  to 
them,  involving  nearly  an  all-day  pull  the  first 
day  through  a  pathless  wilderness.  We  as- 
cended to  the  topmost  floor  of  the  tower,  and 
from  my  knowledge  of  the  topography  of  the 
country  I  pointed  out  to  them  their  course, 
and  where  the  valley  of  the  Rondout  must 
lie.  The  vast  stretch  of  woods,  when  it  came 
into  view  from  under  the  foot  of  Slide,  seemed 
from  our  point  of  observation  very  uniform.  It 
swept  away  to  the  south-east,  rising  gently  to- 
wards the  ridge  that  separates  Lone  Mountain 
from  Peak-o'-Moose,  and  presented  a  com- 
paratively easy  problem.  As  a  clew  to  the 
course,  the  line  where  the  dark  belt  or  saddle- 
cloth of  spruce  which  covered  the  top  of  the 
ridge  they  were  to  skirt  ended  and  the  decidu- 
ous woods  began,  a  sharp,  well-defined  line, 
was  pointed  out  as  the  course  to  be  followed. 
It  led  straight  to  the  top  of  the  broad  level- 
backed  ridge  which  connected  two  higher 
peaks  and  immediately  behind  which  lay  the 
head-waters  of  the  Rondout.  Having  studied 
the  map  thoroughly  and  possessed  themselves 
of  the  points,  they  rolled  up  their  blankets 
about  9  o'clock  and  were  oft",  my  friend  and 
myself  purposing  to  spend  yet  another  day  and 
night  on  Slide.  As  our  friends  plunged  down 


THE  HEART  OF  THE    SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


6'5 


into  that  fearful  abyss,  we  shouted  to  them  the 
old  classic  caution,  "  Be  bold,  be  bold,  be  not 
too  bold."  It  required  courage  to  make  such 
a  leap  into  the  unknown  as  I  knew  those 
young  men  were  making,  and  it  required  pru- 
dence. A  faint  heart  or  a  bewildered  head, 
and  serious  consequences  might  have  resulted. 
The  theory  of  a  thing  is  so  much  easier  than 
the  practice.  The  theory  is  in  the  air,  the  prac- 
tice is  in  the  woods;  the  eye,  the  thought, 
travel  easily  where  the  foot  halts  and  stum- 
bles. However,  our  friends  made  the  theory 
and  the  fact  coincide;  they  kept  the  dividing 
line  between  the  spruce  and  the  birches,  and 
passed  over  the  ridge  into  the  valley  safely; 
but  they  were  torn  and  bruised,  and  wet  by 
the  showers,  and  made  the  last  few  miles  of 
their  journey  on  will  and  pluck  alone,  their 
last  pound  of  positive  strength  having  been 
exhausted  in  making  the  descent  through  the 
chaos  of  rocks  and  logs  into  the  head  of  the 
valley.  In  such  emergencies  one  overdraws 
his  account;  he  travels  on  the  credit  of  the 
strength  he  expects  to  gain  when  he  gets  his 
dinner  and  some  sleep.  Unless  one  has  made 
such  a  trip  himself  (and  I  have  several  times 
in  my  life)  he  can  form  but  a  faint  idea  what 
it  is  like  —  what  a  trial  it  is  to  the  body  and 
what  a  trial  it  is  to  the  mind.  You  are  fight- 
ing a  battle  with  an  enemy  in  ambush.  How 
those  miles  and  leagues  which  your  feet  must 
compass  lie  hidden  there  in  that  wilderness; 
how  they  seem  to  multiply  themselves;  how 
they  are  fortified  with  logs,  and  rocks,  and 
fallen  trees ;  how  they  take  refuge  in  deep  gul- 
lies, and  skulk  behind  unexpected  eminences ! 
Your  body  not  only  feels  the  fatigue  of  the 
battle,  your  mind  feels  the  strain  of  the  under- 
taking ;  you  may  miss  your  mark  ;  the  mount- 
ains may  out-manceuvre  you.  All  that  day, 
whenever  I  looked  down  upon  that  treacher- 
ous wilderness,  I  thought  with  misgivings  of 
those  two  friends  groping  their  way  there, 
and  would  have  given  something  to  have 
known  how  it  fared  with  them.  Their  concern 
was  probably  less  than  my  own,  because  they 
were  more  ignorant  of  what  was  before  them. 
Then  there  was  just  a  slight  shadow  of  fear 
in  my  mind  that  I  might  have  been  in  error 
about  some  points  of  the  geography  I  had 
pointed  out  to  them.  But  all  was  well,  and 
the  victory  was  won  according  to  the  cam- 
paign which  I  had  planned.  When  we  saluted 
our  friends  upon  their  own  doorstep  a  week 
afterward,  the  wounds  were  nearly  all  healed 
and  the  rents  all  mended. 

When  one  is  on  a  mountain-top  he  spends 
most  of  the  time  in  looking  at  the  show  he 
has  been  at  such  pains  to  see.  About  every 
hour  we  would  ascend  the  rude  lookout  to 
take  a  fresh  observation.  With  a  glass  I  could 


see  my  native  hills  forty  miles  away  to  the 
north-west.  I  was  now  upon  the  back  of  the 
horse,  yea,  upon  the  highest  point  of  his 
shoulders,  which  had  so  many  times  attracted 
my  attention  as  a  boy.  We  could  look  along 
his  balsam-covered  back  to  his  rump,  from 
which  the  eye  glanced  away  down  into  the 
forests  of  the  Neversink,  and  on  the  other 
hand  plump  down  into  the  gulf  where  his 
head  was  grazing  or  drinking.  During  the 
day  there  was  a  grand  procession  of  thunder- 
clouds filing  along  over  the  northern  Catskills, 
and  letting  down  veils  of  rain  and  enveloping 
them.  From  such  an  elevation  one  has  the 
same  view  of  the  clouds  that  he  has  from  the 
prairie  or  the  ocean.  They  do  not  seem  to 
rest  across  and  to  be  upborne  by  the  hills, 
but  they  emerge  out  of  the  dim  west,  thin  and 
vague,  and  grow  and  stand  up  as  they  get 
nearer  and  roll  by  him,  on  a  level  but  invisi- 
ble highway,  huge  chariots  of  wind  and  storm. 
In  the  afternoon  a  thick  cloud  threatened 
us,  but  it  proved  to  be  the  condensation  of 
vapor  that  announces  a  cold  wave.  There 
was  soon  a  marked  fall  in  the  temperature, 
and  as  night  drew  near  it  became  pretty  cer- 
tain that  we  were  going  to  have  a  cold  time 
of  it.  The  wind  rose,  the  vapor  above  us 
thickened  and  came  nearer,  until  it  began  to 
drive  across  the  summit  in  slender  wraiths, 
which  curled  over  the  brink  and  shut  out  the 
view.  We  became  very  diligent  in  getting 
in  our  night  wood  and  in  gathering  more 
boughs  to  calk  up  the  openings  in  the  hut. 
The  wood  we  scraped  together  was  a  sorry 
lot, —  roots  and  stumps  and  branches  of  de- 
cayed spruce,  such  as  we  could  collect  with- 
out an  ax,  and  some  rags  and  tags  of  birch 
bark.  The  fire  was  built  in  one  corner  of  the 
shanty,  the  smoke  finding  easy  egress  through 
large  openings  on  the  east  side  and  in  the 
roof  over  it.  We  doubled  up  the  bed,  making 
it  thicker  and  more  nest-like,  and  as  darkness 
set  in  stowed  ourselves  into  it  beneath  our 
blankets.  The  searching  wind  found  out 
every  crevice  about  our  heads  and  shoulders, 
and  it  was  icy  cold.  Yet  we  fell  asleep,  and 
had  slept  about  an  hour  when  my  compan- 
ion sprang  up  in  an  unwonted  state  of  excite- 
ment for  so  placid  a  man.  His  excitement 
was  occasioned  by  the  sudden  discovery  that 
something  like  a  bar  of  ice  was  fast  taking 
the  place  of  his  backbone.  His  teeth  chat- 
tered and  he  was  convulsed  with  ague.  I  ad- 
vised him  to  replenish  the  fire,  and  to  wrap 
himself  in  his  blanket  and  cut  the  liveliest 
capers  he  was  capable  of  in  so  circumscribed 
a  place.  This  he  promptly  did,  and  the 
thought  of  his  wild  and  desperate  dance 
there  in  the  dim  light,  his  tall  form,  his 
blanket  flapping,  his  teeth  chattering,  the 


6i6 


THE   HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


porcupines  outside  marking  time  with  their 
squeals  and  grunts,  still  provokes  a  smile, 
though  it  was  a  serious  enough  matter  at  the 
time.  After  a  while  the  warmth  came  back  to 
him,  but  he  dared  not  to  trust  himself  again 
to  the  boughs;  he  fought  the  cold  all  night  as 
one  might  fight  a  besieging  foe.  By  carefully 
husbanding  the  fuel,  the  beleaguering  enemy 
was  kept  at  bay  till  morning  came ;  but  when 
morning  did  come,  even  the  huge  root  he 
had  used  as  a  chair  was  consumed.  Rolled 
in  my  blanket  beneath  a  foot  or  more  of  bal- 
sam boughs,  I  had  got  some  fairly  good  sleep, 
and  was  most  of  the  time  oblivious  to  the 
melancholy  vigil  of  my  friend.  As  we  had 
but  a  few  morsels  of  food  left,  and  had  been 
on  rather  short  rations  the  day  before,  hun- 
ger was  added  to  his  other  discomforts.  At 
that  time  a  letter  was  on  the  way  to  him  from 
his  wife,  which  contained  the  prophetic  sen- 
tence, "  I  hope  thee  is  not  suffering  with  cold 
and  hunger  on  some  lone  mountain-top." 

Mr.  Bicknell's  thrush  struck  up  again  at 
the  first  signs  of  dawn,  notwithstanding  the 
cold.  I  could  hear  his  penetrating  and  melo- 
dious whisper  as  I  lay  buried  beneath  the 
boughs.  Presently  I  arose  and  invited  my 
friend  to  turn  in  for  a  brief  nap,  while  I  gath- 
ered some  wood  and  set  the  coffee  brewing. 
With  a  brisk,  roaring  fire  on,  I  left  for  the 
spring  to  fetch  some  water  and  to  make  my 
toilet.  The  leaves  of  the  mountain  golden-rod, 
which  everywhere  covered  the  ground  in  the 
opening,  were  covered  with  frozen  particles  of 
vapor,  and  the  scene,  shut  in  by  fog,  was  chill 
and  dreary  enough. 

We  were  now  not  long  in  squaring  an  ac- 
count with  Slide,  and  making  ready  to  leave. 
Round  pellets  of  snow  began  to  fall,  and  we 
came  off  the  mountain  on  the  loth  of  June  in 
a  November  storm  and  temperature.  Our 
purpose  was  to  return  by  the  same  valley  we 
had  come.  A  well-defined  trail  led  off  the 
summit  to  the  north;  to  this  we  committed 
ourselves.  In  a  few  minutes  we  emerged  at 
the  head  of  the  slide  that  had  given  the  mount- 
ain its  name.  This  was  the  path  made  by  vis- 
itors to  the  scene.  When  it  ended,  the  track  of 
the  avalanche  began :  no  bigger  than  your  hand 
apparently  had  it  been  at  first,  but  it  rapidly 
grew,  until  it  became  several  rods  in  width. 
It  dropped  down  from  our  feet  straight  as  an 
arrow  until  it  was  lost  in  the  fog,  and  looked 
perilously  steep.  The  dark  forms  of  the  spruce 
were  clinging  to  the  edge  of  it,  as  if  reaching 
out  to  their  fellows  to  save  them.  We  hesi- 
tated on  the  brink,  but  finally  cautiously  be- 
gan the  descent.  The  rock  was  quite  naked 
and  slippery,  and  only  on  the  margin  of  the 
Slide  were  there  any  bowlders  to  stay  the  foot, 
or  bushy  growths  to  aid  the  hand.  As  we 


paused,  aftersome  minutes,  to  select  ourcourse, 
one  of  the  finest  surprises  of  the  trip  awaited 
us :  the  fog  in  our  front  was  swiftly  whirled  up 
by  the  breeze,  like  the  drop-curtain  at  the 
theater,  only  much  more  rapidly,  and  in  a 
twinkling  the  vast  gulf  opened  before  us.  It 
was  so  sudden  as  to  be  almost  bewildering. 
The  world  opened  like  a  book  and  there  were 
the  pictures ;  the  spaces  were  without  a  film, 
the  forests  and  mountains  looked  surprisingly 
near;  in  the  heart  of  the  northern  Catskills  a 
wild  valley  was  seen  flooded  with  sunlight. 
Then  the  curtain  ran  down  again,  and  nothing 
was  left  but  the  gray  strip  of  rock  to  which 
we  clung,  plunging  down  into  the  obscurity. 
Down  and  down  we  made  our  way.  Then  the 
fog  lifted  again.  It  was  Jack  and  his  bean- 
stalk renewed;  new  wonders,  new  views, 
awaited  us  every  few  moments,  till  at  last  the 
whole  valley  below  us  stood  in  the  clear  sun- 
shine. We  passed  down  a  precipice  and  there 
was  a  rill  of  water,  the  beginning  of  the  creek 
that  wound  through  the  valley  below;  farther 
on,  in  a  deep  depression,  lay  the  remains  of 
an  old  snow-bank  :  winter  had  made  his  last 
stand  here,  and  April  flowers  were  springing  up 
almost  amidst  his  very  bones.  We  did  not  find 
a  palace,  and  a  hungry  giant,  and  a  princess, 
etc.,  at  the  end  of  our  bean-stalk,  but  we  found 
a  humble  roof  and  the  hospitable  heart  of  Mrs. 
Larkins,  which  answered  our  purpose  better. 
And  we  were  in  the  mood,  too,  to  have  un- 
dertaken an  eating  bout  with  any  giant  that 
Jack  ever  discovered. 

Of  all  the  retreats  that  I  have  found  amidst 
the  Catskills  there  is  no  other  that  possesses 
quite  so  many  charms  for  me  as  this  valley, 
wherein  stands  Larkins's  humble  dwelling;  it  is 
so  wild,  so  quiet,  and  has  such  superb  mountain 
views.  In  coming  up  the  valley,  you  have  ap- 
parently reached  the  head  of  civilization  a  mile 
or  more  lower  down ;  here  the  rude  little  houses 
end,  and  you  turn  to  the  left  into  the  woods. 
Presently  you  emerge  into  a  clearing  again,  and 
before  you  rises  the  rugged  and  indented  crest 
of  Panther  Mountain,  and  near  at  hand,  on  a 
low  plateau,  rises  the  humble  roof  of  Larkins, 
—  you  get  a  picture  of  the  Panther  and  of  the 
homestead  at  one  glance.  Above  the  house 
hangs  a  high,  bold  cliff  covered  with  forest, 
with  a  broad  fringe  of  blackened  and  blasted 
tree-trunks,  where  the  cackling  of  the  great  pile- 
ated  woodpecker  may  be  heard;  on  the  left  a 
dense  forest  sweeps  up  to  the  sharp,  spruce-cov- 
ered cone  of  the  Wittenburg,  nearly  four  thou- 
sand feet  high  ;  while  at  the  head  of  the  valley 
rises  Slide  over  all.  From  a  meadow  just  back 
of  Larkins's  barn  a  view  may  be  had  of  all  these 
mountains,  while  the  terraced  side  of  Cross 
Mountain  bounds  the  view  immediately  to  the 
east.  Running  from  the  top  of  Panther  to- 


Till'.    HEART  OF  THE   SOUTHERN  CATSKILLS. 


6,7 


wards  Slide  one  sees  a  gigantic  wall  of  rock, 
crowned  with  a  dark  line  of  fir.  The  forest 
abruptly  ends,  anil  in  its  stead  rises  the  face 
of  this  colossal  rocky  escarpment,  like  some 
barrier  built  by  the  mountain  gods.  Eagles 
might  nest  here.  It  breaks  the  monotony  of 
the  world  of  woods  very  impressively. 

I  delight  in  sitting  on  a  rock  in  one  of  these 
upper  fields  and  seeing  the  sun  go  down  be- 
hind Panther.  The  rapid-flowing  brook  below 
me  fills  all  the  valley  with  a  soft  murmur. 
There  is  no  breeze,  but  the  great  atmospheric 
tide  flows  slowly  in  towards  the  cooling  forest; 
one  can  see  it  by  the  motes  in  the  air  illu- 
minated by  the  setting  sun:  presently,  as  the 
air  cools  a  little,  the  tide  turns  and  flows 
slowly  out.  The  long,  winding  valley  up  to 
the  foot  of  Slide,  five  miles  of  primitive  woods, 
how  wild  and  cool  it  looks,  its  one  voice  the 
murmur  of  the  creek  !  On  the  Wittenburg  the 
sunshine  long  lingers ;  now  it  stands  up  like  an 
island  in  a  sea  of  shadows,  theaslowly  sinks  be- 
neath the  wave.  The  evening  call  of  a  robin, 
or  a  thrush  at  his  vespers,  makes  a  marked  im- 
pression on  the  silence  and  the  solitude. 

The  following  day  my  friend  and  I  pitched 
our  tent  in  the  woods  beside  the  stream  where 
I  had  pitched  it  twice  before  and  passed  sev- 
eral delightful  days,  with  trout  in  abundance 
and  wild  strawberries  at  intervals.  Mrs.  Lar- 
kins's  cream-pot,  butter  jar,  and  bread-box 
were  within  easy  reach.  Near  the  camp  was 
an  unusually  large  spring,  of  icy  coldness, 
which  served  as  our  refrigerator.  Trout  or  milk 
immersed  in  this  spring  in  a  tin  pail  would 
keep  sweet  four  or  five  days.  One  night  some 
creature,  probably  a  lynx  or  a  wildcat,  came 
and  lifted  the  stone  from  the  pail  that  held 
the  trout  and  took  out  a  fine  string  of  them 
and  ate  them  up  on  the  spot,  leaving  only  the 
string  and  one  head.  In  August  bears  come 
down  to  an  ancient  and  now  brushy  bark  peel- 
ing near  by  for  blackberries.  But  the  creature 
that  most  infests  these  backwoods  is  the  por- 
cupine. He  is  as  stupid  and  indifferent  as  the 
skunk ;  his  broad,  blunt  nose  points  a  witless 
head.  They  are  great  gnawers,  and  will  gnaw 
your  house  down  if  you  are  not  watchful.  Of 
a  summer  evening  they  will  walk  coolly  into 
your  open  door  if  not  prevented.  The  most 
annoying  animal  to  the  camper-out  in  this 
region,  and  the  one  he  needs  to  be  most  on 
the  lookout  for,  is  the  cow.  Backwoods  cows 
and  young  cattle  seem  always  to  be  famished 
for  salt,  and  they  will  fairly  lick  the  fisher- 


man's clothes  off  his  back,  and  his  tent  and 
equipage  out  of  existence,  if  he  give  them  a 
chance.  On  one  occasion  some  wood-rang- 
ing heifers  and  steers  that  had  been  hovering 
around  our  camp  for  some  days  made  a  raid 
upon  it  when  we  were  absent.  The  tent  \\as 
shut  and  everything  snugged  up,  but  tl 
ran  their  long  tongues  under  the  tent,  and, 
tasting  something  savory,  hooked  out  John 
Stuart  Mill's  "  Kssays  on  Religion,"  which 
one  of  us  had  brought  along  thinking  to  read 
in  the  woods.  They  mouthed  the  volume 
around  a  good  deal,  but  its  logic  was  too  tough 
for  them,  and  they  contented  themselves  with 
devouring  the  paper  in  which  it  was  wrapped. 
If  the  cattle  had  not  been  surprised  at  just 
that  point,  it  is  probable  the  tent  would  have 
gone  down  before  their  eager  curiosity  and 
their  thirst  for  salt. 

The  raid  which  Larkins's  dog  made  upon  our 
camp  was  amusing  rather  than  annoying.  He 
was  a  very  friendly  and  intelligent  shepherd 
dog,  probably  a  collie.  Hardly  had  we  sat 
down  to  our  first  lunch  in  camp  before  he 
called  on  us.  But  as  he  was  disposed  to  be 
too  friendly,  and  to  claim  too  large  a  share 
of  the  lunch,  we  rather  gave  him  the  cold 
shoulder.  He  did  not  come  again ;  but  a  few 
evenings  afterward,  as  we  sauntered  over  to 
the  house  on  some  trifling  errand,  the  dog 
suddenly  conceived  a  bright  little  project. 
He  seemed  to  say  to  himself,  on  seeing  us, 
"There  come  both  of  them  now,  just  as  I  have 
been  hoping  they  would;  now  while  they  are 
away  I  will  run  quickly  over  and  know  what 
they  have  got  that  a  dog  can  eat."  My  compan- 
ion saw  the  dog  get  up  on  our  arrival,  and  go 
quickly  in  the  direction  of  our  camp, andhe  said 
that  something  in  the  cur's  manner  suggested 
to  him  the  object  of  his  hurried  departure.  He 
called  my  attention  to  the  fact,  and  we  has- 
tened back.  On  cautiously  nearing  camp,  the 
dog  was  seen  amidst  the  pails  in  the  shallow 
water  of  the  creek,  investigating  them.  He 
had  uncovered  the  butter  and  was  about  to 
taste  it  when  we  shouted,  and  he  made  quick 
steps  for  home,  with  a  very  "  kill-sheep  "  look. 
When  we  again  met  him  at  the  house  next  day 
he  could  not  look  us  in  the  face,  but  sneaked 
off,  utterly  crestfallen.  This  was  a  clear  case  of 
reasoning  on  the  part  of  the  dog,  and  after- 
ward a  clear  case  of  the  sense  of  guilt  from 
wrong-doing.  The  dog  will  probably  be  a 
man  before  any  other  animal  is. 

John  Burroughs. 


Vot.  XXXVI.— 86. 


THE   PULPIT    FOR    TO-DAY. 


NTO  the  United  States 
God  has  poured  a  vast 
heterogeneous  population. 
The  picture  which  John 
painted  in  the  Apocalypse 
may  be  seen  here,  with  a 
difference  :  men  gathered 
out  of  all  nations,  and  kin- 
dreds, and  peoples,  and  tongues,  but  not  before 
the  throne  of  God,  nor  praising  him.  Every 
phase  of  individual  character  is  here  repre- 
sented; every  race,  every  nationality,  every 
language,  every  form  of  religion.  Here  are  the 
Irishman,  the  Englishman,  the  Frenchman, 
the  Swede,  the  Norwegian,  the  German,  the 
Hungarian,  the  Pole,  the  Italian,  the  Spaniard, 
the  Portuguese.  Here  are  the  Celt,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  African,  the  Malay.  Here  is  the 
negro,  with  his  emotional  religion;  the  Roman 
Catholic,  with  his  ceremonial  religion ;  the  Pu- 
ritan, with  his  intellectual  religion ;  and  the  un- 
believing German,  with  his  no  religion  at  all. 
Hither  they  have  come  trooping,  sometimes 
beckoned  by  us,  sometimes  thrust  upon  us, 
sometimes  invading  us;  but,  welcome  or  un- 
welcome, still  they  come.  To  America  the  lan- 
guage of  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophet  may  be 
almost  literally  applied : 

The  sons  of  strangers  also  shall  build  thy  walls, 
And  their  kings  shall  serve  thee; 

Thy  gates  also  shall  be  open  continually; 

They  shall  not  be  shut  by  day  nor  by  night; 

That  men  may  bring  unto  thee  the  forces  of  the  Gentiles, 

And  that  their  kings  may  be  brought.* 

This  heterogeneous  people  occupy  a  land 
which  embraces  every  variety  of  climate  from 
northern  Europe  to  middle  Asia,  and  every 
variety  of  wealth  from  the  wheat  fields  of  Rus- 
sia to  the  silver  mines  of  Golconda.  Its  fertile 
soil  gives  every  variety  of  production  from  the 
pine-trees  of  Maine  to  the  orange  groves  of 
Florida.  It  has  for  agriculture  vast  prairies  of 
exhaustless  wealth;  for  mines,  mountains  rich 
in  coal,  iron,  copper,  silver,  gold;  for  mills, 
swift  running  rivers;  forcarriage,slowand  deep 
ones;  and  for  commerce,  a  harbor-indented 
coast  line,  lying  open  to  two  oceans  and  invit- 
ing the  commerce  of  both  hemispheres.  I  do 
not  dwell  upon  the  magnificence  of  this  endow- 
ment,—  that  is  a  familiar  aspect, — but  upon 
its  diversity.  The  nation  which  occupies  such 

*  Isaiah  Ix.  10,  n.  The  whole  chapter  applies  in  a 
remarkable  manner  to  the  present  condition  of  the 
United  States. 


a  land  must  be  diverse  in  industry  as  it  is  het- 
erogeneous in  population.  The  simplicity  of 
social  and  industrial  organization  has  long 
since  passed  away.  There  are  few  richer  men 
in  the  world  than  in  America,  and  none  who 
have  amassed  such  wealth  in  so  short  a  time; 
there  are  no  poorer  men  in  the  world,  and 
nowhere  men  whose  poverty  is  so  embittered  by 
disappointed  hopes  and  shattered  ambitions. 
In  the  Old  World  men  are  born  to  poverty, 
and  accept  their  predestined  lot  with  content- 
ment, if  not  with  cheerfulness.  In  America 
the  ambitious  youth  sees  a  possible  preferment 
in  the  future;  counts  every  advance  only  a 
step  towards  a  further  advancement,  and  at- 
tributes every  failure  to  injustice  or  ill-luck. 
Society,  thus  made  up  of  heterogeneous  popu- 
lation, subjected  to  the  educational  influence 
of  widely  differing  religions,  engaged  in  indus- 
tries whose  interests  often  seem  to  conflict,  if 
they  actually  do  not,  and  separated  into  classes 
by  continually  shifting  partition  walls,  is  kept 
in  perpetual  ferment  by  the  nature  of  its  edu- 
cational, political,  and  social  institutions.  The 
boys  of  the  rich  and  the  poor  sit  by  each  other's 
side  in  the  same  school-room ;  their  fathers 
brush  against  each  other  in  the  same  convey- 
ance. The  hod-carrier  and  the  millionaire  hang 
by  the  same  strap,  and  sway  against  each  other 
in  the  same  horse-car.  Every  election  brings 
rich  and  poor,  cultivated  and  ignorant,  into 
line  to  deposit  ballots  of  equal  weight  in  the 
same  ballot-box,  and  makes  it  the  interest  of 
each  to  win  the  suffrage  of  the  other  for  his 
candidate  and  his  party.  The  caldron,  politi- 
cal and  ecumenical,  is  always  seething  and  boil- 
ing; the  bottom  thrown  to  the  top,  the  top 
sinking  in  turn  to  the  bottom.  The  canal-boat 
driver  becomes  President;  the  deck  hand  a 
railroad  magnate.  The  son  of  the  President 
mingles  with  the  masses  of  the  people  in  the 
battle  for  position  and  preferment,  and  the  son 
of  yesterday's  millionaire  is  to-morrow  earning 
his  daily  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  In 
the  Old  World  men  live  like  monks  in  a  mon- 
astery ;  each  class,  if  not  each  individual,  has 
its  own  cell.  Here  all  walls  are  down,  and  all 
classes  live  in  commons.  All  this  is  familiar; 
it  is  enough  here  to  sketch  it  in  the  barest  out- 
lines ;  for  my  only  purpose  in  recalling  it  is  to 
ask  the  reader  to  consider  what  is  its  moral 
meaning.  It  can  have  but  one.  Into  this  con- 
tinent God  has  thrown  this  heterogeneous 
people,  in  this  effervescent  and  seething  mass, 
that  in  the  struggle  they  may  learn  the  laws 


THE  PULPIT  FOR    TO-DA  Y. 


619 


of  social  life.  African,  Malay,  Anglo-Saxon, 
and  Celt,  ignorant  and  cultivated,  rich  and 
poor,  he  flings  us  together  under  institutions 
which  inextricably  intermix  us,  that  he  may 
teach  us  by  experience  the  meaning  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man. 

Our  national  history  confirms  this  interpre- 
tation—  if  any  confirmation  were  needed. 
The  questions  of  our  national  history  have  all 
been  social,  not  theological.  We  can  hardly 
conceive  that  battles  were  fought,  as  bitter  as 
our  civil  war,  over  the  question  whether  God 
should  be  defined  as  existing  in  one  Person  or 
in  three;  whether  the  Son  should  be  defined 
as  proceeding  from  the  Father  or  created  by 
Him;  whether  he  should  be  described  as  of 
the  same  substance  or  only  as  of  like  sub- 
stance. We  can  hardly  conceive  that  Europe 
was  plunged  into  fierce  wars  by  the  question 
whether  righteousness  was  imputed  or  im- 
parted. But  these  were  the  real  questions  of 
the  past,  and  if  they  seem  insignificant  to  us 
now,  it  is  only  because  we  do  not  look  be- 
neath the  form  to  the  substance  of  the  issues 
involved — issues  as  sublime  as  ever  demanded 
the  supremest  concentration  and  the  most  de- 
voted zeal  of  men.  For  these  questions  men 
once  willingly  died;  for  them  they  now  un- 
willingly keep  awake  for  half  an  hour  of  a 
Sunday  afternoon.  The  questions  for  which 
we  have  fought,  and  are  willing  to  fight  again 
if  need  be,  are  questions  of  a  different  sort. 
Slavery,  temperance,  labor  and  capital,  the 
tariff,  public  education :  these  present  the 
questions  of  our  national  life,  and  they  are 
all  aspects  and  phases  of  one  question  —  What 
are  the  divine  laws  of  social  life  ?  Are  there 
any  principles  of  government,  known  or  dis- 
coverable, which  will  enable  men  who  differ 
in  origin,  in  condition,  in  race,  and  in  relig- 
ious belief  to  live  harmoniously  together  in  one 
commonwealth  —  that  is,  in  one  social  and 
political  organization,  fashioned  and  carried 
on  so  as  to  promote  their  common  welfare? 

This  is  certainly  a  question  which  the  clergy 
and  the  Church  must  help  to  answer.  It  is 
emphatically  a  religious  question.*  If  the 
Church  does  not  interest  itself  in  what  con- 
cerns humanity,  it  cannot  hope  that  human- 
ity will  interest  itself  in  what  concerns  the 
Church.  Why,  indeed,  should  it?  If  the 
Church  shelters  itself  under  the  plea  that 
religion  is  a  matter  between  the  individual 
soul  and  God,  it  adopts  a  very  much  narrower 
definition  of  religion  than  that  of  the  Bible. 
The  Hebrew  prophet  who  asked,  "  What  doth 
the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy 

*  "  Every  political  question  is  rapidly  becoming  a 
social  question,  and  every  social  question  a  religious 
question. " — Mazzini. 


God  ?"  had  a  conception  of  religion  two  parts 
of  which  have  to  do  with  our  relations  to  our 
fellow-men,  and  one  part  with  our  relations 
to  God.  Christ's  summary  of  the  law  and  the 
prophets  puts  as  much  emphasis  on  the 
brotherhood  of  man  as  on  the  fatherhood  of 
God.  Indeed,  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  A  re- 
ligion which  did  not  teach  us  how  to  live  on 
earth  would  have  small  claims  upon  our  re- 
spect when  it  claimed  to  teach  us  how  to  pre- 
pare for  heaven.  A  captain  who  does  not 
know  how  to  manage  a  ship  at  sea  cannot  be 
trusted  to  bring  her  into  port.  A  teacher  who 
cannot  tell  his  boys  how  to  get  along  with 
each  other  in  school  is  not  the  man  to  pre- 
pare them  to  get  along  with  each  other  as 
men  in  manhood.  Christianity  is  not  merely 
individual;  it  is  organic.  That  Judaism  is  so 
no  Bible  student  will  for  a  moment  question. 
It  deals  mainly  with  organisms — religious 
organization  in  an  established  church,  political 
organization  in  a  Jewish  commonwealth. 
Hebrew  scholars  even  doubt  whether  the  Old 
Testament  knows  anything  about  a  future 
life  ;  it  certainly  concerns  itself  mainly  about 
the  life  that  now  is.  The  New  Testament 
equally  concerns  itself  with  social  organiza- 
tion. It  undertakes  to  build  up,  not  merely 
individual  Christians  here  and  there,  but  a 
Christian  society.  Christ  begins  his  mission 
by  proclaiming  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at 
hand.  His  first  published  sermon  is  an  ex- 
planation of  the  duties  which  men  owe  to  one 
another,  and  of  the  principles  on  which  they 
are  to  act,  if  the  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  peace  is  ever  to  be  established  on  the 
earth.  His  second  sermon  is  a  prophetic 
survey  of  the  processes  by  which  that  king- 
dom will  be  developed.  He  does  not  lay 
more  stress  upon  the  declaration,  "  One  is 
your  Master,  even  Christ,"  than  upon  the  ac- 
companying declaration,  "  All  ye  are  breth- 
ren." The  minister  who  does  not  discover 
laws  of  social  life  in  the  Bible  has  studied  it 
to  very  little  purpose.  The  minister  who  does 
not  teach  those  laws  does  not  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  either  the  Old  Testament  prophets, 
the  New  Testament  apostles,  or  the  divine 
Master  of  both. 

To  whom  else  shall  the  people  look  for  in- 
struction in  the  moral  principles  of  a  true  so- 
cial order  if  not  to  the  ministry  ?  Shall  they 
look  to  the  politicians  ?  I  am  not  going  to  en- 
ter upon  any  cheap  satire  of  the  politicians. 
They  are  like  the  preachers,  some  good  and 
some  bad.  But,  good  or  bad,  their  function  in 
a  democracy  is  not  to  inculcate,  still  less  to 
discover,  great  principles.  They  are  executive 
officers,  not  teachers.  They  are  appointed 
to  formulate  in  law  and  so  set  in  motion 
the  principles  which,  under  the  instruction  of 


620 


THE  PULPIT  FOR    TO-DAY. 


others,  the  people  have  adopted.  This  is  what 
more  or  less  effectively  they  are  doing;  and 
this  is  what  they  ought  to  do.  The  politician 
is  not  a  motive  power;  he  is  a  belting,  and 
connects  the  motive  power  with  the  machin- 
ery. He  gets  things  done  when  the  people 
have  determined  what  they  want  done.  The 
bankers  and  financiers  deliberate  and  discuss, 
and  when  the  popular  determination  as  to 
ctfrrency  is  reached  as  the  result  of  this  dis- 
cussion, Congress  incorporates  it  in  a  law.  The 
politicians  will  never  determine  what  is  the 
best  legal  method  of  dealing  with  the  liquor 
traffic.  When  the  people  have  determined, 
the  politicians  may  be  trusted  to  carry  that 
determination  into  effect.  The  people  cannot 
learn  the  moral  laws  of  the  social  order  from 
the  politicians;  the  politicians  must  learn  them 
from  the  people.  The  master  does  not  take 
orders  from  his  servant;  the  servant  takes  them 
from  his  master.  Shall  we  then  look  to  the 
editors  for  moral  instruction  in  sociology  ? 
The  editors  ought  to  be  public  teachers,  but 
with  few  exceptions  they  have  abdicated.  The 
secular  press  is  devoted  to  secular  news-gath- 
ering and  to  party  service;  the  religious  press, 
to  ecclesiastical  news-gathering  and  denomina- 
tional service.  There  are  some  notable  excep- 
tions, but  they  do  but  prove  the  rule.  Not  long 
since  I  heard  the  editor  of  one  of  the  wealth- 
iest and  most  successful,  though  not  most 
influential,  of  American  journals  say  in  a 
public  debate,  that  the  daily  paper  was  or- 
ganized to  make  money,  and  that  was  what  it 
ought  to  be  organized  for.  So  long  as  this 
is  deemed  true  by  the  editors,  the  newspaper 
cannot  be  a  teacher.  The  world  has  never 
paid  for  leadership  until  the  leader  was  dead. 
Such  a  press  can  only  crystallize  the  public 
sentiment  which  others  have  created,  and  so 
make  efficacious  a  feeling  which  otherwise 
would  effervesce  in  emotion.  This  it  does, 
and  for  this  service  we  are  duly  grateful.  But 
it  cannot  —  at  least  it  generally  does  not  —  do 
the  work  of  an  investigator.  It  does  not  dis- 
cover laws  of  life.  It  does  not  create ;  it  only 
represents.  It  is  a  reservoir,  without  which 
the  mill  could  not  be  driven ;  but  the  reservoir 
must  itself  be  fed  by  the  springs  among  the 
hills.  The  real  formers  of  public  opinion  are 
the  teachers  and  the  preachers,  the  schools 
and  the  churches.  The  former  are  necessarily 
empirical ;  they  deduce  the  laws  of  life  from  a 
study  of  past  experience.  The  latter  ought  to 
be  prophets.  Their  sympathy  with  all  classes 
of  men,  their  common  contact  with  rich  and 
poor,  their  opportunities  for  reflection  and 
meditation,  and  their  supposed  consecration 
to  a  work  wholly  unselfish  and  disinterested, 
ought  to  combine  with  their  piety  to  give 
them  that  insight  into  life  which  has  always 


been  characteristic  of  a  prophetic  order.  I  do 
not  mean  to  demand  of  the  ministry  the  im- 
possible; but  if  this  is  not  their  function,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  say  what  function  they 
have.  They  cannot  formulate  public  opinion 
in  laws  as  well  as  the  politicians ;  they  cannot 
represent  that  public  opinion  which  is  already 
formed  as  well  as  the  journalists;  they  cannot 
extract  the  truth  from  a  scientific  study  of  life 
as  well  as  the  teacher  and  the  scholar.  But 
so  far  as  natural  selection,  aided  by  special 
studies  and  a  generally  quiet  life,  can  equip 
any  class  of  men  for  a  prophetic  function,  and 
so  fit  them  to  discern  the  great  moral  laws  of 
the  social  order,  the  ministry  are  so  equipped. 
If  they  will  leave  the  professional  teachers  to 
expound  the  secular,  that  is,  the  empirical  side 
of  social  science,  the  newspapers  to  reflect 
the  conclusions  respecting  such  science  as  are 
formed,  and  the  politicians  to  embody  those 
opinions  and  principles  in  law,  and  will  devote 
themselves  to  the  spiritual  study  of  the  Book, 
and  of  life, —  that  book  which  is  always  being 
written  and  is  never  finished, —  they  can 
be  leaders  of  the  leaders.  They  can  lay  the 
foundations  on  which  other  men  shall  rear 
the  superstructure.  They  speak,  or  can  speak, 
to  all  classes  in  the  community,  for  they 
belong  to  none.  They  address  audiences  of 
personal  friends,  whom ;  they  have  counseled 
and  aided  in  the  hours  M'hen  friendship  is  the 
most  full  of  sweet  significance.  They  speak 
to  these  friends  at  a  time  when  baser  passions 
are  allayed  and  moral  sentiments  are  awakened. 
The  very  smallness  of  their  auditory  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  journalist  adds  force  to 
their  counsels  and  affords  protection  from 
misapprehension. 

The  pulpit  for  to-day,  then,  must  be  compe- 
tent to  give  instruction  in  the  moral  laws  which 
govern  social  and  industrial  life  —  the  organ- 
ized life  of  humanity.  The  age  requires  this 
instruction ;  the  people  desire  it ;  the  ministers 
should  give  it. 

It  cannot  be  expected  in  such  a  paper  as 
this  that  I  should  attempt  to  unfold  a  Chris- 
tian sociology.  This  has  yet  to  be  done,  by 
the  interchange  of  many  opinions,  and  the 
interaction  of  many  minds.  I  may,  however, 
indicate  certain  lines  of  thought  as  illustrative 
of  the  kind  of  teaching  which  the  exigency  of 
the  nineteenth  century  demands  of  the  pulpits 
in  America. 

I.  What  is  the  Christian  law  of  liberty  ? 

"The  true  liberty  of  a  man,"  says  Carlyle, 
"  you  would  say  consisted  in  his  finding  out, 
or  being  forced  to  find  out,  the  right  path  and 
to  walk  therein.  To  learn  or  be  taught  what 
work  he  was  actually  able  to  do ;  and  then 
by  permission,  persuasion,  or  even  compul- 
sion to  be  set  about  doing  of  the  same.  .  .  . 


THE  PULPIT  FOR    TO-DA  Y. 


621 


O !  if  thou  really  art  my  senior,  seigneur,  my 
Elder,  Presbyter,  or  Priest  —  if  thou  art  in  any 
way  my  wiser,  may  a  beneficent  instinct  lead 
and  impel  thee  to  conquer  and  command  me. 
If  thou  do  know  better  than  I  what  i 
and  right,  I  conjure  you  in  the  name  of  God, 
force  me  to  do  it ;  were  it  by  never  such  brass 
collars,  whips,  and  handcuffs,  leave  me  not  to 
walk  over  precipices!"* 

No!  this  is  not  liberty;  it  is  servitude.  Serv- 
itude may  be  better  than  walking  over  preci- 
pices ;  it  may  be  in  every  way  justifiable  if  the 
freeman  be  a  lunatic,  and  is  bent  upon  pushing 
men  weaker  than  himself  over  precipices.  But 
it  is  not  liberty.  We  hold  in  this  country  that 
men  can  be  kept  from  walking  over  precipices, 
or  thrusting  their  fellows  over,  without  the  use 
of  brass  collars,  whips,  and  handcuffs;  but  how 
this  is  to  be  done  we  do  not  yet,  I  fear,  very 
clearly  discern.  When  the  mob  of  anarchists, 
aroused  to  frenzy  by  the  appeals  of  Most  and 
Parsons  and  Spies,  march  to  burn  and  kill  and 
destroy,  and  are  met  by  steel  bayonets  and 
whistling  rifle-balls,  we  have  come  to  Carlyle's 
definition  of  liberty,  to  brass  collars,  whips, 
and  handcuffs.  These  are  preferable  to  the 
precipice ;  but  they  are  not  liberty.  "  Liberty," 
says  Webster's  Dictionary,  "  is  ability  to  do  as 
one  pleases."  "  Freedom  is  exemption  from  the 
power  and  control  of  another."  How  can  a 
great  heterogeneous  people,  made  up  of  every 
nationality,  race,  class,  and  religion,  be  thus 
free,  be  endowed  with  this  ability  to  do  as 
they  severally  please  ?  For  if  Webster  is  right, 
liberty  is  a  large  ability.  It  is  power;  it  is 
competence. 

On  my  lawn  is  a  goat  tethered  by  a  rope 
to  a  stake.  He  is  not  at  liberty.  Why  not  cut 
the  rope  and  let  him  go  where  and  do  as  he 
pleases  ?  Because,  if  I  do,  he  will  gnaw  the 
bark  of  the  young  trees,  trample  down  the 
garden  beds,  pull  up  the  strawberry  plants  by 
the  roots.  In  a  word,  because  he  is  not  able 
to  perceive  and  be  obedient  to  an  invisible 
law,  he  must  be  subjected  to  a  visible  and 
tangible  one.  If  it  were  possible  to  train  him 
so  that  he  would  leave  the  young  trees  alone, 
would  keep  out  of  the  garden,  and  would  eat 
only  the  grass  and  the  burdocks,  of  which 
latter  he  is  fond,  and  which  we  should  be  glad 
to  have  him  destroy,  he  might  be  set  free,  to 
go  where  and  do  what  he  pleases.  Because 
he  cannot  be  taught  to  please  to  do  right,  he 
must  be  tethered.  We  have  also  a  collie  dog. 
Fond  as  he  is  of  a  ramble  with  his  young  mas- 
ters, the  boys  have  only  to  say  to  him,  "  No, 
Victor;  go  home,"  and  he  lies  quietly  down 
on  the  lawn  and  looks  wistfully  and  pathetic- 
ally after  them.  Formerly  they  had  to  tie  him 
when  they  went  off  for  a  ramble.  But  he  has 
*  "  Past  and  Present,"  p.  213. 


learned  obedience,  and  therefore  has  acquired 
liberty.  This  is  a  very  simple  illustration  of  a 
very  simple  truth ;  namely,  that  liberty  is  not 
exemption  from  law ;  it  is  spiritual  perception 
of  and  voluntary  obedience  to  law.  The  goat 
can  never  be  made  free,  because  it  can  never 
be  taught  to  perceive  and  to  respect  the  in- 
visible law.  Law  and  liberty  are  not  opposites. 
We  come  into  liberty  when  we  become  a  law 
unto  ourselves.  Liberty  and  independence 
are  not  synonymous  ;  liberty  is  voluntary  sub- 
jection. 

Aristotle  classifies  government  in  three 
classes — government  by  the  one,  government 
by  the  few,  government  by  the  many.  We 
have  added  in  America  a  fourth  class  —  self- 
government.  The  mass  cannot  do  what  all  the 
individuals  in  the  mass  are  incapable  of  doing. 
If  the  individual  American  cannot  govern  him- 
self, the  American  people  cannot  govern  them- 
selves. A  pack  of  wolves  is  no  more  capable 
of  freedom  than  is  a  single  wolf.  The  first  con- 
dition of  self-government  in  a  community  is 
that  each  individual  should  possess  the  power 
of  self-government  in  himself.  Each  individ- 
ual must  be  endowed  with  ability  to  do  as  he 
pleases  or  the  state  cannot  be  free.  If  even 
a  considerable  minority  are  engaged  in 
schemes  for  pushing  their  fellows  over  the 
precipice,  we  must  have  recourse  to  Carlyle's 
brass  collars,  whips,  and  handcuffs.  But  the 
first  condition  of  self-government  is  the  abil- 
ity to  recognize  an  invisible  law,  and  to  sub- 
ject one's  self  to  its  restraint.  This  is  what 
Isaiah  means  when,  in  that  resplendent  picture 
of  peaceful  industry  replacing  war,  he  declares 
that  the  law  shall  go  out  of  Zion.  This  is  what 
Christ  means  when  he  says, "  If  the  Son  shall 
make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed."  The  law 
of  liberty  is  the  supremacy  of  the  individual 
conscience  in  the  individual  life.  It  is  the  law 
written  within,  and  therefore  needing  no  whips 
and  handcuffs  imposed  from  without.  If  ever 
our  churches  by  their  preaching  shall  lighten 
the  sanctity  of  the  divine  law,  shall  suffer  the 
people  to  forget  that  the  Father  of  mankind 
is  also  its  lawgiver,  shall  let  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, with  its  Thou  shall  and  Thou  shall  not, 
drift  inlo  obscurity ;  if  ever  ihe  lies  of  family 
life  are  loosened,  and  children  forgel  lo  honor 
their  father  and  their  mother,  and  to  obey  their 
parents  in  the  Lord ;  if  ever  the  community 
comes  to  enlerlain  aconlempl  for  ils  appointed 
law-makers  and  its  interpreters  of  law,  and  lo 
allow  ils  self-imposed  requiremenls  lo  be  dis- 
regarded wilh  impunity ;  if  ever  sheriffs  and 
governors  dally  with  mobs,  entreating  where 
they  should  command,  and  giving  promises 
where  they  should  give  shot  and  ball ;  if  ever 
Juslice  drops  her  sword  and  wishes  to  retain 
her  office  by  virtue  of  her  scales  alone ;  if  ever 


622 


THE  PULPIT  FOR    TO-DA  Y. 


entire  states  are  allowed  to  dissever  their  alle- 
giance to  the  constitution  of  the  land  and 
light  for  lawlessness  and  call  it  liberty  —  un- 
less in  that  hour  there  are  ministers  in  the 
pulpits  to  recall  Mount  Sinai,  and  fathers  to 
remember  the  story  of  Eli,  and  governors  to 
bear  the  sword  not  in  vain,  and  a  national 
determination  to  maintain  liberty  by  maintain- 
ing law  at  any  cost  of  blood  and  treasure,  the 
end  of  the  republic  will  not  be  far  distant. 

"  Despotism  may  govern  without  faith," 
says  De  Tocqueville,  "  but  liberty  cannot. 
Religion  is  much  more  necessary  in  the  re- 
public which  they  [the  atheistic  republicans] 
set  forth  in  glowing  colors  than  in  the  mon- 
archy which  they  attack;  it  is  more  needed 
in  democratic  republics  than  in  any  other. 
How  is  it  possible  that  societies  should  escape 
destruction,  if  the  moral  tie  be  not  strength- 
ened in  proportion  as  the  political  tie  is  re- 
laxed ?  And  what  can  be  done  with  a  people 
who  are  their  own  masters,  if  they  be  not  sub- 
missive to  the  Deity  ?  "  * 

That  question  I  leave  to  the  reflection  of 
the  reader. 

II.  What  is  the  Christian  conception  of 
labor  ? 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  war  was  the 
only  honorable  pursuit.  He  who  plundered 
others  was  knighted;  he  who  clothed  the  na- 
ked earth  with  fertility  by  his  toil  was  a  vil- 
lein. Down  to  our  own  time, in  England, the 
only  refuge  of  the  younger  sons  of  the  nobil- 
ity has  been  the  Church,  the  army,  and  the 
civil  service.  The  scion  of  noble  stock  might 
walk  the  deck  of  a  man-of-war,  but  if  he  drove 
a  nail  in  making  her  iron  sides  he  was  an  out- 
cast. He  might  preach  borrowed  sermons  in 
the  pulpit,  but  if  he  were  to  do  one  honest 
day's  work  in  laying  up  the  stone  work  or 
shaping  the  rafters  of  the  church  he  became  a 
pariah.  Nor  can  we  say  that  even  in  American 
society  this  conception  of  labor  as  an  indignity 
has  no  root  and  breathes  out  no  pernicious 
odor  upon  the  air.  The  iron  masters  of  the 
Lehigh  Valley  tell  me  that  they  cannot  find 
workingmen  enough  and  must  send  to  Europe 
for  them;  the  Pacific  coast  is  beginning  to  ask, 
If  the  Chinese  must  go,  who  can  be  found  to 
till  our  vineyards,  and  tend  our  small  fruits,  and 
make  our  vegetable  gardens  for  us?  But  almost 
every  village  has  too  many  lawyers  for  justice, 
too  many  doctors  for  health,  too  many  shop- 
keepers for  trade,  and  too  many  ministers  for 
good  morals.  Twice  in  the  last  two  or  three 
years  I  have  received  letters  from  fathers  say- 
ing, "  My  son  wants  to  be  a  farmer ;  I  should 
like  to  send  him  to  college  and  fit  him  for  a 
profession.  What  should  I  better  do  ?  "  What 

*  De  Tocqueville,  "  Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  I ., 
P-  393- 


nobler  profession  is  there  than  to  obey  God's 
mandate  to  Adam,  to  dress  the  earth  and  keep 
it ;  to  win  back  a  Garden  of  Eden  from  the 
thistle-cursed  wilderness  ?  So  far  has  this  con- 
ception of  labor  as  an  indignity  entered  into 
thought,  that  the  Church  itself  imagines  that 
toil  was  inflicted  upon  man  as  a  penalty  for 
sin.  Our  systems  of  education  are  corrupted 
by  this  servile  conception  of  labor.  The  brain 
is  educated,  but  not  the  eye  to  see,  nor  the 
hand  to  fashion,  nor  the  muscle  to  do,  nor  the 
body  to  endure.  We  live  in  a  country  which 
clamors  for  men  who  know  how  to  compel 
reluctant  Nature  to  disclose  her  secrets ;  and 
yet  it  is  hardly  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
scientific  schools  were  engrafted  on  even  our 
higher  education;  and  not  yet  are  the  simplest 
principles  which  underlie  the  industries  of  the 
vast  majority  of  our  people  inculcated  in  our 
public  schools,  or  known  to  the  teachers  in 
them.  Seven  and  a  half  millions  of  men  are  en- 
gaged in  various  agricultural  employments,  that 
require  for  their  best  prosecution  an  intelligent 
comprehension  of  the  chemistry  of  nature,  of 
comparative  physiology,  and  of  the  great  laws 
of  trade  on  which  the  markets  of  the  world 
depend;  but  the  student  may  go  through  the 
entire  curriculum  of  the  public  school  —  pri- 
mary school,  grammar  school,  high  school, 
and  even  State  university  —  and  hardly  know 
that  there  is  a  chemistry  of  nature,  or  that  a 
comparison  of  the  physiological  structure  of 
the  animal  race  has  been  made,  unless  in 
his  later  years  he  has  learned  these  facts  in 
an  "  optional."  The  highest  ambition  of  the 
laborer  in  the  lower  ranks  of  the  hierarchy 
of  labor  is  to  reduce  his  hours  from  twelve 
to  ten,  or  from  ten  to  eight,  or  even  from 
eight  to  six ;  and  the  highest  ambition  of  the 
laborer  in  the  higher  ranks  of  labor  is  to  re- 
tire, /.  e.,  to  reduce  his  hours  of  labor  to  none 
at  all. 

Christianity  has  a  very  different  conception 
to  give  to  the  world,  and  the  Christian  min- 
istry are  the  men  to  give  it.  It  depicts,  in  the 
prose  poem  with  which  the  history  of  the  race 
begins,  an  Eden  which  the  innocent  children 
of  God  were  appointed  to  dress  and  to  keep. 
In  the  primitive  commonwealth,  which  was 
to  serve  as  a  pattern  for  future  generations, 
war  is  discouraged,  agriculture  honored  and 
ennobled.  Abraham  is  a  farmer;  Moses,  a 
herdsman;  David, ashepherd  boy;  Paul,  a  ten t- 
maker;  Christ,  a  carpenter.  In  the  glowing 
picture  of  the  future  golden  age  which  awaits 
the  world  the  spears  are  not  laid  aside,  but 
beaten  into  pruning-hooks ;  nor  the  swords 
hung  up  inglonously  to  rust  away,  but  con- 
verted into  plowshares.  The  benediction  of 
God  is  bestowed  on  the  laborer.  The  Hebrew 
painter  takes  his  brush  to  paint  a  picture  of 


PL:!. rrr  FOR  TO-DAY. 


623 


ideal  womanhood.  This  is  what  he  places  on 
his  easel : 

"  She  seeketh  wool,  and  flax,  and  worketh 
willingly  with  her  hands.  She  is  like  the  mer- 
chants' ships  ;  she  bringeth  her  food  from  afar. 
She  riseth  also  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth 
meat  to  her  household,  and  a  portion  to  her 
maidens.  She  considereth  a  field,  and  buyeth 
it:  with  the  fruit  of  her  hands  she  planteth  a 
vineyard.  She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength, 
and  strengthened!  her  arms.  She  perceiveth 
that  her  merchandise  is  good  :  her  candle  go- 
eth  not  out  by  night.  She  layeth  her  hands  to 
the  spindle,  and  her  hands  hold  the  distaff." 

Which  picture  I  beg  permission  to  recom- 
mend to  the  thoughtful  consideration  of  those 
who  have  in  charge  the  higher  education  of 
women. 

That  is  not  the  higher  education  for  either 
man  or  woman  which  educates  them  away 
from  honest  industry,  from  hard  work;  which 
teaches  the  boy  to  shun  the  plow,  or  the  girl 
to  shun  the  spindle ;  which  puts  in  either  men 
or  women  an  ambition  to  escape  labor,  not  to 
perform  it.  What  does  the  eight-hour  move- 
ment mean  ?  Does  it  mean  two  hours  more 
for  head,  and  heart,  and  home;  for  books,  and 
wife,  and  children,  and  love?  Does  it  mean 
less  hand  work,  and  more  head  work ;  less  fac- 
tory work,  and  more  home  work  ;  fewer  hours 
with  the  "  boss,"  and  more  with  the  tired  wife 
and  neglected  babes  ?  Then  all  hail  to  it.  An 
age  in  which  seven  men  can  gather  from  the 
willing  earth  food  for  one  thousand  ought  to 
redeem  humanity  from  drudgery  —  but  not 
from  toil.  For  if  the  eight-hour  movement 
means  merely  less  work  —  less  in  factory  or  at 
home,  for  "  boss  "  or  for  children,  of  head  or 
of  hand,  then  it  means  more  idleness,  more 
drink,  more  wretchedness,  more  paupers. 

III.  What  is  the  Christian  conception  of 
wealth  ? 

The  unchristian  conception  of  wealth  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  saying,  "  Is  it  not  lawful  for  me 
to  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own  ?  "  It  finds  its 
perfect  illustration  in  the  saying  of  the  French 
Bourbon,  "  The  State !  I  am  the  State."  This 
was  the  mental  attitude  of  all  the  Roman  em- 
perors. Rome  was  their  private  property  —  its 
citizens  their  cattle,  its  wealth  their  personal 
estate.  The  American  Republic  no  longer  be- 
lieves this  to  be  true.  That  publicoffice  is  a  pub- 
lic trust  is  professed  by  all  Americans,  even  if  it 
is  1  iclieved  only  by  a  few.  What  is  true  of  office 
is  true  of  property.  I  criticise  Henry  George 
as  not  sufficiently  radical.  He  objects  to  pri- 
vate property  in  land.  He  does  not  go  far 
enough.  The  Bible  objects  to  private  property 
in  anything.  The  doctrine  that  property  is  a 
trust  is  far  more  explicitly  taught  in  the  New 
Testament  than  the  doctrine  of  a  vicarious 


atonement,  or  a  Trinity  in  Unity.  The  latter 
are  deductions  from  Biblical  statements,  the- 
former  is  itself  a  Biblical  statement.  Property 
is  a  trust ;  life  is  a  service ;  the  poor  are  the 
beneficiaries ;  the  duty  of  the  trustee  is  to 
give  them  food  in  due  season  ;  the  judgment 
is  an  accounting ;  the  self  server  is  an  unprofit- 
able servant ;  the  server  of  his  age  and  race 
is  a  faithful  and  wise  servant,  who  has  proved 
his  capacity  for  rulership.  This  is  not  figure  ; 
it  is  not  Oriental  imagery;  it  is  not  theological 
fiction  ;  it  is  plain,  simple,  matter-of-fact,  pro- 
saic truth.  The  man  who  takes  his  property 
to  be  his  own  and  uses  it  on  himself  is  as  truly 
guilty  of  embezzlement  as  the  clerk  who  filches 
from  his  employer's  till.  No  Bible  student 
doubts  this;  but  not  many  Bible  preachers 
are  accustomed  to  preach  it.  and  fewer  still  of 
Bible  Christians  adopt  and  act  upon  it. 

This  truth  is  not  more  clearly  announced 
by  the  Bible  than  it  is  by  that  other  great  rev- 
elator  of  spiritual  truth — life.  Our  country  is 
rich.  What  made  it  so  ?  We  have  been  dig- 
ging coal  and  iron  out  of  the  Pennsylvania 
hills,  and  pumping  oil  out  of  its  reservoirs ; 
we  have  been  gathering  grain  from  the  wheat- 
fields  of  Dakota,  and  cotton  from  the  cotton- 
fields  of  Texas,  and  silver  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  gold  from  the  Pacific  coast. 
Whose  are  they?  Who  stored  them  there? 
We  are  rich  as  the  child  is  rich  who  dis- 
covers the  preserves  which  his  mother  has 
put  away  in  her  closet ;  and,  like  the  child, 
we  shall  pay  dearly  for  our  theft  if  we  im- 
agine that  the  treasure  we  have  found  is  ours, — 
ours  to  do  with  as  we  please.  It  is  His  who 
put  it  there;  and  for  our  use  of  it  or  abuse 
of  it  we  shall  account  to  Him.  It  is  a  hope- 
ful sign  of  American  civilization  that  never 
before  in  the  world's  history  were  there  so 
many  men  of  wealth  using  their  wealth  as  a 
trust,  not  as  a  private  possession.  I  visited, 
not  long  since,  one  of  the  largest  single  coal- 
mine owners  in  Pennsylvania.  He  had  built 
up  in  the  wilderness  a  village  with  five  thou- 
sand population.  No  roof  covered  more  than 
two  tenements;  every  tenement  had  about  it 
ground  for  a  garden  plot.  The  day-school 
was  kept  open  ten  months  in  the  year;  even- 
ing schools  afforded  special  facilities  for  such 
as  wished  to  pursue  special  studies ;  a  great 
hall  furnished  them  with  opportunity  for  every 
kind  of  recreation,  from  a  ball  to  a  lecture;  a 
free  library  and  reading-room  gave  an  even- 
ing lounging-place  free  from  beer  and  tobacco ; 
there  was  not  a  liquor  shop  in  the  town ;  the 
ladies  of  the  mansion  equipped  every  year  a 
Christmas-tree  for  the  children  of  the  village, 
dressing  many  out  of  the  hundreds  of  dolls 
with  their  own  hands;  but  what  was  best  of 
all,  the  owner  of  mine,  and  land,  and  cottages 


624 


THE  PULPIT  FOR    TO-DA  Y. 


lived  in  the  midst  of  his  workingmen,  and 
administered  with  his  own  hands  the  estate 
which  furnished  the  one  thousand  working- 
men  with  employment,  the  five  thousand 
villagers  with  bread,  and  homes,  and  life. 
I  thought  how  it  would  have  delighted  the 
heart  of  grim  old  Carlyle  to  have  visited 
Drifton,  and  how  even  John  Ruskin  would 
have  found  something  to  praise  in  such  a 
mining  community. 

I  do  not  ask  that  men  of  wealth  shall  give 
more  money  to  the  Church,  which  is  often 
stronger  when  it  is  poor  than  when  it  is  rich ; 
nor  to  the  poor  and  thriftless,  whom  unearned 
money  only  keeps  in  poverty.  I  urge  that  the 
power  to  make  money,  like  any  other  power,  is 
a  trust  bestowed  on  the  possessor  for  human- 
ity. The  preacher  who  preaches  for  his  salary, 
not  for  the  spiritual  well-being  of  his  parish- 
ioners, is  a  mercenary;  the  physician  who 
practices  for  his  fees,  not  to  cure  the  sick,  is  a 
mercenary;  the  lawyer  who  pleads  for  his 
honorarium,  not  for  justice,  is  a  mercenary  ;  the 
politician  who  enacts  laws  for  what  he  can 
make,  not  for  the  community,  is  a  mercenary ; 
no  less  the  manufacturer,  the  merchant,  the 
trader,  the  man  on  'change,  who  transacts  his 
business  to  make  money,  not  to  give  the  com- 
munity its  meat  in  due  season,  is  a  mercenary. 
In  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
doctrine  that  wealth  is  a  trust  must  stand  by  the 
side  of  the  doctrine  that  labor  is  an  honor  and 
liberty  is  an  obedience.  The  materialism  that 
threatens  the  American  Church  is  not  the  ma- 
terialism of  Herbert  Spencer.  It  is  the  material- 
ism of  the  railroad,  the  factory,  the  shop ;  the 
materialism  that  puts  thinghood  above  man- 
hood; that  does  not  know  that  things  were 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  things  —  that  God 
gives  us,  not  Irishmen  to  build  our  railroads, 
but  railroads  to  build  Irishmen ;  not  Hunga- 
rians to  dig  our  mines,  but  mines  to  develop 
manhood  in  Hungarians. 

These  illustrations  may  serve  at  least  to  indi- 
cate the  lines  of  investigation  to  which  the 
needs  of  the  nineteenth  century  invite  the 
American  preacher.  If  he  will  go  to  his  Book 
for  this  purpose,  he  will  find  it  quite  as  rich  in 
sociological  as  in  theological  instruction ;  quite 
as  fertile  in  its  suggestions  respecting  the 
duty  of  man  to  man  as  in  its  suggestions  re- 


specting the  nature  and  government  of  God. 
He  will  find  his  New  Testament  telling  him 
that  in  Christ's  kingdom  the  strong  are  to  serve 
the  weak ;  the  rich,  the  poor — /.  e.,  the  factory 
owner  his  hands,  the  railroad  prince  his 
trainmen;  that  controversies  are  to  be  settled, 
not  by  wage  of  battle  or  its  modern  equiva- 
lent, strikes  and  lockouts,  but  by  mutual  con- 
cessions and  ultimate  appeal  to  an  impartial 
tribunal  —  in  other  words,  by  conciliation  and 
arbitration  ;  that  the  State  is  not  a  "  social 
compact,"  nor  government  a  "necessary  evil"; 
that  the  one  is  a  divinely  constituted  organ- 
ism, and  the  other  the  necessary  condition  of 
its  existence ;  that  the  judicial  function  does 
not  belong  to  humanity,  and  therefore  the 
judicial  system  will  never  become  truly 
Christian  till  it  ceases  to  be  an  effort  to  ad- 
minister justice  and  becomes  an  effort  to  ad- 
minister mercy ;  that  the  brotherhood  of  man 
is  an  integral  part  of  Christianity  no  less 
than  the  fatherhood  of  God,  and  that  to  deny 
the  one  is  no  less  infidel  than  to  deny  the 
other.  In  short,  while  he  will  find  in  the  Book 
which  he  is  appointed  to  interpret  no  light 
upon  scientific  details  of  political  or  industrial 
organization,  he  will  find  the  great  moral 
laws  of  the  social  order,  if  not  clearly  revealed 
at  least  definitely  indicated,  and  in  them 
abundant  material  for  sermons  which  will  be 
interesting  because  giving  instruction  which 
is  both  imperatively  needed  and  eagerly  de- 
sired. Sir  Henry  Maine  has  shown  very 
clearly  that  democracy  is  not  yet  "  triumphant 
democracy " ;  it  is  still  an  experiment.  The 
American  Revolution  determined  our  right 
to  try  it  on  this  continent  without  fear  of  for- 
eign intervention ;  a  civil  war  determined  our 
right  to  try  it  without  fear  of  domestic  disrup- 
tion. We  have  still  to  work  the  problem  out. 
Whether  a  people  diverse  in  race,  religion, 
and  industry  can  live  happily  and  prosper- 
ously together,  with  no  other  law  than  the 
invisible  law  of  right  and  wrong,  and  no  other 
authority  than  the  unarmed  authority  of  con- 
science, is  the  question  which  America  has  to 
solve  for  the  world.  No  one  class  in  the  com- 
munity has  a  more  potent  influence  in  deter- 
mining what  shall  be  its  answer  to  that 
question  than  the  American  clergy. 

Lyman  Abbott. 


THE  ONLY  FOE. 

WILD,  threatening  sky,  white,  raging  sea,  Life  shrinks  and  hides;  all  creatures  cower 
Fierce  wind  that  rends  the  rifted  cloud,         While  her  tremendous  bolts  are  hurled, 

Sets  the  new  moon's  sharp  glitter  free,  That  strike  with  blind,  insensate  power 
And  thunders  eastward,  roaring  loud !  The  mighty  shoulder  of  the  world. 


A  fury  rides  the  autumn  blast, 

The  hoary  brine  is  torn  and  tossed; 

('.rent  Nature  through  her  spaces  vast 
Casts  her  keen  javelins  of  the  frost. 

Her  hand  that  in  the  summer  days 
Soothed  us  with  tender  touch  of  joy, 

Deals  death  upon  her  wintry  ways; 
Whom  she  caressed  she  would  destroy. 


Be  still,  my  soul,  thou  hast  no  part 
In  her  black  moods  of  hate  and  fear; 

Lifted  above  her  wrath  thou  art, 

On  thy  still  heights,  serene  and  clear. 

Remember  this, —  not  all  the  wild, 
Huge,  untamed  elements  have  force 

To  reach  thee,  though  the  seas  were  piled 
In  weltering  mountains  on  thy  course. 


Only  thyself  thyself  can  harm. 

Forget  it  not !  And  full  of  peace, 
As  if  the  south  wind  whispered  warm, 

Wait  thou  till  storm  and  tumult  cease. 


Celia   Thaxttr. 


GEORGE    KENNAN. 


WELL-KNOWN  literary  man 
who  met  Mr.  Kennan  on  his  re- 
turn from  Siberia  declared,  "  I 
have  been  talking  with  a  man 
who  has  seen  hell ! "  It  is  not 
strange  that  the  world  is  curious 
about  one  whose  experiences  can  be  thus  graph- 
ically described.  We  wish  further  knowledge 
of  the  personality  of  him  who  has  traversed 
the  awful  circles  and  himself  tasted  the  fire.  In- 
deed, he  who  tells  us  such  tales  may  justly  be 
asked  for  an  account  of  himself.  Sober  second- 
thought  has  a  right  to  learn  the  quality  of 
the  man  who  describes  inconceivable  horrors 
as  actual,  living  facts.  There  is  reason  in  seek- 
ing to  know  the  experience  which  gives  value 
to  the  judgment  of  one  who,  standing  on  the 
basis  of  his  own  statements  alone,  asks  the 
world  to  believe  the  incredible,  and  relates 
that  which  must  from  its  very  nature  be 
un  verifiable. 

It  may  well  enough  be  that  not  only  to  the 
readers  of  this  magazine,  but  to  all  the  world  as 
well,  Mr.  Kennan's  history  is  centered  around 
the  expedition  of  1885  to  study  the  exile  sys- 
tem. His  career  up  to  that  time  was  but  a 
preparation  for  that  high  service;  his  mental 
equipment,  his  physical  traits,  his  characteris- 
tics and  qualities  are  of  value  as  they  show 
his  power  to  do  this  work.  The  very  facts  of 
his  life  take  on  new  importance  as  educators 
for  it,  or  slip  away  unnoticed  as  out  of  rela- 
tion to  it.  Large  and  small  become  relative 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 87. 


terms  in  this  view  of  things,  and  especially  do 
some  minor  events  take  on  a  new  interest. 
It  is  said  that  the  hour  brings  the  man :  never 
was  a  truer  instance  of  it  than  this  work  and 
this  worker ;  never  does  a  whole  previous  life 
seem  more  entirely  a  preparation  for  such 
work.  Keen,  quick,  discriminating,  yet  espe- 
cially just  and  accurate,  strong  in  body  and 
with  a  stout  purpose,  of  an  unconquerable 
will  and  an  indomitable  courage,  and  with 
an  eager  interest  in  all  strange  places  and 
peoples,  Nature  had  made  him  for  her  service. 
Nursed  on  difficulties,  and  trained  by  neces- 
sity, he  yet  had  never  parted  company  with 
industry  and  perseverance,  while  readiness 
of  resource  was  both  his  inheritance  and  his 
habit.  Books  and  life  had  equally  been  his 
tutors ;  he  had  learned  to  write  readily,  to  col- 
late, and  to  compare.  Business,  law,  and  gov- 
ernment had  given  him  knowledge.  The  diffi- 
cult speech  of  Russia  was  his  familiar  tongue, 
and  a  strange  and  sharp  special  training  had 
made  this  far  country  like  another  home  to 
him.  Surely  here  was  the  man,  and  the  hour 
also  had  come,  for  the  world  was  waking  to 
the  faint  cries  of  the  oppressed  and  asking  for 
the  truth. 

Born  in  Norwalk,  Ohio,  on  the  i6th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1845,  canny  Scotch  and  impetuous 
Irish  blood  mingle  with  the  sturdy  English 
currents  in  the  veins  of  George  Kennan ;  but 
for  four  generations  the  Kennans  have  been 
Americans.  His  father,  John  Kennan,  a  young 


626 


GEORGE  KENNAN. 


lawyer  from  western  New  York,  had  found 
home  and  wife  in  what  was  then  a  small 
town  of  Ohio.  His  mother  was  Mary  Ann 
Morse,  daughter  of  a  Connecticut  clergyman, 
and  it  is  not  without  interest  to  learn  that  she 
was  of  the  same  family  as  the  great  inventor 
of  telegraphy,  S.  F.  B.  Morse.  It  may  have 
been  but  a  coincidence,  but  it  may  have  been 
some  subtle  influence  of  heredity  that  deter- 
mined the  trend  of  life  for  the  boy  who 
sent  his  first  message  over  the  wires  the  day 
he  was  six  years  old,  and  who  from  that  time 
onward  found  in  their  constant  use  both  voca- 
tion and  avocation.  It  is  also  curious  to  no- 
tice a  passionate  love  of  travel  in  the  father, 
and  a  deep  devotion  to  nature,  and  an  unu- 
sual mechanical  skill — qualities,  all  of  them, 
which  repeat  themselves  in  the  son,  this  last 
developed  into  an  extraordinary  quickness  at 
supplying  unexpected  needs  and  a  wonderful 
readiness  of  adaptation,  whether  in  things 
physical  or  in  more  important  matters.  From 
his  mother  top  came  strong  mental  and  moral 
impulses,  making  him  a  quick  observer  and  a 
stern  judge  of  life;  and  from  her  came  the 
intellectual  ability  and  love  of  literature  so 
noticeable  in  the  boy  who  would  have  an  edu- 
cation at  whatever  cost,  and  so  conspicuous 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  man. 

The  coveted  "  education "  was  no  light 
matter  to  this  seeker  after  knowledge,  as  ap- 
pears by  the  price  he  willingly  paid  for  the 
hope.  A  college  course  was  the  goal  at  which 
he  aimed,  if  indeed  that  can  be  called  a  goal 
which  is  intended  only  as  a  sort  of  landing- 
place  in  an  upward  way  already  planned. 
But  it  was  one  thing  to  plan  and  another  to 
accomplish  the  end.  Circumstances  that  could 
neither  be  helped  nor  hindered  laid  upon  the 
shoulders  of  this  boy  the  duty  of  assisting  in 
the  support  of  the  family,  and  at  the  somewhat 
tender  age  of  twelve  George  Kennan  began 
that  life  as  a  telegraphist  which  prevented  any 
further  regular  school-going,  but  which,  with 
equal  pace,  led  the  way  to  a  very  different  ca- 
reer. Courage  and  endurance  and  industry- 
were  not  the  least  of  the  qualities  that  were  at 
once  exhibited  and  educated  in  the  struggle  of 
the  years  that  followed.  It  has  already  been 
said  that  he  became  a  regular  operator  at  Nor- 
walk  at  the  age  of  twelve.  For  the  next  five 
years,  not  only  there  but  at  Wheeling,  Colum- 
bus, and  Cincinnati, — for  thoroughness  and 
skill  brought  rapid  promotion, — he  never 
ceased  both  study  and  recitation,  whether  it 
was  3  or  4  o'clock  of  the  night  when  he  laid 
down  his  work.  It  was  at  Cincinnati,  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  1863,  that  he  finally  gave  up  the 
hnrd-foughtbattle;  and  from  that  time  on  there 
was  no  more  school  for  Kennan,  and  of  the  plan 
of  a  collegiate  course  only  the  unconquerable 


desire  remained.  It  was  now  in  the  midst  of 
our  civil  war,  and  the  extreme  pressure  of  work 
at  this  important  junction  of  lines,  added  to 
the  unremitting  mental  and  physical  strain  of 
double  duties,  had  well-nigh  broken  down  a 
constitution  not  used  to  give  way.  Pursued, 
however,  by  the  failure  of  life-long  hopes 
and  seemingly  hemmed  in  by  an  inexorable 
future,  the  young  man  fell  into  much  despond- 
ence. He  was  filled  with  the  patriotic  fervor 
of  the  time  too,  and  the  spirit  of  adventure 
had  already  taken  hold  of  him  so  that  he  left 
no  stone  unturned  to  procure  an  appointment 
as  telegraph  operator  in  the  field,  and,  failing 
in  this,  besieged  the  authorities  for  other  diffi- 
cult service. 

It  was  perhaps  as  much  because  wearied  with 
importunities  as  on  account  of  old  family  friend- 
ship, that  General  Anson  Stager,  then  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Com- 
pany, at  last  acceded  to  his  request  for  a  place 
in  the  Russian- American  telegraph  expedition. 
That  brilliant  scheme  has  been  so  long  for- 
gotten that  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remind  the 
reader  what  it  was,  the  more  especially  as  its 
work  had  a  determining  influence  upon  young 
Kennan's  whole  future.  The  failure  of  the  first 
Atlantic  cable  made  it  seem  for  a  time  as  if 
no  such  medium  of  inter-continental  commu- 
nication could  be  accomplished.  In  this  emer- 
gency the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company 
saw  a  possibility  of  a  land  route  through  Brit- 
ish Columbia  and  Alaska  on  the  one  side. 
and  over  the  vast  barren  spaces  of  Siberia  on 
the  other,  with  the  short  and  quite  possible 
cable  across  Behring's  Straits  to  connect  the 
two.  Work  was  actually  begun  upon  the  line, 
but  the  success  of  the  second  Atlantic  cable 
put  an  end  to  the  overland  experiment  mid- 
way in  its  career.  While  it  was  still  a  plan 
however,  the  restless  and  gloomy  youth  in 
Cincinnati,  sitting  one  day  at  his  place  in  the 
office,  thinking  hopelessly  of  his  appeal  to 
General  Stager,  suddenly  jumped  into  life  at 
the  receipt  of  a  laconic  message  sent  over  the 
wires  by  that  gentleman's  own  hand,  "  Can 
you  start  for  Alaska  in  two  weeks  ? "  and 
with  the  confident  courage  alike  of  his  age 
and  his  temperament  replied,  "  Yes,  in  two 
hours!"  This  eager  candidate  for  hardships 
was  still  to  undergo  six  baffling  weeks  of  des- 
perate fever  and  many  months  of  rough  life 
and  adventure  in  Central  America  and  Cali- 
fornia before  the  expedition  actually  left  for 
eastern  Asia  on  July  3,  1865.  Scarcely  twenty 
years  old,  there  were  eight  years  of  work  be- 
hind him  in  which  unwearied  industry  and 
much  professional  ability  had  already  been 
evidenced  and  appreciated, —  years  in  which 
the  burdens  of  life  had  fallen  somewhat  heavily 
upon  shoulders  eager  for  other  tasks, —  but  as 


GEORGE  KENNAN. 


627 


the  ship  sailed  out  of  the  harbor  of  San  Fran- 
cisco and  he  turned  his  face  to  Kamtchatka, 
the  very  golden  gate  of  promise  opened  before 
him. 

The  two  years  spent  in  the  wilds  of  eastern 
Siberia,  with  its  camps  on  the  boundless  steppes, 
its  life  in  the  smoky  huts  of  the  wandering 
Koraks,  its  arctic  winters,  its  multiplied  hard- 
ships, and  its  manifold  interests  and  excite- 
ments, proved  a  very  preparatory  school  for 
another  and  vastly  more  important  Siberian 
journey.  Not  the  least  of  its  advantages  was 
the  knowledge  of  the  language  then  first  ac- 
quired in  those  months  of  often  solitary  life 
among  the  wild  tribes  of  Siberia.  Among  this 
man's  many  qualifications  for  his  work  is  an 
unusual  linguistic  ability.  Not  only  is  a  lan- 
guage very  easy  to  him,  but  almost  without 
his  own  knowledge  he  possesses  himself  of  a 
certain  inner  sense  of  its  use,  and  a  facility  at 
its  idiom.  He  has  been  called  among  the  first 
—  if  not,  indeed,  the  best  —  of  Russian  schol- 
ars in  America.  However  this  may  be,  a 
strong  sense  of  the  genius  of  the  language  is 
his  to  that  degree  that  those  fortunate  friends 
who  have  been  introduced  by  him  to  some  of 
the  leading  Russian  novelists  are  sometimes 
heard  to  express  the  wish  that  he  would  give 
over  more  important  work  and  take  to  trans- 
lating. It  goes  without  saying  that  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Korak  and  Caucasian,  Georgian  and 
Kamtchatkan,  wild  Cossack  and  well-to-do 
citizen,  nihilist  and  soldier,  has  given  him  a 
range  of  speech  seldom  possessed  in  a.  foreign 
tongue  by  any  one  man,  and  obviously  of  in- 
estimable value  in  the  difficult  work  before 
him.  Certainly  no  other  Russian  traveler  can 
equal  him  in  this  indispensable  adjunct  to 
investigation.  Mr.  Kennan's  brilliant  story  of 
these  strange  months  of  work  and  travel  for 
the  telegraph  company  is  too  well  known 
to  require  any  retelling  of  its  experiences,  but 
it  is  only  between  the  lines  that  we  get  knowl- 
edge of  the  physical  endurance,  the  unbounded 
resource,  the  nerve,  the  skill  that  made  the  re- 
sult possible,  the  high  spirits  and  buoyant  tem- 
perament that  filled  with  gayety  the  most  tedi- 
ous days,  and  upheld  the  little  party  of  three  or 
the  lone  worker  in  the  most  appalling  surround- 
ings. Nothing  was  impossible  to  the  man  who 
so  successfully  made  that  journey  and  did  that 
work.  It  is  well  to  remember  also  that  this 
was  the  first  great  opportunity  for  adventure 
which  had  opened  before  one  whose  scanty 
boyhood  was  spent  over  travelers'  tales,  whose 
favorite  study  was  geography,  and  whose  very 
babyhood  laid  out  his  blocks  into  towns  and 
cities,  among  which  his  toy  ships  sailed  their 
complicated  voyages.  Long  horseback  rides 
through  beautiful  scenery  never  yet  spread  out 
before  civilized  eyes;  adventurous  journeys  and 


hair-breadth  escapes  from  snow  and  seas;  life 
in  sumptuous  homes,  or  frozen  tents,  or  dirty 
huts,  as  fortune  chanced;  tedious  and  enforced 
idleness,  or  hard  and  responsible  labor — all  this 
filled  up  the  long  days  that  were  in  some  sort 
double  days,  divided  only  by  the  twilight  of  the 
arctic  night.  This  was  indeed  the  taste  of  blood 
to  the  lion's  cub,  and  life  seemed  made  for  travel. 
All  too  soon  the  brief  experiment  ended  ;  but 
our  young  telegrapher  was  a  full-fledged  trav- 
eler now,  and  much  too  loath  to  go  home  again 
for  any  haste.  A  whole  winter  he  spent  in  St. 
Petersburg,  clinging  to  a  thread  of  chance  that 
the  telegraph  project  might  be  revived ;  but  he 
was  by  no  means  unemployed,  as  always  and 
everywhere  he  was  watching,  observing, study- 
ing; while  the  quick,  eager  glance,  the  extraor- 
dinary perception  of  detafl,  and  the  equally 
quick  recognition  of  under-currents  and  the 
reasons  of  things,  served  him  as  well  among  the 
varied  elements  of  the  Russian  capital  as  it  had 
done  among  the  fierce  savages  of  the  provinces. 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  so  friendly  a  man 
would  make  many  Russian  friends;  and  it  was 
equally  a  matter  of  course  that  so  close  an 
observer  would  learn  much  of  Russian  habits, 
and  still  more  of  Russian  life.  All  unconsciously 
to  himself  he  was  laying  broad  and  deep  the 
foundations  of  his  life  work,  and  preparing  the 
way  for  an  unparalleled  undertaking  as  brave 
and  heroic  as  any  deed  of  knight  or  warrior,  and 
far-reaching  in  its  results  beyond  any  knowl- 
edge of  his  or  ours. 

Both  the  work  of  the  telegraph  company, 
and  the  overland  journey  from  Kamtchatka  to 
St.  Petersburg,  had  given  him  much  knowledge 
of  the  people,  and  he  had  frequently  turned  aside 
to  explore  the  prisons.  Thus  it  was  that  when 
he  came  home  in  the  spring  of  1 868,  his  portfolio 
was  full  of  material  for  lectures  and  magazine 
articles,  all  of  which  he  meant  should  furnish 
him  the  sinews  of  travel  for  a  certain  journey 
into  the  Caucasus.  It  was  then  that  Kennan 
first  appeared  in  print.  With  the  exception  of  a 
few  private  letters  printed  during  his  absence 
in  the  local  newspapers,  his  first  work  as  a 
writer  was  an  article  in  "  Putnam's  Magazine  " 
for  that  year,  called  "  Tent  Life  with  the  Wan- 
dering Koraks,"  and  this  and  the  series  which 
followed  it  were  shortly  after  expanded  into 
the  book  already  referred  to, "  Tent  Life  in  Si- 
beria" being  published  in  1870.  The  story  of 
the  lecturing  experience  is  eminently  charac- 
teristic both  of  the  temper  of  the  man  and  of 
his  mental  habit.  Lectures  to  crowded  halls 
alternated  with  audiences  of  a  round  dozen. 
To  great  cities  and  little  hamlets,  to  church 
societies  and  female  seminaries  and  dignified 
assemblies,  wherever  he  could  find  place,  he 
offered  his  strange  tales  of  an  unknown  land. 
It  was  still  the  palmy  time  of  the  lyceum  lee- 


628 


GEORGE  KENNAN. 


ture,  and  well  he  improved  his  opportunity. 
If  failure  were  his  portion  on  one  night,  he 
made  it  the  entering  wedge  of  success  the  next. 
Full  of  industry,  courage,  philosophy,  above  all 
possessed  by  the  determination  not  to  fail,  come 
what  would,  he  laid  siege  to  success.  The  lit- 
erary skill  evinced,  considerable  as  it  was,  was 
the  least  of  the  qualities  brought  out  in  this  lit- 
tle entr'acte  of  his  life.  Most  of  all  it  exhibited 
those  elements  of  character  which  later  held 
firm  in  the  tremendous  strain  put  upon  his 
whole  being  by  this  explorer  of  human  life  and 
death.  It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  mention 
that  the  money  was  secured  and  the  trip  to  the 
Caucasus  enjoyed.  The  fall  and  winter  of  1870 
were  spent  in  a  solitary  horseback  journey 
through  Daghestan.  It  was  then  that  occurred 
that  famous  ride  down  the  face  of  a  precipice, 
a  feat  rarely  performed  by  mortal  man,  and 
made  a  test  of  courage  by  a  fierce  Georgian 
nobleman ;  it  was  in  the  strange  country  be- 
yond the  mountains  that  he  became  the  com- 
panion of  gypsies,  and  made  one  of  a  merry 
group  of  peasants  greeting  their  governor  with 
feasts  and  games ;  it  was  here  that  he  saw  the 
wild  horsemanship  that  makes  the  glory  of  those 
remote  regions,  and  learned  for  himself  anew 
to  fear  nothing  and  to  be  a  brother  to  all. 
The  whole  tour  was  full  of  the  wildest  adven- 
ture, testing  the  physical  courage  of  the  man 
almost  beyond  belief,  abundantly  proving  once 
more  his  extraordinary  ability  to  adapt  himself 
to  the  most  adverse  conditions,  to  render  the 
least  promising  environment  tributary  to  his 
ends,  and  showing  his  remarkable  power  of 
bending  men  as  well  as  things  to  his  purpose, 
and  his  success  at  winning  their  confidence, 
whether  in  palace  or  hut.  A  single  ride  across 
the  mountains  gives  him  a  prince  fora  compan- 
ion, a  single  night  around  the  camp-fire  makes 
the  wildest  Tartar  his  friend. 

It  is  pertinent  to  speak  particularly  of  these 
journeys,  since  they  give  the  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  what  knowledge  Mr.  Kennan 
possesses  as  a  basis  of  judgment  on  Russian  af- 
fairs ;  but  the  next  few  years  of  his  life,  although 
spent  in  less  exciting  pursuits,  have  perhaps  no 
less  bearing  upon  his  ability  to  judge  correctly 
of  men  and  things.  He  was  now  a  hardened 
traveler,  an  accomplished  Russian  scholar, 
and  possessed  of  wide  and  varied  experience 
of  that  strange  and  many-peopled  empire,  but 
he  knew  little  —  almost  nothing  since  his  busy 
boyhood  —  of  life  in  its  normal  conditions.  It 
was  therefore  of  the  utmost  value  to  his  after- 
work  that  on  his  return  to  this  country  he 
engaged  in  various  apparently  irrelevant  oc- 
cupations, although  these  attempts  were  in  no 
sense  intended  to  be  life  pursuits.  The  boy 
had  dedicated  himself  to  travel  and  literature, 
and  the  man  would  fulfill  the  vow,  but  there 


were  other  considerations  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count—  there  was  a  meanwhile  to  be  under- 
gone. One  of  these  temporary  undertakings 
was  in  the  law  department  of  the  Mutual  Life 
Insurance  Company  in  New  York  City,  and 
this  resulted  eventually  in  an  engagement  by 
the  Associated  Press  to  report  the  decisions 
of  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington.  Thus 
there  came  to  him  a  certain  acquaintance  with 
the  law;  and  in  a  seven-years'  life  in  Washing- 
ton he  learned  much  of  government,  its  duties 
and  functions.  As  editor  for  the  Southern 
States,  and  afterward  for  some  years  as  "  night 
manager,"  of  the  Associated  Press  in  that  city, 
the  man  —  as  did  the  boy  —  worked  all  night 
and  came  home  to  work  all  day,  for  even  this 
busy  profession  was  not  enough  for  his  super- 
abundant energies.  His  passion  "  far  coun- 
tries for  to  see,"  to  which  a  human  interest 
had  now  been  added,  was  by  no  means  sat- 
isfied. Many  plans  of  many  kinds  occupied 
his  mind,  one  of  the  more  important  being  a 
well-grounded  scheme  for  the  rescue  of  the 
Jcannette  expedition.  It  is  enough  to  say  of 
this  that  Commander  Gorringe  offered  to  sac- 
rifice his  Egyptian  collection,  if  need  be,  to 
furnish  the  funds  for  it.  Kennan  also  gave 
much  thought  and  work  to  the  efforts  for  the 
relief  of  Lieutenant  Greely.  But  all  the  time 
his  chief  desire,  the  end  he  wished  eventually 
to  attain,  was  another  journey  to  Russia  to 
study  the  exiles,  and  this  he  was  always  trying 
to  bring  about.  That  small  portion  of  his  time 
not  occupied  by  his  regular  work  he  filled  full 
of  other  labor,  leaving  his  pen  no  more  time 
to  rust  out  than  his  body;  and  in  the  constant 
stream  of  articles  he  put  forth  and  the  lectures 
he  delivered  —  including  an  extremely  success- 
ful course  of  "  Lowell  Institute  lectures  "  at 
Boston  —  he  invariably  spoke  of  the  exile  sys- 
tem in  the  most  kindly  manner.  As  he  him- 
self has  told  us  in  his  preface  to  the  Siberian 
papers,  all  his  prepossessions  were  in  favor  of 
the  government  as  against  the  revolutionists, 
and  so  again  he  unwittingly  paved  the  way  for 
the  journey  he  was  to  make,  and  rendered  pos- 
sible the  tour  which  was  to  be  so  full  of  horrors 
and  yet  so  valuable  to  mankind.  Various  rea- 
sons moved  him  to  this  desire.  Mr.  Kennan 
is  a  great  lover  of  accuracy,  and  time  and 
trouble  count  for  nothing  with  him  until  he 
is  sure  of  all  his  statements,  even  in  those 
minor  particulars  which  sometimes  seem  im- 
material. Therefore  he  wished  to  verify  more 
completely  certain  assertions  he  believed 
accurate,  but  which  had  been  fiercely  dis- 
puted, and  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  further 
details  of  a  life  with  which  he  thought  him- 
self very  familiar;  and,  whether  the  result 
should  agree  with  his  accepted  views  or  not, 
he  was  entirely  ready  to  meet  it.  Yet  feeling, 


GEORGE   KENNAN. 


629 


as  he  did  at  this  time,  that  the  Russian  ad- 
ministration was  much  traduced  and  misrep- 
resented, his  strong  sense  of  justice  and  fair 
play  led  him  to  take  every  occasion  to  dispute 
this  position  from  the  basis  of  personal  knowl- 
edge. He  was  always  and  everywhere,  both 
publicly  and  in  private,  a  sincere  defender  of 
the  Czar's  government,  insisting  upon  his 
own  acquaintance  with  the  facts  to  the  entire 
confusion  of  his  opponents  for  the  most  part. 
The  writer  of  this  remembers  certain  private 
encounters  of  such  a  nature,  and  his  vigorous, 
energetic,  even  combative,  and  altogether 
unconquerable  advocacy  of  the  lenient  treat- 
ment of  political  prisoners  by  Russia,  mingled 
with  a  sort  of  contempt  for  the  nihilists, 
and  a  rooted  belief  that  the  public  was  al- 
together deceived  by  false  statements,  both 
as  to  their  character  and  condition.  How- 
ever, since  his  facts  were  questioned,  he  be- 
came yet  more  determined  to  see  again  for 
himself  and  more  thoroughly  this  Siberia, 
that  he  might  know  still  more  certainly  of 
what  he  spake,  and  answer  altogether  both 
his  own  questions  and  those  of  his  oppo- 
nents. He  would  retrace  his  steps  that  he 
might  verify  his  words.  Either  he  would 
recede  from  his  well-known  position,  or  he 
would,  once  and  forever,  put  an  end  to  these 
complaints  against  a  great  government.  Not- 
withstanding all  his  efforts,  however,  pub- 
lic events  and  personal  affairs  held  him  in 
the  United  States  for  some  time  longer.  But 
already  THE  CENTURY  had  determined  to  be 
sponsor  for  this  great  undertaking,  and  after 
two  short  preparatory  trips  to  Europe,  Mr. 
Kennan  sailed  from  New  York  on  the  2d  of 
May,  1885,  sent  out  by  that  magazine,  and 
with  him  went  a  skillful  artist,  Mr.  George  A. 
Frost,  to  supplement  his  work.  At  last  he  had 
entered  upon  the  service  he  had  so  long 
dreamed  of,  and  for  which  so  many  experi- 
ences had  unconsciously  prepared  him.  Just 
half  his  life  had  been  given  to  Russia,  either 
in  travel  or  in  thought,  and  the  years  spent 
in  America  had  been  no  less  valuable  to  his 
equipment  than  the  others.  Again  he  sailed 
away  from  our  shores  as  he  had  done  twenty 
years  before,  on  a  voyage  of  discovery,  full 
of  exultant  hope.  From  this  journey  he  re- 
turned in  August,  1886,  and  it  may  safely 
be  presumed  that  he  will  not  go  to  Russia 
again ! 

With  this  last  trip  all  the  world  will  shortly 
be  familiar  from  his  own  graphic  account  of 
the  terrible  journey.  Let  us  hope  that  he  will 
not  fail  to  show  how  much  his  success  was  the 
result  of  his  personality,  his  knowledge,  abil- 
ity, and  genius  for  his  work.  His  own  feeling 
about  it  was  epitomized  in  a  private  letter 
written  soon  after  his  return.  He  says: 


My  last  trip  to  Siberia  was  the  very  hardest  and 
at  the  same  time  the  most  interesting  of  my  whole 
life.  I  would  not  hav<-  believed  two  years  ago,  that 
at  my  age  and  after  my  tolerably  varied  and  extend- 
ed experience  of  life,  there  were  yet  in  store  for  me 
so  many  strong,  fresh,  horizon-breaking  sensations. 
I  do  not  mean  that  I  regarded  myself  as  an  extinct  vol- 
cano of  emotion,  or  anything  of  that  kind, —  my  < 
tions  never  were  volcanic, —  but  I  believed  that  I  had 
already  experienced  the  strongest  sensations  of  human 
existence,  and  that  I  could  never  again  be  as  deeply 
moved  as  I  had  been  in  the  early  years  of  manhood, 
when  the  whole  world  w.is  strange,  fresh,  and  exciting. 
But  it  was  a  mistake.  What  I  saw  and  learned  in  Si- 
beria stirred  me  to  the  very  depths  of  my  soul  —  opened 
to  me  a  new  world  of  human  experience,  and  raised, 
in  some  respects,  all  my  moral  standards.  I  made  the 
intimate  acquaintance  of  characters  as  truly  heroic  in 
mold  —  characters  of  as  high  a  type  —  as  any  outlined 
in  history,  and  saw  them  showing  courage,  fortitude, 
self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  to  an  ideal  beyond  anything 
of  which  I  could  believe  myself  capable.  It  is  about 
some  of  these  characters  —  some  of  the  people  we  call 
"  nihilists  " —  that  I  wish  to  talk  to  you.  I  can  reflect 
to  you  only  a  small  part  of  the  influence  they  exerted 
upon  me,  but  I  can  at  least  explain  to  you  how  it  hap- 
pened that  I  went  to  Siberia,  regarding  the  political 
exiles  as  a  lot  of  mentally  unbalanced  fanatics,  bomb- 
throwers,  and  assassins,  and  how,  when  I  came  away 
from  Siberia,  I  kissed  those  same  men  good-bye  with 
my  arms  around  them  and  my  eyes  full  of  tears.  You 
will,  I  am  sure,  understand  that  it  was  no  ordinary  ex- 
perience which  brought  about  such  a  revolution  as  that. 

In  1879  Mr.  Kennan  married  Emeline 
Rathbone  Weld,  the  daughter  of  a  prominent 
citizen  of  Medina,  N.  Y.,  and  brought  her 
to  Washington.  Of  this  part  of  his  life  it  is 
enough  to  quote  the  words  of  a  close  friend  : 
"  The  side  of  his  nature  displayed  in  his  home 
relations  is  of  the  most  tender  and  charming 
character  —  indeed,  the  home  life  is  ideal." 

Mr.  Kennan  is  of  slight  physique,  somewhat 
delicate  in  appearance, —  so  thin,  so  white,  so 
dark  is  he, —  but  possessed  of  great  powers 
of  endurance,  especially  in  the  capacity  to 
bear  strain.  Lithe  and  active,  his  nervous 
energy  is  intense,  and  a  considerable  muscu- 
lar development  enables  him  to  perform  feats, 
both  of  action  and  of  endurance,  apparently 
quite  beyond  his  strength.  Siberia  and  the 
Caucasus  alike  assent  to  this,  and  many 
times  he  has  proved  its  truth  in  less  conspicu- 
ous places.  A  buoyant  and  sanguine  tempera- 
ment is  joined  to  a  wonderful  recuperative 
power  physically;  these  things  and  a  sound 
body  enable  him  to  recover  at  once  from  the 
awful  strain  he  so  frequently  and  lightly  puts 
upon  himself,  and  allow  him  to  play  with 
hardship  like  an  athlete  in  a  race.  The  man 
who  meets  him  for  the  first  time  is  struck  with 
his  hearty,  reassuring  manner,  his  cordial 
hand-grasp,  his  steady,  square,  and  penetra- 
ting look,  his  ease  and  readiness  of  speech. 
An  erect  and  active  habit  of  body  goes  along 
with  an  alertness  of  mind ;  but  just  as  his  steps 
are  both  sure  and  quick,  so  is  decision  joined 
to  the  ready  mind,  and  with  them  is  a  certain 


630 


GEORGE  KENNAN. 


soberness  of  judgment.  Enthusiastic  and  ro- 
mantic, his  sympathies  are  quick  and  tender. 
But  although  a  certain  frank  disclosure  of 
himself  awaits  any  friendly  seeking,  he  is  a 
man  of  reserved  nature,  and  his  confidence 
is  difficult  to  reach.  It  may  indeed  be  ob- 
jected that  some  of  these  qualities  are  con- 
tradictory ;  be  that  as  it  may,  they  each  and 
all  appear  and  reappear  in  this  man  in  quick 
succession.  His  affections  are  particularly  deep 
and  strong,  and  he  holds  his  friends  by  a  firm 
grasp,  even  unto  death,  through  good  and 
evil  report.  Much  might  be  said  of  his  friend- 
ships —  not  only  of  the  devotion  he  gives,  but 
of  that  which  he  receives.  A  curiously  strong 
magnetic  power  draws  men  to  him.  His  friends 
know  no  bounds  to  their  admiration,  and  they 
love  him  like  a  woman. 

Mr.  Kennan's  peculiar  buoyancy  of  tem- 
perament appears  in  his  spirits,  which  reach 
both  the  heights  and  the  depths.  In  his  happy 
hours  of  a  joyous  temper, —  almost  frolicsome 
in  those  rare  moments  when  work  is  forgot- 
ten,—  fond  of  story-telling,  a  wit,  and  in  par- 
ticular a  good  talker,  he  is  a  much-sought 
companion  for  the  lighter  hours  of  life :  a  dili- 
gent student  of  men  and  affairs,  with  a  quick 
perception  and  a  steady  grasp  of  a  subject, 
based  on  unusual  experience,  he  is  equally 
ready  for  the  more  serious  discussion  of  causes 
or  events.  At  work  again,  he  is  altogether  at 
work.  Few  men  are  so  entirely  and  stren- 
uously at  work  as  he.  It  is  laughingly  said, 
albeit  with  something  of  truth,  that  he  will 
spend  hours  over  a  statement  and  take  a 
whole  day  to  verify  a  fact.  He  produces  his 
results  with  the  greatest  care  and  by  the  most 
painstaking  methods.  There  is  constant  physi- 
cal and  mental  strain,  and  even  a  temporary 
cessation  of  actual  labor  brings  no  relief  from 
tension  until  the  work  is  done,  when,  the 
pressure  off,  it  is  altogether  off.  At  play, 
pleasure,  or  work,  thoroughness  and  entire 
absorption  is  the  note  of  his  life.  Says  the 
friend  already  quoted: 

When  he  is  off  duty  and  on  a  holiday,  there  never  is  a 
more  genial,  lively,  quick-witted,  merry  fellow  than  he. 
His  appreciation  of  fun  is  great,  and  he  not  only  enjoys 
it,  but  is  willing  to  bear  a  goodly  share  in  the  frolic.  He 
is  apt  with  a  good  story,  and  very  responsive  to  wit  and 
humor.  No  one  ever  presented  two  so  totally  different 
phases  as  he.  When  he  is  in  the  midst  of  the  winter's 
work,  when  every  minute  is  precious,  he  is  as  silent 
and  pre-occupied  as  an  oarsman  in  an  inter-collegiate 
race.  The  pressure  is  so  constant,  and  the  breathing 
spells  so  rare,  that,  when  they  come,  there  is  but  little 
inclination  for  anything  but  the  breathing.  There  is 
no  sparkle,  no  liveliness,  only  that  intense  concentra- 
tion and  painful  pre-occupation.  It  is  mental  travail  of 
the  most  distressing  kind. 

Mr.  Kennan  has  a  deep  and  abiding  love  of 
Nature,  a  careful  and  affectionate  regard  for 
her  beautiful  things  —  her  clouds  and  flowers, 


her  mountains  and  sea.  A  lover  of  music,  he 
is  possessed  of  a  quick  ear  and  is  not  without 
a  working  knowledge  of  the  art.  A  man  of 
wide  reading  and  of  fine  intellectual  tastes, 
always  given  free  rein,  he  has  not  only  much 
acquaintance  with  general  literature,  but  some 
particular  lines  of  reading  he  has  pursued  with 
the  thoroughness  which  characterizes  all  that 
he  does.  It  is  obvious  that  this  is  true  in  re- 
gard to  Russian  affairs,  for  only  a  constant 
reader  of  both  periodical  and  standard  litera- 
ture in  that  language  could  so  keep  abreast 
of  the  life  and  thought  of  a  foreign  country. 
His  books  are  well  read,  and  the  wide  range 
of  subjects  they  embrace  is  no  less  noticeable 
than  the  fullness  of  certain  departments.  One 
might  almost  trace  his  mental  development 
in  these  books,  but  surer  ground  would  be 
found  in  the  complete  card  index  which  marks 
the  steps  of  all  his  reading  and  thinking. 
Nothing  makes  greater  impression  of  the 
thoroughness  and  accuracy  of  the  man,  and 
of  his  equipment  for  his  work. 

George  Kennan's  mental  and  physical 
characteristics  peculiarly  fit  him  for  the  task 
of  observation,  while  the  qualities  ofhis  charac- 
ter give  especial  value  to  his  judgment  of  facts. 
Great  physical  courage,  partly  temperamental 
and  partly  the  result  of  character,  combined 
with  a  natural  confidence  in  his  own  power, 
break  before  him  the  most  impassable  bar- 
riers. A  phenomenal  readiness  at  expedients 
furnishes  him  with  a  device  in  every  most  des- 
perate situation.  To  these  he  adds  the  peculiar 
facility  of  adaptation  to  strange  peoples,  and 
the  great  talent  for  languages  already  alluded 
to.  Fortunately  he  has  the  scientific  habit  of 
mind  to  a  marked  degree,  and,  be  the  occasion 
large  or  small,  he  sees  and  sets  down  the  mi- 
nutest particulars  ofhis  surroundings.  Details 
are  both  noted  and  recorded.  He  does  not  so 
much  select  salient  points  as  put  down  all  he 
sees.  If  for  this  reason  he  sometimes  fails  to 
give  due  proportion  to  matters  and  events,  he 
believes  it  his  business  to  give  you  the  facts  — 
you  may  draw  your  own  conclusions.  This 
is  not  to  say  that  he  draws  no  conclusions  of 
his  own.  Quite  the  contrary.  He  is  a  man  of 
much  thought  and  has  thought  well  on  many 
things.  Probably  the  first  impression  he  would 
make  upon  a  stranger  would  be  that  of  balanced 
judgment,  and  this  certainly  is  the  expression 
of  long  acquaintance.  Just  and  fair,  a  man  who 
sees  all  things  and  who  weighs  well  both  sides 
of  a  matter,  his  final  conclusion  may  safely  be 
trusted. 

Equally  striking  is  his  tremendous  will 
power,  ever  pushing  him  on  to  success.  To 
this  there  seems  to  be  no  limit.  He  has  a 
feeling  of  pleasure  in  overcoming  obstacles, 
he  loves  a  difficulty,  he  delights  to  match  his 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIM  I:. 


631 


powers  against  opposition ;  as  he  himself  ex- 
presses it,  lit;  has  a  certain  pride  and  pl> 
in  doing,  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  own  man- 
hood, something  which  all  nature  conspires 
to  prevent.  In  every  direction  his  standards 
are  exacting.  His  ideals  are  fine  and  high. 
Purity,  sincerity,  honesty,  truth,  and  honor 
are  dear  to  him.  Character  is  the  sharp 
test  he  puts  to  himself  and  other  men,  and  on 
that  standpoint  alone  he  finds  common  ground 
with  those  about  him.  To  him  the  purpose  of 
life  is  an  ever-heeded  question,  and  its  best 
use  a  never-forgotten  aim.  Life  means  much 
to  him,  and  constantly  more  and  more.  Being 
asked  on  one  occasion  what  end  he  proposed 
to  himself  when  as  a  boy  he  sought  so  eagerly 
for  a  wider  field,  he  answered  somewhat  after 
this  fashion  :  "  I  wanted  a  full  life,  a  life  in 
which  all  one's  self  is  satisfied.  My  idea  of 
life  was  one  into  which  were  crowded  as  much 
of  sensation  and  experience  as  possible.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  if  I  should  grow  old  and 


miss  any  of  the  sensations  and  experiences  I 
might  have  had,  it  would  be  a  source  of  great 
unhappiness  and  regret  to  me."  Mr.  Kennan 
has  not  grown  old,  but  he  has  already  tasted 
more  sensations  and  experiences  than  most 
men,  and  these  experiences  have  wrought 
upon  him  until  he  wishes  more  than  to 
them  for  himself — he  would  make  them  fac- 
tors in  the  world's  progress.  He  has  put  his 
life  in  jeopardy  every  hour,  and  he  would 
make  that  risk  the  price  of  hope  for  the  pris- 
oners of  despair.  He  has  come  home  to  cry 
aloud,  that  we  who  think  ourselves  too  tender 
to  listen  to  the  story  of  such  suffering  may  feel 
and  see  the  horror  and  the  glory  of  it.  He  is 
no  longer  content  to  tell  the  traveler's  tale;  but 
to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  until  the  deed  is 
done,  he  must  needs  strive  to  open  the  blinded 
eyes  of  History,  and  help  her  to  loose  the 
chains  that  bind  a  whole  people. 

Anna  Laurens  Dawes. 


TOPICS   OF   THE   TIME. 


An  Administrative    Novelty. 

WHAT  is  the  remedy  for  the  lawlessness  of  law-offi- 
cers? Who  will  keep  the  keepers?  The  fact  is  noto- 
rious that,  all  over  the  land,  plain  statutes  aredisregarded 
by  those  who  are  plainly  bidden  to  enforce  them ;  that 
sheriffs  and  constables  and  policemen  stand  and  look 
on  while  the  laws  which  they  have  sworn  to  execute 
arc  dishonored  before  their  faces.  This  is  the  feature 
of  our  political  administration  that  is  most  troublesome 
and  discouraging.  That  evil  and  desperate  men  may 
be  found  among  us,  who,  for  selfish  purposes,  are 
ready  to  defy  the  laws,  is  not  marvelous ;  that  the  men 
who  are  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  law  should,  in 
so  many  instances,  appear  to  be  in  league  with  the 
law-breakers,  guaranteeing  them  immunity  in  their 
transgressions,  is  certainly  alarming. 

This  is  more  particularly  true  with  respect  to  the 
laws  which  restrain  liquor  selling.  It  has  come  to  be 
the  settled  policy  of  the  dealers  in  strong  drink  to  re- 
sist all  laws  which  interfere  with  their  business.  Not 
unfrequently,  in  organized  bodies,  they  vote  to  disobey 
the  laws  of  the  State.  Such  action  is,  of  course,  the  es- 
sence of  anarchy.  It  would  seem  that  the  custodians 
of  law  should  resent  conduct  of  this  kind  as  especially 


insulting  to  them,  and  that  they  should  be  ready  to  try 
conclusions  with  those  who  thus  defy  them.  But  in 
many  cases  we  find  the  police  authorities  ignoring  this 
challenge,  and  apparently  taking  their  orders,  not  from 
the  statutes,  but  from  the  anarchical  groups  who  have 
assumed  the  power  to  annul  the  statutes.  This  specta- 
cle is  more  familiar  than  it  ought  to  be.  The  complete 
paralysis  of  the  police  force  of  many  cities,  in  pres- 
ence of  certain  vicious  classes,  is  a  lamentable  sign. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  this  is  due  to  a  failure  of 
public  sentiment ;  that  if  the  people  were  determined 
to  have  the  laws  enforced,  they  would  be  enforced.  But 
this  is  not  altogether  just.  Often  the  police  department 
is  so  organized  that  the  people  cannot  bring  the  power 
of  public  opinion  to  bear  upon  it  in  any  effective  way. 
It  is  under  the  control  of  commissioners  who  are  not 
elected  by  the  people,  or  who  are  elected  for  such 
terms  that  it  may  require  several  years  to  bring  in  a 
majority  of  trustworthy  men.  And  it  must  be  admitted 
that  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  popular  attention  fixed 
on  a  question  of  this  nature,  and  the  popular  indigna- 
tion up  to  boiling-point,  for  three  or  four  years  at  a 
stretch.  This  is  one  reason  why  municipal  reform  often 
goes  for  ward  so  haltingly.  Ifthc  executive  departments 
of  the  city  are  so  organized  that  it  will  take  several  years 


632 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


to  change  the  administration,  inefficiency  and  rascality 
are  pretty  likely  to  intrench  themselves,  and  to  make 
themselves  secure  against  dislodgment.  The  popular 
wrath  may  be  hot  for  one  campaign,  but  it  is  pretty 
sure  to  cool  off  before  the  next.  This  is  one  reason 
why  a  centralized  government,  like  that  of  Brooklyn, 
is  to  be  desired ;  it  brings  the  people  into  direct  and 
frequent  communication  with  the  sources  of  adminis- 
trative power,  and  enables  them  summarily  to  remove 
dishonest  and  inefficient  officers.  If  public  opinion  is 
the  effective  force  of  popular  government,  then  our 
governmental  machinery  should  be  so  contrived  that 
public  opinion  can  act  promptly  and  directly  upon  the 
administration.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  many  of  our 
legislative  devices,  for  the  last  twenty-five  years,  have 
been  intended  to  prevent  any  direct  and  efficacious  ap- 
plication of  the  popular  will  to  the  problems  of  govern- 
ment. It  seems  to  have  been  supposed  that  those 
forms  of  administration  are  safest  which  put  the  offices 
that  are  the  final  depositories  of  power  at  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  the  hands  of  the  people.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  this  practice  evinces  a  total  lack 
of  faith  in  democracy.  Indeed,  we  might  almost  say  that 
the  democratic  principle  has  been  ignored  in  our 
municipal  systems ;  and  might  fairly  apply  to  democ- 
racy what  was  pertinently  said  of  Christianity, —  that 
it  could  not  be  truthfully  pronounced  a  failure,  be- 
cause it  had  never  been  tried.  Thus  it  is  often  true 
that  the  failure  of  the  police  authorities  to  enforce  a 
law  is  not  due  to  the  lack  of  a  public  sentiment  de- 
manding the  enforcement  of  the  law,  but  is  rather  due 
to  those  legislative  contrivances  which  prevent  public 
opinion  from  acting  directly  and  efficiently  upon  the 
custodians  of  the  law. 

It  must  be  remembered  also  that  the  courts,  as  well 
as  the  police,  are  the  custodians  of  the  law.  The  police 
authorities  can  do  nothing  unless  the  courts  and  the 
juries  support  them.  In  Brooklyn,  during  Mayor 
Low's  term  of  office,  a  body  of  clergymen,  headed  by 
Mr.  Beecher,  called  upon  him  to  inquire  why  the  excise 
laws  were  not  more  faithfully  executed.  The  mayor 
drew  the  attention  of  his  visitors  to  the  fact  that  the 
courts  were  the  ultimate  enforcers  of  law,  and  that  the 
courts  utterly  failed  to  cooperate  with  the  police  in 
giving  vigor  to  the  law.  The  police  under  his  admin- 
istration had  arrested  one  saloon-keeper  five  times  for 
selling  without  a  license,  and  the  total  amount  of  fines 
imposed  upon  him  by  the  court  amounted  to  less  than 
the  cost  of  a  license.  A  barkeeper  also  had  been 
acquitted  by  a  jury  for  selling  without  license,  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  tried  to  get  a  license,  but  had  been 
refused  by  the  excise  board !  It  is  evident  that  good 
executive  officers  will  not  be  very  zealous  in  the  en- 
forcement of  laws  if  the  courts  give  them  this  kind  of 
backing.  And  it  is  very  clear,  in  the  words  of  Mayor 
Low,  that  "  public  sentiment  to  enforce  law  must  ex- 
press itself  through  the  jury-box  and  from  the  bench 
just  as  efficiently  as  through  the  executive,  or  the  de- 
sired result  cannot  be  reached." 

It  sometimes  happens,  however,  that  public  senti- 
ment expresses  itself  through  the  judiciary  more 
directly  and  efficiently  than  through  the  executive  ;  and 
a  curious  incident  of  recent  history  shows  how  the 
courts  may  be  used  to  spur  to  action  a  derelict  adminis- 
tration. In  one  of  the  cities  of  Ohio,  the  law  requiring 
the  closing  of  the  saloons  on  Sunday  had  been  fla- 


grantly disobeyed  for  years,  and  the  police  authorities, 
who  were  commanded  by  the  law  to  see  to  its  enforce- 
ment, had  never  lifted  a  finger  to  restrain  the  trans- 
gressors. At  length  application  was  made  by  citizens 
to  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas 
for  a  writ  of  mandamus,  requiring  the  police  commis- 
sioners to  execute  the  law.  The  case  was  argued,  the 
fact  of  the  entire  inaction  of  the  authorities  was  shown 
—  could  not,  indeed,  be  disputed;  and  the  judge 
promptly  issued  the  writ,  commanding  these  officers 
to  perform  their  duty.  The  commissioners  met  and 
consulted.  "  Suppose  we  refuse,"  they  said  ;  "  what 
then  ?  "  "  That  will  be  contempt  of  court,"  replied  the 
city  solicitor.  The  jail  already  contained  one  or  two 
inmates  whom  the  judge  had  recently  punished  for  con- 
tempt, and  the  prospect  was  not  alluring.  "  I  move," 
said  one  of  the  commissioners,  after  a  solemn  pause, 
"  that  orders  be  issued  to  the  men  to  enforce  the  law 
strictly  next  Sunday."  The  motion  was  unanimously 
carried,  and  on  the  next  Sunday,  for  the  first  time  in 
fifteen  years,  every  saloon  was  closed. 

The  question  thus  raised,  as  to  whether  the  courts 
can  exercise  supervisory  power  over  executive  officers 
in  the  execution  of  criminal  laws,  is  certainly  an  inter- 
esting one.  Many  legal  gentlemen  would  have  said 
beforehand  that  the  thing  could  not  be  done.  There 
maybe  those,  even  now,  who  will  insist  that  the  thing  is 
impossible.  Butthe  answer  of  the  saloon-keepers  to  this 
assertion  must  be  the  same  as  that  of  Mr.  Lowell's  phi- 
losopher, who,  while  in  durance  vile,  recited  the  story 
of  his  incarceration  to  his  lawyer ;  and,  on  being  told, 
with  some  confidence,  "  They  can't  put  you  in  jail  on 
a  charge  like  that,"  calmly  answered,  "  They  hev." 

To  what  extent  the  writ  of  mandamus  can  be  used 
in  compelling  negligent  police  authorities  to  enforce 
the  criminal  laws  is  a  question  into  which  a  layman 
may  be  excused  from  entering.  But  the  suggestion 
thus  presented  is  worth  considering  by  all  who  find 
themselves  confronted  with  laxity  in  this  department 
of  municipal  government. 

Modern  Science  in  its  Relations  to  Pain. 

ONE  of  the  most  frequent  criticisms  of  modern 
science  and  its  methods  is  derived  from  its  asserted 
indifference  to  the  more  tender  and  spiritual  side  of 
man ;  and  the  more  embittered  critics  have  even  said 
or  implied  that  this  indifference  has  already  passed 
beyond  the  materialistic  into  the  brutal.  Napoleon 
long  ago  struck  the  key-note  for  this  whole  line  of 
criticism  when  he  said  that  surgeons  did  not  believe  in 
the  soul  because  they  could  not  find  it  with  lancet  and 
probe.  And  in  all  the  discussions  of  vivisection  the 
specific  charges  of  cruelty  against  the  professors  have 
evidently  been  only  a  phase  of  the  general  suspicion 
of  materialistic  tendencies  in  their  profession. 

The  commonest  answer,  from  scientific  men  and 
others,  has  been  that  the  change  in  methods  of  inves- 
tigation which  has  brought  to  human  knowledge  and 
use  the  powers  of  ether,  chloroform,  cocaine,  and 
other  agents  for  the  suspension  of  pain  or  conscious- 
ness during  surgical  operations  has  a  fair  right  to  ex- 
pect a  kindly  consideration  for  its  present  work.  Not 
many  changes  in  modern  life  are  more  striking  than  the 
contrast  between  the  past  and  the  present  of  surgery. 
The  surgical  patient  of  former  times  was  strapped 


TOPICS   OF   THE    TIME. 


633 


down  to  the  operating-table,  that  no  flinching  on  his 
part  might  disturb  the  accuracy  of  the  operator's  work. 
1  O  m-.eious  eyes  watched  the  preparations 
and  the  actual  operation  either  with  a  nervous  terror 
or  with  a  bullying  affectation  of  indifference;  and  his 
after-life  carried  in  it  always  the  hardened  cicatrix  of 
MH  li  a  memory  as  no  one  in  the  present  need  know. 
Is  modern  science  to  have  no  credit  for  its  removal 
of  so  vast  a  mass  of  absolute  agony  from  the  life  of 
man  ?  The  poorest  laborer  of  the  present  may  face  with 
equanimity  and  safety  operations  from  which  the  most 
powerful  monarch  of  earth,  a  half-century  ago,  could 
expect  only  exquisite  torture  of  mind  and  body,  with 
perhaps  impending  peril  to  his  life.  And  it  seems 
liut  a  fair  proposition  that  the  results  of  scientific 
methods  in  the  past  should  give  reason  for  expectations 
of  even  higher  good  to  mankind  from  similar  inves- 
tigations in  the  future. 

All  this,  however,  it  may  be  said,  is  but  an  incidental 
and  unintended  benefit  to  individuals,  and  no  real  part 
in  the  development  of  humanity.  An  accidental  dis- 
covery of  utility  in  the  past  is  no  good  ground  for 
hope  of  similar  accidents  in  the  future.  Scientific  men 
are  not  to  gain  plenary  permission  to  indulge  their 
taste  for  cutting  and  carving  flesh  merely  because  the 
wit  of  a  surgeon  or  the  boldness  of  a  dentist,  fifty 
years  since,  found  that  the  power  of  ether  to  suspend 
consciousness  might  be  put  to  use  in  surgery.  The 
point  of  the  discussion  is  thus  transferred  to  that  wider 
field  on  which,  after  all,  the  methods  of  modern  inve^ti- 
gation  must  stand  or  fall.  Is  "  accidental  "  a  term  which 
is  fairly  descriptive  of  such  discoveries  as  have  been 
indicated  ?  Or  are  the  methods  of  modern  science  such 
as  to  promise  the  widest  good  for  humanity  in  spite  of 
incidental  features  which  are  apt  to  shock  an  unac- 
customed mind?  If  the  incidental  benefit  to  individuals 
is  to  be  stricken  out  of  the  account,  ought  not  the  in- 
cidental injury  to  individuals  to  go  with  it?  Nor  is  the 
transfer  any  real  misfortune  to  the  object  of  the  criti- 
cism; the  influence  of  scientific  investigation  upon  the 
world  rather  than  upon  the  individual  is  its  best  title 
to  existence. 

One  cannot  study  the  history  of  his  own  times  very 
far  before  becoming  conscious  that  a  decided  point  of 
difference  between  our  generation  and  any  former 
period,  between  what  we  call  civilized  peoples  and  the 
rest  of  the  world,  is  in  the  comparative  feeling  in  re- 
gard to  pain.  The  modern  civilized  man  is  squeamish 
about  pain  to  a.  degree  which  would  have  seemed  ef- 
feminate or  worse  to  his  great-grandfather,  or  to  the 
contemporary  barbarian.  His  squeamishness  is  not 
egoistic;  he  does  not  seem  to  be  any  more  afraid  of 
being  hurt  than  his  great-grandfather  was  if  he  can 
see  any  good  reason  for  it.  The  German  soldier,  while 
the  mitrailleuse  was  still  a  weapon  of  unknown  and 
frightful  possibilities,  cursed  the  Frenchman  and 
charged  up  the  hill  face  to  face  with  the  "  hell-ma- 
c'lines  "  as  undauntedly  as  ever  his  forefathers  faced 
simple  bullet  or  bow  and  arrows.  The  nameless  rail- 
way engineers,  who  stand  to  their  posts  into  the  heart 
of  a  great  accident  rather  than  desert  a  train-load  of 
passengers,  face  and  defy  possibilities  of  pain  such  as 
the  great  Julius  or  Ney  never  dreamed  of.  Is  there 
n  finer  thing  in  Plutarch  than  was  seen  when  the 
English  battalion,  presenting  arms  to  the  helpless 
beings  in  the  departing  boats,  went  down  in  perfect 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 88. 


parade  order  on  the  deck  of  the  foundering  troop-ship  ? 
Modern  life  is  rich  in  a  supremacy  over  personal  suf- 
fering wnich  takes  a  higher  character  only  as  the  finer 
organization  of  the  human  being  comes  to  know  more 
exactly  in  advance  the  nature  of  the  pain  which  it  is 
to  face. 

It  is  rather  in  others  and  for  others  that  the  modern 
civilized  man  dreads  pain.  He  finds  it  harder  to  know- 
that  other  men  are  suffering  the  pains  of  cold  or  hun- 
ger in  Kansas  or  Ireland  or  India ;  or  that  "  prisoners 
of  poverty "  are  working  fur  pittances  in  the  great 
cities;  or  that  laboring  men  arc  driven  to  work  six- 
teen hours  a  day ;  or  that  criminals  are  tortured  or 
mistreated  in  the  chain-gang;  or  that  "  politicals  "  are 
driven  to  insanity  in  the  Russian  state-prisons.  He  re- 
sents and  punishes  cruelty  to  animals  where  his  great- 
grandfather, perhaps,  thought  nothing  of  sending  a 
slave  to  the  whipping-post.  He  revolts  even  against 
harshness  in  just  punishment,  and  desires  to  alleviate 
some  of  the  horrors  of  hanging.  If  he  ignores  a  case 
of  cruelty,  it  is  from  lack  of  omniscience :  let  him  know 
about  it,  and  the  world  shall  know  his  feelings  about 
it.  Wilberforce  and  Copley  might  go  on  for  years  tell- 
ing Englishmen  of  the  horrors  of  the  middle  passage 
and  of  all  the  villainies  of  the  slave-trade :  and  still 
the  slave-ships  sailed  out  from  Liverpool,  and  the 
slave-trade  was  represented  in  Parliament.  Cruelty 
in  more  recent  times  lives  by  stealth  and  blushes  to 
find  itself  famous  in  the  newspaper  pillory. 

It  is  in  its  relations  to  this  general  development  of 
humanity,  and  not  in  any  alleviation  of  individual  suf- 
fering, that  modern  scientific  investigation  may  found 
its  strongest  claims  to  consideration.  It  should  not  be 
easy  to  deny  that  there  are  such  relations.  When  the 
growing  sensitiveness  to  suffering  in  others  and  the 
full  admission  of  the  methods  of  modern  science  are 
found  in  exactly  the  same  peoples,  in  the  same  periods, 
and  to  the  same  degree,  the  connection  between  the 
two  ought  not  to  be  doubtful.  The  modern  civilized 
man  is  no  longer  made  dull  and  callous  by  the  frequent 
recurrence  of  human  suffering  in  those  forms  which 
science  can  reach ;  and  when  it  comes  in  any  form,  it 
makes  a  far  deeper  impression  upon  him.  If  Davy,  by 
inventing  the  safety  lamp,  decreases  the  chances  of 
colliery  accidents,  he  gives  all  men  a  deeper  horror 
when  a  hundred  or  more  human  beings  are  locked  up 
in  a  burning  mine  or  choked  to  death  by  damp.  Ocean 
travel  is  made  safer  every  year  by  increasingly  ingen- 
ious inventions ;  but  the  diminution  of  wrecks  serves 
to  make  the  event  far  more  startling  when  fire  or  fog 
succeeds  in  snatching  its  victim  from  among  the  great 
ocean  steamers.  Surgical  progress,  particularly  in  an- 
aesthetics, by  removing  a  vast  amount  of  pain  from  the 
familiar  acquaintance  of  the  people,  must  have  had  a 
very  great  influence  in  intensifying  their  susceptibility 
to  suffering  in  others,  when  it  comes  to  their  knowl- 
edge. But  surgical  progress,  after  all,  is  but  one  phase 
of  a  far  larger  system  :  every  invention  leading  to  a 
decrease  in  the  amount  of  danger  and  suffering  in  hu- 
man existence,  all  due  to  the  methods  of  investigation 
introduced  by  modern  science,  has  acted  in  the  same 
direction  and  has  produced  similar  effects. 

The  surgeon's  knife  follows  unerringly  the  lines  of 
muscle  and  tendon  ;  and  we  are  apt  to  think  that  its 
accuracy  is  due  to  a  cold  heart  as  well  as  to  a  cool  head 
and  a  skillful  hand.  But  the  operator's  work  has  direct 


634 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


though  unseen  relations  to  the  forces  which  have  added 
Christian  and  Sanitary  Commissions  to  warfare,  which 
have  mitigated  the  horrors  of  prison  and  asylum  life, 
and  which  have  sided  with  the  weak  and  helpless  all 
over  the  world.  Money  or  fame  or  sheer  love  of  re- 
search may  seem  to  be  the  motive  forces  of  the  scien- 
tific investigation  that  is  at  work  all  around  us  ;  but 
through  it  all  we  should  learn  to  recognize  a  still  higher 
power  preparing  a  still  kindlier  heart  for  the  coming 
humanity. 

Socialism   and  the  "  Trusts." 

THE  phenomenon  which  has  most  startled  the  coun- 
try, since  the  sudden  rise  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  is 
the  appearance  of  what  are  known  as  "  trusts."  We 
had  known  corporations,  and  had  recognized  the  mode 
in  which,  by  their  concentrated  competition  with  one 
another,  they  gave  to  the  general  public  the  results 
of  the  steady  improvements  in  methods  and  amount 
of  production,  in  the  shape  of  better  quality  of  goods 
and  lower  prices.  We  had  even  known  "  pools,"  ar- 
rangements between  corporations  to  limit  or  cease 
competition,  which  was  becoming  destructive :  many 
objected  to  them  as  enemies  of  competition ;  others 
defended  them  as  the  inevitable  result  of  conditions 
under  which  the  possibility  of  combination  proved  the 
impossibility  of  competition.  The  question  of  the  guilt 
or  innocence  of  "  pools "  must  still  be  regarded  as 
largely  an  open  question;  and  before  we  have  time  to 
settle  it,  we  are  confronted  by  the  still  more  serious 
question  of  the  "trusts." 

Corporations  are  the  usual  component  units  of  the 
trust,  as  of  the  pool ;  and  the  authorized  defense  of 
the  former  rests  on  the  general  notion  that  the  succes- 
sive appearances  of  these  forms  of  combination  —  cor- 
porations, pools,  and  trusts  —  are  only  successive  steps 
in  the  evolution  of  new  and  more  highly  specialized 
modes  of  capital,  necessary  to  meet  new  modes  of 
production  or  new  conditions  of  the  market ;  and  that 
legislative  interference  with  them  would  be  in  effect 
an  act  to  prevent  the  proper  and  natural  development 
of  production,  to  the  injury  of  the  whole  people.  It  is 
claimed  that  such  enormous  masses  of  carefully  organ- 
ized capital  are  necessary  to  meet  the  competition  of 
the  great  natural  opportunities  of  countries  which  have 
hitherto  been  backward,  but  are  now  exhibiting  a  new 
energy  in  production ;  that,  if  the  trusts  limit  competition 
at  home,  it  is  only  destructive  competition,  whose  lim- 
itation is  for  the  good  of  all  producers ;  and  that  the 
trust's  natural  desire  to  increase  the  number  of  its 
consumers,  with  the  greater  facilities  for  larger,  cheaper, 
and  better  production,  which  its  growing  capital  af- 
fords it,  will  prevent  any  injury  to  consumers.  Ac- 
cording to  this  view,  the  dividends  of  the  trust  would 
come  from  the  prevention  of  waste,  not  from  increase  of 
price.  And  so  we  have  attempts  to  form  trusts  in  every 
conceivable  form  of  human  industry,  even  to  milk  and 
eggs,  and  a  farmers'  trust. 

The  process  of  widening  its  jurisdiction,  which  is 
open  to  all  trusts,  and  is  followed  by  some  at 
least,  has  been  described  very  clearly.  It  may  be  illus- 
trated by  an  industry  which  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
invaded  yet.  Suppose  that  the  price  of  sewing-machines 
under  competition  is  $50 ;  that  the  mass  of  production 
is  done  by  twenty  corporations,  each  controlling  the 


market  in  an  equivalent  territory;  and  that  ten  of  the 
producers,  believing  that  prices  have  been  forced  to 
too  low  a  point,  form  a  trust,  which  is  to  control  pro- 
duction for  the  general  good.  If  the  trust  should  un- 
dertake to  put  up  prices  within  its  ten  markets,  some 
neighboring  producer  will  invade  its  territory  as  soon 
as  the  selling  price  has  risen  sufficiently  to  cover  cost 
of  transportation.  It  is  necessary,  then,  to  bring  the 
nearest  producer  into  the  trust.  An  increase  of  price 
to  $51  within  the  trust's  ten  markets  will  not  be  likely 
to  decrease  consumption  materially,  or  to  open  the 
way  to  invasion  of  the  trust's  territory  by  competing 
products  of  other  producers  ;  but  it  will  enable  the 
trust,  without  changing  its  profits  and  dividends,  to 
offer  sewing-machines  for  sale  at  $40  apiece  within  its 
nearest  rival's  territory  until  he  consents  to  enter  the 
trust.  It  is  then  easier  for  the  eleven  members  of  the 
trust  to  force  another  rival  in,  and  then  another  and 
another,  until  all  the  desirable  market  is  secured.  The 
process  stops  only  when  the  remaining  producers  are 
so  remote  or  so  much  hampered  by  difficulties  of  pro- 
duction that  they  are  compelled  to  sell  at  or  above  the 
price  which  the  trust  desires  to  fix,  so  that  they  may 
safely  be  considered  as  hors  de  combat. 

The  trust  is  now  ready  to  raise  prices  within  its  ter- 
ritory to  a  rate  which  will  afford  to  the  component 
corporations  such  dividends  as  they  could  not  have  at- 
tained under  competition.  Its  managers  have  by  this 
time  learned  every  condition  of  their  market  so  accu- 
rately that  they  can  operate  as  if  by  instinct.  If,  under 
the  new  conditions,  a  competitor  appears  who  is  so  far 
handicapped  by  natural  or  personal  disabilities  that 
he  can  only  make  and  sell  sewing-machines  at  the 
trust's  prices,  he  may  safely  be  disregarded.  If  he  is 
skillful,  acute,  or  so  favored  by  natural  opportunities 
as  to  show  indications  of  becoming  a  dangerous  com- 
petitor, a  slight  increase  of  price  in  the  remainder  of 
the  trust's  territory  enables  it,  without  any  decrease 
of  dividends,  to  concentrate  an  enormous  "cut  "  upon 
the  market  of  its  would-be  rival,  and  crush  him  out  of 
the  business.  All  that  is  needed  is  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  conditions  and  a  careful  watchfulness  on 
the  part  of  the  trust's  managers,  and  competition 
really  becomes  impossible.  Such  a  description  cannot 
be  answered  by  references  to  the  high  character  of  the 
men  who  control  some  of  the  trusts  ;  the  same  road 
is  open  to  all  trusts,  and,  if  some  of  them  do  not  follow 
it,  competitors  exist  through  their  forbearance,  not  by 
virtue  of  legal  rights.  The  trust  is  the  pool  militant, 
and  it  will  take  the  line  of  least  resistance  to  success. 

All  this  is  quite  compatible  with  the  continued  exist- 
ence and  activity  of  a  considerable  number  of  produ- 
cers outside  of  the  trust ;  these  are  producers  whose 
natural  prices  do  not  interfere  with  the  trust  rate.  It 
is  compatible,  also,  with  a  steady  decrease  of  price,  if 
the  industry  is  one  the  natural  tendency  of  which  is 
to  decrease  of  price  as  improved  methods  give  a  larger 
production  at  the  same  cost  of  effort.  In  these  two 
cases  the  trust  may  continue  its  usual  dividends,  while 
appealing  to  the  decrease  of  price  and  the  number  of 
outside  producers  as  coincident  proofs  of  the  virtue 
of  its  methods  and  the  excellence  of  the  results.  It  is 
difficult,  however,  to  see  that  the  consumer  gets  any 
benefit  from  the  competition  of  such  rivals,  or  that  he 
gains  all  the  natural  decrease  of  price,  as  free  compe- 
tition would  give  it  to  him. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


635 


The  effects  on  the  consumer  would  be  more  clearly 
apparent  if  a  successful  trust  could  be  formed  in  purely 
agricultural  products,  whose  increase  of  production 
comes  regularly  with  a  more  than  proportional  in- 
crease of  effort  and  a  consequent  increase  of  price;  it 
would  very  soon  be  seen  that  the  consumer  was  pay- 
ing the  full  natural  increase  of  price,  and  something 
more.  It  would  be  still  more  evident  if  salt,  for  ex- 
ample, were  an  article  of  limited  supply,  and  coinci- 
dent attempts  were  made  to  form  a  salt  trust  and 
a  wheat  trust;  the  wheat  trust  would  fail,  unless  it 
were  a  successful  wheat-corn-and-oat  trust,  for  any 
increase  of  price  in  wheat  would  drive  a  proportionate 
number  of  consumers  to  the  use  of  corn-flour  or  oat- 
flour;  the  salt  trust  would  be  successful,  if  properly 
managed,  for  the  consumer  can  and  will  use  nothing 
instead  of  it,  even  at  an  increased  price.  In  all  cases, 
increased  price  is  the  essence  of  the  successful  trust, 
though  it  may  be  disguised  in  those  cases  whose  nat- 
ural tendency  is  to  decrease  of  price  ;  the  trust's 
increased  dividends  are  and  must  be  paid  by  the  con- 
sumer in  a  higher  than  the  competition-price. 

If,  however,  we  should  grant  that  the  claim  of  the 
trust  is  fairly  based,  and  that  its  limitation  of  produc- 


tion and  abolition  of  competition  are  for  the  benefit  of 
the  consumer,  wherewithal  shall  we  answer  Socialism 
when  we  meet  it  in  the  gates  ?  If  an  unofficial  combi- 
nation of  producers  is  able  to  benefit  the  consumer  by 
abolishing  competition,  why  should  not  government 
agencies  do  the  same  thing,  secure  the  same  benefits 
to  the  consumer,  and  at  the  same  time  appropriate  the 
trust's  dividends  for  the  additional  benefit  of  relieving 
all  consumers  of  just  so  much  taxation  ?  The  argument 
offered  on  behalf  of  the  trust  runs  on  all-fours  with 
the  argument  offered  on  behalf  of  Socialism  ;  and  any 
criticism  of  the  former  shows  it  to  be  even  worse  than 
the  latter,  for  it  really  aims  to  benefit  the  producer, 
while  the  latter  at  least  professes  to  aim  at  securing 
the  benefit  of  the  consumer. 

The  consumer  can  very  well  take  care  of  himself, 
without  the  paternal  care  of  the  government,  the  So- 
cialist, or  the  trust,  provided  only  that  competition  be 
full,  fair,  and  free.  Whenever  competition  begins  to 
be  anything  but  full,  fair,  and  free,  it  is  high  time  to 
look  up  the  legal  defects  which  have  produced  that 
result,  rather  than  yield  tamely  and  weakly  to  the 
semi-Socialist  argument  advanced  for  the  necessity 
and  advantage  of  the  trust. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


The  Teacher's  Vacation. 

\  GREAT  deal  is  said  and  written  for  teachers  upon 
•il-  subjects  pertaining  to  their  work,  but  very  little 
concerning  their  vacations  or  hours  of  rest.  The  educa- 
tional journals  are  filled  with  dissertations  on  the 
leaching  of  certain  subjects  and  on  methods  of  work. 
The  result  is  that  many  teachers  know  better  how  to 
work  than  how  not  to  work.  They  know  better  how 
to  keep  up  a  restless,  worrying,  unprofitable  activity 
than  how  to  rest  in  a  manner  conducive  to  the  health 
of  body  and  spirit.  Most  teachers  are  confined  in  the 
close  air  of  their  school-rooms  for  almost  ten  months  of 
the  year,  and  during  this  time  are  subjected,  by  the 
nature  of  their  work,  to  severe  nervous  tension.  They 
have  not  learned  the  first  requisite  of  the  good  teacher, 
if  under  such  circumstances  they  do  not  care  for 
their  health  with  the  scrupulous  watchfulness  of  the 
miser  guarding  his  dearest  treasures.  Fresh  air,  exer- 
cise, regular  hours  for  sleep  and  plenty  of  it,  and  whole- 
some food  ("society"  only  in  homeopathic  doses) 
are  indispensable.  Where  this  regimen  is  not  strictly 
observed,  pellets,  tinctures,  tonics,  plasters,  powders, 
and,  worst  of  all,  the  "substitute  "  teacher,  must  come 
in  to  supply  the  deficiency.  Then  the  tired  heart  and 
brain  must  be  goaded  up  with  a  tonic  and  the  rebell- 
ious nerves  chained  down  with  an  opiate,  or  the  weary 
system  cannot  drag  through  to  the  end  of  the  year. 
Some  people  are  fond  of  quoting  the  saying,  "  It  is  a 
sin  to  be  sick."  This  will  admit  of  modification,  but 
not  in  cases  where  plain  natural  laws,  where  common 
physiological  rules,  which  all  may  know  and  under- 
stand, are  violated.  To  the  teacher  who  has  just 
managed  to  "  tonic  "  through  to  the  end  of  the  year, 
the  vacation  is  a  welcome  haven ;  it  is  an  oasis  in  the 


desert  of  existence.  It  becomes  the  Elysium  of  the  pill- 
taker,  the  Paradise  of  the  headache  fancier,  the  N  irvana 
of  the  nerve-shattered  dyspeptic  and  rheumatic.  If  all 
teachers  obeyed  the  laws  of  health  strictly,  if  the  need- 
less worry,  the  waste  of  effort  and  the  waste  of  emotion 
were  eliminated  —  if,  in  short,  teachers  but  served  their 
consciences  and  better  judgment  with  half  the  zeal  they 
serve  their  whims  and  desires,  many  aches  and  pains 
and  much  sorrow  and  sighing  would  flee  away.  These 
words  are  not  for  those  teachers  who  have  expended 
much  of  their  vitality  in  long  years  of  public  service. 
When  such  teachers  are  sick —  it  rarely  happens — all 
know  what  it  means.  Much  of  the  large  measure  of 
health,  strength,  and  energy  which  was  once  theirs  has 
been  given  out  for  years  into  the  currents  of  public 
life.  It  has  passed  into  the  counting-room,  the  press, 
the  pulpit,  the  bar ;  into  the  channels  of  trade  and  labor 
with  the  boys  and  girls  for  whom  they  have  toiled. 

Many  teachers  would  be  glad  if  there  were  no  vaca- 
tions. They  are  inclined  to  look  upon  these  as  periods 
of  enforced  idleness. 

But  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  vacation  is  far 
more  valuable  to  teachers  than  the  work  and  the  money. 
The  vacation  and  how  it  may  be  profitably  spent  are 
matters  of  importance  to  teachers  whether  they  fully 
recognize  it  or  not.  Happy,  thrice  fortunate  and  happy, 
is  that  teacher  who  has  friends,  hospitable,  generous 
friends,  who  insist  upon  a  visit,  and  who  will  rescue 
her  from  heat,  dust,  and  high  brick  walls.  Much  to  be 
desired  is  the  cool  retreat  by  lake  or  wood,  where  good 
friends  cheer  with  words  and  acts  of  kindness,  where 
bracing  breezes  are  laden  with  life-giving  oxygen,  and 
where  the  fresh,  plain,  savory  fare  of  the  farm  and 
garden  and  orchard  put  new  color  into  the  cheek 
and  new  blood  into  the  veins.  Tonics  and  cordials  will 


636 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


not  be  needed  until  teaching,  "  society  events,"  pro- 
gressive euchre,  and  progressive  physical  derangement 
begin  again.  But  there  are  teachers  who  must  stay  in 
the  city  and  catch  no  glimpse  of  green  fields  and  shim- 
mering waters.  Those  who  are  thus  penned  up  in  the 
city  often  have  resources  which  the  migrating  teacher 
cannot  appreciate.  They  certainly  have  release  from 
school  work  and  have  occupation  for  the  mind,  and 
this  is  great  gain.  For  rest  is  not  mere  vacuity,  it  is 
not  mere  cessation  from  activity,  it  is  not  sheer  idle- 
ness and  utter  release  from  responsibility.  It  is  well, 
perhaps,  that  some  teachers  should  have  the  leisure 
of  vacation  to  live  at  home  and  perform  more  of  those 
sacred  duties  that  are  enjoined  by  affection  and  family 
interest.  What  one  teacher  may  gain  in  flesh  and 
color  among  the  green  hills  and  flashing  waters,  an- 
other may  gain  in  patience  and  devotion,  in  power  of 
thought,  in  sweetness  of  spirit  and  depth  of  character 
in  the  home  circle. 

In  whatever  way  the  teacher's  vacation  may  be  spent, 
the  prime  object  to  be  kept  in  view  should  be  to  store 
up,  by  change,  rest,  and  pleasant  recreation,  the  greatest 
amount  of  physical  and  mental  energy.  These  things 
conduce  to  the  teacher's  happiness  and  efficiency. 
They  contribute  to  the  well-being  and  success  of  the 
pupils.  Where  the  teacher  has  vigorous  health  and 
reserves  of  mental  energy,  there  are  enterprise,  life, 
and  industry  in  the  school.  There  are  found  patience, 
justice,  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  teacher ;  obedience, 
confidence,  and  affection  on  the  part  of  the  pupils. 
With  most  teachers  the  sole  capital  which  they  have 
invested  is  their  body.  They  draw  interest,  not  on 
stocks  and  bonds,  but  on  their  brain,  nerve,  and  muscle. 
Whether  this  may  continue  depends  primarily  on  how 
the  heart  does  its  pumping,  and  how  the  stomach  does 
its  work.  The  manner  in  which  these  physical  func- 
tions are  performed  governs  largely  the  power  to  sleep, 
the  disposition  of  mind  and  heart,  and  the  capacity  for 
work  and  study. 

TOLEDO,  O.  //•  W-  Campion. 

More  Anecdotes  of  Father  Taylor. 

THE  admirable  portrait  of  my  old  minister,  Father 
Taylor,  in  THE  CENTURY  for  February,  1887,  brings 
him  before  me  again  most  vividly  as  I  have  seen  and 
talked  with  him  in  his  house  ;  but  nothing  less  than 
a  series  of  instantaneous  photographs  can  convey  an 
idea  of  his  face  when  in  the  pulpit,  under  the  power 
of  his  own  matchless  eloquence.  It  was  at  one  mo- 
ment a  terror  to  evil-doers,  and  perhaps  at  the  next 
it  drew  the  sympathy  of  his  audience  as  streams  of 
tears  coursed  down  his  cheeks ;  and  again,  the  tempests 
and  the  r"in  subsiding,  a  smile  would  come  over  it  like 
the  sunlight  upon  a  peaceful  sea. 

Both  writers  in  THE  CKNTURY  have  acknowledged 
their  inability  to  portray  his  eloquence.  It  was  truly 
something  as  much  beyond  the  attempts  of  essayists  as 
the  representation  of  the  man  in  all  his  attitudes  was 
beyond  the  skill  of  a  painter. 

Mr.  Whitman  was  correct  in  speaking  of  Father 
Taylor  as  an  orthodox  preacher.  He  was  orthodox, 
"  sound  in  the  Christian  faith,"  but  he  was  not  ortho- 
dox as;  the  term  is  conventionally  applied.  He  was  a 
Methodist,  and  he  had  his  own  methods  in  spite  of  all 
conferences  and  bishops.  They  would  have  disciplined 
any  other  brother  who  indulged  in  such  liberal  ideas 


and  practices,  had  he  been  a  country  minister;  but  it 
is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  this  austere  sect  that  they  rec- 
ognized his  innate  goodness  and  his  peculiar  adapted- 
ness  to  the  pulpit  of  that  Bethel  Church.  They  knew  that 
no  other  preacher  could  take  his  place,  and  so  they  "  let 
him  have  his  full  swing."  He  would  not  be  bound  by 
any  iron-clad  law  of  exchanges.  He  often  exchanged 
with  Unitarians,  and  when  he  got  into  a  Unitarian  pul- 
pit, if  the  mood  came  over  him,  he  would  boldly  pro- 
claim his  theology.  But  he  was  seldom  a  theologian 
unless  it  became  compulsory  for  him  to  show  his  colors. 

I  remember  once  listening  to  a  heavy  Calvinistic 
discourse  in  the  Bethel  Church  from  a  distinguished 
Boston  clergyman.  Father  Taylor  sat  in  the  pulpit, 
and  it  was  a  study  to  watch  the  ill-disguised  expressions 
of  contempt  upon  his  face.  At  last  the  sermon  came 
to  its  end,  and  the  preacher  stepped  aside  to  give  Father 
Taylor  the  opportunity  to  make  the  closing  prayer. 
Instead  of  that,  he  tapped  the  Calvinist  on  the  shoulder, 
and  looking  down  on  the  audience  said  with  a  calm 
smile,  "  Our  good  brother  means  well,  but  he  don't 
know.  I  guess  there  's  time  enough  for  another  ser- 
mon, so  I  '11  just  take  his  text  and  preach  from  it." 

It  was  like  a  cloud-burst.  Half  the  time  he  turned 
his  back  upon  us,  and  rained  down  torrents  of  argu- 
mentative eloquence  upon  the  brother  upon  the  sofa 
behind.  We  all  enjoyed  the  scene  immensely.  At  last 
Father  Taylor  subsided  and,  extending  his  hand  to  the 
clergyman,  said,  in  his  most  gentle  tone  and  in  his 
most  winning  way, "  Brother,  forgive  me  if  I  have  hurt 
your  feelings,  but  I  did  not  want  you  to  come  on  this 
quarter-deck  and  kick  up  a  mutiny  against  Divine  prov- 
idence among  my  crew." 

I  could  relate  many  anecdotes  of  Father  Taylor, 
some  of  which  Dr.  Bartol  will  call  to  mind. 

When  he  began  to  preach  around  Boston  (he  told 
us  this  himself),  he  visited  Duxbury.  In  those  days 
there  was  only  "  the  old  meeting-house  "  in  country 
towns.  It  is  a  pity  that  there  are  more  meeting-houses 
in  some  of  them  now.  One  minister  was  all  that  the 
town  could  well  support,  and  by  common  consent  he 
was  the  head  of  the  church  and  of  the  village. 

When  the  young  Methodist,  full  of  ardor  and  enthu- 
siasm, by  the  dictate  of  natural  politeness  called  on 
the  dignified  Dr.  Allen,  the  latter  asked  him  what  was 
his  business.  '•  To  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature, 
as  my  Master  has  commanded,"  replied  Taylor.  "  Is  n't 
that  what  the  Bible  tells  us?  " 

"Yes,  it  tells  us  that,"  answered  Dr.  Allen,  "but  it 
does  n't  say  that  every  creetur  can  preach  the  gospel. 
I  preach  all  the  gospel  that  is  wanted  in  Duxbury." 
Taylor  was  obliged  to  look  elsewhere  for  an  audience. 

In  the  year  of  the  Irish  famine  the  Government,  at 
the  instance  of  Commodore  de  Kay,  placed  the  United 
States  sloop-of-war  Afacedonian  at  the  disposal  of  the 
merchants  of  New  York.  The  Jameshrwn,  which  was 
loaned  to  Boston,  was  commanded  by  Captain  R.  B. 
Forbes,  and  its  cargo  of  corn  and  flour  was  chiefly 
contributed  by  the  venerable  Thomas  H.  Perkins; 
the  Macedonian,  under  the  command  of  Commodore 
George  Coleman  de  Kay  of  New  York,  formerly  a 
volunteer  in  the  Argentine  navy,  sailed  about  the  same 
time  on  a  similar  errand  of  mercy.  Father  Taylor  was 
supercargo  and  chaplain  of  the  Rfaccdonian.  On  his 
return  from  this  benevolent  embassy  we  gave  him 
an  ovation  at  the  Bethel.  lie  was  always  fond  of  re- 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


637 


fcrring  to  "  Boston's  merchant  princes."  On  this  oc- 
casion Colonel  Perkins  was  present.  Father  Taylor 
was  unusually  eloquent  upon  his  favorite  theme.  "  Bos- 
ton's merchant  princes!"  he  exclaimed.  "Do  you 
want  to  see  one  of  them,  boys  ?  There  In-  sits  ;  look  at 
him  !  "  The  whole  congregation  arose  and,  to  the  utter 
confusion  of  the  old  gentleman,  fixed  their  eyes  upon 
him  as  Father  Taylor  thus  apostrophized  him  :  "God 
bless  you,  sir  !  When  you  die,  angels  will  fight  for  the 
honor  of  carrying  you  to  heaven  on  their  shoulders." 

In  the  course  of  his  sermon,  which  was  mainly  a 
description  of  his  voyage  and  his  experiences  abroad, 
he  said  that  "  the  famine  was  sent  by  God  to  soften  the 
hearts  of  Americans  and  to  harden  the  heads  of  Irish- 
men. The  Irish  had  lived  on  potatoes  too  long.  There 
was  no  phosphorus,  no  brain  food,  in  a  potato.  They 
were  now  taught  by  our  charity  to  live  on  wheat  and 
corn."  Perhaps  the  English  Government  at  this  day 
may  attribute  Irish  contumacy  to  their  change  of  diet. 

Once  when  Father  Taylor  was  in  the  midst  of  a  most 
eloquent  sermon,  his  voice  pitched  to  its  highest  key, 
a  man  rose  from  his  pew  near  the  pulpit  and  started 
to  walk  down  the  broad  aisle.  Suddenly  as  a  typhoon 
sometimes  subsides  to  a  calm,  the  old  man  stopped, 
and  then  in  that  peculiar  whisper  of  his  which  pervaded 
the  whole  house,  went  on, "  Sh  —  sh  —  sh !  Keep  still, 
all  of  you,  and  don't  disturb  that  man  walking  out." 

It  was  a  very  funny  incident  when  a  newspaper  re- 
porter, who  is  still  living,  and  who  will  surely  pardon 
me  for  telling  of  it,  as  for  once  he  got  the  better  of 
Father  Taylor,  came  into  church  rather  late  after  the 
pews  were  all  filled,  and  men  were  sitting  on  the  pul 
pit  stairs.  Father  Taylor  saw  him,  and  called  out  in  a 
loud  voice  :  "  Come  up  here,  McLean,  and  sit  down  on 
the  sofa. "  McLean  accepted  the  invitation,  and  it  might 
be  supposed  that  he  was  somewhat  disconcerted  when 
Father  Taylor  turned  to  him  and  said, "  Now  get  up  and 
pray,  you  sinner!  "  But  nothing  disconcerts  a  news- 
paper reporter.  I  don't  know  if  my  old  friend  had  had 
much  practice  in  the  exercise,  but  he  arose  unabashed 
and  offered  a  very  creditable  prayer,  in  which,  as  he  had 
been  a  sailor  himself,  he  introduced  suitable  nautical 
phraseology,  and  concluded  by  commending  to  the 
mercy  of  Heaven  "  this  whole  sinful  crew,  and  espe- 
cially the  skipper." 

I  once  heard  Father  Taylor  preach  a  sermon  on  the 
Atonement.  It  was  all  in  a  style  that  nobody  but  a 
sailor  could  understand,  a  style  that  every  sailor  could 
comprehend,  although  a  treatise  on  this  subject  from 
an  tip-town  pulpit  would  have  been  "  Greek  "  to  him. 
This  was  one  of  the  passages  :  "  You  are  dead  in  tres- 
pa^ses  and  sins,  and  buried  too,  down  in  the  lower 
hold  amongst  the  ballast,  and  you  can't  get  out,  for 
there  is  a  ton  of  sin  on  the  main  hatch.  You  shin  up 
the  stanchions  and  try  to  get  it  open,  but  you  can't. 
You  rig  a  purchase.  You  get  your  handspikes,  cap- 
stan bars,  and  watch  tackk-s,  but  they  are  no  good. 
You  can't  start  it.  Then  you  begin  to  sing  out  for 
help.  You  hail  all  the  saints  you  think  are  on  deck, 
but  they  can't  lu-lp  you.  At  last  you  hail  Jesus  Christ, 
lie  comes  straight  along.  All  he  wanted  was  to  be 
asked.  He  just  claps  his  shoulder  to  that  ton  of  sin. 
It  rolls  off,  and  then  he  says,  '  Shipmates,  come  out !  ' 
Well,  if  you  don't  come  out,  it  is  all  your  own  fault." 

It  was  on  the  Sunday  before  a  State  election.  Briggs 
was  the  candidate  of  the  Whig  party,  but  Father  Tay- 


lor desired  that  he  should  be  elected  because  he  was 
a  religious  man.  This  was  his  prayer  :  "  O  Lord,  give 
us  good  men  to  rule  over  us,  just  men,  temperance  men, 
I  'hri-tian  men,  men  who  fear  Thee,  who  obey  Thy  com- 
mandments, men  who  —  But,  O  Lord,  what  's  the  use 
of  veering  ami  hauling  and  pointing  all  round  the  com- 
pass ?  Give  us  George  N.  Briggs  for  governor!  "  His 
prayer  was  answered  on  the  next  day. 

Father  Taylor  was  eloquent,  humorous,  and  pathetic 
by  turns.  Sometimes  all  these  characteristics  seemed 
to  be  merged  in  one.  These  and  many  other  of  his 
traits  interested  me,  but  I  loved  him  because,  first  and 
last  and  all  the  time,  he  was  the  sailor's  friend. 

John 


Extend  the  Merit  System. 

THE  objections  to  civil  service  reform  come  prin- 
cipally from  those  who  are  or  who  aspire  to  be  politi- 
cians. To  have  the  offices  filled  by  worthy  and  compe- 
tent persons,  whose  term  of  office  is  not  dependent  on 
the  success  or  defeat  of  any  party,  would  rob  this  nu- 
merous class  of  their  stock  in  trade,  and  permanently 
retire  them  from  politics. 

What  difference  does  it  make  to  me  whether  the 
postmaster  of  my  village  is  a  Democrat  or  a  Republi- 
can, if  he  be  competent  and  obliging  ?  The  same  is  true 
of  the  county  officers.  Politics  should  have  nothing  to 
do  with  them,  for  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  politics. 
There  are  only  a  few  political  offices.  Why  should  the 
non-political  officers,  when  experience  has  made  them 
capable,  be  turned  out  every  time  the  party  sentiment 
changes,  and  their  places  filled  by  inexperienced  men 
whose  only  merit  is  their  partisanship  ?  There  can  be 
no  satisfactory  answer  given  to  this  question  in  the 
affirmative  ;  but  that  they  should  be  retained  as  long  as 
they  are  efficient  and  honest  is  patent  from  these  rea- 
sons: First,  it  would  be  a  saving  of  expense;  secondly, 
it  would  secure  a  better  service;  thirdly,  it  would  ele- 
vate and  refine  politics. 

I.  The  postmasters,  in  all  cities  of  eight  thousand 
inhabitants  and  upwards,  are  commissioned  for  four 
years.  There  is  no  promise,  no  matter  how  faithful, 
that  their  term  of  office  will  be  longer.  They  receive 
a  stated  salary.  Now  it  is  a  fact,  that  could  they 
hold  their  places  for  a  long  term  of  years,  free  from 
contributions  and  other  exactions,  they  would  gladly 
serve  the  public  for  two-thirds  of  what  they  now  re- 
ceive, and  this  is  true  to  some  extent  of  their  subordi- 
nates, and  also  of  those  who  fill  the  smaller  offices.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  in  the  Post-Office  Department  thirty 
per  cent,  of  its  present  cost  would  be  saved,  and  the 
people  better  served.  Take  our  county  officials  :  they 
are  rarely  reelected.  When  their  term  of  office  expires 
they  are  hardly  proficient,  but  out  they  go  and  a  new 
set  is  installed  ;  and  even  a  layman  of  any  experience 
knows  what  perplexity  and  uncertainty  is  occasioned 
by  these  new  officers.  To  estimate  the  damage  to 
suitors  and  others  in  Pennsylvania,  caused  by  mistakes 
and  omissions  of  inexperienced  officers,  at  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars  per  annum  is  within 
bounds.  The  frequent  elections  require  a  large  ex- 
penditure of  time  and  money.  It  often  takes  years  to 
accomplish  the  end  after  the  office  idea  is  hatched. 
Then,  when  one  is  successful  there  are  ten  who  fail. 
The  aspirants  spend  their  time  and  money,  and  the 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


people  suffer  from  this  loss  besides  footing  the  bills  of 
the  too  frequent  elections.  If  our  county  officers  could 
hold  their  office  for  a  term  of  twenty  years,  if  they  re- 
mained competent  and  honest,  and  be  free  men,  under 
no  party  obligations,  they  could  well  afford  to  fill  the 
places  for  half  of  what  they  now  receive.  This  would 
be  a  net  saving  of  forty-five  per  cent,  directly,  to  say 
-.nothing  of  the  indirect  saving.  An  absolute  civil  ser- 
vice reform  would  enable  us  to  run  the  government,  na- 
tion and  state,  for  sixty  per  cent,  of  the  present  cost. 
Then  why  not  have  it,  and  let  the  politicians  take  care  of 
themselves  ?  2.  It  would  secure  a  better  service.  That 
Jin  officer  of  experience  is  more  efficient  than  one  who 
is  inexperienced  is  self-evident.  Civil  service  would,  in 
the  main,  give  us  men  who  are  suited  for  the  place,  and 
experience  would  ripen,  making  them  good  officials.  3. 
It  would  elevate  and  refine  politics.  Who  are  the  active 
politicians?  Are  they  our  best  men?  Unfortunately 
they  are  not,  as  a  rule.  A  man  of  honor  and  self-re- 
spect enters  the  political  field  with  fear  and  trembling. 
If  he  succeeds,  it  is  an  exception.  To  be  a  politician 
of  to-day,  one  must  lose  sight  of  everything  but  the 
goal.  He  must  be  ready  to  violate  an  agreement,  to 
make  all  manner  of  promises,  to  ask,  beg,  and  even 
buy  votes,  and  support  his  party,  right  or  wrong. 
These  are  only  a  few  of  the  offices  that  are  political, 
but  by  the  nefarious  system  which  has  so  long  been  in 
vogue  they  have  all  been  wrongfully  made  to  repre- 
sent tparty,  and  consequently  a  horde  of  office-seekers 
have  arisen,  and  in  their  unholy  scramble  for  place 
they  have  forsaken  all  decency,  and  thus  have  degraded 
our  whole  system.  Civil  service  reform  would,  in  a 
great  measure,  cut  off  this  element.  There  would  be 
but  little  chance  to  bargain  and  sell.  The  strictly  po- 
litical offices  would  be  prominently  brought  out,  the 
people  would  vote  according  to  their  convictions, —  for 
the  incentive  to  stick  to  party,  at  all  hazards,  would 
be  gone, —  and  the  result  would  be  better  officers,  from 
President  down. 

P.  F.  Hallock. 

The  Abolition  of  Slavery  by  the   Cherokees. 

IN  1861  the  Cherokees  had  long  been  a  slave-holding 
people  under  the  influence  of  their  early  surroundings. 
The  war  found  them  already  divided  into  two  factions. 
Under  the  influence  of  Southern  emissaries  the  disloyal 
Cherokees  were  organized  into  "  Blue  Lodges  "  and 
"  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,"  while  the  loyal  masses 
by  a  spontaneous  movement  organized  themselves  into 
a  loyal  league  known  as  the  "  Ketoowah,"  sometimes 
derisively  called  the  "Pin  Society,"  in  allusion  to  the 
two  crossed  pins  worn  by  the  members  on  their  jackets 
as  a  distinguishing  mark.  The  Ketoowah  societies  were 
soon  to  be  found  in  every  part  of  the  Cherokee  nation, 
and  embraced  in  their  membership  a  great  majority  of 
the  voters,  especially  of  the  full-blooded  Indians.  The 
meetings  were  always  held  in  secret  places,  often  in  the 
deep  forest  or  in  the  mountains,  and  the  initiates  were 
given  to  understand  that  a  violation  of  the  sacred  oath 
was  a  crime  punishable  by  death.  The  primary  object 
of  this  league  was  to  resist  encroachments  on  Indian 
rights  and  Indian  territory  and  to  preserve  the  integ- 
rity and  peace  of  the  Cherokee  nation  according  to  the 
stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  1846,  but  it  finally  united  in 
working  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  by  its  means  a 


large  majority  of  the  Cherokees  became  at  length  firmly 
grounded  in  their  fidelity  to  the  Federal  Government. 
The  Cherokees  numbered  in  1861  about  22,000.  Of 
these  8500  joined  the  Confederates  and  went  south, 
and  13,500  remained  at  home.  On  the2lst  of  August, 
1861,  the  Cherokees,  finding  themselves  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Confederate  forces  and  practically  left  to  their 
fate  by  the  Federal  Government,  met  in  convention 
at  Tahlequah  and  resolved  to  make  a  treaty  of  peace 
with  the  Confederate  authorities ;  but  on  February 
18,  1863,  finding  themselves  no  longer  constrained  by 
superior  force,  a  national  council  was  held  at  Cowskin 
Prairie,  where  the  treaty  was  denounced  as  null  and 
void,  any  office  held  by  a  disloyal  Cherokee  was  de- 
clared vacant,  and,  more  remarkable  still,  an  act  was 
passed  abolishing  slavery  in  the  Cherokee  nation. 
Through  the  kindness  of  the  chief,  I  have  been  per- 
mitted to  copy  an  act  from  the  records  : 

AN   ACT    EMANCIPATING    THE    SLAVES    IN   THE 
CHEROKEE    NATION. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  National  Council :  That  all  Negro 
and  other  slaves  within  the  lands  of  the  Cherokee  Nation 
be  and  they  are  hereby  emancipated  from  slavery,  and 
any  person  or  persons  who  may  have  been  held  in  slav- 
ery are  hereby  declared  to  be  forever  free. 

Be  it  further  enacted.  That  this  act  shall  go  into  effect  on 
the  twenty-fifth  (251)1)  day  of  June,  1863.  And  any  person 
who,  after  the  said  25th  day  of  June,  1863,  shall  offend 
against  the  provisions  of  this  act,  by  enslaving  or  hold- 
ing any  person  in  slavery  within  the  limits  of  the  Chero- 
kee Nation,  he  or  she  so  offending  shall,  on  conviction 
thereof  before  any  of  the  Courts  of  this  nation  having 
jurisdiction  of  the  case,  forfeit  and  pay  for  each  offense 
a  sum  not  less  than  one  thousand  ($1000)  dollars,  or  more 
than  five  thousand  ($5000)  dollars,  at  the  discretion  of 
the  Court. 

Two-thirds  of  said  fine  shall  be  paid  in  the  National 
Treasury,  and  one-third  shall  be  paid,  in  equal  sums,  to 
the  Solicitor  and  the  sheriff  of  the  District  in  which  the 
offense  shall  have  been  committed.  And  it  is  hereby 
made  the  duty  of  the  Solicitors  of  the  several  Districts  to 
see  that  this  law  is  duly  enforced.  But  in  case  any  So- 
licitor shall  neglect  or  fail  to  discharge  his  duties  herein, 
and  shall  be  convicted  thereof,  he  shall  be  deposed  from 
his  office,  and  shall  hereafter  be  ineligible  to  hold  any 
office  of  trust  or  honor  in  this  nation. 

The  Acting  Principal  Chief  is  hereby  required  to  give 
due  notice  of  this  act. 

Be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  laws  and  parts  of  laws 
conflicting  with  the  provisions  of  this  act  are  hereby  re- 
pealed. 


COWSKIN  PRAIRIE,  C.  N. 
Feb.  2ist,  1863. 

J.  B.  JONES, 

Clerk  National  Com. 
Concurred  in  Council. 


Approved  Feb.  2ist,  1863. 
ITHACA,  N.  Y. 


LEWIS  DOWNING, 
Prcs.  pro  tern.  School  Com. 

SPRING  FROG, 
Speaker  of  Council. 


THOS.  PEGG, 

Acting  Principal  Chief. 
Geory-e  E.  Foster. 


"The  Last  Hope  of  the  Mormons." 

IN  the  October  number  an  editorial  with  the  above 
title  inadvertently  used  the  word  "disfranchise"  in 
the  sense  of  a  refusal  of  Statehood.  No  territorial  dis- 
franchisement  of  the  body  of  the  Mormons  could  have 
been  intended,  since  nothing  of  the  kind  has  taken 
place. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


INTELLIGENCE 


WHAT  's  IN  A  NAME! 


Observations. 

NONE  are  such  accomplished  dissemblers  as  those 
who  find  dissembling  difficult. 

THE  surest  way  to  reveal  your  weakness  is  to  hide 
your  motives. 

A  NOTE  pitched  too  high  is  equally  silent  with  one 
pitched  too  low. 

A  GOOD  cause  seldom  fails  through  the  judicious- 
ness of  its  enemies  ;  but  often  through  the  injudicious- 
ness  of  its  friends. 

THE  sublimity  of  the  mountain  is  not  in  the  moun- 
tain, but  in  us. 

EACH  man  is  a  walking  coal-mine,  and  it  is  for  him 
to  decide  whether  it  shall  send  forth  heat  and  light,  or 
only  soot  and  smoke. 

MORE  strength  is  needed  to  abstain  from  work  when 
tired,  than  to  undertake  it  wlien  rested. 

THE  safety  of  the  spire  is  not  in  the  thinness  of  the 
top,  but  in  the  solidity  of  the  bottom. 


THE  true  host  entertains  so  that  on  leaving  the 
guest  feels  more  pleased  with  himself  than  with  his 
host. 

HE  who  is  unwilling  to  submit  to  undeserved  blame 
should  remember  to  refuse  undeserved  praise. 

GENIUS  is  like  a  barrel  on  the  top  of  a  hill :  it  will 
not  indeed  move  unless  pushed  ;  but  once  pushed,  it 
goes  of  itself.  Talent  is  like  a  load  on  the  roadway ; 
it  will  not  go  forward  unless  dragged. 

THIS  is  the  difference  between  a  noble  thought  and 
a  merely  brilliant  thought :  the  former,  like  a  friend, 
improves  on  acquaintance  ;  the  latter  loses  its  force 
on  a  second  meeting. 

WEAKNESS  trusts  in  its  strength;  strength  fears  in 
its  weakness. 

HE  who  is  unconsciously  selfish  is  not  so  dangerous 
as  he  who  is  consciously  so ;  the  former  betrays  his 
selfishness,  the  latter  conceals  it. 

Ivan  Panin. 


640 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


The    Friend   of  Ages   Ago. 


The    Ladies  of    Manhattan 


"  Should  an  Id  acquaintance  te  forgot  ?  " 
—  Yes,  if  yon  'djnsl  as  lief  as  no'. 

John  Paul. 

THERE  are  several  things  that  trouble  one's  age, 

And  work  for  a  man  much  woe, 
Such  as  gout — and  doubt  —  debts  that  it;/// run, 

And  rhyme  that  will  not  Mow. 
But  when  all  has  been  said,  do  we  not  most  dread, 

Of  the  many  bores  that  we  know, 
That  ubiquitous  ban,  the  woman  or  man, 

Who  knew  one  "ages  ago  "  ? 

In  youth  —  you  were  young;  and  foolish  perhaps; 

You  flirted  with  high  and  with  low, 
II  id  one  love  on  the  hill,  and  one  down  by  the  mill- 

Yet  never  were  wicked,  ah,  no ! 
And  this  friend  knew  you  in  a  far-away  way, 

In  a  way  that  was  only  so,  so  — 
Just  enough  to  give  hue  to  the  cry  about  you : 

"  Oh,  I  knew  him  ages  ago !  " 

You  are  married  now  and  quite  circumspect, 

Your  pace,  like  your  speech,  is  slow. 
You  tell  in  a  bank,  keep  silent  in  church  — 

Are  one  it  is  proper  to  know; 
But  this  vigilant  friend  will  never  consent 

That  your  virtues  unchallenged  shall  go — 
Though  she  never  demurs,  but  only  avers 

That  she  knew  you  "  ages  ago." 

And  sure  I  am  that  if  ever  I  win 

To  the  place  where  I  hope  to  go  — 
To  sit  among  saints  —  perhaps  the  chief — 

In  raiment  as  white  as  snow, 
Before  me  and  busy  among  the  blest — 

Perhaps  in  the  self-same  row  — 
I  shall  find  my  ban,  this  woman  or  man, 

Who  knew  me  "  ages  ago." 

And  shall  hear  the  voice  I  so  oft  have  heard — 

Do  you  think  it  is  sweet  and  low  ?  — 
As  it  whispers  still  with  an  accent  shrill 

The  refrain  that  so  well  I  know  : 
"  Oh,  you  need  n't  be  setting  much  store  by  him, 

This  new  angel  's  not  much  of  a  show, 
He  may  fool  some  saint  who  is  n't  acquaint  — 

But  /knew  him  ages  ago!  " 

Charles  Henry  Webb. 


Consolation. 

DEAR  Betty,  when  an  hour  ago 

You  scorned  my  humble  offer 
Because  my  lean  and  empty  purse 

Was  not  a  well-filled  coffer, 
Why  did  you  breathe  your  cruel  "  No  " 

With  such  a  frightened  quiver  ? 
Perhaps  you  thought  I  meant  to  seek 

Some  suicidal  river. 

Ah,  no,  sweet  girl !   These  modern  times 

Of  cynic  calculation 
Take  wiser  ways  and  means  to  end 

A  lover's  desperation ; 
And  Corydon  no  longer  sighs 

His  heart  away  in  sorrow, 
But  seeks  a  richer  Phillis  out 

And  wooes  again  to-morrow. 

M.  E.    W. 


ODE    TO   PHILADELPHIA :    STOLEN    FROM    DOBSON. 

THE  ladies  of  Manhattan 

Go  swinging  to  the  play, 
A  footman  and  a  coachman 

On  top  of  each  coupe  : 
But  Philada,  my  Philada ! 

Whene'er  she  goes  as  far 
As  First-Day  evening  meeting, 

She  takes  a  cable  car. 

The  ladies  of  Manhattan, 

According  as  they  feel, 
Wear  nothing  on  their  shoulders 

Or  coats  of  silk  and  seal : 
But  Philada,  my  Philada  ! 

Has  neither  frills  nor  furs ; 
The  turtle-dove's  soft  raiment 

Is  not  so  neat  as  hers. 

The  ladies  of  Manhattan 

Are  always  going  out, 
They  run  from  call  to  concert, 

They  drive  from  ball  to  rout: 
But  Philada,  my  Philada! 

Has  no  such  round  perennial 
Save  when,  in  every  dozen  years, 

She  gets  up  a  Centennial. 

My  Philada,  my  Philada ! 

Although  it  be  so  grand, 
The  style  of  all  Manhattan 

I  do  not  understand ; 
I  care  not  what  the  fashion 

Of  all  the  world  may  be, 
For  Philada  —  for  Philada, 

Is  all  the  world  to  me ! 


G.  F.  Jones. 


Love  In  Leap-Year. 


SHE  asked  him  once,  she  asked  him  twice, 

She  asked  him  thrice  to  wed. 
He  thought  her  friendship  "  very  nice," 

But  each  time  shook  his  head. 

At  last,  when  he  felt  more  inclined 

The  wedded  state  to  try, 
He  told  her  he  had  changed  his  mind ; 

But  she  said,  "  So  have  I." 

Keniper  Bocock. 

Divided. 

I  BREATHE  to-night  the  icy  blast 

That  blows  o'er  wintry  meadows  wide: 

You  scent  the  orange -bloom  and  rose, 
A  far,  Floridian  stream  beside. 

Yet  were  I  there,  or  were  you  here  — 
But  an  arm's  reach  from  heart  to  heart  — 

What  should  we  gain  ?  we  still  would  be 
Lost  love !   the  width  of  our  fate  apart ! 

C.  E.  S. 

The  Tale  of  the  Tiger  still  drags  its  slow 
length  along ! 

WHEN  my  wife  flies  into  a  passion, 
And  her  anger  waxes  wroth, 

I  think  of  the  Lady  and  Tiger 
And  sigh  that  I  chose  them  both  ! 

M.  S.  Hopson. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


LATE    HEAD-MASTER    OF     UPPINGHAM     SCHOOL. 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI. 


SEPTEMBER,   1888. 


No.  5. 


UPPINGHAM. 


AN     ANCIENT    SCHOOL    WORKED    ON     MODERN    IDEAS. 


8EAI.  Of  UPPINGKAM  SCHOO 


TTITHERTO  the  great pub- 
He  schools  of  England 
have  been  looked  upon 
by  the  people  of  America 
rather  as  objects  of  anti- 
quarian interest  than  as 
offering  a  most  important 
field  of  study  in  connec- 
tion with  the  complex 
problem  of  education. 
The  adoption  of  the 
Norman  castle  as  a  type  of  domestic  archi- 
tecture in  America  would  scarcely  be  re- 
garded as  a  greater  anachronism  than  an 
attempt  to  reproduce  in  our  systems  of  edu- 
cation anything  like  Eton  and  its  methods. 

Reproduction,  however,  is  one  thing;  the 
study  of  underlying  principles,  with  a  view  to 
adaptation,  quite  another.  Educational  ques- 
tions are  not  so  entirely  settled  among  us  that 
we  can  afford  to  overlook  the  lessons  to  be 
learned  from  methods  and  institutions  which 
have  filled  a  great  place  in  educational  history; 
which  have  left  their  stamp  strongly  upon  the 
English  character;  which  have  trained  many 
of  the  ablest  men  of  modern  times ;  which  still 
hold,  in  spite  of  their  openness  to  criticism  in 
detail,  a  safe  place  in  the  estimation  of  a  most 
practical  people ;  and  which  are  now,  in  many 
cases,  showing  themselves  capable  of  adapta- 
tion to  the  new  wants  and  new  ideas  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  even  while  clinging  to 
some  of  the  traditions  of  the  fifteenth  and  the 
sixteenth.  Not  only  are  the  great  schools  of 
England  still  strongly  intrenched  in  the  favora- 
ble opinion  of  the  public  on  which  they  chiefly 
depend  for  support,  but  the  system  on  which 
they  are  based  —  that  of  educating  boys  away 
from  home — has  of  late  years  had  an  immense 


development.  Old  foundations  have  been  re- 
suscitated, and  new  ones  created  on  a  large 
scale  and  in  great  numbers.  Whole  classes  6f 
English  society,  which  a  generation  ago  would 
not  have  thought  of  using  them,  now  look  to 
these  schools  as  the  best  instruments  of  edu- 
cation within  their  reach.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  mercantile  class,  which  is  usually 
looked  upon  as  the  most  practical  of  all.  De- 
velopment of  this  kind  rarely  occurs  without 
a  sufficient  cause,  and  where  there  is  such  vi- 
tality there  must  be  permanent  underlying 
principles  of  strength  which  deserve  at  least 
attentive  study.  This  study  we  on  this  conti- 
nent have  not  yet  given  to  that  special  aspect 
of  educational  work  which  the  English  public 
school  takes  as  its  peculiar  province. 

Everywhere  throughout  America  we  find 
boarding-schools  for  boys — sometimes  worked 
under  denominational  auspices ;  oftener,  per- 
haps, owing  their  temporary  existence  or  meas- 
ure of  success  to  the  enterprise  or  energy  of  in- 
dividual teachers.  Few  have  a  long  history  or 
a  fixed  reputation,  and  fewer  still  realize  any- 
thing like  an  ideal  completeness  as  instruments 
of  education.  Yet  it  may  be  affirmed  that  the 
organization  of  boarding-schools  on  an  educa- 
tionally scientific  basis,  with  a  view  to  the 
most  complete  efficiency,  is  a  matter  of  na- 
tional importance,  because  they  answer  to  a 
permanent  national  want.  This  will  appear 
from  the  following  considerations. 

In  any  large  and  highly  organized  commu- 
nity there  must  always  be  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  people  whose  duties  or  circumstances 
are  such  as  to  destroy  the  character  of  home 
as  a  suitable  place  for  educational  training.  In 
Great  Britain,  for  instance,  military  and  naval 
officers,  with  Indian,  diplomatic,  and  colonial 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.     All  rights  reserved. 


644 


UPPINGHAM, 


officials,  cannot  look  forward  to  having  their 
children  educated  under  their  own  eyes.  Men 
in  political  life,  distracted  by  the  excitements 
of  their  work,  and  usually  migrating  from  coun- 
try to  town  with  the  legislative  seasons,  are 
scarcely  better  off.  The  preference  of  th^ 
landed  proprietors  of  England  for  living  on 
their  own  estates  involves  educational  isola- 
tion, and  makes  it  necessary  that  boys  should 
be  sent  away  for  training.  Here  we  have  al- 
ready a  very  large  body  of  people  for  whom 
the  public  school,  with  its  provision  for  home 
care,  as  well  as  mental  training,  is  practically 
a  necessity.  A  larger  question  of  expediency 
still  remains.  The  sons  of  the  wealthy  very 
seldom  get  a  fair  chance  for  training  in  their 
own  homes.  Luxury,  social  distractions,  the 
excessive  environment  of  dependents,  all 
militate  against  mental  industry  and  moral 
tone.  It  is  this  consideration  which  leads  the 
average  Englishman  of  wealth  to  send  his  boy 
away  from  home  to  the  simpler  life  and  stead- 
ier discipline  of  the  public  school. 

It  will  be  at  once  admitted  that  like  con- 
ditions widely  prevail  throughout  America, 
with  a  distinct  tendency  to  increase.  A  fair 
chance  for  training  is  rendered  impossible  in 
great  numbers  of  homes  from  mere  circum- 
stances of  occupation  or  location,  many  forms 
of  which  will  readily  occur  to  the  reader.  The 
vast  increase  of  wealth,  also,  has  led  to  a  de- 
gree of  domestic  luxury,  extending  over  large 
social  areas,  incompatible  with  healthful  home 
training  for  boys.  It  is  probably  Utopian  even 


to  hope  that  the  lives  and  habits  of  the  rich 
will  be  revolutionized  to  meet  the  educational 
necessities  of  their  children.  The  thought 
may  be  carried  a  step  farther.  Without  under- 
rating the  healthful  influence  of  a  good  home, 
it  may  yet  be  urged  that  able  men  and  women, 
specially  trained  to  deal  with  the  young,  de- 
voting their  thought  and  time  through  life  to 
the  theory  and  practice  of  education,  in  thor- 
oughly equipped  institutions  where  the  whole 
daily  life  is  kept  subsidiary  to  the  main  work 
of  training,  ought  to  attain  results  not  to  be 
expected  from  the  irregular  and  undisciplined 
superintendence  of  even  conscientious  par- 
ents. This  is  only  to  say  that  skill  counts 
for  as  much  in  the  training  of  the  young  as 
it  does  in  any  other  business  of  life.  In  our 
day-schools  the  laxity  of  home  life  too  often 
neutralizes  the  best  efforts  of  the  best  teach- 
ers ;  skill  ought  to  find  its  fairest  opportunity 
where  it  can  make  the  home  life  and  the 
school  life  work  hand  in  hand. 

Without  pressing  this  view  to  its  ultimate 
conclusion,  it  may  yet  be  claimed  that  the 
wealthy  classes  of  America  have  never  yet  fully 
realized  the  duty,  or  faced  the  difficult  prob- 
lem, of  providing  for  their  children  some  suf- 
ficient corrective  for  the  enervating  influences 
which  surround  them.  A  representative  Amer- 
ican thinker  lately  said  to  me,  that,  contrasting 
the  operation  of  Anglo-Saxon  institutions  in 
England  with  those  in  America,  the  most  im- 
portant result,  in  his  opinion,  with  which  we 
may  credit  ourselves  on  this  continent  is  the 


UPPINGHAM. 


UPPINGHAM. 


<H5 


THE    CHAPEL    ENTRANCE. 


facility  of  individual  movement  from  the  bot- 
tom to  the  top  of  the  social  scale.  This  is  a 
broad,  patent  fact,  which  underlies  and  largely 
causes  that  hopeful  energy  which  permeates 
even  the  lower  strata  of  society  in  America,  and 
forms  a  striking  contrast  to  the  social  inertia 
and  consequent  mental  inactivity  of  the  lower 
classes  of  England.  I  think,  however,  that  we 
are  bound  to  qualify  our  satisfaction  on  this 
point  by  the  equally  manifest  fact  that  the  facil- 
ity of  descent  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the 
same  social  scale  is  infinitely  greater  in  Amer- 
ica than  in  England.  Taking  our  society  as  a 
whole,  there  is  comparatively  little  conserva- 
tion of  force  and  culture  along  family  lines. 
The  weakening  influences  of  wealth  and  high 


social  position  on  the  young  have  no  adequate 
corrective.  The  ruling  names  in  the  society 
or  politics  of  one  generation  seldom  repeat 
themselves  in  the  next.  Each  generation  has 
to  hew  its  best  class  out  of  rough  material 
taken  from  beneath.  Now  success  in  life 
which  fails  to  transmit  as  an  inheritance  force 
or  culture  or  superiority  of  some  kind  has 
failed  in  that  point  which  makes  success  most 
of  all  desirable.  Society  itself  is  an  immense 
loser  where  the  results  of  success  end  with  the 
individual.  It  is  a  national  calamity  when  the 
grand  advantages  given  by  wealth  for  attain- 
ing personal  excellence  are  thrown  away. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  rich  Eng- 
lishman finds  for  his  children  in  the  great  pub- 


646 


UPPINGHAM. 


lie  schools  the  best  antidote  for  the  enervating 
influences  of  wealth.  It  may  be  a  schoolmas- 
ter's view,  but  I  have  a  firm  conviction  that 
these  schools  have  long  been,  and  are,  the 
real  salvation  of  the  upper  classes  of  English 
society.  Here  a  boy  drops  rank,  wealth,  lux- 
ury, and  for  eight  or  ten  years,  and  for  the 
greater  part  of  each  of  these  years,  lives  among 
his  equals  in  an  atmosphere  of  steady  disci- 
pline, which  usually  compels  a  simple  and  hardy 
life,  and  in  a  community  where  the  prizes  and 
applause  are  divided  about  equally  between 
mental  energy  and  physical  vigor.  Here  re- 
spect and  obedience  become  habitual  to  him  ; 
he  learns  to  regard  the  rights  of  others  and 
to  defend  his  own,  to  stand  upon  his  feet  in 
the  most  democratic  of  all  societies  —  a  boy 
republic.  Above  all,  he  escapes  the  mental 
and  moral  suffocation  from  which  it  is  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  guard  boys  in  rich  and 
luxurious  homes. 

If  it  be  admitted  that  home,  in  a  great  num- 
ber of  cases,  is  not  a  fit  place  for  training,  then 
the  question  of  providing  the  best  possible 
substitute  for  home  becomes  one  of  the  first 
importance.  What  is  the  best  type  of  board- 
ing school  ?  For  an  answer  we  naturally  turn 
to  the  great  English  schools,  with  their  expe- 
rience of  centuries.  Limitations,  however,  to 
our  field  of  study  at  once  present  themselves,  if 


we  keep  in  view  the  idea  of  adaptation  to  the 
wants  of  this  continent.  One  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished head-masters  of  modern  England 
said  to  me  a  few  years  ago,  that  in  the  great 
foundation  over  which  he  ruled  he  saw  clearly 
enough  numbers  of  things  which  cried  out  for 
reform,  but  that  his  hands  were  almost  com- 
pletely tied  by  the  strength  of  tradition  and 
public  prejudice.  Few  men  are  ready  to  make 
so  frank  a  confession,  yet  there  is  no  doubt 
that  this  one  might  truly  be  made  by  most  of 
the  masters  of  the  famous  schools  of  England, 
the  greatness  of  which  has  been  achieved  in 
spite  of  great  structural  defects.  For  a  type 
we  want  to  find  some  place  where  tradition 
and  prejudice  have  not  been  allowed  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  something  like  theoretical  com- 
pleteness in  structure  and  development.  It 
is  my  purpose  in  the  following  pages  to  de- 
scribe such  a  school — one  in  which  the  best 
spirit  and  traditions  of  the  old  foundations 
have  been  preserved,  but  to  which  the  persist- 
ent endeavors  of  a  great  educational  re- 
former have  given  a  structural  completeness 
which  will,  I  believe,  bear  the  strict  analysis 
of  educational  science.  If  I  am  criticised  for 
asserting  that  the  ideas  on  which  its  structure 
is  based  mark  a  great  advance  on  anything 
that  has  gone  before,  and  almost  an  epoch  in 
educational  practice,  I  would  only  ask  that 


ELIZABETH     SCHOOL-HOUSE,    1584. 


UPPINGHAM. 


647 


ANOTHER    VIEW    OF    THE    OLD    SCHOOL. 


criticism  may  be  preceded  by  actual  investiga- 
tion of  the  facts. 

The  small  market-town  of  Uppingham  is 
situated  in  Rutland,  one  of  the  smaller  mid- 
land counties  of  England.  Its  situation  on 
higher  ground,  to  which  it  owes  its  name,  gives 
it  a  fresh  and  bracing  air,  which  is  no  slight 
consideration  in  fixing  upon  a  suitable  location 
for  a  large  school.  Here  Uppingham  school 
was  founded  "  by  God's  grace,"  as  the  first 
words  of  the  old  statutes  say,  in  the  year  1584, 
by  Robert  Johnson,  afterwards  archdeacon  of 
Leicester.  By  him  it  was  endowed  as  a  "  faire, 
free  grammar  school,"  with  certain  lands  and 
properties.  Queen  Elizabeth's  charter  dates 
from  1587.  The  control  of  the  school  was 
placed  in  a  trust,  and  the  dignity  of  heredi- 
tary patron  was  to  remain  in  the  family  of  the 
founder.  At  the  celebration  of  the  tercente- 
nary of  the  school  in  1884,  the  patron's  chair 
was  taken  by  A.  C.  Johnson,  Esq.,  the  present 
English  representative  of  the  family.  His  son, 
the  next  in  succession,  is  now  a  pupil  in  the 
school,  and  has  already  been  dubbed  "  Found- 
er "  by  his  playmates.  It  may  interest  Ameri- 
can readers  to  know  that  Uppingham  claims, 
through  its  founder's  family,  some  connection 
with  early  New  England  history.  Isaac  John- 
son, a  grandson  of  the  archdeacon  and  one 
of  the  governors  of  the  school,  married  Lady 


Arabella  Fiennes,  daughter  ol  the  Earl  of 
Lincoln,  and  in  1630  they  came  with  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop  to  New  England,  having  in- 
vested a  large  sum  of  money  in  the  scheme  for 
founding  the  colony.  Both  husband  and  wife 
died  within  a  few  months  of  their  arrival. 
From  Robert  Johnson,  who  settled  in  New 
Haven  about  1636,  there  has  been  a  contin- 
uous line  of  descent  in  America.  From  him 
was  descended  Samuel  Johnson,  D.  D.  (Ox- 
ford), the  first  Episcopal  clergyman  in  Con- 
necticut, and  the  first  president  of  King's 
(afterwards  Columbia)  College,  New  York 
City,  and  William  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D. 
(Yale),  who  was  a  member  of  the  convention 
that  framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  was  the  first  United  States  sena- 
tor from  Connecticut.  Of  this  branch  of  the 
family  there  are  many  American  represen- 
tatives. 

Interesting  as  they  are  from  an  antiquarian 
point  of  view,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  speak 
here  more  particularly  of  the  original  founder 
and  his  scheme  for  the  establishment  of  the 
school.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  those  who 
have  built  the  modern  Uppingham  on  Robert 
Johnson's  foundation  have  drawn  strong  in- 
spiration from  the  feeling  that  their  work  had 
its  origin  far  back  in  a  worthy  past,  and  that 
they  were  only  enlarging  the  noble  design  of  a 


648 


UPPINGHAM. 


generous  Christian  man.  The  annual  income 
at  present  from  the  original  endowment  is 
about  _^iooo.  The  smallness  of  this  sum,  as 
compared  with  the  endowments  of  some  of 
the  great  schools,  brings  out  in  striking  re- 
lief the  odds  against  which  Uppingham  has 
had  to  contend,  and  the  sound  business  as 
well  as  educational  principles  on  which  the 


wrote  an  address  to  the  teachers  of  Minnesota. 
To  those  who  have  thus  become  familiar  with 
his  views  on  education,  some  record  of  his  ac- 
tual work  will  doubtless  be  doubly  interesting. 
Nine  years  as  a  boy  at  Eton,  where  he  be- 
came head  of  the  sixth  form  and  captain  of 
the  school,  with  subsequent  work  as  examiner 
at  both  Eton  and  Rugby,  gave  him  a  sufficient 


HEAD-MASTER'S  HOUSE. 


remarkable  growth  of  the  school  has  taken 
place. 

For  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  after 
its  foundation  the  school  was  carried  on  with 
fortunes  varying  with  the  ability  and  energy 
of  successive  masters,  having  on  its  rolls  many 
names  afterwards  distinguished  in  church  and 
state.  In  1853  Edward  Thring*  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  head-mastership.  This  may  be 
fixed  as  the  date  of  the  second  founding  of  the 
school.  Mr.  Thring's  name  is  already  widely 
known  in  America  through  his  two  books, 
"  Education  and  School  "  and  "  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Teaching,"  the  latter  of  which  has 
been  adopted  as  a  text-book  in  at  least  one  im- 
portant normal  school  of  the  Western  States. 
Last  year,  in  response  to  an  invitation,  he 


insight  into  the  good  and  bad  of  public-school 
life.  Later,  in  connection  with  clerical  duties, 
teaching  in  the  national  schools  gave  him  prac- 
tice in  dealing  with  the  minds  of  children,  and 
aroused  that  enthusiasm  for  training  boys 
which  has  inspired  him  in  his  efforts  after  re- 
form in  school  methods.  When  he  entered 
upon  his  work  at  Uppingham  there  were  in 
the  school  25  boarders  only,  and  these,  with 
5  or  6  scholars  from  the  village,  made  up  the 
material  on  which  he  had  to  begin.  The  field 
was  small,  but  a  man  had  come  who  had  de- 
cisive views  about  education,  and  witli  faith, 
courage,  and  will  to  match  the  strength  of  his 
convictions.  Around  such  a  man  the  horizon 
widens.  Mr.  Thring's  experience  is  unique  in 
the  school  history  of  England.  In  his  own 


*  Mr.  Thring  died  in  October,  1887,  after  this  arti-  acter  which  have  appeared  in  the  leading  journals  of 

cle  was  completed.     It  has  been  considered  best  to  England  and  America  prove  that  the  devotion  of  per- 

let  the  paper  appear  without  any  change.     The  trib-  sonal  friendship  did  not  lead  me  to  overrate  the  sig- 

utes  to  the  greatness  of  Mr.  Thring's  work  and  char-  nificance  of  his  life's  work. 


UPPINGHAM. 


649 


BOYS'  HALL,   HEAD-MASTER'S  HOUSE. 


lifetime,  and  as  the  result  of  his  thirty-two 
years  of  work,  he  has  seen  Uppingham,  in  open 
competition  with  foundations  of  enormous 
wealth  and  fame,  lifted  from  its  place  as  a  lo- 
cal grammar  school  into  the  very  front  rank 
of  English  public  schools.  People  call  this  a 
marvelous  triumph  of  personal  force  and  en- 
ergy. Mr.  Thring  himself  would  repudiate 
such  an  explanation  as  inadequate,  and  claim 
that  his  success  is  a  triumph  of  principle.  Be- 
tween these  views  we  need  not  decide.  Noth- 
ing but  a  powerful  personality  could  have  ac- 
complished such  a  work,  but  the  greater  merit 
may  have  lain  in  breaking  through  the  thick 
crust  of  custom,  tradition,  and  prejudice  which 
in  wrap  public-school  life  in  England,  and  so 
finding  a  solid  foundation  of  educational  prin- 
ciple on  which  to  build.  That  Mr.  Thring  has 
proved,  in  both  theory  and  practice,  that  such 
a  foundation  exists,  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt.  His  work  at  Uppingham  has  centered 
around  two  or  three  clear  and  sharply  defined 
ideas — some  principles  of  educational  conduct 
which  may  be  looked  upon  as  fundamental 
and  universal.  The  first  of  these,  and  that 
from  which  everything  else  springs,  is  simple 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 90. 


enough.  It  is  that  every  boy,  stupid  and  clever 
alike,  should  have  a  fair  chance  and  should 
be  really  trained.  Mr.  Thring  claims  that  no 
school,  however  great  its  prestige,  numbers, 
wealth,  or  its  list  of  prize-winners,  can  be  called 
a  good  school,  or  even  an  honest  school,  un- 
less it  makes  this  a  first  condition  of  its  work. 
The  importance  of  the  principle  cannot  be 
overestimated.  Fully  accepted  and  acted  upon 
it  would  revolutionize  most  of  the  schools  of 
England,  and  probably  most  of  those  in  Amer- 
ica. No  true  judgment  of  a  school's  real  mer- 
its can  be  formed  from  its  prize-winning 
record.  Given  a  school  which  draws  some 
hundreds  of  boys  from  classes  of  society  where 
the  earlier  training  is  fairly  good,  let  it  have 
wealth  enough  to  attract  a  number  of  ex- 
ceptionally able  teachers,  turn  the  teaching 
power  of  these  upon  even  a  small  proportion 
of  the  cleverest  pupils,  and  you  may  have  a 
school  with  an  overwhelming  list  of  univer- 
sity and  other  scholastic  distinctions,  while 
the  mass  of  the  boys  are  almost  entirely  neg- 
lected. That  this  picture  does  not  unfairly 
represent  the  work  of  some  famous  schools  is 
a  known  fact.  That  the  evil  of  giving  training 


650 


UPPINGHAM. 


UPPINGHAM    MARKET-PLACK. 


to  the  strong  at  the  expense  of  the  weak,  who 
are  allowed  to  go  to  the  wall,  prevails  in  the 
majority  of  schools,  small  and  great,  will 
scarcely  be  denied. 

Justice,  then,  which  means  adequate  indi- 
vidual training  for  each  boy,  is  the  central  idea 
of  Uppingham,  and  all  the  arrangements  and 
machinery  of  the  school  are  directed  to  this 
end.  The  first  step  towards  securing  it  is  by 
putting  a  strict  limit  upon  the  size  of  each 
class.  Mr.  Thring  fixes  the  maximum  size  of  a 
class  at  about  twenty.  This  is  large  enough 
to  give  the  stimulus  of  numbers  and  competi- 
tion; it  is  not  too  large,  if  the  class  is  properly 
graded,  to  prevent  individual  attention  and 
training.  A  school  which  in  its  main  subjects 
of  instruction,  such  as  classics  and  mathemat- 
ics, places  numbers  much  larger  than  this 
under  a  single  teacher,  is  able  to  pay  larger 
salaries,  but  it  does  so  at  the  expense  of  effi- 
ciency in  individual  training.  The  applica- 
tion of  the  same  principle  to  the  boarding 
of  the  boys  does  away  at  once  with  every- 
thing that  savors  of  the  old  barrack  methods, 
once  universal  and  still  only  too  common, 
under  which  numbers  of  .boys  were  herded 
together  in  large  buildings,  with  little  do- 
mestic supervision,  and  no  opportunity  for 
seclusion.  Numbers  are  necessary  for  a  great 
school,  and  contact  with  his  fellows  is  essen- 
tial to  a  boy's  getting  the  full  advantage  of  pub- 
lic-school life;  but  unwieldy  numbers  make  dis- 
cipline difficult  and  training  impossible,  while 
unchecked  contact  with  a  mass  of  thoughtless 


natures  breaks  some  characters  even 
though  it  strengthens  others.  At  Upping- 
ham the  number  of  boys  in  a  single  house 
is  restricted  to  thirty.  This  enables  the 
master  and  mistress  of  such  a  house  to 
take  a  personal  interest  in  each  boy,  and 
to  surround  all  with  something  of  the  re- 
fining and  humanizing  influences  of  home. 
As  the  houses  are  intended  to  be  homes, 
they  are  not  grouped  together  in  a  block 
or  quadrangle,  but  are  built  separately; 
each  with  grounds  of  its  own,  and  with 
such  surroundings  as  the  taste  of  the 
house-master  suggests  or  his  means  allow. 
A  visitor  misses  at  Uppingham  the  impos- 
ing blocks  of  buildings  which  character- 
ize other  great  schools,  but  in  the  eleven 
handsome  villas  scattered  within  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  of  the  main  school-buildings 
he  sees  something  far  better  adapted  for 
the  training  of  young  lives.  The  advan- 
tages of  this  arrangement  are  manifold. 
There  is  less  chance  for  large  combina- 
tions for  purposes  of  insubordination  or 
evil  of  any  kind.  The  house-master  has  a 
more  independent  field  of  work.  He  can- 
not shift  the  responsibility  for  ineffective 
discipline  on  any  one  else,  and  the  credit  for 
good  results  is  all  his  own.  Each  house  has 
a  reputation  of  its  own  to  maintain,  and  this 
leads  to  a  healthy  rivalry  both  in  studies  and  in 
athletic  games,  which  in  turn  fosters  sympathy 
between  the  master  and  his  pupils.  As  in  the 
limited  class,  so  in  the  separate  house,  justice 
can  be  done  to  the  individual  life,  and  the 
weaker  are  allowed  a  fair  chance.  There  is  a 
further  safeguard  still  in  the  provision  made 
for  the  private  life  of  the  boy,  by  a  method 
simple  enough  in  itself,  but  of  the  deepest  sig- 
nificance as  an  aid  to  training.  Each  boy  in 
Uppingham  has  a  study  of  his  own, —  inten- 
tionally made  quite  small,  usually  about  five 
feet  by  six, —  which  is  meant  to  be  for  him  a 
real  sanctum,  a  little  home,  where  he  can  be 
alone  when  he  wishes,  either  for  study  or  for 


UPPINGHAM. 


651 


that  retirement  which  boys  as  well  as  men  need 
at  intervals  in  order  to  collect  anew  their  moral 
forcesduring  the  rough  struggles  and  the  temp- 
tations of  daily  life.  These  studies  are  entirely 
separate  from  the  sleeping-apartments.  For 
the  latter,  the  small  dormitory,  holding  a  very 
limited  number  of  boys,  is  adopted  for  sanitary 
and  other  reasons;  but  here,  too,  the  idea  of 
individual  privacy  is  maintained  by  providing 
separate  compartments  for  each  boy.  It  is 
found  that  the  house  space  required  for  giving 
each  boy  this  separate  study  and  sleeping- 
compartment  is  not  much  greater  than  what 
is  needed  for  the  ordinary  bedroom  arrange- 


or  cowed,  to  sensitive  boys  a  danger  among 
the  most  difficult  of  all  to  deal  with  in  a  great 
public  school.  The  arrangement  of  these  stud- 
ies, which  are  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
features  of  the  school,  varies  in  the  different 
houses  according  to  architectural  exigencies. 
In  the  head-master's  house  they  surround  a 
quadrangle,  and  with  their  overgrowing  masses 
of  ivy  give  a  very  picturesque  effect.  The  great 
taste  and  care  very  commonly  shown  in  their 
adornment  with  flowers  and  home  pictures 
prove  that  they  touch  deeply  in  the  boys  the 
instincts  of  personal  ownership. 

A  school  never  ought  to  depend  for  its 


THE    SCHOOL     ENTRANCE. 


ment.   The  advantages  of  the  Uppingham  sys- 
tem are  great. 

The  disuse  of  the  dormitories  by  day  makes 
perfect  ventilation  possible.  As  the  boy  takes 
his  meals  in  the  hall,  and  sleeps  in  the  dormi- 
tory, his  study  becomes  a  private  sitting-room 
where  his  books,  furniture,  and  material  for 
work  need  be  disturbed  but  little  from  day  to 
day.  The  small  size  of  the  studies  prevents 
the  congregation  of  numbers,  and  makes  strict 
rules  upon  this  point  easy  and  natural  —  an 
important  fact  for  the  masters  in  respect  of  dis- 
cipline; important  too  for  the  boy,  as  giving 
him  security  from  the  bullying  or  persecution 
of  a  crowd  by  which  he  might  be  overmatched 


character  on  the  exceptional  excellence  or 
success  of  a  few  of  its  masters.  If  it  does, 
these  few  reputations  may  become  cloaks  for 
a  vast  amount  of  poor  work,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  school,  as  a  school,  is  a  sham,  with- 
out any  element  of  fixity  in  it.  The  ordinary 
arrangements  should  have  a  strong  tendency, 
at  least,  to  insure  sound  work,  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest  class.  The  method  at  Upping- 
ham by  which  it  is  attempted  to  fix  this  tend- 
ency is  of  special  interest.  The  house-master 
is  not,  necessarily,  either  the  public  or  the  pri- 
vate tutor  of  the  boys  under  his  domestic  care. 
He  has  his  own  form  or  grade  in  the  school, 
drawn,  perhaps,  from  all  the  houses,  while  his 


6S2 


UPPINGHAM. 


CARPENTER-SHOP. 


boarders  are,  for  tutorial  purposes,  distributed, 
according  to  their  standing,  among  all  the 
masters. 

Thus  each  class-master  has  but  one  class  to 
teach,  and  being  private  tutor  as  well  as  pub- 
lic teacher  for  his  class,  his  responsibility  for 
its  work  is  absolute,  and  cannot  be  shifted  to 
other  shoulders,  as  under  the  Eton  method, 
where  the  private  tutor's  work  is  distinct  from 
the  school  teaching.  He  has  also  but  one 
range  of  subjects  to  teach,  in  itself  an  impor- 
tant guaranty  of  efficiency.  His  success,  how- 
ever, must  always  depend  on  the  effective 
teaching  of  each  class-master  below  him, 
through  whose  hands  his  form  has  come,  and 
in  whose  work  he  therefore  has  the  deepest 
personal  interest.  Again,  each  house-master 
has  the  same  interest  in  the  efficiency  of  the 
class-masters  who  have  charge  of  his  boys. 
Thus  the  whole  moral  pressure  of  the  staff  in- 
clines towards  compelling  good  work  from  the 
top  to  the  bottom  of  the  school.  A  man  as  a 
house-master  has  to  maintain  towards  the  par- 
ents who  form  his  constituency  his  reputation 
for  discipline  and  wholesome  moral  influence 
on  the  boys  under  his  charge;  as  a  class-mas- 
ter, not  only  towards  the  supporters 
of  the  school,  but  towards  the 
whole  body  of  teachers  of  whom 
he  is  one.  Thus  the  great  school 
becomes  a  unit,  its  character  a 
measurable  quantity — the  tend- 
ency of  its  structure  towards  ef- 
fective work  throughout.  A  school 
can,  in  my  opinion,  have  no  higher 
merit. 

"The  limits  of  a  first-rate  public 
school  in  point  of  numbers,"  says 
Mr.  Thring,  "  are  just  as  well  de- 
fined, and  as  capable  of  proof,  as 


the  limits  of  a  first-rate  class."  It 
must  be  large  enough  to  attract  and 
permanently  retain  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  able  men,  capable  of  doing 
high-class  work,  and  give  them  ade- 
quate remuneration  for  making  train- 
ing the  business  of  their  lives.  But 
it  must  not  be  so  large  as  not  to  be 
able  to  do  all  its  work  well.  A  chief 
factor  in  the  consideration  is  the 
period  during  which  boys  attend 
school.  In  the  great  English  schools 
which  mainly  prepare  for  the  uni- 
versities, the  ordinary  limits  of  age 
are  from  ten  to  nineteen.  For  good 
class  work,  combined  with  efficient 
individual  training,  it  is  essential  that 
no  boy  should  be  far  in  advance  of 
his  class  or  far  behind  it.  To  provide 
for  proper  gradation,  there  ought  to 
be  a  class  for  each  half-year.  A  school, 
then,  which  keeps  boys  from  icto  igmusthave 
about  16  classes.  As  no  class  should  number 
more  than  20,  and  the  upper  classes  tend  to 
drop  considerably  below  this,  it  follows  that  a 
school  undertaking  to  do  first-class  work  over 
this  number  of  years  should  have  not  much 
more  or  much  less  than  300  boys.  With 
smaller  numbers  teaching  power  is  wasted,  for 
the  number  of  classes  must  be  maintained 
if  justice  is  to  be  done  to  those  of  every  age. 
With  larger  numbers  the  teacher  is  over- 
weighted and  the  individual  pupil  neglected. 
In  smaller  schools  a  narrower  limit  placed  on 
the  ages  of  attendance,  proportioned  to  the 
size  of  the  staff,  alone  can  secure  similar  effi- 
ciency. This  argument  seems  conclusive,  and 
is,  in  effect,  only  applying  to  a  large  boarding- 
school  the  system  of  grading  familiar  to  us  in 
our  best-organized  day-schools.  Taking  his 
stand  on  this  principle,  Mr.  Thring  has  fixed 
about  three  hundred  as  the  maximum  attend 
ance  which  he  will  permit  at  Uppingham.  To 
abide  steadily  by  such  a  principle  has  required 
no  little  resolution  and  self-sacrifice.  When 
once  a  school  has  achieved  a  great  reputa- 
tion the  temptation  to  trade  on  that  reputation 


SWIMMING-BATH. 


UPPINGHAM. 


653 


is  very  strong.  Greater  numbers  in  the  houses  tellect.  Our  ordinary  day-schools  cannot  hope 
and  in  the  classes  means  greater  glory  for  the  to  do  this  in  a  like  degree.  In  the  few  hours 
school,  with  larger  incomes  and  a  greater  per-  during  whjch  the  teacher  has  charge  of  his 


centageof  profit  for  the  masters. 

A  large  increase  in  the  school  means  wealth 


pupils  he  strives   to   engage  their  attention, 
tram  their  faculties,  and,  if  possible,  reach  to 


in  the  form  of  capitation  tees  for   the  head-    some  extent  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head. 
master.    The  example  of  some  of  the  great    Then  they  go  back  to  an  infinite  variety  of 


A    DRAWING-CLASS. 


schools  is  not  such  as  to  encourage  resistance 
to  such  temptation.  At  Uppingham,  however, 
it  has  been  put  quietly  aside,  because  it  was  in 
conflict  with  the  idea  of  justice  to  each  boy. 
The  head-masters  and  teachers  of  such  a 
school  may  not  carry  away  from  it  the  wealth 
which  is  often  gained  from  crowded  houses 
and  classes,  but  they  will  carry  away  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  established  a  great  edu- 
cational principle,  and  the  knowledge  that  their 
system  is  and  will  continue  to  be  a  standing 
protest  against  receiving  pay  for  work  which  is 
not  and  can  not  be  done. 

It  should  be  added  that,  outside  of  the  con- 
clusive reasons  just  given.  Mr.  Thring  claims 
that  three  hundred  boys  is  the  limit  of  num- 
bers that  a  head-master  can  know  personally, 
and  that  to  such  only  can  he  really  be  head- 
master. If  he  does  not  know  the  boys,  the  mas- 
ter who  does  is  their  head-master,  and  his 
also. 

In  passing  on  to  speak  of  other  aspects  of 
Mr.  Thring's  work  at  Uppingham.  and  of  his 
efforts  to  realize  in  actual  working  facts  sound 
theories  in  education,  it  would  perhaps  be  well 
to  remind  the  American  reader  that  the  ac- 
cepted function  of  the  English  public  school 
is  as  much  to  mold  character  as  to  train  in- 


homes  to  spend  far  the  greater  part  of  their  time, 
and  the  character  of  the  home  ordinarily  is 
the  prime  influence  in  determining  the  char- 
acter of  the  child.  Strong  personality  in  a 
teacher,  or  exceptional  circumstances,  may 
indefinitely  intensify  the  influence  of  the  day- 
school  on  character,  but  as  a  rule  it  must  be 
comparatively  superficial.  It  is  otherwise  with 
the  English  public  school. 

Here  a  boy  has  to  pass  much  the  greater 
part  of  his  time  during  the  most  impression- 
able years  of  his  life.  His  schoolmasters, 
schoolfellows,  and  school  surroundings  are 
the  prime  forces  in  molding  his  character. 
He  is  a  member  of  a  small  republic,  with  laws, 
customs,  institutions,  ambitions  of  its  own, 
and  where  the  individual  life  and  the  general 
life  react  upon  each  other  with  singular  in- 
tensity. To  the  school  come  boys  from  every 
kind  of  home :  all  are  to  be  trained,  and  the 
failures  should  be  as  few  as  possible.  The 
responsibility  thrown  upon  the  master  is  enor- 
mous ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  his  work  is  in- 
finitely dignified  by  the  opportunity  which  it 
furnishes  for  supreme  influence  on  character. 
The  head-mastership  of  a  school  of  this  type, 
drawing  some  hundreds  of  boys  from  the  bet- 
ter classes  of  society,  furnishes  a  sufficient  field 


<>54 


UPPINGHAM. 


for  the  very  highest  ability,  and  may  enable 
a  man  to  exercise,  in  the  course  of  a  genera- 
tion, a  perceptible  influence  on  national  char- 
acter. 

But  while  the  responsibility  for  character 
training  as  well  as  intellect  training  makes  the 
demand  for  strong  men  imperative,  it  increases 


is  true.  "  Leisure  hours  are  the  key  of  life," 
and  in  a  good  public  school  they  must  be  pro- 
vided for  as  carefully  as  any  others.  Where  a 
school  receives  some  hundreds  of  boys,  each 
one  of  whom,  stupid  or  clever,  it  is  intended 
to  train,  provision  must  be  made  for  diversity 
of  taste  and  ability.  This  is  necessary,  because, 


THE    GREAT     SCHOOL-ROOM. 


in  a  tenfold  degree  the  necessity  that  the  ma- 
chinery of  a  great  school  should  be  as  perfect 
as  possible.  Mr.  Thring's  work  has  largely 
lain  in  working  out  this  problem  of  school 
structure  in  its  bearing  on  character  training. 
To  his  fundamental  principle  that  justice  should 
be  done  to  each  boy,  he  finds  a  natural  cor- 
ollary in  the  maxim  that  high-class  work  can- 
not be  done  over  a  series  of  years  without 
good  tools.  Nothing,  he  claims,  should  be  left 
to  the  ability  of  the  master  that  can  be  accom- 
plished by  mechanical  contrivance.  The  act- 
ual wall  of  brick  or  stone  which  makes  dis- 
cipline easy  or  vice  difficult  is  a  power  for 
good.  The  fact  that  during  Mr.  Thring's  mas- 
tership about  half  a  million  of  dollars  has  been 
invested  at  Uppingham  in  perfecting  the  school 
machinery  proves  that  he  has  in  this  respect 
tried  to  reach  his  own  ideal. 

In  training  the  young,  plenty  of  employ- 
ment is  the  secret  of  a  healthy  moral  life.  It 
is  not  only  for  the  hours  of  work  that  this 


as  every  teacher  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  it 
is  essential  to  the  happy  life  and  healthy  moral 
development  of  a  boy  that  he  should  always 
have  some  field  in  both  work  and  play  where 
he  can  maintain  his  self-respect  among  his 
fellows.  A  lad  who  has  not  the  capacity  to 
excel  in  the  main  studies  of  a  school,  or 
strength  to  distinguish  himself  in  its  hardier 
sports,  may  often  achieve  excellence  in  minor 
subjects  of  study,  or  acquire  skill  in  other  rec- 
reative employments.  A  school  is  not  a  per- 
fect training  place  which  has  to  crush  the 
weak  in  the  process  of  developing  the  strong, 
either  at  work  or  at  play.  It  is  for  these  rea- 
sons, and  in  his  effort  to  do  justice  to  each  boy, 
that  Mr.  Thring,  although  the  stanchest  of  be- 
lievers in  the  preeminent  value  of  classics  as 
an  instrument  for  high  intellectual  training, 
was  yet  among  the  first  to  break  through  the 
tradition  of  Eton  and  the  great  schools  gen- 
erally by  making  large  provision  for  other 
subjects.  French  and  German,  science  and 


Ul'PINGHAM. 


655 


mechanics,  drawing,  painting,  and  music  are 
thus  provided  for.  On  music,  especially,  much 
attention  is  bestowed,  tor  the  sake  of  its  hu- 
manizing tendency  and  its  power  of  adding  to 
the  happiness  of  school  life.  The  work  of  Herr 
1  )avid,  the  accomplished  master  of  this  depart- 
ment, and  of  his  five  assistants,  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  features  of  Uppingham  training. 
( >:ie-f.hird  of  all  the  boys  in  the  school  learn 
instrumental  music.  Every  term  school  con- 
certs are  given,  which  are  real  musical  treats. 
If  any  one  doubts  the  power  of  music  to  stir 
the  hearts  of  masses  of  boys,  and  lift  them  to 
higher  levels  of  thought  and  work,  he  should 
see  Herr  David  controlling  the  enthusiastic  en- 
ergy of  a  hundred  Uppingham  boys  as  they 
sing  to  his  music  the  patriotic  song  which  Mr. 
Thring,  poet  of  the  school  as  well  as  head- 
master, has  composed  for  them,  and  the  spirit 
of  which  may  be  caught  from  one  or  two 
stanzas : 

Ho,  boys,  ho ! 

Gather  round,  together  stand, 
Raise  a  watchword  in  the  land : 
Stand,  my  merry  craftsmen  bold, 
Brothers  of  the  crown  of  gold, 
Wrought  in  stirring  days  of  old, 
England's  crown,  the  crown  of  gold. 
Gold  of  hearts  that  know  no  lie, 
Gold  of  work  that  does  not  die, 
Work  it  new,  boys,  young  and  old. 
Gather,  gather,  near  and  far, 
Uppingham,  hurrah, hurrah! 

Ho,  boys,  ho ! 

Fling  your  banners  broad,  each  fold 
Rich  with  heirlooms  that  we  hold  : 
Honor  lent  us,  as  a  loan, 
Fields  of  thought,  by  others  sown, 
Walls,  of  greatness  not  our  own, 

Where  old  Time 
In  his  belfry  sits  and  rings 
News  of  far-off,  holy  things, 
Memories  of  old,  old  days : 
Sacred  melodies  of  praise 
Swell  triumphant,  as  we  raise 
Watchword  true  in  peace  or  war, 
Uppingham,  hurrah,  hurrah ! 

I  believe  that  Uppingham  makes  fuller  pro- 
vision than  any  other  existing  school  to  meet 
the  necessity  for  diverse  employment  or  healthy 
amusement  outside  of  study  hours.  Until  within 
a  few  years  the  great  schools  mostly  contented 
themselves  with  providing  facilities  for  cricket 
and  foot-ball.  For  these  ample  provision  is 
made  at  Uppingham  in  several  large  playing 
fields,  and  the  cricketers  of  the  school  par- 
ticularly have  won  for  themselves  a  record  so 
distinguished  as  to  prove  conclusively  that 
exclusive  attention  to  this  game  is  not  essen- 
tial to  great  success.  But  Mr.  Thring  was 
perhaps  the  first  head-master  who  fully  realized 
and  acted  upon  the  fact  that  many  a  boy  has 
not  the  stamina  for  these  games  of  strength 
and  skill,  nor  can  he,  by  any  amount  of  forced 


exercise,  be  led  to  take  pleasure  in  them.  The 
gymnasium,  opened  in  1859  under  the  care  of 
a  competent  gymnastic  master,  was  the  first 
possessed  by  any  public  school  in  England. 
For  many  years  the  school  has  had  in  opera- 
tion a  carpentry,  where  any  boy,  by  the  pay- 
ment of  a  small  fee,  can  secure  regular  and 
competent  instruction  in  the  working  of  wood 
and  the  use  of  carpenters'  tools.  In  1882  this 
field  of  useful  manual  occupation  was  enlarged 
by  the  construction  of  a  forge  and  metal  work- 
shop, where  skilled  instruction  is  similarly 
given,  and  a  boy  can  go  far  towards  making 
himself  a  competent  mechanical  engineer.  In 
the  same  category  may  be  included  the  school 
gardens.  These  gardens,  opened  in  1871,  cover 
some  acres,  and  are  laid  out  and  planted  with 
much  taste.  Here  a  boy  may  have  allotted 
to  him  a  small  plot  of  ground  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  plants  and  flowers.  In  connection 
with  the  gardens  is  an  aviary,  where  the  lad 
with  a  taste  for  natural  history  has  an  oppor- 
tunity to  observe  the  life  and  habits  of  a  con- 
siderable collection  of  birds.  A  pretty  stone 
building  looking  out  upon  the  gardens  serves 
as  the  school  sanitarium,  and  if  beautiful  sur- 
roundings conduce  to  health,  Uppingham 
patients  ought  to  recover  rapidly.  The  want 
of  any  stream  of  considerable  size  near  at 
hand  led  to  the  construction,  a  few  years  ago, 
of  large  swimming-baths,  where  the  boys  can 
perfect  themselves  in  an  art  which,  while  it 
does  so  much  to  protect  life,  is  also  of  great 
sanitary  value. 

It  .will  be  admitted,  I  think,  that  a  boy 
must  be  of  an  abnormal  type  if  he  cannot  in 
this  category  find  the  means  of  passing  pleas- 
antly all  his  leisure  hours.  Nor  is  the  provis- 
ion too  elaborate  for  a  great  school  which 
aims  at  training  the  character  of  each  boy. 

There  remain  to  be  mentioned  two  impor- 
tant, and  in  Mr.  Thring's  view  essential,  parts 
of  the-  school  appliances.  The  first  of  these  is 
the  great  school-room,  erected  at  a  cost  of 
^7000,  and  opened  in  1863.  Here  the  school 
can  be  assembled  whenever  it  is  to  be  dealt 
with  as  a  whole,  for  announcements,  addresses, 
the  distribution  of  prizes,  matters  of  general 
discipline,  and  for  the  reception  of  friends 
and  visitors  on  great  occasions.  By  such  a 
place  of  meeting  the  unity  and  dignity  of  a 
great  school  are  brought  out  as  visible  and 
impressive  facts.  At  Uppingham  it  is  made 
to  serve  a  further  purpose.  In  accordance 
with  Mr.  Thring's  idea  that  the  surroundings 
of  school  life  should  be  as  beautiful  as  pos- 
sible, and  such  as  give  honor  to  learning,  this 
room  has  been  decorated  with  a  series  of  elab- 
orate paintings  done  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Rossiter,  chiefly  illustrative  of  the  great 
names  in  ancient  and  modern  literature.  Pre- 


656 


UPPINGHAM. 


THE    CHAPEL. 


siding  at  the  celebration  of  Founder's  Day  in 
1882,  Earl  Carnarvon  said  of  this  room:  "Since 
the  days  of  the  Painted  Porch  in  Athens,  I 
doubt  whether  training  has  ever  been  installed 
more  lovingly,  or  more  truly,  or  in  a  worthier 
home." 

Beside  the  school-room  is  the  chapel,  built 
after  the  designs  of  Mr.  Street,  at  an  expense 
of  _^8ooo.  Such  a  chapel,  large  enough  to 
hold  the  boys,  the  masters,  and  their  families, 
is  needed  to  make  a  school  independent  of 
varying  local  chances  for  religious  services. 
The  power  of  preaching  to  boys  effectively  is 
perhaps  even  a  rarer  gift  than  that  of  teaching 
them  effectively.  Mr.  Thring's  school  sermons, 
of  which  two  volumes  have  been  published, 
are  simple,  vigorous,  and,  as  all  sermons  to  boys 
should  be,  short — rich  in  illustrated  germs  of 
thought  which  might  well  take  root  in  a  boy's 
mind.  Bright  services,  fine  music,  short,  inci- 
sive sermons —  such  associations  could  scarcely 
make  chapel  an  unpleasant  recollection  to  an 
Uppingham  boy.  But  Mr.  Thring  is  too  prac- 


tical and  earnest  a  man 
not  to  feel  that  in  train- 
ing the  young  the  teaching 
of  Christian  theory,  to  be 
most  efficient,  must  have 
its  complement  of  Chris- 
tian effort.  To  Uppingham 
belongs  the  great  honor  of 
having  been  the  first  of  the 
public  schools  to  under- 
take home  mission  work  in 
the  East  End  of  London. 
Since  1869  it  has  contrib- 
uted largely  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  missionary  in 
one  of  the  most  neglected 
districts.  Better  than  this,  it 
has  found  sons  of  its  own 
ready  to  volunteer  for  this 
work  in  places  where  the 
constant  presence  of  dis- 
ease and  misery  tests  to 
the  utmost  the  strength 
of  Christian  enthusiasm. 
Other  schools  have  now 
followed  this  example,  as 
well  as  the  two  universities, 
and  the  movement  is  one 
that  can  scarcely  fail  of 
large  results.  Additional 
f^m  interest  is  given  to  this  out- 

k  y  side   work  by   occasionally 

sending  detachments  of  the 
boys  with  their  music  mas- 
ters to  the  missionary  dis- 
tricts in  London  to  give 
concerts  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor,  thus  drawing  more 
closely  the  bonds  of  sympathy  and  humanizing 
influence.  Assuredly  in  these  times  of  social  up- 
heaval no  training  that  boys  of  the  wealthier 
classes  could  get  can  be  more  useful  than  one 
which  gives  them  a  closer  interest  in  the  mass 
of  poverty  and  paganism  with  which  modern 
society  has  to  deal  in  our  great  cities.  Besides 
this  special  work,  the  school  con  tributes  largely 
to  other  religious  and  philanthropic  enter- 
prises. Such  efforts,  systematically  carried  out, 
seem  to  complete  the  circle  of  provision  for 
the  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  training 
of  the  boys. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  what  has  been 
said  marks  out  the  school  as  an  unqualified  par- 
adise for  boys  of  every  stamp.  I  doubt  very 
much  if  any  effective  school  can  be.  My  feel- 
ing is  that  for  a  boy  disposed  to  be  fairly  in- 
dustrious and  to  obey  law  a  happier  home 
could  not  be  found.  On  the  other  hand,  I  can 
easily  imagine  that  for  an  idle  or  vicious  lad 
it  might  prove  singularly  uncomfortable,  since 
the  individual  attention  for  which  provision  is 


EDWARD    THR1NG. 


657 


made  renders  the  concealment  of  shortcom- 
ings exceptionally  difficult. 

Though  it  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  write 
a  history  of  Uppingham,  yet  one  episode  in  its 
later  career  it  would  be  wrong  to  leave  untold, 
unique  as  it  is  in  school  history,  and  illustrat- 
ing at  once  the  energy  of  its  masters,  the 
adaptability  <>f  its  system  to  new  conditions, 
and  the  loyal  confidence  inspired  by  its  man- 
agement. The  record  is  valuable  also  as 
showing  what  may  be  done  by  a  school  in  a 
great  emergency. 

In  the  autumn  of  1875  an  outbreak  of  fever 
took  place  in  the  town  and  the  school,  and 
some  boys  died.  The  school  was  broken  up, 
and  orders  were  given  to  make  the  sanitary 
arrangements  of  every  portion  of  the  school 
premises  as  perfect  as  possible,  without  regard 
to  expense.  This  was  done  under  the  special 
direction  of  a  government  engineer,  who  cer- 
tified to  the  completeness  of  the  work.  The 
authorities  of  the  town,  however,  declined  to 
join  in  this  attempt  at  perfect  sanitation. 
When  the  school  reassembled,  after  Christ- 
mas, a  new  outbreak  of  fever  proved  that  till 
everything  was  done  nothing  was  done.  It 
was  a  critical  moment.  Already  it  had  begun 
to  "  rain  "  telegrams  from  anxious  parents.  It 
was  plain  that  in  a  few  days  the  houses  might 
be  empty,  the  large  staff  of  teachers  left  without 
employment  or  means  of  support,  and  the 
grand  results  of  twenty-five  years  of  toil  swept 
away  at  once.  A  bold  step  was  conceived  in 
Mr.  Thring's  resolute  mind.  Once  more  the 
school  was  broken  up  for  a  three-weeks'  holi- 
day. With  the  boys  went  to  their  parents  an 


intimation  that  after  Easter  the  school  would 
reopen  in  some  place  then  unknown,  but 
which  would  at  least  be  healthy.  Mean  lime 
search  was  being  made  in  many  directions, 
and  at  length  Borth,  a  small  watering-place 
on  the  Welsh  coast,  was  chosen  as  the  tem- 
porary home  of  the  school.  The  large  sum- 
mer hotel  was  leased,  all  the  spare  space  in  the 
village  cottages  taken,  a  temporary  school- 
room erected,  the  stables  turned  into  a  car- 
pentry —  the  coach-house  into  a  gymnasium  ; 
special  trains  brought  from  Uppingham  the 
household  equipments  for  30  masters,  their 
families,  and  the  300  boys  of  the  school;  and  on 
April  4,  only  20  days  after  the  site  was  secured, 
the  school  resumed  its  work  on  the  wild  Welsh 
coast,  more  than  100  miles  from  its  forsaken 
homein  the  Midlands.  Thesplendidfaithof  the 
masters  in  their  own  resources  was  rewarded  by 
a  grand  tribute  of  confidence,  when  out  of  their 
whole  number  it  was  found  that  only  three 
boys  had  failed  to  follow  them  in  this  great 
adventure.  The  three  weeks  of  fierce  race  for 
life  were  followed  by  more  than  a  year  of 
quiet  and  excellent  work  at  Borth,  which 
thenceforth  became  famed  far  and  wide  as 
"  Uppingham  by  the  Sea  ";  and  in  April,  1877, 
the  school  returned  to  its  now  purified  home 
in  Rutland,  amidst  the  rejoicings  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  with  numbers  greater  than  when  it 
left.  Among  all  the  splendid  traditions  of 
English  schools  it  may  be  doubted  if  there  is 
any  which  tells  of  greater  faith,  courage,  and 
loyalty  of  affection  than  does  this  year  of  ad- 
venturous exile  in  the  records  of  Uppingham. 

George  R.  Parkin. 


EDWARD    THRING. 

THIS  was  a  leader  of  the  sons  of  light, 
Of  winsome  cheer  and  strenuous  command. 
Upon  the  veteran  hordes  of  Bigot-land 
All  day  his  vanguard  spirit,  flaming  bright, 

Bore  up  the  brunt  of  unavailing  fight. 

Then,  with  the  iron  in  his  soul,  one  hand 
Still  on  the  hilt,  he  passed  from  that  slim  band 
Out  through  the  ranks  to  rearward  and  the  night. 

The  day  is  lost,  but  not  the  day  of  days, 
And  ye  his  comrades  in  the  losing  war 
Stand  once  again  for  liberty  and  love ! 

Close  up  the  ranks ;  his  deed  your  deeds  let  praise ! 
Against  the  front  of  dark  where  gleams  one  star, 
Strive  on  to  death  as  this  great  captain  strove ! 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 91. 


Bliss  Carman. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY* 
THE    MISSISSIPPI    AND    SHILOH. 


BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 


THE    MISSISSIPPI. 

JS  a  powerful  supplement  to 
the  Union  victories  in  Ten- 
nessee, the  military  opera- 
tions west  of  the  Mississippi 
River  next  demand  our  at- 
_  tendon.  Under  the  vigor- 
E*  ous  promptings  of  Halleck 
we  left  the  army  of  General 
Curtis  engaged  in  his  trying  midwinter  cam- 
paign in  south-western  Missouri.  He  made 
ready  with  all  haste  to  comply  with  the  order 
to  "  push  on  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  end 
the  matter  with  Price."  His  army  obeyed 
every  order  with  cheerful  endurance.  "  They 
contend  with  mud,  water,  and  snow  and  ice 
manfully,"  wrote  Curtis  under  date  of  Feb- 
ruary i,  1862,  "and  I  trust  they  will  not  falter 
in  the  face  of  a  more  active  foe."  In  the  same 
spirit  he  encouraged  his  officers : 

The  roads  are  indeed  very  bad,  but  they  are  worse 
for  the  enemy  than  for  us  if  he  attempts  to  retreat. 
.  .  .  The  men  should  help  the  teams  out  of  difficulty 
when  necessary,  and  all  must  understand  that  the  ele- 
ments are  to  be  considered  serious  obstacles,  which 
we  have  to  encounter  and  overcome  in  this  campaign. 
.  .  .  Constant  bad  roads  will  be  the  rule,  and  a  change 
for  the  better  a  rare  exception. 

As  already  remarked,  Price  had  kept  his 
situation-  and  numbers  well  concealed.  He 
was  known  to  be  at  Springfield ;  but  rumor 
exaggerated  his  force  to  30,000,  and  it  was 
uncertain  whether  he  intended  to  retreat  or 
advance.  Reports  also  came  that  Van  Dorn 
was  marching  to  his  support  with  10,000  men. 
Curtis  kept  the  offensive,  however,  pushing 
forward  his  outposts.  By  the  I3th  of  February 
Price  found  his  position  untenable  and  ordered 
a  retreat  from  Springfield.  Since  McCulloch 
would  not  come  to  Missouri  to  furnish  Price 
assistance,  Price  was  perforce  compelled  to  go 
to  Arkansas,  where  McCulloch  might  furnish 
him  protection.  Curtis  pursued  with  vigor. 
"  We  continually  take  cattle,  prisoners,  wag- 
ons, and  arms,  which  they  leave  in  their 
flight,"  he  wrote.  Near  the  Arkansas  line 
Price  endeavored  to  make  a  stand  with  his 
rear-guard,  but  without  success.  On  February 
1 8,  in  a  special  order  announcing  the  recent 
Union  victories  elsewhere,  Curtis  was  able 
to  congratulate  his  own  troops  as  follows : 


You  have  moved  in  the  most  inclement  weather, 
over  the  worst  of  roads,  making  extraordinary  long 
marches,  subsisting  mainly  on  meat  without  salt,  and 
for  the  past  six  days  you  have  been  under  the  fire  of 
the  fleeing  enemy.  You  have  driven  him  out  of  Mis- 
souri, restored  the  Union  flag  to  the  virgin  soil  of  Ar- 
kansas, and  triumphed  in  two  contests. 

The  rebels  were  in  no  condition  to  with- 
stand him,  and  he  moved  forward  to  Cross  Hol- 
low, where  the  enemy  had  hastily  abandoned 
a  large  cantonment  with  extensive  buildings, 
only  a  portion  of  which  they  stopped  to  burn. 
It  was  time  for  Curtis  to  pause.  He  was  240 
miles  from  his  railroad  base  at  Rolla,  where 
he  had  begun  his  laborious  march.  Orders 
soon  came  from  Halleck  not  to  penetrate 
farther  into  Arkansas,  but  to  hold  his  posi- 
tion and  keep  the  enemy  south  of  the  Boston 
Mountains.  "  Hold  your  position,"  wrote 
Halleck,  March  7,  "till  I  can  turn  the  ene- 
my." At  that  date  Halleck  expected  to  make 
a  land  march  along  what  he  had  decided  to 
be  the  central  strategic  line  southward  from 
Fort  Donelson,  turn  the  enemy  at  Memphis, 
and  compel  the  Confederate  forces  to  evacu- 
ate the  whole  Mississippi  Valley  down  to  that 
point. 

There  was,  however,  serious  work  yet  in 
store  for  Curtis.  To  obviate  the  jealousies  and 
bickerings  among  Trans-Mississippi  Confed- 
erate commanders  the  Richmond  authorities 
had  combined  the  Indian  Territory  with  por- 
tions of  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Missouri  in 
the  Trans-Mississippi  District  of  Department 
No.  II.,  and  had  sent  Major-General  Earl 
Van  Dorn  to  command  the  whole.  His  letters 
show  that  he  went  full  of  enthusiasm  and 
brilliant  anticipations.  He  did  not  dream  of 
being  kept  on  the  defensive.  He  called  for 
troops  from  Arkansas,  Louisiana,  and  Texas, 
and  ordered  the  armies  of  McCulloch  and 
Mclntosh,  and  Pike  with  his  Indian  regiments, 
to  join  him.  From  these  various  sources  he 
hoped  to  collect  a  force  of  from  30,000  to 
40,000  men  at  Pocahontas,  Arkansas.  Un- 
aware that  Price  was  then  retreating  from 
Springfield,  he  wrote  to  that  commander,  un- 
der date  of  February  14,  proposing  a  quick 
and  secret  march  against  St.  Louis,  which  he 
hoped  to  capture  by  assault.  Holding  that 
city  would  soon  secure  Missouri  and  relieve 
Johnston,  seriously  pressed  in  Tennessee.  He 


'  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE  J\fISSISSfffl  AND   SHILOH. 


6S9 


would  not  wait  to  prepare,  but  would  adopt 
the  style  of  frontier  equipment  and  supply: 

Flour,  sail,  anil  a  little  bacon  in  our  wagons,  and 
beef  cattle  driven  with  us,  should  be  our  commissariat. 
Grain-bags  to  contain  two  days'  rations  of  corn,  to  be 
carried  on  our  troopers'  saddles,  and  money  our  pay- 
master's department,  and  sufficient  ammunition  our 
ordnance  department. 

But  he  did  not  have  time  enough  to  ex- 

tempori/.e  even  this  haversack  campaign  :  he 
found  his  base  of  supplies  menaced  from  the 
north-east,  and  information  soon  followed  that 
Price  was  flying  in  confusion  from  the  north- 
west. Ten  days  later  we  find  him  writing  to 
Johnston : 

Price  and  McCulloch  are  concentrated  at  Cross 
Hollow.  .  .  .  Whole  force  of  enemy  [Union]  from 
35,000  to  40,000  ;  ours  about  20,000.  Should  Pike  be 
able  to  join,  our  forces  will  be  about  26,000.  I  leave 
this  evening  to  go  to  the  army,  and  will  give  battle,  of 
course,  if  it  does  not  take  place  before  I  arrive.  I  have 
no  doubt  of  the  result.  If  I  succeed,  I  shall  push  on. 

Van  Dorn  found  the  Confederate  forces 
united  in  the  Boston  Mountains,  fifty-five 
miles  south  of  Sugar  Creek,  to  which  point 
Curtis  had  retired  for  better  security.  He  im- 
mediately advanced  with  his  whole  force,  at- 
tacking the  Union  position  on  the  6th  of 
March.  On  the  ;th  was  fought  the  principal 
contest,  known  as  the  battle  of  Pea  Ridge, 
« or  Elkhorn  Tavern.  As  usual,,  rumor  exag- 
gerated the  forces  on  both  sides.  By  the 
official  reports  it  appears  that  Van  Dorn's 
available  command  numbered  16,000.  The 
Union  troops  under  Curtis  numbered  only 
about  10,500 ;  but  they  had  the  advantage  of 
a  defensive  attitude  and  gained  a  complete 
victory,  to  which  the  vigilance  and  able 
strategy  of  the  Union  commander  effectively 
contributed.  Generals  McCulloch,  Mclntosh, 
and  other  prominent  rebel  officers  were  killed 
early  in  the  action,  and  Van  Dorn's  right 
wing  was  shattered. 

The  diminished  and  scattered  forces  of  Van 
Dorn,  retreating  by  different  routes  from  the 
battle  of  Pea  Ridge,  were  not  again  wholly 
united.  Pike  was  ordered  to  conduct  his  In- 
dian regiments  back  to  the  Indian  Territory 
for  local  duty.  The  main  remnant  of  the  Con- 
federate army  followed  Van  Dorn  to  the  east- 
ward in  the  direction  of  Pocahontas,  where 
he  proposed  to  reorganize  it,  to  resume  the 
offensive.  Halleck,  cautioning  Curtis  to  hold 
his  position  and  keep  well  on  his  guard,  speaks 
of  Van  Dorn  as  a  "  vigilant  and  energetic  of- 
ficer " ;  and  Van  Dorn's  language  certainly 
indicates  activity,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  the  discretion  it  betrays.  He  had  hardly 
shaken  from  his  feet  the  dust  of  his  rout 
at  Pea  Ridge  when  he  again  began  writing 
that  he  contemplated  relieving  the  stress  of 


Confederate  disaster  in  Tennessee  by  attempt- 
ing to  capture  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp  project  that  had  by  turns  dazzled 
the  eyes  of  all  the  Confederate  command- 
ers in  the  Mississippi  Valley;  or,  as  another 
scheme,  perhaps  a  mere  prelude  to  this,  he 
would  march  eastward  against  Pope  and  raise 
the  siege  of  New  Madrid,  on  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  This  brings  us  to  a  narrative 
of  events  at  that  point. 

WITH  the  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  the  rebel 
stronghold  at  Columbus  had  become  useless. 
Its  evacuation  soon  followed  (March  2, 1862), 
and  the  Confederates  immediately  turned  their 
attention  to  holding  the  next  barrier  on  the 
Mississippi  River.  This  was  at  a  point  less 
than  one  hundred  miles  below  Cairo,  where 
the  Father  of  Waters  makes  two  large  bends, 
which,  joined  together,  lie  like  a  reversed  let- 
ter S  placed  horizontally.  At  the  foot  of  this 
first  bend  lay  Island  No.  10  ;*  from  there  the 
river  flows  northward  to  the  town  of  New 
Madrid,  Missouri,  passing  which  it  resumes 
its  southward  flow.  The  country  is  not 
only  flat,  as  the  bend  indicates,  but  it  is  en- 
compassed in  almost  all  directions  by  nearly 
impassable  swamps  and  bayous.  Island  No. 
10,  therefore,  and  its  immediate  neighbor- 
hood, seemed  to  offer  unusual  advantages 
to  bar  the  Mississippi  with  warlike  obstruc- 
tions. As  soon  as  the  evacuation  of  Colum- 
bus was  determined  upon,  all  available  rebel 
resources  and  skill  were  concentrated  here. 
The  island,  the  Tennessee  shore  of  the  river,  - 
and  the  town  of  New  Madrid  were  all  strongly 
fortified  and  occupied  with  considerable  gar- 
risons—  about  3000  men  at  the  former  and 
some  5000  at  the  latter  place. 

General  Halleck,  studying  the  strategical 
conditions  of  the  whole  Mississippi  Valley  with 
tenfold  interest  since  the  victories  of  Grant, 
also  had  his  eye  on  this  position,  and  was  now 
as  eager  to  capture  it  as  the  rebels  were  to  de- 
fend it.  One  of  the  quickest  movements  of  the 
whole  war  ensued.  General  Pope  was  selected 
to  lead  the  expedition,  and  the  choice  was  not 
misplaced.  On  the  22d  of  February,  six  days 
after  the  surrender  of  Fort  Donelson,  Pope 
landed  at  the  town  of  Commerce,  Missouri,  on 
the  Mississippi  River,  with  140  men.  On  the 
28th  he  was  on  the  march  at  the  head  of  10,000, 
who  had  been  sent  him  in  the  interim  from 
St.  Louis  and  Cairo.  On  the  3d  of  March,  at 
i  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  appeared  before 
the  town  of  New  Madrid  with  his  whole  force, 
to  which  further  reenforcements  were  soon 
added,  raising  his  army  to  about  20,000.  It 
would  have  required  but  a  few  hours  to  cap- 

*  See  communication  from  John  Banvard  in  "  Open 
Letters"  of  this  number  of  THE  CENTURY.— EDITOR. 


66o 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


ture  the  place  by  assault ;  but  the  loss  of  life 
would  have  been  great  and  the  sacrifice  virt- 
ually useless.  It  was  the  season  of  the  early 
spring  floods;  the  whole  country  was  sub- 
merged, and  the  great  river  was  at  a  very 
high  stage  between  its  levees.  In  addition  to 
its  earth-works  and  its  garrison,  New  Madrid 
was  guarded  by  a  fleet  of  eight  rebel  gun-boats 
under  command  of  Commodore  George  N. 
Hollins.  The  high  water  floated  these  vessels 
at  such  an  elevation  that  their  guns  com- 
manded every  part  of  the  town,  and  made 
its  occupation  by  hostile  troops  impossible. 
Had  Pope  entered  with  his  army,  Hollins 
would  have  destroyed  both  town  and  troops 
at  his  leisure. 

Pope  therefore  surrounded  the  place  by 
siege-works  in  which  he  could  protect  his 
men;  and  sending  a  detachment  to  Point 
Pleasant  on  the  river,  nine  miles  below,  se- 
cured a  lodgment  for  batteries  that  closed 
the  river  to  rebel  transports  and  cut  off  the 
enemy's  reinforcements  and  supplies.  The 
movement  proved  effectual.  Ten  days  later 
(March  13,  1862)  the  rebels  evacuated  New 
Madrid,  leaving  everything  behind. 

The  Confederates  now  held  Island  No.  10 
and  the  Tennessee  shore;  but  their  retreat 
was  cut  off  by  the  swamps  beyond  and  Pope's 
batteries  below.  The  rebel  gun-boat  flotilla  had 
retired  down  the  river.  Pope's  forces  held 
New  Madrid  and  the  Missouri  shore,  but  they 
had  neither  transports  nor  gun-boats,  and  with- 
out these  could  not  cross  to  the  attack.  In 
this  dilemma  Pope  once  more  called  upon 
Flag-Officer  Foote  to  bring  the  Union  fleet  of 
gun-boats  down  the  river,  attack  and  silence 
the  batteries  of  Island  No.  10,  and  assist  in 
capturing  the  rebel  army,  which  his  strategy 
had  shut  in  a  trap. 

Foote,  although  commanding  a  fleet  of  nine 
Union  gun-boats,  objected  that  the  difficulty 
and  risk  were  too  great.  With  all  their  for- 
midable strength  the  gun-boats  had  two  seri- 
ous defects.  Only  their  bows  were  protected 
by  the  heavier  iron  plating  so  as  to  be  shot- 
proof;  and  their  engines  were  not  strong 
enough  to  back  easily  against  the  powerful 
current  of  the  Mississippi.  In  their  attacks 
on  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  they  had 
fought  up-stream;  when  disabled,  the  mere 
current  carried  them  out  of  the  enemy's  reach. 
On  the  Mississippi  this  was  reversed.  Com- 
pelled to  fight  down-stream,  they  would,  if 
disabled,  be  carried  irresistibly  directly  to  the 
enemy.  A  bombardment  at  long  range  from 
both  gun  and  mortar  boats  had  proved  inef- 


fectual to  silence  the  rebel  batteries.  Pope's 
expedition  seemed  destined  to  prove  fruitless, 
when  a  new  expedient  was  the  occasion  of 
success. 

The  project  of  a  canal  to  turn  Island  No. 
10  was  again  revived.  The  floods  of  the 
Mississippi,  pouring  through  breaks  in  the 
levees,  inundated  the  surrounding  country. 
Colonel  Bissell  of  the  engineer  regiment,  re- 
turning in  a  canoe  with  a  guide  from  his  un- 
successful visit  to  secure  Foote's  cooperation, 
learned  that  a  bayou,  from  two  and  a  half  to 
three  miles  west  of  the  Mississippi,  ran  irregu- 
larly to  the  south-west  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Island  No.  8,  the  station  of  the  Union  gun- 
boat flotilla,  to  its  junction  with  the  river  at 
New  Madrid,  a  distance  of  twelve  miles.  An 
open  corn-field  and  an  opening  in  the  woods, 
which  marked  the  course  of  an  old  road,  sug- 
gested to  him  the  possibility  of  connecting 
the  river  with  the  bayou ;  but  between  the  end 
of  the  road  and  the  bayou  lay  a  belt  of  heavy 
timber  two  miles  in  width.*  How  could  he 
get  a  fleet  of  vessels  over  the  ground  thickly 
covered  by  trees  of  every  size,  from  a  sapling 
to  a  forest  veteran  three  feet  in  diameter, 
whose  roots  stood  six  or  seven  feet  under 
water?  Modern  mechanical  appliances  are 
not  easily  baffled  by  natural  obstacles.  Six 
hundred  skillful  mechanics  working  with  the 
aid  of  steam  and  machinery,  and  directed  by 
American  inventive  ingenuity,  brought  the 
wonder  to  pass.  In  a  few  clays  Colonel  Bissell 
had  a  line  of  four  light-draught  steamboats 
and  six  coal-barges  t  crossing  the  corn-field 
and  entering  the  open  road.  Great  saws,  bent 
in  the  form  of  an  arc  and  fastened  to  frames 
swingingon  pivots,  severed  the  tree-trunks  four 
and  a  half  feet  underwater;  ropes,  pulleys,  and 
capstans  hauled  the  encumbering  debris  out 
of  the  path.  In  eight  days  the  amphibious 
fleet  was  in  the  bayou.  Here  were  new  diffi- 
culties— to  clean  away  the  dams  of  accumu- 
lated and  entangled  drift-wood.  In  a  few  days 
more  Bissell's  boats  and  barges  were  ready 
to  emerge  into  the  Mississippi  at  New  Ma- 
drid, but  yet  kept  prudently  concealed.  Two 
gun-boats  were  needed  to  protect  the  trans- 
ports in  crossing  troops.  The  sagacious 
judgment  of  Foote  and  the  heroism  of  his 
subordinates  supplied  these  at  the  opportune 
moment.  Captain  Walke  of  the  Carondelet 
volunteered  to  run  the  batteries  at  Island  No. 
10 ;  and  now  that  the  risk  was  justified,  the  flag- 
officer  consented.  On  the  night  of  the  4th  of 
April,  after  the  moon  had  gone  down,  the  gun- 
boat Carondelet,  moving  with  as  little  noise  as 


*J.  W.  Bissell,  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  ends  alike.    The  sides  were  six  inches  thick,  and  of 

War."  solid  timber.    [J.  W.  Bissell,  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of 

tThe  barges  used  were  coal-barges,  about   eighty  the  Civil  War."] 
feet  long  and  twenty  wide,  scow-shaped,  with   both 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


661 


possible,  swung  into  the  stream  from  her  moor- 
ings and  started  on  her  perilous  voyage.  It  must 
have  seemed  an  omen  of  success  that  a  sud- 
den thunder-storm  with  its  additional  gloom 
and  noise  came  up  to  aid  the  attempt.  The 
movement  was  unsuspected  by  the  enemy  till, 
by  one  of  frequent  flashes  of  lightning,  the 
rebel  sentries  on  the  earth-works  of  Island 
No.  10  and  the  shore  batteries  opposite  saw 
the  huge  turtle-shaped  river  craft  stand  out  in 
vivid  outline,  to  be  in  a  second  hidden  again 
by  the  dense  obscurity.  Alarm  cries  rang  out, 
musketry  rattled,  great  guns  resounded;  the 
ship  almost  touched  the  shore  in  the  drift  of 
the  crooked  channel.  But  the  Confederate 
guns  could  not  be  aimed  amidst  the  swift  suc- 
cession of  brilliant  flash  and  total  darkness. 
The  rebel  missiles  flew  wild,  and  a  little  after 
midnight  the  Carondelet  lay  unharmed  at  the 
New  Madrid  landing.  Captain  Walke  had 
made  the  first  successful  experiment  in  a  feat 
of  daring  and  skill  that  was  many  times  re- 
peated after  he  had  demonstrated  its  possibility. 

The  gun-boat  Pittsburgh,  also  running  past 
the  rebel  batteries  at  night,  joined  the  Caron- 
delet  at  New  Madrid  on  the  morning  of  April 
7,  and  the  problem  of  Pope's  difficulties  was 
solved.  When  he  crossed  his  troops  over  the 
river  by  help  of  his  gun-boats  and  transports, 
formidable  attack  was  no  longer  necessary. 
Island  No.  10  had  surrendered  to  Flag-Officer 
Foote  that  morning,  and  the  several  rebel  gar- 
risons were  using  their  utmost  endeavors  to 
effect  a  retreat  southward.  Pope  easily  inter- 
cepted their  movement :  on  that  and  the  fol- 
lowing day  he  received  the  surrender  of  three 
general  officers  and  six  or  seven  thousand 
Confederate  troops. 

As  General  Pope's  victory  had  been  gained 
without  loss  or  demoralization,  he  prepared 
immediately  to  push  his  operations  farther 
south.  "  If  transportation  arrives  to-morrow 
or  next  day,"  telegraphed  Assistant-Secretary 
Scott,  who  was  with  him  at  New  Madrid, "  we 
shall  have  Memphis  within  ten  days."  Hal- 
leek  responded  with  the  promise  of  ten  large 
steamers  to  carry  troops,  and  other  sugges- 
tions indicating  his  approval  of  the  movement 
"  down  the  river."  In  the  same  dispatch  Hal- 
leek  gave  news  of  the  Union  victory  at  Pitts- 
burg  Landing  on  the  Tennessee  River,  and 
announced  his  intention  to  proceed  thither, 
and  asked  Assistant-Secretary  Scott  to  meet 
him  at  Cairo  for  consultation.  The  meeting 
took  place  on  the  loth  of  April,  by  which  time 
Halleck  had  become  more  impressed  with  the 
severity  and  the  perils  of  the  late  battle  on  the 
Tennessee;  for  Scott  asks  the  Washington 
authorities  whether  a  reinforcement  of  20,000 
or  30,000  men  cannot  be  sent  from  the  East 
to  make  good  the  loss.  This  conference  proba- 


bly originated  the  idea  that  soon  interrupted 
the  successful  river  operations,  by  withdraw- 
ing the  army  under  Pope.  Reinforcements 
could  not  be  spared  from  the  East,  and  Pope's 
army  became  the  next  resource.  For  the  pres- 
ent, however,  there  was  a  continuation  of  the 
first  plan.  Pope's  preliminary  orders  for  em- 
barkation were  issued  on  the  ioth.  and  on 
the  i4th  the  combined  land  and  naval  forces 
which  had  reduced  Island  No.  10  reached 
Fort  Pillow.  Its  works  were  found  to  be  strong 
and  extensive.  The  overflow  of  the  \\hole 
country  rendered  land  operations  difficult; 
it  was  estimated  that  it  would  require  two 
weeks  to  turn  the  position  and  reduce  the 
works.  Meanwhile  information  was  obtained 
that  Van  Dorn's  rebel  army  from  Arkansas 
was  about  to  reenforce  Beauregard  at  Corinth. 
In  view  of  all  this.  Assistant-Secretary  Scott 
asked  the  question :  "  If  General  Pope  finds, 
after  careful  examination,  that  he  cannot  cap- 
ture Fort  Pillow  within  ten  days,  had  he  not 
better  reenforce  General  Halleck  immediately, 
and  let  Commodore  Foote  continue  to  block- 
ade below  until  forces  can  be  returned  and 
the  position  be  turned  by  General  Halleck 
beating  Beauregard  and  marching  upon  Mem- 
phis from  Corinth  ?  "  Before  an  answer  came 
from  the  War  Department  at  Washington, 
Halleck,  who  had  for  several  days  been  with 
the  army  on  the  Tennessee  River,  decided  the 
question  for  himself  and  telegraphed  to  Pope 
(April  15),  "  Move  with  your  army  to  this 
place,  leaving  troops  enough  with  Commodore 
Foote  to  land  and  hold  Fort  Pillow,  should 
the  enemy's  forces  withdraw."  At  the  same 
time  he  sent  the  following  suggestion  to  Flag- 
Officer  Foote : 

I  have  ordered  General  Pope's  army  to  this  place, 
but  I  think  you  had  best  continue  the  bombardment 
of  Fort  Pillow  ;  and  if  the  enemy  should  abandon  it, 
take  possession  or  go  down  the  river,  as  you  may  deem 
best.  General  Pope  will  leave  forces  enough  to  oc- 
cupy any  fortifications  that  may  be  taken. 

The  plan  was  forthwith  carried  into  effect. 
The  transports,  instead  of  disembarking  Pope's 
troops  to  invest  Fort  Pillow,  were  turned  north- 
ward, and  steaming  up  the  Mississippi  to  Cairo, 
thence  to  Paducah,  and  from  Paducah  up  the 
Tennessee  River,  landed  the  whole  of  Pope's 
army,  except  two  regiments,  at  Pittsburg 
Landing  on  the  22d  of  April. 

The  flotilla  under  Foote  and  the  two  regi- 
ments left  behind  continued  in  front  of  Fort 
Pillow,  keeping  up  a  show  of  attack,  by  a 
bombardment  from  one  of  the  mortar-boats 
and  such  reconnaissances  as  the  little  handful 
of  troops  could  venture,  to  discover,  if  possi- 
ble, some  weak  point  in  the  enemy's  defenses. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Confederates,  watching 
what  they  thought  a  favorable  opportunity, 


662 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


brought  up  eight  of  their  gun-boats  and  made 
a  spirited  attack  on  the  Union  vessels  on  the 
morning  of  May  10.  In  a  short  combat  two 
of  the  Union  gun-boats,  which  bore  the  brunt 
of  the  onset,  were  seriously  disabled,  though 
not  until  they  had  inflicted  such  damage  on 
three  Confederate  vessels  that  they  drifted 
helplessly  out  of  the  fight ;  after  which  the 
remainder  of  the  rebel  flotilla  retired  from  the 
encounter.  For  nearly  a  month  after  this  pre- 
liminary gun-boat  battle  the  river  operations, 
though  full  of  exciting  daily  incident,  were 
marked  by  no  important  historical  event. 
Mention,  however,  needs  to  be  here  made  of 
a  change  in  the  control  of  the  Union  fleet. 
Commodore  Foote  had  been  wounded  in  the 
ankle  during  his  attack  on  Fort  Donelson,  and 
his  injury  now  caused  him  so  much  suffering 
and  exhaustion  of  strength  that  he  was  com- 
pelled to  relinquish  his  command.  He  took 
leave  of  his  flotilla  on  the  gth  of  May,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Commodore  Charles  H.  Davis, 
who  from  that  time  onward  had  charge  of  the 
gun-boat  operations  on  the  upper  Mississippi. 

THE    SHILOH    CAMPAIGN. 

THE  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  hastened,  almost 
to  a  panic,  the  retreat  of  the  Confederates 
from  other  points.  By  that  surrender  about 
one-third  of  their  fighting  force  in  Tennessee 
vanished  from  the  campaign,  while  their  whole 
web  of  strategy  was  instantly  dissolved.  The 
full  possession  of  the  Tennessee  River  by  the 
Union  gun-boats  for  the  moment  hopelessly 
divided  the  Confederate  commands,  and  like 
a  (lushed  covey  of  birds  the  rebel  generals 
started  on  their  several  lines  of  retreat  with- 
out concert  or  rallying  point.  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston,  the  department  commander,  moved 
south-east  towards  Chattanooga,  abandoning 
Nashville  to  its  fate;  while  Beauregard,  left 
to  his  own  discretion  and  resources,  took 
measures  to  effect  the  evacuation  of  Colum- 
bus so  as  to  save  its  armament  and  supplies, 
and  then  proceeded  to  the  railroad  crossings 
of  northern  Mississippi  to  collect  and  organize 
a  new  army. 

It  is  now  evident  that  if  the  Union  forces 
could  have  been  promptly  moved  forward 
in  harmonious  combination,  with  the  facility 
which  the  opening  of  the  Tennessee  River  af- 
forded them,  such  an  advance  might  have 
been  made,  and  such  strategic  points  gained 
and  held,  as  would  have  saved  at  least  an  en- 
tire year  of  campaign  and  battle  in  the  West. 
Unfortunately  this  great  advantage  was  not 
seized,  and  in  the  condition  of  affairs  could 
not  be ;  and  a  delay  of  a  fortnight  or  more  en- 
abled the  insurgents  to  renew  the  confidence 
and  gather  the  forces  to  establish  another  line 


farther  to  the  south,  and  again  to  interpose 
a  formidable  resistance.  One  cause  of  this 
inefficiency  and  delay  of  the  Union  com- 
manders may  be  easily  gleaned  from  the  dis- 
patches interchanged  by  them  within  a  few 
days  succeeding  the  fall  of  Fort  Donelson, 
and  which,  aside  from  their  military  bearings, 
form  an  interesting  study  of  human  nature. 

General  Buell,  from  his  comfortable  head- 
quarters at  Louisville,  writes  (February  17, 
1862)  that  since  the  reinforcements  (Nel- 
son's division)  started  by  him  to  assist  at 
Fort  Donelson  are  no  longer  needed,  he  has 
ordered  them  back.  "  The  object  of  both  our 
forces,"  he  continues,  "  is,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, to  strike  at  the  power  of  the  rebellion 
in  its  most  vital  point  within  our  field.  Nash- 
ville appears  clearly,  I  think,  to  be  that  point." 
He  thought  further  that  heavy  reinforcements 
would  soon  be  thrown  into  it  by  the  rebels.  The 
leisurely  manner  in  which  he  expected  to  strike 
at  this  heart  of  the  rebellion  appears  from 
these  words,  in  the  same  letter : 

To  depend  on  wagons  at  this  season  for  a  large  force 
seems  out  of  the  question,  and  I  fear  it  may  lie  two 
weeks  before  I  can  get  a  bridge  over  the  Barren  River, 
so  as  to  use  the  railroad  beyond.  I  shall  en- 
however,  to  make  an  advance  in  less  or  much  force  be- 
fore that  time.  .  .  .  Let  me  hear  your  view;s. 

Halleck,  at  St.  Louis,  was  agitated  by  more 
rapid  emotions.  Watching  thedistant  and  dan- 
gerous campaign  under  Curtis  in  south-west- 
ern Missouri,  beginning  another  of  mingled 
hazard  and  brilliant  promise  under  Pope  on 
the  Mississippi,  beset  by  perplexities  of  local 
administration,  flushed  to  fever  heat  by  the 
unexpected  success  of  Grant,  his  mind  ran 
forward  eagerly  to  new  prospects.  "  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  present  success,"  he  telegraphed 
Sherman.  "We  must  now  prepare  for  a  still 
more  important  movement.  You  will  not  be 
forgotten  in  this."  But  this  preparation  seems, 
in  his  mind,  to  have  involved  something  more 
than  orders  from  himself. 

Before  he  received  the  news  of  the  surren- 
der of  Fort  Donelson  he  became  seriously 
alarmed  lest  the  rebels,  using  their  river  trans- 
portation, might  rapidly  concentrate,  attack 
Grant  in  the  rear,  crush  him  before  succor  could 
reach  him,  and,  returning  quickly,  be  as  ready 
as  before  to  confront  and  oppose  Buell.  Even 
after  the  surrender  Halleck  manifests  a  con- 
tinuing fear  that  some  indefinite  concentration 
will  take  place,  and  a  quick  reprisal  be  executed 
by  a  formidable  expedition  against  Paducah 
or  Cairo.  His  overstrained  appeals  to  Buell 
for  help  do  not  seem  justified  in  the  full  light 
of  history.  An  undertone  of  suggestion  and 
demand  indicates  that  this  urgency,  ostensibly 
based  on  his  patriotic  eagerness  for  success, 
was  not  wholly  free  from  personal  ambition. 


'/•//A'   MISSISSIPPI  AND   SIIILOJI. 


663 


We  have  seen  how  when  he  heard  of  Grant's 
victory  he  generously  asked  that  Buell,  Grant, 
and  Pope  he  made  major-generals  of  volun- 
teers, and  with  equal  generosity  to  himself 
broadly  added,  "and  give  me  command  in 
the  West."  He  could  not  agree  with  Buell 
that  Nashville  was  the  most  vital  point  of  the 
rebellion  in  the  West,  and  that  heavy  rebel 
reinforcements  would  be  thrown  into  it  from 
all  quarters  east  and  south.  Halleck  develops 
his  idea  with  great  earnestness  in  replying  to 
that  suggestion  from  Buell.  He  says : 

To  remove  all  questions  as  to  rank,  I  have  asked 
the  President  to  make  YOU  a  major-general.  Come 
down  to  the  Cumberland  and  take  command.  The 
battle  of  the  West  is  to  be  fought  in  that  vicinity. 
You  should  be  in  it  as  the  ranking  general  in  immedi- 
ate command.  Don't  hesitate.  Come  to  Clarksville 
as  rapidly  as  possible.  Say  that  you  will  come,  and  I 
will  have  everything  there  for  you.  Beauregard  threat- 
ens to  attack  either  Cairo  or  Paducah ;  I  must  be 
ready  for  him.  Don't  stop  any  troops  ordered  down 
the  Ohio.  \Ve  want  them  all.  You  shall  have  them 
back  in  a  few  days.  Assistant-Secretary  of  War  Scott 
left  here  this  afternoon  to  confer  with  you.  He  knows 
my  plans  and  necessities.  I  am  terribly  hard  pushed. 
Help  me,  and  I  will  help  you.  Hunter  has  acted  nobly, 
generously,  bravely.  Without  his  aid  I  should  have 
failed  before  Fort  Donelson.  Honor  to  him.  We  came 
within  an  ace  of  being  defeated.  If  the  fragments 
which  I  sent  down  had  not  reached  there  on  Sat- 
urday we  should  have  gone  in.  A  retreat  at  one 
time  seemed  almost  inevitable.  All  right  now.  Help 
me  to  carry  it  out.  Talk  freely  with  Scott.  It  is  evi- 
dent to  me  that  you  and  McClellan  did  not  at  last 
accounts  appreciate  the  strait  I  have  been  in.  I  am 
certain  you  will  when  you  understand  it  all.  Help 
me.  I  beg  of  you.  Throw  all  your  troops  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  Cumberland.  Don't  stop  any  one  or- 
dered here.  You  will  not  regret  it.  There  will  be 
no  battle  at  Nashville. 

In  answer  to  an  inquiry  from  Assistant- 
Secretary  Scott,  he  explains  further  : 

I  mean  that  Buell  should  move  on  Clarksville  with 
his  present  column:  there  unite  his  Kentucky  army 
and  move  up  the  Cumberland,  while  I  act  on  the  Ten- 
nessee. We  should  then  be  able  to  cooperate. 

This  proposal  was  entirely  judicious;  but 
in  Halleck's  mind  it  was  subordinated  to  an- 
other consideration,  namely  :  that  he  should 
exercise  superior  command  in  the  West.  Again 
he  telegraphed  to  McClellan  (February  19), 
"  Give  it  [the  Western  division]  to  me,  and 
I  will  split  secession  in  twain  in  one  month." 
The  same  confidence  is  also  expressed  to  Buell, 
in  a  simultaneous  dispatch  to  Assistant-Secre- 
tary Scott,  who  was  with  Buell.  "  If  General 
Buell  will  come  down  and  help  me  with  all 
possible  haste  we  can  end  the  war  in  the  West 
in  less  than  a  month."  A  day  later  Halleck 
becomes  almost  peremptory  in  a  dispatch  to 
McClellan  :  "  I  must  have  command  of  the 
armies  in  the  West.  Hesitation  and  delay  are 
losing  us  the  golden  opportunity.  Lay  this  be- 
fore the  President  and  Secretary  of  War.  May 
I  assume  the  command  ?  Answer  quickly." 


To  this  direct  interrogatory  McClellan  re- 
plied in  the  negative.  The  request,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  was  somewhat  presumptuous,  ami 
hardly  of  proper  tone  to  find  ready  acquies- 
cence from  a  military  superior.  In  this  case, 
however,  it  was  also  calculated  to  rouse  a 
twofold  instinct  of  jealousy.  Buell  was  a 
warm  personal  friend  of  McClellan,  and  the 
latter  could  not  be  expected  to  diminish  the 
opportunities  or  endanger  the  chances  of  his 
favorite.  But  more  important  yet  \\as  the 
question  how  this  sudden  success  in  Hal- 
leck's department,  and  the  extension  of  com- 
mand and  power  so  boldly  demanded,  might 
affect  McClellan's  own  standing  and  author- 
ity. He  was  yet  General-in-Chief,  but  the 
Administration  was  dissatisfied  at  his  inaction, 
and  the  President  had  already  indicated,  in 
the  general  war  order  requiring  all  the  armies 
of  the  United  States  to  move  on  the  2zd  of 
February,  that  his  patience  had  a  limit.  Mc- 
Clellan did  not  believe  that  the  army  under 
his  own  immediate  care  and  command  would 
be  ready  to  fulfill  the  President's  order. 
Should  he  permit  a  rival  to  arise  in  the  West 
and  grasp  a  great  victory  before  he  could 
move  ? 

An  hour  after  midnight  McClellan  answered 
Halleck  as  follows : 

Buell  at  Bowling  Green  knows  more  of  the  state 
of  affairs  than  you  at  St.  Louis.  Until  I  hear  from 
him  I  cannot  see  necessity  of  giving  you  entire  com- 
mand. I  expect  to  hear  from  Buell  in  a  few  minutes. 
I  do  not  yet  see  that  Buell  cannot  control  his  own 
line.  I  shall  not  lay  your  request  before  the  Secretary 
until  I  hear  definitely  from  Buell. 

Halleck  did  not  feel  wholly  baffled  by  the 
unfavorable  response.  That  day  he  received 
a  dispatch  from  Stanton,  who  said : 

Your  plan  of  organization  has  been  transmitted  to 
me  by  Mr.  Scott  and  strikes  me  very  favorably,  but 
on  account  of  the  domestic  affliction  of  the  President 
I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  submit  it  to  him.  The 
brilliant  result  of  the  energetic  action  in  the  West  fills 
the  nation  with  joy. 

Encouraged  by  this  friendly  tone  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  Halleck  ventured  a  final 
appeal : 

One  whole  week  has  been  lost  already  by  hesitation 
and  delay.  There  was,  and  I  think  there  still  is,  a  golden 
opportunity  to  strike  a  fatal  blow,  but  I  can't  do  it 
unless  I  can  control  Buell's  army.  I  am  perfectly  will- 
ing to  act  as  General  McClellan  dictates  or  to  take 
any  amount  of  responsibility.  To  succeed  we  must  be 
prompt.  I  have  explained  everything  to  General  Me. 
Clellan  and  Assistant-Secretary  Scott.  There  is  not  a 
moment  to  be  lost.  Give  me  authority  and  I  will  be 
responsible  for  results. 

Doubtless  Halleck  felt  that  the  fates  were 
against  him,  for  the  reply  chilled  his  lingering 
hopes : 

Your  telegram  of  yesterday,  together  with  Mr.  Scott's 
reports,  have  this  morning  been  submitted  to  the  Pres- 


664 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


ident,  who,  after  full  consideration  of  the  subject,  does 
not  think  any  change  in  the  organization  of  the  army 
or  the  military  departments  at  present  advisable.  He 
desires  and  expects  you  and  General  Buell  to  cooper- 
ate fully  and  zealously  with  each  other,  and  would  be 
glad  to  know  whether  there  has  been  any  failure  of 
cooperation  in  any  particular. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  watching  by  the  bed- 
side of  his  dying  son,  and  in  his  overwhelming 
grief  probably  felt  disinclined  to  touch  this 
new  vexation  of  military  selfishness  —  a  class 
of  questions  from  which  he  always  shrank  with 
the  utmost  distaste;  besides,  we  shall  see  in 
due  time  how  the  President's  momentary  de- 
cision turned  upon  much  more  comprehensive 
changes  already  in  contemplation. 

Before  McClellan's  refusal  to  enlarge  Hal- 
leek's  command,  he  had  indicated  that  his 
judgment  and  feelings  were  both  with  Buell. 
Thus  he  telegraphed  the  latter  on  February 
20 : 

Halleck  says  Columbus  reenforced  from  New  Or- 
leans, and  steam  up  on  their  boats  ready  for  move — 
probably  on  Cairo.  Wishes  to  withdraw  some  troops 
from  Donelson.  I  tell  him  improbable  that  rebels  are 
reenforced  from  New  Orleans  or  attack  Cairo.  Think 
[they]  will  abandon  Columbus.  .  .  .  How  soon  can 
you  be  in  front  of  Nashville,  and  in  what  force  ? 
What  news  of  the  rebels  ?  If  the  force  in  West  can 
take  Nashville,  or  even  hold  its  own  for  the  present,  I 
hope  to  have  Richmond  and  Norfolk  in  from  three  to 
four  weeks. 

He  sent  a  similar  dispatch  to  Halleck,  in 
which  he  pointed  out  Nashville  as  the  press- 
ing objective : 

Buell  has  gone  to  Bowling  Green.  I  will  be  in  com- 
munication with  him  in  a  few  minutes,  and  we  will 
then  arrange.  The  fall  of  Clarksville  confirms  my 
views.  I  think  Cairo  is  not  in  danger,  and  we  must 
now  direct  our  efforts  on  Nashville.  The  rebels  hold 
firm  at  Manassas.  In  less  than  two  weeks  I  shall  move 
the  army  of  the  Potomac,  and  hope  to  be  in  Richmond 
soon  after  you  are  in  Nashville.  I  think  Columbus 
will  be  abandoned  within  a  week.  We  will  have  a 
desperate  battle  on  this  line. 

While  the  three  generals  were  discussing 
high  strategy  and  grand  campaigns  by  tele- 
graph, and  probably  deliberating  with  more 
anxiety  the  possibilities  of  personal  fame,  the 
simple  soldiering  of  Grant  and  Foote  was 
solving  some  of  the  problems  that  confused 
scientific  hypothesis.  They  quietly  occupied 
Clarksville,  which  the  enemy  abandoned  ;  and 
even  while  preparing  to  do  so,  Grant  suggested 
in  his  dispatch  of  February  19,  "If  it  is  the 
desire  of  the  general  commanding  department, 
I  can  have  Nashville  on  Saturday  week." 
Foote  repeated  the  suggestion  in  a  dispatch 
of  February  21,  but  the  coveted  permission 
did  not  come  in  time. 

Meanwhile  Buell,  having  gone  to  Bowling 
Green  to  push  forward  his  railroad  bridge,  and 
hearing  of  the  fall  of  Clarksville  and  the  prob- 


able abandonment  of  Nashville,  moved  on  by 
forced  marches  with  a  single  division,  reaching 
the  Cumberland  opposite  the  city  on  the  25th. 
The  enemy  had   burned  the  bridge  and  he 
could  not  cross;   but  almost  simultaneously 
he  witnessed  the  arrival  of  steamboats  bring- 
ing General  Nelson's  division,  which  imme- 
diately landed  and  occupied  the  place.    This 
officer  and  his  troops,  after  several  varying  or- 
ders, were  finally  sent  up  the  Cumberland  to 
Grant,  and  ordered  forward  by  him  to  occupy 
Nashville  and  join  Buell.    It  was  a  curious 
illustration  of  dramatic  justice  that  the  strug- 
gle of  the  generals  over  the  capture  of  the 
place  should  end  in  the  possession  of  Nash- 
ville by  the  troops  of  Buell  under  the  orders 
of  Grant,  whose    name  had   not  once  been 
mentioned  by  the  contending  commanders. 
For  a  few  days  succeeding  the  occupation 
of  Nashville  news  and  rumors  of  what  the 
rebels  were  doing  were  very  conflicting,  and 
none  of  the  Union  commanders  suggested  any 
definite  campaign.    On  February  26  Halleck 
ordered  preparations  fora  movement  up  either 
the  Tennessee  or  the  Cumberland,  as  events 
might  require;  but  for  two  days  he  could  not 
determine  which.  Finally,  on  the  ist  of  March, 
he  sent  distinct  orders  to  Grant  to  command 
an  expedition  up  the  Tennessee  River,  to  de- 
stroy the  railroad  and   cut  the  telegraph  at 
Eastport,  Corinth,  Jackson,  and  Humboldt. 
This  was  to  be,  not  a  permanent  army  ad- 
vance, but  a    temporary  raid  by  gun-boats 
and  troops  on  transports;  all  of  which,  after 
effecting  what  local  destruction  they  could, 
were  to  return  —  the  whole  movement  being 
merely  auxiliary  to  the   operations  then  in 
progress  against  New  Madrid  and  Island  No. 
10,  designed  to  hasten  the  fall  of  Columbus. 
It  turned  out  that  the  preparations  could  not 
be  made  as  quickly  as  Halleck  had  hoped ; 
the  delay  arising,  not  from  the  fault  or  neg- 
lect of  any  officer,  but  mainly  from  the  pre- 
vailing and  constantly  increasing   floods  in 
the  Western  waters,  and  especially  from  dam- 
age to  telegraph  lines  that  seriously  hindered 
the  prompt  transmission  of  communications 
and  orders.    Out  of  this  latter  condition  there 
also  grew  the  episode  of  a  serious  misunder- 
standing between  Halleck  and  Grant,  which 
threatened  to  obscure  the  new  and  brilliant 
fame  which  the  latter  was  earning. 

Only  a  moment  of  vexation  and  ill  temper 
can  account  for  the  harsh  accusation  Halleck 
sent  to  Washington,  that  Grant  had  left  his 
post  without  leave,  that  he  had  failed  to  make 
reports,  that  he  and  his  army  were  demoral- 
ized by  the  Donelson  victory.  Reply  came 
back  that  generals  must  observe  discipline  as 
well  as  privates.  "  Do  not  hesitate  to  arrest 
him  [Grant]  at  once,"  added  McClellan,  "  if 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


665 


the  good  of  the  service  requires  it,  and  place 
C.  F.  Smith  in  command."  Halleck  imme- 
diately acted  on  the  suggestion,  ordered  Grant 
to  remain  at  Fort  Henry,  and  gave  the  pro- 
posed Tennessee  expedition  to  Smith.  Grant 
obeyed,  and  at  first  explained,  with  an  admi- 
rable control  of  temper,  that  he  had  not  been 
in  fault.  Later  on,  however,  feeling  himself 
wronged,  he  several  times  asked  to  be  relieved 
from  duty.  By  this  time  Halleck  was  con- 
vinced tluit  he  had  unjustly  accused  Grant 
and  as  peremptorily  declined  to  relieve  him, 
and  ordered  him  to  resume  his  former  general 
command.  "Instead  of  relieving  you,"  he 
added,  "  I  wish  you,  as  soon  as  your  new  army 
is  in  the  field,  to  assume  the  immediate  com- 
mand and  lead  it  on  to  new  victories."  In 
truth,  while  neither  general  had  been  unjust 
by  intention,  both  had  been  blamable  in  con- 
duct. Grant  violated  technical  discipline  in 
leaving  his  command  without  permission; 
Halleck,  with  undue  haste,  preferred  an  accu- 
sation which  further  information  proved  to 
be  groundless.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  both  that 
they  dismissed  the  incipient  quarrel  and  with 
new  Zealand  generous  confidence  immediately 
joined  in  hearty  public  service. 

While  the  Grant-Halleck  controversy  and 
preparations  for  the  Tennessee  River  expedi- 
tion were  both  still  in  progress,  the  military 
situation  was  day  by  day  slowly  defining  it- 
self, though  as  yet  without  very  specific  ac- 
tion or  conclusion.  Buell,  becoming  satisfied 
that  the  enemy  had  no  immediate  intention 
to  return  and  attack  him  at  Nashville,  inquired 
on  March  3  of  Halleck :  "  What  can  I  do  to 
aid  your  operations  against  Columbus  ?  "  To 
this  Halleck  replied  on  the  4th  with  the  infor- 
mation that  Columbus  had  been  evacuated, 
and  asked,  "  Why  not  come  to  the  Tennessee 
and  operate  with  me  to  cut  Johnston's  line 
with  Memphis,  Randolph,  and  New  Madrid  ?  " 
Without  committing  himself  definitely,  Buell 
answered  on  the  6th,  merely  proposing  that 
they  should  meet  at  Louisville  to  discuss  de- 
tails. Halleck,  however,  unable  to  spare  the 
time,  held  tenaciously  to  his  proposition,  in- 
forming Assistant-Secretary  Scott,  at  Cairo,  of 
the  situation  in  these  words  : 

I  telegraphed  to  General  Buell  to  reenforce  me  as 
strongly  as  possible  at  or  near  Savannah  [Tennessee]. 
Their  line  of  defense  is  now  an  oblique  one,  extending 
from  Island  No.  10  to  Decatur  or  Chattanooga.  Hav- 
ing destroyed  the  railroad  and  bridges  in  his  rear, 
Johnston  cannot  return  to  Nashville.  We  must  again 
pierce  his  center  at  Savannah  or  Florence.  Buell  should 
move  immediately,  and  not  come  in  too  late,  as  he  did 
at  Donelson. 

Feeling  instinctively  that  he  could  get  no 
effective  voluntary  help  from  Buell,  Halleck 
turned  again  to  McClellan,  informing  him  of 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 92. 


his  intended  expedition  up  the  Tennessee 
River,  that  he  had  directed  a  landing  to  be 
made  at  Savannah,  that  he  had  sent  intrench- 
ing tools,  and  would  push  forward  reenforce- 
ments  as  rapidly  as  possible.  On  the  follow- 
ing day,  however,  reporting  the  strength  of 
Grant's  forces,  he  said :  "  You  will  perceive 
from  this  that  without  Buell's  aid  I  am  too 
weak  for  operations  on  the  Tennessee."  The 
information  received  by  him  during  the  next 
twenty-four  hours  that  Curtis  had  won  a  splen- 
did victory  at  the  battle  of  Pea  Ridge  in  Arkan- 
sas made  a  favorable  change  in  his  resources, 
and  he  explains  his  views  and  intentions  to 
McClellan  with  more  confidence  : 

Reserves  intended  to  support  General  Curtis  will 
now  be  drawn  in  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  sent  to  the 
Tennessee.  I  propose  going  there  in  a  few  days.  That 
is  now  the  great  strategic  line  of  the  Western  campaign, 
and  I  am  surprised  that  General  Buell  should  hesitate 
to  reenforce  me.  He  was  too  late  at  Fort  Donelson,  as 
Hunter  has  been  in  Arkansas.  I  am  obliged  to  make 
my  calculations  independent  of  both.  Believe  me,  gen- 
eral, you  make  a  serious  mistake  in  having  three  inde- 
pendent commands  in  the  West.  There  never  will  and 
never  can  be  any  cooperation  at  the  critical  moment ; 
all  military  history  proves  it.  You  will  regret  your 
decision  against  me  on  this  point.  Your  friendship 
for  individuals  has  influenced  your  judgment.  Be  it 
so.  I  shall  soon  fight  a  great  battle  on  the  Tennessee 
unsupported,  as  it  seems ;  but  if  successful,  it  will  settle 
the  campaign  in  the  West. 

We  may  also  conclude  that  another  element 
of  the  confidence  that  prompted  his  language 
was  the  intimation  lately  received  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  who  three  days  before  had 
asked  him  to  state  "  the  limits  of  a  military 
department  that  would  place  all  the  Western 
operations  you  deem  expedient  under  your 
command."  In  fact,  events  in  the  East  as  well 
as  in  the  West  were  culminating  that  rather 
suddenly  ended  existing  military  conditions. 
The  naval  battle  between  the  Merrimaca.n&  the 
Monitor,  and  the  almost  simultaneous  evacua- 
tion of  Manassas  Junction  by  the  rebel  forces 
in  Virginia,  broke  the  long  inactivity  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac. 

We  cannot  better  illustrate  how  intently 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  watching  army  operations, 
both  in  the  East  and  the  West,  than  by  quot- 
ing his  dispatch  of  March  10  to  Buell : 

The  evidence  is  very  strong  that  the  enemy  in  front 
of  us  here  is  breaking  up  and  moving  off.  General 
McClellan  is  after  him.  Some  part  of  the  force  may 
be  destined  to  meet  you.  Look  out,  and  be  prepared. 
I  telegraphed  Halleck,  asking  him  to  assist  you  if 
needed. 

McClellan's  aimless  march  to  capture  a  few 
scarecrow  sentinels  and  quaker  guns  in  the 
deserted  rebel  field-works,  which  had  been  his 
nightmare  for  half  a  year,  afforded  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  redistribution  of  military  leader- 


666 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


ships,  which  the  winter's  experience  plainly 
dictated.  Slow  and  cautious  in  maturing  his 
decisions,  President  Lincoln  was  prompt  to 
announce  them  when  they  were  once  reached. 
On  the  nth  of  March  he  issued  his  War  Or- 
der No.  3,  one  of  his  most  far-reaching  acts 
of  military  authority.  It  relieved  McClellan 
from  the  duties  of  General-in-Chief  of  all  the 
armies,  and  sent  him  to  the  field  charged  with 
the  single  object  of  conducting  the  campaign 
against  Richmond.  This  made  possible  a  new 
combination  for  the  West,  and  the  same  order 
united  the  three  Western  departments  (as  far 
east  as  Knoxville,  Tennessee)  under  the  com- 
mand of  Halleck.  Under  this  arrangement 
was  fought  the  great  battle  on  the  Tennessee 
that  Halleck  predicted,  giving  the  Union  arms 
a  victory  the  decisive  influence  of  which  was 
felt  throughout  the  remainder  of  the  war;  a 
success,  however,  due  mainly  to  the  gallantry 
of  the  troops,  and  not  to  any  genius  or  brill- 
iant generalship  of  Halleck  or  his  subordinate 
commanders. 

The  Tennessee  River  expedition  under 
Smith,  which  started  on  March  10,  made  good 
its  landing  at  Savannah,  and  on  the  I4th  Smith 
sent  Sherman  with  a  division  on  nineteen 
steamboats,  preceded  by  gun-boats,  to  ascend 
the  river  towards  Eastport  and  begin  the  work 
of  destroying  railroad  communications,  which 
had  been  the  original  object  of  the  whole 
movement.  Sherman  made  a  landing  to  carry 
out  his  orders ;  but  this  was  the  season  of 
spring  freshets.  A  storm  of  rain  and  snow 
changed  every  ravine  and  rivulet  to  a  torrent ; 
the  Tennessee  River  rose  fifteen  feet  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  covering  most  steamboat  landings 
with  deep  water;  and  the  intended  raid  by 
land  and  water  was  reduced  to  a  mere  river 
reconnaissance,  which  proved  the  enemy  to 
be  in  considerable  force  about  luka  and  Cor- 
inth, covering  and  guarding  the  important  rail- 
road crossings  and  communications.  Sherman 
felt  himself  compelled  to  return  to  Pittsburg 
Landing,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Tennessee, 
nine  miles  above  Savannah,  which  was  on  the 
east  bank.  The  place  was  already  well  known 
to  both  armies,  for  a  skirmish  had  occurred 
there  on  the  ist  of  March  between  Union  gun- 
boats and  a  rebel  regiment. 

It  would  seem  that  General  Smith  had  fixed 
upon  Pittsburg  Landing  as  an  available  point 
from  which  to  operate  more  at  leisure  upon 
the  enemy's  railroad  communications,  and 
hence  had  already  sent  Hurlbut's  division 
thither,  which  Sherman  found  there  on  his 
return.  The  place  was  not  selected  as  a  bat- 
tle-field, nor  as  a  base  of  operations  for  a  cam- 
paign, but  merely  to  afford  a  temporary  lodg- 
ment for  raids  upon  the  railroads.  By  a  silent 
and  gradual  change  of  conditions,  however, 


the  intention  and  essential  features  of  the 
whole  Tennessee  River  movement  underwent 
a  complete  transformation.  What  was  begun 
as  a  provisional  expedition  became  a  strategic 
central  campaign ;  and  what  was  chosen  for 
an  outpost  of  detachments  was  almost  imper- 
ceptibly turned  into  a  principal  point  of  con- 
centration, and  became,  by  the  unexpected 
assault  of  the  enemy,  one  of  the  hardest- 
fought  battle-fields  of  the  whole  war. 

Halleck  assumed  command  of  his  combined 
departments  by  general  orders  dated  March 
13,  and  after  explaining  once  more  to  Buellthat 
all  his  available  force  not  required  to  defend 
Nashville  should  be  sent  up  the  Tennessee, 
he  telegraphed  him  on  the  1 6th  of  March : 

Move  your  forces  by  land  to  the  Tennessee  as  rap- 
idly as  possible.  .  .  .  Grant's  army  is  concentrating 
at  Savannah.  You  must  direct  your  march  on  that 
point  so  that  the  enemy  cannot  get  between  us. 

The  combined  campaign  thus  set  in  motion 
was  wise  in  conception,  but  its  preliminary 
execution  proved  lamentably  weak ;  and  the 
blame  is  justly  attributable,  in  about  equal 
measure,  to  Halleck,  Buell,  and  Grant.  For 
a  few  days  Halleck's  orders  were  decided  and 
firm ;  then  there  followed  a  slackening  of  opin- 
ion and  a  variance  of  direction  that  came 
near  making  a  disastrous  wreck  of  the  whole 
enterprise.  His  positive  orders  to  Buell  to 
move  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  to  concen- 
trate at  Savannah  were  twice  repeated  on  the 
1 7th  ;  but  on  the  26th  he  directed  him  to  con- 
centrate at  Savannah  or  Eastport,  and  on  the 
2gth  to  concentrate  at  Savannah  or  Pitts- 
burg, while  on  April  5  he  pointedly  con- 
sented to  a  concentration  at  Waynesborough. 
This  was  inexcusable  uncertainty  in  the  com- 
binations of  a  great  strategist,  who  complained 
that  "  hesitation  and  delay  are  losing  us  the 
golden  opportunity."  These  were  the  timid 
steps  of  a  blind  man  feeling  his  way,  and  not 
the  firm  strides  of  a  leader  who  promised  to 
"split  secession  in  twain  in  one  month." 

It  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  Buell's  march 
fulfilled  the  injunction  to  move  "  as  rapidly  as 
possible."  When  his  advanced  division  reached 
Duck  River  at  Columbia  on  the  i8th  it  found 
that  stream  swollen  and  the  bridge  destroyed, 
and  set  itself  to  the  task  of  building  a  new 
frame  bridge  with  a  deliberateness  better  be- 
fitting the  leisure  of  peace  than  the  pressing 
hurry  of  war.  Buell  arrived  in  person  at 
Columbia  on  the  26th.*  He  manifested 
his  own  dissatisfaction  with  the  delay  by  or- 
dering the  construction  of  another  bridge, 
this  time  of  pontoons,  which  was  completed 
simultaneously  with  the  first  on  March  30. 

*  Buell  in  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War," 
Vol.  I.,  p.  491. 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


667 


Still  further  delay  was  projected  by  a  propo- 
sition to  halt  for  concentration  at  Waynes- 
borough.  It  must  be  said  in  justice  to  Buell, 
that  Halleck  did  not  complain  of  the  slow 
bridge-building  at  Columbia,  and  that  he 
consented  to  the  concentration  at  Waynes- 
borough.  Had  it  taken  place,  Buell's  army 
would  again  have  been  "  too  late  "  for  a  great 
battle.  The  excuse  offered,  that  Buell  sup- 
posed the  Union  army  to  be  safe  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Tennessee  at  Savannah,  can 
scarcely  be  admitted ;  for  on  the  23d  Buell 
received  a  letter  from  Grant  which  said : 

I  am  massing  troops  at  Pittshurg,  Tennessee.  There 
is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  rebels  have  a  large 
force  at  Corinth,  Mississippi,  and  many  at  other  points 
on  the  road  towards  Decatur. 

This  information,  which  Buell  considered 
of  no  importance,  appears  to  have  excited 
the  serious  attention  of  General  William  Nel- 
son, one  of  Buell's  division  commanders,  who, 
already  impatient  at  the  tardy  bridge-build- 
ing, read  the  signs  of  danger  in  the  condi- 
tions about  him  with  a  truer  military  instinct. 
Nelson  finally  obtained  permission  to  ford  the 
now  falling  waters  of  Duck  River,  crossed  his 
division  on  the  2gth  and  3oth,  and  began  the 
march  over  the  ninety  miles  remaining  to  be 
traversed  with  an  enthusiasm  and  impetuosity 
that  swept  the  whole  army  past  the  proposed 
halting-place  at  Waynesborough,  bringing  his 
own  division  to  Savannah  on  the  5th,  and 
others  on  the  6th,  of  April. 

It  reflects  no  credit  on  General  Halleck  or 
General  Grant  that  during  the  interim  of  Bu- 
ell's march  the  advanced  post  of  Pittsburg 
Landing  had  been  left  in  serious  peril.  Hal- 
leck was  busy  at  St.  Louis  collecting  reen- 
forcements  to  send  to  Grant,  with  the  an- 
nounced intention  to  proceed  to  the  field  and 
take  personal  command  on  the  Tennessee 
River.  This  implied  a  delay  demanding  either 
the  concentration  of  the  whole  army  at  Sa- 
vannah, as  originally  ordered  by  him,  behind 
the  safe  barrier  of  the  Tennessee,  or  strong  for- 
tifications for  the  exposed  position  of  Pittsburg 
Landing,  on  the  west  bank.  On  the  other  hand, 
Grant,  resuming  his  general  command  in  per- 
son on  March  17,  and  finding  his  five  divisions 
separated,  three  at  Savannah  and  two  at  Pitts- 
burg Landing, —  nine  miles  apart,  with  a  river 
between  them, —  properly  took  alarm  and  im- 
mediately united  them ;  but  in  doing  this  he 
committed  the  evident  fault  of  defying  danger 
by  choosing  the  advanced  position  and  of 
neglecting  to  raise  the  slightest  intrenchments 
to  protect  his  troops  —  which  were  without 
means  of  rapid  retreat  —  against  a  possible  as- 
sault from  an  enemy  only  twenty  miles  distant, 
and  according  to  his  own  reports  at  all  times 
his  equal  if  not  his  superior  in  numbers.  But 


one  cause  can  be  assigned  for  this  palpable 
imprudence.  Well  instructed  in  the  duties  of 
an  officer  under  orders,  he  was  just  beginning 
his  higher  education  as  a  leader  of  armies,  and 
he  was  about  to  receive  the  most  impressive 
lesson  of  his  very  strange  career. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  after  the  fall 
of  Fort  Donelson  the  rebel  commanders  fled 
southward  in  confusion  and  dismay.  We  have 
the  high  authority  and  calm  judgment  of  Gen- 
eral Grant,  in  the  mature  experience  and  reflec- 
tion of  after  years,  that  "  if  one  general  who 
would  have  taken  the  responsibility  had  been 
in  command  of  all  the  troops  west  of  the  Al- 
leghanies,  he  could  have  marched  to  Chatta- 
nooga, Corinth,  Memphis,  and  Vicksburg 
with  the  troops  we  then  had";  *  but  the  Seces- 
sionists of  the  South-west  were  still  in  the  fer- 
vor of  their  early  enthusiasm,  and  recovered 
rapidly  from  the  stupefaction  of  unexpected 
disaster.  In  the  delay  of  four  or  five  weeks 
that  the  divided  ambition  and  over-cautious 
hesitation  of  the  Union  generals  afforded  them, 
they  had  renewed  their  courage,  and  united 
and  reenforced  their  scattered  armies.  The 
separation  of  the  armies  of  Johnston  from 
those  of  Beauregard,  which  seemed  irreparable 
when  the  Tennessee  River  was  opened,  had 
not  been  maintained  by  the  prompt  advance 
that  everybody  pointed  out  but  which  no- 
body executed.  By  the  23d  of  March  the 
two  Confederate  generals  had  once  more, 
without  opposition,  effected  a  junction  of  their 
forces  at  and  about  Corinth,  and  thus  reversed 
the  pending  military  problem.  In  the  last 
weeks  of  February  it  could  have  been  the 
united  Unionists  pursuing  the  divided  Con- 
federates. In  the  last  weeks  of  March  it  was 
the  united  Confederates  preparing  to  attack 
the  divided  armies  of  Halleck  and  Buell.  The 
whole  situation  and  plan  is  summed  up  in  the 
dispatch  of  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston 
to  Jefferson  Davis,  dated  April  3,  1862  : 

General  Buell  is  in  motion,  30,000  strong,  rapidly 
from  Columbia  by  Clifton  to  Savannah  ;  Mitchell  be- 
hind him  with  10,000.  Confederate  forces,  40,000,  or- 
dered forward  to  offer  battle  near  Pittsburg.  Division 
from  Bethel,  main  body  from  Corinth,  reserve  from 
Burnsville  converge  to-morrow  near  Monterey  on 
Pittsburg.  Beauregard  second  in  command;  Polk, 
left;  Hardee,  center;  Bragg,  right  wing;  Breckinridge, 
reserve.  Hope  engagement  before  Buell  can  form  junc- 
tion. 

The  Confederate  march  took  place  as  pro- 
jected, and  on  the  evening  of  April  5  their 
joint  forces  went  into  bivouac  two  miles  from 
the  Union  camps.  That  evening  also  the  Con- 
federate commanders  held  an  informal  con- 
ference. Beauregard  became  impressed  with 
impending  defeat ;  their  march  had  been  slow, 
the  rations  they  carried  were  exhausted,  and 

*  Grant,  "  Personal  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  317. 


668 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


their  extra  rations  and  ammunition  were  not 
yet  at  hand.  They  could  no  longer  hope  to 
effect  the  complete  surprise  that  was  an  es- 
sential feature  of  their  plan.  Beauregard  ad- 
vised a  change  of  programme  —  to  abandon  the 
projected  attack  and  convert  the  movement 
into  a  "  reconnaissance  in  force."  General 
Johnston  listened,  but  refused  his  assent,  and 
orders  were  given  to  begin  the  battle  next 
morning.  No  suspicion  of  such  a  march  or  at- 
tack entered  the  mind  of  any  Union  officer; 
and  that  same  day  Grant  reported  to  Halleck, 
"  The  main  force  of  the  enemy  is  at  Corinth." 

The  natural  position  occupied  by  the  Union 
forces  is  admitted  to  have  been  unusually 
strong.  The  Tennessee  River  here  runs  nearly 
north.  North  of  the  camps,  Snake  Creek  with 
an  affluent,  Owl  Creek,  formed  a  barrier 
stretching  from  the  river  bank  in  general  di- 
rection towards  the  south-west.  South  of  the 
camps,  Lick  Creek  and  river  sloughs  also 
formed  an  impassable  obstruction  for  a  con- 
siderable distance  next  to  the  Tennessee.  The 
river  on  the  east,  and  Snake  and  Owl  creeks 
on  the  west,  thus  inclosed  a  high  triangular 
plateau  with  sides  three  or  four  miles  in  length, 
crossed  and  intersected  to  some  extent  by 
smaller  streams  and  ravines,  though  generally 
open  towards  the  south.  The  roads  from  Pitts- 
burg  Landing  towards  Corinth  followed  the 
main  ridge,  also  towards  the  south-west.  Anet- 
work  of  other  roads,  very  irregular  in  direc- 
tion, ran  from  the  Corinth  roads  to  various 
points  in  the  neighborhood.  Alternate  patches 
of  timber,  thick  undergrowth,  and  open  fields 
covered  the  locality.  Two  miles  from  Pitts- 
burg  Landing,  on  one  of  the  Corinth  roads, 
stood  a  log  meeting-house,  called  Shiloh 
Church,  which  was  destined  to  become  the 
center  of  the  battle-field  and  to  give  its  name 
to  the  conflict. 

Three  of  Grant's  divisions  were  camped  in 
an  irregular  line  from  Lick  Creek  to  Owl 
Creek,  closing  the  open  side  of  the  triangular 
plateau — Sherman's  division  in  the  center,  near 
Shiloh  Church ;  Prentiss  to  his  left,  towards  the 
Tennessee  River  and  somewhat  in  advance ; 
McClernand  to  the  right,  towards  Owl  Creek 
and  somewhat  in  rear.  Half-way  back  from 
Shiloh  Church  to  Pittsburg  Landing  were 
camped  the  divisions  of  Hurlbut  and  of 
Smith,  the  latter  now  commanded — owing 
to  Smith's  illness— by  W.  H.  L.  Wallace.  An- 
other division,  under  General  Lew.  Wallace, 
had  been  left  at  Crump's  Landing,  six  miles 
to  the  north,  as  a  guard  against  rebel  raids, 
which  threatened  to  gain  possession  of  the 
banks  of  the  Tennessee  at  that  point  to  de- 
stroy the  river  communications.  Grant  had 
apprehensions  of  a  raid  of  this  character  and 
cautioned  his  officers  against  it,  an  admoni- 


tion that  was  the  basis  of  such  alertness  and 
vigilance  as  had  existed  for  several  days. 

Most  of  the  particulars  of  the  battle  that 
followed  will  probably  always  form  a  subject 
of  dispute.  There  were  no  combined  or  dra- 
matic movements  of  masses  that  can  be  an- 
alyzed and  located.  The  Union  army  had  no 
prepared  line  of  defense  ;  three  lines  in  which 
the  rebel  army  had  been  arranged  for  the  at- 
tack became  quickly  broken  and  mingled  with 
one  another.  On  the  Union  side  the  irregular 
alignment  of  the  camps  and  the  precipitancy 
of  the  attack  compelled  the  formation  of 
whatever  line  of  battle  could  be  most  hurriedly 
improvised.  General  Force  says  : 

A  combat  made  up  of  numberless  separate  encount- 
ers of  detached  portions  of  broken  lines,  continually 
shifting  position  and  changing  direction  in  the  forest 
and  across  ravines,  filling  an  entire  day,  is  almost  in- 
capable of  a  connected  narrative. 

At  5  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Sunday, 
April  6,  1862,  the  rebel  lines  moved  forward 
to  the  attack.  The  time  required  to  pass  the 
intervening  two  miles,  and  the  preliminary 
skirmishes  with  Union  pickets  and  a  recon- 
noitering  Union  regiment  that  began  the 
fight,  gradually  put  the  whole  Union  front 
on  the  alert;  and  when  the  main  lines  closed 
with  each  other,  the  divisions  of  Prentiss, 
Sherman,  and  McClernand  were  sufficiently  in 
position  to  offera  stubborn  resistance.  The  Con- 
federates found  themselves  foiled  in  the  easy 
surprise  and  confusion  that  they  had  counted 
upon.  It  would  be  a  tedious  waste  of  time  to 
attempt  to  follow  the  details  of  the  fight,  which, 
thus  begun  before  sunrise,  continued  till  near 
sunset. 

Along  the  labyrinth  of  the  local  roads,  over 
the  mixed  patchwork  of  woods,  open  fields, 
and  almost  impenetrable  thickets,  across 
stretches  of  level,  broken  by  miry  hollows  and 
abrupt  ravines,  the  swinging  lines  of  conflict 
moved  intermittently  throughout  the  entire 
day.  There  was  onset  and  repulse,  yell  of  as- 
sault and  cheer  of  defiance,  screeching  of 
shells  and  sputtering  of  volleys,  advance  and 
retreat.  But  steadily  through  the  fluctuating 
changes  the  general  progress  was  northward, 
the  rebels  gaining  and  pushing  their  advance, 
the  Unionists  stubbornly  resisting,  but  little  by 
little  losing  their  ground.  It  was  like  the  flux 
and  reflux  of  ocean  breakers,  dashing  them- 
selves with  tireless  repetition  against  a  yield- 
ing, crumbling  shore.  Beauregard,  to  whom  the 
Confederate  commander  had  committed  the 
general  direction  of  the  battle,  several  times 
during  the  day  advanced  his  headquarters 
from  point  to  point,  following  the  steady  prog- 
ress of  his  lines.  The  time  consumed  and 
the  lists  of  dead  and  wounded  are  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  brave  conduct  of  officers  and 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


the  gallant  courage  of  men  on  both  sides.  On 
the  Union  side  the  divisions  of  Hurlbut  and 
W.  H.  L.  Wallace  had  f.irly  been  brought 
forward  to  sustain  those  of  Prentiss,  Sherman, 
and  McClernand.  It  was,  to  a  degree  seldom 
witnessed  in  a  battle,  the  slow  and  sustained 
struggle,  through  an  entire  day,  of  one  whole 
army  against  another  whole  army.  The  five 
Union  divisions  engaged  in  the  battle  of  Sun- 
day numbered  33,000.*  The  total  force  of  the 
Confederates  attacking  them  was  40,000. 

It  was  in  the  latter  half  of  the  afternoon 
that  the  more  noteworthy  incidents  of  the  con- 
test took  place.  The  first  of  these  was  the 
death  of  the  Confederate  commander,  General 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  who  fell  personally 
leading  the  charge  of  a  brigade,  t  The  knowl- 
edge of  the  loss  was  carefully  kept  from  the 
Confederate  army,  and  the  management  on 
their  side  of  the  conflict  was  not  thereby  im- 
paired, because  Beauregard  had  been  mainly 
intrusted  with  it  from  the  beginning.  About 
5  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  a  serious  loss  fell 
upon  the  Unionists.  General  Prentiss,  com- 
manding the  Sixth  Division,  and  General  W. 
H.  L.  Wallace,  commanding  the  Third  Divis- 
ion, whose  united  lines  had  held  one  of  the 
key-points  of  the  Federal  left  since  9  o'clock 
in  the  forenoon  against  numerous  and  well- 
concentrated  assaults  of  the  enemy,  found  that 
the  withdrawal  of  troops  both  on  the  right  and 
the  left  produced  gaps  that  offered  an  open- 
ing to  the  enemy.  Prentiss  had  been  instructed 
by  General  Grant  to  hold  his  position  at  all 
hazards,  and  consulting  with  Wallace  they 
determined  to  obey  the  order  notwithstanding 
the  now  dangerous  exposure.  But  the  enemy 
seized  the  advantage;  they  quickly  found 
themselves  enveloped  and  surrounded;  only 
portions  of  their  command  succeeded  in  cut- 
ting their  way  out;  Wallace  was  mortally 
wounded,  and  Prentiss  and  fragments  of  the 
two  divisions,  numbering  2200  men,  were 
taken  prisoners. 

This  wholesale  capture  left  a  wide  opening 
in  the  left  of  the  Federal  lines,  and  probably 
would  have  given  the  victory  to  the  rebels 
but  for  another  circumstance  which  somewhat 
compensated  for  so  abrupt  a  diminution  of  the 
Union  forces.  The  Union  lines  had  now  been 
swept  back  more  than  a  mile  and  a  half,  and 
the  rebel  attack  was  approaching  the  main 

*  Throughout  the  history  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion 
there  is  a  marked  disagreement  in  the  estimate  of 
numbers  engaged  in  .battles,  as  stated  by  the  Unionists 
on  one  side  and  the  Confederates  on  the  other.  This  vari- 
ance comes  from  a  different  manner  of  reporting  those 
"present  for  duty"  in  the  two  armies,  out  of  which 
arises  a  systematic  diminution  of  Confederates  and  in- 
crease of  Federals  in  the  statements  of  Confederate 
writers.  General  Force,  in  his  admirable  little  book 
"  From  Fort  Henry  to  Corinth,"  analyzes  these 


669 

Corinth  road,  running  from  Pittsburg  Landing 
along  the  principal  ridge,  which  here  lay 
nearly  at  a  right  angle  to  the  river.  Colonel 
Webster  of  General  Grant's  staff,  noting  the 
steady  retreat  of  the  Union  lines  and  foresee- 
ing that  the  advancing  attack  of  the  enemy 
would  eventually  reach  this  ridge,  busied  him- 
self to  post  a  line  of  artillery  —  from  thirty- 
five  to  fifty  guns — along  the  crest,  gathering 
whatever  was  available,  among  which  were 
several  heavy  pieces.  To  man  and  support  this 
extemporized  battery  he  organized  and  posted, 
in  conjunction  with  Hurlbut's  division,  such 
fragments  of  troops  as  had  become  useless  at 
the  front.  To  reach  the  crest  of  this  ridge  and 
this  line  of  hastily  planted  cannon  the  enemy 
was  obliged  to  cross  a  deep,  broad  hollow,  ex- 
tending to  the  river  and  partly  filled  with  back- 
water. The  topography  of  the  place  was  such 
that  the  gun-boats  Tyler  and  Lexington  were 
also  stationed  in  the  Tennessee,  abreast  the 
valley  and  sheet  of  back-water,  and  their  guns 
were  thus  enabled  to  assist  the  line  of  cannon 
on  the  ridge  by  a  cross-fire  of  shells. 

General  Grant  had  passed  theprevious  night 
at  Savannah,  where  he  had  become  aware  of 
the  arrival  of  the  advance  brigades  of  Nelson's 
division  of  Buell's  army  on  the  same  day  (April 
5).  He  started  by  boat  to  Pittsburg  Land- 
ing early  Sunday  morning,  having  heard  the 
firing  but  not  regarding  it  as  an  attack  in  force. 
Arrived  there  he  became  a  witness  of  the  seri- 
ous nature  of  the  attack,  and  remained  on  the 
battle-field,  visiting  the  various  division  com- 
manders and  giving  such  orders  as  the  broken 
and  fluctuating  course  of  the  conflictsuggested. 
But  the  defense,  begun  in  uncertainty  and  haste 
before  his  arrival,  could  not  thereafter  be  re- 
duced to  any  order  or  system ;  it  necessarily, 
all  day  long,  merely  followed  the  changes  and 
the  violence  of  the  rebel  attack.  The  blind  and 
intricate  battle-field  offered  little  chance  for 
careful  planning ;  the  haste  and  tumult  of  com- 
bat left  no  time  for  tactics.  On  neither  side  was 
the  guidance  of  general  command  of  much 
service ;  it  was  the  division,  brigade,  and  regi- 
mental commanders  who  fought  the  battle. 
About  noon  of  Sunday  General  Grant  began 
to  have  misgivings  of  the  result,  and  dispatched 
a  letter  for  help  to  Buell's  forces  at  Savannah, 
saying,  "  If  you  will  get  upon  the  field,  leav- 
ing all  your  baggage  on  the  east  bank  of  the 

methods  of  computation  as  applied  to  the  battle  of 
Shiloh,  and  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the  actual 
number  of  "combatants  engaged  in  the  battle  "of 
Sunday  was  fully  40,000  Confederates  and  between 
32,000  and  33,000  Unionists. 

The  reinforcements  of  Monday  numbered,  of  Buell's 
army,  about  20,000 ;  Lew.  Wallace's,  6500 ;  and  other 
regiments,  about  1400. 

t  W.  P.  Johnston  in  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the 
Civil  War,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  504. 


670 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


river,  it  will  be  more  to  our  advantage,  and 
possibly  save  the  day  to  us."  He  also  sent 
an  order  to  General  Lew.  Wallace,  at  Crump's 
Landing,  to  hasten  his  division  to  the  right 
of  the  army. 

So  far  as  the  Confederates  had  any  distinct 
plan  of  battle,  it  was  merely  the  simple  one 
of  forcing  the  Federals  away  from  the  river 
to  gain  possession  of  Pittsburg  Landing,  cut 
off  their  means  of  retreat  by  seizing  or  destroy- 
ing the  transports,  and  compel  Grant  to  ca- 
pitulate. But  the  execution  of  this  leading 
design  was  completely  frustrated  by  the  diffi- 
cult nature  of  the  ground  and  by  the  gallant 
resistance  made  by  Prentiss  and  Wallace,  who 
held  their  line  on  the  Union  left,  unshaken 
and  unmoved,  from  9  o'clock  in  the  forenoon 
until  5  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  principal 
advance  made  by  the  rebels  was  not  next  to 
the  river,  where  they  desired  it,  but  on  the 
Union  right  next  to  Owl  Creek,  where  it  was 
of  least  value.  Even  after  they  had  captured 
the  whole  residue  of  Prentiss's  and  Wallace's 
divisions,  and  had  cleared  out  that  terrible 
center  of  the  Union  fire  which  they  had  inef- 
fectually assaulted  a  dozen  times,  and  which  by 
bitter  experience  they  themselves  learned  to 
know  and  designate  as  the  "Hornets' Nest," 
and  near  which  their  Commander-in-Chief  had 
fallen  in  death,  they  were  not  yet  within  reach 
of  the  coveted  banks  of  Pittsburg  Landing. 
Before  them  still  yawned  the  broad  valley, 
the  back-water,  the  mire,  the  steep  hills  across 
which  screeched  the  shells  from  the  gun- 
boats and  from  the  long  death-threatening 
line  of  Webster's  reserve  artillery,  and  behind 
which  the  bayonets  of  Hurlbut's  division,  yet 
solid  in  organization  and  strong  in  numbers, 
glinted  in  the  evening  sun.  From  Hurlbut's 
right  the  shattered  but  courageous  remnants 
of  the  divisions  of  McClernand  and  Sherman 
stretched  away  in  an  unbroken  line  towards 
Owl  Creek.  Ground  had  been  lost  and  ground 
had  been  won;  the  line  of  fire  had  moved  a 
mile  and  a  half  to  the  north  ;  the  lines  of  com- 
batants had  been  shortened  from  three  miles 
in  the  morning  to  one  mile  in  the  evening ; 
but  now,  after  the  day's  conflict,  when  the 
sun  approached  his  setting,  the  relations  and 
the  prospects  of  the  bloody  fight  were  but 
little  changed.  The  Confederates  held  the 
field  of  battle,  but  the  Unionists  held  their 
central  position,  their  supplies,  and  their  com- 
munications. The  front  of  attack  had  become 
as  weak  as  the  front  of  defense.  On  each  side 
from  eight  to  ten  thousand  men  had  been  lost, 
by  death,  wounds,  and  capture.  From  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  panic-stricken  Union  strag- 
glers cowered  under  the  shelter  of  the  high 
river  bank  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  From  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  Confederate  stragglers,  some 


equally  panic-stricken,  others  demoralized  by 
the  irresistible  temptations  of  camp-pillage,  en- 
cumbered the  rear  of  Beauregard's  army.  The 
day  was  nearly  gone  and  the  battle  was  un- 
decided. 

A  controversy  has  recently  arisen  as  to  the 
personal  impressions  and  intentions  of  Gen- 
eral Grant  at  this  crisis.  His  "  Memoirs"  de- 
clare in  substance  that  he  was  still  so  confident 
of  victory  that  he  gave  orders  that  evening 
for  a  renewal  of  the  fight  on  the  following 
morning  by  a  general  attack.  General  Buell, 
on  the  other  hand,  makes  a  strong  argument 
that  the  evidence  is  against  this  assumption.* 
It  is  possible,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  that 
the  truth  lies  midway  between  the  two  state- 
ments. A  famous  newspaper  correspondent 
who  was  on  the  battle-field  made  the  following 
record  of  the  affair  long  before  this  contro- 
versy arose : 

The  tremendous  roar  to  the  left,  momentarily  nearer 
and  nearer,  told  of  an  effort  to  cut  him  off  from  the 
river  and  from  retreat.  Grant  sat  his  horse,  quiet, 
thoughtful,  almost  stolid.  Said  one  to  him, "  Does  not 
the  prospect  begin  to  look  gloomy?"  "Not  at  all," 
was  the  quiet  reply.  "  They  can't  force  our  lines 
around  these  batteries  to-night — it  is  too  late.  Delay 
counts  everything  with  us.  To-morrow  we  shall  attack 
them  with  fresh  troops  and  drive  them,  of  course." 

The  correspondent  adds,  in  a  note :  "  I  was 
myself  a  listener  to  this  conversation,  and  from 
it  I  date,  in  my  own  case  at  least,  the  begin- 
ning of  any  belief  in  Grant's  greatness. "t 

As  this  writer  was  one  of  Grant's  most 
candid  critics,  his  testimony  on  this  point  is 
all  the  more  valuable. 

The  turning-point  was  at  length  reached. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  much-disputed 
intentions  and  hopes  of  commanders  at  that 
critical  juncture  that  were  not  expressed 
and  recorded,  or  what  might  have  been  the 
possibilities  and  consequence  of  acts  that 
were  not  attempted,  it  is  worse  than  useless 
to  discuss  upon  hypothesis.  Each  reader  for 
himself  must  interpret  the  significance  of  the 
three  closing  incidents  of  that  momentous 
Sunday,  which  occurred  almost  simultane- 
ously. 

Some  of  the  rebel  division  commanders, 
believing  that  victory  would  be  insured  by 
one  more  desperate  assault  against  the  Union 
left  to  gain  possession  of  Pittsburg  Landing, 
made  arrangements  and  gave  orders  for  that 
object.  It  seems  uncertain,  however,  whether 
the  force  could  have  been  gathered  and  the 
movement  made  in  any  event.  Only  a  single 
brigade  made  the  attempt,  and  it  was  driven 
back  in  confusion.  The  officer  of  another 

*  Buell  in  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War," 
Vol.  I.,  p.  523,  et  set]. 

t  Whitelaw  Reid,  "  Ohio  in  the  Civil  War." 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


671 


detachment  refused  the  desperate  service. 
Still  others  were  overtaken  in  their  prepara- 
tion by  orders  from  General  Beauregard  to 
withdraw  the  whole  Confederate  army  from 
the  fight,  and  to  go  into  bivouac  until  the  fol- 
lowing day.  Eager  as  was  that  commander  for 
victory,  the  conclusion  had  been  forced  on 
his  mind,  that,  for  that  day  at  least,  it  was  not 
within  the  power  of  his  army  to  complete 
their  undertaking;  and  accordingly  he  di- 
rected that  the  fight  should  cease.  He  reached 
this  determination  not  knowing  that  Buell  had 
arrived,  and  still  hoping  that  he  would  not 
arrive,  even  on  the  morrow. 

In  this  hope  Beauregard  was  disappointed. 
While  yet  his  orders  to  retire  from  the  com- 
bat were  being  executed,  and  before  the  last 
desperate  charge  of  the  rebels  towards  Web- 
ster's reserve  artillery  was  beaten  back,  the  van- 
guard of  Nelson's  division,  which  had  marched 
from  Savannah  and  had  been  ferried  across 
the  river  by  transports,  was  mounting  the  bank 
at  Pittsburg  Landing  and  deploying  in  line  of 
battle  under  the  enemy's  fire,  Ammen's  fresh 
brigade  first  coming  to  the  support  of  the 
line  of  Union  guns.  A  few  men  out  of  the 
brigade  fell  by  the  rebel  bullets,  and  then  came 
twilight,  and  soon  after  the  darkness  of  night. 
The  tide  of  victory  was  effectually  turned. 
Whatever  the  single  army  of  Grant  might 
or  might  not  have  accomplished  on  the  follow- 
ing day  against  the  army  of  Beauregard  is 
only  speculation.  Beauregard's  attack  had 
been  ordered  discontinued  before  the  actual 
presence  of  Buell's  troops  on  the  battle-field 
Had  the  attack  been  continued,  however,  that 
opportune  arrival  would  have  rendered  its 
success  impossible. 

After  sunset  of  Sunday  all  chances  of  a  rebel 
victory  vanished.  The  remainder  of  Nelson's 
division  immediately  crossed  the  river  and  fol- 
lowed Ammen's  brigade  to  the  field.  Critten- 
den's  division  was  next  placed  in  position 
during  the  night.  Finally  McCook's  division 
reached  Pittsburg  Landing  early  Monday 
morning  and  promptly  advanced  to  the  front. 
General  Buell,  who  had  come  before  the  van- 
guard on  Sunday  evening,  in  person  directed 
the  placing  and  preparation  of  these  three 
superb  divisions  of  his  army  —  a  total  of  about 
twenty  thousand  fresh,  well-equipped,  and 
well-drilled  troops  —  to  renew  an  offensive 
conflict  along  the  left  of  the  Federal  line.  On 
the  Federal  right  was  stationed  the  fresh  di- 
vision of  General  Lew.  Wallace,  numbering 
6500,  which  had  arrived  from  Crump's  Land- 
ing a  little  after  nightfall,  and  which  took  posi- 
tion soon  after  midnight  of  Sunday.  Along  the 
Federal  right  center,  Grant's  reduced  divisions 
which  had  fought  the  battle  of  Sunday  were 
gathered  and  reorganized,  McClernand  and 


Sherman  in  front,  Hurlbut  and  the  escaped 
remnants  of  W.  11.  I,.  Wallace's  division,  with 
some  new  detachments,  in  reserve.  Grant 
and  Buell  met  on  Sunday  evening  and  agreed 
to  take  the  offensive  jointly  on  Monday 
morning;  Buell  to  command  his  three  divis- 
ions on  the  left,  Grant  to  direct  his  own  forces 
on  the  right.  No  special  plan  was  adopted 
other  than  simultaneously  to  dnve  the  enemy 
from  the  field.  The  plan  was  carried  out  in 
harmony  and  witli  entire  success.  With  only 
temporary  checks,  brought  about  by  the  too 
great  impetuosity  of  the  newly  arrived  reen- 
forcements,  the  two  wings  of  the  Union  army 
advanced  steadily,  and  by  3  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  were  in  possession  of  all  the  ground 
from  which  they  had  been  driven  on  the  pre- 
vious day ;  while  the  rebel  army  was  in  full 
retreat  upon  Corinth  —  foiled  of  its  victory, 
dejected  in  spirit,  and  in  a  broken  and  almost 
hopeless  state  of  disorganization.  A  little 
more  genius  and  daring  on  the  part  of  the 
Union  commanders  would  have  enabled  them 
by  vigorous  pursuit  to  demolish  or  capture 
it ;  but  they  chose  the  more  prudent  alterna- 
tive, and  remained  satisfied  with  only  suffi- 
cient advance  to  assure  themselves  that  the 
enemy  had  disappeared. 

HALLECK'S  CORINTH  CAMPAIGN. 

ON  Wednesday,  April  9,  two  days  after  the 
battle  of  Shiloh,  General  Grant  gave  evidence 
that  he  had  fully  learned  the  severe  lesson  of 
that  terrible  encounter.  Reporting  to  Halleck 
his  information  that  the  enemy  was  again 
concentrating  all  his  forces  at  Corinth,  he 
added : 

I  do  not  like  to  suggest,  but  it  appears  to  me  that  it 
would  be  demoralizing  upon  our  troops  here  to  be 
forced  to  retire  upon  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river, 
and  unsafe  to  remain  on  this  many  weeks  without 
large  reinforcements. 

If  his  mind  had  reached  a  conviction  of 
this  character  two  or  three  weeks  earlier,  the 
results  of  the  battle  of  Shiloh  would  have 
given  better  testimony  to  his  military  efficiency. 

Halleck's  opinion  probably  coincided  with 
that  of  Grant,  and  the  fortunes  of  war  enabled 
him  immediately  to  fulfill  his  promise  to  come 
to  his  relief.  The  day  which  saw  the  con- 
clusion of  the  fight  at  Shiloh  (April  7,  1862) 
witnessed  the  surrender  of  the  rebel  works  at 
Island  No.  10,  on  the  Mississippi  River,  and 
the  quick  capture  of  nearly  their  entire  garri- 
son of  six  or  seven  thousand  men.  This  finished 
the  task  which  General  Pope  had  been  sent  to 
do  and  enabled  Halleck  to  transfer  him  and 
his  army,  by  water,  from  the  Mississippi  River 
to  the  Tennessee.  Halleck's  order  was  made 
on  April  15,  and  on  the  22d  Pope  landed  at 


672 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Hamburg,  four  miles  above  the  battle-field  of 
Shiloh,  with  his  compact  force  of  twenty  thou- 
sand men  fully  organized  and  equipped,  and 
flushed  with  a  signal  victory. 

Halleck  had  arrived  before  him.  Reaching 
Pittsburg  Landing  on  the  nth  of  April,  he 
began  with  industry  to  cure  the  disorders  pro- 
duced by  the  recent  battle.  Critics  who  still 
accuse  the  Lincoln  administration  of  ignorant 
meddling  with  military  affairs  are  invited  to 
remember  the  language  of  the  Secretary  of 
War  to  Halleck  on  this  occasion  :  "  I  have  no 
instructions  to  give  you.  Go  ahead,  and  suc- 
cess attend  you." 

The  arrival  of  Pope  was  utilized  by  Halleck 
to  give  his  united  command  an  easy  and  im- 
mediate organization  into  army  corps.  His 
special  field  orders  of  April  28  named  the 
Army  of  the  Tennessee  the  First  Army  Corps, 
commanded  by  Grant,  and  constituting  his 
right  wing ;  the  Army  of  the  Ohio  the  Second 
Army  Corps, commanded  by  Buell,and  consti- 
tuting the  center ;  and  the  newly  arrived  Army 
of  the  Mississippi  the  Third  Army  Corps,  com- 
manded by  Pope,  and  forming  the  left  wing. 
Two  days  later  (April  30)  another  order  gave 
command  of  theright  wing  to  General  Thomas, 
whose  division  of  the  Army  of  the  Ohio  was 
added  to  it ;  it  also  organized  a  reserve  corps 
under  General  McClernand,  and  had  this 
provision : 

Major-General  Grant  will  retain  the  general  com- 
mand of  the  district  of  West  Tennessee,  including  the 
Army  Corps  of  the  Tennessee,  and  reports  will  be 
made  to  him  as  heretofore;  but  in  the  present  move- 
ments he  will  act  as  second  in  command  under  the 
major-general  commanding  the  department. 

The  exact  intent  of  this  assignment  remains 
to  this  day  a  matter  of  doubt.  Nominally,  it 
advanced  Grant  in  rank  and  authority ;  prac- 
tically, it  deprived  him  of  active  and  important 
duty.  Halleck  being  on  the  field  in  person  is- 
sued his  orders  directly  to  the  corps  command- 
ers and  received  reports  from  them,  and  for 
about  two  months  Grant  found  himself  with- 
out serious  occupation.  The  position  became  so 
irksome  that  he  several  times  asked  to  be  re- 
lieved, but  Halleck  refused ;  though  he  finally 
allowed  him  to  go  for  a  season  into  a  species 
of  honorable  retirement,  by  removing  his 
headquarters  from  the  camp  of  the  main  army. 

Coming  to  the  front  so  soon  after  the  great 
battle,  Halleck  seems  to  have  been  impressed 
with  the  seriousness  of  that  conflict,  for  all  his 
preparations  to  assume  the  offensive  were 
made  with  the  most  deliberate  caution.  It 
was  manifest  that  the  enemy  intended  to  de- 
fend Corinth,  and  necessarily  that  place  be- 
came his  first  objective.  With  all  the  efforts 
that  the  Confederate  Government  could  make, 
however,  Beauregard  succeeded  in  bringing 


together  only  about  fifty  thousand  effective 
troops.  Halleck's  combined  armies  contained 
more  than  double  that  number ;  but  such  was 
his  fear  of  another  disaster,  that  his  advance 
upon  Corinth  was  not  like  an  invading  march, 
but  like  the  investment  of  a  fortress.  An  army 
carrying  a  hundred  thousand  bayonets,  in  the 
picturesque  language  of  General  Sherman, 
moved  upon  Corinth  "  with  pick  and  shovel." 
Intrenching,  bridge -building,  road-making, 
were  the  order  of  the  day.  Former  carelessness 
and  temerity  were  succeeded  by  a  fettering 
over-caution. 

The  Administration  expected  more  ener- 
getic campaigning  from  a  commander  of  Hal- 
leck's reputed  skill  and  the  brilliant  results 
realized  since  his  advent.  The  country  seemed 
at  the  culmination  of  great  events.  Since  the 
beginning  of  the  year  success  had  smiled  al- 
most continuously  upon  the  Union  cause.  As 
the  crowning  inspiration,  in  the  midst  of  his 
inarch  there  had  come  the  joyful  news  of  Far- 
ragut's  triumph  and  the  capture  of  New  Or- 
leans. "  Troops  cannot  be  detached  from  here 
on  the  eve  of  a  great  battle,"  telegraphed 
Halleck  to  Stanton.  "  We  are  now  at  the  en- 
emy's throat."  To  such  encouraging  assur- 
ances the  Administration  responded  with  every 
possible  exertion  of  reinforcement  and  sup- 
ply. But  days  succeeded  days,  and  the  Presi- 
dent's hope  remained  deferred.  Nearly  a 
month  later,  when  reports  came  that  Halleck 
was  awaiting  the  arrival  of  a  fourth  Union 
army, —  that  of  Curtis  from  Arkansas, —  and 
these  reports  were  supplemented  by  intima- 
tions that  he  would  like  to  be  joined  by  a 
fifth  army  from  somewhere  else,  Mr.  Lincoln 
sent  him  a  letter  of  so  kindly  an  explanation, 
that,  in  the  actual  condition  of  things,  every 
word  was  a  stinging  rebuke : 

Several  dispatches  from  Assistant-Secretary  Scott 
and  one  from  Governor  Morton,  asking  reenforce- 
ments  for  you,  have  been  received.  I  beg  you  to  be 
assured  we  do  the  best  we  can.  I  mean  to  cast  no 
blame  when  I  tell  you  each  of  our  commanders  along 
our  line  from  Richmond  to  Corinth  supposes  himself 
to  be  confronted  by  numbers  superior  to  his  own. 
Under  this  pressure  we  thinned  the  line  on  the  Upper 
Potomac,  until  yesterday  it  was  broken  at  heavy  loss  to 
us  and  General  Banks  put  in  great  peril,  out  of  which 
he  is  not  yet  extricated  and  may  be  actually  captured. 
We  need  men  to  repair  this  breach,  and  have  them  not 
at  hand.  My  dear  general,  I  feel  justified  to  rely  very 
much  on  you.  I  believe  you  and  the  brave  officers 
and  men  with  you  can  and  will  get  the  victory  at 
Corinth. 

In  reply  Halleck  resorted  to  the  usual  ex- 
pedient of  reading  the  Secretary  of  War  a 
military  lecture.  May  26  he  wrote  : 

Permit  me  to  remark  that  we  are  operating  upon  too 
many  points.  Richmond  and  Corinth  are  now  the 
great  strategical  points  of  war,  and  our  success  at  these 
points  should  be  insured  at  all  hazards. 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  AND   SIJ1LOH. 


673 


His  herculean  effort  expended  itself  -.vith- 
out  corresponding  result,  when,  a  week  later, 
he  inarched  into  the  empty  intrenchments  of 
Corinth,  only  to  find  that  the  fifty  thousand 
men  composing  Bcauregard'a  army  —  the  vital 
strength  of  rebellion  in  the  \Vest  —  were  re- 
treating at  leisure  to  Baldwin  and  Okalona, 
railroad  towns  some  fifty  miles  to  the  south. 
It  had  required  but  two  days  for  the  rebel  army 
to  go  from  Corinth  to  the  Shiloh  battle-field. 
Halleck  consumed  thirty-seven  days  to  pass 
over  the  same  distance  and  the  same  ground, 
with  an  army  twice  as  strong  as  that  of  his 
adversary.  Pope  had  reached  him  April  --2. 
and  it  was  the  29th  of  May  when  the  Union 
army  was  within  assaulting  distance  of  the 
rebel  intrenchments.  The  campaign  had  ad- 
vanced with  scientific  precision,  and  attained 
one  object  for  which  it  was  conducted :  it 
gained  the  fortifications  of  Corinth.  In  the 
end,  however,  it  proved  to  be  but  the  shell  of 
the  expected  victory.  Beauregard  had  not  only 
skillfully  disputed  the  advance  and  deceived 
his  antagonist,  but  at  the  critical  moment 
had  successfully  withdrawn  the  rebel  forces 
to  wage  more  equal  conflict  on  other  fields. 
The  enemy  evacuated  Corinth  on  the  night 
of  the  agth,  and  beyond  the  usual  demoraliza- 
tion which  attends  such  a  retrograde  move- 
ment suffered  little,  for  Halleck  ordered  only 
pursuit  enough  to  drive  him  to  a  convenient 
distance.  The  achievement  was  the  triumph 
of  a  strategist,  not  the  success  of  a  general. 
Instead  of  seizing  his  opportunity  to  win  a 
great  battle  or  to  capture  an  army  by  siege,  he 
had  simply  manreuvred  the  enemy  out  of 
position. 

In  reporting  his  success  to  Washington, 
Halleck  of  course  magnified  its  value  to  the 
utmost,*  and  for  the  moment  the  Administra- 
tion, not  having  that  full  information  which 
afterward  so  seriously  diminished  the  estimate, 
accepted  the  report  in  good  faith  as  a  grand 
Union  triumph.  It  was  indeed  a  considera- 
ble measure  of  success.  Besides  its  valuable 
moral  effect  in  strengthening  the  patriotism 
and  the  confidence  of  the  North,  and  the  sec- 
ondary military  advantage  that  the  combined 
Western  armies  gained  in  the  two  months' 
strict  camp  discipline  and  active  practical  in- 


struction in  the  art  of  field  fortification,  there 
was  the  positive  possession  of  an  important 
railroad  center,  and  the  apparent  security 
of  western  and  central  Tennessee  from  rel.el 
occupation. 

In  addition  to  these  it  had  one  yet  more 
immediate  and  valuable  military  result.  The 
remaining  rebel  strongholds  on  the  upper 
Mississippi  were  now  so  completely  turned 
that  they  were  no  longer  tenable.  Forts  Pil- 
low and  Randolph  were  hastily  evacuated  by 
the  enemy,  and  the  Union  flotilla  took  pos- 
session of  their  deserted  works  on  June  5. 
Halleck  had  been  looking  somewhat  anxiously 
for  help  on  the  river,  and  had  complained  of 
the  unwillingness  of  the  gun-boats  to  run  past 
the  Fort  Pillow  batteries  and  destroy  the  river 
fleet  of  the  rebels.  Flag- Officer  Davis  had  con- 
sidered the  risk  too  great  and  had  remained 
above  Fort  Pillow,  occupying  his  time  in 
harassing  the  works  by  a  continuous  bombard- 
ment. Now  that  the  way  was  opened  he  im- 
mediately advanced  in  force,  and  at  night  of 
June  5  came  to  anchor  two  miles  above  the 
city  of  Memphis.  His  flotilla  had  lately  re- 
ceived a  notable  reenforcement.  One  of  the 
many  energetic  impulses  which  Stanton  gave 
to  military  operations  in  the  first  few  months 
after  he  became  Secretary  of  War  was  his  em- 
ployment of  an  engineer  of  genius  and  daring, 
Charles  Ellet,  Jr.,  to  extemporize  a  fleet  of 
steam  rams  for  service  on  the  Western  rivers. 

The  single  blow  by  which  the  iron  prow  of 
the  Merrimac  sunk  the  frigate  Congress  in 
Hampton  Roads,  during  the  famous  sea-fight 
between  the  Merrimac  and  the  Monitor,  had 
demonstrated  the  effectiveness  of  this  novelty 
in  marine  warfare.  Ellet's  proposal  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Navy,  to  try  it  on  the  Western 
rivers,  was  not  favorably  entertained ;  proba- 
bly because  the  Navy  Department  already 
had  its  officers  and  its  appropriations  engaged 
in  other  more  methodical  and  permanent  na- 
val constructions.  But  the  eager  and  impa- 
tient Secretary  of  War  listened  to  Ellet's  plans 
with  interest,  and  commissioned  him  to  col- 
lect such  suitable  river  craft  as  he  could  find 
on  the  Ohio,  and  to  convert  them  post-haste 
into  steam  rams,  "  the  honorable  Secretary," 
reports  Ellet,  "  expressing  the  hope  that  not 


*  Pope,  condensing  into  one  dispatches  from  Rose- 
crans,  Hamilton,  and  Granger,  telegraphed  to  Halleck : 
'•  The  two  divisions  in  the  advance  under  Rosecrans  are 
slowly  and  cautiously  advancing  on  Baldwin  this  morn- 
ing, with  the  cavalry  on  both  flanks.  Hamilton  with  two 
divisions  is  at  Rienzi  and  between  there  and  Boonville, 
ready  to  move  forward  should  they  be  needed.  One 
brigade  from  the  reserve  occupies  Danville.  Rosecrans 
reports  this  morning  that  the  enemy  has  retreated  from 
Baldwin,  but  he  is  advancing  cautiously.  The  woods, 
for  miles,  are  full  of  stragglers  from  the  enemy,  who  are 
coming  in  in  squads.  Not  less  than  ten  thousand  men 
Vol..  XXXVI.— 93. 


are  thus  scattered  about,  who  will  come  in  within  a 
day  or  two."  General  Halleck  dispatched  to  the  \V;ir 
Department :  "  General  Pope,  with  40,000  men,  is  30 
miles  south  of  Corinth,  pushing  the  enemy  hard.  He 
already  reports  10,000  prisoners  and  deserters  from  the 
enemy,  and  15,000  stand  of  arms  captured."  This  dis- 
patch of  General  Halleck's  made  a  great  sensation. 
The  expectation  that  the  stragglers  would  come  into 
the  national  camp  was  disappointed  ;  the  prisoners 
taken  were  few,  and  Pope  was  censured  for  making 
a  statement  of  fact  which  he  neither  made  nor  author- 
ized. [Force,  "From  Fort  Henry  to  Corinth."") 


674 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


more  than  twenty  days  would  be  consumed 
in  getting  them  ready  for  service."  Ellet  re- 
ceived his  orders  March  27.*  On  May  26 
he  joined  the  flotilla  of  Davis  with  a  fleet  of 
six  vessels,  formerly  swift  and  strong  river  tugs 
and  steamers,  but  now  strengthened  and  con- 
verted for  their  new  and  peculiar  service, 
and  these  accompanied  the  gun-boats  in  the 
advance  against  Memphis.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  June  6  the  rebel  flotilla  of  eight  gun- 
boats was  discovered  in  front  of  the  city  pre- 
paring for  fight,  and  there  occurred  another 
of  the  many  dramatic  naval  combats  of  the 
war. 

The  eight  rebel  gun-boats  ranged  them- 
selves in  two  lines  abreast  the  city.  The  hills 
of  Memphis  were  covered  with  thousands  of 
spectators.  With  the  dawn  five  of  the  Union 
gun-boats  began  backing  down  the  Missis- 
sippi, holding  their  heads  against  the  strong 
current  to  insure  easier  control  and  manage- 
ment of  the  vessel.  The  steam  rams  were  yet 
tied  up  to  the  river  bank.  Soon  the  rebel  flo- 
tilla opened  fire  on  the  Union  gun-boats,  to 
which  the  latter  replied  with  spirit.  Four  of 
Ellet's  rams,  hearing  the  guns,  cast  loose  to 
take  part  in  the  conflict.  One  of  them  dis- 
abled her  rudder,  and  another,  mistaking  her 
orders,  remained  out  of  fighting  distance.  But 
the  Queen  vf  the  West  and  the  Monarch,  pass- 
ing swiftly  between  the  gun-boats,  dashed  into 
the  rebel  line.  The  gun-boats,  now  turning 
their  heads  down  the  stream,  hastily  followed. 
There  was  a  short  and  quick  melee  of  these  un- 
couth-looking river  monsters,  ram  crashing  in- 
to ram  and  gun-boat  firing  into  gun-boat  in  a 
confusion  of  attack  and  destruction.  In  twenty 
minutes  four  rebel  vessels  and  one  Union  ram 
were  sunk  or  disabled.  At  this  the  other  four 
rebel  vessels  turned  and  fled  down-stream,  and 
in  a  running  pursuit  of  an  hour,  extending  some 
ten  miles,  three  additional  vessels  of  the  enemy 
were  captured  or  destroyed.  The  Confeder- 
ate fleet  was  almost  annihilated;  only  one  of 
their  gun-boats  escaped.  The  two  disabled 
Union  ships  were  soon  raised  and  repaired, 
but  the  ram  fleet  had  suffered  an  irreparable 
loss.  Its  commander,  Ellet,  was  wounded  by 
a  pistol-shot,  from  the  effect  of  which  he  died 
two  weeks  later.  The  combat  was  witnessed 
by  Jeff.  Thompson,  commanding  the  city  with 
a  small  detachment  of  rebel  troops.  In  his  re- 
port of  the  affair  he  mentions  that "  we  were  hur- 
ried in  our  retirement  from  Memphis,"  and  that 
afternoon  the  Union  flag  floated  over  the  city. 


The  naval  victory  of  Memphis  supplemented 
and  completed  the  great  Tennessee  campaigns 
begun  by  Grant's  reconnaissance  of  January 
9.  A  division  of  Buell's  army  under  General 
Mitchell  had  in  the  meanwhile  occupied  and 
held  the  line  of  the  Tennessee  River  between 
Tuscumbia  and  Stevenson;  and  thus  the 
frontier  of  rebellion  had  been  pushed  down 
from  middle  Kentucky  below  the  southern 
boundary  of  the  State  of  Tennessee. 

But  the  invading  movement  following  the 
line  of  the  Tennessee  River  had  expended  its 
advantage;  the  initial  point  of  a  new  cam- 
paign had  been  reached.  We  are  left  in  doubt 
under  what  conviction  Halleck  formed  his 
next  plans,  for  he  determined  to  dissolve  and 
scatter  the  magnificent  army  of  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand  men  under  his  hand  and 
eye;  apparently  in  violation  of  the  very  mili- 
tary theory  he  had  formulated  two  weeks  be- 
fore, when  he  said, "  We  are  operating  on  too 
many  points."  In  a  dispatch  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  on  the  gth  of  June  he  announced  his 
purpose  to  do  three  distinct  things:  First,  to 
hold  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad ; 
secondly,  to  send  relief  to  Curtis  in  Arkansas ; 
thirdly,  to  send  troops  to  east  Tennessee.  To 
these  three  he  added  a  fourth  purpose  in  a 
dispatch  of  June  12  : 

If  the  combined  fleet  of  Farragut  and  Davis  fail  to 
take  Vicksburg,  I  will  send  an  expedition  for  that  pur- 
pose as  soon  as  I  can  reenforce  General  Curtis. 

Up  to  this  point  the  country's  estimate  of 
General  Halleck's  military  ability  had  steadily 
risen,  but  several  serious  errors  of  judgment 
now  arrested  his  success.  The  greatest  of 
these  errors,  perhaps,  was  the  minor  impor- 
tance he  seems  to  have  attached  to  a  continua- 
tion of  the  operations  on  the  Mississippi  River. 

We  have  mentioned  the  victory  of  Farragut, 
and  we  need  now  to  follow  the  upward  course 
of  his  fleet.  After  receiving  the  surrender  of 
New  Orleans  in  the  last  days  of  April,  he 
promptly  pushed  on  an  advance  section  of  his 
ships  up  the  Mississippi,  which  successively, 
and  without  serious  opposition,  received  the 
surrender  of  all  the  important  cities  below 
Vicksburg,  where  Farragut  himself  arrived  on 
the  zoth  of  May.  Vicksburg  proved  to  be  the 
most  defensible  position  on  the  Mississippi,  by 
reason  of  the  high  bluffs  at  and  about  the 
city.  The  Confederates  had  placed  such  faith 
in  their  defenses  of  the  upper  river,  at  Colum- 
bus, Island  No.  10,  and  Fort  Pillow,  that  no 


*  In  response  to  that  order  I  selected  three  of  the  est  part,  and  8  feet  hold.  At  New  Albany  I  secured  a 
strongest  and  swiftest  stern-wheel  coal  tow-boats  at  boat  of  about  the  same  length  but  rather  less  beam, 
I'ittsburg,  of  which  the  average  dimensions  are  about  and  subsequently  I  selected  another  at  Cincinnati,  of 


1 70  feet  length,  30  feet  beam,  and  over  5  feet  hold.  At 
Cincinnati  I  selected  two  side-wheel  boats,  of  which 
the  largest  is  180  feet  long,  37^  feet  beam  in  the  wid- 


about  the  same  class  as  the  last,  and  sent  her  to  Madi- 
son to  be  fitted  out.  [Ellet  to  McGunnigle,  April  27, 
1862.  War  Records.] 


THE  MISSlSSf/'M  AND   SHILOH. 


675 


early  steps  were  taken  to  fortify  Vicksburg  ; 
but  when  Farragut  passed  and  captured  the 
lower  forts  and  the  upper  defenses  fell,  the 
rebels  made  what  haste  they  could  to  create 
a  formidable  barrier  to  navigation  at  Vicks- 
burg.  lieauregard  sent  plans  for  fortifications 
while  he  was  yet  disputing  lialleck's  advance 
from  Shiloh  to  Corinth;  and  Lovell  at  New 
Orleans,  retreating  before  Farragut's  invasion, 
shipped  the  heavy  guns  he  could  no  longer 
keep,  and  sent  five  regiments  of  Confederate 
troops,  which  he  could  no  longer  use,  to  erect 
the  works.  These  reached  their  destination  on 
May  12,  and  continuing  the  labors  and  prep- 
arations already  begun,  he  had  six  batteries 
ready  for  service  on  Farragut's  arrival.  Re- 
membering these  dates  and  numbers,  we  can 
realize  the  unfortunate  results  of  Halleck's 
dilatory  Corinth  campaign.  He  had  then  been 
in  command,  for  a  whole  month,  of  forces 
double  those  of  his  antagonist.  If,  instead  of 
digging  his  way  from  Shiloh  to  Corinth  "  with 
pick  and  shovel,"  he  had  forced  such  a  prompt 
march  and  battle  as  his  overwhelming  numbers 
gave  him  power  to  do,  the  inevitable  defeat 
or  retreat  of  his  enemy  would  have  enabled 
him  to  meet  the  advance  of  Farragut  with  an 
army  detachment  sufficient  to  effect  the  re- 
duction of  Vicksburg  with  only  slight  resistance 
and  delay.  Such  a  movement  ought  to  have 
followed  by  all  the  rules  of  military  and  po- 
litical logic.  The  opening  of  the  Mississippi 
outranked  every  other  Western  military  enter- 
prise in  importance  and  urgency.  It  would 
effectually  sever  four  great  States  from  the 
rebel  Confederacy;  it  would  silence  doubt  at 
home  and  extinguish  smoldering  intervention 
abroad  ;  it  would  starve  the  rebel  armies  and 
feed  the  cotton  operatives  of  Europe.  There 
would  have  been  ample  time  ;  for  he  was  ad- 
vised as  early  as  the  2jth  of  April  that  New 
Orleans  had  been  captured  and  that  Farra- 
gut had  "  orders  to  push  up  to  Memphis  im- 
mediately," and  he  ought  to  have  prepared  to 
meet  him. 

No  such  cooperation,  however,  greeted 
Farragut.  Reaching  Vicksburg,  his  demand 
for  the  surrender  of  the  place  was  refused. 
The  batteries  were  at  such  a  height  that  his 
guns  could  have  no  effect  against  them.  Only 
two  regiments  of  land  forces  accompanied  the 
fleet.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  re- 
turn to  New  Orleans,  which  he  reached  about 
the  ist  of  June.  Here  he  met  orders  from 
Washington  communicating  the  great  desire 
of  the  Administration  to  have  the  river  opened, 
and  directing  further  efforts  on  his  part  to  that 
end.  Farragut  took  immediate  measures  to 
comply  with  this  requirement.  His  task  had 
already  become  more  difficult.  The  enemy 
quickly  comprehended  the  advantage  which 


the  few  high  bluffs  of  the  Mississippi  afforded 
them,  if  not  to  obstruct,  at  least  to  harass 
and  damage  the  operations  of  a  fleet  unsup- 
ported by  land  forces.  The  plates  which  had 
been  surrendered  were,  on  the  retirement  of 
the  ships,  again  occupied,  and  batteries  were 
soon  raised,  which,  though  unable  to  cope  with 
larger  vessels,  became  troublesome  and  dan- 
gerous to  transports,  and  were  intermittently 
used  or  abandoned  as  the  advantage  or  neces- 
sity of  the  enemy  dictated. 

Farragut  again  reached  Vicksburg  about 
June  25,  accompanied  this  time  by  Porter  with 
sixteen  of  his  mortar-boats,  and  by  General 
Williams  at  the  head  of  three  thousand  Union 
troops.  The  mortar-sloops  were  placed  in  po- 
sition and  bombarded  the  rebel  works  on  the 
27th.  On  the  morning  of  June  28,  before  day- 
light, Farragut's  ships,  with  the  aid  of  the  con- 
tinued bombardment,  made  an  attack  on  the 
Vicksburg  batteries,  and  most  of  them  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  up  the  river  with  compara- 
tively small  loss.  Herehe  found  Ellet  — brother 
of  him  who  was  wounded  at  Memphis  —  with 
some  vessels  of  the  ram  fleet,  who  carried  the 
news  to  the  gun-boat  flotilla  under  Davis  yet 
at  Memphis.  This  flotilla  now  also  descended 
the  river  and  joined  Farragut  on  the  ist  of 
July. 

We  have  seen,  by  the  dispatch  heretofore 
quoted,  that  Halleck  expected  the  combined 
naval  and  gun-boat  forces  to  reduce  the  Vicks- 
burg defenses,  but  also  that,  in  the  event  of 
their  failure,  he  would  send  an  army  to  help 
them.  The  lapse  of  two  weeks  served  to 
modify  this  intention.  The  Secretary  of  War, 
who  had  probably  received  news  of  Farragut's 
first  failure  to  pass  the  Vicksburg  batteries, 
telegraphed  him  (on  June  23)  to  examine  the 
project  of  a  canal  to  cut  off  Vicksburg,  sug- 
gested by  General  Butler  and  others.  Hal- 
leck replied  (on  June  28),  "  It  is  impossible  to 
send  forces  to  Vicksburg  at  present,  but  I  will 
give  the  matter  very  full  attention  as  soon  as 
circumstances  will  permit."  That  same  day 
Farragut  passed  above  the  batteries,  and  of  this 
result  Halleck  was  informed  by  Grant,  who 
was  at  Memphis.  Grant's  dispatch  added  an 
erroneous  item  of  news  concerning  the  num- 
ber of  troops  with  Farragut,  but  more  trust- 
worthy information  soon  reached  Halleck  in 
the  form  of  a  direct  application  from  Farragut 
for  help.  To  this  appeal  Halleck  again  felt 
himself  obliged  to  reply  in  the  negative,  July 
3,  1862: 

The  scattered  and  weakened  condition  of  my  forces 
renders  it  impossible  (or  me,  at  the  present,  to  detach 
any  troops  to  cooperate  with  you  on  Vicksburg.  Prob- 
ably I  shall  be  able  to  do  so  as  soon  as  I  can  get  my 
troops  more  concentrated.  This  may  delay  the  clearing 
of  the  river,  but  its  accomplishment  will  be  certain  in 
a  few  weeks. 


676 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 


The  hopeful  promise  with  which  the  tele- 
gram closed  dwindled  away  during  the  eleven 
days  that  followed.  On  the  i4th  of  July 
Stanton  asked  him  the  direct  question : 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  desires  to  know  whether 
you  have,  or  intend  to  have,  any  land  force  to  cooperate 
in  the  operations  at  Vicksburg.  Please  inform  me 
immediately,  inasmuch  as  orders  he  intends  to  give 
will  depend  on  your  answer. 

The  answer  this  time  was  short  and  conclu- 
sive. "  I  cannot  at  present  give  Commodore 
Farragut  any  aid  against  Vicksburg." 

A  cooperative  land  force  of  from  12,000  to 
15,000  men,  Farragut  estimated  in  his  report 
of  June  28,  would  have  been  sufficient  to  take 
the  works.  If  we  compare  the  great  end  to  be 
attained  with  the  smallness  of  the  detachment 
thought  necessary,  there  remains  no  reason- 
able explanation  why  Halleck  should  not 
have  promptly  sent  it.  But  the  chance  had 
been  lost.  The  waters  of  the  Mississippi  were 
falling  so  rapidly  that  Farragut  dared  not 
tarry  in  the  river ;  and  in  accordance  with  or- 
ders received  from  the  Department  on  July  20, 
he  again  ran  past  the  Vicksburg  batteries  and 
returned  to  New  Orleans. 

If  Halleck's  refusal  to  help  Farragut  take 
Vicksburg  seems  inexplicable,  it  is  yet  more 
difficult  to  understand  the  apparently  sudden 
cessation  of  all  his  former  military  activity,  and 
his  proposal,  just  at  the  point  when  his  army 
had  gathered  its  greatest  strength  and  effi- 
ciency, abruptly  to  terminate  his  main  cam- 
paign, and,  in  effect,  go  into  summer  quarters. 
He  no  longer  talked  of  splitting  secession  in 
twain  in  one  month,  or  of  being  at  the  enemy's 
throat.  He  no  longer  pointed  out  the  waste 
of  precious  time,  and  uttered  no  further  com- 
plaint about  his  inability  to  control  BuelPs 
army.  His  desires  had  been  gratified.  He 
commanded  half  of  the  military  area  within 
the  Union;  he  had  three  armies  under  his 
own  eye ;  the  enemy  was  in  flight  before 
him  ;  he  could  throw  double  numbers  of  men 
at  any  given  point.  At  least  two  campaigns 
of  overshadowing  importance  invited  his  re- 
sistless march.  But  in  the  midst  of  his  success, 
in  the  plenitude  of  his  power,  with  fortune 
thrusting  opportunity  upon  him,  he  came  to  a 
sudden  halt,  folded  his  contented  arms,  and  im- 
itated the  conduct  that  he  wrongfully  imputed 
to  Grant  after  Donelson — "  Satisfied  with  his 
victory,  he  sits  down  and  enjoys  it  without  re- 
gard to  the  future."  In  a  long  letter  to  the 
Secretary  of  War,  dated  June  25,  after  review- 
ing the  sanitary  condition  of  the  army  and 


pronouncing  it  very  good,  he  asks,  apparently 
as  the  main  question,  "  Can  we  carry  on  any 
summer  campaign  without  having  a  large  por- 
tion of  our  men  on  the  sick-list  ?  "  This  idea 
seems  to  dominate  his  thought  and  to  decide 
his  action.  Buell  had  been  ordered  eastward 
on  a  leisurely  march  towards  Chattanooga. 
Halleck  proposed  to  plant  the  armies  of  Grant 
and  of  Pope  on  the  healthy  uplands  of  northern 
Mississippi  and  Alabama  as  mere  corps  of  ob- 
servation. Having  personally  wrested  Corinth 
from  the  enemy,  he  exaggerated  its  strategical 
value.  As  a  terminal  point  in  the  southward 
campaign,  along  the  line  of  the  Tennessee 
River,  its  chief  use  was  to  aid  in  opening  the 
Mississippi  River  by  turning  the  Confeder- 
ate fortifications  from  Columbus  to  Memphis. 
Those  strongholds  once  in  Federal  possession, 
Corinth  inevitably  fell  into  a  secondary  role, 
especially  since  the  summer  droughts  ren- 
dered the  Tennessee  River  useless  as  a  mili- 
tary highway. 

Carrying  out  this  policy  of  Halleck,  a  large 
portion  of  the  Western  armies  of  the  Union 
wasted  time  and  strength  guarding  a  great  area 
of  rebel  territory  unimportant  for  military  uses, 
and  which  could  have  been  better  protected 
by  an  active  forward  movement.  The  secur- 
ity and  the  supply  of  Corinth  appears  to  have 
been  the  central  purpose.  Buell  was  delayed 
in  his  march  thoroughly  to  repair  the  railroad 
from  Corinth  eastward  towards  Chattanooga. 
Other  detachments  of  the  army  were  employed 
to  repair  the  railroads  westward  from  Corinth 
to  Memphis,  and  northward  from  Corinth  to 
Columbus.  For  several  months  all  the  ener- 
gies of  the  combined  armies  were  diverted 
from  their  more  legitimate  duty  of  offensive 
war  to  tedious  labor  on  these  local  railroads ;  * 
much  of  the  repairs  being  destroyed,  almost  as 
rapidly  as  performed,  by  daring  guerrilla  hos- 
tilities, engendered  and  screened  amidst  the 
surrounding  sentiment  of  disloyalty. 

It  is  impossible  to  guess  what  Halleck's 
personal  supervision  in  these  tasks  might  have 
produced,  for  at  this  juncture  came  a  culmi- 
nation of  events  that  transferred  him  to  an- 
other field  of  duty ;  but  the  legacy  of  policy, 
plans,  and  orders  that  he  left  behind  contrib- 
uted to  render  the  whole  Western  campaign 
sterile  throughout  the  second  half  of  1862. 

The  infatuation  of  Halleck  in  thus  tying  up 
the  Western  forces  in  mere  defensive  inaction 
comes  out  in  still  stronger  light  in  the  incident 
that  follows,  but  it  especially  serves  to  show 
once  more  how,  in  the  West  as  well  as  in  the 


*  I  inclose  herewith  a  copy  of  a  report  of  Brigadier-  from  the  enemy  greatly  injured.  Indeed,  the  wood- 
General  McPherson,  superintendent  of  railroads,  from  work  of  most  of  the  cars  has  been  entirely  rebuilt, 
which  it  will  be  seen  that  \ve  have  opened  367  miles  and  all  this  work  has  been  done  by  details  from  the 
of  road  in  less  than  one  month,  besides  repairing  a  army.  [Halleck  to  Stanton,  July  7,  1862.  War  Rec- 
number  of  locomotives  and  cars  which  were  captured  ords.] 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND   SHILOH. 


677 


East,  President  Lincoln  treated  his  military 
commanders,  not  with  ignorant  interference, 
as  has  been  so  often  alleged,  but  with  the 
most  fatherly  indulgence.  Future  chapters 
will  describe  the  complete  failure  in  the  East 
of  the  campaign  undertaken  by  McClellan 
against  Richmond,  and  which,  on  the  3oth  of 
June,  brought  to  Halleck  an  order  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  dated  the  z8th,  immediately 
to  detach  and  send  25,000  men  to  assist  that 
imperiled  enterprise.  The  necessity  was  de- 
clared "  imperative."  "  But  in  detaching  your 
force,"  explained  the  order,  "the  President 
directs  that  it  be  done  in  such  a  way  as  to 
enable  you  to  hold  your  ground  and  not  inter- 
fere with  the  movement  against  Chattanooga 
and  east  Tennessee."  Halleck  took  instant 
measures  to  obey  the  order,  but  said  in  reply 
that  it  would  jeopardize  the  ground  gained  in 
Tennessee  and  involve  the  necessity  of  aban- 
doning Buell's  east  Tennessee  expedition.  This 
result  the  President  had  in  advance  declared 
inadmissible.  He  now  telegraphed  emphatic- 
ally on  June  30 : 

\Youlil  he  very  glad  of  25,000  infantry  —  no  artillery 
or  cavalry  ;  but  please  do  not  send  a  man  if  it  endan- 
gers any  place  you  deem  important  to  hold,  or  if  it 
forces  you  to  give  up  or  weaken  or  delay  the  expedi- 
tion against  Chattanooga.  To  take  and  hold  the  rail- 
road at  or  east  of  Cleveland,  in  east  Tennessee,  I  think 
fully  as  important  as  the  taking  and  holding  of  Rich- 
mond. * 

This  request,  but  accompanied  by  the  same 
caution  and  condition,  was  repeated  by  the 
President  on  July  2;  and  again,  under  the 
prompting  of  extreme  need,  Lincoln  on  July 
4  sent  a  diminished  request,  still,  however, 
insisting  that  no  risk  be  incurred  in  the  West: 

You  do  not  know  how  much  you  would  oblige  us 
if,  without  abandoning  any  of  your  positions  or  plans, 
you  could  promptly  send  us  even  ten  thousand  infantry. 
Can  you  not  ?  Some  part  of  the  Corinth  army  is  cer- 
tainly fighting  McClellan  in  front  of  Richmond.  Pris- 
oners are  in  our  hands  from  the  late  Corinth  army. 

In  Halleck's  response  on  the  following  day 
it  is  important  to  notice  the  difference  in  the 
opinions  entertained  by  the  two  men  upon  this 
point.  Lincoln  wished  to  gain  east  Tennes- 
see, Halleck  desired  to  hold  west  Tennessee 
The  distinction  is  essential,  for  we  shall  see 
that  while  Halleck's  policy  prevailed,  it  tended 
largely,  if  not  principally,  to  thwart  the  reali- 
zation of  Lincoln's  earnest  wish.  Halleck  tel- 
egraphed : 

For  the  last  week  there  has  been  great  uneasiness 
aiming  \  'nion  men  in  Tennessee  on  account  of  the  secret 
organizations  of  insurgents  to  cooperate  in  any  attack  of 
theenemyon  our  lines.  Every  commanding  officer  from 
Nashville  to  Memphis  has  asked  for  reinforcements. 
Under  these  circumstances  I  submitted  the  question 
of  sending  troops  to  Richmond  to  the  principal  officers 
of  my  command.  They  are  unanimous  in  opinion  that 

*  War  Records. 


if  this  army  is  seriously  diminished  the  Chattanooga 
expedition  must  be  revoked  or  the  hope  of  holding 
south-west  Tennessee  abandoned.  I  must  earnestly 
protest  against  surrendering  what  has  cost  so  much 
blood  and  treasure,  and  which  in  a  military  point  of 
view  is  worth  more  than  Richmond. 

He  had  already,  in  a  previous  telegram 
(July  i),  acknowledged  and  exercised  the  dis- 
cretion which  Lincoln  gave  him,  replying, 
"  Your  telegram,  just  received,  saves  western 
Tennessee." 

It  was  found  by  the  Washington  authorities 
that  the  early  reports  of  McClellan's  reverses 
had  been  unduly  exaggerated,  and  that  by 
straining  resources  in  the  East,  the  Western 
armies  might  be  left  uniliminished.  But  with 
this  conviction  President  Lincoln  also  reached 
the  decision  that  the  failure  of  the  Richmond 
campaign  must  be  remedied  by  radical  meas- 
ures. To  devise  new  plans,  to  elaborate  and 
initiate  new  movements,  he  needed  the  help  of 
the  highest  attainable  professional  skill.  None 
seemed  at  the  moment  so  available  as  that  of 
Halleck.  Under  his  administration  order  had 
come  out  of  chaos  in  Missouri,  and  under  his 
guiding  control,  however  feeble  in  the  par- 
ticular cases  that  we  have  pointed  out,  the 
Western  armies  had  won  the  victories  of  Fort 
Henry,  Fort  Donelson,  Pea  Ridge,  Shiloh,  Isl- 
and No.  10,  and  Corinth.  It  was  a  record  of 
steady  success,  which  justified  the  belief  that 
a  general  had  been  found  who  might  be  in- 
trusted with  the  direction  of  the  war  in  its 
larger  combinations.  The  weakness  of  his 
present  plans  had  not  yet  been  developed. 
Accordingly  on  the  nth  of  July  this  order 
was  made  by  the  President : 

That  Major-General  Henry  W.  Halleck  be  assigned 
to  command  the  whole  land  forces  of  the  United  States 
as  General-in-Chief,  and  that  he  repair  to  this  capital 
so  soon  as  he  can  with  safety  to  the  positions  and  op- 
erations within  the  department  under  his  charge. 

It  seemed  at  the  moment  the  best  that 
could  be  done.  In  his  short  Corinth  campaign 
Halleck  had  substantially  demonstrated  his 
unfitness  for  the  leadership  of  an  army  in  the 
field.  He  had  made  a  grievous  mistake  in  com- 
ing away  from  his  department  headquarters 
at  St.  Louis.  He  was  a  thinker  and  not  a 
worker;  his  proper  place  was  in  the  military 
study  and  not  in  the  camp.  No  other  soldier 
in  active  service  equaled  him  in  the  technical 
and  theoretical  acquirements  of  his  profession. 
The  act  of  the  President  in  bringing  him  to 
Washington  restored  him  to  his  more  natural 
duty. 

In  following  the  future  career  of  Halleck, 
one  of  the  incidents  attending  this  transfer 
needs  to  be  borne  in  mind.  The  first  intima- 
tion of  the  change  came  in  the  President's  dis- 
patch of  the  2d  of  July  which  asked  :  "  Please 
tell  me  could  you  not  make  me  a  flying  visit 


678 

for  consultation  without  endangering  the  ser- 
vice in  your  department  ?  "  A  few  days  later 
one  of  the  President's  friends  went  from  Wash- 
ington to  Corinth  bearing  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Halleck,  explaining  among  other 
things  : 

I  know  the  object  of  his  visit  to  you.  He  has  my 
cheerful  consent  to  go,  but  not  my  direction.  He 
wishes  to  get  you  and  part  of  your  force,  one  or  both, 
to  come  here.  You  already  know  I  should  be  exceed- 
ingly glad  of  this  if  in  your  judgment  it  could  be  done 
without  endangering  positions  and  operations  in  the 
Southwest. 

To  this  Halleck  replied  on  July  10: 

Governor  Sprague  is  here.  If  I  were  to  go  to  Wash- 
ington I  could  advise  but  one  thing  —  to  place  all  the 
forces  in  North  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  Washington  un- 
der one  head  and  hold  that  head  responsible  for  the 
result. 

It  is  doubtful  if  Halleck  measured  fully  the 
import  of  his  language;  or  whether  he  real- 
ized the  danger  and  burden  of  the  responsi- 
bility which,  if  he  did  not  invite,  he  at  least 
thus  voluntarily  assumed.  Nominally  he  be- 
came General-in-Chief,  but  in  actual  practice 
his  genius  fell  short  of  the  high  requirements 
of  that  great  station.  While  he  rendered  memo- 
rable service  to  the  Union,  his  judgment  and 
courage  sometimes  quailed  before  the  momen- 
tous requirements  of  his  office,  and  thrust  back 
upon  the  President  the  critical  acts  which  over- 
awed him.  In  reality,  therefore,  he  was  from 
the  first  only  what  he  afterward  became  by  tech- 
nical orders  —  the  President's  chief-of-staff. 

Before  Halleck's  transfer  to  Washington 
he  had  ordered  Buell  to  move  into  east  Ten- 
nessee, but  that  commander  never  seemed  to 
appreciate  the  great  military  and  political 
importance  of  such  a  movement.  He  consid- 
ered the  defense  of  west  Tennessee  a  more 
essential  object ;  and  while  his  mind  was  en- 
gaged in  that  direction,  Bragg  planned  and 
carried  into  effect  a  campaign  into  Kentucky 
that  threatened  at  one  time  the  most  disas- 
trous consequences  to  the  Union  cause  in 
that  region.  He  moved  northward  early  in 
September,  1862,  Kirby  Smith  preceding  him 
with  a  strong  detachment  by  way  of  Cumber- 
land Gap,  which  marched  without  successful 
opposition  almost  to  the  Ohio  River.  Buell, 
believing  that  Bragg's  real  object  was  Nash- 
ville, made  such  dispositions  that  Bragg  got 
a  long  start  before  him  in  the  race  to  Louis- 
ville. He  would,  in  fact,  have  had  that  city 
at  his  mercy  if  he  had  not  left  the  direct  road 
and  turned  to  the  right  to  join  Kirby  Smith 
at  Frankfort  to  assist  in  the  melancholy  farce 
of  inaugurating  a  Confederate  governor  for 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Kentucky.  Buell  thus  reached  Louisville  and 
immediately  marched  south  in  pursuit  of  Bragg. 
He  overtook  his  army  at  Perry  ville  and  fought, 
on  the  8th  of  October,  a  severe  but  indecisive 
battle ;  Buell  kept  the  field  and  Bragg  retired 
in  the  night,  and  hurried  out  of  Kentucky  at  a 
pace  that  soon  distanced  his  antagonist.  The 
President  renewed  his  earnest  solicitations  to 
Buell  to  occupy  east  Tennessee;  Buell  thought 
this  impracticable,  and  was  relieved  of  com- 
mand on  the  24th  of  October,  and  General 
Rosecrans  was  appointed  to  succeed  him. 

Rosecrans  paid  as  little  attention  as  Buell 
had  done  to  the  orders  of  the  President  for 
the  occupation  of  east  Tennessee.  He  estab- 
lished his  headquarters  at  Nashville,  completed 
and  strengthened  his  communications,  and  in 
the  latter  part  of  December  moved  upon  Gen- 
eral Bragg,  who  had  gone  into  winter  quarters 
at  Murfreesboro'.  The  two  armies  came  within 
sight  of  each  other  on  the  night  of  the  3oth 
of  December,  1862,  and  the  next  morning  at 
daybreak  each  general  moved  to  the  fight,  in 
pursuance  of  plans  that  were  the  exact  coun- 
terpart of  each  other — Rosecrans  having  or- 
dered his  left  wing  to  strike  Bragg's  right, 
double  it  up  and  take  the  position  at  Murfrees- 
boro' in  reverse,  while  Bragg  proposed  to  crush 
the  right  wing  of  Rosecrans,  and  swinging 
the  Confederate  army  around  pivoting  on  its 
right  to  cut  the  Union  force  off  from  Nashville. 
Bragg  struck  the  first  blow  with  so  much  vigor 
that  Rosecrans  was  obliged  to  give  up  his 
movement  on  the  Confederate  right  and  de- 
vote all  his  energies  to  the  defense  of  his  own 
position;  and  in  spite  of  his  utmost  efforts, 
and  the  distinguished  bravery  with  which  he 
was  supported  by  Thomas,  Sheridan,  and 
others,  he  lost  ground  all  day,  and  at  night 
the  lines  of  the  two  armies  were  almost  per- 
pendicular to  those  that  they  had  occupied  in 
the  morning.  But  Bragg  had  lost  so  severely 
in  this  day's  fighting  that  he  was  unable  to 
pursue  his  advantage  on  the  ist  of  January, 
1863;  and  on  the  zd  Rosecrans  resumed  the 
offensive  on  his  left  with  such  success  that 
Braggi  found  himself  forced  to  abandon  the 
field  in  the  night.  The  losses  on  both  sides 
were  appalling,  and  the  result  of  the  fight  was 
so  damaging  to  Bragg  that  he  was  unable  to 
resume  active  operations  during  the  winter  or 
spring,  and  was,  in  fact,  so  weakened,  that 
when,  in  the  summer  of  1863,  Rosecrans  at 
last  marched  against  him,  he  gave  up  his  po- 
sitions one  after  another,  until  the  Union  army 
occupied,  in  September,  without  striking  a  blow, 
the  coveted  and  important  mountain  fortress 
of  Chattanooga. 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    IDEA    IN    EDUCATION. 


HAT  our  public-school  system  is 
not  so  fully  utilitarian  in  its  re- 
sults as  it  should  be  is  undoubt- 
edly a  growing  conviction  in  the 
minds  of  many  earnest  and  pro- 
gressive educators  throughout 
the  country.  It  appears  to  be  equally  true  that 
public  opinion  is  quite  generally  tending  in 
the  same  direction,  especially  among  the  large 
class  of  business  men  and  mechanics  whose 
personal  experience  has  convinced  them  of 
the  inadequacy  of  the  preparation  of  the 
schools  to  enable  their  graduates  to  undertake 
the  business  of  life  at  a  proper  advantage. 
What  the  progressive  educators  want  to  in- 
graft upon  the  public-school  system  of  the 
country,  and  the  thing  which  public  opinion 
seems  to  favor  the  most,  is  what  may  be 
called  the  industrial  idea.  What  this  is,  or 
rather  what  results  are  expected  irom  its  gen- 
eral adoption,  is  thus  broadly  denned  by  Dr. 
C.  M.  Woodward,  of  the  St.  Louis  manual- 
training  school : 

We  want  an  education  that  shall  develop  the  whole 
man.  All  his  intellectual,  moral,  and  physical  powers 
should  be  drawn  out,  and  trained  and  fitted  for  doing 
good  service  in  the  battle  of  life.  We  want  wise  heads 
and  skillful  hands.  There  has  been  a  growing  de- 
mand, not  only  for  men  of  knowledge,  but  for  men  of 
skill,  in  every  department  of  human  activity.  Have 
our  schools  and  colleges  and  universities  been  equal  to 
the  demand  ?  Are  we  satisfied  with  what  they  have 
produced  ? 

He  then  makes  a  statement  which  is  quite 
significant  because  it  is  truthful.  It  is  this  : 

There  is  a  wide  conviction  of  the  inutility  of  school- 
ing for  the  great  mass  of  children  beyond  the  primary 
grades,  and  this  conviction  is  not  limited  to  any  class 
of  intelligence. 

The  reason  for  this  appears  to  be  obvious — 
that  what  is  acquired  beyond  these  grades 
does  not  compensate  the  average  boy  for  the 
time  expended,  and  that  for  prime  utility  there 
is  little  gained  by  what  is  taug*ht  in  the  sec- 
ondary schools.  But  this  conviction  should 
not  prevail  if  our  common-school  system  is  to 
bear  its  proper  fruits,  and  the  industrial  idea 
seems  to  be  the  saving  measure  which  has  op- 
portunely presented  itself  to  lift  the  system  up 
to  a  proper  elevation  in  the  respect  and  con- 
fidence of  the  people.  As,  therefore,  public 
opinion  favors  the  ingrafting  of  this  idea  upon 
the  school  system,  the  question  occurs :  How 
is  it  to  be  done  ?  This  is  not  so  clear,  but  a 
way  will  doubtless  be  found  in  good  time.  In 


the  mean  time  let  us  inquire  what  has  been 
done  and  what  can  be  done  in  the  desired 
direction. 

The  methods  of  industrial  training  which 
seem  to  have  had  some  development  in  pub- 
lic educational  work  comprise  the  manual  ex- 
ercises of  the  kindergarten,  the  special  schools 
for  boys  above  the  age  of  thirteen  years,  and 
the  special  instruction  in  sewing  which  has  been 
connected  with  the  public  schools  in  various 
ways.  It  being  agreed  that  some  manual  work 
is  desirable  for  primary  and  grammar  grades, 
the  results  of  this  thought  have  manifested 
themselves  by  various  spasmodic  efforts,  which, 
however,  lacked  a  proper  educational  connec- 
tion with  the  common-school  system.  "  Indus- 
trial exhibits,"  the  result  of  children  having 
been  asked  to  make  objects  at  home,  have  be- 
gun to  attract  attention,  though  such  work  was 
not  the  result  of  systematized  study  originating 
in  the  school-room.  Excellent  results,  it  may 
likewise  be  said,  have  been  obtained  in  private 
or  semi-private  schools  having  workshops  and 
special  instructors.  But  workshops  and  special 
instructors  are  things  which  cannot  be  gener- 
ally provided  in  connection  with  our  public- 
school  system.  It  is  suggested,  however,  that 
the  best  means  of  creating  general  interest 
in  industrial  methods  of  education  among 
teachers,  school  committees,  and  the  public 
would  be  by  a  plan  which  does  not  require 
these  accessories. 

Interest  in  the  manufactured  products  of 
manual-training  schools  and  the  incidental 
courses  of  instruction  in  the  use  of  tools  seems 
to  have  taken  attention  away  from  industrial 
drawing  as  an  indispensable  factor  to  their  suc- 
cess ;  but  its  great  importance  in  developing 
the  skill  of  the  hand  and  the  eye  in  obtaining 
and  expressing  knowledge  should  not  be  lost 
sight  of.  In  every  manual  school  the  thoughts 
to  be  expressed  in  wood,  metal,  etc.  are  first 
expressed  by  drawing.  If,  therefore,  manual 
exercises  are  to  be  introduced  into  schools, 
the  first  thing  as  a  preparation  for  them  is  to 
introduce  industrial  drawing.  This  should  be 
so  taught  that  pupils  may  be  led  to  express 
their  thought  not  only  by  drawing  but  by  mak- 
ing it — that  is,  by  constructing  the  object  of 
the  thought.  The  extent  to  which  this  meth- 
od may  be  carried  cannot  be  determined  at 
this  time,  when  our  experience  with  it  is  still 
in  the  first  stages.  That  it  is  possible  to  do 
something,  however,  has  already  been  fully 
demonstrated  by  the  excellent  results  obtained 


68o 


THE  INDUSTRIAL   IDEA   IN  EDUCATION. 


by  the  pioneers  in  this  movement  in  such 
cities  as  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  St.  Paul,  Colum- 
bus, Worcester,  and  Quincy. 

This  leads  directly  to  a  plain  statement  of 
the  object  of  this  paper,  which  is  to  show  how 
manual  exercises  may  be  made  an  outgrowth 
of  industrial  drawing,  without  workshops  or 
special  instructors;  and  it  is  hoped  that  what 
is  here  presented  will  be  so  well  understood, 
and  its  merits  be  deemed  so  apparent,  that  it 
will  be  accorded  the  same  just  and  discrimina- 
tive attention  and  consideration  that  every 
honest  effort  after  better  methods  usually  com- 
mands. 

The  plan  of  work  to  be  here  described  orig- 
inated at  the  Massachusetts  Normal  Art 
School,  and  is  used  as  the  basis  of  work  under 
direction  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Ed- 
ucation. The  results  stated  were  obtained  by 
an  application  of  the  plan  to  the  schools  of 
Quincy,  Massachusetts.  Briefly,  then,  the  plan 
is  based  on  the  idea  that  drawing  is  an  out- 
growth of  the  study  of  form:  First,  that  at- 
tention is  given  to  obtaining  knowledge  of 
form  through  observation,  using  hands  and 
eyes  in  the  process ;  secondly,  that  expression 
of  these  ideas  is  made  through  construction 
(/.  e.,  making  objects),  drawing,  and  language ; 
thirdly,  that  the  acquired  knowledge  is  ar- 
ranged in  new  forms  by  invention  or  design. 
The  method  is  objective,  everything  being 
studied  from  the  forms  themselves  and  not 
from  their  pictured  representation,  which  is 
the  result  of  the  observation  of  others.  The 
theory  is,  that  observation  directs  the  atten- 
tion of  teachers  and  pupils  to  the  necessity  of 
obtaining  clear  conceptions  of  forms;  having 
gained  which,  the  hands,  eyes,  and  mind  are 
again  exercised  by  expression  or  design. 

In  the  lowest  primary  schools  the  pupils  are 
first  taught  to  know  spheres,  cubes,  etc.,  as 
representative  general  forms.  They  express 
what  they  have  learned  by  constructing  these 
forms  of  clay,  and  afterwards  objects  based 
on  them  are  made  of  the  same  or  other  ma- 
terial. That  this  work  is  a  delight  to  children, 
those  who  have  vivid'  memories  of  the  mud 
pies,  etc.  of  their  early  youth  can  readily  un- 
derstand. The  skill  shown  in  expressing 
thought  through  little,  fingers  is  often  remark- 
able, teachers  declaring  that  they  could  not 
do  as  well  themselves.  The  discovery  that 
the  forms  first  presented  have  certain  common 
qualities,  such  as  variously  shaped  surfaces, 
lines,  and  points,  leads  the  children  naturally 
to  make  use  of  drawing  as  a  means  of  expres- 
sion. But  the  making  of  objects  does  not 
cease,  however;  for  the  children  now  take 
pleasure  in  cutting  out  of  paper  or  wood  the 
shapes  of  triangles,  spheres,  etc.  which  they 
have  previously  drawn.  Describing  in  lan- 


guage what  is  presented  is  also  practiced. 
The  children  have  thus  become  imbued  with 
the  thought  by  its  threefold  expression. 
Work  is  not  confined  to  the  geometric  form 
alone,  but  is  extended  to  the  various  exer- 
cises based  on  it.  The  drawings  may  ex- 
press either  the  facts  of  form,  as  in  working- 
drawings,  or  the  appearance  of  these  facts  by 
freehand  perspective.  The  plan  regards  every 
line  that  expresses  a  fact  of  form  as  being  a 
working-drawing.  The  drawing,  therefore,  by 
which  a  child  represents  the  true  length  of  an 
edge,  or  of  a  surface  bounded  by  edges,  is  re- 
gardedasa  working-drawing  Thus  the  teacher 
leads  the  class  to  represent  the  side  or  the  top 
view  of  a  simple  object,  as  a  box  or  a  sled, 
the  children  as  readily  drawing  from  the  object 
as  from  a  picture  of  it.  The  result  is  a  work- 
ing-drawing. As  the  pupils  advance,  mechan- 
ical drawings  are  made  from  the  preliminary 
freehand  views,  accuracy  being  insured  by  the 
introduction  of  compasses  and  geometric 
problems.  Freehand  perspective  as  a  means 
of  pictorial  expression  is  practiced  in  all  the 
grammar  grades. 

Exercises  have  been  given  in  various  prac- 
tical ways;  as,  for  instance,  a  wooden  match- 
box is  presented  for  study.  First,'  there  is 
placed  rapidly  on  the  blackboard  freehand 
drawings^of  the  front  and  the  side.  All  dimen- 
sions are  added  to  the  illustration,  which  is 
then  an  exact  counterpart  of  the  preliminary 
sketch  made  by  the  draughtsman.  Questions 
are  asked  as  to  the  size  of  each  piece  of  wood, 
and  illustration  of  each  separately  is  made  on 
the  board.  It  is  seen  that  the  example  for 
the  occasion  is  composed  of,  let  us  assume, 
five  oblong  pieces  of  wood.  The  teacher  asks 
the  boys  if  they  could  not  cut  out  of  wood 
oblongs  corresponding  to  the  drawings.  It 
seems  simple  enough,  and  many  eagerly 
volunteer  their  willingness  to  construct  the 
object.  But  that  cannot  be  done  directly. 
There  must  be  accurate  drawings  made  to 
work  from.  Consequently  these  are  made 
mechanically  from  the  sketches  on  the  board, 
either  full  size  or  to  a  scale;  having  produced 
which,  those  who  have  volunteered  to  make 
the  object  are^  allowed  for  that  purpose  to 
take  the  drawings  home,  it  not  being  practi- 
cable, as  a  rule,  to  have  such  work  done  in 
school.  The  teacher  having  been  able  to 
give  but  few  hints  regarding  the  construction 
of  the  object,  the  child,  naturally  enthusiastic, 
seeks  the  aid  of  the  folks  at  home,  who  thus 
unconsciously  become  teachers  of  manual 
training.  It  is  true  that  home  surroundings 
vary,  but,  notwithstanding,  it  has  been  found 
that  pupils  receive  many  practical  hints  in 
this  way.  Having  completed  the  object,  it 
is  returned,  together  with  the  drawing,  to  the 


THE  INDUSTRIAL   IDEA   IN  EDUCATION. 


68 1 


teacher,  for  careful  examination,  comparison, 
and  criticism. 

N  <  >\v  no  thoughtful  person  can  fail  to  see  that 
the  pupils  who  have  thus  gone  through  such 
an  exercise  have  been  benefited  in  many  ways, 
for  throughout  the  whole  experience  the  mind 
has  been  exercised  in  studying  the  thought  to 
be  expressed,  first  by  drawing,  and  secondly  by 
construction.  Drawing  and  otherwise  express- 
ing these  ideas  have  exercised  both  the  hand 


tates  a  certain  orderly  procedure  that  cannot 
fail  to  result  in  an  orderly  habit  of  thought, 
good  judgment,  the  power  of  concentration, 
economical  use  of  time,  etc. —  qualities  which 
cannot  be  too  highly  valued  as  contributing 
the  most  important  elements  of  a  useful  life. 
Says  Dr.  Woodward: 

The  habit  of  working  on  an  exact  plan  of  analyz- 
ing an  apparently  complicated  operation  into  a  series 
of  simple  steps  enables  one  to  solve  many  a  new  prob- 


AN     EXAMIN.V1 


EsIGN    UKAWiM,. 


and  the  eye.  All  the  energies  of  the  mind,  and 
the  skill  of  the  hand  and  eyes,  being  thus  en- 
listed in  behalf  of  a  true  expression  of  thought, 
the  moral  effect  is  assured.  Indeed,  the  tend- 
ency of  this  work  must  be  obvious.  Especially 
is  it  suggestive  of  an  easy  method  of  introducing 
manual  exercises,  making  them  an  outgrowth 
of  industrial  drawing,  which  may  be  termed 
the  mainstay  of  manual  training.  Children, 
who  are  ever  desirous  of  making  or  construct- 
ing something,  have  their  efforts  directed  by 
this  means  into  an  educational  channel.  The 
three  means  of  expression,  construction,  draw- 
ing, and  language,  each  offer  an  excellent  men- 
tal training,  aside  from  increased  skillfulness 
in  the  use  of  hands  and  eyes.  Yet  these  means 
will  not  give  accurate  results  unless  they  are 
the  product  of  systematic  thought.  To  draw, 
make,  or  describe  a  thing  correctly  necessi- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 94. 


lem,  even  with  new  material  and  under  entirely  novel 
circumstances. 

Of  the  moral  effect  he  says : 

Its  influence  is  wholesome.  It  stimulates  the  love 
for  intellectual  honesty.  It  deals  with  the  substance  as 
well  as  the  shadow.  It  gives  opportunity  for  primitive 
judgments.  It  shows  in  the  concrete,  in  the  most  un- 
mistakable form, the  vast  difference  between  right  and 
wrong.  It  substitutes  personal  experience  and  the  use 
of  simple,  forcible  language  for  the  experience  of  others 
expressed  in  high-sounding  phrase.  It  associates  the 
deed  with  the  thought,  the  real  with  the  ideal,  and  lays 
the  foundation  for  honesty  in  thought  and  in  act. 

How  suggestive,  then,  is  such  an  exercise  ! 
Suppose  that  but  one  came  in  the  course  of 
a  year,  would  it  not  do  more  to  show  the  prac- 
tical usefulness  of  drawing  than  any  number 
of  exercises  limited  to  flat  copying?  But  it 
is  not  proposed  thus  to  confine  such  exercises. 


682 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  IDEA   IN  EDUCATION. 


WORKING    AT    HOME    FROM     DESIGNS     DRAWN    AT    SCHOOL. 


From  time  to  time  the  drawing  regularly  done 
in  the  school  may  be  given  so  as  to  admit  of 
drawing  from  objects  and  the  construction 
of  objects  from  drawings. 

The  exercise  which  has  been  described  will 
no  doubt  be  judged  to  be  purely  utilitarian, 
but  attention  is  called  to  another  important 
outgrowth  which  may  result  from  it.  In  dis- 
cussing the  beauty  of  the  match-box  it  was 
agreed  that  it  might  be  made  more  pleasant 
to  the  eye  if  curves  were  substituted  for 
the  straight  lines  of  the  back.  It  was  also 
agreed  that  the  front  of  the  box  might  be 
decorated  by  the  addition  of  a  simple  design 
to  be  cut  out  or  painted.  Pupils  were  allowed 
to  make  suggestions  of  improvements  in  their 


drawings,  thus  exercising  their  taste  and  pro- 
ducing results  which  may  be  noted  in  the 
illustrations. 

This  particular  exercise  has  been  described 
somewhat  in  detail  in  the  hope  that  teachers 
may  be  induced  to  try  similar  ones.  At 
Quincy  a  great  variety  of  objects  have  been 
produced,  and  many  of  the  pupils  have  be- 
come so  much  interested  that  they  have  at- 
tempted work  that  was  much  more  ambitious 
than  that  given  out  by  the  teachers.  Indeed, 
an  interest  having  once  been  excited,  both 
teachers  and  pupils  have  worked  with  the 
finest  enthusiasm.  Let  it  be  noted,  also,  that 
the  objects  produced  were  all  of  a  useful  char- 
acter, being  either  of  full  size  or  in  miniature. 


THE    INDUSTRIAL   IDEA   IN  EDUCA77ON. 


683 


Consideration  was  had,  of  course,  for  the  ma-  exercises  have  been   given  in   which  a  class 

terials  and   the  appliances  for  working  them  had  fora  definite  purpose  the  design  and  dec- 

into  shape  which  the  pupils  would  naturally  oration    of   pen-wipers,    pin-cushions,   book- 

tind  at  home,  thin  wood,  cloth,  etc.  being  the  marks,  tidies,  etc.  ;   and  it    was  interesting  to 

materials  most  likely  to  be  found  there.    The  observe  that  many  girls  had  made  their  first 

hammer,  saw.  etc.  of  the  family  tool-box  were  experiment  of  needlework  in  this  connection, 

the  means  of  execution.    Can  any  one  doubt  In  Quincy  it  is  hoped  to  make  drawing   a 


ARTICLES    MADE    AT    HOME    BY    SCHOOL    CHILDREN. 


that  these  little  workmen  had  a  genuine  love 
for  their  work  ? 

The  third  main  part  of  the  general  outline 
has  reference  to  new  combinations  of  known 
forms,  the  exercises  in  connection  with  it  be- 
ing a  natural  outgrowth  of  observation  and 
expression.  Every  exercise  is  designed  to  il- 
lustrate some  principle,  such  as  symmetry, 
repetition,  etc.  Remembering  that  professional 
designers  require  something  to  furnish  sugges- 
tions, the  children  make  use  of  sticks,  colored 
papers,  plant-forms,  and  historic  ornaments. 
By  means  of  these  they  exercise  the  inventive 
faculty,  imagination  is  trained,  and  the  power 
to  conceive  with  accuracy  developed.  The 
first  exercises  are  termed  elementary.  In  the 
higher  grades  the  designs  refer  to  both  the 
construction  and  the  decoration  of  the  objects, 
and  may  be  presented  by  any  of  the  means  of 
expression.  This  department  of  the  subject  is 
suggestive  of  many  exercises  in  which  girls 
may  apply  their  designs  to  examples  of  needle- 
work, by  which  their  taste  may  be  refined  and 
home  beautified.  Having  this  object  in  mind, 


necessity  in  connection  with  the  design  and 
cutting  of  female  garments.  But  needlework 
alone  has  not  occupied  the  attention  of  the 
girls,  for  in  one  school  an  exercise  in  wood- 
work was  better  done  by  the  girls  than  by  the 
boys.  In  order  to  provide  pupils  with  work 
best  adapted  to  their  ability,  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  have  two  exercises  in  progress  at 
the  same  time.  Thus  boys  made  pencil-sharp- 
eners, while  the  girls  made  pen-wipers.  The 
boys  were  gallant  enough  to  make  extra  sharp- 
eners for  some  of  the  girls,  while  the  latter, 
not  to  be  outdone,  showed  their  appreciation 
and  thoughtfulness  by  making  extra  pen- 
wipers for  the  boys ;  the  objects  in  every  case, 
it  may  be  added,  being  made  from  drawings-. 
The  work  which  has  been  briefly  outlined 
above  is  regarded  simply  as  a  beginning.  It 
is  hoped  that  there  will  be  a  more  general 
study  of  this  manner  of  connecting  the  manual 
work  of  the  kindergarten  with  that  of  the  spe- 
cial school.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  indus- 
trial drawing  will  be  the  foundation  of  any 
attempt  to  combine  manual  training  with  the 


684 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


existing  studies  of  the  primary  and  grammar 
schools.  Eyes  and  hands  are  means  by  which 
ideas  are  brought  to  the  mind,  and  also  the 
means  by  which  they  are  afterwards  given  out 
in  tangible  form.  Exercises  in  observing,  ex- 
pressing, and  combining  these  ideas  give  train- 
ing alike  of  mind,  hand,  and  eye.  In  what  other 
way  can  these  ends  be  so  well  accomplished 
as  through  industrial  drawing  and  manual 
training  combined  ?  And  what  can  be  better 
made  the  means  of  inculcating  ideas  of  beauty, 
refinement,  and  morality  ? 

The  extent  to  which  manual  exercises  may 
be  introduced  into  public  schools  will  no 
doubt  be  governed  by  certain  peculiar  limita- 
tions. To  begin  with,  it  is  not  expected  that 
boys  generally  will  be  able  to  handle  heavy 
tools  until  about  thirteen  years  old.  Give 
them,  therefore,  exercises  in  which  the  lighter 
means  may  be  employed,  such  as  glue,  the 
jackknife,  etc.  Again,  we  are  limited  by  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  generally  connecting 
with  common  schools  work-shops  and  special 


instructors.  Furthermore,  courses  of  study  al- 
ready overcrowded,  and  the  lack  of  specially 
prepared  teachers,  are  obstacles  which  the 
average  country  school,  at  least,  cannot  over- 
come. Industrial  drawing  is  largely  taught 
throughout  the  country.  We  would  urge  that 
exercises  connected  with  it  be  arranged  for  an 
outgrowth  of  constructed  objects.  This  is  not 
only  practicable,  but  applicable  to  all  com- 
mon schools.  Depend  upon  willing  parents, 
brothers,  and  sisters  for  whatever  home  in- 
struction is  necessary  in  the  manual  execution 
of  the  thought,  and  we  shall  at  least  have 
wisely  directed  the  natural  tendency  of  chil- 
dren to  make  things,  and  have  aroused  an 
interest  which  will  assist  materially  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  special  manual-training  schools 
whenever  they  become  practicable. 

In  conclusion  we  would  say  to  teachers 
everywhere  :  Give  one  exercise  to  your  pupils 
in  the  manner  described,  and  we  are  confident 
that  the  interest  which  you  will  thus  arouse 
will  lead  to  others. 

Charles  M.  Carter. 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


|N  a  shadowy  solitary  valley  of 
southern  Kentucky,  and  beside 
a  noiseless  stream,  there  stands 
to-day  a  great  French  abbey  of 
white-cowled  Trappist  monks. 
It  is  the  loneliest  of  human  habi- 
tations. Though  not  a  ruin,  an  atmosphere 
of  gray  antiquity  hangs  about  and  forever 
haunts  it.  The  pale-gleaming  cross  on  the 
spire  looks  as  though  it  would  fall  to  the  earth, 
weary  of  its  aged  unchangeableness.  The  long 
Gothic  windows;  the  rudely  carven  wooden 
crucifixes,  suggesting  the  very  infancy  of  holy 
art ;  the  partly  encompassing  wall,  seemingly 
built  as  though  to  resist  a  siege;  the  iron  gate 
of  the  porter's  lodge,  locked  against  profane 
intrusion  —  all  are  the  voiceless  but  eloquent 
emblems  of  a  past  that  still  enchains  the  mem- 
ory by  its  associations  as  it  once  enthralled 
the  reason  by  its  power.  Over  the  placid 
stream,  and  across  the  fields  to  the  woody 
crests  around,  float  only  the  sounds  of  the 
same  sweet  monastery  bells  that  in  the  quiet 
evening  air  summoned  a  ruder  world  to 
nightly  rest  and  pious  thoughts  of  heaven. 
Within  the  abbey  at  midnight  are  heard  the 
voices  of  monks  chanting  the  self-same  masses 
that  ages  ago  were  sung  by  others,  who  all 
night  long  from  icy  chapel  floors  lifted  up  pite- 
ous hands  with  intercession  for  poor  souls  suf- 
fering in  purgatory.  One  almost  expects  to 


see  coming  along  the  dusty  Kentucky  road 
which  winds  through  the  valley  meek  brown 
palmers  just  returning  from  the  Holy  Sepul- 
cher,  or  through  an  upper  window  of  the  ab- 
bey to  descry  lance  and  visor  and  battle-ax 
flashing  in  the  sunlight  as  they  wind  up  a  dis- 
tant hill-side  to  the  storming  of  some  perilous 
citadel. 

Ineffable  influences,  too,  seem  to  bless  the 
spot.  Here,  forsooth,  some  saint,  retiring  to 
the  wilderness  to  subdue  the  devil  in  his  flesh, 
lived  and  struggled,  and  suffered  and  died, 
leaving  his  life  as  an  heroic  pattern  for  others 
who  in  the  same  hard  way  should  wish  to  win 
the  fullest  grace  of  Christlike  character.  Per- 
haps even  one  of  the  old  monks,  long  since 
halting  towards  the  close  of  his  pilgrimage,  will 
reverently  lead  you  down  the  aisle  to  the  dim 
sepulcher  of  some  martyr,  whose  relics  repose 
under  the  altar  while  his  virtues  perpetually 
exhale  heavenward  like  gracious  incense. 

The  beauty  of  the  region,  and  especially  of 
the  grounds  surrounding  the  abbey,  thus  seems 
but  a  touching  mockery.  What  have  these  in- 
ward-gazing, heavenward-gazing  souls  to  do 
with  the  loveliness  of  Nature,  with  the  change 
of  season  or  the  flight  of  years,  with  green 
pastures  and  waving  harvest-fields  outside  the 
wall,  with  flowers  and  orchards  and  vineyards 
within  ? 

It  was  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  beautiful 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


685 


gardens  of  the  monastery  that  a  young  monk, 
Father  Palemon,  was  numbly  at  work  one 
morrfing  some  years  ago  amidst  the  lettuces 
and  onions  and  fast-growing  potatoes.  The  sun 
smote  the  earth  with  the  fierce  heat  of  depart- 
ing June ;  and  pausing  to  wipe  the  thick  bead 
of  perspiration  from  his  forehead,  he  rested  a 
moment,  breathing  heavily.  His  powerful  legs 
were  astride  a  row  of  the  succulent  shoots,  and 
his  hands  clasped  the  handle  of  the  hoe  that 
gave  him  a  staff-like  support  in  front.  He  was 
dressed  in  the  sacred  garb  of  his  order.  His 
heavy  sabots  crushed  the  clods  in  the  furrows. 
His  cream-colored  serge  cowl,  the  long  skirt 
of  which  would  have  touched  the  ground,  had 
been  folded  up  to  his  knees  and  tied  with 
hempen  cords.  The  wide  sleeves,  falling  away, 
showed  up  to  the  elbows  the  superb  muscles 
of  his  bronzed  arms ;  and  the  calotte,  pushed 
far  back  from  his  head,  revealed  the  outlines 
of  his  neck,  full,  round,  like  a  column.  Nearly 
a  month  had  passed  since  the  convent  barber 


had  sheared  his  poll,  and  his  yellow  hair  was 
just  beginning  to  enrich  his  temples  with  a  til- 
let  of  thick  curling  locks.  Had  Father  Pale- 
mon's  hair  been  permitted  to  grow,  it  would 
have  fallen  down  on  each  side  in  masses  shin- 
ing like  flax  and  making  the  ideal  head  of  a 
saint.  But  his  face  was  not  the  face  of  a  saint. 
It  had  in  it  no  touch  of  the  saint's  agony  — 
none  of  those  fine  subtle  lines  that  are  the  ma- 
terial network  of  intense  spirituality  brooding 
within.  Scant  vegetarian  diet  and  the  deep 
shadows  of  cloistral  life  had  preserved  in  his 
complexion  the  delicate  hues  of  youth,  notice- 
able still  beneath  the  tan  of  recent  exposure 
to  the  summer  sun.  His  calm,  steady  blue 
eyes,  also,  had  the  open  look  peculiar  to  self- 
unconscious  childhood ;  so  that  as  he  stood 
thus,  tall,  sinewy,  supple,  grave,  bare-headed 
under  the  open  sky,  clad  in  spotless  white,  a 
singular  union  of  strength,  manliness,  and  un- 
awakened  innocence,  he  was  a  figure  startling 
to  come  upon,  picturesque  to  contemplate, 
profoundly  interesting  to  study. 

As  he  rested,  he  looked  down  and  dis- 
covered that  the  hempen  cords  fastening 
the  hem  of  his  cowl  were  becoming  untied, 
and  walking  to  the  border  of  grass  which 
ran  round  the  garden  just  inside  the  mon- 
astery wall,  he  sat  down  to  secure  the 
loosened  threads.     He  was  very  tired. 
He  had  come  forth  to  work  before  the 
first  gray  of  dawn.    His  lips  were  parched 
with  thirst.    Save  the  little  cup  of  cider 
and  a  slice  of  black  bread  with  which  he 
had  broken  his  fast  after  matins,  he  had 
not  tasted  food  since  the  frugal  meal  of 
the  previous  noon.  Both  weary  and  faint, 
therefore,  he  had  hardly  sat  down  before 
in  the  weakness  of  his  flesh  a  sudden 
powerful  impulse  came  upon  him  to  in- 
dulge himself  in  a  moment's  repose.  His 
fingers  fell  away  from  the  untied  cords, 
his  body  sank  back- 
ward   against    the 
trunk  of  the  gnarled 
apple-tree  by  which 
he  was  shaded,  and 
closing  his  eyes,  he 
drank  in  eagerly  all 
the  sweet  influences 
of  the  perfect  day. 
For  Nature' was  in 
an     ecstasy.      The 
sunlight  never   fell 
more  joyous  upon 
the  unlifting  shad- 
ows of  human  life. 
The     breeze     that 
cooled  his  sweating 
face  was  heavy  with 
the  odor  of  the  won- 


686 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


derful  monastery  roses.  In  the  dark  green  can- 
opy overhead  two  piping  flame-colored  orioles 
drained  the  last  bright  dew-drop  from  the  chal- 
ice of  a  leaf.  All  the  liquid  air  was  slumbrous 
with  the  minute  music  of  insect  life,  and  from 
the  honeysuckles  clambering  over  the  wall  at 
his  back  came  the  murmur  of  the  happy,  happy 
bees. 

What  power  have  hunger  and  thirst  and 
momentary  weariness  over  the  young  ?  Father 
Palemon  was  himself  most  like  a  part  of  the 
pure  and  beautiful  nature  around  him.  His 
heart  was  like  some  great  secluded  crimson 
flower  that  is  just  ready  to  burst  open  in  a 
passionate  seeking  of  the  sun.  As  he  sat  thus 
in  the  midst  of  Nature's  joyousness  and  irre- 
pressible unfoldings  and  peaceful  consumma- 
tions, he  forgot  hunger  and  thirst  and  weariness 
in  a  feeling  of  delicious  languor.  But  beneath 
even  this,  and  more  subtle  still,  was  the  stir  of 
restlessness  and  the  low  fever  of  vague  desire 
for  something  wholly  beyond  his  experience. 
He  sighed  and  opened  his  eyes.  Right  before 
them,  on  the  spire  beyond  the  gardens,  was  the 
ancient  cross  to  which  he  was  consecrated. 
On  his  shoulders  were  the  penitential  wounds 
he  had  that  morning  inflicted  with  the  knotted 
scourge.  In  his  ears  was  the  faint  general 
chorus  of  saints  and  martyrs,  echoing  back- 
ward ever  more  solemnly  to  the  very  pas- 
sion of  Christ.  While  Nature  was  everywhere 
clothing  itself  with  living  greenness,  around 
his  gaunt  body  and  muscular  limbs  —  over  his 
young  head  and  his  coursing  hot  blood  —  he 
had  wrapped  the  dead  white  cowl  of  centuries 
gone  as  the  winding-sheet  of  his  humanity. 
These  were  not  clear  thoughts  in  his  mind, 
but  the  vaguest  suggestions  of  feeling,  which 
of  late  had  come  to  him  at  times,  and  now 
made  him  sigh  more  deeply  as  he  sat  up  and 
bent  over  again  to  tie  the  hempen  cords.  As 
he  did  so,  his  attention  was  arrested  by  the 
sound  of  voices  just  outside  the  monastery 
wall,  which  was  low  here,  so  that  in  the  gen- 
eral stillness  they  became  entirely  audible. 


ii. 

OUTSIDE  the  wall  was  a  long  strip  of 
woodland  which  rose  gently  to  the  summit 
of  a  ridge  half  a  mile  away.  The  woodland 
was  but  little  used.  Into  it  occasionally  a 
lay  brother  drove  the  gentle  monastery  cows 
to  pasture,  or  here  a  flock  sheltered  itself 
beneath  forest  oaks  against  the  noontide 
summer  heat.  Beyond  the  summit  lay  the 
homestead  of  a  gentleman  farmer.  As  one 
descended  this  slope  towards  the  abbey,  he 
beheld  it  from  the  most  picturesque  side, 
and  visitors  at  the  homestead  usually  came 
to  see  it  by  this  secluded  approach.  If 


Father  Palemon  could  have  been  beyond  the 
wall,  he  would  have  discovered  that  the 
voices  were  those  of  a  young  man  and  a 
young  woman  —  the  former  a  slight,  dark 
cripple,  and  invalid.  He  led  the  way  along 
a  footpath  up  quite  close  to  the  wall,  and  the 
two  sat  down  beneath  the  shade  of  a  great 
tree.  Father  Palemon,  listening  eagerly,  uncon- 
sciously overheard  the  following  conversation : 

"  I  should  like  to  take  you  inside  the  abbey 
wall,  but  of  course  that  is  impossible,  as  no 
woman  is  allowed  to  enter  the  grounds.  So 
we  shall  rest  here  awhile.  I  find  that  the 
walk  tires  me  more  than  it  once  did,  and  this 
tree  has  become  a  sort  of  outside  shrine  to 
me  on  my  pilgrimages." 

"  Do  you  come  often  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes.  When  we  have  visitors,  I  am 
appointed  their  guide,  probably  becalise  I 
feel  more  interest  in  the  place  than  any  one 
else.  If  they  are  men,  I  take  them  over  the 
grounds  inside;  and  if  they  are  women,  I 
bring  them  thus  far  and  try  to  describe  the 
rest." 

"  As  you  will  do  for  me  now  ?  " 

•'  No;  I  am  not  in  the  mood  for  describing. 
Even  when  I  am,  my  description  always  dis- 
appoints me.  How  is  one  to  describe  such 
human  beings  as  these  monks  ?  Sometimes, 
during  the  long  summer  days,  I  walk  over 
here  alone  and  lie  for  hours  under  this  tree, 
until  the  influences  of  the  place  have  com- 
pletely possessed  me  and  I  feel  wrought  up 
to  the  point  of  description.  The  sensation  of 
a  chill  comes  over  me.  Look  up  at  these 
Kentucky  skies  !  You  have  never  seen  them 
before.  Are  there  any  more  delicate  and 
tender?  Well,  at  such  times,  where  they 
bend  over  this  abbey,  they  look  as  hard  and 
cold  as  a  sky  of  Landseer's.  The  sun  seems 
no  longer  to  warm  the  pale  cross  on  the 
spire  yonder,  the  great  drifting  white  clouds 
send  a  shiver  through  me  as  though  uplifted 
snowbanks  were  passing  over  my  head.  I 
fancy  that  if  I  were  to  go  inside  I  should  see 
the  white  butterflies  dropping  down  dead  from 
the  petals  of  the  white  roses,  finding  them  stiff 
with  frost,  and  that  the  white  rabbits  would 
be  limping  trembling  through  the  frozen 
grass,  like  the  hare  in  '  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes.' 
Everything  becomes  cold  to  me — cold,  cold, 
cold !  The  bleak  and  rugged  old  monks 
themselves,  in  their  hoary  cowls,  turn  to  per- 
sonifications of  perpetual  winter;  and  if  I 
were  in  the  chapel,  I  should  expect  to  meet 
in  one  of  them  Keats's  very  beadsman, — 
patient,  holy  man,  meager,  wan, —  whose 
fingers  were  numb  while  he  told  his  rosary, 
and  his  breath  frosted  as  it  took  flight  for 
heaven.  Ugh !  I  am  cold  now.  My  blood 
must  be  getting  very  thin." 


/•///•;  1 1 7/ /•/'/•:  co iiv.. 


687 


"  I  do  not  discover  thinness  of  blood  in 
your  description  so  much  as  a  poetic  imagi- 
nation." 

"  At  least  the  impression  is  a  powerful  one. 
I  have  watched  these  old  monks  closely. 
Whether  it  is  from  the  weakness  of  vigils  and 
fasts  or  from  positive  cold,  they  all  tremble  — 
perpetually  tremble.  I  fancy  that  their  souls 
shiver  as  well.  Are  not  their  cowls  the  grave- 
clothes  of  a  death  in  life  ?  " 

"  You  seem  to  forget,  Austin,  that  faith 
warms  them." 

.-••"  By  extinguishing  the  fires  of  nature  !  Why 
should  not  faith  and  nature  grow  strong  to- 
gether? I  have  spent  my  life  on  the  hill-side 
back  yonder,  as  you  know,  and  I  have  had 
leisure  enough  for  studying  these  monks.  1 
have  tried  to  do  them  justice.  At  different 
times  I  have  almost  lived  with  St.  Benedict 
at  Subiaco,  and  St.  Patrick  on  the  mountain, 
and  St.  Anthony  in  the  desert,  and  St.  Thomas 
in  the  cell.  I  understand  and  value  all  the 
elements  of  truth  and  beauty  in  the  lives  of 
the  ancient  solitaries.  But  they  all  belong  so 
inalienably  to  the  past.  We  have  outgrown 
the  ideals  of  antkjuity.  How  can  a  man  now 
look  upon  his  body  as  his  evil  tenement  of 
flesh  ?  How  can  he  believe  that  he  approaches 
sainthood  by  destroying  his  manhood  ?  The 
highest  type  of  personal  holiness  is  said  to  be 
attained  in  the  cloister.  That  is  not  true.  The 
highest  type  of  personal  holiness  is  to  be  at- 
tained in  the  thick  of  all  the  world's  tempta- 
tions. Then  it  becomes  sublime.  It  seems  to 
me  that  all  the  heroisms  worth  speaking  of 
nowadays  are  active,  not  meditative.  But 
why  should  I  say  this  to  you,  who  as  much 
as  any  one  else  have  taught  me  to  think  thus 
—  I  who  myself  am  able  to  do  nothing  ?  But 
though  I  can  do  nothing,  I  can  at  least  look 
down  upon  the  monastic  ideal  of  life  as  an 
empty  dead  husk,  into  which  no  man  with 
the  largest  ideas  of  duty  will  ever  compress 
his  powers.  Even  granting  that  it  develops 
personal  holiness,  this  itself  is  but  one  element 
in  the  perfect  character,  and  not  even  the 
greatest  one." 

"  But  do  you  suppose  that  all  these  monks 
have  deliberately  and  freely  chosen  their  voca- 
tion ?  You  know  perfectly  well  that  often  there 
are  almost  overwhelming  motives  impelling 
men  and  women  to  hide  themselves  away  from 
the  world  —  from  its  sorrows,  its  dangers,  its 
temptations." 

"  You  are  at  least  orthodox.  I  know  that 
such  motives  exist,  but  are  they  sufficient  ? 
Of  course  there  was  a  time  when  the  cloister 
was  a  refuge  from  dangers.  Certainly  that  is 
not  true  in  this  country  now.  And  as  for  the 
sorrows  and  temptations,  I  say  that  they  must 
be  met  in  the  world.  There  is  no  sorrow  befall- 


ing a  man  in  the  world  that  he  should  not 
bear  in  the  world  —  bearit  as  well  for  the  s;ike 
of  his  own  character  as  for  the  sake  of  helping 
others  who  suffer  like  him.  This  way  lie  moral 
heroism  and  martyrdom.  This  way,  even,  lies 
the  utmost  self-sacrifice,  if  one  will  only  try 
to  see  it.  No,  I  have  but  little  sympathy  with 
such  cases.  The  only  kind  of  monk  who  has 
all  my  sympathy  is  the  one  that  is  pro- 
duced by  early  training  and  education.  Take 
a  boy  whose  nature  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  scourge  and  the  cell.  Immure  him. 
Never  let  him  get  from  beneath  the  shadow 
of  convent  walls  or  away  from  the  sound  of 
masses  and  the  waving  of  crucifixes.  Bend 
him,  train  him,  break  him,  until  he  turns  monk 
despite  nature's  purposes,  and  ceases  to  be  a 
man  without  becoming  a  saint.  I  have  sym- 
pathy for  ///;//.  Sympathy  !  I  do  not  know  of 
any  violation  of  the  law  of  personal  liberty 
that  gives  me  so  much  positive  suffering." 

"  But  why  suffer  over  imaginary  cases  ? 
Such  constraint  belongs  to  the  past." 

"  On  the  contrary,  it  is  just  such  an  in- 
stance of  constraint  that  has  colored  all  my 
thoughts  of  this  abbey.  It  is  this  that  has 
led  me  to  haunt  the  place  for  years  from  a 
sort  of  sad  fascination.  Men  find  their  way  to 
this  valley  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
world.  No  one  knows  from  what  inward  or 
outward  stress  they  come.  They  are  hidden 
away  here  and  their  secret  histories  are  buried 
with  them.  But  the  history  of  one  of  these 
fathers  is  known,  for  he  has  grown  up  here 
under  the  shadow  of  these  monastery  walls. 
You  may  think  the  story  one  of  medieval 
flavor,  but  I  believe  its  counterpart  will  here 
and  there  be  found  as  long  as  monasteries  rise 
and  human  beings  fall. 

"He  was  an  illegitimate  child.  Who  his  father 
was,  no  one  ever  so  much  as  suspected.  When 
his  mother  died  he  was  left  a  homeless  waif 
in  one  of  the  Kentucky  towns.  But  some  in- 
visible eye  was  upon  him.  He  was  soon  after- 
wards brought  to  the  boarding-school  for  poor 
boys  which  is  taught  by  the  Trappist  fathers 
here.  Perhaps  this  was  done  by  his  father, 
who  wished  to  get  him  safely  out  of  the  world. 
Well,  he  has  never  left  this  valley  since  then. 
The  fathers  have  been  his  only  friends  and  ad- 
visers. He  has  never  looked  on  the  face  of  a 
woman  since  he  looked  into  his  mother's 
when  a  child.  He  knows  no  more  of  the 
modern  world  —  except  what  the  various  es- 
tablishments connected  with  the  abbey  have 
taught  him  —  than  the  most  ancient  hermit. 
While  he  was  in  the  Trappist  school,  dur- 
ing afternoons  and  vacations  he  worked  in 
the  monastery  fields  with  the  lay  brothers. 
With  them  he  ate  and  slept.  When  his  edu- 
cation was  finished  he  became  a  lay  brother 


<588 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


himself.  But  amidst  such  influences  the  rest 
of  the  story  is  foreseen :  in  a  few  years  he 
put  on  the  brown  robe  and  leathern  girdle 
of  a  brother  of  the  order,  and  last  year  he  took 
final  vows,  and  now  wears  the  white  cowl  and 
black  scapular  of  a  priest." 

"  But  if  he  has  never  known  any  other  life, 
he,  most  of  all,  should  be  contented  with  this. 


bind  him  until  death.  My  father  knew  his 
mother  and  says  that  he  is  much  like  her  —  an 
impulsive,  passionate,  trustful,  beautiful  crea- 
ture, with  the  voice  of  a  seraph.  Father  Pale- 
mon  himself  has  the  richest  voice  in  the  monks' 
choir.  Ah,  to  hear  him,  in  the  dark  chapel,  sing 
the  Salve  Regina  !  The  others  seem  to  moder- 
ate their  own  voices,  that  his  may  rise  clear  and 


It  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  much  harder    uncommingled  to  the  vaulted  roof.    But  1  be- 


"HE    BENT    OVER    IT,    REVERENTIAL,    WELL-NIGH    AWE-STRICKEN.' 


to  have  known  human  life  and  then  renounce 
it." 

"  That  is  because  you  are  used  to  dwell  upon 
the  good,  and  strive  to  better  the  evil.  No ; 
I  do  not  believe  that  he  is  happy.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve nature  is  ever  thwarted  without  suffering, 
and  nature  in  him  never  cried  out  for  the  monk- 
ish life,  but  against  it.  His  first  experience 
with  the  rigors  of  its  discipline  proved  nearly 
fatal.  He  was  prostrated  with  long  illness. 
Only  by  special  indulgence  in  food  and  drink 
was  his  health  restored.  His  system  even  now 
is  not  inured  to  the  cruel  exactions  of  his  order. 
You  see,  I  have  known  him  for  years.  I  was 
first  attracted  to  him  as  a  lonely  little  fellow 
with  the  sad  lay  brothers  in  the  fields.  As  I 
would  pass  sometimes,  he  would  eye  me  with 
all  a  boy's  unconscious  appeal  for  the  young 
and  for  companionship.  I  have  often  gone  into 
the  abbey  since  then,  to  watch  and  study  him. 
He  works  with  a  terrible,  pent-up  energy.  I 
know  his  type  among  the  young  Kentuckians. 
They  make  poor  monks.  Time  and  again  they 
have  come  here  to  join  the  order.  But  all  have 
soon  fallen  away.  Only  Father  Palemon  has 
ever  persevered  to  the  taking  of  the  vows  that 


lieve  that  it  is  only  the  music  he  feels.  He  puts 
passion  and  an  outcry  for  human  sympathy 
into  every  note.  Do  you  wonder  that  I  feel  so 
strongly  drawn  towards  him  ?  I  can  give  you 
no  idea  of  his  appearance.  I  shall  show  you  his 
photograph,  but  that  will  not  do  it.  I  have 
often  imagined  you  two  together  by  the  very 
law  of  contrast.  I  think  of  you  at  home  in  New- 
York  City,  with  your  charities,  your  missions, 
your  energetic,  untiring  beneficence.  You 
stand  at  one  extreme.  Then  I  think  of  him 
at  the  other  — doing  nothing,  shut  up  in  this 
valley,  spending  his  magnificent  manhood  in 
a  never-changing,  never-ending  routine  of 
sterile  vigils  and  fasts  and  prayers.  Oh,  we 
should  change  places,  he  and  I !  I  should  be  in 
there  and  he  out  here.  He  should  be  lying  here 
by  your  side,  looking  up  into  your  face,  lov- 
ing you  as  I  have  loved  you,  and  winning 
you  as  I  never  can.  O  Madeline,  Madeline, 
Madeline ! " 

The  rapid,  broken  utterance  suddenly 
ceased. 

In  the  deep  stillness  that  followed,  Father 
Palemon  heard  the  sound  of  a  low  sob  and 
a  groan. 


THE    WHITE   COWL. 


689 


He  had  sat  all  this  time  riven  to  the  spot, 
and  as  though  turned  into  stone.  He  had 
hardly  breathed.  A  bright  lizard  gliding  from 
out  a  crevice  in  the  wall  had  sunned  itself  in 
a  little  rift  of  sunshine  between  his  feet.  A  bee 
from  the  honeysuckles  had  lighted  unnoticed 
upon  his  hand.  All  sounds  had  died  away 
from  his  ears,  which  were  strained  to  catch 
the  last  echoes  of  these  strange  voices  from 
another  world.  Now  all  at  once  across  the 
gardens  came  the  stroke  of  a  bell  summoning 
to  instant  prayer.  Why  had  it  suddenly  grown 
so  loud  and  terrible  ?  He  started  up.  He  for- 
got all  priestly  gravity  and  ran  —  fairly  ran, 
headlong  and  in  a  straight  course,  heedless 
of  the  tender  plants  that  were  being  crushed 
beneath  his  feet.  From  another  part  of  the 
garden  an  aged  brother,  his  eye  attracted  by 
the  sunlight  glancing  on  a  bright  moving  object, 
paused  while  training  a  grape-vine  and  watched 
with  amazement  the  disorderly  figure  as  it  fled. 
As  he  ran  on,  the  skirts  of  his  cowl,  which  he 
had  forgotten  to  tie  up,  came  down.  When 
at  last  he  reached  the  door  of  the  chapel  and 
stooped  to  unroll  them,  he  discovered  that 
they  had  been  draggled  over  the  dirt  and 
stained  against  the  bruised  weeds  until  they 
were  hardly  recognizable  as  having  once  been 
spotless  white.  A  pang  of  shame  and  alarm 
went  through  him. 

III. 

EVERY  morning  the  entire  Trappist  brother- 
hood meet  in  a  large  room  for  public  confession 
and  accusation.  High  at  one  end  sits  the  ven- 
erable abbot;  beside  him,  but  lower,  the  prior; 
while  the  fathers  in  white  and  the  brothers  in 
brown  range  themselves  on  benches  placed 
against  the  wall  on  each  side.  It  was  near  the 
close  of  this  impressive  ceremony  that  Father 
Palemon  arose  and,  pushing  the  hood  far 
back  from  his  face,  looked  sorrowfully  around 
upon  the  amazed  company.  A  thrill  of  the 
tenderest  sympathy  shot  through  them.  He 
was  the  youngest  by  far  of  their  number  and 
likeliest  therefore  to  go  astray ;  but  never  had 
anyone  found  cause  to  accuse  him,  and  never 
had  he  condemned  himself.  Many  a  head 
wearing  its  winter  of  age  and  worldly  scars  had 
been  lifted  in  that  sacred  audience-chamber 
of  the  soul  confessing  to  secret  sin.  But  not 
he.  So  awful  a  thing  is  it  for  a  father  to 
accuse  himself,  that  in  utter  self-abasement  his 
brethren  throw  themselves  prone  to  the  floor 
when  he  rises.  It  was  over  the  prostrate  forms 
of  his  brethren  that  Father  Palemon  now 
stood  up  erect,  alone.  Unearthly  spectacle  ! 
He  began  his  confession.  In  the  hushed  silence 
of  the  great  bare  chamber  his  voice  awoke 
such  echoes  as  might  have  terrified  the  soul 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 95. 


had  one  gone  into  a  vast  vault  and  harangued 
the  shrouded  dead.  But  he  went  on,  spar- 
ing not  himself  and  laying  bare  his  whole  sin  — 
the  yielding  to  weariness  in  the  garden ;  the  list- 
ening to  the  conversation;  most  of  all,  the  har- 
boring of  strange  doubts  and  desires  since  then. 
Never  before  had  the  word  "  woman  "  been 
breathed  at  this  confessional  of  devoted  celi- 
bates. More  than  one  hooded,  faded  cheek 
blushed  secret  crimson  at  the  sound.  The  cir- 
cumstances attending  Father  Palemon's  temp- 
tation invested  it  with  an  ancient  horror.  The 
scene,  a  garden ;  the  tempter,  a  woman.  It 
was  like  some  modern  Adam  confessing  his 
fall. 

His  penance  was  severe.  For  a  week  he  was 
not  to  leave  his  cell,  except  at  brief  seasons 
of  permission.  Every  morning  he  must  scourge 
himself  on  his  naked  back  until  the  blood 
came.  Every  noon  he  must  go  about  the  re- 
fectory on  his  knees,  begging  his  portion  of 
daily  bread,  morsel  by  morsel,  from  his  breth- 
ren, and  must  eat  it  sitting  before  them  on  the 
floor.  This  repast  was  reduced  in  quantity  a 
half.  An  aged  deaf  monk  took  his  place  in 
the  garden. 

His  week  of  penance  over,  Father  Palemon 
came  forth  too  much  weakened  to  do  heavy 
work,  and  was  sent  to  relieve  one  of  the 
fathers  in  the  school.  Educated  there  himself, 
he  had  often  before  this  taught  its  round  of 
familiar  duties.  The  school  is  situated  outside 
the  abbey  wall  on  a  hill-side  several  hundred 
yards  away.  Between  it  and  the  abbey  winds 
the  road  which  enters  the  valley  above  and 
goes  out  below,  connecting  two  country  high- 
ways. Where  it  passes  the  abbey  it  offers  slip- 
pery, unsafe  footing  on  account  of  a  shelving 
bed  of  rock  which  rises  on  each  side  as  a 
steep  embankment,  and  is  kept  moist  by  over- 
hanging trees  and  by  a  small  stream  that  issues 
from  the  road-side  and  spreads  out  over  the 
whole  pass.  The  fathers  are  commanded  to 
cross  this  road  at  a  quick  gait,  the  hood  drawn 
completely  over  the  face,  and  the  eyes  bent  on 
the  ground. 

One  sultry  afternoon,  a  few  days  later,  Fa- 
ther Palemon  had  sent  away  his  little  group 
of  pious  pupils,  and  seated  himself  to  finish 
his  work.  The  look  of  unawakened  innocence 
had  vanished  from  his  eyes.  They  were  full 
of  thought  and  sorrow.  A  little  while  and, 
as  though  weighed  down  with  heaviness,  his 
head  sank  upon  his  arms,  which  were  crossed 
over  the  desk.  But  he  soon  lifted  it  quickly, 
and  with  alarm.  One  of  the  violent  storms 
which  gather  and  pass  so  quickly  in  the  Ken- 
tucky skies  was  rushing  on  from  the  south. 
The  shock  of  distant  thunder  sent  a  tremor 
through  the  building.  He  walked  to  the  win- 
dow and  stood  for  a  moment  watching  the 


69o 


THE    WHITE   COWL. 


rolling  edge  of  the  low  storm-cloud  with  its 
plumes  of  white  and  gray  and  ominous  dun- 
green  colors.  Suddenly  his  eyes  were  drawn 
to  the  road  below.  Around  a  bend  a  horse 
came  running  at  full  speed,  uncontrolled  by 
the  rider.  He  clasped  his  hands  and  breathed 
a  prayer.  Just  ahead  was  the  slippery,  dan- 
gerous footing.  Another  moment  and  horse 
and  rider  disappeared  behind  the  embank- 
ment. Then  the  horse  reappeared  on  the 
other  side,  without  saddle  or  rider,  rushing 
away  like  a  forerunner  of  the  tempest. 

He  ran  down.  When  he  reached  the  spot 
he  saw  lying  on  the  road-side  the  form  of  a 
woman  —  the  creature  whom  his  priestly  vows 
forbade  him  ever  to  approach.  Her  face  was 
upturned,  but  hidden  under  a  great  wave 
of  her  long,  loosened,  brown  hair.  He  knelt 
down  and,  lifting  the  hair  aside,  gazed  down 
into  it. 

" Ave  Maria.'  —  Mother  of  God!"  The 
disjointed  exclamations  were  instinctive.  The 
first  sight  of  beautiful  womanhood  had  in- 
stantly lifted  his  thought  to  the  utmost 
height  of  holy  associations.  Indeed,  no  sweet 
face  had  he  ever  looked  on  but  the  Virgin's 
picture.  Many  a  time  in  the  last  few  years 
had  he,  in  moments  of  restlessness,  drawn 
near  and  studied  it  with  a  sudden  rush  of  in- 
definable tenderness  and  longing.  But  beauty, 
such  as  this  seemed  to  him,  he  had  never 
dreamed  of.  He  bent  over  it,  reverential, 
well-nigh  awe-stricken.  Then  as  naturally  as 
the  disciple  John  might  have  succored  Mary, 
finding  her  wounded  and  fainting  by  the  way- 
side, he  took  the  unconscious  sufferer  in  his 
arms  and  bore  her  to  the  school-room  for 
refuge  from  the  bursting  storm.  There  he 
quickly  stripped  himself  of  his  great  soft  cowl, 
and,  spreading  it  on  the  bare  floor,  laid  her  on 
it,  and  with  cold  water  and  his  coarse  monk's- 
handkerchief  bathed  away  the  blood  that 
flowed  from  a  little  wound  on  her  temple. 

A  few  moments  and  she  opened  her  eyes. 
He  was  bending  close  over  her,  and  his  voice 
sounded  as  sweet  and  sorrowful  as  a  vesper 
bell: 

"Do  you  suffer?  Are  you  much  hurt? 
Your  horse  must  have  fallen  among  the  rocks. 
The  girth  was  broken." 

She  sat  up  bewildered  and  replied  slowly : 

"  I  think  I  am  only  stunned.  —  Yes,  my 
horse  fell.  —  I  was  hurrying  home  out  of 
the  storm.  —  He  took  fright  at  something 
and  I  lost  control  of  him.  What  place  is 
this  ?  " 

"  This  is  the  school  of  the  abbey.  The  road 
passes  just  below.  I  was  standing  at  the  win- 
dow when  your  horse  ran  past,  and  I  brought 
you  here." 

"  I  must  go  home  at  once.    They  will  be 


anxious  about  me.  I  am  visiting  at  a  place 
not  more  than  a  mile  away." 

He  shook  his  head  and  pointed  to  the  win- 
dow. A  sudden  gray  blur  of  rain  had  effaced 
the  landscape.  The  wind  shook  the  building. 

"You  must  remain  here  until  the  storm  is 
over.  It  will  last  but  a  little  while." 

During  this  conversation  she  had  been  sit- 
ting on  the  white  cowl,  and  he,  with  the  frank- 
ness of  a  wondering,  innocent  child,  had 
been  kneeling  quite  close  beside  her.  Now 
she  got  up  and  walked  to  one  of  the  windows, 
looking  out  upon  the  storm,  while  he  retired 
to  another  window  at  the  opposite  end  of  the 
room.  What  was  the  tempest-swept  hill  outside 
to  the  wild,  swift  play  of  emotions  in  him  ?  A 
complete  revulsion  of  feeling  quickly  succeeded 
his  first  mood.  What  if  she  was  more  beauti- 
ful—  far  more  beautiful — than  the  sweet  Vir- 
gin's picture  in  the  abbey  ?  She  was  a  devil, 
a  beautiful  devil.  Her  eyes,  her  hair,  which 
had  blown  against  his  face  and  around  his 
neck,  were  the  Devil's  implements ;  her  form, 
which  he  had  clasped  in  his  arms,  was  the 
Devil's  subtlest  hiding-place.  She  had  brought 
sin  into  the  world.  She  had  been  the  curse 
of  man  ever  since.  She  had  tempted  St.  An- 
thony. She  had  ruined  many  a  saint,  sent  many 
a  soul  to  purgatory,  many  a  soul  to  hell.  Per- 
haps she  was  trying  to  send  /its  soul  to  hell 
now  —  now  while  he  was  alone  with  her  and 
under  her  influence.  It  was  this  same  woman 
who  had  broken  into  the  peace  of  his  life  two 
weeks  before,  for  he  had  instantly  recognized 
the  voice  as  the  one  that  he  had  heard  in  the 
garden  and  that  had  been  the  cause  of  his  se- 
vere penance.  Amidst  all  his  scourgings,  fasts, 
and  prayers  that  voice  had  never  left  him.  It 
made  him  ache  to  think  of  what  penance  he 
must  now  do  again  on  her  account ;  and  with 
a  sudden  impulse  he  walked  across  the  room, 
and,  standing  before  her  with  arms  folded 
across  his  breast,  said  in  a  voice  of  the  sim- 
plest sorrow : 

"  Why  have  you  crossed  my  pathway,  thus 
to  tempt  me  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  eyes  that  were 
calm  but  full  of  natural  surprise. 

"  I  do  not  understand  how  I  have  tempted 
you." 

"  You  tempt  me  to  believe  that  woman  is 
not  the  devil  she  is." 

She  was  silent  with  confusion.  The  whole 
train  of  his  thought  was  unknown  to  her.  It 
was  difficult,  bewildering.  A  trivial  answer 
was  out  of  the  question,  for  he  hung  upon 
her  expected  reply  with  a  look  of  pitiable 
eagerness.  She  took  refuge  in  the  didactic. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  say  about  the  nature 
of  woman.  It  is  vague,  contradictory;  it  is 
anything,  everything.  But  I  can  speak  to 


THE    WHITE   COWL. 


691 


you  of  the  lives  of  women  :  that  is  a  definite 
subject.  Some  women  may  be  what  you  call 
devils.  But  some  are  not.  I  thought  that  you 
recognized  the  existence  of  saintly  women 
within  the  memories  and  the  present  pale  of 
your  church." 

"  True.  It  is  the  women  of  the  world  who 
are  the  devils." 

"  You  know  so  well  the  women  of  the 
world  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  taught.  I  have  been  taught 
that  if  Satan  were  to  appear  to  me  on  my 
right  hand  and  a  beautiful  woman  of  the 
world  on  my  left,  I  should  ilee  to  Satan  from 
the  arms  of  my  greater  enemy.  You  tempt 
me  to  believe  that  this  is  not  true  —  to  believe 
that  the  fathers  have  lied  to  me.  You  tempt 
me  to  believe  that  Satan  would  not  dare  to 
appear  in  your  presence.  Is  it  because  you 
are  yourself  a  devil  that  you  tempt  me  thus  ?  " 

"  Should  you  ask  me  ?  I  am  a  woman  of 
the  world.  I  live  in  a  city  of  more  than  a 
million  souls — in  the  company  of  thousands  of 
these  women-devils.  I  see  hundreds  of  them 
daily.  I  may  be  one  myself.  If  you  think  I 
am  a  devil,  you  ought  not  to  ask  me  to  tell 
you  the  truth.  You  should  not  listen  to  me 
or  believe  me." 

She  felt  the  cruelty  of  all  this.  It  was  like 
replying  logically  to  a  child  who  had  ear- 
nestly asked  to  be  told  something  that  might 
wreck  its  faith  and  happiness. 

The  storm  was  passing.  In  a  few  minutes 
this  strange  interview  would  end:  he  back 
to  his  cell  again;  she  back  to  the  world. 
Already  it  had  its  deep  influence  over  them 
both.  She,  more  than  he,  felt  its  almost 
tragical  gravity,  and  was  touched  by  its  pathos. 
These  two  young  human  souls,  true  and  pure, 
crossing  each  other's  pathway  in  life  thus 
strangely,  now  looked  into  each  other's  eyes, 
as  two  travelers  from  opposite  sides  of  the 
world  meet  and  salute  and  pass  in  the  midst 
of  the  desert. 

"  I  shall  believe  whatever  you  tell  me,"  he 
said  with  tremulous  eagerness. 

The  occasion  lifted  her  ever-serious  nature 
to  the  extraordinary ;  and  trying  to  cast  the 
truth  that  she  wished  to  teach  into  the  mold 
which  would  be  most  familiar  to  him,  she  re- 
plied : 

"  Do  you  know  who  are  most  like  you 
monks  in  consecration  of  life  ?  It  is  the 
women — the  good  women  of  the  world.  What 
are  your  great  vows?  Are  they  not  poverty,  la- 
bor, self-denial,  chastity,  prayer  ?  Well,  there 
is  not  one  of  these  but  is  kept  in  the  hearts 
of  good  women.  Only,  you  monks  keep  your 
vows  for  your  own  sakes,  while  women  keep 
them  as  well  for  the  sakes  of  others.  For  the 
sake  of  others  they  live  and  die  poor.  Some- 


times they  even  starve.  You  never  do  that. 
They  work  for  others  as  you  have  never 
worked;  they  pray  for  others  as  you  have 
never  prayed.  In  sickness  and  weariness,  day 
and  night,  they  deny  themselves  and  sacrifice 
themselves  for  others  as  you  have  never  done 
—  never  can  do.  You  keep  yourselves  pure. 
They  keep  themselves  pure  and  make  others 
pure.  If  you  are  the  best  examples  of  personal 
holiness  that  may  be  found  in  the  world  apart 
from  temptation,  they  are  the  higher  types  of 
it  maintained  amidst  temptations  that  never 
cease.  You  are  content  to  pray  for  the  world, 
they  also  work  for  it.  If  you  wish  to  see,  in 
the  most  nearly  perfect  form  that  is  ever  at- 
tained in  this  world,  love  and  sympathy  and 
forgiveness;  if  you  wish  to  find  vigils  and  pa- 
tience and  charity  —  go  to  the  good  women 
of  the  world.  They  are  all  through  the  world, 
of  which  you  know  nothing  —  in  homes,  and 
schools,  and  hospitals ;  with  the  old,  the  suf- 
fering, the  dying.  Sometimes  they  are  cling- 
ing to  the  thankless,  the  dissolute,  the  cruel; 
sometimes  they  are  ministering  to  the  weary, 
the  heart-broken,  the  deserted.  No,  no! 
Some  women  may  be  what  you  call  them, 
devils—" 

She  blushed  all  at  once  with  recollection  of 
her  earnestness.  It  was  the  almost  elemental 
simplicity  of  her  listener  that  had  betrayed 
her  into  it.  Meantime,  as  she  had  spoken,  his 
quickly  changing  mood  had  regained  its  first 
pitch.  She  seemed  to  rise  higher  —  to  be  ar- 
raigning him  and  his  ideals  of  duty.  In  his  own 
sight  he  seemed  to  grow  smaller,  shrink  up, 
become  despicable;  and  when  she  suddenly 
ceased  speaking,  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  her,  alas ! 
too  plainly  now  betraying  his  heart. 

"  And  you  are  one  of  these  good  wom- 
en?" 

"  I  have  nothing  to  say  of  myself;  I  spoke 
of  others.  I  may  be  a  devil." 

For  an  instant  through  the  scattering  clouds 
the  sunlight  had  fallen  through  the  window, 
lighting  up  her  head  as  with  a  halo.  It  fell 
upon  the  cowl  also,  which  lay  on  the  floor  like 
a  luminous  heap.  She  went  to  it,  and,  lifting  it, 
said  to  him : 

"  Will  you  leave  me  alone  now  ?  They  must 
pass  here  soon  looking  for  me.  I  shall  see  them 
from  the  window.  I  do  not  know  what  should 
have  happened  to  me  but  for  your  kindness. 
And  I  can  only  thank  you  very  gratefully." 

He  took  the  hand  that  she  gave  him  in  both 
of  his,  and  held  it  closely  awhile  as  his  eyes 
rested  long  and  intently  upon  her  face.  Then 
quickly  muffling  up  his  own  in  the  folds  of  his 
cowl,  he  turned  away  and  left  the  room.  She 
watched  him  disappear  behind  the  embank- 
ment below  and  then  reappear  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  striding  rapidly  to  wards  the  abbey. 


692 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


IV. 


ALL  that  night  the  two  aged  monks  whose 
cells  were  one  on  each  side  of  Father  Pale- 
mon's  heard  him  tossing  in  his  sleep.  At 
the  open  confessional  next  morning  he  did 
not  accuse  himself.  The  events  of  the  day 
before  were  known  to  none.  There  were  in 
that  room  but  two  that  could  have  testified 
against  him.  One  was  Father  Palemon  him- 
self; the  other  was  a  small  dark  red  spot 
on  the  white  bosom  of  his  cowl,  just  by 
his  heart.  It  was  a  blood-stain  from  the 
wounded  head  that  had  lain  on  his  breast. 
All  through  the  dread  examination  and  the 
confessions  Father  Palemon  sat  motionless, 
his  face  shadowed  by  his  hood,  his  arms 
crossed  over  his  bosom,  hiding  this  scarlet 
stain.  What  nameless  foreboding  had  blanched 
his  cheek  when  he  first  beheld  it  ?  It  seemed 
to  be  a  dead  weight  over  his  heart,  as  those 
earth-stains  on  the  hem  had  begun  to  clog  his 
feet. 

All  day  he  went  the  round  of  his  familiar 
duties  faultlessly  but  absently.  Without  heed- 
ing his  own  voice,  he  sang  the  difficult  ancient 
offices  of  the  Church  in  a  full  volume  of  tone, 
that  was  heard  above  all  the  rich  unison  of  the 
unerring  choir.  When,  at  twilight,  he  lay  down 
on  his  hard  narrow  bed,  with  the  leathern 
cincture  about  his  gaunt  waist,  he  seemed 
girt  for  some  lonely  spiritual  conflict  of  the 
midnight  hours.  Once  in  the  sad  tumult 
of  his  dreams  his  outstretched  arms  struck 
sharply  against  some  object  and  he  awoke : 
it  was  the  crucifix  that  hung  against  the  bare 
wall  at  his  head.  He  sat  up.  The  bell  of  the 
monastery  tolled  12.  A  new  day  was  be- 
ginning. A  new  day  for  him  ?  In  two  hours 
he  would  set  his  feet,  as  evermore,  in  the 
small  circle  of  ancient  monastic  exactions. 
Already  the  westering  moon  poured  its  light 
through  the  long  windows  of  the  abbey  and 
flooded  his  cell.  He  arose  softly  and  walked 
to  the  open  casement,  looking  out  upon  the 
southern  summer  midnight.  Beneath  the  win- 
dow lay  the  garden  of  flowers.  Countless  white 
roses,  as  though  censers  swung  by  unseen 
hands,  waved  up  to  him  their  sweet  incense. 
Some  dreaming  bird  awoke  its  happy  mate 
with  a  note  prophetic  of  the  coming  dawn. 
From  the  bosom  of  the  stream  below,  white 
trailing  shapes  rose  ethereal  through  the  moon- 
lit air  and  floated  down  the  valley  as  if  jour- 
neying outward  to  some  mysterious  bourn. 
On  the  dim  horizon  stood  the  domes  of  the 
forest  trees,  marking  the  limits  of  the  valley  — 
the  boundary  of  his  life.  He  pressed  his  hot 
head  against  the  cold  casement  and  groaned 
aloud,  seeming  to  himself,  in  his  tumultuous 
state,  the  only  thing  that  did  not  belong  to 


the  calm  and  holy  beauty  of  the  scene.  Dis- 
turbed by  the  sound,  an  old  monk  sleeping  a 
few  feet  distant  turned  in  his  cell  and  prayed 
aloud : 

"Seigneur!  Seigneur!  Oubliez  la  faiblesse 
de  ma  jeunesse !  Vive  Jesus !  Vive  la  Croix !  " 

The  prayer  smote  him  like  a  warning.  Con- 
science was  still  torturing  this  old  man  —  tor- 
turing him  even  in  his  dreams  on  account  of 
the  sinful  fevers  that  had  burned  up  within  him 
half  a  century  ago.  On  the  very  verge  of  the 
grave  he  was  uplifting  his  hands  to  implore 
forgiveness  for  the  errors  of  his  youth.  Ah !  and 
those  other  graves  in  the  quiet  cemetery  garth 
below —  the  white-cowled  dust  of  his  brethren, 
moldering  till  the  resurrection  morn.  They, 
too,  had  been  sorely  tempted  —  had  struggled 
and  prevailed,  and  now  reigned  as  saints  in 
heaven,  whence  they  looked  sorrowfully  and 
reproachfully  down  upon  him,  and  upon  their 
sinful  heaps  of  mortal  dust,  which  had  so  foiled 
and  clogged  and  baffled  the  immortal  spirit. 

Miserably,  piteously,  he  wrestled  with  him- 
self. Even  conscience  was  divided  in  twain 
and  fought  madly  on  both  sides.  His  whole 
training  had  left  him  obedient  to  ideas  of 
duty.  To  be  told  what  to  do  always  had 
been  for  him  to  do  it.  But  hitherto  his  teach- 
ers had  been  the  fathers.  Lately  two  others 
had  appeared  —  a  man  and  a  woman  of  the 
world,  who  had  spoken  of  life  and  of  duty  as 
he  had  never  thought  of  them.  The  pale  dark 
hunchback,  whom  he  had  often  seen  haunting 
the  monastery  grounds  and  hovering  around 
him  at  his  work,  had  unconsciously  drawn 
aside  for  him  the  curtains  of  the  world  and  a 
man's  nobler  part  in  it.  The  woman,  whom 
he  had  addressed  as  a  devil,  had  come  in  his 
eyes  to  be  an  angel.  Both  had  made  him 
blush  for  his  barren  life,  his  inactivity.  Both 
had  shown  him  which  way  duty  lay. 

Duty?  Ah!  it  was  not  duty.  It  was  the 
woman,  the  woman !  The  old  tempter !  It  was 
the  sinful  passion  of  love  that  he  was  respond- 
ing to;  it  was  the  recollection  of  that  sweet 
face  against  which  his  heart  had  beat  —  of  the 
helpless  form  that  he  had  borne  in  his  arms. 
Duty  or  love,  he  could  not  separate  them.  The 
great  world,  on  the  boundaries  of  which  he 
wished  to  set  his  feet,  was  a  dark,  formless,  un- 
imaginable thing,  and  only  the  light  from  the 
woman's  face  streamed  across  to  him  and 
beckoned  him  on.  It  was  she  who  made  his 
priestly  life  wretched  —  made  even  the  wear- 
ing of  his  cowl  an  act  of  hypocrisy  that  was 
the  last  insult  to  Heaven.  Better  anything 
than  this.  Better  the  renunciation  of  his  sacred 
calling,  though  it  should  bring  him  the  loss 
of  earthly  peace  and  eternal  pardon. 

The  clock  struck  half-past  i.  He  turned 
back  to  his  cell.  The  ghastly  beams  of  the 


THE    WHITE   COWL. 


693 


setting  moon  suffused  it  with  the  pallor  of  a 
death-scene.  God  in  heaven !  The  death- 
scene  was  there  —  the  crucifixion!  The  sight 
pierced  him  afresh  with  the  sharpest  sorrow, 
and  taking  the  crucifix  down,  he  fell  upon  his 
knees  and  covered  it  with  his  kisses  and  his 
tears.  There  was  the  wound  in  the  side,  there 
were  the  drops  of  blood  and  the  thorns  on 
the  brow,  and  the  Divine  face  still  serene  and 
victorious  in  the  last  agony  of  self-renunciation. 
Self-renunciation ! 

"  Lord,  is  it  true  that  I  cannot  live  to  Thee 
alone  ?  —  And  Thou  didst  sacrifice  Thyself 
to  the  utmost  for  me!  —  Consider  me,  how 
I  am  made !  —  Have  mercy,  have  merry !  If 
I  sin,  be  Thou  my  witness  that  I  do  not  know 
it!  —  Thou,  too,  didst  love  her  well  enough 
to  die  for  her!" 

In  that  hour,  when  he  touched  the  highest 
point  that  nature  ever  enabled  him  to  attain, 
Father  Palemon,  looking  into  his  conscience 
and  into  the  Divine  face,  took  his  final  reso- 
lution. He  was  still  kneeling  in  steadfast  con- 
templation of  the  cross  when  the  moon  with- 
drew its  last  ray  and  over  it  there  rushed  a 
sudden  chill  and  darkness.  He  was  still  im- 
movable before  it  when,  at  the  resounding 
clangor  of  the  bell,  all  the  spectral  figures  of 
his  brethren  started  up  from  their  couches  like 
ghosts  from  their  graves,  and  in  a  long,  shad- 
owy line  wound  noiselessly  downward  into 
the  gloom  of  the  chapel,  to  begin  the  service 
of  matins  and  lauds. 

v. 

HE  did  not  return  with  them  when  at  the 
close  of  day  they  wound  upward  again  to  their 
solemn  sleep.  He  slipped  unseen  into  the 
windings  of  a  secret  passage-way,  and  hasten- 
ing to  the  reception-room  of  the  abbey  sent 
for  the  abbot. 

It  was  a  great  bare  room.  A  rough  table 
and  two  plain  chairs  in  the  middle  were  the 
only  furniture.  Over  the  table  there  swung 
from  the  high  ceiling  a  single  low,  lurid  point 
of  light,  that  failed  to  reach  the  shadows  of 
the  recesses.  The  few  poor  pictures  of  saints 
and  martyrs  on  the  walls  were  muffled  in 
gloom.  The  air  was  dank  and  noisome,  and 
the  silence  was  that  of  a  vault. 

Standing  half  in  light  and  half  in  darkness, 
Father  Palemon  awaited  the  coming  of  his 
august  superior.  It  was  an  awful  scene.  His 
face  grew  whiter  than  his  cowl,  and  he  trem- 
bled till  he  was  ready  to  sink  to  the  floor.  A 
few  moments,  and  through  the  dim  doorway 
there  softly  glided  in  the  figure  of  the  aged 
abbot,  like  a  presence  rather  felt  than  seen. 
He  advanced  to  the  little  zone  of  light,  the 
iron  keys  clanking  at  his  girdle,  his  delicate 
fingers  interlaced  across  his  breast,  his  gray 


eyes  filled  with  a  look  of  mild  surprise  and 
displeasure. 

"  You  have  disturbed  me  in  my  rest  and 
meditations.  The  occasion  must  be  extraordi- 
nary. Speak !  Be  brief !  " 

"  The  occasion  is  extraordinary.  I  shall  be 
brief.  Father  Abbot,  I  made  a  great  mistake- 
in  ever  becoming  a  monk.  Nature  has  not 
fitted  me  for  such  a  life.  I  do  not  any  longer 
believe  that  it  is  my  duty  to  live  it.  I  have 
disturbed  your  repose  only  to  ask  you  to 
receive  the  renunciation  of  my  priestly  vows 
and  to  take  back  my  cowl :  I  will  never  put 
it  on  again." 

As  he  spoke  he  took  off  his  cowl  and  laid 
it  on  the  table  between  them,  showing  that 
he  wore  a  dark  suit  of  citizen's  clothes  be- 
neath. 

Under  the  flickering  spark  the  face  of  the 
abbot  had  at  first  flushed  with  anger  and 
then  grown  ashen  with  vague,  formless  terror. 
He  pushed  the  hood  back  from  his  head  and 
pressed  his  fingers  together  until  the  jeweled 
ring  cut  into  the  flesh. 

"  You  are  a  priest  of  God,  consecrated  for 
life.  Consider  the  sin  and  folly  of  what  you 
say.  You  have  made  no  mistake.  It  would 
be  too  late  to  correct  it,  if  you  had." 

"  I  shall  do  what  I  can  to  correct  it  as  soon 
as  possible.  I  shall  leave  the  monastery  to- 
night." 

"  To-night  you  confess  what  has  led  you  to 
harbor  this  suggestion  of  Satan.  To-night  I 
forgive  you.  To-night  you  sleep  once  more  at 
peace  with  the  world  and  your  own  soul.  Be- 
gin !  Tell  me  everything  that  has  happened — 
everything! " 

"  It  were  better  untold.  It  could  only  pain 
—  only  shock  you." 

"  Ha !  You  say  this  to  me,  who  stand  to 
you  in  God's  stead  ?  " 

"  Father  Abbot,  it  is  enough  that  Heaven 
should  know  my  recent  struggles  and  my 
present  purposes.  It  does  know  them." 

"  And  it  has  not  smitten  you  ?  It  is  merci- 
ful." 

"  It  is  also  just." 

"  Then  do  not  deny  the  justice  you  receive. 
Did  you  not  give  yourself  up  to  my  guidance 
as  a  sheep  to  a  shepherd  ?  Am  I  not  to 
watch  near  you  in  danger  and  lead  you  back 
when  astray  ?  Do  you  not  realize  that  I  may 
not  make  light  of  the  souls  committed  to  my 
charge,  as  my  own  soul  shall  be  called  into 
judgment  at  the  last  day  ?  Am  I  to  be  pushed 
aside — made  naught  of — at  such  a  moment 
as  this  ?  " 

Thus  urged,  Father  Palemon  told  all  that 
had  recently  befallen  him,  adding  these  words: 

"  Therefore  I  am  going  —  going  now.  I 
cannot  expect  your  approval :  that  pains  me. 


694 


THE    WHITE   COWL. 


But  have  I  not  a  claim  upon  your  sympathy  ? 
You  are  an  old  man,  Father  Abbot.  You  are 
nearer  heaven  than  this  earth.  But  you  have 
been  young;  and  I  ask  you,  is  there  not  in 
the  past  of  your  own  buried  life  the  memory 
of  some  one  for  whom  you  would  have  risked 
even  the  peace  and  pardon  of  your  own  soul  ?  " 

The  abbot  threw  up  his  hands  with  a  gest- 
ure of  sudden  anguish,  and  turned  away  into 
the  shadowy  distances  of  the  room. 

When  he  emerged  again,  he  came  up  close 
to  Father  Palemon  in  the  deepest  agitation. 

"  I  tell  you  this  purpose  of  yours  is  a  sug- 
gestion of  the  Evil  Spirit.  Break  it  against 
the  true  rock  of  the  Church.  You  should 
have  spoken  sooner.  Duty,  honor,  gratitude, 
should  have  made  you  speak.  Then  I  could 
have  made  this  burden  lighter  for  you.  But, 
heavy  as  it  is,  it  will  pass.  You  suffer  now, 
but  it  will  pass,  and  you  will  be  at  peace  again 
—  at  perfect  peace  again." 

"  Never !  Never  again  at  peace  here !  My 
place  is  in  the  world.  Conscience  tells  me 
that.  Besides,  have  I  not  told  you,  Father 
Abbot,  that  I  love  her,  that  I  think  of  her 
day  and  night  ?  Then  I  am  no  priest.  There 
is  nothing  left  for  me  but  to  go  out  into  the 
world." 

"  The  world !  What  do  you  know  of  the 
world?  If  I  could  sum  up  human  life  to  you 
in  an  instant  of  time,  I  might  make  you  un- 
derstand into  what  sorrow  this  caprice  of  rest- 
lessness and  passion  is  hurrying  you." 

All  sweetness  had  forsaken  the  countenance 
of  the  aged  shepherd.  His  tones  rung  hoarse 
and  hollow,  and  the  muscles  of  his  face 
twitched  and  quivered  as  he  went  on  : 

"  Reflect  upon  the  tranquil  life  that  you  have 
spent  here,  preparing  your  soul  for  immortal- 
ity. All  your  training  has  been  for  the  soli- 
tude of  the  cloister.  All  your  enemies  have 
been  only  the  spiritual  foes  of  your  own  nature. 
You  say  that  you  are  not  fitted  for  this  life. 
Are  you  then  prepared  for  a  life  in  the  world  ? 
Foolish,  foolish  boy !  You  exchange  the  ter- 
restrial solitude  of  heaven  for  the  battle-field 
of  hell.  Its  coarse,  foul  atmosphere  will  stifle 
and  contaminate  you.  It  has  problems  that  you 
have  not  been  taught  to  solve.  It  has  shocks 
that  you  would  never  withstand.  I  see  you  in 
the  world?  Never,  never!  See  you  in  the  midst 
of  its  din  and  sweat  of  weariness,  its  lying  and 
dishonor  ?  You  say  that  you  love  this  woman. 
Heaven  forgive  you  this  sin !  You  would  fol- 
low her.  Do  you  not  know  that  you  may  be 
deluded,  trifled  with,  disappointed  ?  She  may 
love  another.  Ah !  you  are  a  child  —  a  sim- 
ple child!" 

"  Father  Abbot,  it  is  time  that  I  were  becom- 
ing a  man." 

But   the   abbot   did   not   hear    or  pause, 


borne  on  now  by  a  torrent  of  ungovernable 
feelings : 

"  Your  parents  committed  a  great  sin." 
He  suddenly  lifted  the  cross  from  his  bosom 
to  his  lips,  which  moved  rapidly  for  an  instant 
in  silent  prayer.  "  It  has  never  been  counted 
against  you  here,  as  it  will  never  be  laid  to 
your  charge  in  heaven.  But  the  world  will 
count  it  against  you.  It  will  make  you  feel 
its  jeers  and  scorn.  You  have  no  father," — 
again  he  bent  over  and  passionately  kissed 
his  cross, —  "you  have  no  name.  You  are 
an  illegitimate  child.  There  is  no  place  for 
you  in  the  world — in  the  world  that  takes 
no  note  of  sin  unless  it  is  discovered.  I  warn 
you  —  I  warn  you  by  all  the  years  of  my 
own  experience,  and  by  all  the  sacred  obliga- 
tions of  your  holy  order,  against  this  fatal 
step." 

"  Though  it  be  fatal,  I  must  and  will  take 
it." 

"I  implore  you!  —  God  in  heaven,  dost 
thou  punish  me  thus?  —  See!  I  am  an  old 
man.  I  have  but  a  few  years  to  live.  You 
are  the  only  tie  of  human  tenderness  that 
binds  me  to  my  race.  My  heart  is  buried  in 
yours.  I  have  watched  over  you  since  you 
were  brought  here,  a  little  child.  I  have 
nursed  you  through  months  of  sickness.  I 
have  hastened  the  final  assumption  of  your 
vows,  that  you  might  be  safe  within  the  fold. 
I  have  staid  my  last  days  on  earth  with  the 
hope  that  when  I  am  dead,  as  I  soon  shall 
be,  you  would  perpetuate  my  spirit  among 
your  brethren,  and  in  time  come  to  be  a 
shepherd  among  them,  as  I  have  been.  Do 
not  take  this  solace  from  me.  The  Church 
needs  you  —  most  of  all  needs  you  in  this 
age  and  in  this  country.  I  have  reared  you 
within  it  that  you  might  be  glorified  at  last 
among  the  saints  and  martyrs.  No,  no !  You 
will  not  go  away ! " 

"  Father  Abbot,  what  better  can  I  do  than 
heed  the  will  of  Heaven  in  my  own  con- 
science?" 

"  I  implore  you!" 

"  I  must  go." 

"  I  warn  you,  I  say." 

"  O  my  father !  You  only  make  more  ter- 
rible the  anguish  of  this  moment.  Bless  me, 
and  let  me  go  in  peace." 

"  Bless  you  ?  "  almost  shrieked  the  abbot, 
starting  back  with  horror,  his  features  strangely 
drawn,  his  uplifted  arms  trembling,  his  whole 
body  swaying.  "£/essyou?  Dothis, and  I  will 
hurl  upon  you  the  awful  curse  of  the  everlast- 
ing Church!" 

As  though  stricken  by  the  thunderbolt  of 
his  own  imprecation,  he  fell  into  one  of  the 
chairs  and  buried  his  head  in  his  arms  upon 
the  table.  Father  Palemon  had  staggered 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


695 


backward,  as  though  the  curse  had  struck  him 
in  the  forehead.  These  final  words  he  had 
never  thought  of —  never  foreseen.  For  a  mo- 
ment the  silence  of  the  great  chamber  was 
broken  only  by  his  own  quick  breathing  and 
by  the  convulsive  agitation  of  the  abbot. 
Then  with  a  rapid  movement  Father  Palemon 
came  forward,  knelt,  and  kissed  the  hem  of  the 
abbot's  cowl,  and  turning  away  went  out. 

Love  —  duty  —  the  world;  in  those  three 
words  lie  all  the  human,  all  the  Divine, 
tragedy. 

VI. 

YEARS  soon  pass  away  in  the  life  of  a 
Trappist  priest. 

For  shade  to  shade  will  come  too  drowsily, 
And  drown  the  wakeful  anguish  of  the  soul. 

Another  June  came  quickly  into  the  lonely 
valley  of  the  Abbey  of  Gethsemane.  Again 
the  same  sweet  monastery  bells  in  the  pur- 
ple twilights,  and  the  same  midnight  masses. 
Monks  were  again  at  work  in  the  gardens, 
their  cowls  well  tied  up  with  hempen  cords. 
Monks  were  once  more  teaching  the  pious 
pupils  in  the  school  across  the  lane.  All  the 
gorgeous  summer  came  and  passed  beyond  the 
southern  horizon,  like  a  mortal  vision  of  beauty 
never  to  return.  There  were  few  changes  to 
note.  Only  the  abbot  seemed  to  have  grown 
much  feebler.  His  hand  trembled  visibly  now 
as  he  lifted  the  crosier,  and  he  walked  less 
than  of  yore  among  his  brethren  while  they 
busied  themselves  with  the  duties  of  the  wan- 
ing autumn.  But  he  was  oftener  seen  pacing 
to  and  fro  where  the  leaves  fell  sadly  from 
the  moaning  choir  of  English  elms.  Or  at 
times  he  would  take  a  little  footpath  that  led 
across  the  brown  November  fields,  and,  having 
gained  a  crest  on  the  boundary  of  the  valley, 
would  stand  looking  far  over  the  outward 
landscape  into  imaginary  spaces,  limitless  and 
unexplored. 

But  Father  Palemon,  where  was  he?  Amidst 
what  splendors  of  the  great  metropolis  was  he 
bursting  Joy's  grape  against  his  palate  fine? 
What  of  his  dreams  of  love  and  duty,  and  a 
larger,  more  modern  stature  of  manhood  ? 

LATE  one  chill,  cloud-hung  afternoon  in  No- 
vember there  came  into  the  valley  of  Geth- 
semane the  figure  of  a  young  man.  He  walked 
slowly  along  the  road  towards  the  abbey,  with 
the  air  of  one  who  is  weary  and  forgetful  of 
his  surroundings.  His  head  dropped  heavily 
forward  on  his  breast,  and  his  empty  hands 
hung  listlessly  down.  At  the  iron  gate  of  the 
porter's  lodge  entrance  was  refused  him;  the 
abbey  was  locked  in  repose  for  the  night.  Urg- 
ing the  importance  of  his  seeing  the  abbot,  he 


was  admitted.  He  erased  a  name  from  a  card 
and  on  it  wrote  another,  and  waited  for  the  in- 
terview. 

Again  the  same  great  dark  room,  lighted 
by  a  flickering  spark.  He  did  not  stand  half 
in  light  and  half  in  shadow,  but  hid  himself 
away  in  one  of  the  darkest  recesses.  In  a 
few  moments  the  abbot  entered,  holding  the 
card  in  his  hand  and  speaking  with  tremulous 
haste : 

"  '  Father  Palemon  '  ?  —  who  wrote  this 
name,  '  Father  Palemon  '  ?  " 

Out  of  the  darkness  came  a  low  reply  : 

"  I  wrote  it." 

"  I  do  not  know  you." 

"  I  am  Father  Palemon." 

The  calm  of  a  great  sadness  was  in  the 
abbot's  voice,  as  he  replied  musingly: 

"  There  —  is  —  no  —  Father  Palemon :  he 
died  long  ago." 

"O  my  father!  Is  this  the  way  you  re- 
ceive me  ?  " 

He  started  forward  and  came  into  the  light. 
Alas !  No ;  it  was  not  Father  Palemon.  His 
long  hair  was  unkempt  and  matted  over  his 
forehead;  his  face  pinched  and  old  with  suf- 
fering, and  ashen  gray  except  for  the  red  spots 
on  his  cheeks.  Deep  shadows  lay  under  his 
hollow  eyes,  which  were  blood-shot  and  rest- 
less and  burning. 

"  I  have  come  back  to  lead  the  life  of  a 
monk.  Will  you  receive  me  ?  " 

"  Twice  a  monk,  no  monk.  Receive  you 
for  what  time  ?  Until  next  June  ?  " 

"  Until  death." 

"  I  have  received  you  once  already  until 
death.  How  many  times  am  I  to  receive  you 
until  death  ?  " 

"  I  beseech  you  do  not  contest  in  words 
with  me.  It  is  too  much.  I  am  ill.  I  am  in 
trouble." 

He  suddenly  checked  his  passionate  utter- 
ance, speaking  slowly  and  with  painful  self- 
control  : 

"  I  cannot  endure  now  to  tell  you  all  that 
has  befallen  me  since  I  went  away.  The 
new  life  that  I  had  begun  in  the  world  has 
come  to  an  end.  Father  Abbot,  she  is  dead. 
I  have  just  buried  her  and  my  child  in  one 
grave.  Since  then  the  one  desire  I  have  had 
has  been  to  return  to  this  place.  God  forgive 
me !  I  have  no  heart  now  for  the  duties  I  had 
undertaken.  I  had  not  measured  my  strength 
against  this  calamity.  It  has  left  me  power- 
less for  good  to  any  human  creature.  All 
my  plans  were  wrecked  when  she  died.  My 
purposes  have  gone  to  pieces.  There  is  no 
desire  in  me  but  for  peace  and  solitude  and 
prayer.  All  that  I  can  do  now  is  to  hide  my 
poor,  broken,  ineffectual  life  here,  until  by 
God's  will,  sooner  or  later,  it  is  ended." 


696 


THE    WHITE    COWL. 


"  You  speak  in  the  extremity  of  present  suf- 
fering. You  are  young.  Nearly  all  your  life  lies 
yet  before  you.  In  time  Nature  heals  nearly 
all  the  wounds  that  she  inflicts.  In  a  few 
years  this  grief  which  now  unmans  you  — 
which  you  think  incurable  —  will  wear  itself 
out.  You  do  not  believe  this.  You  think  me 
cruel.  But  I  speak  the  truth.  Then  you  may 
be  happy  again  —  happier  than  you  have  ever 
been.  Then  the  world  will  resume  its  hold 
upon  you.  If  the  duties  of  a  man's  life  have 
appealed  to  your  conscience,  as  I  believe  they 
have,  they  will  then  appeal  to  it  with  greater 
power  and  draw  you  with  a  greater  sense  of 
their  obligations.  Moreover,  you  may  love 
again  —  ah !  Hush !  Hear  me  through  !  You 
think  this  is  more  unfeeling  still.  But  I  must 
speak,  and  speak  now.  It  is  impossible  to 
seclude  you  here  against  all  temptation.  Some 
day  you  may  see  another  woman's  face  —  hear 
another  woman's  voice.  You  may  find  your 
priestly  vows  intolerable  again.  Men  who 
once  break  their  holiest  pledges  for  the  sake 
of  love  will  break  them  again,  if  they  love 
again.  No,  no!  If  you  were  unfit  for  the 
life  of  a  monk  once,  much  more  are  you  unfit 
now.  Now  that  you  are  in  the  world,  better 
to  remain  there." 

"  In  Heaven's  name,  will  you  deny  me  ?  I 
tell  you  that  this  is  the  only  desire  left  to  me. 
The  world  is  as  dead  to  me  as  though  it  never 
existed,  because  my  heart  is  broken.  You  mis- 
understood me  then.  You  misunderstand  me 
now.  Does  experience  count  for  nothing  in 
preparing  a  man  for  the  cloister  ?  " 

"  I  did  misunderstand  you  once :  I  thought 
that  you  were  fitted  for  the  life  of  a  monk.  I 
understand  you  now :  I  do  not  make  the  same 
mistake  twice." 

"  This  is  the  home  of  my  childhood,  and 
you  turn  me  away  ?  " 

"  You  went  away  yourself,  in  the  name  of 
conscience  and  of  your  own  passion." 

"  This  is  the  house  of  God,  and  you  close 
its  doors  against  me  ?  " 

"  You  burst  them  open  of  your  own  self- 
will." 

Hitherto  the  abbot  had  spoken  for  duty,  for 
his  church,  for  the  inviolable  sanctity  of  his  or- 
der. Against  these  high  claims  all  the  pent-up 
tenderness  of  his  heart  had  weighed  as  noth- 
ing. But  now  as  the  young  man,  having  fixed 
a  long  look  upon  his  face,  turned  silently  away 
towards  the  door,  with  outstretched  arms  he 
tottered  after  him  and  cried  out  in  broken 
tones  :  "  Stop  !  Stop,  I  pray  you  !  You  are 
ill.  You  are  free  to  remain  here  a  guest.  No 
one  was  ever  refused  shelter — O  my  God! 
what  have  I  done  ? " 

Father  Palemon  had  reeled  and  fallen 
fainting  in  the  doorway. 


IN  this  life,  from  earliest  childhood,  we  are 
trained  by  merciful  degrees  to  brave  its  many 
sorrows.  We  begin  with  those  of  infancy, 
which,  Heaven  knows,  at  the  time  seem 
grievous  enough  to  be  borne.  As  we  grow 
older  we  somehow  also  grow  stronger,  until 
through  the  discipline  of  many  little  sufferings 
we  are  enabled  to  bear  up  under  those  final 
avalanches  of  disaster  that  rush  down  upon 
us  in  maturer  years.  Even  thus  fortified,  there 
are  some  of  us  on  whom  these  fall  only  to 
overwhelm. 

But  Father  Palemon.  Unnaturally  shielded 
by  the  cloister  up  to  that  period  of  young 
manhood  when  feeling  is  deepest  and  forti- 
tude least,  he  had  suddenly  appeared  upon 
the  world's  stage  only  to  enact  one  of  the 
greatest  scenes  in  the  human  tragedy  —  that 
scene  wherein  the  perfect  ecstasy  of  love  by 
one  swift  mortal  transition  becomes  the  per- 
fect agony  of  loss.  What  wonder  if  hehad  stag- 
gered blindly,  and  if,  trailing  the  habiliments 
of  his  sorrow,  he  had  sought  to  return  to  the 
only  place  that  was  embalmed  in  his  memory, 
as  a  peaceful  haven  for  the  shipwrecked  ? 
But  even  this  quiet  port  was  denied  him. 

INTO  the  awful  death-chamber  of  the  ab- 
bey they  bore  him  one  midnight  some  weeks 
later.  The  tension  of  physical  powers  during 
the  days  of  his  suspense  and  suffering,  fol- 
lowed by  the  shock  of  his  rejection,  had 
touched  those  former  well-nigh  fatal  ravages 
that  had  prostrated  him  during  the  period  of 
his  austere  novitiate.  He  was  dying.  The 
delirium  of  his  fever  had  passed  away,  and 
with  a  clear,  dark,  sorrowful  eye  he  watched 
them  prepare  for  the  last  agony. 

On  the  bare  floor  of  the  death-chamber  they 
sprinkled  consecrated  ashes  in  the  form  of  a 
cross.  Over  these  they  scattered  straw,  and 
over  the  straw  they  drew  a  coarse  serge  cloth. 
This  was  his  death-bed  —  a  sign  that  in  the 
last  hour  he  was  admitted  once  more  to  the 
fellowship  of  his  order.  From  the  low  couch 
on  which  he  lay  he  looked  at  it.  Then  he 
made  a  sign  to  the  abbot,  in  the  mute  lan- 
guage of  the  brotherhood.  The  abbot  re- 
peated it  to  one  of  the  attendant  fathers,  who 
withdrew  and  soon  returned,  bringing  a  white 
cowl.  Lifting  aside  the  serge  cloth,  he  spread 
the  cowl  over  the  blessed  cinders  and  straw. 
Father  Palemon's  request  had  been  that  he 
might  die  upon  his  cowl,  and  on  this  they  now 
stretched  his  poor  emaciated  body,  his  cold 
feet  just  touching  the  old  earth-stains  upon 
its  hem.  He  lay  for  a  little  while  quite  still; 
with  closed  eyes.  Then  he  turned  them  upon 
the  abbot  and  the  monks  who  were  kneeling 
in  prayer  around  him,  and  said,  in  a  voice  of 
great  and  gentle  dignity : 


STAR    TEARS. 


697 


"  My  father —  my  brethren,  have  I  your  full 
forgiveness  ?  " 

With  sobs  they  bowed  themselves  around 
him.  After  this  he  received  the  crucifix,  ten- 
derly embracing  it,  and  then  lay  still  again, 
as  if  awaiting  death.  But  finally  he  turned 
over  on  one  side,  and,  raising  himself  on  one 
forearm,  sought  with  the  hand  of  the  other 
among  the  folds  of  his  cowl  until  he  found  a 


small  blood-stain  now  faint  upon  its  bosom. 
Then  he  lay  down  again,  pressing  his  cheek 
against  it;  and  thus  the  second  time  a  monk, 
but  even  in  death  a  lover,  he  breathed  out  his 
spirit  with  a  faint  whisper  — "  Madeline!" 

And  as  he  lay  on  the  floor,  so  now  he  lies 
in  the  dim  cemetery  garth  outside,  wrapped 
from  head  to  foot  in  his  cowl,  with  its  stains 
on  the  hem  and  the  bosom. 

James  Lane  Allen. 


STAR   TEARS. 

WHEN  softly  mother  earth  is  dreaming —  sleeping, 
I  question  whence  the  fire-flies  come, 
The  moon  says :  "  Tears  they  are  from  stars  that  weeping 
Have  lost  the  path  which  leads  them  home." 

•  Eugene  Ashton. 

VOL.  xxxvr.— 96. 


DOVES. 


|HE  bird-fancier  watches  the  bird 
in  its  haunts  from  a  loving  inter- 
est in  its  habits ;  but  the  student 
spies  it  out  for  material  for  his 
note-book,  for  reference  when 
he  shall  have  killed  it,  stuffed 
it  with  tow  or  the  like,  and  added  it  to  his 
collection  of  stiffs  or  skins. 

The  knowledge  each  gains  differs  as  widely 
as  his  methods.  The  fancier  recognizes  the 
higher  order  of  the  scientist's  work  and  re- 
spects his  use  of  the  alphabet  —  possibly  be- 
cause beyond  him;  but,  though  he  may  be  a 
trifle  awed  that  the  simple  bird  of  his  love  is 
considered  worthy  of  it  all,  his  appreciation 
and  application  of  it  ends  there. 

In  the  great  family  of  the  Coluinbtdiz  the 
scientist  finds  the  Columbiiue,  Lophokeiniiuc, 
Turturitue,  Zenaiditug,  and  more.  These  he 
breaks  into  subfamilies,  varieties,  and  subvari- 
eties,  until  there  are  names  for  almost  the  indi- 
vidual specimens.  But  dropping  to  plain  prose 
and  the  vernacular,  he  seems  lost.  He  says 
pigeon  and  dove,  it  is  true,  but  it  is  a  distinc- 
tion without  a  difference.  He  plainly  considers 
the  terms  synonymous.  Thus  the  three  most 
careful  observers  in  America,  Baird,  Brewer, 
and  Ridgeway,  say,  "  the  white-headed  pig- 
eon," and  then  refer  to  it  as  "  this  dove  " ;  and 
"  the  Carolina  dove,"  with  a  period  between, 
becomes  "  this  pigeon,"  and  "  the  ground 
doves  "  "  these  pigeons."  But  this  is  no  new 
thing.  A  half  century  ago  Bonaparte  com- 
plained of  the  lack  of  system  in  the  use  of 
these,  the  commonly  used  names.  "  The  name 
dove,"  he  said,  "  is  applied  to  all  the  small 
pigeons,  whilst  the  larger  doves  are  known 
as  pigeons.  Even  this  distinction,  however, 
does  not  seem  to  be  agreed  upon,  as  we 
find  authors  calling  the  larger  species  doves 
and  the  smaller  ones  pigeons,  and  sometimes 
applying  both  appellations  to  different  ages 
and  sexes  of  the  same  species." 

This  is  all  very  abstruse  and  very  absurd  to 
the  bird-lover.  He  recognizes  a  grand  division 
of  doves  and  pigeons  for  the  entire  family,  and 
with  the  line  of  demarkation  so  distinctly 
drawn  upon  structural  difference  and  natural 
habit  that  he  cannot  understand  where  there 
can  be  margin  for  doubt  or  uncertainty.  This, 
of  course,  is  because  he  knows  only  his  one 
little  way  and  cannot  see  beyond  it. 

The  word  "  dove  "  conveys  to  his  mind  the 
impression  of  a  slender,  delicately  built  bird, 


timid  and  solitary  by  nature;  monogamous  in 
habit;  its  feet  formed  for  grasping;  its  tail 
feathers  long,  graduated,  and  rounded;  its 
roost  upon  a  perch ;  its  nest  in  trees  or  shrubs; 
and  its  wings  so  formed  that  it  is  incapable 
of  extended  flight.  Its  love  is  of  mate,  but  for 
home,  fond  as  it  is  of  it,  it  knows  only  the 
present  place  of  nesting  and  resting;  in  do- 
mestication it  must  be  kept  within  bounds. 

The  pigeon  is  altogether  to  the  contrary. 
True,  it  is  monogamous,  but  it  is  also  gregari- 
ous, and  never  content  unless  in  a  crowd.  Its 
foot  is  flat;  its  tail  feathers  short,  of  even  length 
and  cut  straight  across;  and  its  roost  and  nest 
is,  from  choice,  a  broad,  flat  surface.  Its  love 
of  mate  is  secondary  to  the  love  of  place ;  and, 
once  domiciled,  it  may  be  trusted  with  its 
liberty.  The  dove  is  shy  and  timid;  but  the 
pigeon  —  and  the  bird-lover  will  quote  Willis — 

Alone  of  the  feathered  race 
Doth  look  unscared  on  the  human  face. 

But  the  fancier  finds  still  another  difference,  ; 
and  this  to  him  is  conclusive.  The  doves  or 
the  pigeons,  in  all  of  their  several  varieties,  may 
be  mated  and  the  offspring  are  fertile ;  but  all 
his  attempts  to  mate  the  pigeon  and  the  dove 
are  futile. 

The  pigeon,  except  as  it  is  made  a  thing  of 
beauty  or  grotesqueness  by  the  artist  breeder, 
or  is  enlisted  in  man's  service  or  for  his  sport, 
holds  but  little  to  interest.  But  the  dove  at- 
tracts attention  from  the  traditions  and  super- 
stitions by  which  we  know  of  it  through  all 
the  past,  and  because  of  its  intelligence  and 
its  pretty,  curious  ways. 

The  turtle-dove  is  the  best  known  of  the 
family.  Of  this  there  is  the  common  ;  the  col- 
lared ;  a  cross  of  the  two  which  is  nameless, 
although  resembling  neither  and  reproducing 
its  own  peculiarities;  and  the  white,  which  is  a 
spot  from  the  collared. 

The  common  is  la  Tourterelle  of  Buffon. 
It  is  English,  and  although  plentiful  is  not  well 
known.  Where  other  birds  suffer  from  the 
harrier  and  the  gunner,  a  superstition  protects 
this.  Every  English  lad  knows  that,  "  Molest 
the  turtle-dove  or  disturb  its  nest,  and  the  death 
of  the  dearest  will  be  sure  before  the  year  is 
done."  The  plumage  of  la  Tourterelle  is  of  a 
rich  dark  brown  and  black  above ;  the  under- 
feathering  of  reddish  brown  at  the  throat, 
shading  to  fawn  beneath.  The  wing  coverts 
are  black,  tipped  with  brown.  The  peculiar 


DOVES. 


699 


marking  is  a  patch  of  rich  velvety,  white-tipped 
black  leathers  at  each  side  of  the  throat,  but 
which  do  not  appear  until  after  the  first  molt. 
The  collared  turtle  or  laughing  dove  is  usu- 
ally catalogued  as  the  ring-dove,  but  this  name 
belongs  by  right  to  the  "  cushie  doo,"  or  quest, 
the  largest  of  the  European  doves.  The  col- 


lared turtle,  despite  its  mournful  note,  is  the  in- 
teresting member  of  the  family ;  and,  with  its 
presence  indicative  of  good  luck  and  pros- 
perity, it  is  a  welcome  guest  everywhere,  but 
especially  among  the  middle  and  lower  classes 
of  Great  Britain  and  Germany.  Old  mothers 
tell  of  it  as  a  charm  for  illness  if  hung  in  the 


yoo 


DOVES. 


patient's  presence,  borne  out  by  the  fact  that 
the  bird,  naturally  sensitive  to  atmospheric 
influences,  quickly  succumbs  to  the  close  air 
of  the  sick-room,  when  it  is  said  to  have 
"  taken  the  disease."  If  the  patient  recovers, 
the  bird  has  the  credit ;  if  death  ensues,  it  was 
inevitable  —  "  nothing  could  have  helped." 


above  and  white  beneath.  The  neck  is  encir- 
cled with  a  white-edged  band  of  black  feath- 
ers not  quite  meeting  at  the  throat.  Its  cooing 
is  peculiar  in  the  sound  being  deep,  prolonged, 
and  followed  by  a  full  stop  in  which  the  bird 
makes  a  deep  obeisance.  The  bird  can  be  so 
trained  that  when  spoken  to,  or  when  a  stranger 


AUSTRALIAN    CRESTED    DOVE. 


But  the  dove  has  had  its  place  as  a  curative 
agent.  "  The  eating  of  dove's  flesh,"  says  an 
old  authority,  "  is  of  force  against  the  plague, 
insomuch  that  they  who  make  it  their  ordi- 
nary diet  areseldom  seized  with  pestilential  dis- 
orders. Some  commend  it  against  the  palsie, 
or  trembling ;  others,  that  it  is  of  great  use  to 
them  that  have  weak  sight." 

The  collared  turtle  is  of  light  fawn  color 


enters  its  presence,  it  will  coo  its  welcome  and 
make  its  courtesy,  than  which  nothing  can  ap- 
pear more  absurd.  This  bird  is  very  suscepti- 
ble to  atmospheric  changes,  and  in  its  actions 
will  predict  the  approach  of  storms  or  of  clear- 
ing weather  before  the  barometer  will  show  it. 
In  the  autumn,  as  the  light  lessens,  the  dove, 
and  especially  this  variety,  even  if  bred  in  cap- 
tivity, will  become  very  uneasy,  and  if  it  can 


DOVES. 


701 


' 


£rnest  £ 


WHITE-HEADED    DOVE. 


gain  its  liberty  it  will  disappear.  No  amount 
of  domestication  or  training  can  make  the  sea- 
son of  autumn  migration  other  to  it  than  a 
period  of  unrest  and  excitement. 

"  Gentle  is  that  creature  and  pure,"  wrote 
St.  John  Chrysostom  of  the  dove;  ample  proof 
that  the  good  man  had  taken  the  bird  on  trust. 
Had  he  been  a  close  observer  of  the  dove  of 
the  aviary,  and  the  turtle-dove  in  particular, 
he  would  not  have  been  favorably  impressed 
with  the  "  dove-like  disposition."  It  is  not 
only  quarrelsome,  but  cruel.  When  two  or  three 
are  together  there  are  bickerings,  with  blows 
for  words,  and  all  apparently  for  the  love  of 
the  strife.  So  much  for  a  fair  appearance  and 
a  paper  reputation. 

During  the  nesting  period  milord  is  home- 
loving  and  paternal,  and  would  be  gentle,  gra- 
cious, and  loving  if  madame  was  not  perverse, 
disobedient,  and  a  gad-about.  But  the  little 
lady  has  no  fondness  for  home  duties  or  the 
seclusion  of  the  nest  place.  She  likes  better  to 
sit  in  the  sun  preening  her  feathers,  or  to  go 


BAND-TAILED  AND  GROUND  DOVES. 

picking  among  the  grasses  or  in  the  sand.  The 
little  fellow  meantime  sits  patiently  among  the 
few  twigs  of  his  home  furnishing  and  calls 
his  mate.  When  she  does  not  respond  he 
seeks  her  out,  and  "  his  loving  lessening  not 
his  ruling  of  her,"  he  spares  neither  efforts  nor 
blows  to  drive  her  to  her  home  and  to  keep 
her  to  her  duties. 

The  American  birds  most  favored  for  the 


702 


DOVES. 


PASSENGER     PIGEON  —  CAROLINA     DOVE. 


aviary  or  the  cage  are  the  Carolina  and  the 
ground-doves.  The  former  is  about  the  size  of 
the  common  turtle-dove,  but  is  more  hardy. 
Reared  in  confinement  it  is  docile  and  affec- 
tionate, and  may  be  taught  many  pleasing 
tricks  and  ways.  Its  plumage  is  modest,  but 
at  each  side  of  the  throat  is  a  beauty  spot, 
showing  sometimes  a  deep  red,  and  at  others 
green  and  blue.  This  bird  must  be  shel- 
tered during  the  frost  season,  and  be  espe- 
cially guarded  during  the  period  of  autumnal 
migration. 


The  ground  or  moaning  dove  is  scarcely 
larger  than  a  sparrow,  and  at  home  is  quite  as 
fearless,  although  not  as  quarrelsome  or  impu- 
dent. It  is  hardly  more  than  six  inches  in 
length.  It  may  be  bred  successfully  in  the 
outdoor  aviary  in  summer,  or  as  a  cage  bird 
in-doors  throughout  the  year.  It  requires  but 
little  care,  and  will  make  return  in  affectionate 
recognition.  The  little  love  whisper  in  which 
it  responds  when  caressed  is  sweeter  than  any 
song. 

Of  the  entire  Columbida,  the  passenger  of 


DOVES. 


7°3 


our  own  United  States  has  excited  the  great- 
est interest,  and  simply  because  of  its  gregari- 
ous habit,  the  entire  species  being  assembled 
in  the  one  flight.  It  is  not  local  except  as  food 
attracts,  but  through  the  year  ranges  from  the 
lakes  to  the  gulf,  and  to  the  lakes  again.  March 
and  April  find  the  flight  moving  towards  the 
breeding-grounds  in  the  north,  and  in  October 
it  is  journeying  by  slow  stages  to  winter  quar- 
ters in  the  south  again. 

This  bird  is  as  national  in  the  colors  of  its 
plumage  as  in  the  limit  of  its  range.  Its  head 
and  back  are  blue,  its  throat  and  breast  red, 
and  its  underfeathering  white.  The  mark- 
ing of  the  wing  coverts,  flights,  and  tail  feath- 
ers is  of  black,  the  two  middle  feathers  of  the 
tail  being  wholly  of  that  color.  The  neck, 
especially  in  the  spring,  is  rich  in  iridescent 
hues.  The  eye  is  bright  red,  and  the  legs  and 
feet  purplish.  The  bird  is  the  largest  of  the 
family,  measuring  fully  sixteen  inches.  It 
breeds  readily  in  confinement,  and  although 
quite  hardy  must  be  sheltered  during  the  win- 
ter. Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  mate 
it  with  the  blue- rock  and  other  of  the  pigeons, 
in  the  hope  of  combining  its  endurance  and 
supposed  speed  with  their  known  intelligence 
and  love  of  home,  but  without  success,  thus 
proving  it  to  be  not  a  pigeon,  but  a  dove.  It 
has,  however,  been  bred  with  the  Carolina 
dove,  and  the  young,  mated  again  with  the 
Carolinas,  have  proven  to  be  fertile.  The 
naturalist  Wilson  is  the  authority  for  the  won- 
derful speed  with  which  this  bird  is  generally 
credited ;  his  assertions  being  based  upon  the 
condition  of  the  food  found  in  the  crop  hun- 
dreds of  miles  from  the  vicinity  in  which  that 
food  could  have  been  obtained  by  it,  and  the 
rapidity  of  the  pigeon's  digestion.  But  this  the 
racing  pigeon  has  refuted  in  furnishing  the 
proof  that  the  food  remains  almost  unchanged 
during  the  time  the  bird  is  on  the  wing ;  that 
is,  the  process  of  digestion  and  assimilation  is 
stayed,  or  nearly  so,  during  the  time  of  flying. 

In  1874  the  flight  of  this  variety  centered 
in  Benzie  County,  Michigan,  for  the  breed- 
ing season,  occupying  a  district  about  twenty 
miles  long  and  five  miles  wide.  At  least  such 
was  the  area  of  devastation  caused  by  its  im- 
mediate presence.  There  every  branch  and 
twig  held  a  nest,  and  in  every  crotch  sufficient 
to  stay  a  few  straws  or  sticks  was  a  parent  and 
egg  or  young.  All  verdure  disappeared  with 
the  coming;  and  viewed  from  a  distance, 
instead  of  a  forest  there  was  a  dark  moving 
mass,  sometimes  rising  like  smoke  and  again 
settling  like  a  pall. 

Previous  to  the  nest  building  the  air  was 
continually  alive  with  the  flyers  in  the  wild 
frolic  of  the  mating  season.  As  the  building 


began  order  was  established  to  a  degree,  but 
it  was  not  until  the  eggs  were  laid  that  a  regu- 
lar system  prevailed.  Then  the  males  would 
take  wing  together  at  sunrise,  rising  from  their 
roosts  in  a  column,  then  spreading  like  a  cloud 
through  the  air.  Then  an  instant's  delay  and  all 
were  flying  easily  and  steadily  in  the  direction 
of  the  chosen  feeding-grounds.  Thousands  of 
hens  and  eggs  were  ensconced  in  the  branches, 
but  not  a  bird  rose  above  them,  and  all  was 
still.  A  few  hours  later  and  the  advance 
returned :  then  another  flight  and  another, 
until  finally  the  main  body  appeared,  hovered 
over  the  forest  for  an  instant,  then  each  bird 
dropped  to  the  perch  beside  the  nest  and  mate. 
In  the  dense  thicket  of  nests  and  birds  each 
seemed  to  know  its  own.  In  a  moment  the 
whir  and  rush  of  wings  told  that  the  hens  had 
left  the  nest.  There  was  the  same  column  and 
cloud  with  which  the  males  departed,  and  the 
same  course  was  taken  —  no  confusion,  no 
delay,  no  apparent  hesitation.  At  3  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  these  returned  and  the  males 
again  took  wing,  to  be  absent  until  near  sun- 
down. 

But  all  that  went  out  did  not  return.  The 
roost  in  its  season  and  the  breeding-place  is 
the  choice  of  the  birds  and  beyond  human 
control ;  but  the  feeding-ground  is  where  food 
is  to  be  found,  and  in  the  selection  of  this  man 
takes  part.  I  f  birds  are  in  the  vicinity  of  a  brook 
or  spring,  the  waters  of  this  are  salted  and  the 
ground  about  is  strewn  with  grain  and  salt. 
This  the  stragglers  quickly  find,  and  for  a  few 
days  they  are  allowed  to  come  and  go  at  will, 
and  as  the  food  is  eaten  more  is  served.  At 
each  feeding-time  the  guests  arrive  in  greater 
numbers,  until  finally  the  vast  armies  of  male 
and  female  accept  the  spot  as  feed  ing- ground, 
and  no  amount  of  slaughter,  driving,  or  fight- 
ing can  keep  them  from  it.  Then  the  killing 
begins.  Thousands  and  thousands  fall  victims, 
but  the  numbers  in  the  flight  are  so  great  that 
the  loss  is  not  noticed.  Later,  when  the  market 
is  glutted,  man  is  wearied,  beast  has  eaten  to 
satiety,  and  the  ground  is  hidden  in  the  mass 
of  debris  and  ungathered  dead,  the  cloud  that 
rises  and  settles  above  the  roost  seems  just  as 
dense  and  the  area  upon  which  it  rested  just 
as  great,  but  the  whir  of  the  wings  has  a 
softer  sound.  The  mass  is  mainly  of  the 
young  birds. 

This  mighty  host  came  north  early  in  the 
spring,  while  yet  in  New  York  and  Michigan, 
where  it  settled,  there  was  snow  upon  the 
ground.  Nothing  of  seed,  grain,  or  berry  kind 
comes  amiss  with  the  passenger  as  food,  and 
yet  what  was  there  in  these  States  at  this  sea- 
son in  sufficient  quantity  to  serve  them  ?  The 
question  is  one  of  exceeding  interest. 


E.  S.   Starr. 


EDWARD  ROWLAND    SILL 


)R  a  poet  is  something  light  and 
with  wings."  No  one  ever  said 
the  difficult  thing  better  than 
Plato,  after  all.  "  And  cannot," 
proceeds  the  same  authorita- 
tive voice, — "  and  cannot  com- 
pose verses  unless  he  be  inspired." 

In  our  own  immediate  times  verse-writing 
has  become  something  more  of  the  nature  of 
a  disease  than  of  an  honor.  A  species  of  rhym- 
ophobia  pervades  the  cultivated  world.  Like 
the  bite  of  the  bitten  victim,  fashionable  forms 
of  construction  extend.  There  is  contagion  in 
them.  The  strain  for  effect  has  become  viru- 
lent. We  feel,  perforce,  a  sympathy  with  the 
half-playful  but  wholly  earnest  revolt  of  Dr. 


Holmes  against  the  epidemic  character  of  our 
debilitated  verse. 

That  overbalanced  struggle  for  perfection 
of  manner  which  stifles  the  spirit ;  the  renais- 
sance of  obsolete  forms  which  vitiates  the 
modernness  of  sympathy  so  necessary  to 
healthful  work  ;  the  endless  tricking  and  deck- 
ing of  little  thoughts ;  the  apparent  uncon- 
sciousness of  whether  one's  thought  be  large 
or  little,  or  whether  it  be  worth  thinking  at  all, 
or  if  worth  thinking,  whether  worth  thinking 
in  poetry  —  these  qualities  characterize  so  much 
of  the  verse  of  our  day  that  one  may  be  par- 
doned for  becoming  more  aware  of  them  than 
of  some  other  and  better  traits  which  undoubt- 
edly accompany  them.  It  may  be  said  that 


i<:n\\'Ai\n  KOIVLAND  SII.L. 


705 


there  is  a  certain  loss  of  the  sense  of  propor- 
tion in  our  poetic  power.  By  this  I  mean  that 
higher  proportion  which  is  to  proportion  of 
form  as  the  soul  is  to  the  human  body.  \\  e  <!<> 
not  build  loftily.  We  do  not  live  to  last,  \\edu 
not  always  know  why  we  build  at  all.  The  re- 
sultis  a  lack  of  architecture.  Hut  we  have  plenty 
of  verse-carpentering ;  done  as  neatly  as  the 
service  of  Adam  Bcde,  who  thought  the  world 
was  to  be  saved  by  conscientious  day's  labor. 
Hut  the  paper  cap  of  the  workman  looks  over 
the  whole  job. 

There  is  a  fatal  gap  in  human  energy  which 
Emerson  described  as  "  thectepbetweenknow- 
ing  and  doing."  This  gap  is  nowhere  deeper 
or  steeper  than  in  the  step  between  rhyming 
and  singing.  But  once  taken,  the  step  is  as 
much  of  a  factas  a  bridge.  Inspiration  may  fal- 
ter, blunder,  weaken.  It  can  never  be  undone. 

The  first  thing  which  one  finds  it  natural  to 
say  about  the  writer  whose  beautiful  work 
looks  at  us  like  half-blossomed  flowers  from 
his  new-made  grave  is,  that  he  did  beyond 
all  critical  question  take  this  step.  Plato's 
great  and  simple  definition  includes  him.  He 
was  outside  of  the  ceramics  of  the  poetic  art. 
He  did  not  give  us  bric-a-brac.  We  do  not  look 
for  him  in  the  department  of  household  art 
decoration.  He  expressed  himself,  so  far  as  he 
was  expressed  at  all,  by  pure  inspiration.  One 
must  not  mistake  the  slight  assumption  of  his 
work,  its  modesty,  its  reticence,  its  way  —  so 
like  the  author's  own  —  of  keeping  in  the  back- 
ground till  sought,  for  the  features  of  what  we 
are  most  apt  to  mean  by  minor  poetry.  By 
pure  quality,  he  was  outside  of  this  dead  line. 

In  saying  this  we  do  not  forget  the  incom- 
pleteness of  his  achievement  in  point  of  some 
respects  which  go  to  fix  a  man's  place  or  his 
phase  in  the  poetry  of  his  times.  His  self-dis- 
trust may  be  called  almost  pitiful,  in  view  of 
his  creative  quality.  One  might  fancy  that 
Death  had  his  eye  on  that  shrinking,  exquisite 
nature  which  had  but  just  rooted  itself  in  our 
garden  of  poetry,  and  had  suffered  it  to  unfold 
only  so  far  as  to  taunt  us  with  a  singular  sense 
of  our  loss  and  the  Destroyer's  power.  There 
is  more  pathos  in  his  life  and  more  irony  than 
most  lives  and  deaths  could  provide  material 
for  if  they  tried.  And  this  true  poet  and  true 
man  never  "  tried."  His  life  was  as  simple  and 
as  honest  as  that  of  a  tree.  He  could  not  at- 
titudinize. He  never  posed.  His  literary  "ef- 
fect "  was  the  last  thing  he  ever  thought  of.  He 
cared  more  about  being  a  genuine  man  than  a 
recognized  poet. 

Nevertheless  the  truth  remains  that  he  had 
come  at  the  hour  of  his  untimely  death  to  an 
enviable  recognition,  and  that  it  was  the  rec- 
ognition of  a  faith  in  his  promise  surpassing 
that  in  his  performance.  When  he  left  us  we 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 97. 


knew  that  \ve  had  a  new  poet.  But  we  knew 
that  we  did  not  know  how  much  we  had  in 
having  him.  His  beautiful  work  was  a  proph- 
ecy. His  best  was  yet  to  be.  It  was  said  by 
one  of  the  greatest  of  critics  of  one  of  the  great- 
est of  poets  that  he  "  kept  stern  faith  .  .  .with 
his  fame."  To  keep  faith  with  the  promise  of 
one's  fame  is  a  thing  perhaps  as  much  to  be 
remembered ;  and  this  Sill  has  "  sternly  "  done. 

Edward  Rowland  Sill  was  a  New  England 
boy,  with  the  suggestive  antecedents  which 
compose  the  best  New  England  stock.  His 
ancestry  was  English  and  Welsh  —  an  affilia- 
tion which  is  apt  to  produce  peculiarly  inter- 
esting American  character.  The  noticeable 
fact  in  the  genealogy  of  the  poet  is  its  union 
of  the  scientific  and  the  religious.  His  moth- 
er's father  and  grandfather  were  the  pastors 
of  the  Congregational  church  in  the  little  Con- 
necticut village  where  the  boy  was  born ;  the 
united  ministry  of  these  two  covered  a  period 
of  thirty-eight  years.  The  child's  grandfather 
went  by  the  picturesque  name  of"  Priest  Row- 
land"; he  was  a  man  of  great  personal  dignity 
both  in  appearance  and  character  —  a  Puritan 
such  as  the  Connecticut  Valley  loves.  The 
father  and  grandfather  of  Sill  were  physicians 
and  surgeons ;  and  thus  the  fine  combination 
of  forces  and  the  fierce  conflict  of  elements 
begin.  Impressive  character  and  troubled 
faith  follow  such  a  heredity  as  naturally  as 
commerce  follows  water,  or  the  mists  the 
meadows.  Here  again  we  find  the  well- 
established  hereditary  law,  that  the  mother 
gives  the  guiding  principle  of  being.  It  was 
immediately  to  his  mother  that  the  boy  owed 
his  poetic  temperament.  We  are  told  that  she 
was  "  an  intellectual,  quiet  woman,  fond  of 
the  few  good  books  of  the  day,  wrote  verses, 
and  had  a  tendency  to  melancholy."  Whether 
because  he  was  born  his  mother's  son,  or 
whether  because  he  was  born  "  light  and  with 
wings,"  need  not  be  decided  on  the  spot ;  but 
the  "  tendency  to  melancholy,"  as  well  as  the 
tendency  to  "  writing  verses,"  came  down  to 
the  sensitive  little  boy  taking  his  first  taste  of 
life  in  sober  Windsor.  Sadness  remained  easy 
all  his  life.  Yet  he  was  a  merry  lad ;  he 
brimmed  with  mischief,  and,  like  the  saddest 
natures,  continued  to  effervesce  as  the  gladdest 
do,  all  his  days.  Such  a  temperament  is  like 
a  marble  gladiator  hiding  behind  the  spray  of 
a  fountain. 

There  seems  to  have  been  in  his  early  his- 
tory enough  of  those  sources  of  melancholy 
by  which  domestic  affliction  feeds  the  tempera- 
ment of  sensitive  children.  We  hear  of  the 
death  of  a  brother  by  drowning ;  "  an  event 
which  left  Edward  the  only  and  idolized  child." 
It  is  more  than  enough  to  add,  that  at  twelve  he 
lost  his  mother.  His  father  soon  followed  her. 


yo6 


EDWARD   ROWLAND    SILL. 


The  orphan  boy  found  his  home  with  rela- 
tives to  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  truly 
dear.  He  always  attached  people  easily  to 
himself.  He  was  as  lovable  as  Shelley.  To 
those  who  knew  him  well  enough  to  under- 
stand it,  I  might  say  that  he  was  as  lovable 
as  Ariel.  His  preparatory  education  was  ob- 
tained at  Phillips  Exeter  Academy.  His  col- 
lege was  Yale.  He  graduated  in  1861 — the 
poet  of  his  class,  remembered  by  all  Yale  men 
of  his  time  as  the  author  of  what  it  is  safe  to 
call  one  of  the  most  remarkable  class  poems 
of  collegiate  history.  It  was  the  work  of  a 
man  ;  it  was  the  song  of  a  poet.  That  poem 
was  the  one  sure,  young  stroke,  giving  the  ring 
which  makes  men  watch  each  other's  careers. 
Something  was  always  expected  of  Sill  after 
that.  Yet  he  achieved  late.  His  life  went  like 
the  lives  of  other  American  teachers,  in  the 
daily  struggle.  Song  was  rare. 

In  college  began  the  conflict  which  his 
heredity  was  sure  to  agitate  as  it  was  to  give 
him  his  sad  and  strong  blue  eye.  The  re- 
ligious and  the  scientific  brain-cells  chal- 
lenged each  other.  The  boy  abandoned  the 
faith  of  his  fathers,  and  after  some  experi- 
ence in  teaching  went  to  Harvard  Divinity 
School  to  become  the  liberal  preacher.  This 
purpose,  however,  he  put  behind  him  quickly. 
"  I  can't  ever  preach,"  he  writes  to  a  friend ; 
"  that  has  slowly  settled  itself  in  spite  of  my 
reluctant  hanging  on  to  the  doubt.  I  can't 
solve  the  problem:  only  the  great  school- 
master Death  will  ever  take  me  through  these 
higher  mathematics  of  the  religious  principia. 
.  .  .  I  never  can  preach.  I  shall  teach  school, 
I  suppose."  The  profession  thus  chosen  he 
dignified  and  idealized  to  the  end. 

He  was  happily  married  in  February,  1867, 
to  his  cousin  Elizabeth  N.  Sill,  and  immedi- 
ately thereafter  moved  to  Brooklyn,  New 
York,  where  he  taught  in  a  boys'  school  and 
did  something  as  literary  critic  on  the  New 
York  "  Evening  Mail."  The  high  school  and 
other  experimental  stages  followed,  ending  in 
his  acceptance  of  a  call  to  the  University  of 
California  as  professor  of  English  literature. 
This  position  he  filled  with  honor  and  suc- 
cess for  eight  years.  As  a  teacher,  if  not  al- 
ways "  popular,"  he  was  passionately  beloved. 
His  scholars  cherish  his  memory  with  the 
reverence  which  we  give  to  the  decisive  spirit 
of  our  lives.  He  had  genius  for  imparting 
wisdom  as  well  as  knowledge.  He  took  the 
lives  of  his  pupils  to  his  heart.  H  e  controlled, 
he  rebuked,  he  inspired,  as  one  having  author- 
ity that  does  not  end  in  the  class-room.  His 
work  was  cheerful,  healthful,  vigorous.  No 
one  who  loved  him  could  mope  or  abandon 
the  battle.  As  a  teacher  he  illustrated  Emer- 
son's definition  of  a  friend — "  One  who  makes 


us  do  what  we  can."  His  California  life  was 
brought  to  an  end  by  his  breaking  health. 

In  Cleveland,  Ohio,  in  February,  1887,  on 
the  27th  of  the  month,  suddenly  and  unex- 
pectedly, he  died. 

Mr.  Sill's  better  work  was  done  within  the 
last  few  years  of  his  life ;  as  has  been  said,  it 
was  but  the  prologue  to  his  best.  His  prose 
contributions  to  the  magazines,  especially  to 
"  The  Atlantic  Monthly,"  THE  CENTURY,  and 
to  the  "  Contributor's  Club "  of  the  former 
periodical,  were  of  a  remarkably  fine  texture. 
He  thought  alertly,  with  a  certain  French 
graciousness  and  gracefulness  of  mind.  His 
wide  reading  fortified  his  native  power  without 
encumbering  it.  The  gift  was  too  genuine 
for  the  pedagogic  error.  His  English  was  that 
of  the  professor,  pure  and  simple.  But  it  was 
the  poet's,  varied,  rich,  delightful.  It  was  the 
style  of  a  poet  trained  in  a  class-room. 

In  the  lost  art  of  private  correspondence 
he  was  an  expert.  In  an  experience  not  de- 
void of  valuable  correspondence  with  sugges- 
tive minds  it  has  never  been  my  personal  lot 
to  read  such  letters  as  Professor  Sill's ;  they 
were  crammed  to  the  brim  with  vitality  and 
vivacity.  Thought  enough  went  into  them 
to  have  made  the  basis  of  those  unwritten  vol- 
umes which  he  was  wont  satirically  to  call 
"works."  Style  enough  was  hidden — I  was 
going  to  say  wasted  —  in  them  to  have  made 
the  literary  reputation  of  half  a  dozen  authors 
of  the  economic  kind;  and  heart  enough  — 
but  his  heart  "  was  always  with  him."  His 
intellect  was  passionate, sensitive;  it  throbbed. 
The  beautiful  memorial  tribute  published  by 
his  friends  in  California  contains  such  material 
selected  from  Mr.  Sill's  correspondence  as  one 
does  not  remember  to  have  seen  since  the 
letters  of  Frederick  Robertson.  It  is  a  liter- 
ary loss  that  so  many  of  his  letters  are  de- 
stroyed, or  are  of  too  personal  a  nature  for 
present  memorial  publication.  He  had  that 
leisure  of  the  soul  which  is  independent  of  all 
other  leisures,  temperamental,  dominant  and 
graceful ;  it  is  this  which  creates  letters,  it  is 
this  which  moves  a  man  to  give  to  his  friends 
as  good  as  he  gives  to  his  publisher,  or  bet- 
ter. For  this  reason  much  of  Sill's  best  prose 
we  shall  never  have.  The  little  that  is  ours 
carries  us  on  like  the  best  correspondence  of 
the  best  French  manner.  They  are  quotable  let- 
ters ;  in  the  detective  phrase,  they  "shadow  "us. 

"  It  was  music  only  to  look  at  it,"  he  says  of  the  great 
organ  in  Boston. 

A  comet  is  "  the  spirit  of  a  world  hovering  about  and 
waiting  to  be  incarnated." 

I  almost  ft-el  like  deploring  all  fame  when  I  sec  the 
fools  that  worship  it.  I  always  understood  why  Emer- 
son made  his  poems  rough  —  and  I  sympathize  more 
than  ever. 

I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  Mr.  Lanier's  death.   His 


ED WARD   ROWLAND   SILL. 


7°7 


book  on  English  verse  is  the  only  thing  extant  on  that 
subject  that  is  of  any  earthly  value.  I  wonder  that  so 
few  seem  to  have  discovered  its  great  merit. 

As  to  snow  landscapes, says  it  always  looks  like 

a  Christmas  card.  Slaty  blue  woods,  slaty  blue  sky, 
whity  blue  snow  (and  if  you  go  softly  into  the  woods, 
y.  slaty  gray  rabbit  or  two,  with  a  slaty  blue  shadow  on 
the  snow). 

Let  a  man  write  about  himself.  It 's  the  only  fellow 
he  knows  anything  about. 

•  My  great  comfort  is  that  man  can't  take  his  learning 
or  his  culture  out  of  this  life  with  him —  Death  pushes 
back  everything  from  the  gate  except  the  naked  soul. 
Hence  it  docs  n't  much  matter  that  one  can't  study, 
and  know  this  or  that. 

I  am  supposed  to  be  entered  on  a  mad  career  of  lit- 
erary work.  Have  so  far  only  written  some  very  mild 
verse  —  suitable  for  nursery  use  in  some  amiable  but 
weak-minded  family.  But  then  I  've  been  skating  twice! 

There  's  nothing  here  anyway  except  weather.  Some 
it  is  fluid,  and  some  it  is  frozen,  and  eke  sometimes  the 
mixture  yclept  slush  —  but  always  weather.  We  sit 
down  at  break-fast  and  discuss  the  prospects  of  the  day 
as  to  —  weather.  We  report  to  each  other  the  obser- 
vations each  has  made  casually  during  the  night  as  to 

—  weather.    Some  one  tells  how  the  barometer  stai.ds. 
.   .    .    Some  one  else  reports  the  direction  of  the  wind 

—  this  is  disputed  by  some  one  else.   .    .    .    At  dinner 
there  is  a  whole  forenoon's  weather  to  discourse  upon 
and  various  prophetic  intimations  concerning  the  after- 
noon weather.    At  tea  the  day's  weather  furnishes  the 
piece  of  resistance,  with  entrees  of  conjecture  as  to  the 
morrow's  prospect.    You  do   not  buy  anything  at  the 
stores  till  you  have   compared  views  on  this   subject. 
Then  you  buy,  and   before  you  can   get  your  change 
(cents  you  know,  carefully  counted)  you  must  disclose 
your  innermost  and  private  views  concerning  not  only 
to-day's  weather,  but  yesterday's  and  that  of  the  season 
in  general.    You  also  give  your  views  briefly  before 
you  get  to  the  door  on  the  weather  of  Ohio  compared 
to  that  of  the  Pacific  slope.     Then  you  hastily  make  a 
pacific  slope  out  of  the  door. 

The  charm  of  his  poetry  is  much  more  famil- 
iar to  the  public  than  that  of  his  prose ;  and  of 
the  two  charms  it  is  the  more  his  own  and  will 
be  the  more  enduring.  The  most  widely  appre- 
ciated of  his  poems,  "  The  Fool's  Prayer,"  is  too 
well  known  to  need  quotation  in  this  magazine. 

The  fine  stroke  in  "  Opportunity  "  seems  to 
me  equally  strong : 

This  I  beheld,  or  dreamed  it  in  a  dream  : 

There  spread  a  cloud  of  dust  along  a  plain  ; 

And  underneath  the  cloud  or  in  it  raged 

A  furious  battle,  and  men  yelled,  and  swords 

Shocked  upon  swords  and  shields.    A  prince's  banner 

Wavered,  then  staggered  backward,  hemmed  by  foes. 

A  craven  hung  along  the  battle's  edge 

And  thought,  "  Had  I  a  sword  of  keener  steel  — 

That  blue  blade  that  the  king's  son  bears  —  but  this 

Blunt  thing!  —  "  he  snapt  and  flung  it  from  his  hand, 

And  lowering  crept  away  and  left  the  field. 

Then  came  tlie  king's  son,  wounded,  sore  bestead, 

And  weaponless,  and  saw  the  broken  sword 

Hilt-buried  in  the  dry  and  trodden  sand, 

And  ran  and  snatched  it,  and  with  battle  shout 

Lifted  afresh  he  hewed  his  enemy  down 

And  saved  a  great  cause  that  heroic  day. 

To  many  of  us  one  of  his  nearest  poems  is 
that  plea  for  immortality  which  he  called 
"  The  Invisible."  It  is  too  long  for  transcrip- 
tion here.  A  fragment  stamps  the  porcelain : 


If  there  is  naught  but  what  we  sir, 
The  friend  I  loved  is  lost  to  me.    .    .    . 

Because  he  never  comes  and  stands 

And  stretches  out  to  me  both  hands, 

Because  he  never  leans  before 

The  gate  when  I  set  wide  the  door 

At  morning,  nor  is  ever  found 

Just  at  my  side  when  I  turn  round.    .    .    . 

For  all  this  shall  I  homage  pay 
To  Death,  grow  cold  of  heart,  and  say  : 
"  He  perished  and  has  ceased  to  be  ; 
Another  comes,  but  never  he"? 
Nay, by  our  wondrous  being,  nay! 
Although  his  face  I  never  see 
Through  all  the  infinite  To  Be, 
I  know  he  lives  and  cares  for  me. 

In  another  mood  we  have  "  Her  Explana- 
tion": 

...    I  am  a  lost  illusion.    Some  strange  spell 
Once  made  your  friend  there,  with  his  fine  disdain 
Of  fact,  conceive  me  perfect.    He  would  fain 
(But  could  not)  see  me  always  as  befell 
His  dream  to  see  me,  plucking  asphodel 
In  saffron  robes  on  some  celestial  plain. 
All  that  I  was  he  marred  and  flung  away 
In  quest  of  what  I  was  not,  could  not  be  — 
Lilith,  or  Helen,  or  Antigone.    .    .    . 

A  woman  best  understands  this  poem.  But 
it  needs  a  poet  to  appreciate  the  workman- 
ship of  the  last  line. 

The  poem  written  for  the  Commencement 
at  Smith  College  in  1883,  and  which  added 
perceptibly  to  Mr.  Sill's  poetic  reputation  at 
the  time,  shows  a  quotation  vitality  which 
would  have  gained  upon  him,  and  which 
many  of  his  poems  have  not: 

Life  is  a  game  the  soul  can  play 
With  fewer  pieces  than  men  say. 

Were  women  wise,  and  men  all  true — 
And  one  thing  more  that  may  not  be, 
Old  earth  were  fair  enough  for  me. 

Not  out  of  any  cloud  or  sky 
Will  thy  good!  come  to  prayer  or  cry. 
Let  the  great  forces  wise  of  old 
Have  their  whole  way  with  thee. 

....    the  better  day 

Gone  not  in  dreams,  nor  even  the  subtle  desire 
Not  to  desire ; 
But  work  is  the  sober  law. 

But  one  drops  the  white  "  booklet "  in  which 
these  delicate  poems  are  now  first  collected 
for  the  public,  with  a  conviction  that  reviewers 
and  reviewing  cannot  do  much  better  by  Sill 
than  they  can  by  an  oriole.  He  sings  evasively, 
willfully ;  he  sits  upon  the  lightest,  if  not  upon 
the  farthest,  twig,  and  mocks  us.  Most  of  his 
poems  are  complete  strains ;  they  cannot  be 
interrupted ;  they  do  him  no  justice  if  caught 
in  notes.  He  needs  to  be  read  and  loved  - 
or  loved  and  read.  Pascal  said  of  "  divine 
things"  that  they  "must  be  loved  to  be 
known ;  "  whereas  other  things  are  known  to 
be  loved.  Sill  is  an  individuality  so  delicate 
that  one  needs  love  it  to  understand  its  secret 


708 


EDWARD  ROWLAND   SILL. 


strength  ;  it  is  pliable,  fine,  finished ;  when  you 
think  that  you  have  brushed  a  beautiful  cob- 
web you  find  yourself  held  by  a  golden  wire. 

I  began  this  paper,  which  assumes  to  be  no 
more  than  the  tribute  of  a  friend  to  one  whose 
"  singing  is  all  clone,"  by  saying  that  Sill  stands 
among  our  poets  upon  the  claim  of  pure  in- 
spiration. I  am  confident  that  a  study  of  his 
delicate,  fragmentary  work  will  bring  the 
reader  at  the  end  to  the  same  conviction. 
He  is  a  truly  spontaneous  being;  he  has  no 
"made  voice";  he  sings  because  he  cannot 
help  it ;  as  the  birds  do,  as  the  waves  do,  like 
the  winds;  he  is  of  his  time,  of  his  country, 
and  of  himself.  The  professional  reviewer  of 
that  future  into  which  the  astral  personality 
of  this  half-embodied  poet  may  project  itself 
will  give  us  some  day  a  study  in  comparison  be- 
tween Sill  and  that  other,  greater,  but  not  dis- 
similar poet  to  whom  in  heart  his  friends  have 
thought  to  liken  him.  Had  he  lived  to  do  his 
best  Sill  might  have  been  called  the  American 
Shelley.  Temperamentally  there  is  a  kinship 
between  the  two.  "  Shelley,"  says  Dowden, 
"  was  the  most  sensitive  of  human  beings." — 
"  One  would  at  once  pronounce  of  him  that  he 
was  different  from  other  men." — "  There  was 
an  earnestness  in  his  manner,  and  such  per- 
fect gentleness  of  breeding  and  freedom  from 
everything  artificial,  as  charmed  every  one." 

Something  in  the  countenance  of  Sill  used 
to  give  us  at  moments  the  fancy  of  this  like- 
ness; they  were  the  elfin  moments,  the  elu- 
sive, evasive,  perverse;  when  the  eye  lifted 
and  lightened  and  the  whole  man  withdrew 
from  all  men,  and  was  apart  from  us,  con- 
forming but  rebelling. 

If  Shelley  had  been  born  in  Windsor,  Con- 
necticut, and  taught  school  for  a  living,  what 
should  we  have  had  ?  A  kinship  perhaps  less 
difficult  to  defend  between  the  English  genius 
and  the  American  professor. 

And  after  all  this  brings  us  to  say,  it  is  not 
so  sad  a  matter  for  even  a  poet  to  conform, 
even  at  the  cost  of  being  born  in  the  Connect- 
icut Valley,  and  of  working  out  the  daily  task 
that  chokes  the  singing  sometimes.  The  heart 
of  his  friends  holds  Sill's  memory  precious,  be- 
cause he  was  simply  so  good,  so  true,  so  dear 
a  man.  He  was  all  these  things  in  measure 
beyond  the  common  measure ;  this  we  know, 
who  ever  knew  him.  He  was  so  brave,  he  was 
so  patient,  he  forgot  himself  so  easily,  he  re- 
membered everybody  else  so  instinctively,  he 
had  such  supreme  unselfishness,  he  had  such 
sweetness  of  soul,  that  he  stands  among  the 
few  in  our  calendar  of  private  saints.  He 
called  himself  no  saint.  He  groped  for  his  re- 
ligious faith  and  knew  not  that  his  blind  hands 
grasped  an  ideal  of  Duty  which  might  add 
consecration  to  the  life  of  anv  believer  of  us 


all.  This  fact  was  more  Christ-like  than  too 
many  of  our  ideals  which  dare  take  the  Chris- 
tian name  upon  them.  I  used  to  think  that  his 
awful  struggle  after  Truth  had  brought  him 
near  to  the  altar  of  his  unknown  God,  and  that 
it  was  well  to  live  as  nobly  as  he  did  before 
one  criticised  him  for  the  nominal  loss  of  a 
faith  whose  second  great  commandment  he- 
did  habitually  and  happily  obey,  and  whose 
essential  principle  he  touchingly  and  uncon- 
sciously represented. 

He  was  a  true  poet;  our  literature  is  poorer 
for  his  untimely  loss.  But  he  was  a  true  man  ; 
our  lives  are  sadder  for  lack  of  his.  Many  who 
knew  him  mourn  for  him  as  for  the  dearest 
comforter  they  ever  had.  Friends  in  sorrow, 
young  people  in  perplexity,  shy  people,  poor 
people,  the  over-sensitive,  neglected,  lonely, 
misunderstood,  he  ministered  to  as  only  souls 
like  his  know  how.  It  was  a  precious  oint- 
ment that  he  poured  from  a  costly  box. 

Dante,  when  asked  at  Santa  Croce  what  he 
sought,  said  only  :  "  Peace." 

There  was  a  look  in  Sill's  sad  eye  which 
no  one  who  ever  saw  it  can  ever  forget.  What 
he  went  seeking,  as  Nature  forces  search  when 
she  "  makes  a  poet  out  of  a  man  " —  that,  life 
never  could  have  given  him.  Death  is  richer. 
Death  is  generous. 

'Tis  not  in  seeking, 

'T  is  not  in  endless  striving, 

Thy  quest  is  found  : 
Be  still  and  listen  ; 
Be  still  and  drink  the  quiet 

Of  all  around. 

Not  for  the  crying, 

Not  for  the  loud  beseeching, 

Will  peace  draw  near  : 
Rest  with  palms  folded  ; 
Rest  with  thine  eyelids  fallen  — 

Lo !   peace  is  here. 

Of  his  poems  on  death,  which  were  strong 
and  many,  one  other  was  indefinably  like  him, 
and  has  been  dear  to  many  to  whom  he  was 
dear: 

\\hnt  if  some  morning  when  the  stars  were  paling 
And  the  dawn  whitened,  and  the  East  was  clear, 
Strange  peace  and  rest  fell  on  me  from  the  presence 
Of  a  benighted  Spirit  standing  near: 

And  I  should  tell  him,  as  he  stood  beside  me, 
This  is  our  Earth  —  most  friendly  Earth  and  fair; 
Daily  its  sea  and  shore  through  sun  and  shadow 
Faithful  it  turns,  robed  in  its  azure  air: 

There  is  blest  living  here,  loving  and  serving 
And  quest  of  truth  and  serene  friendships  dear; 
But  stay  not,  Spirit!   Earth  has  one  destroyer  — 
His  name  is  Death;  flee,  lest  he  find  thee  here  ! 

And  what  if  then,  while  the  still  morning  brightened 
And  freshened  in  the  elm  the  Summer's  breath, 
Should  gravely  smile  on  me  the  gentle  angel 
And  take  my  hand  and  say,  "  My  name  is  Death." 

Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 


THE    UNIVERSITY    AND    THE    BIBLE. 


HE  last  word  upon  the  re- 
lation of  religion  to  edu- 
cation has  not  yet  been 
spoken,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  it  is  soon  heard.  It  is 
one  of  those  questions 
which  shows  a  tendency  to 
recur  after  having  been  ap- 
parently settled.  A  few  years  ago  the  most 
thoughtful  educators  acquiesced  in  the  opin- 
ion that  religion  could  not  be  taught  in  the 
public  schools  and  colleges,  and  compromised 
upon  a  teaching  of  ethics.  The  State  universi- 
ties omitted  religious  services  altogether;  some 
of  the  older  colleges  retained  the  services,  but 
reduced  them  to  one  each  Sunday  and  made 
attendance  voluntary.  The  tendency  has  been 
towards  an  exclusion  or  reduction  of  religious 
services  and  instruction  as  a  factor  of  educa- 
tion, with  an  attempt  to  compensate  for  the 
loss  by  encouragement  of  religious  guilds, 
prayer-meetings,  and  other  voluntary  services 
and  forms  of  religious  work  among  the  stu- 
dents themselves.  That  is,  the  tendency  has 
bean  to  lessen  the  institutional  teaching  of 
religion  and  to  substitute  for  it  voluntary  and 
undirected  self-teaching.  The  cause  of  this 
tendency  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  preference 
of  thoughtful  educators,  but  in  the  practical 
difficulty  of  dealing  with  students  of  all  beliefs 
and  no  beliefs,  reenforced  by  a  pervasive  cry 
that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  education. 
There  is  evidently  a  reaction  from  this  tend- 
ency, and  a  disposition  to  reconsider  the  whole 
question.  There  are  but  few  who  are  ready 
to  dispense  with  religious  services  in  the  col- 
leges, but  the  question  with  them  is:  Is  the 
service  to  be  regarded  simply  as  a  ritual  of 
worship,  or  as  a  part  of  the  education  of  the 
student?  If  it  is  the  former,  attendance  should 
be  voluntary ;  if  the  latter,  it  may  be  made 
compulsory.  It  is  the  unsettled  state  of  this 
question  that  breeds  the  hesitation  and  confu- 
sion in  which  the  subject  is  now  involved.  The 
substitution  of  the  voluntary,  self-directed  ef- 
forts of  the  students  in  prayer-meetings  and 
guilds  of  various  sorts  is  so  suggestive  of  the 
blind  leading  the  blind  as  to  exclude  it  as  a 
factor  in  the  problem.  It  may  be  well  to  fos- 
ter such  forms  of  Christian  activity,  but  to 
make  students  teachers  of  religion  to  their  fel- 
low-students is  to  violate  student  nature  if  not 
human  nature.  It  is  a  matter  that  needs  to  be 
most  carefully  watched  and  tested  by  its  re- 
sults—  the  good  accomplished  weighed  and 


compared  with  the  danger  attending  the  re- 
ligious sentiments  set  to  tasks  for  which  they 
are  not  yet  ripe.  No  amount  of  such  work, 
valuable  as  it  may  be  in  some  respects,  can 
be  a  substitute  for  religious  education,  and  the 
question  remains  in  full  force  whether  or  not 
the  college  should  attempt  in  any  way  to  teach 
religion. 

The  system  of  voluntary  attendance,  as  at 
Harvard  and  Cornell,  is  logically  a  negative 
answer,  or  at  best  makes  it  an  elective  study ; 
but  it  asserts  the  wisdom  of  associating  wor- 
ship, or  the  ritual  of  religion,  with  education. 
It  teaches  religion  for  those  who  care  to  come, 
but  the  service  is  essentially  a  serv  ice  of  wor- 
ship. It  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  in  both 
universities  the  system  is  productive  of  good 
personal  results,  but  it  cannot  be  said  for  it 
that  it  is  a  serious  and  logical  effort  to  teach 
religion.  It  is  a  worthy  effort  to  teach  such 
students  as  come  under  its  influence  to  be  re- 
ligious, but  this  is  quite  different  from  teaching 
religion.  The  system  of  compulsory  attend- 
ance, as  at  Yale  and  many  other  colleges,  com- 
bines the  idea  of  worship  and  the  teaching  of 
religion.  The  compulsory  feature  is  based,  not 
on  the  fact  that  students  must  worship,  but  that 
they  must  be  taught  religion.  The  conception 
is  traditional  and  is  involved  in  the  nature  of 
the  colleges  as  Christian  institutions.  Practi- 
cally it  still  works  well,  and  by  reason  of  pleas- 
ant chapels,  cushioned  seats,  good  music,  short 
sermons,  and  a  single  service  meets  but  little 
opposition  from  the  students;  their  free  vote 
would  probably  show  a  large  majority  in  favor 
of  compulsory  attendance.  The  college  stu- 
dent is  a  much  more  tractable  being  than  he 
was  a  generation  since.  Then  he  led  a  life  of 
chronic  opposition  to  his  instructors ;  to-day 
it  is  a  life  of  manly  and  sympathetic  coopera- 
tion, the  great  gulf  of  dignity  having  been 
bridged  by  common  sense  and  the  modern 
spirit.  It  may  be  questioned,  however,  if  teach- 
ing religion  by  compulsory  attendance  is  much 
more  than  formal  —  a  sign  merely  that  relig- 
ion is  respected  and  believed  in.  As  a  service 
of  worship  for  arousing  and  feeding  the  spiritual 
nature,  and  for  many  other  ends,  it  has  great 
value ;  but  it  does  little  towards  teaching  the 
students  the  nature  of  that  great  fact  which  is 
called  the  Christian  religion,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  a  service  of  worship,  and  can- 
not, from  its  nature,  be  an  occasion  of  scien- 
tific instruction. 

My  point  is  this:  the  religious  services  in  our 


yio 


THE    UNIVERSITY  AND    THE  BIBLE. 


universities  and  colleges,  whether  attendance 
is  voluntary  or  compulsory,  should  be  regarded 
primarily  and  chiefly  as  for  worship  and  spirit- 
ual ministration,  and  should  not  be  regarded 
as  a  means  of  educating  the  students  in  the 
nature  of  the  Christian  religion ;  with  the  in- 
ference that  if  there  is  to  be  such  education  it 
should  be  dissociated  from  worship,  and  con- 
ducted in  the  same  thorough  and  scientific 
way  as  the  study  of  Greek  or  history.  That  is, 
if  religion  is  to  be  taught  in  the  university,  it 
should  be  taught  in  the  class-room  and  for  the 
single  end  of  education. 

The  bare  proposal  to  do  this  is  sufficient  to 
call  out  the  protest  of  every  sect  not  identi- 
fied with  the  institution  and  a  louder  protest 
from  those  of  no  sect  —  all  laboring  under  the 
delusion  that  the  teaching  of  religion  implies 
a  purpose  to  make  the  students  religious  and 
to  convert  them  to  the  special  beliefs  of  the 
instructor.  The  protest,  in  one  sense,  does 
credit  to  those  who  make  it,  because  it  shows 
in  what  a  personal  way  religion  is  regarded ; 
but  it  overlooks  the  question  whether  one  can 
properly  be  considered  an  educated  man  who 
does  not  possess  a  thorough  and  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  great  fact  known  as  the 
Christian  religion. 

Education  may  be  defined  as  a  training  of 
the  mind  by  study  of  the  laws  of  nature  and 
of  the  chief  forces,  facts,  and  processes  of 
human  society.  The  university  does  not  aim 
primarily  to  secure  convictions  on  these  sub- 
jects, but  to  impart  accurate  knowledge  of 
them,  leaving  the  student  to  form  his  own 
opinions.  The  very  function  of  education  is 
to  teach  a  man  to  think  for  himself  upon  the 
basis  of  full  knowledge,  and  it  is  the  opposite 
of  its  function  to  seek  to  impart  opinions  and 
convictions  as  such.  The  teacher  of  political 
economy  who  strives  to  force  his  preference 
for  free-trade  or  protection  upon  his  pupils  for- 
sakes scientific  ground.  Facts,  principles,  re- 
sults, not  a  crusade  nor  stump-speeches,  form 
the  elements  of  university  education.  So  it 
will  teach  evolution,  but  it  will  not  aim  to 
turn  out  evolutionists.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
personal  element  in  education,  and  the  per- 
sonal convictions  of  teachers  are  not  only  not 
to  be  disguised  but  to  be  made  clear  ;  still,  the 
method  of  impression  should  be  sought  through 
the  facts  and  principles  of  the  subject. 

The  time  seems  to  have  come,  or  is  draw- 
ing nigh,  when  the  Christian  religion  can  be 
taught  in  this  way ;  that  is,  as  a  fact  and  by 
the  scientific  method.  It  is  an  achievement 
of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
that  all  subjects  can  be  studied  dispassionately 
and  simply  as  objects  of  study ;  it  is  the 
triumph  of  the  inductive  method.  The  mod- 
ern spirit  in  education  no  longer  aims  to 


produce  Protestants  or  Roman  Catholics  or 
sectarians  of  any  name,  or  followers  of  any 
school  of  politics  ;  its  emphasis  is  transferred 
from  this  final  field  of  conviction  to  the  pre- 
vious field  of  fact.  Facts  —  their  nature  and 
relation  —  form  the  basis  of  modern  education. 
Thus  any  great  fact  or  force  becomes  a  le- 
gitimate object  of  study,  under  the  principle 
that  right  belief  can  only  come  from  full  knowl- 
edge. 

As  the  great  facts  and  forces  of  human  so- 
ciety are  those  which  an  educated  man  must 
understand,  it  becomes  a  question  whether  he 
can  claim  to  be  such  unless  he  has  a  thorough 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  Christian  religion. 
A  mere  sense  of  proportion  would  suggest 
that  of  the  three  forces  which  have  entered 
into  civilization  —  the  Hebraic,  the  Greek, 
the  Roman  —  he  should  understand  the  first 
as  thoroughly  as  the  other  two;  or  that  he 
should  have  as  thorough  a  knowledge  of  the 
Christian  as  of  the  heathen  classics ;  or  that 
he  should  get  as  clear  an  insight  into  the  na- 
ture of  the  force  which  Christianity  lodged  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  by  which  it  took  pos- 
session of  it,  as  he  gets  of  the  nature  of  the 
Empire  itself.  It  is  clear  that  education  at 
present  has  no  true  proportion;  there  is  no 
proper  coordination  of  its  studies,  and  as  the 
result  we  get  a  set  of  one-sided,  partial  thinkers. 

But  proportion  and  fitness  aside,  we  claim 
that  an  American  scholar  is  not  properly 
equipped  for  his  high  place  and  work  in  society 
who  does  not  thoroughly  understand  the  relig- 
ion of  his  country.  An  able  educator,  who  is 
also  an  accomplished  statesman,  recently  as- 
serted this,  without  question,  to  the  writer, 
adding  that  such  a  person  was  not  entitled  to 
a  degree,  and  inferring  that  attendance  upon 
church  should  be  compulsory.  The  inference 
may  not  be  the  wisest  alternative,  but  it  em- 
phasizes the  earnestness  of  the  opinion  from 
which  it  was  drawn;  it  recognizes  the  fact 
that  the  religion  of  a  nation  is  one  of  its 
strongest  forces  and  cannot  be  left  out  of  ac- 
count in  any  sort  of  dealing  with  the  people. 
No  man  can  understand  the  people,  or  get 
on  well  with  them,  or  influence  them  in  a 
practical  way,  without  understanding  their 
thought  in  religion.  There  will  be  a  wide 
space  between  him  and  them  not  to  be  bridged 
by  mere  observation  of  their  habits,  or  by  si- 
lence or  formal  patronage.  He  must  know 
their  religion  as  well  as  they  do  in  order  to 
understand  them  and  come  into  that  intel- 
lectual and  practical  rapport  which  is  essen- 
tial to  successful  dealing  with  them.  Many  a 
public  man  stumbles  at  this  very  point,  not 
being  able  to  measure  the  largest  and  most 
influential  factor  in  the  lives  and  thought 
of  the  people  with  whom  he  has  to  do.  It  is 


Ttn<:    I'.VIl'RRSITY  AND    THE   I! //ILK. 


711 


easy  to  see  the  bearing  of  this  point  by  trans- 
ferring our  thought  to  another  nation.  If  a 
worldly-wise  infidel  were  doing  business  with 
Mohammedans  in  Damascus  or  Bagdad  he 
would, asa  first  requisite,  masterthe  Koran  and 
engage  a  kneeling-rug  in  a  mosque.  There  is 
a  great  deal  of  what  is  thought  to  be  shrewd 
patronage  of  religion  by  public  men  in  our 
country  which  misses  its  end  because  it  is  sup- 
ported by  so  little  knowledge  :  they  rent  a 
pew,  but  they  cannot  outwit  the  deacon ;  they 
flatter  the  preacher,  but  fail  to  capture  him  if 
they  miss  the  point  of  the  sermon.  But  the 
question  goes  deeper.  Every  nation,  what- 
ever its  character,  is  imbedded  in  its  religion. 
Religion  colors  life,  impregnates  opinions, 
shapes  thought  and  action ;  it  is  a  spirit  that 
possesses  the  people  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously. The  educated  man,  the  man  who 
deals  with  a  community  in  a  thorough  way 
and  who  undertakes  to  handle  large  masses 
of  men,  must  know  the  people  in  these  sources 
of  their  feeling  and  action.  He  may  not  share 
in  their  beliefs,  but  he  must  understand  them ; 
and  he  cannot  understand  them  except  by  a 
study  of  them  and  their  sources.  I  think  it  is 
impossible  to  name  a  great  American  states- 
man who  was  without  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  Bible ;  it  is  possible  to  name  a  large 
number  of  third  and  fourth  rate  politicians  as 
ignorant  of  it  as  the  student  at  Harvard  who 
recently  called  upon  the  librarian  for  The  Acts, 
with  no  suspicion  that  it  formed  a  part  of  the 
Bible  —  ignorance  matched  by  the  senior  at 
Yale  who  had  no  knowledge  of  the  historical 
person  known  as  Pontius  Pilate.  Evidently  the 
Harvard  man  did  not  attend  the  voluntary 
service  and  the  Yale  man  did  not  listen  to  the 
sermons  of  the  compulsory  service.  These 
cases  are  not  so  amusing  —  they  are  not  so  un- 
common as  may  be  supposed — as  they  are 
suggestive  of  the  possible  slips  these  university 
graduates  may  make  in  the  future.  The  court- 
room, the  Board  of  Education,  the  halls  of 
Congress,  the  drawing-room,  will  show  them 
little  mercy,  and  the  sneer  will  include  Alma 
Mater.  It  is  simply  a  fact  that  no  small  number 
of  men  graduate  yearly  from  our  colleges  who 
have  less  knowledge  of  the  Bible  than  have 
the  children  of  a  mission  Sunday-school. 

A  public  man  in  a  Christian  nation  who 
does  not  thoroughly  understand  the  Bible  is 
exactly  analogous  to  the  lawyer  who  is  not 
well  versed  in  the  common  law ;  he  may 
know  the  statutes,  the  rules  of  evidence,  the 
precedents,  but,  not  knowing  the  origin  and 
soul  of  the  whole  matter,  he  knows  nothing. 

The  value  of  the  Bible  as  a  text-book  of 
history,  of  political  science,  of  ethics,  of  liter- 
ature, of  comparative  religion,  has  sooften  been 
discussed  that  we  pass  it  by,  simply  reaffirm- 


ing our  point  that  a  man  who  aspires  to  in- 
fluence over  the  people  and  fails  to  educate 
himself  in  the  Bible  misses  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  power  in  dealing  with  them.  It  is  a 
truism  that  the  secret  of  educated  influence 
is  superior  knowledge  of  the  subjects  that  en- 
gage and  mold  the  popular  mind. 

While  it  is  not  a  part  of  the  duty  of  the 
university  to  shape  its  curriculum  with  a  view 
to  secure  specific  religious  beliefs,  it  may  be 
expected  of  it  to  avoid,  so  far  as  possible,  the 
result  of  infidelity  in  its  graduates.  If  the  latter 
is  the  alternative  of  the  present  system,  it 
would  justify  a  thorough  reconstruction  of  it, 
for  no  one  will  deny  that  our  universities  aim 
to  reenforce  the  fact  that  this  is  and  should 
be  kept  a  Christian  nation.  Christo  et  Ecde- 
siie  is  the  jealously  guarded  legend  upon  the 
seal  of  the  oldest  university,  and  in  the 
broad  spirit  in  which  it  is  cherished  there  is 
it  read  by  all.  But  in  the  present  confusion 
of  the  subject  and  in  the  condition  into  which 
it  is  fast  drifting, —  religious  services,  volun- 
tary here  and  compulsory  there,  and  every- 
where reduced  to  a  minimum,  scanty  both  as 
worship  and  as  teaching,  pieced  out  by  the 
voluntary  meetings  of  the  few  more  serious 
minded,  with  occasional  exhortations  from  a 
bishop  or  a  metropolitan  divine,  or  a  first-class 
revivalist,  and  with  no  thorough  and  scientific 
teaching  of  the  facts  and  literature  of  the 
Christian  religion, —  the  question  is  whether 
the  university  is  not  unwittingly  playing  into 
the  hands  of  infidelity  by  educating  its  students 
away  from  the  religious  conceptions  in  which 
they  were  reared  and  at  the  same  time  failing 
to  supply  them  with  better  conceptions. 

The  great  universities  like  Yale,  Harvard, 
Princeton,  Cornell  draw  their  students  from 
all  parts  of  the  country.  Many  of  them  come 
from  regions  where  crude,  antiquated,  super- 
stitious, and  bigoted  views  of  religion  prevail ; 
some  of  them  have  been  reared  in  and  may 
be  members  of  such  churches.  Indeed,  one 
need  not  go  outside  of  the  great  metropolis 
to  hear  from  the  pulpits  of  leading  churches 
the  emphatic  assertion  that  the  veracity  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  consequently  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  Christianity,  depend  upon  the  belief  that 
Jonah  was  swallowed  by  a  great  fish  —  the 
logic  being  that  if  this  event  did  not  take 
place  Jesus  was  either  ignorant  or  a  liar. 
When  a  student  who  has  been  brought  up 
under  such  instruction  as  this  comes  to  col- 
lege he  outgrows  it  by  the  simple  force  of 
education ;  but  not  being  taught  the  true  sig- 
nificance of  the  Book  of  Jonah,  he  becomes 
an  infidel  so  far  as  that  part  of  the  Bible  is 
concerned. 

The  popular  teaching  of  the  doctrines  is 
hardly  less  crude,  and  it  is  certainly  widely 


7I2 


THE    UNIVERSITY  AND    THE  BIBLE. 


divergent  and  antagonistic.  Whole  sects  de- 
pend for  existence  on  a  single  text  of  Scrip- 
ture, or  some  metaphysical  notion,  or  some 
theory  of  interpretation,  orsome  particular  con- 
ception of  heaven  and  hell,  or  on  some  mode 
of  administering  a  sacrament;  and  none  of 
them  can  be  said  to  be,  as  a  whole,  broad  and 
intelligent  and  catholic  in  the  sense  in  which 
these  words  are  used  in  the  university.  The 
preacher  in  the  college  pulpit  may  belong  to 
the  same  denomination  as  that  from  which 
some  of  his  pupils  have  come;  but  while  he 
looks  at  the  Bible  in  a  very  different  way  from 
the  home-pastor,  he  is  careful  not  to  antagonize 
and  uproot  his  teaching.  This  may  be  wise, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  cannot,  with  his 
limited  opportunities,  supplant  it  by  a  better 
teaching :  he  wisely  reasons  that  any  faith  is 
better  than  none ;  but  not  the  less  is  the  student, 
by  the  very  force  of  his  education,  thrown  out 
of  his  former  beliefs,  or  driven  to  carry  them 
along  with  a  sort  of  forced  faith  as  too  sacred 
to  be  wholly  given  up,  but  too  weak  and  unreal 
to  endure  thought  and  discussion.  Hence  the 
fact  that  the  most  reticent  class  upon  religion 
in  American  society  are  its  educated  men :  not 
because,  as  Mendelssohn  said,  "  religion  and 
thorough  bass  are  subjects  too  sacred  for  dis- 
cussion," but  because  they  do  not  know  what 
to  say ;  they  have  been  educated  away  from 
the  crude  interpretations  of  the  Bible  which 
they  everywhere  meet,  but  have  not  been  edu- 
cated into  an  intelligent  perception  of  it.  The 
sympathies  of  these  men  are  for  the  most  part 
with  religion ;  they  see  its  ethical  and  social 
value;  while  in  college  they  perceived  that 
men  of  great  learning,  talent,  and  mental  in- 
tegrity held  firmly  to  the  Christian  religion. 
Students  hear  from  such  men  teaching  in  the 
class-room  upon  science,  ethics,  history,  and 
philosophy,  which,  by  inference,  is  in  conflict 
with  the  popular  exegesis  and  theology,  but 
the  reconciliation  or  explanation  they  do  not 
hear.  There  is  an  unconscious  feeling  among 
them  that  the  faith  of  the  instructors  is  held  in 
an  esoteric  way.  Many  of  the  students  under 
such  teachers  as  Dr.  Woolsey  and  Dr.  Hopkins 
confessed  to  their  moral  power  over  them,  but 
would  have  been  doubly  strengthened  if  they 
could  have  heard  some  fuller  explanation  of 
the  reasons  for  the  faith  that  was  in  these  men. 
The  college  student  of  to-day  suspects,  and 
he  is  not  wrong  in  his  suspicion,  that  his  in- 
structors hold  opinions  in  regard  to  Genesis, 
the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  inspira- 
tion of  which  they  do  not  speak.  They  are 
quite  right  in  their  reticence;  no  sensible 
man  raises  a  doubt  or  question  in  the  minds  of 
young  men  unless  he  can  explain  or  answer  it. 
But  a  hint,  an  occasional  sermon,  a  bare  asser- 
tion, is  insufficient  to  treat  these  grave  themes; 


they  can  be  properly  treated  only  in  the  class- 
room and  as  a.  subject  of  scientific  study. 

The  situation  is  this :  the  student  comes  to 
college  with  a  conception  of  the  Bible  such 
as  no  longer  is  held  in  the  university  —  a 
crude,  unscientific,  antiquated  belief  which  he 
has  been  taught  to  identify  with  the  Christian 
religion.  He  undergoes  education;  his  fac- 
ulties are  strengthened,  his  perceptions  are 
broadened ;  he  is  taught  to  analyze,  and  com- 
pare, and  question,  and  to  think  for  himself; 
he  becomes  acutely  perceptive  of  what  is  in 
the  intellectual  and  religious  air  ;  he  is,  above 
everything  else,  taught  to  be  rational.  This 
very  process  leads  him  to  relax  his  hold  upon 
what  he  had  been  taught  to  consider  funda- 
mental, with  the  inevitable  tendency  to  give 
up  the  whole  Bible.  His  religious  training 
says  one  thing,  his  education  says  another ; 
caught  between  these  two  seas,  he  is  liable  to 
make  shipwreck  of  his  faith  or  to  stick  fast  in 
the  shallows  of  indifference.  Some  of  the 
weaker  sort  return  to  their  communities  and 
relapse  into  an  undiscerning  assent  to  the 
exegetical  crudities  of  their  youth,  or  perhaps 
lead  in  the  cry  against  modern  thought  and 
German  rationalism.  More  live  on,  silent, 
puzzled,  conforming  outwardly,  assenting  to 
the  ethical  value  of  almost  any  church  and 
creed,  but  sententiously  leaving  "theology  to 
the  parsons."  A  college  education  does  two 
good  things :  it  teaches  a  man  to  speak,  and 
it  also  teaches  him  to  be  silent.  If  the  trained 
men  in  the  pews  of  many  churches  were  to 
speak  their  minds,  the  pastors  and  elders 
would  often  be  greatly  amazed.  Some  run  the 
full  logical  length  of  the  conditions  of  their 
education  and  announce  themselves  as  con- 
firmed agnostics.  They  unlearned  in  college 
what  they  had  learned  at  home ;  they  felt  the 
presence  of  opinions  on  sacred  themes  which 
were  not  expressed,  and  so  rashly  jumped  to 
the  conclusion  of  unbelief. 

The  pity  of  all  this  is  that  the  university  is 
full  of  teachers  who  could  withstand  these 
tendencies  and  conserve  the  faith  in  their 
pupils :  Hebraists,  devout  men  of  science, 
Christian  philosophers,  exegetes  who  are  capa- 
ble not  only  of  translating  but  of  reading  a 
written  document  —  a  rare,  perhaps  the  rarest 
of  gifts,  that  of  interpretation.  These  men 
would  gladly  undertake  this  work,  but  are 
withheld  from  it  by  public  opinion  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  not  their  business  to  teach 
religion.  Nor  is  it;  but  we  may  well  ask  if  it 
should  not  be  made  their  business  to  avoid 
sending  out  their  pupils  with  a  bias  towards 
infidelity  or  agnosticism.  The  fault  is  not  with 
the  university,  but  with  the  people.  Is  it  too 
much  to  expect  that  public  opinion  can  be  led 
to  make  a  distinction  between  teaching  religion 


THE    UNIVERSITY  AND    THE  BIBLE. 


7"3 


as  a  matter  of  conscience,  with  the  view  to  se- 
curing specific  beliefs,  and  teaching  the  Bible 
in  a  purely  scientific  way,  with  the  view  to  find- 
ing out  what  it  means  and  what  it  does  not 
mean  ?  In  itself  considered,  there  is  no  just 
reason  why  the  Koran  should  not  be  made  a 
subject  of  scientific  study  in  college  if  it  could 
be  made  subservient  to  the  student  in  his  fut- 
ure calling.  It  is  entirely  possible  in  teaching 
the  Bible  to  set  the  matter  of  personal  religion 
and  specific  belief  aside,  desirable  as  they  are, 
and  to  place  it  upon  the  same  ground  as  an 
analytic  study  of  the  Prometheus.  The  Bible 
can  be  taught  as  dispassionately,  as  critically, 
and  in  the  same  cold,  dry,  scientific  light,  as 
Homer  or  the  Ptolemaic  system.  If  it  be 
said  that  this  is  not  the  best  way  to  teach  the 
Bible,  that  it  should  be  taught  warmly  and 
sympathetically  and  urgently,  we  assent;  but 
as  it  cannot  be  so  taught  in  the  class-room, 
let  it  be  taught  in  the  next  best  way,  which 
is  the  scientific  way — that  is,  by  a  process  of 
investigation  to  ascertain  its  meaning.  Such 
study  may  not  lead  to  moral  belief,  but  it  will 
not  impede  it ;  it  may  not  yield  personal  faith, 
but  it  will  tend  to  ward  off  infidelity;  and  it 
will  certainly  send  out  men  who  know  what 
the  Bible  teaches  and  what  it  does  not  teach. 
There  is  something  of  such  study  in  Yale  Uni- 
versity, chiefly  as  an  elective;  and  philosophy 
and  ethics  are  so  taught  as  to  reenforce  Chris- 
tian belief,  with  the  result  of  a  less  degree  of 
skepticism  in  the  senior  than  in  the  junior 
year — which  prompts  the  question  whether 
if  there  were  more  of  such  teaching  skepticism 
could  not  be  reduced  to  very  low  terms.  But 
the  college  student  does  not  become  skeptical 
on  philosophical  grounds  so  much  as  through 
difficulties  found  in  the  Bible;  Genesis,  and 
not  the  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious,  saps 
his  faith.  Hence  his  first  need  is  of  a  scientific 
explanation  of  the  sacred  books. 

There  is  now  no  public  sentiment  that  needs 
to  be  regarded  which  complains  of  the  scien- 
tific study  of  any  subject.  If  in  some  regions 
and  from  some  sources  there  should  be  com- 
plaint at  treating  sacred  themes  in  a  scientific 
way,  it  is  a  complaint  that  the  university 
must  be  ready  to  meet  and  to  endure.  It  will 
lessen  as  the  conception,  now  rapidly  growing, 
gains  ground,  that  all  education  is  conducted 
in  the  scientific  or  inductive  method.  The 
teacher  who  now  wages  a  warfare  in  his  class- 
room in  behalf  of  free-trade,  or  protection, 
or  evolution,  is  behind  his  age.  The  true 
teacher  is  one  who  gives  the  facts,  the  princi- 
ples, and  the  laws  of  his  subject.  If  it  be  said 
that  such  a  theory  of  education  reduces  it  to 
a  cold  and  colorless  thing,  it  may  be  replied 
that  the  true  teacher  puts  the  warmth  and 
color  into  the  facts  and  laws.  He  may  hide 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 98. 


as  much  conviction  as  he  sees  fit  within  such 
teaching,  but  he  must  not  contradict  the  very 
law  of  education — namely,  teaching  the  stu- 
dent to  think  and  giving  him  matter  for  thought. 

This  method  can  be  carried  into  a  study 
of  the  Bible.  Objection  might  come  from 
three  sources  —  strict  sectarians,  who  regard 
the  Bible  as  a  fetich  too  sacred  to  be  touched 
except  in  their  own  way  ;  atheists  and  infidels, 
who  nourish  a  contempt  for  the  Bible  as  an 
antiquated  piece  of  rubbish  ;  and  the  devotees 
of  culture,  who  vary  the  monotony  of  their 
agnosticism  by  temporary  zeal  for  Classicism, 
Buddhism,  and,  of  late,  Mohammedanism. 
To  the  first  it  may  be  said,  We  do  not  pro- 
pose to  undermine  your  sect,  but  to  send  your 
students  back  to  you  with  a  better  knowl- 
edge of  the  Book  that  you  revere.  To  the 
second  it  may  be  said,  This  is  still  a  Chris- 
tian nation,  and  the  Christian  religion  is  a 
real  factor  and  power  in  the  life  of  the  people. 
We  do  not  require  your  students  to  become 
believers,  but  we  do  require  of  them  to  be- 
come familiar  with  a  fact  and  a  force  which 
they  will  meet  at  every  turn  in  their  future 
careers.  To  the  third  it  may  be  said,  It  is  not 
improbable  that,  in  your  varying  enthusiasms, 
you  will  soon  come  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
Babylonian  myths,  or  in  the  psychic  element 
in  the  Hebrew  prophet,  or  in  a  comparative 
study  of  Oriental  and  Western  symbolism,  in 
which  case  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
Book  most  intimately  related  to  these  sub- 
jects would  not  be  amiss. 

In  order  not  to  leave  the  subject  in  a  vague 
condition,  I  will  indicate,  or  rather  hint,  the 
direction  such  scientific  study  of  the  Bible 
might  take. 

Genesis :  the  nature,  sources,  and  composi- 
tion of  the  book. 

The  Pentateuch :  its  authorship  and  com- 
position. 

The  Hebrew' commonwealth  :  its  nature 
and  growth. 

An  outline  of  Jewish  history. 

The  nature  and  meaning  of  such  books  as 
the  Song  of  Solomon  and  Jonah. 

The  theism  in  the  Psalms. 

The  argument  in  the  Book  of  Job,  and  its 
literary  features. 

The  Proverbs,  and  their  relation  to  Oriental 
thought. 

The  Captivity,  and  its  effect  upon  the  nation. 

An  analysis  of  the  Prophecy  of  Isaiah,  and 
its  literary  features. 

An  outline  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  sources  of  the  Christian  Church  as 
found  in  The  Acts. 

Christian  institutions  :  their  origin. 

The  forces  in  Christianity  which  led  to  its 
reception  and  continuance. 

T.  T.  Hunger. 


WOMEN    WHO    GO    TO    COLLEGE. 


•T  could  be  truthfully  said 
thirty  years  ago  that  there 
was  no  system  in  woman's 
education,  and  one  need 
not  go  far  backward  in  the 
history  of  the  subject  to 
reach  the  time  when,  so  far 
as  any  advanced  instruc- 
tion whatever  is  concerned,  woman  was  al- 
most completely  overlooked.  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  education  was  an  accomplishment 
of  the  very  few,  and  was  considered  a  necessity 
for  no  one  except  the  professional  clerics,  and 
not  always  for  them,  women  had  a  chance  to 
get  the  small  measure  of  learning  that  was 
within  the  reach  of  common  men.  As  the 
world  in  general  grew  wiser,  women  were  left 
behind  and  were  obliged  to  satisfy  in  private 
any  scholarly  longings  that  they  might  have, 
or  to  sit  illiterate  in  their  towers  embroidering 
shields  for  graceless  Launcelotsand  singing  the 
"  song  of  love  and  death." 

It  happened  that  at  the  tfrne  when  Chaucer 
was  in  Italy  learning  the  story  of  Patient  Gri- 
selda, —  in  1372, — the  subject  of  the  education 
of  women  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  a 
worthy  father  in  France  by  thoughts  of  his 
three  motherless  daughters.  He,  the  knight 
of  La  Tour  Landry,  was  led  to  prepare  a  book 
to  be  used  for  the  education  of  his  own  girls 
and  of  others.  The  treatise  has  been  called  a 
"  monument  of  medieval  literature."  It  is  a 
phenomenally  indecent  book,  and  if  it  were 
exposed  for  sale  to-day  would  be  carried  off 
by  the  police.  This  fond  father  limited  the 
intellectual  progress  of  his  daughters  to  the 
reading  of  this  book  —  and  what  reading ! 
They  might  sew  and  brush  and  do  the  thou- 
sand and  one  housewifely  works  that  have  al- 
ways been  considered  commendable  in  the 
sex ;  but  as  for  any  training  of  the  mind,  it 
could  not  be  allowed.  Down  to  our  own  time 
many  persons  have  not  advanced  far  beyond 
this  father  of  La  Tour  Landry.  They  have 
thought  that  if  women  were  suffered  to  eat  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge  the  rest  of  the  family 
would  at  once  "  be  reduced  to  the  same  kind 
of  aerial  diet,"  as  Sydney  Smith  said;  and 
have  believed  that  an  educated  mother  would 
be  "  in  danger  of  deserting  her  infant  for  a 
quadratic  equation."  It  was  but  the  other  day 
that  a  philosophical  lecturer  in  a  British  capi- 
tal declared  that  women,  if  educated,  will  cease 
to  be  sympathetic  ;  they  will  be  "  cultured," 
but  not  "  self-denying  " ;  they  will  lack  a  thou- 


sand nameless  graces  and  charms  of  manner 
which  uneducated  women  are  probably  sup- 
posed to  possess. 

It  is  not  worth  our  while  to  contemplate 
the  ages  between  Chaucer  and  our  own  days. 
We  need  only  refer  to  Milton's  scheme  for 
education,  confined  as  it  was  to  men  only. 
Any  plan  of  instruction  for  the  weaker  sex 
was  not  to  be  expected  from  an  author  who 
could  put  into  the  mouth  of  his  despondent 
hero  the  words : 

Oh,  why  did  God, 

Creator  wise,  that  peopled  highest  heaven 
With  spirits  masculine,  create  at  last 
This  novelty  on  earth,  this  fair  defect 
Of  Nature,  and  not  fill  the  earth  at  once 
With  men  as  angels  ? 

The  story  of  the  progress  of  the  education 
of  women,  even  in  the  most  favored  portions 
of  the  world,  is  one  of  strange  reluctance  to 
give  any  ad  vantage  to  thesex.  Many  ofushave 
been  taught  to  point  to  the  inhabitants  of  New 
England  as  examples  of  remarkable  care  for 
education.  We  picture  them  as  planting  the 
school  by  the  side  of  the  meeting-house  when 
they  landed,  and  as  building  the  college  when 
the  air  was  still  lurid  with  the  flames  of  their 
smoking  cabins  and  their  lives  in  danger 
from  the  tomahawk  ;  but  we  forget  that  their 
schools  were  not  for  women.  They  thought 
that  education  was  something  adapted  to  fit 
a  boy  to  be  a  minister,  or  to  prepare  him  for 
some  other  liberal  calling;  but  as  for  mothers 
and  sisters,  they  might  still  sit  and  spin,  they 
might  embroider  and  cook,  they  might  read 
and  write  (if  they  did  not  print  anything),  but 
as  for  looking  into  a  work  on  science,  or  a 
book  in  Latin  or  Greek,  that  could  hardly  be 
imagined.  Schools  were  provided,  it  is  true, 
at  an  early  period  for  "  all  children,"  but  there 
was  only  one  sex  thought  of  in  that  connection. 
It  is  less  than  a  century  ago  that  a  school  was 
established  in  Boston  for  both  boys  and  girls, 
and  even  then  the  girls  were  allowed  to 
attend  but  half  of  the  year.  The  first  high 
school  for  girls  was  not  opened  there  until 
1825,  and  it  was  soon  shut  up  because  it  was 
too  expensive!  Forty-five  hundred  dollars 
had  been  wasted  in  eight  months  on  a  few 
girls.  They  were  after  that  kept  out  of  the 
high  school  until  1852  ;  and  before  1877,  when 
a  Latin  school  was  established  for  their  spe- 
cial convenience,  they  were  debarred  from  that 
mode  of  preparing  for  college. 

In  the  mean  time  Vassar  College  had  begun 


WOMEN  WHO    GO    TO    COLLEGE. 


its  good  work.  The  opening  of  that  institution, 
in  1865,  marks  an  era.  During  the  years  of 
civil  war.  when  the  armies  of  the  republic  were 
engaged  in  their  ^reat  struggle  and  the  for- 
tunes of  the  nation  hung  in  the  balance,  the 
millionaire  of  Poughkeepsie  was  quietly  pre- 
paring the  foundation  for  the  first  fully  en- 
dowed institution  for  the  collegiate  instruction 
of  women  that  the  world  ever  saw.  Mr.  Vas- 
sar  said  that  it  was  his  intention  to  accomplish 
for  women  "  what  our  colleges  are  accom- 
plishing for  men."  This  was  simple  enough 
and  broad  enough.  It  is  charming  to  observe 
how  deeply  the  pioneer  trustees  of  this  wom- 
an's college  were  impressed  by  the  grandeur 
of  their  work,  and  how  naively  they  expressed 
their  sentiments.  It  was  "  of  vital  conse- 
quence " ;  it  was  "  a  grand  and  novel  enter- 
prise "  ;  they  were  burdened  with  "  responsi- 
bilities before  the  world  " ;  they  were  "  clothed 
by  the  majesty  of  the  law  with  power "  to 
carry  out  the  generous  purpose  of  the  "  mu- 
nificent donor,"  whose  act  was  excelled  by 
none  among  the  memorable  events  which 
signalized  the  early  months  of  the  year  1861, 
a  time  certainly  rich  in  events  of  profound 
interest.  They  said  that  they  looked  forward 
to  the  opening  of  Vassar  College  as  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  era  in  the  education  of 
women. 

The  power  of  the  time-honored  opinions 
regarding  the  sphere  of  woman  is  plain  enough. 
Deference  to  them  led  the  projectors  to  lay 
much  stress  upon  the  domestic,  home  influ- 
ences that  were  to  be  exerted;  to  warrant  par- 
ents that  there  would  be  "  comfort,"  and 
"  abundant  food  " ;  that  the  students  would  be 
surrounded  by  "  softening"  and  "  elevating" 
influences  —  lest,  perhaps,  they  should  degen- 
erate into  barbarism !  The  idea  was  empha- 
sized still  more  in  the  statement  that  there 
should  be  no  day  pupils,  because  there  are  no 
such  in  the  home. 

A  protest  was  made  against  some  of  the 
methods  that  were  said  to  be  thoroughly  es- 
tablished in  our  old  institutions,  and  a  deter- 
mination was  expressed  that  Vassar,  having 
no  traditions  to  bind  it,  should  begin  aright. 
It  was  assumed  that  the  students  would  not  be 
looking  to  the  learned  professions,  like  men, 
for  teaching  was  at  the  time  not  supposed  to 
fall  into  that  category. 

Arguments  were  brought  against  the  usual 
order  of  college  studies,  and  especially  against 
the  required  four-years'  course,  then  nearly 
universal.  Vassar  was  to  follow  "  the  order 
of  nature,"  and  to  make  provision  for  "  a  di- 
versity of  tastes,  aptitudes,  and  inclinations  " — 
for  different  conditions  and  circumstances  as 
to  age,  health,  and  property.  The  curriculum 
was  to  be  no  "  bed  of  Procrustes,  to  which 


every  girl  must  adjust  herself,  however  great 
the  violence  done  to  her  nature."  Students 
were  not  to  be  told  that  there  was  a  certain 
number  of  text-books  to  be  studied  from  Pref- 
ace to  Index  each  year,  nor  encouraged  to 
plod  contentedly  through  then  in  the  best  way 
they  were  able,  whether  the  subjects  proved  at- 
tractive or  not. 

It  was  the  plan  of  the  first  president  and 
the  founder  that  the  college  should  be  ar- 
ranged in  departments,  and  the  students 
were  to  carry  on  their  work  by  subjects,  and 
be  largely  left  to  their  own  choice,  though  re- 
quired to  accomplish  a  definite  amount  before 
graduation;  text-books  were  to  be  discarded 
from  the  class-room.  Thus  the  tendency 
towards  the  elective  system,  now  so  strong 
in  most  colleges  for  men,  and  so  much  more 
desirable  for  women,  was  anticipated.  The 
founders  of  the  new  college  aimed  at  thorough 
and  vigorous  cultivation,  rather  than  at  too 
comprehensive  and  superficial  training.  The 
students  were  to  be  taught  to  "  direct  the 
faculties  with  their  utmost  power  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  any  task  " ;  time  was  not  to 
be  taken  into  the  account,  in  order  to  avoid 
feverish  haste  and  to  make  it  possible  to  cul- 
tivate the  desired  thoroughness  without  fear 
of  falling  behind  in  a  race  limited  to  four 
brief  years.  The  college  diplomas  were  to 
show  that  certain  work  had  been  done  and 
well  done,  to  represent  something  real,  and 
not  simply  to  indicate  that  the  young  woman 
had  "  been  in  college  four  years  and  paid  her 
bills."  Finally,  Vassar  promised  to  educate 
woman  on  the  religious  side,  and  to  care 
assiduously  also  for  her  physical  life.  Acting 
in  the  spirit  of  the  founder,  the  trustees  de- 
clared that  they  "  utterly  loathed  and  repu- 
diated "  the  spirit  of  sectarianism,  and  ordained 
that  "all  teaching  of  human  creeds,  dogmas, 
and  ceremonials,  of  sectarian  views  and  de- 
nominational distinctions,"  should  be  "  strictly 
and  forever  forbidden." 

Thus,  upon  a  firm  and  broad  foundation, 
Vassar  began  its  work  in  1865,  and  the  first 
admission  examinations  showed  that  it  was 
needed,  for  they  proved  that  the  education 
of  woman  at  the  time  was  confused,  barren, 
undisciplined,  wasteful,  and  superficial.  The 
candidates  had  earnestness  of  purpose,  but 
they  did  not  know  what  they  needed.  They 
declared,  in  the  language  of  the  young  lady 
of  the  day,  that  they  were  "  passionately 
fond  "  of  one  study,  and  "  utterly  detested  " 
another,  though  they  were  not  well  enough 
acquainted  with  either  to  give  intelligent 
reasons  for  the  tastes  that  they  so  strongly  ex- 
pressed. They  thought,  for  instance,  that 
chemistry  was  desirable,  because  it  might 
help  them  in  the  kitchen;  and  French,  because 


7i6 


WOMEN  WHO    GO    TO    COLLEGE. 


it  would  serve  in  case  of  a  foreign  tour;  though 
they  had  no  knowledge  of  educational  disci- 
pline and  cared  less  for  it. 

No  wonder  that  the  faculty  had  difficulty 
in  dealing  with  the  students  thus  cast  upon 
them.  In  the  heterogeneous  medley  there 
were  some  who  appreciated  the  difficulties, 
and  supported  their  instructors  in  their  efforts 
to  set  up  and  maintain  a  high  standard,  and 
by  the  end  of  the  first  year  college  opinion 
was  all  one  way.  The  same  sentiment  has 
prevailed  in  all  colleges  for  women ;  the 
students  have  uniformly  demanded  that  the 
standard  should  be  kept  up,  and  that  they 
should  be  submitted  to  the  strictest  tests 
required  in  any  institution  for  men. 

Collegiate  instruction  for  women  in  America 
encountered  the  usual  reception  given  to  all 
innovations.  Vassar  College  and  its  students 
became  the  objects  of  many  weak  jokes.  The 
students  were  jibed  at  as  women  who  "  wanted 
to  be  men,"  as  college  women  have  been  jibed 
at  elsewhere.  The  name  Vassar  was  carried 
everywhere.  It  became  typical,  and  still  is. 
Other  colleges  have  risen,  but  Vassar  remains 
the  woman's  college  at  which  the  small  wit 
hurls  his  puny  darts.  The  "  Vassar  girl  "  still 
stands  for  the  girl  who  goes  to  college,  and 
about  her  we  hear  all  sorts  of  stories,  more  or 
less  apocryphal.  The  new  college  encountered 
opposition  from  even  good  people  ;  many  had 
grave  doubts  ;  but  the  select  few  welcomed  it, 
and  it  went  steadily  on  its  way.  It  was  fol- 
lowed by  Wellesley,  Smith,  Wells,  and  Bryn 
Mawr,  and  the  "  Harvard  Annex,"  as  it  is 
called,  also  entered  upon  its  successful  career. 

There  is  variety  in  the  colleges  for  women. 
At  Vassar  the  students  are  sheltered  in  one 
great  building  and  are  taught  by  both  men  and 
women.  At  Wellesley  there  was  at  first  the 
same  sort  of  grand  dormitory,  but  it  has  be- 
come the  center  of  a  group  which  allows 
smaller  clusters  of  students  to  gather  under 
more  home-like  conditions.  The  teachers 
there  are  women  only.  At  Smith  men  and 
women  teach  together,  as  at  Vassar,  but  the 
students  are  separated  into  small  groups  un- 
der different  roofs.  The  "  Harvard  Annex  " 
has  a  character  all  its  own.  It  did  not  seek  to 
gather  a  new  faculty,  nor  to  erect  imposing 
dormitories,  but  simply  to  repeat  to  women  in- 
struction already  given  to  men  in  an  institu- 
tion that  has  been  in  successful  operation 
two  and  a  half  centuries.  It  carries  out  the 
"  home"  principle  farther  than  either  Vassar  or 

*  The  author  of  this  paper,  Mr.  George  J.  Romanes, 
writes  with  evident  calmness  and  self-restraint.  He 
frankly  confesses  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  has  met 
"  wonderfully  few  cases  of  serious  break-downs  " ; 
which  only  goes  to  show,  he  says,  "  of  what  good  stuff 
our  English  girls  are  made."  Since  American  observ- 


Smith  or  Wellesley,  for  it  aims  to  place  its 
students  by  twos  and  by  threes  in  established 
families. 

Certainly  woman  has  now  obtained  oppor- 
tunity for  the  collegiate  education.  Wherever 
she  has  been  admitted  to  college,  and  when- 
ever she  has  been  permitted  to  compete  with 
men  on  equal  terms  for  intellectual  honors, 
she  has  done  herself  credit.  Nowhere  has  this 
been  so  emphatically  true  as  in  conservative 
England.  In  a  paper  on  the  mental  inferiority 
of  woman  to  man,  published  in  the  "  Nine- 
teenth Century,"  it  was  shown  that  "  the  aver- 
age brain-weight  of  women  is  about  five  ounces 
less  than  that  of  men,"  and  by  an  elaborate  and 
interesting  argument  woman's  "  marked  inferi- 
ority of  intellectual  power"  was  proved  in 
detail.  We  were  told  that  women  are  more 
apt  than  men  to  break  away  from  the  restraints 
of  reason  ;  that  they  have  greater  fondness  for 
emotional  excitement  of  all  kinds  ;  that  in 
judgment  their  minds  are  considerably  below 
those  of  men;  that  in  creative  thought  and  in 
simple  acquisition  there  is  a  marked  difference; 
that  women  are  less  deep  and  thorough  than 
men;  that  "their  physique  is  not  sufficiently 
robust  to  stand  the  strain  of  severe  study," 
and  so  on.* 

Scarcely  had  this  argument  for  the  general  in- 
feriority of  women  in  "  acquisition,  origination, 
and  judgment  "  reached  us  when  the  telegraph 
flashed  the  news  that  Miss  Ramsay,  a  student 
at  Girton  College,  Cambridge,  England,  had 
distanced  all  the  men  in  the  university  in  the 
race  for  classical  honors,  and  that  Miss  Hcr- 
vey,  of  the  same  college,  had  won  like  distinc- 
tion in  the  department  of  Medieval  and 
Modern  Languages.  The  London  "Times" 
said  in  this  connection: 

Miss  Ramsay  has  done  what  no  Senior  Classic  be- 
fore her  has  ever  done.  The  great  names  of  Kennedy, 
Lushington,  Wordsworth,  Maine,  and  more  recently  of 
Butler  and  Jebb,  have  come  first  in  the  Classical  Tripos; 
Miss  Ramsay  alone  has  been  placed  in  a  division  to 
which  no  one  but  herself  has  been  found  deserving  of 
admittance.  .  .  .  No  one  has  ventured  to  think  that 
four  years'  work  could  be  enough  to  make  a  Senior 
Classic.  We  have  proof  that  it  is  ample.  Most  of  Miss 
Ramsay's  competitors  will  have  taken  fourteen  years 
to  do  less  than  she  has  contrived  to  do  in  four  years. 
Miss  Ramsay's  example  suggests  a  possibility  that 
men  may  have  something  to  learn  in  the  management 
of  a  department  of  study  which  they  have  claimed  as 
peculiarly  their  own. 

To  this  it  may  be  added  that  Miss  Ramsny 
kept  herself  in  full  health,  did  not  overwork, 
and  accomplished  her  examinations  easily. 

ers  notice  the  same  phenomenon,  we  are  at  liberty  to 
reply  that  the  fact  mentioned  does  not  go  to  show  "  of 
what  good  stuff  our  English  girls  are  made,"  but 
rather  to  prove  that  the  "  physique  of  young  women  as 
a  class  "  is  "  sufficiently  robust  to  stand  the  strain  of 
severe  study  "  and  actually  to  improve  under  it. 


WOMEN  WHO   GO    TO   COLLEGE. 


717 


In  the  face  of  facts  like  thc.se  and  of  many 
more  that  might  be  adduced,  we  cannot  be- 
lieve that  nature  has  placed  before  woman 
any  constitutional  barrier  to  the  collegiate  life, 
but  that  so  far  as  plnsical  reasons  are  con- 
cerned, she  may  enter  upon  it  with  no  more 
fear  than  a  man  may.  That  an  increasing 
number  of  women  will  do  this,  and  that  it  is 
;  for  the  state  that  all  should  do  it  who 
are  destined  to  be  instructors  of  the  youth 
of  the  republic,  is  in  my  mind  not  at  all 
doubtful. 

What  is  to  be  the  result  ?  That  is  the  cru- 
cial question.  On  the  physical  health  of  the 
educated  woman  it  will  be  beneficial.  Obser- 
vation, so  far  as  it  is  now  possible,  shows  that 
the  work  of  the  full  college  course  is  favorable 
to  bodily  health.  The  regularity  of  life,  the 
satisfaction  of  attainment,  the  pleasant  com- 
panionship, the  general  broadening  of  the 
girl-nature,  tend  in  that  direction.  Speaking 
of  "  nervous  or  neuropathic  "  young  women, 
Dr.  Charles  Follen  Folsom,  of  the  department 
of  nervous  diseases  in  the  Boston  Hospital, 
writes  that  it  his  opinion  that  "  the  higher 
education  is  a  conservative  rather  than  a 
destructive  force."* 

On  schools  I  have  already  said  that  the 
effect  is  good.  The  grade  of  instruction  in 
establishments  for  girls  has  been  materially 
raised  since  Vassar  College  began,  and  those 
pupils  who  go  no  further  than  the  primary 
schools  are  much  benefited.  The  influence  is 
reflex,  for  the  educated  girls  become  in  turn 
teachers,  and  they  are  better  teachers  than 
their  predecessors.  Many  college-bred  girls 
never  teach.  Neither  do  all  college-bred  men. 
They  go  out  into  the  world  and  raise  the 
average  of  general  intelligence ;  they  elevate 
their  own  households  and  exert  an  influence  in 
the  sphere  of  the  private  citizen.  The  standard 
is  raised  at  home,  and  home  is  the  fountain- 
head. 

Women  who  marry  after  having  been  liber- 
ally educated  make  more  satisfactory  unions 
than  they  otherwise  would  have  made.  Women 
were  formerly  trained  to  no  outlook  but  mat- 
rimony, and  were  encouraged  to  cultivate  no 
accomplishments  not  considered  useful  to  that 
end.  When,  therefore,  that  end  was  missed, 
all  was  missed.  There  was  no  outlet  of  action 
in  which  the  energies  of  her  feelings  might 
be  discharged.  Such  a  defective  education, 
adapted  to  heighten  emotional  sensibility,  and 
to  weaken  the  reasoning  powers,  tended  to  in- 
crease the  predominance  of  the  affective  life 
and  to  lead  woman  to  base  her  judgment 
upon  feelings  and  intuitive  perceptions  rather 
than  upon  rational  processes,  and  to  direct 

*  "  Relations  of  our  Public  Schools  to  the  Disorders 
of  the  Nervous  System,"  p.  187. 


her  conduct  by  impulse  rather  than  to  control 
it  by  will. 

Educated  women  marry  as  naturally  as 
others;  but  the  fact  that  mental  training  has 
led  them  to  subject  their  impulses  to  reason 
gives  them  an  advantage  in  the  choice  of 
husbands,  and  it  may  well  be  expected  that 
ill-considered  marriages  will  be  decreased  in 
number.  The  rector  of  the  University  of 
Liege  devoted  his  inaugural  address  in  1862 
to  the  subject  of  the  education  of  women,  and 
remarked : 

In  Belgium  anil  France  most  young  persons  in  the 
higher  classes  —  sons  of  the  rich  or  of  those  who  ex- 
pect to  be  rich — are  sunk  in  deplorable  ignorance. 
They  pursue  no  kind  of  higher  studies,  or  if  they  enter 
upon  them,  they  are  very  soon  discouraged.  To  what 
does  this  tend  ?  It  causes  them  to  be  almost  always 
without  any  inspiration  to  the  taste,  without  any  habit 
of  serious  occupation.  They  live  in  an  atmosphere  in 
which  intellectual  labor  is  not  honored,  in  which,  far 
from  considering  it  a  glorious  or  even  a  worthy  duty, 
it  is  placed  below  the  satisfaction  of  the  love  of'  pleas- 
ure. This  deplorable  situation  arises  from  the  false 
education  given  to  the  women  of  the  higher  classes. 
As  a  general  rule  they  cannot  comprehend  what  con- 
stitutes the  true  power  and  dignity  of  a  man,  and 
therefore  they  accept  as  husbands  men  as  ignorant 
and  as  idle  as  themselves.  As  a  natural  consequence 
they  cannot  bring  up  their  sons  to  be  men  ;  they  can- 
not give  to  their  country  well-instructed,  devoted,  and 
energetic  citizens. 

I  have  been  told,  even  in  cultivated,  intel- 
lectual circles,  that  a  young  woman  had  better 
be  in  the  kitchen  or  laundry  than  in  the  lab- 
oratory or  class-room  of  a  college.  "Women 
should  be  trained,"  such  persons  say,  "  to  be 
wives  and  mothers."  The  finger  of  scorn  has 
been  lightly  pointed  at  the  mentally  cultivated 
mothers  and  daughters  who  are  unable  to 
cook  and  scrub,  who  cannot  make  a  mince- 
pie  or  a  plum-pudding.  Such  persons  forget 
with  surprising  facility  all  the  cases  of  women 
who  neglect  the  kitchen  to  indulge  in  the 
love-sick  sentimentality  to  which  they  have 
been  trained ;  who  think  too  much  of  possible 
matrimonial  chances  to  endanger  them  by 
scrubbing,  or  by  giving  ground  for  the  suspi- 
cion that  they  cultivate  any  other  faculty  than 
the  power  to  apostrophize  the  moonlight  and 
to  long  for  a  lover.  They  do  not  care  to  re- 
member that  it  is  no  whit  better  to  wither 
under  the  influence  of  ignorance  or  sentiment, 
to  cultivate  a  fondness  for  "  gush,"  than  to 
dry  up  the  sensibilities  like  a  book-worm,  or 
grow  rigid  and  priggish  as  a  pedant.  It  is  as 
bad  to  stunt  human  nature  as  to  over-stimu- 
late it  —  to  stop  its  progress  in  one  way  as  in 
another.  The  danger  is  in  going  to  extremes. 
The  mass  of  men  choose  the  golden  mean, 
and  we  may  trust  women  to  avoid  extrava- 
gance in  the  pursuit  of  learning.  We  may  and 
ought  to  give  her  every  help  in  the  direction 
of  life  that  her  brothers  possess.  It  is  no 


7i8 


JURD  MUSIC. 


longer  doubtful,  it  is  plain,  that  whatever  other 
rights  woman  should  have,  those  of  the  intel- 
lectual kingdom  ought  to  be  hers  fully  and 
freely.  She  should  be  the  judge  herself  of  how 
far  she  should  go  in  exploring  the  mysteries 
of  nature  and  of  science. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  putting  all  our  girls 
through  college ;  it  is  not  even  a  question  of 
their  being  taught  in  the  same  institutions  and 


classes  with  men  when  they  go  to  college. 
The  form  in  which  women  shall  be  taught  and 
the  subjects  that  they  shall  study  are  of  minor 
importance  at  the  moment,  and  time  will  settle 
them  in  a  natural  way.  The  great  desideratum 
is  that  they  be  given  the  collegiate  education 
when  they  need  it,  and  that  they  be  the 
judges  of  their  own  needs. 

Arthur  Gilman. 


BIRD     MUSIC. 


P|S  one  approaches  the  haunts 
of  the  yellow-breasted 
chat,  the  old  rule  for  chil- 
dren is  reversed  —  he  is 
everywhere  heard,  no- 
where seen.  Seek  him  ever 
so  slyly  where  the  ear  has 
just  detected  him,  in- 
stantly you  hear  him  elsewhere ;  and  this  with 
no  sign  of  a  flight.  The  chat  revels  in  eccen- 
tricities. Some  tones  of  his  loud  voice  are 
musical,  others  are  harsh ;  and  he  delights  in 
uttering  the  two  kinds  in  the  same  breath, 
occasionally  slipping  in  the  notes  of  other 
birds  and,  on  some  authorities,  imitating  those 
of  quadrupeds.  I  have  discovered  in  his  med- 
leys snatches  from  the  robin,  catbird,  oriole, 
kingfisher,  and  brown  thrasher.  Wilson  refers 
to  his  "  great  variety  of  odd  and  uncouth  mono- 
syllables." I  have  detected  three  such,  "char," 
"  quirp,"  and  "  whir,"  and  they  were  given 
with  distinctness. 

The  male  birds,  generally  preceding  the 
females  in  their  migrations,  locate  and  at  once 
begin  a  series  of  vocal  and  gymnastic  exer- 
cises. A  marked  example  of  these  perform- 
ances is  a  jerky  flight  straight  upwards  perhaps 
fifty  feet,  and  a  descent  in  the  same  fussy 
fashion.  (Though  this  exhibition  is  eminently 
characteristic  of  the  chat,  one  observer  in- 
forms me  that  he  has  seen  the  woodcock  and 
the  linnet  so  employed.)  The  favorite  time 
for  it  is  just  before  dusk ;  but  if  there  be  a 
moon,  a  carousal  of  some  sort  goes  on  all 
night,  the  evident  intention  being  to  let  no 
migrating  lady-chat  pass  without  a  hearty  in- 
vitation to  cease  her  wandering,  and  to  accept 
a  husband  and  a  home. 

After  all,  the  chat  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
a  song.  The  longest  strain  that  I  have  heard 
from  him  is  without  melody,  closely  resem- 
bling the  rhythmic  movement  of  the  yellow- 
billed  cuckoo's  effort,  but  wholly  unlike  it  in 
quality  of  tone.  He  will  burst  out  with  loud, 


rapid  tones,  then  suddenly  retard  and  dimin- 
ish to  the  close  : 


mi.  <c-  it;  in. 


In  the  course  of  an  hour  I  have  heard  this 
strain  repeated  many  times,  and  am  satisfied 
that  it  has  no  one  pitch  or  key.  The  following 
are  the  principal  notes  of  this  chat,  but  it  is 
not  to  be  understood  that  they  always  come 
in  like  order : 


lnf_  ^   ?» 


^g^EEEE 


/  Kit.  a  dim 


Quirp,  quirp.  (3) 


charr,      chair. 
Hit.  ff:dim. 


C'harr,       charr,        charr. 

/  Bit  dt  dim 


Whirr,       whirr,        whirr. 


1URD  MUSIC. 


719 


BOBOLINK. 


Tin:  mere  mention  of  his  name  incites  mer- 
riment. Bobolink  is  the  embodiment  of  frolic 
song,  the  one  inimitable  operatic  singer  of  the 
feathered  stage.  Though  the  oriole  has  a 
stronger  and  more  commanding  voice,  and 
tin-  thrushes  far  surpass  him  in  deep,  pure, 
and  soul-stirring  tones,  he  lias  no  rival;  even 
the  mocking-bird  is  dumb  in  his  presence.  In 
the  midst  of  his  rollicking  song  he  falls  with 
bewitching  effect  into  a  ventriloquous  strain, 
subdued,  as  if  his  head  were  under  his  wing; 
but  soon  the  first  force  returns  with  a  swell, 
and  he  shoots  up  into  the  air  from  the  slender 
twig  upon  which  he  has  been  singing  and 
swinging  in  the  wind,  looks  with  indifference 
upon  everything  beneath  him,  plying  just  the 
tips  of  his  wings  to  paddle  himself  along  in 
his  reckless  hilarity,  twisting  his  head  this  way 
and  that,  increasing  in  ecstasy  till  he  and  his 
song  drop  together  to  the  ground. 

During  his  short  but  glorious  reign  bobo- 
link takes  the  open  meadow,  the  broad  sun- 
light, all  day  long.  When  he  would  sing  his 
best,  he  invariably  opens  with  a  few  tentative 
notes,  softly  and  modestly  given,  as  much  as 
to  say,  "  Really,  I  fear  I  'm  not  quite  in  the 
mood  to-day."  It  is  a  musical  gurgling: 


k-ll, 


pi  -  lc  -  ah. 


Then  the  rapturous  song  begins,  and  a 
gradual  crescendo  continues  to  the  end.  A  few 
of  the  first  notes  of  the  song  proper  are : 


His  tonic  is  F  major  or  D  minor,  and  he 
holds  to  it,  his  marvelous  variations  being  re- 
stricted to  the  compass  of  an  octave,  and  the 
most  of  his  long  song  to  the  interval  of  a  sixth. 
A  long  song  and  a  strong  song  it  is,  but  though 
the  performer  foregoes  the  rests  common 
among  other  singers,  like  the  jeweler  with  his 
blow-pipe,  he  never  gets  out  of  breath. 

Perhaps  we  have  no  more  interesting,  more 
charming.summerguest.  When  Natureclothes 
the  fields  with  grass  and  flowers,  he  throws 
aside  his  common  brown  wear  for  new  plum- 
age, gay  as  it  is  unique.  This  striking  change 
is  a  new  birth  ;  he  neither  looks,  acts,  sings, 
nor  flies  as  he  did  before,  nor  could  you  guess 
him  out.  In  both  heart  and  feather  he  is 


brightness  itself.  Most  birds  are  dark  above 
and  light  below;  but  this  bird,  in  the  new  birth, 
takes  the  exact  reverse.  His  breast  and  lower 
parts  are  black,  his  back,  neck,  and  crown 
white,  shaded  with  yellow  scams.  He  reaches 
New  Kngland  about  the  middle  of  May,  with 
his  plumage  perfect  and  his  song  come  to  its 
fullness. 

WHIP-POOR-WILL. 

No  bird  in  New  England  is  more  readily 
known  by  his  song  than  is  the  whip-poor-will. 
He  has  a  strong  voice  and  sings  his  name  dis- 
tinctly, accenting  the  first  and  last  syllables, 
the  last  most.  At  each  singing  he  simply  re- 
peats his  name  an  indefinite  number  of  times, 
always  measuring  his  song  with  the  same 
rhythm  while  varying  the  melody.  A  pecul- 
iar feature  of  his  performance  is  a  cluck,  which, 
introduced  after  each"  whip-poor-will,"  serves 
as  a  pleasing  rhythmic  link  to  hold  the  song 
unbroken.  If  not  near  the  bird,  one  fails  to 
hear  the  cluck,  noticing  a  rest  in  its  place. 
The  whip-poor-will  does  not  stand  erect  when 
singing;  his  wings  are  slightly  extended  and 
kept  in  a  rapid  tremor.  Various  forms  of  the 
whip-poor-will's  song: 


Whippoorwil!  (cluck),  whippoorwtll  (cluck),  whippoorwill  (cluck). 


=£: 


>     ff 


8va. 


Simeon  Pease  Cheney. 


EXILE    BY    ADMINISTRATIVE    PROCESS. 


EW  pages  in  my  Siberian 
notebooks  are  more  sugges- 
tive of  pleasant  sensations 
and  experiences  than  the 
pages  that  record  the  in- 
cidents of  our  life  in  the 
mountains  of  the  Altai.  As 
I  now  turn  over  the  flower- 
stained  leaves  dated  "  Altai  Station,  August 
5,  1885,"  every  feature  of  that  picturesque 
Cossack  village  comes  back  to  me  so  vividly, 
that,  if  for  a  moment  I  close  my  eyes,  I  seem 
to  hear  again  the  musical  plash  and  tinkle  of 
the  clear,  cold  streams  that  tumble  through 
its  streets;  to  see  again  the  magnificent  amphi- 
theater of  flower-tinted  slopes  and  snowy  peaks 
that  encircles  it ;  and  to  breathe  once  more 
the  fresh,  perfumed  air  of  the  green  alpine 
meadow  upon  which  it  stands.  If  the  object 
of  our  Siberian  journey  had  been  merely  en- 
joyment, I  think  that  we  should  have  remained 
at  the  Altai  Station  all  summer;  since  neither 
in  Siberia  nor  in  any  other  country  could  we 
have  hoped  to  find  a  more  delightful  place  for 
a  summer  vacation.  The  pure  mountain  air 
was  as  fragrant  and  exhilarating  as  if  it  had 
been  compounded  of  perfume  and  ozone;  the 
beauty  and  luxuriance  of  the  flora  were  a  never- 
failing  source  of  pleasure  to  the  eye;*  the 
clear,  cold  mountain  streams  were  full  of  fish ; 
elk,  argali,  wild  goats,  bears,  foxes,  and  wolves 
were  to  be  found  by  an  enterprising  hunter  in 
the  wooded  ravines  and  the  high  mountain 
valleys  south  of  the  station ;  troops  of  Kirghis 
horsemen  were  ready  to  escort  us  to  the  Mon- 
golian boundary  post,  to  the  beautiful  alpine 
lake  of  Marka  Kul,  or  to  the  wild,  unexplored 
fastnesses  of  the  Chinese  Altai;  and  Captain 
Maiefski,  the  hospitable  commandant  of  the 
post,  tempted  us  to  prolong  our  stay,  by  prom- 
ising to  organize  for  us  all  sorts  of  delightful 
excursions  and  expeditions.  The  season  of 
good  weather  and  good  roads,  however,  was 
rapidly  passing ;  and  if  we  hoped  to  reach  the 
mines  of  Kara  before  winter  should  set  in,  we 
had  not  a  day  to  spare.  It  was  already  the 
first  week  in  August,  and  a  distance  of  2500 
miles  lay  between  us  and  the  head-waters  of 
the  Amur. 

Our  next  objective  point  was  the  city  of 
Tomsk,  distant  from  the  Altai  Station  about 
750  miles.  In  order  to  reach  it  we  should  be 

*  I  brought  back  with  me  from  the  Altai  an  herba- 
rium consisting  of  nearly  a  thousand  species  of  flower- 
ing plants. 


obliged  to  return  over  a  part  of  the  road  which 
we  had  already  traversed,  and  to  descend  the 
Irtish  as  far  as  the  station  of  Pianoyarofskaya. 
At  that  point  the  road  to  Tomsk  leaves  the 
Semipalatinsk  road,  and  runs  northward 
through  the  great  Altai  mining  district  and 
the  city  of  Barnaul.  There  were  two  colonies 
of  political  exiles  on  our  route  —  one  of  them 
at  the  Cossack  station  of  Ulbinsk,  160  miles 
from  the  Altai  Station,  and  the  other  in  the 
town  of  Ust  Kamenogorsk.  In  each  of  these 
places,  therefore,  we  purposed  to  make  a  short 
stay. 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday,  August  6,  we 
packed  our  baggage  in  the  tarantas,  ordered 
horses  from  the  post  station,  took  breakfast 
for  the  last  time  with  Captain  Maiefski  and 
his  wife,  whose  kindness  and  warm-hearted 
hospitality  had  made  their  house  seem  to  us 
like  a  home,  and  after  drinking  to  the  health 
of  all  our  Altai  friends,  and  bidding  everybody 
good-bye  three  or  four  times,  we  rode  reluc- 
tantly out  of  the  beautiful  alpine  village  and 
began  our  descent  to  the  plains  of  the  Irtish. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  describe  our  journey 
down  the  valley  of  the  Bukhtarma  and  across 
the  gray,  sterile  steppes  of  the  upper  Irtish.  It 
was  simply  a  reversal  of  the  experience  through 
which  we  had  passed  in  approaching  the  Altai 
Station  three  weeks  before.  Then  we  were 
climbing  from  the  desert  into  the  alps,  while 
now  we  were  descending  from  the  alps  to  the 
desert. 

At  6  o'clock  Friday  afternoon  we  reached 
the  settlement  of  Bukhtarma,  where  the  Irtish 
pierces  a  great  out-lying  spur  of  the  Altai  chain, 
and  where  the  road  to  Ust  Kamenogorsk 
leaves  the  river  and  makes  a  long  detour  into 
the  mountains.  No  horses  were  obtainable  at 
the  post  station  ;  the  weather  looked  threaten- 
ing; the  road  to  Alexandrofskaya  was  said 
to  be  in  bad  condition  owing  to  recent  rains ; 
and  we  had  great  difficulty  in  finding  a  peas- 
ant with  "  free  "  horses  who  was  willing  to 
take  our  heavy  tarantas  up  the  steep,  miry 
mountain  road  on  what  promised  to  be  a  dark 
and  stormy  night.  With  the  cooperation  of 
the  station  master,  however,  we  found  at  last 
a  man  who  was  ready,  for  a  suitable  consider- 
ation, to  make  the  attempt,  and  about  an 
hour  before  dark  we  left  Bukhtarma  for  Alex- 
androfskaya with  four  "  free  "  horses.  We 
soon  had  occasion  to  regret  that  we  had  not 
taken  the  advice  of  our  driver  to  stop  at  Bukh- 
tarma for  the  night  and  cross  the  mountains 


EXILE   BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


721 


THE    ALIiXANUROFSKAYA-SEVEKNAYA     RAVINE. 


by  daylight.  The  road  was  worse  than  any 
neglected  wood-road  in  the  mountains  of  West 
Virginia  ;  and  before  we  had  made  half  the 
distance  to  Alexandrofskaya,  night  came  on 
with  a  violent  storm  accompanied  by  lightning, 
thunder,  and  heavy  rain.  Again  and  again 
we  lost  the  road  in  the  darkness ;  two  or  three 
times  we  became  almost  hopelessly  mired  in 
bogs  and  sloughs;  and  finally  our  tarantas 
capsized,  or  partly  capsized,  into  a  deep  ditch 
or  gully  worn  out  in  the  mountain-side  by 
tailing  water.  The  driver  shouted,  cursed, 
and  lashed  his  dispirited  horses,  while  Mr. 
Frost  and  I  explored  the  gully  with  lighted 
wisps  of  hay,  and  lifted,  tugged,  and  pulled  at 
the  heavy  vehicle  until  we  were  tired  out, 
drenched  with  rain,  and  covered  from  head  to 
foot  with  mud  ;  but  all  our  efforts  were  fruit- 
less. The  tarantas  could  not  be  extricated. 
From  this  predicament  we  were  finally  rescued 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 99. 


by  the  drivers  of  three  or  four  telegas,  who 
left  Bukhtarma  with  the  mail  shortly  after  our 
departure,  and  who  overtook  us  just  at  the 
time  when  their  services  were  most  needed. 
With  their  aid  we  righted  the  capsized  vehicle, 
set  it  again  on  the  road,  and  proceeded.  The 
lightly  loaded  telegas  soon  left  us  behind,  and 
knowing  that  we  could  expect  no  more  help 
from  that  source,  and  that  another  capsize 
would  probably  end  our  travel  for  the  night, 
I  walked  ahead  of  our  horses  in  the  miry  road 
for  half  or  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  holding 
up  a  white  handkerchief  at  arms-length  for  the 
guidance  of  our  driver,  and  shouting  direc- 
tions and  warnings  to  him  whenever  it  seemed 
necessary.  Tired,  at  last,  of  wading  through 
mud  in  Cimmerian  darkness,  and  ascertaining 
the  location  of  holes,  sloughs,  and  rocks  by 
tumbling  into  or  over  them,  I  climbed  back 
into  the  tarantas  and  wrapped  myself  up  in  a 


722 


EXILE   BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


THE    ULBINSK    RAVINE. 


wet  blanket,  with  the  determination  to  trust  to 
luck.  In  less  than  fifteen  minutes  our  vehicle 
was  again  on  its  side  in  another  deep  gully. 
After  making  a  groping  investigation  by  the 
sense  of  touch,  we  decided  that  the  situation 
this  time  was  hopeless.  There  was  nothing 
to  be  done  but  to  send  the  driver  on  horseback 
in  search  of  help,  and  to  get  through  the  night 
as  best  we  could  where  we  were.  It  was  then 
about  1 1  o'clock.  The  wind  had  abated,  but 
the  rain  was  still  falling,  and  the  intense  dark- 
ness was  relieved  only  by  an  occasional  flash 
of  lightning.  Cold,  tired,  and  hungry,  we 
crawled  into  our  capsized  vehicle,  which  still 
afforded  us  some  little  shelter  from  the  rain, 
and  sat  there  in  sleepless  discomfort  until 
morning.  Just  before  daylight  our  driver  re- 
turned with  a  Cossack  from  Alexandrofskaya, 
bringing  lanterns,  ropes,  crowbars,  and  fresh 
horses,  and  with  these  helps  and  appliances 
we  succeeded  in  righting  the  tarantas  and 
dragging  it  back  to  the  road. 

We  reached  Alexandrofskaya  in  the  gray 
light  of  early  dawn,  and  after  drinking  tea  and 
sleeping  two  hours  on  the  floor  in  the  post 
station,  we  resumed  our  journey  with  eight 
horses  and  three  drivers.  The  road  from  Al- 


exandrofskaya to  Severnaya  runs  for 
five  or  six  miles  up  the  steep,  wild  ra- 
vine that  is  shown  in  the  illustration 
on  page  72 1.  It  then  crosses  a  series  of 
high,  bare  ridges  running  generally  at 
right  angles  to  the  course  of  the  Irtish, 
and  finally  descends,  through  another 
deep,  precipitous  ravine, into  the  valley 
of  Ulbinsk,  which  it  follows  to-  Ust 
Kamenogorsk.  The  mountains  which 
compose  this  spur,  orout-lyingbranch, 
of  the  Altai  system  are  not  high,  but, 
as  will  be  seen  from  the  illustration  on 
the  opposite  page,  they  are  picturesque 
and  effective  in  outline  and  grouping, 
and  are  separated  one  from  another 
by  extremely  beautiful  valleys  and 
ravines. 

Owing  to  the  bad  condition  of  the 
roads  and  the  mountainous  nature  of 
the  country,  we  were  more  than  ten 
hours  in  making  the  nineteen  miles 
between  Severnaya  and  Ulbinsk,  al- 
though we  had  eight  horses  on  the 
first  stretch  and  five  on  the  second. 
The  slowness  of  our  progress  gave  us 
an  opportunity  to  walk  now  and  then, 
and  to  make  collections  of  flowers, 
and  we  kept  the  tarantas  decorated  all 
day  with  golden-rod,  wild  hollyhocks, 
long  blue  spikes  of  monk's-hood,  and 
leafy  branches  of  "  zhimolost,"  or 
Tartar  honeysuckle,  filled  with  showy 
scarlet  or  yellow  berries. 
Late  Saturday  afternoon,  as  the  sun  was  sink- 
ing behind  the  western  hills,  we  rode  at  a  brisk 
trot  down  the  long,beautiful  ravine  which  leads 
into  the  valley  of  the  Ulba,  and  before  dark 
we  were  sitting  comfortably  in  the  neat  wait- 
ing-room of  the  Ulbinsk  post  station, refreshing 
ourselves  with  bread  and  milk  and  raspberries. 
Among  the  political  exiles  living  in  Ulbinsk 
at  that  time  were  Alexander  L.  Blok,  a  young 
law  student  from  the  city  of  Saratof  on  the 
Volga;  Apollo  Karelin,  the  son  of  a  well- 
known  photographer  in  Nizhni  Novgorod; 
Severin  Gross,  a  law  student  from  the  prov- 
ince of  Kovno ;  and  Dr.  Vitert,  a  surgeon 
from  Warsaw.  Mr.  Karelin  had  been  accom- 
panied to  Siberia  by  his  wife,  but  the  others 
were,  I  believe,  unmarried.  I  had  learned  the 
names,  and  something  of  the  histories,  of  these 
exiles  from  the  politicals  in  Semipalatinsk,  and 
there  were  several  reasons  why  I  particularly 
wished  to  see  them  and  to  make  their  acquaint- 
ance. I  had  an  idea  that  perhaps  the  politicals 
in  Semipalatinsk  were  above  the  average  level 
of  administrative  exiles  in  intelligence  and  ed- 
ucation,—  that  they  were  unusually  favorable 
specimens  of  their  class, —  and  it  seemed  to 
me  not  improbable  that  in  the  wilder  and  re- 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE   I'KOCESS. 


723 


moter  parts  of  western  Siberia  1  should  find 
types  that  would  correspond  more  nearly  to 
the  conception  of  "nihilists"  that  1  had  formed 
in  America. 

Before  we  had  been  in  the  village  an  hour, 
two  of  the  exiles —  Messrs.  Blok  and  Gross  — 
called  upon  us  and  introduced  themselves. 
Mr.  Blok  won  my  heart  from  the  very  first. 
He  was  a  man  twenty-six  or  twenty-eight 
years  of  age,  of  medium  height  and  athletic 
figure,  with  dark  hair  and  eyes,  and  a  beard- 


regular  features.  He  talked  in  an  eager,  an- 
imated way,  with  an  affectionate,  caressing 
modulation  of  the  voice,  and  had  a  habit 
of  unconsciously  opening  his  eyes  a  little  more 
widely  than  usual  as  an  expression  of  interest 
cr  emotion.  Both  of  the  young  men  were 
university  graduates;  both  spoke  French  and 
German,  and  Mr.  Blok  read  English;  both 
were  particularly  interested  in  questions  of 
political  economy,  and  either  of  them  might 
have  been  taken  for  a  young  professor,  or  a 


VALLEY    OF    ULBINSK. 


less  but  strong  and  resolute  face,  which 
seemed  to  me  to  express  intelligence,  earnest- 
ness, and  power  in  every  line.  It  was,  in  the 
very  best  sense  of  the  word,  a  good  face,  and 
I  could  no  more  help  liking  and  trusting  it 
than  I  could  help  breathing.  Marcus  Aurelius 
somewhere  says,  with  coarse  vigor  of  expres- 
sion, that  "  a  man  who  is  honest  and  good 
ought  to  be  exactly  like  a  man  who  smells 
strong,  so  that  the  bystander,  as  soon  as  he 
comes  near,  must  smell,  whether  he  choose  or 
not."  Mr.  Blok's  honesty  and  goodness  seemed 
to  me  to  be  precisely  of  this  kind,  and  I  found 
myself  regarding  him  with  friendly  sympa- 
thy, and  almost  with  affection,  long  before 
I  could  assign  any  reason  for  so  doing.  Mr. 
Gross  was  a  rather  handsome  man,  perhaps 
thirty  years  of  age,  with  brown  hair,  full  beard 
and  mustache,  blue  eyes,  and  clearly  cut, 


post-graduate  student,  in  the  Johns  Hopkins 
University.  I  had  not  talked  with  them  an 
hour  before  I  became  satisfied  that  in  intelli- 
gence and  culture  they  were  fully  abreast  of 
the  Semipalatinsk  exiles,  and  that  I  should 
have  to  look  for  the  wild,  fanatical  "  nihilists  " 
of  my  imagination  in  some  part  of  Siberia 
more  remote  than  Ulbinsk. 

We  talked  in  the  post  station  until  about  9 
o'clock,  and  then,  at  Mr.  Blok's  suggestion, 
made  a  round  of  calls  upon  the  other  political 
exiles  in  the  village.  They  were  all  living  in 
wretchedly  furnished  log-houses  rented  from 
the  Ulbinsk  Cossacks,  and  were  surrounded 
by  unmistakable  evidences  of  hardship,  priva- 
tion, and  straitened  circumstances;  but  they 
seemed  to  be  trying  to  make  the  best  of  their 
situation,  and  I  cannot  remember  to  have 
heard  anywhere  that  night  a  bitter  complaint 


724 


EXILE   BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


or  a  single  reference  to  personal  experience  senger."  In  the  house  of  Mr.  Blok  there  was 
that  seemed  to  be  made  for  the  purpose  of  a  small  but  well-selected  library,  in  which  I 
exciting  our  sympathy.  If  they  suffered,  they  noticed,  in  addition  to  Russian  books,  a  copy 
bore  their  suffering  with  dignity  and  self-con-  of  Longfellow's  Poems,  in  English;  Maine's 
trol.  All  of  them  seemed  to  be  physically  well  "  Ancient  Law  "  and  "  Village  Communities" ; 
except  Mrs.  Karelin,  who  looked  thin,  pale,  Bain's  "  Logic";  Mill's  "  Political  Economy  "; 
and  careworn,  and  Dr.  Vitert,  who  had  been  Lecky's  "  History  of  Rationalism  "  (an  ex- 
three  times  in  exile  and  ten  years  in  prison  or  purgated  Russian  edition) ;  Spencer's  "  Es- 
in  Siberia,  and  who,  I  thought,  would  not  live  says :  Moral,  Political,  and  ^Esthetic,"  and  his 
much  longer  to  trouble  the  Government  that  "  Principles  of  Sociology  "  ;  Taine's  "  History 


THE    TOWN     OF     UST    KAMENOGORSK. 


had  wrecked  his  life.  Although  only  forty-five 
years  of  age,  he  seemed  greatly  broken,  walked 
feebly  with  a  cane,  and  suffered  constantly  from 
rheumatism  contracted  in  damp  prison-cells. 
He  was  one  of  the  best-informed  exiles  that 
I  met  in  western  Siberia,  and  was  the  first  to 
tell  me  of  the  death  of  General  Grant.  We 
had  a  long  talk  about  the  United  States,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  asked  many  questions 
concerning  our  civil  war,  the  constitutional 
amendments  adopted  after  the  war,  the  balance 
of  parties  in  Congress,  and  the  civil-service 
reform  policy  of  President  Cleveland,  which 
showed  that  he  had  more  than  a  superficial  ac- 
quaintance with  our  political  history.  In  the 
houses  of  all  the  exiles  in  Ulbinsk,  no  matter 
how  wretchedly  they  might  be  furnished,  I 
found  a  writing-desk  or  table,  books,  and  such 
magazines  as  the  "  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes" 
and  the  "  Russki  Vestnik,"  or  "  Russian  Mes- 


of  English  Literature  " ;  Laboulaye's  "  His- 
tory of  the  United  States  "  ;  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  French  and  German  works  on  jurispru- 
dence and  political  economy.  I  need  hardly 
call  attention,  I  think,  to  the  fact  that  men 
who  read  and  carry  to  Siberia  with  them  such 
books  as  these  are  not  wild  fanatics,  nor 
"  ignorant  shoemakers  and  mechanics,"  as 
they  were  once  contemptuously  described  to 
me  by  a  Russian  officer,  but  are  serious,  culti- 
vated, thinking  men.  If  such  men  are  in  exile 
in  a  lonely  Siberian  village  on  the  frontier  of 
Mongolia,  instead  of  being  at  home  in  the 
service  of  the  state  —  so  much  the  worse  for 
the  state ! 

We  spent  the  greater  part  of  one  night  and 
a  day  with  the  political  exiles  in  Ulbinsk.  I 
became  very  deeply  interested  in  them,  and 
should  have  liked  to  stay  there  and  talk  with 
them  for  a  week ;  but  our  excursion  to  the 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


7*5 


Katunski  Alps  had  occupied  more 
time  than  we  had  allotted  to  it,  and 
it  was  important  that  we  should,  if 
possible,  reach  the  convict  mines  of 
eastern  Siberia  before  the  coming  on 
of  winter.  Sunday  afternoon  at  4 
o'clock  we  set  out  for  L'st  Kameno 
gorsk.  Messrs.  Blok  and  Karelin  ac- 
companied us  on  horseback  as  far  as 
the  ferry  across  the  Ulba,  and  then, 
after  bidding  us  a  hearty  and  almost 
affectionate  good-bye,  and  asking  us 
not  to  forget  them  when  we  should 
return  to  "a  freer  and  happier 
country,"  they  remounted  their  horses 
and  sat  motionless  in  their  saddles, 
watching  us  while  we  were  being  fer- 
ried over  the  river.  When  we  were 
ready  to  start  on  the  other  side,  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  they  waved 
their  handkerchiefs,  and  then,  taking 
off  their  hats,  bowed  low  towards  us 
in  mute  farewell  as  we  dashed  away 
into  the  forest.  If  these  pages  should 
ever  be  read  in  one  of  the  lonely 
cabins  of  the  political  exiles  in  Ulbinsk, 
the  readers  may  feel  assured  that  "  in 
a  freer  and  happier  country  "  we  have 
not  forgotten  them,  but  think  of  them 
often,  with  the  sincerest  esteem  and 
the  most  affectionate  sympathy. 

We  reached  Ust  Kamenogorsk 
bsfore  dark  Sunday  afternoon  and 
took  up  our  quarters  in  the  post  sta- 
tion. The  town,  which  contains  about  5000 
inhabitants,  is  a  collection  of  600  or  800 
houses,  generally  built  of  logs,  and  is  situated 
in  the  midst  of  a  treeless  plain  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Irtish,  just  where  the  latter  is 
joined  by  its  tributary  the  Ulba.  It  contains 
one  or  two  Tartar  mosques,  two  or  three 
Russian  churches  with  colored  domes  of  tin, 
and  an  ostrog,  or  fortress,  consisting  of  a 
high  quadrangular  earthern  wall  or  embank- 
ment, surrounded  by  a  dry  moat,  and  in- 
closing a  white-walled  prison,  a  church,  and  a 
few  Government  buildings.  The  mosques,  the 
white- turbaned  mullas,  the  hooded  Kirghis 
horsemen  in  the  streets,  the  morning  and 
evening  cry  of  the  muezzins,  and  the  files  of 
Bactrian  camels,  which  now  and  then  come 
pacing  slowly  and  solemnly  in  from  the 
steppe,  give  to  the  town  the  same  Oriental 
appearance  that  is  so  noticeable  in  Semipal- 
atinsk,  and  which  suggests  the  idea  that  one 
is  in  northern  Africa  or  in  central  Asia,  rather 
than  in  Siberia. 

While  we  were  drinking  tea  in  the  post 
station  we  were  surprised  by  the  appearance 
of  Mr.  Gross,  who  had  come  from  Ulbinsk  to 
Ust  Kamenogorsk  that  morning,  and  had  been 


- 


KIRGHIS    CAMEL    TEAMS. 


impatiently  awaiting  our  arrival.  He  had 
hardly  taken  his  seat  when  the  wife  of  the 
station  master  announced  that  a  Russian  offi- 
cer had  come  to  call  on  us,  and  before  I  had 
time  to  ask  Mr.  Gross  whether  his  relations 
with  the  Russian  authorities  were  pleasant  or 
unpleasant,  the  officer,  dressed  in  full  uniform, 
had  entered  the  room.  I  was  embarrassed  for 
an  instant  by  the  awkwardness  of  the  situation. 
I  knew  nothing  of  the  officer  except  his  name, 
and  it  was  possible,  of  course,  that  upon  finding 
a  political  exile  there  he  might  behave  towards 
the  latter  in  so  offensive  a  manner  as  to  make 
some  decisive  action  on  my  part  inevitable.  I 
could  not  permit  a  gentleman  who  had  called 
upon  us  to  be  offensively  treated  at  our  table, 
even  if  he  was  officially  regarded  as  a  "crim- 
inal" and  a  "nihilist."  Fortunately  my  ap- 
prehensions proved  to  be  groundless.  Mr. 
Shaitanof,  the  Cossack  officer  who  had  come 
to  see  us,  was  a  gentleman,  as  well  as  a  man  of 
tact  and  good  breeding,  and  whatever  he  may 
have  thought  of  the  presence  of  a  political 
exile  in  our  quarters  so  soon  after  our  arrival, 
he  manifested  neither  surprise  nor  annoyance. 
He  bowed  courteously  when  I  introduced 
Mr.  Gross  to  him,  and  in  five  minutes  they 


726 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


were  engaged  in  an  animated  discussion  of 
bee-keeping,  silk-worm  culture,  and  tobacco 
growing.  Mr.  Shaitanof  said  that  he  had  been 
making  some  experiments  near  Ust  Kameno- 
gorsk  with  mulberry  trees  and  Virginian  and 
Cuban  tobacco  and  had  been  so  successful 
that  he  hoped  to  introduce  silk-worm  culture 
there  the  next  year,  and  to  substitute  for  the 
coarse  native  tobacco  some  of  the  finer  sorts 
from  the  West  Indies  and  the  United  States. 
After  half  an  hour  of  pleasant  conversation 


Kamenogorsk  there  was  at  one  end  of  the 
social  scale  a  peasant  shoemaker  and  at  the 
other  a  Caucasian  princess,  while  between 
these  extremes  were  physicians,  chemists,  au- 
thors, publicists,  university  students,  and  land- 
ed proprietors.  Most  of  them  were  of  noble 
birth  or  belonged  to  the  privileged  classes, 
and  some  of  them  were  men  and  women  of 
high  cultivation  and  refinement.  Among  those 
with  whom  I  became  best  acquainted  were 
Mr.  Konovalof,  who  read  English  well  but 


*.-...- 


r 


A    LAKE    IN    THE    ALTAI. 


Mr.  Shaitanof  bade  us  good-night,  and  Mr. 
dross,  Mr.  Frost,  and  I  went  to  call  on  the 
political  exiles.  In  anticipation  of  our  coming, 
ten  or  fifteen  of  them  had  assembled  in  one 
of  the  large  upper  rooms  of  a  two-story  log- 
building  near  the  center  of  the  town,  which 
served  as  a  residence  for  one  of  them  and  a 
place  of  rendezvous  for  the  others.  It  is,  of 
course,  impracticable,  as  well  as  unnecessary, 
to  describe  and  characterize  all  of  the  politi- 
cal exiles  in  the  Siberian  towns  and  villages 
through  which  we  passed.  The  most  that  I 
aim  to  do  is  to  give  the  reader  a  general  idea 
of  their  appearance  and  behavior,  and  of  the 
impression  that  they  made  upon  me.  The 
exiles  in  Ust  Kamenogorsk  did  not  differ  es- 
sentially from  those  in  Ulbinsk,  except  that, 
taken  as  a  body,  they  furnished  a  greater  va- 
riety of  types  and  represented  a  larger  num- 
ber of  social  classes.  In  Ulbinsk  there  were 
only  professional  men  and  students.  In  Ust 


spoke  it  imperfectly ;  *  Mr.  Milinchuk,  a  dark- 
haired,  dark-bearded  Georgian  fromTiflis;  and 
Mr.  Adam  Bialoveski,  a  writer  and  publicist 
from  the  province  of  Pultava.  The  last-named 
gentleman  impressed  me  as  a  man  of  singular 
ability,  fairness,  and  breadth  of  view.  He  was 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  Russian  history 
and  jurisprudence,  as  well  as  with  the  his- 
tory and  literature  of  the  west  European  na- 
tions; and  although  he  was  disposed  to  take 
rather  a  pessimistic  view  of  life,  and  avowed 
himself  a  disciple  of  Schopenhauer,  he  bore  the 
heavy  burden  of  his  exile  with  cheerfulness  and 
courage.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  him  about  the 
Russian  situation,  and  was  very  favorably  im- 
pressed by  his  cool,  dispassionate  review  of 
the  revolutionary  movement  and  the  measures 
taken  by  the  Government  for  its  suppression. 
His  statements  were  entirely  free  from  exag- 

*  Mr.  Konovalof  committed  suicide  in  Ust  Kameno- 
gorsk about  six  months  after  \ve  left  there. 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


727 


geration  and  prejudice,  and  his  opinions  seemed 
to  me  to  be  almost  judicially  fair  and  impartial. 
To  brand  such  a  man  as  a  "  nihilist "  was 
absurd,  and  to  exile  him  to  Siberia  as  a  dan- 
gerous member  of  society  was  simply  prepos- 
terous. In  any  other  civilized  country  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  except  Russia  he  would  be 
regarded  as  the  most  moderate  of  liberals. 

The  colony  of  political  exiles  in  Ust  Ka- 
menogorsk  was  the  last  one  that  we  saw  in  the 
steppe  provinces,  and  it  seems  to  me  desira- 
ble, before  proceeding  with  the  narrative  of 
our  Siberian  journey,  to  set  forth,  as  fully  as 
space  will  permit,  the  salient  features  of  what 
is  known  in  Russia  as  "  exile  by  administra- 
tive process." 

Exile  by  administrative  process  means  the 
banishment  of  an  obnoxious  person  from  one 
part  of  the  empire  to  another  without  the  ob- 
servance of  any  of  the  legal  formalities  that, 
in  most  civilized  countries,  precede  or  attend 
deprivation  of  rights  and  the  infliction  of  pun- 
ishment. The  person  so  banished  may  not 
be  guilty  of  any  crime,  and  may  not  have  ren- 
dered himself  amenable  in  any  way  to  any  law 
of  the  state;  but  if,  in  the  opinion  of  the  local 
authorities,  his  presence  in  a  particular  place 
is  •'  prejudicial  to  social  order,"  he  may  be  ar- 
rested without  a  warrant,  and,  with  the  con- 
currence of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  may 
be  removed  forcibly  to  any  other  place  within 
the  limits  of  the  empire,  and  there  be  put 
under  police  surveillance  for  a  period  of  five 
years.  He  may,  or  may  not,  be  informed  of 
the  reasons  for  this  summary  proceeding,  but 
in  either  case  he  is  perfectly  helpless.  He  can- 
not examine  the  witnesses  upon  whose  testi- 
mony his  presence  is  declared  to  be  "  prejudicial 
to  social  order."  He  cannot  summon  friends 
to  prove  his  loyalty  and  good  character  with- 
out great  risk  of  bringing  upon  them  the  same 
calamity  which  has  befallen  him.  He  has  no 
right  to  demand  a  trial,  or  even  a  hearing.  He 
cannot  sue  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  He 
cannot  appeal  to  the  public  through  the  press. 
His  communications  with  the  world  are  so 
suddenly  severed  that  sometimes  even  his  own 
relatives  do  not  know  what  has  happened  to 
him.  He  is  literally  and  absolutely  without 
any  means  whatever  of  self-protection. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  sort  of  evidence  upon 
which  the  presence  of  certain  persons  in  the 
cities  and  provinces  of  European  Russia  is  de- 
clared to  be  "  prejudicial  to  social  order,"  I  will 
give  two  typical  cases  from  the  great  number  in 
my  notebooks.  Some  of  the  readers  of  THK 
CENTURY  may  still  remember  a  young  naval 
officer  named  Constantine  Staniukovitch,  who 
was  attached  to  the  staff  of  the  Grand  Duke 
Alexis  at  the  time  of  the  latter's  visit  to  the 
United  States.  From  the  fact  that  I  saw  in  Mr. 


Staniukovitch's  house  in  Tomsk  a  number  of 
visiting  cards  of  people  well  known  in  the  cities 
<>f  New  York  and  San  1'Yancisco,  I  infer  that 
he  went  a  good  deal  into  society  here,  and 
that  he  may  still  be  recalled  to  mind  by  per- 
sons who  met  him.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Rus- 
sian admiral,  was  an  officer  of  great  promise, 
and  had  before  him  the  prospect  of  a  brilliant 
career  in  the  Russian  naval  service.  He  was, 
however,  a  man  of  broad  and  liberal  views, 
with  a  natural  taste  for  literary  pursuits,  and 
after  his  return  from  America  he  resigned  his 
position  in  the  navy  and  became  an  author. 
He  wrote  a  number  of  novels  and  plays  which 
were  very  successful,  but  of  which  the  Gov- 
ernment did  not  approve,  and  in  1882  or  1883 
he  purchased  a  well-known  Russian  magazine 
in  St.  Petersburg  called  the  "  Diello,"  and  be- 
came its  editor  and  proprietor.  He  spent  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  summer  of  1884  abroad, 
and  in  the  latter  part  of  that  year  left  his 
wife  and  children  at  Baden-Baden  and  started 
for  St.  Petersburg.  At  the  Russian  frontier 
station  of  Virzhbolof  he  was  suddenly  arrested, 
was  taken  thence  to  St.  Petersburg  under 
guard,  and  was  there  thrown  into  the  fortress 
of  Petropavlovsk.  His  wife,  knowing  nothing 
of  this  misfortune,  continued  to  write  to  him 
at  St.  Petersburg  without  getting  any  answers 
to  her  letters,  until  finally  she  became  alarmed, 
and  telegraphed  to  the  editorial  department 
of  the"  Diello,"  asking  what  had  happened  to 
her  husband  and  why  he  did  not  write  to 
her.  The  managing  editor  of  the  magazine 
replied  that  Mr.  Staniukovitch  was  not  there, 
and  that  they  had  supposed  him  to  be  still  in 
Baden-Baden.  Upon  the  receipt  of  this  tele- 
gram, Mrs.  Staniukovitch.  thoroughly  fright- 
ened, proceeded  at  once  with  her  children  to 
St.  Petersburg.  Nothing  whatever  could  be 
learned  there  with  regard  to  her  husband's 
whereabouts.  He  had  not  been  seen  at  the 
editorial  rooms  of  the  "  Diello,"  and  none  of 
his  friends  had  heard  anything  of  or  from  him 
in  two  weeks.  He  had  suddenly  and  mysteri- 
ously disappeared.  At  last,  after  days  of  tor- 
turing anxiety,  Mrs.  Staniukovitch  was  advised 
to  make  inquiries  of  General  Orzhefski,  the 
Chief  of  Gendarmes.  She  did  so,  and  found 
that  her  husband  was  a  prisoner  in  one  of  the 
casemates  of  the  Petropavlovsk  fortress.  The 
police,  as  it  afterward  appeared,  had  for  some 
time  been  intercepting  and  reading  his  letters, 
and  had  ascertained  that  he  was  in  corre- 
spondence with  a  well-known  Russian  revolu- 
tionist who  was  then  living  in  Switzerland. 
The  correspondence  was  perfectly  innocent  in 
its  character,  and  related  solely  to  the  business 
of  the  magazine ;  but  the  fact  that  an  editor, 
and  a  man  of  known  liberal  views,  was  in 
communication  with  a  political  refugee  was 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


regarded  as  sufficient  evidence  that  his  pres- 
ence in  St.  Petersburg  would  be  "  prejudicial 
to  social  order,"  and  his  arrest  followed.  In 
May,  1885,  he  was  exiled  for  three  years  by 
administrative  process  to  the  city  of  Tomsk, 
in  western  Siberia.  The  publication  of  the 
magazine  was  of  course  suspended  in  conse- 
quence of  the  imprisonment  and  ultimate  ban- 
ishment of  its  owner,  and  Mr.  Staniukovitch 
was  financially  ruined.  If  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment deals  in  this  arbitrary  way  with  men 
of  rank,  wealth,  and  high  social  position  in  the 
capital  of  the  empire,  it  can  be  imagined  what 
treatment  is  accorded  to  physicians,  students, 
and  small  landed  proprietors  whose  presence 
is  regarded  as  "  prejudicial  to  social  order  " 
in  the  provinces. 

In  the  year  1879  there  was  living  in  the 
town  of  Ivangorod,  in  the  province  of  Cherni- 
gof,  a  skillful  and  accomplished  young  surgeon 
named  Dr.  Baillie.  Although  he  was  a  man 
of  liberal  views,  he  was  not  an  agitator  nor 
a  revolutionist,  and  had  taken  no  active  part 
in  political  affairs.  Some  time  in  the  late 
winter  or  early  spring  of  1879  there  came  to 
him,  with  letters  of  introduction,  two  young 
women  who  had  been  studying  in  one  of  the 
medical  schools  for  women  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  had  been  expelled  and  ordered  to  return 
to  their  homes  in  central  Russia  on  account 
of  their  alleged  political  "  untrustworthiness  " 
(neblagonadezhnost).  They  were  very  anxious 
to  complete  their  education  and  to  fit  them- 
selves for  useful  work  among  the  peasants ;  and 
they  begged  Dr.  Baillie  to  aid  them  in  their 
studies,  to  hear  their  recitations,  and  to  allow 
them  to  make  use  of  his  library  and  the  facili- 
ties of  his  office.  As  they  were  both  in  an  "  il- 
legal "  position, — that  is,  were  living  in  a  place 
where,  without  permission  from  the  authorities, 
they  had  no  right  to  be, —  it  was  Dr.  Bail- 
lie's  duty  as  a  loyal  subject  to  hand  them  over 
to  the  police,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  they 
had  come  to  him  with  letters  of  introduction 
and  a  petition  for  help.  He  happened,  how- 
ever, to  be  a  man  of  courage,  independence, 
and  generous  instincts ;  and  instead  of  betray- 
ing them,  he  listened  with  sympathy  to  their 
story,  promised  them  his  aid,  introduced  them 
to  his  wife,  and  began  to  give  them  lessons. 
The  year  1879  was  a  year  of  intense  revolu- 
tionary activity  in  Russia.  Attempts  were 
constantly  being  made  by  the  terrorists  to  as- 
sassinate high  Government  officials  ;  and  the 
police,  in  all  parts  of  the  empire,  were  more 
than  usually  suspicious  and  alert.  The  visits 
of  the  young  girls  to  Dr.  Baillie's  house  and 
office  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
local  authorities  in  Ivangorod,  and  they  took 
steps  to  ascertain  who  they  were  and  where 
they  had  come  from.  An  investigation  showed 


that  one  of  them  was  living  on  a  forged  pass- 
port, while  the  other  had  none,  and  that  both 
had  been  expelled  from  St.  Petersburg  for  polit- 
ical "  untrustworthiness."  'I  heir  unauthorized 
appearance  in  Ivangorod.  when  they  should 
have  been  at  their  homes,  and  their  half-secret 
visits  —  generally  at  night  —  to  the  house  of 
Dr.  Baillie,  were  regarded  as  evidence  of  a 
political  conspiracy,  and  on  the  loth  of  May, 
1879,  both  they  and  the  young  surgeon  were 
arrested  and  exiled  by  administrative  process 
to  Siberia.  Dr.  Baillie  eventually  was  sent  to 
the  arctic  village  of  Verkhoyansk,  latitude 
67.30.111  the  province  of  Yakutsk,  where  he  was 
seen  in  1882  by  Engineer  Melville,  Lieutenant 
Danenhower,  Mr.  \V.  H.  Gilder,  and  all  the 
survivors  of  the  arctic  exploring  steamer  Jcan- 
nettc.  At  the  time  of  Dr.  Baillie's  banish- 
ment, his  wife,  a  beautiful  young  woman,  24  or 
25  yearsofage,  wasexpectingconfinement,and 
was  therefore  unable  to  go  to  Siberia  with  him. 
As  soon  as  possible,  however,  after  the  birth 
of  her  child,  and  before  she  had  fully  recov- 
ered her  strength,  she  left  her  nursing  baby 
with  relatives  and  started  on  a  journey  of  more 
than  6000  miles  to  join  her  husband  in  a  vil- 
lage situated  north  of  the  Arctic  Circle  and 
near  the  Asiatic  pole  of  cold.  She  had  not  the 
necessary  means  to  make  such  a  journey  by 
rail,  steamer,  and  post,  as  Lieutenant  Scheutze 
made  it  in  1885-86,  and  was  therefore  forced 
to  ask  permission  ofthe  Minister  of  the  Interior 
to  travel  with  a  party  of  exiles.*  As  far  as  the 
city  of  Tomsk  in  western  Siberia,  both  politi- 
cal and  common  criminal  exiles  are  transported 
in  convict  trains  or  barges.  Beyond  that  point 
the  common  criminals  walk,  and  the  politicals 
are  carried  in  telegas,  at  the  rate  of  about 
sixty  miles  a  week,  stopping  in  an  etape  every 
third  day  for  rest.  At  this  rate  of  progress 
Mrs.  Baillie  would  have  reached  her  husband's 
place  of  exile  only  after  sixteen  months  of 
incessant  hardship,  privation,  and  suffering. 
But  she  did  not  reach  it.  For  many  weeks 
her  hope,  courage,  and  love  sustained  her,  and 
enabled  her  to  endure  without  complaint  the 
jolting,  the  suffocating  dust,  the  scorching  heat, 
and  the  cold  autumnal  rains  on  the  road,  and 
the  bad  food,  the  plank  sleeping-benches,  the 
vermin,  and  the  pestilential  air  ofthe  etapes; 
but  human  endurance  has  its  limits.  Three 
or  four  months  of  this  unrelieved  misery,  with 
constant  anxiety  about  her  husband  and  for  the 
babe  that,  for  her  husband's  sake,  she  had  aban- 
doned in  Russia,  broke  down  her  health  and 
her  spirit.  She  sank  into  deep  despondency 

*  By  Russian  law  a  wife  may  go  to  her  exiled  hus- 
band at  the  expense  of  the  Government,  provided  she 
travels  with  an  exile  party,  lives  on  the  exile  ration, 
sleeps  in  the  road-side  etapes,  and  submits  generally 
to  prison  discipline. 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


729 


and  eventually  began  to  show  signs  of  mental 
aberration.  After  passing  Krasnoyarsk  her 
condition  became  such  that  any  sudden  shock 
was  likely  completely  to  overthrow  her  reason 
—  and  the  shock  soon  came.  There  are  two 
villages  in  eastern  Siberia  whose  names  are 
almost  alike — Verkholensk  and  Verkhoyansk. 
The  former  is  situated  on  the  river  Lena,  only 
1 80  miles  from  Irkutsk,  while  the  latter  is  on 
the  head-waters  of  the  Yana,  and  is  distant 
from  Irkutsk  nearly  2700  miles.  As  the  party 
with  which  she  was  traveling  approached  the 
capital  of  eastern  Siberia,  her  hope,  strength, 
and  courage  seemed  to  revive.  Her  husband 
she  thought  was  only  a  few  hundred  miles 

*  Yera  Figner  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  daring 
of  the  Russian  revolutionists  and  organized  in  Odessa 
in  1882  the  plot  which  resulted  in  the  assassination  of 
General  Strelmkoff.  She  was  arrested,  tried, and  con- 
demned to  death,  but  her  sentence  was  afterward 
commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life  in  the  Castle  of 
Schlusselburg.  She  is  believed  to  have  died  there  in 
1885. 

VOL.  XXXVI.— 100. 


away,  and  in  a  few  more  weeks  she 
would  be  in  his  arms.  She  talked  of 
him  constantly,  counted  the  vcrst- 
posts  which  measured  her  slow  prog- 
ress towards  him,  and  literally  lived 
upon  the  expectation  of  speedy  reun- 
ion with  him.  A  fe\v  stations  west 
of  Irkutsk  she  accidentally  became 
aware,  for  the  first  time,  that  her  hus- 
band was  not  in  Verkholensk,  but  in 
Verkhoyansk;  that  she  was  still  sepa- 
rated from  him  by  nearly  3000  miles 
of  mountain,  steppe,  and  forest ;  and 
that  in  order  to  reach  his  place  of 
banishment  that  year  she  would  have 
to  travel  many  weeks  alone,  on  dog 
or  reindeer  sledges,  in  terrible  cold, 
through  the  arctic  solitudes  of  north- 
eastern Asia.  The  sudden  shock  of 
this  discovery  was  almost  immedi- 
ately fatal.  She  became  violently 
insane,  and  died  insane  a  few  months 
later  in  the  Irkutsk  prison  hospital, 
without  ever  seeing  again  the  hus- 
band for  whose  sake  she  had  en- 
dured such  mental  and  physical 
agonies. 

I  have  been  compelled  to  restrict 
myself  to  the  barest  outline  of  this 
terrible  tragedy;  but  if  the  reader 
could  hear  the  story,  as  I  heard  it, 
from  the  lips  of  exiles  who  traveled 
with  Mrs.  Baillie,  who  saw  the  flick- 
ering spark  of  her  reason  go  out,  and 
who  helped  aftenvard  to  take  care  of 
her,  he  would  not  wonder  that  "  exile 
by  administrative  process"  makes 
"terrorists,"  but  rather  that  it  does 
not  make  a  nation  of  "  terrorists."  t 
It  would  be  easy  to  fill  pages  of  THE  CEN- 
TURY with  a  statement  of  the  cases  of  Rus- 
sians who  in  the  last  ten  years  have  been 
exiled  to  Siberia  by  administrative  process, 
not  only  without  reasonable  cause,  but  with- 
out even  the  shadow  of  a  cause.  The  well- 
known  Russian  novelist  Vladimir  Korolenko, 
one  of  whose  books  has  recently  been  trans- 
lated into  English  and  published  in  Boston, 
was  exiled  to  eastern  Siberia  in  1879,  as  the 
result  of  what  the  Government  itself  finally 
admitted  to  be  an  official  mistake.  Through 
the  influence  of  powerful  friends,  he  succeeded 
in  getting  this  mistake  corrected  before  he 
reached  his  destination,  and  was  permitted  to 

t  My  authorities  for  the  facts  of  this  case  are :  first,  a 
well-known  member  of  a  Russian  provincial  assembly, 
a  man  of  the  highest  character,  who  was  personally 
cognizant  of  the  circumstances  attending  Dr.  Baillie's 
arrest  and  banishment ;  secondly,  exiles  who  went  to 
Siberia  in  the  same  party  with  Dr.  Baillie ;  and,  thirdly, 
exiles — one  of  them  a  lady  —  who  were  in  the  same 
party  with  Dr.  Baillie's  wile. 


73° 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE   PROCESS. 


SOPHIA   NIKITINA. 


return  from  Tomsk.  Irritated  by  this  injustice, 
and  by  many  months  of  prison  and  etape  life, 
he  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
Alexander  III.  upon  the  accession  of  the  lat- 
ter to  the  throne,  and  for  this  obstinacy  was 
exiled  to  the  province  of  Yakutsk.* 

Mr.  Borodin,  a  well-known  writer  for  the 
Russian  magazine  "  Annals  of  the  Father- 
land," was  banished  to  the  province  of  Ya- 
kutsk on  account  of  the  "  dangerous "  and 
"  pernicious  "  character  of  a  manuscript  found 
in  his  house  by  the  police  during  a  search. 
This  manuscript  was  a  copy  of  an  article  upon 
the  economic  condition  of  the  province  of 
Viatka,  which  Mr.  Borodin  had  sent  to  the 
above-named  magazine,  but  which  up  to  that 


time  had  not  been  published.  Mr. 
Borodin  went  to  eastern  Siberia  in  a 
convict's  gray  overcoat  with  a  yellow 
ace  of  diamonds  on  his  back,  and  three 
or  four  months  after  his  arrival  in 
Yakutsk  he  had  the  pleasure  of  read- 
ing in  the  "Annals  of  the  Fatherland" 
the  very  same  article  for  which  he  had 
been  exiled.  The  Minister  of  the  Inte- 
rior had  sent  him  to  Siberia  merely  for 
having  in  his  possession  a  "  danger- 
ous" and  "pernicious"  manuscript, 
and  then  the  St.  Petersburg  Commit- 
tee of  Censorship  had  certified  that 
another  copy  of  that  same  manuscript 
was  perfectly  harmless,  and  had  al- 
lowed it  to  be  published,  without  the 
change  of  a  line,  in  one  of  the  most 
popular  and  widely  circulated  maga- 
zines in  the  empire.t 

A  gentleman  named  Otchkin,  in 
Moscow,  was  exiled  to  Siberia  by  ad- 
ministrative process  in  1885  merely 
because,  to  adopt  the  language  of  the 
order  which  was  issued  for  his  arrest, 
he  was  "  suspected  of  an  intention  to 
put  himself  into  an  illegal  position." 
The  high  crime  which  Mr.  Otchkin 
was  "  suspected  of  an  intention  "  to 
commit  was  the  taking  of  a  fictitious 
name  in  place  of  his  own.  Upon 
what  ground  he  was  "  suspected  of 
an  intention  "  to  do  this  terrible  thing 
he  never  knew. 

Another  exile  of  my  acquaintance, 
Mr.  Y ,  was  banished  merely  be- 
cause he  was  afriend  of  Mr.  Z ,  who 

was  awaiting  trial  on  the  charge  of  po- 
litical conspiracy.  When  Mr.  Z 's 

case  came  to  a  judicial  investigation  he  was 
found  to  be  innocent  and  was  acquitted;  but 

in   the  mean  time,   Mr.  Y ,   merely    for 

being  a  friend  of  this  innocent  man,  had  gone 
to  Siberia  by  administrative  process. 

In  another  case  a  young  student,  called 
Vladimir  Sidorski  (I  use  a  fictitious  name), 
was  arrested  by  mistake  instead  of  another 
and  a  different  Sidorski  named  Victor,  whose 
presence  in  Moscow  was  regarded  by  some- 
body as  "prejudicial  to  social  order."  Vladi- 
mir protested  that  he  was  not  Victor,  that  he 
did  not  know  Victor,  and  that  his  arrest  in 
the  place  of  Victor  was  the  result  of  a  stupid 
blunder ;  but  his  protestations  were  of  no  avail. 
The  police  were  too  much  occupied  in  un- 


*  A  statement  of  the  circumstances  of  Mr.  Korolen-     paper  press.    The  account  of  Mr.  Borodin's  experience 
was  published  in  the     and  of  the  exile  of  Mr.   Korolenko  was  published  at 


ko's  first  banishment  to  Siberia 


Russian  newspaper  "  Zemstvo  "  for  1881,  No.  10,  p.  19. 
t "  Zemstvo,"  1881,  No.  10,  p.  19.    It  is  not  often,  of 

course,  that  facts  of  this  kind,  which  are  so  damag-     Tsar,  and  when  the  strictness  of  the  censorship  was 
ing  to  the  Government,  get  into  the  Russian  news-     greatly  relaxed. 


the  time  when  the  liberal  ministry  of  Loris  Melikoff 
was  in  power,  just  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  the  late 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


earthing  "  conspiracies "  and  looking  after 
"  untrustworthy  "  people  to  devote  any  time 
to  a  troublesome  verification  of  an  insignifi- 
cant student's  identity.  There  must  have  been 
something  wrong  about  him,  they  argued,  or 
he  would  not  have  been  arrested,  and  the 
safest  thing  to  do  with  him  was  to  send  him 
to  Siberia,  whoever  he  might  be  —  and  to  Si- 
beria he  was  sent.  When  the  convoy  officer 
called  the  roll  of  the  out-going  exile  party, 
Vladimir  Sidorski  failed  to  answer  to  Victor 
Sidorski's  name,  and  the  officer,  with  a  curse. 
cried,  "Victor  Sidorski!  Why  don't  you  an- 
swer to  your  name  ?  " 

"  It  is  not  my  name,"  replied  Vladimir, 
"  and  I  won't  answer  to  it.  It 's  another  Si- 
dorski who  ought  to  be  going  to  Siberia." 

"  What  is  your  name  then  ?  " 

Vladimir  told  him.  The  officer  coolly  erased 
the  name  "  Victor  "  in  the  roll  of  the  party,  in- 
serted the  name  "  Vladimir,"  and  remarked 

cynically,  "It  does  n't  make  a bit  of 

difference ! " 

In  1874  a  young  student  named  Egor  Laz- 
aref  was  arrested  in  one  of  the  south-eastern 
provinces  of  European  Russia  upon  the  charge 
of  carrying  on  a  secret  revolutionary  propa- 
ganda. He  was  taken  to  St.  Petersburg  and 
kept  in  solitary  confinement  in  the  House  of 
Preliminary  Detention  and  in  the  fortress  for 
about  four  years.  He  was  then  tried  with 
"the  193"  and  acquitted.*  One  would  sup- 
pose that  to  be  arrested  without  cause,  to  be 
held  four  years  in  solitary  confinement,  to  be 
finally  declared  innocent,  and  then  to  have  no 
means  whatever  of  redress,  would  make  a  rev- 
olutionist, if  not  a  terrorist,  out  of  the  most 
peaceable  citizen;  but  Mr.  Lazaref,  as  soon 
as  he  had  been  released,  quietly  completed 
his  education  in  the  University,  studied  law, 
and  began  the  practice  of  his  profession  in  the 
city  of  Saratof  on  the  Volga.  He  had  no  more 
trouble  with  the  Government  until  the  summer 
of  1884,  when  a  police  officer  suddenly  ap- 
peared to  him  one  morning  and  said  that  the 
governor  of  the  province  would  like  to  see  him. 
Mr.  Lazaref,  who  was  on  pleasant  personal 
terms  with  the  governor,  went  at  once  to  the 
latter's  "  konsilaria,"  or  office,  where  he  was 
coolly  informed  that  he  was  to  be  exiled  by 
administrative  process  to  eastern  Siberia  for 
three  years.  Mr.  Lazaref  stood  aghast. 

"  May  I  ask  your  high  excellency  for  what 
reason  ?  "  he  finally  inquired. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  replied  the  governor.  "  I 
have  received  orders  to  that  effect  from  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior,  and  that  is  all  I  know 
about  it." 

*  Indictment  in  the  case  of  the  193,  and  sentence  in 
the  same  case.  The  original  documents  are  in  my  pos- 
session. 


Through  the  influence  of  friends  in  St.  Pe- 
tersburg, Mr.  l.a/.aref  obtained  a  respite  of 
two  weeks  in  which  to  settle  up  his  affairs, 
and  he  was  then  sent  as  a  prisoner  to  Moscow. 
He  reached  that  city  after  the  last  party  of 
political  exiles  had  been  dispatched  for  the 
season,  and  had  to  live  in  the  Moscow  for- 
warding prison  until  the  next  spring.  While 
there  he  wrote  a  respectful  letter  to  the  De- 
partment of  Imperial  Police,  asking,  as  a  fa- 
vor, that  he  might  be  informed  for  what  reason 
he  was  to  be  exiled  to  eastern  Siberia.  The 
reply  that  he  received  was  comprised  in  two 
lines,  and  was  as  follows :  "  You  are  to  be  put 
under  police  surveillance  in  eastern  Siberia  be- 
cause you  have  not  abandoned  your  previous 
criminal  activity."  In  other  words,  he  was  to 


PHINCE     KRAPOTKISE. 


be  banished  to  the  Trans-Baikal  because  he 
had  not  "  abandoned  "  the  "  previous  criminal 
activity  "  of  which  a  court  of  justice  had  found 
him  not  guilty !  In  the  Moscow  forwarding 
prison,  soon  after  Mr.  Lazaref 's  arrival,  a  num- 
ber of  the  political  prisoners  were  comparing 
experiences  one  day  and  asking  one  another 
for  what  offenses  they  had  been  condemned 
to  banishment.  One  said  that  forbidden  books 
had  been  found  in  his  house ;  another  said  that 
he  had  been  accused  of  carrying  on  a  revolu- 
tionary propaganda;  and  a  third  admitted 
that  he  had  been  a  member  of  a  secret  society. 
Finally  Mr.  Lazaref's  turn  came,  and  upon 
being  asked  why  he  was  on  his  way  to  Siberia, 
he  replied  simply,  "  I  don't  know." 

"  Don't  know !  "  exclaimed  one  of  his  com- 


732 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


GRECOK1E  MACHTET. 


HELE.NK   MACHTET. 


rades.  "  Did  n't  your  father  have  a  black  and 
white  cow  ?  " 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Mr.  Lazaref.  "  He  had 
.a  lot  of  cows." 

"  Well! "  rejoined  his  comrade  triumphantly, 
•"  what  more  would  you  have?  That 's  enough 
-to  exile  twenty  men  —  and  yet  he  says  he 
does  n't  know  !  " 

On  the  loth  of  May,  1885,  Mr.  Lazaref  left 
Moscow  with  an  exile  party  for  Siberia,  and 
on  the  loth  of  October,  1885,  after  twenty-two 
weeks  of  travel  "  by  etape,"  reached  the  town 
of  Chita,  in  the  Trans- Baikal,  where  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  making  his  acquaintance. 

The  grotesque  injustice,  the  heedless  cruelty, 
and  the  preposterous  "  mistakes  "  and  "  mis- 
understandings "  that  make  the  history  of 
administrative  exile  in  Russia  seem  to  an  Amer- 
ican like  the  recital  of  a  wild  nightmare  are 
due  to  the  complete  absence,  in  the  Russian 
form  of  government,  of  checks  upon  the  execu- 
tive power,  and  the  almost  equally  complete 
absence  of  official  responsibility  for  unjust  or 
illegal  action.  The  Minister  of  the  Interior,  in 
dealing  with  politicals,  is  not  restrained  to  any 
great  extent  by  law ;  and  as  it  is  utterly  impos- 
sible forhim  personally  to  examine  all  of  the  im- 
mense number  of  political  cases  that  come 
to  him  for  final  decision,  he  is  virtually  forced 


to  delegate  a  part  of  his  irresponsible  power 
to  chiefs  of  police,  chiefs  of  gendarmes,  gov- 
ernors of  provinces,  and  subordinates  in  his 
own  ministry.  They  in  turn  are  compelled, 
for  similar  reasons,  to  intrust  a  part  of  their 
authority  and  discretion  to  officers  of  still 
lower  grade;  and  the  latter,  who  often  are 
stupid,  ignorant,  or  unscrupulous  men,  are  the 
persons  who  really  make  the  investigations, 
the  searches,  and  the  examinations  upon 
which  the  life  or  liberty  of  an  accused  citizen 
may  depend.  Theoretically,  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior,  aided  by  a  council  composed  of 
three  of  his  own  subordinates  and  two  offi- 
cers from  the  Ministry  of  Justice,  reviews  and 
reexamines  the  cases  of  all  political  offenders 
who  are  dealt  with  by  administrative  process ;  * 
but  practically  he  does  nothing  of  the  kind, 
and  it  is  impossible  that  he  should  do  anything 
of  the  kind,  for  the  very  simple  reason  that  he 
has  not  the  time.  According  to  the  Russian 
newspaper  "  Strana,"  in  the  year  1881  there 
came  before  the  Department  of  Imperial 
Police  1500  political  cases.t  A  very  large 

*  Vide  "  Rules  concerning  Measures  to  be  taken  for 
the  Preservation  of  Civil  Order  and  Public  Peace,"  ap- 
proved by  the  Tsar,  August  14,  1881.  Chapter  V., 
section  34. 

t  Quoted  in  newspaper  "Sibir"  for  Jan.  31,  1882,  p-5- 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


733 


proportion  of  these  cases  were  dealt  with  by 
administrative  process,  and  if  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  had  given  to  each  one  of  them  a 
half,  or  one-quarter,  of  the  study  which  was 
absolutely  essential  to  a  clear  comprehension 
of  it,  he  would  have  had  no  time  to  attend  to 
anything  else.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  not 
give  the  cases  such  study,  but,  as  a  rule,  sim- 
ply signed  the  papers  that  came  up  to  him 
from  below.  Of  course  he  would  not  have 
signed  the  order  for  the  exile  of  Mr.  Korolenko 
to  the  province  of  Yakutsk  if  he  had  known 
that  the  whole  charge  against  the  young  nov- 
elist was  based  on  a  mistake ;  nor  would  he 
have  signed  the  order  for  the  exile  of  Mr. 
Borodin  if  he  had  been  aware  that  the  maga- 
zine article  for  which  the  author  was  banished 
had  been  approved  by  the  St.  Petersburg  Com- 
mittee of  Censorship.  He  accepted  the  state- 
ments passed  up  to  him  by  a  long  line  of 
subordinate  officials,  and  signed  his  name 
merely  as  a  formality  and  as  a  matter  of 
course.  How  easy  it  is  in  Russia  to  get  a  high 
official's  signature  to  any  sort  of  a  document 
may  be  illustrated  by  an  anecdote  that  I  have 
every  reason  to  believe  is  absolutely  true. 
A  "  stola-nachalnik,"  or  head  of  a  bureau,  in 
the  provincial  administration  of  Tobolsk,  while 
boasting  one  day  about  his  power  to  shape 
and  direct  governmental  action,  made  a  wager 
with  another  chinovnik  that  he  could  get  the 
governor  of  the  province  —  the  late  Governor 
Lissogorski  —  to  sign  a  manuscript  copy  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  He  wrote  the  prayer  out  in 
the  form  of  an  official  document  on  a  sheet  of 
stamped  paper,  numbered  it,  attached  the 
proper  seal  to  it,  and  handed  it  to  the  gov- 
ernor with  a  pile  of  other  papers  which  required 
signature.  He  won  his  wager.  The  governor 
duly  signed  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  it  was  prob- 
ably as  harmless  an  official  document  as  ever 
came  out  of  his  office. 

How  much  of  this  sort  of  careless  and  reck- 
less signing  there  was  in  the  cases  of  political 
offenders  dealt  with  by  administrative  process 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  when  the 
liberal  minister  Loris  Melikoff  came  into  power 
in  1880,  he  found  it  necessary  to  appoint  a 
revisory  commission,  under  the  presidency  of 
General  Cherevin,  to  investigate  the  cases  of 
persons  who  had  been  exiled  and  put  under 
police  supervision  by  administrative  process, 
and  to  correct,  so  far  as  possible,  the  "mis- 
takes," "  misunderstandings,"  and  "  irregulari- 
ties "  against  which  the  sufferers  in  all  parts  of 
the  empire  began  to  protest  as  soon  as  the 
appointment  of  a  new  Minister  of  the  Interior 
gave  them  some  reason  to  hope  that  their 
complaints  would  be  heeded.  There  were 
said  to  be  at  that  time  2800  political  offenders 
in  Siberia  and  in  various  remote  parts  of  Eu- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 101. 


ropean  Russia  who  had  been  exiled  and  put 
under  police  surveillance  by  administrative 
process.  Up  to  the  23d  of  January,  1881, 
Genera)  Cherevin's  commission  had  examined 
the  cases  of  650  such  persons,  and  had  recom- 
d  that  328,  or  more  than  half  of  them, 
be  immediately  released  and  returned  to  their 
homes.* 

Of  course  the  only  remedy  for  such  a  state 
of  things  as  this  is  to  take  the  investigation  of 
political  offenses  out  of  the  hands  of  an  irre- 
sponsible police,  put  it  into  the  courts,  where 
it  belongs,  and  allow  the  accused  to  be  de- 
fended there  by  counsel  of  their  own  selection. 
This  remedy,  however,  the  Government  per- 
sistently refuses  to  adopt.  The  Moscow  As- 
sembly of  Nobles,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr. 
U.  F.  Samarin,  one  of  its  members,  sent 
a  respectful  but  urgent  memorial  to  the 
Crown,  recommending  that  every  political 
exile  who  had  been  dealt  with  by  administra- 
tive process  should  be  given  the  right  to  de- 
mand a  judicial  investigation  of  his  case.  The 
memorial  went  unheeded,  and  the  Govern- 
ment, I  believe,  did  not  even  make  a  reply  to 
it.t 

Before  the  year  1882  the  rights,  privileges, 
and  obligations  of  political  offenders  exiled  to 
Siberia  by  administrative  process  were  set 
forth  only  in  secret  circular-letters,  sent  from 
time  to  time  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 
to  the  governors  of  the  different  Siberian  prov- 
inces. Owing  to  changes  in  the  ministry, 
changes  in  circumstances,  and  changes  of 
ministerial  policy,  these  circular-letters  of  in- 
struction ultimately  became  so  contradictory, 
or  so  inconsistent  one  with  another,  and  led  to 
so  many  "  misunderstandings,"  "  irregularities," 
and  collisions  between  the  exiles  and  the  local 
authorities  in  the  Siberian  towns  and  villages, 
that  on  the  i2th  of  March,  1882,  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  drew  up,  and  the  Tsar  approved, 
a  set  of  rules  for  the  better  regulation  of  po- 
lice surveillance  and  exile  by  administrative 
process.  An  official  copy  of  this  paper,  which 
I  brought  back  with  me  from  Siberia,  lies  be- 
fore me  as  I  write.  It  is  entitled,  "  Rules  con- 
cerning Police  Surveillance."  ("  Polozhenie  o 
Politseskom  Nadzore.")  The  first  thing  that 
strikes  the  reader  in  a  perusal  of  this  docu- 
ment is  the  fact  that  it  declares  exile  and  po- 
lice surveillance  to  be,  not  punishments  for 
crimes  already  committed,  but  measures  of 
precaution  to  prevent  the  commission  of  crimes 
that  evil-minded  men  may  contemplate.  The 
first  section  reads  as  follows :  "  Police  sur- 
veillance [which  includes  administrative  ex- 

*  An  official  announcement  by  the  Government, 
quoted  in  the  newspaper  "  Sibir  for  Jan.  31,  1881, 
p.  I. 

t  Newspaper  "Zemstvo,"  1881,  No.  10,  p.  21. 


734 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS. 


ilej  is  a  means  of  preventing  crimes  against 
the  existing  imperial  order  [the  present  form 
of  government] ;  and  it  is  applicable  to  all  per- 
sons who  are  prejudicial  to  the  public  peace." 
The  power  to  decide  when  a  man  is  "  preju- 
dicial to  the  public  peace,"  and  when  exile 
and  surveillance  shall  be  resorted  to  as  a  means 
of"  preventing  crime,"  is  vested  in  the  govern- 
ors-general, the  governors,  and  the  police; 
and  in  the  exercise  of  that  power  they  pay 
quite  as  much  attention  to  the  opinions  that 
a  man  holds  as  to  the  acts  that  he  commits. 
They  can  hardly  do  otherwise.  If  they  should 
wait  in  all  cases  for  the  commission  of  crimi- 
nal acts,  they  would  not  be  "preventingcnme" 
but  merely  watching  and  waiting  for  it,  while 
the  object  of  administrative  exile  is  to  prevent 
crime  by  anticipation.  Clearly,  then,  the  only 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  nip  crime  in  the  bud 
by  putting  under  restraint,  or  sending  to  Si- 
beria, every  man  whose  political  opinions  are 
such  as  to  raise  a  presumption  that  he  will 
commit  a  crime  "  against  the  existing  imperial 
order"  if  he  sees  a  favorable  opportunity  for 
so  doing.  Administrative  exile,  therefore,  is 
directed  against  ideas  and  opinions  from 
which  criminal  acts  may  come,  rather  than 
against  the  criminal  acts  themselves.  It  is 
designed  to  anticipate  and  prevent  the  acts 
by  suppressing  or  discouraging  the  opinions ; 
and,  such  being  the  case,  the  document  which 
lies  before  me  should  be  called,  not  "  Rules 
concerning  Police  Surveillance,"  but  "  Rules 
for  the  Better  Regulation  of  Private  Opin- 
ion." In  the  spirit  of  this  latter  title  the 
"  Rules"  are  interpreted  by  most  of  the  Rus- 
sian police. 

The  pretense  that  administrative  exile  is  not 
a  punishment,  but  only  a  precaution,  is  a  mere 
juggle  with  words.  The  Government  says, 
"  We  do  not  exile  a  man  and  put  him  under 
police  surveillance  as  a  punishment  for  hold- 
ing certain  opinions,  but  only  as  a  means  of 
preventing  him  from  giving  such  opinions  out- 
ward expression  in  criminal  acts."  If  the  ban- 
ishment of  a  man  to  the  province  of  Yakutsk 
for  five  years  is  not  a  "  punishment,"  then  the 
word  "punishment"  must  have  in  Russian 
jurisprudence  a  very  peculiar  and  restricted 
signification.  In  the  case  of  women  and  young 
girls  a  sentence  of  banishment  to  eastern  Si- 
beria is  almost  equivalent  to  a  sentence  of 
death,  on  account  of  the  terrible  hardships  of 
the  journey  and  the  disease-saturated  condi- 
tion of  the  etapes —  and  yet  the  Government 
says  that  exile  by  administrative  process  is  not 
a  punishment! 

In  1884  a  pretty  and  intelligent  young  girl 
named  Sophia  Nikitina,  who  was  attending 
school  in  Kiev,  was  banished  by  administra- 
tive process  to  one  of  the  remote  provinces  of 


eastern  Siberia.  In  the  winter  of  1884-85, 
when  she  had  accomplished  about  3000  miles 
of  her  terrible  journey,  on  the  road  between 
Tomsk  and  Atchinsk  she  was  taken  sick  with 
typhus  fever,  contracted  in  one  of  the  pesti- 
lential etapes.  Physicians  are  not  sent  with 
exile  parties  in  Siberia,  and  politicals  who 
happen  to  be  taken  sick  on  the  road  are  car- 
ried forward,  regardless  of  their  condition  and 
regardless  of  the  weather,  until  the  party  comes 
to  a  lazaret,  or  prison  hospital.  There  are  only 
four  such  lazarets  between  Tomsk  and  Irkutsk, 
a  distance  of  about  a  thousand  miles,  and  con- 
sequently sick  prisoners  are  sometimes  car- 
ried in  sleighs  or  telegas,  at  a  snail's  pace,  for 
a  week  or  two  —  if  they  do  not  die  —  before 
they  finally  obtain  rest,  a  bed,  and  a  physician. 
How  many  days  of  cold  and  misery  Miss  Ni- 
kitina endured  on  the  road  that  winter  after 
she  was  taken  sick,  and  before  she  reached 
Atchinsk  and  received  medical  treatment,  I 
do  not  know  ;  but  in  the  Atchinsk  lazaret  her 
brief  life  ended.  It  must  have  been  a  satisfac- 
tion to  her,  as  she  lay  dying  in  a  foul  prison 
hospital,  3000  miles  from  her  home,  to  think 
that  she  was  not  undergoing  "  punishment  " 
for  anything  that  she  had  done,  but  was  merely 
being  subjected  to  necessary  restraint  by  a 
parental  Government,  in  order  that  she  might 
not  sometime  be  tempted  to  do  something 
that  would  have  a  tendency  to  raise  a  pre- 
sumption that  her  presence  in  Kiev  was  about 
to  become  more  or  less  "  prejudicial  to  social 
order." 

Helene  Machtet  (born  Medvedieva),  whose 
portrait  will  be  found  on  page  732,  and  whose 
reading  of  Turgenef 's  "  Virgin  Soil "  to  her 
"  pipe  club  "  in  a  St.  Petersburg  prison  I  have 
referred  to  in  a  previous  article,  died  in  Mos- 
cow in  1886  soon  after  her  return  from  a  long 
term  of  exile  in  western  Siberia.  Her  husband, 
Gregorie  Machtet,  one  of  the  most  talented 
oi  the  younger  novelists  of  Russia,  was  arrested 
on  the  very  threshold  of  a  brilliant  literary  ca- 
reer and  exiled  to  Siberia  by  administrative 
process.  His  portrait  may  recall  him  to  the 
minds  of  some  of  the  readers  of  THE  CEN- 
TURY in  Kansas,  where  he  lived  for  a  time 
during  a  visit  that  he  made  to  the  United 
States. 

Prince  Alexander  Krapotkine,  a  most  ac- 
complished gentleman  and  fine  mathemati- 
cian and  astronomer,  was  exiled  to  Siberia 
by  administrative  process,  mainly  because  he 
was  the  brother  of  Prince  Pierre  Krapotkine, 
the  well-known  Russian  revolutionist,  who 
now  resides  in  London.  Alexander  Kra- 
potkine lived  ten  years  in  banishment,  and 
then  committed  suicide  at  Tomsk  in  1886. 

Victoria  Gukofskaya,  a  school-girl  only 
fourteen  years  of  age,  was  banished  from 


OLD   AGE'S   f.AMBENT  PEAKS. 


735 


Odessa  to  eastern  Siberia  in  1878,  and 
hanged  herself  at  Krasnoyarsk  in  1881. 

An  administrative  exile  named  Bochin  went 
insane  at  the  village  of  Amga,  in  the  province 
of  Yakutsk,  in  1883,  and  after  killing  his  wife, 
who  also  was  an  administrative  exile,  and  his 
child,  which  had  been  born  in  exile,  he  took 
poison. 

In  the  face  of  all  these  terrible  tragedies, 
and  of  many  more  to  which  I  cannot  now 
even  refer,  the  Russian  Government  pretends 
that  exile  by  administrative  process  is  not  a 
"  punishment,"  but  merely  a  wise  precaution 
intended  to  restrain  people  from  wrong-doing. 

I  have  not  space  in  this  article  for  a  tenth 
part  of  the  evidence  which  I  collected  in 
Siberia  to  show  that  administrative  exile  is 
not  only  cruelly  unjust,  but,  in  hundreds  of 
cases,  is  a  punishment  of  barbarous  severity. 
If  it  attained  the  objects  that  it  is  supposed 
to  attain,  there  might,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  despotic  Government,  be  some  excuse  if 
not  justification  for  it ;  but  it  does  not  attain 
such  objects.  Regarded  even  from  the  side 
of  expediency,  it  is  uselessly  and  needlessly 
cruel.  In  a  recent  official  report  to  the  Minis- 
ter of  the  Interior,  Major-General  Nicolai 
Baranof,  the  governor  of  the  province  of 
Archangel,  in  discussing  the  subject  of  ad- 
ministrative exile  says : 

From  the  experience  of  previous  years,  and  from  my 
own  personal  observation,  I  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  administrative  exile  for  political  reasons  is 
much  more  likely  to  spoil  the  character  of  a  man  than 
to  reform  it.  The  transition  from  a  life  of  comfort  to  a 
life  of  poverty,  from  a  social  life  to  a  life  in  which 
there  is  no  society  whatever,  and  from  a  life  of  activ- 
ity to  a  life  of  compulsory  inaction,  produces  such 
ruinous  consequences,  that,  not  infrequently,  espe- 
cially of  late,  we  find  the  political  exiles  going  insane, 
attempting  to  commit  suicide,  and  even  committing 
suicide.  All  this  is  the  direct  result  of  the  abnormal 
conditions  under  which  exile  compels  an  intellectually 
cultivated  person  to  live.  There  has  not  yet  been  a  sin- 
gle case  where  a  man,  suspected  with  good  reason  of 


political  untrustworthiness  and  exiled  by  administra- 
tive process,  has  returned  from  such  banishment  rec- 
onciled to  the  Government,  convinced  of  his  error,  and 
changed  into  a  useful  member  of  society  and  a  faith- 
ful servant  of  the  Throne.  On  the  other  hand,  it  often 
happens  that  a  man  who  has  been  exiled  in  consequence 
of  a  misunderstanding,  or  an  administrative  mistake, 
becomes  politically  untrustworthy  for  the  first  time  in 
the  place  to  which  he  has  been  banished  —  partly  by 
reason  of  his  association  there  with  real  enemies  of  the 
Government,  and  partly  as  a  result  of  personal  exas- 
peration. Furthermore,  if  a  man  is  infected  with  anti- 
Government  ideas,  all  the  circumstances  of  exile  tend 
only  to  increase  the  infection,  to  sharpen  his  faculties, 
and  to  change  him  from  a  theoretical  to  a  practical  — 
that  is,  an  extremely  dangerous —  man.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  man  has  not  been  guilty  of  taking  part  in  a 
revolutionary  movement,  exile,  by  force  of  the  same 
circumstances,  develops  in  his  mind  the  idea  of  revo- 
lution, or,  in  other  words,  produces  a  result  directly 
opposite  to  that  which  it  was  intended  to  produce.  No 
matter  how  exile  by  administrative  process  may  be 
regulated  and  restricted,  it  will  always  suggest  to  the 
mind  of  the  exiled  person  the  idea  of  uncontrolled  offi- 
cial license,  and  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  prevent  any  ref- 
ormation whatever.* 

Truer  words  than  these  were  never  written 
by  a  high  Russian  official,  and  so  far  as  the 
practical  expediency  of  exile  by  administrative 
process  is  concerned,  I  should  be  content  to 
rest  the  case  against  it  wholly  upon  this  frank 
report  of  the  governor  of  Archangel.  The 
subject,  however,  may  be  regarded  from  a 
point  of  view  other  than  that  of  expediency  — 
namely,  from  the  point  of  view  of  morals,  jus- 
tice, and  humanity.  That  side  of  the  question 
I  shall  reserve  for  further  discussion  in  future. 
In  this  paper  I  have  tried  to  show  how  reck- 
lessly, carelessly,  and  unjustly  Russian  citizens 
are  banished  to  Siberia  by  administrative  pro- 
cess. In  subsequent  articles  I  shall  describe,  as 
fairly,  fully,  and  accurately  as  I  can,  the  con- 
ditions of  the  life  which  political  exiles  in  Si- 
beria are  compelled  to  live. 


Juridical  Messenger"  (the  journalistic  organ  of 
:iety,or  Bar  Association),  Oc- 


the  Moscow  Juridical  Socie 
tober,  1883,  p.  332. 


George  Kennan. 


OLD    AGE'S   LAMBENT   PEAKS. 

H^HE  touch  of  flame  —  the  illuminating  fire  —  the  loftiest  look  at  last, 

O'er  city,  passion,  sea — o'er  prairie,  mountain,  wood  —  the  earth  itself; 
The  airy,  different,  changing  hues  of  all,  in  falling  twilight, 
Objects  and  groups,  bearings,  faces,  reminiscences; 
The  calmer  sight  —  the  golden  setting,  clear  and  broad: 
So  much  i'  the  atmosphere,  the  points  of  view,  the  situations  whence  we  scan, 
Bro't  out  by  them  alone — so  much  (perhaps  the  best)  unreck'd  before; 
The  lights  indeed  from  them  —  old  age's  lambent  peaks. 


Walt  Whitman. 


A    MEXICAN     CAMPAIGN. 


BY    THOMAS   A.    JANVIER,    AUTHOR    OF    THE    IVORY    BLACK    STORIES. 


IN    THREE    PARTS.       PART    II. 


THE    AFFAIR    OF     MOLING    DEL    REY. 


R.  PEMBERTON  LO- 
GAN SMITH  returned 
from  Guanajuato  five  or 
six  days  later,  bringing  his 
sheaves  with  him.  But  his 
sheaves  did  not  amount  to 
much. 

He  arrived  from  the  rail- 
way station  in  time  to  join  the  party  at  din- 
ner; and  although  dining  was  about  at  an  end, 
they  all  waited  while  he  ate  his  dinner  and 
at  the  same  time  gave  an  account  of  himself. 
"  What  a  blessing  it  is  again  to  get  some- 
thing to  eat,"  he  observed  with  much  satisfac- 
tion as  Gilberto  — "  the  best  waiter  I  ever  came 
across  anywhere,"  Mr.  Gamboge  had  declared 
approvingly  —  took  away  his  empty  soup-plate 
and  filled  his  glass  from  a  bottle  of  Father 
Gatillon's  sound  claret.  "I  staid  at  Dona 
Maria's,  of  course,  and  the  old  lady  did  her 
best  for  me,  I  know — but  even  her  best  did  n't 
amount  to  much ;  and  I  've  been  getting  hun- 
grier and  hungrier  every  day." 

"And  how  about  the  picture?"  Brown 
asked.  "  You  must  have  made  pretty  quick 
work  of  it  to  get  anything  done  in  this  time." 
"  Oh,  the  picture !  Yes,  I  'd  forgotten  about 
that.  You  see,  when  I  saw  the  Bufa  again  I 
concluded  that  it  was  too  much  for  me.  It 
wants  a  bigger  man,  you  know  —  somebody 
like  Orpiment.  You  really  ought  to  go  up 
and  paint  it,  Orpiment;  it  's  a  wonderful  thing." 
This  pleased  Verona,  of  course.  She  highly 
approved  of  anything  in  the  shape  of  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  her  husband's  superiority. 

"  That 's  all  very  well,"  said  Orpiment;  "  but 
if  you  have  n't  been  painting  the  Bufa,  what 
have  you  been  doing  ?  And  what 's  gone  with 
all  your  virtuous  resolutions  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  see,  we  did  n't  half  do  up 
Guanajuato  — it 's  a  wonderful  place;  I  think 
it  's  the  most  picturesque  place  I  ever  saw. 
I  've  been  investigating  it.  I  found  some  more 
pictures,  for  one  thing.  There  's  a  tremen- 
dously good  'Cena  de  San  Francisco,'  that 
we  never  saw  at  all,  in  the  sacristy  of  that  lit- 
tle church  just  across  the  street  from  Dona 
Maria's.  And  I  went  out  to  the  Valenciana 
mine,  and  there  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 


churrigueresque  church  interiors  out  there  that 
I  ever  laid  eyes  on,  and  we  missed  that,  too, 
you  know.  There  was  lots  to  do  without  paint- 
ing. I  could  have  put  in  another  week  easily." 

"  Did  you  see  anything  of  the  Espinosas  ?  " 
Violet  asked  with  a  fine  air  of  innocent  curi- 
osity. 

"  The  Espinosas !  Oh,  yes,  I  saw  them.  In 
fact  I  —  as  it  happened,  I  saw  a  good  deal  of 
them,"  Pem  answered  in  some  slight  confu- 
sion. "  Yes,  they  were  very  civil  to  me,"  he 
continued.  "  You  see  I  had  to  present  the  let- 
ter that  you  sent,  Mrs.  Mauve;  and  when 
they  found  that  I  had  missed  so  much  that  is 
worth  seeing  in  Guanajuato  they  took  me  in 
hand  in  the  kindest  way  and  showed  me 
everything.  It  was  ever  so  nice  of  them.  And  — 
and  we  happened  to  come  down  together  on 
the  same  train.  You  see,  I  found  it  was  quite 
hopeless  to  try  to  paint  the  Bufa,  and  as  they 
were  coming  down  I  thought  I  'd  come  down 
too.  What  a  nice  old  lady  Senora  Espinosa 
is,  and  Don  Antonio  is  delightful.  I  've  rarely 
met  such  pleasant  people." 

"  And  how  about  the  pretty  girl  ?  "  Brown 
struck  in,  although  Rose  tried  to  stop  him  by 
pinching  him. 

"  It  's  never  any  good  to  pinch  me,  Rose," 
Brown  explained,  when  his  conduct  subse- 
quently was  criticised.  "  Half  the  time  I  don't 
know  what  I  'm  pinched  for  and  it  only  makes 
me  get  my  back  up ;  and  the  other  half  you 
don't  get  in  your  pinch  until  I  Ve  said  what 
you  don't  want  me  to  say.  If  I  were  you,  I  'd 
stop  it." 

"  But,  Van,  indeed  it  was  very  unkind  in 
you  to  speak  that  way  to-night.  Don't  you 
see  that  Mr.  Smith  is  quite  seriously  interested 
in  this  sweet  young  girl ;  and  just  suppose  you 
were  to  make  him  so  uncomfortable  that  he 
should  break  it  all  off  before  it  's  fairly  begun. 
Don't  do  anything  like  that  again,  I  beg  of 
you." 

"  For  so  young  a  woman,  Rose,  your  match- 
makingproclivities  are  quite  remarkable.  How 
do  you  know  that  this  Mexican  girl  is  '  sweet'  ? 
Remember  your  gambling  friend  at  Aguas 
Calientes,  Rosey,  and  don't  be  precipitate,  my 
dear  "  (this  was  an  unfair  allusion  on  Brown's 
part,  and  he  had  to  apologize  for  it).  "  After 
all,  though,  you  must  admit  that  Smith  did  n't 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


737 


seem  to  be  very  badly  knocked  out  by  my 
shot  at  him." 

This  was  quite  true,  for  Pem  had  expected 
some  such  question,  and,  being  ready  for  it, 
he  answered  with  a  very  fair  degree  of  com- 
posure :  "  You  mean  the  Senora  Carillo.  She 
is  charming,  of  course.  1  don't  believe  that 
you  know,  Mrs.  Mauve,"  he  added,  turning 
to  Violet,  "  that  your  friend  is  a  widow  ?  " 

"  Oh,  how  perfectly  delightful ! "  cried  Violet. 
Then,  seeing  that  Rose,  Verona,  and  Mrs. 
>oge  all  looked  shocked,  she  added,  "  Of 
course  1  don't  mean  that  it  is  delightful  to  have 
people's  husbands  ( lie,  oranything  like  that,  you 
know.  But  after  they  are  dead,  in  this  part  of 
the  world  at  least,  it 's  delightful  to  be  a  widow. 
A  Mexican  young  girl  might  just  as  well  be  a 
—  a  humming-top,  for  all  the  good  she  has  of 
anything,  you  see.  But  as  soon  as  she  's  a 
widow  she  can  go  anywhere  and  do  anything 
she  pleases  and  have  nobody  bothering  at  her 
at  all.  It  's  better  than  being  a  young  girl  in 
the  States,  ever  so  much.  And  so  Carmen 's  a 
widow.  Just  think  of  it !  And  I  did  n't  even 
know  that  she  had  been  married.  She  's  got 
ever  so  far  ahead  of  me,  has  n't  she,  Rowney  ? 
And  I  thought  that  I  was  ahead  of  her.  It 's 
too  bad !  But  who  did  she  marry,  Mr.  Smith  ? 
And  when  did  he  die  ?  Do  tell  me  all  about 
it,  please." 

And  Pern  explained  that  the  Senorita  Es- 
pinosa  had  been  married  about  a  year  after 
the  time  that  she  had  left  school,  and  that 
her  husband  had  died  suddenly  within  two  or 
three  months  of  their  marriage.  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve it  was  quite  a  heart-breaking  affair,"  Pem 
added.  "  Her  cousin,  Rodolfo,  you  know, 
told  me  that  old  Don  Ignacio  was  a  grouty 
old  fellow,  and  that  the  marriage  had  been 
made  up  mainly  because  his  hacienda  adjoined 
her  father's,  and  there  was  some  row  about  the 
water-rights  which  had  been  going  on  for 
years  and  which  they  succeeded  this  way  in 
compromising.  Rodolfo  was  very  indignant 
about  the  whole  business,  and  I  'm  sure  I 
don't  wonder.  Do  they  do  much  of  that  sort 
of  thing  down  here,  Mrs.  Mauve  ?  It 's  like  a 
bit  out  of  the  dark  ages." 

"  But  think  how  happy  she  is  now,  Mr. 
Smith,"  said  the  practical  Violet ;  "  and 
think  what  a  good  thing  it  is  to  have  the  mat- 
ter about  the  water  settled  so  nicely.  You 
don't  know  how  important  it  is  to  get  a  thing 
like  that  settled.  I  remember  papa  and  an- 
other man  had  a  bad  shooting  match  about  a 
water-right  once ;  and  papa  would  have  been 
killed,  everybody  said,  if  he  had  n't  been  too 
quick  for  the  other  man  and  got  the  drop 
on  him.  And  it  cost  papa  ever  so  much 
to  square  things  after  he  'd  killed  the  other 
man;  for  the  judges  knew  that  papa  was  rich 


and  they  made  him  pay  like  anything.  I  'm 
very  glad  for  Carmen's  sake  that  she  was  able  to 
do  her  father  such  a  good  turn  ;  and  she  must 
In;  glad  too  — especially  now  that  it 's  all  well 
over  and  she  is  a  comfortable  widow.  And 
you  say  that  they  all  came  down  with  you  to- 
night ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  they  sent  word  that  they  are 
coming  in  a  body  to  call  on  all  of  us  to-mor- 
row—  that's  the  Mexican  way,  I  believe. 
And  they  have  a  plan  on  foot  for  a  picnic,  or 
something  of  that  sort,  for  us  at  Senor  Espi- 
nosa's  place  out  at  Tacubaya  — " 

"  Oh,  in  that  lovely  garden  !  I  used  to  go 
out  there  with  Carmen  sometimes  on  Sundays 
while  I  was  at  the  convent.  It 's  perfectly  de- 
lightful ! " 

"  Yes,  I  fancy  from  what  they  said  about  it 
that  it  must  be  rather  a  nice  place.  And  after 
the  lunch,  or  breakfast,  or  whatever  they  call 
it,  we  're  to  walk  across  and  see  the  view  of 
the  valley  from  a  place  that  they  say  is  very 
nice — it 's  upon  a  hillside  above  the  Molino 
del  Rey ;  just  where  the  battle  was  fought  in 
1847,  Don  Antonio  said.  Really,  Mrs.  Mauve, 
we  all  Owe  a  great  deal  to  you  for  putting  us 
in  the  way  of  seeing  Mexican  life  from  the  in- 
side." 

This  view  of  the  indebtedness  of  the  Amer- 
ican party  to  its  Spanish-American  member 
became  general  two  days  later,  when  they  all 
were  conveyed  to  Tacubaya  by  Don  Antonio 
in  a  special  tram-car,  and  were  given  a  break- 
fast in  his  beautiful  huerta  that  quite  aston- 
ished them.  That  Pem  approved  of  the  food, 
Philadelphian  though  he  was,  did  not,  under 
the  circumstances,  count  for  much ;  but  the 
hearty  indorsement  of  Mexican  cooking  on 
the  part  of  Mr.  Gamboge  and  Mr.  Mangan 
Brown,  neither  of  whom  regarded  such  mat- 
ters lightly,  and  whose  judgment  was  not 
biased  by  any  sudden  yielding  to  the  tender 
emotions,  counted  for  a  good  deal.  It  was 
while  they  were  returning  to  the  city  that  Mr. 
Gamboge,  after  a  long,  thoughtful  silence,  thus 
spoke : 

"  Brown,  I  shall  remember  that  dish  of  mole 
—  I  have  learned  the  name  of  it  carefully,  you 
see  —  until  my  dying  day." 

And  Mr.  Mangan  Brown  briefly  but  feelingly 
replied,  "  And  so  shall  I." 

As  for  Rose,  she  declared  that  she  must  be 
asleep  and  had  dreamed  herself  into  a  Watteau 
landscape ;  for  such  a  garden  as  this  was,  as 
she  lucidly  explained,  she  believed  could  have 
no  existence  outside  of  a  picture  that  was  in- 
side of  a  dream. 

Mrs.  Gamboge,  whose  tendency  was  to- 
wards the  sentimental,  wished  Mr.  Gamboge 
to  come  and  sit  beside  her  on  the  grass,  be- 
neath a  tree  near  the  little  brook.  And  her  feel- 


738 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


ings  were  rather  hurt  because  Mr.  Gamboge 
declined  to  fall  in  with  her  romantic  fancy,  on 
the  ground  that  sitting  on  the  grass  certainly 
would  give  them  both  the  rheumatism.  And  he 
did  n't  mend  matters  by  adding  that  he  would 
have  been  very  glad  to  please  her  had  they 
only  thought  to  bring  along  a  gum-blanket. 

But  quite  the  happiest  member  of  this  ex- 
ceptionally happy  party  was  Mr.  Pemberton 
Logan  Smith;  for  this  young  man,  while  he 
was  not  as  yet  exactly  in  love,  had  made  a 
very  fair  start  into  the  illusions  and  entangle- 
ments of  that  tender  passion.  During  the  four 
or  five  days  at  Guanajuato  his  intercourse  with 
the  Senora  Carillo  had  been  hampered  by  the 
formalities  attending  new  acquaintanceship, 
and  especially  by  the  rule  of  Mexican  etiquette 
that  throws  the  entertainment  of  a  guest  upon 
the  oldest  lady  of  the  household.  His  eyes 
had  been  very  steadily  in  the  service  of  the 
pretty  widow ;  but  his  ears,  and  so  much  of 
his  tongue  as  the  circumstances  of  the  case 
required, —  which  was  not  much,  for  Dona 
Catalina  was  a  great  talker, — necessarily  were 
employed  in  the  service  of  her  aunt. 

But  on  the  present  occasion  Dona  Catalina 
naturally  devoted  herself  more  especially  to 
Mrs.  Gamboge  and  the  two  elderly  gentlemen, 
—  Violet,  rather  against  her  will,  serving  as 
interpreter, —  and  this  left  Pern  free  to  follow 
his  own  inclinations.  It  was  the  first  fair 
chance  that  he  had  had,  and  he  made  the 
most  of  it.  A  further  fortunate  fact  in  his 
favor  was  that  he  was  the  only  man  of  the 
American  party  —  except  Jaune  d'Antimoine, 
who  was  busily  employed  as  interpreter  be- 
tween his  wife,  Rose,  Verona,  and  the  Mexi- 
can young  gentlemen  —  who  possessed  a 
colloquial  command  of  Spanish.  How  Pem 
did  bless  his  lucky  stars  now  that,  being  over- 
taken by  a  mood  of  unwonted  energy,  he  had 
had  the  resolution  to  grind  away  so  steadily 
under  that  stuffy  old  professor  during  his  win- 
ter in  Granada ! 

So,  without  much  difficulty,  he  contrived 
to  keep  close  to  the  widow  all  day, —  much  to 
his  own  enjoyment,  and,  apparently,  not 
to  her  distaste.  She  was  not  like  any  of 
the  women  whom  he  had  known  in  Spain  — 
where,  to  be  sure,  his  opportunities  for  any 
save  most  formal  acquaintance  had  been  very 
limited  ;  and  she  certainly  was  unlike  her  own 
countryfolk.  Even  in  her  lightest  talk  there 
was  an  air  about  her  of  preoccupation,  of  re- 
serve, that  was  in  too  marked  contrast  with 
Dona  Catalina's  very  cheerful  frankness  to  be 
accounted  for  merely  on  the  ground  of  the 
difference  between  youth  and  age ;  and  that, 
so  far  as  his  observation  had  gone,  was  not  by 
any  means  characteristic  of  Mexican  women 
either  old  or  young.  And  from  the  obscurity 


of  this  reserve  she  had  a  way,  he  found,  of 
flashing  out  rather  brilliantly  turned  expres- 
sions of  decidedly  original  thought.  When  she 
accompanied  these  utterances,  as  she  some- 
times did,  with  a  little  curl  of  her  finely  cut 
red  lips,  and  with  a  quick  glance  from  her 
dark-brown  eyes, —  not  tender  eyes,  yet  eyes 
which  somehow  suggested  possibilities  of  ten- 
derness,—  he  found  that  her  sayings,  if  not 
increased  in  point,  certainly  gained  in  effect- 
iveness. Altogether,  Mr.  Smith  was  disposed 
to  regard  the  Senora  Carillo  as  a  decidedly  in- 
teresting subject  for  attentive  study. 

Naturally,  since  they  had  been  so  much  to- 
gether during  the  day,  Pem  was  the  widow's 
escort  when  they  all  set  out,  in  late  afternoon, 
to  walk  to  the  point  of  view  that  Don  Antonio, 
as  he  expressed  it,  would  have  the  honor  to 
bring  to  their  notice.  It  was  a  desperately 
dusty  walk,  and  the  American  ladies  —  who 
had  donned  raiment  of  price  for  the  occasion 
—  contemplated  the  defilement  of  their  gowns 
in  anything  but  a  contented  spirit.  They 
beheld  with  wonder  the  calmness  with  which 
their  Mexican  sisters — who  were  equally  well 
dressed,  though  in  the  style  that  would  obtain 
in  New  York  during  the  ensuing  season — 
made  no  effort  whatever  to  preserve  their  gar- 
ments from  contamination. 

"That  gros-grain  of  Mrs.  Espinosa's  will 
be  absolutely  ruined,  Rose,"  Mrs.  Gamboge 
declared,  speaking  in  the  suppressed  voice  that 
most  people  seem  to  consider  necessary  when 
airing  their  private  sentiments  in  the  presence 
of  other  people  who  do  not  understand  a  word 
of  the  language  in  which  the  private  senti- 
ments are  expressed.  "  Mine  is  bad  enough, 
though  I  'm  doing  everything  I  can  think  of 
to  save  it.  Do  just  drop  behind  me  a  little 
and  see  if  I  'm  making  a  very  shocking  exhi- 
bition of  my  ankles.  I  'm  afraid  that  I  am,  but 
I  really  can't  help  it.  These  Mexican  ladies 
seem  to  think  no  more  of  getting  dusty  than 
if  they  all  were  dressed  in  calico.  I  can't  un- 
derstand it  at  all." 

The  Senora  Carillo  certainly  paid  no  atten- 
tion whatever  to  the  increasing  dustiness  of 
her  gown.  Her  early  venture  in  matrimony 
had  not  been  of  an  encouraging  sort,  and  since 
she  had  come  into  her  estate  of  widowhood 
her  tendency  —  as  Violet  in  her  free  but  ex- 
pressive south-western  vernacular  probably 
would  have  stated  the  case  —  was  to  "stand 
off"  mankind  generally.  It  was  a  surprise  to 
herself  when  she  discovered  that  so  far  from 
finding  this  good-looking  young  Americano 
repulsive,  she  positively  was  attracted  by  him. 
For  one  thing,  he  struck  her  as  differing  in 
many  ways  from  her  own  countrymen ;  and 
she  had  an  instinctive  feeling  that  the  unlike- 
ness  was  not  merely  superficial.  She  was  sure 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


739 


that  his  scheme  of  life  was  a  larger,  broader 
scheme  than  that  which  she  had  known,  and 
there  was  a  genuineness  in  his  deference  to 
her  as  a  woman  that  contrasted  both  forcibly 
and  favorably  with  certain  of  her  past  expe- 
riences. 

In  point  of  fact  this  Mexican  young  woman 
had  begun  life  by  being  a  little  out  of  harmony 
with  her  environment.  She  did  not  know  very 
clearly  what  she  wanted,  but  she  knew  that 
it  was  something  quite  different  from  that 
which  she  had.  It  was  this  feeling  that  had 
led  her  to  select  Violet  Carmine  for  a  close 
friend.  She  was  not  at  all  in  sympathy  with 
Violet's  most  radical  tendencies ;  but  she  found 
in  Violet  a  person,  the  only  person,  who  was 
not  shocked  when  she  stated  some  of  her  own 
small  convictions  as  to  what  a  woman's  life 
might  be.  Even  to  this  friend  she  had  not  told 
that  it  was  her  hope,  should  she  ever  marry, 
to  be  the  companion  of  her  husband  —  not 
merely  his  handmaiden,  in  the  scriptural  sense. 
And  she  was  glad  now  that  she  had  been  thus 
reticent,  for  her  hope  by  no  means  had  been 
realized. 

After  that  very  disillusioning  venture  into 
the  holy  estate  of  matrimony,  this  poor  Car- 
men found  herself  entirely  at  odds  with  her- 
self and  with  the  world.  Had  she  lived  a 
generation  earlier  she  would  have  become  a 
nun.  It  was  a  subject  of  sincere  sorrow  to  her 
that  nunneries  had  been  abolished  in  Mexico 
by  the  Laws  of  the  Reform. 

It  was  only  natural  that  there  should  be  a 
certain  feeling  of  pleasure  mixed  with  her  feel- 
ing of  astonishment  at  her  present  discovery 
of  a  man  for  whom  she  had  at  once  both  lik- 
ing and  respect.  It  was  agreeable,  she  thought, 
to  find  that  there  really  was  such  a  man  in 
the  world.  But  beyond  this  very  general  view 
of  the  situation  her  thoughts  did  not  go.  It 
made  very  little  difference  to  her,  one  way  or 
the  other,  this  discovery.  The  man  was  a  for- 
eigner, and  an  American  at  that, —  and  Car- 
men had  a  good  strong  race  hatred  for  the 
Americans  of  the  North, —  come  into  her  coun- 
try only  for  a  little  while.  Presently  he  would 
go  home  again ;  and  that,  so  far  as  she  was 
concerned,  would  be  the  end  of  him.  In  the 
mean  time  she  would  please  herself  by  study- 
ing this  new  specimen  of  male  humanity.  It 
was  well  to  hold  converse  with  a  foreigner, 
she  thought ;  it  enlarged  one's  mind. 

So,  lagging  a  little  behind  the  rest  of  the 
party,  and  chatting  in  a  manner  somewhat 
light  to  be  productive  of  any  very  marked 
mental  improvement,  they  walked  westward 
through  the  straggling  streets  of  Tacubaya  — 
past  low  houses  with  great  barred  windows, 
past  high-walled  gardens,  the  loveliness  of 
which  was  only  hinted  at  by  outhanging  trees 


and  climbing  vines,  and  by  the  glimpse  in 
passing  to  be  had  through  the  iron  gates  — 
over  to  and  out  upon  the  hillside  above  the 
Molinodel  Rey.  They  stopped  beside  the  lit- 
tle pyramidal  monument  that  commemorates 
the  battle.  The  rest  of  the  party  had  gone  on 
a  few  rods  farther;  for  Don  Antonio,  with 
true  Mexican  courtesy,  had  acted  upon  his 
instinctive  conviction  that  beside  this  monu- 
ment was  not  a  place  where  a  party  of  right- 
thinking  Americans  would  care  to  halt. 

Below  them,  embowered  in  trees,  was  the 
old  Mill  of  the  King  that  Worth's  forces  car- 
ried that  September  day  forty  years  ago ;  be- 
yond rose  the  wooded,  castle-crowned  height 
of  Chapultepec;  still  farther  away  were  the 
towers  and  glistening  domes  of  the  city  and 
the  great  shimmering  lakes,  and  for  back- 
ground rose  the  blue-gray  mountains  above 
Guadalupe  in  the  north.  To  the  east,  over 
across  Lake  Chalco,  towered  the  great  snow 
peaks  of  the  volcanoes. 

"  Upon  my  soul,  I  wish  I  had  been  born  a 
Mexican,"  said  Pem,  drawing  a  long  breath. 

"  Because  the  Mexicans  happen  to  be  pos- 
sessors of  a  fine  landscape  ?  That  is  not  a 
good  reason.  There  are  better  things  for  a 
people  to  have  than  landscapes,  Senor;  and 
some  of  these  better  things,  if  I  am  rightly  told, 
your  people  have." 

"  Well,  I  must  say  I  don't  know  what  they 
are.  Just  now  I  can't  think  of  anything  finer 
than  this  view  —  except  the  happy  fact  that 
you  have  done  me  the  honor  to  lead  me  to 
it,  Senorita." 

"  I  could  wish  that  you  would  not  speak  in 
that  fanciful  manner.  It  is  in  the  custom  of 
my  own  country,  and  I  do  not  like  it.  I  have 
been  told  that  the  Americans  do  not  make  fine 
speeches,  and  I  shall  be  glad  to  know  that  it 
is  so." 

Pem  was  rather  taken  aback  by  this  frank 
statement  of  very  un-Mexican  sentiment. 

"  The  Senorita,  then,  does  not  approve  of 
the  customs  of  her  own  people,  and  is  pleased 
to  like  the  Americans  ?  For  the  compliment 
to  my  countrymen  I  give  to  the  Senorita  my 
thanks." 

"  I  do  not  like  your  countrymen.  I  hate 
them." 

"And  why?" 

"  Is  not  this  an  answer  ?  "  Carmen  replied, 
laying  her  hand  upon  the  battle  monument. 

Pem  felt  himself  to  be  in  an  awkward  cor- 
ner, for  the  position  that  his  Mexican  friend 
had  taken  —  while  not,  perhaps,  in  the  very 
best  of  taste  —  was  quite  unassailable.  As  he 
rather  stupidly  stared  at  the  ugly  little  monu- 
ment, thus  pointedly  brought  to  his  notice, 
he  felt  that  it  did  indeed  represent  an  act  of 
unjust  aggression  that  very  well  might  make 


740 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


Mexicans  hate  Americans  for  a  thousand 
years. 

"  As  to  the  customs  of  my  countrymen," 
Carmen  continued,  perceiving  that  the  particu- 
lar American  before  her  was  very  much  em- 
barrassed, and  politely  wishing  to  extricate 
him  from  the  trying  position  that,  not  very 
politely,  she  had  placed  him  in,  "  some  of  them 
are  very  well.  But  this  of  making  fine  speeches 
to  women  is  not  well  at  all.  Do  the  men  have 
this  foolish  custom  in  your  land,  or  is  it  only 
that  while  in  Mexico  you  wish  to  do  what  is 
done  here  ?  " 

It  was  a  relief  to  have  the  subject  changed 
in  any  way,  but  the  new  topic  was  one  not 
altogether  free  from  difficulties.  Mr.  Smith 
never  before  had  been  called  upon  to  defend 
the  utterance  of  a  small  gallantry  upon  ethical 
and  ethnological  grounds ;  still  less  to  treat 
the  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  comparative 
nationalities. 

"  Well,  I  think  that  I  have  heard  of  civil 
speeches  being  made  now  and  then  by  Ameri- 
can men  to  American  women,"  he  replied. 
"  Yes,  I  believe  that  I  am  justified  in  telling 
you  positively  that  speeches  of  this  sort  among 
us  may  be  said  to  be  quite  everyday  affairs. 
May  I  ask  why  the  Senorita  objects  to  them  ? 
They  strike  me  as  being  harmless,  to  say  the 
least." 

"  They  are  idle  and  silly.  It  is  the  same 
talk  that  one  would  give  to  a  cat.  I  do  not 
know  why  a  woman  should  be  talked  to  as 
though  she  had  nothing  of  sense.  It  is  true, 
she  cannot  know  as  much  as  a  man ;  but  she 
may  ask  to  have  it  believed  that  she  knows 
more  than  a  cat,  and  still  not  claim  to  be  very 
wise.  And  so,  if  the  Senor  will  permit  the  re- 
quest, I  will  beg  that  he  will  keep  his  hand- 
some speeches  for  those  who  like  them  and 
that  he  will  say  none  to  me  at  all. 

"  See,  our  friends  are  coming  towards  us, 
and  we  will  go  back  to  the  town.  And  the 
Senor  will  pardon  me  if  I  have  been  rude.  I 
should  not  have  said  what  I  did  about  Ameri- 
cans. I  find  now  that  they  are  not  all  bad." 
There  was  more  in  the  look  that  accompanied 
this  utterance  than  there  was  in  the  words. 
"  I  have  not  had  a  very  happy  life,  and  some- 
times, they  tell  me,  I  forget  to  be  considerate 
of  others  and  am  unkind.  But  I  have  not 
meant  to  be  unkind  to-day." 

The  last  portion  of  Carmen's  speech  was 
hurried,  for  the  party  was  close  upon  them, 
and  they  all  were  together  again  before  Pern 
could  reply. 

Nor  did  he  have  another  chance  to  continue 
this,  as  he  had  found  it,  notwithstanding  the 
awkward  turns  that  it  had  taken,  very  inter- 
esting conversation.  Carmen  stuck  close  to 
her  aunt,  and  was  almost  silent,  as  they  walked 


back  to  the  garden;  and  she  contrived,  as 
they  returned  by  the  tramway  to  the  city,  to 
seat  herself  quite  away  from  him  in  the  car. 

Since  she  so  obviously  had  no  desire  to 
speak  further,  Pern  felt  that  he  would  be 
pleasing  her  best  by  engaging  the  estimable 
Dona  Catalina  in  lively  talk.  This  was  not 
a  difficult  feat,  for  Dona  Catalina  was  a  mir- 
acle of  good-natured  loquacity,  who,  in  default 
of  anything  better  to  wag  her  tongue  at,  no 
doubt  would  have  talked  with  much  animation 
to  her  shoes.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  he 
scarcely  had  been  able  to  get  in  a  word  edge- 
wise, he  was  rather  tickled  when  this  admi- 
rable woman,  at  parting,  commended  him 
warmly  for  having  so  well  mastered  the  Span- 
ish tongue.  Pern  ventured,  at  this  juncture, 
to  cast  a  very  slightly  quizzical  look  at  Car- 
men, and  was  both  surprised  and  delighted 
by  finding  that  his  look  was  returned  in  kind. 

"  A  Mexican  woman  who  does  n't  like  pretty 
speeches,  and  who  has  such  a  charming  way  of 
qualifying  her  hatred  of  Americans,  and  who 
can  see  the  point  of  a  rather  delicate  joke," 
thought  Pem,  "  would  be  worth  investigating 
though  she  were  sixty  years  old  and  as  ugly 
as  the  National  Palace.  And  Carmen  " —  this 
was  the  first  time,  by  the  way,  that  he  had 
thought  of  her  as  Carmen  —  "I  take  it  is 
not  quite  twenty  yet ;  and  what  perfectly 
lovely  eyes  she  has !  " 

At  dinner  that  night  Mr.  Smith  was  unusu- 
ally silent.  When  rallied  by  the  lively  Violet 
upon  his  taciturnity  he  replied  that  he  was 
rather  tired. 


THE    BATTLE    OF   CHURUBUSCO. 

WHEN  the  American  party  played  the  re- 
turn match,  as  Rowney  Mauve,  who  had  crick- 
eting proclivities,  expressed  it,  by  giving  their 
Mexican  friends  a  breakfast  in  the  pretty 
San  Cosme  Tivoli,  Carmen  did  not  appear. 
She  had  a  headache  that  day,  her  aunt  ex- 
plained, and  begged  to  be  excused. 

Rose  commented  upon  this  phase  of  the 
breakfast  with  her  usual  perspicuity.  "  I  think 
that  it  all  is  working  along  very  nicely,  Van, 
don't  you  ?  "  They  had  strolled  off  together 
and  were  out  of  ear-shot  of  the  rest  of  the 
party. 

'•  What  is  working  along  nicely  ?  The  break- 
fast ?  Yes,  it  seems  to  be  all  right.  The  food 
was  very  fair,  and  our  friends  seemed  to  enjoy 
themselves  after  their  customary  rather  demon- 
strative fashion." 

"  It  is  a  great  trial  to  me,  Van,  the  way  you 
never  catch  my  meaning.  I  don't  mean  the 
breakfast  at  all;  I  mean  about  Mr.  Smith  and 
this  lovely  widow.  Is  n't  it  queer  to  think 
that  she  is  a  widow  ?  Except  that  she  has  a 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


74i 


serious  way  about  her  —  that  has  come  to  her 
through  her  sorrow,  of  course,  poor  dear  I  — 
nobody  ever  would  dream  that  she  was  any- 
thing but  a  young  girl.  What  a  romance  her 
life  has  been  !  " 

••  \Vell,  1  can't  say  that  I  see  much  romance 
about  it.  First  she  was  traded  off  by  her 
father  for  a  hydrant,  or  something  of  that  sort ; 
and  then  she  had  an  old  husband  —  a  most 
objectionable  old  beast  he  must  have  been 
from  what  we  have  heard  about  him  —  die 
on  her  hands  before  she  was  much  more  than 
married  to  him.  I  should  say  that  the  whole 
business  was  much  less  like  a  romance  than 
like  a  nightmare.  And  as  to  this  new  match 
that  you  have  made  up  for  her  working  along 
nicely,  it  strikes  me  that  just  now  it  is  work- 
ing along  about  as  badly  as  it  can  work. 
Did  n't  you  see  how  Smith  went  off  into  the 
dumps  the  moment  that  he  found  his  widow 
had  stayed  at  home?  And  don't  you  think 
that  her  staying  at  home  this  way  is  the  best 
possible  proof  that  she  does  n't  care  a  button 
for  him  ?  Smith  saw  it  quick  enough,  and 
that  was  what  made  him  drop  right  down 
into  dumpiness.  So  would  I,  if  I  'd  been  him, 
and  a  girl  had  gone  back  on  me  that  way. 
You  used  to  come  and  take  walks  with  me, 
Rosey, —  in  the  old  days  when  we  were  spoon- 
ing in  Greenwich, —  when  your  head  was 
aching  fit  to  split,  you  precious  child."  They 
were  in  an  out-of-the-way  part  of  the  garden, 
and  on  the  strength  of  this  memory  Brown 
put  his  arm  around  his  wife  and  kissed  her. 
After  which  interlude  he  added :  "  So  can't 
you  see  that  all  your  match-making  is  moon- 
shine ?  It 's  a  case  of '  he  loved  the  lady,  but 
the  lady  loved  not  him,'  and  you  might  as 
well  accept  the  situation  and  stop  your  castle- 
building." 

"  You  are  a  verydearboy,Van,and  of  course 
I  'd  go  walking  with  you  even  without  any 
head  at  all.  But  about  love-matters  you  cer- 
tainly are  very  short-sighted.  You  can't  help 
it,  I  suppose,  because  you  're  a  man ;  and 
men  never  understand  these  things  at  all.  But 
any  woman  could  tell  you  at  a  glance  that 
this  love  affair  between  Mr.  Smith  and  the 
dear  little  Mexican  widow  is  going  on  splen- 
didly. Even  you  can  see  that  Mr.  Smith  is 
in  love  with  her.  Well,  I  don't  think  that 
she  's  exactly  in  love  with  him  yet ;  but  I  am 
quite  certain  that  she  feels  that  if  she  does  n't 
take  care  she  will  be.  That  's  the  reason  she 
had  a  headache  and  did  n't  come  to-day." 

"  What  a  comfort  it  would  be  to  Smith  to 
know  that !  "  Brown  remarked  with  fine  irony. 
"  You  had  better  tell  him,  my  dear." 

"  Yes,  of  course  it  would  be,"  Rose  an- 
swered, entirely  missing  the  irony.  "  And  I  've 
been  thinking  that  I  would  tell  him,  Van ; 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  102. 


only  I  thought  that  perhaps  you  would  n't 
like  me  to.  I  'm  very  glad  you  won't  mind  — 
for  of  course  he  does  n't  see,  men  are  so  stupid 
about  such  things.  Suppose  \ve  go  and  hunt 
him  up  now,  and  then  you  go  away  and  lr 
us  together,  and  I  '11  tell  him  how  much 
encouragement  she  is  giving  him." 

"  Suppose  you  tell  me  first.  I  '11  be  shot  if 
I  see  much  that  's  encouraging  in  her  shying 
off  from  him  this  way." 

"  Why,  I  have  told  you,  Van.  It 's  because 
she  is  afraid  that  if  she  sees  any  more  of  him 
she  really  will  fall  in  love  with  him ;  and  of 
course,  after  her  dreadful  experience  with  that 
horrid  old  man,  she  has  made  up  her  mind 
that  she  never  will  marry  again.  That  is  the 
way  that  any  nice  girl  would  feel  about  it. 
And  of  course,  if  she  's  so  much  interested  in 
Mr.  Smith  that  she  won't  trust  herself  to  see 
him,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  he  has  made  a 
very  good  start  towards  getting  her  to  love  him. 
What  we  must  do  now  is  to  help  him — " 

"  Steady,  Rose ;  don't  go  off  your  head,  my 
child.  This  is  n't  our  funeral." 

"  It  is  our  funeral.  Why,  it  's  anybody's 
funeral  who  can  help  in  a  case  of  this  sort. 
Think  how  much  we  owe  to  dear  Verona  for 
the  way  that  she  helped  us.  Certainly  we  must 
help  him.  And  the  first  thing  for  us  to  do  is 
to  give  him  another  good  chance  to  have  a 
talk  with  her.  That 's  all  they  want  at  present. 
No  doubt  we  can  do  some  other  things  later; 
and  we  will,  of  course.  Why,  Van,  how  can 
you  be  so  heartless  as  not  to  be  ready  to  do 
everything  in  your  power  to  help  your  friend 
when  the  whole  happiness  of  his  life  is  at 
stake!  And  think  what  a  good  thing  it  will 
be  for  this  poor  sweet,  broken-hearted  girl, 
whose  life  has  gone  all  wrong,  to  make  it  go 
right  again." 

Mrs.  Brown's  strongest  characteristic  was 
not,  perhaps,  moderation.  In  the  present  in- 
stance, while  her  husband  was  not  wholly  con- 
vinced by  her  vigorous  line  of  argument,  he 
found  her  enthusiasm  rather  contagious. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?"  he 
asked,  a  little  doubtfully. 

"  Why,  I  think  we  can  manage  just  what 
has  to  be  done  now,  getting  them  together 
again,  you  know,  this  way :  You  know  Don 
Antonio  has  on  hand  an  expedition  for  us  to 
that  beautiful  old  convent  that  he  has  been 
talking  about,  where  there  is  such  lovely  tile- 
work,  out  at  Churubusco.  We  had  better  ar- 
range things  now  to  go  day  after  to-morrow. 
And  to-morrow  Mr.  Smith  shall  send  a  note 
to  Don  Antonio  telling  him  that  he  is  very 
sorry  to  miss  the  expedition,  but  that  he  has 
decided  to  go  up  to  see  a  friend  in  Toluca. 
He  has  been  talking  about  that  engineer  up 
at  Toluca  whom  he  used  to  go  to  school 


742 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


with,  so  Don  Antonio  will  think  it  all  right 
and  perfectly  natural.  And  that  will  fix  things 
beautifully.  For  then  she  '11  go,  of  course." 

"  I  don't  see  how  it  will  fix  anything  beau- 
tifully for  him  to  go  off  to  Toluca.  He  won't 
see  his  widow  there." 

"  O  you  foolish  boy !  He  won't  stay  there, 
of  course.  He  must  go,  because  if  he  did  n't 
he  would  n't  be  telling  the  truth  in  his  note 
to  Don  Antonio," —  Rose  had  a  very  nice  re- 
gard for  the  truth, —  "  but  instead  of  staying 
at  least  one  night,  as  of  course  they  will 
expect  him  to,  he  must  come  right  back  to 
Mexico  by  the  afternoon  train.  And  then 
he  can  tell  Don  Antonio,  when  we  all  meet 
at  the  car,  as  we  did  the  other  day,  that  he 
has  returned  on  purpose  to  join  his  party; 
and  that  will  please  Don  Antonio  —  and  then 
it  will  be  too  late  for  her  to  back  out.  And  if 
he  needs  any  help  to  get  her  off  to  himself 
when  we  are  out  at  the  convent,  he  can  de- 
pend upon  me  to  see  that  he  gets  it !  Is  n't 
that  a  pretty  good  plan,  Van  ?  How  delightful 
and  exciting  it  all  is!  It  's  almost  as  though 
we  were  overcoming  difficulties  and  obstacles 
and  getting  married  again  ourselves,  is  n't  it, 
dear  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  think  it  is.  I  think  it 's  mainly 
vigorous  imagination  let  loose  upon  a  very 
small  amount  of  fact.  But  we  '11  play  your 
little  game,  Rosey,  just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing. 
Only  there  's  one  thing,  child,  that  you  must 
be  careful  about.  You  can't  make  your  plan 
go  without  explaining  it  to  Smith.  Now  don't 
you  tell  him  all  the  nonsense  you  have  been 
telling  me  about  the  way  you  think  the  widow 
feels  towards  him.  I  don't  think  it 's  so  ;  and 
since  he  really  seems  to  be  rather  hard  hit,  it 
is  n't  fair  to  set  him  up  with  a  whole  lot  of 
hopes  and  then  have  tilings  turn  out  the  other 
way  and  knock  him  down  again.  Tell  him 
that  it  is  just  barely  possible  that  things  are 
the  way  you  think  they  are,  and  that  your 
plan  is  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment  that 
probably  will  have  no  result  at  all,  or  will 
turn  out  altogether  badly  —  as  I  certainly  think 
it  will.  I  don't  believe  that  you  can  do  him 
any  good ;  but  if  you  put  the  matter  to  him 
this  way,  at  least  you  won't  do  him  any 
harm." 

And  Rose,  perceiving  the  justice  of  her 
husband's  utterance,  promised  him  that  in  her 
treatment  of  this  delicate  affair  she  would  be 
very  circumspect  indeed. 

THE  first  part  of  the  plan  thus  skillfully  elab- 
orated worked  to  a  charm.  When  the  Ameri- 
cans joined  Don  Antonio  and  his  party  on  the 
plaza,  to  take  the  special  tram-car  in  waiting 
for  them  on  the  Tlalpam  tracks,  Rose  gave  Van 
a  delighted  nudge  and  whispered : 


"  See,  she  has  come,  just  as  I  said  she  would. 
And  oh !  oh  !  "  —  Rose  squeezed  Van's  arm 
in  her  excitement  with  what  he  considered 
quite  unnecessary  vigor  —  "  she  has  just  seen 
Mr.  Smith,  and  she  is,  indeed  she  is,  changing 
color !  Don't  you  see  it  ?  Now  you  know 
that  I  was  right  all  along." 

Brown,  being  on  the  lookout  for  it,  did  per- 
ceive this  sign  of  confusion  on  the  part  of 
the  Senora  Carillo ;  but  it  was  so  slight  that 
no  one  else,  Pern  alone  excepted,  noticed  it. 
Another  good  sign,  as  Rose  interpreted  it,  was 
that  while  Don  Antonio  and  the  rest  were 
running  over  with  voluble  expressions  of  their 
pleasure  because  the  Senor  Esmit  —  the  first 
letter  and  the  digraph  in  Pern's  name  was  too 
much  for  them  —  had  cut  short  his  visit  to 
his  friend  in  Toluca  in  order  to  join  them  in 
their  outing,  Carmen  maintained  a  discreet 
silence.  Pern,  not  being  gifted  with  Rose's 
powers  of  tortuous  penetration,  regarded  this 
silence  as  ominous,  until  Rose,  perceiving 
that  he  was  going  wrong,  managed  to  whisper 
to  him  cheeringly,  "  It 's  all  right.  Quick,  go 
and  sit  by  her !  " 

But  this  friendly  advice  came  too  late  to  be 
acted  upon.  Carmen,  possibly  foreseeing 
Pern's  intention,  executed  a  rapid  flank  move- 
ment—  that  Rose  thought  made  the  case  still 
more  hopeful,  and  that  Pern  thought  made  it 
still  more  hopeless  —  by  which  she  placed  her- 
self securely  between  her  aunt  and  her  cousin 
Rodolfo,  and  so  decisively  checked  the  enemy's 
advance. 

Under  these  discouraging  circumstances 
Pern  fell  back  on  his  reserve — that  is  to  say,  on 
Rose ;  who  made  a  place  for  him  to  sit  beside 
her  and,  so  far  as  this  was  possible  without 
being  too  marked  in  her  confidences,  said 
what  she  could  to  cheer  and  comfort  him. 

And,  indeed,  this  young  gentleman's  re- 
quirements in  the  way  of  cheering  and  com- 
forting were  very  considerable.  He  had  con- 
fided freely  in  Rose  —  Rose  was  a  most 
refreshingly  sympathetic  confidante  in  a  love 
affair  —  after  she  herself  had  broken  the  ice 
for  him;  and  the  very  fact  of  talking  to  her 
about  his  heart-troubles  had  done  a  good  deal 
to  give  them  substance  and  directness.  As  the 
result  of  several  conversations,  Rose  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  if  Carmen  had  come  to 
the  breakfast  at  San  Cosme,  and  had  treated 
Pern  in  an  every-day,  matter-of-fact  sort  of 
way,  the  affair  very  likely  would  have  been 
there  and  then  ended.  "  But  when  I  went  to 
breakfast,  and  she  was  not  there,  Mrs.  Brown," 
Pem  explained,  "  I  suddenly  realized  how 
dreadfully  much  I  had  counted  upon  seeing 
her.  and  what  a  hold  she  had  upon  me  gen- 
erally. And  theiij  while  I  was  wretchedly  low 
in  my  mind  about  it  all,  you  came  to  me  like 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


743 


an  angel  and  told  me  that  perhaps  ]  had 
something  to  hope  for.  I  should  n't  have 
hoped  at  all  if  it  had  n't  been  for  you.  I  think 
that  I  might  even  have  had  sense  enough  just 
to  let  it  all  go,  and  started  right  back  for  the 
States.  And  that  would  have  been  the  end  of 
it.  But  now  that  you  have  encouraged  me, 
I  'in  quite  another  man.  I  shall  fight  it  out 
now  till  she  absolutely  throws  me  over,  or  till 
I  marry  her. 

"  In  the  matter  of  family,  Mrs.  Brown," 
Pern  went  on,  his  Philadelphia  instincts  as- 
serting themselves,  "the  marriage  is  a  very 
desirable  one.  Her  people  have  been  estab- 
lished in  America  even  longer  than  mine.  Her 
cousin  tells  me  that  they  trace  their  ancestry 
directly  to  the  Conqueror  himself, —  through 
the  Cortes  Tolosa  line,  you  know, —  and  they 
are  connected  with  some  of  the  very  best 
families  of  Mexico  and  Spain.  So,  you  see, 
there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  make 
her  my  wife.  If  it  can  be  done,  I  'm  going 
to  do  it ;  and  if  it  can't  —  well,  if  it  can't, 
there  won't  be  much  left  in  my  life  that 's  worth 
living  for,  that  's  all." 

When  Rose  reported  this  conversation  to 
her  husband  he  listened  with  an  air  of  serious 
concern.  "  You  've  shoved  yourself  into  a 
tolerably  good-sized  responsibility,  Rosey," 
he  said ;  "  and  I  'm  inclined  to  think,  my  child, 
that  you  're  going  to  make  a  mess  of  it.  I 
should  advise  you,  if  you  are  lucky  enough  to 
get  out  of  this  scrape  with  a  whole  skin,  to 
take  it  as  a  sort  of  solemn  warning  that  in 
future  you  will  save  yourself  a  good  deal  of 
trouble  if  you  will  let  other  people's  love-mak- 
ing alone.  But  since  you  are  so  far  in,  my 
dear,  I  don't  see  how  you  can  do  anything 
but  go  ahead  and  try  to  bring  Smith  out  all 
right  on  the  other  side." 

Rose  would  not  admit,  of  course,  that  she 
felt  at  all  overpowered  by  the  weight  of  her 
responsibility ;  but  she  did  feel  it,  at  least  a 
little,  and  consequently  hailed  with  a  very 
lively  satisfaction  every  act  on  Carmen's  part 
that  possibly  could  be  construed  as  supporting 
the  hopeful  view  of  the  situation  that  she  so 
energetically  avowed.  She  went  into  the  fight 
with  all  the  more  vigor  now  that  victory 
was  necessary  not  only  to  the  happiness  of 
her  ally,  but  to  the  vindication  of  her  own 
reputation  as  the  projector  of  heart-winning 
campaigns. 

Rose  was  encouraged  by  the  fact  that  the 
tactics  of  the  enemy  were  distinctively  defen- 
sive. She  argued  that  this  betrayed  a  con- 
sciousness, possibly  only  instinctive,  but  none 
the  less  real,  of  forces  insufficient  to  risk  a  gen- 
eral engagement ;  and  she  further  argued 
that  the  most  effective  plan  of  attack  would 
be  to  cut  off  the  main  body  of  the  enemy  — 


that  is  to  say,  Carmen  herself — from  her  re- 
serves,—  that  is  to  say,  from  the  protection  of 
her  aunt  and  other  relatives, —  and  then  to 
force  a  decisive  battle.  Before  the  car  reached 
San  Mateo  she  had  communicated  this  plan 
to  Pern,  and  he  had  agreed  to  it. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  plan  a  campaign  in 
the  cabinet,  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to 
carry  on  the  campaign  in  the  field.  The  allies 
presently  had  this  fact  in  military  science 
pointedly  brought  home  to  them. 

From  where  the  car  was  stopped,  near  the 
little  old  parish  church  of  San  Mateo, —  closed 
now  and  falling  into  ruin,  for  the  near-by 
conventual  church  has  been  used  in  its  stead, 
—  the  party  walked  a  short  half-mile  along 
a  lane  bordered  by  magueys,  and  then  came 
out  upon  a  plazuela  whereon  the  main  gate 
of  the  convent  opened.  In  the  middle  of  the 
plazuela  Pern  saw,  much  to  his  disgust,  another 
pyramidal  battle  monument,  inscribed,  like 
the  one  at  Molino  del  Rey,  with  a  brief  eulogy 
of  Mexican  valor  as  shown  in  the  gallant  but 
futile  resistance  offered  to  the  invading  armies 
of  the  Americans  of  the  North.  It  was  very 
unlucky,  he  thought,  that  their  expeditions 
should  be  directed  so  persistently  to  the  old 
battle-fields  of  that  wretched  war.  Since  Car- 
men's pointed  reference  to  the  war  he  had 
bought  a  Mexican  school  history  and  had 
read  up  on  it;  and,  even  allowing  for  the  nat- 
ural bias  of  the  historian,  the  more  that  he 
read  about  the  part  played  by  his  own  country 
the  more  was  he  ashamed  of  his  own  coun- 
trymen. Yet  he  could  not  but  think  also  that 
it  was  rather  hard  that  he  should  have  to  bear 
such  a  lot  of  responsibility  for  an  event  that 
occurred  before  he  was  born.  It  was  n't  fair 
in  Carmen,  he  thought,  to  liven  up  a  dead 
issue  like  that  and  make  it  so  confoundedly 
personal. 

A  couple  of  Mexican  soldiers,  in  rather 
draggled  linen  uniforms,  were  sitting  sentry 
lazily  at  the  convent  gate ;  and  Don  Antonio 
explained  that  the  convent  proper  was  now  a 
military  hospital.  The  church,  and  the  large 
close  in  front  of  it,  remained  devoted  to  re- 
ligious purposes,  he  said;  and  that  portion 
of  the  old  convent  which  inclosed  the  inner 
quadrangle  had  been  reserved  as  a  dwelling- 
place  for  the  parish  priest. 

Passing  to  the  left  and  turning  the  angle 
in  the  wall,  they  came  to  an  arched  gateway 
approached  by  a  short  flight  of  stone  steps ; 
and  through  this  stately  entrance,  albeit  some- 
what shorn  of  its  stateliness  by  the  ruinous 
condition  of  its  great  wooden  doors,  they 
entered,  and  descended  another  short  flight 
of  steps  into  the  close. 

"  Where  are  your  Italian  convents  now  ?  " 
Brown  asked,  turning  to  Rowney  Mauve,  who 


744 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


that  morning  had  been  talking  rather  airily 
about  Italian  convents.  "  You  admitted  as 
we  came  along  how  good  this  place  was  in 
mass  —  not  scattered  a  bit,  but  all  the  lines 
well  worked  together  —  and  how  well  the 
gray  and  brown  of  the  walls,  and  the  green 
of  the  trees,  and  the  blue  and  white  tiling  of 
the  dome,  come  together.  Now  we  have  some 
detail.  Did  you  ever  strike  anything  in  Italy 
better  than  this  great  high-walled  close,  with 
its  heavy  shadows  from  these  stunning  trees 
and  from  the  church  and  the  convent,  and  its 
bits  of  color  from  these  stations  of  the  cross 
in  colored  tiles  ?  The  church  might  be  better, 
but  it  has  at  least  a  certain  heavy  grandeur, 
and  the  little  tower  up  there  is  capital.  And 
look,  how  well  those  black  arches  close  beside 
it  bring  out  that  perfectly  beautiful  little  chapel 
—  1  suppose  it  is  a  chapel  —  completely  cov- 
ered with  blue  and  yellow  tiles !  There  are, 
no  doubt,  grander  churches  than  this  in  Italy, 
and  in  several  other  places ;  but  I  '11  be  shot 
if  I  believe  that  there  are  any  more  perfectly 
picturesque  or  more  entirely  beautiful.  Smith, 
just  tell  Don  Antonio  that  I  shall  be  grateful 
to  him  to  the  end  of  my  days  for  having  shown 
me  this  lovely  place." 

"  He  says  that  the  cloister  is  finer,"  Pem 
translated,  while  Don  Antonio's  face  beamed 
thanks  upon  the  party  at  large ;  for  all  the 
Americans  manifestly  concurred  in  Brown's 
enthusiastic  expression  of  opinion.  "And  he 
says  that  the  finest  tile-work  is  in  the  choir. 
I  must  say  I  don't  remember  anything  in  Spain 
better  than  this.  It  's  the  rich,  subdued  color 
of  it  all,  and  the  light  and  shade,  I  suppose, 
that  does  the  business.  I  don't  think  it  would 
paint,  though;  do  you,  Orpiment?" 

"  No,  I  don't.  You  could  make  a  pretty 
good  picture  of  it ;  but  the  picture  would  n't 
go  for  much  with  anybody  who  had  seen  the 
original.  You  can't  paint  a  place  that  goes  all 
around  you,  the  way  that  this  does ;  and  you 
can't  paint  the  spirit  and  the  feeling  of  it  —  at 
least  I  can't ;  and  that 's  what  you  'd  have  to 
get  here  if  you  got  anything  at  all.  No,  this  is 
one  of  the  places  that  we  'd  better  let  alone." 

The  decision,  which  was  a  wise  one,  having 
been  arrived  at,  the  party  passed  under  the 
arch  way  beside  the  tiled  chapel  and  so  entered 
the  inner  quadrangle,  surrounded  by  an  arched 
cloister  two  stories  high,  the  walls  wainscoted 
with  blue  and  white  tiles.  In  the  open,  sunny 
center  was  a  little  garden,  and  in  the  midst  of 
the  garden  a  curious  old  stone  fountain  in 
which  purely  transparent  water 'bubbled  up 
from  a  spring  with  such  force  as  to  make  a 
jet  three  or  four  inches  high  above  the  center 
of  the  large  pool.  The  bubbling  water  glittered 
in  the  sunlight,  and  little  waves  that  seemed 
half  water  and  half  sunshine  constantly  went 


out  from  the  throbbing  center  of  the  pool  and 
fell  away  lightly  upon  its  inclosing  quaintly 
carved  walls  of  stone. 

Here  there  was  another  outburst  of  admira- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Americans,  and  while 
they  were  in  the  midst  of  it  the  parish  priest, 
attracted  by  the  sound  of  so  many  voices  in 
this  usually  silent  and  forgotten  place,  came 
forth  from  a  low  archway  and  stared  about 
him  wonderingly.  He  was  a  little  round  man, 
with  a  kindly,  gentle  face,  and  a  simplicity 
of  manner  that  told  of  a  pure  soul  and  a  trust- 
ful heart.  Mrs.  Gamboge,  who  entertained 
tolerably  strong  convictions  in  regard  to  the 
Scarlet  Woman,  and  who  heretofore  had  held 
as  a  cardinal  matter  of  faith  that  every  Roman 
Catholic  priest  was  a  duly  authorized  agent 
of  the  Evil  One,  found  some  difficulty  in  rec- 
onciling with  these  sound  Protestant  views 
the  look  and  manner,  and  such  of  the  talk  as 
was  translated  to  her,  of  this  simple-minded, 
single-hearted  man. 

When  it  was  made  clear  to  the  little  padre 
that  this  distinguished  company,  including 
even  Americans  from  the  infinitely  remote  city 
of  New  York,  had  come  to  look  at  his  church 
because  it  was  beautiful,  his  expression  of 
mingled  amazement  and  delight  was  a  joy  to 
behold.  It  had  never  occurred  to  him,  he  said, 
that  anybody  but  himself  should  think  of  his 
poor  church  as  beautiful.  He  had  thought  it 
so  for  a  long  while,  ever  since  he  had  been 
brought  to  this  parish  from  his  former  parish 
of  Los  Reyes,  where  the  church  was  very  small 
and  very  shabby,  and,  moreover,  was  tumbling 
down.  But  he  had  thought  that  his  feeling 
for  the  beauty  of  his  church  was  only  because 
he  loved  it  so  well ;  for  in  all  the  years  that 
he  had  been  there  no  one  ever  had  even  hinted 
that  it  was  anything  more  than  churches 
usually  are.  Yet  it  had  seemed  to  him,  he 
said  modestly,  that  there  was  something  about 
the  way  the  shadows  fell  in  the  morning  in 
the  close,  and  something  at  that  time  about  the 
colors  of  the  walls  and  the  richer  color  of  the 
tiles,  the  like  of  which  he  had  not  seen  else- 
where. In  the  stillness  and  quiet,  amidst  these 
soft  shadows  and  soft  colors,  somehow  he 
found  that  his  heart  became  so  full  that  often, 
without  at  all  meaning  to  pray,  he  would  find 
his  thoughts  shaping  themselves  in  prayer. 

"  Good  for  the  padre,"  said  Orpiment  when 
Pem  translated  this  to  him.  "  That 's  the  part 
of  that  picture  that  I  said  could  n't  be  painted. 
He  does  n't  look  it  a  bit,  but  that  little  round 
man  is  an  artist."  But  Orpiment  was  mistaken. 
Padre  Romero  loved  beautiful  things,  not  be- 
cause he  was  an  artist,  but  because  he  had  a 
simple  mind  and  a  pure  soul. 

Under  the  padre's  guidance  the  party  en- 
tered the  church  —  commonplace  within,  for 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


745 


reformation  had  destroyed  its  seventeenth- 
century  quaintness  —  and  thence  passed  up 
through  the  convent  to  the  choir.  This  beau- 
tiful place,  rich  in  elaborate  tile-work,  re- 
mained intact ;  and  even  the  great  choir-books, 
wrought  on  parchment  in  colored  inks,  still 
rested  on  the  faldstool,  waiting  for  the  broth- 
ers to  cluster  around  them  once  again  in  song. 
And  there  were  the  benches  whereon  the 
brothers  once  had  rested ;  the  central  chair, 
in  which  Father  Saint  Francis  had  sat  in  effigy ; 
and  to  the  right  of  this  the  chair  of  the  father 
guardian.  But  the  brothers  had  departed  for- 
ever, legislated  out  of  existence  by  the  Laws 
of  the  Reform. 

Rose  gave  a  little  shudder  as  she  looked 
about  her  in  this  solemn,  deserted  place,  and 
with  her  customary  clearness  of  expression 
declared  that  it  was  "  something  like  being  in 
an  empty  tomb  full  of  Egyptian  mummies." 

"And  to  think,"  said  Mr.  Mangan  Brown, 
who  was  a  martyr  to  sea-sickness, "  that  Ameri- 
cans constantly  are  crossing  that  beastly  At- 
lantic Ocean  in  search  of  the  picturesque  when 
things  like  this  are  to  be  seen  dry-shod  almost 
at  their  doors.  Let  us  have  our  breakfast  at 
once." 

There  was  a  lack  of  consecutiveness  about 
Mr.  Brown's  remark,  but  its  abstract  comment 
and  concrete  suggestion  were  equally  well  re- 
ceived. Even  Rowney  Mauve,  who  was  dis- 
posed to  be  critical,  admitted  that  there  were 
"several  things  worth  looking  at  in  Mexico," 
and  added,  by  way  of  practical  comment  upon 
Mr.  Brown's  practical  proposal,  that  he  was 
as  hungry  as  a  bear. 

All  this  while  Rose  had  been  endeavoring 
to  bring  about  the  tetc-a-tete  between  Pern  and 
Carmen  that  she  believed  would  tend  to  the 
accomplishment  of  their  mutual  happiness. 
But  her  efforts  had  been  unsuccessful.  Car- 
men's defensive  tactics  no  longer  admitted  of 
doubt,  and  even  Rose  was  beginning  to  think 
that  her  sanguine  interpretation  of  their  mean- 
ing might  be  open  to  question.  Thus  far  she 
had  tried  to  cut  Carmen  out  from  her  supports. 
She  determined  now  to  attempt  the  more  dif- 
ficult task  of  drawing  off  these  supports,  and  so 
leaving  Carmen  isolated. 

The  breakfast,  a  very  lively  meal  eaten  in 
the  lower  cloister  to  the  accompaniment  of 
the  tinkling  of  water  falling  from  the  fountain, 
gave  her  the  desired  opportunity  for  organiz- 
ing her  forces.  With  the  intelligent  assistance 
of  Violet,  who  was  taken  into  partial  confi- 
dence because  her  knowledge  of  Spanish  made 
her  a  valuable  auxiliary,  Rose  contrived  to 
break  up  the  party,  when  breakfast  was  ended, 
so  that  she,  Dona  Catalina,  Carmen,  and  Pern 
remained  together,  while  the  others  scattered 
to  explore  the  convent.  Then,  Pern  serving  as 


interpreter,  she  asked  the  ladies  if  it  would  be 
possible  to  walk  in  the  tangled  old  garden  that 
they  had  seen  from  a  window  in  the  sacristy. 

Dona  Catalina,  being  devoted  to  gardens, 
as  Mexican  women  usually  are,  accepted  the 
proposition  immediately  and  heartily;  and 
Carmen — a  little  uneasily,  Rose  thought- 
fell  in  with  the  plan.  Fortunately  the  padre 
appeared  at  this  moment,  and  was  delighted  to 
guide  them  through  a  long,  dark  corridor  and 
so  into  his  domain  of  trees  and  flowers.  He 
was  full  of  enthusiasm  about  the  garden.  It 
had  been  restored  to  the  church  only  a  month 
before,  he  said,  after  belonging  to  the  hospital 
ever  since  the  property  had  been  confiscated. 
The  soldiers  had  done  nothing  with  it.  The 
ladies  could  see  for  themselves  its  neglected 
state.  They  must  come  again  in  a  year's  time, 
and  then  they  would  see  one  of  the  finest  gar- 
dens in  the  world.  And  full  of  delight,  the  little 
man  explained  with  great  volubility  his  plans 
for  pruning  and  training,  for  clearing  away 
weeds  and  rubbish,  and  for  making  his  wilder- 
ness once  more  to  blossom  like  the  rose.  Dona 
Catalina,  having  her  own  notions  about  gar- 
dens, entered  with  much  animation  into  his 
plans,  and  they  talked  away  at  a  great  rate. 

So  Rose  and  Pern  and  Carmen  walked 
through  the  shady  alleys  slowly,  while  Dona 
Catalina  and  the  priest,  walking  still  more 
slowly,  and  stopping  here  and  there,  that  the 
projected  improvements  might  be  fully  ex- 
plained, dropped  a  long  way  behind. 

It  was  a  perfect  Mexican  day.  Overhead 
was  a  clear,  very  dark-blue  sky;  liquid  sun- 
shine fell  warmly  through  the  cool,  crisp  air; 
a  gentle  wind  idled  along  easily  among  the 
branches  of  the  trees.  The  garden  was  very 
still.  The  only  sound  was  a  low  buzzing  of 
bees  among  the  blossoms,  and  the  faint  gur- 
gle of  the  flowing  water  in  conduits  unseen 
amidst  the  trees. 

Rose  stepped  aside  to  pluck  a  spray  of 
peach  blossoms.  Cdrmen  half  stopped,  but 
Pem,  with  admirable  presence  of  mind,  walked 
slowly  on  without  pausing  in  the  rather  com- 
monplace remark  that  he  happened  to  be 
making  in  regard  to  the  advantages  of  irriga- 
tion. A  few  steps  farther  on  they  came  to  a 
half-ruined  arbor.  They  turned  here  and 
looked  back  along  the  alley,  but  Rose  was 
not  in  sight.  "  She  will  join  us  in  a  moment," 
said  Pem.  "  She  is  looking  for  flowers  —  she 
is  very  fond  of  flowers.  Shall  we  wait  for  her 
here  ?  And  will  the  Senorita  seat  herself  in 
the  shade  ?  " 

Carmen  stood  for  a  moment  irresolute.  As 
the  result  of  what  she  believed  to  be  a  series 
of  small  accidents,  she  found  herself  now  in 
precisely  the  situation  that  she  had  determined 
to  avoid  —  alone  with  this  Americano  whom 


746 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


she  had  decided  in  her  own  mind  to  keep  at 
a  safe  distance.  Yet  now  that  the  situation 
that  she  had  tried  hard  to  render  impossible 
actually  had  been  brought  about  she  found 
in  it  a  certain  excitement  in  which  pleasure 
was  blended  curiously  with  pain.  Her  posi- 
tion certainly  was  weakened,  for  Pern  observed, 
and  counted  the  sign  a  good  one,  that  her 
color  had  increased  and  that  her  eyes  were 
brighter  even  than  usual.  She  herself  was 
conscious  that  the  attack  now  had  passed  in- 
side of  the  skirmish  line,  and  made  an  effort  — 
not  a  very  vigorous  one  —  to  rally  her  forces. 

"  Senorita !  Senorita !  "  she  called,  but  not 
very  loudly,  and  her  voice  lacked  firmness. 
There  was  no  answer. 

"  She  will  be  here  in  a  moment,"  Pem  re- 
peated. "It  is  pleasant  in  this  shady  place. 
Will  not  the  Senorita  seat  herself  ?  And  will  she 
answer  me  one  question  ?  "  Pern's  own  heart 
was  getting  up  into  his  throat  in  an  awkward 
sort  of  way,  and  his  voice  was  not  nearly  so 
steady  as  he  wished  it  to  be.  But  the  chance 
had  come  that  he  had  been  waiting  for,  and 
he  was  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

Carmen  gave  a  hurried  glance  around  her. 
Rose  still  remained  invisible.  It  was  very 
lonely  there  in  the  old  garden,  and  the  still- 
ness seemed  to  be  intensified  by  the  low,  soft 
buzzing  of  the  bees.  There  was  a  tightness 
about  her  heart,  and  she  felt  a  little  faint. 
Her  color  had  left  her  face,  and  she  was  quite 
pale.  She  seated  herself  with  a  little  sigh. 
But  she  realized  that  another  rally  was  neces- 
sary, for  the  shakiness  of  Pern's  voice  had  an 
unmistakable  meaning.  She  could  guess  pretty 
well,  no  matter  what  his  one  question  might 
be,  in  what  direction  it  ultimately  would  lead, 
and  she  felt  that  she  must  check  him  before 
it  was  spoken.  Her  wits,  however,  were  not 
in  very  good  working  order,  and  she  pre- 
sented the  first  thought  that  came  into  her 
mind  —  the  thought,  indeed,  that  had  been 
uppermost  in  her  mind  all  that  day : 

"  The  Senor  soon  will  leave  Mexico  ?"  she 
said.  She  was  aware  even  as  these  words 
were  spoken  that  they  served  her  purpose 
badly.  Pem  perceived  this  too,  and  hastened 
to  avail  himself  of  the  opening.  "  And  the 
Senorita  will  be  glad  when  I  am  gone  ?  " 

"  Glad  ?  No.  But  things  must  end,  and 
the  Senor  no  doubt  now  is  tired  of  this  land 
and  will  have  pleasure  in  returning  to  his  own. 
He  will  have  many  lively  stories  to  tell  his 
friends  about  the  savages  whom  he  lias  seen 
in  Mexico ;  and  then  presently  he  will  forget 
Mexico  and  the  savages,  and  will  be  busied 
again  with  his  own  concerns.  Is  it  not  so?" 

"  Is  it  the  custom  of  Mexicans  thus  to  forget 
friends  who  have  shown  them  great  kindness; 
or  does  the  Senorita  argue  by  contraries  and 


declare  that,  because  Mexicans  are  grateful, 
there  is  no  such  virtue  as  gratitude  among 
Americans  ?  Does  the  Senorita  truly  in  her 
heart  believe  that  I  shall  forget  the  kindness 
that  has  been  shown  to  me  here,  and  the  — 
and  those  who  have  shown  it  ?  " 

"  Ah,  well,  it  is  a  little  matter,  not  worth  talk- 
ing about,"  Carmen  replied,  uneasily.  "  No 
doubt  some  Americans  have  feelings  of  grati- 
tude, and  other  virtues  as  well.  But,  as  the 
Senor  knows,  I  am  not  fond  of  Americans. 
I  know  too  well  the  story  of  my  own  coun- 
try. Yes,  I  know  that  I  should  not  have 
spoken  of  this  again,"  Carmen  went  on,  an- 
swering the  pained  look  on  Pern's  face,  "but 
it  is  not  my  fault.  The  Senor  should  not  have 
made  me  talk  about  Americans."  This  with 
a  little  air  of  defiance.  "  And  least  of  all  in 
this  place.  The  Senor  knows  that  this  very 
convent  was  captured  by  his  countrymen  from 
mine  ?  But  does  he  remember  that  after  the 
surrender,  when  he  was  asked  to  give  up  his 
ammunition,  the  General  Anaya  replied, '  Had 
I  any  ammunition,  you  would  not  be  here '  ? 
Is  not  that  the  whole  story  of  the  war,  told  in  a 
single  word  ?  Does  the  Senor  wonder  that  I 
hate  the  Americans  with  all  my  heart  ?  " 

Pem  was  less  disconcerted  by  this  sally  than 
he  had  been  by  the  similar  revival  of  dead 
issues  at  Molino  del  Rey.  He  was  fairly  well 
convinced  in  his  own  mind  that  Carmen  was 
saying  not  more  than  she  meant  in  the  ab- 
stract, perhaps;  but,  certainly,  a  good  deal 
more  than  she  meant  in  the  concrete  as  ap- 
plied to  himself.  It  was  his  belief  that  she 
was  forcing  this  new  fighting  of  the  old  war 
as  a  rather  desperate  means  of  delivering  her- 
self from  engaging  in  a  new  and  more  per- 
sonal conflict.  He  also  inferred  from  her 
adoption  of  a  line  of  defense  that  he  knew 
was  distasteful  to  her  that,  like  General  Anaya, 
she  was  short  of  ammunition.  Entertaining 
these  convictions,  he  was  disposed  to  press 
the  attack  vigorously. 

"  Let  us  not  talk  about  Americans,"  he 
said.  "  Let  us  talk  about  one  single  Ameri- 
can. Does  the  Senorita  hate  me  ?  " 

This  sudden  and  very  pointed  question  pro- 
duced much  the  same  effect  as  that  of  the  un- 
masking of  a  heavy  mortar  battery.  It  threw 
the  enemy  into  great  confusion,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment completely  silenced  the  defending  guns. 

Carmen  was  not  prepared  for  so  sharp  a 
shifting  of  the  conversation  from  general  to  ex- 
ceedingly personal  grounds.  She  flushed  again, 
and  then  again  grew  pale.  She  was  silent  for  a 
very  long  while — at  least  so  it  seemed  to  Pem. 
Her  head  was  reclining  backward  against  the 
trellis-work  of  the  arbor  in  a  way  that  showed 
the  beautiful  lines  of  her  throat.  Her  eyes 
were  nearly  closed,  and  almost  wholly  veiled 


POEMS  BY  JOHN  VANCE    CHENEY.  747 

by  her  long  black  lashes — that  seemed  still  Rose,  who  took  the  matter  a  good  deal  to 

blacker  by  contrast  with  her  pale  cheeks.   Her  heart,  replied  that  this  "  was  just  like  him,"  she 

mouth  was  open  a  little,  and  her  breath  came  could  not  but  accept  this  reasonable  excuse, 
and  went  irregularly.    Her  face  was  very  still ;         On  Pern  and  Carmen  the  effects  of  the  in- 

but  as  Pern  waited  for  her  answer,  watching  terruption  were  different.    Whatever  her  more 

her  closely,  he  saw  an  expression  of  resolve  considerate  opinion  might  be.  Carmen's  first 

come  into  it.    Then  at  last  she  spoke :  feeling  certainly  was  that  of  relief.    She  had 

"  I    do   hate   you,"  she   said   slowly  and  fired  the  shot  that  she  had  nerved  herself  to 

firmly.    But  as  she  spoke  the  words  there  was  fire,  and  the  diversion  had  come  just  in  time 

a  drawing  of  the  muscles  of  her  face,  as  though  to  check  the  reply  of  the  enemy  and  to  cover 

she  suffered  bodily  pain.  her  orderly  retreat. 

"  Unearthed  at  last !  By  Jove,  Smith,  I  had        Pern, realizing  that  the  situation  was  critical, 

begun  to  think  that  you  and  the  Senorita  and  was  thoroughly  indignant.     He   wanted   to 

Rose  had  fitted  yourselves  out  with  wings  and  punch  Brown's  head.    Fortunately  no  oppor- 

flown  away  somewhere.    I 've  been  looking  for  tunity  offered  for  this  practical  expression  of 

you  high  and  low,  literally  ;  for  I  've  been  up  his  wrath,  and  by  the  time  that  he  got  back 

on  the  roof  of  the  convent,  and  now  I  'm  down  to  town  he  had  cooled  down  a  little.    But  he 

here.    \Vhere  is  Rose  ?  Dona  Catalina  said  was  so  grumpy  on  the  return  journey,  and 

that  you  all  three  were  here  in  the  garden.  Oh !  looked  so  thoroughly  uncomfortable,  that  the 

there  she  comes  now.  Come!  We 're  all  waiting  motherly  Dona  Catalina  expressed  grave  con- 

for  you  ;  it 's  time  to  start  back  to  town."  cern  when  she  bade  him  good-bye  and  frankly 

Brown  was  of  the  opinion  that  he  did  not  at  asked  him —  with  the  freedom  that  is  permis- 

all  deserve  the  rating  that  Rose  gave  him,  on  sible  in  Spanish — if  anything  that  he  had  eaten 

the  first  convenient  opportunity,  for  perpetrat-  at  breakfast  had  disagreed  with  him  ?    And 

ing  this  most  untoward  interruption.  "How  the  being  only  half-convinced  by  his  disclaimer, 

dickens  could  I  know  they  were  spooning  by  she  advised  him  to  take  promptly  a  tumbler- 

themselves?"  he  asked.  "  I  thought  that  you  all  ful  of  hot  water  strengthened  with  a  little 

three  were  together,  of  course."  And  although  tequila. 

(To  b«  concluded  in  the  next  number.)  TllOlliaS  A.  JatlVter. 


POEMS    BY    JOHN    VANCE    CHENEY. 

GREAT    IS   TO-DAY. 

OUT  on  a  world  that's  gone  to  weed! 
The  great  tall  corn  is  still  strong  in  his  seed ; 
Plant  her  breast  with  laughter,  put  song  in  your  toil, 
The  heart  is  still  young  in  the  mother-soil : 
There  's  sunshine  and  bird  song,  and  red  and  white  clover, 
And  love  lives  yet,  world  under  and  over. 

The  light 's  white  as  ever,  sow  and  believe ; 

Clearer  dew  did  not  glisten  round  Adam  and  Eve, 

Never  bluer  heavens  nor  greener  sod 

Since  the  round  world  rolled  from  the  hand  of  God : 

There  's  a  sun  to  go  down,  to  come  up  again, 

There  are  new  moons  to  fill  when  the  old  moons  wane. 

Is  wisdom  dead  since  Plato  's  no  more  ? 

Who  '11  that  babe  be,  in  yon  cottage  door  ? 

While  your  Shakspere,  your  Milton,  takes  his  place  in  the  tomb, 

His  brother  is  stirring  in  the  good  mother-womb: 

There 's  glancing  of  daisies  and  running  of  brooks, 

Ay,  life  enough  left  to  write  in  the  books. 

The  world  's  not  all  wisdom,  nor  poems  nor  flowers, 

But  each  day  has  the  same  good  twenty-four  hours, 

The  same  light,  the  same  night.    For  your  Jacobs,  no  tears; 

They  see  the  Rachels  at  the  end  of  the  years: 

There  's  waving  of  wheat,  and  the  tall,  strong  corn, 

And  his  heart-blood  is  water  that  sitteth  forlorn. 


748 


POEMS  BY  JOHN   VANCE    CHENEY. 


A    DAY-DREAM. 


>rr\  \VAS  not  'neath  spectral  moon, 
-I-    But  in  the  day's  high  noon, 
That,  pillowed  on  the  grass, 
I  saw  a  vision  pass. 

Strange  quiet  folded  round, 
Strange  silence  —  close,  profound; 
Sweet  peace,  peace  sweet  and  deep, 
Bade  every  trouble  sleep. 

"  O  spirit !  stay  with  me, 

Lying  all  quietly : 

If  this  be  death,"  I  said, 

"  Thrice  blessed  be  the  dead." 

The  shape  with  others  passed, 
Each  fainter  than  the  last; 
And  —  dreadful  was  the  roar  — 
I  heard  the  day  once  more. 


OLD    BRADDOCK. 

FIRE!   Fire  in  Allentown  ! 
The  Women's  Building  —  it  must  go. 
Mothers  wild  rush  up  and  down, 
Despairing  men  push  to  and  fro; 
Two  stories  caught  —  one  story  more  — 
See!  leaps  old  Braddock  to  the  fore  — 
Braddock,  full  three-score. 

Like  a  high  granite  rock 

His  good  gray  head  looms  huge  and  bare; 

Firm  as  rock  in  tempest  shock 

He  towers  above  the  tallest  there. 

"  Conrad !  "  'T  is  Braddock  to  his  son, 

The  prop  he  thinks  to  lean  upon 

When  his  work  is  done. 

Conrad,  the  young  and  brave, 
Unflinching  meets  his  father's  eye : 
"  Who  would  now  the  children  save, 
That  they  die  not,  himself  must  die." 
On  his  white  face  no  touch  of  fear, 
But,  oh,  it  is  so  sweet,  so  dear  — 
Life  at  twenty  year ! 

"  Father  —  father !  "    A  quick 

Embrace,  and  he  has  set  his  feet 

On  the  ladder.    Rolling  thick, 

The  flame-shot  smoke  chokes  all  the  street, 

Blinds  so  only  one  has  descried 

Her  form  that,  through  its  dreadful  tide, 

Springs  to  Conrad's  side. 


Strong  she  is,  now,  as  he, 

Throbbing  with  Love's  own  lion  might ; 

Strong  as  beautiful  is  she, 

And  Conrad's  arms  are  pinioned  tight. 

"Far  through  the  fire,  sits  God  above"  — 

In  vain  he  pleads ;  full  does  it  prove, 

Her  full  strength  of  love. 

Too  late' she  sets  him  free  — 

High  overhead  his  father's  call; 

From  a  height  no  eye  can  see 

Calls  hoary  Braddock  down  the  wall, 

"  Old  men  are  Death's,  let  him  destroy  ; 

Young  men  are  Life's,  Conrad,  my  boy  — 

Life's  and  Love's,  my  boy  !  " 

Wilder  the  women's  cries, 

Hoarser  the  shouts  of  men  below ; 

Sheets  of  fire  against  the  skies 

Set  all  the  stricken  town  aglow. 

With  sweep  and  shriek,  with  rush  and  roar, 

The  flames  shut  round  Old  Braddock  hoar- 

Braddock,  full  three-score. 

"  Save,  save  my  children,  save  !  " 
"Ay,  ay!  "  all  answer,  speak  as  one, 
"  If  man's  arm  can  from  the  grave 
Bring  back  your  babes,  it  will  be  done; 
Know  Braddock  still  is  worth  us  all. 
Hark  —  hark!    It  is  his  own  brave  call, — 
'  Back  —  back  from  the  wall ! ' " 

God  —  God,  that  it  should  be  ! 

As  savagely  the  lashed  wind  veers, 

Fiercer  than  the  fiery  sea 

The  frantic  crowd  waves  hands,  and  cheers : 

An  old  man  high  in  whirl  of  hell ! 

The  children, —  how,  no  soul  can  tell, — 

Braddock  holds  them  well. 

Shorn  all  that  good  gray  head 

With  snows  of  sixty  winters  sown  ; 

Griped  around  the  children's  bed, 

One  arm  is  shriveled  to  the  bone : 

"  Old  men  are  Death's,  let  him  destroy  ; 

Young  men  are  Life's,  Conrad,  my  boy  — 

Life's  and  Love's,  my  boy  !  " 

Fire  !    Fire  in  Allentown  ! 

Though  't  was  a  hundred  years  ago, 

How  the  babes  were  carried  down 

To-day  the  village  children  know. 

They  know  of  Braddock's  good  gray  head, 

They  know  the  last,  great  words  he  said, 

Know  how  he  fell  —  dead. 


COLLEGE     FRATERNITIES.* 


l. MA     DELTA    CHI    CLOISTERS    AND    CHAPEL,     S.    S.    S.,    VALE. 


F  college  fraternities  in  the 
United  States  one  significant 
fact  may  pass  unquestioned — 
they  have  retained  the  affection 
and  kept  the  support  of  a  large 
number  of  those  who  knew  them 
best.  On  their  rosters  are  found  not  only  the 
names  of  undergraduates,  but  also  those  of  men 
who  long  since  left  youth  and  folly  far  behind. 
Indeed,  one  now  and  then  runs  across  a  name 
that  adds  a  certain  dignity  to  the  catalogue  and 
becomes  an  inspiration  for  ambitious  youth. 
Of  these  many  find  no  small  satisfaction  in 
identifying  themselves  from  time  to  time  with 
the  life  of  the  various  clubs  and  societies  of 
which  they  were  members  when  boys  at  col- 
lege ;  they  take  a  mild,  half- melancholy  pleas- 
ure in  reminiscent  talk,  and  delight  to  meet 
and  wander  with  half-regretful  sadness  in  halls 
where  youth  wears  the  crown. 

The  charm  of  life  in  the  society  hall  is  much 
easier  for  one  to  imagine  than  for  another  to 
relate.  A  stereotyped  phrase,  "  mere  boyish- 
ness," fails  to  explain  it ;  a  compendium  of  dry 
facts  and  arguments  would  be  farther  still  from 
picturing  the  life  that  often  masquerades  un- 
der the  thin  veil  of  a  half-pretended  secrecy. 


More  "  sweetness  and  light  "  seems 
always  to  have  been  the  goal  to- 
wards which  the  fraternities  strove, 
and  thestory  of  their  development  is 
a  plain  tale  of  natural  and  steady 
growth  from  small  beginnings. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  first  quarter 
of  the  present  century  the  social  life 
of  our  colleges  had  become  barren  — 
not  more  barren,  perhaps,  than  it  had 
been  for  many  years,  but  relatively 
so  in  view  of  the  fact  that  life  was 
becoming  richer  and  the  spirit  of  the  times 
more  liberal.  Boys  from  families  in  which  puri- 
tanical methods  were  obsolete  naturally  hated 
the  puritanism  of  college  discipline ;  they  chafed 
at  the  petty  decorum  of  the  stuffy  class-rooms, 
and  fretted  at  the  deadness  of  the  iron-bound 
curriculum.  Almost  the  only  means  of  relaxa- 
tion countenanced  by  the  faculties  were  open 

*& 


WHIG    HALL,    PRINCETON. 

Vol..  XXXVI.— 103. 


KAPPA    ALPHA    LODGE,    CORNELL. 

debating  societies,  which  met  on  the  college 
grounds,  and  to  the  meetings  of  which  both 
professor  and  student  might  go.  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  students,  from  the  days  of  Horace 
down,  were  wont  to  hold  their  preceptors  as 
their  natural  enemies,  the  presence  of  profes- 
sors did  not  increase  the  popularity  of  these 
societies.  Indeed,  they  languished.  Here  was 
the  opportunity  of  the  typical  college  fraternity. 
Of  these  societies  the  first  to  assume  the 
characteristics  that  are  now  recognized  as  their 
essential,  albeit  it  soon  lost  them,  had  been  Phi 
Beta  Kappa.  It  was  founded  at  Williamsburg, 
Virginia,  December  5, 1776,  in  the  very  room 
where  Patrick  Henry  had  voiced  the  revolu- 
tionary spirit  of  Virginia.  The  story  is  a  sim- 
ple one:  John  Heath, Thomas  Smith,  Richard 
Booker,  Armistead  Smith,  and  John  Jones, 

*  For  friendly  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  this 
article  the  writer  cordially  acknowledges  his  obliga- 
tion to  Mr.  John  De  Witt  Warner,  of  New  York. 


75° 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


HASTY    PUDDING    CLUB-HOUSE,    HARVARD. 

students  at  William  and  Mary  College,  then  the 
most  wealthy,  flourishing,  and  aristocratic  insti- 
tution of  learning  in  America,  believing  that 
there  was  room  for  a  more  effective  student 
organization  than  the  one  of  a  Latin  name  that 
then  existed  there,  and  recalling  that  one  of 
their  number  was  the  best  Greek  scholar  in 
college,  resolved  to  found  a  new  society,  the 
proceedings  of  which  were  to  be  secret,  to  be 
known  by  the  name  of  the  three  Greek  letters 
that  formed  the  initials  of  its  motto  —  Phi  Beta 
Kappa.  The  minutes  are  discouraging  to  those 
who  would  like  to  consider  Phi  Beta  Kappa  as 
a  band  of  youthful  enthusiasts  planning  a  union 
of  the  virtuous  college  youth  of  this  country, 
who  were  afterward  to  reform  the  world;  and 
even  more  so  to  those  who  have  declared  infi- 
del philosophy  to  be  its  cult.  Youths  of  fine  feel- 
ings and  good  digestion,  they  enjoyed  together 
many  a  symposium  like  that  on  the  occasion 
of  Mr.  Bowdoin's  departure  for  Europe,  when, 
"  after  many  toasts  suitable  to  the  occasion,  the 
evening  was  spent  by  the  members  in  a  man- 
ner which  indicated  the  highest  esteem  for 
their  departing  friend,  mixed  with  sorrow  for 
his  intended  absence  and  joy  for  his  future 
prospects  in  life."  They  called  themselves  a 
"fraternity."  More  thoroughly  to  enjoy  the 
society  of  congenial  associates,  to  promote  re- 
fined good-fellowship,  was  the  motive  of  these 
hearty  young  students  who  founded  the  first  of 
the  true  Greek-letter  fraternities,  with  (to  quote 
from  its  ritual)  "  friendship  as  its  basis,  and 


benevolence  and  literature  as  its  pillars  " —  one 
which  thrived  in  their  day  as  its  successors  on 
the  same  basis  flourish  in  ours.  So  far  from  being 
inspirers,  or  a  product,  of  American  national 
spirit,  or  of  a  union  of  the  wise  and  virtuous  to 
which  they  invited  all  known  American  col- 
leges, the  only  reference  in  their  record  to  the 
Revolution  is  the  single  mention  of  the  "  con- 
fusion of  the  times"  in  the  record  of  the  final 
meeting;  and  the  only  recognition  of  the  exist- 
ence of  other  colleges  is  the  record  of  the  grant- 
ing  of  charters  for  "meetings"  at  Harvard  and 
Yale,  which  institutions  were  never  mentioned 
again. 

Meanwhile  Cornwallis  was  coming  nearer, 
and  after  having  chartered  additional  chap- 


"  KEYS  "   HALL,    YALE. 


"BONES"  HALL,  YALE. 


ters, —  Beta,  Gamma,  Delta,  Epsilon,  Zeta 
(Harvard),  Eta  (Yale),  and  Theta,— the  Al- 
pha, or  mother  chapter,  passed  out  ofexistence. 
From  Epsilon  and  Zeta  have  descended  the 
latter-day  chapters  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  Of  the 
fate  of  Beta,  Gamma,  Delta,  Eta,  and  Theta 
nothing  is  known.  After  a  lapse  of  seventy 
years,  William  Short,  of  the  mother  chapter, 
at  the  age  of  ninety,  traveled  from  Philadel- 
phia to  Williamsburg  and  revived  the  Alpha, 
which,  however,  soon  succumbed  to  the  vicis- 
situdes of  its  college.  It  is  not  known  what 
was  its  first  follower.  But  of  those  whose  ac- 
tivity have  been  continuous  to  date,  Kappa 
Alpha,  founded  in  1825  at  Union  College, 
adopting  with  its  Greek  name  a  badge  planned 
similarly  to  that  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  (except 
that  it  was  suspended  from  one  corner,  in- 
stead of  from  the  center  of  one  of  its  equal 
sides),  and  inspired  by  similar  ends,  began 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


75' 


BERZEL1CS    HALL,    S.    S.    S.,    YALE. 

the  career  that  has  made  it  the  mother  of 
living  Greek-letter  societies.  For  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  has  long  since  become  an  honorary, 
as  distinguished  from  an  active,  institution, 
though  the  reunions  of  its  chapters,  especially 
of  the  old  Zeta,  "  Alpha  of  Massachusetts," — 
now  the  Massachusetts  Alpha, —  founded  at 
Cambridge  in  1779,  are  still  note  worthy  events. 

Even  before  Phi  Beta  Kappa  came  into  ex- 
istence, Oliver  Ellsworth,  afterward  Chief-Jus- 
tice of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
had  founded  Clio  Hall  at  Princeton,  and  a  few 
years  later,  in  1769,  Whig  Hall  arose  at  the 
same  college  with  James  Madison,  afterward 
twice  President  of  the  United  States,  for  its 
founder;  and  from  that  day  to  this  these  friendly 
rivals  have  never  ceased  to  exert  a  healthful  in- 
fluence on  the  intellectual  life  of  Princeton. 
These  were  the  prototypes,  and  are  the  most 
vigorous  survivals,  of  what,  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury, were  the  most  flourishing  and  numerous 
of  student  societies  —  the  twin  literary  socie- 
ties, or  "  halls,"  generally  secret,  and  always 
intense  in  mutual  rivalry,  which  have  been  in- 
stitutions at  every  leading  college  in  the  land. 

Another  and  a  third,  though  less  homogene- 
ous, class  of  student  societies  may  be  best 
described  by  noting  separately  its  only  im- 
portant examples  —  at  Harvard  and  Yale. 
The  Hasty  Pudding  Club  of  Harvard  also 
took  its  rise  in  those  interesting  and  forma- 
tive years  just  subsequent  to  the  close  of  the 
Revolutionary  war,  and  was  founded,  as  its 
constitution  says,  "to  cherish  the  feelings  of 
friendship  and  patriotism."  For  the  display 
of  the  latter  virtue  the  club  for  many  years 
was  \vont  to  celebrate  Washington's  Birthday 
with  oration  and  poem,  with  toasts  and  punch. 
Alas,  for  these  degenerate  days!  Conventional 


theatricals  have  taken  the  place  of  poem 
and  oration,  though,  for  aught  I  know,  the 
toasts  and  punch  may  yet  survive.  "Two 
members  in  alphabetical  order" — so  ran  the 
old  by-laws  —  "shall  provide  a  pot  of  hasty 
pudding  for  every  meeting,"  and  it  is  said 
that  this  practice  is  still  religiously  kept.  That 
the  banquet  was  not  lightly  considered  by  the 
old  Harvard  clubs  may  be  seen  in  the  tend- 
ency to  exalt  in  the  name  of  the  club  the 
peculiar  feature  of  the  club's  fare,  the  Por- 
cellian  taking  its  name  from  the  roasted  pig  — 
classical  token  of  hospitality  —  that  one  of  its 
bright  young  members  provided  for  the  en- 
tertainment of  his  fellows  on  a  time  when  the 
feast  fell  to  his  providing.  But  the  Porcel- 
lian  has  not  wholly  given  itself  up  to  the 
things  that  go  with  banqueting,  for  no  other 
college  society  has  so  fine  a  library  as  it  pos- 
sesses. Indeed,  its  seven  thousand  well-se- 
lected and  finely  bound  volumes  might  be 
coveted  by  many  less  fortunate  small  colleges. 
TheA.D.  Club  is  a  younger  rival  of  the  "Pork," 
and,  in  the  comfort  of  its  house,  the  brilliancy 
of  its  dinners,  and  its  good-fellowship,  is  by 
no  means  inferior.  The  development  of  this 
species  of  undergraduate  activity  has  taken  a 
widely  different  and  rather  unique  form  at  Yale. 
The  Yale  senior  societies  are  the  most  secret 
and  clannish  of  college  societies.  No  outsid- 
ers ever  enter  their  buildings,  and  their  goings 
and  comings  are  so  locked  in  mystery  that 
one  can  only  guess  what  their  aims  and  purposes 
are.  A  passion  for  relic  worship  and  a  taste 
for  politics  are  generally  ascribed  to  both, 
though  the  class  of  men  taken  by  Scroll  and 
Key  differs  widely  from  that  chosen  by  Skull 


DELTA    KAPPA 


752 


COLLEGE   FRATERNITIES. 


e 


ALPHA    DELTA    PHI    (EELL's  MEMORIAL)   HALL,  HAMILTON. 

and  Bones  —  the  men  of  the  former  being  se- 
lected, it  is  supposed,  for  their  social  position 
and  qualities  of  good-fellowship,  while  those 
of  the  latter  are  usually  good  scholars  or  prom- 
inent athletes. 

Thus  we  have  the  three  classes  of  student 
societies  —  the  old  literary  societies,  still  flour- 
ishing in  the  older  colleges  of  the  South,  but 
languishing  elsewhere,  except  at  Princeton, 
where  Clio  and  Whig  are  still  the  great  insti- 
tutions of  the  student  body,  and  at  Lafayette, 
where  the  Washington  and  Jefferson  are 
scarcely  less  prosperous ;  the  peculiar  local  in- 
stitutions of  Yale  and  Harvard,  sui generis  and 
not  to  be  propagated;  and  the  Greek-let- 
ter system  of  chaptered  fraternities,  the  char- 
tered corporations  of  which  are  to-day  the 
most  prominent  characteristic  of  American 
undergraduate  social  life. 

The  interval  of  thirty-five  years  from  the 
founding  of  Kappa  Alpha  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  civil  war  was  the  golden  age  of  these 
fraternities.  They  sprang  up  and  multiplied 
with  a  persistency  that  should  forever  make 
firm  the  doctrine  of  the  strengthening  power 
of  persecution.  They  were  not  confined  to 
any  one  grade  of  college  or  to  any  particular 
part  of  the  country.  They  flourished  every- 


where, and  increased  in  numberthrough  almost 
every  imaginable  combination  of  the  letters 
of  the  Greek  alphabet.  Many,  of  course,  have 
vanished  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Of 
those  that  still  remain,  Delta  Kappa  Epsilon, 
founded  at  Yale  in  1844,  is  the  largest,  and 
has  now  above  9000  members,  representing  32 
active  chapters  situated  in  19  different  States; 
Psi  Upsilon,  originated  at  Union  in  1833,  en- 
rolls some  6600  members,  distributed  among 
19  chapters  in  10  States;  and  Alpha  Delta  Phi, 
founded  at  Hamilton  in  1832,  has  a  mem- 
bership nearly  as  large.  Delta  Kappa  Epsilon 
appears  to  have  made  good  its  claim  to  be  rec- 
ognized as  a  national  institution ;  and  while 
certain  smaller  fraternities  are  favorites  in 
particular  parts  of  the  country,  all  barriers  are 
rapidly  disappearing  before  these  three  favor- 
ite societies  in  their  march  towards  representa- 
tion at  all  the  important  colleges  of  the  country. 
Though  fraternities  are  organized  less  fre- 
quently now  than  formerly,  because  of  the 


ALPHA   TAU   OMEGA    HALL,   SEWANEE. 


DELTA   KAPPA    EPSILON    HALL,  ANN    ARBOR. 

increased  difficulty  of  competing  with  those 
that  have  been  long  established,  still,  as  the 
colleges  themselves  grow,  the  chapters  of  the 
most  nourishing  fraternities  grow  with  them ; 
so  that  the  increase  of  the  system,  as  a  whole, 
is  both  very  regular  and  very  considerable.  Up 
to  1883,  the  date  at  which  the  latest  general 
manual  of  the  fraternities  appeared,  there  were 
enrolled  among  the  32  general  college  frater- 
nities of  this  country,  forming  an  aggregate  of 
505  active  chapters,  no  less  than  67,941  mem- 
bers, representing  every  possible  profession  and 
branch  of  business,  every  shade  of  religious 
and  political  opinion,  and  every  State  and 
Territory  of  the  United  States.  But  these 
figures  by  no  means  tell  the  whole  story  of 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


753 


ALPHA  PHI  (LADIES')  LODGE,  SYRACUSE. 


the  growth  and  spread  of  the  "little"  college 
fraternities.  Many  colleges  and  advanced 
technical  schools  in  every  section  of  the 
country,  besides  welcoming  the  general  fra- 
ternities to  their  privileges,  have  ambitiously 
started  and  preserved  local  fraternities  that 
are  limited  or  have  no  branches  at  other  in- 
stitutions, but  nevertheless  often  enjoy  a  large 
share  of  local  patronage.  These  societies,  of 
which  there  are  16  now  in  existence,  had  a 
membership  of  4077.  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
female  students,  not  to  be  outdone,  about  a 
dozen  years  ago  began  to  organize  sisterhoods, 
from  which  males  were  ignominiously  debarred 
from  membership,  and  had  meantime  suc- 
ceeded in  building  up  7  prosperous  societies, 
with  1 6  chapters  and  2038  members,  situated 
mostly  in  co-educational  institutions.  When  to 
this  grand  total  of  74,056  names  are  added  the 
large  membership  of  the  Princeton  halls,  the 
Harvard  clubs,  and  the  Yale  senior  societies, 
already  described,  together  with  the  very  nu- 
merous class  organizations  in  various  colleges, 
it  may  be  seen  how  firm  ahold  the  spirit  of  co- 
operation has  taken  upon  the  collegians  of  the 
country.  The  fraternities  have  grown  far  away 
from  the  persecutions  of  their  early  days,  when 
the  hands  of  all  men  and  faculties  were  raised 
against  them.  Because  they  met  in  secret, 
and  held  themselves  free  from  the  intrusion 
of  the  faculty  for  one  night  in  the  week,  and 
adorned  their  poor  little  badges  with  Greek 
letters,  all  evil  and  rebellious  conduct  was 
charged  against  them.  Though  their  purposes 
were  sensible  enough,  and  good  rather  than 
evil  has  come  from  them,  a  nameless  stigma 
of  bad  parentage  still  rests  upon  the  whole 
system,  to  live  down  which,  by  an  overplus 
of  actual  and  visible  good  attainment,  has  not 
been  possible  till  within  recent  years.  But 
prejudice  has  an  unequal  contest  with  con- 
viction. Through  persecution,  and  poverty  of 
opportunity,  and  lack  of  means  the  new  society 
men  fought  their  way  towards  solid  ground, 
finding  in  their  struggles  and  in  their  ambi- 
tions for  the  success  and  honors  of  their  fra- 
ternities an  incentive  and  charm  college  life 
had  till  then  never  yielded. 


Whatever  may  have  been  the  shortcomings 
of  the  American  college  boy  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago,  want  of  energy  was  not  one  of 
them.  To  take  off  his  coat  and  go  to  work 
with  his  hands  seemed  to  him  the  most  natu- 
ral thing  when  he  needed  a  society  lodge.  In 
this  way  was  built,  in  1855,  the  famous  "log- 
cabin  "of  Delta  Kappa  Kpsilon  at  Kenyon  Col- 
lege, Gambier,  Ohio.  The  site  selected  was  a 
deep  ravine,  far  away  from  any  human  dwell- 
ing. Neighboring  farmers  were  hired  to  fell 
the  trees  and  to  raise  the  frame  of  this  ark  of  a 
house,  forty-five  feet  in  length  by  ten  in  height. 
The  entire  chapter  (including  its  youngest 
member,  now  an  orator  of  national  reputation 
several  times  elected  to  Congress)  rested 
not  until  they  had  plastered  the  outside 
crevices  with  mud.  Inside  the  room  was  nicely 
ceiled,  and  furnished  with  good  tables  and 
chairs,  a  carpet,  and  several  pictures.  The 
walls  and  roof  of  the  building  were  ingeniously 
deadened  with  saw-dust  and  charcoal,  so  that 
not  the  remotest  whispers  could  reach  the  ears 
of  curious  eavesdroppers,  if  any  such  should 
have  the  temerity  to  penetrate  to  the  recesses 
of  this  sylvan  retreat.  "  A  cooking-stove,  with 
skillet,  griddles,  and  pots  complete,  was  the 
pride  of  the  premises,"  writes  an  old  member, 
"  where  each  hungry  boy  could  roast  his  own 
potatoes,  or  cook  his  meat  on  a  forked  stick, 
in  true  bandit  style." 


UELTA    KAPPA    EPSILON    LOG-CABIN,    KENYON. 

The  building  of  this  lodge  gave  a  great  im- 
petus to  the  owning  of  society  homesteads. 
Before  this  the  various  chapters  had  been  ac- 
customed to  rendezvous  stealthily  in  college 
garrets,  at  village  hotels,  or  anywhere  that 
circumstances  and  pursuing  faculties  made 
most  convenient.  But  when  the  assurance 
was  once  gained  that  the  fraternities  might 
own  their  premises  and  make  them  permanent 
abiding-places,  the  whole  system  became 
straightway  established  on  a  lasting  founda- 
tion. In  1861,  at  Yale,  the  parent  chapter  of 


754 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


ALPHA    DELTA    PHI    LODGE,    ANN    ARBOR. 

the  same  fraternity,  Delta  Kappa  Epsilon, 
built  for  itself  a  two-story  hall  in  the  form  of 
a  well-proportioned  Greek  temple,  and  this 
proved  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  long  epoch 
of  more  and  more  elaborate  house-building, 
the  culmination  of  which  has  scarcely  been 
reached  at  the  present  day. 

From  the  temple-shaped  hall  with  its  facili- 
ties for  the  routine  work  of  the  chapter,  its 
dramatic  and  social  festivities,  the  most  enter- 
prising fraternities  progressed  gradually  to- 
wards ample  homesteads,  thoroughly  equipped 
for  dealing  with  every  phase  of  student  life,  in- 
cluding the  furnishing  of  comfortable  board 
and  lodging,  which,  in  some  features,  excelled 
the  average  dormitories.  The  work  began  in 
earnest  about  fifteen  years  ago,  but  the  past 
two  or  three  years  have  excelled  all  the  others 
combined,  both  in  an  intelligent  understanding 
of  what  was  needed  to  make  the  houses  thor- 
oughly habitable  and  creditable  in  appearance, 
and  in  the  amount  of  superior  work  planned 
in  detail  or  actually  accomplished.  A  critical 
comparison  of  the  specimens  in  existence  re- 
veals the  fact  that  pretty  nearly  every  kind 
of  known  architecture  has  been  tried.  At 
Princeton  one  may  see  in  the  twin  temples 
of  Whig  and  Clio  copies  of  the  Ionic  archi- 
tecture; at  Cambridge,  should  he  visit  the 
A.  D.  Club,  he  could  scarcely  fail  to  notice 


that  this  hospitable  mansion  is  the  veritable 
traditional  New  England  homestead,  with  its 
air  of  little  pretense  and  much  comfort.  At 
Yale,  "  Bones  Hall "  is  venerable  and  pictur- 
esque when  covered  by  the  foliage  of  its  ivy; 
the  magnificent  building  of  "  Keys  "is  of  Moor- 
ish pattern;  the  new  "Wolf's  Head"  society, 
at  the  same  college,  honors  our  ancestors  in 
the  "  Old  Home"  by  choosing  a  corbel-stepped 
gable,  "  fretting  the  sky,"  to  which  the  English 
and  the  Dutch  of  several  centuries  ago  were 
noticeably  partial;  the  stone  Delta  Psi  lodges 
at  New  Haven  and  Hartford  are  veritable 
castles  for  strength  and  ruggedness  of  outline ; 
no  gentleman  would  need  a  more  tasteful  or 
finely  located  villa  than  one  of  the  fraternity 
houses  which  he  would  find  at  Ithaca;  while 
by  Delta  Kappa  Epsilon  at  Amherst  has  been 


CHI     PSI     LODGE,    AMHERST. 


DELTA    PSI    HALL,    S.    S.    S.,    YALE. 

introduced,  and  by  Sigma  Delta  Chi  at  Yale 
has  been  elaborated,  what  seems  probable  to 
become  the  reigning  type — that  of  •'  cloisters," 
in  which  are  lodged  the  members,  joined  by 
gallery  or  covered  way  to  the  "  chapel,"  where 
are  celebrated  the  rites  of  the  chapter. 

If  the  fraternities  as  a  whole  have  had  a 
weakness,  it  has  been  for  what  they  were 
pleased  to  believe  was  the  "  Queen  Anne 
style" — a  "spread"  of  red  bricks,  irregular, 
very  irregular,  tile  roofs,  and  an  unknown  quan- 
tity of  bowed  windows,  with  the  usual  acces- 
sories of  modern  stained- glass  "Venetian" 
blinds,  and  unlimited  opportunity  for  portieres. 
These  experiments,  as  embodied  by  some  ama- 
teur architect,  most  likely  a  well-meaning  but 
untrained  member  of  the  chapter,  have  not  al- 
ways been  successful;  but  lately  the  bizarre 
mode  has  given  way  to  better  taste,  and  in  all 
probability  the  next  efforts  of  the  fraternities 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


755 


at  house-building  will  be  characterized  by 
solidity  rather  than  show,  by  harmony  rather 
than  conspicuousness.  Several  of  the  college 
faculties  have,  with  the  consent  of  their  boards 
of  trustees,  presented  enterprising  societies 
with  valuable  building-sites  on  their  grounds; 
and  where  theirinvitations  have  been  accepted, 
they  have  no  cause  to  regret  their  generosity. 

In  interior  decoration  the  houses  of  the 
American  college  fraternities  differ  no  less 
radically  than  in  external  appearance.  At  a 
Western  lodge  the  members  arc  often  content 
with,  and  indeed  think  themselves  fortunate  if 


DELTA    PSI    LODGE,    TRINITY. 


they  have  at  their  command,  the  bare  neces- 
sities of  life,  while  not  a  few  of  the  wealthy 
chapter-houses  of  the  East  are  furnished  with 
all  the  luxury  and  refined  taste  of  the  high- 
est modern  art  as  applied  to  club  life.  For 
instance,  the  lodge-room  of  the  Delta  Psi  fra- 
ternity in  New  York  City  is  magnificently  fur- 
nished in  Egyptian  designs  especially  imported 
from  Thebes  for  this  purpose,  at  a  cost  of 
several  thousands  of  dollars ;  and  in  the  build- 
ings of  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi  at  Wesleyan, 
the  Psi  Upsilon  at  Cornell,  the  Chi  Psi  at 
Amherst,  and  the  Sigma  Phi  at  Williams 
may  be  found  wood-work,  furniture,  and  ob- 
jects of  art  which  would  be  in  no  wise  out  of 
place  in  the  most  attractive  of  modern  city 
homes.  Several  of  the  foremost  chapters,  such 
as  the  Sigma  Phi,  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  and 
the  Kappa  Alpha  of  Williams  College,  have 
been  presented  with  valuable  memorials  by 
the  friends  or  relatives  of  deceased  members, 
which  are  introduced  so  as  to  form  conspicu- 
ous features  of  the  buildings.  Thus  the  last 


EPSILON    PHI    LODGE,  WILLIAMS. 

of  the  three  societies  just  named  contains  a 
strikingly  beautiful  emblematic  window,  de- 
signed by  Tiffany  &  Co.  of  New  York.  The 
Samuel  Eell's  Memorial  Hall,  at  Hamilton 
College,  is  itself  a  tribute  to  the  brilliant 
young  founder  of  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi  fra- 
ternity, who  died  after  a  short  career  of  great 
promise  at  the  Cincinnati  bar  as  a  law  part- 
ner of  the  late  Chief-Justice  Chase.  Other 
representative  lodges  have  been  built  or  beau- 
tified by  the  generosity  of  individuals. 

With  the  aid  of  rich  sons  and  generous  par- 
ents and  friends,  the  loading  down  of  college 
lodge-rooms  might  easily  be  carried  to  an 
unfortunate  extreme,  especially  if  a  false  spirit 
of  rivalry  should  gain  a  foothold  in  our  col- 
lege world.  But  at  present  there  seems  little 
danger  of  this.  An  honorable  ambition  pre- 
vails among  the  leaders  of  the  best  fraternities 
to  make  their  homes  complete  and  attractive 
in  every  particular,  but  beyond  this  they  do 
not  seek  to  go.  The  energies  of  those  who 


DELTA    PSI    HALL,    NEW    YORK    CITY. 


756 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


DELTA     KAPPA     EPSII.ON     LODGE     AND    HALL,    AMHERST. 


have  charge  should  be  directed  especially  to 
adorning  the  chapter-houses  with  what  illus- 
trates and  improves  student  life  in  general,  and 
with  what  is  of  particular  importance  to  the 
members  of  the  college  or  university  at  which 
the  chapter-house  is  located. 

Of  the  value  of  the  real  and  personal  prop- 
erty belonging  to  the  ten  American  college 
fraternities  that  are  represented  by  at  least 
one  chapter-house  each,  and  the  leaders  by 


ALPHA   DELTA   PHI  LODGE,   WILLIAMS    (MEMORIAL  PORCH). 


five  or  more,  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the 
sum  is  fast  approaching  a  million  of  dollars ; 
while  numerous  other  fraternities  and  chapters 
have  well-invested  and  rapidly  accumulating 
building-funds. 

The  fraternity  literature  is  another  interest- 
ing subject.  The  hideous  reptiles  and  winged 
monsters,  the  burning  altars  and  dungeon  bars, 
and  other  such  fantastic  symbolism  with  which 
the  magazines  and  newspapers  of  some  of  the 
fraternities  are  decorated,  prove  to  cover  in- 
teresting and  oftentimes  useful  tables  of  con- 
tents, including  reminiscences  of  college  life 
and  literary  articles  by  prominent  graduates, 
news-letters  from  the  chapters  at  the  different 
colleges,  personal  gossip  concerning  alumni, 
official  notices  from  the  officers  of  the  frater- 
nity, editorial  comments,  and  notes  from 
exchanges.  Two  or  three  of  these  society 
periodicals  have  attained  a  large  circulation. 
The  fraternities  have  not  confined  their  ener- 
gies to  current  papers,  however,  but  have  com- 
piled elaborate  record  books  of  their  mem- 
bers, in  the  form  of  catalogues,  which,  besides 
containing  the  names  and  occupations  of  mem- 
bers, give  succinct  sketches  of  the  chapters  and 
the  colleges  at  which  they  are  situate,  interest- 
ing tables  of  residence  and  relationship,  and 
brief  biographical  sketches  of  the  most  distin- 
guished graduates.  But  decidedly  the  fresh- 
est and  most  characteristic  literature  possessed 
by  the  fraternities  are  their  song-books,  where, 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


757 


in  varied  and  not  always  correct  verse,  the 
youthful  laureates  have  sung  the  praises  of 
their  clans,  comrades,  festal  nights,  the  charms 
of  good-fellowship,  and  many  other  such 
tempting  themes  for  the  imagination  and  the 
heart. 

Till  about  a  dozen  years  ago  few  or  none 
of  the  fraternities  had  a  strong  executive  gov- 
ernment, but  were  managed  by  theoldest  chap- 
ter, or  by  several  chapters  in  turn,  and  by  the 
hasty  edicts  of  the  general  conventions  of  the 
order.  But  this  system  proving  inadequate,  the 
leaders  conceived  and  boldly  acted  on  the  idea 
of  taking  the  general  executive  administration 
of  the  college  fraternities  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  undergraduate  members,  at  the  same  time 
appealing  to  the  graduate  members  to  assume 
an  active  share  in  their  welfare.  So  far  their 
success  has  been  noteworthy.  The  graduate 
councils,  which  now  form  the  executive  de- 
partment of  most  of  the  leading  fraternities, 
are  ably  managed,  and  graduate  associations 
of  the  larger  fraternities  have  been  formed  in 
most  of  the  important  cities.  They  hold  re- 
unions, banquets,  and  business  meetings,  and 
in  most  essentials  serve  as  graduate  chapters 
of  their  orders,  cementing  old  college  ties  and 
forming  new  ones  between  members  of  differ- 
ent colleges ;  and  several  of  the  fraternities, 
such  as  the  Delta  Psi,  the  Delta  Phi,  the  Delta 
Kappa  Epsilon,  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  the  Psi 
Upsilon,  the  Zeta  Psi,  and  the  Delta  Upsilon, 
have  lately  taken  the  advanced  step  of  estab- 
lishing in  the  large  cities  regular  club-houses, 
which  are  well  equipped,  and  well  patronized 
by  men  of  all  ages;  while  at  Chautauqua,  the 
"  Wooglin  "  club-house,  with  its  ample  accom- 
modations and  grounds,  is  the  summer  head- 
quarters of  the  Beta  Theta  Pi,  by  a  graduate 
corporation  of  which  it  is  owned. 

The  legislative  functions  of  the  fraterni- 
ties still  rest  with  the  annual  conventions, 
which  are  usually  held  with  the  different 
undergraduate  chapters  in  turn,  when,  be- 


KAPPA    ALPHA    LODGE,    WILLIAMS. 


FIELD   MEMORIAL  WINDOW,    KAPPA  ALPHA   LODGE,  WILLIAMS. 

sides  the  transaction  of  routine  business,  the 
several  hundred  students  present  from  all  parts 
of  the  country  are  occupied  with  social  cour- 
tesies extended  to  them  by  local  residents,  and 
with  literary  efforts  in  the  form  of  orations 
and  poems,  often  delivered  by  members  of 
the  fraternity  who  have  attained  eminence  in 
public  life. 

In  view  of  the  facts  already  presented  in  the 
course  of  this  narrative,  a  defense  of  the  fra- 
ternities, a  summing-up  of  all  the  reasons  on 
which  their  existence  and  continuance  might 
be  justified,  seems  altogether  superfluous. 
This  one  significant  feature  of  the  case  may 
however  be  offered  to  the  dubious  without 
comment,  as  pointing  its  own  moral — that  so 
far,  whenever  the  majesty  of  the  law  has  been 
invoked  by  still  obstinate  faculties  or  trustees 
to  drive  the  fraternities  from  their  institutions, 
the  law  has  upheld  the  continuance  of  the 
societies  and  the  free  rights  of  the  students 
to  join  them,  provided  that  in  doing  so  they  do 
not  violate  any  of  the  proper  functions  of  the 
college.  It  was  so  in  1879,  when  the  faculty  of 
the  University  of  California  tried  to  disband 
a  society  which  had  been  allowed  to  erect  a 
house  on  college  land,  and  was  met  by  the 
hostile  criticisms  of  the  entire  press  of  that 
State;  it  was  so  in  1882,  when  the  pres- 
ident of  Purdue  University,  Indiana,  striving 
to  compel  students  entering  his  university 
not  to  join  any  of  the  societies,  was  pre- 
vented by  a  decision  of  the  superior  court  of 
that  State,  and  in  the  end  resigned  his 
office.  The  one  notable  exception  to  this 
rule  is  the  case  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey. 
Here  the  faculty  succeeded  in  expelling  all 
the  fraternities  ;  but  it  was  before  the  era  of 
their  house-building.  All  of  those  chapters 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 104. 


758 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


THI   KAi-rA   PSI   (MEMORIAL)    LODGE,  GETTYSBURG. 

which  have  built  houses  are  now  incorporated 
institutions,  paying  taxes  on  their  real  and 
personal  property,  and  entitled  to  the  full 
privileges  and  protection  of  local  and  State 
laws. 

They  therefore  appear  to  rest  on  a  more 
solid  basis  than  mere  sufferance ;  and  however 
ardently  certain  individuals  may  wish  to  see 
them  abolished,  it  is  extremely  doubtful  if  even 
an  organized  crusade  against  them,  headed  by 
all  the  college  presidents  in  the  United  States 
and  the  majority  of  the  faculties  under  them, 
could  succeed  in  doing  more  than  to  drive  the 
reputable  societies  into  a  temporary  seclusion, 
from  which,  in  a  few  years,  they  would  emerge 
stronger  than  ever.  Such  at  least  has  been  the 
case  at  many  representative  institutions. 

But  the  above  supposition  is  relegated  to 
the  realms  of  the  impossible  when  one  dis- 
covers that  a  large  portion  of  the  educators 
referred  to  are  themselves  members  of  the 
fraternities,  and  in  many  cases  actively  associ- 
ated with  their  progress.  This  list  includes 
such  men  as  President  Eliot  of  Harvard, 
D  wight  of  Yale,  Walker  of  the  Boston  Institute 
of  Technology,  Seelye  of  Amherst,  White  of 
Cornell,  Dwight  of  the  Columbia  Law  School, 
Oilman  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  John- 
ston of  Tulane,  and  Northrop  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota.  There  is  not  a  faculty 
of  any  size  in  the  United  States  that  does  not 
contain  society  members,  and  few  professorial 
chairs  at  the  largest  colleges  are  not  filled  by 
representatives  of  the  leading  fraternities. 
These  "  little  societies  "  have  supplied  forty 
governors  to  most  of  the  largest  States  of  the 
Union  ;  and  had  in  the  last  administration 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  ma- 
jority of  his  Cabinet.  On  the  Supreme  Bench 
of  the  United  States  the  fraternities  are  now 
represented  by  five  of  the  associate  justices.  A 
summary,  published  in  1885,  showed  Alpha 
Delta  Phi,  Psi  Upsilon,  and  Delta  Kappa 
Epsilon  to  have  furnished  of  United  States 
senators  and  representatives  39,  25,  and  36 


respectively;  while  in  the  last  Congress  13 
representatives  and  2  senators  were  members 
of  the  last-named  fraternity  alone  ;  and  in  the 
membership  of  these  3  fraternities  are  included 
24  bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 
In  the  class-room  they  are  represented  by 
Whitney  and  Marsh ;  in  the  pulpit,  by  R.  S. 
Storrs  and  Phillips  Brooks ;  in  the  paths  of 
literature,  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  George 
William  Curtis,  Donald  G.  Mitchell,  Charles 
Dudley  Warner,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  and 
E.  C.  Stedman ;  in  recent  public  life,  by  Presi- 
dents Arthur  and  Garfield,  by  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh,  Charles  S.  Fairchild,  Robert  T.  Lin- 
coln, John  D.  Long,  William  M.Evarts,  Joseph 
R.  Ha wley,  and  William  Walter  Phelps.  These 
gentlemen  were  not  elected  into  the  fraternities 
after  graduation,  but  were  active  supporters 
of  these  organizations  during  their  undergrad- 
uate days.  Whatever,  then,  may  be  the  short- 
comings of  college  secret  societies,  it  is  to 
their  credit  that  their  exponents  are  men 
noted  for  ability  and  prominence  in  every 
useful  sphere  of  life,  as  well  as  for  mere  cult- 
ure and  congeniality,  while  from  end  to  end 
of  the  catalogued  chapter-lists  run  in  thick 
procession  the  starred  names  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  lamented  of  the  young  officers 
who  fell  in  the  battles  of  our  civil  war  —  in 
the  blue  and  gray  ranks  alike.  Judging  the 
system  by  its  deeds  only,  it  is  difficult  to  es- 
cape the  conclusion  that  the  best  societies 
have  in  reality  been  groups  of  picked  men 
among  the  fortunate  few,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, who  are  able  to  incur  the  expense  of  a 
college  education. 

In  almost  every  college  where  the  secret 
societies  have  flourished  attempts  have  been 
made,  some  of  them  quite  successful,  to  carry 
on  local  anti-secret  societies;  and  there  has 
existed  for  many  years  an  anti-secret  frater- 
nity, with  chapters  placed  in  different  colleges, 
which  has  been  patterned  very  closely  after 
the  societies  calling  themselves  secret,  both  as 
to  means  and  ends.  But  in  one  case  only,  that 
of  Delta  Upsilon,  have  the  anti-secret  orders 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


759 


PSl    I'PSILON    LODGE,    HAMILTON. 

been  able  to  keep  pace  with  their  secret  rivals, 
in  either  the  quality  of  their  membership,  their 
activity  in  college  affairs,  or  their  increase  in 
material  resources.  Even  here  this  has  been 
the  result  of  assimilation  to  the  secret  frater- 
nities, till  now,  so  far  as  Delta  Upsilon  can  ef- 
fect it,  the  distinction  between  itself  and  the 
secret  fraternities  is  simply  that  the  latter  ex- 
poses somewhat  more  private  business  than 
do  they,  and,  as  to  the  rest,  terms  "  privacy  " 
what  they  call  "  secrecy." 
Mr.  Warner  has  said : 

Notwithstanding  their  formation  is  only  in  obedience 
to  an  ancient  and  universal  love  in  human  nature,  they 
are  attacked  because  they  are  secret.  I  suppose  that 
some  of  them  are  guardians  of  the  occult  mysteries  of 
Egypt  and  India,  that  they  know  what  once  was  only 
known  to  augurs,  flamens,  and  vestal  virgins,  and  per- 
haps to  the  priests  of  Osiris ;  others  keep  some  secret 
knowledge  of  the  formation  of  the  alphabet,  or  preserve 
the  secret  of  nature  preserved  in  the  Rule  of  Three, 
and  know  why  it  was  not  the  Rule  of  Four ;  while 
others,  in  midnight  conclave,  study  the  ratio  of  the 
cylinder  to  the  inscribed  sphere.  It  matters  not.  I 
have  never  yet  met  any  one  who  knew  these  secrets, 
whatever  they  are,  who  thought  there  was  any  moral 
dynamite  in  them ;  never  one  who  had  shared  them 
who  did  not  acknowledge  their  wholesome  influence  in 
his  college  life.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  reputable  socie- 
ties ;  I  am  acquainted  with  no  other. 

The  constitutions  of  many  college  frater- 
nities are  now  open  to  the  inspection  of  fac- 
ulties; the  most  vigorous  publish  detailed 
accounts  of  their  conventions  and  social  gath- 
erings; nearly  all  of  the  homesteads  are  on  oc- 
casions opened  for  the  reception  of  visitors ; 
their  rites,  ceremonies,  and  even  the  appear- 
ance of  their  sancta  sanctorum,  are  quite  ac- 
curately apprehended  by  rival  societies  —  in 
short,  the  old  shibboleth  of  secrecy  is  a  myth 
rather  than  a  reality. 

The  shrewdest  college  presidents  have  long 
since  discovered  that  to  control  undergraduate 
action  with  a  firm  though  gentle  hand  they 
have  only  frankly  to  bespeak  the  aid  and  win 
the  confidence  and  assistance  of  the  fraterni- 
ties represented  at  their  institutions.  It  is  thus 


that  we  come  to  see  and  to  realize  the  im- 
portance of  such  unique  departures  from  the 
traditional,  ever-antagonistic  relations  be- 
tween the  faculties  and  the  students  of  large 
colleges  as  those  lately  put  into  operation  at 
Amherst,  Bowdoin,  and  other  colleges;  where 
all  matters  relating  to  the  privileges  and  pen- 
alties of  the  students  are  adjusted  to  a  code 
of  laws  which  is  administered,  and  from  time 
to  time  amended,  by  a  council  of  undergradu- 
ates, representing  the  fraternities,  acting  in 
concert  with  one  or  more  members  of  the 
faculty.  This  simple  and  amicable  relation- 
ship between  those  desiring  to  obtain  knowl- 
edge and  those  desiring  to  impart  it  has 
already  been  attended  with  very  gratifying 
results. 

Illustrated  by  such  cases  as  that  of  Amherst 
and  Bowdoin,  and  reenforced  by  the  healthy 
tone  of  the  fraternity  press,  which  has  not 
'failed  to  wage  war  on  what  is  reprehensible 
or  deficient  in  our  college  life,  and  has  labored 
to  inculcate  in  their  members  the  obligations 
which  they  owe  to  their  college  and  to  the 
members  of  rival  societies  as  well  as  of  their 
own,  the  words  of  General  Stewart  L.  Wood- 
ford,  in  speaking  of  the  early  days  of  the 
societies,  seem  amply  justified,  and  to  promise 
even  larger  and  still  more  excellent  fruit  in 
the  near  future : 

To  no  one  cause  more  than  to  the  fraternity  move- 
ment has  been  due  the  altered  conditions  of  college  cult- 
ure. ...  In  matters  of  study  and  discipline  each 
student  is  now  largely  guided  by  his  personal  predilec- 
tions, by  the  advice  of  those  whom  he  sees  fit  to  consult, 
by  the  moral  force  of  his  chosen  associates.  These  as- 
sociations are  now  determined  in  many  colleges  by  the 
Greek-letter  societies  or  fraternities. 


PHI    NU    THETA    LODGE,    WESLBVAN. 


760 


COLLEGE  FRATERNITIES. 


.TA    UPSILON     LODGE,    MADISON. 


That  they  can  use  without  abusing  their 
privileges  was  very  well  expressed  by  Presi- 
dent White,  at  the  dedication  of  the  new  Psi 
Upsilon  house  at  Cornell : 

Both  theory  and  experience  show  us  that  when  a 
body  of  young  men  in  a  university  like  this  are  given 
a  piece  of  property,  a  house,  its  surroundings,  its  repu- 
tation, which  for  the  time  being  is  their  own,  for  which 
they  are  responsible,  in  which  they  take  pride,  they 
will  treat  it  carefully,  lovingly,  because  the  honor  of  the 
society  they  love  is  bound  up  in  it. 

He  added  the  following  profound  observa- 
tions as  the  result  of  his  long  experience,  both 
here  and  abroad : 

One  of  the  most  unpleasant  things  in  college  life 
hitherto  has  been  the  fact  that  the  students  have  con- 
sidered themselves  as  practically  something  more  than 
boys,  and  therefore  not  under  tutors  and  governors  ; 
but  something  less  than  men,  and  therefore  not  ame- 
nable to  the  ordinary  laws  of  society.  Neither  the  dor- 
mitory nor  the  students'  boarding-house  is  calculated  to 
better  this  condition  of  things,  for  neither  has  any  in- 
fluence in  developing  the  sense  of  manly  responsibility 
in  a  student.  But  houses  such  as  I  am  happy  to  say 
this  society  and  its  sister  societies  are  to  erect  on  these 
grounds  seem  to  solve  the  problem  in  afar  better  way. 
They  give  excellent  accommodations  at  reasonable 
prices;  they  can  be  arranged  in  such  a  manner  and  gov- 
erned by  such  rules  as  to  promote  seclusion  for  study 
during  working-hours;  they  afford  opportunities  for  the 
alumni  and  older  students  to  exercise  a  good  influence 
upon  the  younger ;  they  give  those  provisions  for  the 
maintenance  of  health  which  can  hardly  be  expected 
in  student  barracks,  or  in  the  ordinary  -student  board- 
ing-house, and  in  the  long  run  can  be  made  more  eco- 
nomical. But  what  I  prize  most  of  all  in  a  house  like 
this  is  its  educating  value  ;  for  such  a  house  tends  to 
take  those  who  live  in  it  out  of  the  category  of  boys 
and  to  place  them  in  the  category  of  men.  To  use  an 
old  English  phrase,  it  gives  them  "  a  stake  in  the 
country." 

President  Seelye  of  Amherst  College,  in  an 
address  on  June  28,  1887,  states,  referring  to 
the  Greek-letter  fraternities: 

The  aim  of  these  societies  is,  I  say,  improvement  in 
literary  culture  and  in  manly  character,  and  this  aim  is 
reasonably  justified  by  the  results.  It  is  not  accidental 
that  the  foremost  men  in  college,  as  a  rule,  belong 
to  some  of  these  societies.  That  each  society  should 


seek  for  its  membership  the  best  scholars,  the  best 
writers  and  speakers,  the  best  men  of  a  class,  shows 
well  where  its  strength  is  thought  to  lie.  A  student 
entering  one  of  these  societies  finds  a  healthy  stimulus 
in  the  repute  which  his  fraternity  shall  share  from  his 
successful  work.  The  rivalry  of  individuals  loses  much 
of  its  narrowness,  and  almost  all  of  its  envy,  when  the 
prize  which  the  individual  seeks  is  valued  chiefly  for 
its  benefitto  the  fellowship  to  which  he  belongs.  Doubt- 
less members  of  these  societies  often  remain  narrow- 
minded  and  laggard  in  the  race,  after  all  the  influ- 
ence of  their  society  has  been  expended  upon  them, 
but  the  influence  is  a  broadening  and  a  quickening  one 
notwithstanding.  Under  its  power  the  self-conceit  of 
a  young  man  is  more  likely  to  give  way  to  self-control 
than  otherwise.  .  .  . 

To  represent  all  the  fraternities  as  standing 
on  anything  like  the  same  high  plane  as  to 
membership,  progress  in  the  past,  and  pros- 
pects for  the  future  would  be  misleading.  My 
thoughts  have  naturally  turned  to  the  stand- 
ing, the  equipment,  the  aspirations,  or  per- 
haps only  the  pretty  dreams  of  those  fraterni- 
ties which  deserve  to  be  ranked  as  the  leaders 
in  the  race  —  that  some  day  all  the  colleges  of 
the  United  States  will  be  veritable  and  ac- 
knowledged student  democracies;  that  the 
fraternity  buildings,  though  smaller  than  the 
college  halls,  will  equal  the  latter  in  durability 
and  completeness  of  appointment;  that  all 
the  large  cities  will  have  graduate  clubs,  where 
the  college  fraternity  man  can  renew  the  old 
associations  that  he  cherished  when  a  student. 

The  leading  fraternities  are  fond  of  affirm- 
ing the  difference  in  their  standard  qualifica- 
tions for  membership.  Some  venerate  high 
scholarship;  others  pride  themselves  on  the 
aristocracy  of  birth  or  wealth;  still  others 
recognize  the  claims  of  a  heartier  and  more 
democratic  spirit.  This  may  be  true ;  and  yet 
in  all  of  them  there  is  enough  good-fellowship 
to  attract  the  cultured  and  enough  culture  to 


.      .     :    • 
PSI    UPSILON    LODGE,   TRINITY. 

improve  the  sociable.  They  illustrate  a  law  of 
nature  and  a  law  of  man,  in  the  tendency  of 
atoms  with  affinities  to  form  into  groups.  Hav- 
ing outgrown  weaknesses  and  prejudices,  they 
may  be  expected  to  enjoy  a  career  of  pros- 
perity. 

John  Addison  Porter.  . 


HARD    TIMES    IN    THE    CONFEDERACY. 


ITH  emotions  of  mingled 
pain  and  pleasure,  akin  to 
those  that  come  at  hearing 
,»  ./,  once  again  a  familiar  air, 
-  the  echo  of  whose  last  ca- 
dence vanished  years  ago, 
so  the  reminiscences  of 
the  many  makeshifts  and 
expedients  for  maintaining  life  and  a  degree  of 
comfort  recur  to  the  minds  of  those  who,  in 
the  Southern  Confederacy,  struggled  through 
the  period  embraced  within  the  years  1861  and 
1865.  The  blood-stained  battle-fields  where 
the  hosts  of  contending  armies  met  in  deadly 
conflict  witnessed  no  finer  examples  of  cour- 
age and  self-abnegation  than  did  the  chimney- 
sides  and  roof-trees  of  those  times,  where  the 
ragged  rebels  had  left  wives  and  mothers  and 
children  and  slaves  to  keep  the  household  gods 
together,  to  raise  the  stint  of  corn  and  wine 
and  oil,  and  to  tend  the  flocks  whereby  they 
all  might  be  clothed  and  fed. 

It  savors  more  of  the  ludicrous,  perhaps, 
than  of  the  desperately  serious  to  be  told  in 
these  latter  days  of  how  great  an  amount  of 
money  it  took  then  to  buy  even  the  scant  sup- 
plies of  food  and  clothes  which  served  to  ward 
off  cold  and  subdue  hunger.  If  the  State  mili- 
tia officer  of  the  present  who  arrays  his  fine 
figure  in  the  prescribed  uniform  of  his  com- 
mand, at  the  moderate  cost  of  some  fifty  or 
sixty  dollars,  had  worn  the  Confederate  "army 
worms  "  on  his  sleeve  some  twenty  odd  years 
back,  lie  then  could  not  have  disported  himself 
in  such  an  outfit  of  trousers,  coat,  and  vest  for  a 
less  sum  than  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  dollars 
of  the  currency  at  that  time  in  vogue  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Or  had  he  been 
then  as  now,  perchance,  a  beau  sabreur,  as 
some  of  that  day  were,  with  a  love  for  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  war,  though  pos- 
sessing withal  the  fine  spirit  of  the  gants  glaees 
of  De  Preslin  at  Rethel,  in  the  war  of  the 
Fronde,  he  doubtless  would  have  affected  the 
popular  fashion  of  a  soft  slouch  hat  with  a  black 
plume  waving  from  it  and  the  brim  upheld  by 
a  glittering  star ;  and  this  gay  headgear  would 
have  cost  him  a  cool  two  hundred  dollars  of 
Confederate  currency.  But  they  were  few  in 
number  who  could  wear  fine  uniforms  even  in 
the  earlier  days  of  the  conflict;  and  in  the 
latter  years  the  prices  of  all  commodities  rose 
in  a  steady  scale  —  save  only  that  of  one, 
which  remained  for  the  most  part  steadfast 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  105. 


and  immovable  from  first  to  last,  and  that  one 
was  military  service. 

The  privilege  of  fighting,  bleeding,  and  even 
dying  for  one's  unhappy  country  was  in  those 
days  an  inestimable  boon  which  outweighed 
every  sordid  consideration  of  Confederate 
promises  to  pay  —  at  least  in  the  opinion  of 
the  higher  authorities;  and  when  a  pound  of 
tea  from  Nassau  brought  five  hundred  dollars, 
and  a  pair  of  cavalry  boots  six  hundred  dol- 
lars in  that  ridiculous  medium  of  exchange, 
the  pay  of  the  private  soldier  of  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia  was  about  eight  dollars  a 
month!  Though  there  be  something  ludicrous 
in  it  all,  the  humor  of  it  touches  so  nearly  the 
outer  edge  of  the  heroic  as  to  seem  strangely 
like  pathos. 

Even  where  the  money  was  to  be  had,  the 
materials  for  handsome  uniforms  were  not; 
and  it  is  said  that  the  insignia  of  rank  on  the 
sleeves  and  collar  of  a  distinguished  Confeder- 
ate general  were  made  by  his  wife  from  pieces 
of  yellow  flannel  which  before  the  war  had 
been  one  of  his  children's  petticoats. 

Style  and  material  were,  after  all,  mere  mat- 
ters of  individual  gratification ;  for  the  army 
cared  little  what  manner  of  raiment  officers 
or  comrades  wore,  save  to  make  "  b'iled " 
shirts,  and  a  superfluity  of  finery  wherever 
visible,  subjects  of  infinite  jest.  The  soldiers 
were  as  ready  to  cheer  the  dingy  little  forage 
cap  of  the  puritan  Stonewall  Jackson  when  he 
trotted  down  the  lines  as  to  salute  with  ap- 
plause the  plumed  chapeau  of  the  dashing  cav- 
alier Stuart. 

The  traditional  rebel  soldier  in  the  persim- 
mon tree,  who  told  his  captain  that  he  was 
eating  the  green  persimmons  in  order  to  fit  his 
mouth  to  the  size  of  his  rations,  epitomized 
in  his  epigrammatic  speech  the  history  of  the 
economic  conditions  of  the  Southern  States, 
both  in  the  field  and  at  home,  during  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion.  After  the  seaports  of  the 
South  had  once  become  thoroughly  blockaded, 
it  was  a  continuous,  and  in  the  end  unavail- 
ing, struggle  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the 
Confederacy  to  accommodate  the  status  of 
supply  to  that  of  demand. 

After  the  war  ended,  a  monthly  magazine 
dedicated  to  perpetuating  the  records  of  the 
war  from  a  Southern  standpoint,  and  soon 
perishing  in  the  vain  endeavor,  published  a 
rude  wood-cut,  which,  with  its  concomitant 
inscription,  expressed  with  great  pith  and  point 


762 


HARD    TIMES  IN   THE    CONFEDERACY. 


the  extremities  to  which  soldiers  and  homefolk 
alike  were  reduced  in  the  latter  days  of  the 
contest.  It  represented  two  lank,  lean,  lan- 
tern-jawed Confederates  in  a  blackberry  patch. 
One  of  them,  on  his  knees,  the  more  readily 
to  reach  the  palatable  fruit,  is  looking  upward 
at  his  comrade  with  a  grim  smile,  and  saying : 

"  They  can't  starve  us,  nohow,  as  long  as 
blackberries  last." 

The  vein  of  his  self-gratulation  and  assur- 
ance is  readily  acquiesced  in  and  reenforced 
by  the  other,  who  responds  in  a  spirit  of  apt 
commendation,  and  with  an  even  larger  and 
more  catholic  faith : 

"  Naw,  sir !  And  not  as  long  as  thar  's 
huckleberries,  nuther.  And  when  they  're 
gone,  come  'simmons !  " 

To  the  uninitiated  stranger  who  saw  and 
read,  the  rude  cut  and  its  underwritten  legend, 
if  considered  at  all,  doubtless  were  held  coarse 
and  witless ;  but  to  him  who  knew  the  bitter 
meaning  thereof,  through  his  own  harsh  ex- 
perience, they  spoke  with  the  emphasis  of  a 
stern  and  powerful  significance. 

We  read  with  a  shudder  of  the  dire  straits 
to  which  the  denizens  of  beleaguered  cities 
are  often  subjected,  when  unclean  animals  and 
unwholesome  refuse  become  the  sole  means 
of  subsistence,  and  rejoice  to  think  that  such 
vicissitudes  are  few  and  far  between.  But  it 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  that,  while  only  in 
exceptional  instances  were  the  Southern  peo- 
ple reduced  to  such  a  pass,  yet,  from  the  day 
when  the  Federal  fleet  blockaded  the  harbors 
and  forts  of  the  Confederacy,  their  wants  often 
left  them  not  very  many  degrees  removed  from 
the  condition  of  besieged  people  in  the  latter 
stages  of  beleaguerment. 

While  the  ratio  of  cold  and  hunger  expe- 
rienced was  in  an  inverse  order  to  that  of 
comparative  physical  comfort  the  country  was 
full  of  suffering,  and  thousands  of  people  who 
had  been  reared  and  had  lived  in  the  extremes 
of  ease  and  affluence  were  for  months  and 
years  without  what  are  believed,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  present,  to  be  the  common- 
est necessaries  of  daily  life. 

The  blockade-runners  made  at  intervals 
perilous  trips  from  Wilmington  and  Charles- 
ton to  Nassau  and  back,  carrying  out  cargoes 
of  cotton  and  bringing  in  supplies.  But  these 
scanty  imports  were  only  a  drop  in  the  great 
empty  bucket  of  want;  and  the  South  was 
forced  to  rely  upon  its  own  products,  its  own 
industry,  and  its  own  ingenuity  to  meet  the 
demands  of  physical  and  social  existence.  The 
sudden  realization  of  this  duty  of  the  hour 
was  a  greater  shock  to  the  inert  and  indolent 
South  of  that  time  than  even  that  of  arms; 
yet  the  deductive  philosopher,  speculating 
upon  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  great 


material  growth  and  prosperity  attained  within 
the  last  two  decades  by  the  States  once  in 
rebellion,  may  well  be  led  to  attribute  to  this 
growth  and  prosperity  the  initial  leaven  of  a 
highly  wrought  self-reliance  and  courage  born 
of  the  sacrifices  and  struggles  of  that  period. 
The  women  of  the  Confederacy  learned  the 
moral  of  the  chapter  even  between  the  hard 
lines  of  its  beginning;  and  it  is  by  the  men 
born  of  these  mothers  that  the  new  South  lias 
been  enabled  to  rise  from  the  ashes  of  the  old. 

Forcing  its  producing  capacity  to  the  ut- 
most limit  that  the  crippled  condition  of  labor 
would  allow,  and  straining  its  ingenuity  until 
that  ingenuity  threatened  to  give  way,  food 
and  clothing  at  last  failed  the  people  of  the 
South.  The  want  of  these  things  was  the  in- 
domitable engineer  who  cleared  the  way  for 
Sherman's  march  to  the  sea,  the  unanswer- 
able herald  who  summoned  Lee  to  Grant's 
presence  at  Appomattox  Court  House.  It  is 
no  reflection  upon  the  great  generals  of  the 
Union  to  say,  as  the  historian  must,  that  the 
Federal  navy,  bringing  the  blockade,  brought 
the  hard  times  to  the  Confederacy,  and  that 
the  hard  times  hastened  its  fall. 

With  the  markets  of  Europe  left  open  to 
its  cotton,  and  with  powerful  friends  at  the 
courts  of  England  and  of  France,  whose 
friendship  perhaps  would  have  assumed  a 
more  substantial  form  but  for  the  environing 
Federal  fleet,  who  can  prophesy  what  might 
not  have  been  the  fate  of  the  young  Govern- 
ment? But  with  its  most  important  staple 
thrown  almost  valueless  upon  its  hands,  the 
moral  no  less  than  the  physical  effect  of  the 
blockade  upon  its  fortunes  was  tremendous. 
The  land  that  had  laughed  aloud  with  plenty 
under  the  bounteous  and  beneficent  rule  of 
King  Cotton  saw  the  scepter  of  that  sway 
depart  from  it,  and  was  sad.  The  free-trade, 
carried  on  without  let  or  hindrance,  wher- 
ever any  trade  was  possible  among  the  se- 
ceded States,  which  lay  for  the  most  part  in 
a  common  latitude,  and  the  variety  of  whose 
products  was  very  slight,  constituted  a  pro- 
foundly insignificant  item  when  weighed  in 
the  balance  against  the  no-trade  of  a  vast 
outside  world,  producing  all  things  .that  the 
wants  of  man  might  require.  Of  manufactures 
the  South  of  that  time  knew  absolutely  noth- 
ing. She  had  no  fisheries  —  or,  having  them, 
the  blockade  would  have  ended  them.  The 
mineral  wealth  that  lay  beneath  the  surface  in 
many  of  her  States  was  enveloped  in  a  density 
of  ignorance  that  was  only  accentuated  by  the 
scattered  charcoal  iron-furnaces  set  at  wide 
intervals  here  and  there  in  the  Virginia  or 
Georgia  or  east  Tennessee  hills,  lite  faintly 
glimmering  stars  on  the  border  of  the  great 
dark. 


HARD    TIMES  IN  THE    CONFEDERACY. 


763 


And  yet  during  the  hard  times  rude  manu- 
factures of  various  kinds  were  initiated,  and 
the  charcoal  furnaces  were  multiplied.  The 
cotton  which  could  not  l/esold  to  Europe  was 
made  into  cloth  at  home,  and  from  the  iron 
that  ran  molten  from  the  scattered  furnaces 
were  wrought  the  death-dealing  cannon  of  an 
historic  army. 

The  currency  of  the  new  Government  was 
from  the  beginning  weighted  down  with  a  col- 
lateral condition  which,  though  it  had  small 
effect  on  patriotism,  caused  no  slight  anxiety 
in  the  breast  of  far-seeing  and  circumspect 
men.  This  weighty  condition  was  the  prom- 
ise to  pay  the  stipulated  amount  of  each  note 
to  the  bearer  of  the  imprinted  piece  of  paper 
only  at  the  expiration  of  a  specified  period  of 
time  "  after  the  ratification  of  a  treaty  of  peace 
between  the  Confederate  States  and  the 
United  States  of  America."  In  the  final  issue 
the  anxiety  and  doubt  of  caution  were  fully 
justified,  for  no  treaty  of  peace  was  ever  con- 
cluded between  the  Governments  named  in 
the  elusive  bond.  Neither  blood  nor  flesh 
might  redeem  the  ill-starred  paper  from  the 
Shylock  of  defeat. 

This  element  of  uncertainty  made  the  value 
of  the  currency  as  shifting  and  mutable  as 
the  fortunes  of  the  armies  of  its  Government ; 
but  a  cause  of  depreciation  much  more  potent 
and  far  reaching  was  the  diminution  and  final 
cessation  of  the  cotton  traffic  by  reason  of  the 
blockade. 

The  continental  currency  of  the  Revolution, 
floated  on  the  tentative  credit  of  a  feeble  and 
undeveloped  country,  did  not  lose  its  value 
any  more  rapidly  than  did  this  money  of  a 
confederation  of  some  of  the  wealthiest  and 
most  prosperous  States  on  the  North  American 
continent. 

The  dollar  and  ten  cents  of  Confederate 
money  which  in  September,  1861,  would  buy 
as  much  as  a  gold  dollar  of  the  United  States, 
was  worth  in  September,  1864,  only  about  one- 
twenty-seventh  of  a  gold  dollar,  and  would  buy 
scarcely  anything,  because  it  had  no  circula- 


tion anywhere  except  in  the  Confederacy,  and 
at  that  time  there  was  hardly  anything  in  the 
Confederacy  for  sale.*  The  very  color  in  which 
the  calamitous  currency  was  printed  seemed 
ominous;  and  with  its  systematic  and  rapid 
decline  the  fortunes  of  the  embryo  Govern- 
ment which  it  represented  took  on  a  cerulean 
and  unpropitious  hue.  Finally  it  became  so 
valueless  for  all  purposes  of  trade  that  many, 
looking  for  an  early  and  untoward  ending  of 
the  struggle,  refused  to  accept  it  at  all.  It  was 
in  vain  that  in  many  sections  indignation 
meetings  \\x-re  held  by  the  more  patriotic  in 
which  those  who  declined  it  were  denounced  ; 
for  numbers  of  tradesmen  and  professional 
men  alike  advertised  in  the  current  newspapers 
that  they  would  none  of  it,  and  that  their 
dealings  would  be  "  by  way  of  barter  and  ex- 
change alone." 

At  an  earlier  period  the  theory  had  seemed 
to  prevail  that  it  was  impossible  for  too  much 
money  to  be  afloat ;  and  though  the  Govern- 
ment presses  groaned  beneath  their  steady 
output  of  Confederate  treasury-notes,  and  the 
Register  and  the  Treasurer  of  the  Confederate 
States  were  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  hiring 
men  to  sign  the  almost  innumerable  bills  for 
them,  State  treasury-notes  were  circulated  in 
profusion,  while  "  wild-cat "  bank-notes  of  all 
sorts,  shapes,  and  sizes  vied  with  the  "  shin- 
plaster  "  utterances  of  municipalities,  private 
corporations,  firms,  and  individuals  in  supply- 
ing the  popular  demand. 

Counterfeiting  must  have  been  an  easy  task ; 
but  if  counterfeits  were  circulated,  they  were 
received  without  question  when  every  man 
who  could  hire  a  printing-press  and  write  his 
name  had  the  power  to  make  as  much  money 
as  he  would. 

This  overflowing  deluge  of  fiat  money 
alarmed  and  dissipated  the  old-fashioned 
gold  and  silver  coins  of  our  progenitors,  which 
fled  incontinently,  as  they  will  do  under  such 
circumstances,  to  the  coffers  of  the  cautious 
and  the  stockings  of  the  saving.  Supplies  of 
food  and  clothing,  with  a  sturdy  contempt 


*  The  following  is  a  table  of  values  of  Confederate  money  adopted  by  the  courts  of  Virginia  after  the  war 
for  convenience  in  settlements  of  transactions  in  that  currency : 


1861 

1862 

1863 

1864 

.865 

$H 

May 

$        0 

July 

September  .... 

October  

December  

HARD    TIMES  IN  THE    CONFEDERACY. 


for  such  an  absurd  financial  theory,  stoutly 
declined  to  lend  it  any  countenance,  and 
became  monthly  less  purchasable  than 
before. 

Such  a  staple  and  necessary  article  of  food 
as  salt  advanced  within  two  months  during  the 
first  year  of  the  war  from  ten  to  eighteen  dol- 
lars per  sack,  and  from  this  time  on  continued 
to  show  a  steady  increase  in  price  to  the  end, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  salt  springs  and 
"licks"  of  Virginia,  east  Tennessee,  and  the 
Indian  Territory  were  furnishing  constantly 
large  quantities  of  it. 

Every  article  of  food  increased  in  price  in 
a  similar  ratio ;  and  the  market  reports  of 
produce  and  supplies  in  contemporaneous  Con- 
federate journals  present  a  strange  contrast 
from  month  to  month  and  year  to  year.  Per- 
haps the  most  striking  instance  of  the  advance 
in  prices  of  food  supplies  occurs  in  the  case 
of  flour,  which  in  March,  1863,  sold  for  $25 
per  barrel;  in  January,  1864,  for  $95  per 
barrel;  and  in  January,  1865,  for  $1000 
per  barrel.  The  spectral  army  in  the  Con- 
federate rear,  led  by  General  Hard  Times, 
was  closing  up  its  ranks,  touching  elbows,  and 
moving  at  a  double-quick  in  those  days  of 
January,  1865.  There  was  death  at  the  can- 
non's mouth  in  front  of  the  hungry,  foot- 
sore, shivering  rebel,  and  starvation  in  the 
rear. 

Even  so  early  as  February,  1863,  the  money 
value  of  a  day's  rations  for  100  soldiers,  which 
had  in  the  first  year  of  the  war  been  about  $9, 
was  at  market  prices  $123.  In  the  corre- 
sponding month  of  the  following  year  a  day's 
rations  had  no  estimated  market  value.  From 
the  soldier  who  possessed  them  money  could 
not  buy  them,  and  he  who  was  without  them 
was  unable  to  procure  them  at  any  price. 

Side  by  side  with  the  reports  of  battles  and 
the  records  of  peace  commissions,  congresses, 
and  legislatures,  the  blurred  columns  of  the 
Confederate  press  were  wont  to  teem  with 
domestic  recipes  for  cheap  dishes,  directions 
for  raising  and  utilizing  various  vegetable  prod- 
ucts, instructions  for  making  much  of  little 
in  matters  pertaining  to  every  phase  of  house- 
hold life.  Hard  by  a  list  of  dead  and  wounded 
would  stand  a  recipe  for  tanning  dog-skins  for 
gloves  ;  while  the  paragraphs  just  succeeding 
the  closing  column  of  the  description  of  a 
naval  engagement  off  Hampton  Roads  were 
directions  for  the  use  of  boneset  as  a  substi- 
tute for  quinine. 

The  journals  of  that  day  were  printed  usu- 
ally upon  the  poorest  paper,  made  of  straw 
and  cotton  rags,  and  so  brittle  that  the  slight- 
est touch  mutilated  it.  The  ink,  like  the  paper, 
was  of  the  cheapest  and  commonest,  and  left 
its  impression,  not  only  on  the  face  of  the 


sheet,  but  on  the  hands  no  less  than  on  the 
mind  of  the  reader.  Few  fonts  of  new  type 
found  their  way  into  the  Confederacy  during 
the  war,  and  at  the  end  of  four  years  the  fa- 
cilities for  printing  had  come  to  a  low  ebb. 
It  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  publishers  to 
issue  half-sheets  in  lieu  of  a  complete  paper, 
with  scarcely  an  apology  to  subscribers  for  the 
curtailment  of  their  literary  and  news  rations. 
It  was  generally  understood  that  this  hap- 
pened only  through  stern  necessity,  and  not 
from  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  news- 
paper men  to  give  less  than  an  equivalent  for 
the  subscription  price.  Sometimes  the  journal 
which  on  yesterday  appeared  in  all  the  glory 
of  a  six-column  page  was  to-day  cut  down  to 
a  four-column  half-sheet;  or  publication  was 
suspended  with  the  announcement  that  the 
stock  of  materials  had  been  exhausted,  and 
that  as  soon  as  the  office  could  be  replen- 
ished publication  would  be  resumed.  Eagerly 
as  the  rough  sheets  were  looked  for  and  closely 
as  they  were  read,  a  diminution  of  matter  in 
them,  or  a  failure  to  appear,  caused  only  pass- 
ing comment  or  dissatisfaction.  Men's  minds 
were  so  filled  with  the  thousand  things  that 
each  day  brought  forth  about  them,  there  were 
so  many  rumors  in  the  air,  and  news  flew 
so  rapidly  even  without  newspaper  aid,  as  to 
cause  them  not  too  greatly  to  miss  that  which 
to-day  has  come  to  be  one  of  the  veriest  ne- 
cessities of  American  life  —  a  daily  journal  full 
of  all  the  doings  of  all  the  world. 

Sometimes  even  the  coarse  straw-paper 
failed  the  publishing  fraternity  when  an  edi- 
tion was  absolutely  imperative;  yet  in  such 
emergency  the  inventive  talent  never  deserted 
them.  It  was  considered  a  wonderful  journal- 
istic feat  on  the  part  of  its  publishers  for  the 
Vicksburg  "  Citizen,"  during  the  siege  of  that 
city,  to  make  its  appearance,  when  all  other 
resources  had  failed,  upon  wall-paper. 

Publishers  of  books  and  sheet  music  oc- 
cupied a  scarcely  less  helpless  condition  than 
the  newspaper  people.  Their  sole  grounds  of 
superiority  consisted  in  the  fact  that  the  de- 
mands upon  them  were  not  so  urgent.  The 
girl  who  sang  to  her  soldier  lover  the  popular 
songs  of  that  time,  "  I.orena,"  "When  this 
Cruel  War  is  Over,"  "  The  Standard-bearer," 
or  "  Harp  of  the  South," —  which  were  all 
duly  advertised  "  at  the  retail  price  of  one 
dollar  per  sheet ;  the  trade  supplied,  however, 
at  half  off,  with  an  additional  discount  where 
one  hundred  of  one  piece  are  ordered," — did 
not  experience  that  immediate  and  insistent 
need  of  the  song  and  its  music  which  men 
and  women  alike  felt  for  the  newspaper  that 
would  tell  them  where  the  last  battle  had  been 
fought,  which  army  had  been  victorious,  who 
had  been  promoted,  and  who  had  fallen.  The 


HARD    TIMES  IN  THE    CONFEDERACY. 


765 


fateful  column  might  contain  evil  or  good  re- 
port of  some  clear  one,  and  its  coming  was  full 
of  interest  and  apprehension.  Yet  the  sheet 
music,  printed,  like  the  newspapers,  in  the 
roughest  style,  upon  the  commonest  paper, 
with  now  and  then  a  caricatured  lithographic 
likeness  of  some  Confederate  general  on  the 
title-page,  continued  to  be  sold  and  sung, 
even  though  its  price  ran  from  one  to  two 
dollars  per  sheet. 

\\'ar  songs  and  war  music  were  the  order 
of  the  duy  ;  and  the  soldiers  in  the  camps  and 
the  small  hoys  in  ragged  jackets  shouted,  with 
an  equal  zest, 


"  The  despot's  heel  is  on  thy  shore !  " 


or 


"  Farewell  forever  to  the  Star-spangled  Banner  !  " 

from  diminutive  paper-covered  books  of  mar- 
tial ballads.  The  little  song-books  cost  any- 
where from  two  and  a  half  to  five  Confederate 
dollars;  and  their  contents,  with  a  few  nota- 
ble exceptions,  were  as  mediocre  as  the  paper 
on  which  they  were  printed.  The  sentiment 
was  there,  nevertheless;  and  this  was  cared 
for  by  the  singers  more  than  the  music  or  the 
lyrical  or  literary  excellence  of  the  songs. 

The  missionary  and  religious  publishing 
houses  never  ceased  their  praiseworthy  labor 
of  printing  tracts  and  pamphlets  for  distribu- 
tion among  the  soldiers;  but  publications  of 
a  more  ambitious  or  secular  standard  were 
very  few.  Now  and  then  some  adventurous 
firm  in  Richmond  or  Charleston  or  New  Or- 
leans would  issue  a  badly  printed  edition  of  a 
new  novel,  reproduced  from  a  copy  smuggled 
in  "  through  the  lines "  or  brought  by  the 
blockade-runners  from  Nassau.  Still,  even 
"  John  Halifax,  Gentleman,"  and  "  Les  Mise- 
rables,"  which  first  appeared  in  the  South  in 
this  way  and  this  dress,  lost  much  of  their  at- 
tractiveness in  their  Confederate  garb  of  infe- 
rior ink,  bad  type,  and  worse  paper. 

Reminiscence  of  books  and  papers  of  the 
period  recalls  the  dire  and  unfilled  want  of 
every  species  of  stationery  in  each  household, 
and  the  rough  devices  which  were  resorted  to 
for  supplying  such  deficiencies.  It  was  a  time 
when  any  individual  who  wished  to  use  an 
envelope  might  be  compelled  first  to  make  it, 
after  the  theory  of  "  first  catch  your  hare,"  etc. 
The  manner  of  their  making  was  to  cut  them 
out  of  paper  by  a  tin  or  pasteboard  pattern, 
and  fasten  the  flaps  either  with  glue  manufac- 
tured from  the  gum  of  the  cherry-tree,  or  with 
ordinary  flour-paste.  Old  desks  and  secre- 
taries were  ransacked,  and  frequently  not  un- 
successfully, for  the  red  wafers  or  the  sealing 
wax  of  an  earlier  date.  Even  the  most  stylish 


and  fashionable  note  paper  for  correspondence 
had  an  extremely  unstylish  texture,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  hue,  that  ill  comported  with  the 
red  wax  stamped  with  a  crested  coat  of  arms. 
The  juice  of  poke-berries,  compounded  with 
vinegar,  or  the  distillation  of  a  vegetable  prod- 
uct known  as  "  ink  balls,"  usurped  the  place 
of  ink,  and  faded  from  its  original  purple  or 
crimson  color  with  great  rapidity  to  one  of 
ugly  rust.  Steel  pens  were  scarcely  to  be  had 
for  love  or  Confederate  money ;  and  the  for- 
gotten accomplishment  of  trimming  a  gray 
goose-quill  to  a  good  nib  came  to  be  once 
more  an  accomplishment  with  an  ascertained 
value.  The  mucilage  on  the  backs  of  the  ill- 
engraved  blue  ten-cent  stamps,  adorned  with 
the  head  of  Jefferson  Davis,  often  failed  of  its 
purpose ;  and  the  fingers,  which  were  not  in- 
frequently tired  enough  after  cutting  out  and 
making  the  envelope,  trimming  the  pen,  and 
writing  the  letter,  must  need  still  go  through 
the  labor  of  separating  the  stamps  from  each 
other  with  a  pair  of  scissors  or  a  penknife,  and 
applying  flour-paste  to  the  back  of  the  recal- 
citrant stamp,  to  insure  the  safe  carriage  of 
the  missive  of  affection  to  the  far-away  soldier 
whose  eyes  might  never  read  it. 

The  boys  of  that  day,  bereft  of  pencils, 
made  them  for  themselves  by  melting  bullets 
and  pouring  the  molten  lead  into  the  cavity 
of  small  reeds  from  the  cane  brakes.  Trimmed 
to  a  point,  the  home-made  pencil,  though  its 
mark  was  faint,  sufficed  to  serve  the  purposes 
of  the  young  scribes  and  mathematicians. 

It  seems  almost  a  figment  of  the  fancy  to 
recall  in  detail  the  array  of  makeshifts  and 
devices  which  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  the 
hard  times  compelled.  We  read  with  curious 
interest  the  item  of  news  in  the  Virginia  news- 
papers of  January,  1865,  that 

Thompson  Taylor,  Esq.,  who  had  charge  of  the 
cooking  of  the  New  Year's  dinner  for  the  soldiers  of 
General  Lee's  army,  sold  the  surplus  grease  from  the 
meats  cooked  to  one  of  the  railroad  companies  for 
seven  dollars  per  pound. 

If  we  might  shut  out  the  memories  of  the 
depreciation  in  value  of  Confederate  money, 
and  of  the  hardships  and  want  prevalent  in  the 
Southern  Confederacy  at  the  time,  we  should 
doubtless  wonder  what  strange  army  was  this 
the  remnants  of  whose  magnificent  viands 
could  fetch  so  marvelous  a  sum ;  and  haply 
recollections  of  the  luxury  and  effeminacy 
of  that  innumerable  array  which  the  great 
king  led  into  ancient  Hellas  would  flit  across 
our  bewildered  minds.  Yet  how  different  the 
reality;  and  how  sharply  the  little  item  ac- 
centuates the  story  of  privation  and  suffering ! 
Provisions,  which  were  plentiful  enough  in  the 
days  when  the  Yankees  were  to  be  "  whipped 


HARD    TIMES  IN  THE    CONFEDERACY. 


with  corn-stalks,"  grew  constantly  scarcer  and 
higher  priced.  The  necessaries  of  the  life  of 
to-day  were  the  luxuries  of  that  storm-and- 
stress  time.  With  "  seed-tick  "  coffee  and  ordi- 
nary brown  sugar  costing  fabulous  sums  and 
almost  impossible  to  be  obtained,  it  is  small 
matter  of  wonder  that  the  unsatisfied  appetite 
of  the  rebel  sharpshooter  at  his  post  far  to  the 
front  often  impelled  him,  though  at  the  risk  of 
detection  and  death,  to  call  a  parley  with  the 
Yankee  across  the  line,  his  nearest  neighbor, 
and  persuade  him  to  a  barter  of  the  un- 
wonted delicacies  for  a  twist  of  Virginia  home- 
spun tobacco.  Perhaps  it  never  affected  the 
mind  of  either  with  a  sense  of  incongruity  in 
their  friendly  dealings  to  reflect  that  the  duty 
and  the  purpose  of  each  was  to  shoot  the 
other  at  the  earliest  opportunity  after  the 
cessation  of  the  temporary  truce  and  the 
return  of  each  to  his  post. 

Lovers  of  the  fragrant  after-dinner  Mocha 
were  forced  to  put  up  with  a  decoction  of 
sweet  potatoes  that  first  had  been  cut  into  mi- 
nute bits  and  dried  on  a  scaffold  in  the  sun  as 
country  housewives  dry  fruit,  and  then  roasted 
and  ground  in  a  worn-out  coffee-mill,  or  brayed 
in  a  mortar  with  a  pestle.  In  yet  more  north- 
ern latitudes  parched  rye  furnished  even  a 
poorer  substitute  for  the  Eastern  berry ;  while 
coupled  with  the  use  of  this  last  makeshift  was 
the  vulgar  superstition  that  it  produced  blind- 
ness. 

The  old  women  and  Dr.  Johnsons  of  the 
Confederacy  who  could  not  exist  without  their 
fixed  number  of  cups  of  tea  a  day  drowned 
their  happy  memories  of  hyson  in  a  solution 
of  raspberry  leaves,  or  the  more  medicinal 
preparation  of  the  root  of  the  sassafras  bush. 
It  was  a  gruesome  time,  and  there  were  those 
who  survived  bullet  and  blade  to  surrender  at 
last  to  indigestion  and  acute  dyspepsia. 

The  number  and  character  of  intoxicating 
drinks  were  many  and  varied.  Corn  and  rye 
whisky  abounded;  while  in  some  latitudes 
pine  tags  and  even  potato  peelings  went  into 
the  impromptu  still  to  come  out  pure  "  moun- 
tain dew."  No  internal  revenue  system  aroused 
the  ire  of  the  untrammeled  distillers,  and  al- 
coholic liquors  were  cheaper  in  proportion 
than  most  other  commodities;  yet  the  amount 
of  drunkenness  was  not  what  might  have  been 
expected.  A  favorite  small  beer  in  those  sec- 
tions where  the  persimmon-trees  flourished 
best  was  made  of  the  fruit  of  that  tree,  and 
was  called  in  the  vernacular  of  at  least  one 
part  of  the  Confederacy  "'possum  toddy." 

Housekeepers  and  cooks  racked  memory 
and  imagination  to  make  dishes  that  combined 
the  absolutely  essential  conditions  of  being  at 
once  cheap  and  nutritious.  Housekeeping, 
even  in  old  Virginia,  famous  for  its  cookery, 


hung  a  dejected  head;  and  the  whole  South 
was  less  in  want  of  the  army  of  cooks,  which 
Horace  Greeley  said  it  so  much  needed  when 
he  visited  it  after  the  war's  end,  than  of  some- 
thing for  the  army  to  cook.  A  rare  and  famous 
dish  of  those  days  was  "  Confederate  duck  " 
—  a  dish  which  would  have  done  no  discredit 
to  the  piping  period  of  peace,  and  which  grew 
rarer  and  more  famous  as  the  hard  times  came 
nearer  home  to  the  Confederacy.  This  pecul- 
iarly named  fowl  was  no  fowl  at  all,  but  a  ten- 
der and  juicy  beefsteak  rolled  and  pinioned 
around  a  stuffing  of  stale  bread  crumbs,  but- 
tered and  duly  seasoned,  and  roasted  before 
a  roaring  fire  with  spit  and  drip-pan. 

At  home  and  abroad  sorghum  came  to  take 
the  place  of  the  vanished  sugar.  The  children 
at  home  ate  it  in  their  ginger  cakes,  and  the 
soldiers  in  camp  drank  it  in  their  rye-coffee. 
The  molasses  and  sugar  of  Louisiana  were 
procurable  in  degree  till  the  fall  of  Vicksburg ; 
but  the  spirit  of  independence  was  rife,  and 
each  State  desired  and  determined  to  rely  as 
much  as  possible  on  its  own  products.  The 
theory  of  State  sovereignty  was  extended  even 
to  sorghum ;  and  its  introduction  was  hailed 
everywhere  as  one  of  the  greatest  boons  of  a 
beneficent  Providence.  The  juice  of  the  cane, 
extracted  in  a  primitive  fashion  by  crushing 
the  stalks  between  wooden  rollers  revolving 
upon  wooden  cogs  and  impelled  by  horse-and- 
little-darky  power,  was  caught  in  an  ordinary 
trough,  boiled  down  into  proper  consistency 
in  preserving  kettles,  kitchen  pots,  or  what- 
ever might  be  utilized  for  the  purpose,  and 
barreled  for  use  as  sorghum  molasses.  The 
syrup  thus  produced  was  quite  a  palatable 
one,  with  a  slightly  acidulous  and  not  dis- 
agreeable flavor,  but  with  an  unpleasant 
tendency  to  make  the  mouth  sore.  It  was 
known  as  "  long-sweetening,"  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  its  predecessor, "  short-sweetening,"  the 
sugar  that  was  scarce. 

From  its  use  in  the  place  of  sugar  sorghum 
soon  leaped  into  high  repute  as  an  almost 
universal  food  staple.  It  was  warranted  to 
cure  any  case  of  hunger  in  man  or  beast. 
Writers  in  the  suggestive  daily  press  under- 
took in  elaborate  and  exhaustive  essays  to 
show  that  sorghum  syrup  was  nearly  as  nutri- 
tious as  meat  and  an  exceedingly  good  sub- 
stitute for  it,  while  the  seed  of  the  sorghum 
cane  was  capable  of  being  ground  into  a  meal 
that  made  a  most  exxellent  and  wholesome 
brown  bread.  They  claimed  that  the  problem 
of  blockaded  existence  had  been  solved  in  the 
discovery  of  a  plant  which  produced  in  itself 
meat  and  bread  for  the  human  family  and 
provender  for  cattle.  Yet  the  average  denizen 
of  the  Confederacy,  whether  at  home  or  in  the 
army,  while  rendering  due  credit  to  the  inge- 


HARD    TIMES  AV   THE    CONFEDERACY. 


767 


nuity  and  skill  with  which  the  cause  of  the 
"food  staple"  was  advocated  by  its  champions, 
appealed  to  the  higher  arbitrament  of  his  own 
digestion  ;  and  though  willing  to  accord  sor- 
ghum its  real  merit  as  serviceable  and  useful  in 
the  place  of  something  better,  he  was  always 
ready  to  exchange  it  for  the  more  certain  and 
familiar  nutriment  of  bacon  and  "  corn  pone." 
To  see  it  fulfill  the  functions  of  sugar  in  the 
latest  recipe  for  Confederate  coffee  and  tea 
was  well  enough  ;  but  quietly  to  submit  to  its 
usurpation  of  the  high  places  of  pork  and  corn 
was  more  than  the  appetite  of  hungry  rebel- 
dom  would  endure. 

There  was  a  secondary  use  to  which  sor- 
ghum was  put.  in  which  it  met  with  decided 
favor  from  a  select  few.  This  was  its  use  in 
the  manufacture  of  blacking.  The  manuscript 
recipe  books  of  that  day  say  that  "  wonderful 
shoe  blacking,  as  good  as  Mason's  best,"  can 
be  made  of  sorghum  molasses,  pinewood  soot, 
neat's-foot  oil,  and  vinegar. 

Yet,  on  the  theory  of  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test, the  average  Confederate  must  have  been 
right  and  the  theoretic  writers  in  the  newspa- 
pers wrong  about  the  value  of  sorghum ;  for 
bacon  and  corn  bread  have  long  since  regained 
their  wonted  ascendency  in  the  South,  and  sor- 
ghum has  vanished  entirely  from  the  fields 
where  it  once  flourished,  save,  perhaps,  where 
here  and  there  some  man  and  brother  cultivates 
it  yet  in  his  little  "  truck  patch,"  making  "  long- 
sweetening  "  for  the  consumption  of  his  fam- 
ily in  as  primitive  a.  method  as  that  in  which 
he  helped  his  quondam  owner  to  make  it 
"  endurin'  o'  the  wah." 

In  the  hardest  times  of  the  war  period,  when 
provisions  were  the  scarcest,  the  latch  to  the 
larder  of  every  Southern  housekeeper  hung 
out  to  each  Southern  soldier,  no  matter  how 
ragged  or  humble.  For  him  the  best  viands 
about  the  place  were  always  prepared  ;  and 
his  was  the  high  prerogative  of  receiving 
the  last  cup  of  real  cotfee,  sweetened  with 
the  solitary  remnant  of  sugar.  With  com- 
passionate pity  the  women  recognized  the 
hardships  in  the  army  life  of  the  Confederate 
soldier,  and  were  always  ungrudgingly  ready 
to  mitigate  its  severities  in  every  possible 
manner. 

"  Costly  thy  habit  as  thy  purse  can  buy" 
was  a  maxim  of  necessity  in  the  hard  times ; 
for  there  was  no  raiment  the  subject  of  barter 
or  sale  which  was  inexpensive.  Sporadic  in- 
stances taken  at  random  prove  the  general 
rule.  In  August,  1864,  a  private  citizen's  coat 
and  vest,  made  of  five  yards  of  coarse  home- 
spun cloth,  cost  two  hundred  and  thirty  dol- 
lars exclusive  of  the  price  paid  for  the  making. 
The  trimmings  consisted  of  old  cravats ; 
and  for  the  cutting  and  putting  together,  a 


country  tailor  charged  fifty  dollars.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  the  private  citizen  looked  a  verita- 
ble guy  in  his  new  suit,  in  spite  of  its  heavy 
drain  upon  his  pocket-book. 

In  January,  1865,  the  material  for  a  lady's 
dress  which  before  the  war  would  have  cost 
ten  dollars  could  not  be  bought  for  less  than 
five  hundred.  The  masculine  mind  is  un- 
equal to  the  task  of  guessing  how  great  a 
sum  might  have  been  had  for  bonnets  '•  brought 
through  the  lines  "  ;  for  in  spite  of  patient  self- 
sacrifice  and  unfaltering  devotion  at  the  bed- 
sides of  the  wounded  in  the  hospital,  or  in 
ministering  to  the  needs  of  relatives  and  de- 
pendents at  home,  the  Southern  women  of 
those  days  are  credited  with  as  keen  an  inter- 
est in  the  fashions  as  women  everywhere 
in  civilized  lands  are  apt  to  be  in  times  of 
peace.  It  was  natural  that  they  should  be  so 
interested,  even  though  that  interest  could  in 
the  main  not  reach  beyond  theory.  Without 
it  they  often  would  have  had  a  charm  the  less 
and  a  pang  the  more.  Any  feminine  garment 
in  the  shape  of  cloak  or  bonnet  or  dress 
which  chanced  to  come  from  the  North  was 
readily  awarded  its  meed  of  praise,  and  re- 
produced by  sharp-eyed  observers,  so  far  as 
the  scarcity  of  materials  would  admit. 

But  fashion's  rules  were  necessarily  much 
relaxed  in  the  Southern  Confederacy  so  far  as 
practice  went  when  even  such  articles  as  pins 
brought  through  the  blockade  sold  for  twelve 
dollars  a  paper,  and  needles  for  ten,  with  not 
enough  of  either. 

The  superstition  expressed  in  the  couplet, 

See  a  pin,  and  pick  it  up, 

All  the  day  you  'II  have  good  luck, 

gained  its  converts  by  the  score;  more,  how- 
ever, as  can  be  readily  imagined,  for  the  sake 
of  the  pin  itself,  which  it  was  a  stroke  of  happy 
fortune  to  find  and  seize,  than  of  any  other 
good  luck  that  was  to  accompany  the  finding. 
The  broken  needle  of  Confederate  times  did 
not  go  into  the  fire  or  out  of  the  window,  but 
was  carefully  laid  aside  until  the  red  sealing 
wax  of  the  ransacked  desks  and  secretaries  lent 
it  a  head  wherewith  to  appear  as  a  handsome 
and  useful  pin.  To  obtain  the  bare  materials 
out  of  which  to  fashion  garments  for  the  fam- 
ily and  for  the  servants  soon  became  a  seri- 
ous question.  The  house-carpenter  and  the 
blacksmith  were  called  into  service  to  this  end, 
and  cotton  once  more  became  king,  though 
of  a  greatly  diminished  sovereignty.  Carding- 
combs  of  a  rough  pattern  were  constructed  for 
the  purpose  of  converting  the  raw  cotton  into 
batting,  and  thence  into  rolls  of  uniform  length 
and  size  for  spinning.  The  hum  of  the  spindle 
and  the  clank  of  the  loom-treadle  were  the 


;68 


HARD    TIMES  IN   THE    CONFEDERACY. 


martial  music  with  which  the  women  at  home 
met  the  fierce  attacks  of  the  legions  of  cold 
and  nakedness. 

Spinning-wheels,  reels,  bobbins,  looms,  and 
all  the  appurtenances  for  the  weaving  of  cloth 
were  made  and  used  at  home;  and  the  toil- 
ers in  the  cotton-fields  and  the  spinners  in  the 
loom-shed  worked  on  contentedly,  with  a 
seemingly  sublime  indifference  to  the  mighty 
struggle  that  was  convulsing  a  continent  for 
their  sakes. 

Of  this  dusky  people  it  may  here  be  said 
that,  no  matter  what  philanthropists,  politi- 
cians, or  philosophers  have  said  of  them  in  the 
past  or  shall  prophesy  of  them  in  the  future, 
they  were  true  to  every  trust  reposed  in  them ; 
and  with  a  most  tremendous  power  for  direst 
evil  in  their  possession,  the  negroes  of  the 
South  in  the  days  of  the  civil  war  did  naught 
but  good.  If  the  "colored  troops"  of  the 
Union  army  "  fought  nobly,"  the  slaves  of  the 
Southern  plantation  so  bore  themselves  in 
those  stirring  times  as  to  merit  no  smaller  meed 
of  praise. 

Cotton  and  woolen  fabrics  of  firm  and  sub- 
stantial texture  were  woven,  cut,  and  fash- 
ioned into  garments  for  whites  and  blacks. 
Plentiful  crops  of  flax  reenforced  the  array  of 
wool  and  cotton  ;  and  many  a  little  flax-wheel 
which  in  the  days  of  peace  has  since  moved 
North  to  adorn  in  its  newly  gilded  and  berib- 
boned  state  the  boudoir  of  some  aesthetic  girl 
might  tell  pathetic  tales  of  its  former  place  of 
residence  if  the  tongue  of  its  tiny  spindle  had 
but  speech. 

The  dyes  of  the  forest  wood-barks,  of  the 
sumac,  of  the  Carolina  indigo,  and  of  the  cop- 
peras from  the  numerous  copperas  wells  were 
utilized  to  color  the  cloth  thus  woven.  We  read 
in  the  current  newspapers  that  "  a  handsome 
brown  dye"  is  made  by  a  combination  of  red 
oak-bark  and  blue  stone  in  boiling  water;  and 
that  "  a  brilliant  yellow  "  may  be  obtained  by 
pouring  boiling  water  upon  other  component 
parts  of  "  sassafras,  swamp  bay,  and  butterfly 
root."  The  same  authorities  tell  us  that  "vivid 
purples,  reds,  and  greens  "  were  produced  from 
a  composition  of  coal-oil  and  sorghum,  tinted 
with  the  appropriate  tree-bark;  though  of  coal- 
oil  for  other  purposes  there  was  all  too  little. 
If  a  great  similarity  of  quality  and  texture  ex- 
isted in  the  homespun  cloth,  the  enumeration 
of  the  foregoing  means  of  dyeing  clearly  dem- 
onstrates that  there  was  at  least  opportunity 
for  as  great  diversity  of  color  as  distinguished 
the  famous  coat  of  Joseph  ;  though  the  reader 
of  to-day  is  apt  to  look  with  some  suspicion 
on  the  conspicuous  forwardness  of  the  adjec- 
tives "vivid,"  "brilliant,"  and  "splendid," 
which  always  accompanied  these  talismanic 
recipes. 


Strong  thread  for  sewing  was  evolved  from 
the  little  flax-wheels.  For  any  unusually  hand- 
some work,  if  by  any  odd  chance  such  work 
should  happen  to  be  demanded,  sewing  silk 
was  procured  in  an  emergency  by  raveling  the 
fringes  of  old  silk  shawls  or  picking  to  pieces 
silk  scraps  which  had  survived  time's  touch, 
and  carding,  combing,  and  twisting  them 
into  fine  threads.  These  little  silken  "hanks" 
were  sometimes  so  prettily  colored  by  means 
of  the  dyes  that  have  been  described,  as  to 
become  in  the  eyes  of  the  womankind  of  that 
generation  almost  as  beautiful  as  the  many 
shaded,  dainty  filoselles  of  the  present  are  to 
the  women  of  to-day. 

In  the  old  Greek  philosophy  the  limitations 
of  desire  were  the  boundaries  of  happiness. 
Stern  necessity  inculcated  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  the  South  the  folly  of  desiring  much, 
and  they  learned  the  lesson  fully ;  but  its 
knowledge  disproved  in  their  case  the  truth 
of  the  old  pagan  doctrine.  There  were  so 
many  cares  and  anxieties  and  apprehensions 
treading  close  upon  each  other's  pinched  and 
starving  steps  that  happiness  could  not  always 
sit,  a  tranquil  guest,  at  the  poverty-smitten 
fireside. 

For  hats  and  caps  many  were  the  quaint 
devices  contrived.  Men's  silk  hats  were  sel- 
dom seen,  save  in  some  battered  and  forsaken 
shape  and  style  that  bespoke  the  halcyon  days 
"  before  the  war."  When  in  occasional  in- 
stances they  appeared  trim  and  new  with  the 
nap  lying  smoothly  one  way,  they  were  gen- 
erally recognized  to  have  come  from  Nassau 
with  a  blockade-runner,  and  known  to  have 
cost  much  money.  Their  wearers,  however, 
were  not  objects  of  envy  to  those  who  saw 
them  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  soldiers'  gibes, 
who  with  rough  wit  and  often  rougher  words 
scoffed  at  the  wearers  at  Rome  of  apparel 
that  self-respecting  Romans  had  long  since 
ceased  to  wear.  Even  the  conventional  slouch 
hat  of  the  South,  which  had  divided  the  affec- 
tions of  its  jewiesse  doree  with  the  volumi- 
nously skirted  broadcloth  coat  before  Fort 
Sumter  fell,  and  whose  popularity  was  easily 
renewed  after  Appomattox,  and  still  holds 
perennial  sway,  passed  away  in  large  measure 
with  the  later  months  of  the  Confederacy. 

With  the  growth  of  "  substitutes "  in  the 
matter  of  things  inanimate  to  eat  or  to  wear, 
"  substitutes  "  decreased  in  the  acceptation 
of  the  term  as  descriptive  of  those  who  for 
pecuniary  consideration  were  willing  to  take 
others'  places  in  the  ranks.  The  military 
draft,  which  enrolled  old  men  and  boys,  took 
also  many  of  the  hatters  of  military  age  who 
had  been  left  scattered  through  the  Southern 
States,  and  then  winter  headgear  got  down 
to  the  bed-rock  of  coon  and  rabbit  skins. 


HARD    TL\fES  IN   THE    CONFEDERACY. 


769 


For  making  summer  hats  the  Carolina  pal- 
metto leaf  was  in  the  greatest  repute.  Ne\t 
in  availability  came  wheat  or  rye  straws,  care- 
full)'  selected  with  a  view  to  size  and  quality, 
and  bleached  in  the  sun.  The  palmetto  strips 
or  the  straws  were  first  steeped  in  water  to 
render  them  more  pliable,  and  then  plaited 
together  by  hand  and  sewed  into  proper 
shape.  What  constituted  proper  shape  was 
usually  a  question  to  be  solved  only  by  the 
maker,  and  varied  from  the  eminently  pict- 
uresque to  the  decidedly  grotesque  or  un- 
couth. If  the  hat  of  palmetto  or  straw  was 
intended  to  adorn  some  feminine  head,  per- 
chance a  faded  ribbon,  redyed,  or  a  gray  par- 
tridge wing,  lent  it  additional  grace  and  beauty. 
In  winter,  home-woven  hats,  or  knitted  caps 
of  the  Tarn  o'  Shanter  type,  were  frequently 
seen.  In  spite  of  fashion's  adverse  though 
half-hearted  decrees,  young  faces  of  those  days 
seemed  as  sweet  and  winning  under  wide- 
brimmed  "sundowns"  or  old  time  "pokes" 
as  ever  did  those  that  have  laughed  beneath 
a  "  love  of  a  bonnet "  of  a  more  de  rigiieur 
mode. 

\Vith  the  adjuncts  of  the  female  toilet  the 
blockade  made  sad  havoc.  Silken  stockings 
became  undreamed-of  luxuries;  and  their  ac- 
companying articles  of  apparel,  which  when 
first  donned  by  a  bride  must  always  be  com- 
posed of 

Something  old  and  something  new, 
Something  borrowed  and  something  blue, 

fell  far  short  of  easy  silk  elastic,  being  made 
of  knit  yarn  or  cotton.  Stockings  of  wool  or 
cotton  were  the  best  that  the  most  luxurious 
might  aspire  to.  Shoe-strings  were  made  in 
quantities  by  the  children  on  little  bobbins, 
or  by  plaiting  or  twisting  threads  together. 
Ladies'  button  boots  were  things  almost  un- 
known. Shoes  were  sometimes  made  of  the 
pliant  leather  found  in  the  flaps  of  disused  car- 
tridge-boxes and  of  the  discarded  belts  of  the 
soldiers.  Oftener  they  were  fashioned  of  cloth 
cut  on  the  pattern  of  old  shoes  and  sewed  to 
leathern  soles.  Crinoline  and  corsets  were 
constructed  of  hickory  splints  in  lieu  of  whale- 
bone and  steel  springs;  and  the  prepared 
bark  of  certain  kinds  of  trees  or  certain  plants 
furnished  the  ladies  with  a  supply  of  braids 
and  switches.  Then  as  now,  however,  the  style 
of  arranging  the  tresses  of  the  female  head 
frequently  changed  under  the  dictates  of  a 
fashion  feebly  endeavoring  to  assert  itself 
wherever  possible;  and  at  one  time  even  a 
small  amount  of  natural  hair  easily  served  the 
purpose  of  covering  the  crescent  shaped  pil- 
lows on  which  it  was  put  up,  the  startling 
names  of  which  were  "  rats  "  and  "  mice." 
Buttons,  pins,  buckles,  hooks  and  eyes  dis- 
Voi..  XXXVI.— 106. 


appeared  by  degrees  from  the  face  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  Some  wooden  but- 
tons were  turned  upon  lathes  from  maple  and 
similar  wood,  and  there  were  horn  buttons 
here  and  there;  but  both  species  were  for  the 
most  part  clumsy  and  ill-shapen.  The  whites 
of  the  Confederacy  were  content  with  them, 
while  the  slaves  skewered  their  "galluses"  to 
their  trousers  with  wooden  pins  or  the  thorns 
of  the  locust. 

Combs  were  made  of  horn  or  wood ;  and 
bristle  tooth-brushes  were  replaced  with  twigs 
of  the  dog- wood,  the  black-gum,  the  sweet- 
gum,  and  the  althea.  The  latter  was  espe- 
cially valued  as  serving  the  double  purpose 
of  brush  and  dentifrice  at  once. 

Turkey-wing  fans  and  fans  of  peacock 
feathers  supplanted  those  of  a  more  or  less 
artistic  and  elaborate  design  and  finish ;  and 
many  other  articles  of  use  or  ornament,  dear 
to  the  feminine  heart  and  not  easily  attain- 
able, were  ingeniously  simulated. 

In  February,  1864,  it  was  officially  an- 
nounced that  two  hundred  soldiers  of  the 
Stonewall  Brigade  were  entirely  without  shoes. 
The  statement  indicates  the  great  stress  of 
poverty  in  respect  to  leather.  The  slave  popu- 
lation in  the  farther  South  went  barefoot  in 
the  summer  and  wore  "  wooden  bottoms " 
in  the  winter.  Men  of  the  easiest  circum- 
stances, as  easy  circumstances  then  went,  were 
forced  to  be  content  with  shoes  of  the  coarsest. 
To  shoe  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  had 
made  a  dearth  of  leather  in  the  South,  and 
every  method  of  economy  was  practiced  to 
avoid  further  trouble  on  this  score.  The 
"  wooden  bottoms  "  of  the  slaves  resembled 
in  some  respects  the  wooden  shoes  of  the 
French  peasantry.  The  upper-leather  was  that 
of  the  ordinary  shoe,  and  was  fastened  by 
means  of  small  wrought-iron  nails  to  a  sole  and 
heel  cut  carefully  to  fit  the  bottom  of  the  foot 
from  a  solid  block  of  cypress  wood.  Their 
novelty,  when  first  introduced  among  the 
negroes,  made  captive  the  fancy  of  the  chil- 
dren of  both  races ;  and  juvenile  wooden  bot- 
toms were  the  rage  for  a  long  time. 

As  the  years  went  by  and  the  war  went 
on,  household  furniture  perished  in  the  using 
and  had  to  be  replaced.  Worn-out  carpets 
saw  themselves  renewed  in- pretty  colors  and 
patterns,  as  bright  and  serviceable  though 
not  so  handsome  as  Wilton.  They  came  from 
the  busy  loom  rooms  with  restored  capacity 
to  keep  out  the  cold  and  deaden  the  clatter 
of  the  little  wooden  bottom  shoes.  Cozy  rugs 
were  made  of  the  most  unexpected  materials, 
such  as  old  shawls,  flannel  petticoats,  stock- 
ings the  heels  and  toes  of  which  had  forsaken 
them,  and  the  like.  Curtains  of  quaint  stripes 
and  figures,  woven  of  stuffs  from  similar  sources, 


770 


HARD    TIMES  IN  THE    CONFEDERACY. 


shut  out  the  winds  of  winter,  and  gave  com- 
fort and  beauty  to  the  rooms.  Broken  chairs 
and  decrepit  sofas  were  replaced  with  others 
constructed  of  homespun  cloth  and  cotton 
stuffing  upon  frames  of  wood  roughly  put 
together,  or  fashioned  entirely  of  broom  straw 
from  the  old  fields,  bound  together  in  orna- 
mental shapes  with  hickory  withes.  Some- 
times interlaced  grapevines  made  a  pretty  and 
not  uncomfortable  chair  or  sofa ;  and  the  com- 
mon wooden  frames,  bottomed  with  twisted 
shucks  or  oak  splints,  abounded  everywhere. 

Many  persons  had  their  glass  and  china 
ware  destroyed  during  the  war;  and  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  replace  it,  even  at  ruin- 
ous prices.  Such  articles  were  always  eagerly 
sought  for  at  auction  sales,  and  he  who  came 
determined  to  purchase  must  needs  have  a 
plethoric  purse.  Porcelain  and  earthenware  of 
a  coarse  kind  were  manufactured  from  kaolin 
found  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia  and  at  other 
points  in  the  South. 

In  their  many  exigencies  and  narrow  straits 
the  people  of  the  Confederacy  were  nowhere 
put  to  a  more  crucial  test  than  in  the  matter 
of  lights.  In  the  cities,  gas,  the  fumes  of  which 
were  as  offensive  to  the  olfactories  as  its  radi- 
ating power  to  the  eye,  afforded  a  wretched 
pretense  of  illumination.  In  the  country,  where 
even  the  miserable  gas  was  not  to  be  had,  the 
makeshifts  to  supply  light  were  many.  There 
was  but  little  coal-oil  in  the  South,  and  as 
little  sperm-oil ;  and  the  tallow  of  the  country 
went  in  large  measure  to  the  armies  for  military 
purposes. 

A  favorite  lamp,  and  one  easily  fitted  up, 
was  a  saucer  of  lard  with  a  dry  sycamore  ball 
floating  in  the  midst  of  it.  A  blaze  applied 
to  the  sycamore  ball  readily  ignited  it ;  and  it 
burned  with  a  feeble,  sickly  glare  until  its  sea 
of  lard  disappeared  and  left  it  no  longer  a 
fiery  island.  In  the  recipes  printed  in  the 
current  newspapers  setting  forth  the  proper 
manner  of  preparing  the  sycamore  balls  for 
use  as  candles,  special  insistence  is  made  that 
they  are  to  be  "  gathered  from  the  tree  and 
dried  in  the  sun."  If  allowed  to  become  over- 
ripe and  fall  to  the  ground  before  use,  their 
fibrous  covering  would  lose  its  hold  upon  the 
core,  and  drop  away  into  the  lard. 

In  the  slave- quarters,  "fat"  pine  knots 
blazed  upon  the  hearth  through  winter  and 
summer  nights  alike ;  while  the  night  scenes 
of  the  negroes'  merry-makings  in  the  open  air 
were  illuminated  by  means  either  of  the  same 
material,  or  of  crude  tar  piled  upon  the  bowls 
of  broken  plantation  shovels,  set  high  in  the 
midst  on  tripods  made  of  three-limbed  sap- 
lings. The  juba-dance  and  the  corn-shucking 
were  equally  invested  with  elements  of  the  un- 
real and  the  grotesque,  where  the  flickering 


and  shifting  lights  of  the  unconventional  lan- 
terns touched  the  dusky  faces  and  forms  and 
the  smoke  of  their  strange  altars  rose  over 
them. 

Another  light  in  great  vogue  was  the  "  Con- 
federate," or  "  endless,"  candle.  It  was  con- 
structed by  dipping  a  wick  in  melted  wax  and 
resin  and  wrapping  it  around  a  stick,  one 
end  of  the  wick  being  passed  through  a 
wire  loop  fastened  to  the  end  of  the  stick. 
The  wick  burned  freely  when  lighted,  but  the 
illumination  was  very  feeble ;  and  unless  the 
candle  was  watched,  and  the  wick  drawn 
through  the  loop  and  trimmed  every  few  min- 
utes, the  whole  affair  was  soon  aflame.  A 
great  advantage  of  the  Confederate  candle 
was  the  length  of  time  which  it  would  last,  its 
duration,  when  properly  attended,  being  com- 
mensurate with  the  length  of  its  wick  and 
stick. 

By  the  light  of  the  sycamore  ball  or  of  the 
endless  candle  thousands  throughout  the  South 
pored  over  the  news  columns  of  the  papers  at 
night  to  leam  how  went  the  battle,  or  scanned 
the  lists  of  the  wounded  and  the  dead  with 
eyes  that  ached  with  their  hearts. 

At  no  season  of  the  year  did  the  hard  times 
draw  so  bitterly  near  the  hearts  of  the  adults 
as  when  the  little  homespun  stockings  hung 
about  the  chimney-place  at  Christmas,  to 
await  the  coming  of  Santa  Claus  "  through  the 
lines."  If  he  did  not  always  bring  bounteous 
profusion  of  gifts,  the  innocent  fiction  of  his 
having  been  robbed  by  the  armies  on  his  way 
from  the  country  of  sleds  and  reindeers  found 
many  ready  little  believers,  who,  taking  it  for 
truth,  yet  did  not  really  know  how  much  of 
truth  there  was  in  it.  To  the  younger  children, 
who  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  exist- 
ence of  many  of  the  things  that  made  the 
Christmas  times  so  attractive  to  their  elder 
brothers  and  sisters,  the  season  was  not  so 
forlorn  and  pathetic  as  it  often  seemed  to 
those  who  would  have  done  so  much  for  them 
and  yet  could  do  so  little.  Nor  did  they  com- 
prehend, if  perchance  they  ever  saw,  the  tears 
that  oftentimes  crept  into  unwilling  eyes  at 
the  severe  leanness  of  the  little  Christmas 
stocking,  and  the  poverty  that  constituted  its 
chief  ingredient.  Peanuts,  known  in  the  ver- 
nacular as  "  goobers,"  both  raw  and  parched, 
pop-corn  in  balls  and  pop-corn  in  the  ear,  Flor- 
ida oranges,  apples,  molasses  cakes  and  mo- 
lasses candy  made  up  the  list  of  confectionery 
dainties  for  the  young  people  at  that  season. 
There  were  few  of  the  many  thousands  of  chil- 
dren living  in  the  South  when  the  war  ended 
who  had  ever  seen,  even  in  a  store  window, 
a  lump  of  white  sugar  or  a  striped  stick  of 
peppermint  candy.  The  sorghum  cakes  of  the 
hard  times  took  the  shapes  of  soldiers  with  im- 


THE  MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLR. 


possible  legs  and  arms,  waving  equally  impos- 
sible banners;  there  were  also  guns,  swords, 
pistols,  horses  with  wonderful  riders,  and  a 
multitude  of  curious  animals  not  to  be  found 
described  in  any  natural  history  then  or  now 
extant.  So  the  molasses  candy  of  the  period 
was  fashioned  into  baskets,  hats,  dolls,  and 
manifold  kinds  of  figures.  Jumping-jacks,  or 
"supple  sawneys,"  were  made  of  pasteboard, 
and  worked  their  arms  and  legs  through  the 
medium  of  a  cotton  string.  Rag  doll-babies 
with  eyes,  noses,  and  mouths  of  ink  were  in 
great  favor  in  the  absence  of  those  of  wax  or 
china;  while  here  and  there  was  the  ever- 
welcome  Noah's  Ark  with  its  menagerie  of 
animals  and  its  crew  of  men  and  women,  all 
curiously  carved  out  of  pine-bark.  Indestruc- 
tible linen  books  for  the  little  ones  were  made 
of  pieces  of  cotton-cloth  stitched  together,  on 
which  were  pasted  pictures  cut  from  old  illus- 
trated papers  and  magazines.  Knitted  gloves, 
suspenders,  comforters,  wristlets,  and  the  like 
filled  up  the  measure  of  the  Christmas  gifts. 

Yet  none  the  less  gayly  for  the  privation 
and  distress  standing  so  near  at  hand  did  the 
girls  of  that  era  trip  it  in  the  dances  of  the 
Christmas-tide  with  their  brave  soldier  part- 
ners whenever  opportunity  offered;  and  none 
the  less  beautifully  for  the  hard  times  did  the 
red  holly-berries  of  the  season  show  from  their 
waxen  green,  or  the  mistletoe  hang  overhead, 
in  the  light  of  the  endless  candles.  For  the 


young  women  of  the  South,  full  of  vim  and  life 
and  spirit,  the  period  of  the  war  was  in  many 
respects  a  happy  one.  The  girls  and  their 
lovers  danced,  as  the  soldiers  fought,  with  all 
their  might,  and  enjoyed  it  while  it  lasted. 
But  with  them,  as  with  their  elders,  sorrows 
crowded  on  each  other's  heels,  and  the  bride 
of  yesterday  was  often  the  widow  of  to-day. 
They  affected  military  dress,  and  wore  brass 
buttons  and  epaulets  whenever  attainable.  The 
demands  of  society  upon  them  made  sad  havoc 
with  many  relics  of  earlier  days  which  had 
been  religiously  preserved  up  to  that  time. 
The  chests  of  every  garret  were  ransacked ; 
and  morocco  shoes  and  satin  slippers  of  a  by- 
gone generation,  that  had  never  tripped  a 
livelier  measure  than  a  minuet,  were  held  a 
veritable  treasure-trove,  and  were  dragged 
forth  and  danced  in  merrily.  Many  a  lassie  at 
the  military  "  hops  "  showed  her  white  arms 
and  shoulders  above  the  moth-eaten  velvets 
and  time-stained  silks  that  had  been  worn  by 
her  young-lady  grandmother. 

Out  of  sight  and  hearing  the  hard  times  in 
the  Confederacy  have  vanished.  The  recollec- 
tion of  them  is  attuned  to  melancholy ;  there 
is  many  a  touch  of  bitter  sorrow  and  of  sharp 
regret  in  the  strain ;  but  the  lapse  of  years  has 
softened  the  once  familiar  air  until  the  minor 
notes  of  joy  are  eloquent  amidst  the  chords  of 
grief. 

A.  C.  Gordon. 


THE    MOUNTAINEERS    ABOUT    MONTEAGLE. 


the  first  signs  that 
the  exhausted  and  poverty- 
stricken  South  of  1866  was 
neither  dead  nor  paralyzed 
were  herattempts  to  utilize 
certain  natural  resources, 
little  valued  or  considered 
in  tiie  old  easy-going  ante- 
bellum days.  One  of  the  early  movers  along 
this  line  was  a  Tennessee  company  that  opened 
some  coal  mines  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Monteagle,  and  then  stretched  up  a  daring 
arm  from  the  Nashville  and  Chattanooga 
Railway,  skirting  the  mountain's  base,  to  their 
possessions  on  its  summit.  Then  came  the  an- 
nouncement that  a  house  for  summer  boarders 
was  opened  near  the  arm's  terminus. 

Responding  to  this  challenge,  our  party  left 
the  Nashville  and  Chattanooga  Railway  at 
Cowan,  and  from  its  primitive  ticket-office 
followed  a  sooty  train-man  down  the  track, 
past  several  long  coal-trains  and  into  a  queer 


little  box  of  a  car,  that  had,  however,  its  cush- 
ioned seats,  its  polite  conductor  (not  yet  vis- 
ible), its  painted  tin  cooler  with  the  refreshing 
liquid  ice-water,  and  its  nickel-plated  cup 
safely  chained  —  all  in  grimy  completeness. 

Two  passengers  already  were  sharing  these 
accommodations.  One  was  a  big-jointed, 
long-featured,  shrewd-eyed,  middle-aged  man, 
dressed  in  a  new  suit  of  blue  homespun,  while 
his  grave  face  and  iron-gray  hair  were  queerly 
surmounted  by  a  small  parti-colored  straw 
hat  —  one  of  the  sort  oftener  seen  abloom  on 
the  head  of  some  future  sovereign,  where  its 
pristine  freshness  is  wont  to  mark  such  high 
festivals  as  "  the  day  of  the  big  show." 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  aisle  a  small 
"pyeart "  old  lady  in  a  brown  and  white  calico 
dress,  and  with  a  large  white  kerchief  folded 
about  her  shoulders  and  crossed  over  her 
bosom,  sat  with  bared  gray  head  by  an  open 
window. 

Before  we  had  had  time  to  choose  our  seats 


772 


THE  MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


after  the  shift-for-yourself  fashion  of  travelers, 
our  old  lady  had  assumed  the  duties  of  hostess 
and  was  receiving  us  with  a  cordial  hospitality 
the  like  of  which,  I  venture  to  say,  never  be- 
fore had  been  seen  in  a.  railway  car. 

"  Yes,  thes  take  a  seat  an'  set  down  onter 
this  yer  settle  —  lemme  bresh  off  the  sut 
an'  truck,  ur  't  'u'd  smudge  yer  frock.  Hit  's 
sorter  shaddery  an'  cool  on  this  side  er  the 
kyar,  an'  a  little  wind  a-stirrin'.  Now  yer 
perlisse  an'  yer  redicule  ken  go  right  up  hyer, 
yer  bonnet  too,  ef  yer  a  mind  ter  go  'thout'n 
hit  whilse  yer  a-ridin'." 

Her  own  black  splint  sun-bonnet  hung 
from  a  hook  above  her  seat,  a  striped  shawl 
carefully  rolled  in  a  brown  paper  and  tied 
with  a  white  cotton  string  lay  in  the  rack,  and 
on  the  seat  beside  her  was  a  curiously  braided 
home-made  basket. 

"An"  you  —  all  back  there — ken  retch  up 
an'  fix  yoren  thes  the  same,  right  'bove  yer 
own  heads.  Mighty  handy  they  're  got  it  fixed 
off — all  'round  too.  Lige  Tail,  ez  used  ter 
work  fer  us  an'  now  's  got  hired  ter  help  steer 
the  kyars, —  thes  a-haftin'  ter  watch  out,  an' 
ter  run  backurds  an'  foruds  on  top,  a-screwin' 
one  ur  nuther  place  down  tight,  soster  hoi' 
the  wheels  percizely  onter  their  tracks, —  he 
was  a-showin'  me  all  'bout'n  the  'rangements 
whilse  I  wair  a-riden'  down  in  this  yer  kyar 
lais  week." 

"  Ah,  then  you  live  on  this  mountain.  I  'm 
glad  we  have  met  you;  because  we  are  going 
to  spend  a  little  time  up  there.  If  this  has 
been  your  first  visit  to  the  lower  country,  you 
must  have  found  it  interesting." 

"  An'  so  it  have  been,  real  excitin';  what 
with  some  ur  nuther  new  piece  er  quar- 
ness,  a  everlastin'y  a-comin'  jam  up  agyins 
the  one  thes  ahead'n  it,  an'  the  nex'  a-jamin' 
agyins  me  both  afore  airy  one  could  skeeter 
out  'n  the  way,  so  't  my  min'  's  in  cunsider'ble 
er  a  jumble. 

"  Yes,  I  've  ended  up  my  visit  an"  air  now 
sot  out  on  my  back  trip  torge  home.  An' 
Square  Cash  there,  a  neighbor  er  our'n,  ez 
wus  a-goin'  ter  go  an'  take  a  journey  down 
ter  Winchester  ter  mind  alter  some  er  his  busi- 
ness, an'  which  bein'  't  I  had  n't  got  no  man- 
pyerson  ter  carry  me  home,  he  thes  promust 
ez  he  'd  make  out  ter  be  ready  agyins  I  wair, 
an'  'u'd  inshore  ter  be  in  time  before  the  kyars 
wus  ter  start,  bein'  a-aimin'  ter  ride  back  in- 
side the  kyar  hisself.  Square  Cash  knows  all 
'bout'n  the  kyars,  an'  's  a  monstrous  handy 
pyerson  ter  be  along  er." 

But  by  this  time  'Squire  Cash  hardly  needed 
these  commendations.  The  friendliness  of  his 
long  arms  and  large  hands  in  reaching  racks, 
adjusting  seats,  and  shading  windows  had 
convinced  our  young  ladies  that  he  was  indeed 


a  handy  person  to  be  along  with ;  and  a  half- 
concealed  twinkling  of  his  gray  eyes  suggested 
that  he  might  be  an  entertaining  one  besides. 

"  You  look  some  like  yer  head  mout  be  a 
threat'nin'  ter  go  an'  set  in  fer  a  regler  throb- 
bin',"  said  this  born  hostess,  as  I  leaned  my 
head  back  and  shut  my  eyes.  "  Lemme  wet 
yer  hankerch  an'  put  thes  a  drib  er  sampfire  —  " 

"Oh,  no,  thank  you.  I'm  not  suffering  — 
only  a  little  tired." 

"  Well,  I  hyearn  some  valley  folks  a-goin' 
on  mightily  'bout'n  the  mounting  a-bein'  a 
prime  place  fer  restin'.  I  could  n't  skasely 
make  out  in  my  mind  how  folks  't  did  n't  never 
haff  ter  do  no  scutlin*  roun'  a-yearnin'  a  liveli- 
hood—  on  'count  er  bein'  ez  rich  ez  pine  — 
could  naiterly  be  so  dreadful  bad  off  fer  a  rest. 
But  aiter  stewin'  roun'  in  that  swulterin*  valley 
fer  nigh  onter  a  week — lettin'  alone  fer  a 
whole  in-dyo-rin',  livelong  lifetime — I  feel  ez 
slimpsy  ez  a  dish-rag.  An'  I  hain't  been  a-doin' 
a  smidgen  er  work,  ur  airy  formed  thing  ez 
orter,  in  reason,  ter  tire  a  body ;  'lessen  you  'd 
count  a  little  fiddlin'  'roun,  aiter  the  victuals 
wus  all  done  cooked  an'  et  up,  a-reddin'  up  the 
dishes;  ur  else  a-blairin'  er  my  eyes  at  quar 
sights  an'  amazin'  er  my  noggins  at  quar 
doin's." 

Some  one  suggested  that  she  would  enjoy 
getting  back  to  the  mountain  and  having  a 
good  rest. 

"  That 's  percizely  what  I  'm  'lowin'  ter  do, 
ef  loppin'  down  an'  lollin'  'roun  makes  restin'. 
But  I  wair  thes  a-studyin'  ter  myself,  Mis', — 
Mis' —  Now,  don't  hit  'pyearruther  onhandy 
not  a-knowin'  no  names  ter  call  one  nuther 
by?  Mine  air  Mis'  Larkins,  Aint  Bashiby 
Larkins,  folks  mostly  saiz." 

Here,  as  I  am  glad  to  remember,  my  sense 
of  courtesy  prompted  me  to  give,  in  addition 
to  my  own,  the  full  name  of  every  member 
of  our  party,  with  some  short  explanatory  par- 
agraphs, biographic  and  historical,  attached 
to  each.  These  recitals  called  out,  now  and 
then,  equally  interesting  items  in  regard  to 
numerous  friends  and  kinsfolk  of  her  own. 

By  the  time  that  interchange  of  civilities 
was  concluded  and  the  various  bags  and 
bundles  of  our  party  had  finally  settled  them- 
selves into  their  several  "  handy  places,"  and 
poor  little  Thad,  after  having  been  hustled  out 
of  three  seats  and  fidgeting  himself  out  of 
three  others,  at  last  had  got  his  small  person 
satisfactorily  deposited  beside  'Squire  Cash, 
our  train  began  to  move.  Almost  immediately 
we  found  ourselves  ascending  the  mountain  — 
our  little  car  clinging  to  a  long  empty  coal- 
train  that,  in  its  turn,  held  fast  to  the  puffing, 
straining  locomotive  as,  far  before  and  above 
us,  it  climbed  a  zigzag  track  up  the  mountain's 
side.  The  sight  was  a  novel  one  even  to  those 


THE  MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


773 


of  our  number  who  repeatedly  had  crossed 
by  railway  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  giving,  as  all  felt,  a  startlingly 
distinct  impression  of  dimliing.  In  fact,  as 
we  watdu-d  the  locomotive,  first  from  this 
side  and  then  from  that,  now  recklessly  clat- 
tering along  the  brow  of  a  precipice  far  up  to 
the  left,  and  now  away  off  to  the  right  fairly 
crouching  for  the  spring  to  another  height,  it 
hardly  seemed  to  belong  to  the  tame  lowland 
species  suited  to  smooth  ground  and  a  level 
track.  It  was  easier  to  fancy  it  some  fierce 
.intic  savage,  as  well  fitted  out  for  life  in 
the  mountain  wilds  as  any  other  "  varmint." 

But  we  had  not  a  monopoly  of  that  senti- 
ment, as  we  soon  learned. 

Mrs.  Larkins  was  now  sitting  a  little  apart 
from  any  of  us  but  near  to  "Squire  Cash,  and 
as  we  slowed  up  at  a  water-tank  we  heard  her 
voice  above  the  lessening  noise. 

"  I  'd  never  'a'  drunip  hit,  afore  I  seen  an' 
hyearn  it  'ith  my  own  eyes  an'  yers,  ez  any- 
thing 't  ain't  a  livin',  knowin'  creetur  could  'a' 
clum  the  mounting  like  that  air  engine  do. 
Yer  see  hit  a-staivin'  'long,  'thout  nutherhorn 
nur  huff,  a-pullin'  an1  a-catecornerin'  this  yer 
ways  an'  yander  ways,  so  povviful  knowin' 
'botit'n  all  the  steep  places,  hit  thes  puts  me 
in  mind  er  Uncle  Peter  Beans's  idy — 'lowin'  't 
ef  they  warn't  a  live,  livin'  varmint  shet  up  in- 
sides,  't  wuz  ez  plain  ter  be  seed  ez  a  Jack-i- 
lantern  'n  a  dark  night  'at  the  Ole  Nick  hisself 
bed  tinkered  up  the  paturn  —  I  reckon  you 
hyearn  'bout'n  hit,  Square  Cash  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  hyeard  'em  a-tellin'  er  it.  I  ginerly 
listen  at  any  jawin'  'bout  what  Uncle  Peter 
Beans  hes  been  a-sayin" ;  purty  cute  notions 
now  an'  agyin  comes  out  er  that  quar  ole  head 
erhis'n." 

"Oh,  please  tell  us  about  it  —  about  him 
and  what  it  was  that  he  said  about  the  locomo- 
tive," pleaded  a  listener. 

"  Well,  I  don't  reckon 't  'u'd  be  skeersly  time 
ter  mighty  little  more  'n  interjuce  'im,  so  ter 
speak,  tell  the  train  '11  start  on,  'thout  hit  's 
hendered  longer  'n  common,"  he  replied. 

"  An'  yer  cain't  hear  yer  own  yers  then,  "th 
all  the  hills  a-boundin'  er  the  noises  all  back- 
urds  an'  ever'  which  aways  through  other,  like 
they  keep  a-doin',"  said  Mrs.  Larkins.  And 
she  added,  "  Hit 's  ruther  agravatin'  a-haftin' 
ter  shet  up  an'  be  outdone  that  away." 

But  'Squire  Cash,  like  other  good  talkers, 
evidently  appreciated  an  interested  audience. 

"  Anyways,"  said  he,  "  I  'm  a  good  mind 
ter  set  in  an'  tell  you  ladies  some  little  'bout 
'm,  an'  then  some  day  ef  ary  y'  all  'u'd  jes  rec- 
ullec'  ter  put  Aint  Bashiby  en  mind  er  'im 
she  'd  be  up  ter  tellin'  a  heap  more." 

"  Yes,"  Mrs.  Larkins  agreed, "  I  '11  be  roun' 
ever'  wonst  an'  awhile  ter  whur  y'  all  ul  be  a- 


boardin'out,  at  a-tradin'  off  my  butter  'n'  aiggs, 
an'  liker  'n  not  we  '11  fall  in  'long  er  one  nuther 
agyin  'n'  agyin." 

"Ter  start  on,"  began  'Squire  Cash,  as  he 
lifted  his  little  patchwork-pattern  hat  from  its 
incongruous  perch  and  reaching  down  care- 
fully balanced  it  on  some  rusty  saddle-hags 
at  his  feet — "ter  start  on,  I  reckon  't  Uncle 
Peter  Beans  is  some  different  fruin  anybody  't 
you  all  ever  seen.  He  lives  on  the  fur  side  er 
this  yer  rainge  in  a  little  cove,  purty  well  shet 
in  all  roun',  whur  they  say  the  Beanses  hes 
lived  eversence  the  Revolution  —  't  any  rate, 
it 's  named  Beans's  Cove;  an'  only  three  ur 
four  more  families  lives  in  it.  They  don't  neigh- 
bor much  with  nobody  besige  theirselves, — 
bein'  so  shet  in  like, —  an*  they  say  some  er  the 
women,  an'  even  middlin'-sized  boys,  hain't 
never  been  nowhurs  outsides." 

"  Raise  their  children,  boys  and  all,  shut 
up  there  that  way  for  years  an'  years,"  inter- 
jected Thad,  in  a  tone  of  deep  disgust  — 
"  make  them  go  to  some  little  snippy  sort  of 
a  Sunday-sch  —  " 

"  If  they  have  really  found  a  way  to  keep 
boys  shut  up  they  can  make  a  fortune  on  the 
patent,"  came  in  a  sharp  treble  voice  from 
the  third  seat  back. 

But  Thad's  lucky  head  was  proof  against 
all  such  pop-gun  missiles  as  that ;  it  hardly 
checked  his  comment.  I  have  not  taxed  the 
reader  with  a  description  of  our  prosaic  party 
of  "  women  folks  ";  but  I  have  a  mind  to  risk 
half  a  dozen  lines  on  Thad.  Not  that  he  was 
in  any  sense  a  peculiar  specimen  of  the  bud- 
ding American  sovereign,  but  because  —  well, 
because  he  was  Thad ;  and,  like  most  other 
young  animals,  was  an  interesting  object  to 
watch,  though  not  always  a  convenient  one 
to  have  around.  And  a  vigorous,  thriving, 
natural  young  animal  he  was  too ;  with,  more- 
over, some  embryonic  human  traits  of  a  not 
unkindly  sort.  But  his  one  point  of  distinc- 
tion was  his  good-humor;  a  certain  sturdy, 
equable,  self-sufficient,  and  apparently  self- 
generating  buoyancy  that  forty  times  a  day 
I  looked  to  see  collapse,  and  forty  times  a 
day  saw  rebound  without  the  sign  of  a  punct- 
ure. Beneficent  Nature  had  given  him  a  good, 
thick,  snub-proof  cuticle  that  (as  there  is  scien- 
tific warrant  for  stating)  she  had  specially 
hardened  up  to  suit  the  exigencies  of  his 
environment.  Perhaps  it  should  be  added 
that  the  word  environment  is  intended  here  to 
refer  to  a  family  of  critical  older  sisters  who — 
ah,  I  had  forgotten  —  who  are  not  to  be  thrust 
upon  the  reader's  attention,  and  therefore 
need  not  be  described. 

But  to  return  to  Thad.  As  I  afterward 
found  out,  he  had  stowed  away  somewhere 
in  his  round  head  —  that,  like  his  pockets,  was 


774 


THE  MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


an  unassorted  museum  of  queer  odds  and 
ends  —  a  pretty  correct  idea  of  a  cave ;  and  at 
the  word  cave,  that  dark  apparition  had 
popped  up  like  a  Jack  from  his  box,  to  sym- 
bolize before  Thad's  mental  vision  Uncle  Peter 
Beans's  place  of  abode  —  the  place  where  they 
"  kept  boys  shut  up,  year  in  and  year  out." 

I  caught  only  enough  of  his  last  sentence 
to  infer  that  it  expressed  no  good  opinion  of 
a  set  of  folks  who  chose  to  keep  themselves, 
more  particularly  their  boys,  shut  up  so  all 
their  lives  —  "  keeping  up  a  snippy  little  Sun- 
day-school and  everything  off  to  themselves 
inside  their  old  cove-hole,  rather  than  let  the 
boys  out  even  on  Sundays." 

'Squire  Cash  looked  down  at  him  a  moment, 
apparently  conscious  that  he  was  a  little  hazy 
as  to  the  boy's  point  of  view,  and  then  replied 
at  random,  addressing  the  ladies  rather  than 
Thad : 

"  No,  don't  reckon  they  hold  no  meetin's 
in  the  Cove,  none  er  'em  a-bein'  exhorters  ur 
class-leaders.  But  the  circuit-rider  holds  his 
'p'intment  jes  a  few  miles  roun'  the  knob, 
ginerly  ever'  four  weeks;  an'  some  er  the 
young  folks  goes,  pertickler  when  the  big  two- 
days'  time  comes  roun'.  The  ole  folks  hain't 
never  tuck  much  ter  meetin'-goin" ;  but  that 's 
nuther  here  nur  there,  ez  ter  techin'  on  the 
story  I  'm  a-aimin'  at. 

"  Ez  fer  Uncle  Peter  though,  he 's  'mazin' 
fond  er  seein'  an'  hearin'  what-all  's  goin'  on 
roun'  the  mount'n — jes  kinder  cullectin'  up 
the  news  an'  a  sortin'  it  out  fer  the  use  er  his 
settlement.  Off  he  puts  thes  a-ways  ur  thet  a- 
ways,  whurever  anythin'  's  happened,  an'  picks 
out  the  identical  fax  on  it,  'cordin'  ter  his 
judgment,  an'  wraps  'em  up  inter  a  snug 
little  budget,  so  ter  speak,  an'  goes  a-toatin" 
er  'em  back  ter  Beans's  Cove,  bent  on  makin" 
shore  't  the  Cove  folks  gits  the  raal  truck  ur 
none  't  all.  'Lows  thet  's  what  he  's  spared 
ter  'em  fer,  jes  ter  watch  out  'n  they  hain't  be- 
fooled inter  swallerin"  no  lies. 

"  Fer  a  good  long  while  now  he 's  been  the 
oldest  man-pyerson  in  the  Cove,  an'  he  'lows  't 
the  folks  jest  naiterly  believes  what  he  tells 
'em  ter  an'  shets  their  yers  at  all  the  rest. 
'T  ain't  percizely  that  away,  but  the  Cove 
folks  thinks  a  cunsider'ble  chance  er  Uncle 
Peter,  an'  never  out  'n'  out  contends  against 
his  judgment. 

"  Well,  now,  when  the  word  wus  fust  tuck 
ter  Beans's  Cove  'bout  what  a'  onaccountable, 
rampaigin'  cunsarn  the  company  hed  gone 
an'  brung  ter  the  mount'n,  ez  Ainse  Hawes 
saiz,  Uncle  Peter  wus  in  a  povviful  pucker  — 
'lowin'  'at  Jim  Counts,  ez  hed  brung  the  word, 
wus  everlaistin'y  a-hatchin'  up  somepin  out  'n 
nothin' ;  leastwise  a-gettin'  er  it  hine  end  for- 
must  ur  wrong  sides  outurds,  so 's 't  'u'd  naiterly 


look  quar,  ef  not  skyeery.  Not  ez  he  reckoned 't 
Jim  Counts  p'intedly  laid  off  ter  tell  sich  whop- 
pers ;  like's  not  he  'd  fooled  hisself ;  liker  too, 
that  cimlin  head  er  his'n  a-bein'  nigh  er  about 
ez  green  ez  a  gourd."  • 

"Pretty  rough  on  Jim  Counts  —  like  call- 
in'  'im  a  fool  was  the  best  could  be — " 

"  Now,  Thad,  there  you  go  again.  I  '11 
give  you  a  quarter  to  hold  your  tongue  till  we 
get  up  the  mountain."  And  a  second  voice 
added,  "  Seen  and  not  heard  is  the  word  for 
you,  youngster.  Please  go  on,  'Squire  Cash." 

"But  Uncle  Peter,"  continued  'Squire  Cash, 
as  he  handed  Thad  a  stout  stick  of  striped 
candy  and  returned  the  parcel — a  bulky  one, 
some  eight  inches  long  —  to  the  outside 
pocket  of  his  blue  coat;  "but  Uncle  Peter 
'lowed  hit  mout  'a'  been  wuss.  S'posin'  this 
wus  week  afore  lais,  an'  his  right  knee  ez  stiff 
ez  still-yurds,  an'  nigh  'n'  about  a-threat'nin' 
ter  come  onjinted  ever'  time  't  wus  teched,  on 
account  er  that  rumatiz  ring  roun'  the  moon ; 
stidder  like  hit  wus  now,  an'  ever'  laist  one 
er  'em  depenriin'  an'  a-restin'  easy  beca'se 
they  jedged  an',  in  a  manner,  know'd  't  he  'd 
naiterly  concluded  ter  up  an'  go  an'  git  a  holt 
er  the  straight  'n  it  hisself. 

"  Fur  hit  warn't  in  reason  'at  he  wus  a-goin' 
ter  go  an'  set  roun'  on  his  hunches  and  see  the 
Cove  fairly  et  up  alive  wi'  the  oudaciousest 
pack  er  lies  ez  hed  ever  been  let  loose  onter 
'em.  He  'd  treed  a  middlin1  good  chance  er 
that  sort  er  varmints  in  his  day  an'  time ;  an' 
he  reckoned  he  'd  haf  ter  keep  on  a-trackin' 
'em  up  an'  a-reddin'  'em  out  ez  long  ez  his  ole 
laigs  could  waiggle.  He  'd  let  that  smarty 
gang  ez  hed  befooled  Jim  Counts  know't 
the  Cove  hed  ginerly  been  counted  ez  a-haf- 
in'  a  head  ur  so  'mongs'  'em  't  wus  some  bet- 
ter'n  a  fros'-bit  cimlin;  an'  'at  the  whole 
settlement  did  n't  set  roun'  'ith  their  mouth 
a-hangin'  open,  bent  on  swallerin'  ever'thin' 
't  wus  dropped  inter  'em.  But  he  hoped  in  the 
name  er  common  sense  't  aiter  this  Jim  Counts 
'u'd  thes  set  in  an'  lay  hisself  out  ter  naiterly 
harden  up  that  sap-head  er  his'n,  so  's  never 
aygin  whilse  the  yeth  stands  still,  ter  git  hisself 
inter  airy  nuther  sech  a  flounder. 

"  So,  nex'mornin',  long'nough  afore  crowin' 
time,  up  he  bounces  an'  'thout  a-waitin'  fer 
nuthin'but  a  swig  er  coffee  —  an' Aint  Prindy 
had  ter  scuttle  roun'  middlin'  pyeart  less'n 
she  would  n't  er  got  that  b'iled  in  time  —  an' 
a-swallerin'  er  one  cold  snack  an'  a-puttin' 
unuther'n  inter  'is  pocket,  out  he  puts  fer  the 
mines." 

"  Must  'ave  been  a  pretty  long  ride.  I 
wonder  how  far,"  began  Thad. 

"  Oh,  bother,  we  can  hear  you  when  we 
can't  hear  anything  else  !  No,  don't  answer 
him,  Mrs.  Larkins;  papa  says  every  answer 


THE   MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


775 


you  throw  to  Thad  just  knocks  down  half  a 
dozen  more  questions."  But  Mrs.  I.arkins, 
leaning  over  towards  Thad,  was  saying,  "  'T 
\vus  a  walk  stidder  a  ride,  sonny.  An'  how  fur 
'u'd  you  count  hit,  Square  Cash  ?" 

"  Well,"  said  'Squire  Cash,  leaning  back  in 
a  deliberative  attitude,  "  frum  eleven  miles  ter 
a  right  smart  upurds  both  there  an"  back, 
"pendin1  on  which  a- ways  he  VI  'ave  went.  Now 
the  direction  't  Uncle  Peter  mostly  takes,  a- 
follerin'  the  reg'lar  waggin  track  down  roun' 
by  the  two  Creelses,  a-skyartin'  'long  the  aige 
er  Owl's  Holler,  an"  a-crossin"  er  the  main 
park  er  Squaw  Creek  someurs  'bouts  the  deer- 
lick,  an'  then  a-b'arin'  out  —  I  don't  kyeer  how 
sharp  nur  how  direck  he  'd  b'ar  out,  ter  strike 
the  big  road  't  runs  all  the  way  across  clean  ter 
Ailtemount  't  'u'd  be  a  monstrous  good  thirteen 
miles.  But  ef  he  had  jes  'ave  tuck  a  straight 
shoot  foruds,  an'  right  up  across  the  knob,  an' 
then  'a'  slainted  off  a  leetle  north-way-like  frum 
the  p'int,  torge  Treasyer  Cove,  an'  frum  any- 
whurs  long  o'  there  ter  the  left  er  that  ole  b'ar- 
walker'  'a'  struck  a  bee-line  right  spang  through 
the  Big  Woods,  an'  on  inter  that  snaigly  strip 
er  sorter  mixed  chestnut  timber — likely  a-need- 
in'  ter  lean  out  some  little  north-ways  agyin 
jes  here,  so  's  ter  miss  the  jump-off  't  the 
head  er  Deep  Gulch,  tell  he  'd  'ave  come  out 
enter  the  mill-road  sorter  catecornerin'  across 
frum  the  ole  Damurus  clearin" — why,  't  would 
n'tskursly 'a'  been,  lemmesee," — then  looking 
up  at  the  top  of  the  car  with  the  air  of  one 
making  a  very  nice  calculation, — "  't  would  n't 
nohow  'a'  been  —  hit  could  n't  'a'  been  — 
mighty  little  upurds  er  a  bare  elevin  an'  a  half, 
nuther  a-goin'  nur  a-comin'. 

"  But  Uncle  Peter  'lows  't  when  he  's  got 
the  day  ahead  er  'm  he  don't  mind  a  few 
miles  more  ur  less.  An'  the  nigh  cut  a-bein' 
ruther  lonesome  wi'  no  paissin"  nur  repaissin', 
he  'd  ruther  take  his  time,  an'  a  mighty  good 
chance  ter  strike  up  'long  er  someun  wonst 
an' awhile  on  the  big  road  —  hit  mout  be  a 
stranger  all  the  way  from  Pelham  ur  Ailte- 
mount. An'  then  a-comin'  home  he  can  drap 
in  on  Granny  Creels,  an'  may-be  take  a  cheer 
an'  draw  up  fer  a  sup  er  Miss  Peniny's  coffee. 

'•  Well,  now,  that  night  aiter  the  mornin'  ez 
he  'd  struck  out  fer  the  mines,  'long  betwixt 
roostin'  time  an"  candle  lightin',  when  't  wus 
most  time  fer  him  ter  be  a-showin'  'isself,  Ainse 
Hawes  an'  Jim  Counts  tuck  it  onter  their- 
selves  ter  be  a-startin'  out  acoon-huntin'  'long 
the  waigin  road  't  he  VI  be  a-comin'  by.  An' 
what  with  foolin'  'long  at  a  slow  sainter, 
an'  a-restin'  ever'  wonst  an'  awhile,  they  hed 
n't  got  fur  tell  they  seen  'im  a-comin'.  An'  ez 
soon  ez  they  VI  got  up  nigh  'nough  apart  ter 
make  out  "is  looks  they  knowed  't  he  was 
might'ly  out  er  kilter  —  a-blairin'  straight 


ahead'n  him  ez  vig'rous  ez  a  wild-cat,  an'  that 
crabbed  'at  he  VI  skursly  let  on  ter  nodis  'em 
aiter  they  VI  up  an"  told  him  good-evenin'  jes 
e/  swiftly  an'  respectin'  ex.  they  knowed  how. 
But  they  tagged  'long  aiter  'im,  a-makin'  out 
ez  how  they  'd  foun'  the  night  wus  too  dark 
fer  huntin',  an"  ez  they  'd  done  tuck  the  back 
track  afore  he  come  along. 

"  Then  aiter  a  while  they  ventered  ter  sidle 
up  besige  'im  an'  ter  'low  ter  'im  how  't  the 
Cove  folks  wus  all  a-stewin',  not  to  say  a  fairly 
a-sizzlin',  ter  hear  what  wus  his  concludin's 
'bout  that  air  fool  cunsarn  ez  the  company 
hed  hatched  up  —  eft  wus  wuth  talkin'  'bout. 

"Then  Jim  Counts  says  he  jes'  flew  all  ter 
flinders.  'Lowed  he  'd  never  laid  off  ter  have 
no  kunjurin's  nur  kulloquin's  hisself,  a-lettin' 
alone  ez  ter  out  'n  out  dealin's  an'  compax; 
an"  he  hed  n't  no  call  yit  ter  go  ter  mommuckin' 
up  his  brains  'bout'n  them  ez  hed  —  nuther 
their  works.  But  he  jedged  they  mout  'a'  kiv- 
ered  up  their  tracks  (which  he  mout  thes  ez 
well  say  horns  an'  huffs)  better  'n  they  hed 
done,  ef  they  'd  made  out  ter  'a'  used  a  few 
grains  more  sense; — ef  they  hed  'ave  says  't 
wair  some  vig'rous  varmint  ez  they  'd  got  shet 
up  insides,  a-doin'  er  the  pullin',  same  ez  the 
puffin'  an"  the  bellerin',  hed  'a'  been  a  sensible 
lie.  An'  he  hoped  fer  the  gracious  sakes  they 
war  n't  airy  naiterl  born  simple  nowhurs  roun' 
Beanses  Cove  ez  'u'd  go  ter  makin'  a  pester- 
ment  fer  theirselves  'bout'n  a'  onhuman  cun- 
trivance,  which  he  VI  resk  goin'  so  fur  ez  ter 
jedge  ez  nairy  single  mortrel  creetur  ez  hain't 
a  mind  ter  sell  out  baig  an'  baiggin  won't 
never  see  through  the  inerds  on  it — not  ef 
they  wear  theirselves  ter  solid  fraz/.les  a-tryin'. 

"Someurs  'long  'bouts  here  Uncle  Peter 
stumpt  'is  toes  agyins  one  er  them  snaigly 
little  saissafras  sprouts,  an'  keeled  over  inter 
the  gully.  An'  by  the  time  the  boys  'd  got  'im 
hauled  out  an'  onter  'is  feet,  an'  the  begaumin's 
er  the  mud  scraped  off — you  see  it  was  sor- 
ter'n  a  loblolly  at  the  bottom  er  that  gully  — 
he  'd  'a'  cooled  off  a  cunsider'ble,  an'  likely 
begun  ter  skyeer  hisself,  less'n  longer  furgittin' 
ter  be  kyeerful  in  'is  goin's  on  he  mout  'ave 
went  a  leetle  too  fur.  An'  so  up  an'  at  it  he  goes 
ter  work  a-smoothin'  it  up  sorter  this  a-ways. 

"  Says  ze, '  Not  ez  I  wuz  uthera-saissin'  ur  a- 
floutin'  ura-bemeanin'  at  anybody  which  hit 's 
a  part  er  their  reg'lar  business,  'long  er  bein' 
onhuman  theirself  an'  naiterly  a-havin' a' onhu- 
man sort  er  sense. 

" '  Pintedly,'  says  ze,  '  I  hain't  got  nothin' 
agyin  him,  an'  I  don't  aim  ter  never  say  nothin' 
agyin  'im ;  an'  ef  ever  he  wus  ter  go  an'  git 
riled  up  ter  come  a-slashin'  agyins  me,  like 
ez  how  't  he  blieved  he  owed  me  a  spite,  't 
'u'd  be  on  the  a'count  er  a  misonderstandin' 
'bout'n  who  I  was  a-aimin'  at.' " 


776 


777,5   MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


Here  a  brakeman  came  up  to  speak  with 
'Squire  Cash;  but  Mrs.  Larkins  chinked  up 
the  opening  made  by  this  break  in  the  story 
to  good  advantage. 

She  said,  "  Uncle  Peter  is  powil'ul  skyeery 
'bout  gittin'  the  Ole  Un  sot  agyins  'im,  an' 
takes  a  heap  er  pains,  mostly,  ter  keep  on  the 
good  side  er  'im ;  stidder  blamin'  er  mean- 
nesses onter  him  ur  a-callin'  'im  by  bad  names 
sich  ez  Ole  Harry,  Ole  Scratch,  an'  the  like  ez 
'u'd  gyin  him  a  spite." 

"  '  An'  what 's  more,'  "  said  'Squire  Cash,  go- 
ing on  with  his  quotation  from  Uncle  Peter, — 
"  '  What 's  more,  't  ain't  in  reason  ez  anybody 
orter  blame  'im  fer  his  dealin's  'long  er  them 
ez  banters  'im  ter  trade  that  away. 

" '  But  hit  's  a'  'mazin'  mean  trick  er  them 
banterers;  aiter  he 's  went  an'  made  a'  up-an'- 
down  square  bargain  with  'em,  an'  a-goin' 
right  straight  'long  in  'is  dealin's,  he  's  went  on 
ter  fix  up  a'  onaccountable  cuntrivance  fer 
'em, —  leastwise  he  's  tinkered  up  all  hits  main 
p'ints, —  an'  then  they  thes  tips  an'  goes  ter 
flairin'  er  theirselves  all  over  the  top  side  er 
creation,  a-paradin'  roun'  an'  a-showin'  off  the 
cunsarn,  an'  actilly  a-goin'  so  fur  ez  ter  p'intedly 
claim  the  credit  on  it;  a  lettin'  on  like  't  they 
thes  naiterly  studied  it  all  up  theirselves  an' 
hatched  the  whole  cunsarn  bodacious  out'n 
the  insides  er  their  own  heads. 

"  '  Well,  I  wus  deturmd  ter  not  go  ter  startin' 
up  no  jowerin's  'long  er  'em,  which  they  'd  'a* 
bin  the  whole  tribe  ter  'a'  j'ined  in  on  me, 
besige  er  havin"  er  their  dealin's  an'  their  corn- 
pax  ter  back  'em  up.  But  'thout  a-purtendin' 
ur  a-lettin'  on  ter  counterdick  'em,  I  thes  up 
an'  'lowed  ter  the  feller  ez  hed  done  the  main 
chance  er  the  praincin'  roun',  how  't  them  all 
was  mighty  fine  p'ints  fer  showin'  off  an'  like 's 
not  they  growed  naiterl  ez  chinkipins  whur 
that  cuntrivance  wus  hatched  up,  but  how  ez 
I  'd  hyearn  tell  't  outsiders  had  ter  do  some 
monsturs  tall  tradin'  afore  they  'd  git  a  holt 
er  'em. 

'""What  sorter  p'ints  you  a-meanin'?" 
sez  ze. 

"  '  Now  ef  I  had  n't  'ave  kep'  a'  oncommon 
gripe  onter  ever'  lais  one  er  my  seven  senses  I 
'd  'a'  actilly  'a'  b'ilt  over  at  'is  imperdence  —  a- 
upin"  an'  a-aixin'  er  me  what  sorter  p'ints  I  wus 
a-meanin',  right  spang  in  the  face  er  that  air 
'dacious  piece  er  quarness,a-tearin'  up  the  very 
yeth  'ith  its  fire  an'  its  smoke  an'  its  bellerin's, 
an'  its  stavin'  'long  'ith  the  wheels  all  a-whirlin' 
'thout  nuthin'  a-pullin'  nur  nuthin'  a-pushin', 
an'  that  air  one  termenjus  quar-lookin'  eye  a- 
stairin'  straight  ahead,  an'  which  them  ez  hes 
seed  hit  fer  theirselves  nil  swor'  afore  the 
magister  how  ez  hit  ups  an'  blazes  out  like  the 
moon  afire  ever'  dark  night. 

"  '  But  you  all  take  nodis  now  who  I  'm  a- 


lettin'  out  at.  Ez  I  wus  a-sayin',  I  don't  aim 
no  saissin's  nur  floutin'snurbemeanin's  at  the 
one  ez  orter  git  the  credit  er  the  job.  An' 
which  I  'm  a-layin"  off  ter  allus  stand  up 
p'intedly  fer  'im,  bein  't  he  hain't  never  done 
me  no  harm  an'  I  hain't  never  knowed  him  ter 
meddle  'ith  nobody  ez  did  n't  fust  meddle  'ith 
him  —  uther  a-banterin'  ur  a-agravatin'  erhim.' 

"  Now, don't  you  ladies  say't  Uncle  Peter's 
got  a  right  cute  olehead  er  his  own,  an'  watches 
out  middlin'  sharp  ?  Some  ruther  makes  fun  er 
'is  doctrine  techin'  the  Ole  Scratch  an'  'is  works, 
but  fer  all  that  hit 's  a  doctrine  ez  hes  some 
mighty  good  p'ints,"  concluded  'Squire  Cash 
with  immovable  gravity  of  features  as  he  went 
toward  the  door, "  a-bein'  fer  one  thing  powiful 
handy  'bout  gittin'  roun'  pesterments.  Why,  it 
styeers  Uncle  Peter  clean  apaist  a  whole  railt- 
load  er  de-fic-ulties  ez  a  plenty  er  folks  flound- 
ers at." 

"  How  ?  Please  tell " —  But  by  this  time  he 
was  out,  and  soon  we  saw  him  taking  long 
strides  up  the  curving  track  on  which  stood 
our  train,  while  Thad's  short  legs  close  behind 
"had  to  waggle  themselves  like  everything," 
as  he  afterward  expressed  it.  Some  one  sug- 
gested that  they  might  be  left,  that  it  must  be 
about  time  for  our  train  to  start. 

"  No,  I  don't  reckon  it  can  start  on  yit 
awhile,"  replied  Mrs.  Larkins.  "  Lige  Tait  was 
a-tellin'  Square  Cash  how  'tsomekyars  ahead'n 
us  hed  got  ofFn  their  tracks,  an'  he  counted 
't  'u'd  be  a  right  smart  while  afore  our'n  could 
budge." 

After  a  while  one  of  our  party  expressed  the 
belief  that  'Squire  Cash  had  been  playing  on 
our  credulity,  that  he  had  made  up  that  whole 
story  as  he  went,  and  appealed  to  Mrs.  Lar- 
kins: "Do  you  think  Uncle  Peter  Beans  or 
anybody  else  believed  such  things?" 

"  Tubbe  shore,  tubbe  shore,"  said  she ; 
"  some  does.  A  men-yer  and  a  men-yer  one  is 
sorter  skittish  an'  skyeery  like  'bout'n  haints 
an'  signs  an'  so  on.  But  mighty  few  has  it  all 
studied  up  an'  fixed  out  reg'lar  in  their  minds 
like  Uncle  Peter  does."  Then,  in  a  very  gen- 
tle and  dispassionate  but  mildly  argumenta- 
tive tone  she  added : 

"  But  hit  'pears  ter  me,  hit  shorely  'pears  ter 
me,  ef  I  wair  a-goin'  ter  haf  ter  go  an'  swaller 
any  sich  doctrun,  I'd  ruther  take  it  all  strung 
tergether  in  Uncle  Peter's  way,  so 's 't  'u'd  look 
some  like  sense,  ur  leastwise  like  hit  aimed  ter 
be  sense,  nur  thes  ter  take  up  wi'  snips  an' 
patches  er  quarness  which  even  Uncle  Peter 
hisself  would  n't  pertend  ez  they  hed  a  grain  er 
sense  ur  reason  ter  'em  —  like  a-bein'  skyeered 
at  a  rabbit  a-crossin'  yer  track,  ur  afyerd  ter 
eat  if  they  happens  ter  be  thirteen,  an"  a-das- 
entin'  ter  begin  no  jobs  on  Friday,  an'  a  'lowin' 
't  which  away  they  see  the  moon  over  one  ur 


THE   MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


Ill 


UNCLE    PETKR     BEANS. 


er  t'  other  shoulder  ull  have  a  heap  ter  do  'long 
which  an' t'  other  a-happnin'  that  month.  But 
lawsy  ter  massy,  yer  mout  thes  ez  well  argy  at 
the  man  in  the  moon,  'gyinst  sailin'  roun'  nights, 
ez  ter  waste  yer  breath  on  them  ez  takes  up  er 
sich  notions. 

"  I  hain't  a-pes't'rin'  my  noggin  nuthin'  much 
'bout'n  'em ;  they  ken  swaller  hit  in  snips  an' 
patches,  ef  they  'd  ruther,  fer  all  er  me. 

"  An'  Uncle  Peter,  he  ken  count  ez  they  thes 
got  the  main  p'ints  er  that  air  engine  'long  er 
their  kulloquin's;  ur  he  ken  hold  ez  't  wair 
out  'n'  out  tradin'  an'  a-signin'  over  er  their- 
selves  ez  bought  hit  all  done  tinkered  up  an' 
topped  off, —  primed  an'  triggered  fer  a-runnin' 
up  hill  ur  down, —  ur  them  ez  wants  ter  ken 
'low  't  they  's  a  vig'rous  varmint  shet  up  in- 
sides,  an'  they  won't  none  er  'em  git  up  no 
jowerin's  'long  er  me 

"  I  '11  thes  go 's  fur  ez  ter  say,  eft  ain't  a-livin" 
an'  a-knowin',  hit 's  shorely  a-bein'  an'  a-doin', 
like  that  valley  school-keepin'  woman  has  it 
in  her  rigmarole  over  'n'  over  agyin.  An'  hit 's 
bein'  an'  doin'  suits  me  middlin'  well,  's  'long 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 107. 


ez  it  's  a-hisetin'  we  all  out'n 
that  air  br'ilin'  valley.  Blazes, 
jes  ter  think  er  all  them  nigger 
folks  a-slatherin'  roun'  through 
the  sun,  an'  the  sweat  a  fairly 
sizzlin'  out'n  'em,  an'  that  mop 
er  swinged  wool  atop  er  their 
heads— you  'd  'a'  thought  they 
wus  naiterly  boun'  ter  swulter. 
But  they  kep'  ez  pyeart  ez 
crickets,  a  laughin'  an'  a-jawin' 
ter  one  nuther  like  they  felt  ez 
cool  ez  a  kercumber.  Quar, 
though,  ter  see  their  heads  all 
swinged  up  thet  away  'thout 
a-bein'  burnt  so  's  ter  blister." 
"  I  don't  understand  about 
their  being  singed,"  said  I, 
with  vague  thoughts  of  an  ac- 
cident floating  through  my 
brain.  But  in  another  half- 
minute  these  had  given  place 
to  an  idea  that  proved  to  be 
nearer  the  truth. 

"  Had  you  not  seen  negroes 
before,  Mrs.  Larkins,  and 
don't  you  know  their  hair  is 
naturally  different  from  ours — 
woolly  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  'd  hyearn  how  't 
their  heads  was  kivered  with 
wool  'stidder  raal  hair.    But 
what  I  tuck  pertickler   nodis 
at,  wus  it  all  a-bein'  scorched 
inter  crisps,  like  evum  black 
wool  would    n't    naiterly  be. 
Did  n't  you  all  see  none  er 
their  heads  't  showed  ez  they  'd  been  swinged 
sense  the  hot  weather  come  on  ?  " 

"  No,  we  did  n't  think  of  such  a  thing." 
"  Well,  't  looked  quar.  But  now  I  mind 
how  dreadful  quick  any  yarn  truck  ull  ketch 
a  scorch, — 'nough  sight  quicker  'n  cotton  ur 
flax,  airy  one, — 't  ain't  no  wonder 't  their  heads 
'u'd  be  more  ur  less  swinged.  Some  er  'em  wus 
a  heap  sight  wuss  'n  yuthers.  Two  ur  three 
boys  't  I  seed  hed  got  sich  a  scorchin' —  may 
be  longer  bein'  kyeerless  an'  goin'  'thout'n  their 
hats  over  'n'  over  agyin  —  't  was  swinged  clear 
down  ter  the  roots,  an'  that  brickly  't  nigh  'n' 
about  ever'  laist  smidgen  on  it  wus  breshed 
off  tell  their  heads  wus  positive  naked,  'less'n 
thes  now  an'  agyin  little  sindery  streaks  an' 
spots  lef '.  Looked  some  like  an  ole  field  aiter 
hit 's  been  blazed  over  in  a  dry  spell ;  which 
y'  all  know  how  't  'u'd  be  mostly  all  burnt  off 
plum  down  ter  the  yeth,  and  thes  wonst  an' 
awhile  little  black  patches  er  scorched  up  stub- 
ble a-showin'." 

At  last  I  remembered  having  seen  heads 
that  looked  just  that  way;  and  I  was  almost 


778 


THE  MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


afraid  of  seeming  stupid  in  not  having  thought 
of  the  sun's  singeing  them  as  the  cause. 

"There  they  come  —  yes,  that  's  'Squire 
Cash  leading  the  way ;  and  there  's  Thad  at 
his  heels.  Of  course  Thad  kept  within  ques- 
tion range.  Now  our  train  '11  start." 

"  Well,"  commented  Mrs.  Larkins,  "  hit  's 
time,  I  jedge.  No,  my  patience  ain't  wore  out, 
but  hit 's  a-beginnin'  ter  frey  roun'  the  aiges.  I 
never  staid  away  from  home  but  two  nights 
hand  runnin'  afore;  an'  now  't  I  've  been  a- 
jaintin'  better  'n  a  week,  I  feel  tolible  keen  ter 
git  back.  Besige,  I  'd  like  the  smell  er  some 
coffee." 

"  We  might  have  got  a  cup  of  coffee  at 
Cowan,  if  we  had  thought  of  being  detained," 
said  I. 

"  Well,  fer  my  part  I  thes  ez  leve  'a'  waited 
ez  er  drunk  any  er  their'n — liver,  too,  I  allow. 
Nuthin'  'u'd  do  Lige  Tait  ez  soon  ez  we  got  inter 
Cowan  the  day  I  rid  down  in  this  kyar,  but 
he  must  put  right  out  an'  borry  a  cup  an' 
saisser  an'  fetch  me  some  coffee  from  the 
tavern.  Flattish  truck  Lige  said  he  'lowed  't 
wair  afore  he  brung  hit,  but  I  reckoned  ter  'im 
they  was  different  fashions  fer  coffee,  an'  like 's 
not  them  ez  follered  that  'n'  'u'd  count  our'n 
sorter  out'n  date.  An'  I  forced  down  a  cun- 
sider'ble  on  it,  'long  er  my  snack,  aiter  Lige  'd 
went  on  an'  laid  't  all  off  ter  me,  how  't  I  'd 
haf  ter  thes  set  in  an'  set  roun'  the  whole 
indyorin'  day  a-waitin'  an'  a-waitin'  fer  the 
carryall  't  hauls  folks  backurds  an'  foruds  ter 
Winchester,  besige  it  a-bein'  that  ag'ravatin' 
ter  be  hendered  so,  an  't  I  wair  boun'  ter  be 
wore  threadbare.  But  threadbare  hain't  no 

name  fer  it,  Miss  R ;  I  wair  plum  frazzled 

out.  Harm'  ter  work  goes  mighty  agyins  the 
grain  sometimes,  but  'tain't  a  circumstance  ter 
harm'  ter  do  nothin'.  Hit 's  a  positive  fac',  I  'd 
a-gyin  a  purty  fer  evum  a  little  knittin'  ter 
piddle  at." 

"  Well,  I  reckon  y'  all  are  jest  about  tired 
out,  but  we  '11  get  off  dreckly  now,"  said  'Squire 
Cash,  coming  in. 

One  of  our  young  ladies  reminded  him  that 
he  had  treated  us  rather  badly  in  breaking 
off  just  where  he  did —  that  if  Uncle  Peter's 
way  was  such  a  good  one,  we  wanted  to  hear 
its  advantages  explained. 

"  Lemme  see  now;  whurabouts  was  I? 
Why,  yes,  now  I  riccullect.  I  orter  'a'  p'inted 
out  the  advantages,  ef  y'all  don't  see  'em 
a'ready.  But  't  won't  take  you  ladies  more  'n 
seven  secunts  ter  see  the  sense  er  the  main 
p'int  ef  you  could  wonst  git  a  good  look  at  it." 

"  Pore  little  creetur,  he 's  all  frazzled  out," 
said  Mrs.  Larkins.  "  See  how  his  head 's  a- 
doddlin'." 

Then  it  was  a  sight  worth  seeing  when 
'Squire  Cash  gently  lowered  Thad's  limber- 


necked  head  (with  forehead  drawn  into  a 
mimic  frown  and  sunburnt  nose  thickly  be- 
studded  with  small  beads  of  perspiration)  to  a 
shawl-strap  bundle  and  lifted  his  dusty,  dang- 
ling little  feet  to  the  seat. 

As  he  reseated  himself  on  the  other  side  of 
the  aisle  he  began,  <:  'T  won't  take  you  ladies 
more  'n  seven  secunts — "  But  the  clatter  of 
our  train  now  in  motion  drowned  his  voice. 

Talking,  or  rather  hearing,  being  no  w  impos- 
sible, all  gave  themselves  up  to  enjoyment  of 
the  surrounding  scene.  In  the  shadowy  solem- 
nity of  the  mountain  forest,  the  many  colored 
wild-flowers,  the  long  tendrils  swaying  from 
precipitous  gray  cliffs,  even  the  clumps  of 
azaleas  here  and  there  bursting  into  bloom, 
seemed,  not  gay,  but  tender  and  hallowed,  like 
decorations  in  a  cathedral. 

As  we  rose  higher  and  higher,  now  and 
then  where  the  craggy  cliffs  receded  a  friendly 
opening  in  the  forest  permitted  us  to  look  far 
out  across  an  illuminated  sea  of  shimmering, 
silvery  air  that  rolled  in  enchanted  billows 
over  all  the  lower  world ;  or  down  through 
its  blue-gray  depths  to  where,  pictured  in 
miniature,  lay  the  farms  and  hamlets,  orchards 
and  gardens,  dark  woods,  and  golden  harvest 
fields  of  the  wide-spreading  valley.  'Squire 
Cash  now  had  taken  a  stand  on  the  platform. 
But  Lige  Tait  (as  we  had  come  mentally  to 
name  our  silent  brakeman)  signaled  us  to  be 
on  the  lookout  before  coming  to  each  of  these 
openings.  Then  with  the  non-committal  face 
and  manner  that  are  the  common  heritage  of 
so  many  of  his  race,  his  pathetic  eyes  would 
watch  our  faces  while  we  gazed.  But  he  heard 
all  comments  and  admiring  explanations  with 
a  grave  silence  that  seemed  to  say :  "  It  is 
just  as  it  always  has  been  and  always  will  be. 
It  will  do  you  good  to  see  it,  and  you  are 
welcome  to  the  sight ;  but  your  praise  is  not 
needed." 

As  our  car  ran  very  slowly  past  the  largest 
of  these  forest  windows,  and  all  silently  drank 
in  the  wonderful  beauty,  Aunt  Bashiby's  strong 
face  grew  soft  below  the  scanty  gray  hair  that 
a  breeze  was  slightly  stirring,  and  after  a  long- 
drawn  breath  she  said: 

"  Hit 's  a  beautiful  sight  to  see.  Don't  look 
like  they  orter  be  anybody  uther  a-frettin'  er 
theirselves  ur  a-bein'  mean  ter  one  nuther  an' 
a-livin'  in  sich  a  world.  An'  the  mounting 
shows  grand  from  the  valley  too.  I  wush  you 

could  see  hit,  Miss  R ,  frum  Clarinda's 

backdoor.  Powiful  diffurnt,  tubbe  shore;  but 
't  'u'd  puzzle  a  body  ter  say 't  airy  one 's  better  'n 
t'  other." 

"  Makes  me  think  er  folks,  Aint  Bashiby," 
said  'Squire  Cash,  taking  his  seat,  "  how  they 
hain't  obligated  ter  be  all  ezackly  alike  ur  else 
they  won't  be  the  right  sort,  'cordin'  ter  what 


THE   MOUNTAINEERS  ABOUT  MONTEAGLE. 


779 


- 


MR.    CASH    AND    AUNT    DASHIBY. 


some  'pears  ter  reckon.  Fur  's  I  ken  see,  I 
jedge  they  's  sever'l  right  sorts  same  ez  they  's 
sever'l  wrong  sorts." 

"  Well,"  said  Aunt  Bashiby,  after  a  pause, 
"  I  never  studied  'bout'n  hit  that  away  afore ; 
but  they  's  a  heap  er  sorts  er  most  ever'thin', 
animal  creeters,  an'  varmints,  an'  trees,  an' 
gyarden  truck;  an*  one  tree  ur  one  creeter 
a-bein'  one  way,  an'  the  nex'  tree  ur  the  nex' 
creeter  thes  t'other  way,  hain't  no  sorter  sign 't 
airy  one  er'em  ain't  percizely  like  hit  orter  be." 

This  mountain-top  scenery  is  a  curious  mix- 
ture; wide  forests,  level  as  a  prairie,  and  long, 
sloping  hills  that  stretch  out  to  the  sun,  being 
as  characteristic  of  the  region  as  are  its  beet- 
ling cliffs  and  craggy  chasms.  One  can  easily 
fancy  these  level  forests  and  sunny  slopes  to 
be  remnants  of  booty,  captured  in  titanic  ma- 
raudings from  the  quiet  valley  below — in  that 
dim  past  of  "  far-off,  wild,  and  lawless  times, 
when  tempting  plunder  did  warrant  pillage." 

Now  we  are  in  the  heart  of  one  of  these 
captured  forests.  In  a  solitude  that  seems 
primeval  it  stretches  away  on  every  hand, 
and —  But  our  train  is  stopping;  and  I  hear 
Mrs.  Larkins  saying, "  Shore  'nough,  Jimsy  an' 
the  naig  's  a-waitin'." 


Looking  out  we  see  a  sedate  little  horse  ac- 
coutered  in  an  ancient  side-saddle  and  bestrode 
by  a  small  barefoot,  shirt-sleeved  laddie ;  the 
last  descriptive  compound  being  literal,  so  far 
as  the  little  blue  cotton  shirt  is  allowed  any 
visible  part  in  the  costume.  That  primary 
garment  is  suppressed,  and  territory  belong- 
ing to  the  absent  "  wescut "  overrun  by  a 
coalition  of  forces,  some  transversely  striped 
"  galluses  "  of  surprising  width  having  made 
common  cause  with  the  small,  high-shouldered 
butternut  trowsers  for  the  conquest. 

The  setting  sun  is  sending  a  few  long,  level 
shafts  through  the  tree-tops  as  from  our  slowly 
moving  train  we  watch  them  down  a  narrow 
road  into  the  forest.  'Squire  Cash  is  striding 
ahead  and  the  solemn  little  "  naig  "  circum- 
spectly following,  with  Mrs.  Larkins  sitting 
very  erect,  while  Jimsy's  queer  little  figure 
is  outlined  on  her  back  like  an  immense  fancy 
buckle  clasping  the  blue  girdle  of  his  arms 
about  her  waist. 

As  the  quaint  figures  disappear,  I  try  to 
picture  the  little  homes  with  the  peach-trees 
about  them.  But  my  imagination  fails  to 
evoke  any  sort  of  human  habitation  from  the 
darkening  depths  of  the  forest. 

Martha  Colyar  Rosebortf. 


SIDEREAL    ASTRONOMY:     OLD    AND    NEW. 


II.    THE    RESULTS    THAT    IT    HAS    ATTAINED. 

JtMISEHEKE  BOREAL 


FLAMMARION'S   CHART,    SHOWING  THE   SECULAR    MOVEMENTS    OF    THE    STARS    AND    THE    STELLAR     SYSTEM    OF    THE    NORTHERN 
HEMISPHERE.    (FROM     "ATLAS    CELESTE,"    BY    PERMISSION    OF    GAUTIER    VILLIERS.) 


|N  the  preceding  article  we  col- 
lected the  data  which  the  an- 
cient and  the  modern  astronomy 
has  placed  at  our  disposition. 
We  saw  that  a  few  hundred  of 
the  stars  have  their  positions 
fixed  with  the  last  degree  of  precision ;  a  few 
thousand  are  known  nearly  as  well ;  half  a  mill- 
ion have  their  places  approximately  known, 
and  half  of  these  last  are  tolerably  well  deter- 
mined. The  brightness  of  some  10,000  stars  is 


well  known,  while  the  brightness  of  nearly 
half  a  million  is  known  with  fair  approxima- 
tion. The  distances  of  a  few  stars  (about  fifteen) 
are  known  with  precision ;  the  distances  of  a 
few  more  are  approximately  known. 

These  are  the  data  which  have  been  amassed 
by  the  observing  astronomers  of  the  modern 
period,  beginning  with  Bradley  (1750).  In  the 
present  paper  we  are  to  see  some  of  the  gen- 
eral conclusions  which  may  be  drawn  from 
these  data.  What  are  the  distances,  what  are 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND   NJ-.\\'. 


781 


the  dimensions,  of  the  stars  ?  What  is  the  orbit 
in  which  our  sun,  with  its  group  of  planets, 
is  traveling  ?  What  stars  are  our  nearest 
neighbors  and  traveling  with  us?  Are  stars 
in  general  aggregated  into  systems  of  com- 
paratively small  size,  or  are  the  stars  as  a 
whole  collected  into  one  vast  system,  hound 
together  by  a  common  bond,  and  endowed 
with  a  common  motion  ? 

The  stellar  universe,  as  we  see  it  at  any 
moment,  is  quite  complete.  Change  does  not 
seem  to  belong  to  the  region  of  fixed  stars. 
Vet  every  one  of  the  millions  of  observa- 
tions has  been  made  to  fix  a  position  so  ac- 
curately that  the  slow  changes  which  must  be 
going  on  may  not  escape  us ;  so  that  the  laws 
of  these  changes  can  be  formulated.  If  we 
know  that  a  star  retains  its  position  invariably, 
if  we  know  positively  that  its  brightness  and 
color  remain  the  same,  it  becomes  for  these 
very  reasons  a  most  useful  standard  of  refer- 
ence, but  it  does  not,  as  yet,  help  us  to  solve 
the  problem  of  the  stellar  universe.  We  must 
seek  a  clue  elsewhere,  among  the  stars  where 
changes  are  manifest,  so  that  the  unknown 
laws  of  these  changes  may  be  unfolded. 

PROPER  MOTIONS  OF  STARS. 

As  WE  said,  nothing  appears  to  be  more  in- 
variable or  unalterable  than  the  region  of  the 
fixed  stars,  and,  in  a  general  sense,  nothing  is 
more  so.  But  when  we  come  to  a  closer  view 
all  is  change  there  as  well  as  elsewhere. 

Since  Rome  was  built  the  apparent  situa- 
tion of  Sirius  has  changed  more  than  a  diam- 
eter of  the  moon,  Arcturus  has  moved  more 
than  three  such  angular  diameters,  and  so 
with  other  stars. 

If  gravitation  is  truly  universal,  if  all  the 
stars  are  bound  together  in  one  system  by 
this  law,  as  we  believe,  then  no  star  can  move 
without  affecting  every  other.  As  one  moves 
all  must  move.  The  real  motion  of  any  star 
is  along  some  line  or  curve ;  we  see  this  real 
motion  projected  on  the  ground  of  the  heavens 
as  an  apparent  change  of  its  latitude  and  lon- 
gitude. Knowing  the  latitude  and  longitude 
of  the  star  now  by  observation,  we  may  com- 
pare these  with  the  positions  of  twenty,  fifty, 
or  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  possible  to  allow 
by  calculation  for  every  one  of  the  complex 
changes  produced  in  the  apparent  position 
of  a  star  by  every  cause  not  in  the  star  itself. 
Each  one  of  the  several  observations,  when 
so  reduced  to  a  common  epoch,  should  give 
the  same  position,  except  for  the  small  and 
unavoidable  errors  of  observation  and  the 
proper  motion  of  the  stars. 

Forexample, here  are  the  observations  made 
by  Dr.  Gould  in  the  last  twelve  years  on  a 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  108. 


southern  star,  all  reduced  to  what  they  would 
have  been  if  made  on  January  i,  1875: 


1876  ......... 

1881  ......... 

1885  ......... 


Right  Ascension. 

23*  58'  °-92' 
2.19' 
4.63- 
6.60' 


South  Declitiation. 

37°  S*  '3-9" 
20.9" 

34-'" 
42.0" 


These  do  not  agree.  They  ought  not  to 
differ  by  more  than  0.20*  or  3"*  if  the  star 
were  at  rest.  If  we  assume  that  the  star  is 
moving  in  right  ascension  by  0.482'  and  in 
declination  by  2.45"  yearly,  and  apply  these 
numbers,  the  positions  will  harmonize. 

1873  is  two  years  before  1875,  and  we  add 
twice  0.482*  and  twice  2.45";  and  subtract 
for  the  other  intervals.  The  observations  thus 
corrected  give 

For  1873 23*  58'  1.88-  . .  37°  58'  18.8" 

1876  1.71'  . .  18.4" 

1881   1.74'  . .  19.4" 

1885 1.78-  ..  17.5" 

and  are  harmonious  within  the  errors  of  ob- 
servation. If  we  assume  that  this  star  is  as 
near  to  the  earth  as  the  very  nearest  of  all  the 
stars,  it  is  certainly  moving  no  less  than  600,- 
000,000  miles  per  year.  Yet  it  will  require 
more  than  3000  years  for  it  to  move  from  its 
present  place  by  so  much  as  one  diameter  of 
the  moon. 

The  calculation  that  has  been  outlined  here 
for  one  star  has  been  performed  for  several 
thousands  of  the  better  known  stars,  especially 
for  the  3222  stars  which  were  most  carefully 
determined  by  Bradley  in  1750.  For  each 
one  of  these  the  proper  motion  has  been  deter- 
mined with  the  greatest  nicety.  The  results 
at  first  sight  are  interesting  only  in  a  very 
special  way.  No.  i,  for  example,  may  be  mov- 
ing 21"  in  a  century  along  a  path  inclined  by 
10°  to  the  equator.  No.  2  moves  44"  in  a 
century  along  another  path  inclined  by  an- 
other angle,  and  so  on  to  No.  32 2 2.  Here  seem 
to  be  3000  isolated  facts,  each  one  useful  in  its 
narrow  relations,  but  each  having  no  connec- 
tion with  any  other. 

Let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  sun, 
with  the  solar  system,  and  the  earth,  our  point 
of  view,  are  moving  onward  in  space,  and 
imagine  how  such  a  motion  would  affect  the 
appearance  of  a  universe  of  stars  scattered  all 
about  us.  If  the  sun  alone  has  a  motion,  all 
the  stars  towards  which  we  are  moving  will 
appear  to  be  retreating  en  masse  from  the 
point  in  the  sky  towards  which  our  course  is 
directed.  The  nearer  stars  will  move  most 
rapidly;  those  more  distant,  less  so. 

In  the  same  way  the  stars  from  which  we 
are  retreating  will  appear  to  crowd  together 

*  Errors  of  observation  of  this  magnitude  may  exist. 


782 


SIDEREAL  ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND  NEW. 


and  approach  each  other.  It  is  as  if  one  were 
riding  on  the  rear  of  a  railroad  train  and 
watching  the  rails  over  which  one  had  just 
passed.  As  one  recedes  from  any  point  the 
rails  at  that  point  seem  to  come  nearer  and 
nearer  together.  If  we  were  passing  through 
a  forest  we  should  see  the  trunks  of  the  trees 
from  which  we  were  going  apparently  moving 
nearer  and  nearer  to  each  other,  while  those 
at  the  sides  would  retain  their  distance  apart 
and  those  in  front  would  be  moving  wider 
and  wider  apart. 

Here  is  a  case  in  which  we  are  sensible  of 
our  own  motion  and  observe  the  effects  of 
that  motion  in  the  positions  of  the  fixed  ob- 
jects about  us.  We  may  turn  the  question 
about,  and  inquire  whether  the  observed  mo- 
tions of  the  stars  indicate  any  real  motion  of 
our  own. 

The  outline  of  the  problem  is  here  much 
as  it  presented  itself  to  Sir  William  Herschel 
in  1782.  The  details  are  extremely  compli- 
cated. It  is  certain  that  we  are  not  passing 
along  through  space  among  a  vast  number  of 
fixed  stars.  Each  star  has  a  motion  peculiar 
to  itself.  It  also  is  moving  along  a  vast  orbit, 
and  this  real  motion  of  the  star  is  evident  to 
our  instruments.  Combined  with  the  veritable 
motion  of  the  star  itself  is  the  parallactic  mo- 
tion produced  by  the  shifting  of  our  point 
of  view  as  the  earth  sweeps  forward  through 
space. 

It  is  for  analysis  to  separate  the  effects 
of  these  two  motions  and  to  determine  what 
is  the  real  direction  and  the  real  amount 
of  the  solar  motion.  The  processes  of  the 
analysis  cannot  be  given  here,  but  fortunately 
it  is  easy  to  exhibit  both  the  data  and  the 
results  graphically.  This  has  been  well  done 
by  M.  Flammarion  in  the  figure  that  we 
copy. 

The  circle  marked  "  Northern  Hemisphere  " 
gives  the  positions  of  those  northern  stars 
which  are  known  to  have  a  proper  motion. 
The  size  of  the  dot  representing  each  star 
gives  the  magnitude  (i.  e.,  brilliancy)  of  the 
star.  The  arrows  attached  to  the  star  repre- 
sent the  directions  in  which  the  stars  move  on 
the  surface  of  the  sky  by  their  proper  motions. 
The  lengths  of  the  arrows  represent  the  ve- 
locities with  which  the  stars  move.  At  the 
time  of  making  the  map  the  stars  are  in  the 
positions  marked  by  the  dots.  At  the  end  of 
50,000  years  they  will  be  at  the  ends  of  their 
respective  arrows. 

Thus  the  data  are  all  presented  graphically. 
Notice  what  variety  there  is.  Notice,  too,  the 
striking  fact  that  some  of  the  largest  proper 
motions  belong  to  some  of  the  smallest  stars. 
One  would  think  that  the  brighter  stars  would 
be  the  nearer,  and  therefore  that  on  the  aver- 


age they  would  have  the  larger  proper  mo- 
tions. For  evidence  on  this  point  I  have 
compiled  the  little  table  which  follows  from 
Argelander's  list  of  the  250  stars  with  the 
best  known  proper  motions.  I  have  chosen 
the  fainter  magnitude  classes  in  order  to  get 
a  sufficient  number  of  stars  : 

77  stars  between  6th  and  7th  magnitudes  have  a  proper 
motion  of  0.54"  yearly;  80  stars  between  7th  and  8th 
magnitudes  have  a  proper  motion  of  0.56"  yearly;  58 
stars  between  8th  and  gth  magnitudes  have  a  proper  mo- 
tion of  0.71"  yearly. 

That  is,  the  proper  motions  do  not  seem  to 
diminish  as  the  numerical  magnitude  dimin- 
ishes. 

But  to  return  to  the  plate.  In  the  middle 
of  the  triangle  formed  by  the  pole  (center)  of 
the  Northern  Hemisphere  and  the  two  points 
XVII  and  XVIII  on  the  edge  is  a  figure  like 
the  sun.  That  is  the  point  towards  which 
the  sun  is  moving.  It  is  in  the  constellation 
Hercules,  not  far  from  the  bright  star  Vega, 
which  is  near  our  zenith  in  the  summer  sky.  In 
the  corresponding  position  on  the  map  of  the 
Southern  Hemisphere,  which  we  do  not  re- 
produce, is  .a  similar  point;  it  is  the  point 
from  which  we  come.  All  over  the  map  are 
arrows  not  attached  to  any  stars.  These  show 
the  direction  and  the  velocity  of  that  part  of 
the  proper  motion  due  to  the  motion  of  the 
solar  system  alone.  In  general  the  arrows  be- 
longing to  the  stars  should  agree  in  length  and 
in  direction  with  these  unattached  arrows  — 
and  in  general  they  do,  for  the  latter  were  de- 
rived from  computations  based  on  the  former. 
But  there  are  many  exceptional  cases;  and,  at 
first  glance,  it  is  the  exceptions  which  seem  to 
be  the  rule. 

There  is  no  space  to  refer  to  special  cases 
except  in  passing ;  but  the  reader  should  note 
a  pair  of  stars  marked  21,258  (of  Lalande's 
Catalogue)  and  1830  (of  Groombridge's  Cata- 
logue). They  were  about  15°  apart  in  1880, 
and  on  the  map  they  may  be  found  about  half 
way  from  the  pole  (center)  to  the  edge,  near 
the  straight  line  marked  IX.  In  50,000  years 
one  will  be  on  the  straight  line  VI,  and  the 
other  near  the  straight  line  XIII,  at  the  very 
edge.  They  will  be  more  than  200  diameters 
of  the  moon  apart  then,  while  now  they  are 
not  more  than  30  such  angular  diameters. 
Proper  motion  alone  will  in  time  change  the 
whole  aspect  of  the  sky. 

So  MUCH  for  the  map.  Analysis  gives  the 
same  results  in  numbers.  It  declares  that  the 
apex  of  solar  motion  is  in  the  right  ascension 
260°  and  in  declination  36°  north,  which  de- 
fines the  point  in  Flammarion's  map  marked 
by  the  figure  like  the  sun  ;  and  analysis  further 
declares  that  the  amount  of  the  solar  motion  in 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND 


783 


one  hundred  years,  if  viewed  from  a  point  at 
the  average  distance  of  the  3222  Bradley  stars, 
would  be  5.05°. 

If  we  know  this  average  distance  in  miles, 
we  can  assign  our  own  velocity  in  miles.  With 
our  best  \, resent  knowledge,  it  follows  that  the 
sun,  the  earth,  and  the  whole  solar  system  are 
moving  through  space  at  the  rate  of 

586,000,000  miles  per  year. 

1,600,000       "        "  day. 

67,000      "        "  hour. 

l8^£  "        "  second. 

The  earth  moves  about  the  sun  in  its  own 
orbit  at  about  the  same  rate  of  19  miles  per 
second,  while  sun,  earth,  and  orbit  move  along 
in  space  another  19  miles. 

We  can  now  go  back  to  the  stars  them- 
selves, and  subtract  from  the  observed  proper 
motion  of  each  star  that  portion  (motus  par- 
alliuticiis)  which  is  due  to  the  motion  of  the 
solar  system,  and  leave  that  portion  which 
is  due  to  the  star's  own  motion  (motus peculi- 
aris). 

Is  there  anything  common  to  the  truly 
proper  motions  of  the  stars  ?  In  the  first  place, 
it  may  be  said  that,  so  far  as  we  know  up  to 
this  time,  these  motions  are,  in  general,  not 
curved.  They  are  practically  straight  lines. 
They  have  no  common  center.  There  is  no 
great  central  body  around  which  revolve  the 
suns  of  all  other  systems.  If  there  be  such  a 
body  it  will  be  many  centuries  before  we  shall 
know  it ;  and  we  may  say  that,  so  far  as  our 
knowledge  goes,  there  is  none. 

SYSTEMATIC    MOTIONS    OF   THE    FIXED    STARS 
PARALLEL   TO    THE    MILKY    WAY. 

BUT  if  we  are  obliged  to  consider  the  mo- 
tions of  all  the  stars  to  be  practically  in  right 
lines,  and  not  in  closed  orbits,  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  we  should  not  examine  the  question 
of  whether  the  stars  as  a  whole  do  not  have 
some  systematic  motion  —  whether  there  is  not 
among  this  variety  some  unity.  The  most  nat- 
ural hypothesis  to  start  with  is  that  the  stars 
have  a  vast  rotation  in  planes  parallel  to  the 
Milky  Way.  We  already  have  good  data  for 
examining  this,  and  in  a  few  years,  when  the 
zones  of  the  Astronomische  Gesellschaftaxz  com- 
plete, much  material  will  be  added.  Without 
some  assumption  of  the  sort,  that  the  stars  rotate 
in  planes  parallel  to  the  Milky  Way,  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  explain  the  existence  of  the  Milky 
Way  itself.  It  would  necessarily  disintegrate 
more  and  more  with  the  lapse  of  time,  and  it 
would  be  a  pure  accident  that  we  happen  to 
live  at  a  time  when  this  disintegration  has  not 
been  accomplished.  The  investigation  of  this 
possible  rotation  has  been  carried  out  by  two 


pupils  of  Professor  Gylden  and  of  Professor 
Schoenfeld  respectively.  While  the  result  in 
one  case  is  fairly  against  the  hypothesis  of  such 
a  rotation,  in  the  other  it  is  somewhat  in  its 
favor.  The  doubt  in  the  matter  arises  solely 
from  the  deficiency  of  the  data,  and  this  will 
soon  be  supplied.  In  the  mean  time  it  should 
be  an  answer  to  those  objectors  who  ask  what 
is  the  use  of  another  new  catalogue  of  stars, 
that  this  catalogue,  and  every  other  catalogue, 
goes  a  certain  way  towards  providing  the 
means  for  solving  the  very  greatest  problem 
that  can  be  presented  to  the  human  mind  by 
natural  objects. 

Look  at  the  Milky  Way  stretching  across 
the  summer  sky  with  the  bright  star  Vega 
burning  near  it.  Think  that  the  few  proper 
motions  laboriously  determined  by  Halley 
and  Maskelyne  enabled  Herschel  to  announce 
that  the  sun,  the  earth,  and  every  planet  is 
moving  towards  a  spot  —  near  Vega  —  which 
he  could  point  out.  Think,  too,  that  the  small- 
est efforts  of  every  faithful  observer,  the  world 
over,  go  to  the  solution  of  the  question,  How 
do  all  these  thousands  of  stars  that  I  see  move 
in  space  ?  Are  they  bound  up  with  that  Milky 
Way  in  one  fate  ?  Or  is  that  permanent  shin- 
ing track,  which  seems  unchanged  since  Job 
and  the  patriarchs  looked  upon  it  —  is  that 
doomed  to  destruction  ?  The  finger  of  analysis 
can  point  out  the  fate  of  those  myriads  of  shin- 
ing stars,  and  man  becomes  fit  to  live  under 
their  influence  when  his  mind  adds  the  beauty 
of  law  to  the  wayward  beauty  of  their  shining. 

SPECTROSCOPIC    PROPF.R    MOTIONS  —  MOTIONS 
IN    THE    LINE    OF    SIGHT. 

THE  observation  of  a  star's  position  is  really 
nothing  but  the  determination  of  the  place 
where  the  line  joining  eye  and  star  pierces  the 
celestial  sphere.  The  determination  of  its 
proper  motion  is  nothing  but  the  determina- 
tion of  the  rate  at  which  its  apparent  position 
changes.  If  a  star  is  moving  directly  towards 
us,  or  directly  away  from  us.  its  apparent  place 
in  the  sky  will  remain  unchanged.  But  we 
have  in  the  spectroscope  a  means  of  measur- 
ing the  motion  of  a  star  in  the  line  of  sight. 
The  principle  of  the  method  is  simple.  The 
application  of  it  is  most  difficult.  Every  one 
has  noticed,  in  traveling  upon  an  express  train, 
the  sudden  clang  of  the  bell  of  a  train  passing 
in  the  contrary  direction ;  and  how  the  note, 
the  pitch,  of  the  sound  of  this  bell  rapidly 
changes  from  high  back  to  low  again.  Noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  the  bell  has  but 
one  essential  pitch.  Why,  then,  does  it  change  ? 
The  engineer  of  the  passing  train  hears  his 
own  bell  giving  always  the  same  note,  and 
this  note  is  determined  by  the  length  of  the 


784 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND  NEW. 


sound  waves  that  reach  his  ear.  Suppose  them 
to  come  at  the  rate  of  about  500  per  second 
to  him.  He  is  always  moving  at  the  same  rate 
as  his  bell.  But  to  us  in  the  other  train  the 
case  is  different.  When  the  bell  is  just  oppo- 
site us  500  waves  come  to  us  per  second; 
when  we  are  approaching  the  passing  train 
more  than  500  come  to  us  (not  only  the  500 
sent  out  by  the  bell,  but  those  others  which 
we  meet  by  our  velocity) ;  as  we  leave  the 
passing  train,  less  than  500  waves  overtake  us 
per  second.  Hence  the  pitch  (the  number  of 
waves  per  second)  varies.  The  same  thing 
happens  in  the  case  of  light.  In  the  spectrum 
of  a  star  there  are  certain  dark  lines  the 
presence  of  which  is  due  to  hydrogen  in  the 
star's  atmosphere.  If  the  star  is  at  rest  with 
respect  to  us,  these  lines  are  not  displaced  in 
its  spectrum ;  a  definite  number  of  waves 
per  second  (say  A}  come  to  us  from  the  spec- 
trum on  both  sides  of  these  lines.  If  the  star 
is  approaching  us,  more  waves  than  A  reach 
us ;  if  the  star  is  receding,  fewer  waves  reach 
us.  The  pitch  of  the  line,  so  to  say,  is  altered ; 
and  the  spectroscope  can  measure  this  change 
of  pitch. 

When  this  is  done  with  respect  to  the 
principal  stars  the  most  interesting  results  fol- 
low. 

Vega  (Lyras)  is  found  to  be  approaching  us 
at  the  rate  of  75  kilometers  per  second,  Pollux 
is  approaching  us  at  67  kilometers,  Arcturus 
at  70  kilometers,  etc. ;  while  Castor  is  receding 
from  us  44  kilometers  per  second,  Regulus 
is  receding  33  kilometers,  Procyon  74  kilo- 
meters, and  so  on.  After  years  the  aspect  of 
our  sky  will  change.  We  shall  have  new  glories 
in  the  galaxy,  and  after  thousands  of  years 
these  again  will  leave  us.  There  is  ceaseless 
change  here  as  everywhere. 

No  adequate  idea  of  the  delicacy  of  the 
measures  upon  which  these  results  depend 
can  be  briefly  given ;  but  delicate  and  difficult 
as  they  are,  we  have  evidence  that  they  are  to 
be  trusted.  The  independent  observations  of 
Dr.  Huggins,  Dr.  Vogel,  and  Mr.  Maunder 
of  Greenwich  show  a  good  agreement.  It  is 
hoped  that  the  Princeton  telescope  in  the  skill- 
ful hands  of  Professor  Young  may  contribute 
to  our  knowledge  of  stellar  motions  in  the 
line  of  sight ;  and  this  is  a  research  to  which 
the  large  refractor  of  the  Lick  Observatory 
will  be  especially  devoted.  The  consistency 
of  the  results  reached  by  the  three  observers 
named  above  for  the  stars  observed  in  com- 
mon by  them  makes  the  one  exceptional  case 
extremely  interesting. 

Sirius,  the  brightest  star  in  the  sky,  was 
naturally  among  the  first  to  be  observed.  It 
has  been  followed  from  1875  to  1885,  ten  years, 
with  the  results  given  below : 


No.  of  measures.     Motion,  per  second. 


1875-77 8 

1877-78 8 

1879-80 10 

1880-81 4 

1881-82 22 

1882-83 l8 

1883-84 43 

1884-85 8 


2 1. 1  miles  receding. 

23.0 

15.1 

"•3 

2.1 

4. 7  approaching. 

19.4 
21.5 

Here  we  have  well-marked  evidence  of  a 
real  change  in  the  direction  of  the  motion 
of  Sirius,  with  respect  to  the  earth,  and  it  is 
based  on  spectroscopic  observations  alone.  It 
happens  also  that  it  was  known,  from  observa- 
tions with  the  telescope,  that  Sirius  was  moving 
in  an  elliptic  orbit,  and  hence  necessarily  ap- 
proaching us  at  limes,  and  at  times  receding 
from  us.  It  will  not  require  many  more  years 
to  determine  all  the  circumstances  of  this  mo- 
tion, of  which  we  unexpectedly  have  a  double 
proof. 

PARALLAXES    OF   THE    STARS. 

THE  ancients  placed  all  the  fixed  stars  on 
the  inner  surface  of  a  vast  sphere  which  turned 
about  the  earth's  center  once  each  day.  They 
had  absolutely  no  way  of  even  guessing  how 
far  off  this  sphere  might  be.  In  1618  Kepler's 
guess  was  4,000,000  times  as  far  as  the  sun ; 
in  1698,  Huyghens  placed  Sirius  28,000  times 
as  far  as  the  sun;  in  1741,  Picard  showed 
that  the  errors  of  observation  with  the  instru- 
ments of  his  time  were  as  great  as  the  par- 
allaxes of  the  stars  themselves,  and  that  there- 
fore the  problem  was  indeterminate  to  him ; 
in  1806,  Delambre  concluded  that  the  same 
thing  remained  true,  notwithstanding  the  im- 
provements of  the  instruments  in  the  mean- 
while. It  was  not  till  1836  that  W.  Struve 
and  Bessel  really  determined  the  parallax,  and 
hence  the  distance  of  two  different  stars  « 
Lyrae  and  61  Cygni. 

It  is  familiar  to  all  that  the  distances  of 
even  the  nearest  stars  are  not  to  be  conceived 
when  they  are  expressed  in  miles  or  familiar 
units.  No  star  is  so  near  to  us  as  200,000 
times  93,000,000  of  miles.  We  have  to  express 
these  distances  in  terms  of  the  time  required 
for  light  to  pass  from  star  to  earth.  For  61 
Cygni  that  time  is  2377  days,  or  6j^  years. 
It  was  the  elder  Herschel  who  put  these  im- 
mense distances  before  us  in  the  true  light, 
by  showing  that  if  to-day  the  star  were  blotted 
out  of  existence  its  mild  light  would  shine 
on  for  years,  until  the  last  ray  that  left  it  had 
finally  ended  its  long  journey  and  reached  the 
earth,  more  than  six  years  afterwards. 

But  all  stars  are  not  equally  distant.  The 
light  from  one  star  may  be  10,  from  another 
100,  from  another  1000  years  old  when  it 
reaches  us.  We  must  no  longer  regard  the 
study  of  the  stars  as  a  study  of  their  contem- 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND   NEW. 


785 


poraneous  existence.  It  is  rather  the  ancient 
history  of  the  universe  which  is  exhibited  to 
us  by  the  vault  of  heaven.  Assiduous  observers 
have  determined  the  parallaxes  of  about  a 
score  of  stars.  The  first  stars  to  be  examined 
were  either  the  brightest  (as  in  the  case  of 
Vega),  or  those  of  large  proper  motion  (as 
6 1  Cygni).  In  general,  the  brightest  stars 
should  be  the  nearest,  one  would  think,  and 
yet  the  very  largest  parallaxes  belong  to  the 
fainter  stars.  Similarly  the  star  with  the  greatest 
proper  motion  has  a  very  small  parallax. 

By  treating  all  the  certain  data  in  various 
ways,  Professor  Gylden  has  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  average  parallax  of  a  star 
of  the  first  magnitude  is  about  0.084",  or  t'lat 
the  average  distance  of  our  brightest  star  is 
160,000,000,000,000,000  miles.  But  to  make 
farther  steps  in  the  problem  of  the  "  con- 
struction of  the  heavens,"  we  must  know  more 
than  the  average  parallax  of  the  brightest  stars. 
We  must  be  able  to  assign  the  average  parallax 
of  stars  of  each  order  of  magnitude,  and  this 
in  both  hemispheres. 

This  task  is  now  undertaken  for  stars  down 
to  the  fourth  magnitude  by  two  observers  who 
have  already  distinguished  themselves  in  this 
field  —  Dr.  Gill,  Royal  Astronomer  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  Dr.  Elkin,  now  at 
Yale  University  Observatory.  These  gentle- 
men have  devoted  their  energies  to  this  one 
problem,  which  will  require  perhaps  ten  years 
for  its  solution  in  the  form  that  they  have  chosen 
forit.  Dr.  Ball,  Royal  Astronomer  for  Ireland, 
is  systematically  searching  for  stars  of  large 
parallax  and  incidentally  proving  many  stars 
to  have  small  parallax  —  a  fact  which  it  is 
just  as  important  to  know  as  its  converse. 

The  next  dozen  years  will  show  immense 
strides  in  our  knowledge  of  the  stellar  dis- 
tances of  individual  stars,  and  it  may  well 
be  that  some  general  relation  between  dis- 
tance, brightness,  and  proper  motion  of  situa- 
tion in  the  sky  will  result  from  the  great  in- 
crease of  data. 

DISTANCES    OF    STARS    OF     EACH    MAGNITUDE. 

THE  golden  time  for  astronomers  will  come 
when  the  parallaxes  of  enough  stars  have 
been  determined  for  them  to  be  able  to  say 
that  the  distance  of  an  average  third,  fourth, 
sixth,  or  tenth  magnitude  star  is  so  many,  or  so 
many,  times  the  sun's  distance.  That  time  has 
not  yet  come,  nor  will  it  have  come  even  when 
the  great  work  undertaken  by  Messrs.  Gill 
and  Elkin  has  been  ended.  There  is  no  cer- 
tain way  of  assigning  the  stellar  distances  but 
by  measurements  such  as  they  are  making. 
But  it  is  a  fair  procedure  to  make  certain  as- 
sumptions as  to  stellar  distances,  to  work  out 
the  logical  consequences  of  these  assumptions, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 109. 


anil  to  compare  these  consequences  with 
known  facts.  An  agreement  with  the  facts 
will,  in  some  degree,  support  the  assumptions. 
If  we  assume  the  stars  to  be  of  equal  brilliancy 
one  with  another,  we  have  one  basis  of  com- 
putation. If  we  suppose  them,  further,  to  be 
equally  distributed  in  space  on  the  average, 
we  have  another  basis.  These  conditions  lead 
at  once  to  the  following  table  : 


Magnitudes. 

1  .... 

2  ... 
3.... 

4  • 


Rtlath't  Distances. 
......  I.OO 

......  '-54 


8  '. 


'-54 
2-f 
3-64 
5-59 
8.61 

'3-23 
20.35 


We  can  test  these  assumptions  to  some 
extent.  If  they  are  true,  then  the  ratio  of  the 
actual  number  of  stars  of  any  brightness  to  the 
actual  number  of  stars  of  the  next  lower  grade 
of  brightness,  raised  to  the  two-thirds  power, 
should  be  0.400.  Using  the  stars  of  the  sixth 
and  seventh  magnitudes,  this  number  results 
0.426;  of  the  seventh  and  eighth,  it  results 
0.4003,  etc.  The  two  hypotheses  are  in  the 
main  not  far  from  correct,  and  therefore  the 
relative  distances  above  given  are  not  very  far 
wrong  for  stars  down  to  the  eighth  magnitude. 
There  is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  the 
fainter  stars,  from  eleventh  to  fifteenth  magni- 
tudes, do  not  follow  the  same  law.  We  have 
seen  that  the  average  distance  of  a  first  mag- 
nitude star  is  160,000,000,000,000,000  miles. 
Multiply  this  by  20. 35  and  you  have  the  best 
estimate  now  available  of  the  distance  of  an 
eighth-magnitude  star.  It  is  inconceivable, 
but  no  more  so  than  the  first  number.  Light 
would  require  600  years  and  more  to  reach 
us  from  such  stars. 

DISTRIBUTION    OF  THE    STARS  OVER  THE  SUR- 
FACE   OF   THE    CELESTIAL    SPHERE. 

THE  real  question  to  be  solved  is,  How  are 
the  stars  distributed  throughout  solid  space 
itself?  To  solve  this  question  completely  the 
distance  of  every  star  from  the  earth  must  be 
measured  (which  is  a  simple  impossibility),  or 
else  we  must  find  some  law  which  connects 
the  brightness,  or  the  proper  motion,  or  the  po- 
sition of  a  star  with  its  distance.  Suppose  that 
10  stars  of  each  magnitude  from  the  brightest 
down  to  the  faintest  are  selected  —  say  150 
or  1 60  in  all  —  and  that  the  parallax  of  each 
individual  star  is  determined.  This  would  be 
a  tremendous  labor  in  itself,  and  would  require 
the  work  of  several  observers  for  a  score  of 
years.  But  suppose  this  work  done.  Sup- 
pose that  the  average  distances  of  the  ten  stars 
of  each  group  resulting  from  the  measures 
were  I,  II,  III,  IV,  V XIII, 


SIDEREAL  ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND   NEW. 


XIV,  XV,  XVI.    Would  any  general  relation 

exist  between  the  magnitudes  i 16 

and  the  corresponding  distances  I — 

XVI  ?  From  those  measures  that  we  already 
possess  this  is  by  no  means  sure.  In  fact,  the 
evidence  seems  to  be  directly  opposed  to  this 
conclusion.  The  average  measured  parallax 
of  5  first-magnitude  stars  is  about  0.27";  of  3 
fourth-magnitude  stars  about  0.13";  of  3  fifth- 
magnitude  stars  about  0.31";  of  7  sixth-mag- 
nitude stars  about  0.2 1".  That  is,  the  parallax 
does  not  seem  materially  to  decrease  as  the 
brilliancy  diminishes  from  the  first  to  the  sixth 
magnitude.  If,  instead  of  comparing  the  mag- 
nitudes with  the  distances,  we  compare  the 
proper  motions,  there  seems  to  be  no  evident 
agreement.  The  stars  with  the  largest  proper 
motions  do  not  in  general  have  the  largest 
parallaxes  (and  hence  the  smallest  distances). 
We  have  not  enough  determinations  of  paral- 
lax to  decide  whether  the  region  of  the  sky 
in  which  a  star  is  situated  has  any  relation  to 
its  distance ;  so  that  for  the  present  we  are  not 
sure  that  a  series  of  measures  so  extensive 
even  as  the  one  we  have  imagined  would  solve 
the  question  of  the  relation  between  magni- 
tude, or  proper  motion,  and  parallax.  Such  a 
series  would  go  a  great  way  towards  deciding 
whether  the  question  was  solvable  or  not.  It 
would  add  enormously  to  the  very  small  num- 
ber of  certain  facts  bearing  on  the  subject  of 
the  constitution  of  the  stellar  system.  And  it 
is  to  the  great  credit  of  this  generation  of  as- 
tronomers that  such  a  series  has  actually  been 
begun  (for  stars  of  from  first  to  fourth  magni- 
tudes) by  Messrs.  Gill  and  Elkin  at  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  and  New  Haven  respectively, 
as  has  been  mentioned  already. 

In  the  absence  of  real  knowledge  with  re- 
gard to  the  distribution  of  the  stars  in  space, 
much  labor  has  been  expended  on  the  study 
of  what  we  may  call  stellar  statistics  —  the 
statistics  of  the  distribution  of  the  stars  on 
the  surface  of  the  celestial  vault.  This  distri- 
bution of  the  stars  is  known  when  once  we 
have  a  map  of  their  positions,  which  it  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  make.  Or  a  more  rapid 
method  of  studying  this  distribution  may  be 
employed  —  that  of  star  gauging,  so  called  by 
Herschel,  its  inventor.  This  consists  essen- 
tially in  counting  the  number  of  stars  visible 
in  the  field  of  the  telescope  as  it  is  directed 
to  various  known  portions  of  the  sky.  The 
mere  number  of  stars  visible  at  each  pointing 
may  be  laid  down  on  a  map,  like  the  sound- 
ings on  a  hydrographic  chart.  The  data  are 
easily  gathered.  How  are  they  to  be  inter- 
preted ?  We  may  briefly  indicate  one  obvious 
method.  Suppose  that  we  have  made  such 
star  gauges  with  telescopes  of  five  different 
powers  over  the  same  areas  in  the  sky.  The 


largest  telescope  will  show  all  the  stars  say 
down  to  and  including  the  fifteenth  magnitude ; 
the  next  smaller  those  to  the  fourteenth ;  the 
next  to  the  thirteenth,  the  twelfth,  the  eleventh 
(the  actual  distribution  of  the  individual  stars 
from  first  to  tenth  magnitudes  is  known  by  the 
Ditrchmusterungen}.  In  any  area  the  difference 
between  all  the  Dnrclimusteruug  stars  (from 
one  to  tenth  magnitude)  and  the  number  seen 
in  telescope  I  (the  smallest  of  the  five  sup- 
posed) will  give  the  number  of  the  eleventh- 
magnitude  stars  in  that  region. 

The  difference  between  the  counts  by  tele- 
scope I  (which  shows  all  stars  down  to  and 
including  the  eleventh  magnitude)  and  tele- 
scope II  (which  shows  all  to  twelfth  magnitude) 
will  give  the  actual  number  of  twelfth-magni- 
tude stars.  Combining  the  results  of  the  tele- 
scopes II  and  III  we  should  have  the  number 
of  thirteenth-magnitude  stars  for  this  region, 
and  so  on  for  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
magnitudes.  Thus  the  actual  number  of  the 
stars  of  each  magnitude  in  this  area  (and 
similarly  for  other  areas)  will  be  known.  We 
may  interpret  these  figures  somewhat  in  this 
way.  Take  a  map  which  shall  have  spaces  on 
it  for  the  whole  sky,  and  devote  this  map  to 
exhibiting  the  results  of  our  gauges  for  the 
fifteenth-magnitude  stars.  Wherever  there  are 
100  of  these  to  the  square  degree  lay  on  one 
tint  of  color;  wherever  there  are  200,  two  tints; 
300,  three  tints,  and  so  on.  The  final  map  will 
exhibit  to  the  eye  the  results  of  our  gauges  for 
the  fifteenth-magnitude  stars.  Where  the  tint 
is  deep,  there  are  more  stars;  where  it  is  light, 
fewer.  Another  such  map  must  be  made  for 
the  fourteenth-magnitude  stars;  another  for 
the  thirteenth,  and  so  on.  Now  place  these 
fifteen  maps  side  by  side  before  you,  and  it 
will  be  possible  to  obtain  at  once  a  number  of 
definite  conclusions.  Here  the  stars  that  we 
call  fifteenth  and  those  that  we  call  fourteenth 
are  really  connected  together  in  space.  Why  ? 
Because  this  long  ray  of  many  fifteenth-mag- 
nitude stars  on  one  map  is  matched  by  this 
other  long  ray  of  just  the  same  position  and 
shape  of  the  fourteenth-magnitude  stars.  The 
thirteenth,  too,  we  will  say,  is  similar.  But  the 
ninth,  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  do  not  in 
their  distribution  at  all  resemble  the  fainter 
stars  in  this  region,  but  they  do  resemble  each 
other.  In  this  way,  passing  from  region  to  re- 
gion, the  general  peculiarities  of  each  region 
may  be  made  out,  and  much  light  may  be 
thrown  on  the  vital  question,  How  many  mag- 
nitudes of  stars  exist  at  the  same  distance 
from  us?  Are  the  stars  of  the  so-called  ninth, 
tenth,  eleventh  magnitudes  all  really  at  the 
same  distance  from  us,  and  are  their  differ- 
ences in  brightness  simply  clue  to  differences  in 
size,  or  are  they  really  at  different  distances  ? 


SIDEREAL   ASTRONOMY:     OLD  AND  NK}\: 


787 


A  large  amount  of  evidence  upon  these 
fundamental  points  already  exists,  and  more 
is  being  accumulated,  and  it  appears  possible 
that  a  skillful  use  of  it  may  throw  much  light 
on  the  real  question.  The  new  photographic 
processes  will  be  of  immense  importance  for 
this  investigation.  We  have  not  the  space  to 
go  farther  into  this  method  of  research,  but 
we  may  just  refer  in  passing  to  one  interesting 
form  of  it.  We  have  already  elaborate  maps 
of  certain  portions  of  the  sky  showing  the 
position  and  magnitude  of  every  star  down  to 
the  thirteenth.  These  are  the  maps  used  for 
the  disco  very  of  asteroids.  From  each  of  these 
maps  we  can  make  thirteen  others,  each  of 
which  latter  shall  show  the  stars  of  one  magni- 
tude only.  Now  compare  these  thirteen  derived 
maps,  and  see  what  the  evidence  is  that  the  stars 
of  any  two  magnitudes  are  connected  or  in- 
dependent. This  method  is  capable  of  bring- 
ing out  most  interesting  conclusions  when  it 
is  thoroughly  carried  out,  as  it  has  not  yet 
been  to  any  large  degree.  The  local  arrange- 
ments of  stars  can  be  adequately  studied  in 
this  way ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  expect 
that  the  typical  forms  of  stellar  systems — dis- 
torted by  perspective,  of  course  —  may  be  ex- 
hibited here. 

Suppose  one  typical  form  to  be  a  circular 
ring,  as  it  appears  to  be.  The  apparent  di- 
mensions of  these  rings  may  well  give  us  a 
clue  to  the  relative  distances  of  the  stars  of 
which  they  are  composed.  The  preliminary 
work  of  this  kind  which  has  been  done  at  the 
Washburn  Observatory  appears  to  promise 
some  definite  results  in  this  direction. 


MASSES    OF    BINARY   AND    OTHER    STARS. 

THE  binary  systems  are  those  composed 
of  two  stars  which  are  connected  with  each 
other  by  a  mutual  gravitation.  They  revolve 
about  a  common  center  of  gravity  in  orbits 
which  can  be  calculated.  In  some  few  cases 
the  parallax  of  these  stars  is  known ;  and  in 
every  such  case  the  sum  of  the  masses  of  the 
two  stars  becomes  known  in  terms  of  the  mass 
of  our  own  sun.  It  is  especially  noteworthy 
that  in  every  known  case  the  mass  of  the 
binary  system  is  not  very  different  from  the 
mass  of  our  own  sun.  That  is  to  say,  all  the 
stars  whose  masses  are  known  at  all  are  such 
bodies  as  our  sun  is  :  they  shine  with  light  like 
his ;  they  are  of  the  same  order  of  magnitude 
mass. 

The  term  "hypothetical  parallax"  is  ap- 
plied to  a  parallax  computed  for  a  binary 
star  on  the  supposition  that  the  mass  of  the 
binary,  although  unknown,  may  be  hypothet- 
ically  assumed  to  be  the  same  as  the  sun's 
mass.  So  far  as  we  can  judge,  these  hypothet- 


ical parallaxes  must  be  provisionally  accepted 
as  essentially  correct. 

If  we  can  assume  that  the  intrinsic  bril- 
liancy of  the  fixed  stars  is  the  same  for  each 
star,  which  does  not  seem  to  be  a  very  vio- 
lent supposition,  several  interesting  conclu- 
sions follow  which  can  only  be  stated  here. 

If  it  be  true  that  for  the  stars,  taken  one 
with  another,  a  square  mile  of  surface  shines 
with  an  equal  light  for  each  star,  then  among 
stars  of  known  distances  some  must  be  at  least 
270  times  as  great  in  diameter  as  others.  This 
is  about  the  proportion  of  the  sun  to  Mercury. 
Also  it  follows  that  binary  stars  whose  colors 
are  alike  must  be  composed  of  stars  of  like 
size  ;  and  also,  that  on  the  average  the  bright- 
est star  of  any  cluster  is  about  four  times  as 
large  as  the  smallest  star  of  the  cluster.  No 
star  is  more  than  200,000  times  farther  than 
the  nearest  fixed  star.  Other  assumptions 
which  might  serve  as  a  basis  for  computation 
will  give  other  results ;  but  for  the  present  we 
have  to  content  ourselves  with  some  such  as- 
sumption, and  in  the  infinite  variety  of  circum- 
stances among  the  fixed  stars  choose  that  one 
as  general  which  seems  to  be  the  most  likely 
a  priori,  and  which  leads  to  results  which  agree 
with  the  facts  of  actual  observation. 


THE    CLUSTER  OF   STARS   TO  WHICH   OUR   SUN 
BELONGS. 

THE  Uranometria  Nova  of  Argelander  gave 
the  positions  of  the  lucid  stars  of  the  northern 
sky,  and  it  has  been  supplemented  by  the 
Uranometria  Argentina  of  Dr.  Gould,  which 
covers  the  southern  sky.  With  the  stellar  sta- 
tistics of  the  whole  sky  before  him  Dr.  Gould 
was  in  a  position  to  draw  some  extremely  in- 
teresting conclusions  with  respect  to  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  brighter  stars  in  space,  and 
to  the  situation  of  our  solar  system  in  relation 
to  them.  The  outline  of  his  reasoning  can  be 
given  here,  but  the  numerical  evidence  upon 
which  his  conclusions  are  founded  must  be 
omitted.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  fairly  proved 
that  in  general  the  stars  that  are  visible  to  the 
naked  eye  (the  lucid  stars)  are  distributed  at 
approximately  equal  distances  one  from  an- 
other, and  that  on  the  average  they  are  of  ap- 
proximately equal  brilliancy.  If  we  make  a 
table  of  the  number  of  stars  of  each  separate 
magnitude  in  the  whole  sky  we  shall  find  that 
there  are  proportionately  many  more  of  the 
brighter  ones  (from  first  to  fourth  magnitudes) 
than  of  the  fainter  (from  fourth  to  seventh  mag- 
nitudes). That  is,  there  is  an  "  unfailing  and 
systematic  excess  of  the  observed  number  of 
the  brighter  stars."  We  cannot  suppose,  taking 
one  star  with  another,  that  the  difference  be- 
tween their  apparent  brightness  arises  simply 


788 


WAVES  AND   MIST. 


from  real  difference  in  size,  but  we  must  con- 
clude that  the  stars  from  the  first  to  fourth 
magnitudes  (some  500)  are  really  nearer  to  us 
than  the  fainter  stars.  It  therefore  follows  that 
these  brighter  stars  form  a  system  whose  sepa- 
ration from  that  of  those  of  the  fainter  stars  is 
marked  by  the  change  of  relative  numerical 
frequency. 

What,  then,  is  the  shape  of  this  system  ?  and 
have  we  any  independent  proof  of  its  ex- 
istence? Sir  John  Herschel  and  Dr.  Gould 
have  pointed  out  that  there  is  in  the  sky  a 
belt  of  brighter  stars  which  is  very  nearly  a 
great  circle  of  the  sphere.  This  belt  is  plainly 
marked,  and  it  is  inclined  about  80°  to  the 
Milky  Way,  which  it  crosses  near  Cassiopea 
and  the  Southern  Cross.  Taking  all  the  stars 
down  to  4.0  magnitude  Dr.  Gould  shows  that 
they  are  more  symmetrically  arranged  with 
reference  to  this  belt  than  they  are  with  ref- 
erence to  the  Milky  Way.  In  fact,  the  belt  has 
264  stars  on  one  side  of  it  and  263  on  the 
other,  while  the  corresponding  numbers  for 
the  Milky  Way  are  245  and  282.  From  this 
and  other  reasons  it  is  concluded  that  this 
belt  contains  brighter  stars  because  it  contains 
the  nearest  stars,  and  that  this  set  of  nearer 
and  brighter  stars  is  distinctively  the  cluster 
to  which  our  sun  belongs.  Leaving  out  the 
brighter  stars  which  may  be  accidentally  pro- 
jected among  the  true  stars  belonging  to  this 
cluster,  Dr.  Gould  concludes  that  our  sun  be- 
longs to  a  cluster  of  about  400  stars;  that  it 
lies  in  the  principal  plane  of  the  cluster  (since 
the  belt  of  bright  stars  is  a  great,  not  a  small 
circle) ;  and  that  this  solar  cluster  is  independ- 
ent of  the  vast  congeries  of  stars  which  we 
call  the  Milky  Way. 

We  know  that  the  sun  is  moving  in  space. 
It  becomes  a  question  whether  this  motion  is 
one  common  to  the  solar  cluster  and  to  the 
sun,  or  only  the  motion  of  the  sun  in  the 
solar  cluster.  The  motion  has  been  deter- 
mined on  the  supposition  that  the  sun  is 
moving  and  that  its  motion  is  not  systemat- 
ically shared  by  the  stars  which  Dr.  Gould 
assigns  to  the  solar  cluster.  But  a  very  im- 


portant research  will  be  to  investigate  the 
solar  motion  without  employing  these  400 
stars  as  data. 

In  what  has  gone  before  I  have  tried  to 
exhibit  some  of  the  main  questions  in  purely 
Sidereal  Astronomy;  to  show  some  of  the  more 
important  results  already  reached,  and  espe- 
cially to  indicate  the  directions  along  which 
present  researches  are  tending.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  give  a  complete  view  in  this  or  in  any 
other  single  branch  of  astronomy,  for  they  are 
all  indissolubly  bound  together. 

The  methods  of  the  new  astronomy  have 
taught  us  that  in  the  condition  of  the  varia- 
ble stars,  where  the  intense  glow  has  cooled 
to  a  red  heat,  we  can  see  the  future  of  our 
own  sun  as  well  as  its  past  in  the  brilliant  white 
and  violet  of  the  brightest  and  youngest  stars. 
It  requires  the  profound  mathematical  analy- 
sis of  Gyklen  to  interpret  his  equations  so  as 
to  explain  to  the  new  astronomy  exactly  how 
the  phenomena  of  the  rotation  of  variable  stars 
produce  the  effects  which  are  observed  by  its 
methods. 

Professor  Langley  measures  the  light  and 
heat  of  the  moon  by  the  new  methods ;  Pro- 
fessor Darwin  interprets  the  mathematical  the- 
ory of  the  tides  so  as  to  trace  back  the  origin 
of  that  heat  to  the  remote  time  when  the  earth 
and  moon  formed  one  mass,  and  rotated  in  less 
than  an  eighth  part  of  our  present  day.  All  the 
parts  of  the  complex  science  are  intimately  con- 
nected, and  no  one  can  be  separately  treated 
without  losing  sight  of  many  lines  of  research 
of  the  greatest  promise  and  importance. 

But  I  hope  that  enough  has  been  said  to 
show  that  the  old  astronomy  is  not  idle  ;  that 
it  has  its  new  side ;  and  that  its  energies  are 
addressed  to  the  solution  of  tremendous  prob- 
lems of  the  highest  significance.  In  broad 
terms,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  the  noble  aim  of 
the  new  astronomy  to  trace  the  life-history 
of  an  individual  star,  and  of  the  old  to  show 
how  all  these  single  stars  are  bound  together 
to  make  a  universe.  There  is  no  antagonism 
in  their  objects.  Each  is  incomplete  without 
the  other. 

Edward  S.  Holden. 


WAVES   AND    MIST. 

THIS  is  the  fancy  that  thrills  through  me 
Like  light  through  an  open  scroll: 
The  waves  are  the  heart-throbs  of  the  sea, 
And  the  white  mist  is  her  soul. 


William  H.  Hayne. 


TOPICS   OF   THE   TIME. 


Modern   Collegiate   Education. 

THIS  month  will  witness  the  annually  recurring  re- 
vival of  the  general  educational  system  of  the  coun- 
try. The  machinery  of  public  schools,  private  schools, 
colleges,  and  universities  will  begin  to  move  again  after 
the  summer  vacation  ;  and  men  and  women  who  have 
for  weeks  been  thinking  only  of  recreation  will  turn 
their  thoughts  again  to  the  great  questions  which 
come  up  in  the  process  of  education.  The  season, 
then,  seems  an  appropriate  one  at  which  to  call  atten- 
tion to  one  of  these  questions,  primarily  affecting 
our  modern  development  of  collegiate  education,  but 
touching  very  many  other  phases  of  the  whole  educa- 
tional system. 

One  can  hardly  look  at  the  schedule  of  studies  in  the 
better  equipped  American  colleges  without  a  special 
wonder  at  the  magnitude  and  completeness  of  its  ma- 
chinery, surpassing  anything  that  our  forefathers 
could  have  considered  possible.  In  some  institutions 
two  hundred  courses  or  more  are  offered  to  the  aca- 
demic undergraduate  students,  covering  every  variety 
of  topic,  from  Pali  to  Political  Economy.  The  work  of 
instruction  in  every  department  and  sub-department  is 
coming  more  and  more  to  be  done  by  men  specially 
trained,  and  often  distinguished,  in  their  own  lines  of 
study,  to  whom  the  body  of  facts  in  those  lines  is  al- 
most as  ready  as  instinct  itself,and  who  pour  out  those 
facts  upon  their  pupils  as  if  from  an  ever-swelling 
fountain.  In  the  logical  outcome  of  the  American 
college  curriculum  the  whole  body  of  human  knowl- 
edge seems  to  be  gathered  together  and  laid  before 
students  for  their  consideration  and  appropriation. 
One  cannot  help  feeling  a  certain  further  satisfaction 
as  he  marks  the  development  of  a  new  and  indigenous 
type  of  university  life,  a  natural  outgrowth  of  the 
American  college  system,  as  it  bursts  beyond  its  orig- 
inal limits. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  former  American  college 
as  differing  from  the  present  type  only  in  degree,  in  its 
smaller  number  of  professors  and  students,  and  in  its 
smaller  facilities  for  work.  The  absolute  meagerness 
of  the  college  curriculum  of  a  hundred  years  ago  needs 
to  be  seen  in  order  to  point  the  contrast  with  the  rad- 
ically different  spirit  of  its  modern  successor.  The 
materials  for  such  a  contrast  are  easily  accessible ;  and, 
as  a  type  of  the  higher  education  of  the  time,  we  may 
take  the  four-years'  course  at  Yale,  towards  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  as  given  by  President  Dwight. 
Freshman  Year:  Grneca  Minora;  six  books  of  the 
Iliad;  five  books  of  Livy;  Cicero  de  Oratore ;  Adam's 
Roman  Antiquities  ;  Morse's  Geography ;  Webber's 
Mathematics.  Sophomore  Year:  Horace;  Graeca 
Majora ;  Morse's  Geography ;  \Vebbers  Mathemat- 
ics; Euclid's  Elements  ;  English  Grammar ;  Tytler's 
F.k'inents  of  History.  Junior  Year:  Tacitus ;  Gra'ca 
Majora;  Enfield's  Natural  Philosophy  and  Astronomy; 
Chemistry;  Vince's  Fluxions.  Senior  Year:  Logic; 
Chemistry ;  Natural  Philosophy  and  Astronomy ; 
Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding;  Paley's  Moral 


Philosophy ;  Theology.  If  this  course  differed  from 
those  of  other  colleges  of  the  time,  it  was  only  in  its 
greater  completeness  and  in  the  thoroughness  with 
which  it  was  given. 

And  yet  it  was  from  such  institutions  and  courses  of 
study  as  this  that  the  country  received  its  great  men 
of  the  past  —  men  to  whose  work  not  only  the  students 
but  the  instructors  of  the  present  still  look  for  guid- 
ance. The  case  is  strongest  with  regard  to  public  men, 
for  the  lack  of  law-schools  and  of  any  higher  phase 
of  education  then  made  the  meager  undergraduate  cur- 
riculum practically  the  only  basis  for  the  future  states- 
man's training.  With  little  or  no  historical  or  politi- 
cal instruction  colleges  then  sent  out  men  whose 
treatment  of  difficult  problems  of  law  and  government 
must  still  command  our  admiration  and  respect. 
Omitting  lesser  lights,  there  were  in  public  life  or  in 
training,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  from 
Harvard,  the  Adamses,  Bowdoin,  Dexter,  Eustis,  Gerry, 
John  Hancock,  Rufus  King,  Lowell,  Otis,  Parsons, 
the  Quincys,  and  Strong ;  from  Yale,  Joel  Barlow,  Si- 
las Deane,  Griswold,  Hillhouse,  the  Ingersolls,  Tracy, 
the  Trumbulls,  and  Wolcott  ;  from  Princeton,  Ells- 
worth, Luther  Martin,  Pierrepont  Edwards,  Madison, 
Bradford,  Lee,  Burr,  Morgan  Lewis,  Brockholst  and 
Edward  Livingston,  Dayton,  Giles,  Bayard,  Harper, 
Mahlon  Dickerson,  Berrien,  Rush,  Forsyth,  and  Ser- 
geant ;  and  from  Columbia,  Hamilton,  Jay,  Robert  R. 
Livingston,  and  Gouverneur  Morris.  Are  the  institu- 
tions named  as  well  represented  in  public  life  now  ? 
If  we  leave  out  of  account  those  men  now  in  public 
life  who  represent  only  the  law-schools  of  Harvard, 
Yale,  and  Columbia,  and  not  their  undergraduate  de- 
partments, the  contrast  would  be  most  striking ;  and 
we  might  almost  conclude  that  the  influence  of  these 
four  institutions  on  public  life  had  decreased  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  increase  of  their  undergraduate  cur- 
riculum. 

The  case  is  much  the  same  in  literature.  Bowdoin's 
class  of  1825,  trained  under  the  old  meager  system,  gave 
more  names  to  American  literature  than  most  of  our 
departments  of  English  Literature  have  yet  succeeded 
in  adding.  Similar  contrasts  might  be  brought  out 
in  other  directions  ;  but  the  rule  is  sufficiently  well  es- 
tablished to  call  for  explanation.  Medicine  and  science, 
however,  may  fairly  claim  to  have  held  their  own  ;  and 
perhaps  an  explanation  may  be  found  in  this  exception 
to  the  general  rule. 

The  wonderful  development  of  modern  science  has 
been  rather  one  of  principle  and  methods  than  of  mere 
facts :  the  accumulation  of  fact  has  been  a  consequence 
of  the  change  in  method,  though  it  in  turn  has  often 
developed  unsuspected  principles,  or  forced  a  new 
change  of  methods.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  modern 
development  of  the  college  curriculum  in  other  respects 
has  as  yet  gone  too  largely  to  the  mere  presentation 
of  facts  ?  The  instructor,  tending  constantly  to  special- 
ism, is  as  naturally  tempted  to  gauge  the  success  of  his 
work  by  the  greater  breadth  and  completeness  with 
which  he  states  the  facts  embraced  within  his  subject. 


79° 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


If  this  is  the  principle  which  guides  or  controls  him, 
the  increased  number  of  courses  will  mean  merely 
that  facts  which  were  only  suggested  or  were  entirely 
ignored  under  the  old  system  are  now  stated  in  full. 
That  would  mean  that  the  student  has  his  mental  food 
chewed  and  almost  digested  for  him,  and  may  go 
through  a  four-years'  course  in  college  without  think- 
ing ten  thoughts  of  his  own  from  first  to  last;  while 
the  student  under  the  old  re'gime,  compelled  to  do  his 
own  thinking  on  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  developed 
principles  and  methods  for  himself,  and  then  accumu- 
lated facts  during  the  years  in  which  the  modern  stu- 
dent is  engaged  in  forgetting  them. 

The  contrast  already  alluded  to  is  perhaps  more  sug- 
gestive in  the  case  of  Princeton  than  in  that  of  the 
other  three  colleges.  The  list  of  her  alumni  who  be- 
came distinguished  in  public  life  is  quite  a  long  one; 
but  it  is  noteworthy  that  it  is  almost  literally  limited 
to  the  years  between  the  inauguration  of  President 
\Vitherspoon  and  the  graduation  of  the  last  class  which 
he  can  be  supposed  to  have  influenced  (1768-97). 
During  those  years  there  is  scarcely  a  class  without 
the  names  of  one,  two,  or  more  men  who  became  dis- 
tinguished more  or  less  in  public  life ;  after  the  last- 
named  date,  such  names  become  far  more  sporadic. 
In  this  case,  at  least,  it  was  a  matter  of  more  serious 
import  that  the  man  had  died  than  that  the  curriculum 
should  be  widened. 

If  there  be  any  element  of  truth  in  the  explanation 
here  suggested  rather  than  worked  out,  there  is  not 
the  slightest  necessity  for  destroying  any  of  our  col- 
lege buildings,  for  stopping  or  limiting  the  develop- 
ment of  elective  courses,  or  for  reverting  in  any  point 
to  the  meager  curriculum  of  the  past.  All  that  is  nec- 
essary is  that  the  college  should  see  to  it  that  the  in- 
structor should  not  convert  the  elective  course  into  a 
machine  for  "cramming"  the  student  within  narrower 
lines  as  he  never  was  crammed  under  the  old  system; 
and  that  the  student  shall  not,  under  the  guise  of  a 
wider  freedom,  be  deprived  of  the  license  and  encour- 
agement to  think  for  himself  which  the  old  system 
gave  him.  After  all,  it  is  from  the  two  or  three  men  out 
of  a  hundred  who  think  for  themselves,  and  think  cor- 
rectly, that  a  college  must  expect  to  obtain  the  repu- 
tation which  comes  from  a  line  of  alumni  distinguished 
in  public  life,  in  literature,  and  in  all  forms  of  human 
activity. 

Individuality    in    Teaching. 

THE  criticism  that  sees  danger  to  the  schools  in  the 
elaboration  of  systems  and  puts  forth  even  the  faintest 
plea  for  individuality  in  teaching  must  meet  the  coun- 
ter-criticism of  those  who  point  out  that  genius  keeps 
to  the  mountains  and  only  mediocrity  finds  its  way  to 
the  school-room. 

How  easily  can  the  names  of  the  great  teachers  of 
youth  be  counted  upon  the  fingers  of  one  hand !  Of  the 
great  teachers  of  the  common-schools  we  have  almost 
no  traditions.  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  made  it  possible 
for  mediocrity  to  reach  a  child's  mind;  but  without  well- 
learned  guiding-lines,  the  average  instructor  makes  the 
school-room  a  chaos  where  ignorance  becomes  its 
own  law  and  shuts  out  knowledge. 

In  some  such  manner  the  pleader  for  system  might 
argue.  But  the  great  difficulty  is  that  we  have  not  yet 


learned  the  relative  meaning  of  ignorance  and  knowl- 
edge. We  do  not  teach  the  right  things  and  we  do 
not  get  the  best  results.  We  use  examinations  as 
gauging-lines,  but  our  percentages  do  not  show  true 
values.  We  get  bits  of  information  and  progressive 
series  of  bits,  but  we  have  flooded  the  child's  mind, 
not  developed  it.  Our  school-room  work  too  often  runs 
along  the  line  of  mere  suppression  —  suppression  of 
teacher,  suppression  of  pupil,  suppression  of  individ- 
uality ;  the  apotheosis  of  ruts.  We  build  up  elaborate 
school  systems  in  our  great  cities,  bind  all  the  schools 
together  in  a  series  of  grades,  apportion  the  hours  for 
all  work, —  indeed,  the  very  minutes, —  set  a  thousand 
machine-moved  teachers  in  the  schools,  and  then  pour  in 
an  overcrowded  throng  of  children  and  begin  to  examine 
them.  The  children  are  of  all  sorts  and  nationalities  : 
some  well  fed,  well  cared  for,  and  well  loved  ;  some 
almost  barbaric,  with  generations  of  ignorance  and 
poverty  and  indifference  to  education  behind  them. 
But  our  education  of  all  lies  chiefly  in  our  examinations, 
in  which  the  teachers  are  examined  with  them,  for 
upon  the  results  depend  the  teachers'  fortunes.  This  is 
one  of  our  proud  methods  of  building  up  the  state.  Of 
instruction,  of  character-forming,  of  mental  growth, 
there  is  scarcely  a  thought.  Often  it  seems  but  a  great 
and  complex  system  for  wasting  the  formative  years 
of  childhood. 

Now  it  is  certain  that  we  must  have  system  and 
method,  but  we  must  have  something  besides.  Train 
our  teachers  well,  but  allow  them  a  certain  liberty  to 
work  out  results.  It  is  not  information  that  we  should 
ask  of  school-children  so  much  as  it  is  character  and 
mental  life.  What  are  values?  —  that  should  be  a  child's 
first  lesson.  Make  a  boy  feel  the  worth  of  a  thing,  and 
the  hard  road  becomes  a  pathway  to  the  stars.  He  feels 
his  share  in  the  future  ;  he  knows  his  place  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  is  its  heir.  Character,  right  ambition,  charac- 
ter —  get  the  value  of  these  in  a  boy's  mind,  and  your 
road  becomes  easy. 

The  power  to  think  for  one's  self  has  too  little  stand- 
ing in  the  schools  ;  and  we  do  not  insist  enough  upon 
the  appreciation  of  the  worth  of  the  school  work.  Too 
often  we  try  to  wheedle  our  children  into  knowledge. 
We  disguise  the  name  of  work,  mask  thought,  and  in- 
vent schemes  for  making  education  easy  and  pleasant. 
We  give  fanciful  names  to  branches  of  study,  make  play 
with  object-lessons,  and  illustrate  all  things.  To  make 
education  amusing,  an  easy  road  without  toil,  is  to 
train  up  a  race  of  men  and  women  who  will  shun  what 
is  displeasing  to  them.  But  there  is  no  substitute  for 
hard  work  in  school  if  we  are  to  have  a  properly 
trained  people ;  we  must  teach  the  value  of  work  and 
overcome  the  indifference  of  children  to  ignorance. 

No  one  ever  came  nearer  to  success  of  this  sort  than 
the  Rev.  Edward  Thring,*  who  for  thirty-four  years 
was  head-master  of  the  grammar-school  at  Uppingham, 
England.  What  his  methods  were,  this  is  not  the 
place  to  state ;  but  he  insisted  upon  nothing  more 
strongly  than  upon  this,  that  it  was  not  enough  for  the 
teacher  to  know  the  subject  taught  and  why  it  should 
he  taught,  but  that  the  child  too  should  feel  its  value 
for  him  and  be  assured  of  his  ability  to  absorb  the 
knowledge.  He  always  insisted  upon  preparing  the 
child's  mind  for  the  knowledge  to  be  implanted.  The 

*  See  article  on  "  Uppingham  "  in  this  number  of  THE  CEN- 
TURY. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


791 


mind  itself  was  his  chief  care ;  of  mere  information  he 
had  slight  respect.  He  worked  for  a  strong  mind,  not 
a  full  one  ;  for  mental  life,  mental  activity,  and  power. 
In  America,  Frederick  W.  Gunn,*  working  along 
similar  lines,  influenced  his  pupils  with  such  power  that 
his  school  became  a  wonderful  force  for  the  formation 
of  character.  With  both  these  men  character  was  the 
object  sought.  With  both,  education  meant  character, 
mental  life,  and  growth,  not  knowledge-lumps  and  the 
accretion  of  book  lore.  Both  were  successful,  for  they 
held  their  own  high  level,  kept  faith  with  their  convic- 
tions and  their  duty,  and  did  not  attempt  impossible 
things. 

A  Just   Employer. 

NOT  long  ago  a  foreigner  shook  his  head  sadly  as 
he  wrote  about  New  England.  Its  stony  hills  and  rocky 
coast,  its  glacier-plowed  and  niggardly  soil,  its  over- 
hot  summers  and  over-cold  winters,  were,  he  deemed, 
unfavorable  for  the  nurture  of  men  and  the  develop- 
ment of  a  great  state.  The  time  would  come  when  the 
New  England  man  would  have  to  yield  to  the  odds 
against  him.  This  fanciful  theory  has  no  warrant. 

How  New  England  men  get  and  keep  dominion  over 
unkind  nature  —  how  they  help  build  the  state  —  may 
be  shown  in  a  notice  of  one  of  its  good  men,  Samuel 
D.  Warren,  whose  body  after  seventy  years  of  activity- 
was  recently  laid  to  rest.  The  record  of  his  life  is  un- 
eventful but  full  of  suggestion.  He  left  his  birthplace, 
at  Grafton,  Massachusetts,  to  make  his  way  in  the 
world  when  he  was  only  fourteen  years  of  age.  He 
was  not  strong  in  body;  his  education  was  necessarily 
slender  ;  he  had  no  rich  kinsmen  to  lean  upon.  A  good 
mother  and  a  sound  New  England  religious  sentiment 
had  given  him  something  better, —  strong  principles 
and  high  ideals, —  and  he  went  cheerfully  to  the  first 
work  he  found,  to  the  drudgery  and  poor  pay  of  an 
office  boy  in  a  Boston  paper-selling  house.  His  ad- 
vancement was  slow.  Although  a  junior  partner  soon 
after  reaching  his  majority,  he  was  nearly  forty  years 
old  before  he  thought  himself  strong  enough  to  buy  and 
manage  unaided  a  small  paper  mill  in  Maine  that  did 
not  then  give  work  to  one  hundred  hands.  But  he  made 

*  Sec  "  The  Master  of  The  Gunnery,"  published  by  The  Gunn 
Memorial  Association;  see  also  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland's  "Arthur 
Bonnicastle,"  in  which  Mr.  Bird  and  the  Bird's  Nest  stand  for 
Mr.  Gunn  and  the  Gunnery. 


it  prosperous.  In  ten  years  he  stood  in  the  front  line 
of  American  manufacturers,  for  his  paper  had  earned 
and  kept  a  world-wide  reputation.  At  the  time  of  his 
death  his  Cumberland  Mill  was  the  largest  paper  mill  in 
the  world,  perfecting  forty  tons  of  paper  a  day  and  giving 
direct  employment  to  more  than  eight  hundred  persons. 

The  daily  and  weekly  papers  of  New  England  have 
already  chronicled  the  more  important  details  of  his 
business  life,  as  well  as  his  liberality  to  churches,  hos- 
pitals, and  asylums.  They  need  not  be  repeated.  That 
he  has  acceptably  made  for  many  years  the  paper  for  THE 
CENTURY  and  for  "  St.  Nicholas  "  calls  for  at  least  a 
passing  notice  ;  but  evidences  of  his  skill  and  public 
spirit  seem  less  deserving  of  special  comment  than  his 
efforts  in  another  direction  which  as  yet  have  not  been 
noticed  at  all. 

In  his  own  way  Mr.  Warren  did  much  to  allay  the 
unjust  strife  between  capital  and  labor.  In  every  other 
large  manufacturing  village  strikes  and  lock-outs  were 
frequent.  Some  regarded  them  as  unavoidable  phases 
in  the  relation  of  masters  and  workmen.  "  Offenses 
must  come."  But  there  was  never  a  strike  in  Cum- 
berland Mills,  before  which  the  fowlers  of  the  labor 
unions  spread  their  nets  in  vain.  This  steady  resistance 
of  the  workmen  to  snares  which  elsewhere  never 
missed  their  object  is  due  to  the  conscience  of  Mr. 
Warren.  He  did  not  think  his  duty  done  when  he  paid 
his  workmen  agreed  wages.  He  made  it  his  duty  to  have 
them  live  in  good  homes  and  enjoy  life.  He  built  the 
houses,  and  equipped  them  better  than  other  houses  of 
a  similar  class,  and  offered  them  at  lower  rent.  The 
church  and  the  school-house  were  supplemented  by  a 
public  library,  a  gymnasium,  and  a  large  room  for  social 
gatherings.  Other  manufacturers  of  New  England  have 
done  similar  work,  but  few  have  done  it  with  equal 
tact.  Certainly  no  one  has  done  it  with  greater  suc- 
cess. Whoever  walks  around  the  little  village  and  notes 
the  general  tidiness  of  the  place,  its  neat  houses  and 
trim  gardens,  its  cheery  and  frank-faced  men  and 
women,  its  exemption  from  beer-gardens  and  dance- 
halls  and  variety  shows,  and  then  compares  the 
cleanliness  of  this  with  the  squalidness  of  other  manu- 
facturing villages  that  he  may  have  seen,  will  at  once 
admit  that  the  molding  of  paper,  worthy  work  as  it  is, 
is  not  so  worthy  as  the  molding  of  the  fortunes  and  the 
characters  of  human  beings. 


OPEN    LETTERS. 


Gettysburg  Twenty-five    Years   After. 

THE  spectacle  exhibited  at  Gettysburg  at  the  recent 
meeting  of  Union  and  Confederate  veterans, 
twenty-five  years  after  the  battle,  and  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed by  such  battle-scarred  heroes  as  Slocum,  Sickles, 
and  Longstreet,  Beaver,  Hooker  (of  Mississippi), 
Robinson,  and  Gordon,  should  swell  every  American 
heart  with  the  most  legitimate  pride.  It  is  well,  how- 
ever, that  while  indulging  in  justifiable  exultation,  we, 
and  especially  our  descendants,  should  forever  remem- 
ber the  lesson  taught  by  the  thorough-hearted  recon- 
ciliation of  those  who  for  four  years  were  such  deadly 
foes.  It  is  well  that  those  who  come  after  us  shall  un- 
derstand the  true  and  rational  ground  of  the  national 


pride  which  they  should  cherish,  chiefly  as  an  incentive 
to  equal  nobleness  of  achievement.  Our  pride  is  not 
based  solely  upon  the  unsurpassed  valor  displayed 
upon  both  sides,  for  other  soldiers  in  many  other  lands 
and  times  have  fought  as  well,  though  none  better. 
"  Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamemnona."  It  has  a  nobler 
and  loftier  source.  It  is  the  unequaled  —  in  fact,  the 
unapproached  —  generosity  and  magnanimity  of  the 
American  character  which  alone  in  all  history  was  able 
to  achieve  victory  without  vengeance,  and  to  accept  the 
consequences  of  defeat  without  degradation  and  with- 
out rancor.  It  is  this  noble  trait  which  places  us  fore- 
most of  all  the  world. 

For,  without  going  back  to  antiquity,  which  is  full 
of  the  massacres  and  proscriptions  of  the  vanquished, 


792 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


no  such  example  has  ever  been  seen  before  among  the 
most  enlightened  nations.  Did  Puritans  and  Cavaliers 
ever  join  hands  in  harmony,  or  the  Jacobites  and  the 
followers  of  the  House  of  Hanover  ?  It  was  only  after 
the  scaffolds  and  proscriptions  of  the  Restoration,  off- 
set later  by  those  which  followed  the  bloody  field  of 
Culloden  —  it  was  only  after  generations  had  passed  and 
death  had  removed  the  last  of  the  "  Pretenders  "  that 
Great  Britain  ceased  to  be  torn  by  insurrections  and 
party  hatreds.  But  even  at  this  day,  what  Irishman 
can  tamely  accept  the  position  into  which  England  has 
forced  his  country?  What  Polish  patriot  has  ever 
acknowledged  that  Russian  conquest  was  best  for  his 
people,  though  more  than  half  a  century  has  elapsed 
since  its  completion  ? 

No  nation  ever  passed  through  such  an  internal  con- 
flict as  ours.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  was  the  strug- 
gle of  La  Vendee  against  the  French  Republic  in  1 793- 
98 ;  and  after  three  generations  it  can  hardly  be  con- 
sidered as  altogether  ended,  for  no  Vendean  leader  has 
ever  given  hearty  and  complete  allegiance  to  any  gov- 
ernment that  France  has  had  since  those  days,  except 
to  the  Bourbon  restoration.  The  descendants  of  La 
Rochejaquelein,  of  Charette,  Lescure,  and  Cathelineau, 
as  well  as  the  sons  of  the  brave  and  fanatical  Vendean 
peasantry  of  '93,  are  to-day  the  bitterest  foes  of  the 
Republic,  and  proclaim  openly,  even  in  the  National 
Assembly,  their  purpose  to  destroy  it  and  to  reestablish 
"  the  throne  and  the  altar  "  upon  its  ruins. 

Now  mark  the  contrast.  We  have  not  had  to  wait 
until  another  generation  took  the  place  of  the  combat- 
ants. Less  than  twenty-five  years  after  the  close  of 
our  gigantic  war  the  very  men  who  fought  it  meet  spon- 
taneously in  fraternal  concourse,  without  the  least  util- 
itarian or  political  purpose,  but  simply  in  obedience  to 
the  irresistible  impulse  of  their  hearts,  whose  desire 
for  union  and  harmony  amounts  to  enthusiasm ;  and 
the  unanimous  sentiment  of  all  is  one  of  exulting 
happiness  at  the  result  which  has  made  us  one  people, 
more  thoroughly  united  than  we  ever  were  before, 
rallying  with  boundless  devotion  around  the  national 
flag  and  Government. 

What  is  the  cause  of  this  wonderful  contrast? 

Respect  for  each  other's  valor,  though  a  factor, 
would  not  have  sufficed  to  efface  animosities.  Surely 
the  Russians  must  have  honored  the  Polish  patriots' 
bravery ;  and  the  Blues,  who  fought  for  the  Republic, 
could  not  help  respecting  the  reckless  daring  of  the 
Whites,  who  fought  for  king  and  altar  in  La  Vendee. 
But  this  feeling  has  failed  to  allay  the  rancor  and 
hatred  caused  by  past  but  still  unforgotten  cruelties. 

Nothing  can  account  for  the  contrast  but  the  supe- 
rior intelligence,  generosity,  and  magnanimity  of  the 
American  people,  who  even  in  the  heat  and  violence 
of  conflict  never  regarded  as  a  crime  an  honest  differ- 
ence of  opinion,  even  though  carried  to  the  extreme  of 
armed  resistance.  Whatever  may  be  said  by  those 
who  never  realized  what  war  has  been  and  is  in  other 
lands,  there  is  no  question  that,  on  the  whole,  our  war 
was  the  mildest  and  most  humane  ever  fought,  and 
the  freest  from  those  excesses  usually  considered  the 
inevitable  concomitants  of  war.  There  were  no 
slaughters  of  prisoners  after  surrender,  no  scaffolds, 
no  fusillades,  no  noyades  of  the  vanquished,  as  in  Poland 
and  La  Vendee  ;  and  never  were  fewer  men  executed 
as  spie-;,  or  guerrillas  (francs-tireurs),  according  to  the 


recognized  code  of  war.  And  when,  at  the  final  act  of 
the  drama,  the  conqueror  had  the  power  to  demand 
unconditional  surrender,  how  generous  were  the  terms 
offered,  how  regardful  of  even  the  soldierlike  honor 
of  the  conquered ! 

Although  after  the  struggle  of  arms  had  ceased, 
some  oppressive  legislation,  which  would  have  better 
been  omitted,  prevailed  for  a  short  time,  yet  not  one 
of  the  so-called  rebels  was  deprived  of  his  life  or 
property,  or  driven  into  banishment,  for  any  act  done 
during  the  war.  Years  ago  even  the  most  prominent 
supporters  of  the  late  Confederacy  were  readmitted 
to  all  the  privileges  of  American  citizenship.  As  said 
Governor  Beaver  the  other  day,  "  You  are  our  equals 
in  courage,  perseverance,  and  intelligence  ;  our  equals 
in  all  that  dignifies  and  adorns  the  American  char- 
acter." He  might  have  added  also  —  equals  in  de- 
>,,-  oyi  to  our  common  country. 

mis  is  why  there  are  no  bitter  and  revengeful  mem- 
ories of  bloodshed,  otherwise  than  on  the  battle-field 
in  honorable  warfare,  to  perpetuate  hatred  and  ani- 
mosities between  us  and  our  descendants.  This  is  why 
the  Confederate  veterans  acknowledge  in  all  sincerity 
of  heart  that  the  war  ended  in  the  way  that  was  the 
best  for  the  entire  country,  and  why  those  who  wore 
the  blue  and  the  gray  can  clasp  hands  with  heartfelt 
sympathy  and  affection,  and  all  of  us,  North  and  South, 
are  ready  to  shed  all  our  blood,  if  need  be,  in  defense 
of  our  truly  reunited  country.  This  is  why  we  have 
no  Poland,  no  Ireland,  no  Vendee  in  our  blessed  land. 
This  is  why  we  can  point  all  other  nations  to  the  un- 
equaled  record  of  American  generosity,  forgiveness, 
and  magnanimity,  far  more  glorious  than  the  victories 
of  war.  Above  all,  this  is  why  we  can  leave  to  our 
posterity  the  noblest  inheritance  and  the  noblest 
memories  that  any  people  ever  had.  May  they  ever 
remember  the  grand  old  maxim:  Noblesse  oblige ! 

R.  E.  Colston, 
Formerly  Brigadier-General,  C.  S.  A. 

Is  the  Siberian   Exile   System  to  be  at  Once 
Abolished  ? 

I  DO  not  believe  that  the  exile  system  is  upon  the  eve 
of  abolition,  nor  that  it  will  be  abolished  within  the  next 
ten  years ;  and  I  will  state,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  some  of 
the  reasons  for  my  skepticism. 

The  number  of  criminals  now  sent  to  Siberia  annu- 
ally, not  including  innocent  wives  and  children,  varies 
from  10,000  to  13,000.  These  criminals  may  be  divided, 
for  my  present  purpose,  into  five  great  classes,  viz. : 
First,  hard-labor  convicts  ;  secondly,  compulsory  col- 
onists; thirdly,  communal  exiles  (persons  banished, 
on  account  of  their  generally  bad  character,  by  the 
village  communes  to  which  they  belong) ;  fourthly, 
vagrants;  and,  fifthly,  political  and  religious  exiles.  The 
proportion  which  each  of  these  classes  bears  to  the  whole 
number  of  banished  may  be  shown  in  tabular  form  as 
follows,  the  figures  being  taken  from  the  report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Exile  Administration  for  the  year  1885  : 


Criminal  Class.  Number 

Hard-labor  convicts 1551 

Compulsory  colonists 2841 

Communal  exiles 3751 

Vagrants 1719 

Political  and  religious  exiles. . .       368 


Per  cent,  of 
"whole  number. 
15.16 
27.78 
36.66 
16.80 
3.60 


Total 10,230 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


793 


When  this  great  body  of  offenders  reaches  Siberia  it 
is  divided  into  two  penal  classes,  viz.:  Kirst,  criminals 
who  arc  shut  up  in  prisons,  anil,  secondly,  criminals  who 
are  assigned  places  of  residence  and  are  there  liberated 
to  find  subsistence  for  themselves  as  best  they  may. 
The  first  of  these  penal  classes  — that  of  the  impris- 
oned—  comprises  all  the  hard-labor  convicts  and  all  of 
the  vagrants,  and  numbers  in  the  aggregate  3270.  The 
second,  or  liberated  class,  includes  all  of  the  compul- 
sory colonists,  all  of  the  communal  exiles,  and  most 
of  the  political  and  religious  offenders,  and  numbers  in 
the  aggregate  nearly  seven  thousand. 

It  is  manifest,  I  think,  that  when  a  flood  of  ten  thou- 
sand vagrants,  thieves,  counterfeiters,  burglars,  high- 
way robbers,  and  murderers  is  poured  into  a  colony, 
the  class  most  injurious  to  the  welfare  of  that  colony  is 
the  liberated  class.  If  a  burglar  or  a  thief  is  sent  to 
Siberia  and  shut  up  in  prison, he  is  no  more  dangerous 
to  society  there  than  he  would  be  if  he  were  impris- 
oned in  European  Russia,  The  place  of  his  confine- 
ment is  immaterial,  because  he  has  no  opportunity  to 
do  evil.  If,  however,  he  is  sent  to  Siberia  and  there 
turned  loose,  he  resumes  his  criminal  activity,  and  be- 
comes at  once  a  menace  to  social  order  and  security. 

For  more  than  half  a  century  the  people  of  Siberia 
have  been  groaning  under  the  heavy  burden  of  crimi- 
nal exile.  More  than  two-thirds  of  all  the  crimes 
committed  in  the  colony  are  committed  by  common 
felons  who  have  been  transported  thither  and  then 
set  at  liberty,  and  the  peasants  everywhere  are  becom- 
ing demoralized  by  enforced  association  with  thieves, 
burglars,  counterfeiters,  and  embezzlers  from  the  cities 
of  European  Russia.  The  honest  and  prosperous  inhab- 
itants of  the  country  protest,  of  course,  against  a  system 
which  liberates  every  year,  at  their  very  doors,  an  army 
of  seven  thousand  worthless  characters  and  felons. 
They  do  not  object  to  the  hard-labor  convicts,  because 
the  latter  are  shut  up  in  jails.  They  do  not  object  to 
the  political  and  religious  exiles,  because  such  offenders 
frequently  make  the  best  of  citizens.  Their  protests 
are  aimed  particularly  at  the  compulsory  colonists. 
Half  the  large  towns  in  Siberia  have  sent  memorials 
to  the  Crown  asking  to  be  relieved  from  the  burden 
of  communal  exile  and  criminal  colonization  ;  nearly 
all  the  governors  of  the  Siberian  provinces  have  called 
attention  in  their  official  reports  to  the  disastrous  con- 
sequences of  the  exile  system  as  it  is  now  administered ; 
the  liberal  Siberian  newspapers  have  been  hammering 
at  the  subject  for  more  than  a  decade  ;  three  or  four 
specially  appointed  commissions  have  condemned  crim- 
inal colonization  and  have  suggested  methods  of  re- 
form —  and  yet  nothing  whatever  has  been  done.  Every 
plan  of  reform  submitted  to  the  Tsar's  ministers  up  to 
the  present  time  has  been  found  by  them  to  be  either 
impracticable  or  inexpedient,  and  has  finally  been  put, 
as  the  Russians  say,  "  under  the  table-cloth."  Not  a 
single  plan,  I  believe,  has  ever  reached  the  stage  of 
discussion  in  the  Council  of  State. 

Within  the  past  five  years  great  pressure  has  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  Government  to  induce  it  so 
to  modify  the  exile  system  as  to  relieve  the  Siberian 
people  of  a  part  of  their  heavy  burden.  Mr.  Galkin- 
Vrasskoi,  the  Chief  of  the  Prison  Department,  has 
made  a  journey  of  inspection  through  Siberia,  and  has 
become  convinced  of  the  necessity  for  reform;  General 
Ignatief  and  Baron  Korff — both  men  of  energy  and 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 1 10. 


ability  —  have  been  appointed  governors-general  in 
eastern  Siberia  and  have  insisted  pertinaciously  upon 
the  abolition  of  criminal  colonization  ;  the  liberal  Si- 
berian press,  encouraged  by  the  support  of  these  high 
officials,  has  assailed  the  exile  system  with  renewed 
courage  and  vigor ;  and  the  Tsar's  ministers  have  been 
forced  at  last  to  consider  once  more  the  expediency, 
not  of  abolishing  the  exile  system  as  a  whole,  but  of 
so  modifying  it  as  to  render  it  less  burdensome  to  the 
inhabitants  of  a  rich  and  promising  colony.  In  giving 
the  subject  such  consideration  the  Government  is  not 
actuated  by  humane  motives  —  that  is,  by  a  desire  to 
lessen  the  enormous  amount  of  misery  which  the  exile 
system  causes;  it  wishes  merely  to  put  a  stop  to  an- 
noying complaints  and  protests,  and  to  increase  the 
productiveness  and  tax-paying  capacity  of  Siberia.  In 
approaching  the  question  from  this  point  of  view,  the 
Government  sees  that  the  most  irritating  and  burden- 
some feature  of  the  exile  system  is  the  colonization 
of  common  criminals  in  the  Siberian  towns  and  vil- 
lages. It  is  this  against  which  the  Siberian  people 
protest,  and  it  is  this  which  lessens  the  productive 
capacity  of  the  colony.  Other  features  of  the  system 
are  more  cruel, —  more  unjust  and  disgraceful, — but 
this  is  the  one  which  makes  most  trouble,  and  which, 
therefore,  must  first  have  attention. 

Just  before  I  left  St.  Petersburg  for  the  United 
States  on  my  return  from  Siberia,  I  took  breakfast 
with  Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi,  the  Chief  of  the  Russian 
Prison  Department,  and  had  a  long  and  interesting 
conversation  with  him  concerning  the  exile  system 
and  the  plan  of  reform  which  he  was  then  maturing, 
and  which  is  now  said  by  the  London  "  Spectator  "  to 
involve  the  entire  abolition  of  exile  to  Siberia  as  a 
method  of  punishment.  The  view  of  the  question 
taken  by  Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi  at  that  time  was  pre- 
cisely the  view  which  I  have  indicated  in  the  preced- 
ing paragraph.  He  did  not  expect  to  bring  about  the 
abolition  of  the  exile  system  as  a  whole,  nor  did  he 
intend  to  recommend  such  a  step  to  the  Tsar's  minis- 
ters. All  that  he  proposed  to  do  was  so  to  restrict  and 
reform  the  system  as  to  make  it  more  tolerable  to  the 
Siberian  people.  This  he  expected  to  accomplish  by 
somewhat  limiting  communal  exile,  by  abolishing 
criminal  colonization,  and  by  increasing  the  severity  of 
the  punishment  for  vagrancy.  The  reform  was  not 
intended  to  change  the  status  of  hard-labor  convicts, 
nor  of  administrative  exiles,  nor  of  politicals ;  and  Mr. 
Galkin-Vrasskoi  told  me  distinctly  that  for  political 
convicts  a  new  prison  was  then  building  at  the  famous 
and  dreaded  mine  of  Akatui,  in  the  most  lonely  and 
desolate  part  of  the  Trans- Baikal.  Of  this  fact  I  was 
already  aware,  as  I  had  visited  the  mine  of  Akatui,  and 
had  seen  there  the  timber  prepared  for  the  building. 
It  was  the  intention  of  the  Government,  Mr.  Galkin- 
Vrasskoi  said,  to  pump  out  the  abandoned  Akatui 
mine,  which  was  then  half  full  of  water,  and  set  the 
politicals  to  work  in  it. 

At  the  time  of  our  conversation  Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi 
did  not  regard  the  complete  abolition  of  the  exile  sys- 
tem as  even  possible,  much  less  practicable.  He  es- 
timated that  it  would  cost  at  least  ten  million  rubles  to 
build  in  European  Russia  the  prisons  which  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  exile  system  would  necessitate,  and  he  did 
not  think  that,  in  the  straitened  condition  of  the  Rus- 
sian finances,  it  would  be  possible  to  appropriate  such 


794 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


an  amount  for  such  a  purpose.  Furthermore,  the  com- 
plete abolition  of  the  system  would  make  it  necessary 
to  revise  and  remodel  the  whole  penal  code,  and  to  this 
step  objections  would  probably  be  raised  by  the  Min- 
ister of  Justice.  Under  such  circumstances,  all  that 
the  Prison  Department  hoped  to  do  was  to  make  such 
changes  in  the  system  as  would  render  it  less  objec- 
tionable to  the  Siberian  people  and  less  burdensome 
to  the  commercial  interests  of  an  important  colony. 

Since  my  interview  with  Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi,  the 
scheme  of  reform  which  he  then  had  under  considera- 
tion has  been  completed,  and,  if  it  has  not  been  "  put 
under  the  table-cloth,"  it  is  now  awaiting  the  action  of 
the  Council  of  State.  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that 
no  material  change  has  been  made  in  it  since  I  dis- 
cussed it  with  its  author.  Its  provisions  have  been 
published  repeatedly  in  the  Siberian  newspapers,  and 
as  recently  as  May  of  the  present  year  the  "  Russian 
Courier  "  printed  an  abstract  of  it  by  sections.  The 
plan  is,  in  brief: 

First.  To  substitute  imprisonment  in  European 
Russia  for  forced  colonization  in  Siberia,  and  to  retain 
the  latter  form  of  punishment  only  "  for  certain  of- 
fenses "  and  "  in  certain  exceptional  cases. "  The  "  Spec- 
tator "  may  have  taken  this  to  mean  that  the  whole"  exile 
system  is  to  be  abolished ;  but  if  so,  it  misunderstands 
the  words.  The  meaning  is,  simply,  that  one  class  of  ex- 
iles—  namely, "  poselentse,"  or  compulsory  colonists — 
are  hereafter  to  be  shut  up  in  European  Russia,  unless, 
"  for  certain  offenses  "  and  "  in  certain  exceptional 
cases,"  the  Government  shall  see  fit  to  send  them  to 
Siberia  as  usual.  This  reform  would  have  affected  in 
the  year  1885  only  2841  exiles  out  of  a  total  number 
of  10,230. 

Second.  The  plan  proposes  to  increase  the  severity 
of  the  punishment  for  vagrancy  by  sending  all  vagrants 
into  hard  labor  on  the  island  of  Saghalien.  This  sec- 
tion is  aimed  at  runaway  convicts,  thousands  of  whom 
spend  every  winter  in  prison  and  every  summer  in 
roaming  about  the  colony. 

Third.  The  plan  proposes  to  deprive  village  com- 
munes of  the  right  to  banish  peasants  who  return  to 
their  homes  after  serving  out  a  term  of  imprisonment 
for  crime.  This  is  a  limitation  of  the  exile  system  as  it 
now  exists,  and  in  1885  it  would  have  affected  2651 
exiles  out  of  a  total  of  10,230. 

Fourth.  The  plan  proposes  to  retain  communal  ex- 
ile, but  to  compel  every  commune  to  support,  for  a 
term  of  two  years,  the  persons  whom  it  exiles.  The 
amount  of  money  to  be  paid  for  the  support  of  such 
persons  is  fixed  at  $18.25  a  vear  Per  capita,  or  five 
cents  a  day  for  every  exile.  To  what  extent  this  would, 
in  practice,  operate  as  a  restriction  of  communal  exile, 
I  am  unable  to  say.  The  "  Siberian  Gazette,"  in  a  re- 
cent number,  expressed  the  opinion  that  it  would  af- 
fect it  very  slightly,  and  attacked  the  plan  vigorously 
upon  the  ground  of  its  inadequacy. 

Fifth.  The  plan  proposes  to  modify  sections  17  and 
20  of  the  penal  code  so  as  to  bring  them  into  harmony 
with  the  changes  in  the  exile  system  above  provided  for. 

This  is  all  that  there  is  in  the  scheme  of  reform  sub- 
mitted by  the  Prison  Department  to  the  Tsar's  min- 
isters. It  is,  of  course,  a  step  in  the  right  direction, 
but  it  comes  far  short  of  a  complete  abolition  of  the 
exile  system,  inasmuch  as  it  does  not  touch  the  banish- 
ment to  Siberia  of  political  offenders,  nor  the  transpor- 


tation of  hard-labor  convicts  to  the  mines,  nor  the 
deportation  of  religious  dissenters ;  and  it  restricts 
communal  exile  only  to  a  very  limited  extent.  The 
plan  has  been  discussed  at  intervals  by  the  Russian 
newspaper  press  ever  since  the  return  of  Mr.  Galkin- 
Vrasskoi  from  his  Siberian  journey  of  inspection,  and 
I  have  yet  to  see  the  first  hint  or  intimation  that  the 
Prison  Department  has  even  so  much  as  suggested  the 
entire  abolition  of  the  exile  system.  The  plan  which 
Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi  outlined  to  me  is  precisely  the 
plan  which,  according  to  the  Russian  and  Siberian 
newspapers,  is  now  pending. 

The  only  question  which  remains  for  consideration 
is,  Will  this  limited  measure  of  reform  be  adopted  ?  In 
my  judgment  it  will  not  be.  Before  such  a  plan  as  this 
goes  to  the  Council  of  State  for  discussion,  it  is  always 
submitted  to  the  ministers  within  whose  jurisdiction 
it  falls  —  in  the  present  case  to  the  Minister  of  Justice, 
the  Minister  of  Finance,  and  the  Minister  of  the  Inte- 
rior. Two  of  these  officers  have  already  disapproved 
the  plan  of  the  Prison  Department,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
upon  the  ground  that  it  is  impracticable,  or  that  it  goes 
too  far.  The  Minister  of  Finance  opposes  it  in  tola, 
and  says  that  "  the  reasons  assigned  by  Mr.  Galkin- 
Vrasskoi  for  the  proposed  changes  in  the  exile  system 
are  not  sufficiently  convincing."  I  have  not  space  for 
Mr.  Vishnegradski's  argument  against  the  reform,  but 
it  may  be  found  in  the  "Siberian  Gazette,"  No.  34, 
p.  4,  May  20,  1888.  The  Minister  of  Justice  declares 
that  the  proposed  reform  cannot  be  carried  out"  without 
the  essential  destruction  of  the  whole  existing  system 
of  punishment  for  crime  "  ;  and  that  "  the  substitution 
of  imprisonment  in  European  Russia  for  colonization 
in  Siberia  is  impossible."  Furthermore,  he  goes  out 
of  his  way  to  say  that  "exile  to  Siberia  for  political 
and  religious  offenses  must  be  preserved."  ("  Eastern 
Review,"  p.  n,  St.  Petersburg,  April  22,  1888.) 

Of  course,  the  opposition  of  two  powerful  ministers 
is  not  necessarily  fatal  to  a  measure  of  reform  of  this 
kind;  but,  since  in  the  present  case  they  are  the  min- 
isters who  are  most  directly  interested,  their  influence 
is  very  strong,  and  if  they  be  supported  by  the  Minis- 
ter of  the  Interior  they  will  almost  certainly  be  able 
to  withhold  Mr.  Galkin-Vrasskoi's  plan  from  the 
Council  of  State.  They  will  simply  "  put  it  under  the 
table-cloth,"  and  report  to  the  Tsar  that  they  find  it 
utterly  impracticable. 

If  this  were  the  first  time  that  the  question  of  Sibe- 
rian exile  had  been  agitated,  and  if  this  were  the  first 
measure  of  reform  that  had  been  submitted  to  the 
Tsar's  ministers,  there  might  be  some  reason  to  hope 
for  a  change  in  the  existing  situation  of  affairs  ;  but  it 
is  an  old,  old  story.  Abler  men  than  Galkin-Vrasskoi 
have  condemned  the  exile  system  and  have  submitted 
plans  of  reform  ;  stronger  governors-general  lhan  Ig- 
natief  and  Korff  have  insisted  upon  the  abolition  of 
criminal  colonization ;  but  their  efforts  have  always 
been  fruitless,  and  their  plans  have  always  been  found 
"impracticable."  After  such  an  investigation  of  the 
exile  system  as  I  have  recently  made,  I  hope  with  all 
my  heart  that  it  may  be  abolished,  and  I  shall  do  all 
that  lies  in  my  power  ;  but  I  greatly  fear,  nevertheless, 
that  it  will  remain,  for  many  years,  one  of  the  darkest 
blots  upon  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

George  Kennan. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


795 


General  Grant  and   Matias  Romero. 

Gr.vKRAL  ADAM  BADKAU  published  in  TIIK  Cut- 
TURY  for  October,  1885,  an  article  entitled  "The  l,a*t 
Days  of  General  Grant,"  in  which  he  said  : 

"About  the  same  time  Mr.  Romero,  the  Mexican 
minister,  who  had  been  a  valued  friend  from  the 
period  when  the  French  were  driven  from  Mexico, 
came  on  from  Washington,  and  insisted  on  lending 
him  $1000.  At  first  the  General  declined  the  offer, 
but  Mr.  Romero  suddenly  quitted  the  room,  leaving 
his  check  for  $1000  on  the  table.  But  for  these  suc- 
cors the  man  who  had  dined  with  half  the  kings  of 
the  earth  would  have  wanted  money  to  buy  bread  for 
himself  and  his  children." 

I  presume  General  Badeau  based  his  statement  on 
an  article  published  by  "  The  Mail  and  Express  "of 
New  York  on  Saturday,  February  7,  1885,  which  con- 
tained, to  my  knowledge,  the  first  publication  of  that 
incident  ever  made. 

Although  the  statement  contained  in  the  preceding 
quotation  is  not  accurate,  I  refrained  from  rectifying 
it  when  it  was  published,  mainly  because  I  did  not 
wish  to  wound  any  one's  susceptibility,  and  much 
less  that  of  General  Grant's  family,  as  also  on  ac- 
count of  my  natural  reluctance  to  bring  myself  for- 
ward before  the  public,  and  because  the  inaccuracies 
were  only  of  a  secondary  character,  although  reflecting, 
to  a  certain  degree,  on  me,  since  they  represented  me 
as  forcing  General  Grant  to  do  a  thing  which  was  re- 
pugnant to  him.  But  friends  of  the  General  and  of 
myself  have  advised  me  of  the  convenience  of  rectifying 
the  historical  facts  of  this  incident,  and  I  have,  there- 
fore, determined  to  make  the  following  statement  of 
what  really  took  place. 

The  banking  house  of  Grant  &  Ward  of  New 
York,  of  which  General  Grant  was  a  partner,  failed  on 
the  6th  of  May,  1884;  and  believing  that  said  event 
would  place  the  General  under  serious  embarrassment, 
I  thought  that  my  personal  relations  with  him  required 
my  visiting  him,  and  I  therefore  left  Washington  on 
the  gth  of  that  month  for  New  York  for  the  purpose 
of  expressing  to  him,  in  person,  my  sympathy  and  con- 
cern in  the  difficult  circumstances  through  which  he 
was  passing.  I  had,  on  the  12th,  an  interview  with  Gen- 
eral Grant  at  his  residence,  No.  3  East  66th  street, 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  he  informed  me  that  all 
he  possessed  had  been  lost  in  the  broken  bank ;  even 
the  interest  on  a  fund  of  $200,000  which  several  New 
York  gentlemen  had  raised  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
him  an  income  which  would  permit  him  to  live  de- 
cently had  been  negotiated  previously  by  Ferdinand 
Ward,  and  that  six  months  or  a  year  would  elapse  be- 
fore he  could  rely  on  the  interest  of  said  fund.  Mrs. 
Grant  was  in  the  habit,  he  said,  of  drawing  from  the 
bank,  a  few  days  after  the  first  of  each  month,  the  nec- 
essary amount  to  pay  the  house  bills  for  the  previous 
month;  but  in  May,  1884,  she  had  not  yet  drawn  the 
sum  required  for  that  purpose,  before  the  failure  of 
the  bank.  They  found  themselves,  therefore,  without 
the  necessary  means  to  do  their  own  marketing  (these 
were  his  own  words).  The  only  amount  they  had  at  the 
house  was,  he  said,  as  I  recollect,  about  $18. 

Surprised  at  hearing  the  above  statement,  I  told 
General  Grant  that  he  well  knew  I  was  not  a  rich 
man,  but  that  I  could  dispose  of  three  or  four  thousand 


dollars,  which  were  at  once  at  his  disposal ;  that  I 
would  not  need  them  soon,  and  that  he  need,  there- 
fore, not  be  in  any  hurry  concerning  the  time  when 
he  ought  to  pay  them  back,  and  that  they  of  course 
would  draw  no  interest. 

General  Grant  hesitated  somewhat  before  accepting 
my  offer,  for  fear,  as  he  said,  that  this  loan  would  put 
me  to  some  inconvenience,  but  told  me,  at  last,  that 
he  would  borrow  one  thousand  dollars.  I  asked  him 
whether  he  wanted  said  amount  in  a  check  drawn  by 
me  on  the  New  York  bank  where  1  had  my  funds,  or  in 
bank  bills ;  and  in  the  latter  case,  bills  of  what  denom- 
ination he  desired.  He  replied  that  he  preferred  ten 
$100  bills,  and  I  then  drew  at  once  a  check  (No.  406) 
to  my  order  for  $1000,  which  was  cashed  at  the  bank 
of  Messrs.  Drexel,  Morgan  &  Co.  of  the  city  of  New 
York,  with  ten  $100  bills  ;  and  I  returned  on  the  same 
day  to  General  Grant's  house  and  personally  delivered 
the  money  to  him. 

I  came  back  to  Washington  on  the  1 5th  of  May,  and 
here  a  few  days  later  I  received  from  General  Grant 
.$436  in  part  payment  of  the  loan  of  $1000  made  to 
him  on  the  I2th.  On  the  24th  of  the  following  June 
I  received  a  letter  from  the  General,  dated  at  Long 
Branch  the  day  before,  inclosing  a  check  of  Messrs. 
Hoyt  Brothers  on  the  Park  National  Bank  of  New 
York,  to  the  order  of  Mrs.  Grant,  for  the  sum  of  $564; 
so  that  the  loan  was  fully  repaid  but  a  few  days  after 
it  was  made. 

Not  to  wound  General  Grant's  susceptibility,  I  never 
breathed  a  word  on  this  subject  to  anybody,  not  even 
to  the  most  intimate  members  of  my  family,  and  through 
me  nobody  would  ever  have  known  anything  about  it. 

However  great  was  my  desire  to  help  General  Grant 
through  the  difficult  circumstances  which  he  then  un- 
derwent, I  would  never  have  done  so  against  his  full 
consent ;  and  if  he  had  manifested  any  reluctance  to 
receive  the  pecuniary  aid  I  offered  him  I  would  not 
have  insisted  on  it,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  oppose  his  will 
in  the  least,  and  much  less  to  force  him  to  accept  pecu- 
niary aid. 

M.  Romero. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  May  22,  1888. 

The   Canal   at   Island    No.    10. 

[THE  letters  which  follow  are  of  interest  in  connection 
with  the  reference  to  the  discussion  of  the  subject  by 
Messrs.  Nicolay  and  Hay  on  page  659  of  the  present 
CENTURY.  —  EDITOR.] 

In  THE  CENTURY  for  September,  1885,  there  is  an 
article  headed :  "  Who  Projected  the  Canal  at  Island 
Number  10?  "  by  General  Schuyler  Hamilton,  written 
to  establish  his  claim  to  the  honor  of  having  originated 
the  idea  of  the  canal  across  the  bend  at  New  Madrid, 
whereby  the  fortifications  on  Island  No.  10  were  cut 
off,  with  the  result  of  their  capture  by  General  Pope. 
General  Hamilton,  writing  of  Colonel  J.  W.  Bissell's 
description  of  the  work,  in  this  magazine  for  August, 
1885,  says : 

To  the  public  this  reads  as  though  the  plan  originated 
with  Colonel  Bissell,  while  I  am  ready  to  show  that 
while  the  colonel  directed  the  work,  "  some  officer,"  as 
he  says, — or,  to  be  exact,  I  myself, — was  the  sole  in- 
ventor of  the  project. 

The  general  then  quotes  further  to  show  that  the  idea 
originated  or  was  "  advanced  "  by  him  March  17,  1862. 


796 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


Both  these  gentlemen  are  in  error  regarding  the  fact 
as  to  who  originated  the  design  of  this  canal.  To  divest 
myself  of  seeming  egotism  I  will  use  the  general's  own 
words :  "  To  be  exact,  I  myself  was  the  sole  inventor  of 
the  project,"  having  drawn  in  detail  the  plan  of  this 
canal  and  particularly  described  the  modus  opcraittli 
of  its  construction  on  the  2Oth  of  August,  1861,  more 
than  six  months  before  the  canal  was  cut.  This  de- 
scription, with  the  charts,  I  sent  to  General  Fremont, 
who  was  then  preparing  his  campaign  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi. The  following  is  his  appreciative  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  reception  of  my  charts : 

HEADQUARTERS  WESTERN  DEPARTMENT, 

ST.  Louis,  September  6,  1861. 
MR.  JOHN  BANVARD, 

Cold  Spring,  Long  Island. 

SIR:  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  22d  ult.  with  its 
valuable  inclosures.  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  your  portfolio 
of  drawings,  and  have  no  doubt  but  that  1  shall  find  them 
very  useful  in  my  coming  campaign  down  the  river. 

Accept  my  thanks  for  your  thoughtful  consideration 
and  be  assured  that  it  is  appreciated  by 

Yours  truly,  J.  C.  FREMONT, 

Major-General  Commanding* 

Some  years  before,  I  had  made,  with  the  idea  of  pub- 
lishing them  for  the  use  of  boatmen,  a  hydrographic 
series  of  charts  of  the  entire  river  below  Cairo,  the  old 
ones  then  in  use  on  the  river  being  very  defective. 
These  I  also  tendered  to  General  Fremont. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  General  Fremont  was 
succeeded  by  General  Hunter.  Mr.  Lossing  says  in 
his  history:  "When  General  Hunter  arrived  at  head- 
quarters, Fre'mont,  after  informing  him  of  the  position 
of  affairs,  laid  before  him  all  his  plans. "  (Lossing's  Hist. , 
Vol.  II.,  p.  84.)  From  this  it  is  evident  that  my  charts 
and  plans  were  haniled  over  to  the  new  command  and 
eventually  utilized  at  New  Madrid,  and  if  there  is  any 
honor  attached  to  the  originality  of  the  idea,  it  belongs 
to  your  humble  servant, 

John  Ban-sard. 

LAKE  KAMPKSKA,  WATERTOWN,  DAKOTA,  Sept.  7,  1885. 

P.  S.  As  an  interesting  addendum  to  this  subject  of 
military  canals  of  the  Mississippi,  I  perhaps  might 
say  further  that  I  also  sent  General  Grant  some  useful 
hints  regarding  the  canal  at  Vicksburg  which  he  at- 
tempted to  make.  Fearing  that  through  the  vicissitudes 
of  camp  life  he  might  fail  to  receive  my  communications, 
I  sent  this  to  "  The  New  York  Times,"  in  which  it  was 
printed,  the  editor  calling  especial  attention  to  the 
importance  of  the  article  : 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  "THE  NEW  YORK  TIMES": 

I  see  the  engineers  have  failed  to  cut  the  canal  through 
the  bend  at  Vicksburg,  and  that  the  Southern  people  are 
laughing  over  the  event.  I  have  seen  just  such  failures 
before  on  the  Mississippi.  Captain  Shrieves,  who  was 
employed  by  Government  to  improve  the  navigation, 
made  the  same  mistake  in  his  attempt  to  open  the  Horse 
Shoe  Bend  in  1836.  I  could  take  a  couple  hundred  of 
hands  and  have  the  old  Father  of  Waters  flowing  across 
the  bend  at  Vicksburg  in  three  days.  Tell  those  who 
have  the  work  in  charge  to  cut  through  that  argillaceous 
stratum  they  have  come  to  (I  know  they  have  encountered 
it,  although  it  has  not  been  mentioned), —  cut  through  this 
until  they  reach  the  substratum  of  sand,  and  the  river 
will  go  through,  even  if  the  ditch  through  the  clay  is  not 
over  a  foot  in  width. 

The  Mississippi  "bottom"  is  formed,  first  of  sand,  next 
of  this  argillaceous  formation,  and  above, the  alluvium. 
In  some  places  I  have  seen  this  argillaceous  formation  not 
over  a  foot  thick,  and  it  may  be  so  at  Vicksburg  ;  and  it  is 
rarely  over  six  feet  in  thickness.  However,  cut  through  it, 


and  as  long  as  sand  possesses  its  natural  capillary  attrac- 
tion, nothing  under  heaven  can  stop  the  river  from 
going  through  the  cut,  as  the  sand  will  wash  out,  under- 
mining this  superstratum  of  stiff  clay  when  the  superin- 
cumbent alluvium  falls  with  it,  and  within  twenty-four 
hours  —mark  my  words  —  a  steamer  can  pass  through  the 
new  channel.  In  some  places  this  argillaceous  formaiion 
does  not  exist  at  all,  as  the  case  at  Bunches's  Bend, where 
the  bend  wasopened  in  the  morning  by  a  mere  ditch  and 
steamers  passed  through  by  night,  so  rapidly  did  the 
banks  wash  away. 

Yours,        JOHN  BANVARD. 

Mr.  Banvard's  letter  to  the  Editor  of  THE  CENTURY 
having  been  submitted  to  General  Fre'mont,  for  his 
comment,  he  wrote  as  follows : 

NEW  YORK,  September  28,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  .  .  .  The  plans  submitted  to  me 
by  Mr.  Banvard  were  carefully  examined  in  connection 
with  the  Mississippi  River  campaign  upon  which  \ve  had 
entered  agreeably  to  the  plan  submitted  by  me  to  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  under  date  of  September  8,  1861,  and,  in 
that  part  relating  to  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland 
rivers,  also  to  General  Sherman. 

My  letter  in  answer  to  Mr.  Banvard  shows  that  I  held 
his  plans  to  be  very  important.  They  were  directly  in  aid 
to  Admiral  Foote  and  the  gun-boat  work,  and  fitted  into 
the  part  I  had  assigned  to  General  Grant  in  the  plan  of 
campaign  I  had  submitted  to  the  President.  In  this  I 
had  proposed  that  "  General  Grant  should  take  posses- 
sion of  the  entire  Cairo  and  Fulton  railroad,  Piketon, 
New  Madrid,  and  the  shore  of  the  Mississippi  opposite 
Hickman  and  Columbus." 

It  was  in  this  connection  that  Mr.  Banvard's  plans 
became  immediately  useful. 

These  plans  are  not  now  in  my  possession.  In  obedience 
to  orders  from  the  War  Department,  directing  that  all 
papers  concerning  the  Western  Department  should  be 
delivered  immediately  to  General  Halleck,  they  were  at 
once  turned  over  to  him. 

There  was  no  opportunity  given  to  single  out  and 
return  to  their  rightful  owners  documents  properly  be- 
longing to  them. 

In  this  way  Mr.  Banvard's  papers  were  necessarily 
left  among  the  memoranda  of  the  proposed  campaign, 
and  could  not  have  failed  to  attract  attention  in  connec- 
tion with  the  work  of  (lie  gun-boats. 

Much  of  interest  might  be  said  in  connection  with 
this  subject.  But  to  avoid  delay  I  have  confined  my- 
self to  a  direct  reply  to  your  question  as  to  what  I 
"know  of  the  justice  of  Mr.  Banvard's  claim  to  the 
origination  of  the  canal  at  Island  No.  10." 

With  my  knowledge  of  the  above  facts,  and  the  impres- 
sion remaining  on  mv  mind,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  I  believe  Mr.  Banvard's  claim  to  be  abso- 
lutely just.  Yours  truly, 

J.  C.  FREMONT. 

To  the  Editor  of  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 

Art   Education. 

THE  most  casual  education  in  art  will  enable  any 
intelligent  observer  to  recognize  the  wide  difference 
in  the  qualities  of  the  art  of  the  great  revival  of  the 
fourteenth  to  the  sixteenth  centuries  and  that  of  to-day, 
in  any  school,  and  of  any  form.  This  difference  is  not 
merely  one  of  motive  —  the  change  from  a  religious 
theme  to  every-day  incident  is  not  one  which  touches 
the  technical  side  of  art  at  all — nor  is  it  any  more  in  any 
natural  gifts  in  the  painter  of  the  Renaissance  not  now 
possessed;  not  even  in  profounder  religious  feeling, 
which  was  in  the  greatest  art  period  as  exceptional  as 
it  is  now,  and  which  was  never  so  potent  over  the  art 
of  the  great  technicists  like  Michael  Angelo,  Veronese, 
Titian,  and  Correggio  as  in  that  of  the  weaker  men  like 
Fra  Angelico  and  the  Mystics.  The  ascetic  spirit  char- 
acteristic of  ecclesiastical  art  has  always  been  adverse 
to  the  highest  development  of  art,  which  only  reached 
its  climax  under  the  freedom  induced  by  a  recognition 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


797 


of  the  value  of  pagan  liberty.  But  while  music  has 
steadily  developed  its  resources,  increased  its  range 
and  power,  retaining  and  deepening  its  hold  over  the 
human  mind,  painting  has  as  steadily  receded  into  a 
position  in  all  respects  inferior  as  art,  though  in  some 
directions  far  more  influential  as  the  guide  to  nature- 
study. 

The  exceptional  minds  of  the  great  Renaissance  are 
exceptional  still  —  for  a  Michael  Angelo  we  have  a 
Millet ;  for  a  Titian  we  have  a  Turner  ;  for  Giorgione, 
;i  Ko,M.tii;  for  Corregyio,  a  Reynolds  and  a  Gamsbor- 
ough,  inferior  in  no  respect  of  intellectual  power,  even 
in  some  cases  superior.  Yet  in  visiting  the  great  Euro- 
pean galleries  no  one  who  understands  the  technical 
merits  of  painting  or  sculpture  can  fail  to  be  impressed 
with  the  number  of  painters  there  represented  whose 
names  are  almost  unknown,  and  whose  positions  in  the 
great  schools  were  those  of  a  decided  and  neglected 
inferiority,  but  whose  work  shows  power  and  technical 
mastery  which  would  now  place  any  man  among  the 
first  of  contemporary  painters.  The  examples  which 
we  find  in  the  Italian  galleries  of  pictures  of  the  Vene- 
tian and  IJolognese  schools,  whose  painters  we  cannot 
determine  in  many  cases  and  in  many  others  only 
know  that  they  were  pupils  of  well-known  masters,  are 
sometimes  of  such  power  of  drawing  and  execution 
that  we  can  only  repeat,  "  There  were  giants  in  the 
earth  in  those  days."  The  most  powerful  painter  of 
our  day,  of  any  school,  when  measured  by  Velas- 
quez. Rubens,  Rembrandt,  Tintoret.  Veronese,  Titian, 
Raphael,  Michael  Angelo,  Correggio,  or,  coming  down 
in  the  scale,  even  with  the  Carracci  and  Guido  Reni, 
is  dwarfed  in  every  technical  attainment. 

Why  is  it  ?  It  is  not  from  intellectual  inferiority  —  men 
like  Delacroix,  Millet,  Rossetti,  Watts,  Burne-Jones, 
Leys,  Turner,  Israels  do  not  fall  below  the  average  of 
the  mental  power  of  any  of  the  greatest  schools.  Nor 
will  any  lack  of  moral  exaltation  explain  it,  for,  with  few 
exceptions,  the  great  painters  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries  were  not  moralists — still  less  purists. 
I  asked  Delacroix  one  day  wherein  lay  this  modern 
inferiority,  and  he  placed  it  in  the  want  of  executive 
ability,  and  prescribed  copying  the  great  masters  as  the 
remedy,  which  he  himself  had  tried,  but  with  what  suc- 
cess we  all  know ;  for  with  all  his  great  imagination 
and  gifts  he  fails  only  a  little  less  than  others,  and  his 
weakest  point,  in  his  best  period,  is  the  glibness  of  too 
facile  touch,  the  subtlety  of  which  is  in  no  relation  to  its 
facility.  Millet  and  Turner  alone  of  moderns  have  that 
invariable  command  of  form  which  makes  their  quick- 
est work  their  best,  or  at  least  never  inferior  ;  but  the 
great  Italians  were  equally  sure,  whether  working  with 
speed  or  at  leisure.  It  is  reserved  for  modern  art- 
charlatanry  to  simulate  with  grievous  painstaking  the 
appearance  of  rapidity.  And  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  that  the  great  masters,  except  in  a  few  cases 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  copied  as  a  means  of  study. 
Delacroix's  remedy  is  not  deep  enough,  for  it  will  not 
account  for  Titian,  Francia,  Da  Vinci. 

The  system  of  art  education  in  the  earliest  time 
seems  to  have  been  not  only  more  secure  but  far  more 
comprehensive  than  ours.  The  young  painters  went 
into  the  masters'  studios  at  the  age  of  from  seven  to  ten, 
an  age  at  which  we  now  put  children  to  study  who  de- 
sire to  make  a  profession  of  music;  and  the  need  is  as 
great  in  one  case  as  in  the  other,  for  the  flexibility  of 


hand — and,  what  is  more  important,  the  early  habit  of 
the  muscles  following  the  volition  without  laborious  or 
anxious  exertion  of  the  will  —  can  only  be  achieved  in 
one  case  and  in  the  other  by  the  training  begun  in  ex- 
treme youth.  Nor  was  this  all :  they  seem  to  have 
been  taught  modeling  or  drawing  indifferently,  archi- 
tecture, and  even  in  some  cases  literature  (Giotto  was 
set  by  his  master  at  Latin  at  once);  they  drew  for 
years  on  their  masters'  pictures,  traced,  painted  unim- 
portant parts,  worked  together  with  the  unfailing  effect 
of  mutually  brightening  their  intellects  ami  widening 
their  mental  range.  Art  was  to  them,  in  a  larger  or 
lesser  sense,  their  lives  and  their  education :  the  studio, 
followed  up  by  the  intellectual  association  with  the 
thinkers  and  poets  their  contemporaries,  was  their  uni- 
versity ;  and  what  we  know  of  their  lives  and  their 
works  goes  to  show  that  they  kept  abreast  of  their 
times,  and  that  their  larger  art  was  in  great  part  due  to 
their  wider  mental  development  through  the  only  educa- 
tor—  interchange  of  thought. 

What  chance  have  we  to  compete  with  men  who  were 
trained  in  such  a  school  ?  We  begin  late  and  pride 
ourselves  in  our  self-sufficiency  and  self-taught  blun- 
dering. Those  who  can,  contrive  to  get  a  few  les- 
sons, mostly  from  people  knowing  little  more  than 
themselves  —  not  in  the  philosophy  or  scope  of  art, 
but  in  the  use  of  pigments ;  at  most  a  year  or  two  in 
a  French  atelier,  where  the  Bohemian  may  easily  over- 
run and  choke  the  artist,  where  any  habits  except  those 
of  intellectual  activity  and  thought  are  acquired,  yet  a. 
certain  amount  of  chic,  and  are  stamped  with  the  image 
and  superscription  of  their  idol  and  exemplar  of 
the  day,  and  graduate  as  soon  as  they  get  a  picture  in 
the  Salon.  What  is  their  education  in  the  larger  sense  — 
how  many  of  them  know  the  contemporary  poets,  to 
say  nothing  of  Plato  and  the  older  ones  ?  — what  part 
could  they  take  in  the  intellectual  movement  of  their 
day  ?  Is  it  not,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  the  ma- 
jority of  them  care  only  for  the  qualities  which  catch 
the  eyes  of  the  buying  and  uneducated  public,  and  which 
content  them  to  the  end  of  their  art,  which  is  almost 
invariably  in  a  decline  towards  mere  mechanical  and 
exaggeratory  personal  qualities,  vagaries,  and  eccentric- 
ities, brilliant  execution,  finishing  in  glittering  or  mor- 
bid mannerisms  and  inane  repetitions  of  motives 
which  were  never  serious  and  are  often  utterly  frivo- 
lous ?  As  to  the  general  education,  the  larger  and  equal 
intellectual  development  which  we  dispense  with  in  no 
other  profession  and  in  very  few  trades,  there  is  not 
only  no  general  tendency  to  it,  but  in  a  majority  of 
cases  our  modern  men  pride  themselves  on  the  narrow- 
ness of  their  training,  and  consider  that  the  shallower 
they  are  found  the  broader  they  really  are.  Having  no 
knowledge  of  the  greater  principles  of  art,  they  plume 
themselves  on  notworkingafter  theories,  and  more  vig- 
orously claim  inspiration  the  less  they  are  capable  of 
using  their  brains,  as  if  art  were  a  jugglery  which  was 
the  better  the  less  thought  had  part  in  it. 

The  remedy  ?  Education.  Treat  art  as  we  treat  all 
other  human  occupations,  and  dismiss  the  idea  that 
a  profession  which  demanded  special  natural  qualifi- 
cation, the  most  arduous  training,  and  an  all-round  de- 
velopment in  its  best  days,  can  be  picked  up  like  tricks 
in  cards  in  these  times.  Training  of  the  hand  alone  is 
futile.  For  many  year's  I  believed  that  art  education 
was  to  be  looked  for  from  France  alone :  I  have  tried 


798 

the  schools  of  Paris  long  enough  to  see  that  the  sys- 
tem corrupts  and  makes  abortive  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  those  who  try  it.  Its  curriculum  is  too  nar- 
row for  the  intellectual  life  —  too  corrupt  for  the  moral. 
Few  men  survive  its  influences,  and  how  can  we 
entertain  the  idea  of  exposing  to  its  dangers  our 
daughters  who  now  must  learn  ? 

We  want  an  art  university  in  which  the  purely 
technical  facility  of  hand  and  eye,  which  must  be  at- 
tained in  youth,  and  generally  in  extreme  youth,  as  in 
music,  is  cared  for  as  the  specialty  of  the  course;  where 
the  intellectual  enlargement  shall  be  never  lost  sight  of; 
where  the  theory  of  art,  its  science,  its  history,  all  that 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


any  protecting  greatness  makes  it  one-sided,  while  the 
help  of  associates  on  an  equal  footing  stimulates  a 
healthy  and  symmetrical  growth.  I  would  not,  there- 
fore, put  a  great  painter  at  the  head  of  the  university, 
but  rather  a  good  drawing-master,  without  great  indi- 
viduality, for  the  drawing ;  a  good  modeler  fur  the 
school  of  sculpture;  and  a  sound  and  careful  painter, 
not  a  genius  or  a  brilliant  specialist,  for  the  instruction 
in  painting — leavingevery  student  free,  after  acquiring 
a  safe  and  correct  style,  in  his  or  her  branch,  to  go  on 
and  modify  that,  and  to  evolve  from  it  the  style  or  man- 
ner which  suits  his  or  her  social  character.  Then  a 
supervising  faculty  of  teachers  for  general  intellectual 


is  known  of  its  spirit  and  manipulation,  must  be  care-     training  should  hold  I  the  reins  of  the  collective  gov- 


fully  studied  and  appropriated,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
general  influence  of  the  literary  life  in  its  subjective 
aspect  —  philosophy,  poetry,  history,  all  that  widens 
and  deepens  the  character  and  gives  it  dignity  and 
that  purpose  which  is  one  of  the  most  important  ele- 


.nment. 

school  organized  on  such  a  plan  would  certainly 
ive  at  the  highest  results  our  material  permits  and 
would  not  be  subject  to  the  fate  of  all  the  great  schools 
hitherto — the  overshadowing    influence   of  a   great 


ments  of  morality.    The  deeper  in  the  character  art  is     master,  who  absorbs  by  his  magnetic  attractions  all  the 


rooted,  and  the  wider  the  range  of  its  roots  in  their 
reach  for  sustenance  and  support,  the  greater  and  more 
durable  its  fruits.  The  purely  scientific  studies  I  do 
not  believe  to  be  necessary  to  the  artist.  Art  has  to 
deal  with  the  subjective  side  of  nature,  science  with  its 
objective.  The  former  sees  only  what  the  heart  wishes 


artistic  life  of  his  followers  and  reduces  them  to  an 
assimilated  school  of  imitators,  pursuing  a  vein  of  art 
which  is  not  their  own.  If  any  future  is  to  be  found 
for  American  art  as  opposed  to  the  characterless  repeti- 
tion of  foreign  thought,  I  am  convinced  that  it  must  be 
got  at  through  this  path,  followed  unflinchingly  and  as 


to  see,  the  latter  determines  to  see  and  know  all  that  is"  [long  as  need  be.     Such   a  school  should   be   estab- 
and  every  phase  of  it.    The  highest  use  of  any  created!  lished  far  away  from  the  social  attractions  and  distrac- 
thing  to  the  one  is  its  beauty ;  to  the  other,  its  function ; 
and  these  have  nothing  in  common  so  far  as  art  is  con- 


tions  of  a  great  city,  and  if  possible  under  the  shadow 
of  a  literary  university,  where  the  lectures,  library,  and 
cerned.  Pure  science,  even  geology  and  anatomy,  I  ,  general  intellectual  tone  of  life  may  aid  in  strength- 
believe  to  have  a  hardening  and  blinding  tendency  on  ening  and  keeping  up  the  purpose  of  life  and  activity, 
the  artistic  perceptions.  All  other  branches  of  mental  and  where  the  true  purpose  of  education  shall  not  be 
culture  have  their  place  in  our  university  course,  and  interfered  with  by  the  premature  rushing  into  notori- 
even  the  positive  sciences  in  their  moral  and  greater  in-  1  ety,  and  where  the  plaudits  of  an  ignorant  public 
tellectual  relations  as  part  of  its  supreme  philosophy,  j  shall  not  seduce  the  young  artist  from  the  grave  and 
though  not  as  special  study.  laborious  pursuit  of  excellence  founded  on  the  bnsis 

I  believe  too  that  the  importance  of  masters  is  greatljy  of  a  complete  and  general  education.  The  people  who 
overrated.  To  catch  little  tricks  of  execution,  methods  hope  to  become  artists  with  a  dozen  lessons  in  oils 
which  shall  enable  us  to  begin  sooner  the  manufacture  or  water  color,  who  want  to  learn  to  paint  before  they 
of  pictures,  the  lessons  of  men  who  have  already  devel- 
oped convenient  and  expensive  conventionalisms  may 
be  very  useful ;  and  for  the  learning  to  draw  correctly, 
an  experienced  eye  and  a  trained  example  certainly  ren- 
der great  services,  which  may  be,  however,  exagger- 
ated, as  may  all  employment  of  methods  originated  by 
others.  The  true  style  and  method  for  any  painter  are 
those  which  his  own  thought  and  mental  conformation 
evolve,  and  the  acquirement  of  any  other  is  only  the 
retarding  of  the  full  use  of  his  proper  language.  There 
are  no  longer  any  secrets  of  the  studio,  to  be  acquired 
only  of  specialists.  Hard  work  and  straightforward 
use  of  our  common  materials,  as  they  have  always 
sufficed  for  the  great  painters  who  originated  the  great 
schools,  so  they  will  suffice  for  us.  I  believe  that  there 
is  more  virtue  in  the  association  of  a  number  of  sympa- 
thetic and  purposeful  students  determined  to  learn,  and 
profiting  by  the  common  stock  of  their  knowledge  and 
experience, — helping, criticising,  and  encouraging  each 
other, —  than  in  the  teaching  of  the  cleverest  master  liv- 
ing; while  a  merely  clever  master  offers  the  greatest 
of  dangers  —  that  of  injuring  or  absorbing  the  individ- 
uality of  his  pupil  without  imparting  any  compensat- 
ing force.  Theindividualityofthearlist  is  the  most  deli- 
cate of  all  intellectual  growths,  and  can  only  be  perfectly 
developed  in  a  free  all-round  light :  the  shadow  of 


know  how  to  draw,  whose  ambition  rests  on  chair- 
backs,  crewel-work,  and  the  hundred  and  one  forms 
of  amateur  art  which  flood  the  country  to-day,  will 
not  profit  by  our  university,  nor  will  they  to  whom  art 
is  but  a  minister  to  their  vanity;  but  every  one  to  whom 
art  is  a  serious  thing,  something  worth  giving  one's 
life  to  in  unfaltering  endeavor,  will  find  my  scheme 
more  or  less  accordant  to  his  or  her  aspirations. 

W.  J.  Stillman. 
College   Fraternities. 

OTHERS  can  give  a  more  accurate  opinion  than  I 
upon  college  fraternities  elsewhere;  but  so  far  as  Am- 
herst  is  concerned,  there  can  be  only  a  favorable  judg- 
ment concerning  them  by  any  one  well  informed. 
Without  a  doubt  they  exercise  here  a  wholesome  en- 
ergy, both  upon  their  individual  members  and  upon 
the  college.  Combination  is  strength,  whether  with 
young  men  or  old;  and  where  men  combine  for  good 
ends  better  results  may,  of  course,  be  looked  for 
than  where  the  same  ends  are  sought  by  individuals 
alone. 

Now  the  aim  of  these  societies  is  certainly  good. 
They  are  not  formed  for  pleasure  simply,  though  they 
are  one  of  the  most  fruitful  sources  of  pleasure  in  a 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


799 


student's  college  life.  Their  first  aim  is  the  improve- 
ment of  their  members  —  improvement  in  literary  cult- 
ure and  in  manly  character.  They  are  all  of  them 
literary  societies.  An  effort  was  made  not  long  since 
to  introduce  among  us  a  new  society,  with  prominently 
social  rather  than  literary  aims ;  hut  it  not  only  failed 
to  receive  the  requisite  assent  of  the  president  of  the 
college,  but  was  not  favored  by  any  considerable 
number  of  the  students,  many  of  whom  stoutly 
opposed  it. 

One  of  the  happiest  features  of  society  life  at  Am- 
hcrst  is  connected  with  the  chapter-houses.  There 
are  no  better  residences  in  the  villages  than  these,  and 
none  are  better  kept.  They  are  not  extravagant,  but 
they  are  neat  and  tasteful;  they  have  pleasant  grounds 
surrounding  them,  the  cost  of  rooms  in  them  is  not 
greater  than  the  average  cost  in  other  houses,  and  they 
not  only  furnish  the  students  occupying  them  a  pleas- 
ant home,  but  the  care  of  the  home  and  its  surround- 
ings is  itself  a  culture. 

There  need  be  no  objection  to  these  societies  on  ac- 
count of  their  secrecy.  The  secrecy  is  largely  in  name ; 
is,  in  fact,  little  more  than  the  privacy  proper  to  the 
most  familiar  intercourse  of  families  and  friends. 
Treated  as  the  societies  are  among  us,  and  occupying 
the  ground  they  do,  no  mischief  comes  from  their  se- 
crecy. Instead  of  promoting  cliques  and  cabals,  in  point 
of  fact  we  find  less  of  these  than  the  history  of  the 
college  shows  before  the  societies  came.  The  rivalry 
between  them  is  a  healthy  one,  and  is  conducted 
openly  and  in  a  manly  way. 

The  societies  must  give  back  to  the  college  the  tone 
they  have  first  received.  I  am  persuaded  that  in  any 
college  where  the  prevailing  life  is  true  and  earnest 
the  societies  fed  by  its  fountain  will  send  back  bright 


and  quickening  streams.   They  certainly  give  gladness 
and  refreshment  to  our  whole  college  life  at  Amherst. 

AMHERST  COLLEGE,  June,  i«88.  Julius  If.  Seelyt. 

Notem  on  "  We-unt  "  and  "  You-uns." 

IN  THK  CF.NTCRY  for  July  I  notice  an  article  from 
the  pen  of  L.  C.  Catlett  of  Virginia,  denying  that  the 
people  of  his  State  ever  made  use  of  the  expressions 
"  we-uns  "  or  "  you-u 

During  the  years  1862  and  1865  I  heard  these  ex- 
.ns  used  in  almost  every  section. 

At  the  surrender  of  General  Lee's  army,  the  Fifth 
Corps  was  designated  by  General  Grant  to  receive 
the  arms,  flags,  etc.,  and  we  were  the  last  of  the  army 
to  fall  back  to  Petersburg,  as  our  regiment  (the  6th 
Pennsylvania  Cavalry)  was  detailed  to  act  as  provost- 
guard  in  Appon.attox  Court-House. 

As  we  were  passing  one  of  the  houses  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town,  a  woman  who  was  standing  at  the 
gate  made  use  of  the  following  expression  : 

"  It  is  no  wonder  you-uns  whipped  we-nns.  I  have 
been  yer  three  days,  and  you-nns  ain't  all  gone  yet." 


QUAKERTOWX,  PA. 


George  S.  Scypes. 


IF  Mr.  Catlett  will  come  to  Georgia  and  go  among 
the  "  po"  whites  "  and  "  pincy-wood  lackeys,"  he 
will  hear  the  terms  "  we-nns  "  and  "  you-uns  "  in 
every -day  use.  I  have  heard  them,  too,  in  the  Cumber- 
land Valley  and  other  parts  of  Tennessee,  and,  unless 
my  memory  fails  me,  in  South  Carolina.  Also,  two 
somewhat  similar  corruptions,  namely, "  your-all  "  and 
"  our-all,"  implying  possession ;  as,  "  Your-all's  house 
is  better  than  our-all's." 

ACGUSTA,  GEORGIA.  Val.    W.  Starnet. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


His  Mother. 


SHE  thought  about  him  days  and  nights, — 
Her  only  son, —  her  sleep  oft  losing; 
She  viewed  him  in  so  many  lights 

The  mingled  beams  became  confusing. 
His  budding  powers  each  hoar  enhanced 

The  fears,  her  heart  forever  paining, 
Lest  on  mistaken  lines  advanced 
His  mental  and  his  moral  training. 

With  prescience  of  his  growing  need. 
She  pored  o'er  every  scheme  presented, 

And  tried,  in  teaching  him  to  read, 
Seven  several  systems  late  invented. 

Each  game  he  learned  was  but  a  veil 
-  For  information's  introduction ; 

Each  seeming-simple  fairv-tale 
She  barbed  with  ethical  instruction. 

And  oft  she  said,  her  dear  brown  eyes 

With  tender  terror  wide-expanded, 
"  Oh,  I  must  strive  to  grow  more  wise  ! 

Think,  think,  what  care  is  here  demanded! 
How  dreadful,  should  my  teaching's  flaws, 

My  unguessed  errors  subtly  harm  him, 
•rtnne's  arrows  wound  because 

His  mother  failed  in  proof  to  arm  him  :  " 


And  yet,  when  that  yonng  boy, —  whose  look 

Was  like  some  fair  boy-prince,  as  painted 
By  rare  Vandyke, —  his  soul  a  book 

By  blot  of  falsehood  quite  untainted, 
Inquired,  "  Mamma,  what  's  veal  ?  "  with  mild 

Untroubled  smile,  in  accents  clearest, 
She  told  that  little,  trusting  child, 

"  The  woolly,  baby  sheep,  my  dearest !  " 

Helen  Gray  Cone. 


Uncle  Esck's  Wisdom. 

MY  friend,  if  yon  are  happy,  don't  try  to  prove  it. 

THE  man  who  deserves  a  monument  never  needs 
one,  while  the  man  who  needs  one  never  deserves  it 

HE  who  undertakes  to  live  by  his  wits  will  find  the 
best  chances  already  taken. 

WIT  inclines  naturally  towards  satire,  and  humor 
towards  pathos. 

MUCH  as  we  deplore  our  condition  in  life,  nothing 
would  make  us  more  satisfied  with  it  than  the  chang- 
ing of  places,  for  a  few  days,  with  our  neighbors. 


8oo 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


ALL  the  nations  of  the  earth  praise  liberty,  and  still 
they  seem  to  be  uneasy  until  they  lose  it. 

How  can  we  ask  others  to  think  as  we  do,  when  to- 
morrow we  probably  shall  think  differently  ourselves  ? 

WITH  all  her  natural  modesty,  woman  has  less  bash- 
fulness  than  man. 

JUSTICE  is  every  man's  due,  but  would  ruin  most 
people. 

OPINIONS  quite  often  are  a  mere  compromise  be- 
tween what  a  man  doesn't  know  and  what  he  guesses  at. 

THERE  is  nothing  that  has  been  praised  or  abused 
more  than  liberty. 

THOSE  who  live  to  be  a  century  old  are  generally 
most  remarkable  for  nothing  else. 

To  be  a  successful  fool,  a  man  must  be  more  wise 
than  foolish. 

Uncle  Esek. 

A  Confession. 

Do  you  remember,  little  wife, 
How  years  ago  we  two  together 

Saw  naught  but  love  illumine  life 
In  sunny  days  or  winter  weather  ? 

Do  you  recall  in  younger  years 

To  part  a  day  was  bitter  pain  ? 
Love's  light  was  hid  in  clouds  of  tears 

Till  meeting  cleared  the  sky  again. 

Do  you  remember  how  we  two 

Would  stare  into  each  other's  eyes, 

Till  all  the  earth  grew  heavenly  blue 
And  speech  was  lost  in  happy  sighs  ? 

Do  you  another  thing  recall, 

That  used  to  happen  often  then  : 

How  simply  meeting  in  the  hall, 
We  'd  stop  to  smile  and  kiss  again  ? 

Do  you  remember  how  I  sat 

And,  reading,  held  your  hand  in  mine, 

Caressing  it  with  gentle  pat  — 
One  pat  for  every  blessed  line  ? 

Do  you  recall  how  at  the  play 

Through  hours  of  agony  we  tarried  ? 

The  lovers'  griefs  brought  us  dismay ; 

Oh !  we  rejoiced  when  they  were  married; 

And  then  walked  homeward  arm  in  arm, 
Beneath  the  crescent  moonlet  new, 

That  smiled  on  us  with  silent  charm  ; 
So  glad  that  we  were  married  too. 

Ah  me !   't  was  years  and  years  ago 
When  all  this  happened  that  I  sing, 

And  many  a  time  the  winter  snow 

Has  slipped  from  olive  slopes  of  spring. 

And  now  —  oh,  nonsense  !   let  us  tell ; 

A  fig  for  laugh  of  maids  or  men  ! 
You  '11  hide  your  blushes  ?    I  'II  not.    Well  — 

We  're  ten  times  worse  than  we  were  then. 

W.  J.  Henderson. 


A  Vis-a-Vis. 

ACROSS  the  street  I  look  and  see 

A  face  whose  graceful  outline 
Makes  my  poor  beating  heart  to  be 

A  trout  upon  love's  trout-line. 
The  gauzy  curtains  half  eclipse 

This  star  of  girlish  creatures, 
Yet  oft  I  catch  a  smile  that  slips 

In  ripples  o'er  her  features. 

And  through  my  window  oftentimes, 

While  I  alone  am  sitting, 
Lost  in  a  labyrinth  of  rhymes, 

I  find  a  sunbeam  flitting 
Across  the  sheet  whereon  I  write, 

Like  some  golden-haloed  spirit : 
And  though  her  face  is  out  of  sight, 

Her  soul,  I  know,  is  near  it. 

Her  presence  makes  the  laggard  ink 

Run  happily  to  greet  her  ; 
I  never  have  to  pause  to  think 

Of  proper  rhyme  or  meter ; 
If  "t  is  a  word  I  need,  one  glance 

At  her  fair  features  puts  it 
Upon  the  sheet  in  rhythmic  dance 

Where  Fancy  lightly  foots  it. 

0  charming  Vis-a-Vis  of  mine, 
Who  lighten  so  my  labors, 

1  would  that  you  might  draw  the  line 
And  make  us  nearer  neighbors. 

To  keep  my  simile :  the  fish 

Would  willingly  be  taken  ; 
The  tempting  bait  but  makes  him  wish 

To  leave  his  friends  forsaken. 

Again  across  the  street  I  look, 

Alas,  you  've  drawn  the  curtain, 
And  I  am  left  upon  the  hook 

Of  sentiment  uncertain; 
Compelled  to  leave  my  rhyme  and  live 

In  shadow  and  confusion, 
Until  once  more  you  come  to  give 

The  light  of  a  conclusion. 

Frank  Dempster  Sherman. 
To  a  Poet  in  "  Bric-a-Brac." 

WHEN  we,  the  ungifted  of  our  time, 
Who  dare  not  up  Parnassus  climb, 
And  cannot  even  make  a  rhyme 

"  With  pen  and  ink," 

Take  up  THE  CENTURY,  fresh  from  press, 
To  what  page  first — just'try  to  guess  — 
Turn  we  with  greatest  eagerness  ? 

What  do  you  think  ? 

Believe  me,  we  completely  slight 
The  poets  of  the  loftiest  flight, 
Whose  Pegasus  soars  out  of  sight 

Of  common  eyes : 
The  page  we  turn  to  is  the  last ; 
Its  themes  are  not  too  deep  and  vast ; 
Its  poets,  though  they  've  been  surpassed, 

Are  not  too  wise. 

So,  though  your  muse  is  never  seen 

"Within  the  solid  magazine," 

Though  on  your  prayer  for  loftier  theme 

She  turns  her  back, 
Grieve  not  —  more  honored  poets  yet 
May  haply  wish  their  verse  was  set 
Within  the  dainty  cabinet 

Of  Bric-a-Brac. 

Annie  D.  Hanks. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XXXVI. 


OCTOBER,  1888. 


No.  6 


[HERE  is  an  old  park  wall  which 
follows  the  highway  in  all  its 
turns  with  such  fidelity  of  curve 
that  for  some  two  miles  it  seems 
as  if  the  road  had  been  fitted  to 
the  wall.  Against  it  hawthorn 
bushes  have  grown  up  at  intervals,  and  in  the 
course  of  years  their  trunks  have  become 
almost  timber.  Ivy  has  risen  round  some  of 
these,  and,  connecting  them  with  the  wall,  gives 
them  at  a  distance  the  appearance  of  green 
bastions.  Large  stems  of  ivy,  too,  have  flat- 
tened themselves  upon  the  wall,  as  if  with 
arched  back  they  were  striving  like  athletes 


to  overthrow  it.  Mosses,  brown  in  summer, 
soft  green  in  winter,  cover  it  where  there  is 
shadow,  and  if  pulled  up  take  with  them  some 
of  the  substance  of  the  stone  or  mortar  like  a 
crust.  A  dry,  dusty  fern  may  perhaps  be  found 
now  and  then  on  the  low  bank  at  the  foot — a 
fern  that  would  rather  be  within  the  park  than 
thus  open  to  the  heated  south  with  the  wall 
reflecting  the  sunshine  behind.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  road,  over  the  thin  hedge,  there  is  a 
broad  plain  of  cornfields.  Coming  from  these 
the  laborers  have  found  out.  or  made,  notches  in 
the  wall;  so  that,  by  putting  the  iron-plated  toes 
of  their  boots  in,  and  holding  to  the  ivy,  they 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co.     All  rights  reserved. 


804 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


can  scale  it  and  shorten  their  long  trudge  home 
to  the  village.  In  the  spring  the  larks,  passing 
from  the  green  corn  to  the  pasture  within,  flut- 
tering over  with  gently  vibrating  wings  and 
singing  as  they  daintily  go,  sometimes  settle  on 
the  top.  There  too  the  yellow-hammers  stay. 
In  the  crevices  bluetits  build  deep  inside  pas- 
sages that  abruptly  turn,  and  baffle  egg-steal- 
ers.  Partridges  come  over  with  a  whir,  but  just 
clearing  the  top,  gliding  on  extended  wings, 
which  to  the  eye  look  like  a  slight  brown  cres- 
cent. The  wagoners  who  go  by  know  that  the 
great  hawthorn  bastions  are  favorite  resorts 
of  wood-pigeons  and  missel-thrushes.  The 
haws  are  ripe  in  autumn  and  the  ivy  berries 
in  spring,  so  that  the  bastions  yield  a  double 
crop.  A  mallow  the  mauve  petals  of  which 
even  the  dust  of  the  road  cannot  impair  flow- 
ers here  and  there  on  the  dry  bank  below, 
and  broad  moon-daisies  among  the  ripe 
and  almost  sapless  grass  of  midsummer. 

If  any  one  climbed  the  wall  from 
the  park  and  looked  across  at  the 
plain  of  cornfields  in  early  spring, 
everywhere  there  would  be  seen 
brown  dots  in  the  air  —  above  the 
first  slender  green 
blades;  above 
the  freshly  turned 


all  unable  to  set  forth  their  joy.  Swift  as  is 
the  vibration  of  their  throats,  they  cannot 
pour  the  notes  fast  enough  to  express  their 
eager  welcome.  As  a  shower  falls  from  the 
sky,  so  falls  the  song  of  the  larks.  There 
is  no  end  to  them:  they  are  everywhere;  over 
every  acre  away  across  the  plain  to  the  downs, 
and  up  on  the  highest  hill.  Every  crust  of 
English  bread  has  been  sung  over  at  its  birth 
in  the  green  blade  by  a  lark. 

If  one  looked  again  in  June,  the  clover  itself, 
a  treasure  of  beauty  and  sweetness,  would  be 
out,  and  the  south  wind  would  come  over  acres 
of  flower — acres  of  clover,  beans,  tares,  purple 
trifolium,  far-away  crimson  saintfoin  (bright- 
est of  all  on  the  hills),  scarlet  poppies,  pink 


TURTLK-DOVES     IN    STUBBLE. 


dark  furrows ; 
above  the  distant 
plow,  the  share  of  which, 
polished  like  a  silver  mirror  by  friction  with 
the  clods,  reflects  the  sunshine,  flashing  a 
heliograph  message  of  plenty  from  the  earth ; 
everywhere  brown  dots,  and  each  a  breath- 
ing creature — larks  ceaselessly  singing,  and 


convolvulus,  yellow  charlock,  and  green  wheat 
coming  into  ear.  In  August,  already  squares 
would  be  cut  into  the  wheat,  and  the  sheaves 
rising,  bound  about  the  middle,  hour-glass 
fashion;  some  breadths  of  wheat  yellow,  some 
golden-bronze;  beside  these,  white  barley  and 
oats,  and  beans  blackening.  Turtle-doves  would 
be  in  the  stubble,  for  they  love  to  be  near  the 
sheaves.  The  hills  after  or  during  rain  look 
green  and  near;  on  sunny  days,  a  far  and 
faint  blue.  Sometimes  the  sunset  is  caught 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


805 


in  the  haze  on  them  and  lingers  like  a  purple 
veil  about  the  ridges.  In  the  dusk  hares 
come  heedlessly  along;  the  elder-bushes 
gleam  white  with  creamy  petals  through  the 
night. 

Sparrows  and  partridges  alike  dust  them- 
selves in  the  white  dust,  an  inch  deep,  of  mid- 
summer, in  the  road  between  the  wall  and 
the  corn  —  a  pitiless  Sahara  road  to  traverse 
at  noonday  in  July,  when  the  air  is  still  and 
you  walk  in  a  hollow  way,  the  yellow  wheat 
on  one  side  and  the  wall  on  the  other.  There 
is  shade  in  the  park  within,  but  a  furnace  of 
sunlight  without —  weariness  to  the  eyes  and 
feet  from  glare  and  dust.  The  wall  winds  with 
the  highway  and  cannot  be  escaped.  It  goes 
up  the  slight  elevations  and  down  the  slopes ; 


it  has  become  settled  down  and  bound  with 
time.  But  presently  there  is  a  steeper  dip,  and 
at  the  bottom,  in  a  narrow  valley,  a  streamlet 
flows  out  from  the  wheat  into  the  park.  A 
spring  rises  at  the  foot  of  the  down  a  mile 
away,  and  the  channel  it  has  formed  winds 
across  the  plain.  It  is  narrow  and  shallow ; 
nothing  but  a  larger  furrow,  filled  in  winter  by 
the  rains  rushing  off  the  fields,  and  in  summer  a 
rill  scarce  half  an  inch  deep.  The  wheat  hides 
the  channel  completely,  and  as  the  wind  blows, 
the  tall  ears  bend  over  it.  At  the  edge  of  the 
bank  pink  convolvulus  twines  round  the  stalks 
and  the  green- flowered  buckwheat  gathers 
several  together.  The  sunlight  cannot  reach 
the  stream,  which  runs  in  shadow,  deep  down 
below  the  wheat  ears,  over  which  butterflies 


8o6 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


wander.  Forget-me-nots  flower  under  the 
banks;  grasses  lean  on  the  surface;  willow 
herbs,  tall  and  stiff,  stand  up;  but  out  from  the 
tangled  and  interlaced  fibers  the  water  flows 
as  clear  as  it  rose  by  the  hill.  There  is  a  culvert 
under  the  road,  and  on  the  opposite  side  the 
wall  admits  the  stream  by  an  arch  jealously 
guarded  by  bars.  In  this  valley  the  wall  is 
lower  and  thicker  and  less  covered  at  the  top 
with  ivy,  so  that  where  the  road  rises  over  the 


another  part  of  the  park  nearer  the  village, 
with  a  facade  visible  from  the  highway.  The 
old  manor-house  is  occupied  by  the  land- 
steward,  or,  as  he  prefers  to  be  called,  the 
deputy-forester,  who  is  also  the  oldest  and 
largest  tenant  on  the  estate.  It  is  he  who  rules 
the  park.  The  laborers  and  keepers  call  him 
the  "  squire." 

Now  the  old  squire's  favorite  resort  is  the 
window-seat  in  the  gun-room,  because  thence 


ROOKS     REPAIRING    A    NEST. 


culvert  you  can  see  into  the  park.  The  stream 
goes  rounding  away  through  the  sward,  bend- 
ing somewhat  to  the  right,  where  the  ground 
gradually  descends.  On  the  leftside,  at  some 
distance,  stands  a  row  of  full-grown  limes,  and 
through  these  there  is  a  glimpse  of  the  old 
manor-house.  It  is  called  the  old  house  be- 
cause the  requirements  of  modern  days  have 
rendered  it  unsuitable  for  an  establishment. 
A  much  larger  mansion  has  been  erected  in 


he  can  see  a  section  of  the  highway, 
which,  where  it  crosses  the  streamlet, 
comes  within  half  a  mile  of  the  house. 
There  the  hollow  and  the  lower  wall 
permit  any  one  at  this  window  to  ob- 
tain a  view  of  the  road  on  one  of  the 
sides  of  the  valley.  At  this  declivity  it 
almost  faces  the  house,  and  whether  the 
passers-by  are  going  to  the  market-town, 
or  returning  to  the  village,  they  cannot 
escape  observation.  If  they  come  from 
the  town,  the  steep  descent  compels  them 
Hi  to  walk  their  horses  down  it ;  if  from 
the  village,  they  have  a  hard  pull  up.  So 
the  oaken  window-seat  in  the  gun-room 
is  as  polished  and  smooth  as  an  old  saddle ; 
for  if  the  squire  is  indoors,  he  is  certain  to  be 
there.  He  often  rests  there  after  half  an 
hour's  work  on  one  or  other  of  the  guns 
in  the  rack;  for,  though  he  seldom  uses 
but  one,  he  likes  to  take  the  locks  to  pieces 
upon  a  little  bench  which  he  has  fitted  up,  and 
where  he  has  a  vise,  tools,  a  cartridge-loading 
apparatus,  and  so  forth,  from  which  the  room 
acquired  its  name.  With  the  naked  eye,  how- 


AN  ENGLISH   DJ-.I-.R-J'ARK. 


807 


ever,  as  the  road  is  half  a  mile  distant,  it  is 
not  possible  to  distinguish  persons,  except  in 
cases  of  very  pronounced  individuality.  Nev- 
ertheless old  "  Ettles,"  the  keeper,  always  de- 
clared that  he  could  see  a  hare  run  up  the 
down  from  the  park,  say  a  mile  and  a  half. 
This  may  be  true;  but  in  the  gun-room  there  is 
a  field-glass,  said  to  have  been  used  at  the  siege 
of  Seringapatam,  which  the  squire  can  bring 
to  bear  upon  the  road  in  an  instant,  for  from 
constant  use  at  the  same  focus  there  is  a  rim 
round  the  tarnished  brass.  No  time,  therefore, 
need  be  lost  in  trials ;  it  can  be  drawn  out  to 
the  well-known  mark  at  once.  The  window 
itself  is  large,  but  there  is  a  casement  in  it, — 
a  lesser  window, —  which  can  be  thrown  open 
with  a  mere  twist  of  the  thumb  on  the  button, 
and  as  it  swings  open  it  catches  itself  on  a 
hasp.  Then  the  field-glass  examines  the  dis- 
tant wayfarer. 

When  people  have  dwelt  for  generations  in 
one  place  they  come  to  know  the  history  of 
their  immediate  world.  There  was  not  a  wag- 
on that  went  by  without  a  meaning  to  the 
squire.  One  perhaps  brought  a  load  of  wool 
from  the  downs :  it  was  old  Hobbes's,  whose 
affairs  he  had  known  these  forty  years.  An- 
other, with  wheat,  was  Lambourne's  team  :  he 
lost  heavily  in  1879,  the  wet  year.  The  family 
and  business  concerns  of  every  man  of  any 
substance  were  as  well  known  to  the  squire  as 
if  they  had  been  written  in  a  chronicle.  So, 
too,  he  knew  the  family  tendency,  as  it  were, 
of  the  cottagers.  So  and  So's  lads  were  always 
tall,  another's  girls  always  tidy.  If  you  employed 
a  member  of  this  family,  you  were  sure  to  be 
well  served;  if  of  another,  you  were  sure  to 
be  cheated  in  some  way.  Men  vary  like  trees : 
an  ash  sapling  is  always  straight,  the  bough  of 
an  oak  crooked,  a  fir  full  of  knots.  A  man, 
said  the  squire,  should  be  straight  like  a  gun. 
This  section  of  the  highway  gave  him  the 
daily  news  of  the  village  as  the  daily  papers 
give  us  the  news  of  the  world.  About  two 
hundred  yards  from  the  window  the  row  of 
limes  began,  each  tree  as  tall  and  large  as  an 
elm,  having  grown  to  its  full  natural  size. 
The  last  of  the  row  came  very  near  obstruct- 
ing the  squire's  line  of  sight,  and  it  once 
chanced  that  some  projecting  branches  by 
degrees  stretched  out  across  his  field  of  view. 
This  circumstance  caused  him  much  mental 
trouble ;  for,  having  all  his  life  consistently  op- 
posed any  thinning  out  or  trimming  of  trees, 
he  did  not  care  to  issue  an  order  which  would 
almost  confess  a  mistake.  Besides  which,  why 
only  these  particular  branches?  —  the  object 
would  be  so  apparent.  The  squire,  while  con- 
versing with  Ettles,  twice,  as  if  unconsciously, 
directed  his  steps  beneath  these  limes,  and, 
striking  the  offending  boughs  with  his  stick,  re- 


marked that  they  grew  extremely  fast.  But 
the  keeper,  usually  so  keen  to  take  a  hint,  only- 
answered  that  the  lime  was  the  quickest  wood 
to  grow  of  which  he  knew.  In  his  heart  he 
enjoyed  the  squire's  difficulty.  Finally  the 
squire,  legalizing  his  foible  by  recognizing  it, 
fetched  a  ladder  and  a  hatchet,  and  chopped 
off  the  boughs  with  his  own  hands. 

It  was  from  the  gun-room  window  that 
the  squire  observed  the  change  of  the  seasons 
and  the  flow  of  time.  The  larger  view  he 
often  had  on  horseback  of  miles  of  country 
did  not  bring  it  home  to  him.  The  old  famil- 
iar trees,  the  sward,  the  birds,  these  told  him 
of  the  advancing  or  receding  sun.  As  he  re- 
clined in  the  corner  of  the  broad  window-seat, 
his  feet  up,  and  drowsy,  of  a  summer  afternoon, 
he  heard  the  languid  cawing  of  an  occasional 
rook,  for  rooks  are  idle  in  the  heated  hours 
of  the  day.  He  was  aware,  without  conscious 
observation,  of  the  swift,  straight  line  drawn 
across  the  sky  by  a  wood-pigeon.  The  pigeons 
were  continually  to  and  fro  the  cornfields 
outside  the  wall  to  the  south  and  the  woods 
to  the  north,  and  their  shortest  route  passed 
directly  over  the  limes.  To  the  limes  the 
bees  went  when  their  pale  yellow  flowers  ap- 
peared. Not  many  butterflies  floated  over  the 
short  sward,  which  was  fed  too  close  for  flow- 
ers. The  butterflies  went  to  the  old  garden, 
rising  over  the  high  wall  as  if  they  knew  be- 
forehand of  the  flowers  that  were  within. 
Under  the  sun  the  short  grass  dried  as  it  stood, 
and  with  the  sap  went  its  green.  There  came 
a  golden  tint  on  that  part  of  the  wheat-fields 
which  could  be  seen  over  the  road.  A  few  more 
days  —  how  few  they  seemed !  —  and  there 
was  a  spot  of  orange  on  the  beech  in  a  little 
copse  near  the  limes.  The  bucks  were  bellow- 
ing in  the  forest ;  as  the  leaves  turned  color 
their  loves  began  and  the  battles  for  the  fair. 
Again  a  few  days  and  the  snow  came,  and 
rendered  visible  the  slope  of  the  ground  in  the 
copse  between  the  trunks  of  the  trees:  the 
ground  there  was  at  other  times  indistinct  un- 
der brambles  and  withered  fern.  The  squire 
left  the  window  for  his  arm-chair  by  the  fire; 
but  if  presently,  as  often  happens  when  frost 
quickly  follows  a  snow-storm,  the  sun  shone 
out  and  a  beam  fell  on  the  wall,  he  would  get 
up  and  look  out.  Every  footstep  in  the  snow 
contained  a  shadow  cast  by  the  side,  and  the 
dazzling  white  above  and  the  dark  within 
produced  a  blue  tint.  Yonder  by  the  limes  the 
rabbits  ventured  out  for  a  stray  bunch  of  grass 
not  quite  covered  by  the  drift,  tired,  no  doubt, 
of  the  bitter  bark  of  the  ash-rods  that  they  had 
nibbled  in  the  night.  As  they  scampered,  each 
threw  up  a  white  cloud  of  snow-dust  behind 
him.  Yet  a  few  days  and  the  sward  grew 
greener.  The  pale  winter  hue,  departing  as  the 


8o8 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


spring  mist  came  trailing  over,  caught  for 
a  while  in  the  copse,  and,  lingering  there,  the 
ruddy  buds  and  twigs  of  the  limes  were  re- 
freshed. The  larks  rose  a  little  way  to  sing  in 
the  moist  air.  A  rook,  too,  perching  on  the  top 
of  a  low  tree,  attempted  other  notes  than  his 
monotonous  caw.  So  absorbed  was  he  in  his 
song  that  you  might  have  walked  under  him 
unnoticed.  He  uttered  four  or  five  distinct 
sounds  that  would  have  formed  a  chant, 
but  he  paused  between  each  as  if  uncertain 
of  his  throat.  Then,  as  the  sun  shone,  with  a 
long  drawn  "  ca-awk "  he  flew  to  find  his 
mate,  for  it  would  soon  be  time  to  repair  the 
nest  in  the  limes.  The  butterflies  came  again 
and  the  year  was  completed,  yet  it  seemed 
but  a  few  days  to  the  squire.  Perhaps  if  he 
lived  for  a  thousand  years,  after  a  while  he 
would  wonder  at  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
centuries  slipped  by. 

By  the  limes  there  was  a  hollow, —  the  little 
circular  copse  was  on  the  slope, —  and  jay  s  came 
to  it  as  they  worked  from  tree  to  tree  across 
the  park.  Their  screeching  often  echoed 
through  the  open  casement  of  the  gun-room. 
A  faint  mark  on  the  sward  trended  towards 
this  hollow ;  it  was  a  trail  made  by  the  squire, 
one  of  whose  favorite  strolls  was  in  this  direc- 
tion. This  summer  morning,  taking  his  gun, 
he  followed  the  trail  once  more. 

The  grass  was  longer  and  coarser  under 
the  shadow  of  the  limes,  and  upborne  on  the 
branches  were  numerous  little  sticks  which 
had  dropped  from  the  rookery  above.  Some- 
times there  was  an  overthrown  nest  like  a  sack 
of  twigs  turned  out  on  the  turf,  such  as  the 
hedgers  rake  together  after  fagoting.  Look- 
ing up  into  the  trees  on  a  summer's  day  not 
a  bird  could  be  seen,  till  suddenly  there  was 
a  quick  "jack-jack"  above,  as  a  daw  started 
from  his  hole  or  from  where  the  great  boughs 
joined  the  trunk.  The  squire's  path  went 
down  the  hollow  till  it  deepened  into  a  thinly 
wooded  coomb,  through  which  ran  the  stream- 
let coming  from  the  wheat-fields  underthe  road. 
As  the  coomb  opened,  the  squire  went  along 
a  hedge  near  but  not  quite  to  the  top.  Years 
ago  the  coomb  had  been  quarried  for  chalk, 
and  the  pits  were  only  partly  concealed  by 
the  bushes  :  the  yellow  spikes  of  wild  mignon- 
ette flourished  on  the  very  edge,  and  even  half 
way  down  the  precipices.  From  the  ledge 
above,  the  eye  could  see  into  these  and  into 
the  recesses  between  the  brushwood.  The 
squire's  son,  Mr.  Martin,  used  to  come  here 
with  his  rook-rifle,  for  he  could  always  get  a 
shot  at  a  rabbit  in  the  hollow.  They  could  not 
see  him  approach ;  and  the  ball,  if  it  missed,  did 
no  damage,  being  caught  as  in  a  bowl.  Rifles 
in  England,  even  when  their  range  is  but  a 
hundred  yards  or  so,  are  not  to  be  used  with- 


out caution.  Some  one  may  be  in  the  hedge 
nutting,  or  a  laborer  may  be  eating  his  lunch- 
eon in  the  shelter;  it  is  never  possible  to  tell 
who  may  be  behind  the  screen  of  brambles 
through  which  the  bullet  slips  so  easily.  Into 
these  hollows  Martin  could  shoot  with  safety. 
As  for  the  squire,  he  did  not  approve  of  rifles. 
He  adhered  to  his  double-barrel;  and  if  a  buck 
had  to  be  killed,  he  depended  on  his  smooth- 
bore to  carry  a  heavy  ball  forty  yards  with  fair 
accuracy.  The  fawns  were  knocked  over  with  a 
wire  cartridge  unless  Mr.  Martin  was  in  the 
way  —  he  liked  to  try  a  rifle.  Even  in  summer 
the  old  squire  generally  had  his  double-bar- 
rel with  him  —  perhaps  he  might  come  across 
a  weasel,  or  a  stoat,  or  a  crow.  That  was  his 
excuse ;  but  in  fact,  without  a  gun  the  woods 
lost  half  their  meaning  to  him.  With  it  he  could 
stand  and  watch  the  buck  grazing  in  the  glade, 
or  a  troop  of  fawns  —  sweet  little  creatures  — 
so  demurely  feeding  down  the  grassy  slope 
from  the  beeches.  Already  at  midsummer  the 
nuts  were  full  formed  on  the  beeches;  the 
green  figs,  too,  he  remembered  were  on  the  old 
fig-tree  trained  against  the  warm  garden  wall. 
The  horse-chestnuts  showed  the  little  green 
knobs  which  would  soon  enlarge  and  hang  all 
prickly,  like  the  spiked  balls  of  a  holy-water 
sprinkle,  such  as  was  once  used  in  the  wars. 
Of  old  the  folk,  having  no  books,  watched  every 
living  thing,  from  the  moss  to  the  oak,  from  the 
mouse  to  the  deer;  and  all  that  we  know  now 
of  animals  and  plants  is  really  founded  upon 
their  acute  and  patient  observation.  How 
many  years  it  took  even  to  find  out  a  good 
salad  may  be  seen  from  ancient  writings, 
wherein  half  the  plants  about  the  hedges  are 
recommended  as  salad  herbs:  dire  indeed 
would  be  our  consternation  if  we  had  to  eat 
them.  As  the  beech-nuts  appear,  and  the 
horse-chestnuts  enlarge,  and  the  fig  swells, 
the  apples  turn  red  and  become  visible  in  the 
leafy  branches  of  the  apple-trees.  Like  horses, 
deer  are  fond  of  apples,  and  in  former  times, 
when  deer-stealing  was  possible,  they  were 
often  decoyed  with  them. 

There  is  no  tree  so  much  of  the  forest  as  the 
beech.  On  the  verge  of  woods  the  oaks  are 
far  apart,  the  ashes  thin  ;  the  verge  is  like  a 
wilderness  and  scrubby,  so  that  the  forest 
does  not  seem  to  begin  till  you  have  pene- 
trated some  distance.  Under  the  beeches  the 
forest  begins  at  once.  They  stand  at  the  edge 
of  the  slope,  huge  round  boles  rising  from  the 
mossy  ground,  wide  fans  of  branches  —  a 
shadow  under  them,  a  greeny  darkness  be- 
yond. There  is  depth  there  —  depth  to  be 
explored,  depth  to  hide  in.  If  there  is  a  path, 
it  is  arched  over  like  a  tunnel  with  boughs;  you 
know  not  whither  it  goes.  The  fawns  are 
sweetest  in  the  sunlight,  moving  down  from 


AN  E.\\,1.ISII   DEER-PARK, 


809 


IN    THE    BEECH     WOODS. 


the  shadow;  the  doe  best  partly  in  shadow, 
partly  in  sun,  when  the  branch  of  a  tree  casts 
its  interlaced  work,  fine  as  Algerian  silver- 
work,  upon  the  back  ;  the  buck  best  when  he 
stands  among  the  fern,  alert,  yet  not  quite 
alarmed, —  for  he  knows  the  length  of  his  leap, 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  112. 


—  his  horns  up,  his  neck  high,  his  dark  eye 
bent  on  you,  and  every  sinew  strung  to  spring 
away.  One  spot  of  sunlight,  bright  and  white, 
falls  through  the  branches  upon  his  neck,  a 
fatal  place,  or  near  it :  a  guide,  that  bright  white 
spot,  to  the  deadly  bullet,  as  in  old  days  to  the 


8io 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


cross-bow  bolt.    It  was  needful  even  then  to 
be  careful  of  the  aim,  for  the  herd,  as  Shaks- 
pere  tells  us,  at  once  recognized  the  sound  of 
a  cross-bow  :  the  jar  of  the  string,  tight-strained 
to  the  notch  by  the  goafs-foot  lever,  the  slight 
whiz  of  the  missile,  were  enough  to  startle  them 
and  to  cause  the  rest  to  swerve  and  pass  out 
of  range.    Yet  the  cross-bow  was  quiet  indeed 
compared  with  the  gun  which  took  its  place. 
The  cross-bow  was  the  beginning  of  shooting 
proper,  as  we  now  understand  it ;  that  is,  of 
taking  an  aim  by  the  bringing  of  one  point 
into  a  line  with  another.    With  the  long-bow 
aim  indeed  was  taken,  but  quite  differently,  for 
if  the  arrow  were  kept  waiting  with  the  string 
drawn,  the  eye  and  the  hand  would  not  go  true 
together.    The  quicker  the  arrow  left  the  bow 
the  moment  that  it  was  full-drawn,  the  better  the 
result.    On  the  other  hand,  the  arblast  was  in 
no  haste,  but  was  adjusted  deliberately  —  so 
deliberately  that  it  gave  rise  to  a  proverb,  "  A 
fool's  bolt  is  soon  shot."    This  could  not  ap- 
ply to  the  long-bow,  with  which  the  arrow 
was  discharged  swiftly,  while  an  arblast  was 
slowly  brought  to  the  level  like  a  rifle.    As  it 
was  hard  to  draw  again,  that  added  strength 
to  the  saying ;  but  it  arose  from  the  deliberation 
with  which  a  good  cross-bowman  aimed.    To 
the  long-bow  the  cross-bow  was  the  express 
rifle.    The  express  delivers  its  bullet  accurately 
point-blank  —  the   bullet  flies  straight  to  its 
mark  up  to  a  certain  distance.    So  the  cross- 
bow bolt  flew  point-blank,  and  thus  its  appli- 
cation to  hunting  when  the  deer  were  really 
killed    for   their   venison.    The  hunter   stole 
through  the  fern,  or  crept  about  the  thickets, 
—  thickets  and  fern  exactly  like  those  here  to- 
day,— or  waited  Indian-like  in  ambush  behind 
an  oak  as  ths  herd  fed  that  way,  and,  choosing 
the  finest  buck,  aimed  his  bolt  so  as  either  to 
slay  at  once  or  to  break  the  fore-leg.    Like  the 
hare,  if  the  fore-leg  is  injured,  deer  cannot  pro- 
gress;   if  only  the  hind-quarter  is  hit,  there  i.; 
no  telling  how  far  they  may  go.    Therefore  the 
cross-bow,  as  enabling  the  hunter  to  choose  the 
exact  spot  where  his  bolt  should  strike,  became 
the  weapon  of  the  chase,  and  by  its  very  per- 
fection began  the  extermination  of  the  deer. 
Instead  of  the  hounds  and  the  noisy  hunt,  any 
man  who  could  use  the  cross-bow  could  kill  a. 
buck.    The  long-bow,  of  all  weapons,  requires 
the  most  practice,  and  practice  begun  in  early 
youth.    Some  of  the  extraordinary  feats  attrib- 
uted to  the  outlaws  in  the  woods  and  to  the 
archers  of  the  ancient  English  army  are  quite 
possible,  but  must  have  necessitated  the  con- 
stant use  of  a  bow  from  childhood,  so  that  it 
became  second  nature.    But  almost  any  man 
who  has  strength  to  set  a  cross-bow,  with  mode- 
rate practice,  and  any  idea  at  all  of  shooting, 
could  become  a  fairly  good  shot  with  it.   From 


the  cross-bow  to  a  gun  was  a  comparatively 
easy  step,  and  it  was  the  knowledge  of  the 
power  of  the  one  that  led  to  the  quick  intro- 
duction of  the  other.  For  gunpowder  was 
hardly  discovered  before  hand-guns  were 
thought  of,  and  no  discovery  ever  spread  so 
swiftly.  Then  the  arquebuse  swept  away  the 
old  English  chase. 

These  deer  exist  by  permission.  They  are 
protected  with  jealous  care ;  or  rather  they 
have  been  protected  so  long  that  by  custom 
they  have  grown  semi-consecrated,  and  it  is 
rare  for  any  one  to  think  of  touching  them. 
The  fawns  wander,  and  a  man,  if  he  choose, 
might  often  knock  one  over  with  his  ax  as  he 
comes  home  from  his  work.  The  deer  browse 
up  to  the  very  skirts  of  the  farm-house  below, 
sometimes  even  enter  the  rick-yard,  and  once 
now  and  then,  if  a  gate  be  left  open,  walk  in 
and  eat  the  pease  in  the  garden.  The  bucks 
are  still  a  little  wilder,  a  little  more  nervous 
for  their  liberty,  but  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
stalking  them  to  within  forty  or  fifty  yards. 
They  have  either  lost  their  original  delicacy 
of  scent,  or  else  do  not  respond  to  it,  as  the 
approach  of  a  man  does  not  alarm  them, 
else  it  would  be  necessary  to  study  the  wind; 
but  \  ou  may  get  thus  near  them  without  any 
thought  of  the  breeze  —  no  nearer ;  then  bound- 
ing twice  or  thrice,  lifting  himself  each  time 
as  high  as  the  fern,  the  buck  turns  half  towards 
you  to  see  whether  his  retreat  should  or  should 
not  be  continued. 

The  fawns  have  come  out  from  the  beeches, 
because  there  is  more  grass  on  the  slope  and 
in  the  hollow,  where  trees  are  few.  Under 
the  trees  in  the  forest  proper  there  is  little 
food  for  them.  Deer,  indeed,  seem  fonder 
of  half-open  places  than  of  the  wood  itself. 
Thickets,  with  fern  at  the  foct  and  spaces  of 
sward  between,  are  their  favorite  haunts. 
Heavily  timbered  land  and  impenetrable  un- 
derwood are  not  so  much  resorted  to.  'Ihe 
deer  here  like  to  get  away  from  the  retreats 
which  shelter  them,  to  wander  in  the  half- 
open  grounds  on  that  part  of  the  park  free  to 
them,  or  if  possible,  if  they  see  a  chance,  out 
into  the  fields.  Once  now  and  then  a  buck 
escapes,  and  is  found  eight  or  ttn  miles  away. 
If  the  pale  were  removed  how  quickly  the  deer 
would  leave  the  close  forest  which  in  imagina- 
tion is  so  associated  with  them!  It  is  not  their 
ideal.  They  would  rather  wander  over  the  hills 
and  along  the  river  valleys.  The  forest  is,  in- 
deed, and  always  would  be  their  cover,  and 
its  shadows  their  defense;  but  for  enjoyment 
they  would  of  choice  seek  the  sweet  herbage, 
which  does  not  flourish  where  the  roots  of 
trees  and  underwood  absorb  all  the  richness 
of  the  soil.  The  farther  the  trees  are  apart 
the  better  the  forest  pleases  them.  Those 


AN  ENGf.fSff  DEER-PARK. 


811 


J'f' 


AMONG    THE     OAKS. 


great  instinctive  migrations  of  wild  animals 
which  take  place  annually  in  America  are  not 
possible  in  England.  The  deer  here  cannot 
escape — solitary  individuals  getting  free  of 
course,  now  and  then;  they  cannot  move  in 
a  body,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  know  whether 
any  such  desire  remains  among  them.  So  far 
as  I  am  aware,  there  is  no  mention  of  such 
migrations  in  the  most  ancient  times  ;  but  the 
omission  proves  nothing,  for  before  the  Nor- 
mans, before  the  game  laws  and  parks  to- 
gether came  into  existence,  no  one  who  could 
write  thought  enough  of  the  deer  to  notice 
their  motions.  The  monks  were  engaged  in 
chronicling  the  inroads  of  the  pagans,  or  writ- 
ing chronologies  of  the  Roman  Empire,  On 
analogical  grounds  it  would  seem  quite  possi- 
ble that  in  their  original  state  the  English  deer 
did  move  from  part  to  part  of  the  country  with 
the  seasons.  Almost  all  the  birds,  the  only 


really  free  things  in  this  country  now,  move, 
even  those  that  do  not  quit  the  island ;  and 
why  not  the  deer  in  the  old  time  when  all  the 
woods  were  open  to  them  ?  England  is  not  a 
large  country,  but  there  are  considerable  dif- 
ferences in  the  climate  and  the  time  at  which 
vegetation  appears,  quite  sufficient  of  them- 
selves to  induce  animals  to  move  from  place 
to  place.  We  have  no  narrowing  buffalo  zone 
to  lament,  for  our  buffalo  zone  disappeared 
long  ago.  These  parks  and  woods  are  islets 
of  the  olden  time,  dotted  here  and  there  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  modern  agricultural  scenery. 
These  deer  and  their  ancestors  have  been  con- 
fined within  the  pale  for  hundreds  of  years,  and 
though  in  a  sense  free,  they  are  in  no  sense 
wild.  But  the  old  power  remains  still.  ^See  the 
buck  as  he  starts  away,  and  jumps  a't  every 
leap  as  high  as  the  fem.  He  would  give  the 
hounds  a  long  chase  yet. 


812 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


The  fern  is  fully  four  feet  tall,  hiding  a  boy 
entirely  and  only  showing  a  man's  head.  The 
deer  do  not  go  through  it  unless  startled  :  they 
prefer  to  follow  a  track  already  made,  one  of 
their  own  trails.  It  is  their  natural  cover,  and 
when  the  buckhounds  meet  near  London  the 
buck  often  takes  refuge  in  one  or  other  of  the 
fern-grown  commons  of  which  there  are  many 
on  the  southern  side.  But  fern  is  inimical  to 
grass,  and,  while  it  gives  them  cover,  occupies 
the  place  of  much  more  pleasant  herbage. 
As  their  range  is  limited,  though  they  have 
here  a  forest  of  some  extent  as  well  as  the 
park  to  roam  over,  they  cannot  always  obtain 
enough  in  winter.  In  frost,  when  the  grass  will 
not  grow,  or  when  snow  is  on  the  ground,  that 
which  they  can  find  is  supplemented  with  hay. 
They  are,  in  fact,  foddered  exactly  the  same  as 
cattle.  In  some  of  the  smaller  parks  they  are 
driven  into  inclosures  and  fed  altogether.  This 
is  not  the  case  here.  Perhaps  it  was  through 
the  foggers,  as  the  laborers  are  called  who  fod- 
der cattle  and  carry  out  the  hay  in  the  morning 
and  evening,  that  deer  poachers  of  old  discov- 
ered that  they  could  approach  the  deer  by  car- 
rying a  bundle  of  sweet-smelling  hay,  which 
overcame  the  scent  of  the  body  and  baffled 
the  buck's  keen  nostrils  till  the  thief  was  within 
shot.  The  foggers,  being  about  so  very  early  in 
the  morning, —  they  are  out  at  the  dawn, — 
have  found  out  a  good  many  game  secrets  in 
their  time.  If  the  deer  were  outside  the  forest 
at  any  hour  it  was  sure  to  be  when  the  dew 
was  on  the  grass,  and  thus  they  noticed  that 
with  the  hay  truss  on  their  heads  they  could 
walk  up  quite  close  occasionally.  Foggers 
know  all  the  game  on  the  places  where  they 
work:  there  is  not  a  hare  or  a  rabbit,  a  pheas- 
ant or  a  partridge,  whose  ways  are  not  plain  to 
them.  There  are  no  stories  now  of  stags  a 
century  old  (three  would  go  back  to  Queen 
Elizabeth) ;  they  have  gone,  like  other  tradi- 
tions of  the  forest,  before  steam  and  breech- 
loader. Deer  lore  is  all  but  extinct,  the  terms 
of  venery  known  but  to  a  few ;  few,  indeed, 
could  correctly  name  the  parts  of  a  buck  if  one 
were  sent  them.  The  deer  are  a  picture  only  — 
a  picture  that  lives  and  moves  and  is  beautiful 
to  look  at,  but  must  not  be  rudely  handled. 
Still,  they  linger  while  the  marten  has  disap- 
peared, the  pole-cat  is  practically  gone,  and  the 
badger  becoming  rare.  Itis  curious  that  the 
badger  has  lived  on  through  sufferance  for  three 
centuries.  Nearly  three  centuries  ago  a  chroni- 
cler observed  that  the  badger  would  have  been 
rooted  out  before  his  time  had  it  not  been  for 
the  parks.  There  was  no  great  store  of  badgers 
then  :  there  is  no  great  store  now.  Sketches 
remain  in  old  country-houses  of  the  chase  of 
the  marten:  you  see  the  hounds  all  yelping 
round  the  foot  of  a  tree,  the  marten  up  in  it, 


and  in  the  middle  of  the  hounds  the  huntsman 
in  topboots  and  breeches.  You  can  but  smile 
at  it.  To  Americans  it  must  forcibly  recall  the 
treeing  of  a  coon.  The  deer  need  keep  no 
watch,  there  are  no  wolves  to  pull  them  clown ; 
and  it  is  quite  probable  that  the  absence  of  any 
danger  of  that  kind  is  the  reason  of  their  tame- 
ness  even  more  than  the  fact  that  they  are 
not  chased  by  man.  Nothing  comes  creep- 
ing stealthily  through  the  fern,  or  hunts  them 
through  the  night.  They  can  slumber  in  peace. 
There  is  no  larger  beast  of  prey  than  a  stoat, 
or  a  stray  cat.  But  they  retain  their  dislike  of 
dogs,  a  dislike  shared  by  cattle,  as  if  they  too 
dimly  remembered  a  time  when  they  had  been 
hunted.  The  list  of  animals  still  living  within 
the  pale  and  still  wild  is  short  indeed.  Besides 
the  deer,  which  are  not  wild,  there  are  hares, 
rabbits,  squirrels,  two  kinds  of  rat, —  the  land 
and  the  water  rat. —  stoat,  weasel,  mole,  and 
mouse.  There  are  more  varieties  of  mouse  than 
of  any  other  animal :  these,  the  weakest  of  all, 
have  escaped  best,  though  exposed  to  so  many 
enemies.  A  few  foxes,  and  still  fewer  badgers, 
complete  the  list,  for  there  are  no  other  ani- 
mals here.  Modern  times  are  fatal  to  all  creat- 
ures of  prey,  whether  furred  or  feathered;  and 
so  even  the  owls  are  less  numerous,  both  in 
actual  numbers  and  in  variety  of  species,  than 
they  were  even  fifty  years  ago. 

But  the  forest  is  not  vacant.  It  is  indeed 
full  of  happy  life.  Every  hollow  tree — and 
there  are  many  hollow  trees  where  none  are 
felled  —  has  its  nest  of  starlings,  or  titmice, 
or  woodpeckers.  Woodpeckers  are  numerous, 
and  amusing  to  watch.  Wood-pigeons  and 
turtle-doves  abound,  the  former  in  hundreds 
nesting  here.  Rooks,  of  course,  and  jackdaws, 
—  daws  love  hollow  trees, — jays,  and  some 
magpies.  The  magpie  is  one  of  the  birds  which 
have  partly  disappeared  from  the  fields  of 
England.  There  are  broad  lands  where  not 
one  is  to  be  seen.  Once  looking  from  the 
road  at  two  in  a  field,  a  gentleman  who  was 
riding  by  stopped  his  horse  and  asked,  quite 
interested,  "  Are  those  magpies?"  I  replied 
that  they  were.  "  I  have  not  seen  any  since  I 
was  a  boy  till  now,"  he  said.  Magpies  are 
still  plentiful  in  some  places,  as  in  old  parks 
in  Somersetshire,  but  they  have  greatly  di- 
minished in  the  majority  of  instances.  There 
are  some  here,  and  many  jays.  These  are 
handsome  birds,  and  with  the  green  wood- 
peckers give  color  to  the  trees.  Night-jars  or 
fern-owls  fly  round  the  outskirts  and  through 
the  open  glades  in  the  summer  twilight.  These 
are  some  of  the  forest  birds.  The  rest  visit 
the  forest  or  live  in  it,  but  are  equally  common 
to  hedgerow  and  copse.  Woodpeckers,  jays, 
magpies,  owls,  night-jars,  are  all  distinctly 
forest  and  park  birds,  and  are  continually  with 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


813 


A     FOGGER. 


the  deer.  The  lesser  birds  are  the  happier 
that  there  are  fewer  hawks  and  crows.  The 
deer  are  not  torn  with  the  cruel  tooth  of 
hound  or  wolf,  nor  does  the  sharp  arrow  sting 
them.  It  is  a  little  piece  of  olden  England 
without  its  terror  and  bloodshed. 

The  fauns  fed  away  down  the  slope  and 
presently  into  one  of  the  broad  green  open  paths 


or  drives,  where  the  underwood  on  each  side 
is  lined  with  bramble  and  with  trailing  white 
rose,  which  loves  to  cling  to  bushes  scarcely 
higher  than  itself.  Their  runners  stretch  out  at 
the  edges  of  the  drive,  so  that  from  the  under- 
wood the  mound  of  green  falls  aslant  to  the 
sward.  This  gradual  descent  from  the  trees  and 
ash  to  the  bushes  of  hawthorn,  from  the  haw- 


814 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


thorn  to  the  bramble,  thence  to  the  rose  and        He  crossed  several  paths  leading  in  various 
the  grass,  gives  to  the  vista  of  the  broad  path    directions,  but  went  on,  gradually  descending 


a  soft,  graceful  aspect. 


till  the  gable  end  of  a  farm-house  became 


After  the  fawns  had  disappeared,  the  squire    visible  through  the  foliage.    The  old  red  tiles 
went  on  and  entered  under  the  beeches  from    were  but  a  few  yards  distant  from  the  boughs 


which  they  had  emerged.  He  had  not  gone 
far  before  he  struck  and  followed  a  path  which 
wound  between  the  beech  trunks  and  was 
entirely  arched  over  by  their  branches.  Squir- 
rels raced  away  at  the  sound  of  his  footsteps, 
darting  over  the  ground  and  up  the  stems  of 
the  trees  in  an  instant.  A  slight  rustling  now 
and  then  showed  that  a  rabbit  had  been 
startled.  Pheasants  ran  too,  but  noiselessly, 
and  pigeons  rose  from  the  boughs  above.  The 
wood-pigeons  rose  indeed,  but  they  were  not 
much  frightened  and  quickly  settled  again. 
So  little  shot  at,  they  felt  safe,  and  only  moved 
from  habit. 


BADGER    AND    SQUIRREL. 


of  the  last  beech,  and  there  was  nothing  be- 
tween the  house  and  the  forest  but  a  shallow 
trench  almost  filled  with  dead  brown  leaves 
and  edged  with  fern.  Out  from  that  trench, 
sometimes  stealthily  slipping  between  the  flat- 
tened fern-stalks,  came  a  weasel,  and,  running 
through  the  plantains  and  fringe-like  may- 
weed or  stray  pimpernel  which  covered  the 
neglected  ground,  made  for  the  straw-rick. 
Searching  about  for  mice,  he  was  certain  to 
come  across  a  hen's  egg  in  some  corner,  per- 
haps in  a  hay-crib,  which  the  cattle,  now  being 
in  the  meadow,  did  not  use.  Or  a  stronger 
stoat  crept  out  and  attacked  anything  that  he 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


8-5 


fancied.  Very  often  there  was  a  rabbit  sitting 
in  the  long  grass  which  grows  round  under 
an  old  hay-rick.  He  would  sit  still  and  let  any 
one  pass  who  did  not  know  of  his  presence,  but 
those  who  were  aware  used  to  give  the  grass 
a  kick  if  they  went  that  way,  when  he  would 
carry  his  white  tail  swiftly  round  the  corner 
of  the  rick.  In  winter  hares  came  nibbling 
at  everything  in  the  garden,  and  occasion- 
ally in  summer,  if  they  fancied  an  herb :  they 
would  have  spoiled  it  altogether  if  free  to  stay 
there  without  fear  of  some  one  suddenly  ap- 
pearing. 

Dogs  there  were  in  plenty,  but  all  chained, 
except  a  few  mere  puppies  which  practically 
lived  indoors.  It  was  not  safe  to  have  them 
loose  so  near  the  wood,  the  temptation  to  wan 
der  being  so  very  strong.  So  that,  though  there 
was  a  continual  barking  and  long,  mournful 
whines  for  liberty,  the  wild  creatures  came  in 
time  to  understand  that  there  was  little  danger, 
and  the  rabbit  actually  sat  under  the  hay- 
rick. 

Pheasants  mingled  with  the  fowls  and,  like 
the  fowls,  only  ran  aside  out  of  the  way  of 
people.  In  early  summer  there  were  tiny  par- 
tridge chicks  about,  which  rushed  under  the 
coop.  The  pheasants  sometimes  came  down 
to  the  kitchen  door,  so  greedy  were  they.  With 
the  dogs  and  ponies,  the  pheasants  and  rabbits, 
the  weasels  and  the  stoats,  and  the  ferrets  in 
their  hutches,  the  place  seemed  really  to  belong 
more  to  the  animals  than  to  the  tenant. 

The  forest  strayed  indoors.  Bucks'  horns, 
feathers  picked  up,  strange  birds  shot  and 
stuffed,  fossils  from  the  sand-pits,  coins  and 
pottery  from  the  line  of  the  ancient  Roman 
road,  all  the  odds  and  ends  of  the  forest,  were 
scattered  about  within.  To  the  yard  came  the 
cows,  which,  with  bells  about  their  necks,  wan- 
dered into  the  fern,  and  the  swine,  which 
searched  and  rooted  about  for  acorns  and 
beech-mast  in  autumn.  The  men  who  dug  in 
the  sand-pits  or  for  gravel  came  this  way  in  and 
out  to  their  labor,  and  so  did  those  who  split 
up  the  fallen  trunks  into  logs.  Now  and  then 
a  woodpecker  came  with  a  rush  up  from  the 
meadows,  where  he  had  been  visiting  the  hedge- 
rows, and  went  into  the  forest  with  a  yell  as  he 
entered  the  trees.  The  deer  fed  up  to  the  pre- 
cincts, and  at  intervals  a  buck  at  the  dawn  got 
into  the  garden.  But  the  flies  from  the  forest 
teased  and  terrified  the  horses,  which  would 
have  run  away  with  the  heavily  loaded  wagon 
behind  them  if  not  protected  with  finenetting  as 
if  in  armor.  They  did  runaway  sometimes  at 
harrow,  tearing  across  the  field  like  mad  things. 
You  could  not  keep  the  birds  out  of  the  gar- 
den, try  how  you  would.  They  had  most  of  the 
sowings  up.  The  blackbirds  pecked  every  ap- 
ple in  the  orchard.  How  the  dead  leaves  in 


autumn  came  whirling  in  thousands  through 
rick-yard  and  court  in  showers  upon  the  tiles  ! 
Nor  was  it  of  much  avail  to  sweep  them  away  ; 
they  were  there  again  to-morrow,  and  until 
the  wind  changed.  The  swallows  were  now 
very  busy  building;  there  were  not  many 
houses  for  them,  and  therefore  they  Hocked 
here.  Up  from  over  the  meadows  came  the 
breeze,  drawing  into  the  hollow  recesses  of  the 
forest  behind.  It  came  over  the  grass  and 
farther  away  over  corn  just  yellowing,  the 
shadows  of  the  clouds  racing  with  it  and  in- 
stantly lost  in  the  trees.  It  drew  through  the 
pillars  of  the  forest,  and  away  to  the  hills  be- 
yond. 

The  squire's  ale  was  duly  put  for  him,  the 
particular  gossip  he  liked  was  ready  for  him  ; 
and  having  taken  both,  he  looked  at  his  old 
watch  and  went  on.  His  path  now  led  for 
a  while  just  inside  the  pale,  which  here  divided 
the  forest  from  the  meadows.  In  the  olden 
time  it  would  have  been  made  of  oak,  for 
they  built  all  things  then  with  an  eye  to  en- 
durance; but  it  was  now  of  fir,  pitched,  sawn 
from  firs  thrown  in  the  copses.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  keeping  the  deer  in,  it  was  as  useful  as 
the  pale  of  oak.  Oak  is  not  so  plentiful  now- 
adays. The  high  spars  were  the  especial  vaunt- 
ing-places  of  the  little  brown  wrens  which 
perched  there  and  sang,  in  defiance  of  all  that 
the  forest  might  hold.  Rabbits  crept  under,  but 
the  hares  waited  till  evening  and  went  round 
by  the  gates.  Presently  the  path  turned  and  the 
squire  passed  a  pond  partly  dried  up,  from 
the  margin  of  which  several  pigeons  rose  up, 
clattering  their  wings.  They  are  fond  of  the 
neighborhood  of  water,  and  are  sure  to  be 
there  sometime  during  the  day.  The  path 
went  upwards,  but  the  ascent  was  scarcely 
perceptible  through  hazel  bushes,  which  be- 
came farther  apart  and  thinner  as  the  eleva- 
tion increased,  and  the  soil  was  less  rich. 
Some  hawthorn  bushes  succeeded,  and  from 
among  these  he  stepped  out  into  the  open 
park.  Nothing  could  be  seen  of  the  manor- 
house  here.  It  was  hidden  by  the  roll  of  the 
ground  and  the  groups  of  trees.  The  close 
sward  was  already  a  little  brown  —  the  tramp- 
ling of  hoofs  as  well  as  the  heat  causes  the 
brownish  hue  of  fed  sward,  as  if  it  were  bruised. 
He  went  out  into  the  park,  bearing  somewhat 
to  the  right  and  passing  many  hawthorns, 
round  the  trunks  of  which  the  grass  was  cut 
away  in  a  ring  by  the  hoofs  of  animals  seeking 
shadow.  Far  away  on  a  rising  knoll  a  herd  of 
deer  were  lying  under  some  elms.  In  front 
were  the  downs,  a  mile  or  so  distant;  to  the 
right,  meadows  and  cornfields,  towards  which 
he  went.  There  was  no  house  nor  any  habita- 
tion in  view  ;  in  the  early  part  of  the  year,  the 
lambing-time,  there  was  a  shepherd's  hut  on 


8i6 


AN  ENGLISH  DEER-PARK. 


wheels  in  the  fields,  but  it  had  been  drawn 
away. 

According  to  tradition,  there  is  no  forest  in 
England  in  which  a  king  has  not  hunted.  A 
king,  they  say,  hunted  here  in  the  old  days  of 
the  cross-bow;  but  happily  the  place  escaped 
notice  in  that  artificial  era  when  half  the 
parks  and  woods  were  spoiled  to  make  the 
engraver's  ideal  landscape  of  straight  vistas, 
broad  in  the  foreground  and  narrowing  up  to 
nothing.  Wide,  straight  roads  —  you  can  call 
them  nothing  else — were  cut  through  thefinest 
woods,  so  that  upon  looking  from  a  certain 
window,  or  standing  at  a  certain  spot  in  the 
grounds,  you  might  see  a  church  tower  at  the 
end  of  the  cutting.  In  some  parks  there  are 
half  a  dozen  such  honors  shown  to  you  as  a 
great  curiosity;  some  have  a  monument  or 
pillar  at  the  end.  These  hideous  disfigurements 
of  beautiful  scenery  should  surely  be  wiped 
out  in  our  day.  The  stiff,  straight  cutting 
could  soon  be  filled  up  by  planting,  and 
after  a  time  the  woods  would  resume  their 
natural  condition.  Many  common  highway 
roads  are  really  delightful,  winding  through 
trees  and  hedge-rows,  with  glimpses  of  hills 
and  distant  villages.  But  these  planned, 
straight  vistas,  radiating  from  a  central  spot 
as  if  done  with  ruler  and  pen,  at  once  destroy 
the  pleasant  illusion  of  primeval  forest.  You 
may  be  dreaming  under  the  oaks  of  the  chase 
or  of  Rosalind :  the  moment  you  enter  such 
a  vista  all  becomes  commonplace.  Happily 
this  park  escaped,  and  it  is  beautiful.  Our 
English  landscape  wants  no  gardening:  it 
cannot  be  gardened.  The  least  interference 
kills  it.  The  beauty  of  English  woodland  and 
country  is  in  its  detail.  There  is  nothing 
empty  and  unclothed.  If  the  clods  are  left  a 
little  while  undisturbed  in  the  fields,  weeds 
spring  up  and  wild-flowers  bloom  upon  them. 
Is  the  hedge  cut  and  trimmed,  lo !  the  blue- 
bells flower  the  more  and  a  yet  fresher  green 
buds  forth  upon  the  twigs.  Never  was  there 
a  garden  like  the  meadow :  there  is  not  an  inch 


of  the  meadow  in  early  summer  without  a 
flower.  Old  walls,  as  we  saw  just  now,  are  not 
left  without  a  fringe ;  on  the  top  of  the  hard- 
est brick  wall,  on  the  sapless  tiles,  on  slates, 
stonecrop  takes  hold  and  becomes  a  cush- 
ion of  yellow  bloom.  Nature  is  a  miniature 
painter  and  handles  a  delicate  brush,  the  tip  of 
which  touches  the  tiniest  spot  and  leaves  some- 
thing living.  The  park  has  indeed  its  larger 
lines,  its  broad  open  sweep,  and  gradual  slope, 
to  which  the  eye  accustomed  to  small  inclos- 
ures  requires  time  to  adjust  itself.  These  left 
to  themselves  are  beautiful;  they  are  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  which  is  always  true  to  itself 
and  needs  no  banks  nor  artificial  hollows. 
The  earth  is  right  and  the  tree  is  right :  trim 
either  and  all  is  wrong.  The  deer  will  not  fit 
to  them  then. 

The  squire  came  near  enough  to  the  corn- 
field to  see  that  the  wheat-ears  were  beginning 
to  turn  yellow  and  that  the  barley  had  the 
silky  appearance  caused  by  the  beard,  the 
delicate  lines  of  which  divide  the  light  and 
reflect  it  like  gossamer.  At  some  distance  a  man 
was  approaching;  he  saw  him,  and  sat  down 
on  the  grass  under  an  oak  to  await  the  coming 
of  Ettles  the  keeper.  Ettles  had  been  his 
rounds  and  had  visited  the  outlying  copses, 
which  are  the  especial  haunts  of  pheasants. 
Like  the  deer,  pheasants,  if  they  can,  will  get 
away  from  the  main  wood.  He  was  now  re- 
turning, and  the  squire,  well  knowing  that  he 
would  pass  this  way,  had  purposely  crossed  his 
path  to  meet  him.  The  dogs  ran  to  the  squire 
and  at  once  made  friends  with  him.  Ettles, 
whose  cheek  was  the  color  of  the  oak  apples 
in  spring,  was  more  respectful :  he  stood  till  the 
squire  motioned  him  to  sit  down.  The  dogs 
rolled  on  the  sward,  but,  though  in  the  shadow, 
they  could  not  extend  themselves  sufficiently 
nor  pant  fast  enough.  Yonder  the  breeze  that 
came  up  over  the  forest  on  its  way  to  the 
downs  drew  through  the  group  of  trees  on 
the  knoll,  cooling  the  deer  as  it  passed. 

Ricliai'il  Jefferies. 


A     MEXICAN     CAMPAIGN. 


BY    TH')\I\~    A.    JAXVIER,    AUTHOR    OF    THE    "  IVORY    BLACK       STORIES. 


IS     1  HKFK    TARTS.       PART    III. 


THE  STORMINC,  OF  CHAPULTEPEC. 

1H  EN  Pern,  a  few  days  later, 
had  recovered  his  compos- 
ure sufficiently  to  give  Rose 
a  circumstantial  account 
of  the  Churubusco  battle, 
that  very  hopeful  young 
person  took  her  usual 
cheerful  view  of  what  some 
people  might  have  considered  a  desperate  situ- 
ation. 

"  It  could  n't  have  been  better  if  we  'd 
planned  it  all  in  advance,"  she  said.  "  Even 
Van's  interruption  was  just  what  was  wanted, 
and  I  shall  tell  the  poor  boy  that  I  am  sorry 
I  scolded  him  so  for  it ;  I  will,  indeed. 

"  Don't  you  see,"  she  went  on,  for  Smith 
certainly  did  not  look  much  like  a  person  who 
saw  anything  of  an  encouraging  nature  any- 
where — "  don't  you  see  what  a  fix  she  's  got 
herself  into  by  saying  a  great  deal  more  than 
she  meant  to  ?  It 's  all  as  plain  as  possible. 
She  made  up  her  mind  sometime  ago,  just  as 
I  told  you,  that  she  would  fight  you  off,  be- 
cause she  was  afraid  she  would  fall  in  love 
with  you ;  which  meant  that  she  really  had 
begun  to  fall  in  love  with  you  and  did  n't  know 
it  —  or  that  she  knew  it  and  would  n't  tell 
herself  about  it.  You  can't  understand  that,  I 
suppose;  but  any  woman  can.  And  then  you 
succeeded  in  getting  her  off  that  way,  and  be- 
gan to  say  things  to  her ;  and  she  got  worried, 
and  scared,  and  lost  her  wits  a  little,  and  hit 
ever  so  much  harder  than  she  really  meant  to. 
She  never  would  have  brought  up  the  war 
again,  I  'm  sure,  if  she  had  n't  felt  herself  to 
be  in  a  corner  and  quite  desperate.  When  you 
suddenly  twisted  things  round  on  her  that 
way,  her  first  thought,  of  course,  was  to  tell 
you  that  she  didn't  hate  you  at  all.  And  then 
she  saw  that  that  would  n't  do,  for  it  would 
give  you  a  chance  to  go  right  ahead  and  ask 
her  if  she  loved  you.  And  then  she  thought 
things  over  and  came  to  the  conclusion, — 
you  must  always  remember  what  a  horrid  time 
she  had  with  that  dreadful  old  husband,  and 
how  firmly  she  has  made  up  her  mind  never 
to  marry  again, —  and  then,  I  say,  she  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  only  thing  to  do 
was  to  break  things  off  short,  and  have  done 
with  it.  So  she  said  that  she  hated  you." 

"  Well,  that  is  only  another  way  of  telling 
all  that  I  have  told  you,  Mrs.  Brown." 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 113. 


"It  is  not  what  you  told  at  all;  for  you 
told  it  as  though  you  thought  that  she  meant 
it,  and  I  know  that  she  did  n't.  She  only 
meant  to  mean  it,  that 's  all." 

"  Are  n't  we  dropping  into  metaphysics  a 
little  ?  "  Pern  asked,  drearily.  "  I  don't  see 
that  much  comfort  is  to  be  had  from  such  a 
finely  drawn  distinction  as  that  is.  Meaning  a 
thing,  and  meaning  to  mean  a  thing,  strike 
me  as  convertible  terms.  Don't  they  you  ?  " 

"  If  a  man  used  them,  I  suppose  they  would 
not  have  much  difference ;  but  when  a  woman 
uses  them,  they  have  all  the  difference  in  the 
world.  When  a  woman  really  means  a  thing, 
she  means  it  —  that  is,  of  course,  for  the  time 
being.  Naturally,  things  happen  sometimes 
to  make  her  change  her  mind.  But  when  she 
only  means  to  mean  a  thing,  she  does  not 
really,  in  the  depths  of  her  heart,  mean  it  at 
all.  She  only  thinks  that  she  ought  to,  you 
know.  And  in  the  case  of  Carmen,"  Rose  went 
on,  becoming  practical,  much  to  Pern's  re- 
lief,—  for  his  masculine  mind  very  imperfectly 
grasped  this  line  of  highly  abstract  feminine 
reasoning, — "  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  she  only 
said  she  hated  you  because  she  has  this  fool- 
ish notion  in  her  head  about  not  getting  mar- 
ried, and  was  ready  to  say  anything  at  the 
moment  that  would  stop  you  from  finding  out 
that  she  really  loves  you.  For  she  does  love 
you  now,  Mr.  Smith ;  and,  what  is  more,  she 
knows  it  herself." 

"  But  if  she  won't  admit  that  she  loves  me, 
and  if  she  continues  to  hold  me  off  in  this  way, 
I  don't  see  that  any  good  can  come  of  it.  It 
has  been  very  kind  of  you,  Mrs.  Brown,  to 
help  me  as  you  have  done,  and  to  be  so  sym- 
pathetic and  good  to  me,  and  I  am  as  grate- 
ful to  you  as  I  can  be.  But  I  think  that  I  '11 
give  up  now.  It  is  n't  fair,  you  know,  to  trouble 
her  any  more  when  it  is  so  clear  that  she  wants 
me  to  keep  away  from  her.  So  I  think  that 
to-morrow  I  '11  go  up  to  Guanajuato, —  it  was 
there  that  I  first  saw  her,  you  know, —  and  I 
—  I  should  like  to  go  once  more  to  the  Presa, 
where  we  had  our  first  walk  together.  And  then 
I  '11  go  on  north.  I  'd  be  rather  poor  com- 
pany, so  I  don't  mind  leaving  the  party.  And 
I  think  that  I  will  take  a  long  journey  some- 
where. I  've  been  wanting  for  some  time  to  go 
into  central  Africa :  it  must  be  a  very  inter- 
esting country,  from  what  I  've  read  about  it. 
And  if  I  should  happen  to  die  of  the  coast-fever, 
or  get  bowled  over  in  a  fight,  or  something  of 


8i8 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


that  sort,  you  know,  it  might  be  just  as  well. 
And  some  time  or  other  you  will  see  her  again, 
very  likely ;  and  then  you  '11  tell  her  that  I 
really  did  think  a  good  deal  of  her,  won't  you? 
And  if  she — " 

"  Mr.  Smith,"  said  Rose  with  severity,  "  you 
will  please  stop  right  there.  What  you  are  to 
do  to-morrow  is  not  to  go  to  Guanajuato,  and 
from  there  to  a  grave  in  central  Africa.  You 
are  going  with  the  rest  of  us  to  Chapultepec 
—  and  you  are  going  to  try  again  !" 

"  But  what  chance  will  I  have  to  try  again  ? 
You  don't  suppose  for  a  moment,  do  you,  that 
Carmen  will  be  of  the  party?  She  will  know 
that  I  will  be  with  the  rest  of  you,  or,  at  least, 
she  will  expect  me  to  be,  and  of  course  she  will 
stay  at  home." 

"  No,"  said  Rose,  decidedly ;  "  she  will  not 
stay  at  home.  During  the  past  few  days  she 
has  been  thinking  things  over  and  has  been 
very  miserable.  Violet  saw  her  yesterday,  and 
said  that  she  looked  wretchedly.  And  she 
said  that  Carmen  talked  to  her  for  nearly  two 
hours  about  the  way  we  live  at  home  and  about 
Violet's  own  life,  and  said  things  about  the 
impossibility  of  Mexicans  and  Americans  mar- 
rying, seemingly  to  give  Violet  a  chance  to  say 
how  happy  her  marriage  with  Mr.  Mauve  had 
been.  And  she  asked  if  it  was  n't  true  that  all 
the  Americans  wanted  to  make  war  again  on 
Mexico,  and  if  they  were  not  talking  about  it  all 
the  time  and  getting  ready  for  it,  and  seemed 
very  much  astonished  when  Violet  told  her 
that  the  majority  of  Americans  knew  very 
little  more  about  Mexico  than  that  there  was 
such  a  country  in  existence,  and  that  they  had 
no  more  notion  of  making  war  against  it  than 
of  making  war  against  the  moon.  And  what 
she  knows  now  about  the  happy  life  that 
Violet  has  led  after  being  married  to  an 
American,  together  with  what  she  herself  had 
been  thinking  about  the  probability  that  her 
own  dismal  marriage  was  n't  a  fair  sample  of 
married  life  at  all,  I  'm  sure  has  put  her  mind 
into  a  very  unsettled  state  all  around.  What 
you  must  do  now  is  to  finish  unsettling  it,  and 
then  settle  it  for  her  once  and  for  all.  She  cer- 
tainly will  give  you  the  chance.  I  think  that 
I  have  not  told  you  yet  that  she  told  Violet 
that  she  was  going  to  Chapultepec?" 

"  O  Mrs.  Brown  !  How  could  you  keep 
that  back  until  the  very  last  ?  " 

"  So  will  you  go  to  Chapultepec  too,  Mr. 
Smith;  or  do  you  still  insist  upon  central 
Africa  and  a  lonely  grave  ?  " 

THE  expedition  to  Chapultepec  was  in  the 
nature  of  a  farewell,  for  on  the  ensuing  day 
the  Americans  were  to  leave  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico for  their  visit  to  the  Carmine  hacienda  on 
Lake  Cuitzeo.  If  they  returned  to  the  capital 


it  would  be  only  for  a  night  on  their  way 
northward ;  and  there  was  a  possibility  that 
they  might  take  the  train  for  the  north  at 
Celaya,  and  so  not  return  to  the  capital  at  all. 
They  were  pretty  dismal  over  the  prospect 
of  home-going,  for  a  very  warm  love  of  Mex- 
ico had  taken  possession  of  all  their  hearts. 
Even  Mrs.  Gamboge,  while  firmly  of  the  opin- 
ion that  there  was  something  radically  wrong 
in  a  country  that  countenanced  hard  pillows 
and  employed  men  as  chambermaids,  admit- 
ted that  this  journey  into  Mexico  was  the 
pleasantest  journey  that  she  had  ever  made. 

And  they  all  were  very  grateful  to  the 
Mexican  friends  who  had  done  so  much  to 
make  their  stay  in  the  capital  delightful.  The 
several  interpreters  of  the  party  were  kept 
busy  that  afternoon,  as  they  walked  in  the 
beautiful  park  of  Chapultepec,  in  rendering 
into  Spanish  hearty  words  of  thanks,  and  into 
English  courteous  disclaimers  of  obligation 
conferred.  The  pleasure  had  been  all  on  their 
side,  said  their  Mexican  friends.  Nor  was  this 
interchange  of  international  amenities  ended 
when  they  passed  out  from  beneath  the  long, 
slanting  shadows  of  the  great  alniehuetes —  the 
moss-draped  trees  which  were  old  four  cen- 
turies ago,  before  ever  the  Spaniards  came 
into  the  land  —  and  slowly  walked  up  the 
winding  way  to  the  height  on  which  the  castle 
stands. 

Pern  had  been  shocked  when  he  first  saw 
Carmen's  face  that  afternoon.  The  lines 
were  drawn  as  though  with  illness,  and  she 
seemed  older  by  a  full  year  than  when  he  last 
had  seen  her.  He  saw,  too,  that  the  spring 
had  gone  out  of  her  step,  and  an  air  of  lan- 
guor hung  over  her  that  she  made  no  effort 
to  throw  off.  She  did  not  seek  to  evade 
him,  but  as  they  walked  together  she  man- 
aged always  to  keep  near  her  aunt;  and  her 
talk,  conforming  to  her  actions,  was  languid 
and  dull.  The  only  sign  of  good  hope  that  he 
could  perceive  was  that  gradually  a  little 
color  came  into  her  face  and  a  little  bright- 
ness into  her  eyes. 

As  they  went  up  the  terraced  road  to  the 
castle,  catching  lovely  glimpses  of  the  valley 
out  between  the  trees,  Pern  walked  slowly, 
that  they  might  drop  behind  the  rest  and  be 
alone.  Once  or  twice  he  stopped,  calling  her 
attention  to  the  view.  His  tactics  were  not 
successful;  for  as  soon  as  the  space  between 
themselves  and  the  others  became  appreciable 
she  hastened  her  steps,  and  the  chance  that 
he  thought  he  had  secured  was  lost.  Yet.  he 
marked  a  little  hesitancy  in  her  manner  each 
time  this  maneuver  was  executed  that  seemed 
to  imply  a  disposition  on  her  part,  possibly  all 
the  stronger  because  it  was  thus  checked,  to 
grant  him  the  opportunity  to  speak  that  he 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


819 


desired.  Once,  or  twice  even,  she  herself  lin- 
gered in  the  way  and  seemed  about  to  speak  ; 
and  then  moved  quickly  forward,  holding  her 
peace. 

Pern  would  have  been  glad  of  the  chance 
to  take  counsel  of  Rose  at  this  juncture,  for 
he  was  at  a  loss  to  determine  whether  these 
curious  signs  promised  good  or  boded  ill. 
This  young  gentleman  from  Philadelphia  was 
not  very  wise  in  the  ways  of  women  ;  but  even 
had  he  been  far  wiser  than  he  was,  Carmen's 
curious  conduct  very  well  might  have  puzzled 
him. 

As  they  came  out  upon  the  eastern  terrace 
the  glorious  sunset  view,  a  reflected  splendor 
in  the  east,  burst  upon  them  —  one  of  the  great 
sunset  views  of  the  world. 

Below  them,  at  the  foot  of  the  sharp,  craggy 
descent,  and  surrounded  by  the  trees  of  the 
eastern  park,  lay  the  tiny  lake  that  Carlotta 
caused  to  be  made  while  she  played  for  a  lit- 
tle space  her  part  of  empress  here  in  the  cas- 
tle. To  the  right  lay  Tacubaya,  a  cluster  of 
low,  square  houses  embowered  in  trees,  on  a 
long, sloping  hill-side;  and  beyond  Tacubaya 
rose  the  blue  encircling  wall  of  mountains, 
culminating  in  the  great  solemn  massof  Ajusco, 
that  shuts  in  the  valley  on  the  south.  To  the 
left  lay  the  city,  with  its  tall  church  towers 
rising  high  above  the  houses,  and  its  many 
domes,  covered  with  glazed  tiles,  flashing  in 
the  last  rays  of  the  sun;  and,  farther  on,  the 
church  of  Guadalupe  stood  out  against  the 
hazy  lines  of  the  mountains  of  Teypeyac,  and 
on  Lake  Tezcuco  shimmered  a  soft  light. 
Right  in  front,  the  trees  of  the  park  merged 
into  other  trees  beyond  its  limits;  and  the 
great  valley,  dotted  with  gray  houses,  and 
gray  church  towers,  and  green  remnants  of 
ancient  forests,  and  broad,  green  meadows, 
stretched  away  for  miles  and  miles  eastward ; 
and  in  the  midst  of  it  the  waters  of  Lake 
Chalco  shone  as  though  on  fire.  And  beyond 
all,  against  the  limit  of  the  eastern  sky,  tow- 
ered the  two  great  volcanoes  —  masses  of  gold 
and  crimson  clouds  above  them,  and  a  rich 
rosy  light  resting  upon  their  crest-coverings 
of  eternal  snow. 

Carmen  and  Pern  had  stopped  a  little  be- 
hind the  others;  and  when  Don  Antonio  sug- 
gested a  slight  change  of  position,  she  took  a 
step  or  two  and  then  stood  still.  The  others 
moved  a  little  to  the  left.  Pern  moved  a  little 
to  the  right;  and  Carmen,  following  him, 
seated  herself  upon  a  low  wall.  The  little  color 
that  had  come  into  her  cheeks  in  the  park  had 
left  them  now;  but  her  eyes  had  brightened 
curiously.  Presently  they  heard  Don  Antonio 
advise  a  move  to  the  roof  of  the  castle:  this 
hospitable  Mexican  seemed  to  regard  the  sun- 
set as  an  entertainment  that  he  himself  had 


provided  for  the  pleasure  of  his  American 
friends,  and  wished  to  make  sure  that  they  got 
the  full  benefit  of  it.  Pern  looked  inquiringly 
at  Carmen;  but  her  gaze  was  fixed  upon  the 
distant  mountains,  and  she  made  no  sign  of 
moving.  Then  the  sound  of  footsteps  and 
voices  died  away ;  and  so,  at  last,  they  were 
alone. 

Carmen  had  leaned  her  head  back  against 
the  stone  wall — just  as  she  had  sat  that  day 
at  Churubusco  —  and  was  looking  out  dream- 
ily across  the  valley.  For  the  time  being  she 
appeared  to  be  quite  unconscious  of  the  fact 
of  Mr.  Pemberton  Logan  Smith's  existence. 
Although  the  situation  was  precisely  that 
which  for  two  hours  past  he  had  been  seeking 
to  accomplish,  Pern  found  it,  now  that  it  was 
secured,  a  trifle  embarrassing.  Carmen's  man- 
ner did  not  at  all  invite  the  utterance  of  the 
words  which  he  so  earnestly  desired  to  speak ; 
but  the  longer  that  the  silence  continued  the 
more  he  found  his  nerves  going  wrong.  It 
was  rather  at  random  that  he  spoke  at  last. 

"  The  great  mountain  to  the  left  is  called 
the  White  Woman,  I  am  told,  Senorita.  It  is 
a  dismal  fancy,  this  of  a  dead  woman  lying 
enshrouded  in  the  snow." 

Carmen  gave  a  little  sigh  as  she  roused  her- 
self. "  The  Senor  does  not  know  the  story," 
she  answered  absently.  "  The  White  Woman 
is  not  dead.  Far  down  beneath  the  snow- 
covering  the  fires  of  her  life  burn  hotly.  She 
sleeps,  and  the  great  mountain  beside  her  is 
her  lover,  who  wakens  her  with  his  kiss.  This 
is  the  foolish  story  that  the  common  people 
tell.  The  Mexicans  are  very  silly,  very  super- 
stitious, very  stupid  —  as  the  Senor  knows." 

Carmen  uttered  her  comments  upon  the 
legend  and  upon  her  fellow-countrymen  hastily 
and  nervously,  as  though  seeking  to  divert  at- 
tention from  the  folk-story  itself —  a  story  that 
she  had  known,  of  course,  all  her  life,  and  that 
she  had  told  in  sheer  absence  of  mind. 

"  Is  it  not  possible,  Senorita,"  Pern  replied, 
ignoring  that  portion  of  her  speech  that  she 
had  added  precisely  for  the  purpose  of  divert- 
ing him  from  what  she  perceived  to  be  a  dan- 
gerous line  of  investigation,  "  that  this  is  not 
a  foolish  story,  but  a  wise  allegory  ?  May  it 
not  sometimes  happen  that  real  women  seek 
to  hide  with  snow  the  warm  love  that  is  in 
their  hearts  ?  I  am  not  speaking  lightly,  Sen- 
orita. I  should  be  very  glad  to  believe  that 
this  story  has  a  deep  meaning  within  it ;  that 
it  is  not  a  mere  foolish  fancy,  but  a  beautiful 
and  eternal  truth."  And  then  he  added,  speak- 
ing very  gently,  "  Will  not  the  Senorita  tell 
me  that  this  may  be  true  ?  " 

Carmen  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  when 
she  spoke  there  was  a  grave,  solemn  tone  in 
her  voice  that  struck  a  chill  into  Pern's  heart. 


820 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


"Yes,  Senor,"  she  said;  "it  is  true.  It  is 
true  now,  and  it  has  been  true  always.  Since 
the  world  began  there  must  always  have  been 
some  women  whose  fate  it  was  that  their  love 
thus  should  be  chilled  upon  its  surface  and  so 
hidden  ;  and  believe  me,  Senor," —  and  a  cer- 
tain wistfulness  of  expression  came  into  Car- 
men's face  as  she  spoke, — "  such  hidden  love 
as  this  perhaps  may  be  stronger  than  the  love 
that  is  felt  and  known." 

Carmen  was  silent  for  a  moment,  but  there 
was  something  in  her  manner  that  made  Pern 
refrain  from  speech.  Then,  still  speaking  in 
the  same  chill,  solemn  tone,  and  very  slowly, 
she  went  on : 

"  I  know  what  you  mean,  Senor.  I  am  not 
a  young  girl ;  I  have  been  in  the  world,  and 
I  understand.  You  do  me  the  honor  to  love 
me,  and  to  want  my  love  in  return.  But  this 
may  not  be  —  not,  that  is,  in  the  way  that  you 
desire.  I  cannot  tell  you  the  story  of  my  life. 
There  are  some  things  in  it  that  I  have  not 
told  even  to  the  good  father  to  whom  I  con- 
fess. Perhaps  this  has  been  a  sin ;  but  some- 
times I  think  that  this  rule  of  our  Church 
which  commands  us  to  lay  bare  our  hearts  to 
men,  though  the  men  are  God's  ministers,  is 
not  a  good  rule.  It  is  a  great  presumption  for 
me  to  cherish  such  a  thought,  but  I  cannot 
help  it.  I  have  told  my  sorrows  to  the  God 
who  made  me,  and  who  in  his  wisdom  has 
made  my  life  sad ;  not  to  his  mother,  nor  to 
his  saints,  you  understand,  but  to  him. 

"  And  what  I  have  told  only  to  God  I  can- 
not tell  even  to  you.  But  you  may  know  at 
least  that  my  life  has  been  very,  very  bitter 
since  the  time  that  —  that  I  was  sold.  I  really 
was  sold,  Senor ;  and  I  had  not  even  the  poor 
consolation  which  is  given  to  some  unhappy, 
lost  women, —  but  less  unhappy  and  less  hope- 
lessly lost  than  I  am, —  of  selling  myself.  It 
was  as  though  I  had  been  put  in  a  market- 
place like  a  horse  or  a  cow,  and  for  my  poor 
beauty's  sake  I  was  bought !  Of  the  time  that 
came  afterward  I  cannot  speak,  I  cannot  bear 
even  to  think," —  Carmen  shuddered  as  she 
spoke,  and  her  face  flushed  with  shame  and 
anger, — "but  yet  I  cannot  drive  the  horror 
of  it  from  my  thoughts.  And  then,  at  last, — 
to  others  it  seemed  very  soon,  but  not  to 
me, —  the  God  who  had  brought  this  bitter 
sorrow  upon  me  gave  me  a  little  help,  for  my 
owner  died.  It  had  been  better  far  that  I  had 
died  then  too,  for  I  was  dead  to  peace,  to 
hope ;  my  life  was  ended  at  a  time  when  for 
most  women  life  has  just  begun." 

Again  Carmen  was  silent  for  a  little  space, 
and  then  she  said  :  "  Now  you  will  understand, 
Senor,  why  it  is  that  I  tell  you  that  the  story 
of  the  White  Woman  yonder  is  true ;  for  I 
myself,  a  living  woman,  know  that  whatever 


there  may  be  of  warm  love  in  my  heart  for- 
ever must  remain  buried  deep  beneath  the 
snow." 

Pern's  eyes  had  tears  in  them  as  Carmen 
ceased  to  speak.  Once  or  twice  he  had  put 
out  his  hand  to  her,  but  she  had  motioned 
it  away.  When  she  had  made  an  end  he  spoke 
eagerly;  and  while  his  voice  was  husky  and 
uncertain,  its  tone  was  firm. 

"  Carmen,  Carmencita,"  he  said,  "  your  sor- 
rows have  been  very  heavy  and  hard  to  bear, 
but  may  not  the  time  have  come,  at  last, 
when  in  place  of  sorrow  you  shall  have  hap- 
piness ?  Is  it  too  much  for  me  to  offer  you 
this  hope  ?  But  in  my  love  —  my  love  is  very 
strong,  Carmencita ;  far  stronger  now  that  I 
know  how  grievous  your  life  has  been  —  I  do 
not  dare  too  greatly  when  I  promise  you 
shelter  and  great  tenderness ;  and  so  may 
come  to  you  peace  and  rest.  And  remember," 
he  went  on  quickly,  checking  her  rising  speech, 
"  that  my  happiness  for  all  my  life  rests  now 
upon  your  answer.  Love  is  a  very  selfish  pas- 
sion, otherwise  I  would  not  think,  after  what 
you  have  told  me,  of  my  own  happiness  at 
all.  But  I  do  think  of  it,  though  less  than 
of  yours.  I  know  that  without  you  my  life 
will  be  hopeless  and  worthless.  I  believe  that 
with  me,  away  from  all  those  things  which 
will  not  permit  you  to  forget, —  in  a  new  life 
that  will  make  forgetfulness  easy,  and  that  will 
give  you  the  breadth  and  freedom  that  I  know 
you  need  and  wish, —  happiness  is  in  store  for 
you.  Think,  think  of  all  this  before  you  tell 
me  that  you  will  live  on  despairingly,  and  that 
into  my  life  also  you  will  bring  despair." 

Carmen  sat  motionless.  Through  her  half- 
closed  eyes  she  looked  out  upon  the  fading 
sunset.  The  golden  gleams  no  longer  were  in 
the  sky  now,  and  the  crimson  had  faded  into 
a  soft  rose-color.  On  the  snow-peaks  rested 
a  deep  violet  tint,  and  the  White  Woman 
shone  ghost  like  through  a  purple  haze. 

"  Senor,"  she  said  at  last,  "  it  may  not  be. 
What  you  have  told  me  of  the  life  that  I  could 
live  with  you  I  know  in  my  heart  is  truth.  I 
know  that  among  your  people  I  should  find 
what  I  long  for,  and  what  I  cannot  find  among 
my  own.  I  have  longed  with  all  my  heart's 
strength  for  the  life  that  you  offer  me ;  and  I 
have  longed  for  it  far  more  since  I  have 
known  you.  And  I  do  love  you  — "  Pern 
started  forward,  but  Carmen  restrained  him 
by  a  motion  of  her  hand.  "  I  love  you  so  well 
that  I  cannot  consent  to  accept  my  happiness 
at  such  a  cost  to  you.  After  the  shame  that 
has  been  put  upon  me  I  feel  that  I  am  not  fit 
to  be  your — your  wife;  I  am  not  fit  to  be 
the  wife  of  any  honest  man.  Could  you  but 
know ! " 

Carmen  shuddered  again,  and  her  voice 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


821 


dropped  low.  Then,  in  a  moment,  she  went 
on:  "  Tills  is  an  old,  old  world,  Senor,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  some  day  it  must  of  itself 
fall  to  pieces,  so  heavy  is  the  load  of  sorrow  and 
suffering  and  shame  that  it  carries.  But  we 
who  are  of  it  must  bear  with  it,  and  must  bear 
our  own  part  in  it,  stayed  by  such  hope  of  an- 
other and  a  better  world  as  God  in  his  good- 
ness may  put  into  our  hearts.  Sometimes  I 
think  that  the  talk  about  God's  goodness  is 
only  a  fond  delusion,  invented  by  men  to  save 
themselves  wholly  from  despair.  But  I  fight 
against  this  thought,  for  if  it  once  fairly  pos- 
sessed my  soul  I  know  that  I  should  go  mad. 
And  what  matters,  when  all  is  sorrow,  one 
sorrow  more  or  less  ?  I  have  borne  much, 
and  of  my  suffering  no  good  has  come.  What 
I  bear  now  in  refusing  the  life  that  you  offer 
me  I  can  bear  gladly,  for  I  know  that  I  am 
bringing  good  to  you.  So  this  is  the  end. 

"  See,  the  dark  shadows  are  falling  upon 
the  White  Woman.  The  fire  is  there,  but  it 
is,  it  must  be,  covered  with  eternal  snow. 
Hark !  Don  Antonio  is  calling  us.  We  must 
go  to  him." 

"  Carmen,"  said  Pern,  speaking  resolutely 
and  quickly,  "  I  will  not  take  this  answer.  I 
command  you  not  to  wreck  both  of  our  lives 
when  for  both  of  us  happiness  is  within  easy 
reach.  I  love  you,  and  so  I  am  your  servant ; 
but  you  own  your  love  for  me,  and  so  I  am 
your  master.  By  the  right  that  this  love  gives 
me  I  lay  on  you  my  command  —  accept  my 
love,  and  with  it  the  life  that  I  offer  you ! " 

"Senor — I  —  I  —  how  can  I  answer?  At 
least — let  me  think.  Give  me  a  little  time." 

Voices  and  footsteps  were  near  at  hand. 
Pern  had  only  a  moment  left.  "You  shall 
have  time  to  think.  To-morrow  we  go  to  the 
hacienda.  We  shall  be  there  a  week;  longer, 
perhaps.  Very  well,  I  give  you  till  my  return 
to  think.  But  remember,  my  order  has  been 
given,  and  it  must  be  obeyed ! " 

"  It  was  much  finer,  the  view  from  the 
tower  of  the  castle,  Senor ;  why  did  you  linger 
here?"  Don  Antonio  asked  politely,  but  in 
the  slightly  injured  tone  of  one  who,  having 
provided  a  feast,  feels  that  a  guest  is  not  doing 
justice  to  it. 

"  You  must  forgive  me,  Don  Antonio,  but 
the  Senorita,  your  niece,  as  we  turned  to  fol- 
low you,  had  a  narrow  escape  from  a  fall  here 
at  this  broken  space  in  the  parapet.  It  was  a 
great  danger,  and  the  shock  unnerved  her. 
See,  she  still  is  pale.  But  she  is  recovering 
now,  and  we  were  about  to  go  in  search  of 
you  when  we  heard  you  call." 

Carmen,  no  doubt,  was  grateful  to  Pern 
for  this  somewhat  stirring  flight  of  fancy;  but 
it  involved  them  both  subsequently  in  a  rather 
trying  exercise  of  their  respective  imagina- 


tions, for  the  entire  party  insisted  upon  hear- 
ing the  minutest  details  of  the  adventure  told. 
Only  Rose  refrained  from  questioning.  She 
had  not  much  faith  in  the  parapet  story,  but 
she  did  have  her  own  ideas,  and  reserved  her 
questions  accordingly.  But  what  really  had 
happened,  beyond  the  bare  fact  that  that 
afternoon  on  the  heights  of  Chapultepec  had 
marked  a  turning-point  in  the  campaign,  Rose 
never  knew. 


THE    CONQUEST   OF    MEXICO. 

SENOR  CARMINE'S  hospitality,  being  put  to 
a  practical  test  by  the  arrival  at  his  hacienda 
of  the  entire  American  party,  proved  to  be 
as  boundless  in  fact  as  it  had  been  boundless 
in  promise.  His  only  regret  was  that  the  party 
had  not  been  organized  on  a  larger  scale. 
Jaune  and  Van,  indeed,  found  his  pressing 
questions  as  to  why  the  surviving  parents  of 
their  respective  wives  had  not  come  with 
them  a  trifle  embarrassing. 

The  Senora  Carmine  —  or  Mrs.  Carmine, 
as,  with  lingering  memories  of  her  early  life 
at  Fort  Leavenworth,  she  preferred  to  be 
styled  —  was  equally  instant,  and  far  more  vol- 
uble, in  her  expressions  of  welcome  and  general 
good-will.  She  was  a  stout,  jolly  woman  of 
eight-and-forty,  or  thereabouts,  with  just  a 
suggestion  of  brogue  in  her  English  and  Span- 
ish, and  with  a  heart  that  seemed  to  be  as«big 
as  she  herself  was  broad.  Rowney  Mauve 
found  her  at  once  shocking  and  delightful, 
and  had  the  wisdom  to  congratulate  himself 
upon  the  fact  that  his  feelings  towards  his 
mother-in-law  could  be  of  this  mixed  sort. 
From  Violet's  report  of  her  he  had  expected 
that  things  would  be  a  good  deal  worse. 

In  point  of  fact,  all  of  the  Americans  had 
dreaded  this  visit  a  little.  It  is  one  thing  to 
associate  somewhat  formally  with  foreigners 
in  a  city,  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  be 
projected  into  close  and  intimate  association 
with  a  foreign  family  in  its  own  home.  Mrs. 
Gamboge,  in  whose  character  adaptability 
was  not  an  especially  prominent  trait,  frankly 
admitted  that  she  wished  that  the  visit  were 
well  over;  and  in  this  wish  Mr.  Gamboge, 
who  took  a  warm  interest  in  his  own  personal 
comfort  and  was  impressed  by  a  prophetic 
conviction  that  this  was  one  of  the  occa- 
sions when  his  personal  comfort  would  have 
to  be  sacrificed,  heartily  sympathized.  Mr. 
Mangan  Brown  had  his  own  private  doubts  as 
to  how  things  would  work  out;  but  he  went  at 
the  matter  cheerfully,  and  comforted  himself 
with  the  conviction  that,  after  all,  a  fort- 
night is  not  a  very  important  part  of  a  life- 
time. The  younger  members  of  the  party  were 
disposed  to  regard  the  visit  in  the  light  of  a 


822 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


very  original  frolic,  and  to  get  as  much  fun 
out  of  it  as  possible. 

Violet,  of  course,  was  in  a  condition  of  en- 
thusiastic delight  that  she  manifested  in  her 
own  vigorous  fashion,  completely  exhaust- 
ing Rowney  Mauve  during  the  first  two  or 
three  days  by  trotting  him  about,  on  foot  and 
on  horseback,  to  see  the  various  places  and 
people  and  things  on  the  hacienda  especially 
beloved  by  her.  And  when  Rowney,  who  was 
a  capital  horseman,  got  the  better  of  the  buck- 
ing pony,  Violet's  pride  in  him  was  unbounded. 
This  equine  victory  of  Rowney's  had  the  fur- 
ther good  result  of  settling  him  firmly  in  the 
Carmine  family  heart. 

"Ah!  he  can  ride,"  said  Senor  Carmine, 
with  the  same  complacent  air  that  an  Ameri- 
can father  would  say  of  his  daughter's  husband, 
"  He  belongs  to  one  of  the  best  families  in 
the  State;  he  is  a  consistent  church-member; 
and  he  is  worth  five  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

But  none  of  the  doubts  which  disturbed  the 
minds  of  the  American  visitors  disturbed  the 
minds  of  their  Mexican  hosts.  Self-conscious- 
ness is  not  a  characteristic  of  the  kindly  Span- 
ish-American race.  With  a  frank  cordiality 
Senor  Carmine  welcomed  these  strangers 
within  his  gates;  and  as  he  was  very  glad  to 
see  them  his  guests,  he  did  not  for  a  moment 
imagine  that  they  could  be  anything  else  than 
glad  too.  In  a  general  way  he  knew  that 
their  customs  must  be  unlike  his,  and  he  ex- 
pected some  manifestations  of  this  difference 
which  would  seem  to  him  strange.  Americans 
were  curious  creatures.  Had  he  not  married 
one,  and  did  he  not  know  ?  It  was  a  cardinal 
belief  with  Senor  Carmine  that  his  wife,  the 
Senora  Brfgida  O'Jara  de  Carmine, —  the  de- 
scendant, as  she  herself  had  assured  him,  of  a 
line  of  Irish  kings,  and  the  daughter  of  a  prom- 
inent citizen  of  Fort  Leavenworth, —  was  a 
shining  example  of  the  grace,  the  elegance, 
and  the  refinement  of  the  Americans  of  the 
North.  It  surprised  him  a  good  deal  to  find 
how,  in  certain  ways,  the  American  ladies  now 
his  guests  differed  from  this  his  standard  of 
American  ladyhood. 

As  for  the  Senora,  this  access  of  American 
society  caused  her  to  renew  her  youth  like  the 
eagles.  It  was  her  desire  to  make  the  house 
and  the  household,  for  the  time  being,  as 
American  as  possible.  She  arranged  her  guest- 
chambers  in  the  fashion,  as  nearly  as  she  could 
remember  it,  of  the  aristocratic  hotel  in  Kan- 
sas City  that  her  father  had  taken  her  to  for  a 
week,  five  and  twenty  years  before.  She  in- 
troduced substantial  breakfasts  at  8  o'clock, 
and  Senor  Carmine,  eating  for  politeness'  sake, 
nearly  ruined  his  digestion  by  his  enforced 
abandonment  of  his  morning  bread  and  choco- 
late. 


On  the  evening  that  the  Americans  arrived, 
this  hospitable  lady  announced  that  "  it  'u'd 
be  after  makin'  them  feel  more  home-like, 
sure,  to  play  some  American  games,"  and 
added,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  "  How 
'u'd  yees  like  '  Copenhagen,'  now  ?  "  And  in 
spite  of  Violet's  protests,  Mrs.  Carmine  organ- 
ized the  game  instantly,  and  "chose"  Mr. 
Mangan  Brown  and  kissed  him  with  a  hearty 
smack  that  was  the  very  embodiment  of  cheery 
hospitality.  And  both  Senor  Carmine  and 
Mrs.  Gamboge  were  rather  shocked,  and  very 
nervous  over  it,  when  Senor  Carmine,  acting 
under  his  wife's  orders,  in  accordance  with 
the  rules  of  elegant  society  in  Fort  Leaven- 
worth,  "chose"  and  kissed  the  eldest  lady 
among  his  guests. 

Senor  Carmine  felt  called  upon  to  explain 
through  Violet  that  this  cordial  freedom  was 
not  in  accordance  with  Mexican  customs, 
which  very  emphatically  was  the  truth.  "But 
while  our  house  is  honored  by  the  presence 
of  Americans,"  he  added,  "  we  desire  to  make 
our  ways  like  theirs."  Even  Mr.  Gamboge, 
after  this  friendly  speech,  was  not  so  lacking 
in  tact  as  to  suggest  that  their  host  be  in- 
formed that  "  Copenhagen  "  was  not  an  usual 
form  of  evening  amusement  in  all  classes  of 
society  in  New  York. 

However,  in  private,  Violet  took  upon  her- 
self the  task  of  enlightening  her  mother  in  the 
premises.  The  Senora  was  a  good  deal  cut 
up  about  it. 

"  To  think  how  times  has  changed  since  I 
was  a  gurrl,  Violet  dear !  We  all  uv  us,  from 
the  Mejor  down,  was  great  hands  for  kissin'- 
games  in  the  old  days  at  the  Foort;  an' 
moighty  good  fun  't  was,  too.  Your  mother  's 
after  feelin'  that  she  's  an  old  woman,  sure," 
ruefully  said  the  descendant  of  the  royal  house 
of  O'Jara.  But  she  accepted  her  daughter's 
advice  in  good  part,  and  among  the  various 
modes  of  entertainment  which  she  thereafter 
devised  for  the  benefit  of  her  guests  "  kissin'- 
games  "  did  not  reappear. 

To  Rose  the  most  distinctive  feature  of 
the  visit  was  the  arrangement  of  her  bed- 
chamber. The  Senora's  memory  of  the  hotel  in 
Kansas  City  had  not  been  very  clear.  In  fact, 
it  consisted  principally  of  rocking-chairs.  As 
it  is  a  matter  of  pride  with  Mexican  house- 
wives to  have  as  many  chairs  as  possible  in 
a  room,  the  Senora  had  sent  a  liberal  order 
for  rocking-chairs  to  the  City  of  Mexico  as 
soon  as  the  coming  of  the  Americans  had 
been  arranged. 

"  It  's  a  little  horrifying  somehow,  Van, 
don't  you  think,"  Rose  said, "  to  see  all  those 
six  rocking-chairs  in  a  row  that  way  ?  It 's 
like  ghosts  and  skeletons,  you  know."  Brown 
failed  to  see  where  the  ghostliness  and  skele- 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


823 


ton-likeness  came  in ;  but  he  was  accustomed 
to  having  Rose  discover  unexpected  resem- 
blances, and  took  the  matter  easily. 

"  Of  course  the  two  little  beds  are  all  right," 
she  went  on,  "  for  that  's  the  regular  Mexi- 
can custom;  but  I  wish  they  had  n't  put  them 
at  opposite  ends  of  the  room  —  it  's  such  a 
very  big  room,  you  see." 

"  Big  enough  for  a  town-hall,  up  in  our 
part  of  the  world,"  Van  assented. 

"  But  suppose  I  'm  taken  sick,  or  something 
frightens  me  in  the  night;  what  am  I  to  do?" 

"  You  might  have  your  shoes  handy,  and 
shy  them  at  me.  You  would  n't  be  likely  to 
throw  straight  enough  to  hit  me;  but  I  'd 
hear  things  banging  about,  and  wake  up  in 
time  to  rescue  you." 

"Don't  be  foolish,  Van;  I  "m  really  in 
earnest.  It  is  dreadful  to  be  so  far  away  in 
the  dark.  And  —  why,  Van,  there  is  n't  any 
slop-bucket,  and  there  's  only  one  towel.  And 
it  can't  be  because  they  're  poor,  or  anything 
like  that,  for  they  're  not;  and  the  basin  and 
the  pitcher  are  perfectly  beautiful  French 
china,  good  enough  for  bric-k-brac.  Don't 
you  think  it  very  strange  ?  Oh !  who  's  that  ?  " 

Van  himself  was  a  little  startled,  for  a  door 
at  the  end  of  the  room  opened  and  a  nice- 
looking  old  woman  placidly  walked  through 
the  apartment  —  smiling  in  a  friendly  way  at 
them  —  and  passed  out  by  one  of  the  doors 
opening  on  the  corridor,  bidding  them,  as 
she  departed,  an  affable  good-night.  Neither 
Rose  nor  Van  was  exactly  in  costume  for 
receiving  even  transient  visitors. 

Brown  went  to  close  the  door  through  which 
the  old  woman  had  entered.  "  Why,  it  's 
a  chapel !  "  he  said.  "  She  must  have  been  in 
there  saying  her  prayers.  And  I  don't  see 
what  we  are  going  to  do  about  ventilation," 
he  continued,  as  he  examined  the  doors  open- 
ing on  the  corridor.  "  These  things  are  solid 
wood,  three  inches  thick.  If  we  shut  them, 
we  won't  have  any  fresh  air  at  all ;  and  if  we 
leave  them  open,  anybody  can  see  in.  The 
Mexicans  seem  to  have  very  extraordinary 
notions  of  privacy,  anyway." 

"  I  don't  like  it  at  all,"  said  Rose.  "  And 
with  all  these  old  women  marching  about, — 
but  she  seemed  a  nice  sort  of  old  woman, 
I  must  say, —  and  these  open  doors,  and  all, 
I  'm  quite  nervous.  You  'd  better  shut  them 
all  tight,  Van.  It  is  such  a  big  room  that  the 
air  won't  be  very  bad." 

But  Brown  left  the  door  in  the  corner  open, 
and  the  first  thing  that  he  knew  in  the  morn- 
ing he  was  waking  up  and  finding  a  serving- 
man  gravely  entering  with  an  earthen  jar  of 
fresh  water.  The  man  said  good  morning,  in 
a  matter-of-fact  way,  and  asked — as  far  as 
Brown  could  make  out  —  if  the  Senor  and 


Senora  had  rested  well,  and  if  there  was  any- 
thing else  that  he  could  bring  them. 

Violet  seemed  rather  surprised  when  Rose, 
in  a  delicate  way,  lodged  a  remonstrance 
against  these  intrusions. 

"  Oh,  you  need  n't  mind  them,"  she  said. 
"  Old  Margarita  always  goes  into  the  oratory 
at  night  to  say  her  prayers  —  she  is  a  dear  old 
thing.  And  if  Juan  does  n't  bring  you  fresh 
water  in  the  morning,  and  see  if  you  want  any- 
thing, what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

Rose  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  speak  about 
the  one  towel.  She  drew  on  her  private  stock. 
At  the  end  of  a  week  the  one  towel  was  re- 
moved, and  a  clean  towel  was  put  in  its  place. 
They  were  very  elegant,  in  their  way,  these 
solitary  towels;  of  beautiful  linen,  and  orna- 
mented with  a  good  deal  of  handsome  em- 
broidery. Rose  never  quite  succeeded  in 
making  up  her  mind  as  to  whether  they  really 
were  intended  for  use,  or  simply  were  fitting 
accessories  to  the  bric-^-brac  basin  and  pitcher. 

In  regard  to  the  slop-bucket,  Violet  settled 
the  matter  promptly.  "  Just  empty  your  basin 
out  over  the  edge  of  the  corridor,"  she  said. 
"  That  's  the  way  we  always  do,  you  know." 
And  that  was  the  way  they  did. 

Another  peculiarity  of  the  household  that 
struck  the  Americans  forcibly  was  that  at 
meals  the  women  were  given  their  food  after 
the  men.  The  first  portion  went  to  Mr.  Man- 
gan  Brown,  the  next  to  Mr.  Gamboge,  and 
then  the  younger  men,  in  turn,  received  their 
portions.  After  this  the  women,  beginning 
with  Mrs.  Gamboge,  were  served.  It  made  one 
feel  like  living  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Rose  said. 

But  with  all  the  oddities  and  peculiarities  of 
domestic  life  which  they  encountered,  the  un- 
derlying kindliness  and  hearty  hospitality  of 
their  entertainers  made  the  Americans  feel 
thoroughly  sorry  when  the  fortnight  came  to 
an  end.  It  was  a  matter  of  some  doubt,  in- 
deed, as  to  whether  they  would  be  permitted 
to  leave  at  the  end  of  this  very  short  visit. 
Senor  Carmine  had  counted  upon  having  them 
with  him  for  several  months,  he  assured  them  ; 
why  could  they  not  stay  on  ?  The  summer 
was  such  a  lovely  season  on  the  plateau  — 
never  hot,  never  cold ;  and  all  manner  of  de- 
licious fruit  to  be  gathered  freshly  every  day. 
Why  should  they  not  remain  ? 

But  Senor  Carmine  yielded  to  the  inevi- 
table, and  aided  his  wife  in  devising  and  ar- 
ranging stores  of  all  manner  of  good  things  to 
eat  and  drink  for  his  departing  guests  to  take 
with  them  for  sustenance  by  the  way.  From 
the  quantities  of  food  provided  for  this  pur- 
pose, anybody  but  a  Mexican  would  have  in- 
ferred that  the  party  was  about  setting  forth  to 
cross  an  exceedingly  wide  desert,  instead  of 
upon  a  comfortable  journey  of  eight  hours  by 


824 


A   MEXICAN  CAMPAIGN. 


rail,  with  very  fair  opportunities  for  sustaining 
life  by  stops  at  two  reasonably  good  eating- 
stations. 

The  one  member  of  the  party  who  really 
was  glad  to  leave  the  hacienda  was  Mr.  Pem- 
berton  Logan  Smith.  Pern  never  had  known 
two  weeks  so  long  as  these  two  weekshadbeen. 
He  had  done  his  best  to  be  as  cheerful  as  pos- 
sible, for  he  was  a  well-bred  young  man,  with 
strong  convictions  in  regard  to  the  impropriety 
of  exhibiting  publicly  his  private  griefs;  but 
in  spite  of  his  best  efforts  he  had  not  been 
wholly  successful,  so  very  much  depended 
upon  that  answer  which  he  was  to  receive  when 
the  two  weeks  were  at  an  end.  He  had  played 
a  masterful  part  that  day  at  Chapultepec,  but 
would  he  be  able  to  keep  on  playing  it  ?  Car- 
men loved  him — she  admitted  it;  but  could 
he  force  her  to  give  him  her  love  ?  These 
were  the  questions  which  constantly  were  in 
his  mind,  constantly  tormenting  him  with 
their  varying  answers  and  consequent  shift- 
ings  from  hopeful  elation  to  desolating  doubts 
and  fears.  Even  to  have  desolation  set  in  for 
a  permanency  was  better,  he  thought,  than 
that  this  racking  uncertainty  should  endure. 
And  so  he  was  very  glad  when  at  last  his  face 
was  set  once  more  towards  certainty  and  the 
City  of  Mexico. 

Although  the  train  did  not  arrive  at  the 
Colonia  station  until  after  8  o'clock  at  night, 
Don  Antonio  was  on  hand  to  meet  them, 
and  had  a  little  procession  of  carriages  in 
readiness  for  their  conveyance  to  their  hotel. 
No  one  would  have  been  surprised  had  he 
brought  along  a  brass  band.  Had  he  hap- 
pened to  think  of  it,  very  likely  he  would. 

He  had  planned  one  more  expedition  for 
them,  he  said;  and  hastened  to  add,  fearing 
that  the  question  of  lack  of  time  would  be 
raised,  that  it  was  a  very  little  one.  It  was 
only  to  go  once  more  to  the  shrine  of  Guada- 
lupe.  They  had  been  there  once,  but  he  feared 
that  they  had  not  drunk  of  the  water  of  the 
Holy  Well.  Did  they  know  that  whoever 
drank  of  this  water  needs  must  return  —  no 
matter  how  far  away  they  might  stray  into  the 
world  — to  drink  again  ?  Therefore  they  must 
come  with  him  and  drink:  so  would  he  have 
assurance  that  they  all  would  return. 

Of  course,  an  invitation  of  this  gracious 
sort  could  not  be  refused ;  and  so  it  was 
decided  to  defer  the  start  northward  for  yet 
another  day,  and  to  go  to  Guadalupe  on  the 
following  afternoon.  Pern  was  well  pleased 
with  this  arrangement,  and  especially  with  the 
fact,  mentioned  by  Don  Antonio  incidentally, 
that  it  was  to  his  niece  that  he  owed  the  sug- 
gestion of  assuring  in  this  way  the  return  of 
their  American  friends.  Pern  could  not  but 
believe  that  herein  was  ground  for  hope. 


BUT  from  Carmen's  face,  when  they  all 
met  the  next  afternoon  in  the  Plaza,  he  could 
make  nothing:  her  eyes  were  downcast,  and 
her  lips  were  firm.  But  it  comforted  him  to 
see  that  the  wearied,  pained  look,  that  had 
shocked  him  so  when  they  last  met  at  Chapul- 
tepec, had  disappeared.  During  the  short 
ride  on  the  tramway  she  sat  nearly  opposite 
to  him  in  the  cur,  her  eyes  still  cast  down. 
But  through  the  veil  of  her  dark  lashes  he 
felt  that  she  was  looking  at  him  earnestly. 

As  the  church  already  had  been  visited, 
there  was  nothing  to  detain  them  from  the 
immediate  object  of  their  pilgrimage.  There- 
fore Don  Antonio,  gallantly  escorting  Mrs. 
Gamboge,  led  the  way  directly  across  the 
pretty  plazuela,  past  the  old  parish  church  and 
so  to  the  beautiful  little  chapel — the  master- 
piece of  the  architect  Guerrero  y  Torres  —  that 
covers  the  Holy  Well. 

With  something  of  the  serious  air  of  one 
who  administers  a  religious  rite,  Don  Antonio 
dipped  up  the  water  through  the  iron  grating 
and  served  it  to  his  American  friends.  As 
Pem  drank,  Carmen  for  an  instant  looked  full 
upon  him.  It  was  a  strange  look :  but  again 
Pem  believed  that  he  had  a  right  to  hope. 

When  the  ceremony  was  ended  they  mounted 
the  stone  stairway  that  winds  up  the  Cerrito, 
to  take  a  last  look  at  the  sunset  light  upon 
the  snow  mountains. 

"  Not  a  last  look,"  Don  Antonio  correct- 
ingly  interposed.  "  You  have  drunk  of  the 
water  of  the  Holy  Well." 

In  Mexican  fashion  the  gentlemen  offered 
their  hands  to  the  ladies  to  assist  them  in  the 
ascent.  Pem  gave  his  hand  to  Carmen  ;  hers 
was  very  cold,  and  it  trembled  as  it  touched  his. 

Where  the  stairways  from  the  opposite  sides 
of  the  hill  unite,  on  the  little  plateau  before 
the  stone  screen,  they  paused  to  rest;  and 
when  the  party  moved  on,  passing  beyond 
the  screen,  Pem  took  Carmen's  hand,  as 
though  to  follow,  but  gently  detained  her.  He 
felt  her  hand  tremble  again.  She  withdrew  it 
from  his,  and  in  obedience  to  his  gesture  seated 
herself  beside  him  upon  the  stone  bench.  And 
so  once  more  they  were  alone  at  sunset. 

But  now  that  the  moment  for  which  Pem 
had  longed  so  earnestly  had  come,  his  fears 
entirely  overmastered  his  hopes,  and  he  did 
not  dare  to  speak.  He  knew  that  this  hour 
would  decide  his  life  for  him.  He  remem- 
bered all  that  Carmen  had  urged  to  make 
clear  to  him  that  while  she  loved  him  she 
could  not  give  him  her  love ;  he  remembered 
how  little  substantial  ground  she  had  given 
him  that  day  for  believing  that  the  conclusion 
which  she  had  arrived  at  deliberately,  and 
deliberately  had  stated  a  fortnight  before,  was 
to  be  reversed.  And  as  these  dreary  thoughts 


ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND    CASES. 


8*5 


possessed  him,  hope  slipped  farther  and  farther 
away  from  his  heart. 

Carmen  sat  silently  beside  him.  Her  open 
hand  rested  upon  the  stone  bench,  not  far 
from  his,  but  he  had  not  the  courage  to  take 
it.  Her  eyes  were  turned  eastward  towards 
the  snow  mountains.  High  above  the  snow- 
capped peaks  was  a  glory  of  red  and  golden 
cloud,  but  the  mountains  below  were  cold 
and  colorless.  To  Pern's  mind  the  White 
Woman  seemed  more  than  ever  a  dead,  cold 
woman,  half  hidden  beneath  her  shroud  of 
snow.  And  as  this  dreary  thought  came  into 
his  mind,  linking  itself  with  the  sorrowful 
thoughts  already  there,  and  by  an  allegory 
making  the  sorrow  of  them  still  more  keen, 
there  came  from  his  lips  a  sob.  Doubtless 


there  is  no  sound  more  pathetic  than  the  sob 
of  a  strong  man. 

And  then  Pem  felt  a  soft  hand,  not  cold, 
but  warm,  in  his;  and  at  that  instant  a  shift- 
ing of  the  clouds  changed  the  current  of  the 
sunlight,  and  the  White  Woman  was  lit  up  by 
a  ruddy,  life-giving  glow. 

Pern's  heart  bounded.  He  raised  his  head, 
and  his  eyes  met  Carmen's  —  looking  full  at 
him  now,  bright  through  tears  and  full  of  love. 

"  Seiior,  Senor  mio,"  said  Carmen,  as  they 
rose  at  last  from  the  stone  bench,  yet  still 
looked  eastward  on  the  splendor  of  gold  and 
crimson  clouds  and  crimsoned  snow,  "  it  was 
here  in  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  that  the  treaty  of 
peace  between  the  conquered  Mexicans  and 
the  conquering  Americans  was  signed." 

iND-  Thomas  A.  Janvier. 


ARMY    HOSPITALS    AND    CASES. 

MEMORANDA   AT   THE   TIME,    1863-66. 
BY    WALT'  WHITMAN. 


[Of  reminiscences  of  the  Secession  War,  after 
the  rest  is  said,  it  remains  to  give  a  few  special 
words  —  in  some  respects  the  typical  words 
of  all,  and  the  most  definitive  —  of  the  army 
hospitals  and  samples  of  those  that  filled 
them,  of  the  killed  and  wounded  in  action, 
and  of  soldiers  who  lingered  afterward,  from 
these  wounds,  or  were  laid  up  by  disease  or 
prostration.  The  general  statistics  have  per- 
haps been  printed  already,  but,  as  introductory 
to  the  incidents  I  am  going  to  describe,  they  can 
bear  to  be  briefly  stated  again.  There  were 
over  2,000,000  men  (for  all  periods  of  enlist- 
ment, large  and  small)  furnished  to  the  Union 
army  during  the  war,  New  York  State  fur- 
nishing nearly  500,000,  which  was  the  greatest 
number  of  any  one  State.  The  losses  by  dis- 
ease, wounds,  killed  in  action,  accidents,  etc. 
were  altogether  about  300,000,  or  approxi- 
mating to  that  number.  Over  6,000,000  cases 
were  treated  in  the  army  hospitals.  The 
number  sounds  strange,  but  it  is  true.  More 
than  two-thirds  of  the  deaths  were  from  pros- 
tration or  disease.  To-day  there  lie  buried 
over  300,000  soldiers  in  the  various  national 
army  cemeteries,  more  than  half  of  them 
marked  "  unknown."  In  full  mortuary  statis- 
tics of  the  war  the  greatest  deficiency  arises 
from  our  not  having  the  rolls,  even  as  far  as 
they  were  kept,  of  most  of  the  Southern  mili- 
tary prisons,  a  gap  which  probably  both  adds 
to,  and  helps  to  conceal,  the  indescribable  hor- 
rors of  those  places.  It  is,  however,  certain 
that  over  25,000  Union  soldiers  died  in  the 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 114. 


hands  of  the  enemy.*  And  now,  leaving  all 
figures  and  their  "  sum  totals,"  I  feel  sure  a 
few  genuine  memoranda  of  such  things,  made 
at  the  time  and  on  the  spot,  defective  as  they 
are,  but  with  all  the  associations  of  those  per- 
sons, scenes,  and  places  brought  back,  will  not 
only  go  directest  to  the  right  spot,  but  give  a 
clearer  and  more  actual  sight  of  "  army  hos- 
pitals and  cases"  during  that  period  than 
anything  else.  I  begin  with  verbatim  extracts 
from  letters  home  to  my  mother  in  Brooklyn, 
the  second  year  of  the  war. —  W.  W.] 

Washington,  Oct.  ij,  1863. —  There  has 
been  a  new  lot  of  wounded  and  sick  arriving 
for  the  last  three  days.  The  first  and  second 
days,  long  strings  of  ambulances  with  the  sick. 
Yesterday  the  worst,  many  with  bad  and 
bloody  wounds,  inevitably  long  neglected.  I 
thought  I  was  cooler  and  more  used  to  it,  but 
the  sight  of  some  cases  brought  tears  into  my 
eyes.  I  had  the  luck  yesterday,  however,  to 
do  lots  of  good.  Had  provided  many  nour- 
ishing articles  for  the  men  for  another  quar- 
ter, but,  fortunately,  had  my  stores  where  I 
could  use  them  at  once  for  these  new-comers, 
as  they  arrived,  faint,  hungry,  fagged  out  from 
their  journey,  with  soiled  clothes,  and  all 
bloody.  I  distributed  these  articles,  gave 
partly  to  the  nurses  I  knew,  or  to  those  in 
charge.  As  many  as  possible  I  fed  myself. 

"The  latest  official  compilation  (1885)  shows  the 
Union  mortality  to  have  been  359,528,  of  whom  29498 
died  in  Southern  prisons. —  EDITOR. 


826 


ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND    CASES. 


Then  I  found  a  lot  of  oyster  soup  handy,  and 
bought  it  all  at  once. 

It  is  the  most  pitiful  sight,  this,  when  the 
men  are  first  brought  in,  from  some  camp 
hospital  broke  up,  or  a  part  of  the  army  mov- 
ing. These  who  arrived  yesterday  are  cavalry- 
men. Our  troops  had  fought  like  devils,  but 
got  the  worst  of  it.  They  were  Kilpatrick's 
cavalry ;  —  were  in  the  rear,  part  of  M  cade's 
retreat,  and  the  reb  cavalry,  knowing  the 
ground  and  taking  a  favorable  opportunity, 
dashed  in  between,  cut  them  off,  and  shelled 
them  terribly.  But  Kilpatrick  turned  and 
brought  them  out,  mostly.  It  was  last  Sunday. 

Oct.  27,1863. —  If  any  of  the  soldiers  I  know 
(or  their  parents  or  folks)  should  call  upon 
you, —  as  they  are  often  anxious  to  have  my 
address  in  Brooklyn, —  you  just  use  them  as 
you  know  how,  and  if  you  happen  to  have 
pot-luck,  and  feel  to  ask  them  to  take  a  bite, 
don't  be  afraid  to  do  so.  I  have  a  friend, 
Thomas  Neat,  ad  New  York  Cavalry,  wounded 
in  leg,  now  home  in  Jamaica,  on  furlough  ;  he 
will  probably  call.  Then  possibly  a  Mr.  Has- 
kell,  or  some  of  his  folks,  from  western  New 
York :  he  had  a  son  died  here,  and  I  was  with 
the  boy  a  good  deal.  The  old  man  and  his 
wife  have  written  me  and  asked  me  my  Brook- 
lyn address;  he  said  he  had  children  in  New 
York,  and  was  occasionally  down  there.  When 
I  come  home  I  will  show  you  some  of  the  let- 
ters I  get  from  mothers,  sisters,  fathers,  etc. 
They  will  make  you  cry. 

How  the  time  passes  away !  To  think  it  is 
over  a  year  since  I  left  home  suddenly  —  and 
have  mostly  been  down  in  front  since.  The 
year  has  vanished  swiftly,  and  oh,  what 
scenes  I  have  witnessed  during  that  time ! 
And  the  war  is  not  settled  yet ;  and  one  does 
not  see  anything  certain,  or  even  promising, 
of  a  settlement.  But  I  do  not  lose  the  solid 
feeling,  in  myself,  that  the  Union  triumph  is 
assured,  whether  it  be  sooner  or  whether  it  be 
later,  or  whatever  roundabout  way  we  may 
be  led  there;  and  I  find  I  don't  change  that 
conviction  from  any  reverses  we  meet,  nor 
delays,  nor  blunders.  One  realizes  here  in 
Washington  the  great  labors,  even  negative 
ones,  of  Lincoln;  —  that  it  is  a  big  thing  to 
have  just  kept  the  United  States  from  being 
thrown  down  and  having  its  throat  cut.  I  have 
not  wavered  or  had  any  doubt  of  the  issue 
since  Gettysburg. 

iSth  September, 1863. —  Here,  now, is  a  spec- 
imen hospital  case :  Lorenzo  Strong,  Co.  A, 
gth  New  York  Cavalry  (his  brother,  Horace 
L.  Strong,  Rochester,  N.  Y.),  shot  by  a  shell 
last  Sunday;  right  leg  amputated  on  the 
field.  Sent  up  here  Monday  night,  i4th. 


Seemed  to  be  doing  pretty  well  till  Wednesday 
noon,  1 6th,  when  he  took  a  turn  for  the  worse, 
and  a  strangely  rapid  and  fatal  termination 
ensued.  Though  I  had  much  to  do,  I  staid 
and  saw  it  all.  It  was  a  death-picture  char- 
acteristic of  these  soldiers'  hospitals:  the  per- 
fect specimen  of  physique, —  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  I  ever  saw, —  the  convulsive 
spasms,  and  working  of  muscles,  mouth,  and 
throat.  There  are  two  good  women  nurses, 
one  on  each  side.  The  doctor  comes  in  and 
gives  him  a  little  chloroform.  One  of  the  nurses 
constantly  fans  him,  for  it  is  fearfully  hot.  He 
asks  to  be  raised  up,  and  they  put  him  in  a 
half-sitting  posture.  He  called  for  "Mark" 
repeatedly,  half-deliriously,  all  day.  Life  ebbs, 
runs  now  with  the  speed  of  a  mill-race;  his 
splendid  neck,  as  it  lays  all  open,  works  still, 
slightly;  his  eyes  turn  back.  A  religious  person 
coming  in  offers  a  prayer,  in  subdued  tones; 
around  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  in  the  space 
of  the  aisle,  a  crowd,  including  two  or  three 
doctors,  several  students,  and  many  soldiers, 
has  silently  gathered.  It  is  very  still  and  warm, 
as  the  struggle  goes  on,  and  dwindles,  a  little 
more,  and  a  little  more  —  and  then  welcome 
oblivion,  painlessness,  death.  A  pause,  the 
crowd  drops  away,  a  white  bandage  is  bound 
around  and  under  the  jaw,  the  propping  pil- 
lows are  removed,  the  limpsy  head  falls  down, 
the  arms  are  softly  placed  by  the  side,  all 
composed,  all  still  —  and  the  broad  white  sheet 
is  thrown  over  everything. 

April  jo,  1864. —  Unusual  agitation  all 
around  concentrated  here.  Exciting  times  in 
Congress.  The  Copperheads  are  getting  furi- 
ous, and  want  to  recognize  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy. "  This  is  a  pretty  time  to  talk  of 

recognizing  such ,"  said  a  Pennsylvania 

officer  in  hospital  to  me  to-day,  "  after  what 
has  transpired  the  last  three  years."  After 
first  Fredericksburg  I  felt  discouraged  my- 
self, and  doubted  whether  our  rulers  could 
carry  on  the  war.  But  that  has  passed  away. 
The  war  must  be  carried  on.  I  would  will- 
ingly go  in  the  ranks  myself  if  I  thought  it 
would  profit  more  than  as  at  present,  and  I 
don't  know  sometimes  but  I  shall,  as  it  is. 
Then  there  is  certainly  a  strange,  deep,  fervid 
feeling  formed  or  aroused  in  the  land,  hard 
to  describe  or  name ;  it  is  not  a  majority  feel- 
ing, but  it  will  make  itself  felt.  M.,  you  don't 
know  what  a  nature  a  fellow  gets,  not  only 
after  being  a  soldier  a  while,  but  after  living 
in  the  sights  and  influences  of  the  camps,  the 
wounded,  etc. —  a  nature  he  never  experienced 
before.  The  stars  and  stripes,  the  tune  of 
Yankee  Doodle,  and  similar  things,  produce 
such  an  effect  on  a  fellow  as  never  before.  I 
have  seen  them  bring  tears  on  some  men's 


ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND    CASES. 


827 


checks,  and  others  turn  pale  with  emotion. 
I  have  a  little  flag  (it  belonged  to  one  of  our 
cavalry  regiments),  presented  to  me  by  one 
of  the  wounded;  it  was  taken  by  the  Secesh 
in  a  fight,  and  rescued  by  our  men  in  a  bloody 
skirmish  following.  It  cost  three  men's  lives 
to  get  back  that  four-by-three  flag — to  tear 
it  from  the  breast  of  a  dead  rebel  —  for  the 
name  of  getting  their  little  "  rag  "  back  again. 
The  man  that  secured  it  was  very  badly 
wounded,  and  they  let  him  keep  it.  I  was 
with  him  a  good  deal;  he  wanted  to  give 
me  some  keepsake,  he  said, — he  didn't  expect 
to  live, —  so  he  gave  me  that  flag.  The  best 
of  it  all  is,  dear  M.,  there  is  n't  a  regiment, 
cavalry  or  infantry,  that  would  n't  do  the  like, 
on  the  like  occasion. 

April  12. —  I  will  finish  my  letter  this  morn- 
ing ;  it  is  a  beautiful  day.  1  was  up  in  Con- 
gress very  late  last  night.  The  House  had  a 

*  Hospitals  Ensemble.  August,  September,  and  Oc- 
tober, 1863. —  I  am  in  the  habit  of  going  to  all,  and  to 
Fairfax  Seminary,  Alexandria,  and  over  Long  Bridge  to 
the  great  Convalescent  Camp.  The  journals  publish  a 
regular  directory  of  them — a  long  list.  Asaspecimen 
of  almost  any  one  of  the  larger  of  these  hospitals',  fancy 
to  yourself  a  space  of  three  to  twenty  acres  of  ground, 
on  which  are  grouped  ten  or  twelve  very  large  wooden 
barracks,  with,  perhaps,  a  dozen  or  twenty,  and  some- 
times more  than  that  number,  small  buildings,  capable 
altogether  of  accommodating  from  500  to  1000  or  1500 
persons.  Sometimes  these  wooden  barracks,  or  wards, 
each  of  them  perhaps  from  100  to  150  feet  long,  are 
ranged  in  a  straight  row,  evenly  fronting  the  street; 
others  are  planned  so  as  to  form  an  immense  V;  and 
others  again  are  ranged  around  a  hollow  square.  They 
make  altogether  a  huge  cluster,  with  the  additional 
tents,  extra  wards  for  contagious  diseases,  guard- 
houses, sutler's  stores,  chaplain's  house;  in  the  middle 
will  probably  be  an  edifice  devoted  to  the  offices  of  the 
surgeon  in  charge  and  the  ward  surgeons,  principal 
attaches,  clerks,  etc.  The  wards  are  either  lettered 
alphabetically,  Ward  G,  Ward  K,  or  else  numerically, 
1,2,  3,  etc.  Each  has  its  ward  surgeon  and  corps  of 
nurses.  Of  course,  there  is,  in  the  aggregate,  quite  a 
muster  of  employees,  and  over  all  the  surgeon  in  charge. 
Here  in  Washington,  when  these  army  hospitals  are 
all  filled  (as  they  have  been  already  several  times), 
they  contain  a  population  more  numerous  in  itself  than 
the  whole  of  the  Washington  of  ten  or  fifteen  years 
ago.  Within  sight  of  the  Capitol,  as  I  write,  are  some 
thirty  or  forty  such  collections,  at  times  holding  from 
50,000  to  70,000  men.  Looking  from  any  eminence  and 
studying  the  topography  in  my  rambles,  I  use  them  as 
landmarks.  Through  the  rich  August  verdure  of  the 
trees,  see  that  white  group  of  buildings  off  yonder  in 
the  outskirts ;  then  another  cluster  half  a  mile  to  the 
left  of  the  first;  then  another  a  mile  to  the  right,  and 
another  a  mile  beyond,  and  still  another  between  us  and 
the  first.  Indeed,  we  can  hardly  look  in  any  direction 
but  these  clusters  are  dotting  the  landscape  and  envi- 
rons. That  little  town,  as  you  might  suppose  it,  off 
there  on  the  brow  of  a  hill,  is  indeed  a  town,  but  of 
wounds,  sickness,  and  death.  It  is  Finley  Hospital, 
north-east  of  the  city,  on  Kendall  Green,  as  it  used  to 
be  called.  That  other  is  Campbell  I  lospital.  Both  are 
large  establishments.  I  have  known  these  two  alone 
to  have  from  2000  to  2500  inmates.  Then  there  is 
Carver  Hospital,  larger  still,  a  walled  and  military  city 
regularly  laid  out,  and  guarded  by  squads  of  sentries. 


very  excited  night  session  about  expelling  the 
men  that  proposed  recognizing  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  You  ought  to  hear  (as  I  do) 
the  soldiers  talk;  they  are  excited  to  mad- 
ness. We  shall  probably  have  hot  times  here, 
not  in  the  military  fields  alone.  The  body  of 
the  army  is  true  and  firm  as  the  North  Star. 

May  6,  1864. —  M.,  the  poor  soldier  with 
diarrhea  is  still  living,  but,  oh,  what  a  looking 
object!  Death  would  be  a  relief  to  him  —  IK- 
cannot  last  many  hours.  Cunningham,  the 
Ohio  soldier,  with  leg  amputated  at  thigh, 
has  picked  up  beyond  expectation ;  now  looks 
indeed  like  getting  well.  [He  died  a  few 
weeks  afterward.]  The  hospitals  are  very 
full.*  I  am  very  well  indeed.  Hot  here  to- 
day. 

May  23,  1864. —  Sometimes  I  think  that 
should  it  come  when  it  must,  to  fall  in  battle, 
one's  anguish  over  a  son  or  brother  killed  might 

Again,  off  east,  Lincoln  Hospital,  a  still  larger  one; 
and,  half  a  mile  farther,  Emory  Hospital.  Still  sweep- 
ing the  eye  around  down  the  river  towards  Alexandria, 
we  see,  to  the  right,  the  locality  where  the  Convalescent 
Camp  stands,  with  its  5,000, 8,000,  or  sometimes  10,000 
inmates.  Even  all  these  are  but  a  portion.  The  Hare- 
wood,  Mount  Pleasant,  Armory  Square,  Judiciary  Hos- 
pitals, are  some  of  the  rest,  and  all  large  collections. 

Summer  of  1864.  —  I  am  back  again  in  Washington, 
on  my  regular  daily  and  nightly  rounds.  Of  course 
there  are  many  specialties.  Dotting  a  ward  here  and 
there  are  always  cases  of  poor  fellows,  long  suffering 
under  obstinate  wounds,  or  weak  and  disheartened 
from  typhoid  fever,  or  the  like;  marked  cases,  needing 
special  and  sympathetic  nourishment.  These  I  sit 
down  and  either  talk  to  or  silently  cheer  them  up. 
They  always  like  it  hugely  (and  so  do  I).  Each  case 
has  its  peculiarities,  and  needs  some  new  adaptation. 
I  have  learnt  to  thus  conform — learnt  a  good  deal  of 
hospital  wisdom.  Some  of  the  poor  young  chaps,  away 
from  home  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  hunger  and 
thirst  for  affection;  this  is  sometimes  the  only  thing 
that  will  reach  their  condition.  The  men  like  to  have 
a  pencil,  and  something  to  write  in.  I  have  given 
them  cheap  pocket-diaries,  and  almanacs  for  1864,  in- 
terleaved with  blank  paper.  For  reading  I  generally 
have  some  old  pictorial  magazines  or  story-papers  — 
they  are  always  acceptable.  Also  the  morning  or 
evening  papers  of  the  day.  The  best  books  I  do  not 
give,  but  lend  to  read  through  the  wards,  and  then 
take  them  to  others,  and  so  on;  they  are  very  punctual 
about  returning  the  books.  In  these  wards,  or  on  the 
field,  as  I  thus  continue  to  go  round,  I  have  come  to 
adapt  myself  to  each  emergency,  after  its  kind  or  call, 
however  trivial,  however  solemn,  every  one  justified 
and  made  real  under  its  circumstances;  not  only  visits 
and  cheering  talk  and  little  gifts,  not  only  washing 
and  dressing  wounds  (I  have  some  cases  where  the 
patient  is  unwilling  any  one  should  do  this  but  me), 
but  passages  from  the  Bible,  expounding  them,  prayer 
at  the  bedside,  explanations  of  doctrine,  etc.  (I  think 
I  see  my  friends  smiling  at  this  confession,  but  I  was 
never  more  in  earnest  in  my  life. )  In  camp  and  every- 
where, I  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  or  giving  recita- 
tions to  the  men.  They  were  very  fond  of  it,  and 
liked  declamatory  poetical  pieces.  We  would  gather 
in  a  large  group  by  ourselves,  after  supper,  and  spend 
the  time  in  such  readings,  or  in  talking,  and  occasion- 
ally by  an  amusing  game  called  the  game  of  twenty 
questions. 


828 


ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND    CASES. 


be  tempered  with  much  to  take  the  edge  off. 
Lingering  and  extreme  suffering  from  wounds 
or  sickness  seem  to  me  far  worse  than  death 
in  battle.  I  can  honestly  say  the  latter  has 
no  terrors  for  me,  as  far  as  I  myself  am  con- 
cerned. Then  I  should  say,  too,  about  death 
in  war,  that  our  feelings  and  imaginations 
make  a  thousand  times  too  much  of  the  whole 
matter.  Of  the  many  I  have  seen  die,  or 
known  of,  the  past  year,  I  have  not  seen  or 
known  one  who  met  death  with  terror.  In 
most  cases  I  should  say  it  was  a  welcome 
relief  and  release. 

Yesterday  I  spent  a  good  part  of  the  after- 
noon with  a  young  soldier  of  seven  teen,  Charles 
Cutter,  of  Lawrence,  Massachusetts  (ist 
Massachusetts  Heavy  Artillery,  Battery  M); 
he  was  brought  to  one  of  the  hospitals  mor- 
tally wounded  in  abdomen.  Well,  I  thought 
to  myself,  as  I  sat  looking  at  him,  it  ought  to 
be  a  relief  to  his  folks  if  they  could  see  how 
little  he  really  suffered.  He  lay  very  placid, 
in  a  half  lethargy,  with  his  eyes  closed.  As  it 
was  extremely  hot,  and  I  sat  a  good  while 
silently  fanning  him  and  wiping  the  sweat,  at 
length  he  opened  his  eyes  quite  wide  and  clear 
and  looked  inquiringly  around.  I  said,  "  What 
is  it,  my  boy  ?  Do  you  want  anything  ?  "  He 
answered  quietly,  with  a  good-natured  smile, 
"  Oh,  nothing;  I  was  only  looking  around  to 
see  who  was  with  me."  His  mind  was  some- 
what wandering,  yet  he  lay  in  an  evident 
peacefulness  that  sanity  and  health  might 
have  envied.  I  had  to  leave  for  other  engage- 
ments. He  died,  I  heard  afterward,  without 
any  special  agitation,  in  the  course  of  the 
night. 

Washington,  May  26,  1863. — M.,  I  think 
something  of  commencing  a  series  of  lectures, 
readings,  talks,  etc.  through  the  cities  of  the 
North,  to  supply  myself  with  funds  for  hos- 
pital ministrations.  I  do  not  like  to  be  so  be- 
holden to  others;  I  need  a  pretty  free  supply 
of  money,  and  the  work  grows  upon  me  and 
fascinates  me.  It  is  the  most  magnetic  as  well 
as  terrible  sight :  the  lots  of  poor  wounded 
and  helpless  men  depending  so  much,  in  one 
ward  or  another,  upon  my  soothing  or  talking 
to  them,  or  rousing  them  up  a  little,  or  per- 
haps petting  or  feeding  them  their  dinner  or 
supper  (here  is  a  patient,  for  instance,  wounded 
in  both  arms),  or  giving  some  trifle  for  a 
novelty  or  change  —  anything,  however  triv- 
ial, to  break  the  monotony  of  those  hospital 
hours. 

It  is  curious :  when  I  am  present  at  the  most 
appalling  scenes,  deaths,  operations,  sickening 
wounds  (perhaps  full  of  maggots),  I  keep  cool 
and  do  not  give  out  or  budge,  although  my 
sympathies  are  very  much  excited  ;  but  often, 
hours  afterward,  perhaps  when  I  am  home,  or 


out  walking  alone,  I  feel  sick,  and  actually 
tremble,  when  I  recall  the  case  again  before 
me. 

[The  following  memoranda  describe  some 
of  the  last  cases  and  hospital  scenes  of  the 
war,  from  my  own  observation.] 

Two  brothers,  one  South,  one  North. —  May 
28-29,  I$6S- —  I  staid  to-night  a  long  time  by 
the  bedside  of  a  new  patient,  a  young  Balti- 
morean,  aged  about  nineteen  years,  W.  S.  P. 
(2d  Maryland,  Southern),  very  feeble,  right  leg 
amputated,  can't  sleep ;  has  taken  a  great 
deal  of  morphine,  which,  as  usual,  is  costing 
more  than  it  comes  to.  Evidently  very  intelli- 
gent and  well-bred;  very  affectionate;  held 
on  to  my  hand,  and  put  it  by  his  face,  not 
willing  to  let  me  leave.  As  I  was  lingering, 
soothing  him  in  his  pain,  he  says  to  me  sud- 
denly :  "  I  hardly  think  you  know  who  I  am.  I 
don't  wish  to  impose  upon  you  —  I  am  a  rebel 
soldier."  I  said  I  did  not  know  that,  but  it 
made  no  difference.  Visiting  him  daily  for 
about  two  weeks  after  that,  while  he  lived 
(death  had  marked  him,  and  he  was  quite 
alone),  I  loved  him  much,  always  kissed  him, 
and  he  did  me.  In  an  adjoining  ward  I  found 
his  brother,  an  officer  of  rank,  a  Union  soldier, 
a  brave  and  religious  man  (Colonel  Clifton 
K.  Prentiss,  6th  Maryland  infantry,  Sixth 
Corps,  wounded  in  one  of  the  engagements 
atPetersburg,  April  2.  lingered,  suffered  much, 
died  in  Brooklyn,  August  20,  1865).  It  was  in 
the  same  battle  both  were  hit.  One  was  a 
strong  Unionist,  the  other  Secesh  ;  both  fought 
on  their  respective  sides,  both  badly  wounded, 
and  both  brought  together  here  after  a  sepa- 
ration of  four  years.  Each  died  for  his  cause. . 

Sunday  Afternoon,  July  jo. —  Passed  this 
afternoon  among  a  collection  of  unusually  bad 
cases,  wounded  and  sick  Secession  soldiers, 
left  upon  our  hands.  I  spent  the  previous  Sun- 
day afternoon  there  also.  At  that  time  two 
were  dying.  Two  others  have  died  during  the 
week.  Several  of  them  are  partly  deranged. 
To-day  I  went  around  among  them  elabo- 
rately. Poor  boys,  they  all  needed  to  be 
cheered  up.  As  I  sat  down  by  any  particular 
one,  the  eyes  of  all  the  rest  in  the  neighboring 
cots  would  fix  upon  me,  and  remain  steadily 
riveted  as  long  as  I  sat  within  their  sight. 
Nobody  seemed  to  wish  anything  special  to 
eat  or  drink.  The  main  thing  asked  for  was 
postage  stamps,  and  paper  for  writing.  I  dis- 
tributed all  the  stamps  I  had.  Tobacco  was 
wanted  by  some. 

One  called  me  over  to  him  and  asked  me  in 
a  low  tone  what  denomination  I  belonged  to. 
He  said  he  was  a  Catholic  —  wished  to  find 
some  one  of  the  same  faith — wanted  some 


ARMY  HOSPITALS  AND   CASES. 


829 


good  reading.  I  gave  him  something  to  read, 
and  sat  down  by  him  a  few  minutes.  Moved 
around  with  a  word  for  each.  They  were 
hardly  any  of  them  personally  attractive  cases, 
and  no  visitors  come  here.  Of  course  they 
were  all  destitute  of  money.  I  gave  small  sums 
to  two  or  three,  apparently  the  most  needy. 
The  men  are  from  quiteall  the  Southern  States, 
Georgia,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  etc. 

Wrote  several  letters.  One  for  a  young  fel- 
low named  Thomas  J.  Byrd,  with  bad  wound 
and  diarrhea.  Was  from  Russell  County,  Ala- 
bama ;  been  out  four  years.  Wrote  to  his 
mother ;  had  neither  heard  from  her  nor  writ- 
ten to  her  in  nine  months.  Was  taken  prisoner 
last  Christmas,  in  Tennessee;  sent  to  Nash- 
ville, then  to  Camp  Chase,  Ohio,  and  kept  there 
a  long  time ;  all  the  while  not  money  enough 
to  get  paper  and  postage  stamps.  Was  paroled, 
but  on  his  way  home  the  wound  took  gan- 
grene ;  had  diarrhea  also ;  had  evidently  been 
very  low.  Demeanor  cool  and  patient.  A 
dark-skinned,  quaint  young  fellow,  with  strong 
southern  idiom;  no  education. 

Another  letter,  for  John  W.  Morgan,  aged 
18,  from  Shellot,  Brunswick  County,  North 
Carolina;  been  out  nine  months;  gun-shot 
wound  in  right  leg,  above  knee  ;  also  diarrhea; 
wound  getting  along  well ;  quite  a  gentle,  af- 
fectionate boy ;  wished  me  to  put  in  the  letter 
for  his  mother  to  kiss  his  little  brother  and 
sister  for  him.  [I  put  strong  envelopes  on 
these,  and  two  or  three  other  letters,  directed 
them  plainly  and  fully,  and  dropped  them  in 
the  Washington  post-office  the  next  morning 
myself.] 

The  large  ward  I  am  in  is  used  for  secession 
soldiers  exclusively.  One  man,  about  forty 
years  of  age,  emaciated  with  diarrhea,  I  was 
attracted  to,  as  he  lay  with  his  eyes  turned  up, 
looking  like  death.  His  weakness  was  so  ex- 
treme that  it  took  a  minute  or  so,  every  time, 
for  him  to  talk  with  anything  like  consecutive 
meaning  ;  yet  he  was  evidently  a  man  of  good 
intelligence  and  education.  As  I  said  any- 
'thing,  he  would  lie  a  moment  perfectly  still, 
then,  with  closed  eyes,  answer  in  a  low,  very 
slow  voice,  quite  correct  and  sensible,  but  in 
a  way  and  tone  that  wrung  my  heart.  He  had 
a  mother,  wife,  and  child  living  (or  probably 
living)  in  his  home  in  Mississippi.  It  was  long, 
leng  since  he  had  seen  them.  Had  he  caused 
a  letter  to  be  sent  them  since  he  got  here  in 
Washington?  No  answer.  I  repeated  the 
question,  very  slowly  and  soothingly.  He 
could  not  tell  whether  he  had  or  not  —  things 
of  late  seemed  to  him  like  a  dream.  After  waiting 
a  moment,  I  said  :  "  Well,  I  am  going  to  walk 
down  the  ward  a  moment,  and  when  I  come 
back  you  can  tell  me.  If  you  have  not  writ- 
ten, I  will  sit  down  and  write."  A  few  minutes 


after,  I  returned ;  he  said  he  remembered  now 
that  some  one  had  written  for  him  two  or 
three  days' before.  The  presence  of  this  man 
impressed  me  profoundly.  The  flesh  was  all 
sunken  on  face  and  arms;  the  eyes  low  in 
their  sockets  and  glassy,  and  with  purple  rings 
around  them.  Two  or  three  great  tears  silently 
flowed  out  from  the  eyes,  and  rolled  down  his 
temples(he  was  doubtless  unused  to  be  spoken 
to  as  I  was  speaking  to  him).  Sickness,  im- 
prisonment, exhaustion,  etc.  had  conquered 
the  body ;  yet  the  mind  held  mastery  still,  and 
called  even  wandering  remembrance  back. 

There  are  some  fifty  Southern  soldiers  here ; 
all  sad,  sad  cases.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
scurvy.  I  distributed  some  paper,  envelopes, 
and  postage  stamps,  and  wrote  addresses  full 
and  plain  on  many  of  the  envelopes. 

I  returned  again  Tuesday,  August  i,  and 
moved  around  in  the  same  manner  a  couple 
of  hours. 

September  22, 1865. —  Afternoon  and  even- 
ing at  Douglas  Hospital  to  see  a  friend  belong- 
ing to  2d  New  York  Artillery  (Hiram  W.  Fra- 
zee,Serg't),down  with  an  obstinate  compound 
fracture  of  left  leg  received  in  one  of  the  last 
battles  near  Petersburg.  After  sitting  a  while 
with  him,  went  through  several  neighboring 
wards.  In  one  of  them  found  an  old  acquaint- 
ance transferred  here  lately,  a  rebel  prisoner, 
in  a  dying  condition.  Poor  fellow,  the  look 
was  already  on  his  face.  He  gazed  long  at 
me.  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  me.  After  a  mo- 
ment he  uttered  something,  but  inarticulately. 
I  have  seen  him  off  and  on  for  the  last  five 
months.  He  has  suffered  very  much ;  a  bad 
wound  in  left  leg,  severely  fractured,  several 
operations,  cuttings,  extractions  of  bone,  splin- 
ters, etc.  I  remember  he  seemed  to  me,  as  I 
used  to  talk  with  him,  a  fair  specimen  of  the 
main  strata  of  the  Southerners,  those  without 
property  or  education,  but  still  with  the  stamp 
which  comes  from  freedom  and  equality.  I 
liked  him ;  Jonathan  Wallace,  of  Hurd  County, 
Georgia,age  30  (wife,  Susan  F.  Wallace,  Hous- 
ton, Hurd  County,  Georgia).  [If  any  good 
soul  of  that  county  should  see  this,  I  hope  he 
will  send  her  word.]  Had  a  family ;  had  not 
heard  from  them  since  taken  prisoner,  now 
six  months.  I  had  written  for  him,  and  done 
trifles  for  him,  before  he  came  here.  He  made 
no  outward  show,  was  mild  in  his  talk  and  be- 
havior,but  I  knew  he  worried  much  inwardly. 
But  now  all  would  be  over  very  soon.  I  half 
sat  upon  the  little  stand  near  the  head  of  the 
bed.  Wallace  was  somewhat  restless.  I  placed 
my  hand  lightly  on  his  forehead  and  face,  just 
sliding  it  over  the  surface.  In  a  moment  or  so 
he  fell  into  a  calm,  regular-breathing  lethargy 
or  sleep,  and  remained  so  while  I  sat  there. 
It  was  dark,  and  the  lights  were  lit.  I  hardly 


83o 


RESTLESSNESS. 


know  why  (death  seemed  hovering  near),  but 
I  staid  nearly  an  hour.  A  Sister  of  Charity, 
dressed  in  black,  with  a  broad  white  linen 
bandage  around  her  head  and  under  her  chin, 
and  a  black  crape  over  all  and  flowing  down 
from  her  head  in  long  wide  pieces,  came  to 
him,  and  moved  around  the  bed.  She  bowed 
low  and  solemn  to  me.  For  some  time  she 
moved  around  there  noiseless  as  a  ghost,  do- 
ing little  things  for  the  dying  man. 

December,  1865. —  The  only  remaining  hos- 
pital is  now  "  Harewood,"  out  in  the  woods, 
north-west  of  the  city.  I  have  been  visiting 
there  regularly  every  Sunday  during  these 
two  months. 

January  24, 1866. —  Went  out  to  Harewood 
early  to-day,  and  remained  all  day. 

Sunday,  February  4,  1866.  —  Harewood 
Hospital  again.  Walked  out  this  afternoon 
(bright,  dry,  ground  frozen  hard)  through  the 
woods.  Ward  6  is  filled  with  blacks,  some 
with  wounds,  some  ill,  two  or  three  with  limbs 
frozen.  The  boys  made  quite  a  picture  sitting 
round  the  stove.  Hardly  any  can  read  or 
write.  I  write  for  three  or  four,  direct  en- 
velopes, give  some  tobacco,  etc. 

Joseph  Winder,  a  likely  boy,  aged  twenty- 
three,  belongs  to  loth  Colored  Infantry  (now 
in  Texas) ;  is  from  Eastville,  Virginia.  Was  a 
slave ;  belonged  to  Lafayette  Homeston.  The 
master  was  quite  willing  he  should  leave. 
Joined  the  army  two  years  ago  ;  has  been  in 
one  or  two  battles.  Was  sent  to  hospital  with 
rheumatism.  Has  since  been  employed  as  cook. 
His  parents  at  Eastville;  he  gets  letters  from 
them,  and  has  letters  written  to  them  by  a 


friend.  Many  black  boys  left  that  part  of  Vir- 
ginia and  joined  the  army;  the  loth,  in  fact, 
was  made  up  of  Virginia  blacks  from  there- 
abouts. As  soon  as  discharged  is  going  back 
to  Eastville  to  his  parents  and  home,  and  in- 
tends to  stay  there. 

Thomas  King,  formerly  zd  District  Colored 
Regiment,  discharged  soldier,  Company  E, 
lay  in  a  dying  condition  ;  his  disease  was  con- 
sumption. A  Catholic  priest  was  administer- 
ing extreme  unction  to  him.  (1  have  seen  this 
kind  of  sight  several  times  in  the  hospitals ; 
it  is  very  impressive.) 

Harewood,  April  21),  1866.  Sunday  after- 
noon.—  Poor  Joseph  Swiers,  Company  H, 
1 55th  Pennsylvania,  a  mere  lad  (only  eighteen 
years  of  age);  his  folks  living  in  Reedsburgh, 
Pennsylvania.  I  have  known  him  now  for 
nearly  a  year,  transferred  from  hospital  to  hos- 
pital. He  was  badly  wounded  in  the  thigh  at 
Hatcher's  Run,  February  6,  1865. 

James  E.  Ragan,  Atlanta,  Georgia;  2d 
United  States  Infantry.  Union  folks.  Brother 
impressed,  deserted,  died;  now  no  folks,  left 
alone  in  the  world,  is  in  a  singularly  nervous 
state ;  came  in  hospital  with  intermittent  fever. 

Walk  slowly  around  the  ward,  observing, 
and  to  see  if  I  can  do  anything.  Two  or  three 
are  lying  very  low  with  consumption,  cannot 
recover;  some  with  old  wounds;  one  with 
both  feet  frozen  off,  so  that  on  one  only  the 
heel  remains.  The  supper  is  being  given  out : 
the  liquid  called  tea,  a  thick  slice  of  bread, 
and  some  stewed  apples. 

That  was  about  the  last  I  saw  of  the  regu- 
lar army-hospitals. 

Walt   Whitman. 


RESTLESSNESS. 

(Written  before  visiting  Florence.) 

WOULD  I  had  waked  this  morn  where  Florence  smiles, 
Abloom  with  beauty,  a  white  rose  full-blown, 
Yet  rich  in  sacred  dust,  in  storied  stone 
Precious  past  all  the  wealth  of  Indian  isles. 
From  olive-hoary  Fiesole  to  feed 
On  Brunelleschi's  dome  my  hungry  eye, 
And  see  against  the  lotos-colored  sky 
Spring  the  slim  belfry  graceful  as  a  reed ; 
To  kneel  upon  the  ground  where  Dante  trod ; 
To  breathe  the  air  of  immortality 
From  Angelo  and  Raphael, — to  be, 
Each  sense  new-quickened  by  a  demi-god  ; 
To  hear  the  liquid  Tuscan  speech  at  whiles 
From  citizen  and  peasant ;  to  behold 
The  heaven  of  Leonardo  washed  with  gold. — 
Would  I  had  waked  this  morn  where  Florence  smiles ! 


Emma  Lazarus. 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


BY   THEODORE    ROOSEVELT. 


ILLUSTRATIONS   BY   FREDERIC    REMINGTON. 


T^  HE  old  race  of  Rocky 
1  Mountain  hunters 
and  trappers,  of  reck- 
less, dauntlesslndian 
fighters,  is  now  fast 
dying  out.  Yet  here 
and  there  these  rest- 
less wanderers  of  the 
untrodden  wilder- 
ness still  linger,  in 
wooded  fastnesses  so 
inaccessible  that  the 
miners  have  not  yet 
explored  them,  in 
mountain  valleys  so  far  off  that  no  ranchman 
has  yet  driven  his  herds  thither.  To  this 
day  many  of  them  wear  the  fringed  tunic  or 
hunting-shirt,  made  of  buckskin,  or  home- 
spun, and  belted  in  at  the  waist  —  the  most 
picturesque  and  distinctively  national  dress 
ever  worn  in  America.  It  was  the  dress  in 
which  Daniel  Boone  was  clad  when  he  first 
passed  through  the  trackless  forests  of  the 
Alleghanies  and  penetrated  into  the  heart 
of  Kentucky,  to  enjoy  such  hunting  as  no 
man  of  his  race  had  ever  had  before ;  it  was 
the  dress  worn  by  grim  old  Davy  Crocket 
when  he  fell  at  the  Alamo.  The  wild  soldiery 
of  the  backwoods  wore  it  when  they  marched 
to  victory  over  Ferguson  and  Pakenham,  at 
King's  Mountain  and  New  Orleans ;  when 
they  conquered  the  French  towns  of  the  Illi- 
nois ;  and  when  they  won  at  the  cost  of  Red 
Eagle's  warriors  the  bloody  triumph  of  the 
Horseshoe  Bend. 

These  old-time  hunters  have  been  the  fore- 
runners of  the  white  advance  throughout  all 
our  Western  land.  Soon  after  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century  they  boldly  struck  out 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  steered  their  way 
across  the  flat  and  endless  seas  of  grass,  or 
pushed  up  the  valleys  of  the  great  lonely 
rivers,  crossed  the  passes  that  wound  among 
the  towering  peaks  of  the  Rockies,  toiled 
over  the  melancholy  wastes  of  sage  brush 
and  alkali,  and  at  last,  breaking  through  the 
gloomy  woodland  that  belts  the  coast,  looked 
out  on  the  heaving  waves  of  the  greatest  of 
all  the  oceans.  They  lived  for  months,  often 
for  years,  among  the  Indians,  now  as  friends, 
now  as  foes,  warring,  hunting,  and  marrying 


with  them;  they  acted  ns  guides  for  exploring 
parties,  as  scouts  for  the  soldiers  who  from  time 
to  time  were  sent  against  the  different  hostile 
tribes.  At  long  intervals  they  came  into  some 
frontier  settlement  or  some  fur  company's  fort, 
posted  in  the  heart  of  the  wilderness,  to  dispose 
of  their  bales  of  furs,  or  to  replenish  their  stock 
of  ammunition  and  purchase  a  scanty  supply 
of  coarse  food  and  clothing. 

From  that  day  to  this  they  have  not  changed 
their  way  of  life.  But  there  are  not  many  of 
them  left  now.  The  basin  of  the  Upper  Mis- 
souri was  their  last  stronghold,  being  the  last 
great  hunting-ground  of  the  Indians,  with 
whom  the  white  trappers  were  always  fighting 
and  bickering,  but  who  nevertheless  by  their 
presence  protected  the  game  that  gave  the 
trappers  their  livelihood.  My  cattle  were 
among  the  very  first  to  come  into  the  land, 
at  a  time  when  the  buffalo  and  the  beaver  still 
abounded,  and  then  the  old  hunters  were  com- 
mon. Many  a  time  I  have  hunted  with  them, 
spent  the  night  in  their  smoky  cabins,  or  had 
them  as  guests  at  my  ranch.  But  in  a  couple 
of  years  after  the  inrush  of  the  cattle-men  the 
last  herds  of  the  buffalo  were  destroyed,  and 
the  beaver  were  trapped  out  of  all  the  plains' 
streams.  Then  the  hunters  vanished  likewise, 
save  that  here  and  there  one  or  two  still  re- 
main in  some  nook  or  out-of-the-way  corner. 
The  others  wandered  off  restlessly  over  the 
land  —  some  to  join  their  brethren  in  the  Coeur 
d'Alfine  or  the  northern  Rockies,  others  to  the 
coast  ranges  or  to  far-away  Alaska.  More- 
over, their  ranks  were  soon  thinned  by  death, 
and  the  places  of  the  dead  were  no  longer 
taken  by  new  recruits.  They  led  hard  lives, 
and  the  unending  strain  of  their  toilsome  and 
dangerous  existence  shattered  even  such  iron 
frames  as  theirs.  They  were  killed  in  drunken 
brawls,  or  in  nameless  fights  with  roving  In- 
dians; they  died  by  one  of  the  thousand 
accidents  incident  to  the  business  of  their 
lives  —  by  flood  or  quicksand,  by  cold  or  star- 
vation, by  the  stumble  of  a  horse  or  a  foot-slip 
on  the  edge  of  a  cliff;  they  perished  by  diseases 
brought  on  by  terrible  privation  and  aggra- 
vated by  the  savage  orgies  with  which  it  was 
varied. 

Yet  there  was  not  only  much  that  was  at- 
tractive in  their  wild,  free,  reckless  lives,  but 


832 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


there  was  also  very  much  good  about  the  men 
themselves.  They  were  —  and  such  of  them 
as  are  left  still  are  —  frank,  bold,  and  self- 
reliant  to  a  degree.  They  fear  neither  man, 
brute,  nor  element.  They  are  generous  and 
hospitable ;  they  stand  loyally  by  their  friends, 
and  pursue  their  enemies  with  bitter  and  vin- 
dictive hatred.  For  the  rest,  they  differ  among 
themselves  in  their  good  and  bad  points  even 
more  markedly  than  do  men  in  civilized  life, 
for  out  on  the  border  virtue  and  wickedness 
alike  take  on  very  pronounced  colors.  A  man 
who  in  civilization  would  be  merely  a  back- 
biter becomes  a  murderer  on  the  frontier;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  who  in  the  city  would 
do  nothing  more  than  bid  you  a  cheery  good- 
morning  shares  his  last  bit  of  sun-jerked  veni- 
son with  you  when  both  are  threatened  by  star- 
vation in  the  wilderness.  One  hunter  may  be  a 
dark-browed,  evil-eyed  ruffian,  ready  to  kill 
cattle  or  run  off  horses  without  hesitation,  who 
if  game  fails  will  at  once,  in  Western  phrase, 
"  take  to  the  road  " —  that  is,  become  a  high- 
wayman. The  next  is  perhaps  a  quiet,  kindly, 
simple-hearted  man,  law-abiding,  modestly 
unconscious  of  the  worth  of  his  own  fearless 
courage  and  iron  endurance,  always  faithful 
to  his  friends,  and  full  of  chivalric  and  tender 
loyalty  to  women. 

The  hunter  is  the  arch-type  of  freedom.  His 
well-being  rests  in  no  man's  hands  save  his 
own.  He  chops  down  and  hews  out  the  logs 
for  his  hut,  or  perhaps  makes  merely  a  rude 
dug-out  in  the  side  of  a  hill,  with  a  skin  roof, 
or  skin  flaps  for  the  door.  He  buys  a  little 
flour  and  salt,  and  in  times  of  plenty  also  sugar 
and  tea ;  but  not  much,  for  it  must  all  be  car- 
ried hundreds  of  miles  on  the  backs  of  his 
shaggy  pack-ponies.  In  one  corner  of  the 
hut,  a  bunk  covered  with  deer-skins  forms  his 
bed ;  a  kettle  and  a  frying-pan  may  be  all  his 
cooking-utensils.  When  he  can  get  no  fresh 
meat  he  falls  back  on  his  stock  of  jerked  veni- 
son, dried  in  long  strips  over  the  fire  or  in  the 
sun. 

Most  of  the  trappers  are  Americans,  but 
there  are  some  Frenchmen  and  half-breeds 
among  them.  Both  of  the  last,  if  on  the  plains, 
occasionally  make  use  of  queer  wooden  carts, 
very  rude  in  shape,  with  stout  wheels  that 
make  a  most  doleful  squeaking.  In  old  times 
they  all  had  Indian  wives;  but  nowadays 
those  who  live  among  and  intermarry  with 
the  Indians  are  looked  down  upon  by  the 
other  frontiersmen,  who  contemptuously  term 
them  "  squaw-men."  All  of  them  depend  upon 
their  rifles  only  for  food  and  for  self-defense, 
and  make  their  living  by  trapping,  peltries  be- 
ing very  valuable  and  yet  not  bulky.  They  are 
good  game  shots,  especially  the  pure  Ameri- 
cans ;  although,  of  course,  they  are  very  boast- 


ful, and  generally  stretch  the  truth  tremen- 
dously in  telling  about  their  own  marksman- 
ship. Still  they  often  do  very  remarkable 
shooting,  both  for  speed  and  accuracy.  One 
of  their  feats,  that  I  never  could  learn  to  copy, 
is  to  make  excellent  shooting  after  nightfall. 
Of  course  all  this  applies  only  to  the  regular 
hunters;  not  to  the  numerous  pretenders  who 
hang  around  the  outskirts  of  the  towns  to  try 
to  persuade  unwary  strangers  to  take  them  for 
guides. 

On  one  of  my  trips  to  the  mountains  I  hap- 
pened to  come  across  several  old-style  hunt- 
ers at  the  same  time.  Two  were  on  their  way 
out  of  the  woods,  after  having  been  all  winter 
and  spring  without  seeing  a  white  face.  They 
had  been  lucky,  and  their  battered  pack-sad- 
dles carried  bales  of  valuable  furs  —  fisher, 
sable,  otter,  mink,  beaver.  The  two  men, 
though  fast  friends  and  allies  for  many  years, 
contrasted  oddly.  One  was  a  short,  square- 
built,  good-humored  Kanuck,  always  laughing 
and  talking,  who  interlarded  his  conversation 
with  a  singularly  original  mixture  of  the  most 
villainous  French  and  English  profanity.  His 
partner  was  an  American,  gray-eyed,  tall  and 
straight  as  a  young  pine,  with  a  saturnine, 
rather  haughty  face,  and  proud  bearing.  He 
spoke  very  little,  and  then  in  low  tones,  never 
using  an  oath;  but  he  showed  now  and  then 
a  most  unexpected  sense  of  dry  humor.  Both 
were  marvels  of  bronzed  and  rugged  strength. 
Neither  had  the  slightest  touch  of  the  bully 
in  his  nature;  they  treated  others  with  the 
respect  that  they  exacted  for  themselves.  They 
bore  an  excellent  reputation  as  being  not  only 
highly  skilled  in  woodcraft  and  the  use  of  the 
rifle,  but  also  men  of  tried  courage  and  strict 
integrity,  whose  word  could  be  always  implic- 
itly trusted. 

I  had  with  me  at  the  time  a  hunter  who, 
though  their  equal  as  marksman  or  woodsman, 
was  their  exact  opposite  morally.  He  was  a 
pleasant  companion  and  useful  assistant,  being 
very  hard-working,  and  possessing  a  temper 
that  never  was  ruffled  by  anything.  He  was 
also  a  good-looking  fellow,  with  honest  brown 
eyes ;  but  he  no  more  knew  the  difference 
between  right  and  wrong  than  did  Adam 
before  the  fall.  Had  he  been  at  all  conscious 
of  his  wickedness,  or  had  he  possessed  the 
least  sense  of  shame,  he  would  have  been  un- 
bearable as  a  companion ;  but  he  was  so  per- 
fectly pleasant  and  easy,  so  good-humoredly 
tolerant  of  virtue  in  others,  and  he  so  wholly 
lacked  even  a  glimmering  suspicion  that 
murder,  theft,  and  adultery  were  matters  of 
anything  more  than  individual  taste,  that 
I  actually  grew  to  be  rather  fond  of  him.  He 
never  related  any  of  his  past  deeds  of  wicked- 
ness as  matters  either  for  boastfulness  or  for 


VOL.  XXXVI.— its. 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 

a  gun]  and  begun  shooting;  but  I  hit 
him  first,  and  away  he  rode.  I  started 
to  get  en  my  horse  to  follow  him ;  but 
there  was  a  little  Irishman  there  who 
said  he  'd  never  killed  a  man,  and  he 
begged  hard  for  me  to  give  him  my 
gun  and  let  him  go  after  the  other 
man  and  finish  him.  So  I  let  him  go ; 
and  when  he  caught  up,  blamed  if  the 
little  cuss  did  n't  get  so  nervous  that 
he  fired  off  into  the  ground,  and  the 
darned  bullet  struck  a  crowbar,  and 
glanced  up,  and  hit  the  other  man 
square  in  the  head  and  killed  him ! 
Now,  that  was  a  funny  shot,  was  n't 
it?" 

The  fourth  member  of  our  party 
round  the  camp-fire  that  night  was  a 
powerfully  built  trapper,  partly  French 
by  blood,  who  wore  a  gayly  colored 
capote,  or  blanket-coat,  a  greasy  fur 
cap,  and  moccasins.  He  had  grizzled 
hair,  and  a  certain  uneasy,  half-furtive 
look  about  the  eyes.  Once  or  twice  he 
showed  a  curious  reluctance  about  al- 
lowing a  man  to  approach  him  sud- 
denly from  behind.  Altogether  lib 
actions  were  so  odd  that  1  felt  some 
curiosity  to  learn  his  history.  It  turned 
out  that  he  had  been  through  a  rather 
uncanny  experience  the  winter  before. 
He  and  another  man  had  gone  into  a 
remote  basin,  or  inclosed  valley,  in  the 
heart  of  the  mountains,  where  game 
regret ;  they  were  simply  narrated  incident-  was  very  plentiful ;  indeed,  it  was  so  abundant 
ally  in  the  course  of  conversation.  Thus  once,  that  they  decided  to  pass  the  winter  there, 
in  speaking  of  the  profits  of  his  different  enter-  Accordingly  they  put  up  a  log-cabin,  work- 
prises,  he  casually  mentioned  making  a  good  ing  hard,  and  merely  killing  enough  meat  for 
deal  of  money  as  a  Government  scout  in  the  their  immediate  use.  Just  as  it  was  finished 
South-west  by  buying  cartridges  from  some  winter  set  in  with  tremendous  snow-storms. 


FRENCH-CANADIAN     TRAPPER. 


negro  troops  at  a  cent  apiece  and  selling  them 
to  the  hostile  Apaches  for  a  dollar  each.   His 


Going  out  to  hunt,  in  the  first  lull,  they  found, 
to  their  consternation,   that  every  head   of 


conduct  was  not  due  to  sympathy  with  the  game  had  left  the  valley.  Not  an  animal  was 
Indians,  for  it  appeared  that  later  on  he  had  to  be  found  therein ;  they  had  abandoned  it 
taken  part  in  massacring  some  of  these  same  for  their  winter  haunts.  The  outlook  for  the 


Apaches  when  they  were  prisoners.  He  brushed 
aside  as  irrelevant  one  or  two  questions  which 


two  adventurers  was  appalling.    They  were 
afraid  of  trying  to  break  out  through  the  deep 


I  put  to  him :  matters  of  sentiment  were  not  snow-drifts,  and  starvation  stared  them  in  the 

to  be  mixed  up  with  a  purely  mercantile  spec-  face  if  they  staid.    The  man  that  I  met  had  his 

ulation.    Another  time  we  were  talking  of  the  dog  with  him.    They  put  themselves  on  very 

curious  angles  at  which  bullets  sometimes  fly  off  short  commons,  so  as  to  use  up  their  flour  as 

when  they  ricochet.    To  illustrate  the  matter  slowly  as  possible,  and  hunted  unweariedly,  but 

he  related  an  experience  which  I  shall  try  to  saw  nothing.   Soon  a  violent  quarrel  broke  out 
give  in  his  own  words  : 
"  One  time,  when  I  was  keeping 


between  them.    The  other  man,  a  fierce,  sul- 
a  saloon    len  fellow,  insisted  that  the   dog  should  be 


down  in  New  Mexico,  there  was  a  man  owed  killed,  but  the  owner  was  exceedingly  attached 

me  a  grudge.   Well,  he  took  sick  of  the  small-  to  it,  and  refused.    For  a  couple  of  weeks  they 

pox,  and  the  doctor  told  him  he  'd  sure  die,  spoke  no  word  to  each  other,  though  cooped 

and  he  said  if  that  was  so  he  reckoned  he  'd  in   the  little  narrow  pen  of  logs.    Then  one 

kill  me  first.    So  he  come  a-riding  in  with  his  night  the  owner  of  the  dog  was  wakened  by 

gun  [in  the  West  a  revolver  is  generally  called  the  animal  crying  out;  the   other  man  had 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


835 


tried  to  kill  it  with  his  knife,  but  failed.  The 
provisions  were  now  almost  exhausted,  and 
the  two  men  were  glaring  at  each  other  with 
the  rage  of  maddened,  ravening  hunger. 
Neither  dared  to  sleep,  for  fear  that  the  other 
would  kill  him.  Then  the  one  who  owned 
the  dog  at  last  spoke,  and  proposed  that,  to 
give  each  a  chance  for  his  life,  they  should 
separate.  He  would  take  half  of  the  handful 
of  flour  that  was  left  and  start  off  to  try  to  get 
home ;  the  other  should  stay  where  he  was ; 
and  if  he  tried  to  follow  the  first,  he  was  warned 
that  he  would  be  shot  without  mercy.  A  like 
fate  was  to  be  the  portion  of  the  wanderer  if 
driven  to  return  to  the  hut.  The  arrangement 
was  agreed  to  and  the  two  men  separated, 
neither  daring  to  turn  his  back  while  they 
were  within  rifle-shot  of  each  other.  For  two 
days  the  one  who  went  oft"  toiled  on  with 
weary  weakness  through  the  snow-drifts.  Late 
on  the  second  afternoon,  as  he  looked  back 
from  a  high  ridge,  he  saw  in  the  far  distance 
a  black  speck  against  the  snow,  coming  along 
on  his  trail.  His  companion  was  dogging  his 
footsteps.  Immediately  he  followed  his  own 
trail  back  a  little  and  lay  in  ambush.  At  dusk 
his  companion  came  stealthily  up,  rifle  in 
hand,  peering  cautiously  ahead,  his  drawn 
face  showing  the  starved,  eager  ferocity  of 
a  wild  beast,  and  the  man  he  was  hunting 
shot  him  down  exactly  as  if  he  had  been  one. 
Leaving  the  body  where  it  fell,  the  wanderer 
continued  his  journey ,  the  dog  staggering  pain- 
fully behind4iim.  The  next  evening  he  baked 
his  last  cake  and  divided  it  with  the  dog.  In 
the  morning,  with  his  belt  drawn  still 
tighter  round  his  skeleton  body,  he 
once  more  set  out,  with  apparently 
only  a  few  hours  of  dull  misery  be- 
tween him  and  death.  At  noon  he 
crossed  the  track  of  a  huge  timber- 
wolf;  instantly  the  dog  gave  tongue, 
and,  rallying  its  strength,  ran  along 
the  trail.  The  man  struggled  after. 
At  last  his  strength  gave  out  and  he 
sat  down  to  die ;  but  while  sitting 
still,  slowly  stiffening  with  the  cold, 
he  heard  the  dog  baying  in  the  woods. 
Shaking  off  his  mortal  numbness,  he 
crawled  towards  the  sound,  and 
found  the  wolf  over  the  body  of  a 
deer  that  he  had  just  killed,  and  keep- 
ing the  dog  from  it.  At  the  approach 
of  the  new  assailant  the  wolf  sullenly 
drew  off,  and  man  and  dog  tore  the 
raw  deer-flesh  with  hideous  eager- 
ness. It  made  them  very  sick  for  the 
next  twenty-four  hours;  but,  lying  by  i  ^ 
the  carcass  for  two  or  three  days, 
they  recovered  strength.  A  week 
afterwards  the  trapper  reached  a 


miner's  cabin  in  safety.  There  he  told  his  tale, 
and  the  unknown  man  who  alone  might 
possibly  have  contradicted  it  lay  dead  in  the 
depths  of  the  wolf-haunted  forest. 

The  cowboys,  who  have  supplanted  these 
old  hunters  and  trappers  as  the  typical  men 
of  the  plains,  themselves  lead  lives  that  are 
almost  as  full  of  hardship  and  adventure.  The 
unbearable  cold  of  winter  sometimes  makes 
the  small  outlying  camps  fairly  uninhabitable 
if  fuel  runs  short;  and  if  the  line-riders  are 
caught  in  a  blizzard  while  making  their  way 
to  the  home  ranch,  they  are  lucky  if  they  get 
off  with  nothing  worse  than  frozen  feet  and 
faces. 

They  are,  in  the  main,  hard-working,  faith- 
ful fellows,  but  of  course  are  frequently  obliged 
to  get  into  scrapes  through  no  fault  of  their 
own.  Once,  while  out  on  a  wagon  trip,  I  got 
caught  while  camped  by  a  spring  on  the 
prairie,  through  my  horses  all  straying.  A  few 
miles  off  was  the  camp  of  two  cowboys,  who 
were  riding  the  line  for  a  great  Southern  cow- 
outfit.  I  did  not  even  know  their  names, 
but  happening  to  pass  by  them  I  told  of  my 
loss,  and  the  day  after  they  turned  up  with  the 
missing  horses,  which  they  had  been  hunting 
for  twenty-four  hours.  All  I  could  do  in  re- 
turn was  to  give  them  some  reading-matter  — 
something  for  which  the  men  in  these  lonely 
camps  are  always  grateful.  Afterwards  I  spent 
a  day  or  two  with  my  new  friends,  and  we 
became  quite  intimate.  They  were  Texans. 
Both  were  quiet,  clean-cut,  pleasant-spoken 
young  fellows,  who  did  not  even  swear,  except 


THE    OLD    TRAPPER. 


836 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


UlSSOLl'TE    COW-PUNCHERS. 


under  great  provocation;  —  and  there  can  be 
no  greater  provocation  than  is  given  by  a 
"  mean  "  horse  or  a  refractory  steer.  Yet,  to 
my  surprise,  I  found  that  they  were,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  fugitives  from  justice.  They  were 
complaining  of  the  extreme  severity  of  the 
winter  weather,  and  mentioned  their  longing 
to  go  back  to  the  South.  The  reason  they 
could  not  was  that  the  summer  before  they 
had  taken  part  in  a  small  civil  war  in  one  of 
the  wilder  counties  of  New  Mexico.  It  had 
originated  in  a  quarrel  between  two  great 
ranches  over  their  respective  water  rights  and 
range  rights  —  a  quarrel  of  a  kind  rife  among 
pastoral  peoples  since  the  days  when  the  herds- 
men of  Lot  and  Abraham  strove  together  for 
the  grazing  lands  round  the  mouth  of  the  Jor- 
dan. There  were  collisions  between  bands  of 
armed  cowboys,  the  cattle  were  harried  from 
the  springs,  outlying  camps  were  burned 
down,  and  the  sons  of  the  rival  owners  fought 
each  other  to  the  death  with  bowie-knife  and 
revolver  when  they  met  at  the  drinking-booths 


of  the  squalid  towns.  Soon  the  smoldering 
jealousy  which  is  ever  existent  between  the 
Americans  and  Mexicans  of  the  frontier  was 
aroused,  and  when  the  original  cause  of  quar- 
rel was  adjusted,  a  fierce  race  struggle  took  its 
place.  It  was  soon  quelled  by  the  arrival  of  a 
sheriff's  strong  posse  and  the  threat  of  inter- 
ference by  the  regular  troops,  but  not  until 
after  a  couple  of  affrays,  each  attended  with 
bloodshed.  In  one  of  these  the  American  cow- 
boys of  a  certain  range,  after  a  brisk  fight, 
drove  out  the  Mexican  vaqueros  from  among 
them.  In  the  other,  to  avenge  the  murder  of 
one  of  their  number,  the  cowboys  gathered 
from  the  country  round  about  and  fairly 
stormed  the  "  Greaser  " —  that  is,  Mexican  — 
village  where  the  murder  had  been  committed, 
killing  four  of  the  inhabitants.  My  two  friends 
had  borne  a  part  in  this  last  affair.  They  were 
careful  to  give  a  rather  cloudy  account  of  the 
details,  but  I  gathered  that  one  of  them  was 
"  wanted  "  as  a  participant,  and  the  other  as  a 
witness. 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


837 


However,  they  were  both  good  fellows,  and 
probably  their  conduct  was  justifiable,  at  least 
according  to  the  rather  fitful  lights  of  the  bor- 
der. While  sitting  up  late  with  them,  around 
the  sputtering  fire,  they  became  quite  con 
fidential.  At  first  our  conversation  touched 
only  the  usual  monotonous  round  of  subjects 
worn  threadbare  in  every  cow-camp.  A  bunch 
of  steers  had  been  seen  travelingoverthe  scoria 
buttes  to  the  head  of  Elk  Creek ;  they  were 
mostly  Texan  doug/tgies, —  a  name  I  have  never 
seen  written;  it  applies  to  young  immigrant 
cattle, —  but  there  were  some  of  the  Hash- 
Knife  four-year-olds  among  them.  A  stray 
horse  with  a  blurred  brand  on  the  left  hip  had 
just  joined  the  bunch  of  saddle-ponies.  The  red 
F.  V.  cow,  one  of  whose  legs  had  been  badly 
bitten  by  a  wolf,  had  got  mired  down  in  an 
alkali  spring,  and  when  hauled  out  had  charged 
upon  her  rescuer  so  viciously  that  he  barely 
escaped.  Sawback,  the  old  mule,  was  getting 
over  the  effects  of  the  rattlesnake  bite.  The 
river  was  going  down,  but  the  fords  were  still 
bad,  and  the  quicksand  at  the  Custer  Trail 
crossing  had  worked  along  so  that  wagons  had 
to  be  taken  over  opposite  the  blasted  cotton- 
wood.  One  of  the  men  had  seen  a  Three- 
Seven-B  rider  who  had  just  left  the  Green  River 
round-up,  and  who  brought  news  that  they 
had  found  some  cattle  on  the  reservation,  and 
were  now  holding  about  twelve  hundred  head 


on  the  big  brushy  bottom  below  Rainy  Butte. 
Bronco  Jim,  our  local  flash  rider,  had  tried  to 
ride  the  big  bald-faced  sorrel  belonging  to  the 
Oregon  horse-outfit,  and  had  been  buck 
and  his  face  smashed  in.  This  piece  of  infor- 
mation of  course  drew  forth  much  condem- 
nation of  the  unfortunate  Jim's  equestrian  skill. 
It  was  at  once  agreed  that  he  "was  n't  the 
sure-enough  bronco-buster  he  thought  him- 
self," and  he  was  compared  very  unfavorably 
to  various  heroes  of  the  quirt  and  spurs  who 
lived  in  Texas  and  Colorado;  for  the  best 
rider,  like  the  best  hunter,  is  invariably  either 
dead  or  else  a  resident  of  some  other  district. 

These  topics  having  been  exhausted,  we 
discussed  the  rumor  that  the  vigilantes  had 
given  notice  to  quit  to  two  men  who  had  just 
built  a  shack  at  the  head  of  the  Little  Dry, 
and  whose  horses  included  a  suspiciously 
large  number  of  different  brands,  most  of  them 
blurred.  Then  our  conversation  became  more 
personal,  and  they  asked  if  I  would  take  some 
letters  to  post  for  them.  Of  course  I  said  yes, 
and  two  letters  —  evidently  the  product  of 
severe  manual  labor — were  produced.  Each 
was  directed  to  a  girl ;  and  my  companions, 
now  very  friendly,  told  me  that  they  both  had 
sweethearts,  and  for  the  next  hour  I  listened 
to  a-full  account  of  their  charms  and  virtues. 

But  it  is  not  often  that  plainsmen  talk  so 
easily.  They  are  rather  reserved,  especially 


A     FIGHT     IN     THE     STREET. 


838 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


"DANCE     HIGHER  —  DANCK     FASTKR. 


to  strangers;  and  are  certain  to  look  with 
dislike  on  any  man  who,  when  they  first  meet 
him,  talks  a  great  deal.  It  is  always  a  good 
plan,  if  visiting  a  strange  camp  or  ranch,  to 
be  as  silent  as  possible. 

Another  time,  at  a  ranch  not  far  from  my 
own,  I  found  among  the  cowboys  gathered 
for  the  round-up  two  Bible-reading  Methodists, 
who  fearlessly  lived  up  to  their  faith  but  did 
not  obtrude  their  opinions  on  any  one  else, 
and  were  first-class  workers,  so  that  they  had 
no  trouble  with  the  other  men.  Associated 
with  them  were  two  or  three  blear-eyed,  slit- 
mouthed  ruffians,  who  were  as  loose  of  tongue 
as  of  life. 

Generally  some  form  of  stable  government 
is  provided  for  the  counties  as  soon  as  their 
population  has  become  at  all  fixed,  the  fron- 
tiersmen showing  their  national  aptitude  for 
organization.  Then  lawlessness  is  put  down 
pretty  effectively.  For  example,  as  soon  as 
we  organized  the  government  of  Medora  — 
an  excessively  unattractive  little  hamlet,  the 
county-seat  of  our  huge,  scantily  settled  county 
—  we  elected  some  good  officers,  built  a  log 
jail,  prohibited  all  shooting  in  the  streets,  and 
enforced  the  prohibition,  etc. 

Up  to  that  time  there  had  been  a  good  deal 
of  lawlessness  of  one  kind  or  another,  only 
checked  by  an  occasional  piece  of  individual 
retribution  or  by  a  sporadic  outburst  of  vigi- 
lance committee  work.  In  such  a  society  the 
desperadoes  of  every  grade  flourish.  Many 
are  merely  ordinary  rogues  and  swindlers,  who 
rob  and  cheat  on  occasion,  but  are  dangerous 
only  when  led  by  some  villain  of  real  intel- 


lectual power.  The  gambler, 
with  hawk  eyes  and  lissom 
fingers,  is  scarcely  classed  as 
a  criminal ;  indeed,  he  may- 
be a  very  public-spirited  citi- 
zen. But  as  his  trade  is  so 
often  plied  in  saloons, —  and 
even  if,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pens, he  does  not  cheat, 
many  of  his  opponents  are 
certain  to  attempt  to  do  so, — 
he  is  of  necessity  obliged  to 
be  skillful  and  ready  with  his 
weapon,  and  gambling  rows 
are  very  common.  Cowboys 
lose  much  of  their  money  to 
gamblers ;  it  is  with  them 
hard  come  and  light  go,  for 
they  exchange  the  wages  of 
six  months'  grinding  toil  and 
lonely  peril  for  three  days' 
whooping  carousal,  spending 
•',"  :  their  money  on  poisonous 
whisky  or  losing  it  over 
greasy  cards  in  the  vile  dance 
houses.  As  already  explained,  they  are  in  the 
main  good  men ;  and  the  disturbance  that  they 
cause  in  a  town  is  done  from  sheer  rough  light- 
heartedness.  They  shoot  off  boot-heels  or  tall 
hats  occasionally,  or  make  some  obnoxious 
butt  "  dance  "  by  shooting  round  his  feet ;  but 
they  rarely  meddle  in  this  way  with  men  who 
have  not  themselves  played  the  fool.  A  fight 
in  the  streets  is  almost  always  a  duel  between 
two  men  who  bear  each  other  malice;  it  is  only 
in  a  general  melee  in  a  saloon  that  outsiders 
often  get  hurt,  and  then  it  is  their  own  fault, 
for  they  have  no  business  to  be  there.  One 
evening  at  Medora  a  cowboy  spurred  his 
horse  up  the  steps  of  a  rickety  "  hotel  "  piazza 
into  the  bar-room,  where  he  began  firing  at 
the  clock,  the  decanters,  etc.,  the  bartender 
meanwhile  taking  one  shot  at  him,  which 
missed.  When  he  had  emptied  his  revolver 
he  threw  down  a  roll  of  bank-notes  on  the 
counter,  to  pay  for  the  damage  that  he  had 
done,  and  galloped  his  horse  out  through  the 
door,  disappearing  in  the  darkness  with  loud 
yells  to  a  rattling  accompaniment  of  pistol- 
shots  interchanged  between  himself  and  some 
passer-by,  who  apparently  began  firing  out  of 
pure  desire  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  oc- 
casion—  for  it  was  the  night  of  the  Fourth 
of  July,  and  all  the  country  round  about  had 
come  into  town  for  a  spree. 

All  this  is  mere  horse-play ;  it  is  the  cow- 
boy's method  of  "  painting  the  town  red,"  as 
an  interlude  in  his  harsh,  monotonous  life.  Of 
course  there  are  plenty  of  hard  characters 
among  cowboys,  but  no  more  than  among 
lumbermen  and  the  like ;  only  the  cowboys 


FRONTIER    TYPI;S. 


839 


are  so  ready  with  their  weapons  that  a  bully 
in  one  of  their  camps  is  apt  to  be  a  murderer 
instead  of  merely  a  bruiser.  Often,  moreover, 
on  a  long  trail,  or  in  a  far-off  camp,  where 
.the  men  are  for  many  months  alone,  feuds 
spring  up  that  are  in  the  end  sure  to  be  slaked 
in  blood.  As  a  rule,  however,  cowboys  who 
become  desperadoes  soon  perforce  drop  their 
original  business,  and  are  no  longer  employed 
on  ranches,  unless  in  counties  or  territories 
where  there  is  very  little  heed  paid  to  the  law, 
and  where,  in  consequence,  a  cattle-owner 
needs  a  certain  number  of  hired  bravos.  Until 
within  two  or  three  years  this  was  the  case  in 
parts  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  where  land 
claims  were  "jumped"  and  cattle  stolen  all 
the  while,  one  effect  being  to  insure  high  wages 
to  every  individual  who  combined  murderous 
proclivities  with  skill  in  the  use  of  the  six- 
shooter. 

Even  in  much  more  quiet  regions  different 
outfits  vary  greatly  as  regards  the  character 
of  their  employees  :  I  know  one  or  two  where 
the  men  are  good  ropers  and  riders,  but  a 
gambling,  brawling,  hard-drinking  set,  always 
shooting  each  other  or  strangers.  Generally, 
in  such  a  case,  the  boss  is  himself  as  objec- 
tionable as  his  men ; 
he  is  one  of  those  who 
have  risen  by  unblush- 
ing rascality,  and  is 
always  sharply  watched 
by  his  neighbors,  be- 
cause he  is  sure  to  try 
to  shift  calves  on  to  his 
own  cows,  to  brand 
any  blurred  animal  with 
his  own  mark,  and  per- 
haps to  attempt  the 
alteration  of  perfectly 
plain  brands.  The  last 
operation,  however,  has 
become  very  risky  since 
the  organization  of  the 
cattle  country  and  the 
appointment  of  trained 
brand-readers  as  in- 
spectors. These  inspec- 
tors examine  the  hide 
of  every  animal  slain, 
sold,  or  driven  off,  and 
it  is  wonderful  to  see 
how  quickly  they  will 
detect  signs  of  a  brand 
having  been  tampered 
with.  Now  there  is,  in 
consequence,  very  little 
of  this  kind  of  dishon- 
esty ;  whereas  formerly 
herds  were  occasionally 
stolen  almost  bodily. 


Claim-jumpers  are,  as  a  rule,  merely  black- 
mailers. Sometimes  they  will  by  threats  drive 
an  ignorant  foreigner  from  his  claim,  but  never 
an  old  frontiersman.  They  delight  to  squat 
down  beside  ranchmen  who  are  themselves 
trying  to  keep  land  to  which  they  are  not  en- 
titled, and  who  therefore  know  that  their  only 
hope  is  to  bribe  or  to  bully  the  intruder. 

Cattle-thieves,  for  the  reason  given  above, 
are  not  common,  although  there  are  plenty 
of  vicious,  shiftless  men  who  will  kill  a  cow 
or  a  steer  for  the  meat  in  winter,  if  they  get 
a  chance. 

Horse-thieves,  however,  are  always  numer- 
ous and  formidable  on  the  frontier;  though  in 
our  own  country  they  have  been  summarily 
thinned  out  of  late  years.  It  is  the  fashion  to 
laugh  at  the  severity  with  which  horse-stealing 
is  punished  on  the  border,  but  the  reasons  are 
evident.  Horses  are  the  most  valuable  prop- 
erty of  the  frontiersman,  whether  cowboy, 
hunter,  or  settler,  and  are  often  absolutely  es- 
sential to  his  well-being,  and  even  to  his  life. 
They  are  always  marketable,  and  are  very 
easily  stolen,  for  they  carry  themselves  off, 
instead  of  having  to  be  carried.  Horse-steal- 
ing is  thus  a  most  tempting  business,  especially 


THE    MAGIC    OF    THE    "DROP." 


840 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


to  the  more  reckless  ruffians,  and  it  is  always 
followed  by  armed  men ;  and  they  can  only 
be  kept  in  check  by  ruthless  severity.  Fre- 
quently they  band  together  with  the  road 
agents  (highwaymen)  and  other  desperadoes 
into  secret  organizations,  which  control  and 
terrorize  a  district  until  overthrown  by  force. 
After  the  civil  war  a  great  many  guerrillas, 
notably  from  Arkansas  and  Missouri,  went 
out  to  the  plains,  often  drifting  northward. 
They  took  naturally  to  horse-stealing  and 
kindred  pursuits.  Since  I  have  been  in  the 
northern  cattle  country  I  have  known  of  half 
a  dozen  former  members  of  Quantrell's  gang 
being  hanged  or  shot. 

The  professional  man-killers,  or  "  bad  men," 
may  be  horse-thieves  or  highwaymen,  but 
more  often  are  neither  one  nor  the  other. 
Some  of  them,  like  some  of  the  Texan  cow- 
boys, become  very  expert  in  the  use  of  the  re- 
volver, their  invariable  standby ;  but  in  the 
open  a  cool  man  with  a  rirle  is  always  an  over- 
match for  one  of  them,  unless  at  very  close 
quarters,  on  account  of  the  superiority  of  his 
weapon.  Some  of  the  "bad  men"  are  quiet, 
good  fellows,  who  have  been  driven  into  their 
career  by  accident.  One  of  them  has  perhaps 
at  some  time  killed  a  man  in  self-defense;  he 
acquires  some  reputation,  and  the  neighboring 


FROM    LIFK. 


WHICH     IS    THE     BAD    MAN  ? 


bullies  get  to  look  on  him  as  a  rival  whom  it 
would  be  an  honor  to  slay;  so  that  from  that 
time  on  he  must  be  ever  on  the  watch,  must 
learn  to  draw  quick  and  shoot  straight, —  the 
former  being  even  more  important  than  the 
latter, —  and  probably  has  to  take  life  afterlife 
in  order  to  save  his  own. 

Some  of  these  men  are  brave  only  because 
of  their  confidence  in  their  own  skill  and 
strength;  once  convince  them  that  they  are 
overmatched  and  they  turn  into  abject  cow- 
ards. Others  have  nerves  of  steel  and  will  face 
any  odds,  or  certain  death  it  self,  without  flinch- 
ing a  hand-breadth.  I  was  once  staying  in 
a  town  where  a  desperately  plucky  fight  took 
place.  A  noted  desperado,  an  Arkansas  man, 
had  become  involved  in  a  quarrel  with  two 
others  of  the  same  kind,  both  Irishmen  and 
partners.  For  several  days  all  three  lurked 
about  the  .saloon-infested  streets  of  the  roar- 
ing little  board-and-canvas  "city,"  each  trying 
to  get  "the  drop," — that  is,  the  first  shot, — 
the  other  inhabitants  looking  forward  to  the 
fight  with  pleased  curiosity,  no  one  dreaming 
of  interfering.  At  last  one  of  the  partners  got 
a  chance  at  his  opponent  as  the  latter  was 
walking  into  a  gambling-hell,  and  broke  his 
back  near  the  hips;  yet  the  crippled,  mortally 
wounded  man  twisted  around  as  he  fell  and 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


841 


shot  his  slayer  dead.  Then,  knowing  that  he 
had  but  a  few  moments  to  live,  and  expecting 
that  his  other  foe  would  run  up  on  hearing 
the  shooting,  he  dragged  himself  by  his  arms 
out  into  the  street.  Immediately  afterwards, 
as  he  anticipated,  the  second  partner  appeared, 
and  was  killed  on  the  spot.  The  victor  did 
not  live  twenty  minutes.  As  in  most  of  these 
encounters,  all  of  the  men  who  were  killed  de- 
served their  fate.  In  my  own  not  very  exten- 
sive experience  I  can  recall  but  one  man  killed 
in  these  fights  whose  death  was  regretted,  and 
he  was  slain  by  a  European.  Generally  every 
one  is  heartily  glad  to  hear  of  the  death  of 
either  of  the  contestants,  and  the  only  regret 
is  that  the  other  survives. 

One  curious  shooting  scrape  that  took  place 
in  Medora  was  worthy  of  being  chronicled  by 
Bret  Harte.  It  occurred  in  the  summer  of 
1884, 1  believe,  but  it  may  have  been  the  year 
following.  I  did  not  see  the  actual  occurrence, 
but  I  saw  both  men  immediately  afterwards; 
and  I  heard  the  shooting,  which  took  place 
in  a  saloon  on  the  bank,  while  I  was  swim- 
ming my  horse  across  the  river,  holding  my 
rifle  up  so  as  not  to  wet  it.  I  will  not  give 
their  full  names,  as  I  am  not  certain  what  has 
become  of  them ;  though  I  was  told  that  one 
had  since  been  either  put  in  jail  or  hanged, 
I  forget  which.  One  of  them  was  a  saloon- 
keeper, familiarly  called  Welshy.  The  other 
man,  Hay,  had  been  bickering  with  him  for 
some  time.  One  day  Hay,  who  had  been  de- 
feated in  a  wrestling  match  by  one  of  my  own 
boys,  and  was  out  of  temper,  entered  the 
other's  saloon  and  became  very  abusive.  The 
quarrel  grew  more  and  more  violent,  and  sud- 
denly Welshy  whipped  out  his  revolver  and 
blazed  away  at  Hay.  The  latter  staggered 
slightly,  shook  himself,  stretched  out  his  hand, 
and  gave  back  to  his  would-be  slayer  the  ball, 
saying,  "  Here,  man,  here  's  the  bullet."  It 
had  glanced  along  his  breast-bone,  gone  into 
the  body,  and  come  out  at  the  point  of  the 
shoulder,  when,  being  spent,  it  dropped  down 
the  sleeve  into  his  hand.  Next  day  the  local 
paper,  which  rejoiced  in  the  title  of"  The  Bad 
Lands  Cowboy,"  chronicled  the  event  in  the 
usual  vague  way  as  an  "  unfortunate  occur- 
rence "  between  "  two  of  our  most  esteemed 
fellow-citizens."  The  editor  was  a  good  fellow, 
a  college  graduate,  and  a  first-class  base-ball 
player,  who  always  stood  up  stoutly  against 
any  corrupt  dealing;  but,  like  all  other  editors 
in  small  Western  towns,  he  was  intimate  with 
bo'th  combatants  in  almost  every  fight. 

The  winter  after  this  occurrence  I  was 
away,  and  on  my  return  began  asking  my 
foreman  —  a  particular  crony  of  mine  —  about 
the  fates  of  my  various  friends.  Among  others 
I  inquired  after  a  traveling  preacher  who  had 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 116-117. 


come  to  our  neighborhood — a  good  man,  but 
irascible.  After  a  moment's  pause  a  gleam  of 
remembrance  came  into  my  informant's  eye : 
"  Oh,  the  parson !  Well  —  he  beat  a  man  over 
the  head  with  an  ax,  and  they  put  him  in  jail ! " 
It  certainly  seemed  a  rather  summary  method 
of  repressing  a  refractory  parishioner.  Another 
acquaintance  had  shared  a  like  doom.  "  He 
started  to  go  out  of  the  country,  but  they 
ketched  him  at  Bismarck  and  put  him  in 
jail " —  apparently  on  general  principles,  for 
I  did  not  hear  of  his  having  committed  any 
specific  crime.  My  foreman  sometimes  devel- 
oped his  own  theories  of  propriety.  I  remem- 
ber his  objecting  strenuously  to  a  proposal 
to  lynch  a  certain  French-Canadian  who  had 
lived  in  his  own  cabin,  back  from  the  river, 
ever  since  the  whites  came  into  the  land,  but 
who  was  suspected  of  being  a  horse-thief.  His 
chief  point  against  the  proposal  was,  not  that 
the  man  was  innocent,  but  that  "  it  did  n't 
seem  anyways  right  to  hang  a  man  who  had 
been  so  long  in  the  country." 

Sometimes  we  had  a  comic  row.  There  was 
one  huge  man  from  Missouri  called  "  The 
Pike,"  who  had  been  the  keeper  of  a  wood- 
yard  for  steamboats  on  the  Upper  Missouri. 
Like  most  of  his  class,  he  was  a  hard  case ; 
and,  though  pleasant  enough  when  sober,  al- 
ways insisted  on  fighting  when  drunk.  One 
day,  when  on  a  spree,  he  announced  his  in- 
tention of  thrashing  the  entire  population  of 
Medora  seriatim,  and  began  to  make  his  prom- 
ise good  with  great  vigor  and  praiseworthy 
impartiality.  He  was  victorious  over  the  first 
two  or  three  eminent  citizens  whom  he  en- 
countered, and  theft  tackled  a  gentleman 
known  as  "  Cold  Turkey  Bill."  Under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  Cold  Turkey,  though  an 
able-bodied  man,  was  no  match  for  The  Pike ; 
but  the  latter  was  still  rather  drunk,  and  more- 
over was  wearied  by  his  previous  combats. 
So  Cold  Turkey  got  him  down,  lay  on  him, 
choked  him  by  the  throat  with  one  hand,  and 
began  pounding  his  face  with  a  triangular  rock 
held  in  the  other.  To  the  onlookers  the  fate 
of  the  battle  seemed  decided ;  but  Cold  Tur- 
key better  appreciated  the  endurance  of  his 
adversary,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  he  sym- 
pathized with  the  traditional  hunter  who,  hav- 
ing caught  a  wildcat,  earnestly  besought  a 
comrade  to  help  him  let  it  go.  While  still 
pounding  vigorously  he  raised  an  agonized 
wail :  "  Help  me  off,  fellows,  for  the  Lord's 
sake;  he  's  tiring  me  out!"  There  was  no 
resisting  so  plaintive  an  appeal,  and  the  by- 
standers at  once  abandoned  their  attitude  of 
neutrality  for  one  of  armed  intervention. 

I  have  always  been  treated  with  the  utmost 
courtesy  by  all  cowboys,  whether  on  the  round- 
up or  in  camp ;  and  the  few  real  desperadoes 


842 


FRONTIER    TYPES. 


that  I  have  seen  were  also  perfectly  polite.  In- 
deed, I  never  was  shot  at  maliciously  but  once. 
This  was  on  an  occasion  when  I  had  to  pass  the 
night  in  a  little  frontier  hotel  where  the  bar- 
room occupied  the  whole  lower  floor,  and  was 
in  consequence  the  place  where  every  one, 
drunk  or  sober,  had  to  sit.  My  assailant  was 
neither  a  cowboy  nor  a  bond  fide  "  bad  man," 
but  a  broad- hatted  ruffian  of  cheap  and  com- 
monplace type,  who  had  for  the  moment  ter- 
rorized the  other  men  in  the  bar-room,  these 
being  mostly  sheep-herders  and  small  grangers. 
The  fact  that  I  wore  glasses,  together  with  my 
evident  desire  to  avoid  a  fight,  apparently  gave 
him  the  impression  —  a  mistaken  one  —  that 
I  would  not  resent  an  injury. 

The  first  deadly  affray  that  took  place  in  our 
town,  after  the  cattle-men  came  in  and  regular 
settlement  began,  was  between  a  Scotchman 
and  a  Minnesota  man,  the  latter  being  one 
of  the  small  stockmen.  Both  had  shooting 
records,  and  each  was  a  man  with  a  varied 
past.  The  Scotchman,  a  noted  bully,  was  the 
more  daring  of  the  two,  but  he  was  much  too 
hot-headed  and  overbearing  to  be  a  match 
for  his  gray-eyed,  hard-featured  foe.  After  a 
furious  quarrel  and  threats  of  violence,  the 
Scotchman  mounted  his  horse,  and,  rifle  in 
hand,  rode  to  the  door  of  the  mud  ranch, 
perched  on  the  brink  of  the  river-bluff,  where 
the  American  lived,  and  was  instantly  shot 
down  by  the  latter  from  behind  a  corner  of 
the  building. 

Later  on  I  once  opened  a  cowboy  ball  with 
the  wife  of  the  victor  in  this  contest,  the  hus- 
band himself  dancing  opposite.  It  was  the 
lanciers,  and  he  knew  all  the  steps  far  better 
than  I  did.  He  could  have  danced  a  minuet 
very  well  with  a  little  practice.  The  scene  re- 
minded one  of  the  ball  where  Bret  Harte's 
heroine  "  danced  down  the  middle  with  the 
man  who  shot  Sandy  Magee." 

But  though  there  were  plenty  of  men  pres- 
ent each  of  whom  had  shot  his  luckless  Sandy 
Magee,  yet  there  was  no  Lily  of  Poverty  Flat. 
There  is  an  old  and  true  border  saying  that 
"  the  frontier  is  hard  on  women  and  cattle." 
There  are  some  striking  exceptions;  but,  as 
a  rule,  the  grinding  toil  and  hardship  of  a  life 
passed  in  the  wilderness,  or  on  its  outskirts, 
drive  the  beauty  and  bloom  from  a  woman's 
face  long  before  her  youth  has  left  her.  By 
the  time  she  is  a  mother  she  is  sinewy  and 
angular,  with  thin,  compressed  lips  and  fur- 
rowed, sallow  brow.  But  she  has  a  hundred 
qualities  that  atone  for  the  grace  she  lacks. 
She  is  a  good  mother,  and  a  hard-working 
housewife,  always  putting  things  to  rights, 
washing  and  cooking  for  her  stalwart  spouse 
and  offspring.  She  is  faithful  to  her  husband, 
and,  like  the  true  American  that  she  is,  exacts 


faithfulness  in  return.  Peril  cannot  daunt  her, 
nor  hardship  and  poverty  appall  her.  Whether 
on  the  mountains  in  a  log  hut  chinked  with 
moss,  in  a  sod  or  adobe  hovel  on  the  desolate 
prairie,  or  in  a  mere  temporary  camp,  where 
the  white-topped  wagons  have  been  drawn 
up  in  a  protection-giving  circle  near  some 
spring,  she  is  equally  at  home.  Clad  in  a 
dingy  gown  and  a  hideous  sun-bonnet,  she 
goes  bravely  about  her  work,  resolute,  silent, 
uncomplaining.  The  children  grow  up  pretty 
much  as  fate  dictates.  Even  when  very  small 
they  seem  well  able  to  protect  themselves. 
The  wife  of  one  of  my  teamsters,  who  lived 
in  a  small  outlying  camp,  used  to  keep  the 
youngest  and  most  troublesome  members  of 
her  family  out  of  mischief  by  the  simple  expe- 
dient of  picketing  them  out,  each  child  being 
tied  by  the  leg,  with  a  long  leather  string,  to 
a  stake  driven  into  the  ground,  so  that  it  could 
neither  get  at  another  child  nor  at  anything 
breakable. 

The  best  buckskin  maker  that  I  ever  met 
was,  if  not  a  typical  frontiers-woman,  at  least 
a  woman  who  could  not  have  reached  her  full 
development  save  on  the  border.  She  made 
first-class  hunting-shirts,  leggins,  and  gant- 
lets. When  I  knew  her  she  was  living  alone 
in  her  cabin  on  mid-prairie,  having  dismissed 
her  husband  six  months  previously  in  an 
exceedingly  summary  manner.  She  not  only 
possessed  redoubtable  qualities  of  head  and 
hand,  but  also  a  nice  sense  of  justice,  even 
towards  Indians,  that  is  not  always  found  on 
the  frontier.  Once,  going  there  for  a  buckskin 
shirt,  I  met  at  her  cabin  three  Sioux,  and 
from  their  leader,  named  One  Bull,  purchased 
a  tobacco  pouch,  beautifully  worked  with 
porcupine  quills.  She  had  given  them  some 
dinner,  for  which  they  had  paid  with  a  deer- 
hide.  Falling  into  conversation,  she  mentioned 
that  just  before  I  came  up  a  white  man.  ap- 
parently from  Deadwood,  had  passed  by,  and 
had  tried  to  steal  the  Indians'  horses.  The 
latter  had  been  too  quick  for  him,  had  run 
him  down,  and  brought  him  back  to  the 
cabin.  "  I  told  'em  to  go  right  on  and  hang 
him,  and  /wouldn't  never  cheep  about  it," 
said  my  informant;  "but  they  let  him  go, 
after  taking  his  gun.  There  ain't  no  sense  in 
stealing  from  Indians  any  more  than  from 
white  folks,  and  I  'm  not  going  to  have  it 
round  my  ranch,  neither.  There!  I '11  give 'em 
back  the  deer-hide  they  give  me  for  the  din- 
ner and  things,  anyway."  I  told  her  that  I  sin- 
cerely wished  we  could  make  her  sheriff  and 
Indian  agent.  She  made  the  Indians — and 
whites,  too,  for  that  matter — behave  them- 
selves and  walk  the  straightest  kind  of  line, 
not  tolerating  the  least  symptom  of  rebellion, 
but  she  had  a  strong  natural  sense  of  justice. 


A   STRIKE. 


843 


The  cowboy  balls  spoken  of  above  are 
always  great  events  in  the  small  towns  where 
they  take  place.  Being  usually  given  when  the 
round-up  passes  near,  everybody  round  about 
comes  in  for  them.  They  are  almost  always 
conducted  with  great  decorum;  no  unseemly 
conduct  would  be  tolerated.  There  is  usually 
some  master  of  the  ceremonies,  chosen  with 
due  regard  to  brawn  as  well  as  brain.  He 
calls  off  the  figures  of  the  square  dances  so 
that  even  the  inexperienced  may  get  through 
them,  and  incidentally  preserves  order.  Some- 
times we  are  allowed  to  wear  our  revolvers, 
and  sometimes  not.  The  nature  of  the  band, 
of  course,  depends  upon  the  size  of  the  place. 
I  remember  one  ball  that  came  near  being  a 
failure  because  our  half-breed  fiddler  "  went 
and  got  himself  shot,"  as  the  indignant  master 
of  the  ceremonies  phrased  it. 

But  all  these  things  are  merely  incidents  in 
the  cowboy's  life.  It  is  utterly  unfair  to  judge 
the  whole  class  by  what  a  few  individuals  do 
in  the  course  of  two  or  three  days  spent  in 
town,  instead  of  by  the  long  months  of  weary, 
honest  toil  common  to  all  alike.  To  appre- 


ciate properly  his  fine,  manly  qualities,  the 
wild  rough-rider  of  the  plains  should  be  seen 
in  his  own  home.  There  he  passes  his  clays; 
there  he  does  his  life-work;  there,  when  he 
meets  death,  he  faces  it  as  he  has  faced  many 
other  evils,  with  quiet,  uncomplaining  forti- 
tude. Brave,  hospitable,  hardy,  and  adven- 
turous, he  is  the  grim  pioneer  of  our  race  ;  he 
prepares  the  way  for  the  civilization  from  lie- 
fore  whose  face  he  must  himself  disappear. 
Hard  and  dangerous  though  his  existence  is, 
it  has  yet  a  wild  attraction  that  strongly  draws 
to  it  his  bold,  free  spirit.  He  lives  in  the  lonely 
lands  \vhere  mighty  rivers  twist  in  long  reaches 
between  the  barren  bluffs;  where  the  prairies 
stretch  out  into  billowy  plains  of  waving  grass, 
girt  only  by  the  blue  horizon  —  plains  across 
whose  endless  breadth  he  can  steer  his  course 
for  days  and  weeks  and  see  neither  man  to 
speak  to  nor  hill  to  break  the  level ;  where 
the  glory  and  the  burning  splendor  of  the  sun- 
sets kindle  the  blue  vault  of  heaven  and  the 
level  brown  earth  till  they  merge  together  in 
an  ocean  of  flaming  fire. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 


A   STRIKE. 


JOU  are  not  going  up  to  the 
mill  this  morning,George?" 
asked  Mrs.  Duncan,  as  her 
husband's  light  wagon  was 
brought  to  the  door. 

"  Yes  ;   I  shall  be  back 
by  the  time  you  get  home 
from  church." 
The   young  wife  looked  anxiously  at  her 
husband  and  set  down  the  child  who  had  been 
romping  in  her  arms. 

"  Is  there  anything  new  ?  "  she  said  ear- 
nestly. 

"  Yes ;  the  committee  are  going  to  wait 
on  me  this  morning,  to  investigate  the  books 
and  see  if  the  company  was  justified  in  refus- 
ing to  raise  the  finishers'  wages." 

"  And  you  are  going  to  meet  them  ?  " 
"  Oh,  yes.  Don't  worry;  there  won't  be  any 
trouble.    'Bye,  Tippie;  'bye,  mamma." 

Duncan  kissed  his  wife  and  child,  sprang 
into  the  wagon,  and,  after  carefully  lighting 
his  pipe,  drove  down  the  avenue  and  out 
on  to  the  river  road,  in  the  direction  of  the 
mill. 

Mary  Duncan's  bonny  face  lacked  its 
wonted  smile  that  morning,  and  the  choir 
noticed  that  the  hands  which  struck  the  organ 


keys  were  not  quite  so  steady  as  usual.  The 
voluntary,  which  accompanied  the  collection, 
was  played  in  a  minor  key.  Mrs.  Duncan 
was  undeniably  anxious  about  matters  at  the 
mill,  and  she  gave  scant  heed  to  the  excellent 
sermon  preached  by  the  young  divine,  still 
in  the  first  enthusiastic  phase  of  his  clerical 
career. 

George  Duncan  reached  the  mill  before  the 
committee  arrived.  He  unlocked  the  door 
of  his  office  and  sat  down  at  his  desk.  He 
glanced  at  the  clock  —  ten  minutes  to  spare. 
He  wrote  a  business  letter,  straightened  a  file 
of  bills,  and  then  for  lack  of  a  better  occupa- 
tion set  to  sketching  the  view  of  the  mill 
commanded  by  the  window  near  his  desk. 
The  tall  chimney,  the  long  rag-room,  the  new 
shed,  the  yard  where  a  few  plucky  flowers 
were  trying  to  force  their  way  through  the 
hard,  sandy  soil,  the  straggling  cypress-trees, 
were  all  clearly  outlined  by  a  bold,  free  hand. 
Just  then  a  figure  was  seen  coming  round  the 
corner  of  the  rag-room.  Duncan  glanced  at 
the  man  and  went  on  with  his  work.  Two 
more  men  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  a  min- 
ute later  the  labor  committee  entered  the 
office  of  the  superintendent  of  the  mills. 

"'Morning,  Mr.  Duncan," said  the  foremost 


844 


A    STRIKE. 


man,  an  ex-employee  of  the  company  who  had 
been  discharged  for  disorderly  conduct  three 
months  before  the  opening  of  our  story. 

"  Good-morning,  Hennessey ;  good-morn- 
ing, men,"  said  Duncan,  nodding  pleasantly 
to  the  two  committee-men,  known  to  him  by 
sight  only.  One  was  an  apothecary's  clerk, 
the  other  a  railroad  employee. 

"  I  understand  that  you  have  come  to  look 
over  my  books,"  said  Duncan,  coming  directly 
to  the  point.  "  Which  of  you  knows  something 
about  accounts?  It 's  hardly  in  your  line,  Hen- 
nessey, I  suppose." 

It  appeared  that  Ethan  Nichols,  the  apoth- 
ecary's clerk,  had  been  empowered  by  the 
committee  to  act  in  the  capacity  of  examiner, 
and  in  five  minutes  he  and  the  superintendent 
were  deep  in  the  affairs  of  the  company.  The 
examination  was  a  longer  matter  than  the 
members  of  the  committee  had  anticipated. 
For  some  occult  reason  Mr.  Duncan  insisted 
that  Nichols  should  go  over  the  accounts  for 
the  last  three  years;  the  committee  would 
have  been  quite  satisfied  with  examining  the 
books  kept  during  the  past  twelvemonth. 
The  morning  passed  very  slowly  with  Hen- 
nessey and  the  railroad  man,  and  to  while 
away  the  time  the  two  sauntered  down  to  the 
river  bank,  and  finally  into  the  silent  mill, 
shut  down  two  days  before  by  the  order  of 
the  labor  committee.  Hennessey  explained  the 
use  of  the  silent  machinery  to  his  colleague. 

"  There  's  a  power  o'  money  in  this  here 
mill ;  machinery  alone  must  be  wuth  a  good 
many  thous',"  said  the  railroad  man  medita- 
tively. 

"  'Deed  you  are  right,"  answered  Hennessey. 
"  Duncan  don't  spare  money  on  any  new-fan- 
gled bit  of  machinery  he  happens  to  fancy. 
Why,  he  put  a  patent  blower-ventilator  in  the 
rag-room  last  month,  that  was  n't  needed,  at 
the  cost  of  ten  thousand  dollars;  and  when 
we  ask  him  to  raise  some  of  his  men's  wages 
twenty-five  cents,  he  won't  hear  to  it.  But  I 
guess  he  will  have  to  come  to  our  terms,  if  he 
wants  to  see  his  patent  ventilators  working 
again." 

The  railroad  man  laughed,  and  the  two  col- 
leagues were  in  high  spirits  when  they  returned 
to  the  office,  where  they  found  George  Dun- 
can and  Ethan  Nichols  talking  together  very 
seriously. 

"Got  through  yet?"  asked  Hennessey. 

"Yes,"  said  Nichols,  shaking  his  head;  "I 
have  got  hold  of  all  we  want  to  know."  There 
was  a  moment's  pause. 

"  Shall  I  tell  these  men  what  you  have 
learned  from  the  company's  books,  Nichols, 
or  will  you  ?  "  said  Duncan. 

"  I  'd  rutheryou  spoke  to  'em,  sir,"  Nichols 
answered. 


"  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,"  said  Duncan, 
speaking  in  the  slow,  good-natured  way  which 
Hennessey  knew  covered  an  inflexible  will, 
"  that  the  company  having  refused  to  raise 
the  finishers'  wages,  the  men  and  the  girls 
have  all  struck  work.  In  doing  this  they  have 
discharged  themselves  from  our  employ,  and 
they  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  our  con- 
cerns now  than" —  the  superintendent  paused 
for  an  appropriate  simile — "  than  that  child  out 
there.  Did  we  choose  to  make  up  a  new  crew 
at  our  old  wages,  it  is  likely  that  we  could  do 
so.  We  have  never  found  any  difficulty  in  get- 
ting as  many  hands  as  we  could  employ,  but 
for  certain  reasons  we  have  decided  not  to  re- 
open the  mills  on  the  old  basis.  If  we  had 
intended  to  continue  running  on  our  old  terms, 
I  should  not  have  agreed  to  meet  your  com- 
mittee to-day.  We  have  always  managed  our 
own  concerns  ourselves,  and  purpose  to  con- 
tinue doing  so,  but  we  are  willing  that  our  old 
hands  should  understand  the  state  of  the  case. 
Mr.  Nichols  has  just  learned,  what  we  have 
been  aware  of  for  some  time  past,  that  the 
company  has  been  losing  money  steadily  for 
three  years.  Paper  brings  four  cents  a  pound 
to-day.  It  used  to  bring  twenty-five.  A  dol- 
lar is  worth  now  what  five  dollars  was  worth 
then.  Have  the  wages  dropped  in  proportion 
to  the  price  of  paper  ?  You  know  how  that  is, 
Hennessey.  When  you  were  discharged  three 
months  ago  you  were  drawing  the  same  wages 
you  drew  in  war  times.  We  have  talked  over 
closing  the  mills  a  dozen  times.  The  matter 
came  up  this  winter  in  the  January  meeting 
of  the  directors.  The  majority  were  in  favor 
of  shutting  down  these  mills  and  filling  all  our 
contracts  at  the  Framingham  works,  which 
have  always  paid  well  enough  to  enable  us  to 
carry  the  losses  of  this  concern.  Business 
prospects  being  worse  instead  of  better,  they 
thought  it  best  to  shut  down  these  works.  It 
seemed  to  me  a  pretty  rough  thing  on  the 
men  and  women  to  turn  them  out  of  work  in 
the  middle  of  the  winter,  and  I  said  so  to  the 
directors,  fair  and  square.  They  finally  agreed 
to  run  the  mills  till  midsummer,  and  then,  if 
the  prospects  were  not  brighter,  to  close  up 
here,  unless  we  could  make  better  terms  with 
the  mill  crew.  You  have  settled  the  ques- 
tion for  us.  Under  the  direction  of  the  labor 
committee  our  men  and  girls  have  all  struck, 
or,  as  I  said  before,  discharged  themselves,  the 
committee  having  agreed  to  support  them  and 
their  families  until  we  should  be  coerced  into 
raising  the  finishers'  wages.  I  hope  the  com- 
mittee will  keep  their  word,  for  we  have  decided 
not  to  reopen  the  works,  unless  we  can  do  so 
with  reduced  pay,  from  the  superintendent 
down  to  the  lumpers." 

As  Mr.  Duncan  finished  this,  for  him,  re- 


A    STRIKE. 


845 


markably  long  speech,  he  put  together  his 
papers,  locked  his  desk,  and,  reaching  for  his 
hat,  jingled  the  keys  of  the  office  in  his  hand. 
The  members  of  the  committee  exchanged 
significant  glances. 

"  It's  a  lie!  "  whispered  Hennessey,  as  the 
superintendent  stooped  to  unchain  his  setter, 
fastened  to  a  ring  below  the  desk. 

Nichols  shook  his  head  gravely,  and  the 
railroad  man  looked  from  one  to  the  other 
dubiously.  Duncan  turned  on  them  sharply, 
with  a  distinct  change  of  manner. 

"  How  's  that,  Hennessey  ?  Nichols,  be 
good  enough  to  inform  these  men  if  what  I 
have  said  about  our  affairs  agrees  with  the 
accounts." 

"  Yes,"  responded  the  apothecary's  clerk 
reluctantly;  "it  does." 

Hennessey  muttered  something  between 
his  teeth,  the  words  "  cooked  accounts  "  alone 
reaching  the  superintendent's  ear.  The  young 
man,  gravely  balancing  a  heavy  whip  that  had 
stood  in  the  corner,  said  coolly: 

"That  is  all  I  have  to  say  to  the  labor 
committee;  but  if  I  find  any  loafers  hanging 
about  these  works  five  minutes  from  now,  I 
shall  have  something  very  different  to  say  to 
them." 

Hennessey  was  already  in  the  yard,  and  by 
the  time  George  Duncan  had  locked  the  office 
door  the  trio  had  disappeared. 

On  Monday  morning  the  town  of  Riverside 
presented  a  holiday  appearance.  The  main 
street  was  full  of  working-people  in  their  best 
attire.  Groups  of  over-dressed  girls  surrounded 
the  shop  windows,  eying  the  finery  they  could 
so  ill  afford  to  buy.  The  mill  was  deserted, 
but  the  rival  liquor  saloons  were  doing  a  brisk 
business.  George  Duncan  was  seen  driving 
out  of  town  early  in  the  morning,  with  his 
fishing-rod  and  basket.  He  was  a  skillful 
angler,  and  devoted  these  days  of  enforced 
idleness  to  the  pursuit  of  the  piscatorial  art. 
Mary  Duncan  took  the  opportunity  of  her 
husband's  absence  to  begin  her  house-clean- 
ing. Her  own  competent  servants,  for  some 
unexplained  reason,  were  relieved  from  their 
usual  share  in  the  labor,  and  two  helpers  made 
their  appearance  at  the  back  door  shortly  after 
the  master's  departure.  Each  of  the  helpers 
was  accompanied  by  a  baby,  which  she  car- 
ried on  the  right  arm,  and  a  basket,  which  hung 
from  the  left.  The  baskets  were  empty  when 
they  came,  but  at  nightfall  their  owners  car- 
ried them  away  (before  Duncan's  return)  in 
an  exceedingly  replenished  condition.  Mrs. 
Duncan  minded  the  two  children  most  of  the 
day,  to  the  jealous  rage  of  Tippie,  a  born  aris- 
tocrat, who  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  the 
extraneous  babies.  Such  a  scrupulous  scrub- 
bing as  the  little  house  got  that  week  it  prob- 


ably never  had  had  before,  and  its  master 
devoutly  hoped  that  it  might  never  again  en- 
dure. George  Duncan,  albeit  perfectly  aware 
of  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  seclusion  of  his 
home,  never  in  the  most  distant  manner  re- 
ferred to  it,  although  the  combined  odors  of 
brown  soap,  camphor,  benzine,  and  ammonia, 
together  with  the  sprinkling  of  tacks  on  the 
carpetless  floor,  gave  him  a  realizing  sense  that 
the  house  was  being,  as  he  might  have  ex- 
pressed it,  "  turned  out  of  windows." 

So  matters  stood  for  a  week.  The  mills  were 
silent  and  deserted;  but  each  day  the  main 
street  seemed  to  grow  fuller  of  idle  rowdies  and 
over-dressed  girls.  The  superintendent  had 
received,  and  returned  unopened,  several  com- 
munications from  the  labor  committee.  The 
week  drew  to  a  close.  It  came  to  be  known 
to  the  town  that  there  had  been  differences  of 
opinion  between  the  striking  mill  crew  and  the 
members  of  the  labor  committee.  The  matter 
was  laid  before  the  central  or  state  committee 
of  the  league,  and  a  new  local  committee  was 
appointed  for  Riverside,  with  the  same  salary 
(three  dollars  per  diem)  as  their  predecessors. 
When  this  was  known,  Hennessey's  credit  at 
the  chief  shop  and  at  both  the  saloons  came  to 
as  sudden  an  end  as  his  authority.  One  of  the 
refractory  finishers,  the  father  of  eight  children, 
was  overheard  to  remark  to  a  friend  that  if 
Hennessey  had  not  been  drinking  like  a  fish 
he  might  have  made  a  good  thing  out  of  the 
affair. 

The  thrifty  Ethan  Nichols,  we  will  say  in 
advance  of  the  fact,  soon  after  bought  out  the 
old  apothecary  in  whose  employ  he  had  learned 
all  he  knew,  at  terms  very  advantageous  to  the 
purchaser.  The  business,  which  had  suffered 
an  unaccountable  decline  in  favor  of  the  drug- 
gist at  the  lower  corner,  revived  as  suddenly 
as  it  had  drooped,  and  the  good  old  man  who 
had  built  up  the  connection,  beggared  by  the 
invisible  boycott,  now  tied  up  packages  and 
served  as  clerk  in  the  old  shop  that  he  had 
owned  for  thirty  years.  The  wife  of  the  railroad 
employee  was  resplendent,  the  following  win- 
ter, in  a  sealskin  dolman  handsomer  than  Mary 
Duncan's  had  been,  even  when  it  was  new. 
But  we  anticipate. 

The  next  Sunday  but  one  found  Mr.  Dun- 
can a  good  deal  browner  and  his  wife  a  shade 
paler  than  on  the  morning  when  we  first  saw 
them.  Duncan  had  been  fishing  almost  every 
day,  and  had  had  wonderful  luck;  his  wife  had 
staid  at  home,  and  had  been  unusually  busy  in 
cutting  out  enough  little  frocks  and  pinafores 
to  have  clothed  Tippie  for  ten  years  to  come. 
The  stitching  of  these  she  intrusted  to  various 
women  of  her  acquaintance :  it  was  very  badly 
done,  as  a  rule,  and  in  strange  contrast  to  the 
neat  sewing  which  her  own  machine  usually 


846 


A   STRIKE. 


turned  out.  Husband  and  wife  were  sitting 
together  in  the  porch,  looking  out  over  the 
river,  while  the  church-bells  rang  their  sono- 
rous invitation  to  evening  worship.  The  line 
of  floating  yellow  sawdust  on  the  river  indi- 
cated that  the  tide  had  turned,  and  the  log- 
raft  was  making  good  progress  downstream. 
Two  large  vessels  anchored  near  the  shore 
still  bore  the  heavy  cargoes  which  they  had 
brought  in  four  days  ago.  Orders  had  been 
given  by  the  labor  committee  that  they  should 
not  be  unloaded  —  their  owner  was  under  a 
boycott.  Mary  Duncan  broke  the  silence 
which  had  fallen  between  herself  and  her  hus- 
band. 

"  And  so  you  knew  about  Mrs.  Hennessey 
and  Martha  Needles  all  the  time  ?  " 

"  And  the  horrible  garments  which  I  was 
expected  to  believe  that  Tippie  was  in  such 
need  of  that  you  had  to  put  the  work  out  ? 
Of  course  I  did." 

"  Then  why  did  n't  you  scold  me  for  aiding 
and  abetting  the  strikers  ?  Goose !  " 

"  What  was  the  use  ?  If  it  had  n't  been 
one  way  it  would  have  been  another.  On 
the  whole,  I  thought  it  was  better  that  they 
should  make  some  return  for  the  bread  I  was 
sure  you  would  put  into  their  mouths.  Can 
you  keep  a  secret  ?  " 

Mrs.  Duncan  knit  her  pretty  brows  and  re- 
plied that  if  he  did  not  know  by  this  time  that 
she  could,  it  was  quite  useless  to  inform  him 
on  the  point. 

"  Of  course  you  can.  But  don't  tell  Myrtle; 
I  'm  not  so  sure  about  her." 

"  If  you  are  not  sure  about  Myrtle  you  had 
better  not  speak  so  loud,"  a  voice  cried  from 
an  upper  window;  and  a  young  girl  with  eyes 
like  cool  agates  and  a  mop  of  yellow-brown 
hair  appeared  for  a  moment  at  the  opening, 
and  then  shut  the  window  down  with  a  bang. 

"  There,  you  have  hurt  her  feelings,"  said 
Mrs.  Duncan.  "  I  don't  know  why  you  always 
suspect  women  of  not  being  able  to  hold  their 
tongues." 

"  Because  they  can't,"  George  briefly  re- 
plied. "  She  will  forgive  me.  We  are  going  to 
start  up  the  mill  to-morrow  morning." 

"  George ! " 

"  Yes.  We  gave  our  old  men  two  weeks  to 
come  to  our  terms,  and  warned  them  that 
after  that  time  there  would  be  no  vacancies. 
Yesterday  a  crew  large  enough  to  start  the 
works  arrived  here  from  Framingham.  They 
are  picked  men,  all  non-unionists,  and  to-mor- 
row morning  the  old  whistle,  which  has  been 
silent  for  the  only  time  since  my  grandfather 
first  sounded  it  in  1825,  will  call  the  new  hands 
to  work.  They  know  their  business.  They 
were  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  burn- 
ing of  a  mill  just  below  ours  at  Framingham. 


Of  course  nobody  knows  anything  about  the 
firing  of  the  mill,  and  it  has  been  suggested 
that  a  police  officer  committed  arson  in  order 
to  throw  suspicion  on  the  union." 

"  You  don't  think  they  are  wicked  enough 
to  do  that?" 

"  As  an  association,  no ;  as  individuals, 
yes." 

There  was  a  long  pause.  Mary  Duncan 
slipped  her  hand  into  her  husband's.  "That  was 
why  you  sent  for  Myrtle — you  thought  there 
might  be  trouble." 

"  There  always  may  be  trouble,"  said  Dun- 
can, "  but  I  do  not  anticipate  any  disturbance. 
I  don't  believe  that  one  of  the  men  who  have 
struck  would  raise  his  hand  against  my  life 
or  property.  They  are  fools,  that  is  all." 

"  Poor  misguided  creatures,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Duncan.  "  Did  you  know  that  Hunton  had 
telegraphed  to  stop  his  lumber?  He  does  not 
mean  to  open  the  saw-mills  this  season." 

"  Yes;  one  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  logs  are  lying  up-river,  and  not  a  stick  of 
them  will  be  sawed  before  next  summer." 

"  That  means  two  hundred  men  out  of  em- 
ployment, and  their  women  and  children  in 
want." 

"  That  means,  my  dear,  that  we  shall  have 
to  support  them.  There  is  the  strong  point 
of  these  fellows.  They  know  that  in  no  civi- 
lized community  (outside  of  the  largest  cities) 
of  the  United  States  are  people  allowed  to 
starve  or  freeze  ;  so  whether  they  work  or  not, 
the  capitalists  have  got  to  support  them, 
directly  or  indirectly." 

•'  And  you  really  start  the  mill  to-morrow 
morning  ?  " 

"  Yes;  but  the  secret  must  be  kept.  I  think, 
with  the  exception  of  ourselves  and  the  new 
crew,  that  not  a  soul  in  town  knows  it.  I 
shall  drive  up  later  to  let  the  water  on  and 
get  up  steam.  The  first  thing  that  the  town 
will  know  of  it  will  be  when  the  whistle  sounds 
at  6  o'clock  to-morrow  morning.  You  are 
not  to  sit  up.  Mind,  I  shall  be  very  angry  if 
you  do  not  go  to  bed  at  half-past  10.  You 
are  losing  your  color  with  all  these  worries 
of  ours." 

Twelve  o'clock  found  Mrs.  Duncan  reading 
by  the  sitting-room  fire,  in  direct  disobedience 
of  her  husband's  commands.  Myrtle  was 
sleeping  peacefully  on  the  sofa,  with  the  good 
dog  Sport  lying  beside  her.  By  way  of  choos- 
ing something  cheerful  in  the  literary  line, 
Mrs.  Duncan  was  reading  one  of  O'Brien's 
blood-curdling  tales.  No  wonder  that  when 
the  quiet  of  the  night  was  broken  by  a  light  tap 
on  the  window  she  sprang  to  her  feet  and 
shrank  into  a  remote  recess  behind  the  fire- 
place. 

Myrtle  slept  on  peacefully,  and  Sport  waked 


A    STRIKE. 


847 


enough  to  give  a  sleepy  growl,  relapsing  the 
next  moment  into  a  profound  repose. 

Mrs.  Duncan  spitefully  threw  the  offending 
book  on  the  table,  murmuring: 

"  I  might  have  known  that  horrid  story 
would  make  me  hear  and  see  ghosts." 

There  came  another  tap,  this  time  loud 
enough  to  wake  the  sleepers.  Myrtle  sat  up, 
yawned,  shook  her  loosened  hair  from  her 
face,  and  asked  sleepily  : 

'•  What  did  you  say  ?  " 

Mary  Duncan  from  her  corner  pointed  sig- 
nificantly to  the  window  and  said,  "  Hush, 
hush .' "  twice  as  loud  as  the  girl  had  spoken. 
In  a  moment  Myrtle  was  wide  awake,  and 
Sport  sat  up  on  his  haunches,  wagging  his  tail 
expectantly.  The  knock  was  repeated  impa- 
tiently. Myrtle  boldly  drew  back  the  heavy 
curtain,  and  then  with  a  loud  scream  sprang 
behind  Mary,  burying  her  face  in  her  friend's 
shoulder. 

'•  What  was  it  ?  "  whispered  Mary. 

"  Such  an  awful  face  !  "  gasped  Myrtle.  At 
that  moment  a  slight  noise  fell  on  Mary's  ear : 
it  was  only  tjie  creaking  of  Tippie's  crib  in  the 
nursery  above,  but  the  sound  steeled  the 
mother's  heart,  and,  bold  as  a  lioness,  she 
walked  to  the  window  and  looked  squarely 
into  the  face  pressed  close  to  the  pane.  Then 
she  laughed  a  little  hysterically,  and  with  a 
scornful  glance  at  her  companion,  and  with 
the  exclamation,  "  You  silly  thing !  "  quietly 
proceeded  to  open  the  window. 

"  You  gave  us  such  a  start,  Mrs.  Hennessey : 
my  cousin  and  I  are  all  alone.  Isthere  anything 
the  matter  ?  " 

Mrs.  Hennessey's  brown,  wrinkled  face,  de- 
void of  teeth  and  ornamented  with  a  huge  pair 
of  shaggy  gray  eyebrows,  sufficiently  suggested 
a  witch  to  account  for  Myrtle's  agitation.  Her 
answer  was  not  intelligible  to  the  girl. 

"  Wait  a  moment  till  I  open  the  front  door," 
said  Mary,  taking  the  lamp  with  her,  and  leav- 
ing the  room  in  darkness.  She  did  not  return, 
but  showed  her  visitor  into  the  study. 

"  Now,  tell  me  what  you  have  come  for, 
quickly,"  she  said,  laying  her  firm  hand  on  the 
old  woman's  shoulder. 

"  Where  's  the  boss  ?  " 

"  He  is  busy  and  can't  possibly  see  you." 

"  Aye,  but  where  is  he  ?  "  persisted  the 
woman.  "  I  tell  you  I  must  see  him  this 
very  night." 

"  He  is  not  here/'  admitted  the  wife  reluc- 
tantly. 

"  But  where,  woman  ?  God  'a'  mercy !  he 
has  never  gone  to  the  mill  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  why  do  you  ask  ?  " 

They  looked  in  each  other's  terrified  faces 
for  a  moment ;  then  the  elder  woman  said  in  a 
sharp  voice : 


"  Then  there  's  mischief  done,  likely.  My 
man  went  up  to  the  works  with  something 
of  the  like  of  gunpowder  to  blow  up  the  big 
water-wheel,  and  likely  they  '11  meet  one  an- 
other." 

"  My  husband  went  up  an  hour  ago  to  get 
up  steam  and  let  the  water  on,"  whispered 
Mary. 

"  Whatever  will  we  do,  marm  ?  "  wailed  the 
workman's  wife. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?  "  echoed  the  wife  of 
the  superintendent. 

"  Do  ?  "  cried  Myrtle,  from  the  doorway, 
"  why,  come  help  me  harness  Dick,  of  course." 

The  tall  roan  submitted,  as  only  a  creature 
of  his  intelligence  could  have  done,  to  the 
strange  disposition  of  his  harness,  buckled  on 
by  trembling,  unaccustomed  hands,  and  quietly 
suffered  the  bit  which  Myrtle  bravely  inserted 
between  his  teeth,  her  heart  beating  like  a 
trip-hammer  the  while.  The  two  women, 
threatened  with  a  greater  danger  than  the 
heels  of  the  thoroughbred,  did  their  share  of 
the  work  as  if  the  beast  had  been  a  thing  with- 
out nerves  or  power  of  action. 

The  night  was  heavily  dark,  and  outside 
the  small  disk  of  light  thrown  by  the  stable 
lantern  they  could  see  nothing.  But  Dick 
knew  the  way  and  started  down  the  river  road 
at  a  good  pace.  The  three  women,  crowded 
together  in  the  light  wagon,  gave  a  simulta- 
neous cry  as,  at  a  turn  of  the  road  which  ran 
parallel  with  the  railroad  track,  the  night  ex- 
press came  tearing  towards  them.  Myrtle  felt 
the  horse  shiver,  and  tightened  her  grip  on  the 
reins,  calling  his  name  gently. 

"  If  they  don't  blow  the  whistle  I  can  man- 
age him,"  she  said  between  her  teeth,  taking 
a  turn  about  her  hands  with  the  lines. 

"  We  are  just  by  the  crossing,  where  they 
always  blow  it,"  said  Mary  calmly.  The  train 
was  upon  them.  They  saw  the  engineer  raise 
his  hand  to  the  lever  of  the  throttle- valve  — 
a  woman's  scream  pierced  the  rumble  of  the 
train,  the  man  turned  and,  looking  through 
the  engine  window,  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  ter- 
rified horse  and  the  white  face  of  a  woman, 
and,  in  direct  violation  of  the  rules  and  regu- 
lations pasted  up  within  two  feet  of  his  eyes, 
forebore  to  pull  the  whistle.  With  its  dull  roar 
the  train  sped  out  of  sight.  By  the  time  they 
reached  the  lower  falls  Myrtle's  aching  hands 
relaxed  their  grip  a  little.  Dick's  run  had 
sobered  into  a  swift  trot. 

"  That 's  H  union's  saw-mill,"  said  the  work- 
ingman's  wife,  peering  into  the  darkness. 
"  When  we  pass  the  next  turn  we  shall  see  th'e 
light  in  the  office  window,  if  they  are  there." 

There  was  no  light  in  the  office,  and  they 
would  have  passed  the  mill,  had  not  Dick  of 
his  own  accord  turned  from  the  highroad  and 


848 


A    STRIKE. 


stopped  before  the  shed  where  he  was  wont 
to  stand. 

Lights  were  seen  flitting  about  the  long 
dark  building.  In  the  machinery-room  Super- 
intendent Duncan  and  half  a  dozen  men  were 
making  preparations  for  the  morning's  work. 
Duncan  had  thrown  off  his  coat,  and  was  giv- 
ing a  word  here  and  a  hand  there  to  the  new 
men.  McGregor,  the  Scotch  foreman,  was 
the  only  member  of  the  old  crew  who  had 
stood  by  the  company  through  the  troublous 
days,  passed  now,  Duncan  believed  firmly. 
Outside,  the  river  was  frothing  over  the  dam 
in  a  last  frolic  of  idleness.  Its  holiday  was  at 
an  end,  and  the  rushing,  riotous  stream  must 
go  to  work  again  at  the  behest  of  its  mas- 
ter, man.  It  was  singing  its  last  merry  song 
of  play;  for  in  a  few  moments  the  rumble  of 
the  machinery  would  mix  itself  with  the  river's 
chant,  and  by  that  sound  of  bondage  all  the 
world  would  know  that  it  had  gone  to  work 
again.  The  superintendent  stood  ready  to 
turn  on  the  water  through  the  race.  He  made 
a  fine  picture,  standing  leaning  on  the  small 
iron  rod  which  swayed  with  the  motion  of  his 
hand  the  whole  current  of  the  stream.  He  was 
a  strong,  handsome  man,  with  a  broad,  tall 
figure,  an  honest,  serious  face  with  bright  blue 
eyes  and  a  wide,  white  forehead.  In  his  ex- 
pression readers  of  character  recognized  the 
rare  combination  of  great  sweetness  and  great 
strength.  His  foreman,  in  referring  to  what 
had  happened,  was  saying  to  one  of  the  new 
hands  in  an  undertone : 

"  They  tackled  the  wrong  man  when  they 
ketched  a  holt  of  the  boss  for  a  strike." 

Duncan's  hand  was  on  the  crank,  and 
with  a  light  twist  he  set  in  motion  the  ma- 
chinery that  let  on  the  water.  There  was 
joy  and  triumph  in  his  heart  when  he  heard 
the  gasp  the  water  gave  as  it  first  rushed  into 
the  race.  Thenoise  sounded  cheerfully  through 
the  dim  machinery-room,  bringing  a  sense  of 
great  satisfaction  to  the  superintendent  and 
the  foreman,  grown  weary  of  the  silent  ma- 
chines. 

The  rush  of  the  waters  fell  very  differently 
on  the  ears  of  a  man  working  clandestinely 
among  the  water-wheels  of  the  great  mill.  He 
dropped  his  tools  and  stood  upright,  doubting 
his  o\vn  senses.  His  dark  face  blanched  to  a 
ghastly  pallor  as,  snatching  up  the  lamp  the 
rays  of  which  lighted  the  low,  gloomy  chamber 
under  the  ground  and  under  the  water,  he 
made  his  way  with  trembling  limbs  to  the  lad- 
d.er  that  led  up  from  the  damp  wheel-pit  where 
he  had  been  working.  Quick  as  he  was,  the 
flood  was  quicker,  rushing  sullenly  to  its  work 
with  angry  gasps  and  sighs.  The  heavy  stone 
arches  frowned  down  upon  him :  they  would 
give  him  no  shelter  from  his  own  infernal  work. 


He  cursed  his  Maker  in  that  hour  of  agony ; 
and  while  yet  the  blasphemy  was  on  his  lips 
a  sudden  tremor  shook  the  mill  to  its  founda- 
tions, a  deafening  crash  as  of  thunder  rent  the 
air,  the  roof  above  him  was  lifted  from  its  sup- 
ports, and  he  was  hurled  down  into  the  very 
pit  where  he  had  placed  the  dynamite  bomb, 
which  the  first  revolution  of  the  great  wheel 
had  exploded. 

The  first  rays  of  the  sun  showed  a  desolate 
scene.  The  great  mill,  which  the  night  before 
had  stood  solidly  above  its  dam,  was  now  noth- 
ingbuta  shattered  ruin,  its  delicate  machinery 
hopelessly  wrecked,  a  dead  loss  of  thousands 
of  dollars,  which  made  every  man  in  the  com- 
munity the  poorer.  Men  were  still  busily 
working  at  their  dreadful  task  of  searching  the 
ruins  for  the  victims  of  the  explosion.  George 
Duncan  had  been  first  discovered,  miracu- 
lously preserved  from  death,  by  the  women 
who  had  come  just  too  late  to  warn  him.  He 
would  live,  but  his  strong  right  arm  was  gone, 
and  the  splendid  vitality  which  had  been  a 
power  to  energize  the  men  and  women  with 
whom  he  was  thrown  in  daily  contact  would 
never  again  stimulate  them  to  better  and  more 
intelligent  work.  His  wife  and  Myrtle  were 
beside  him  now  in  the  office,  which  had  es- 
caped destruction.  Martha  Hennessey  was 
working  among  the  men  with  the  strength  of 
despair,  searching  for  the  man  whose  hand 
had  wrought  the  dire  disaster.  They  found 
him  at  last  in  the  wheel-pit,  and  the  rough 
workman  who  first  saw  the  ghastly  mangled 
body  cried  out  to  those  above  to  "  Keep  the 
woman  back,  for  God's  sake."  But  she  was 
beside  him  as  he  spoke,  and  after  one  look  at 
what  had  been  her  husband,  she  sank  to  the 
ground  in  a  deep  swoon.  The  same  wagon  bore 
the  dead  man  and  his  senseless  widow  to  the 
cottage  where  a  group  of  frightened  children 
wailed  a  melancholy  greeting  to  the  living  and 
the  dead. 

Next  day  the  local  paper  printed  the  follow- 
ing notice : 

We,  the  United  Brothers  of  Riverside,  desire  to 
express  the  deep  sympathy  we  feel  for  the  sufferers 
from  the  terrible  explosion  at  the  Riverside  Mill.  We 
cannot  find  language  strong  enough  to  sufficiently 
condemn  the  fiendish  conduct  of  the  miscreant  or  mis- 
creants who  are  responsible  for  this  awful  calamity. 
For  the  United  Brothers, 

MARTIN  KNOWLES,  Secretory. 

A  few  days  after  the  funeral  of  Patrick 
Hennessey,  Mrs.  Duncan  was  told  that  a  per- 
son desired  to  speak  with  her  in  the  drawing- 
room  on  a  matter  of  importance.  She  had  not 
left  her  husband  since  the  accident;  and 
Myrtle,  who  had  just  returned  from  exercising 
Dick,  was  sent  down  to  inquire  concerning 
the  stranger's  business.  The  visitor's  face  was 


A    STRIKE. 


849 


familiar  to  her,  but  she  could  not  remember 
where  she  had  seen  it  before. 

li  Mrs.  Duncan  cannot  leave  her  husband ; 
is  it  a  matter  that  I  can  attend  to  ?  "  she  asked 
civilly,  looking  with  some  curiosity  at  the 
stranger.  He  was  a  man  of  striking  appear- 
ance, with  a  slight,  elastic  figure  and  a  well- 
shaped  head,  covered  with  heavy  dark  curling 
hair.  His  features  were  delicately  cut,  and  his 
large  earnest  brown  eyes  were  as  frank  and 
clear  as  a  child's.  His  clothes  were  common 
but  neat,  and  he  looked  as  if  he  deserved  to 
be  better  dressed. 

"  I  am  the  secretary  of  the  new  committee 
of  the  United  Brothers,"  he  began,  and  then 
suddenly  paused.  Myrtle's  indifferent  curiosity 
had  changed  to  an  angry  intensity  ;  her  pretty 
mouth  had  grown  hard  and  stern,  three  omi- 
nous bars  marred  the  whiteness  of  her  forehead, 
and  her  hand  tightened  unconsciously  on  the 
riding- whip  with  which  she  had  been  carelessly 
flicking  the  dust  from  her  habit.  The  change 
was  so  instantaneous  and  threatening  that  the 
man  paused,  hesitated,  and  before  he  could 
utter  another  word,  Myrtle  interrupted  him 
vehemently. 

"  Oh,  you  are  one  of  those  men,  are  you  ? 
and  may  I  ask  what  you  mean  by  showing 
your  face  inside  of  this  house  ?  Are  you  not 
satisfied?  You  have  almost  killed  the  master, 
and  you  have  come  now  to  insult  the  women." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  madam ;  I  do  not  think 
that  you  understand  me.  It  is  to  express  the 
profound  sympathy  of  my  colleagues  that  I 
have  come;  to  express  our  hopes  that  Mr. 
Duncan  is  in  a  fair  way  to  recover." 

"  In  order  that  you  may  complete  the 
work  your  predecessors  have  begun  so  well  ?  " 
laughed  the  girl  bitterly,  playing  nervously 
with  her  riding-whip  all  the  time.  The  young 
man,  who  had  been  rather  pale  before,  flushed 
suddenly,  the  hot  color  mounting  even  to  his 
smooth  forehead.  He  looked  steadily  into 
Myrtle's  flashing  eyes,  until  an  answering  color 
crept  into  her  cheeks,  and  after  viciously  flick- 
ing off  the  petals  of  a  flower  standing  near 
her,  she  bent  her  whip  between  her  fingers  till 
it  almost  broke. 

"  Well,"  she  said  sharply,  when  the  silence 
had  become  a  little  embarrassing,  "  is  there 
anything  else  ?  " 

"  I  will  not  detain  you  longer,  Miss  Gray; 
perhaps  I  shall  be  able  to  see  Mr.  Duncan 
himself,  or  his  wife,  in  the  course  of  the  next 
few  days  ?  "  this  interrogatively. 

"  No,"  said  Myrtle  decisively.  "  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Duncan  are  going  to  Europe  as  soon  as 
he  is  able  to  bear  the  journey.  This  house 
will  be  offered  for  sale,  and  I  suppose  you  have 
heard  that  the  company  have  as  good  as  de- 
cided not  to  rebuild  the  works." 


"  Not  to  rebuild!  Are  you  sure  of  that?" 
he  asked  eagerly. 

"Quite  sure;  are  you  surprised  ?  Who  ever 
expected  they  would  ?  " 

"I  did;  I  still  think  they  will."  Myrtle 
opened  her  cool  eyes  to  their  fullest  extent, 
and  laughed  again,  scornfully  still,  but  not  so 
cruelly  as  she  had  laughed  before. 

"  Why  ?  "  she  asked,  interested  in  spite  of 
herself. 

"  Because  it  is  for  their  interests  as  well  as 
for  ours.  This  terrible  calamity  affects  us  as 
much  as  it  does  them.  Are  we  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible because  a  low  ruffian  betrays  our 
cause  and  commits  a  crime  for  which  we  are 
all  obliged  to  suffer?" 

The  girl  shrugged  her  shoulders  with  a  gest- 
ure of  indifference ;  but  her  face  was  not  in- 
different —  she  was  listening.  That  was  enough 
for  the  enthusiast. 

"  Do  you  not  see  how  greatly  both  sides 
have  been  at  fault,  and  all  from  a  lack  of  a 
proper  understanding  between  them  ?  We 
should  have  been  told  three  years  ago  the  true 
condition  of  the  affairs  of  the  mill.  It  is  our 
right.  All  we  have  in  the  world  is  embarked 
in  this  project ;  your  mill  is  the  capital,  but 
what  good  is  the  mill  without  the  men  ?  It 
was  like  trying  to  divorce  the  Siamese  twins 
of  capital  and  labor :  it  meant  death  to  both. 
We  should  have  been  told  that  the  company 
was  losing  money ;  we  should  have  devised 
together  how  matters  could  be  mended,  what 
concessions  could  be  made,  what  reduction 
of  wages.  Instead  of  that  we  have  been  de- 
ceived, and  what  has  the  deceit  led  to  ? 
Famine,  misery,  and  death." 

"  It  would  not  have  been  possible  to  pub- 
lish the  condition  of  the  affairs  of  the  mill ; 
it  would  have  led  to  bankruptcy." 

"  Not  if  you  had  trusted  us,  not  if  you  had 
made  us  the  partners  of  your  profits,  not  if 
you  had  treated  us  like  men  and  women  who 
have  a  right  to  an  interest  in  the  fruits  of  their 
labor,  instead  of  like  senseless  machines  whose 
work,  whether  good  or  ill,  was  to  be  paid  for 
like  so  much  coal  or  paper  stock." 

"  But  it  is  just  that :  your  labor  is  the  fuel, 
the  power,  like  steam  or  water." 

"  No,  for  steam  and  water  are  only  tools ; 
but  no  man  has  the  right  to  degrade  another 
man  to  the  level  of  a  machine.  See  the  results 
of  this  course.  Our  men  were  allowed  to  be- 
lieve that  these  mills  were  making  a  great 
profit  in  which  they  had  no  share;  they 
asked  for  what  they  supposed  to  be  their 
rights,  and  learned  for  the  first  time  the  true 
facts  of  the  case.  They  should  have  known 
them  long  ago." 

He  was  speaking  earnestly,  with  the  ease 
and  grace  and  security  of  youth  and  hope. 


85° 


A    STRIKE. 


His  enthusiasm  was  not  without  its  effect  upon 
the  tall  girl,  whose  lips  had  lost  their  scornful 
curl,  and  who  now  listened  with  a  certain  in- 
credulous tolerance. 

"  In  a  word,  you  believe  in  cooperation," 
she  said,  speaking  less  satirically  than  she  had 
done  heretofore. 

"  Yes;  it  is  the  answer  to  the  riddle  of  our 
nineteenth  century  Sphinx." 

Myrtle  stared  a  moment  in  silence  at  her 
visitor.  His  good  use  of  English  had  already 
surprised  her,  but  this  allusion  to  the  guardian 
of  the  Egyptian  desert  was  all  that  was  needed 
to  arouse  her  suspicions  of  this  handsome  youth 
with  the  firm  white  hands,  who  claimed  to  be 
a  working-man  and  looked  like  a  gentleman. 
At  this  moment  there  was  a  stir  in  the  room 
above,  and  a  message  came  from  upstairs; 
Duncan  wished  to  know  the  name  and  busi- 
ness of  the  visitor. 

"  Please  say,"  said  the  young  man,  looking 
earnestly  at  Myrtle,  "  that  I  am  the  man  who 
was  to  have  been  Mr.  Duncan's  assistant,  and 
that  I  am  very  anxious  to  speak  to  the  super- 
intendent, if  he  is  able  to  see  me." 

Myrtle  repeated  the  message  to  the  servant 
and  walked  to  the  window,  out  of  which  she 
stood  looking  towards  the  river,  with  its  yel- 
low line  of  floating  sawdust. 

"  Your  father  is  still  president  of  the  com- 
pany, and  owns  the  controlling  stock,  I  believe, 
Miss  Gray  ?  "  said  the  young  man. 

"  Yes."      . 

"  And  you  yourself  have  some  interest  in 
the  concern  ?  "  She  nodded  an  assent. 

"  Look  across  the  river,  see  those  tidy  little 
houses  with  their  pretty  gardens;  those  belong 
to  the  mill  property.  You  know  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  who  lives  there.  The  town 
has  grown  up  round  the  mill.  Take  the  mill 
away  and  what  will  happen  ?  Ten  years  from 
now  you  will  see  those  neat  little  gardens 
waste  places,  those  houses  desolate  ruins,  and 
all  because  you  Grays  and  Duncans  are  so 
proud.  I  was  born  in  one  of  those  houses;  I 
went  to  school  in  that  school-house  your  father 
built  for  us;  I  have  been  to  church  all  my  life 
in  the  chapel  old  Mr.  Duncan  endowed;  all  the 
books  I  ever  read  till  I  left  home  I  got  out  of 
the  library  those  two  men  gave  to  the  town,  to 
their  operatives.  I  have  been  away  now  four 
years,getting  my  education — George  Duncan 
gave  me  that.  I  was  to  be  his  assistant;  I  came 
home  the  very  day  after  the  accident — " 

He  paused.  Myrtle  turned  from  the  window, 
her  frank  face  wearing  for  the  first  time  during 
the  interview  its  usual  sweet  expression:  she 
was  interested  in  what  he  was  saying;  she  was 
waiting  for  him  to  go  on. 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  would  do  if  I 
were  in  your  father's  place,  Miss  Gray?  I 


would  rebuild  the  works  at  the  smallest  pos- 
sible cost.  I  would  agree  with  my  hands  to 
pay  them  whatever  wages  I  could  afford.  At 
the  end  of  a  year  I  would  divide  the  earnings 
after  this  fashion:  the  principal,  or  capital 
with  which  the  mill  was  built,  has  a  right  to 
earn  its  five  per  cent. —  that  belongs  to  the 
owners;  then  I  should  put  aside  a  certain  sum 
for  expenses  of  repairing  and  improving  the 
machinery  and  so  forth,  after  all  costs  had 
been  paid,  and  as  a  reserve  fund  for  bad  years. 
After  that  I  would  take  the  surplus  profits  and 
divide  them  into  halves;  one  for  the  men  who 
furnish  the  capital,  one  for  the  men  who  give 
the  labor." 

The  girl  smiled,  but  it  was  a  kind,  womanly 
smile,  with  nothing  of  the  bitter  lurking  behind 
the  sweet. 

"  Perhaps  if  you  live  a  thousand  years  you 
will  be  able  to  put  your  scheme  into  practice — 
when  the  millennium  comes,"  she  said. 

"  I  believe  that  I  shall  live  to  see  it,  and 
die  a.t  three  score  and  ten." 

Myrtle  laughed  outright. 

At  that  moment  the  servant  returned,  bring- 
ing word  that  the  young  man  was  to  come 
up  to  Mr.  Duncan's  room.  He  turned  to 
follow  the  woman,  but  paused  for  a  moment 
at  the  door,  saying,  in  a  low,  hurried  voice  : 

"  You  are  a  stockholder ;  your  father  is  the 
president  of  the  mills.  I  am  sure  that  you 
have  a  great  deal  of  influence  with  him.  Will 
you  not  use  that  influence  to  help  our  cause  ?  " 

"  But  I  cannot.  I  do  not  think  you  are 
right;  your  plans  are  those  of  a  visionary — " 

"  Would  it  be  right  to  ruin  the  town  which 
you  have  built  up,  because  a  snake  has  crept 
into  the  village  and  stung  you  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  sure." 

"Yes,  you  are.  Do  you  not  want  to  see  the 
children  you  have  known  all  their  lives  grow 
up  in  the  place  where  they  belong;  do  you 
not  want  to  see  Riverside,  the  spot  where  you 
were  born,  a  prosperous,  growing  town,  instead 
of  a  deserted  village  ?  "  He  had  come  quite 
close  to  her  as  he  spoke.  There  was  a  pause 
before  Myrtle  answered  slowly : 

"  Yes." 

"  Then  help  me  to  rebuild  the  works." 

His  audacity  had  something  sublime  about 
it.  He  believed  in  his  principles,  in  himself, 
so  thoroughly ;  he  was  withal  so  handsome 
in  his  enthusiasm,  standing  before  her  with 
his  head  thrown  back,  his  eyes  shining,  his 
face  eager  and  flushed  with  the  force  which 
beat  in  his  veins  and  which  he  felt  sure  must 
conquer  the  obstacles  that  stood  between  him 
and  his  ideal,  that  it  was  not  perhaps  surpris- 
ing, all  things  considered,  that  Myrtle's  cool 
agate  eyes  took  fire  from  his  flashing  ones,  and 
that  she  said  impulsively  : 


THE  NEW  POLITICAL    GENERATION. 


85' 


"  I  will  try." 

When  the  young  man  entered  the  sick-room, 
with  the  triumph  of  that  first  victory  speaking 
in  his  light,  quick  tread,  in  his  glowing,  self- 
reliant  face,  he  stopped  short  at  the  threshold. 
There  lay  his  benefactor,  his  friend,  crippled 
for  life,  pale  as  the  linen  of  his  bed,  and  beside 
him  stood  Mary  Duncan,  whose  chestnut  hair 
in  the  agony  of  those  long  hours  of  suspense 
had  lost  its  brightness  forever,  and  was  now 
thickly  powdered  with  gray.  Duncan  smiled 
and  held  out  his  left  hand,  saying  feebly  but 
cheerfully : 

"  Welcome  home,  my  boy." 

The  visitor  took  the  hand,  pressed  it  a  mo- 
ment between  both  his  own,  and  then  walked 
quickly  to  the  window,  turning  his  back  upon 
a  scene  which  had  well-nigh  unmanned  him. 

"  You  see  before  you,  my  friend,  one  of  the 
results  of  the  theories  your  letters  have  been  so 
full  of.  They  usually  do  the  thing  more  neatly 
in  Russia,  I  believe.  This  was  a  bungling  job 
after  all ;  the  only  thing  they  have  killed  is 
the  goose  that  lays  the  golden  eggs." 

"  Don't  say  that,  Mr.  Duncan.  You  don't 
mean  it,  sir;  I  know  you  don't,  even  in  this 
dreadful  time.  I  am  proud  to  remember  that 


you  used  to  say  that  I  should  grow  to  be  your 
right-hand  man,  and  I  had  come  to  offer  my- 
self to  you  in  any  capacity  —  let  me  change 
that  pillow  for  you." 

As  he  spoke  he  lifted  the  wounded  man's 
head  to  an  easier  attitude. 

"Yes;  you  shall  stay  and  help  nurse  me. 
The  women  are  quite  worn  out  with  watching ; 
and  when  I  am  a  little  better  I  will  listen  to 
your  theories,  and  you  shall  help  me  with  my 
plans." 

"  Your  plans  ?  " 

"Yes,  of  course.  My  wife  thinks  she  is 
going  to  carry  me  off  to  Europe  and  make  an 
invalid  of  me  for  the  rest  of  my  days;  Mr. 
Gray  thinks  he  is  going  to  sell  the  mill  prop- 
erty at  auction;  but  they  can't  hold  a  meeting 
until  I  am  well  enough  to  be  present,  and 
from  the  first  I  have  been  determined  to 
rebuild  the  works." 

"  Then  the  goose  is  n't  killed  after  all  ?  " 

"  No,  only  hobbled !  " 

"  You  must  not  talk  any  more,  George," 
cautioned  Mary  Duncan  from  the  doorway; 
and  in  five  minutes  the  patient  was  asleep, 
and  quiet  reigned  in  the  sick-room. 

Maud  Howe. 


THE    NEW    POLITICAL    GENERATION. 


HE  close  of  the  first  cen- 
tury of  the  Republic  finds 
a  new  political  generation 
assuming  control  of  its  des- 
tinies. The  average  life- 
time of  a  generation  of 
human  beings  has  long 
been  held  to  be  about 
thirty-three  years,  and  the  theory  will  be 
found  also  to  hold  good  of  public  men  as  a 
class.  Exceptions  of  course  occur,  when  un- 
usual longevity  prolongs  the  career  of  one  man 
far  beyond  that  of  his  early  associates;  but 
such  exceptions  only  prove  the  rule  that,  as 
a  whole,  the  governing  body  changes  three 
times  in  a  hundred  years. 

The  first  generation  under  the  Federal  sys- 
tem held  the  stage  during  the  period  from 
1789  to  1825,  and  maybe  called  the  construc- 
tive generation.  The  Revolution  had  been  car- 
ried through  by  young  men.  Jefferson  was  but 
thirty-three  years  old  when  he  wrote  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  patriot 
army  numbered  many  an  officer  like  Monroe 
and  Hamilton  who  joined  it  at  eighteen  or 
nineteen.  The  constitutional  convention  of 
1787  contained  a  number  of  the  men  who 
had  become  prominent  either  in  the  field  or 
in  the  council  chamber  during  the  war,  and 


who  yet  were  comparatively  youthful.  It  thus 
came  about  that  the  men  who  organized  the 
new  government  in  1789,  although  a  large 
proportion  of  them  had  already  been  promi- 
nent in  affairs  for  a  good  while,  were  still  for 
the  most  part  in  the  prime  of  life.  Washing- 
ton, then  fifty-seven,  was  the  senior  member 
of  his  administration;  Jefferson,  the  first  Sec- 
retary of  State,  forty-six ;  Knox,  Secretary  of 
War,  thirty-nine;  Randolph,  attorney-general, 
thirty-six;  and  Hamilton,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  only  thirty-two.  John  Jay,  first 
Chief-Justice,  was  not  yet  forty-four.  Madison 
took  his  seat  in  the  first  House  of  Representa- 
tives at  thirty-eight,  and  Monroe  appeared 
the  next  year  in  the  Senate  before  he  was 
thirty-three. 

It  was  in  every  way  most  fortunate  for  the 
young  nation  that  its  first  rulers  were  young 
men,  who  were  yet  old  enough  to  have  shared 
in  the  long  struggle  which  was  necessary  for 
its  establishment.  The  Federal  Government 
was  an  experiment;  the  Constitution  was  a 
novelty;  the  proposed  division  of  powers  be- 
tween different  departments  of  a  central  gov- 
ernment, and  between  the  central  government 
and  its  constituent  States,  was  without  prece- 
dent. Questions  immediately  arose  as  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  fundamental  law,  which 


8S2 


THE  NEW  POLITICAL    GENERATION. 


must  be  decisively  settled.  Happily  the  very 
men  who  had  helped  either  to  frame  the 
Constitution  or  to  secure  its  adoption  by 
the  States  were  in  Congress,  on  the  bench, 
members  of  the  cabinet,  in  the  presidency; 
and  so  it  long  continued.  Monroe  entered 
the  army  only  a  year  after  the  battle  of  Lex- 
ington ;  it  was  fifty  years  after  the  battle  of 
Lexington  when  he  retired  from  the  presi- 
dency, and  up  to  that  day  every  incumbent 
of  the  highest  office  had  been,  like  him,  hon- 
orably associated  with  the  Revolutionary  era. 
Indeed,  Monroe  was  not  the  last  representa- 
tive of  that  era.  Marshall,  the  great  Chief- 
Justice  of  our  history,  though  nearly  three 
years  Monroe's  senior,  expounded  the  Con- 
stitution with  unsurpassed  ability  for  more 
than  a  third  of  a  century,  until  his  death  in 
1835,  when  nearing  eighty. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
beneficent  effect  upon  our  development  of 
the  fact  that  this  constructive  generation  rep- 
resented in  itself,  and  so  perpetuated,  the 
patriotic  impulses  of  the  Revolution.  The 
Constitution  had  been  grudgingly  accepted  by 
several  of  the  States;  the  centrifugal  forces 
which  had  manifested  themselves  during  the 
period  of  the  Confederation  were  still  active. 
The  Federal  Government  was  distrusted  by  a 
large  proportion  of  the  population ;  sectional 
jealousies  were  rampant.  A  strong  cohesive 
influence  was  needed  to  weld  together  the  dis- 
cordant elements,  and  it  was  furnished  by  the 
generation  of  public  men  who  had  endured  so 
much  in  order  to  found  a  nation  that  they 
were  bound  to  save  it  from  early  wreck. 

As  death  thinned  the  ranks  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary statesmen,  there  came  to  the  front  our 
second  political  generation, —  the  compromise 
generation, —  which  ruled  the  nation  from 
about  1820  until  the  election  of  Lincoln.  This 
was  the  age  of  Clay  and  Webster ;  of  Jackson 
and  Calhoun  ;  of  Benton  and  Taney ;  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  and  its  repeal ;  of  the 
fugitive-slave  law  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
It  was  a  generation  which  for  the  most  part 
was  born  during  the  Revolution,  and  contained 
some  men  whose  boyish  memories  covered 
incidents  of  that  struggle,  like  Jackson's  cap- 
ture by  a  band  of  English  troops  in  North 
Carolina  when  he  was  thirteen  years  old,  in 
1780,  and  the  raid  of  English  cavalry  past 
Henry  Clay's  home  in  Virginia  the  next  year, 
when  he  was  four.  Webster  and  Calhoun 
were  born  within  two  months  of  each  other 
early  in  1782,  and  .appeared  in  Congress 
within  two  years  of  each  other  during  the 
period  which  covered  the  second  war  with 
England,  the  South  Carolinian  in  1811  and 
the  New  Hampshire  man  (as  Webster  then 
was)  in  1813.  Clay  had  preceded  them,  hav- 


ing entered  the  Senate  late  in  1806,  more  than 
three  months  before  he  had  reached  the  con- 
stitutional age  of  thirty.  Benton,  who  had 
been  born  four  days  before  Calhoun,  began 
his  thirty  years  of  continuous  service  in  the 
Senate  in  1821.  The  period  which  made  four 
such  men  for  a  long  while  associates  in  the 
United  States  Senate  must  always  remain  a- 
memorable  one  in  our  annals. 

The  Revolutionary  generation  lived  to  see 
the  new  government  in  good  running  order, 
and  the  wisdom  of  their  constructive  work 
vindicated.  The  delicate  machinery  had  ap- 
parently been  well  adjusted,  and  men  who 
had  disagreed  so  radically  on  some  points  as 
John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  came  in 
their  last  years  to  be  satisfied  with  the  settle- 
ment which  had  been  reached  and  hopeful  as 
to  the  future.  Yet  there  were  already  visible  in 
their  day  signs  of  the  impending  trouble  over 
the  slavery  question  which  confronted  their 
successors.  The  difficulties  of  conducting  a 
government  in  a  nation  half  of  which  wr.s 
slave  and  half  free  became  constantly  more 
obvious,  but  they  were  not  yet  admitted  to  be 
insuperable.  It  was  still  thought  by  most  peo- 
ple that  some  arrangement  might  be  made 
which  would  be  satisfactory  to  both  sections, 
and  the  constant  effort  was  to  discover  a  modus 
Vivendi.  One  scheme  and  then  another  was 
tried,  each  in  turn  held  by  its  authors  to  be 
the  final  settlement  which  was  to  end  the 
trouble.  Looking  back  now,  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  hopeless  were  all  these  attempts;  but  it  is 
also  easy  to  see  how  fortunate  it  was  that  the 
generation  of  compromisers  held  sway  so  long. 
They  averted  the  inevitable  struggle  at  a  time 
when  its  issue  would  have  been  doubtful,  and 
postponed  the  inevitable  war  until  the  dis- 
parity of  the  contestants  should  insure  the 
triumph  of  nationality  and  freedom.  "  Let  us 
make  our  generation,"  said  Webster  in  his 
famous  7th  of  March  speech,  "  one  of  the 
strongest  and  brightest  links  in  that  golden 
chain  which  is  destined,  I  fondly  believe,  to 
grapple  the  people  of  all  the  States  to  this 
Constitution  for  ages  to  come."  The  wish  was 
granted,  for  without  that  development  of  love 
for  the  Union  which  Webster  sedulously  cul- 
tivated, while  Clay,  "  the  great  pacificator," 
preserved  the  peace,  the  two  sections  must 
have  fallen  apart. 

Clay  and  Webster,  the  great  compromisers, 
died  within  four  months  of  each  other  in  1852. 
Feeble  efforts  in  the  same  line  with  theirs 
were  continued  for  a  few  years  longer  by  sur- 
viving associates  like  Bell,  Crittenden,  and 
Everett.  But  even  before  the  disappearance 
of  Clay  and  Webster  there  had  begun  to  rise 
the  third  generation  of  our  national  history  — 
the  generation  which  was  to  prove  the  recon- 


THE  NEW  POLITICAL    GENERATION. 


853 


structive  one.  It  was  composed  of  men  born 
during  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  it  made  its  appearance  in  Wash- 
ington when  John  P.  Hale,  the  first  senator 
elected  as  an  anti-slavery  man,  took  his  seat 
in  1847,  followed  by  Seward  and  Chase  in 
1849  and  hy  Sumner  in  1851.  They  met  there 
men  like  Davis  and  Toombs,  who  represented 
ideas  diametrically  opposed  to  their  own  and 
who  were  determined  that  those  ideas  should 
prevail  —  peaceably,  inside  the  Union,  if  pos- 
sible ;  by  secession  and  force,  if  necessary. 
The  new  men  from  the  North  saw  that  the 
old  role  of  Webster  could  no  longer  be  played. 
Webster  had  perceived  that  there  was  a  con- 
flict, but  hoped  that  it  might  be  repressed ; 
Seward  comprehended  and  proclaimed  that  it 
was  "  irrepressible."  A  year  before  his  death 
Webster  had  said,  "  If  a  house  be  divided 
against  itself,  it  will  fall  and  crush  everybody 
in  it  " ;  but  he  argued  in  the  same  speech  that 
there  was  no  real  division  and  consequently 
need  be  no  fall,  even  though  slavery  were  to 
be  permanent  in  half  of  the  national  domain. 
Six  years  after  Webster's  death,  Lincoln,  in 
opening  his  famous  canvass  of  1858  against 
Douglas,  also  quoted  the  saying,  "  A  house  di- 
vided against  itself  cannot  stand,"  but  he  gave 
it  a  very  different  application.  "  I  do  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  to  fall,"  said  Lincoln;  "but  I  do 
expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  be- 
come all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other." 

The  election  of  1860  and  the  outbreak  of 
the  civil  war  pushed  aside  the  survivors  of  the 
last  century,  and  put  the  control  of  affairs, 
both  North  and  South,  with  only  an  occa- 
sional exception,  in  the  hands  of  men  born 
since  1800.  Lincoln,  born  in  1809,  was  at 
the  head  of  the  Federal  Government;  Davis, 
born  in  1808,  the  chief  of  the  Confederacy. 
The  command  of  the  Union  army,  which  was 
held  at  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  by  Scott, 
who  had  been  born  in  1786,  fell  to  Grant,  born 
in  1822,  who  was  supported  by  Sherman,  born 
in  1820;  while  his  great  opponent  was  Lee, 
born  in  1 807,  whose  lieutenant,  Joseph  E.John- 
ston, was  born  in  the  same  year.  Seward  was 
born  in  1801,  Chase  in  1808,  Sumner  in  1811, 
and  Stanton  in  1814. 

It  was  men  of  the  same  age  who  held  sway 
in  Congress  during  the  period  after  the  war  in 
which  "  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  "  were 
restored  to  their  relations  with  the  Union. 
Benjamin  F.  Wade,  the  leader  of  the  majority 
in  the  Senate  during  the  Johnson  administra- 
tion, was  born  in  1800;  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
his  counterpart  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, dated  back  to  1 792.  The  Supreme  Court, 
as  Lincoln  found  it,  had  a  Chief-Justice  born 
in  1777  and  four  of  the  five  associate  justices 


had  been  born  between  the  latter  year  and 
1794.  Lincoln's  Chief-Justice  was  born  in 
1808  and  Grant's  in  1816,  while  the  associate 
justices  appointed  by  these  presidents  were 
men  born  between  1804  and  1816. 

Thirty-seven  years  have  passed  since  Suni- 
ner,the  most  conspicuous  senatorial  representa- 
tive of  the  reconstructive  generation,  appeared 
in  Washington,  and  not  one  man  whom  he 
then  found  in  office  now  remains  in  public 
life.  Only  a  few  names,  like  those  of  Jefferson 
Davis  and  Hannibal  Hamlin,  have  escaped 
the  mortuary  star.  His  great  associates  in  the 
Senate  chamber  before  the  war,  Seward  and 
Chase,  died  within  the  eighteen  months  be- 
fore his  own  death  in  1874.  Stevens  had  pre- 
ceded him  by  six  years;  Wade  was  already 
in  retirement.  Of  all  the  men  who  were  in 
Congress  at  the  time  of  Lincoln's  election, 
John  Sherman,  then  a  representative  and 
now  a  senator,  and  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  then  a 
representative  and  now  a  justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  are  the  only  ones  who  are  to- 
day conspicuous.  Three  of  Lincoln's  five  ap- 
pointees to  the  Supreme  Court  are  dead;  the 
other  two  are  seventy-two  years  old,  and  may 
retire  on  a  pension  at  their  pleasure.  Two  of 
Grant's  four  appointees  to  the  same  bench  are 
dead ;  a  third  retired  on  a  pension  eight  years 
ago,  and  the  fourth  has  been  eligible  to  a  pen- 
sion for  five  years.  Allen  G.  Thurman,  who 
was  elected  congressman  nearly  forty-five 
years  ago,  seems  a  relic  of  a  by-gone  age. 

As  the  third  generation  of  our  public  men 
dwindles  in  size,  the  fourth  comes  in  steadily 
swelling  numbers  to  fill  the  vacant  places.  It 
is  a  generation  which  has  grown  up  since  the 
period  when  secession  and  state  sovereignty 
were  burning  issues  —  which  in  large  part  is  too 
young  to  have  had  any  record  on  the  slavery 
question.  There  are  many  men  in  Congress 
who  were  too  young  to  vote  in  the  election 
of  1860;  some  who  had  not  then  reached  their 
teens.  The  State  of  West  Virginia  has  two 
senators  and  four  representatives,  and  the  old- 
est of  the  six  was  born  as  recently  as  1843. 
Four  of  them  served  in  one  or  other  army 
during  the  war,  but  this  incident  in  their 
lives  hardly  dissociates  them  from  the  two 
who  did  not,  one  of  the  latter  being  but  eight 
years  old  when  Sumter  was  fired  upon. 
Younger  still  is  a  Minnesota  representative, 
who  was  not  born  until  1854,  and  whose  case, 
by  the  way,  well  illustrates  the  cosmopolitan 
character  of  our  population,  as  he  is  a  native 
of  Sweden  and  did  not  reach  Minnesota  until 
1868.  Another  illustration  of  the  same  feature 
is  the  case  of  the  New  Jersey  congressman 
who  was  born  in  Ireland  in  1853,  and  a  third 
thg  Wisconsin  member  who  was  born  in  Prus- 
sia in  1845  and  did  not  come  to  this  country 


THE  NEW  POLITICAL    GENERATION. 


until  1866.  An  Indiana  member  has  but  re- 
cently completed  his  thirty-first  year. 

Nor  do  such  facts  as  these  fully  show  the 
extent  to  which  the  new  generation  has  sup- 
planted the  one  which  brought  on  secession 
and  carried  through  the  war.  The  Constitu- 
tion does  not  permit  a  man  to  become  a  sen- 
ator until  he  has  attained  the  age  of  thirty,  or 
a  representative  until  he  has  completed  his 
twenty-fifth  year.  It  seldom  happens  that  a 
man  becomes  a  senator  until  he  is  consider- 
ably past  thirty,  or  a  representative  until  he  is 
much  beyond  twenty-five.  But  the  ten  years 
from  twenty-one  on  are  years  which  mark  the 
age  of  a  much  larger  proportion  of  voters  than 
anybody  who  has  not  investigated  the  matter 
would  suspect.  A  table  of  the  ages  of  native 
white  males,  as  returned  in  the  last  national 
census,  shows  that  out  of  a  total  in  the  whole 
country  of  8,270,518  who  had  reached  the 
voting  age,  no  less  than  1,546,703,  or  nearly 
one-fifth  of  the  whole  number,  were  21,  22, 
23,  and  24  years  old.  Add  those  who  were 
between  the  ages  of  24  and  30,  and  the  aggre- 
gate is  3,019,663,  or  much  more  than  one-third 
of  all.  Another  census  would  show  different 
totals,  but  the  proportions  would  be  the  same. 
This  means  that  nearly  one-fifth  of  the  voters 
are  too  young  to  be  eligible  to  the  House  of 
Representatives,  while  much  more  than  one- 
third  are  not  old  enough  to  be  chosen  to  the 
Senate.  Nearly  all  of  this  latter  class,  it  must  be 
remembered,  are  men  who  havebeen  born  since 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  for  the  baby  born  the 
day  Sumter  twas  attacked  is  now  a  man  in  his 
twenty-eighth  year.  Indeed,  there  are  far 
more  than  a  million  of  men  entitled  to  vote 
for  President  this  year  who  were  not  born  un- 
til after  Lee's  surrender.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  were  old  enough  to  vote  in  1860  are 
at  least  49  years  of  age  this  autumn,  and  less 
than  a  quarter  of  all  male  adults  (1,958,776 
out  of  8,270,518  in  1880)  are  men  who  have 
passed  48. 

It  is  thus  clear  that  the  new  generation  is 
already  here.  The  men  who  heard  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  who  went  to  the  polls  for  Lin- 
coln or  Douglas,  constitute  but  a  small  minor- 
ity of  the  electorate  to-day.  They  still  linger 
in  the  halls  of  Congress,  but  they  find  the 
seats  fast  filling  with  those  whom  they  have 
always  considered  mere  boys,  until  it  is  sud- 
denly revealed  to  them  that  they  are  no  longer 
the  real  rulers  of  the  republic.  The  old  issues 
disappear  with  the  old  men,  and 

New  things  succeed  as  former  things  grow  old. 


The  death  of  Chief-Justice  Waite  served  to 
show  how  completely  the  reconstructive  gen- 
eration to  which  he  belonged  has  done  its 
work.  The  Supreme  Court  is  the  final  arbiter 
in  our  system  of  government,  and  its  decisions 
must  be  awaited  before  the  nation  knows  what 
even  an  addition  to  the  Constitution  itself 
really  signifies.  The  changes  which  the  war 
had  brought  about  were  embodied  in  the  new 
amendments  to  the  Constitution,  but  there 
was  much  dispute  as  to  how  far-reaching  those 
changes  would  prove  to  be.  It  was  held  by 
many,  and  Congress  passed  laws  based  upon 
the  theory,  that  these  amendments  had  greatly 
minimized  the  powers  of  the  States  and  cor- 
respondingly enlarged  those  of  the  Federal 
Government.  The  Supreme  Court  alone  could 
decide.  Fortunately  it  was  still  composed  en- 
tirely of  judges  who  had  been  appointed  by 
presidents  belonging  to  the  party  which  had 
carried  through  the  amendments  and  which 
had  based  uponthem  the  assumption  of  greater 
authority  for  the  General  Government.  A  long 
series  of  decisions,  of  which  the  last  and,  in  some 
respects,  the  most  important  (in  the  Virginia 
debt  cases)  was  rendered  only  a  few  weeks 
before  Justice  Waite's  death,  settled  these 
disputed  questions  and  established  the  rights 
of  the  States  under  the  amended  Constitution 
upon  a  basis  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  party 
whose  President  was  to  name  his  successor. 
It  was  frankly  confessed  by  candid  Demo- 
cratic journals  that,  so  far  as  a  correct  inter- 
pretation of  the  Constitution  was  concerned, 
it  was  to  them  a  matter  of  no  consequence 
whether  Justice  Waite's  chair  were  filled  by 
a  Republican  of  his  type  or  by  a  Democrat. 
One  needs  only  to  recall  the  bitterness  with 
which  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
were  received  by  the  opposition  party  during 
the  compromise  generation  to  appreciate  how 
wonderful  is  the  change,  and  how  complete  the 
work  of  settlement  after  the  terrible  storm  of 
civil  war. 

A  crowd  of  issues  press  for  the  attention  of 
the  new  generation,  but  one  overshadows  all 
the  rest.  The  Union  has  been  reconstructed 
upon  an  enduring  basis;  now  the  Government 
itself  is  to  be  reconstructed.  The  slavery  of 
human  bondage  has  been  abolished  ;  the  ser- 
vitude of  the  spoils  system  is  now  to  be  done 
away  with.  This  is  the  work  of  the  new  po- 
litical generation,  and  there  is  happily  abun- 
dant evidence  that  it  will  prove  equal  to  the 
task. 

Edward  P.  Clark. 


CHRISTIANITY   THE    CONSERVATOR   OF   AMERICAN    CIVILIZATION. 


CIVILIZATION  has  from 
'>  the  earliest  times  developed 
a  centripetal  force  that 
has  tended  to  the  aggre- 
gation of  the  mass  of  the 
population  in  cities.  That 
force  did  its  work  in  ancient 
times  in  Egypt,  in  Greece, 
and  in  Rome.  It  is  doing  its  work  now  in 
modern  Europe  and  in  this  country. 

At  the  end  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution 
the  population  of  the  United  States  numbered 
nearly  four  millions.  There  were  then  but  6 
cities,  and  in  those  6  cities  there  dwelt  130,000 
people ;  so  that  of  the  total  population  of  the 
country  at  that  time  31/3  per  cent,  was  to  be 
found  in  the  cities.  In  the  century  that  has 
passed  since  then  the  national  development 
has  been  so  directed  that  there  are  now  286 
cities,  and  of  the  total  population  in  the 
United  States,  which  now  amounts  to  more 
than  50,000,000,  n*/}  millions  are  dwellers  in 
cities;  that  is  to  say,  22^  per  cent.,  or  more 
than  one-fifth  of  the  entire  population  of  the 
United  States  to-day,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
cities.  Of  that  urban  population  very  nearly 
one-half  is  in  ten  cities,  and  nearly  one-third 
is  in  the  cities  of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and 
Chicago,  including  as  a  part  of  New  York  its 
tributary  cities  of  Brooklyn  and  Jersey  City. 

American  citizenship  has  its  duties  as  well 
as  its  rights,  its  responsibilities  as  well  as  its 
privileges.  The  proper  exercise  of  the  right 
of  suffrage  requires  in  him  who  exercises  it  a 
high  degree  of  intelligence ;  yet,  of  the  more 
than  two  million  voters  in  our  cities,  a  ma- 
jority are  not  sufficiently  educated  to  exercise 
intelligently  the  right  of  suffrage,  and  a  for- 
midable minority  are  ignorant  and  vicious. 
As  Lord  Sherbrooke  said  in  England  with 
reference  to  the  new  voters  upon  whom  the 
Reform  Act  of  1867  conferred  the  suffrage, 
"  We  must  educate  our  masters,"  so  we  can 
well  say  with  reference  to  the  masses  in  our 
large  cities,  "  We  must  educate  our  masters." 
Education  is  in  this  connection  a  word  of 
large  import.  It  means  something  more  than 
the  perfunctory  acquisition  of  facts,  and  some- 
thing more  than  the  development  of  the  mind 

*  Of  2127  convicts  who  have  been  received  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Eastern  State  Penitentiary  from  1875  to 
1884,  inclusive,  1547  had  been  pupils  of  the  common 
schools ;  65  had  been  pupils  of  private  schools ;  452 
had  never  attended  school ;  1939  had  never  been  ap- 
prenticed to  any  trade ;  75  had  been  apprenticed,  but 


as  an  intellectual  machine.  It  means  the 
bringing  to  bear  upon  every  individual  in  the 
mass  every  influence  that  can  tend  to  make 
him  better  as  a  man  and  better  as  a  citizen. 

The  common-school  system  will  not  do  the 
work  of  the  education  that  we  need,  for  that 
system,  even  if  it  were  practically  efficient, 
deals  only  with  children,  and  it  fails  in  that 
the  tendency  of  its  method  of  instruction  is 
to  direct  the  pupils,  not  to  trades,  not  to 
mechanical  work  of  any  description,  but  ex- 
clusively to  clerical  labor ;  and  the  consequence 
is  that  the  supply  of  that  kind  of  labor  is  so 
greatly  in  excess  of  the  demand  for  it  that 
but  a  small  proportion  of  the  applicants  can 
possibly  obtain  employment,  and  the  unem- 
ployed applicants  drift  into  vice  and  crime, 
not  from  any  predisposition  thereto,  but  be- 
cause their  compulsory  idleness  exposes  them 
to  temptation.  We  therefore  cannot  rely  for 
the  education  of  the  masses  upon  the  public- 
school  system.* 

Nor  can  we  rely  upon  any  system  of  merely 
philosophical  training.  That  experiment  has 
been  tried  again  and  again  in  the  world's  his- 
tory. The  philosophic  systems  of  Greece  and 
Rome  culminated  in  the  barbarism  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  abstract  philosophy  of 
reason  in  France  was  crowned  by  the  Reign 
of  Terror. 

If  history  has  proved  to  demonstration  any 
one  fact  it  has  proved  this,  that  without  Chris- 
tianity there  is  now  no  possibility  of  an  endur- 
ing civilization.  If  this  be  true  of  countries 
whose  forms  of  government  are  monarchical 
or  aristocratic,  much  more  is  it  true  here, 
where  every  citizen  is  entitled  to  an  equal 
voice  in  the  selection  of  the  makers  and  ad- 
ministrators of  the  laws.  Therefore  we  must 
find  the  solution  of  our  problem  in  bringing 
the  principles  of  Christianity  to  bear  upon 
the  population  of  our  cities,  for  just  so  far  as 
those  principles  leaven  the  mass  will  the  indi- 
viduals become  better  citizens,  and  will  poli- 
tics be  purified. 

There  are  certain  inevitable  results  which 
follow  upon  the  crowding  of  masses  of  people 
in  cities.  These  are,  first,  an  excess  of  de- 
mand over  supply  in  the  necessaries  of  life, 

had  left  their  trade  before  serving  out  their  time ;  and 
113  had  been  apprenticed  and  served  out  their  time. 
These  figures  do  not  mean  that  the  1547  pupils  of  the 
public  schools  had  received  in  those  schools  any  instruct- 
ion which  in  any  way  tended  to  incite  them  to  crime, 
but  they  fortify  the  conclusion  stated  in  the  text. 


856  CHRISTIANITY  THE  CONSERVATOR  OF  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 


and  a  consequently  increased  cost  of  living; 
secondly,  an  excess  of  supply  over  demand  in 
all  departments  of  labor,  professional,  clerical, 
and  mechanical,  and  for  the  many  a  con- 
stantly increasing  difficulty  in  obtaining  the 
means  of  living ;  thirdly,  for  the  few,  wealth 
and  luxury,  and  for  the  many,  poverty  and  suf- 
fering ;  and,  fourthly,  a  development  of  crime, 
intemperance,  and  other  vices. 

There  is,  therefore,  poverty  to  be  relieved, 
suffering  to  be  alleviated,  and  sorrow  to  be 
comforted.  Means  of  prevention  must  also  be 
used.  The  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  must 
be  restrained.  The  reformatory  agencies  that 
clothe  and  educate  the  homeless  youth  and 
those  other  reformatory  agencies  that  work 
upon  the  vicious  and  criminal  classes  must  be 
fostered,  stimulated,  and  strengthened. 

Of  course,  much  of  this  charitable  work  of 
all  sorts  is  done  and  will  continue  to  be  done 
by  the  voluntary  and  unsectarian  action  of 
individuals  and  organizations;  but  all  such 
work,  by  whomsoever  done,  is  really  animated, 
whether  ostensibly  or  not,  by  that  truly  charita- 
ble spirit  which  is  inspired  by  Christianity,  and 
it  is  the  office  of  every  church  to  encourage 
that  work,  and  to  furnish  volunteers  for  its 
performance. 

It  is  another  result  of  the  growth  of  cities 
that  in  periods  of  business  depression  there 
are  gathered  together  large  bodies  of  unem- 
ployed and  possibly  starving  men  and  women, 
who,  under  the  pressure  of  their  unfortunate 
circumstances,  fall  an  easy  prey  to  dema- 
gogues, and  maybe  incited  to  acts  of  violence. 
Under  any  system  of  government  this  result 
of  the  centralization  of  population  has  been 
and  always  will  be  of  grave  importance. 

Now,  too,  modern  civilization  is  threatened 
from  within  by  a  foe  who  preaches  the  false 
gospel  of  a  Godless  humanity  based  upon 
the  logic  of  dynamite  and  assassination,  and 
that  false  gospel  finds  ready  acceptance  when 
it  is  preached  to  men  who  are  both  ignorant 
and  starving. 

We  have  heretofore  flattered  ourselves,  with 
somewhat  of  national  complacency,  and  in 
the  exercise  of  a  very  practical  materialism, 
that,  whatever  might  befall  the  governments 
of  Europe,  here  at  least  our  free  institutions 
and  our  boundless  expanse  of  territory  would 
protect  us  from  the  dangers  which  threaten 
European  society;  but  we  are  beginning  to 
realize  that  like  causes  will  always  produce 
like  results,  and  that  the  congregation  of  the 
masses  in  cities,  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
few,  and  the  depression  of  the  many  have 
combined  to  develop  antagonistic  forces  the 
possible  collision  of  which  is  full  of  danger. 


Pagan  Rome  dealt  with  the  difficulty  in  a 
spirit  of  conciliation  that  was  epigrammatically 
expressed  in  the  phrase  Panem  et  circenscs  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  government  freely  distrib- 
uted food  to  the  masses  and  provided  for  their 
entertainment  the  shows  of  the  arena.  Conti- 
nental Europe  deals  with  the  difficulty  in  a 
spirit  of  stern  repression,  and  endeavors  by 
standing  armies  and  police  to  hold  the  masses 
in  subjection.  Yet  both  systems  failed.  The 
armed  mob  accomplished  in  Rome  the  work 
which  communism  and  nihilism  are  doing  in 
Europe  in  our  day. 

We  cannot  have  a  standing  army  of  ade- 
quate size,  and  if  we  undertake  to  maintain 
large  bodies  of  men  in  idleness  and  to  amuse 
them  at  the  public  expense  we  shall  invite  the 
very  danger  against  which  we  would  guard. 

Christianity  must  be  used  as  our  conserva- 
tive force,  for  it  deals  with  man  as  an  individual 
in  his  personal  responsibility  to  his  God,  and  it 
deals  with  him  also  as  a  citizen  in  his  relation 
to  organized  society.  It  preaches,  by  example 
rather  than  by  precept,  the  power  of  Chris- 
tian charity,  which  is  limited  only  by  human 
need  for  human  help.  It  teaches  the  rich 
that  wealth  is  a  trust,  not  a  gift.  It  neu- 
tralizes class  antagonisms  by  bringing  home 
to  men  the  great  doctrine  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man. 

The  Christianity  that  is  to  do  this  great 
work  must  be  a  living  Christianity;  it  must 
be  aggressive ;  it  must  be  liberal ;  it  must  be 
united ;  it  must  not  confine  itself  to  a  merely 
defensive  warfare.  It  must  hold  the  outworks 
of  civilization,  not  only  by  keeping  watch  and 
ward,  but  also  by  leading  sorties  against  the 
besieging  forces  of  unreason. 

This  work  cannot  be  done  only  by  throw- 
ing wide  the  doors  of  churches,  holding  ser- 
vice, and  preaching  sermons.  It  must  also 
be  done  in  the  highways  and  the  byways, 
among  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  virtuous 
and  the  vicious,  the  innocent  and  the  guilty. 
It  must  be  done  by  the  laity  as  well  as  by  the 
clergy  ;  and  its  most  persuasive  sermons  will 
find  their  expression  not  in  words  but  in  deeds, 
and  not  in  exposition  or  argument  or  entreaty, 
but  in  the  silent  yet  eloquent  lessons  of  lives 
of  self-sacrifice. 

With  the  necessity  for  this  great  work  star- 
ing us  in  the  face,  let  us,  agreeing  about  the 
essentials  of  the  Christian  faith,  agree  to  dis- 
agree as  to  minor  matters;  and  recognizing 
our  points  of  agreement,  and  dwelling  upon 
them  to  the  exclusion  of  our  points  of  disa- 
greement, let  us,  as  soldiers  in  one  army  and 
under  one  banner,  move  forward  shoulder  to 
shoulder. 

Christopher  Stuart  Patterson. 


THK    TOMSK    FORWARDING    PRISON. 


|HK  rapidity  with  which  the 
season  of  good  weather  and 
good  roads  was  passing,  and  the 
length  and  arduous  nature  of  the 
journey  that  still  lay  before  us, 
compelled  us  to  make  our  stay  in 
the  city  of  Ust  Kamenogorsk  very  brief.  The 
work  that  we  accomplished  there,  however, 


I 


had  an  important  bearing  upon  the  prosecu- 
tion of  our  researches  in  the  field  of  political 
exile,  and  rendered  our  success  in  that  field 
almost  certain.  I  had  always  anticipated  great 
difficulty  in  ascertaining  where  political  exiles 
were  to  be  found,  and  how  they  could  be  ap- 
proached without  the  asking  of  too  many  dan- 
gerous questions.  We  could  not  expect  in 


A    POST    STATION     ON    THE    BARNAUL     ROAD. 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 1 18. 


858 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


AN    OLD     SIBERIAN     FERRY-BOAT. 

every  town  to  stumble,  by  good  luck,  upon 
a  liberal  and  sympathetic  official  who  would 
aid  us  in  our  search,  and  yet  experience  had 
shown  us  the  absolute  necessity  of  knowing 
definitely  in  advance  where  to  go  and  whom 
to  approach.  We  had  already  passed  through 
half  a  dozen  towns  or  villages  where  there 
were  colonies  of  interesting  political  exiles, 
and  where,  if  we  had  been  aware  of  the  pres- 
ence of  these,  we  should  have  stopped;  but 
we  had  no  clues  whatever  to  them,  and  I 
feared  that  if,  in  searching  for  clues,  we  made 
a  practice  of  asking  questions  at  random,  we 
should  soon  attract  the  attention  of  the  police 
and  be  called  upon  to  explain  what  business 
we  had  with  political  exiles,  and  why  we  were 
everywhere  looking  them  up.  At  Ust  Kam- 
enogorsk  this  source  of  embarrassment  was 
finally  removed.  We  not  only  obtained  there 
a  mass  of  useful  information  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  valuable  hints  and  suggestions,  but  we 
carried  away  with  us  notes  of  recommenda- 
tion to  people  who  could  aid  us,  letters  of 
introduction  to  liberal  officials  in  the  towns 
through  which  we  were  yet  to  pass,  and  a 
manuscript  list,  or  directory,  in  which  were 
set  forth  the  names,  ages,  professions,  and 
places  of  banishment  of  nearly  seven  hundred 
political  exiles  in  all  parts  of  Siberia.  After 
we  had  obtained  these  letters  of  introduction 
and  this  "  underground  "  directory,  the  Gov- 
ernment could  have  prevented  us  from  inves- 


tigating the  exile  system  only  by  removing 
us  forcibly  from  the  country.  We  no  longer 
had  to  grope  our  way  by  asking  hazardous 
questions  at  random.  We  could  take  every 
step  with  a  certainty  of  not  making  a  mistake, 
and  could  go,  in  every  village,  directly  to  the 
persons  whom  we  wished  to  see. 

On  Monday,  August  10,  we  dined  for  the 
last  time  with  the  politicals  in  Ust  Kameno- 
gorsk,  sang  to  them  once  more,  by  special 
request,  "  John  Brown's  Body "  and  "  The 
Star-spangled  Banner,"  and  at  6  o'clock  in  the 
evening  set  out  by  post  for  Barnaul  and 
Tomsk.  The  road,  as  far  as  the  post  station 
of  Pianoyarofskaya,  was  the  same  that  we 
had  followed  in  going  from  Semipalatinsk  to 
the  Altai  Station.  The  country  that  it  inter- 
sected seemed  to  us  more  parched  and  bar- 
ren than  ever,  but  here  and  there,  in  the 
moister  places,  we  passed  large  flocks  of  fat- 
tailed  sheep,  guarded  and  watched  by  Kir- 
ghis  horsemen,  whose  hooded  heads  and  black 
faces,  with  the  immense  goggles  of  horse-hair 
netting  that  they  wore  to  protect  their  eyes 
from  the  glare  of  the  sun,  gave  them  an  almost 
demoniacal  appearance.  Occasionally,  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  villages,  we  saw  fields  of  culti- 
vated sunflowers,  or  of  half-ripe  watermelons 
and  cantaloupes;  but  as  a  rule  the  steppe 
was  uncultivated  and  could  not  be  cultivated 
without  artificial  irrigation.  The  weather  was 
still  very  warm,  and  in  almost  every  village 
we  noticed  naked  children  playing  in  the 
streets. 

At  Pianoyarofskaya  we  left  the  Semipala- 
tinsk road  and  the  valley  of  the  Irtish,  and  turn- 
ing to  the  northward  crossed  the  low  divide 
which  sep- 
arates the 
water -shed 
of  the  Irtish 
from  that  of 
the  Ob,  and 
entered  the 
province  of 
Tomsk.  A 
large  quan- 
tity of  rain 
had  fallen, 
followed  by 
a  comforta- 
ble temper- 
ature ;  but 
the  muddy 
roads  hind- 
ered us,  and 
the  post  sta- 
tions, where 
we  got  very 
little  to  eat, 
were  filthy 


MAP     OF    THE    TRIP. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


859 


and  swarming  with  bed-bugs.    In  the  stations  an  unusual  number  of  pretentious  dwelling- 

ofShemanaiefokay  a  and  Saushkina,  after  vainly  houses  and  residences  with  columns  and  im- 

attempting  to  sleep,  I  sat  up  and  wrote  through-  posing  facades,  but  most  of.  them  have  fallen 

out  the  whole   of  two   nights,  killing  fifteen  into  decay.    They  were  erected  many  years 

or  twenty  bed-bugs  each  night  on  my  writing-  ago,  at  a  time  when  a  mining  officer  of  the 


MARKET-PLACE     IN    BARNAL'L. 


table.  The  lack  of  proper  food,  the  con- 
stant jolting,  and  the  impossibility  of  getting 
any  sleep,  soon  reduced  us  to  an  extremely 
jaded  and  exhausted  condition,  and  when  we 
reached  the  town  of  Barnaul,  Friday  afternoon, 
August  14,  after  an  almost  sleepless  journey 
of  ninety-six  hours,  I  was  hardly  able  to  sit  up. 
Barnaul  is  a  large  town  of  17,000  inhabit- 
ants, and  is  the  center  of  the  rich  and  impor- 
tant mining  district  of  the  Altai.  It  contains 


Crown  in  Barnaul  received  2000  or  3000 
rubles  a  year  as  salary  and  stole  100,000  rubles 
a  year  by  means  of  "  cooked  "  accounts,  and 
when,  according  to  tradition,  Jie  paid  twice 
the  amount  of  his  own  salary  to  a  French  gov- 
erness for  his  children,  and  as  much  more  to 
a  French  culinary  chef,  and  sent  his  soiled 
linen  to  Paris  by  mail  to  be  washed  and 
starched. 

The  mines  of  the  Altai  are,  for  the  most 


86o 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PRISON. 


i  -- '  -.       .,/ 

-A ^mL 


OLD     1-R1SON     OR    ULAKU-HOUSE     IN     BARNAUL. 


part,  the  private  property  of  the  Tsar.  In  the 
nine  years  from  1870  to  1879  they  produced 
6984  pounds  of  gold,  206,964  pounds  of  silver, 
9,639,620  pounds  of  copper,  and  13,221,396 
pounds  of  lead.  A  large  part  of  the  gold  and 
silver  ore  is  smelted  in  Barnaul. 

Mr.  Frost,  with  an  amount  of  enterprise 
which  was  in  the  highest  degree  creditable 
to  him,  explored  the  city  with  sketch-book 
and  camera,  and  took  photographs  of  the 
bazar,  of  peasant  women  carrying  stones  on 
hand-barrows  near  the  mining  "  works,"  and 
of  a  curious  building,  not  far  from  our  hotel, 
which  seemed  to  have  been  intended  for  a 
Russo-Ionic  temple  but  which  afterward  had 
apparently  been  transformed  into  a  jail,  in 
order  to  bring  it  more  nearly  into  harmony 
with  the  needs  of  the  place.  I  should  have 
accompanied  him  upon  some  of  these  excur- 
sions, but  I  was  nearly  sick  from  sleeplessness. 
The  dirty  hotel  in  Barnaul  was  alive  with 
bed-bugs,  and  I  was  compelled  to  sleep 
every  night  on  a  table,  or  rather  stand,  about 
four  feet  long  by  three  wide,  set  out  in  the 
middle  of  the  room.  Owing  to  the  fact  that 
I  generally  rolled  off  or  capsized  the  table  as 
soon  as  I  lost  consciousness,  my  sleep  was 
neither  prolonged  nor  refreshing,  and  before 
we  left  Barnaul  I  was  reduced  to  a  state 


bordering  on  frenzy.  Almost  the  only  pleas- 
ant recollection  that  I  have  of  the  city  is  the 
memory  of  receiving  there  eighteen  letters 
from  home — the  first  I  had  had  since  our 
departure  from  Tiumen. 

Tuesday  afternoon,  August  18,  we  left  Bar- 
naul for  Tomsk.  The  part  of  Western  Siberia 
that  lies  bet  ween  these  two  cities  is  a  fertile  roll- 
ing country,  diversified  by  birch  groves  and 
wide  stretches  of  cultivated  land,and  suggestive 
a  little  of  the  southern  part  of  New  England. 
Mr.  Frost,  whose  home  is  in  Massachusetts,  said 
he  could  easily  imagine  that  he  was  "  up  Berk- 
shire way."  The  scenery,  although  never  wild, 
is  everywhere  pleasing  and  picturesque;  the 
meadows,  even  in  August,  are  carpeted  with 
flowers;  and  the  greenness  and  freshness  of 
the  vegetation,  to  a  traveler  who  comes  from 
the  desert-like  steppes  of  the  upper  Irtish,  are 
a  source  of  surprise  and  gratification.  Near 
the  first  station  we  passed  the  small  lake  of 
Kolivan,  which  is  celebrated  in  all  that  part 
of  Siberia  for  the  picturesque  beauty  of  its 
scenery,  and  Mr.  Frost  made  a  sketch  of  some 
fantastic  rocks  by  the  roadside.  It  is  a  favor- 
ite place  of  resort  in  summer  for  the  wealthy 
citizens  of  Barnaul  and  Tomsk.  It  had  been 
our  intention  to  spend  a  day  or  two  in  explor- 
ing this  picturesque  sheet  of  water,  but  we 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


86  r 


FERRV  ON  THE  RIVEK  OB  NEAR  BARNAUL. 


finally  decided  that  we  could  not  spare  the 
time.    We  crossed  the  river  Ob  on  a  curious 
"parom,"  or  ferry-boat,  consisting  of  a  large 
platform  supported  upon  two  open  hulks  and 
propelled  by  a  paddle-wheel  at  one  end,  the 
crank  of  which  was  turned  by  two  ragged- 
bearded  old  muzhiks.    Most  of  the  Siberian 
rivers  are  crossed  by  means  of  what  are  known 
"  pendulum  ferries,"  in  which  the  boat  is 
anchored  by  a  long  cable  made  fast  in  the 
middle  of  the  stream,  and  is  swung  from  shore 
to  shore  pendulum-wise  by  the  force  of  the 
current.    The    Ob   ferry-boat,  of  which    Mr 
Frost  made  a  sketch,  was  the  first  one  we  had 
seen  propelled  by  a  paddle-wheel. 

So  far  as  I  can  remember,  there  was  little  on 
:   route  between  Barnaul  and  Tomsk   to 
attract  a  traveler's  attention.    I  was  terribly 
jaded   and    exhausted    from   lack   of  sleep 


and  spent  a  large  part  of  the  time  in  a  state 
which  was  little  more  than  one  of  semi-con- 
sciousness. 

At  4  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  Thursday, 
August  20,  we  rode  at  last  into  the  city  of 
Tomsk.  We  had  made,  with  horses,  in  the  51 
days  which  had  elapsed  since  our  departure 
from  Tinmen,  a  journey  of  more  than  1500 
miles,  in  the  course  of  which  we  had  inspected 
two  large  prisons,  made  the  acquaintance  of 
three  colonies  of  political  exiles,  and  visited  the 
wildest  part  of  the  Russian  Altai.  We  drove 
at  once  to  the  European  Hotel,  which  is  the 
building  shown  at  the  extreme  right  of  the 
illustration  on  page  865,  secured  a  fairly  com- 
fortable room,  and  as  soon  as  possible  afterdin- 
ner  removed  our  clothing  and  stretched  our 
weary  bodies  out  in  civilized  beds  for  the  first 
time  in  nearly  two  months. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PRISOiV. 


Tomsk,  which  is  the  capital  of  the  province 
of  the  same  name,  is  a  city  of  31,000  inhabit- 
ants, and  is  situated  partly  on  a  bluff,  and 
partly  on  low  land  adjoining  the  river  Tom,  a 
short  distance  above  its  junction  with  the 
Ob.  In  point  of  size  and  importance  it  is  the 
second  city  in  Siberia,  and  in  enterprise,  in- 
telligence, and  prosperity  it  seemed  to  me  to 
be  the  first.  It  contains  about  8000  dwelling- 
houses  and  other  buildings,  250  of  which  are 
brick ;  33  churches,  including  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic church,  a  Mohammedan  mosque,  and  3 
Jewish  synagogues;  26  schools,  attended  by 
about  2500  scholars;  a  very  good  public  li- 
brary ;  2  tri-weekly  newspapers,  which,  how- 
ever, the  Minister  of  the  Interior  keeps  closed 
a  large  part  of  the  time  on  account  of  their 
"  pernicious  tendency  " ;  and  a  splendid  new 
university  building,  which  has  been  completed 
three  years,  but  which  the  Government  will  not 
allow  to  be  opened  for  fear  that  it  too  will 
have  a  "  pernicious  tendency  "  and  become  a 
center  of  liberal  thought.  The  streets  of  the 
city  are  not  paved  and  are  very  imperfectly 
lighted,  but  at  the  time  of  our  visit  they  seemed 
to  be  reasonably  clean  and  well  cared  for,  and 
the  town,  as  a  whole,  impressed  me  much 
more  favorably  than  many  towns  of  its  class 
in  European  Russia. 

The  province  of  which  Tomsk  is  the  capital 
has  an  area  of  330,000  square  miles,  and  is 
therefore  about  seven  times  as  large  as  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania.  It  contains  8  towns,  each 


of  which  has  on  an  average  14,000  inhabit- 
ants, and  2719  villages,  each  of  which  has  on 
an  average  366  inhabitants,  so  that  its  total 
population  is  about  1,100,000.  Of  this  num- 
ber 90,000  are  aborigines,  and  30,000  com- 
munal exiles,  or  common  criminals  banished 
from  European  Russia.  The  southern  part  of 
the  province  is  very  fertile,  is  well  timbered 
and  watered,  and  has  a  fairly  good  climate. 
The  3,600,000  acres  of  land  which  it  has  un- 
der cultivation  yield  annually  about  30.000,000 
bushels  of  grain  and  4,500,000  bushels  of  po- 
tatoes, with  smaller  quantities  of  hemp,  flax, 
and  tobacco,  while  the  pastures  around  the 
villages  support  about  2,500,000  head  of  live 
stock. 

From  these  statistics  it  will  be  seen  that  in 
spite  of  bad  government,  restricted  immigra- 
tion, and  the  demoralizing  influence  of  crim- 
inal exile,  the  province  of  Tomsk  is  not  wholly 
barren  or  uncivilized.  If  it  were  in  the  hands 
of  Americans,  and  if  free  immigration  from 
European  Russia  to  it  were  allowed,  it  might 
soon  become  as  densely  populated  and  as 
prosperous  as  any  of  our  North-western  states. 
Its  resources  are  almost  illimitable,  and  all 
that  it  needs  is  good  government  and  freedom 
for  the  play  of  private  enterprise.  As  long, 
however,  as  a  despotic  administration  at  St. 
Petersburg  can  gag  its  newspapers  for  months 
at  a  time,  keep  its  university  closed,  choose 
the  teachers  and  prescribe  the  courses  of  study 
for  its  schools,  prohibit  the  reading  of  the 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


863 


best  books  in  its  libraries,  bind  its  population 
hand  and  foot  by  a  rigid  passport  system, 
govern  it  through  corrupt  and  wretchedly  paid 
chinovniks,  and  pour  into  it  every  year  a 
flood  of  common  criminals  from  European 
Russia,  just  so  long  it  will  remain  what  it  now 


to  whom  we  had  letters  of  introduction,  and 
ascertain  from  them  the  facts  that  were  neces- 
sary for  our  guidance.  We  found  that  the 
governor  of  the  province,  Mr.  KrasMifski, 
was  absent  from  the  city,  and  that  his  place 
was  being  temporarily  tilled  by  State  Coun- 


is  —  a  naturally  enterprising   and  promising    cilor  Nathaniel  Petukhof,  the  presiding  offi- 


colony  strangled  by  oppressive  and  unneces- 
sary guardianship.  The  Government,  just  at 
the  present  time,  proposes  to  develop  the  re- 


cer  of  the  provincial  administration,  who  was 
represented  to  us  as  a  man  of  intelligence, 
education,  and  some  liberality.  As  soon  as  I 


GROTESQUE     ROCKS     NEAR     KOLIVAN     LAKE. 


sources  of  the  province  by  biiikling  through 
it  a  railroad.  It  might  much  better  loosen 
the  grasp  in  which  it  holds  the  people  by 
the  throat,  permit  them  to  exercise  some 
judgment  with  regard  to  the  management 
of  their  own  affairs,  allow  them  freely  to 
discuss  their  needs  and  plans  in  their  own 
newspapers,  abolish  restrictions  upon  per- 
sonal liberty  of  movement,  stop  the  sending 
there  of  criminal  exiles,  and  then  let  the 
province  develop  itself.  It  does  not  need 
"  development  "  half  as  much  as  it  needs  to 
be  let  alone.* 

Our  first  step  in  Tomsk  was  to  call  upon  the 
political  exiles  and  upon  several  army  officers 

*  The  reader  will  understand,  I  trust,  that  consider- 
ations of  space  compel  me  to  omit  for  the  present  the 
mass  of  facts  upon  which  these  conclusions  rest.  The 
particular  object  of  our  journey  to  Siberia  was  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  exile  system ;  and  in  order  to  have 
space  for  the  adequate  treatment  of  that  subject,  I  am 
forced  to  neglect,  for  a  time,  the  government  of  Siberia 
and  the  economic  condition  of  the  Siberian  provinces. 


conveniently  could,  I  called  upon  Mr.  Petuk- 
hof, and  was  received  by  him  with  great  cor- 
diality. He  had  read,  as  I  soon  learned,  my 
book  upon  North-eastern  Siberia ;  and  since  it 
had  made  a  favorable  impression  upon  him, 
he  was  predisposed  to  treat  me  with  consid- 
eration and  with  more  than  ordinary  courtesy. 
I,  in  turn,  had  heard  favorable  reports  with 
regard  to  his  character ;  and  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, we  naturally  drifted  into  a  frank 
and  pleasant  talk  about  Siberia  and  Siberian 
affairs.  At  the  end  of  half  an  hour's  conver- 
sation he  asked  me  if  there  was  any  way  in 
which  he  could  be  of  assistance  to  me.  I  re- 
plied that  I  should  like  very  much  to  have 

That  I  have  not  exaggerated  the  evils  which  arise  in 
Siberia  from  the  corrupt  and  incapable  control  of  a 
despotic  bureaucracy,  I  shall  hereafter  show  by  quota- 
tions from  the  official  reports  of  Siberian  governors 
and  governors-general  and  by  the  statements  of  hun- 
dreds of  peasants,  merchants,  miners,  army  officers, 
newspaper  men,  and  chinovniks  in  all  parts  of  the 
country. 


864 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


\NT    WOMEN    AT    WORK. 


permission  to  visit  the  exile  forwarding  prison. 
I  fancied  that  his  face  showed,  for  an  instant, 
a  trace  of  embarrassment ;  but  as  I  proceeded 
to  describe  my  visits  to  prisons  in  two  other 
provinces,  he  seemed  to  come  to  a  decision, 
and,  without  asking  me  any  questions  as  to 
my  motives,  said,  "  Yes,  I  will  give  you  per- 
mission; and,  if  you  like,  I  will  go  with  you." 
Then,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  he  deter- 
mined, apparently,  to  be  frank  with  me,  and 
added  gravely,  "  I  think  you  will  find  it  the 
worst  prison  in  Siberia."  I  expressed  a  hope 
that  such  would  not  be  the  case,  and  said  that 
it  could  hardly  be  worse  than  the  forwarding 

*  According  to  the  report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile 
Transportation  for  1885,  this  prison  would  accommo- 
date 1900  prisoners,  with  an  allowance  of  eight-tenths 


prison  in  Tiumen.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders 
slightly,  as  if  to  say,  "  You  don't  know  yet 
what  a  Siberian  prison  may  be,"  and  asked  me 
what  could  be  expected  when  buildings  were 
crowded  with  more  than  twice  the  number  of 
persons  for  which  they  were  intended.  "  The 
Tomsk  forwarding  prison,"  he  continued,  "  was 
designed  to  hold  1400  prisoners.*  It  now  con- 
tains more  than  3000,  and  the  convict  barges, 
as  they  arrive  from  Tiumen,  increase  the  num- 
ber by  from  500  to  800  every  week,  while  we 
are  able  to  forward  eastward  only  400  a  week. 
The  situation  is,  therefore,  becoming  worse 
and  worse  as  the  summer  advances.  The 

of  a  cubic  fathom  of  air  space  per  capita.  Page  27  of 
the  manuscript  report.  Mr.  Petukhof,  in  his  estimate, 
did  not  perhaps  allow  for  such  close  packing  as  this. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


865 


A  PART  OF  THE  MARKET  SQUARE  AT  TOMSK. 


prison  kameras  are  terribly  overcrowded :  it 
is  impossible  to  keep  them  clean ;  the  vitia- 
tion of  the  air  in  them  causes  a  great  amount 
of  disease,  and  the  prison  hospital  is  already 
full  to  overflowing  with  the  dangerously  sick." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  why  do  you  not  forward 
exiles  eastward  more  rapidly  and  thus  relieve 
the  congestion  in  this  prison  ?  Why  can  you 
not  increase  the  size  of  your  marching  parties, 
or  send  forward  two  parties  a  week  instead  of 
one?" 

"  It  is  impracticable,"  replied  the  acting 
governor.  "  The  Exile  Administration  of 
Eastern  Siberia  says  that  it  cannot  receive 
and  distribute  prisoners  faster  than  it  does 
now.  Its  etapes  are  too  small  to  accommo- 
date larger  parties,  and  the  convoying  force 
of  soldiers  is  not  adequate  to  take  care  of  two 
parties  a  week.  We  tried  one  year  the  plan 
that  you  suggest,  but  it  did  not  work  well." 

"  Does  the  Government  at  St.  Petersburg 
know,"  I  inquired,  "of  this  state  of  affairs?" 

"  Certainly,"  he  replied.  "  It  has  been  re- 
ported upon  every  year,  and,  besides  writing, 
I  have  sent  four  urgent  telegrams  this  sum- 
mer asking  if  something  cannot  be  done  to 
relieve  this  prison." 

"And  has  nothing  been  done?" 

"  Nothing  whatever.  The  number  of  pris- 
oners here  will  continue  to  increase  steadily 
up  to  the  close  of  river  navigation,  when  the 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 119. 


convict  barges  will  stop  running,  and  then  we 
shall  gradually  clear  out  the  prison  during  the 
winter  months.  In  the  mean  time  typhus  fever 
will  prevail  there  constantly,  and  great  num- 
bers of  sick  will  lie  uncared  for  in  their  cells 
because  there  is  no  room  for  them  in  the  hos- 
pitals. If  you  visit  the  prison,  my  advice  to 
you  is  to  breakfast  heartily  before  starting, 
and  to  keep  out  of  the  hospital  wards." 

I  thanked  him  for  his  caution,  said  that  I 
was  not  afraid  of  contagion,  and  asked  when 
it  would  be  convenient  for  him  to  go  with  me 
to  the  prison.  A  day  was  agreed  upon,  and  I 
took  my  leave. 

On  my  way  home  I  accidentally  met  Col- 
onel Yagodkin,  the  chief  military  officer  of  the 
district,  who  had  welcomed  us  to  Tomsk  with 
great  kindness  and  hospitality,  and  had  taken 
a  friendly  interest  in  our  researches.  He  said 
he  had  just  called  at  our  hotel  to  inform  us 
that  a  convict  barge  from  Tiumen  had  arrived 
that  morning  at  the  steamer-landing  two  or 
three  miles  from  the  city,  and  to  say  that  if 
we  would  like  to  see  the  reception  of  a  con- 
vict party,  he  would  go  to  the  landing  with 
us  and  introduce  us  to  the  chief  officer  of 
the  local  exile  bureau.  I  thanked  him  for  his 
thoughtfulness,  and  in  ten  minutes  Mr.  Frost, 
Colonel  Yagodkin,  and  I  were  driving  furiously 
over  a  muddy  road  towards  the  pristan,  or 
landing-place.  Although  we  made  all  possible 


86  S 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


A    STATION    OF    THE    TOMSK     F1KE    DEPARTMENT. 

haste,  the  prisoners  had  disembarked  before 
we  reached  our  destination.  We  found  them 
assembled  in  two  dense  gray  throngs  at  the 
ends  of  a  long  wooden  shed,  which  was  sur- 
rounded and  turned  into  a  sort  of  cattle- 
pen  by  a  high  plank  wall.  Here  they  were 
identified,  counted,  and  turned  over  by  the 
convoy  officer  to  the  warden  of  the  Tomsk 
forwarding  prison.  The  shed  was  divided 
transversely  through  the  middle  by  a  low 
wooden  barricade,  at  one  end  of  which  was 
a  fenced  inclosure,  about  ten  feet  square,  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  officers  who  had  to 
take  part  in  the  reception  of  the  party.  About 
half  the  exiles  had  been  formally  "  received  " 
and  were  standing  at  the  eastern  end  of  the 
shed,  while  the  other  half  were  grouped  in  a 
dense  throng  at  the  western  end,  waiting  for 
their  names  to  be  called.  The  women,  who 
stood  huddled  together  in  a  group  by  them- 
selves, were  mostly  in  peasant  costumes,  with 
bright-colored  kerchiefs  over  their  heads,  and 
their  faces,  I  thought,  showed  great  anxiety 
and  apprehension.  The  men  all  wore  long 
gray  overcoats  over  coarse  linen  shirts  and 
trousers;  most  of  them  were  in  chains,  and  the 
bare  heads  of  the  convicts  and  the  penal  colo- 
nists had  been  half  shaved  longitudinally  in 
suchawaythatonesideofthescalpwassmooth 
and  blue,  while  the  other  side  was  hidden  by 
long,  neglected  hair.  Soldiers  stood  here  and 
there  around  the  shed,  leaning  upon  their 
bayoneted  rifles,  and  inside  the  little  inclosure 


were  the  convoy  officer  of  the  party,  the  warden 
and  the  surgeon  of  the  Tomsk  forwarding 
prison,  the  chief  of  the  local  bureau  of  exile 
administration,  and  two  or  three  other  officers, 
all  in  full  uniform.  Colonel  Yagodkin  intro- 
duced us  as  American  travelers  who  desired 
to  see  the  reception  of  an  exile  party,  and  we 
were  invited  to  stand  inside  the  inclosure. 

The  officer  who  was  conducting  the  exam- 
ination of  the  convicts  drew  a  folded  paper 
from  a  large  bundle  in  his  hand,  opened  and 
glanced  at  it,  and  then  shouted,  "  Nikolai 
Koltsof!"  A  thin,  pale  man,  with  heavy, 
wearied  eyes  and  a  hopeless  expression  of 
face,  who  was  standing  in  the  front  rank  of 
the  exile  party,  picked  up  the  gray  linen  bag 
that  lay  beside  him  on  the  floor,  and  with  a 
slow  clink,  clink,  clink  of  chains  walked  to 
the  inclosure.  The  examining  officer  com- 
pared his  face  carefully  with  a  photograph 
attached  to  the  "  stateini  speesok,"  or  "  identi- 
fication paper,"  in  order  to  make  sure  that 
the  pale  man  had  not  "  exchanged  names" 
with  some  other  exile,  while  a  Cossack  or- 
derly examined  him  from  head  to  foot  and 
rummaged  through  his  bag  to  see  that  he  had 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


867 


neither  lost  nor  surreptitiously  sold  the  articles 
of  clothing  that  he  had  received  in  Moscow 
or  Tiumen,  and  that  his  "stateini  speesok  " 
called  for. 

"  Is  everything  there  ?  "  inquired  the  officer. 

"  Everything,"  replied  the  Cossack. 

"  Stoopai !  "  [ "  Pass  on  !  "]  said  the  lieu- 
tenant; and  the  pale-faced  man  shouldered 
his  bag  and  joined  the  ranks  of  the  "  received  " 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  shed. 

"  The  photographs  are  a  new  thing,"  whis- 
pered Colonel  Yagodkin  to  me ;  "  and  only  a 
part  of  the  exiles  have  them.  They  are  in- 
tended to  break  up  the  practice  of  exchanging 
names  and  identities." 

"  But  why  should  they  wish  to  exchange 
names  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  If  a  man  is  sentenced  to  hard  labor  at  the 
mines,"  he  replied,  "  and  has  a  little  money, 
he  always  tries  to  buy  secretly  the  name  and 
identity  of  some  poor  devil  of  a  colonist  who 
longs  desperately  for  a  drink  of  vodka,  or 
who  wants  money  with  which  to  gamble.  Of 
course  the  convoy  officer  has  no  means  of 
preventing  this  sort  of  transaction,  because  he 
cannot  possibly  remember  the  names  and  faces 
of  the  four  or  rive  hundred  men  in  his  party. 
If  the  convict  succeeds  in  finding  a  colonist 
who  is  willing  to  sell  his  name,  he  takes  the 
colonist's  place  and  is  assigned  a  residence 
in  some  village,  while  the  colonist  takes  the 
convict's  place  and  goes  to  the  mines.  Hun- 
dreds of  hard-labor  convicts  escape  in  this 
way."» 

"  Hassan  Abdallimof !  "  called  the  examin- 
ing officer.  No  one  moved. 

"  Hassan  Abdallimof!  "  shouted  the  Cos- 
sack orderly,  more  loudly. 

"  Go  on,  Stumpy ;  that 's  you !  "  said  half 
a  dozen  exiles  in  an  undertone  as  they  pushed 
out  of  the  throng  a  short,  thickly  set,  bow- 
legged  Tartar,  upon  whose  flat,  swarthy  face 
there  was  an  expression  of  uncertainty  and 
bewilderment. 

"  He  does  n't  know  Russian,  your  High 
Nobility,"  said  one  of  the  exiles  respectfully, 
"and  he  is  gloopovati"  [dull-witted]. 

"  Bring  him  here,  "  said  the  officer  to  the 
Cossack  orderly. 

When  Hassan  had  been  examined,  he  did 
not  shoulder  his  bag  and  go  to  his  place  as 
he  should  have  done,  but  began  to  bow  and 
gesticulate,  and  to  make  supplications  in  the 
Tartar  language,  becoming  more  and  more 
excited  as  he  talked. 

"  What  does  he  say  ?  "  inquired  the  officer. 
"  Find  some  soldier  who  knows  Tartar."  An 
interpreter  was  soon  found  and  Hassan  re- 
peated his  story. 

*  I  shall  explain  this  practice  of  exchanging  names 
more  fully  in  a  later  article. 


"  He  says,  your  High  Nobility,"  translated 
the  interpreter,  "  that  when  he  was  arrested 
they  took  eight  rubles  from  him  and  told  him 
the  money  would  be  given  back  to  him  in 
Siberia.  He  wants  to  know  if  he  cannot  have 
some  of  it  now  to  buy  tea." 

"  Nyettoo  chai !  "  [ "  No  tea  ! "  ]  said  the 
Tartar  mournfully,  with  a  gesture  of  utter  des- 
olation. 

"  To  the  devil  with  him  !  "  cried  the  officer 
furiously.  "  What  does  the  blank  tflank  mean 
by  delaying  the  reception  of  the  party  with 
such  a  trifle  ?  This  is  no  place  to  talk  about 
tea !  He  '11  receive  his  money  when  he  gets 
to  his  destination.  Away  with  him!"  And  the 
poor  Tartar  was  hustled  into  the  eastern  end 
of  the  shed. 

"Ivan  Dontremember  —  the  red-headed," 
shouted  the  examining  officer. 

"  That 's  a  brodyag  "  (a  vagrant  or  tramp), 
whispered  Colonel  Yagodkin  to  me  as  a  sun- 
burned, red-headed  muzhik  in  chains  and  leg- 
fetters,  and  with  a  tea-kettle  hanging  from  his 
belt,  approached  the  inclosure.  "  He  has  been 
arrested  while  wandering  around  in  Western 
Siberia,  and  as  there  is  something  in  his  past 
history  that  he  does  n't  want  brought  to  light, 
he  refuses  to  disclose  his  identity,  and  answers 
all  questions  with  '  I  don't  remember.'  The 
tramps  all  call  themselves  '  Ivan  Dontremem- 
ber,' and  they  're  generally  a  bad  lot.  The 
penalty  for  belonging  to  the  '  Dontremember' 
family  is  five  years  at  the  mines."  The  exam- 
ining officer  had  no  photograph  of  "  Ivan 
Dontremember,  the  red-headed,"  and  the  lat- 
ter's  identity  was  established  by  ascertaining 
the  number  of  teeth  that  he  had  lost,  and  by 
examining  a  scar  over  his  right  ear. 

One  by  one  the  exiles  passed  in  this  way 
before  the  examining  officer  until  all  had  been 
identified,  counted,  and  turned  over,  and  then 
the  warden  of  the  Tomsk  forwarding  prison 
gave  a  receipt  to  the  convoy  officer  of  the 
barge  for  551  prisoners,  including  71  children 
under  15  years  of  age,  who  were  accompany- 
ing their  fathers  or  mothers  into  exile. 

At  the  end  of  the  verification  and  reception 
some  of  the  officers  returned  to  the  city;  but 
Colonel  Yagodkin,  Mr.  Frost,  and  I  remained 
to  see  the  surgical  examination  of  the  sick 
and  disabled,  and  to  inspect  the  convict  barge. 
Doctor  Orzheshko,  the  surgeon  of  the  Tomsk 
prison,  then  took  the  place  that  had  been  oc- 
cupied by  the  examining  officer,  laid  a  stetho- 
scope and  two  or  three  other  instruments  upon 
a  small  table  beside  him,  and  began  a  rapid 
examination  of  a  long  line  of  incapacitated 
men,  some  of  whom  were  really  sick  and  some 
of  whom  were  merely  shamming.  The  object 
of  the  examination  was  to  ascertain  how  many 
of  the  prisoners  were  unable  to  walk,  in  order 


Till-.    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PRISON. 


869 


that  the  requisite  number  of  telegas  might  be 
provided  for  their  transportation  to  the  city. 
The  first  man  who  presented  himself  was  thin, 
pale,  and  haggard,  and  in  reply  to  a  question 
from  the  surgeon  said,  with  a  sepulchral 
cough,  that  his  breast  hurt  him  and  that 
he  could  not  breathe  easily.  Dr.  Orzheshko 
felt  his  pulse,  put  a  stethoscope  to  his  lungs, 
listened  for  a  moment  to  the  respiratory  mur- 
mur, and  then  said  briefly,  '•  Pass  on;  you  can 
walk."  The  next  man  had  a  badly  swollen 
ankle,  upon  which  his  leg-fetter  pressed  heavily, 
evidently  causing  him  great  pain.  He  looked 
imploringly  at  the  doctor  while  the  latter  ex- 
amined the  swollen  limb,  as  if  he  would  be- 
seech him  to  have  mercy ;  but  he  said  not  a 
word,  and  when  his  case  was  approved  and  a 
wagon  was  ordered  for  him,  he  crossed  him- 
self devoutly  three  times,  and  his  lips  moved 
noiselessly,  as  if  he  were  saying  softly  under 
his  breath,  "  I  thank  thee,  O  God ! " 

There  were  forty  or  fifty  men  in  the  line  of 
prisoners  awaiting  examination,  and  the  sur- 
geon disposed  of  them  at  the  rate  of  about 
one  a  minute.  Some  had  fever,  some  were 
suffering  from  rheumatism ;  some  were  mani- 
festly in  an  advanced  stage  of  prison  con- 
sumption, and  all  seemed  to  me  sick,  wretched, 
or  weak  enough  to  deserve  wagons;  but  the 
experienced  senses  of  the  surgeon  quickly  de- 
tected the  malingerers  and  the  men  who  were 
only  slightly  indisposed,  and  quietly  bade  them 
"  Pass  on ! "  At  the  end  of  the  examination 
Dr.  Orzheshko  reported  to  the  prison  warden 
that  there  were  twenty-five  persons  in  the 
party  who  were  not  able  to  walk  to  the  city, 
and  who,  therefore,  would  have  to  be  carried. 
The  necessary  wagons  were  ordered,  the  sick 
and  the  women  with  infants  were  placed  in 
them,  and  at  the  order  "  Stroisa !  "  [  "  Form 
ranks ! "  |  the  convicts,  with  a  confused  clink- 
ing of  chains,  took  positions  outside  the  shed 
in  a  somewhat  ragged  column ;  the  soldiers, 
with  shouldered  rifles,  went  to  their  stations  in 
front,  beside  and  behind  the  party ;  and  Mr. 
Papelaief,  the  chief  of  the  local  exile  bureau, 
stepping  upon  a  chair,  cried,  "  Noo  rebatta  " 
["  Well,  boys"],  "have  you  anything  to  say 
or  any  complaints  to  make  ?  " 

"No;  nothing,  your  Nobility,"  replied  sev- 
enty-five or  a  hundred  voices. 

"  Well,  then,  S'Bogem  "  [  "  Go  with  God"]. 

The  soldiers  threw  open  the  wooden  gate 
of  the  yard  or  pen  ;  the  under  officer  shouted 
"  Ready  —  March  ! "  and  with  a  renewed 
jingling  of  multitudinous  chains,  the  gray 
column  moved  slowly  out  into  the  muddy 
road. 

As  soon  as  an  opportunity  presented  itself, 
Colonel  Yagodkin  introduced  us  to  Mr.  Pap- 
elaief, the  chief  officer  of  the  local  exile  bu- 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 120. 


reau,  who  supervised  the  reception  and  the 
forwarding  of  exile  parties,  the  equipment  of 
the  convicts  with  clothing,  and  the  examina- 
tion and  verification  of  their  papers.  Mr. 
Papelaief,  a  rather  tall,  thin  man,  with  a  hard, 
cold  face,  greeted  us  politely,  but  did  not 
seem  pleased  to  see  us  there,  and  was  not  dis- 
posed to  permit  an  inspection  of  the  convict 
barge. 

"  What  do  they  want  to  go  on  board  the 
barge  for?"  he  inquired  rather  curtly  of 
Colonel  Yagodkin.  "There  is  nothing  to  see 
there,  and  besides  it  is  inconvenient;  the 
women  are  now  cleaning  it." 

Colonel  Yagodkin,  however,  knew  that  I  was 
particularly  anxious  to  see  in  what  condition 
the  floating  prison  was  when  the  convicts  left 
it,  and,  a  few  moments  later,  he  introduced 
us  to  the  convoy  officer,  and  again  suggested 
a  visit  to  the  barge.  This  time  he  was  success- 
ful. The  convoy  officer  evidently  did  not  see 
any  reason  why  Colonel  Yagodkin  should  not 
go  on  board  the  barge  with  his  friends  if  he 
wished  to  do  so,  and  he  at  once  cheerfully 
offered  to  accompany  us.  The  barge  was,  ap- 
parently, the  same  one  that  I  had  inspected 
in  Tiumen  two  months  before.  Then  it  was 
scrupulously  clean,  and  the  air  in  its  cabins 
was  fresh  and  pure ;  but  now  it  suggested  a 
recently  vacated  wild-beast  cage  in  a  menag- 
erie. It  was  no  more  dirty,  perhaps,  than 
might  have  been  expected ;  but  its  atmos- 
phere was  heavy  with  a  strong  animal  odor; 
its  floors  were  covered  with  dried  mud,  into 
which  had  been  trodden  refuse  scraps  of  food ; 
its  nares,  or  sleeping-benches,  were  black 
and  greasy,  and  strewn  with  bits  of  dirty 
paper;  and  in  the  gray  light  of  a  cloudy 
day  its  dark  kameras,  with  their  small  grated 
port-holes,  muddy  floors,  and  polluted  ammo- 
niacal  atmosphere,  chilled  and  depressed  me 
with  suggestions  of  human  misery. 

The  Rev.  Henry  Lansdell,  in  a  recently 
published  magazine  article,*  says,  "  I  have 
seen  some  strong  statements,  alleging  the 
extreme  unhealthiness  of  these  barges,  .  .  . 
and  I  do  no"!  suppose  that  they  are  as  healthy 
as  a  first-class  sanatorium." 

If  Mr.  Lansdell  made  a  careful  examination 
of  a  convict  barge  immediately  after  the  de- 
parture from  it  of  a  convict  party,  the  idea  of 
a  "  sanatorium  "  certainly  could  not  have  been 
suggested  to  him  by  anything  that  he  saw. 
touched,  or  smelled.  It  suggested  to  me 
nothing  so  much  as  a  recently  vacated  den  in  a 
zoological  garden.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  no 
more  dirty  and  foul  than  might  have  been 
expected  after  ten  days  of  such  tenancy ;  but 
it  could  have  been  connected  in  one's  mind 

""Russian  Convicts  in  the  Salt  Mines  of  Iletsk"; 
Harper's  Magazine,  May,  1888,  pp.  894-910. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PRISON. 


with  a  "  sanatorium  "  only  by  a  violent  wrench 
of  the  imagination.  As  a  proof,  however,  that 
a  convict  barge  in  point  of  healthfulness  does 
not  fall  far  short  of  "  a  first-class  sanatorium," 
Mr.  Lansdell  quotes  a  statement  made  to  him 
by  "  an  officer  who  had  charge  of  the  prison- 
ers between  Tiumen  and  Tomsk,"  to  the  effect 
that  "during  the  season  of  1882,  8  barges 
carried  6000  prisoners  a  voyage  of  nearly 
2000  miles,  and  yet  only  two  [and  one  of  them 
a  child]  died  on  the  passage,  while  only  20 
were  delivered  invalided  at  Tomsk." 

Inasmuch  as  I  once  took  the  same  view  of 
the  exile  system  that  Mr.  Lansdell  now  takes, 
and  have  been  forced  to  confess  myself  in 
error,  it  may  be  proper  for  me  to  say,  without 
reflecting  in  any  way  upon  Mr.  Lansd ell's 
conscientiousness  and  sincerity,  that  the  state- 
ment which  he  quotes  has  not  the  slightest 
foundation  in  fact,  and  was  probably  made  to 
him  by  the  convoy  officer  with  a  deliberate 
intention  to  deceive.  According  to  the  official 
report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transporta- 
tion for  1882, — the  year  to  which  Mr.  Lans- 
dell's  information  relates, —  the  number  of 
prisoners  carried  on  convict  barges  was  not 
6000,  but  10,245.  Of  this  number  279  were 
taken  sick  on  the  barges,  22  died,  and  80  were 
left  dangerously  sick  at  river  ports,  or  were 
delivered  in  that  condition  at  Tomsk.*  These, 
it  must  be  remembered,  were  the  cases  of  sick- 
ness and  the  deaths  that  occurred  in  a  voyage 
which  averages  only  ten  days  in  duration.  If, 
in  a  population  of  10,245  souls.  279  persons 
were  taken  sick  and  22  died  every  10  days, 
we  should  have  an  annual  sick  rate  of  nearly 
99  per  cent.,  and  an  annual  death  rate  of 
nearly  8  per  cent.  It  would  not,  I  think,  be 
a  very  popular  "  sanatorium  "  in  which  99 
per  cent,  of  all  the  persons  who  entered  it 
comparatively  well  became  seriously  sick  in 
the  course  of"  the  year,  and  eight  per  cent,  of 
the  whole  number  died.  But  sickness  on  the 
convict  barges  has  been  far  more  prevalent 
than  this  —  and  within  recent  years.  In  1879, 
724  prisoners  were  taken  sick  beween  Tiu- 
men and  Tomsk  and  51  died;  a"nd  in  1871, 
1140  were  taken  sick  out  of  a  whole  number 
of  9416  carried,  and  in  died.  Such  a  rate 
of  mortality  as  that  shown  by  the  death  of 
in  persons  out  of  9416  in  10  days  would 
entirely  depopulate  in  a  single  year,  not  only 
"  a  first-class  sanatorium,"  but  a  village  of  4000 
inhabitants. 

In  a  foot-note  below  will  be  found  a  tabu- 
lated statement  of  the  cases  of  sickness  and 
death  which  occurred  on  the  convict  barges 
between  Tiumen  and  Tomsk  in  the  fifteen 
years  beginning  with  1870  and  ending  with 
1884.  I  copied  the  figures  myself  from  the 
manuscripts  of  the  official  reports,  and  so  far 


as  transcription  is  concerned,  I  will  guarantee 
their  accuracy.! 

It  will  be  seen  that  during  this  period  there 
has  been,  on  the  whole,  a  steady  improve- 
ment in  the  hygienic  condition  of  the  barges, 
and  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the  sick  and 
death  rates.  The  mortality  now  is  chiefly 
among  children,  who,  of  course,  are  less  able 
than  adults  to  endure  the  hardships,  privations, 
and  exposures  of  barge  life.  I  am  glad  to  be 
able  to  say  that,  in  my  judgment,  the  Inspector 
of  Exile  Transportation  and  the  local  Siberian 
authorities  are  now  doing  all  that  it  lies  in 
their  power  to  do  for  the  comfort  and  health 
of  exiles  on  the  voyage  between  Tiumen  and 
Tomsk.  The  barges  are  thoroughly  cleaned 
and  fumigated  after  every  trip,  and  the  pris- 
oners are  as  well  fed  and  cared  for  as  they  can 
be  with  the  limited  sum  of  money  that  the 
Government  appropriates  for  the  purpose.  The 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transpor- 
tation for  Western  Siberia,  p.  12  of  the  manuscript. 

t  SICKNESS  AND   MORTALITY  ON  CONVICT  BARGES 

BETWEEN   TlL'MEN   AND   TOMSK — TKN    DAYS. 


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It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  figures  show  only 
a  small  part  of  the  sickness  and  mortality  in  convict 
parties  from  points  of  departure  to  points  of  destination. 
Before  reaching  Tiumen  the  convicts  travel  by  barge 
from  Nizhni  Novgorod  to  Perm,  a  distance  of  nearly 
loco  miles,  and  after  leaving  Tomsk  many  of  them 
walk  nearly  2000  miles  into  Eastern  Siberia.  In  a  sub- 
sequent paper  I  shall  give  statistics  of  sickness  and  mor- 
tality for  the  whole  journey  from  Moscow  to  Irkutsk. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING  PRISON. 


.871 


suffering  and  disease  which  still  exist  arc  at- 
tributable mainly  to  overcrowding,  and  over- 
crowding the  Siberian  officials  cannot  prevent. 
Ten  or  twelve  thousand  exiles  are  turned  over 
to  them  every  summer,  and  they  must  send  them 
eastward  as  best  they  can  while  the  season  of 
navigation  lasts.  They  have  only  three  barges, 
and  eighteen  round  trips  are  all  that  can  be 
made  during  the  time  that  the  river  remains 
open.  They  are  therefore  compelled  to  send 
from  600  to  800  exiles  in  a  single  barge  at 
every  trip. 

The  clay  set  for  our  visit  to  the  Tomsk  for- 
warding prison  was  Wednesday,  August  26. 
The  acting-governor,  Mr.  Petukhof,  sent  word 
to  me  at  the  last  moment  that  he  would  be 
unable  to  accompany  us;  but  an  inspecting 
party  was  made  up  of  Colonel  Yagodkin,  Mr. 
Papelaief  (the  chief  of  the  local  exile  bureau), 
the  convoy  officer  of  the  barge,  Mr.  Frost, 
and  myself.  It  was  one  of  the  cold,  gray, 
gloomy  days  that  often  come  to  Western 
Siberia  in  the  late  summer,  when  the  sky  is  a 
canopy  of  motionless  leaden  clouds,  and  the 
wind  blows  sharply  down  across  the  tundras 
from  the  Arctic  Ocean.  The  air  was  raw,  with 
a  suggestion  of  dampness,  and  an  overcoat 
was  not  uncomfortable  as  we  rode  out  to  the 
eastern  end  of  the  city. 

The  first  glimpse  that  we  caught  of  the 
Tomsk  forwarding  prison  showed  us  that  it 
differed  widely  in  type  from  all  the  Siberian 
prisons  that  we  had  previously  seen.  Instead 
of  the  huge  white,  three-story,  stuccoed  build- 
ing with  narrow  arched  windows  and  red  tin 
roof  that  we  had  expected  to  find,  we  saw  be- 
fore us  something  that  looked  like  the  perma- 
nent fortified  camp  of  a  regiment  of  soldiers, 
or  like  a  small  prairie  village  on  the  frontier, 
surrounded  by  a  high  stockade  of  sharpened 
logs  to  protect  it  from  hostile  Indians.  With 
theexception  of  the  zigzag-barred  sentry  boxes 
at  the  corners,  and  the  soldiers  who  with 
shouldered  rifles  paced  slowly  back  and  forth 
along  its  sides,  there  was  hardly  a  suggestion 
of  a  prison  about  it.  It  was  simply  a  stock- 
aded inclosure  about  three  acres  in  extent,  situ- 
ated on  an  open  prairie  beyond  the  city  limits, 
with  a  pyramidal  church  tower  and  the  board 
roofs  of  15  or  20  log  buildings  showing  above 
the  serrated  edge  of  the  palisade.  If  we  had 
had  any  doubts,  however,  with  regard  to  the 
nature  of  the  place,  the  familiar  jingling  of 
chains,  which  came  to  our  ears  as  we  stopped 
in  front  of  the  wooden  gate,  would  have  set 
such  doubts  at  rest. 


In  response  to  a  summons  sent  by  Mr. 
Papelaief  through  the  officer  of  the  day,  the 
warden  of  the  prison,  a  short,  stout,  chubby- 
faced  young  officer,  named  Ivanenko,  soon 
made  his  appearance,  and  we  were  admitted 
to  the  prison  yard.  Within  the  spacious  ill- 
closure  stood  twelve  or  fifteen  one-story  log 
buildings,  grouped  without  much  apparent 
regularity  about  a  square  log  church.  At  the 
doors  of  most  of  these  buildings  stood  armed 
sentries,  and  in  the  unpaved  streets  or  open 
spaces  between  them  were  walking  or  sitting 
on  the  bare  ground  hundreds  of  convicts  and 
penal  colonists  who,  in  chains  and  leg- fetters, 
were  taking  their  daily  outing.  The  log  build- 
ings with  their  grated  windows,  the  high  stock- 
ade which  surrounded  them,  the  armed  sentries 
here  and  there,  and  the  throngs  of  convicts  who 
in  long,  gray,  semi-military  overcoats  roamed 
aimlessly  about  the  yard  would  doubtless  have 
reminded  many  a  Union  soldier  of  the  fa- 
mous prison  pen  at  Anderson  ville.  The  prison 
buildings  proper  were  long,  one-story,  barrack- 
like  houses  of  squared  logs,  with  board  roofs, 
heavily  grated  windows,  and  massive  wooden 
doors  secured  by  iron  padlocks.  Each  sepa- 
rate building  constituted  a  "  kazarm,"  or  prison 
ward,  and  each  ward  was  divided  into  two 
large  kameras,  or  cells,  by  a  short  hall  running 
transversely  through  the  middle.  There  were 
eight  of  these  kazarms,  or  log  prisons,  and  each 
of  them  was  designed  to  accommodate  190 
men,  with  an  allowance  of  eight-tenths  of  a 
cubic  fathom  of  air  space  per  capita.*  They 
were  all  substantially  alike,  and  seemed  to 
me  to  be  about  75  feet  long  by  40  feet  wide, 
with  a  height  of  12  feet  between  floors  and 
ceilings.  The  first  kamera  that  we  examined 
was  perhaps  40  feet  square,  and  contained 
about  150  prisoners.  It  was  fairly  well  lighted, 
but  its  atmosphere  was  polluted  to  the  last  de- 
gree by  over-respiration,  and  its  temperature, 
raised  by  the  natural  heat  of  the  prisoners' 
bodies,  was  fifteen  or  twenty  degrees  above 
that  of  the  air  outside.  Two  double  rows  of 
sleeping-benches  ran  across  the  kamera,  but 
there  evidently  was  not  room  enough  on 
them  for  half  the  inmates  of  the  cell,  and 
the  remainder  were  forced  to  sleep  under 
them,  or  on  the  floor  in  the  gangways  between 
them,  without  pillows,  blankets,  or  bed  cloth- 
ing of  any  kind.  The  floor  had  been  washed 
in  anticipation  of  our  visit,  but  the  warden 
said  that  in  rainy  weather  it  was  always  cov- 
ered with  mud  and  filth  brought  in  from  the 
yard  by  the  feet  of  the  prisoners,  and  that  in 


*  The  report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transporta-  that  it  was  originally  intended  to  hold  1400  prisoners, 

tion  for  1884  says  tliat  the  Tomsk  prison  contains  ten  while  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transportation  reported 

of  these  kazarms.    The  warden  told  me  that  there  were  in  1884  that  its  normal  capacity  was  1900.    Itcontained, 

only  eight.    Accounts  also  differ  as  to  the  normal  ca-  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  about  3500. 
pacify  of  the  prison.    Acting-Governor  Petukhof  said 


872. 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PRISON. 


this  mud  and  filth  scores  of  men  had  to  lie 
down  at  night  to  sleep.  Many  of  the  convicts, 
thinking  that  we  were  officers  or  inspectors 
from  St.  Petersburg,  violated  the  first  rule  of 
prison  discipline,  despite  the  presence  of  the 
warden,  by  complaining  to  us  of  the  heat,  foul- 
ness, and  oppressiveness  of  the  prison  air,  and 
the  terrible  overcrowding,  which  made  it  dif- 
ficult to  move  about  the  kamera  in  the  day- 
time, and  almost  impossible  to  get  any  rest 
at  night.  I  pitied  the  poor  wretches,  but  could 
only  tell  them  that  we  were  not  officials,  and 
had  no  power  to  do  anything  for  them. 

For  nearly  an  hour  we  went  from  kazarm 
to  kazarm  and  from  cell  to  cell,  finding  every- 
where the  same  overcrowding,  the  same  in- 
conceivably foul  air,  the  same  sickening  odors, 
and  the  same  throngs  of  gray-coated  convicts. 
At  last  Mr.  Papelaief,  who  seemed  disposed  to 
hurry  us  through  the  prison,  said  that  there 
was  nothing  more  to  see  except  the  kitchen 
and  the  hospital,  and  that  he  presumed  we 
would  not  care  to  inspect  the  hospital  wards, 
inasmuch  as  they  contained  seventy  or  eighty 
patients  sick  with  malignant  typhus  fever. 
The  young  convoy  officer  of  the  barge,  who 
seconded  all  of  Colonel  Yagodkin's  efforts 
to  make  us  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
prison,  asked  the  warden  if  he  was  not  going 
to  show  us  the  "  family  kameras "  and  the 
"  bologans." 

"  Certainly,"  said  the  warden  ;  "  I  will  show 
them  anything  that  they  wish  to  see." 

I  had  not  before  heard  of  the  "  bologans," 
and  Mr.  Papelaief,  who  had  to  some  extent 
taken  upon  himself  the  guidance  of  the  party, 
seemed  as  anxious  to  prevent  us  from  seeing 
them  as  he  had  been  to  prevent  us  from  seeing 
the  convict  barge. 

The  "  bologans  "  we  found  to  be  long,  low 
sheds,  hastily  built  of  rough  pine  boards,  and 
inclosed  with  sides  of  thin,  white  cotton-sheet- 
ing. They  were  three  in  number,  and  were 
occupied  exclusively  by  family  parties,  women, 
and  children.  The  first  one  to  which  we  came 
was  surrounded  by  a  foul  ditch  half  full  of  filth, 
into  which  water  or  urine  was  dripping  here 
and  there  from  the  floor  under  the  cotton- 
sheeting  wall.  The  bologan  had  no  windows, 
and  all  the  light  that  it  received  came  through 
the  thin  cloth  which  formed  the  sides. 

A  scene  of  more  pitiable  human  misery  than 
that  which  was  presented  to  us  as  we  entered 
the  low,  wretched  shed,  can  hardly  be  imag- 
ined. It  was  literally  packed  with  hundreds 
of  weary-eyed  men,  haggard  women,  and  wail- 
ing children,  sitting  or  lying  in  all  conceivable 
attitudes  upon  two  long  lines  of  rough  plank 
sleeping-benches,  which  ran  through  it  from 
end  to  end,  leaving  gangways  about  four  feet 
in  width  in  the  middle  and  at  the  sides.  I 


could  see  the  sky  through  cracks  in  the  roof; 
the  floor  of  unmatched  boards  had  given  way 
here  and  there,  and  the  inmates  had  used  the 
holes  as  places  into  which  to  throw  refuse  and 
pour  slops  and  excrement ;  the  air  was  insuf- 
ferably fetid  on  account  of  the  presence  of  a 
great  number  of  infants  and  the  impossibility 
of  giving  them  proper  physical  care ;  wet  un- 
derclothing, which  had  been  washed  in  camp- 
kettles,  was  hanging  from  all  the  cross-beams  ; 
the  gangways  were  obstructed  by  piles  of  gray 
bags,  bundles,  bedding,  and  domestic  utensils; 
and  in  this  chaos  of  disorder  and  misery  hun- 
dreds of  human  beings,  packed  together  so 
closely  that  they  jcould  not  move  without 
touching  one  another,  were  trying  to  exist, 
and  to  perform  the  necessary  duties  of  every- 
day life.  It  was  enough  to  make  one  sick  at 
heart  to  see,  subjected  to  such  treatment  and 
undergoing  such  suffering,  hundreds  of  women 
and  children  who  had  committed  no  crime, 
but  had  merely  shown  their  love  and  devotion 
by  going  into  Siberian  exile  with  the  husbands, 
the  fathers,  or  the  brothers  who  were  dear  to 
them. 

As  we  walked  through  the  narrow  gangways 
from  one  end  of  the  shed  to  the  other,  we 
were  besieged  by  unhappy  men  and  women 
who  desired  to  make  complaints  or  petitions. 

"Your  High  Nobility,"  said  a  heavy-eyed, 
anxious-looking  man  to  the  warden,  "  it  is 
impossible  to  sleep  here  nights  on  account  of 
the  cold,  the  crowding,  and  the  crying  of  babies. 
Can't  something  be  done  ?  " 

"  No,  brother,"  replied  the  warden  kindly ; 
"  I  can't  do  anything.  You  will  go  on  the 
road  pretty  soon,  and  then  it  will  be  easier." 

"  Dai  Bogh  !  "  ["  God  grant  it ! "]  said  the 
heavy-eyed  man  as  he  turned  with  a  mournful 
look  to  his  wife  and  a  little  girl  who  sat  near 
him  on  the  sleeping-bench. 

"Batiushka!  My  little  father!  My  benefac- 
tor ! "  cried  a  pale-faced  woman  with  an  in- 
fant at  her  naked  breast.  "  Won't  you,  for 
God's  sake,  let  me  sleep  in  the  bath-house  with 
my  baby  ?  It  's  so  cold  here  nights ;  I  can't 
keep  him  warm." 

"No,  matushka"  ["my  little  mother"],  said 
the  warden ;  "  I  can't  let  you  sleep  in  the  bath- 
house. It  is  better  for  you  here." 

Several  other  women  made  in  succession  the 
same  request,  and  were  refused  in  the  same 
way;  and  I  finally  asked  the  warden,  who 
seemed  to  be  a  kind-hearted  and  sympathetic 
man,  why  he  could  not  let  a  dozen  or  two  of 
these  unfortunate  women,  who  had  young 
babies,  go  to  the  bath-house  to  sleep.  "  It  is 
cold  here  now,"  I  said,  "  and  it  must  be  much 
worse  at  night.  These  thin  walls  of  cotton- 
sheeting  don't  keep  out  at  all  the  raw  night 
air." 


THE    TOMSK  FORWARDING   PR/SON. 


»73 


"  It  is  impossible,"  replied  the  warden. 
"  The  atmosphere  of  the  bath-house  is  too  hot, 
(lose,  and  damp.  1  tried  letting  some  of  the 
nursing  women  sleep  there,  but  one  or  two 
of  their  babies  died  every  night,  and  I  had  to 
stop  it." 

I  appreciated  the  hopelessness  of  the  situ- 
.111011,  and  had  nothing  more  to  say.  As  we 
emerged  from  the  bologan,  we  came  upon  Mr. 
Papelaief  engaged  in  earnest  conversation 
with  one  of  the  exiles,  a.  good-looking,  blonde- 
bearded  man  about  thirty-five  years  of  age, 
upon  whose  face  there  was  an  expression  of 
agitation  and  excitement,  mingled  with  a  sort 
of  defiant  despair. 

"  I  have  had  only  one  shirt  in  months," 
the  exile  said  in  a  trembling  voice,  "and  it  is 
dirty,  ragged,  and  full  of  vermin." 

"  Well !  "  said  Mr.  Papelaief  with  contempt- 
uous indifference,  "  you  '11  get  another  when 
you  go  on  the  road." 

"  But  when  will  I  go  on  the  road  ?  "  replied 
the  exile  with  increasing  excitement.  "  It  may 
be  three  months  hence." 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Mr.  Papelaief  coldly, 
but  with  rising  temper  as  he  saw  us  listening 
to  the  colloquy. 

"  Then  do  you  expect  a  man  to  wear  one 
shirt  until  it  drops  off  from  him  ?  "  inquired  the 
exile  with  desperate  indignation. 

"  Silence  ! "  roared  Mr.  Papelaief,  losing  all 
control  of  himself.  "  How  dare  you  talk  to  me 
in  that  way!  I  '11  take  the  skin  off  from  you! 
You  '11  get  another  shirt  when  you  go  on  the 
road,  and  not  before.  Away !  " 

The  exile's  face  flushed,  and  the  lump  in 
his  throat  rose  and  fell  as  he  struggled  to 
choke  down  his  emotion.  At  last  he  suc- 
ceeded, and,  turning  away  silently,  entered  the 
bologan. 

"  How  long  will  the  women  and  children 
have  to  stay  in  these  sheds  ?  "  I  asked  the 
warden. 

"  Until  the  2d  of  October,"  he  replied. 

"  And  where  will  you  put  them  then  ?  " 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  but  said  noth- 
ing.* 

From  the  bologans  we  went  to  a  "  family 
kamera  "  in  one  of  the  log  kazarms.  Here 
there  was  the  same  scene  of  disorder  and 
wretchedness  that  we  had  witnessed  in  the 
bologans,  with  the  exception  that  the  walls 
were  of  logs,  and  the  air,  although  foul,  was 
warm.  Men,  women,  and  children  were  sitting 
on  the  nares,  lying  under  them,  standing  in 
throngs  in  the  gangways,  and  occupying  in 


one  way  or  another  every  available  square 
foot  of  space  in  the  kamera.  I  had  seen  enough 
of  this  sort  of  mi;  cry,  and  asked  the  warden 
to  take  us  to  the  hospital,  a  two-story  log 
1)  iKling  situated  near  the  church.  We  were 
met  at  the  door  by  Dr.  Orzheshko,  the  prison 
surgeon,  who  was  a  large,  heavily  built  man, 
with  a  strong,  good  face,  and  who  was  by 
birth  a  Pole. 

The  hospital  did  not  differ  materially  from 
that  in  the  prison  at  Tiumen,  except  that  it 
occupied  a  building  by  itself,  and  seemed  to 
be  in  better  order.  It  was  intended  originally 
to  hold  50  beds ;  but  on  account  of  the  over- 
crowding of  the  prispn  it  had  been  found  nec- 
essary to  increase  the  number  of  beds  to  150, 
and  still  nearly  50  sick  patients  were  unpro- 
vided for  and  had  to  lie  on  benches  or  on  the 
floor.  The  number  of  sick  in  the  hospital  at 
the  time  of  our  visit  was  193,  including  71 
cases  of  typhus  fever.  The  wards,  although 
unduly  crowded,  were  clean  and  neat,  the 
bed  clothing  was  plentiful  and  fresh,  and  the 
atmosphere  did  not  seem  to  me  so  terribly 
heavy  and  polluted  as  that  of  the  hospital  in 
Tiumen.  The  blackboards  at  the  heads  of  the 
narrow  cots  showed  that  the  prevalent  dis- 
eases among  the  prisoners  were  typhus  fever, 
scurvy,  dysentery,  rheumatism,  anaemia,  and 
bronchitis.  Many  of  the  nurses,  I  noticed,  were 
women  from  25  to  35  years  of  age,  who  had 
strong,  intelligent  faces,  belonged  apparently 
to  one  of  the  upper  classes,  and  were  probably 
medical  students. 

Early  in  the  afternoon,  after  having  made 
as  careful  an  examination  of  the  whole  prison 
as  circumstances  would  permit,  we  thanked 
the  warden,  Mr.  Ivanenko,  for  his  courteous 
attention,  and  for  his  evident  disposition  to 
deal  with  us  frankly  and  honestly,  and  drove 
back  to  our  hotel.  It  was  long  that  night 
before  I  could  get  to  sleep,  and  when  I  finally 
succeeded,  it  was  only  to  dream  of  crowded 
bologans,  of  dead  babies  in  bath-houses,  and 
of  the  ghastly  faces  that  I  had  seen  in  the 
hospital  of  the  Tomsk  forwarding  prison. 

Inasmuch  as  we  did  not  see  this  prison  at 
its  worst,  and  inasmuch  as  I  wish  to  give  the 
reader  a  vivid  realization,  if  possible,  of  the 
awful  amount  of  human  agony  that  the  exile 
system  causes,  it  seems  to  me  absolutely  nec- 
essary to  say  something,  in  closing,  with  re- 
gard to  the  condition  of  the  Tomsk  forwarding 
prison  two  months  after  we  made  to  it  the 
visit  that  I  have  tried  to  describe. 

On    my   return   to   Tomsk   from    Eastern 


*  I  learned  upon  my  return  trip  that  late  in  October     the  convict  companies  [arrestantski  roti].  These  meas- 
o  women  and  children  were  transferred  to  an  empty    ures  were  rendered  imperative  by  the  alarming  preva- 


200  women  an  children  were  transferred  to  an  empty 
house  hired  for  the  purpose  in  the  city  of  Tomsk,  and 
that  1000  or  1500  other  exiles  were  taken  from  the  for- 
wanling  prison  to  the  city  prison  and  to  the  prison  of 


imperative  by  the  alarming  pr 
lence  of  disease  —  particularly  typhus  fever  —  in  the 
forwarding  prison  as  a  result  of  the  terrible  over- 
crowding. 


874 


APART. 


Siberia,  in  February,  I  had  a  long  interview 
with  Dr.  Orzheshko,  the  prison  surgeon.  He 
described  to  me  the  condition  of  the  prison, 
as  it  gradually  became  more  and  more  crowded 
in  the  late  fall  after  our  departure,  and  said 
to  me :  "  You  can  hardly  imagine  the  state 
of  affairs  that  existed  here  in  November.  We 
had  2400  cases  of  sickness  in  the  course  of 
the  year,  and  450  patients  in  the  hospital  at 
one  time,  with  beds  for  only  150.  Three  hun- 
dred men  and  women  dangerously  sick  lay 
on  the  floor  in  rows,  most  of  them  without 
pillows  or  bed  clothing;  and  in  order  to  find 
even  floor  space  for  them  we  had  to  put  them 
so  close  together  that  I  could  not  walk  be- 
tween them,  and  a  patient  could  not  cough  or 
vomit  without  coughing  or  vomiting  into  his 
own  face  or  into  the  face  of  the  man  lying  be- 
side him.  The  atmosphere  in  the  wards  became 
so  terribly  polluted  that  I  fainted  repeatedly 
upon  coming  into  the  hospital  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  my  assistants  had  to  revive  me  by 
dashing  water  into  my  face.  In  order  to 
change  and  purify  the  air  we  were  forced  to 
keep  the  windows  open ;  and,  as  winter  had 
set  in,  this  so  chilled  the  rooms  that  we  could 
not  maintain,  on  the  floor  where  the  sick  lay,  a 

*  The  report  of  the  Inspector  of  Exile  Transporta- 
tion shows  how  rapidly  the  sick  rate  increased  with  the 
progressive  overcrowding.  The  figures  are  as  follows : 


1855.                          A  verage  daily  Per  cent,  oftvlwle 
Month.                          number  of  sick,      prison  population. 

108  ....               5.8 

170  6.9 

August 189  ....               7.  i 

September  242  ....              9.6 

October 356  15.4 

November 406  ....             25.2 


June 

July 


temperature  higher  than  5  or  6  degrees  Reau- 
mur above  the  freezing  point.  More  than  25 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  prison  population  were 
constantly  sick,  and  more  than  10  per  cent, 
of  the  sick  died."  * 

"  How  long,"  I  inquired, "  has  this  awful 
state  of  things  existed  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  here  fifteen  years,"  replied 
Dr.  Orzheshko,  "  and  it  has  been  so,  more 
or  less,  ever  since  I  came."  t 

"  And  is  the  Government  at  St.  Petersburg 
aware  of  it  ?  " 

"It  has  been  reported  upon  every  year.  I 
have  recommended  that  the  hospital  of  the 
Tomsk  forwarding  prison  be  burned  to  the 
ground.  It  is  so  saturated  with  contagious 
disease  that  it  is  unfit  for  use.  We  have  been 
called  upon  by  the  prison  department  to  for- 
ward plans  for  a  new  hospital,  and  we  have  for- 
warded them.  They  have  been  returned  for 
modification,  and  we  have  modified  them  ;  but 
nothing  has  been  done." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  comment  upon  this  frank 
statement  of  the  Tomsk  surgeon.  Civilization 
and  humanity  can  safely  rest  upon  it,  without 
argument,  their  case  against  the  Tomsk  for- 
warding prison. 

The  sick  rate  increased  steadily  throughout  the  win- 
ter until  March,  when  it  reached  high-water  mark  — 
40. 7  per  cent. ,  or  nearly  one-half  the  whole  prison  popu- 
lation. [Report  of  Inspector  of  Exile  Transportation 
for  1885,  p.  30  of  the  manuscript.] 

t  For  example,  according  to  the  report  of  the  medi- 
cal department  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  for  iScSa, 
1268  prisoners  were  treated  that  year  in  the  Tomsk 
forwarding  prison  for  typhus  fever,  and  131 1  fordiphthe- 
ria,  measles,  and  small-pox. 

George  Kcnuan. 


APART. 

OUT  on  a  leafless  prairie,  where 
No  song  of  bird  makes  glad  the  air, 
No  hue  of  flower  brings  to  her  eyes 
Outward  glimpse  of  Paradise, — 
A  thousand  miles  and  a  half  away, — 
My  lady  is  in  love  to-day. 

And  all  her  heart  is  singing,  singing, 
And  every  new  south  wind  is  winging 
Tidings  glad  from  her  true  lover, 
And  kisses  bridge  the  distance  over  — 
Lips  to  lips  and  heart  to  heart, 
A  thousand  miles  and  a  half  apart. 


Orelia  Key  Bell. 


EMMA    LAZARUS. 


BORN   JULY    22,    1849;     DIKD    NOVEMBER    19,    1887. 


NE  hesitates  to  lift  the  veil 
and  throw  the  light  upon  a 
life  so  hidden  and  a  per- 
sonality so  withdrawn  as 
that  of  Emma  Lazarus;  but 
while  her  memory  is  fresh, 
and  the  echo  of  her  songs 
still  lingers  in  these  pages, 
we  feel  it  a  duty  to  call  up  her  presence  once 
more  and  to  note  the  traits  that  made  it  remark- 
able and  worthy  to  shine  out  clearly  before  the 
world.  Of  dramatic  episode  or  climax  in  her 
life  there  is  none;  outwardly  all  was  placid 
and  serene,  like  an  untroubled  stream  whose 
depths  alone  hold  the  strong,  quick  tide.  The 
story  of  her  life  is  the  story  of  a  mind,  of  a 
spirit  ever  seeking,  ever  striving,  and  pressing 
onward  and  upward  to  new  truth  and  light. 
Her  works  are  the  mirror  of  this  progress. 
In.  reviewing  them  the  first  point  that  strikes 
us  is  the  precocity,  or  rather  the  spontaneity, 
of  her  poetic  gift.  She  was  a  born  singer; 
poetry  was  her  natural  language,  and  to  write 
was  less  effort  than  to  speak,  for  she  was 
a  shy,  sensitive  child,  with  strange  reserves 
and  reticences,  not  easily  putting  herself 
en  rapport  with  those  around  her.  Books 
were  her  world  from  her  earliest  years;  in 
them  she  literally  lost  and  found  herself. 
She  was  eleven  years  old  when  the  War  of 
Secession  broke  out,  which  inspired  her  first 
lyric  outbursts.  Her  poems  and  translations 
written  b3tween  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
seventeen  were  collected,  and  constituted  her 
first  published  volume.  Crude  and  immature 
as  these  productions  naturally  were,  and  ut- 
terly condemned  by  the  writer's  later  judgment, 
they  are,  nevertheless,  highly  interesting  and 
characteristic,  giving,  as  they  do,  the  key-note 
of  much  that  afterwards  unfolded  itself  in  her 
life.  One  cannot  fail  to  be  rather  painfully  im- 
pressed by  the  profound  melancholy  pervading 
the  book.  The  opening  poem  is  "  In  Memo- 
riam  "  —  on  the  death  of  a  school  friend  and 
companion ;  and  the  two  following  poems 
also  have  death  for  theme.  "  On  a  Lock  of  my 
Mother's  Hair  "  gives  us  reflections  on  grow- 
ing old.  These  are  the  four  poems  written  at 
the  age  of  fourteen.  There  is  not  a  wholly 
glad  and  joyous  strain  in  the  volume,  and  we 
might  smile  at  the  recurrence  of  broken  vows, 
broken  hearts,  and  broken  lives  in  the  experi- 
ence of  this  maiden  just  entered  upon  her 
teens,  were  it  not  that  the  innocent  child  her- 
self is  in  such  deadly  earnest.  The  two  long 


narrative  poems, "  Bertha  "  and  "  Elfrida,"  are 
also  tragic  in  the  extreme.  Both  are  dashed  off 
apparently  at  white  heat — "  Elfrida,"  over  1500 
lines  of  blank  verse,  in  two  weeks;  "  Bertha,"  in 
three  and  a  half.  We  have  said  that  Emma 
Lazarus  was  a  bom  singer,  but  she  did  not 
sing,  like  a  bird,  for  joy  of  being  alive ;  and  of 
being  young,  alas!  there  is  no  hint  in  these 
youthful  effusions,  except  inasmuch  as  this 
unrelieved  gloom,  this  ignorance  of  "  values," 
so  to  speak,  is  a  sign  of  youth,  common  espe- 
cially among  gifted  persons  of  acute  and  pre- 
mature sensibilities,  whose  imagination,  not 
yet  focused  by  reality,  overreaches  the  mark. 
With  Emma  Lazarus,  however,  this  somber 
streak  has  a  deeper  root ;  something  of  birth 
and  temperament  is  in  it — the  stamp  and 
heritage  of  a  race  born  to  suffer.  But  domi- 
nant and  fundamental  though  it  was,  Hebraism 
was  only  latent  thus  far.  It  was  classic  and 
romantic  art  that  first  attracted  and  inspired 
her.  She  pictures  Aphrodite  the  beautiful, 
arising  from  the  waves,  and  the  beautiful 
Apollo  and  his  loves  —  Daphne,  pursued  by 
the  god,  changing  into  the  laurel,  and  the 
enamored  Clytie  into  the  faithful  sunflower. 
Beauty,  for  its  own  sake,  supreme  and  uncon- 
ditioned, charmed  her  primarily  and  to  the 
end.  Her  restless  spirit  found  repose  in  the 
pagan  idea  —  the  absolute  unity  and  identity 
of  man  with  nature,  as  symbolized  in  the 
Greek  myths,  where  every  natural  force  be- 
comes a  person,  and  where  in  turn  persons 
pass  with  equal  readiness  and  freedom  back 
into  nature  again. 

In  this  connection  a  name  would  sug- 
gest itself  even  if  it  did  not  appear — Heine 
the  Greek,  Heine  the  Jew,  Heine  the  Ro- 
manticist, as  Emma  Lazarus  herself  has  styled 
him ;  and  already  in  this  early  volume  of  hers 
we  have  trace  of  the  kinship  and  affinity  that 
afterwards  so  plainly  declared  itself.  Foremost 
among  the  translations  are  a  number  of  his 
songs,  rendered  with  a  finesse  and  a  literal- 
ness  that  are  rarely  combined.  Four  years 
later,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  she  published 
her  second  volume,  "  Admetus  and  Other 
Poems,"  which  at  once  took  rank  as  litera- 
ture both  in  America  and  England,  and  chal- 
lenged comparison  with  the  workof  established 
writers.  Of  classic  themes  we  have  "  Admetus  " 
and  "  Orpheus,"  and  of  romantic,  the  legend 
of  Tannhauser  and  of  the  saintly  Lohengrin. 
All  are  treated  with  an  artistic  finish  that 
shows  perfect  mastery  of  her  craft,  without 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


detracting  from  the  freshness  and  flow  of  her 
inspiration.  While  sounding  no  absolutely 
new  note  in  the  world,  she  yet  makes  us  aware 
of  a  talent  of  unusual  distinction,  and  a  highly 
endowed  nature  —  a  sort  of  tact  of  sentiment 
and  expression,  an  instinct  of  the  true  and 
beautiful,  and  that  quick  intuition  which  is 
like  second-sight  in  its  sensitiveness  to  appre- 
hend and  respond  to  external  stimulus.  But 
it  is  not  the  purely  imaginative  poems  in  this 
volume  that  most  deeply  interest  us.  We 
come  upon  experience  of  life  in  these  pages; 
not  in  the  ordinary  sense,  however,  of  outward 
activity  and  movement,  but  in  the  hidden 
undercurrent  of  being.  "  The  epochs  of  our 
life  are  not  in  the  visible  facts,  but  in  the  si- 
lent thoughts  by  the  way-side  as  we  walk." 
This  is  the  motto,  drawn  from  Emerson,  which 
she  chooses  for  her  poem  of  "  Epochs,"  which 
marks  a  pivotal  moment  in  her  life.  Difficult 
to  analyze,  difficult  above  all  to  convey,  if  we 
would  not  encroach  upon  the  domain  of  pri- 
vate and  personal  experience,  is  the  drift  of 
this  poem,  or  rather  cycle  of  poems,  that  ring 
throughout  with  a  deeper  accent,  and  a  more 
direct  appeal,  than  has  yet  made  itself  felt.  It 
is  the  drama  of  the  human  soul  —  "  the  mys- 
tic winged  and  flickering  butterfly,"  "  flitting 
between  earth  and  sky,  in  its  passage  from 
birth  to  death." 

A  golden  morning  of  June!  "Sweet  empty 
sky  without  a  stain."  Sunlight  and  mist  and 
"  ripple  of  rain-fed  rills."  "  A  murmur  and  a 
singing  manifold." 

What  simple  things  be  these  the  soul  to  raise 
To  bounding  joy,  and  make  young  pulses  beat 
With  nameless  pleasure,  finding  life  so  sweet. 

Such  is  youth,  a  June  day,  fair  and  fresh 
and  tender  with  dreams  and  longing  and  vague 
desire.  The  morn  lingers  and  passes,  but  the 
noon  has  not  reached  its  height  before  the 
clouds  begin  to  rise,  the  sunshine  dies,  the 
air  grows  thick  and  heavy,  the  lightnings  flash, 
the  thunder  breaks  among  the  hills,  rolls  and 
gathers  and  grows,  until 

Behold,  yon  bolt  struck  home, 
And  over  ruined  fields  the  storm  hath  come! 

Now  we  have  the  phases  of  the  soul  — 
the  shock  and  surprise  of  grief  in  the  face  of 
the  world  made  desolate.  Loneliness  and  de- 
spair for  a  space,  and  then,  like  stars  in  the 
night,  the  new  births  of  the  spirit,  the  won- 
derful outcoming  from  sorrow:  the  mild 
light  of  patience  at  first;  hope  and  faith 
kindled  afresh  in  the  very  jaws  of  evil;  the 
new  meaning  and  worth  of  life  beyond  sorrow, 
beyond  joy  ;  and  finally  duty,  the  holiest  word 
of  all,  that  leads  at  last  to  victory  and  peace. 
The  poem  rounds  and  completes  itself  with 


the  close  of  "  the  long  rich  day,"  and  the  re- 
lease of 

The  mystic  winged  and  flickering  butterfly, 
A  human  soul,  that  drifts  at  liberty 
Ah  !   who  can  tell  to  what  strange  paradise, 
To  what  undreamed-of  fields  and  lofty  skies  ! 

We  have  dwelt  at  some  length  upon  this 
poem,  which  seems  to  us  in  a  certain  sense 
subjective  and  biographical ;  but  upon  closer 
analysis  there  is  still  another  conclusion  to 
arrive  at.  In  "  Epochs"  we  have,  doubtless, 
the  impress  of  a  calamity  brought  very  near 
to  the  writer  and  profoundly  working  upon 
her  sensibilities;  not,  however,  by  direct,  but 
by  reflex,  action,  as  it  were,  and  through 
sympathetic  emotion  —  the  emotion  of  the 
deeply  stirred  spectator,  of  the  artist,  the  poet, 
who  lives  in  the  lives  of  others  and  makes 
their  joys  and  their  lives  his  own. 

Before  dismissing  this  volume  we  may  point 
out  another  clue  as  to  the  shaping  of  mind 
and  character.  The  poem  of  "  Admetus  "  is 
dedicated  "  to  my  friend  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son." Emma  Lazarus  was  between  seventeen 
and  eighteen  years  of  age  when  the  writings 
of  Emerson  fell  into  her  hands,  and  it  would 
be  difficult  to  overestimate  the  impression 
produced  upon  her.  As  she  afterwards  wrote : 
"  To  how  many  thousand  youthful  hearts  has 
not  his  word  been  the  beacon — nay,  more, 
the  guiding  star  —  that  led  them  safely  through 
periods  of  mental  storm  and  struggle ! "  Of 
no  one  is  this  more  true  than  of  herself.  Left, 
to  a  certain  extent,  without  compass  or  guide, 
without  any  positive  or  effective  religious 
training,  this  was  the  first  great  moral  revela- 
tion of  her  life.  We  can  easily  realize  the 
chaos  and  ferment  of  an  over-stimulated  brain, 
steeped  in  romantic  literature  and  given  over 
to  the  wayward  leadings  of  the  imagination. 
Who  can  tell  what  is  true,  what  is  false,  in  a 
world  where  fantasy  is  as  real  as  fact  ?  Em- 
erson's word  fell  like  truth  itself,  "  a  shaft  of 
light  shot  from  the  zenith,"  a  golden  rule  of 
thought  and  action.  His  books  were  bread 
and  wine  to  her,  and  she  absorbed  them  into 
her  very  being.  She  felt  herself  invincibly 
drawn  to  the  master,  "  that  fount  of  wisdom 
and  goodness,"  and  it  was  her  great  privilege 
during  these  years  to  be  brought  into  personal 
relations  with  him.  From  the  first  he  showed 
her  a  marked  interest  and  sympathy  which 
became  for  her  one  of  the  most  valued  pos- 
sessions of  her  life.  He  criticised  her  work  with 
the  fine  appreciation  and  discrimination  that 
made  him  quick  to  discern  the  quality  of  her 
talent  as  well  as  of  her  personality,  and  he  was 
no  doubt  attracted  by  her  almost  transparent 
sincerity  and  singleness  of  soul,  as  well  as  by 
the  simplicity  and  modesty  that  would  have 


EMAfA   LAZARUS. 


877 


been  unusual  even  in  a  person  not  gifted.  He 
constituted  himself,  in  a  way,  her  literary  men- 
tor, advised  her  as  to  the  hooks  she  should  read 
and  the  attitude  of  mind  she  should  cultivate. 
For  some  years  he  corresponded  with  her 
very  faithfully  ;  his  letters  are  full  of  noble  and 
characteristic  utterances,  and  give  evidence 
of  a  warm  regard  that  in  itself  was  a  stimulus 
and  a  high  incentive.  But  encouragement  even 
from  so  illustrious  a  source  failed  to  elate  the 
young  poetess,  or  even  to  give  her  a  due  sense 
of  the  importance  and  value  of  her  work  or 
the  dignity  of  her  vocation.  We  have  already 
alluded  to  her  modesty,  but  there  was  some- 
thing more  than  modesty  in  her  unwillingness 
to  assert  herself  or  claim  any  prerogative  — 
something  even  morbid  and  exaggerated  which 
we  know  not  how  to  express,  whether  as  over- 
sensitiveness  or  indifference.  Once  finished, 
the  heat  and  glow  of  composition  spent,  her 
writings  apparently  ceased  to  interest  her.  She 
often  resented  any  allusion  to  them  on  the 
part  of  intimate  friends,  and  the  public  verdict 
as  to  their  excellence  could  not  reassure  or 
satisfy  her.  The  explanation  is  not  far,  perhaps, 
to  seek.  Was  it  not  the  "  Das  e\vig  Weibliche  " 
that  allows  no  prestige  but  its  own  ?  Emma 
Lazarus  was  a  true  woman,  too  distinctly  femi- 
nine to  wish  to  be  exceptional  orto  stand  alone 
and  apart,  even  by  virtue  of  superiority. 

A  word  now  as  to  her  life  and  surroundings. 
She  was  one  of  a  family  of  seven,  and  her 
parents  were  both  living.  Her  winters  were 
passed  in  New  York  and  her  summers  by  the 
sea.  In  both  places  her  life  was  essentially 
quiet  and  retired.  The  success  of  her  book 
had  been  mainly  in  the  world  of  letters.  In 
no  wise  tricked  out  to  catch  the  public  eye, 
her  writings  had  not  yet  made  her  a  conspic- 
uous figure,  but  were  destined  slowly  to  take 
their  proper  place  and  give  her  the  rank  that 
she  afterwards  held. 

For  some  years  now  almost  everything  that 
she  wrote  was  published  in  "  Lippincott's  Mag- 
azine," then  edited  by  John  Foster  Kirk,  and 
we  shall  still  find  in  her  poems  the  method  and 
movement  of  her  life.  Nature  is  still  the  fount 
and  mirror,  reflecting,  and  again  reflected,  in 
the  soul.  We  have  picture  after  picture  almost 
to  satiety,  until  we  grow  conscious  of  a  lack  of 
substance  and  body  and  of  vital  play  to  the 
thought,  as  though  the  brain  were  spending 
itself  in  dreamings  and  reverie,  the  heart  feed- 
ing upon  itself,  and  the  life  choked  by  its  own 
fullness  without  due  outlet.  Happily, however, 
the  heavy  cloud  of  sadness  has  lifted,  and  we 
feel  the  subsidence  of  waves  after  a  storm. 
She  sings  "  Matins  " : 

Does  not  the  morn  break  thus, 
Swift,  bright,  victorious, 
With  new  skies  cleared  for  us 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 121. 


(  her  the  soul  storm-tost  ? 
Her  night  was  long  and  <!• 
Strange  visions  vexed  her  sleep, 
Strange  sorrows  bade  her  weep, 
Her  faith  in  dawn  was  |o»t 

No  halt,  no  rest  for  her, 
The  immortal  wanderer 
From  sphere  to  higher  sphere 
Toward  the  pure  source  of  day. 
The  new  light  shames  her  fears, 
Her  faithlessness  and  tears, 
As  the  new  sun  appears 
To  light  her  god-like  way. 

Nature  is  the  perpetual  resource  and  consola- 
tion. "  T  is  good  to  be  alive !  "  she  says,  and 
why?  Simply, 

To  see  the  light 

That  plays  upon  the  grass,  to  feel  (and  sigh 
With  perfect  pleasure)  the  mild  breezes  stir 
Among  the  garden  roses,  red  and  white, 
With  whiffs  of  fragrancy. 

She  gives  us  the  breath  of  the  pines  and  of 
the  cool,  salt  seas,  "inimitably  sparkling." 
Her  ears  drink  the  ripple  of  the  tide,  and  she 
stops 

To  gaze  as  one  who  is  not  satisfied 

With  gazing  at  the  large,  bright,  breathing  sea. 

"Phantasies"  (after  Robert  Schumann)  is 
the  most  complete  and  perfect  poem  of  this 
period.  Like  "  Epochs,"  it  is  a  cycle  of  poems, 
and  the  verse  has  caught  the  very  trick  of 
music  —  alluring,  baffling,  and  evasive.  This 
time  we  have  the  landscape  of  the  night,  the 
glamour  of  moon  and  stars  —  pictures  half 
real  and  half  unreal,  mystic  imaginings,  fancies, 
dreams,  and  the  enchantment  of  "  faerie,"  and 
throughout  the  unanswered  cry,  the  eternal 
"  Wherefore  "  of  destiny.  Dawn  ends  the  song 
with  a  fine  clear  note,  the  return  of  day,  night's 
misty  phantoms  rolled  away,  and  the  world, 
itself  again  green,  sparkling  and  breathing 
freshness. 

In  1874  she  published  "  Alide,"  a  romance 
in  prose  drawn  from  Goethe's  autobiography. 
It  may  be  of  interest  to  quote  the  letter  she 
received  from  Turgeneff  on  this  occasion : 

Although,  generally  speaking,  I  do  not  think  it  ad- 
visable to  take  celebrated  men,  especially  poets  and 
artists,  as  a  subject  for  a  novel,  still  I  am  truly  glad  to 
say  that  I  have  read  your  book  with  the  liveliest  inter- 
est. It  is  very  sincere  and  very  poetical  at  the  same 
time;  the  life  and  spirit  of  Germany  have  no  secrets 
for  you,  and  your  characters  are  drawn  with  a  pencil 
as  delicate  as  it  is  strong.  I  feel  very  proud  of  the  ap- 
probation you  give  to  my  works  and  of  the  influence 
you  kindly  attribute  to  them  on  your  own  talent ;  an 
author  who  writes  as  you  do  is  not  a  pupil  in  art  any 
more;  he  is  not  far  from  being  himself  a  master. 

Charming  and  graceful  words,  of  which  the 
young  writer  was  justly  proud. 

About  this  time  occurred  the  death  of  her 
mother,  the  first  break  in  the  home  and  family 


878 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


circle.  In  August  of  1876  she  made  a  visit  to 
Concord  at  the  Emersons',  memorable  enough 
for  her  to  keep  a  journal  and  note  down 
every  incident  and  detail.  Very  touching  to 
read  now,  in  its  almost  childlike  simplicity, 
is  this  record  of  "  persons  that  pass  and  shad- 
ows that  remain."  Mr.  Emerson  himself  meets 
her  at  the  station  and  drives  with  her  in  his 
little  one-horse  wagon  to  his  home,  the  gray 
square  house  with  dark  green  blinds,  set 
amidst  noble  trees.  A  glimpse  of  the  family 
— "  the  stately,  white-haired  Mrs.  Emerson  and 
the  beautiful, faithful  Ellen,  whose  figure  seems 
always  to  stand  by  the  side  of  her  august  fa- 
ther." Then  the  picture  of  Concord  itself, 
lovely  and  smiling,  with  its  quiet  meadows, 
quiet  slopes,  and  quietest  of  rivers.  She  meets 
the  little  set  of  Concord  people:  Mr.  Alcott, 
for  whom  she  does  not  share  Mr.  Emerson's 
enthusiasm,  and  William  Ellery  Channing, 
whose  figure  stands  out  like  a  gnarled  and 
twisted  scrub-oak  —  a  pathetic,  impossible 
creature,  whose  cranks  and  oddities  were  sub- 
mitted to  on  account  of  an  innate  nobility  of 
character.  "  Generally  crabbed  and  reticent 
with  strangers,  he  took  a  liking  to  me,"  says 
Emma  Lazarus.  "  The  bond  of  our  sympathy 
was  my  admiration  for  Thoreau,  whose  mem- 
ory he  actually  worships,  having  been  his  con- 
stant companion  in  his  best  days  and  his  daily 
attendant  in  the  last  years  of  illness  and  heroic 
suffering.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  was  most 
touched  by  the  thought  of  the  unique,  lofty 
character  that  had  inspired  this  depth  and 
fervor  of  friendship,  or  by  the  pathetic  con- 
stancy and  pure  affection  of  the  poor,  desolate 
old  man  before  me,  who  tried  to  conceal  his 
tenderness  and  sense  of  irremediable  loss  by 
a  show  of  gruffness  and  philosophy.  He  never 
speaks  of  Thoreau's  death,"  she  says,  "  but 
always  '  Thoreau's  loss,'  or  '  when  I  lost  Mr. 
Thoreau,'  or  '  when  Mr.  Thoreau  went  away 
from  Concord';  nor  would  he  confess  that  he 
missed  him,  for  there  was  not  a  day,  an 
hour,  a  moment  when  he  did  not  feel  that 
his  friend  was  still  with  him  and  had  never 
left  him.  And  yet  a  day  or  two  after,"  she 
goes  on  to  say,  "  when  I  sat  with  him  in  the 
sunlit  wood,  looking  at  the  gorgeous  blue  and 
silver  summer  sky,  he  turned  to  me  and  said: 
'  Just  half  of  the  world  died  for  me  when  I  lost 
Mr.  Thoreau.  None  of  it  looks  the  same  as 
when  I  looked  at  it  with  him.'  ....  He  took 
me  through  the  woods  and  pointed  out  to  me 
every  spot  visited  and  described  by  his  friend. 
Where  the  hut  stood  is  a  little  pile  of  stones 
and  a  sign,  '  Site  of  Thoreau's  Hut,'  and  a 
few  steps  beyond  is  the  pond  with  thickly 
wooded  shores  —  everything  exquisitely  peace- 
ful and  beautiful  in  the  afternoon  light,  and 
not  a  sound  to  be  heard  except  the  crickets  or 


the  '  z-ing '  of  the  locusts  which  Thoreau  has 
described.  Farther  on  he  pointed  out  to  me 
in  the  distant  landscape  a  low  roof,  the  only 
one  visible,  which  was  the  roof  of  Thoreau's 
birthplace.  He  had  been  over  there  many 
times,  he  said,  since  he  lost  Mr.  Thoreau,  but 
had  never  gone  in  —  he  was  afraid  it  might 
look  lonely!  But  he  had  often  sat  on  a  rock 
in  front  of  the  house  and  looked  at  it."  On 
parting  from  his  young  friend,  Mr.  Channing 
gave  her  a  package  which  proved  to  be  a  copy 
of  his  own  book  on  Thoreau  and  the  pocket 
compass  which  Thoreau  carried  to  the  Maine 
woods  and  on  all  his  excursions.  Before  leav- 
ing the  Emersons  she  received  the  proof-sheets 
of  her  drama  of  "  The  Spagnoletto,"  which 
was  being  printed  for  private  circulation.  She 
showed  them  to  Mr.  Emerson,  who  had  ex- 
pressed a  wish  to  see  them,  and  after  reading 
them  he  gave  them  back  to  her  with  the  com- 
ment that  they  were  "  good."  She  playfully 
asked  him  if  he  would  not  give  her  a  bigger 
word  to  take  home  to  the  family.  He  laughed, 
and  said  he  did  not  know  of  any;  but  he  went 
on  to  tell  her  that  he  had  taken  it  up  not  ex- 
pecting to  read  it  through,  and  had  not  been 
able  to  put  it  down.  Every  word  and  line  told 
of  richness  in  the  poetry,  he  said,  and  as  far 
as  he  could  judge,  the  play  had  great  dra- 
matic opportunities.  Early  in  the  autumn 
"The  Spagnoletto"  appeared — a  tragedy  in 
five  acts,  the  scene  laid  in  Italy,  1655. 

Without  a  doubt,  every  one  in  these  days 
will  take  up  with  misgiving  and,  like  Mr.  Emer- 
son, "  not  expecting  to  read  it  through,"  a  five- 
act  tragedy  of  the  seventeenth  century,  so  far 
removed  apparently  from  the  age  and  present 
actualities  —  so  opposed  to  the  "  Modernite," 
which  has  come  to  be  the  last  word  of  art. 
Moreover,  great  names  at  once  appear;  great 
shades  arise  to  rebuke  the  presumptuous  new- 
comer in  this  highest  realm  of  expression. 
"  The  Spagnoletto "  has  grave  defects  that 
would  probably  preclude  its  ever  being  rep- 
resented on  the  stage.  The  denouement  es- 
pecially is  unfortunate  and  sins  against  our 
moral  and  aesthetic  instinct.  The  wretched, 
tiger-like  father  stabs  himself  in  the  presence 
of  his  crushed  and  erring  daughter,  so  that 
she  may  forever  be  haunted  by  the  horror 
and  the  retribution  of  his  death.  We  are  left 
suspended,  as  it  were,  over  an  abyss,  our  moral 
judgment  thwarted,  our  humanity  outraged. 
But  "The  Spagnoletto"  is  nevertheless  a  re- 
markable production,  and  pitched  in  another 
key  from  anything  the  writer  has  yet  given 
us.  Heretofore  we  have  only  had  quiet,  reflect- 
ive, passive  emotion:  now  we  have  a  storm 
and  sweep  of  passion  for  which  we  were  quite 
unprepared.  Ribera's  character  is  charged 
like  a  thunder-cloud  with  dramatic  elements. 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


879 


Maria  Rosa  is  the  child  of  her  father,  tired  ;it 
a  (lash,  "  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,"  at  the  touch 
of  passion. 

Docs  love  steal  gently  o'er  our  soul? 
she  asks ; 

What  if  he  come, 
A  cloud,  a  fire,  a  whirlwind? 

and  then  the  cry  : 

O  my  God  ! 
This  awful  joy  in  mine  own  heart  is  love. 

Again  : 

While  you  are  here  the  one  thing  real  to  me 
In  all  the  universe  is  love. 

Exquisitely  tender  and  refined  are  the  love 
scenes  —  at  the  ball  and  in  the  garden  —  be- 
tween the  dashing  prince-lover  in  search  of  his 
pleasure  and  the  devoted  girl  with  her  heart 
in  her  eyes,  on  her  lips,  in  her  hand.  Behind 
them,  always  like  a  tragic  fate,  the  somber  fig- 
ure of  the  Spagnoletto,  and  over  all,  the  glow 
and  color  and  soul  of  Italy. 

In  1 88 1  appeared  the  translation  of  Heine's 
poems  and  ballads,  which  was  generally  ac- 
cepted as  the  best  version  of  that  untranslatable 
poet.  Very  curious  is  the  link  between  that 
bitter,  mocking,  cynic  spirit  and  the  refined, 
gentle  spirit  of  Emma  Lazarus.  Charmed  by 
the  magic  of  his  verse,  the  iridescent  play  of 
his  fancy,  and  the  sudden  cry  of  the  heart 
piercing  through  it  all,  she  is  as  yet  unaware 
or  only  vaguely  conscious  of  the  real  bond 
between  them  —  the  sympathy  in  the  blood, 
the  deep,  tragic,  Judaic  passion  of  eighteen 
hundred  years  that  was  smoldering  in  her 
own  heart,  soon  to  break  out  and  change  the 
whole  current  of  her  thought  and  feeling. 

Already,  in  1879,  the  storm  was  gathering. 
In  a  distant  province  of  Russia  at  first,  then 
on  the  banks  of  the  Volga,  and  finally  in  Mos- 
cow itself,  the  old  cry  was  raised,  the  hideous 
medieval  charge  revived,  and  the  standard 
of  persecution  unfurled  against  the  Jews. 
Province  after  province  took  it  up.  In  Bul- 
garia, Servia,  and,  above  all,  Roumania,  where, 
we  were  told,  the  sword  of  the  Czar  had  been 
drawn  to  protect  the  oppressed,  Christian 
atrocities  took  the  place  of  Moslem  atrocities, 
and  history  turned  a  page  backward  into  the 
dark  annals  of  violence  and  crime.  And  not 
alone  in  despotic  Russia,  but  in  Germany,  the 
seat  of  modern  philosophic  thought  and  cul- 
ture, the  rage  of  Anti-Semitism  broke  out  and 
spread  with  fatal  ease  and  potency.  In  Berlin 
itself  tumults  and  riots  were  threatened.  We 
in  America  could  scarcely  comprehend  the  sit- 
uation or  credit  the  reports,  and  for  a  while 
we  shut  our  eyes  and  ears  to  the  facts ;  but  we 
were  soon  rudely  awakened  from  our  insensi- 


bility, and  forced  to  face  the  truth.  It  was  in 
England  that  the  voice  was  first  raised  in  lie- 
half  of  justice  and  humanity.  In  January, 
188 r,  there  appeared  in  the  London  "'limes" 
a  series  of  articles,  carefully  compiled  on  the 
testimony  of  eye-witnesses,  and  confirmed  by 
official  documents,  records,  etc.,  giving  an 
count  of  events  that  had  been  taking  place  in 
southern  and  western  Russia  during  a  period 
of  nine  months,  between  April  and  December 
of  1880.  We  do  not  need  to  recall  the  sicken- 
ing details.  The  headings  will  suffice :  out- 
rage, murder,  arson,  and  pillage,  and  the 
result —  100,000  Jewish  families  made  home- 
less and  destitute,  and  nearly  $100,000,000 
worth  of  property  destroyed.  Nor  need  we 
recall  the  generous  outburst  of  sympathy  and 
indignation  from  America.  "  It  is  not  that  it 
is  the  oppression  of  Jews  by  Russia,"  said 
Mr.  Evarts  in  the  meeting  at  Chickering  Hall 
Wednesday  evening,  February  4  ;  "it  is  that 
it  is  the  oppression  of  men  and  women  by  men 
and  women,  and  we  are  men  and  women." 
So  spoke  civilized  Christendom,  and  for  Juda- 
ism —  who  can  describe  that  thrill  of  brother- 
hood, quickened  anew,  the  immortal  pledge  of 
the  race,  made  one  again  through  sorrow  ?  For 
Emma  Lazarus  it  was  a  trumpet  call  that  awoke 
slumbering  and  unguessed  echoes.  All  this  time 
she  had  been  seeking  heroic  ideals  in  alien 
stock,  soulless,  and  far  removed ;  in  pagan 
mythology  and  mystic,  medieval  Christianity, 
ignoring  her  very  birthright  —  the  majestic 
vista  of  the  past,  down  which,  "  high  above 
flood  and  fire,"  had  been  conveyed  the  pre- 
cious scroll  of  the  Moral  Law.  Hitherto  Ju- 
daism had  been  a  dead  letter  to  her.  Of 
Portuguese  descent,  her  family  had  always 
been  members  of  the  oldest  and  most  ortho- 
dox congregation  of  New  York,  where  strict 
adherence  to  custom  and  ceremonial  was  the 
watchword  of  faith ;  but  it  was  only  during 
her  childhood  and  earliest  years  that  she  at- 
tended the  synagogue  and  conformed  to  the 
prescribed  rites  and  usages  which  she  had  now 
long  since  abandoned  as  obsolete  and  having 
no  bearing  on  modern  life.  Nor  had  she  any 
great  enthusiasm  for  her  own  people.  As  late 
as  April,  1882,  she  published  in  THE  CENTURY 
MAGAZINE  an  article  written  probably  some 
months  before,  entitled, "  Was  the  Earl  of  Bea- 
consfield  a  Representative  Jew  ?  "  in  which  she 
is  disposed  to  accept  as  the  type  of  the  modem 
Jew  the  brilliant,  successful,  but  not  over-scru- 
pulous chevalier  d'imtustrie.  In  view  of  subse- 
quent, or  rather  contemporaneous,  events,  the 
closing  paragraph  of  the  article  in  question  is 
worthy  of  being  cited : 

Thus  far  their  religion  [the  Jewish],  whose  mere 
preservation  under  such  adverse  conditions  seems  little 
short  of  a  miracle,  has  been  deprived  of  the  natural 


88o 


EMMA    LAZARUS. 


means  of  development  and  progress,  and  has  remained 
a  stationary  force.  The  next  hundred  years  will,  in  our 
opinion,  be  the  test  of  their  vitality  as  a  people;  the 
phase  of  toleration  upon  which  they  are  only  now  en- 
tering will  prove  whether  or  not  they  are  capable  of 
growth. 

By  a  curious,  almost  fateful  juxtaposition,  in 
the  same  number  of  the  magazine  appeared 
Madame  Ragozin's  defense  of  Russian  bar- 
barity, and  in  the  following  (May)  number 
Emma  Lazarus's  impassioned  appeal  and  re- 
ply, "  Russian  Christianity  versus  Modern  Ju- 
daism." From  this  time  dated  the  crusade  that 
she  undertook  in  behalf  of  her  race,  and  the 
consequent  expansion  of  all  her  faculties,  the 
growth  of  spiritual  power  which  always  en- 
sues when  a  great  cause  is  espoused  and  a 
strong  conviction  enters  the  soul.  Her  verse 
rang  out  as  it  had  never  rung  before  —  a  clar- 
ion note,  calling  a  people  to  heroic  action  and 
unity;  to  the  consciousness  and  fulfillment  of 
a  grand  destiny.  When  has  Judaism  been  so 
stirred  as  by  "  The  Crowing  of  the  Red  Cock  " 
and 

THE    BANNER    OF    THE   JEW. 

Wake,  Israel,  wake !    Recall  to-day 

The  glorious  Maccabean  rage, 

The  sire  heroic,  hoary-gray, 

His  five-fold  lion-lineage; 

The  Wise,  the  Elect,  the  Help-of-God, 

The  Burst-of-Spring,  the  Avenging  Rod. 

From  Mizpeh's  mountain-ridge  they  saw 
Jerusalem's  empty  streets;  her  shrine 
Laid  waste  where  Greeks  profaned  the  Law 
With  idol  and  with  pagan  sign. 
Mourners  in  tattered  black  were  there 
With  ashes  sprinkled  on  their  hair. 

Then  from  the  stony  peak  there  rang 
A  blast  to  ope  the  graves ;  down  poured 
The  Maccabean  clan,  who  sang 
Their  battle-anthem  to  the  Lord. 
Five  heroes  lead,  and  following,  see 
Ten  thousand  rush  to  victory ! 

Oh,  for  Jerusalem's  trumpet  now, 
To  blow  a  blast  of  shattering  power, 
To  wake  the  sleepers  high  and  low, 
And  rouse  them  to  the  urgent  hour ! 
No  hand  for  vengeance  — but  to  save, 
A  million  naked  swords  should  wave. 

Oh,  deem  not  dead  that  martial  fire, 
Say  not  the  mystic  flame  is  spent ! 
With  Moses'  law  and  David's  lyre, 
Your  ancient  strength  remains  unbent. 
Let  but  an  Ezra  rise  anew, 
To  lift  the  Banner  of  the  Jew  ! 

A  rag,  a  mock  at  first  —  ere  long, 
When  men  have  bled  and  women  wept, 
To  guard  its  precious  folds  from  wrong, 
Even  they  who  shrunk,  even  they  who  slept, 
Shall  leap  to  bless  it  and  to  save. 
Strike  !   for  the  brave  revere  the  brave  ! 

The  dead  forms  burst  their  bonds  and  lived 
again.  She  sings  "  Rosh  Hashanah "  (the 


Jewish   New  Year)    and  "  Hanuckah  "   (the 
Feast  of  Lights) : 

Kindle  the  taper  like  the  steadfast  star 

Ablaze  on  Evening's  forehead  o'er  the  earth, 

And  add  each  night  a  luster  till  afar 

An  eight-fold  splendor  shine  above  thy  hearth. 

Clash,  Israel,  the  cymbals,  touch  the  lyre, 

Blow  the  brass  trumpet  and  the  harsh-tongued  horn ; 

Chant  psalms  of  victory  till  the  heart  take  fire, 

The  Maccabean  spirit  leap  new-born. 

And  "  The  New  Ezekiel  "  : 

What,  can  these  dead  bones  live,  whose  sap  is  dried 

By  twenty  scorching  centuries  of  wrong? 

Is  this  the  House  of  Israel  whose  pride 

Is  as  a  tale  that  "s  told,  an  ancient  song  ? 

Are  these  ignoble  relics  all  that  live 

Of  psalmist,  priest,  and  prophet?  Can  the  breath 

Of  very  heaven  bid  these  bones  revive, 

Open  the  graves,  and  clothe  the  ribs  of  death  ? 

Yea,  Prophesy,  the  Lord  hath  said  again : 

Say  to  the  wind,  Come  forth  and  breathe  afresh, 

Even  that  they  may  live,  upon  these  slain, 

And  bone  to  bone  shall  leap,  and  flesh  to  flesh. 

The  spirit  is  not  dead,  proclaim  the  word. 

Where  lay  dead  bones  a  host  of  armed  men  stand  ! 

I  ope  your  graves,  my  people,  saith  the  Lord, 

And  I  shall  place  you  living  in  your  land. 

Her  whole  being  renewed  and  refreshed 
itself  at  its  very  source.  She  threw  herself 
into  the  study  of  her  race,  its  language,  liter- 
ature, and  history. 

Breaking  the  outward  crust,  she  pierced  to 
the  heart  of  the  faith  and  "  the  miracle  "  of  its 
survival.  What  was  it  other  than  the  ever-pres- 
ent, ever-vivifying  spirit  itself,  which  cannot  die 
—  the  religious  and  ethical  zeal  which  fires  the 
whole  history  of  the  people  and  of  which  she 
herself  felt  the  living  glow  within  her  own  soul  ? 
She  had  come  upon  the  secret  and  the  genius 
of  Judaism  —  that  absolute  interpenetration 
and  transfusion  of  spirit  with  body  and  sub- 
stance which,  taken  literally,  often  reduces 
itself  to  a  question  of  food  and  drink,  a 
dietary  regulation,  and  again,  in  proper  splen- 
dor, incarnates  itself  and  shines  out  before 
humanity  in  the  prophets,  teachers,  and  sav- 
iors of  mankind. 

Those  were  busy,  fruitful  years  for  Emma 
Lazarus,  who  worked,  not  with  the  pen  alone, 
but  in  the  field  of  practical  and  beneficent 
activity.  For  there  was  an  immense  task  to  ac- 
complish. The  tide  of  immigration  had  set  in, 
and  ship  after  ship  came  laden  with  hunted  hu- 
man beings  flying  from  their  fellow-men,  while 
all  the  time,  like  a  tocsin,  rang  the  terrible  story 
of  cruelty  and  persecution  —  horrors  that  the 
pen  refuses  to  dwell  upon.  By  hundreds  and 
thousands  they  flocked  upon  our  shores  —  help- 
less, innocent  victims  of  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion, panic-stricken  in  the  midst  of  strange  and 
utterly  new  surroundings. 

Emma  Lazarus  came  into  personal  contact 
with  these  people,  and  visited  them  in  their 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


88 1 


refuge  on  Ward's  Island.  While  under  the 
influence  of  all  the  emotions  aroused  by  this 
great  crisis  in  the  history  of  her  race  she  wrote 
the  "  Dance  to  Death,"  a  drama  of  persecu- 
tion of  the  twelfth  century,  founded  upon 
authentic  records  —  unquestionably  her  finest 
work  in  grasp  and  scope  and,  above  all,  in 
moral  elevation  and  purport.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  Nordhausen,  a  free  city  of  Thuringia, 
where  the  Jews,  living,  as  they  deemed,  in 
absolute  security  and  peace,  were  caught  up 
in  the  wave  of  persecution  that  swept  over 
Europe  at  that  time.  Accused  of  poisoning 
the  wells  and  causing  the  pestilence,  or  black 
death,  as  it  was  called,  they  were  condemned 
to  be  burned. 

We  do  not  here  intend  to  enter  upon  a  crit- 
ical or  literary  analysis  of  the  play,  or  to  point 
out  dramatic  merits  or  defects,  but  we  should 
like  to  make  its  readers  feel  with  us  the  holy 
ardor  and  impulse  of  the  writer  and  the  spirit- 
ual import  of  the  work.  The  action  is  with- 
out surprise,  the  doom  fixed  from  the  first ;  but 
so  glowing  is  the  canvas  with  local  and  his- 
toric color,  so  vital  and  intense  the  movement, 
so  resistless  the  "  internal  evidence,"  if  we 
may  call  it  thus,  penetrating  its  very  substance 
and  form,  that  we  are  swept  along  as  by  a  wave 
of  human  sympathy  and  grief.  In  contrast 
with  "  The  Spagnoletto,"  how  large  is  the  theme 
and  how  all-embracing  the  catastrophe.  In 
place  of  the  personal  we  have  the  drama  of  the 
universal.  Love  is  only  a  flash  now  —  a  dream 
caught  sight  of  and  at  once  renounced  at  a 
higher  claim. 

Have  you  no  smile  to  welcome  love  with,  Liebhaid  ? 

Why  should  you  tremble  ? 

Prince,  I  am  afraid  ! 

Afraid  of  my  own  heart,  ray  unfathomed  joy, 

A  blasphemy  against  my  father's  grief, 

My  people's  agony ! 

What  good  shall  come,  forswearing  kith  and  God, 
To  follow  the  allurements  of  the  heart  ? 

asks  the  distracted  maiden,  torn  between  her 
love  for  her  princely  wooer  and  her  devotion 
to  the  people  among  whom  her  lot  has  been 
cast. 

OGod! 

How  shall  I  pray  for  strength  to  love  him  less 
Than  mine  own  soul ! 

No  more  of  that, 

I  am  all  Israel's  now.    Till  this  cloud  pass, 
I  have  no  thought,  no  passion,  no  desire, 
Save  for  my  people. 

Individuals  perish,  but  great  ideas  survive — 
fortitude  and  courage,  and  that  exalted  loyalty 
and  devotion  to  principle  which  alone  are 
worth  living  and  dying  for. 

The  Jews  pass  by  in  procession  —  men, 
women,  and  children  —  on  their  way  to  the 
flames,  to  the  sound  of  music,  and  in  festal 


array,  carrying  the  gold  and  silver  vessels,  the 
roll  of  the  law,  the  perpetual  lamp  and  the 
seven-branched  silver  candle-stick  of  the  syn- 
agogue. The  crowd  hoot  and  jeer  at  them. 

The  misers  !  they  will  take  their  gems  and  gold 
Down  to  the  grave  ! 

Let  us  rejoice 

sing  the  Jewish  youths  in  chorus;  and  the 

maidens  : 

Our  feet  shall  stand  within  thy  gates,  O  Zion  ! 
Within  thy  portals,  O  Jerusalem  ! 

The  flames  rise  and  dart  among  them  ;  their 
garments  wave,  their  jewels  flash,  as  they  dance 
and  sing  in  the  crimson  blaze.  The  music 
ceases,  a  sound  of  crashing  boards  is  heard  and 
a  great  cry  —  "  Hallelujah  !  "  What  a  glory 
and  consecration  of  martyrdom  !  W7here  shall 
we  find  a  more  triumphant  vindication  and 
supreme  victory  of  spirit  over  matter  ? 

I  see,  I  see, 

How  Israel's  ever-crescent  glory  makes 
These  flames  that  would  eclipse  it  dark  as  blots 
Of  candlelight  against  the  blazing  sun. 
We  die  a  thousand  deaths  —  drown,  bleed,  and  burn. 
Our  ashes  are  dispersed  unto  the  winds. 
Yet  the  wild  winds  cherish  the  sacred  seed, 
The  waters  guard  it  in  their  crystal  heart, 
The  fire  refuseth  to  consume. 

Even  as  we  die  in  honor,  from  our  death 
Shall  bloom  a  myriad  heroic  lives, 
Brave  through  our  bright  example,  virtuous 
Lest  our  great  memory  fall  in  disrepute. 

The  "  Dance  to  Death  "  was  published  along 
with  other  poems  and  translations  from  the 
Hebrew  poets  of  medieval  Spain,  in  a  small 
volume  entitled  "Songs  of  a  Semite."  The 
tragedy  was  dedicated,  "  In  profound  ven- 
eration and  respect  to  the  memory  of  George 
Eliot,  the  illustrious  writer  who  did  most 
among  the  artists  of  our  day  towards  elevating 
and  ennobling  the  spirit  of  Jewish  nationality." 

For  this  was  the  idea  that  had  caught  the 
imagination  of  Emma  Lazarus — a  restored 
and  independent  nationality  and  repatriation 
in  Palestine.  In  her  article  in  THE  CENTURY 
of  February,  1883,  on  the  "  Jewish  Problem," 
she  says : 

I  am  fully  persuaded  that  all  suggested  solutions 
other  than  this  are  but  temporary  palliatives.  .  .  .  The 
idea  formulated  by  George  Eliot  has  already  sunk  into 
the  minds  of  many  Jewish  enthusiasts,  and  it  germi- 
nates with  miraculous  rapidity.  "  The  idea  that  I  am 
possessed  with,"  says  Deronda,  "  is  that  of  restoring  a 
political  existence  to  my  people ;  making  them  a  nation 
again,  giving  them  a  national  center,  such  as  the  Eng- 
lish have,  though  they,  too,  are  scattered  over  the  face 
of  the  globe.  That  is  a  task  which  presents  itself  to  me 
as  a  duty.  ...  I  am  resolved  to  devote  my  life  to  it. 
At  the  feast,  I  may  awaken  a  movement  in  other  minds 
such  as  has  been  awakened  in  my  own."  Could  the  noble 
prophetess  who  wrote  the  above  words  have  lived  but 


882 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


till  to-day  to  see  the  ever-increasing  necessity  of  adopt- 
ing her  inspired  counsel,  .  .  .  she  would  have  been 
herself  astonished  at  the  flame  enkindled  by  her  seed  of 
fire,  and  the  practical  shape  which  the  movement  pro- 
jected by  her  in  poetic  vision  is  beginning  to  assume. 

In  November  of  1882  appeared  her  first 
"  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  " —  one  of  a  series  of 
articles  written  for  "  The  American  Hebrew," 
published  weekly  through  several  months. 
Addressing  herself  no\v  to  a  Jewish  audience, 
she  sets  forth  without  reserve  her  views  and 
hopes  for  Judaism,  now  passionately  urging 
its  claims  and  its  high  ideals,  and  again  dis- 
passionately holding  up  the  mirror  for  the 
shortcomings  and  peculiarities  of  her  race. 
She  says  : 

Every  student  of  the  Hebrew  language  is  aware 
that  we  have  in  the  conjugation  of  our  verbs  a  mode 
known  as  the  intensive  "vice,  which,  by  means  of  an 
almost  imperceptible  modification  of  vowel-points,  in- 
tensifies the  meaning  of  the  primitive  root.  A  similar 
significance  seems  to  attach  to  the  Jews  themselves 
in  connection  with  the  people  among  whom  they  dwell. 
They  are  the  intensive  form  of  any  nationality  whose 
language  and  customs  they  adopt.  .  .  .  Influenced 
by  the  same  causes,  they  represent  the  same  results  ; 
but  the  deeper  lights  and  shadows  of  their  Oriental 
temperament  throw  their  failings,  as  well  as  their  vir- 
tues, into  more  prominent  relief. 

In  drawing  the  epistles  to  a  close,  Febru- 
ary 24,  1883,  she  thus  summarizes  the  special 
objects  she  has  had  in  view : 

My  chief  aim  has  been  to  contribute  my  mite  to- 
wards arousing  that  spirit  of  Jewish  enthusiasm  which 
might  manifest  itself:  First,  in  a  return  to  the  varied 
pursuits  and  broad  system  of  physical  and  intellectual 
education  adopted  by  our  ancestors  ;  Second,  in  a 
more  fraternal  and  practical  movement  towards  allevi- 
ating the  sufferings  of  oppressed  Jews  in  countries  less 
favored  than  our  own;  Third,  in  a  closer  and  wider 
study  of  Hebrew  literature  and  history ;  and  finally,  in 
a  truer  recognition  of  the  large  principles  of  religion, 
liberty,  and  law  upon  which  Judaism  is  founded,  and 
which  should  draw  into  harmonious  unity  Jews  of 
every  shade  of  opinion. 

Her  interest  in  Jewish  affairs  was  at  its 
height  when  she  planned  a  visit  abroad,  which 
had  been  a  long-cherished  dream,  and  May 
15,  1883,  she  sailed  for  England,  accompanied 
by  a  younger  sister.  We  have  difficulty  in 
recognizing  the  tragic  priestess  we  have  been 
portraying  in  the  enthusiastic  child  of  travel 
who  seems  new-born  into  a  new  world.  From 
the  very  outset  she  is  in  a  maze  of  wonder 
and  delight.  At  sea  she  writes : 

Our  last  day  on  board  ship  was  a  vision  of  beauty 
from  morning  till  night  —  the  sea  like  a  mirror  and 
the  sky  dazzling  with  light.  In  the  afternoon  we 
passed  a  ship  in  full  sail,  near  enough  to  exchange  sa- 
lutes and  cheers.  After  tossing  about  for  six  days 
without  seeing  a  human  being,  except  those  on  our 
vessel,  even  this  was  a  sensation.  Then  an  hour  or 
two  before  sunset  came  the  great  sensation  of —  land  ! 
At  first,  nothing  but  a  shadow  on  the  far  horizon,  like 
the  ghost  of  a  ship ;  two  or  three  widely  scattered  rocks 


which  were  the  promontories  of  Ireland  —  and  sooner 
than  we  expected  we  were  steaming  along  low-lying 
purple  hills. 

The  journey  to  Chester  gives  her  "  the  first 
glimpse  of  mellow  England" — a  surprise 
which  is  yet  no  surprise,  so  well  known  and 
familiar  does  it  appear.  Then  Chester,  with  its 
quaint,  picturesque  streets,  "  like  the  scene  of 
a  Walter  Scott  novel,  the  cathedral  planted  in 
greenness,  and  the  clear,  gray  river  where  a 
boatful  of  scarlet  dragoons  goes  gliding  by." 
Everything  is  a  picture  for  her  special  benefit. 
She  "  drinks  in,  at  every  sense,  the  sights, 
sounds,  and  smells,  and  the  unimaginable 
beauty  of  it  all."  Then  the  bewilderment  of 
London,  and  a  whirl  of  people,  sights,  and 
impressions.  She  was  received  with  great  dis- 
tinction by  the  Jews,  and  many  of  the  leading 
men  among  them  warmly  advocated  her  views. 
But  it  was  not  alone  from  her  own  people  that 
she  met  with  exceptional  consideration.  She 
had  the  privilege  of  seeing  many  of  the  most 
eminent  personages  of  the  day,  all  of  whom 
honored  her  with  special  and  personal  regard. 
There  was,  no  doubt,  something  that  strongly 
attracted  and  attached  people  to  her  at  this 
time  —  the  force  of  her  intellect  at  once  made 
itself  felt,  while  at  the  same  time  the  unaltered 
simplicity  and  modesty  of  her  character,  and 
her  readiness  and  freshness  of  enthusiasm, 
kept  her  still  almost  like  a  child. 

She  makes  a  flying  visit  to  Paris,  where 
she  happens  to  be  on  the  I4th  of  July  —  the 
anniversary  of  the  storming  of  the  Bastile, 
and  of  the  beginning  of  the  Republic;  she 
drives  out  to  Versailles,  "  that  gorgeous  shell 
of  royalty,  where  the  crowd  who  celebrate  the 
birth  of  the  Republic  wander  freely  through 
the  halls  and  avenues,  and  into  the  most  sacred 
rooms  of  the  king.  .  .  .  There  are  ruins  on 
every  side  in  Paris,"  she  says,  "  ruins  of  the 
Commune,  or  the  Siege,  or  the  Revolution ;  it 
is  terrible  —  it  seems  as  if  the  city  were  seared 
with  fire  and  blood." 

Such  was  Paris  to  her  then,  and  she  has- 
tens back  to  her  beloved  London,  starting 
from  there  on  the  tour  through  England  that 
has  been  mapped  out  for  her.  "  A  Day  in 
Surrey  with  William  Morris,"  published  in 
THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  describes  her  visit 
to  Merton  Abbey,  the  old  Norman  monastery, 
converted  into  a  model  factory  by  the  poet- 
humanitarian,  who  himself  received  her  as  his 
guest,  conducted  her  all  over  the  picturesque 
building  and  garden,  and  explained  to  her  his 
views  of  art  and  his  aims  for  the  people. 

She  drives  through  Kent,  "  where  the  fields, 
valleys,  and  slopes  are  garlanded  with  hops 
and  ablaze  with  scarlet  poppies."  Then  Can- 
terbury, Windsor,  and  Oxford,  Stratford,  War- 
wick, the  valley  of  the  Wye,  Wells,  Exeter,  and 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


883 


Salisbury  —  cathedral  after  cathedral.  Back 
to  London  and  then  north  through  York, 
Durham,  and  Edinburgh,  and  on  the  isth 
of  September  she  sails  for  home.  We  have 
merely  named  the  names,  for  it  is  impossible  to 
convey  an  idea  of  the  delight  and  importance 
of  this  trip,  "  a  crescendo  of  enjoyment,"  as 
she  herself  calls  it.  Long  after,  in  strange,  dark 
hours  of  suffering,  these  pictures  of  travel  arose 
before  her,  vivid  and  tragic  even  in  their  hold 
and  spell  upon  her. 

The  winter  of  1883-84  was  not  especially 
productive.  She  wrote  a  few  reminiscences 
of  her  journey  and  occasional  poems  on  Jew- 
ish themes,  which  appeared  in  the  "Ameri- 
can Hebrew";  but  for  the  most  part  she 
gave  herself  up  to  quiet  retrospect  and  enjoy- 
ment with  her  friends  of  the  life  she  had 
had  a  glimpse  of,  and  the  experience  she  had 
stored  —  a  restful,  happy  period.  In  August 
of  the  same  year  she  was  stricken  with  a  severe 
and  dangerous  malady,  from  which  she  slowly 
recovered,  only  to  go  through  a  terrible  or- 
deal and  affliction.  Her  father's  health,  which 
had  long  been  failing,  now  broke  down  com- 
pletely, and  the  whole  winter  was  one  long 
strain  of  acute  anxiety,  which  culminated  in 
his  death,  in  March,  1885.  The  blow  was 
a  crushing  one  for  Emma.  Truly,  the  silver 
cord  was  loosed,  and  the  golden  bowl  was 
broken.  Life  lost  its  meaning  and  its  charm. 
Her  father's  sympathy  and  pride  in  her  work 
had  been  her  chief  incentive  and  ambition, 
and  had  spurred  her  on  when  her  own  con- 
fidence and  spirit  failed.  Never  afterwards 
did  she  find  complete  and  spontaneous  ex- 
pression. She  decided  to  go  abroad  again  as 
the  best  means  of  regaining  composure  and 
strength,  and  sailed  once  more  in  May  for 
England,  where  she  was  welcomed  now  by 
the  friends  she  had  made,  almost  as  to  another 
home.  She  spent  the  summer  very  quietly  at 
Richmond,  an  ideally  beautiful  spot  in  York- 
shire, where  she  soon  felt  the  beneficial  influ- 
ence of  her  peaceful  surroundings.  "  The  very 
air  seems  to  rest  one  here,"  she  writes ;  and 
inspired  by  the  romantic  loveliness  of  the 
place,  she  even  composed  the  first  few  chap- 
ters of  a  novel,  begun  with  a  good  deal  of 
dash  and  vigor,  but  soon  abandoned,  for  she 
was  still  struggling  with  depression  and  gloom. 

"  I  have  neither  ability,  energy,  nor  pur- 
pose," she  writes.  "  It  is  impossible  to  do  any- 
thing, so  I  am  forced  to  set  it  aside  for  the 
present;  whether  to  take  it  up  again  or  not 
in  the  future  remains  to  be  seen." 

In  the  autumn  she  goes  on  the  Continent, 
visiting  the  Hague,  which  "  completely  fasci- 
nates "  her,  and  where  she  feels  "  stronger  and 
more  cheerful "  than  she  has  "  for  many  a 
day."  Then  Paris,  which  this  time  amazes 


her  "with  its  splendor  and  magnificence.  All 
the  ghosts  of  the  Revolution  aresomehow  laid," 
she  writes,  and  she  spends  six  weeks  here  en- 
joying to  the  full  the  gorgeous  autumn  weather, 
the  sights,  the  picture  galleries,  the  bookshops, 
the  whole  brilliant  panorama  of  the  life;  and 
early  in  December  she  starts  for  Italy. 

And  now  once  more  we  come  upon  that 
keen  /est  of  enjoyment,  that  pure  desire  and 
delight  of  the  eyes,  which  are  the  prerogative 
of  the  poet — and  Emma  Lazarus  was  a  poet. 
The  beauty  of  the  world  !  What  a  rapture  and 
intoxication  it  is,  and  how  it  bursts  upon  her 
in  the  very  land  of  beauty,  "  where  Dante  and 
where  Petrarch  trod."  A  magic  glow  colors 
it  all;  no  mere  blues  and  greens  any  more,  but 
a  splendor  of  purple  and  scarlet  and  emerald; 
"  each  tower,  castle,  and  village  shining  like 
a  jewel;  the  olive,  the  fig,  and  at  your  feet 
the  roses,  growing  in  mid- December."  A  day 
in  Pisa  seems  like  a  week,  so  crowded  is  it 
with  sensations  and  unforgettable  pictures. 
Then  a  month  in  Florence,  which  is  still 
more  entrancing  with  its  inexhaustible  treas- 
ures of  beauty  and  art,  and  finally  Rome,  the 
climax  of  it  all, 

wiping  out  all  other  places  and  impressions,  and  open- 
ing a  whole  new  world  of  sensations.  I  am  wild  with 
the  excitement  of  this  tremendous  place.  I  have  been 
here  a  week  and  have  seen  the  Vatican  and  the  Capi- 
toline  Museums,  and  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  St.  Pe- 
ter's, besides  the  ruins  on  the  streets  and  on  the  hills, 
and  the  graves  of  Shelley  and  Keats. 

It  is  all  heart-breaking.  I  don't  only  mean  those 
beautiful  graves  overgrown  with  acanthus  and  violets, 
but  the  mutilated  arches  and  columns  and  dumb  ap- 
pealing fragments  looming  up  in  the  glowing  sunshine 
under  the  Roman  blue  sky. 

True  to  her  old  attractions,  it  is  pagan  Rome 
that  appeals  to  her  most  strongly, 

and  the  far-away  past,  that  seems  so  sad  and  strange 
and  near.  I  am  even  out  of  humor  with  pictures;  a 
bit  of  broken  stone  or  a  fragment  of  a  bas-relief,  or  a 
Corinthian  column  standing  out  against  this  lapis-lazuli 
sky,  or  a  tremendous  arch,  are  the  only  things  I  can 
look  at  for  the  moment  —  except  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
which  is  as  gigantic  as  the  rest,  and  forces  itself  upon 
you  with  equal  might. 

Already,  in  February,  spring  is  in  the  air; 
"  the  almond  trees  are  in  bloom,  violets  cover 
the  grass,  and  oh!  the  divine,  the  celestial,  the 
unheard-of  beauty  of  it  all!"  It  is  almost  a 
pang  to  her,  "  with  its  strange  mixture  of 
longing  and  regret  and  delight,"  and  in  the 
midst  of  it  she  says,  "  I  have  to  exert  all  my 
strength  not  to  lose  myself  in  morbidness  and 
depression." 

Early  in  March  she  leaves  Rome,  consoled 
with  the  thought  of  returning  the  following 
winter.  In  June  she  was  in  England  again, 
and  spent  the  summer  at  Malvern.  Disease 
was  no  doubt  already  beginning- to  prey  upon 
her,  for  she  was  oppressed  at  times  by  a  languor 


884 


EMMA   LAZARUS. 


and  heaviness  amounting  almost  to  lethargy. 
When  she  returned  to  London,  however,  in 
September,  shefelt  quite  well  again,  and  started 
for  another  tour  in  Holland,  which  she  enjoyed 
as  much  as  before.  She  then  settled  in  Paris 
to  await  the  time  when  she  could  leave  for 
Italy.  But  she  was  attacked  at  once  with 
grave  and  alarming  symptoms,  that  betokened 
a  fatal  end  to  her  malady.  Entirely  ignorant, 
however,  of  the  danger  that  threatened  her, 
she  kept  up  courage  and  hope,  made  daily 
plans  for  the  journey,  and  looked  forward  to 
setting  out  at  any  moment.  But  the  weeks 
passed  and  the  months  also;  slowly  and  grad- 
ually the  hope  faded.  The  journey  to  Italy 
must  be  given  up;  she  was  not  in  condition 
to  be  brought  home,  and  she  reluctantly  re- 
signed herself  to  remain  where  she  was  and 
"  convalesce,"  as  she  confidently  believed,  in 
the  spring.  Once  again  came  the  analogy, 
which  she  herself  pointed  out  now,  to  Heine 
on  his  mattress-grave  in  Paris.  She  too,  the  last 
time  she  went  out,  dragged  herself  to  the 
Louvre,  to  the  feet  of  the  Venus,  "  the  goddess 
without  arms,  who  could  not  help."  Only  her 
indomitable  will  and  intense  desire  to  live 
seemed  to  keep  her  alive.  She  sunk  to  a  very 
low  ebb,  but,  as  she  herself  expressed  it,  she 
"  seemed  to  have  always  one  little  window 
looking  out  into  life,"  and  in  the  spring  she  ral- 
lied sufficiently  to  take  a  few  drives  and  to  sit 
on  the  balcony  of  her  apartment.  She  came 
back  to  life  with  a  feverish  sort  of  thirst  and 
avidity.  "  No  such  cure  for  pessimism,"  she 
says,  "  as  a  severe  illness ;  the  simplest  pleas- 
ures are  enough  —  to  breathe  the  air  and  see 
the  sun." 

Many  plans  were  made  for  leaving  Paris, 
but  it  was  finally  decided  to  risk  the  ocean 
voyage  and  bring  her  home,  and  accordingly 
she  sailed  July  23d,  arriving  in  New  York  on 
the  last  day  of  that  month. 

She  did  not  rally  after  this ;  and  now  began 
her  long  agony,  full  of  every  kind  of  suffering, 
mental  and  physical.  Only  her  intellect  seemed 
kindled  anew,  and  none  but  those  who  saw 
her  during  the  last  supreme  ordeal  can  real- 
ize that  wonderful  flash  and  fire  of  the  spirit 
before  its  extinction.  Never  did  she  appear 
so  brilliant.  Wasted  to  a  shadow,  and  be- 
tween acute  attacks  of  pain,  she  talked  about 
art,  poetry,  the  scenes  of  travel,  of  which  her 
brain  was  so  full,  and  the  phases  of  her  own 
condition,  with  an  eloquence  for  which  even 
those  who  knew  her  best  were  quite  unpre- 
pared. Every  faculty  seemed  sharpened  and 


every  sense  quickened  as  the  "  strong  deliv- 
eress"  approached,  and  the  ardent  soul  was 
released  from  the  frame  that  could  no  longer 
contain  it. 

We  cannot  restrain  a  feeling  of  suddenness 
and  incompleteness  and  a  natural  pang  of 
wonder  and  regret  for  a  life  so  richly  and  so 
vitally  endowed  thus  cut  off  in  its  prime.  But 
for  us  it  is  not  fitting  to  question  or  repine, 
but  rather  to  rejoice  in  the  rare  possession 
that  we  hold.  What  is  any  life,  even  the  most 
rounded  and  complete,  but  a  fragment  and  a 
hint  ?  What  Emma  Lazarus  might  have  ac- 
complished, had  she  been  spared,  it  is  idle  and 
even  ungrateful  to  speculate.  What  she  did 
accomplish  has  real  and  peculiar  significance. 
It  is  the  privilege  of  a  favored  few  that  every 
fact  and  circumstance  of  their  individuality 
shall  add  luster  and  value  to  what  they 
achieve.  To  be  born  a  Jewess  was  a  distinc- 
tion for  Emma  Lazarus,  and  she  in  turn  con- 
ferred distinction  upon  her  race.  To  be  born 
a  woman  also  lends  a  grace  and  a  subtle 
magnetism  to  her  influence.  Nowhere  is  there 
contradiction  or  incongruity.  Her  works  bear 
the  imprint  of  her  character,  and  her  charac- 
ter of  her  works.  The  same  directness  and 
honesty,  the  same  limpid  purity  of  tone,  and 
the  same  atmosphere  of  things  refined  and 
beautiful.  The  vulgar,  the  false,  and  the  ig- 
noble—  she  scarcely  comprehended  them, 
while  on  every  side  she  was  open  and  ready 
to  take  in  and  respond  to  whatever  can  adorn 
and  enrich  life.  Literature  was  no  mere 
"  profession  "  for  her,  which  shut  out  other 
possibilities ;  it  was  only  a  free,  wide  horizon 
and  background  for  culture.  She  was  pas- 
sionately devoted  to  music,  which  inspired 
some  of  her  best  poems ;  and  during  the  last 
years  of  her  life,  in  hours  of  intense  physical 
suffering,  she  found  relief  and  consolation  in 
listening  to  the  strains  of  Bach  and  Beethoven. 
When  she  went  abroad  painting  was  re- 
vealed to  her,  and  she  threw  herself  with  the 
same  ardor  and  enthusiasm  into  the  study 
of  the  great  masters;  her  last  work  (left  unfin- 
ished) was  a  critical  analysis  of  the  genius 
and  personality  of  Rembrandt. 

And  now,  at  the  end  we  ask,  Has  the  grave 
really  closed  over  all  these  gifts?  Has  that 
eager,  passionate  striving  ceased,  that  hunger 
and  thirst  which  we  call  life,  and  '•  is  the  rest, 
silence  ?  " 

Who  knows  ?  But  would  we  break,  if  we 
could,  that  repose,  that  silence  and  mystery 
and  peace  everlasting  ? 


A.MKRICAN    MACHINE    CANNON    AND    DYNAMITE    GUNS. 


OT  long  since,  in  New  York, 
;i  distinguished  general  of  the 
L'nion  armies,  now  on  the  re- 
tired list,  gave  utterance  to  re- 
marks the  substance  of  which 
was  as  follows : 


The  next  war  will  be  marked  by  terrific  and  fearful 
slaughter.  So  murderous  have  warlike  weapons  be- 
come, and  so  fertile  has  the  inventive  power  of  man 
grown  in  producing  means  of  killing  his  fellows,  that 
the  Rebellion  and  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  of  1870-71  will 
seem  mild  in  comparison  with  it. 
Machine  cannon,  dynamite  guns, 
and  magazine  rifles  now  do  in  the 
space  of  a  minute  what  formerly 
required  hours;  while  steam, 
electricity,  chemistry,  and  all  the 
agents  which  man  has  called  to 
his  aid  will  be  utilized  in  the  work 
of  destruction. 

It  is  indeed  so; 
and  yet  in  the  ex- 
treme mortality  of 
modern  war  will  be 
found  the  only  hope 
that  man  can  have  of  even  a 
partial  cessation  of  war.  Taken 
at  its  best,  war  is  a  terrible  thing, 
and  bloodshed  and  death  are 
necessary  attributes;  but,  like  the 
cut  of  the  surgeon's  knife  when 
at  its  sharpest  and  deepest,  it  is 
bound  to  make  the  wound  heal 
the  quickest.  Therefore  all 
means  which  will  bring  the  ene- 
my to  terms  in  the  shortest  pos- 
sible time — except  such  as  are 
absolutely  objectionable  —  are 
justified  in  war.  Americans  are 
dubbed  a  peace-loving  peo- 
ple, and  are  laughed  at  for  their 
small  army  and  navy  and  an- 
tiquated armament.  How  passing  strange, 
then,  that  not  only  the  first,  but  the  most  per- 
fect, of  modern  weapons  are  their  creation ! 
The  Gatling  gun,  the  Gardner,  the  Lowell, 
the  Hotchkiss,  the  dynamite  guns,  and  the 
best  of  magazine  rifles  are  their  inventions. 
History  furnishes  many  proofs  that  it  is  to  the 
improvements  of  arms  that  nations  have  owed 
their  success  in  war  ;  and  in  these  utilitarian 
days  that  nation  which  first  puts  into  intelligent 
practice  on  the  battle-field  the  proper  use  of 
machine  guns  must  inevitably  come  off  the  vie- 


that  attached  to  the  mitrailleuse,  at  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  and  the 
tales  told  of  this  wonderful  machine;  \\  r  can 
also  remember  the  cruel  disappointment  that  its 
supporters  were  subjected  to  when  it  was  put 
to  the  crucial  test  of  service.  It  consisted  of 
thirty-seven  rifle-barrels  arranged  in  a  cylinder; 
the  barrels  being  open  at  the  breech,  the  car- 
tridges were  placed  in  a  disk,  which  was  then 
clamped  against  the  barrels,  and  all  the  car- 


GATLING    POLICE    GUN. 


tridges  were  exploded  simultaneously.  The 
cartridges  were  paper-cased,  a  vital  imperfec- 
tion in  machine  guns.  Owing  to  the  number 
of  barrels,  the  gun  and  carriage  were  heavy 
and  cumbersome,  so  as  to  absorb  the  recoil 
of  so  great  a  discharge.  Moreover,  the  rate 
of  fire  was  not  rapid,  as  much  time  was  neces- 
sarily taken  up  in  loading. 

We  have  called  the  Gatling  the  progenitor 
of  machine  guns,  because  it  was  the  first.  It 
was  invented  by  Dr.  Robert  Gatling,  then  of 
Indiana,  in  1861  ;  but  though  brought  to  the 


tor.  Some  of  us  remember  the  halo  of  mystery    attention  of  the  American  Government,  it  was 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 122. 


886        AMERICAN  MACHINE    CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE   GUNS. 


not  given  a  trial  till  some  years  after  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion,  when,  in  an  improved  con- 
dition, it  was  finally  adopted.  Since  then  all 
the  governments  of  the  world  have  used  more 
or  less  of  them.  I  ts  first  actual  service  of  impor- 
tance was  in  the  war  of  1870-71  between  Ger- 
many and  France.  To  be  sure,  it  was  not  till 
nearly  the  close  of  the  war,  and  when  the 
failure  of  the  mitrailleuse  was  acknowledged, 
that  it  was  used.  If  it  had  been  used  in  the  be- 
ginning, the  result  might  have  been  different. 
The  following,  taken  from  the  war  correspond- 
ence of  the  "  London  Journal  "  at  the  time, 
shows  its  effects : 

Up  to  this  time  we  had  not  seen  any  Prussians  be- 
yond a  few  skirmishers  in  the  plain,  though  our  bat- 
tery of  Catlings  had  kept  blazing  away  at  nothing  in 
particular  all  the  while;  but  now  an  opportunity  of  its 
being  in  use  occurred.  A  column  of  troops  appeared 
in  the  valley  below  us,  coming  from  the  right  —  a  mere 
dark  streak  upon  the  white  snow ;  but  no  one  in  the 
battery  could  tell  whether  they  were  friends  or  foes, 
and  the  commander  hesitated  about  opening  fire.  But 
now  an  aide-de-camp  came  dashing  down  the  hill  with 
orders  to  pound  them  at  once  —  a  French  journalist, 
it  seems,  having  discovered  them  to  be  enemies,  when 
the  general  and  all  his  staff  were  as  puzzled  as  our- 
selves. Rr-rr-a  go  our  Catlings,  the  deadly  hail  of 
bullets  crushes  into  the  thick  of  them,  and  slowly  back 
into  the  woods  the  dark  mass  retires,  leaving,  however, 
a  trace  of  black  dots  upon  the  white  snow  behind  it. 
This,  their  famous  and  4  o'clock  effort  and  its  failure, 
has  decided  the  day.  That  one  discharge  was  enough. 

The  main  features  of  the  Gatling  gun  in  the 
latest  form  may  be  summed  up  as  follows : 

It  has  from  six  to  ten  rifle-barrels,  each  with  a 
corresponding  lock.  These  barrels  are  grouped 
about  and  revolve  around  a  central  shaft  to 
which  they  are  parallel,  and  the  Kl  bore  of 
the  barrels  extends  through  from  end  to 

end.  The  breech-ends  are  firmly  if  screwed 
into  a  disk  or  rear  barrel-plate,  [  which  is 
fastened  to  the  shaft,  and  the  muzzles 


LATEST    MODEL    OF    GATLING    FIELD    GUN. 


pass  through  another  disk.  The  shaft  projects 
beyond  the  muzzles  and  extends  backward  for 
some  distance  behind  the  breeches.  The  barrels 
and  locks  are  revolved  together  around  the 
shaft  by  turning  a  crank  on  the  side  of  the 
casing  surrounding  the  breech.  Besides  this 
motion,  the  locks  have  a  forward  and  back- 
ward motion  of  their  own,  the  first  of  which 
places  the  cartridges  in  the  barrels  and  closes 
the  breech  at  the  time  of  each  discharge,  while 
the  latter  one  extracts  the  empty  cartridge- 
cases  after  firing.  It  is  only  when  the  handle 
or  crank  is  worked  forward,  which  turns  the 
barrels  from  left  to  right,  that  the  gun  is  loaded 
and  fired.  On  the  top  of  the  gun  is  a  hopper, 
which  receives  the  cartridges  from  a  feed- 
case  ;  and  when  the  gun  is  in  action  there  are, 
in  the  ten-barrel  gun,  five  cartridges  going 
through  the  process  of  loading  and  five  more 
in  different  stages  of  extraction.  These  several 
operations  are  continuous,  and  the  operations 
of  loading,  firing,  and  extracting  are  carried 
on  uniformly.  The  cartridge  falls  from  the 
hopper  into  the  breech-block  at  the  top,  and 
before  it  revolves  so  as  to  be  underneath 
it  is  shoved  into  place,  the  hammer  drawn 
back,  and,  as  it  reaches  the  lowest  point  of 
revolution,  the  breech  is  closed,  the  hammer 
released,  and  the  cartridge  fired.  As  it 
comes  up  on  the  left-hand  side,  the  ejector 
and  extractor  is  at  work,  the  empty  shell 
falls  to  the  ground,  and  the  barrel  is  ready 
for  another  cartridge  as  it  reaches  its  place  on 
top.  Therefore  in  one  entire  revolution  ten 
cartridges  can  be  fired,  and  the  number  of  car- 
tridges that  can  be  fired  in  a  given  space  of 
time  will  depend  upon  the  strength,  endur- 
ance, and  rapidity  of  action  of  the  man  who 
turns  the  crank.  A  new  feed  called,  from  its 
inventor,  the  Accles  feed,  makes  the  supply  of 
cartridges  positive  and  certain  in  action,  and 
with  it,  it  is  claimed  the 
gun  can  be  fired  at  the 
rate  of  1200  shots  per 
minute,  and  at  all  de- 
grees of  elevation  and 
depression.  Of  course  it 
will  be  understood  that 
this  rate  cannot  be  kept 
up  long,  since  the  heat 
evolved  by  the  discharge 
of  1200  cartridges  is  so 
enormous  that  the  gun 
cannot  stand  it;  the  bar- 
rels heat,  and  the  parts 
of  the  breech  mechan- 
ism become  jammed  and 
clogged.  Still,  this  gun 
has  passed  through  the 
severest  tests  known  on 
theexperimental  ground, 


AMERICAN  MACHINE    CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE    GUNS.        887 


has  been  fired  at  angles  of  elevation  from  o 
to  89  degrees,  has  been  turned  upside  down 
and  fired  continuously  in  that  position,  show- 
ing that  its  feed  was  positive.  The  drum  con- 
tains 102  cartridges,  and  the  gun  has  a  number 
of  times  emptied  the  drum  in  2)^  seconds,  and 
eight  drums  in  4 1 .4  seconds.  Atone  trial  63,600 
cartridges  were  fired  without  stopping  to  wipe 
out  or  clean  the  barrels,  and  the  working  of 
the  gun  proved  satisfactory.  The  gun  is  made 
in  different  sizes,  from  .42  caliber  up 
to  i  inch.  This  latter  size  makes 
it  practically  equal  to  a  field-piece, 
and  indeed  its  range,  upwards  of 
3000  yards,  is  nearly  as  great.  The 
gun  has  a  lateral  motion  from  side 
to  side,  so  that  as  the  crank  is  turned 
it  sweeps,  with  its  fire,  a  wide  zone. 
The  illustrations  show  the  different 
styles  of  gun  for  different  purposes. 
The  practical  value  of  an  invention 
is  determined  by  the  results  attained 
in  actual  service,  and  under  this  test 
the  Catling  has  shown  even  greater 
superiority  than  on  the  experimental 
ground.  During  the  Russo-Turkish 
war,  the  war  of  Chili  and  Peru, 
England's  fights  with  Zulus,  with 
Ashantees,  in  Egypt,  wherever 
the  Catling  was  used,  it  did  its 
work  well,  and  rained  upon  the  foe 
a  hail  of  bullets  so  deadly  that  he 
was  absolutely  paralyzed.  In  the 
Zulu  war  it  is  stated  that  in  one 
place,  within  a  radius  of  500  yards, 
473  dead  Zulus  lay  in  groupsof  from 
14  to  30,  mowed  down  by  the  fire 
of  one  Catling.  The  annals  of  war 
do  not  present  any  greater  slaughter 
than  that.  It  is  claimed  that  the 
Catling  can  fire  for  short  spaces  of 
time  more  shots  than  any  other  ma- 
chine gun,  and  at  greater  degrees 
of  elevation  and  depression.  When 
mounted  on  a  tripod  it  can  traverse 
an  entire  circle,  thereby  cover- 
ing any  point  desired.  In  naval  service  the 
smaller  calibers  can  be  mounted  on  tops,  and 
thus  cover  the  decks  of  an  enemy's  vessel, 
while  the  larger  sizes  are  especially  valuable 
against  torpedo  boats.  In  common  with  other 
machine  guns,  it  requires  but  few  men  and 
horses  to  manipulate  it  or  to  transport  it. 
For  the  clearing  of  mobs  in  streets,  for 
the  protection  of  buildings  containing  treas- 
ure, for  use  in  revolts  in  penitentiaries,  it 
is  a  terrible  weapon  of  defense  and  destruc- 
tion. Its  adaptations  for  the  purposes  of 
flank  defense;  protecting  roads,  defiles, 
and  bridges;  covering  crossings  of  streams; 
increasing  infantry  fire  at  critical  moments; 


repulsing  cavalry;  covering  the  retreat  of 
a  column;  and  its  intensity  and  continuity  of 
fire — all  render  it  of  surpassing  Importance. 

Another  machine  gun,  now  world-famous, 
and  of  a  different  type  from  the  Catling,  though 
the  invention  of  an  American,  is  the  Gardner 
gun.  If  the  Catling  can  fire  a  greater  num- 
ber of  shots  per  minute  and  at  greater  ranges 
than  any  other  gun,  on  the  other  hand  it  is 
claimed  for  the  Gardner  that  for  simplicity, 


TWO-BARRELFD    GARDNER    GUN    ON    TRIPOD. 


durability,  lightness,  ease  of  operation,  and 
accuracy  it  has  no  equal.  It  is  made  in  all  cali- 
bers from  .45  inch  up  to  i  inch.  It  consists  of 
two  simple  breech-loading  rifle-barrels  placed 
parallel  to  each  other  1.4  inches  apart,  both  in- 
closed in  a  case.  These  two  barrels  are  loaded 
and  fired  and  relieved  of  shells  by  a  mech- 
anism at  the  breech  which  is  operated,  as  in 
the  Galling,  by  a  hand-crank.  One  man  in- 
serts the  heads  of  the  cartridges  projecting  from 
a  feed-case  into  the  feed-guide ;  another  man 
turns  the  crank  by  which  the  gun  is  fired,  and 
as  the  cartridges  disappear  down  the  feed- 
guide  their  places  are  supplied  from  another 
case.  The  operations  of  inserting  the  cartridge, 


888        AMERICAN  MACHINE    CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE   GUNS. 


GARDNER  GUN  IN  THE  BOW  OF  A  LAUNCH. 


predated  in  storming  stockades, 
some  of  which  are  bullet-proof, 
and  some  are  not.  In  the  latter 
case  the  guns,  having  a  range  of 
two  thousand  yards,  would  keep 
up  a  stream  of  bullets  out  of  the 
enemy's  reach.  ...  In  like  man- 
ner they  would  be  utilized  in  the 
attack  on  dakoit  villages.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  the  power  of  these 
guns  for  counter-attack  as  well  as 
for  passive  defense  cannot  fail  to 
be  recognized. 

The  aim  of  Mr.  Gardner, 
the  inventor,  was  not  to  make 
a  powerful  gun,  but  rather 
to  establish  a  minimum  of 
weight  and  space,  and  within 
that  limit  to  achieve  the 
greatest  possible  rapidity  of 
fire.  As  compared  with  the 
Catling,  the  Gardner  has  not 
so  rapid  a  rate  of  fire;  but 
the  breeches  being  incased  in 
water-jackets,  the  firing  at  its 
maximum  rate  can  be  kept  up 
longer.  The  gun  is  easier  of 
transport,  and  moreover  is, 
drawing  back  the  hammer,  releasing  it,  and  after  some  firing,  much  steadier  and  more 
extracting  the  empty  shell  all  go  on  automat-  accurate.  The  feed-case  of  the  Gatling  hav- 
ically  within  the  casing  around  the  breech,  and  ing  a  powerful  spring  to  press  the  cartridges 
alternately  on  each  barrel.  The  weight  of  the  into  the  hopper,  and  this  spring  being  oper- 
two-barreled  gun  is  about  no  pounds.  It  is  ated  by  the  turning  of  the  crank,  it  follows 
easily  carried  on  the  backs  of  pack-animals,  or  that  much  more  strength  is  required  of  the 
in  small  boats,  as  shown  in  the  illustrations,  man  who  turns  the  crank  in  the  Gatling  than 
The  rate  of  fire  of  this  gun  is  barely  500  in  the  Gardner.  A  very  interesting  bit  of  his- 
shots  a  minute,  but  this  rate  can  be  kept  up  tory  to  Americans  is  the  present  given  by 
continuously,  and  10,000  rounds  have  been  General  Grant  to  the  Viceroy  of  China  and 
fired  without  intermission  or  mishap.  The  the  Mikado  of  Japan.  Desiring  to  give  these 
gun  has  been  fired  successfully  and  practically  dignitaries  a  present  which  would  show  to 
adopted  in  Italy,  Denmark,  Mexico,  the  Uni-  some  extent  his  appreciation  of  the  courtesies 
ted  States,  and  England.  In  the  war  of  the  lat-  extended  to  him  when  in  China  and  Japan, 
ter  with  Burmah  a  four-gun 
Gardner  battery  did  great 
service,  as  will  be  seen  by  the 
following  extracts  taken  from 
the  report  of  Captain  Lloyd, 
R.  A.,  commanding  a  battery 
of  four  Gardner  guns  in  that 
campaign : 

.  .  .  Having  thus  satisfied  our- 
selves that  we  had  a  good  weapon 
in  our  hands,  we  set  to  work  to 
equip  a  battery  of  four  guns.  .  .  . 
The  favorite  tactics  of  the  dakoits 
is  to  lay  in  ambush  in  dense  jungle, 
where  they  are  at  home  and  com- 
paratively safe;  they  then  fire  a 
volley  into  our  unsuspecting  troops 
and  depart.  When  the  dakoits  op- 
pose our  advance  by  clinging  to 
the  jungle  in  front,  their  position, 
never  extensive,  would  be  quickly 
searched  out  by  our  machine  guns. 
Again,  their  value  would  be  ap- 


i 


GARDNER    GUN     IN     TRANSPORT. 


AMERICAN  MACHINE   CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE    GUNS.        889 

sears,  and  firing-pin,  similar  to  those  used  in 
the  old-fashioned  pistol.  In  addition  is  the 
lever,  which,  when  tile  gun  is  tired,  is  tlmnui 
into  action  by  the  recoil.  The  arrangement 
is  at  once  set  in  motion— the  empty  shell  with- 
drawn, a  new  cartridge  inserted,  the  breech 
closed,  a  cartridge  fired,  and  a  certain  quantity 
of  water  admitted  into  the  water-jacket.  The 
cartridges  are  placed  in  pockets  on  a  belt. 


he  ordered  two  Gardner  guns  of  special  design 
to  be  made.  On  the  breech  of  the  barrel- 
chamber  of  one  of  the  guns  is  the  engraved 
inscription  : 

TO  HIS  I-'.XCI  I.I. KM  V 

VICEROY   LI   HUNG  CHANG, 

1  KOM 

U.  S.  GRANT. 

The  other  gun  is  similarly  inscribed  to  the 
Mikado  of  Japan.  While 
the  regular  models  were 
followed,  yet  special  atten- 
tion was  given  to  nicety  of 
finish  of  every  part.  The 
carriages  and  mounts  of 
the  guns  are  made  en- 
tirely of  bronze  and  steel. 
The  wheels  are  finished  in 
wood,  the  felloes  of  oak, 
and  the  spokes  of  hickory. 
The  limber-chests,  each 
with  a  capacity  of  7200 
rounds,  are  of  oak  and 
highly  polished.  It  is  under- 
stood that  these  guns  oc- 
cupy positions  of  honor  and 
ornament  in  the  palaces  of 
their  respective  owners. 

But  great  as  is  our  ad- 
miration for  the  Gardner 
and  Galling  guns,  it  must 
give  way  before  the  aston- 
ishment and  wonder  excit- 
ed by  another  American  in- 
vention but  very  recently 
perfected.  It  is  the  Maxim 
automatic  machine  gun,  in- 
vented in  1883,  but  only 
within  a  year  past  brought 
to  a  state  of  wonderful  and 
ingenious  perfection.  It  is 
with  a  feeling  almost  akin 
to  shame  that  we  state  that 
this  gun  is  made  in  Eng- 
land, although  the  inventor 
is  American.  It  is,  as  its  name  indicates,  an  au- 
tomatic machine  gun,  and  only  requires  the 
pressure  of  the  finger  on  the  trigger  to  explode 
the  first  cartridge,  and  the  gun,  then  left  alone, 
will  load  and  fire  itself  as  long  as  cartridges 
are  fed  to  it.  The  gun  proper  consists  of  an  or- 
dinary gun-barrel,  two-thirds  of  which  are  sur- 
rounded by  a  casing  of  metal  in  which  water 
is  automatically  injected  by  each  discharge  of 
the  barrel.  By  means  of  this  casing,  or  water- 
jacket,  it  is  impossible  to  overheat  the  gun  by 
firing. 

The  remaining  third  is  surrounded  by  a  steel 
case  of  rectangular  shape,  inside  of  which  is 
the  mechanism  for  operating  the  gun.  This 
mechanism  consists  of  a  main-spring,  tumbler, 


GARDNER    GUN    ON    DECK. 


Each  belt  contains  333  of  these  pockets, 
and  two  or  more  belts  may  be  joined  to- 
gether. The  end  of  the  belt  is  introduced 
in  the  breech-casing,  and  the  finger  pressed 
on  the  trigger  to  fire  the  first  cartridge,  after 
which  the  gun  may  be  left  alone,  and  the 
automatic  action,  set  in  motion  by  the  recoil, 
fires  the  rest.  As  the  recoil  is  but  three-quar- 
ters of  an  inch,  some  idea  may  be  had  of  the 
wonderful  ingenuity  of  the  gun  by  consider- 
ing that  it  will  fire  the  666  cartridges  of  the 
double  belt  in  a  little  over  a  minute,  or  at  the 
rate  of  ten  a  second ;  in  other  words,  it  re- 
quires but  one-tenth  of  a  second  to  load  the  gun, 
fire  a  cartridge,  throw  out  the  empty  shell,  and 
put  in  a  full  one.  Again,  the  recoil  of  the  gun 


890        AMERICAN  MACHINE   CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE    GUNS. 


MAXIM    FIELD    GUN    WITH     BULLET-PROOF    SHIELD. 


does  another  work.  Over  the  casing  is  a 
small  tank  of  water,  and  at  each  discharge  of 
the  gun  a  small  quantity  of  cool  water  is  in- 
jected from  the  cistern  into  the  water-jacket, 
and  after  the  heat  of  the  gun  has  risen  suffi- 
ciently, the  water  escapes  in  the  form  of  steam 
from  two  little  apertures  at  the  front  end  of 
the  jacket.  The  cartridge  contains  from  70  to 
90  grains  of  powder,  and  the  heat  evolved 
in  the  discharge  of  one  cartridge  is  sufficient 
to  raise  the  temperature  of  the  water  at  the 
rate  of  1)^°  Fahrenheit  per  pound.  And  as 
much  heat  is  required  to  melt  four  pounds  of 
iron  as  is  necessary  to  evaporate  five  pounds  of 
water.  It  can  be  seen  from  this  what  an  effect- 
ual absorbent  of  heat  is  the  water-jacket,  and 
in  fact  it  requires  the  discharge  of  1000  car- 
tridges before  the  water  is  heated  sufficiently 
to  cause  steam  to  make  its  appearance.  The 
rate  of  fire  is  regulated  by  means  of  a  quad- 
rant graduated  from  200  up  to  700,  so  that  by 
putting  the  hand  on  this  the  gun  not  only  can 
swing  from  side  to  side,  and  thus  traverse  with 
its  fire  a  wide  arc,  but  also  can  throw  out  such 
fire  as  is  wished.  The  field-piece  is  3  feet  high, 
4  feet  9  inches  long  from  muzzle  to  rear  of 
breech,  and  weighs  but  50  pounds,  and  its 
carriage  about  100  pounds.  The  maximum 
rate  of  firing  is  about  600  shots  per  minute,  but 
it  has  fired  continuously  5000  shots,  and  so 
accurately  that  it  is  said  its  inventor,  by  put- 
ting his  hand  on  the  traversing  lever,  has  writ- 
ten his  name  on  a  target  board  400  yards 
from  the  muzzle,  in  the  dark.  Comparing  this 
gun  with  other  machine  guns,  its  advantages 
become  at  once  apparent.  Indeed,  it  can  hardly 
be  compared  with  other  guns,  since  the  field 


it  opens  is  entirely  new,  and  of  broader  range 
than  others.  In  machine  guns  the  causes  that 
render  guns  unserviceable  are  as  follows :  First, 
cartridges  may  and  often  do  hang  fire,  due  to 
age,  or  perhaps  to  dampness  in  the  atmosphere 
at  the  time  of  firing,  or  to  deterioration  due  to 
climate,  etc.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  the 
crank  being  turned  by  a  skillful  man  very  fast, 
the  breech  is  unlocked,  and  the  cartridge 
partly  or  wholly  withdrawn  while  in  the  act  of 
exploding,  thus  driving  the  forward  end  of  the 
empty  case  into  the  chamber,  and  rendering 
the  gun  useless  for  the  time  being.  Secondly,  it 
has  been  found  impossible  to  fire  many  more 
than  1000  rounds  in  rapid-succession,  because 
of  the  heating  of  barrels  and  expansion  of 
parts.  Thirdly,  when  the  cartridges  are  fed  by 
gravity  they  are  dependent  on  their  own  weight 
alone  for  falling  into  the  proper  position  in  the 
chamber,  and  therefore  a  skillful  man  may 
work  the  crank  so  rapidly  that  it  becomes  im- 
possible for  the  cartridge  to  attain  its  proper 
position  when  fed  by  gravity  alone,  and  it  is 
crushed  in  the  act  of  falling.  If  the  cartridges 
are  not  fed  by  gravity  but  by  positive  feed, 
such  as  a  special  spring,  the  spring  also  has  to 
be  worked  by  the  man  at  the  crank,  requiring 
an  outlay  of  strength  that  soon  renders  him 
useless,  and  which  jars  the  gun  andinjures  its 
accuracy.  Fourthly,  the  machine  guns  are  all 
dependent  upon  a  single  spring  extractor  for 
throwing  out  the  empty  cartridge-case,  and  in 
rapid  firing  the  chamber  becomes  clogged,  the 
case  adheres  so  strongly  to  the  walls  that  the 
extractor  is  unable  to  work,  and  sometimes 
breaks. 

As  compared  with  the  foregoing  faults  of 


AMERICAN  MACHINE   CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE    GUNS.        891 


other   guns,  the    Maxim    stands  as    follows: 
First,  since  there  is  but  one  barrel,  but  one 
cartridge  can  enter  at  a  time;  and  if  it  is  bad 
or  unserviceable  it  will  not  explode,  and  the 
gun,  without  recoil,  stops  at  once,  and  the 
cartridge  must  be  ejected  before  a  fresh  one 
can  be  inserted.  The  cartridge  is  in  no  danger 
of  being  prematurely  exploded  by  hot  parts, 
since  overheating  is  rendered  impossible  by  the 
water-jacket,  and    therefore  the  fire  can   be 
practically  continuous.    Again,  the  cartridges 
being  drawn  in  one  by  one,  automatically,  the 
objections  open  to  the  positive  and  gravity 
feeds  are   obviated,  and   the  empty  shell  is 
thrown  out,  since  a  grooved  slide,  moving  in 
a  transverse  direction,  seizes  it  by  the  head 
and  moves  it  bodily.    The  cartridge  shell  can- 
not fasten  to  the  walls  of  the  chamber,  because 
this  grooved  slide  is  an  independent  piece. 
There  is    also    another  advantage    that   the 
Maxim  possesses  over  other  machine  guns. 
It   can  readily  be  seen  that   any  gun   hav- 
ing two  or  more  barrels,  in  order  to  shoot 
accurately,  must  have  both  barrels  absolutely 
parallel  to  the  vertical  plane  passing  through 
the  line  of  sight,  and  when  there  are  more 
than  two  barrels  they  must  also  be  parallel 
to  each  other.    An  error  of  the  smallest  frac- 
tion of  an  inch,  in  the  direction  of  the  line  of 
fire,  will,  at  a  distance  of  one  hundred  yards, 
amount  to  several  feet.    If  a  gun  has  errors 
of  this  sort,  then  is  there  accounted  for  one 
of  the  principal  causes  of  inaccuracy  of  fire; 
and   rough  usage,  heating,  etc.  only  render 
this  trouble  greater.    But  no  such  mechanical 
difficulty  exists  with  the  Maxim,  since  there 
is  but  one  barrel.    It  is  simple  in  its  mechan- 
ism, is  easily  taken  apart,  oiled  and  cleaned, 
and  put  together  again;  while  its  automatic 
action,    accuracy    of    fire, 
power  of  regulation,  and  the 
little  attention  needed  make 
it  the  most  perfect  of  ma- 
chine guns. 

The  Hotchkiss  revolving 
cannon  is  another  American 
invention,  although  the  prin- 
cipal factory  is  in  France. 
The  revolving  cannon  may 


be  best  said  to  be  the  revolver  on  a  large  scale. 
The  gun  has  five  barrels  and  five  <  hambers, 
which,  as  they  are  slowly  revolved,  are  fiuil 
in  succession,  and  can  be  quickly  reloaded  by 
hand.  A  rate  of  twenty  shots  per  minute  is 
easily  obtainable  with  the  6-pounder  gun  ;  but 
as  these  are  cannon,  the  heat  evolved  by  ex- 
penditure of  so  much  powder  is  immense,  and 
therefore  makes  it  practically  impossible  to 
fire  but  a  few  shots  at  this  rapid  rate.  The  gun 
is  made  so  as  to  throw  shells  from  i  pound 
up  to  32  pounds  in  weight. 

Although  a  great  deal  has  been  said  about 
the  failure  of  Americans  to  turn  out  heavy 
guns  equal  to  those  of  same  caliber  made 
abroad,  yet  the  8-inch  rifles  in  the  navy,  and 
the  new  i  2-inch  rifled  mortar  or  howitzer  made 
by  the  United  States  Army  Ordnance  Depart- 
ment, certainly  are  the  superiorsof  guns  of  their 
caliber  the  world  over.  This  latter  gun,  of 
which  we  present  a  picture,  has  a  caliber  of  1 2 
inches,  is  rifled,  and  fires  a  630-pound  shell 
with  35  pounds  of  powder.  It  has  been  fired  at 
angles  of  from  30°  to  75°  elevation,  and  at  60° 
gave  a  range  of  5  y>  miles.  M  oreover,  this  range 
is  accurate ;  that  is,  if  a  space  the  size  of  a  vessel 
of  war  be  marked  off,  five  out  of  every  seven 
shots  would  fall  either  on  the  decks  or  near 
enough  seriously  to  injure  her  at  this  range. 

Lastly,  we  turn  to  the  toqjedo  weapon  that 
has  excited  so  much  wonder  and  interest  not 
only  at  home  but  abroad.  We  mean  the 
dynamite  gun.  As  is  well  known,  many  at- 
tempts in  years  past  have  been  made  to  throw- 
shells  charged  with  dynamite  from  guns  fired 
with  gunpowder;  but,  due  to  the  terrific  shock 
of  discharge,  the  shells  generally  burst  in  the 
guns,  and  were  more  dangerous  to  those  firing 
than  to  those  fired  at.  Mr.  Mefford  of  Ohio,  in 


UNITED    STATES    12-INCH    RIFLED    BREECH-LOADING    MORTAR,     OR    HOWITZER. 


892        AMERICAN  MACHINE   CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE    GUNS. 


•     '        :JT^tf 


PNEUMATIC    DYNAMITE    SEA-COAST    GUN. 


1883,  devised  his  first  pneumatic  gun,  in  which 
he  used  compressed  air  as  the  propelling  power. 
The  use  of  compressed  air  is  of  great  advan- 
tage, the  pressure  being  low,  and  diminish- 
ing so  slowly  as  to  be,  for  practical  purposes, 
constant;  and  by  automatic  arrangements  it 
can  be  cut  off  as  the  projectile  leaves  the  bore, 
so  that  there  is  no  waste.  Again,  the  pressure  is 
kept  entirely  under  control  by  means  of  valves, 
and  a  constant  muzzle  velocity  is  obtained. 
Also,  instead  of  heating  the  gun,  the  use  of 
compressed  air  actually  cools  it.  The  gun  first 
made  was  2  inches  in  diameter;  this  was  fol- 
lowed by  one  4  inches  in  diameter,  and  then 
by  the  one  represented  in  the  illustration  —  8 
inches  in  diameter.  The  experiments  have  been 
conducted  under  the  supervision  of  Captain 
C.  L.  Zalinski,  5th  United  States  Artillery,  and 
they  attained  a  degree  of  perfection  that  aston- 
ished the  world.  The  gun  may  be  briefly  de- 
scribed as  follows :  The  barrel  consists  of  four 
lengths  of  wrought-iron  tubing  S/%  of  an  inch 
thick  and  lined  with  ^-inch  seamless  brass  tub- 
ing. This  barrel  is  supported  on  an  iron  truss, 
which  in  turn  rests  on  a  carriage  which  is  sup- 
ported by  two  hollow  cast-iron  pillars.  The 
pillars  rest  on  a  platform,  which  is  pivoted  at  the 
front  in  a  manner  similar  to  that  of  heavy  guns. 
To  the  rear  of  the  gun,  protected  by  a  wall,  are 
placed  a  boiler-engine  and  air  pumps  for  keep- 
ing thereservoirs  full.  The  traversing  and  level- 
ing are  controlled  by  pneumatic  cylinders 
worked  by  means  of  valve-levers.  The  air  reser- 


voir consists  of  eight  wrought-iron  tubes  12^ 
inches  diameter,  and  with  a  total  capacity  of 
137  cubic  feet.  They  are  arranged  in  two  tiers 
on  each  side  of  the  platform.  On  the  gun 
are  two  sights  resting  in  Vs  on  the  left  trun- 
nion, and  on  the  same  side  is  the  firing-lever, 
so  that  the  same  person  can  aim  and  fire  thegun. 
A  pressure-gauge,  showing  the  air  pressure  at 
any  time,  is  also  in  such  a  position  that  the 
person  firing  can  see  it,  and  thus,  by  changing 
the  air  pressure,  can  correct  any  shot  desired. 
The  projectile  has  a  brass  body  3  feet  4  inches 
long,  and  a  conical  point  of  wrought  iron  12 
inches  long,  and  a  tail  made  of  pine  wood. 
This  is  inserted  in  the  breech,  which  is  opened 
and  closed  by  a  flat  disk  opening  inwards,  and 
sealed  by  a  felt  wad. 

The  gun,  on  account  of  the  uniformity  of 
pressure  of  air  on  the  projectile,  can  be  fired 
with  great  accuracy  up  to  two  thousand  yards, 
and,  as  has  been  demonstrated  time  and  time 
again,  with  perfect  safety.  The  shells  are 
charged  with  from  fifty  to  sixty  pounds  of 
gelatine  or  gelatinous  dynamite,  and  in  ex- 
periments made  September  20,  1887,  proved 
that  within  given  ranges  the  shell  was  perfectly 
under  control.  So  perfect  are  the  automatic 
arrangements,  that  to  fire  any  number  of  shots 
within  a  given  time  the  reservoir  does  not  have 
to  be  entirely  recharged.  The  instant  the  pro- 
jectile leaves  the  tube  the  air  is  cut  off,  and  the 
pressure  on  the  gauge  is  hardly  ^ 
diminished.  One  of  the  most  im- 


INCH    DYNAMITE    GUN. 


AMERICAN  MACHINE    CANNON  AND  DYNAMITE   GUNS.        893 


portant  features  of  the  shell  is  the  electric 
fuse  —  the  invention  of  Captain  Zalinski.  In 
each  shell  there  are  two  batteries  — one  a  wet 
one,  kept  charged,  and  the  other  a  dry  one, 
which  is  put  in  action  by  moisture.  These  two 
are  on  one  circuit,  arranged  in  series,  part  of 
which  is  composed  of  fine  platinum  wire  sur- 
rounded by  gunpowder,  and  the  end  of  which 
is  in  a  capsule,  while  the  other  end  is  sur- 
rounded by  fulminate  of  mercury,  which,  when 
detonated,  explodes  a  small  tube  of  dynamite, 
and  this  then  explodes  the  main  charge.  The 
wet  battery  explodes  the  shell  on  impact  either 
direct  or  oblique.  The  dry  battery  is  arranged 
so  that  the  circuit  is  closed  by  being  moistened, 
as  on  striking  the  water,  which  rushes  through 
holes  in  the  head  of  the  projectile,  which  are 
covered  with  thin  metal  flaps. 

So  perfect  are  the  arrangements  of  this  fuse 
that  the  shell  can  be  exploded  by  the  slight- 
est contact  with  water,  or  at  any  depth.  The 
gun  as  designated  is  a  torpedo  gun.  It  has 
not,  and  probably  never  can  have,  the  range 
that  powder  guns  have  — certainly  not  without 
destroying  its  qualities  as  to  accuracy ;  but  as 
a  torpedo,  it  is  superior  to  all  others.  It  has 
greater  speed,  costs  less,  is  far  more  accurate 
and  sure,  and  has  a  field  of  action  above  as 
well  as  below  water.  Arrangements  are  made 
now  to  mount  three  guns  of  1 5-inch  caliber 
on  a  special  gun-boat  just  constructed  for  this 
purpose,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  this  vessel 
is  in  itself  capable  of  entering  any  channel  and 
harbor  in  the  world  and  clearing  it  of  torpedoes. 
A  few  of  the  huge  charges  of  dynamite  deto- 
nated on  the  bottom  would  explode  every 
torpedo,  either  singly  or  in  groups,  placed  there, 
and  charged  with  high  explosives. 

So  terrific  is  the  force  of  detonation  that  a 
charge  of  200  pounds  of  dynamite  dropped  on 
the  deck  of  a  vessel,  or  exploded  in  the  air 
above  it,  would  probably  kill  or  render  hors  de 


combat  every  human  being  in  that  vessel,  by 
concussion  and  shock  alone.  Of  all  Ameri- 
can inventions,  the  dynamite  gun  is  the  only 
one  that  has  had  the  practical  encouragement 
of  the  United  States 
Government  in  theshape 
of  appropriations.  Ow- 
ing to  the  neglect  of 
our  legislators  to  provide 
means  of  defense  for  our 
sea-coast,  we  are  laying 
up  for  ourselves  an  awful 
retribution,  that  sooner 
or  later  will  visit  us  un- 
less we  speedily  take  the 


8-INCH    SHELL. 

means  to  correct  the  evil;  and  through  our 
national  egotism  and  belief  in  our  military 
genius  we  are  losing  track  of  the  very  means 
that  help  the  inventive  powers  of  our  country- 
men to  devise  wondrous  weapons  of  offense 
and  defense.  "  In  peace  prepare  for  war" 
should  be  hung  up  in  great  black  letters  on 
the  walls  of  the  council  chambers  of  our 
national  legislators,  to  warn  them  that  the  same 
fate  has  overtaken  every  nation  that  has  neg- 
lected its  opportunities,  and  that  the  people 
will  not  hold  them  guiltless  when  the  invita- 
tions and  premiums  to  attack  us  we  are  offer- 
ing to  other  nations  shall  finally  be  accepted. 

William  R.  Hamilton. 


WRECK    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES    COAST    SURVEY    SCHOONER     "  SILL1MAN "     BY    A    55-POUNU    SIIKLl.    FROM 
THE    PNEUMATIC    DYNAMITE    GUN,    SEPTEMBER    2O,     1887. 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 123. 


O    MUSIC. 

AST  night  I  heard  a  harper  strike  his  strings  all  suddenly  and  sweetly, 

And  one  sang  with  him  in  a  voice  blown  like  a  flute  upon  the  dark, 
And  as  a  bird's  wings  climb  the  air,  forever  palpitating  fleetly, 
The  song  soared,  and  I  followed  it,  lost  where  the  panting  echoes  hark. 
The  song  soared  like  a  living  soul  in  naked  beauty  white  and  stark, 
Commanding  all  the  powers  of  tune  with  solemn  spells  of  subtle  might, 
A  flute,  a  bird,  a  living  soul,  the  song  swept  by  me  in  the  night ! 

Commanding  all  the  powers  of  tune,  commanding  all  the  powers  of  being, 

While  on  the  borderland  of  sleep  half  lapped  in  dreams  my  senses  stirred, 

Heaven  after  heaven  the  strain  laid  bare,  sweet  secret  after  secret  freeing, 

And  all  the  deeps  of  music  broke  about  my  spirit  as  I  heard. 

And  past  and  present  were  as  naught  within  that  trance  of  rapture  blurred, 

And  heights  where  white  light  seethed,  and  depths  night-blue  and  full  of  singing  stars. 

Were  mine  to  tread  the  while  that. tune  beat  out  the  passion  of  its  bars! 

Then  I  remembered  me  of  Saul,  the  young  man  mighty  and  victorious, 

While  towering  dark  and  beautiful  anointed  on  the  roadside  king, 

And  over  him  a  fuller  chrism  streamed  sempiternally  and  glorious, 

The  dew  of  dawn,  the  flush  of  day,  that  morning  of  an  ancient  spring. 

And  faring  silent  on  his  way,  he  lifted  not  his  voice  to  sing, 

He  saw  no  glow  upon  the  hills,  upon  the  sky  he  saw  no  bloom, 

Earth  was  the  same  old  earth  to  him  wrapped  in  the  mantle  of  his  gloom. 

But  when  he  met  along  the  hill  a  company  of  prophets  hasting, 
Striking  psaltery,  harp,  and  tabret,  and  the  pipe's  breath  blowing  clear, 
When  singing  all  at  once  they  came,  in  wild  accord  their  music  wasting, 
The  mountain  answering  tune  for  tune  with  mystic  voices  hovering  near, 
With  sweet  rude  clamor  storming  heaven,  with  faces  rapt  in  holy  fear, 
Singing  of  smoke  of  sacrifice  from  altars  on  the  hills  and  scars, 
Singing  of  power  that  bends  the  blue,  that  holds  the  leashes  of  the  stars  — 

Then  as  the  measures  round  him  beat  and  left  him  thrilling  to  their  gladness, 

A  flame  swept  up  and  compassed  him  and  burned  the  withes  that  bound  his  might, 

And  all  his  strength,  to  music  set  in  a  swift  and  sacred  madness, 

Broke  at  his  lips  in  prophecy  and  filled  his  darkened  soul  with  light. 

For  thine,  O  Music !  child  of  God,  the  wings  that  lift  to  awful  height; 

The  order  of  the  universe  is  thine,  and  thine  the  flight  of  stars, 

And  the  soul  treads  its  kingly  home  but  to  the  passion  of  thy  bars ! 

Harriet  Prescott  Spofford. 


AN     IDYL    OF    "SINKIN'     Moi   \  PIN." 

!iy  ilic  author  of  "Two  Runaways,"  ".Sister  Todhunter's  Heart,"  ••  DC  Valley  an'  dc-  SliacUler,"  etc. 


"ZEKE!   OH-H-H-H,    ZBKE  '.  " 


IZEKIEL  OBADIAH  SYKES 

leaned  over  the  tumble-down 
split-picket  fence  that  had  once 
kept  the  pigs  and  chickens  from 
his  mother's  humble  flower-gar- 
den, and  gazed  fixedly  at  the 
mountain  before  him.  His  was  not  a  strik- 
ing figure,  being  lank  and  somewhat  round- 
shouldered.  It  was  not  even  picturesque.  A 
pair  of  worn  jean  trousers  covered  his  lower 
limbs,  and  were  held  in  place  by  knit  "  gal- 
luses," which  crossed  the  back  of  his  cotton 
shirt  exactly  in  the  middle  and  disappeared 
over  his  shoulders  in  well-defined  grooves.  A 
stained  and  battered  wool  hat  hung  like  a 


bell  over  his  head,  which  rested  by  his  chin 
upon  a  red,  rough  hand.  The  face  was  half 
covered  by  a  reddish  brown  beard,  the  first 
of  his  budding  manhood.  The  sun  had  just 
sunk  beyond  the  mountain,  and  the  great 
shadow  that  crept  across  the  single  field  of 
starving  corn  and  the  tobacco  patch  deepened 
into  twilight,  and  still  the  young  man  rested 
on  the  picket-fence.  Occasionally  he  would 
eject  into  the  half-defined  road,  which  came 
around  one  side  of  the  mountain  and  disap- 
peared around  the  other,  a  stream  of  tobacco- 
juice,  and  pensively  watch  it  as  it  lined  the 
gravel  and  vanished  into  the  soil  with  some- 
thing like  a  human  gasp.  Once  he  lifted  a 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINK1N'   MOUNT' IN: 


ft- 


"7-EKE,     LESS     SEE    HOW    VER    LOOK." 


bare  foot,  and  with  a  prolonged  effort  scratched 
with  its  horny  toes  thecalf  of  thesupporting  leg. 
But  by  no  motion  did  he  dissipate  the  air  of  list- 
lessness  and  despondency  that  hung  about  him. 
Fortune  had  not  smiled  upon  the  Sykes  fam- 
ily for  many  moons.  There  were  no  pigs  to  dis- 
turb the  flower-garden  overrun  with  prince's- 
feathers,  bachelor's-buttons,  four-o'clocks,  old- 
maids,  and  sunflowers,  and  the  dismounted  gate 
leaned  restfully  against  the  post  on  which  it  had 
once  hung.  Somehow  everything  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Sykes  cottage  seemed  inclined 
to  lean  towards  something  else.  The  cow  was 
long  gone,  and  the  tiny  little  boarded  shed, 
which  straddled  the  sparkling  spring-branch 
near  at  hand  and  served  once  as  a  dairy,  was 
lurching  towards  the  hillside.  Near  the  stag- 
gering fence  was  a  bench  that  had  settled  back 
against  it,  thrusting  its  legs  well  to  the  front, 
and  there  once  nestled  a  score  of  bee-hives ; 
but  none  remained,  and  only  the  great  yellow 
and  maroon  butterflies  that  floated  down  the 
valley,  and  the  bumblebees,  reveled  in  the 
honey-flowers.  Perhaps  the  influence  of  these 
facts  weighed  upon  the  young  man's  mind  and 
cast  a  shadow  darker  than  the  mountain's. 
Certainly,  as  he  leaned  silently  over  the  picket, 
he  was  in  harmony  with  the  surroundings. 


A  girl  came  out  into  the  twilight  of  the  little 
porch,  where  vines  were  clambering  pell-mell 
up  a  rough  trellis  of  peeled  rods,  and  carefully 
poured  water  from  a  gourd  into  a  dozen  tiny 
pots  along  the  edge.  The  pots  consisted  of 
gourds  and  of  tin  cans  that  had  been  brought 
home  by  Ezekiel  from  the  refuse  of  the  great 
hotels  at  The  Falls,  ten  miles  or  more  away. 
But  they  answered  her  purposes  well,  only  they 
presented  a  somewhat  incongruous  appear- 
ance ;  for  on  several  from  which  bloomed 
lovely  geraniums  —  cuttings  secured  by  Eze- 
kiel from  character-studying  ladies  at  the  same 
hotels  —  flamed  great  red  tomatoes,  and  where 
little  sprigs  of  coleus  beamed  in  the  shadow 
shone  also  phenomenal  asparagus  and  the 
violent-hued  lobster.  The  dress  of  the  girl 
was  a  well-worn  but  neat-checked  homespun, 
and  at  the  throat  was  a  bit  of  faded  ribbon. 

"  D'rindy,  yuh  seen  Ezekiel  ?  "  An  elderly 
woman  in  homespun,  of  the  same  design  as 
the  girl's,  stood  in  the  doorway  that  led  from 
the  kitchen  upon  the  porch,  holding  a  coffee- 
pot in  hand. 

"  No,  ma'am.  Zeke  !  Oh-h-h-h,  Zeke  !  "  The 
girl  lifted  her  head  and  sung  out  the  name 
until  the  mountain  and  the  valley  gave  it  back 
again  and  again. 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNTIN." 


897 


"What  yuh  warnt,  D'rindy?"  The  voice 
came  from  so  close  at  hand  in  the  gathering 
shadows  as  to  startle  her. 

"  Well,  I  d'clar'  tor  goodness'  sakes,  Ezekiel, 
what  yuh  cloin'  out  thar?" 

"  Nuth'n."   The  reply  was  low  and  careless. 

"  Come  in  an'  git  yuh  vittuls." 

"  Don't  warnt  mith'n',  Ma.    Yuh-all  eat." 

The  woman  looked  out  at  the  lone  figure 
for  a  moment,  then  went  in;  and  presently 
the  girl  thoughtfully  followed.  At  the  table, 
upon  which  was  a  pone  of  corn-bread,  a  pot 
of  weak  coffee,  and  a  handless  pitcher  of  mo- 
lasses, the  elder  said : 

"  I  'm  'feered  Ezekiel  ar'  ailin'.  Las'  night 
he  would  n'  tech  vittuls,  an'  hit  ain't  no  better 
ter-night." 

"Suthin'  's  pesterin"im,"  Dorindasaid  sim- 
ply; "er-pesterin"  es  mine."  An  old  man  sat 
next  to  her  and  shook  his  head. 

"All  Hers,  all  Hers! "  he  muttered.  He  was 
evidently  very  deaf,  and  there  was  not  a  hair 
on  his  head,  which  was  sunken  between  his 
shoulders.  "Thar  warn't  nair'  still!"  The 
women  paid  no  attention  to  his  mutterings, 
and  presently,  finishing  his  sop,  he  wiped  his 
fingers  upon  his  hips  and  shuffled  into  the  cor- 
ner of  the  fireplace,  where  he  mumbled  to  him- 
self awhile  and  then  fell  asleep. 

"  Yes,  suthin'  's  pesterin'  'im,"  said  the  old 
woman  after  a  pause.  "  Ezekiel  ain't  like  es- 
se'f."  The  girl  rested  her  elbows  on  the  table 
and  watched  her  companion  absently.  Pres- 
ently she  said  abruptly: 

"  Aun'  Betsey,  yuh  reck'n  Zeke  hain't  still 
er-frettin'  'bout  Sal  Boler  gittin'  j'ined  ter  'er 
feller?" 

"  Maybe  so ;  but  I  reck'n  hard  times  got 
more  ter  do  'ith  it.  Ezekiel  don't  see  no  chance 
ahead  now."  She  sighed,  but  added,  as  if  to 
counteract  its  effect, "  Not  that  I  'm  distrustin'. 
Th'  Lord  'II  pervide :  he  allus  pervides  fur  them 
as  leans  on  'im."  Dorinda  looked  wistfully  up 
into  the  face  of  her  aging  companion  and  was 
silent.  Presently  she  rose  and  washed  the  few 
dishes,  placing  them  upon  their  shelf.  A  few 
deft  touches  restored  the  room  to  its  usual 
scrupulously  neat  condition.  Returning  the 
coffee-pot  to  the  hearth  again  and  the  remain- 
ing bread  to  the  spider  for  "  Zeke,"  as  she  had 
always  called  him,  in  defiance  of  his  mother's 
example,  she  went  quietly  to  her  little  shed- 
room  at  the  end  of  the  porch  and  sat  down  to 
think.  She  was  Dorinda  Maddox,  not  Sykes, 
the  daughter  of  a  poor  woman  down  the  val- 
ley who  died  in  the  arms  of  Mrs.  Sykes.  five 
years  before,  leaving  nothing  she  might  call 
her  own  but  this  one  lonely  child.  Her  father 
and  her  brother  had  been  killed  in  a  fight  with 
revenue  officers,  and  the  hairless  driveling  old 
man  within  the  kitchen  had  suffered  two  years 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 124. 


of  imprisonment;  for  the  blood  shed  had  not 
all  been  on  one  side.  She  had  come  into  this 
household  to  share  its  increasing  burdens  and 
diminishing  income,  but  not  to  eat  the  bread 
of  idleness.  Never  had  mother  a  tenderer 
daughter;  never  an  orphan  a  better  mother. 
Zeke  had  been  her  one  playmate  and  pro- 
tector, and  the  little  room,  built  when  she 
grew  older,  was  the  result  of  his  rough  carpen- 
try. 

"  I  wunner  ef  he  es  er-frettin'  'bout  Sal  Boler 
gittin'  j'ined  ?  "  she  asked  herself.  The  romance 
was  familiar  to  her  in  all  its  parts  from  the  day 
when  Ezekiel  was  smitten  until  faithless  Sal 
wedded  a  stranger  from  beyond  the  mountain, 
and  he  sunk  back  into  despair  and  silence. 
She  stood  up  before  a  little  fragment  of  glass 
and  looked  at  herself.  It  was  a  tiny  room  in- 
deed, but  marvelous  in  its  appointments.  The 
bare  boards  were  frescoed  with  autumn  leaves, 
their  tints  making  a  glory  in  the  half-lit  place. 
Clusters  of  chestnut-burrs  garnished  with  them 
hung  around,  and  here  and  there,  in  scraped 
cow-horns  thrust  into  crevices,  were  tucked 
great  bunches  of  ferns  and  scarlet  berries  and 
goldenrod.  A  half-dozen  cheap  prints  cut 
from  periodicals  picked  up  at  The  Falls  filled 
the  waste  places,  and  festoons  of  bead-corn 
linked  them  together.  But  just  above  her 
glass  was  a  cheap  photograph  of  Zeke,  taken 
years  before  in  the  mountains  by  a  straggling 
photographer  whom  he  had  guided,  repre- 
senting him,  as  he  had  seen  the  romantic  tour- 
ists, posing  in  the  shadow  of  a  rock,  his  hat  in 
one  hand,  and  the  other,  for  want  of  a  cpat, 
thrust  into  his  half-open  shirt-front  —  a  bare- 
footed mountain  boy  whose  honest  eyes  looked 
straight  into  hers.  This  had  been,  from  the 
day  Ezekiel  brought  it  home,  the  treasure  of 
her  girlhood.  The  frame  about  it  was  like 
none  other  in  the  world.  It  was  of  mica,  made 
of  sheets  larger  than  any  man's  hand,  and 
upon  their  surface  with  a  needle  she  had 
traced  ferns,  butterflies,  flowers,  and  leaves, 
rubbing  soot  into  the  lines  to  make  the  figures 
stand  forth.  This  was  her  gem ;  and  once  a 
traveling  artist  who  gazed  upon  it  said  that 
it  was  wonderfully  true  to  nature,  and  offered 
to  buy  it.  He  might  as  well  have  bartered  for 
her  eyes.  The  little  room  held  only  her  couch, 
a  rude  chest,  a  splint  rocker,  and  a  stool, — all 
Zeke's  work, —  a  brown  stone  bowl,  and  a 
great  jug-shaped  gourd  which  served  her  for 
a  pitcher. 

As  the  girl  stood  in  brown  reverie  before  the 
fragment  of  glass  she  heard  a  horse  approach- 
ing at  a  fox-trot,  and  presently  a  voice  ex- 
claim : 

"  Well,  Ezekyel,  how  ez  time  er-sarvin'  you 
an'  yourn  ?  "  She  recognized  the  drawl  of  an 
old  "  hard-shell  "  preacher  who  at  long  inter- 


898 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT' IN." 


vals  came  to  hold  forth  in  the  neighborhood. 
Then  Ezekiei's  voice: 

"  Po'ly,  Parson.    'Light  ?  " 

"  No ;  I  'm  goin'  ter  lie  at  Sis'  Toomer's 
ter-night.  Will  see  yuh  out  ter  Zebberlon 
come  er-Sunday.  Th'  road  hain't  ther  bes"  an' 
hit  's  er-gittin'  dark  —  whoa!  Oh,  Ezekyel," 
—  she  heard  the  horse,  which  had  started, 
checked  again, —  "seen  Sal  Boler  'cross  the 
line  las'  month.  Th'  critter  she  war  er-j'inecl 
ter  es  dead."  The  girl  in  her  little  room  clasped 
her  hands  and  sunk  back  on  the  couch.  She 
could  but  hear  what  followed. 

"  Yuh  don't  say  !  " 

"  Be'n  dead  fo'  months  come  er- Friday.  She 
ain't  furgot  you,  Ezekyel."  Here  the  speaker 
chuckled.  "  She  do  say  that  ef  her  life  was  ter 
come  roun'  ter  be  lived  ergin,  she  'd  be  Mistis 
Ezekyel  Sykes  down  in  Raccoon  Holler." 

"  Did  Sal  say  hit  fur  er  fac',  Parson  ?  "  His 
voice  was  low. 

"  She  said  hit  fur  er  fac' ;  an'  Sal  hain't  er- 
need'n'  no  man  ter  git  vittuls  fur  her.  The 
Lord  he  has  blessed  her  more  'n  many  er 
prayin'  ooman  an'  the  mother  er  chillum,  er 
rer,  blessed  be  his  holy  name,  er  rer !  An'  I  say 
hit  er-wonderin',  not  er-findin'  fault.  Yes,  Sal 
's  got  Ian'  an'  stock ;  no  eend  er  stock." 

The  girl  heard  his  horse's  footfalls  echo  out 
in  the  distance.  She  waited  long.  Then  Eze- 
kiel  entered  the  kitchen,  and  she  followed 
quietly  and  placed  his  bread  upon  the  table. 
He  passed  into  the  only  remaining  room  with- 
out noticing  her. 

",  Ma,"  she  heard  him  say  quietly,  as  was 
his  way,  "  git  me  up  'bout  light.  I  'm  goin' 
ter  th'  yan  side  er  th'  mount'in  ter-morrer,  an' 
maybe  I  won't  git  back  afo'  Sunday." 

Dorinda  turned  and  went  out  as  silently  as 
she  came.  In  her  room  she  threw  herself  face 
down  upon  the  log-cabin  quilt  of  her  couch 
and  sobbed  herself  asleep. 


n. 

WHEN  Ezekiel  Sykes  arose  next  morning 
responsive  to  his  mother's  call,  daylight  was 
glimmering  faintly  on  the  mountain.  He  took 
from  its  pegs  his  red  jean  suit,  the  same  that 
Sal  Boler  had  so  often  seen  him  in,  now  a 
little  the  worse  for  wear,  donned  it,  putting 
on  his  one  other  cotton  shirt.  Then  he  slicked 
his  hair  with  marrow-fat  from  a  horn,  and 
throwing  his  boots,  well  greased,  across  his 
shoulder,  rolled  up  his  trousers.  Prepared  for 
his  journey,  he  proceeded  to  the  kitchen  and 
possessed  himself  of  a  cup  of  cold  coffee  and 
the  bread  put  aside  for  him.  As  he  was  passing 
out  his  mother  came  to  the  door. 

"  Fur  ther  Lor'  sakes,  Ezekiel,  whar  be  yuh 
goin'  ter,  boy  ?  " 


"  Ter  the  yan  side  o'  th'  mount'in,  Ma,"  he 
said  quietly.  Then  he  called  to  her  from  the 
outside:  "  I  reck'n  yer  hain't  ter  see  me  afo' 
Sunday." 

"  Well,  that  beats  my  times,"  she  said,  gaz- 
ing blankly  at  the  open  door.  Presently  she 
began  to  dress.  "  Sunday-meetin'  clothes  on, 
an'  hit  er  Chuesday  !  Hit  's  onpossible  thet 
Ezekiel  is  settin'  up  ter  er  gal  over  thar — " 
She  paused  with  her  dress  half  over  her  head. 
"  No,  hit  's  onpossible;  one  er  Ezekiei's  queer 
notions.  The  boy  never  war  jes  like  yuther 
boys.  Ter  think,"  she  said,  laughing  softly, 
"ter  think  of  folks  callin'  him  'Doctor'  — 
'  Doctor  Zeke ' !  But  hit  's  er  fac'  thet  he  do 
fech  sum  folks  'round  estonishin'ly,  an'  thet 's 
erbout  all  any  yuther  doctor  c'n  say." 

When  Ezekiel  Sykes  took  the  road  at  early 
dawn  he  went  northward;  and  as  he  strode 
along  he  whistled  softly.  A  great  change  had 
come  over  him.  He  carried  himself  erect,  as 
in  olden  times,  and  smiled  responsive  to  his 
thoughts.  If  Dorinda  could  have  seen  him 
then  she  would  have  said,  "  Hit 's  Zeke  come 
ter  his  own  se'f  ergin."  The  perfidy  of  Sal 
Boler  had  been  a  crushing  blow  a  year  be- 
fore; he  had  suffered,  and  his  pride  had 
been  altogether  annihilated.  From  a  self-laud- 
atory young  man  he  had  sunk  into  a  mo- 
rose and  thoughtfully  distrustful  one.  If  hi 
had  had  the  power  of  expression  he  might 
have  become  a  cynic  in  words,  as  he  was  in 
fact.  He  had  borne  up  pretty  well  under 
the  waning  fortunes  of  the  Sykes  family  and 
the  disasters  which  befell  them  all  through 
the  father ;  but  Sal's  conduct  finished  him  at 
one  fell  blow. 

" '  Ef  her  life  war  ter  come  roun'  ter  be 
lived  ergin,  she'd  be  Mistis  Ezekyel  Sykes 
down  een  Raccoon  Holler,'"  he  said  aloud; 
and  then  he  laughed.  It  had  been  many  a  day 
since  he  had  laughed  like  that,  and  he  realized 
the  change.  "  Zeke,  less  see  how  yer  look," 
he  added  jubilantly.  He  took  a  small  bit  of 
glass  from  his  coat  pocket,  thrust  it  behind 
the  scale  of  a  pine-tree's  bark,  and  solemnly 
surveyed  his  countenance. 

"  Hit 's  Zeke,"  he  admitted,  winking  and 
twisting  his  head.  "Zeke,  Ezekiel  Obadiah 
Sykes  —  Dr.  Zeke.  An'  I  reck'n  she  done  a 
long  sight  worser  'n  looks  when  she  j'ined  unto 
that  Calliny  feller,  ef  she  did  n't  in  Ian'  an' 
stock."  He  took  off  his  hat  and  bowed  to 
Ezekiel  in  the  glass,  and  smiled  at  Ezekiel  in 
the  glass,  and  rolled  his  tongue  at  Ezekiel  in 
the  glass.  "  Ezekiel,"  said  he  finally, "  ding  yuh 
ole  skin,  ef  I  wuz  ter  meet  yer  on  ther  road  I  'd 
say, '  Ther  goes  er  feller  fit  ter  run  er  gal  crazy.' 
I  would,  fer  er  fac'.  Yer  ar'  er  bad  un."  He 
winked  with  both  eyes  violently.  "  No  eend 
to  Ian'  an'  stock  !  " 


AN  IDYL    OF  "S1NK1N'   MOUNTING 


899 


With  a  loud  guffaw  he  returned  the  reflector 
to  his  pocket,  and  whistling  and  singing  i  .y 
turns  resumed  his  journey.  The  change  that 
had  come  over  him  was  marvelous. 

Ezekiel  had  covered  about  fifteen  miles  and 
was  upon  a  better  road  when  overtaken  by  a 
spanking  team  driven  by  a  good-natured,  easy- 
going young  man,  who  hailed  him  pleasantly. 

"  Ride,  stranger?" 

"  In  course,"  said  Zeke ;  "  an'  glad  ter  get 
hit.  How  fur  yer  travelin'?" 

"  Up  about  Red  Creek." 

"  Well,  now,  thet  's  what  I  calls  luck,"  said 
Zeke,  as  he  settled  down  on  the  proffered  seat. 
"So'm  I." 

The  young  man  smiled  at  the  speaker's  gen- 
eral appearance  and  manner.  His  own  shoes 
were  on  and  blacked,  and  there  was  a  well-bred 
business  look  about  him  that  Ezekiel  noticed. 

"  Be  yuh  er-stayin'  thar  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  stranger,  looking  at  him 
keenly  but  slyly.  "  Where  do  you  hail  from  ?  " 

"  Raccoon  Holler." 

"  Farming?" 

"  Some,  an'  er-docterin'  some." 

"  So !  You  are  a  doctor,  then.  Allopathic 
or  homeopathic?" 

Ezekiel  reflected.  "  Mostly  yarbs,"  he  said. 

His  companion  smiled  again.  "I  see;  one 
of  nature's  doctors.  Best  sort,-  after  all." 

Under  this  flattering  admission  Ezekiel  ex- 
panded at  once. 

"Think  so?" 

"  I  do,  indeed." 

Ezekiel  stretched  out  his  hand.  "  Glad  to 
know  yuh.  What  mout  be  your  name?" 

"  Tom  Summers." 

"  Dr.  Ezekiel  Obadiah  Sykes,"  he  said 
gravely. 

"  Glad  to  know  you,  Doc.  It  is  lonesome 
up  here ;  glad  to  have  your  company." 

"  'T  is  kinder  lonesome,"  admitted  Ezekiel. 
Then,  after  a  pause:  "  But,  stranger,  you  kinder 
fetched  me  erwhile  back  when  yuh  war  er- 
talkin'  'bout  natur'  an'  er-docterin'  'cordin'  ter 
natur'." 

"  Indeed ! " 

"  Thet 's  my  way.  I  hain't  be'n  ter  school, 
an'  what  I  got  war  picked  up  hyah  'n'  thar 
f 'om  one  'n'  ernuther.  Folks  got  ter  callin'  me 
'  Dr.  Zeke,'  an'  so  hit  goes ;  an'  Dr:  Zeke  hit 
ar'  till  now  ;  an'  some  er  um  'u'd  tell  yuh  thet 
Dr.  Zeke  knowed  er  thing  er  two  maybe  ef 
yer  asked  um." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  of  it." 

"  Hit  war  the  funniest  thing  th'  way  hit 
come  erbout — my  er-gittin'  ter  be  er  na- 
tur's  docter.  I  war  er-workin'  'roun'  on  the 
mount'in  er-huntin'  fur  arrer-root,  'n'  I  hearn  a 
voice,  as  plain  as  I  ar'  hy  arin'  them  horses'  foots, 
er-sayin':  'Dr.  Zeke,  give  natur'  what  natur' 


calls  fur,'  and  I  went  right  terstud'in',  day  in  an' 
day  out,  what  hit  meant.  But  one  day  Mistis 
Tooiner,  'roun'  th'  mount'in,  she  come  ter  me 
an'  says,  says  she,  '  Dr.  Zckc,  the  baby  ar' 
mortul'  sick  an'  ar'  continnerwally  er-cryin'  fur 
raw  'tatcrs  an'  fried  greens.' " 

"  And  you  gave  them  to  her  ?  " 

"  Quicker  ner  lightnin'  hit  come  ter  me 
what  war  meant  'bout  natur'  callin',  an'  I  says, 
says  I :  '  Mahaly  Toomer,  ef  the  baby  ar'  mor- 
tul' sick  an'  ar'  er-continnerwally  cryin'  fur  raw 
'taters  an'  fried  greens,  give  her  raw  'taters  an' 
fried  greens ' ;  an"  with  thet  I  warks  off  an' 
leaves  'er  stan'in'  in  th'  road  like  one  seized 
uv  er  sperrit.  Mahaly  told  our  folks  nex'  day 
thet  she  laid  out  thet  Dr.  Zeke  hed  done  gone 
plum  crazy,  but  bimeby,  er-knowin'  my  ways, 
she  up  an"  give  the  chile  hits  'taters  an'  fried 
greens." 

"  Death  was  instantaneous,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"Death!  Why,  ther  chile  ar' ter-day  ther 
out-str'ppinest  boy  in  Rabun  County." 

The  stranger  laughed. 

"  Well,  that  was  wonderful  indeed.  But 
Doctor,  seriously,  what  would  you  do  if  na- 
ture should  call  for  something  out  of  season  ?  " 

Dr.  Zeke  pursed  up  his  lips,  and,  looking 
out  across  the  mountains,  scratched  his  chin. 

"  Natur',"  he  said  presently,"  hain't  goin'  ter 
call  fur  thet  which  natur'  hain't  got  —  thet  is, 
ginerally.  But  hit  do  sometime  so  happen 
thet  way." 

"  Then  comes  practice  by  substitute."  The 
stranger  passed  the  reins  while  he  went  down 
into  a  leather  case  for  cigars. 

"No,"  said  the  doctor;  "hit  won't  work 
thet  er  way.  Now  thar  war  Sis'  Debory  Jink- 
ins,  which  word  come  es  how  she  war  seized 
with  er  longin'  fur  watermillion,  when  water- 
millions  war  long  gone;  an'  I,  knowin'  thet 
gourds  war  somewhat  arter  th'  make  er  th' 
watermillion, —  sorter  half  kin  on  one  side, 
anyhow, —  had  um  fetch  er  green  gourd,  an'  we 
put  hit  down  Sis'  Debory's  throat,  her  ma  er- 
holdin'  her,  fur  she  did  kick  pow'ful,  bein' 
natur'ly  of  a  contrerry  natur'  an'  havin'  no 
longin' fur  thet  eend  of  the  watermillion  family. 
We  put  it  down  her  throat  —  " 

"  I  suppose  it  satisfied  her  longing  for  water- 
melon." 

"  Yes,  hit  satisfied  her  longin'  fur  most 
ev'ythin'  fur  erwhile;  leastways,  she  never 
said  nuthin'  more  erbout  watermillions;  but 
Sis'  Debory  come  nigh  unter  death  with  colic 
afo'  mornin',  an'  sence  thet  time  I  hain't  hed 
faith  in  substytoots.  Ef  natur'  calls  fur  what 
natur'  hain't  got,  I  argy  thet  hit  ain't  Dr.  Zeke 
thet 's  ter  blame ;  an'  I  ginerally  waits  ontel 
natur'  calls  fur  suthin'  ter  hand." 

Something  like  five  miles  had  been  covered 
during  the  exposition  of  the  Sykes  theory 


goo 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT' IN.' 


of  medical  practice,  when  Ezekiel  suddenly 
changed  the  subject. 

"  Stranger,  yuh  ever  hyar  er  th'  Widder 
Martin  —  Sallie  Boler  thet  war,  up  een  Red 
Crick  settlement  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  indeed.  Nice  woman  she  is,  too." 
The  stranger  spoke  without  hesitation.  Eze- 
kiel was  silent  for  a  full  minute ;  then,  unable 
to  contain  the  secret  any  longer,  he  continued : 

"  Well,  hit 's  'bleeged  ter  come  out.  1  'm  er- 
courtin'  th'  same." 

"  Indeed !  Bully  boy,  and  good  luck  to  you ! 
Is  she  pretty  well  fixed  ?  " 

"  Fixed  ?  " 

"  Got  any  land  —  money  ?  " 

"  Er  whole  county,  an'  no  eend  er  stock." 

"  Go  in,  old  fellow,  and  win  !  "  said  his  com- 
panion impressively.  "  And  you  are  really 
courting  her  ?  " 

"  Thet  's  what  er  said.  Ever  meet  her, 
stranger  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes.  The  widow  and  I  are  good 
friends." 

"Yuh  don't  say!" 

"  We  are,  indeed." 

"  Then,  stranger, yuh  stop  erlong  'ith  us  ter- 
night.  She  '11  be  pow'ful  glad  ter  see  'er  ole 
friend,  an'  anybody  thet  Ezekiel  Sykes  brings 
'11  be  welcome  ter  the  bes'." 

For  a  full  hour  and  a  half  Ezekiel  held 
forth  upon  the  subject  that  was  consuming 
him,  but  when  at  length  they  reached  a  little 
branch  he  called  "Whoa  !  "  and  the  willing 
horses  came  to  a  halt. 

"  Stranger,"  said  he,  "  will  you  hole  up  er 
minute  tell  I  spruce  er  bit?" 

"  Why,  certainly." 

Ezekiel  alighted  from  the  buggy,  and,  wash- 
ing his  feet  in  the  stream,  wiped  them  upon  the 
grass  and  drew  on  his  boots.  After  this  he 
stuck  the  little  glass  in  a  tree  again,  put  on  his 
coat,  and  producing  a  faded  red  cravat  pro- 
ceeded to  tie  it  about  his  neck.  Then  he 
combed  his  well-oiled  locks  with  his  fingers. 

"  Thet  '11  do  fur  th'  widder,"  he  said  as  he 
climbed  back  into  the  buggy. 

The  two  journeyed  along  pleasantly  until 
the  summit  of  the  ridge  was  reached  and  the 
opposite  valley  lay  spread  before  them.  Here 
the  stranger,  after  a  few  minutes'  reflection, 
said,  his  eyes  twinkling: 

"  Dr.  Sykes,  perhaps  I  ought  to  have  men- 
tioned it  before,  but  the  fact  is  I  married 
Widow  Martin  myself  two  weeks  ago." 

Ezekiel  looked  at  him  blankly  for  a  full 
minute,  then  reached  out  and  caught  the  lines, 
and  with  a  slow  steady  pull  brought  the  horses 
to  a  standstill.  The  stranger's  face  was  as 
calm  and  impassive  as  a  June  sky. 

"  Yuh  don'  say  !  "  he  exclaimed  in  a  hoarse 
whisper. 


"  Fact.  But  don't  turn  back  on  that  account. 
Any  friend  of  mine  will  be  welcome  to  Sal. 
Besides,  she  wants  to  see  you,  for  I  have  heard 
her  say  so." 

Ezekiel  still  surveyed  him  piteously.  Then 
he  slowly  reached  down  and  drew  off  first  one 
and  then  the  other  boot.  His  cravat  was  re- 
turned to  his  pocket.  Springing  to  the  ground, 
he  caught  the  line  nearest  him. 

"  Stranger,"  he  said,  "  Widder  Martin's  new 
husbun  's  er-goin'  ter  get  whupped !  Oh,  yuh 
need  n'  laugh ! " 

"  Sykes,"  said  his  late  companion,  wiping 
the  tears  from  his  eyes  and  still  shaking,  "  let 
go  that  line." 

"  I  'm  th'  bes'  man  in  Rabun  County,"  said 
Ezekiel,  dancing  in  the  road.  "  Come  down, 
come  down ! " 

"  You  're  the  biggest  fool ! " 

Ezekiel  was  fairly  boiling  with  rage. 

"  Light,  light !  "  he  yelled.  Then  as  the 
stranger  made  no  motion  to  comply,  Ezekiel 
began  to  kick  the  nearest  horse  in  the  stomach 
with  all  his  might,  and  that  animal  responded 
by  rearing  and  plunging  violently.  The 
stranger  "  lit."  Unfortunately  for  Ezekiel,  he 
was  caught  in  the  act  of  pulling  off  his  coat. 
He  was  a  doomed  man  from  the  outset.  For 
about  three  minutes  there  was  an  animated 
spectacle  in(the  road,  and  then  Ezekiel  fled 
from  the  spot,  as  was  perfectly  proper,  since 
he  could  have  accomplished  nothing  desirable 
by  remaining,  and  the  stranger  was  at  white 
heat.  Kicking  the  horse  had  upset  his  temper 
completely. 

"  Confound  the  fellow  !  "  he  said ;  "  I  've  a 
great  mind  to  carry  off  his  boots  and  coat." 

But  he  did  not,  and  nature's  physician  re- 
gained them  when  the  coasts  were  cleared, 
and,  bleeding  and  dazed,  took  the  back  track. 
At  the  little  branch  he  stuck  his  glass  in  the  tree 
again  and  began  an  examination  of  himself. 
One  eye  was  nearly  closed,  his  lip  was  cut, 
and  his  nose  was  swollen.  Minor  injuries 
helped  to  make  him  the  unhappiest  of  mor- 
tals. Long  time  he  studied  himself  in  silence. 
Presently  he  said,  a  great  tear  oozing  from  the 
blackened  eye : 

"  Ef  'e  had  n'  er-got  een  thet  ar  fust  sub- 
binder  unner  thet  ear,  afo'  I  got  out'n  th' 
coat,  Widder  Martin's  new  husbun  'u'd  er-be'n 
in  er  worser  fix  'n  thet."  He  checked  the  tears 
and  examined  himself  critically.  Finally  he 
said  more  calmly :  "  Hit  war  done  complete 
an'  no  mistake." 

As  he  slowly  and  painfully  resumed  his 
journey  homeward  he  added:  "'  Ef  her  life 
war  ter  come  round  ter  be  lived  ergin,  she  'd 
be  Mistis  Ezekyel  Sykes  down  een  Raccoon 
Holler,'  she  would  !  "  He  shook  his  head  piti- 
fully:  "O  Sal,  Sal;  my  heart  ar'  plum  broke!" 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT'IN: 


901 


in. 


"  LAH  sakes,  Ezekiel,  what  ails  yuh, boy?" 
Again  the  shadow  of  the  great  mountain  was 
deepening  over  the  little  cottage,  when,  foot- 
sore, bruised,  weary,  and  disconsolate,  Kzekicl 
Sykes  dragged  himself  in  through  the  open 
gate  and  dropped  his  boots  upon  the  floor 
of  the  porch,  his  coat  beside  them.  His 
mother's  salutation  roused  him,  and  he  raised 
a  quizzical  face  to  hers  —  a  face  which  surely 
only  a  mother  could  have  recognized.  A 
faint  smile  flittered  among  the  few  clearings 
upon  it  —  a  dim  ghost  of  his  old  smile. 

"  Be'n  ter  th'  yan  side  of  the  mount'in,  Ma ! " 
He  sank  upon  the  top  step  and  rested  his  chin 
upon  his  hand.  "  An'  I  hain't  er-torkin'  much 
erbout  hit  ter-night." 

The  woman  checked  her  second  exclama- 
tion. She  was  used  to  the  young  man's  moods; 
and,  besides,  the  results  of  the  fist  and  skull 
fights  were  perfectly  familiar  to  her  in  that 
rough  country  of  green  whisky  and  exciting 
elections.  But  for  Ezekiel  to  come  home  in 
these  piping  days  of  peace  bearing  evidences 
of  having  figured  on  the  losing  side  of  a  scrim- 
mage was  altogether  novel. 

"  Ezekiel,"  she  said,  "  tell  yuh  ma  how  hit 
come  erbout?"  Ezekiel  ejected  a  stream  of 
tobacco-juice  from  between  his  swollen  lips, 
and  wiped  them  gently  with  the  back  of  his 
hand. 

"  Hit  all  come  uv  one  sub-binder  unner 
thet  ar  ear;,  hit  war  lammed  when  I  war  er- 
pullin'  out  er  my  coat  an'  my  arm  hit  war 
stickin'  ter  the  sleeve.  Ef  th'  mount'in  hitse'f 
hed  er-fell  thar,  hit  'u'd  er-be'n  erbout  ther  size 
er  thet  ar  lick.  But,  Ma,  cook  suthin'  quick. 
Hit 's  be'n  nigh  onter  two  mortul  days  sence 
I  eat.  I  did  n't  want  nobody  er-laughin'  at 
Ezekiel  Sykes,  an'  so  I  come  honggry  all  ther 
way  back." 

"  Why,  sakes  erlive,  ther  boy  mus'  be  er-per- 
isliin'.  Set  right  thar,  Ezekiel,  an'  don't  yuh 
move  er  peg  tell  I  git  er  pone  er  bread  an' 
er  pot  er  coffee." 

The  good  woman  bustled  off  and  disap- 
peared. While  this  brief  scene  was  enacting, 
Dorinda  stood  within  the  shadows  of  her 
little  room,  her  fingers  clasped  and  eyes  set 
eagerly  upon  the  pair.  Her  mother's  form 
had  but  disappeared  in  the  kitchen  when  she 
glided  out  and  sank  upon  her  knees  at  the 
young  man's  side,  her  hand  upon  his  shoulder. 

"  O  Zeke,  Zeke ! "  she  whispered,  "  lemme 
do  suthin'  fur  yuh !  Are  yuh  hurled  bad, 
Zeke?" 

He  gazed  at  her  with  his  one  open  eye  a 
full  minute  before  replying.  The  look  was  so 
comical,  so  utterly  foreign  to  him,  so  pathetic 
withal,  that  she  finally  threw  her  head  back 


and  laughed  until  the  valley  seemed  to  swarm 
with  silvery  echoes.  Ezekiel  blinked  wisely 
at  her. 

"  D'rindy,"  he  said,  "yuh  better  laugh  fur 
two;  I  ain'  ekil  ter  any  ter-night." 

And  so  she  did.  Her  emotion,  which  was 
deeper  than  the  occasion,  ran  off  in  laughter 
that  approached  the  hysterical. 

"  O  Zeke !"  she  gasped,  "  s'posen  thet  ar 
pictur'  man  hed  er-took  yer  ter-day ! "  Zeke's 
queer  smile  came  out  again,  gamboled  pitifully 
in  the  small  clearings  of  his  countenance,  and 
went  back  with  a  suddenness  that  was  gro- 
tesque. The  girl  was  still  holding  her  sides,  but 
presently  she  wiped  her  eyes  with  her  apron. 

"  O  Zeke,"  she  said,  "I  'm  so  sorry!  What 
kin  I  do  fur  yuh  ?  " 

"  Natur'  is  er-callin'  fur  suthin'  ter  go  in- 
nards," he  declared  oracularly, "  sech  es  Ma 
gits  up;  an'  I  reck'n  as  how  natur'  ought  ter 
be  callin'  fur  suthin'  ter  go  outside.  Git  some 
water,  D'rindy.  Ef  hit  had  n'  er  be'n  fur  thet 
ar  leadin'  sub-binder  — "  But  the  girl  had  glided 
into  her  room  and  caught  up  her  crock.  She 
sped  out  to  the  little  rivulet,  sparkling  icy  cold 
from  the  spring.  Presently  she  came  back 
with  it  full  and  placed  it  on  the  step. 

"  Now,  Zeke,"  she  said, "  yuh  jes  set  down 
thar  on  th'  nex'  step  an'  lay  yuh  head  in  my 
lap  —  so!  Now  keep  still."  Her  plump  little 
hand  cupped  water  against  the  swollen  places 
of  his  head,  and  as  she  bathed  them  thus  the 
young  man,  soothed  and  quieted,  ever  and 
anon  gazed  up  into  her  violet  eyes  and  flushed 
face. 

"  I  declar'  ter  goodness,  D'rindy,"  he  said, 
seeking  for  some  way  to  express  his  gratitude, 
"  yuh  han'  's  es  sof  es  er  moss-patch,  an'  yuh 
es  putty  es  th'  sunset  on  th'  mount'in." 

"  Shet  yer  jaw,  Zeke ;  yer  pokin'  fun  at  me  ! 
An'  yuh  eyes  can'  see  ter-night,  nuther." 

Still  her  heart  beat  fast  and  strong.  It  was 
the  first  compliment  a  man  had  ever  paid  to 
her  looks.  She  might  live  out  her  lonely  life 
unblessed  here  in  the  valley,  and  the  horizon 
of  her  daily  existence  be  the  long  blue  peaks 
and  her  simple  household  duties ;  but  the 
memory  of  the  words  that  she  had  heard 
would  dwell  with  her  always.  Her  soul  could 
thrive  upon  a  crust  that  other  women  would 
spurn. 

Silence  fell  upon  them,  the  gliding  water 
lapping  the  bruised  face  and  lullabying  the 
perturbed  spirit,  the  soft  hand  of  the  girl 
weaving  a  spell  for  the  wounded  warrior. 
Long  time  they  sat  thus,  and  ever  and  anon 
his  single  eye  sought  the  face  above  it.  Some- 
thing of  wonder  was  stirring  within  him. 
Hers  was  a  beautiful  face;  he  had  never 
known  it  before.  He  had  seen  it  a  thousand 
times ;  how  was  it  that  the  fact  had  escaped 


902 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT' IN.' 


him  ?  "  She  ar'  putty  as  ther  sunset  on  ther 
mount'in,"  he  assented  dreamily,  indorsing  his 
o\vn  compliment;  "an'er  dern  sight  puttier." 
The  remaining  orb  blinked  at  her  dreamily 
and  closed  beside  its  mate. 

"  What  yuh  sayin',  Zeke  ?  " 

"  I  war  er-sayin'  er  dern  sight  puttier ;  thet  's 
what  I  war  er-sayin',"  he  answered  faintly. 

"  Who  ?  "  she  asked  softly.  Then  presently 
she  added,  "Sal  Boler?"  One  of  Ezekiel's 
eyes  opened  wide;  the  other  struggled  in  vain 
beneath  its  thick  blue  curtain. 

"  Who  said  Sal  Boler  ?  " 

She  turned  her  face  away  and  fixed  her  gaze 
upon  the  distant  peaks.  Her  reply  was  just 
audible  and  full  of  pathos: 

"  Yuh  went  thar,  Zeke.  I  did  n'  mean  ter 
hyah  hit,  but  th'  parson  talked  so  loud.  War 
she  trooly  a  widder,  Zeke,  an' — an' — did  she 
trooly  wanter  come  back  an'  be  —  Mistis  Eze- 
kiel  Sykes  down  een  Raccoon  Holler?" 

It  was  out  at  last ;  and  the  sentence  seemed 
to  end  almost  in  a  moan.  One  tear  fell  down 
from  above  him,  but  it  splashed  only  the  little 
hand  that  soothed  his  wounds. 

"  D'rindy,"  he  answered,  after  a  long  silence, 
"  I  had  er  mine  ter  keep  my  jaws  shet,  but 
hit  ain't  no  use  now.  An'  I  don't  care  noway. 
D'rindy,  Sal  Boler  hes  done  j'ined  ter  er  city 
feller,  an'  hit  war  him  what  shet  thet  ar  eye! 
Hit  makes  yuh  jump,  an'  hit  made  me  jump  too, 
at  fust.  D'rindy,  ef  any  man  hed  er-said  ter 
me  yestiddy  mornin'  when  I  went  outer  thet 
gate, '  Ezekiel  Sykes,  Sal  Boler  is  j'ined  ter  er 
city  feller,  an'  th'  city  feller  is  goin'  ter  lick 
yuh  afo'  night,'  I  'd  er-said  he  war  er  dinged 
fool  ef  no  worser,  an'  ter  es  face.  But  them 
ar  is  ther  two  things  hes  come  erbout.  An'  I 
mus'  say,  thet  while  I  don'  think  no  better  er 
Sal  Boler,  but  on  the  contrarywise  do  set  her 
down  fur  er  huzzy,  hit  mus'  be  'lowed  thet  thar 
es  suthin'  more  in  city  fellers  'n  I  most  giner- 
ally  have  let  on ;  only  hit  ain't  er  fair  fight  ter 
open  up  'ith  sub-binders  on  the  ear  when  er 
man  is  hung  een  his  coat-sleeve." 

"  An'  did  yuh  see  'er,  Zeke  ?  " 

"  No.  I  seed  whar  she  war  said  ter  be  er- 
livin',  an'  then  me  an'  the  city  feller  thet  had 
gimme  a  lift  got  ter  jawm',  an'  hit  come  out 
thet  Sal  Boler  was  done  j'ined  unter  him  two 
weeks  or  more.  One  word  started  ernuther," 
he  added,  "  an'  ernuther  started  ther  sub- 
binder." 

Ezekiel  was  expanding  under  the  humane 
treatment,  and  could  afford  even  to  indulge  in 
pleasantry. 

Mrs.  Sykes  dissipated  the  charm  that  had 
been  woven  about  them  by  appearing  sud- 
denly with  a  great  quantity,  though  limited 
variety,  of  the  physic  that  "natur1 "  had  called 
for  in  behalf  of  Ezekiel,  and  to  which  the  pa- 


tient took  kindly,  not  to  say  greedily.  Dorinda 
watched  him  eat  with  a  vague  unrest  in  her 
heart.  There  is  nothing  at  any  time  attractive 
to  a  woman  in  the  sight  of  a  hungry  man  at  his 
meals.  But  when  Ezekiel  went  in  to  lie  down 
upon  his  mother's  bed,  as  he  used  to  when 
a  boy  when  tired  or  troubled, —  and  was  he  not 
still  her  boy?  —  the  deserted  girl  stood  up 
gazing  on  the  mountains  veiled  in  their  violet 
mists  into  which  the  blue  sky  of  the  end- 
ing day  was  melting,  their  depths  shot  with 
roseate  rays.  The  scene  was  miniatured  in 
her  shadowy  eyes,  where  a  softer  light  was 
beaming. 

"  He  's  come  back  free,  an'  he  said  my  han' 
war  soft  es  er  patch  er  moss,  an'  I  war  es 
putty  es  the  sunset  on  th'  mount'ins :  he  said 
hit ! "  Her  eyelids  drooped  over  their  orbs, 
and  her  chin  sunk  upon  her  breast.  Then, 
starting  as  from  a  dream,  she  followed  into 
the  house. 

THAT  night,  when  Dorinda  lay  dreaming  in 
the  little  shed-room  so  full  of  her  own  life,  there 
came  down  the  valley  a  deep,  booming,  roar- 
ing volume  of  sound,  and  the  house  trembled 
responsive  to  its  vibrations.  Nearer  it  ap- 
proached, and  her  room  was  filled  with  the 
fierce  light  of  an  electric  flash  which  seemed  to 
explode  there.  Blinded,  stunned,  terrified,  she 
groped  towards  the  door  and  lifted  the  latch. 
She  was  almost  thrown  down  by  the  storm 
that  burst  in  upon  her.  The  air  seemed  full 
of  timber,  stones,  and  flying  drift,  and  the  thun- 
der was  as  the  thunder  of  the  waters  that  come 
down  at  Tallulah  when  the  river  is  full.  Her 
voice  when  she  called  was  beaten  back  as 
feather  in  her  throat.  The  timbers  of  the  little 
room  seemed  about  to  fly  apart.  Gasping  with 
fear,  unable  to  close  the  door  against  the  mighty 
blast,  she  gave  herself  up  for  lost.  With  her 
limbs  benumbed,  she  tottered  and  fell.  There, 
as  she  lay  awaiting  death,  a  man  came  and  in 
the  screaming  fury  of  the  storm  lifted  her  in 
his  arms.  There  was  a  moment  in  which  the 
deluge  splashed  her  face  and  the  next  instant 
she  was  drawn  into  the  warm  kitchen.  She 
saw  by  the  tremulous  light  of  the  mysterious 
flame  the  half-blackened  face  of  Ezekiel  bent 
above  her,  and  faintly  as  one  calling  afar  off 
heard  his  mother's  voice : 

"  He  holds  th'  thunder  een  es  han' 
An'  rides  upon  th'  storm," 

just  as  the  parson  used  to  line  it  out  at  Zebu- 
Ion.  Then  came  darkness. 

When  Dorinda  gained  consciousness  her 
adopted  mother  was  bathing  her  face ;  they 
were  alo'ne,  Ezekiel  having  withdrawn  at  her 
command.  The  storm  was  now  at  its  height, 
and  the  room  was  full  of  the  sudden  and  fear- 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT  IN." 


9°3 


ful  blazes.  Dorinda  struggled  to  her  feet  again. 
Her  lips  moved  rapidly,  but  all  sound  was  lost 
in  the  din  of  the  battle  waged  about  them. 
Suddenly  she  broke  from  the  elder  woman's 
clasp  and  rushed  to  the  porch.  For  an  instant 
her  mother  thought  that,  crazed  with  fear,  she 
had  thrown  herself  into  the  storm,  but  in  the 
next  back  came  the  girl  through  the  furious 
elements,  drenched,  and  with  her  hair  blown 
wildly  over  her  half-nude  shoulders.  The 
lightning  trembled  over  and  seemed  to  lick 
her  form  from  head  to  foot,  and  by  the  sheen 
of  its  liquid,  wavy  flame  she  saw  that  the  girl's 
hand  clinched  the  little  photograph  of  Eze- 
kiel,  torn  from  its  frame  of  mica,  while  her 
face  in  its  beautiful  triumph  seemed  almost 
glorified.  The  secret  was  written  there. 

"  D'rindy,  D'rindy,  child ! "  she  cried.  "  Why 
hain't  yuh  tole  me  afo'  ?  " 

The  words,  screamed  as  they  were  in  the 
night  from  the  heart  of  the  woman,  did  not 
reach  the  girl,  who  covered  up  the  little  pic- 
ture in  her  chilled  bosom,  and  crouched  shiv- 
ering by  the  smoldering  fire.  Her  companion 
gazed  upon  her  piteously,  then  kneeled  beside 
her,  and,  pointing  upward,  moved  her  lips. 
Dorinda  understood,  and  followed  her  exam- 
ple. Still  raged  the  storm ;  such  an  one  had 
never  before  burst  upon  Raccoon  Hollow. 
Suddenly  there  was  a  noise  as  though  the 
mountain  itself  had  been  riven  asunder,  and 
the  house  shook  until  the  crockery  danced 
upon  the  shelves.  Then  all  grew  still.  Rising 
to  her  feet,  the  elder  woman  drew  the  shiver- 
ing girl  to  the  bed  where  the  old  man,  deaf 
to  the  storm  and  oblivious  of  life,  slept  the 
sleep  of  second  childhood,  wrapped  a  blanket 
about  her  and  thrust  her  under  cover. 

"  Ma,"  she  moaned,  and  the  word  sounded 
as  it  did  when  on  that  sad  day  years  ago 
the  kind-hearted  woman  received  her  as  a 
charge  —  "  Ma,  kiss  me  onct,  please " ;  just 
the  appeal  made  to  the  dead  that  lay  unre- 
sponsive to  its  frightened  offspring.  It  was 
the  first  time  that  she  had  used  it  since.  With 
tears  streaming  from  her  eyes,  the  woman 
bent  and  kissed  her  thrice,  and  her  lips  when 
she  rose  were  wet  with  the  tears  of  the  girl. 

"  An'  him  er-lovin'  nobody  but  ole  Tom 
Boler's  gal,"  she  said.  "  Hit  's  more  'n  I  kin 
make  out." 

IV. 

IN  the  morning,  when  Ezekiel  looked  forth 
from  the  doorway,  an  appalling  spectacle  met 
his  gaze.  The  mountain  had  actually  split 
asunder,  and  one  half  had  sunk  far  down 
below  the  other.  So  sharply  was  the  line  drawn 
that  a  great  pine,  yielding  one  half  its  trunk 
to  the  departed,  upreared  the  other  with  the 
firmer  rock,  its  white  riven  heart  blazing  the 


hillside  like  a  monument.  Pale  with  astonish- 
ment, E/A'kirl  gazed  long  upon  the  scene,  but 
there  was  something  yet  more  appalling  rc- 
served  for  him  —  not  a  ^talk  of  corn  was  loll 
in  the  valley.  His  mother  came  to  him  and 
was  silent  too  in  awe  at  the  desolation  appar- 
ent and  the  change  in  the  familiar  old  moun- 
tain. "All  gone,  Ma,  all  gone! ''  he  groaned. 
The  lips  of  the  pale  woman  trembled.  She 
was  wont  to  say  that  her  faith  was  like  the 
mountain,  but  was  not  the  mountain  split  at 
last  ?  Her  hand  rested  upon  him  as  it  had,  oh 
so  many,  many  times  when  trouble  oppressed 
them. 

"  Th'  Lord  '11  pervide,  Ezekiel.  He  kep' 
us  in  the  night,  an'  he  kin  keep  us  in  th'  day." 

"  I  be'n  hyarin'  that,  Ma,  all  these  years,  an" 
now  look !  Poorer  'n'  poorer  year  een  an'  year 
out.  Es  fur  me,  I  war  whupped  when  Pa  got 
inter  troubl'  'ith  the  law  an'  we  had  ter  sell  all 
ter  pay  out.  Th1  Lord  maybe  did  pervide,  but 
hit 's  be'n  mighty  hard  livin'  sence." 

"Hush,  Ezekiel!"  the  woman  whispered. 
"  Hit 's  blaspheemy  !  Leave  hit  erlone ;  th' 
righteous  '11  never  beg  bread ;  leave  hit  erlone. 
Th'  han'  thet  kin  split  mount'ins  kin  pervide 
fur  hits  own." 

The  light  had  comeback  to  the  weary  face, 
and  it  was  almost  beautiful  in  its  new  faith  as 
she  turned  humbly  and  went  about  her  house- 
hold duties.  But  Dorinda,  watching  her, 
thought  that  her  step  was  feebler  than  she  had 
ever  seen  it.  • 

"  Aun'  Betsey,"  she  said,  putting  her  arm 
upon  her  shoulder,  "  don't  yuh  give  up." 

"  Give  up  ?  No,  deary;  I  ain't  er-givin'  up. 
But  ef  ther  Lord  hed  er-tuck  us  las'  night,  I 
would  n'  er-lifted  er  finger  ter  hender  him. 
Hit  warn't  his  will,  D'rindy,  an'  I  'm  willin'  ter 
wait." 

It  was  a  gloomy  day  for  Raccoon  Hollow. 
Ezekiel,  under  the  lingering  pains  of  his  old 
misfortune  and  the  new,  wandered  about  dis- 
consolate, and  when  morning  dawned  again 
the  last  of  the  Sykes'  meal  went  into  pones  of 
bread. 

The  mystery  of  the  mountain  spread  far  and 
near.  The  day  upon  which  the  fortunes  of  the 
Sykes  family  seemed  at  their  lowest  ebb  was 
signalized  by  the  arrival  of  an  excursion  party 
from  The  Falls.  Ten  or  twelve  ladies  and 
gentlemen  on  horseback  and  in  vehicles  rode 
over  to  see  the  wonder,  bringing  a  well-ordered 
lunch.  They  chattered  over  the  catastrophe, 
climbed  the  mountain,  and  presently  the  ladies 
rendezvoused  at  the  little  house.  Here  the 
lunch  was  spread,  and  Dorinda  brought  water 
from  the  spring  and  rendered  many  little 
kindly  services.  After  lunch  the  party  swarmed 
unceremoniously  over  the  premises,  including 
Dorinda's  little  room,  which  delighted  them  as 


9°4 


AN  IDYL    OF  "SINKIN'   MOUNT  IN." 


much,  probably,  as  the  mountain  interested. 
Especial  attention  was  devoted  by  the  ladies 
to  the  delicate  traceries  upon  the  mica  frame,  to 
which  Ezekiel's  photograph  had  been  carefully 
restored.  A  handsome,  grave  young  gentleman 
was  asked  to  examine  it.  Hedidso,and  turning 
to  Dorinda,  whose  cheeks  flushed,  perhaps  by 
the  praise  already  bestowed,  asked : 

"  Where  did  that  mica  come  from  ?  " 

"Well,  now,  is  n't  that  just  like  Captain 
Moore !  "  exclaimed  one  of  the  ladies.  "  We 
were  not  talking  about  the  mica,  sir,  but  the 
tracings." 

He  smiled.  "  The  tracings  have  great  merit," 
he  said ;  "  but  there  is  more  money  in  mica 
that  will  split  into  such  large  clear  sheets 
than  in  all  the  art  that  can  be  put  upon  it. 
You  say  that  you  found  it  near  here?  "  This  to 
Dorinda. 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  And  will  you  go  with  me  to  see  it  in  the 
morning,  if  I  return  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  ef  yuh  wants  me,  an'  th'  moun- 
tain hain't  sunk  'ith  hit."  The  party  began  to 
prepare  for  departure.  Presently  there  was  a 
brief  consultation  among  the  gentlemen ;  then 
as  some  were  galloping  away  one  of  them 
approached  Mrs.  Sykes  and  poured  a  hand- 
ful of  small  silver  into  her  hand.  "  For  your 
kind  attentions,"  he  said.  Before  she  compre- 
hended he  mounted  and  galloped  away,  leav- 
ing her  speechless  with  surprise  and  emotion. 
Ezekiel  came  out  of  the  wood  where  he  had 
concealed  his  disfigurement  all  day,  and  there 
on  the  porch  he  and  Dorinda  found  her  sitting. 
Tears  were  running  down  her  cheeks,  and  she 
made  no  effort  to  restrain  them.  She  held  out 
the  hand  blessed  with  so  much  silver. 

"  Ezekiel,"  she  said,  and  then  her  eyes  lifted 
upward  and  finished  the  sentence.  He  com- 
prehended. 

"  Yes,  Ma,"  he  said  gently,  "  yuh  ar'  right 
an'  I  ar'  wrong,  es  ar'  most  commonly  true." 
But  the  girl  put  her  arms  around  her  and  kissed 
the  wrinkled  cheeks  in  silence. 

Early  the  next  day  sensitive  Ezekiel  took 
to  shelter  again,  for  Captain  Moore  kept  his 
promise.  Ezekiel  was  hidden  on  the  moun- 
tain, from  which  he  beheld  the  gentleman  and 
Dorinda  pick  their  way  across  the  rift  to  the 
far  side.  It  was  a  difficult  journey,  and  though 
the  girl  was  as  agile  as  a  deer,  Ezekiel  noticed 
with  a  queer  pain  at  his  heart  that  the  stranger 
insisted  upon  extending  his  hand  to  her  every 
time  occasion  offered,  and  that  it  was  always 
accepted. 

"Dad  blast  th'  feller!"  he  said:  "he'd 
better  git  her  ter  help  him,  stidder  him  er- 
helpin'  her." 

The  girl  was  in  a  particularly  merry  mood. 
Did  she  suspect  that  the  single  eye  of  the 


disfigured  doctor  was  upon  her  ?  She  was  a 
woman,  and  the  curious  can  argue  the  con- 
clusion. Her  laughter  rang  out  across  the 
rift,  and  he  found  himself  angry  and  uncom- 
fortable generally.  Heigh-ho,  Ezekiel  Sykes! 
You  cannot  understand  nature  after  all,  can 
you  ?  See  that  leap  she  just  made,  her  hair 
flying  and  poke-bonnet  waving.  How  beau- 
tifully done!  The  gentleman  does  not  fol- 
low—  ah,  but  he  does,  and  she  beams  upon 
his  success.  Look  out  above  your  bowlder, 
Ezekiel,  with  your  one  capable  eye,  and  mutter 
"  Dad  blast  him  ! "  as  much  as  you  please ; 
they  are  not  concerned  about  you. 

The  mica  was  found  more  than  ever  un- 
covered by  the  slide;  a  wonderful  seam  it 
was,  hemmed  in  by  quartz.  The  gentleman 
said  little,  but  was  evidently  deeply  interested. 
Finally  he  ascertained,  by  casual  questions, 
that  the  ownership  was  vested  in  Mrs.  Sykes. 
But  the  next  day  he  came  again,  and  again 
the  girl  accompanied  him.  He  was  trying  to 
follow  the  vein.  And  the  history  of  one  day 
was  as  the  history  of  its  predecessor,  even 
down  to  Ezekiel. 

But  at  last,  standing  over  the  mica,  the  cap- 
tain and  the  girl  held  a  long  and  earnest  con- 
versation. Ezekiel  saw  her  give  him  her  hand 
impulsively,  and  they  came  back,  her  face 
flushed,  her  eyes  sparkling.  The  truth,  as  it 
appeared  to  Ezekiel,  was  unmistakable,  and 
he  was  full  of  rage  when  he  saw  the  stranger 
depart  and  Dorinda  wave  her  bonnet  in  re- 
sponse to  a  wave  of  his  hat.  But  alas  for  Eze- 
kiel; there  was  no  time  for  questions.  A 
second  large  party  had  come  up  from  The 
Falls  and  swarmed  over  the  place,  and  back 
into  the  friendly  shadows  of  the  mountain  the 
young  man  carried  his  poulticed  ear  and  pic- 
turesque scars.  When  this  party  left,  the  hand 
of  the  trustful  and  hospitable  old  lady  was 
again  blessed  with  coin. 

So  ran  the  summer  away;  but  ere  it  had 
ended,  the  little  home,  or  "  Aunt  Betsey's,"  as 
it  had  come  to  be  known,  became  a  regular 
rendezvous  for  visitors,  who  got  there  midday 
meals,  bought  strings  of  bead-corn,  posies  of 
gay  flowers,  and  queer  bits  of  quartz  and  mica 
with  delicate  traceries  upon  them.  The  cow 
and  chickens  had  come  back ;  the  pigs,  too, 
returned;  yes,  and  the  bee-hives.  And  every- 
thing about  the  yard  straightened  up,  as  with 
new  life,  from  their  leaning  attitudes.  From 
the  rafters  of  the  kitchen  were  hung  yarns 
and  provisions  and  shoes  for  the  long  winter, 
and  scores  of  other  articles  for  home  use; 
and  on  the  shelves  were  bolts  of  cloth,  canned 
goods,  and  all  the  necessaries  of  life.  Dorinda's 
gown  was  as  nice  as  anybody's.  The  smile  of 
God  seemed  to  rest  upon  Raccoon  Hollow 
and  the  riven  mountain. 


AN  IDYL    OF  "S/JVA'/.V   MOUXTIN." 


9°5 


LOUK    OUT    ABOVE    YOUK     BOWLDER,     EZEKIEL. 


V. 


How  was  it  with  Ezekiel?  The  clouds  still 
hung  low.  The  intuition  of  the  young  woman 
had  placed  her  in  possession  of  his  secret 
before  he  knew  that  he  had  one,  and  with 
the  perversity  of  her  sex  she  turned  the  tables 
upon  him.  Her  smiles  were  distributed  among 
the  tourists,  and  she  learned  to  give  keen 
answers  to  their  good-humored  banterings. 
Often  he  had  tried  to  tell  her  of  his  misery, 
but  with  the  training  she  had  been  receiving 
from  the  beaux  and  coquettes,  he  was  no 
match  for  her.  One  day  she  went  to  him  with 
a  great  secret. 

"  O  Zeke !  "  she  said,  "  I  ar'  er-goin'  ter  tell 
yuh  suthin'.  Th'  parson  war  erlong  ter-day, 
an'  tickled  nigh  unter  death.  He  do  say  hit 's 
all  er  joke  erbout  Sal  Boler's  gittin'  j'ined  to 
thet  ar  city  feller,  which  war  er  drummer  an' 
er-foolin'  yuh.  Th'  parson  say  es  how  hit 's  all 
over  Calliny,  an'  folks  es  er-torkin'  erbout 
'Zeke  Sykes's  los'  widder.'"  She  held  her 
sides,  and  followed  up  the  information  with  a 
most  provoking  spasm  of  mirth.  Ezekiel  gasped 
for  breath.  His  voice  was  hoarse  when  he 
spoke  at  last. 

"  Th'  parson  tole  yuh  ?  " 

"  On  course.  He  come  straight  from  Sal's, 
an'  she  tole  'im  'ith  her  own  mouth.  Now  yuh 
kin  go  back,  an'  Sal  kin '  be  Mistis  Ezekiel  Sykes 
down  een  Raccoon  Holler.'  "  There  was  just 
the  faintest  tremor  in  her  voice,  but  Ezekiel 
was  beyond  the  comprehension  of  fine  shad- 
ings  then.  She  had  expected  an  outburst;  there 
was  none.  The  young  man  walked  off,  and 
the  signs  were  unmistakable;  he  was  crushed. 

"Zeke,  are  yuh  hurled  bad  sure  "nough?" 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  1 2<;. 


she  called  after  him  repentantly.  He  made 
no  reply.  When  he  came  back  later  she  was 
sitting  on  the  steps. 

"  Ma,"  he  said,  "  I  'm  er-goin'  ter  Th'  Falls, 
an'  maybe  I  won't  come  back  'n  er  week ;  an' 
maybe  hit  '11  be  two  er  'em.  They  do  say  es 
how  thar  ar'  more  chance  fur  mount'in  men  in 
Alabam',  an"  I  'm  er-gittin'  sorter  worrit  down 
here.  I  '11  tork  ter  yuh  when  I  'm  done  torkin' 
ter  them  thet  knows.  Thar  be  some  erbout 
Th'  Falls  now  thet  knows."  He  kissed  her 
cheek,  an  odd  caress  for  Ezekiel,  and  affected 
not  to  see  her  anxious  look. 

"  Good-bye,  D'rindy,"  he  said,  as  he  passed 
her  on  the  steps.  "  New  frien's  is  better  'n 
ole  frien's."  A  great  lump  rose  in  the  girl's 
throat;  she  could  not  speak.  He  passed 
through  the  gateway  and  took  the  road  that  led 
to  The  Falls,  walking  listlessly.  She  watched 
him  for  a  moment,  then  rose  and  darted  after 
him,  her  light  step  giving  out  scarcely  a  sound. 
If  he  heard,  he  made  no  sign.  Presently  she 
laid  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  and  then  he 
turned  and  looked  down  into  the  violet  eyes, 
while  a  trembling  seized  him. 

"Zeke,"  she  said,  a  little  smile  quivering 
upon  her  lips, "  when  yuh  git  ter  Alabam'  won't 
yuh  write  er  letter  ?  " 

"  One  writes  ter  yuh  now,  an'  one  es  er- 
nough."  He  blurted  the  words  out  and  drew 
from  under  her  touch. 

"  O  Zeke ! "  She  looked  at  him  with  such 
reproach  that  he  was  half  ashamed.  Then  she 
laughed,  pointing  her  finger  at  him.  "Zeke,  I 
do  berlieve  yuh  er-slippin'  off  ter  court  Sal 
Boler  ergin."  She  bent  almost  double  with  the 
idea. 

"  No,  I  be  n't,"  he  said  hoarsely. 


go6 


AN  IDYL  OF"SINKIN'  MOUNTAIN." 


"Yuh  ar',  Zeke.  Yuh  ar'!  An'  O  Zeke,  ef 
yuh  be,  look  out  fur  drummers  on  th'  road!" 

He  turned  and  strode  off  without  a  word 
more.  She  leaned  her  back  against  a  tree  weak 
with  laughing,  her  feet  thrust  out  in  front. 
Presently  she  called  him. 

"  Zeke ! "  He  turned  and  glared  back  at  her 
in  silence.  "  Zeke  Sykes,"  she  continued,  "  yuh 
ar'  er  bigger  fool  'n  I  seen  this  year,  an'  thnr  ar' 
be'n  some  big  ones  'round  hyar,  th'  Lord 
knows."  Her  face  was  flushed  and  she  held 


"  Well,"  said  Ezekiel  finally, "  I  war  er  fool 
mos'  trooly." 

Two  more  incidents  close  the  idyl  of"  Sink- 
in'  Mount'in,"  as  Zeke's  sign-board  at  the  fork 
of  the  roads  has  it.  The  captain's  letters, 
spelled  out  with  much  labor,  gave  assurance 
of  a  sale  of  the  mica  deposit  at  a  good  price. 
This  is  one.  The  other  is:  In  the  closing 
hours  of  the  season,  Ezekiel,  wandering  about 
the  hotels,  met  face  to  face  the  drummer 


"ZEKE,  TAKE  ME  ERLONG  TER  ALABAM',   WON'T   YUH?" 


out  her  arms.  "Zeke,  take  me  erlpng  ter 
Alabam',  won't  yuh  ?  "  He  came  back  doubt- 
ing, but  the  arms  were  not  lowered,  and  into 
them  he  walked,  speechless  with  the  change 
from  despair  to  happiness.  He  held  her  a  long 
time. 

"  D'rindy,"  he  said,  "  an"  yuh  love  me  arter 
all?" 

"  Yes,  an'  afo'  all  —  f 'om  th'  fus  time  when 
yuh  used  ter  tote  me  on  yuh  back  over  ther 
rocks.  O  Zeke !  I  hain't  never  loved  nobody 
else  in  th'  whole  worl'  but  yuh."  Tears 
crept  from  under  the  half-closed  eyelids,  and 
then  there  was  silence  as  he  pressed  her  close 
to  him. 


who  had  made  him  a  jest  throughout  one 
corner  of  Carolina.  He  spoke  not  a  word, 
but  kept  his  eye  on  the  practical  joker  until 
he  had  drawn  his  own  arms  entirely  free  of 
that  fatal  coat  and  dropped  it  to  the  earth. 
Then  he  slapped  his  thigh. 

"  Stranger,"  he  said,  "  yuh  be  lookin'  on 
K/,ekiel  Obadiah  Sykes." 

A  smile  came  to  the  other's  face. 

"  Ah ! "  said  he.    "  '  Natur's  doctor.'  " 

"Th'  same.  Stranger,  Sal  Boler's  husbun 
thet  wa'n't  ar'  goin'  ter  git  whupped  een  er- 
bout  two  minnuts."  He  launched  forth  with 
a  mighty  sub-binder,  and — well,  truth  is 
truth  —  the  next  instant  was  knocked  off  his 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  LEAVES. 


907 


"STUNNED,  DIZZY,   AND  ASTOUNDED." 


feet  flat  on  his  back.  Rising  to  a  sitting  posi- 
tion, stunned,  dizzy,  and  astounded,  he  gazed 
a  moment  up  into  the  smiling  face  of  the 
scientific  boxer  above  him. 

"  Ezekiel,"hesaid  to  himself  softly,"  Ezekiel 
Sykes,  yuh  be  er  dinged  fool  mos'  trooly." 
Slowly  picking  up  his  coat,  he  turned  his  back 
on  the  assembling  crowd  and  took  the  road 
for  Raccoon  Hollow.  As  he  approached  the 


house  after  his  long  journey  the  humor  of 
the  situation  overcame  him,  and  he  chuckled 
quietly  to  himself. 

"Th'  feller  be  full  er  sub-binders  es  er 
hog  be  full  er  fleas,"  he  said;  and  then  as 
Sinking  Mountain  rose  before  him  he  added, 
cocking  one  eye  and  coming  to  a  standstill : 
"  Hit  ain't  onpossible  thet  hit  war  th'  same 
chap  busted  thet  ar  mount'in!" 

H.  S.  Edwards. 


THE    LESSON    OF   THE    LEAVES. 

OTHOU  who  bearest  on  thy  thoughtful  face 
The  wearied  calm  that  follows  after  grief, 
See  how  the  autumn  guides  each  loosened  leaf 
To  sure  repose  in  its  own  sheltered  place. 

Ah,  not  forever  whirl  they  in  the  race 

Of  wild  forlornness  round  the  gathered  sheaf, 
Or  hurrying  onward  in  a  rapture  brief, 
Spin  o'er  the  moorlands  into  trackless  space ! 

Some  hollow  captures  each ;  some  sheltering  wall 
Arrests  the  wanderer  on  its  aimless  way ; 
The  autumn's  pensive  beauty  needs  them  all, 

And  winter  finds  them  warm,  though  sere  and  gray. 

They  nurse  young  blossoms  for  the  spring's  sweet  call, 
And  shield  new  leaflets  for  the  burst  of  May. 


Thomas   IVentworth  Higginson. 


BIRD    MUSIC:     SONGS    OF    THE 
MEADOW-LARK. 


WESTERN 


MONG  the  song- 
birds  of  Colo- 
rado none  have 
more  completely 
won  my  interest 
and  admiration 
than  the  meadow- 
lark  of  the  West 
(Stiirnella  neglecta).  Popularly  called  a  lark, 
he  is  really  a  member  —  and  that,  too,  an 
important  one  —  of  the  American  starling 
family,  which  includes  the  orioles,  and  is 
quite  different  from  the  starlings  proper.  He 
is  the  warbler  par  excellence  among  all  the 
varieties  of  songsters  that  in  this  region  have 
come  under  my  notice,  and  I  doubt  if  the 
"  lark  of  the  poets  "  (Alauda  arvensis)  is  more 
than  a  rival  of  this  wondrous  singer  of  the 
plains.  The  soaring  lark  may  have  greater 
lung  power,  but  hardly  can  his  tones  be  more 
clear  and  liquid,  or  his  repertory  of  songs  con- 
tain a  more  varied  selection.  He  is  certainly 
inferior  in  personal  beauty,  and  he  sings  as  he 
flies,  while  the  meadow-lark  of  the  West  makes 
any  convenient  post,  rock,  or  tuft  of  grass  or 
weeds  his  stage,  and  there  sings  to  you  by  the 
hour. 

I  first  saw  and  heard  him  in  Estes  Park,  a 
mile  and  a  half  above  tide-water,  at  the  foot 
of  Long's  Peak.  Our  camping-party  had  gone 
up  from  the  hot,  dusty  plains  through  the  pic- 
turesque canon  of  the  St.  Vrain,  and  late  in 
the  afternoon  we  had  our  first  view  of  this 
beautiful  mountain  valley,  which  is  justly  cele- 
brated as  the  finest  among  the  smaller  parks 
of  Colorado. 

At  break  of  day  I  sallied  out  to  search  with 
hook  and  line  some  of  the  cool  retreats  of  the 
trout  which  I  had  seen  nearby  on  the  previous 
evening. 

Suddenly,  as  I  was  wending  my  way  down 
the  brook,  up  from  the  dewy  grass  with  a  whir 
of  swift  wings  rose  the  meadow-lark  of  the 
West,  and,  perching  near  by  upon  the  green 
branch  of  a  stunted  pine,  greeted  me  with 
this  original  and  melodious  "  Good-morning  " : 


Nor  was  he  content  with  a  single  greeting;  a 
dozen  at  least  he  gave  me  in  the  same  vein. 
The   sun,  just   then  appearing   above  the 


mountains  at  the  eastern  rim  of  the  park,  gave 
me  a  full  view  of  the  charming  songster.  In 
size  like  a  robin,  only  having  a  stouter  body, 
his  back,  wings,  and  tail  were  of  a  brownish- 
gray  color,  mottled  in  several  shades,  while 
circling  around  under  his  neck  and  across  his 
sulphur-yellow  breast  lay  a  necklace  of  feath- 
ers as  black  as  jet.  As  he  began  his  songs,  he 
gracefully  turned  his  pretty  head  towards  the 
sky,  disclosing  more  fully  the  rich  adornments 
of  neck  and  breast,  and  then  poured  forth  his 
liquid  notes. 

We  often  heard  him  during  the  two  months 
which  we  spent  in  the  park,  but  in  all  that 
time  I  noticed  only  this  one  song.  It  is  more 
than  probable  that,  not  looking  for  any  variety 
in  his  melodies,  I  heard  others  without  ascrib- 
ing them  to  him  as  their  source;  for  during  the 
spring  and  summer  months  the  bird  abounds 
in  the  high  valleys  of  the  range  in  this  lati- 
tude, making  its  appearance  there,  however, 
somewhat  later  in  the  season  than  when  it  ap- 
pears upon  the  plains  below.  Yet  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  the  meadow-lark  attains 
its  highest  perfection  in  song,  and  in  some 
minute  features  which  distinguish  this  variety 
of  the  species,  only  on  the  great  central  plains, 
where  the  atmosphere  is  notably  free  from 
moisture,  and  the  natural  verdure  is  scant  and 
short-lived.  It  is  possible,  also,  that  the  very 
dryness  of  the  air  on  this  high  plateau  may 
exert  a  decided  influence  upon  the  quality  of 
his  tones,  rendering  them,  though  lou'1  mel- 
low and  enchanting. 

However  slight  the  technical  po.nts  in 
which  this  songster  may  differ  from  the  Eastern 
meadow-lark,  the  difference  in  song  is  cer- 
tainly very  marked,  as  noted  by  all  observers 
since  Audubon.  While  there  is  much  greater 
variety,  there  is  also  a  quality  (timbre)  in 
his  tones  which  would  make  them  seem  al- 
most out  of  place  in  an  Eastern  grove  or 
meadow.  They  are  also  loud  enough  to  be 
heard  a  long  distance,  even  in  the  face  of 
the  stiff  breezes  which  blow  here  during 
much  of  the  time  that  the  birds  make  their 
sojourn  with  us.  The  sweet  and  mellow  char- 
acter of  flute  tones,  or  those  of  the  smaller 
kinds  of  wooden  organ-pipes,  would  perhaps 
give  a  musical  ear  some  idea  of  the  quality 
of  our  singer's  notes;  but  besides  this  they 
are  possessed  of  a  wild,  indescribable  quality 


SONGS   OF  THE    IVESTERX   M  I'.  A  DO  \\~-LARK. 


909 


that  is  in  strict  keeping  with  the  nature  of  his 
haunts  —  mountain  valleys  which  are  rude  and 
retired, and  the  treeless,  half-dreary,  semi-bar- 
baric plains  of  the  West.  He  is  heard  most 
frequently  in  the  twilight,  whether  of  morn- 
ing or  evening;  but  during  pairing  time  his 
SOUL;  may  be  heard  the  whole  day  long. 

It  is  said  by  good  authorities  that  the  bird 
is  half  domestic  in  its  habits,  preferring  the 
neighborhood  of  places  where  man  has  settled, 
and  where  the  culture  of  the  soil  affords  bet- 
ter sustenance.  Present  facts  go  far  to  support 
this  view,  for  they  are  certainly  to  be  found 
in  great  numbers  throughout  this  whole  region, 
where  systems  of  irrigation  have  changed  the 
barren  plains  into  rich  farms  anil  gardens. 
But  I  have  seen  and  heard  them  far  away 
from  the  haunts  of  men,  and  we  know  that, 
before  the  advent  of  settlers,  these  birds  fre- 
quented this  whole  region  in  as  great  numbers 
as  at  the  present  time. 

As  soon  as  the  rigor  of  winter  had  given  place 
to  the  warmer  days  of  spring,  the  meadow-larks 
appeared  upon  the  plains  about  my  present 
home.  At  first  few  in  numbers,  no  sooner 
had  the  plains  donned  their  summer  robes, 
and  the  flowers  become  lavishly  abundant, 
than  they  appeared  on  every  hand,  and  their 
songs  were  ever  filling  the  air  with  melody. 
I  have  thus  had  ample  opportunity  for  culti- 
vating the  acquaintance  of  the  meadow-lark 
and  observing  his  pleasant  ways.  I  have  al- 
ready spoken  of  the  variety  of  his  songs,  but 
not  until  last  spring  did  I  discover  this  novel 
feature,  which  few  birds  possess  in  so  remark- 
able a  degree.  Having  hitherto  supposed  that 
he  had  but  the  one  song  above  given,  I  noticed 
with  surprise  that  among  perhaps  six  or  seven 
birds  there  were  several  distinct  melodies. 
Sitting  upon  the  ridge-pole  of  the  barn,  one 
little  fellow  would  every  few  seconds  carol 
forth  this  melody : 


while  from  the  swaying  top  of  a  tuft  of  Mexican 
poppy  some  rival  singer  would  make  melo- 
dious answer  in  this  pleasant  strain: 


A  careful  look,  however,  showed  me  that  it 
was  none  other  than  my  meadow-lark  of  the 
West,  <  hanged  only  in  his  song. 

My  curiosity  was  at  once  aroused,  and  it 
occurred  to  me  to  preserve  the  songs  which  1 
might  hear  in  future,  together  with  the  two  al- 
ready known  to  me,  and  ln-1'ote  many  minutes  J 
had  put  upon  paper  a  faithful  copy  of  both  the 
old  and  the  new  melody  —  faithful,  at  least,  in 
so  far  as  mere  notes  can  represent  tones  of  su<  li 
purity  and  delightful  quality.  This  was  the 
"  Vesper  Hymn  "  which  greeted  my  ear  that 
quiet  evening  in  May  : 


and  it  was  a  score  of  times  repeated  so  clearly 
and  well  defined  that  by  no  possibility  could 
I  be  deceived  in  a  single  note. 

Lately,  upon  calling  the  attention  of  a  friend 
to  this  song  in  the  minor  mode,  she  indulged 
in  the  pardonable  fancy  that  the  bird  caught 
the  inspiration  of  the  hour,  and,  filled  with 
sorrow  by  the  fading  away  of  the  dying  day, 
poured  forth  his  lament  in  that  mournful  strain ; 
but  as  I  have  often  heard  the  same  song,  and 
others  in  minor  keys,  in  the  brightening  morn- 
ing and  at  midday,  I  fear  that  the  meadow- 
lark  does  not  indulge  in  sentiment,  at  least  to 
any  such  extent  as  that  of  choosing  his  songs 
in  obedience  to  any  influence  which  the  time 
and  scene  may  exert  upon  him. 

While  surprised  and  delighted  to  find  among 
my  feathered  friends  the  variety  of  songs  above 
mentioned,  I  was  by  no  means  prepared  for  a 
still  more  interesting  feature  which  soon  came 
to  my  knowledge.  One  evening  I  was,  as 
usual,  being  treated  to  a  garden  concert,  where 
singer  was  answering  singer,  and  each  was 
apparently  striving  to  outdo  the  others  in  the 
beauty  of  his  melody.  Here  and  there  on  every 
side  I  could  see  the  long  bills  and  slender  heads 
quickly  lifted  sky  ward,  and  hear  the  many  songs 
which  immediately  followed.  I  was  listening 
with  special  attention  to  the  nearest  songster, 
who  had  alighted  upon  the  fence  not  far  away, 
and  from  heaving  breast  and  swelling  throat 
was  pouring  forth  this  song,  which  was  at  that 
time  quite  new  to  me : 


I  first  noticed  this  variety  in  the  songs  of 
different  individuals  among  the  meadow-larks 
on  an  evening  in  May,  when  one  of  them 
came  and  took  possession  of  the  top  of  a  fence- 
post  near  where  I  was  sitting.  As  I  was  wait- 
ing in  expectation  of  hearing  the  melody 
already  familiar,  he  startled  me  with  a  strain 
so  plaintive  and  so  in  keeping  with  the  time 
and  scene,  that  I  at  first  doubted  his  being 
my  friend  of  the  early  morning  in  Estes  Park. 
VOL.  XXXVI.—  126. 


I  had  just  succeeded  in  imprinting  the  melody 
upon  my  memory,  when  another  and  also  un- 
familiar air  attracted  my  notice.  I  supposed 
that  some  rival  singer  had  stepped  to  the  front, 
and  looked  up  to  inspect  him ;  but  only  the 
one  bird  was  sitting  there.  Half  surmising  that 
I  was  on  the  brink  of  a  new  discovery,  I  gave 
him  my  whole  attention,  and  quietly  followed 
him  as  he  changed  his  perch,  taking  good  care 


gio 


BIRD  MUSIC. 


not  to  disturb  or  frighten  him.  I  was  soon  well 
rewarded  in  finding  that  the  two  songs  had  for 
their  author  and  singer  one  and  the  same  bird, 
and  that  occasionally  he  abruptly  changed 
from  the  melody  last  given  to  this  next  one, 
which  I  was  some  time  in  catching,  with  cer- 
tainty of  having  the  correct  pitch  and  intervals. 
Even  the  most  distinct  and  well-defined  war- 
blings  of  birds  are  not  so  readily  learned  as 
melodies  that  are  rendered  on  the  piano  or 
organ,  instruments  with  which  the  writer  has 
been  somewhat  familiar.  Here  is  the  second, 
and  peculiarly  quaint  one,  of  the  two  melo- 
dies : 


I  was  decidedly  pleased  to  find  this  new 
trait  in  my  favorite,  and  I  afterward  had  the 
opportunity  of  repeatedly  noticing  it.  I  think, 
however,  that  only  rarely  does  the  meadow- 
lark  change  from  one  melody  to  another  in 
close  succession,  but  that,  when  perched  for  a 
warble,  he  generally  sings  one  song,  repeating 
it  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  times,  at  intervals  of 
from  ten  to  thirty  seconds.  When  he  changes 
his  perch  he  usually  takes  up  the  same  strain 
again ;  but  occasionally  he  chooses  a  different 
melody  after  his  short  flight  from  one  tuft  of 
grass  or  weeds  to  another.  On  but  few  occa- 
sions have  I  heard  a  direct  variation  from  the 
song  which  he  sings  when  first  alighting  ;  but 
I  have  noticed  this  often  enough  to  become 
certain  that  it  does  sometimes  occur. 

I  have  also  observed  that  two  birds,  though 
singing  the  same  melody,  apparently  in  re- 
sponse the  one  to  the  other,  sang  it  in  different 
keys;  and  I  have  known  a  bird  to  choose 
another  key  in  his  reproduction  of  the  same 
song. 

Many  of  the  songs  of  the  meadow-lark  end 
abruptly,  as  though  the  singer  had  been  fright- 
ened and  thereby  interrupted.  This  feature, 
however,  gives  them  a  quaintness  which  lends 
a  charm.  This  is  one  of  the  songs  of  such  a 
nature : 


The  opportunity  has  been  often  afforded  me 
of  hearing  this  bird  singing  when  I  was  net 
more  than  four  or  five  feet  distant.  A  shed 
of  rough  boards  not  far  from  the  house  affords 
a  favorite  perch  for  my  pleasant  little  friends, 
and  just  below  them,  hidden  from  sight,  I  have 
many  a  time  listened  to  their  songs.  In  this 
way  I  have  been  enabled  to  detect  some 
features  which  are  not  apparent  at  a  distance. 
Instead  of  being  more  harsh,  as  are  many 
bird  notes  when  heard  so  near  the  singer,  the 
quality  of  the  tones  of  the  meadow-lark  is  deep- 


ened and  enriched  to  a  remarkable  degree.  In 
examining  the  throat  of  this  songster  one  must 
be  almost  at  a  loss  to  associate  tones  of  such 
strength  and  roundness  with  an  organ  so  small 
and  apparently  fragile.  As  some  kinds  of  deli- 
cate perfumes  have  the  power  of  transporting 
one  in  imagination  to  climes  where  luscious 
fruits  and  gorgeous  flowers  abound  in  endless 
profusion,  so  do  these  tones,  when  heard  very 
near  at  hand,  suggest  undiscovered  beauties 
of  sound  to  which  no  name  can  be  given,  and 
of  which  no  language  can  convey  an  idea. 

I  found  also  that  many  of  the  songs  end 
in  a  kind  of  musical  gurgle,  which  is  entirely 
inaudible  at  a  distance  and  resembles  noth- 
ing else  that  I  have  ever  heard.  The  fol- 
lowing melody  had  this  gurgle  appended  to  it, 
but  I  cannot  represent  it  in  notes : 


Here  it  may  be  said  that  the  songs  given  in 
this  article  by  no  means  exhaust  the  repertory 
of  the  Western  meadow-lark.  Some  I  have  had 
no  opportunity  of  learning,  and  others  are  so 
interwoven  with  sliding  notes  and  rapid  war- 
bles that  I  have  as  yet  found  it  impossible  to 
represent  them  accurately  in  musical  charac- 
ters, while  the  far  greater  number  doubtless  I 
have  never  heard. 

Besides  his  song  tones  and  melodies  the 
bird  has  a  cry  of  alarm  and  warning  which 
has  little  of  the  pleasing  character  of  his  other 
notes.  It  consists  of  a  sharp,  loud  chirp,  very 
rapidly  repeated,  and  there  is  no  fear  of  mis- 
interpreting its  meaning.  The  passage  given 
at  the  end  of  the  article  very  well  represents 
this  cry  in  notes,  but  I  know  of  no  instrument 
which  can  reproduce  it  faithfully.  In  walking 
over  the  short  buffalo-grass  of  the  plains,  and 
among  the  cactus  beds  which  infest  this  whole 
region  wherever  irrigation  has  not  destroyed 
them,  one  is  suddenly  startled  by  this  musical 
rattle,  and  turning  the  eye  in  the  direction  of 
the  sound,  the  meadow-lark  will  be  seen  skim- 
ming along  in  a  straight  line,  a  few  feet  from 
the  ground,  until  he  has  reached  a  safe  dis 
tance.  If  no  attempt  is  made  to  approach 
him,  the  listener  will  probably  be  treated  to  a 
song.  It  may  be  one  of  the  two  following,  which 
seem  to  be  favorites  with  some  of  the  singers : 


I    I) 

The  bird  nests  upon  the  ground,  choosing 
a  protected  spot:  it  may  be  a  bunch  of  weeds, 
or,  if  upon  the  open  plains,  it  often  selects  a 
chimp  of  sage-brush  or  a  bed  of  cactus.  If  the 
former  is  chosen,  a  convenient  opening  is  made 


A   RAINBOW  STUDY. 


911 


well  within  the  clump,  and  there  the  nest  is 
built.  It  the  cactus  bed  is  preferred,  the  mead- 
ow-lark hollows  out  a  little  place  in  the  ground, 
lines  it  with  soft  and  curly  buffalo-grass,  and 
then  builds  over  it  a  little  canopy,  pulling 
down  the  longer  blades  which  grow  even 
among  the  thick-set  lobes  of  prickly-pear  upon 
the  uplands,  and  weaving  them  together  until 
a  small,  conical  covering  is  made,  having  in 
one  side  of  it  a  round  opening  to  serve  for  a. 
door.  The  location  of  the  nest  is  such  as  to 
afford  protection  from  the  tramping  hoofs  of 


cattle-herds  that  feed  upon  the  plains,  and 
which  carefully  avoid  treading  upon  the  long, 
sharp  spines  of  the  cactus.  There  the  bird 
rears  one,  and  sometime*  two,  broods  of  young, 
which  are  ready  for  self-sustenance  and  flight 
in  July. 

In  August,  when  the  mating  season  is  ended, 
the  songs  of  the  meadow-lark  of  the  West  are 
heard  more  rarely,  and  then  only  in  the  early 
morning.  In  October  the  bird  leaves  this 
latitude,  to  pass  the  winter  months  in  the 
warmer  climes  of  New  Mexico. 


Charles  N.  Allen. 


A    RAINBOW    STUDY. 


BEHOLD  the  rainbow  like  a  brilliant  scroll 
Of  colors  sevenfold, 
From  heaven's  high  dome  unrolled ! 
Lift  up  thine  eyes,  lift  up  the  adoring  soul, 
And  read  God's  writing  ere  it  passes  by. 
Fleet  clouds  of  amethyst 
Swim  in  a  golden  mist, 
Hidden  in  dripping  branches  are  the  birds, 
But  for  a  moment  gloriously  gleams, 
Through  flying  raindrops,  bursting  beams, 
The  legend  of  the  sky  — 
Seven  colors  and  seven  words! 

The  dim,  cold  violet 

Upon  the  outer  margin  set 

Is  sign  of  the  veiled  mystery  of  pain  : 

First  bitter  knowledge  when  young  life  is  sweet, 

And  sun-bright  hills  seem  near  to  eager  feet. 

And  as  the  heavy  purple  overflows 

The  paler  color,  so  the  wayside  grows 

To  midnight  gloom  when  sorrow  stoops  to 

smite 

And  rend  the  heart's  delight. 
A  path  of  thorns,  but  oh !  no  other  way 
Leads  to  the  rosy  fields  of  upper  day. 

But  see !  how  soft  and  fair 

The  tender  flower-like  blue 

Shines  tremulously  through 

The  broad,  dark  purple  border 'of  despair. 

Rejoice!  for  out  of  anguish  blossoms  hope! 

Again  the  brilliant,  vivid  green 

Against  the  line  of  blue  is  seen, 

Earth's  color  painted  on  the  skies. 

So,  bringing  strength  to  cope 

With  woes  that  in  perpetual  tide  arise, 

Life-giving  faith  descends, 

And  though  beneath  the  storm  the  pilgrim 

bends, 
His  brow  is  bathed  in  dawn  of  paradise. 

Oh,  read  in  haste!  the  rain-cloud  far  has  blown. 
Brighter  and  broader  are  the  sun-waves  grown, 


And  the  delirious  birds 

Their  wild,  wet  wings  in  burning  beams  have 

dipped. 

Interpret  from  the  shining  manuscript 
The  seven  illumined  words. 

Warm,  amber  yellow  in  rich  waves 

The  edge  of  emerald  verdure  laves, 

Symbol  of  jay  —  when  faith  grows  deep 

And  full  and  strong ;  when  even  death's  sleep 

Has  lost  its  gloom,  and  eyes  that  weep 

See  starry  splendors  through  the  tears. 

The  blazing  orange  hue 

Is  triumph's  own  imperial  sign, 

The  victory  pure  and  true 

Which  falls  on  sunset  years, 

When  slow  unfold  the  gates  divine  — 

When  all  the  storms  are  spent,  and  lonely  ways 

Grow  beautiful  in  warm,  benignant  praise. 

Now  in  a  radiant  flush  of  crimson  fire 

The  rainbow  is  caught  up  to  heaven ! 

Behold  the  dearest  symbol  of  the  seven. 

When  at  the  long  day's  close, 

Through  pain  and  sorrow  dire, 

The  loyal  soul  has  won  its  true  repose, 

When  hope  and  trust  have  blossomed  into  joy, 

And  victory  comes  at  last  without  alloy, 

Then  in  celestial  itn>e 

Enfolded,  borne  as  in  a  flame  above, 

Serene  in  homeward  flight, 

The  spirit  soars  and  vanishes  in  light. 

The   green    sod    sparkles    with    the   fleeting 

shower, 

Fresh  odors  pant  from  every  breathing  flower, 
The  sky  effulgent  glows  ! 
What  though  the  purple  violet 
Upon  the  grassy  mound  is  wet 
With  dew  of  fond  regret ; 
The  rainbow  reached  from  earth  to  heaven, 
And  the  last  color  of  the  seven 
Was  love's  transcendent  rose. 


Frances  L.  Mace. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.* 
PLANS    OF    CAMPAIGN. 


BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 


BOUT  the  ist  of  Decem- 
ber, 1861,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who  saw  more  clearly  than 
McClellan,  then  General- 
in-Chief,  the  urgent  neces- 
sity for  some  movement  of 
the  army,  suggested  to  him 
a  plan  of  campaign  which, 
afterward  much  debated  and  discussed  and 
finally  rejected,  is  now  seen  to  have  been 
eminently  wise  and  sagacious.  He  made  a 
brief  autograph  memorandum  of  his  plan, 
which  he  handed  to  McClellan,  who  kept  it 
for  ten  days  and  returned  it  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
with  a  hurried  memorandum  in  pencil,  show- 
ing that  it  made  little  impression  on  his  mind. 
The  memorandum  and  answer  are  so  illus- 
trative of  the  two  men  that  we  give  them 
here  in  full,  copied  from  the  original  manu- 
script : 

If  it  were  determined  to  make  a  forward  movement 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  without  waiting  further 
increase  of  numbers,  or  better  drill  and  discipline,  how 
long  would  it  require  to  actually  get  in  motion  ?  [An- 
swer, in  pencil :  If  bridge-trains  ready  by  December 
I5th — probably  251)1.] 

After  leaving  all  that  would  be  necessary,  how  many 
troops  could  join  the  movement  from  south-west  of 
the  river  ?  [In  pencil,  71,000.] 

How  many  from  north-east  of  it?  [In  pencil, 
33,000.] 

Suppose  then  that  of  those  south-west  of  the  river 
[in  pencil,  50,000]  move  forward  and  menace  the  en- 
emy at  Centreville  ?  The  remainder  of  the  movable 
force  on  that  side  move  rapidly  to  the  crossing  of  the 
Occoquan  by  the  road  from  Alexandria  towards  Rich- 
mond; there  to  be  joined  by  the  whole  movable  force 
from  north-east  of  the  river,  having  landed  from  the 
Potomac  just  below  the  mouth  of  the  Occoquan,  move 
by  land  up  the  south  side  of  that  stream,  to  the  cross- 
ing-point named ;  then  the  whole  move  together,  by 
the  road  thence  to  Brentville,  and  beyond,  to  the  rail- 
road just  south  of  its  crossing  of  Broad  Run,  a  strong 
detachment  of  cavalry  having  gone  rapidly  ahead  to  de- 
stroy the  railroad  bridges  south  and  north  of  the  point. 

If  the  crossing  of  the  Occoquan  by  those  from  above 
be  resisted,  those  landing  from  the  Potomac  below  to 
take  the  resisting  force  of  the  enemy  in  rear ;  or,  if  the 
landing  from  the  Potomac  be.  resisted,  those  crossing 
the  Occoquan  from  above  to  take  that  resisting  force 
in  rear.  Both  points  will  probably  not  be  successfully 
resisted  at  the  same  time.  The  force  in  front  of  Cen- 
treville, if  pressed  too  hardly,  should  fight  back  slowly 
into  the  intrenchments  behind  them.  Armed  vessels 
and  transports  should  remain  at  the  Potomac  landing 
to  cover  a  possible  retreat. t 


General  McClellan  returned  the  memoran- 
dum with  this  reply : 

I  inclose  the  paper  you  left  with  me,  filled  as  you 
requested.  In  arriving  at  the  numbers  given,  I  have 
left  the  minimum  number  in  garrison  and  observation. 

Information  received  recently  leads  me  to  believe 
that  the  enemy  could  meet  us  in  front  with  equal  forces 
nearly,  and  I  have  now  my  mind  actively  turned  to- 
wards another  plan  of  campaign  that  I  do  not  think  at 
all  anticipated  by  the  enemy,  nor  by  many  of  our  own 
people. t 

The  general's  information  was,  as  usual, 
erroneous.  Johnston  reports  his  "  effective  to- 
tal" at  this  time  as  about  47,000  men — less 
than  one-third  what  McClellan  imagined  it. 
Lincoln,  however,  did  not  insist  upon  knowing 
what  the  general's  "  other  plan  "  was  ;  nor  did 
he  press  further  upon  his  attention  the  sugges- 
tion that  had  been  so  scantily  considered  and 
so  curtly  dismissed.  But  as  the  weeks  went  by 
in  inaction,  his  thoughts  naturally  dwelt  upon 
the  opportunities  afforded  by  an  attack  on  the 
enemy's  right,  and  the  project  took  more  and 
more  definite  shape  in  his  mind. 

Congress  convened  on  the  2d  of  December, 
and  one  of  its  earliest  subjects  of  discussion 
was  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff.  Roscoe  Conkling 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  Zachariah 
Chandler  in  the  Senate,  brought  forward  reso- 
lutions for  the  appointment  of  committees  to 
investigate  and  determine  the  responsibility 
for  that  disaster ;  but  on  motion  of  Grimes 
the  Senate  chose  to  order  a  permanent  joint 
committee  of  three  senators  and  four  repre- 
sentatives to  inquire  into  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  This  action  was  unanimously  agreed 
to  by  the  House,  and  the  committee  was 
appointed,  consisting  of  senators  Wade, 
Chandler,  and  Johnson,  and  of  representatives 
Gooch,  Covode,  Julian,  and  Odell.  This  com- 
mittee, known  as  the  Committee  on  the  Con- 
duct of  the  War,  was  for  four  years  one  of  the 
most  important  agencies  in  the  country.  It 
assumed,  and  was  sustained  by  Congress  in  as- 
suming, a  great  range  of  prerogative.  It  became 
a  stern  and  zealous  censor  of  both  the  army 
and  the  government;  it  called  soldiers  and 

t  Lincoln  to  McClellan,  autograph  MS. 
}  McClellan  to  Lincoln,  Dec.   10,  1861.    Autograph 
MS. 


"Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved. 


? 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


statesmen  before  it  and  questioned  them  like 
refractory  school-boys.  It  claimed  to  speak  for 
the  loyal  people  of  the  United  Status,  and  this 
claim  generally  met  with  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  a  majority  of  the  people's  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  assembled.  Jt  was  often 
hasty  and  unjust  in  its  judgment,  but  always  ear- 
nest, patriotic,  and  honest;  it  was  assailed  with 
furious  denunciation  and  defended  with  head- 
long and  indiscriminating  eulogy  ;  and  on  the 
whole  it  must  be  said  to  have  merited  more 
praise  than  blame. 

Even  before  this  committee  was  appointed, 
as  we  have  seen,  senators  Chandler  and  Wade, 
representing  the  more  ardent  and  eager  spirits 
in  Congress,  had  repeatedly  pressed  upon  the 
Government  the  necessity  of  employing  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  in  active  operations ; 
and  now  that  they  felt  themselves  formally 
intrusted  with  a  mandate  from  the  people  to 
that  effect,  were  still  more  urgent  and  persist- 
ent. General  McClellan  and  his  immediate 
following  treated  the  committee  with  some- 
thing like  contempt.  But  the  President,  with 
his  larger  comprehension  of  popular  forces, 
knew  that  he  must  take  into  account  an 
agency  of  such  importance  ;  and  though  he 
steadily  defended  General  McClellan,  and  his 
deliberateness  of  preparation,  before  the  com- 
mittee, he  constantly  assured  him  in  private 
that  not  a  moment  ought  to  be  lost  in  getting 
himself  in  readiness  for  a  forward  movement. 
A  free  people,  accustomed  to  considering 
public  affairs  as  their  own,  can  stand  reverses 
and  disappointments;  they  are  capable  of 
making  great  exertions  and  great  sacrifices : 
the  one  thing  that  they  cannot  endure  is  inac- 
tion on  the  part  of  their  rulers ;  the  one  thing 
that  they  insist  upon  is  to  see  some  result  of 
their  exertions  and  sacrifices.  December  was 
the  fifth  month  that  General  McClellan  had 
been  in  command  of  the  greatest  army  ever 
brought  together  on  this  continent.  It  was  im- 
possible to  convince  the  country  that  a  longer 
period  of  preparation  was  necessary  before 
this  army  could  be  led  against  one  inferior 
in  numbers,  and  not  superior  in  discipline  or 
equipment.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  coun- 
try did  not  believe  the  rebel  army  to  be  equal 
to  the  army  of  the  Union  in  any  of  these  par- 
ticulars. It  did  not  share  the  strange  delusion 
of  General  McClellan  and  his  staff  in  regard 
to  the  numbers  of  his  adversary,  and  the  com- 
mon sense  of  the  people  was  nearer  right  in 
its  judgment  than  the  computations  of  the 
general  and  his  inefficient  secret  service.  Mc- 
Clellan  reported  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
that  Johnston's  army,  at  the  end  of  October, 
numbered  1 50,000,  and  that  he  would  there- 
fore require,  to  make  an  advance  movement 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  a  force  of 


240,000.  Johnston's  report  of  that  date  shows 
an  effective  total  of  41,000  men!  It  was  use- 
less to  try  to  convince  General  McClellan  of 
the  impossibility  of  such  a  concentration  of 
troops  in  front  of  him  ;  he  simply  added  to- 
gether the  aggregates  furnished  by  the  i;ui-sses 
of  his  spies  and  implicitly  believed  the  mon- 
strous sum.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the 
Confederate  general  rarely  fell  into  the  cor- 
responding error.  At  the  time  that  McClellan 
was  quadrupling,  in  his  imagination,  the  rebel 
force,  Johnston  was  estimating  the  army  under 
McClellan  at  exactly  its  real  strength. 

Aware  that  his  army  was  less  than  one-third 
as  strong  as  the  Union  forces,  Johnston  <  on- 
tented  himself  with  neutralizing  the  army  at 
Washington,  passing  the  time  in  drilling  and 
disciplining  his  troops,  which,  according  to 
his  own  account,  were  seriously  in  need  of  it. 
He  could  not  account  for  the  inactivity  of 
the  Union  army.  Military  operations,  he  says, 
were  practicable  until  the  end  of  December; 
but  he  was  never  molested. 

Our  military  exercises  had  never  been  interrupted. 
No  demonstrations  were  made  by  the  troops  of  that 
army,  except  the  occasional  driving  in  of  a  Confeder- 
ate cavalry  picket  by  a  large  mixed  force.  The  Federal 
cavalry  rarely  ventured  beyond  the  protection  of  infan- 
try, and  the  ground  between  the  two  armies  had  been 
less  free  to  it  than  to  that  of  the  Confederate  army. 

There  was  at  no  time  any  serious  thought 
of  attacking  the  Union  forces  in  front  of  Wash- 
ington. In  the  latter  part  of  September,  General 
Johnston  had  thought  it  possible  for  the  Rich- 
mond government  to  give  him  such  additional 
troops  as  to  enable  him  to  take  the  offensive, 
and  Jefferson  Davis  had  come  to  headquarters 
at  Fairfax  Court  House  to  confer  with  the  prin- 
cipals on  that  subject.  At  this  conference, 
held  on  the  ist  of  October,  it  was  taken  for 
granted  that  no  attack  could  be  made,  with 
any  chances  of  success,  upon  the  Union  army 
in  its  position  before  Washington ;  but  it  was 
thought  that,  if  enough  force  could  be  concen- 
trated for  the  purpose,  the  Potomac  might  be 
crossed  at  the  nearer  ford,  Maryland  brought 
into  rebellion,  and  a  battle  delivered  in  rear 
of  Washington,  where  McClellan  would  fight 
at  a  disadvantage.  Mr.  Davis  asked  the  three 
generals  present,  Johnston,  Beauregard,  and 
G.  W.  Smith,  beginning  with  the  last,  how 
many  troops  would  be  required  for  such  a 
movement.  Smith  answered  "  fifty  thousand  " ; 
Johnston  and  Beauregard  both  said  "sixty 
thousand";  and  all  agreed  that  they  would 
require  a  large  increase  of  ammunition  and 
means  of  transportation.  Mr.  Davis  said  it 
was  impossible  to  reenforce  them  to  that  ex- 
tent, and  the  plan  was  dropped.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  during  this  same  month  of  Octo- 
ber, General  McClellan,  in  a  careful  letter  to 


914 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


the  War  Department,  with  an  army,  according 
to  his  own  account,  of  "  147,695  present  for 
duty,"  should  have  bewailed  his  numerical 
inferiority  to  the  enemy,  and  begged  that  all 
other  departments  should  be  stripped  of  their 
troops  and  stores  to  enable  him  to  make  a 
forward  movement,  which  he  professed  him- 
self anxious  to  make  "not  later  than  the  251)1 
of  November,"  if  the  Government  would  give 
him  men  enough  to  meet  the  enemy  on  equal 
terms.  This  singular  infatuation,  difficult  to 
understand  in  a  man  of  high  intelligence  and 
physically  brave,  as  McClellan  undoubtedly 
was,  must  not  be  lost  sight  of.  It  furnishes 
the  sole  explanation  of  many  things  other- 
wise inexplicable.  He  rarely  estimated  the 
force  immediately  opposed  to  him  at  less  than 
double  its  actual  strength,  and  in  his  corre- 
spondence with  the  Government  he  persist- 
ently minimized  his  own  force.  This  rule  he 
applied  only  to  the  enemy  in  his  immediate 
vicinity.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  command- 
ers at  a  distance  who  asked  for  reinforcements. 
When  Rosecrans  succeeded  him  in  western 
Virginia,  and  wanted  additional  troops,  Gen- 
eral McClellan  was  shocked  at  the  unreason- 
able request.  When  William  Tecumseh  Sher- 
man telegraphed  that  75,000  men  were  needed 
to  defend  the  Ohio  line,  and  to  make  a  forward 
movement  into  Kentucky,  he  handed  the  dis- 
patch to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  sitting  in  his 
headquarters  at  the  moment,  with  the  remark, 
"The  man  is  crazy,"  Every  man  sent  to  any 
other  department  he  regarded  as  a  sort  of  rob- 
bery of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

All  his  demands  were  complied  witli  to  the 
full  extent  of  the  power  of  the  Government. 
Not  only  in  a  material,  but  in  a  moral  sense  as 
well,  the  President  gave  him  everything  that 
he  could.  In  addition  to  that  mighty  army,  he 
gave  him  his  fullest  confidence  and  support. 
All  through  the  autumn  he  stood  by  him, 
urging  him  in  private  to  lose  no  time,  but  de- 
fending him  in  public  against  the  popular  im- 
patience; and  when  winter  came  on,  and  the 
voice  of  Congress,  nearly  unanimous  in  de- 
manding active  operations,  added  its  authori- 
tative tones  to  the  clamor  of  the  country,  the 
President  endangered  his  own  popularity  by 
insisting  thnt  the  general  should  be  allowed 
to  take  his  own  time  for  an  advance.  In  the 
latter  part  of  December,  McClellan,  as  already- 
stated,  fell  seriously  ill,  and  the  enforced 
paralysis  of  the  army  that  resulted  from  this 
illness  and  lasted  several  weeks  added  a 
keener  edge  to  the  public  anxiety.  The  Pres- 
ident painfully  appreciated  how  much  of  jus- 
tice there  was  in  the  general  criticism,  which 
he  was  doing  all  that  he  could  to  allay.  He 
gave  himself,  night  and  day,  to  the  study  of 
the  military  situation.  He  read  a  large  num- 


ber of  strategical  works.  He  pored  over  the 
reports  from  the  various  departments  and 
districts  of  the  field  of  war.  He  held  long  con- 
ferences with  eminent  generals  and  admirals, 
and  astonished  them  by  the  extent  of  his 
special  knowledge  and  the  keen  intelli- 
gence of  his  questions.  He  at  last  convinced 
himself  that  there  was  no  necessity  for  any 
further  delay ;  that  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
was  as  nearly  ready  as  it  ever  would  be  to 
take  the  field  against  the  enemy  ;  and,  feeling 
that  he  could  not  wait  any  longer,  on  the  loth 
of  January,  after  calling  at  General  McClel- 
lan's  house  and  learning  that  the  general  was 
unable  to  see  him,  he  sent  for  Generals  Mc- 
Dowell and  Franklin,  wishing  to  take  coun- 
sel with  them  in  regard  to  the  possibility  of 
beginning  active  operations  with  the  army 
before  Washington.  General  McDowell  has 
preserved  an  accurate  report  of  this  confer- 
ence. The  President  said  that  he  was  in  great 
distress ;  to  use  his  own  expression  : 

If  something  were  not  soon  clone,  the  bottom  would 
be  out  of  the  whole  affair  ;  and  if  General  McClellan 
did  not  want  to  use  the  army  he  would  like  to  borrow 
it,  provided  he  could  sec  how  it  might  be  made  to  do 
.something. 

In  answer  to  a  direct  question,  put  by  the 
President  to  General  McDowell,  that  accom- 
plished soldier  gave  a  frank  and  straightfor- 
ward expression  of  his  conviction  that  by  an 
energetic  movement  upon  both  flanks  of  the 
enemy  —  a  movement  rendered  entirely  prac- 
ticable by  the  superior  numbers  of  the  Union 
army  —  he  could  be  forced  from  his  works  and 
compelled  to  accept  battle  on  terms  favorable 
to  us.  General  Franklin  rather  favored  an 
attack  upon  Richmond,  by  way  of  York  River. 
A  question  arising  as  to  the  possibility  of  ob- 
taining the  necessary  transportation,  the  Pres- 
ident directed  both  generals  to  return  the 
next  evening,  and  in  the  mean  time  to  inform 
themselves  thoroughly  as  to  the  matter  in 
question.  They  spent  the  following  day  in  this 
duty  and  went  the  next  evening  to  the  Fxecu- 
tive  Mansion  with  what  information  they  had 
been  able  to  procure,  and  submitted  a  paper 
in  which  they  both  agreed  that,  in  view  of  the 
time  and  means  required  to  take  the  army  to 
a  distant  base,  operations  could  now  best  be 
undertaken  from  the  present  base  substan- 
tially as  proposed  by  McDowell.  The  Sec- 
retaries of  State  and  of  the  Treasury,  who 
were  present,  coincided  in  this  view,  and  the 
Postmaster-General,  Mr.  Blair,  alone  opposed 
it.  They  separated  to  meet  the  next  day  al 
3  o'clock.  General  Meigs,  having  been  called 
into  conference,  concurred  in  the  opinion  that 
a  movement  from  the  present  base  was  pref- 
erable; but  no  definite  resolution  was  taken, 
as  General  McClellan  was  reported  as  fully 


PLANS  OF  CAMPAIGN. 


9'5 


recovered  from  his  illness,  and  another  meet- 
ing was  arranged  for  Monday,  the  I3th,  at 
the  White  House,  where  the  three  member, 
of  the  Cabinet  already  mentioned,  with  Mc- 
Dowell, Franklin,  Meigs,  and  General  Mc- 
Clcllan  himself,  were  present.  At  the  request 
of  the  President,  McDowell  made  a  statement 
of  what  he  and  Franklin  had  done  under  Mr. 
Lincoln's  orders,  and  gave  his  reasons  for 
advising  a  movement  to  the  front.  He  spoke 
with  great  courtesy  and  deference  towards 
his  superior  officer,  and  made  an  apology  for 
the  position  in  which  he  stood.  McClellan 
was  not  inclined  to  relieve  the  situation  of  any 
awkwardness  there  might  be  in  it.  He  merely 
said,  "  coldly,  if  not  curtly,"  to  McDowell, 
"  You  are  entitled  to  have  any  opinion  you 
please,"  and  made  no  further  remark  or  com- 
ment. The  President  spoke  somewhat  at 
length  on  the  matter,  and  General  McClellan 
said  very  briefly  "  that  the  case  was  so  clear 
a  blind  man  could  see  it"  and  went  off  in- 
stinctively upon  the  inadequacy  of  his  forces. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  whose  sympa- 
thies were  with  that  section  of  his  party  which 
had  already  lost  all  confidence  in  General 
McClellan,  asked  him  point  blank  what  he 
intended  to  do  with  the  army,  and  when  he 
intended  doing  it.  A  long  silence  ensued. 
Even  if  the  question  had  been  a  proper  one, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  General  McClellan  would 
have  answered  it ;  as  it  was,  it  must  have  re- 
quired some  self-control  for  him  to  have  con- 
tented himself  with  merely  evading  it.  He 
said  that  Buell  in  Kentucky  must  move  first ; 
and  then  refused  to  answer  the  question  unless 
ordered  to  do  so.  The  President  asked  him 
if  he  counted  upon  any  particular  time,  not 
asking  what  the  time  was  —  but  had  he  in 
his  own  mind  any  particular  time  fixed  when 
a  movement  could  be  begun  ?  This  ques- 
tion was  evidently  put  as  affording  a  means 
of  closing  a  conference  which  was  becoming 
disagreeable  if  not  dangerous.  McClellan 
promptly  answered  in  the  affirmative,  and 
the  President  rejoined,  "  Then  I  will  adjourn 
this  meeting." 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  although  the 
plan  recommended  by  these  generals  was  ex- 
actly the  plan  suggested  six  weeks  before  by 
the  President  to  McClellan,  neither  of  them 
made  the  slightest  reference  to  that  incident. 
That  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  refer  to  a  matter  so 
close  to  his  heart  is  a  striking  instance  of  his 
reticence  and  his  magnanimity;  that  General 
McClellan  never  mentioned  it  would  seem  to 
show  that  he  thought  so  little  of  the  matter  as 
to  have  forgotten  it.  He  seemed  also  to  have 
thought  little  of  this  conference;  he  makes  no 
reference  to  it  in  his  report.  He  says,  refer- 
ring to  this  period: 


About  the  middle  of  January,  upon  recovering  from 
a  severe  illness,  I  found  that  excessive  anxiety  for  an 
immediate  movement  of  I  lie  Army  of  the  I'otomac  had 
taken  possession  of  the  minds  of  the  Administration. 

The  last  words  of  the  phrase  refer  not  only 
to  the  President,  but  to  Mr.  Stanton,  the  new 
Secretary  of  War,  who  began  as  soon  as  he 
took  charge  of  his  department  to  ply  the  com- 
manderof  the  army  with  continual  incitements 
to  activity.  All  suggestions  of  this  sort, 
whether  coming  from  the  Government,  Con- 
gress, or  the  press,  General  McClellan  received 
wiih  surprise  and  displeasure,  and  the  resent- 
ment and  vexation  of  his  immediate  friends 
and  associates  found  vent  in  expressions  of 
contempt  for  unmilitary  critics,  which,  being 
reported,  only  increased  the  evil  that  pro- 
voked them.  He  at  last  laid  before  the  Presi- 
dent his  plan  for  attacking  Richmond  by  the 
lower  Chesapeake,  which  the  President  dis- 
approved, having  previously  convinced  him- 
self of  the  superior  merit  of  the  plan  for  a 
direct  movement  agreed  upon  by  Generals 
McDowell,  Franklin,  and  Meigs,  who  were  ig- 
norant of  the  fact  that  it  was  his.  Further  delay 
ensued,  the  President  not  being  willing  to  ac- 
cept a  plan  condemned  by  his  own  judgment 
and  by  the  best  professional  opinions  that  he 
could  obtain,  and  General  McClellan  being 
equally  reluctant  to  adopt  a  plan  that  was  not 
his  own.  The  President  at  last,  at  the  end  of 
his  patience,  convinced  that  nothing  would  be 
done  unless  he  intervened  by  a  positive  com- 
mand, issued  on  the  27th  of  January  his 
"General  War  Order,  No.  i."  He  wrote  it 
without  consultation  with  any  one,  and  read 
it  to  the  Cabinet,  not  for  their  sanction,  but 
for  their  information.  The  order  directed 

that  the  22d  day  of  February,  1862,  be  the  day  for 
a  general  movement  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the 
United  States  against  the  insurgent  forces ;  that  es- 
pecially the  army  at  and  about  Fortress  Monroe,  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  Army  of  western  Virginia, 
the  army  near  Munfordville,  Kentucky,  the  army 
and  flotilla  at  Cairo,  and  a  naval  force  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  be  ready  to  move  on  that  clay ;  that  all  other 
forces,  both  land  and  naval,  with  their  respective  com- 
manders, obey  existing  orders  for  the  time,  and  be 
ready  to  obey  additional  orders  when  duly  given  ;  lhat 
the  heads  of  departments,  and  especially  the  Secre- 
taries of  War  and  of  the  Navy,  with  all  their  subor- 
dinates, and  the  General-in-Chief,  with  all  other  com- 
manders and  subordinates  of  land  and  naval  forces, 
will  severally  be  held  to  their  strict  and  full  responsi- 
bilities for  prompt  execution  of  this  order. 

Four  days  later,  as  a  necessary  result  of 
this  general  summons  to  action,  a  special 
instruction,  called  "  President's  Special  War 
Order,  No.  i,"  was  issued  to  General  Mc- 
Clellan, commanding 

that  all  the  disposable  force  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  after  providing  safely  for  the  defense  of 
Washington,  be  formed  into  an  expedition  for  the  im- 


916 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


mediate  object  of  seizing  and  occupying  a  point  upon 
the  railroad  south-westward  of  what  is  known  as  Ma- 
nassas  Junction,  all  details  to  be  in  the  discretion  of 
the  General-in-Chief,  and  the  expedition  to  move  before 
or  on  the  22d  day  of  February  next. 

This  is  the  President's  suggestion  of  Decem- 
ber i,  put  at  last  in  the  form  of  a  command. 

It  would  not  have  been  characteristic  of 
General  McClellan  to  accept  such  an  order 
as  final,  nor  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  refuse  to  listen 
to  his  objections  and  to  a  full  statement  of  his 
own  views.  The  President  even  went  so  far 
as  to  give  him,  in  the  following  note,  dated 
February  3,  a  schedule  of  points  on  which  he 
might  base  his  objections  and  develop  his  views. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  You  and  I  have  distinct  and  differ- 
ent plans  for  a  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
—  yours  to  be  done  by  the  Chesapeake,  up  the  Rap- 
pahannock,  to  Urbana,  and  across  land  to  the  termi- 
nus of  the  railroad  on  the  York  River;  mine  to  move 
directly  to  a  point  on  the  railroads  south-west  of 
Manas  sag. 

If  you  will  give  me  satisfactory  answers  to  the  fol- 
lowing questions,  I  shall  gladly  yield  my  plan  to  yours  : 

First.  Does  not  your  plan  involve  a  greatly  larger 
expenditure  of  time  and  money  than  mine  ? 

Second.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your 
plan  than  mine  ? 

Third.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  valuable  by  your 
plan  than  mine  ? 

/•'our/A.  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in  this, 
that  it  would  break  no  great  line  of  the  enemy's  com- 
munications, while  mine  would? 

I'lftli.   In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  retreat  be 
more  difficult  by  your  plan  than  mine? 
Yours  truly, 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

This  elicited  from  General  McClellan  a 
long  letter,  dated  the  same  day,  in  which  he- 
dwelt  with  great  emphasis  on  all  the  possi- 
ble objections  that  could  lie  against  a  di- 
rect movement  from  Washington,  and  insisted 
with  equal  energy  upon  the  advantages  of 
a  campaign  by  the  lower  Chesapeake.  He 
rejects  without  argument  the  suggestion  of  an 
attack  on  both  flanks  of  the  enemy,  on  the 
ground  of  insufficient  force,  a  ground  that 
we  have  seen  to  be  visionary.  He  says  that 
an  attack  on  the  left  flank  of  the  enemy  is  im- 
practicable on  account  of  the  length  of  the  line, 
and  confines  his  statement  to  a  detail  of  the 
dangers  and  difficulties  of  an  attack  on  the  Con- 
federate right  by  the  line  of  the  Occoquan.  He 
insists  that  he  will  be  met  at  every  point  by  a  de- 
termined resistance.  To  use  his  own  words,  he 

brings  out,  in  bold  relief,  the  great  advantage  pos- 
sessed by  the  enemy  in  the  strong  central  position 
he  occupies,  with  roads  diverging  in  every  direction, 
and  a  strong  line  of  defense  enabling  him  to  remain  on 
the  defensive,  with  a  small  force  on  one  flank,  while 
he  concentrates  everything  on  the  other  for  a  decisive 
action. 

Even  if  he  succeeded  in  such  a  movement, 
he  thought  little  of  its  results ;  they  would  be 
merely  "  the  possession  of  the  field  of  battle, 
the  evacuation  of  the  line  of  the  upper  Poto- 


mac by  the  enemy,  and  the  moral  effect  of  the 
victory." 

They  would  not  end  the  war,  the  result  he 
seemed  to  propose  to  himself  in  the  one  de- 
cisive battle  he  expected  to  fight  somewhere. 
Turning  to  his  own  plan,  he  hopes  by  moving 
from  his  new  base  on  the  lower  Chesapeake 
to  accomplish  this  enormous  and  final  success 
—  to  force  the  enemy  either  "  to  beat  us  in 
a  position  selected  by  ourselves,  disperse,  or 
pass  beneath  the  Caudine  forks."  The  point 
which  he  thought  promised  the  most  brilliant 
results  was  Urbana,  on  the  lower  Rappahan- 
nock ;  "  but  one  march  from  West  Point, —  on 
the  York  River,  at  the  junction  of  the  Pa- 
munkey  and  the  Mattapony, —  the  key  of  that 
region,  and  thence  but  two  marches  to  Rich- 
mond." He  enjoys  the  prospect  of  brilliant 
and  rapid  movements  by  which  the  rebel 
armies  shall  be  cut  off  in  detail,  Richmond 
taken,  and  the  rebellion  brought  to  a  close. 
He  says  finally : 

My  judgment  as  a  general  is  clearly  in  favor  of  this 
project.  ...  So  much  am  I  in  favor  of  the  south- 
ern line  of  operations,  that  I  would  prefer  the  move 
from  Fortress  Monroe  as  a  base  —  as  a  certain  though 
less  brilliant  movement  than  that  from  Urbana,  to  an 
attack  upon  Manassas. 

Most  of  the  assumptions  upon  which  this 
letter  was  based  have  since  proved  erroneous. 
The  enormous  force  which  McClellan  ascribed 
to  Johnston  existed  only  in  his  imagination 
and  in  the  wild  stories  of  his  spies.  His  force 
was  about  three  times  that  of  Johnston,  and 
was  therefore  not  insufficient  for  an  attack 
upon  one  flank  of  the  enemy  while  the  other 
was  held  in  check.  It  is  now  clearly  known 
that  the  determined  resistance  that  he  counted 
upon,  if  he  should  attack  by  the  line  of  the 
Occoquan,  would  not  have  been  made.  Gen- 
eral Johnston  says  that  about  the  middle 
of  February  he  was  sent  for  in  great  haste 
to  Richmond,  and  on  arriving  there  was  told 
by  Jefferson  Davis  that  the  Government 
thought  of  withdrawing  the  army  to  "  a  less 
exposed  position."  Johnston  replied  that  the 
withdrawal  of  the  army  from  Centreville  would 
be  necessary  before  McClellan's  invasion, — 
which  was  to  be  looked  for  as  soon  as  the  roads 
were  practicable, —  but  thought  that  it  might 
be  postponed  for  the  present.  He  left  Rich- 
mond, however,  with  the  understanding  on 
his  part  that  the  army  was  to  fall  back  as 
soon  as  practicable,  and  the  moment  he  re- 
turned to  his  camp  he  began  his  preparations 
to  retire  at  once  from  a  position  which  both 
he  and  the  Richmond  government  considered 
absolutely  untenable.  On  the  22d  of  Febru- 
ary he  says  :  "  Orders  were  given  to  the  chiefs 
of  the  quartermaster's  and  subsistence  depart- 
ments to  remove  the  military  property  in  the 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


9'7 


depots  at  Manassas  Junction  and  its  depend- 
encies to  Gordonsville  as  quickly  as  possi- 
ble." The  railroads  were  urged  to  work  to 
their  utmost  capacity.  The  line  of  the  Occo- 
quan,  against  which  McClellan  was  arguing 
so  strenuously  to  the  1'resident,  was  substan- 
tially the  route  by  which  Johnston  expected 
him,  believing,  like  the  thorough  soldier  that 
lie  was,  that  it  would  be  taken,  because  "  in- 
vasion by  that  route  would  be  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  meet";  and  knowing  that  he  could 
not  cope  with  the  Federal  army  north  of  the 
Rappahannock,  he  was  ready  to  retire  behind 
that  stream  at  the  first  news  of  McClellan's 
advance.  Everything  now  indicates  that  if 
McClellan  had  chosen  to  obey  the  President's 
order  and  to  move  upon  the  enemy  in  his 
front  in  the  latter  part  of  February  *  or  the 
first  days  of  March,  one  of  the  cheapest  vic- 
tories ever  gained  by  a  fortunate  general 
awaited  him.  He  would  have  struck  an 
enemy  greatly  inferior  in  strength,  equipment, 
and  discipline,  in  the  midst  of  a  difficult  re- 
treat already  begun,  encumbered  by  a  vast 
accumulation  of  provisions  and  stores,!  which 
would  have  become  the  prize  of  the  victor. 
He  would  not  have  won  the  battle  that  was 
to  end  the  war.  That  sole  battle  was  a  dream 
of  youth  and  ambition ;  the  war  was  not  of 
a  size  to  be  finished  by  one  fight.  But  he 
would  have  gained,  at  slight  cost,  what  would 
have  been  in  reality  a  substantial  success,  and 
would  have  appeared,  in  its  effect  upon  public 
opinion  and  the  morale  of  the  army,  an  achieve- 
ment of  great  importance.  The  enemy,  instead 
of  quietly  retiring  at  his  own  time,  would  have 
seemed  to  be  driven  beyond  the  Rapidan. 
The  clearing  the  Potomac  of  hostile  camps 
and  batteries  above  and  below  Washington, 
and  the  capture  of  millions  of  pounds  of  stores, 
would  have  afforded  a  relief  to  the  anxious 
public  mind  that  the  National  cause  sorely 
neededat  that  time,  and  which  General  McClel- 
lan needed  most  of  all.  f 

These  facts,  that  are  now  so  clear  to  every 
one,  were  not  so  evident  then ;  and  although 
the  President  and  the  leading  men  in  the  Gov- 

*  The  following  extract  shows  that  General  McClel- 
lan himself  had  some  vague  thought  of  moving  at  that 
time:  "February  came  and  on  the  131)1  General 
McClellan  said  to  me, '  In  ten  days  I  shall  be  in  Rich- 
mond." A  little  surprised  at  the  near  approach  of  a 
consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  wished,  I  asked,'  What 
is  your  plan,  General  ?'  '  Oh,'  said  he, '  I  mean  to  cross 
the  river,  attack  and  carry  their  batteries,  and  push  on 
after  the  enemy.'  '  Have  you  any  gun-boats  to  aid  in 
the  at  lack  on  the  batteries  ? '  '  No,  they  are  not  needed ; 
all  I  want  is  transportation  and  canal-boats,  of  which 
I  have  plenty  that  will  answer.'  I  did  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  reply;  but  made  a  note  of  the  date 
and  waited.  The  ten  days  passed  away ;  no  move- 
ment, and  no  preparation  for  a  movement,  hail  been 
made."  [From  a  memorandum  written  by  Hon.  S.  P. 
Chase.  Schucker's  "  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  446.] 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 127. 


ernment  and  in  Congress  were  strongly  of  the 
opinion  that  the  plan  favored  by  Mr.  Lin- 
coln and  approved  by  McDowell,  Meigs,  and 
Franklin  was  the  right  one,  it  was  a  question 
of  the  utmost  gravity  whether  he  should  force 
the  General-in-Chief  to  adopt  it  against  his  ob- 
stinate protest.  It  would  be  too  much  to  ask 
that  any  government  should  assume  such  a 
responsibility  and  risk.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  removal  of  the  general  from  the  command 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  would  have  been 
a  measure  not  less  serious.  There  was  no  suc- 
cessor ready  at  all  his  equal  in  accomplish- 
ments, in  executive  efficiency,  or  in  popularity 
among  the  soldiers.  Besides  this,  and  in  spite 
of  his  exasperating  slowness,  the  President 
still  entertained  for  him  a  strong  feeling  of 
personal  regard.  He  therefore,  after  much 
deliberation  and  deep  distress  of  mind,  yielded 
his  convictions,  gave  up  his  plan  and  adopted 
that  of  General  McClellan  for  a  movement  by 
the  lower  Chesapeake.  He  never  took  a  res- 
olution which  cost  him  more  in  his  own  feel- 
ings, and  in  the  estimation  of  his  supporters 
in  Congress  and  in  the  country  at  large.  He 
made  no  explanation  of  the  reasons  that  in- 
duced this  resolution;  he  thought  it  better 
to  suffer  any  misrepresentation  rather  than  to 
communicate  his  own  grave  misgivings  to  the 
country.  The  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of 
the  War,  who  were  profoundly  grieved  and 
displeased  by  this  decision,  made  only  this 
grim  reference  to  it: 

Your  committee  have  no  evidence,  either  oral  or 
documentary,  of  the  discussions  that  ensued,  or  of  the 
arguments  that  were  submitted  to  the  consideration 
of  the  President,  that  led  him  to  relinquish  his  own 
line  of  operations  and  consent  to  the  one  proposed  by 
General  McClellan,  except  the  result  of  a  council  of 
war,  held  in  February,  1862. 

This  council,  which,  the  committee  say,  was 
the  first  ever  called  by  McClellan,  and  then 
only  at  the  direction  of  the  President,  was  com- 
posed of  twelve  general  officers  —  McDow- 
ell, Sumner,  Heintzelman,  Barnard,  Keyes, 
Fit/.-John  Porter,  Franklin,  W.  F.  Smith,  Mc- 
Call,  Blenker,  Andrew  Porter,  and  Naglee 

t  The  subsistence  department  had  collected  at  Ma- 
nassas Junction  more  than  three  million  pounds  of  pro- 
visions. They  had  also  two  million  pounds  of  meat 
at  Thoroughfare  Gap,  besides  large  herds  of  cattle  and 
hogs.  This  accumulation  was  against  the  wish  and  to 
the  great  embarrassment  of  General  Johnston.  ["  John- 
ston's Narrative,"  pp.  98  and  99.] 

\  Mr.  William  Swinton,  who  habitually  takes  sides 
with  McClellan  against  the  President  where  it  is  pos- 
sible, says  on  this  point:  "  Had  Johnston  stood, a  bat- 
tle with  good  prospect  of  success  might  have  been 
delivered.  But  had  he,  as  there  was  great  likelihood 
he  would  do,  and  as  it  is  now  certain  he  would  have 
done,  fallen  back  from  Manassas  to  the  line  of  the 
Rapidan,  his  compulsory  retirement  would  have  been 
esteemed  a  positive  victory  to  the  Union  arms."  [Swin- 
ton," Army  of  the  Potomac,"  p.  73-] 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


(from  Hooker's  division).  The  first  four  voted 
against  the  Urbana  plan ;  Keyes  only  favored 
it  on  condition  that  the  Potomac  batteries 
should  first  be  reduced.  The  rest  voted  for  it 
without  conditions.  This  was  the  council  after- 
ward referred  to  by  Stanton  when  he  said, 
"  We  saw  ten  generals  afraid  to  fight."  * 

This  plan  of  campaign  having  been  defi- 
nitely adopted,  Mr.  Lincoln  urged  it  forward 
as  eagerly  as  if  it  had  been  his  own.  John 
Tucker,  one  of  the  Assistant  Secretaries  of 
War,  was  charged  by  the  President  and  Mr. 
Stanton  with  the  entire  task  of  transporting  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  to  its  new  base,  and  the 
utmost  diligence  was  enjoined  upon  him.  Quar- 
termasters Ingalls  and  Hodges  were  assigned 
to  assist  him.  We  shall  see  that  he  performed 
the  prodigious  task  intrusted  to  him  in  a  man- 
ner not  excelled  by  any  similar  feat  in  the 
annals  of  the  world. 

But  in  the  mean  while  there  were  two  things 
that  the  President  was  anxious  to  have  done, 
and  General  McClellan  undertook  them  with 
apparent  good- will.  One  was  to  reopen  the  line 
of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  the  other 
to  clear  out  the  rebel  batteries  that  still  ob- 
structed the  navigation  of  the  Potomac.  For 
the  first,  extensive  preparations  were  made:  a 
large  body  of  troops  was  collected  at  Harper's 
Ferry ;  canal-boats  were  brought  there  in  suf- 
ficient quantity  to  make  a  permanent  bridge. 
General  McClellan  went  to  the  place  and,  find- 
ing everything  satisfactory  for  the  operation, 
telegraphed  for  a  large  additional  force  of 
cavalry,  artillery,  and  a  division  of  infantry  to 
rendezvous  at  once  at  Harper's  Ferry,  to  cross 
as  soon  as  the  bridge  was  completed,  which 
would  be  only  the  work  of  a  day,  and  then  to 
push  on  to  Winchester  and  Strasburg.  It  was 
only  on  the  morning  of  the  next  day,  when 
the  attempt  was  made  to  pass  the  canal-boats 
through  the  lift-lock,  that  it  was  discovered 
they  were  some  six  inches  too  wide  to  go 
through.  The  general  thus  discovered  that  his 
permanent  bridge,  so  long  planned,  and  from 
which  so  much  had  been  expected,  was  im- 
possible, t  He  countermanded  his  order  for 
the  troops;  contented  himself  with  a  recon- 
naissance to  Charleston  and  Martinsburg;  and 
returned  to  Washington,  as  he  says,  "  well 
satisfied  with  what  had  been  accomplished." 
He  was  much  surprised  at  finding  that  his  satis- 
faction was  not  shared  by  the  President.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  slow  anger  was  thoroughly  roused 
at  this  ridiculous  outcome  of  an  important 
enterprise,  and  he  received  the  general  on  his 
return  in  a  manner  that  somewhat  disturbed 
his  complacency. 

McClellan  went  on    in  his  leisurely  way, 

«J.  H.,  Diary. 

t  Chase  in  his  Diary  said  the  expedition  died  oflockjaw. 


preparing  for  a  movement  upon  the  batteries 
near  the  Occoquan,  undisturbed  by  the  in- 
creasing signs  of  electric  perturbation  at  the 
Executive  Mansion  and  the  Capitol,  which 
answered  but  faintly  to  the  growing  excite- 
ment in  the  North.  The  accumulating  hos- 
tility and  distrust  of  General  McClellan, — 
totally  unjust  as  it  affected  his  loyalty  and 
honor  and  his  ardent  desire  to  serve  his  coun- 
try in  the  way  that  he  thought  best, — though 
almost  entirely  unknown  to  him,  was  poured 
upon  the  President,  the  Government,  and  the 
leading  members  of  Congress  in  letters,  and 
conversations,  and  newspaper  leaders.  Mr. 
Lincoln  felt  the  injustice  of  much  of  this  crit- 
icism, but  he  also  felt  powerless  to  meet  it, 
unless  some  measures  were  adopted  to  force 
the  general  into  an  activity  which  was  as  nec- 
essary to  his  own  reputation  as  to  the  national 
cause.  The  22d  of  February  came  and 
passed,  and  the  President's  order  to  move  on 
that  day  was  not  obeyed.  McClellan's  inertia 
prevailed  over  the  President's  anxious  eager- 
ness. On  the  8th  of  March,  Mr.  Lincoln 
issued  two  more  important  General  Orders. 
The  first  directed  General  McClellan  to  divide 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  into  four  army 
corps,  to  be  commanded  respectively  by  Gen- 
erals Irvin  McDowell,  E.  V.  Sumner,  S.  P. 
Heintzelman,  and  E.  D.  Keyes;  the  forces  to 
be  left  in  front  of  Washington  were  to  be 
placed  in  command  of  General  Wadsworth. 
The  Fifth  Corps  was  to  be  formed,  to  be  com- 
manded by  General  N.  P.  Banks.  For  months 
this  measure  had  been  pressed  upon  General 
McClellan  by  the  Government.  An  army  of 
150,000  men,  it  was  admitted,  could  not  be 
adequately  commanded  by  the  machinery  of 
divisions  and  brigades  alone.  But  though 
McClellan  accepted  this  view  in  principle,  he 
could  not  be  brought  to  put  it  into  practice. 
He  said  that  he  would  prefer  to  command  the 
army  personally  on  its  first  campaign,  and 
then  select  the  corps  commanders  for  their  be- 
havior in  the  field.  The  Government  thought 
better  to  make  the  organization  at  once,  giving 
the  command  of  corps  to  the  ranking  division 
commanders.  The  fact  that  of  the  four  generals 
chosen  three  had  been  in  favor  of  an  immedi- 
ate movement  against  the  enemy  in  front  of 
Washington  will  of  course  be  considered  as 
possessing  a  certain  significance.  It  is  usually 
regarded  as  a  grievance  by  the  partisans  of 
General  McClellan. 

The  other  order  is  of  such  importance  that 
we  give  it  entire  : 

PRESIDENT'S  GENERAL  WAR  ORDER,  No.  3. 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  March  8,  1862. 

Ordered,  That  no  change  of  the  base  of  operations 
of  the  Array  of  the  Potomac  shall  be  made  without 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


919 


leaving  in  and  about  Washington  such  a  force  as,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  General-in-Chief  and  the  command- 
ers of  army  corps,  shall  leave  said  city  entirely  secure. 

That  no  more  than  t\\o  army  corps  (about  fifty 
thousand  troops)  of  said  Army  of  the  Potomac  shall 
be  moved  en  route  for  a  new  base  of  operations  until 
the  navigation  of  the  I'otomnc  from  Washington  to 
the  Chesapeake  Hay  shall  lie  freed  from  enemy's  bat- 
teries and  other  obstructions,  or  until  the  President 
shall  hereafter  give  express  permission.  That  any 
movement  as  aforesaid,  en  route  for  a  new  base  of 
operations,  which  may  be  ordered  by  the  General-in- 
Chief,  and  which  may  be  intended  to  move  upofl  the 
Chesapeake  Bay,  shall  begin  to  move  upon  the  bay  as 
early  as  the  iSth  of  March  instant,  and  the  General- 
in-Chief  shall  be  responsible  that  it  moves  as  early  as 
that  day. 

OrJend,  That  the  Army  and  Navy  cooperate  in  an 
immediate  effort  to  capture  the  enemy's  batteries  upon 
the  Potomac  between  Washington  and  Chesapeake 
Bay. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

L.  THOMAS,  Adjutant-General. 

This  order  has  always  been  subject  to  the 
severest  criticism  from  General  McClellan's 
partisans  ;  but  if  we  admit  that  it  was  proper 
for  the  President  to  issue  any  order  at  all, 
there  can  be  no  valid  objection  made  to  the 
substance  of  this  one.  It  was  indispensable 
that  Washington  should  be  left  secure;  it 
would  have  been  madness  to  allow  General 
McClellan  to  take  all  the  troops  to  the  Pen- 
insula, leaving  the  Potomac  obstructed  by  the 
enemy's  batteries,  so  near  the  capital ;  and 
the  fixing  of  a  date  beyond  which  the  begin- 
ning of  the  movement  should  not  be  post- 
poned had  been  shown  to  be  necessary  by 
the  exasperating  experience  of  the  past  eight 
months.  The  criticism  so  often  made,  that  a 
general  who  required  to  have  such  orders 
as  these  given  him  should  have  been  dis- 
missed the  service,  is  the  most  difficult  of  all 
to  meet.  Nobody  felt  so  deeply  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
the  terrible  embarrassment  of  having  a  gen- 
eral in  command  of  that  magnificent  army 
who  was  absolutely  without  initiative,  who 
answered  every  suggestion  of  advance  with 
demands  for  reinforcements,  who  met  entreat- 
ies and  reproaches  with  unending  arguments 
to  show  the  superiority  of  the  enemy  and  the 
insufficiency  of  his  own  resources,  and  who 
yet  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree  the  enthu- 
siastic devotion  of  his  friends  and  the  general 
confidence  of  the  rank  and  file.  There  was  so 
much  of  executive  efficiency  and  ability  about 
him  that  the  President  kept  on,  hoping  to  the 
last  that  if  he  could  once  "  get  him  started  " 
he  would  then  handle  the  army  well  and  do 
great  things  with  it. 


MANASSAS    EVACUATED. 

SUNDAY,  the  gth  of  March,  was  a  day  of 
swiftly  succeeding  emotions  at  the  Executive 
Mansion.  The  news  of  the  havoc  wrought  by 


the  Mcrrimac  in  Hampton  Roads  the  day 
before  arrived  in  the  morning,  and  was  re- 
ceived with  profound  chagrin  by  the  calmest 
spirits  and  with  something  like  consternation 
by  the  more  excitable.  But  in  the  afternoon 
astonishing  tidings  came  to  reverse  the  morn- 
ing's depression.  The  first  was  of  the  timely 
arrival  of  the  Monitor,  followed  shortly,  on 
the  completion  of  the  telegraph  to  Fort  Mon- 
roe, by  the  news  of  her  battle  and  victory. 
The  exultation  of  the  Government  over  this 
providential  success  was  changed  to  amaze- 
ment by  the  receipt  of  intelligence  that  the 
rebel  batteries  on  the  Potomac  were  already 
abandoned,  and  the  tale  of  surprises  was  com- 
pleted by  the  news  which  came  in  the  evening 
that  the  Confederate  army  had  abandoned  their 
worksatManassas,retreatingsouthward.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  was  with  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  War  when  this  message  arrived, 
and  he  received  it,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, with  incredulity,  which  at  last  gave  way 
to  stupefaction.  He  started  at  once  across  the 
river,  ostensibly  to  verify  the  intelligence,  and 
in  his  bewilderment  and  confusion  issued  an 
order  that  night  for  an  immediate  advance  of 
the  army  upon  Centreville  and  Manassas.  In 
the  elaborate  report  by  which  he  strove,  a 
year  after  the  fact,  to  shift  from  himself  to  others 
the  responsibility  of  all  his  errors,  occurs  this 
remarkable  sentence : 

The  retirement  of  the  enemy  towards  Richmond  had 
been  expected  as  the  natural  consequence  of  the 
movement  to  the  Peninsula,  but  their  adoption  of  this 
course  immediately  on  ascertaining  that  such  a  move- 
ment was  intended,  while  it  relieved  me  from  the 
results  of  the  undue  anxiety  of  my  superiors  and  at- 
tested the  character  of  the  design,  was  unfortunate  in 
that  the  then  almost  impassable  roads  between  oar 
positions  and  theirs  deprived  us  of  the  opportunity  for 
inflicting  damage  usually  afforded  by  the  withdrawal 
of  a  large  army  in  the  face  of  a  powerful  adversary. 

This  was  the  theory  immediately  adopted 
by  himself,  propagated  among  his  staff,  com- 
municated to  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  who 
published  it  in  France  on  his  return  there, 
and  to  the  Comte  de  Paris,  who  after  twenty 
years  incorporated  it  in  his  history  —  that  the 
enemy,  having  heard  of  his  scheme  for  going 
to  the  Peninsula,  through  the  indiscretion  of 
the  Government,  had  suddenly  taken  flight 
from  Manassas.  General  McClellan  asserts 
this  in  his  report  a  dozen  times ;  he  reiterates 
it  as  if  he  felt  that  his  reputation  depended 
upon  it.  If  it  is  not  true,  then  in  the  long  con- 
test with  the  President  in  regard  to  a  direct 
attack  from  Washington  the  President  was 
right  and  McClellan  was  wrong. 

The  straightforward  narrative  of  General 
Johnston,  and  the  official  orders  and  corre- 
spondence of  the  Confederate  officers,  show 


920 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


that  there  is  not  the  slightest  foundation  for 
this  theory  of  General  McClellan's.  They 
show,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  rebel  govern- 
ment, nearly  a  month  before  this,  had  con- 
cluded that  Johnston's  position  was  untenable; 
that  Johnston  had  shared  in  the  belief,  and 
had  begun  his  preparations  to  retire  on  the 
22d  of  February;  that  instead  of  "  ascertain- 
ing McClellan's  intention  to  move  to  the 
lower  Chesapeake,"  he  had  been  of  the  opin- 
ion that  McClellan  would  advance  upon  the 
line  designated  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  because  it 
was  the  best  line  for  attack  and  the  most  dif- 
ficult for  the  rebels  to  defend;  that  he  knew 
McClellan's  enormous  superiority  in  numbers 
and  did  not  purpose  to  risk  everything  in 
resisting  him  there  ;  that  on  the  sth  of  March, 
having  received  information  of  unusual  activ- 
ity in  our  army  in  the  direction  of  Dumfries, 
he  gave  his  final  orders,  and  on  the  jth  began 
to  move.  He  proceeded  with  the  greatest 
deliberation,  writing  to  one  of  his  generals  on 
the  1 5th,  "  McClellan  seems  not  to  value  time 
especially."  His  subordinates  were  equally 
convinced  that  the  Confederate  right  was  the 
object  of  the  Union  advance ;  Holmes  wrote 
in  that  sense  to  Lee  on  the  i4th  of  March. 
Lee,  who  was  then  directing  military  opera- 
tions in  Richmond,  answered  him  on  the  i6th, 
concurring  in  this  view,  recognizing  the  "  ad- 
vantages "  of  such  a  plan,  and  saying,  "That 
he  will  advance  upon  our  line  as  soon  as  he 
can,  I  have  no  doubt."  Until  the  i  Sth  of  March 
Johnston  did  not  suspect  that  McClellan  was 
not  advancing  to  strike  his  right  flank ;  he  then 
fell  back  behind  the  Rapidan,  to  guard  against 
other  contingencies.  Even  while  ourvast  army 
was  passing  down  the  Potomac  he  could  not 
make  out  where  it  was  going.  So  late  as  the 
early  days  of  April,  Jefferson  Davis  was  in 
doubt  as  to  McClellan's  destination,  and 
Johnston  only  heard  of  the  advance  upon 
Yorktown  about  the  5th  of  that  month. 

By  the  very  test,  therefore,  to  which  Gen- 
eral McClellan  appeals  in  the  paragraph  quoted 
above,  his  conduct  during  the  autumn  and 
winter  stands  finally  condemned.  By  their 
contemporaneous  letters  and  orders,  by  their 
military  movements  in  an  important  crisis,  by 
their  well-considered  historical  narratives,  the 
Confederate  government  and  generals  have 
established  these  facts  beyond  all  possibility 
of  future  refutation :  that  the  plan  for  a  direct 
attack  suggested  by  Lincoln,  and  contemptu- 

*  Pollard's  History,  Vol.  I.,  p.  184,  says  :  "  A  long, 
lingering  Indian  summer,  with  roads  more  hard  and 
skies  more  beautiful  than  Virginia  had  seen  for  many 
a  year,  invited  the  enemy  to  advance."  "Johnston's 
Narrative  "  says  that  the  roads  were  practicable  until 
the  last  of  December. 

From  the  admirable  monograph  of  Major-General 
A.  S.  Webb,  Chief-of-Staff  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 


ously  rejected  by  McClellan,  was  a  sound 
and  practicable  one;  it  was  the  plan  they  ex- 
pected and  dreaded  to  see  adopted,  because 
it  was  the  one  easiest  to  accomplish  and  hard- 
est to  resist.  When  they  fancied  that  they  saw 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  preparing  to  move, 
it  was  this  plan  alone  of  which  they  thought; 
and  they  immediately  gave  up  their  position, 
which  McClellan  thought  impregnable,  as 
they  had  been  for  weeks  preparing  to  do  at 
the  first  intimation  of  a  forward  movement. 
The  long  delay  of  five  months,  during  three 
of  which  the  roads  were  in  unusually  fine  con- 
dition,* during  all  of  which  the  Union  forces 
were  as  three  to  one  of  the  enemy,  remains 
absolutely  without  excuse.  It  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  that  strange  idiosyncrasy  of  Gen- 
eral McClellan  which  led  him  always  to  double 
or  treble  the  number  of  an  enemy  and  the 
obstacles  in  his  immediate  vicinity. 

It  is  little  blame  to  Confederate  generals 
that  they  could  not  divine  what  General  Mc- 
Clellan was  doing  with  the  grand  army  of  the 
Union  during  the  week  that  followed  the 
evacuation  of  Manassas.  No  soldier  could 
have  been  expected  to  guess  the  meaning  of 
that  mysterious  promenade  of  a  vast  army  to 
Centreville  and  Manassas,  and  back  to  Alex- 
andria. In  spite  of  the  "impassable  roads," 
they  made  the  journey  with  ease  and  celerity. 
The  question  why  the  whole  army  was  taken 
has  never  been  satisfactorily  answered.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  started  away  in  too  much  con- 
fusion of  mind  to  know  precisely  what  he 
intended;  his  explanation  afterward  was  that 
he  wanted  the  troops  to  have  a  little  experience 
of  marching  and  to  "  get  rid  of  their  impedi- 
menta." He  claims  in  his  report  to  have  found 
on  this  excursion  a  full  justification  of  his  ex- 
travagant estimate  of  the  enemy's  force,  and 
speaks  with  indignation  of  the  calumnious 
stories  of  "quaker  guns"  which  were  rife  in 
the  press  at  the  time.  Every  one  now  knows 
how  fatally  false  the  estimate  was ;  and  as  to 
the  "  quaker  guns,"  this  is  what  General  John- 
ston says  about  them : 

As  we  had  not  artillery  enough  for  their  works  and 
for  the  army  fighting  elsewhere  at  the  same  time, 
rough  wooden  imitations  of  guns  were  made,  and  kept 
near  the  embrasures,  in  readiness  for  exhibition  in 
them.  To  conceal  the  absence  of  carriages,  the  em- 
brasures were  covered  with  sheds  made  of  bushes. 
These  were  the  quaker  guns  afterwards  noticed  in 
Northern  papers. 

Without  further  discussing  where  the  fault 

mac,  entitled  "  The  Peninsula,"  we  quote  a  sentence 
on  this  subject :  "  During  all  trie-time  Johnston's  army 
lay  at  Centreville  insolently  menacing  Washington 
...  it  never  presented  an  effective  strength  of  over 
50,000  men.  With  more  than  twice  that  number,  Mc- 
Clellan remained  inactive  for  many  precious  weeks, 
under  the  delusion  that  he  was  confronted  by  a  force 
nearly  equal  his  own." 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


921 


lay,  the  fart  is  beyond  dispute  that  when  the 
evacuation  of  Manassas  was  known  through- 
out the  country,  the  military  reputation  of 
General  McClellan  received  serious  damage. 
No  explanation  made  at  the  time,  and,  we  may 
add,  none  made  since  then,  could  account 
satisfactorily  for  such  a  mistake  as  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  enemy,  such  utter  ignoran< 
to  his  movements.  The  first  result  of  it 
the  removal  of  General  McClellan  from  the 
command  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States. 
This  resolution  was  taken  by  the  President 
himself,  on  the  nth  of  March.  On  that  day 
he  prepared  the  order  known  as  "  President's 
War  Order,  No.  3,"  and  in  the  evening  called 
together  Mr.  Seward,  Mr.  Chase,  and  Mr. 
Stanton,  and  read  it  to  them.  It  was  in  these 
words : 

PRESIDENT'S  WAR  ORDER,  No.  3. 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  March  u,  1862. 

Major-General  McClellan  having  personally  taken 
the  field  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  un- 
til otherwise  ordered  he  is  relieved  from  the  command 
of  the  other  military  departments,  he  retaining  com- 
mand of  the  Department  of  the  Potomac. 

Ordtrttl  further,  That  the  departments  now  under 
the  respective  commands  of  Generals  Halleck  and 
Hunter,  together  with  so  much  of  that  under  General 
Buell  as  lies  west  of  a  north  and  south  line  indefinitely 
drawn  through  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  be  consolidated  and 
designated  the  Department  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
that,  until  otherwise  ordered,  Major-General  Halleck 
have  command  of  said  department. 

Ordered  also,  That  the  country  west  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Potomac  and  east  of  the  Department  of 
the  Mississippi  be  a  military  department,  to  be  called 
the  Mountain  Department,  and  that  the  same  be  com- 
manded by  Major-General  Fremont.  That  all  the 
commanders  of  departments,  after  the  receipt  of  this 
order  by  them  respectively,  report  severally  and  di- 
rectly to  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  that  prompt,  full, 
and  frequent  reports  will  be  expected  of  all  and  each 
of  them. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

All  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  present 
heartily  approved  the  order.  The  President 
gave  his  reason  for  issuing  it  while  General 
McClellan  was  absent  from  Washington  —  a 
reason  indeed  apparent  in  the  opening  words, 
which  were  intended  to  take  from  the  act  any 
appearance  of  disfavor.  The  general's  inti- 
mate biographers  have  agreed  that  it  was  be- 
cause the  President  was  afraid  to  do  it  while 
the  general  was  in  Washington !  The  manner 
of  the  order,  which  was  meant  as  a  kindness, 
was  taken  as  a  grievance.  Mr.  Seward  advised 
that  the  order  be  issued  in  the  name  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  but  this  proposition  met 
with  a  decided  protest  from  Mr.  Stanton.  He 
said  there  was  some  friction  already  between 
himself  and  the  general's  friends,  and  he  feared 
that  the  act,  if  signed  by  him,  would  be  attrib- 
uted to  personal  feeling.  The  President  de- 
cided to  take  the  responsibility.*  In  a  manly 
*  J.  H.,  Diary. 


and  courteous  letter  the  next  day,  McClellan 
accepted  the  disposition  thus  made  of  him. 

On  the  1 3th  of  March,  at  Fairfax  Couit 
House,  General  McClellan  called  together  the 
four  corps  commanders  who  were  with  him 
and  submitted  to  them  for  discussion  the 
President's  order  of  the  8th.  The  results  of 
the  council  cannot  be  more  briefly  stated  than 
in  the  following  memorandum,  drawn  up  by 
the  generals  who  took  part  in  it : 

A  council  of  the  generals  commanding  army  corps 
at  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  were 
of  the  opinion  : 

I.  That  the  enemy  having  retreati-d  l'iom  Manassas 
to  Gordonsville,  behind  the  Knppahannock  and  Rapi- 
dan,  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  generals  commanding  army 
corps  that  the  operations  to  be  carried  on  will  be  best 
undertaken  from  Old  Point  Comfort,  between  the  York 
and  James  rivers,  provided  — 

First.  That  the  enemy's  vessel  Merrimac  can  be 
neutralized ; 

Stcond.  That  the  means  of  transportation,  sufficient 
for  an  immediate  transfer  of  the  force  to  its  new  base, 
can  be  ready  at  Washington  and  Alexandria  to  move 
down  the  Potomac ;  and 

Third.  That  a  naval  auxiliary  force  can  be  had  to 
silence,  or  aid  in  silencing,  the  enemy's  batteries  on 
the  York  River. 

Fourth.  That  the  force  to  be  left  to  cover  Washing- 
ton shall  be  such  as  to  give  an  entire  feeling  of  secu- 
rity for  its  safety  from  menace.  (Unanimous.) 

II.  If  the  foregoing  cannot  be,  the  army  should  (lien 
be  moved  against  the  enemy  behind  the  Rappahan- 
nock  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  the  means 
for  reconstructing   bridges,  repairing   railroads,  and 
stocking  them  with  materials  sufficient  for  supplying 
the  army  should  at  once  be  cpllected  for  both  the 
Orange  and  Alexandria  and  Aquia  and  Richmond  rail- 
roads.  (Unanimous.) 

N.  B. — That  with  the  forts  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Potomac  fully  garrisoned,  and  those  on  the  left  bank 
occupied,  a  covering  force  in  front  of  the  Virginia  line 
of  25,000  men  would  suffice.  (Keyes,  Heinlzelman, 
and  McDowell. )  A  total  of  40,000  men  for  the  defense 
of  the  city  would  suffice.  (Sumner.) 

These  conclusions  of  the  council  were  con- 
veyed to  Washington,  and  the  President  on 
the  same  day  sent  back  to  General  McClellan 
his  approval,  and  his  peremptory  orders  for  the 
instant  execution  of  the  plan  proposed,  in  these 
words,  signed  by  the  Secretary  of  War : 

The  President,  having  considered  the  plan  of  oper- 
ations agreed  upon  by  yourself  and  the  commanders 
of  army  corps,  makes  no  objection  to  the  same,  but 
gives  the  following  directions  as  toils  execution:  First, 
leave  such  force  at  Manassas  Junction  as  shall  make  it 
entirely  certain  that  the  enemy  shall  not  repossess 
himself  of  that  position  and  line  of  communication. 
Second,  leave  Washington  entirely  secure.  Third,  move 
the  remainder  of  the  force  down  the  Potomac,  choosing 
a  new  base  at  Fortress  Monroe,  or  anywhere  between 
here  and  there,  or,  at  all  events,  move  such  remainder 
of  the  army  at  once  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy  by  some 
route. 

No  commander  could  ask  an  order  more 
unrestricted,  more  unhampered,  than  this. 
Choose  your  own  route,  your  own  course, 
only  go;  seek  the  enemy  and  fight  him. 

Under  the  orders  of  Mr.  John  Tucker,  of 


922 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


the  War  Department,  a  fleet  of  transports  had 
been  preparing  since  the  27th  of  February.  It 
is  one  of  the  many  grievances  mentioned  by 
General  McClellan  in  his  report,  that  this 
work  was  taken  entirely  out  of  his  hands  and 
committed  to  those  of  Mr.  Tucker ;  he  thus 
estops  himself  from  claiming  any  credit  for 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  feats  of  logistics  ever 
recorded.  On  the  27th  of  February,  Mr. 
Tucker  received  his  orders;  on  the  i7th  of 
March,  the  troops  began  their  embarkation ; 
on  the  5th  of  April,  Mr.  Tucker  made  his  final 
report,  announcing  that  he  had  transported 
to  Fort  Monroe,  from  Washington,  Perryville, 
and  Alexandria,  "  121,500  men,  14,592  ani- 
mals, 1150  wagons,  44  batteries,  74  ambu- 
lances, besides  pontoon  bridges,  telegraph 
materials,  and  the  enormous  quantity  of 
equipage,  etc.,  required  for  an  army  of  such 
magnitude.  The  only  loss," he  adds,  "of  which 
I  have  heard  is  eight  mules  and  nine  barges, 
which  latter  went  ashore  in  a  gale  within  a 
few  miles  of  Fort  Monroe,  the  cargoes  being 
saved."  He  is  certainly  justified  in  closing 
his  story  with  these  words  :  "  I  respectfully 
but  confidently  submit  that,  for  economy  and 
celerity  of  movement,  this  expedition  is  with- 
out a  parallel  on  record."  * 

The  first  corps  to  embark  was  Heintzel- 
man's ;  he  took  with  him  from  General  Mc- 
Clellan the  most  stringent  orders  to  do 
nothing  more  than  to  select  camping-grounds, 
send  out  reconnaissances,  engage  guides  and 
spies,  "  but  to  make  no  important  move  in 
advance."  The  other  forces  embarked  in  turn, 
McDowell's  corps  being  left  to  the  last ;  and 
before  it  was  ready  to  sail,  General  McClellan 
himself  started  on  the  ist  of  April,  with  the 
headquarters  on  the  steamer  Commodore,  leav- 
ing behind  him  a  state  of  things  that  made  it 
necessary  to  delay  the  departure  of  McDow- 
ell's troops  still  further. 

In  all  the  orders  of  the  President  it  had 
been  clearly  stated  that,  as  an  absolute  condi- 
tion precedent  to  the  army  being  taken  away 
to  a  new  base,  enough  troops  should  be  left  at 
Washington  to  make  that  city  absolutely  safe, 
not  only  from  capture,  but  from  serious  men- 
ace. The  partisans  of  General  McClellan  then, 
and  ever  since  then,  have  contended  that,  as 
Washington  could  not  be  seriously  attacked 
without  exposing  Richmond  to  capture,  un- 
due importance  was  attached  to  it  in  these 
orders.  It  would  be  a  waste  of  words  to  argue 
with  people  who  place  the  political  and  stra- 
tegic value  of  these  two  cities  on  a  level.  The 

*  The  means  by  which  this  work  was  done  were  as 
follows : 

113  steamers  at  an  average  price  per  day $215.10 

188  schooners  at  an  average  price  per  day 24*45 

88  barges  at  an  average  price  per  day   I4>27 


capture  of  Richmond,  without  the  previous 
virtual  destruction  of  the  rebel  armies,  would 
have  been,  it  is  true,  an  important  achievement, 
but  the  seizure  of  Washington  by  the  rebels 
would  have  been  a  fatal  blow  to  the  Union 
cause.  General  McClellan  was  in  the  habit  of 
saying  that  if  the  rebel  army  should  take  Wash- 
ington while  he  was  at  Richmond  they  could 
never  get  back ;  but  it  might  be  said  that  the 
general  who  would  permit  Washington  to  be 
taken  could  not  be  relied  on  to  prevent  the 
enemy  from  doing  what  they  liked  afterward. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  unquestionably  right  in  in- 
sisting that  Washington  must  not  only  be 
rendered  safe  from  capture,  but  must  also 
be  without  the  possibility  of  serious  danger. 
This  view  was  adopted  by  the  council  of 
corps  commanders,  who  met  on  the  i3th  of 
March  at  Fairfax  Court  House.  They  agreed 
unanimously  upon  this  principle,  and  then, 
so  as  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  details,  three 
of  the  four  gave  the  opinion  that  after  the 
forts  on  the  Virginia  side  were  fully  garri- 
soned, and  those  on  the  Maryland  side  occu- 
pied, a  covering  force  of  25,000  men  would 
be  required. 

The  morning  after  General  McClellan  had 
sailed  for  Fort  Monroe,  the  Secretary  of  War 
was  astonished  to  hear  from  General  Wads- 
worth,  the  military  Governor  of  the  District  of 
Washington,  that  he  had  left  him  present  for 
duty  only  19,000  men,  and  that  from  that  force 
he  had  orders  to  detach  four  good  regiments 
to  join  General  McClellan  on  the  Peninsula, 
and  four  more  to  relieve  Sumner  at  Manassas 
and  Warrenton.  He  further  reported  that  his 
command  was  entirely  "  inadequate  to  the 
important  duty  to  which  it  was  assigned." 
As  General  Wadsworth  was  a  man  of  the 
highest  intelligence,  courage,  and  calm  judg- 
ment, the  President  was  greatly  concerned  by 
this  emphatic  statement.  Orders  were  at  once 
given  to  General  E.  A.  Hitchcock,  an  accom- 
plished veteran  officer  on  duty  at  the  War  De- 
partment, and  to  Adjutant-General  Thomas, 
to  investigate  the  statement  made  by  General 
Wadsworth.  They  reported  the  same  night 
that  it  would  require  30,000  men  to  man  and 
occupy  the  forts,  which,  with  the  covering 
force  of  25,000,  would  make  55,000  necessary 
for  the  proper  defense  of  the  city,  according 
to  the  judgment  of  the  council  of  corps  com- 
manders. They  confirmed  the  report  of  Wads- 
worth  that  his  efficient  force  consisted  of 
19,000,  from  which  General  McClellan  had 
ordered  eight  regiments  away.  They  there- 
fore concluded  "  that  the  requirement  of  the 
President  that  the  city  should  be  left  entirely 
secure  had  not  been  fully  complied  with."  In 
accordance  with  this  report  the  President  di- 
rected that  General  McDowell's  corps  should 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


923 


not  be  sent   to  the  Peninsula  until  further 
orders.* 

YORKTOWX. 

GENERAL  MCCLELLAN  arrived  at  Fort 
Monroe  on  the  morning  of  the  ad  of  April. 
According  to  his  own  report  he  had  ready  the 
i  lay  to  move  58,000  men  and  100  guns, 
besides  the  division  artillery.  They  were  of 
the  flower  of  the  volunteer  army,  and  included 
also  Sykes's  brigade  of  regulars,  Hunt's  artil- 
lery reserve,  and  several  regiments  of  cavalry. 
These  were  all  on  the  spot,  prepared  to  march, 
and  an  almost  equal  number  were  on  their 
way  to  join  him.  He  seemed  at  first  to  ap- 
preciate the  necessity  for  prompt  and  decisive 
action,  and  with  only  one  day's  delay  issued 
his  orders  for  the  march  up  the  Peninsula  be- 
tween the  York  and  James  rivers.  The  first 
obstacle  that  he  expected  to  meet  was  the 
force  of  General  J.  B.  Magruder  at  Yorktown, 
which  McClellan  estimated  at  from  15,000  to 
20,000.  Magruder  says  his  force  consisted  of 
1 1 ,000,  of  which  6000  were  required  for  the 
fortifications  of  Yorktown  and  only  5000  were 
left  to  hold  the  line  across  the  Peninsula,  13 
miles  in  length.  His  only  object  was  to  delay 
as  long  as  possible  the  advance  of  the  National 
troops  upon  Richmond,  and  his  dispositions 
were  made  to  that  end.  If  he  had  had  troops 
enough,  he  says  that  he  would  have  made  his 
line  of  defense  between  Ship  Point,  on  the  York, 
and  the  mouth  of  the  Warwick,  on  the  James. 
But  his  force  being  insufficient  for  that  pur- 
pose, he  took  up  as  a  second  line  the  Warwick 
River,  which  heads  only  a  mile  or  so  from 
Yorktown  and  empties  into  the  James  some 
thirteen  miles  to  the  south.  Yorktown  and  its 
redoubts,  united  by  long  curtains  and  flanked 
by  rifle-pits,  formed  the  left  of  his  line,  which 
was  continued  by  the  Warwick  River,  a  slug- 
gish and  boggy  stream  running  through  a 
dense  wood  fringed  with  swamps.  The  stream 
was  dammed  in  two  places,  at  Wynn's  Mill 
and  at  Lee's  Mill;  and  Magruder  constructed 
three  more  dams  to  back  up  the  river  and 
make  the  fords  impassable.  Each  of  these 
dams  was  protected  by  artillery  and  earth- 
works. 

General  McClellan  was  absolutely  ignorant 
not  only  of  these  preparations  made  to  receive 
him,  but  also  of  the  course  of  the  river  and  the 
nature  of  the  ground  through  which  it  ran.  He 
knew  something  of  the  disposition  of  Magru- 
der's  outposts  on  his  first  line,  and  rightly  con- 


jectured that  they  would  retire  as  he  advanced. 
His  orders  for  the  4th  of  April  were  therefore 
punctually  carried  out,  and  he  seemed  to  have 
expected  no  greater  difficulty  in  his  plan  for 
the  next  day.t  He  divided  his  force  into  two 
columns —  Heint/.elman  to  take  the  right  and 
march  directly  to  Yorktown  ;  and  Keyes,  tak- 
ing the  road  to  the  left,  to  push  on  to  the 
Half-way  House  in  the  rear  of  Yorktown,  on 
the  Williamsburg  road.  He  expected  KCNO 
to  be  there  the  same  day,  to  occupy  the  nar- 
row ridge  in  that  neighborhood,  "  to  prevent 
the  escape  of  the  garrison  at  Yorktown  by 
land,  and  to  prevent  reinforcements  from  be- 
ing thrown  in."  Heintzelman  went  forward  to 
the  place  assigned  him  in  front  of  Yorktown, 
meeting  with  little  opposition.  Keyes  marched 
by  the  road  assigned  him  until  he  came  to  the 
enemy's  fortified  position  at  Lee's  Mill,  which, 
to  use  General  McClellan's  words, "  he  found 
altogether  stronger  than  was  expected,  unap- 
proachable by  reason  of  the  Warwick  River, 
and  incapable  of  being  carried  by  assault." 
The  discovery  of  this  "  unexpected  "  obstacle 
exercised  a  paralyzing  influence  upon  the  Gen- 
eral-in-Chief. The  energetic  and  active  cam- 
paign that  day  begun  was  at  once  given  up. 
Two  days  of  reconnaissances  convinced  him 
that  he  could  not  break  through  the  line  which 
Magruder's  little  army  of  11,000  men  had 
stretched  across  the  Peninsula,  and  he  resolved 
upon  a  regular  siege  of  the  place.  He  began 
at  the  same  time  that  campaign  of  complaint 
and  recrimination  against  the  Government 
which  he  kept  up  as  long  as  he  remained  in 
the  service. 

He  always  ascribed  the  failure  of  his  cam- 
paign at  this  point  to  two  causes ;  first,  to  the 
want  of  assistance  by  the  navy  in  reducing 
Yorktown,  and  second,  to  the  retention  of 
McDowell's  corps  in  front  of  Washington.  If 
the  navy  had  silenced  the  batteries  at  Yorktown 
and  Gloucester,  he  contended,  he  could  have 
gone  up  the  Peninsula  unchecked.  This  is 
unquestionably  true ;  it  would  be  equally  true 
to  say  in  general  terms  that  if  somebody  else 
would  do  our  work  we  would  have  no  work 
to  do.  He  brings  no  proof  to  show  that  he 
had  any  right  to  expect  that  the  navy  would 
do  this  for  him.  It  is  true  that  he  asked  before 
he  left  Washington  that  the  navy  might  co- 
operate with  him  in  this  plan,  and  received  in 
reply  the  assurance  that  the  navy  would  ren- 
der him  all  the  assistance  in  its  power.  The 
sworn  testimony  of  Mr.  Fox,  the  Assistant- 


*  General  McClellan  made  in  his  report  an  elaborate  But  he  does  not  deny  the  facts  stated  by  Wadsworth 

effort  to  explain  away  these  facts,    fie  claims  to  have  and  confirmed  by  Hitchcock  and  Thomas. 
left  a  force  of  73,000  for  the  defense  of  Washington,         t  In  a  letter  on  the  3d  he  wrote:  "  I  hope  to  get 

including  in  the  number  all  the  troops  under  Dix  in  possession  of  Yorktown  day  after  to-morrow."  ["  Me- 

Maryland,  under  Banks  in  the  Shenandoah,  all  those  Clellan's  Own  Story,"  p.  307.] 
at  Warrenton,  at  Manassas,and  on  the  lower  Potomac. 


924 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  of  Admiral  Golds- 
borough,  shows  that  nothing  was  promised 
that  was  not  performed,  and  that  the  navy 
stood  ready  to  give,  and  did  give,  all  the  as- 
sistance to  the  army  which  was  possible.  Mr. 
Fox  said : 

Wooden  vessels  could  not  have  attacked  the  batter- 
ies at  Yorktown  and  Gloucester  with  any  degree  of 
success.  The  forts  at  Yorktown  were  situated  too 
high,  were  beyond  the  reach  of  naval  guns ;  and  I 
understood  that  General  McClellan  never  expected  any 
attack  to  be  made  upon  them  by  the  navy. 

Admiral  Goldsborough's  evidence  is  to  the 
same  effect :  he  promised  that  the  Merrimac 
should  never  go  up  the  York  River,  and  she 
did  not;  he  never  heard  that  he  was  expected 
to  cooperate  with  the  army  in  attacking  York- 
town;  he  did  everything  that  General  McClel- 
lan requested  of  him.  His  orders  from  the  de- 
partment were  clear  and  urgent,  though  gen- 
eral; he  was  "to  extend  to  the  army,  at  all 
times,  any  and  all  aid  that  he  could  render"; 
and  he  never  refused  to  honor  any  draft  that 
was  made  upon  him.  General  McClellan  pur- 
sued in  this  matter  his  invariable  system.  He 
asked  for  impossibilities,  and  when  they  were 
not  accomplished  for  him  he  cherished  it  ever 
after  as  a  precious  grievance — like  a  certain 
species  of  lawyer,  who  in  a  case  that  he  ex- 
pects to  lose  always  takes  care  to  provide 
himself  with  a  long  bill  of  exceptions  on  which 
to  base  his  appeal. 

The  greatest  of  his  grievances  was  the  re- 
tention of  McDowell's  corps,  and  his  clamor 
in  regard  to  this  was  so  loud  and  long  as  to 
blind  many  careless  readers  and  writers  to  the 
facts  in  the  case.  We  have  stated  them  already, 
but  they  may  be  briefly  recapitulated  here.  A 
council  of  war  of  General  McClellan's  corps 
commanders,  called  by  himself,  had  decided 
that  Washington  could  not  be  safely  left  with- 
out a  covering  force  of  55,000,  including  the 
garrisons  of  the  forts.  When  he  had  gone, 
General  Wadsworth  reported  that  he  had  left 
only  19,000,  and  had  ordered  away  nearly 
half  of  these.  Two  eminent  generals  in  the 
War  Department  investigated  this  statement 
and  found  it  true,  whereupon  the  President 
ordered  that  McDowell's  corps  should  for  the 
present  remain  within  reach  of  Washington. 
McClellan  took  with  him  to  the  Peninsula  an 
aggregate  force  of  ove'r  100,000  men,  after- 
wards largely  increased.  His  own  morning 

*  The  discrepancy  cannot  be  accounted  for.  General 
McClellan's  official  morning  report  of  the  131!!  of 
April,  four  days  after  the  date  of  the  President's  letter, 
gives  the  following:  "Number  of  troops  composing 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  after  its  disembarkation  on 
the  Peninsula  :  Aggregate  present  for  duty,  100,970  ; 
on  special  duty,  sick,  and  in  arrest,  4265 ;  aggregate 
absent,  12,486,  —  total  aggregate,  117,721."  Yet  with 


report  of  the  i3th  of  April,  signed  by  himself 
and  his  adjutant-general,  shows  that  he  had 
with  him  actually  present  for  duty  100,970. 
With  this  overwhelming  superiority  of  num- 
bers he  could  have  detached  30.000  men  at 
any  moment  to  do  the  work  that  he  had  in- 
tended McDowell  to  do.  But  all  the  energy  he 
might  have  employed  in  this  work  he  diverted 
in  attacking  the  Administration  at  Washington, 
which  was  doing  all  that  it  could  do  to  sup- 
port and  provide  for  his  army. 

The  attitude  of  the  President  towards  him 
at  this  time  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
letterofthe  gth  of  April,  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
answers  his  complaints  with  as  much  consider- 
ation and  kindness  as  a  father  would  use  to- 
wards a  querulous  and  petulant  child : 

Your  dispatches  complaining  that  you  are  not  prop- 
erly sustained,  while  they  do  not  offend  me,  do  pain 
me  very  much. 

Blenker's  division  was  withdrawn  from  you  before 
you  left  here,  and  you  know  the  pressure  under  which 
I  did  it,  and,  as  I  thought,  acquiesced  in  it — certainly 
not  without  reluctance.  After  you  left,  I  ascertained 
that  less  than  20,000  unorganized  men,  without  a  single 
field  battery,  were  all  you  designed  to  be  left  for  the 
defense  of  Washington  and  Manassas  Junction,  and 
part  of  this  even  was  to  go  to  General  Hooker's  old 
position.  General  Banks's  corps,  once  designed  for 
Manassas  Junction,  was  diverted  and  tied  up  on  the  line 
of  Winchester  and  Strasburg,  and  could  not  leave  it 
without  again  exposing  the  upper  Potomac  and  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad.  This  presented,  or 
would  present  when  McDowell  and  Sumner  should 
be  gone,  a  great  temptation  to  the  enemy  to  turn  back 
from  the  Rappahannock  and  sack  Washington.  My 
official  order  that  Washington  should,  by  the  judg- 
ment of  all  the  commanders  of  army  corps,  be  left 
entirely  secure,  had  been  neglected.  It  was  precisely 
tills  that  drove  me  to  detain  McDowell. 

I  do  not  forget  that  I  was  satisfied  with  your  ar- 
rangement to  leave  Banks  at  Manassas  Junction;  but 
when  that  arrangement  was  broken  up,  and  nothing 
was  substituted  for  it,  of  course  I  was  constrained  to 
substitute  something  for  it  myself.  And  now  allow  me 
to  ask,  do  you  really  think  I  should  permit  the  line 
from  Richmond  via  Manassas  Junction  to  this  city  to 
be  entirely  open,  except  what  resistance  could  be  pre- 
sented by  less  than  20,000  unorganized  troops  ?  This 
is  a  question  which  the  country  will  not  allow  me  to 
evade. 

There  is  a  curious  mystery  about  the  number  of 
troops  now  with  you.  When  I  telegraphed  you  on 
the  6th  saying  you  had  over  100,000  with  you,  I 
had  just  obtained  from  the  Secretary  of  War  a  state- 
ment taken,  as  he  said,  from  your  own  returns,  making 
108,000  then  with  you  and  en  route  to  you.  You  now 
say  you  will  have  but  85,000  when  all  en  route  to  you 
shall  have  reached  you.  How  can  the  discrepancy  of 
23,000  be  accounted  for  ?  * 

As  to  General  Wool's  command,  I  understand  it  is 
doing  for  you  precisely  what  a  like  number  of  your 

statements  like  these  on  file  in  the  War  Department, 
over  his  own  signature,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  inform 
the  President  that  his  force  amounted  to  only  85,000; 
and  even  this  sum  dwindled  so  considerably,  as  years 
rolled  by,  that  in  his  article  in  THE  CENTURY,  in  May, 
1 885,  on  the  Peninsula  Campaign,  he  gives  his  available 
fighting  force  as  "67,000  or  68,000." 


PLANS  OF  CAMJ>AR;.V. 


own  would  have  to  do  if  that  command  was  away.  I 
suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward  for 
you  is  with  you  by  this  time,  and  if  so,  I  think  it  is  the 
precise  time  for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  I'.y  delay  the 
enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you  —  that  is,  he 
will  gain  faster  by  fortifications  and  ree'nforceim-ms 
than  you  can  by  reinforcements  alone.  And  once 
more  Iri  inr  ti-11  yon  it  is  indispensable  to  you  that 
you  strike  a  blow.  I  am  powei  less  to  help  this.  You 
will  do  me  the  justice  to  remember  I  always  insisted 
that  going  down  the  bay  in  search  of  a  field,  in- 
stead of  lighting  at  or  near  Manassus,  was  only  shift- 
ing and  not  surmounting  a  difficulty ;  that  we  would 
find  the  same  enemy  and  the  same  or  equal  intrench- 
ments  at  either  place.  The  country  will  not  fail  to 
note,  is  now  noting,  that  the  present  hesitation  to 
move  upon  an  intrenched  enemy  is  but  the  story  of 
Mannssas  repeated. 

I  beg  to  assure  you  that  I  have  never  written  you  or 
spoken  to  you  in  greater  kindness  of  feeling  than  now, 
nor  with  a  fuller  purpose  to  sustain  you,  so  far  as,  in 
my  most  anxious  judgment,  I  consistently  can.  Hut 
you  must  act. 

These  considerations  produced  no  impres- 
sion upon  General  McClellan.  From  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  the  siege  of  Yorktown, 
Ins  dispatches  were  one  incessant  cry  for  men 
and  guns.  These  the  Government  furnished  to 
the  utmost  extent  possible,  but  nothing  con- 
tented him.  His  hallucination  of  overwhelm- 
ing forces  opposed  to  him  began  again,  as 
violent  as  it  was  during  the  winter.  On  the  8th 
of  April  he  wrote  to  Admiral  Goldsborough, 
"  I  am  probably  weaker  than  they  are,  or 
soon  will  be."  His  distress  is  sometimes  comic 
in  its  expression.  He  writes  on  the  yth  of 
April,  "The  Warwick  River  grows  worse  the 
more  you  look  at  it."  While  demanding  Mc- 
Dowell's corps  en  bloc  he  asked  on  the  5th  for 
Franklin's  division,  and  on  the  roth  repeated 
this  request,  saying  that  although  he  wanted 
more,  he  would  be  responsible  for  the  results 
if  Franklin's  division  were  sent  him.  The  ( lov- 
ernment,  overborne  by  his  importunity,  gave 
orders  the  same  day  that  Franklin's  division 
should  go  to  him,  and  the  arrangements  for 
transporting  them  were  made  with  the  great- 
est diligence.  He  was  delighted  with  this  news; 
and  although  the  weather  was  good  and  the 
roads  improving,  he  did  nothing  but  throw  up 
earth-works  until  they  came.  They  arrived  on 
the  2oth,  and  no  use  whatever  was  made  of 
them  !  He  kept  them  in  the  transports  in  which 
they  had  come  down  the  bay  more  than  two 
weeks  —  in  fact,  until  the  day  before  the  siege 
ended.  It  is  hard  to  speak  with  proper  mod- 
eration of  so  ridiculous  a  disposition  of  this 
most  valuable  force,  so  clamorously  demanded 
by  General  McClellan,  and  so  generously  sent 
him  by  the  President.  General  Webb,  the  in- 
timate friend  and  staff-officer  of  McClellan, 
thus  speaks  of  it : 

Lieutenant-Colonel  Alexander  of  the  Corps  - 
gineers  was  instructed  to  devise  the  proper  arrange- 
ments and  superintend  the  landing  of  the  troops  ;  but, 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 128. 


extraordinary  as  it  may  seem,  more  than  two  weeks  win 
consumed  in  the  preliminaries,  and  when  everything 
w.is  nearly  ready  for  the  disembarkation  the  enemy  had 
vanished  from  the  scene.  ..  .  How  long  it  win: It!  ! 
taken  the  whole  of  Mel  )o\\  ell'-,  corps  to  disembark  at 
this  rate  .  .  .  the  reader  may  judge;  and  yet  for  days 
it  had  been  McClellan's  pet  project,  in  connection  \\  ith 
hi-;  plan  of  campaign,  to  utilize  McDowell  in  just  this 
manner  as  a  flanking  column. 

The  simple  truth  is,  there  was  never  an  hour 
(luring  General  McC'lellan's  command  of  the 
army  that  he  had  not  more  troops  than  ho 
knew  what  to  do  with  ;  yet  he  was  always  in- 
stinctively calling  for  more.  Mr.  Stanton  one 
day  said  of  him,  with  natural  hyperbole  : 

If  he  had  a  million  men,  he  would  swear  the  enemy 
had  two  millions,  and  then  he  would  sit  down  in  the 
mud  and  yell  for  three. 

As  usual  with  him,  he  entirely  mistook  the 
position,  the  strength,  and  the  intentions  of 
the  enemy.  He  repeatedly  telegraphed  to 
Washington  that  he  expected  to  fight  an  equal 
or  greater  force — in  fact,  "all  the  available 
force  of  the  rebels  "  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Yorktown.  We  have  the  concurrent  testimony 
of  all  the  Confederate  authorities  that  no  such 
plan  was  ever  thought  of.  Magruder's  inten- 
tions, as  well  as  his  orders  from  Richmond, 
were  merely  to  delay  McClellan's  advance  as 
long  as  practicable.  His  success  in  this  pur- 
pose surpassed  his  most  sanguine  expectations. 
In  the  early  days  of  April  he  was  hourly  ex- 
pecting an  attack  at  some  point  on  his  thinly 
defended  line  of  13  miles,  guarded,  as  he  says, 
by  only  5000  men,  exclusive  of  the  6000  who 
garrisoned  Yorktown.  "  But  to  my  utter  sur- 
prise," he  continues,  "  he  permitted  day  after 
day  to  elapse  without  an  assault."  At  last, 
no  less  to  his  astonishment  than  to  his  delight, 
Magruder  discovered  that  McClellan  was  be- 
ginning a  regular  siege,  which  meant  a  gain  of 
several  weeks  for  the  rebel  defense  of  Rich- 
mond, and  absolute  safety  for  the  concentra- 
tion of  rebel  troops  in  the  mean  time. 

It  is  now  perfectly  clear  to  all  military 
critics  not  blinded  by  partisanship  or  personal 
partiality  that  McClellan  could  have  carried 
the  line  of  Magruder  by  assault  at  any  time 
during  the  early  days  of  April.  From  the 
mass  of  testimony  to  this  effect  before  us  we 
will  take  only  two  or  three  expressions,  of  the 
highest  authority.  General  A.  S.  Webb  says: 

That  the  Warwick  line  could  have  been  readily 
broken  within  a  week  after  the  army's  arrival  before 
it,  we  now  know. 

General  Heintzelman  says,  in  his  evidence 
before  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the 
War: 

I  think  if  I  had  been  permitted,  when  I  first  landed 
on  the  Peninsula,  to  advance,  I  could  have  isolated  the 


926 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Iroops  in  Yorktown,  and  the  place  would  have  fallen 
in  a  few  days ;  but  my  orders  were  very  stringent  not 
to  make  any  demonstration. 

General  Barnard,  McClellan's  Chief  of 
Engineers,  says  in  his  final  report  of  the  cam- 
paign that  the  lines  of  Yorktown  should  have 
been  assaulted : 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  they  were  not  held 
by  strong  force  when  our  army  appeared  before  them, 
.ind  we  know  that  they  were  far  from  complete.  .  .  . 
Our  troops  toiled  a  month  in  the  trenches,  or  lay  in 
the  swamps  of  the  Warwick.  We  lost  few  men  by  the 
siege,  but  disease  took  a  fearful  hold  of  the  army,  and 
toil  and  hardship,  unrelieved  by  the  excitement  of  com- 
bat, impaired  the  morale.  We  did  not  carry  with  us 
from  Yorktown  so  good  an  army  as  we  took  there. 

The  testimony  of  the  enemy  is  the  same. 
Johnston,  so  soon  as  he  came  to  examine  it, 
regarded  the  position  of  Magruder  as  clearly 
untenable :  saw  that  McClellan  could  not  be 
defeated  there ;  that  the  line  was  too  long  to 
be  successfully  defended;  that  the  back-water 
was  as  much  a  protection  to  one  side  as  the 
other;  that  there  was  a  considerable  unforti- 
fied space  between  Yorktown  and  the  head 
of  the  stream,  open  to  attack;  and  that 
the  position  could  at  any  time  be  turned  by 
way  of  York  River.  Every  one  seemed  to  see 
it  except  General  McClellan.  He  went  on 
sending  dispatches  every  day  to  Washington 
for  heavier  guns  and  more  men,  digging  a 
colossal  system  of  earth-works  for  gradual  ap- 
proach upon  one  side  of  an  intrenched  camp 
of  no  strategic  value  whatever,  the  rear  of 
which  was  entirely  open;  preparing  with  in- 
finite labor  and  loss  the  capture  of  a  place 
without  a  prisoner,  the  effect  of  which  at  the 
best  would  be  merely  to  push  an  army  back 
upon  its  reserves. 

Even  so  late  as  the  i6th  of  April,  an  op- 
portunity to  break  Magruder's  line  was  clearly 
presented  to  McClellan  and  rejected.  He  had 
ordered  General  W.  F.  Smith  to  reconnoiter 
a  position  known  as  Dam  No.  i,  between 
Lee's  and  Wynn's  Mills,  where  there  was  a 
crossing  covered  by  a  one-gun  battery  of  the 
enemy.  For  this  purpose  Smith  pushed 
Brooks's  Vermont  brigade  with  Mott's  battery 
somewhat  close  to  the  dam,  carrying  on  a  sharp 
fire.  From  this  point  he  examined  at  his  leis- 
ure, and  in  fact  controlled,  the  position  op- 
posite, finding  it  feebly  defended.  A  young 
officer  of  Brooks's  staff,  Lieutenant  Noyes, 
crossed  the  river  below  the  dam,  where  the 
water  was  only  waist  deep,  and  approached 
within  fifty  yards  of  the  enemy's  works.  Re- 
turning after  this  daring  feat,  he  repeated  his 
observations  to  General  Smith  and  to  General 
McClellan,  who  had  arrived  on  the  ground 
and  had  ordered  Smith  to  bring  up  his  entire 
division  to  hold  the  advanced  position  occu- 
pied by  Brooks's  brigade.  Smith,  who  per- 


ceived the  importance  of  Noyes's  intelligence, 
obtained  permission  to  send  a  party  across 
the  stream  to  see  if  the  enemy's  works  had 
been  sufficiently  denuded  to  enable  a  column 
to  effect  a  lodgment.  Four  companies  of 
the  3d  Vermont,  numbering  200  men,  under 
Captain  Harrington,  were  ordered  to  cross  the 
river,  to  ascertain  "  the  true  state  of  affairs." 
They  dashed  through  the  stream,  and  in 
a  few  moments  gained  the  enemy's  rifle- 
pits,  where  they  maintained  themselves  with 
the  utmost  gallantry  for  half  an  hour.  The 
enemy  was  thrown  into  great  confusion  by 
this  bold  and  utterly  unexpected  movement. 
There  were  still  several  hours  of  daylight  left, 
and  another  attempt  was  made  to  cross  at  the 
same  point  with  a  force  no  larger  than  Har- 
rington's, assisted  by  a  diversion  of  an  equal 
force  at  the  dam  above.  But  the  enemy  being 
now  thoroughly  aroused  and  concentrated,  the 
crossing  was  not  made.  It  appears  from  Gen- 
eral Smith's  report  that  "  no  attempt  to  mass 
the  troops  of  the  division  for  an  assault  was 
made  " ;  the  only  intention  seemed  to  be  "  to 
secure  the  enemy's  works  if  we  found  them 
abandoned ! "  He  adds : 

The  moment  I  found  resistance  serious,  and  the  num- 
bers opposed  great,  I  acted  in  obedience  to  the  warn- 
ing instructions  of  the  General-in-Chief,and  withdrew 
the  small  number  of  .troops  exposed  from  under  fire. 

"  Thus,"  says  General  Webb,  "  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity to  break  the  Warwick  line  was  missed." 

The  importance  of  this  incident  may  be  best 
appreciated  by  reading  General  Magruder's 
account  of  it.  He  calls  it  a  serious  attempt 
to  break  his  line  at  the  weakest  part.  If,  in- 
stead of  two  hundred  men,  Smith  had  felt  au- 
thorized to  push  over  his  entire  division,  the 
Peninsula  campaign  would  have  had  a  very 
different  termination. 

The  little  that  was  done  greatly  pleased 
General  McClellan.  He  announced  the  move- 
ment of  General  Smith  in  a  somewhat  excited 
dispatch  to  the  War  Department,  which  Mr. 
Stanton  answered  with  still  more  enthusiastic 
congratulation.  "  Good  for  the  first  lick ! "  he 
shouts ;  "  Hurrah  for  Smith  and  the  one-gun 
battery" — showing  the  intense  eagerness  of 
the  Government  to  find  motives  for  satisfaction 
and  congratulation  in  McClellan's  conduct. 
But  there  was  no  sequel  to  the  movement; 
indeed,  General  McClellan's  dispatches  indi- 
cate considerable  complacency  that  Smith  was 
able  to  hold  the  position  gained.  General 
Webb  says,  "  Reconnaissances  were  made, .  .  . 
but  no  assaulting  columns  were  ever  organ- 
ized to  take  advantage  of  any  opportunity 
offered." 

No  congratulations  or  encouragements  from 
the  Government  now  availed  anything  with 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


927 


McClellan.  Struggling  with  a  command  and 
a  responsibility  too  heavy  for  him,  he  had  fallen 
into  a  morbid  state  of  mind  in  which  prompt 
and  energetic  action  was  impossible.  His 
double  illusion  of  an  overpowering  force  of  the 
enemy  in  his  front,  and  of  a  government  at 
Washington  that  desired  the  destruction  of 
his  army,  was  always  present  with  him,  exert- 
ing its  paralysing  influence  on  all  his  plans 
and  actions.  In  his  private  letters  he  speaks 
of  Washington  as  that  "  sink  of  iniquity  " ;  of 
the  people  in  authority  as  "those  treacherous 
hounds  " ;  of  the  predicament  he  is  in,  "  the 
rebels  on  one  side  and  the  Abolitionists  and 
other  scoundrels  on  the  other."  "  I  feel,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  depends  upon 
me,  and  I  feel  that  I  have  not  one  single  friend 
at  the  seat  of  government " —  this  at  a  moment 
when  the  Government  was  straining  every 
nerve  to  support  him. 

The  Confederates,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said, 
were  daily  strengthening  their  position  by  for- 
tification and  reinforcement.  On  the  lyth  of 
April,  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  took  com- 
mand of  the  army  of  the  Peninsula.  He  says 
that  his  force  after  the  arrival  of  Smith's  and 
Longstreet's  divisions  amounted  to  about 
53,000  men,  including  3000  sick ;  he  places 
the  force  of  McClellan  at  133,000,  including 
Franklin's  division  of  13,000  floating  idly  on 
their  transports.*  He  did  nothing  more  than  to 
observe  the  Union  army  closely,  to  complete 
the  fortifications  between  Yorktown  and  the 
inundations  of  the  Warwick,  and  to  hold  his 
own  forces  in  readiness  for  a  movement  to  the 
rear.  He  kept  himself  informed  of  the  prog- 
ress of  McClellan's  engineering  work  against 
Yorktown,  as  it  was  not  his  intention  to  remain 
long  enough  to  spend  an  hour  under  fire.  He 
did  not  expect  to  be  hurried ;  he  had  long 
before  that  given  his  opinion  that  McClellan 
did  not  especially  value  time.  Every  day  of 
delay  was  of  course  an  advantage,  but  "  an 
additional  day  or  two  gained  by  enduring  a 
cannonade  would  have  been  dearly  bought  in 
blood,"  and  he  therefore  determined  to  go  be- 
fore McClellan's  powerful  artillery  should  open 
upon  him.  Seeing,  as  we  now  can,  what  was 
occurring  upon  both  sides  of  the  Warwick 
River,  there  is  something  humiliating  and  not 
without  a  touch  of  the  pathetic  in  the  con- 
trast between  the  clear  vision  of  Johnston  and 
the  absolute  blindness  of  McClellan,  in  rela- 
tion to  each  other's  attitude  and  purpose. 
While  the  former  was  simply  watching  for  the 
flash  of  the  first  guns  to  take  his  departure, 


glad  of  every  day  that  the  firing  was  postponed, 
but  entirely  indifferent  to  the  enormous  devel- 
opment of  the  siege-works  going  on  in  his 
sight,  the  latter  was  toiling  with  prodigious 
industry  and  ability  over  his  vast  earth-works 
and  his  formidable  batteries,  only  pausing  to 
send  importunate  dispatches  to  Washington  for 
more  guns  and  more  soldiers,  forbiddi  ng  the  ad- 
vance of  a  picket  beyond  specified  limits,  care- 
fully concealing  every  battery  until  all  should 
be  finished,  not  allowing  a  gun  to  be  tired 
until  the  whole  thunderous  chorus  should  open 
at  once,  firmly  convinced  that  when  he  was 
entirely  ready  he  would  fight  and  destroy  the 
whole  rebel  army. 

Nearly  one  hundred  heavy  Parrott  guns, 
mortars,  and  howitzers  were  placed  in  battery 
against  the  town  and  camp  of  Yorktown  and 
its  outlying  works,  only  fifteen  hundred  or 
two  thousand  yards  away.  Against  the  opin- 
ion of  his  ablest  staff-officers,  McClellan  kept 
this  immense  armament  silent  for  weeks  while 
he  was  continually  adding  to  it.  Barnard,  Chief 
of  Engineers,  says,  "  We  should  have  opened 
our  batteries  on  the  place  as  fast  as  they 
were  completed."  Barry,  Chief  of  Artillery, 
says: 

The  case  with  which  the  loo  and  200  pounders  of 
this  battery  [  Battery  No.  I  ]  were  worked,  the  extraor- 
dinary accuracy  of  their  fire,  and  the  since  ascertained 
effects  produced  upon  the  enemy  by  it,  force  upon  me 
the  conviction  that  the  fire  of  guns  of  similar  caliber 
and  power  in  the  other  batteries  at  much  shorter 
ranges,  combined  with  the  cross-vertical  fire  of  the 
thirteen  and  ten  inch  sea-coast  mortars,  would  have 
compelled  the  enemy  to  surrender  or  abandon  his  works 
in  less  than  twelve  hours. 

General  McClellan's  only  reason  for  refus- 
ing to  allow  the  batteries  to  open  fire  as  they 
were  successively  finished  was  the  fear  that 
they  would  be  silenced  by  the  converging  fire 
of  the  enemy  as  soon  as  they  betrayed  their 
position.  That  this  was  a  gross  error  is  shown 
by  the  Confederate  reports.  They  were  per- 
fectly cognizant  of  the  progress  and  disposi- 
tion of  his  batteries;  the  very  good  reason 
why  they  did  not  annoy  him  in  their  construc- 
tion was  that  the  Union  lines  were,  to  use 
Johnston's  words,  "  beyond  the  range  of  our 
old-fashioned  ship  guns."  A  few  experimen- 
tal shots  were  fired  from  the  shore  batteries 
on  the  ist  of  May  ;  the  effect  of  them  con- 
vinced the  Confederate  general  of  the  enor- 
mous surplus  strength  of  the  Federal  artillery. 
The  shots  from  their  first  volley  fell  on  the  camp 
of  his  reserve,  a  mile  and  a  half  beyond  the 
village.t 


*  His  own  force  is  correctly  given.    He  only  slightly     have  been  constructed  that  may  almost  be  called  gigan- 


(.•xaggurates  that  of  McClellan. 


tic,  roads  built  through  swamps  and  difficult  ravines, 


t  On  the  23d  of  April,  McClellan  wrote  to  the  Presi-  material  brought  up,  batteries  built.  I  have  to-night 
dent :  "  Do  not  misunderstand  the  apparent  inaction  in  battery  and  ready  for  motion  5  loo-pounder  Parrott 
here  — not  a  day,  not  an  hour,  has  been  lost.  Works  guns,  10  4j^-inch  ordnance  guns,  18  2o-pounder  Par- 


928 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


How  long  General  McClellan  would  have 
continued  this  futile  labor  if  he  had  been  left 
alone,  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture.  If  there 
was  at  first  a  limit  in  his  own  mind  of  the 
work  to  be  done  and  the  time  to  be  given  to 
it,  it  must  have  been  continually  moved 
forward  until  it  passed  out  of  sight.  Up  to 
the  last  moment  he  was  still  making  de- 
mands which  it  would  have  taken  weeks  to 
fill.  The  completion  of  one  work  was  simply 
an  incentive  to  the  beginning  of  another. 
Thus  on  the  28th  of  April, —  a  week  after 
Franklin's  arrival, —  at  a  time  when  Johnston 
was  already  preparing  to  start  for  Richmond, 
he  telegraphs  to  Washington  as  a  pleasant 
bit  of  news  that  he  "  had  commenced  a  new 
battery  from  right  of  first  parallel,"  and  adds: 
"  Would  be  glad  to  have  the  3o-pounder 
Parrotts  in  the  works  around  Washington 
at  once.  Am  very  short  of  that  excellent 
gun."  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  how 
such  a  dispatch  at  such  a  time  smote  upon 
the  intense  anxiety  of  the  President.  He 
answered  in  wonder  and  displeasure :  "  Your 
call  for  Parrott  guns  from  Washington 
alarms  me,  chiefly  because  it  argues  indefinite 
procrastination.  Is  anything  to  be  done  ?  " 
But  the  general,  busy  with  his  trenches  and 
his  epaulements,  paid  no  regard  to  this  search- 
ing question.  Two  days  later,  May  i,  he 
continued  his  cheery  report  of  new  batteries 
and  rifle-pits,  and  adds,  "  Enemy  still  in  force 
and  working  hard  "  ;  and  these  stereotyped 
phrases  last  with  no  premonition  of  any  im- 
mediate change  until  on  the  4th  he  tele- 
graphed, "  Yorktown  is  in  our  possession," 
and  later  in  the  day  began  to  magnify  his 
victory,  telling  what  spoils  he  had  captured, 
and  ending  with  the  sounding  phrases,  "  No 
time  shall  be  lost.  I  shall  push  the  enemy  to 
the  wall." 

Johnston  had  begun  his  preparations  to 
move  on  the  2yth  of  April,  and  on  the  3d  of 
May,  finding  that  McClellan's  batteries  were 
now  ready  to  open, —  a  fact  apparently  not 
yet  known  to  McClellan, —  he  gave  orders  for 
the  evacuation,  which  began  at  midnight.  He 
marched  away  from  Yorktown  with  about 
50,000  men.  General  McClellan,  by  his  own 
morning  report  of  the  3oth  of  April,  had  in  his 
camps  and  trenches,  and  scrambling  in  haste 
on  board  the  transports  that  they  had  quitted 
the  day  before,  the  magnificent  aggregate  of 
112,392  present  for  duty,  and  a  total  aggre- 
gate of  130,378. 


FROM    WII.LIAMSBURG    TO    FAIR    OAKS. 

THE  evacuation  of  Yorktown  took  General 
McClellan  so  completely  by  surprise  that  a 
good  deal  of  valuable  time  was  lost  in  hurried 
preparation  to  pursue  the  retiring  enemy. 
Franklin's  division,  after  their  fortnight  of  de- 
lay on  the  transports,  had  been  disembarked. 
They  were  hastily  returned  to  their  boats. 
Says  Webb : 

Several  hours  were  consumed  in  having  the 
commands  properly  provisioned  for  the  march. 
The  evacualion  was  discovered  at  dawn,  and  it  was 
noon  before  the  first  column  started  in  pursuit. 
Johnston  by  this  time  had  taken  his  entire  command 
to  Williamsburg.  Knowing  that  McClellan's  advance 
would  soon  reach  him,  he  made  his  dispositions  at  his 
leisure.  He  posted  a  strong  rear-guard  there  under 
Longstreet  to  protect  the  movement  of  his  trains.  The 
Union  cavalry  under  Sherman  came  into  collision  with 
this  force  about  dark  and  was  repulsed,  losing  one  gun. 
The  main  body  of  the  pursuing  army  came  up  during 
the  night,  under  the  command  of  Generals  Sumner, 
Heintzelman,and  Keyes.  It  is  strongly  illustrative  of 
General  McClellan's  relations  with  his  corps  command- 
ers, that  neither  of  these  generals  had  any  orders  from 
him  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  battle  which  was  inevit- 
able as  soon  as  they  overtook  the  enemy,  and  there 
was  even  serious  doubt  as  to  which  among  them  was 
in  command  of  the  forces.  Sumner  had  been  ordered 
by  the  General-in-Chief  to  take  command  in  his  ab- 
sence, but  these  orders  had  not  been  communicated  to 
Heintzelman,  who  thought  that  he  was  to  take  control 
of  the  movement. 

There  was  some  confusion  of  orders  as  to 
the  roads  to  be  taken  by  the  different  com- 
mands, in  consequence  of  which  Hooker  came 
into  position  on  the  left  of  the  line  and  Smith 
on  the  right.  The  contrary  disposition  had 
been  intended. 

The  morning  of  the  5th  came  with  no  defi- 
nite plan  of  battle  arranged.  General  Hooker, 
following  his  own  martial  instincts,  moved  for- 
ward and  attacked  the  enemy  at  half-past  7 
and  was  soon  hotly  engaged.  He  fought  al- 
most the  entire  rear-guard  of  Johnston  during 
the  whole  forenoon.  Heavy  reenforcements 
thrown  against  him  checked  his  advance  and 
caused  him  to  lose  the  ground  he  had  gained. 
Hooker  speaks  in  his  report  with  much  bitter- 
ness, not  wholly  unjustified,  of  the  manner  in 
which  his  division  was  left  to  fight  an  over- 
whelming force,  "  unaided  in  the  presence  of 
more  than  30,000  of  their  comrades  with  arms 
in  their  hands,"  and  we  search  the  reports  of 
General  McClellan  and  the  corps  commanders 
in  vain  for  any  adequate  explanation  of  this 
state  of  things. 

The  whole  day  was  bloody  and  expensive 


rotts,  6  Napoleon  guns,  and  6  lo-pounder   Parrotts;  essentiallycompletetheredoubtnecessarytostrengthen 

this  not  counting  the  batteries  in  front  of  Smith  and  the  first  parallel  as  far  as  Wormley's  Creek  from  the 

on  his  left  —  45  guns.   I  will  add  to  it  to-morrow  night  left,  and  probably  all  the  way  to  York  River  to-morrow 

5  3O-pounder  Parrotts,  6  2O-pounder   Parrotts,  from  5  night.   1  will  then  lie  secure  against  sorties."  [McClellan 

to  10  13-inch  mortars,  and — if  they  arrive  in  time — one  to  Lincoln,  April  23.  MS.]    With  a  force  of  three  to 

200- pounder  Parrott.   Before  sundown  to-morrow  I  will  one  he  was  wasting  weeks  in  defensive  works. 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


929 


and  without  adequate  result.  The  heroism  of 
Hooker  and  Hancock,  and  their  brave  troops, 
was  well-nigh  wasted.  There  was  no  head,  no 
intelligent  director,  no  understood  plan.  Mc- 
C'lellan  arrived  late  in  the  day  and  was  unable 
to  contribute  anything  to  the  result,  although 
the  cheers  with  which  he  was  welcomed  showed 
how  fully  he  possessed  the  confidence  and 
affection  of  his  troops.  He  had  not  anticipated 
so  early  an  engagement,  and  was  spending 
the  day  at  Yorktown  to  dispatch  Franklin's 
division  up  the  river. 

Actual  contact  with  the  enemy,  however, 
made,  as  it  always  did,  an  exaggerated  impres- 
sion upon  him.  The  affair,  which  when  he 
heard  of  it  at  Yorktown  seemed  to  him  a  mere 
skirmish  with  a  rear-guard,  suddenly  acquired 
a  portentous  importance  when  surveyed  in  the 
light  of  the  bivouac  at  Williamsburg,  amidst 
the  actual  and  visible  signs  of  a  sanguinary 
conflict.  His  dispatch  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, written  at  10  o'clock  the  night  of  the 
battle,  betrays  great  agitation,  and  his  idio- 
svncrasy  of  multiplying  the  number  of  his 
enemy,  as  a  matter  of  course,  asserts  itself.  "  I 
find  General  Joe  Johnston  in  front  of  me  in 
strong  force,  probably  greater  a  good  deal  than 
my  own."  After  a  compliment  to  Hancock  he 
continues,  "  I  learn  from  the  prisoners  taken 
that  the  rebels  intend  to  dispute  every  step 
to  Richmond."  One  can  only  wonder  what 
he  expected  them  to  say.  "  I  shall  run  the  risk 
of  at  least  holding  them  in  check  here,  while 
I  resume  the  original  plan.  My  entire  force 
is  undoubtedly  inferior  to  that  of  the  rebels, 
who  will  fight  well."  *  Thus  while  Johnston 
was  profiting  by  the  darkness  to  prepare  to 
continue  his  retrograde  march  at  daybreak, 
McClellan  was  nerving  himself  to  stand  the 
risk  of  holding  his  ground  at  Williamsburg, 
while  he  "resumed  the  original  plan"  of  a 
movement  by  water. 

The  next  day,  when  he  discovered  that  the 
enemy  had  moved  away,  leaving  their  wounded 
on  the  field  of  battle,  his  apprehension  of  at- 
tack subsided,  but  other  difficulties  rose  before 
him.  He  telegraphed  on  the  yth  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  War  that  "  until  the  roads  improved 
both  in  front  and  rear  no  large  body  of  troops 
could  be  moved."  Johnston  had  apparently 
no  difficulty  in  moving  his  troops,  which  Mc- 
Clellan thought  a  larger  body  than  his  own. 

Reaching  a  place  called  Baltimore  Cross- 
Roads,  Johnston  halted  for  five  days,  and,  af- 
ter receiving  intelligence  of  the  evacuation  of 


Norfolk  and  the  destruction  of  the  A/errimac, 
apprehending  an  attack  upon  Richmond  by 
way  of  the  James  River,  he  ordered  his  forces 
to  cross  the  Chickahominy  on  the  I5th.  Two 
days  after  this  the  rebel  army  encamped 
about  three  miles  from  Richmond,  in  front 
of  the  line  of  redoubts  that  had  been  o in- 
structed the  previous  year.  It  was  a  time  of 
great  apprehension,  almost  of  dismay,  at  Rich- 
mond. The  Confederate  President,  and  most 
of  his  cabinet,  hastily  sent  their  families  to 
places  of  safety.  Mr.  Davis,  whose  reli 
feelings  always  took  on  a  peculiar  intensity  in 
critical  times,  had  himself  baptized  at  home, 
and  privately  confirmed  at  St.  Paul's  Church. 
There  was  great  doubt  whether  the  city  could 
be  successfully  defended;  the  most  important 
archives  of  the  Government  were  sent,  some  to 
Lynchburg  and  some  to  Columbia.! 

But  General  Johnston  had  reason  to  con- 
firm his  opinion  that  McClellan  cared  little 
for  time.  He  remained  several  days  at  Will- 
iamsburg after  he  had  ascertained  that  the 
enemy  had  disappeared  from  in  front  of  him. 
His  visions  of  overwhelming  forces  of  rebels 
were  now  transferred  to  Franklin's  front.  On 
the  8th  he  telegraphed  the  War  Department  a 
story  of  80,000  to  1 20,000  opposed  to  Frank- 
lin, but  in  full  retreat  to  the  Chickahominy. 
On  the  Toth  he  sends  an  urgent  appeal  to 
Washington  for  more  troops,  claiming  that  the 
enemy  "  are  collecting  troops  from  all  quar- 
ters, especially  well-disciplined  troops  from  the 
South."  His  own  army  will  inevitably  be  re- 
duced by  sickness,  casualties,  garrisons,  and 
guards  —  as  if  that  of  the  enemy  would  not. 
He  therefore  implores  large  and  immediate 
reinforcements  in  a  tone  which  implies  that 
the  President  could  make  armies  by  executive 
decree.  "  If  I  am  not  reenforced,"he  says,  "it 
is  probable  that  I  will  be  obliged  to  fight 
nearly  double  my  numbers,  strongly  in- 
trenched." In  face  of  a  morning  report  of 
over  100,000  men  present  for  duty  he  says :  "  I 
do  not  think  it  will  be  at  all  possible  for  me  to 
bring  more  than  70,000  men  upon  the  field  of 
battle."  This  last  statement  was  in  one  sense 
true ;  he  never  did,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed 
he  never  could,  handle  that  many  men  at 
once.  All  his  battles  were  fought  piecemeal 
with  a  part  of  his  force  at  a  time. 

He  still  protested  stoutly  against  the  orig- 
inal organization  of  his  army  corps,  and  asked 
that  he  might  be  permitted  to  break  it  up  or 
at  least  to  suspend  it.  He  disliked  his  corps 


*  On  the  6th  of  May  the  veteran  General  Wool  sent  edly   considerably    inferior    to    that  of   the   rebels, 

this  dispatch  to  the  War  Department,  showing  how  If  such  is   the  fact,  I   am   still   more  surprised    that 

his  elders  regarded  at  the  time  these  jeremiads  of  the  they    should    have    abandoned    Yorktown."    [War 

young  general :    "  The  desponding  tone  of  Major-Gen-  Records.] 

eral   McClellan's  dispatch  of  last  evening  more  than  tj.   B.   Jones,  "  A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary,"  en- 

surprises  me.    He  says  his  entire  force  is  undoubt-  tries  of  May  8,  May  10,  and  May  19. 


93° 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


commanders,  and  naturally  wished  his  friends 
to  exercise  those  important  commands.  He 
blamed  the  corps  organization  for  all  the 
trouble  at  Williamsburg,  and  said,  if  he  had 
come  on  the  field  half  an  hour  later,  all  would 
have  been  lost.  The  President  was  greatly 
wounded  by  this  persistent  manifestation  of 
bad  temper,  but  bore  it  after  his  fashion  with 
untiring  patience  and  kindness.  He  sent  an 
official  order,  authorizing  McClellan  to  sus- 
pend temporarily  the  corps  organization  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  to  adopt  any  that  he 
might  see  fit,  until  further  orders.  At  the  same 
time  he  wrote  a  private  letter  to  the  general, 
full  of  wise  and  kindly  warning.  He  said  : 

I  ordered  the  army  corps  organization  not  only 
on  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  twelve  generals 
whom  you  had  selected  and  assigned  as  generals 
of  division,  but  also  on  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
every  military  man  I  could  get  an  opinion  from, 
and  every  modern  military  book,  yourself  alone  ex- 
cepted.  Of  course  I  did  not  on  my  own  judgment 
pretend  to  understand  the  subject.  I  now  think  it 
indispensable  for  you  to  know  how  your  struggle 
against  it  is  received  in  quarters  which  we  cannot 
entirely  disregard.  It  is  looked  upon  as  merely  an 
effort  to  pamper  one  or  two  pets  and  to  persecute  and 
degrade  their  supposed  rivals.  I  have  had  no  word 
from  Sumner,  Heintzelman,  or  Keyes.  The  com- 
manders of  these  corps  are  of  course  the  three  highest 
officers  with  you,  but  I  am  constantly  told  that  you 
have  no  consultation  or  communication  wjth  them  ; 
that  you  consult  and  communicate  with  ifbbody  but 
General  Fitz-John  Porter  and  perhaps  General  Frank- 
lin. I  do  not  say  these  complaints  are  true  or  just, 
but  at  all  events  it  is  proper  you  should  know  of 
their  existence.  Do  the  commanders  of  corps  disobey 
your  orders  in  anything  ?  When  you  relieved  General 
Hamilton  of  his  command  the  other  day,  you  thereby 
lost  the  confidence  of  at  least  one  of  your  best  friends 
in  the  Senate.  And  here  let  me  say,  not  as  applicable 
to  you  personally,  that  senators  and  representatives 
speak  of  me  in  their  places  as  they  please  without 
question,  and  that  officers  of  the  army  must  cease  ad- 
dressing insulting  letters  to  them  for  taking  no  great 
liberty  with  them.  But  to  return.  Are  you  strong 
enough  —  are  you  strong  enough  even  with  my  help  — 
to  set  your  foot  upon  the  necks  of  Sumner,  Heintzel- 
man, and  Keyes  all  at  once  ?  This  is  a  practical  and 
very  serious  question  for  you.  The  success  of  your 
army  and  the  cause  of  the  country  are  the  same,  and 
of  course  I  only  desire  the  good  of  the  cause. 

General  McClellan  accepted  the  authoriza- 
tion with  alacrity  and  the  sermon  with  indif- 
ference. He  at  once  formed  two  provisional 
army  corps,  giving  Fitz-John  Porter  the  com- 
mand of  one  and  Franklin  the  other. 

After  leaving  Williamsburg  and  joining 
his  army  at  Cumberland,  he  reiterated  his 
complaints  and  entreated  for  reenforcements 
that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  send  him.  His  morbid  apprehension 
had  grown  to  such  an  extent  that  on  the  141)1 
of  May  he  telegraphed  his  conviction  that 
he  would  be  compelled,  with  80,000  men,  to 
fight  160,000  rebels  in  front  of  Richmond ; 
and  begged  that  the  Government  would  send 


him  "  by  water  " —  he  did  not  want  them  to 
come  overland  —  "all  the  disposable  troops," 
"  every  man  "  that  could  be  mustered.  The 
President,  anxious  to  leave  nothing  undone  to 
help  and  encourage  him,  replied  to  these  im- 
portant demands  first  by  a  friendly  private 
note,  in  which  he  said : 

I  have  done  and  shall  do  all  I  could  and  can  to 
sustain  you.  I  hoped  that  the  opening  of  the  James 
River  and  putting  Wool  and  Eurnside  in  communica- 
tion, with  an  open  road  to  Richmond,  or  to  you,  had 
effected  something  in  that  direction.  I  am  still  unwill- 
ing to  take  all  our  forces  off  the  direct  line  between 
Richmond  and  here. 

He  afterwards  sent  a  dispatch  through  the  War 
Department,  of  which  the  essential  points  are 
as  follows: 

The  President  is  not  willing  to  uncover  the  Capital 
entirely,  and  it  is  believed  that  even  if  this  were  pru- 
dent, it  would  require  more  time  to  effect  a  junction 
between  your  army  and  that  of  the  Rappahannock  by 
way  of  the  Potomac  and  York  rivers  than  by  a  land 
march.  In  order  therefore  to  increase  the  strength  of 
the  attack  upon  Richmond  at  the  earliest  moment, 
General  McDowell  has  been  ordered  to  march  upon 
that  city  by  the  shortest  route.  lie  is  ordered  —  keep- 
ing himself  always  in  position  to  save  the  Capital  from 
all  possible  attack  —  so  to  operate  as  to  put  his  left 
wing  in  communication  with  your  right  wing,  and  you 
are  instructed  to  cooperate  so  as  to  establish  this  com- 
munication as  soon  as  possible,  by  extending  your 
right  wing  to  the  north  of  Richmond,  .  .  .  but  charged, 
in  attempting  this,  not  to  uncover  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton ;  and  you  will  give  no  order,  either  before  or  after 
your  junction,  which  can  put  him  out  of  position  to 
cover  this  city.  .  .  .  The  President  desires  that 
General  McDowell  retain  the  command  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Rappahannock,  and  of  the  forces  with 
which  he  moved  forward. 

Events  as  little  foreseen  by  General  Mc- 
Clellan as  by  the  Government,  and  which  had 
by  him  been  declared  impossible, —  the  defeat 
of  our  forces  in  the  Shenandoah  and  the  move- 
ment of  a  large  rebel  force  to  the  upper  Po- 
tomac,—  prevented  the  execution  of  this  plan. 
But  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  immediately  on 
the  receipt  of  the  President's  instructions,  while 
he  was  waiting  for  McDowell  to  join  him, 
General  McClellan  evinced  no  gratification 
at  this  compliance  with  his  wishes.  On  the 
contrary,  he  lost  no  time  in  making  a  griev- 
ance of  it ;  he  wrote  a  long  and  elaborate  dis- 
patch protesting  against  it,  and  asking  that 
"  McDowell  should  be  placed  explicitly  under 
his  orders  in  the  ordinary  way."  In  his  re- 
port, and  in  all  his  subsequent  apologies  for 
his  campaign,  he  makes  this  positive  assertion  : 

This  order  rendered  it  impossible  for  me  to  use  the 
James  River  as  a  line  of  operations,  and  forced  me  to 
establish  our  depots  on  the  Pamunkey  and  to  approach 
Richmond  from  the  north. 

This  charge  is  an  evident  after-thought,  and 
is  no  less  lacking  in  adroitness  than  in  candor. 
We  will  permit  it  to  be  answered  by  General 


PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 


93' 


Webb,  the  ablest  military  writer  on  the  Pen- 
insula campaign,  who  is  always  the  friend  of 
McClellan,  and  his  partisan  wherever  the  writ- 
er's intelligence  and  conscience  allow  it.  He 
says : 

It  is  but  repeating  the  proper  criticisms  made  by 
other  writers  tlut  General  McClellan  had  frequently 
mentioned  the  ramimkey  us  his  prospective  base  ;  that 
he  made  no  representation  to  the  Government,  at  the 
time,  that  lie  wished  to  be  free  to  move  by  the  James; 
and  that  it  was  within  his  power  during  the  first  three 
weeks  of  June,  when  he  found  that  McDowell  was 
again  withheld  from  him,  to  follow  the  latter  route.  On 
one  point  there  can  be  no  question  —  that  the  position 
of  his  army,  as  already  given,  along  the  left  bank  of  the 
Chickahominy  from  Bottom's  towards  New  Bridge, 
on  May  20,  with  the  While  House,  on  the  1'amunkcy, 
as  the  base  of  supplies,  was  one  of  McClellan's  own 
choice,  uninfluenced  by  McDowell's  movements. 

It  required  ten  days  after  the  fight  at  Will- 
iamsburg  for  McClellan's  headquarters  to 
reach  Cumberland,  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
l';imunkey,  and  on  the  next  day  he  established 
his  permanent  depot  at  the  White  House,  near 
by.  On  the  2ist  the  army  was  brought  to- 
gether and  established  in  line  on  the  Chicka- 
hominy, the  right  wing  being  about  seven  and 
the  left  about  twelve  miles  from  Richmond, 
from  which  they  were  separated  by  two  formi- 
dable barriers  —  the  rebel  army,  and  the  river 
with  its  environment  of  woods  and  swamps, 
its  fever-breathing  airs  and  its  sudden  floods. 
The  latter  was  first  attacked.  General  Mc- 
Clellan began  at  once  with  great  energy  the 
building  of  several  bridges  over  the  stream,  a 
work  of  special  difficulty  on  account  of  the 
boggy  banks,  which  made  long  approaches 
necessary.  In  this  work,  and  in  a  voluminous 
correspondence  with  the  President  in  regard 
to  reinforcements,  which  we  shall  notice  when 
we  come  to  treat  of  those  movements  of  Jack- 
son's in  the  valley  that  caused  the  division 
of  McDowell's  force,  he  passed  ten  days;  he 
pushed  the  corps  of  Keyes  and  Heintzelman 
across  the  river,  and  retained  those  of  Sum- 
ner,  Franklin,  and  Porter  on  the  north  side. 

The  monotony  of  camp  life  was  broken  up 
on  the  27th  of  May  by  a  brilliant  feat  of  arms 
performed  by  Fitz-John  Porter  and  his  corps 
at  Hanover  Court  House,  where  he  attacked 
and  defeated  a  rebel  force  under  General 
Branch.  The  chief  value  of  this  battle  was  its 
demonstration  of  the  splendid  marching  and 
fighting  qualities  of  the  troops  engaged.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  was  greatly  annoyed  that  the 
1'ivsident  did  not  seem  to  attach  sufficient  im- 
portance to  this  action ;  but  General  Johnston 
in  his  "  Narrative,"  while  not  diminishing  the 
gallantry  of  Porter  and  his  troops,  or  denying 
the  complete  defeat  of  Branch,  treats  it  merely 
as  an  incident  of  Branch's  march  under  orders 
to  join  Anderson,  which  was  accomplished 


the  same  day  at  the  point  designated  for  this 
junction.  There  was  no  sequel  to  the  tight. 
Porter  and  his  victorious  troops  march. -d  I,.K  k 
to  camp. 

On  the  26th  of  May,  General  McClellan 
informed  the  President  that  he  was  "  quietly 
closing  in  upon  the  enemy  preparatory  to  the 
last  struck',"  and  that  he  would  be  "  free  to 
strike  "  on  the  return  of  Porter.  But  several 
days  elapsed  without  the  blow  being  struck, 
until  the  enemy,  as  usual,  accelerated  matters 
by  himself  striking.  It  had  been  for  some 
time  the  intention  of  General  Johnston  to  at- 
tack the  Union  army  before  McDowell  should 
join  it;  and  learning,  on  the  day  of  the  battle 
of  Hanover  Court  House,  that  McDowell  was 
leaving  Fredericksburg,  he  resolved  at  once 
to  strike  McClellan's  force  on  both  sides  of 
the  river.  When  we  consider  that  the  con- 
solidated returns  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
for  the  3151  of  May  showed  an  aggregate  of 
127,166  officers  and  men,  of  whom  there  were 
98,000  present  for  duty,  with  280  pieces  of  field 
artillery,  and  that  General  Johnston's  force 
amounted  to  about  60,000  effectives,  we  can- 
not but  think  it  was  a  fortunate  circumstance 
for  him  that  he  did  not  attempt  to  carry  this 
heroic  plan  into  effect.  At  night,  when  he  had 
called  his  general  officers  together  for  their 
instruction,  Johnston  was  informed  that  Mc- 
Dowell's force,  which  had  been  marching 
southward,  had  returned  to  Fredericksburg. 
He  then  abandoned  his  idea  of  attacking  Mc- 
Clellan on  both  sides  of  the  river,  and  reverted 
to  his  former  plan  of  assailing  with  his  whole 
force  the  two  corps  on  the  south  bank  as  soon 
as  they  had  sufficiently  increased  the  distance 
between  themselves  and  the  three  corps  on  the 
north. 

In  this  plan,  as  in  the  other  one, —  and  we 
shall  see,  farther  on,  that  the  same  was  the 
case  with  General  Lee, — General  Johnston 
does  not  seem  to  have  taken  into  the  account 
the  possible  initiative  of  General  McClellan. 
He  makes  his  plansentirely  without  reference  to 
it,  choosing  his  time  for  attack  absolutely  at 
his  own  convenience.  He  takes  it  for  granted 
that  he  will  be  met  with  a  courageous  and 
able  defense — but  nothing  more.  The  worst 
he  has  to  fear  in  any  case  is  a  repulse ;  there 
seems  no  thought  of  an  offensive  return  in 
his  mind.  The  Northern  general,  on  the  con- 
trary, judged  his  adversary  with  more  courtesy 
than  justice.  He  evidently  had  no  suspicion  of 
Johnston's  intentions.  At  the  moment  that  the 
latter  was  calling  his  generals  together  to  give 
orders  for  the  assault,  McClellan  was  tele- 
graphing to  Washington:  "Richmond  papers 
urge  Johnston  to  attack,  now  that  he  has  us 
away  from  gun-boats.  I  think  he  is  too  able 
for  that." 


932 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Johnston's  purpose  was  finally  adopted  and 
put  in  action  with  great  decision  and  prompti- 
tude. On  the  3oth  D.  H.  Hill  informed  him 
that  the  Federals  were  in  force  at  Seven  Pines, 
and  that  the  indications  were  that  all  of  Keyes's 
corps  was  south  of  the  river;  to  which  John- 
ston immediately  responded  by  telling  him  he 
would  attack  the  next  morning.  Within  an 
hour  or  two  his  whole  plan  of  battle  was  ar- 
ranged. Orders  were  given  to  throw  twenty- 
three  of  the  twenty-seven  brigades  of  which 
the  Confederate  army  consisted  against  the 
two  corps  of  Heintzelman  and  Keyes.*  The 
rest  were  to  observe  the  river  by  the  Meadow 
and  New  bridges.  After  the  plan  of  battle  was 
arranged,  a  violent  storm  of  rain  came  on  and 
continued  most  of  the  night.  This  was  a  wel- 
come incident  to  Johnston,  as  it  inspired  the 
hope  that  the  river  might  overflow  its  banks 
and  sever  the  communication  between  the  two 
wings  of  the  Federal  army.  He  did  not  per- 
mit the  rain  to  delay  him. 

The  forces  commanded  by  Longstreet  and 
Hill  attacked  Casey's  division  of  Keyes's  corps 
with  great  impetuosity,  and  in  overwhelming 
numbers,  about  i  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Keyes's  corps,  supported  by  those  of  Heint- 
zelman,  defended  their  ground  with  gallantry 
and  pertinacity ;  but  the  numbers  opposed  to 
them  were  too  great,  and  they  gradually  and 
sullenly  gave  way,  retiring  inch  by  inch,  until, 
as  night  came  on,  they  had  been  forced  more 
than  a  mile  and  a  half  east  of  the  position  that 
they  had  occupied  in  the  morning. 

The  forces  under  G.  W.  Smith,  accompanied 
by  Johnston  in  person,  whose  duty  it  had  been 
to  strike  the  right  flank  of  the  Union  army  as 
soon  as  the  assault  of  Longstreet  and  Hill 
became  fully  developed  on  the  left,  were  de- 
layed for  some  time  on  account  of  a  peculiar 
condition  of  the  atmosphere,  which  prevented 
the  sound  of  the  musketry  from  reaching  from 
Seven  Pines  to  the  headquarters  of  Smith 
on  the  Nine-mile  road.  But  about  4  o'clock, 
Johnston,  having  been  informed  of  the  prog- 
ress of  affairs  in  Longstreet's  front,  determined 
to  put  Smith  in  upon  the  Union  right  flank, 
being  by  this  time  relieved  of  all  fear  of  a  re- 
enforcement  from  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
Fortunately  for  the  Union  cause,  the  forces 
immediately  opposite  this  position  were  com- 
manded by  General  Sumner,  an  officer  whose 
strongest  traits  were  soldierly  ardor  and  gen- 
erosity. He  had  been  ordered,  as  soon  as  the 
firing  began,  to  hold  himself  in  readiness  to 
move  to  the  assistance  of  his  comrades  at  Fair 
Oaks;  but  he  gave  these  orders  a  liberal  inter- 
pretation, and  instead  of  merely  preparing  to 

*  In  an  article  in  THE  CENTURY  for  May,  1885,  Gen- 
eral Johnston  changes  this  statement  to  "  twenty-two 
out  of  twenty-eight  brigades." 


move  he  at  once  marched  with  two  divisions 
to  the  two  bridges  he  had  built  and  halted  them, 
with  his  leading  companies  at  the  bridges.  In 
this  manner  an  hour  of  inestimable  advantage 
was  saved.  The  swollen  river  soon  carried  away 
one  of  the  bridges,  and  the  other  was  almost 
submerged  when  the  order  came  to  Sumner 
to  cross. 

Without  delaying  a  moment  on  the  west 
bank,  Sumner  marched  through  the  thick  mud 
in  the  direction  of  the  heaviest  firing  and  re- 
pulsed the  attacks  of  Smith.  This  Union 
success  was  the  result  of  Sumner's  straight- 
forward and  unhesitating  march.  His  appoint- 
ment to  the  command  of  an  army  corps  had 
been  bitterly  opposed  and  never  forgiven  by 
General  McClellan ;  he  had  been  treated  by 
his  commander  with  studied  neglect  and 
disrespect ;  and  this  magnificent  service  was 
his  only  revenge.  About  7  o'clock  the  Con- 
federates met  their  severest  mischance  of  the 
day  ;  General  Johnston  received  at  an  interval 
of  a  few  moments  two  severe  and  disabling 
wounds. 

The  firing  ceased,  "  terminated  by  darkness 
only,"  Johnston  is  careful  to  say,  before  he 
had  been  borne  a  mile  from  the  field.  The 
command  had  devolved  by  seniority  of  rank 
upon  General  G.  W.  Smith. 

There  was  great  confusion  and  discourage- 
ment in  the  rebel  councils.  Jefferson  Davis 
found  hope  in  the  suggestion  that  "  the  enemy 
might  withdraw  during  the  night,  which  would 
give  the  Confederates  the  moral  effect  of  a  vic- 
tory." Early  on  June  i  the  battle  was  re- 
newed, and  the  Union  troops  reoccupied  the 
ground  lost  on  the  day  before.  At  2  o'clock 
General  Lee  took  command,  and  the  battle 
died  away  by  the  gradual  retirement  of  the 
Confederates. 

A  great  battle  had  been  fought  absolutely 
without  result.  The  Confederates  had  failed 
in  their  attempt  to  destroy  McClellan's  two 
outlying  corps,  but  their  failure  entailed  no 
other  consequences.  The  losses  were  frightful 
upon  both  sides  :  the  Union  army  lost  5000, 
and  the  Confederate  loss  was  reported  at  some- 
thing over  4000,  which  is  generally  considered 
an  under-statement.  But  there  was  this  enor- 
mous difference  between  the  condition  of  the 
two  armies:  the  Union  troops  south  of  the 
Chickahominy,  though  wearied  by  the  conflict, 
with  ranks  thinned  by  death  and  wounds,  had 
yet  suffered  no  loss  of  morale  ;  on  the  contrary, 
their  spirits  had  been  heightened  by  the  stub- 
born fight  of  Saturday  and  the  easy  victory 
of  Sunday.  North  of  the  river  lay  the  larger 
portion  of  the  army,  which  had  not  fired  a 
gun  nor  lost  a  man  in  the  action.  It  is  hardly- 
denied,  at  this  day,  by  the  most  passionate  of 
McClellan's  partisans,  that  the  way  to  Rich- 


"AS  A   BELL  IN  A    CHI. Ml'." 


933 


mond  was  open  before  him  on  Saturday  after- 
noon.   It  was  his  greatest  opportunity. 

Jackson  was  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah  detaching  from  Lee  an  army  of  16,000 
men.  The  enemy  had  thrown  almost  his  whole 
force  against  McClellan's  left  wing,  and  had 
received  more  injury  than  he  inflicted.  Our 
right  wing  was  intact;  the  material  for  bridg- 
ing the  upper  Chickahominy  had  been  ready 
for  three  days;  the  Confederate  army  was 
streaming  back  to  Richmond  in  discourage- 
ment and  disorder.  Even  so  ardent  a  friend  of 
McClellan  as  the  Prince  de  Joinville  writes  : 

The  Federals  had  had  the  defensive  battle  they  de- 
sired ;  had  repulsed  the  enemy;  Imt  arrested  by  nat- 
ural obstacles  which  perhaps  were  not  insurmountable, 
they  had  gained  nothing  by  their  success.  They  had 
missed  an  unique  opportunity  of  striking  a  blow. 

If  General  McClellan  had  crossed  his  army, 
instead  of  one  division,  at  the  time  that  John- 
ston's entire  force  was  engaged  at  Seven  Pines, 

*  The  repulse  of  the  rebels  at  Fair  Oaks  should  have 
been  taken  advantage  of.  It  was  one  of  those  "  occa- 
sions "  which,  if  not  seized,  do  not  repeat  themselves. 
We  now  know  the  state  of  disorganization  and  dismay 
in  which  the  rebel  army  retreated.  We  now  know  that 
it  could  have  been  followed  into  Richmond.  Had  it 
been  so,  there  would  have  been  no  resistance  to  over- 
come to  bring  over  our  right  wing.  [General  Barnard] 

Mr.  William  Henry  Hurlbert,  the  translator  of  the 
Prince  de  Joinville's  work,  who  was  in  Richmond 
during  the  battle,  gives  the  followingaccpunt  of  thecon- 
dition  of  the  Confederates  on  the  morning  of  June  I  : 

They  were  in  a  perfect  chaos  of  brigades  and  regi- 
ments. The  roads  into  Richmond  were  literally  cov- 


the  rout  of  the  Southern  army  would  have  been 
complete  and  the  way  to  Richmond  would 
have  been  a  military  promenade.*  J5ut  tin- 
next  day  and  during  the  week  that  followed 
the  enterprise  assumed  so  many  difficulties  in 
his  eyes  that  he  could  not  have  been  expected 
to  attempt  it.  The  rains  continued;  the  slug- 
gish river  became  a  wide-spreading  flood  ;  the 
ground,  a  mixed  mass  of  clay  and  quicksand, 
afforded  no  sure  standing-place  for  horse,  foot, 
or  artillery ;  most  of  the  bridges  were  carried 
away ;  the  army,  virtually  cut  in  two  by  the 
river,  occupied  itself  in  the  arduous  work  of 
intrenching.  General  Lee,  the  ablest  officer 
in  the  Southern  Confederacy,  his  mind  put 
entirely  at  ease  in  regard  to  an  immediate  at- 
tack upon  Richmond,  had  leisure  to  devote 
himself  to  restoring  the  organization  and  mo- 
rale of  his  army,  and  bringing  from  every  side 
the  reinforcements  that  he  was  to  use  with  such 
effect  a  month  later  in  the  bloody  contests  from 
the  Chickahominy  to  the  James. 
• 

ered  with  stragglers,  some  throwing  away  their  guns, 
some  breaking  them  on  the  trees,  all  with  the  same 
story  that  their  regiments  had  been  "  cut  to  pieces  " — 
that  the"  Yankees  were  swarming  on  the  Chickahom- 
iny like  bees,"  and  "  fighting  like  devils."  In  two  days 
of  the  succeeding  week  the  provost-marshal's  guard 
collected  between  4000  and  5000  stragglers  and  sent 
them  into  camp.  Had  I  been  aware  on  that  day  of  the 
actual  state  of  things  upon  the  field,  I  might  easily  have 
driven  in  a  carriage  through  the  Confederate  lines 
directly  into  our  own  camps.  It  was  not  indeed  until 
several  days  after  the  battle  that  anything  like  military 
order  was  restored  throughout  the  Confederate  posi- 
tions. Appendix,  p.  113. 


"AS    A    BELL    IN    A    CHIME." 


A: 


S  a  bell  in  a  chime 

Sets  its  twin-note  a-ringing, 
As  one  poet's  rhyme 

Wakes  another  to  singing, 
So,  once  she  has  smiled, 
All  your  thoughts  are  beguiled 
And  flowers  and  song  from  your  childhood  are  bringing. 

Though  moving  through  sorrow 

As  the  star  through  the  night, 
She  needs  not  to  borrow, 

She  lavishes,  light. 
The  path  of  yon  star 
Seemeth  dark  but  afar  : 
Like  hers  it  is  sure,  and  like  hers  it  is  bright. 

Each  grace  is  a  jewel 

Would  ransom  the  town, 
Her  speech  has  no  cruel, 
Her  praise  is  renown  ; 
'T  is  in  her  as  though  Beauty, 
Resigning  to  Duty 
The  scepter,  had  still  kept  the  purple  and  crown. 


VOL.  XXXVI.—  129. 


Robert   Underwood  Johnson. 


OUR    NATIONAL    MILITARY    SYSTEM. 


I. WHAT     THE     UNITED     STATES     ARMY     SHOULD     BE. 


EFORE  submitting  the  fol- 
lowing suggestions  in  re- 
gard to  the  possibilities  of 
the  future  army  of  the 
United  States,  1  will  state 
some  facts  that  pertain  to 
the  army  as  it  exists  to-day. 
The  lawfixingthe  peace 
establishment  of  the  army,  passed  in  1869, 
limited  the  strength  to  thirty  thousand.  The 
annual  appropriation  bill  has  of  late  years 
contained  a  proviso  that  no  money  thus  ap- 
propriated shall  be  used  for  recruiting  more 
than  twenty-five  thousand  men.  The  cost  of 
keeping  up  this  force  has  always  exceeded 
$30,000,000  and  has  often  amounted  to  $40,- 
000,000.  The  men  enlisted  for  this  force  are 
mostly  recruited  in  the  large  cities,  and  con- 
sist of  a  class  who  in  the  main  have  selected 
to  enlist  from  other  than  patriotic  motives  or 
love  of  the  military  profession.  A  large  pro- 
portion are  foreigners  who  are  not  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  the  country  to  find  other  em- 
ployment. Many  have  found  out  their  inca- 
pacity to  make  headway  in  civil  life,  the  causes 
being  as  different  as  the  characters  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  individuals.  Too  many  be- 
long to  that  large  and  unfortunate  class  known 
under  the  generic  name  of  "  tramps,"  who 
are  wanderers  by  nature  and  who  become  the 
deserters  from  the  army.  Many  are  illiterate, 
few  are  educated  and  capable,  and  the  great 
majority  lack  the  necessary  talents  and  capacity 
to  take  care  of  themselves  and  to  advance  in 
life.  The  smart  and  apparently  capable  man, 
when  found  in  the  ranks,  is  generally  suspected 
of  some  moral  taint  or  intemperate  habit  not 
tolerated  among  his  friends,  and  the  number 
who  attain  distinction  in  the  army,  or  after 
leaving  it,  are  few  indeed.  There  is  no  oppor- 
tunity afforded  the  enlisted  man  to  become 
qualified  to  command  in  case  of  war,  and  the 
number  who  rise  to  a  commission  is  remark- 
ably small. 

The  law  permits  original  enlistments  from 
sixteen  to  thirty-five  years  of  age.  Reenlist- 
ments  are  not  restricted  by  age,  and  can  take 
place  so  long  as  the  examining  surgeon  finds 
no  objection.  The  duration  of  each  enlistment 
is  five  years.  The  number  of  posts  garrisoned 
by  the  regular  army  is  about  125.  They  are 
scattered  throughout  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  duties  of  the  troops  occupying 
them  are  mainly  confined  to  the  simplest  rou- 


tine of  garrison  life,  such  as  guard  duty,  tar- 
get practice,  and  company  and  battalion  drills. 
Their  time  is  taken  up  in  rehearsing  these  ele- 
mentary lessons  over  and  over,  doing  them 
as  well,  if  not  better,  after  the  first  few  weeks 
of  instruction  as  they  ever  do  afterwards. 
This  is  the  experience  and  attainment  of  the 
larger  portion  of  the  enlisted  men.  On  the  fron- 
tier there  are  occasional  outbreaks  of  the 
Indians  in  the  vicinity,  but  they  are  yearly 
becoming  less  frequent.  When  an  outbreak 
does  occur  the  troops  have  an  opportunity  to 
learn  a  little  field  service.  This  humdrum  con- 
dition is  less  true  of  the  cavalry  than  of  the 
other  two  arms  of  the  service,  because  the  care 
and  instruction  of  the  horse  adds  a  material 
task  to  the  duties  of  the  trooper.  But  his  duties 
are  also  confined  to  a  narrow  sphere,  and  the 
training  of  the  enlisted  men  of  the  army  is 
limited  to  taking  care  of  themselves  and  per- 
forming the  elementary  duties  stated  above. 
There  is  no  provision  for  elevating  the  rank  and 
file,  no  means  held  out  to  the  soldier.to  enable 
him  to  rise  in  the  profession  of  arms,  and  the 
longer  he  remains  in  service  the  more  incapable 
he  becomes  of  taking  care  of  himself  out  of  it. 
The  great  majority  go  through  their  first  enlist- 
ment of  five  years  making  little  or  no  progress 
after  the  first  year,  and  when  they  are  dis- 
charged, if  they  do  not  reenlist,  they  settle  down 
on  a  homestead  or  in  some  frontier  village,  and 
are  lost  to  the  country,  so  far  as  any  further 
military  service  to  be  derived  from'them  is  con- 
cerned. The  most  valuable  service  they  have 
rendered  is  the  opportunity  they  have  afforded 
the  commissioned  officers  to  practice  the  ad- 
ministration of  army  affairs  and  to  acquire 
the  care  and  command  of  troops.  Those  who 
reenlist  simply  repeat  this  experience,  and 
make  no  material  progress.  They  may  be 
good  enough  soldiers  in  case  there  is  any  act- 
ual service  in  the  field  to  do,  but  all  that  they 
have  acquired  is  limited  to  the  individual. 

While  military  knowledge  is  fairly  main- 
tained and  practiced  in  the  army,  there  is  no 
provision  for  disseminating  it,  in  order  that  we 
may  have  as  many  men  as  possible  throughout 
the  country  who  are  themselves  instructed  and 
who  are  capable  of  giving  instruction  to  others 
in  the  event  of  a  war.  If  proper  men  were 
selected  at  the  proper  time  of  life,  and  the 
proper  training  furnished  them,  with  such  an 
end  in  view,  they  would  at  the  end  of  five 
years'  service  be  able  to  take  a  company 


OUR  NATIONAL    MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


935 


into  the  field  and  instruct  others  to  do  the 
same. 

The  annual  cost  per  man  of  maintaining  our 
military  establishment  is  about  $1200.  Surely 
at  such  a  cost  a  much  better  result  could  and 
should  be  obtained.  It  is  evident  that,  by  the 
methods  which  are  in  use  in  the  army  at  pres- 
ent, we  get  only  a  minimum  return  for  this 
sum.  According  to  the  foregoing  calculation, 
it  costs  more  to  maintain  a  private  in  the 
United  States  army  than  it  does  to  make 
an  officer  at  West  Point.  Can  there  be  any 
doubt  about  the  relative  value  of  the  two  to 
the  country  ?  No  enlisted  man,  be  his  abilities 
what  they  may,  can  hope  to  compete  with 
a  graduate  of  the  Military  Academy,  through 
such  opportunities  as  are  furnished  at  the 
present  time  in  a  five-years'  enlistment.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  material  in  the  ranks 
is  incapable  of  acquiring  the  necessary  knowl- 
edge, even  if  it  were  furnished,  which  it  is  not. 
Besides,  a  large  percentage  of  the  rank  and 
file  are  morally  disqualified  for  higher  and 
responsible  positions,  as  may  be  shown  by 
the  number  of  desertions  from  the  service.  A 
large  percentage  are  professional  deserters,  as 
was  shown  by  the  number  of  men  in  the  ranks 
who  claimed  the  benefit  of  the  President's  proc- 
lamation in  1873.  At  that  time  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  enlisted  men  confessed  themselves 
deserters.  There  is  no  means  at  present  by 
which  this  class  of  criminals,  or  any  other,  can 
be  kept  out  of  the  ranks.  With  the  history  of 
the  Academy  before  us,  can  it  be  doubted 
that  we  can,  and  should,  get  much  more  for 
the  money  expended  than  we  do  ?  Since 
1870,  when  the  army  was  reduced  to  its  pres- 
ent strength,  the  cost  of  maintaining  it  has 
been,  on  an  average,  about  forty  millions 
a  year.  For  this  sum  100  West  Point  Acad- 
emies could  be  maintained,  educating  30,000 
students,  and  graduating  annually  from  5000 
to  7000.  Would  not  the  substitution  of  the 
method  of  making  officers  for  the  one  of  main- 
taining enlisted  men,  since  it  can  be  done 
cheaper,  give  the  country  a  much  greater  mili- 
tary strength,  in  the  event  of  a  war,  than  any 
result  that  we  get  out  of  the  army  as  it  is  now 
constituted  ? 

Some  of  the  defects  of  our  military  system, 
or  rather  want  of  system,  have  here  been 
pointed  out,  not  with  the  view  to  finding  fault, 
but  to  aid  in  suggesting  where  improvement 
is  needed.  The  defects  cited  will  not  be  ques- 
tioned by  any  officer  of  sufficient  experience, 
for  they  are  easily  deduced  from  the  official 
reports  made  from  time  to  time.  The  Lieu- 
tenant-General  of  the  army,  in  his  last  annual 
report,  states,  in  reference  to  desertion,  that 
there  is  a  slight  increase  over  the  previous 
year,  and  that  it  is  likely  to  continue.  The 


army,  notwithstanding  its  defects,  due  to  mis- 
management and  unwise  legislation,  has  clone 
gooil  service  whenever  it  has  been  called  upon, 
and  has  amply  repaid  its  cost,  in  proof  of 
which  the  history  of  the  growth  and  settle- 
ment of  the  great  West  in  the  past  half-cen- 
tury will  fully  testify. 

But  the  nature  of  its  duties  are  destined 
soon  to  change,  and  we  must  change  our 
methods  to  meet  the  new  conditions.  'I  In- 
Indian  question  is  fast  being  settled  so  far  as 
requiring  a  military  force,  and  will  be  soon  so 
insignificant  as  to  be  disregarded  in  military 
legislation.  Soon  the  sole  duty  of  the  army 
will  be  the  preparation,  conservation,  and  dis- 
semination of  military  knowledge,  and  k< •<  p 
ing  pace  with  the  progress  of  military  science, 
in  order  that  the  country  may  not  invite  war 
by  being  unprepared  for  it.  Our  geographical 
position  relieves  us  of  the  great  expense  of 
maintaining  a  very  large  standing  army,  for 
we  have  no  large  standing  armies  on  our 
borders.  But  we  cannot  afford  to  neglect 
to  provide  ourselves  with  the  means  and 
material  for  war,  for  the  reason  that  being 
prepared  is  the  surest  means  of  preventing 
war;  not  to  be  prepared  is  simply  to  invite  it. 
So  long  as  the  great  nations  of  the  earth  main- 
tain immense  armies  and  foster  the  art  of  war, 
we  must  do  the  same.  China,  the  most  populous 
nation  on  earth,  is  at  the  mercy  of  any  third- 
rate  power,  simply  because  in  her  civilization 
she  has  paid  little  attention  to  the  art  of  war. 
If  China  had  given  the  same  attention  to  the 
subject  that  the  Western  nations  have,  she  could 
with  her  population  control  the  world. 

The  ideal  army  that  we  have  in  view  is  an 
educational  institution,  the  fundamental  princi- 
ple being  to  recruit  its  material  from  the  youth 
of  the  land,  who  will  be  able  to  learn  the  duties 
of  the  service  and  to  impart  them  to  others.  To 
furnish  the  necessary  field  for  the  extension  of 
their  knowledge,  and  to  give  the  entire  coun- 
try the  benefit  of  it,  the  recruits  should  be 
selected  pro  rata  from  the  congressional  dis- 
tricts, to  which  they  would  be  returned  when 
they  had  completed  their  education. 

Every  military  post  should  be  a  military 
school.  A  liberal  construction  of  section  1231 
of  the  Revised  Statutes  would  enable  this  to 
be  done  without  further  legislation.  The  au- 
thorities, however,  have  been  unfavorable  to 
this  idea  in  so  far  that  they  have  ruled  that  a 
soldier  cannot  be  compelled  to  go  to  school.  It 
is  difficult  to  understand  the  position  of  Gen- 
eral Sherman  on  this  question,  in  view  of  the 
support  he  has  given  to  the  schools  established 
at  Fort  Monroe  and  Fort  Leavenworth.  The 
Adjutant-General  and  the  Inspector-General 
have  also  advocated  this  view,  and  maintained 
that  further  legislation  is  necessary  in  order 


936 


OUR   NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


that  soldiers  can  be  compelled  to  go  to  school. 
Unquestionably  further  legislation  is  neces- 
sary, if  the  general  of  the  army  and  his  staff 
so  maintain.  The  law  of  obedience  seems  suf- 
ficient to  exact  nearly  everything  else  from  the 
soldier,  and  it  is  not  easily  understood  why  he 
cannot  be  required  to  learn  everything  that 
will  make  him  more  useful  to  the  service. 
There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  the  way  if  the 
Commander-in-Chief  or  the  War  Department 
should  make  a  rule  requiring  soldiers  to  attend 
school.  General  Sherman  has  declared  in  his 
annual  reports,  while  in  command  of  the  army, 
that  the  above-mentioned  schools  have  added 
nothing  to  the  current  expenses  of  the  army. 
If  this  is  so,  then  every  post  could  be  con- 
verted into  a  military  school,  without  increas- 
ing the  annual  appropriation.  The  schools 
referred  to  are  for  officers,  and  not  for  enlisted 
men,  but  whether  the  attendance  of  officers  is 
voluntary  or  compulsory  has  not  yet  been 
made  apparent.  Neither  is  it  self-evident  that 
they  are  more  necessary  for  the  officer  than 
for  the  enlisted  man.  An  officer's  commis- 
sion is  given  him  on  the  theory  that  he  has  re- 
ceived his  commission  because  he  is  already 
familiar  with  the  subjects  that  are  taught  at 
these  schools,  and  illustrates  another  serious 
defect  of  the  service;  viz.,  the  tendency  to 
repeat  and  revive  over  and  over  again  what 
has  once  been  thoroughly  learned.  It  would 
not  be  deemed  advisable  for  a  graduate  of 
the  Military  Academy  to  be  permitted  to  re- 
turn to  West  Point  to  go  over  the  same  course 
again  even  once,  to  say  nothing  of  continuing 
the  repetition.  Yet  a  large  percentage  of  the 
duties  of  the  service  is  nothing  more  than  rep- 
etition. Take  the  matter  of  target  practice 
and  drill,  which  is  carried  to  such  an  extent 
that  it  often  becomes  detrimental  instead  of 
beneficial.  Why  compel  men  to  do  a  thing 
that  has  once  been  learned  until  the  monotony 
of  the  repetition  destroys  interest  and  makes 
it  truly  distasteful.  Every  graduate  of  the 
Academy  will  concede  that  the  repetition  of 
the  whole  course  of  infantry  tactics  three 
times  annually  is  one  of  the  greatest  trials  of 
the  course.  Target  practice  has  been  conducted 
to  such  an  excess  that  officers  and  men  have 
been  outspoken  in  their  condemnation  of  it,  and 
have  brought  about  a  reduction  to  a  reasonable 
limit.  After  a  man  has  once  learned  to  shoot, 
it  is  expensive,  besides  being  detrimental,  to 
require  him  to  shoot  for  weeks  and  weeks. 
The  principle  of  taking  up  some  other  subject 
useful  in  the  profession  would  be  more  con- 
ducive to  the  interests  of  the  service,  and 
less  irksome.  It  is  not  maintained  that  prac- 
tice should  be  dispensed  with  entirely  after  a 
subject  is  once  acquired,  but  that  it  should  not 
form  the  sole  occupation  of  troops,  to  the  ex- 


clusion of  every  other  duty,  as  drill  is  some- 
times made  to  do.  Too  much  importance 
is  attached  to  drill  tactics.  When  the  sword 
and  pike  and  the  bow  and  arrow  were  the 
essential  weapons  of  war,  the  formation  of 
ranks  had  its  origin,  and  developed  into 
masses  and  an  elaborate  and  complicated 
manual.  With  the  introduction  of  fire-arms 
the  thinning  of  the  ranks  began,  and  has  con- 
tinued with  the  improvement  in  arms  until  it 
is  simply  disastrous  for  any  force  to  be  sur- 
prised in  solid  formation,  where  formerly  the 
reverse  was  the  case.  The  complicated  drill, 
which  is  having  a  tendency  to  simplicity  of 
late,  was  devised  by  the  sovereigns  of  large 
armies  to  furnish  occupation  for  the  troops  in 
time  of  peace,  who  if  not  kept  busy  would  soon 
engender  trouble. 

We  are  disposed  to  adopt  the  customs  of 
European  nations  without  taking  into  con- 
sideration why  they  exist  there,  and  the  pos- 
sibility that  they  are  not  necessary  in  our 
country.  So  long  as  the  French  nation  was 
considered  the  first  military  power  in  the  world, 
we  used  French  tactics  and  wore  French  uni- 
forms. When  the  Germans  conquered  the 
French,  we  donned  the  helmet.  We  adhere  to 
rigid  lines  in  ranks  and  drills,  and  to  unneces- 
sarily complicated  systems,  when  every  officer 
of  experience  knows  that  they  have  no  value 
and  are  not  used  in  actual  warfare.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  National  Guard  is  liable  to  think  that 
he  knows  the  whole  art  of  war  if  he  can  take  the 
prize  at  a  competitive  drill  or  a  target  practice, 
on  an  armory  floor  and  with  an  unobstructed 
range.  In  actual  war  he  would  not  be  able  to 
accomplish  the  facings  in  a  plowed  field  any 
better  than  the  volunteer  of  a  few  weeks,  and 
the  accuracy  of  his  fire  would  be  materially  af- 
fected by  the  unfamiliar  ground  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  there  was  an  enemy  who  might  fire 
first.  Modern  warfare  is  influenced  in  a  greatly 
diminished  degree  by  what  remains  to  us  of 
the  tactics  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  his  time. 
All  that  is  ever  used  of  the  endless  drilling, 
when  in  actual  campaign,  is  the  passing  from 
column  into  line  and  from  line  into  column 
by  the  simplest  methods,  and  no  other  move- 
ments, no  matter  how  favorable  the  ground 
or  how  perfect  the  drill.  The  precision  re- 
quired in  drill  takes  away  from  the  soldier 
what  is  of  the  first  importance  in  modern  war- 
fare—  independence  of  movement,  freedom 
of  action,  and  that  individuality  which  belongs 
to  every  man  whether  in  or  out  of  the  ranks. 
We  must  progress  with  the  changes  that  attend 
military  science,  and  the  improvement  in  weap- 
ons to  which  the  old  formations  are  no  longer 
applicable. 

During  times  of  peace  the  instruction  of  the 
army  in  most  of  its  duties  should  be  confined 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


937 


to  learning  htnv  to  do  them,  and  to  do  many 
of  them  only  for  the  purpose  of  learning  how. 
In  the  conduct  of  war  there  is  ample  time  for 
practice  of  all  its  requirements  if  the  knowl- 
edge exists  as  to  how  it  should  be  conducted. 
Constant  and  unremitting  exercises  for  the 
purpose  of  being  ready  for  war  that  comes  so 
seldom  is  really  a  waste  of  time  and  strength. 
The  great  precision  in  firing  that  is  attained 
much  hard  work  is  lost  as  soon  as  the 
practice  ceases. 

With  each  post  organized  as  a  school  and 
graded  for  each  arm  of  the  service,  and  the  re- 
cruits classed  at  depots  according  to  capacity 
and  progress  already  made,  they  can  be  as- 
signed to  their  proper  place  to  begin  the  con- 
test for  the  prizes  that  should  be  held  out  for 
all.  There  should  be  something  for  each  and 
every  man  to  work  for.  The  young  man  who 
has  nothing  to  work  for  is  without  a  very 
essential  qualification  for  a  soldier;  and  the 
service  that  holds  out  no  adequate  reward  to 
the  industrious  and  efficient  worker  in  time 
of  peace,  nor  to  the  gallant  and  successful 
man  in  time  of  war,  cannot  hope  to  have  an 
efficient  and  trustworthy  army.  The  system  of 
service  should  be  so  arranged  that  the  sifting 
and  promotion  will,  in  the  course  of  the  en- 
listment, place  each  man  in  his  proper  place 
according  to  his  merits,  both  as  to  services 
and  to  acquirements.  For  the  inferior  and  re- 
fractory material  that  would  undoubtedly  find 
its  way  into  the  service  under  the  most  rigid 
scrutiny  one  or  two  companies  could  be  as- 
signed in  each  regiment,  to  which  these  men 
could  be  transferred  and  made  to  do  the 
rougher  and  more  disagreeable  work,  to  the 
relief  of  the  better  men. 

While  holding  that  the  army  should  be  an 
educational  institution,  it  is  not  intended  to 
limit  it  to  book  knowledge.  The  instruction 
should  also  be  technical  to  a  certain  extent. 
There  will  be  many  who  will  not  take  to 
books  who  can  be  of  great  service  as  carpen- 
ters, wheelwrights,  blacksmiths,  masons,  paint- 
ers, etc. ;  —  these  are  all  trades  which  can  be 
taught,  for  they  are  all  carried  on  at  every  post. 
All  these  pursuits  are  essential  in  war  ;  in  fact, 
there  is  no  pursuit  in  civil  life  that  may  not 
be  of  service  in  war.  The  ax  and  the  spade 
were  as  valuable  as  the  musket  in  the  last  days 
of  the  rebellion. 

Many  officers  of  the  army  will  be  averse  to 
the  introduction  of  mechanical  and  industrial 
work  into  the  military  service,  as  improper 
and  unnecessary.  There  has  been  much  writ- 
ten and  said  against  the  working  of  the  soldiers, 
it  being  claimed  that  it  is  one  of  the  objection- 
able features  of  the  service  thatso  much  manual 
labor  is  required  of  the  men,  and  that  it  is  in- 
compatible with  military  duty.  This  will  readily 


be  met  by  changing  the  status  of  manual  labor 
in  the  army  and  making  it  a  military  duty  as 
well.  The  management  of  working  parties 
can  be  utilized  as  a  means  of  discipline  as 
well  as  drill,  and  with  much  greater  utility  to 
the  service  and  the  soldier.  There  will  be  no 
difficulty  in  doing  this,  for  the  importance  of 
skilled  labor  under  military  control,  applied 
to  military  affairs,  can  readily  be  shown  ;  and 
whether  war  comes  or  not,  its  utility  remains, 
especially  as  we  are  supposing  the  army  to 
be  composed  of  a  younger  and  superior  ma- 
terial. 

The  Military  Academy  would  furnish  the 
instructors  for  these  post  schools,  and  the  vari- 
ous branches  taught  there  could  be  carried  on 
to  a  greater  or  less  extent  at  all  military  posts, 
without  additional  increase  of  the  current  ex- 
penses of  the  army.  In  the  course  of  a  five- 
years'  enlistment  the  progress  which  each  man 
would  make  would  be  in  proportion  to  his 
application  and  capacity  and  the  opportu- 
nities afforded  him.  That  education  of  the 
rank  and  file  would  be  beneficial  to  the  army 
will  hardly  be  questioned.  Yet  many  officers 
will  be  found  who  will  oppose  the  plan  of 
making  the  army  an  educational  institution, 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  never  be  ready 
for  immediate  service.  It  is  possible  that  if 
education  should  be  made  the  important  fea- 
ture that  its  importance  demands,  the  neces- 
sity of  being  ready  to  move  at  a  moment's 
notice  might  be  lost  sight  of  in  a  measure,  but 
there  is  nothing  in  the  system  here  suggested 
that  would  prevent  the  most  complete  prep- 
aration for  any  emergency.  It  would,  how- 
ever, be  quite  sufficient  to  teach  the  army  how 
to  be  ready.  As  has  already  been  stated,  it  is 
a  great  waste  of  energy  for  the  army  to  be 
maintained  in  constant  readiness  for  what 
comes  so  seldom,  and  rarely  comes  so  sud- 
denly that  preparation  cannot  be  made  if  the 
means  and  knowledge  exist  to  get  ready.  It 
is  the  supplying  of  the  means  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  is  here  advocated. 

In  order  that  the  proper  material  for  the 
army  may  be  provided,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
change  the  methods  of  the  recruiting  service. 
It  should  betheduty  of  that  branch  of  the  War 
Department  to  procure  the  recruits  from  the 
youth  of  the  land,  from  all  parts/w  rafa,  in  or- 
der that  all  sections  of  the  country  shall  be  repre- 
sented; when  the  enlistments  expire,  the  young 
men,  with  the  knowledge  they  have  acquired 
while  in  the  service,  should  be  distributed  as 
widely  as  possible.  They  should  be  young 
men,  preferably  eighteen  and  certainly  not  over 
twenty-five  years  of  age.  Selecting  them  from 
congressional  districts,  the  present  strength 
of  the  army  could  be  maintained  by  obtaining 
fifteen  recruits  annually  from  each  district. 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


The  prevailing  rule  should  be  one  enlistment, 
in  order  that  the  greatest  number  possible  may 
get  a  military  training.  Five  years  is  ample  time 
in  which  to  produce  good  results.  The  young 
man  who  could  not  in  five  years  qualify  him- 
self for  an  officer  under  a  system  with  that 
end  in  view,  would  not  be  likely  to  do  it  by 
longer  service. 

If  an  education,  in  addition  to  the  pay, 
clothing,  and  subsistence,  could  be  held  out, 
there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  getting  the  nec- 
essary young  men.  There  is  little  doubt  that, 
when  such  a  plan  should  become  known  and 
established,  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  the 
selections  by  competitive  examinations.  The 
prospect  would  be  very  inviting  to  a  large 
percentage  of  the  young  men  of  the  United 
States,  for  the  number  of  those  whose  ambi- 
tion is  greatly  in  excess  of  their  opportunities 
is  very  large.  The  opportunity  of  getting  an 
education  while  one  is  being  clothed  and  fed, 
and  receiving  from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar  per 
day,  would  be  availed  of  gladly  by  any  young 
man  who  had  not  been  favored  by  fortune. 
It  would  be  his  chance  to  see  something  of 
the  great  world.  After  five  years  he  could  re- 
turn to  his  home  and  relatives  with  a  diploma 
and  a  discharge  that  would  give  him  a  claim 
to  a  commission  as  an  officer  in  the  event  of  a 
war,  and  he  could  have  from  one  to  two  thou- 
sand dollars  in  his  pocket ;  for  he  could  save  all 
his  pay,  as  he  would  have  little  time  to  spend 
it  if  he  applied  himself  closely  to  his  duties. 
Many  armies  of  young  men,  larger  than  the 
United  States  army  to-day,  are  longing  for 
such  a  start  in  life. 

The  expense  of  the  army  graduate  would 
not  be  lost  to  the  country  even  if  a  war  did  not 
occur  during  the  available  life  of  such  gradu- 
ate. He  would  be  utilized  in  the  local  military 
organizations,  and  his  savings  would  enable 
him  to  make  a  beginning  in  such  civil  pur- 
suit as  he  might  desire  to  follow,  if  he  had  not 
acquired  a  trade  during  his  service.  He  would 
take  a  place  and  position  among  his  friends 
and  kindred  corresponding  to  the  standing 
his  abilities  and  application  won  for  him  in  the 
army.  A  very  large  percentage  of  the  pay  of 
the  enlisted  men  of  the  army,  which  is  now 
spent  in  saloons  and  gambling  establishments, 
would  be  brought  home  by  the  discharged 
men,  to  be  usefully  spent  among  the  people  — 
an  economic  feature  that  would  be  of  great 
value  in  time,  for  it  would  be  a  constant  and 
continuous  addition  to  the  wealth  of  the  con- 
gressional districts  from  year  to  year;  not  in 
money  alone,  but  also  in  educated  and  well- 
trained  defenders  of  the  country.  At  the  end  of 
five  years  there  would  be  in  each  district  about 
seventy-five  graduates  from  the  army,  from 
among  whom  a  sufficient  number  of  officers 


could  be  obtained  to  instruct  any  number  of 
volunteers  that  would  probably  be  called  for 
from  the  district  in  the  event  of  a  war.  With 
such  a  body  of  competent  instructors,  the  volun- 
teer service  could  be  placed  in  better  condition 
for  the  field  in  thirty  days  than  was  attained 
during  the  first  year  of  the  war  of  the  Rebellion. 

This  plan  would  provide  from  twenty  to 
twenty-five  thousand  instructors  every  five 
years,  and  place  them  where  they  would  be 
most  needed.  An  army  of  half  a  million  of  men 
will  require  at  least  fifteen  thousand  officers. 
When  war  comes  in  this  country,  the  first 
necessity  is  a  sufficient  quota  of  competent 
officers.  By  the  foregoing  plan  there  would  be  a 
permanent  source  of  supply  to  select  from, 
possessed  of  the  most  recent  information  on  the 
subject  of  the  care  and  management  of  troops. 

Our  form  of  government  being  different  from 
that  of  all  other  great  nations,  our  military 
system  must  be  modified  to  suit  it.  We  raise 
our  armies  by  calling  for  volunteers,  and 
without  the  approval  of  the  people  no  war 
could  be  got  on  foot  by  the  Government  in  this 
country.  For  this  reason  our  military  methods 
should  be  popularized  as  much  as  possible,  in 
order  to  have  the  sympathies  of  the  people. 
We  have  no  military  system  whatever.  The 
militia  laws  looking  to  that  end,  which  were 
devised  in  the  early  history  of  theUnited  States, 
have  failed  of  their  object,  and  are  a  dead 
letter  on  the  statute  books.  When  war  comes 
we  shall  be  as  unprepared  for  it  as  we  were 
when  the  Rebellion  came  upon  us.  We  shall 
be  obliged  to  resort  to  the  same  expensive 
methods,  and  suffer  the  same  humiliations  in 
the  beginning  that  the  country  has  heretofore 
experienced.  Great  as  were  our  resources,  we 
could  make  no  headway  in  the  first  year  of 
the  rebellion,  because  the  great  body  of  the 
people  were  ignorant  of  the  means  and  meth- 
ods of  carrying  on  war,  and  there  were  not  a 
sufficient  number  of  instructors  provided  for 
such  a  contingency.  In  another  decade  there 
will  not  be  left  a  military  remnant  of  our  last 
experience  that  could  be  utilized,  for  the  im- 
provement and  changes  that  have  been  made 
in  the  means  of  warfare  will  require  new  and 
original  adaptations  of  our  resources.  The  ob- 
ject of  this  paper  is  to  suggest  the  best  possi- 
ble preparation  that  the  amount  of  money  we 
annually  appropriate  could  accomplish. 

The  limited  force  scattered  throughout  the 
United  States  that  we  ostentatiously  designate 
as  our  standing  army  is  smaller  than  that  of 
any  other  country  in  proportion  to  its  popu- 
lation, except  China.  While  France  has  a 
soldier  to  every  60  inhabitants,  we  have  one 
in  2400.  By  some  extremists,  who  hold  that 
a  standing  army  is  not  consistent  with  a  re- 
publican form  of  government,  this  insignifi- 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


939 


cant  force  is  sometimes  accused  of  threatening 
the  liberties  of  our  people.  It  is  a  misno- 
mer to  call  an  establishment  that  bears  such 
a  proportion  to  the  population  a  standing 
army.  It  is  nothing  more  than  the  custodian 
of  what  military  knowledge  exists  in  the  coun- 
try. This  is  a  heavy  responsibility,  which 
should  be  aided  by  making  it  also  a  producer 
and  disseminator  of  military  knowledge,  in 
order  that  it  may  have  the  opportunity  of 
rendering  an  adequate  return  for  the  immense 
cost  it  is  to  the  country. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  people  at  large 
should  see  and  appreciate  the  importance  —  if 
not  the  necessity,  at  least  the  economy — of 
utilizing  the  army  as  has  been  outlined  in  this 
paper.  The  army  of  the  present  day  is  con- 
servative and  not  disposed  to  radical  innova- 
tions. The  War  Department  could  do  much 
to  put  the  army  in  the  way  indicated ;  but,  in 
view  of  the  opposition  of  the  high  authorities 

FORT  NIOBRARA,  NEBRASKA,  July,  1888. 


cited,  it  will  be  necessary  for  Congress  to  direct 
what  should  be  done.  That  august  body  is 
also  slow  to  act  without  being  stimulated  to 
action  by  the  people. 

Every  friend  of  the  army  who  has  the  in- 
terest of  his  country  at  heart,  and  sees  the 
necessity  for  maintaining  the  greatest  possible 
military  strength  at  the  smallest  cost,  must 
appreciate  any  plan  that  will  provide  for  the 
production  of  military  knowledge  and  its  dis- 
semination among  the  people,  for  it  is  the 
primary  element  of  national  defense.  It  is 
believed  that  the  foregoing  plan  is  in  accord 
with  our  institutions,  and  that  when  fully  un- 
derstood by  the  people  it  will  be  accepted  as 
the  most  practical  and  economical  means  of 
fostering  and  developing  the  greatest  national 
strength,  of  engendering  patriotism  and  the 
love  of  country,  and  will  tend  to  the  preserva- 
tion and  perpetuation  of  the  Union. 

August  V.  Kautz, 

Brevet  Major-General,  U.  S.  Army. 


II. —  MILITARY     EDUCATION    AND    THE    VOLUNTEER    MILITIA. 


A  VERY  important  element  in  the  national 
defense,  when  the  nation's  peace  is  threat- 
ened, must  be  the  character  of  the  troops  which 
will  compose  her  armies,  and  the  means  which 
must  be  relied  upon  to  call  them  from  their 
homes  to  the  battle-fields  and  to  change  them 
as  quickly  as  possible  from  an  unorganized 
body  of  citizens  into  an  efficient  and  victorious 
army.  First  in  importance  is  the  characterof  t he 
material  upon  which  we  have  to  work.  Grant 
said  of  a  prominent  Union  general,  "  He  per- 
haps did  not  distinguish  sufficiently  between 
the  volunteer  who  enlisted  for  the  war  and  the 
soldier  who  serves  in  time  of  peace."  There  are 
a  great  many  officers  who  make  the  same  mis- 
take. The  volunteer  soldier,  who  in  time  of  the 
nation's  peril  enlists  for  the  war,  is  often  a  man 
in  comfortable  circumstances,  of  competence 
or  even  wealth,  and  his  enlistment  is  a  pecuni- 
ary sacrifice  to  him.  •  He  is  often  a  man  of  so- 
cial position,  surrounded  by  friends  who  regard 
and  esteem  him,  all  of  which  he  fully  appre- 
ciates. Patriotism  and  the  hope  that  by  hon- 
orable and  perhaps  distinguished  services-he 
may  still  improve  his  social  position  and  pop- 
ularity are  the  motives  of  his  enlistment. 
They  infuse  him  with  energy  and  prompt  him 
to  heroic  deeds. 

As  a  rule  a  member  of  the  National  Guard 
or  State  Militia  is  a  man  of  good  social  stand- 
ing. He  has  usually  some  military  taste, 
inclination,  and  ability.  All  the  time  he  gives 
to  his  military  studies  and  training  is  at  a  sac- 


rifice of  his  private  interests;  and  consequently 
he  desires  to  accomplish  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  shortest  space  of  time.  There  is  noth- 
ing mercenary  in  his  motives,  for  the  pay  and 
allowances  he  receives  are  never  equal  to  his 
outlay  of  money,  taking  no  account  of  the 
time  he  gives. 

The  chief  pleasurehe  derives  from  his  service 
is  in  the  gratification  of  his  taste  for  military 
knowledge,  the  satisfaction  he  takes  in  his 
military  exercises  and  the  excellence  of  his 
attainments,  the  knowledge  that  he  is  in  a 
position  to  defend  his  country  and  society 
promptly  and  well,  and  the  increased  regard 
and  esteem  he  merits  from  his  countrymen. 
He  has  independence  of  character  and  is  self- 
reliant,  strong,  and  intelligent,  and  frequently 
is  a  man  of  broad  and  liberal  culture  and  the 
strongest  sense  of  personal  honor,  dignity,  and 
self-respect. 

This  is  the  kind  of  men  who  must  consti- 
tute our  volunteers  in  time  of  war,  and  we  must 
rely  especially  upon  such  to  rouse  the  people 
to  patriotic  action  and  to  lead  them  forth  in 
the  defense  of  the  country  in  time  of  peril. 

The  nation  having  secured  the  volunteer, 
the  next  step  is  to  convert  him  into  a  soldier 
in  the  shortest  possible  space  of  time.  To  this 
end  the  most  difficult  and  at  the  same  time 
absolutely  indispensable  thing  is  to  induce 
him  at  all  times  to  submit  his  judgment,  in 
matters  requiring  action,  to  that  of  his  com- 
manders, and  certainly  and  surely  to  obey  the 


940 


OUR   NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


orders  of  his  superior  officers  in  the  most 
prompt  and  exact  manner.  This  result  is  ob- 
tained in  two  very  different  ways,  owing  to  the 
character  of  the  material  of  which  the  soldier 
is  to  be  made;  and  it  is  exceedingly  important 
that  the  difference  in  the  two  systems  should 
be  understood,  that  the  method  maybe  adapted 
to  the  character  of  the  material.  One  system 
is  based  upon  a  cringing  submission  to  and 
personal  dependence  upon  superiors.  Under 
such  discipline  men  soon  cease  to  be  men  and 
become  mere  machines.  The  kind  of  men 
who  constitute  the  majority  of  our  volunteer 
armies,  and  especially  of  the  National  Guard, 
do  not  yield  to  these  measures.  Three  or  five 
years  is  not  enough  in  which  to  teach  them  to 
cease  to  reflect:  so  short  a  time  is  not  enough 
in  which  to  destroy  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
they  enlisted,  or  to  cause  them  to  lose  their  in- 
dependence of  character  and  to  cease  to  think 
for  themselves;  and  we  are  all  glad  that  it  is  not. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  our  United  States 
army  and  Military  Academy  the  tendency 
has  been,  and  still  is,  too  much  to  seek  the 
wrong  foundation  for  discipline,  and  the  more 
intelligent,  patriotic,  and  self-respecting  class 
of  men  have  been  deterred  from  enlisting  in  the 
regular  army ;  and  many  of  the  best  men,  of 
the  noblest  impulses,  who  do  enlist  are  no 
doubt  by  this  cause  moved  to  desert  without 
being  willing  to  give  their  reasons,  fearing  the 
ridicule  of  their  companions  and  officers  who 
do  not  sympathize  with  them  in  their  ideas 
of  personal  dignity  and  self-respect. 

Aristocratic  theories  are  impracticable  in  a 
volunteer  army  of  free  citizens,  and  still  more 
so  in  the  National  Guard.  Some  of  the  very 
best  National  Guard  companies,  which  would 
have  obeyed  the  military  orders  of  their  officers, 
even  at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  with  an  eager- 
ness, exactness,  and  self-devotion  that  could 
not  have  been  excelled,  have  sometimes  been 
discouraged,  their  self-respect  wounded,  and 
their  ardor  destroyed  by  an  unwise  and  fool- 
ish attempt  of  their  military  superiors  to  carry 
their  superiority  beyond  strictly  military  mat- 
ters, into  the  social  life  of  the  command,  and  to 
make  their  men  feel  that  the  subordination  ex- 
tended not  only  to  things  military  but  to  all 
things,  and  was  personal  rather  than  official. 
Such  companies  only  await  the  expiration  of 
their  enlistment  to  leave  the  service,  with  the 
advice  to  their  friends — which,  contrary  to  the 
ordinary  rule,  is  sure  to  be  taken  —  never  to 
enter  it.  The  loss  of  such  men  is  absolutely 
irreparable.  The  decline  in  discipline  and  effi- 
ciency in  many  commands  of  the  National 
Guard  may  be  attributed  largely  to  the  loss 
of  such  men,  their  places  being  supplied  by 
others  of  inferior  character.  If  this  process 
should  be  general  and  should  continue,  the 


decline  and  ultimate  extinction  of  the  National 
Guard  would  be  inevitable. 

A  subordination  that  is  attempted  to  be 
made  instinctive  by  basing  it  upon  an  exag- 
geration of  the  personal,  social,  and  assumed 
inherent  inferiority  of  the  enlisted  man,  besides 
preventing  the  best  enlistments,  can  only, 
where  a  free  citizen  is  concerned,  be  made 
efficient  by  long  years  of  effort —  longer  than 
any  war  is  likely  to  last;  and  therefore  this 
kind  of  discipline,  while  it  may  answer  in  the 
armies  of  aristocratic  countries,  is  not  the  best 
in  a  free  country.  Fortunately  the  foundations 
of  a  better  are  ready  at  hand,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  change  the  character  of  the  man 
in  order  to  make  of  him  a  good  soldier. 

For  the  aristocratic  idea  we  should  substi- 
tute that  of  properly  constituted  authority,  a 
love  of  law,  order,  and  system,  fidelity  to  duty, 
pride  of  good  citizenship  and  of  military  and 
chivalric  qualities,  and  an  intelligent  and  full 
explanation  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  silence 
and  strict  obedience  at  all  times,  in  order  to 
conquer —  supplemented,  as  in  other  cases,  by 
real  merit  and  proper  example  in  the  superior. 
By  proper  instruction  on  these  subjects,  ad- 
dressed to  the  soldier's  intelligence,  a  better 
discipline  can  be  developed  in  the  volunteer 
army,  and  especially  in  the  National  Guard, 
and  in  a  very  much  shorter  time  than  can 
possibly  be  done  by  the  aristocratic  method. 
And  when  at  the  close  of  a  war  such  a  soldier 
again  becomes  a  free  citizen,  he  is  a  better  one 
than  before,  and  in  mind,  principles,  and  hab- 
its is  in  full  accord  with  free  institutions. 

This  is  the  reason  why  the  soldiers  of  the 
volunteer  armies  so  quickly,  so  naturally,  and 
so  completely  returned  to  their  civil  duties, 
after  four  or  five  years  of  active  military  life,  to 
the  great  surprise  of  those  whose  ideas  had  been 
formed  by  contemplating  the  result  of  the  dis- 
banding of  armies  governed  by  the  aristocratic 
principle. 

It  would  seem  best  in  a  free  country  in  time 
of  peace  to  use,  so  far  as  possible,  that  basis 
of  discipline  best  adapted  to  the  volunteer 
armies  in  time  of  war.  Any  system  may  an- 
swer when  but  little  strength  is  required,  and 
that  one  should  be  selected  which,  with  the 
least  change,  would  give  the  greatest  strength 
in  the  time  of  the  greatest  trial. 

Some  system  should  be  adopted  by  which 
men  should  be  instructed  in  the  nature  of  mil- 
itary subordination  as  distinct  from  social. 
When  this  is  done,  the  work  will  be  much  fa- 
cilitated. This  system  should  be  developed  as 
much  as  possible  before  a  war  occurs,  and  is 
an  important  part  of  the  preparation  for  the 
national  defense. 

Persons  who  have  formed  their  opinions 
upon  matters  of  discipline  by  observing  armies 


OUR  NATIONAL    MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


941 


governed  on  the  aristocratic  principle  are  apt 
very  much  to  underrate  the  value  of  the  sub- 
ordination and  discipline  of  the  National 
Guard  and  volunteers,  on  account  of  the 
freer  intercourse  between  inferior  and  super- 
ior and  the  apparent  disregard  tor  ceremony 
and  forms  to  be  noted  in  the  ranks  of  the 
latter.  It  is  difficult  for  them  to  believe  that 
a  man  who  does  not  stand  at  "attention"  in 
the  presence  of  an  officer  is  nevertheless  fully 
prepared  to  obey  his  orders  to  the  utmost;  but 
such  is  often  the  case. 

The  National  Guard  of  the  States  is  a  sort 
of  cadet  corps  from  whose  rank  and  file 
general  and  field  officers  are  likely  to  be 
evolved  in  case  of  war,  as  has  often  been  done 
before ;  and  it  is  generally  admitted  that  the 
more  intelligent  an  officer  is  the  more  efficient 
he  will  be.  It  is  likewise  true,  though  not  so 
universally  admitted,  that  the  same  rule  ap- 
plies to  the  private.  In  thousands  of  ways, 
such  as  in  making  the  most  of  his  few  comforts 
and  in  taking  care  of  himself  in  camp  and  field 
as  well  as  in  battle,  the  private  soldier's  effi- 
ciency is  largely  in  proportion  to  his  intelli- 
gence. 

So  much  for  the  education  of  the  republican 
soldier  in  military  discipline.  The  soldier  of 
the  Republic  should  also  differ  from  the  sol- 
dier of  a  monarchy  in  this :  he  should  be  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  in  close  relation  to  and  in 
sympathy  with  the  people,  and  should  continue 
to  be  so  well  acquainted  with  them,  and  they 
with  him,  that  they  and  he  may  have  the  full- 
est confidence  and  esteem  for  each  other.  In 
monarchies  the  soldier  is  the  fighting  instru- 
ment of  his  sovereign,  who  often  desires  that 
he  should  not  sympathize  with  the  people. 

In  selecting  material  for  soldiers  from  among 
the  people,  it  is  best  that  the  culling  process 
should  go  on  from  youth  up.  The  youths  at 
colleges  an^  high-schools  should  have  an  op- 
tional class  in  military  tactics  and  drill.  It. 
would  not  be  without  profit  to  all  if  it  were 
made  compulsory,  as  it  is  in  Switzerland,  for 
the  time  would" not  be  wasted  if  the  individual 
should  never  become  a  member  of  a  military 
organization.  The  physical  development  and 
the  muscular  and  mental  training  resulting  from 
an  elementary  course  in  military  tactics,  drill, 
and  exercises  would  be  ample  compensation  for 
the  time  and  money  spent, and  probably  would 
be  as  useful  to  the  learner  in  aftercivil  life  as  his 
Latin,  French,  or  algebra,  and  possibly  more 
so.  Boys  and  men  having  a  military  bent  or 
inclination  would  naturally  seek  schools  where 
such  advantages  were  offered  in  connection 
with  their  other  studies,  and  so  of  higher 
schools  and  colleges.  He  who  had  a  special 
talent  would  be  most  likely  to  go  farthest  in 
this  direction,  and  he  who  found  that  he  had 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 130. 


no  taste  or  ability  of  this  kind  would  more 
easily  take  some  other  profession  without  any 
sense  of  disgrace  to  himself  or  friends  in  doing 
so.  In  this  way  the  selection  of  the  fittest 
would  be  continually  going  on  in  the  most 
natural  way  possible,  just  as  in  the  other 
spheres  of  life.  Appointment!  to  the  regular 
army  and  to  the  Military  Academy  could  then 
be  made  from  among  those  who  had  distin- 
guished themselves  by  special  natural  fitness 
and  hy  special  attainments.  The  West  Point 
Academy  should  have  its  doors  thrown  open 
wider,  so  that  any  one  who  might  be  will 
subject  himself  to  the  severe  discipline  then- 
practiced  for  four  years,  under  penalty  for  deser- 
tion, could  enter,  and  students  on  graduation 
should  not  be  promised  commissions  in  the 
army  or  required  to  take  them.  This  change, 
it  is  believed,  would  not  injure  the  discipline  at 
West  Point.  Experience  teaches  that  it  is  not 
the  students  who  are  of  their  own  will  striving 
for  an  education  who  are  insubordinate  at  col- 
lege, but  those  who  have  their  education  thrust 
upon  them  by  doting  friends. 

Likewise  every  inducement  of  honorable 
mention,  or  otherwise,  should  be  offered  to 
men  of  proper  natural  attainments  and  quali- 
fications to  enter  the  standing  army  and  to  re- 
main as  long  as  they  can  feel  enthusiasm  for 
their  work ;  and  when  they  practically  cease 
to  learn  they  should  be  allowed  and  encour- 
aged to  resign  and  to  seek  employment  among 
the  people  in  the  kindred  professions  or  occu- 
pations of  peace,  as  did  Grant,  Sherman,  Mc- 
Clellan,  Schofield,  Rosecrans,  and  others,  thus 
giving  place  to  other  young  men  who  would 
be  glad  to  spend  a  few  years  in  preparing 
themselves  to  defend  their  country  if  occasion 
might  require.  It  is  not  probable  that  Grant, 
Sherman,  and  McClellan  lost  anything  of  effi- 
ciency by  their  years  of  civil  employment,  but 
rather  gained.  It  placed  them  in  positions 
where  special  effort  and  ability  would  produce 
for  their  possessors  special  results,  and  so  in- 
creased their  energy,  their  tact,  and  their 
mental  resources  and  enterprise.  It  brought 
them  into  closer  contact  with  the  people,  and 
so  increased  their  knowledge  of  the. peculiar 
character  and  quality  of  the  material  of  which 
were  composed  the  volunteer  armies  of  the 
Republic,  which  they  afterwards  so  gloriously 
led. 

Men  should  not  always  be  in  school,  and 
that  is  what  military  life  might  well  be  called 
in  time  of  peace :  it  is  a  preparation  for  work 
to  be  hereafter  clone  when  the  nation's  strength 
is  tried. 

It  is  not  recommended,  at  least  for  the 
present,  that  there  should  be  a  compulsory 
rotation  in  the  army.  It  is  only  proposed  that 
resignations  of  officers  after  a  few  years'  ex- 


942 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


perience  should  be  freely  accepted  and  encour- 
aged, and  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  return 
to  the  body  of  the  people,  in  order  that  other 
officers  may  receive  commissions  in  the  army 
for  short  periods,  or  may  receive  comrnissions 
which  they  would  be  permitted  to  resign  as 
soon  as  they  too  had  received  some  experience. 
Some  officers  might  remain  permanently  in  the 
army  to  preserve  its  traditions,  as  professors  re- 
main in  colleges  while  students  come  and  go. 
Under  such  a  system  of  military  preparation 
men  of  military  experience  and  education  liv- 
ing in  civil  life  among  their  neighbors  and 
countrymen  could  in  a  short  time  gather  to- 
gether their  friends  and  acquaintances,  whom 
they  would  know,  and  who  would  know  them, 
thus  giving  mutual  confidence,  and  could  lead 
them  to  the  defense  of  society  and  of  the 
state  and  nation  more  promptly  than  it  could 
be  done  in  any  other  way;  and  this  would 
make  a  strong  nation  without  the  expense 
and  disadvantages  of  a  large  standing  army. 

In  a  free  republic  the  military  force  always 
has  been,  and  always  will  be,  in  the  body  of 
the  people.  It  cannot  be  permanently  other- 
wise :  where  the  ultimate  force  is,  there  is  the 
sovereignty.  All  institutions  and  orders  and 
all  laws  exist  by  sufferance  or  direct  com- 
mand of  this  ultimate  force.  This  has  been 
recognized  by  all  our  great  statesmen,  and 
they  have  shown  their  belief  by  urging  the 
necessity  for  training  the  people  to  arms,  in 
the  form  of  a  well-organized  militia.  They 
have  embodied  their  principles  in  our  consti- 
tutions, state  and  national.  The  practice  in 
the  earlier  years  of  the  Republic  of  seeking  to 
train  all  men  physically  capable,  if  ever  justi- 
fiable, has  long  ceased  to  be  so,  because  the 
number  of  such  men,  being  about  seven  mill- 
ions, is  so  large  that  the  training  of  all  is 
entirely  unnecessary.  It  would  involve  an 
enormous  expenditure  of  money.  It  would 
compel  men  to  drill  who  have  no  aptitude  for 
military  affairs.  They  would  not  succeed,  and 
they  would  be  a  hindrance  to  the  others.  It 
would  be  irksome  to  them,  and  they  would 
use  their  efforts  to  break  up  the  system.  It 
would  also  prevent  the  natural  process  of  se- 
lecting the  fittest,  which  results  where  only 
one  in  fifty  or  a  hundred  is  trained,  and  only 
those  who  from  an  instinct  of  fitness  volun- 
teer for  the  purpose. 

The  officers  in  the  volunteer  militia  are 
selected,  and  should  be,  from  men  whose 
attainments,  abilities,  and  experience  make 
their  time  most  valuable  to  themselves  as 
well  as  others. 

It  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  National 
Guard  if  some  part  of  the  five  thousand  enlisted 
men  and  officers,  which  the  Adjutant-General 
recommends  should  be  added  to  the  regular 


army,  should  be  taken  from  the  National 
Guard  by  enlistments  and  commissions  for  a 
short  period  of  service  —  ofthreeorsixmonths, 
or  even  a  year.  The  candidate  for  such  a  service 
should  be  required  first  to  pass  such  an  exam- 
ination by  an  army  board  as  would  show  him 
to  be  reasonably  well  qualified  by  nature  and 
attainments  to  at  once  assume  the  duties  that 
his  new  position  would  impose  upon  him.  At 
the  military  posts  where  the  National  Guard 
men  serve  there  should  be  a  school  for  offi- 
cers and  enlisted  men,  where  the  duties  of  the 
various  positions  should  be  intelligently  ex- 
plained and  illustrated  by  officers  detailed  for 
the  purpose,  in  which  these  citizen  soldiers 
might  make  the  most  of  their  time  while  in  the 
army.  These  short-term  men  and  officers 
might  perhaps  be  required  lo  discharge  all 
duties,  so  far  as  might  be  deemed  practicable, 
that  are  required  of  others  of  their  rank  in  the 
army.  They  should  be  enlisted  or  commis- 
sioned in  the  army,  and  for  the  time  being  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  National  Guard.  That 
kind  of  discipline  in  the  army  which  is  based 
upon  personal  dependence  might  be  slightly 
impaired  by  this  practice,  but  the  best  disci- 
pline would  not  be  to  any  considerable  extent; 
for  if  the  right  persons  were  selected,  it  would 
be  those  who  were  most  desirous  of  learning 
true  discipline. 

In  order  to  secure  a  more  general  instruc- 
tion the  National  Guard  should  go  into  camp 
from  six  to  ten  days  each  year,  and  it  should 
all  go  into  state  camps,  under  one  com- 
mander. There  is  a  very  great,  very  beneficial, 
and  almost  indispensable  influence  in  convert- 
ing men  into  soldiers  —  in  the  promotion  of 
discipline  of  every  sort,  in  army-making  as 
distinguished  from  mere  teaching — to  be  found 
in  having  soldiers  do  duty  in  the  presence  of 
others,  and  having  other  soldiers  do  duty  in 
their  presence.  Each  one  learns  .that  he  has 
a  duty  that  he  himself  must  perform,  and  that 
others  have  duties  with  which  he  must  not  in- 
terfere; and  the  latter  is  almost  as  important  as 
the  former.  By  seeing  other  soldiers  faithfully 
performing  their  duties  without  swerving  to 
the  right  hand  or  to  the  left,  by  seeing  perfect 
order  prevailing  and  everything  being  done  by 
the  right  person  and  in  the  right  way  and  at 
the  right  time  amidst  so  large  a  number  as  to 
make  this  utterly  impossible  without  military 
discipline,  the  esprit  de  corps  is  engendered, 
and  the  feeling  strengthened  that  the  whole 
army  is  a  unit,  and  each  part,  while  attending 
to  its  own  duty,  can  rely,  without  the  least 
nervousness  or  distrust,  upon  all  other  parts  at- 
tending to  theirs.  A  soldier  may  and  will  have 
his  private  personal  friends  with  whom  he  talks 
and  in  whom  he  confides.  As  a  soldier  he 
should  know  other  soldiers  simply  as  such,  ac- 


OUR   NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


943 


cording  to  their  rank,  position,  and  duties, 
without  reference  to  the  personality  of  the 
in.-in.  This  is  more  easily  learned  where  the 
soldier  is  brought  into  contact  with  soldiers  of 
whom  he  knows  nothing  but  their  rank,  posi- 
tion, and  duties,  except  that  they  are  honor- 
able members  of  his  own  army,  and  as  such 
are  always  worthy  of  the  utmost  confidence 
as  soldiers,  from  a  soldier.  These  things  can 
only  be  learned  by  having  large  bodies  of 
troops  together  under  trusted  and  compe- 
tent officers,  and  they  must  be  learned  or 
there  is  no  real  army.  It  is  these  feelings,  felt 
to  be  so  strong  and  so  deep  by  the  veteran 
comrades  of  many  \Vell-fought  campaigns,  that 
make  old  soldiers  so  confiding,  so  trusting,  so 
partial  to  one  another  through  all  their  after 
life.  These  things  constitute  the  indispensable 
essence  of  the  army  ;  and  without  them  there 
can  be  no  army,  no  matter  how  many  other- 
wise good  soldiers  there  may  be.  It  is  only 
when  these  things  are  too  much  overlooked, 
undervalued,  or  misunderstood,  and  when  too 
much  relative  importance  is  attached  to  the 
mechanical  execution  of  the  drills  and  ceremo- 
nies, that  small  camps  are  preferred  to  the 
largest  possible. 

In  States  where  there  is  a  well-organized 
National  Guard,  a  commission  might  be  ap- 
pointed consisting  of  four  or  five  officers  se- 
lected from  the  National  Guard,  and  as  many 
more  detailed  from  the  regular  army,  including 
such  professors  of  military  science  as  might 
be  serving  in  the  colleges  of  the  State.  This 
commission  might  examine  such  officers  and 
non-commissioned  officers  as  desired  to  be 
examined  and  such  as  might  be  ordered  before 
it,  and  grant  diplomas  showing  attainments  in 


the  various  branchesof  military  art  andsc  : 
Such  an  institution  to  be  of  any  value  must 
have  its  expenses,  including  pay  of  officers  who 
compose  it  and  transportation  and  subsistence 
of  officers  attending  it,  paid  by  the  State.  In 
this  event  a  health)  demand  would  be  created 
for  the  service  of  such  legular  officers  as  could 
be  secured  from  the  army  and  the  military 
colleges  during  the  annual  encampment,  to 
conduct  officers'  schools  and  non-commis- 
sioned officers'  schools,  and  to  assist  and  coach 
the  various  officers  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties  generally.  It  would  not  be  well  for  any 
one  to  supersede  commanders  as  the  proper 
instructors  of  their  own  troops;  but  command- 
ers would  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
assistance  of  better-informed  men,  and  would 
be  profited  thereby.  In  this  way  the  services 
of  several  officers  of  the  regular  army  would 
be  extremely  profitable,  if  they  could  be  ob- 
tained during  the  annual  encampment  of  each 
brigade. 

If  something  of  the  plan  here  suggested  were 
gradually  adopted,  it  would  have  a  tendency 
to  put  many  graduates  of  West  Point  and  some 
ex-army  officers  with  their  technical  knowl- 
edge into  the  National  Guard,  and  some  of  the 
most  military  of  the  National  Guard  officers 
might  find  their  way  into  the  army,  carrying 
with  them  their  practical  knowledge  of  the 
character  of  our  volunteers.  It  would  bind 
together  in  one  bond  of  sympathetic  union  the 
Military  Academy,  the  Army,  and  the  National 
Guard,  greatly  strengthen  the  military  power 
of  the  nation,  and  foster  that  sentiment  so 
necessary  in  a  republic  of  liberty  governed  by 
law. 

James  Montgomery  Rice, 
Lieutenant-Colonel,  Illinois  National  Ciiarii. 


III. —  COMMENT   ON    COLONEL   RICE'S    PAPER. 


COLONEL  RICE'S  paper  covers  many  points  on 
which  opinions  naturally  differ.  It  is  a  wholesome 
si;_;n  that  so  much  attention  is  being  paid  by  thoughtful 
men  to  the  necessity  of  providing  for  our  national  de- 
fense by  a  more  thorough  organization  of  the  militia 
of  the  several  States,  and  it  is  from  a  comparison  of 
their  opinions  that  the  best  method  is  to  be  selected. 

Wars  nowadays  are  speedily  decided,  and  a  nation 
not  prepared  to  protect  itself  will  be  conquered  before 
it  can  organize  and  train  its  natural  forces  so  as  to 
render  then]  effective.  With  our  absurdly  small  regu- 
lar army,  it  is  to  the  National  Guard  of  the  various 
States  alone  that  the  country  must  look  to  supply  the 
regimental  and  company  officers  who  are  to  command 
the  volunteers  who  are  to  protect  it  in  time  of  war. 
No  pains,  therefore,  should  be  spared  to  make  their 
military  education  as  thorough  as  is  possible  under  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  their  services. 

The  foundation  of  a  military  organization  is  disci- 


pline. I  do  not  think  it  possible  to  have  in  a  militia 
regiment  the  rigid  discipline  of  regulars.  But  while 
not  carrying  "  class  distinction  "  too  far,  it  is  perfectly 
possible  to  require  the  men,  when  in  uniform,  to  con- 
form to  rigid  rules  in  regard  to  the  respect  to  be  paid 
to  their  officers  and  to  the  forms  of  ceremony,  etc.,  so 
as  to  impress  upon  them  the  maxim  "  that  ohedience 
to  authority  lies  at  the  foundation  of  military  efficiency. " 
This  is  done  regularly  at  the  New  York  State  Camp, 
and  the  better  the  regiment  the  more  pride  its  mem- 
bers take  in  observing  these  matters. 

The  great  point  to  insure  obedience  —  and  one  upon 
which  particular  stress  is  laid  by  German  authorities  — 
is  to  impress  upon  the  men  that  their  officers  will  pro- 
tect them  from  all  unnecessary  labor  and  danger;  "for 
when  the  men  know  this  they  face  hardship  and  dan- 
ger uncomplainingly,  knowing  that  it  is  inevitable." 
Tliis  involves,  of  necessity,  that  the  officers  should  be 
taught  how  to  care  for  their  men;  and  here,  therefore, 


944 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


is  where  the  National  Guard  officer  is  weak,  because 
uninstructed. 

I  doubt  whether  it  would  be  possible  to  throw  open 
the  doors  of  West  Point  as  proposed,  without  injuring 
it.  The  cadets  are  now  paid  and  supported  by  the  coun- 
try. If  there  were  many  more,  it  would  cost  too  much. 
Besides,  the  present  wholesome  regulation  which  draws 
the  officers  of  our  army  from  every  state  and  rank  in 
life  would  be  apt  to  be  overthrown. 

Any  system,  however,  which  would  enable  our  youth 
and  those  National  Guardsmen  who  are  anxious  to 
improve  themselves  in  military  matters  to  do  so  would 
be  of  great  value.  Military  instructors  in  colleges,  short- 
term  service  in  army  posts, —  like  the  one-year  volun- 
teers of  Germany, —  would  cost  the  country  but  little, 
and  add  greatly  to  its  means  of  defense.  It  cannot  be 
expected,  however,  that  such  men  as  compose  our 
National  Guard  will  enlist  as  privates  in  the  army. 

NEW  YORK,  July,  1888. 


They  would  not  like  to  associate  with  the  men,  nor 
would  the  influence  upon  them  be  good  if  they  did. 

Examinations  and  diplomas  in  the  method  suggested 
by  Colonel  Rice  —  anything,  in  fact,  which  will  help  the 
National  Guardsman  to  fit  himself  for  service  without 
taking  up  more  time  than  he  can  afford  to  devote  — 
should  be  provided. 

I  cannot  agree  with  Colonel  Rice  as  to  the  value  of 
large  camps  of  instruction.  They  look  imposing,  but 
there  is  very  apt  to  be  too  many  "  reviews  "  and  cere- 
monies. A  model  camp  should  have  as  little  show  and 
as  much  hard  work  as  possible.  At  the  meetings  of  the 
United  States  National  Guard  Association  the  regi- 
mental officers  all  preferred  regimental  camps.  The 
experience  of  New  York  shows,  however,  that  there 
should  be  carefully  selected  instructors  and  inspectors 
to  see  that  the  prescribed  work  is  done,  and  done 
properly. 

George  W.  Wingate, 
President  National  Guard  Association  of  the  United  States. 


IV. —  OUR   NATIONAL   GUARD. 


~\  It  ALE  citizens  of  the  United  States  between  eighteen 
1V1  and  forty-five  years  of  age  are  considered  availa- 
ble for  military  duty,  men  holding  State  or  Government 
positions,  or  certain  religious  beliefs,  being  exempt. 

During  the  summer  of  1887  twelve  States  and  one 
Territory*  had  their  guard  inspected,  while  in  camp, 
by  United  States  army  officers  detailed  for  that  pur- 
pose by  the  Secretary  of  War.  The  following  extracts 
from  the  reports  of  some  of  these  officers  give  an  idea 
of  the  efficiency  of  the  guard  in  general. 

Colonel  H.  M.  Black,  United  States  Army  Inspector 
Michigan  N.  G.  : 

The  general  appearance  of  the  several  regiments  was 
excellent.  All  lookedyoung,  active,  energetic,  andhealthy, 
and  have  in  them  the  material  to  make  as  fine  soldiers  as 
could  be  found  in  any  country. 

Colonel  E.  S.  Otis,  United  States  Army  Inspector 
Pennsylvania  N.  G. ' 

The  men  are  young,  of  fine  physique.  .  .  .  Its  intelli- 
gence is  of  a  high  order ;  its  organization  is  effective ;  its 
practical  knowledge,  considering  its  opportunities,  very 
marked. 

Colonel  W.  R.  Shafter,  United  States  Army  In- 
spector Second  Brigade  California  N.  G. : 

The  conduct  of  the  men  while  in  camp  was  most  excel- 
lent, their  physical  condition  good,  and  it  was  apparent 
that  the  only  thing  necessary  to  make  them  first-class 
soldiers  was  the  need  for  their  services  in  actual  warfare. 

Edwin  C.  Mason,  Acting  Inspector-General,  United 
States  Army  : 

From  my  experience  with  the  militia  in  years  past,  I 
was  entirely  unprepared  to  find  the  National  Guard  on 
such  a  high  plane  of  discipline  and  general  efficiency  as 
I  find  that  in  the  State  of  Iowa. 

Colonel  E.  F.  Townsend,  United  States  Army  In- 
spector Dakota  N.  G.  : 

It  is  an  excellent  body  of  men,  full  of  zeal,  and  only 
requires  to  be  directed  rightly  to  make  splendid  soldiers. 

*  Alabama,  California,  Dakota,  Delaware,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Michi- 
gan, Minnesota,  New  Hampshire,  New  York,  Ohio,  Pennsylva- 
nia, Vermont. 


Adjutant-General  Drum,  United  States  Army  (re- 
port to  Secretary  of  War,  1887),  calls  attention  to 
these  reports  as  follows : 

The  reports,  appended  hereto,  of  the  several  inspect- 
ing officers  are  highly  interesting  and  instructive.  The 
steadily  increasing  interest  manifested  by  the  militia  of 
the  States  is  evidenced  by  the  high  percentage  of  attend- 
ance at  the  annual  encampments  and  the  general  excel- 
lent military  spirit  of  the  troops.  .  .  .  Young  officers 
of  the  army  could  be  spared  during  the  winter,  to  report 
to  the  adjutants-general  of  States,  on  application  of  the 
governors,  to  aid  in  the  instruction  of  both  officers  and 
non-commissioned  officers. 

Whilst  the  reports  referred  to  show  that  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  guard  is  all  it  should  be,  there  are  defi- 
ciencies to  which  these  reports  point  —  deficiencies 
which  consist  mainly  in  discipline,  knowledge  of  guard 
duty,  and  equipments. 

Whatever  in  the  way  of  uniforms  and  equipments 
have  been  obtained  were,  until  recently,  issued  by  the 
State  or  purchased  by  the  men  themselves,  but  now 
the  United  States  Government  lends  a  helping  hand 
by  an  annual  appropriation  of  $400,000  "in  the  way 
of  equipments,"  each  State  being  allowed  \\s  pro  rata 
proportion.  Each  State  has  its  own  uniform  and  but- 
ton (a  few  States,  having  adopted  the  United  States 
army  uniform  and  retaining  the  State  button,  are  excep- 
tions). The  guns  in  use  vary,  but  the  tendency  now 
in  this  is  to  adopt  the  regulation  United  States  army 
gun,  and  many  States  have  already  done  so.  The 
armament  of  the  artillery,  as  a  rule,  is  old  ordnance 
and  unfit  for  service.  The  Galling  gun  now  forms  part 
of  the  armament  of  the  artillery  in  California.  Connec- 
ticut, Indiana,  Ohio,  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  New- 
York,  and  perhaps  other  States. 

The  National  Guard  of  the  different  States,  if  brought 
together,  would  present  a  variegated  appearance  as  to 
uniform,  arms,  and  general  equipment. 

The  guard  in  each  State  is  enlisted  for  service  within 
the  State  only,  and  is  under  control  of  the  governor,  who 
by  virtue  of  his  office  is  commander-in-chief,  and  who 
appoints  an  administrative  officer  called  the  adjutant- 


OUR  NATIONAL   MILITARY  SYSTEM. 


945 


general,  who  looks  after  the  guard.  Kach  State  reg- 
ulates the  pay  for  her  troops,  which  in  many  States 
amounts  to  very  little,  while  some  allow  the  guard, 
when  on  duty,  United  States  army  pay. 

The  accompanying  table  based  upon  thcofficial  return 
of  the  Adjutant-General,  U.  S.  A.,  July  2d,  1888,  gives 
the  strength  of  the  regularly  enlisted  militia.  It  will 
n  that  our  National  Guard  numbers  about  one 
hundred  thousand,  and  the  first  thing  to  be  considered 
is  the  efficiency  of  this  body  of  men. 


bC 

& 

If  5 

1 

1; 

| 

± 

STATES 

i 

1 
^ 

3l| 

1*3 

1 

a 

V 

•iL 

e 

lv>> 

IS* 

§ 

y> 

•3 

cO 

i 

$51 

|l1 

i1 

| 

ft 

H 

Alabama  
California  
Colorado  
Connecticut.  .  . 
Delaware  

i 

2 
I 

42 
no 
3« 
9 
'4 

'57 
"43 

™s 

162 
4° 

2036 
4056 
1015 
2401 

2244 

4417 

"53 
7°9 

i 
I 
4 

3 

3 
M 

X 

1 

38 

4' 

26 

3l 

Florida 

1066 

Georgia   

25 

105 
308 

4233 

4566 

10 

3 

II 

Illinois  

4 

44 

277 

3825 

4'5° 

3 

^S 

Indiana  

i 

22 

164 

1997 

2184 

I 

4 

36 

Iowa 

18 

2481 

Kansas  

5 

3° 

192 

1801 

2093 
1966 

3 

3O 

Kentucky  
Louisiana  

7 

'3 
3' 

88 
158 

"35 
1821 

1336 
2017 

5 

X 

8 

"9 

10 

Maine  

i 

6 

7° 

891 

968 

i 

22 

Maryland  
Massachusetts. 
Michigan  
Minnesota  .... 
Mississippi.  .  .  . 
Missouri  

3 

5 

6 

4 
i 

3° 

3 

23 

20 

12 

'35 
35t 
'39 
127 

'35 
ri2 

'849 
4653 
3853 
1640 
1230 
2026 

2016 
5046 
3012 
1796 
1389 
2151 

3 

t 
i 

3 
i 
i 

4 

4' 
72 

3« 
3° 

3o 

Nebraska  .... 

i 

JQ 

84 

1118 

1222 

i 

i 

20 

Nevada.  . 

A 

4° 

18 

•sno 

562 

18 

N.  Hampshire. 
New  Jersey.  .  . 
New  York  .... 
No.  Carolina.  . 

I 

3 
5 

i 

9 

5° 
76 

20 

99 
257 
675 
118 

1127 
3637 
12474 
"75 

302 
1236 

3947 
13230 
'3'4 

3 
I 

i 

3 

6 

24 

53 
'79 
27 

Ohio  

l6 

368 

5626 

g 

80 

Oregon  
Pennsylvania  . 
Rhode  Island  . 

4 

i 

12 

4' 
=4 

JVO 

III 

535 
"5 

'433 
7965 
1016 

'557 

E545 
1156 

I 
3 
2 

i 

2 

4 

°9 
"5 
132 

20 

So.  Carolina  .  . 
Tennessee  

8 

88 
20 

443 
126 

43°5 
1411 

4844 
'557 

36 

4 
5 

Texas  
Vermont  
Virginia  

3 

i 

2 

30 
14 
8 

248 
56 
'58 

2275 
721 
2707 

2556 
2875 

IO 

3 

2 
I 

4 

53 

12 
46 

West  Virginia. 
Wisconsin  ... 

X 

20 

74 
'44 

794 
1928 

869 

2092 

i 

X 

i 
i 

2 

34 

TERRITORIES. 

]  >akota  
Montana    . 

5 

3° 
7 

82 
40 

880 
57' 

%l 

3 

i 
i 

18 
8 

New  Mexico.  . 

9 

'44 

1582 

'735 

32 

5 

Washington  .  . 

3 

=4 

57 

806 

800 

X 

14 

Wyoming.  .  .    . 
Dial.  Columbia. 

i 

8 

84 

45 
1096 

48 
1189 

Total 

106 

106814 

1099 

7237 

98372 

125 

97 

'557 

No  return  received  from  Arkansas.  Arizona,  Idaho,  and  Utah 
have  no  organized  militia. 

The  officers  of  higher  ranks  and  many  of  the  com- 
pany commanders  now  in  the  service  served  in  the 
civil  war,  and  those  officers  who  did  not,  chiefly  young 
men,  are  being  molded  and  influenced  by  these  veter- 
ans ;  and  this  influence  will  last  long  after  the  old  sol- 
diers are  gone.  The  ranks  are  filled  by  self-sustaining 
young  men  who  are  unequaled  in  love  of  country, 
soldierly  qualities,  education,  and  habits. 

Instead  of  keeping  up  a  large  standing  army  for  the 
maintenance  of  its  honor  and  integrity,  this  country 
relies  on  the  volunteer.  That  the  volunteer  is  expected 


to  respond  to  all  calls  in  time  of  need  is  sufficient 
reason  for  having  him  properly  equipped  in  time  of 
peace.  The  guard  as  it  now  stands  is  virtually  a  vol- 
unteer army  ;  although  only  sworn  into  State  service, 
the^e  men  would  at  the  first  call  volunteer  to  go  wher- 
ever their  country  needed  them. 

Many  theories  have  been  advanced  for  the  improve- 
ment of  the  guard,  and  the  following  ideas  in  regard 
to  this  improvement  have  been  suggested  by  rq 
of  inspecting  officers,  articles  in  military  journals,  con- 
versations with  military  men,  and  service  in  the  guard. 

Let  the  guard  be  divided  between  the  States  and 
Territories  in  accordance  with  the  population,  and  have 
a  uniform  oath  of  enlistment  swearing  men  into  the 
service  of  the  General  as  well  as  the  State  Government. 
Make  them,  in  fact,  United  Slates  volunteers,  and,  if 
best,  change  the  name  from  National  Guardsmen  to 
United  States  Volunteers. 

After  thoroughly  equipping  and  arming,  let  the 
United  States  Government  instruct  them  in  the  duties 
of  the  soldier;  and  with  this  in  view,  the  Secretary  of 
War  could  detail  competent  officers  to  visit  as  often  as 
needed  the  armories  in  each  State,  to  give  instructions 
by  means  of  lectures,  schools,  drills,  etc.,  these  officers, 
for  the  time  being,  to  act  in  conjunction  with  the  State's 
adjutant-general. 

The  adjutant-general  of  a  State  is  a  political  ap- 
pointee, and  this  is  often  detrimental  to  the  guard. 
When  a  competent  adjutant-general  is  found  he  should 
be  retained,  without  reference  to  politics  or  change  of 
governors.  If  this  cannot  be  accomplished,  let  the 
Secretary  of  War  detail  a  suitable  officer,  who,  although 
acting  under  orders  from  the  governor,  would  be  free 
from  political  intrigue. 

An  important  addition  to  any  plan  would  be  a 
pecuniary  inducement  for  men  to  attend  drill.  Allow 
something  per  year  for  attending  drills, —  it  need  not 
be  a  large  sum, —  and  for  absence  unexcused  deduct  a 
stipulated  amount.  Thus  the  hardest  thing  to  contend 
against — non-attendance  at  drill  —  would  be  remedied. 
When  drilling,  in  camps  of  instruction,  or  on  duty  for 
the  General  Government,  let  the  same  authority  pay 
them;  and  when  a  State  calls  for  them,  let  it  pay  for  the 
service  rendered.  The  idea  of  paying  these  men  for 
drilling  might  be  antagonized  on  the  ground  of  expense; 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  money  would  be 
spent  on  our  best  young  men,  and  that  these  men  are 
holding  themselves  ready  to  spend  their  lives,  if  need 
be,  for  their  country.  The  physical  and  mental  train- 
ing, the  improvement  in  carriage  and  general  appear- 
ance, of  the  men  is  a  strong  argument  in  favor  of  this 
plan.  Furthermore,  the  fact  that  they  were  being  paid 
for  their  efforts  in  perfecting  themselves  as  citizen 
soldiers  would  increase  their  zeal  and  keep  the  ranks 
filled  with  the  best  material. 

The  State's  adjutant-general's  department  should 
be  supported  by  the  State,  and  armories  provided  by 
the  same  authority. 

Were  the  foregoing  ideas  carried  out,  the  result 
would  be  a  United  States  volunteer  army  divided  be- 
tween the  States,  the  troops  in  each  State  forming  a 
military  department  under  command  of  the  governor ; 
but  when  called  into  the  service  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment, the  soldier  would  pass  from  under  the  State's 
control  and  be  subject  to  the  United  States  authority. 

The  importance  of  selecting  efficient  officers  is  not  to 


946 


SAPPHO. 


be  lost  sight  of.  Tlie  common  plan  now  in  vogue  is  for 
Hit:  men  to  elect  their  officers.  When  in  addition  to  this 
the  newly  elected  officer  is  required  to  go  before  an 
examining  board,  properly  constituted,  incompetent 
material  will  be  kept  out. 

The  following,  from  the  last  year's  report  of  General 
Sheridan,  is  worthy  of  the  consideration  due  to  the  high 
authority  from  which  it  comes  : 

I  am  strongly  in  favor  of  the  General  Government 
extending  all  possible  aid  to  the  National  Guard  of  the 
different  States,  as  they  constitute  a  body  of  troops  that 
in  any  great  emergency  would  form  an  important  part  of 
our  military  force.  They  should  be  armed  with  the  best 
weapons,  amply  provided  with  complete  camp  and  gar- 
rison equipage,  and  instructed  in  the  various  drills  and 
exercises  according  to  the  tactics  and  systems  followed  in 
the  regular  army.  According  to  my  observation  and  ex- 
perience, most  of  the  State  troops  now  march  well  and 
handle  the  gun  well,  but  they  are  deficient  in  discipline 
and  all  the  duties  that  teach  a  soldier  to  take  care  of  him- 

ZANESVILLE,  Omo,  July,  1888. 


self  while  in  camp  and  upon  the  march.  This  defect  can 
best  be  overcome  by  establishing  some  system  of  en- 
campment under  the  control  of  the  General  Government. 
In  the  development  of  such  a  measure,  the  entire  army, 
as  well  as  myself  personally,  will  be  glad  to  render  such 
assistance  as  lies  in  our  power,  and  I  recommend  that 
the  favorable  consideration  of  the  subject  may  be  com- 
mended to  Congress. 

Experience  would  soon  demonstrate  the  feasibility 
of  any  plan  which  might  be  adopted,  and  by  proper 
changes,  as  needed,  an  effective  system  could  be 
formed.  In  many  States  the  maintaining  of  a  military 
force  is  now  a  necessity  in  order  to  keep  down  the 
riotous  element  so  freely  admitted  to  our  shores. 

The  number  of  men  available  for  military  duty  is 
estimated  at  8,000,000.  Granting  that  a  National  Guard 
100,000  strong  is  large  enough,  there  would  be  one  citi- 
zen soldier  out  of  80  available  men,  or  one-eightieth  of 
our  strength,  equipped. 

Edmund  Cone  JJntst, 
Major  1st  Regiment  Light  A  riillery  Ohio  National  Guard. 


SAPPHO. 


UPON  a  height,  upon  a  height  of  song, 
A  maiden  sits  whose  bosom  ne'er  hath 

heaved 

With  the  dark  billows  that  to  Love  belong, 
Who  hath  not  been  deceived,  who  hath  not 
grieved. 

From  the  bright  bow  of  her  delicious  lips 
Arrows  of  music,  like  to  sunbeams,  spring; 

And,  like  the  shafts  upon  the  shoulder  tips 
Of  Phcebus,  loud  in  human  hearts  they  ring. 

Greece  shuts  her  eyes  to  listen,  as  the  lay 
From  Lesbos'  isle  o'ersings  the  echoing  sea, 

And  in  the  purple  fields  of  nether  day 

The  shade  of  Homer  brightens  wondrously. 

Tears  fill  those  eyes,long  blind  to  human  strife — 
Tears  of  keen  pleasure  such  as  Hector  shed, 

When  on  the  fragrant  bosom  of  his  wife 
The  hero's  baby  hid  a  startled  head. 


And  in  that  grove  of  cypresses  severe 

That  sadly  sentinel  the  Stygian  stream, 
When    Sappho's    music     brims    her    empty 

ear, 

The  ghost  of  Helen  smiles  through  her  dark 
dream. 

For  never  yet,  since  naked  from  the  wave 
That   climbed   her,  clamorous    for    a  last 

embrace, 

Arose  that  goddess  crueller  than  the  grave, 
With  gleams  like  laughters  in  her  gliding 
grace, — 

Oh !  never  yet  since  Venus  like  a  flower 
Rose  from  the  subject  sea,  hath  woman's 

word 
The  world's  deep  heart  with  such  mysterious 

power, 

The  world's  deep  heart,  like  the  deep  ocean, 
stirred. 


SAPPHO. 


But  if  the  shadows  in  the  populous  vasts 
Of  Death's  domain  thrill  at  the  song  divine, 

Oh !  how  much  deeper  is  the  spell  it  casts 
On  those  who  still  quaff  Life's  resplendent 
wine ! 

No  wonder  maids  of  Lesbos  'neath  the  moon 
Dance  till  the  day  comes  blushing  up  the 

hill, 

And  then  in  coverts  apt  for  amorous  swoon, 
Till  noon  bring  sleep,  of  dream-love  take 
their  fill. 

No  wonder  men  of  Lesbos  are  inspired 
To  loftier  aims  of  love,  to  grander  deeds 

Of  patriot  purpose  by  the  singer  fired. 

But  now,  alas  !  her  own  full  bosom  bleeds : 

Phaon  has  come,  and  on  her  perfect  lips 
The  song's  perfection  ceaseth.    She  is  mute, 

While  from  her  sudden-moistured  palms  there 

slips 
Quick  to  her  feet  the  sudden-rifted  lute. 

Phaon  has  come  :  alas  !  for  happy  days, — 
Alas !  for  innocence  of  girlish  youth, — 

Her  eyes  are  dazzled  by  his  careless  blaze, 
Her  mind  enslaved  by  his  apparent  truth. 


947 

her  — 


Strange  !  Other  men  as  beautiful  as  he 
In   Lesbos,  lovely  land,  have  wooed  her 

warm, 

And  often  sworn  to  her  on  bended  knee 
Her  sweet  song  could  not  match  her  face 
and  form. 

But  Phaon  proudly  towers  above  the  rest, 
And  at  his  lightest  word  each  ruddy  drop 

In  her  bright  body,  hurrying  to  her  breast, 
Burns  with  a  madness  that  no  will  may 
stop. 

"  I  love  him,  love  him,  but  does  he  love  me?  " 
Ah!  question  asked  for  ages, —  seldom  yet 

Securely  answered — by  what  hard  decree 
In  woman's  rose-heart  must  that  thorn  be 
set? 

"  I  love  him,  love  him,"  in  her  eager  ear 
The  small  bird  sings  it,  brightly  fluttering 
by; 

Or  when  she  wanders  by  the  ocean  drear 
The  billows  moan  it,  and  the  winds  reply. 

When  she  believes  he  loves  her  in  return, 

The  summer  days  a  splendor  more  serene 
Arc  gemmed  with,  and  the  nights  more  lovely 

burn, 

While  stars,  like  golden  hearts,  throb  large 
and  keen. 


When  she  believes  he  doth  not  love 

oh! 

The  night  is  not  so  gloomy  as  the  day, 
Because  with  day  her  mind's  worst  shadows 

go, 

And  sleep  with  dreams  her  anguish  can 
allay. 

But  he  hath  spoken  —  oh  !  the  golden  tongue, 
Oh  !  jewel  words,  forever  to  be  worn ! 

He  loves   her :    he   hath   said   it  —  or  hath 

sung, 
For  speech  is  music  on  this  happy  morn. 

Away  with  doubts,  away  with  fears,  make 
room  ! 

Alas  !  the  world  is  narrow  for  such  bliss : 
One  life  is  narrower  still  to  hold  the  bloom, 

The  flower  divine  of  that  first  double  kiss. 

Sappho  is  crowned  so  tall  with  happiness, 
She  cannot  stoop  to  sing  as  erst  she  sang : 

To  voice  her  secret  joy  would  make  it  less ; 
To  set  it  to  a  tune  would  be  a  pang, 

Because  't  would  seem  to  limit  it,  and  so 
In  Phaon's  arms  she  lets  the  moments  fly, 

Each  night  her  passion  gaining  in  its  glow, 
Each  day  her  worship  soaring  still  more 
high. 

But  the  hour  comes  that  comes  with  certain 
pace 

To  all  things  human,  be  they  glad  or  sad : 
There  is  a  shadow  on  her  Phaon's  face ; 

His  voice  forgets  the  tender  tones  it  had. 

Yet  still  he  seeks  her  side,  and,  cruelly  kind, 
Lingers, —  and  so  hope  lingers, —  and  she 

tries 

With  strange  new  fancies  to  enmesh  his  mind, 
E'en  as  she  dons  new  robes  to  snare  his 
eyes. 

But  the  hour  comes  that  comes  with  certain 
pace, 

And  Phaon  comes  not  to  the  trysting-tree ! 
His  heart  is  tangled  in  a  newer  grace  — 

Another  face,  perhaps,  more  fair  than  she. 

What  then,  to  lure  him  back,  shall  she  at- 
tempt— 

Poor  Queen  of  Song,  still  eager  to  be  slave 
Of  one  light  man  who  never  could  have  dreamt 

What  an  immensity  of  love  she  gave? 

"Yea,  I  will  sing  some  world-compelling  song, 
My  long-neglected  lute«I  will  retake." 

Alas  !  her  spirit's  discord  is  too  strong : 

The  music's  heart,  like  hers,  can  only  break. 


SAPPHO. 


"  Thou,   too,  art   false  ! 
lute  !  "  she  cries ; 

"If  from  thy  secret  chambers  of  delight 
I  cannot  win  one  song,  how  vain  my  sighs 

Would  be  to  summon  Phaon  to  my  sight ! 


Down,  down,   false    The  sacred  fury  bubbles  to  her  mouth  ; 

From  that  divinest  of  all  human  throats, 
Sweet  as  a  honeyed  zephyr  of  the  south, 
Loud  as  a  silver  clarion  come  the  notes : 


"Gone  is  my  gift — my  magic  is  o'erspelled  : 
O  thou,  dear  Goddess  of  the  silver  bow ! 

Let  now  my  grievous  misery  be  quelled  : 
To  ease  this  heart  I  pray  thee  overthrow 

"This  brain  with  one  swift  arrow.    Goddess 

pure, 
Most  glorious  Moon,  mother  of  dreams,  be 

kind ; 

Since  for  this  woe  there  be  no  earthly  cure, 
Rain    down    a   heavenly  madness  on  my 
mind." 

The  goddess  hears  her  and  in  pity  bends, 
Remembering  Latmos  and  Endymion  : 

Swifter  than  lightning  is  the  beam  she  sends, 
And  lo !    a   shade    on   Sappho's  mind   is 
thrown. 

But  her  dark  eyes  flash  brighter  than  before, 
And  loud  she  sings  —  so  loud  that,  stunned 

with  fright, 

In  the  dense  bosk  the  nightingales  no  more 
With  thick,  precipitate  song  o'erpraise  the 
night. 

A  shade  on  Sappho's  mind,  and  now,  and  now, 
As  if  in  symbol  of  high  sympathy, 

A  cloud  is  gathering  on  heaven's  azure  brow 
From  veils  of  vapor  that  have  left  the  sea. 

Louder  she  sings,  and,  singing,  blindly  takes 
A  little  goat-path  up  the  precipice 

At  whose  rough  base  the  angry  ocean  breaks 
With  a  long,  rolling  roar  and  then  a  seeth- 
ing hiss. 

See  now !  she  climbeth  to  the  topmost  crag : 
'Twixt  crag  and  cloud  she  poiseth  like  a  bird, 

Her  long  dark  locks  out-floating  like  a  flag: 
Her  bosom  panting  like  a  racer  spurred. 


"  Lo !  I  am  She  who  sprung  from  the  deep 
sea: 

My  car,  a  pearl,  was  drawn  by  rival  doves, 
And,  like  the  play  of  little  flames,  round  me 

Gamboled  a  roseate  cloud  of  baby  Loves, 

"  Precocious  Cupids,  armed  with  quip  and  jest, 
To  tease  the  senses  of  humanity  ; 

But  ah !  my  sleep  in  the  sea's  womb  was  best  — 
Was  best  for  mortals  and  most  sure  for  me. 

"  For,  when  deep  calleth  unto  deep,  above 
Imagination  must  the  tempest  soar, 

And  when  the  very  Queen  of  Love  doth  love, 
The  peace  of  gods  deserts  her  evermore. 

"  So  I,  who  was  a  goddess  yesterday, 

Am  now  a  feather  for  the  breath  of  Fate; 

Dead  is  my  lover,  dead  and  gone  away 
Down  through  the  wide,  the  ever-open  gate. 

"  Then  let  me  go,  because  I  cannot  die, 
Back  to  the  dreamful  womb  from  whence  I 

sprang; 
O  Mother,  Mother  Ocean !  look,  I  fly 

Theewards  to  solve  me  of  this  earthborn 
pang." 

A  flash  of  eyes  —  or  is  it  lightning  now  ? 

A  tossing  of  white  arms  —  or  is  it  spray  ? 
And  Sappho  crowns  no  more  the  crag's  dark 
brow; 

Her  beauty,  like  a  dream,  hath  passed  away. 

Then  from  the  cradling  waves  ascends  a  sigh 
Half  pain,  half  joy :  the  dolphins  in  their 

leap 

Pause,  and  the  sea-mews  pipe  a  puny  cry 
Against  the    thunders   gathering    o'er  the 

deep ; 

But  Sappho,  free  from  dreams,  now  sleepeth 
the  true  sleep. 

Henry    W.  Austin. 


TOPICS    OF    THE    TIME. 


The  American   Volunteer. 

READERS  of  the  papers  on  war  subjects  that 
have  appeared  in  the  pages  of  THE  CKNTURY 
cannot  have  tailed  to  note  in  them  from  time  to  time 
points  bearing  upon  the  topic  presented  in  the  articles 
on  the  national  military  system  in  this  number  of  the 
magazine,  in  which  General  Kautz  of  the  Regular  Army 
and  the  officers  of  the  Slate  Militia,  writing  for  their 
respective  divisions  of  the  service,  call  attention  to  the 
soldierly  qualities  of  the  young  men  of  the  nation  and 
their  general  capacity  for  a  thorough  and  liberal  educa- 
tion in  the  theory  and  practice  of  military  arts. 

In  THK  CKNTURY'S  narratives  of  battles  and  cam- 
paigns of  the  civil  war,  distinguished  leaders  of  both 
sides  have  laid  particular  stress  upon  the  character  of 
American  volunteers.  Grant,  McClellan,  Longstreet, 
Beauregard,  Sherman,  all  but  one  leaders  of  armies, 
and  that  one — Longstreet — the  permanent  commander 
of  an  army  corps,  have  in  the  course  of  their  articles 
praised  the  troops  that  bore  upon  their  bayonets  the 
fortunes  of  the  respective  sections.  General  Grant  in 
his  Shiloh  paper,  contrasting  the  volunteer  with  the 
regular,  says  that  the  former  system  "  embraced  men 
who  risked  life  for  a  principle,  and  often  men  of  social 
standing,  competence,  or  wealth."  General  McClellan 
in  his  account  of  the  Peninsular  campaign,  writing  of 
the  Seven-Days'  fighting,  says,  "No  praise  can  be  too 
great  for  the  officers  and  men  who  passed  through 
these  seven  days  of  battles,  enduring  fatigue  without 
a  murmur,  successfully  meeting  and  repelling  every 
attack  made  upon  them,  always  in  the  right  place  in 
the  right  time,  and  emerging  from  the  fiery  ordeal  a 
compact  army  of  veterans,  equal  to  any  task  that  brave 
and  disciplined  men  can  be  called  upon  to  undertake." 
General  Longstreet  in  summing  up  results  on  the  in- 
vasion of  Maryland  in  1862  says,  "Our  soldiers  were 
as  patient,  courageous,  and  chivalrous  as  any  ever 
marshaled  into  phalanx."  General  lieauregard  writes 
of  the  first  Bull  Run  that  "  the  personal  material  on 
both  sides  was  of  exceptionally  good  character,"  and 
says  that  at  Shiloh  his  command  was  "of  excellent 
personality."  General  Sherman,  in  "The  Grand 
Strategy  of  the  War,"  after  commenting  upon  the 
trained  soldiery  of  Europe,  concludes  as  follows : 
"  Nevertheless,  for  service  in  our  wooded  country, 
where  battles  must  be  fought  chiefly  by  skirmishers 
and  '  thin  lines,'  I  prefer  our  own  people.  They  pos- 
sess more  individuality,  more  self-reliance,  learn  more 
quickly  the  necessity  for  organization  and  discipline, 
and  will  follow  where  they  have  skilled  leaders  in 
whom  they  have  confidence." 

These  commanders  were  all  scientifically  trained  to 
the  profession  of  arms,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the 
last,  the  remarks  quoted  apply  to  the  volunteers  early 
in  the  war.  It  is  a  fact  that  some  of  the  best  fought 
battles  of  the  war  were  those  delivered  in  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  and  in  Mississippi  and  Tennessee,  in 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 131. 


1862,  when  the  troops  engaged  had  been  less  than  a 
year  in  service,  many  of  them  Irss  than  half  that  time. 
Though  a  variety  of  circumstances  are  taken  into  ac- 
count by  a  commander  who  is  about  to  risk  all  upon 
one  feat  of  arms,  the  reader  of  these  inside  histories 
of  battle-field  events  seldom  or  never  finds  a  general, 
when  writing  of  such  a  crisis,  betraying  a  want  of 
faith  in  his  troops.  That  the  troops  would  do  all 
that  men  could  do  under  the  circumstances  seems 
always  to  have  been  a  safe  conclusion.  This  was  not 
alone  the  case  where  the  test  was  one  of  brute  heroism 
simply ;  it  was  so  when  high  moral  courage  was 
needed.  If  the  armies  were  irregularly  rationed  be- 
cause there  was  no  means  of  transportation,  there 
was  no  mutiny;  the  men  slung  their  muskets  across 
their  backs,  took  up  tools  proper  for  the  work,  made 
roads,  constructed  bridges,  repaired  and  manned  en- 
gines, cars,  and  boats,  and  when  the  lines  of  supply 
were  in  order  returned  to  their  proper  work  before  the 
enemy.  General  Grant  states  in  his  story  of  the 
Chattanooga  campaign,  "  Every  branch  of  railroad 
building,  making  tools  to  work  with,  and  supplying 
the  workingmen  with  food,  was  all  going  on  at  once, 
and  without  the  aid  of  a  mechanic  or  laborer  except 
what  the  command  itself  furnished."  Instances  in- 
numerable are  recorded  in  these  vivid  narratives, 
showing  that  the  American  people,  in  war  as  in  peace, 
are  equal  to  every  emergency.  Men  bred  to  the  pro- 
fessions, and  to  the  finer  callings  of  art  and  trade,  were 
both  able  and  willing  to  handle  the  shovel  and  pickax 
whenever  it  became  necessary  to  the  safety  of  a  posi- 
tion to  have  it  intrenched. 

But  beyond  this  supe»b  personality  of  the  volunteers, 
—  a  quality  which  is  of  course  of  the  highest  import- 
ance,—  there  is  little  in  these  military  narratives  to  en- 
courage the  people  in  a  belief  that  the  country  is  at  all 
times  prepared  for  war. 

The  energy  and  versatility  that  are  so  invaluable  in 
soldiers  and  so  characteristic  of  American  young  men 
must  be  guided  by  scientific  methods,  and  scientific 
knowledge  in  military  matters  is  not  a' mere  routine 
acquirement.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  genius  of 
battle ;  and  genius  in  war,  as  in  other  fields  of  high 
endeavor,  rests  oftenest  upon  men  whose  well-trained 
powers  lend  them  confidence  and  freedom  in  the  heat 
of  action.  Most  soldiers,  perhaps  all,  who  have  the 
true  military  spirit  are  not  by  nature  lovers  of  strife. 
Hence  the  placing  of  proper  knowledge  of  the  arts  of 
war  and  of  the  control  of  implements  of  war  into  the 
hands  of  men  devoted  to  military  life,  especially  men 
who,  like  the  American  militia,  are  citizens,  having  all 
the  interests  of  citizens  in  the  preservation  of  peace 
and  of  the  institutions  of  the  land,  would  seem  to  be 
a  wise  solution  of  the  military  problem. 

Germany  maintains  peace  by  being  always  prepared 
for  war.  Men  like  the  volunteers  who  have  been  de- 
scribed in  the  recent  war  narratives,  and  who  are  again 
considered  as  the  proper  personnel  for  the  military 


95° 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


system  of  to-day,  in  the  articles  oy  General  Kautz  and 
Colonel  Rice,  will  not  under  any  encouragement  seek 
diversion  on  the  battle-field ;  but  rather,  when  driven 
to  it,  will  wage  war  as  a  measure  that  makes  for 
peace.  American  volunteers  will  never  again  be 
pitted  in  war  against  American  volunteers.  The 
question  seems  to  be  whether  American  volunteers 
of  the  future  shall  enter  upon  the  campaign  against  a 
foreign  foe,  when  it  is  forced  upon  them,  as  an  army  of 
well-trained  citizen  soldiery,  or,  speaking  from  a  mili- 
tary point  of  view,  as  a  heterogeneous  mob.  Condi- 
tions have  changed  since  military  men  now  living 
acquired  their  experience,  and  they  will  continue  to 
change.  Unless  our  methods  of  preparation  are  in 
keeping  with  the  times,  we  must  one  day  pay  dearly 
for  the  oversight. 

Philip   H.    Sheridan. 

IN  the  death  of  General  Sheridan  the  country  has 
lost  another  of  the  five  soldiers  —  Grant,  Sherman, 
Thomas,  Meade,  and  Sheridan  —  to  whose  directing 
hands  the  nation,  North  and  South,  is  mainly  indebted 
for  the  successful  conclusion  of  the  contest  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union;  a  man,  moreover,  whose 
place  as  a  picturesque  figure  of  the  war  and  whose 
military  reputation  were  established  during  his  life. 
There  is  likely  to  be  little  difference  of  opinion  in  the 
historical  estimates  of  so  uncomplex  a  nature  —  as  a 
man,  strong  and  simple,  as  a  commander,  vigilant,  re- 
sourceful, bold,  confident,  decisive,  and  reliable.  Prob- 
ably no  officer  on  the  Union  side,  except  Hancock,  and 
none  on  the  Confederate  side,  except  perhaps  Forrest, 
so  nearly  embodied  the  instinct  of  war,  the  pagan  idea 
of  Mars.  It  speaks  much,  therefore,  for  Sheridan's 
personal  character,  and  much  for  the  American  pop- 
ular ideas  which  produce  such  sentiments  in  our 
soldiers,  that  at  heart,  like  Grant,  he  had  an  utter  ab- 
horrence of  war,  having  been  known  even  to  say  that 
the  time  is  coming  when  the  killing  of  a  thousand 
men  in  battle  will  be  looked  upon  as  a  thousand 
murders. 

In  a  certain  sense  it  may  be  said,  without  derogation, 
that  Sheridan's  fame  outran  even  his  notable  achieve- 
ments. Brilliant  as  he  was  in  raid  or  pursuit,  or  in  the 
gorge  of  battle,  it  was  not  until  the  first  great  raid  to 
Richmond,  and  in  the  masterly  campaign  of  the  Shen- 
andoah  Valley,  and  in  these  alone,  that  he  may  be 
said  to  have*  exercised  anything  like  the  initiative 
which  goes  with  the  responsibilities  of  a  command  of 
the  first  rank.  He  did  nothing  that  was  not  done 
well ;  thoroughness  was  his  most  conspicuous  trait. 
But  the  fortune  of  war  did  not  throw  to  his  lot  the 
solution  of  the  largest  military  problems.  Grant,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  prepared  for  the  grand  strategy  of 
the  last  year  of  the  war  by  having  had  on  every  field 
he  fought,  from  Belmont  to  Chattanooga,  the  widest 
option  and  responsibility.  The  most  accurate  judg- 
ment of  a  man  is  likely  to  be  found  in  the  consensus 
of  contemporary  opinion,  and  in  this  light  it  is  a  mag- 
nificent tribute  to  Sheridan  that  most  of  the  promi- 
nent officers  of  the  contending  armies  have  thought 
him  fit  for  greater  commands  than  those  which  he 
actually  exercised. 

This  was  the  judgment  of  Grant,  and  we  believe  is  that 
of  Sherman,  and  of  many  others  only  less  distinguished. 


It  is  inspired  by  the  fact  that  Sheridan  was,  first  of  all, 
master  of  his  profession ;  that  he  was  always  ready 
to  give  more  of  service  than  was  expected  of  him,  and 
that  he  had  not  the  limitations  of  petty  personal  quali- 
ties which  detracted  from  the  success  of  so  many  com- 
manders on  both  sides.  His  life  was  devoted  to  the 
service  of  his  country ;  his  action  was  uninfluenced  by 
animosity;  and  his  death,  like  that  of  Grant,  is  an  oc- 
casion for  considering  anew  the  benefits  of  the  great 
struggle,  and  for  renewing  those  pledges  of  generous 
friendship  between  former  foes  which  is  the  crowning 
glory  of  the  American  soldier. 

The  Amenities  of  Politics. 

OUR  country  has  been  peculiarly  fortunate  in  the 
orderly  development  of  its  political  history,  which  has 
secured  at  each  successive  point  a  clearly  marko-l  linr 
of  division  between  the  two  great  forces  that  have 
finally  made  the  country  what  it  is.  There  have  been 
very  few  periods  in  our  history  when  the  individual 
voter  has  not  had  a  clear  opportunity  of  choice  between 
two  fundamental  and  opposing  theories  of  government 
and  politics,  while  the  phases  of  this  opposition  have 
changed  as  the  country  and  its  needs  have  changed. 
The  one  force  has  had  its  time  of  peaceful  growth 
and  its  time  of  abnormal  development,  when  it  went 
so  far  as  to  strike  at  the  very  life  of  the  republic ;  but 
it  has  developed  generally  in  strict  accord  with  the 
natural  growth  of  the  country,  and  gives  us  now  a 
system  of  local  and  internal  government  more  nearly 
approaching  perfection  than  any  other  system  has  yet 
provided  for  its  citizens.  The  national  idea,  too,  has 
had  its  period  of  abnormal  development,  when  it 
seemed  to  threaten  not  only  the  liberty  of  the  individ- 
ual, but  even  the  life  of  the  States;  but  its  general 
course  of  development  has  been  no  more  rapid  than 
the  highest  needs  of  the  country  have  made  impera- 
tive. One  can  hardly  follow  the  constant  conflicts 
and  alternate  triumphs  of  these  two  historical  forces 
without  a  feeling  of  special  wonder  at  the  definiteness 
of  the  issues  which  they  have  offered  from  time  to  time 
to  the  mass  of  voters,  and  the  general  success  with 
which  popular  government  has  in  every  case  indorsed 
with  its  approval  that  one  of  the  two  whose  success  at 
the  moment  was  more  important  to  the  general  welfare 
of  the  country. 

Yet  he  who  loves  and  respects  his  fellow-man  can- 
not escape  a  sense  of  humiliation  as  he  notices  the 
apparent  indifference  of  individual  men  to  the  great 
issues  really  at  stake.  The  two  streams  of  force  are 
grand,  imposing,  and  impossible  to  mistake :  the  indi- 
vidual units  whose  thought,  feeling,  and  action  make 
up  the  sum  of  these  forces  are  apparently  actuated  by 
anything  but  a  consciousness  of  the  historical  stream 
of  which  they  are  a  part.  Eighty  or  ninety  years  ago, 
for  example,  the  country's  foreign  and  domestic  char- 
acter seemed  to  be  at  stake.  It  was  a  question  whether 
the  rising  republic  was  to  take  its  place  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth  as  a  mere  congeries  of  jarring 
states,  without  respect  abroad  or  confidence  at  home, 
or  as  a  strong,  homogeneous  nation,  which  would  not 
permit  other  nations  even  to  know  officially  that  there 
were  diversities  of  interest  within  the  United  States. 
Here,  at  least,  would  seem  to  be  an  issue  which  Fed- 
eralist and  Democrat  could  appreciate  promptly  and 


TOPICS   OF   THE    TIME. 


95' 


argue  clearly,  and  which  would  drive  out  at  once  every 
extraneous  consideration.  Nothing  of  the  sort :  the 
great  streams  of  political  force  flow  silently  on  to 
their  destination,  but  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  their 
individual  units  seems  to  have  been  conscious  of  the 
real  current  of  his  action.  The  scene  of  politics  be- 
comes a  curious  study.  Here  is  one  man  who  can 
think  and  speak  of  nothing  but  Mr.  Jclfer.-oii's  atheism, 
while  there  is  another  who  is  as  profoundly  absorbed 
in  the  atrocious  schemes  of  New  Kngland  politicians 
to  sell  their  country  to  the  Governor-General  of  Can- 
ada. Here  is  one  who  can  talk  only  of  Mr.  Madison's 
dissimulation  in  masking  his  (ruckling  subserviency  to 
France  ;  there  is  another  whose  held  of  political  dis- 
cussion is  limited  to  the  manner  in  which  New  Kng- 
laml  Federalists  have  used  blue  lights  for  the  purpose 
of  conveying  signals  to  the  British  blockading  fleet. 
When  almost  every  individual  thus  confines  his  thought 
to  one  little  corner  of  the  political  field,  it  is  astonishing 
that  the  sum-total  of  such  pettinesses  should  so  exactly 
balance  and  eliminate  the  really  petty  elements  and 
put  the  great  issues  into  their  proper  place. 

Nor  is  this  characteristic  confined  to  ancient  his- 
tory :  the  grandest  crises  of  the  nation's  history  have 
never  been  able  thoroughly  to  ennoble  the  expression 
of  the  individual's  sense  of  them.  One  need  not  go  far 
back  from  the  present  to  find  cases  in  which  the  great 
issues  of  politics  have  been  belittled  or  disguised  by  the 
pettier  phases  of  them  to  which  individuals  have  been 
willing  to  confine  their  attention  and  their  motives. 

The  whole  process,  however,  has  its  encouraging 
side  in  the  evidently  increasing  determination  of 
voters,  with  the  spread  of  general  intelligence  and  the 
multiplication  of  channels  for  obtaining  intelligence, 
to  insist  upon  having  definite  and  fundamental  politi- 
cal issues  presented  to  them,  and  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  random  recriminations  which  once  formed  the  poli- 
tician's main  stock  in  trade.  The  tendency  is  enough 
to  explain  at  once  the  progressive  improvement  in  the 
tone  of  political  discussion,  up  to  and  including  the 
present  presidential  election,  to  which  every  historian 
will  bear  witness,  and  the  increasing  repulsion  of  the 
people  to  any  attempt  to  revert  to  the  methods  and 
manners  of  the  past.  There  are  with  us  still  more 
than  enough  of  the  remnants  of  the  past ;  but  men  dis- 
like them  more,  and  are  continually  more  ready  and 
prompt  to  protest  against  them.  Every  new  appeal  to 
men's  intelligence  becomes  a  new  force,  making  them 
more  apt  to  resent,  as  an  insult  to  their  intelligence, 
any  subsequent  attempt  to  influence  their  decision  on 
great  and  fundamental  questions  by  the  introduction 
of  the  petty  and  transitory  party  cries  which  used  to 
be  so  effective.  The  tendency  in  the  natural  growth 
of  democracy  is  not  towards  demagogism,  but  away 
from  it :  it  may  yield  to  demagogism  at  first,  but  it  dis- 
counts demagogism  in  the  end. 

We  may  be  certain,  then,  that  political  parties  will 
see  more  and  more  clearly  that  nothing  is  more  profit- 
able in  political  discussion  than  a  decent  regard  for  the 
amenities  of  politics.  Anything  less  than  that  implies 
a  disrespect  for  the  intelligence  of  the  voters  to  whom 
the  appeal  is  made  ;  and  no  one  will  be  more  apt  to 
feel  and  show  an  increasing  sense  of  such  disrespect 
than  the  voters  themselves. 


Who  is  the  Genuine  Party  Man  ? 


IT  would  seem  to  be  self-evident  that  political  parties 
are,  properly,  associations  of  voters  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  into  practice  certain  political  principles.  Such  a 
purpose  can  only  be  accomplished  in  a  free  country  by 
associated  action  —  that  is,  by  party  action.  \Ve  believe 
in  parties,  and  we  believe  no  less  in  political  independ- 
ence. But  independence  in  party  action  by  no  means 
implies  independence  ii/ parly  action.  The  truest  sort 
of  an  independent  in  politics  may  be  a  linn  believer  in 
parlies.  The  genuine  independent  uses  panic-;  lie 
does  not  let  parties  use  him.  He  is,  in  fact,  the  only 
true  party  man ;  the  only  man  who  uses  party  for  the 
legitimate  and  essential  party  purpose  of  putting  into 
practice  certain  definite  political  principles.  No  sight 
is  more  pitiful  than  that  of  a  free  citizen  who  continues 
to  vote  with  a  party  that  is  pledged  to  carry  out  certain 
definite  political  principles,  of  which  principles  the 
voter  heartily  disapproves.  The  citizen  who  does  this 
not  only  stultifies  his  own  manhood,  but  helps  to  de- 
grade all  political  action,  offers  a  premium  to  the  in- 
terested professional  partisan,  and  becomes  a  clog  upon 
free  institutions. 

There  are  occasions  when  an  honest  man  must  be 
respected  in  his  hesitation  to  make  a  "  choice  of  evils," 
but  as  a  rule  we  have  little  sympathy  for  the  squeam- 
ish or  falsely  sentimental  citizen  who  virtually  disfran- 
chises himself  when  great  political  questions  are  to  be 
decided,  or  goes  off  on  side  issues,  leaving  the  actual 
fight  to  men  of  strong  convictions,  pure  and  definite 
purposes,  and  genuine  grasp  of  the  situation  ;  and  we 
have  quite  as  little  sympathy  for  the  man  who  through 
simple  inertia  or  false  shame  and  moral  cowardice 
fails  to  make  use  of  whichever  party  at  the  time  being 
best  represents  his  own  political  principles. 

The  professional  and  interested  partisan  spends  a 
large  portion  of  his  time  in  appealing  to  the  free,  in- 
dependent, and  rational  decision  of  his  fellow-citizen ; 
and  another  large  portion  of  his  time  in  abusing  the 
fellow-citizen  who  acts  as  he  is  importuned  to  act — 
that  is,  on  his  own  unprejudiced  and  independent 
volition.  But  such  abuse  falls  harmless  at  the  feet  of 
those  who  use  parties  intelligently,  instead  of  submit- 
ting to  act  as  their  slaves  and  tools ;  who,  far  from 
despising  party  machinery,  cheerfully  make  use  of 
this  machinery  to  advance  what  they  believe  to  be  the 
best  interests  of  that  common  country  which  all  polit- 
ical parties  profess  to  serve. 

Manual  Training. 

SINCE  the  writing  of  Mr.  Patterson's  brief  essay,  in 
the  present  number  of  THE  CENTURY,  there  has  been 
a  decided  advance  in  the  movement  towards  manual 
training  in  our  public  schools,  and  this  new  system 
must  have  the  effect  of  lessening  the  tendency  towards 
clerical  labor.  Mr.  Patterson's  remarks  offer,  incident- 
ally, a  strong  argument  in  favor  of  manual  training, 
though  we  are  well  aware  that  the  advocates  of  the 
training  of  the  hand  base  their  arguments  largely  upon 
the  consequent  training  of  the  head, —  in  other  words, 
on  the  general  educational  value  of  this  special  branch 
of  education. 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


Lincoln    as  a   Military   Man,* 

THE  recent  publication  in  THE  CENTURY,  in  the 
Nicolay  and  Hay  history  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  of 
documents,  letters,  etc.  hitherto  inaccessible  to  the 
public  has  shown  the  phenomenal  superiority  in  civil 
matters  of  this  man  of  men  to  his  associates  and  his 
surroundings.  Whether  as  a  publicist,  diplomate, 
statesman,  constitutional  lawyer,  or  "  politician,"  he 
had  no  equal  in  those  fateful  and  momentous  days 
from  1861  to  1865. 

There  are  some  who  estimate  his  military  ability  as 
equal  to  his  civil.  My  own  reading  of  and  acquaint- 
ance with  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  led  me  to  enter- 
tain this  opinion  some  years  since,  albeit  my  judgment 
in  such  matters  is  not  entitled  to  weight  enough  to 
warrant  its  publication. 

But  of  all  war-students  none  was  so  well  qualified 
to  speak  with  authority  on  this  point  as  the  late 
Colonel  Robert  N.  Scott.  His  intimate  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  the  prominent  actors  in  that  war,  his 
varied  personal  experience  of  military  service,  and, 
above  all,  his  relation  to  and  familiarity  with  the  "  Re- 
bellion Records,"  gave  him  the  right  to  speak  with 
authority. 

Having  to  call  upon  him  some  years  since  at  his 
"  War  Records  "  office,  the  business  in  hand  led  natu- 
rally to  some  discussion  of  the  leaders  of  the  army. 
Colonel  Scott  showed  me  letters,  tables,  and  docu- 
ments, then  unpublished,  that  led  him  to  certain  con- 
clusions in  respect  to  certain  men.  Then  looking  up, 
he  said,  with  enthusiasm  and  vehemence,  "  1  tell  you, 
M.,  the  biggest  military  man  we  had  was  Abraham 
Lincoln."  He  disclaimed  for  him,  of  course,  knowledge 
of  military  technique ;  but,  in  respect  to  what  should 
and  what  should  not  be  done,  and  when  and  where,  he 
said  Lincoln  "was  more  uniformly  right  and  less  fre- 
quently wrong  than  any  man  we  had." 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  R.  D.  M. 

Lowell's   Recent  Writings. 

WHATEVER  diplomacy  loses  in  the  renewed  lease 
of  leisure  given  to  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  there  is 
a  distinct  gain  to  American  letters  in  more  fields  than 
one.  His  recent  addresses  on  subjects  not  yet  wholly 
resigned  to  the  "  shouters  "  furnish  a  model  for  the 
"  gentleman  in  politics. "  In  these  addresses  he  reaches 
that  high  standard  of  public  duty  which  led  him  as  a 
young  man  to  speed  the  flight  of  the  runaway  slave 
to  Canada,  and  which,  in  the  later  anlislavery  days, 
held  him  with  Sumner  at  the  van  before  the  piping 
times  of  peace  had  brought  the  rear  to  the  front. 
This  is  a  clear  gain  for  political  literature;  while  the 
few  essays  —  only  too  rare  —  on  purely  literary  themes 
show  no  weakening  of  the  critical  faculty  on  the  part 
of  our  best  and  keenest  critic.  The  scholarship  is  as 
rich ;  the  wit  riper  and  more  genial,  less  combative, 
but  not  less  trenchant.  Now  we  have  in  the  new 


volume,  "  Heartsease  and  Rue,"t  all  the  virtues  lying 
behind  the  prose  —  the  sure  touch  of  the  critic;  the 
shrewd  cast  of  judgment  which  holds  state  affairs  to 
the  tests  of  conscience;  satire,  less  in  quantity,  but 
equal  in  quality  to  his  best;  and  wit  flashing  through 
satire,  giving  to  it  a  kindlier  glow.  Of  unmodified 
satire  perhaps  the  best  specimen  is  the  "  Tempora 
Mutantur,"  dating  back  in  form  and  manner  to  the 
oldest  satirical  verse,  but  striking  the  public  vices  of 
the  times  with  an  accuracy  of  aim  worthy  of  Andrew 
Marvel,  the  Parliament  poet  of  the  Commonwealth 
who  is  less  read  to-day  than  he  deserves,  but  of  whom 
we  are  reminded  in  verses  like  the  following: 

A  hundred  years  ago 
If  men  were  knaves,  why,  people  called  them  so. 

Men  had  not  learned  to  admire  the  graceful  swerve 
Wherewith  the  Esthetic  Nature's  genial  mood 
Makes  public  duty  slope  to  private  good. 

But  now  that  "  Statesmanship  "  is  just  a  way 
To  dodge  the  primal  curse  and  make  it  pay, 
Since  office  means  a  kind  of  patent  drill 
To  force  an  entrance  to  the  Nation's  till, 
And  peculation  something  rather  less 
Risky  than  if  you  spell  it  with  an  "s," 

With  generous  curve  we  draw  the  moral  line: 
Our  swindlers  are  permitted  to  resign. 

Confront  mankind  with  brazen  front  sublime, 
Steal  but  enough,  the  world  is  unsevere, — 
Tweed  is  a  statesman,  Fisk  a  financier; 
Invent  a  mine,  and  be  —  the  Lord  knows  what; 
Secure,  at  any  rate,  with  what  you  've  got. 

Kven  if  indicted,  what  is  that  but  fudge 
To  him  who  counted-in  the  elective  judge? 
Whitewashed,  he  quits  the  politician's  strife 
At  ease  in  mind,  with  pockets  filled  for  life  — 

A  public  meeting,  treated  at  his  cost, 
Resolves  him  back  more  virtue  than  he  lost. 

With  choker  white,  wherein  no  cynic  eye 
Dares  see  idealized  a  hempen  tie, 
At  parish  meetings  he  conducts  in  prayer, 
And  pays  for  missions  to  be  sent  elsewhere ; 
On  'Change  respected,  to  his  friends  endeared ; 
Add  but  a  Sunday-school  class,  he  's  revered, 
And  his  too  early  tomb  will  not  be  dumb 
To  point  a  moral  for  our  youth  to  come. 

Lines  of  severe  satire  like  these  are  fewer  in  Lowell 
than  those  wherein  humor,  if  it  does  not  entirely  neu- 
tralize, at  least  dulcifies  the  acids.  The  man  who  looked 
upon  public  life  sixteen  years  ago  —  let  us  put  it  as  far 
back  as  that  —  had  little  stomach  for  anything  but  sat- 
ire. Lowell  was  no  lamp-blinded  scholar  stumbling  into 
politics  with  a  green  shade  over  his  eyes,  but  a  man  who 
saw  the  active  side  of  human  life  in  company  with  men 
of  the  widest  knowledge  of  affairs.  It  has  always  been 
the  fashion  for  the  genuine  statesman  in  New  England 
to  lounge  in  the  scholar's  arm-chair,  and  for  the  scholar 
to  hobnob,  over  cigars,  with  the  statesman.  Thus 
Lowell  dropped  into  politics,  in  the  higher  sense,  and 
did  service  some  years  before  the  "  shouters  "  of  to-day 
knew  how  to  spell  the  word  politics.  When  he  went  to 
Spain,  and  afterwards  to  England,  he  went  as  one 


*See  especially  the  present  installment  of  the  "  Life  of  Lin-         t  "  Heartsease  and  Rue."    By  James  Russell  Lowell.    Hough- 
coin." —  EDITOR.  ton,  Mifilin  &  Co. 


()/'/•  <V  LETTERS. 


953 


trained  "at  the  gates  of  the  king,"  and  the  king's 
gates  in  those  antislavery  days  were  thronged  by  such 
men  as  Sunnier  and  Phillips  and  (larrison,  Kantoul 
and  Mann, from  whom,  as  Xcnophon  puts  it,  one  could 
learn  much  good  and  no  evil  thing.  Tin  re  v, ,.  always 
there  a  good  supply  of  "  them  literary  fellers"  with  the 
double  D's.  The  scholar  became  a  statesman,  the 
stair  holar  by  force  of  association.  There 

was  then,  as  always,  a  form  of  statecraft  which  meant 
"  manipulation,"  which  never  presides  at  the  forma- 
tion of  parties  lusvd  on  principle;  which  is,  in  fad, 
too  busy  in  "handling"  to  do  much  with  heading 
parties;  and  Lowell,  who  had  helped  in  his  way  in 
founding  the  old  antislavery  and  the  new  Republican 
parties,  could  never  look  into  the  face  of  a  "manipulator" 
without  a  laugh  ;  and  the  more  he  looked  the  more  he 
Uwghed.  The  satirical  laugh,  as  a  weapon  of  offense,  he 
was  master  of;  and  with  it,  better  than  many  stump- 
speakers,  he  did  service.  It  is  a  wholesome  weapon, 
this  amalgam  of  satire  with  laughter  —  if  that  can  be 
called  wholesome  which  first  doubles  you  up  and  then 
cuts  at  the  doubling-point.  "  Heartsease  and  Rue," 
however,  is,  as  I  have  said,  not  greatly  given  to  satire  of 
any  sort.  It  is  the  mellowest  and  kindliest  of  all  Low- 
ell's literary  work.  Many  of  the  poems  date  back  a 
quarter  of  a  century  and  more.  Of  these  one  of  the 
best  in  pure  humor  is,  "  At  the  Burns  Centennial," 
which  antedates  the  war  period.  For  the  promised 
continuation  of  another,  "  Fitz  Adam's  Story,"  some 
of  us  have  been  waiting  and  hoping  half  of  an  average 
life.  "  The  Origin  of  Didactic  Poetry"  reads  like  a 
stray  leaflet  from  the  "  Fable  for  Critics,"  and  will  be 
remembered  with  that.  The  "  Agassiz,"  which  is 
younger,  rises  at  times  to  the  full  height  of  the  old 
"  Commemoration  Ode."  All  scholars  will  count  it  a 
perpetual  treasure.  Of  the  various  sonnets  —  a  form 
of  verse  in  which  Mr.  Lowell  seems  least  successful, 
perhaps  because  his  fancy  is  too  rich  and  too  discursive 
to  let  him  follow  one  clear  stream  of  thought  as  closely 
as  the  sonnet  requires  —  the  most  pleasing  to  one 
reader  at  least  are  "  Scottish  Border,"  and  the  first  and 
third  of  those  entitled  "  Bankside."  But  there  are  two 
stanzas,  sonnets  in  quality,  and  almost  in  form,  of  un- 
usually beautiful  clearness.  These  are  "  The  Prison  of 
Cervantes  "  and  "  My  Portrait  Gallery." 

But  how  idle  to  try  to  pick  out  the  best,  when  each 
will  be  best  to  some,  and  when  all  have  passages  not 
excelled  by  any  poet  of  to-day  for  flavor,  for  humor,  for 
virility,  for  the  human  quality,  which  still,  as  ever,  serves 
to  bring  Lowell  home  to  our  hearts,  and  to  keep  his 
verse  on  the  scholar's  table.  One  of  these  poems  of 
finest  reach  and  beauty  is  his  latest,  "  Endymion," 
wherein  the  mood,  however,  is  of  the  almost  incom- 
municable kind,  kindled  in  all  of  us  sooner  or  later  by 
the  fact  that  the  image-making  faculty  of  youth  will 
enter  at  last  into  an  unsatisfactory  competition  with  the 
dull  realism  of  middle  life  and  old  age.  It  is  the  mood 
which  led  Wordsworth,  on  the  one  hand,  to  write  his 
lode  on  "Immortality,"  and  Byron,  on  the  other, 
to  sing,  in  more  human  strain  : 

U  could  I  feel  as  I  have  felt,  or  be  what  I  have  been, 

( )i-  weep  as  I  could  once  have  wept  o'er  many  a  vanished  scene, — 

As  springs  in  deserts  found  seem  sweet,  all  brackish  though  they 

be, 
So  midst  the  withered  waste  of  life,  those  tears  would  flow  to  me. 

James  Htrbert  Morse. 


Lectures   on   American   History. 


I'm:  attention  given  by  Tin  ( 'i-.vi TRY  to  matters  of 
educational  importance  prompts  me  to  bring  to  the  no- 
tice of  its  vast  circle  of  readers  a  project  which  must 
have  much  interest  for  them  as  citizens  of  this  great 
republic.  The  value  of  educating  and  elevating  their 
feIlow-< -iti/nis,  or  of  assuring  that  the  education  of  fu- 
ture citizens  be  such  as  to  secure  their  highest  honesty 
and  efficiency  as  citizens,  will  commend  itself  to  all 
who  are  already  good  citizens.  The  project  referred  to 
IKIS  this  end  in  view. 

For  several  years  courses  of  lectures  have  been  given 
to  the  youth  of  Boston  with  a  view  to  afford  sound  in- 
struction in  history  and  the  principles  of  American 
institutions  and  government.  These  lectures  were  in- 
stituted by  Mrs.  Mary  Hemenway,  who  was  instru- 
mental in  saving  from  destruction  and  devoting  to  this 
noble  object  the  Old  South  Church ;  and  these  lec- 
tures have  been  known  as  the  "  Old  South  Historical 
Courses."  In  Boston  they  have  aroused  an  interest  in 
and  an  enthusiasm  for  political  and  historical  study  that 
has  borne  valuable  fruit ;  and  lately  similar  courses 
have  been  instituted  in  some  Western  cities,  notably 
Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  Minneapolis,  the  value  of  the 
work  having  been  perceived  by  energetic  educators 
of  those  places.  Now  it  is  proposed  seriously  to  push 
this  work  forward  throughout  the  country  wherever 
there  is  interest  or  opportunity  enough  for  its  direction 
and  maintenance.  Interest  in  and  knowledge  of  it  are 
almost  everything  that  it  is  necessary  to  arouse.  Its 
direction  and  maintenance  will  be  easy,  and  the  oppor- 
tunities for  it  are  unlimited.  It  would  prove  valuable 
where  there  is  even  only  one  school,  and  home  talent 
for  its  conduct  could  generally  be  found  even  in  such 
places.  The  study  of  the  local  history  and  institutions  of 
the  places  would  in  such  cases  be  a  fitting  and  com- 
paratively easy  work,  and,  besides  showing  what  real 
study  and  investigation  mean,  would  lead  to  the  larger 
study  of  the  history  and  institutions  of  state  and  na- 
tion, and  so  prove  of  incalculable  value.  But  the 
need  of  such  work  in  the  large  cities  particularly,  and 
in  New  York  more  particularly,  is  what  I  wish  to 
enforce  now.  The  socialistic  and  communistic  doc- 
trines so  prevalent  in  these  cities,  the  corruption  so  wide- 
spread among  their  officials, —  and  often,  too,  among 
their  voters, —  the  ignorance  so  apparent  of  either  insti- 
tutions or  economics,  the  want  of  reason  even,  as  shown 
in  the  misunderstanding  or  misapplication  of  the  sim- 
plest and  most  evident  principles  of  this  science  and 
in  the  conduct  of  private  organizations,  prove  this  need 
of  something  better  in  the  education  of  citizens. 

The  education  of  citizens  is  the  proper  work  of  the 
common  schools.  They  have  no  other  valid  reason 
for  existence.  They  have  no  other  right  to  public 
money.  If  they  fail  in  the  education  of  citizens,  they 
have  no  right  whatever  to  public  maintenance.  But 
they  do  fail.  Hence — However,  we  will  not  enforce 
the  conclusion.  What  we  do  wish  is  to  see  the  schools 
put  on  such  a  basis  as  will  falsify  the  premises  and 
consequently  nullify  the  conclusion.  To  do  this,  some 
such  work  as  we  have  touched  on  above  is  necessary. 
The  schools  at  present  are  incompetent  to  do  their 
first  duty.  They  must  be  made  competent.  Their 
teachers  must  be  taught  —  first  their  duty,  then  how  to 
do  it.  Some  such  work  as  that  of  the  Old  South  His- 


954 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


torical  Courses  is  needed  in  New  York  City,  and  in  other 
cities  throughout  the  land.  In  New  York  particularly 
the  end  should  be  primarily  to  instruct  the  teachers 
and  to  put  the'first  proper  work  of  the  schools  on  a 
basis  that  will  meet  the  hardest  criticism  that  can  be 
brought  against  anything — that  it  does  not  and  can- 
not accomplish  the  first  object  of  its  existence. 

Mary  R.   Hargrove, 
Editor  of  "  The  Teacher." 

Fifty   Tucks   instead   of  One. 

ONE  does  not  need  to  be  a  Mrs.  Methuselah  to  re- 
member the  breeze  that  stirred  the  waters  of  domestic 
life  when  the  sewing-machine  first  became  an  actual, 
practical  fact,  and  the  world  began  to  realize  thiU  a 
new. and  positive  working  power  was  at  hand.  It  was, 
to  begin  with,  a  real  godsend  to  the  gentlemen  of  the 
press.  Such  eloquent  paragraphs  as  they  scattered 
broadcast  from  Uan  to  Beersheba!  The  emancipation 
of  woman  from  the  drudgery  of  the  needle  —  what  a 
theme  it  was  for  the  glowing  pens  of  the  young  jour- 
nalists of,  say,  twenty-five  summers  ago!  There  were 
to  be  no  more  "  Songs  of  the  Shirt  "  ;  no  more  pallid 
women  in  dreary  attics,  stitching  away  for  dear  life  be- 
tween the  daylight  and  the  dark.  Learned  divines  did 
not  scorn  to  leave  their  Bibles  and  commentaries  in 
unwonted  tranquillity  while  they  wrote  column  after 
column  in  praise  of  this  new  wonder.  Poets  sang 
prcans  to  it,  and  in  plainest  prose  manufacturers  and 
agents  told  us  what  it  could  accomplish.  Long  state- 
ments were  tabulated,  with  hand-work  and  machine- 
work  in  opposing  columns.  A  man's  shirt,  stitched 
bosom  and  all,  could  be  made  in  so  many  minutes, — 
or  was  it  an  hour  ?  —  a  woman's  dress  in  an  astonish- 
ingly brief  period,  and  a  child's  apron  in  just  no  time 
at  all.  Well  does  the  writer  remember  one  ecstatic 
editorial  in  a  famous  religious  weekly,  in  which  the 
workroom  was  made  the  arena  of  a  merry  contest  be- 
tween the  cutter  and  the  machine,  and  save  at  some 
especially  critical  juncture,  "like  the  rounding  of  a 
sleeve,"  the  machine  always  came  out  ahead.  It  was 
very  eloquent  and  impressive,  even  though  by  the  un- 
initiated it  had  always  been  supposed  that  "  the  round- 
ing of  the  sleeve  "  was  the  work  of  the  scissors  rather 
than  of  the  needle. 

Some  of  the  brethren  took  another  tack,  and  won- 
dered what  this  evil  world  was  coming  to.  The  weaker 
sex  was  constitutionally  lazy,  as  every  one  knew. 
American  women,  especially,  were  always  ready  to 
shirk  their  duties  and  responsibilities.  Had  they  not 
forgotten  how  to  spin  and  to  weave  ?  And  now  if  they 
were  to  give  up  the  sharp,  disciplining  needle,  well 
might  the  lover  of  his  country  stand  aghast. 

But  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  this  tone  was 
taken  by  but  few.  By  most  of  the  writers  and  speakers 
of  the  day  the  sewing-machine  was  hailed  as  the  bene- 
factor of  womankind  —  the  herald  of  release  from  an 
intolerable  bondage.  An  hour  or  two  was  to  accom- 
plish the  labor  of  days.  Then  would  follow  abundant 
leisure  — long,  quiet  hours  with  book  or  pen  ;  time  to 
think,  time  to  grow,  time  for  one's  long  neglected 
music,  or  for  art ;  time  for  the  cultivation  of  all 
the  minor  graces,  and  of  that  genial  hospitality 
which  can  be  found  in  its  perfection  only  where 
there  is  leisure  for  social  enjoyment.  In  the  mo- 


notonous measure  of  that  tireless  arm  of  steel  lay 
the  hope  of  the  nation.  For,  as  are  the  mothers,  so 
are  the  sons. 

That  was  the  dream  of  twenty-five  years  ago.  Has  it 
gone  by  contraries,  like  other  dreams,  or  has  it  come 
true?  How  is  it,  O  my  country-women?  Have  we 
any  more  leisure  than  we  used  to  have?  Or  do  we 
put  fifty  tucks  where  we  used  to  put  one,  and  find  a 
dozen  ruffles  indispensable  where  two  used  to  suffice — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  we  make  garments  now 
by  dozens,  where  we  used  to  make  them  by  pairs? 

The  relative  prettiness  of  the  garments  is  not  now 
under  discussion.  The  question  is  not  one  of  taste,  or 
of  elegance,  but  of  leisure.  \Ve  all  complain  of  being 
tired.  High  or  low,  rich  or  poor,  learned  or  unlearned, 
we  are  all  in  a  hurry  —  all  trying  to  crowd  ten  hours 
of  work,  or  study,  or  pleasure  into  six.  Alike  in  city 
and  in  country,  we  meet  women  with  harassed  faces 
and  tired  eyes,  nervous,  restless,  robbed  of  their  birth- 
right—  the  quiet,  restful  grace  which  is  one  of  woman's 
highest  charms.  And,  more 's  the  pity,  when  it  all 
seems  so  needless,  they  are  by  no  means  the  women 
who  have  the  most  really  necessary  work  to  do.  Is 
there  no  way  to  help  it  ? 

Let  the  fifty  tucks,  which  are  good  in  their  place 
and  by  no  means  to  be  quarreled  with,  unless  they  cost 
too  much,  stand  for  the  many  things  that  bring  into 
our  lives  useless  toil,  useless  burdens,  useless  perplex- 
ities ;  and  then  ask  the  Yankee  question,  Does  it  pay  ? 
Does  it  pay  to  have  the  tucks  at  the  cost  of  what  is 
better  worth  having  ? 

Not  long  ago  a  friend  showed  me  some  dainty  bits 
of  needlework,  the  clothing  of  a  little  child,  that  had 
come  down  to  her  from  her  grandmother's  mother. 
Fine  as  gossamer  were  the  fabrics  used,  and  the  in- 
finitesimal tucks  and  hems,  the  exquisite  hemstitching 
and  drawn-work,  the  delicate  fagoting,  the  fairy-like 
stitches,  were  a  wonder  to  behold.  One  could  hardly 
believe  that  the  lovely  little  garments  had  been  made 
for  actual  use;  had  belonged  to  the  wardrobe  of  a  liv- 
ing child,  intended  for  real  service  and  not  for  mere 
show-pieces  to  be  wondered  at  and  admired. 

"  Does  n't  this  rather  take  the  wind  out  of  your  sails  ?  " 
asked  one  who  stood  near.  "  Talk  about  work  and 
the  hurry  and  flurry  of  this  nineteenth  century,  and 
then  look  at  this !  Who  can  imagine  a  woman  of  to- 
day  setting  so  many  patient  stitches  into  one  little 
garment  ?  Confess  now  that  your  theories  are  put  to 
naught." 

"On  the  contrary,  they  are  only  confirmed,"  I  an- 
swered. "  The  hand  that  pulled  these  airy  threads 
and  set  these  minute,  even  stitches  was  neither  hurried, 
nor  flurried,  nor  worried.  It  was  the  willing  servitor 
of  a  cool  and  quiet  brain.  This  morsel  of  a  frock  was 
not  caught  up  with  a  beating  heart  and  throbbing 
nerves  in  the  brief  pauses  of  a  heated,  overwrought 
life,  and  hurried  on  to  completion  that  the  child  might 
display  it  at  next  week's  fancy  ball  or  garden  party. 
It  was  a  long,  happy  labor  of  love,  begun  months  be- 
fore it  was  actually  needed,  and  slowly  touched  and 
retouched  as  an  artist  finishes  a  picture.  Its  every 
fold  speaks  of  calm  and  quiet,  of  summer  afternoons 
in  shaded  porches,  or  winter  nights  by  glowing  fire- 
sides. It  tells  of  motherly  love  and  sisterly  confi- 
dences, of  merry  chats  and  friendly  greetings." 

"But  it  was  work,  nevertheless,"  said  my  friend; 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


955 


"and  life  is  life,  everywhere  and  always.  I  don't 
see  how  women  ever  hail  time  or  strength  to  put  so 
much  work  on  one  baliy  <li 

"You  'vc  hit  the  nail  on  the  very  head  this  time," 
I  replied.  "That  'one'  tells  the  whole  story.  Our 
children  have  dozens  every  season,  and  there  is  no 
end  to  the  tucks  and  puffs  and  ruffles.  Little  Miss 
Mischief  !•-  arrayrd  in  a  It  :-sh  white  robe  in  the  morn- 
ing. Hy  noon  il  is  soiled  and  must  go  into  tin 
tub  with  all  its  dainty  superfluities.  Do  you  suppose 
this  little  robe  was  ever  played  in  ?  —  that  it  ever  knew 
the  meaning  of  a  game  at  rumps,  or  a  mud-pie  ?  By  no 
means.  The  quaint  little  eighteenth  century  maiden 
who  once  owned  it  had  a  plenty  of  plain  dimity  '  slips,' 
easily  made  and  easily  washed,  for  everyda;. 
This  was  laid  away  in  a  chest  sweet  with  rose-leaves 
and  lavender,  and  only  brought  out  on  great  occasions. 
Do  not  fancy  for  one  moment  that  it  was  ever  con- 
signed to  the  tender  mercies  of  Chloe,  or  Bridget  (if 
there  were  any  Bridgets  in  those  days),  or  even 
of  Yankee  Hannah.  My  lady  herself  'did  up'  the 
pretty  trifle,  clear-starching  and  patting  and  pulling 
into  shape  without  so  much  as  breaking  a  single 
thread.  How  long,  think  you,  would  it  have  endured 
the  rough  handling  of  our  day?  But  this  little  frock 
descended  from  child  to  child  and  did  good  service  for 
a  whole  generation.  One  needs  keen  eyes  to  detect  it, 
but  it  has  been  mended  more  than  once  —  darned 
with  such  slow  patience  that  the  interwoven  threads 
seem  a  part  of  the  fabric  itself." 

Fifty  tucks  instead  of  one  —  tucks  that  speedily  "per- 
ish with  the  using."  The  principle  of  the  thing  runs 
through  the  whole  warp  and  woof  of  our  modern  life. 
As  has  been  said  before,  there  is  no  need  to  quarrel 
with  the  tucks.  They  are  all  well  enough  in  their 
places.  But  to  put  our  whole  time  and  strength  into 
them,  even  while  we  give  utterance  to  the  frequent 
complaint  that  there  is  no  peace,  no  rest,  no  time  for 
the  grand  old  books  or  the  bright  new  ones,  or  even 
to  read  the  newspapers  and  thus  follow  the  onward 
march  of  the  stirring  events  of  our  own  day — surely 
this  is  an  absurdity.  It  is  paying  too  dear  for  the 
whistle.  It  is  selling  one's  birthright  for  a  very  poor 
and  unsavory  mess  of  pottage. 

If  they  were  always  and  everywhere  beautiful  — 
these  tucks  for  which  we  are  ready  to  sacrifice  so  much 
—  there  might  be  some  excuse  for  yielding  to  their 
fascinations.  For  the  woman  who  does  not  love  beauty 
is  an  anomaly,  a  monstrosity.  But  fuss  and  feathers 
are  not  beauty ;  and  there  can  be  no  true  elegance  that 
does  not  rest  on  the  solid  foundation  of  fitness.  There- 
fore to  most  of  us  beauty  must  mean  simplicity — the 
simplicity  of  life,  dress,  and  manners,  that  would 
bring  with  it  ease  and  leisure,  and  the  peace  that  pass- 
eth  understanding. 

Tucks  are  not  all  alike,  by  any  means ;  and  they  are 
not  all  made  on  the  sewing-machine.  Tucks  mean  one 
thing  to  me  and  another  to  you  and  still  another  to 
our  neighbor.  We  have  our  own  little  private  diction- 
aries, every  soul  of  us,  in  the  pages  of  which  words 
bear  the  strangest  and  most  contradictory  significa- 
tions. It  would  be  laughable  sometimes,  and  sometimes 
pitiable,  if  we  could  but  read  the  definitions,  never 
thought  of  by  Worcester,  Webster,  or  other  authorities, 
that  are  given  in  these  individual  lexicons  of  ours 
to  this  one  word  —  tucks!  What  it  means  in  mine  I 


do  not  intend  to  say  in  this  presence,  nor  what  it 
means  in  yours.  That  is  our  secret,  and  we  will  keep 
it.  But  there  are  women  to  whom  it  means  |ust  this: 
a  relentless  war  with  flies  and  dust,  speckle*.-,  win- 
dows, mirrors  on  the  polished  surfaces  of  which  tin  ft 
is  never  a  spot  or  blemish,  and  rooms  too  prim  to  be 
comfortable.  It  means  keeping  tin-  blessed  children, 
with  their  toys  and  trumpery  and  pretty  confusion,  out 
of  the  parlor,  little  finger-prints  off  the  piano,  and  eve:  \ 
daisy  and  buttercup  off  the  carpet.  To  some  it  means 
the  handsomest  and  costliesl  house  in  town,  with  the 
most  elaborate  furnishings,  and  perfection  in  every  de- 
tail. It  means  the  finest  and  whitest  linen,  the  most 
lustrous  silver,  the  daintiest  china.  To  some,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  means  the  saving  of  every  penny,  the 
adding  of  dollar  unto  dollar,  no  matter  at  what  cost  of 
strength  and  health  and  womanly  loveliness.  Toothers 
it  stands  for  the  latest  fashion,  the  last  new  wrinkle  in 
drapery,  the  newest  fancy  in  laces,  or  for  whatever  may 
chance  to  be  the  brief  rage  of  the  moment.  To  others 
still  it  means  puff-paste  and  kickshaws,  and  all  the 
countless  dainty  devices  of  the  table  that  are  a  delight 
to  the  eye  but  a  weariness  to  the  flesh. 

No  one  has  a  right  to  quarrel  with  these  definitions. 
They  stand,  in  most  instances,  for  things  good  and 
desirable  in  themselves  —  these  harlequin  tucks  that 
take  so  many  forms,  and  appear  in  such  differing 
phases.  If  only  there  were  not  so  many  of  them  ! 
It  is  the  whole  fifty  that  weigh  us  down.  One  straw- 
does  not  break  the  camel's  back.  It  is  the  last  one  of 
many  that  breaks  it. 

The  difficulty  lies  in  learning  just  where  to  draw  the 
line,  which  certainly  must  be  drawn  somewhere.  Just 
what  good  thing  is  it  that  we  should  give  up  for  the 
sake  of  having  something  better  still  ?  He  or  she  who 
can  satisfactorily  answer  this  query  will  deserve  the 
thanks  of  all  womankind. 

The  question  of  household  service  grows  year  by 
year  more  perplexing  and  harder  to  solve.  When  one 
takes  this  fact  into  consideration  and  remembers  that 
it  is  stated  on  good  authority  that  three-fourths  of  the 
women  in  this  country  do  their  own  work  and  that  of 
the  other  fourth  full  one-half  employ  but  one  servant, 
how  to  make  life  more  simple  and  easy  seems  a  mat- 
ter of  the  utmost  importance.  It  is  not  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  money.  The  having  it  or  the  lack  of  it  does 
not  settle  the  matter.  There  are  many  parts  of  the 
country  in  which  anything  like  competent  service  can- 
not be  obtained  for  love  or  money.  Of  the  three- 
fourths  above  referred  to,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  at  least 
one-half  of  them  do  not  belong  to  the  class  that  is  con- 
tent to  be  merely  drudges.  They,  like  their  sisters, 
are  fond  of  books,  of  art  in  so  far  as  they  know  it,  of 
beauty  in  all  its  forms.  They  long  for  leisure  with  all 
its  golden  possibilities. 

But,  in  full  accord  with  the  spirit  of  our  institutions, 
they  are  proud  and  ambitious  —  if  not  for  themselves, 
yet  for  their  children.  And  if  there  is  one  thing  that  the 
average  American  woman  cannot  calmly  endure  it  is  to 
be  supposed  ignorant  of  what  is  or  is  not  "good  form." 
Not  that  she  uses  that  expression.  She  wishes  it  to  be 
understood  that  she  knows  what  it  is  "  the  thing  "  to  do 
as  well  as  her  neighbor  docs.  Shall  she  have  hash  — 
the  hash  of  her  grandmother,  savory  and  toothsome,  on 
her  table  when  the  last  new  cook-book  abases  that 
plebeian  dish  and  exacts  patties,  croquettes  and  rissoles  ? 


956 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


Perish  the  thought !  If  she  break  her  back  in  the  slow 
process  of  molding  the  refractory  things  into  shape, 
or  scorch  her  face  frying  them,  the  croquettes  she  will 
have  if  Madame  La  Mode  so  ordains,  even  though,  if 
they  told  the  plain  truth,  the  chances  are  that  not  only 
she,  but  her  husband,  and  her  children,  and  the  stranger 
within  her  gates  would  be  forced  to  acknowledge  lhat 
they  decidedly  preferred  the  hash. 

Is  not  this  servitude  of  the  worst  description, —  to 
say  nothin  g  of  the  folly  of  it, —  this  spending  of  precious 
strength  and  golden  hours  in  doing  what  in  the  long 
run  does  not  add  one  iota  to  our  own  happiness, 
or  to  that  of  any  other  living  being,  merely  because 
somebody  regards  it  as  "the  thing"  to  do,  or  to 
have  it  ? 

Undoubtedly,  whether  one  lives  in  city  or  country, 
it  is  well  to  follow,  as  far  as  one  can  without  the  sacrifice 
of  higher  things,  the  customs  and  usages  of  so-called 
polite  society.  As  a  rule  they  have  at  the  bottom  some 
wise  foundation.  But  when  we  are  gravely  told  by 
those  who  speak  with  authority  that  "  self-respect " 
demands  of  us  this  or  that, —  the  observance  of  the 
merest  trifles  as  to  the  etiquette  of  table  service,  or 
of  anything  of  a  like  nature, —  is  it  not  time  to  pause 
and  to  take  a  fresh  start?  The  loss  of  self-respect  i.^  a 
terrible  thing.  Its  preservation  is  so  vital  a  point  that  it 
seems  hardly  wise  to  set  up  standards  that  are  abso- 
lutely out  of  reach  of  the  vast  majority  of  American 
housewives  and  tiome-makers. 

Is  it  certain  that  the  new  ways  are  always  better, 
and  wiser,  and  more  refined  than  the  old  ways?  Then 
again,  have  we  not  all  read  something  about  the  folly  of 
putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles? 

There  is  such  a  thing,  alas !  as  losing  all  the 
strength  and  dignity  out  of  a  life  by  ill-considered  at- 
tempts to  change  its  current.  The  broad,  full  stream  is 
apt  to  dwindle  away  in  numberless  small  channels,  and 
its  power  dwindles  likewise.  After  men  and  women 
have  gone  much  beyond  the  middle  mile-stone,  sudden 
changes  as  to  style  of  living,  household  service,  and 
the  like  are  not  apt  to  add  greatly  either  to  their  dig- 
nity or  to  their  happiness.  In  short,  there  are  many 
conceivable  circumstances  under  which  one  tuck  is  infi- 
nitely better  than  fifty. 

Julia  C.  X.  Dorr. 

"  The  Right  Man  for  Our  Church." 

ALTHOUGH  some  of  the  clerical  abilities  and  accom- 
plishments expected  to  be  constantly  in  readiness  at  a 
moment's  notice  for  the  use  of  Christian  congregations 
and  the  general  public  are  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the 
imaginations  of  inconsiderate  and  not  over-intelligent 
laymen,  the  demand  for  them  is  none  the  less  difficult 
to  meet.  As  proved  in  the  letters  written  by  expect- 
ant committees,  they  sometimes  mount  up  in  number 
and  variety  till  they  reach  the  summit  of  absurdity. 
The  professor  of  a  theological  seminary,  receiving  one 
of  these  epistles  which  enumerated  the  long  and  dis- 
couraging list  of  talents  and  requisites  necessary  in  the 
character  and  attainments  of  one  who  should  be  fit  for 
the  pastorate  of  "  our  church,"  replied  to  the  commit- 
tee to  the  effect  that  "  we  have  no  man  now  in  this 
seminary  such  as  you  describe,  and  doubt  if  we  ever 
had  one."  Manners,  dress,  voice,  elocution,  public 
spirit,  magnetic  attraction  for  young  people,  wife,  num- 


ber of  children,  extravagance  or  parsimony  in  living, 
executive  talent,  interest  in  education  and  temperance, 
gracefulness  at  weddings,  appropriateness  of  manner 
and  speech  at  funerals  —  all  these,  besides  those  many 
qualifications  which  are  really  needed  to  make  a  good 
preacher,  come  in  for  a  share  of  criticism,  and  form 
important  factors  in  the  layman's  ideal  of  the  clergy- 
man he  would  like,  or  thinks  he.would  like,  as  the  pas- 
tor of  his  church. 

It  is  here  submitted,  therefore,  that  in  no  other  oc- 
cupation is  so  much  expected  in  things  which  are  really 
non-essential  to  it.  That  a  minister  should  be  a  good 
man,  sound  in  the  Christian  faith,  and  an  interesting 
and  sensible  preacher  goes  without  saying.  Every 
congregation  should  look  for  these  things,  and  be 
thankful  for  all  else  that  may  chance  to  go  with  them ; 
but  is  it  not  true  that  so  much  more  than  these  is  of- 
ten demanded  that  it  can  truthfully  be  said  that  the 
follower  of  no  other  occupation  is  subjected  to  so 
many  and  so  severe  tests  concerning  matters  which  lie 
outside  professional  requirements?  The  carpenter,  or 
plumber,  or  mason  is  simply  required  to  do  his  work 
well ;  his  opinions,  and  dress,  and  social  powers,  to- 
gether with  the  qualities  of  his  wife  and  the  number 
of  his  family,  are  not  subjects  of  public  inquiry.  \Ve  do 
not  ask  whether  the  lawyer  has  a  pleasing  voice,  or  the 
physician  a  becoming  and  stylish  dress,  or  the  archi- 
tect a  taking  manner,  or  the  army  officer  a  charming 
wife,  or  the  school-teacher  a  magnetic  bearing  in  a 
drawing-room,  although  these  may  be  desirable  pos- 
sessions :  we  ask  whether  the  man  understands  his 
business  in  its  essentials,  is  learned  in  its  details,  and 
skillful  in  the  practice  of  it. 

Tluvse  demands  made  upon  the  ministerial  profession 
are  often  more  exacting  among  the  less  intelligent  than 
among  the  educated,  so  that  it  is  sometimes  said  in 
clerical  circles  that  those  who  know  the  least  concern- 
ing the  long  and  laborious  preparation  required  to  fit 
men  for  the  modern  pulpit,  and  concerning  the  proper 
characteristics  of  a  good  preacher,  are  the  most  em- 
phatic in  their  insistence  on  a  great  number  and  variety 
of  qualifications  in  their  minister.  A  small  country 
church  in  Massachusetts,  many  years  ago,  criticised 
quite  sharply  the  services  of  a  man  whom  they  sup- 
posed to  be  preaching  for  them  as  a  candidate,  and 
were  much  surprised  afterwards  to  learn  that  he  al- 
ready occupied  a  position  as  pastor  much  more  promi- 
nent and  influential  than  they  would  have  believed 
possible.  I  remember  also  a  case  where  a  small  city 
congregation  that  had  among  its  members  scarcely  a 
man  that  was  even  fairly  well  educated  heard  a  man 
preach  several  Sabbaths.  He  was  a  graduate  of  a  New 
England  college  and  of  one  of  the  best  of  our  theolog- 
ical seminaries,  a  man  of  good  address,  scholarly  and 
gentlemanly  in  his  pulpit  manners,  a  careful,  thought- 
ful sermonizer,  and  a  fluent  speaker.  He  was  disliked  ; 
and  when  some  of  the  chief  men  were  questioned  as  to 
the  cause  of  dissatisfaction,  they  replied,  "  He  does  n't 
have  a  commanding  presence."  The  readers  of  this 
letter  will  recall  one  of  old  of  whom  it  was  said  that 
his  bodily  presence  was  weak  and  his  speech  contempt- 
ible; but  they  will  be  forced  to  admit  that  Paul  was, 
after  all,  something  of  a  preacher.  This  congregation  • 
in  search  of  a  "  commanding  presence  "  were  a  feeble 
folk,  numerically  and  financially;  and  though  the  Lord's 
people,  however  poor  and  weak,  ought,  theoretically,  to 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


957 


have  the  very  best  in  (lie  way  of  spiritual  food,  yet  as 
things  are  in  the  church,  as  well  as  in  the  world,  it  is  a 
,|iii-.,iion  whether  they  were  wholly  wise  in  looking  for 
perfection  in  the  Lord's  vessel,  and  whether  they  were 
not  too  slow  in  appreciating  the  Lord's  grace  contained 
in  it ;  and  although  ministers  ought  not  to  be  rated  by 
the  amount  of  salary  that  they  receive,  still  this  in- 
cident will  remind  many  of  the  man  who  said,  con- 
cerning an  underpaid  s'ervant  girl,  "  You  can't  expect 
all  the  Christian  virtues  for  two  dollars  a  week." 

In  proof  of  the  singular  demands  sometimes  made 
upon  the  minister,  not  only  for  needful  qualifications 
not  looked  for  in  other  professions,  but  also  for  those 
which  do  not  really  form  a  part  of  the  clergyman's 
necessary  outfit  for  his  work,  I  offer  for  perusal  a  let- 
ter written  less  than  five  years  ago  by  a  member  of  a 
church  in  one  of  the  largest  and  oldest  and  —  will  it  be 
believed?  —  most  cultured  of  our  American  cities.  It 
\\;i^  written  by  one  layman  to  another.  The  writer 
was  a  member  of  the  "supply  committee  "  appointed 
to  "look  for  the  right  man"  as  pastor,  and  the 
epistle  is  one  of  inquiry  into  the  fitness  of  a  certain 
minister  who  had  been  recommended  to  him  for  the 
position.  Leaving  out  dates  and  proper  names  and  a 
single  sentence,  which  might  furnish  a  clue  to  identi- 
fication, I  give  the  letter  verbatim,  without  correction 
of  rhetoric,  grammar,  italics,  or  punctuation. 

MR. . 

My  DEAR  >SIR:  I  have  this  day  read  your  letter  di- 
rected to  my  friend  Mr. relative  to  Rev.  Mr 

...  .of My  church  relation  is  with church, 

chairman  of  the  committee  £c. —  delegated  to  find  just  the 
man  for church.  We  have  enjoyed  the  opportu- 
nity in  listening  to  several  fine  speakers  —  but  very  few 
of  them  are  considered  what  is  needed  —  or  fitted  for  this 
pulpit  and  people, —  a  defect  in  voite  —  physique  or  man- 
nerism. It  requires  a  strong  full  rounded  voice  —  to  be 
heard  in  the  auditorium  of  the  sanctuary  —  we  can  seat 
1200,  &  everybody  must  hear  in  our  church.  Our  con- 
gregation during  the  time  Dr has  been  with  us  has 

averaged  700  or  800 — •  We  must  have  a  man  who  has  the 
make  up  temporally  &  spiritually,  who  will  bring  in  1300 
&  fill  us  to  overflowing  —  Our  church  membership  is 
400  —  we  want  a  membership  not  less  than  1200 — We 
think  with  God's  help  &  the  right  man  —  who  is  a  good 
seed  sower,  can  do  it  —  we  have  a  good  operative  force 

&  there  is  material  in  abundance  —  needing  to  be 

square-A^zi'ftf  &  numbered  for  the  building.  The  streets 
are  full  of  houses  on  both  sides  &  there  are  to  be  found 
rough  ashlers  to  be  hammered  —  We  need  a  master 
workman  in  the  gospel. 

Will  you  please  give  me  the  exact  measurement  of 
Mr (confidentially  if  you  say  so)  that  is  to  say  .... 

Is  he  a  man  of  deep  piety?  &  yet  a  social  &  ready 
man  —  an  original  man?  in  thought  &  utterances  —  a 
real  student  of  God  —  man  &  nature  ?  Are  his  illustra- 
tions forcible  &  impressive  ?  &c.  &c.  Does  he  use  a 
manuscript?  What  is  his  salary  ?  How  much  family  ?  — 
where  did  he  graduate,  in  Theology  ?  How  does  he  stand 
on  the  Andover  question  ?  £c,  1  am  satisfied  that  some 
are  born  to  be  Teachers.  If  my  request  is  granted  and 
the  reply  is  satisfactory  I  feel  sure  that  some  of  our  com- 
mittee will  go  and  listen  to  Mr. .... 

Fraternally  yours 

These  can  hardly  be  termed  modest  demands.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  requirement  that  the  minister  should 
draw  a  hundred  more  people  than  the  church  will  ac- 
commodate, and  also  convert  and  make  communicants 
of  the  exact  twelve  hundred  which  the  church  does 
accommodate,  the  particularity  of  some  of  these  ques- 
tions is  certainly  interesting.  One  wonders  why  the 
inventory  did  not  include  an  inquiry  as  to  the  cut  of 
collar  or  style  of  boots  worn  by  the  aspiring  seeker 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 132. 


for  a  pulpit.  As  if  a  minister  should  be  expected  to  tell 
a  committee  or  a  church  what  he  thought  of  the  com- 
plicated phases  of  the  Andover  matter;  or  was  an- 
swerable to  a  church  committee  for  the  number  of  his 
children  !  Hut  things  still  more  singular  are  sometimes 
the  subject  of  criticism.  "  We  cannot  allow  a  man  to 
preach  as  acandidate  here,"  said  the  shrewd  deacon  of  a 
New  England  church.  "  He  must  be  accepted  on  his 
record;  for  should  he  preach  as  acandidate,  Dr.  Itlank 
might  object  to  him  on  the  ground  of  his  lack  of  grace- 
fulness in  taking  off  his  overcoat."  Not  long  since,  in 
an  1  .astern  city,  a  candidate  for  a  pastorate  was  rejected 
after  being  heard,  and  inquiry  elicited  the  fact  that  one 
of  the  objections  made  to  him  was  that  he  wore  a  "fly 
tie."  No  defense  of  this  hapless  seeker  for  a  pastorate 
will  be  here  attempted.  Doubtless  our  brother  was 
verily  guilty  in  wearing  a  tie  that  fastened  itself  to  the 
shirt  button  with  a  bit  of  rubber ;  but  it  ought  to  be 
said  in  partial  extenuation  of  his  offense  that  although 
he  had  not,  like  one  of  whom  we  have  read,  given  his 
whole  mind  to  his  neck-tie,  it  might  have  been  for  the 
reason  that  he  was  somewhat  preoccupied  in  the  at- 
tention bestowed  upon  the  spirituality  and  helpfulness 
of  his  sermon,  and  the  appropriateness  of  his  prayers. 
When  one  considers  the  many  different  tastes  and 
preferences  to  be  found  in  a  large  modern  congrega- 
tion, and  remembers  that  these  tastes  have  reference 
so  much  more  largely  than  in  former  years  to  external 
and  non-essential  matters,  it  will  be  readily  appre- 
hended by  those  outside  the  ministry  that  the  business 
of  "  candidating  "  is  admirably  adapted  to  strike  terror 
to  the  heart  of  a  minister  of  ordinarily  sensitive  nerves. 
The  radical  idea  of  it  is  false  to  begin  with.  That  idea 
is,  when  staled  in  plain  words,  that  a  church,  by  hear- 
ing a  man  preach  for  a  single  Sunday,  can  learn  suffi- 
ciently of  his  character  and  abilities  for  the  work  of 
the  ministry  to  decide  off-hand  whether  he  is  the  man 
they  want,  or  rather,  whether  he  is  the  man  they  need, 
to  live  with  them  and  be  their  minister  week  after 
week  and  year  after  year.  Suppose  a  great  corpora- 
tion should  insist  that  its  employment  of  a  lawyer  as  its 
permanent  solicitor  should  turn,  not  on  his  general 
record  as  a  lawyer,  but  on  the  impression  he  made  on 
the  directors  by  the  delivery  of  a  single  plea  before  a 
jury.  Suppose  a  medical  institution  should  allow  its 
action  in  theappointment  of  a  physician  toa  responsible 
place  to  be  decided  by  the  management  and  result  of 
his  practice  in  a  single  case  of  fever.  The  comparisons 
are  not  wholly  false  or  inapt.  In  many  respects  the 
lawyer  or  the  physician  put  to  such  a  test  would  have 
the  advantage  of  the  minister.  The  deeper  and  more 
subtle  qualities  of  character,  the  sources  of  power  and 
influence,  the  secret  fountains  of  social  and  spiritual 
strength  which  are  so  largely  elements  in  the  success 
of  a  pastor,  might  manifest  themselves  but  faintly  in  a 
trial  sermon.  The  candidate  in  many  cases  comes  to 
the  ordeal  a  complete  stranger  to  the  congregation  ;  he 
is  perhaps  unaccustomed  to  the  order  of  service,  or  the 
pulpit  is  not  of  the  proper  height,  or  he  is  not  as  well 
as  usual — has  taken  a  cold  on  the  long  journey  made 
to  keep  this  appointment,  or  is  suffering  from  head- 
ache. Any  one  of  these  may  seriously  affect  a  preacher, 
especially  in  our  non-liturgical  churches,  where  so 
much  depends  upon  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
speaker;  and  on  a  critical  occasion  like  this,  where 
success  is  likely  to  turn  on  appearances,  a  seemingly 


OPEN  LETTERS. 


insignificant  circumstance  may  disconcert  a  sensitive 
man  and  unfit  him  for  his  work.  A  slight  physical  ail- 
ment, or  the  unaccountable  loss  of  the  preaching  mood 
which  sometimes  afflicts  a  minister  of  nervous  tempera- 
ment, may  cripple  the  mental  energies  and  so  abate  that 
vigor  and  alertness  of  mind  which  are  necessary  to  the 
proper  outfit  of  the  preacher  for  his  work,  especially 
where  much  of  that  work  is  extemporaneous,  that  he 
may  fail  to  show  his  real  power  as  a  preacher.  The 
choice  of  a  theme  is  difficult  at  such  a  time,  and  may  be 
unfortunate  for  that  particular  congregation  or  that  par- 
ticular time,  on  account  of  certain  local  circumstances 
of  which  the  preacher  is  ignorant ;  or  it  may  fail  to 
give  a  proper  idea  of  the  average  range  and  kind  of 
his  usual  discourse.  But  he  is  here,  and  he  must  be 
heard.  No  matter  what  the  drawbacks,  he  must 
preach ;  and  preach  as  a  man  to  whom  the  assembly 
is  looking  as  their  possible  pastor.  He  must  make  his 
"  impression,"  and  the  action  of  the  parish  is  to  turn 
on  that  impression. 

To  a  sensitive  man,  the  whole  business  is  repulsive  ; 
to  a  man  with  a  fine  moral  sense,  there  is  a  certain 
feeling  of  the  insincerity  of  it.  It  seems  to  him  as 
much  a  "  performance "  as  the  solo  of  the  gallery 
singer  is  sometimes  said  to  be.  He  is  here  professedly 
to  preach  the  gospel  and  to  do  good  to  the  souls  of  men ; 
he  is  here  really  to  show  these  people  how  gracefully 
and  impressively  and  eloquently  he  can  do  it.  The 
whole  business  carries  a  hollow  and  unreal  look.  He 
feels  instinctively  that  comparatively  few  will  be  im- 
pressed by  the  depth,  beauty,  truth,  sweetness,  or 
soundness  —  if  such  there  be — of  his  discourse,  or  by 
the  simplicity  and  reverence  of  feeling  in  his  prayers ; 
and  that  the  large  proportion  of  the  assembly  will 
be  thinking  of  the  manner  rather  than  the  matter,  of 
form  rather  than  substance.  His  face  attracts  one,  his 
voice  another,  his  pathetic  tones  another,  his  "  man- 
ner" another,  his  comments  on  the  Scripture  another, 
his  undemonstrative  method  another.  But  other  peo- 
ple are  repelled  by  the  same  things.  A  ministry  of 
months  and  years  might  correct  these  bad  impressions 
and  confirm  the  good  ones ;  but  the  minister  is  here 
for  only  one  Sunday  and  then  flits  to  other  fields,  to 
pass  through  the  same  ordeal.  The  "impression" 
must  necessarily  be  imperfect  as  a  correct  idea  of 
what  the  candidate  is  as  a  preacher  and  pastor. 
Moreover,  the  minds  of  all  being  so  largely  engaged 
in  taking  what  strikes  the  eye  and  makes  a  temporary 
impression  on  the  ear,  the  service  as  a  religious  ser- 
vice is  a  failure.  It  is  not  a  service  sincerely  conducted 
by  one  unconscious  of  himself  and  aiming  at  spiritual 
effect  alone,  nor  one  in  which  the  hearers  heartily 
enter,  or  can  heartily  enter,  with  the  simple  desire  that 
they  may  worship  God,  and  receive  thereby  spiritual 
benefit  to  themselves.  The  obvious  conclusion  is,  that 
the  more  refined  or  sensitive  the  man  is  who  submits 
to  this  ordeal,  the  more  likely  will  he  be  not  to  do  his 
best,  or  be  his  best.  He  will  find  more  difficulty 
than  some  other  men  of  less  refinement  of  character, 
because  he  will  be  more  conscious  of  the  false  and 
unreal  position  which  he  has  allowed  himself  to  fill. 
The  practice  must  be  more  or  less  demoralizing  to 
a  church  that  Sunday  after.  Sunday  keeps  up  this 
business  of  listening  to  candidates,  and  it  mu^tbemore 
or  less  debasing  to  the  ministers  who  accept  invita- 
tions to  enter  into  the  arrangement. 


If  this  letter  shall  awaken  the  desire  of  any  to 
seek  some  more  reasonable  plan  of  securing  pastors 
for  our  churches,  following  out  perhaps  the  excellent 
suggestions  offered  by  Dr.  Gladden  in  a  recent  num- 
ber of  THE  CENTURY,  its  purpose  will  be  fulfilled. 
At  any  rate  it  can  do  no  harm  to  call  attention  to  the 
immoderate  desires  and  expectations  of  laymen  in  their 
search  for  imaginary  and  impossible  ministers,  and  to 
that  emphasis  which  they  too  often  lay  upon  tests  and 
qualifications  which  are  not  really  necessary  to  a  faithful 
and  successful  ministry. 

Forrest  F.  Emerson. 

NEWPORT,  R.  1. 

"Aunt    Martha"    Grayson. 

IT  seems  to  me  fitting  to  the  story  of  "  The  Gray- 
sons  "  to  publish  a  little  incident  connected  with  "  Aunt 
Martha  "  that  came  under  my  personal  observation. 

The  incident  of  which  I  speak  occurred  when  Lin- 
coln and  Douglas  were  making  their  famous  tour  of 
Illinois,  and  were  to  speak  at  Havanna,  Mason  County, 
Illinois. 

About  6  o'clock  on  the  day  previous  there  came  to 
the  house  of  the  friend  with  whom  I  was  stopping  an 
old  lady  who  had  walked  I  do  not  know  how  many 
miles  to  see  "  dear  Old  Abe. "  She  wore  a  calico 
sun-bonnet  and  a  clean  dark  calico  dress  of  rather 
scant  proportions  and  was  toil-worn  and  withered,  but 
withal  had  such  a  kindly  face  that  one  forgot  her 
homely  attire  and  backwoods  manners. 

She  talked  incessantly  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  always  call- 
ing him  "Old  Abe,"  and  was  so  eager  and  trembling 
in  her  desire  to  see  him  that  I  could  not  help  wonder- 
ing what  possible  interest  she  could  have  in  him,  or 
he  in  her.  I  learned  that  Lincoln,  years  before,  had 
saved  the  life  of  her  son,  who  was  accused  of  murder, 
and  no  scrap  of  evidence  seemed  possible  to  save  him 
from  the  gallows.  Here,  then,  was  the  mother  of  the 
young  man  whose  story  I  had  so  often  heard. 

The  next  morning  the  old  lady  was  up  long  before 
the  rest  of  us,  nervously  roaming  about,  and  scarcely 
able  to  control  her  agitation.  "  I  am  going  to  be  the 
first  to  greet  '  Old  Abe '  when  he  leaves  the  boat," 
she  said  over  and  over  again ;  "  and  I  want  to  tell 
him  how  glad  I  am  that  he  has  become  so  great." 

She  did  not  wait  for  the  steam-whistle  to  herald  his 
coming.  With  trembling  fingers  she  tied  the  strings 
of  her  sun-bonnet  under  her  chin,  lighted  her  pipe, — 
I'm  sure  I'm  not  mistaken  in  this,  —  and  hurried 
nervously  away,  saying  as  she  left,  "  I  must  be  the  first 
to  take  him  by  the  hand."  And  sure  enough  she  was. 
The  whistle  blew,  the  crowd  surged  down  to  the  land- 
ing, but  the  old  lady  was  already  there.  No  sooner 
was  the  plank  thrown  out  than  "Aunt  Martha"  stepped 
upon  it,  and  was  indeed  the  first  to  meet  and  greet 
"Old  Abe." 

She  came  back  to  the  house  shortly  after,  her  face 
radiant  with  joy,  the  tears  still  coursing  down  her 
withered  cheeks,  and  cried  out  between  intervals  of 
hysterical  sobs:  "  I  Ve  seen  him — he  was  not  ashamed 
of  me — he  took  my  old  hand  and  wrung  it  with  a  will, 
saying,'  Howdy,  Aunt  Martha?  How  are  all  the  folks? 
I  'in  right  glad  to  see  you.' " 


Mrs.  II.  L.   Tobieii. 


CLEVELAND,  OHIO. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


959 


Lord  Bacon  and  the  Vail  Telegraphic  Code. 

Ix  the  April  number  of  THE  CENTURY  Mr.  Po|.r.in 
his  article  on  "The  American  Inventors  of  the  Tele- 
graph," claims  for  Mr.  Vail  the  "conception  of  an  alpha- 
betical code,  based  on  the  elements  of  time  anil  sp.n  r." 

Without  desiring  to  detract  in  the  slightest  from  Mr. 
Vail's  credit  as  an  inventor,  and  admitting  that  this  con- 
ception and  its  realization  were  with  him  original,  he 
was  not,  in  the  language  of  patents,  the  first,  as  well  as 
the  original,  inventor  of  this  conception. 

Bacon,  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Sixth  Book  of  "  De 
Augment!*  Scientiarum"  refers  to  a  "contrivance"  of 
a  cipher  which  he  "  devised  himself  when  he  was  at 
Paris  in  his  early  youth,  and  which  he  still  thinks 
worthy  of  preservation."  It  is  what  he  calls  "an  alpha- 
bet of  two  letters";  and  though  he  transposes  these 
two  letters  through  five  spaces  to  form  the  twenty- 
four  letters  of  our  alphabet  then  in  common  use  (I 
and  J  and  U  and  V  not  being  discriminated),  he  adds 
this  remarkable  paragraph  : 


"  Nor  is  it  a  slight  thing  which  is  Ilius  by  the  way 
effected,  for  hence  we  see  how  thoughts  may  be  com- 
municated at  any  distance  ol  .•-pace,  liy  means  of  any 
objects  perceptible,  either  to  the  eye  or  ear,  provided 
only  that  those  objects  are  capable  t'f  IIM  differences  ;  as 
by  bells,  trumpets,  ti>rc/ics,  .;/.•«  j//,  ts,  ami  the  like.'' 

I  think  I  justly  call  this  p:u.igi:i|ih  irm.irkable,  in 
view  of  the  development  of  this  idea  which  has  since 
taken  place.  The  Vail  alphabet  for  the  telegraph,  the 
signaling  by  flashes  of  light,  the  sounding  upon  whi-tles 
and  bells,  and  the  daily  discovery  of"  some  new  field  of 
usefulness  for  this  universal  symbolic  language  "  to 
which  Mr.  Pope  refers  are,  almost  in  terms,  set  out 
by  Bacon  in  this  paragraph. 

How  much  older  than  Bacon  this  method  of  alpha- 
betic distinction  is  I  cannot  say.  Perhaps  if  Wendell 
Phillips  were  alive  he  would  trace  it  back  to  the 
Greeks,  or  to  the  Phenicians,  and  then  say  that  the 
name  of  the  Egyptian  from  whom  they  got  it  was 
long  since  forgotten. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C 


R.  D.  Atussey. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Torm. 

DE'R  law !  Sis'  Jane,  ef  dat  ain't  you ! 
Come  in  an'  tek  a  cheer ; 
I  ain't  sot  eyes  upon  yo*  face 

Sence  hawg-killin'  time  las'  year. 
Lemme  dus'  it  wid  my  ap'on,  'kase 
I  's  'feard  yo'  '11  spile  yo'  dress ; 
We  's  kinder  late  dis  mornin',  an' 
T'ings  is  all  in  a  mess. 

Heah,  Jim  !  bring  mammy  a  tu'n  er  wood 

(Yo'  dad  des  sont  a  load). 
Lize!   fetch  some  water  from  de  spring  — 

(Nigger,  doan'  brek  dat  gode !  ) 
How  's  all  yo'  folks  ?  Well  ?  Dat  is  good ; 

An'  we  all  des  is  prime. 
I  'm  gwine  to  tell  yo'  'bout  Term's  gal 

Ef  yo'  '11  des  gimme  time. 

Yer  see,  Torm  's  gone  an'  'gage'  heself 

Ter  a  likely  gal  —  but  min', 
She  ain't  no  yaller  nigger,  man  ! 

She  's  de  molliglassy  *  kine, 
Des  'bout  de  culler  ob  gingerbread  — 

Sis'  Jane!  whot  's    de  motter  wid  you  ! 
Yo'  face  'bout  as  long  as  two  o'  my  arms, 

An'  yo'  lips  is  fa'rly  blue. 

How  's  Torm,  yo'  say,  Sis'  Jane?  How  's  Torm  ? 
Why,  my  Torm,  he  's  all  right ; 

*  By  some  called  moligasker,  supposed  to  be  a  corruption  of 
Madagascar, 
t  Barbed-wire  fence. 


He  went  to  see  his  Sylvie  walk 

De  cake-walk  des  las'  night  — 
Bad  news  ?  I  spec  dat  shote  o'  mine 

Done  hang  in  de  bobby  cuet  fence; 
Lize  druv  him  out  a  while  ago, 

An'  he  hain't  nuwer  come  back  sence. 

Bad  news  'bout  Torm  ?  Go  'way,  Sis'  Jane ! 

'T  ain'  nothin'  happen  to  Torm ; 
He  's  haulin'  railroad  sills  to-day 

Down  on  ole  marster's  farm. 
De  railroad!  — dat  wuz  hit,  yer  say?  — 

De  railroad  danejus  place?  — 
Tell  me  de  Gospel  troof,  Sis'  Jane ! 

I  sees  death  in  yo'  face. 

De  train  come  tyarrin'  'long,  yer  say, 

An"  Torm  cyarn't  hoi'  de  hoss ; 
De  injine  shriek  so  furous  dat 

He  r'ar.  an'  pitch,  an'  toss, 
An  th'ow  Torm  out,  an'  den  de  wheels 

Des  strek  him  on  de  hade  ? 
An'  now  you  's  tryin'  ter  splain  ter  me 

Dat  my  toy  Torm  —  is  dade  ? 

'T  ain'  while  to  tell  me  dat,  Sis'  Jane! 

Torm  cuddent  die  'fore  me. 
Heish  !  what  's  dat  rumblin'  'long  de  road  ? 

Dey  's  bringin"  him  —  home —  ter  me  ? 
Lawd  Jesus !  come  hyar  to  me  now, 

An'  tell  me  what  I  done ! 
De  J^awd  hab  mussy  upon  me ! 

O  Torm !   my  son,  my  son  '. 

Sarah  A.  Pipit. 


960 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Ballade    of   Beseeching. 


(TO    MR.    A-ST-N   D-3S-N.) 

"  Virclais,  ballades,  and  verses  vain."    SPENSER. 

BALLADE,  quatorzain  too,  we  know. 

\Ve  know  rondeau  and  triolet. 
We  've  turned  a  villanelle  or  so, 

And  even  the  pantoum  we  have  met. 

Sestines  we  conned  (but  did  not  get 
Much  pleasure  from  them,  we  must  say) ; 

But  this  one  thing  escapes  us  yet  — 
Pray  tell  us  what  's  a  virelai. 

The  rondel's  mazes  to  and  fro 
We  trod,  lost  there  as  in  a  net. 

The  chant-royal  essayed  —  but  oh, 
We  left  it,  halfway,  in  a  pet: 
It  cannot  be  "  cast  in  one  jet  "  ; 

We  like,  beside,  a  thing  more  gay, 
Less  like  some  stately  minuet. 

Pray  tell  us  what  V  a  virelai. 

'T  is  now  too  late  to  school  to  go 
To  study  French  —  the  alphabet 

Of  parley-voo,  that  language  luau, 
We  never  learned,  to  our  regret, 
Else  even  that  task  ourselves  we  'd  set. 

Alas,  is  there  no  other  way  ? 

Our  flesh  we  're  losing  from  the  fret ! 

Pray  tell  us  what  's  a  virelai. 


Poet,  of  gratitude  our  debt 

I  s  greater,  now,  than  we  can  pay ; 

But  still  we  sue  (with  eyes  tear-wet)  — 
"  Pray  tell  us  what  's  a  virelai !  " 

Alice   Williams  Brotherton. 


Little   Mamma. 

WHY  is  it  the  children  don't  love  me 

As  they  do  mamma  ? 
That  they  put  her  ever  above  me  — 

"  Little  mamma  "  ? 
I  'm  sure  I  do  all  that  I  can  do. 
What  more  can  a  rather  big  man  do, 

Who  can't  be  mamma  — 
Little  mamma  ? 

Any  game  that  the  tyrants  suggest, 
"  Logomachy,"  —  which  I  detest, — 
Doll-babies,  hop-scotch,  or  base-ball, 
I  'm  always  on  hand  at  the  call. 
When  Noah  and  the  others  embark, 
I  'm  the  elephant  saved  in  the  ark. 
I  creep,  and  I  climb,  and  I  crawl  — 
By  turns  am  the  animals  all. 

For  the  show  on  the  stair 

I  'm  always  the  bear, 
The  chimpanzee,  or  the  kangaroo. 

It  is  never,  "  Mamma, — 
Little  mamma. — 
Won't  you?" 

My  umbrella's  the  pony,  if  any  — 

None  ride  on  mamma's  parasol ; 

I  'm  supposed  to  have  always  the  penny 

For  bon-bons,  and  beggars,  and  all. 

My  room  is  the  one  where  they  clatter  — 

Am  I  reading,  or  writing,  what  matter ! 


My  knee  is  the  one  for  a  trot, 
My  foot  is  the  stirrup  for  Dot. 
If  his  fractions  get  into  a  snarl 
Who  straightens  the  tangles  for  Karl? 
Who  bounds  Massachusetts  and  Maine, 
And  tries  to  bound  flimsy  old  Spain  ? 
Why, 

It  is  7, 
Papa, — 

Not  little  mamma ! 

That  the  youngsters  are  ingrates  don't  say. 

I  think  they  love  me  —  in  a  way  — 

As  one  does  the  old  clock  on  the  stair, — 

Any  curious,  cumbrous  affair 

That  one  's  used  to  having  about, 

And  would  feel  rather  lonely  without. 

I  think  that  they  love  me,  I  say, 

In  a  sort  of  tolerant  way ; 

But  it 's  plain  that  papa 
Is  n't  little  mamma. 

Thus  when  shadows  come  stealing  anear, 

And  things  in  the  firelight  look  queer; 

When  shadows  the  play-room  enwrap, 

They  never  climb  into  my  lap 

And  toy  with  my  head,  smooth  and  bare, 

As  they  do  with  mamma's  shining  hair ; 

Nor  feel  round  my  throat  and  my  chin 

For  dimples  to  put  fingers  in ; 

Nor  lock  my  neck  in  a  loving  vise 

And  say  they  Ve  "  mousies  " —  that  's  mice — 

And  will  nibble  my  ears, 

Will  nibble  and  bite 

With  their  little  mice-teeth,  so  sharp  and  so  white, 
If  I  do  not  kiss  them  this  very  minute  — 
Don't- wait-a-bit-but-at-once-begin-it. — 

Dear  little  papa! 

That  's  what  they  say  and  do  to  mamma. 

If,  mildly  hinting,  I  quietly  say  that 
Kissing  's  a  game  that  more  can  play  at, 
They  turn  up  at  once  those  innocent  eyes 
And  I  suddenly  learn  to  my  great  surprise 

That  my  face  has  "  prickles  " — 

My  mustache  tickles. 

If  storming  their  camp  I  seize  a  pert  shaver, 
And  take  as  a  right  what  was  asked  as  a  favor, 

It  is,  "  O  Papa, 

How  horrid  you  are  — 
You  taste  exactly  like  a  cigar !  " 

But  though  the  rebels  protest  and  pout, 
And  make  a  pretense  of  driving  me  out, 
I  hold,  after  all,  the  main  redoubt, — 
Not  by  force  of  arms  nor  the  force  of  will, 
But  the  power  of  love,  which  is  mightier  still. 
And  very  deep  in  their  hearts,  I  know, 
Under  the  saucy  and  petulant  "Oh," 
The  doubtful  "  Yes,"  or  the  naughty  "  No," 
They  love  papa. 

And  down  in  the  heart  that  no  one  sees, 
Where  I  hold  my  feasts  and  my  jubilees, 
I  know  that  I  would  not  abate  one  jot 
Of  the  love  that  is  held  by  my  little  Dot 
Or  my  great  big  boy  for  their  little  mamma, 
Though  out  in  the  cold  it  crowded  papa. 
I  would  not  abate  it  the  tiniest  whit, 
And  I  am  not  jealous  the  least  little  bit; 
For  I  '11  tell  you  a  secret :  Come,  my  dears, 
And  I  '11  whisper  it  —  right-into-your-ears — 
I  too  love  mamma, 
Little  mamma ! 

Charles  Henry  Webb. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS,  PRINTERS,  NEW  YORK. 


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