THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
GIFT OF
Mrs. Paul M. Grant
(prom Ike Picture Ly Stuart Newtoix. 1820.)
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
CHARLES MORRIS.
VOL. I.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1891.
LIBRARY
PNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
PEEFAOE.
THERE is no occasion that we should here enter into
any argument as to the value or the comparative position
of American literature. The time has gone by in which
a defensive attitude was necessary. This literature to
day stands fairly parallel with the best of that of other
nations, and we need but to point to the selections in the
following pages in evidence of this assertion. In fact, it
will suffice to say that a literature which possesses such
names as those of Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, and Motley
in history, Emerson and Edwards in philosophy, Haw
thorne, Cooper, Holmes, and James in fiction, Bryant,
Longfellow, Poe, Lowell, and Whittier in poetry, and
others of no less merit in other branches of authorship,
needs no advocate, but may be left to speak for itself.
Yet the development of this literature has taken place
in the face of discouraging obstacles, which fully account
for the slowness of its progress, and which have not yet
quite passed away. Of these obstacles we may briefly
speak. From the first settlement of this country until
well within the present century the colonists of America
were actively engaged in an absorbing labor, that of sub
duing a savage country and its equally savage inhabitants
to the conditions and the influences of civilization. Ere
this contest with nature was ended, an equally severe
one with European civilization began, a mortal struggle
against the cupidity, arrogance, and tyranny which the
Middle Ages had left as a heritage to Europe, and which
sought, like a giant foot, to crush down the eager young
vitality of the Western world. A third agency, which
iv PREFACE.
long absorbed the highest energies of the American intel
lect, was that of the establishment of a republican gov
ernment on a scale of grandeur never before attempted,
and this, not by the slow process of growth, as of old, but
by the rapid method of radical experiment and political
revolution.
All this undoubtedly exercised and strengthened the
American intellect, but it also narrowed the channel in
which it flowed. Eapid progress was made in political
science, and the effete political ideas which had been long
current in Europe were probed to their hollow hearts by
the fresh and radical doctrines of the thinkers of America.
And the prevailing spirit of practicalism found a voice
in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, the truest advocate
of hard common sense and every-day wisdom the world
has ever known. Europe in the eighteenth century pro
duced no writer superior in intellectual ability to Frank
lin ; yet the influences here detailed long acted to prevent
American thought from attaining the width and diversity
of expression displayed in European literature. There
has been, and still exists, yet another discouraging influ
ence, of which we may speak in passing. This is the
total absence of legal protection of our authors against
foreign competition. The law-makers of America early
and clearly perceived the necessity of protecting the
mechanical interests of the country, if any rapid develop
ment of industry was desired. But they failed, and still
fail, to perceive that the mental interests of the country
were exposed to a yet more severe competition and atood
still more in need of protection. Every untried American
book has been forced to compete in open market with
European books of established reputation, which were
sure of a profitable sale, and which could be had for the
taking, without need of compensation to the author.
PREFACE. V
No one will deny that the fullest and widest unfoldment
of the intellect of a nation is the condition best adapted
to the advancement of all the interests of that nation,
physical, mental, and spiritual. But it must be affirmed
that the inducements to this broad intellectual develop
ment in the United States have been in considerable
measure withheld, with the resultant tendency to yield a
narrowed and one-sided intellectual activity. In this re
spect our legislators have been derelict in their duty to
their constituents, and, while tenderly fostering the phys
ical interests of the country, have left its intellectual in
terests to take care of themselves, blind to the fact that
literature is a tender plant, which needs to be sedulously
encouraged, and that a developed intellect is the highest
product of any civilization.
Yet in spite of all these restrictions and discourage
ments there is an American literature, and a very consid
erable and diversified one. We do not propose to enter
into any detailed examination of its steps of development.
We need simply repeat that up to the beginning of this cen
tury very little literary work of a high class of merit had
been performed, and that what had appeared was mainly
in the line of political thought. In this latter direction
several writers of great ability had arisen. With the
opening of the nineteenth century a broader development
began, with the work of a few writers of diversified in
tellectual powers. Yet the century was well advanced
ere the growing wealth, increased leisure, and advanced
education of the people of this country yielded the con
ditions essential to any decided progress in literature. Of
American writers of declared ability in the eighteenth
century we may cite the names of Jonathan Edwards,
Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Thomas Paine, and
Thomas Jefferson. In the first quarter of the nineteenth
v [ PREFACE.
century a grade of literature no higher in thought, but
finer in finish and broader in scope, appeared, and in the
works of Washington Irving the richest powers and most
cultured style of contemporary European authors were
equalled. We might name other able writers of that
period, but it may best be looked upon as a brooding era,
a period of intellectual incubation, during which the
young thought of America was gaining its wings and
preparing for a free and lofty flight. The true age of
high activity of American literature, therefore, may be
viewed as that of the last half-century. During this
period the physical and political obstructions to the free
outgrowth of thought have in great measure disappeared.
The lack of copyright protection remains, with its ten
dency to restrict literary production to its lower and more
popular channels and to discourage the publication of
works of a higher class. Yet no bonds can confine the
mind of a nation when it has once gained a certain
strength. American thought has found its voice, in spite
of pecuniary restrictions, and the literary product of the
United States now fairly vies in quality as well as in
quantity with that of any European nation.
The names of our meritorious authors of recent date
are far too numerous to be here given, and in evidence of
their intellectual ability and literary skill we offer this
work, as a repertory of choice selections from the best
writers of America. We have endeavored to diversify
these selections as much as possible, and to include ex
tracts alike from the provinces of reasoning and descrip
tion, such as science, theology, philosophy, travel, history,
and criticism, and from those of imagination, such as
poetry, fiction, and humor.
It has not been our purpose, however, to attempt a
survey of the entire field of American literature. Some
PREFACE. vii
authors of established reputation have been omitted.
Others but little known to general readers have been in
troduced. We have been controlled rather by the liter
ary merit and diversity of interest in the matter than by
the name of the author, our desire being to please and
instruct readers, and not to offer any estimate as to the
comparative standing of writers. In particular we have
avoided works of a technical character, however merito
rious in their particular provinces, and also the more solid
products of philosophy, theology, and the like weighty
subjects ; it being borne constantly in mind that it is to
the general reading public that this work is offered, and
that it should therefore contain nothing that may prove
laborious to read or difficult to understand.
From the lighter literature of America we have gleaned
more broadly, to the extent that the works of novelists,
humorists, and miscellaneous writers offered the oppor
tunity for a judicious short selection. This has not been
possible in the case of several writers of good standing in
public estimation, particularly of some of our most meri
torious novelists, their works being of value as wholes
only, and presenting no special interest in a fragmentary
state. In many cases, indeed, the stamp of public appro
bation has been set on works which did not fairly deserve
and cannot retain it. But numerous other works have
sunk out of sight of the reading world not from lack of
merit, but through the pressure of new and often inferior
applicants for public favor. From this older wine of
thought we have drawn to the extent that space per
mitted, though the somewhat inconvenient number of
meritorious writers has rendered many omissions neces
sary.
We here take the opportunity to return thanks and ex
press our sense of deep obligation to the several authors
viii PREFACE.
and publishers who have, with much courtesy and kind
ness, granted us permission to use extracts from their
copyrighted works. The books and authors from whom
selections have been made are sufficiently indicated in the
biographical notices attached to the several articles, and
we beg to offer to these authors in that form our ac
knowledgment of their courtesy. To the publishers to
whose kindness we are indebted we can but express our
thanks for the courteous willingness with which they
have permitted us to use extracts from their highly -valu
able material.
Acknowledgment of such favors is due to Messrs.
Roberts Brothers, Ticknor & Co., Lee & Shepherd, Estes
& Lauriat, and Cupples, Upham & Co., of Boston ; Harper
& Brothers, Charles Scribner's Sons, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
D. Appleton & Co., Henry Holt & Co., Fords, Howard &
Hurlbut, American Tract Society, and Funk & Wagnalls,
of New York; American Publishing Company, of Hart
ford ; J. B. Lippincott Company, Porter & Coates, and D.
McKay, of Philadelphia ; S. C. Griggs & Co., and E. R.
Donnelley & Sons, of Chicago.
Especial acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Houghton,
Miffiin & Co. for allowing us to use selections from the
following eminent American authors, whose works they
publish :
Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Hawthorne, Holmes,
Lowell, Aldrich, Agassiz, Burroughs, Alice and Phoebo
Gary, Fields, Bret Harte, Hay, Howells, Miss Jewett,
Miss Larcom, Parton, Piatt, Miss Phelps, Saxe, Stedman,
Mrs. Stowe, Thoreau, Ticknor, Warner, R. G-. White,
Whipple, and Mrs. Whitney.
CHAELES MORRIS.
CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAO
Aspects of American Literature PARKE GODWIN 9
America the Old World Louis AGASSIZ 16
In the Hemlocks JOHN BURROUGHS 23
The Land Fever CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND . . 31
Rhoecus J. RUSSELL LOWELL .... 41
Every-Day Wisdom BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ... 46
The First Revolution of the Heavens wit
nessed by Man ORMSBY M. MITCHEL ... 53
Hezekiah Bedott F. M. WHITCHER 57
The Journey to Palmyra WILLIAM WARE 67
Kentucky Belle CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON ... 73
The Love of Trees HENRY WARD BEECHER . . 79
The Purloined Letter EDGAR ALLAN POE .... 85
The Blind Preacher . WILLIAM WIRT 102
Speech on Duluth J. PROCTOR KNOTT 107
Love's Young Dfeam VARIOUS 115
Love-Song of the Bedouins BAYARD TAYLOR 115
A Love-Song from the Persian T. B. ALDRICH 117
A Health E. C. PINKNEY 117
Annabel Lee E. A. POE 119
A Warning J. G. WHITTIER 120
The Duke's Plot JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY . . 121
My Chateaux GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS . . 129
The Character of Washington THOMAS JEFFERSON .... 140
The Ride of the Avengers THEODORE WINTHROP . . . 143
My Child JOHN PIERPONT 152
A Bee-Hunt WASHINGTON IRVING .... 155
Approaching the Alps CORNELIUS C. FELTON . . . 159
The Monarch of Tezcuco WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT ... 16 1
The Energy of Youth E. P. WHIPPLE 174
A Summer Day's Idyl L. M. ALCOTT 178
The Hasty Pudding JOEL BARLOW 136
ix
x CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE
Vagrant Children THEODORE PARKER . . 193
The Pleasures of Gardening CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER . 198
Boston Transcendentalism A; D. T. WHITNEY 203
Reply to Hayne DANIEL WEBSTER 210
Thanatopsis WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT . 215
The Use of Time JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE . . 218
How I came to Buy a Farm BAYARD TAYLOR 228
Roman Antiquities at Nimes HENRY JAMES, JR 237
The Royal Gorge ERNEST INGERSOLL .... 244
The Meaning of Infancy JOHN FISKE 254
Old Virginia JAMES PARTON 261
The Revolving Seasons VARIOUS 271
April EMERSON 271
Ma f HELEN HUNT 271
1 J. G. PERCIVAL 272
f ELIZABETH AKERS .... 273
' U.R. LOWELL 274
Summer. . f EDITH MAY .' 276
I ROSE TERRY 277
Autumn , R. H. STODDARD 278
H. W. LOVGFELLOW ... 280
Winter. The Snow-Storm R. W. EMERSON 280
The Frost HANNAH F. GOULD .... 281
The Closing Year GEORGE D. PRENTICE ... 282
The Mocking-Bird JOHN JAMES AUDUBON . . . 285
The Wood-Thrush " " " ... 288
Quotation and Originality R. W. EMERSON 291
Long Tom Coffin JAMES FENIMORE COOPER . . 302
The Value of Education . . HORACE MANN 313
Betsey and I are Out WILL CARLETON 319
How Betsey and I Made Up " " 324
The Arabian Civilization in Spain .... JOHN W. DRAPER 328
Dialogue between Truth and Peace .... ROGER WILLIAMS 341
In the Arctic Seas ISAAC I. HAYES 344
Imperishable Memories EDWARD EVERETT 358
Encounter with a Panther CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN . 363
Thanksgiving ALICE GARY 368
The Indians JOSEPH STORY 376
The Importance of Classical Learning . . " " 379
Free Schools " " 380
Anecdotes of Thackeray JAMES T. FIELDS 381
Books and Reading NOAH PORTER 394
CONTENTS. xi
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE
An Ancient Chariot-Race LEWIS WALLACE 405
An Artist in Whitewash SAMUEL L. CLEMENS .... 420
Befogging a Guide " " .... 425
A Garland of Flower-Poems VARIOUS 429
Flowers H. W. LONGFELLOW .... 430
The Wild Honeysuckle PHILIP FRENEAU 432
The Trailing Arbutus ROSE TERRY 433
The Violet W. W. STORY 434
A Violet . . . A. D. T. WHITNEY 435
The Bluebells of New England T. B. ALDRICH 436
The Rhodora R. W. EMERSON 437
The Death of the Flowers W. C. BRYANT 438
Braddock's Defeat FRANCIS PARKMAN .... 439
The Idea of Deity 0. B. FROTHINGHAM .... 449
The White Stone Canoe HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAPT . . 458
Military Insubordination HENRY CLAY 463
A Ride in a Palace-Car HELEN HUNT JACKSON ... 467
Symphony SIDNEY LANIER 479
The Autocrat's Opinions OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES . 487
The Understone World " " " .487
Truth and Falsehood " " " .489
The Side-Door to the Heart " " " .490
The Clock of Life " " " . 491
Growing Beyond " " " .492
Conditions of Language- Variation .... RICHARD GRANT WHITE . . 493
An Heroic Combat . . WASHINGTON IRVING .... 502
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
PARKE GODWIN.
[The paper which we have selected for our opening Half-Hour, on
account of its able presentation of the claims of American literature to
American readers, is from the pen of Parke Godwin, one of our best-
known and most clever journalists. It is chosen from his volume of
thoughtful and suggestive essays, entitled "Out of the Past." Mr.
Godwin was born at Paterson, New Jersey, February 25, 1816, and
is the son of an officer of the war of 1812, and the grandson of a Kevo-
lutionary soldier. He has long been identified with New York jour
nalism, and was associated with William Cullen Bryant, his father-in-
law, in the editorship of the New York Evening Post, from 1837 to
1853. He is the author of very many periodical papers, of the first
volume of a " History of France," of a " Life of William Cullen
Bryant," published in 1883, and of several other works and trans
lations.]
IT would be absurd to expect of us, in this the seven
tieth year of an independent national existence, as full
and rich a literary growth as that of the older nations,
absurd, for the reason that we have had no time to pro
duce it in, while our intellectual energies have been ab-
9
10 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GODWIN
sorbed in other ways. A man who has his fields to clear,
his house to build, his shoes and clothing to make, his
ways of access to his neighbors to open, and, above all,
his government and social order to invent and institute,
in short, who has to provide by dint of the severest toil
for the most immediate and pressing wants of his exist
ence, is not the man who constructs epics, or amuses his
fancy with the invention of dramas or tales. His epics
and dramas and romances he finds in his work. The
giants of the woods are the giants most formidable to
him, and whose conquest is more important than any
imagination might conjure from the dim twilight of
mythology. He is battling face to face with the frost
and hail and mud jotuns that Carlyle speaks of; and,
while the battle lasts, he has as little relish as he has
opportunity for idle songs about them. Let him be
deeply engaged the while in a novel and somewhat mo
mentous political experiment, working out into practical
and victorious solution a problem in which the destinies
of half a world are involved, and the stern and trying
task laid upon him will scarcely permit of his turning
aside to the gentle and capricious arts. If, therefore, the
whole of his earlier life should exhibit an absolute want
of literary result, the fact would not argue against his
capacity for that kind of production, but simply that his
powers had been diverted into other channels. But this
consideration is so obvious that we need not press it
further.
Again, if in the progress of wealth and leisure, with
the growth of intellectual wants and refinements, we
should find him prone to imitate the artistic efforts of
those who had gone before, it would merely show a very
common trait of youth. .Nothing is more natural than
for juniors to copy their seniors. Even men and nations
GODWIN] ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. H
endowed with indisputable genius are apt, in their first
crude endeavors, to pursue the paths and ape the man
ners of their predecessors, whose successes they admire,
and for whose qualities they feel a kindred sympathy,
but the secrets of whose self-dependence they have not
yet learned. Fearful at first of the strength of their
untried wings, though full of impulse for flight, like
young birds they watch the motions of their elders, until
in due time they may themselves launch forth into the
air. Indeed, we remember years ago to have read the
work of some unrecognized Western philosopher who
maintained with an abundance of instances to confirm
his theory that early imitation is a characteristic mark
of genius, and that the greatest of men have begun their
careers by a more or less conscious adoption of some
much-loved model. . . .
Now, all this being admitted, the question of American
originality narrows itself down to this, whether the stock
has degenerated by crossing the ocean, or in being exposed
to the different influences of new natural and social con
ditions? Do such of us as have devoted our energies to
literature give evidence of deterioration and decay, or
is the old vigor still in our loins ?
We think that no fair mind can hesitate as to the
answer. We believe that our authors have at least not
retrograded. On the other hand, we believe that they
are worthy scions of the old stock; and, more than that,
that under the inspiration of a new order of things, such
as exists in this country, they have laid the foundations
of a peculiar literature, not yet copious, not yet com
parable for richness, depth, variety, or grace with either
of the ancient or modern literatures, but still full of native
freshness and promise. Like a noble youth rounding
into manhood, we are wild, extravagant, and impulsive,
12 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GODWIN
betraying the faults of want of discipline and culture, but
strong in the consciousness of mighty powers, and bound
ing forward to a future of glorious developments.
Nol we may not point to bright galaxies like those
which shed lustre from other heavens; we have no
thickly-studded constellations and luminous groups scat
tered all above us; but we do claim single stars that
shine with an unborrowed and unfading brilliancy. Few
will be disposed to deny that in metaphysics and moral
reasoning Jonathan Edwards is of the same order of men
with Locke and Butler ; that in experimental philosophy
Franklin, and in the science of navigation Bowditch, aro
names consecrated by history ; that Hamilton, Jefferson,
and Madison rank with the statesmen of any age ; that
the historians Bancroft and Prescott take their places by
the side of the best modern historians, whether we regard
the accuracy of their research or the perspicuity and
finish of their style ; that Cooper, as a novelist, is only
inferior to Scott, to whom all others are inferior ; that
the pleasant essays of Irving fear no comparison with
those of Addison and Goldsmith; and that poems of
Bryant will be read with delight as long as Gray's Elegy,
or Coleridge's Genevieve, or Milton's Lycidas, or Burns's
songs, because, like those immortal productions, they are
perfect in their kind. When, moreover, we name the
only eloquence in our language which approaches the
comprehensive and masterly speeches of Burke, we recall
that of Webster ; the artist of modern artists who ap
proaches nearest to Titian is Allston ; the liveliest maga-
zinist of the day, not excepting Jules Janin, is Willis ;
the woman who has written a book which has had a
wider instant circulation than the book of any other
woman is Mrs. Stowe. Well, this is not much : it is not
Shakespeare, Milton, or Bacon, it is not Swift, Fielding,
GODWIN] ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 13
Thackeray ; but it is some proof of what we contend for,
that the old Saxon blood has not turned to water in
our veins, nor the old fire of the heart become a putrid
phosphor.
It is a piece of unworthy prejudice to pretend that
our leading writers are only second editions of European
celebrities. Cooper is no more an imitator of Scott than
is Bulwer or Dickens : his materials and his methods of
presenting them are his own; and no man not born in
America, in the shadow of her primeval woods, under the
inspirations of her unsettled pioneer, could have written
any of the best of his works. Bryant is wholly Ameri
can, or if he resembles Wordsworth or Cowper it is
because he writes English with the deep meditative wis
dom of the one and the pensive grace of the other ; but
neither Wordsworth nor Cowper has written more true,
beautiful, or indestructible poems than the Waterfowl or
the Prairies. Whom does Emerson imitate ? Carlyle !
Why, with scarcely a quality in common with Carlyle,
he is just as much the superior of Carlyle in clearness
and depth of insight as he is in simplicity and melody of
style. Has Mr. Dana a prototype? has Channing? has
Audubon ? has Webster ? has Hawthorne ? has Melville ?
has Uncle Tom ?
There always must be more or less of structural uni
formity in the literature of nations which speak the same
language. Out of the same deep heart of the national
life from which language comes, literature also is born ;
and those mysterious indwelling causes, and hardly less
mysterious external influences, which mould and modify
the one, must give form and color to the other. It is im
possible to separate ourselves wholly from the features or
the predominant traits of our parents. Had the earlier
settlers of this country been French or German, as they
2
14 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GODWIN
were English, our subsequent growth would probably
have partaken of a French or German bias. What liter
ature we might have created would have borne a family
likeness to Yoltaire or Goethe, to Victor Hugo or Freili-
grath, instead of to Milton and Sir Walter Scott, to
Addison and Pope ; and we should in that event have
had to struggle ourselves clear of German mysticism and
French elegance, as we now have to make our way out of
the heavy and melancholy gravity of John Bull.
But this resemblance between our own literature and
that of England, springing from an identity of race and
tongue, made especially apparent during the formative
and transitional stages of our growth, will not prevent
a new, self-prompted development in the maturer future.
Already we have cut ourselves loose from the leading-
strings which were inevitable to our childhood, not in
our political system only, but in our manners, morals, and
arts ; and, under the various influences pouring in upon
us from the vast accessions to our population from
the Old World, our whole literary and social character
is undergoing change. This is not the place to speak
of the social indications, but, as it regards the liter
ary, we allege that our younger writers abound in the
unmistakable evidences of a new and vigorous direc
tion given to their habits of feeling and thought.
They are not only less English than their predecessors
were, they are not only more universal in their
affinities and tastes, the consequence of wider sympa
thies and the infusion of the European element, but
they are more entirely independent and self-sustained.
They have a more decided character of their own. A
certain ready, open impressibility, which takes in all the
wonders of nature and all the excellences of art and has a
quick feeling for every variety of human character, is
GODWIN] ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 15
the mark of most of them, accompanied by a fresh,
buoyant, genial enthusiasm. Without losing the earnest
ness of their northern origin, they have had superin
duced upon it the volatile and graceful vivacity of the
south ; they are more external, sensuous, impassioned /
but none the less intense and thoughtful. The Saxon
and the Celtic bloods unite in their veins, giving bril
liancy and facility to a foundation of endurance and
power.
It is scarcely time for these new combinations to show
themselves in full force, except in practical enterprise,
where our achievements both in grandeur of conception
and force of execution surpass all that is recorded in
modern annals; but in that branch of literature which
comes nearest to enterprise in narratives of travel
there are many signs of departure from the old types.
Stephens in Central America, Melville in the South
Seas, Curtis in Egypt and Syria, have marked out styles
of their own, each differing from the other, and each dif
fering from any travellers that have gone before them.
They are full of freshness and broad sensuous life, not
like the worn-out debauchees of Europe, who travel to
get rid of themselves or to find a new sensation, but
like marvellously wise children, capable of surprises, but
accepting all novelties with good-humor, indeed, with
a certain rollicking fun in them, and yet estimating
things at their true value with unerring practical sa
gacity.
Among our nascent poets, too, such as Lowell, Boker,
Bead, Taylor, and Stoddard, we discern the earnest of a
departure from old methods, and an entrance upon a new
and original career. They are more free, frank, and ex
pansive than the modern British poets, and superadd to
the concentrated force and strength of their insular
16 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
models a more affluent, richly-colored, and catholic view
of life. A luxuriance, as of some deep virgin soil shoot
ing up into weedy extravagance at times, betrays the in
spiration of our prolific nature, and reminds us of broad
rivers and lakes, flowery prairies and interminable leafy
woods. Their faults, mainly, are faults of excess, and not
of deficiency. They want discipline, but they do not
want sensibility nor native vigor. They have the hale,
ruddy-complexioned look of health, and, above all, a sin
cere, fearless spirit, which betokens the capacity for lusty
human growth. Let them be true to the promises of
their youth, and their manhood will ripen into luscious
and fragrant fulfilments.
AMERICA THE OLD WORLD.
LOUIS AGASSIZ.
[Though America may justly he called the New World, so far as
the outgrowth of civilization and the knowledge of the earth's surface
by enlightened men are concerned, yet geologically it claims prece
dence as the Old World, the first region of the earth to lift its head
ahove the primeval ocean and to sustain itself against the encroach
ing waves of all succeeding seas. This we are told hy one not Amer
ican in birth, but so long a citizen of our country and so thoroughly
identified with its interest that we can fairly claim him as a member
of the guild of American authors. No man, in fact, has done more
for the scientific advancement of America, and for the interest of the
higher education in this land, than Louis Agassiz, the Swiss savant
who came to our shores already well laden with years and fame, both
of which he doubled upon our soil.
Louis Jean Eudolphe Agassiz was born in Motier, near Lake Neuf-
chatel, Switzerland, in 1807. His study of the fresh-water and the
fossil iislies of Europe, and his splendid works upon these two subjects,
AGASSIZ] AMERICA THE OLD WORLD. 17
brought him into the highest scientific reputation. He visited the
United States in 1846, where, in 1847, he was induced to become pro
fessor of zoology and geology in Harvard University. This post he
continued to hold till his death in 1873. He made a scientific visit to
Brazil in 1865, hut the labors of his later life were principally in the
United States, where he gave a decided impetus to the study of
science. Among his works are a " Monograph of Living and Fossil
Echinodermata," " Outlines of Comparative Physiology," " Princi
ples of Zoology," and " Contributions to the Natural History of the
United States." E. P. Whipple says of him (in his " Character and
Characteristic Men"), " In the operation of his mind there is no pre
dominance of any single power, but the intellectual action of what we
feel to be a powerful nature. When he observes, his whole mind enters
into the art of observation ; just as, when he reasons, his whole mind
enters into the art of reasoning. . . . He is not merely a scientific
thinker ; he is a scientific force ; and no small portion of the immense
influence which he exerts is due to the energy, intensity, and ge
niality which distinguish the nature of the man. . . . He is at once
one of the most dominating and one of the most sympathetic of men,
having the qualities of leader and companion combined in singular
harmony." From his "Sketches of Creation," a volume of popular
geological essays, distinguished for their simplicity, clearness, and
attractiveness of diction, we make the following extract.]
FIRST-BORN among the continents, though so much later
in culture and civilization than some of more recent birth,
America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has
been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the
first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore
washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside j
and while Europe was represented only by islands rising
here and there above the sea, America already stretched
an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the Far
West. . . .
There is perhaps no part of the world, certainly none
familiar to science, where the early geological periods can
be studied with so much ease and precision as in the
b 2*
18 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [AaAssiz
United States. Along their northern borders, between
Canada and the United States, there runs the low line of
hills known as the Laurentian Hills. Insignificant in
height, nowhere rising more than fifteen hundred or two
thousand feet above the level of the sea, these are never
theless the first mountains that broke the uniform level
of the earth's surface and lifted themselves above the
waters. Their low stature, as compared with that of
other more lofty mountain-ranges, is in accordance with
an invariable rule by which the relative age of mountains
may be estimated. The oldest mountains are the lowest,
while the younger and more recent ones tower above their
elders, and are usually more torn and dislocated also.
This is easily understood, when we remember that all
mountains and mountain-chains are the result of up
heavals, and that the violence of the outbreak must have
been in proportion to the strength of the resistance.
When the crust of the earth was so thin that the heated
masses within easily broke through it, they were not
thrown to so great a height, and formed comparatively
low elevations, such as the Canadian hills or the mountains
of Bretagne and Wales. But in later times, when young,
vigorous giants, such as the Alps, the Himalayas, or, later
still, the Eocky Mountains, forced their way out from their
fiery prison-house, the crust of the earth was much thicker,
and fearful indeed must have been the convulsions which
attended their exit.
The Laurentian Hills form, then, a granite range stretch
ing from Eastern Canada to the Upper Mississippi, and
immediately along its base are gathered the Azoic de
posits, the first stratified beds, in which the absence of
life need not surprise us, since they were formed beneath
a heated ocean. As well might we expect to find the re
mains of fish or shells or crabs at the bottom of geysers
AGASSIZ] AMERICA THE OLD WORLD. 19
or of boiling springs, as on those early shores bathed by
an ocean of which the heat must have been so intense.
Although, from the condition in which we find it, this
first granite range has evidently never been disturbed by
any violent convulsion since its first upheaval, yet there
has been a gradual rising of that part of the continent,
for the Azoic beds do not lie horizontally along the base
of the Laurentian Hills in the position in which they
must originally have been deposited, but are lifted and
rest against their slopes. They have been more or less
dislocated in this process, and are greatly metamorphized
by the intense heat to which they must have been ex
posed. Indeed, all the oldest stratified rocks have been
baked by the prolonged action of heat. . . .
Such, then, was the earliest American land, a long,
narrow island, almost continental in its proportions, since
it stretched from the eastern borders of Canada nearly to
the point where now the base of the Rocky Mountains
meets the plain of the Mississippi Yalley. We may still
walk along its ridge and know that we tread upon the an
cient granite that first divided the waters into a northern
and southern ocean ; and, if our imaginations will carry us
so far, we may look down toward its base and fancy how
the sea washed against this earliest shore of a lifeless
world. This is no romance, but the bald, simple truth ; for
the fact that this granite band was lifted out of the waters
so early in the history of the world, and has not since been
submerged, has, of course, prevented any subsequent de
posits from forming above it. And this is true of all the
northern part of the United States. It has been lifted
gradually, the beds deposited in one period being subse
quently raised, and forming a shore along which those of
the succeeding one collected, so that we have their whole
sequence before us. In regions where all the geological
20 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [AGASSIZ
deposits Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian,
Triassic, etc. are piled one upon another, and we can get
a glimpse of their internal relations only where some rent
has laid them open, or where their ragged edges, worn
away by the abrading action of external influences, ex
pose to view their successive layers, it must, of course,
be more difficult to follow their connection. For this
reason the American continent offers facilities to the
geologist denied to him in the so-called' Old World,
where the earlier deposits are comparatively hidden, and
the broken character of the land, intersected by moun
tains in every direction, renders his investigation still
more difficult. . . .
With what interest do we look upon any relic of early
human history ! The monument that tells of a civiliza
tion whose hieroglyphic records we cannot even decipher,
the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and left no
sign of its life except the rough tools and utensils buried
in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagi
nation and excites our curiosity. Men gaze with awe at
the inscription on an ancient Egyptian or Assyrian stone ;
they hold with reverential touch the yellow parchment-
roll whose dim, defaced characters record the meagre
learning of a buried nationality ; and the announcement
that for centuries the tropical forests of Central America
have hidden within their tangled growth the ruined
homes and temples of a past race stirs the civilized
world with a strange, deep wonder.
To me it seems that to look on the first land that was
ever lifted above the waste of waters, to follow the shore
where the earliest animals and plants were created when
the thought of God first expressed itself in organic forms,
to hold in one's hand a bit of stone from an old sea-
beach, hardened into rock thousands of centuries ago, and
AGASSIZ] AMERICA THE OLD WORLD. 21
studded with the beings that once crept upon its surface,
or were stranded there by some retreating wave, is even
of deeper interest to men than the relics of their own
race, for these things tell more directly of the thoughts
and creative acts of God.
Standing in the neighborhood of Whitehall, near Lake
George, one may look along such a sea-shore, and see it
stretching westward and sloping gently southward as far
as the eye can reach. It must have had a very gradual
slope, and the waters must have been very shallow ; for
at that time no great mountains had been uplifted, and
deep oceans are always the concomitants of lofty heights.
We do not, however, judge of this by inference merely :
we have an evidence of the shallowness of the sea in those
days in the character of the shells found in the Silurian
deposits, which shows that they belonged in shoal waters.
Indeed, the fossil remains of all times tell us almost as
much of the physical condition of the world at different
epochs as they do of its animal and vegetable population.
When Robinson Crusoe first caught sight of .the footprint
on the sand, he saw in it more than the mere footprint, for
it spoke to him of the presence of men on his desert island.
We walk on the old geological shores, like Crusoe along
his beach, and the footprints we find there tell us, too,
more than we actually see in them. The crust of our earth
is a great cemetery, where the rocks are tombstones on
which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs.
They tell us not only who they were and when and where
they lived, but much also of the circumstances under which
they lived. We ascertain the prevalence of certain physi
cal conditions at special epochs by the presence of animals
and plants whose existence and maintenance required such
a state of things, more than by any positive knowledge
respecting it. Where we find the remains of quadrupeds
22 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [AoAssiz
corresponding to our ruminating animals, we infer not
only land, but grassy meadows also, and an extensive
vegetation ; where we find none but marine animals, we
know the ocean must have covered the earth ; the remains
of large reptiles, representing, though in gigantic size, the
half-aquatic, half-terrestrial reptiles of our own period, in
dicate to us the existence of spreading marshes still soaked
by the retreating waters ; while the traces of such animals
as live now in sand and shoal waters, or in mud, speak to
us of shelving sandy beaches and of mud-flats. The eye
of the Trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach
where he lived ; for there is nothing in nature without a
purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made to
receive the light, there must have been light to enter it.
The immense vegetable deposits in the Carboniferous
period announce the introduction of an extensive terres
trial vegetation ; and the impressions left by the wood and
leaves of the trees show that these first forests must have
grown in a damp soil and a moist atmosphere. In short,
all the remains of animals and plants hidden in the rocks
have something to tell of the climatic conditions and the
general circumstances under which they lived, and the
study of fossils is to the naturalist a thermometer by which
he reads the variations of temperature in past times, a
plummet by which he sounds the depths of the ancient
oceans, a register, in fact, of all the important physical
changes the earth has undergone.
BURROUGHS] IN THE HEMLOCKS. 23
IN THE HEMLOCKS.
JOHN BURROUGHS.
[The author of this attractive study of Nature in Nature's own
haunts was born at Koxbury, New York, April 3, 1837. He is an en
thusiastic observer of life in the woods and fields, particularly of bird-
life, and enough of the open-air freshness and vitality has crept into
his writings to give them a wide-spread popularity. In addition to
many contributions to periodicals, he has published " Wake-Kobin,"
" Winter Sunshine," " Birds and Poets," " Locusts and Wild Honey,"
"Pepacton," "Fresh Fields," etc.]
MOST people receive with incredulity a statement of
the number of birds that annually visit our climate.
Yery few even are aware of half the number that spend
the summer in their own immediate vicinity. We little
suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose privacy we
are intruding upon, what rare and elegant visitants
from Mexico, from Central and South America, and from
the islands of the sea, are holding their reunions in the
branches over our heads, or pursuing their pleasure on
the ground before us.
I recall the altogether admirable and shining family
which Thoreau dreamed he saw in the upper chambers
of Spaulding's woods, which Spaulding did not know
lived there, and which were not put out when Spaulding,
whistling, drove his team through their lower hallfe.
They did not go into society in the village ; they were
quite well ; they had sons and daughters ; they neither
wove nor spun ; there was a sound as of suppressed
hilarity.
I take it for granted that the forester was only saying
a pretty thing of the birds, though I have observed that
it does sometimes annoy them when Spaulding's cart
24 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BURROUGHS
rumbles through their house. Generally, however, they
are as unconscious of Spaulding as Spaulding is of them.
Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I
counted over forty varieties of these summer visitants,
many of them common to other woods in the vicinity,
but quite a number peculiar to these ancient solitudes,
and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quite
unusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest,
and that not a large one, most of them nesting and
spending the summer there. . . .
The ancient hemlocks, whither I propose to take the
reader, are rich in many things beside birds. Indeed,
their wealth in this respect is owing mainly, no doubt, to
their rank vegetable growths, their fruitful swamps, and
their dark, sheltered retreats.
Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and torn
by the tanner in his thirst for bark, preyed upon by the
lumberman, assaulted and beaten back by the settler, still
their spirit has never been broken, their energies never
paralyzed. Not many years ago a public highway passed
through them, but it was at no time a tolerable road ;
trees fell across it, mud and limbs choked it up, till finally
travellers took the hint and went around ; and now,
walking along its deserted course, I see only the foot
prints of coons, foxes, and squirrels.
Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal upon
them. Here she shows me what can be done with ferns
and mosses and lichens. The soil is marrowy and full of
innumerable forests. Standing in these fragrant aisles, I
feel the strength of the vegetable kingdom, and am awed
by the deep and inscrutable processes of life going on so
silently about me.
No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these soli
tudes. The cows have half-hidden ways through them,
BURROUGHS] IN THE HEMLOCKS. 25
and know where the best browsing is to be had. In
spring the farmer repairs to their bordering of maples to
make sugar ; in July and August women and boys from
all the country about penetrate the old Bark-peelings for
raspberries and blackberries ; and I know a youth who
wonderingly follows their languid stream casting for
trout.
In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June
morning go I also to reap my harvest, pursuing a sweet
more delectable than sugar, fruit more savory than ber
ries, and game for another palate than that tickled by
trout.
June, of all the months, the student of ornithology can
least afford to lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in
full song and plumage. And what is a bird without its
song ? Do we not wait for the stranger to speak ? It
seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heard
its voice ; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses
a human interest to me. I have met the gray-cheeked
thrush (Turdus alicice) in the woods, and held him in my
hand ; still I do not know him. The silence of the cedar-
bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good
looks nor his petty larcenies in cherry-time can dispel. A
bird's song contains a clue to its life, and establishes
a sympathy, an understanding, between itself and the
listener.
I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks
through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I
hear all along the line of the forest the incessant warble
of the red-eyed fly-catcher ( Vireosylvia olivacea), cheerful
and happy as the merry whistle of a school-boy. He is
one of our most common and widely distributed birds.
Approach any forest at any hour of the day, in any kind
of weather, from May to August, in any of the Middle or
26 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BURROUGHS
Eastern districts, and the chances are that the first note
you hear will be his. Eain or shine, before noon or after,
in the deep forest or in the village grove, when it is too
hot for the thrushes or too cold and windy for the war
blers, it is never out of time or place for this little min
strel to indulge his cheerful strain. In the deep wilds of
the Adirondack, where few birds are seen and fewer heard,
his note was almost constantly in my ear. Always busy,
making it a point never to suspend for one moment his
occupation to indulge his musical taste, his lay is that of
industry and contentment. There is nothing plaintive or
especially musical in his performance, but the sentiment
expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the
songs of most birds have some human significance, which,
I think, is the source of the delight we take in them.
The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity ; the
song-sparrow's, faith ; the bluebird's, love ; the cat-bird's,
pride ; the white-eyed fly-catcher's, self-consciousness ;
that of the Lermit-thrush, spiritual serenity ; while there
is something military in the call of the robin. . . .
Passing down through the maple arches, barely pausing
to observe the antics of a trio of squirrels, two gray ones
and a black one, I cross an ancient brush fence and am
fairly within the old hemlocks, and in one of the most
primitive, undisturbed nooks. In the deep moss I tread
as with muffled feet, and the pupils of my eyes dilate in
the dim, almost religious light. The irreverent red squir
rels, however, run and snicker at my approach, or mock
the solitude with their ridiculous chattering and frisking.
This nook is the chosen haunt of the winter wren.
This is the only place and these the only woods in which
I find him in this vicinity. His voice fills these dim aisles,
as if aided by some marvellous sounding-board. Indeed,
his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a
BURROUGHS] IN THE tfEMLOCKS. 27
remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I think
of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know
it is the song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character ;
but you must needs look sharp to see the little minstrel,
especially while in the act of singing. He is nearly the
color of the ground and the leaves ; he never ascends the
tall trees, but keeps low, flitting from stump to stump and
from root to root, dodging in and out of his hiding-places,
and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has
a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more
than perpendicular: it points straight toward his head.
He is the least ostentatious singer I know of. He does
not strike an attitude, and lift up his head in preparation,
and, as it were, clear his throat, but sits there on a log
and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or
even down at the ground. As a songster he has but
few superiors. I do not hear him after the first week in
July. . . .
I am attracted by another warble in the same locality,
and experience a like difficulty in getting a good view of
the author of it. It is quite a noticeable strain, sharp
and sibilant, and sounds well amid the old trees. In the
upland woods of beech and maple it is a more familiar
soun'l than in these solitudes. On taking the bird in hand,
one Cannot help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" So tiny
and elegant, the smallest of the warblers ; a delicate blue
back , with a slight bronze-colored triangular spot between
the shoulders ; upper mandible black ; lower mandible
yellow as gold ; throat yellow, becoming a dark bronze on
the breast. Blue yellow-back he is called, though the
yellow is much nearer a bronze. He is remarkably delicate
and beautiful, the handsomest, as he is the smallest, of
the warblers known to me. It is never without surprise
that I find amid these rugged, savage aspects of Nature
28 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BURROUGHS
creatures so fairy and delicate. But such is the law. Go
to the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest
and the savagest you will find likewise the fairest and
the most delicate. The greatness and the minuteness of
Nature pass all understanding.
Ever since I entered the woods, even while listening
to the lesser songsters, or contemplating the silent forms
about me, a strain has reached my ears from out the
depths of the forest that to me is the finest sound in
nature, the song of the hermit-thrush. I often hear him
thus a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile
away, when only the stronger and more perfect parts of
his music reach me ; and through the general chorus of
wrens and warblers I detect this sound rising pure and
serene, as if a spirit from some remote height were slowly
chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to
the sentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene
religious beatitude as no other sound in nature does. It
is perhaps more of an evening than a morning hymn,
though I hear it at all hours of the day. It is very simple,
and I can hardly tell the secret of its charm. " O spheral,
spheral!" he seems to say; "O holy, holy! O clear away,
clear away ! O clear up, clear up !" interspersed with the
finest trills and the most delicate preludes. It is not a
proud, gorgeous strain, like the tanager's or the gross-
beak's ; suggests no passion or emotion, nothing personal,
but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity
one attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace
and a deep solemn joy that only the finest souls may
know. A few nights ago I ascended a mountain to see
the world by moonlight ; and when near the summit the
hermit commenced his evening hymn a few rods from
me. Listening to this strain on the lone mountain, with
the full moon just rounded from the horizon, the pomp
BURROUGHS] IN THE HEMLOCKS. 29
of your cities and the pride of your civilization seemed
trivial and cheap. . . .
I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in the
thin layer of mud. "When do these creatures travel here ?
I have never yet chanced to meet one. Here a par
tridge has set its foot ; there, a woodcock ; here, a squirrel
or mink; there, a skunk; there, a fox. What a clear,
nervous track reynard makes ! how easy to distinguish
it from that of a little dog, it is so sharply cut and
defined ! A dog's track is coarse and clumsy beside it.
There is as much wildness in the track of an animal as in
its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a goat's ?
What winged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred
from the sharp, braided track of the gray squirrel upon
the new snow! Ah! in nature is the best discipline.
How wood-life sharpens the senses, giving a new power
to the eye, the ear, the nose! And are not the rarest
and most exquisite songsters wood-birds ? . . .
My attention is soon arrested by a pair of humming
birds, the ruby-throated, disporting themselves in a low
bush a few yards from me. The female takes shelter
amid the branches, and squeaks exultingly as the male,
circling above, dives down as if to dislodge her. Seeing
me, he drops like a feather on a slender twig, and in a
moment both are gone. Then, as if by a preconcerted
signal, the throats are all atune. I lie on my back with
eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus of warblers,
thrushes, finches, and fly-catchers ; while, soaring above
all, a little withdrawn and alone, rises the divine soprano
of the hermit. That richly-modulated warble proceeding
from the top of yonder birch, and which unpractised ears
would mistake for the voice of the scarlet tanager, comes
from that rare visitant, the rose-breasted grossbeak. It is
a strong, vivacious strain, a bright noonday song, full of
3*
30 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BURROUGHS
health and assurance, indicating fine talents in the per
former, but not genius. As I come up under the tree he
casts his eye down at me, but continues his song. This
bird is said to be quite common in the Northwest, but he
is rare in the Eastern districts. His beak is disproportion
ately large and heavy, like a huge nose, which slightly
mars his good looks; but Nature has made it up to him in
a blush rose upon his breast, and the most delicate of pink
linings to the under side of his wings. His back is varie
gated black and white, and when flying low the white
shows conspicuously. If he passed over your head, you
would note the delicate flush under his wings.
That bit of bright scarlet on yonder dead hemlock, glow
ing like a live coal against the dark background, seeming
almost too brilliant for the severe Northern climate, is his
relative the scarlet tanager. I occasionally meet him in
the deep hemlocks, and know no stronger contrast in
nature. I almost fear he will kindle the dry limb on which
he alights. He is quite a solitary bird, and in this sec
tion seems to prefer the high, remote woods, even going
quite to the mountain's top. Indeed, the event of my last
visit to the mountain was meeting one of these brilliant
creatures near the summit, in full song. The breeze car
ried the notes far and wide. He seemed to enjoy the
elevation, and I imagined his song had more scope and
freedom than usual. When he had flown far down the
mountain-side, the breeze still brought me his finest notes
In plumage he is the most brilliant bird we have. The
bluebird is not entirely blue ; nor will the indigo bird bear
a close inspection, nor the goldfinch, nor the summer red-
bird. But the tanager loses nothing by a near view : the
deep scarlet of his body and the black of his wings and
tail are quite perfect. . . .
But the declining sun and the deepening shadows ad-
KIRKLAND] THE LAND TEVER. 31
monish me that this ramble must be brought to a close,
even though only the leading characters in this chorus of
forty songsters have been described, and only a small por
tion of the venerable old woods explored. In a secluded
swampy corner of the old Bark-peelings, where I find the
great purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man
or beast seems never to have trod, I linger long, contem
plating the wonderful display of lichens and mosses that
overrun both the smaller and the larger growths. Every
bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most rich
and fantastic of liveries ; and, crowning all, the long
bearded moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully
from the limbs. Every twig looks a century old, though
green leaves tip the end of it. A young yellow birch has
a venerable, patriarchal look, and seems ill at ease under
such premature honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as
if by hands for some solemn festival.
Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently
as the hush and stillness of twilight come upon the woods.
It is the sweetest, ripest hour of the day. And as the
hermit's evening hymn goes up from the deep solitude
below me, I experience that serene exaltation of sentiment
of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint
types and symbols.
THE LAND FEVER.
CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.
[The efforts of speculators to get possession of great blocks of West
ern lands were as strongly marked in the past as they are in the
present, and doubtless gave rise to many scenes like that which Mrs.
Kirkland has so humorously depicted in her " Western Clearings,"
an extract from which we give below. The contrast between the
32 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KIKKLANP
natural hospitality of the "Western settler and his hatred of the land-
grabbing speculator is admirably outlined in this amusing sketch.
Mrs. Kirkland, a native of the city of New York, resided for several
years after 1830 in Michigan, where she published "A New Home
'Who'll Follow?" "Forest Life," and "Western Clearings." There
are no more animated and graphic delineations of Western life, which
she depicts with equal truth and humor.]
[Mr. Willoughby, a belated traveller, stops in front of a rough log
house and accosts its tall and surly tenant.]
THIS individual and his dwelling resembled each other
in an unusual degree. The house was, as we have said,
of the roughest ; its ribs scarcely half filled in with clay ;
its " looped and windowed raggedness " rendered more
conspicuous by the tattered cotton sheets which had long
done duty as glass, and which now fluttered in every
breeze ; its roof of oak shingles, warped into every possible
curve ; and its stick chimney, so like its owner's hat, open
at the top and jammed in at the sides : all shadowed forth
the contour and equipments of the exceedingly easy and
self-satisfied person who leaned on the fence, and snapped
his long cart-whip, while he gave such answers as suited
him to the gentleman in the india-rubbers, taking especial
care not to invite him to alight.
" Can you tell me, my friend " civilly began Mr.
Willoughby.
" Oh, friend !" interrupted the settler ; " who told you
1 was your friend ? Friends is scuss in these parts."
" You have at least no reason to be otherwise," replied
the traveller, who was blessed with a very patient temper,
especially when there was no use in getting angry.
"I don't know that," was the reply. "What fetched
you into these woods ?"
" If I should say ' my horse,' the answer would perhaps
be as civil as the question."
KIRKLAND] THE LAND FEVER. 33
" Jist as you like," said the other, turning on his heel
and walking off.
" I wished merely to ask you," resumed Mr. Willoughby,
talking after the nonchalant son of the forest, " whether
this is Mr. Pepper's land."
" How do you know it ain't mine ?"
" I'm not likely to know at present, it seems," said the
traveller, whose patience was getting a little frayed.
And, taking out his memorandum-book, he ran over his
minutes : " South half of northwest quarter of section
fourteen Your name is Leander Pepper, is it not ?"
"Where did you get so much news? You ain't the
sheriff, he ye ?"
" Pop," screamed a white-headed urchin from the house,
" mam says supper's ready."
" So a'n't I," replied the papa : " I've got all my chores
to do yet." And he busied himself at a log pigsty on
the opposite side of the road, half as large as the dwell
ing-house. Here he was soon surrounded by a squealing
multitude, with whom he seemed to hold a regular con
versation.
Mr. Willoughby looked at the westering sun, which was
not far above the dense wall of trees that shut in the
small clearing ; then at the heavy clouds which advanced
from the north, threatening a stormy night; then at his
watch, and then at his note-book ; and, after all, at his
predicament, on the whole, an unpleasant prospect. But
at this moment a female face showed itself at the door.
Our traveller's memory reverted at once to the testimony
of Ledyard and Mungo Park ; and he had also some float
ing and indistinct poetical recollections of woman's being
useful when a man was in difficulties, though hard to
please at other times. The result of these reminiscences,
which occupied a precious second, was that Mr. Wil-
34 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KIRKLAND
loughby dismounted, fastened his horse to the fence, and
advanced with a brave and determined air, to throw him
self upon female kindness and sympathy.
He naturally looked at the lady, as he approached the
door, but she did not return the compliment. She looked
at the pigs, and talked to the children, and Mr. Wil-
loughby had time to observe that she was the very dupli
cate of her husband, as tall, as bony, as ragged, and twice
as cross-looking.
"Malviny Jane!" she exclaimed, in no dulcet treble,
" be done a-paddlin' in that 'ere water ! If I come there,
I'll "
"You'd better look at Sophrony, I guess," was the
reply.
"Why, what's she a-doin' ?"
" Well, I guess if you look you'll see," responded Miss
Malvina, coolly, as she passed into the house, leaving at
every step a full impression of her foot in the same black
mud that covered her sister from head to foot.
The latter was saluted with a hearty cuff as she
emerged from the puddle ; and it was just at the propi
tious moment when her shrill howl aroused the echoes,
that Mr. Willoughby, having reached the threshold, was
obliged to set about making the agreeable to the mamma.
And he called up for the occasion all his politeness.
" I believe I must become an intruder on y0ur hospi
tality for the night, madam," he began. The dame still
looked at the pigs. Mr. Willoughby tried again, in less
courtly phrase.
"Will it be convenient for you to lodge me to-night,
ma'am? I have been disappointed in my search for a
hunting-party, whom I had engaged to meet, and the
night threatens a storm."
" I don't know nothin' about it ; you must ask the old
KIRKLAND] THE LAND FEVER. 35
man," said the lady, now for the first time taking a survey
of the new-comer : " with my will, we'll lodge nobody."
This was not very encouraging ; but it was a poor night
for the woods : so our traveller persevered, and, making
so bold a push for the door that the lady was obliged to
retreat a little, he entered, and said he would wait her
husband's coming.
And in truth he could scarcely blame the cool reception
he had experienced, when he beheld the state of affairs
within those muddy precincts. The room was large, but
it swarmed with human beings. The huge open fireplace,
with its hearth of rough stone, occupied nearly the whole
of one end of the apartment ; and near it stood a long
cradle, containing a pair of twins, who cried a sort of
hopeless cry, as if they knew it would do no good, yet
could not help it. The schoolmaster (it was his week)
sat reading a tattered novel, and rocking the cradle oc
casionally when the children cried too loud. An old
gray-headed Indian was curiously crouched over a large
tub, shelling corn on the edge of a hoe ; but he ceased his
noisy employment when he saw the stranger, for no In
dian will ever willingly be seen at work, though he may
be sometimes compelled by the fear of starvation or the
longing for whiskey to degrade himself by labor. Near
the only window was placed the work-bench and entire
paraphernalia of the shoemaker, who in these regions
travels from house to house, shoeing the family and mend
ing the harness as he goes, with various interludes of
songs and jokes, ever new and acceptable. This one, who
was a little, bald, twinkling-eyed fellow, made the smoky
rafters ring with the burden of that favorite ditty of the
West,
" All kinds of game to hunt, my boys, also the buck and doe
All down by the banks of the river 0-hi-o 1"
36 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KIBKLAND
And children of all sizes, clattering in all keys, completed
the picture and the concert.
The supper-table, which maintained its place in the
midst of this living and restless mass, might remind one
of the square stone lying bedded in the bustling leaves of
the acanthus ; but the associations would be any but those
of Corinthian elegance. The only object which at that
moment diversified its dingy surface was an iron hoop,
into which the mistress of the feast proceeded to turn a
quantity of smoking-hot potatoes, adding afterward a bowl
of salt and another of pork-fat, by courtesy denominated
gravy : plates and knives dropped in afterward, at the dis
cretion of the company.
Another call of "Pop! pop!" brought in the host
from the pigsty ; the heavy rain which had now begun
to fall having, no doubt, expedited the performance of the
chores. Mr. Willoughby, who had established himself
resolutely, took advantage of a very cloudy assent from
the proprietor, to lead his horse to a shed and to deposit
in a corner his cumbrous outer gear; while the company
used in turn the iron skillet which served as a wash-basin,
dipping the water from a large trough outside, overflow
ing with the abundant drippings of the eaves. Those
who had no pocket-handkerchiefs contented themselves
with a nondescript article which seemed to stand for the
family towel ; and when this ceremony was concluded, all
seriously addressed themselves to the demolition of the
potatoes. The grown people were accommodated with
chairs and chests ; the children prosecuted a series of fly
ing raids upon the good cheer, snatching a potato now and
then as they could find an opening under the raised arm
of one of the family, and then retreating to the chimney-
corner, tossing the hot prize from hand to hand, and blow
ing it stoutly the while. The old Indian had disappeared.
KIKKLAND] THE LAND FEVER. 37
To our citizen, though he felt inconveniently hungry,
this primitive meal seemed a little meagre ; and he ven
tured to ask if he could not he accommodated with some
tea.
" Ain't my victuals good enough for you ?"
" Oh, the potatoes are excellent ; but I am very fond
of tea."
" So be I ; but I can't have everything I want : can
you ?"
This produced a laugh from the shoemaker, who seemed
to think his patron very witty, while the schoolmaster,
not knowing but the stranger might happen to be one of
his examiners next year, produced only a faint giggle,
and then, reducing his countenance instantly to an awful
gravity, helped himself to his seventh potato.
The rain, which now poured violently, not only outside
but through many a crevice in the roof, naturally kept
Mr. Willoughby cool ; and, finding that dry potatoes gave
him the hiccoughs, he withdrew from the table, and, seat
ing himself on the shoemaker's bench, took a survey of his
quarters.
Two double beds and the long cradle seemed all the
sleeping-apparatus ; but there was a ladder which doubt
less led to a lodging above. The sides of the room were
hung with abundance of decent clothing, and the dresser
was well stored with the usual articles, among which a
teapot and canister shone conspicuous : so that the ap
pearance of inhospitality could not arise from poverty,
and Mr. Willoughby concluded to set it down to the
account of rustic ignorance.
The eating ceased not until the hoop was empty, and
then the company rose and stretched themselves and
began to guess it was about time to go to bed. Mr.
Willoughby inquired what was to be done with his horse.
38 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
" Well, I s'pose he can stay where he is."
" But what can he have to eat ?"
" I reckon you won't get nothing for him, without you
turn him out on the mash."
" He would get off, to a certainty."
" Tie his legs."
The unfortunate traveller argued in vain. Hay waa
" scuss," and potatoes were " scusser ;" and, in short, the
" mash" was the only resource, and these natural meadows
afford but poor picking after the first of October. But to
the " mash" was the good steed despatched, ingloriously
hampered, with the privilege of munching wild grass in
the rain, after his day's journey.
Then came the question of lodging for his master.
The lady, who had by this time drawn out a trundle-bed
and packed it full of children, said there was no bed for
him, unless he could sleep " up chamber" with the boys.
Mr. Willoughby declared that he should make out very
well with a blanket by the fire.
"Well, just as you like," said his host; "but Solomon
sleeps there, and if you like to sleep by Solomon, it is
more than I should."
This was the name of the old Indian, and Mr. Wil
loughby once more cast woful glances toward the ladder.
But now the schoolmaster, who seemed rather disposed
to be civil, declared that he could sleep very well in the
long cradle, and would relinquish his place beside the
shoemaker to the guest, who was obliged to content him
self with this arrangement, which was such as was most
usual in these times.
The storm continued through the night, and many a
crash in the woods attested its power. The sound of a
storm in the dense forest is almost precisely similar to that
of a heavy surge breaking on a rocky beach ; and when
KIKKLAND] THE LAND FEVER. 39
our traveller slept, it was only to dream of wreck and dis
aster at sea, and to wake in horror and affright. The wild
rain drove in at every crevice, and wet the poor children
in the loft so thoroughly that they crawled shivering
down the ladder and stretched themselves on the hearth,
regardless of Solomon, who had returned after the others
were in bed.
But morning came at last ; and our friend, who had no
desire farther to test the vaunted hospitality of a Western
settler, was not among the latest astir. The storm had
partially subsided ; and although the clouds still lowered
angrily, and his saddle had enjoyed the benefit of a leak
in the roof during, the night, Mr. Willoughby resolved to
push on as far as the next clearing at least, hoping for
something for breakfast besides potatoes and salt. It took
him a weary w T hile to find his horse, and when he had sad
dled him, and strapped on his various accoutrements, he
entered the house, and inquired what he was to pay for his
entertainment, laying somewhat of a stress on the last
word.
His host, nothing daunted, replied that he guessed he
would let him off for a dollar.
Mr. Willoughby took out his purse, and as he placed a
silver dollar in the leathern palm outspread to receive it,
happening to look toward the hearth, and perceiving the
preparations for a very substantial breakfast, the long-
pent-up vexation burst forth.
" I really must say, Mr. Pepper " he began ; his tone
was certainly that of an angry man, but it only made his
host laugh.
" If this is your boasted Western hospitality, I can tell
you "
"You'd better tell me what the dickens you are pep-
perin' me up this fashion for! My name isn'lj Pepper, no
40 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
more than yours is ! Maybe that is your name : you seem
pretty warm."
" Your name not Pepper! Pray, what is it, then?"
" Ah ! there's the thing, now ! You land-hunters ought
to know sich things without askin'."
"Land-hunter! I'm no land-hunter!"
" Well, you're a land-shark, then, swallowin' up poor
men's farms. The less I see of such cattle, the better I'm
pleased."
"Confound you!" said Mr. Willoughby, who waxed
warm, " I tell you I've nothing to do with land. I wouldn't
take your whole State for a gift."
" What did you tell my woman you was a land-hunter
for, then ?"
And now the whole matter became clear in a moment ;
and it was found that Mr. Willoughby's equipment, with
the mention of a " hunting-party," had completely misled
both host and hostess. And, to do them justice, never
were regret and vexation more heartily expressed.
" You needn't judge our new-country folks by me," said
Mr. Handy, for such proved to be his name : " any man
in these parts would as soon bite off his own nose as to
snub a civil traveller that wanted a supper and a night's
lodgin'. But, somehow or other, your lots o' fixin', and
your askin' after that 'ere Pepper, one of the worst land-
sharks we've ever had here, made me mad ; and I know
T. treated you worse than an Indian."
" Humph !" said Solomon.
"But," continued the host, "you shall see whether my
old woman can't set a good breakfast when she's a mind
to. Come, you shan't stir a step till you've had breakfast.
And just take back this plaguy dollar : I wonder it didn't
burn my fingers when I took it."
Mrs. Handy set forth her very best, and a famous break-
LOWELL] RH(ECU$. 41
fast it was, considering the times. And before it was
finished, the hunting-party made their appearance, having
had some difficulty in finding their companion, who had
made no very uncommon mistake as to section corners
and town lines.
" I'll tell ye what," said Mr. Handy, confidentially, as
the cavalcade, with its baggage-ponies, loaded with tents,
gun-cases, and hampers of provisions, was getting into
order for a march to the prairies, " I'll tell ye what : if
you've occasion to stop anywhere in the Bush, you'd better
tell 'em at the first goin'-off that you ain't land-hunters."
"But Mr. Willoughby had already had " a caution."
RHGECUS.
J. RUSSELL LOWELL.
i
[We hardly need tell our readers who is the author of this charm
ing poetic rendition of an old Greek legend. No name should he
better known to cultured Americans than that of James Russell
Lowell, who, alike in prose and in poetry, stands almost at the head
of American writers. As a poet, indeed, many incline to rank him
first among our hards ; and for versatility of powers he has nowhere a
superior. From biting satire and the richest of humor he freely turns
to a tone of deep earnestness and profuse imagination, while in prose
he is as easy, fluent, rich in imagery, copious in illustration, and
forcible in reasoning as the most brilliant of American essayists. He
was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1819. Of his works we
may name " A Fable for Critics," " The Vision of Sir Launfal," " The
Biglow Papers," " Under the Willows," "Fireside Travels," and
"Among my Books."]
A YOUTH named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood,
Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall,
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree,
4*
42 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LOWELL
He propped its gray trunk with admiring care,
And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on.
But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind
That murmured, " Ehoecus !" 'Twas as if the leaves,
Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it ;
And, while he paused bewildered, yet again
It murmured, " Ehoecus !" softer than a breeze.
He started, and beheld with dizzy eyes
"What seemed the substance of a happy dream
Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow
Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak.
It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fair
To be a woman, and with eyes too meek
For any that were wont to mate with gods.
All naked like a goddess stood she there,
And like a goddess all too beautiful
To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame.
" Ehoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree,"
Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words
Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew,
"And with it I am doomed to live and die ;
The rain and sunshine are my caterers,
!Nor have I other bliss than simple life :
Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give,
And with a thankful joy it shall be thine."
Then Ehoecus, with a flutter at the heart,
Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold,
Answered, " What is there that can satisfy
The endless craving of the soul but love ?
Give me thy love, or but the hope of that
Which must be evermore my nature's goal,"
After a little pause she said again,
But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone,
LOWELL] RHCECUS. 43
" I give it, Hhoecus, though a perilous gift ;
An hour before the sunset meet me here."
And straightway there was nothing he could see
But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak ;
And not a sound came to his straining ears
But the low, trickling rustle of the leaves,
And far away upon an emerald slope
The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe.
!N"ow, in those days of simpleness and faith,
Men did not think that happy things were dreams
Because they overstepped the narrow bourn
Of likelihood, but reverently deemed
Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful
To be the guerdon of a daring heart.
So Rhcecus made no doubt that he was blest;
And all along unto the city's gate
Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked ;
The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont,
And he could scarce believe he had not wings,
Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins
Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange.
Young Ehoecus had a faithful heart enough,
But one that in the present dwelt too much,
And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er
Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that,
Like the contented peasant of a vale,
Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond.
So, haply meeting in the afternoon
Some comrades who were playing at the dice,
He joined them, and forgot all else beside.
The dice were rattling at the merriest,
44 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LowELi
And Rhoecus, who bad met but sorry luck,
Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw,
When through the room there hummed a yellow bee
That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs,
As if to light. And Rhoecus laughed, and said,
Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss,
" By Venus ! does he take me for a rose ?"
And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand.
But still the bee came back, and thrice again
Rhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath.
Then through the window flew the wounded bee ;
And Rhcecus, tracking him with angry eyes,
Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly
Against the red disk of the setting sun,
And instantly the blood sank from his heart,
As if its very walls had caved away.
Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth,
Ran madly through the city and the gate,
And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade,
By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim,
Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall.
Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,
And, listening fearfully, he heard once more
The low voice murmur, "Rhoecus!" close at hand;
Whereat he looked around him, but could see
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.
Then sighed the voice, " O Rhoecus ! nevermore
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night,
Me, who would fain have blest thee with a love
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart ;
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger,
And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings.
LOWELL] RHCECUS. 45
We spirits only show to gentle eyes,
"We ever ask an undivided love ;
And he who scorns the least of Nature's works
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.
Farewell ! for thou canst never see me more."
Then Ehoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud,
And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet
This once, and I shall never need it more !"
" Alas 1" the voice returned, " 'tis thou art blind,
Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive,
But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes ;
Only the soul hath power o'er itself."
With that again there murmured, " Nevermore !"
And Ehoecus after heard no other sound,
Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves,
Like the long surf upon a distant shore,
Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down.
The night had gathered round him ; o'er the plain
The city sparkled with its thousand lights.
And sounds of revel fell upon his ear
Harshly and like a curse ; above, the sky,
With all its bright sublimity of stars,
Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze ;
Beauty was all around him, and delight,
But from that eve he was alone on earth.
46 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FRANKLIN
EVERY-DAY WISDOM.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
[The man who, of the natives of the Western Hemisphere in the
eighteenth century, chiefly redeemed America from the reproach of in
tellectual mediocrity and placed it on a level with the highest mental
standard of Europe, was the author whom we now quote, Ben
jamin Franklin, the world's philosopher of common sense. Homely,
plain, and simple in diction, devoid of the graces of rhetoric and
of imaginative fluency, in fact, the very genius of the practical, in
everything he says we can distinguish the flavor of solid thought,
and in an apologue he has the art of saying more than many authors
can express in a volume. His arrows of e very-day wisdom strike
home, and have the faculty of clinging in the memory far more firmly
than the showily-feathered shafts of many who far surpass him in the
graces of style and in brilliancy of illustration. No biographical
details of Franklin's life need here be given. His life-story is part of
the history of our country, and he has told it himself in an artless
autobiography, which is one of the finest bits of eighteenth-century
literature. See " Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by Himself,"
edited by John Bigelow.]
THE EPHEMERA.
AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE.
(Written to MADAME BRILLON, of Passy.) .
[Human life was never more cleverly satirized than in this neat in
stance of the modern fable, which needs no formal moral in conclu
sion, as its moral is woven through its whole texture.]
You may remember, my dear friend, that when we
lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and
sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one
of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company.
We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of
ittle fly, called an ephemera, whose successive genera-
FRANKLIN] THE EPHEMERA. 47
tions, we were told, were bred and expired within the day.
I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf,
who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know
I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too
great application to the study of them is the best excuse
I can give for the little progress I have made in your
charming language. I listened through curiosity to the
discourse of these little creatures ; but as they, in their
natural vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could
make but little of their conversation. I found, however,
by some broken expressions that I heard now and then,
they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign
musicians, one a cousin, the other a moscheto ; in which
dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of
the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living
a month. Happy people, thought I; you are certainly
under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have
no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of
contention but the perfections and imperfections of
foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old
gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf and talk
ing to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it
down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to
whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of
all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly
harmony.
" It was," said he, " the opinion of learned philosophers
of our race, who lived and flourished long before my
time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not
itself subsist more than eighteen hours ; and I think
there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the
apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to
all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined
considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it
48 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FRANKLIN
must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters
that surround us, and leave the world in cold and dark
ness, necessarily producing universal death 'and destruc
tion. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age,
being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of
time. How very few of us continue so long! I have
seen generations born, nourish, and expire. My present
friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends
of my youth, who are now, alas, no more ! And I must
soon follow them ; for, by the course of nature, though
still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or
eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and
labor, in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot
live to enjoy ! What the political struggles I have been
engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants
of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit
of our race in general ? for, in politics, what can laws
do without morals ? Our present race of ephemerae will
in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of
other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched.
And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art
is long and life is short. My friends would comfort me
with the idea of a name, they say I shall leave behind
me ] and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature
and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera
who no longer exists ? and what will become of all his
tory in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even
the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be
buried in universal ruin ?"
To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures
now remain but the reflection of a long life spent in
meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good
lady ephemerae, and nqw and then a kind smile and a
tune from the ever amiable Brillante.
FRANKLIN] THE WHISTLE. 49
Franklin's neat method of putting a sermon into a paragraph is in
none of his writings better illustrated than in his short apologue of
" The Whistle."
THE WHISTLE.
When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on
a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went di
rectly to a shop where they sold toys for children ; and,
being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by
the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered
and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and
went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my
whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and
sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made,
told me I had given four times as much for it as it was
worth ; put me in mind what good things I might have
bought with the rest of the money ; and laughed at me
so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation ; and the
reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me
pleasure.
This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impres
sion continuing on my mind ; so that often, when I was
tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself,
Don't give too much for the whistle ; and I saved my money.
As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the
actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many,
who gave too much for the whistle.
When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacri
ficing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his
liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it,
I have said to myself, This man gives too much for his
whistle.
When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly
employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own
c d 5
50 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FRANKLIN
affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays, indeed,
said I, too much for his whistle.
If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfort
able living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the
esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent
friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man.
said I, you pay too much for your whistle.
When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every
laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to
mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their
pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for
yourself, instead of pleasure ; you give too much for your
whistle.
If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine
houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune,
for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a
prison, Alas, say I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his
whistle.
When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to
an ill-natured brute of a husband, What a pity, say I, that
she should pay so much for a whistle !
In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries
of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates
they have made of the value of things, and by their giving
too much for their whistles.
As a good example of Franklin's views upon money-matters, we
cite the following :
NECESSARY HINTS TO THOSE THAT WOULD BE RICH.
The use of money is all the advantage there is in having
money.
For six pounds a year you may have the use of one
hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known
prudence and honesty.
FRANKLIN] HINTS CONCERNING MONEY. 51
He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above
six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one
hundred pounds.
He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day,
one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one
hundred pounds each day.
He that idly loses five shillings' worth of time loses
five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings
into the sea.
He that loses five shillings not only loses that sum, but
all the advantage that might be made by turning it in
dealing, which, by the time that a young man becomes
old, will amount to a considerable sum of money.
Again : he that sells upon credit asks a price for what
he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his
money for the time he is to be kept out of it : therefore
he that buys upon credit pays interest for what he buys,
and he that pays ready money might let that money out
to use : so that he that possesses anything he has bought
pays interest for the use of it.
Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money,
because he that sells upon credit expects to lose five per
cent, by bad debts ; therefore he charges, on all he sells
upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency.
Those who pay for what they buy upon credit pay
their share of this advance.
He that pays ready money escapes, or may escape, that
charge.
A penny saved is two pence clear ;
A pin a day's a groat a year.
To quote the best of Franklin's autobiography would be to quote it
nearly all : we must content ourselves with a short extract, descrip
tive of the first entrance of the roving Boston boy into that city to
52 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FRANKLIN
which his residence was to give one of its chief claims to distinction,
and to many of whose most valuable institutions his ideas were to
give rise.
FIRST ENTRANCE INTO PHILADELPHIA.
I have been the more particular in this description ot
my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that
city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely
beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I
was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come
round by sea. I was dirty from my journey ; my pockets
were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no
soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with
travelling, rowing and want of rest, I was very hungry;
and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar,
and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the
people' of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it,
on account of my rowing ; but I insisted on their taking
it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has
but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps
through fear of being thought to have but little.
Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the
market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many
a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went
immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second
street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in
Boston ; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia.
Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had
none such. So not considering or knowing the difference
of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his
bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort.
He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I wa&
surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room
in ray pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and
MITCHEL] FIRST REVOLUTION OF THE HEAVENS. 53
eating the other. Thus I went up Market street as far as
Fourth street, passing by the door of Mr. Bead, my future
wife's father ; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and
thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridicu
lous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chesnut
street and part of Walnut street, eating my roll all the
way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market
street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for
a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one
of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child
that came down the river in the boat with us, and were
waiting to go farther.
Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by
this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were
all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby
was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near
the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking
round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy
through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell
fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up,
when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, there
fore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.
THE FIRST REVOLUTION OF THE HEAVENS WITNESSED
BY MAN.
ORMSBY M. MITCHEL.
[Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, the astronomer and soldier, was born
in Kentucky, August 28, 1810. He entered West Point in 1825,
when but fifteen years old. In 1837 lie resigned his military commis
sion, and afterwards became Professor of Mathematics, Philosophy,
and Astronomy at the Cincinnati College. The Cincinnati Observa-
54 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MITCHEL
tory, built from 1842 to 1847, is solely the result of his enthusiastic
efforts. He published " The Planetary and Stellar Worlds" and " An
Elemetary Treatise on the Sun, Planets, etc.," which were written in
a style of fervid eloquence and were well received by the public. At
the outbreak of the civil war he re-entered the military service, with
the rank of brigadier-general. He was made major-general in 1862,
and died at Beaufort, South Carolina, of yellow fever, October 30
of the same year.]
FAR away from the earth on which we dwell, in the
blue ocean of space, thousands of bright orbs, in cluster
ings and configurations of exceeding beauty, invite the
upward gaze of man, and tempt him to the examination
of the wonderful sphere by which he is surrounded.
The starry heavens do not display their glittering con
stellations in the glare of day, while the rush and tur
moil of business incapacitate man for the enjoyment of
their solemn grandeur. It is in the stillness of the mid-
night hour, when all nature is hushed in repose, when
the hum of the world's on-going is no longer heard, that
the planets roll and shine, and the bright stars, trooping
through the deep heavens, speak to the willing spirit that
would learn their mysterious being.
Often have I swept backward in imagination six thou
sand years, and stood beside our great ancestor as he
gazed for the first time upon the going down of the sun.
What strange sensations must have swept through his
bewildered mind, as he watched the last departing ray of
the sinking orb, unconscious whether he should ever be
hold its return ! Wrapt in a maze of thought, strange
and startling, his eye long lingers about the point at
which the sun had slowly faded from his view.
A mysterious darkness, hitherto unexperienced, creeps
over the face of nature. The beautiful scenes of earth,
which through the swift hours of the first wonderful
day of his existence had so charmed his senses, are
MITCHEL] FIRST REVOLUTION OF THE HEAVENS. 55
slowly fading, one by one, from his dimmed vision. A
gloom deeper than that which covers earth steals across
the mind of earth's solitary inhabitant. He raises his
inquiring gaze towards heaven, and lo ! a silver crescent
of light, clear and beautiful, hanging in the western sky,
meets his astonished eye. The young moon charms his
untutored vision, and leads him upward to her bright
attendants, which are now stealing, one by one, from out
the deep-blue sky. The solitary gazer bows, and won
ders, and adores.
The hours glide by, the silver moon is gone, the
stars are rising, slowly ascending the heights of heaven,
and solemnly sweeping downward in the stillness of the
night. The first grand revolution to mortal vision is
nearly completed. A faint streak of rosy light is seen in
the east, it brightens, the stars fade, the planets are
extinguished, the eye is fixed in mute astonishment on
the growing splendor, till the first rays of the returning
sun dart their radiance on the young earth and its soli
tary inhabitant. To him " the evening and the morning
were the first day."
The curiosity excited on this first solemn night, the
consciousness that in the heavens God had declared his
glory, the eager desire to comprehend the mysteries that
dwell in these bright orbs, have, clung to the descendants
of him who first watched and wondered, through the long
lapse of six thousand years. In this boundless field of
investigation human genius has won its most signal vic
tories. Generation after generation has rolled away, age
after age has swept silently by ; but each has swelled by
its contribution the stream of discovery. One barrier
after another has given way to the force of intellect, -
mysterious movements have been unravelled, mighty
laws have been revealed, ponderous orbs have been
56 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MITCHEI
weighed, their reciprocal influences computed, their com
plex wanderings made clear, until the mind, majestic in
its strength, has mounted, step by step, up the rocky
height of its self-built pyramid, from whose star-crowned
summit it looks out upon the grandeur of the universe,
self-clothed with the prescience of a God. With resist
less energy it rolls back the tide of time, and lives in
the configuration of rolling worlds a thousand years ago,
or, more wonderful, it sweeps away the dark curtain
from the future, and beholds those celestial scenes which
shall greet the vision of generations when a thousand
years shall have rolled away, breaking their noiseless
waves on the dim shores of eternity.
To trace the efforts of the human mind in this long
and ardent struggle, to reveal its hopes and fears, its
long years of patient watching, its moments of despair
and hours of triumph, to develop the means by which
the deep foundations of the rock-built pyramid of science
have been laid, and to follow it as it slowly rears its
stately form from age to age, until its vertex pierces the
very heavens, these are the objects proposed for accom
plishment, and these are the topics to which I would invite
your earnest attention.
The task is one of no ordinary difficulty. It is no
feast of fancy, with music and poetry, with eloquence
and art, to enchain the mind. Music is here ; but it is
the deep and solemn harmony of the spheres. Poetry is
here ; but it must be read in the characters of light,
written on the sable garments of night. Architecture in
here ; but it is the colossal structure of sun and system,
of cluster and universe. Eloquence is here ; but " there
is neither speech nor language : its voice is not heard ;"
yet its resistless sweep comes over us in the mighty
periods of revolving worlds.
WIIITCIIER] HEZEKIAH BEDOTT. 57
Shall we not listen to this music, because it is deep
and solemn ? Shall we not read this poetry, because its
letters are the stars of heaven ? Shall we refuse to con
template this architecture, because "its architraves, its
archways, seem ghostly from infinitude" ? Shall we turn
away from this surging eloquence, because its utterance
is made through sweeping worlds ? No ! the mind is
ever inquisitive, ever ready to attempt to scale the most
rugged steeps. Wake up its enthusiasm, fling the light
of hope on its pathway, and, no matter how rough and
steep and rocky it may prove, onward is the word which
charms its willing powers.
HEZEKIAH BEDOTT.
F. M. WHITCHER.
[Frances Miriam Berry was born at Whitesborough, New York, in
1812. Her literary life began as a contributor to NeaVs Gazette, in
which she published a series of articles under the title of " Widow
Bedott's Table-Talk," which attracted wide-spread attention from
their rich vein of humor and their masterly handling of the Yankee
dialect. In 1847 she married the Kev. B. W. Whitcher. She con
tinued her contributions to periodical literature after her marriage, and
died in 1852. We give two illustrations of her amusing sketches.]
HE was a wonderful hand to moralize, husband was,
'specially after he begun to enjoy poor health. He made
an observation once, when he was in one of his poor turns,
that I never shall forget the longest day I live. He says
to me, one winter evenin', as we was a-settin' by the fire,
I was a-knittin' (I was always a wonderful great knitter)
and he was a-smokin' (he was a master hand to smoke,
though the doctor used to tell him he'd be better off to let
58 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITCHER
tobacker alone ; when he was well, used to take his pipe
and smoke a spell after he'd got the chores done up, and
when he wa'n't well, used to smoke the biggest part o' the
time). Well, he took his pipe out of his mouth and turned
toward me, and I knowed something was comin', for he
had a pertikkeler way of lookin' round when he was gwine
to say anything oncommon. Well, he says to me, says
he, " Silly" (my name was Prissilly naterally, but he gin-
erally called me Silly, 'cause 'twas handier, you know).
Well, he says to me, says he, "Silly," and he looked
pretty sollem, I tell you, he had a sollem countenance
naterally, and after he got to be deacon 'twas more so,
but since he'd lost his health he looked sollemer than
ever, and certingly you wouldent wonder at it if you
knowed how much he underwent. He was troubled with
a wonderful pain in his chest, and amazin' weakness in the
spine of his back, besides the pleurissy in the side, and
havin' the ager a considerable part o' the time, and bein'
broke of his rest o' nights, 'cause he was so put to't for
breath when he laid down. Wiry, it's an onaccountable
fact, that when that man died he hadent seen a well
day in fifteen year, though when he was married, and
for five or six year after, I shouldent desire to see a
ruggeder man than what he was. But the time I'm
speakin' of he'd been out o' health nigh upon ten year,
and, oh dear sakes ! how he had altered since the first
time I ever see him! That was to a quiltin' to Squire
Smith's, a spell afore Sally was married. I'd no idee then
that Sal Smith was a-gwine to be married to Sam Pen-
dergrass. She'd ben keepin' company with Mose Hewlitt
for better'n a year, and everybody said that was a settled
thing, and, lo and behold! all of a sudding she up and
took Sam Pendergrass. Well, that was the first time
I ever see my husband, and if anybody'd a told me
WHITCHER] HEZEKIAH BEDOTT. 59
then that I should ever marry him, I should a said but,
lawful sakes ! I 'most forgot, I was gwine to tell you what
he said to me that evenin', and when a body begins to tell
a thing I believe in finishin' on't some time or other.
Some folks have a way of talkin' round and round and
round for evermore, and never comin' to the pint. Now
there's Miss Jinkins, she that was Poll Bingham afore she
was married, she is the tejusest individooal to tell a story
that ever I see in all my born days. But I was a-gwine to
tell you what husband said. He says to me, says he,
" Silly ;" says I, "What ?" I dident say " What, Hezekier?"
for I dident like his name. The first time I ever heard it
I near killed myself a-laffin'. "Hezekier Bedott!" says I.
" Well, I would give up if I had sich a name ;" but then
you know I had no more idee o' marry in' the feller than
you have this minnit o' marryin' the governor. I s'pose
you think it's curus we should a named our oldest son
Hezekier. Well, we done it to please father and mother
Bedott; it's father Bedott's name, and he and mother
Bedott bo.th used to think that names had ought to go
down from gineration to gineration. But we always called
him Kier, you know. Speakin' o' Kier, he is a blessin',
ain't he ? and I ain't the only one that thinks so, I guess.
Now don't you never tell nobody that I said so, but, be
tween you and me, I rather guess that if Kezier Winkle
thinks she's a-gwine to ketch Kier Bedott she is a leetle
out of her reckonin'. But I was gwine to tell what hus
band said. He says to me, says he, " Silly ;" I says, says
I, " What ?" If I dident say " what" when he said " Silly,"
he'd a kept on sayin' "Silly" from time to eternity. He
always did, because, you know, he wanted me to pay per-
tikkeler attention, and I ginerally did ; no woman was
ever more attentive to her husband than what I was.
Well, he says to me, says he, "Silly;" says I, "What?"
60 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITCHER
though I'd no idee what he was gwine to say ; dident know
but what 'twas something about his sufferin's, though he
wa'n't apt to complain, but he frequently used to remark
that he wouldent wish his worst enemy to suffer one min-
nit as he did all the time, but that can't be called grumblin' ;
think it can ? Why, I've seen him in sitivations when
you'd a thought no mortal could a helped grumblin', but
he dident. He and me went once in the dead o' winter in
a one-hoss slay out to Boonville, to see a sister o' hisen.
You know the snow is amazin' deep in that section o' the
kentry. Well, the hoss got stuck in one o' them 'ere flam-
bergasted snow-banks, and there we sot, onable to stir,
and to cap all, while we was a-settin' there, husband was
took with a dretful crick in his back. Now that was
what I call a perdickerment, don't you ? Most men would a
swore, but husband dident. He only said, says he, " Con-
sarn it !" How did we get out, did you ask ? Why, we
might a ben settin' there to this day, fur as I know, if
there hadent a happened to come along a mess o' men in a
double team, and they hysted us out.
But I was gwine to tell you that observation o' hisen.
Says he to me, says he, " Silly." I could see by the light
o' the fire (there dident happen to be no candle burnin', if
I don't disremember, though my memory is sometimes
ruther forgitful, but I know we wa'n't apt to burn candles
exceptin' when we had company), I could see by the light
o' the fire that his mind was oncommon solemnized. Says
he to me, says he, " Silly ;" I says to him, says I, " What ?"
He says to me, says he, " We're all poor critters I "
[" Mrs. Mudlaw's recipe for Potato Pudding," the last published
of Mrs. "Whitcher's sketches during her lifetime, is one of the most
amusing, and capitally shows her power of character-painting.]
Mrs. Mudlaw was a short, fat woman, with a broad,
WHITCHER] HEZEKIAH BEDOTT. 61
red face such a person as a stranger would call the very
personification of good-nature; though I have never
found fat people to be any more amiable than lean ones.
Certainly, Mrs. Mudlaw was not a very sweet-tempered
woman. On this occasion she felt rather more cross
than usual, forced, as she was, to give one of her recipes
to a nobody. She, however, knew the necessity of as
suming a pleasant demeanor at that time, and accord
ingly entered the nursery with an encouraging grin on
her blazing countenance. Mrs. Philpot, fearing lest her
cook's familiarity might belittle her mistress in the eyes
of Mrs. Darling, and again asking to be excused for a
short time, went into the library, a nondescript apart
ment, dignified by that name, which communicated with
the nursery. The moment she left her seat, a largo
rocking-chair, Mudlaw dumped herself down in it, ex
claiming,
" Miss Philpot says you want to get my recipe for po-
tater puddin' ?"
" Yes," replied Mrs. Darling. " I would be obliged to
you for the directions." And she took out of her pocket
a pencil and paper to write it down.
"Well, 'tis an excellent puddin'," said Mudlaw, com
placently; "for my part, I like it about as well as any
puddin' I make, and that's sayin' a good deal, I can tell
you, for I understand makin' a great variety. 'Taint so
awful rich as some, to be sure. Now, there's the Cardi-
nelle puddin', and the Washington puddin', and the Lay
Fayette puddin', and the "
" Yes. Mr. Darling liked it very much. How do you
make it ?"
" Wai, I peel my potaters and bile 'em in fair water. I
always let the water bile before I put 'em in. Some folks
let their potaters lie and sog in the water ever so long,
6
62 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITCHER
before it biles ; but I think it spiles 'em. I always make
it a pint to have the water bile "
" How many potatoes ?"
" Wai, I always take about as many potaters as I think
I shall want. I'm generally governed by the size of the
puddin' I want to make. If it's a large puddin', why, I
take quite a number, but if it's a small one, why, then I
don't take as many. As quick as they're done, I take 'em
up and mash 'em as fine as I can get 'em. I'm always very
partic'lar about that some folks ain't; they'll let their
potaters be full o' lumps, /never do ; if there's anything
I hate, it's lumps in potaters. I won't have 'em. Whether
I'm mashin' potaters for puddin's or for vegetable use, I
mash it till there ain't the size of a lump in it. If I
can't git it fine without siftin', why, I sift it. Once in
a while, when I'm otherways engaged, I set the girl to
mashin' on't. Wai, she'll give it three or four jams, and
come along. l Miss Mudlaw, is the potater fine enough ?'
Jubiter Eammin ! that's the time I come as near gittin'
mad as I ever allow myself to come, for I make it a pint
never to have lumps " .
" Yes, I know it is very important. What next ?"
" Wai, then I put in my butter ; in winter-time I melt
it a little, not enough to make it ily, but jest so's to
soften it."
" How much butter does it require ?"
"Wai, I always take butter accordin' to the size of
the puddin' ; a large puddin' needs aT good-sized lump o'
butter, but not too much. And I'm always partic'lar to
have my butter fresh and sweet. Some folks think it's
no matter what sort o' butter they use for cookin'; but 1
don't. Of all things, I do despise strong, frowy, rancid
butter. For pity's sake, have your butter fresh."
" How much butter did you say ?"
WHITCHER] HEZEKIAH BEDOTT. 63
" Wai, that depends, as I said before, on what sized
puddin' you want to make. And another thing that reg
ulates the quantity of butter I use is the 'mount o' cream
I take. I always put in more or less cream ; when I have
abundance o' cream, I put in considerable, and when it's
scarce, why, I use more butter than I otherways should.
But you must be partic'lar not to get in too much cream.
There's a great deal in havin' jest the right quantity;
and so 'tis with all the ingrejiences. There ain't a better
puddin' in the world than a potater puddin', when it's
made right, but 'tain't everybody that makes 'em right. I
remember when I lived in Tuckertown, I was a-visitin' to
Squire Humphrey's one time I went in the first com
pany in Tuckertown dear me! this is a changeable
world. Wai, they had what they called a potater puddin'
for dinner. Good land ! Of all the puddin's ! I've often
occurred to that puddin' since, and wondered what the
Squire's wife was a-thinkin' of when she made it. I
wa'n't obleeged to do no such things in them days, and
didn't know how to do anything as well as I do now.
Necessity's the mother of invention. Experience is the
best teacher, after all "
" Do you sweeten it ?"
" Oh, yes, to be sure it needs sugar, the best o' sugar,
too ; not this wet, soggy, brown sugar. Some folks never
think o' usin' good sugar to cook with, but for my part I
won't have no other."
" How much sugar do you take ?"
" Wai, that depends altogether on whether you calcu
late to have sass for it some like sass, you know, and
then some agin don't. So, when I calculate for sass, I
don't take so much sugar ; and when I don't calculate foi
sass, I make it sweet enough to eat without sass. Poor
Mr. Mudlaw was a great hand for puddin'-sass. I always
64 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITCHEB
made it for him good rich sass, too. I could afford to
have things rich before he was unfortinate in bisness."
(Mudlaw went to State's prison for horse-stealing.) " I
like sass myself, too ; and the curnel and the children are
all great sass hands ; and so I generally calculate for sass,
though Miss Philpot prefers the puddin' without sass, and
perhaps you'd prefer it without. If so, you must put in
sugar accordingly. I always make it a pint to have 'em
sweet enough when they're to be eat without sass."
" And don't you use eggs ?"
" Certainly : eggs is one o' the principal ingrejiences."
" How many does it require ?"
" Wai, when eggs is plenty, I always use plenty ; and
when they're scarce, why, I can do with less, though I'd
ruther have enough. And be sure and beat 'em well. It
does distress me, the way some folks beat eggs. I always
want to have 'em thoroughly beat for everything I use
'em in. It tries my patience most awfully to have any
body round me that won't beat eggs enough. A spell
ago we had a darky to help in the kitchen. One day I
was a-makin' sponge cake, and havin' occasion to go up
stairs after something, I sot her to beatin' the eggs.
Wai, what do you think the critter done ? Why, she
whisked 'em round a few times, and turned 'em right onto
the other ingrejiences that I'd got weighed out. When I
come back and saw what she'd done, my gracious! I
come as nigh to losin' my temper as I ever allow myself
to come. 'Twas awful provokin' ! I always want the
kitchen help to do things as I want to have 'em done.
But I never saw a darky yet that ever done anything
right. They're a lazy, slaughterin' set. To think o' her
spilin' that cake so, when I'd told her over and over agin
that I always made it a pint to have my eggs thoroughly
beat!"
WHITCHER] HEZEKIAH BEDOTT. 65
"Yes, it was too bad. Do you use fruit in the
pudding ?"
" Wai, that's jest as you please. You'd better be gov
erned by your own judgment as to that. Some like cur
rants, and some like raisins, and then agin some don't
like nary one. If you use raisins, for pity's sake pick out
the stuns. It's awful to have a body's teeth come grindin'
onto a raisin stun. I'd rather have my ears boxed any
time."
" How many raisins must I take ?"
"Wai, not too many it's apt to make the puddin'
heavy, you know ; and when it's heavy it ain't so light
and good. I'm a great hand "
" Yes. What do you use for flavoring?"
" There agin you'll have to exercise your own judg
ment. Some likes one thing, and some another, you
know. If you go the hull figger on temperance, why,
some other kind o' flavorin' '11 do as well as wine or
brandy, I s'pose. But whatever you make up your mind
to use, be partic'lar to git in a sufficiency, or else your
puddin' '11 be flat. I always make it a pint "
" How long must it bake ?"
" There's the great thing after all. The bakin' 's the
main pint. A potater puddin', of all puddin's, has got to
be baked jest right. For if it bakes a leetle too much,
it's apt to dry it up ; and then if it don't bake quite
enough, it's sure to taste potatery, and that spiles it,
you know."
''How long should you think ?"
" Wai, that depends a good deal on the heat o' your
oven. If you have a very hot oven, 'twon't do to leave
it in too long ; and if your oven ain't so very hot, why,
you'll be necessiated to leave it in longer."
" Well, how can I tell anything about it ?"
e 6*
66 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITCHER
" Wai, I always let 'em bake till I think they're done,
that's the safest way. I make it a pint to have 'em
baked exactly right. It's very important in all kinds o*
bakin' cake, pies, bread, puddin's, and everything to
have 'em baked precisely long enough, and jest right.
Some folks don't seem to have no system at all about their
bakin'. One time they'll burn their bread to a crisp, and
then agin it'll be so slack 'tain't fit to eat. Nothin' hurts
my feelin's so much as to see things overdone or slack-
baked. Here only t'other day Lorry, the girl that Miss
Philpot dismissed yesterday, come within an ace o' lettin'
my bread burn up. My back was turned for a minnit, and
what should she do but go to stuffin' wood into the stove
at the awfullest rate ! If I hadn't a found it out jest when
I did, my bread would a ben spilt as sure as I'm a live
woman. Jubiter Rammin ! I was about as much decom
posed as I ever allow myself to git! I told Miss Philpot
I wouldn't stan' it no longer, one of us must quit,
either Lorry or me must walk."
" So you've no rule about baking this pudding ?"
" No rule 1" said Mudlaw, with a look of intense sur
prise.
"Yes," said Mrs. Darling; "you seem to have no rule
for anything about it."
" No rule !" screamed the indignant cook, starting up,
while her red face grew ten times redder, and her little
black eyes snapped with rage. " No rules ! do you tell me
I've no rules ! Me ! that's cooked in the first families for
fifteen years, and always gin satisfaction, to be told by
such as you that I hain't no rules !"
WARE] THE JOURNEY TO PALMYRA. 67
THE JOURNEY TO PALMYRA.
WILLIAM WARE.
[The imaginative and beautiful description of antique scenery and
conditions which we give below is from the " Zenobia" of William
Ware, one of the earliest delvers in that field of Oriental and antique
manners and customs which has been recently so attractively wrought
by several popular novelists. As an author Mr. Ware belongs to the
first half of the nineteenth century, his early literary essays having been
published in the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1836, under the title of
" Letters from Palmyra." He afterwards published a sequel, entitled
" Probus," the scenes of which are laid in Home during the final per
secutions of the Christians. These works are now known as " Zenobia"
and " Aurelian." He also published " Julian," " Sketches of European
Capitals," and " Lectures on Allston." He died in 1852, in his fifty-
fifth year. His classical works vividly display the characteristics of
life in the Koman empire, and unite fine descriptive powers and
earnest reflection with a just and graphic rendition of the scenes and
events of ancient history.]
I WILL not detain you long with our voyage, but will
only mark out its course. Leaving the African shore, we
struck across to Sicily, and, coasting along its eastern
border, beheld with pleasure the towering form of JEtna,
sending up into the heavens a dull and sluggish cloud
of vapors. We then ran between the Peloponnesus and
Crete, and so held our course till the island of Cyprus
rose like her own fair goddess from the ocean, and filled
our eyes with a beautiful vision of hill and valley, wooded
promontory, and glittering towns and villas. A fair wind
soon withdrew us from these charming prospects, and,
after driving us swiftly and roughly over the remainder
of our way, rewarded us with a brighter and more wel
come vision still, the coast of Syria, and our destined
port, Berytus.
As far as the eye could reach, both toward the north
68 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARE
and the south, we beheld a luxuriant region, crowded with
villages, and giving every indication of comfort and wealth.
The city itself, which we rapidly approached, was of in
ferior size, but presented an agreeable prospect of ware
houses, public and private edifices, overtopped here and
there by the lofty palm, and other trees of a new and
peculiar foliage. Four days were consumed here in the
purchase of slaves, camels, and horses, and in other prep
arations for the journey across the Desert. Two routes
presented themselves, one more, the other less, direct:
the last, though more circuitous, appeared to me the more
desirable, as it would take me within sight of the modern
glories and ancient remains of Heliopolis. This, there
fore, was determined upon ; and on the morning of the
fifth day we set forward upon our long march. Four
slaves, two camels, and three horses, with an Arab con
ductor, constituted our little caravan ; but for greater
safety we attached ourselves to a much larger one than
our own, in which we were swallowed up and lost, con
sisting of travellers and traders from all parts of the
world, and who were also on their way to Palmyra, as a
point whence to separate to various parts of the vast East.
It would delight me to lay before you, with the distinct
ness and minuteness of a picture, the whole of this novel
and to me most interesting route ; but I must content my
self with a slight sketch, and reserve fuller communica
tions to the time when, once more seated with you upon
the Coelian, we enjoy the freedom of social converse.
Our way through the valleys of Libanus was like one
long wandering among the pleasure-grounds of opulent
citizens. The land was everywhere richly cultivated, and
a happier peasantry, as far as the eye of the traveller
could judge, nowhere exists.- The most luxuriant valleys
of our own Italy are not more crowded with the evidences
WARE] THE JOURNEY TO PALMYRA. 69
of plenty and contentment. Upon drawing near to the
ancient Baal bee, I found, on inquiry of our guide, that we
were not to pass through it, as I had hoped, nor even very
near it, not nearer than between two and three miles.
So that in this I had been clearly deceived by those of
whom I had made the most exact inquiries at Berytus. I
thought I discovered great command of myself, in that I
did not break the head of my Arab, who, doubtless to
answer purposes of his own, had brought me thus out of
my way for nothing. The event proved, however, it was
not for nothing; for soon after we had started on our
journey, on the morning of the second day, turning sud
denly round the projecting rock of a mountain-ridge,
we all at once beheld, as if a veil had been lifted up,
Heliopolis and its suburbs, spread out before us in all
their various beauty. The city lay about three miles
distant. I could only, therefore, identify its principal
structure, the Temple of the Sun, as built by the first
Antonine. This towered above the walls and over all
the other buildings, and gave vast ideas of the great
ness of the place, leading the mind to crowd it with
other edifices that should bear some proportion to this
noble monument of imperial magnificence. As suddenly
as the view of this imposing scene had been revealed, so
suddenly was it again eclipsed by another short turn in
the road, which took us once more into the mountain-val
leys. But the overhanging and impenetrable foliage of a
Syrian forest shielding me from the fierce rays of a burn
ing sun, soon reconciled me to my loss, more especially
as I knew that in a short time we were to enter upon the
sandy desert which stretches from the Anti-Libanus almost
to the very walls of Palmyra.
Upon this boundless desert we now soon entered. The
scene which it presented was more dismal than I can de-
70 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARE
scribe. A red, moving sand, or hard and baked by the
heat of a sun such as Eome never knows, low, gray rocks
just rising here and there above the level of the plain, with
now and then the dead and glittering trunk of a vast cedar,
whose roots seemed as if they had outlasted centuries,
the bones of camels and elephants scattered on either hand,
dazzling the sight by reason of their excessive whiteness,
at a distance occasionally an Arab of the desert, for a
moment surveying our long line, and then darting off to
his fastnesses, these were the objects which, with scarce
any variation, met our eyes during the four wearisome
days that we dragged ourselves over this wild and inhos
pitable region. A little after noon of the fourth day, as
we started on our way, having refreshed ourselves and
our exhausted animals at a spring which here poured out
its warm but still grateful waters to the traveller, my ears
received the agreeable news that toward the east there
could now be discerned the dark line which indicated our
appioach to the verdant tract that encompasses the great
city. Our own excited spirits were quickly imparted to
our beasts, and a more rapid movement soon revealed
into distinctness the high land and waving groves of
palm-trees which mark the site of Palmyra.
It was several miles before we reached the city that
we suddenly found ourselves landing as it were from a
sea upon an island or continent in a rich and thickly-
peopled country. The roads indicated an approach to a
great capital in the increasing numbers of those who
thronged them, meeting and passing us, overtaking us, or
crossing our path. Elephants, camels, and the dromedary,
which I had before seen only in the amphitheatres, I here
beheld as the native inhabitants of the soil. Frequent
villas of the rich and luxuriant Palmyrenes, to which they
retreat from the greater heats of the city, now threw a
WA.RE] THE JOURNEY TO PALMYRA. 71
lovely charm over the scene. Nothing can exceed the
splendor of these sumptuous palaces. Italy itself has
nothing which surpasses them. The new and brilliant
costumes of the persons whom we met, together with the
rich housings of the animals which they rode, served
greatly to add to all this beauty. I was still entranced,
as it were, by the objects around me, and buried in reflec
tion, when I was aroused by the shout of those who led the
caravan, and who had attained the summit of a little rising
ground, saying, " Palmyra ! Palmyra !" I urged forward
my steed, and in a moment the most wonderful prospect I
ever beheld no, I cannot except even Rome burst upon
my sight. Flanked by hills of considerable elevation on the
east, the city filled the whole plain below as far as the eye
could reach, both toward the north and toward the south.
This immense plain was all one vast and boundless city.
Tt seemed to me to be larger than Rome. Yet I knew very
well that it could not be, that it was not. And it was
some time before I understood the true character of the
scene before me, so as to separate the city from the coun
try and the country from the city, which here wonderfully
interpenetrate each other and so confound and deceive the
observer. For the city proper is so studded with groups
of lofty palm-trees shooting up among its temples and
palaces, and, on the other hand, the plain in its immediate
vicinity is so thickly adorned with magnificent structures
of the purest marble, that it is not easy, nay, it is impos
sible, at the distance at which I contemplated the whole,
to distinguish the line which divides the one from the
other. It was all city and all country, all country and all
city. Those which lay before me I was ready to believe
were the Elysian Fields. I imagined that I saw under my
feet the dwellings of purified men and of gods. Certainly
they were too glorious for the mere earth-born. There
72 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARE
was a central point, however, which chiefly fixed my atten
tion, where the vast Temple of the Sun stretched upward
its thousand columns of polished marble to the heavens, in
its matchless beauty casting into the shade every other
work of art of which the world can boast. I have stood
before the Parthenon, and have almost worshipped that
divine achievement of the immortal Phidias. But it is a
toy by the side of this bright crown of the Eastern capital.
I have been at Milan, at Ephesus, at Alexandria, at Anti-
och ; but in neither of those renowned cities have I beheld
anything that I can allow to approach, in united extent,
grandeur, and most consummate beauty, this almost more
than work of man. On each side of this, the central point,
there rose upward slender pyramids, pointed obelisks,
domes of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches,
and lofty towers, for number and for form beyond my
power to describe. These buildings, as well as the walls
of the city, being all either of white marble or of some
stone as white, and being everywhere in their whole ex
tent interspersed, as I have already said, with multitudes
of overshadowing palm-trees, perfectly filled and satisfied
my sense of beauty, and made me feel for the moment as
if in such a scene I should love to dwell and there end my
days. Nor was I alone in these transports of delight. All
my fellow-travellers seemed equally affected ; and from the
native Palmyrenes, of whom there were many among us,
the most impassioned and boastful exclamations broke
forth. " What is Eome to this ?" they cried. " Fortune
is not constant. Why may not Palmyra be what Eome
has been mistress of the world ? Who more fit to rule
than the great Zenobia? A few years may see great
changes. Who can tell what shall come to pass ?" These,
and many such sayings, were uttered by those around me,
accompanied by many significant gestures and glances of
WOOLSON] KENTUCKY BELLE. 73
the eye. I thought of them afterwards. We now de
scended the hill, and the long line of our caravan moved
on toward the city.
KENTUCKY BELLE.
CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON.
[The author of this stirring and pathetic poem of the war, Con
stance Fenimore Woolson, is known in literature principally as a
novelist. Her works of fiction, particularly the later ones, are written
with a power and originality which have given her a high rank among
American authors. Her principal novels are "Castle Nowhere,"
"Kodman, the Keeper," "Anne," "For the Major," and "East
Angels." She was horn at Claremont, New Hampshire, about 1848.
She lived for a period in Ohio and in the South, and in 1879 removed
to England.]
SUMMER of 'sixty-three, sir, and Conrad was gone away
Gone to the county town, sir, to sell our first load of hay :
We lived in the log-house yonder, poor as ever you've seen ;
Eoschen there was a baby, and I was only nineteen.
Conrad he took the oxen, but he left Kentucky Belle.
How much we thought of Kentuck, I couldn't begin to
tell
Came from the Blue-Grass country ; my father gave her
to me
When I rode North with Conrad, away from the Tennessee.
Conrad lived in Ohio, a German he is, you know,
The house stood in broad corn-fields, stretching on, row
after row.
The old folks made me welcome ; they were kind as kind
could be ;
But I kept longing, longing, for the hills of the Tennessee.
D 7
74 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSON
Oh for a sight of water, the shadowed slope of a hill !
Clouds that hang on the summit, a wind that never is still !
But the 1-evel land went stretching away to meet the sky
Never a rise, from north to south, to rest the weary eye !
From east to west, no river to shine out under the moon.
Nothing to make a shadow in the yellow afternoon :
Only the breathless sunshine, as I looked out, all forlorn ;
Only the "rustle, rustle," as I walked among the corn.
When I fell sick with pining, we didn't wait any more,
But moved away from the corn-lands, out to this river
shore
The Tuscarawas it's called, sir off there's a hill, you see
And now I've grown to like it next best to the Tennessee.
I was at work that morning. Some one came riding like
mad
Over the bridge and up the road Farmer Eouth's little
lad.
Bareback he rode ; he had no hat ; he hardly stopped to say,
" Morgan's men are coming, Frau ; they're galloping on
this way.
" I'm sent to warn the neighbors. He isn't a mile behind ;
He sweeps up all the horses every horse that he can find.
Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men,
With bowie-knives and pistols, are galloping up the glen !"
The lad rode down the valley, and I stood still at the door ;
The baby laughed and prattled, playing with spools on
the floor ;
Kentuck was out in the pasture ; Conrad, my man, was
gone.
Near, nearer, Morgan's men were galloping, galloping on !
WOOLSON] KENTUCKY BELLE. 75
Sudden I picked up baby, and ran to the pasture-bar.
"Kentuck!" I called "Kentucky!" She knew me ever
so far !
I led her down the gully that turns off there to the right,
And tied her to the bushes ; her head was just out of
sight.
As I ran back to the log-house, at once there came a
sound
The ring of hoofs, galloping hoofs, trembling over the
ground
Coming into the turnpike out from the White- Woman
Glen-
Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men.
As near they drew and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm ;
But still I stood in the door-way with baby on my arm.
They came ; they passed ; with spur and whip in haste
they sped along
Morgan, Morgan the raider, and his band, six hundred
strong.
Weary they looked and jaded, riding through night and
through day ;
Pushing on east to the river, many long miles away,
To the border-strip where Virginia runs up into the west,
And fording the Upper Ohio before they could stop to
rest.
On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in ad
vance ;
.Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a side
ways glance ;
And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,
When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.
76 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WooLSOS
Frightened I was to death, sir ; I scarce dared look in his
face,
As he asked for a drink of water, and glanced around the
place.
I gave him a cup, and he smiled 'twas only a boy, you
see,
Faint and worn, with dim-blue eyes ; and he'd sailed on
the Tennessee.
Only sixteen he was, sir a fond mother's only son
Off and away with Morgan before his life h%d begun !
The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the
boyish mouth ;
And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the
South.
Oh ! pluck was he to the backbone, and clear grit through
and through ;
Boasted and bragged like a trooper ; but the big words
wouldn't do ;
'The boy was dying, sir, dying, as plain as plain could be,
Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Tennessee.
But when I told the laddie that I too was from the South,
Water came in his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth.
II Do you know the Blue-Grass country ?" he wistful began
to say ;
Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away.
I had him into the log-house, and worked and brought
him to ;
I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do ;
And when the lad got better, and the noise in his head
was gone,
Morgan's men were miles away, galloping, galloping on.
WOOLSON] KENTUCKY BELLE. 77
" Oh, I must go !" he muttered ; " I must be up and away !
Morgan Morgan is waiting for me ! Oh, what will Mor
gan say ?"
But I heard a sound of tramping, and kept him back from
the door
The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before.
And on, on came the soldiers the Michigan cavalry
And fast they rode, and black they looked, galloping
rapidly :
They had followed hard on Morgan's track ; they had fol
lowed day and night ;
But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never
caught a sight.
And rich Ohio sat startled through all those summer
days ;
For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad
highways
Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north,
now east, now west,
Through river-valleys and corn-land farms, sweeping away
her best.
A bold ride and a long ride ! But they were taken at last.
They almost reached the river by galloping hard and fast ;
But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained
the ford,
And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible
sword.
Well, I kept the boy till evening kept him against his
will-
But he was too weak to follow, and sat there pale and
still.
7*
78 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSON
When it was cool and dusky you'll wonder to hear me tell,
But I stole down to that gully and brought up Kentucky
Belle.
I kissed the star on her forehead my pretty, gentle lass
But I knew that she'd be happy back in the old Blue-Grass.
A suit of clothes of Conrad's, with all the money I had,
And Kentuck, pretty Kentuck, I gave to the worn-out lad.
I guided him to the southward as well as I knew how;
The boy rode off with many thanks and many a back
ward bow ;
And then the glow it faded, and my heart began to swell,
As down the glen away she went, my lost Kentucky Belle!
When Conrad came in the evening, the moon was shining
high;
Baby and I were both crying I couldn't tell him why
But a battered suit of rebel gray was hanging on the wall,
And a thin old horse, with drooping head, stood in Ken
tucky's stall.
Well, he was kind, and never once said a hard word to me ;
He knew I couldn't help it 'twas all for the Tennessee.
But, after the war was over, just think what came to pass
A letter, sir ; and the two were safe back in the old Blue-
Grass.
The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle ;
And Kentuck she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and
well;
He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with whip
or spur.
Ah ! we've had many horses since, but never a horse like
her!
BEECHER] THE LOVE OF TREES. 79
THE LOVE OF TREES.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
[The reputation of Henry "Ward Beecher has been made in another
field than that of literature. He is best known as an orator of the
pulpit and of the lecture-stage, where his racy manner and his flow
of original thought and brilliant illustration have brought him a repu
tation second to that of none in America. Beneath his genial humor
lie an earnestness which redoubles his power, and an independence of
spirit which will call no man's opinion master. As an essayist and
a novelist he manifests the same originality, geniality, and earnestness
which have made him famous in the pulpit. His novel of " Norwood"
is full of appreciation of character and love of nature, an illustration
of the latter of which traits we give below. Mr.. Beecher was born
at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1813. In his boyhood, as we are told
by his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, he gave little promise of the
oratorical ability which he has since so strikingly displayed. His
powers, however, quickly unfolded, and, after an early desire to enter
the navy, he matriculated at Amherst College, whence he graduated in
theology in 1834. In 1847 he became pastor of the Plymouth Con
gregational Church in Brooklyn, where he still remains, and where he
has gathered around him one of the largest and most discriminative
congregations in the United States.]
To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We
love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all
things that do grow under them, or around them the
whole leaf and root tribe. Not alone when they are in
their glory, but in whatever state they are in leaf, or
rimed with frost, or powdered with snow, or crystal-
sheathed in ice, or in severe outline stripped and bare
against a November sky we love them. Our heart
warms at the sight of even a board or a log. A lumber
yard is better than nothing. The smell of wood, at least,
is there, the savory fragrance of resin, as sweet as myrrh
and frankincense ever was to a Jew. If we can get
80 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BEECHER
nothing better, wo love to read over the names of trees in
a catalogue. Many an hour have we sat at night, when,
after exciting work, we needed to be quieted, and read
nurserymen's catalogues, and Loudon's Encyclopedias, and
Arboretum, until the smell of the woods exhaled from
the page, and the sound of leaves was in our ears, and
sylvan glades opened to our eyes that would have made
old Chaucer laugh and indite a rapturous rush of lines.
But how much more do we love trees in all their sum
mer pomp and plenitude ! Not for their names and affin
ities, not for their secret physiology and as material for
science ; not for any reason that we can give, except that
when with them we are happy. The eye is full, the ear
is full, the whole sense and all the tastes solaced, and our
whole nature rejoices with that various and full happiness
which one has when the soul is suspended in the midst of
Beethoven's symphonies and is lifted hither and thither,
as if b'lown by sweet sounds through the airy passages of
a full, heavenly dream. . . .
First in our regard, as it is first in the whole nobility
of trees, stands the white elm, no less esteemed because it
is an American tree, known abroad only by importation,
and never seen in all its magnificence, except in our own
valleys. The old oaks of England are very excellent in
their way, gnarled and rugged. The elm has strength as
significant as they, and a grace, a royalty, which leaves the
oak like a boor in comparison. Had the elm been an
English tree, and had Chaucer seen and loved and sung
it ; had Shakespeare and every English poet hung some
garlands upon it, it would have lifted up its head now, not
only the noblest of all growing things, but enshrined in a
thousand rich associations of history and literature.
Who ever sees a hawthorn or a sweetbrier (the eglan
tine) that his thoughts do not, like a bolt of light, burst
THE LOVE OF TREES. 81
through ranks of poets, and ranges of sparkling conceits
which have been born since England had a written lan
guage, and of which the rose, the willow, the eglantine,
the hawthorn, and other scores of vines or trees, have
been the cause, as they are now and for evermore the sug
gestions and remembrancers? Who ever looks upon an
oak and does not think of navies, of storms, of battles
on the ocean, of the noble lyrics of the sea, of English
glades, of the fugitive Charles, the tree-mounted monarch,
of the Herne oak, of parks and forests, of Robin Hood
and his merry men, Friar Tuck not excepted, of old baro
nial halls with mellow light streaming through diamond-
shaped panes upon oaken floors, and of carved oaken
wainscotings ? And who that has ever travelled in
English second-class cushionless cars has not other and
less genial remembrances of the enduring solidity of the
impervious, unelastic oak ?
One stalwart oak I have, and only one, yet discovered.
On my west line is a fringe of forest, through which
rushes in spring, trickles in early summer, and dies out
entirely in August, the issues of a noble spring from the
near hill-side. On the eastern edge of this belt of trees
stands the monarchical oak, wide-branching on the east,
toward the open pasture and the free light, but on its
western side lean and branchless, from the pressure of
neighboring trees ; for trees, like men, cannot grow to
the real nature that is in them when crowded by too
much society. Both need to be touched on every side by
sun and air, and by nothing else, if they are to be rounded
out into full symmetry. Growing right up by its side, and
through its branches, is a long, wifely elm beauty and
grace imbosomed by strength. Their leaves come and go
together, and all the summer long they mingle their rus
tling harmonies. Their roots pasture in the same soil, nor
f
82 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BEECH KR
could either of them be hewn down without tearing away
the branches and marring the beauty of the other. And
a tree, when thoroughly disbranched, may, by time and
care, regain its health again, but never its beauty.
Under this oak I love to sit and hear all the things which
its leaves have to tell. No printed leaves have more treas
ures of history or of literature to those who know how
to listen. But, if clouds kindly shield us from the sun, we
love as well to couch down on the grass some thirty yards
off, and, amidst the fragrant smell of crushed herbs, to
watch the fancies of the trees and clouds. The roguish
winds will never be done teasing the leaves, that run away
and come back, with nimble playfulness. Now and then
a stronger puff dashes up the leaves, showing the downy
under-surfaces that flash white all along the up-blown and
tremulous forest edge. Now the wind draws back his
breath, and all the woods are still. Then some single leaf
is tickled, and quivers all alone. I am sure there is no
wind. The other leaves about it are still. Where it gets
its motion I cannot tell, but there it goes fanning itself
and restless among its sober fellows. By and by one or
two others catch the impulse. The rest hold out a moment,
but soon catching the contagious merriment, away goes
the whole tree and all its neighbors, the leaves running in
ripples all down the forest side. I expect almost to hear
them laugh out loud.
A stroke of wind upon the forest, indolently swelling
and subsiding, is like a stroke upon a hive of bees, for
sound ; and like stirring a fire full of sparks, for upspring-
ing thoughts and ideal suggestions. The melodious whirl
draws out a flitting swarm of sweet images that play
before the eye like those evening troops of gauzy insects
that hang in the air between you and the sun, and pipe
their own music, and flit in airy rounds of mingled dance
BEECHER] THE LOVE OF TREES. 83
as if the whole errand of their lives was to swing in
mazes of sweet music.
Different species of trees move their leaves very differ
ently, so that one may sometimes tell by the motion of
shadows on the ground, if he be too indolent to look up,
under what kind of tree he is dozing. On the tulip-tree
(which has the finest name that ever tree had, making the
very pronouncing of its name almost like the utterance of
a strain of music Liriodendron tuUpifera), on the tulip-
tree, the aspen, and on all native poplars, the leaves are
apparently Anglo-Saxon or Germanic, having an intense
individualism. Each one moves to suit itself. Under the
same wind one is trilling up and down, another is whirling,
another slowly vibrating right and left, and others still,
quieting themselves to sleep, as a mother gently pats her
slumbering child ; and each one intent upon a motion of
its own. Sometimes other trees have single frisky leaves,
but usually the oaks, maples, beeches, have community
of motion. They are all acting together, or all are aliko
still.
What is sweeter than a murmur of leaves, unless it be
the musical gurgling of water that runs secretly and cuts
under the roots of these trees, and makes little bubbling
pools that laugh to see the drops stumble over the root
and plump down into its bosom! In such nooks could
trout lie. Unless ye would become mermaids, keep far
from such places, all innocent grasshoppers and all ebony
crickets! Do not believe in appearances. You peer over
and know that there is no danger. You can see the radi
ant gravel. You know that no enemy lurks in that fairy
pool. You can see every nook and corner of it, and it is
as sweet a bathing-pool as ever was swum by long-legged
grasshoppers. Over the root comes a butterfly with both
sails a little drabbled, and quicker than light he is plucked
84 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BEECHEK
down, leaving three or four bubbles behind him, fit em
blems of a butterfly's life. There ! did I not tell you ?
Now go away, all maiden crickets and grasshoppers !
These fair surfaces, so pure, so crystalline, so surely safe,
have a trout somewhere in them lying in wait for you.
But what if one sits between both kinds of music, leaves
above and water below? ' What if birds are among the
leaves, sending out random calls, far-piercing and sweet,
as if they were lovers saying, "My dear, are you there?"
If you are half reclining upon a cushion of fresh new moss,
that swells up between the many-plied and twisted roots
of a huge beech-tree, and if you have been there half an
hour without moving, and if you will still keep motion
less, you may see what they who only walk through
forests never see. . . .
To most people a grove is a grove, and all groves are
alike. But no two groves are alike. There is as marked
a difference between different forests as between different
communities. A grove of pines without underbrush, car
peted with the fine-fingered russet leaves of the pine, and
odorous of resinous gums, has scarcely a trace of likeness
to a maple woods, either in the insects, the birds, the
shrubs, the light and shade, or the sound of its leaves. If
we lived in olden times among young mythologies, we
should say that pines held the imprisoned spirits of naiads
and water-nymphs, and that their sounds were of the
water for whose lucid depths they always sighed. At any
rate, the first pines must have grown on the sea-shore, and
learned their first accents from the surf and the waves ;
and all their posterity have inherited the sound, and borne
it inland to the mountains.
I like best a forest of mingled trees, ash, maple, oak,
beech, hickory, and evergreens, with birches growing along
the edges of the brook that carries itself through the roots
FOE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 85
and stones toward the willows that grow in yonder
meadow. It should be deep and sombre in some direc
tions, running off into shadowy recesses and coverts
beyond all footsteps. In such a wood there is endless
variety. It will breathe as many voices to your fancy as
might be brought from any organ beneath the pressure
of some Handel's hands. By the way, Handel and Bee
thoven always remind me of forests. So do some poets,
whose numbers are various as the infinity of vegetation,
fine as the choicest cut leaves, strong and rugged in places
as the unbarked trunk and gnarled roots at the ground's
surface. Is there any other place, except the sea-side,
where hours are so short and moments so swift as in a
forest ? Where else, except in the rare communion of
those friends much loved, do we awake from pleasure
whose calm flow is without a ripple, into surprise that
whole hours are gone which we thought but just begun
blossomed and dropped, which we thought but just
budding !
THE PURLOINED LETTER.
EDGAR ALLAN POE.
[As a writer of the short story Poe has had few equals in this coun
try. The artful ingenuity with which he works up the details of his
plot, and his minute attention to the smallest illustrative particulai
which bears upon the conduct of the story, give his tales a vivid in
terest from which no reader can escape. The scenes of gloom and
terror which he loves to depict, the forms of horror to which he seems
to give actual life, render his mastery over his reader as exciting as it
is absorbing. His skill in analysis is as marked as his power of paint
ing scenes of horror. "We give below one of these analytic stories, as
illustrative of his method of handling a subject of this character,
8
86 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoE
though, as Griswold indicates, he but unties the knot he has himself
carefully tied. As a poet, Poe ranks with the most original of Ameri
can authors, and brings into his poetry all that weirdness, subtilty,
artistic detail, and facility of word-painting which give the charm to
his stories, together with a musical flow of language in which he has
never been excelled. He was born in Boston in 1811, graduated at
the University of Virginia in 1826, and successively became editor
of the "Southern Literary Messenger," the " G-entleman's Magazine,"
"Graham's Magazine," and the " Broadway Journal." He died in
Baltimore in 1849.]
" Nil sapientise odiosius acumine nimio." SENECA.
(" There is nothing more odious in knowledge than too much acute-
ness.")
AT Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the
autumn of 18 , I was enjoying the twofold luxury of
meditation and a meerschaum in company with my friend
C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet,
au troisieme, No. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain.
For one hour at least we had maintained a profound
silence ; while each, to any casual observer, might have
seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling
eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the
chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discuss
ing certain topics which had formed matter for conversa
tion between us at an earlier period of the evening, I
mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery at
tending the murder of Marie Roget. I looked upon it,
therefore, as something of a coincidence when the door
of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old
acquaintance, Monsieur G- , the prefect of the Parisian
police.
We gave him a hearty welcome ; for there was nearly
balf as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible
about the man, and we had not seen him for several yeara
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 87
We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for
the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again with
out doing so, upon G- 's saying that he had called to
consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend about
some official business which had occasioned a great deal
of trouble.
" If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Du
pin, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, " we shall examine
it to better purpose in the dark."
" That is another of your odd notions," said the pre
fect, who had the fashion of calling everything " odd" that
was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an
absolute legion of " oddities."
"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor
with a pipe and rolled toward him a comfortable chair.
"And what is the difficulty now ?" I asked. "Nothing
more in the assassination way, I hope ?"
" Oh, no ; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the busi
ness is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we
can manage it sufficiently well ourselves ; but then I
thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, be
cause it is so excessively odd"
" Simple and odd," said Dupin.
" Why, yes ; and not exactly that, either. The fact is,
we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is
so simple, and yet baffles us altogether."
" Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which
puts you at fault," said my friend.
" What nonsense you do talk !" replied the prefect,
laughing heartily.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin.
" Oh, good heavens ! who ever heard of such an idea ?"
" A little too self-evident."
"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!" roared
88 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Po*
our visitor, profoundly amused. " Oh, Dupin, you will be
the death of me yet !"
" And what, after all, is the matter on hand ?" I asked.
" Why. I will tell you," replied the prefect, as he gave
a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled him
self in his chair. " I will tell you in a few words ; but,
before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair
demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most
probably lose the position I now hold were it known that
I confided it to any one."
" Proceed," said I.
" Or not," said Dupin.
" Well, then, I have received personal information, from
a very high quarter, that a certain document of the last
importance has been purloined from the royal apartments.
The individual who purloined it is known ; this beyond a
doubt: he was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it
still remains in his possession."
" How is this known ?" asked Dupin.
"It is clearly inferred," replied the prefect, "from the
nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of
certain results which would at once arise from its passing
out of the robber's possession, that is to say, from his
employing it as he must design in the end to employ it."
" Be a little more explicit," I said.
" Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper
gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter,
where such power is immensely valuable." The prefect
was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
" Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.
" No ? Well, the disclosure of the document to a
third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in ques
tion the honor of a personage of most exalted station ;
and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascend-
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 89
ency over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace
are so jeopardized."
"But this ascendency," I interposed, "would depend
upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of
the robber. "Who would dare "
"The thief," said G , "is the Minister D , who
dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becom
ing a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious
than bold. The document in question a letter, to be
frank had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was
suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other ex
alted personage, from whom especially it was her wish to
conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust
it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was,
upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and,
the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice.
At this juncture enters the Minister D . His lynx
eye immediately perceives the paper, recognizes the hand
writing of the address, observes the confusion of the
personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some
business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary
manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one
in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places
it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses
for some, fifteen minutes upon the public affairs. At
length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table the
letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner
saw, but, of course, dared not call attention to the act,
in the presence of the third personage, who stood at her
elbow. The minister decamped, leaving his own letter
one of no importance upon the table."
"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely
what you demand to make the ascendency complete, the
8*
90 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoE
robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the
robber."
"Yes," replied the prefect; "and the power thus at
tained has, for some months past, been wielded for politi
cal purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage
robbed is more thoroughly convinced every day of the
necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course,
cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she
has committed the matter to me."
" Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind
of smoke, " no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, bo
desired, or even imagined."
" You flatter me," replied the prefect ; " but it is possi
ble that some such opinion may have been entertained."
" It is clear," said I, " as you observe, that the letter is
still in the possession of the minister, since it is this pos
session, and not any employment of the letter, which
bestows the power. With the employment the power
departs."
" True," said G- , " and upon this conviction I pro
ceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the
minister's hotel ; and here my chief embarrassment lay in
the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond
all things, I have been warned of the danger which would
result from giving him reason to suspect our design."
"But," said I, "you are quite aufait in these investiga
tions. The Parisian police have done this thing often
before."
" Oh, yes ; and for this reason I did not despair. The
habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage.
He is frequently absent from home all night. His ser
vants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a dis
tance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly
Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 91
you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabi
net in Paris. For three months a night has not passed
during the greater part of which I have not been engaged,
personally, in ransacking the D Hotel. My honor is
interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is
enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had
become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man
than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every
nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible
that the paper can be concealed."
" But is it not possible," I suggested, " that although
the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it un
questionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than .
upon his own premises ?"
" This is barely possible," said Dupin. " The present
peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of
those intrigues in which D is known to be involved,
would render the instant availability of the document
its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice
a point of nearly equal importance with its possession."
" Its susceptibility of being produced ?" said I.
" That is to say, of being destroyed" said Dupin.
" True," I observed. " The paper is clearly, then, upon
the premises. As for its being upon the person of the
minister, we may consider that as out of the question."
" Entirely," said the prefect. " He has been twice way
laid, as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched
under my own inspection."
" You might have spared yourself this trouble," said
Dupin. "D , I presume, is not altogether a fool, and,
if not, must have anticipated these waylay ings as a mat
ter of course."
" Not altogether a fool," said G ; " but then he is a
poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool."
92 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoK
" True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff
from his meerschaum, " although I have been guilty of
certain doggerel myself."
" Suppose you detail," said I, " the particulars of your
search."
" Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched
everywhere. I have had long experience in these affairs.
I took the entire building, room by room ; devoting the
nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, the
furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible
drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly-
trained police-agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is
impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a { secret '
drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing
is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk of
space to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we
have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not
escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The
cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have
seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops."
" Why so ?"
" Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly ar
ranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing
to conceal an article ; then the leg is excavated, the article
deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bot
toms and tops of bed-posts are employed in the same way."
" But could not the cavity be detected by sounding ?" I
asked.
" By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a suf
ficient wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides,
in our case we were obliged to proceed without noise."
" But you could not have removed you could not have
taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would
have been possible to make a deposit in the manner you
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. y3
mentioD. A letter may be compressed into a thin spiral
roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large
knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into
the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to
pieces all the chairs ?"
" Certainly not ; but we did better we examined the
rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the joint
ings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a
most powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of
recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it
instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example,
would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder
in the gluing any unusual gaping in the joints would
have sufficed to insure detection."
" I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the
boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the
bedclothes, as well as the curtains and carpets."
" That of course ; and when we had absolutely com
pleted every particle of the furniture in this way, then
we examined the house itself. We divided its entire sur
face into compartments, which we numbered, so that none
might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual
square inch throughout the premises, including the two
houses immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as
before."
" The two houses adjoining !" I exclaimed; u you must
have had a great deal of trouble."
" We had ; but the reward offered is prodigious."
" You include the grounds about the houses ?"
'' All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us
comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss be
tween the bricks, and found it undisturbed."
" You looked among D 's papers, of course, and into
the books of the library ?"
94 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoE
" Certainly : we opened every package and parcel j we
not only opened every book, but we turned over every
leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere
shake, according to the fashion of some of our police-
officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-
cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied
to each the most jealous scrutiny of the .microscope.
Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it
would have been utterly impossible that the fact should
have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just
from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longi
tudinally, with the needles."
" You explored the floors beneath the carpets ?"
"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and ex
amined the boards with the microscope."
"And the paper on the walls ?"
"Yes."
" You looked into the cellars ?"
" We did."
" Then," I said, " you have been making a miscalcula
tion, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you
suppose."
"I fear you are right there," said the prefect. "And
now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do ?"
" To make a thorough research of the premises."
"That is absolutely needless," replied G- . "I am
not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is
not at the hotel."
"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin.
"You have, of course, an accurate description of the
letter?"
" Oh, yes !" And here the prefect, producing a memoran
dum-book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of
the internal, and especially of the external, appearance of
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 95
the missing document. Soon after finishing the perusal
of this description, he took his departure, more entirely
depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good
gentleman before.
In about a month afterward he paid us another visit,
and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a
pipe and a chair, and entered into some ordinary conver
sation. At length I said,
"Well, but, G- , what of the purloined letter? I
presume you have at last made up your mind that there
is no such thing as overreaching the minister?"
" Confound him, say I yes. I made the re-examination,
however, as Dupin suggested; but it was all labor lost,
as I knew it would be."
"How much was the reward offered, did you say?"
asked Dupin.
" Why, a very great deal, a very liberal reward : I don't
like to say how much, precisely, but one thing I will say,
that I wouldn't mind giving my individual check for
fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain me
that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more
importance every day ; and the reward has been lately
doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more
than I have done."
" Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs
of his meerschaum, " I really think, G , you have
not exerted yourself to the utmost in this matter. You
might do a little more, I think, eh ?"
" How ? in what way ?"
" Why puff, puff you might puff, puff employ coun
sel in the matter, eh ? puff, puff, puff. Do you remem
ber the story they tell of Abernethy ?"
"No; hang Abernethy!"
" To be sure ! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a
96 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoK
time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging
upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up,
for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private
company, he insinuated his case to the physician, as that
of an imaginary individual.
"'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms
are such and such : now, doctor, what would you have
directed him to take ?'
" ' Take,' said Abernethy, ' why, take advice, to be sure.' "
" But," said the prefect, a little discomposed, " I am
perfectly willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I
would really give fifty thousand francs to any one who
would aid me in the matter."
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer and
producing a check-book, "you may as well fill me up a
check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed
it, I will hand you the letter."
I was astounded. The prefect appeared absolutely
thunderstricken. For some minutes he remained speech
less and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend,
with open mouth and eyes that seemed starting from
their sockets ; then, apparently recovering himself in
dome measure, he seized a pen, and, after several pauses
and vacant stares, finally filled up and signed a check
for fifty thousand francs and handed it across the table to
Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited
it in his pocket-book, then, unlocking an escritoire, took
thence a letter and gave it to the prefect. This function
ary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a
trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and
then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at
length unceremoniously from the room and from the
house, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had
requested him to fill up the check.
POE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 97
When he had gone, my friend entered into some ex
planations.
" The Parisian police," he said, " are exceedingly able
in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning,
and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their
duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G de
tailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the
Hotel D , I felt entire confidence in his having made
a satisfactory investigation, so far as his labors extended."
" So far as his labors extended ?" said I.
" Yes," said Dupin. " The measures adopted were not
only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute
perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the
range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a
question, have found it."
I merely laughed ; but he seemed quite serious in all
that he said. . . .
" There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, :c which is
played upon a map. One party playing requires another
to find a given word the name of a town, river, state,
or empire any word, in short, upon the motley and per
plexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game gen
erally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them
the most minutely lettered names ; but the adept selects
such words as stretch, in large characters, from one end
of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely
lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observa
tion by dint of being excessively obvious ; and here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass
unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively
and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it
appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of
the prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possi-
E g 9
98 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoB
ble, that the minister had deposited the letter immediately
beneath the nose of the whole world by way of best pre
venting any portion of that world from perceiving it.
" But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing,
and discriminating ingenuity of D ; upon the fact
that the document must have always been at hand, if he
intended to use it to good purpose ; and upon the decisive
evidence obtained by the prefect that it was not hidden
within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search, the
more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the
minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious
expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.
" Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of
green spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by
accident, at the ministerial hotel. I found D at home.
yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual, and pretend
ing to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps,
the most really energetic human being now alive, but
that is only when nobody sees him.
" To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes,
and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover
of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole
apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conver
sation of my host.
" I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near
which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly some miscel
laneous letters and other papers, with one or two musical
instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a
long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite
particular suspicion.
"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room,
fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that
hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon from a little brass
knob just beneath the middle of the mantel-piece. In
FOE] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 99
this rack, which had three or four compartments, were
five or six visiting-cards and a solitary letter. This last
was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in
two across the middle, as if a design, in the first instance,
to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or
stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing
the D cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed
in a diminutive female hand to D , the minister him
self. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of
the rack.
"No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded
it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it
was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of
which the prefect had read us so minute a description.
Here the seal was large and black, with the D cipher ;
there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the
S family. Here, the address to the minister was
diminutive and feminine; there, the superscription, to a
certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided :
the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But,
then, the radicalness of these differences, which was exces
sive j the dirt ; the soiled and torn condition of the paper,
so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D ,
and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into
an idea of the worthlessness of the document; theae
things, together with the hyperobtrusive situation of
this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus
exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I
had previously arrived ; these things, I say, were strongly
corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the
intention to suspect.
" I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I
maintained a most animated discussion with the minister
100 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS, [PoE
upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to in
terest and excite him, T kept my attention really riveted
upon the letter. In this examination I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the
rack, and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set
at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained.
In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them
to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented
the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder,
is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or
edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery
was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had
been turned, as a glove, inside out, redirected and re-
sealed. I bade the minister good-morning and took my
departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the
table.
" The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we
resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding
day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if
of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows
of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful
screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D
rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In
the mean time I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter,
put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile (so
far as regards externals), which I had carefully prepared
at my lodgings, imitating the D cipher very readily
by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by
the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had
fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved,
however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was
suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
Pox] THE PURLOINED LETTER. 101
he had gone, D came from the window, whither I
had followed him immediately upon securing the object
in view. Soon afterward I bade him farewell. The
pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing
the letter by a fac-simile ? Would it not have been better
at the first visit to have seized it openly and departed ?"
"D ," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a
man of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants
devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt
you suggest, I might never have left the ministerial pres
ence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these
considerations. You know my political prepossessions.
In this matter I act as a partisan of the lady concerned.
For eighteen months the minister has had her in his
power. She has now him in hers, since, being unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed
with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably
commit himself at once to his political destruction. His
downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward.
It is all very well to talk about the/adlis descensus Averni;
but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalan i said of singing,
it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the
present instance I have no sympathy at least no pity
for him who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum,
an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that
I should like very well to know the precise character
of his thoughts when, being defied by her whom the
prefect terms a certain personage, he is reduced to open
ing the letter which I left for him in the card-rack."
" How ? Did you put anything particular in it ?"
"Why, it did not seem altogether right to leave the
interior blank : that would have been insulting. D , at
9*
102 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiRT
Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite
good-humored ly, that I should remember. So, as I knew
he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of
the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity
not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my
MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet,
the words,
' Un dessein si funeste.
S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste
They are to be found in Oebillon's 'Atree.' "
THE BLIND PREACHER.
WILLIAM WIRT.
[William Wirt, for many years Attorney-General of the United
States, and the author of a notable " Life of Patrick Henry," was
born in Bladensburg, Maryland, in 1772. He studied law in his
native State, and in 1807 took part, as assistant to the then attorney-
general, in the trial of Aaron Burr. In this celebrated trial he showed
great powers of oratory, and made a speech of unusual brilliancy and
effectiveness, a portion of which was his glowing sketch of the home
of Blennerhasset on the Ohio, one of the most attractive and popular
instances of American eloquence. The sketch of the Blind Preacher,
which we give, is from his " Letters of the British Spy." In addition
he published "The Kainbow," and "The Bachelor," two series of
essays, the latter of which, on the model of the Spectator, attracted
considerable attention. He was a florid and rhetorical writer, whose
works, though criticised for their inaccuracy, were well calculated to
arouse popular interest He died in 1834.]
IT was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county
of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses
WIRT] THE BLIND PREACHER. 103
tied near a ruinous old wooden house in the forest, not far
from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects
before in travelling through these States, I had no diffi
culty in understanding that this was a place of religious
worship.
Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the
duties of the congregation ; but I must confess that curi
osity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not
the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with
his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very
spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white
linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all
shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments
ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.
The first emotions which touched my breast were those
of mingled pity and veneration. But ah ! sacred God !
how soon were all my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato
were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees
than were the lips of this holy man ! It was a day of
the administration of the sacrament ; and his subject, of
course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the
subject handled a thousand times; I had thought it ex
hausted long ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild
woods of America I was to meet with a man whose elo
quence would give to this topic a new and more sublime
pathos than I had ever before witnessed.
As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic
symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human, solem
nity in his air and manner which made my blood run cold
and my whole frame shiver.
He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour ,
his trial before Pilate ; his ascent up Calvary ; his cruci
fixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but
never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected,
104 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiRi
so arranged, so colored. It was all new ; and I seemed to
have heard it for the first time in my life. His enuncia
tion was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every
syllable ; and every heart in the assembly trembled in
unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of descrip
tion that the original scene appeared to be at that mo
ment acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of
the Jews ; the staring, frightful distortions of malice and
rage. We saw the buffet : my soul kindled with a flame
of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and con
vulsively clinched.
But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiv
ing meekness of our Saviour ; when he drew, to the life,
his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven, his voice
breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on
his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all
along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance
being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, ho
raised his handkerchief to his eyes and burst into a loud
and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceiva
ble. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans,
and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.
It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far
as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual,
but fallacious, standard of my own weakness, I began to
be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I
could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience
down from the height to which he had wound them, with
out impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or
perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But
no ; the descent was as beautiful and sublime a the eleva
tion had been rapid and enthusiastic.
The first sentence with which he broke the awful
WIRT] THE BLIND PREACHER, 105
was a quotation from Rousseau : " Socrates died like a
philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God !"
I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced
by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive
the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar
crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely un
derstand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress
on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable
figure of the preacher ; his blindness, constantly recalling
to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and
associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur
of their geniuses ; you are to imagine that you hear his
slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of
affecting, trembling melody ; you are to remember the
pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation
were raised ; and then the few minutes of portentous,
death-like silence which reigned throughout the house ;
the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his
aged face (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his
tears) and, slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which
holds it, begins the sentence, " Socrates died like a philoso
pher" then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them
both clasped together with warmth .and energy to his
breast, lifting his " sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring
his w r hole soul into his tremulous voice, " but Jesus Christ
like a God !" If he had been in deed and in truth an angel
of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.
Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity
of Massillon, or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far
short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this
simple sentence. The blood, which just before had rushed
in a hurricane upon my brain, and in the violence and
agony of my feelings had held my whole system in sus
pense, now ran back into my heart with a sensation which
106 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiRT
I cannot describe, a kind of shuddering delicious horror !
The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which
I had been transported, subsided into the deepest self-
abasement, humility, and adoration. I had just been lacer
ated and dissolved by sympathy for our Saviour as a fellow-
creature ; but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him
as "a God!"
If this description give you the impression that this
incomparable minister had anything of shallow, theatrical
trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have
never seen in any other orator such a union of simplicity
and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude, or an ac
cent to which he does not seem forced by the sentiment
which he is expressing. His mind is too serious, too
earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified,
to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from osten
tation as a man can be, yet it is clear, from the train, the
style and substance of his thoughts, that he is not only a
very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and profound
erudition. I was forcibly struck with a short yet beauti
ful character which he drew of our learned and amiable
countryman Sir Eobert Boyle : he spoke of him as if " his
noble mind had, evon before death, divested herself of all
influence from his frail tabernacle of flesh ;" and called
him, in his peculiarly emphatic and impressive manner,
" a pure intelligence ; the link between men and angels."
This man has been before my imagination almost ever
since. A thousand times, as I rode along, I dropped the
reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to
imitate his quotation from Rousseau ; a thousand times I
abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded that
his peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of
soul which nature could give, but which no human being
could justly copy. In short, he seems to be altogether a
KNOTT] SPEECH ON DULUTH. 107
being of a former age, or of a totally different nature from
the rest of men. As I recall, at this moment, several of
his awfully striking attitudes, the chilling tide with which
my blood begins to pour along my arteries reminds me of
the emotions produced by the first sight of Gray's intro
ductory picture of his bard :
" On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Eobed in the sable garb of woe,
"With haggard eyes the poet stood
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Streamed, like^a meteor, to the troubled air),
And with a poet's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre."
SPEECH ON DULUTH.
J. PROCTOR KNOTT.
[J. Proctor Knott, a member of the House of Kepresentatives from
Kentucky, rose on January 27, 1871, to address the House on a bill
then before it, proposing to make an extensive land-grant to a pro
jected railroad from the St. Croix Eiver to Duluth, Minnesota, at the
western extremity of Lake Superior. This bill had already passed the
Senate, and was pressed by a powerful lobby and many interested
members in the House. But the member from Kentucky, in a speech
which for telling humor has rarely been equalled upon that floor, so
covered the whole scheme with ridicule as effectually to kill it, and
to convulse with laughter not only the House of Representatives, but
the whole country. We append this amusing specimen of Con
gressional wit.]
MR. SPEAKER, Tf I could be actuated by any conceivable
inducement to betray the sacred trust reposed in me by
those to whose generous confidence I am indebted for the
108 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KNOTT
honor of a seat on this floor : if I could he influenced by
any possible consideration to become instrumental in giv
ing away, in violation of their known wishes, any por
tion of their interest in the public domain for the mere
promotion of any railroad enterprise whatever, I should
certainly feel a strong inclination to give this measure
my most earnest and hearty support ; for I am assured that
its success would materially enhance the pecuniary pros
perity of some of the most valued friends I have on earth:
friends for whose accommodation I would be willing to
make almost any sacrifice not involving my personal
honor or my fidelity as the trusteeof an expressed trust.
And that fact of itself would be sufficient to countervail
almost any objection I might entertain to the passage of
this bill not inspired by an imperative and inexorable
sense of public duty.
Now, sir, I have been satisfied for years that if there
was any portion of the inhabited globe absolutely in a
suffering condition for want of a railroad it was these
teeming pine barrens of the St. Croix. At what particu
lar point on that noble stream such a road should be
commenced I knew was immaterial, and so it seems to
have been considered by the draughtsman of this bill. It
might be up at the spring, or down at the foot-log, or the
water-gate, or the fish-dam, or anywhere along the bank,
no matter where. But in what direction it should run,
or where it should terminate, were always to my mind
questions of the most painful perplexity. I could con
ceive of no place on " God's green earth" in such strait
ened circumstances for railroad facilities as to be likely
to desire or willing to accent such a connection. I knew
that neither Bayfield nor Superior City would have it, for
they both indignantly spurned the munificence of the
government when coupled with such ignominious condi-
KNOTT] SPEECH ON DULUTH. 109
tions, and let this very same land-grant die on their hands
years and years ago rather than submit to the degrada
tion of a direct communication by railroad with the piney
woods of the St. Croix ; and I knew that what the enter
prising inhabitants of those giant young cities would
refuse to take would have few charms for others, what
ever their necessities or cupidity might be.
Hence, as I said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine
where the terminus of this great and indispensable road
should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentleman
the other day mention the name of "Duluth." Duluth !
The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable
charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing
forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of
an angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping
innocence. Duluth ! 'Twas the name for which my soul
had panted for years, as the hart panteth for water-
brooks. But where was Duluth ? Never, in all my
limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing
the celestial word in print. And I felt a profounder humil
iation in my ignorance, that its dulcet syllables had never
before ravished my delighted ear. I was certain the
draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it
would have been designated as one of the termini of this
road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing
of it. I rushed to the Library and examined all the maps
I could find. I discovered in one of them a delicate, hair-
like line, diverging from the Mississippi near a place
marked Prescott, which I supposed was intended to repre
sent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth.
Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere,
and that its discovery would constitute the crowning
glory of the present century, if not of all modern times.
I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things ;
10
110 'BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KNOTT
that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system
would be incomplete without it ; that the elements of
material nature would long since have resolved them
selves back into original chaos if there had been such a
hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving
out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the
conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but
that, wherever it was, it was a great and glorious place.
I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever
befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in
their having passed away without a knowledge of the
actual existence of Duluth ; that their fabled Atlantis,
never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy,
was, in fact, but another name for Duluth ; that the golden
orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonyme
for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. I was
certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death be
cause in all his travels and with all his geographical re
search he had never heard of Duluth. I knew that if
the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from
another heaven than that created by his own celestial
genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation
of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by
the touch of his magic wand, if he could be permitted to
behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious produc
tions of the lyric art called into being by his own in
spired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that
instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon
the fall of Troy it had not been his more blessed lot to crys
tallize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. Yet,
sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by
the Legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to
my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair
because I could nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my
KNOTT] SPEECH ON DULUTH. Ill
melancholy fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble
pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint exha
lation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered,
" Where is Duluth ?"
But, thanks to the beneficence of that band of minis
tering angels who have their bright abodes in the far-off
capital of Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was
about to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed
map was placed in my hands, and as I unfolded it a
resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me,
such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured vision of the
wandering peri through the opening gates of paradise.
There, there, for the first time, my enchanted eye rested
upon the ravishing word " Duluth/'
This map, sir, is intended, as it appears from its title,
to illustrate the position of Duluth in the United States ;
but if gentlemen will examine it I think they will concur
with me in the opinion that it is far too modest in its
pretensions. It not only illustrates the position of Duluth
in the United States, but exhibits its relations with all
created things. It even goes further than this. It lifts
the shadowy veil of futurity, and affords us a view of
the golden prospects of Duluth far along the dim vista
of ages yet to come.
If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth not
only in the centre of the map, but represented in the cen
tre of a series of concentric circles one hundred miles
apart, and some of them as much as four thousand miles
in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous sweep
the fragrant savannas of the sunlit South and the eternal
solitudes of snow that mantle the ice-bound North. How
these circles were produced is perhaps one of those pri
mordial mysteries that the most skilful pala3ologist will
never be able to explain. But the fact is, sir, Duluth is
112 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KNOTT
pre-eminently a central place, for I am told by gentlemen
who have been so reckless of their own personal safety as
to venture away into those awful regions where Duluth
is supposed to be, that it is so exactly in the centre of the
visible universe that the sky comes down at precisely the
same distance all around it.
I find by reference to this map that Duluth is situated
somewhere near the western end of Lake Superior ; but,
as there is no dot or other mark indicating its exact loca
tion, I am unable to say whether it is actually confined to
any particular spot, or whether " it is just lying around
there loose." I really cannot tell whether it is one of
those ethereal creations of intellectual frost-work, more
intangible than the rose-tinted clouds of a summer sunset ;
one of those airy exhalations of the speculator's brain,
which I am told are ever flitting in the form of towns and
cities along those lines of railroad, built with government
subsidies, luring the unwary settlers, as the mirage of the
desert lures the famished traveller on, and ever on, until it
fades away in the darkening horizon, or whether it is a
real, bona fide, substantial city, all " staked off," with the
lots marked with their owner's name, like that proud
commercial metropolis lately discovered on the desirable
shores of San Domingo. But, however that may be, I
am satisfied Duluth is there, or thereabout ; for I see it
stated here on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hun
dred and ninety miles from Liverpool, though I have no
doubt, for the sake of convenience, it will be moved back
ten miles, so as to make the distance an even four thou
sand.
Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unquestion
ably the most salubrious and delightful to be found any
where on the Lord's earth. Now, I have always been
under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have,
KNOTT] SPEECH ON DULUTH. 113
that in the region around Lake Superior it was cold
enough for at least nine months in the year to freeze the
smoke-stack off a locomotive. But I see it represented
on this map that Duluth is situated exactly half-way be
tween the latitudes of Paris and Yenice, so that gentle
men who have inhaled the exhilarating airs of the one or
basked in the golden sunlight of the other must see at a
glance that Duluth must be a place of untold delights, a
terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an
eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-
blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of
nature's choicest songsters. In fact, sir, since I have seen
this map I have no doubt that Byron was vainly endeav
oring to convey some faint conception of the delicious
charms of Duluth when his poetic soul gushed forth in
the rippling strains of that beautiful rhapsody,
u Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine ;
"Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in their bloom :
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute ;
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie?"
As to the commercial resources of Duluth, sir, they are
simply illimitable and inexhaustible, as is shown by this
map. I see it stated here that there is a vast scope of
territory, embracing an area of over two million square
miles, rich in every element of material wealth and com
mercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth. Look at it,
sir. Here are inexhaustible mines of gold, immeasurable
veins of silver, impenetrable depths of boundless forest,
vast coal-measures, wide-extended plains of richest pas-
h 10*
114 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KNOTT
turage, all all embraced in the vast territory which must,
in the very nature of things, empty the untold treasures
of its commerce into the lap of Duluth.
Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours and expatiate
with rapture on the gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as de
picted upon this map. But human life is too short, and the
time of this house far too valuable, to allow me to linger
longer upon the delightful theme. I think every gentle
man on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth
is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the
universe, and that this road should be built at once. I
am fully persuaded that no patriotic representative of the
American people who has a proper appreciation of the
associated glories of Duluth and the St. Croix will hesi
tate a moment to say that every able-bodied female in the
land, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, who is
in favor of " women's rights," should be drafted and set
to work upon this great work without delay. Neverthe
less, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say
that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in
this bill.
Ah, sir! you can have no conception of the poignancy
of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privi
lege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way.
In the first place, my constituents, for whom I am acting
here, have no more interest in this road than they have
in the great question of culinary taste now perhaps agi
tating the public mind of Dominica, as to whether the
illustrious commissioners who recently left this capital for
that free and enlightened republic would be better fricas
seed, boiled, or roasted ; and, in the second place, these
lands, which I am asked to give away, alas, are not mine
to bestow ! My relation to them is simply that of trustee
to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust ?
TAYLOR] LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 115
Never, sir ! Eather perish Duluth ! Perish the paragon
of cities ! Eather let the freezing cyclone of the bleak
Northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of
the raging St. Croix !
LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.
Love and poetry are woven of the same thread and painted with the
same hues. Emotion and enthusiasm are elements necessary to the
life of both, and every true lover becomes a poet for once in his life,
just as every poet is a lover, by nature if not in actual fact. "What
ever the poet's theme, be it art or nature, war or woman, he must be
thoroughly in love with it, and the heart-beat of his love must throb
through his verses, or they will be but dead timber, words without
soul. The realm of the poet is a fairy-land of fancy, with an at
mosphere made up of splendor and unrealism. And chief among
the many legends upon the portal of this fairy-land are the lines of
the poet Moore :
" There is nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream."
The truth of this sentiment has been recognized by every poet, troru
Homer down to the most recent rhymester, and it has formed the
inspiring theme of countless numbers of verse. It seems eminently
fitting, therefore, to devote our present Half-Hour to the poets of
America in their rendition of this most ancient yet youngest and
freshest of poetic themes. And first Bayard Taylor comes to us with
a love-song of the Bedouins, a strain of passionate sentiment from that
land where love is life, and life is love.
FROM the desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire ;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
116 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TATLOB
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry ;
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold !
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain ;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night- winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold !
My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold !
ALDRICH] LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 117
We may fitly follow this passionate serenade with Aldrich's tender
love-song from the Persian, though its strain breathes of the thought
ful West rather than of the fiery East.
Ah ! sad are they who know not love,
But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
Drift down a moonless sea, beyond
The silvery coasts of fairy isles.
And sadder they whose longing lips
Kiss empty air, and never touch
The dear warm mouth of those they love,
Waiting, wasting, suifering much.
But clear as amber, fine as musk,
" Is life to those who, pilgrim- wise,
Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk,
Each morning nearer Paradise.
Oh, not for them shall angels pray !
They stand in everlasting light,
They walk in Allah's smile by day,
Arid nestle in his heart by night.
E. C. Pinkney's " Health" breathes another strain.
I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon ;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaver
118 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Her every tone is music's own.
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words ;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.
Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours ;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers ;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,
The idol of past years !
Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain ;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.
I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon ;
Her health ! and would on earth there stood
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.
POE] LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 119
Love, indeed, is the law of life, or, as Whittier tells us, it is above
all law beyond that which it makes for itself.
" Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair,
And high and low mate ill ;
But love has never known a law
Beyond its own sweet will !"
It has the power of the magnet in drawing souls together, whose
union Longfellow has happily compared to the rapid inflow of two
meeting streams :
" So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other."
Poe, the weirdest in thought, yet the most musical in diction, of
American poets, sings of his lost love in the following melodious yet
somewhat artificial strain.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived, whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee ;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child, and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea ;
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee,
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee ;
120 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Pojs
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me,
Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we,
Of many far wiser than we,
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
In conclusion may be given Whittier's wise warning to those in
whom marriage, with its cares and crosses, threatens to dim or extin
guish the light of love.
And if the husband or the wife
In home's strong light discovers
MOTLEY] THE DUKE'S PLOT. 121
Such slight defects as failed to meet
The blinded eyes of lovers,
Why need we care to ask ? Who dreams
Without their thorns of roses,
Or wonders that the truest steel
The readiest spark discloses ?
For still in mutual suiferance lies
The secret of true living :
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.
THE DUKE'S PLOT.
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.
[John Lothrop Motley, the historian of the Dutch Eepublic, was
born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 15, 1814. He graduated at
Harvard in 1831, and then studied at Gottingen for about a year, after
which he spent some time in European travel. Upon his return home
he studied law, but soon relinquished the legal profession for the more
congenial pursuit of literature. His early works were two novels of no
great success, " Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Young Provin
cial," and " Merry Mount, a Romance of the Massachusetts Colony."
He also contributed to the North American Review and other periodi
cals. His works of fiction are spirited, with wellrelaborated descriptions
and much humor. In 1851 he revisited Europe, to collect materials
for a projected history of Holland. The result of this visit was the
brilliant historical work, " The Rise of the Dutch Republic," one of
the most scholarly productions in the whole range of American his
torical compositions. This work, published in 1856, was followed in
1860-67 by " The History of the United Netherlands from the Death
* 11
122 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MOTLEY
of William the Silent to tlie Synod of Dort," and in 1874 by the " Life
of John of Barneveldt," in completion of his valuable study of the
history of the Netherlands. Mr. Motley served the government as
minister-plenipotentiary to Austria from 1861 to 1867, and as ambas
sador to England in 1869-70. He died May 29, 1877. As an historian,
Motley is very animated in style ; and his great work is exceedingly
attractive in its illustrations of the manners and customs of the period
of which it treats, and in its graphic details of the stirring events of
the Netherlandish wars. "We give as an example the description of
the result of the Duke of Anjou's treacherous effort to seize upon
Antwerp.]
ON the 16th of January, suspicion was aroused in the
city. A man in a mask entered the mainguard-house in
the night, mysteriously gave warning that a great crime
was in contemplation, and vanished before he could be
arrested. His accent proved him to be a Frenchman.
Strange rumors flew about the streets. A vague uneasi
ness pervaded the whole population as to the intention of
their new master, but nothing was definitely known, for of
course there was entire ignorance of the events which were
just occurring in other cities. The colonels and captains
of the burgher guard came to consult the Prince of Orange.
He avowed the most entire confidence in the Duke of
Anjou, but, at the same time, recommended that the chains
should be drawn, the lanterns hung out, and the draw
bridge raised an hour earlier than usual, and that other
precautions, customary in the expectation of an attack,
should be duly taken. He likewise sent the burgomas
ter of the interior, Dr. Alostanus, to the Duke of Anjou,
in order to communicate the suspicions created in the
minds of the city authorities by the recent movements of
troops.
Anjou, thus addressed, protested in the most solemn
manner that nothing was farther from his thoughts than
any secret enterprise against Antwerp. He was willing,
MOTLEY] THE DUKE'S PLOT. 123
according to the figure of speech which he had always ready
upon every emergency, " to shed every drop of his blood
in her defence." He swore that he would signally punish
all those who had dared to invent such calumnies against
himself and his faithful Frenchmen, declaring earnestly,
at the same time, that the troops had only been assembled
in the regular course of their duty. As the duke was so
loud and so fervent; as he, moreover, made no objections
to the precautionary measures which had been taken ; as
the burgomaster thought, moreover, that the public atten
tion thus aroused would render all evil designs futile, even
if any had been entertained ; it was thought that the city
might sleep in security for that night at least.
On the following morning, as vague suspicions were still
entertained by many influential persons, a deputation of
magistrates and militia officers waited upon the duke, the
Prince of Orange although himself still feeling a confi
dence widen, seems now almost inexplicable consenting
to accompany them. The duke was more vehement than
ever in his protestations of loyalty to his recent oaths, as
well as of deep affection for the Netherlands, for Brabant
in particular, and for Antwerp most of all, and he made
use of all his vivacity to persuade the prince, the burgo
masters, and the colonels, that they had deeply wronged
him by such unjust suspicions. His assertions were ac
cepted as sincere, and the deputation withdrew, Anjou
having first solemnly promised at the suggestion of
Orange not to leave the city during the whole day, in
order that unnecessary suspicion might be prevented.
This pledge the duke proceeded to violate almost as soon
as made. Orange returned with confidence to his own
house, which was close to the citadel, and therefore far
removed from the proposed point of attack ; but he had
hardly arrived there when he received a visit from the
124 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MOTLEI
duke's private secretary, Quinsay, who invited him tc
accompany his highness on a visit to the camp. Orange
declined the request, and sent an earnest prayer to the
duke not to leave the city that morning. The duke dined
as usual at noon. While at dinner he received a letter,
was observed to turn pale on reading it, and to conceal it
hastily in a muff which he wore on his left arm. The re
past finished, the duke ordered his horse. The animal
was restive, and so strenuously resisted being mounted
that, although it was his usual charger, it was exchanged
for another. This second horse started in such a flurry
that the duke lost his cloak and almost his seat. He
maintained his self-possession, however, and placing him
self at the head of his body-guard and some troopers,
numbering in all three hundred mounted men, rode out
of the palace yard towards the Kipdorp gate.
This portal opened on the road towards Borgerhout,
where his troops were stationed, and at the present day
bears the name of that village. It is on the side of the
city farthest removed from and exactly opposite the river.
The town was very quiet, the streets almost deserted ; for
it was one o'clock, the universal dinner-hour, and all sus
picion had been disarmed by the energetic protestations
of the duke. The guard at the gate looked listlessly upon
the cavalcade as it approached, but as soon as Anjou
had crossed the first drawbridge he rose in his stirrups
and waved his hand. " There is your city, my lads," said
he to the troopers behind him ; " go and take possession
of it."
At the same time he set spurs to his horse, and galloped
off towards the camp at Borgerhout. Instantly after
wards, a gentleman of his suite, Count Eochepot, affected
to have broken his leg through the plunging of his horse,
a circumstance by which he had been violently pressed
MOTLEY] THE DUKE'S PLOT. 125
against the wall as lie entered the gate. Kaiser, the com
manding officer at the guard-house, stepped kindly forward
to render him assistance, and his reward was a desperate
thrust from the Frenchman's rapier. As he wore a steel
cuirass, he fortunately escaped with a slight wound.
The expression " broken leg" was the watchword, for
at one and the same instant the troopers and guardsmen
of Anjou set upon the burgher watch at the gate and
butchered every man. A sufficient force was left to pro
tect the entrance thus easily mastered, while the rest of
the Frenchmen entered the town at full gallop^ shriek
ing, "Ville gaignee! ville gaignee ! vive la messe! vive le Due
d' Anjou /" They were followed by their comrades from
the camp outside, who now poured into the town at the
preconcerted signal, at least six hundred cavalry and three
thousand musketeers, all perfectly appointed, entering
Antwerp at once. From the Kipdorp gate two main ar
teries the streets called the Kipdorp and the Meer led
quite through the heart of the city towards the town-
house and the river beyond. Along these great thorough
fares the French soldiers advanced at a rapid pace ; the
cavalry clattering furiously in the van, shouting, "Ville
gaignee! ville gaignee ! vive la messe! vive la messe ! tue, tue,
tue /"
The burghers coming to door and window to look for
the cause of all this disturbance were saluted with volleys
of musketry. They were .for a moment astonished, but
not appalled, for at first they believed it to be merely
an accidental tumult. Observing, however, that the sol
diers, meeting with but little effective resistance, were dis
persing into dwellings and warehouses, particularly into
the shops of the goldsmiths and lapidaries, the citizens re
membered the dark suspicions which had been so rife, and
many recalled to mind that distinguished French officers
11*
126 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MOTLEY
had during the last few days been carefully examining the
treasures of the jewellers, under pretext of purchasing,
but, as it now appeared, with intent to rob intelligently.
The burghers, taking this rapid view of their position,
flew instantly to arms. Chains and barricades were
stretched across the streets; the trumpets sounded
through the city ; the municipal guards swarmed to the
rescue. An effective rally was made, as usual, at the
Bourse, whither a large detachment of the invaders had
forced their way. Inhabitants of all classes and condi
tions, noble and simple, Catholic and Protestant, gave
each other the hand, and swore to die at each other's side
in defence of the city against the treacherous strangers.
The gathering was rapid and enthusiastic. Gentlemen
came with lance and cuirass, burghers with musket and
bandoleer, artisans with axe, mallet, and other implements
of their trade. A bold baker standing by his oven stark
naked, according to the custom of bakers at that day
rushed to the street as the sound of the tumult reached
his ear. With his heavy bread-shovel, which he still held
in his hand, he dealt a French cavalry officer, just riding
and screaming by, such a hearty blow that he fell dead
from his horse. The baker seized the officer's sword,
sprang, all unattired as he was, upon his steed, and careered
furiously through the streets, encouraging his countrymen
everywhere to the attack, and dealing dismay through
the ranks of the enemy. His services in that eventful
hour were so signal that he was publicly thanked after
wards by the magistrates for his services, and rewarded
with a pension of three hundred florins for life.
The invaders had been forced from the Bourse, while
another portion of them had penetrated as far as the
market-place. The resistance which they encountered
became every instant more formidable, and Fervaeques. a
MOTLEY] THE DUKE'S PLOT. 127
leading French officer, who was captured on the occasion,
acknowledged that no regular troops could have fought
more bravely than did these stalwart burghers. Women
and children mounted to roof and window, whence they
hurled not only tiles and chimney-pots, but tables, pon
derous chairs, and other bulky articles, upon the heads of
the assailants, while such citizens as had used all their
bullets loaded their pieces with the silver buttons from
their doublets, or twisted gold and silver coins with their
teeth into ammunition. With a population so resolute,
the four thousand invaders, however audacious, soon found
themselves swallowed up. The city had closed over them
like water, and within an hour nearly a third of their
whole number had been slain. Yery few of the burgh
ers had perished, and fresh numbers were constantly ad
vancing to the attack. The Frenchmen, blinded, stagger
ing, beaten, attempted to retreat. Many threw themselves
from the fortifications into the moat. The rest of the
survivors struggled through the streets falling in large
numbers at every step towards the point at which they
had so lately entered the city. Here at the Kipdorp gate
was a ghastly spectacle, the slain being piled up in the
narrow passage full ten feet high, while some of the heap,
not quite dead, were striving to extricate a hand or foot,
and others feebly thrust forth their heads to gain a
mouthful of air.
From the outside, some of Anjou's officers were attempt
ing to climb over this mass of bodies in order to enter
the city ; from the interior, the baffled and fugitive rem
nant of their comrades were attempting to force their
passage through the same horrible barrier ; while many
dropped at every instant upon the heap of slain, undei
the blows of the unrelenting burghers. On the other
hand, Count Bochepot himself, to whom the principal com-
128 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MOTLEY
mand of the enterprise had been intrusted by Anjou,
stood directly in the path of his fugitive soldiers, not only
bitterly upbraiding them with their cowardice, but actu
ally slaying ten or twelve of them with his own hands,
as the most effectual mode of preventing their retreat.
Hardly an hour had elapsed from the time when the
"Duke of Anjou first rode out of the Kipdorp gate, before
nearly the whole of the force which he had sent to accom
plish his base design was either dead or captive. Two
hundred and fifty nobles of high rank and illustrious
name were killed ; recognized at once as they lay in the
streets by their magnificent costume. A larger number of
the gallant chivalry of France had been sacrificed as
Anjou confessed in this treacherous and most shameful
enterprise, than had often fallen upon noble and honor
able fields. Nearly two thousand of the rank and file
had perished, and the rest were prisoners. It was at first
asserted that exactly fifteen hundred and eighty-three
Frenchmen had fallen, but this was only because this
number happened to be the date of the year, to which
the lovers of marvellous coincidences struggled very hard
to make the returns of the dead correspond. Less than
one hundred burghers lost their lives.
Anjou, as he looked on at a distance, was bitterly re
proached for his treason by several of the high-minded
gentlemen about his person, to whom he had not dared to
confide his plot. The Duke of Montpensier protested
vehemently that he washed his hands of the whole trans
action, whatever might be the issue. He was responsible
for the honor of an illustrious house, which should never
be stained, he said, if he could prevent it, with such foul
deeds. The same language was held by Laval, by Eoche-
foucauld, and by the Marechal de Biron, the last gentle
man, whose two sons were engaged in the vile enterprise,
CURTIS] MF CHATEAUX. 129
bitterly cursing the duke to the face, as he rode through
the gate after revealing his secret undertaking.
Meanwhile, Anjou, in addition to the punishment of
hearing these reproaches from men of honor, was the
victim of a rapid and violent fluctuation of feeling. Hope,
fear, triumph, doubt, remorse, alternately swayed him.
A s he saw the fugitives leaping from the walls, he shouted
exultingly, without accurately discerning what manner of
men they were, that the city was his, that four thousand
of his brave soldiers were there, and were hurling the
burghers from the battlements. On being made after-
wards aware of his error, he was proportionably de
pressed ; and when it was obvious at last that the result
of the enterprise was an absolute and disgraceful failure,
together with a complete exposure of his treachery, he
fairly mounted his horse and fled conscience-stricken from
the scene.
MY CHATEAUX.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
[There are no more delightful essays in the language, for those wno
are ready to cut loose from the solid shore of facts and bask in " that
light which never was on sea or land," than those which we find em
balmed in the pages of " Prue and I," the most imaginative work of
George William Curtis, one of our most imaginative prose authors.
The " admirable fooling" of My Chateaux, from which we extract the
present Half-Hour, does not need the dress of verse to make it poetry.
There are few who have not indulged in day-dreams like those which
it with such pleasant humor portrays. Mr. Curtis was born in Prov
idence, Rhode Island, in 1824. He was an active traveller in his
younger years, and has given us, in his " Nile Notes of a Howadji"
and "The Howadji in Syria," two of the most picturesque books o(
130 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CURTIS
travel in American literature. They are full of the softness and exuber
ance of the Orient, and in reading them we seem lapped in a sunshine
not our own. He has written, "besides, " The Potiphar Papers," " Lo
tus-Eating," a work full of brilliant word-painting, and " Trumps,"
an able character novel of New York society. For many years past Mr.
Curtis has been editorially connected with the Harper periodicals.]
I AM the owner of great estates. Many of them lie in
the West ; but the greater part are in Spain. You may
see my western possessions any evening at sunset, when
their spires and battlements flash against the horizon.
It gives me a feeling of pardonable importance, as a
proprietor, that they are visible, to my eyes at least, from
any part of the world in which I chance to be. In my
long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to India (the
only voyage I ever made, when I was a boy and a super
cargo), if I fell homesick, or sank into a revery of all the
pleasant homes I had left behind, I had but to wait until
sunset, and then, looking toward the west, I beheld my
clustering pinnacles and towers brightly burnished as if
to salute and welcome me.
So, in the city, if I get vexed and wearied, and cannot
find my wonted solace in sallying forth at dinner-time to
contemplate the gay world of youth and beauty hurrying
to the congress of fashion, or if I observe that years are
deepening their tracks around the eyes of my wife Prue,
I go quietly up to the house-top, toward evening, and re
fresh myself with a distant prospect of my estates. . . .
I have never been to Spain myself, but I have naturally
conversed much with travellers to that country ; although,
I must allow, without deriving from them much substantial
information about my property there. The wisest of them
told me that there were more holders of real estate in
Spain than in any other region he had ever heard of, and
they are all great proprietors. Every one of them pos-
CURTIS] MY CHATEAUX. 131
sesses a multitude of the stateliest castles. From conver
sation with them you easily gather that each one considers
his own castles much the largest and in the loveliest posi
tions. And, after I had heard this said, I verified it, by
discovering that all my immediate neighbors in the city
were great Spanish proprietors.
One day as I raised my head from entering some long
and tedious accounts in my books, and began to reflect
that the quarter was expiring, and that I must begin to
prepare the balance-sheet, I observed my subordinate, in
office but not in years (for poor old Titbottom will never
see sixty again !), leaning on his hand, and much abstracted.
" Are you not well, Titbottom ?" asked I.
" Perfectly ; but I was just building a castle in Spain,"
said he.
I looked at his rusty coat, his faded hands, his sad eye,
and white hair, for a moment, in great surprise, and then
inquired,
u Is it possible that you own property there too ?"
He shook his head silently ; and, still leaning on his hand,
and with an expression in his eye as if he were looking
upon the most fertile estate of Andalusia, he went on
making his plans ; laying out his gardens, I suppose,
building terraces for the vines, determining a library with
a southern exposure, and resolving which should be the
tapestried chamber. . . .
It is not easy for ne to say how I know so much, as 1
certainly do, about my castles in Spain. The sun always
shines upon them. They stand lofty and fair in a lumi
nous, golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, per
haps, like the Indian summer, but in which no gales blow
and there are no tempests. All the sublime mountains,
and beautiful valleys, and soft landscape that I have not
yet seen, are to be found in the grounds. They command a
132 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CURTIS
noble view of the Alps, so fine, indeed, that I should be
quite content with the prospect of them from the highest
tower of my castle, and not care to go to Switzerland.
The neighboring ruins, too, are as picturesque as those
of Italy, and my desire of standing in the Coliseum, and
of seeing the shattered arches of the Aqueducts stretch
ing along the Campagna and melting into the Alban
Mount, is entirely quenched. The rich gloom of my
orange groves is gilded by fruit as brilliant of com
plexion and exquisite of flavor as any that ever dark-
eyed Sorrento girls, looking over the high plastered walls
of southern Italy, hand to the youthful travellers climb
ing on donkeys. up the narrow lane beneath.
The Nile flows through my grounds. The Desert lies
upon their edge, and Damascus stands in my garden. I
am given to understand, also, that the Parthenon has been
removed to my Spanish possessions. The Golden Horn is
my fish-preserve ; my flocks of golden fleece are pastured
on the plain of Marathon, and the honey of Hymettus is
distilled from the flowers that grow in the vale of Enna,
all in my Spanish domains.
From the windows of those castles look the beautiful
women whom I have never seen, whose portraits the poets
have painted. They wait for me there, and chiefly the
fair-haired child, lost to my eyes so long ago, now bloomed
into an impossible beauty. The lights that never shone
glance at evening in the vaulted halls, upon banquets that
were never spread. The bands I have never collected play
all night long, and enchant the brilliant company, that
was never assembled, into silence.
En the long summer mornings the children that I never
had play in the gardens that I never planted. I hear
their sweet voices sounding low and far away, calling,
"Father! father!" I see the lost fair-haired girl, grown
CURTIS] MY CHATEAUX. 133
now into a woman, descending the stately stairs of my
castle in Spain, stepping out upon the lawn, and playing
with those children. They bound away together down
the garden ; but those voices linger, this time airily calling,
"Mother! mother!"
But there is a stranger magic than this in my Spanish
estates. The lawny slopes on which, when a child, I
played, in my father's old country-place, which was sold
when he failed, are all there, and not a flower faded nor a
blade of grass sere. The green leaves have not fallen
from the spring woods of half a century ago, and a gor
geous autumn has blazed undimmed for fifty years among
the trees I remember.
Chestnuts are not especially sweet to my palate now,
but those with which I used to prick my fingers when
gathering them in New Hampshire woods are exquisite
as ever to my taste, when I think of eating them in Spain.
I never ride horseback now at home ; but in Spain, when
I think of it, I bound over all the fences in the country,
barebacked upon the wildest horses. Sermons I am apt
to find a little soporific in this country ; but in Spain I
should listen as reverently as ever, for proprietors must
set a good example on their estates.
Plays are insufferable to me here, Prue and I never go ,
Prue, indeed, is not quite sure it is moral ; but the theatres
in my Spanish castles are of a prodigious splendor, and
when I think of going there, Prue sits in a front box with
me, a kind of royal box, the good woman attired in
such wise as I have never seen her here, while I wear my
white waistcoat, which in Spain has no appearance of
mending, but dazzles with immortal newness and is a
miraculous fit.
Yes, and in those castles in Spain, Prue is not the
placid, breeches-patching helpmate with whom you are
12
134 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS, [CURTIS
acquainted, but her face has a bloom which we both
remember, and her movement a grace which my Spanish
swans emulate, and her voice a music sweeter than those
that orchestras discourse. She is always there what she
seemed to me when I fell in love with her, many and
many years ago. The neighbors called her then a nice,
capable girl ; and certainly she did knit and darn with
a zeal and success to which my feet and my legs have
testified for nearly half a century. But she could spin a
finer web than ever came from cotton, and in its subtle
meshes my heart was entangled, and there has reposed
softly and happily ever since. The neighbprs declared
she could make pudding and cake better than any girl of
her age ; but stale bread from Prue's hand was ambrosia
to my palate.
" She who makes everything well, even to making neigh
bors speak well of her, will surely make a good wife," said
I to myself when I knew her ; and the echo of a half-
century answers, " a good wife."
So, when I meditate my Spanish castles, I see Prue in
them as my heart saw her standing by her father's door.
"Age cannot wither her." There is a magic in the Span
ish air that paralyzes Time. He glides by unnoticed and
unnoticing. I greatly admire the Alps, which I see so dis
tinctly from my Spanish windows ; I delight in the taste
of the southern fruit that ripens upon my terraces; I
enjoy the pensive shade of the Italian ruins in my gar
dens; I like to shoot crocodiles and talk with the Sphinx
upon the shores of the Nile, flowing through my domain ;
I am glad to drink sherbet in Damascus and fleece my
flocks on the plains of Marathon; but I would resign all
these forever rather than part with that Spanish portrait
of Prue for a day. Nay, have I not resigned them all
forever, to live with that portrait's changing original ?
CURTIS] MY CHATEAUX. 135
I have often wondered how I should reach my castles.
The desire of going comes over me very strongly some
times, and I endeavor to see how I can arrange my af
fairs so as to get away. To tell the truth, I am not quite
sure of the route, I mean, to that particular part of
Spain in which my estates lie. I have inquired very
particularly, but nobody seems to know precisely. . . .
At length I resolved to ask Titbottom if he had ever
heard of the best route to our estates. He said that he
owned castles, and sometimes there was an expression in
his face as if he saw them. I hope he did. I should long
ago have asked him if he had ever observed the turrets
of my possessions in the West, without alluding to Spain,
if I had not feared he would suppose I was mocking his
poverty. I hope his poverty has not turned his head, for
he is very forlorn.
One Sunday I went with him a few miles into the
country. It was a soft, bright day ; the fields and hills lay
turned to the sky, as if every leaf and blade of grass
were nerves, bared to the touch of the sun. I almost felt
the ground warm under my feet. The meadows waved and
glittered, the lights and shadows were exquisite, and the
distant hills seemed only to remove the horizon farther
away. As we strolled along, picking wild flowers, for it
was in summer, I was thinking what a fine day it was for
a trip to Spain, when Titbottom suddenly exclaimed,
" Thank G-od, I own this landscape !"
" You !" returned I.
" Certainly," said he.
" Why," I answered, u I thought this was part of Bourne's
property !"
Titbottom smiled.
" Does Bourne own the sun and sky ? Does Bourne
own that sailing shadow yonder ? Does Bourne own the
136 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CURTIS
golden lustre of the grain, or the motion of the woods, or
those ghosts of hills that glide pallid along the horizon ?
Bourne owns the dirt and fences ; I own the beauty that
makes the landscape, or otherwise how could I own castles
in Spain?"
That was very true. I respected Titbottom more than
ever.
" Do you know," said he, after a long pause, " that I
fancy my castles lie just beyond those distant hills? At
all events, I can see them distinctly from their summits."
He smiled quietly as he spoke, and it was then I
asked,
"But, Titbottom, have you never discovered the way
to them ?"
" Dear me ! yes," answered he. " I know the way well
enough ; but it would do no good to follow it. I should
give out before I arrived. It is a long and difficult jour
ney for a man of my years and habits and income," he
added, slowly.
As he spoke he seated himself upon the ground ; and
while he pulled long blades of grass, and, putting them
between his thumbs, whistled shrilly, he said,
" I have never known but two men who reached their
estates in Spain."
" Indeed !" said I. How did they go ?"
" One went over the side of a ship, and the other out
of a third-story window," said Titbottom, fitting a broad
blade between his thumbs and blowing a demoniacal blast.
" And I know one proprietor who resides upon his es
tates constantly," continued he.
"Who is that?"
" Our old friend Slug, whom you may see any day at the
asylum, just coming in from the hunt, or going to call upon
his friend the Grand Lama, or dressing for the wedding
CURTIS] MY CHATEAUX. 137
of the Man in the Moon, or receiving an ambassador from
Timbuctoo. Whenever I go to see him, Slug insists that
I am the Pope, disguised as a journeyman carpenter, and
he entertains me in the most distinguished manner. He
always insists upon kissing my foot, and I bestow upon
him, kneeling, the apostolic benediction. This is the only
Spanish proprietor in possession with whom I am ac
quainted."
And, so saying, Titbottom lay back upon the ground,
and, making a spy-glass of his hand, surveyed the land
scape through it. This was a marvellous book-keeper of
more than sixty !
" I know another man who lived in his Spanish castle
for two months, and then was tumbled out head first.
That was young Stunning, who married old Buhl's daugh
ter. She was all smiles, and mamma was all sugar, and
Stunning was all bliss, for two months. He carried his
head in the clouds, and felicity absolutely foamed at his
eyes. He was drowned in love ; seeing, as usual, not what
really was, but what he fancied. He lived so exclusively
in his castle that he forgot the office down town, and one
morning there came a fall, and Stunning was smashed."
Titbottom arose, and, stooping over, contemplated the
landscape \fith his head down between his legs.
" It's quite a new eifect, so," said the nimble booiv
keeper.
" Well," said I, Stunning failed ?"
" Oh, yes, smashed all up, and the castle in Spain came
down about his ears with a tremendous crash. The family
sugar was all dissolved into the original cane in a moment.
Fairy times are over, are they? Heigh-ho! the falling
stones of Stunning's castle have left their marks all over
his face. I call them his Spanish scars."
11 But, my dear Titbottom," said I, " what is the matter
12*
138 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CURTIS
with you this morning? Your usual sedateness is quite
gone."
" It's only the exhilarating air of Spain," he answered.
"My castles are so beautiful that I can never think of
them, nor speak of them, without excitement ; when I
was younger I desired to reach them even more ardently
than now, because I heard that the philosopher's stone
was in the vault of one of them."
" Indeed," said I, yielding to sympathy ; " and I have
good reason to believe that the fountain of eternal youth
flows through the garden of one of mine. Do you know
whether there are any children upon your grounds?"
" l The children of Alice call Bartrum father !' " replied
Titbottom, solemnly, and in a low voice, as he folded his
faded hands before him, and stood erect, looking wistfully
over the landscape. The light wind played with his thin
white hair, and his sober black suit was almost sombre in
the sunshine. The half-bitter expression, which I had re
marked upon his face during part of our conversation, had
passed away, and the old sadness had returned to his eye.
He stood, in the pleasant morning, the very image of a
great proprietor of castles in Spain.
" There is wonderful music there," he said : " sometimes
I awake at night and hear it. It is full of the sweetness
of youth, and love, and a new world. I lie and listen, and
I seem to arrive at the great gates of my estates. They
swing open upon noiseless hinges, and the tropic of my
dreams receives me. Up the broad steps, whose marble
pavement mingled light and shadow print with shifting
mosaic, beneath the boughs of lustrous oleanders, and
palms, and trees of unimaginable fragrance, I pass into
the vestibule, warm with summer odors, and into the
presence-chamber beyond, where my wife awaits me. But
castle, and wife, and odorous woods, and pictures, and
CURTIS] MY CHATEAUX. 139
statues, and all the bright substance of my household, seem
to reel and glimmer in the splendor, as the music fails.
" But when it swells again, I clasp the wife to my heart,
and we move on with a fair society, beautiful women, noble
men, before whom the tropical luxuriance of that world
bends and bows in homage ; and through endless days and
nights of eternal summer the stately revel of our life pro
ceeds. Then, suddenly, the music stops. I hear my watch
ticking under the pillow. I see dimly the outline of my
little upper room. Then I fall asleep, and in the morning
ome one of the boarders at the breakfast-table says,
" ' Did you hear the serenade last night, Mr. Titbottom?' '*
I doubted no longer that Titbottom was a very exten
sive proprietor. The truth is, that he was so constantly
engaged in planning and arranging his castles that he
conversed very little at the office, and I had misinterpreted
his silence.
As we walked homeward, that day, he was more thai*
ever tender and gentle. " We must all have something
to do in this world," said he, " and I, who have so much
leisure, for you know I have no wife nor children to
work for, know not what 1 should do if I had not my
castles in Spain to look after."
When I reached home, my darling Prue was sitting in
the small parlor, reading. I felt a little guilty for having
been so long away, and upon my only holiday, too. So I
began to say that Titbottom invited me to go to walk, and
that I had no idea we had gone so far, and that
" Don't excuse yourself," said Prue, smiling, as she laid
down her Book ; " I am glad you have enjoyed yourself.
You ought to go out sometimes and breathe the fresh air,
and run about the fields, which I am not strong enough to
do. Why did you not bring home Mr. Titbottom to tea ?
He is so lonely, and looks so sad. I am sure he has very
140 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEFFERSON
little comfort in this life," said my thoughtful Prue, as she
called Jane to set the tea-table.
''But he has a good deal of comfort in Spain, Prue,"
answered I.
" When was Mr. Titbottom in Spain ?" inquired my wife.
" Why, he is there more than half the time," I replied.
Prue looked quietly at me and smiled. " I see it has done
you good to breathe the country air," said she. "Jane, get
some of the blackberry jam, and call Adoniram and the
children."
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
[Of the history of Thomas Jefferson we have no need to speak. As
an author he must be credited with a document which will live as
long as America remains a nation, u The Declaration of Independ
ence," which, as Edward Everett says, " is equal to anything ever
born on parchment or expressed in the visible signs of thought." His
other literary labors may be found in his " Notes on Virginia," his
State Papers, and the Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., embraced
in the published volumes of his writings. He has an easy and flexi
ble style, and a critical discernment that might have made him famous
as an author but for the all-embracing political interests of his times.
His " Character of Washington" is of interest as a clearly-drawn pen-
picture from one who had every opportunity to know the great man
of whom he wrote.]
I THINK I knew General Washington intimately and
thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his charac
ter, it should be in terms like these :
His mind was great and powerful, without being of the
very first order, his penetration strong, though not so
acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke ; and as far
JEFFERSON] CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 141
as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow
in operation, being little aided by invention or imagina
tion, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark
of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils
of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected what
ever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his
battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the
course of the action, if any member of his plan was dis
located by sudden circumstances, he was slow in readjust
ment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the
field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston
and New York. He was incapable of fear, meeting per
sonal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the
strongest feature in his character was prudence; never
acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was
maturely weighed ; refraining if he saw a doubt, but,
when once decided, going through with his purpose, what
ever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his
justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives
of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being
able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense
of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His tem
per was naturally irritable and high-toned ; but reflection
and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency
over it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was
most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was
honorable, but exact ; liberal in contribution to whatever
promised utility, but frowning and unyielding on all
visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity.
His heart was not warm in its affections ; but he exactly
calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem
proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his
stature exactly what one could wish, his deportment easy,
erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the
142 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEFFERSON
most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Al
though in the circle of his friends, where he might be un
reserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation,
his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possess
ing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words.
In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was
unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily,
rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had
acquired by conversation with the world, for his education
was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to
which he added surveying at a later day. His time was
employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only
in agriculture and English history. His correspondence
became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his
agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure
hours within-doors. On the whole, his character was, in
its mass, perfect, in nothing bad. in few points indifferent ;
and it may truly be said that never did nature and for
tune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to
place him in the same constellation with whatever wor
thies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.
For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the
armies of his country successfully through an arduous
war for the establishment of its independence; of con
ducting its councils through the birth of a government,
new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down
into a quiet and orderly train ; and of scrupulously obey
ing the laws through the whole of his career, civil and
military, of which the history of the world furnishes no
other example.
WINTHROP] THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS. 143
THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS.
THEODORE WINTHROP.
[There is nothing in American literature more stirring in incident,
more vivid in description, and more original in manner than the novel
of prairie and mountain from which we make the following extract.
Life in the Western border-land has never been more forcibly depicted
than in u John Brent," with his wonderful horse, and the life of open-
air adventure and clearly-outlined scenery through which he leads us.
Winthrop's other works, all published after his death, were " Cecil
Dreeme," a tale of university life in New York City, with an original
ity as marked as that of " John Brent," though quite unlike it in tone
and manner, "Edwin Brothertoft," "The Canoe and the Saddle,"
" Life in the Open Air," and " Adventures among the Northwestern
Rivers and Forests." Born in New Haven in 1828, he spent a portion
of his life in the West, where he gathered the materials for several
of his works. He entered the army at the outbreak of the civil war,
with the rank of major, and was shot during the attack on Big Bethel,
June 10, 1861, almost at the beginning of the war.]
[Ellen Clitheroe, the daughter of a weak old man who has joined
the Mormons, has been abducted by two villains, Larrap and Murker.
They are pursued by John Brent, the lover of the abducted girl, with
his friend Richard Wade and a man named Armstrong, whose brother
has been murdered by these villains, and who rides up on their trail
just in time to join the other two in their pursuit. We take up the
thread of the story at an advanced point on the trail.]
WE were ascending now all the time into subalpine
regions. We crossed great sloping savannas, deep in dry,
rustling grass, where a nation of cattle might pasture.
We plunged through broad wastes of hot sand. We flung
ourselves down and up the red sides of water-worn gul
lies. We took breakneck leaps across dry quebradas in
the clay. We clattered across stony arroyos, longing
thirstily for the gush of water that had flowed there not
many months before.
144 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WINTHROP
The trail was everywhere plain. No prairie craft was
needed to trace it. Here the chase had gone, but a few
hours ago ; here, across grassy slopes, trampling the grass
as if a mower had passed that way; here, ploughing
wearily through the sand ; here, treading the red, crum
bling clay ; here, breaking down the sMe of a bank ; here,
leaving a sharp hoof-track in the dry mud of a fled tor
rent. Everywhere a straight path, pointing for that deep
ening gap in the Sierra, Luggernel Alley, the only gate
of escape.
Brent's unerring judgment had divined the course
aright. On he led, charging along the trail, as if he were
trampling already on the carcasses of the pursued. On he
led, and we followed, drawing nearer, nearer to our goal.
Our horses suffered bitterly for water. Some five hours
we had ridden without a pause. Not one drop or sign of
water in all that arid waste. The torrents had poured
along the dry water-courses too hastily to let the scanty
alders and willows along their line treasure up any sap of
growth. The wild-sage bushes had plainly never tasted
fluid more plenteous than seldom dew-drops doled out
on certain rare festal days, enough to keep their meagre
foliage a dusty gray. No pleasant streamlet lurked any
where under the long, dry grass of the savannas. The
arroyos were parched and hot as rifts in lava.
It became agonizing to listen to the panting and gasp
ing of our horses. Their eyes grew staring and bloodshot.
We suffered, ourselves, hardly less than they. It was
cruel to press on. But we must hinder a crueller cruelty.
Love against Time, Vengeance against Time ! We must
not flinch for any weak humanity to the noble allies that
struggled on with us, without one token of resistance.
Fulano suffered least. He turned his brave eye back,
and beckoned me with his ear to listen, while he seemed
WINTHKOP] THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS. 145
to say, " See, this is my Endurance ! I hold my Power
ready still to show."
And he curved his proud neck, shook his mane like a
banner, and galloped the grandest of all.
We came to a broad strip of sand, the dry bed of a
mountain-torrent. The trail followed up this disappoint
ing path. Heavy ploughing for the tired horses ! How
would they bear the rough work down the ravine yet to
come?
Suddenly our leader pulled up and sprang from the
saddle.
"Look !" he cried, " how those fellows spent their time
and saved ours. Thank heaven for this ! "We shall save
her, surely, now."
It was WATER ! No need to go back to Pindar to know
that it was " the Best."
They had dug a pit deep in the thirsty sand and found
a lurking river buried there. Nature never questioned
what manner of men they were that sought. Murderers
flying from vengeance and planning now another villain
outrage, still impartial Nature did not changS her laws
for them. Sunshine, air, water, life, these boons of hers,
she gave them freely. That higher boon of death, if
they were to receive it, must be from some other power,
greater than the undiscriminating force of Nature. . . .
We drank thankfully of this well by the wayside. No
gentle beauty hereabouts to enchant us to delay. No
grand old tree, the shelter and the landmark of the foun
tain, proclaiming an oasis near. Nothing but bare, hot
sand. But the water was pure, cool, and bright. It had
come underground from the Sierra, and still remembered
its parent snows. We drank, and were grateful, almost to
the point of pity. Had we been but avengers, like Arm
strong, my friend and I could wellnigh have felt mercy
a k 13
146 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WINTHROP
here, and turned back pardoning. But rescue was more
imperative than vengeance. Our business tortured us, as
with the fanged scourge of Tisiphone, while we dallied.
"We grudged these moments of refreshment. Before night
fell down the west, and night was soon to be climbing up
the east, we must overtake ; and then ?
I wiped the dust and spume away from Fulano's nos
trils and breathed him a moment. Then I let him drain
deep, delicious draughts from the stirrup-cup. He whin
nied thanks and undying fealty, my noble comrade ! He
drank like a reveller. When I mounted again, he gave
a jubilant curvet and bound. My weight was a feather
to him. All those leagues of our hard, hot gallop were
nothing.
The brown Sierra here was close at hand. Its glittering,
icy summits, above the dark and sheeny walls, far above
the black phalanxes of clambering pines, stooped forward
and hung over us as we rode. We were now at the foot
of the range, where it dipped suddenly down upon the
plain. The gap, our goal all day, opened before us, grand
and terrible. Some giant force had clutched the moun
tains and riven them narrowly apart. The wild defile
gaped, and then wound away and closed, lost between its
mighty walls, a thousand feet high, and bearing two
brother pyramids of purple cliffs aloft far above the snow-
line. A fearful portal into a scene of the throes and ago
nies of earth ! and my excited eyes seemed to read, gilded
over its entrance, in the dead gold of that hazy October
sunshine, words from Dante's inscription,
" Per me si va tra la perduta gente ;
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate I"
" Here we are," said Brent, speaking hardly above hia
breath. "This is Luggernel Alley at last, thank God I
WINTHROP] THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS. 147
In an hour, if the horses hold out, we shall be at the
Springs ; that is, if we can go through this breakneck
gorge at the same pace. My horse began to flinch a little
before the water. Perhaps that will set him up. How
are yours ?"
" Fulano asserts that he has not begun to show himself
yet. I may have to carry you en croupe, before we are
done."
Armstrong said nothing, but pointed impatiently down
the defile. The gaunt white horse moved on quicker at
this gesture. He seemed a tireless machine, not flesh and
blood, a being like his master, living and acting by the
force of a purpose alone.
Our chief led the way into the cafion.
Yes, John Brent, you were right when you called Lug-
gernel Alley a wonder of our continent.
I remember it now, I only saw it then, for those
strong scenes of nature assault the soul whether it will
or no, fight in against affirmative or negative resistance,
and bide their time to be admitted as dominant ovei
the imagination. It seemed to me then that I was not
noticing how grand the precipices, how stupendous the
cleavages, how rich and gleaming the rock faces in Lug-
gernel Alley. My business was not to stare about, but
to look sharp and ride hard ; and I did it.
Yet now I can remember, distinct as if I beheld it, every
stride of that pass ; and everywhere, as I recall foot after
foot of that fierce chasm, I see three men with set faces,
one deathly pale and wearing a bloody turban, all
galloping steadily on, on an errand to save and to slay.
Terrible riding it was ! A pavement of slippery, sheeny
rock ; great beds of loose stones ; barricades of mighty
boulders, where a cliff had fallen an aeon ago, before the
days of the road-maker race ; crevices where an unwary
148 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
foot might catch ; wide rifts where a shaky horse might
fall, or a timid horseman drag him down. Terrible riding !
A pass where a calm traveller would go quietly picking
his steps, thankful if each hour counted him a safe mile.
Terrible riding! Madness to go as we went! Horso
and man, any moment either might shatter every limb.
But man and horse neither can know what he can do,
until he has dared and done. On we went, with the old
frenzy growing tenser, heart almost broken with eager
ness.
No whipping or spurring. Our horses were a part of
ourselves. While we could go, they would go. Since the
water, they were full of leap again. Down in the shady
Alley, too, evening had come before its time. Noon's
packing of hot air had been dislodged by a mountain-
breeze drawing through. Horses and men were braced
and cheered to their work ; and in such riding as that,
the man and the horse must think together and move
together, eye and hand of the rider must choose and
command, as bravely as the horse executes. The blue
sky was overhead, the red sun upon the castellated walls
a thousand feet above us, the purpling chasm opened be
fore. It was late ; these were the last moments. But we
should save the lady yet.
"Yes," our hearts shouted to us, "we shall save her
yet."
An arroyo, the channel of a dry torrent, followed the
pass. It had made its way as water does, not straight
way, but by that potent feminine method of passing under
the frowning front of an obstacle, and leaving the dull
rock staring there, while the wild creature it would have
held is gliding away down the valley. This zigzag channel
baffled us; we must leap it without check wherever it
crossed our path. Every second now was worth a cen-
WINTHROP] THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS. 149
tury. Here was the sign of horses, passed but now. We
could not choose ground. We must take our leaps on
that cruel rock wherever they offered.
Poor Pumps !
He had carried his master so nobly! There were so
few miles to do ! He had chased so well ; he merited to
be in at the death.
Brent lifted him at a leap across the arroyo.
Poor Pumps !
His hind feet slipped on the time-smoothed rock. He
fell short. He plunged down a dozen feet among the
rough boulders of the torrent-bed. Brent was out of the
saddle almost before he struck, raising him.
No, he would never rise again. Both his forelegs were
broken at the knee. He rested there, kneeling on the
rocks where he fell.
Brent groaned. The horse screamed horribly, horribly,
there is no more agonized sound, and the scream went
echoing high up the cliffs where the red sunlight rested.
It costs a loving master much to butcher his brave and
trusty horse, the half of his knightly self; but it costs
him more to hear him shriek in such misery. Brent drew
his pistol to put poor Pumps out of pain.
Armstrong sprang down and caught his hand.
" Stop !" he said, in his hoarse whisper.
He had hardly spoken since we started. My nerves
were so strained that this mere ghost of a sound rang
through me like a death-yell, a grisly cry of merciless
and exultant vengeance. I seemed to hear its echoes,
rising up and swelling in a flood of thick uproar, until
they burst over the summit of the pass and were wasted
in the crannies of the towering mountain-flanks above.
" Stop !" whispered Armstrong. " No shooting ! They'll
hear. The knife!"
13*
150 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WINTHROP
He held out his knife to my friend.
Brent hesitated one heart-beat. Could he stain his
hand with his faithful servant's blood ?
Pumps screamed again.
Armstrong snatched the knife and drew it across the
throat of the crippled horse.
Poor Pumps ! He sank and died without a moan. Noble
martyr in the old, heroic cause !
I caught the knife from Armstrong. I cut the thong
of my girth. The heavy California saddle, with its ma-
cheers and roll of blankets, fell to the ground. I cut off
my spurs. They had never yet touched Fulano's flanks.
He stood beside me, quiet, but trembling to be off.
"Now, Brent! up behind me!" I whispered; for the
awe of death was upon us.
I mounted. Brent sprang up behind. I ride light for
a tall man. Brent is the slightest body of an athlete I
ever saw.
Fulano stood steady till we were firm in our seats.
Then he tore down the defile.
Here was that vast reserve of power ; here the tireless
spirit ; here the hoof striking true as a thunderbolt, where
the brave eye saw footing ; here that writhing agony of
speed; here the great promise fulfilled, the great heart
thrilling to mine, the grand body living to the beating
heart. Noble Fulano !
I rode with a snaffle. I left it hanging loose. I did not
check or guide him. He saw all. He knew all. All was
his doing.
We sat firm, clinging as we could, as we must. Fulano
dashed along the resounding pass.
Armstrong pressed after : the gaunt white horse strug
gled to emulate his leader. Presently we lost them behind
the curves of the Alley. No other horse that ever lived
WINTHKOP] THE RIDE OF THE AVENGERS. 151
could have held with the black in that headlong gallop to
save.
Over the slippery rocks, over the sheeny pavement,
plunging through the loose stones, staggering over the
barricades, leaping the arroyo, down, up, on, always on,
on went the horse, we clinging as we might.
It seemed one beat of time, it seemed an eternity, when
between the ring of the hoofs I heard Brent whisper in
my ear,
" We are there."
The /'rags flung apart, right and left. I saw a sylvan
glade. I saw the gleam of gushing water.
Fulano dashed on, uncontrollable !
There they were, the Murderers.
Arrived but one moment !
The lady still bound to that pack-mule branded A. & A.
Murker just beginning to unsaddle.
Larrap not dismounted, in chase of the other animals
as they strayed to graze.
The men heard the tramp, and saw us, as we sprang into
the glade.
Both my hands were at the bridle.
Brent, grasping my waist with one arm, was awkward
with his pistol.
Murker saw us first. He snatched his six-shooter and
fired.
Brent shook with a spasm. His pistol arm dropped.
Before the murderer could cock again, Fulano was upon
him!
He was ridden down. He was beaten, trampled down
upon the grass, crushed, abolished.
We disentangled ourselves from the melee.
Where was the other ?
The coward, without firing a shot, was spurring Arm-
152 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PIERPONT
strong's Flathead horse blindly up the canon whence we
had issued.
We turned to Murker.
Fulano was up again, and stood there shuddering. But
the man ?
A hoof had battered in the top of his skull ; blood was
gushing from his mouth; his ribs were broken; all his
body was a trodden, massacred carcass.
He breathed once, as we lifted him.
Then a tranquil, childlike look stole over his face,
that well-known look of the weary body, thankful that
the turbulent soul has gone. Murker was dead.
Fulano, and not we, had been executioner. His was
the stain of blood.
MY CHILD.
JOHN PIERPONT.
[One of the most pathetic poems in our language is that which we
append from John Pierpont, a poet of the earlier days of the present
century. The beautiful image with which the eighth verse closes has
become part of the world's stock of poetical aphorisms. The author
was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1785. He was long pastor of
the Hollis Street Church, Boston, and was closely identified with the
anti-slavery and temperance movements. His poems are characterized
by great beauty of thought and earnestness of purpose, and few Ameri
can poets surpass him in finish of versification, truth of sentiment,
"love of right, freedom, and man, and hearty hatred of everything
that is at war with them."]
I CANNOT make him dead !
His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study chair ;
PIERFONT] MY CHILD. 153
Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes, he is not there !
I walk my parlor floor,
And through the open door
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ;
I'm stepping toward the hall
To give the boy a call ;
And then bethink me that he is not there 1
I thread the crowded street ;
A satchelled lad 'I meet,
With the same beaming eye's and colored hair,
And, as he's running by,
Follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that he is not there!
I know his face is hid
Under the coffin-lid ;
Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ;
My hand that marble felt ;
O'er it in prayer I knelt ;
Yet my heart whispers that he is not there 1
I cannot make him dead !
When passing by the bed
So long watched over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye
Seek him inquiringly,
Before the thought comes that he is not there I
When, at the cool gray break
Of day, from sleep I wake,
With my first breathing of the morning air
154 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PIEKPONT
My soul goes up, with joy,
To Him who gave my boy ;
Then comes the sad thought that he is not there !
When, at the day's calm close,
Before we seek repose,
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Whate'er I may be saying,
I am in spirit praying
For our boy's spirit, though he is not there !
Not there ! Where, then, is he ?
The form I used to see
Was but the raiment that he used to wear.
The grave that now doth press
Upon that cast-off dress
Is but his wardrobe locked : he is not there I
He lives ! In all the past
He lives ; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair ;
In dreams I see him now,
And on his angel brow
I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there I"
Yes, we all live to God !
Father, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That, in the spirit-land,
Meeting at thy right hand,
'Twill be our heaven to find that he is there !
IRVING] A BEE-HUNT. 155
A BEE-HUNT.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
[Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3,
1783 His literary life began in 1807, when he joined with his "brother
William and with James K. Paulding in the issue of Salmagundi, a sa
tirical and humorous magazine. In 1809 was published the most humor
ous of his works, " The History of New York, by Diedrich Knicker
bocker," one of the most admirable bits of burlesque history in our
language. " The Sketch-Book" appeared in 1819, and at once gained
its author the highest reputation as an essayist, and as one of the most
elegant and polished writers in English literature. " Bracebridge
Hall" soon followed, after which he began that series of admirable
histories on which his fame chiefly rests. " The History of Columbus,"
" The Conquest of Granada," " Mahomet and his Successors," with
biographies of Oliver Goldsmith and George Washington, and a num
ber of works of a more general character, complete the list of his pub
lications. No man did more in the early days of our nation to bring
American literature up to the level of that of England than Wash
ington Irving, and he stands to-day among the classic writers of the
English language. The selection we give below is from " A Tour on
ihe Prairies," published in 1835.]
THE beautiful forest in which we were encamped
abounded in bee-trees ; that is to say, trees in the decayed
trunks of which wild bees had established their hives. It
is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have over
spread the Far West within but a moderate number of
years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the
white man, as tbe buffalo is of the red man, and say that
in proportion as the bee advances the Indian and buffalo
retire. We are always accustomed to associate the hum of
the bee-hive with the farm-house and flower-garden, and to
consider those industrious little animals as connected with
the busy haunts of man ; and I am told that the wild bee
is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the
156 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
frontier. They have been the heralds of civilization,
steadfastly preceding it as it advanced from the Atlantic
borders, and some of the ancient settlers of the West
pretend to give the very year when the honey-bee first
crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with surprise found
the mouldering trees of their forests suddenly teeming with
ambrosial sweets ; and nothing, I am told, can exceed the
greedy relish with which they banquet for the first time
upon this unbought luxury of the wilderness.
At present the honey-bee swarms in myriads in the noble
groves and forests which skirt and intersect the prairies
and extend along the alluvial bottoms of the rivers. It
seems to me as if these beautiful regions answer literally
to the description of the land of promise, " a land flowing
with milk and honey;" for the rich pasturage of the
prairies is calculated to sustain herds of cattle as count
less as the sands upon the sea-shore, while the flowers
with which they are enamelled render them a very para
dise for the nectar-seeking bee.
We had not been long in the camp when a party set out
in quest of a bee-tree ; and, being curious to witness the
sport, I gladly accepted an invitation to accompany them.
The party was headed by a veteran bee-hunter, a tall, lank
fellow in homespun garb that hung loosely about his limbs,
and a straw hat shaped not unlike a bee-hive ; a comrade
equally uncouth in garb, and without a hat, straddled
along at his heels, with a long rifle on his shoulder. To
these succeeded half a dozen others, some with axes and
some with rifles, for no one stirs far from the camp with
out his fire-arms, so as to be ready either for wild deer or
wild Indian.
After proceeding some distance we came to an open
glade on the skirts of the forest. Here our leader halted,
and then advanced quietly to a low bush, on the top of
IRVING] A BEE-HUNT. 157
which I perceived a piece of honey-comb. This I found
was the bait or lure for the wild bees. Several were hum
ming about it, and diving into its cells. When they had
laden themselves with honey they would rise into the air
and dart off in a straight line, almost with the velocity
of' a bullet. The hunters watched attentively the course
they took, and then set off in the same direction, stum
bling along over twisted roots and fallen trees, with their
eyes turned up to the sky. In this way they traced the
honey-laden bees to their hive in the hollow trunk of a
blasted oak, where, after buzzing about for a moment,
they entered a hole about sixty feet from the ground.
Two of the bee-hunters now plied their axes vigorously
at the foot of the tree, to level it with the ground. The
mere spectators and amateurs, in the mean time, drew off
to a cautious distance, to be out of the way of the falling
of the tree and the vengeance of its inmates. The jarring
blows of the axe seemed to have no effect in alarming or
disturbing this most industrious community. They con
tinued to ply at their usual occupations, some arriving
full-freighted into port, others sallying forth on new ex
peditions, like so many merchantmen in a money-making
metropolis, little suspicious of impending bankruptcy and
downfall. Even a loud crack which announced the dis-
rupture of the trunk failed to divert their attention from
the intense pursuit of gain. At length down came the tree
with a tremendous crash, bursting open from end to end,
and displaying all the hoarded treasures of the common
wealth.
One of the hunters immediately ran up with a wisp of
lighted hay as a defence against the bees. The latter,
however, made no attack and sought no revenge; they
seemed stupefied by the catastrophe and unsuspicious of
its cause, and remained crawling and buzzing about the
14
158 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
ruins without offering us any molestation. Every one of
the party now fell to, with spoon and hunting-knife, to
scoop out the flakes of honey-comb with which the hollow
trunk was stored. Some of them were of old date and a
deep brown color ; others were beautifully white, and the
honey in their cells was almost limpid. Such of the combs
as were entire were placed in camp-kettles, to be conveyed
to the encampment ; those which had been shivered in the
full were devoured upon the spot. Every stark bee-hunter
was to be seen with a rich morsel in his hand, dripping
about his fingers, and disappearing as rapidly as a cream
tart before the holiday appetite of a school-boy.
Nor was it the bee-hunters alone that profited by the
downfall of this industrious community : as if the bees
would carry through the similitude of their habits with
those of laborious and gainful man, I beheld numbers
from rival hives, arriving on eager wing, to enrich them
selves with the ruins of their neighbors. These busied
themselves as eagerly and cheerfully as so many wreckers
on an Indiaman that has been driven on shore, plunging
into the cells of the broken honey-combs, banqueting
greedily on the spoil, and then winging their way full-
freighted to their homes. As to the poor proprietors of
the ruin, they seemed to have no heart to do anything,
not even to taste the nectar that flowed around them, but
crawled backwards and forwards, in vacant desolation, as
I have seen a poor fellow with his hands in his pockets,
whistling vacantly and despondingly about the ruins of
his house that had been burnt.
It is difficult to describe the bewilderment and confusion
of the bees of the bankrupt hive who had been absent at
the time of the catastrophe, and who arrived from time to
time with full cargoes from abroad. At first they wheeled
about in the air, in the place where the fallen tree had
FELTON] APPROACHING THE ALPS. 159
once reared its head, astonished at finding it all a vacuum.
At length, as if comprehending their disaster, they settled
down in clusters on a dry branch of a neighboring tree,
whence they seemed to contemplate the prostrate ruin
and to buzz forth doleful lamentations over the downfall
of their republic. It was a scene on which the " melan
choly Jaques" might have moralized by the hour.
We now abandoned the place, leaving much honey in
the hollow of the tree. " It will all be cleared off by var
mint," said one of the rangers. " What vermin ?" asked
I. " Oh, bears, and skunks, and raccoons, and 'possums.
The bears is the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee-
tree in the world. They'll gnaw for days together at the
trunk, till they make a hole big enough to get in their
paws, and then they'll haul out honey, bees, and all."
APPROACHING THE ALPS.
CORNELIUS C. FELTON.
[Cornelius Conway Felton was born at West Newbury, Massachu
setts, in 1807. He graduated from Harvard in 1827, and held the profes
sorship of Greek literature in that institution from 1834 to 1860, when
he became President of the University. He died in 1862. Professor
Felton published a number of works on classical subjects, besides nu
merous contributions to periodical literature. His letters of travel,
of which we give two specimens, are admirably written.]
BUT this is a digression from the Alps. The road up
St. Gothard is a wonderful piece of engineering, mounting
apparently inaccessible heights by a series of terraces or
tourniquets, so that carriages are very easily driven up.
The Reuss flows down, and the sound of the water is
heard the whole distance, though the river is sometimes
160 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FELTON
so deep below the road that one can scarcely see it. Then
the rocky walls rise steep and bare on either side, seeming
to rest on the deep foundations of the earth and to sup-
port the sky on their summits.
I walked a considerable part of the way, to enjoy the
wonderful scene more completely. It was a good day's
journey to the Hospitenthal, or valley of the hospice, on
the height of the pass. This valley is a beautiful spot,
green and lovely itself, though at so immense a height,
and surrounded by snow-capped pinnacles. We spent the
night here.
The next morning we started for the Furca Pass, and
the Grimsel ; but no more carriage-roads. I was strongly
tempted to walk the whole distance from the Hospiten
thal to Meyringen, but reflected that I was twenty years
older than I was twenty years ago, and much heavier
than when I was much lighter : so I finally decided to
compromise the matter by taking one horse for myself
and our courier. The rest of the party had each a horse,
and two men were employed to take Edie the whole dis
tance, some fifty miles, in a chair.
Now, if I were animated by the proper traveller's spirit,
I should rise into the sublime, in my description of the
appalling dangers from which we miraculously escaped.
I should make each particular hair stand on end by tell
ing you what dizzy heights we scaled by paths scarce a
foot in width, along the edges of perpendicular precipices
ten thousand feet or more in depth. I should freeze your
blood with horror by depicting the mountainous masses
of rock just tottering- to their fall, by which we had to
pass. I should make you shudder to think of the mighty
glaciers we crossed, and the yawning crevasses, a thousand
feet deep, over which we were obliged to jump. I should
thrill you with the thunder of the descending avalanche
FELTON] APPROACHING THE ALPS. 161
that came within a hair's-breadth of burying us five hun
dred feet deep in snow. I should But enough of
these awful adventures, that trip so freely from the pens
of summer tourists.
In plain prose and rigid truth, the whole journey was
exciting in the highest degree. The path does wind along
the edge of tremendous precipices, and above it the rocky
mountain-sides do rise sheer and awful up to heaven.
Sometimes the path descends so. steeply that it seems
impossible to go down without breaking your neck ; again
it seems to go straight up into the air, and the wonder is
how any four footed beast can possibly climb it without
rolling over backwards. If you look up, you half believe
the mountain is coming down upon you ; if you look
down, you are struck by the exceeding probability that
you may reach the bottom a great deal sooner than you
intend. With all this, you have an abiding confidence
in your sure-footed and faithful beast, and you know that
he will carry you safely through.
I walked about half the whole distance, but it so hap
pened that I rode over the worst parts of the way. I felt
astonished, delighted, and constantly amazed by the gran
deur of the gigantic scenery ; and only once did I feel in the
least startled with any sense of danger. In one place, in
the steep side of an enormous rock, a way is scooped out
just deep enough for a horse to pass and high enough for
the rider if he stoops. The side of the road towards the
abyss is guarded by a wooden railing. Near this spot a
beggar-girl had placed herself; and as my horse entered
this rather critical passage, she came up and spoke in the
peculiar, inarticulate whine they all employ, standing be
tween the horse and the rocky side. The horse shied an
instant, pressed my leg against the slender railing, and I
looked over into what really seemed a fathomless abyss.
I 14*
162 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FELTOK
There was no actual danger, for the horse knew his foot
ing exactly ; but the appearance of danger set my blood
in motion for a moment and made my pulse beat at a
pretty rapid rate. Agassiz will remember this spot.
The ordinary conception of the largeness of frame of the knights
of old, of which romance has given us very exaggerated ideas, is
rather depreciated by the following narration, in which we find a
quiet university professor experiencing great difficulty in getting in
side the armor of one of the doughty knights of ancient Burgundy.
Having finished all that I desired to do there, we left
Constance for Zurich, passing through Zug, and by the
Lake of Zug, one of those exquisite mountain-lakes so
numerous in Switzerland. The scenery all the way was
beautiful. At Zurich we saw all that was to be seen,
not a great deal, but, among other things, the Zeughaus,
as they call it, or collection of ancient and medieval
arms, some of them curious and valuable as memorials
of the early wars of Switzerland against the Burgun-
dians. Many complete suits of armor from the old battle
fields were there, spears, battle-axes, and a peculiarly
heavy lance, with a heavy head set all over with spikes,
and called a morning star, a singular name for- such a
bloody and destructive instrument.
The place is not much visited : nobody else was there
with us. I always try to vivify an idea by embodying
it in some manner. I had often tried to imagine how a
knight of the Middle Ages would feel, buckled up in his
" complete steel," on a hot day. Being a middle-aged
man myself, and the day being very hot, I asked permis
sion of the keeper to try the experiment of equipping
myself in one of those old Burgundian panoplies. He
willingly complied with the request, looking, however, a
little, amused and surprised. I selected one of the two
I-ELTON] MEDIAEVAL ARMOR. 163
largest in the collection, and, the keeper acting as squire,
I was soon encased from head to foot, like the ghost of
Hamlet's father, " armed cap-a-pie."
I could, however, just squeeze myself into it ; it pinched
in many places ; and as this belonged to one of the stoutest
knights of the Burgundian host, it is very evident that the
notion of the greater size of the warriors of the Middle
Ages as compared with our own is, like that of the greater
size of Englishmen as compared with Americans, a mere
superstition. I had the most difficulty in getting the hel
met on, but at last pushed my head into it, buckled it
securely, took off my spectacles, and drew the visor down.
Next, I seized a huge battle-axe, and then marched across
the hall, while Gr and the girls were sitting down and
laughing.
I could walk well enough, except that I seemed to be a
little stiff in the joints ; there was also a slight difficulty
in breathing through the visor, and a little hardness of
hearing through the iron side-pieces. I could not see
much, except directly in front, and there only in spots.
Add to this, the heat was excessive, and the weight of
the armor was rather more than one "wants in a summer
day. The battle-axe was something of a load, too, about
as much as Satan's spear in Milton, taller than " the mast
of some great ammiral."
With these exceptions, the armor was comfortable
enough, and I think our ancestors must have had a cosey
time after they got used to it. I walked about in it for
several minutes, swinging the axe in the most formidable
manner, and could have borne it a good while longer.
But, having satisfied my wish to embody an idea, I re
quested my squire to help me out of the harness, and I
must confess I breathed more freely. It was easier walk
ing, seeing, hearing, talking. I could wear my spectacles,
164 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESCOTT
which I could not under the visor ; and, upon the whole, I
congratulate myself on having been born in the present
tige, rather than in the time of Charles the Bold of Bur
gundy.
THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO.
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT.
[The historian Prescott was born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 4,
1796. He studied in Harvard University, which he left in 1814, with
the intention of studying law. But in a preliminary course of histor
ical reading his sight became seriously affected, one eye having already
been deprived of its power of vision through an accident in college.
For a time he was totally blind, but eventually he recovered some
feeble power of vision. At a later period he became able to use his
eyes sufficiently to engage to some extent in study, and to write a num
ber of historical and critical essays, preliminary to the brilliant series
of histories on which his fame rests. By the aid of a reader he was en
abled to make the extensive researches necessary to these works, and in
the face of extraordinary discouragements he completed his " Ferdinand
and Isabella," " Conquest of Mexico," "Conquest of Peru," " Philip
the Second," and " Charted the Fifth after his Abdication." He died
in 1859. His works have given him a position in the front rank of
historians. Their style is clear and fluent, while their descriptive pas
sages are peculiarly vivid and attractive, and the selections from the
mass of often conflicting material are made with great judgment
and sagacity. There is no more popular historian than Prescott, in
whose pages the stirring scenes he describes seem acted out in life
rather than coldly narrated. The extract which we append, from
the " Conquest of Mexico," gives a vivid idea of the degree of culture
and luxury attained by the civilized races of the New "World, who
certainly in many particulars were in advance of their conquerors,
however greatly their inferiors in the art of war.]
THE hours of the Tezcucan monarch were not all passed
in idle dalliance with the Muse, nor in the sober contem-
PRESCOTT] THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO. 165
plations of philosophy, as at a later period. In the fresh
ness of youth and early manhood he led the allied armies
in their annual expeditions, which were certain to result
in a wider extent of territory to the empire. In the in
tervals of peace he fostered those productive arts which
are the surest sources of public prosperity. He encour
aged agriculture above all ; and there was scarcely a spot
so rude, or a steep so inaccessible, as not to confess the
power of cultivation. The land was covered with a busy
population, and towns and cities sprang up in places since
deserted or dwindled into miserable villages.
From resources thus enlarged by conquest and domes
tic industry, the monarch drew the means for the large
consumption of his own numerous household, and for the
costly works which he executed for the convenience and
embellishment of the capital. He filled it with stately
edifices for his nobles, whose constant attendance he was
anxious to secure at his court. He erected a magnificent
pile of buildings which might serve both for a royal resi
dence and for the public offices. It extended, from east
to west, twelve hundred and thirty-four yards, and from
north to south, nine hundred and seventy-eight. It was
encompassed by a wall of unburnt bricks and cement, six
feet wide and nine high for one-half of the circumference,
and fifteen feet high for the other half. Within this en
closure were two courts. The outer one was used as tho
great market-place of the city, and continued to be so
until long after the Conquest, if, indeed, it is not now.
The interior court was surrounded by the council-cham- '
bers and halls of justice. There were also accommoda
tions there for the foreign ambassadors ; and a spacious
'saloon, with apartments opening into it, for men of science
and poets, who pursued their studies in this retreat or
met together to hold converse under its marble porticoes.
166 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESCOTT
In this quarter, also, were kept the public archives, which
fared better under the Indian dynasty than they have
since under their European successors.
Adjoining this court were the apartments of the king,
including those for the royal harem, as liberally supplied
with beauties as that of an Eastern sultan. Their walls
were incrusted with alabasters and richly-tinted stucco,
or hung with gorgeous tapestries of variegated feather-
work. They led through long arcades, and through intri
cate labyrinths of shrubbery, into gardens where baths
and sparkling fountains were overshadowed by tall groves
of cedar and cypress. The basins of water were well
stocked with fish of various kinds, and the aviaries with
birds glowing in all the gaudy plumage of the tropics.
Many birds and animals which could not be obtained
alive were represented in gold and silver so skilfully as
to have furnished the great naturalist Hernandez with
models for his work.
Accommodations on a princely scale were provided for
the sovereigns of Mexico and Tlacopan when they visited
the court. The whole of this lordly pile contained three
hundred apartments, some of them fifty yards square.
The height of the building is not mentioned. It was
probably not great, but supplied the requisite room by
the immense extent of ground which it covered. The
interior was doubtless constructed of light materials, es
pecially of the rich woods which, in that country, are re
markable, when polished, for the brilliancy and variety
of their colors. That the more solid materials of stone
and stucco were also liberally employed is proved by the
remains at the present day, remains which have fur
nished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other
edifices since erected by the Spaniards on the site of the
ancient city.
PRESCOTT] THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO. 167
Wo are not informed of the time occupied in building
this palace. But two hundred thousand workmen, it is
said, were employed on it. However this may be, it is
certain that the Tezcucan monarchs, like those of Asia
and ancient Egypt, had the control of immense masses
of men, and would sometimes turn the whole population
of a conquered city, including the women, into the public
works. The most gigantic monuments of architecture
which the world has witnessed would never have been
reared by the hands of freemen.
Adjoining the palace were buildings for the king's chil
dren, who, by his various wives, amounted to no less than
sixty sons and fifty daughters. Here they were instructed
in all the exercises and accomplishments suited to their
station ; comprehending, what would scarcely find a place
in a royal education on the other side of the Atlantic, the
arts of working in metals, jewelry, and feather-mosaic.
Once in every four months, the whole household, not ex
cepting the youngest, and including all the officers and
attendants on the king's person, assembled in a grand
saloon of the palace, to listen to a discourse from an orator,
probably one of the priesthood. The princes, on this oc
casion, were all dressed in nequen, the coarsest manufacture
of the country. The preacher began by enlarging on the
obligations of morality and of respect for the gods, espe
cially important in persons whose rank gave such additional
weight to example. He occasionally seasoned his homily
with a pertinent application to his audience, if any mem
ber of it had been guilty of a notorious delinquency.
From this wholesome admonition the monarch himself
was not exempted, and the orator boldly reminded him of
his paramount duty to show respect for his own laws.
The king, so far from taking umbrage, received the lesson
with humility; and the audience, we are assured, were
168 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESOOTT
often melted into tears by the eloquence of the preacher.
This curious scene may remind one of similar usages in
the Asiatic arid Egyptian despotisms, where the sovereign
occasionally condescended to stoop from his pride of place
and allow his memory to be refreshed with the convic
tion of his own mortality. It soothed the feelings of the
subject to find himself thus placed, though but for a
moment, on a level with his king ; while it cost little to
the latter, who was removed too far from his people to
suffer anything by this short-lived familiarity. It is prob
able that such an act of public humiliation would have
found less favor with a prince less absolute.
Nezahualcoyotl's fondness for magnificence was shown
in his numerous villas, which were embellished with all
that could make a rural retreat delightful. His favorite
residence was at Tezcotzinco, a conical hill about two
leagues from the capital. It was laid out in terraces, or
hanging gardens, having a flight of steps five hundred and
twenty in number, many of them hewn in the natural
porphyry. In the garden on the summit was a reservoir
of water, fed by an aqueduct that was carried over hill
and valley, for several miles, on huge buttresses of ma
sonry. A large rock stood in the midst of this basin,
sculptured with the hieroglyphics representing the years
of Nezahualcoyotl's reign and his principal achievements
in each. On a lowe"r level were three other reservoirs, in
each of which stood a marble statue of a woman, emblem
atic of the three states of the empire. Another tank
contained a winged lion, (?) cut out of the solid rock, bear
ing in its mouth the portrait of the emperor. His like
ness had been executed in gold, wood, feather-work, and
stone ; but this was the only one which pleased him.
From these copious basins the water was distributed in
numerous channels through the gardens, or was made to
PRESCOTT] THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO. 169
tumble over the rocks in cascades, shedding refreshing
dews on the flowers and odoriferous shrubs below. In
the depths of this fragrant wilderness, marble porticoes
and pavilions were erected, and baths excavated in the
solid porphyry, which are still shown by the ignorant
natives as the " Baths of Montezuma." The visitor de
scended by steps cut in the living stone and polished so
bright as to reflect like mirrors. Towards the base of the
hill, in the midst of cedar groves, whose gigantic branches
threw a refreshing coolness over the verdure in the sul
triest seasons of the year, rose the royal villa, with its
light arcades and airy halls, drinking in the sweet per
fumes of the gardens. Here the monarch often retired, to
throw off the burden of state and refresh his wearied
spirits in the society of his favorite wives, reposing during
the noontide heats in the embowering shades of his para
dise, or mingling, in the cool of the evening, in their fes
tive sports and dances. Here he entertained his imperial
brothers of Mexico and Tlacopan, and followed the hardier
pleasures of the chase in the noble woods that stretched
for miles around his villa, flourishing in all their primeval
majesty. Here, too, he often repaired in the latter days
of his life, when age had tempered ambition and cooled
the ardor of his blood, to pursue in solitude the studies
of philosophy and gather wisdom from meditation.
The extraordinary accounts of the Tezcucan architec
ture are confirmed, in the main, by the relics which still
cover the hill of Tezcotzinco or are half buried beneath
its surface. They attract little attention, indeed, in the
country, where their true history has long since passed
into oblivion; while the traveller whose curiosity leads
him to the spot speculates on their probable origin, and,
as he stumbles over the huge fragments of sculptured
porphyry and granite, refers them to the primitive racea
H 15
170 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PKE&COTT
who spread their colossal architecture over the country
long before the coming of the Acolhuans and the Aztecs.
The Tezcucan princes were used to entertain a great
number of concubines. They had but one lawful wife, to
whose issue the crown descended. Nezahualcoyotl re
mained unmarried to a late period. He was disappointed
in an early attachment, as the princess who had been
educated in privacy to be the partner of his throne gave
her hand to another. The injured monarch submitted
the affair to the proper tribunal. The parties, however,
were proved to have been ignorant of the destination of
the lady, and the court, with an independence which re
flects equal honor on the judges who could give and the
monarch who could receive the sentence, acquitted the
young couple. This story is sadly contrasted by the fol
lowing.
The king devoured his chagrin in the solitude of his
beautiful villa of Tezcotzinco, or sought to divert it by
travelling. On one of his journeys he was hospitably
entertained by a potent vassal, the old lord of Tepechpan,
who, to do his sovereign more honor, caused him to be
attended at the banquet by a noble maiden, betrothed to
himself, and who, after the fashion of the country, had
been educated under his own roof. She was of the blood
royal of Mexico, and nearly related, moreover, to the Tez
cucan monarch. The latter, who had all the amorous
temperament of the South, was captivated by the grace
and personal charms of the youthful Hebe, and conceived
a violent passion for her. He did not disclose it to any
one, however, but, on his return home, resolved to gratify
it, though at the expense of his own honor, by sweeping
away the only obstacle which stood in his path.
He accordingly sent an order to the chief of Tepechpan
to take command of an expedition set on foot against the
PRESCOTT] THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO. 171
Tlascalans. At the same time he instructed two Tezcucan
chiefs to keep near the person of the old lord, and bring
him into the thickest of the fight, where he might lose his
life. He assured them this had been forfeited by a great
crime, but that, from regard for his vassal's past services,
he was willing to cover up his disgrace by an honorable
death.
The veteran, who had long lived in retirement on his
estates, saw himself with astonishment called so suddenly
and needlessly into action, for which so many younger
men were better fitted. He suspected the cause, and, in
the farewell entertainment to his friends, uttered a pre
sentiment of his sad destiny. His predictions were too
soon verified ; and a few weeks placed the hand of his
virgin bride at her own disposal.
Nezahualcoyotl did not think it prudent to break his
passion publicly to the princess so soon after the death of
his victim. He opened a correspondence with her through
a female relative, and expressed his deep sympathy for
her loss. At the same time, he tendered the best consola
tion in his power, by an offer of his heart and hand. Her
former lover had been too well stricken in years for the
maiden to remain long inconsolable. She was not aware
of the perfidious plot against his life ; and, after a decent
time, she was ready to comply with her duty, by placing
herself at the disposal of her royal kinsman.
It was arranged by the king, in order to give a more
natural aspect to the affair and prevent all suspicion of
the unworthy part he had acted, that the princess should
present herself in his grounds at Tezcotzinco, to witness
some public ceremony there. Nezahualcoyotl was stand
ing in a balcony of the palace w T hen she appeared, and
inquired, as if struck with her beauty for the first time,
" who the lovely young creature was, in his gardens."
172 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESCOT-I
When his courtiers had acquainted him with her name
and rank, he ordered her to be conducted to the palace,
that she might receive the attentions due to her station.
The interview was soon followed by a public declaration
of his passion ; and the marriage was celebrated not long
after with great pomp, in the presence of his court, and
of his brother monarchs of Mexico and Tlacopan.
This story, which furnishes so obvious a counterpart to
that of David and Uriah, is told Avith great circumstan
tiality, both by the king's son and grandson, from whose
narratives Ixtlilxochitl derived it. They stigmatize the
action as the basest in their great ancestor's life. It is
indeed too base not to leave an indelible stain on any
character, however pure in other respects, and exalted.
The king was strict in the execution of his laws, though
his natural disposition led him to temper justice with
mercy. Many anecdotes are told of the benevolent in
terest he took in the concerns of his subjects, and of his
anxiety to detect and reward merit, even in the most
humble. It was common for him to ramble among them
in disguise, like the celebrated caliph in the " Arabian
Nights," mingling freely in conversation, and ascertaining
their actual condition with his own eyes.
On one such occasion, when attended only by a single
lord, he met with a boy who was gathering sticks in a field
for fuel. He inquired of him " why he did not go into the
neighboring forest, where he would find a plenty of them."
To which the lad answered, " It was the king's wood, and
he would punish him with death if he trespassed there."
The royal forests were very extensive in Tezcuco, and
were guarded by laws full as severe as those of the Nor
man tyrants in England. " What kind of man is your
king ?" asked the monarch, willing to learn the effect of
these prohibitions on his own popularity. " A very hard
PRESCOTT] THE MONARCH OF TEZCUCO. 173
man," answered the boy, "who denies his people what
God has given them." Nezahualcoyotl urged him not to
mind such arbitrary laws, but to glean his sticks in the
forest, as there was no one present who would betray
him. But the boy sturdily refused, bluntly accusing the
disguised king, at the same time, of being a traitor, and
of wishing to bring him into trouble.
Nezahualcoyotl, on returning to the palace, ordered the
child and his parents to be summoned before him. They
received the orders with astonishment, but, on entering
the presence, the boy at once recognized the person with
whom he had discoursed so unceremoniously, and he was
filled with consternation. The good-natured monarch,
however, relieved his apprehensions by thanking him for
the lesson he had given him, and, at the same time, com
mended his respect for the laws, and praised his parents
for the manner in which they had trained their son. He
then dismissed the parties with a liberal largess, and
afterward mitigated the severity of the forest laws so as
to allow persons to gather any wood they might find on the
ground, if they did not meddle with the standing timber.
Another adventure is told of him, with a poor woodman
and his wife, who had brought their little load of billets
for sale to the market-place of Tezcuco. The man was
bitterly lamenting his hard lot, and the difficulty with
which he earned a wretched subsistence, while the master
of the palace before which they were standing lived an
idle life, without toil, and with all the luxuries in the
world at his command.
He was going on in his complaints, when the good
woman stopped him, by reminding him he might be over
heard. He was so, by Nezahualcoyotl himself, who, stand
ing screened from observation, at a latticed window which
overlooked the market, was amusing himself, as he was
15*
174 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHIFPLK
wont, with observing the common people chaffering in the
square. He immediately ordered the querulous couple
into his presence. They appeared trembling and con
science-struck before him. The king gravely inquired
what they had said. As they answered him truly, he
told them they should reflect, that, if he had great treas
ures at his command, he had still greater calls for them ;
that, far from leading an easy life, he was oppressed with
the whole burden of government ; and concluded by ad
monishing them " to be more cautious in future, as walls
had ears." He then ordered his officers to bring a quan
tity of cloth and a generous supply of cacao (the coin of
the country), and dismissed them. " G-o," said he : " with
the little you now have, you will be rich ; while, with all
my riches, I shall still be poor."
THE ENERGY OF YOUTH.
E. P. WHIPPLE.
[Edwin, Percy Whipple, born at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1819,
was the author of several works, and of numerous essays, in which he
carried the art of criticism to a height not surpassed by that of the
most noted English critical writers* His style is easy and idiomatic,
marked by apt illustration and grace of handling. His " Character
and Characteristic Men" shows fine powers of judgment and apprecia
tion, and his word-pictures of our authors leave little to he added.
He died June 16, 1886. We offer a short extract from his writings in
i. lustration of his manner.]
IN passing from the sphere of politics to the serener
region of literature, art, science, and philosophy, there is
an increasing difficulty in estimating youth by years, and
an increasing necessity to estimate it by qualities. One
THE ENERGY OF YOUTH. 175
thing, however, is certain, that the invention of new
methods, the discovery of new truth, and the creation of
new beauty intellectual acts which are among the most
important of historical events all belong to that thor
oughly live condition of mind which we have called young.
In this sense of youth, it may be said that Raphael, the
greatest painter of moral beauty, and Titian, the greatest
painter of sensuous beauty, were both almost equally
young, though Raphael died at thirty-seven, while Titian
was prematurely cut off by the plague when he was only
a hundred. These, of course, are the extreme cases. But,
it may be asked, were not the greatest poems of the
world, the " Iliad" of Homer, the " Divina Commedia" of
Dante, the "Paradise Lost" of Milton, the creations of
comparative old age? The answer to this question is,
that each was probably organized round a youthful con
ception, and all were coextensive with the whole growth
and development of tneir creators. Thus, we do not call
Milton old when he produced " Paradise Lost," but when
this mental growth was arrested ; and accordingly " Para
dise Regained" and " Samson Agonistes," works produced
after his prime, are comparatively bleak and bare products
of a withering imagination and a shrunken personality.
But, confining the matter to the mere question of years,
it may be said that, allowing for some individual excep
tions, the whole history of the human intellect will bear
out the general assertion that the power in which great
natures culminate, and which fixes fatal limits to their
loftiest aspirations, namely, that flashing conceptive and
combining genius which fuses force and insight in one ex
ecutive intelligence, which seizes salient points and central
ideas, which darts in an instant along the whole line of
analogies and relations, which leaps with joyous daring
the vast mental spaces that separate huddled facts from
176 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHIFFLE
harmonizing laws, that this power, to say the least,
rarely grows after thirty-five or forty. The mental stat
ure is then reached, though it may not dwindle and be
dwarfed until long afterwards. Thus, Shakespeare com
pleted "Hamlet" when he was about thirty-six. Mozart,
the Shakespeare of composers, died at thirty-six. But
why enumerate? Amid the scores of instances which
must crowd into every mind, let us select five men, of
especial historical significance, and who are commonly
imaged to our minds with heads silvered over with age,
let us take Groethe in poetry, Newton in science, Bacon
in philosophy, Columbus in discovery, Watt in mechanics.
Now, how stand the facts ? The greatest works of Goethe
were conceived and partly executed when he was a young
man ; and if age found him more widely and worldly wise,
it found him weak in creative passion, and, as a poet, living
on the interest of his youthful conceptions. Newton, in
whose fertile and capacious intellect the dim, nebulous
elements of truth were condensed by patient thinking
into the completed star, discovered the most universal of
all natural laws, the law of gravitation, before he was
twenty-five, though an error of observation, not his own,
prevented him from demonstrating it until he was forty.
Bacon had " vast contemplative ends," and had taken " all
knowledge for his province," had deeply meditated new
methods and audaciously doubted old ones, before the in
cipient beard had begun timidly to peep from his youthful
chin. The great conception of Columbus sprang from the
thoughts and studies of his youth ; and it was the radi
ance shed from this conception which gave him fortitude
to bear the slow martyrdom of poverty, contempt, and
sickness of heart which embittered the toiling years pre
ceding its late realization. The steam-engine was invented
by James Watt before he was thirty ; but then Watt was
WEIPPLE] THE ENERGY OF YOUTH. 177
a thinker from his cradle. Everybody will recollect hia
grandmothers reproof of what she called his idleness, at
the time his boyish brain was busy with meditations des
tined to ripen in the most marvellous and revolutionizing
of all industrial inventions, an invention which, of itself
alone, has given Great Britain an additional productive
power equal, to ten millions of workmen, at the cost of
only a halfpenny a day, an invention which supplies the
motive power by which a single county in England is en
abled to produce fabrics representing the labor of twenty-
one millions of men, an invention which, combined with
others, annually, in England, weaves into cloth a length
of cotton thread equal to fifty-one times the distance be
tween the earth and the sun, five thousand millions of
miles, an invention which created the wealth by which
England was enabled to fight or subsidize the whole con
tinent of Europe from 1793 to 1815, and which made that
long war really a contest between the despotic power of
JSTapoleon Bonaparte and the productive genius of James
Watt. All this vast and teeming future was hidden from
the good grandmother, as she saw the boy idling over the
tea-kettle. " James," she said, " I never saw such an idle
young fellow as you are. Do take a book and employ
yourself usefully. For the last half-hour you have not
spoken a single word. Do you know what you have been
doing all this time? Why, you have taken off, and re
placed, and taken off again, the teapot-lid, and you have
held alternately in the steam, first a saucer and then a
spoon ; and you have busied yourself in examining and
collecting together the little drops formed by the conden
sation of the steam on the surface of the china and the
silver. Now, are you not ashamed to waste your time in
this disgraceful manner ?" Was ever idleness so produc
tive before ?
178 VEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALCOTT
A SUMMER DAY'S IDYL.
L. M. ALCOTT.
[Louisa May Alcott, whose reputation rests on her attractive stories
of young girl life, has written nothing fuller of thought and character
than her earlier novel of " Moods," from which we make our extract.
The poetically-told story of the long float down the river, and the
amusing night-scare that followed, form a most charming picture of
the poetry of life. Miss Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsyl
vania, in 1832.]
SYLVIA, too full of genuine content to talk, sat listening
to the musical dip of well-pulled oars, watching the green
banks on either side, dabbling her hands in the eddies as
they rippled by, and singing to the wind, as cheerful and
serene as the river that gave her back a smiling image of
herself. What her companions talked of she neither heard
nor cared to know, for she was looking at the great picture-
book that always lies ready for the turning of the youngest
or the oldest hands ; was receiving the welcome of the
playmates she best loved, and was silently yielding her
self to the power which works all wonders with its be
nignant magic. Hour after hour she journeyed along that
fluent road, under bridges where early fishers lifted up
their lines to let them through ; past gardens tilled by
unskilful townsmen who harvested an hour of strength
>
to pay the daily tax the city levied on them ; past honey
moon cottages where young wives walked with young
husbands in the dew, or great houses shut against the
morning. Lovers came floating down the stream with
masterless rudder and trailing oars. College race-boats
shot by with modern Greek choruses in full blast and the
frankest criticisms from their scientific crews. Fathers
went rowing to and fro with argosies of pretty children,
ALCOTT] A SUMMER DAY'S IDYL. 179
who gave them gay good-morrows. Sometimes they met
fanciful nutshells manned by merry girls, who made for
shore at sight of them with most erratic movements and
novel commands included in their Art of Navigation. Now
and then some poet or philosopher went musing by, fishing
for facts or fictions where other men catch pickerel or perch.
All manner of sights and sounds greeted Sylvia, and she
felt as if she were watching a panorama painted in water-
colors by an artist who had breathed into his work the
breath of life and given each figure power to play its part.
Never had human faces looked so lovely to her eye, for
morning beautified the plainest with its ruddy kiss; never
had human voices sounded so musical to her ear, for daily
cares had not yet brought discord to the instruments tuned
by sleep and touched by sunshine into pleasant sound;
never had the whole race seemed so near and dear to her,
for she was unconsciously pledging all she met in that
genuine elixir vitae which sets the coldest blood aglow
and makes the whole world kin ; never had she felt so truly
her happiest self, for of all the costlier pleasures she
had known not one had been so congenial as this, as she
rippled farther and farther up the stream and seemed to
float into a world whose airs brought only health and
peace. Her comrades wisely left her to her thoughts, a
smiling Silence for their figure-head, and none among them
but found the day fairer and felt himself fitter to enjoy
it for the innocent companionship of maidenhood and a
happy heart.
At noon they dropped anchor under a wide-spreading
oak that stood on the river's edge, a green tent for wan
derers like themselves ; there they ate their first meal
spread among white clovers, with a pair of squirrels star
ing at them as curiously as human spectators ever watched
royalty at dinner, while several meek cows courteously
180 BES-i' AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALCOTT
left their guests the shade and went away to dine at a
side-table spread in the sun. They spent an hour or two
talking or drowsing luxuriously on the grass ; then the
springing up of a fresh breeze roused them all, and, weigh
ing anchor, they set sail for another port.
Now Sylvia saw new pictures, for, leaving all traces of
the city behind them, they went swiftly country ward,
sometimes by hay-fields, each an idyl in itself, with white-
sleeved mowers all arow ; the pleasant sound of whetted
scythes ; great loads rumbling up lanes, with brown-faced
children shouting atop ; rosy girls raising fragrant wind
rows or bringing water for thirsty sweethearts leaning on
their rakes. Often they saw ancient farm-houses with
mossy roofs, and long well-sweeps suggestive of fresh
draughts and the drip of brimming pitchers; orchards and
cornfields rustling on either hand, and grandmotherly caps
at the narrow windows, or stout matrons tending babies
in the door-way as they watched smaller selves playing
keep house under the " laylocks" by the wall. Tillages,
like white flocks, slept on the hill-sides ; martinbox school-
houses appeared here and there, astir with busy voices,
alive with wistful eyes ; and more than once they came
upon little mermen bathing, who dived with sudden
splashes, like a squad of turtles tumbling off a sunny rock.
Then they went floating under vernal arches, where a
murmurous rustle seemed to whisper, " Stay !" along shad-
owless sweeps, where the blue turned to gold and dazzled
with its unsteady shimmer ; passed islands so full of birds
they seemed green cages floating in the sun, or doubled
capes that opened long vistas of light and shade, through
which they sailed into the pleasant land where summer
reigned supreme. To Sylvia it seemed as if the inhabitants
of these solitudes had flocked down to the shore to greet her
as she came. Fleets of lilies unfurled their sails on either
ALCOTT] A SUMMER DAY'S IDYL. 181
hand, and cardinal flowers waved their scarlet flags among
the green. The sagittaria lifted its blue spears from arrowy
leaves ; wild roses smiled at her with blooming faces ;
meadow-lilies rang their flame-colored bells ; and clematis
and ivy hung garlands everywhere, as if hers were a floral
progress and each came to do her honor. . . .
The wind served them till sunset ; then the sail was
lowered and the rowers took to their oars. Sylvia de
manded her turn, and wrestled with one big oar while
Warwick sat behind and did the work. Having blistered
her hands and given herself as fine a color as any on her
brother's palette, she professed herself satisfied, and went
back to her seat to watch the evening-red transfigure
earth and sky, making the river and its banks a more
royal pageant than splendor-loving Elizabeth ever saw
along the Thames.
Anxious to reach a certain point, they rowed on into
the twilight, growing stiller and stiller as the deepening
hush seemed to hint that Nature was at her prayers.
Slowly the " Kelpie" floated along the shadowy way, and
as the shores grew dim, the river dark with leaning hem
locks or an overhanging cliff, Sylvia felt as if she were
making the last voyage across that fathomless stream
where a pale boatman plies and many go lamenting.
The long silence was broken first by Moor's voice,
saying,
"Adam, sing."
If the influences of the hour had calmed Mark, touched
Sylvia, and made Moor long for music, they had also
softened Warwick. Leaning on his oar, he lent the music
of a mellow voice to the words of a German volkslied,
and launched a fleet of echoes such as any tuneful vintager
might have sent floating down the Rhine. Sylvia was no
weeper, but, as she listened, all the day's happiness which
16
182 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALCOTT
had been pent up in her heart found vent in sudden tears,
that streamed down noiseless and refreshing as a warm
south rain. Why they came she could not tell, for neither
song nor singer possessed the power to win so rare a trib
ute, and at another time she would have restrained all
visible expression of this indefinable yet sweet emotion
Mark and Moor had joined in the burden of the song, and
when that was done took up another ; but Sylvia only sat
and let her tears flow while they would, singing at heart,
though her eyes were full and her cheeks wet faster than
the wind could kiss them dry.
After frequent peerings and tackings here and there,
Mark at last discovered the haven he desired, and with
much rattling of oars, clanking of chains, and splashing
of impetuous boots, a landing was eifected, and Sylvia
found herself standing on a green bank with her hammock
in her arms and much wonderment in her mind whether
the nocturnal experiences in store for her would prove as
agreeable as the daylight ones had been. Mark and Moor
unloaded the boat and prospected for an eligible sleeping-
place. Warwick, being an old campaigner, set about
building a fire, and the girl began her sylvan housekeep
ing. The scene rapidly brightened into light and color as
the blaze sprang up, showing the little kettle slung gypsy-
wise on forked sticks, and the supper prettily set forth in
a leafy table-service on a smooth, flat stone. Soon four
pairs of wet feet surrounded the fire ; an agreeable obliv
ion of meum and tuum concerning plates, knives, and cups
did away with etiquette, and every one was in a comfort
able state of weariness, which rendered the thought of
bed so pleasant that they deferred their enjoyment of the
reality, as children keep the best bite till the last. ...
Presently some one suggested bed, and the proposition
was unanimously accepted.
ALCOTT] A SUMMER DAY'S IDYL. 183
" Where are you going to hang me ?" asked Sylvia, as
she laid hold of her hammock and looked about her with
nearly as much interest as if her suspension was to be of
the perpendicular order.
"You are not to be swung up in a tree to-night, but
laid like a ghost, and requested not to walk till morning.
There is an unused barn close by, so we shall have a roof
over us for one night longer," answered Mark, playing
chamberlain while the others remained to quench the fire
and secure the larder.
An early moon lighted Sylvia to bed, and when shown
her half the barn which, as she was a marine, was very
properly the bay, Mark explained she scouted the idea of
being nervous or timid in such rude quarters, made her
self a cosy nest, and bade her brother a merry good-night.
More weary than she would confess, Sylvia fell asleep
at once, despite the novelty of her situation and the noises
that fill a summer night with fitful rustlings and tones.
How long she slept she did not know, but woke suddenly
and sat erect with that curious thrill which sometimes
startles one out of deepest slumber and is often the fore
runner of some dread or danger. She felt this hot tingle
through blood and nerves, and stared about her, thinking
of fire. But everything was dark and still, and after
waiting a few moments she decided that her nest had been
too warm, for her temples throbbed and her cheeks were
feverish with the close air of the barn half filled with new-
made hay.
Creeping up a fragrant slope, she spread her plaid again
and lay down where a cool breath flowed through wide
chinks in the wall. Sleep was slowly returning, when the
rustle of footsteps scared it quite away and set her heart
beating fast, for they came toward the new couch she
had chosen. Holding her breath, she listened. The quiet
184 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALCOTT
tread drew nearer and nearer till it paused within a yard
of her, then some one seemed to throw themselves down,
sigh heavily a few times, and grow still as if falling asleep.
"It is Mark," thought Sylvia, and whispered his name;
but no one answered, and from the other corner of the
I arn she heard her brother muttering in his sleep. Who
was it, then? Mark had said there were no cattle near;
she was sure neither of her comrades had left their bivouac,
for there was her brother talking as usual in his dreams ;
some one seemed restless and turned often with decided
motion, that was Warwick, she thought ; while the quiet
est sleeper of the three betrayed his presence by laughing
once with the low-toned merriment she recognized as
Moor's. These discoveries left her a prey to visions of
grimy strollers, maudlin farm-servants, and infectious emi
grants in dismal array. A strong desire to cry out pos
sessed her for a moment, but was checked ; for with all her
sensitiveness Sylvia had much common sense, and that
spirit which hates to be conquered even by a natural fear.
She remembered her scornful repudiation of the charge of
timidity, and the endless jokes she would have to undergo
if her mysterious neighbor should prove some harmless
wanderer or an imaginary terror of her own : so she held
her peace, thinking valiantly, as the drops gathered on
her forehead and every sense grew painfully alert,
" I'll not call if my hair turns gray with fright and I
find myself an idiot to-morrow. I told them to try me,
arid I won't be found wanting at the first alarm. I'll be
still, if the thing does not touch me, till dawn, when I
shall know how to act at once, and so save myself from
ridicule at the cost of a wakeful night."
Ifqlding fast to this resolve, Sylvia lay motionless, lis
tening to the cricket's chirp without, and taking uncom
fortable notes of the state of things within, for the new-
ALCOTT] A SUMMER DAF'S IDYL. 185
comer stirred heavily, sighed long and deeply, and seemed
to wake often, like one too sad or weary to rest. She
would have been wise to have screamed her scream and
had the rout over, for she tormented herself with the in
genuity of a lively fancy, and suifered more from her own
terrors than at the discovery of a dozen vampires. Every
tale of diablerie she had ever heard came most inoppor
tunely to haunt her now, and, though she felt their folly,
she could not free herself from their dominion. She
wondered till she could wonder no longer what the morn
ing would show her. She tried to calculate in how many
springs she could reach and fly over the low partition
which separated her from her sleeping body-guard. She
wished with all her heart that she had stayed in her nest
which was nearer the door, and watched for dawn with
eyes that ached to see the light.
In the midst of these distressful sensations, the far-off
crow of some vigilant chanticleer assured her that the
short summer night was wearing away and relief was at
hand. This comfortable conviction had so good an effect
that she lapsed into what seemed a moment's oblivion,
but was in fact an hour's restless sleep, for when her eyes
unclosed again the first red streaks were visible in the
east, and a dim light found its way into the barn through
the great door which had been left ajar for air. An in
stant Sylvia lay collecting herself, then rose on her arm,
looked resolutely behind her, stared with round eyes a
moment, and dropped down again, laughing with a merri
ment which, coming on the heels of her long alarm, was
rather hysterical. All she saw was a little, soft-eyed Alder-
ney, which lifted its stag-like head and regarded her with
a confiding aspect that won her pardon for its innocent
offence.
Through the relief of both mind and body which she
16*
186 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARLOW
experienced in no small degree, the first thought that
came was a thankful " what a mercy I didn't call Mark,
for I should never have heard the last of this ;" and, hav
ing fought her fears alone, she enjoyed her success alone,
and, girl-like, resolved to say nothing of her first night's
adventures. Gathering herself up, she crept nearer and
caressed her late terror, which stretched its neck toward
her with a comfortable sound and munched her shawl like
a cosset lamb. But before this new friendship was many
minutes old, Sylvia's heavy lids fell together, her head
dropped lower and lower, her hand lay still on the dap
pled neck, and with a long sigh of weariness she dropped
back upon the hay, leaving little Alderney to watch ovei
her much more tranquilly than she had watched over it.
THE HASTY PUDDING.
JOEL BARLOW.
[From the works of Joel Barlow, the author of the ponderous
American epic "The Columbiad," we extract a portion of his serio
comic " Hasty Pudding," his best and most celebrated poem. He was
born at Heading, Connecticut, in 1755, and died in 1812. In his era
he belonged to the first class of American authors, though he would
by no means be accorded this rank at the present day. We give the
whole of the first and parts of the second and third cantos.]
CANTO I.
Te Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise,
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies ;
Te Gallic flags, that, o'er their heights unfurl'd,
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world,
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,
A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse,
BARLOW] THE HASTY PUDDING. 187
But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
The purest frenzy of poetic fire.
Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd,
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field ;
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing
Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring ;
Or on some distant fair your notes employ,
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.
Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme.
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame,
But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear,
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere !
Assist me first with pious toil to trace,
Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race ;
Declare what lovely squaw in days of yore
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore)
First gave thee to the world ; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,
First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize,
Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,
In boiling water stir the yellow flour :
18S BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste,
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,
Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim ;
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,
And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,
Eise, like her labors, to the son of song,
To her, to them, I'd consecrate my lays,
And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.
If 'twas Oella, whom I sang before,
I here ascribe her one great virtue more.
Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone
The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known,
But o'er the world's wide clime should live secure,
Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.
Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy !
Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam,
Each clime my country, and each house my home,
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,
I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.
For thee through Paris, that corrupted town,
How long in vain I wander'd up and down,
Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard,
Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.
London is lost in smoke and steep'd in tea ;
~No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee ;
The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
Would call a proclamation from the crown.*
* A certain king, at the time when this was written, was publishing
proclamations to prevent American principles from being propagated
in his countiy.
BARLOW] THE HASTY PUDDING. 189
From climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays,
Chill'd in their fogs, exclude the generous maize ;
A grain, whose rich, luxuriant growth requires
Short, gentle showers, and bright, ethereal fires.
But here, though distant from our native shore,
With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more ;
The same ! I know thee by that yellow face,
That strong complexion of true Indian race,
Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air ;
For endless years, through every mild domain,
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign.
But man, more fickle, the bold license claims
In different realms to give thee different names.
Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant
Polenta call, the French, of course, Polente.
E'en in thy native regions, how I blush
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush !
On Hudson's banks while men of Belgic spawii
Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn !
All spurious appellations, void of truth ;
I've better known thee from my earliest youth.
Thy name is Hasty Pudding ; thus my sire
Was wont to greet thee fuming from his fire ;
And, while he argued in thy just defence
With logic clear, he thus explain'd the sense :
" In haste the boiling caldron, o'er the blaze,
Receives and cooks the ready powder'd maize ;
In haste 'tis served, and then in equal haste,
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.
No carving to be done, no knife to grate
The tender ear and wound the stony plate ;
But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,
190 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARLOW
By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored,
Performs the hasty honors of the board."
Such is thy name, significant and clear,
A name, a sound, to every Yankee dear,
But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste
Preserve my pure hereditary taste.
There are who strive to stamp with disrepute
The luscious food because it feeds the brute j
In tropes of high-strain'd wit, while gaudy prigs
Compare thy nursling, man, to pamper'd pigs ;
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.
What though the generous cow gives me to quaff
The milk nutritious, am I then a calf?
Or can the genius of the noisy swine,
Though nursed on pudding, claim a kin to mine ?
Sure the sweet song I fashion to thy praise
Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.
My song resounding in its grateful glee
No merit claims ; I praise myself in thee.
My father loved thee through his length of days :
.For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize ;
From thee what health, what vigor he possess'd,
Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest ;
Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,
And all my bones were made of Indian corn.
Delicious grain ! whatever form it take,
To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,
In every dish 'tis welcome still to me,
But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.
Let the green succotash with thee contend,
Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend,
Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,
And a long slice of bacon grace their side,
BARLOW] THE HASTY PUDDING. 191
Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be,
Can please my palate like a bowl of thee.
Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia's pride,
Rich Johnny- Cake this mouth has often tried;
Both please me well, their virtues much the same,
Alike their fabric, as allied their fame,
Except in dear New England, where the last
Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste,
To give it sweetness and improve the taste.
But place them all before me, smoking hot,
The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot,
The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast,
With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast,
The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides
A belly soft the pulpy apple hides,
The yellow bread whose face like amber glows,
And all of Indian that the bake-pan knows,
You tempt me not, my favorite greets my eyes,
To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies.
CANTO II.
To mix the food by vicious rules of art,
To kill the stomach and to sink the heart,
To make mankind to social virtue sour,
Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour ;
For this the kitchen muse first framed her book,
Commanding sweat to stream from every cook ;
Children no more their antic gambols tried,
And friends to physic wonder'd why they died.
Not so the Yankee : his abundant feast,
With simples furnish'd and with plainness dress'd,
A numerous offspring gathers round the board,
And cheers alike the servant and the lord,
192 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARLOW
Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste,
And health attends them from the short repast.
While the full pail rewards the milkmaid's toil,
The mother sees the morning caldron boil ;
To stir the pudding next demands their care,
To spread the table and the bowls prepare ;
To feed the children as their portions cool,
And comb their heads and send them off to school.
CANTO III.
Some with molasses line the luscious treat,
And mix, like bards, the useful with the sweet.
A wholesome dish, and well deserving praise,
A great resource in those bleak wintry days
When the chill'd earth lies buried deep in snow,
And raging Boreas drives the shivering cow.
Bless'd cow I thy praise shall still my notes employ,
Great source of health, the only source of joy ;
How oft thy teats these pious hands have press'd !
How oft thy bounties proved my only feast !
How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain !
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain !
Ye swains, who know her various worth to prize,
Ah ! house her well from winter's angry skies.
Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer,
Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer ;
When spring returns she'll well acquit the loan,
And nurse at once your infants and her own.
Milk, then, with pudding I would always choose ;
To this in future I confine my muse,
Till she in haste some further hints unfold,
Well for the young, nor useless to the old.
First in your bowl the milk abundant take,
Then drop with care along the silver lake
TARKEB] VAGRANT CHILDREN. 193
Your flakes of pudding ; these at first will bide
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide ;
But when their growing mass no more can sink,
"When the soft island looms above the brink,
Then check your hand ; you've got the portion due :
So taught our sires, and what they taught is true.*
VAGRANT CHILDREN.
THEODORE PARKER.
[In the religious history of America no man has occupied a more
prominent place, and won a greater host of decided friends and de
clared enemies, than the writer from whom we now select. Beginning
his pastoral life as a Unitarian clergyman, he soon promulgated
radical views concerning the absolute humanity of Christ, and other
points of doctrine, which forced him from the bosom of the Church
* The following note was added :
" There are various ways of preparing and eating it, with molasses,
butter, sugar, cream, and fried. Why so excellent a thing cannot be
eaten alone? Nothing is perfect alone : even man, who boasts of so
much perfection, is nothing without his fellow-substance. In eating,
beware of the lurking heat that lies deep in the mass ; dip your spoon
gently, take shallow dips, and cool it by degrees. It is sometimes
necessary 'to blow. This is indicated by certain signs which every
experienced feeder knows. They should be taught to young beginners.
I have known a child's tongue blistered for want of this attention,
and then the school-dame would insist that the poor thing had told a
lie. A mistake : the falsehood was in the faithless pudding. A pru
dent mother will cool it for her child with her own sweet breath.
The husband, seeing this, pretends his own wants blowing too from
the same lips. A sly deceit of love. She knows the cheat, but, feign
ing ignorance, lends her pouting lips and gives a gentle blast which
warms the husband's heart more than it cools his pudding."
I n 17
194 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
and into an independent position as pastor and lecturer. In this re
lation to the community his ardent and powerful intellect, his incessant
activity, and his great learning gave him a wide-spread influence, and"
the extended radicalism which now prevails is in considerable part the
result of his teachings. He was an active worker in the interests of
reform, and, in particular, opposed with all his strength and intellectual
vigor the institution of slavery. Many of his sermons, addresses, and
essays have "been published. "We give a short extract in illustration
of his style and of his interest in the subject of reform. He was born
in Massachusetts in 1810, and died at Florence, Italy, in I860.]
WHAT will be the fate of these two thousand children ?
Some men are superior to circumstances, so well born
they defy ill breeding. There may be children so excel
lent and strong they cannot be spoiled. Surely there are
some who will learn with no school, boys of vast genius,
whom you cannot keep from learning. Others there are
of wonderful moral gifts, whom no circumstances can
make vulgar ; they will live in the midst of corruption
and keep clean through the innate refinement of a won
drous soul. Out of these two thousand children there
may be two of this sort ; it were foolish to look for more
than one in a thousand. The nineteen hundred and ninety-
eight depend mainly on circumstances to help them ; yes,
to make their character. Send them to school, and they
will learn. Give them good precepts, good examples, they
will also become good. Give them bad precepts, bad ex
amples, and they become wicked. Send them half clad
and uncared for into your streets, and they grow up
hungry savages, greedy for crime.
What have these abandoned children to help them?
Nothing, literally nothing ! They are idle, though their
bodies crave activity. They are poor, ill clad, and ill fed.
There is nothing about them to foster self-respect ; nothing
to call forth their conscience, to awaken and cultivate their
sense of religion. They find themselves beggars in the
PARKER] VAGRANT CHILDREN. 195
wealth of a city ; idlers in the midst of its work ; yes,
savages in the midst of civilization. Their consciousness
is that of an outcast, one abandoned and forsaken of men.
In cities, life is intense amongst all classes. So the pas
sions and appetites of such children are strong and violent.
Their taste is low, their wants clamorous. Are religion
and conscience there to abate the fever of passion and
regulate desire ? The moral class and the cultivated shun
these poor wretches, or look on with stupid wonder. Our
rule is that the whole need the physician, not the sick.
They are left almost entirely to herd and consort with
the basest of men ; they are exposed early and late to
the worst influences, and their only comrades are men
whom the children of the rich are taught to shun as the
pestilence. To be poor is hard enough in the country,
where artificial wants are few, and those easily met,
where all classes are humbly clad, and none fare sump
tuously every day. But to be poor in the city, where a
hundred artificial desires daily claim satisfaction, and
where, too, it is difficult for the poor to satisfy the natural
and unavoidable wants of food and raiment ; to be hungry,
ragged, dirty, amid luxury, wantonness, and refinement ;
to be miserable in the midst of abundance, that is hard
beyond all power of speech. Look, I will not say at the
squalid dress of these children, as you see them prowling
about the markets and wharves, or contending in the
dirty lanes and by-places into which the pride of Boston
has elbowed so much of her misery; look at their faces!
Haggard as they are, meagre and pale and wan, want is
not the worst thing written there, but cunning, fraud,
violence, and obscenity, and, worst of all, fear!
Amid all the science and refined culture of the nine
teenth century, these children learn little; little that is
good, much that is bad. In the intense life around them,
196 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKER
they unavoidably become vicious, obscene, deceitful, and
violent. They will lie, steal, be drunk. How can it be
otherwise ?
If you could know the life of one of those poor lepers
of Boston, you would wonder and weep. Let me take
one of them at random out of the mass. He was born,
unwelcome, amid wretchedness and want. His coming
increased both. Miserably he struggled through his in
fancy, less tended than the lion's whelp. He becomes a
boy. He is covered only with rags, and those squalid
with long-accumulated filth. He wanders about your
streets, too low even to seek employment, now snatching
from a gutter half-rotten fruit which the owner flings
away. He is ignorant ; he has never entered a school-
house ; to him even the alphabet is a mystery. He is
young in years, yet old in misery. There is no hope in
his face. He herds with others like himself, low, ragged,
hungry, and idle. If misery loves company, he finds that
satisfaction. Follow him to his home at night ; he herds
in a cellar, in the same sty with father, mother, brothers,
sisters, and perhaps yet other families of like degree.
What served him for dress by day is his only bed by night.
"Well, this boy steals some trifle, a biscuit, a bit of rope,
or a knife from a shop- window. He is seized and carried
to jail. The day comes for trial. He is marched through
the streets in handcuffs, the companion of drunkards and
thieves, thus deadening the little self-respect which Nature
left even in an outcast's bosom. He sits there chained
like a beast ; a boy in irons ! the sport and mockery of
men vulgar as the common sewer. His trial comes. Of
course he is convicted. The show of his countenance is
witness against him. His rags and dirt, his ignorance,
his vagrant habits, his idleness, all testify against him.
That face, so young and yet so impudent, so sly, so writ
PARKER] VAGRANT CHILDREN. 197
all over with embryo villany, is evidence enough. The
jury are soon convinced, for they see his temptations in
his look, and surely know that in such a condition men
will steal; yes, they themselves would steal. The judge
represents the law, and that practically regards it a crime
even for a boy to be weak and poor. Much of our common
law, it seems to me, is based on might, not right. So he
is hurried off to jail at a tender age, and made legally the
companion of felons. Now the State has him wholly in
her power; by that rough adoption has made him her
own child, and sealed the indenture with the jailer's key.
His handcuffs are the symbol of his sonship to the State.
She shuts him in her college for the Little. What does
that teach him? science, letters? even morals and religion ?
Little enough of this, even in Boston, and in most counties
of Massachusetts, I think, nothing at all, not even a trade
which he can practise when his term expires! I have
been told a story, and I wish it might be falsely told, of a
boy, in this city, of sixteen, sent to the house of correction
for five years because he stole a bunch of keys, and coming
out of that jail at twenty-one, unable to write, or read, or
calculate, and with no trade but that of picking oakum.
Yet he had been five years the child of the State, and in
that college for the poor! Who would employ such a
youth ; with such a reputation ; with the smell of the
jail in his very breath ? Not your shrewd men of busi
ness, they know the risk ; not your respectable men,
members of churches and all that; not they! Why, it
would hurt a man's reputation for piety to do good in
that way. Besides, the risk is great, and it argues a great
deal more Christianity than it is popular to have, for a
respectable man to employ such a youth. He is forced
back into crime again. I say forced, for honest men will
not employ him when the State shoves him out of the
IT*
198 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
jail. Soon you will have him in the court again, to be
punished more severely. Then he goes to the State
prison, and then again, and again, till death mercifully
ends his career !
Who is to blame for all that ? I will ask the best man
among the best of you, what he would have become if
thus abandoned, turned out in childhood, and with no
culture, into the streets, to herd with the wickedest of
men 1 Somebody says there are " organic sins" in society
which nobody is to blame for. But by this sin organized
in society these vagrant children are training up to be
come thieves, pirates, and murderers. I cannot blame
them. But there is a terrible blame somewhere, for it is
not the will of God that one of these little ones should
perish. Who is it that organizes the sin of society ?
THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
[We extract from " My Summer in a Garden" the following
humorous and philosophical description of the pleasures and pains
of horticulture, and of the highly agreeable and sociable character of
mechanics who work by the hour. Mr. Warner is a native of Plain-
field, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1829. " Saunterings,"
" Back-Log Studies," " My Winter on the Nile," and several other
works from his pen, are all marked by the genial humor which appears
in our extract. In combination with S. L. Clemens ("Mark Twain")
he produced " The Gilded Age," a highly humorous novel, which has
been successfully dramatized.]
PERHAPS, after all, it is not what you get out of a gar
den, but what you put into it, that is the most remunera-
WARNER] THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING. 199
tive. What is a man ? A question frequently asked, and
never, so far as I know, satisfactorily answered. He com
monly spends his seventy years, if so many are given him,
in getting ready to enjoy himself How many hours, how
many minutes, does one get of that pure content which
is happiness? I do not mean laziness, which is always
discontent ; but that serene enjoyment in which all the
natural senses have easy play, and the unnatural ones
have a holiday. There is probably nothing that has such
a tranquillizing effect, and leads into such content, as gar
dening. By gardening, I do not mean that insane desire to
raise vegetables which some have ; but the philosophical
occupation of contact with the earth, and companionship
with gently-growing things and patient processes; that
exercise which soothes the spirit and develops the deltoid
muscles.
In half an hour I can hoe myself right away from this
world, as we commonly see it, into a large place where
there are no obstacles. What an occupation it is for
thought! The mind broods like a hen on eggs. The
trouble is, that you are not thinking about anything, but
are really vegetating like the plants around you. I begin
to know what the joy of the grape-vine is in running up
the trellis, which is similar to that of the squirrel in running
up a tree. We all have something in our nature that re-*
quires contact with the earth. In the solitude of garden-
labor, one gets into a sort of communion with the vege
table life, which makes the old mythology possible. For
instance, I can believe that the dryads are plenty this
summer; my garden is like an ash-heap. Almost all the
moisture it has had in weeks has been the sweat of honest
industry.
The pleasure of gardening in these days, when the ther
mometer is at ninety, is one that I fear I shall not be able
200 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
to make intelligible to my readers, many of whom do not
appreciate the delight of soaking in the sunshine. I sup
pose that the sun, going through a man, as it will on such
a day, takes out of him rheumatism, consumption, and
every other disease, except sudden death from sunstroke.
But, aside from this, there is an odor from the evergreens,
the hedges, the various plants and vines, that is only ex
pressed and set afloat at a high temperature, which is de
licious ; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come at
intervals, which can be heard in the tree-tops, and which
is an unobtrusive benediction. I hear a quail or two
whistling in the ravine ; and there is a good deal of frag
mentary conversation going on among the birds, even on
the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin,* also,
counts for a good deal. He usually attends me, unless
I work too long in one place, sitting down on the turf,
displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my
movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and
genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish
himself where there is a good view, and look on it for
hours. He always accompanies us when we go to gather
the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we
are to have for dinner. He is a connoisseur in the garden ;
Jbeing fond of almost all the vegetables, except the cucum
ber, a dietetic hint to man. I believe it is also said that
the pig will not eat tobacco. These are important facts.
It is singular, however, that those who hold up the pigs
as models to us never hold us up as models to the pigs.
I wish I knew as much about natural history and the
habits of animals as Calvin does. He is the closest ob
server I ever saw ; and there are few species of animals
* That is the name of our cat, given him 011 account of his gravity,
morality, and uprightness.
WARNER] THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING 201
on the place that he has not analyzed. I think that he
has, to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got out
side of every one of them, except the toad. To the toad
he is entirely indifferent ; but I presume he knows that
the toad is the most useful animal in the garden. I think
the Agricultural Society ought to offer a prize for the
finest toad. When Polly comes to sit in the shade near
my strawberry-beds, to shell peas, Calvin is always lying
near in apparent obliviousness ; but not the slightest un
usual sound can be made in the bushes that he is not alert
and prepared to investigate the cause of it. It is this
habit of observation, so cultivated, which has given him
such a trained mind and made him so philosophical. It
is within the capacity of even the humblest of us to attain
this.
And, speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no
class of men whose society is more to be desired for this
quality than that of plumbers. They are the most agree
able men I know ; and the boys in the business begin to
be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is that
they are agreeable by the hour. In the dryest days, my
fountain became disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A
couple of plumbers, with the implements of their craft,
came out to view the situation. There was a good deal
of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I
found the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk
about it, talk by the hour. . Some of their guesses and
remarks were exceedingly ingenious ; and their general
observations on other subjects were excellent in their way,
and could hardly have been better if they had been made
by the job. The work dragged a little, as it is apt to do
by the hour. The plumbers had occasion to make me
several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon arrival,
that they had forgotten some indispensable tool ; and one
202 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
would go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it, and
his comrade would await his return with the most exem
plary patience, and sit down and talk, always by the
hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have something
wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good
workmen, and always willing to stop and talk about the
job, or anything else, when I went near them. Nor had
they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the
bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it
said that I never observed anything of it in them. They
can afford to wait. Two. of them will sometimes wait
nearly half a day while a comrade goes for a tool. They
are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure to
meet such men. One only wishes there was some work
he could do for them by the hour. There ought to be
reciprocity. I think they have very nearly solved the
problem of Life : it is to work for other people, never for
yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have
no anxiety, and little work. If you do things by the job,
you are perpetually driven : the hours are scourges. If
you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of
Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of
Pay, whether you make any effort or not. Working by
the hour tends to make one moral. A plumber working
by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty, refractory nut, in
a cramped position, where the tongs continually slipped
off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear,
or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, work
ing by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid
by the hour. How sweet the flight of time seems to his
calm mind !
WHITNEY] BOSTON TRANSCENDENTALISM. 203
BOSTON TRANSCENDENTALISM.
A. D. T. WHITNEY.
[Mrs. "Whitney's " Hitherto" furnishes the subjoined neatly-drawn
and amusing description of Boston in those days when " the intel
lectual metropolis" had gone a little mad with its first over-deep
draught of the " New Philosophy." The fever has somewhat abated
since then. Mrs. Whitney is a native of Boston, where she was born
in 1824. She is the author of a considerable number of meritorious
novels, all marked by naturalness, sprightliness, excellent powers of
characterization, and a high moral earnestness. " The Gayworthys,"
" Hitherto : A Story of Yesterdays," " Patience Strong's Outings," " A
Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life," and "Faith Gartney's Girl
hood" may be named as her best-known works.]
BOSTON was ID her pleasant young matronhood then.
She wore her own hair, as it were, and had not capped it
with any foreign tawdriness, or taken to false, staring
fronts. She had not had her dear old irregular teeth out,
that gave half the home sweetness to her smile, and re
placed them with the square, stiff, polished blocks that
grin from old, care-lined, art-finished faces.
Boston was individual, and not conglomerate, as it is
to-day. There is only a little hit of the old place left now :
streets of charming houses without any modern improve
ments, over behind Beacon Hill and beyond the State-
House. The South End is a piece of New York patched
on, and Back Bay has been filled up and a section of
Paris dumped down into it.
I am glad I remember it as it was.
In this still, simple Boston, where, just behind her busy
wharves, there were places to live and to think in, there
were many things beginning besides railroads and steam
ships. We came into the midst of these, or the sound of
them.
204 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNEY
It was the time of the first flush and ferment of rational,
moral, physiological, philanthropic, transcendental, sesthet-
ical philosophy. Miss Sedgwick had written " Home,"
and the " Rich Poor Man," and " Means and Ends."
" Combe's Physiology" was being desperately studied in
young ladies' schools. There was unlimited and unmiti
gated cold bathing; and calisthenics were coming into
vogue. Theodore Parker was preaching; Emerson was
thinking great thoughts aloud to a wondering world ;
Brownson had come out with " New Yiews ;" Margaret
Fuller was expanding the rare, strange blossom of her
womanhood ; and girls of seventeen were reading Carlyle.
" The True, the Good, and the Beautiful," bound into a
watchword, were rampant on men's lips. A grand watch
word ; so is " Liberty, Fraternity, Equality :" the thing
is to rise to the real height of it, to reach by it to the
more, not to pervert it to an excuse for dropping to the
less, or the worse.
Coming to stay with Mrs. Holgate, Aunt lldy and
Hope Devine and I three diverse and unaccustomed
souls entered into the midst or the edge of the midst
of all this.
The Holgates had gone to a lecture when we arrived.
The " family-reliance," Liefie, or Relief, got tea for us and
made us comfortable. People had family-reliances in that
old time, which gave them leisure to run after the new
ideas. JSfow they have been running after them so long
that family-reliances have ceased to be educated, and the
stock has run out. There is danger that we may have to
begin anew this circle of humanity, and not. come round
to the " true, the good, and the beautiful" again, in the
abstract, for a few generations of women more. . . .
Mrs. Holgate was a woman whom I should shortly de
scribe as having begun aesthetics rather late in life. They
WHITNEY] BOSTON TRANSCENDENTALISM. 205
sat somehow curiously on the substratum of homely habit
and unintrospective common sense. She had a way of
snatching up her raptures, as if she had all at once remem
bered them ; or of making a supererogatory use of them,
as of a new mental elegance or contrivance, that she had
done without all her life, but which it was the right and
proper thing to find essential and inevitable now.
She was stout, and looked externally what people call
"settled down. :? Yery much so, indeed ; and as if the
settling had taken place a loog time ago, and could not
easily be disturbed ; as if you would hardly expect new
modes of thought or action from her, or a new expression
in her face, any more than new ways of doing up her hair,
which women past forty were not apt to affect in those
days.
I noticed all this of her in five minutes after she had
come in with her daughters, a good deal heated with her
summer-evening walk, and looking as if dog-days and meta
physics together were considerably too much for her.
Boston, as I said, was still green with gardens then ,
and there were hushes of home quiet in cool, watered
streets and unprofaned " Places," where vines covered the
house-fronts and caged birds sang in the windows, that
almost feigned a feeling of the country and the woods ;
and people were content to abide there, for the most part,
even amid the August heats.
The two young ladies were bright-looking, handsome
girls, with hair tucked plain behind their ears, and prompt,
straightforward manners, and a very Boston-y air of de
termined sense and intellectuality. A process-of-culture
expression pervaded themselves and the house: A little
anticipative it was, also, claiming result by faith and pur
pose. As, for instance, a reading-stand in a window, which
we afterward found to be the younger sister's particular
18
206 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNEY
corner, held a large German dictionary open upon it, and
a volume of Schiller in the original rested beside. We
noticed subsequently that her actual studies were as yet
limited to the rudiments of the language; but she set what
was to be before herself and others with a truly apostolic
pressing forward to the things before.
In her children's babyhood, Mrs. Holgate had been
simply a little romantic, in an old fashion of romance, and
had named her daughters, respectively, Harriet Byron and
Corinna. At the present time she especially felicitated her
self upon this second baptismal choice, which I think she
had probably rather hit upon originally for its prettiness
than through any enthusiastic and appreciative intimacy
with Madame de Stael. Corinna herself evidently blessed
her fate in this respect, and tried to live faithfully up to
her christening, as Harriet did to her nose, which was
rarely and delicately classic. Corinna undertook severe
literature and deep research ; Harriet devoted herself more
to the beautiful in art and poetry.
They had been this evening to a conversational class,
after Margaret Fuller; subject, "the mythology of the
Greeks."
To unravel an old myth, to find the why of it, the
abstract principle, this was just now what interested
and excited above all, and rewarded with its highest de
light the mental enterprise of a certain portion of the
young, progressive intellect of the city of progress.
It was all exceedingly well ; place and time according
and proportionate ; but there was a New England excess
in it all. Everybody must needs do the same style of
thinking, and they must be at it all the time. Because
great minds were comparing the old and the new, finding
the lights that fall from different and far-off points in all
the ages, sifting truths, and giving grand abstractions to
WHITNEY] BOSTON TRANSCENDENTALISM. 207
the world, all they who listened, and who were fired by
the watchwords, Progress ! Culture ! must dip into the
self-same abstractions, must find a myth in everything,
and begin all their sentences with adverbs.
They were like children rolling their forlorn and much-
manipulated bits of dough from the maternal pie-boards,
till, seeing it, one got sick of the pies beforehand, and mis
trusted the whole baking.
There were circles and circles ; as there are in every
thing. There were those who were, and those who only
ambitioned to be ; those who rode their chariots of thought
for the sake of the whither they might bear them, and they
who liked the equipage and its blazonry, and the stepping
in and out before the eyes of the multitude.
There were restless spirits also, to whom the old was
tasteless and lifeless ; who seized eagerly these roundabout
fashions of coming back to what they had and knew al
ready through fresh and toilsome reasonings ; taking back
and forth from each other's fingers the threads of truth
in a perpetual cat's-cradle of fancied discovery and inven
tion ; crying out to each other without ceasing, Behold,
now, that is truly something new ; that, indeed, is won
derful !
It was a fever that had its day ; that rages yet, as fever
always does, in its breeding-haunts, whence it bursts forth
now and then as epidemic.
The Holgates had taken it badly ; we came, as it were,
into the midst of an infection. Aunt Ildy looked about
her, at first, in pure mystification ; then she began to
behave as if she thought they had got a plague, and to
go round with her nostrils metaphorically stuffed, and to
do her duty vigorously, by scattering, from time to time,
some pungent, if not ill-savoring, antiseptics.
It was certainly a change for me, and a break upon the
208 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNEY
old wearing lines of thought ; but it was not precisely
what Aunt Ildy had meant and looked for.
It stirred in me some of my own old wonderings and
speculations ; I could not help entering into it enough to
find out a little of what it was ; sometimes I got light, and
sometimes I grew confused.
But I was stayed on the right and left, by Aunt Ildy's
uncompromising .orthodoxy and sarcastic practicability ;
by Hope Devine's strange, straight vision, right through
all mysticism and bewilderment, to what truly was.
I do not believe that in all the community, so touched
with strange fire, there was such a curious conjunction of
elements, to test and neutralize each other and evolve
some safe result of life to a true longing for the living
reality, as was met here in Mrs. Holgate's house.
I remember bits of conversation that sprang up now and
then over a breakfast or a tea, after a chapter of some
new book, or a surprising modern aphorism, or a fresh
" Orphic saying," or in our rooms at night, between Hope
and me, and sometimes with Aunt Ildy also, when we
asked each other how it all seemed, and what we supposed
would be the upshot and the outcome of it all.
I remember little momentary situations, and the look
of everybody, stamped like a picture upon my imagina
tion by the force of some sudden peculiarity of act or
word.
I shall never forget how funnily Corinna Holgate
startled us one day, as we all sat in the back parlor with
our different morning work, she in her window with
portfolio on lap and various sheets of scribbled paper
lying about her, on which she was making up some ab
stract of a u conversational," or sketching some outline of
ideas preparatory to one that was to be.
Still on the Grecian myths; still puzzling for clever
WHITNEY] BOSTON TRANSCENDENTALISM. 209
solutions and brilliant suggestions ; trying to recollect
clearly what had been propounded and explained last time,
or put forth in questions to be answered next.
"Why" she demanded electrically, like a thunder-clap
out of a far-off cloud of philosophic abstraction, across the
unthinking and unexpectant summer silence of our com
monplace, " why was Venus fabled to have arisen from
the foam of the sea ?"
" Because you must be clean before you can be beauti-
tiful!" shot back Aunt Ildy, quick as a flash. an irony
of common sense out of a swift, frowning cloud of con
tempt.
Hope and I laughed. Harriet and Mrs. Holgate, slow to
receive and discern, looked up as if they did not quite know
whether it were meant as Orphic or not; but Corinna, after
a second's breathlessness, jumped to her feet, let fall her
papers in a Sibylline shower, rushed to Miss Chism, and,
dropping on a cricket at her feet, accepted her and her
word as an advent and an inspiration.
" Why, that's grand ! r ' she cried. " That's a real thought !
That's insight ! I've found a soul !"
" Better keep quiet about your luck, then," said Miss
Chism, drawing away her knitting-yarn from under Co-
rinna's elbow, and shifting slightly her position away from
the heroics. " A chicken doesn't peep when it's really
got its mouth full !"
Corinna did not care a bit or her snubbing. It was
only a spur.
"Why won't you own up? You do think, Miss Chism.
What do you deny yourself for ?" And then she quoted
Emerson, about " our own rejected thought returning to
us, with a kind of offended majesty, from the lips of
others."
It was sufficiently ridiculous ; and I believed, myself,
o 18*
210 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WEBSTER
that Corinna was half funny and dexterous in defence, as
a bright girl might be, and half in earnest, determined to
win Aunt Ildy over.
" Whatever I think, I choose to think, and be done with
it ; I wasn't made to chew a cud or to count my breaths,
to see how many I take in a day."
"Miss Ildy! You're epigrammatic! You don't know
how clever you are !"
" There, let me alone. Don't snarl my yarn ! I don't
believe you know how big a fool you are, or will be if you
go on !"
" I mean to go on till I have found out ; and that's the
height and extreme small apex of human knowledge. See
how you've snarled my yarn !"
And she went back and began to gather up her scattered
papers.
REPLY TO HAYNE.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
[As an illustrative instance of Webster's splendid oratory we offer
an extract from his celebrated " Reply to Hayne," which is by all
acknowledged to rank highest among his Congressional orations. For
beauty of language, loftiness of eloquence, logical consistency, imagi
native beauty, and earnest patriotism, it has never been surpassed ;
and if it stood alone, without the support of his other remarkable
speeches, it would suffice to stamp him as one of the noblest and truest
orators the world has ever known. We confine our selection to two
short sections of this oration, those most striking and admirable,
leaving out its more personal portions, though in doing so we must
omit the keen and crushing sarcasm with which he overwhelmed his
opponent.
Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, January
18, 1782. In 1813 he entered the House of Representatives, where
WEBSTER] REPLY TO HAYNE. 211
he very quickly became a power from the brilliance and force of his
oratory. He was elected to the Senate in 1828, and remained there
for twelve years. He was Secretary of State under Harrison, and sat
again in the Senate from 1845 to 1850. He died in 1852.]
THE eulogium pronounced by the honorable gentleman
on the character of the State of South Carolina, for her
Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concur
rence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable mem
ber goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished
talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina has pro
duced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride,
of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one
and all, the Laurenses, the Eutledges, the Pinckneys,
the Sumters, the Marions, Americans all, whose fame
is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than their
talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed
within the same narrow limits. In their day and genera
tion, they served and honored the country, and the whole
country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole
country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself
bears, does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his
patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes
had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead
of South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power
to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy
in my bosom? ISTo, sir; increased gratification and delight,
rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of
the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I
have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would
drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my
place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public
merit because it happens to spring up beyond the little
limits of my own State or neighborhood ; when T refuse,
for any such cause, or for any cause, the horn ago. due to
212 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WEBSTER
American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devo
tion to liberty and the country ; or if I see an uncommon
endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity
and virtue, in any son of the South, and if, moved by local
prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to
abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just
fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth !
Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me in
dulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let me
remind you that, in early times, no States cherished
greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Mas
sachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that har
mony might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they
went through the Revolution ; hand in hand they stood
around the administration of Washington, and felt his
own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling,
if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnat
ural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They
are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never
scattered.
Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Mas
sachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her,
and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the
world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure.
There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bun
ker Hill ; and there they will remain forever. The bones
of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for Indepen
dence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from
New England to Georgia ; and there they will lie forever.
And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice,
and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it
still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its
original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,
if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear
WEBSTER] REPLY TO HAYNE. 213
it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and
necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from
that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it
will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which
its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, with
whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends
who gather round it, and it will fall at last, if fall it must,
amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on
the very spot of its origin.
Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my
dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and
maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and
the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate
with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the dis
cussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a
subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been will
ing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments.
I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, with
out expressing once more my deep conviction that, since it
respects nothing less than the Union of the States, it is of
most vital and essential importance to the public happiness.
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily
in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country,
and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that
Union we owe our safety at home and our considera
tion and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are
chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our
country. That Union we reached only by the discipline
of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had
its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate
commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences
these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead,
and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its
214 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WEBSTKB
duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
its "blessings; and, although our territory has stretched
out wider and wider, and our population spread farther
and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its bene
fits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national,
social, and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union,
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I
have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight,
I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I
regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this gov
ernment whose thoughts should be mainly bent on con
sidering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but
how tolerable might be the condition of the people when
it should be broken up and destroyed. While the Union
lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I
seek not to penetrate the veil. G-od grant that, in my
day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant
that on my vision never may be opened what lies be
hind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the
last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining
on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious
Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a
land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra
ternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance
rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now
known and honored throughout the earth, still full high
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star
obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interroga-
BRYANT] THANATOPSIS. 215
tory as " What is all this worth ?" nor those other words of
delusion and folly, " Liberty first, and Union afterwards ;"
but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living
light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the
sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole
Leavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American
heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in
separable 1
THANATOPSIS.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
[The poem given below is one of the most remarkable ever penueu
by any poet of any land, when we consider the age of the author at
the time of its composition, not yet nineteen, and the lofty concep
tion, striking imagery, and philosophical depth of thought involved.
Yet Bryant had been writing verses from the age of nine, and at four
teen had prepared a collection of poems, which were published in 1809.
The poems of his after-life were not very numerous, but they were all
marked by a close and poetic observation of nature and fine powers
of reflective thought, which have placed him in the front rank of
American authors. He was born in 1794, and died in 1878. In ad
dition to his original poems, Bryant made translations of Homer's
" Iliad" and " Odyssey," of high excellence, while the ability displayed
in his prose works would have given him a high reputation in this
field, but for the overshadowing merit of his poetry.]
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language ; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
216 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BRYANT
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the^ast bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ;
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice.
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many teal's,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kingfc
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Eock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales
BRYANT] THANATOPSIS. 217
Stretching in pensive quietness between,
The venerable woods, rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings, yet the dead are there ;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep, the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man,
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
K 19
218 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
THE USE OF TIME.
JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
[The author from whom we now quote is a prominent Unitarian
clergyman, who was born at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1810.
After preaching for a number of years in Kentucky and Pennsylvania,
he settled in 1841 in Boston, where he formed a new church organiza
tion, called " The Church of the Disciples." It has since remained
one of the leading religious institutions of Boston. Mr. Clarke is a
speaker and writer of great ability, combining a firm belief in the
supernatural and transcendental views in philosophy with an earnest
devotion to practical reforms. In addition to his many strictly theo
logical works, he is the author of a valuable historical work, " The
Ten Great Religions," with a recently-published sequel, "A Com
parison of all Religions." Our selection is from his suggestive and
useful volume on "Self-Culture."]
FEW of the facts of our life are more mysterious and
inexplicable, more paradoxical and contradictory, than
the commonest and simplest of all, that is, the progress
of time. Time is the most rigid, and at the same time the
most elastic, of all things. Time is a stream which bears
all creatures on at the same rate. All beings who live on
the surface of the earth are living in the same day of the
CLARKE] THE USE OF TIME. 219
same month and year. Time and events happen alike to
all. No one can hold back longer than the rest ; no one
can hurry forward so as to get a month, a day, an hour, a
minute, a second, in advance of the rest. Why should it
not be so? Why should not sluggishness of hand and
laziness of mind drop back, and be left a month or a year
behind in time, as they would be left a mile or ten miles
behind in space ? Why should not genius and energy get
on faster, and arrive sooner? But no! We are all im
mersed in the same now. The same moment arrives at
once to all the thousand millions of beings on the earth.
Ah, if we could only go back when we choose, and live
the past over again ! What a gift, more wonderful than
that imagined in any fairy story, this would be! If some
angel should come, and say, You may be as you were a
year ago, before that fatal crime was committed, that
terrible mistake made ; before that opportunity came
which you threw away and lost forever; before that dear
friend was taken from you by death, so that you could
show him the love you felt in your heart, but neglected
to manifest in action ! If in the light of those results, of
that experience, which is the divine judgment here on all
human actions, we could begin our lives anew !
No. The moment which has not yet come is perfectly
fluid. It is open to us all. We can put into it what we
please. It arrives out of the future a shadowy possibility ;
it crystallizes, in that infinitesimal moment we call the
present, around whatever we think, or feel, or say, or do,
and is gone forever, unalterable, holding in its adamantine
grasp the changeable, irrecoverable action. What is done
is done forever; what is omitted is omitted forever. The
good action is sealed up and made immortal ; the bad ac
tion is sealed up and can never be recalled, though we
seek to repent of it diligently, and with tears. No awful
220 REST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARKE
fate, no tremendous doom, no iron necessity, can compare
with this relentless grasp of Time, which seizes and retains,
inexorable, unforgiving, all that passes into its irresistible
embrace. So that time, of all things the most airy and
impalpable before it comes, seems to be of all things the
most solid and substantial when it has gone by.
Yet, on the other hand, this same element of time is a
very flexible and elastic material. How it stretches out
to some persons ! How much more a day, an hour, is
to one person than to another! How much more some
people put into a month or a year than others do ! Yes,
how much more to each of us are our few hours of fiery
inspiration and insight than the months in which we
hammer mechanically this experience into opinion -on the
anvils of logic ! How much more we live in the deep,
momentary experiences of faith, generosity, love, than in
the dreary years of routine which follow them ! We see
then what is meant by redeeming time. It is to fill the
hours full of the richest freight ; to fill them with the life
of thought, feeling, action, as they pass by.
It is to live so as to be glad, not sad, when we look back.
It is to conquer in the great struggle with the devil, with
incarnate evil, and to have the sentence pronounced by
the Rhadamanthine voice of the past, Well done I This
is the safety-vault into which we can put our treasure,
sure that no thieves can break in and eteal. One moment
of self-conquest, one good action really done, one generous
deed actually performed, yes, one effort to do right really
made, has the seal of time put on it, and no power in
heaven nor all the fires of hell can melt that wax from
the eternal bond. This last year, one man has made a
fortune and invested it in the best securities, in mort
gages, in houses, in railroads. But houses burn ; thieves
steal your bonds ; robbers of a worse kind, who walk about
CLARKK] THE USE OF TIME. 221
State Street and "Wall Street with unblushing faces, de
vour the property of the stockholders in a sham corpora
tion. Another man has given his wealth for a good object,
and that is safe forever ; no thief can touch it, and no
railroad president or bank teller can ever run away with
that money.
What a difference between two lives, equally long, of
which one has been wasted, the other redeemed ! One
lias gone on without a purpose or aim ; the other, steadily
directed to some noble object ; the one empty of love,
thought, action ; the other, crowded with hours of glorious
life ; the one, in which, as we look back, we can see noth
ing but eating and sleeping, and mechanical, empty labor;
in the other, the lowest toil made bright by a good and
generous purpose, the humblest lot gilded and glorified
by high thoughts and large loves. This is the real ever
lasting punishment, to remember the irrevocable past.
Just as far as we have wasted our time we go into ever
lasting punishment; for what shall ever annihilate the
black record of the evil we have done ? I suppose that even
the most blessed saint must sometimes go into this kind
of everlasting punishment. And just as far as we have
redeemed time we go into everlasting bliss ; for the record
of good is equally indestructible. One man looks back
yes, we all look back sometimes with a sense of utter
loss, like that of Coleridge. Coleridge, in one of the most
pathetic passages in English literature, speaks of the
" Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain 1
And genius given and knowledge won in vain I
And all that I have culled in wood-walks wild,
And all that patient toil has reared, and all
Commune with thee has opened out but flowers
Strewed on my hearse, and scattered on my bier.
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave."
19*
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARKK
And sometimes we look back, thinking of one good act
done, one great truth seen, one deep affection experienced;
and then we can use the lofty strain of Dryden, in his
noble translation of Horace, and say,
" Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call the hour his own,
He who, secure within, can say,
' To-morrow do thy worst, for 1 have lived to day I
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
The joy I have possessed, in spite of Fate, is mine I
Not heaven itself upon the past has power ;
For what has been has been, and I have had my hour.' "
Life becomes solemn enough when we look at it from
this point of view. It becomes vastly more solemn than
death ; for we are not responsible for dying ; we are re
sponsible for living. Why talk of a judgment to come
on some great day in the future, when every day is a day
of judgment ; when every moment, as it goes by, judges
us ; when the act we put into it is carved into this terrible
past in letters more lasting than those which have resisted
for five thousand years the sands and the revolutions of
Egypt? Carved on the granite there, you may read the
actions done fifty centuries ago; you may see the task
masters, by the command of the great Rameses, beating
the poor Hebrew slaves at their work of building his
cities. Those stones may decay at last, and that record
be lost. But not an idle word, not an unkind word that
we say, not a moment of our life, but gives an account of
itself in the imperishable record of the past.
As regards self-culture, all depends on the use of time.
All those who have unfolded great powers have been hard
workers. Genius itself is nothing but an immense power
of work. It is the power of immersing one's self in work,
CLARKE] THE USE OF TIME. 223
but making it all play and joy by the quantity of life put
into it. Genius always " redeems the time."
There were four men who lived during the last century,
who all lived to be very old, whose lives were contempo
raneous during the largest part of the period from 1700
to 1800, who were different in many respects, but who
were all alike in this power of turning time into thought
and action. They were Swedenborg, Voltaire, Wesley,
and Franklin. Swedenborg died in 1772, aged eighty-
four ; Yoltaire died in 1778, also aged eighty-four ; Frank
lin died in 1790, also aged eighty-four; Wesley died in
1791, aged eighty-eight. Perhaps no four men of the
century exercised a greater influence on the age than
these. Swedenborg's thought has been slowly filtering
into philosophy and theology, spiritualizing both. To
him, the whole world, both in this life and the life to
come, is a shining web of divine laws, God descending
into nature, into the soul, into the body, and making every
thing divine. His thought, so subtle and so deep, is grad
ually conquering the materialism of philosophy and the
ology, and so bringing down what he called the New
Jerusalem, or the sight of divine truth incarnate in all
actual facts and laws. But what a vast amount of
thought and study ; what patient labor on works which
no one in that day, and but few even in ours, have cared
to read ; what entire confidence in the power of truth ;
what fidelity to his thought, persistency in his purpose,
cool ardor, patient energy, marked the life of the solitaiy
thinker ! He was the most lonely man on the earth in
his day ; hardly a soul sympathized with him, or under
stood him. Yet he worked on, without haste or rest, an
incarnation of thought, sure that somewhere men would
be found to read and understand what God told him to
say. Surely he " redeemed the time."
224 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARKE
How different was Yoltaire ! The man of society, the
man of the world, the man who wrote for the day and
hour, whose every book and pamphlet had an immediate
answer and welcome ; the critic, the wit, the superficial
but acute thinker on all subjects under heaven, but who
seldom lifted his eyes to the heaven itself; the man from
vvhose soul religious sentiment seemed to have been elimi
nated, in whose organization reverence was omitted. He
also did his work, to expose shams, to dethrone super
stitions, to attack hoary abuses, to claim for man justice,
freedom, opportunity. He worked, not by faith, but by
sight, in the present moment, but with indefatigable en
ergy, redeeming the time. And if, as the preacher says,
" there is a time for everything," that time was certainly
the time for Yoltaire, when the world was so full of evils
and abuses, which needed such stinging scorn as his for
their correction. The pulpit has used Yoltaire only as the
type of the worst unbelief and sin. But do him this jus
tice, he put his whole soul into his rather barren work of
destruction. It was the best he knew, and he did it. And
he did it well.
How different again, both from Swedenborg and Yol
taire, was Wesley ! No mystic like Swedenborg, but with
an intense practical desire to turn all the doctrinal truth
he saw into instant life, he made the new heavens and
earth in England of which the Northern sage dreamed.
No man ever so fully believed that " now is the day of
salvation" as John Wesley. No man ever went so entirely
out of the religion of form, doctrine, ceremony, into that
of life, as he. His profoundest conviction was this : that
no human being lived on earth so bad or base, so stupid
or worldly, so utterly corrupt and worthless, but that, if
he could believe it, God was ready to kindle in his soul a
fire of love which would wholly consume this evil. His
CLARKE] THE USE OF TIME. 225
business was to make men believe it. For this faith he
lived. In this faith he worked, redeeming the time. He
saw the dead in sin coming to life all around him, he
passed his happy years in this divinest of labors ; he died
a soldier with his armor on, having done a work which
neither God nor man can ever willingly let die.
And now look at the 'fourth whom I have named, Dr.
Franklin, differing from the three, with none of the
mysticism of Swedenborg in his nature, yet with none of
the sneering scepticism of Yoltaire. A practical man,
bent on doing work, not living, like Yoltaire, for literary
success, not feeding on flattery and popular applause. He
had also his share of hard trial and opposition and lonely
struggle. But he rose out of it, higher and higher, by the
steady strength with which he did his work, plucking
the lightning from the clouds, and the sceptre of America
from the hand of obstinate, stupid, conscientious George
the Third. When he stood before the English Lords in
Council, the object of abuse and ridicule ; when he stood
in the midst of the glittering court of France, the object
of praise and admiration ; when he stood in the Ameri
can Congress, with his calm good sense directing its coun
sels ; and when he tried experiments with his kite and his
key, he was still the faithful servant of his highest
thought, he also was "redeeming the time," and he re
deemed it well.
We see, then, how it is. We see, by these examples, that
if a man will be faithful to his highest conviction, to the
best thought which God gives him to say, the best act
given him to do, he will change time into life. He will
bring forth fruit in youth, and in age will be still green
and flourishing, like all the four men I have named. This
is the first condition, then, of making the most of time,
that we shall be always true to our best thought, that we
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226 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
shall do with our might whatever our hand finds to do.
We must understand the value of the present moment.
We must not spend our days in grieving over the past,
but forget the things that are behind. We must not look
with anxiety or fear to the future, but let to-morrow take
thought for the things of itself. On this point philosophy
and Christianity are at one. Jesus says, " Take no thought
for the morrow," and Horace, the epicurean, says the same.
"What may happen to-morrow, do not inquire, but what
ever Fortune brings to-day count as clear gain." . . .
It is not the longest lives that have been the most full.
Rafaelle died when he was thirty-seven, while Michel An-
gelo lived to be ninety. During his thirty-seven years,
Rafaelle seems to have done as much as Michel Angelo did
in his ninety years, though the genius and industry of the
latter were, perhaps, fully equal to those of the other.
For a single work perfectly done is enough to make a full
life. Handel lived to be eighty; Mozart died when ho
was only thirty-six. But who remembers how many years
they lived ? As you listen to the music of Mozart, and
as you look at the infants of Eafaelle, you find that each
of them attained that marvellous summit of human ex
perience in which joy and grief become one. .They solve
the problem of evil by showing that the deepest sorrow
may be one with the highest joy. When we look at the
face of the infant Jesus in the pictures of Rafaelle, and
listen to the music of Mozart, we perceive in both a per
fect union of pathos and joy, of sadness and gladness, of
gloom and glory, of light and shade, of sunshine and
shadow, of tender pity and triumphant praise. That
which no philosophy and no theology can do, art has
done, to show us the element of good in evil, to show that
evil is the black carbon out of which Nature manufactures
her most brilliant diamonds.
CLARKE] THE USE OF TIME. 227
The death of Christ has given this faith to the world.
Jesus lived only thirty-one or thirty-three years. The first
thirty years were years of preparation, of silence, ob
scurity, apparent inaction. Then came one year of real
life, which has transformed the world, created a new faith
in God and man, caused us to believe in good in spite of
all appearance, and by means of this undying faith in
good has made goodness real. What a meaning in the
death of Jesus is this, that the most cruel and wicked
action has been so transfigured and glorified that we for
get all the horror of the cross, and make it the symbol of
triumph ! I presume that the cross which Constantino
saw in the skies was not miraculous, in the common
meaning of that term. But can anything be more mi
raculous in reality than this fact, that in three hundred
years from the death of Jesus this instrument of a slave's
torture should become the standard of the Koman Em
pire ? This miracle was but one of the results of Christ's
single year of labor.
To make the best use of time, we must have life in the
soul. He who is something will do something ; he who is
more will do more ; and he who is most will do most.
Jesus, in a single year of active life, has done the greatest
work which has ever been done in the world : hence wt
may infer that his was the fullest soul that has ever been
in the world.
Therefore, it is not a quantity of time that is needed in
order to do a great work, but the power of using time.
What we need is the eternal youth of the heart, the un
dying love of truth, which will lift us above the hard
conservatism which refuses to see what it has never yet
seen, and so never learns anything new.
To make the best use of time we must keep the old and
accept the new. There are two kinds of men who can
228 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TAYLOR
make no progress, the conservative who is so conserva
tive as never to accept the new births of time, and the
radical who is so radical as to drop the old truth in order
to take the new one. This obstinate conservatism, which
shuts its eyes and closes its ears and hardens its heart
against every new revelation of the divine spirit, is typi
fied by the friend of Galileo, who refused to look through
his telescope to see the satellites of Jupiter, because, ac
cording to his theory, there ought not to be any satellites
there. " Look and see them," said Galileo. " I will not
look," replied the other. " What is the use of looking ?
I know that there are none there." But the emblem of
that radicalism which can only get on new ground by
deserting the old ground is the little child, whose hands
are so small that he drops the apple he already holds, in
order to take another. True progress is in keeping all
the old truth and accepting all the new truth. So we
save the time, and go on from good years to better years.
HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
[Of the many travellers whom America has sent out to explore and
roport upon the wonders of the Old World, there have been none more
ardent in exploration and with more facile powers of description than
Bayard Taylor. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1825, he
inaugurated his life-work by a pedestrian tour of Europe while still
quite young. His " Views Afoot," published after his return, at once
brought him into repute. His succeeding travels were extensive, and
are described in a series of interesting works. At a later date he wrote
several novels, and published some volumes of poetry. One of his
latest works was his translation of Goethe's " Faust," undoubtedly the
TAYLOR] HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM. 229
best and most vitalized rendition into English verse yet made of the
great German poem. He died at Berlin, Prussia, December 19, 1878.
Taylor's works of travel are marked by a fresh, flowing, and vigorous
style, a quick perception of the attractive features of a scene or situa
tion, and graphic descriptive powers. His poems are easy and ani
mated and of fine imaginative quality, while his novels present ex
cellent pictures of real life, and prove him to be as expert in seizing
the salient points of a character as in noting those of a landscape.
From one of his latest descriptive works, "At Home and Abroad,"
we select the following attractive relation of the realization of a boyish
dream].
IN the first place, it runs in the blood. If there is any
law I believe in, it is that of the hereditary transmission
of traits, qualities, capacities, and passions. My father is
a farmer ; my grandfather ivas, and his father before him,
and his, and his again, to the seventh ancestor, who came
over in one of William Penn's vessels and immediately
set about reducing the superfluous sylvanism of that
Apostle's Sylvania. If I could brush away the clouds
which hang about this portion of the genealogical tree, I
have no doubt but that I should find its trunk striking
through cottages or country halls for some centuries fur
ther, and that " Eoger (ob. 1614), the son of Thomas, the
son of Eoger," who wore the judicial ermine upon his
escutcheon, had his favorite country-house in the neigh
borhood of London.
The child that has tumbled into a newiy-ploughed
furrow never forgets the smell of the fresh earth. He
thrives upon it as the butcher's boy thrives upon tho
steam of blood, but a healthier apple-red comes into his
cheeks, and his growing muscle is subdued in more inno
cent pastimes. Almost my first recollection is that of a
swamp, into which I went barelegged at morning, and
out of which I came, when driven by hunger, with long
stockings of black mud and a mask of the same. If the
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230 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TAYLOR
child was missed from the house, the first thing that sug
gested itself was to climb upon a mound which over
looked the swamp. Somewhere among the tufts of the
rushes and the bladed leaves of the calamus a little
brown ball was sure to be seen moving, now dipping out
of sight, now rising again, like a bit of drift on the rip
pling green. It was my head. The treasures I there
collected were black terrapins with orange spots, baby
frogs the size of a chestnut, thrushes' eggs, and stems of
purple phlox.
I cannot say that my boyish experience of farm-work
was altogether attractive. I had a constitutional horror
of dirty hands, and my first employments picking stones
and weeding corn were rather a torture to this superfine
taste. But almost every field had its walnut-tree, and many
of the last year's nuts retained their flavor in the spring;
melons were planted among the corn, and the meadow
which lay between never exhausted its store of wonders.
Besides, there were eggs to hide at Easter ; cherries and
strawberries in May; fruits all summer; fishing-parties by
torch-light ; lobelia and sumach to be gathered, dried, and
sold for pocket-money; and in the fall, chestnuts, persim
mons, wild grapes, cider, and the grand butchering after
frost came : so that all the pleasures I knew were those
incidental to a farmer's life. The books I read came from
the village library, and the task of helping to "fodder" on
the dark winter evenings was lightened by the anticipa
tion of sitting down to Gibbon's Eome, or " Thaddeus of
Warsaw," afterwards. To be sure, I sometimes envied
the store-keeper's boy, whom I had once seen shovelling
sugar out of a hogshead, and who now and then stealthily
dipped his hand into the raisin-box ; but it is not in the
nature of any child to be perfectly satisfied with his lot.
A life of three years in a small country town effectually
TAYLOR] HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM. 231
cured me of all such folly. When I returned to the home
stead as a youth, I first felt the delight and the refresh
ment of labor in the open air. I was then able to take
the plough-handle, and I still remember the pride I felt
when my furrows were pronounced even and well turned.
Although it was already decided that I should not make
farming the business of my life, I thrust into my plans a
slender wedge of hope that I might one day own a bit of
ground, for the luxury of having, if not the profit of cul
tivating it. The aroma of the sweet soil had tinctured my
blood ; the black mud of the swamp still stuck to my feet.
It happened that adjoining my father's property there
was an old farm which was fast relapsing into a state of
nature. Thirty or forty years had passed since the plough
had touched any part of it. The owner, who lived upon
another estate at a little distance, had always declined to
sell, perhaps for the reason that no purchaser could be
found to offer an encouraging price. Left thus to herself,
Nature played all sorts of wild and picturesque pranks
with the property. Two heaps of stones were all that
marked the site of the house and barn ; half a dozen
ragged plum- and peach-trees hovered around the outskirts
of the vanished garden, the melancholy survivors of all
its bloom and fruitage ; and a mixture of tall sedge-grass,
sumachs, and blackberry-bushes covered the fields. The
hawthorn hedges which lined the lane had disappeared,
but some clumps of privet still held their ground, and the
wild grape and scarlet-berried celastrus clambered all over
the tall sassafras- and tulip-trees.
Along the road which bounded this farm on the east
stood a grove of magnificent oaks, more than a hundred
feet in height. Standing too closely to permit of lateral
boughs near the earth, their trunks rose like a crowded
colonnade clear against the sky, and the sunset, burning
232 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TAYLOR
through, took more gorgeous hues of orange and angry
crimson.
Knowing that if the farm were sold those glorious trees
would probably be the first to fall, and that the sunset
would thereby for me lose half its splendor, I gradually
came to contemplate them with the interest which an
uncertain, suspended fate inspires. At the foot of the
oaks, on the border of the field, there was an old, gnarled
mother-pine, surrounded by her brood of young ones, who,
always springing up in the same direction, from the fact
that the seeds were scattered by the nor' west winds,
seemed to be running oif down the slope, as if full-fledged
and eager to make their way into the world. The old
pine had an awful interest to me as a boy. More than
once huge black snakes had been seen hanging from
its boughs, and the farm-hands would tell mysterious
stories of an old mother-serpent, as long as a fence-rail
and as swift as a horse. In fact, my brother and I, on
our way to the peach-trees, which still produced some bit
ter-flavored fruit, had more than once seen snakes in our
path. On a certain occasion, as my memory runs, I chased
the snake, while he ran away. His story is, that he chased
and I ran ; and the question remains unsettled to this day.
In another wood of chestnuts, beyond the field, the
finest yellow violets were to be found ; the azaleas blos
somed in their season, and the ivory Indian-pipe sprang
up under the beech-trees. Sometimes we extended our
rambles to the end of the farm, and looked down into the
secluded dells beyond the ridge which it covered. Such
glimpses were like the discovery of unknown lands. How
far off the other people lived ! How strange it must be to
dwell continually down in that hollow, with no other house
in sight ! But when I build a house, I thought, I shall
build it up on the ridge, with a high steeple, from the top
TAYLOR] HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM. 233
of which I can see far and wide. That deserted farm was
to me like the Ejuxria of Hartley Coleridge, but my day
dreams were far less ambitious than his. If I had known
then, what I learned long afterwards, that a tradition of
buried treasure still lingers about the old garden, I should
no doubt have dug up my millions in my imagination,
roofed my house with gold, and made the steeple thereof
five hundred feet high.
At last came the launch into the world, a slide, a
plunge, a shudder, and the ship rides the waves. Ab
sence, occupation, travel, substituted realities for dreams,
and the farm, if not forgotten, became a very subordinate
object in the catalogue of things to be attained. When
ever I visited the homestead, however, I saw the sunset
through its grating of forest, and remembered the fate
that still hung suspended over the trees. Fifty years
of neglect had given the place a bad name among the
farmers, while Nature, as if delighted to recover posses
sion, had gone on adorning it in her own wild and match
less way. I looked on the spot with an instructed eye,
and sighed, as I counted up my scanty earnings, at the re
flection that years must elapse before I could venture to
think of possessing it. My wish, nevertheless, was heard
and remembered.
In July, 1853, I was on the island of Loo-Choo. Re
turning to the flag-ship of the squadron one evening, after
a long tramp over the hills to the south of Napa-Kiang
in a successful search for the ruins of the ancient fortress
of Tima-gusku, I was summoned by the officer of the
deck to receive a package which had been sent on board
from one of the other vessels. Letters from home, after
an interval of six months without news! I immediately
asked permission to burn a lamp on the orlop deck, and
read until midnight, forgetting the tramp of the sentry
20*
234 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TAYLOR
and the sounds of the sleepers in their hammocks around
me. Opening letter after letter, and devouring, piece by
piece, the banquet of news they contained, the most
startling as well as the most important communication
was the old farm was mine ! Its former owner had
died, the property was sold, and had been purchased in
my name. I went on deck. The midwatch had just re
lieved the first. The night was pitch-dark, only now and
then a wave burst in a flash of white phosphoric fire.
But as I looked westward over the stern-rail I saw the
giant oaks, rising black against the crimson sunset, and
knew that they were waiting for me, that I should surely
see them again.
Five months afterwards I approached home, after an
absence of nearly two years and a half. It was Christmas
Eve, a clear, sharp winter night. The bare earth was
hard frozen ; the sun was down, a quarter-moon shone
overhead, and the keen nor' west wind blew in my face.
I had known no winter for three years, and the bracing
stimulus of the cold was almost as novel as it was refresh
ing. Presently I recognized the boundaries of my prop
erty, yes, I actually possessed a portion of the earth's
surface ! After all, I thought, possession at least so far
as Nature is concerned means simply protection. Thi.i
moonlit wilderness is not more beautiful to my eyes than
it was before ; but I have the right, secured by legal docu
ments, to preserve its beauty. I need not implore the
woodman to spare those trees: I'll spare them myself.
This is the only difference in my relation to the property.
So long as any portion of the landscape which pleases me
is not disturbed, I possess it quite as much as this.
During these reflections I had reached the foot of the
ridge. A giant tulip-tree, the honey of whose blossoms I
had many a time pilfered in boyhood, crowned the slope,
TAYLOR] HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM. 235
drooping its long boughs as if weary of stretching them
in welcome. Behind it stood the oaks, side by side, far
along the road. As I reached the first tree, the wind,
which had- fallen, gradually swelled, humming through
the bare branches until a deep organ -bass filled the wood.
It was a hoarse yet grateful chorus of welcome, inartic
ulate, yet intelligible. " Welcome, welcome home !" went
booming through the trees ; " welcome, our master and
our preserver ! See, with all the voice we can catch from
the winds, we utter our joy. For now there is an end to
fear and suspense : he who knows us and loves us spreads
over us the shelter of his care. Long shall we flourish on
the hill : long shall our leaves expand in the upper air :
long shall our grateful shadows cover his path. We shall
hail his coming from afar : our topmost boughs will spy
him across the valleys, and whisper it to the fraternal
woods. We are old ; we never change ; we shall never
cease to remember and to welcome our master !"
So the trees were first to recognize me. Listening to
their deep, resonant voices (which I would not have ex
changed for the dry rattle of a hundred-league-long forest
of tropical palms), I was conscious of a new sensation,
which nothing but the actual sight of my own property
could have suggested. I felt like a tired swimmer when
he first touches ground, like a rudderless ship, drifting
at the will of the storm, when her best bower takes firm
hold, like a winged seed when, after floating from bush
to bush and from field to field, it drops at last upon a
handful of mellow soil and strikes root. My life had now
a point d'appui, and, standing upon these acres of real
estate, it seemed an easier thing to move the world. A
million in bank stock or railroad bonds could not have
given me the same positive, tangible sense of property.
When I walked over my fields (yes, actually my fields !)
236 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TAYLOR
the next day, this sensation returned in an almost ridicu
lous excess. " You will of course cut down that ugly old
tree," said some one. It impressed me very much as if I
had been told, " That chapter in your book is inferior to
the others ; tear it out !" or, " Your little finger is crooked ;
have it amputated !" Why, even the sedge-grass and su
machs, how beautiful they were ! Could I ever make up
my mind to destroy them ? As for the cedars, the haw
thorn, the privet, the tangled masses of climbing smilax,
no, by the bones of Belshazzar, they shall stand ! " Thin
field will not be worth much for grain." Well, what if
it isn't? "Everything is wild and neglected; it "wants
clearing, sadly." Everything is grand, beautiful, charm
ing : there is nothing like it ! So ran the course of ro
mark and counter-remark. I did not suifer my equanimity
to be disturbed : was I not sole owner, appellator, and dis
poser of all ? Nor did the trees appear to be sensible of
the least fear. They leaned their heads against one another
in a sort of happy, complacent calm, as if whispering,
" It's all right ; let us enjoy the sunshine ; he'll take care
of us!"
Yes, one cannot properly be considered as a member of
the Brotherhood of Man, an inhabitant of the Earth, until
he possesses a portion of her surface. As the sailors say,
he stays, he don't actually live. The Agrarians, Com
munists, Socialistic Levellers, and Flats of all kinds are
replenished from the ranks of the non-owners of real es
tate. Banks break ; stocks and scrips of all kinds go up
and down on the financial see-saw; but a fee-simple of
solid earth is J^^THERE! You see it, you feel it, you
walk -over it. It is yours, and your children's, and their
progeny's (unless mortgaged and sold through foreclosure)
until the Millennium.
And this is how I came to buy a Farm.
JAMES] ROMAN ANTIQUITIES AT NIMES. 237
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES AT NIMES.
HENRY JAMES, JR.
[Henry James, Jr., who holds a high rank among recent American
novelists, was born in New York City in 1843. His principal pro
ductions are "Daisy Miller," " Koderick Hudson," " The American,"
"The Europeans," "The Portrait of a Lady," etc., with some works
of travel and criticism. From one of the most recent of his publica
tions, " A Little Tour in France," we ofler an extract, illustrative of
his descriptive powers. As a novelist he has attracted much attention
by his psychological analysis of character, in which department of
literary art he displays marked skill and critical discernment.]
IT was a pleasure to feel one's self in Provence again,
the land where the silver-gray earth is impregnated
with the light of the sky. To celebrate the event, as
soon as I arrived at Nimes I engaged a caleche to convey
me to the Pont du Gard. The day was yet young, and it
was perfectly fair : it appeared well, for a longish drive,
to take advantage, without delay, of such security. After
I had left the town I became more intimate with that
Provencal charm which I had already enjoyed from the
window of the train, and which glowed in the sweet
sunshine and the white rocks and lurked in the smoke-
puffs of the little olives. The olive-trees in Provence are
half the landscape. They are neither so tall, so stout,
nor so richly contorted as I have seen them beyond the
Alps ; but this mild, colorless bloom seems the very text
ure of the country. The road from Nimes, for a distance
of fifteen miles, is superb ; broad enough for an army, and
as white and firm as a dinner-table. It stretches away
over undulations which suggest a kind of harmony ; and
in the curves it makes through the wide, free country,
where there is never a hedge or a wall and the detail is
238 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
always exquisite, there is something majestic, almost pro
cessional. Some twenty minutes before I reached the
little inn that marks the termination of the drive, my
vehicle met with an accident which just missed being
serious, and which engaged the attention of a gentleman
who, followed by his groom and mounted on a strikingly
handsome horse, happened to ride up at the moment.
This young man, who, with his good looks and charming
manner, might have stepped out of a novel of Octave
Feuillet, gave me some very intelligent advice in refer
ence to one of my horses that had been injured, and was
so good as to accompany me to the inn, with the resources
of which he was acquainted, to see that his recommenda
tions were carried out. The result of our interview was
that he invited me to come and look at a small but ancient
chateau in the neighborhood, which he had the happiness
not the greatest in the world, he intimated to inhabit,
and at which I engaged to present myself after I should
have spent an hour at the Pont du Gard. For the mo
ment, when we separated, I gave all my attention to that
great structure. You are very near it before you see it ;
the ravine it spans suddenly opens and exhibits the pict
ure. The scene at this point grows extremely beautiful.
The ravine is the valley of the Gardon, which the road
from Nimes has followed some time without taking ac
count of it, but which, exactly at the right distance from
the aqueduct, deepens and expands, and puts on those
characteristics which are best suited to give it effect.
The gorge becomes romantic, still, and solitary, and, with
its white rocks and wild shrubbery, hangs over the clear,
colored river, in whose slow course there is here and there
a deeper pool. Over the valley, from side to side, and ever
so high in the air, stretch the three tiers of the tremendous
bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, and nothing could
JAMES] ROMAN ANTIQUITIES AT NIMES. 239
well be more Roman. The hugeness, the solidity, the un
expectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing
leave you nothing to say, at the time, and make you
stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect,
that it has the quality of greatness. A road, branching
from the highway, descends to the level of the river and
passes under one of the arches. This road has a wide
margin of grass and loose stones, which slopes upward
into the bank of the ravine. You may sit here as long
as you please, staring up at the light, strong piers : the
spot is extremely natural, though two or three stone
benches have been erected on it. I remained there an
hour, and got a complete impression ; the place was per
fectly soundless, and for the time, at least, lonely ; the
splendid afternoon had begun to fade, and there was a
fascination in the object I had come to see. It came to
pass that at the same time I discovered in it a certain
stupidity, a vague brutality. That element is rarely ab
sent from great Roman work, which is wanting in the
nice adaptation of the means to the end. The means are
always exaggerated; the end is so much more than at
tained. The Eoman rigidity was apt to overshoot the
mark, and I suppose a race which could do nothing small
is as defective as a race that can do nothing great. Of this
Boman rigidity the Pont du Gard is an admirable example.
It would be a great injustice, however, not to insist upon
its beauty, a kind of manly beauty, that of an object
constructed not to please but to serve, and impressive
simply from the scale on which it carries out this inten
tion. The number of arches in each tier is different ; they
are smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The
preservation of the thing is extraordinary : nothing has
crumbled or collapsed; every feature remains; and the
huge blocks of stone, of a brownish yellow (as if they
240 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [.JAM KB
had been baked by the Provencal sun for eighteen cen
turies), pile themselves, without mortar or cement, as
evenly as the day they were laid together. All this to
carry the water of a couple of springs to a little provin
cial city! The conduit on the top has retained its shape
and traces of the cement with which it was lined. When
the vague twilight began to gather, the lonely valley
seemed to fill itself with the shadow of the Eoman name,
as if the mighty empire were still as erect as the supports
of the aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist,
sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has
ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured, as
we measure the greatness of an individual, by the push
they gave to what they undertook. The Pont du Gard
is one of the three or four deepest impressions they have
left: it speaks of them in a manner with which they
might have been satisfied.
I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the where
abouts of the chateau of the obliging young man I had
met on the way from Nimes. I must content myself with
Baying that it nestled in an enchanting valley, dans le
fond, as they say in France, and that I took my course
thither on foot, after leaving the Pont du Gard. I find
it noted in my journal as " an adorable little corner." The
principal feature of the place is a couple of very ancient
towers, brownish yellow in hue, and mantled in scarlet
Virginia creeper. One of these towers, reputed to be of
Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more effec
tive ; the other is incorporated in the house, which is de
lightfully fragmentary and irregular. It had got to be
late by this time, and the lonely castel looked crepuscular
and mysterious. An old housekeeper was sent for, who
showed me the rambling interior; and then the young
man took me into a dim old drawing-room, which had
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES AT NJMES. 243
no less than four chimney-pieces, all unlighted, and gave
me a refection of fruit and sweet wine. When I praised
the wine and asked him what it was, he said, simply,
"C'est du vin de ma mere!" Throughout my little
journey I had never yet felt myself so far from Paris ;
and this was a sensation I enjoyed more than my host,
who was an involuntary exile, consoling himself with lay
ing out a manege, which he showed me as I walked away.
His civility was great, and I was greatly touched by it.
On my way back to the little inn where I had left my
vehicle, I passed the Pont du Gard, and took another
look at it. Its great arches made windows for the even
ing sky, and the rocky ravine, with its dusky cedars and
shining river, was lonelier than before. At the inn I
swallowed, or tried to swallow, a glass of horrible wine
with my coachman ; after which, with my reconstructed
team, I drove back to Mmes in the moonlight. It only
added a more solitary whiteness to the constant sheen of
the Provencal landscape. . . .
What nobler ornament can there be than the Roman
baths at the foot of Mont Cavalier, and the delightful old
garden that surrounds them ? All that quarter of Nimes
has every reason to be proud of itself; it has been re
vealed to the world at large by. copious photography. A
clear, abundant stream gushes from the foot of a high
hill (covered with trees and laid out in paths), and is dis
tributed into basins which sufficiently refer themselves to
the period that gave them birth, the period that has left
its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we admired at
Montpellier. Here are the same terraces and steps and
balustrades, and a system of water- works less impressive,
perhaps, but very ingenious and charming. The whole
place is a mixture of old Rome and of the French eigh
teenth century ; for the remains of the antique baths are
L q 21
242 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
in a measure incorporated in the modern fountains. In a
corner of this umbrageous precinct stands a small Eoman
ruin, which is known as a temple of Diana, but was more
apparently a nymphceum, and appears to have had a
graceful connection with the adjacent baths. I learn from
Murray that this little temple, of the period of Augustus,
" was reduced to its present state of ruin in 1577 ;" the
moment at which the towns-people, threatened with a
siege by the troops of the crown, partly demolished it,
lest it should serve as a cover to the enemy. The remains
are very fragmentary, but they serve to show that the
place was lovely. I spent half an hour in it on a perfect
Sunday morning (it is enclosed by a high grille, carefully
tended, and has a warden of its own), and with the help
of my imagination tried to reconstruct a little the aspect
of things in the Gallo-Roman days. I do wrong, perhaps,
to say that I tried; from a flight so deliberate I should
have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of an
tiquity in the air; and among the ruins of baths and
temples, in the very spot where the aqueduct that crosses
the Gardon in the wondrous manner I had seen discharged
itself, the picture of a splendid paganism seemed vaguely
to glow. Roman baths, Roman baths ; those words alone
were a scene. Everything was changed : I was strolling
in a jardin frangais ; the bosky slope of the Mont Cava
lier (a very modest mountain), hanging over the place, is
crowned with a shapeless tower, which is as likely to be
of mediaeval as of antique origin ; and yet, as I leaned on
the parapet of one of the fountains, where a flight of
curved steps (a hemicycle, as the French say) descended
into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, where the slabs of
the Roman foundations gleam through the clear green
water, as in this attitude I surrendered myself to contem
plation and revery, it seemed to me that I touched for a
JAMES] ROMAN ANTIQUITIES AT NfMES. 243
moment the ancient world. Such moments are illumi
nating, and the light of this one mingles, in my memory,
with the dusky greenness of the Jardin de la Fontaine.
The fountain proper the source of all these distributed
waters is the prettiest thing in the world, a reduced copy
of Vaucluse. It gushes up at the foot of the Mont Cava
lier, at a point where that eminence rises with a certain
cliff-like effect, and, like other springs in the same circum
stances, appears to issue from the rock with a sort of quiv
ering stillness. I trudged up the Mont Cavalier, it is a
matter of five minutes, and having committed this cock-
neyism enhanced it presently by another. I ascended the
stupid Tour Magne, the mysterious structure I mentioned
a moment ago. The only feature of this dateless tube,
except the inevitable collection of photographs to which
you are introduced by the door-keeper, is the view you
enjoy from its summit. The view is, of course, remark
ably fine, but I am ashamed to say I have not the smallest
recollection of it; for while I looked into the brilliant
spaces of the air I seemed still to see only what I saw in
the depths of the Eoman baths, the image, disastrously
confused and vague, of a vanished world. This world,
however, has left at .Mimes a far more considerable me
mento than a few old stones covered with water-moss.
The Roman arena is the rival of those of Yerona and of
Aries ; at a respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum.
It is a small Colosseum, if I may be allowed the expres
sion, and is in a much better preservation than the great
circus at Rome. This is especially true of the external
walls, with their arches, pillars, cornices. I must add that
one should not speak of preservation, in regard to the
arena at Nimes, without speaking also of repair. After
the great ruin ceased to be despoiled, it began to be pro
tected, and most of its wounds have been dressed with
J44 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [INGERSOLL
new material. These matters concern the archaeologist;
and I felt here, as I felt afterwards at Aries, that one of
the profane, in the presence of such a monument, can only
admire and hold his tongue. The great impression, on
the whole, is an impression of wonder that so much should
have survived. What remains at Nimes, after all dilapi
dation is estimated, is astounding. I spent an hour in the
Arenes on that same sweet Sunday morning, as I came
back from the Roman baths, and saw that the corridors,
the vaults, the staircases, the external casing, are still
virtually there. Many of these parts are wanting in the
Colosseum, whose sublimity of size, however, can afford
to dispense with detail. The seats at Nimes, like those at
Yerona, have been largely renewed ; not that this mattered
much, as I lounged on the cool surface of one of them
and admired the mighty concavity of the place and the
elliptical sky-line, broken by uneven blocks and forming
the rim of the monstrous cup, a cup that had been filled
with horrors. And yet I made my reflections ; I said to
myself that though a Eoman arena is one of the most
impressive of the works of man, it has a touch of that
same stupidity which I ventured to discover in the Pont
du Gard. It is brutal ; it is monotonous ; it is not at all
exquisite.
THE ROYAL GORGE.
ERNEST INGERSOLL.
[The following sketch is from " The Crest of the Continent," an
excellent description of Rocky Mountain scenery and of the mining
regions of Colorado, by an author who has but recently come into the
literary field. The amusing story with which our extract closes is not
INGERSOLL] THE ROYAL GORGE. 245
an unfair specimen of the " drawing of the long how" in which many
of our far- Western friends are adepts.]
THE Grand Canon of the Arkansas, and its culminating
chasm, the Royal Gorge, lie between Salida and Canon
City, and form a sufficient theme for a chapter by them
selves. It was on our return from Silver Cliff that we
went there.
Situated only half a dozen miles west of Canon City,
the traveller going either to Leadville or Gunnison begins
to watch for the canon as soon as he has passed the city
limits, the penitentiary, and the mineral springs. If he
looks ahead, he sees the vertically-tilted, whitish strata of
sandstone and limestone, which the upthrust of the inte
rior mountains has set on edge, broken at a narrow portal
through which the graceful river finds the first freedom
of the plains, becomes of age, so to speak, and com
mences, however awkwardly, that manly progress that
by and by will enable it to take its important place in the
commerce of the world,
" the river
Which through continents pushes its pathway fore vet,
To fling its fond heart in the sea."
Eunning the gauntlet of these scraggy warders of tho
castle of the mountain-gods within, the train boldly as
saults the gates of the castle itself. From the smooth
ness of the outer world, where the eye can range in wide
vision, taking in the profiles of countless noble chains
and lowlier but serviceable ridges, where the sun shines
broadly and its light and heat are reflected in shimmer
ing volumes from expanses of whitened soil, the eager
traveller now finds himself locked between precipitous
hill-sides, strewn with jagged fragments, as though the
246 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [!NGERSOLL
Titans had tossed in here the chips from their workshop
of the world. He strives for language large enough to
picture the heights that with ceaselessly-growing altitude
hasten to meet him. He searches his fancy after images
and similitudes that shall help him comprehend and
recall the swiftly-crowding forms of Nature's massive
architecture. He taxes his eyes and mind and memory
to see and preserve until he can have leisure to study
this exhibition of the depth and breadth of the barrier
that so long has loomed before him in silent majesty, yet
for which the world has found no better name than the
Rocky Mountains. He has gone past it, gone over it, it
may be; now he is going through it. The track, as he
rushes ahead, seems bodily to sink deeper and deeper
into the earth, as though the apparent progress forward
only resulted in impotent struggles to keep from sink
ing deeper, like an exhausted swimmer in swift waters.
The roar of the yeasty, nebulous-green river at his
side mingles with the crashing echoes of the train, re
verberating heavenward through rocks that rise perpen
dicularly to unmeasured heights. The ear is stunned,
and the mind refuses to sanction what the senses report
to it.
Then a new surprise, and almost terror, comes. The
train rolls round a long curve, close under a wall of black
and banded granite, beside which the ponderous locomo
tive shrinks to a mere dot, as if swinging on some pivot
in the heart of the mountain, or captured by a centrip
etal force that would never resign its grasp. Almost a
whole circle is accomplished, and the grand amphithe-
atrical sweep of the wall shows no break in its smooth
and zenith -cutting facade. "Will the journey end here ?
Is it a mistake that this crevice goes through the range ?
Does not all this mad water gush from some powerful
TXGERSOLL] THE ROYAL GORGE. 247
spring, or boil out of a subterranean channel impenetrable
to us ?
No, it opens. Eesisting centripetal, centrifugal force
claims the train, and it breaks away at a tangent past the
edge or round the corner of the great black wall which
compelled its detour, and that of the river before it. Now
what glories of rock-piling confront the wide-distended
eye! How those sharp-edged cliffs, standing with upright
heads that play at hand-ball with the clouds, alternate
with one another, so that first the right, then the left,
then the right one beyond strike on our view, each one
half obscured by its fellow in front, each showing itself
level-browed with its comrades as we come even with it.
each a score of hundreds of dizzy feet in height, rising
perpendicular from the water and the track, splintered
atop into airy pinnacles, braced behind against the almost
continental mass through which the chasm has been
cleft.
This is the Eoyal Gorge !
But how faintly I tell it ! how inexpressible are tne
wonders of plutonic force it commemorates, how magnifi
cent the pose and self-sustained majesty of its walls, how
stupendous the height as wo look up, the depth if we were
to gaze timidly down, how splendid the massive shadows
at the base of the interlocking headlands, the glint of
sunlight on the upper rim, and the high polish of the
crowning points ! One must catch it all as an impression
on the retina of his mind's eye, must memorize it ir.-
stantly and ponder it afterward. It is ineffable, but the
thought of it remains through years and years a legacy
of vivid recollection and delight, and you never cease to
be proud that you have seen it.
There is more canon after that, miles and miles of it,
the Grand Canon of the Arkansas. In and out of all the
248 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [!NGERSOLL
bends and elbows, gingerly round the promontories whose
very feet the river laves, rapidly across the small, sheltered
nooks where soil has been drifted and a few adventurous
trees have grown, noisily through the echoing cuttings,
the train rushes westward, letting you down gradually
from the tense excitement of the great chasm, to the cedar-
strewn ledges that fade out into the gravel bars and the
park-like spaces of the open valley beyond Cotopaxi.
Thomas Paine tells us in his "Age of Eeason," " The sub
lime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it
is difficult to class them separately." It is good philosophy,
also, that the higher the strain the longer the rebound : so
no excuse is needed for asking you to enjoy as heartily
as we did the story an old fellow told us at the supper
station, who dropped the hint that he had been one of the
" boys" who had helped push the railway through this
canon. Moreover, he helped us to a new phase of human
nature as exemplified in the mind of an " old-timer."
The influence of the canon on the ordinary tourist, per
haps, will be comparatively transient, fading into a dream
like memory of amazing mental impressions. Not so with
the man who has dwelt, untutored, for many years, amid
these stupendous hills and abysmal gorges. His imagina
tion, once aroused and enlarged, continues to expand ; his
fiction, once created, hardens into fact ; his veracity, once
elongated, stretches on and on forever. Of all natural
curiosities he is the most curious, more marvellous than
even the Grand Canon itself.
Strictly sane and truthful in the daytime, he speaks
only of commonplace things ; but when the night comes,
and the huge mountains group themselves around his
camp-fire like a circle of black Cyclopean tents, he shades
his face from the blaze and bids his imagination stalk
forth with Titanic strides. Then, if his hearers are in
INGERSOLL] THE ROYAL GORGE. 249
sympathy, with self-repressed and nonchalant gravity, he
pours forth in copious detail his strange experiences with
bears and bronchos, Indians and serpents, footpads and
gamblers, mines and mules, tornadoes and forest-fires. He
never for a moment weakens the effect of his story by
giving way to gush and enthusiasm ; he makes his facts
eloquent, and then relates them in the careless monotone
of one who is superior to emotion under any circum
stances.
We could not find our old-timer in these most favorable
Circumstances, but ensconced behind
" Sublime tobacco ! which, from east to west,
Cheers the tar's labors, or the Turkman's rest,"
he seized his opportunity in our discussion of the heroio
engineering by which the penetralia of the Eoyal Gorge
was opened to the locomotive, and began :
" Talk about blastin' ! The boy's yarn about blowin'
up a mountain's nothin' but a squib to what we did when
we blasted the Ryo Grand Railroad through the Royal
Gorge.
" One day the boss sez to me, sez he, ' Hyar, you, do
you know how to handle gunpowder?'
" Sez I, < You bet.'
"Sez he, 'Do you see that 'ere ledge a thousand feet
above us, stickin' out like a hat-brim ?'
"Sez I, 'You bet I do.'
" ' Wall,' sez he, ' that'll smash a train into a grease-spot
some day, ef we don't blast it off.'
" c Jess so,' sez I.
" Wall, we went up a gulch, and clum the mountain an'
come to the prissipass, and got down on all fours, an'
looked down straight three thousand feet. The river
250 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [INGERSOLF.
down there looked like a lariat a-runnin' after a broncho.
I begun to feel like a kite a-sailin' in the air like. Forty
church steeples in one warn't nowhar to that 'ere pinnacle
in the clouds. An' after a while it begun rainin' an'
tmowin' an' hailin' an' thundrin' an' doin' a reglar tornado
biznis down thar, an' a reglar summer day whar we wu/.
on top. "Wall, there wuz a crevice from whar we wuz, an'
we sorter slid down into it, to within fifty feet o' the ledge,
an' then they let me down on the ledge with a rope an'
drill. "When I got down thar, I looked up an' sez to the
boss, l Boss, how are ye goin' to get that 'cussion powder
down ?' Yer see, we used this 'ere powder as'll burn like
a pine-knot 'thout explodin', but if yer happen to drop it
it'll blow yer into next week 'fore ye kin wink yer eye.
" ' Wall,' sez the boss, sez he, ' hyar's fifty pound, an' yer
must ketch it.'
" ' Ketch it,' sez 1. l Hain't ye gettin' a little keerless '{
S'pose I miss it?' I sez.
" ' But ye mustn't miss it,' sez he. ' 'T seems to me yer
gettin' mighty keerful of yourself all to wunst.'
" Sez I, l Boss, haul me up. I'm a fool, but not an idgit.
Haul me up. I'm not so much afeared of the blowin' up
ez of the comin' down. If I should miss comin' onto this
ledge, thar's nobody a thousan' feet below thar to ketch
me, an' I might get drowiaded in the Arkansaw, for 1
kain't swim.'
" So they hauled me up, an' let three other fellers down,
an' the boss discharged me, an' I sot down sorter behind
a rock, an' tole 'em they'd soon have a fust-class funeral,
and might need me for pall-bearer.
" Wall, them fellers ketched the dynamite all right, and
put 'er in, an' lit their fuse, but afore they could haul 'em
up she went off. Great guns ! 'Twas wuss'n forty thou
san' Fourth o' Julys. A million coyotes an' tin pans an'
INGERSOLL] THE ROYAL GORGE. 251
horns an' gongs ain't a sarcumstance. TV hull gorge
fur ten mile bellered, an' bellered, an' kep' on bellerin'
wuss'n a corral o' Texas bulls. I foun' myself on my back
a-lookin' up, an' th' las' thing I seed wuz two o' them fel
lers a-whirlin' clean over the mountain, two thousan' feet
above. One of 'em had my jack-knife an' tobacker, but
'twas no use cryin'. 'Twas a good jack-knife, though ; I
don't keer so much fur the tobacker. He slung suthin' at
me as he went over, but it didn't come nowhar near, V
I don't know yet what it was. When we all kinder come
to, the boss looked at his watch, 'n' tole us all to witness
that the fellers was blown up just at noon, an' was only
entitled to half a day's wages, an' quit 'thout notice.
When we got courage to peep over an' look down, we
found that the hat-brim wasn't busted off at all ; the hull
thing was only a squib. But we noticed that a rock ez
big ez a good-sized cabin hed loosened, an' hed rolled down
on top of it. While we sat lookin' at it, boss sez, sez he,
" ' Did you fellers see more'n two go up ?'
"'No,' sez we, an' pretty soon we heern t'other feller
a-hollerin', * Come down 'n' get me out !'
" Gents, you may have what's left of my old shoe, if the
ledge hadn't split open a little, 'n' that chap fell into the
rrack, 'n' the big rock rolled onto the ledge an' sorter
gently held him thar. He warn't hurt a har. We warn't
slow about gettin' down. We jist tied a rope to a pint o'
rock an' slid. But you may hang me for a chipmuck ef
we could git anywhar near him, an' it was skeery busi
ness a-foolin' roun' on that 'ere verandy. 'Twarn't much
bigger'n a hay-rack, an' a thousan' foot up. We hed some
crowbars, but boss got a leetle excited, an' perty soon bent
every one on 'em tryin' to prize off that boulder, that'd
weigh a hundred ton like. Then agin we wuz all on it,
fer it kivered th' hull ledge, 'n' whar'd we ben ef he'd
252 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [!NGERSOLL
prized it off? All the while the chap kep' a-hollerin',
* Hurry up ; pass me some tobacker !' Oh, it was the pit-
terfulest cry you ever heern, an' we -didn't know what to
do till he yelled, ' I'm a-losin' time ; hain't you goin' to
git me out?' Sez boss, 'I've bent all the crowbars, an'
we can't git you out.'
" ' Got any dynamite powder ?' sez the feller.
" ' Yes.'
" ' Well, then, why 'n the name of the Denver 'n' Ryo
Grand don't you blast me out ?' sez he.
" ' We can't blast you out,' sez boss, ' fer dynamite busts
down, an' it'll blow you down the canyon.'
" 'Well, then,' sez he, ' one o' ye swing down under the
ledge, an' put a shot in whar it's cracked below.'
" ' You're wiser 'n a woman,' sez boss. ' I'd never thought
o' that.'
" So the boss took a rope, 'n' we swung him down, 'n'
he put in a shot, 'n' was goin' to light the fuse, when the
feller inside smelt the match.
" ' Hev ye tumbled to my racket ?' sez he.
'"You bet we have, feller-priz'ner!' sez the boss.
" ' Touch 'er off!' sez the feller.
" ' All right,' sez boss.
" ' Hold on !' yells the feller as wuz inside.
" ' What's the racket now ?' sez the boss.
" ' You hain't got the sense of a blind mule,' sez he.
' Do you s'pose I want to drop down the canyon when the
shot busts ? Pass in a rope through the crack, 'n' I'll tie
it roun' me, 'n' then you can touch 'er off kind o' easy like.'
" Wall, that struck us all as a pious idea. That feller
knowed more'n a dozen blind mules, sed mules weren't
fur off, neither. Wall, we passed in the rope, 'n' when we
pulled boss up, he guv me t'other e'end 'n' tole me to hole
on tighter 'n a puppy to a root. I tuck the rope, wrapped
INGERSOLL] THE ROYAL GORGE. 253
it 'round me, 'n' climb up, fifty feet to a pint o' rock right
under 'nuther pint 'bout a hundred feet higher, that kinder
hung over the pint whar I wuz. Boss 'n' t'other fellers
skedaddled up the crevice 'n' hid.
" Purty soon suthin' happened. I can't describe it, gents.
The hull canyon wuz full o' blue blazes, flyin' rocks, 'n'
loose volcanoes. Both sides o' the gorge, two thousan'
foet straight up, seemed to touch tops 'n' then swing open.
I wuz sort o' dazed 'n' blinded, l n' felt ez if the prissipasses
'n' the mountains wuz all on a tangle-foot drunk, staggerin'
like. The rope tightened 'round my stummick, 'n' I seized
onto it tight, 'n' yelled,
" l Hole on, pard, I'll draw you up ! Cheer up, my
hearty,' sez I, ' cheer up ! Jess as soon's I git my footin',
I'll bring ye to terry firmy !'
" Ye see, I wuz sort o' confused 'n' blinded by the smoke
'n' dust, 'n' hed a queer feelin', like a spider a-swingin'
an' a-whirlin' on a har. At last I got so's I could see, 'n'
looked down to see if the feller wuz a-swingin' clar of the
rocks, but I couldn't see him. The ledge wuz blown clean
off, 'n' the canyon seemed 'bout three thousan' feet deep.
My stummick begun to hurt me dreadful, 'n' I squirmed
'round 'n' looked up, 'n' durn my breeches, gents, ef I
wasn't within ten foot of the top of the gorge, 'n' the
feller ez wuz blasted out wuz a-haulin' on me up.
" Sez I when he got me to the top, sez I, ' Which eend of
this rope wuz you on, my friend ?'
" * I dunno,' sez he. ' Which eend wuz you on ?'
" ' I dunno,' sez I.
" An', gents, to this day we can't tell ef it was which or
t'other ez wuz blasted out."
254 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
THE MEANING OF INFANCY.
JOHN FISKE.
[No man has done more to popularize the modern evolutionary
theories than John Fiske, the author of " Myths and Myth-Makers,"
" Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," and many other works, in which
the views of Darwin, Spencer, and others of the radical scientists of
the present day are relieved of their technicalities and brought within
the range of popular comprehension. He has a fresh, easy, and flow
ing style, and possesses in an unusual degree the art of giving trans
parency to opaque subjects. From one of his later works, " Excursions
of an Evolutionist," we make the following extract. Mr. Fiske is a
native of Hartford, Connecticut, where he was born in 1842.]
WHAT is the Meaning of Infancy ? What is the mean
ing of the fact that man is born into the world more help
less than any other creature, and needs for a much longe*
season than any other living thing the tender care arid
wise counsel of his elders ? It is one of the most familiar
of facts that man, alone among animals, exhibits a capacity
for progress. That man is widely different from other
animals in the length of his adolescence and the utter
helplessness of his babyhood, is an equally familiar fact.
Tow, between these two commonplace facts is there any
connection ? Is it a mere accident that the creature which
is distinguished as progressive should also be distinguished
as coming slowly to maturity, or is there a reason lying
deep down in the nature of things why this should be so?
I think it can be shown with very few words that between
these two facts there is a connection that is deeply in
wrought with the processes by which life has been evolved
upon the earth. It can be shown that man's progressive
ness and the length of his infancy are but two sides of
one and the same fact ; and in showing this, still more
FISKE] THE MEANING OF INFANCY. 255
will appear. It will appear that it was the lengthening
of infancy which ages ago gradually converted our fore
fathers from brute creatures into human creatures. It is
babyhood that has made man what he is. The simple
unaided operation of natural selection could never have
resulted in the origination of the human race. Natural
selection might have gone on forever improving the breed
of the highest animal in many ways, but it could never
unaided have started the process of civilization or have
given to man those peculiar attributes in virtue of which
it has been well said that the difference between him and
the highest of apes immeasurably transcends in value the,
difference between an ape and a blade of grass. In order
to bring about that wonderful event, the Creation of Man,
natural selection had to call in the aid of other agencies,
and the chief of these agencies was the gradual lengthen
ing of babyhood.
Such is the point which I wish to illustrate in few
words, and to indicate some of its bearings on the history
of human progress. Let us first observe what it was that
lengthened the infancy of the highest animal, for then we
shall be the better able to understand the character of the
prodigious effects which this infancy has wrought. A
few familiar facts concerning the method in which men
learn how to do things will help us here.
When we begin to learn to play the piano, we have to
devote much time and thought to the adjustment and
movement of our fingers, and to the interpretation of the
vast and complicated multitude of symbols which make
up the printed page of music that stands before us. For
a long time, therefore, our attempts are feeble and stam
mering, and they require the full, concentrated power of
the mind. Yet a trained pianist will play a new piece of
music at sight, and perhaps have so much attention tc
256 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
spare that he can talk with you at the same time. What
an enormous number of mental acquisitions have in this
case become almost instinctive or automatic ! It is just so
in learning a foreign language, and it was just the same
when in childhood we learned to walk, to talk, and to
write. It is just the same, too, in learning to think about
abstruse subjects. What at first strains the attention to
the utmost, and often wearies us, comes at last to be done
without effort and almost unconsciously. Great minds
thus travel over vast fields of thought with an ease of
which they are themselves unaware. Dr. Nathaniel
Bowditch once said that in translating the " Mecanique
Celeste" he had come upon formulas which Laplace intro
duced with the word " obviously," where it took neverthe
less many days of hard study to supply the intermediate
steps through which that transcendent mind had passed
with one huge leap of inference. At some time in his
youth no doubt Laplace had to think of these things, just
as Rubinstein had once to think how his fingers should be
placed on the keys of the piano ; but what was once the
object of conscious attention comes at last to be wellnigh
automatic, while the flight of the conscious mind goes on
ever to higher and vaster themes.
Let us now take a long leap from the highest level of
human intelligence to the mental life of a turtle or a cod
fish. In what does the mental life of such creatures con
sist ? It consists of a few simple acts mostly concerned
with the securing of food and the avoiding of danger, and
these few simple acts are repeated with unvarying mo
notony during the whole lifetime of these creatures. Con
sequently these acts are performed with great ease and are
attended with very little consciousness, and moreover the
capacity to perform them is transmitted from parent to
offspring as completely as the capacity of the stomach to
FISKE] THE MEANING OF INFANCY. 257
digest food is transmitted. In all animals the new-born
stomach needs but the contact with food in order to begin
digesting, and the new-born lungs need but the contact
with air in order to begin to breathe. The capacity for
performing these perpetually-repeated visceral actions is
transmitted in perfection. All the requisite nervous con
nections are fully established during the brief embryonic
existence of each creature. In the case of lower animals
it is almost as much so with the few simple actions which
make up the creature's mental life. The bird known as
the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg than it will snap
at and catch a fly. This action is not so very simple ; but
because it is something the bird is always doing, being,
indeed, one out of the very few things that this bird ever
does, the nervous connections needful for doing it are all
established before birth, and nothing but the presence of
the fly is required to set the operation going.
With such creatures as the codfish, the turtle, or the
fly-catcher, there is accordingly nothing that can properly
be called infancy. With them the sphere of education is
extremely limited. They get their education before they
are born. In other words, heredity does everything for
them, education nothing. The career of the individual is
predetermined by the careers of his ancestors, and he can
do almost nothing to vary it. The life of such creatures
is conservatism cut and dried, and there is nothing pro
gressive about them.
In what I just said I left an " almost." There is a great
deal of saving virtue in that little adverb. Doubtless eveu
animals low in the scale possess some faint traces of educa-
bility ; but they are so very slight that it takes geologic
ages to produce an appreciable result. In all the innumer
able wanderings, fights, upturnings, and cataclysms of the
earth's stupendous career, each creature has been sum-
r 22*
258 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
moned under penalty of death to use what little wit he
may have had, and the slightest trace of mental flexibility
is of such priceless value in the struggle for existence that
natural selection must always have seized upon it, and
sedulously hoarded and transmitted it for coming genera
tions to strengthen and increase. With the lapse of geo
logic time the upper grades of animal intelligence have
doubtless been raised higher and higher through natural
selection. The warm-blooded mammals and birds of to
day no doubt surpass the cold-blooded dinosaurs of the
Jurassic age in mental qualities as they surpass them in
physical structure. From the codfish and turtle of ancient
family to the modern lion, dog, and monkey it is a very
long step upward. The mental life of a warm-blooded
animal is a very diiferent aifair from that of reptiles and
fishes. A squirrel or a bear does a good many things in
the course of his life. He meets various vicissitudes in
various ways ; he has adventures. The actions he per
forms are so complex and so numerous that they are sev
erally .performed with less frequency than the few actions
performed by the codfish. The requisite nervous connec
tions are accordingly not fully established before birth.
There is not time enough. The nervous connections needed
for the visceral movements and for the few simple instinc
tive actions get organized, and then the creature is born
before he has learned how to do all the things his parents
could do. A good many of his nervous connections are not
yet formed, they are only formable. Accordingly, he is not
quite able to take care of himself; he must for a time ba
watched and nursed. All mammals and most birds have
thus a period of babyhood that is not very long, but is, on
the whole, longest with the most intelligent creatures. It
is especially long with the higher monkeys, and among
the man-like apes it becomes so long as to be strikingly
PISKE] THE MEANING OF INFANCY. 259
suggestive. An infant orang-outang, captured by Mr.
Wallace, was still a helpless baby at tbe age of three
months, unable to feed itself, to walk without aid, or to
grasp objects with precision.
But this period of helplessness has to be viewed under
another aspect. It is a period of plasticity. The creat
ure's career is no longer exclusively determined by hered
ity. There is a period after birth when its character can
be slightly modified by what happens to it after birth,
that is, by its experience as an individual. It becomes
educable. It is no longer necessary for each generation
to be exactly like that which has preceded. A door is
opened through which the capacity for progress can enter.
Horses and dogs, bears and elephants, parrots and mon
keys, are all teachable to some extent; and we have even
heard of a learned pig. Of learned asses there has been
no lack in the world.
But this educability of the higher mammals and birds
is, after all, quite limited. By the beginnings of infancy
the door for progressiveness was set ajar, but it was not
all at once thrown wide open. Conservatism still con
tinued in fashion. One generation of cattle is much like
another. It would be easy for foxes to learn to climb
trees, and many a fox might have saved his life by doing
so ; yet, quick-witted as he is, this obvious device never
seems to have occurred to Reynard. Among slightly
teachable mammals, however, there is one group more
teachable than the rest. Monkeys, with their greater
power of handling things, have also more inquisitiveness
and more capacity for sustained attention than any other
mammals ; and the higher apes are fertile in varied re
sources. The orang-outang and gorilla are for this reason
dreaded by other animals, and roam the undisputed lords
of their native forests. They have probably approached
260 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
the critical point where variations in intelligence, always
important, have come to be supremely important, so as to
be seized by natural selection in preference to variations
in physical constitution. At some remote epoch of the
past we cannot say just when or how our half-human
forefathers reached and passed this critical point, and
forthwith their varied struggles began age after age to
result in the preservation of bigger and better brains,
while the rest of their bodies changed but little. This
particular work of natural selection must have gone on
for an enormous length of time, and as its result we see
that while man remains anatomically much like an ape,
he has acquired a vastly greater brain, with all that this
implies. Zoologically the distance is small between man
and the chimpanzee ; psychologically it has become so
great as to "be immeasurable.
But this steady increase of intelligence, as our fore
fathers began to become human, carried with it a steady
prolongation of infancy. As mental life became more
complex and various, as the things to be learned kept ever
multiplying, less and less could be done before birth, more
and more must be left to be done in the earlier years of
life. So, instead of being born with a few simple capaci
ties thoroughly organized, man came at last to be born
with the germs of many complex capacities which were
reserved to be unfolded and enhanced or checked and
stifled by the incidents of personal experience in each
individual. In this simple yet wonderful way there has
been provided for man a long period during which his
mind is plastic and malleable, and the length of this period
has increased with civilization until it now covers nearly
one-third of our lives. It is not that our inherited ten
dencies and aptitudes are not still the main thing. It is
only that we have at last acquired great power to modify
PARTON] OLD VIRGINIA. 261
them by training, so that progress may go on with ever-
increasing sureness and rapidity.
OLD VIRGINIA.
JAMES PARTON.
[James Parton, though noted for his work in the field of American
"biography, is a native of England, where he was horn, at Canterhury,
in 1822. He came when young to the United States, and engaged in
literary lahors, the principal result of which is his series of admira
ble biographies, which have attained an exceptional popularity with
American readers for their fulness and freshness of incident and their
judicious selection and handling of the salient features in the life of
each person treated. From his " Life of Thomas Jefferson" we select
the following episodial description of business methods and extrava
gance in Old Virginia.]
WHEN John Rolfe, not yet husband of Pocahontas,
planted the first tobacco-seed in Jamestown, in 1612, good
tobacco sold in London docks at five shillings a pound, or
two hundred and fifty pounds sterling for a hogshead of a
thousand pounds' weight. Fatal facility of money-making !
It Avas this that diverted all labor, capital, and enterprise
into one channel, and caused that first ship-load of negroes
in the James Eiver to be so welcome. The planter could
have but one object, to get more slaves in order to raise
more tobacco. Hence the price was ever on the decline,
dropping first from shillings to pence, and then going down
the scale of pence, until it remained for some years at an
average of about two pence a pound in Virginia and three
pence in London. In Virginia it often fell below two
pence ; as, during brief periods of scarcity, it would rise
to six pence and seven pence. . . .
262 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Old Virginia is a pathetic chapter in Political Economy.
Old Virginia indeed ! She reached decrepitude while con
temporary communities were enjoying the first vigor of
youth ; while New York was executing the task which
Virginia's George Washington had suggested and foretold,
that of connecting the waters of the great West with tho
ocean ; while New England was careering gayly over the
sea, following the whale to his most distant retreat, and
feeding belligerent nations with her superabundance. One
little century of seeming prosperity ; three generations of
spendthrifts; then the lawyer and the sheriff! Nothing
was invested, nothing was saved for the future. There
were no manufactures, no commerce, no towns, no internal
trade, no great middle class. As fast as that virgin rich
ness of soil -could be converted into tobacco, and sold in
London docks, the proceeds were expended in vast, ugly
mansions, heavy furniture, costly apparel, Madeira wine,
tine horses, huge coaches, and more slaves. The planters
lived as though virgin soil were revenue, not capital. They
tried to maintain in Virginia the lordly style of English
grandees, without any Birmingham, Staffordshire, Sheffield,
or London docks to pay for it. Their short-lived pros
perity consisted of three elements, virgin soil, low-priced
slaves, high-priced tobacco. The virgin soil was rapidly
exhausted; the price of negroes was always on the in
crease ; and the price of tobacco was always tending down
ward. Their sole chance of founding a stable common
wealth was to invest the proceeds of their tobacco in
something that would absorb their labor and yield them
profit when the soil would no longer produce tobacco.
But their laborers were ignorant slaves, the possession
of whom destroyed their energy, swelled their pride, and
dulled their understandings. Virginia's case was hopeless
from the day on which that Dutch ship landed the first
PARTON] OLD VIRGINIA. 263
twenty slaves ; and, when the time of reckoning came,
the people had nothing to show for their long occupation
of one of the finest estates in the world, except great
hordes of negroes, breeding with the rapidity of rabbits ;
upon whose annual increase Virginia subsisted, until the
most glorious and beneficial of all wars set the white race
free and gave Virginia her second opportunity.
All this was nobody's fault. It was a combination of
circumstances against which the unenlightened human
nature of that period could not possibly have made head.
Few men saw anything wrong in slavery. No man knew
much about the laws that control the prosperity of States.
No man understood the science of agriculture. Every one
with whom those proud and thoughtless planters dealt
plundered them, and the mother-country discouraged
every attempt of the colonists to manufacture their own
supplies. There were so many charges upon tobacco, in
its course from the planter's packing-house to the con
sumer's pipe, that it was no very uncommon thing, in dull
years, for the planter to receive from his agent in London,
in return for his hogsheads of tobacco, not a pleasant sum
of money, nor even a box of clothes, but a bill of charges
which the price of the tobacco had not covered. One of the
hardships of which the clergy complained was, that they
did not " dare" to send their tobacco to London, for fear of
being brought in debt by it, but had to sell it on the spot
to speculators much below the London price. The old
Virginia laws and records so abound in tobacco informa
tion that we can follow a hogshead of tobacco from its
native plantation on the James to the shop of the tobac
conist in London.
In the absence of farm-vehicles, many planters who
kept a coach had no wagon, each hogshead was attached
to a pair of shafts with a horse between them, and " rolled"
264 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARTON
to a shed on the bank of the stream. "When a ship ar
rived in the river from London, it anchored opposite each
plantation which it served, and set ashore the portion of
the cargo belonging to it, continuing its upward course
until the hold was empty. Then, descending the river, it
stopped at the different plantations, taking in from each
its hogsheads of tobacco, and the captain receiving long
lists of articles to be bought in London with the proceeds
of the tobacco. The rivers of Virginia, particularly the
Potomac and the James, are wide and shallow, with a
deep channel far from either shore : so that the transfer
of the tobacco from the shore to the ship, in the general
absence of landings, was troublesome and costly. To this
day, as readers remember, the piers on the James present
to the wondering passenger from the North a stretch of
pine planks from an eighth to half a mile long. The ship
is full at length, drops down past Newport News, salutes
the fort upon Old Point Comfort, and glides out between
the capes into the ocean.
Suppose her now safe in London docks, say about the
year 1735, the middle of the prosperous period, when the
great houses were building in Virginia, with stabling for
" a hundred horses" and pretext of work for " a hundred
servants." By the time she is fast at her berth the vul
tures have alighted upon her deck. Two " land-waiters"
represent the authorities of the custom-house, and are
sworn to see that the king gets his own. A personage
called the " ship's husband" is not long behind them. He,
representing the merchant to whom the tobacco is con
signed, would naturally be the antagonist of the land-
waiters ; but he is only too glad to establish an under
standing with them. And behind each of these two
powers there is a train of hangers-on, hungry for a morsel
of the prey. There is already a charge of two pounds for
PARTON] OLD VIRGINIA. 265
freight upon each hogshead. As soon as the ship is re
ported at the custom-house, the king demands his " old
subsidy" of three farthings upon every pound of tobacco
on board, more than three pounds sterling on a hogshead
of a thousand pounds' weight. The " duty" of five and
one-third pence per pound has next to be calculated, and
a bond given for its payment when the tobacco is sold for
home consumption. The purchaser, it is true, pays these
duties j but the planter is responsible and bound for the
payment.
Then there is a continuous fire of petty charges at each
unfortunate hogshead, some of which it is difficult now to
explain. I copy the following items from an agent's bill
of 1733 : " primage, 6d. ;" " wharfage and lighterage, Qd. ;"
" Mr. Perry, 3d. ;" a husbanding the ship, 4d. ;" " watching
and drink, 3d. ;" " entry inwards and bonds, 6d. ;" " land-
waiters' fees, 3d. ; " dinners, breakfasts to the husband and
officers while landing the ship, with other incident ex
penses, 9d. ;" " entry outwards and searchers, Sd. ;" " cocket*
money, etc., 3d. ;" " debentures one with another, 13d. ;"
" cooperage on board, 2d. ;" " ditto, landing, Is. ;" " ditto,
outwards, 9d. ;" " refusing and hoops, Id. ;" " porterage, re
housing, and extraordinary rummaging, 6d. ;" " weighing
and shipping, Qd. ;" " wharfage and lighterage outwards,
Qd. ;" " cartage, Is. ;" " warehouse rent for three months,
Is. 6d. ;" "brokerage, 2s.;" "postage, as charged by the
post-office ;" " agent's commission, 2 J per cent." In other
bills I observe such words as " suttle,"f and the old familiar
" tare" and " tret."
* COCKET. A scroll of parchment, sealed and delivered by the
officers of the custom-house to merchants, as a warrant that their mer
chandise is entered.
f SUTTLE. Suttle-weight, in commerce, is the weight when the tare
has "been deducted, and tret has yet to be allowed.
M 23
266 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PABTON
Besides these vexatious charges, each of which could
be a pretext for fraud, the London agent had other modes
of despoiling the planter who was quaffing his Madeira,
or chasing the fox, three thousand miles away. Two
pounds of tobacco were allowed to be taken from each
hogshead for a sample ; but a cooper who knew what was
due to a British merchant and to himself could dra^\
eight pounds as well as two, and a weigher who had been
previously " seen" could mark down the weight of a hogs
head two hundred pounds or ten pounds, according to
the size of the hogshead, leaving the planter to decide
whether his scales or those of the London custom-house
were untrustworthy. In a word, all those fraudulent
devices complained of by honest merchants in the bad
days of the New York Custom-House were familiar in
the custom-house of London in 1733, and the frauds were
concealed by precisely the same means. Upon the arrival
of a ship, the merchant to whom the tobacco was con
signed would apply for the services of certain land-waiters,
" whose friendship he could rely upon," to superintend the
landing of his tobacco. Perhaps they were engaged at
the time. Then he delayed landing his tobacco till they
were at leisure. The rest can be imagined. The weighers,
the coopers, and the "ship's husband" understand one
another; and "if," as an old remonstrance has it, "any
two of them agree in their account, the third alters his
book to make it agree with theirs."*
We read, besides, of British merchants sweeping the
refuse of their warehouses into casks, putting a little good
tobacco at the top and bottom, and, after getting a draw-
* Case of the Tobacco Planters of Virginia, as represented by them
selves : signed by the President of the Council and Speaker of the
House of Burgesses. London, 1733.
PARTON] OLD VIRGINIA, 267
back of duty from their own government, sending thip
mass of dust and stalks to defraud a foreign country. In
1750, when tobacco yielded the British government one
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling per annum,
it gave the planter an average profit of one pound sterling
per hogshead.
The same factors who sold the Virginia tobacco were
usually charged to purchase the merchandise which the
planters required. Doubtless many of them performed
both duties with sufficient correctness ; but, down to the
Revolution, it was a standing complaint with the planters
that their tobacco brought them less and their merchan
dise cost them more than they had expected. Readers
remember the emphatic expostulations of General Wash
ington on both these points. The very ships that carried
the tobacco and brought back the merchandise were
nearly all owned in London. When a Yankee merchant
had a prosperous year, or made a lucky voyage, he built
another schooner ; so that, when Jefferson made his first
bow to a jury, in 1767, New England owned seven-eighths
of the shipping that frequented New England ports. But
of all the great fleet trading with Yirginia, about three
hundred vessels in 1767, seven-eighths belonged to British
merchants. The Yankee's new schooner proved a hetter
investment than the Yirginian's " likely negro wenches,"
whom the Yankee's schooner brought for him from the
coast of Guinea ; and the Virginian's pipes of Madeira
consumed his acres, while the Yaukee, with his New Eng
land rum, added acres to his estate.
How little the planters foresaw the desolation of their
Province is affectingly attested by many of the relics of
their brief affluence. They built their parish churches to
last centuries, like the churches to which they were ac
customed "at home." In neighborhoods where now a
268 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAKTON
congregation of fifty persons could not be collected, there
are the ruins of churches that were evidently built for the
accommodation of numerous and wealthy communities :
a forest, in some instances, has grown up all around them,
making it difficult to get near the imperishable walls.
Sometimes the wooden roof has fallen in. and one husre
' O
tree, rooted among the monumental slabs of the middle
aisle, has filled all the interior. Other old churches long
stood solitary in old fields, the roof sound, but the door
standing open, in which the beasts found nightly shelter,
and into which the passing horseman rode and sat on his
horse before the altar till the storm passed. Others have
been used by the farmers as wagon-houses, by fishermen
to hang their seines in, by gatherers of turpentine as
storehouses. One was a distillery, and another was a barn
A poor drunken wretch reeled for shelter into an aban
doned church of Chesterfield County, the county of the
first Jeffersons, and he died in a drunken sleep at the foot
of the reading-desk, where he lay undiscovered until his
face was devoured by rats. An ancient font was found
doing duty as a tavern punch-bowl; and a tombstone,
which served as the floor of an oven, used to print me
morial words upon loaves of bread. Fragments of richly-
colored altar-pieces, fine pulpit-cloths, and pieces of old
carving used to be preserved in farm-houses and shown
to visitors. When the late Bishop Meade began his
rounds, forty years ago, elderly people would bring to him
sets of communion-plate and single vessels which had
once belonged to the parish church, long deserted, and beg
him to take charge of them.
Those pretty girls of the Apollo, who turned young
Jefferson's head in 1762, and most of the other bright
spirits of that generation, where does their dust repose ?
In cemeteries so densely covered with trees and tangled
PARTON] OLD VIRGINIA. 269
shrubbery that no traces of their tombstones can be dis
covered ; in cemeteries over which the plough and the
harrow pass; in cemeteries through the walls of which
some stream has broken, and where the bones and skulls
of the dead may be seen afloat upon the slime.
The suddenness of the collapse was most remarkable.
Westmoreland County, the birthplace of Washington,
Madison, Monroe, and Marshall, called absurdly enough
" the Athens of Virginia," was still the most polite and
wealthy region of Virginia when Thomas Jefferson was a
young lawyer. In thirty years it became waste and des
olate. A picket-guard in 1813, posted on the Potomac to
watch for the expected British fleet, were seeking one day
a place to encamp, when they came upon an old church,
the condition of which revealed at once the completeness
and the recentness of the ruin. It stood in a lonely dell,
where the silence was broken only by the breeze whisper
ing through the pines and cedars and dense shrubbery
that closed the entrance. Huge oaks, standing near the
walls, enveloped the roof with their long, interlacing
branches. The doors all stood wide open ; the windows
were broken ; the roof was rotten and had partly fallen
in ; and a giant pine, uprooted by a tempest, was lying
against the front, choking up the principal door. The
church-yard, which was extensive and enclosed by a high
brick wall of costly structure, was densely covered all
over with tombstones and monuments ; many of which,
though they bore names once held in honor throughout
Virginia, were broken to pieces or prostrate, with bram
bles and weeds growing thick and tangled between them
everywhere. The parish had been important enough to
have a separate building for a vestry just outside the
church-yard wall. This had rotted away from its chim
ney, which stood erect in a mass of ruin.
270 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARTON
"With some difficulty the soldiers forced their way
through the fine old porch, between massive doors, into
the church. What a picture of desolation was disclosed !
The roof, rotted away at the corners, had let in for years
the snow and rain, staining and spoiling the interior. The
galleries, where in the olden time the grandees of the
parish sat, in their square, high pews, were sloping and
leaning down upon the pews on the floor, and on one side
had quite fallen out. The remains of the great Bible still
lay open on the desk, and the tattered canvas which hung
from the walls showed traces of the Creed and Command
ments which had once been written upon it. The marble
font was gone: it was a punch-bowl, the commander of
the picket was told. The communion-table, which had
been a superb piece of work, of antique pattern, with a
heavy walnut top, was in its place, but roughened and
stained by exposure. It was afterwards used as a chop-
ping-block. The brick aisles showed that the church was
the resort of animals, and the wooden ceiling was alive
with squirrels and snakes. The few inhabitants of the
vicinity white trash held the old church and its wilder
ness of graves in dread, and scarcely dared enter the
tangled dell in which they were. It was only the run
away slave, overcome by a greater terror, flying from a
being more awful than any ghost, savage man, that
ventured to go into the church itself and crouch among
the broken pews.
Such is the ruin that befalls a community which sub
sists upon its capital.
EMERSON] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 271
THE REVOLVING SEASONS.
POETS, good, bad, and indifferent, have settled upon the seasons as
their peculiar property, and have sung the vernal charms of spring
and the ripe lustiness of autumn, May with her eyes of blue, and Oc
tober with his cheeks of brown, until many volumes might be made
up of these tributes to the revolving beauties of the year. The rapid
changes of nature in our temperate clime, and the quick succession of
new phases of attractiveness, are remarkably calculated to arouse the
poetic temperament to an endeavor to embalm these fleeting charms
in the more enduring form of verse, more enduring, that is, if the
verse have in it any of the staying quality of original thought. The
great sum of these written leaves of sentiment perish more quickly
than the fallen leaves of autumn. Others there are, however, with
u life in their veins," and of these we present a serial succession from
the season-songs of American bards. Emerson, to whom nature was
an ever-enduring inspiration, thus chronicles the coming of April :
April cold with dropping rain
Willows and lilacs brings again,
The whistle of returning birds,
And trumpet-lowing of the herds.
The scarlet maple-keys betray
What potent blood hath modest May,
What fiery force the earth renews,
The wealth of forms, the flush of hues ;
What joy in rosy waves outpoured
Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.
Another of our poets, who has ever her finger on the pulse of Nature,
thus gives us the meaning of May :
The voice of one who goes before, to make
The paths of June more beautiful, is thine,
Sweet May! HELEN HUNT.
272 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
An older poet thus sings his song of the May :
I feel a newer life in every gale ;
The winds that fan the flowers,
And with their welcome breathings fill the sail,
Tell of serener hours,
Of hours that glide unfelt away
Beneath the sky of May.
The spirit of the gentle south wind calls
From his blue throne of air,
And where his whispering voice in music falls,
Beauty is budding there ;
The bright ones of the valley break
Their slumbers, and awake.
The waving verdure rolls along the plain,
And the wide forest weaves,
To welcome back its playful mates again,
A canopy of leaves ;
And from its darkening shadow floats
A gush of trembling notes.
Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May ;
The tresses of the woods
With the light dallying of the west wind play ;
And the full-brimming floods,
As gladly to their goal they run,
Hail the returning sun. J. G. PERCIVAL.
The richest month of the year, throbbing-hearted June, the season
of the rose and of the fullest chorus of the birds, the embowered gate
way between the realms of the blossom, and the fruitage, has always
been a favorite theme of the poets. "We cull a pair of June roses for
our poetic bouquet :
AKERS] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 273
Never was my life's neglected garden
Half so full of fragrance as to-day,
Never has the world been half so radiant,
Nor its shapes of sorrow and dismay
Ever seemed so few and far away.
Wide the chestnut waves its spreading branches,
In a white bewilderment of bloom,
And the lilacs, overwhelmed with blossoms,
Dropping like a wounded warrior's plume,
Hang their faint heads heavy with perfume.
On the sea a veil of silvery softness,
Faint, and filmy, and mysterious, lies,
Blending doubtfully the fair horizon
With the azure of the smiling skies,
Tender as the blue of loving eyes.
On the grass the fallen apple-blossoms
Heap a pillow rosy-hued and rare,
While the dim ghosts of the dandelions
Sail serenely in the untroubled air,
And the clover blushes everywhere.
In the leaves a bobolink is pouring
Passion-songs which brook no pause or rest :
Hark ! how gushingly the liquid music
Swells and overflows his trembling breast,
Like a love that cannot be repressed !
Oh, the joy, the luxury, the rapture,
Thus to brush away the chains of care,
Thus to drop the mask from heart and forehead,
To be glad and young again, and wear
Lilies-of-the-valley in my hair I
274 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LOWELL
Far away, unfelt and scarce remembered,
Seems the world-life, harsh and turbulent :
So much harmony, and joy, and beauty,
In this matchless day of days are blent,
I desire no more : I am content !
ELIZABETH AKERS
We quote next one of the most imaginatively beautiful of American
poems, the June song of James Russell Lowell. In richness of im
agery it is unsurpassed, and in reading it we seem transported into the
very heart of June itself, even though the snows of winter he drifting
without.
And what is so rare as a day in June ?
Then, if ever, come perfect days ;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays :
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys ;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace ;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives ;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ;
LOWELL] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 275
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest :
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ?
Now is the high tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it ;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green ;
"We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing ;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack ;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing !
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving ;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue :
'Tis the natural way of living.
276 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MAY
Who knows whither the clouds have fled ?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
A poetess of the past generation thus gracefully sings of the dawn-
ing summer :
The early spring hath gone ; I see her stand
Afar off on the hills, white clouds, like doves,
Yoked by the south wind to her opal car,
And at her feet a lion and a lamb
Couched, side by side. Irresolute spring hath gone !
And summer comes like Psyche, zephyr-borne
To her sweet land of pleasures.
She is here !
Amid the distant vales she tarried long,
But she hath come, oh, joy ! for I have heard
Her many-chorded harp the livelong day
Sounding from plains and meadows, where, of late,
Eattled the hail's sharp arrows, and where came
The wild north wind careering like a steed
Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth
Into the forest, and its poised leaves
Are platformed for the zephyr's dancing feet.
Under its green pavilions she hath reared
Most beautiful things; the spring's pale orphans lie
Sheltered upon her breast ; the bird's loud song
At morn outsoars his pinion, and when waves
Put on night's silver harness, the still air
Is musical with soft tones. She hath baptized
TERRY] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 277
Earth with her joyful weeping. She hath blessed
All that do rest beneath the wing of Heaven,
And all that hail its smile. Her ministry
Is typical of love. She hath disdained
No gentle office, but doth bend to twine
The grape's light tendrils and to pluck apart
The heart-leaves of the rose. She doth not pass
Unmindful the bruised vine, nor scorn to lift
The trodden weed ; and when her lowlier children
Faint by the wayside like worn passengers,
She is a gentle mother, all night long
Bathing their pale brows with her healing dews.
The hours are spendthrifts of her wealth ; the days
Are dowered with her beauty. EDITH MAY.
A midsummer day's dream is thus beautifully chronicled in song by
Rose Terry :
When o'er the mountain steeps
The hazy noontide creeps,
And the shrill cricket sleeps
Under the grass,
When soft the shadows lie,
And clouds sail o'er the sky,
And the idle winds go by,
With the heavy scent of blossoms as they pass,
Then when the silent stream
Lapses as in a dream,
And the water-lilies gleam
Up to the sun,
When the hot and burdened day
Rests on its downward way,
When the moth forgets to play,
And the plodding ant may dream her work is done,
24
278 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TERRY
Then, from the noise of war
And the din of earth afar,
Like some forgotten star
Dropt from the sky,
The sounds of love and fear,
All voices sad and clear,
Banished to silence drear,
The willing thrall of trances sweet I lie.
Some melancholy gale
Breathes its mysterious tale,
Till the rose's lips grow pale
With her sighs,
And o'er my thoughts are cast
Tints of the vanished past,
Glories that faded fast,
Renewed to splendor in my dreaming eyes.
As poised on vibrant wings,
Where its sweet treasure swings,
The honey-lover clings
To the red flowers,
So, lost in vivid light,
So, rapt from day and night,
I linger in delight,
Enraptured o'er the vision-freighted hours.
Autumn comes to us as a lusty harvester, personified by one of our
most charming poets, Kichard Henry Stoddard :
Sometimes we see thee stretched upon the ground,
In fading woods where acorns patter fast,
Dropping to feast thy tusky boars around,
Crunching among the leaves the ripened mast ;
STOBDARD] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 279
Sometimes at work where ancient granary doors
Are open wide, a thresher stout and hale,
Whitened with chaff upwafted from thy flail.
While south winds sweep along the dusty floors ;
And sometimes fast asleep at noontide hours,
Pillowed on sheaves, and shaded from the heat,
With Plenty at thy feet,
Braiding a coronet of oaten straw and flowers.
What time, emerging from a low-hung cloud,
The shining chariot of the Sun was driven
Slope to its goal, and Day in reverence bowed
His burning forehead at the gate of Heaven,
Then I beheld thy presence full revealed
Slow trudging homeward o'er a stubble field ;
Around thy brow, to shade it from the west,
A wisp of straw entwisted in a crown;
A golden wheat-sheaf, slipping slowly down,
Hugged tight against thy waist, and on thy breast,
Linked to a belt, an earthen flagon swung ;
And o'er thy shoulder flung,
Tied by their stems, a bundle of great pears,
Bell-shaped and streaky, some rich orchard's pride ;
A heavy bunch of grapes on either side,
Across each arm, tugged downward by the load,
Their glossy leaves blown off by wandering airs ;
A yellow-rinded melon in thy right,
In thy left hand a sickle caught the light,
Keen as the moon which glowed
Along the fields of night :
One moment seen, the shadowy masque was flown,
And I was left, as now, to meditate alone.
With this fragmentary extract from Stoddard's picturesque poem we
may step beyond the jocund season of the harvest into that charming
280 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSON
second summer which is thus delightfully pictured in Longfellow's
" Evangeline" :
That beautiful season,
. . . the Summer of All Saints !
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; and
the landscape
Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.
Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart-
of the ocean
Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in harmony
blended.
. . . And the great sun
Looked with eyes of love through the golden vapors
around him ;
While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow,
Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of
the forest
Flushed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with
mantles and jewels.
Winter, with its snows, comes to us in the thoughtful imagery of
Emerson, who is a poet in whatever form he writes, whether prose or
verse, and whose imagination is unsurpassed in depth and richness by
that of any other American writer.
THE SNOW-STORM.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
GOULD] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 281
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Eound every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs ; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night- work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
In a more sprightly vein is Hannah P. Gould's tribute of verse to
THE FROST.
The Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,
And he said, " Now I shall be out of sight ;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.
I will not go like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy as they !"
24*
282 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GOULD
Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest,
He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.
He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over each pane like a fairy crept :
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the moon were seen
Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees,
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees,
There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and theso
All pictured in silver sheen !
But he did one thing that was hardly fair ;
He peeped in the cupboard, and, finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,
" Now, just to set them a-thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he;
" This costly pitcher I'll burst in three,
And the glass of water they've left for me
Shall 'tcUckr to tell them I'm drinking."
As fit conclusion to this group of poems of the seasons we append
"The Closing Year" of George D. Prentice, with its thoughtful but
sombre review of the record of Time in its pitiless onward march :
'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling, 'tis the knell
PRENTICE] THE REVOLVING SEASONS. 283
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past ; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh ; and on yon cloud
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand,
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with its aged locks, and breathe,
In mournful cadences that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.
'Tis a time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard's voice of Time
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope and Joy and Love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness.
The year
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow.
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
284 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRENTICB
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.
It passed o'er
The battle-plain where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of mid-day, and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ;
Yet ere it melted in the vipwless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Eemorseless Time !
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe I what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity ? On, still on,
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag, but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinions.
Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
AUEUBON] THE MOCKING-BIRD. 285
Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles
Spring blazing from, the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations ; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiads, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void : yet Time,
Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Park, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
THE MOCKING-BIRD.
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.
[The following attractive description of the ways and wiles of tne
mocking-bird, and the subsequent short sketch of " The "Wood-
Thrush," are from the "American Ornithological Biography" of Au-
dubon, a work full of correct and admirably vivid pictures of bird-life
in the New World. The great work on which Audubon's fame rests
is his " Birds of America," the fruit of many years of solitary explo
ration of the American forests, whose feathered tenants were studied
and drawn from life in their native haunts. This work, containing
life-sized and life-colored portraits of over one thousand American
286 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [AUDUBON
birds, is, in the words of Cuvier, " the most magnificent monument
which art has yet erected to nature." In addition to the works men
tioned, his " Biography of American Quadrupeds" has all the vital
interest of his "Ornithological Biography." Audubon was born in
Louisiana in 1781. He died on the Hudson, near New York, in 1851.]
IT is where the great magnolia shoots up its majestic
trunk, crowned with evergreen leaves, and decorated with
a thousand beautiful flowers, that perfume the air around ;
where the forests and fields are adorned with blossoms of
every hue ; where the golden orange ornaments the gar
dens and groves ; where bignonias of various kinds inter
lace their climbing stems around the white-flowered Stu-
artia, and, mounting still bigber, cover tbe summits of tbe
lofty trees around, accompanied witb innumerable vines,
that bere and tbere festoon tbe dense foliage of tbe mag
nificent woods, lending to tbe vernal breeze a slight por
tion of tbe perfume of tbeir clustered flowers ; wbere a
genial warmtb seldom forsakes tbe atmosphere ; wbere
berries and fruits of all descriptions are met witb at every
step ; in a word, kind reader, it is wbere Nature seems to
bave paused, as sbe passed over tbe earth, and, opening
ber stores, to bave strewed witb unsparing band tbe di
versified seeds from wbicb bave sprung all tbe beautiful
and splendid forms wbicb I should in vain attempt to
describe, tbat tbe mocking-bird sbould bave fixed its abode,
tbere only tbat its wondrous song sbould be beard.
But wbere is tbat favored land? It is in tbat great
continent to wbose distant shores Europe bas sent forth
ber adventurous sons, to wrest for themselves a habita
tion from tbe wild inhabitants of tbe forest, and to convert
the neglected soil into fields of exuberant fertility. It is,
reader, in Louisiana tbat tbese bounties of nature are in
tbe greatest perfection. It is tbere tbat you sbould listen
to tbe love-song of tbe mocking-bird, as I at this moment
AUDUBON] THE MOCKING-BIRD. 287
do. See how he flies round his mate, with motions as
light as those of the butterfly ! His tail is widely ex
panded, he mounts in the air to a small distance, describes
a circle, and, again alighting, approaches his beloved one,
his eyes gleaming with delight, for she has already prom
ised to be his and his only. His beautiful wings are
gently raised, he bows to his love, and, again bouncing
upwards, opens his bill and pours forth his melody, full
of exultation at the conquest which he has made.
They are not the soft sounds of the flute or of the haut
boy that I hear, but the sweeter notes of Nature's own
music. The mellowness of the song, the varied modula
tions and gradations, the extent of its compass, the great
brilliancy of execution, are unrivalled. There is probably
no bird in the world that possesses all the musical quali
fications of this king of song, who has derived all from
Nature's self. Yes, reader, all !
JSTo sooner has he again alighted, and the conjugal con
tract has been sealed, than, as if his breast was about to
be rent with delight, he again pours forth his notes with
more softness and richness than before. He now soars
"higher, glancing around with a vigilant eye to assure him
self that none has witnessed his bliss. "When these love-
scenes, visible only to the ardent lover of nature, are over,
he dances through the air, full of animation and delight,
and, as if to convince his lovely mate that to enrich her
hopes he has much more love in store, he that moment
begins anew and imitates all the notes which Nature has
imparted to the other songsters of the grove.
For a while, each long day and pleasant night are thus
spent ; but at a peculiar note of the female- he ceases his
song and attends to her wishes. A nest is to be prepared,
and the choice of a place in which to lay it is to become a
matter of mutual consideration. The orange, the fig, the
288 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
pear-tree of the gardens are inspected; the thick brier-
patches are also visited. They appear all so well suited
for the purpose in view, and so well does the bird know
that man is not his most dangerous enemy, that instead
of retiring from him they at length fix their abode in his
vicinity, perhaps in the nearest tree to his window. Dried
twigs, leaves, grasses, cotton, flax, and other substances
are picked up, carried to a forked branch, and there ar
ranged. The female has laid an egg, and the male re
doubles his caresses. Five eggs are deposited in due time,
when the male, having little more to do than to sing his
mate to repose, attunes his pipe anew. Every now and
then he spies an insect on the ground, the taste of which
he is sure will please his beloved one. He drops upon it,
takes it in his bill, beats it against the earth, and flies to
the nest to feed and receive the warm thanks of his de
voted female.
When a fortnight has elapsed, the young brood demand
all their care and attention. No cat, no vile snake, no
dreaded hawk, is likely to visit their habitation. Indeed,
the inmates of the next house have by this time become
quite attached to the lovely pair of mocking-birds and
take pleasure in contributing to their safety. The dew
berries from the fields, and many kinds of fruit from the
gardens, mixed with insects, supply the young as well as
the parents with food. The brood is soon seen emerging
from the nest, and in another fortnight, being now able to
fly with vigor and to provide for themselves, they leave
the parent birds, as many other species do.
THE WOOD-THRUSH.
This bird is my greatest favorite of the feathered tribes
of the woods. To it I owe much. How often has it re-
AUDUBON] THE WOOD-THRUSH. 289
vived my drooping spirits, when I have listened to its
wild notes in the forest, after passing a restless night in
my slender shed, so feebly secured against the violence of
the storm as to show me the futility of my best efforts to
rekindle my little fire, whose uncertain and vacillating-
light had gradually died away under the destructive
weight of the dense torrents of rain that seemed to in
volve the heavens and the earth in one mass of fearful
murkiness, save when the red streaks of the flashing
thunderbolt burst on the dazzled eye, and, glancing along
the huge trunk of the stateliest and noblest tree in my
immediate neighborhood, were instantly followed by an
uproar of crackling, crashing, and deafening sounds, roll
ing their volumes in tumultuous eddies far and near, as if
to silence the very breathings of the unformed thought !
How often, after such a night, when far from my dear
home and deprived of the presence of those nearest to
my heart, wearied, hungry, drenched, and so lonely and
desolate as almost to question myself why I was thus
situated, when I have seen the fruits of my labors on the
eve of being destroyed, as the water, collected into a
stream, rushed through my little camp and forced me to
stand erect, shivering in a cold fit like that of a severe
ague, when I have been obliged to wait with the patience
of a martyr for the return of day, trying in vain to de
stroy the tormenting mosquitoes, silently counting over
the years of my youth, doubting, perhaps, if ever again I
should return to my home and embrace my family ! how
often, as the first glimpses of morning gleamed doubtfully
amongst the dusky masses of the forest-trees, has there
come upon my ear, thrilling along the sensitive cords
which connect that organ with the heart, the delightful
music of this harbinger of day ! and how fervently, on
such occasions, have I blessed the Being who formed the
N t 25
290 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [AUDUBON
wood-thrush, and placed it in those solitary forests, as
if to console me amidst my privations, to cheer my de
pressed mind, and to make me feel, as I did, that never
ought man to despair, whatever may be his situation, as
he can never be certain that aid and deliverance are not
at hand.
The wood-thrush seldom commits a mistake after such
a storm as I have attempted to describe ; for no sooner
are its sweet notes heard than the heavens gradually
clear, the bright, refracted light rises in gladdening rays
from beneath the distant horizon, the effulgent beams in
crease in their intensity, and the great orb of day at
length bursts on the sight. The gray vapor that floats
along the ground is quickly dissipated, the world smiles
at the happy change, and the woods are soon heard to
echo the joyous thanks of their many songsters. At that
moment all fears vanish, giving place to an inspiriting
hope. The hunter prepares to leave his camp. He
listens to the wood-thrush, while he thinks of the course
which he ought to pursue, and as the bird approaches to
peep at him, and learn somewhat of his intentions, he raises
his mind towards the Supreme Disposer of events. Sel
dom, indeed, have I heard the song of this thrush without-
feeling all that tranquillity of mind to which the secluded
situation in which it delights is so favorable. The thick
est and darkest woods always appear to please it best.
The borders of murmuring streamlets, overshadowed by
the dense foliage of the lofty trees growing on the ger tie
declivities, amidst which the sunbeams seldom penetrate,
are its favorite resorts. There it is that the musical
powers of this hermit of the woods must be heard to be
fully appreciated and enjoyed.
EMERSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 291
QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY.
R. W. EMERSON.
[Anything like a just biographical notice of Kalph Waldo Emerson
is far beyond the space at our command. "We can but say that he was
born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1803, that his life's residence was in
Concord, near Boston, where he died in 1882, and that he was de
scended from a family of the first thinkers in New England, cultured
through many generations. His biographical record is that of a
thinker. His life presents few interesting incidents, but many in
teresting thoughts. It was passed as a Unitarian minister and as a
lecturer, in which latter field his fine oratorical powers and the origi
nality and depth of his thought gained him a host of admirers among
the cultured classes of the United States and Europe. His published
1 works are but collections of his orations, their original adaptation for
effect upon the lecture-platform rendering them less suitable for ease
of reading than they otherwise might have been. Their principal
defects are an overfulness of thought and a certain lack of consecu-
tiveness. They are made up of short, sparkling sentences, many of
which are complete wholes in themselves, and are' very likely to be
come constituent parts of the proverbial philosophy of the future.
But in reading these essays we frequently seem to be stepping from
rung to rung of a ladder instead of following a continuous highway.
Like all great thinkers, Emerson leaps to conclusions, and neglects to
supply those intermediate steps of reasoning which many of his
readers need. As Holmes says, " Emerson's style is epigrammatic, in
cisive, authoritative, sometimes quaint, never obscure, except when he
is handling nebulous subjects. His paragraphs are full of brittle
sentences that break apart and are independent units, like the frag
ments of a coral colony. His imagery is frequently daring, leaping
from the concrete to the abstract, from the special to the general and
universal, and vice versa, with a bound that is like a flight."
He is looked upon as a philosopher and is classed with the mystics,
though neither of these views of his position in literature seems quite
correct. He is a philosophical thinker rather than a philosopher.
He beholds all things from a stand-point above that of the immediately
practical, looks through every fact to its ultimate, and from the im
perfections of the present deduces the perfection of the coming time.
292 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSOX
But these deeply philosophic views are woven into no combined sys
tem of philosophy. Each stands alone, with no necessary dependence
upon the others, and if Emerson's mind contained a broad and con
secutive ideal scheme of the universe he failed to put it upon record.
Philosophically he seems to stand between the German and the Eng
lish school, that is, between the purely ideal and the materialistic.
He is deeply interested in the practical affairs of life, enthusiastic for
reform in its every aspect ; yet he is ever a teacher, never an actor, and
his mental grasp reaches through all evil to its core of good. For this
reason Emerson is innately cheerful. He never despairs of the regen
eration of the world, but is so sure of it that his philosophy is ever a
decided optimism. He reminds us of an observer who stands at a
remote distance and sees past, present, and future in one sweeping
glance, and to whom existing evils vanish in the splendor of the ulti
mate good. His mysticism is never more than partial. He is too
deeply interested in facts to become a confirmed mystic. There is (
nothing now going on or that has gone on in the world that escapes
the vision of his far-seeing eyes, and, in the words of the proverb,
" all is fish that comes to his net." Yet all facts in his hands become
enveloped in a net-work of idealism, and his mind, like a veritabfe
philosopher's stone, has translated the hard, work-a-day world into the
pure gold of optimistic thought. We have dwelt at such length upon
our biographical notice of Emerson from the highly-important position
which he occupies in literature. He is among the first thinkers, if not
decidedly the first, not only of America, but of the nineteenth century,
and, despite his limitations and imperfections as a literary artist, this
seems likely to become the verdict of the future. The taste of the
world in thought is growing steadily towards idealism and analysis,
and Emerson may yet be looked upon as the Shakespeare of modern
philosophy. We have said nothing of his poems. It will suffice to
state that they are rough diamonds, weak in versification, but rich in
thought. His works are all poems in grain, the cast of his mind
being essentially imaginative and poetic and almost utterly devoid of
the prosaic element.]
WE prize books, and they prize them most who are
themselves wise. Our debt to tradition through reading
and conversation is so massive, our protest or private
addition so rare and insignificant, and this commonly on
EMERSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 293
the ground of other reading or hearing, that, in a large
sense, one would s.ay there is no pure originality. All
minds .quote. Old and new make the warp and woof
of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist
of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by
delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and
proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws ;
nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs, by
imitation. The Patent Office Commissioner knows that
all machines in use have been invented and reinvented
over and over ; that the mariner's compass, the boat, the
pendulum, glass, movable types, the kaleidoscope, the
railway, the power-loom, etc., have been many times
found and lost, from Egypt, China, and Pompeii down ;
and if we have arts which Rome wanted, so also Rome
had arts which we have lost ; that the invention of yes^
terday of making wood indestructible by means of vapor
of coal-oil or paraffine was suggested by the Egyptian
method which has preserved its mummy-cases four thou
sand years.
The highest statement of new philosophy complacently
caps itself with some prophetic maxim from the oldest
learning. There is something mortifying in this perpetual
circle. This extreme economy argues a very small capital
of invention. The stream of affection flows broad and
strong ; the practical activity is a river of supply ; but
the dearth of design accuses the penury of intellect. How
few thoughts ! In a hundred years, millions of men and
not a hundred lines of poetry, not a theory of philosophy
that offers a solution of the great problems, not an art of
education that fulfils the conditions. In this delay and
vacancy of thought we must make the best amends we
can by seeking the wisdom of others to fill the time.
If we confine ourselves to literature, 'tis easy to see
25*
294 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSON
that the debt is immense to past thought. None escape
it. The originals are not original. There is imitation,
model, and suggestion to the very archangels, if we knew
their history. The first book tyrannizes over the second.
Read Tasso, and you think of Virgil ; read Virgil, and you
think of Homer ; and Milton forces you to reflect how
narrow are the limits of human invention. The " Paradise
Lost" had never existed but for these precursors ; and if
we find in India or Arabia a book out of our horizon of
thought and tradition, we are soon taught by new re
searches in its native country to discover its foregoers and
its latent, but real, connection with our own Bibles.
Read in Plato, and you shall find Christian dogmas, and
not only so, but stumble on our evangelical phrases.
Hegel pre-exists in Proclus, and, long before, in Heraclitus
and Parmenides. Whoso knows Plutarch, Lucian, Rabe
lais, Montaigne, and Bayle will have a key to many sup
posed originalities. Rabelais is the source of many a
proverb, story, and jest, derived from him into all modern
languages ; and if we knew Rabelais's reading we should
see the rill of the Rabelais river. Swedenborg, Behmen,
Spinoza, will appear original to uninstructed and to
thoughtless persons: their originality will disappear to
such as are either well read or thoughtful ; for scholars
will recognize their dogmas as reappearing in men of a
similar intellectual elevation throughout history. Albert,
the "wonderful doctor," St. Buonaventura, the "seraphic
doctor," Thomas Aquinas, the "angelic doctor" of the
thirteenth century, whose books made the sufficient cul
ture of these ages, Dante absorbed, and he survives for
us. " Renard the Fox," a German poem of the thirteenth
century, was long supposed to be the original work, until
Grimm found fragments of another original a century older.
M. Le Grand showed that in the old Fabliaux were the
.EMERSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 295
originals of the tales of Moliere, La Fontaine, Boccaccio,
and of Voltaire.
Mythology is no man's work ; but, what we daily ob
serve in regard to the bon-mots that circulate in society,
that every talker helps a story in repeating it, until, at
last, from the slenderest filament of a fact a good fable is
constructed, the same growth befalls mythology: the
legend is tossed from believer to poet, from poet to be
liever, everybody adding a grace, or dropping a fault, or
Bounding the form, until it gets an ideal truth. . . .
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first
quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks
of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that
line will be quoted east and west. Then there are great
ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly. When
Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor
replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals.
He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
And we must thank Karl Ottfried Miiller for the just re
mark, " Poesy, drawing within its circle all that is glori
ous and inspiring, gave itself but little concern as to where
its flowers originally grew." So Voltaire usually imitated,
but with such superiority that Dubuc said, "He is like
the false Amphitryon ; although the stranger, it is always
he who has the air of being master of the house." Words
worth, as soon as he heard a good thing, caught it up,
meditated upon it, and very soon reproduced it in his
conversation and writing. If De Quincey said, " That is
what I told you," he replied, " No : that is mine, mine,
and not yours." On the whole, we like the valor of it.
'Tis on Marmontel's principle, " I pounce on what is mine,
wherever I find it ;" and on Bacon's broader rule, "I take
all knowledge to be my province." It betrays the con
sciousness that truth is the property of no individual, but
296 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSON
is tbe treasure of all men. And inasmuch as any writer
has ascended to a just view of man's condition, he has
adopted this tone. In so far as the receiver's aim is on
life, and not on literature, will be his indifference to the
source. The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less im
ports the question of authorship. It never troubles the
simple seeker from whom he derived such or such a senti
ment. Whoever expresses to us a just thought makes
ridiculous the pains of the critic who should tell him
where such a word had been said before. " It is no more
according to Plato than according to me." Truth is
always present : it only needs to lift the iron lids of the
mind's eye to read its oracles. But the moment there is
the purpose of display, the fraud is exposed. In fact, it is
as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others, as it is
to invent. Always some steep transition, some sudden
alteration of temperature, or of point of view, betrays the
foreign interpolation.
There is, besides, a new charm in such intellectual works
as, passing through long time, have had a multitude of
authors and improvers. We admire that poetry which no
man wrote, no poet less than the genius of humanity
itself, which is to be read in a mythology, in the effect
of a fixed or national style of pictures, of sculptures, or
drama, or cities, or sciences, on us. Such a poem also is
language. Every word in the language has once been
used happily. The ear, caught by that felicity, retains it,
and it is used again and again, as if the charm belonged
to the word, and not to the life of thought which so en
forced it. These profane uses, of course, kill it, and it is
avoided. But a quick wit can at any time reinforce it,
and it comes into vogue again. Then people quote so
differently : one finding only what is gaudy and popular ;
another, the heart of the author, the report of his select
EMERSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 297
and happiest hour ; and the reader sometimes giving more
to the citation than he owes to it. Most of the classical
citations you shall hear or read in the current journals or
speeches were not drawn from the originals, but from
previous quotations in English books ; and you can easily
pronounce, from the use and relevancy of the sentence,
whether it had not done duty many times before, whether
your jewel was got from the mine or from an auctioneer.
We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he
selects as by what he originates. "We read the quotation
with his eyes, and find a new and fervent sense ; as a pas
sage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new
interest from the rendering. As the journals say, " the
italics are ours." The profit of books is according to the
sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or
passion sleeps as in a mine until an equal mind and heart
finds and publishes it. The passages of Shakespeare that
we most prize were never quoted until within this century ;
and Milton's prose, and Burke, even, have their best fame
within it. Every one, too, remembers his friends by their
favorite poetry or other reading.
Observe also that a writer appears to more advantage
in the pages of another book than in his own. In his own
he waits as a candidate for your approbation ; in another's
he is a law-giver.
Then another's thoughts have a certain advantage with
us simply because they are another's. There is an illusion
in a new phrase. A man hears a fine sentence out of
Swedenborg, and wonders at the wisdom, and is very
merry at heart that he has now got so fine a thing.
Translate it out of the new words into his own usual
phrase, and he will wonder again at his own simplicity,
such tricks do fine words play with us. . . .
Swedenborg threw a formidable theory into the world,
298 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSON
that every soul existed in a society of souls, from which
all its thoughts passed into it, as the blood of the mother
circulates in her unborn child ; and he noticed that, when
in his bed, alternately sleeping and waking, sleeping,
he was surrounded by persons disputing and offering
opinions on the one side and on the other side of a propo
sition ; waking, the like suggestions occurred for and
against the proposition as his own thoughts ; sleeping
again, he saw and heard the speakers as before : and this
as often as he slept or waked. And if we expand the
image, does it not look as if we men were thinking and
talking out of an enormous antiquity, as if we stood, not
in a coterie of prompters that filled a sitting-room, but in
a circle of intelligences that reached through all thinkers,
poets, inventors, and wits, men and women, English, Ger
man, Celt, Aryan, Ninevite, Copt, back to the first ge
ometer, bard, mason, carpenter, planter, shepherd, back
to the first negro, who, with more health or better per
ception, gave a shriller sound or name for the thing he saw
and dealt with? Our benefactors are as many as the
children who invented speech, word by word. Language
is a city to the building of which every human being
brought a stone ; yet he is no more to be credited with
the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the
coral reef which is the basis of the continent. Tldvra fet :
all things are in flux. It is inevitable that you are in
debted to the past. You are fed and formed by it. The
old forest is decomposed for the composition of the new
forest. The old animals have given their bodies to the
earth to furnish through chemistry the forming race, and
every individual is only a momentary fixation of what
was yesterday another's, is to-day his, and will belong to
a third to-morrow. So it is in thought. Our knowledge
is the 'amassed thought and experience of innumerable
EMEKSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 299
minds : our language, our science, our religion, our opin
ions, our fancies, we inherited. Our country, customs,
laws, our ambitions, and our notions of fit and fair, all
these we never made ; we found them ready-made ; we but
quote them. Goethe frankly said, " What would remain
to me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to
genius ? Every one of my writings has been furnished to
me by a thousand different persons, a thousand things :
wise and foolish have brought me, without suspecting it,
the offering of their thoughts, faculties, and experience.
My work is an aggregation of beings taken from the
whole of nature : it bears the name of Goethe."
But there remains the indefeasible persistency of the
individual to be himself. One leaf, one blade of grass, one
meridian, does not resemble another. Every mind is dif
ferent ; and the more it is unfolded, the more pronounced
is that difference. He must draw the elements into him
for food, and, if they be granite and silex, will prefer
them cooked by sun and rain, by time and art, to his
hand. But, however received, these elements pass into
the substance of his constitution, will be assimilated, and
tend always to form, not a partisan, but a possessor of
truth. To all that can be said of the preponderance of
the Past, the single word Genius is a sufficient reply.
The divine resides in the new. The divine never quotes,
but is, and creates. The profound apprehension of the
Present is Genius, which makes the Past forgotten.
Genius believes its faintest presentiment against the tes
timony of all history ; for it knows that facts are not
ultimates, but that a state of mind is the ancestor of
everything. And what is Originality? It is being, being
one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.
Genius is, in the first instance, sensibility, the capacity of
receiving just impressions from the external world, and
300 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EMERSON
the power of co-ordinating these after the laws of thought.
It implies Will, or original force, for their right distribu
tion and expression. If to this the sentiment of piety be
added, if the thinker feels that the thought most strictly
his own is not his own, and recognizes the perpetual sug
gestion of the Supreme Intellect, the oldest thoughts be
come new and fertile whilst he speaks them.
Originals never lose their value. There is always in
them a style and weight of speech which the immanence
of the oracle bestowed, and which cannot be counterfeited.
Hence the permanence of the high poets. Plato, Cicero,
and Plutarch cite the poets in the manner in which Scrip
ture is quoted in our churches. A phrase or a single word
is adduced, with honoring emphasis, from Pindar, Hesiod,
or Euripides, as precluding all argument, because thus had
they said : importing that the bard spoke not his own, but
the words of some god. True poets have always ascended
to this lofty platform and met this expectation. Shake
speare, Milton, Wordsworth, were very conscious of their
responsibilities. When a man thinks happily, he finds no
foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous
thought is irrespective of all else. Pindar uses this
haughty defiance, as if it were impossible to find his
sources : " There are many swift darts within my quiver,
which have a voice for those with understanding ; but to
the crowd they need interpreters. He is gifted with
genius who knoweth much by natural talent."
Our pleasure in seeing each mind take the subject to
which it has a proper right is seen in mere fitness in time.
He that cornea second must needs quote him that comes
first. The earliest describers of savage life, as Captain
Cook's account of the Society Islands, or Alexander
Henry's travels among our Indian tribes, have a charm
of truth and just point of view. Landsmen and sailors
EMERSON] QUOTATION AND ORIGINALITY. 301
freshly come from the most civilized countries, and with
no false expectation, no sentimentality yet about wild life,
healthily receive and report what they saw, seeing what
they must, and using no choice ; and no man suspects the
superior merit of the description, until Chateaubriand, or
Moore, or Campbell, or Byron, or the artists, arrive, and
mix so much art with their picture that the incomparable
advantage of the first narrative appears. For the same
reason we dislike that the poet should choose an antique
or far-fetched subject for his muse, as if he avowed want
of insight. The great deal always with the nearest.
Only as braveries of too prodigal power can we pardon it
when the life of genius is so redundant that out of petu-
lance it flings its fire into some old mummy, and, lo ! it
walks and blushes again here in the street.
We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the
moment has the supreme claim. The Past is for us ; but
the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subor
dination to the Present. Only an inventor knows how to
borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. We
must not tamper with the organic motion of the soul. 'Tis
certain that thought has its own proper motion, and the
hints which flash from it, the words overheard at un
awares by the free mind, are trustworthy and fertile
when obeyed and not perverted to low and selfish account.
This vast memory is only raw material. The divine gift
is ever the instant life, which receives and uses and
creates, and can well bury the old in the omnipotency
with which Nature decomposes all her harvest fc r recom-
position.
302 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPKK
LONG TOM COFFIN.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
[Of Cooper's sea- tales " The Pilot" is acknowledged by all readers
as the best, and of his sea-characters there are none that equal in origi
nality and truth to life Long Tom Coffin, the giant cockswain. We
have selected from this work the passage in which Tom's character and
peculiarities are most strikingly displayed, and in which the simple-
minded but cool and ready seaman disconcerts the treacherous plan
which has been laid to entrap him. " Mr. Cooper," as Griswold says,
"has the faculty of giving to his pictures an astonishing reality.
They are not mere transcripts of nature, but actual creations, embody
ing the very spirit of intelligent and genial experience and observa
tion." James Fenimore Cooper, the only one of our early novelists
whose works are yet popular, and who is alike able in the widely-
separate fields of ocean and forest life, was born at Burlington, New
Jersey, in 1789. He died in 1851. In addition to his long list of
novels, he is the author of a " Naval History of the United States,"
and of " The Lives of American Naval Officers."]
TOM stood with infinite composure, leaning on his hai-
poon, and surveying, with a countenance where wonder
was singularly blended with contempt, the furniture and
arrangements of an apartment that was far more splendid
than any he had before seen. In the mean time, Borrough-
cliffe entirely disregarded the private communications that
passed between his host and Dillon, which gradually be
came more deeply interesting, and finally drew them to a
distant corner of the apartment, but, taking a most undue
advantage of the absence of the gentleman who had so
lately been his boon companion, he swallowed c ne pota
tion after another, as if a double duty had devolved on
him in consequence of the desertion of the veteran.
"Whenever his eye did wander from the ruby tints of his
glas, it was to survey with unrepressed admiration the
COOPER] LONG TOM COFFIN. 303
inches of the cockswain, about whose stature and frame
there were numberless excellent points to attract the gaze
of a recruiting officer. From this double pleasure the
captain was, however, at last summoned to participate in
the councils of his friends.
Dillon was spared the disagreeable duty of repeating
the artful tale he had found it necessary to palm on the
colonel, by the ardor of the veteran himself, who executed
the task in a manner that gave to the treachery of his
kinsman every appearance of a justifiable artifice, and of
unshaken zeal in the cause of his prince. In substance,
Tom was to be detained as a prisoner, and the party of
Barnstable were to be entrapped, and of course to share a
similar fate. The sunken eye of Dillon cowered before
the steady gaze which Borroughcliffe fastened on him, as
the latter listened to the plaudits the colonel lavished on
his cousin's ingenuity ; but the hesitation that lingered in
the soldier's manner vanished when he turned to examine
their unsuspecting prisoner, who was continuing his sur
vey of the apartment, while he innocently imagined the
consultations he witnessed were merely the proper and
preparatory steps to his admission into the presence of
Mr. Griffith.
" Drill," said Borroughcliffe, aloud, " advance .and re
ceive your orders." The cockswain turne'd quickly at this
sudden mandate, and, for the first time, perceived that
he had been followed into the gallery by the orderly and
two files of the recruits, armed. " Take this man to the
guard-room, and feed him, and see that he dies not of
thirst."
There was nothing alarming in this order; and Tom
was following the soldiers, in obedience to a gesture from
their captain, when their steps were arrested in the gal
lery by the cry of " Halt !"
304 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPER
" On recollection, Drill," said Borroughcliffe, in a tone
from which all dictatorial sounds were banished, " show
the gentleman into my own room, and see him properly
supplied."
The orderly gave such an intimation of his comprehend
ing the meaning of his officer, as the latter was accustomed
to receive, when Borroughcliffe returned to his bottle, and
the cockswain followed his guide with an alacrity and
good-will that were not a little increased by the repeated
mention of the cheer that awaited him.
Luckily for the impatience of Tom, the quarters of the
captain were at hand, and the promised entertainment by
no means slow in making its appearance. The former was
an apartment that opened from a lesser gallery, which
communicated with the principal passage Already men
tioned ; and the latter was a bountiful but ungarnished
supply of that staple of the British isles, called roast beef;
of which the kitchen of Colonel Howard was never with
out a due and royal provision. The sergeant, who cer
tainly understood one of the signs of his captain to imply
an attack on the citadel of the cockswain's brain, mingled,
with his own hands, a potation that he styled a rummer
of grog, and which he thought would have felled the ani
mal itself that Tom was so diligently masticating, had it
been alive and in its vigor. Every calculation that was
made on the infirmity of the cockswain's intellect under
the stimulus of Jamaica was, however, futile. He swal
lowed glass after glass with prodigious relish, but, at the
same time, with immovable steadiness ; and the eyes of
the sergeant, who felt it incumbent to do honor to his own
cheer, were already glistening in his head, when, happily
for the credit of his heart, a tap at the door announced
the presence of his captain, and relieved him from the im
pending disgrace of being drunk blind by a recruit.
COOPER] LONG TOM COFFIN. 305
As Borroughcliffe entered the apartment, he commanded
his orderly to retire, adding,
"Mr. Dillon will give you instructions, which you are
implicitly to obey."
Drill, who had sense enough remaining to apprehend
the displeasure of his officer should the latter discover
his condition, quickened his departure, and the cockswain
soon found himself alone with the captain. The vigor of
Tom's attacks on the remnant of the sirloin was now much
abated, leaving in its stead that placid quiet which is apt
to linger about the palate long after the cravings of the ap
petite have been appeased. He had seated himself on one
of the trunks of Borroughcliffe, utterly disdaining the use
of a chair, and, with the trencher in his lap, was using
his own jack-knife on the dilapidated fragment of the ox,
with something of that nicety with which the female
ghoul of the Arabian Tales might be supposed to pick her
rice with the point of her bodkin. The captain drew a
seat nigh the cockswain ; and with a familiarity and kind
ness infinitely condescending, when the difference in their
several conditions is considered, he commenced the follow
ing dialogue :
" I hope you have found your entertainment to your
Hiving, Mr. a a I must own my ignorance of your
name."
" Tom," said the cockswain, keeping his eyes roaming
over the contents of the trencher ; " commonly called Long
Tom by my shipmates."
" You have sailed with discreet men, and able naviga
tors, it will seem, as they understood longitude so well,"
rejoined the captain; "but you have a patronymic I
would say another name ?"
" Coffin," returned the cockswain. " I'm called Tom,
when there is any hurry, such as letting go the haulyards,
306 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPER
or a sheet ; Long Tom, when they want to get to windward
of an old seaman, by fair weather; and Long Tom Coffin,
when they wish to hail me, so that none of my cousins
of the same name about the islands shall answer ; for I
believe the best man among them can't measure much
over a fathom, taking him from his headworks to his
heel."
" You are a most deserving fellow," cried Borrough cliff e,
" and it is painful to think to what a fate the treachery
of Mr. Dillon has consigned you."
The suspicions of Tom, if he ever entertained any, were
lulled to rest too effectually by the kindness he had re
ceived, to be awakened by this equivocal lament : he there
fore, after renewing his intimacy with the rummer, con
tented himself by saying, with a satisfied simplicity,
" I am consigned to no one. carrying no cargo but this
Mr. Dillon, who is to give me Mr. Griffith in exchange, or
go back to the Ariel himself, as my prisoner."
" Ah, my good friend, I fear you will find, when the
time comes to make this exchange, that he will refuse to
do either."
" But I'll be d d if he don't do one of them ! my orders
are to see it done, and back he goes, or Mr. Griffith, who
is as good a seaman, for his years, as ever trod a deck,
slips his cable from this here anchorage."
Borroughcliffe affected to eye his companion with great
commiseration, an exhibition of compassion that was,
however, completely lost on the cockswain, whose nerves
were strung to their happiest tension by his repeated liba
tions, while his wit was, if anything, quickened by the
same cause, though his own want of guile rendered him
slow to comprehend its existence in others. Perceiving it
necessary to speak plainly, the captain renewed the attack
in a more direct manner:
COOPER] LONG TOM COFFIN. 307
" I am sorry to say that you will not be permitted to
return to the Ariel ; and that your commander, Mr. Barn-
stable, will be a prisoner within the hour ; and, in fact,
that your schooner will be taken before the morning
breaks."
" Who'll take her ?" asked the cockswain, with a grim
smile, on whose feelings, however, this combination of
threatened calamities was beginning to make some im
pression.
" You must remember that she lies immediately under
the heavy guns of a battery that can sink her in a few
minutes ; an express has already been sent to acquaint the
commander of the work with the Ariel's true character;
and, as the wind has already begun to blow from the
ocean, her escape is impossible."
The truth, together with its portentous consequences,
now began to glare across the faculties of the cockswain.
He remembered his own prognostics on the weather, and
the helpless situation of the schooner, deprived of more
than one-half her crew, and left to the keeping of a boy,
while her commander himself was on the eve of captivity.
The trencher fell from his lap to the floor, his head sunk
on his knees, his face was concealed between his broad
palms, and, in spite of every effort the old seaman could
make to conceal his emotion, he fairly groaned aloud.
For a moment the better feelings of Borroughcliffe pre
vailed ; and he paused as he witnessed this exhibition of
suffering in one whose head was already sprinkled with
the marks of time ; but his habits, and the impression left
by many years passed in collecting victims for the wars,
soon resumed their ascendency, and the recruiting officer
diligently addressed himself to an improvement of his
advantage :
" I pity from my heart the poor lads whom artifice or
BOS BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPER
mistaken notions of duty may have led astray, and who
will thus be taken in arms against their sovereign ; but,
as they are found in the very island of Britain, they must
be made examples to deter others. I fear that, unless they
can make their peace with government, they will all be
condemned to death."
" Let them make their peace with God, then : your gov
ernment can do but little to clear the log-account of a man
whose watch is up for this world."
" But by making their peace with those who have the
power, their lives maybe spared," said the captain, watch
ing with keen eyes the effect his words produced on the
cockswain.
" It matters but little, when a man hears a messenger
pipe his hammock down for the last time ; he keeps his
watch in another world, though he goes below in this.
But to see wood and iron, that has been put together after
such moulds as the Ariel's, go into strange hands, is a blow
that a man may remember long after the purser's books
have been squared against his name forever! I would
rather that twenty shot should strike my old carcass, than
one should hull the schooner that didn't pass out above
her water-line."
Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly, " I may be
mistaken, after all ; and, instead of putting any of you to
death, they may place you all on board the prison-ships,
where you may yet have a merry time of it these ten or
fifteen years to come."
"How's that, shipmate!" cried the cockswain, with a
start ; " a prison-ship, d'ye say ? you may tell them they
may save the expense of one man's rations by hanging
bim, if they please, and that is old Tom Coffin."
" There is no answering for their caprice : to-day they
may order a dozen of you to be shot for rebels ; to-morrow
COOPER] LONG TOM COFFIN. 309
they may choose to consider you as prisoners of war, and
send you to the hulks for a dozen years."
" Tell them, brother, that I'm a rebel, will ye ? and ye'll
tell 'em no lie, one that has fou't them since Manly 's
time, in Boston Bay, to this hour. I hope the boy will
blow her up ! it would be the death of poor Eichard Barn-
stable to see her in the hands of the English !"
" I know of one way," said Borroughcliffe, affecting to
muse, " and but one, that will certainly avert the prison-ship ;
for, on second thoughts, they will hardly put you to death."
" Name it, friend," cried the cockswain, rising from his
seat in evident perturbation, " and if it lies in the power
of man, it shall be done."
"Nay," said the captain, dropping his hand familiarly
on the shoulder of the other, who listened with the most
eager attention, " 'tis easily done, and no dreadful thing
in itself. You are used to gunpowder, and know its smell
from otto of roses ?"
" Ay, ay," cried the impatient old seaman, " I have had
it flashing under my nose by the hour ; what then ?"
" Why, then, what I have to propose will be nothing to
a man like you. You found the beef wholesome, and the
grog mellow ?"
" Ay, ay, all well enough ; but what is that to an old
sailor?" asked the cockswain, unconsciously grasping the
collar of Borroughcliffe's coat in his agitation ; " what
then ?"
The captain manifested no displeasure at this unex
pected familiarity, but smiled with suavity as he un
masked the battery from behind which he had hitherto
carried on his attacks.
" Why, then, you have only to serve your King as you
have before served the Congress ; and let me be the man
to show you your colors."
310 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPER
The cockswain stared at the speaker intently, but it
was evident he did not clearly comprehend the nature of
the proposition, and the captain pursued the subject :
" In plain English, enlist in my company, my fine fel
low, and your life and liberty are both safe."
Tom did not laugh aloud, for that was a burst of feeling
in which he was seldom known to indulge ; but every
feature of his weather-beaten visage contracted into an
expression of bitter, ironical contempt. Borroughcliffe
felt the iron fingers, that still grasped his collar, gradu
ally tightening about his throat like a vice ; and, as the
arm slowly contracted, his body was drawn, by a power
that it was in vain to resist, close to that of the cock
swain, who, when their faces were within a foot of each
other, gave vent to his emotions in words :
" A messmate, before a shipmate ; a shipmate, before a
stranger; a stranger, before a dog, but a dog, before a
soldier!"
As Tom concluded, his nervous arm was suddenly ex
tended to the utmost, the fingers relinquishing their grasp
at the same time; and, when Borroughcliffe recovered
his disordered faculties, he found himself in a distant
corner of the apartment, prostrate among a confused pile
of chairs, tables, and wearing-apparel. In endeavoring to
rise from this humble posture, the hand of the captain
fell on the hilt of his sword, which had been included in
the confused assemblage of articles produced by his over
throw.
" How now, scoundrel I" he cried, baring the glittering
weapon, and springing on his feet : " you must be taught
your distance, I perceive."
The cockswain seized the harpoon which leaned against
tlie wall, and dropped its .barbed extremity within a foot
of the breast of his assailant, with an expression of the
COOPER] LONG TOM COFFIN. 311
eye that denoted the danger of a nearer approach. The
captain, however, wanted not for courage, and, stung to
the quick by the insult he had received, he made a des
perate parry, and attempted to pass within the point of
the novel weapon of his adversary. The slight shock
was followed by a sweeping whirl of the harpoon, and
Borroughcliffe found himself without arms, completely at
the mercy of his foe. The bloody intentions of Tom van
ished with his success ; for, laying aside his weapon, he
advanced upon his antagonist and seized him with an
open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain dis
covered his incompetency to make any defence against
the strength of a man who managed him as if he had
been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was
passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced
sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratline-stuff from his
pockets, which appeared to contain as great a variety of
small cordage as a boatswain's store-room, and proceeded
to lash the arms of the conquered soldier to the posts of
his bed, with a coolness that had not been disturbed since
the commencement of hostilities, a silence that seemed
inflexible, and a dexterity that none but a seaman could
equal. When this part of his plan was executed, Tom
paused a moment, and gazed around him as if in quest of
something. The naked sword caught his eye, and, with
this weapon in his hand, he deliberately approached his
captive, whose alarm prevented his observing that the
cockswain had snapped the blade asunder from the
handle, and that he had already encircled the latter with
marline.
" For God's sake," exclaimed Borroughcliffe, " murder
me not in cold blood !"
The silver hilt entered his mouth as the words issued
from it, an4 the captive found, while the line was passed
312 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOPER
and repassed, in repeated involutions, across the back of
his neck, that he was in a condition to which he often
subjected his own men when unruly, and which is uni
versally called being " gagged." The cockswain now ap
peared to think himself entitled to all the privileges of a
conqueror ; for, taking the light in his hand, he commenced
a scrutiny into the nature and quality of the worldly
effects that lay at his mercy. Sundry articles, that be
longed to the equipments of a soldier, were examined,
and cast aside with great contempt, and divers gar
ments of plainer exterior were rejected as unsuited to the
frame of the victor. He, however, soon encountered two
articles, of a metal that is universally understood. But
uncertainty as to their use appeared greatly to embarrass
him. The circular prongs of these curiosities were ap
plied to either hand, to the wrists, and even to the nose,
and the little wheels at their opposite extremity were
turned and examined with as much curiosity and care as
a savage would expend on a watch, until the idea seemed
to cross the mind of the honest seaman that they formed
part of the useless trappings of a military man ; and he
cast them aside also, as utterly worthless. Borrough-
cliife, who watched every movement of his conqueror
with a good-humor that would have restored perfect har
mony between them could he but have expressed half
what he felt, witnessed the safety of a favorite pair of
spurs with much pleasure, though nearly suffocated by
the mirth that was unnaturally repressed. At length
the cockswain found a pair of handsomely-mounted pis
tols, a sort of weapon with which he seemed quite familiar.
They were loaded, and the knowledge of that fact ap
peared to remind Tom of the necessity of departing, by
bringing to his recollection the danger of his commander
and of the Ariel. He thrust the weapons into the canvas
THE VALUE OF EDUCATION. 313
belt that encircled bis body, and, grasping bis barpoon,
approach ed tbe bed, where Borroughcliffe was seated in
duress.
" Harkye, friend," said the cockswain, " may the Lord
forgive you, as I do, for wishing to make a soldier of a
seafaring man, and one who has followed the waters since
he was an hour old, and one who hopes to die off sound
ings, and to be buried in brine. I wish you no harm,
friend; but you'll have to keep a stopper on your conver
sation till such time as some of your messmates call in
this way, which I hope will be as soon after I get an offing
as may be."
With these amicable wishes, the cockswain departed,
leaving Borroughcliffe the light, and the undisturbed pos
session of his apartment, though not in the most easy
or the most enviable situation imaginable. The captain
heard the bolt of his lock turn, and the key rattle as the
cockswain withdrew it from the door, two precautionary
steps which clearly indicated that the vanquisher deemed
it prudent to secure his retreat, by insuring the detention
of the vanquished, for at least a time.
THE VALUE OF EDUCATION.
HORACE MANN.
[Of American reformers no name stands higher than that of the
writer of the present article. His fine abilities and thorough culture
were devoted solely to the good of humanity, without heed to the
personal advancement which they might have brought him. He
devoted himself particularly and persistently to the cause of educa
tion, and was remarkably successful in imparting his enthusiasm on
this subject to the many young men who passed under his care as
o 27
814 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MANN
President of Antioch College. It is doubtful if any man of his time
did as much as he for the general advancement of education. He was
born in 1796, and died in 1859.]
EDUCATION is to inspire the love of truth, as the su-
premest good, and to clarify the vision of the intellect to
discern it. We want a generation of men above deciding
great and eternal principles upon narrow and selfish
grounds. Our advanced state of civilization has evolved
many complicated questions respecting social duties. We
want a generation of men capable of taking up these com
plex questions, and of turning all sides of them towards
the sun, and of examining them by the white light of
reason, and not under the false colors which sophistry
may throw upon them. . . . Many may I not say most ?
of those great questions which make the present ago
boil and seethe like a caldron will never be settled until
we have a generation of men who were educated from
childhood to seek for truth and to revere justice. In the
middle of the last century, a great dispute arose among
astronomers respecting one of the planets. Some, in their
folly, commenced a war of words, and wrote hot books
against each other; others, in their wisdom, improved
their telescopes, and soon settled the question forever.
.Education should imitate the latter. If there are mo
mentous questions which, with present lights, we cannot
demonstrate and determine, let us rear up stronger and
purer and more impartial minds for the solemn arbitra
ment. Let it be for ever and ever inculcated that no
bodily wounds or maim, no deformity of person, nor
disease of brain or lungs or heart, can be so disabling
or so painful as error, and that he who heals us of our
prejudices is a thousandfold more our benefactor than he
who heals us of mortal maladies. Teach children, if you
will, to beware of the bite of a mad dog ; but teach them
MANN] THE VALUE OF EDUCATION. 315
still more faithfully that no horror of water is so fatal as
a horror of truth because it does not come from our leader
or our party. Then shall we have more men who will
think, as it were, under oath, not thousandth and ten-
thousandth transmitters of falsity, not copyists of copy
ists, and blind followers of blind followers ; but men who
can track the Deity in his ways of wisdom. A love of truth,
a love of truth, this is the pool of a moral Bethesda,
whose waters have miraculous healing. And though we
lament that we cannot bequeath to posterity this precious
boon, in its perfectness, as the greatest of all patrimonies,
yet let us rejoice that we can inspire a love of it, a rever
ence for it, a devotion to it, and thus circumscribe and
weaken whatever is wrong, and enlarge and strengthen
whatever is right, in that mixed inheritance of good and
evil which, in the order of Providence, one generation
transmits to another.
If we contemplate the subject with the eye of a states
man, what resources are there, in the whole domain of
nature, at all comparable to that vast influx of power
which comes into the world with every incoming genera
tion of children ? Each embryo life is more wonderful
than the globe it is sent to inhabit, and more glorious
than the sun upon which it first opens its eyes. Each one
of these millions, with a fitting education, is capable of
adding something to the sum of human happiness and of
subtracting something from the sum of human misery;
and many great souls amongst them there are, who may
become instruments for turning the course of nations, as
the rivers of water are turned. It is the duty of moral
and religious education to employ and administer all these
capacities of good for lofty purposes of human beneficence,
as a wise minister employs the resources of a great em
pire. " Suffer little children to come unto me," said tho
316 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MANN
Saviour, " and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven." And who shall dare say that philanthropy
and religion cannot make a better world than the present,
from beings like those in the kingdom of heaven !
Education must be universal. It is well when the wise
and the learned discover new truths ; but how much better
to diffuse the truths already discovered amongst the mul
titude ! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition
to human power ; and while a philosopher is discovering
one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the
people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the
duty of our government. With us, the qualification of
voters is as important as the qualification of governors,
and even comes first in the natural order. . . . The theory
of our government is, not that all men, however unfit,
shall be voters, but that every man, by the power of
reason and the sense of duty, shall become fit to be a
voter.
Education must bring the practice as nearly as possible
to the theory. As the children now are, so will the sov
ereigns soon be. How can we expect the fabric of the
government to stand, if vicious materials are daily
wrought into its framework? Education must prepare
our citizens to become municipal officers, intelligent jurors,
honest witnesses, legislators, or competent judges of legis
lation, in fine, to fill all the manifold relations of life.
For this end, it must be universal. The whole land must
be watered with the streams of knowledge. It is not
enough to have here and there a beautiful fountain play
ing in palace-gardens ; but let it come like the abundant
fatness of the clouds upon the thirsting earth.
Finally, education alone can conduct us to that enjoy
ment which is at once best in quality and infinite in
quantity. God has revealed to us not by ambiguous
MANN] THE VALUE OF EDUCATION. 317
signs, but by his mighty works ; not in the disputable
language of human invention, but by the solid substance
and reality of things what he holds to be valuable, and
what he regards as of little account. The latter he has
created sparingly, as though it were nothing worth ; while
the former he has poured forth with immeasurable munifi
cence. I suppose all the diamonds ever found could be
hid under a bushel. Their quantity is little because their
value is small. But iron ore, without which mankind
would always have been barbarians, without which they
would now relapse into barbarism, he has strewed pro
fusely all over the earth. Compare the scantiness of pearl
with the extent of forests and coal-fields. Of one, little
has been created, because it is worth little ; of the others,
much, because they are worth much. His fountains of
naphtha, how few, and myrrh and frankincense, how ex
iguous ! but who can fathom his reservoirs of water, or
measure the light and the air? This principle pervades
every realm of nature. Creation seems to have been pro
jected upon the plan of increasing the quantity in the
ratio of the intrinsic value.
Emphatically is this plan manifested when we come to
that part of creation we call ourselves. Enough of the
materials of worldly good has been created to answer this
great principle, that, up to the point of competence, up
to the point of independence and self-respect, few things
are more valuable than property ; beyond that point few
things are of less. And hence it is that all acquisitions
of property, beyond that point, considered and used as
mere property, confer an inferior sort of pleasure in in
ferior quantities. However rich a man may be, a certain
number of thicknesses of woollens or of silks is all he can
comfortably wear. Give him a dozen palaces, he can live
in but one at a time. Though the commander be worth
27*
318 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MANN
the whole regiment, or ship's company, he can have the
animal pleasure of eating only his own rations ; and any
other animal eats with as much relish as he. Hence the
wealthiest, with all their wealth, are driven back to a
cultivated mind, to beneficent uses and appropriations;
and it is then, and then only, that a glorious vista of
happiness opens out into immensity and immortality.
Education, then, is to show to our youth, in early life,
this broad line of demarcation between the value of those
things which can be owned and enjoyed by but one, and
those which can be owned and enjoyed by all. If I own
a ship, a house, a farm, or a mass of the metals called
precious, my right to them is, in its nature, sole and ex
clusive. No other man has a right to trade with my ship,
to occupy my house, to gather my harvests, or to appro
priate my treasures to his use. They are mine, and are
incapable both of a sole and of a joint possession. But
not so of the treasures of knowledge which it is the duty
of education to diffuse. The same truth may enrich and
ennoble all intelligences at once. Infinite diffusion sub
tracts nothing from depth. None are made poor because
others are made rich. In this part of the Divine econ
omy, the privilege of primogeniture attaches to all, and
every son and daughter of Adam are heirs to an infinite
patrimony. If I own an exquisite picture or statue, it
is mine exclusively. Even though publicly exhibited, but
few could be charmed by its beauties at the same time.
It is incapable of bestowing a pleasure simultaneous and
universal. But not so of the beauty of a moral senti
ment ; not so of the glow of sublime emotion ; not so of
the feelings of conscious purity and rectitude. These
may shed rapture upon all, without deprivation of any ;
be imparted, and still possessed ; transferred to millions,
yet never surrendered ; carried out of the world, and still
CARLETON] BETSEY AND I ARE OUT. 319
left in it. These may imparadise mankind, and, undiluted,
unattenuated, be sent round the whole orb of being.
Let education, then, teach children this great truth,
written as it is on the fore-front of the universe, that God
has so constituted this world, into which he has sent them,
that whatever is really and truly valuable may be pos
sessed by all, and possessed in exhaustless abundance.
And now, you, my friends, who feel that you are pa
triots and lovers of mankind, what bulwarks, what ram
parts for freedom can you devise, so endurable and im
pregnable as intelligence and virtue ? Parents, among the
happy groups of children whom you have at home more
dear to you than the blood in the fountain of life you
have not a son nor a daughter who, in this world of temp
tation, is not destined to encounter perils more dangerous
than to walk a bridge of a single plank over a dark and
sweeping torrent beneath. But it is in your power and
at your option, with the means which Providence will
graciously vouchsafe, to give them that firmness of intel
lectual movement and that keenness of moral vision, that
light of knowledge and that omnipotence of virtue, by
which, in the hour of trial, they will be able to walk with
unfaltering step over the deep and yawning abyss below,
and to reach the opposite shore in safety and honor and
happiness.
BETSEY AND I ARE OUT.
WILL CARLETON.
[Will Carleton, the author of " Farm Ballads," is a native of Mich
igan, where he was born in 1845. His early life was spent on his
father's farm, and afterwards as teacher of a country school. During
320 BEST AMERICAN A UTHORS. [CARLETON
this latter period, in his "boarding around," he doubtless gathered the
experiences which are so graphically detailed in his poems. Of these
poems, the two we quote, u Betsey and I are Out." and " How Betsey and
I made up," have gained a high place in the affections of the reading
public, and possess a homely pathos that is seldom equalled. In others
of his poems there is a rich humor that has given them an enduring
popularity.]
DRAW up the papers, lawyer, and make 'em good and
stout ;
For things at home are cross ways, and Betsey and I are
out.
We, who have worked together so long as man and wife,
Must pull in single harness for the rest of our nat'ral life.
"What is the matter?" say you. I swan it's hard to
tell!
Most of the years behind us we've passed by very well ;
I have no other woman, she has no other man,
Only we've lived together as long as we ever can.
So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with
me,
And so we've agreed together that we can't never agree ;
Not that we've catched each other in any terrible crime ;
We've been a-gatherin' this for years, a little at a time.
There was a stock of temper we both had for a start,
Although we never suspected 'twould take us two apart ;
I had my various failings, bred in the flesh and bone,
And Betsey, like all good women, had a temper of her
own.
The first thing I remember whereon we disagreed
Was something concerning heaven, a difference in our
creed ;
CARLETON] BETSEY AND I ARE OUT. 321
We arg'ed the thing at breakfast, we arg'ed the thing at
tea,
And the more we arg'ed the question the more we didn't
.And the next that I remember was when we lost a cow ;
She had kicked the bucket for certain, the question was
only, How ?
I held my own opinion, and Betsey another had ;
And when we were done a-talkin', we both of us was
mad.
And the next that I remember, it started in a joke ;
But for full a week it lasted, and neither of us spoke.
And the next was when I scolded because she broke a
bowl,
And she said I was mean and stingy and hadn't any soul.
And so that bowl kept pourin' dissensions in our cup ;
And so that blamed cow-critter was always a-comin' up ;
And so that heaven we arg'ed no nearer to us got,
But it gave us a taste of somethin' a thousand times as
hot.
And so the thing kept workin', and all the self-same way ,
Always sbmethin' to arg'e, and somethin' sharp to say ;
And down on us came the neighbors, a couple dozen
strong,
And lent their kindest sarvice for to help the thing along.
And there has been days together and many a weary
week
We was both of us cross and spunky, and both too proud
to speak ;
V
322 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CARLETOH
And I have been thinkin' and thinkin', the whole of the
winter and fall,
If I can't live kind with a woman, why, then, I won't at
all.
And so I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked
with me,
And we have agreed together that we can't never agree ;
And what is hers shall be hers, and what is mine shall be
mine ;
And I'll put it in the agreement, and take it to her to sign.
Write on the paper, lawyer, the very first paragraph,
Of all the farm and live stock that she shall have her
half;
For she has helped to earn it, through many a weary
day,
And it's nothing more than justice that Betsey has her
pay-
Give her the house and homestead ; a man can thrive and
roam,
But women are skeery critters unless they have a home ;
And I have always determined, and never failed to say,
That Betsey never should want a home if I was taken
away.
There is a little hard money that's drawin' tol'rable pay,
A couple of hundred dollars laid by for a rainy day,
Safe in the hands of good men, and easy to get at ;
Put in another clause there, and give her half of that.
Yes, I see you smile, sir, at my givin' her so much ;
Yes, divorce is cheap, sir, but I take no stock in such I
CARLETON] BETSEY AND I ARE OUT. 323
True and fair I married her, when she was blithe and
young,
And Betsey was al'ays good to me, exceptin' with her
tongue.
Once, when I was young as you, and not so smart, per
haps,
For me she mittened a lawyer, and several other chaps ;
And all of them was flustered, and fairly taken down,
And I for a time was counted the luckiest man in town.
Once when I had a fever, I won't forget it soon,
I was hot as a basted turkey and crazy as a loon,
Never an hour went by me when she was out of sight ;
She nursed me true and tender, and stuck to me day and
night.
And if ever a house was tidy, and ever a kitchen clean,
Her house and kitchen was tidy as any I ever seen ;
And I don't complain of Betsey, or any of her acts,
Exceptin' when we've quarrelled, and told each other
facts.
So draw up the paper, lawyer, and I'll go home to-night
And read the agreement to her and see if it's all right ;
And then in the mornin' I'll sell to a tradin' man I know,
And kiss the child that was left to us, and out in the
world I'll go.
And one thing put in the paper, that first to me didn't
occur ;
That when I am dead at last she'll bring me back to her,
And lay me under the maples I planted years ago,
When she and I was happy, before we quarrelled so.
324 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CARLETO*
And when she dies I wish that she would be laid by me,
And, lyin' together in silence, perhaps we will agree ;
And, if ever we meet in heaven, I wouldn't think it queei
If we loved each other the better because we quarrelled
here.
HOW BETSEY AND I MADE UP.
Give us your hand, Mr. Lawyer; how do you do to-day?
You drew up that paper, I s'pose you want your pay.
Don't cut down your figures ; make it an X or a Y ;
For that 'ere written agreement was just the makin' of
me.
Goin' home that evenin' I tell you 1 was blue,
Thinkin' of all my troubles, and what I was goin' to do ;
And if my bosses hadn't been the steadiest team alive,
They'd Ve tipped me over, certain, for I couldn't see
where to drive.
No, for I was laborin' under a heavy load ;
No, for I was travellin' an entirely different road ;
For I was a-tracin' over the path of our lives ag'in,
And seein' where we missed the way, and where we might
have been.
And many a corner we'd turned that just to a quarrel
led,
When I ought to Ve held my temper and driven straight
ahead ;
And the more I thought it over the more these memories
came,
And the more I struck the opinion that I was the most to
blame.
CARLETON] HOW BETSEY AND I MADE UP. 325
And things I had long forgotten kept risin' in my mind,
Of little matters betwixt us, where Betsey was good and
kind;
And these things flashed all through me, as you know
things sometimes will
When a feller's alone in the darkness, and everything is
still.
" But," says I, " we're too far along to take another track,
And when I put my hand to the plough I do not oft turn
back;
And 'tain't an uncommon thing now for couples to smash
in two ;"
And so I set my teeth together, and vowed I'd see it
through.
When I come in sight o' the house 'twas some'at in the
night,
And just as I turned a hill-top I see the kitchen light ;
Which often a han'some pictur' to a hungry person makes,
But it don't interest a feller much that's goin' to pull up
stakes.
And when I went in the house the table was set for me,
As good a supper's I ever saw, or ever want to see ;
And I crammed the agreement down my pocket as well
as I could,
And fell to eatin' my victuals, which somehow didn't taste
good.
And Betsey she pretended to look about the house,
But she watched my side-coat-pocket like a cat would
watch a mouse ;
326 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CARLETON
And then she went to foolin' a little with her cup,
And intently readin' a newspaper, a-holdin' it wrong
side up.
And when I'd done my supper I drawed the agreement
out,
And give it to her without a word, for she knowed what
'twas about ;
And then I hummed a little tune, but now and then a note
Was bu'sted by some animal that hopped up in my throat.
Then Betsey she got her specs from off the mantel-shelf,
And read the article over quite softly to herself,
Read it by little and little, for her eyes is gettin' old,
And lawyer's writin' ain't no print, especially when it's
cold.
And after she'd read a little she give my arm a touch,
And kindly said she was afraid I was 'lowin' her too much ;
But when she was through she went for me, her face
a-streamin' with tears,
And kissed me for the first time in over twenty years 1
I don't know what you'll think, sir, I didn't come to
inquire,
But I picked up that agreement and stuffed it in the fire ;
And I told her we'd bury the hatchet alongside of the
cow;
And we struck an agreement never to have another row.
And I told her in the future I wouldn't speak cross or
rash,
If half the crockery in the house was broken all to smash ;
CARLETON] HOW BETSEY AND I MADE UP. 327
And she said, in regards to heaven, we'd try and learii its
worth
By startin' a branch establishment and runnin' it here or
earth.
And so we sat a-talkin' three-quarters of the night,
And opened our hearts to each other until they both grew
light;
And the days when I was winnin' her away from so many
men
Was nothin' to that evenin' I courted her over again.
Next mornin' an ancient virgin took pains to call on us,
Her lamp all trimmed and a-burnin' to kindle another fuss ;
But when she went to pryin' and openin' of old sores,
My Betsey rose politely and showed her out-of-doors.
Since then I don't deny but there's been a word or two ;
But we've got our eyes wide open and know just what
to do:
When one speaks cross the other just meets it with a
laugh,
And the first one's ready to give up considerable more
than half.
Maybe you'll think me soft, sir, a-talkin' in this style,
But somehow it does me lots of good to tell it once in a
while ;
And I do it for a compliment, 'tis so that you can see
That that there written agreement of yours was just the
makin' of me.
So make out your bill, Mr. Lawyer : don't stop short of
an X;
Make it more if you want to, for I have got the checks.
328 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
I'm richer than a National Bank, with all its treasures
told,
For I've got a wife at home now that's worth her weight
in gold.
THE ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN.
JOHN W. DRAPER.
[It is seldom that an author attains to an eminence in two distinct
fields of thought equal to that gained by Dr. Draper, whose standing
as a scientist is surpassed only by his position as an historian. The
influence of the scientific mind, indeed, is evident throughout his his
tories, yet they have a brilliancy of style, an imaginative fluency, and
a wealth of illustration which have placed them among the most
widely read of modern historical works. His " History of the Intel
lectual Development of Europe," to which we owe our extract, has
run through numerous editions, and has been translated into nearly
every European language. A smaller work, the " History of the Con
flict between Keligion and Science," has had an equal good fortune.
His " History of the American Civil War" is less well known, yet it
displays the same powers of thoughtful and philosophical analysis of
the underlying causes of social and political phenomena. In science
Dr. Draper must be credited with several discoveries of high impor
tance, which we need not particularize here. He was born in England,
near Liverpool, in 1811, but came to America in 1833, graduated in
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1839 became pro
fessor of chemistry in the University of New York, which post ho
held till his death in 1882. His brilliant picture of the conditions of
the Arab civilization in Spain is one of his most eflective pieces of
writing.]
SCARCELY had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain
when they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what
had now become the established policy of the Commanders
of the Faithful in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova distin-
DRAPER] ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 329
guished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an
example of refinement strongly contrasting with the con
dition of the native European princes. Cordova, under
their administration, at its highest point of prosperity,
boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses and
more than a million of inhabitants. After sunset, a man
might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by
the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after
this time there was not so much as one public lamp in
London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, cen
turies subsequently, whoever stepped over his threshold
on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud. Other
cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered themselves
rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the khalifs were mag
nificently decorated. Those sovereigns might well look
down with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of the
rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were
scarcely better than stables, chimneyless, windowless,
and with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like
the wigwams of certain Indians. The Spanish Moham
medans had brought with them all the luxuries and prodi
galities of Asia. Their residences stood forth against the
clear blue sky, or were embosomed in woods. They had
polished marble balconies, overhanging orange-gardens ;
courts with cascades of water; shady retreats provoca
tive of slumber in the heat of the day; retiring-rooms
vaulted with stained glass, speckled with gold, over which
streams of water were made to gush ; the floors and walls
were of exquisite mosaic. Here, a fountain of quicksilver
shot up in a glistening spray, the glittering particles fall
ing with a tranquil sound like fairy-bells; there, apart
ments into which cool air was drawn from the flower-
gardens in summer, by means of ventilating towers, and
in winter through earthen pipes, or caleducts, embedded in
28*
330 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
the walls, the hypocaust, in the vaults below, breathing
forth volumes of warm and perfumed air through these
hidden passages. The walls were not covered with wain
scot, but adorned with arabesques, and paintings of agri
cultural scenes and views of Paradise. From the ceilings,
corniced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung, one of
which, it is said, was so large that it contained eighteen
hundred and four lamps. Clusters of frail marble columns
surprised the beholder with the vast weights they bore.
In the boudoirs of the sultanas they were sometimes of
verd-antique, and incrusted with lapis-lazuli. The furni
ture was of sandal and citron wood, inlaid with mother-
of-pearl, ivory, silver, or relieved with gold and precious
malachite. In orderly confusion were arranged vases of
rock crystal, Chinese porcelains, and tables of exquisite
mosaic. The winter apartments were hung with rich
tapestry ; the floors were covered with embroidered Per
sian carpets. Pillows and couches, of elegant forms, were
scattered about the rooms, perfumed with frankincense.
It was the intention of the Saracen architect, by ex
eluding the view of the external landscape, to concentrate
attention on his work ; and since the representation of the
human form was religiously forbidden, and that source of
decoration denied, his imagination ran riot with the com
plicated arabesques he introduced, and sought every oppor
tunity of replacing the prohibited works of art by the
trophies and rarities of the garden. For this reason, the
Arabs never produced artists ; religion turned them from
the beautiful, and made them soldiers, philosophers, and
men of affairs. Splendid flowers and rare exotics orna
mented the court-yards and even the inner chambers.
Great care was taken to make due provision for the clean
liness, occupation, and amusement of the inmates.
Through pipes of metal, water, both warm and cold, to
DBAPERJ ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 331
suit the season of the year, ran into baths of marble ; in
niches, where the current of air could be artificially di
rected, hung dripping alcarazzas. There were whisper
ing-galleries for the amusement of the women ; labyrinths
and marble play-courts for the children ; for the master
himself, grand libraries. The Khalif Alhakem's was so
large that the catalogue alone filled forty volumes. He
had also apartments for the transcribing, binding, and
ornamenting of books. A taste for caligraphy and the
possession of splendidly-illuminated manuscripts seems to
have anticipated in the khalifs, both of Asia and Spain,
the taste for statuary and paintings among the later popes
of Rome.
Such were the palace and gardens of Zehra, in which
Abderrahman III. honored his favorite sultana. The edi
fice had twelve hundred columns of Greek, Italian, Spanish,
and African marble. Its hall of audience was incrusted
with gold and pearls. Through the long corridors of its
seraglio black eunuchs silently glided. The ladies of the
harem, both wives and concubines, were the m6st beau
tiful that could be found. To that establishment alone
sixty-three hundred persons were attached. The body
guard of the sovereign was composed of twelve thousand
horsemen, whose cimeters and belts were studded with
gold. This was that Abderrahman who, after a glorious
reign of fifty years, sat down to count the number of days
of unalloyed happiness he had experienced, and could only
enumerate fourteen. " O man !" exclaimed the plaintive
khalif, " put not thy trust in this present world."
No nation has ever excelled the Spanish Arabs in the
beauty and costliness of their pleasure-gardens. To them
we owe the introduction of very many of our most valu
able cultivated fruits, such as the peach. Retaining the
love of their ancestors for the cooling effect of water in
332 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
a hot climate, they spared no pains in the superfluity of
fountains, hydraulic works, and artificial lakes in which
fish were raised for the table. Into such a lake, attached
to the palace of Cordova, many loaves were cast each day
to feed the fish. There were also menageries of foreign
animals; aviaries of rare birds; manufactories in which
skilled workmen, obtained from foreign countries, displayed
their art in textures of silk, cotton, linen, and all the
miracles of the loom ; in jewelry and filigree- work, with
which they ministered to the female pride of the sultanas
and concubines. Under the shade of cypresses cascades
disappeared ; among flowering shrubs there were winding
walks, bowers of roses, seats cut out of the rock, and
crypt-like grottos hewn in the living stone. Nowhere
was ornamental gardening better understood ; for not only
did the artist try to please the eye as it wandered ovei
the pleasant gradation of vegetable color and form, he
also boasted his success in the gratification of the sense
of smell by the studied succession of perfumes from beds
of flowers.
To these Saracens we are indebted for many of our
personal comforts. Eeligiously cleanly, it was not possi
ble for them to clothe themselves, according to the fashion
of the natives of Europe, in a garment unchanged till it
dropped to pieces of itself, a loathsome mass of vermin,
stench, and rags. No Arab who had been a minister of
state, or the associate or antagonist of a sovereign, would
have offered such a spectacle as the corpse of Thomas a
Becket when his hair-cloth shirt was removed. They
taught us the use of the often-changed and often-washed
under-garment of linen or cotton, which still passes among
ladies under its old Arabic name. But to cleanliness
they were not unwilling to add ornament. Especially
among women of the higher classes was the love of finery
DRAPER] ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 333
a passion. Their outer garments were often of silk, em
broidered and decorated with gems and woven gold. So
fond were the Moorish women of gay colors and the lustre
of chrysolites, hyacinths, emeralds, and sapphires, that it
was quaintly said that the interior of any public building
in which they were permitted to appear looked like a
flower-meadow in the spring besprinkled with rain.
In the midst of all this luxury, which cannot be re
garded by the historian with disdain, since in the end it
produced a most important result in the south of France,
the Spanish khalifs, emulating the example of their Asiatic
compeers, and in this strongly contrasting with the popes
of Eome, were not only the patrons but the personal cul
tivators of all the branches of human learning. One of
them was himself the author of a work on polite litera
ture in not less than fifty volumes ; another wrote a trea
tise on algebra. When Zaryab the musician came from
the East to Spain, the Khalif Abderrahman rode forth to
meet him in honor. The College of Music in Cordova was
sustained by*ample government patronage, and produced
many illustrious professors.
The Arabs never translated into their own tongue the
great Greek poets, though they so sedulously collected
and translated the Greek philosophers. Their religious
sentiments and sedate character caused them to abominate
the lewdness of our classical mythology, and to denounce
indignantly any connection between the licentious, impure
Olympian Jove and the Most High God as an insufferable
and unpardonable blasphemy. Haroun Alraschid had
gratified his curiosity by causing Homer to be translated
into Syriac, but he did not adventure on rendering the
great epics into Arabic. Notwithstanding this aversion
to our graceful but not unobjectionable ancient poetry,
among them originated the Tensons, or poetic disputa-
334 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
tions, carried afterward to perfection among the Trouba
dours j from them, also, the Provencals learned to employ
jongleurs. Across the Pyrenees, literary, philosophical,
and military adventurers were perpetually passing ; and
thus the luxury, the taste, and, above all, the chivalrous
gallantry and elegant courtesies of Moorish society found
their way from Granada and Cordova to Provence and
Languedoc. The French and German and English nobles
imbibed the Arab admiration of the horse ; they learned
to pride themselves on skilful riding. Hunting and fal
conry became their fashionable pastimes ; they tried to
emulate that Arab skill which had produced the celebrated
breed of Andalusian horses. It was a scene of grandeur
and gallantry ; the pastimes were tilts and tournaments.
The refined society of Cordova prided itself in its polite
ness. A gay contagion spread from the beautiful Moorish
miscreants to their sisters beyond the mountains ; the
south of France was full of the witcheries of female fasci
nations, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Even
in Italy and Sicily the love-song became the favorite com
position ; and out of these genial but not orthodox begin
nings the polite literature of modern Europe arose. The
pleasant epidemic spread by degrees along every hill-side
and valley. In monasteries, voices that had vowed celi
bacy might be heard carolling stanzas of which St. Jerome
would hardly have approved ; there was many a juicy
abbot who could troll forth in jocund strains, like those
of the merry sinners of Malaga and Xeres, the charms of
women and wine, though one was forbidden to the Moslem
and one to the monk. The sedate graybeards of Cordova
had already applied to the supreme judge to have the
songs of the Spanish Jew, Abraham Ibn Sahal, prohibited ;
for there was not a youth, nor woman, nor child in the
city who could not repeat them by heart. Their immoral
DRAPER] ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 335
tendency was a public scandal. The light gayety of
Spain was reflected in the coarser habits of the northern
countries. It was an archdeacon of Oxford who some
time afterward sang,
" Mihi sit propositum in taberna mori,
Yinum sit apposition moricntis ori,
Ut dicant, cum venerint angelorum chori,
' Deus sit propitius huic potatori,' " etc.
Even as early as the tenth century, persons having a
taste for learning and for elegant amenities found their
way into Spain from all adjoining countries ; a practice in
subsequent years still more indulged in when it became
illustrated by the brilliant success of Gerbert, who, as we
have seen, passed from the Infidel University of Cordova
to the papacy of Eome.
The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of AH,
the fourth successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of
literature. They established libraries in all their chief
towns : it is said that not fewer than seventy were in
existence. To every mosque was attached a public school,
in which the children of the poor were taught to read
and write, and instructed in the precepts of the Koran.
For those in easier circumstances there were academies,
usually arranged in twenty-five or thirty apartments,
each calculated for accommodating four students; the
academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova,
Granada, and other great cities, there were universities
frequently under the superintendence of the Jews; the
Mohammedan maxim being that the real learning of a
man is of more public importance than any particular
religious opinions he may entertain. In this they fol
lowed the example of the Asiatic khalif, Haroun Alras-
chid, who actually conferred the superintendence of his
336 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
schools on John Masue, a Nestorian Christian. The Mo
hammedan liberality was in striking contrast with the in
tolerance of Europe. Indeed, it may be doubted whether
at this time any European nation is sufficiently advanced
to follow such an example. In the universities some of
the professors of polite literature gave lectures on Arabic
classical works ; others taught rhetoric, or composition, or
mathematics, or astronomy. From these institutions many
of the practices observed in our colleges were derived.
They held Commencements, at which poems were read
and orations delivered in presence of the public. They
had also, in addition to these schools of general learning,
professional ones, particularly for medicine.
With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable, the Ara
bians boasted of their language as being the most perfect
spoken by man. Mohammed himself, when challenged to
produce a miracle in proof of the authenticity of his mis
sion, uniformly pointed to the composition of the Koran,
its unapproachable excellence vindicating its inspiration.
The orthodox Moslems the Moslems are those who are
submissively resigned to the Divine will are wont to
assert that every page of that book is indeed a conspicu
ous miracle. It is not then surprising that, in the Arabian
schools, great attention was paid to the study of language,
and that so many celebrated grammarians were produced.
By these scholars, dictionaries, similar to those now in
use, were composed ; their copiousness is indicated by the
circumstance that one of them consisted of sixty volumes,
the definition of each word being illustrated or sustained
by quotations from Arab authors of acknowledged repute.
They had also lexicons of Greek, Latin. Hebrew, and
cyclopaedias such as the Historical Dictionary of Sciences
of Mohammed Ibn Abdallah of Granada. In their high
est civilization and luxury they did not forget the amuse-
DRAFER] ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 337
ments of their forefathers, listening to the tale-teller, who
never failed to obtain an audience in the midst of Arab
tents. Around the evening fires in Spain the wandering
literati exercised their wonderful powers of Oriental in
vention, edifying the eager listeners by such narrations as
those that have descended to us in the Arabian Nights'
Entertainments. The more sober and higher efforts of
the educated were, of course, directed to pulpit eloquence,
in conformity with the example of all the great Oriental
khalifs, and sanctified by the practice of the Prophet him
self. Their poetical productions embraced all the modern
minor forms, satires, odes, elegies, etc. ; but they never
produced any work in the higher walks of poesy, no epic,
no tragedy. Perhaps this was due to their false fashion
of valuing the mechanical execution of a work. They
were the authors and introducers of rhyme ; and such
was the luxuriance and abundance of their language that
in some of their longest poems the same rhyme is said to
have been used alternately from the beginning to the end.
Where such mechanical triumphs were popularly prized,
it may be supposed that the conception and spirit would be
indifferent. Even among the Spanish women there were
not a few who, like Velada, Ayesha, Labana, Algasania,
achieved reputation in these compositions ; and some of
them were daughters of khalifs. And this is the more
interesting to us since it was from the Provengal poetry,
the direct descendant of these efforts, that European liter
ature arose. Sonnets and romances at last displaced the
grimly-orthodox productions of the wearisome and igno
rant fathers of the Church.
#*###*#*#
I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the
literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our
scientific obligations to the Mohammedans. Surely the;y
p w 29
338 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on re
ligious rancor and national conceit cannot be perpetuated
forever. What should the modern astronomer say when,
remembering the contemporary barbarism of Europe, he
finds the Arab Abul Hassan speaking of tubes to the ex
tremities of which ocular and object diopters, perhaps
sights, were attached, as used at Meragha? what when
he reads of the attempts of Abderrahman Sufi at improv
ing the photometry of the stars ? Are the astronomical
tables of Ebn Junis (A.D. 1008), called the Hakemite tables,
or the Ilkanic tables of Nasser Eddin Tasi, constructed at
the great observatory just mentioned, Meragha, near
Tauris, A.D. 1259, or the measurement of time by pendu
lum-oscillations, and the methods of correcting astronom
ical tables by systematic observations, are such things
worthless indications of the mental state? The Arab has
left his intellectual impress on Europe, as, before long,
Christendom will have to confess ; he has indelibly written
it on the heavens, as any one may see who reads the names
of the stars on a common celestial globe.
Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life
are even more marked than in the higher branches of
science, perhaps only because our ancestors were better
prepared to take advantage of things connected with daily
affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the
practice of which was regulated by a code of laws. Not
only did they attend to the cultivation of plants, intro
ducing very many new ones, they likewise paid great
attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep
and horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great
products, rice, sugar, cotton, and also, as we have pre
viously observed, nearly all the fine garden and orchard
fruits, together with many less important plants, as spin
ach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk ;
I)RAPER] ARABIAN CIVILIZATION IN SPAIN. 339
they gave to Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine.
They introduced the Egyptian system of irrigation by
flood-gates, wheels, and pumps. They also promoted
many important branches of industry; improved the
manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel;
the Toledo sword-blades were everywhere prized for their
temper. The Arabs, on their expulsion from Spain, car
ried the manufacture of a kind of leather, in which they
were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from which
country the leather itself has now taken its name. They
also introduced inventions of a more ominous kind, gun
powder and artillery. The cannon they used appear to
have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps they more
than compensated for these evil contrivances by the intro
duction of the mariner's compass.
The mention of the mariner's compass might lead us
correctly to infer that the Spanish Arabs were interested
in commercial pursuits, a conclusion to which we should
also come when we consider the revenues of some of their
khalifs. That of Abderrahman III. is stated at five and
a half million sterling, a vast sum if considered by its
modern equivalent, and far more than could possibly be
raised by taxes on the produce of the soil. It probably
exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of Chris
tendom taken together. From Barcelona and other ports
an immense trade with the Levant was maintained, but it
was mainly in the hands of the Jews, who from the first
invasion of Spain by Musa had ever been the firm allies
and collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had par
ticipated in the dangers of the invasion ; together they
had shared its boundless success ; together they had held
in irreverent derision, nay, even in contempt, the woman-
worshippers and polytheistic savages beyond the Pyrenees,
as they mirthfully called those whose long-delayed ven-
340 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAPER
geance they were in the end to feel ; together they were
expelled. Against such Jews as lingered behind the
hideous persecutions of the Inquisition wer<3 directed.
But in the days of their prosperity they maintained a
merchant marine of more than a thousand ships. They
had factories and consuls on the Tanais. With Constanti
nople alone they maintained a great trade : it ramified
from the Black Sea and East Mediterranean into the in
terior of Asia ; it reached the ports of India and China,
and extended along the African coast as far as Madagas
car. Even in these commercial affairs the singular genius
of the Jew and Arab shines forth. In the midst of the
tenth century, when Europe was about in the same con
dition that Caifraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul
Cassem, were writing treatises on the principles of trade
and commerce. As on so many other occasions, on these
affairs they have left their traces. The smallest weight
they used in trade was the grain of barley, four of which
were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We
still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak
of gold as being so many carats fine.
Such were the Khalifs of the West ; such their splendor,
their luxury, their knowledge ; such some of the obliga
tions we are Binder to them, obligations which Christian
Europe, with singular insincerity, has ever been fain to
hide. The cry against the misbeliever has long outlived
the Crusades. Considering the enchanting country over
which they ruled, it was not without reason that they
caused to be engraven on the public seal, " The servant of
the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of G-od." What
more, indeed, could Paradise give them ? But, consider
ing also the evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this
learning, liberality, and wealth, we may well appreciate
the solemn truth which these monarchs, in their day of
WILLIAMS] TRUTH AND PEACE. 341
pride and power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics
on their palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him
who owes dominion to the sword, " There is no conqueror
but God."
DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUTH AND PEACE.
ROGER WILLIAMS.
[Our present author is the one victim of the Puritan persecution
in New England who turned this evil into good, and has stamped his
name indelibly upon the historical tablet of America. Born in Wales
in 1599, he emigrated to Massachusetts in 1631 in search of that re
ligious liberty which was the controlling demand of his life. He
failed to find it here, and was banished from the colony in 1635, though
rather on political than on religious grounds. Proceeding to Rhode
Island, he gained great influence over the Indians of that region,
founded the city of Providence, and established a community in which
men of all creeds might find tolerance and liberty of opinion. Hi3
works are principally in advocacy of religious liberty. We tran
scribe a quaint dialogue, of no special literary merit, but curious in
character, and full of the inspiring spirit of its writer.]
Truth. In what dark corner of the world (sweet Peace)
are we two met ? How hath this present evil world ban
ished me from all the coasts and quarters of it ? and how
hath the righteous God in judgment taken thee from the
earth, Rev. vi. 4.
Peace. 'Tis lamentably true (blessed Truth) the founda
tions of the world have long been out of course: the
gates of earth and hell have conspired together to inter
cept our joyful meeting and our holy kisses : with what a
weary, tired wing have I flown over nations, kingdoms,
cities, towns, to find out precious truth !
Truth. The like inquiries in my flights and travels
29*
342 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WILLIAMS
have I made for Peace, and still am told, she hath left the
earth and fled to heaven.
Peace. Dear Truth, what is the earth but a dungeon of
darkness, where Truth is not ?
Truth. And what is the Peace thereof but a fleeting
dream, thine ape and counterfeit ?
Peace. Oh, where's the promise of the God of Heaven,
that Righteousness and Peace shall kiss each other?
Truth. Patience (sweet Peace), these heavens and earth
are growing old, and shall be changed like a garment,
Psal. eii. They shall melt away, and be burnt up, with
all the works that are therein ; and the most high Eternal
Creator shall gloriously create new heavens and new earth,
wherein dwells righteousness, 2 Peter iii. Our kisses shall
then have their endless date of pure and sweetest joys ;
till then both thou and I must hope, and wait, and bear
the fury of the dragon's wrath, whose monstrous lies and
furies shall with himself be cast into the lake of fire, the
second death, Rev. xx.
Peace. Most precious Truth, thou knowest we are both
pursued and laid for. Mine heart is full of sighs, mine
eyes with tears. Where can I better vent my full op
pressed bosom, than into thine, whose faithful lips may
for these few hours revive my drooping, wandering spirits,
and here begin to wipe tears from mine eyes, and the eyes
of my dearest children ?
Truth. Sweet daughter of the God of Peace, begin, pour
out thy sorrows, vent thy complaints ; how joyful am I
to improve these precious minutes to revive our hearts,
both thine and mine, and the hearts of all that love the
Truth and Peace, Zach. viii.
Peace. Dear Truth, I know thy birth, thy nature, thy
delight. They that know thee, will prize thee far above
themselves and lives, and sell themselves to buy thee.
WILLIAMS] TRUTH AND PEACE. 343
Well spake that famous Elizabeth to her famous attorney,
Sir Edward Coke: "Mr. Attorney, go on as thou hast
begun, and still plead, not pro Domina Regina, but pro
Domina Veritate."
Truth. "Tis true, my crown is high, my sceptres strong
to break down strongest holds, to throw down highest
crowns of all that plead (though but in thought) against
me. Some few there are, but oh, how few, are valiant for
the Truth and dare to plead my cause, as my witnesses in
sackcloth, Eev. ii. ; while all men's tongues are bent like
boughs to shoot out lying words against me !
Peace. Oh, how could I spend eternal days and endless
dates at thy holy feet, in listening to the precious oracles
of thy mouth ! All the words of thy mouth are Truth,
and there is no iniquity in them. Thy lips drop as the
honey-comb. But oh ! since we must part anon, let us (as
thou saidst) improve our minutes, and (according as thou
promisedst) revive me with thy words, which are sweeter
than the honey, and the honey-comb.
CONCLUSION.
Peace. We have now (dear Truth) through the gracious
hand of God clambered up to the top of this our tedious
discourse.
Truth. Oh, 'tis mercy unexpressible that either thou or
I have had so long a breathing time, and that together !
Peace. If English ground must yet be drunk with Eng
lish blood, oh, where shall Peace repose her wearied head
and heavy heart ?
Truth. Dear Peace, if thou find welcome, and the God
of Peace miraculously please to quench" these all-devour
ing flames, yet where shall Truth find rest from cruel
persecutions ?
Peace. Oh, will not the authority of holy scriptures, the
344 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HATES
commands and declarations of the Son of God*, therein
produced by thee, together with all the lamentable ex
periences of former and present slaughters, prevail with
the sons of men (especially with the sons of Peace) to
depart from the dens of lions, and mountains of leopards,
and to put on the bowels (if not of Christianity, yet) of
humanity each to other?
Truth. Dear Peace, Habacuck's fishes keep their con
stant bloody game of persecutions in the world's mighty
ocean ; the greater taking, plundering, swallowing up the
lesser : O happy he whose portion is the God of Jacob !
who hath nothing to lose under the sun, but hath a state,
a house, an inheritance, a name, a crown, a life, past all
the plunderers, ravishers, murtherers reach and fury !
Peace. But lo ! Who's there ?
Truth. Our sister Patience, whose desired company is
as needful as delightful ! 'Tis like the wolf will send the
scattered sheep in one : the common pirate gathers up the
loose and scattered navy : the slaughter of the witnesses
by that bloody beast unites the Independents and the
Presbyterians. The God of Peace, the God of Truth, will
shortly seal this truth, and confirm this witness, and make
it evident to the whole world,
That the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience
is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine
of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace. Amen.
IN THE ARCTIC SEAS.
' ISAAC I. HAYES, M.D.
[The narrative of life in the kingdom of ice given by this explorer
is full of interest. We extract two scenes from his story of Arctic
adventure, one a picturesque description of peril among icebergs, and
HAYES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 345
the other a stirring relation of a walrus-hunt in the Northern seas.
Dr. Hayes was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1832. He
accompanied Dr. Kane in his expedition to the Polar region in 1853,
and himself conducted an expedition to the same region in 1860. He
died in 1881.]
FOUR days of almost constant calm would tax the pa
tience of even Job-like resignation. We had a breath of
wind now and then to tantalize us, treacherous currents
to keep us ever anxious, icebergs always threatening us ;
now at anchor, then moored to a berg, and again keeping
free from danger through a hard struggle with the oars.
We had many narrow escapes, one of which, as illustrating
a peculiar feature of Arctic navigation, is perhaps worthy
of more particular record.
We had made a little progress during the night, but
soon after breakfast the wind died away, and the schooner
lay like a log upon the water. Giving too little heed to
the currents, we were eagerly watching the indications
of wind which appeared at the south, and hoping for a
breeze, when it was discovered that the tide had changed,
and was stealthily setting us upon a nest of bergs which
lay to leeward. One of them was of that description
known among the crew by the significant title of " Touch
me not," and presented that jagged, honey- combed ap
pearance indicative of great age. They are unpleasant
neighbors. The least disturbance of their equilibrium may
cause the whole mass to crumble to pieces, and woe be
unto the unlucky vessel that is caught in the dissolution!
In such a trap it seemed, however, that we stood a fair
chance of being ensnared. The current was carrying us
along at an uncomfortably rapid rate. A boat was low
ered as quickly as possible, to run out a line to a berg
which lay grounded about a hundred yards from us.
While this was being done, we grazed the side of a berg
346 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAYES
which rose a hundred feet above our topmasts, then
slipped past another of smaller dimensions. By pushing
against them with our ice-poles we changed somewhat
the course of the schooner ; but when we thought that
we were steering clear of the mass which we so much
dreaded, an eddy changed the direction of our drift, and
carried us almost broadside upon it.
The schooner struck on the starboard quarter, and the
shock, slight though it was, disengaged some fragments
of ice that were large enough to have crushed the vessel
had they struck her, and also many little lumps which
rattled about us ; but fortunately no person was hit. The
quarter-deck was quickly cleared, and all hands, crowding
forward, anxiously watched the boat. The berg now be
gan o revolve, and was settling slowly over us ; the little
lumps fell thicker and faster upon the after-deck, and the
forecastle was the only place where there was the least
chance of safety.
At length the berg itself saved us from destruction. An
immense mass broke off from that part which was beneath
the surface of the sea, and this a dozen times larger
than the schooner came rushing up within a few yards
of us, sending a vast volume of foam and water flying from
its sides. This rupture arrested the revolution, and the
berg began to settle in the opposite direction. And now
came another danger. A long tongue was protruding
immediately underneath the schooner ; already the keel
was slipping and grinding upon it ; and it seemed prob
able that we should be knocked up into the air like a
foot-ball, or at least capsized. The side of our enemy soon
leaned from us, and we were in no danger from the worse
than hail-stone showers which had driven us forward : so
we sprang to the ice-poles, and exerted our strength in
endeavoring to push the vessel off. There were no idle
HAYES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 347
hands. Danger respects not the dignity of the quarter
deck.
After we had fatigued ourselves at this hard labor with
out any useful result, the berg came again to our relief.
A loud report first startled us ; another and another fol
lowed in quick succession, until the noise grew deafening,
and the whole air seemed a reservoir of frightful sound.
The opposite side of the berg had split off, piece after
piece tumbling a vast volume of ice into the sea, and
sending the berg revolving back upon us. This time the
movement was quicker ; fragments began again to fall ;
and., already sufficiently startled by the alarming dissolu
tion which had taken place, we were in momentary ex
pectation of seeing the whole side nearest to us break
loose and crash bodily upon the schooner, in which event
she wouM inevitably be carried down beneath it, as hope
lessly doomed as a shepherd's hut beneath an Alpine ava
lanche.
By this time, Dodge, who had charge of the boat, had
succeeded in planting an ice-anchor and attaching his rope,
and greeted us with the welcome signal, " Haul in." WQ
pulled for our lives, long and steadily. Seconds seemed
minutes, and minutes hours. At length we began to
move off. Slowly and steadily sank the berg behind us,
carrying away the main boom, and grazing hard against
the quarter. But we were safe. Twenty yards away,
and the disruption occurred which we had all so much
dreaded. The side nearest to us now split off, and came
plunging wildly down into the sea, sending over us a
shower of spray, raising a swell which set us rocking to
and fro as if in a gale of wind, and left us grinding in the
debris of the crumbling ruin.
At last we succeeded in extricating ourselves, and were
fur enough away to look back calmly upon the object of
348 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAYES
our terror. It was still rocking and rolling like a thing of
life. At each revolution fresh masses were disengaged;
and, as its sides came up in long sweeps, great cascades
tumbled and leaped from them hissing into the foaming
sea. After several hours it settled down into quietude, a
mere fragment of its former greatness, while the pieces
that were broken from it floated quietly away with the
tide.
Whether it was the waves created by the dissolution
which I have just described, or the sun's warm rays, or
both combined, I cannot pretend to say, but the day was
filled with one prolonged series of reports of crumbling ice
bergs. Scarcely had we been moored in safety when a very
large one about two miles distant from us, resembling in
its general appearance the British House of Parliament,
began to go to pieces. First a lofty tower came plunging
into the water, starting from their inhospitable perch an
immense flock of gulls, that went screaming up into the
air ; over went another ; then a whole side settled squarely
down ; then the wreck capsized, and at length, after five
hours of rolling and crashing, there remained of this
splendid mass of congelation not a fragment that arose
fifty feet above the water. Another, which appeared to
be a mile in length and upwards of a hundred feet in
height, split in two with a quick, sharp, and at length
long, rumbling report, which could hardly have been ex
ceeded by a thousand pieces of artillery simultaneously
discharged, and the two fragments kept wallowing in the
sea for hours before they came to rest. Even the berg to
which we were moored chimed in with the infernal con
cert, and discharged a corner larger than St. Paul's Ca
thedral.
No words of mine can adequately describe the din and
noise which filled our ears during the few hours succeed-
HATES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 349
ing the encounter which I have narrated, and therefore I
borrow from the "Ancient Mariner:"
" The ice was here,
The ice was there,
The ice was all around ;
It creaked and growled,
And roared and howled
Like demons in a s wound."
It seemed, indeed, as if old Thor himself had taken a
holiday, and had come away from his kingdom of Thrud-
wanger and his Winding Palace of five hundred and forty
halls, and had crossed the mountains with his chariot and
he-goats, armed with his mace of strength, and girt about
with his belt of prowess, and wearing his gauntlets of
iron, for the purpose of knocking these giants of the
frost to right and left for his own special amusement.
It is, however, only at this season of the year that the
bergs are so unneighborly. They are rarely known to
break up except in the months of July and August. It
must be then owing to an unevenly-heated condition of
the interior and exterior, caused by the sun's warm rays
playing upon them. From the sunny side of a berg I
have not unfrequently seen pieces discharged in a line
almost horizontal, with great force, and with an explosive
report like a quarryman's blast. These explosions and the
crumbling of the ice are always attended with a cloud of
vapor, no doubt caused by the colder ice of the interior
being brought suddenly in contact with the warmer air.
The effect is often very remarkable as well as beautiful,
especially when the cloud reflects the rays of the sun.
If, however, my pen cannot convey a picture of these
icebergs in their more terrible aspects, it will, I fear, bo
equally impotent to portray their wondrous beauties. I
30
350 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HATES
have tried it once before, and was much dissatisfied with
the result. I had then, however, a soft sky, when the
whole heavens were a mass of rich, warm color, the sea a
dissolved rainbow, and the bergs great floating monoliths
of malachite and marble bathed in flame. Now the sky
was gray, the air clear, and the ice everywhere a dead
while or a cold, transparent blue.
I clambered up the sloping side of the berg to which
we were tied, and, from an elevation of nearly two hun
dred feet, obtained a view which well repaid me for the
trouble of the venture. I am glad to say, however, that
I came down again before St. Paul's Cathedral tumbled
from its corner, an event which sent us drifting away to
a less uncomfortable neighborhood, at the expense of an
ice-anchor and eighty fathoms of manilla line.
As I approached the berg, I was struck with the re
markable transparency of the water. Looking over the
gunwale of the boat, I could trace the ice stretching
downward apparently to an interminable distance. Look
ing back at the schooner, its reflection was a perfect image
of itself, and it required only the separation of it from the
surrounding objects to give to the mind the impression
that two vessels, keel to keel, were floating in mid-air.
This singular transparency of* the water was further
shown when I had reached the top of the berg. Off to
the southeast a high, rocky bluff threw its dark shadow
upon the water, and the dividing line between sunlight
and shade was so marked that it required an effort to
dispel the illusion that the margin of sunlight was not
the edge of a fathomless abyss.
It is difficult for the mind to comprehend the immense
quantity of ice which floated upon the sea around me.
To enumerate the separate bergs was impossible. I
counted five hundred, and gave up in despair. Near by
HATES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 351
they stood out in all the rugged harshness of their sharp
outlines ; and from this, softening with the distance, they
melted away into the clear gray sky, and there, far off
upon the sea of liquid silver, the imagination conjured up
effigies both strange and wonderful. Birds and beasts and
human forms and architectural designs took shape in the
distant masses of blue and white. The dome of St. Peters
loomed above the spire of Old Trinity; and under the
shadow of the Pyramids nestled a Byzantine tower and a
Grecian temple.
To the eastward the sea was dotted with little islets,
dark specks upon a brilliant surface. Icebergs, great and
small, crowded through the channels which divided them,
until in the far distance they appeared massed together,
terminating against a snow-covered plain that sloped up
ward until it was lost in a dim line of bluish whiteness.
This line could be traced behind the serrated coast as far
to the north and south as the eye would carry. It was
the great mer de glace which covers the length and breadth
of the Greenland continent. The snow-covered slope was
a glacier descending therefrom, the parent stem from
which had been discharged, at irregular intervals, many
of the icebergs which troubled us so much, and which
have supplied materials for this too long description.
A WALRUS-HUNT.
I have had a walrus-hunt and a most exciting day's
sport. Much ice has broken adrift and come down the
Sound during the past few days ; and, when the sun is
out bright and hot, the walrus come up out of the water
to sleep and bask in the warmth on the pack. Being upon
the hill-top this morning to select a place for building a
cairn, my ear caught the hoarse bellowing of numerous
walrus; and upon looking over the sea I observed that
352 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAYES
the tide was carrying the pack across the outer limit of
the bay, and that it was alive with the beasts which were
filling the air with such uncouth noises. Their numbers
appeared to be even beyond conjecture, for they extended
as far as the eye could reach, almost every piece of ice
being covered. There must have been, indeed, many
hundreds or even thousands.
Hurrying from the hill, I called for volunteers, and
quickly had a boat's crew ready for some sport. Putting
three rifles, a harpoon, and a line into one of the whale-
boats, we dragged it over the ice to the open water, into
which it was speedily launched.
We had about two miles to pull before the margin of
the pack was reached. On the cake of ice to which we
first came, there were perched about two dozen animals ;
and these we selected for the attack. They covered the
raft almost completely, lying huddled together, lounging
in the sun or lazily rolling and twisting themselves about,
as if to expose some fresh part of their unwieldy bodies
to the warmth, great, ugly, wallowing sea-hogs, they
were evidently enjoying themselves, and were without
apprehension of approaching danger. We neared them
slowly, with muffled oars.
As the distance between us and the game steadily nar
rowed, we began to realize that we were likely to meet
with rather formidable antagonists. Their aspect was for
bidding in the extreme, and our sensations were perhaps
not unlike those which the young soldier experiences who
hears for the first time the order to charge the enemy.
We should all, very possibly, have been quite willing to
retreat had we dared own it. Their tough, nearly hairless
hides, which are about an inch thick, had a singularly
iron-plated look about them, peculiarly suggestive of de
fence ; while their huge tusks, which they brandished
HAYES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 353
with an appearance of strength that their awkwardness
did not diminish, looked like very formidable weapons of
offence if applied to a boat's planking or to the human
ribs, if one should happen to find himself floundering in
the sea among the thick-skinned brutes, To complete
the hideousness of a facial expression which the tusks
rendered formidable enough in appearance, Nature had
endowed them with broad, flat noses, which were covered
all over with stiff whiskers, looking much like porcupine
quills, and extending up to the edge of a pair of gaping
nostrils. The use of these whiskers is as obscure as that
of the tusks ; though it is probable that the latter may
be as well weapons of offence and defence as for the more
useful purpose of grubbing up from the bottom of the
sea the mollusks which constitute their principal food.
There were two old bulls in the herd who appeared to be
dividing their time between sleeping and jamming their
tusks into each other's faces, although they appeared to
treat the matter with perfect indifference, as they did not
seem to make any impression on each other's thick hides.
As we approached, these old fellows neither of which
could have been less than sixteen feet long, nor smaller in
girth than a hogshead raised up their heads, and, after
taking a leisurely survey of us, seemed to think us un
worthy of further notice, and then, punching each other
again in the face, fell once more asleep. This was exhib
iting a degree of coolness rather alarming. If they had
showed the least timidity, we should have found some
excitement in extra caution ; but they seemed to make so
light of our approach that it was not easy to koep up the
bold front with which we had commenced the adventure.
But we had come, quite too far to think of backing out :
so we pulled in and made ready for the fray.
Besides the old bulls, the group contained several cows,
x 30*
354 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAYES
and a few calves of various sizes, some evidently year
lings, others but recently born, and others, half or three-
quarters grown. Some were without tusks, while on
others they were just sprouting, and above this they were
of all sizes up to those of the big bulls, which had great
curved cones of ivory nearly three feet long. At length
we were within a few boat's-lengths of the ice-raft, and the
game had not taken alarm. They had probably never
seen a boat before. Our preparations were made as we
approached. The walrus will always sink when dead,
unless held up by a harpoon-line; and there were there
fore but two chances for us to secure our game, either to
shoot the beast dead on the raft, or to get a harpoon well
into him after he was wounded, and hold on to him until
he was killed. As to killing the animal where he lay,
that was not likely to happen, for the thick skin destroys
the force of the ball before it can reach any vital part,
and indeed, at a distance, actually flattens it; and the
skull is so heavy that it is hard to penetrate with an ordi
nary bullet, unless the ball happens to strike through the
eye.
To Miller, a cool and spirited fellow, who had been after
whales on the " nor'west coast," was given the harpoon,
and he took his station at the bows ; while Knorr, Jensen,
and myself kept our places in the stern-sheets, and held
our rifles in readiness. Each selected his animal, and we
fired in concert over the heads of the oarsmen. As soon
as the rifles were discharged, I ordered the men to " give
way," and the boat shot right among the startled animals
as they rolled oif pell-mell into the sea. Jensen had fired
at the head of one of the bulls, and hit him in the neck ;
Knorr killed a young one, which was pushed off in the
hasty scramble and sank; while I planted a minie-ball
somewhere in the head of the other bull and drew from
HAYES] 7^ THE ARCTIC SEAS. 355
him a most frightful bellow, louder, I venture to say,
than ever came from wild bull of Bashan. When he
rolled over into the water, which he did with a splash
that sent the spray flying all over us, he almost touched
the bows of the boat, and gave Miller a good opportunity
to get in his harpoon, which he did in capital style.
The alarmed herd seemed to make straight for the hot
torn, and the line spun out over the gunwale at a fearful
pace ; but, having several coils in the boat, the end was
not reached before the animals began to rise, and we took
in the slack and got ready for what was to follow. The
strain of the line whipped the boat around among some
loose fragments of ice, and, the line having fouled among
it, we should have been in great jeopardy had not one of
the sailors promptly sprung out, cleared the line, and de
fended the boat.
In a few minutes the whole herd appeared at the sur
face, about fifty yards away from us, the harpooned
animal being among them. Miller held fast to his line,
and the boat was started with a rush. The coming up of
the herd was the signal for a scene which baffles descrip
tion. They uttered one wild, concerted shriek, as if an
agonized call for help ; and then the air was filled with
answering shrieks. The "huk! huk! huk I" of the
wounded bulls seemed to find an echo everywhere, as the
cry was taken up and passed along from floe to floe, like
the bugle-blast passed from squadron to squadron along a
line of battle ; and down from every piece of ice plunged
the startled beasts, as quickly as the sailor drops from his
hammock when the long-roll beats to quarters. With
their ugly heads just above the water, and with mouths
wide open, belching forth the dismal "huk! huk! huk!"
they came tearing toward the boat.
In a few moments we were completely surrounded, and
356 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HATES
the numbers kept multiplying with astonishing rapidity.
The water soon became alive and black with them.
They seemed at first to be frightened and irresolute,
and for a time it did not seem that they meditated mis
chief; but this pleasing prospect was soon dissipated, and
we were forced to look well to our safety.
That they meditated an attack there could no longer be
a doubt. To escape the onslaught was impossible. We
had raised a hornets' nest about our ears in a most aston
ishingly short space of time, and we must do the best we
could. Even the wounded animal to which we were fast
turned upon us, and we became the focus of at least a
thousand gaping, bellowing mouths.
It seemed to be the purpose of the walrus to get their
tusks over the gunwale of the boat, and it was evident that,
in the event of one such monster hooking on to us, the
boat would be torn in pieces and we would be left floating
in the sea helpless. We had good motive, therefore, to be
active. Miller plied his lance from the bows, and gave
many a serious wound. The men pushed back the onset
with their oars, while Knorr, Jensen, and myself loaded
and fired our rifles as rapidly as we could. Several times
we were in great jeopardy, but the timely thrust, of an
oar, or the lance, or a bullet, saved us. Once I thought
we were surely gone. I had fired, and was hastening to
load ; a wicked-looking brute was making at us, and it
seemed probable that he would be upon us. I stopped
loading, and was preparing to cram my rifle down his
throat, when Knorr, who had got ready his weapon, sent
a fatal shot into his head. Again, an immense animal,
the largest that I had ever seen, and with tusks apparently
three feet long, was observed to be making his way through
the herd with mouth wide open, bellowing dreadfully. I
was now, as before, busy loading, Knorr and Jensen had
HAYES] IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 357
just discharged their pieces, and the men were well en
gaged with their oars. It was a critical moment, but,
happily, I was in time. The monster, his head high above
the boat, was within two feet of the gunwale, when I
raised my piece and fired into his mouth. The discharge
killed him instantly, and he went down like a stone.
This ended the fray. I know not why, but the whole
herd seemed suddenly to take alarm, and all dove down
with a tremendous splash almost at the same instant.
When they came up again, still shrieking as before, they
were some distance from us, their heads all now pointed
seaward, making from us as fast as they could go, their
cries growing more and more faint as they retreated in
the distance.
We must have killed at least a dozen, and mortally
wounded as many more. The water was in places red
with blood, and several half-dead and dying animals lay
floating about us. The bull to which we were made fast
pulled away with all his might after the retreating herd,
but his strength soon became exhausted ; and, as his speed
slackened, we managed to haul in the line, and finally ap
proached him so nearly that our rifle-balls took effect, and
Miller at length gave him the coup de grace with his lance.
We then drew him to the nearest piece of ice, and I had
soon a fine specimen to add to my natural-history collec
tions. Of the others we secured only one : the rest had
died and sunk before we reached them.
I have never before regarded the walrus as a really for
midable animal ; but this contest convinces me that I have
done their courage great injustice. They are full of fight;
and, had we not been very active and self-possessed, our
boat would have been torn to pieces and we either
drowned or killed. A more fierce attack than that which
they made upon us could hardly be imagined, and a more
358 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EVERETT
formidable-looking enemy than one of these huge mon
sters, with his immense tusks arid bellowing throat, would
be difficult to find.
IMPERISHABLE MEMORIES.
EDWARD EVERETT.
[Edward Everett was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1794.
During his long and active life he filled many positions, political and
professional. At the age of twenty he was ordained minister of one of
the largest churches in Boston. After a year in this service he became
professor of Greek literature at Harvard, and editor of the North
American Review. He afterwards served for many years as United
States representative, senator, secretary of state, and in other positions.
But his reputation rests mainly on his brilliant oratory, in which field
of labor he was unexcelled. When little more than a boy, he had at
tained to great influence and popularity, and in his later years he be
came the most polished and highly considered of American lecture
orators. His orations were by no means of the ephemeral nature of
the great sum of such efforts, but were carefully-studied and diligently-
prepared productions, well worthy of the permanent position they
have attained in American literature. His oration on Washington,
before the outbreak of the civil war, was delivered nearly one hundred
and twenty-five times, in almost every section of the Union, and did
much to allay the irritation which then existed. His last great oration
was delivered at Gettysburg, on the occasion of the consecration of the
national cemetery at that place. He died in January, 1865. His ora
tions have been published in four volumes, and have become an im
portant feature of every American library of reference.]
IT has been the custom, from the remotest antiquity, to
preserve and to hand down to posterity, in bronze and in
marble, the counterfeit presentment of illustrious men.
Within the last few years modern research has brought to
light, on the banks of the Tigris, huge slabs of alabaster
EVERETT] IMPERISHABLE MEMORIES. 359
buried for ages, which exhibit in relief the faces and the
persons of men who governed the primeval East in the
gray dawn of histoiy. Three thousand years have elapsed
since they lived, and reigned, and built palaces, and forti
fied cities, and waged war, and gained victories of which
the trophies are carved upon these monumental tablets,
the triumphal procession, the chariots laden with spoil, the
drooping captive, the conquered monarch in chains, but
the legends inscribed upon the stone are imperfectly deci
phered, and little beyond the names of the personages and
the most general tradition of their exploits is preserved.
In like manner the obelisks and the temples of ancient
Egypt are covered with the sculptured images of whole
dynasties of Pharaohs, older than Moses, older than
Joseph, whose titles are recorded in the hieroglyphics
with which the granite is charged, and which are gradually
yielding up their long-concealed mysteries to the sagacity
of modern criticism. The plastic arts, as they passed
into Hellas, with all the other arts which give grace and
dignity to our nature, reached a perfection unknown to
Egypt or Assyria; and the heroes and sages of Greece
and Eome, immortalized by the sculptor, still people the
galleries and museums of the modern world,
In every succeeding age and in every country, in which
the fine, arts have been cultivated, the respect and affec
tion of survivors have found a pure and rational gratifica
tion in the historical portrait and the monumental statue
of the honored and loved in private life, and especially of
the great and good who have deserved well of their coun
try. Public esteem and confidence and private affection,
the gratitude of the community and the fond memories of
the fireside, have ever sought, in this way, to prolong the
sensible existence of their beloved and respected objects.
What though the dear and honored features and person
360 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EVERETT
on which, while living, we never gazed without tender
ness or veneration, have been taken from us, something
of the loveliness, something of the majesty, abides in the
portrait, the bust, and the statue. The heart bereft of
the living originals turns to them ; and, cold and silent as
they are, they strengthen and animate the cherished
recollections of the loved, the honored, and the lost.
The skill of the painter and sculptor, which thus comes
in aid of the memory and imagination, is, in its highest
degree, one of the rarest, as it is one of the most exquisite,
accomplishments within our attainment, and in its perfec
tion as seldom witnessed as the perfection of speech or of
music. The plastic hand must be moved by the same
ethereal instinct as the eloquent lips or the recording pen.
The number of those who, in the language of Michael
Angelo, can discern the finished statue in the heart of the
shapeless block, and bid it start into artistic life, who
are endowed with the exquisite gift of moulding the rigid
bronze or the lifeless marble into graceful, majestic, and
expressive forms, is not greater than the number of
those who are able, with equal majesty, grace, and ex
pressiveness, to make the spiritual essence the finest
shades of thought and feeling sensible to the mind,
through the eye and the ear, in the mysterious embodi
ment of the written and the spoken word. If Athens,
in her palmiest days, had but one Pericles, she had also
but one Phidias.
Nor are these beautiful and noble arts, by which the
face and the form of the departed are preserved to us,
calling into the highest exercise, as they do, all the imita
tive and idealizing powers of the painter and the sculptor,
the least instructive of our teachers. The portraits and
the statues of the honored dead kindle the generous am
bition of the youthful aspirant to fame. Themistocles
EVERETT] IMPERISHABLE MEMORIES. 361
could not sleep for the trophies in the Ceramicus ; and
when the living Demosthenes had ceased to speak, the
stony lips remained to rebuke and exhort his degenerate
countrymen. More than a hundred years have elapsed
since the great Newton passed away ; but from age to age
his statue by Roubillac, in the ante-chapel of Trinity
College, will give distinctness to the conceptions formed
of him by hundreds and thousands of ardent youthful
spirits, filled with reverence for that transcendent in
tellect which, from the phenomena that fall within our
limited vision, deduced the imperial law by which the
Sovereign Mind rules the entire universe. We can never
look on the person of Washington ; but his serene and
noble countenance, perpetuated by the pencil and the
chisel, is familiar to far greater multitudes than ever
stood in his living presence, and will be thus familiar to
the latest generation.
What parent, as he conducts his son to Mount Auburn
or to Bunker Hill, will not, as he passes before their monu
mental statues, seek to heighten his reverence for virtue,
for patriotism, for science, for learning, for devotion to
the public good, as he bids him contemplate the form of
that grave and venerable Winthrop, who left his pleasant
home in England to come and found a new republic in
this untrodden wilderness ; of that ardent and intrepid
Otis, who first struck out the spark of American indepen
dence ; of that noble Adams, its most eloquent champion
on the floor of Congress ; of that martyr, Warren, who laid
down his life in its defence ; of that self taught Bowditch,
who, without a guide, threaded the starry mazes of the
heavens ; of that Story, honored at home and abroad as
one of the brightest luminaries of the law, and, by a fe
licity of which I believe there is no other example, ad
mirably portrayed in marble by his son ?
Q ' 31
362 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EVEEETT
"What citizen of Boston, as he accompanies the stranger
around our streets, guiding him through our busy thor
oughfares, to our wharves crowded with vessels which range
every sea and gather the produce of every climate, up
to the dome of this capitol, which commands as lovely a
landscape as can delight the eye or gladden the heart,
will not, as he calls his attention at last to the statues of
Franklin and Webster, exclaim, " Boston takes pride in
her natural position, she rejoices in her' beautiful environs,
she is grateful for her material prosperity ; but richer
than the merchandise stored in palatial warehouses,
greener than the slopes of sea-girt islets, lovelier than
this encircling panorama of land and sea, of field and
hamlet, of lake and stream, of garden and grove, is the
memory of her sons, native and adopted ; the character,
services, and fame of those who have benefited and
adorned their day and generation. Our children and the
schools at which they are trained, our citizens and the
services they have rendered, these are our jewels,
these our abiding treasures."
Yes, your long rows of quarried granite may crumble
to the dust ; the corn-fields in yonder villages, ripening to
the sickle, may, like the plains of stricken Lombardy a
few weeks ago, be kneaded into bloody clods by the mad
ding wheels of artillery ; this populous city, like the old
cities of Etruria and Campagna Romagna, may be deso
lated by the pestilence which walketh in darkness, may
decay with the lapse of time, and the busy mart, which
now rings with the joyous din of trade, become as lonely
and still as Carthage or Tyre, as Babylon or Nineveh :
but the names of the great and good shall survive the
desolation and the ruin ; the memory of the wise, the
brave, the patriotic, shall never perish.
Yes, Sparta is a wheat-field ; a Bavarian prince holds
BROWW] ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER. 363
court at the foot of the Acropolis ; the travelling virtuoso
digs for marble in the Roman Forum, and beneath the
ruins of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus ; but Lycurgus
and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demosthenes, and Cato
and Tully, " still live ;" and HE* still lives, and all the
great and good shall live in the heart of ages, while mar
ble and bronze shall endure ; and when marble and bronze
have perished, they shall " still live" in memory, so long
as men shall reverence law, and honor patriotism, and love
liberty !
ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER.
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN.
[Charles Brockden Brown, the earliest of American novelists, was
of Quaker lineage, and was born in Philadelphia in 1771. His pro
fession of the law was given up at an early age for the pursuit of
literature, and several novels appeared in rapid succession from his
pen, the best known of these being " Wieland," " Arthur Mervyn,"
and " Edgar Huntly." These works are faulty in many respects, yet
they are of sufficient originality and power to give them an abiding
place in literature. The least unhealthy in tone is " Edgar Huntly,"
in which the hero follows a somnambulist through dangerous scenes
of cave, forest, and mountain, which are described with much ability.
The adventure with the panther, which we quote, is very animated
and exciting.]
AT that moment, torrents of rain poured from above,
and stronger blasts thundered amidst these desolate re
cesses and profound chasms. Instead of lamenting the
prevalence of this tempest, I now began to regard it with
pleasure. It conferred new forms of sublimity and gran-
* Daniel Webster.
364 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWN
deur on the scene. As I crept with hands and feet along
my imperfect bridge, a sudden gust had nearly whirled
me into the frightful abyss. To preserve myself, I was
obliged to loose my hold of my burden, and it fell into the
gulf. This incident disconcerted and distressed me. As
soon as I had effected my dangerous passage, I screened
myself behind a cliff, and gave myself up to reflection. . . .
While occupied with these reflections, my eyes were
fixed upon the opposite steeps. The tops of the trees,
waving to and fro, in the wildest commotion, and their
trunks, occasionally bending to the blast, which, in these
lofty regions, blew with a violence unknown in the tracts
below, exhibited an awful spectacle. At length my at
tention was attracted by the trunk which lay across the
gulf, and which I had converted into a bridge. I per
ceived that it had already somewhat swerved from its
original position, that every blast broke or loosened some
of the fibres by which its roots were connected with the
opposite bank, and that, if the storm did not speedily
abate, there was imminent danger of its being torn from
the rock and precipitated into the chasm. Thus my re
treat would be cut off, and the evils from which I was
endeavoring to rescue another would be experienced by
myself. . . .
I believed my destiny to hang upon the expedition with
which I should recross this gulf. The moments that were
spent in these deliberations were critical, and I shuddered
to observe that the trunk was held in its place by one or
two fibres which were already stretched almost to breaking.
To pass along the trunk, rendered slippery by the wet
and unsteadfast by the wind, was eminently dangerous.
To maintain my hold in passing, in defiance of the whirl
wind, required the most vigorous exertions. For this end
it was necessary to discommode myself of my cloak, and
BROWN] ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER. 365
of the volume which I carried in the pocket of my cloak.
I believed there was no reason to dread these being de
stroyed or purloined if left for a few hours or a day in
this recess. If laid beside a stone, under shelter of this
cliff, they would, no doubt, remain unmolested till the
disappearance of the storm should permit me to revisit
this spot in the afternoon or on the morrow.
Just as I had disposed of these encumbrances, and had
risen from my seat, my attention was again called to the
opposite steep, by the most unwelcome object that at this
time could possibly occur. Something was perceived
moving among the bushes and rocks, which, for a time, I
hoped was no more than a raccoon or opossum, but which
presently appeared to be a panther. His gray coat, ex
tended claws, fiery eyes, and a cry which he at that mo
ment uttered, and which, by its resemblance to the human
voice, is peculiarly terrific, denoted him to be the most
ferocious and untamable of that detested race.
The industry of our hunters has nearly banished ani
mals of prey from these precincts. The fastnesses of
Norwalk, however, could not but aiford refuge to some
of them. Of late I had met them so rarely that my fears
were seldom alive, and I trod without caution the rug-
gedest and most solitary haunts. Still, however, I had
seldom been unfurnished in my rambles with the means
of defence. . . .
The unfrequency with which I had lately encountered
this foe, and the encumbrance of provision, made me
neglect on this occasion to bring with me my usual arms.
The beast that was now before me, when stimulated by
hunger, was accustomed to assail whatever co aid provide
him with a banquet of blood. He would set upon the
man and the deer with equal and irresistible ferocity.
His sagacity was equal to his strength, and he seemed
31*
366 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWN
able to discover when his antagonist was armed and pre
pared for defence.
My past experience enabled me to estimate the full
extent of my danger. He sat on the brow of the steep,
eying the bridge, and apparently deliberating whether he
should cross it. It was probable that he had scented my
footsteps thus far, and, should he pass over, his vigilance
could scarcely fail of detecting my asylum. . . .
Should he retain his present station, my danger was
scarcely lessened. To pass over in the face of a famished
tiger was only to rush upon my fate. The falling of the
trunk, which had lately been so anxiously deprecated,
was now, with no less solicitude, desired. Every new
gust I hoped would tear asunder its remaining bands,
and, by cutting off all communication between the op
posite steeps, place me in security.
My hopes, however, were destined to be frustrated.
The fibres of the prostrate tree were obstinately tenacious
of their hold, and presently the animal scrambled down
the rock and proceeded to cross it.
Of all kinds of death, that which now menaced me was
the most abhorred. To die by disease, or by the hand of
a fellow-creature, was propitious and lenient in comparison
with being rent to pieces by the fangs of this savage. To
perish in this obscure retreat, by means so impervious to
the anxious curiosity of my friends, to lose my portion of
existence by so untoward and ignoble a destiny, was in
supportable. I bitterly deplored my rashness in coming
hither unprovided for an encounter like this.
The evil of my present circumstances consisted chiefly
in suspense. My death was unavoidable, but my imagi
nation had leisure to torment itself by anticipations. One
foot of the savage was slowly and cautiously moved after
the other. He struck his claws so deeply into the bark
BROWN] ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER. 367
that they were with difficulty withdrawn. At length he
leaped upon the ground. We were now separated by an
interval of scarcely eight feet. To leave the spot where
I crouched was impossible. Behind and beside me the
cliff rose perpendicularly, and before me was this grim
and terrific visage. I shrunk still closer to the ground
and closed my eyes.
From this pause of horror I was aroused by the noise
occasioned by a second spring of the animal. He leaped
into the pit, in which I had so deeply regretted that I had
not taken refuge, and disappeared. My rescue was so
sudden, and so much beyond my belief or my hope, that
I doubted for a moment whether my senses did not de
ceive me. This opportunity of escape was not to be neg
lected. I left my place, and scrambled over the trunk
with a precipitation which had liked to have proved fatal.
The tree groaned and shook under me, the wind blew
with unexampled violence, and I had scarcely reached the
opposite steep when the roots were severed from the rock
and the whole fell thundering to the bottom of the chasm.
My trepidations were not speedily quieted. I looked
back with wonder on my hair-breadth escape, and on that
singular concurrence of events which had placed me, in
so short a period, in absolute security. Had the trunk
fallen a moment earlier, I should have been imprisoned on
the hill or thrown headlong. Had its fall been delayed
another moment, I should have been pursued; for the
beast now issued from his den, and testified his surprise
and disappointment by tokens the sight of which made
my blood run cold.
He saw me, and hastened to the verge of the chasm.
He squatted on his hind-legs and assumed the attitude of
one preparing to leap. My consternation was excited
afresh by these appearances. It seemed at first as if the
368 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CART
rift was too wide for any power of muscles to carry him
in safety over ; but I knew the unparalleled agility of this
animal, and that his experience had made him a better
judge of the practicability of this exploit than I was.
Still there was hope that he would relinquish this de
sign as desperate. This hope was quickly at an end. He
sprung, and his fore-legs touched the verge of the rock on
which I stood. In spite of vehement exertions, however,
the surface was too smooth and too hard to allow him to
make good his hold. He fell, and a piercing cry, uttered
below, showed that nothing had obstructed his descent to
the bottom.
THANKSGIVING.
ALICE GARY.
[Of the several American instances of a poetic sisterhood, that of
Alice and Phoebe Gary is of the most interest, from the rich poetic
power possessed by both these "gifted sisters." As a poet Alice was
more inclined to look at life through pensive eyes, while Phrebe's muse
was of a more cheerful mould. But in respect to ability it would be
difficult to discriminate between them. Alice Gary was born near
Cincinnati, in 1820, and died in 1871. In addition to her poems she
wrote several novels, but it is on the former that her reputation rests.
Her verse is full of melody and grace, and is eveiywhere marked with
original and beautiful thought and imagery. From one of her longer
poems we select the following eloquent picture of life and nature.]
THRICE happy is the man who doth obey
The Lord of Love through love ; who fears to break
The righteous law for th' law's righteous sake;
And who, by daily use of blessings, gives
Thanks for the daily blessings he receives ;
CAKY] THANKSGIVING. 369
His spirit grown so reverent, it dares
Cast the poor shows of reverence away,
Believing they
More glorify the Giver who partake
Of his good gifts, than they who fast and make
Burnt-offerings and Pharisaic prayers.
The wintry snows that blind
The air, and blight what things were glorified
By summer's reign, we do not think unkind
When that we see them changed, afar and wide,
To rain, that, fretting in the rose's face,
Brings out a softer grace,
And makes the troops of rustic daffodils
Shake out their yellow skirts along the hills,
And all the valleys blush from side to side. . . .
I thank thee for my common blessings, still
Rained through thy will
Upon my head ; the air
That knows so many tunes which grief beguile,
Reaching its light love to me everywhere,
And that will still be kissing all the while.
I thank thee that my childhood's vanished days
Were cast in rural ways.
Where I beheld, with gladness ever new,
That sort of vagrant dew
Which lodges in the beggarly tents of such
Yile weeds as virtuous plants disdain to touch,
And with rough-bearded burs, night after night,
TJpgathered by the morning, tender and true,
Into her clear, chaste light.
y
370 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CART
Such ways I learned to know
That free will cannot go
Outside of mercy ; learned to bless His name
Whose revelations, ever thus renewed
Along the varied year, in field and wood,
His loving care proclaim.
I thank thee that the grass and the red rose
Do what they can to tell
How spirit through all forms of matter flows ;
For every thistle by the common way
"Wearing its homely beauty, for each spring
That, sweet and homeless, runneth where it will,
For night and day,
For the alternate seasons, everything
Pertaining to life's marvellous miracle ;
Even for the lowly flower
That, living, dwarfed and bent
Under some beetling rock, in gloom profound,
Far from her pretty sisters of the ground,
And shut from sun and shower,
Seemeth endowed with human discontent.
Ah ! what a tender hold
She taketh of us in our own despite,
A sadly-solemn creature,
Crooked, despoiled of nature,
Leaning from out the shadows, dull and cold,
To lay her little white face in the light.
The chopper going by her rude abode
Thinks of his own rough hut, his old wife's smile,
CART] THANKSGIVING. 371
And of the bare young feet
That run through th' frost to meet
His coming, and forgets the weary load
Of sticks that bends his shoulders down the while.
I thank thee, Lord, that Nature is so wise,
So capable of painting in men's eyes
Pictures whose airy hues
Do blend and interfuse
With all the darkness that about us lies,
That clearly in our hearts
Her law she writes,
Eeserving cunning past our mortal arts,
Whereby she is avenged for all her slights.
And I would make thanksgiving
For the sweet, double living,
That gives the pleasures that have passed away,
The sweetness and the sunshine of to-day.
I see the furrows ploughed and see them planted.
See the young cornstalks rising green and fair ;
Mute things are friendly, and I am acquainted
With all the luminous creatures of the air,
And with the cunning workers of the ground
That have their trades born with them, and with all
The insects, large and small,
That fill the summer with a wave of sound.
I watch the wood-bird line
Her pretty nest, with eyes that never tire,
And watch the sunbeams trail their wisps of fire
Along the bloomless bushes, till they shine.
The violet, gathering up her tender blue
From the dull ground, is a good sight to see ;
372 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CART
And it delighteth me
To have the mushroom push his round head through
The dry and brittle stubble, as I pass,
His smooth and shining coat, half rose, half fawn,
But just put on ;
And to have April slip her showery grass
Under my feet, as she was used to do
In the dear spring-times gone.
I make the brook my Nile,
And hour by hour beguile,
Tracking its devious course
Through briery banks to its mysterious source,
That I discover, always, at my will,
A little silver star,
Under the shaggy forehead of some hill,
From travelled ways afar.
Forgetting wind and flood,
I build my house of unsubstantial sand,
Shaping the roof upon my double hand,
And setting up the dry and sliding grains,
With infinite pains,
In the similitude
Of beam and rafter, then
Where to the ground the dock its broad leaf crooks,
I hunt long whiles to find the little men
That I have read of in my story-books.
Often, in lawless wise,
Some obvious work of duty I delay,
Taking my fill
Of an uneasy liberty, and still
Close shutting up my eyes,
CART] THANKSGIVING. 373
As though it were not given me to see
The avenging ghost of opportunity
Thus slighted, far away.
I linger, when I know
That I should forward go ;
Now haply for the katydid's wild shrill,
Now listening to the low,
Dull noise of mill-wheels, counting now the row
Of clouds about the shoulder of the hill.
My heart anew rejoices
In th' old familiar voices
That come back to me like a lullaby ;
Now 'tis the church-bell's call,
And now a teamster's whistle, now, perhaps,
The silvery lapse
Of waters in among the reeds that meet ;
And now, down-dropping to a whispery fall,
Some milkmaid chiding with love's privilege,
Through the green wall
Of the dividing hedge,
And the so sadly eloquent reply
Of the belated cow-boy, low and sweet. . . .
I thank thee, Lord, for every saddest cross ;
Gain comes to us through loss,
The while we go,
Blind travellers holding by the wall of time
And seeking out through woe
The things that are eternal and sublime.
Ah ! sad are they of whom no poet writes
Nor ever any story-teller Jiears,
32
374 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
The childless mothers, who on lonesome nights
Sit by their fires and weep, having the chores
Done for the day, and time enough to see
All the wide floors
Swept clean of playthings; they, as needs must be,
Have time enough for tears. . . .
My cross is not as hard as theirs to bear,
And yet alike to me are storms or calms ;
My life's young joy,
The brown-cheeked farmer-boy,
Who led the daisies with him like his lambs,
Carved his sweet picture on my milking-pail,
And cut my name upon his threshing-flail,
One day stopped singing at his plough ; alas !
Before that summer-time was gone, the grass
Had choked the path which to the sheep-field led,
Where I had watched him tread
So oft on evening's trail,
A shining oat-sheaf balanced on his head
And nodding to the gale.
Bough wintry weather came, and, when it sped,
The emerald wave
Swelling above my little sweetheart's grave
With such bright, bubbly flowers was set about,
I thought he blew them out,
And so took comfort that he was not dead.
For I was of a rude and ignorant crew',
And hence believed whatever things I saw
Were the expression of a hidden law,
And, with a wisdom wiser than I knew,
Evoked the simple meanings out of things
By childlike questionings.
OAKY] THANKSGIVING. 375
And he they named with shudderings of fear
Had never in his life been half so near
As when 1 sat all day with cheeks unkissed
And listened to the whisper, very low,
That said our love above death's wave of woe
Was joined together like the seamless mist.
God's yea and nay
Are not so far away,
I said, but I can hear them when I please ;
Nor could I understand
Their doubting faith, who only touch his hand
Across the blind, bewildering centuries.
And often yet, upon the shining track
Of the old faith, come back
My childish fancies, never quite subdued ;
And when the sunset shuts up in the wood
The whispery sweetness of uncertainty,
And Night, with misty locks that loosely drop
About his ears, brings rest, a welcome boon,
Playing his pipe with many a starry stop
That makes a golden snarling in his tune,
I see my little lad
Under the leafy shelter of the boughs,
Driving his noiseless, visionary cows,
Clad in a beauty I alone can see ;
Laugh, you who never had
Your dead come back, but do not take from me
The harmless comfort of my foolish dream,
That these our mortal eyes,
Which outwardly reflect the earth and skies,
Do introvert upon eternity,
376 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STOEY
And that the shapes you deem
Imaginations, just as clearly fall,
Each from its own divine original,
And through some subtle element of light,
Upon the inward, spiritual eye,
As do the things which round about them lie,
Gross and material, on the external sight.
THE INDIANS.
JOSEPH STORY.
[That Judge Story was one of the ablest of the legal writers and
authorities of America is a well-recognized fact. His "Commenta
ries on the Constitution of the United States," " Commentaries on the
Conflict of Laws," " Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence," and
" Treatise on the Law of Agency" form a compend of legal literature
unsurpassed in quantity, and seldom surpassed in quality, by the
writings of any other of the most eminent American jurists. It is
surprising that he had any time left to devote to general literature.
Nevertheless, he is the author of a volume of poems of tolerable merit,
and of many prose essays of great harmony of language, rhetorical
skill, and eloquence of manner. He was born at Marblehead, Massa
chusetts, in 1779, and was a judge of the Supreme Court of the United
States from 1811 till his death in 1845.]
THERE is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate beings
much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the
sobriety of our judgment ; much which may be urged to
excuse their own atrocities ; much in their characters
which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What
can b,e more melancholy than their history ? By a law of
their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure, ex
tinction. Everywhere, at the approach of the white man,
STORY] THE INDIANS. 377
they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps,
like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are
gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they re
turn no more. Two centuries ago, the smoke of their
wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every
valley from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from
the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts
of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains
and the glades ; the thick arrows and the deadly toma
hawk whistled through the forests ; and the hunter's trace
and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their
lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young
listened to the songs of other days. The. mothers played
with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm
hopes of the future. The aged sat down ; but they wept
not. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where
the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave,
beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived ; truer
men never drew the bow. They had courage, and forti
tude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the
human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they
feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage
life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their
country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave
not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their ven
geance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were un
conquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not
on this side of the grave.
But where are they? Where are the villages, and
warriors, and youth, the sachems and the tribes, the
hunters and their families ? They have perished. They
are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done
the mighty work. No, nor famine, nor war. There has
been a mightier power, a moral canker which has eaten
32*
378 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STORY
into their heart-cores, a plague which the touch of the
white man communicated, a poison which betrayed them
into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not
a single region which they may now call their own. Al
ready the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing
for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them
leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the
women, and the warriors, " few and faint, yet fearless still."
The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke
no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on
with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their
heels, for terror or despatch ; but they heed him not.
They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages.
They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers
They shed no tears ; they utter no cries ; they heave no
groans. There is something in their hearts which passes
speech. There is something in their looks, not of ven
geance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles
both ; which chokes all utterance ; which has no aim or
method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger
but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have
passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by
them, no, never. Yet there lies not between us and
them an impassable gulf. They know and feel that there
is for them still one remove farther, not distant nor un
seen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race.
Reason as we may, it is impossible not to read in such a
fate much that we know not how to interpret ; much of
provocation to cruel deeds and deep resentments ; much
of apology for wrong and perfidy ; much of pity mingling
with indignation ; much of doubt and misgiving as to the
past ; much of painful recollections ; much of dark fore
bodings.
STORY] IMPORTANCE OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 379
[We may add to the above extract from Judge Story's miscellaneous
writings two others, short in scope, yet eloquent and beautiful in
handling. Just at present, when the party opposed to the long-
continued devotion to classical study in the universities is growing
rapidly in strength, this forcibly-written appeal from a friend of the
classics may not be misplaced. The peroration, however, must be
looked on rather as a vigorous rhetorical outburst than as a series of
just and truthful comparisons. Certainly our translations from classic
authors are not so immeasurably behind the originals in merit as thia
would indicate.]
THE IMPORTANCE OF CLASSICAL LEARNING.
The importance of classical learning to professional
education is so obvious that the surprise is that it could
ever have become matter of disputation. I speak not
of its power in refining the taste, in disciplining the judg
ment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the
heart with elevated sentiments, but of its power of direct,
positive, necessary instruction. Until the eighteenth cen
tury, the mass of science, in its principal branches, was
deposited in the dead languages, and much of it still re
poses there. To be ignorant of these languages is to
shut out the lights of former times, or to examine them
only through the glimmerings of inadequate translations.
What should we say of the jurist who never aspired to
learn the maxims of law and equity which adorn the
Roman codes ? What of the physician who could delib
erately surrender all the knowledge heaped up for so
many centuries in the Latinity of continental Europe?
What of the minister of religion who should choose not
to study the Scriptures in the original tongue, and should
be content to trust his faith and his hopes, for time and
for eternity, to the dimness of translations, which may
reflect the literal import, but rarely can reflect with un
broken force the beautiful spirit, of the text ? . . .
I pass over all consideration of the written treasures
380 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
of antiquity which have survived the wreck of empires
and dynasties, of monumental trophies and triumphal
arches, of palaces of princes and temples of the gods. I
pass over all consideration of those admired compositions
in which wisdom speaks as with a voice from heaven ; of
those sublime efforts of poetical genius which still freshen,
as they pass from age to age, in undying vigor ; of those
finished histories which still enlighten and instruct govern
ments in their duty and their destiny ; of those matchless
orations which roused nations to arms and chained senates
to the chariot-wheels of all-conquering eloquence. These
all may now be read in our vernacular tongue. Ay ! as
one remembers the face of a dead friend, by gathering up
the broken fragments of his image ; as one listens to the
tale of a dream twice told ; as one catches the roar of the
ocean in the ripple of a rivulet ; as one sees the blaze of '
noon in the first glimmer of twilight.
FREE SCHOOLS.
I know not what more munificent donation any gov
ernment can bes.tow than by providing instruction at the
public expense, not as a scheme of charity, but of munici
pal policy. If a private person deserves the applause of
all good men, who founds a single hospital or college, how
much more are they entitled to the appellation of public
benefactors who, by the side of every church in every
village, plant a school of letters ! Other monuments of
the art and genius of man may perish, but these, from
their very nature, seem, as far as human foresight can go,
absolutely immortal. The triumphal arches of other days
have fallen ; the sculptured columns have crumbled into
dust; the temples of taste and religion have sunk into
decay ; the pyramids themselves seem but mighty sepul
chres hastening to the same oblivion to which the dead
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 381
they cover have long since passed. But here, every
successive generation becomes a living memorial of our
public schools, and a living example of their excellence.
Never, never may this glorious institution be abandoned
or betrayed by the weakness of its friends or the power
of its adversaries ! It can scarcely be abandoned or be
trayed while New England remains free and her repre
sentatives are true to their trust. It must forever count
in its defence a majority of all those who ought to in
fluence public affairs by their virtues or their talents ; for
it must be that here they first felt the divinity of knowl
edge stir within them. What consolation can be higher,
what reflection prouder, than the thought that in weal
and in woe our children are under the public guardian
ship, and may here gather the fruits of that learning
which ripens for eternity !
ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY.
JAMES T. FIELDS.
[In his long business relations with authors, as a member of the
firm of Ticknor & Fields and of other Boston publishing firms, Mr.
Fields came frequently into friendly contact with prominent writers.
His relations with some of these are agreeably told in his " Yester
days with Authors," from which we extract a portion of his essay on
Thackeray. Mr. Fields was the author of a number of poems of
marked ability. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in
1817, and died in Boston in 1881.]
QUESTIONS are frequently asked as to the habits of
thought and composition of authors one has happened to
know, as if an author's friends were commonly invited to
382 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
observe the growth of works he was by and by to launch
from the press. It is not customary for the doors of the
writer's workshop to be thrown open, and for this reason
it is all the more interesting to notice, when it is possible,
how an essay, a history, a novel, or a poem is conceived,
grows up, and is corrected for publication. One would
like very much to be informed how Shakespeare put
together the scenes of Hamlet or Macbeth, whether the
subtile thought accumulated easily on the page before
him, or whether he struggled for- it with anxiety and
distrust. We know that Milton troubled himself about
little matters of punctuation, and obliged the printer to
take special note of his requirements, scolding him roundly
when he neglected his instructions. We also know that
Melanchthon was in his library hard at work by two or
three o'clock in the morning both in summer and winter,
and that Sir William Jones began his studies with the
dawn.
The most popular female writer of America, whose
great novel struck a chord of universal sympathy through
out the civilized world, has habits of composition pecu
liarly her own, and unlike those belonging to any author
of whom we have record. She croons, so to speak, over
her writings, and it makes very little difference to her
whether there is a crowd of people about her or whether
she is alone during the composition of her books. " Uncle
Tom's Cabin" was wholly prepared for the press in a little
wooden house in Maine, from week to week, while the
story was coming out in a Washington newspaper. Most
of it was written by the evening lamp, on a pine table,
about which the children of the family were gathered
together conning their various lessons for the next day.
Amid the busy hum of earnest voices, constantly asking
questions of the mother, intent on her world-renowned
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 383
task, Mrs. Stowe wove together those thrilling chapters
which were destined to find readers in so many languages
throughout the globe. No work of similar importance,
so far as we know, was ever written amid so much that
seemed hostile to literary composition.
I had the opportunity, both in England and America, of
observing the literary habits of Thackeray, and it always
seemed to me that he did his work with comparative ease,
but was somewhat influenced by a custom of procrastina
tion. Nearly all his stories were written in monthly in
stalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. He
told me that when he began a novel he rarely knew how
many people were to figure in it, and, to use his own
words, he was always very shaky about their moral con
duct. He said that sometimes, especially if he had been
dining late and did not feel in remarkably good humor
next morning, he was inclined to make his characters
villanously wicked ; but if he rose serene with an un
clouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions he
was willing to make his men and women perform. When
he had written a passage that pleased him very much he
could not resist clapping on his hat and rushing forth to
find an acquaintance to whom he might instantly read
his successful composition. Gilbert Wakefield, universally
acknowledged to have been the best Greek scholar of his
time, said he would have turned out a much better one
if he had begun earlier to study that language, but un
fortunately he did not begin till he was fifteen years of
age. Thackeray, in quoting to me this saying of Wake-
field, remarked, "My English would have been very much
better if I had read Fielding before I was ten." This ob
servation was a valuable hint, on the part of Thackeray,
as to whom he considered his master in art.
James Hannay paid Thackeray a beautiful compliment
384 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
when he said, " If he had had his choice he would rather
have been famous as an artist than as a writer ; but it
was destined that he should paint in colors which will
never crack and never need restoration." Thackeray's
characters are, indeed, not so much inventions as existences,
and we know them as we know our best friends or our
most intimate enemies.
When I was asked, the other day, which of his books I
like best, I gave the old answer to a similar question,
" The last one I read" If I could possess only one of his
works, I think I should choose " Henry Esmond." To
my thinking, it is a marvel in literature, and I have read
it oftener than any of the other works. Perhaps the
reason of my partiality lies somewhat in this little inci
dent. One day, in the snowy winter of 1852, I met
Thackeray sturdily ploughing his way down Beacon
Street with a copy of " Henry Esmond" (the English edi
tion, then just issued) under his arm. Seeing me some
way off, he held aloft the volumes and began to shout in
great glee. When I came up to him he cried out, " Here
is the very best I can do, and I am carrying it to Prescott
as a reward of merit for having given me my first dinner
in America. I stand by this book, and am willing to
leave it, when I go, as my card."
As he wrote from month to month, and liked to put off
the inevitable chapters till the last moment, he was often
in great tribulation. I happened to be one of a large
company whom he had invited to a six-o'clock dinner at
Greenwich one summer afternoon, several years ago. We
were all to go down from London, assemble in a particu
lar room at the hotel, where he was to meet us at six
o'clock, sharp. Accordingly we took steamer and gathered
ourselves together in the reception-room at the appointed
time. When the clock struck six, our host had not fill-
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 385
filled his part of the contract. His burly figure was yet
wanting among the company assembled. As the guests
were nearly all strangers to each other, and as there was
no one present to introduce us, a profound silence fell
upon the room, and we anxiously looked out of the win
dows, hoping every moment that Thackeray would arrive.
This untoward state of things went on for one hour, still
no Thackeray and no dinner. English reticence would
not allow any remark as to the absence of our host.
Everybody felt serious, and a gloom fell upon the assem
bled party. Still no Thackeray. The landlord, the butler,
and the waiters rushed in and out the room, shrieking for
the master of the feast, who as yet had not arrived. It
was confidentially whispered by a fat gentleman, with a
hungry look, that the dinner was utterly spoiled twenty
minutes ago, when we heard a merry shout in the entry
and Thackeray bounced into the room. He had ngt
changed his morning dress, and ink was still visible upon
his fingers. Clapping his hands and pirouetting briskly
on one leg, he cried out, " Thank heaven, the last sheet
of The Virginians has just gone to the printer." He made
no apology for his late appearance, introduced nobody,
shook hands heartily with everybody, and begged us all
to be seated as quickly as possible. His exquisite delight
at completing his book swept away every other feeling,
and we all shared his pleasure, albeit the dinner was
overdone throughout.
The most finished and elegant of all lecturers, Thackeray
often made a very poor appearance when he attempted to
deliver a set speech to a public assembly. He frequently
broke down after the first two or three sentences. He
prepared what he intended to say 'with great exactness,
and his favorite delusion was that he was about to aston
ish everybody with a remarkable effort. It never dis-
R z 33
386 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
turbed him that he commonly made a wofol failure when
he attempted speech-making, but he sat down with such
cool serenity if he found that he could not recall what he
wished to say, that his audience could not help joining in
and smiling with him when he came to a stand-still. Once
he asked me to travel with him from London to Man
chester to hear a great speech he was going to make at
the founding of the Free Library Institution in that city.
All the way down he was discoursing of certain effects
he intended to produce on the Manchester dons by his
eloquent appeals to their pockets. This passage was to
have great influence with the rich merchants, this one
with the clergy, and so on. He said that although Dickens
and Bulwer and Sir James Stephen, all eloquent speakers,
were to precede him, he intended to beat each of them on
this special occasion. He insisted that I should be seated
directly in front of him, so that I should have the full
force of his magic eloquence. The occasion was a most
brilliant one ; tickets had been in demand at unheard-of
prices several weeks before the day appointed ; the great
hall, then opened for the first time to the public, was filled
by an audience such as is seldom convened, even in Eng
land. The three speeches which came before Thackeray
was called upon were admirably suited to the occasion,
and most eloquently spoken. Sir John Potter, who pre
sided, then rose, and, after some complimentary allusions
to the author of "Yanity Fair," introduced him to the
crowd, who welcomed him with ringing plaudits. As he
rose, he gave me a half- wink from under his spectacles, as
if to say, " Now for it ; the others have done very well,
but I will show 'em a grace beyond the reach of their art."
He began in a clear and charming manner, and was abso
lutely perfect for three minutes. In the middle of a most
earnest and elaborate sentence he suddenly stopped, gave
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 387
a look of comic despair at the ceiling, crammed both
hands into his trousers' pockets, and deliberately sat
down. Everybody seemed to understand that it was one
of Thackeray's unfinished speeches, and there were no
signs of surprise or discontent among his audience. He
continued to sit on the platform in a perfectly composed
manner ; and when the meeting was over he said to me,
without a sign of discomfiture, " My boy, you have my
profoundest sympathy; this day you have accidentally
missed hearing one of the finest speeches ever composed
for delivery by a great British orator." And I never
heard him mention the subject again.
Thackeray rarely took any exercise, thus living in
striking contrast to the other celebrated novelist of our
time, who was remarkable for the number of hours he
daily spent in the open air. It seems to me almost certain
now, from concurrent testimony, gathered from physicians
and those who knew him best in England, that Thacke
ray's premature death was hastened by an utter disregard
of the natural laws. His vigorous frame gave ample
promise of longevity, but he drew too largely on his brain
and not enough on his legs. High living and high thinking,
he used to say, was the correct reading of the proverb.
He was a man of the tenderest feelings, very apt to be
cajoled into doing what the world calls foolish things, and
constantly performing feats of unwisdom, which perform
ances he was immoderately laughing at all the while in
his books. No man has impaled snobbery with such a
stinging rapier, but he always accused himself of being a
snob, past all cure. This I make no doubt was one of his
exaggerations, but there was a grain of truth in the re
mark, which so sharp an observer as himself could not fail
to notice, even though the victim was so near home. . . .
I wish I could recall half the incidents connected with
388 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
the dear, dear old Thackeray days, when I saw him so
constantly and enjoyed him so hugely ; but, alas ! many
of them are gone, with much more that is lovely and
would have been of good report, could they be now remem
bered ; they are dead as (Holmes always puts your
simile quite right for you),
" Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile."
But while I sit here quietly, and have no fear of any
bad, unsympathizing listeners who might, if some other
subject were up, frown upon my levity, let me walk
through the dusky chambers of my memory and report
what I find there, just as the records turn up, without
regard to method.
I once made a pilgrimage with Thackeray (at my re
quest, of course, the visits were planned) to the various
houses where his books had been written, and I remember
when we came to Young Street, Kensington, he said, with
mock gravity, " Down on your knees, you rogue, for here
' Vanity Fair' was penned ! And I will go down with
you, for I have a high opinion of that little production
myself." He was always perfectly honest in his expres
sions about his own writings, and it was delightful to hear
him praise them when he could depend on his listeners.
A friend congratulated him once on that touch in " Vanity
Fair" in which Becky " admires" her husband when he is
giving Steyne the punishment which ruins her for life.
" Well," he said, " when I wrote the sentence, I slapped
my fist on the table and said, 'That is a touch of genius !' "
He told me he was nearly forty years old before he was
recognized in literature as belonging to a class of writers
at all above the ordinary magazinists of his day. " I
turned off far better things then than I do now," said he,
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 389
" and I wanted money sadly (my parents were rich but
respectable, and I bad spent my guineas in my youtb),
but bow little I got for my work ! It makes me laugh,"
be continued, " at wbat Tbe Times pays me now, wben I
tbink of tbe old days, and bow mucb better I wrote for
tbem tben, and got a shilling where I now get ten."
One day be wanted a little service done for a friend,
and I remember his very quizzical expression as he said,
" Please say the favor asked will greatly oblige a man of
the name of Thackeray, whose only recommendation is
that he has seen Napoleon and Goethe, and is tbe owner
of Schiller's sword." . . .
Tbe enormous circulation achieved by tbe Cornhill
Magazine, when it was first started with Thackeray for
its editor in chief, is a matter of literary history. Tbe
announcement by bis publishers that a sale of a hundred
and ten thousand of the first number bad been reached
made the editor half delirious with joy, and he ran away
to Paris to be rid of the excitement for a few days. I
met him by appointment at his hotel in the Hue de la Paix,
and found him wild with exultation and full of enthusiasm
for excellent George Smith, bis publisher. " London," be
exclaimed, " is not big enough to contain me now, and I
am obliged to add Paris to my residence ! Great heavens/'
said he, throwing up his long arms, " where will this tre
mendous circulation stop? Who knows but that I shall
have to add Vienna and Eome to my whereabouts ? If
the worst comes to the worst, New York, also, may fall
into my clutches, and only the Eocky Mountains may be
able to stop my progress I" Those days in Paris with him
were simply tremendous. We dined at all possible and
impossible places together. We walked round and round
the glittering court of the Palais Boyal, gazing in at tho
windows of the jewellers' shops, and all my efforts were
33*
390 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
necessary to restrain him from rushing in and ordering a
pocketful of diamonds and " other trifles," as he called
them ; " for," said he, " how can I spend the princely in
come which Smith allows me for editing the Cornhill, un
less I begin instantly somewhere ?" If he saw a group
of three or four persons talking together in an excited
way, after the manner of that then riant Parisian people,
he would whisper to me, with immense gesticulation,
" There, there, you see the news has reached Paris, and
perhaps the number has gone up since my last accounts
from London." His spirits during those few days were
colossal, and he told me that he found it impossible to
sleep, " for counting up his subscribers."
I happened to know personally (and, let me modestly
add, with some degree of sympathy) what he suffered
editorially when he had the charge and responsibility of
a magazine. With first-class contributors he got on very
well, he said, but the extortioners and revilers bothered
the very life out of him. He gave me some amusing ac
counts of his misunderstandings with the "fair" (as he
loved to call them), some of whom followed him up so
closely with their poetical compositions that his house
(he was then living in Onslow Square) was never free of
interruption. " The darlings demanded," said he, " that I
should re-write, if I could not understand their non
sense, and put their halting lines into proper form." " I was
so appalled," said he, "when they set upon me with their
' ipics and their ipecacs,' that you might have knocked me
down with a feather, sir. It was insupportable, and I fled
away into France." As he went on, waxing drolly furious
at the recollection of various editorial scenes, I could not
help remembering Mr. Yellowplush's recommendation,
thus characteristically expressed : " Take my advice, hon-
rabble sir, listen to a humble footmin : it's generally best
.FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 391
in poatry to understand puffickly what you mean your
self, and to igspress your meaning clearly afterwoods, in
the simpler words the better, p'r'aps."
He took very great delight in his young daughter's first
contributions to the Cornhill, and I shall always remember
how he made me get into a cab, one day in London, that
I might hear, as we rode along, the joyful news he had to
impart, that he had just been reading his daughter's first
paper, which was entitled " Little Scholars." " When 1
read it," said he, " I blubbered like a child, it is so good,
so simple, and so honest ; and my little girl wrote it, every
word of it,"
During his second visit to Boston I was asked to invite
him to attend an evening meeting of a scientific club,
which was to be held at the house of a distinguished
member. I was very reluctant to ask him to be present,
for I knew he could be easily bored, and I was fearful that
a prosy essay or geological speech might ensue, and I
knew he would be exasperated with me. even although I
were the innocent cause of his affliction. My worst fears
were realized.' We had hardly got seated, before a dull,
bilious-looking old gentleman rose, and applied his auger
with such pertinacity that we were all bored nearly to
distraction. I dared not look at Thackeray, but I felt
that his eye was upon me. My distress may be imagined,
when he got up quite deliberately from the prominent
place where a chair had been set for him, and made his
exit very noiselessly into a small anteroom leading into
the larger room, and in which no one was sitting. The
small apartment was dimly lighted, but he knew that I
knew he was there. Then commenced a series of panto
mimic feats impossible to describe adequately. He threw
an imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor,
und proceeded to stab him several times with a paper-
392 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELDS
folder, which he caught up for the purpose. After dis
posing of his victim in this way, he was not satisfied, for
the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he
fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary
head. Still the droning speaker proceeded with his frozen
subject (it was something about the Arctic regions, if I
remember rightly), and now began the greatest panto
mimic scene of all, namely, murder by poison, after the
manner in which the player king is disposed of in Ham
let. Thackeray had found a small vial on the mantel
shelf, and out of that he proceeded to pour the imaginary
"juice of cursed hebenon" into the imaginary porches of
somebody's ears. The whole thing was inimitably done,
and I hoped nobody saw it but myself; but years after
wards, a ponderous, fat-witted young man put the ques
tion squarely to me, " What was the matter with Mr.
Thackeray, that night the club met at Mr. 's
house?" ...
Thackeray was a master in every .sense, having as it
were, in himself, a double quantity of being. Eobust
humor and lofty sentiment alternated so strangely in him
that sometimes he seemed like the natural son of Eabe-
lais, and at others he rose up a very twin brother of the
Stratford Seer. There was nothing in him amorphous
:md unconsidered. Whatever he chose to dp was always
perfectly done. There was a genuine Thackeray flavor
in everything he was willing to say or to write. He de
tected with unfailing skill the good or the vile wherever
it existed. He had an unerring eye, a firm understanding,
and abounding truth. " Two of his great master powers,"
said the chairman at a dinner given to him many years
ago in Edinburgh, "are satire and sympathy" George
Brimley remarked, " That he could not have painted
Vanity Fair as he has, unless Eden had been shining in
FIELDS] ANECDOTES OF THACKERAY. 393
his inner eye." He had, indeed, an awful insight, with
a world of solemn tenderness and simplicity, in his com
position. Those who heard the same voice that withered
the memory of King George the Fourth repeat " The
spacious firmament on high" have a recollection not easily
to be blotted from the mind ; and I have a kind of pity for
all who were born so recently as not to have heard and
understood Thackeray's Lectures. But they can read
him, and I beg of them to try and appreciate the tenderer
phase of his genius, as well as the sarcastic one. He
teaches many lessons to young men, and here is one of
them, which I quote memoriter from " Barry Lyndon :"
" Do you not, as a boy, remember waking of bright sum
mer mornings and finding your mother looking over you ?
had not the gaze of her tender eyes stolen into your
senses long before you woke, and cast over your slumber
ing spirit a sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh-
springing joy?" My dear friend John Brown, of Edin
burgh (whom may God long preserve to both countries
where he is so loved and honored !), chronicles this touch
ing incident. " We cannot resist here recalling one Sun
day evening in December, when Thackeray was walking
with two friends along the Dean Eoad, to the west of
Edinburgh, one of the noblest outlets to any city. It
was a lovely evening ; such a sunset as one never forgets ;
a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going
down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed in ame
thystine bloom ; between this cloud and the hills there
was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip
color, lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in
its clearness ; every object standing out as if etched upon
the sky. The northwest end of Corstorphine Hill, with
its trees and rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance ;
and there a wooden crane, used in the granary below, was
394 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PORTER
so placed as to assume the figure of a cross ; there it was,
unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. All
three gazed at it silently. As they gazed, Thackeray
gave utterance in a tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice to
what all were feeling, in the word 'CALVAKYP The
friends walked on in silence, and then turned to other
things. All that evening he was very gentle and serious,
speaking, as he seldom did, of divine things, of death,
of sin, of eternity, of salvation, expressing his simple
faith in God and in his Saviour."
Thackeray was found dead in his bed on Christmas
morning, and he probably died without pain. His mother
and his daughters were sleeping under the same roof
when he passed away alone. Dickens told me that, look
ing on him as he lay in his coffin, he wondered that the
figure he had known in life as one of such noble presence
could seem so shrunken and wasted ; but there had been
years of sorrow, years of labor, years of pain, in that
now exhausted life. It was his happiest Christmas morn
ing when he heard the Yoice calling him homeward to
unbroken rest.
BOOKS AND READING.
NOAH PORTER.
[Noah Porter, one of our ablest writers on psychology, was born ut
Farmington, Connecticut, in 1811. In 1846 he became professor of
moral philosophy and metaphysics in Yale College, his alma mater,
and from 1871 to 1886 was its president. His greatest work is " The
Human Intellect," in which the spiritual and theistic view, as con
trasted with the materialistic one now widely entertained, is advocated
with great clearness, judgment, and ability. He has written several
PORTER] BOOKS AND READING. 395
other works. From his " Books and Heading," a highly useful and
suggestive work, we make the following interesting extract.]
WERE a South-Sea-Islander to be suddenly taken up
from his savage home and set down in one of the great
cities of Europe, among the many strange objects which
he would see, one of the most incomprehensible would be
a public library.
A cathedral he would at once understand. Its vast area
would suggest a counterpart in the enclosure which from
his childhood onward he had known and feared as a place
of worship. Its clustered pillars and lofty arches would
bring to mind a well-remembered grove of old and stately
trees, "with sounding walks between," the dreaded
dwelling of some cruel deity, or the fit arena for some
" abhorred rite." The altar, the priests, the reverent wor
shippers, would speak to his mind their own meaning.
A military parade he might comprehend without an in
terpreter's aid. The measured tread of gathered legions
would, indeed, differ not a little from the wild rush of his
own barbarous clan ; the inspiring call of trumpet and
horn, of fife and drum, blending with all those nameless
instruments which make the music of war so splendid
and so spirit-stirring, would be unlike the horrid, disso
nant noises with which the savage sounds out his bloody
errand ; but the object and purpose of the show would be
seen at a glance, and would wake up all the warrior in his
bosom.
A festive gathering of lords and ladies gay would be
quite an intelligible affair, and the more closely he should
look into the particulars of the transaction, the more
numerous, it is possible, might be the points of resem
blance between the barbaric and the fashionable assembly.
A gallery of paintings, adorned with the proudest tro
phies of genius, might not be altogether without mean-
396 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PORTER
ing ; for though the savage would look upon the creations
of Raphael or Titian with somewhat such an eye as that
with which Caliban looked upon Miranda, yet the uses
of such a collection, which the price of his own kingdom
could not buy, would not be entirely beyond his compre
hension.
But a public library would be too much for him. It
would prove a mystery quite beyond his reach. Its de
sign and its utility would be alike incomprehensible. The
front of the edifice within which the library was placed
might indeed command his admiration; and, within, the
lofty arches, the lengthened aisles, and the labyrinthine
succession of apartments might attract and bewilder him.
The books, even, rising one above another in splendid lines
and dressed in gilt and purple and green, might seem to
his savage eye a very pretty sight ; though they would
please that eye just as well if carved and colored upon
the solid wall, or if, as has been the fancy of certain own
ers of libraries, the volumes had been wrought from solid
wood, fit books for the wooden heads that owned them.
The mystery of the library, to the savage, would be
the books in it, what they were, what they were for, and
why they were thought worthy to be lodged in a building
so imposing, and watched with such jealous care. If he
should linger among the apartments for reading, and
watch the movements of the inmates, his wonder would
be likely to increase. His eye might rest upon Dr. Dry
asdust, the antiquarian, as with anxious look and bustling
air he rushes into one closet after another, takes volume
after volume from its dusty retreat, looks into each as
the conjuring priest at home looks into a tree or a stone
to see the spirit within, and, after copying from each in
strange characters, stuffs the manuscript into his pocket,
and walks off as proudly as though, like the self-same
PORTER] BOOKS AND READING. 397
priest, he had caught and bagged the spirit in some fetich,
amulet, or medicine-bag. The man of science sits for
hours unconscious of the presence of the wondering sav
age, and seems more and more bewildered as he gazes
upon a single page. The savage watches the poet reading
a favorite author, and marvels at the mysterious influence
that dilates his eye, and kindles his cheek, and sends mad
ness through his frame. He is astonished at the reader
of fiction, looking upon what seems to him a vacant page,
and yet seeming to see in its enchanted lines a world of
spirits, living, moving, talking, walking, loving, hating,
fighting, dying. Should he seek an explanation of the
enigma, the explanation would rather deepen than solve
the mystery. Hei*e is a volume, his interpreter might
say, by the aid of whose characters the shipmaster can
guide his vessel to your island-home as easily as you can
follow a forest path. From this volume you can learn the
story of that famous white captain who first landed upon
your shores, in the days of your great-grandfather, and
was there killed and buried ; and mystery above mystery
in this little book, which gives an account of the discov
ery of your country by the white man, will be found the
sufficient reason why his majesty, our king, has a right
to burn your towns, to shoot down your people, to take
possession of your land and bring you hither as a cap
tive; all by authority of discovery, and of a title-deed from
some king or other potentate who never saw the country
which he gave away.
This lesson concerning the nature and value of books
would probably be quite enough for once, and would send
the poor barbarian away, well satisfied that a book was
indeed a very wonderful thing, and that a collection of
books well deserved to be deposited in a building so
udorned and so secure.
34
398 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PORTER
Were our savage to remain longer among his civilized
brethren, and gradually to master the mysteries of their
social state, his estimate of the influence of books would
be likely to gather strength. To say nothing of their
past influence in bringing a nation up to a point at which
he could only wonder and be silent, their present power
to determine the character and destiny of single individ
uals might startle and surprise him. A few pages in a
single volume fall as it were by chance under the eye of a
boy in his leisure hours. They fascinate and fix his at
tention ; they charm and hold his mind ; and the result is
that the boy becomes a sailor and is wedded to the sea for
his life. No force nor influence can undo the work begun
by those few pages ; no love of father or mother, no temp
tation of money or honor, no fear of suffering or disgrace,
is an overmatch for the enchantment conjured up and sus
tained by that exciting volume. A single book has made
the boy a seaman for life, perhaps a pirate, wretched in
his life and death. Another book meets the eye of another
youth, and wakes in his bosom holy aspirations, which,
all his life after, burn on in the useless flames of a painful
asceticism, or in a kindly love to God and man. Another
youth in an unhappy hour meets still another volume, and
it makes him a hater of his fellow-man and a blasphemer
of his God. One book makes one man a believer in good
ness and love and truth ; another book makes another man
a denier or doubter of these sacred verities. . . .
Books, as an element of influence, are becoming more
and more important, and reading is the employment of
a widening circle. Books of all sorts are now brought
within the reach of most persons who desire to read them.
The time has gone by when the mass of the community
were restricted to a score or two of volumes, the Bible,
one or two works of devotion, two or three standard his
PORTER] BOOKS AND READING. 399
tories, and a half-dozen novels. Many intelligent men can
recollect the time when all the books on which they could
lay their hands were few, and were read and re-read till
they were dry as a remainder biscuit or as empty as a
thrice -threshed sheaf.
There are ladies now living, who were well educated for
their time, to whom the loan or the gift of a new book
was an important event in their history, making a winter
memorable, and now their daughters or grand-daughters
despatch a novel or a poem before dinner. All the known
books for children, two generations ago, were some half a
score; whereas at present new "juveniles" are prepared
by the hundred a year, and the library of a child ten years
old is very often more numerous and costly than was that
of many a substantial and intelligent household. The
minds of tens of thousands are stimulated and occupied
with books, books, books, from three years old onward
through youth and manhood. We read when we sit,
when we lie down, and when we ride ; sometimes when
we eat and when we walk. When we travel we encounter
a moving library on every railway-car and a fixed library
at every railway-station. Books are prepared for railway
reading, and Railway Library is the title of more than one
series of books in America, England, France, and Ger
many. We read when we are well and when we are ill,
when we are busy and when we are idle, and some even
die with a book in hand. There is little use for the cau
tion nowadays, "Beware of the man of one book." If it
be true, as it may be, that single books make an impres
sion less marked and decisive than formerly, so that a bad
or inferior book may do less harm than it once did, it is
also true that bad books and inferior books are far more
common than they once were. Their poison is also more
subtle and less easily detected, for as the taste of readers
400 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PORTER
becomes omnivorous it becomes less discriminating. Be
sides, the readiness with which good men, and men sturdy
in their principles too, read books which they despise and
abhor, has introduced a freedom of practice on this sub
ject at which other generations would have stood aghast.
In many cases, too, if the principles are not corrupted by
reading, the taste is vitiated; or, if nothing worse hap
pens, delicacy of appreciation suffers from the amount of
intellectual food which is forced upon us, and the satis
faction is far less keen and exquisite than was enjoyed by
readers of a few books of superior merit. . . .
It was said of Edmund Burke, who was a great readei
and a great thinker also, that he read every book as if he
were never to see it a second time, and thus made it his
own, a possession for life. Were his example imitated,
much, time would be saved that is spent in recalling things
half remembered, and in taking up the stitches of lost
thoughts. A greater loss than that of time would be
avoided, the loss of the dignity and power which are
possessed by him who keeps his mind tense, active, and
wakeful. It is very common to give the rule thus :
" Whatever is worth reading at all is worth reading well."
If by " well" is intended with the utmost stretch of at
tention, it is not literally true ; for there are books which
serve for pastime and amusement, books which can be
run through when we are more or less fagged or ill, and
cannot and ought not to put forth our utmost eneigies of
body and mind. Then there are books which we may
look through, as a merchant runs over the advertisements
in a newspaper, taking up the thoughts that interest
and concern us especially, as the magnet takes and holds
the iron filings that are scattered through a handful of
sand. But if every part of a book be equally worthy our
regard, as the writings of Arnold, Grote, Merivale, Gib-
PORTER] BOOKS AND READING. 401
bon, Burke, Webster, Milton, Shakespeare, or Scott, then
should the entire energy of attention be aroused during
the time of reading. The page should be read as if it
were never to be seen a second time ; the mental eye
should be fixed as if there were no other object to think
of; the memory should grasp the facts (i.e., the dates, in
cidents, etc.) like a vice ; the impressions should be dis
tinctly and sharply received ; the feelings should glow
intensely at all that is worthy and burn with indignation
at everything which is bad. For the want of this habit,
thoroughly matured and made permanent, time is wasted,
negligent habits are formed, the powers of the mind are
systematically weakened by the very exercise which
should give them strength, and reading, which ought to
arouse and strengthen the intellect, produces, with many,
no deeper and more abiding impression than the shifting
pictures of a magic-lantern, or the fantastic groupings of
the kaleidoscope, first a bewildering show, then confusion
and vacancy.
There is nowadays a special danger from this inatten
tion. So many books are written which are good enough
in their way, and yet are the food for easy i.e., lazy
reading, and they are so cheap withal, so much excite
ment prevails in respect to them, that an active mind is
in danger of knowing many things superficially and
nothing well, of being driven through one volume after
another with such breathless haste as to receive few clear
impressions and no lasting influences.
Passive reading is the evil habit against which most
readers need to be guarded, and to overcome which, when
formed, requires the most manful and persevering efforts.
The habit is the natural result of a profusion of books
and the indolence of our natures and our times, which
desires to receive thoughts, or, more exactly, pictures,
aa 34*
402 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PORTER
many of which are thin, hazy, and evanescent, rather than
vigorously to react against them by an effort that thinks
them over and makes them one's own. It is the intellectual
dyspepsia which is induced by a plethora of intellectual
diet, if that may be called intellectual which is the weak
dilution of thought. Almost better not read at all than
to read in such a way. Certainly it is better to be forced
to steal a half-hour from sleep, after a day of bodily toil,
or to depend for your reading on an hour at a mid-day
nooning when your fellow-laborers are asleep, if you but
fix your whole mind on what you read, than to dawdle
away weeks and months in turning over the leaves of
hundreds of volumes in search for something new, which
is feebly conceived, as lazily dismissed, and as stupidly
forgotten. Better read one history, one poem, or one
novel, well, if it takes a year to despatch it at stolen in
tervals of time, than lazily to consume twelve hours of
the day in a process which wastes the time, and, what is
worse, wastes the intellect, the fancy, and the living soul.
But how is the attention to be controlled ? How can
this miserable passiveness be prevented or overcome?
Rules in great number have been prescribed. All sorts
of directions have been devised. An ingenious author
has advised that each sentence should be read through at
a single breath, the breath being retained until the sentence
is finished. Some advise to read with the pen in hand ;
others, to make a formal analysis of every volume ; others,
to repeat to ourselves, or to recite to others, the substance
of each page and chapter. These, and other devices, are
all of service in their way, and some of them we* will con-
eider in their appropriate place. But their chief value
turns upon this, that they induce an interest or require
an interest, either direct or indirect, in the subject-matter
which is read. Whatever awakens the interest will be
PORTER] BOOKS AND READING. 403
certain to fix and hold the attention. The hired lad in
the country who steals an hour from sleep or rest, that
he may get on a few pages in the odd volume of Plutarch
or Eollin, which, having fallen in his way, has begun to
unfold before his astonished gaze the till then unknown
history of the ancient world, the errand-boy of the city,
who stands trembling at the book-stall, lest the surly pro
prietor should cut short his borrowed pleasure from the
page which he devours, these need no artificial device to
teach them to hold the mind to the book, or to retain its
contents. The great secret of their attention is to be
found in the fresh interest with which they lay hold of
the thoughts of the pictured page, and this remains ever
the great secret of the habit of successful reading even to
the mind that has been disciplined to the most amazing
feats of application. There are no arts of attention, no
arts of memory, which can be compared with this natural
and certain condition of success.
Daniel Webster was one of the most earnest and in
telligent of readers all his life long. His favorite authors
were read and re-read with a passionate fondness. His
critical conversations upon the standard poets and essay
ists and orators of the English tongue are still remembered
and quoted by those who were present to hear when the
mood and opportunity of discourse were upon him. In
one of the last evenings of his life he beguiled the weari
ness of his attendants by reciting a poem from Cowper.
How he came to be so successful and so intelligent a reader
is explained in his autobiography. Whatever he read, he
read so often and so earnestly that he learned to repeat it.
" We had so few books," he says, " that to read them once
or twice was nothing ; we thought they were all to be got
by heart." A small circulating library had been established
in the neighborhood by his father and other persons, and
404 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
among the books which he obtained from it was the
Spectator. " I could not understand why it was necessary
that the author of the Spectator should take such great
pains to prove that Chevy Chase was a good story ; that
was the last thing I doubted." He tells us, " In those
boyish days there were two things which I did dearly
love, viz., reading and playing, passions which did not
cease to struggle when boyhood was over."
The man or boy who reads with attention thus quick
ened cannot read amiss if what he reads is worth pe
rusing. Of his habits when a student he says, "Many
other students read more than I did and knew more than
I did. But so much as I read I made my own. When a
half-hour, or an hour at most, had elapsed, I closed my
book, and though^ on what I had read. If there was any
thing peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage,
I endeavored to recall it and lay it up in my memory,
and commonly could effect my object."
Sir Edward Sugden explained to Sir Thomas Fowell
Buxton the secret of his professional success in the follow
ing words : " I resolved, when beginning to read law, to
make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and never
to go to a second thing till I had entirely accomplished
the first. Many of my competitors read as much in a day
as I read in a week ; but at the end of the twelve months
my knowledge was as fresh as on the day it was acquired,
while theirs had glided away from their recollection."
{Mem. of Sir T. F. Buxton, ch. xxiv.)
He who would read with attention must learn to be
interested in what he reads. He must feel wants or learn
to create wants which must be supplied. If it be history
that he would read with attention, he must feel deficiencies
that will not let him rest till they are supplied ; he must
be moved by a desire that will command its object. la
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 405
it poetry or fiction? He must be excited by a restless
appetite that longs to be amused with new pictures, or
diverted by humorous scenes, or stirred by lofty ideals, or
charmed by poetical melody, and that grows by what it
feeds on. And the man must master, and not be mastered
by, his increasing stock of knowledge and his treasured
products of the imagination. He must exercise great and
still greater energy in judging and applying the acquisi
tions he has made, making them accompany his musings,
feed his memory, animate his principles, and guide his
life.
AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE.
LEWIS WALLACE.
[General Wallace struck a rich vein when he entered the field of the
historical novel. Not that it had not been abundantly worked before,
but that he is peculiarly qualified for the task. His romance of " Ben-
Hur" probably owes its success mainly to its vivid delineation of scenes
from the life of Jesus, but as a general picture of life and character in
the Roman empire at that period it is admirable. From its many
striking scenes we extract the following description of a chariot-race,
which is told with such spirit that the reader seems bodily transported
to the amphitheatre of fair Antioch and made a personal witness of
its sports. General Wallace was born in Indiana about 1828. He
served with distinction in the civil war, becoming major-general in
1862. In 1881 he was appointed United States minister to Constan
tinople, which position he held until 1885.]
THE trumpet sounded short and sharp ; whereupon the
starters, one for each chariot, leaped down from behind
the pillars of the goal, ready to give assistance if any of
the fours proved unmanageable.
406 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
Again the trumpet blew, and simultaneously the gate
keepers threw the stalls open.
First appeared the mounted attendants of the chariot
eers, five in all, Ben-Hur having rejected the service.
The chalked line was lowered to let them pass, then raised
again. They were beautifully mounted, yet scarcely ob
served as they rode forward ; for all the time the tram
pling of eager horses, and the voices of drivers scarcely
less eager, were heard behind in the stalls, so that one
might not look away an instant from the gaping doors.
The chalked line up again, the gate-keepers called their
men ; instantly the ushers on the balcony waved their
hands, and shouted with all their strength, " Down ! down !"
As well have whistled to stay a storm.
Forth from each stall, like missiles in a volley from so
many great guns, rushed the six fours ; and up the vast
assemblage arose, electrified and irrepressible, and, leaping
upon the benches, filled the Circus and the air above it
with yells and screams. This was the time for which
they had so patiently waited! this the moment of
supreme interest treasured up in talk and dreams since
the proclamation of the games!
"He is come! there look!" cried Iras, pointing to
Messala.
" I see him," answered Esther, looking at Ben-Hur.
The veil was withdrawn. For an instant the little
Jewess was brave. An idea of the joy there is in doing
an heroic deed under the eyes of a multitude came to her,
and she understood ever afterward how, at such times,
the souls of men, in the frenzy of performance, laugh at
death or forget it utterly.
The competitors were now under view from nearly
every part of the Circus, yet the race was not begun ;
they had first to make the chalked line successfully.
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 407
This line was stretched for the purpose of equalizing
the start. If it were dashed upon, discomfiture of man
and horses might be apprehended ; on the other hand, to
approach it timidly was to incur the hazard of being
thrown behind in the beginning of the race ; and that
was certain forfeit of the great advantage always striven
for, the position next the division wall on the inner line
of the course.
This trial, its perils and consequences, the spectators
knew thoroughly ; and if the opinion of old Nestor, ut
tered what time he handed the reins to his son, were
true,
" It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise,"
all on the benches might well look for warning of the
winner to be now given, justifying the interest with which
they breathlessly watched for the result.
The arena swam in a dazzle of light; yet each driver
looked first thing for the rope, then for the coveted inner
line. So, all six aiming at the same point and speeding
furiously, a collision seemed inevitable ; nor that merely.
What if the editor, at the last moment, dissatisfied with
the start, should withhold the signal to drop the rope?
or if he should not give it in time ?
The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in
width. Quick the eye, steady the hand, unerring the
judgment required. If now one look away ! or his mind
wander ! or a rein slip ! And what attraction in the en
semble of the thousands over the spreading balcony ! Cal
culating upon the natural impulse to give one glance just
one in sooth of curiosity or vanity, malice might be
there with an artifice ; while friendship and love, did they
serve the same result, might be as deadly as malice.
408 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is
animation. Can we accept the saying, then these latter
days, so tame in pastime and dull in sports, have scarcely
anything to compare to the spectacle offered by the six
contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it ; let him first
look down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its
frame of dull-gray granite walls ; let him then, in this
perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very grace
ful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them,
Messala's rich with ivory and gold ; let him see the
drivers, erect and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion
of the cars, their limbs naked, and fresh and ruddy with
the healthful polish of the baths, in their right hands
goads, suggestive of torture dreadful to the thought, in
their left hands, held in careful separation, and high, that
they may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins
passing taut from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let
him see the fours, chosen for beauty as well as speed ; let
him see them in magnificent action, their masters not more
conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped
from them, their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now
distent, now contracted, limbs too dainty for the sand
which they touch but to spurn, -limbs slender, yet with
impact crushing as hammers, every muscle of the rounded
bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing,
justifying the world in taking from them its ultimate meas
ure of force ; finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses,
let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly ; and
with such distinctness as the picture comes, he may share
the satisfaction of the deeper pleasure of those to whom
it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy. Every age has
its plenty of sorrows ; heaven help where there are no
pleasures !
The competitors having started each on the shortest
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 409
line for the position next the wall, yielding would be like
giving up the race ; and who dared yield ? It is not in
common nature to change a purpose in mid-career ; and
the cries of encouragement from the balcony were indis
tinguishable and indescribable, a roar which had the
same effect upon all the drivers.
The fours neared the rope together. Then the trump
eter by the editor's side blew a signal vigorously.
Twenty feet away it was not heard. Seeing the action,
however, the judges dropped the rope, and not an instant
too soon, for the hoof of one of Messala's horses struck it
as it fell. Nothing daunted, the Roman shook out his
long lash, loosed the reins, leaned forward, and, with a
triumphant shout, took the wall.
" Jove with us ! Jove with us I" yelled all the Roman
faction, in a frenzy of delight.
As Messala turned in, the bronze lion's head at the end
of his axle caught the fore-leg of the Athenian's right-
hand trace-mate, flinging the brute over against its yoke
fellow. Both staggered, struggled, and lost their head
way. The ushers had their will at least in part. Tho
thousands held their breath with horror ; only up where
the consul sat was there shouting.
"Jove with us!" screamed Drusus, frantically.
" He wins ! Jove with us !" answered his associates,
seeing Messala speed on.
Tablet in hand, Sanballat turned to them ; a crash from
the course below stopped his speech, and he could not but
look that way.
Messala having passed, the Corinthian was the only
contestant on the Athenian's right, and to that side the
latter tried to turn his broken four ; and then, as ill-fortune
would have it, the wheel of the Byzantine, who was next
on the left, struck the tail-piece of his chariot, knocking
s 35
410 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
his feet from under him. There was a crash, a scream
of rage and fear, and the unfortunate Cleanthes fell under
the hoofs of his own steeds : a terrible sight, against
which Esther covered her eyes.
On swept the Corinthian, on the Byzantine, on the
Sidonian.
Sanballat looked for Ben-Hur, and turned again to
Drusus and his coterie.
" A hundred sestertii on the Jew !" he cried.
" Taken I" answered Drusus.
" Another hundred on the Jew !" shouted Sanballat.
Nobody appeared to hear him. He called again ; the
situation below was too absorbing, and they were too
busy shouting, " Messala ! Messala ! Jove with us !"
When the Jewess ventured to look again, a party of
workmen were removing the horses and broken car; an
other party were taking off the man himself; and every
bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal with exe
crations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped
her hands ; Ben-Hur, unhurt, was to the front, coursing
freely forward along with the Roman ! Behind them, in
a group, followed the Sidonian, the Corinthian, and the
Byzantine.
The race was on ; the souls of the racers were in it ;
over them bent the myriads.
When the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have
seen, was on the extreme left of the six. For a moment,
like the others, he was half blinded by the light in the
arena ; yet he managed to catch sight of his antagonists
and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than
an antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The
air of passionless hauteur characteristic of the fine patri
cian face was there as of old, and so was the Italian
beauty, which the helmet rather increased ; but more it
WALLACE] ^1^ ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 411
may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy
shadow in which the features were at the moment cast,
still the Israelite thought he saw the soul of the man as
through a glass, darkly : cruel, cunning, desperate ; not
so excited as determined, a soul in a tension of watchful
ness and fierce resolve.
In a time not longer than was required to turn to his
four again, Ben-Hur felt his own resolution harden to a
like temper. At whatever costs, at all hazards, he would
humble this enemy ! Prize, friends, wagers, honor every
thing that can be thought of as a possible interest in the
race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for
life, even, should not hold him back. Yet there was no
passion, on his part ; no blinding rush of heated blood
from heart to brain, and back again ; no impulse to fling
himself upon Fortune : he did not believe in Fortune ; far
otherwise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he
settled to the task, never more observant, never more
capable. The air about him seemed aglow with a renewed
and perfect transparency.
When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Mes-
sala's rush would, if there was no collision, and the rope
fell, give him the wall ; that the rope would fall, he ceased
as soon to doubt ; and, further, it came to him, a sudden
flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let drop
at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could
safely reach that point in the contest) ; and it suggested,
what more Roman-like than for the official to lend him
self to a countryman who, besides being so popular, had
also so much at stake ? There could be no other account
ing for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four
forward" the instant his competitors were prudentially
checking their fours in front of the obstruction, no other
except madness.
412 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
It is one thing to see a necessity, and another to act
upon it. Ben-Hur yielded the wall for the time.
The rope fell, and all the four but his sprang into
the course under urgency of voice and lash. He drew
head to the right, and, with all the speed of his Arabs,
darted across the trails of his opponents, the angle of
movement being such as to lose the least time and gain
the greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators
were shivering at the Athenian's mishap, and the Sido-
nian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were striving, with such
skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in the ruin,
Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck
with Messala, though on the outside. The marvellous
skill shown in making the change thus from the extreme
left across to the right without appreciable loss did not
fail the sharp eyes upon the benches : the Circus seemed
to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then
Esther clasped her hands in glad surprise ; then Sanballat,
smiling, offered his hundred sestertii a second time without
a taker ; and then the Romans began to doubt, thinking
Messala might have found an equal, if not a master, and
that in an Israelite !
And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval
between them, the two neared the second goal.
The pedestal of the three pillars there, viewed from the
west, was a stone wall in the form of a half-circle, around
which the course and opposite balcony were bent in exact
parallelism. Making this turn was considered in all re
spects the most telling test of a charioteer; it was, in
fact, the very feat in which Orestes failed. As an invol
untary admission of interest on the part of the spectators,
a hush fell over all the Circus, so that for the firs time in
the race the rattle and clang of the cars plunging after
the tugging steeds were distinctly heard. Then, it would
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 413
seem, Messala observed Ben-Hur, and recognized him;
and at once the audacity of the man flamed out in an as
tonishing manner.
" Down Eros, up Mars !" he shouted, whirling his lash
with practised hand. "Down Eros, up Mars!" he re
peated, and caught the well-doing Arabs of Ben-Hur a
cut the like of which they had never known.
The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amaze
ment was universal. The silence deepened ; up on the
benches behind the consul the boldest held his breath,
waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus : then,
involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls,
burst the indignant cry of the people.
The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever
been laid upon them except in love ; they had been nur
tured ever so tenderly ; and as they grew, their confidence
in man became a lesson to men beautiful to see. What
should such dainty natures do under such indignity but
leap as from death ?
Forward they sprang as with one impulse, and forward
leaped the car. Past question, every experience is ser
viceable to us. Where got Ben-Hur the large hand and
mighty grip which helped him now so well ? Where but
from the. oar with which so long he fought the sea? And
what was this spring of the floor under his feet to the
dizzy, eccentric lurch with which in the old time the
trembling ship yielded to the beat of staggering billows,
drunk with their power? So he kept his place, and gave
the four free rein, and called to them in soothing voice,
trying merely to guide them round the dangerous turn ;
and before the fever of the people began to abate, he had
back the mastery. Nor that only : on approaching the
first goal, he was again side by side with Messala, bearing
with him the sympathy and admiration of every one not
35*
414 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
a Roman. So clearly was the feeling shown, so vigorous
its manifestation, that Messala, with all his boldness, felt
it unsafe to trifle further.
As the cars whirled round the goal, Esther caught sight
of Ben-Hur's face, a little pale, a little higher raised,
otherwise calm, even placid.
Immediately a man climbed on the entablature at the
west end of the division wall, and took down one of the
conical wooden balls. A dolphin on the east entablature
was taken down at the same time.
In like manner, the second ball and second dolphin dis
appeared, and then the third ball and third dolphin.
Three rounds concluded : still Messala held the inside
position ; still Ben-Hur moved with him side by side j still
the other competitors followed as before. The contest
began to have the appearance of one of the double races
which became so popular in Rome during the later Caesa-
rean period, Messala and Ben-Hur in the first, the Corin
thian, Sidonian, and Byzantine in the second. Meantime
the ushers succeeded in returning the multitude to their
Reats, though the clamor continued to run the rounds,
keeping, as it were, even pace with the rivals in the course
below.
In the fifth round the Sidonian succeeded in getting a
place outside Ben-Hur, but lost it directly.
The sixth round was entered upon without change of
relative position.
Gradually the speed had been quickened, gradually
the blood of the competitors warmed with the work.
Men and beasts seemed to know alike that the final crisis
was near, bringing the time for the winner to assert him
self.
The interest which from the beginning had centred
chiefly in the struggle between the Roman and the Jew,
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 415
with an intense and general sympathy for the latter, was
fast changing to anxiety on his account. On all the
benches the spectators bent forward motionless, except
as their faces turned following the contestants. Ilderim
quitted combing his beard, and Esther forgot her fears.
" A hundred sestertii on the Jew !" cried Sanballat to
the Eomans under the consul's awning.
There was no reply.
" A talent or five talents, or ten ; choose ye !"
He shook his tablets at them defiantly.
" I will take thy sestertii," answered a Eoman youth,
preparing to write.
" Do not so," interposed a friend.
Why ?"
"Messala hath reached his utmost speed. See him lean
over his chariot-rim, the reins loose as flying ribbons.
F/ook then at the Jew."
The first one looked.
" By Hercules !" he replied, his countenance falling.
" The dog throws all his weight on the bits. I see! I see !
If the gods help not our friend, he will be run away with
by the Israelite. No, not yet. Look! Jove with us!
Jove with us !"
The cry, swelled by every Latin tongue, shook tht>
velaria over the consul's head.
If it were true that Messala had attained his utmost
speed, the effort was with effect : slowly but certainly he
was beginning to forge ahead. His horses were running
with their heads low down ; from the balcony their bodies
appeared actually to skim the earth ; their nostrils showed
blood-red m expansion; their eyes seemed straining in
their sockets. Certainly the good steeds were doing their
best ! How long could they keep the pace ? It was but
the commencement of the sixth round. On they dashed.
416 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
As they neared the second goal, Ben-Hur turned in behind
the Roman's car.
The joy of the Messala faction reached its bound : they
screamed, and howled, and tossed their colors ; and San-
ballat filled his tablets with wagers of their tendering.
Malluch, in the lower gallery over the Gate of Triumph,
found it hard to keep his cheer. He had cherished the
vague hint dropped to him by Ben-Hur of something to
happen in the turning of the western pillars. It was the
fifth round, yet the something had not come ; and he had
said to himself, the sixth will bring it j but, lo ! Ben-Hur
was hardly holding a place at the tail of his enemy's car.
Over in the east end, Simonides' party held their peace.
The merchant's head was bent low. Ilderim tugged at
his beard/ and dropped his brows till there was nothing
of his eyes but an occasional sparkle of light. Esther
scarcely breathed. Iras alone appeared glad.
Along the home-stretch sixth round Messala leading,
next him Ben-Hur, and so close it was the old story :
" First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds ;
With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds ;
Close on Eumelus' back they puff the wind,
And seem just mounting on his. car behind ;
Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,
And, hovering o'er, their stretching shadow sees."
Thus to the first goal, and round it. Messala, fearful
of losing his place, hugged the stony wall with perilous
clasp ; a foot to the left, and he had been dashed to pieces;
yet, when the turn was finished, no man, looking at the
wheel-tracks of the two cars, could have said, here went
Messala, there the Jew. They left but one trace behind
them.
As they whirled by, Esther saw Ben-Hur's face again,
and it was whiter than before.
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 417
Simonides, shrewder than Esther, said to Ilderim, the
moment the rivals turned into the course, " I am no judge,
good sheik, if Ben-Hur be not about to execute some de
sign. His face hath that look."
To which Ilderim answered, " Saw you how clean they
were and fresh? By the splendor of G-od, friend, they
have not been running ! But now watch !"
One ball and one dolphin remained on the entablatures ;
and all the people drew a long breath, for the beginning
of the end was at hand.
First, the Sidonian gave the scourge to his four, and,
smarting with fear and pain, they dashed desperately for
ward, promising for a brief time to go to the front. The
effort ended in promise. Next, the Byzantine and Co
rinthian each made the trial with like result, after which
they were practically out of the race. Thereupon, with a
readiness perfectly explicable, all the factions except the
Romans joined hope in Ben-Hur, and openly indulged
their feeling.
"Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!" they shouted, and the blent
voices of the many rolled overwhelmingly against the
consular stand.
From the benches above him as he passed, the favor
descended in fierce injunction.
" Speed thee, Jew !"
" Take the wall now !"
" On 1 loose the Arabs ! Give them rein and scourge !"
" Let him not have the turn on thee again. Now or
never!"
Over the balustrade they stooped low, stretching their
hands imploringly to him.
Either he did not hear, or could not do better, for half
way round the course and he was still following ; at the
second goal even still no change !
bb
418 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
And now, to make the turn, Messala began to draw in
his left-hand steeds, an act which necessarily slackened
their speed. His spirit was high ; more than one altar
was richer of his- vows ; the Roman genius was still pre
sident. On the three pillars only six hundred feet away
were fame, increase of fortune, promotions, and a triumph
ineffably sweetened by hate, all in store for him ! That
moment, Malluch, in the gallery, saw Ben-Hur lean for
ward over his Arabs and give them the reins. Out flew
the many-folded lash in his hand ; over the backs of the
startled steeds it writhed and hissed, and hissed and
writhed again and again, and, though it fell not, there
were both sting and menace in its quick report ; and as
the man passed thus from quiet to resistless action,
his face suffused, his eyes gleaming, along the reins he
seemed to flash his will ; and instantly not one, but the
four as one, answered with a leap that landed them along
side the Roman's car. Messala, on the perilous edge of the
goal, heard, but dared not look to see what the awakening
portended. From the people he received no sign. Above
the noises of the race there was but one voice, and that
was Ben-Hur's. In the old Aramaic, as the sheik him
self, he called to the Arabs,
"On, Atair! On, Rigel! What, Antares! dost thou
linger now ? Good horse, oho, Aldebaran ! I hear them
singing in the tents. I hear the children singing, and the
women, singing of the stars, of Atair, Antares, Rigel, Al
debaran, victory! and the song will never end. Well
done! Home to-morrow, under the black tent-home!
On, Antares ! The tribe is waiting for us, and the master
is waiting ! 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! Ha, ha ! We have
overthrown the proud. The hand that smote us is in the
dust. Ours the glory ! Ha, ha ! steady ! The work is
"*one, soho I Rest !"
WALLACE] AN ANCIENT CHARIOT-RACE. 419
There had never been anything of the kind more simple;
seldom anything so instantaneous.
At the moment chosen for the dash, Messala was moving
in a circle round the goal. To pass him, Ben-Hur had to
cross the track, and good strategy required the movement
to be in a forward direction, that is, on a like circle lim
ited to the least possible increase. The thousands on the
benches understood it all : they saw the signal given, the
magnificent response, the four close outside Messala's
outer wheel, Ben-Hur's inner wheel behind the others
car : all this they saw. Then they heard a crash loud
enough to send a thrill through the Circus, and, quicker
than thought, out over the course a spray of shining
white and yellow flinders flew. Down on its right side
toppled the bed of the Roman's chariot. There was a
rebound as of the axle hitting the hard earth ; another,
and another; then the car went to pieces, and Messala,
entangled in the reins, pitched forward headlong.
To increase the horror of the sight by making death
certain, the Sidonian, who had the wall next behind, could
not stop or turn out. Into the wreck full speed he drove ;
then over the Roman, and into the latter's four, all mad
with fear. Presently, out of the turmoil, the fighting of
horses, the resound of blows, the murky cloud of dust
and sand, he crawled, in time to see the Corinthian and
Byzantine go on down the course after Ben-Hur, who had
not been an instant delayed.
The people arose, and leaped upon the benches, and
shouted and screamed. Those who looked that way
caught glimpses of Messala, now under the trampling of
the fours, now under the abandoned cars. He was still;
they thought him dead ; but far the greater number fol
lowed Ben-Hur in his career. They had not seen the cun
ning touch of the reins by which, turning a little to the
420 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLEMENS
left, he caught Messala's wheel with the iron-shod point
of his axle, and crushed it ; but they had seen the transfor
mation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow
of his spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy
of action with which, by look, word, and gesture, he so
suddenly inspired his Arabs. And such running ! It was
rather the long leaping of lions in harness ; but for the
lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When
the Byzantine and Corinthian were half-way down the
course, Ben-Hur turned the first goal.
And the race was WON !
AN ARTIST IN WHITEWASH.
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
[The author from whom we now quote, familiarly known oy his
nom de plume of Mark Twain, is a native of Missouri, where he was
born in 1835. In early life he was a Mississippi steamboat pilot, and
afterwards lived in Nevada and California, where his fine powers as a
humorist first began to display themselves. He has since travelled
much, and has written several works, mainly devoted to the results of
actual observation, yet so brimming over with fun, and giving such
ludicrous interpretations to simple facts, as to have made Mark Twain
the most popular of American humorists. His wit is never simple
extravagance, but has a distinct flavor of its own ; nor does it ever
descend into coarseness, like the fun of many of our popular humor
ists. To the extract from the life of " Tom Sawyer" we append one of
the most amusing of his conversational episodes, his description of
the befogging of the Genoese guide in " The Innocents Abroad."]
[Tom Sawyer, having offended his guardian, Aunt Polly, is punished
by being set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden.]
TOM appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of white
wash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence,
CLEMENS] AN ARTIST IN WHITEWASH. 421
and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled
down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine
feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but
a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it
along the topmost plank ; repeated the operation ; did
it again ; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak
with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence,
and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. . . .
He began to think of the fun he had planned for this
day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys
would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expe
ditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for
having to work, the very thought of it burnt him like
fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it, bits
of toys, marbles, and trash, enough to buy an exchange
of ivork, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as
half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his strait
ened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying
to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an
inspiration burst upon him ! Nothing less than a great,
magnificent inspiration.
He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work.
Ben Eogers hove in sight presently, the very boy, of all
boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait
was the hop-skip-and-jump, proof enough that his heart
was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an
apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals,
followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong,
for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he
slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far
over to starboard, and rounded to ponderously and with
laborious pomp and circumstance, for he was personating
the " Big Missouri," and considered himself to be drawing
nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-
36
422 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLEMENS
bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on
his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing
them :
"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran
almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.
" Ship up to back ! Ting-a-ling-ling !" His arms straight
ened and stiffened down his sides.
" Set her back on the stabboard ! Ting-a-ling-ling 1
Chow ! ch-chow-wow ! Chow !" his right hand, mean
time, describing stately circles, for it was representing a
forty-foot wheel.
"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling I
Chow-ch-chow-chow !" The left hand began to describe
circles.
" Stop the stabboard ! Ting-a-ling-ling ! Stop the lab-
board ! Come ahead on the stabboard ! Stop her ! Let
your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-
ow-ow ! Get out that head-line. Lively now ! Come
out with your spring line what're you about there?
Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it!
Stand by that stage, now let her go ! Done with the
engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SKt! sh't I sKtT (trying
the gauge-cocks).
Tom went on whitewashing paid no attention to the
steamboat. Ben stared a moment, and then said,
" Hi-yi / you're up a stump, ain't you ?"
No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye
of an artist ; then he gave his brush another gentle sweep,
and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up along
side of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he
stuck to his work. Ben said, " Hello, old chap ; you got
to work, hey?"
Tom wheeled suddenly, and said,
" Why, it's you, Ben ! I warn't noticing."
CLEMENS] AN ARTIST IN WHITEWASH. 423
" Say, I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish
you could ? But of course you'd druther work, wouldn't
you ? Course you would I"
Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said,
" What do you call work ?"
"Why, ain't that work?"
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered, care
lessly,
" Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know is,
it suits Tom Sawyer."
" Oh, come now, you don't mean to let on that you like
it?"
" Like it ? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it.
Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every
day?"
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nib
bling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and
forth stepped back to note the effect added a touch
here and there criticised the effect again, Ben watching
every move and getting more and more interested, more
and more absorbed. Presently he said,
" Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."
Tom considered was about to consent but he altered
his mind : " No, no ; I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben.
You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence
right here on the street, you know ; but if it was the back
fence I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful
particular about this fence ; it's got to be done very care
ful ; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe
two thousand, that can do it in the way it's got to be
done."
" No is that so ? Oh, come now, lemme just try, only
just a little. I'd let you, if you was me, Tom."
" Ben, I'd like to, honest Injin ; but Aunt Polly well.
424 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLEMENS
Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him ; Sid wanted
to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see
how I'm fixed ? If you was to tackle this fence, and any
thing was to happen to it
" Oh, shucks ! I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try.
Say, I'll give you the core of my apple."
" Well, here No, Ben ; now don't j I'm afeard "
" I'll give you all of it !"
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but
alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer " Big
Missouri" worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist
sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs,
munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more
innocents. There was no lack of material ; boys happened
along every little while ; they came to jeer, but remained
to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had
traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good
repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought
in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with ; and so on,
and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the
afternoon came, from being a poor, poverty-stricken boy
in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He
had, beside the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,
part of a jew's-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look
through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock any
thing, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter,
a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kit
ten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar
but no dog the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-
peel, and a dilapidated old window-sash.
He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while plenty
of company and the fence had three coats of whitewash
on it ! If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have
bankrupted every boy in the village.
CLEMENS] BEFOGGING A GUIDE. 425
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world,
after all. He had discovered a great law of human action,
without knowing it, namely, that in order to make a man
or a boy covet a thing it is only necessary to make the
thing difficult to attain.
BEFOGGING A GUIDE.
European guides know about enough English to tangle
everything up so that a man can make neither head nor
tail of it. They know their story by heart, the history
of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other wonder they
show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would ;
and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they
have to go back and begin over again. All their lives
long they are employed in showing strange things to for
eigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is
human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It
is what prompts children to say " smart" things, and do
absurd ones, and in other ways " show off" when com
pany is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in
rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit
of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a
guide, whose privilege it is, every day, to show to strangers
wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admira
tion ! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live
in a soberer atmosphere.
After we discovered this, we never went into ecstasies
any more, we never admired anything, we never showed
any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the
presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display.
We had found their weak point. We have made good use
of it ever since. We have made some of those people
savage, at times, but we have never lost our own serenity.
The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can
36*
r26 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLEMENS
keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot,
and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice, than
any man that lives. It conies natural to him.
The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an Ameri
can party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal
so much in sentiment and emotion, before any relic of
Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had
swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation,
full of impatience. He said,
" Come wis me, genteelmen I come ! I show you ze
letter writing by Christopher Colombo! write it himself!
write it wis his own hand ! come I"
He took us to the municipal palace. After much im
pressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained
and aged document was spread before us. The guide's
eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parch
ment with his finger :
" What I tell you, genteelmen ? Is it not so ? See !
handwriting Christopher Colombo! write it himself!"
We looked indifferent, unconcerned. The doctor ex
amined the document very deliberately, during a painful
pause. Then he said, without any show of interest,
" Ah, Ferguson, what what did you say was the
name of the party who wrote this ?"
" Christopher Colombo ! ze great Christopher Colombo !"
Another deliberate examination.
" Ah, did he write it himself, or or how ?"
"He write it himself! Christopher Colombo ! he's own
handwriting, write by himself!"
Then the doctor laid the document down, and said,
" Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years
old that could write better than that."
" But zis is ze great Christo "
" I don't care who it is ! It's the worst writing I ever
CLEMENS] BEFOGGING A GUIDE. 427
saw. Now, you mustn't think you can impose on us be
cause we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal.
If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real
merit, trot them out ! and if you haven't, drive on !"
We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up,
but he made one more venture. He had something which
he thought would overcome us. He said,
" Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me ! I show you beau
tiful, oh, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo! splendid,
grand, magnificent I"
He brought us before the beautiful bust, for it was
beautiful, and sprang back and struck an attitude :
" Ah, look, genteelmen ! beautiful, grand, bust Chris-
tophor Colombo! beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!"
The doctor put up his eye-glass, procured for such ce
ssions :
" Ah, what did you say this gentleman's name was ?"
" Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!"
" Christopher Colombo, the great Christopher Colombo.
Well, what did he do ?"
" Discover America I discover America, oh, ze devil !"
" Discover America ? No, that statement will hardly
wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard
nothing about it. Christopher Colombo, pleasant name
is is he dead ?"
" Oh, corpo di Bacco ! three hundred year !"
" What did he die of?"
" I do not know. I cannot tell."
"Small-pox, think?"
" I do not know, genteelmen, I do not know what he
die of."
" Measles, likely ?"
" Maybe, maybe. I do not know. I think he die of
something."
428 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLEMENS
" Parents living ?"
" Im-posseeble !"
" Ah, which is the bust and which is the pedestal?"
" Santa Maria ! zis ze bust ! zis.zv pedestal !"
"Ah, I see, I see, happy combination, very happy
combination indeed. Is is this the first time this gen
tleman was ever on a bust ?"
That joke was lost on the foreigner : guides cannot,
master the subtleties of the American joke.
We have made it interesting for this Roman guide.
Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Yatican
again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very
near expressing interest sometimes, even admiration. It
was hard to keep from it. We succeeded, though. Nobody
else ever did, in the Yatican museums. The guide was
bewildered, nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly,
hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his
ingenuity on us, but it was a failure ; we never showed
any interest in anything. He had reserved what he con
sidered to be his greatest wonder till the last, a royal
Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, per
haps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that
some of his old enthusiasm came back to him :
" See, genteelmen ! Mummy ! Mummy !"
The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.
"Ah, Ferguson, what did I understand you to say
the gentleman's name was ?"
" Name ? he got no name ! Mummy ! 'Gyptian
mummy!"
" Yes, yes. Born here ?"
" No. ' Gyptian mummy."
" Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume ?"
" No ! not Frenchman, not Eoman ! born in Egypta I"
" Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before.
LONGFELLOW] A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS. 429
Foreign locality, likely. Mummy, mummy. How calm
he is, how self-possessed ! Is ah ! is he dead ?"
"Oh, sacre bleu! been dead three thousan' year!"
The doctor turned on him savagely :
"Here, now! what do you mean by such conduct as
this ? Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers
and trying to learn ! Trying to impose your vile second
hand carcasses on us I Thunder and lightning! I've a
notion to to if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him
out! or, by George, we'll brain you!"
We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman.
However, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing
it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were
up, and he endeavored, as well as he could, to describe us,
so that the landlord would know which persons he meant.
He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics.
The observation was so innocent and so honest that it
amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say. . . .
Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting,
long-suffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry
to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very
much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed
with doubts.
A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS.
We might fairly look upon flowers as created for the use of the
poets, when we consider their lack of adaptation to life's practical
uses, and their beauty and delicacy of form and color, which make
each flower almost a poem in itself. Or we might rather view the
flowers as brilliant similes in Nature's great poem, into which they
flash new meanings, as a poet's simile often lights up a weary length
of verse. Though the varied charms of the flower-kingdom have lent
430 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LONGFELLOW
their grace to long epochs of poetry, they still reveal new and deeper
beauties and relations to the imaginative intellect, and the modern
bard finds them as indispensable to his song as did old Chaucer, or
remote singers far older than Chaucer. As the bee still finds new
honey in the flower-cup, so the poet never fails to discover fresh mean
ing in rose and lily, daisy and violet. As an introduction to our floral
garland, we may give in full Longfellow's charming tribute to the
flowers. In his verses they seem to gain new significance, and to fill
as wide and brilliant a r6le in the world of thought as they do in
the world of facts.
FLOWERS.
SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld ;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above ;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours,
Making evident our own creation
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.
LONGFELLOW] A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS.
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay ;
Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light ;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night !
These in flowers and men are more than seeming ;
Workings are they of the self-same powers
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.
Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born ;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,
Stand like Euth amid the golden corn.
Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield.
Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink.
Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone ;
432 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FRENEAU
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers ;
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.
And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand,
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
A poet of the last century thus sings the beauty and grace of one
of the gems of the woodland depths :
THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE.
Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet :
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by :
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.
Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom ;
TERRY] A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS. 433
They died, nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ;
Unpi tying frosts and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came :
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same ;
The space between is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
PHILIP FRENEAU.
The trailing arbutus, one of the earliest, and certainly the most
fragrant and delicately beautiful, of the wild flowers of spring, is thus
harmoniously wrought into verse by Rose Terry :
Darlings of the forest !
Blossoming alone
When Earth's grief is sorest
For her jewels gone,
Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.
Tinged with color faintly,
Like the morning sky,
Or, more pale and saintly,
Wrapped in leaves ye lie,
Even as children sleep in faith's simplicity.
There the wild wood-robin
Hymns your solitude,
And the rain comes sobbing
Through the budding wood,
While the low south wind sighs, but dare not be morn
rude.
T cc 87
434 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Were your pure lips fashioned
Out of air and dew,
Starlight unimpassioned,
Dawn's most tender hue,
And scented by the woods that gathered sweets for you ?
Fairest and most lonely,
From the world apart,
Made for beauty only,
Yeiled from Nature's heart
With such unconscious grace as makes the dream of Art I
Were not mortal sorrow
An immortal shade,
Then would I to-morrow
Such a flower be made,
And live in the dear woods where my lost childhood
played.
Next in our garland of verse, as it is among the next to bloom in
Nature's floral garland, comes the blue-eyed violet, the darling of
spring. It calls up old and sad memories in the soul of our poet,
reminiscences of vanished hopes and days of happiness long since
flown.
O faint, delicious, spring-time violet,
Thine odor, like a key,
Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let
A thought of sorrow free.
The breath of distant fields upon my brow
Blows through that open door
The sound of wind-borne bells, more sweet and low,
And sadder, than of yore.
WHITNEY] A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS. 435
It comes afar, from that beloved place,
And that beloved hour,
When Life hung ripening in Love's golden grace,
Like grapes above a bower.
A spring goes singing through its reedy grass ;
The lark sings o'er my head,
Drowned in the sky Oh, pass, ye visions, pass !
I would that I were dead !
Why hast thou opened that forbidden door
From which I ever flee ?
O vanished Joy ! O Love that art no more,
Let my vexed spirit be !
O violet ! thy odor through my brain
Hath searched, and stung to grief
This sunny day, as if a curse did stain
Thy velvet leaf.
W. W. STORX.
To another of our poets the violet brings hopeful aspirations, and
comes as a harbinger of a higher promise.
A VIOLET.
God does not send us strange flowers every year.
When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places,
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces.
The violet is here.
It all comes back : the odor, grace, and hue ;
Each sweet relation of its life repeated ;
No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated :
It is the thing we knew.
436 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALDRICH
So after the death- winter it must be.
God will not put strange signs in the heavenly places :
The old love shall look out from the old faces.
Yeilchen ! I shall have thee !
A. D. T. WHITNEY.
One of our most melodious and suggestive poets thus gracefully
niiigs for us the song of
THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND.
The roses are a regal troop,
And modest folk the daisies ;
But, Bluebells of New England,
To you I give my praises,
To you, fair phantoms in the sun,
Whom merry Spring discovers,
With bluebirds for your laureates
And honey-bees for lovers.
The south wind breathes, and, lo ! you throng
This rugged land of ours :
I think the pale-blue clouds of May
Drop down, and turn to flowers !
By cottage doors along the roads
You show your winsome faces,
And, like the spectre lady, haunt
The lonely woodland places.
All night your eyes are closed in sleep,
Kept fresh for day's adorning :
Such simple faith as yours can see
God's coming in the morning !
EMERSON] A GARLAND OF FLOWER-POEMS. 437
You lead me, by your holiness,
To pleasant ways of duty ;
You set my thoughts to melody,
You fill me with your beauty.
Long may the heavens give you rain,
The sunshine its caresses ;
Long may the woman that I love
Entwine you in her tresses.
T. B. ALDRICH.
In his tribute to the rhodora, Emerson gives us one of the most
thoughtfully conceived and suggestive of his songs. It is like a well-
cut jewel, all sparkle and beauty.
In May. when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Bhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay ;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Bhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose !
I never thought to ask, I never knew.
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
In conclusion we may offer the reader one of the most beautiful
poems that Bryant ever wrote. It is the epitaph of the dying flowers,
37*
438 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BRYANT
and is a worthy successor to the bright forms whose passing away it
chronicles.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown
and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie
dead ;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs
the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the
gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately
sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ?
Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle race of
flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of
ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November
rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer
glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty
stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the
plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland,
glade, and glen.
PARKMAN] BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 439
And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such
days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter
home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the
trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance
late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no
more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my
side.
In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast
the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of
ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.
FRANCIS PAKKMAN.
[Of our later historians none have attained a more deservedly high
position than Francis Parkman, whose literary life-theme has been the
relations of the French colonists of North America with the English
and Indians. His works on this subject are almost exhaustive, and
now comprise seven distinct historical essays, bringing the subject
down from the first steps of colonization in Canada to the story of
the French and Indian war, as detailed in his recently-published
440 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKMA*
* Montcalm and "Wolfe." From the latter we extract an account of
Braddock's defeat, presenting a clearly-detailed picture of the locality
and incidents of the fight. Mr. Parkman is a native of Boston, where
he was born in 1823.]
THE garrison consisted of a few companies of the reg
ular troops stationed permanently in the colony, and to
these were added a considerable number of Canadians.
Contreco3ur still held the command. Under him were
three other captains, Beaujeu, Dumas, and Ligneris. Be
sides the troops and Canadians, eight hundred Indian war
riors. mustered from far and near, had built their wigwams
and camp-sheds on the open ground, or under the edge of
the neighboring woods, very little to the advantage of
the young corn. Some were baptized savages settled in
Canada, Caughnawagas from Saut St. Louis, Abenakis
from St. Francis, and Hurons from Lorette, whose chief
bore the name of Anastase, in honor of that Father of the
Church. The rest were unmitigated heathen, Pottawat-
tamies and Ojibwas from the northern lakes under Charles
Langlade, the same bold partisan who had led them, three
years before, to attack the Miamis.at Pickawillany ; Shawa-
noes and Mingoes from the Ohio ; and Ottawas from De
troit, commanded, it is said, by that most redoubtable of
savages, Pontiac. The law of the survival of the fittest
had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through count
less generations ; and with the primitive Indian the fittest
was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily.
Baptized and heathen alike, they had just enjoyed a di
version greatly to their taste. A young Pennsylvanian
named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of
eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the west
ern borders of the province and led captive to the fort.
When the party came to the edge of the clearing, his cap
tors, who had shot and scalped his companion, raised the
PARKMAN] BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 441
scalp-yell; whereupon a din of responsive whoops and
firing of guns rose from all the Indian camps, and their
inmates swarmed out like bees, while the French in the
fort shot off muskets and cannon to honor the occasion.
The unfortunate boy, the object of this obstreperous re
joicing, presently saw a multitude of savages, naked,
hideously bedaubed with red, blue, black, and brown, and
armed with sticks or clubs, ranging themselves in two
long parallel lines, between which he was told that he
must run, the faster the better, as they would beat him
all the way. He ran with his best speed, under a shower
of blows, and had nearly reached the end of the course,
when he was knocked down. He tried to rise, but was
blinded by a handful of sand thrown into his face ; and
then they beat him till he swooned. On coming to his
senses he found himself in the fort, with the surgeon open
ing a vein in his arm and a crowd of French and Indians
looking on. In a few days he w r as able to w r alk with the
help of a stick ; and, coming out from his quarters one
morning, he saw a memorable scene.
Three days before, an Indian had brought the report
that the English were approaching; and the Chevalier
de la Perade was sent out to reconnoitre. He returned
on the next day, the seventh, with news that they were
not far distant. On the eighth the brothers Normanville
went out, and found that they were within six leagues
of* the fort. The French were in great excitement and
alarm ; but Contrecceur at length took a resolution, which
seems to have been inspired by Beaujeu. It was deter
mined to meet the enemy on the march, and ambuscade
them, if possible, at the crossing of the Monongahela, or
some other favorable spot. Beaujeu proposed the plan to
the Indians, and offered them the war-hatchet; but they
would not take it. " Do you want to die, my father, and
442 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
sacrifice us besides?" That night they held a council,
and in the morning again refused to go. Beaujeu did not.
despair. " I am determined," he exclaimed, " to meet the
English. What ! will you let your father go alone ?" The
greater part caught fire at his words, promised to follow
him, and put on their war-paint. Beaujeu received the
communion, then dressed himself like a savage and joined
the clamorous throng. Open barrels of gunpowder and
bullets were set before the gate of the fort, and James
Smith, painfully climbing the rampart with the help of
his stick, looked down on the warrior rabble as, huddling
together, wild" with excitement, they scooped up the con
tents to fill their powder-horns and pouches. Then, band
after band, they filed off along the forest track that led
to the ford of the Monongahela. They numbered six
hundred and thirty- seven ; and with them went thirty-six
French officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers,
and a hundred and forty-six Canadians, or about nine
hundred in all. At eight o'clock the tumult was over.
The broad clearing lay lonely and still, and Contrecceur,
with what was left of his garrison, waited in suspense for
the issue.
It was near one o'clock when Braddock crossed the
Monongahela for the second time. If the French made
a stand anywhere, it would be, he thought, at the fording-
place ; but Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, whom he sent across
with a strong advance-party, found no enemy, and quietly
took possession of the farther shore. Then the main body
followed. To impose on the imagination of the French
scouts, who were doubtless on the watch, the movement
was made with studied regularity and order. The sun
was cloudless, and the men were inspirited by the pros
pect of near triumph. Washington afterwards spoke with
admiration of the spectacle. The music, the banners, the
PAKKMAN] SHADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 443
mounted officers, the troop of light cavalry, the naval de
tachment, the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Virgin
ians, the wagons and tumbrils, cannon, howitzers, and
coehorns, the train of pack-horses, and the droves of cattle,
passed in long procession through the rippling shallows,
and slowly entered the bordering forest. Here, when
all were over, a short halt was ordered for rest and re
freshment.
Why had not Beaujeu defended the ford ? This was
his intention in the morning; but he had been met by
obstacles, the nature of which is not wholly clear. His
Indians, it seems, had proved refractory. Three hundred
of them left him, went off in another direction, and did
not rejoin him till the English had crossed the river.
Hence perhaps it was that, having left Fort Duquesne at
eight o'clock, he spent half the day in marching seven
miles, and was more than a mile from the fording-place
when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay,
from whatever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of
laying an ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and
ravines that channelled the forest through which Braddock
was now on the point of marching.
Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the
British line of march, there was a clearing and a deserted
house that had once belonged to the trader Fraser. Wash
ington remembered it well. It was here that he found
rest and shelter on the winter journey homeward from
his mission to Fort Le Boeuf. He was in no less need of
rest at this moment ; for recent fever had so weakened
him that he could hardly sit his horse. From Fraser's
house to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a
rough path, along which the troops were now beginning
to move after their halt. It ran inland for a little, then
curved to the left and followed a course parallel to the
444 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKMAN
river along the base of a line of steep hills that here bor
dered the valley. These and all the country were buried
in dense and heavy forest, choked with bushes and the
carcasses of fallen trees. Braddock has been charged with
marching blindly into an ambuscade j but it was not so.
There was no ambuscade; and had there been one he
would have found it. It is true that he did not recon
noitre the woods very far in advance of the head of tho
column ; yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dis
positions to prevent surprise. Several guides, with six
Virginian light-horsemen, led the way. Then, a musket-
shot behind, came the vanguard ; then three hundred
soldiers, under Gage ; then a large body of axe men, under
Sir John Sinclair, to open the road ; then two cannon,
with tumbrils and tool-wagons ; and lastly the rear-guard,
closing the line, while flanking-parties ranged the woods
on both sides. This was the advance-column. The main
body followed with little or no interval. The artillery
and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed
through the woods close on either hand. Numerous
flanking-parties were thrown out a hundred yards and
more to right and left ; while, in the space between them
and the marching column, the pack-horses and cattle, with
their drivers, made their way painfully among the trees
and thickets ; since, had they been allowed to follow the
road, the line of march would have been too long for
mutual support. A body of regulars and provincials
brought up the rear.
Gage, with his advance-column, had just passed a wide
and bushy ravine that crossed their path, and the van of
the main column was on the point of entering it, when
the guides and light-horsemen in the front suddenly fell
back ; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in mark
ing out the road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but
PARKMAN] BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 445
wearing the gorget of an officer, bounding forward along
the path. He stopped when he discovered the head of
the column, turned, and waved his hat. The forest be
hind was swarming with French and savages. At the
signal of the officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they
yelled the war-whoop, spread themselves to right and
left, and opened a sharp fire under cover of the trees.
Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired
several volleys with great steadiness against the now in
visible assailants. Few of them were hurt; the trees
caught the shot, but the noise was deafening under the
dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the
Canadians, to borrow the words of Dumas, " fled shame
fully, crying, " Sauve qui peut !' " Volley followed volley,
and at the third Beaujeu dropped dead. Gage's two can
non were now brought to bear, on which the Indians,
like the Canadians, gave way in confusion, but did not,
like them, abandon the field. The close, scarlet ranks of
the English were plainly to be seen through the trees and
the smoke ; they were moving forward, cheering lustily,
and shouting, "God save the King!" Dumas, now chief
in command, thought that all was lost. " I advanced."
he says, "with the assurance that comes from despair,
exciting by voice and gesture the few soldiers that re
mained. The fire of my platoon was so sharp that the
enemy seemed astonished." The Indians, encouraged,
began to rally. The French officers who commanded
them showed admirable courage and address ; and while
Dumas and Ligneris, with the regulars and what was left
of the Canadians, held the ground in front, the savage
warriors, screeching their war-cries, swarmed through the
forest along both flanks of the English, hid behind trees,
bushes, and fallen trunks, or crouched in gullies and ra
vines, and opened a deadly fire on the helpless soldiery,
38
446 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKMAN
who, themselves completely visible, could see no enemy,
and wasted volley after volley on the impassive trees.
The most destructive fire came from a hill on the English
right, where the Indians lay in multitudes, firing from
their lurking-places on the living target below. But the
invisible death was everywhere, in front, flank, and rear.
The British cheer was heard no more. The troops broke
their ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass,
shrinking from the bullets that cut them down by scores.
When Braddock heard the firing in the front, he pushed
forward with the main body to the support of G-age, leav
ing four hundred men in the rear, under Sir Peter Halket,
to guard the baggage. At the moment of his arrival
Gage's soldiers had abandoned their two cannon, and were
falling back to escape the concentrated fire of the Indians.
Meeting the advancing troops, they tried to find cover be
hind them. This threw the whole into confusion. The
men of the two regiments became mixed together ; and in
a short time the entire force, except the Virginians and
the troops left with Halket, were massed in several dense
bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one
way and some another, and all alike exposed without
shelter to the bullets that pelted them like hail. Both
men and officers were new to this blind and frightful war
fare of the savage in his native woods. To charge the
Indians in their hiding-places would have been useless.
They would have eluded pursuit with the agility of wild
cats, and swarmed back, like angry hornets, the moment
that it ceased. The Virginians alone were equal to the
emergency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians them
selves, they might have held the enemy in check till order
could be restored, had not Braddock, furious at a proceed
ing that shocked all his ideas of courage and discipline,
ordered them, with oaths, to form into line. A body of
PABKMAN]
BRADDOCK 1 S DEFEAT.
447
them under Captain Waggoner made a dash for a fallen
tree lying in the woods, far out towards the lurking-places
of the Indians, and, crouching behind the huge trunk,
opened fire; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among
the bushes, mistook their best friends for the enemy, shot
at them from behind, killed many, and forced the rest to
return. A few of the regulars also tried in their clumsy
way to fight behind trees ; but Braddock beat them with
his sword, and compelled them to stand with the rest, an
open mark for the Indians. The panic increased ; the
soldiers crowded together, and the bullets spent them
selves in a mass of human bodies. Commands, entreaties,
and threats were lost upon them. " We would fight,"
some of them answered, " if we could see anybody to
fight with." Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke.
Officers and men who had stood all the afternoon under
fire afterwards declared that they could not be sure they
had seen a single Indian. Braddock ordered Lieutenant-
Colonel Burton to attack the hill where the puffs of smoke
were thickest, and the bullets most deadly. With infinite
difficulty that brave officer induced a hundred men to
follow him ; but he was soon disabled by a wound, and
they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for some
time by their guns, which did great damage to the trees
and little to the enemy. The mob of soldiers, stupefied
with terror, stood panting, their foreheads beaded with
sweat, loading and firing mechanically, sometimes into
the air, sometimes among their own comrades, many of
whom they killed. The ground strewn with dead and
wounded men, the bounding of maddened horses, the
clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with
the spiteful report of rifles and the yells that rose from
the indefatigable throats of six hundred unseen savages,
formed a chaos of anguish and terror scarcely paralleled
448 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKMAN
even in Indian war. " I cannot describe the horrors of
that scene," one of Braddock's officers wrote three weeks
after : " no pen could do it. The yell of the Indians is
fresh on my ear, and the terrific sound will haunt me till
the hour of my dissolution."
Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on
horseback, he dashed to and fro, storming like a madman.
Four horses were shot under him, and he mounted a fifth.
Washington seconded . his chief with equal courage ; he
too no doubt using strong language, for he did not measure
words when the fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle.
Two horses were killed under him, and four bullets tore
his clothes. The conduct of the British officers was above
praise. Nothing could surpass their undaunted self-devo
tion ; and in their vain attempts to lead on the men, the
havoc among them was frightful. Sir Peter Halket was
shot dead. His son, a lieutenant in his regiment, stoop
ing to raise the body of his father, was shot dead in turn.
Young Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was pierced through
the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sinclair,
the quartermaster-general, Gates and Gage, both after
wards conspicuous on opposite sides in the War of the
Revolution, and Gladwin, who, eight years later, defended
Detroit against Pontiac, were all wounded. Of eighty-
six officers, sixty-three were killed or disabled ; while out
of thirteen hundred and seventy-three non-commissioned
officers and privates, only four hundred and fifty-nine
came off unharmed.
Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of
his force from annihilation, he at last commanded a re
treat ; and as he and such of his officers as were left strove
to withdraw the half-frenzied crew in some semblance of
order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bull-dog
fell from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs.
FROTHINGHAM] THE IDEA OF DEITY. 449
It is said, though on evidence of no weight, that the bul
let came from one of his own men. Be this as it may,
there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping, unable
even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was.
Captain Stewart and another provincial bore him between
them to the rear.
It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having
been three hours under fire, and having spent their am
munition, broke away in a blind frenzy, rushed back to
wards the ford, " and when," says Washington, " we en
deavored to rally them, it was with as much success as
if we had attempted to stop the wild bears of the moun
tains." They dashed across, helter-skelter, plunging
through the water to the farther bank, leaving wounded
comrades, cannon, baggage, the military chest, and the
general's papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of
these followed to the edge of the river. Dumas and Li-
gneris, who had now only about twenty Frenchmen with
them, made no attempt to pursue, and went back to the
fort, because, says Contrecoeur, so many of the Canadians
had " retired at the first fire." The field, abandoned to the
savages, was a pandemonium of pillage and murder.
THE IDEA OF DEITY.
0. B. FROTHINGHAM.
[Octavius B. Frothingham may be regarded as the most radical and
rationalistic of living Unitarian divines. In this religious position he
succeeds Theodore Parker, though he differs from the latter both men
tally and theologically. Intellectually he is of marked ability, while
his culture has been broad and liberal. He was born in Boston in
1822. His father, Nathaniel B. Frothingham, was a Unitarian clergy-
dd 38*
450 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FROTHINGHAM
man, of note both as a divine and as an author. Mr. Frothingham has
published a number of works, from one of which, " The Keligion of
Humanity," we extract the following thoughtful essay on the persist
ence of the idea of God in the mind of man :]
AT the heart of all religions lie certain great ideas which
they make it their business to interpret. They are the
staple of religious thought. They are not the property of
one faith, but are the common property of mankind ; no
more prominent in one faith than in another, but central in
all faiths. Whence they come we know not. They always
have been, and they are. Buddha did not invent them,
nor Zoroaster. They are not the discovery of Moses or
of Jesus. Each found them, took them, used them, built
upon them the system that bears his name. These ideas
give life to all religious speculation, warmth to all religious
feeling. They constitute the framework which the heart
and soul clothe with flesh. There has never been a re
ligion without them ; it is hard to conceive that there ever
should be a religion without them. Science may rule
them out of its province, philosophy may decline to deal
with them ; but religion stakes on them its very existence.
It may be that religion will one day decline and pass away,
giving place to philosophy and science ; but until that day
comes they will hold their ancient place and command
their ancient respect, exercising thought and feeling and
conviction as of old. What are these ideas which science
disavows, of which philosophy takes no cognizance, and
which religion claims as peculiarly its own? Here are
some of them : God, Eevelation, Incarnation, Atonement,
Providence, Immortality. There may be others, but these
are vital and cardinal. These every religion interprets
after its manner, but no religion has authority to interpret
them finally, or for any save its own adherents. Chris
tianity offers an interpretation of them, an interpretation
FROTHINQHAM] THE IDEA OF DEITY. 451
that has stood two thousand years and has gained the
assent of the most intelligent portions of mankind, but
the interpretation of Christianity is not the sole, authori
tative, or final one. Though Christianity as a system of
faith should pass away, these ideas would remain, to be
set in new lights and loaded with fresh significance. Re
ligions may succeed *one another for thousands of years
to come, but till the heart that warms them with life
grows cold, till the devout affections from which they
spring dry up, till awe and reverence and fear and hope
and love and aspiration cease, these ideas will excite and
charm and exalt, will try the mind, and test experience,
and sound the deeps of feeling, and put imagination on
new quest after the secret of spiritual life.
Let us look at the first-mentioned idea, the idea of God
by the light of the Religion of Humanity. About a cen
tury ago, in France and elsewhere in Europe the belief in
God seemed passing away. The very name of God was
spoken in derision, as a word that was no longer powerful
to conjure by. A philosopher declined an article on God
for his encyclopaedia, saying the question of God had no
significance. He who professed belief in God wa^ black
balled at the clubs. A distinguished philosopher I think
it was David Hume remarking in a philosophical company
in Paris that he never saw an atheist, and did not believe
there was one, a gentleman replied, " Well, you may have
that pleasure now. Every man here is an atheist." In
fact, for a brief period the belief in God had lost its hold
on cultivated minds ; materialism had the argument. But
since then the ancient conviction has been taking heart,
and has steadily pushed its antagonist to the wall. And
this in the face of physical science, which has in these
latter days attained prodigious growth, and has been
sweeping gods and demi-gods out of the world as the
452 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FROTHINGHAM
housemaid sweeps chips and cobwebs from a parlor. Defi
nitions of God have been vanishing, idols have been tum
bling, symbols have been fading away, trinities have been
dissolving, personalities have been waning and losing
themselves in light or in shadow ; but the Being has been
steadily coming forward from the background, looming
up from the abyss, occupying the vacant spaces, flowing
into the dry channels, and taking possession of every inch
of matter and mind. The mystery of it deepens, but the
conviction of it deepens also. The great John Newman,
the English Catholic, says, " Of all points of faith, the
being of a God is encompassed with most difficulty and
borne in upon our minds with most power" Ernest Eenan,
to whom the word " religion" means about as little as it
does to anybody, writes in a somewhat similar strain :
" Under one form or another, God will always stand for
the full expression of our supersensual needs. He will
ever be the category of the Ideal, the form under which
things eternal and divine are conceived. The word may
be a little clumsy, perhaps, it may need to be interpreted
in senses more and more refined, but it will never be
superseded." Etienne Yacherot, a scholar and a philoso
pher of the finest intellectual grain, a man of pure intelli
gence, who believes that religion under every form belongs
to the childhood of mankind and is destined to pass away
and be supplanted by philosophy, as it is already in edu
cated minds, will not let go the thought of the absolutely
perfect Being. Pantheism is to him the last impiety, be
cause it identifies this Being with an imperfect, undevel
oped universe, and so drags perfection down to mere con
ditions. Atheism is intolerable because it abolishes the
ideal world altogether, and leaves man nothing to aspire
after. The personal God of the theist he will not accept,
for He is too much like a man. His deity must be of the
FBOTHIXGHAM] THE IDEA OF DEITY. 453
most refined intellectuality, the most ethereal texture of
spirit ; but so far from being unreal or attenuated, He is
the most solid and positive entity there is. The avowed
atheist for- there are such finds it harder to put his
creed into words and to adjust it to the human mind than
ever Athanasius did to define his doctrine of trinity. You
cannot push him into a corner; you cannot make him
avow his unbelief in unqualified terms ; you cannot com
pel him to back out of the region of confessed divinity.
He retires heyond the reach of definition, but not beyond
the reach of thought.
Comte says, " The principle of theology is to explain
everything by supernatural wills. That principle can
never be set aside until we acknowledge the search for
causes to be beyond our reach, and limit ourselves to the
knowledge of laws." And again, " The universal religion
adopts as its fundamental dogma the fact of the existence
of an order which admits of no variation, and to which
all events of every kind are subject. That there is such
an order can be shown as a fact, but it cannot be ex
plained." How can a man who uses those tremendous
words " law" and " order" hesitate to use the other tre
mendous words " cause" and " God" ? What is law but
steady, continuous, persistent, consistent power; cumula
tive, urgent, regulated power ; power moving along even
tracks and pressing towards distinct aims ; power with a
past behind it and a future before ; power that is harmo
nious, rhythmical, as he calls it himself, orderly ? Can he
conceive of such a power as unintelligent ? Can he con
ceive of it as intelligent and purposeless? Can he con
ceive of it as purposeful and yet as uncausing ? Does not
the very word " force," as science uses it, compel the asso
ciation with mind and will ? And can we think of mind
and will without thinking with the same brain-throb of
454 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FROTHINQHAM
wisdom and goodness ? It seems as if one must have
completely suppressed in bis memory the constitution of
the human mind, to help being dragged by such overbear
ing words as " law" and "force" and " order" -upward out
of all the meshes of materialism towards the Infinite and
Perfect One. It is logical precision itself that lends wings.
The very stones of fact become ethereal, and float us upon
the eternal sea.
Whither, cries the Psalmist, whither shall I go from thy
spirit, whither shall I flee from thy presence ? Whither,
indeed ! In the metaphysical as in the physical world the
divine Omnipresence is inevitable. If we ascend up into
the thin ether of thought, there, in the still, rarefied at
mosphere of ideas, is He. If we make our bed in hell
among coarse conceptions and wild, animal passions, there,
among sensualists, scoffers, and blasphemers, a dark,
shadowy, brooding terror, is He. If we take the wings
of the morning and speed away to the uttermost parts of
the sea, there, among fossil shells and petrified bones, the
skeletons of monstrous creatures, the hideous wastes and
wildernesses of the pre-Adamite world, there, in the form
less void, there, in the writhing convolutions of the cool
ing fire-mist, is He, leading and holding with his unseen
but omnipotent hand.
But, while thus with firm and eager asseveration we
declare that God is, with asseveration equally firm and
resolute we declare that He is unsearchable. This is as
truly, as universally, a doctrine of religion as the other.
The old Hebrew Bible is emphatic on this point : " Canst
thou by searching find out God ?" " It is high as heaven:
what canst thou do ? deeper than hell : what canst thou
know?" "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the
great waters: thy footsteps are not known." The Chris
tian Scriptures echo the strain : " The Light shone in
FROTHINGHAM] THE IDEA OF DEITY. 455
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." " !N"o
man hath seen God at any time." " Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard." Job is dumb, lays his hand on his mouth,
and says, penitently, " I have spoken what I did not un
derstand, what I did not know." The Psalmist exclaims,
" Such knowledge is too wonderful for me." The prophet
hides his face before the Lord.
Christian teachers have with one voice proclaimed the
doctrine of a hidden God. It was the background of
every other doctrine. The eloquent language of Hooker
embodies in devout and tender phrase the thought of
generations of theologians, divines, and mystics : " It is
dangerous for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the
doings of the Most High, whom although to know be life,
and joy to make mention of his name, yet our soundest
knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he
is, neither can know him, and that our safest eloquence
concerning him is our silence, whereby we confess with
out confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness
beyond our capacity and reach." Henry Mansell, the
champion of the severest orthodoxy, writes, "The con
ception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side
we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions.
There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to
exist, and there is a contradiction in supposing it not to
exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one,
and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many.
There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal, and
there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal.
It cannot, without contradiction, be represented as active,
nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as inac
tive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence;
nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum."
With equal force and solemnity Herbert Spencer, whom
456 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FROTHINGHAM
the unreflecting call a foe to religion, writes, " In all direc
tions, our investigations bring us face to face with an insol
uble enigma ; and we ever more clearly perceive it to be an
insoluble enigma. We learn at once the greatness and
littleness of the human intellect, its power in dealing
with all that comes within the range of experience, its
impotence in dealing with all that transcends experience.
We realize with a special vividness the utter incompre-
hensibleness of the simplest fact considered in itself. The
scientific man, more truly than any other, knows that in
its essence nothing can be known." Thus from all sides
comes the same confession. Thus in all places we see all
sorts of men building altars to the unknown and unknow
able God. From the orthodox dogmatist, who affirms that
"a God understood would be no God at all," that "to
think that God is, as we can think him to be, is blas
phemy," to the Unitarian believer, who says, " Until we
touch upon the mysterious we are not in contact with
religion, nor are any objects reverently regarded by us
except such as from their nature or their vastness are felt
to transcend our comprehension," the testimony is unani
mous.
Every seeker brings back the same report. Science
scales all heights and sounds all abysses, counts the stars,
turns over the granite leaves of the globe's history, bathes
in the light of the morning and broods amid the shadows
of the evening, and comes back from ocean-caverns and
mountain-peaks, from beds of fossils and from the silvery
pavement of the Milky Way, with the same unvarying
message : " There are footprints, but He that made them
could not be found."
Intellect takes up the quest. The designed shows the
Designer. But what does the apparently undesigned
show ? The watchmaker makes a watch ; but who makes
FKOTHINGHAM] THE IDEA OF DEITY. 457
the gold, the platinum, the steel, the diamond ? Who sets
on foot the laws that bid its mechanism run ? The watch
maker puts things nicely together; but whence came the
things ? Whence came the properties in the metals and
springs? Whence came the possibility of their doing
anything when put together ? Whence came the watch
maker ? Whence the watchmaker's brain? Whence the
tingling sensation that he calls thought ? Again the hand
is upon the mouth.
The heart sends out over the waste of waters the dove
of its tender feeling ; but the wearied wing finds no rest
ing-place on the boundless billow. The timid bird hurries
back to its home, in its mouth no message but an olive-
branch, the symbol of peace.
With sturdy resolution conscience goes forth to sound
the dim and perilous way. But the scent is lost amidst the
jungles and rocky passes of the world. Terrified by the
glare of the tiger, the spring of the leopard, the coil of the
serpent, the sting of the reptile, horror-stricken by trium
phant iniquity and bleeding equity, shocked at seeing a
Tiberius on the throne and a Jesus on the cross, Nero an
emperor and Epictetus a slave, it loses the thread of the
moral law, and recoils from problems it cannot confront.
With the lamp of duty pressed faithfully against its bosom,
it stands with bended head and waits.
Boldest of all, the soul plumes her wings of faith for a
flight to the very empyrean itself. Her pinions of aspi
ration bear her above the earth ; she distances vision, out
runs the calculations of the mathematician, leaves time
and space behind, with open eye looks steadily at the sun.
But the sun itself is a shadow. Light there is, a shoreless
ocean of light, atmospheres glowing with its radiance,
throbbing with its gracious undulations ; on its waves she
floats serenely ; in its silence she rests at peace. But no
u 39
458 BES1 AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SCHOOLCRAFT
voice breaks the silence, no form of creative godhead
walks on the sea of glory. The soul must be content to
find a home as wide as infinite thought, as warm as eter
nal love, but never to see the fashioner of it, never to find
the soft bosom of the mother in whose breast it can
nestle. She dwells in a castle of air, built by the vapors
exhaled from tears, and made gorgeous by the upward-
slanting light of her hope.
THE WHITE STONE CANOE.
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
[Of the American authors who have dealt with the history, manners,
and customs of the American Indians, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft stands
first as a close and exhaustive student, and in his voluminous works
has done more than any one man besides to preserve from loss the
legends, conditions, and customs of the rapidly-vanishing and as
rapidly-changing tribes of North America. Mr. Schoolcraft was born
near Albany, New York, in 1793, and died in 1864. His life was spent
in great part among the Indians, mainly in the employment of the
government, his most important work being " On the Indian Tribes
of the United States," in six quarto volumes, published by Congress,
1851-57. From the first volume of this work we make the following
extract. It must be admitted that in it we have the simplicity of the
Indian legend translated into imaginative English and adorned with
graces not native to the original. But it is certainly the more readable
from this civilized new dressing.]
THERE was once a beautiful girl, who died suddenly
on the day she was to have been married to a handsome
young hunter. He had also proved his bravery in war,
so that he enjoyed the praises of his tribe; but his heart
was not proof against this loss. From the hour she was
SCHOOLCRAFT] THE WHITE STONE CANOE. 459
buried, there was no more joy or peace for him. He went
often to visit the spot where the women had buried her,
and sat musing, there, when, it was thought by some of
his friends, he would have done better to try to amuse
himself in the chase, or by diverting his thoughts in the
war-path. But war and hunting had lost their charms
for him. His heart was already dead within him. He
wholly neglected both his war-club and his bow and ar
rows.
He had heard the old people say that there was a path
that led to the land of souls, and he determined to follow
it. He accordingly set out, one morning, after having
completed his preparations for the journey. At first he
hardly knew which way to go. He was only guided by
the tradition that he must go south. For a while he
could see no change in the face of the country. Forests,
and hills, and valleys, and streams had the same looks
which they wore in his native place. There was snow on
the ground when he set out, and it was sometimes seen
to be piled and matted on the thick trees and bushes.
At length it began to diminish, and, as he walked on,
finally disappeared. The forest assumed a more cheerful
appearance, the leaves put forth their buds, and before he
was aware of the completeness of the change, he found
he had left behind him the land of snow and ice. The
air became pure and mild, the dark clouds had rolled
away from the sky, a pure field of blue was above him,
and as he went forward in his journey he saw flowers
beside his path, and heard the song of birds. By these
signs he knew that he was going the right way, for they
agreed with the traditions of his tribe. At length he
spied a path. It took him through a grove, then up a
long and elevated ridge, on the very top of which he
came to a lodge. At the door stood an old man, with
460 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SCHOOLCRAFT
white hair, whose eyes, though deeply sunk, had a fiery
brilliancy. He had a long robe of ski us thrown loosely
around his shoulders, and a staff in his hands.
The young man began to tell his stoiy, but the venera
ble chief arrested him before he had proceeded to speak
ten words. " I have expected you," he replied, " and had
just risen to bid you welcome to my abode. She whom
you seek passed here but a short time since, and, being
fatigued with her journey, rested herself here. Enter
my lodge and be seated, and I will then satisfy your in
quiries, and give you directions for your journey from
this point." Having done this, and refreshed himself by
rest, they both issued forth from the lodge door. " You
see yonder gulf," said he, "and the wide-stretching plain
beyond. It is the land of souls. You stand upon its
borders, and my lodge is the gate of entrance. But you
cannot take your body along. Leave it here with your
bow and arrows, your bundle and your dog. You will
find them safe upon your return." So saying, he re-
entered the lodge, and the freed traveller bounded for
ward, as if his feet had suddenly been endowed with the
power of wings. But all things retained their natural
colors and shapes. The woods and leaves, and streams
and lakes, were only more bright and comely than he had
ever witnessed. Animals bounded across his path with a
freedom and a confidence which seemed to tell him there
was no bloodshed there. Birds of beautiful plumage in
habited the groves and sported in the waters. There was
but one thing in which he saw a very unusual effect. He
noticed that his passage was not stopped by trees or other
objects. He appeared to walk directly through them.
They were, in fact, but the images or shadows of material
trees. He became sensible that he was in the land of
souls.
SCHOOLCRAFT] THE WHITE STONE CANOE. 461
When he had travelled half a day's journey, through a
country which was continually becoming more attractive,
he came to the banks of a broad lake, in the centre of
which was a large and beautiful island. He found a canoe
of white shining stone, tied to the shore. He was now
sure that he had come the right path, for the aged man
had told him of this. There were also shining paddles.
He immediately entered the canoe, and took the paddles
in his hands, when, to his joy and surprise, on turning
round he beheld the object of his search in another canoe,
exactly its counterpart in everything. It seemed to be
the shadow of his own. She had exactly imitated his
motions, and they were side by side. They at once pushed
out from the shore and began to cross the lake. Its waves
seemed to be rising, and, at a distance, looked ready to
swallow them up ; but just as they entered the whitened
edge of them they seemed to melt away, as if they were
but the images of waves. But no sooner was one wreath
of foam passed than another, more threatening still, rose
up. Thus they were in perpetual fear ; but what added
to it was the clearness of the water, through which they
could see heaps of bones of beings who had perished
before.
The Master of Life had, however, decreed to let them
pass, for the thoughts and acts of neither of them had
been bad. But they saw many others struggling and
sinking in the waves. Old men and young men, males
and females, of all ages and ranks, were there : some passed
and some sank. It was only the little children whose
canoes seemed to meet no waves. At length every diffi
culty was gone, as in a moment, and they both leaped out
on the happy island. They felt that the very air was
food. It strengthened and nourished them. They wan
dered together over the blissful fields, where everything
39*
462 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SCHOOLCRAFT
was formed to please the eye and the ear. There- were
no tempests ; there was no ice, nor chilly winds ; no one
shivered for the want of warm clothes ; no one suffered
for hunger ; no one mourned for the dead. They saw no
graves. They heard of no wars. Animals ran freely
about, but there was no blood spilled in hunting them ;
for the air itself nourished them. Gladly would the young
warrior have remained there forever, but he was obliged
to go back for his body. He did not see the Master of
Life, but he heard his voice, as if it were a soft breeze.
" Go back," said the voice, " to the land from whence you
came. Your time has not yet come. The duties for which
I made you, and which you are to perform, are not yet
finished. Eeturn to your people, and accomplish the acts
of a good man. You will be the ruler of your tribe for
many days. The rules you will observe will be told you
by my messenger, who keeps the gate. When he surren
ders back your body, he will tell you what to do. Listen
to him, and you shall afterwards rejoin the spirit which
you have followed, but whom you must now leave behind.
She is accepted, and will be ever here, as young and as
happy as she was when I first called her from the land of
snows."
When this voice ceased, the narrator awoke. It was
the fancy-work of a dream, and he was still in the bitter
land of snows and hunger, death and tears.
CLAY] MILITARY INSUBORDINATION. 463
MILITARY INSUBORDINATION.
HENRY CLAY.
[Political oratory in America displayed a more rapid development
than any other field of thought, and in this direction the New World
had attained to the full European standard while yet its literary evolu
tion had scarcely begun. This is mainly due to the fact of the freedom
of opinion in politics, and the rapid succession of new and vital ques
tions in American statesmanship, through which thought was irre
sistibly drawn in this direction, while the audience for purely literary
labors was yet unborn. Of the celebrated orators of the first half of
this century Henry Clay shared with Webster the honor of being the
"first in place," though his etForts have not gained the standing in
literature attained by the vigorously logical orations of his great con
temporary. Clay's power lay largely in his faculty of pleasing his
audiences, almost of fascinating them, a quality in which no other
American orator has equalled him. His orations, as read, do not show
the source of his entrancing power, which was personal rather than
logical. Yet he had great knowledge of human nature, and quickness
in perceiving salient points, with a brilliancy of language and a charm
of manner which won him many senatorial victories. We can say
little here of his political life. He was always a strong advocate of
protection of American industries, and originated the Whig party of
a generation ago. He early, also, sought to relieve Kentucky, his
adopted State, from the stain of slavery. Yet he was the great advocate
of "Compromises," and succeeded for years in checking the spirit of
conflict which broke out in irrepressible fury after his death. He was
born in 1777, and died in 1852.]
I WILL not trespass much longer upon the time of the
committee ; but I trust I shall be indulged with some few
reflections upon the danger of permitting the conduct on
which it has been my painful duty to animadvert, to pass
without a solemn expression of the disapprobation of this
House. Recall to your mind the free nations which have
gone before us. Where are they now ?
464 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS [CLAY
" Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour."
And how have they lost their liberties? If we could
transport ourselves back to the ages when Greece and
Rome flourished in their greatest prosperity, and, min
gling in the throng, should ask a Grecian whether he did
not fear that some daring military chieftain, covered with
glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day overthrow
the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant
Grecian would exclaim, No I no ! we have nothing to fear
from our heroes ; our liberties shall be eternal. If a Ro
man citizen had been asked whether he did not fear that
the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the
ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled
the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell ; Caesar passed
the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could
not preserve the liberties of his devoted country 1 The
celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her
best work, has said that in the vary year, almost the very
month, when the president of the Directory declared that
monarchy would never show its frightful head in France,
Bonaparte with his grenadiers entered the palace of St.
Cloud, and, dispersing with the bayonet the deputies of
the people, deliberating on the affairs of the state, laid the
foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which over
shadowed all Europe.
I hope riot to be misunderstood ; I am far from inti
mating that General Jackson cherishes any designs inimi
cal to the liberties of the country. I believe his intentions
to be pure and patriotic. I thank God that he would not,
but I thank Him still more that he could not if he would,
overturn the liberties of the Republic. But precedents, if
bad, are fraught with the most dangerous consequences.
Man has been described, by some of those who have treated
CLAY] MILITARY INSUBORDINATION. 465
of his nature, as a bundle of habits. The definition is
much truer when applied to governments. Precedents
are their habits. There is one important difference be
tween the formation of habits by an individual and by
government. He contracts it only after frequent repeti
tion. A single instance fixes the habit and determines the
direction of governments.
Against the alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion
in our military commanders, when applied even to pris
oners of war, I must enter my protest. It begins upon
them ; it will end on us. I hope our happy form of gov
ernment is to be perpetual. But if it is to be preserved,
it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by moder
ation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a
watchful and steady eye on the executive ; and, above all,
by holding to a strict accountability the military branch
of the public force.
We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit not
only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the
whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, and the
largest, portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jeal
ousy, and with envy ; the other portion, with hope, with
confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black
cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only
one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemi
sphere of the west, to enlighten and animate and gladden
the human heart. Obscure that, by the downfall of
liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of
universal darkness.
To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of
transmitting unimpaired to posterity the fair character
and liberty of our country. Do you expect to execute
this high trust by trampling or suffering to be trampled
down, law, justice, the Constitution, and the rights of the
466 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLAY
people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity and cruelty
and ambition ? When the minions of despotism heard, in
Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle,
and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly
pointing to the demonstration of a spirit of injustice and
aggrandizement made by our country in the midst of an
amicable negotiation! "Behold," said they, "the conduct
of those who are constantly reproaching kings !" You saw
how those admirers were astounded and hung their heads.
You saw, too, when that illustrious man who presides over
us adopted his pacific, moderate, and just course, how they
once more lifted up their heads, with exultation and de
light beaming in their countenances. And you saw how
those minions themselves were finally compelled to unite
in the general praises bestowed upon our government.
Beware how you forfeit this exalted character. Beware
how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our
republic, scarcely yet twoscore years old, to military in
subordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander,
Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Bo
naparte, and that, if we would escape the rock on which
they split, we must avoid their errors.
I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful
isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all
opposition ; they may even vote the general the public
thanks; they may carry him triumphantly through this
House. But, if they do, in my humble judgment, it will
be a triumph of the principle of insubordination, a tri
umph of the military over the civil authority, a triumph
over the powers of this House, a triumph over the Con
stitution of the land ; and I pray most devoutly to heaven
that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and conse
quences, a triumph over the liberties of the people.
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 467
A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
[Mrs. Jackson, long known in literature only by the anonymous
title of H. H., gained under that alphabetic designation a high posi
tion in American authorship, both for the thoughtful character of her
poetry and for the grace and beauty of her prose. Her two volumes of
" Bits of Travel" are of high excellence as artistic works of literature,
while their picturesque descriptions are exceedingly interesting. She
subsequently gained fame as a novelist of the higher class, and as a
defender of the Indians against persecution. Two of the most notable
of her recent works are u A Century of Dishonor" and " Ramona," in
the latter of which the Indian question is vigorously dealt with in a
character-novel of unusual brilliancy. Mrs. Jackson was born at Am-
herst, Massachusetts, in 1831, and was the daughter of Professor N.
W. Fiske. She died in 1885.]
" THREE nights and four days in the cars !" These
words haunted us and hindered our rest. What should
we eat and drink, and wherewithal should we be clothed ?
No scripture was strong enough to calm our anxious
thoughts ; no friend's experience of comfort and ease on
the journey sounded credible enough to disarm our fears.
" Dust is dust," said we, " and railroad is railroad. All
restaurant cooking in America is intolerable. We shall
be wretched. Nevertheless, we go."
There is a handsome black boy at the Sherman House,
Chicago, who remembers, perhaps, how many parcels of
" life-preservers" of one kind and another were lifted into
our drawing-room on the Pullman cars. But nobody else
will ever know.
Our drawing-room ? Yes, our drawing-room ; and this
is the plan of it. A small, square room, occupying the
whole width of the car, excepting a narrow passage-way
on one side ; four windows, two opening on this passage-
468 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
way and two opening out of doors ; two doors, one open
ing into the car and one opening into a tiny closet, which
held a washstand-basin. This closet had another door,
opening into another drawing-room beyond. No one but
the occupants of the two drawing-rooms could have access
to the bath -closet. On one side of our drawing-room a
long sofa ; on the other two large arm-chairs, which could
be wheeled so as to face the sofa. Two shining spittoons
and plenty of looking-glass, hooks high up on the sides,
and silver-plated rods for curtains overhead, completed the
list of furniture. Boom on the floor for bags and bundles
and baskets; room, too, for a third chair, and a third
chair we had for a part of the way, an easy- chair, with a
sloping back, which belonged to another of these luxurious
Pullman cars. A perplexing sense of domesticity crept
over us as we settled into corners, hung up our cologne-
bottles, and missed the cat ! Then we shut both our doors,
and smiled triumphantly into each other's faces, as the
train glided out of the station. No one can realize until
he has journeyed in the delightful quiet and privacy of
these small drawing-rooms on the Pullman cars how much
of the wear and tear of railroad travel is the result of the
contact with people. Be as silent, as unsocial, as surly
as you please, you cannot avoid being more or less im
pressed by the magnetism of every human being in the
car. Their faces attract or repel ; you like, you dislike,
you wonder, you pity, you resent, you loathe. Tn the
course of twenty-four hours you have .expended a great
amount of nerve-force, to no purpose ; have borne hours
of vicarious suffering, by which nobody is benefited.
Adding to this hardly calculable amount of mental wear
and tear the physical injury of breathing bad air, we sum
up a total of which it is unpleasant to think. Of the two
evils the last is the worst. The heart may, at least, try
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 469
to turn away from unhappy people and wicked people
to whom it can do no good. But how is the body to steel
itself against unwashed people and diseased people with
whom it is crowded, elbow to elbow, and knee to knee, for
hours ? Our first day in our drawing-room stole by like
a thief. The noon surprised us, and the twilight took us
unawares ! By hundreds of miles the rich prairie-lands
had unrolled themselves, smiled, and fled. On the very
edges of the crumbling, dusty banks of our track stood
pink, and blue, and yellow flowers, undisturbed. The
homesteads in the distances looked like shining green for
tresses, for nearly every house has a tree wall on two sides
of it. The trees looked like poplars, but we could not bo
sure. Often we saw only the solid green square, the
house being entirely concealed from view. As we drew
near the Mississippi River, soft, low hills came into view
on each side ; tangled skeins of little rivers, shaded by tall
trees, wound and unwound themselves side by side with
us. A big bridge lay ready, on which we crossed ; every
body standing on the platform of the cars, at their own
risk, according to the explicit prohibition of the railroad
company. Burlington looked well, high up on red bluffs ;
fine large houses on the heights, and pleasant little ones
in the suburbs, with patches of vineyard in the gardens.
" Make your beds now, ladies ?" said the chamber-man,
whose brown face showed brighter brown for his gray
uniform and brass buttons.
" Yes," we replied. " That is just what we most desire
to see."
Presto ! The seats of the arm-chairs pull out, and meet
in the middle. The backs of the arm-chairs pull down,
and lie flat on a level with the seats. The sofa pulls out,
and opens into double width. The roof of our drawing-
room opens and lets down, and makes two more bedsteads,
40
470 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
which we, luckily, do not want ; but from under their
eaves come mattresses, pillows, sheets, pillow-cases, and
curtains. The bed's are made ; the roof shut up again ;
the curtains hung across the glass part of the door ; the
curtains drawn across the passage-way windows ; the
doors shut and locked ; and we undress as entirely and
safely as if we were in the best bedroom of a house not
made with wheels. Because we are so comfortable we lie
awake a little, but not long ; and that is the whole story
of nights on the cars when the cars are built by Pullman
and the sleeping is done in drawing-rooms.
Next morning, more prairie, unfenced now, undivided,
unmeasured, unmarked save by the different tints of dif
ferent growths of grass or grain ; great droves of cattle
grazing here and there ; acres of willow saplings, palo
yelLo wish-green ; and solitary trees, which look like her
mits in a wilderness. These, and now and then a shape
less village, which looks even lonelier than the empty
loneliness by which it is surrounded, these are all for
hours and hours. We think, " Now we are getting out
into the great spaces." " This is what the word 'West'
has sounded like." At noon we come to a spot where
railway-tracks cross each other. The eye can follow
their straight lines out and away, till they look like fine
black threads flung across the green ground, purposeless,
accidental. A train steams slowly off to the left ; the
passengers wave handkerchiefs to us, and we to them.
They are going to Denver ; but it seems as if they might
be going to any known or unknown planet.' One man
alone short, fat is walking rapidly away into the wide
Southern hemisphere. He carries two big, shining brass
trombones. Where can he be going, and what can be the
use of trombones ? He looks more inexplicable than ten
comets.
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 471
Wo cross the Missouri at Council Bluffs ; begin grum
bling at the railroad corporations for forcing us to take
a transfer-train across the river ; but find ourselves
plunged into the confusion of Omaha before we have
finished railing at the confusion of her neighbor. Now
\ve see for the first time the distinctive expression of
American overland travel. Here all luggage is weighed
and rechecked for points further west. An enormous
shed is filled with it. Four and five deep stand the anx
ious owners, at a high wooden wall, behind which nobody
may go. Everybody holds up checks, and gesticulates
and beckons. There seems to be no system ; but undoubt
edly there is. Side by side with the rich and flurried
New-Yorker stands the poor and flurried emigrant.
Equality rules. Big bundles of feather-beds, tied up in
blue check, red chests, corded with rope, get ahead of
Saratoga trunks. Many languages are spoken. German,
Irish, French, Spanish, a little English, and all varieties
of American, I heard during thirty minutes in that lug
gage-shed. Inside the wall was a pathetic sight, a poor
German woman on her knees before a chest which had
burst open on the journey. It seemed as if its whole
contents could not be worth five dollars, so old, so faded,
so coarse were the clothes and so battered were the
utensils. But it was evidently all she owned; it was the
home she had brought with her from the Fatherland, and
would be the home she would set up in the prairie. The
railroad men were good to her. and were helping her with
ropes and nails. This comforted me somewhat ; but it
seemed almost a sin to be journeying luxuriously on the
same day and train with that poor soul.
" Lunches put up for people going West." This sign
was out on all corners. Piles of apparently ownerless bun
dles were stacked all along the platforms ; but everybody
472 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
was too busy to steal. Some were eating hastily, with
looks of distress, as if they knew it would be long before
they ate again. Others, wiser, were buying whole chick
ens, loaves of bread, and filling bottles with tea. Provi
dent Germans bought sausage by the yard. German
babies got bits of it to keep them quiet. Murderous-look
ing rifles and guns, with strapped rolls of worn and muddy
blankets, stood here and there ; murderous but jolly-looking
miners, four-fifths boots and the rest beard, strode about,
keeping one eye on their weapons and bedding. Well-
dressed women and men with polished shoes, whose goods
were already comfortably bestowed in palace-cars, lounged
up and down, curious, observant, amused. Gay placards,
advertising all possible routes ; cheerful placards, setting
forth the advantages of travellers' insurance policies ; in
sulting placards, assuming that all travellers have rheu
matism and should take " Unk Weed ;" in short, just such
placards as one sees everywhere, papered the walls.
But here they seemed somehow to be true and merit
attention, especially the " Unk Weed." There is such a
professional croak in that first syllable : it sounds as if
the weed had a diploma.
All this took two or three hours ; but they were short.
" All aboard I" rung out like the last warning on Jersey
City wharves when steamers push off for Europe; and
in the twinkling of an eye we were out again in the still,
soft, broad prairie, which is certainly more like sea than
like any other land.
Again flowers and meadows, and here and there low
hills, more trees, too, and a look of greater richness.
Soon the Platte Biver, which seems to be composed o^
equal parts of sand and water, but which has too solemn
a history to be spoken lightly of. It has been the silent
guide for so many brave men who are dead ! The old
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 473
emigrant road, over which they went, is yet plainly to be
seen ; at many points it lies near the railroad. Itn still,
grass-grown track is strangely pathetic. Soon it will be
smooth prairie again, and the wooden head-boards at the
graves of those who died by the way will have fallen and
Crumbled.
Dinner at Fremont. The air was sharp and clear. The
disagreeable guide-book said we were only eleven hundred
and seventy-six feet above the sea ; but we believed we
were higher. The keeper of the dining-saloon apologized
for not having rhubarb-pie, saying that he had just sent
fifty pounds of rhubarb on ahead to his other saloon.
" You'll take tea there to-morrow night."
" But how far apart are your two houses ?" said we.
" Only eight hundred miles. It's considerable tronble
to go back an' forth an' keep things straight ; but I do the
best I can."
Two barefooted little German children, a boy and girl,
came into the cars here, with milk and coifee to sell. The
boy carried the milk, and was sorely puzzled when I held
out my small tumbler to be filled. It would hold only
half as much as his tin measure, of which the price was
five cents.
" Donno's that's quite fair," he said, when I gave him
five cents. But he pocketed it, all the same, and ran on,
swinging his tin can and pint cup, and calling out, " Nice
fresh milk. Last you'll get ! No milk any further west."
Little rascal ! We found it all the way ; plenty of it, too,
such as it was. It must be owned, however, that sage
brush and prickly pear (and if the cows do not eat these,
what do they eat ?) give a singularly unpleasant taste to
milk ; and the addition of alkali water does not improve it.
Toward night of this day, we saw our first Indian
woman. We were told it was a woman. It was, appar
40*
474 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
entry, made of old india-rubber, much soaked, seamed, and
torn. It was thatched at top with a heavy roof of black
hair, which hung down from a ridge-like line in the middle.
It had sails of dingy -brown canvas, furled loosely around
it, confined and caught here and there irregularly, flutter
ing and falling open wherever a rag of a different color
could be shown underneath. It moved about on brown,
bony, stalking members, for which no experience furnishes
name ; it mopped, and mowed, and gibbered, and reached
out through the air with more brown, bony, clutching
members ; from which one shrank as from the claws of a
bear. " Muckee ! muckee !" it cried, opening wide a mouth
toothless, but red. It was the most abject, loathly living
thing I ever saw. I shut my eyes and turned away.
Presently I looked again. It had passed on ; and I saw
on its back, gleaming out from under a ragged calash-like
arch of basket-work, a smooth, shining, soft, baby face,
brown as a brown nut, silken as silk, sweet, happy, inno
cent, confiding, as if it were babe of a royal line, born in
royal state. All below its head was helpless mummy,
body, legs, arms, feet bandaged tight, swathed in a solid
roll, strapped to a flat board, and swung by a leathern
band going around the mother's breast. Its great, soft,
black eyes looked fearlessly at everybody. It wae as gen
uine and blessed a baby as any woman ever bore. Idle
and thoughtless passengers jeered the squaw, saying,
" Sell us the pappoose." " Give you greenbacks for the
pappoose." Then, and not till then, I saw a human look
in the india-rubber face. The eyes could flash, and the
mouth could show scorn, as well as animal greed. The
expression was almost malignant, but it bettered the face ;
for it made it the face of a woman, of a mother.
At sunset, the clouds, which had been lying low and
heavy all the afternoon, lifted and rolled away from the
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 475
outer edge of the world. Thunder-storms swept around
the horizon, followed by broken columns of rainbow,
which lasted a second and then faded into gray. When
we last looked out, before going to bed, we seemed to be
whirling across the middle of a gigantic green disk, with
a silver rim turned up all around, to keep us from falling
off in case we should not put down the brakes quick
enough on drawing near the edge.
*********
On the morning of the fourth day we looked out on a
desert of sage-brush and sand ; but the desert had infinite
beauties of shape and the sage had pathos of color. Why
has the sage-brush been so despised, so held up to the scorn
of men ? It is simply a miniature olive-tree. In tint, in
shape, the resemblance is wonderful. Travellers never
tire of recording the sad and subtle beauty of Mediter
ranean slopes, gray with the soft, thick, rounded tops of
olive-orchards. The stretches of these sage-grown plains
have the same tints, the same roundings and blendings of
soft, thick foliage ; the low sand-hills have endless variety
of outline, and all strangely suggestive. There are for
tresses, palisades, roof-slopes with dormer windows, hol
lows like cradles, and here and there vivid green oases.
In these oases cattle graze. Sometimes an Indian stands
guarding them, his scarlet legs gleaming through the sage,
as motionless as the cattle he watches. A little further
on we come to his home, a stack of bare bean-poles, ap
parently on fire at the top ; his family sitting by, in a
circle, cross-legged, doing nothing. Then comes a tract
of stony country, where the rocks seem also as significant
and suggestive as the sand-hills, castles, and pillars, and
altars, and spires : it is impossible to believe that human
hands have not wrought them.
For half of a day we looked out on such scenes as these,
476 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSOM
and did not weary. It is monotonous ; it is desolate ; but
it is solemn and significant. The day will come when
this gray wilderness will be red with roses, golden with
fruit, glad and rich and full of voices.
At noon, at Evanstown, the observation-car was attached
to the train : (when will railroad companies be wise enough
to know that no train ought to be run anywhere without
such an open car?) Twice too many passengers crowded
in ; everybody opened his umbrella in somebody else's eye
and unfolded his map of the road on other knees than his
own ; but after a few miles the indifferent people and those
who dreaded cinders, smoke, and the burning of skin
drifted back again into the other cars, leaving the true
lovers of sky, air, and out-door room to enjoy the canons
in peace.
What is a canon ? Only a valley between two high
hills ; that is all, though the word seems such a loud and
compound mystery of warfare, both carnal and spiritual.
But when the valley is thousands or tens of thousands of
feet deep, and so narrow that a river can barely make its
way through by shrinking and twisting and leaping ; when
one wall is a mountain of grassy slope and the other wall
is a mountain of straight, sharp stone ; when from a peril
ous road, which creeps along on ledges of the wall which
is a mountain of stone, one looks across to the wall which
is grassy slope, and down at the silver line of twisting,
turning, leaping river, the word canon seems as inadequate
as the milder word valley ! This was Echo Canon. We
drew near it through rocky fields almost as grand as the
canon itself. Eocks of red and pale-yellow color were
piled up and strewn on either hand in a confusion so wild
that it was majestic ; many of them looked like gateways
and walls and battlements of fortifications ; many of them
seemed poised on points, just ready to fall ; others rose mas-
JACKSON] A RIDE IN A PALACE-CAR. 477
sive and solid, from terraces which stretched away beyond
our sight. The railroad-track is laid (is hung would
seem a truer phrase) high up on the right-hand wall of
the canon, that is, on the wall of stone. The old emi
grant road ran at the base of the opposite wall (the wall
of grassy slopes), close on the edge of the river. Just
after we entered the canon, as we looked down to the
river, we saw an emigrant party in sore trouble on that
road. The river was high and overflowed the road ; the
crumbling, gravelly precipice rose up hundreds of feet
sheer from the water; the cattle which the poor man was
driving were trying to run up the precipice, 'but all to no
purpose ; the wife and children sat on logs by the wagon,
apathetically waiting, nothing to be done but to wait
there in that wild and desolate spot till the river chose to
give them right of way again. They were so many hun
dred feet below us that the cattle seemed calves and the
people tiny puppets, as we looked over the narrow rim of
earth and stone which upheld us in the air. But I envied
them. They would see the canon, know it. To us it-
would be only a swift and vanishing dream. Even while
we are whirling through, it grows unreal. Flowers of
blue, yellow, purple, are flying past, seemingly almost
under our wheels. We look over them down into broader
spaces, where there are homesteads and green meadows.
Then the canon walls close in again, and, looking down,
we see only a silver thread of river ; looking up, we see
only a blue belt of sky. Suddenly we turn a sharp corner
and come out on a broad plain. The canon walls have
opened like arms, and they hold a town named after their
own voices, Echo City. The arms are mighty, for they
are snow-topped mountains. The plain is green, and the
river is still. On each side are small cafions, with green
threads in their centres, showing where the streams come
478 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
down. High up on the hills are a few little farm-houses,
where Americans live and make butter, like the men of
the Tyrol. A few miles further the mountains narrow
again, and we enter a still wider gorge. This is Weber
Canon. Here are still higher walls and more wonderful
rocks. Great serrated ledges crop out lengthwise the hills,
reaching from top to bottom, high and thin and sharp.
Two of these, which lie close together, with apparently
only a pathway between (though they are one hundred
feet apart), are called the Devil's Slide. Why is there so
much unconscious tribute to that person in the unculti
vated minds of all countries ? One would think him the
patron saint of pioneers. The rocks still wear shapes of
fortifications, gateways, castle-fronts, and towers, as in
Echo Canon ; but they are most exquisitely lined, hol
lowed, grooved, and fretted.
. As we whirl by, they look as the fine Chinese carvings
in ivory would chiselled on massive stones by tools of
giants.
The canon opens suddenly into a broad, beautiful
meadow, in which the river seems to rest rather than to
run. A line of low houses, a Mormon settlement, marks
the banks ; fields of grain and grass glitter in the early
green ; great patches of blue lupine on every hand look
blue as blue water at a distance, the flowers are set so
thick. Only a few moments of this, however, and we are
again in a rocky gorge, where there is barely room for the
river, and no room for us, except on a bridge. This, too.
is named for that same popular person, " Devil's Grate."
The river foams and roars under our feet as we go through.
Now comes another open plain, wide, sunny, walled
about by snow mountains, and holding a town. This is
Ogden, and the shining water which lies in sight to the
left is the Great Salt Lake !
SYMPHONY. 479
SYMPHONY,
SIDNEY LANIER.
[Among recent American poets Sidney Lanier has attained a high
position, despite his somewhat strained and frequently abstruse manner.
His mental ability is sufficiently high to atone for his mannerisms,
though greater simplicity of diction would doubtless have added much
<o his popularity. Our extract is from one of the most earnest and
eloquent of his musical odes. He was born in Georgia in 1842, and
died in 1881. fie served in the Confederate army from 1861 to 1865,
and afterwards published several prose works of an historical char
acter, and numerous poems, of which his " Centennial Ode" first
brought him into prominence as a poet.]
" O TRADE! O Trade! would thou wert dead !
The age needs heart 'tis tired of head :
We're all for love," the violins said.
" Of what avail the rigorous tale
Of coin for coin and box for bale ?
Grant thee, O Trade ! thine uttermost hope,
Level red gold with blue sky-slope,
And base it deep as devils grope,
When all's done, what hast thou won
Of the only sweet that's under the sun ?
Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh
Of true love's least, least ecstasy ?"
Then, like a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,
All the mightier strings assembling
Ranged them on the violins' side,
As when the bridegroom leads the bride,
And, heart in voice, together cried,
" Yea, what avail the endless tale
Of gain by cunning and plus by sale ?
Look up the land, look down the land,
The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand
480 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. (_ LAN IBB
Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand
Against an inward-opening door
That pressure tightens evermore :
They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh
For the outside leagues of liberty,
Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky
Into a heavenly melody.
4 Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),
* In the same old year-long, drear-long way,
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns,
We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,
And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,
To relieve, O God, what manner of ills ?
Such manner of ills as brute-flesh thrills.
The beasts they hunger, eat, sleep, die,
And so do we ; our world's a sty ;
And, fellow-swine, why nuzzle and cry?
Swinehood hath never a remedy,
Say many men, and pass us by,
With nostril clamped and blinking eye.
Did God say once, in marvellous tone,
Man shall not live by bread alone,
But all that cometh from his throne ?
Yea : God said so,
But Trade saith No :
And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say No :
There's plenty that can, if you can't : Go to :
Move out, if you think you're underpaid.
The poor are prolific ; we're not afraid ;
Business is business ; a. trade is a trade,
Over and over they have said.' "
And then these passionate pretestings
Merged in grieving moods, until
LANTEB] SYMPHONY. 481
They sank to sad requestings
And suggestings sadder still :
" And oh, if men might some time see
How piteous-false the poor decree
That trades just naught but trades must be!
Does business mean, Die you live If
Then ' Trade is trade,' but sings a lie :
'Tis only war grown miserly.
If traffic is battle, name it so :
"War-crimes less will shame it so,
And victims less will blame it so.
But oh for the poor to have some part
In yon sweet living lands of Art,
Makes problem not for head, but heart.
Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it :
Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
And then, as when from words that seem but rude
We pass to pain that dimly sits abrood
Back in our heart's great dark and solitude,
So sank the strings to gentle throbbing
Of long chords change-marked with sobbing
Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard
Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird
Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred.
Then stirring and demurring ceased, and, lo !
Every least ripple of the string's song-flow
Died to a level with each level bow
And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so,
As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go
To linger in the sacred dark and green
Where many boughs the still pool overlean
And many leaves make shadow with their sheen,
v // 41
482 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIER
But presently
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly
Upon the bosom of that harmony,
And sailed and sailed incessantly,
As if a petal from a wild-rose blown
Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone
And boatwise dropped o' the convex side
And floated down the glassy tide
And clarified and glorified
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide.
From the warm concave of that fluted note '
Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float,
As if a rose might somehow be a throat :
"When Nature from her far-off glen
Flutes her soft messages to men,
The flute can say them o'er again ;
Yes, Nature, singing sweet and lone,
Breathes through life's strident polyphone
The flute- voice in the world of tone.
Sweet friends,
Man's love ascends
To finer .and diviner ends
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends.
For I, e'en I,
As here I lie,
A petal on a harmony,
Demand of Science whence and why
Man's tender pain, man's inward cry,
When he doth gaze on earth and sky?
I am not overbold :
I hold
Full powers from Nature manifold.
I speak for each no-tongued tree
That, spring by spring, doth nobler be,
LANIER] SYMPHONY. 483
And dumbly and most wistfully
His mighty prayerful arms outspreads
Above men's oft-unheeding heads,
And his big blessing downward sheds.
I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves,
Lichens on stones and moss on eaves,
Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves,
Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes,
And briery mazes bounding lanes,
And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains,
And milky stems and sugary veins ;
For every long-armed woman-vine
That round a piteous tree doth twine ;
For passionate odors, and divine
Pistils, and petals crystalline ;
All purities of shady springs,
All shynesses of film- winged things
That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings ;
All modesties of mountain-fawns
That leap to covert from wild lawns,
And tremble if the day but dawns ;
All sparklings of small beady eyes
Of birds, and sidelong glances wise
Wherewith the jay hints tragedies;
All piquancies of prickly burs,
And smoothnesses of downs and furs
Of eiders and of minevers ;
All limpid honeys that do lie
At stamen-bases, nor deny
The humming-birds' fine roguery,
Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly ;
All gracious curves of slender wings,
Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings,
Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings ;
484 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIEH
Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell
Wherewith in every lonesome dell
Time to himself his hours doth tell ;
All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,
Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans,
And night's unearthly under-tones ;
All placid lakes and waveless deeps,
All cool reposing mountain-steeps,
Yale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps ;
Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,
And warmths, and mysteries, and mights,
Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,
These doth my timid tongue present,
Their mouthpiece and leal instrument
And servant, all love-eloquent.
I heard, when ' All for love' the violins cried :
So, Nature calls through all her system wide,
Give me thy love, man, so long denied.
Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways,
Since Nature, in the antique fable-days,
Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays,
False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise.
The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain,
Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was
fain
Never to lave its love in them again.
Later, a sweet Yoice Love thy neighbor said ;
Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread
Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread.
Yainly the Jew might wag his covenant head :
1 AII men are neighbors,' so the sweet Yoice said.
So, when man's arms had circled all man's race,
The liberal compass of his warm embrace
Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space ;
LANIER] SYMPHONY. 485
With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace.
Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face :
His heart found neighbors in great hills and trees
And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees,
And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these.
But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor!
That stand by the inward-opening door
Trade's hand doth tighten ever more,
And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh
For the outside hills of liberty,
Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky
For Art to make into melody !
Thou Trade ! thou king of the modern days !
Change thy ways,
Change thy ways ;
Let the sweaty laborers file
A little while,
A little while,
Where Art and Nature sing and smile.
Trade ! is thy heart all dead, all dead ?
And hast thou nothing but a head ?
I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said,
And into sudden silence fled,
Like as a blush that while 'tis red
Dies to a still, still white instead.
Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds,
Till presently the silence breeds
A little breeze among the reeds
That seems to blow by sea-marsh weeds ;
Then from the gentle stir and fret
Sings out the melting clarionet,
Like as a lady sings while yet
Her eyes with salty tears are wet.
41*
486 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
"O Trade! O Trade!" the lady said,
" I too will wish thee utterly dead
If all thy heart is ID thy head.
For O my God ! and O my God !
What shameful ways have women trod
At beckoning of Trade's golden rod !
Alas when sighs are traders' lies,
And heart's-ease and violet eyes
Are merchandise !
O purchased lips that kiss with pain !
O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain !
trafficked hearts that break in twain !
And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime ?
So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime,
Men love not women as in olden time.
Ah, not in these cold, merchantable days
Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays
The one red Sweet of gracious ladies' praise.
Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye,
Says, Here, you Lady, if you'll sell, I'll buy :
Come, heart for heart a trade f What ! weeping f why f
Shame on such wooer's dapper mercery !
1 would my lover kneeling at my feet
In humble manliness should cry, sweet I
I know not if thy heart my heart will greet :
I ask not if thy love my love can meet :
Whatever thy worshipful soft tongue shall say,
Til kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay :
I do but know I love thee, and I pray
To be thy knight until my dying day.
Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives I
Base love good women to base loving drives.
If men loved larger, larger were our lives ;
And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives."
HOLMES] THE AUTOCRAT'S OPINIONS. 487
THE AUTOCRAT'S OPINIONS.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
[As " good wine needs no bush," so Dr. Holmes needs no introduc
tion to American readers. His sparkling humor, his felicity of expres
sion and illustration, and his striking powers of analyzation of the
deeper relations of human life and the human soul, place him at a
high level both as a writer and as a thinker. His humorous poetry is
admirable, his novels are characterized by a clear and vigorous han
dling of psychologically abstruse themes, and in his " Autocrat of the
Breakfast-Table" there is a combination of humor, wit, and deep in
sight which has given this work an enduring popularity. "We extract
from the "Autocrat" some of its most incisive and neatly-rendered
passages.]
THE UNDERSTONE WORLD.
, DID you never, in walking in the fields, come across a
large flat stone, which had lain, nobody knows how long,
just where you found it, with the grass forming a little
hedge, as it were, all round it, close to its edges, and have
you not, in obedience to a kind of feeling that told you it
had been lying there long enough, insinuated your stick
or your foot or your fingers under its edge and turned it
over, as a housewife turns a cake when she says to her
self, " It's done brown enough by this time" ? What an
odd revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant sur
prise to a small community, the very existence of which
you had not suspected, until the sudden dismay and scat
tering among its members produced by your turning the
old stone over! Blades of grass flattened down, colorless,
matted together, as if they had been bleached and ironed ;
hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous or
horny-shelled, turtle-bugs one wants to call them, some
of them softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed
488 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLMES
like lepine watches ; black, glossy crickets, with their
long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse
stage-coaches ; motionless, slug-like creatures, young larvae,
perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even
in the infernal wriggle of maturity ! But no sooner is the
stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this
compressed and blinded community of creeping things,
than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs and
some of them have a good many rush round wildly, but
ting each other and everything in their way, and end in a
general stampede for underground retreats from the region
poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass
growing tall and green where the stone lay ; the ground-
bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole ; the
dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the
broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden
disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pul
sate through their glorified being. . . .
There is meaning in each of those images, the butter
fly as well as the others. The stone is ancient error. The
grass is human nature borne down and bleached of all its
color by it. The shapes which are found beneath are the
crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker
organisms kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone
over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old lying
incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious face
or a laughing one. The next year stands for the coming
time. Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and
broken rise in its full stature and native hues in the sun
shine. Then shall God's minstrels build their nests in the
hearts of a new-born humanity. Then shall beauty
Divinity taking outlines and color light upon the souls
of men, as the butterfly, image of the beatified spirit rising
from the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub,
HOLMES] THE AUTOCRAT'S OPINIONS. 489
which would never have found wings had not the stone
been lifted.
You never need think you can turn over any old false
hood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the
horrid little population that dwells under it.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.
When we are as yet small children, long before the time
when those two grown ladies offer us the choice of Her
cules, there comes up to us a youthful angel, holding in
his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like
marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on each is
written, in letters of gold TRUTH. The spheres are veined
and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson
flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a certain
aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three
letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very
probably clutches at both. The spheres are the most con
venient things in the world : they roll with the least pos
sible impulse just where the child would have them. The
cubes will not roll at all ; they have a great talent for stand
ing still, and always keep right side up. But very soon the
young philosopher finds that things which roll so easily
are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and to get out
of his way when he most wants them, while he always
knows where to find the others, which stay where they
are left. Thus he learns thus we learn to drop the
Ktreaked and speckled globes of falsehood and to hold fast
the white, angular blocks of truth. But then comes Ti
midity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all Polite-
behavior, all insisting that truth must roll, or nobody can
do anything with it ; and so the first with her coarse rasp,
and the second with her broad file, and the third with her
silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish the
490 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HoLMEa
snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they have got t,
little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the
rolling spheres of falsehood.
THE SIDE-DOOR TO THE HEART.
Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side- door
by which they may be entered. The front-door is on the
street. Some keep it always open ; some keep it latched ;
some, locked ; some, bolted, with a chain that will let
you peep in, but not get in ; and some nail it up, so that
nothing can pass its threshold. This front-door leads
into a passage which opens into an anteroom, and this
into the interior apartments. The side -door opens at once
into the sacred chambers.
There is almost always at least one key to this side-door.
This is carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom.
Fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, often, but by no
means so universally, have duplicates of it. The wedding-
ring conveys a right to one ; alas, if none is given with it !
If nature or accident has put one of these keys into the
hands of a person who has the torturing instinct, I can
only solemnly pronounce the words that Justice utters
over its doomed victim, The Lord have mercy on your
soul ! You will probably go mad within a reasonable
time, or, if you are a man, run off, and die with your
head on a curbstone in Melbourne or San Francisco, or,
if you are a woman, quarrel and break your heart, or turn
into a pale, jointed petrifaction that moves about as if it
were alive, or play some real life-tragedy or other.
Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of
the side-door. The fact of possessing one renders those
even who are dear to you very terrible at times. You
can keep the world out from your front-door, or receive
visitors only when you are ready for them ; but those of
HOLMES] THE AUTOCRATS OPINIONS. 491
your own flesh and blood, or of certain grades of intimacy,
can come in at the side-door, if they will, at-any hour and
in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole
nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your sensi
bilities in semitones, touching the naked nerve-pulps as
a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satis
fied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing
as Yieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance.
Married life is the school in which the most accomplished
artists in this department are found. A delicate woman
is the best instrument ; she has such a magnificent com
pass of sensibilities ! From the deep inward moan which
follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the sharp
cry as the filaments of taste are struck with a crashing
sweep, is a range which no other instrument possesses.
A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man wonderfully
for his habitual labors, and refresh him immensely as he
returns from them. No stranger can get a great many
notes of torture out of a human soul ; it takes one that
knows it well, parent, child, brother, sister, intimate.
Be very careful to whom you give a side-door key ; too
many have them already.
THE CLOCK OP LIFE.
Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life
winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives
the key into the hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.
Tic-tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought ; our will
cannot stop them ; they cannot stop themselves, sleep
cannot still them; madness only makes them go faster;
death alone can break into the case, and, seizing the ever-
swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at
last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have car
ried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.
492 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLMES
If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows
and count the dead beats of thought after thought and
image after image jarring through the overtired organ !
Will nobody block those wheels, uncouple that pinion, cut
the string that holds those weights, blow up the infernal
machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over
us sometimes for silence and rest! that this dreadful
mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of time, em
broidered with spectral figures of life and death, could
have but one brief holiday ! Who can wonder that men
swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos ? that
they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling
waters beneath ? that they take counsel of the grirn
friend who has but to utter his one peremptory monosyl
lable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is
dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which
we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where
neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel
from which a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by
any chance be seen. There is nothing for it, when the
brain is on fire with the whirling of its wheels, but to
spring against the stone wall and silence them with one
crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,
and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take
such exercise as he likes without damaging himself on the
very plain and serviceable upholstery. If anybody would
only contrive some kind of a lever that one could thrust
in among the works of this horrid automaton and check
them, or alter their rate of going, what would the world
give for the discovery !
GROWING BEYOND.
I find the great thing in this world is not so much
where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To
WHITE] CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION. 493
reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the
wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and
not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is one very sad thing
in old friendships, to every mind that is really moving
onward. It is this : that one cannot help using his early
friends as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress.
Every now and then we throw an old school-mate over the
stern with a string of thought tied to him, and look
I am afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious
compassion to see the rate at which the string reels off,
while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow!
and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright
sparkle at our bows ; the ruffled bosom of prosperity and
progress, with a sprig of diamonds stuck in it ! But this
is only the sentimental side of the matter ; for grow we
must, if we outgrow all that we love.
CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION.
RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
[From." Words and their Uses" we select tlie following study ot
some of the growth-characteristics of English speech. Its author,
Richard Grant White, was horn in the city of New York in 1822, and
died there in 1885. He was an active worker in the philological field,
and the learning evinced in his "Shakespeare's Scholar" early gave
him a prominent position among critical writers. His anonymous
political satire, " The New Gospel of Peace," issued in 1863, had an
enormous sale. Besides the above-mentioned works, he published an
" Essay on the Authorship of Henry VI.," two editions of Shake
speare's collected works (one in twelve volumes, and one in three), and
u Everyday English." Not long before his death there appeared from
his pen a work of marked interest, descriptive of English character
and scenery. His style is characterized by great clearness and purity,
42
494 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
and his works have had a powerful influence in all the various fields of
thought tc which his attention was turned.]
WHAT the phrase so often heard, " pure English," really
means, it would, probably, puzzle those who use it to ex
plain. For our modern tongues are like many buildings
that stand upon sites long swept over by the ever-ad
vancing, though backward and forward shifting, tide of
civilization. They are built out of the ruins of the work
of previous generations ; to which we and our immediate
predecessors have added something of our own. This
process has been going on since the disappearance of the
first generation of speaking men ; and it will never cease.
But there will be a change in its mode and rate. The
change has begun already. The invention of printing,
the instruction of the mass of the people, and the ease of
popular intercommunication, will surely prevent any such
corruption and detrition of language as that which has
resulted in the modern English, German, French, Spanish,
and Italian tongues. Phonetic degradation will play a
less important part than it has heretofore played in the
history of language. Changes in the forms and variation
in the meanings of words will be slow, and, if not deliber
ate, at least half conscious ; and the corruptions that we
have to guard against are chiefly those consequent upon
pretentious ignorance and aggressive vulgarity.
It may be reasonably doubted whether there ever was
a pure language two generations old ; that is, a language
homogeneous, of but one element. All tongues known to
philology show, if not the mingling in considerable and
nearly determinable proportions of two or three linguistic
elements, at least the adoption and adaptation of numerous
foreign words. English has for many centuries been far
from being a simple language. Chaucer's " well of Eng
lish undefiled" is very pleasant and wholesome drinking ;
WHITE] CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION. 495
but, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and " auxiliary"
verbs aside, it is a mixture in which Normanized, Galli
cized Latin is mingled in large proportion with a base of
degraded Anglo-Saxon. And yet the result of this hy-
bridity and degradation is the tongue in which Shake
speare wrote, and the translators of the Bible, and Milton,
and Bunyan, and Burke, and Goldsmith, and Irving, and
Hawthorne ; making in a language without a superior
a literature without an equal.
But the presence in our language of two elements, both
of which are essential to its present fulness and force, no
less than to its fineness and flexibility, does not make it
sure that these are of equal or of nearly equal importance.
Valuable as the Latin adjuncts to our language are, in the
appreciation of their value it should never be forgotten
that they are adjuncts. The frame, the sinews, the nerves,
the heart's blood, in brief, the body and soul of our lan
guage is English ; Latin and Greek furnish only its limbs
and outward flourishes. If what has come to us through
the Normans, and since their time from France and Italy
and the Latin lexicon, were turned out of our vocabulary,
we could live, and love, and work, and talk, and sing, and
have a folk-lore and a higher literature. But take out the
former, the movement of our lives would be clogged, and
the language would fall to pieces for lack of framework
and foundation, and we could do none of those things.
We might teach in the lecture-room, and formulate the
results of our work in the laboratory, but we should be
almost mute at home, and our language and our literature
would be no more ours than it would be France's, or
Spain's, or Italy's.
To the Latin we owe, as the most cursory student of
our language must have observed, a great proportion of
the vocabulary of philosophy, of art, of science, and of
496 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITE
morals ; and by means of words derived from the Latin
we express, as it is assumed, shades of thought and of
feeling finer than those of which our simple mother-tongue
is capable. But it may at least be doubted whether we
do not turn too quickly to the Latin lexicon when we
wish a name for a new thought or a new thing, and
whether out of the simples of our ancient English, or
Anglo-Saxon, so called, we might not have formed a lan
guage copious enough for all the needs of the highest civ
ilization and subtle enough for all the requisitions of phi
losophy. For instance, what we call, in Latinish phrase,
remorse of conscience, our forefathers called againbite of
in wit ; and in using the former we express exactly the same
ideas as are expressed by the latter. As the corresponding
compounds and the corresponding elements have the same
meaning, what more do we gain by putting together re
and morse, con and science, than by doing the same with
again and bite, in and wit f The English words now sound
uncouth and provoke a smile, but they do so only because
we are accustomed to the Latin derivatives. No advan
tage seems likely to be pleaded for the use of the latter,
other than that they produce a single impression on the
mind of the English-speaking man, causing him to accept
remorse and conscience as simple words, expressing simple
things, without the suggestion of a biting again and an
inner witting. But it may first be doubted whether this
thoughtless, unanalytic acceptance of a word is without
some drawback of dissipating and enfeebling disadvantage ;
and next, and chiefly, it may be safely asserted that the
English compounds would produce, if in common use, as
single and as strong an impression as the Latin do. Who
that does not stop to think and take to pieces receives
other than a single impression from such words as insight
(bereaved twin of inwit}, gospel, falsehood, worship, homely,
WHITE] CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION. 497
breakfast, truthful, boyhood, household, brimstone, twilight,
acorn, chestnut, instead, homestead, and the like, of which
our common current English would furnish numberless
examples ?
In no way is our language more wronged than lay the
weak readiness with which many of those who, having
neither a hearty love nor a ready mastery of it, or lacking
both, fly to the Latin tongue or to the Greek for help in
the naming of a new thought or thing, or the partial con
cealment of an old one, calling, for instance, nakedness
nudity, and a bathing-tub a lavatory. By so doing they
help to deface the characteristic traits of our mother-
tongue, and to mar and stunt its kindly growth.
No one denies certainly I do not deny the value of
the Latin element of our modern English in the expres
sion of abstract ideas and general notions. It also gives
amplitude and ease and grace to a language which with
out it might be admirable only for compact and rugged
strength. All which being granted, it still remains to be
shown that there is not in simple English that is, Anglo-
Saxon without inflections the power of developing a
vocabulary competent to all the requirements of philoso
phy, of science, of art, no less than of society and of sen
timent. I believe that pure English has, in this respect at
least, the full capacity of the German language. Never
theless, one of the advantages of English over German,
in form and euphony, is in this very introduction of An
glicized Latin and Greek words for the expression of ab
stract ideas, which relieves us of such quintuple com
pounds, for instance, as sprachwissenschaftseinheit. With
the expression of abstract ideas and scientific facts, how
ever, the Latinization of our language should stop, or it
will lose its home character and kin traits, and become
weak, flabby, and inflated, and, thus, ridiculous.
9ff 42*
498 ' BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITE
One of the changes to which language is subject during
the healthy intellectual condition of a people, and in its
progress from rudeness to refinement, is the casting off
of rude, clumsy, and insufficiently worked-out forms of
speech, sometimes mistakenly honored under the name of
idioms. Speech, the product of reason, tends more and
more to conform itself to reason; and when grammar,
which is the formulation of usage, is opposed to reason,
there arises, sooner or later, a conflict between logic, or
the law of reason, and grammar, -the law of precedent,
in which the former is always victorious. And this has
been notably the case in the history of the English lan
guage. Usage, therefore, is not, as it is often claimed to
be, the absolute law of language ; and it never has been
so with any people, could not be, or we should have an
example of a language which had not changed from what
it was in its first stage, if indeed under such a law there
could be a first stage in language. Horace, indeed, in a
passage often quoted, seems to have accepted usage as the
supreme authority in speech :
" si volet usus,
Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi."
But if this dictum were unconditional, and common usage
were the absolute and rightful arbiter in all questions of
language, there would be no hope of improvement in the
speech of an ignorant and degraded society, no rightful
protest against its mean and monstrous colloquial phrases,
which, indeed, would then be neither mean nor monstrous,
the fact that they were in iise being their full justifica
tion. The truth is, however, that the authority of general
usage, or even of the usage of great writers, is not abso
lute in language. There is a misuse of words which can
WHITE] CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION. 499
be justified by no authority, however great, by no usage,
however general.
And, as usage does not justify that which is essentially
unreasonable, so in the fact that a word or a phrase is an
innovation, a neologism, there .s nothing whatever to deter
a bold, clear-headed thinker from its use. Otherwise lan
guage would not grow. New words, when they are
needed, are rightly formed, and so clearly discriminated
that they have a meaning peculiarly their own, enrich a
language, while the use of one word to mean many things,
more or less unlike, is the sign of poverty in speech, and
the source of ambiguity, the mother of confusion. For
these reasons the objection on the part of a writer upon
language to a word or a phrase should not be that it is
new, but that it is inconsistent with reason, incongruous
in itself, or opposed to the genius of the tongue into
which it has been introduced. Something must and surely
will be sacrificed in language to convenience ; but too
much may be sacrificed to brevity. A periphrasis which
is clear and forcible is not to be abandoned for a shorter
phrase, or even a single word, which is ambiguous, bar
barous, grotesque, or illogical. Unless much is at stake,
it is always better to go clean and dry-shod a little way
about than to soil our feet by taking a short cut.
For two centuries and a half, since thtj time whon King
Lear was written and our revised translation of the Bible
made, the English language has suffered little change,
either by loss or gain. Excepting that which was slang,
or cant, or loose colloquialism in his day, there is little in
Shakespeare's plays which is not heard now, more or less,
from the lips of English-speaking men ; and to his vocabu
lary they have added little except words which are names
for new things. The language has not sensibly improved,
nor has it deteriorated. In the latter part of the last cen-
500 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITE
tury it was in some peril. We ran the risk, then, of the
introduction of a scholarly diction and a formal style into
our literature, and of a separation of our colloquial speech,
the language of common folk and common needs, from
that of literary people and grand occasions. That danger
we happily escaped, and we still speak and write a com
mon, if not a homogeneous, language, in which there is no
word which is excluded by its commonness or its mean
ness from the highest strain of poetry. '
Criticism, however, is now much needed to keep our
language from deterioration, to defend it against the as
saults of presuming half-knowledge, always bolder than
wisdom, always more perniciously intrusive than conscious
ignorance. Language must always be made by the mass
of those who use it ; but when that mass is misled by a
little learning, a dangerous thing only as edge-tools are
dangerous to those who will handle them without under
standing their use, and undertakes to make language
according to knowledge rather than by instinct, confusion
and disaster can be warded oif only by criticism. Criti
cism is the child and handmaid of reflection. It works
by censure ; and censure implies a standard. As to words
and the use of words, the standard is either reason, whose
laws are absolute, or analogy, whose milder sway hinders
anomalous, barbarous, and solecistic changes, and helps
those which are in harmony with the genius of a lan
guage. Criticism, setting at naught the assumption of
any absolute authority in language, may check bad usage
and reform degraded custom. It may not only resist the
introduction of that which is debasing or enfeebling, but
it may thrust out vicious words and phrases which through
carelessness or perverted taste may have obtained a foot-
Ing. It is only by such criticism that our language can
now be restrained from license and preserved from corrup-
WHITE] CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE-VARIATION. 501
tion. Criticism cannot at once with absolute and omnipo
tent voice banish the bad and establish or introduce thb
good ; but by watchfulness and reason it may gradually
form such a taste in those who are, if not the framers, at
least the arbiters, of linguistic law, that thus, by indirec
tion finding direction out, it may insure the effectual con
demnation of that which itself could not exclude.
Until comparatively late years language was formed by
the intuitive sense of those who spoke it ; but now, among
highly-civilized peoples, the element of consciousness is
entering into its production. If consciousness must be
present, it should be, at least in the last resort, the con
sciousness of trained and cultivated minds ; and such con
sciousness is critical, indeed, is criticism. And those who
feel the need of support in giving themselves to the study
of verbal criticism may find it in the comfortable words
of Scaliger the younger, who says, " The sifting of these
subtleties, although it is of no use to machines for grind
ing corn, frees the mind from the rust of ignorance, and
sharpens it for other matters." * And it may reassure us
to remember that in the crisis of the great struggle be
tween Caesar and Pompey, Cicero, being then in the
zenith of his power, turned aside, in a letter to Atticua
upon weighty affairs of state, to discuss a point of gram
mar with that eminent critic.
* "Harum indagatio subtilitatum, etsi non est utilis ad machinas
farinarias conficiendas, exuit animum tamen inscitiaa rubigine, acuit-
que ad alia."
502 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IsviNO
AN HEROIC COMBAT.
WASHINGTON IKYING.
[The great versatility of Irving 7 s genius is admirably illustrated in
his burlesque " History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker,"
as compared with the classical elegance of his " Sketch-Book" and
other works and the graceful ease and polish of his historical writings.
The selection we make, describing the terrible battle between the Dutch
and the Swedes, is a ludicrous parody of the combats of the Greeks
and Trojans on the plain of Troy, with the interferences of the deities,
which excellently displays one phase of American humor.]
Now had the Dutchmen snatched a huge repast, and,
finding themselves wonderfully encouraged and animated
thereb}^, prepared to take the field. Expectation, says
the writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, Expectation
now stood on stilts. The world forgot to turn round, or
rather stood still, that it might witness the affray, like a
round-bellied alderman watching the combat of two chiv
alrous flies upon his jerkin. The eyes of all mankind, as
usual in such cases, were turned upon Fort Christina.
The sun, like a little man in a crowd at a puppet-show,
scampered about the heavens, popping his head here and
there, and endeavoring to get a peep between the unman
nerly clouds that obtruded themselves in his way. The
historians filled their inkhorns ; the poets went without
their dinners, either that they might buy paper and goose-
quills, or because they could not get anything to eat.
Antiquity scowled sulkily out of its grave, to see itself
outdone; while even Posterity stood mute, gazing in
gaping ecstasy of retrospection on the eventful field.
The immortal deities, who whilom had seen service at
the "affair" of Troy, now mounted their feather-bed
clouds, and sailed over the plain, or mingled among the
IRVING] AN ^ HEROIC COMBAT. 503
combatants in different disguises, all itching to have a
finger in the pie. Jupiter sent off his thunderbolt to a
noted coppersmith, to have it furbished up for the direful
occasion. Yenus vowed by her chastity to patronize the
Swedes, and in semblance of a blear-eyed trull paraded
the battlements of Fort Christina, accompanied b}^ Diana,
as a sergeant's widow, of cracked reputation. The noted
bully, Mars, stuck two horse-pistols into his belt, shoul
dered a rusty firelock, and gallantly swaggered at their
elbow, as a drunken corporal ; while Apollo trudged in
their rear, as a bandy-legged fifer, playing most villa-
nously out of tune.
On the other side, the ox-eyed Juno, who had gained a
pair of black eyes overnight, in one of her curtain-lectures
with old Jupiter, displayed her haughty beauties on a bag
gage-wagon ; Minerva, as a brawny gin-sutler, tucked up
her skirts, brandished her fists, and swore most heroically,
in exceeding bad Dutch (having but lately studied the
language), by way of keeping up the spirits of the sol
diers ; while Yulcan halted as a club-footed blacksmith
lately promoted to be a captain of militia. All was silent
n,we, or bustling preparation : war reared his horrid front,
gnashed loud his iron fangs, and shook his direful crest of
bristling bayonets.
And now the mighty chieftains marshalled out theii
hosts. Here stood stout Bisingh, firm as a thousand
rocks, incrusted with stockades, and intrenched to the
chin in mud batteries. His valiant soldiery lined the
breastwork in grim array, each having his mustachios
fiercely greased, and his hair pomatumed back, and queued
so stiffly that he grinned above the ramparts like a grisly
death's-head.
There came on the intrepid Peter, his brows knit, his
teeth set, his fists clinched, almost breathing forth volumes
504 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
of smoke, so fierce was the fire that raged within his
bosom. His faithful squire Yan Corlear trudged valiantly
at his heels, with his trumpet gorgeously bedecked with
red and yellow ribbons, the remembrances of his fair mis
tresses at the Manhattoes. Then came waddling on the
sturdy chivalry of the Hudson. There were the Yan
Wycks, and the Yan Dycks, and the Ten Eycks j the Yan
Nesses, the Yan Tassels, the Yan Grolls ; the Yan Hoesens,
the Yan Giesons, and the Yan Blarcoms ; the Yan Warts,
the Yan Winkles, the Yan Dams; the Yan Pelts, the Yan
Rippers, and the Yan Brunts. There were the Yan
Homes, the Yan Hooks, the Yan Bunschotens ; the Yan
Gelders, the Yan Arsdales, and the Yan Bummels ; the
Yander Belts, the Yander Hoofs, the Yander Yoorts ; the
Yander Lyns, the Yander Pools, and the Yander Spiegles ;
then came the Hoffmans, the Hooghlands, the Hoppers,
the Cloppers, the Eyckmans, the Dyckmans, the Hoge-
booms, the Rosebooms, the Oothouts, the Quackenbosses,
the Roerbacks, the Garrebrantzes, the Bensons, the Brou-
wers, the Waldrons, the Onderdonks, the Yarra Yangers,
the Schermerhorns, the Stoutenburghs, the Brinkerhoffs,
the Bontecous, the Knickerbockers, the Hockstrasses, the
Ten Breecheses and the Tough Breecheses, with a host
more of worthies, whose names are too crabbed to be writ
ten, or, if they could be written, it would be impossible
for man to utter, all fortified with a mighty dinner, and,
to use the words of a great Dutch poet,
" Brimful of wrath and cabbage."
For an instant the mighty Peter paused in the midst of
his career, and, mounting on a stump, addressed his troops
in eloquent Low Dutch, exhorting them to fight like duy-
vels, and assuring them that if they conquered, they should
IRVING] AN HEROIC COMBAT. 505
get plenty of booty, if they fell, they should be allowed
the satisfaction, while dying, of reflecting that it was in
the service of their country, and, after they were dead, of
seeing their names inscribed in the temple of renown, and
handed down, in company with all the other great men
of the year, for the admiration of posterity. Finally, he
swore to them, on the word of a governor (and they knew
him too well to doubt it for a moment), that if he caught
any mother's son of them looking pale, or playing craven,
he would curry his hide till he made him run out of it
like a snake in spring-time. Then lugging out his trusty
sabre, he brandished it three times over his head, ordered
Yan Corlear to sound a charge, and, shouting the words
"St. Nicholas and the Manhattoes!" courageously dashed
forward. His warlike followers, who had employed the
interval in lighting their pipes, instantly stuck them into
their mouths, gave a furious puif, and charged gallantly
under cover of the smoke.
The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning Risingh
not to fire until they could distinguish the whites of theii
assailants' eyes, stood in horrid silence on the covert- way
until the eager Dutchmen had ascended the glacis. Then
did they pour into them such a tremendous volley, that
the very hills quaked around. Not a Dutchman but would
have bitten the dust beneath that dreadful fire, had not
the protecting Minerva kindly taken care that the Swedes
should, one and all, observe their usual custom of shutting
their eyes and turning away their heads at the moment
of discharge.
The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping the coun
terscarp and falling tooth and nail upon the foe with furi
ous outcries. And now might be seen prodigies of valor,
unmatched in history or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel
Brinkerhoff brandishing his quarter-staff, like the giant
w 43
506 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
Blanderon his oak-tree (for he scorned to carry any other
weapon), and drumming a horrific tune upon the hard
heads of the Swedish soldiery. There were the Yan
Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers
of yore, and plying it most potently with the long-bow,
for which they were so justly renowned. On a rising
knoll were gathered the valiant men of Sing-Sing, assist
ing marvellously in the fight by chanting the great song
of St. Nicholas ; but as to the Gardeniers of Hudson, they
were absent on a marauding party, laying waste the neigh
boring watermelon-patches.
In a different part of the field were the Yan Grolls of
Antony's Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the
fight, but horribly perplexed in a defile between two hills,
by reason of the length of their noses. So also the Yan
Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kick
ing with the left foot, were brought to a stand for want
of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had
eaten, and would have been put to utter rout but for the
arrival of a gallant corps of voltigeurs, composed of the
Hoppers, who advanced nimbly to their assistance on one
foot. Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achieve
ments of Antony Yan Corlear, who, for a good quarter of
an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy Swedish
drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently,
and whom he would infallibly have annihilated on the
spot, but that he had come into the battle with no other
weapon but his trumpet.
But now the combat thickened. On came the mighty
Jacobus Yarra Yanger and the fighting-men of the Wall-
about ; after them thundered the Yan Pelts of Esopus,
together with the Yan Kippers and the Yan Brunts, bear
ing down all before them ; then the Suy Dams and the
Yan Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering oath,
IRVINO] AN' HEROIC COME A T. 507
at the head of the warriors of Hellgate, clad in their
thunder- and-lightning gaberdines; and, lastly, the stand
ard-bearers and body-guard of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing
the great beaver of the Manhattoes.
And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate
struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation,
the confusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman
and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The
heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang !
went the guns ; whack ! went the broadswords ; thump !
went the cudgels ; crash ! went the musket stocks ; blows,
kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes, and bloody noses swell
ing the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and
hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-
over-heels, rough-and-tumble ! Dunder and blixum ! swore
the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes.
Storm the works ! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the
mine! roared stout Kisingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra ! twanged
the trumpet of Antony Yan Corlear, until all voice and
sound became unintelligible, grunts of pain, yells of fury,
and shouts of triumph mingling in one hideous clamor.
The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke;
trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight ; rocks
burrowed in the ground like rabbits ; and even Christina
Creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill in breath
less terror !
Long hung the contest doubtful ; for though a heavy
shower of rain, sent by the " cloud-compelling Jove," in
some measure cooled their ardor, as doth a bucket of
water thrown on a group of fighting mastiffs, yet did they
but pause for a moment, to return with tenfold fury to the
charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense column of
smoke was seen slowly rolling toward the scene of battle.
The combatants paused for a nxoment, gazing in m nte as-
508 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
tonishment, until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud,
revealed the flaunting banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon
of Communipaw. That valiant chieftain came fearlessly
on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed Pavonians and
a corps de reserve of the Yan Arsdales and Yan Bummels,
who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner
they had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward,
ismoking their pipes with outrageous vigor, so as to raise
the awful cloud that has been mentioned, but marching
exceedingly slow, being short of leg, and of great rotun
dity in the belt.
And now, the deities who watched over the fortunes of
the Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and
stepped into a neighboring tavern to refresh themselves
with a pot of beer, a direful catastrophe had wellnigh
ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons of Michael Paw at
tained the front of battle, when the Swedes, instructed by
the cunning Bisingh, levelled a shower of blows full at
their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dis
mayed at the havoc of their pipes, these ponderous war
riors gave way, and like a drove of frightened elephants
broke through the ranks of their own army. The little
Hoppers were borne down in the surge ; the sacred banner
emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Communipaw was
trampled in the dirt; on blundered and thundered the
heavy-sterned fugitives, the Swedes pressing on their rear
and applying their feet a parte poste of the Yan Arsdales
and the Yan Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously ac
celerated their movements ; nor did the renowned Michael
Paw himself fail to receive divers grievous and dishonor
able visitations of shoe-leather.
But what, oh Muse ! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant
when from afar he saw his army giving way ! In the
transports of his wrath he sent forth a roar, enough to
IRVING] AN HEROIC COMBAT. 509
shake the very hills. The men of the Manhattoes plucked
up new courage at the sound, or, rather, they rallied at the
voice of their leader, of whom they stood more in awe
than of all the Swedes in Christendom. Without waiting
for their aid, the daring Peter dashed, sword in hand, into
the thickest of the foe. Then might be seen achievements
worthy of the days of the giants. Wherever he went, the
enemy shrank before him ; the Swedes fled to right and
left, or were driven, like dogs, into their own ditch ; but
as he pushed forward singly with headlong courage, the
foe closed behind and hung upon his rear. One aimed a
blow full at his heart ; but the protecting power which
watches over the great and good turned aside the hostile
blade and directed it to a side-pocket, where reposed an
enormous iron tobacco-box, endowed, like the shield of
Achilles, with supernatural powers, doubtless from bear
ing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas. Peter Stuy-
vesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and seizing
him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, "Ah, whoreson
caterpillar," roared he, "here's what shall make worms'
meat of thee !" So saying, he whirled his sword, and dealt
a blow that would have decapitated the varlet, but that
the pitying steel struck short and shaved the queue for
ever from his crown. At this moment an arquebusier
levelled his piece from a neighboring mound, with deadly
aim ; but the watchful Minerva, who had just stopped to
tie up her garter, seeing the peril of her favorite hero,
sent old Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match de
scended to the pan, gave a blast that blew the priming
from the touch-hole.
Thus waged the fight, when the stout Blsingh, survey
ing the field from the top of a little ravelin, perceived his
troops banged, beaten, and kicked by the invincible Peter.
Drawing his falchion and uttering a thousand anathemas,
43*
510 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [!BVINQ
he strode down to the scene of combat with some such
thundering strides as Jupiter is said by Hesiod to have
taken when he strode down the spheres to hurl his thun
derbolts at the Titans.
When the rival heroes came face to face, each made a
prodigious start in the style of a veteran stage-champion.
Then did they regard each other for a moment with the
bitter aspect of two furious ram-cats on the point of a
clapper-clawing. Then did they throw themselves into
one attitude, then into another, striking their swords on
the ground, first on the right side, then on the left ; at
last at it they went, with incredible ferocity. Words can
not tell the prodigies of strength and valor displayed in
this direful encounter, an encounter compared to which
the far-famed battles of Ajax with Hector, of JEneas with
Turnus, Orlando with Eodomont, Guy of Warwick with
Colbrand the Dane, or of that renowned Welsh knight,
Sir Owen of the Mountains, with the giant Gruylon, were
all gentle sports and holiday recreations. At length the
valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a blow,
enough to cleave his adversary to the very chine ; but
Risingh, nimbly raising his sword, warded it off so nar
rowly that, glancing on one side, it shaved away a huge
canteen in which he carried his liquor, thence pursuing
its trenchant course, it severed off a deep coat-pocket,
stored with bread and cheese, which provant rolling
among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between
the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle
to wax more furious than ever.
Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout
Risingh, collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full
at the hero's crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat
oppose its course. The biting steel clove through the
stubborn ram beaver, and would have cracked the crown
TRYING J AN HEROIC COMBAT. 511
of any one not endowed with supernatural hardness of
head ; but the brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the
skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding a thousand sparks,
like beams of glory, round his grizzly visage.
The good Peter reeled with the blow, and, turning up
his eyes, beheld a thousand suns, besides moons and stars,
dancing about the firmament ; at length, missing his foot
ing, by reason of his wooden leg, down he came on his
seat of honor with a crash which shook the surrounding
hills. . . .
The furious Kisingh, in despite of the maxim, cherished
by all true knights, that " fair play is a jewel," hastened
to take advantage of the hero's fall ; but, as he stooped
to give a fatal blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack
over the sconce with his wooden leg which set a chime
of bells ringing triple bob-majors in his cerebellum. The
bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and the wary
Peter, seizing a pocket-pistol, which lay hard by, dis
charged it full at the head of the reeling Eisingh. Let
not my reader mistake ; it was not a murderous weapon
loaded with powder and ball, but a little sturdy stone pot
tle charged to the muzzle with a double dram of true
Dutch courage, which the knowing Antony Yan Corlear
carried about him by way of replenishing his valor, and
which had dropped from his wallet during his furious en
counter with the drummer. The hideous weapon sang
through the air, and, true to its course as was the frag
ment of a rock discharged at Hector by bully Ajax, en
countered the head of the gigantic Swede with matchless
violence.
This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. The pon
derous pericranium of General Jan Eisingh sank upon his
breast ; his knees tottered under him ; a death-like torpor
seized upon his frame, and he tumbled to the earth with
512 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [lavnra
such violence that old Pluto started with affright, lest he
should have broken through the roof of his infernal
palace.
His fall was the signal of defeat and victory : the Swedes
gave way, the Dutch pressed forward ; the former took to
their heels, the latter hotly pursued. Some entered with
them, pell-mell, through the sally-port ; others stormed the
bastion, and others scrambled over the curtain. Thus in
a little while the fortress of Fort Christina, which, like
another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten hours, was car
ried by assault, without the loss of a single man on either
side. Victory, in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat
perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant ;
and it was declared, by all the writers whom he hired to
write the history of his expedition, that on this memo
rable day he gained a sufficient quantity of glory to im
mortalize a dozen of the greatest heroes in Christendom !
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