THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
GIFT OF
Mrs. Paul M. Grant
/
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
CHAELES MORRIS.
VOL. IV.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1891.
Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOB. PAOK
The Yosemite Valley FITZHUGH LUDLOW 7
The Parisian " Pension" JOHN SANDERSON 19
The Fate of Major Andre" ALEXANDER HAMILTON .... 22
A Gale off Cape Horn R. H. DANA 35
Washington THEODORE PARKER 45
Poems of Thought and Sympathy . . . VARIOUS 49
Thought HELEN HUNT JACKSON .... 49
Thought. . , C. P. CRANCH 49
A King EDGAR FAWCETT 51
Released MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY ... 52
Anywhere M. E. CLARKE 53
Two Good-Nights ANONYMOUS 55
Lines for an Album ANONYMOUS 55
Outgrown JULIA C. R. DORR 56
Higher Tenants JOHN J. PIATT 58
Tribute to Joseph Rodman Drake . . FITZ-GREENE HALLECK ... 60
The Disappointed ELLA WHEELER WILCOX ... 61
The Theory of Land-Taxation HENRY GEORGE 63
The Crest of the Alleghanies EDWARD STRAHAN 70
The Good Old Times CHARLES HEBER CLARK ... 76
In the Autumn Woodlands SUSAN WARNER 88
Absalom N. P. WILLIS 96
The Sabbath in New England C. M. SEDGWICK 100
The Revision of the Constitution .... JOHN RANDOLPH 103
Discovery of the Mississippi by Marquette GEORGE BANCROFT 105
River Drift- Wood SARAH ORNE JEWETT .... 110
Patriotic Songs VARIOUS 119
Hail Columbia JOSEPH HOPKINSON 120
The Star-Spangled Banner FRANCIS S. KEY 122
Battle-Hymn of the Republic .... JULIA WARD HOWE 124
America SAMUEL F. SMITH 125
3
4 CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAGE
Ode to the American Flag JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE . . . 126
Sheridan's Hide T. BUCHANAN READ 128
The Blue and the Gray FRANCIS M. FINCH 130
Burning of a Lake Steamer ROBERT DALE OWEN 132
Words of Wisdom JAMES A. GARFIELD 148
Paradise Plantation L. S. HOTTGHTON 156
Centennial Oration HENRY ARMITT BROWN . . . 170
The Singer's Hilla HELEN HUNT JACKSON .... 173
When the House is Alone MARY KYLE DALLAS .... 177
Daisy Miller HENRY JAMES 180
The Ocklawaha in May SIDNEY LANIER 190
Twelve Hundred Miles through the Air . JOHN WISE 202
Importance of Literary Style WILLIAM MATHEWS 213
The Songs of the Troubadours HARRIET W. PRESTON .... 224
The Death of the Whale H. MELVILLE 230
German Ideas about America J. Ross BROWNE 236
The Famine HENRY W. LONGFELLOW ... 243
Incidents of Arctic Travel E. K. KANE 250
The Total Depravity of Inanimate Things. MRS. E. A. WALKER 254
The Man in the Reservoir C. F. HOFFMAN .... . 262
The Mound-Builders ANONYMOUS 272
Unwritten Music N. P. WILLIS 284
Life at Threescore and Ten ALBERT BARNES 289
No Use being in a Hurry J. K. PAULDINQ 293
A Tiger-Hunt in India W. T. HORNADAY 304
Poems of Humor VARIOUS . 314
Old Grimes ALBERT G. GREENE 314
Mary's Bee JAMES NACK 316
Little Breeches JOHN HAY 317
The Philosopher Toad MRS. R. S. NICHOLS 319
Vesta EDGAR FAWCETT 320
Plain Language from Truthful James . BRET HARTE ... . 321
A Babylonish Ditty F. S. COZZENS 323
Nothing to Wear WILLIAM A. BUTLER 326
Labor in the Middle Ages CHARLES J. STILLE 329
The Theory of Evolution MONCURE D. CONWAY .... 337
Spelling down the Master EDWARD EGGLESTON 345
A Newport Romance BRET HARTE 358
The Debt of Religion to Science .... MINOT J. SAVAGE 361
The Faun and the Nymph NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE '. '. '. 371
The Lessons of American History . . . GULIAN C. VERPLANCK . , 384
CONTENTS. 5
SUBJECT. AUTHOB. PAGB
The Proud Miss MacBride JOHN G. SAXE 388
The Condition of China WILLIAM H. SEWARD .... 393
The Horrors of War CHARLES SUMNER 398
A New England Country Court . . . . . D. P. THOMPSON 401
Excursion to Sorrento GEORGE S. HILLARD 409
Home Life and Home Sentiment .... VARIOUS 413
Home, Sweet Home JOHN HOWARD PAYNE .... 413
The Old Oaken Bucket SAMUEL WOODWORTH .... 414
Woodman, Spare that Tree GEORGE P. MORRIS 415
The Family Meeting CHARLES SPRAGUE 417
Measuring the Baby EMMA ALICE BROWNE .... 418
Cradle Song JOSIAH G. HOLLAND 420
Hannah Binding Shoes LUCY LARCOM 422
Labor is Worship FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD . . 423
The Controlling Elements of the Refor
mation C. P. KRAUTH 425
An Old-Time Virginia Race-Course . . JOHN ESTEN COOKE ..... 435
A Letter to a Dyspeptic T. W. HIGGINSON 448
Columbus at Barcelona WASHINGTON IRVING 458
Marco Bozzaris FITZ-GREENE HALLECK . . . 463
Self-Culture WILLIAM E. CHANNING .... 467
The Bathing of the Baby SARA J. LIPPINCOTT 470
The Palaces and Temples of the Incas . W. H. PRESCOTT 478
Ode for Decoration-Day HENRY PETERSON 484
The Method of Hawthorne J. C. HEYWOOD 488
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 499
INDEX OF AUTHORS . 511
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
FITZHUGH LUDLOW.
[The minutely-detailed and poetically-conceived description of the
famous Yosemite Valley given below is from " The Heart of the Conti
nent," an eloquently-written narrative of travel in the Kocky Moun
tains and the Pacific States, by Fitzhugh Ludlow. His other works
are "The Hasheesh-Eater," "The Opium Habit," and "Little
Brother." The visions described in "The Hasheesh-Eater" are
brilliantly delineated, and seem rather the work of an ardent imagina
tion than actual happenings. Mr. Ludlow was born at Poughkeepsie,
New York, in 1837. He died in Switzerland, in 1870, a victim of
opium-eating. He wrote a number of very popular student songs.]
IMMEDIATELY after leaving the meadow where we dined,
we plunged again into the thick forest, where every now
and then some splendid grouse or the beautiful plume-
crowned California quail went whirring away from before
our horses. Here and there a broad grizzly u sign" inter
sected our trail. The tall purple deer-weed, a magnificent
scarlet flower of name unknown to me, and another blos
som like the laburnum, endlessly varied in its shades of
roseate, blue, or the compromised tints, made the hill-sides
7
8 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LUDLOW
gorgeous beyond human gardening. All these were scent
less; but one other flower, much rarer, made fragrance
enough for all. This was the " Lady Washington," and
much resembled a snowy day-lily with an odor of tube
roses. Our dense leafy surrounding hid us from the fact
of our approach to the Yalley's tremendous battlement,
till our trail turned at a sharp angle, and we stood on
" Inspiration Point."
That name had appeared pedantic, but we found it only
the spontaneous expression of our own feelings on the
spot. We did not so much seem to be seeing from that
crag of vision a new scene on the old familiar globe, as a
new heaven and a new earth into which the creative spirit
had just been breathed. I hesitate now, as I did then, at
the attempt to give my vision utterance. Never were
words so beggared for an abridged translation of any
Scripture of Nature.
We stood on the verge of a precipice more than three
thousand feet in height, a sheer granite wall, whose ter
rible perpendicular distance baffled all visual computation.
Its foot was hidden among hazy green spiculce, they
might be tender spears of grass catching the slant sun on
upheld aprons of cobweb, or giant pines whose tops that
sun first gilt before he made gold of all the Yalley.
There faced us another wall like our own. How far off
it might be we could only guess. When Nature's light
ning hits a man fair and square, it splits his yardstick. On
recovering from this stroke, mathematicians have ascer
tained the width of the Yalley to vary between half a mile
and five miles. Where we stood, the width is about two.
I said a wall like our own ; but as yet we could not
know that certainly, for of our own we saw nothing.
Our eyes seemed spell-bound to the tremendous precipice
which stood smiling, not frowning at us, in all the serene
LUDLOW] THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 9
radiance of a snow-white granite Boodh, broadly burn
ing, rather than glistening, in the white-hot splendors of
the setting sun. From that sun, clear back to the first
avant-courier trace of purple twilight flushing the eastern
sky-rim, yes, as if it were the very butment of the eter
nally blue Californian heaven, ran that wall, always sheer
as the plummet, without a visible break through which
squirrel might climb or sparrow fly, so broad that it was
just faint-lined like the paper on which I write by the
loftiest water-fall in the world, so lofty that its very
breadth could not dwarf it, while the mighty pines and
Douglas firs which grew all along its edge seemed like
mere lashes on the granite lid of the Great Valley's up-
gazing eye. In the first astonishment of the view, we
took the whole battlement at a sweep, and seemed to see
an unbroken sky-line ; but as ecstasy gave way to exami
nation, we discovered how greatly some portions of the
precipice surpassed our immediate vis-d-vis in height.
First, a little east of our off-look, there projected boldly
into the Yalley from the dominant line of the base a square
stupendous tower that might have been hewn by the dia
mond adzes of the Genii for a second Babel experiment,
in expectance of the wrath of Allah. Here and there the
tools had left a faint scratch, only deep as the width of
Broadway and a bagatelle of five hundred feet in length ;
but that detracted no more from the unblemished four
square contour of the entire mass than a pin- mark from
the symmetry of a door-post. A city might have been
built on its grand flat top. And, oh, the gorgeous masses
of light and shadow which the falling sun cast on it, the
shadows like great waves, the lights like their spumy tops
and flying mist, thrown up from the heaving breast of
a golden sea ! In California, at this season, the dome of
heaven is cloudless ; but I still dream of what must be
10 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
done for the bringing out of Tu-toch-anula's coronation-
day majesties by the broken winter sky of fleece and fire.
The height of his precipice is nearly four thousand feet
perpendicular; his name is supposed to be that of the
Valley's tutelar deity. He also rejoices in a Spanish alias,
some Mission Indian having attempted to translate by
" El Capitan" the idea of divine authority implied in Tu-
toch-anula.
Far up the Yalley to the eastward there rose high above
the rest of the sky-line, and nearly five thousand feet above
the Yalley, a hemisphere of granite, capping the sheer
wall, without an apparent tree or shrub to hide its vast
proportions. This we immediately recognized as the
famous To-coy-89, better known through Watkins's photo
graphs as the Great North Dome. I am ignorant of the
meaning of the former name, but the latter is certainly
appropriate. Between Tu-toch-anula and the Dome, the
wall rose here and there into great pinnacles and towers,
but its sky-line is far more regular than that of the
southern side, where we were standing.
We drew close to the edge of the precipice and looked
along over our own wall up the Yalley. Its contour was
a rough curve from our stand-point to a station opposite
the North Dome, where the Yalley dwindles to its least
width, so that all the intermediate crests and pinnacles
which topped the perpendicular wall stood within our
vision like the teeth of a saw, clear and sharp-cut against
the blue sky. There is the same plumb-line uprightness
in these mighty precipices as in those of the opposite side ;
but their front is much more broken by bold promontories,
and their tabular tops, instead of lying horizontal, slope up
at an angle of forty-five degrees or more from the spot
where we were standing, and make a succession of oblique
prism-sections whose upper edges are between three and
LTJDLOW] THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. \\
four thousand feet in height. But the glory of this
southern wall comes at the termination of our view oppo
site the North Dome. Here the precipice rises to the
height of nearly one sheer mile, with a parabolic sky
line, and its posterior surface is as elegantly rounded as
an acorn-cup. From this contour results a naked semi-
cone of polished granite, whose face would cover one of
our smaller Eastern counties, though its exquisite propor
tions make it seem a thing to hold in the hollow of the
hand. A small pine-covered glacis of detritus lies at its
foot, but every yard above that is bare of all life save the
palaeozoic memories which have wrinkled the granite
Colossus from the earliest seethings of the fire-time. I
never could call a Yo-Semite crag inorganic, as I used to
speak of everything not strictly animal or vegetal. In
the presence of the Great South Dome that utterance be
came blasphemous. Not living, was it ? Who knew but
the debris at its foot was merely the cast-off sweat and
exuvice of a stone life's great work-day ? Who knew but
the vital changes which were going on within its gritty
cellular tissue were only imperceptible to us because
silent and vastly secular? What was he who stood up
before Tis-sa-ack and said, " Thou art dead rock I" save a
momentary sojourner in the bosom of a cyclic period
whose clock his race had never yet lived long enough to
hear strike ? What, too, if Tis-sa-ack himself were but
one of the atoms in a grand organism where we could see
only by monads at a time, if he, and the sun, and the
sea, were but cells or organs of some one small being in
the fenceless vivarium of the Universe? Let not the
ephemeron that lights on a baby's hand generalize too
rashly upon the non-growing of organisms! As we
thought on these things, we bared our heads to the barer
forehead of Tis-sa-ack.
12 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LUDLOW
Let us leave the walls of the Yalley to speak of the
Yalley itself, as seen from this great altitude. There lies
a sweep of emerald grass turned to chrysoprase by the
slant-beamed sun, chrysoprase beautiful enough to have
been the tenth foundation-stone of John's apocalyptic
heaven. Broad and fair just beneath us, it narrows to a
little strait of green between the butments that uplift the
giant domes. Far to the westward, widening more and
more, it opens into the bosom of great mountain-ranges,
into a field of perfect light, misty by its own excess, into
an unspeakable suffusion of glory created from the phoenix-
pile of the dying sun. Here it lies almost as treeless as
some rich old clover-mead ; yonder, its luxuriant smooth
grasses give way to a dense wood of cedars, oaks, and
pines. Not a living creature, either man or beast, breaks
the visible silence of this inmost paradise ; but for our
selves, standing at the precipice, petrified, as it were, rock
on rock, the great world might well be running back in
stone-and-grassy dreams to the hour when God had given
him as yet but two daughters, the crag and the clover.
"We were breaking into the sacred closet of Nature's self-
examination. What if, on considering herself, she should
of a sudden, and usward unawares, determine to begin the
throes of a new cycle, spout up remorseful lavas from
her long-hardened conscience, and hurl us all skyward in a
hot concrete with her unbosomed sins ? Earth below was
as motionless as the ancient heavens above, save for the
shining serpent of the Merced, which silently to our ears
threaded the middle of the grass and twinkled his bur
nished back in the sunset wherever for a space 'he glided
out of the shadow of woods.
To behold this Promised Land proved quite a different
thing from possessing it. Only the silleros of the Andes,
our mules, horses, and selves, can understand how much
LUDLOW] THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 13
like a nightmare of endless roof-walking was the descent
down the face of the precipice. A painful and most cir
cuitous dug-way, where our animals had' constantly to
stop, lest their impetus should tumble them headlong, all
the way past steeps where the mere thought of a side-fall
was terror, brought us in the twilight to a green meadow,
fringed by woods, on the banks of the Merced. . . .
Just before I started after supplies, our party moved its
camp to a position five miles up the Valley, beyond Camp
Eattlesnake, in a beautiful grove of oaks and cedars, close
upon the most sinuous part of the Merced margin, with
rich pasture for our animals immediately across the stream,
and the loftiest cataract in the world roaring over the
bleak precipice opposite. This is the Yo-Semite Fall
proper, or, in the Indian, " Cho-looke." By the most
recent geological surveys this fall is credited with the
astounding height of twenty-eight hundred feet. At an
early period the entire mass of water must have plunged
that distance without break. At this day a single ledge
of slant projection changes the headlong flood from cata
ract to rapids for about four hundred feet; but the un
broken upper fall is fifteen hundred feet, and the lower
thirteen hundred. In the spring and early summer no
more magnificent sight can be imagined than the tourist
obtains from a stand-point right in the midst of the spray,
driven, as by a wind blowing thirty miles an hour, from
the thundering basin of the lower fall. At all seasons
Cho-looke is the grandest mountain-water-fall in the known
world.
While I am speaking of water-falls, let me not omit
" Po-ho-no," or " The Bridal Veil," which was passed on
the southern side in our way to the second and about a
mile above the first camp. As Tis-sa-ack was a good, so is
Po-ho-no an evil spirit of the Indian mythology. This
iv. 2
14 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Lum.ow
tradition is scientifically accounted for in the fact that
many Indians have been carried over the fall by the tre
mendous current both of wind and water forever rushing
down a canon through which the stream breaks from its
feeding-lake twelve or fifteen miles before it falls. The
savage lowers his voice to a whisper and crouches trem
bling past Po-ho-no ; while the very utterance of the name
is so dreaded by him that the discoverers of the Yalley
obtained it with great difficulty. This fall drops on a
heap of giant boulders in one unbroken sheet of a thou
sand feet perpendicular, thus being the next in height
among all the Yalley cataracts to the Yo-Semite itself,
and having a width of fifty feet. Its name of " The
Bridal Yeil" is one of the few successes in fantastic no
menclature ; for, to one viewing it in profile, its snowy
sheet, broken into the filmy silver lace of spray and fall
ing quite free of the brow of the precipice, might well
cseem the veil worn by the earth at her granite wedding,
no commemorator of any fifty years' bagatelle like the
golden one, but crowning the one-millionth anniversary
of her nuptials.
On either side of Po-ho-no the sky-line of the precipice
is magnificently varied. The fall itself cuts a deep gorge
into the crown of the battlement. On the southwest bor
der of the fall stands a nobly bold, but nameless, rock,
three thousand feet in height. Near by is Sentinel Rock,
a solitary truncate pinnacle, towering to thirty-three hun
dred feet. A little farther are " Eleachas," or " The Three
Brothers," flush with the front surface of the precipice,
but their upper posterior bounding-planes tilted in three
tiers, which reach a height of thirty-four hundred and
fifty feet.
One of the loveliest places in the Yalley is the shore of
Lake Ah-wi-yah, a crystal pond of several acres in ex-
LUDLOW] THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 15
tent, fed by the north fork of the Valley stream, and lying
right at the mouth of the narrow strait between the North
and South Dome. By this tranquil water we pitched our
third camp, and when the rising sun began to shine through
the mighty cleft before us the play of color and chiaroscuro
oil its rugged walls was something for which an artist apt
to oversleep himself might well have sat up all the night.
No such precaution was needed by ourselves. Painters,
sages, and gentlemen at large all turned out by dawn ; for
the studies were grander, the grouse and quail plentier,
and the butterflies more gorgeous than we found in any
other portion of the Yalley. After passing the great cleft
eastward, I found the river more enchanting at every
step. I was obliged to penetrate in this direction entirely
on foot, clambering between squared blocks of granite
dislodged from the wall beneath the North Dome, any
one of which might have been excavated into a commo
dious church, and discovering, for the pains cost by a
reconnoissance of five miles, some of the loveliest shady
stretches of singing water and some of the finest minor
water-falls in our American scenery.
Our last camp was pitched among the crags and forests
behind the South Dome, where the Middle Fork descends
through two successive water-falls, which, in apparent
breadth and volume, far surpass Cho-looke, while the
loftiest is nearly as high as Po-ho-no. About three miles
west of the Domes, the south wall of the Yalley is inter
rupted by a deep canon leading in a nearly southeast di
rection. Through this canon comes the Middle Fork, and
along its banks lies our course to the great " Pi-wi-ack"
(senselessly Englished as " Yernal") and the Nevada Falls.
For three miles from our camp, opposite the Yo-Semite
Fall, the caflon is threaded by a trail practicable for horses.
At its termination we dismounted, sent back our animals,
16 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LUDLOW
and, strapping their loads upon our own shoulders, struck
nearly eastward by a path only less rugged than the
trackless crags around us. In some places we were com
pelled to squeeze sideways through a narrow crevice in
the rocks, at imminent danger to our burden of blankets
and camp-kettles; in others we became quadrupedal,
scrambling up acclivities with which the bald main preci
pice had made but slight compromise. But for our light
marching order, our only dress being knee-boots, hunt
ing-shirt, and trousers, it would have been next to im
possible to reach our goal at all.
But none of us regretted pouring sweat or strained sin
ews, when, at the end of our last terrible climb, we stood
upon the oozy sod which is brightened into eternal emerald
by the spray of Pi-wi-ack. Far below our slippery stand
ing steeply sloped the walls of the ragged chasm down
which the snowy river charges roaring after its first head
long plunge ; an eternal rainbow flung its shimmering arch
across the mighty caldron at the base of the fall ; and
straight before us in one unbroken leap came down Pi-wi-
iick from a granite shelf nearly four hundred feet in height
and sixty feet in perfectly horizontal width. Some enter
prising speculator, who has since ceased to take the origi
nal seventy-five cents' toll, a few years ago built a sub
stantial set of rude ladders against the perpendicular wall
over which Pi-wi-ack rushes. We found it still standing,
and climbed the dizzy height in a shower of spray, so close
to the edge of the fall that we could almost wet our hands
in its rim. Once at the top, we found that Nature had
been as accommodating to the sight-seer as man himself;
for the ledge we landed on was a perfect breastwork, built
from the receding precipices on either side of the canon to
the very crown of the cataract. The weakest nerves need
not have trembled, when once within the parapet, on the
LUDLOW] THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 17
smooth, flat rampart, and looking down into the tremen
dous boiling chasm whence we had just climbed.
Above Pi-wi-ack the river runs for a mile at the bottom
of a granite cradle, sloping upward from it on each side at
an angle of about forty-five degrees, in great tabular masses
slippery as ice, without a crevice in them for thirty yards
at a stretch where even the scraggiest manzanita may
catch hold and grow. This tilted formation, broken here
and there by spots of scanty alluvium and stunted pines,
continues upward till it intersects the posterior cone of
the South Dome on one side and a colossal castellated
precipice on the other, creating thus the very typical
landscape of sublime desolation. The shining barrenness
of these rocks, and the utter nakedness of that vast glit
tering dome which hollows the heavens beyond them,
cannot be conveyed by any metaphor to a reader know
ing only the wood-crowned slopes of the Alleghany chain.
Climbing between the stunted pines and giant blocks
along the stream's immediate margin, getting glimpses
here and there of the snowy fretwork of churned water
which laced the higher rocks, and the black whirls which
spun in the deep pits of the roaring bed beneath us, we
came at last to the base of " Yo-wi-ye," or Nevada Fall.
This is the most voluminous, and, next to Pi-wi-ack, per
haps the most beautiful, of the Yo-Semite cataracts. Its
beauty is partly owing to the surrounding rugged gran
deur which contrasts it, partly to its great height (eight
hundred feet) and surpassing volume, but mainly to its
exquisite and unusual shape. It falls from a precipice the
highest portion of whose face is as smoothly perpendicular
as the wall overleapt by Pi-wi-ack ; but invisibly beneath
its snowy flood a ledge slants sideways from the cliif about
a hundred feet below the crown of the fall, and at an angle
of about thirty degrees from the plumb-line. Over this
. iv.~6 2*
18 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LUDLOW
ledge the water is deflected upon one side, and spread like
a half-open fan to the width of nearly two hundred feet.
At the base of Yo-wi-ye we seem standing in a cul-de-
sac of Nature's grandest labyrinth. Look where we will,
impregnable battlements hem us in. We gaze at the sky
from the bottom of a savage granite barathrum, whence
there is no escape but return through the chinks and over
the crags of an old-world convulsion. We are at the end
of the stupendous series of Yo-Semite effects : eight hun
dred feet above us, could we climb there, we should find
the silent causes of power. There lie the broad, still pools
that hold the reserved affluence of the snow-peaks ; thence
might we see, glittering like diamond lances in the sun,
the eternal snow-peaks themselves. But these would still
be as far above us as we stood below Yo-wi-ye on the low
est valley bottom whence we came. Even from Inspira
tion Point, where our trail first struck the battlement, we
could see far beyond the Yalley to the rising sun, tower
ing mightily above Tis-sa-ack himself, the everlasting
snow forehead of Castle Bock, his crown's serrated edge
cutting the sky at the topmost height of the Sierra. We
had spoken of reaching him, of holding converse with
the King of all the Giants. This whole weary way have
we toiled since then, and we know better now. Have
we endured all these pains only to learn still deeper life's
saddest lesson, " Climb forever, and there is still an In
accessible" ?
Wetting our faces with the melted treasure of Nature's
topmost treasure-house, Yo-wi-ye answers us, ere we turn
back from the Yo-Semite's last precipice toward the haunts
of men :
"Ye who cannot go to the Highest, lo, the Highest
comes down to you!"
SANDERSON] THE PARISIAN "PENSION." 19
THE PARISIAN "PENSION."
JOHN SANDERSON.
[John Sanderson was born in Pennsylvania in 1785, and died in
1844. About 1836 he was appointed Professor of Latin and Greek in
the Philadelphia High School. He visited France in 1835, and pub
lished after his return the work by which he is principally known,
" Sketches of Paris," afterwards enlarged and entitled " The American
in Paris." This work is full of genial humor, and was very favorably
received. The appended extract will serve as an illustration of its
amusing method of conveying information.]
IP a gentleman comes to Paris in the dog-days, when
his countrymen are spread over Europe, at watering-
places and elsewhere, and when every soul of a French
man is out of town, if he is used to love his friends at
home, and to be loved by them, and to see them gather
around him in the evenings, let him not set a foot in that
unnatural thing, a bachelor's apartment in a furnished
hotel, to live alone, to eat alone, and to sleep alone ! If
he does, let him take leave of his wife and children and
settle up his affairs. Nor let him seek company at the
Tavern Ordinary : here the guest arrives just at the hour,
hangs up his hat, sits down in his usual place, crosses his
legs, runs his fingers through his hair, dines, and then
disappears, all the year round, without farther acquaint
ance. But let him look out a " Pension" having an amia
ble landlady, or, which is the same, amiable lodgers. He
will become domiciliated here, after some time, and find
some relief from one of the trying situations of life. You
know nothing yet, happily, of the solitude, the desolation,
of a populous city to a stranger. How often did I wish,
during the first three months, for a cot by the side of
some hoar hill of the Mahanoy! Go to a "Pension," es-
20 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SANDERSON
pecially if you are a sucking child, like me, in the ways
of the world ; and the lady of the house, usually a pretty
woman, will feel it enjoined upon her humanity to counsel
and protect you, and comfort you, or she will manage an
acquaintance between you and some countess or baroness
who lodges with her or at some neighbor's. I live now
with a most spiritual little creature ; she tells me so many
obliging lies, and no offensive truths, which I take to be
the perfection of politeness in a landlady ; and she admits
me to her private parties, little family "reunions,"
where I play at loto with Madame Thomas and her three
amiable daughters, just for a little cider, cakes, or chest
nuts, to keep up the spirit of the play ; then we have a
song, a solo on the violin or harp, and then a dance; and
finally we play at little games which inflict kisses, em
braces, and other such penalties, French people are
always so merry, whatever be the amusement ; they
never let conversation flag, and I don't see any reason it
should. One, for example, begins to talk of Paris, then
the Passage Panorama, then of Mrs. Alexander's fine
cakes, and then the pretty girl that sits behind the
counter, and then of pretty girls that sit anywhere ; and
so one just lets one's self run with the association of
ideas, or one makes a digression from the main story, and
returns or not, just as one pleases. A Frenchman is always
a mimic, an actor ; and all that nonsense which we suifer
to go to waste in our country, he economizes for the
enjoyment of society.
I am settled down in the family; I am adopted; the
lady gives me, to be sure, now and then " a chance," as
she calls it, of a ticket in a lottery (" the only one left")
of some distinguished lady now reduced, or some lady
who has had three children, and is likely for the fourth,
where one never draws anything ; or " a chance" of con-
SANDERSON] THE PARISIAN " PENSION." 21
ducting her and a pretty cousin of hers, who has taken a
fancy to me, who adores the innocency of American man
ners, and hates the dissipation of the French, to the play.
Have you never felt the pleasure of letting yourself be
duped ? Have you never felt the pleasure of letting your
little bark float down the stream when you knew the port
lay the other way ? I look upon all this as a cheap return
for the kindnesses I have so much need of; I am anxious
to be cheated ; and the truth is, if you do not let a French
landlady cheat you now and then, she will drop your ac
quaintance. Never dispute any small items overcharged
in her monthly bill, or she that was smooth as the ermine
will be suddenly bristled as the porcupine ; and why, for
the sake of limiting some petty encroachment upon your
purse, should you turn the bright heaven of her pretty
face into a hurricane ? Your actions should always leave
a suspicion you are rich, and then you are sure she will
anticipate every want and wish you may have with the
liveliest affection ; she will be all ravishment at your suc
cesses ; she will be in an abyss of chagrin at your disap
pointments. Helas! oh! mon Dieu! and if you cry, she
will cry with you. We love money well enough in
America, but we do not feel such touches of human kind
ness, and cannot work ourselves up into such fits of amia-
bleness, for those who have it. I do not say it is hypoc
risy : a Frenchwoman really does love you if you have a
long purse; and if you have not (I do not say it is
hypocrisy neither), she really does hate you.
A great advantage to a French landlady is the sweet
ness and variety of her smile, a quality in which French
women excel universally. Our Madame G-ibou keeps her
little artillery at play during the whole of the dinner-time,
and has brought her smile under such a discipline as to
suit it exactly to the passion to be represented, or the
22 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
dignity of the person with whom she exchanges looks.
You can tell any one who is in arrears as if you were her
private secretary, or the wealth and liberality of a guest
better than his banker, by her smile. If it be a surly
knave who counts the pennies with her, the little thing is
strangled in its birth ; and if one who owes his meals, it
miscarries altogether; and for a mere visitor she lets off
one worth only three francs and a half; but if a favorite,
who never looks into the particulars of her bill and takes
her lottery-tickets, then you will see the whole heaven of
her face in a blaze, and it does not expire suddenly, but,
like the fine twilight of a summer evening, dies away
gently on her lips. Sometimes I have seen one flash out
like a squib, and leave you at once in the dark ; it had lit
on the wrong person ; and at other times I have seen one
struggling long for its life ; I have watched it while it was
gasping its last : she has a way, too, of knocking a smile
on the head ; I observed one at dinner to-day, from the
very height and bloom of health fall down and die with
out a kick.
THE FATE OF MAJOR
ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
[The reputation of Hamilton rests essentially upon his high abilities
as a statesman, and the very important part he played in the early
political history of the United States. He also took a prominent part
as a soldier in the Kevolutionary War, and, though not twenty years
of age at its outbreak, he became the special confidant of Washington,
and was intrusted with secret commissions of high importance. As a
writer he is the author of numerous letters and papers on public affairs
which are perspicuous in style and convincing in argument. His let
ter to Laurens on the capture and death of Major Andre is a fine speci-
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 23
men of his handling of a more general subject, and this interesting
event has never been more clearly, justly, and pathetically treated.
Hamilton was born on the West India island of Nevis, in January,
1757, being the son of a Scottish merchant. He was sent to New York
in 1772, and from that time forward took a very prominent part in
American affairs. In 1804 he opposed the election of Aaron Burr to
the Governorship of New York, on the ground that Burr was unfit to
be trusted with power. In consequence Burr challenged him. Ham
ilton accepted the challenge, and was mortally wounded in the duel
that ensued. He died on July 12, 1804.]
September, 1780.
SINCE my return from Hartford, my dear Laurens, my
mind has been too little at ease to permit me to write to
you sooner. It has been wholly occupied by the affecting
and tragic consequences of Arnold's treason. My feelings
were never put to so severe a trial. You will no doubt
have heard the principal facts before this reaches you;
but there are particulars to which my situation gave
me access, that cannot have come to your knowledge
from public report, which I am persuaded you will 'find
interesting.
From several circumstances, the project seems to have
originated with Arnold himself, and to have been long
premeditated. The first overture is traced back to some
time in June last. It was conveyed in a letter to Colonel
Robinson, the substance of which was, that the ingrati
tude he had experienced from his country, concurring
with other causes, had entirely changed his principles ;
that he now only sought to restore himself to the favor
of his king by some signal proof of his repentance, and
would be happy to open a correspondence with Sir Henry
Clinton for that purpose. About this period he made a
journey to Connecticut ; on his return from which to
Philadelphia, he solicited the command of West Point,
alleging that the effects of his wounds had disqualified
24 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
him for the active duties of the field. The sacrifice of
this important post was the atonement he intended to
make. General Washington hesitated the less to gratify
an officer who had rendered such eminent services, as he
was convinced the post might be safely intrusted to one
who had given so many distinguished specimens of his
bravery. In the beginning of August he joined the army
and renewed his application. The enemy, at this juncture,
had embarked the greatest part of their forces on an ex
pedition to Ehode Island, and our army was in motion to
compel them to relinquish the enterprise, or to attack
New York in its weakened state. The General offered
Arnold the left wing of the army, which he declined, on
the pretext already mentioned, but not without visible
embarrassment. He certainly might have executed the
duties of such a temporary command ; and it was expected
from his enterprising temper that he would gladly have
embraced so splendid an opportunity. But he did not
choose to be diverted a moment from his favorite object ;
probably from an apprehension that some different dispo
sition might have taken place, which would have excluded
him. The extreme solicitude he discovered to get posses
sion of the post would have led to a suspicion of treachery,
had it been possible, from his past conduct, to have sup
posed him capable of it.
The correspondence thus begun was carried on between
Arnold and Major Andre, Adjutant-General to the British
army, in behalf of Sir Henry Clinton, under feigned sig
natures, and in a mercantile disguise. In an intercepted
letter of Arnold's, which lately fell into our hands, he
proposes an interview, " to settle the risks and profits of
the copartnership ;" and, in the same style of metaphor,
intimates an expected augmentation of the garrison, and
speaks of it as the means of extending their traffic. It
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 25
appears, by another letter, that Andre was to have met
him on the lines, under the sanction of a flag, in the char
acter of Mr. John Anderson. But some cause or other,
not known, prevented this interview.
The twentieth of last month, Robinson and Andre went
up the river in the Yulture sloop-of-war. Robinson sent
a flag to Arnold with two letters, one to General Putnam,
enclosed in another to himself, proposing an interview
with Putnam, or, in his absence, with Arnold, to adjust
some private concerns. The one to General Putnam was
evidently meant as a cover to the other in case, by acci
dent, the letters should have fallen under the inspection
of a third person.
General Washington crossed the river, on his way to
Hartford, the day these despatches arrived. Arnold, con
ceiving he must have heard of the flag, thought it neces
sary, for the sake of appearances, to submit the letters to
him, and ask his opinion of the propriety of complying
with the request. The General, with his usual caution,
though without the least surmise of the design, dissuaded
him from it, and advised him to reply to Robinson, that
whatever related to his private affairs must be of a civil
nature, and could only properly be addressed to the civil
authority. This reference fortunately deranged the plan,
and was the first link in the chain of events that led to
the detection. The interview could no longer take place
in the form of a flag, but was obliged to be managed in a
secret manner.
Arnold employed one Smith to go on board the Yulture,
the night of the twenty-second, to bring Andre on shore,
with a pass for Mr. John Anderson. Andre came ashore
accordingly, and was conducted within a picket of ours
to the house of Smith, where Arnold and he remained
together in close conference all the night and the day fol-
iv.~ B 3
26 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
lowing. At daylight in the morning, the commanding
officer at King's Ferry, without the privity of Arnold,
moved a couple of pieces of cannon to a point opposite to
where the Yulture lay, and obliged her to take a more
remote station. This event, or some lurking distrust,
made the boatmen refuse to convey the two passengers
back, and disconcerted Arnold so much that, by one of
those strokes of infatuation which often confound the
schemes of men conscious of guilt, he insisted on Andre's
exchanging his uniform for a disguise, and returning in a
mode different from that in which he came. Andre, who
had been undesignedly brought within our posts in the
first instance, remonstrated warmly against this new and
dangerous expedient. But, Arnold persisting in declaring
it impossible for him to return as he came, he at length
reluctantly yielded to his direction, and consented to
change his dress and take the route he recommended.
Smith furnished the disguise, and in the evening passed
King's Ferry with him, and proceeded to Crompond,
where they stopped the remainder of the night, at the
instance of a militia officer, to avoid being suspected by
him. The next morning they resumed their journey,
Smith accompanying Andre a little beyond Pine's Bridge,
where he left him. He had reached Tarrytown, when he
was taken up by three militia-men, who rushed out of the
woods and seized his horse.
At this critical moment his presence of mind forsook
him. Instead of producing his pass, which would have
extricated him from our parties, and could have done him
no harm with his own, he asked the militia-men if they
were of the upper or lower party, distinctive appellations
known among the enemy's refugee corps. The militia
men replied, they were of the lower party ; upon which
he told them he was a British officer, and pressed them
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 27
not to detain him, as he was upon urgent business. This
confession removed all doubts ; and it was in vain he after
wards produced his pass. He was instantly forced off to
a place of greater security ; where, after a careful search,
there were found, concealed in the feet of his stockings,
several papers of importance delivered to him by Arnold.
Among these were a plan of the fortifications of "West
Point; a memorial from the engineer on the attack and
defence of the place; returns of the garrison, cannon, and
stores ; copy of the minutes of a council of war held by
General Washington a few weeks before. The prisoner at
first was inadvertently ordered to Arnold ; but, on recol
lection, while still on the way, he was countermanded and
sent to Old Salem. The papers were enclosed in a letter
to General Washington, which, having taken a route differ
ent from that by which he returned, made a circuit that
afforded leisure for another letter, through an ill-judged
delicacy, written to Arnold, with information of Ander
son's capture, to get to him an hour before General Wash
ington arrived at his quarters, time enough to elude the
fate that awaited him. He went down the river in his
barge to the Yulture with such precipitate confusion that
he did not take with him a single paper useful to the
enemy. On the first notice of the affair he was pursued,
but much too late to be overtaken.
There was some color for imagining it was part of the
plan to betray the General into the hands of the enemy.
Arnold was very anxious to ascertain from him the precise
day of his return, and the enemy's movements seemed to
have corresponded to this point. But if it was really the
case, it was very injudicious. The success must have de
pended on surprise ; and, as the officers at the advanced
posts were not in the secret, their measures might have
given the alarm, and General Washington, taking the com-
28 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
mand of the post, might have rendered the whole scheme
abortive. Arnold, it is true, had so dispersed the garrison
as to have made a defence difficult, but not impracticable ;
and the acquisition of West Point was of such magnitude
to the enemy that it would have been unwise to connect
it with any other object, however great, which might
make the obtaining of it precarious.
Arnold, a moment before his setting out, went into Mrs.
Arnold's apartment, and informed her that some transac
tions had just come to light which must forever banish
him from his country. She fell into a swoon at this decla
ration ; and he left her in it to consult his own safety, till
the servants, alarmed by her cries, came to her relief.
She remained frantic all day, accusing every one who ap
proached her with an intention to murder her child (an
infant in her arms), and exhibiting every other mark of
the most genuine and agonizing distress. Exhausted by
the fatigue and tumult of her spirits, her frenzy subsided
towards evening, and she sank into all the sadness of afflic
tion. It was impossible not to have been touched with
her situation ; everything affecting in female tears, or in
the misfortunes of beauty, everything pathetic in the
wounded tenderness of a wife, or in the apprehensive
fondness of a mother, and, till I have reason to change
the opinion, I will add, everything amiable in suffering
innocence, conspired to make her an object of sympathy
to all who were present. She experienced the most deli
cate attentions, and every friendly office, till her departure
for Philadelphia.
Andre was, without loss of time, conducted to the head
quarters of the army, where he was immediately brought
before a board of general officers, to prevent all possibility
of misrepresentation or cavil on the part of the enemy.
The board reported that he ought to be considered as a
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 29
spy, and, according to the laws of nations, to suffer death ;
which was executed two days after.
^N"ever, perhaps, did any man suffer death with more
justice, or deserve it less. The first step he took, after his
capture, was to write a letter to General Washington, con
ceived in terms of dignity without insolence, and apology
without meanness. The scope of it was to vindicate him
self from the imputation of having assumed a mean char
acter for treacherous or interested purposes ; asserting
that he had been involuntarily an impostor ; that contrary
to his intention, which was to meet a person for intelli
gence on neutral ground, he had been betrayed within our
posts, and forced into the vile condition of an enemy in
disguise ; soliciting only that, to whatever rigor policy
might devote him, a decency of treatment might be ob
served due to a person who, though unfortunate, had been
guilty of nothing dishonorable. His request was granted
in its full extent ; for in the whole progress of the affair
he was treated with the most scrupulous delicacy. When
brought before the board of officers, he met with every
mark of indulgence, and was required to answer no inter
rogatory which could even embarrass his feelings. On
his part, while he carefully concealed everything that
might involve others, he frankly confessed all the facts
relating to himself, and upon his confession, without the
trouble of examining a witness, the board made their re
port. The members of it were not more impressed with
the candor and firmness, mixed with a becoming sensi
bility, which he displayed, than he was penetrated with
their liberality and politeness. He acknowledged the gen
erosity of the behavior towards him in every respect, but
particularly in this, in the strongest terms of manly grati
tude. In a conversation with a gentleman who visited him
after his trial, he said he nattered himself he had never
IT:. 3*
30 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
been illiberal, but if there were any remains of prejudice
in his mind, his present experience must obliterate them.
In one of the visits I made to him (and I saw him sev
eral times during his confinement), he begged me to be
the bearer of a request to the General for permission to
send an open letter to Sir Henry Clinton. " I foresee my
fate," said he, "and, though I pretend not to play the
hero, or to be indifferent about life, yet I am reconciled
to whatever may happen, conscious that misfortune, not
guilt, has brought it upon me. There is only one thing
that disturbs my tranquillity. Sir Henry Clinton has
been too good to me ; he has been lavish of his kindness ;
I am bound to him by too many obligations, and love him
too well, to bear the thought that he should reproach him
self, or that others should reproach him, on the supposition
of my having conceived myself obliged, by his instructions,
to run the risk I did. I would not, for the world, leave a
sting in his mind that should embitter his future days."
He could scarce finish the sentence, bursting into tears in
spite of his efforts to suppress them, and with difficulty
collected himself enough afterwards to add, " I wish to be
permitted to assure him, I did not act under this impres
sion, but submitted to a necessity imposed upon me, as
contrary to my own inclination as to his orders." His
request was readily complied with, and he wrote the let
ter annexed, with which I dare say you will be as much
pleased as I am, both for the diction and sentiment.
When his sentence was announced to him, he remarked
that, since it was his lot to die, there was still a choice in
the mode, which would make a material difference in his
feelings ; and he would be happy, if possible, to be indulged
with a professional death. He made a second application,
by letter, in concise but persuasive terms. It was thought
this indulgence, being incompatible with the customs of
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 31
war, could not be granted; and it was therefore deter
mined, in both cases, to evade an answer, to spare him the
sensations which a certain knowledge of the intended mode
would inflict.
In going to the place of execution, he bowed familiarly,
as he went along, to all those with whom he had been
acquainted in his confinement. A smile of complacency
expressed the serene fortitude of his mind. Arrived at the
fatal spot, he asked, with some emotion, " Must I then die
in this manner ?" He was told it had been unavoidable.
" I am reconciled to my fate," said he, " but not to the
mode." Soon, however, recollecting himself, he added,
" It will be but a momentary pang ;" and, springing upon
the cart, performed the last offices to himself, with a com
posure that excited the admiration and melted the hearts
of the beholders. Upon being told the final moment was
at hand, and asked if he had anything to say, he answered,
" Nothing, but to request you will witness to the world
that I die like a brave man." Among the extraordinary
circumstances that attended him, in the midst of his ene
mies, he died universally esteemed, and universally re
gretted.
There was something singularly interesting in the char
acter and fortunes of Andre. To an excellent understand
ing, well improved by education and travel, he united a pe
culiar elegance of mind and manners, and the advantage of
a pleasing person. 'Tis said, he possessed a pretty taste for
the fine arts, and had himself attained some proficiency in
poetry, music, and painting. His knowledge appeared with
out ostentation, and embellished by a diffidence that rarely
accompanies so many talents and accomplishments, which
left you to suppose more than appeared. His sentiments
were elevated, and inspired esteem ; they had a softness
that conciliated affection. His elocution was handsome ;
32 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
his address easy, polite, and insinuating. By his merit, he
had acquired the unlimited confidence of his general, and
'was making a rapid progress in military rank and reputa
tion. But in the height of his career, flushed with new
hopes from the execution of a project the most beneficial
to his party that could be devised, he was at once precipi
tated from the summit of prosperity, and saw all the ex
pectations of his ambition blasted, and himself ruined.
The character I have given of him is drawn partly from
what I saw of him myself, and partly from information.
I am aware that a man of real merit is never seen in so
favorable a light as through the medium of adversity : the
clouds that surround him are shades that set off his good
qualities. Misfortune cuts down the little vanities that, in
prosperous times, serve as so many spots in his virtues,
and gives a tone of humility that makes his worth more
amiable. His spectators, who enjoy a happier lot, are less
prone to detract from it through envy, and are more dis
posed, by compassion, to give him the credit he deserves,
and perhaps even to magnify it.
I speak not of Andre's conduct in this affair as a philos
opher, but as a man of the world. The authorized max
ims and practices of war are the satires of human nature.
They countenance almost every species of seduction as
well as violence; and the general who can make most
traitors in the army of his adversary is frequently most
applauded. On this scale we acquit Andre, while we could
not but condemn him if we were to examine his conduct
by the sober rules of philosophy and moral rectitude. It
is, however, a blemish on his fame, that he once intended
to prostitute a flag ; about this, a man of nice honor ought
to have had a scruple ; but the temptation was great. Let
his misfortunes cast a veil over his error.
Several letters from Sir Henry Clinton, and others,
HAMILTON] THE FATE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 33
were received in the course of the affair, feebly attempting
to prove that Andre came out under the protection of a
flag, with a passport from a general officer in actual ser
vice, and consequently could not be justly detained. Clin
ton sent a deputation, composed of Lieutenant-G-eneral
Robinson, Mr. Elliot, and Mr. "William Smith, to represent,
as he said, the true state of Major Andrews case. General
Greene met Robinson, and had a conversation with him, in
which he reiterated the pretence of a flag, urged Andre's
release as a personal favor to Sir Henry Clinton, and
offered any friend of ours, in their power, in exchange.
Nothing could have been more frivolous than the plea
which was used. The fact was, that, beside the time,
manner, object of the interview, change of dress, and
other circumstances, there was not a single formality cus
tomary with flags ; and the passport was not to Major
Andre, but to Mr. Anderson. But had there been, on the
contrary, all the formalities, it would be an abuse of lan
guage to say that the sanction of a flag for corrupting an
officer to betray a trust ought to be respected. So unjus
tifiable a purpose would not only destroy its validity, but
make it an aggravation.
Andre himself has answered the argument, by ridiculing
and exploding the idea, in his examination before the board
of officers. It was a weakness to urge it.
There was, in truth, no way of saving him. Arnold, or
he, must have been the victim : the former was out of our
power.
It was by some suspected, Arnold had taken his meas
ures in such a manner that if the interview had been dis
covered in the act it might have been in his power to
sacrifice Andre to his own security. This surmise of
double treachery made them imagine Clinton might be
induced to give up Arnold for Andre; and a gentleman
iv. c
34 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAMILTON
took occasion to suggest this expedient to the latter, as a
thing that might be proposed by him. He declined it.
The moment he had been capable of so much frailty, I
should have ceased to esteem him.
The infamy of Arnold's conduct previous to his deser
tion is only equalled by his baseness since. Beside the
folly of writing to Sir Henry Clinton, assuring him that
Andre had acted under a passport from him, and according
to his directions, while commanding officer at a post, and
that therefore he did not doubt he would be immediately
sent in, he had the effrontery to write to General Washing
ton in the same spirit, with the addition of a menace of
retaliation if the sentence should be carried into execu
tion. He has since acted the farce of sending in his resig
nation. This man is in every sense despicable. Added
to the scene of knavery and prostitution during his com
mand in Philadelphia, which the late seizure of his papers
has unfolded, the history of his command at West Point
is a history of little, as well as great, villanies. . He prac
tised every dirty art of peculation, and even stooped to
connection with the sutlers of the garrison, to defraud the
public.
To his conduct, that of the captors of Andre formed a
striking contrast. He tempted them with the offer of his
watch, his horse, and any sum of money they should name.
They rejected his offers with indignation ; and the gold
that could seduce a man high in the esteem and confidence
of his country, who had the remembrance of past exploits,
the motives of present reputation and future glory, to
prop his integrity, had no charms for three simple peas
ants, leaning only on their virtue and an honest sense of
their duty. While Arnold is handed down with execra
tion to future times, posterity will repeat with reverence
the names of Yan Wart, Paulding, and Williams.
DANA] A GALE OFF CAPE HORN. 35
I congratulate you, my friend, on our happy escape
from the mischiefs with which this treason was big. It
is a new comment on the value of an honest man, and, if
it were possible, would endear you to me more than ever.
Adieu.
A GALE OFF CAPE HORN.
R. H. DANA.
[Richard Henry Dana, the author of the following selection, is prob
ably the best-descended man who ever shipped "before the mast" and
served on a long voyage as a common sailor. He was the son of
Kichard Henry Dana the poet, author of " The- Buccaneer," one of the
most striking of American poems. The father of the latter, Francis
Dana, was chief-justice of Massachusetts, and his father, Richard Dana,
an able lawyer and judge, and a prominent mover in the events leading
to the Revolution. The present writer was obliged to suspend his
studies at 'Harvard from an affection of the eyes, and shipped as a sailor
on a voyage to California, which he has admirably described in his
" Two Years Before the Mast," a work which attained wide celebrity.
It is noted for the minuteness and accuracy of its descriptions of life
at sea, and of a seaman's life on shore, in the merchant-service of fifty
years ago, as well as for the general vividness of the narrative. On
leaving the sea Mr. Dana studied law, and attained eminence as an
advocate. In addition to the work mentioned, he wrote " To Cuba and
Back," u Letters on Italian Unity," and numerous legal works. He
was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1815, and died in 1882.
In our selection which is a fair example of the manner of the whole
work is portrayed the romance of sea-life as seen from the sailor's
point of view. In situations like that described, life becomes a bitter
"struggle for existence," which is made strikingly evident in the
simple directness and minuteness of the author's narrative.]
Monday, June 27th. During the first part of this day
the wind continued fair, and, as WQ were going before it.
36 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DANA
it did not feel very cold, so that we kept at work on deck
in our common clothes and round jackets. Our watch had
an afternoon watch below for the first time since leaving
San Diego ; and, having inquired of the third mate what
the latitude was at noon, and made our usual guesses as
to the time she would need to be up with the Horn, we
turned in for a nap. We were sleeping away " at the rate
of knots," when three knocks on the scuttle and "All
hands, ahoy !" started us from our berths. What could be
the matter? It did not appear to be blowing hard, and,
looking up through the scuttle, we could see that it was a
clear day overhead; yet the watch were taking in sail.
We thought there must be a sail in sight, and that we
were about to heave-to and speak her ; and were just con
gratulating ourselves upon it, for we had seen neither
sail nor land since we left port, when we heard the
mate's voice on deck (he turned in "all-standing," and
was always on deck the moment he was called) singing
out to the men who were taking in the studding-sails,
and asking where his watch were. We did not wait for a
second call, but tumbled up the ladder ; and there, on the
starboard bow, was a bank of mist, covering sea and sky,
and driving directly for us. I had seen the same before in
my passage round in the Pilgrim, and knew what it meant,
and that there was no time to be lost. We had nothing
on but thin clothes, yet there was not a moment to spare,
and at it we went.
The boys of the other watch were in the tops, taking
in the top-gallant studding-sails, and the lower and top
mast studding-sails were coming down by the run. It
was nothing but " haul down and clew up," until we got
all the studding-sails in, and the royals, flying jib, and
mizzen top-gallant-sail furled, and the ship kept off a little,
to take the squall. The fore and main top-gallant sails were
DANA] A GALE OFF CAPE HORN. 37
still on her, for the "old man" did not mean to be frightened
in broad daylight, and was determined to carry sail till the
last minute. We all stood waiting for its coming, when the
first blast showed us that it was not to be trifled with.
Rain, sleet, snow, and wind enough to take our breath
from us, and make the toughest turn his back to windward !
The ship lay nearly over upon her beam-ends ; the spars
and rigging snapped and cracked ; and her top-gallant-
masts bent like whip-sticks. " Clew up the fore and main
top-gallant-sails !" shouted the captain, and all hands
sprang to the clew-lines. The decks were standing nearly
at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the ship going like
a mad steed through the water, the whole forward part
of her in a smother of foam. The halyards were let go,
and the yard clewed down, and the sheets started, and in
a few minutes the sails smothered and kept in by clew
lines and buntlines. "Furl 'em, sir?" asked the mate.
"Let go the topsail halyards, fore and aft!" shouted the
captain in answer, at the top of his voice. Down came
the topsail yards, the reef-tackles were manned and hauled
out, and we climbed up to windward, and sprang into the
weather rigging. The violence of the wind, and the hail
and sleet, driving nearly horizontally across the ocean,
seemed actually to pin us down to the rigging. It was
hard work making head against them. One after another
we got out upon the yards. And here we had work to
do ; for our new sails had hardly been bent long enough
to get the stiffness out of them, and the new earings and
reef-points, stiffened with the sleet, knotted like pieces of
iron wire. Having only our round jackets and straw hats
on, we were soon wet through, and it was every moment
growing colder. Our hands were soon numbed, which,
added to the stiffness of everything else, kept us a good
while on the yard. After we had got the sail hauled upon
38 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DANA
the yard, we had to wait a long time for the weather ear
ing to be passed ; but there was no fault to be found, for
French John was at the earing, and a better sailor never
laid out on a yard ; so we leaned over the yard and beat
our hands upon the sail to keep them from freezing. At
length the word came, " Haul out to leeward," and we
seized the reef-points and hauled the band taut for the lee
paring. " Taut band knot away," and we got the first
reef fast, and were just going to lay down, when " Two
reefs two reefs 1" shouted the mate, and we had a second
reef to take, in the same way. When this was fast we
went down on deck, manned the halyards to leeward,
nearly up to our knees in water, set the topsail, and then
laid aloft on the main topsail yard, and reefed that sail in
the same manner ; for, as I have before stated, we were a
good deal reduced in numbers, and, to make it worse, the
carpenter, only two days before, had cut his leg with an
axe, so that he could not go aloft. This weakened us so
that we could not well manage more than one topsail at
a time, in such weather as this, and, of course, each man's
labor was doubled. From the main topsail yard we went
upon the main yard, and took a reef in the mainsail. No
sooner had we got on deck than " Lay aloft there, and
close-reef mizzen topsail!" This called me; and, being
nearest to the rigging, I got first aloft, and out to the
weather earing. English Ben was just after me, and took
the lee earing, and the rest of our gang were soon on the
yard, and began to fist the sail, when the mate consider
ately sent up the cook and steward to help us. I could
now account for the long time it took to pass the other
earings, for, to do my best, with a strong hand to help me
at the dog's ear, I could not get it passed until I heard
them beginning to complain in the bunt. One reef after
another we took in, until the sail was close-reefed, when
DANA] A GALE OFF CAPE HORN. 39
we went down and hoisted away at the halyards. In the
mean time, the jib had been furled and the staysail set,
and the ship under her reduced sail had got more upright,
and was under management ; but the two top-gallant-sails
were still hanging in the buntlines, and slatting and jerk
ing as though they would take the masts out of her. We
gave a look aloft, and knew that our work was not done
yet; and, sure enough, no sooner did the mate see that we
were on deck than " Lay aloft there, four of you, and
furl the top-gallant-sails !" This called me again, and two
of us went aloft up the fore rigging, and two more up the
main, upon the top-gallant yards. The shrouds were now
iced over, the sleet having formed a crust round all the
standing rigging, and on the weather side of the masts
and yards. When we got upon the yard, my hands were
so numb that I could not have cast off the knot of the
gasket if it were to save my life. We both lay over the
yard for a few seconds, beating our hands upon the sail,
until we started the blood into our fingers' ends, and at
the next moment our hands were in a burning heat. My
companion on the yard was a lad (the boy, George Somerby)
who came out in the ship a weak, puny boy, from one of
the Boston schools, "no larger than a spritsail-sheet
knot" nor " heavier than a paper of lamp-black," and " not
strong enough to haul a shad oif a gridiron," but who was
now " as long as a spare topmast, strong enough to knock
down an ox, and hearty enough to eat him." We fisted
the sail together, and, after six or eight minutes of hard
hauling and pulling and beating down the sail, which was
about as stiff as sheetriron, we managed to get it furled ;
and snugly furled it must be, for we knew the mate well
enough to be certain that if it got adrift again we should
be called up from our watch below, at any hour of the
night, to furl it.
40 REST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DANA
T had been on the lookout for a chance to jump below
and clap on a thick jacket and south wester ; but when we
got on deck we found that eight bells had been struck,
and the other watch gone below, so that there were two
hours of dog watch for us, and a plenty of work to do.
It had now set in for a steady gale from the southwest ;
but we were not yet far enough to the southward to make
a fair wind of it, for we must give Terra del Fuego a wide
berth. The decks were covered with snow, and there was
a constant driving of sleet. In fact, Cape Horn had set
in with good earnest. In the midst of all this, and before
it became dark, we had all the studding-sails to make up
and stow away, and then to lay aloft and rig in all the
booms, fore and aft, and coil away the tacks, sheets, and
halyards. This was pretty tough work for four or five
hands, in the face of a gale which almost took us off the
yards, and with ropes so stiff with ice that it was almost
impossible to bend them. I was nearly half an hour out
on the end of the fore yard, trying to coil away and stop
down the topmast studding-sail tack and lower halyards.
It was after dark when we got through, and we were not
a little pleased to hear four bells struck, which sent us
below for two hours, and gave us each a pot of hot tea
with our cold beef and bread, and, what was better yet, a
suit of thick, dry clothing, fitted for the weather, in place
of our thin clothes, which were wet through and now
frozen stiff.
This sudden turn, for which we were so little prepared,
was as unacceptable to me as to any of the rest ; for I had
been troubled for several days with a slight toothache, and
this cold weather and wetting and freezing were not the
best things in the world for it. I soon found that it was
getting strong hold, and running over all parts of my
face ; and, before the watch was out, I went aft to the
DANA] A GALE OFF CAPE HORN. 41
mate, who had charge of the medicine-chest, to get some
thing for it. But the chest showed like the end of a long
voyage, for there was nothing that would answer but a
few drops of laudanum, which must be saved for an
emergency : so I had only to bear the pain as well as F
could.
When we went on deck at eight bells, it had stopped
snowing, and there were a few stars out, but the clouds
were still black, and it was blowing a steady gale. Just
before midnight, I went aloft and sent down the mizzen
royal yard, and had the good luck to do it to the satisfac
tion of the mate, who said it was done " out of hand and
ship-shape." The next four hours below were but little
relief to me, for I lay awake in my berth the whole time,
from the pain in my face, and heard every bell strike, and,
at four o'clock, turned out with the watch, feeling little
spirit for the hard duties of the day. Bad weather and
hard work at sea can be borne up against very well if one
only has spirit and health ; but there is nothing brings a
man down, at such a time, like bodily pain and want of
sleep. There was, however, too much to do to allow time
to think ; for the gale of yesterday, and the heavy seas
we met with a few days before, while we had yet ten
degrees more southing to make, had convinced the cap
tain that we had something before us which was not to be
trifled with, and orders were given to send down the long
top-gallant-masts. The top-gallant and royal yards were
accordingly struck, the flying jib-boom rigged in, and the
top-gallant-masts sent down on deck, and all lashed to
gether by the side of the long-boat, f he rigging was
then sent down and coiled away below, and everything
made snug aloft. There was not a sailor in the ship who
was not rejoiced to see these sticks come down; for, so
long as the yards were aloft, on the least sign of a lull,
iv 4*
42 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DANA
the top-gallant-sails were loosed, and then we had to furl
them again in a snow-squall, and shin up and down single
ropes caked with ice, and send royal yards down in the
teeth of a gale coming right from the south pole. It was
an interesting sight, too, to see our noble ship, dismantled
of all her top-hamper of long tapering masts and yards,
and boom pointed with spear-head, which ornamented her
in port ; and all that canvas, which a few days before had
covered her like a cloud, from the truck to the water's
edge, spreading far out beyond her hull on either side,
now gone ; and she stripped, like a, wrestler for the fight.
It corresponded, too, with the desolate character of her
situation, alone, as she was, battling with storms, wind,
and ice, at this extremity of the globe, and in almost
constant night.
Friday, July 1st. We were now nearly up to the lati
tude of Cape Horn, and, having over forty degrees of east
ing to make, we squared away the yards before a strong
westerly gale, shook a reef out of the fore topsail, and
stood on our way, east-by-south, with the prospect of
being up with the Cape in a week or ten days. As for
myself, I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours ; and the
want of rest, together with constant wet and cold, had in
creased the swelling, so that my face was nearly as large
as two, and I found it impossible to get my mouth open
wide enough to eat. In this state, the steward applied to
the captain for some rice to boil for me, but he only got a
"No! d you! Tell him to eat salt junk and hard
bread, like the rest of them." This was, in truth, what I
expected. However, I did not starve, for Mr. Brown, who
was a man as well as a sailor, and had always been a good
friend to me, smuggled a pan of rice into the galley, and
told the cook to boil it for me, and not let the " old man"
see it. Had it been fine weather, or in port, I should have
DANA] A GALE OFF CAPE HORN. 43
gone below and lain by until my face got well ; but in
such weather as this, and short-handed as we were, it was
not for me to desert my post : so I kept on deck, and
stood my watch and did my duty as well as I could.
S.iturday, July 2d. This day the sun rose fair, but it ran
too low in the heavens to give any heat, or thaw out our
sails and rigging ; yet the sight of it was pleasant ; and
we had a steady " reef-topsail breeze" from the westward.
The atmosphere, which had previously been clear and cold,
for the last few hours grew damp, and had a disagreeable,
wet chilliness in it ; and the man who came from the
wheel said he heard the captain tell "the passenger" that
the thermometer had fallen several degrees since morning,
which he could not account for in any other way than by
supposing that there must be ice near us ; though such a
thing was rarely heard of in this latitude at this season
of the year. At twelve o'clock we went below, and had
just got through dinner, when the cook put his head down
the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the finest
sight that we had ever seen. " Where away, Doctor ?"
asked the first man who was up. " On the larboard bow."
And there lay, floating in the ocean, several miles off, an
immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with
snow, and its centre of a deep indigo color. This was an
iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said
who had been in the Northern Ocean. As far as the eye
could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue
color, the waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in
the light, and in the midst lay this immense mountain-
island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and
its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands
were soon on deck, looking at it, and admiring in various
ways its beauty and grandeur. But no description can
give any idea of the strangeness, splendor, and, really, the
44 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DANA
sublimity of the sight. Its great size, for it must have
been from two to three miles in circumference and several
hundred feet in height, its slow motion, as its base rose
and sank in the water and its high points nodded against
the clouds; the dashing of the waves upon it, which,
breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crust ;
and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass and
the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces, together
with its nearness and approach, which added a slight ele
ment of fear, all combined to give to it the character of
true sublimity. The main body of the mass was, as I
have said, of an indigo color, its base crusted with frozen
foam ; and as it grew thin and transparent toward the
edges and top, its color shaded off from a deep blue to the
whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting slowly to
ward the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. It
was in sight all the afternoon ; and when we got to lee
ward of it the wind died away, so that we lay-to quite
near it for the greater part of the night. Unfortunately,
there was no moon ; but it was a clear night, and we could
plainly mark the long, regular heaving of the stupendous
mass, as its edges moved slowly against the stars, now re
vealing them, and now shutting them in. Several times
in our watch loud cracks were heard, which sounded as
though they must have run through the whole length of
the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a thundering
crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Toward morning a
strong breeze sprang up, and we filled away, and left it
astern, and at daylight it was out of sight.
PARKER] WASHINGTON. 45
WASHINGTON.
THEODORE PARKER.
[The following extract is taken from " Historic Americans," a post
humously-published volume, consisting of four lectures prepared by
Mr. Parker in 1858, on Franklin, Washington, John Adams, and Jef
ferson.]
IN his person, Washington was six feet high, and rather
slender. His limbs were long; his hands were uncommonly
large, his chest broad and full, his head was exactly round,
and the hair brown in manhood, but gray at fifty ; his fore
head rather low and retreating, the nose large and massy,
the mouth wide and firm, the chin square and heavy, the
cheeks full and ruddy in early life. His eyes were blue and
handsome, but not quick or nervous. He required specta
cles to read with at fifty. He was one of the best riders in
the United States, but, like some other good riders, awk
ward and shambling in his walk. He was stately in his
bearing, reserved, distant, and apparently haughty. Shy
among women, he was not a great talker in any company,
but a careful observer and listener. He read the, natural
temper of men, but not always aright. He seldom smiled.
He did not laugh with his face, but in his body, and, while
calm above, below the diaphragm his laughter was copious
and earnest. Like many grave persons, he was fond of
jokes, and loved humorous stories. He had negro story
tellers to regale him with fun and anecdotes at Mount
Yernon. He was not critical about his food, but fond of
tea. He took beer or cider at dinner, and occasionally
wine. He hated drunkenness, gaming, and tobacco. He
had a hearty love of farming and of private life. There
was nothing of the politician in him, no particle of cun
ning. He was one of the most industrious of men. Not
46 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKER
an elegant or accurate writer, he yet took great pains
with style, and, after the Revolution, carefully corrected
the letters he had written in the time of the French War,
more than thirty years before. He was no orator, like
Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and others, who had great
influence in American affairs. He never made a speech.
The public papers were drafted for him, and he read them
when the occasion came. Washington was no democrat.
Like the Federal party he belonged to, he had little confi
dence in the people. He thought more of the Judicial and
Executive departments than of the Legislative body. He
loved a strong central power, not local self-government.
A little tumult, like Shays's insurrection in Massachusetts,
or the rebellion in Pennsylvania, made him and his Fed
eral associates tremble for the safety of the nation. He
did not know that something must be forgiven to the
spirit of Liberty. In his administration as President, he
attempted to unite the two parties, the Federal party,
with its tendency to monarchy, and perhaps desire for it,
and the Democratic party, which thought that the gov
ernment was already too strong. But there was a quarrel
between Hamilton and Jefferson, who unavoidably hated
each other. The Democrats would not serve in Washing
ton's Cabinet. The violent, arbitrary, and invasive will
of Hamilton acquired an undue influence over Washing
ton, who was beginning, at sixty-four, to feel the effects
of age, and he inclined more and more to severe laws and
consolidated power, while on the other part the nation be
came more and more democratic. Washington went on
his own way, and yet filled his Cabinet with men less tol
erant of Republicanism than himself.
Of all the great men whom Virginia has produced,
Washington was least like the State that bore him. He
is not Southern in many particulars. In character he is
PARKER] WASHINGTON. 47
as much a New-Englander as either Adams. Yet, won
derful to tell, he never understood New England. The
slave-holder, bred in Virginia, could not comprehend a
state of society where the captain or the colonel came
from the same class as the common soldier, and that off
duty they should be equals. He thought common soldiers
should only be provided with food and clothes and have
no pay. Their families should not be provided for by
the State. He wanted the officers to be " gentlemen," and,
as much as possible, separate from the soldier. . . . He
never understood New England, never loved it, never
did it full justice. It has been said Washington was not
a great soldier; but certainly he created an army out
of the roughest materials, out-generalled all that Britain
could send against him, and, in the midst of poverty and
distress, organized victory. He was not brilliant and rapid.
He was slow, defensive, and victorious. He made " an
empty bag stand upright," which Franklin says is " hard."
Some men command the world, or hold its admiration by
their ideas or by their intellect. Washington had neither
original ideas nor a deeply-cultured mind. He commands
by his integrity, by his justice. He loved power by in
stinct, and strong government by reflective choice. Twice
he was made Dictator, with absolute power, and never
abused the awful and despotic trust. The monarchic sol
diers and civilians would make him king. He trampled
on their offer, and went back to his fields of corn and to
bacco at Mount Vernon. The grandest act of his public
life was to give up his power; the most magnanimous
deed of his private life was to liberate his slaves.
Washington is the first man of his type : when will tfrere
be another? As yet the American rhetoricians do not
dare tell half his excellence ; but the people should not
complain.
48 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARKER
Cromwell is the greatest Anglo-Saxon who was ever a
ruler on a large scale. In intellect he was immensely
superior to Washington ; in integrity, immeasurably below
him. For one thousand years no king in Christendom
has shown such greatness, or gives us so high a type of
manly virtue. He never dissembled. He sought nothing
for himself. In him there was no unsound spot, nothing
little or mean in his character. The whole was clean and
presentable. We think better of mankind because he lived,
adorning the earth with a life so noble. Shall we make an
idol of him, and worship it with huzzas on the Fourth
of July, and with stupid rhetoric on other days ? Shall
we build him a great monument, founding it in a slave-
pen ? His glory alreadycovers the continent. More than
t-wo hundred places bear his name. He is revered as
"the Father of his Country." The people are his me
morial. The New. York Indians hold this tradition of
him. " Alone, of all white men," say they, " he has been
admitted to the Indian heaven, because of his justice to
the Eed Men. He lives in a great palace, built like a fort.
All the Indians, as they go to heaven, pass by, and he
himself is in his uniform, a sword at his side, walking to
and fro. They bow reverently, with great humility. He
returns the salute, but says nothing." Such is the reward
of his justice to the Eed Men. Grod be thanked for such
a man!
" A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death."
JACKSON] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 49
POEMS OF THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY.
The group of poems of an introspective character which we propose
to offer under the above title may be fitly introduced by one of the
finest and fullest sonnets in the language, the "Thought" of Helen
II jnt Jackson.
MESSENGER, art thou the King, or I ?
Thou dalliest outside the palace gate
Till on thine idle armor lie the late
And heavy dews : the morn's bright, scornful eye
Eeminds thee ; then, in subtle mockery,
Thou smilest at the window where I wait,
Who bade thee ride for life.' In empty state
My days go on, while false hours prophesy
Thy quick return ; at last, in sad despair,
1 cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air ;
When, lo, thou stand'st before me glad and fleet,
And lay'st undreamed-of treasures at my feet.
Ah ! messenger, thy royal blood to buy,
I am too poor. Thou art the King, not I !
The same subject is handled very differently, but not less ably, in
the poem given below.
THOUGHT.
Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought ;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils ;
Man by man was never seen ;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen,
iv. c d 5
50 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CsANCH
Heart to heart was never known ;
Mind to mind did never meet ;
We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart, though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie ;
All is thus but starlight here.
"What is social company
But a babbling summer stream ?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream ?
Only when the sun of love
Melts the scattered stars of thought,
Only when we live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our souls are fed
By the fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from earth,
We, like parted drops of- rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.
C. P. CRANCH.
There is a kingliness in death that surpasses the royalty of life.
The meaning of the one lies bare and unsatisfying before us ; the
significance of the other is shrouded in such mystery, and is so full of
FAWCETT] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 51
promise and high possibilities, that we cannot think of it without awe
and envy of those who have passed through the silent gate.
A KING.
It is more than being great
At the random rule of fate,
To lie as he lies here,
Yery awful and austere.
'Tis more than being wise
To repose with placid eyes,
And know not of the wild world that it cries, cries, cries i
Look ye now, and answer true
If it be as well with you,
That fret and sweat and sin
For the flesh ye weary in,
As with him that bates his breath,
And what empty words it saith,
To attain the life diviner, which is death, death, death I
What of pleasure shall he miss,
With that sovereign ease of Ms ?
What of pain shall reach his ken,
With that marble scorn of men ?
Though ye praised him in a psalm,
Though ye smote him of your palm,
Shall ye call him from this haughty sleep and calm, calm,
calm?
Lo, his dumb face turns ye dumb
If to look on him ye come,
Who hath found in cold eclipse
A superb Apocalypse!
52 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNEY
"Who has had the last bad thing
The deciduous days may bring !
Who is crowned as none but Death could crown him, king,
king, king !
EDGAR FAWCETT.
The poem we have just given finds its fit appendix in the following
which might, as a companion-piece, have been entitled " A Queen "
RELEASED.
A little, low-ceiled room. Four walls
Whose blank shut out all else of life,
And crowded close within their bound
A world of pain, and toil, and strife.
Her world. Scarce furthermore she knew
Of God's great globe that wondrously
Outrolls a glory of green earth
And frames it with the restless sea.
Four closer walls of common pine ;
And therein lying, cold and still,
The weary flesh that long hath borne
Its patient mystery of ill.
.Regardless now of work to do,
No queen more careless in her state,
Hands crossed in an unbroken calm ;
For other hands the work may wait.
Put by her implements of toil ;
Put by each coarse, intrusive sign :
She made a Sabbath when she died ;
And round her breathes a rest divine.
CLARKE] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 53
Put by, at last, beneath the lid,
The exempted hands, the tranquil face ;
Uplift her in her dreamless sleep,
And bear her gently from the place.
Oft she hath gazed, with wistful eyes,
Oft from that threshold, on the night :
The narrow bourn she crosseth now ;
She standeth in the eternal light.
Oft she hath pressed, with aching feet,
Those broken steps that reach the door :
Henceforth, with angels, she shall tread
Heaven's golden stair, for evermore.
MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY.
The love that reaches from heaven to earth, and stretches out
striving hands of desire, warm with efforts to rend the veil of in
visibility that divides the life here from the life hereafter, is rendered
with fine feeling in the poem below.
ANYWHERE.
She was old, and wan, and wrinkled,
Though her pallid cheek was fair,
And the snows of sixty winters
Lightly touched her soft brown hair.
Yet if in those lands immortal
She doth youth and beauty wear,
And the sunny hues of girlhood
Tint anew her eyes and hair,
Still I know that I should know her,
I should know her anywhere.
Shall I dwell in mournful waiting,
Mother, for thee " over there,"
iv. 5*
54 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARKE
While God's blessed angels daily
Wander down the shining stair ?
Bound and sweet I know your lips are,
Kindled by that radiant air,
Oh, the sad and tender patience
Of the smile they used to wear !
I should know your kisses, mother,
I should know them anywhere !
Should you touch me e'er so lightly,
As returning spirits dare,
And your spirit hand should linger
E'er so softly on my hair,
Hands, dear hands, by death made over,
No more wrinkled, wan, or spare,
Hands which I have kissed so fondly,
Darling hands, so used to care !
I should know your touch, dear mother,
I should know it anywhere !
Had I been the first to wander
From earth's dust, and din, and glare,
Thrilling through my lips new splendor,
I should still have felt your prayer ;
And, if spirit hands could do it,
Pausing not to think or care,
I should rend the veil that hid you,
And with you my glory share.
Oh, my mother ! darling mother !
I should love you anywhere !
M. E. CLARKE.
A fine thought, beautifully expressed, is embodied in the two verses
which follow, the contribution of an anonymous author, deeply in
stinct with the poetry of thoughtfulness and sentiment.
ANONYMOUS] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 55
TWO GOOD-NIGHTS.
Good-night, mine enemy, good-night !
Perhaps this garish day has been to thee
As long and fretful as it has to me,
And thou hast known care's rust, ambition's blight,
Misapprehension's sting, affection's slight :
For any curse of mine, then, sleep in peace,
Under the waning stars, the moon's increase,
And dream that thou art noble, and arise
The morrow, humbler for a dream's surprise.
Good-night, good-night !
O friend of mine, good-night, good-night !
As mountain-torrents, thirsting for the sea,
Press headlong on past hamlet, waste, and lea,
And, mountain-thwarted, find some other way,
Sun-scorched, wind-scourged, stay not nor night nor day,
Their currents whispering low, "The Sea! the Sea!"
So runs my vexed and baffled life to thee.
Patience ! we yet shall meet. I hear the roar,
And catch salt-scented breezes from the shore.
Good-night, good-night !
Markedly different in tone from the above is the poem here given,
also from an anonymous author. Its significance is conveyed in its
title.
LINES FOR AN ALBUM I
TO ACCOMPANY AN URN.
It was a flower in fancy bred ;
I thought to plant it living here :
Alas I the shadowy something fled
That gave it life, 'tis cold and dead :
This page shall be its bier.
56 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DoRR
So dies the soul of many a thought
Ere it can be in words expressed ;
Dull words, how shall they e'er contain
That which is fire within the brain
Or passion in the breast ?
Yet if in friendly sympathy
You stop to gaze upon this urn,
May you in kindred fancy see
The warm intent that kindled me
Still through its ashes burn !
A feeling which all growing natures must have experienced, and of
which even stagnant souls are dimly though enviously aware, is finely
expressed in the poem here given.
OUTGROWN.
Nay, you wrong her, my friend ; she's not fickle ; her love
she has simply outgrown :
One can read the whole matter, translating her heart by
the light of one's own.
Can you bear me to talk with you frankly ? There is
much that my heart would say,
And you know we were children together, have quarrelled
and " made up" in play.
And so, for the sake of old friendship, I venture to tell you
the truth,
As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our
earlier youth.
Five summers ago, when you wooed her, you stood on the
self-same plane,
Face to face, heart to heart, never dreaming your souls
could be parted again.
DORR] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 57
She loved you at that time entirely, in the bloom of her
life's early May,
And it is not her fault, I repeat it, that she does not love
you to-day.
Nature never stands still, nor souls either. They ever
go up or go down ;
And hers has been steadily soaring ; but how has it been
with your own ?
She has struggled, and yearned, and aspired, grown purer
and wiser each year ;
The stars are not farther above you, in yon luminous
atmosphere.
For she whom you crowned with fresh roses down yonder,
five summers ago,
Has learned that the first of our duties to God and our
selves is to grow.
Her eyes they are sweeter and calmer, but their vision is
clearer as well ;
Her voice has a tenderer cadence, but is pure as a silver
bell.
Her face has the look worn by those who with God and
his angels have talked ;
The white robes she wears are less white than the spirits
with whom she has walked.
And you ? Have you aimed at the highest ? Have you,
too, aspired and prayed ?
Have you looked upon evil unsullied ? have you conquered
it undismayed ?
58 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DORR
Have you, too, grown purer and wiser as the months and
the years have rolled on ?
Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph
of victory won ?
Nay, hear me ! the truth cannot harm you : When to
day in her presence you stood,
Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as
that of her womanhood ?
Go measure yourself by her standard. Look back on the
years that have fled ;
Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of
her girlhood is dead !
She cannot look down to her lover ; her love, like her soul,
aspires ;
He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle
its holy fires.
Now, farewell ! For the sake of old friendship, I have
ventured to tell you the truth,
As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our
earlier youth.
JULIA C. E. DORR.
The lowliest things oft lead to the highest thoughts. Even the flut
ter of a swallow's wing may open a passage to the loftiest realms of
philosophy and aspiration.
HIGHER TENANTS.
After winter fires were ended, and the last spark, vanish
ing
From the embers of our hearthstone, flew into the sky
of spring,
PIATT] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 59
In the night-time; in the morning, when the air was
hushed around,
Throbbing vaguely on the silence, came a dull, mysterious
sound.
Like the sultry hum of thunder, at the sullen close of
day,
Out of clouds that brood and threaten on the horizon far
away.
" 'Tis," I said, " the April thunder," and I thought of flowers
that spring,
And of trees that stand in blossom, and of birds that fly
and sing.
But the sound, repeated often, nearer, more familiar
grown,
From our chimney seemed descending, and the swallow's
wings were known.
Where the lithe flames leaped and lightened, charm of
host and cheer of guest,
There the emigrant of summer chose its homestead, built
its nest.
Then I dreamed of poets dwelling, like the swallow, long
ago,
Overhead in dusky places ere their songs were heard be
low,
Overhead in humble attics, ministers of higher things :
Underneath were busy people, overhead were heavenly
wings !
60 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PiATT
And I thought of homely proverbs that'On simple lips had
birth,
Born of gentle superstitions at old firesides of the earth :
How, where'er the swallow builded under human roofs its
nest,
Something holier, purer, higher, in the house became a
guest ;
Peace, or Love, or Health, or Fortune, something pros
perous, from the air,
'Lighting with the wings of swallows, breathed divine
possession there.
" Friendly gods," I said, " descending, make their gentle
visits so,
Fill the air with benedictions, songs above and songs
below!"
Then I murmured, " Welcome, swallow ; I, your landlord,
stand content :
Even if song were not sufficient, higher Tenants pay your
rent !"
JOHN J. PIATT.
Of American elegies we have nothing finer than the tribute paid by
Fitz-Greene Halleck to Joseph Kodman Drake :
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days !
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
HALLECK] THOUGHT AND SYMPATHY. 61
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.
"When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth ;
And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine,
It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow ;
But I've in vain essayed it,
And feel I cannot now.
While memory bids me weep thee,
'Nor thoughts nor words are free :
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.
A thoughtful strain from a poetess of the West, in which a class
usually left to bear and suffer unsung is brought within the circle of
poetic sentiment, may fitly close our series :
THE DISAPPOINTED.
There are songs enough for a hero
Who dwells on the heights of fame :
I sing for the disappointed,
For those who missed their aim.
I sing with a tearful cadence
For one who stands in the dark
IT. 6
62 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiLCOX
And knows that his last, best arrow
Has bounded back from the mark.
I sing for the breathless runner,
The eager, anxious soul,
Who falls with his strength exhausted
Almost in sight of the goal ;
For the hearts that break in silence
With a sorrow all unknown,
For those who need companions,
Yet walk their ways alone.
There are songs enough for the lovers
Who share love's tender pain :
I sing for the one whose passion
Is given and in vain.
For those whose spirit-comrades
Have missed them on the way
I sing, with a heart o'erflowing,
This minor strain to-day.
And I know the solar system
Must somewhere keep in space
A prize for that spent runner
Who barely lost the race.
For the plan would be imperfect
Unless it held some sphere
That paid for the toil and talent
And love that are wasted here.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
GEORGE] THE THEORY OF LAND-TAXATION. 63
THE THEORY OF LAND-TAXATION.
HENEY GEORGE.
[In these days, when political economy has become a populai
science, the advent of an able and forcible writer upon social and in
dustrial questions is an event of importance. Such a writer is Henry
George, whose industrial theories have risen into great prominence,
partly from the fact that they deal with questions in which an intense
and wide-spread interest is felt, and partly from the clearness with
which they are presented in his ably-written pages. His " Progress
and Poverty" struck the industrial world with the force of a new rev
elation, and though its theories are controverted by political economists,
and the conclusions which he reaches do not seem necessary conse
quences of his premises, they are so plausibly presented, and hold out
such alluring pictures of the future of industry, that they have been
enthusiastically accepted by many of the working-classes. His main
theory is that the land belongs to mankind as a whole, that individuals
originally acquired possession of it by force or fraud, to which no
length of possession or diversity of transfer can give legal warrant,
and that it is the duty of governments, as representatives of their
people, to resume possession of all land and manage it for the best good
of the population as a whole. This result is to be attained by a taxa
tion upon land equal to its whole rental value, so that it would be im
possible to sell it, and every holder would be forced to use his land
productively or abandon it. This rent is to be the only form of taxa
tion, all other property being released from governmental obligations.
There is much that is plausible and alluring in this scheme, though it
is not easy to see how, after all the land is occupied, the rest of man
kind is to be benefited thereby, otherwise than by the remission of taxes.
Mr. George was born in Philadelphia in 1849. He went to California
in 1858, and after 1866 became a journalist in San Francisco. His
principal books are " Our Land and Land Policy," " Progress and
Poverty," " The Irish Land Question," " Social Problems," and " Free
Trade and Protection." His speeches on economic questions attracted
much attention in Great Britain.]
THE elder Mirabeau, we are told, ranked the proposition
of Quesnay, to substitute one single tax on rent (the im-
64 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GEORGE
post unique) for all other taxes, as a discovery equal in
utility to the invention of writing or the substitution of
the use of money for barter.
To whoever will think over the matter, this saying will
appear an evidence of penetration rather than of extrava
gance. The advantages which would be gained by substi
tuting for the numerous taxes by which the public reve
nues are now raised, a single tax levied upon the value of
land, will appear more and more important the more they
are considered. This is the secret which would transform
the little village into the great city. With all the burdens
removed which now oppress industry and hamper ex
change, the production of wealth would go on with a
rapidity now undreamed of. This, in its turn, would lead
to an increase in the value of land, a new surplus which
society might take for general purposes. And, released
from the difficulties which attend the collection of revenue
in a way that begets corruption and renders legislation
the tool of special interests, society could assume functions
which the increasing complexity of life makes it desirable
to assume, but which the prospect of political demoraliza
tion under the present system now leads thoughtful men
to shrink from.
Consider the effect upon the production of wealth.
To abolish the taxation which, acting and reacting, now
hampers every wheel of exchange and presses upon every
form of industry, would be like removing an immense
weight from a powerful spring. Imbued with fresh en
ergy, production would start into new life, and trade
would receive a stimulus which would be felt to the re
motest arteries. The present method of taxation operates
upon exchange like artificial deserts and mountains; it.
costs more to get goods through a custom-house than it
does to carry them round the world. It operates upon
GEORGE] THE THEORY OF LAND-TAXATION. 65
energy, and industry, and skill, and thrift, like a fine upon
those qualities. If I have worked harder and built my
self a good house while you have been contented to live in
a hovel, the tax-gatherer now comes annually to make me
pay a penalty for my energy and industry, by taxing me
more than you. If I have saved while you wasted, I am
mulct, while you are exempt. If a man build a ship, we
make him pay for his temerity, as though he had done
an injury to the state ; if a railroad be opened, down comes
the tax-collector upon it, as though it were a public
nuisance ; if a manufactory be erected, we levy upon it an
annual sum which would go far towards making a hand
some profit. We say we want capital, but if any one ac
cumulate it, or bring it among us, we charge him for it as
though we were giving him a privilege. AVe punish with
a tax the man who covers barren fields with ripening
grain ; we fine him who puts up machinery, and him who
drains a swamp. How heavily these taxes burden pro
duction only those realize who have attempted to follow
our system of taxation through its ramifications, for, as
I have before said, the heaviest part of taxation is that
which falls in increased prices. But manifestly these taxes
are in their nature akin to the Egyptian Pasha's tax upon
date-trees. If they do not cause the trees to be cut down,
they at least discourage the planting.
To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole enor
mous weight of taxation from productive industry. The
needle of tbe seamstress and the great manufactory, the
cart-horse and the locomotive, the fishing-boat and the
steamship, the farmer's plough and the merchant's stock,
would be alike untaxed. All would be free to make or to
save, to buy or to sell, unfined by taxes, unannoyed by the
tax-gatherer. Instead of saying to the producer, as it
does now, " The more you add to the general wealth the
iv. e 6*
66 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GEORGE
more shall you be taxed !" the state would say to the pro
ducer, " Be as industrious, as thrifty, as enterprising as
you choose, you shall have your full reward. You shall
not be fined for making two blades of grass grow where
one grew before ; you shall not be taxed for adding to the
aggregate wealth."
And will not the community gain by thus refusing tc
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs ; by thus refrain
ing from muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn ; by
thus leaving to industry, and thrift, and skill, their nat
ural reward, full and unimpaired ? For there is to the
community also a natural reward. The law of society is
each for all, as well as all for each. No one can keep to
himself the good he may do, any more than he can keep
the bad. Every productive enterprise, besides its return
to those who undertake it, yields collateral advantages to
others. If a man plant a fruit-tree, his gain is that he
gathers the fruit in its time and season. But, in addition
to his gain, there is a gain to the whole community.
Others than the owner are benefited by the increased sup
ply of fruit ; the birds which it shelters fly far and wide ;
the rain which it helps to attract falls not alone on his
field ; and even to the eye which rests upon it from a dis
tance it brings a sense of beauty. And so with every
thing else. The building of a house, a factory, a ship, or a
railroad benefits others besides those who get the direct
profits. Nature laughs at a miser. He is like the squir
rel who buries his nuts and refrains from digging them up
again. Lo ! they sprout and grow into trees. In fine
linen, steeped in costly spices, the mummy is laid away.
Thousands and thousands of years thereafter, the Bedouin
cooks his food by a fire of its encasings, it generates the
steam by which the traveller is whirled on his way, or it
passes into far-off lands to gratify the curiosity of another
GEOKGE] THE THEORY OF LAND-TAXATION. 67
race. The bee fills the hollow tree with honey, and along
comes the bear or the man.
Well may the community leave to the individual pro
ducer all that prompts him to exertion ; well may it let
the laborer have the full reward of his labor, and the capi
talist the full return of his capital. For the more that
labor and capital produce, the greater grows the common
wealth in which all may share. And in the value or rent
of land is this general gain expressed in a definite and
concrete form. Here is a fund which the state may take
while leaving to labor and capital their full reward. With
increased activity of production this would commensurately
increase.
But to shift the burden of taxation from production and
exchange to the value or rent of land would not merely
be to give new stimulus to the production of wealth ; it
would be to open new opportunities. For under this sys
tem no one would care to hold land unless to use it, and
land now withheld from use would everywhere be thrown
open to improvement.
The selling price of land would fall ; land-speculation
would receive its death-blow ; land-monopolization would
no longer pay. Millions and millions of acres from which
settlers are now shut out by high prices would be aban
doned by their present owners or sold to settlers upon
nominal terms. And this not merely on the frontiers, but-
within what are now considered well-settled districts.
Within a hundred miles of San Francisco would be thus
thrown open land enough to support, even with present
modes of cultivation, an agricultural population equal to
that now scattered from the Oregon boundary to the
Mexican line, a distance of eight hundred miles. In the
same degree would this be true of most of the Western
States, and in a great degree of the older Eastern States,
68 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GEORGE
for even in New York and Pennsylvania is population yet
sparse as compared with the capacity of the land. And
even in densely-populated England would such a policy
throw open to cultivation many hundreds of thousands
of acres now held as private parks, deer-preserves, and
shooting-grounds.
For this simple device of placing all taxes on the value
of land would be in effect putting up the land at auction to
whoever would pay the highest rent to the state. The
demand for land fixes its value, and hence, if taxes were
placed so as to very nearly consume that value, the man
who wished to hold land without using it would have to
pay very nearly what it would be worth to any one who
wanted to use it.
And it must be remembered that this would apply not
merely to agricultural land, but to all land. Mineral land
would be thrown open to use, just as agricultural land ;
and in the heart of a city no one could afford to keep land
from its most profitable use, or on the outskirts to demand
more for it than the use to which it could at the time be
put would warrant. Everywhere that land had attained
a value, taxation, instead of operating, as now, as a fine
upon improvement, would operate to force improvement.
Whoever planted an orchard, or sowed a field, or built a
house, or erected a manufactory, no matter how costly,
would have no more to pay in taxes than if he kept so
much land idle. The monopolist of agricultural land
would be taxed as much as though his land were covered
with houses and barns, with crops and with stock. The
owner of a vacant city lot would have to pay as much for
the privilege of keeping other people off of it until he
wanted to use it, as his neighbor who has a fine house
upon his lot. It would cost as much to keep a row of
tumble-down shanties upon valuable land as though it
GEORGE] THE THEORY OF LAND-TAXATION. 69
were covered with a grand hotel or a pile of great ware
houses filled with costly goods.
Thus the bonus that wherever labor is most productive
must now be paid before labor can be exerted would dis
appear. The farmer would not have to pay out half his
means, or mortgage his labor for years, in order to obtain
land to cultivate ; the builder of a city homestead would
not have to lay out as much for a small lot as for the house
he puts upon it; the company that proposed to erect a
manufactory would not have to expend a great part of
their capital for a site. And what would be paid from
year to year to the state would be in lieu of all the taxes
now levied upon improvements, machinery, and stock.
Consider the effect of such a change upon the labor
market. Competition would no longer be one-sided, as
now. Instead of laborers competing with each other for
employment, and in their competition cutting down wages
to the point of bare subsistence, employers would every
where be competing for laborers, and wages would rise to
the fair earnings of labor. For into the labor market
would have entered the greatest of all competitors for the
employment of labor, a competitor whose demand cannot
be satisfied until want is satisfied, the demand of labor
itself. The employers of labor would not have merely to
bid against other employers, all feeling the stimulus of
greater trade and increased profits, but against the ability
of laborers to become their own employers upon the natu
ral opportunities freely opened to them by the tax which
prevented monopolization.
With natural opportunities thus free to labor, with
capital and improvements exempt from tax, and exchange
released from restrictions, the spectacle of willing men un
able to turn their labor into the things they are suffering
for would become impossible; the recurring paroxysms
70 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STRAHAN
which paralyze industry would cease ; every wheel of pro
duction would be set in motion ; demand would keep pace
with supply, and supply with demand ; trade would in
crease in every direction, and wealth augment on every
hand.
THE CREST OF THE ALLEGHANIES.
EDWARD STRAHAN.
[We have already given some passages descriptive of American
scenery. It seems advisable to add to these some of the many elo
quent descriptive articles in which the more striking of American
scenes have been delineated. Though this country cannot vie with
Europe in its relics of ancient civilization or in its treasures of art,
yet in so far as the works of nature are concerned it holds an equal
rank with the most picturesque regions of the earth, and the American
who goes abroad in search of natural scenery before he has made him
self familiar with the charms of his own country is in a degree untrue
to the claims upon him of his native land.]
AN old writer who dearly loved excursions, Francis
Rabelais, inserted in one of his fables an account of a
country where the roads were in motion. He called the
place the Island of Odes, from the Greek 6d6$ : a " road,"
and explained: "For the roads travel, like animated
things; and some are wandering roads, like planets,
others passing roads, crossing roads, connecting roads.
And I saw how the travellers, messengers, and inhabi
tants of the land asked, 'Where does this road go to?
and that?' They were answered, From the south to
Faverolles, to the parish, to the city, to the river. Then,
hoisting themselves on the proper road, without being
otherwise troubled or fatigued, they found themselves at
their place of destination."
STRAHAN] THE CREST OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 71
This fancy sketch, thrown off by an inveterate joker
three hundred years ago, is justified curiously by any of
our modern railways ; but to see the picture represented
in startling accuracy you should find some busy "junction"
among the coal-mountains. Here you may observe, from
your perch upon the hill, an assemblage of roads actively
reticulating and radiating, winding through the valleys,
slinking off misanthropically into a tunnel, or gayly
parading away elbow in elbow with the streams. These
avenues, upon minute inspection, are seen to be obviously
moving : they are crawling and creeping with an un
broken joint-work of black wagons, the rails hidden by
their moving pavement, and the road throughout ad
vancing, foot b}' foot, into the distance. It is hardly too
fanciful on seeing its covering slide away, its switches
swinging, its turn-tables revolving, its drawbridges open
ing to declare that such a road is an animal, an animal
proving its nature, according to Aristotle, by the power
to move itself. JS"or is it at all censurable to ask a road
like this where it " goes to."
The notion of what Rabelais calls a " wayfaring way,"
a chemin cheminant. came into our thoughts at Cumber
land. But Cumberland was not reached until after many
miles of interesting travel along a route remarkable for
beauties, both natural and improved. A coal-distributor
is certain, in fact, to be a road full of attractions for the
tourist ; for coal, that Sleeping Beauty of our era, always
chooses a pretty bed in which to perform its slumber of
as;es. The road which delivers the Cumberland coal,
O *
however, is truly exceptional for splendor of scenery, as
well as for historical suggestiveness and engineering
science. It has recently become, by means of certain
lavish providences established for the blessing of travel
lers at every turn, a tourist route and a holiday delight.
72 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS, [STRAHAN
It is all very well for the traveller of the nineteenth
century to protest against the artificial and unromantic
guidance of the railway: he will find, after a little ex
perience, that the homes of true romance are discovered
for him by the locomotive ; that solitudes and recesses
which he would never find after years of plodding in
sandal shoon are silently opened to him by the engineer ;
and that Timon now, seeking the profoundest cave in the
fissures of the earth, reaches it in a Pullman car. . . .
By day, Cumberland is quite given over to carbon ;
drawing her supplies from the neighboring mining-town
of Frostburg, she dedicates herself devoutly to coals.
All da}" long she may be seen winding around her sooty
neck, like an African queen, endless chains and trains and
rosaries of black diamonds, which never tire of passing
through the enumeration of her jewelled fingers. At
night the scene is more beautiful. We clambered up the
nearest hill at sunset, while the colored light was draining
into the pass of Wills' Mountain as into a vase, and the
lamps of the town sprang gradually into sight beneath us.
The surrounding theatre of mountains had a singularly
calm and noble air, recalling the most enchanted days of
Eome and the Campagna. The curves of the hills are
marvels of swaying grace, depending from point to point
with the elegance of draperies, and seating the village
like a gem in the midst of " great laps and folds of sculp
tor's work." The mechanics and miners, as twilight
deepened, began to lead their sweethearts over these
beautiful hills, so soft in outline that no paths are neces
sary. The clouds of fireflies made an effect, combining
with the village lights below. Then, as night deepened,
as if they were the moving principle of all the enchant
ment, the company's rolling-mills, like witches' kettles,
began to spirt enormous gouts of flame, which seemed to
STRAHAN] THE CREST OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 73
cause their heavy roofs to flutter like the lids of seething
caldrons.
The commanding attraction of the western journey is
necessarily the passage of the Alleghanies. The climb
begins at Piedmont, and follows an ascent which in eleven
consecutive miles presents the rare grade of one hundred
and sixteen feet per mile. The first tableau of real sub
limity, perhaps, occurs in following up a stream called
Savage River. The railway, like a slender spider's thread,
is seen hanging at an almost giddy height up the endless
mountain-side, and curved hither and thither in such mul
tiplied windings that enormous arcs of it can always bo
seen from the flying window of the car. The woods, green
with June or crimson with November, clamber over each
others shoulders up the ascent ; but, as we attain the ele
vation of two hundred feet above the Savage, their tufted
tops form a soft and mossy embroidery beneath us, dimin
ishing in perspective far down the cleft of the ravine. As
we turn the flank of the great and stolid Backbone Moun
tain we command the mouth of another stream, pouring
in from the southwest. It is a steeply-enclosed, hill-cleav
ing torrent, which some lover of plays and cider, recollect
ing Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's slumber beneath
the crab-apple boughs, has named Crabtree Creek. There
is a point where the woody gorges of both these streams
can be commanded at once by the eye, and Nature gives
us few landscape pendants more primitively wild and mag
nificent than these.
This ascent was made by the engineers of the company
in the early days of railroads, and when no one knew at
what angle the friction of wheels upon rails would be
overcome by gravity. On the trial-trip the railroad-presi
dent kept close to the door, meaning, in the case of possible
discomfiture and retrogression, to take to the woods ! But
IV. D 7
74 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STRAHAN
all went well, and in due time was reached, as we now
reach it, Altamont, the alpine village perched two thou
sand six hundred and twenty-six feet above the tide.
The interest of the staircase we have run up depends
greatly on its pioneer character. No mountain-chain had
been crossed by a locomotive before the Alleghanies were
outraged, as we see them, here and by this track. As the
railroad we follow was the first to take existence in this
country, excepting some short mining roads, so the grade
here used was the first of equal steepness, saving on some
English roads of inferior length and no mountainous pres
tige. Here the engineer, like Van Amburgh in the lion's
den, first planted his conqueror's foot upon the mane of
the wilderness; and in this spot modern science first
claimed the right to reapply that grand word of a French
monarch, " ll riy a plus de Pyrenees /"
We are on the crest of the Alleghanies. On either side
of the mountain-pass we have threaded rise the higher
summits of the range ; but, though we seem from the con
figuration of the land to be in a valley, we are met at
every turn by the indications familiar to mountain-tops,
indications that are not without a special desolation and
pathos. Though all is green with summer, we can see
that the vegetation has had a dolorous struggle for exist
ence, and that the triumph of certain sparse trees here
and there is but the survival of the strongest. They
stand scattered and scraggy, like individual bristles on a
bald pate. Their spring has been borrowed from summer,
for the leafage here does not begin until late in June. The
whole scenery seems to array itself for the tourist like a
country wife, with many an incompleteness in its toilet,
and with a kind of haggard apology for being late. Rough
log houses stand here and there among the laurels. The
tanned gentlemen standing about look like California
STRAHAN] THE CREST OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 75
miners, as you see them in the illustrations to Bret
Harte's stories. Through this landscape, roughly blocked
out, and covered still with Nature's chips and shavings,
and seeming for that very reason singularly fresh and
close to her mighty hand, we fly for twenty miles. We
are still ascending, and the true apex of our path is only
reached at the twentieth. This was the climax which
poet Willis came out to reach in a spirit of intense curi
osity, intent to peer over and see what was on the other
side of the mountains, and with some idea, as he says, of
hanging his hat on the evening star. His disgust, as a
bard, when he found that the highest point was only
named " Cranberry Summit," was sublime.
" Willis was particularly struck," said the landlord of
the Glades Hotel, " with a quality of whiskey we had
hereabouts at the time of his visit. In those days, before
the revenue, an article of rich corn whiskey was made in
small quantities by these Maryland farmers. Mr. Willis
found it agree with him particularly well, for it's as pure
as water, and slips through your teeth like flaxseed tea. I
explained to him how it gained in quality by being kept a
few years, becoming like noble old brandy. Mr. Willis
was fired with the idea, and took a barrel along home with
him, in the ambitious intention of ripening it. In less
than six months," pursued the Boniface, with a humorous
twinkle in his eyes, " he sent for another barrel."
The region where we now find ourselves among these
mountain-tops is known as the Glades, a range of ele
vated plateau marked with all the signs of a high latitude,
but flat enough to be spread with occasional patches of
discouraged farms. The streams make their way into the
Youghiogheny, and so into the Ohio and Gulf of Mexico,
for we have mounted the great water-shed, and have long
ago crossed both branches of the sun-seeking Potomac I
76 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARK
We are in a region that particularly justifies the claim of
the locomotive to be the. great discoverer of hidden re
treats, for never will you come upon a place more obviously
disconcerted at being found out. The screams of the
whistle day by day have inserted no modern ideas into
this mountain-cranium, which, like Lord John Russell's,
must be trepanned before it can be enlightened. The
Glades are sacred to deer, bears, trout. But the fatal
rails guide to them an unceasing procession of staring citi
zens, and they are filled in the fine season with visitors
from Cincinnati and Baltimore.
THE GOOD OLD TIMES.
CHARLES HEBER CLARK.
[The author of the selection here given is known in literature under
the odd pseudonyme of " Max Adeler." His writings are all of a
humorous cast, and, while they perhaps are apt to " carry the joke too
far," they are often full of the true spirit of fun. The extract given
below is from the story of " An Old Fogy" in " The Fortunate Island."
The true position in which we should all find ourselves if we were
suddenly taken back to those " good old times" whose loss many still
deplore is here very amusingly paraphrased.]
" THE good old times ! And the old times were good, my
dear; better, much better, than the times that you live in.
I know I am an old fogy, Nelly," said Ephraim Batterby,
refilling his pipe, and looking at his granddaughter, who
sat with him in front of the fire, with her head bending
over her sewing j " I know I am an old fogy, and I glory
in it."
" But you never will be for me, grandpa," said Nelly,
glancing at him with a smile.
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 77
" Yes, my dear, I am for everybody. I am a man of the
past. Everything I ever cared for and ever loved, ex
cepting you, belongs to the years that have gone, and my
affections belong to those years. I liked the people of the
old time better than I do those of the new. I loved their
simpler ways, the ways that I knew in my boyhood, three
score and more years ago. I am sure the world is not so
good as it was then. It is smarter, perhaps ; it knows
more, but its wisdom vexes and disgusts me. I am not
certain, my dear, that, if I had my Way, I would not
sweep away, at one stroke, all 'the so-called 'modern con
veniences,' and return to the ancient methods."
" They were very slow, grandpa."
"Yes, slow; and for that I liked them. We go too fast
now ; but our speed, I am afraid, is hurrying us in the
wrong direction. We were satisfied in the old time with
what we had. It was good enough. Are men contented
now ? No ; they are still improving and improving ; still
reaching out for something that will be quicker, or easier
or cheaper than the things that are. We appear to have
gained much ; but really we have gained nothing. We
are not a bit better off now than we were ; not so well off,
in my opinion."
"But, grandpa, you must remember that you were
young then, and perhaps looked at the world in a more
hopeful way than you do -now."
" Yes, I allow for that, Nelly, I allow for that ; I don't
deceive myself. My youth does not seem so very far off
that I cannot remember it distinctly. I judge the time
fairly, now in my old age, as I judge the present time, and
my assured opinion is that it was superior in its way, its
life, and its people. Its people ! Ah, Nelly, my dear, there
were three persons in that past who alone would conse
crate it to me. I am afraid there are not many women
iv. 7*
78 BEST AMERICAN A UTHQRS. [CLARK
now like your mother and mine, and like my dear wife,
whom you never saw. It seems to me, my child, that I
would willingly live all my life over again, with its strifes
and sorrows, if I could clasp again the hand of one of
those angelic women, and hear a word from her sweet
lips."
As the old man wiped the gathering moisture from his
eyes, Nelly remained silent, choosing not to disturb the
revery into which he had fallen. Presently Ephraim rose
abruptly, and said, with a smile,
" Come, Nelly, dear, I guess it is time to go to bed. I
must be up very early to-morrow morning."
" At what hour do you want breakfast, grandpa ?"
" Why, too soon for you, you sleepy puss. I shall break
fast by myself before you are up, or else I shall breakfast
down town. I have a huge cargo of wheat in from Chi
cago, and I must arrange to have it shipped for Liverpool.
There is one thing that remains to me from the old time,
and that is some of the hard work of my youth ; but even
that seems a little harder than it used to. So, come now ;
to bed I to bed !"
While he was undressing, and long after he had crept
beneath the blankets, Ephraim's thoughts wandered back
and back through the spent years ; and, as the happiness
he had known came freshly and strongly into his mind,
he felt drawn more and more towards it, until the new
and old mingled together in strange but placid confusion
in his brain, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke it was still dark, for the winter was
just begun ; but -he heard or did he only dream that he
heard? a clock in some neighboring steeple strike sir?
He knew that he must get up, for his business upon that
day demanded early attention.
He sat up in bed, yawned, stretched his arms once or
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 79
twice, and then, flinging the covering aside, he leaped to
the floor. He fell, and hurt his arm somewhat. Strange
that he should have miscalculated the distance ! The bed
seemed more than twice as high from the floor as it should
be. It was too dark to see distinctly, so he crept to the bed
with extended hands, and felt it. Yes, it was at least four
feet from the floor, and, very oddly, it had long, slim posts,
such as bedsteads used to have, instead of the low, carved
foot-board, and the high, postless head-board, which be
longed to the bedstead upon which he had slept in recent
years. Ephraim resolved to strike a light. He groped
his way to the table, and tried to find the match-box. It
was not there ; he could not discover it upon the bureau
either. But he found something else, which he did not
recognize at first, but which a more careful examination
with his fingers told him was a flint and steel. He was
vexed that any one should play such a trick upon him.
How could he ever succeed in lighting the gas with a flint
and steel?
But he resolved to try, and he moved over towards the
gas-bracket by the bureau. It was not there! He passed
his cold hand over a square yard of the wall, where the
bracket used to be, but it had vanished. It actually
seemed, too, as if there was no paper on the wall, for the
whitewash scaled off beneath his fingers.
Perplexed and angry, Ephraim was about to replace the
flint and steel upon the bureau, and to dress in the dark,
when his hand encountered a candlestick. It contained a
candle. He determined to try to light it. He struck the
flint upon the steel at least a dozen times, in the way he
remembered doing so often when he was a boy, but the
sparks refused to catch the tinder. He struck again and
again, until he became really warm with effort and indig
nation, and at last he succeeded.
80 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARK
It was only a poor, slim tallow candle, and Ephraim
thought the light was not much better than the darkness,
it was so dim and flickering and dismal. He was con
scious then that the room was chill, although his body felt
RO warm ; and, for fear he should catch cold, he thought
he would open the register and let in some warm air.
The register had disappeared ! There, right before him,
was a vast old-fashioned fireplace filled with wood. By
what means the transformation had been effected he could
not imagine. But he was not greatly displeased.
" I always did like an open wood fire," he said, " and
now I will have a roaring one."
So he touched the flame of the candle to the light
kindling-wood, and in a moment it was afire.
" I will wash while it is burning up," said Ephraim.
He went to the place where he thought he should find
the fixed wash-stand, with hot and cold water running
from "the pipes, but he was amazed to find that it had
followed the strange fashion of the room, and had gone
also! There was an old hand-basin, with a cracked china
pitcher, standing upon a movable wash-stand, but the
water in the pitcher had been turned to solid ice.
With an exclamation of\ impatience and indignation,
Ephraim placed the pitcher between the andirons, close to
the wood in the chimney-place; and he did so with smarting
eyes, for the flue was cold, and volumes of smoke were
pouring out into the room. In a few moments he felt that
he should suffocate unless he could get some fresh air : so
he resolved to open the upper sash of the window.
When he got to the window he perceived that the panes
of glass were only a few inches square, and that the
wood-work enclosing them was thrice thicker and heavier
than it had been. He strove to pull down the upper
sash, but the effort was vain j it would not move. He
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. yi
tried to lift the lower sash ; it went up with difficulty ; it
seemed to weigh a hundred pounds ; and when he got it
up it would not stay. He succeeded, finally, in keeping
it open by placing a chair beneath it.
When the ice in the pitcher was thawed, he finished
his toilet, and then he descended the stairs. As nobody
seemed to be moving in the house, he resolved to go out
and get his breakfast at a restaurant. He unlocked the
front door, and emerged into the street just as daylight
fairly had begun.
As Ephraim descended the steps in front of his houst,,
he had a distinct impression that something was wrong,
and he was conscious of a feeling of irritation ; but it
seemed to him that his mind, for some reason, did not
operate with its accustomed precision ; and, while he real
ized the fact of a partial and very unexpected change oi
the conditions of his life, he found that when he tried, in
a strangely feeble way, to grapple with the problem, the
solution eluded him and baffled him.
The force of habit, rather than a very clearly defined
purpose, led him to walk to the corner of the street, just
below his dwelling, and to pause there, as usual, to await
the coming of the horse-car which should carry him
down town. Following a custom, too, he took from his
waistcoat-pocket two or three pennies (which, to his sur
prise, had swollen to the uncomfortable dimensions of the
old copper cents), and looked around for the newsboy
from whom he bought, every morning, the daily paper.
The lad, however, was not to be seen ; and Ephraim was
somewhat vexed at his absence, because he was especially
anxious upon that morning to observe the quotations of
the Chicago and Liverpool grain markets, and to ascertain
what steamers were loading at the wharves.
The horse-car was delayed much longer than he expected,
iv.-/
82 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARK
and, while he waited, a man passed by, dressed oddly,
Ephraim noticed, in knee-breeches and very old fashioned
coat and hat. Ephraim said to him, politely,
" Can you tell me, sir, where I can get a morning paper
in this neighborhood ? The lad I buy from, commonly, is
not at his post this morning."
The stranger, stopping, looked at Ephraim with a queer
expression, and presently said,
" I don't think I understand you ; a morning paper, did
you say ?"
" Yes, one of the morning papers ; the Argus or Commer
cial, any of them."
" Why, my dear sir, there is but one newspaper pub
lished in this city. It is the Gazette. It comes out on
Saturday ; and this, you know, is only Tuesday."
" Do you mean to say that we have no daily papers ?"
exclaimed Ephraim, somewhat angrily.
" Daily papers ! -Papers published every day ! Why,
sir, there is not such a newspaper in the world, and there
never will be."
" Pshaw I" said Ephraim, turning his back upon the man
in disgust.
The stranger smiled, and, shaking his head as if he had
serious doubts of Ephraim's sanity, passed onward.
" The man is cracked," said Ephraim, looking after him.
"No daily papers! The fellow has just come from the
interior of Africa, or else he is an escaped lunatic. It is
very queer that car does not come," and Ephraim glanced
up the street anxiously. " There's not a car in sight. A
fire somewhere, I suppose. Too bad that I should have
lost so much time. I shall walk down."
But, as Ephraim stepped into the highway, he was sur
prised to find that there were no rails there. The cobble
stone pavement was unbroken.
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 83
" Well, upon my word ! This is the strangest thing of
all. What on earth has become of the street-cars? I must
go afoot, I suppose, if the distance is great. I am afraid I
shall be too late for business, as it is."
As he walked onward at a rapid pace, and his eyes fell
upon the buildings along the route, he was queerly sensible
that the city had undergone a certain process of transfor
mation. It had a familiar appearance, too. He seemed to
know it in its present aspect, and yet not to know it. The
way was perfectly familiar to him, and he recognized all
the prominent landmarks easily, and still he had an inde
finable feeling that some other city had stood where this
did, that he had known this very route under other con
ditions, and that the later conditions were those that had
passed away, while those that he now saw belonged to a
much earlier period.
He felt, too, that the change, whatever it was, had
brought a loss with it. The buildings that lined the
street now he thought very ugly. They were old, mis
shapen, having pent-roofs with absurdly high gables, and
the shop-windows were small, dingy, and set with small
panes of glass. He had known it as a handsome street,
edged with noble edifices, and offering to the gaze of the
pedestrian a succession of splendid windows filled with
merchandise of the most brilliant description.
But Ephraim pressed on with a determination to seek hit*
favorite restaurant, for he began to feel very hungry. In
a little while he reached the corner where the restaurant
should have been, but, to his vexation, he saw that the
building there was a coffee-house of mean appearance, in
front of which swung a blurred and faded sign.
He resolved to enter, for he could get a breakfast here,
at least. He pushed through the low door-way and over
the sanded floor into a narrow sort of box, where a table
84 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARK
was spread ; and, as he did so, he had a hazy feeling that
this, too, was something that he was familiar with.
"It must be," he said, "that my brain is producing a
succession of those sensations that I have had sometimes
before, which persuade the credulous that we move con
tinually in a circle and forever live our lives over again."
As he took his seat a waiter approached him.
" Give me a bill of fare," said Ephraim.
" Bill of fare, sir ? Have no bill of fare, sir. Never have
them, sir; no coffee-house has them, sir. Get you up a nice
breakfast, though, sir."
" What have you got ?"
" Ham, sir ; steak, sir ; boiled eggs, sir ; coffee, tea, muf
fins. Just in from furrin countries, sir, are you ?"
"Never mind where I am from," said Ephraim, testily.
" Bring me a broiled steak, and egg, and some muffins and
coffee, and bring them quickly."
"Yes, sir; half a minute, sir. Anything else, sir?"
" Bring me a newspaper."
' Yes, sir ; here it is, sir, the very latest, sir."
Ephraim took the paper and glanced at it. It was the
Weekly Gazette, four days old; a little sheet of yellow-
brown paper, poorly printed, containing some fragments
of news, and nothing later from Europe than November
6, although the G-azette bore date December 19. So soon
as Ephraim comprehended its worthlessness, he tossed it
contemptuously upon the floor, and waited, almost sullenly,
for his breakfast.
When it came in upon the tray, carried by the brisk
waiter, it looked dainty and tempting enough, and the
fumes that rose from it were so savory that he grew into
better humor, ^s it was spread before him, he perceived
that the waiter had given him a very coarse, two-pronged
Bteel fork.
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 85
" Take that away," said Ephraim, tossing it to the end
of the table : " I want a silver fork."
" Silver fork, sir ! Bless my soul, sir ! We haven't got
any ; never heard of such a thing, sir."
"Never heard of a silver fork, you idiot!" shouted
Ephraim ; " why, everybody uses them."
" No, sir ; I think not, sir. I've lived with first-quality
people, sir, and they all use this kind. Never saw any
other kind, sir; didn't know there was any. Do they
have 'em in furrin parts, sir?"
" Get out !" said Ephraim, savagely. He was becoming
somewhat annoyed and bewildered by the utter disap
pearance of so many familiar things.
But the breakfast was good, and he was hungry, so he
fell to with hearty zest, and, although he found the steel
fork clumsy, it did him good service. At the conclusion
of the meal, Ephraim walked rapidly to his office, the
office that he had occupied for nearly sixty years. As he
opened the door, he expected to find his letters in the box
wherein the postman thrust them twice or thrice a day.
They were not there. The box itself was gone.
"Too bad! too bad!" exclaimed Ephraim. "Every
thing conspires to delay me lo-day. I suppose I must
sit here and wait for that lazy letter-carrier to come, and
meantime my business must wait too."
[We have not space to give in detail the various awkward misap
prehensions of our Old Fogy on that awkward day. He found that
letter-carrier and letter-box alike had vanished, and at the shrunken
post-office learned that there would be no mail till the next day, and
that they had never heard of such a place as Chicago. When he
began to talk of telegraphing, and informed his hearers that he wished
to get the quotations of the London Stock Exchange for that morning,
he was taken for a madman. His talk about steamers and steam fire-
engines failed to improve the opinion as to his sanity. And when at
IY. 8
86 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CLARK
the wharf he talked of receiving a cargo of wheat by rail, and of load
ing twenty thousand bushels that day, and that on an iron vessel, the
people around showed decided symptoms of locking him up as a
lunatic. Talk about photographs, hard coal, Pacific railroads, etc.,
did not add to his reputation for sanity, and he finally fled for safety,
not knowing what terrors might be preparing for him.]
" I know," he said, as he rushed onward, " what it .all
means. This is the Past. Some mighty hand has swept
away the barrier of years, and plunged me once more into
the midst of the life that I knew in my youth, long ago.
And I have loved and worshipped that past ! Blind and
foolish man ! I loved it ! Ah, how I hate it now ! What
a miserable, miserable time it was ! How poor and insuf
ficient life seems under its conditions ! How meanly men
crawled about, content with their littleness and folly, and
unconscious of the wisdom that lay within their reach,
ignorant of the vast and wonderful possibilities that
human ingenuity might compass !
" There was nothing in that dreary past that I could
love, excepting" and Ephraim was almost ready to weep
as he thought that the one longing of his soul could not
be realized "excepting those who were torn from my
arms, my heart, my home,*by the cruel hand of death."
The excitement, the distress, the anguish, the wild terror
of the day came back to him with accumulated force as
he hurried along the footway; and when he reached his
own home he was distracted, unnerved, hysterical.
With eager but uncertain fingers he pushed open the
front door, and went into his sitting-room. There a fresh
shock came to him, for he saw his wife in the chair she
had occupied in the old time, long, long ago. She arose
to greet him, and he saw that her dear face wore the
kindly smile he had known so well, and that had added
much to his sum of happiness in the years that were gone.
CLARK] THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 87
He leaped to clasp her in his arms when he heard the
sweet tones of her voice welcoming him ; his eyes filled
with tears, and the sobs came, as he said,
" Ah, my dearest, my dearest ! have you, too, come up
from the dead past to meet me ? It was you alone that
hallowed it to me. I loved loved you I "
He felt his utterance choked, the room swam before
him, there was a ringing noise in his ears, he felt himself
falling; then he lost consciousness.
He knew nothing more until he realized that there was
a gentle knocking near to him, as of some one who de
manded admittance at the door. He roused himself with
*MI effort, and almost mechanically said,
" Come in."
He heard a light step, and he opened his eyes. He was
in his own bedroom, the room of the present, not of the
past, and in his own bed. It was Nelly who knocked at
the door; she stood beside him.
" It is time to get up, grandpa," she said.
Wh where am I ? What has happened ?" Then, as
his mind realized the truth, he said, " Oh, Nelly, Nelly,
how I have suffered !"
" How, grandpa ?"
" I I but never mind now, my dear ; I will tell you
after a while. Eun down-stairs while I prepare for break
fast. But, Nelly, let me tell you not to believe what I
said to you about the glories of the past : it was not true,
my child, not true. I have learned better ; I talked to
you like a foolish old man. Thank God, my dear, that
you live late in the world's history. No man is more
unwise or more ungrateful than he who finds delight in
playing the part of An Old Fogy."
88 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
IN THE AUTUMN WOODLANDS.
SUSAN WARNER.
[Under the pseudonyme of "Elizabeth "Wetherell" Susan Warner
published in 1850 " The Wide Wide World," a novel which had an
extraordinary success. She subsequently published numerous novels,
in which the virtues and the faults of the first were repeated, but not the
extended popularity. Her works are defective in style and in charac
terization, and are full of a somewhat strained religious sentimentality,
yet the story is very skilfully managed, and appeals strongly to those
to whom the plot is the chief element of a novel. Prom the " Hills
of the Shatemuc," a work which inculcates an excellent moral, we
extract an eloquent descriptive picture of American autumn scenery,
written with photographic particularity. Miss Warner was born in
New York in 1818, and died in 1885.]
Miss HAYE, however, had never sent her fingers over
the keys with more energy than now her feet tripped over
the dry leaves and stones in the path to Mountain Spring.
She took a very rough way, through the woods. There
was another, much plainer, round by the wagon-road ; but
Elizabeth chose the more solitary and prettier way, round
about and hard to the foot though it was.
For some little distance there was a rude wagon-track,
very rough, probably made for the convenience of getting
wood. It stood thick with pretty large stones or heads
of rock; but it was softly grass-grown between the stones,
and gave at least a clear way through the woods, upon
which the morning light if not the morning sun beamed
fairly. A light touch of white frost lay upon the grass
and covered the rocks with bloom, the promise of a mild
day. After a little, the roadway descended into a bit of
smooth meadow, well walled in with trees, and lost itself
there. In the tree-tops the morning sun was glittering ;
it could not get to the bottom yet; but up there among
WABNEB] IN THE AUTUMN WOODLANDS. 89
the leaves it gave a bright shimmering prophecy of what
it would do ; it was a sparkle of heavenly light touching
the earth. Elizabeth had never seen it before ; she had
never in her life been in the woods at so early an hour.
She stood still to look. It was impossible to help feeling
the light of that glittering promise ; its play upon the
leaves was too joyous, too pure, too fresh. She felt her
heart grow stronger and her breath come freer. What
was the speech of those light-touched leaves, she might
not have told ; something her spirit took knowledge of
while her reason did not, or had not leisure to do ; for
if she did not get to Mountain Spring in good season she
would not be home for breakfast. Yet she had plenty of
time, but she did not wish to run short. So she went on
her way.
From the valley meadow for half a mile it was not
much more or much better than a cow-path, beaten a little
by the feet of the herdsman seeking his cattle or of an oc
casional foot-traveller to Mountain Spring. It was very
rough indeed. Often Elizabeth must make quite a circuit
among cat-briers and huckleberry-bushes and young under
wood, or keep the path at the expense of stepping up and
stepping down again over a great stone or rock blocking
up the whole way. Sometimes the track was only marked
over the gray lichens of an immense head of granite that
refused moss and vegetation of every other kind ; some
times it wound among thick alder-bushes by the edge of
wet ground ; and at all times its course was among a wil
derness of uncared-for woodland, overgrown with creepers
and vines tangled with underbrush, and thickly strewn
with larger and smaller fragments and boulders of granite
rock. But how beautiful it was! The alders, reddish
and soft-tinted, looked when the sun struck through them
as if they were exotics out of witch-land; the Cornus
iv 8*
90 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
family, from beautiful dog-wood a dozen feet high stretch
ing over Elizabeth's head, to little humble nameless plants
at her feet, had edged and parted their green leaves with
most dainty clear hues of madder lake ; white birches and
hickories glimmered in the sunlight like trees of gold, the
first with stems of silver ; sear leaves strewed the way ;
and fresh pines and hemlocks stretched out their arms
amidst the changing foliage, with their evergreen promise
and performance. The morning air and the morning walk
no doubt had something to do with the effect of the whole ;
but- Elizabeth thought with all the beauty her eyes had
ever seen they had never been more bewitched than they
were that day.
With such a mood upon her, it was no wonder that on
arriving at Mountain Spring she speedily made out her
errand. She found whom and what she had come for ; she
filled her basket with no loss of time or pleasure ; and,
very proud of her success, set out again through the wood-
path homeward.
Half-way back to the bit of tree-enclosed meadow*
ground, the path and the north shore of Shahweetah
approached each other, where a little bay curve, no other
than the JEgean Sea, swept in among the rocks. Through
the stems of the trees Elizabeth could see the blue water
with the brightness of the hour upon it. Its sparkle
tempted her. She had plenty of time, or she resolved
that she had, and she wanted to look at the fair broad
view she knew the shore edge would give her. She hesi
tated, and turned. A few bounding and plunging steps
amid rocks and huckleberry-bushes brought her where
she wished to be. She stood on the border, where no
trees came in the way of the northern view. The moun
tains were full before her, and the wide Shatemuc rolled
down between them, ruflled with little waves, every one
WARNER] IN THE AUTUMN WOODLANDS. 91
sparkling cool in the sunlight. Elizabeth looked at the
water a minute, and turned to the west. Wut-a-qut-o's
head had caught more of the frosts than Shahweetah
had felt yet ; there were broad belts of buff and yellow
along the mountain, even changing into sear where its
sides felt the north wind. On all that shore the full sun
light lay. The opposite hills, on the east, were in dainty
sunshine and shadow, every undulation, every ridge and
hollow, softly marked out. With what wonderful sharp
outline the mountain-edges rose against the bright sky !
how wonderful soft the changes of shade and color adown
their sloping sides ! what brilliant little ripples of water
rolled up to the pebbles at Elizabeth's feet ! She stood
and looked at it all, at one thing and the other, half daz
zled with the beauty, until she recollected herself, and,
with a deep sighful expression of thoughts and wishes
unknown, turned away to find her path again.
But she could not find it. Whereabouts it was, she was
sure ; but the where was an unfindable thing. And she
dared not strike forward without the track ; she might
get further and further from it, and never get home to
breakfast at all ! There was nothing for it but to grope
about seeking for indications ; and Miss Haye's eyes were
untrained to wood-work. The woodland was a mazy
wilderness now indeed. Points of stone, beds of moss,
cat-brier vines, and huckleberry-bushes, in every direc
tion ; and between which of them lay that little invisible
track of a foot-path ? The more she looked the more she
got perplexed. She could remember no waymarks. The
way was all cat-briers, moss, bushes, and rocks ; and rocks,
bushes, moss, and cat-briers were in every variety all around
her. She turned her face towards the quarter from which
she had come, and tried to recognize some tree or way-
mark she could remember having passed. One part of
92 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
the wood looked just like another; but for the mountains
and the river, she could not have told where lay Mountain
Spring.
Then a little sound of rustling leaves and crackling
twigs reached her ear from behind her.
" There is a cow !" thought Elizabeth ; ' ; now I can find
the path by her. But then cows don't always "
Her eye had been sweeping round the woody skirts of
her position, in search of her expected four-footed guide,
when her thoughts were suddenly brought to a point by
seeing a two-footed creature approaching, and one whom
she instantly knew.
" It is Winthrop Landholm ! he is going to Mountain
Spring to take an early coach, without his breakfast !
Well, you fool, what is it to you?" was the next thought.
"What does it signify whether he goes sooner or later,
when it would be better for you not to see him at all,
if your heart is going to start in that fashion at every
time "
Meanwhile she was making her way as well as she could,
over rocks and briers, towards the new-comer, and did
not look up till she answered his greeting,
"Good-morning!"
It was very cheerfully spoken.
" Good-morning," said Elizabeth, entangled in a cat-brier,
from which with a desperate effort she broke free before
any help could be given her.
" Those are naughty things."
" No," said Elizabeth, " they look beautiful now when
they are growing tawny, as a contrast with the other
creepers and the deep-green cedars. And they are a beau
tiful green at other times."
"Make the best of them. What were you looking at,
a minute ago ?"
WARNER] IN THE AUTUMN WOODLANDS. 93
"Looking for my way. I bad lost it."
" You don't know it very well, I guess."
" Yes. No, not very well, but I could follow it, and did,
till coming borne I tbougbt I bad time to look at tbe
view; and tben I couldn't find it again. I got turned
about."
" You were completely turned about wben I saw you."
" Ob, I was not going tbat way : I knew better tban
tbat. I was trying to discover some waymark."
" How did you get out of the way ?"
"I went to look at tbe view, from tbe water's edge
there."
" Have you a mind to go back to tbe river edge again ?
I have not seen that view in a long while. I shall not
lose the path."
*********
So they presently reached the lower ground.
"Do you want anything from the house?" said Win-
throp, as they came near it.
" Only the oars. If you will get those, I will untie the
boat."
" Then I'll not get the oars. I'll get them on condition
that you stand still here."
So they went down together to the rocks, and Eliza
beth put herself in the stern of the little boat, and they
pushed off.
To any people who could think of anything but each
other October offered enough to fill eyes, ears, and under
standing; that is, if ears can be filled with silence, which
perhaps is predicable. Absolute silence on this occasion
was wanting, as there was a good deal of talking ; but for
eyes and understanding, perhaps it may safely be said that
those of the two people in the Merry-go-round took the
benefit of everything they passed on their way, with a
94 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WARNER
reduplication of pleasure which arose from the throwing
and catching of that ball of conversation in which, like
the herb-stuffed ball of the Arabian physician of old, lay
perdu certain hidden virtues, of sympathy. But Shah-
weetah's low rocky shore never offered more beauty to
any eyes than to theirs that day as they coasted slowly
round it. Colors ! colors ! If October had been a dyer,
he could not have shown a greater variety of samples.
There were some locust-trees in the open cedar-grown
field by the river, trees that Mr. Landholm had planted
long ago. They were slow to turn, yet they were chang
ing. One soft feathery head was in yellowish green, an
other of more neutral color ; and blending with them were
the tints of a few reddish soft-tinted alders below. That
group was not gay. Further on were a thicket of dull-
colored alders at the edge of some flags, and above them
blazed a giant huckleberry -bush in bright flame-color;
close by that were the purple-red tufts of some common
sumachs, the one beautifully rich, the other beautifully
striking. A little way from them stood a tulip-tree, its
green changing with yellow. Beyond came cedars, in
groups, wreathed with bright tawny grape-vines and
splendid Virginia creepers, now in full glory. Above their
tops, on the higher ground, was a rich green belt of
pines ; above them, the changing trees of the forest again.
Here showed an elm its straw-colored head, there stood
an ash in beautiful gray-purple ; very stately. The Corn us
family in rich crimson, others crimson purple; maples
showing yellow and flame-color and red all at once ; one
beauty still in green was orange-tipped with rich orange.
The birches were a darker hue of the same color; hicko
ries bright as gold.
Then came the rocks, and rocky precipitous point of
Shahweetah ; and the echo of row-locks from the wall.
WARNER] IN THE AUTUMN WOODLANDS. 95
Then the point was turned, and the little boat sought
the hottom of the hay, nearing Mountain Spring all the
while. The water was glassy smooth ; the hoat went
too fast.
Down in the bay the character of the woodland was a
little different. It was of fuller growth, and with many
fewer evergreens and some addition to the variety of the
changing deciduous leaves. "When they got quite to the
bottom of the bay and were coasting along close under
the shore, there was perhaps a more striking display of
Autumn's glories at their side than the rocks of Shahwee-
tah could show them. They coasted slowly along, look
ing and talking. The combinations were beautiful.
There was the dark fine bright red of some pepperidges
showing behind the green of an unchanged maple ; near
by stood another maple the leaves of which were all seem
ingly withered, a plain reddish-light wood-color; while be
low its withered foliage a thrifty poison sumach wreathing
round its trunk and lower branches was in a beautiful
confusion of fresh green and the orange and red changes,
yet but just begun. Then another slight maple with the
same dead wood-colored leaves, into which to the very top
a Virginia creeper had twined itself, and that was now
brilliantly scarlet, magnificent in the last degree. Another
like it a few trees off, both reflected gorgeously in the
still water. Rock oaks were part green and part sear; at
the edge of the shore below them a quantity of reddish
low shrubbery ; the Cornus dark crimson and red brown,
with its white berries showing underneath, and more pep-
peridges in very bright red. One maple stood with its
leaves parti-colored reddish and green, another with
beautiful orange colored foliage. Ashes in superb very
dark purple; they were all changed. Then alders, oaks,
and chestnuts still green. A kaleidoscope view on water
96 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ WILL is
and land, as the little boat glided along sending rainbow
ripples in towards the shore.
In the bottom of the bay Winthrop brought the boat
to land, under a great red oak which stood in its fair dark-
green beauty yet at the very edge of the water. Moun
tain Spring was a little way off, hidden by an outsetting
point of woods. As the boat touched the tree-roots, Win
throp laid in the oars and came and took a seat by the
boat's mistress.
ABSALOM.
N. P. WILLIS.
[Willis certainly deserves a more general reputation as a poet than
he has attained, for many of his pieces are of a high grade of merit.
During his life he stood high among the prose- writers of America, dash
ing off many books of neatly-rendered, though frequently affected,
essays of society and travel. He is principally known to recent read
ers, however, through some of his poems, one of the best of which we
give below. He was born in Maine in 1807, and died in 1867.]
THE waters slept. Night's silvery veil hung low
On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled
Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still,
Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse.
The reeds bent down the stream ; the willow leaves,
With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide,
Forgot the lifting winds ; and the long stems,
Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurse,
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way,
And leaned in graceful attitudes to rest.
How strikingly the course of nature tells,
By its light heed of human suffering,
That it was fashioned for a happier world !
WILLIS] ABSALOM. 97
King David's limbs were weary. He had fled
From far Jerusalem ; and now he stood,
With his faint people, for a little rest,
Upon the shore of Jordan. The light wind
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow
To its refreshing breath ; for he had worn
The mourner's covering, and he had not felt
That he could see his people until now.
They gathered round him on the fresh green bank,
And spoke their kindly words ; and, as the sun
Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there,
And bowed his head upon his hands to pray.
Oh ! when the heart is full, when bitter thoughts
Come crowding thickly up for utterance,
And the poor common words of courtesy
Are such an empty mockery, how much
The bursting heart may pour itsejf in prayer !
He prayed for Israel ; and his voice went up
Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those
Whose love had been his shield ; and his deep tones
Grew tremulous. But, oh ! for Absalom,
For his estranged, misguided Absalom,
The proud, bright being who had burst away
In all his princely beauty, to defy
The heart that cherished him, for him he poured,
In agony that would not be controlled,
Strong supplication, and forgave him there,
Before his God, for his deqp sinfulness.
jfj*******
The pall was settled. He who slept beneath
Was straightened for the grave ; and, as the folds
Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed
The matchless symmetry of Absalom.
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls
TV. E g 9
98 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiLLis
Were floating round the tassels as they swayed
To the admitted air, as glossy now
As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing
The snowy fingers of Judea's daughters.
His helm was at his feet ; his banner, soiled
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid,
Eeversed, beside him ; and the jewelled hilt,
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,
Bested, like mockery, on his covered brow.
The soldiers of the king trod to and fro,
Clad in the garb of battle ; and their chief,
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier,
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly,
As if he feared the slumberer might stir.
A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade
As if a trumpet rang ; but the bent form
Of David entered, and he gave command,
In a low tone, to his few followers,
And left him with his dead. The king stood still
Till the last echo died ; then, throwing off
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back
The pall from the still features of his child,
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth
In the resistless eloquence of woe :
" Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die !
Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair !
That death should settle in.thy glorious eye,
And leave his stillness in this clustering hair !
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb,
My proud boy, Absalom !
u Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee I
WILLIS] ABSALOM. 99
How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,
Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee,
And hear thy sweet * My father !' from these dumb
And cold lips, Absalom !
' But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush
Of music, and the voices of the young ;
And life will pass me in the mantling blush.
And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung,
But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come
To meet me, Absalom !
"And, oh I when I am stricken, and my heart,
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken,
How will its love for thee, as I depart,
Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token !
It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom,
To see thee, Absalom !
" And now, farewell ! 'Tis hard to give thee up,
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee ;
And thy dark sin ! Oh ! I could drink the cup,
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My lost boy, Absalom !"
He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child ; tKen, giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer ;
And, as if strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall
Firmly and decently, and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.
100 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SEDGWICK
THE SABBATH IN NEW ENGLAND.
C. M. SEDGWICK.
[In this interesting extract Miss Sedgwick has given us a well-
drawn outline-picture of a condition of affairs in New England which
no longer exists, the natural outcome of the yet more rigid Puritan
ism of an earlier day. The author, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, gained
at one time a wide popularity by her novels, ranging in date from 1822
to 1857. She also wrote many popular tales for children, which are
among the most valuable of their kind. She was born in Massachu
setts in 1789, and died in 1867.]
THE observance of the Sabbath began with tbe Puritans,
as it still does with a great portion of their descendants,
on Saturday night. At the going down of tbe sun on
Saturday, all temporal affairs were suspended ; and so
zealously did our fathers maintain tbe letter as well as tbe
spirit of tbe law, tbat, according to a vulgar tradition in
Connecticut, no beer was brewed in tbe latter part of tbe
week, lest it should presume to work on Sunday.
It must be confessed tbat tbe tendency of tbe age is
to laxity ; and so rapidly is tbe wholesome strictness of
primitive times abating, that, should some antiquary, fifty
years bence, in exploring bis garret rubbisb, cbance to
cast bis eye on our bumble pages, be may be surprised
to learn tbat even now tbe Sabbath is observed, in the
interior of New England, with an almost Judaical strict
ness.
On Saturday afternoon an uncommon bustle is apparent.
Tbe great class of procrastinators are burrying to and fro
to complete tbe lagging business of tbe week. Tbe good
mothers, like Burns's matron, are plying their needles,
making " auld claes look amaist as weel's tbe new ;" wbilu
SEDGWICK] THE SABBATH IN NEW ENGLAND. 101
the domestics, or help (we prefer the national descriptive
term), are wielding with might and main their brooma
and mops, to make all tidy for the Sabbath.
As the day declines, the hum of labor dies away, and,
after the sun is set, perfect stillness reigns in every well-
ordered household, and not a footfall is heard in the vil
lage street. It cannot be denied that even the most spir
itual, missing the excitement of their ordinary occupations,
anticipate their usual bedtime. The obvious inference
from this fact is skilfully avoided by certain ingenious
reasoners, who allege that the constitution was originally
so organized as to require an extra quantity of sleep on
every seventh night. We recommend it to the curious to
inquire how this peculiarity was adjusted when the first
day of the week was changed from Saturday to Sunday.
The Sabbath morning is as peaceful as the first hallowed
day. Not a human sound is heard without the dwellings,
and, but for the lowing of the herds, the crowing of the
cocks, and the gossiping of the birds, animal life would
seem to be extinct, till, at the bidding of the church-going
bell, the old and young issue from their habitations, and,
with solemn demeanor, bend their measured steps to the
meeting-house, the family of the minister, the squire, the
doctor, the merchants, the modest gentry of the village,
and the mechanic and laborer, all arrayed in their best,
all meeting on even ground, and all with that conscious
ness of independence and equality which breaks down the
pride of the rich, and rescues the poor from servility, envy,
and discontent. If a morning salutation is reciprocated,
it is in a suppressed voice j and if, perchance, Nature in
some reckless urchin burst forth in laughter, " My dear,
you forget it's Sunday," is the ever-ready re] roof.
Though every face wears a solemn aspect, yet we once
chanced to see even a deacon's muscles relaxf d by the wit
iv. 9*
102 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SEDQWICK
of a neighbor, and heard him allege, in a half-deprecating,
half-laughing voice, " The squire is so droll that a body
must laugh, though it be Sabbath-day."
The farmer's ample wagon and the little one-horse vehi
cle bring in all who reside at an inconvenient walking dis
tance, that is to say, in our riding community, half a mile
from the church. It is a pleasing sight, to those who love
to note the happy peculiarities of their own land, to see
the farmers' daughters, blooming, intelligent, and well
bred, pouring out of these homely coaches with their nice
white gowns, prunello shoes, Leghorn hats, fans, and para
sols, and the spruce young men with their plaited ruffles,
blue coats, and yellow buttons. The whole community
meet as one religious family, to offer their devotions at
the common altar. If there is an outlaw from the society,
a luckless wight, whose vagrant taste has never been
subdued, he may be seen stealing along the margin of
some little brook, far away from the condemning observa
tion and troublesome admonitions of his fellows.
Towards the close of the day, or (to borrow a phrase
descriptive of his feeling who first used it) " when the
Sabbath begins to abate" the children cluster about the
windows. Their eyes wander from their catechisms to
the western sky ; and though it seems to them as if the
sun would never disappear, his broad disk does slowly sink
behind the mountain ; and while his last ray still lingers
on the eastern summit, merry voices break forth, and the
ground resounds with bounding footsteps. The village
belle arrays herself for her twilight walk; the boys
gather on " the green ;" the lads and girls throng to the
" singing-school ;" while some coy maiden lingers at home,
awaiting her expected suitor; and all enter upon the
pleasures of the evening with as keen a relish as if the
day had been a preparatory penance.
RANDOLPH] THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 103
THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION,
JOHN RANDOLPH.
[John Randolph of Roanoke, while not distinguished for political
wisdom, or every-day wisdom of any sort, in fact; was a man of genius
in an oratorical point of view, and for ready wit, and mastery of the
powerful weapons of sarcasm and invective, has never had a superior
in Congress. A collection of American literature would not be com
plete without a specimen of his incisive oratory. He was horn in Vir
ginia in 1773, and died in Philadelphia in 1833. Although a strong
advocate of slavery, he manumitted his slaves, about three hundred in
number, by his last will. Whatever be thought of the logic of the
appended extract, the wit of its closing portion must be acknowl
edged.]
DOCTOR FRANKLIN, who in shrewdness, especially in all
that related to domestic life, was never excelled, used to
say that two movings were equal to one fire. And
gentlemen, as if they were afraid that this besetting sin
of republican governments, this rerum novarum lubido (to
use a very homely phrase, but that comes pat to the pur
pose), this maggot of innovation, would cease to bite, are
here gravely making provision that this Constitution,
which we should consider as a remedy for all the ills of
the body politic, may itself be amended or modified at any
future time. Sir, I am against any such provision. I
should as soon think of introducing into a marriage con
tract a provision for divorce, and thus poisoning the
greatest blessing of mankind at its very source, at its
fountain head. He has seen little, and has reflected less,
who does not know that " necessity" is the great, power
ful, governing principle of affairs here. Sir, I am not
going into that question which puzzled Pandemonium,
the question of liberty and necessity,
" Free will, fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute ;"
104 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KANDOLPB
but I do contend that necessity is one principal instrument
of all the good that man enjoys. The happiness of the
connubial union itself depends greatly on necessity, and
when you touch this you touch the arch, the keystone of
the arch, on which the happiness and well-being of society
is founded. Look at the relation of master and slave (that
opprobrium, in the opinion of some gentlemen, to all civil
ized society and all free government). Sir, there are few
situations in life where friendships so strong and so last
ing are formed as in that very relation. The slave knows
he is bound indissolubly to his master, and must, from
necessity, remain always under his control. The master
knows he is bound to maintain and provide always for his
slave so long as he retains him in his possession. And
each party accommodates himself to the situation. I have
seen the dissolution of many friendships. such, at least,
as they were called ; but I have seen that of master and
slave endure so long as there remained a drop of blood of
the master to which the slave could cleave.
Where is the necessity of this provision in the Consti
tution ? "Where is the use of it ? Sir, what are we about ?
Have we not been undoing what the wiser heads I must
be permitted to say so yes, sir, what the wiser heads of
our ancestors did more than half a century ago ? Can any
one believe that we, by any amendment of ours, by any of
our scribbling on that parchment, by any amulet, by any
legerdemain charm Abracadabra of ours can prevent
our sons from doing the same thing, that is, from doing
what they please, just as we are doing as we please? It,
is impossible. Who can bind posterity ? When I hear
gentlemen talk of making a Constitution for " all time,"
and introducing provisions into it for "all time," and yet
see men here who are older than the Constitution we are
about to destroy (I am older myself than the present Con-
BANCROFT] DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 105
stitution : it was established when I was a boy), it reminds
me of the truces and the peaces of Europe. They always
begin, " In the name of the most holy and undivided
Trinity," and go on to declare " there shall be perfect and
perpetual peace and unity between the subjects of such
and such potentates for all time to come;" and in less
than seven years they are at war again.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY MARQUETTE.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
BEHOLD then, in 1673, on the tenth day of June, James
Marquette and Louis Jolliet, five Frenchmen as com
panions, and two Algonkins as guides, dragging their
two canoes across the narrow portage that divides the
Fox River from the Wisconsin. They reach the water
shed ; uttering a special prayer to the immaculate Virgin,
they part from the streams that could have borne their
greetings to the castle of Quebec. " The guides re
turned," saj'S the gentle Marquette, " leaving us alone, in
this unknown land, in the hands of Providence." Em
barking on the broad Wisconsin, the discoverers went soli
tarily down its current, between alternate plains and hill
sides, beholding neither man nor familiar beasts ; no sound
broke the silence but the ripple of their canoes and the
lowing of the buffalo. In seven days "they entered hap
pily the great river, with a joy that could not be ex
pressed," and, raising their sails under new skies and to
unknown breezes, floated down the calm magnificence of
the ocean stream, over clear sand-bars, the resort of innu
merable water-fowl, through clusters of islets tufted with
106 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
massive thickets, and between the natural parks of Illi
nois and Iowa.
About sixty leagues below the Wisconsin, the western
bank of the Mississippi bore on the sands the trail of men ;
a foot-path was discerned leading into beautiful fields ; and
Jolliet and Marquette resolved alone to brave a meeting
with the savages. After walking six miles, they beheld
a village on the banks of a river, and two others on a
slope, at a distance of a mile and a half from the first.
The river was the Moingona, of which we have corrupted
the name into Des Homes. Marquette and Jolliet, the
first white men who trod the soil of Iowa, commending
themselves to God, uttered a loud cry. Four old men ad
vanced slowly to meet them, bearing the peace-pipe, bril
liant with many-colored plumes. " We are Illinois," said
they, that is, when translated, "We are men;" and they
offered the calumet. An aged chief received them at his
cabin with upraised hands, exclaiming, " How beautiful is
the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us ! Our
village awaits thee ; enter in peace into our dwellings."
To the council, Marquette published the one true God,
their Creator. He spoke of the great captain of the
French, the governor of Canada, who had chastised the
Five Nations and commanded peace ; and he questioned
them respecting the Mississippi and the tribes that pos
sessed its banks.
After six days' delay, and invitations to new visits, the
chieftain of the tribe, with hundreds of warriors, attended
the strangers to their canoes ; and, selecting a peace-pipe
embellished with the head and neck of brilliant birds and
feathered over with plumage of various hues, they hung
round Marquette the sacred calumet, the mysterious arbi
ter of peace and war, a safeguard among the nations.
"I did not fear death." says Marquette, in July; "I
BANCROFT] DISCO VERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 107
should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have
died for the glory of God." They passed the perpendicu
lar rocks, which wore the appearance of monsters ; they
heard at a distance the noise of the waters of the Mis
souri, known to them by its Algonkin name of Pekitanoni ;
and when they came to the grandest confluence of rivers
in the world, where the swifter Missouri rushes like a
conqueror into the calmer Mississippi, dragging it, as it
were, hastily to the sea, the good Marquette resolved in
his heart one day to ascend the mighty river to its source;
to cross the ridge that divides the ocean, and, descending
a westerly-flowing stream, to publish the gospel to all the
people of this New World.
In a little less than forty leagues the canoes floated past
the Ohio, which then, and long afterward, was called the
Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by numerous villages
of the peaceful Shawnees, who quailed under the incursions
of the Iroquois.
The thick canes begin to appear so close and strong that,
the buffalo could not break through them ; the insects be
come intolerable ; as a shelter against the suns of July the
sails are folded into an awning. The prairies vanish ; and
forests of white-wood, admirable for their vastness and
height, crowd even to the skirts of the pebbly shore. In
the land of the Chickasas fire-arms were already in use.
Near the latitude of thirty-three degrees, on the western
bank of the Mississippi, stood the village of Mitchigamea, in
a region that had not been visited by Europeans since the
days of De Soto.
" Now," thought Marquette, " we must, indeed, ask the
aid of the Virgin." Armed with bows and arrows, with
clubs, axes, and bucklers, amid continual whoops, the
natives embark in boats made of the trunks of huge hol
low trees ; but at the sight of the peace-pipe held aloft
108 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
they threw down their bows and quivers and prepared a
hospitable welcome.
The next day a long, wooden boat, containing ten men,
escorted the discoverers, for eight or ten leagues, to the
village of Akansea, the limit of their voyage. They had
left the region of the Algonkins, and, in the midst of the
Dakotas and Chickasas, could speak only by an interpreter.
A half league above Akansea they were met by two boats,
in one of which stood the commander, holding in his hand
the peace-pipe, and singing as he drew near. After offer
ing the pipe he gave bread of maize. The wealth of his
tribe consisted in buffalo-skins. Their weapons were axes
of steel, a proof of commerce with Europeans.
Having descended below the entrance of the Arkansas,
and having ascertained that the father of rivers went not
to the Gulf of California, but was undoubtedly the river
of theSpiritu Santo of the Spaniards which pours its flood
of waters into the Gulf of Mexico, on the seventeenth of
July Marquette and Jolliet left Akansea and ascended the
Mississippi, having the greatest difficulty in stemming its
currents.
At the thirty-eighth degree of latitude they entered the
river Illinois, which was broad and deep, and peaceful in
its flow. Its banks were without a paragon for its prairies
and its forests, its buffaloes and deer, its turkeys and geese
and many kinds of game, and even beavers ; and there
were many small lakes and rivulets. " When I was told
of a country without trees," wrote Jolliet, " I imagined a
country that had been burned over, or of a soil too poor to
produce anything ; but we have remarked just the contrary,
and it would be impossible to find a better soil for grain,
for vines, or any fruits whatever." He held the country
on the Illinois Eiver to be the most beautiful and the most
easy to colonize. "There is no need," he said, "that an
BANCROFT] DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 109
emigrant should employ ten years in cutting down the
forest and burning it. On the day of his arrival the emi
grant could put the plough into the earth." The tribe of
the Illinois entreated Marquette to come back and reside
among them. One of their chiefs with young men guided
the party to the portage, which, in the spring and the
early part of summer, was but half a league long, and
they easily reached the lake. " The place at which \ve
entered the lake," to use the words of Jolliet, "is a harbor
very convenient to receive ships and to give them protec
tion against the wind." Before the end of September the
explorers were safe in Green Bay ; but Marquette was
exhausted by his labors.
At Quebec, while Jolliet's journal was waited for, thu
utility of the discovery was at once set forth : It will open
the widest field for the publication of the Christian faith ;
the way to the Gulf of California, and so to the seas of
Japan and China, will be found by ascending the Missouri
to the water-shed on the west; an admirable line of navi
gation may be opened between Quebec and Florida by
cutting through the portage between Chicago and the
Illinois Elver ; moreover, the noblest opportunity is given
for planting colonies in a country which is vast and beau
tiful and most fertile. In a relation sent, in 1674, by
Father Dablon, it was proposed to connect Lake Michigan
with the Illinois River by a canal.
In 1675, Marquette, who had been delayed by his failing
health for more than a year, rejoined the Illinois on their
river. Assembling the tribe, whose chiefs and men were
reckoned at two thousand, he raised before them pictures
of the Virgin Mary, spoke to them of one who had died on
the cross for all men, and built an altar and said mass in
their presence on the prairie. Again celebrating the mys
tery of the eucharist, on Easter Sunday he took possession
iv. 10
110 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEWETT
of the land in the name of Jesus Christ, and, to the joy of
the multitude, founded the mission of the Immaculate Con
ception. This work being accomplished, his health failed
him, and he began a journey through Chicago to Mack
inaw. On the way, feeling himself arrested by the ap
proach of death, he entered a little river in Michigan, and
was set on shore that he might breathe his last in peace.
Like Francis Xavier, whom he loved to imitate, he re-
peated in solitude all his acts of devotion of the preceding
days. Then, having called his companions and given them
absolution, he begged them once more to leave him alone.
When, after a little while, they returned to him, they
found him passing gently away near the stream that has
taken his name. On its highest bank the canoe-men dug
his grave. To a city, a county, and a river, Michigan has
given his name.
RIVER DRIFT-WOOD.
S. 0. JEWETT.
[Of American writers of the short story and the descriptive essay it
would be difficult to find one with a more graceful and attractive style
than Sarah Orne Jewett, the writer of " Deephaven," " Play Days,"
" The Mate of the Daylight," etc. The following extract is from her
" Country By- Ways," a collection of short essays and stories of much
interest and excellence. Her description of the river, in its highways
and by-ways, has in it the elements of a prose poem. The author is a
native of Maine, where she was born in 1849.]
AT the head of tide-water on the river there is a dam,
and above it is a large mill-pond, where most of the people
who row and sail keep their boats all summer long. I like,
perhaps oirce a year, to cruise around the shores of this
pretty sheet of water ; but I am always conscious of the
JEWETT] RIVER DRIFT-WOOD. 11 j
dam above it and the dam below it, and of being confined
between certain limits. I rarely go beyond a certain point
on the lower or tide river, as people call it, but I always
have the feeling that I can go to Europe, if I like, or any
where on the high seas ; and when I unfasten the boat
there is no dam or harbor bar, or any barrier whatever,
between this and all foreign ports. Far up among the
hills the ocean comes, and its tide ebbs and flows.
When the tide goes out, the narrow reaches of the river
become rapids, where a rushing stream fights with the
ledges and loose rocks, and where one needs a good deal
of skill to guide a boat down safely. Where the river is
wide, at low tide one can only see the mud flats and broad
stretches of green marsh grass. But when the tide is in
it is a noble and dignified stream. There are no rapids,
and only a slow current, where the river from among the
inland mountains flows along, finding its way to the sea,
which has come part way to welcome the company of
springs and brooks that have answered to its call. A
thousand men band themselves together, and they are one
regiment ; a thousand little streams flow together, and are
one river ; but one fancies that they do not lose themselves
altogether; while the individuality of a river must come
mainly from the different characters of its tributaries. The
shape of its shores and the quality of the soil it passes over
determine certain things about it, but the life of it is some
thing by itself, as the life of a man is separate from the
circumstances in which he is placed. There must be the
first spring which overflows steadily and makes a brook,
which some second spring joins, and the third, and the
fourth ; and at last there is a great stream, in which the
later brooks seem to make little difference. I should like
to find the very beginning and head-water of my river.
I should be sorry if it were a pond, though somewhere
112 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [.JEWETT
in the ground underneath there would be a spring that
kept the secret and was in command and under marching
orders to the sea, commissioned to recruit as it went
along. Here at the head of tide-water it first meets the
8ea, and then when the tide is in there is the presence of
royalty, or at least, its deputies. The river is a grand
thing when it is river and sea together; but how one
misses the ocean when the tide is out, for in the great
place it filled the stream from the hills, after all, looks of
little consequence !
The river is no longer the public highway it used to be
years ago, when the few roads were rough, and railroads
were not even dreamed of. The earliest chapter of its
history that I know is that it was full of salmon and other
fish, and was a famous fishing-ground with the Indians,
who were masters of its neighboring country. To tell its
whole story one would have to follow the fashion of the old
Spanish writers whom Garcilasso de la Yega says he will
not imitate, in the first chapter of his commentaries of the
Yncas, that delightful composition of unconscious pathos
and majestic lies. When his predecessors in the field of
literature wished to write on any subject whatever, he
solemnly tells us, they always began with a history of the
globe. One cannot help wishing that he had not disdained
to follow their example, and had given his theories, which
would have been wildly ahead of even the fancies of his
time, in general, and full of most amusing little departures
from the truth when he came down to details. But the
earliest history of the river can well be ignored : it is but
seldom, as yet, that people really care much for anything
for its own sake, until it is proved to have some connec
tion with humankind. We are slow to take an interest
in the personality of our neighbors who are not men, or
dogs, or horses, or at least some creature who can be made
JEWETT] RIVER DRIFT-WOOD. 113
to understand a little of our own spoken language. Who
is going to be the linguist who learns the first word of an
old crow's warning to his mate, or how a little dog ex
presses himself when he asks a big one to come and rout
his troublesome enemy ? How much we shall know when
the pimpernel teaches us how she makes her prophecies
of the weather, and how long we shall have to go to
school when people are expected to talk to the trees, and
birds, and beasts, in their own language! What tune
could it have been that Orpheus and Amphion played, to
which the beasts listened, and even the trees and the
stones followed them to hear ? Is it science that will give
us back the gift, or shall we owe it to the successors of
those friendly old saints who talked with the birds and
fishes ? We could have schools for them if we once could
understand them, and could educate them in being more
useful to us. There would be intelligent sword-fish for
submarine divers, and we could send swallows to carry
messages, and all the creatures that know how to burrow
in the earth would bring us the treasures out of it. I
should have a larger calling acquaintance than ever out
of doors, and my neighbors down river would present me
to congenial friends whom as yet I have not discovered.
The gods are always drawing like towards like and
making them acquainted, if Homer may be believed, but
we are apt to forget that this is true of any creatures but
ourselves. It is not necessary to tame them before they
can be familiar and responsive ; we can meet them on their
own ground, and be surprised to find how much we may
have in common. Taming is only forcing them to learn
some of our customs ; we should be wise if we let them
tame us to make use of some of theirs. They share other
instincts and emotions with us besides surprise, or sus
picion, or fear. They are curiously thoughtful ; they act
IT. h 10*
114 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEWETT
DO more from unconscious instinct than we do ; at least,
they are called upon to decide as many questions of action
or direction, and there are many emergencies of life when
we are far more helpless and foolish than they. It is easy
to say that other orders of living creatures exist on a
much lower plane than ourselves ; we know very little
about it, after all. They are often gifted in some way that
we are not ; they may even carry some virtue of ours to
a greater height than we do. But the day will come for
a more truly universal suifrage than we dream of now,
when the meaning of every living thing is understood,
and it is given its rights and accorded its true value ; for
its life is from God's life, and its limits were fixed by him ;
its material shape is the manifestation of a thought, and
to each body there is given a spirit.
The great gulls watch me float along the river, curiously,
and sail in the air overhead. Who knows what they say
of me when they talk together ; and what are they think
ing about when they fly quickly out of sight ? Perhaps
they know something about me that I do not know of
myself yet ; and so may the musk-rat, as he hurries through
the water with a little green branch in his mouth which
will make a salad for his supper. He watches me with his
sharp eyes, and whisks into his hole in the sunny side of
the island. I have a respect for him ; he is a busy creat
ure, and he lives well. You might be hospitable and ask
me to supper, musk-rat ! I don't know whether I should
care much for you, if I were another musk-rat, or you
were a human being, but I shall know you again when I
see you by an odd mark in the fur on the top of your head,
and that is something. I suppose the captive mussels in
your den are quaking now at hearing you come in. I have
lost sight of you, but I shall remember where your house
is. I do not think people are thankful enough who live out
JEWETT] RIVER DRIFT-WOOD. 115
of the reach of beasts that would eat them. When one
thinks of whole races of small creatures like the mussels
which are the natural and proper food of others, it seems
an awful fact and necessity of nature ; perhaps, however,
no more awful than our natural death appears to us. But
there is something distressing about being eaten, and hav
ing one's substance minister to a superior existence 1 It
hurts one's pride ! A death that preserves and elevates
our identity is much more consoling and satisfactory ; but
what can reconcile a bird to its future as part of the tis
sues of a cat, going stealthily afoot, and by nature treach
erous ? Who can say, however, that our death may not
be simply a link in the chain ? One thing is made the
prey of another. In some way our present state ministers
to the higher condition to which we are coming. The
grass is made somehow from the ground, and presently
that is turned into beef, and that goes to make part of a
human being. We are not certain what an angel may be ;
but the life in us now will be necessary to the making of
one by and by.
There is a wise arrangement in this merging and com
bining. It makes more room in the world. We must eat
our fellows and be eaten to keep things within a proper
limit. If all the orders of life were self-existing, and if
all the springs that make up the river flowed down to the
sea separately and independently, there would be an awful
confusion and chaos still ; but this leads one to think of
the transmigration of souls and other puzzling subjects !
I shall have to end with an ignorant discourse about the
globe instead of having begun with it. My river, as I
said at first, leads to the sea, and from any port one can
push off toward another sea of boundless speculation and
curious wonderings about this world, familiar and yet so
great a mystery.
116 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEWETT
There are a thousand things to remember and to say
about the river, which seems to be of little use in the
half-dozen miles I know best, after it has made itself of
great consequence by serving to carry perhaps a dozen or
twenty mills, of one kind and another. Between its dams
it has a civilized and subjected look, but below the last
falls, at the Landing, it apparently feels itself to be its
own master, and serves in no public capacity except to
carry a boat now and then, and give the chance for build
ing some weirs, as it offers some good fishing when the
alewives and bass come up, with bony and muddy shad,
that are about as good to eat as a rain-soaked paper of
pins. I think its chief use is its beauty, and that has
never been as widely appreciated as it ought to be. . . .
It sometimes takes me a whole afternoon to go two
miles down the river. There are many reasons why I
should stop every now and then under one bank or an
other ; to look up through the trees at the sky, or at their
pictures in the water ; or to let the boat lie still, until one
can watch the little fish come back to their playground
on the yellow sand and gravel ; or to see the frogs that
splashed into' the water at my approach, poke their heads
out a little way to croak indignantly, or raise a loud note
such as Scotch bagpipers drive out of the pipes before
they start a tune. The swallows dart like bats along the
surface of the water after insects, and I see a drowned
white butterfly float by, and reach out for it ; it looks so
frail and little in the river. When the cardinal flowers
are in bloom I go from place to place until I have gathered
a deck-load ; and as I push off the boat it leaves the grass
bent down, and the water-mint that was crushed sends a
delicious fragrance after me, and I catch at a piece and
put a leaf in my mouth, and row away lazily to get a
branch of oak or maple leaves to keep the sun off my
JEWETT] RIVER DRIFT-WOOD. \\i
flowers. Cardinals are quick to wilt, and hang their
proud heads wearily. They keep royal state in the shade,
and one imagines that the other flowers and all the weeds
at the water's edge take care to bow to them as often aa
the wind comes by, and pay them honor. They are like
fine court ladies in their best gowns, standing on tho
shore. Perhaps they are sending messages down the
river and across the seas, or waiting to hear some news.
They make one think of Whittier's high-born Amy Went-
worth and her sailor lover, for they seem like flowers
from a palace garden that are away from home masquer
ading and waiving ceremony and taking the country air.
They wear a color that is the sign of high ecclesiastical
rank, and the temper of their minds would make them
furies if they fought for church or state. They are no
radicals ; they are tories and aristocrats ; they belong to
the old nobility among flowers. It would be a pity if the
rank marsh grass overran them, or if the pickerel- weed
should wade ashore to invade them and humble their
pride. They are flowers that, after all, one should not
try to put into vases together. They have, like many
other flowers, too marked an individuality, and there is
more pleasure to be taken from one tall and slender spire
of blossoms by itself, just as it is pleasanter to be alone
with a person one admires and enjoys. To crowd some
flowers together you lose all delight in their shape and
beauty; you only have the pleasure of the mass of color
or of their perfume ; and there are enough bright flowers
and fragrant flowers that are only beautiful in masses.
To look at some flowers huddled together and losing all
their grace and charm is like trying to find companion
ship and sympathy by looking for a minute at a crowd of
people. But there is a low trait of acquisitiveness in
human nature. I pick cardinal flowers by the armful, and
JUS BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JEWETT
nothing less than a blue-and- white ginger-pot full of dai
sies is much satisfaction. . . .
On a spring day how the bobolinks sing, and the busy
birds that live along the shores go flitting and chirping
and whistling about the world ! A great fish-hawk drops
through the air, and you can see the glitter of the un
lucky fish he has seized as he goes off again. The fields
and trees have a tinge of green that they will keep only
for a few days, until the leaves and grass-blades are larger
and stronger; and where the land has been ploughed its
color is as beautiful as any color that can be found the
world over, and the long shining brown furrows grow
warm lying in the sun. The farmers call to each other
and to their horses as they work ; the fresh breeze blows
from the southwest, and the frogs are cheerful, and the
bobolinks grow more and more pleased with themselves
every minute, and sing their tunes, which are meant to
be sung slower and last longer, as if the sweet notes all
came hurrying out together.
And in the summer, when the days are hot and long,
there is nothing better than the glory of the moonlighted
nights, when the shrill cries of the insects fill all the air,
and the fire-flies are everywhere, and a whiff of saltness
comes up with the tide. In October the river is bright
steel color and blue. The ducks rise and fly away from
the coves in the early morning, and the oaks and maples
dress themselves as they please, as if they were tired of
wearing plain green, like everybody else, and were going
to be gay and set a new fashion in the cooler weather.
You no longer drift lazily with the current, but pull your
boat as fast as you can, and are quick and strong with the
oars. And in the winter the river looks cold and dead,
the wind blows up and down between the hills, and the
black pines and hemlocks stare at each other across the
HOPKIKSON] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 119
ice, which cracks and creaks loudly when the tide comes
up and lifts it.
How many men have lived and died on its banks, but
the river is always young. How many sailors have gone
down to the sea along its channel, and from what strange
countries have the ships come in and brought them home
again up this crooked highway! A harbor, even if it is
a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come
into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong,
because it takes something from the world, and has some
thing to give in return. . . .
The old elms and pines look strong yet, though once in
a while one blows over or is relentlessly cut down. The
willows by the river are cropped and cropped again. The
river itself never grows old ; though it rushes and rises
high in the spring, it never dries up in the autumn ; the
little white sails flit over it in pleasant weather, like flut
tering moths round the track of sunlight on the water;
one troop of children after another steals eagerly down to
its forbidden shores to play.
PATRIOTIC SONGS.
It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance that England, despite
her many centuries of literary activity and her accumulated treasures
of poetry of the finest grade, should never have produced a national
hymn that is worth the paper that it was written on. " God Save the
King" is ages behind the age we live in, and " Rule Britannia" is a
strained and artificial effort, infinitely below, in fire and spirit, the
" Marseillaise" of France or the patriotic strains of Scotland and Ire
land. America has been more prolific than the mother-country in
earnest and poetic songs of patriotism. Each of our great wars has
produced its national ode, differing in poetic merit, yet each instinct
120 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOPKINSON
with the spirit of liberty and progress. The first of these, indeed, the
" Hail, Columbia," of Joseph Hopkinson, was not a direct product of
the Revolutionary War, but was written in 1798, on the occasion of an
expected war with Prance. Yet it was produced ere the fire of the
Revolution had died out. We may add that it is of no high value as
a poem, and has not sustained its popularity as a song, though its air
is still highly welcome to the American ear.
HAIL, COLUMBIA.
Hail, Columbia ! happy land !
Hail, ye heroes ! heaven-born band !
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost ;
Ever grateful for the prize ;
Let its altar reach the skies.
Firm united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty ;
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.
Immortal patriots ! rise once more ;
Defend your rights, defend your shore ;
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize.
While offering peace sincere and just,
In heaven we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail.
Firm united, etc.
PATRIOTIC SONGS. 121
Sound, sound the trump of Fame !
Let Washington's great name
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Eing through the world with loud applause ;
Let every clime to Freedom dear
Listen with a joyful ear.
With equal skill and godlike power
He governs in the fearful hour
Of horrid war, or guides, with ease,
The happier times of honest peace.
Firm united, etc.
Behold the chief who now commands,
Once more to serve his country stands,
The rock on which the storm will beat,
The rock on which the storm will beat ;
But, armed in virtue firm and true,
His hopes are fixed on heaven and you.
When Hope was sinking in dismay,
And glooms obscured Columbia's day,
His steady mind, from changes free,
Resolved on death or liberty.
Firm united, etc.
The song of the War of 1812, the " Star-Spangled Banner" of Francis
S. Key, possesses far more of poetic power and of patriotic intensity, and
seems likely to live long in the affections of the American people as
their chosen national ode. The circumstances under which it was
written were of a very interesting character. We copy a brief descrip
tion of them from Cleveland's " Compendium of American Litera
ture:"
In 1814, when the British fleet was at the mouth of the Potomac
River, and intended to attack Baltimore, Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner
were sent in a vessel with a flag of truce to obtain the release of some
prisoners the English had taken in their expedition against Washing-
IV. F 11
122 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KEY
ton. They did not succeed, and were told that they would be detained
till after the attack had been made on Baltimore. Accordingly, they
went in their own vessel, strongly guarded, with the British fleet as it
sailed up the Patapsco ; and when they came within sight of Fort Mo-
Henry, a short distance below the city, they could distinctly see the
American flag flying on the ramparts. As the day closed in, the bom
bardment of the fort commenced, and Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner re
mained on deck all night, watching with deep anxiety every shell that
was fired. While the bombardment continued, it was sufficient proof
that the fort had not surrendered. It suddenly ceased some time before
day ; but, as they had no communication with any of the enemy's ships,
they did not know whether the fort had surrendered or the attack upon
it had been abandoned. They paced the deck the rest of the night in
painful suspense, watching with intense anxiety for the return of day ,
At length the light came, and they saw that " our flag was still there,'
and soon they were informed that the attack had failed. In the fervor
of the moment, Mr. Key took an old letter from his pocket and on its
back wrote the most of this celebrated song, finishing it as soon as he
reached Baltimore. He showed it to his friend Judge Nicholson, who
was so pleased with it that he placed it at once in the hands of the
printer, and in an hour after it was all over the city, and hailed with
enthusiasm, and took its place at once as a national song.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
"What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last
gleaming ?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous
fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly stream
ing;
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there :
Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
KEY] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 123
II.
On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam.
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream :
"Tis the Star-Spangled Banner; oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave I
in.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war, and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more ?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollu
tion ;
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave ;
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave !
IV.
Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation !
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a
nation !
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, " In God is our trust ;"
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave 1
124 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Hows
The patriotic ode of the civil war exists in the stirring trumpet-
blast of song of Julia Ward Howe's
BATTLE-HYMN OP THE REPUBLIC.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath
are stored ;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift
sword :
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling
camps ;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and
damps ;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring
lamps :
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel :
" As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace
shall deal ;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his
heel,
Since God is marching on."
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-
seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my
feet!
Our God is marching on.
SMITH] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 125
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me j
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Second only to the " Star-Spangled Banner" in the estimation of the
patriotic American is the "America" of Samuel F. Smith. It may
claim the merit that its patriotism is devoid of warlike appeals or the
boastfulness of national pride, and is simply that pure love of country
which seems instinctive to every true soul.
AMERICA.
My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing ;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring.
My native country, thee
Land of the noble, free
Thy name I love ;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills ;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song ;
Let mortal tongues awake ;
Let all that breathe partake ;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong
IT. 11*
126 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAKE
Our fathers' God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
To Thee we sing :
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light ;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King.
Joseph Hodman Drake's " Ode to the American Flag" comes
properly in place here. As a poem it is of the highest merit, and is
the one effort of its author to which he will owe any permanence of
fame.
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there ;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light ;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
Majestic monarch of the cloud !
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest trumping loud,
And see the lightning-lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven
Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given
DRAKE] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 127
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory !
Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet-tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on ;
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frightened waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
128 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Ki
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home !
By angel hands to valor given ;
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet !
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us !
The civil war of America has given rise to several fine poems. To
that of Julia Ward Howe, already quoted, may be added Thomas
Buchanan Read's stirring lyric of battle, which is as headlong in its
movement as the event that it commemorates.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
(jp from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The aifrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar ;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
KEAD] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 129
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down ;
And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed, as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible need :
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell ; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind,
And the steed, like a barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But lo !*he is nearing his heart's desire ;
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops.
What was done ? what to do ? a glance told him both ;
Then, striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,
iv. i
130 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FiNCH
He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray ;
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say,
" I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From "Winchester, down to save the day !"
Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan !
Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man !
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame,
There, with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright,
" Here is the steed that saved the day,
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester, twenty miles away !"
The song of the battle-field has fallen to the minor key of the dirge
for the dead, since time has drowned the last echo of the cannon, and
the broad shroud of the grass has long spread over the graves of victors
and vanquished alike. On one day of the year, at least, all enmity
vanishes from American hearts, and the resting-places of friends and
foes are alike decorated with the beautiful emblazonry of flowers.
The sentiment of this noble ceremony has been charmingly, rendered
into poetry in the subjoined verses of F. M. Finch.
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep on the ranks of the dead :
FINCH] PATRIOTIC SONGS. 131
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray.
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet :
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Under the laurel, the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.
From the silence of sorrowful hours,
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friend and the foe :
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray.
So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all :
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
132 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Owic*
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain :
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Wet with the rain, the Blue,
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done ;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won :
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red :
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead !
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ;
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER.
ROBERT DALE OWEN.
[Robert Dale Owen, born in New Lanark, Scotland, in 1804, was the
son of Kobert Owen, so celebrated in the early part of this century for
his socialistic and philanthropic projects. The son came to America
while quite young, and entered into political life, being elected to Con-
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 133
gress in 1843, and made char ge-& affaires at Naples in 1853. He be
came an ardent believer in spirit communication, and wrote several
works in advocacy of this belief. He also wrote works on Slavery
and other reform topics, an Autobiography, and a novel, " Beyond
the Breakers," from which we take a thrilling description of the
burning of a lake steamer. He died in 1877.]
HARTLAND lay awake. At first, the sounds of merri
ment and music outside chased sleep away ; and when these
gradually ceased, and the cabin was deserted, he still lay,
he did not know how long, listening to the plash of the
great wheel hard by, sinking at last into troubled and
broken slumber.
In the dead of night he suddenly became conscious of
the sound of footsteps overhead. Looking through the
skylight, he discerned the figures of two -men moving
silently about, one of them having a lantern in his hand.
Then he thought he heard their voices, speaking in eager,
suppressed tones. Thoroughly roused, he donned a por
tion of his clothes and proceeded to the upper deck. A.
third man had joined the first two, and Hartland asked
him what was the matter. In reply the latter pointed to
one of the smoke-stacks, saying, in a whisper, " Looks as
if it might be fire." Hartland then perceived dimly, by
the lantern-light, a slender line of light smoke or steam
rising close to the starboard smoke-pipe, and he became
aware that one of the two men whom he had first seen
held a hose, of which he was directing the contents on
this object of their suspicions. At first the stream of
water seemed to quench the fire, if fire it was, but after a
time the smoke began to reappear and to drift aft, though
still ascending only in feeble puffs. Hartland hesitated no
longer, but returned at once to the cabin, where he roused
the miller, and they awoke several other passengers, the
doors of whose state-rooms happened to be unlocked;
iv. 12
134 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
making no noise, however, for they were both men of
nerve and courage, and they knew the effect of a sudden
alarm at night among so great a crowd.
Those who had been aroused hastened from the cabin
and met the captain speeding up to the hurricane deck.
Still that ominous line of smoke ! gradually increasing
in volume, Hartland thought. A death-like stillness over
the boat, broken only by the dull, rushing sound of its
huge wheels.
"These emigrants below ought to be warned," whis
pered Nelson Tyler to Hartland ; and they both descended,
moving slowly and quietly among the sleeping multitude
that lay on the deck. They awoke the men gently, speak
ing in an undertone, and telling them it was better to be
ready, though there was no immediate danger. As the
officers, fearing disturbance, and confident, no doubt, that
they could soon master the fire, had given no alarm, the
news spread but gradually and without arousing any
violent demonstration. With a low murmur the crowd
arose.
Then the two mounted to the floor above. Men and
women, their faces deadly pale, were creeping silently from
the cabin, and soon the upper forward deck was nearly
filled. They could dimly see, on the cabin roof, a line of
men who had been organized to pass what few buckets
they had from the side of the vessel. The crowd watched
the result with feverish anxiety. No one spoke above his
breath. All eyes were turned to that long, dark cylinder
of smoke. It had doubled in volume, Hartland saw at a
glance, since he first had sight of it ; and the conviction
flashed over him that the supply of water was quite insuf
ficient to check the hidden flame. The horrors he had
read of, about fires at sea, rose vividly to his mind, but he
thrust them aside by a determined effort. He looked at
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 135
Tyler. It was evident that the miller too realized the
situation, yet he said but a word or two, and in a tone so
low that Hartland overheard only Ellen's name : then a
look of stern resolution passed over Tyler's face. Con
scious of his own strength and skill in swimming, he was
nerving himself for the struggle before him.
What a magnificent night it was! clear, cloudless;
starlight serene in its splendor, but no moon ; the wind a
moderate breeze, fresh and balmy, just stirring the lake
surface into gentle ripples. Nature in her quietest, holiest
aspect, shining with calm benignance from heaven, as if to
give earnest of peace and protection to the creatures of
earth.
Solemn the hush over that awe-struck crowd ! They
felt what might happen, though most of them, not having
noticed the gradual increase in that fatal smoke-column,
were still buoyed up by hope. How character, unmasked,
showed itself there ! Some seemed self-absorbed ; others
had gathered into groups, the selfish instinct overcome by
affection. Here a mother had brought her children to
gether and was whispering to them that they mustn't be
afraid. There a brother, his arm around a favorite sister,
was speaking some low word of comfort and encourage
ment. Hartland distinguished among the rest the fair
songstress of the preceding evening, half clad now, care
less of appearance, mute with terror, a young man, lately
her partner in that gay dance, by her side ; bewildered he
seemed, panic-stricken like herself; poor protector in a
strait like that ! She was not the only one who found out,
in that terrible night, the difference between a companion
fit to enliven hours of idleness, and a friend who will stand
stoutly by and succor, through gloom of danger, when life
is at stake.
Even a touch of the ludicrous mingled, as it will in the
136 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OWEN
most tragic scenes. One gentleman had a silver-bound
dressing-case strapped under bis arm ; another carried a
hat-box, which he seemed to guard with scrupulous care.
Tyler saw a young girl, who was standing near him, de
liberately unclasp a pair of handsome ear-rings, then roll
them carefully in her handkerchief, which she deposited
in her pocket. And one old lady, walking distractedly up
and down near the cabin door, kept eagerly asking the
passers-out if they were sure they hadn't seen anything
of her bundle. But all such frivolities were soon to cease.
How often, to the storm-tossed and bewildered mariner,
has there shone, from watch-tower or pharos, a feeble ray,
welcome as Hope herself, life-guide through night and
tempest ! But the hope, the safety of this waiting crowd
was in merciful darkness.
A faint flicker of light ! God in heaven ! It had shot
up along the edge of that large, dark smoke-pipe ! for a
moment it dimly showed the wan faces, a signal-fire,
omen of coming fate.
Another! A shudder crept through the watchers, a
long, low moan : they .saw it all now. The fiery element,
gathering power below, was slowly creeping upward upon
them. The crowd glared around with the instinct of
flight. Nothing but the waste of waters, with here and
there a star reflected from their dark depths ! And still,
as dreary monotone, the rushing plash of those gigantic
wheels !
Then there were eager inquiries for life-preservers.
Not one, they were told, on the boat! and the gilt glitter
in that luxurious cabin what a mockery now ! " The
thousands squandered there might, wisely spent, have"
saved that night hundreds of human lives.
As it was, a portion of the passengers went in search of
something to keep them afloat in case of the worst, return-
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 137
ing with chairs, stools, pieces of board, and the like.
Others, utterly unmanned, and abandoning all exertion,
gave way to wild bewailings.
A mother with several children entreated Mr. Hartland
to take charge of the youngest, a little girl.
"I am going below, madam," he replied, "where the
crowd is dangerous, and where she would run great risk
of being lost or crushed."
The mother submitted, kissing the child, and taking it
in her arms, and Hartland whispered to Tyler, "Let us
go down. We may approach the shore before the flames
gain head ; and if we have to swim for it, the chance is
better from the lower deck." So they descended.
Below, the forward deck was a mass of human beings.
To them the danger was even more apparent than to those
above. Flakes of flame already rose, here and there, from
the deck near the smoke-stacks. Even the heat was be
ginning to be felt. But there was one favorable circum
stance. The wind was westerly, a head-wind, though
veering a little on the starboard quarter, and flame and
smoke were blown aft, leaving the forward half of the
vessel clear.
Soon a larger fork of flame shot up, and there were
screams faintly heard from the small after-cabin. Some
of the inmates, attempting to lower the yawl that hung
astern, had been caught there by the drifting fire : their
fate was sealed.
That last burst of flame must have shown itself on the
upper deck, for there was a smothered cry from above,
and then a voice the captain's it seemed shouting in
loud tones to the pilot.
The alarm gained the crowd below, which swayed to
and fro. Women and children shrieked in terror as the
press came upon them. Men's voices rose, a hoarse mur-
iv. 12*
138 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OWEN
mur, like the gathering of a great wind. Tyler endeavored
to make his way to the bow, but found that impossible :
several stout Irish laborers turned threateningly upon
him. " I'll risk my chance above," he said to Hartland,
but the latter stayed below.
When the miller reached the upper deck a sheet of fire
already rose nearly as high as the smoke-stacks, and the
roof of the main cabin had caught. But he saw also in a
moment a change that kept hope alive. The smoke and
flames, instead of drifting aft, now blew dead to larboard.
The captain's command to the pilot had been to port the
helm and run the boat on shore.
But this change, bringing the mass of flame closer to
the passengers, so that those nearest the cabin felt the
hot breath on their cheeks, at first increased their alarm.
They crowded fearfully toward the bow, and many must
have been thrown into the water then and there, had
not a voice called out, " Don't crowd : they're heading
her for land." This assurance in a measure quieted the
terror-stricken throng. There was the suppressed voice
of lamentation, an appeal to Heaven for mercy here and
there, but still no clamorous shout, no wild outcry.
There could be seen, by that red glare, on some faces
the calm of resignation, on others the stillness of de
spair.
Though the flames spread steadily, the engine con
tinued to work, the wheels did their duty, and the
pilot noble fellow! still kept his post, though smoke,
mingled with thick sparks, swept in circling eddies
around him.
Each minute was bearing these four hundred souls
nearer and nearer to safety, and all eyes were now
strained in the direction of the vessel's course. The
olaze from that terrific bale-fire lighted up the lake
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 139
waters far and wide, and yes ! was at last reflected on
a low shore and trees. Some one near the bow cried out,
"Land! land!" Others caught and repeated the soul-
stirring cry. And, though the passengers in the rear of
the crowd were already in perilous vicinity to the spread
ing flames, a faint shout of exultation went up.
But terrible and speedy came the reaction. The boat
had been headed more and more to the left, and ere five
minutes had elapsed with a thud so heavy that she
shuddered through all her timbers the vessel struck a
hidden sand-bar, remaining fast, but before she settled
swinging by the stern till her after-cabin lay directly to
windward. Thus the breeze, which had freshened, blew
ri;ht from stern to bow.
O
Fearful was the result ! In an instant the whole body
of flame swept straight over the masses that had huddled
together on the forward decks. At the same moment the
huge smoke-stacks, loosened by the violent shock, fell,
with a loud crash, down through the cabin, their fall
being succeeded by a sudden and tremendous burst of
surging fire.
No restraint now ! No thought among that doomed
multitude save one, escape from the most horrible of all
deaths, to be burned alive ! In the very extremity of
despair they crowded recklessly on each other, sweeping
irresistibly forward till the front ranks were borne sheer
off the bow, then the next, then the next ! Ere three
minutes had elapsed, the waters swarmed with a strug
gling throng, men, women, children, battling for their
lives.
A few of the passengers in the rear rushed to the stairs,
but they were in flames. No escape from that scene of
horror, except by a leap of some twenty feet, from the
upper guards down to the waves below, already covered
J40 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OWEN
with a floundering mass. But most of those who were
left accepted the desperate alternative, flinging themselves
over the side of the boat. Many fell flat and became
senseless at once, sinking helplessly to the bottom ; others,
dropping straight down, soon rose again to the surface.
Now and then an expert swimmer, watching an opening
in the living screen, dived down head foremost. Scarcely
a score remained, the miller among them, on the extreme
bow. Even at that appalling moment his attention was
arrested by a brief episode in the scene of horror before
him. A young mother tall, graceful, with a look of re
finement and a pale, Madonna face, her arms around a
baby asleep, it seemed, in their shelter stood on the very
edge of the deck where the rush of the headlong crowd
had broken down the guards, alone ! her natural de
fender who knows? swept away by the human tor
rent, or perhaps, under the tyrant instinct of self-preser
vation, a deserter from her whom he had sworn to cherish
and protect. All alone, to earthly seeming at least, though
she might be communing even then with the Unseen, for
her colorless face was calm as an angel's, and her large,
dark eyes were raised with a gaze so eager it might well
be penetrating the slight veil, and already distinguishing,
beyond, guardian intelligences bending near, waiting to
welcome into their radiant world one who had been the
joy and the ornament of this.
As Tyler watched her, a tongue of flame swept so close
he thought it must have caught her light drapery. A
single look below, a plunge, and she committed herself
and her babe to the waves and to Him who rules them.
Tyler rushed to the spot where she had stood, but
mother and child had already sunk. For a brief space
moments only, though he thought of it afterward as a
long, frightful dream he gazed on the seething swarm of
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 141
mortality beneath him, poor, frail mortality, stripped of
all flaunting guise, and exhibiting, under overwhelming
temptation, its most selfish instincts bared to their darkest
phase.
The struggle to reach the various floating objects, and
the ruthlessness with which a strong swimmer occasion
ally wrenched these from the grasp of some feeble old
man or delicate woman, it was all horrible to behold.
Then, again, many swimmers, striking without support
for shore, were caught in the despairing clutch of some
drowning wretch, unconscious perhaps of what he did, and
dragged down to a fate from which their strength and
courage might have saved them. From the midst, how
ever, shone forth examples of persistent self-devotion :
husbands with but one thought, the safety of their wives ;
a son sustaining to the last an aged parent ; but above all
the maternal instinct asserted its victory over death.
Tyler, even in those fleeting moments, caught sight, here
and there among the crowd, of a woman with one hand
clutching a friendly shoulder or a floating support, holding
aloft in the other an infant all unconscious of impending
fate. In one instance, even, a chubby little fellow, thus
borne above the waters, clapped his tiny hands and
laughed at the gay spectacle of the bright flames.
Meanwhile, the wind, veering a little to the south, and
thus blowing fire and smoke somewhat to larboard, had
left on the starboard edge of the forward deck a narrow
strip, on which, though the heat was intense, some ten or
twelve persons still lingered beyond actual contact with
the flames. But each moment the fire swept nearer and
nearer, and Tyler felt that the last chance must now be
risked. He dropped into the~ water, feet foremost, and
disappeared.
"While these things passed, Hartland, below with the
142 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OWEN
steerage passengers, had witnessed similar scenes. Human
nature, cultivated or uncultivated, is, as a general rule,
in an extremity so dire, mastered by the same impulses.
The difference inherent in race, however, was apparent.
The sedate German, schooled to meet hardship and suffer
ing with silent equanimity, and now standing mute and
stolid, eyes fixed in despair, contrasted with the excitable
Celt, voluble in his bewailings. Hartland, like Tyler, had
kept himself aloof from the dense crowd, and so escaped
being carried along by the frenzied fugitives when the
flames first swept the forward deck. He was one of those
men whose perceptions are quickened by imminence of
danger. He noticed that the starboard wheel-house, which
had not yet caught, afforded a temporary shelter from the
cfrifting fire ; and, acting on a sudden conviction, he climbed
over the guards on that side of the vessel, a little forward
of the wheel, and let himself down till his feet rested on
the projecting wale of the boat. Thus, holding on by
the rail, he was able to maintain himself outside of the
blazing current until only a few stragglers were left on
deck.
There he remained some time, deliberately thinking
over the situation. As a boy he had learned to swim, but
for the last fifteen years he had been almost wholly out
of practice. He called to mind the rules with which he
had once been familiar, and the necessity of keeping the
eyes open so as to elude the grasp of drowning men. As
he held on there, the risk from such a contingency was
painfully brought to his notice. From time to time sev
eral of the passengers from the upper deck had slid down
near him. At last one heavy body, from immediately
above, dropped so close that it brushed his clothes and
almost carried him down with it. He turned to see the
fate of this man. After ten or fifteen seconds he saw him
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 143
rise to the surface again, and with a start recognized Nel
son Tyler. He was struggling violently, and Hartland ob
served that some one, as the stout miller rose, had clutched
him by the left arm with the tenacity of despair. Both
sank together, and Hartland saw them no more.
Several times he was about letting himself down, but
held back because of the crowds that he saw rising to the
surface and wrestling with death and with each other be
neath him. At last he was warned that his time had
come. Looking toward the bow, where several men,
imitating his example, were holding on outside the bul
warks, but unprotected by the wheel-house, he saw the
flames catch and terribly scorch their hands, the torture
causing them to quit their grasp and fall back headlong
into the waves. Still he watched, until, seeing a whole
mass of bodies sink together and thus leave an empty
space just below him, he commended his soul to. God, and,
springing from his support, sank at once to the bottom.
After a brief space, when his eyes had cleared a little,
he saw what it has seldom been the lot of human being
to witness. On the sand, there in the lower depths of
the lake, lighted by the lurid glare of the burning boat,
loomed up around him ghastly apparitions of persons
drowned or drowning, men, women, small children too :
some bodies standing upright as if alive ; some with heads
down and limbs floating ; some kneeling or lying on the
ground ; here a muscular figure, arms flung out, fingers
convulsively clinched, eyeballs glaring ; there a slender
woman in an attitude of repose, her features composed,
and one arm still over the little boy stretched to his last
rest by her side. Of every demeanor, in every posture,
they were, a subaqueous multitude! A momentary gaze
took it all in, and then Hartland, smitten with horror,
struck upward, away from that fearful assemblage, and
144 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OWEN
reached the surface of the lake and the upper world once
more.
There he found the water, not only around the bow,
whence most of the passengers had been precipitated, but
also between himself and the shore, so overspread with a
motley throng that he resolved to avoid them, even at
risk of considerably lengthening the distance. He swam
toward the stern, where the surface was comparatively
free, and, after passing one or two hundred yards beyond,
seeing no one now in the line of the land, which was dis
tinctly visible, he struck out vigorously in that direction.
Then he swam on, but with gradually diminishing
strength and courage and a little nervous trembling.
He estimated the distance to the land at half a mile.
It was, however, in reality, a quarter of a mile farther.
But the air was balmy, and, though the wind blew, the
waves were not sufficient to impede a stout swimmer.
There are hundreds among us who can swim a much
greater distance. Yes, if they start fair, mind and body
unexhausted. But after such a terribly wearing scene of
excitement as that the man fifty-seven years old, too
will his strength hold out to reach the land ?
Between the detached sand-bar on which the steamer
had stranded and the land the lake was deep. The bottom
was a smooth sand, and as one approached the low, level
shore the water shoaled gradually. Hartland, with great
exertion, had made about half the distance, when a man
the first survivor he had seen came up behind him,
swimming strongly. As he ranged alongside, Hartland
perceived, with equal pleasure and surprise, that it was
the miller whom so lately he had seen go down in what
seemed a death-struggle. Tyler called out to him, " Take
it quietly, Mr. Hartland: don't swim so hard. You can't
hold out so."
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 145
The other felt that the caution was timely. He became
aware that in his eager efforts he had overtasked his
strength. " You are right," he said. " I have been over
doing it : I must go more slowly."
" Can I assist you in any way ?"
" Thank you, no. You'll need all the strength you have.
Save yourself. Don't wait for me."
"Well," said the other, as he struck out in advance,
"perhaps it's best. I may help you yet."
Left alone, Hartland proceeded more leisurely, seek
ing to husband his powers. But for a man of his years,
unused to violent exertion, the distance was great, too
great, he began to feel, for reasonable hope that he might
reach the shore ; for he felt now, at every stroke, the
strain on his muscles, After a time, so painful was the
effort that he could scarcely throw out his arms. Then
a numbness crept over his limbs, gradually reaching his
body. He was resolute, scorning all weakness that suf
fered the mind to usurp control over the will ; he strug
gled, with Puritan hardihood, against the nervous help
lessness that was invading his whole system ; yet, even
while he despised and sought to repulse all imaginative
sensations, the fancy gained upon him that life was re
ceding to the brain. He had no longer power to strike
out. After a few random and convulsive movements, as if
the body rebelled against the spell that was cast over it,
he sank slowly to the bottom. An anxious sensation of
distress oppressing the breast followed, becoming grad
ually more urgent and painful, until in his agony he in
stinctively struck for the upper air, which he reached
almost immediately. A few deep inhalations, and a con
sciousness that he was now in comparatively shallow
water, restored for a minute or two the exhausted powers,
but after making a little way these soon failed again :
IV. Q k 13
146 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Tie could no longer maintain his mouth above water, and,
choking as a small wave broke over his face, he sank
a second time. Strange, this time, was the transition!
All pain, all anxiety, was gone. The world seemed grad
ually sinking away. As he went down, a sense of ease
and comfort came over him, while a strange haze diffused
around a yellow light. Then, as has happened to so many
thus approaching the term of earthly things, the man's
life passed in review before him. And there he argued
before the tribunal of his own conscience, as never before,
the question whether his conduct to wife and child had
been marked by that love which is the fulfilling of the law.
Many allegations he made, numerous pleas he brought
forward, urging the duty of discipline, setting out the
saving efficacy of severity, pleading the example of Him
who scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. In vain !
He was too near the veil. The light from Beyond, where
Love reigns evermore, shone through his filmy sophistry.
His soul heard the verdict against him ! It heard more
than the verdict. It heard those words, gentle yet terri
ble : " To him that hath shown mercy shall mercy be
shown." Then it cried out, entreating for a little more
time a year, a single year only in which to atone for
the harsh, unloving past. So eager grew the longing that
it drew forth from life's inmost depths the last residue of
that reserve fund which Nature, in kind foresight, provides
against a season of overwhelming exertion ; and once more
a spasmodic effort brought him to the surface and to suf
fering again. Yet he breathed ; he was still alive. How
could it be, after that hour, so crowded with incidents
spent below ? An hour ? That protracted trial, the accu
sation, the defence, the pleas he had set forth, the argu
ments he had employed, the verdict, the bitter repentance,
the prayer for respite to amend and repair the wrong,
OWEN] BURNING OF A LAKE STEAMER. 147
it had all passed in less than a hundredth part of the time
which, to his quickened consciousness, had seemed so long.
Some twenty seconds only had he tarried below. A vague
conviction of this stirred hope of life afresh, and a fe\v
feeble strokes carried him some yards nearer to the land.
Then again that leaden sense of exhaustion I He gave it
up. But this time, as his limbs sank beneath him, the feet
just grazed the ground. It was like the touch of mother
Earth to the Libyan giant kindling a spark of life. A
faltering step or two he made, and the water just mounted
to his chin. Had he reached the land too late? He
stretched out his arms toward it, but the body, powerless,
refused to follow. Even then the tenacity of that stub
born spirit asserted itself. He dropped on his knees, dig
ging his fingers into the sand and dragging himself along,
till he was forced once again to rise and take breath. But
with the light and the air came back excruciating pain.
Then an overwhelming torpor crepi, over sense and frame.
His limbs refused their office. Unable longer to maintain
himself erect, he dropped on the sand. A brief respite of
absolute rest there imparted a momentary courage. He
crawled, under the water, a few yards farther. Then
consciousness and volition gradually failed. As if by the
inherent powers of the system, uncontrolled by will, an
automatic struggle was kept up for a few seconds no
more! That was the last life-rally against fate. The
temptation to lie there quiet, immovable, all care dis
missed, all effort abandoned, was irresistible. But what
was this? a fearful reminiscence from the scene he had
escaped ? No. These bright sparks that flickered before
his eyes were lambent and harmless. In his brain, too,
there seemed an internal light, an irradiate globe, but
genial and illuminating, not burning. Then came back
again that wondrous atmosphere, that calm, effulgent
148 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GARFIKLD
pale yellow haze ; and with it such a sense of exquisite
enjoyment that all desire to return to the earth passed
from the soul of the expiring man. A smile over the
wan features, a slight quivering of the limbs, and then all
cognizance of the world and its doings had departed ;
and the spirit was entranced on the verge of that un
explored phase of life to come, where the wicked cease
from troubling and the weary are at rest.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
JAMBS A. GARFIELD.
[Among the Presidents of the United States it may be said without
question that Garfield ranked first as a man of broad thought and elo
quent expression. We may go further, and declare that in him the
demands of a political life robbed the literary world of the labors of
a thinker of unusual vigor and ability, moral elevation of ideas, and
happy facility of expression. Even the exigencies of statesmanship
did not quite check the natural tendency of his mind, and his addresses
and orations contain many finely-expressed sentiments which the
world will not willingly let die, words of higher meaning than what
is ordinarily known as worldly wisdom, pithy sentences, overflowing
with thought, and expressed with such happy brevity that many of
them must fall into their due places as part of the proverbial philoso
phy of mankind. The more striking of these sayings may be found
in "Garfield's Words," a compilation by William Ralston Balch.
From these we extract a few examples of that universal wisdom which
soars far above the level of ordinary statecraft. It would not be easy
to find in the pages of any modern writer so many noble thoughts
finely said as exist within the covers of this small volume.]
Garfield's Creed. I would rather be beaten in Eight
than succeed in Wrong.
GARTIELD] WORDS OF WISDOM. 149
A Principle. There are some things I am afraid of, and
I confess it in this great presence : I am afraid to do a
mean thing.
Speech at Cleveland, 1879.
Keep Growing. I must do something to keep my
thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much
as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.
Private Letter, 1868.
Danger. It may be well to smile in the face of danger,-
but it is neither well nor wise to let danger approach un
challenged and unannounced.
Jjying. It is not right or manly to lie, even about
Satan.
Warren, 0., 1874.
Governments and Man. Governments, in general, look
upon man only as a citizen, a fraction of the state. God
looks upon him as an individual man, with capacities,
duties, and a destiny of his own ; and just in proportion
as a government recognizes the individual and shields him
in the exercise of his rights, in that proportion is it God
like and glorious.
Ravenna, 0., 1860.
The Dead. We hold reunions, not for the dead, for
there is nothing in all the earth that you and I can do for
the dead. They are past our help and past our praise.
We can add to them no glory, we can give to them no
immortality. They do not need us, but forever and for
evermore we need them.
Geneva, 1880.
Oratory. "No man can make a speech alone. It is the
great human power that strikes up from a thousand minds
that acts upon him and makes the speech,
iv. 13*
150 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [&ARFIELD
Talent. If the power to do hard work is not talent, it
is the best possible substitute for it.
Discovery. Things don't turn up in this world until
somebody turns them up.
Opinion. In the minds of most men the kingdom of
opinion is divided into three territories : the territory of
yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle
ground of doubt.
House of Representatives, 1880.
Men and their G-od. There are times in the history of
men and nations, when they stand so near the veil that
separates mortals and immortals, time from eternity, and
men from their God, that they can almost hear their
breathings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the
infinite. Through such a time has this nation passed.
When two hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits passed
from the field of honor through that thin veil to the pres
ence of G-od, and when, at last, its parting folds admitted
the martyred President to the company of the dead heroes
of the republic, the nation stood so near the veil that the
whispers of God were heard by the children of men.
Oration on Abraham Lincoln.
Light. Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand
wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear
like owls and bats before the light of day.
The Value of Leisure. I congratulate you on your
leisure. I recommend you to keep it as your gold, as
your wealth, as your means, out of which you win the
leisure you have to think, the leisure you have to be let
alone, the leisure you have to throw the plummet with
your hand and sound the depths and find out what is
below ; the leisure you have to walk about the towers of
yourselves, and find how strong they are, or how weak
GARFIELD] WORDS OF WISDOM. 151
they are, and determine what needs building up, and de
termine how to shape them, that you may make the final
being that you are to be. Oh, those hours of building !
Hiram College, 1880.
fiobert Sums. To appreciate the genius and achieve
ments of Robert Burns, it is fitting to compare him with
others who have been eminent in the same field. In the
highest class of lyric poetry three names stand eminent.
Their field covers eighteen centuries of time, and the three
names are Horace, Beranger, and Burns. It is an inter
esting and suggestive fact that each of these sprang from
the humble walks of life. Each may be described as one
u Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil,"
and each proved by his life and achievements that, how
ever hard the lot of poverty, " a man's a man for a' that."
A great writer has said that it took the age forty years
to catch Burns, so far was he in advance of the thoughts
of his times. But we ought not to be surprised at the
power he exhibited. We are apt to be misled when we
seek to find the cause of greatness in the schools and uni
versities alone. There is no necessary conflict between
nature and art. In the highest and best sense art is as
natural as nature. We do not wonder at the perfect
beauty of the rose, although we may not understand the
mysteries by which its delicate petals are fashioned and
fed out of the grosser elements of earth, We do not
wonder at the perfection of the rose, because God is the
artist. When He fashioned the germ of the rose-tree He
made possible the beauties of its flower. The earth and
air and sunshine conspired to unfold and adorn it, to tint
and crown it with peerless beauty. When the Divine
Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in a
152 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [&ARFIELD
human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and
grows as from the rose-tree the rose.
Burns was a child of nature. He lived close to her
beating heart, and all the rich and deep sympathies of
life glowed and lived in his heart. The beauties of earth,
air, and sky filled and transfigured him.
" He did but sing because he must,
And piped but as the linnets sing."
With the light of his genius he glorified the "banks and
braes" of his native land, and, speaking for the universal
human heart, has set its sweetest thought to music,
" Whose echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever."
Oration on the Anniversary of Burns' 8 Death.
Great Men. As a giant tree absorbs all the elements of
growth within its reach and leaves only a sickly vegeta
tion in its shadow, so do towering great men absorb all
the strength and glory of their surroundings and leave a
dearth of greatness for a whole generation.
Successful Men. The men who succeed best in public
life are those who take the risk of standing by their own
convictions.
The Man Men Love. If there be one thing upon this
earth that mankind love and admire better than another,
it is a brave man ; it is a man who dares to look the devil
in the face and tell him he is a devil.
Pluck. A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
Proportion. If you are not too large for the place you
are too small for it.
Great Ideas. Great ideas travel slowly, and for a time
noiselessly, as the gods whose feet were shod with wool.
GARFIELD] WORDS OF WISDOM. 153
The World's History. The world's history is a divino
poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto and
every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along
down the centuries, and though there have been mingled
the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the
Christian philosopher and historian the humble listener
there has been a divine melody running through the
song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.
Province of History. Williams Quarterly.
English Liberty. English liberty to-day rests not so
much on the government as on those rights which the
people have wrested from the government. The rights
of the Englishman outnumber the rights of the English
man's king.
Thread of Progress. Throughout the whole web of
national existence we trace the golden thread of human
progress toward a higher and better estate.
Dishonor too Costly. The people of the United States
can afford to make any sacrifice for their country, and the
history of the last war is proof of their willingness ; but
the humblest citizen cannot afford to do a mean or a dis
honorable thing to save even this glorious republic.
Speech on the Currency, 1868.
National Institutions. It matters little what may be the
forms of national institutions, if the life, freedom, and
growth of society are secured.
Society. There is no horizontal stratification of society
in this country, like the rocks in the earth, that hold one
class down below forevermore and let another come to
the surface to stay there forever. Our stratification is
like the ocean, where every individual drop is free to
move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty
154 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GARFIELD
deep any drop may come up to glitter on the highest
wave that rolls.
The Surface and the Depths. Here society is a restless
and surging sea. The roar of the billows, the dash of the
wave, is forever in our ears. Even the angry hoarseness
of breakers is not unheard. But there is an understratum
of deep, calm sea, which the breath of the wildest tempest
can never reach. There is, deep down in the hearts of the
American people, a strong and abiding love of our country
and its liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever
shake. That kind of instability which arises from a free
movement and interchange of position among the mem
bers of society, which brings one drop up to glisten for a
time in the crest of the highest wave, and then give place
to another, while it goes down to mingle again with the
millions below, such instability is the surest pledge of
permanence. On such instability the eternal fixedness of
the universe is based. Each planet, in its circling orbit,
returns to the goal of its departure, and on the balance
of these wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad
base of His mighty works. So the hope of our national
perpetuity rests upon that perfect individual freedom
which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual
change.
Ravenna, 1860.
Wars without Ideas. Ideas are the great warriors of the
world, and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply
brutality.
The Cost of War. After the fire and blood of the battle
fields have disappeared, nowhere does war show its de
stroying power so certainly and so relentlessly as in the
columns which represent the taxes and expenditures of
the nation.
GABFIELD] WORDS OF WISDOM. 155
The Atlantic. The Atlantic is still the great historic
sea. Even in its sunken wrecks might be read the record
of modern nations. "Who shall say that the Pacific will
not yet become the great historic sea of the future, the
vast amphitheatre around which shall sit in majesty and
power the two Americas, Asia, Africa, and the chief colo
nies of Europe ? God forbid that the waters of our national
life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm !
It would be the stagnation of death, the ocean grave of
individual liberty.
Modern Haste. The greater part of our modern litera
ture bears evident marks of the haste which characterizes
all the movements of this age ; but in reading these older
authors we are impressed with the idea that they enjoyed
the most comfortable leisure. Many books we can read
in a railroad-car, and feel a harmony between the rushing
of the train and the haste of the author; but to enjoy the
older authors we need the quiet of a winter evening, an
easy-chair before a cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of
spirits we can command. Then the genial good-nature,
the rich fulness, the persuasive eloquence of those old
masters will fall upon us like the warm, glad sunshine,
and afford those hours of calm contemplation in which the
spirit may expand with generous growth and gain deep
and comprehensive views. The pages of friendly old
Goldsmith come to us like a golden autumn day, when
every object which meets the eye bears all the impress
of the completed year and the beauties of an autumnal
forest.
WUliams Quarterly, March, 1856.
156 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOUGHTON
PARADISE PLANTATION.
L. S. HOUGHTtfff.
["Louise Seymour Houghton, to whose able pen several very lively
and interesting descriptions of life in Florida are due, has here given
us a highly-humorous account of the toils and troubles of the agricul
turist in the " Land of Flowers." The party here described went to
Florida for their health, and, fancying that this desirable requisite could
be best found outside of hotels, and that health of body might be asso
ciated with health of purse, they purchased a tract of land, fitted up a
humble mansion, and went into amateur agriculture, with the results
below related.]
No one could deny that the house was pretty, and com
fortable too, when at last the carpenter and painter had
done their work, and the curtains and the easy-chairs and
the book-shelves had taken their places, and the great
fire, of pine logs was lighted, and the mocking-bird's song
streamed in with the sunlight through the open door and
between the fluttering leaves of the ivy screen at the win
dow. The piano was always open in the evenings, with
Merry or the Pessimist strumming on the keys or trying
some of the lovely new songs ; and Hope would be busy
at her table with farm-books and accounts ; and the Inva
lid in his easy-chair would be listening to the music and
falling off to sleep and rousing himself with a little clucking
snore to pile more lightwood on the fire ; and the mocking
bird in his covered cage would wake too and join lustily
in the song, till Merry smothered him up in thicker cover
ings.
The first duty was evident. " Give it a name, I beg,"
Merry had said the very first evening in the new home ;
and the house immediately went into committee of the
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 157
whole to decide upon one. Hope proposed Paradise Plan
tation ; Merry suggested Fortune Grove ; the Pessimist
hinted that Folly Farm would be appropriate, but this
proposition was ignominiously rejected ; and the Invalid
gave the casting vote for Hope's selection.
The hour for work having now arrived, the man war*
not slow in presenting himself. " I met an old fellow who
used to be a sort of overseer on this very plantation," the
Invalid said. " He says he has an excellent horse ; and
you will need one, Hope. I told him to come and see
you."
" Which ? the man or the horse ?" asked Merry, in a low
voice.
"Both, apparently," answered the Pessimist, in the same
tone, "for here they come."
" Ole man Spafford," as he announced himself, was a
darky of ancient and venerable mien, tall, gaunt, and
weather-beaten. His steed was taller, gaunter, and ap
parently twice as old, an interesting study for the oste-
ologist, if there be any such scientific person.
"He splendid saddle-hoss, missis," said the old man:
"good wuk-hoss, too; bery fine hoss."
" It seems to me he's rather thin," said Hope, doubt
fully.
"Dat kase we didn't make no corn dis year, de old
woman an' me, we was bof so bad wid de misery in the
leaders" (rheumatism in the legs). "But Sancho won't
stay pore ef you buys corn enough, missus. He powerful
good hoss to eat."
Further conversation revealed the fact that old man
Spafford was " de chief man ob de chu'ch."
"What! a minister?" asked the Invalid.
" No, sah, not azatly de preacher, sah, but I'se de nex'
t'ing to dat."
iv. 14
158 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOUGHTON
" What may your office be, then, uncle ?" asked the Pes
simist.
" I'se de section, sah," answered the old man, solemnly,
making a low bow.
" The sexton ! So you ring the bell, do you ?"
"Not azatly de bell, sah, we ain't got no bell, but 1
bangs on de buzz-saw, sah."
"What does he mean?" asked Merry.
The Pessimist shrugged his shoulders without answer
ing, but the " section" hastened to explain : " You see,
missy, when dey pass roun' de hat to buy a bell dey didn't
lift nigh enough ; so dey jis' bought a buzz-saw and hung
it up in de chu'ch-house ; and I bangs on de buzz-saw,
missy."
The chief man of the church was found, upon closer ac
quaintance, to be the subject of a profound conviction that
he was the individual predestinated to superintend our
farming interests. He was so well persuaded of this high
calling that none of us dreamed of questioning it, and he
was forthwith installed in the coveted office. At his sug
gestion, another man, Dryden by name, was engaged to
assist old man Spaiford and take care of Sancho, and a boy,
called Solomon, to wait upon Dryden and do chores. A
few day-laborers were also temporarily hired, the season
being so far advanced and work pressing. The carpenters
were recalled, for there was a barn to build, and hen
coops and a pig-sty, not to speak of a fence. Hope and
Merry flitted hither and thither armed with all sorts of
impossible implements,, which some one was sure to want
by the time they had worked five minutes with them. As
for the Pessimist, he confined himself to setting out orange-
trees, the only legitimate business, he contended, on the
place. This work, however, he performed vicariously,
standing by and smoking while a negro set out the trees.
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 159
" My duties appear to be limited to paying the bills,"
remarked the Invalid ; " and I seem to be the only member
of the family who cannot let out the job."
" I thought the farm was to be self-supporting," said
the Pessimist.
" "Well, so it is. Wait till the crops are raised," retorted
Merry.
"Henderson says," observed Hope, meditatively, "that
there are six hundred dollars net profits to be obtained
from one acre of cabbages."
" Why don't you plant cabbages, then ? In this seven-
acre lot, for instance ?"
" Oh, that would be too many. Besides, I have planted
all I could get. It is too late to sow the seed, but old
man Spaiford had some beautiful plants he let me have.
He charged an extra price because they were so choice,
but I was glad to get the best : it is cheapest in the end.
I got five thousand of them."
" What sort are they?" asked the Invalid.
"I don't know precisely. Spaiford says he done lost
the paper, and he didn't rightly understand the name
nohow, 'long o' not being able to read ; but they were a
drefful choice kind."
" Oh, bother the name !" said the Pessimist : " who
cares what it is? A cabbage is a cabbage, I presume.
But what have you in this seven-acre lot ?"
" Those are peas. Dryden says that in North Carolina
they realize four hundred dollars an acre from them when
they don't freeze."
The planting being now fairly over, we began to look
about us for other amusement.
" Better not ride old Sancho," remarked old man Spaf-
ford one day, as he observed the Pessimist putting a saddle
on the ancient quadruped.
160 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOUGHTON
" Why not, uncle ? You ride him yourself, and you said
he was a very fine saddle-horse."
" I rides he bareback. Good hoss for lady ; better not
put man's saddle on," persisted the old man.
The Pessimist vaulted into the saddle by way of reply,
calling out, "Open the gate, Solomon," to the boy, who
was going down the lane. But the words were not spoken
before Sancho, darting forward, overturned the deliberate
Solomon, leaped the gate, and rushed out into the woods
at a tremendous pace. The resounding beat of his hoofs
and energetic cries of " Whoa ! Whoa !" from his rider
were wafted back upon the breeze, gradually dying away
in the distance, and then reviving again as the fiery steed
reappeared at the same " grand galop."
The Pessimist was without a hat, and his countenance
bore the marks of many a fray with the lower branches
of the trees.
"Here, take your old beast!" he said, throwing the
bridle impatiently to Spafford. " What sort of an animal
do you call him ?"
The "section" approached with a grin of delight. "He
waw-hoss, sah. Young missus ride he afo' de waw, and
he used to lady saddle ; but ole marsa rid he to de waw,
an' whenever he feel man saddle on he back he runs dat
a- way, kase he t'ink de Yankees a'ter him;" and he ex
changed a glance of intelligence with Sancho, who evi
dently enjoyed the joke.
The Invalid, who during the progress of our planting
had spent much time in explorations among our " Cracker"
neighbors, had made the discovery of a most disreputable
two-wheeled vehicle, which he had purchased and brought
home in triumph. Its wheels were of different sizes and
projected from the axle at most remarkable angles. One
seat was considerably higher than the other, the cushions
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 161
looked like so many dishevelled darky heads, and the
whole establishment had a most uncanny appearance. It
was a perfect match, however, for Sancho, and that intel
ligent animal, waiving for the time his objection to having
Yankees after him, consented to be harnessed into the ve
hicle and to draw us slowly and majestically about in the
pine woods. He never objected to stopping anywhere
while we gathered flowers, and we always returned laden
with treasures to deck our little home withal, making
many a rare and beautiful new acquaintance among the
floral riches of pine-barren and hammock.
Meantime, peas and cabbages, and many a " green" bo-
sides, grew and flourished under old man Spafford's foster
ing care. Crisp green lettuce and scarlet radishes already
graced our daily board, and were doubly relished from
being, so to speak, the fruit of our own toil. Paradise
Plantation became the admiration of all the darky and
Cracker farmers for 'miles round, and it was with the
greatest delight that Hope would accompany any chance
visitor to the remotest corner of the farm, unfolding her
projects and quoting Henderson to the open-mouthed ad
miration of her interlocutor.
" Have you looked at the peas lately, Hope ?" asked the
Pessimist, one lovely February morning.
" Not since yesterday. Why ?"
" Come and see," was the reply ; and we all repaired to
the seven-acre lot in company. A woful sight met our
eyes, vines nipped off and trampled down, and general
havoc and confusion in all the ranks.
" Oh, -what is it ?" cried Merry, in dismay.
" It's de rabbits, missy," replied old man Spafford, who
was looking on with great interest. " Dey'll eat up ebery
bit o' greens you got, give 'em time enough."
" This must be stopped," said Hope, firmly, recovering
iv. I 14*
162 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HotiGHTON
from her stupor of surprise. " I shall have a close fence
put entirely around the place."
" But you've just got a new fence. It will cost
awfully."
"No matter," replied Hope, with great decision: "it
shall be done. The idea of being cheated out of all our
profits by the rabbits !"
" What makes them look so yellow ?" asked the Invalid,
as the family was looking at the peas over the new close
fence some evenings later.
" Don't they always do so when they blossom ?" asked
Hope.
" How's that, Spaiford ?" inquired the Pessimist.
"Dey ain't, not to say, jis' right," replied that function
ary, shaking his head.
" Why, what's the matter?" asked Hope, quickly.
" Groun' too pore, I 'spec', missis. Mighty pore piece
dis ; Ian' all wore out. Dat why dey sell so cheap."
"Then won't they bear?" asked Merry, in despairing
accents.
"Oh, yes," said Hope, with determined courage. "I
had a quantity of fertilizers put on. Besides, I'll send
for more. It isn't too late, I'm sure. We'll use it for
top-dressing ; eh, Spaiford ?"
" I declare, Hope, I had no idea you were such a
farmer," said the Invalid, with a pleasant smile.
" And then, besides, we don't depend upon the peas
alone," continued Hope, reflecting back the smile, and
speaking with quite her accustomed cheerfulness: "there
are the corn and the cabbages."
" And the potatoes and cucumbers," added Merry, as we
returned slowly to the house by way of all the points of
interest, the young orange-trees, Merry's newly-trans
planted wistaria, and the pig-pen.
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 163
" I rather suspect that there is our most profitable crop,"
said the Invalid, as we seated ourselves upon the piazza
which the Pessimist had lately built before the house.
He was looking toward a tree which grew not far distant,
sheltered by two enormous oaks. Of fair size and perfect
proportions, this tree was one mass of glossy, dark-green
leaves, amid which innumerable golden fruit glimmered
brightly in the setting sunlight.
" Our one bearing tree," answered Hope. " Yes, if we
only had a thousand like it we might give up farming."
" We shall have them in time," said the Pessimist, com
placently, looking abroad upon the straight rows of tiny
trees almost hidden by the growing crops. " Thanks to
my perseverance "
" And Dryden's," interpolated Merry.
"There are a thousand four-year-old trees planted,"
continued the Pessimist, not noticing the interruption.
" I wonder how many oranges that tree has borne ?"
" I suppose we have eaten some twenty a day from it
for the last three months," said Merry.
" Hardly that," said the Invalid ; " but say fifteen hun
dred. And the tree looks almost as full as ever."
" What if we should have them gathered and sold ?"
suggested Hope, "just to see what an orange-tree is
really worth. Spafford says that the fruit will not be so
good later. It will shrivel at last ; and we can never eat
all those oranges in any case."
Shipping the oranges was the pleasantest work we had
yet done. There was a certain fascination in handling the
firm golden balls, in sorting and arranging, in papering
and packing ; and there was real delight in despatching
the first shipment from the farm, the more, perhaps, as
the prospect of other shipments began to dwindle. The
peas, in spite of the top-dressing, looked yellow and sickly.
164 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOTJGHTON
The cucumbers would not run, and more blossoms fell off
than seemed desirable. The Pessimist left off laughing at
the idea of farming, and spent a great deal of time walk
ing about the place, looking into things in general.
"Isn't it almost time for those cabbages to begin to
head?" he asked, one day, on returning from a tour of
inspection,
" Dryden says," observed Merry, " that those are not
cabbages at all : they are collards."
" What under the sun are collards ?" asked the Invalid.
" They are a coarse sort of cabbage : the colored people
like them, but they never head, and they won't sell," said
Hope, looking up from a treatise on agricultural chemis
try. " If those should be collards !"
She laid aside her book, and went out to investigate.
"At any rate, they will be good for the pigs," she re
marked, on returning. " I shall have Behavior boil them
in that great pot of hers, and give them a mess every
day. It will save corn."
" Never say die !" cried the Pessimist. " ' Polly put the
kettle on, 'tie on, 'tie on ! Polly put ' "
The Invalid interposed with a remark. " Southern peas
are selling in New York at eight dollars a bushel," he said.
"Oh, those peas! Why won't they grow?" sighed
Merry.
The perverse things would not grow. Quotations went
down to six dollars, then to four, and still ours were not
ready to ship. The Pessimist visited the field more as
siduously than ever j Merry looked despondent ; only Hope
kept up her courage.
"Henderson says," she remarked, closing that well-
thumbed volume, "that one shouldn't look for profits
from the first year's farming. The profits come the
second year. Besides, I have learned one thing by this
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 165
year's experience. Things should not be expected to
grow as fast in winter even a Southern winter as in
summer. Next year we will come earlier, and plant
earlier, and be ready for the first quotations."
It was a happy day for us all when at last the peas were
ready to harvest. The seven-acre lot was dotted over
with boys, girls, and old women, laughing and joking as
they picked. Dryden and old man Spafford helped Hope
and Merry with the packing, and the Pessimist flourished
the marking-brush with the greatest dexterity. The Inva
lid circulated between pickers and packers, watching the
proceedings with profound interest.
In the midst of it all there came a shower. How it did
rain ! And it w r ould not leave off, or if it did leave off in
the evening it began again in the morning with a fidelity
which we would fain have seen emulated by our help.
One day's drenching always proved to be enough for those
worthies, and we had to scour the country in the pouring
rain to beat up recruits. Then the Charleston steamer
went by in spite of most frantic wavings of the signal-
flag, and our peas were left upon the wharf, exposed to
the fury of the elements.
They all got off at last, in several detachments, and we
had only to wait for returns. The rain had ceased as soon
as the peas w^ere shipped, and in the warm, bright weather
which followed we all luxuriated in company with the
frogs and the lizards. The fields and woods were full of
flowers, the air was saturated with sweet odors and sun-
shine and songs of birds. A messenger of good cheer
came to us also by the post in the shape of a check from
the dealer to whom we had sent our oranges.
" Forty dollars from a single tree !" said Hope, exult
antly, holding up the slip of paper. " And that after we
had eaten from it steadily for three months !"
166 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOUGHTON
'" The tree is an eighteen-year-old seedling, Spafford
says," said the Invalid, looking at the document with in
terest. " If our thousand do as well in fourteen years,
Hope, we may give up planting cabbages, eh?"
" The price will be down to nothing by that time," said
the Pessimist, not without a shade of excitement, which
he endeavored to conceal, as he looked at the check.
" Still, it can't go below a certain point, I suppose. The
newspapers are sounder on the orange question than on
some others, I fancy."
One would have thought that we had never seen a
check for forty dollars before, so much did we rejoice over
this one, and so many hopes of future emolument did we
build upon it.
"What's the trouble with the cucumbers, Spafford?"
asked the Pessimist, as we passed by them one evening
on our way up from the little wharf where we had left
our sail-boat.
" T'ink it de sandemanders, sah. Dey done burrow under
dat whole cucumber-patch, eat all de roots. Cucumbers
can't grow widout roots, sah."
" But the Florida Agriculturalist says the salamanders
don't eat roots," said Hope : " they only eat grubs and
worms."
Spafford shook his head without vouchsafing a reply.
" The grubs and worms probably ate the roots, and
then the salamanders ate them," observed the Pessimist.
" That is poetical justice, certainly. If we could only eat
the salamanders, now, the retribution would be complete."
" Sandemanders ain't no 'count to eat," said old man
Spafford. " Dey ain't many critters good to eat. De
meat I likes best is wile-cat."
" Wild-cat, uncle !" exclaimed Merry. " Do you mean to
say you eat such things as that ?"
HOUQHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 167
"Why, missy," replied the old man, seriously, "a wile-
cat's 'most de properest varmint going. Nebber eats
not'ing but young pigs, and birds, and rabbits, and sich.
Yankee folks like chicken-meat, but 'tain't nigh so good."
" Well, if they eat rabbits I think better of them," said
Hope. " And here comes Solomon with the mail-bag."
Among the letters which the Invalid turned out, a yel
low envelope was conspicuous. Hope seized it eagerly.
" From the market-man," she said. u ISTow we'll see."
She tore it open. A ten-cent piece, a small currency
note, and a one-cent stamp dropped into her lap. She
read the letter in silence, then handed it to her husband.
" Ha ! ha ! ha !" laughed the Pessimist, reading it over
his shoulder. " This is the worst I ever heard ! l Thirty-
six crates arrived in worthless condition ; twelve crates at
two dollars ; fifty at fifty cents ; freights, drayage, com
missions ; balance, thirty-six cents.' Thirty-six cents
for a hundred bushels of peas! Oh, ye gods and little
fishes!"
Even Hope was mute. .
Merry took the document. " It was all because of the
rain," she said. " See ! those last crates, that were picked
dry, sold well enough. If all had done as well as that wo
should have had our money back; and that's all we ex
pected the first year."
" There's the corn, at any rate," said Hope, rousing
herself. " Dryden says it's splendid, and no one else has
any nearly as early. We shall have the first of the
market."
The corn was our first thought in the morning, and we
walked out that way to console ourselves with the sight
of its green and waving beauty, old SpafFord being of the
party. On the road we passed a colored woman, who
greeted us with the usual " Howdy ?"
168 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HouGHTON
" How's all with you, Sister Lucindy ?" asked the " sec
tion."
"All standin' up, thank God! I done come t'rough
your corn-field, Uncle Spafford. De coons is to wu'k dar."
We hastened on at this direful news.
" I declar' !" said old Spafford, as we reached the fence.
" So dey is bin to wu'k ! Done tote off half a dozen bushel
dis bery las' night. Mought as well give it up, missis.
Once dey gits a taste ob it, good-byT
" Well, that's the worst I ever heard !" exclaimed the
Pessimist, resorting to his favorite formula in his .dismay.
" Between the coons and the commission merchants your
profits will vanish, Hope."
"Do you think I shall give it up so?" asked Hope,
stoutly. " We kept the rabbits out with a fence, and we
can keep the coons out with something else. It is only a
few nights' watching and the corn will be fit for sale.
Dryden and Solomon must come out with their dogs anJ
guns and lie in wait."
" Bravo, Hope ! Don't give up the ship !" said the In
valid, smiling.
" Well, if she doesn't, neither will I," said the Pessimist.
" For the matter of that, it will be first-rate sport, and I
wonder I haven't thought of coon-hunting before. I'll
come out and keep the boys company, and we'll see if we
don't ' sarcumvent the rascals' yet."
And we did save the corn, and sell it, too, at a good
price, the hotels in the neighborhood being glad to get
possession of the rarity. Hope was radiant at the result
of her determination: the Pessimist smiled a grim ap
proval when she counted up and displayed her bank-notes
and silver.
" A few years more of mistakes and losses, Hope, and
you'll make quite a farmer," he condescended to acknowl-
HOUGHTON] PARADISE PLANTATION. 169
edge. " But do you think you have exhausted the cata
logue of animal pests ?"
" No," said Hope, laughing. " I never dared to tell you
about the Irish potatoes. Something has eaten them all
up : Uncle Spafford says it is gophers."
" What is a gopher ?" asked Merry. " Is it any relation
to the gryphon ?"
" It is a sagacious variety of snapping-turtle," replied the
Invalid, " which walks about seeking what it may devour."
" And devours my potatoes," said Hope. " But we have
got the better of the rabbits and the coons, and I don't
despair next year even of the gophers and salamanders."
" Even victory may be purchased too dearly," said the
Pessimist.
"After all, the experiment has not been so expensive a
one," said the Invalid, laying down the neatly-kept farm
ledger, which he had been examining. " The orange-trees
are a good investment, our one bearing tree has proved
that, and as for the money our farming experiment has
cost us, we should have spent as much, I dare say, had we
lived at the hotel, and not have been one-half as com
fortable."
" It is a cosey little home," admitted the Pessimist, look
ing about the pretty room, now thrown wide open to the
early summer, and with a huge pot of creamy magnolia-
blooms in the great chimney.
" It is the pleasantest winter I ever spent," said Merry,
enthusiastically.
" Except that dreadful evening when the account of the
peas came," said Hope, drawing a long breath. " But I
should like to try it again : I shall never be quite satisfied
till I have made peas and cucumbers profitable."
" Then all I have to say is that you are destined to
drag out an unsatisfied existence," said the Pessimist,
iv. H 15
170 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWN
" I am not so sure of that," said the Invalid.
And so we turned our faces northward, not without a
lingering sorrow at leaving the home where we had spent
BO many sweet and sunny days.
" Good-by, Paradise Plantation," said Merry, as the little
white house under the live-oak receded from our view as
we stood upon the steamer's deck.
" It was not so inappropriately named," said the Inva
lid. " Our life there has surely been more nearly para
disiacal than any other we have known."
And to this even the Pessimist assented.
CENTENNIAL ORATION.
H. A. BROWN.
[The premature death of Henry Armitt Brown cut off in the prime
of life an orator whose unusually fine powers could not have failed,
had he lived to a riper age, to make their mark upon the world. He
was born in Philadelphia, December 1, 1844, and died August 21, 1878.
Of his orations probably the best in substance and finest in finish was
that made at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, on the occasion of the
completion of the first century of American Independence. We give
the peroration of this eloquent example of oratory.]
THE conditions of life are always changing, and the ex
perience of the fathers is rarely the experience of the sons.
The temptations which are trying us are not the tempta
tions which beset their footsteps, nor the dangers which
threaten our pathway the dangers which surrounded them.
These men were few in number ; we are many. They were
poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we are strong.
What is it, countrymen, that we need to-day ? Wealth ?
BROWN] CENTENNIAL ORATION. 171
Behold it in your hands. Power ? God hath given it you.
Liberty? It is your birthright. Peace? It dwells among
you. You have a government founded in the hearts of
men, built by the people for the common good. You have
a land flowing with milk and honey ; your homes are
happy, your workshops busy, your barns are full. The
school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing-press, have
welded you together into one. Descend those mines that
honeycomb the hills! Behold that commerce whitening
every sea ! Stand by your gates and see that multitude
pour through them from the corners of the earth, grafting
the qualities of older stocks upon one stem, mingling the
blood of many races in a common stream, and swelling
the rich volume of our English speech with varied music
from an hundred tongues. You have a long and glorious
history, a past glittering with heroic deeds, an ancestry
full of lofty and imperishable examples. You have passed
through danger, endured privation, been acquainted with
sorrow, been tried by suffering. You have journeyed in
safety through the wilderness and crossed in triumph the
Eed Sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who led you
hath not faltered nor the light of His countenance been
turned away.
It is a question for us now, not of the founding of a
new government, but of the preservation of one already
old; not of the formation of an independent power, but
of the purification of a nation's life ; not of the conquest
of a foreign foe, but of the subjection of ourselves. The
capacity of man 'to rule himself is to be proven in the
days to come, not by the greatness of his wealth, not by
his valor in the field, not by the extent of his dominion,
not by the splendor of his genius. The dangers of to-day
come from within. The worship of self, the love of power,
the lust of gold, the weakening of faith, the decay of public
172 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWN
virtue, the lack of private worth, these are the perils
which threaten our future ; these are the enemies we have
to fear ; these are the traitors which infest the camp ; and
the danger was far less when Catiline knocked with his
army at the gates of Eome than when he sat smiling in
the Senate-House. We see them daily face to face, in
the walk of virtue, in the road to wealth, in the path to
honor, on the way to happiness. There is no peace be
tween them and our safety. Nor can we avoid them and
turn back. It is not enough to rest upon the past. No
man or nation can stand still. We must mount upward
or go down. We must grow worse or better. It is the
Eternal Law : we cannot change it. ...
The century that is opening is all our own. The years
that lie before us are a virgin page. We can inscribe it
as we will. The future of our country rests upon us ; the
happiness of posterity depends on us. The fate of hu
manity may be in our hands. That pleading voice, choked
with the sobs of ages, which has so often spoken unto ears
of stone, is lifted up to us. It asks us to be brave, benev
olent, consistent, true to the teachings of our history,
proving " divine descent by worth divine." It asks us to
be virtuous, building up public virtue upon private worth,
seeking that righteousness which exalteth nations. It
asks us to be patriotic loving our country before all other
things ; her happiness our happiness, her honor ours, her
fame our own. It asks us, in the name of justice, in the
name of charity, in the name of freedom, in the name of
God.
My countrymen, this anniversary has gone by forever,
and my task is done. While I have spoken, the hour has
passed from us : the hand has moved upon the dial, and
the Old Century is dead. The American Union hath en
dured an hundred years ! Here, on this threshold of the
JACKSON] THE SINGER'S HILLS. 1^3
future, the voice of humanity shall not plead to us in vain.
There shall be darkness in the days to come ; danger for
our courage; temptation for our virtue; doubt for our
faith; suffering for our fortitude. A thousand shall fall
before us, and tens of thousands at our right hand. The
years shall pass beneath our feet, and century follow cen
tury in quick succession. The generations of men shall
come and go ; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten
to-day, 'and the glories of this noon shall vanish before to
morrow's sun ; but America shall not perish, but endure,
while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons.
THE SINGER'S HILLS.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
HE dwelt where level lands lay low and drear,
Long stretches of waste meadow pale and sere,
With dull seas languid tiding up and down,
Turning the lifeless sands from white to brown,
Wide barren fields for miles and miles, until
The pale horizon walled them in, and still
No lifted peak, no slope, not even mound
To raise and cheer the weary eye was found.
From boyhood up and down these dismal lands,
And pacing to and fro the barren sands,
And always gazing, gazing seaward, went
The Singer. Daily with the sad winds blent
His yearning voice.
" There must be hills," he said,
" I know they stand at sunset rosy red,
And purple in the dewy shadowed morn ;
Great forest trees like babes are rocked and borne
IT. 15*
174 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSON
Upon their breasts, and flowers like jewels shine
Around their feet, and gold and silver line
Their hidden chambers, and great cities rise
Stately where their protecting shadow lies,
And men grow brave and women are more fair
'Neath higher skies, and in the clearer air!"
One day thus longing, gazing, lo ! in awe
Made calm by ecstasy, he sudden saw,
Far out to seaward, mountain-peaks appear,
Slow rising from the water pale and clear.
Purple and azure, there they were, as he
Had faithful yearning visions they must be ;
Purple and azure and bright rosy red,
Like flashing jewels, on the sea they shed
Their quenchless light.
Great tears ran down
The Singer's cheeks, and through the busy town,
And all across the dreary meadow-lands,
And all along the dreary lifeless sands,
He called aloud,
" Ho I tarry ! tarry ye !
Behold those purple mountains in the sea !"
The people saw no mountains !
" He is mad,"
They careless said, and went their way, and had
No farther thought of him.
And so, among
His fellows' noisy, idle, crowding throng,
The Singer walked, as strangers walk who speak
A foreign tongue and have no friend to seek.
And yet the silent joy which filled his face
Sometimes their wonder stirred a little space,
And, following his constant seaward look,
One wistful gaze they also seaward took.
JACKSON] THE SINGERS HILLS. 175
One day the Singer was not seen. Men said
That as the early day was breaking red,
He rowed far out to sea, rowed swift and strong,
Toward the spot where he had gazed so long.
Then all the people shook their heads, and went
A little sadly, thinking he had spent
His life in vain, and sorry they no more
Should hear his sweet mad songs along their shore.
But when the sea with sunset hues was dyed,
A boat came slowly drifting with the tide,
Nor oar nor rudder set to turn or stay,
And on the crimson deck the Singer lay.
"Ah! he is dead," some cried. "No! he but sleeps,"
Said others, " madman that he is, joy keeps
Sweet vigils with him now."
The light keel grazed
The sands ; alert and swift the Singer raised
His head, and with red cheeks and eyes aflame
Leaped out and shouted loud, and called by name
Each man, and breathlessly his story told.
" Lo ! I have landed on the hills of gold !
See, these are flowers, and these are fruits, and these
Are boughs from off the giant forest trees ;
And these are jewels which lie loosely there,
And these are stuffs which beauteous maidens wear."
And staggering he knelt upon the sands
As laying burdens down.
But empty hands
His fellows saw, and passed on smiling. Yet
The ecstasy in which his face was set
Again smote on their hearts with sudden sense
Of half-involuntary reverence.
And some said, whispering, " Alack, is he
The madman ? Have ye never heard there be
176 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JACKSOX
Some spells which make men blind ?"
And thenceforth they
More closely watched the Singer day by day,
Till finally they said, " He is not mad.
There be such hills, and treasure to be had
For seeking there ! We too without delay
Will sail."
And of the men who sailed that way,
Some found the purple mountains in the sea,
Landed, and roamed their treasure-countries free,
And drifted back with brimming laden hands.
Walking along the lifeless silent sands,
The Singer, gazing ever seaward, knew,
Well knew the odors which the soft wind blew
Of all the fruits and flowers and boughs they bore.
Standing with hands stretched eager on the shore,
When they leaped out, he called, "Now God be praised,
Sweet comrades, were they then not fair ?"
Amazed,
And with dull scorn, the other men who brought
No treasures, found no mountains, and saw naught
In these men's hands, beheld them kneeling low,
Lifting, shouting, and running to and fro
As men unlading argosies whose freight
Of gorgeous things bewildered by its weight.
Tireless the great years waxed, the great years waned;
Slowly the Singer's comrades grew and gained,
Till they were goodly number.
No man's scorn
Could hurt or hinder them. No pity born
Of it could make them blush, or once make less
Their joy's estate ; and as for loneliness,
They knew it not.
DALLAS] WHEN THE HOUSE IS ALONE. 177
Still rise the magic hills
Purple and gold and red ; the shore still thrills
With fragrance when the sunset winds begin
To blow and waft the subtle odors in
From treasure-laden boats that drift and bide
The hours and moments of the wave and tide,
Laden with fruits and boughs and flowers rare,
And jewels such as monarchs do not wear,
And costly stuffs which dazzle on the sight.
Stuffs wrought for purest virgin, bravest knight ;
And men with cheeks all red, and eyes aflame,
And hearts that call to hearts by brother's name,
Still leap out on the silent lifeless sands,
And staggering with overburdened hands
Joyous lay down the treasures they have brought,
While, smiling, pitying, the world sees naught !
WHEN THE HOUSE IS ALONE.
MARY KYLE DALLAS.
[There are few persons possessed of nerves and an imagination wno
have not gone through the experiences here amusingly detailed. We
never know what a variety of unobtrusive sounds are drowned by the
roar of day, or lost in the activity of social life, until we are left to
keep house alone at night, with the buzz of day stilled, and our nerves
wrought up to concert pitch of anticipation. The inanimate gains a
voice in such a situation, and the wooden tongues of stairs, walls, and
furniture speak to one another across the rooms, without heed to the
shuddering mortal who listens in dread to their mysterious accents.]
WHEN the house is alone by itself inexperienced persons
may believe that it behaves exactly as it does when there
are people in it ; but that is a delusion, as you will dis-
178 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DALLAS
cover, if you are ever left alone in it at midnight, sitting
up for the rest of the family.
At this hour the deceitful house will believe that every
one has gone to bed, and will not think it necessary to
keep up the delusion of being wrapped in peace and silence ;
at this hour its true disposition will reveal itself.
To catch it at its best, pretend to retire, put out the gas
or the lamp, and go up-stairs. Afterward, come down
softly, light no more than one lamp, go into the empty
parlor and seat yourself at a table, with something to
read. No sooner have you done so than you will hear a
little chip, chip, chip along the top of the room, a small
sound, but persistent. It is evidently the wall-paper
coming off, and you decide, after some tribulation, that if
it does come off you can't help it, and go on with your
book. By the way, it is all sham ; you are not reading ;
you never read at such times ; but as you sit with your
book in your hand you begin to be quite sure that some
one is coming down-stairs. Squeak squeak squeak!
What folly! There is nobody up there to come down;
but there no, it is on the basement stairs. Somebody is
coming up.
Squeak snap ! Well, if it is a robber you might as
well face him. You get the poker and stand with your
back against the wall. Nobody comes up. Finally, you
decide that you are a goose, put the poker down, get a
magazine, and try to read.
There, that's the door. You heard the lock turn. They
are coming home. You run to the door, lift the vestibule
curtain, and peep out. Nobody there.! But as you linger
the door-lock gives a click that makes you jump. By
daylight neither lock nor stairs make any of these noises
unless they are touched or trodden on. You go back to
the parlor in a hurry, with a feeling that the next thing
DALLAS] WHEN THE HOUSE IS ALONE. 179
you know something may catch you by the back-hair,
and try to remember where you left off. Now, it is the
table that snaps and cracks as if all the Eochester knocks
were hidden in its mahogany. You do not lean on it
heavily ; and you have leaned on it heavily without this
result; but it fidgets you, and you take a rocking-chair
and put the book on your knee. Your eyes wander up
and down the page, and you. grow dreamy, when ap
parently the book-case fires off a pistol. At least, a loud,
fierce crack comes from the heart of that piece of furni
ture; so loud, so fierce, that you jump to your feet
trembling !
You cannot stand the parlor any more. You go up
stairs. No sooner do you get there than it seems to you
that somebody is walking on the roof. If the house is a
detached one, and the thing is impossible, that makes it
all the more mysterious. Nothing ever moaned in the
chimney before, but something moans now. There is a
ghostly step in the bath-room. You find out afterwards
that it is the faucet dripping, but you do not dare to look
at that time. And it is evident that there is something up
the chimney, you would not like to ask what.
If you have gas, it bobs up and down in a phantom
dance. If you have a lamp, it goes out in a blue explo
sion. If you have a candle, a shroud plainly enwraps the
wick and falls towards you.
The shutters shake as if a hand clutched them, and
finally a doleful cat begins to moan down cellar. You do
not keep a cat, and this finishes you. You pretend to read
no longer ; and as you sit with a towel over your head
and face, and hear something under the surbase go " shew,
shew, shew," like a little saw, you do not wonder at the
old ghost-stories.
Ten minutes afterwards the bell rings ; the belated ones
180 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
come home; the lights are lit; perhaps something must
be got out to eat. People talk and tell where they have
been, and ask if you were lonesome. And not a stair
creaks. No step is heard on the roof; no click at the
front door. Neither book-case nor table cracks. The
house has on its company manners, only you have found
out how it behaves when it is all alone.
DAISY MILLER.
HENRY JAMES.
["Daisy Miller," the shortest romance of Henry James, has at
tracted more attention and excited more adverse criticism than perhaps
all his other works together. Prominent as he is as a novelist, he is
to many chiefly known as the author of "Daisy Miller," and as the
drawer of an intensely false picture of the American girl abroad.
As a representation of the average American girl, indeed, the fair and
free Daisy could hardly be accepted. But there are many American
girls on the wrong side of the average, and in this list Daisy Miller
is a perfectly credible possibility. The system of training pursued in
some American families, and the customs current in some of the lower
phases of American society, are well adapted to produce such an unde
sirable result of social freedom. The novelist can claim any rights
which do not overstep the borders of the possible, so long as he does
not offer a social monstrosity as a fair average representation of any
state of society or nationality. We may say, by way of introduction
to our selection, that Mr. Winterbourne is a young American dwelling
at Geneva, who meets the Miller family at Yevay and with surprising
ease and informality makes the acquaintance of the charming flirt
Daisy. The scene we give is his second interview with this free-and-
easy young lady, who has yet not even learned the name of her new
acquaintance.]
" ARE you sure it is your mother ? Can you distinguish
her in this thick dusk ?" Winterbourne asked.
JAMES] DAISY MILLER. 181
" "Well !" cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh ; " I guess
I know my own mother ! And when she has got on my
shawl, too! She is always wearing my things."
The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered
vaguely about the spot at which she had checked her
steps.
" I am afraid your mother doesn't see you," said Win-
terbourne. " Or perhaps," he added, thinking with Miss
Miller the joke permissible, "perhaps she feels guilty
about your shawl."
" Oh, it's a fearful old thing!" the young girl replied,
serenely. " I told her she could wear it. She won't come
here, because she sees you."
"Ah, then," said Winterbourne, "I had better leave
you."
" Oh, no ; come on !" urged Miss Daisy Miller.
" I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve of my walking
with you."
Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. " It isn't for
me ; it's for you, that is, it's for her. Well, I don't know
who it's for ! But mother doesn't like any of my gentle
men friends. She's right down timid. She always makes
a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I do introduce
them, almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentle
men friends to mother," the young girl added, in her little
soft flat monotone, " I shouldn't think I was natural."
" To introduce me," said Winterbourne, "you must know
my name." And he proceeded to pronounce it.
"Oh, dear, I can't say all that!" said his companion,
with a laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs.
Miller, who, as they drew near, walked to the parapet of
the garden, and leaned upon it, looking intently at the lake,
and turning her back to them. " Mother !" said the young
girl, in a tone of decision. Upon thi the elder lady turned
182 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
round. " Mr. Winterbourne," said Miss Daisy Miller, in
troducing the young man very frankly and prettily.
" Common" she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced
her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with
her commonness, she had a singularly delicate grace.
Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wan
dering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead
decorated with a certain amount of thin, much-frizzled
hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with
extreme elegance ; she had enormous diamonds in her ears.
So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no
greeting : she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy
was near her, pulling her shawl straight.
"What are you doing, poking round here ?" this young
lady inquired, but by no means with that harshness of
accent which her choice of words may imply.
"I don't know," said her mother, turning toward the
lake again.
"I shouldn't think you'd want that shawl!" Daisy ex
claimed.
" Well, I do I" her mother answered, with a little laugh.
" Did you get Randolph to go to bed ?" asked the young
g irl - .
" No ; I couldn't induce him," said Mrs. Miller, very
gently. " He wants to talk to the waiter. He likes to
talk to that waiter."
" I was telling Mr. Winterbourne," the young girl went
on ; and to the young man's ear her tone might have indi
cated that she had been uttering his name all her life.
" Oh, yes !" said Winterbourne ; " I have the pleasure
of knowing your son."
Randolph's mamma was silent ; she turned her attention
to the lake. But at last she spoke. " Well, I don't see
how he lives!"
JAMES] DAISY MILLER. 183
" Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at Dover," said Daisy
Miller.
" And what occurred at Dover?" Winterbourne asked.
"He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all
night in the public parlor. He wasn't in bed at twelve
o'clock : I know that."
"It was half-past twelve," declared Mrs. Miller, with
mild emphasis.
"Does he sleep much during the day?" Winterbourne
demanded.
" I guess he doesn't sleep much," Daisy rejoined.
" I wish he would !" said her mother. " It seems as it
he couldn't."
" I think he's real tiresome," Daisy pursued.
Then, for some moments, there was silence. ""Well,
Daisy Miller," said the elder lady, presently, " I shouldn't
think you'd want to talk against your own brother!"
" Well, he is tiresome, mother," said Daisy, quite with
out the asperity of a retort.
" He's only nine," urged Mrs. Miller.
" Well, he wouldn't go to that castle," said the young
girl. "I'm going there with Mr. Winterbourne."
To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy's
mamma offered no response. Winterbourne took for
granted that she deeply disapproved of the projected ex
cursion ; but he said to himself that she was a simple, easily-
managed person, and that a few deferential protestations
would take the edge from her displeasure. " Yes," he
began ; " your daughter has kindly allowed me the honor
of being her guide."
Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with
a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a
few steps farther, gently humming to herself. " I presume
you will go in the cars," said her mother.
184 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
" Yes, or in the boat," said Winterbourne.
" Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. Miller rejoined.
" I have never been to that castle."
" It is a pity you shouldn't go," said Winterbourne, be
ginning to feel reassured as to her opposition. And yet
he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of course,
she meant to accompany her daughter.
We've been thinking ever so much about going," she
pursued ; " but it seems as if we couldn't. Of course
Daisy she wants to go round. But there's a lady here
I don't know her name she says she shouldn't think
we'd want to go to see castles here ; she should think we'd
want to wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if there
would be so many there," continued Mrs. Miller, with an
air of increasing confidence. " Of course, we only want to
see the principal ones. We visited several in England,' 1
she presently added.
" Ah, yes ! in England there are beautiful castles," said
Winterbourne. "But Chillon, here, is very well worth
seeing."
" Well, if Daisy feels up to it " said Mrs. Miller, in a
tone impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the
enterprise. " It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn't
undertake."
" Oh, I think she'll enjoy it !" Winterbourne declared.
And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that
he was to have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young
lady, who was still strolling along in front of them, softly
vocalizing. " You are not disposed, madam," he inquired,
" to undertake it yourself?"
Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and
then walked forward in silence. Then " I guess she had
better go alone," she said, simply. Winterbourne observed
to himself that this was a very different type of maternity
JAMES] DAISY MILLER. 185
from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves
in the forefront of social intercourse in the dark old city
at the other end of the lake. But his meditations were in
terrupted by hearing his name very distinctly pronounced
by Mrs. Miller's unprotected daughter.
" Mr. Winterbourne," murmured Daisy.
" Mademoiselle !" said the young man.
" Don't you want to take me out in a boat ?"
' At present ?" he asked.
" Of course !" said Daisy.
"Well, Annie Miller!" exclaimed her mother.
" I beg you, madam, to let her go," said Winterbourne,
ardently ; for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of
guiding through the summer starlight a skiif freighted
with a fresh and beautiful young girl.
" I shouldn't think she'd want to," said her mother. ' I
should think she'd rather go in-doors."
" I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy
declared. " He's so awfully devoted !"
" I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight."
" I don't believe it !" said Daisy.
" Well !" ejaculated the elder lady again.
"You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her
daughter went on.
" I have been having some very pleasant conversation
with your mother," said Winterbourne.
" Well, I want you to take me out in a boat !" Daisy
repeated. They had all stopped, and she had turned round
and was looking at Winterbourne. Her face wore a
charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was
swinging her great fan about. " No ; it's impossible to be
prettier than that," thought Winterbourne.
" There are half a dozen boats moored at that landing-
place," he said, pointing to certain steps which descended
iv. 16*
186 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
from the garden to the lake. "If you will do me the
honor to accept my arm, we will go and select one of
them."
Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head
and gave a little, light laugh. " I like a gentleman to be
formal," she declared.
" I assure you it's a formal offer."
" I was bound I would make you say something," Daisy
went on.
"You see, it's not very difficult," said Winterbourne.
" But I am afraid you are chaffing me."
" I think not, sir," replied Mrs. Miller, very gently.
" Do, then, let me give you a row," he said to the young
girl.
" It's quite lovely, the way you say that !" cried Daisy.
14 It will be still more lovely to do it."
"Yes, it would be lovely!" said Daisy. But she made
no movement to accompany him ; she only stood there
laughing.
" I should think you had better find out what time it is,"
interposed her mother.
" It is eleven o'clock, madam," said a voice with a for
eign accent, out of the neighboring darkness ; and Winter-
bourne, turning, perceived the florid personage who was
in attendance upon the two ladies. He had apparently
just approached.
" Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, " I am going out in a boat."
Eugenio bowed. " At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle ?"
" I am going with Mr. Winterbourne, this very minute."
" Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Miller to the courier.
" I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoi
selle," Eugenio declared.
Winterbourne wished to heaven this pretty girl were
not so familiar with her courier; but he said nothing.
JAMES] DAISY MILLER. 187
"I suppose you don't think it's proper 1" Daisy ex
claimed. " Eugenio doesn't think anything's proper."
" I am at your service," said Winterbourne.
" Does mademoiselle propose to go alone ?" asked Eugenio
of Mrs. Miller.
" Oh, no ; with this gentleman !" answered Daisy's
mamma.
The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne, the
latter thought he was smiling, and then, solemnly, with
a bow, " As mademoiselle pleases !" he said.
u Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss !" said Daisy. " I
don't care to go now."
" I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go," said Win
terbourne.
" That's all I want, a little fuss !" And the young girl
began to laugh again.
" Mr. Randolph has gone to bed !" the courier announced,
frigidly.
" Oh, Daisy ; now we can go!" said Mrs. Miller.
Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him,
smiling, and fanning herself. " Good-night," she said :
"I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, or some
thing!"
He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. " I
am puzzled," he answered.
" Well, I hope it won't keep you awake !" she said, very
smartly ; and, under the escort of the privileged Eugenio,
the two ladies passed toward the house.
Winterbourne stood looking after them : he was indeed
puzzled. He lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an
hour, turning over the mystery of the young girl's sudden
familiarities and caprices. But the only very definite con
clusion he came to was that he should enjoy deucedly
" going off" with her somewhere.
188 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [JAMES
[Two days afterwards Winterbourne and Daisy pay their projected
visit to the Castle of Chillon. But the young lady proved far more
interested in her companion than in the story of the castle, and did
not hesitate to ask him a multitude of personal questions, and to vol
unteer information about her own life-history.]
" Well, I hope you know enough !" she said to her com
panion, after he had told her the history of the unhappy
Bonivard. " I never saw a man that knew so much !"
The history of Bonivard had evidently, as they say, gone
into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to
say that she wished Winterbourne would travel with them
and "go round" with them; they might know something,
in that case. " Don't you want to come and teach Ran
dolph ?" she asked. Winterbourne said that nothing could
possibly please him so much, but that he had unfortunately
other occupations. " Other occupations ? I don't believe
it !" said Miss Daisy. " What do you mean ? You are
not in business." The young man admitted that he was
not in business ; but he had engagements which, even
within a day or two, would force him to go back to Geneva.
"Oh, bother!" she said: "I don't believe it!" and she
began to talk about something else. But a few minutes
later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design
of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, " You
don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva ?"
" It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to
Geneva to-morrow."
" Well, Mr. Winterbourne," said Daisy, " I think you're
horrid!"
" Oh, don't say such dreadful things !" said Wintev-
bourne, "just at the last!"
" The last !" cried the young girl ; " I call it the first. I
nave half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to
the hotel alone." And for the next ten minutes she did
JAMES] DAISF MILLER. 189
nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was
fairly bewildered ; no young lady had as yet done him
the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of
his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay
any attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties
of the lake ; she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer
in Geneva whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for
granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss
Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva ?
Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person,
was quite unable to discover ; and he was divided between
amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amuse
ment at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to
him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture of innocence
and crudity. "Does she never allow you more than
three days at a time ?" asked Daisy, ironically. " Doesn't
she give you a vacation in summer ? There's no one so
hard worked but they can get leave to go off somewhere
at this season. I suppose if you stay another day she'll
come after you in the boat. Do wait over till Friday, and
I will go down to the landing to see her arrive." Winter
bourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disap
pointed in the temper in which the young lady had em
barked. If he had missed the personal accent, the
personal accent was now making its appearance. It
sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she
would stop " teasing" him if he would promise her sol
emnly to come down to Borne in the winter.
" That's not a difficult promise to make," said Winter-
bourne. " My aunt has taken an apartment in Eome for
the winter, and has already asked me to come and see
her."
" I don't want you to come for your aunt," said Daisy ;
" I want you to come for me." And this was the only
190 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIER
allusion that the young man was ever to hear her make
to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at any
rate, he would certainly come. After this Daisy stopped
teasing. Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove
back to Yevay in the dusk; the young girl was very
quiet.
In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Cos-
tello that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon with Miss
Daisy Miller.
" The Americans of the courier ?" asked this lady.
" Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, " the courier stayed
at home."
" She went with you all alone ?"
' All alone."
Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle.
" And that," she exclaimed, " is the young person whom
you wanted me to know !"
THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY.
SIDNEY LANIER.
FOR a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. The
little Ocklawaha steamboat Marion a steamboat which is
like nothing in the world so much as a Pensacola gopher
with a preposterously exaggerated back had started
from Pilatka some hours before daylight, having taken on
her passengers the night previous ; and by seven o'clock
of such a May morning as no words could describe, unless
words were themselves May mornings, we had made the
twenty -five miles up the St. Johns, to where the Ocklawaha
LANIER] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 191
flows into that stream nearly opposite Welaka, one hun
dred miles above Jacksonville.
Just before entering the mouth of the river our little
gopher-boat scrambled alongside a long raft of pine logs
which had been brought in separate sections down the
Ocklawaha, and took off the lumbermen, to carry them
back for another descent while this raft was being towed
by a tug to Jacksonville.
Observe that man who is now stepping from the wet
logs to the bow of the Marion: how can he ever cut down
a tree ? He is a slim native, and there is not bone enough
in his whole body to make the left leg of a good English
coal-heaver ; moreover, he does not seem to have the least
idea that a man needs grooming. He is dishevelled and
wry -trussed to the last degree ; his poor weasel jaws nearly
touch their inner sides as they suck at the acrid ashes in
his dreadful pipe ; and there is no single filament of either
his hair or his beard that does not look sourly and at wild
angles upon its neighbor filament. His eyes are viscidly
unquiet ; his nose is merely dreariness come to a point ; the
corners of his mouth are pendulous with that sort of suf
fering which does not involve any heroism, such as being
out of tobacco, waiting for the corn-bread to get cooked,
and the like ; his But, poor devil ! I withdraw all
these remarks. He has a right to look dishevelled, or any
other way he likes. For listen : " Wall, sir," he says, with
a dilute smile, as he wearily leans his arm against the low
deck where I am sitting, " ef we didn't have ther senter-
mentillest rain right thar last night, I'll be dad-busted."
He had been in it all night.
Presently we rounded the raft, abandoned the broad and
garish highway of the St. Johns, and turned off to the
right into the narrow lane of the Ocklawaha, the sweetest
water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than
192 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
a hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedge
rows of oaks and cypresses and palms and bays and mag
nolias and mosses and manifold vine-growths ; a lane clean
to travel along, for there is never a speck of dust in it,
save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind blows
out of the flags and lilies ; a lane which is as if a typical
woods-stroll had taken shape, and as if God had turned
kito water and trees the recollection of some meditative
ramble through the lonely seclusions of His own soul.
As we advanced up the stream our wee craft even seemed
to emit her steam in more leisurely whiffs, as one puffs
one's cigar in a contemplative walk through the forest.
Dick, the pole-man, a man of marvellous fine functions
when we shall presently come to the short, narrow curves,
lay asleep on the guards, in great peril of rolling into
the river over the three inches between his length and the
edge ; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not ; the
white crane, the curlew, the limpkin, the heron, the water-
turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avocations
as we passed, and quickly succeeded in persuading them
selves after each momentary excitement of our gliding
by that we were really, after all, no monster, but only
some day-dream of a monster. The stream, which in its
broader stretches reflected the sky so perfectly that it
seemed a ribbon of heaven bound in lovely doublings along
the breast of the land, now began to narrow ; the blue of
heaven disappeared, and the green of the overleaning trees
assumed its place. The lucent current lost all semblance
of water. It was simply a distillation of many-shaded
foliages, smoothly sweeping along beneath us. It was
green trees, fluent. One felt that a subtle amalgamation
and mutual give-and-take had been effected between the
natures of water and leaves. A certain sense of pellucid-
ness seemed to breathe coolly out of the woods on either
LAZIER] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 193
side of us, and the glassy dream of a forest over which we
Bailed appeared to send up exhalations of balms and odors
and stimulant pungencies.
" Look at that snake in the water," said a gentleman, as
we sat on deck with the engineer, just come up from his
watch.
The engineer smiled. " Sir, it is a water-turkey," he
said, gently.
The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird within
the range of ornithology. He is not a bird ; he is a neck,
with such subordinate rights, members, appurtenances, and
hereditaments thereunto appertaining as seem necessary
to that end. He has just enough stomach to arrange
nourishment for his neck, just enough wings to fly pain
fully along with his neck, and just big enough legs to keep
his neck from dragging on the ground ; and his neck is
light-colored, while the rest of him is black. When he
saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then sud
denly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball
out of sight, and made us think he was drowned, when
presently the tip of his beak appeared, then the length of
his neck lay along the surface of the water, and in this
position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck,
drew it back, wriggled it. twisted it, twiddled it, and spi
rally poked it into the east, the west, the north, and the
south, with a violence of involution and a contortionary
energy that made one think in the same breath of cork
screws and of lightnings. But what nonsense ! All that
labor and perilous asphyxiation for a beggarly sprat or a
couple of inches of water-snake !
But I make no doubt he would have thought us as
absurd as we him if he could have seen us taking our
breakfast a few minutes later. For as we sat there, some
half-dozen men at table, all that sombre melancholy which
iv. i n 17
194 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIEB
comes over the American at his meals descended upon us.
No man talked ; each of us could hear the other crunch
his bread in faucibus, and the noise thereof seemed in the
ghostly stillness like the noise of earthquakes and of
crashing worlds. Even the furtive glances towards each
other's plates were presently awed down to a sullen gazing
of each into his own; the silence increased, the noises
became intolerable, a cold sweat broke out over at least
one of us ; he felt himself growing insane, and rushed out
to the deck with a sigh as of one saved from a dreadful
death by social suffocation.
There is a certain position a man can assume on board
the steamer Marion which constitutes an attitude of per
fect rest, and leaves one's body in such blessed ease that
one's soul receives the heavenly influences of the Ockla-
waha sail absolutely without physical impediment.
Know, therefore, tired friend that shall hereafter ride up
the Ocklawaha on the Marion, whose name I would fain
call legion, that if you will place a chair just in the nar
row passage-way which runs alongside the cabin, at the
point where this passage-way descends by a step to the
open space in front of the pilot-house, on the left-hand side
facing the bow, you will perceive a certain slope in the
railing where it descends by an angle of some thirty de
grees to accommodate itself to the step aforesaid; and this
slope should be in such a position as that your left leg
unconsciously stretches itself along the same by the pure
insinuating solicitations of the fitness of things, and
straightway dreams itself off into an Elysian tranquillity.
You should then tip your chair in a slightly diagonal
position back to the side of the cabin, so that your head
will rest thereagainst, your right arm will hang over the
chair-back, and your left arm will repose on the railing.
I give no specific instructions for your right leg, because
LANIER] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 105
I am disposed to be liberal in this matter and to leave
some gracious scope for personal idiosyncrasies as well as
a margin of allowance for the accidents of time and place.
Dispose your right leg, therefore, as your heart may sug
gest, or as all the precedent forces of time and the uni
verse may have combined to require you.
Having secured this attitude, open wide the eyes of
your body and of your soul; repulse with a heavenly
suavity the conversational advances of the drummer who
fancies he might possibly sell you a bill of white goods
and notions, as well as the polite inquiries of the real-
estate person who has his little private theory that you
are in search of an orange-grove to purchase ; then sail,
sail, sail, through the cypresses, through the vines, through
the May day, through the floating suggestions of the un
utterable that come up, that sink down, that waver and
sway hither and thither; and so shall you have revela
tions of rest, and so shall your heart forever afterwards
interpret Ocklawaha to mean repose.
Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha,
at the right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest
residence in America. It belongs to a certain alligator of
my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy saurian, of
good repute. A little cove of water, dark green under
the overhanging leaves, placid, pellucid, curves round at
the river-edge into the flags and lilies with a curve just
heart-breaking for the pure beauty of the flexure of it.
This house of my saurian is divided into apartments,
little subsidiary bays which are scalloped out by the lil}-
pads according to the sinuous fantasies of their growth.
My saurian, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down
anywhere ; he will find marvellous mosses for his mattress
beneath him ; his sheets will be white lily-petals ; and the
green disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider
196 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
themselves together ahove him for his coverlet. He never
quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen,
and his one house-maid the stream forever sweeps his
chambers clean. His conservatories there under the glass
of that water are ever and without labor filled with the
enchantments of strange under-water growths ; his parks
and his pleasure-grounds are bigger than any king's.
Upon my saurian's house the winds have no power, the
rains are only a new delight to him, and the snows he will
never see. Regarding fire, as he does not employ its
slavery, so he does not fear its tyranny. Thus, all the
elements are the friends of my saurian's house. While he
sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened
and freshened by the sole careless act of sleep !
Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and
can change his dwelling as no human householder may :
it is but a fillip of his tail, and, lo ! he is established in
another place, as good as the last, ready furnished to his
liking.
For many miles together the Ocklawaha is a river with
out banks, though not less clearly defined as a stream for
that reason. The swift, deep current meanders between
tall lines of trees ; beyond these, on each side, there is
water also, a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the
bases of multitudes of trees. Along the immediate edges
of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, stump, or other
projecting coigne of vantage is wrapped about with a
close-growing vine. At first like an unending procession
of nuns disposed along the aisle of a church these vine-
figures stand. But presently, as one journeys, this nun-
imagery fades out of one's mind, and a thousand other
fancies float with ever-new vine-shapes into one's eyes.
One sees repeated all the forms one has ever known, in
grotesque juxtaposition. Look ! here is a great troop of
LANIER] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 197
girls, with arms wreathed over their heads, dancing down
into the water; here are high velvet arm-chairs and
lovely green fauteuils of divers pattern and of softest
cushionment ; there the vines hang in loops, in pavilions,
in columns, in arches, in caves, in pyramids, in women's
tresses, in harps and lyres, in globular mountain-ranges,
in pagodas, domes, minarets, machicolated towers, dogs,
belfries, draperies, fish, dragons. Yonder is a bizarre con
gress, Una on her lion, Angelo's Moses, two elephants
with hovvdahs, the Laocoon group, Arthur and Lancelot
with great brands extended aloft in combat, Adam, bent
with love and grief, leading Eve out of Paradise, Caesar
shrouded in his mantle receiving his stabs, Greek chariots,
locomotives, brazen shields and cuirasses, coluinbiads, the
twelve apostles, the stock exchange. It is a green dance
of all things and times.
The edges of the stream are further defined by flowers
and water-leaves. The tall blue flags ; the ineffable lilies
sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green
thrones ; the tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-
grasses ; the pretty phalanxes of a species of " bonnet"
which from a long stem that swings off down-stream
along the surface sends up a hundred little graceful stem-
lets, each bearing a shield-like disk and holding it aloft
as the antique soldiers held their bucklers to form the
testudo, or tortoise, in attacking, all these border the
river in infinite varieties of purfling and chasement.
The river itself has an errant fantasy, and takes many
shapes. Presently we come to where it seems to fork into
four separate curves above and below.
" Them's the Windin'-blades," said my raftsman.
To look down these lovely vistas is like looking down
the dreams of some pure young girl's soul ; and the gray
moss-bearded trees gravely lean over them in contempla
iv. 17*
198 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIER
tive attitudes, as if they were studying in the way strong
men should study the mysteries and sacrednesses and
tender depths of some visible revery of maidenhood.
And then, after this day of glory, came a night of
glory. Down in these deep-shaded lanes it was dark in
deed as the night drew on. The stream which had been
all day a baldric of beauty, sometimes blue and sometimes
green, now became a black band of mystery. But pres
ently a brilliant flame flares out overhead : they have
lighted the pine-knots on top of the pilot-house. The fire
advances up these dark sinuosities like a brilliant god that
for his mere whimsical pleasure calls the black, impene
trable chaos ahead into instantaneous definite forms as
he floats along the river-curves. The white columns of
the cypress trunks, the silver-embroidered crowns of the
maples, the green-and-white of the lilies along the edges
of the stream, these all come in a continuous apparition
out of the bosom of the darkness and retire again : it is
endless creation succeeded by endless oblivion. Startled
birds suddenly flutter into the light, and after an instant
of illuminated flight melt into the darkness. From the
perfect silence of these short flights one derives a cer
tain sense of awe. Mystery appears to be about to utter
herself in these suddenly-illuminated forms, and then to
change her mind and die back into mystery.
Now there is a mighty crack and crash : limbs and
leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a little bell tinkles;
we stop. In turning a short curve, or rather doubling,
the boat has run her nose smack into the right bank, and
a projecting stump has thrust itself sheer through the
starboard side. Out, Dick ! out, Henry ! Dick and Henry
shuffle forward to the bow, thrust forth their long white
pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to
the deck as if they were salaaming the god of night and
LANIEK] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 199
adversity, our bow slowly rounds into the stieam, the
wheel turns, and we puff quietly along.
*********
In a short time we came to the junction of the river
formed by the irruption of Silver Spring (" Silver Spring
Run") with the Ocklawaha proper. Here new astonish
ments befell. The water of the Ocklawaha, which had
before seemed clear enough, now showed but like a muddy
stream as it flowed side by side, unmixing for some dis
tance, with the Silver Spring water.
The Marion now left the Ocklawaha and turned into
the Run. How shall one speak quietly of this journey
over transparency ? The Run is very deep : the white
bottom seems hollowed out in a continual succession of
large spherical holes, whose, entire contents of darting
fish, of under-mosses, of flowers, of submerged trees, of
lily-stems, and of grass-ribbons revealed themselves to us
through the lucent fluid as we sailed along thereover. The
long series of convex bodies of water filling these white
concavities impressed one like a chain of globular worlds
composed of a transparent lymph. Great numbers of
keen-snouted, blade-bodied gar-fish shot to and fro in un
ceasing motion beneath us : it seemed as if the under
worlds were filled with a multitude of crossing sword-
blades wielded in tireless thrust and parry by invisible
arms.
The shores, too, had changed. They now opened out
into clear savannas, overgrown with a broad-leafed grass
to a perfect level two or three feet above the water, and
stretching back to boundaries of cypress, and oaks ; and
occasionally, as we passed one of these expanses curving
into the forest, with a diameter of a half-mile, a single
palmetto might be seen in or near the centre, perfect
type of that lonesome solitude which the German names
200 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LANIEE
Einsamkeit, onesomeness. Then, again, the cypress and
palmettos would swarm to the stream and line its banks.
Thus for nine miles, counting our gigantic rosary of water-
wonders and loveliness, we fared on.
Then we rounded to, in the very bosom of the Silver
Spring itself, and came to wharf. Here there were ware
houses, a turpentine-distillery, men running about with
boxes of freight and crates of Florida cucumbers for the
Northern market, country stores with wondrous assort
ments of goods, fiddles, clothes, physic, groceries, school-
books, what not, and, a little farther up the shore, a
tavern. I learned, in a hasty way, that Ocala was five
miles distant, that one could get a very good conveyance
from the tavern to that place, and that on the next day
Sunday a stage would leave Ocala for Gainesville, some
forty miles distant, being the third relay of the long stage-
line which runs three times a week between Tampa and
Gainesville, via Brooksville and Ocala.
Then the claims of scientific fact and of guide-book in
formation could hold me no longer. I ceased to acquire
knowledge, and got me back to the wonderful spring,
drifting over it, face downwards, as over a new world of
delight.
It is sixty feet deep a few feet off shore, and covers an
irregular space of several acres before contracting into its
outlet, the Eun. But this sixty feet does not at all rep
resent the actual impression of depth which one receives
as one looks through the superincumbent water down to
the clearly-revealed bottom. The distinct sensation is,
that although the bottom there is clearly seen, and al
though all the objects in it are of their natural size, undi-
minished by any narrowing of the visual angle, yet it and
they are seen from a great distance. It is as if depth
itself that subtle abstraction had been compressed into
LANIEK] THE OCKLAWAHA IN MAY. 201
a crystal lymph, one inch of which would represent miles
of ordinary depth.
As one rises from gazing into these quaint profundities
and glances across the broad surface of the spring, one's
eye is met. by a charming mosaic of brilliant hues. The
water-plain varies in color, according to what it lies upon.
Over the pure white limestone and shells of the bottom
it is perfect malachite green; over the water-grass it is a
much darker green ; over the sombre moss it is that rich
brown-and-green which Bodmer's forest-engravings so viv
idly suggest ; over neutral bottoms it reflects the sky's
or the clouds' colors. All these hues are further varied
by mixture with the manifold shades of foliage-reflections
cast from overhanging boscage 'near the shore, and still
further by the angle of the observer's eye.
One would think these elements of color-variation were
numerous enough ; but they were not nearly all. Presently
the splash of an oar in a distant part of the spring sent a
succession of ripples circling over the pool. Instantly it
broke into a thousandfold prism. Every ripple was a
long curve of variegated sheen. The fundamental hues
of the pool when at rest were distributed into innumera
ble kaleidoscopic flashes and brilliancies, the multitudes
of fish became multitudes of animated gems, and the
prismatic lights seemed actually to waver and play
through their translucent bodies, until the whole spring,
in a great blaze of sunlight, shone like an enormous fluid
jewel that, without decreasing, forever lapsed away up
ward in successive exhalations of dissolving sheens and
glittering colors.
202 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WISE
TWELVE HUNDRED MILES THROUGH THE AIR.
JOHN WISE.
[The veteran aeronaut of America, John Wise, has written some
highly-interesting details of his life in the air, which are of value as
introducing us to scenes and conditions widely removed from those of
ordinary life. The description appended is a portion of the record of
an ascension made from St. Louis in 1859, with a subsequent journey
nearly to the Atlantic. The air-voyage ended in a furious storm,
which wrecked the balloon and very nearly ended the mortal career
of the balloonists. We omit this concluding portion, as of less gen
eral importance than that given.]
THE Atlantic had at six P.M. received her crew and been
stocked with nearly a thousand pounds of sand-ballast.
Her larder also was stored with provisions, water, ice, a
bucket of lemonade, and, through the interposition of some
kind friends, a basket of wine and sundry well-cooked arti
cles of game.
There was rigged on the stern of the boat a propeller,
intended to be worked by manual labor. Messrs. Gager,
Lamountane, and Hyde took their stations in the boat,
and Mr. John Wise, as chief director, in the wicker car
above, into which descended the valve-rope. Everything
being now in readiness, the Atlantic was cut loose from
the earth at a quarter before seven o'clock in the evening.
The ascent was graceful and easy, the balloon moving off
in an easterly direction. The cheers of the audience, in
side and outside of the arena, were of the heartiest kind
We responded with a parting farewell and a lingering
look upon the thousands of upturned faces that cheered
us onward.
In a few minutes after we started we were crossing the
great father of American waters, the Mississippi. For
WISE] A BALLOON-VOYAGE. 203
many miles up and down we scanned its tortuous course
of turbid water. Its tributaries the Missouri and Illinois
added interest to the magnificent view. The clearer
water of the Missouri, as it was pouring itself into the
capacious maw of the great recipient of the Mississippi
Valley, could be traced, by its more brilliant reflection, far
into the body of its muddied parent.
The city of St. Louis, covering a large area of territory,
appeared to be gradually contracting its circumferential
lines, and finally hid itself under a dark mantle of smoke.
With the clatter and clang of its multifarious workshops,
and the heterogeneous noises of a great commercial em
porium, it gave out sounds more like a pandemonium
than that of a great civilized choir of music. At greater
heights these sounds were modulated into cadences. We
gazed upon the fading outlines of the country with senti
mental yearnings, as we recurred to the parting farewell
of the kind friends left behind, while at the same time
our hearts were filled with joy upon the prospects of a
glorious voyage to our friends in the East, to whom was
already announced the fact of our coming.
The fruitful fields of Illinois were now passing rapidly
underneath us, seemingly bound for a more western em
pire, while we were hanging, apparently, listlessly and
passively, in ethereal space. The plantations and farm
houses appeared to be travelling at the rate of fifty miles
per hour, with an occasional gyration about our common
centre, as the turning round of the air-ship would make it
appear.
The " man in the moon," dressed in his new cocked hat,
lent us the light of his silvery countenance for the begin
ning of our voyage.
In the mellow twilight of the evening we espied Mr.
Brooks, a little to the north of our track, in the careful
204 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiSB
keeping of a crowd of Illinois farmers, among whom he
had alighted.
Having now attained a height of eight thousand feet,
and having settled into a state of composure after the
labor and excitement incident to our preparation and
departure, I took an observation of the trim and bearing
of our noble ship.
The net-work was constructed in such a way that the
increase of meshes was at six different points made in di
rect lines from the top to the bottom, and this made those
parts really shorter than the intervening spaces ; conse
quently, when the cords attached to its lower circumfer
ence were fastened to the concentrating hoop by equal
lengths, it was found that the whole weight of the bal
loon's burden was being borne by the six ropes secured at
those points ; and, as the balloon was expanding from di
minished pressure, these six shorter cords were cutting,
or rather pressing into, the body of the balloon in a most
appalling manner. In a moment I summoned Mr. Gager
up into the wicker car, and in half an hour, at the expense
of abraded fingers, we adjusted the ropes so that they
would receive an equal bearing. There were thirty-six
of them.
The feeble shimmer of the new moon was now mantling
the earth beneath in a mellow light, and the western hori
zon was painted with gold and purple. Nothing could
exceed the solemn grandeur of the scene. All was as
quiet and still as death ; not a word was passing from the
lips of the crew ; every one seemed to be impressed with
the profound silence that hung around us. The coy-look
ing moon was lowering itself into the golden billows of
the Occident, and the greater stars began to peep through
the curtains of the vasty deep one by one. Still silence
reigned supreme. It seemed as though all nature had
WISE] A BALLOON-VOYAGE. 205
gone to sleep with the setting of the moon, and th& stars
were coming out on the watch-towers of the night. In
another moment the stillness was broken. Cattle began
to low, and some loud-mouthed dogs greeted our ears with
an occasional bark. This seemed to break the silence of
the crew, and soon a lively conversation ensued. We also
amused ourselves by uttering an occasional shout, which
set the dogs below to barking far and near.
During the day, and while the balloon was being inflated,
the sun was pouring down upon it a flood of heat and light.
Although it is a proverb " that you cannot carry light in
a bag," it will be learned that this ancient saying found
its contradiction in our gas-bag. It did carry up with it
heat and light, and during the whole night it was illumi
nated with a brightness equal to a Chinese paper lantern.
It served a good purpose, as it enabled us to note the time
by our watches. It appeared, indeed, truly wonderful, and
the first impression made was that it might be an incipient
combustion, and that soon it might be our lot to pass into
eternity like a blazing meteor. The .phenomenon was so
remarkable that the mind was not at first capable of find
ing a satisfactory reason for its appearance. However,
the conclusion finally arrived at was that it must be a
combination of heat, light, and carburetted hydrogen ;
and, inasmuch as it had been going on for several hours, it
was not likely to get hotter in the upper air, so we satis
fied ourselves that there was no imminent danger from a
conflagration while aloft.
This phenomenon is sometimes to be seen in the slightly-
illuminated clouds on a hot summer night. In the balloon
it was unique. Every seam and every mesh in the net
work could be traced upon its surface. Even the atmos
phere around and beneath us seemed to partake of this
mellow light. Woods, roads, prairies, streams, and towns
18
206 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Wisis
were discernible, and their outlines could clearly be traced
at our greatest elevation.
^Nothing could surpass the novelty of the scenery below
during the early part of the night. The heavens above
were brilliantly studded with stars of every magnitude
and color, the atmosphere having become perfectly clear ;
and when we crossed water we had the starry heavens as
distinctly visible below as above. We could at such times
easily imagine ourselves sailing in the very centre of the
star region, as the opaque earth seemed then out of the
question. These reflected star-fields were of short dura
tion, but vanished only to make room for that weird ap
pearance which the earth presented. One could not imme
diately see the surface-outline below ; but keeping the eye
steadily fixed downward, it gradually developed itself to
the vision, until every different shape and object became
defined, though in a most ghost-like light. The forests
appeared of a deep-brown cast; and when a handful of
sand was dropped overboard, at our greatest elevation, it
could be distinctly^heard raining upon the foliage of the
trees. It answered as an index for our altitude, in accord
ance with the time that elapsed between the discharge of
the sand and the noise of its contact with the trees.
The roads presented in appearance pale yellow ribbons,
and the fences and ditches as evanescent lines. The prairie-
flowers at times exhibited their respective colors, as they
happened to live in families of blue and yellow apparel, in
distinct patches. Villages could only be seen as diffused
outlines of ground-plots, with here and there a faint point
of light, but in the early part of the night we could at
times hear human voices in the streets. Our horizon
seemed very contracted, vaulting around us, as it were,
with an inclination to close upon us underneath. On its
northern border there was during the whole night a blaze
WISE] A BALLOON-VOYAGE. 207
of light, probably from the Chicago light-house on Lake
Michigan.
Now and then we would give a shout to attract atten
tion from below, especially when crossing towns ; but only
the echo of our voices seemed to respond, and these echoes
varied in distinctness agreeably to the reflecting surface
below.
When the eye was once firmly fixed on the earth, so
that the singularly-mellowed scenery was fairly unfolded
to the sight, it was with the greatest reluctance that it
could be drawn away. There was an enchantment in the
view. Looking downward, contemplating the earth in its
diversified outlines afforded a satisfaction much like that
of the astronomer when he is favored with a powerful
telescope that enables him to trace the outlines of the
surface of the moon. The topography of the earth, taken
from such a position as ours upon that night, and under
the same conditions of light, would present as marvellous
an appearance as does Maedler's map of the moon. Indeed,
the appearance of the earth, as we saw it that night, bore
no resemblance to a day view of the same. If the scene
could be delineated by the pencil of the limner as it then
appeared, it would resemble neither a night- nor a day-
picture of the landscape, as seen from the earth. In the
language of Mr. Hyde, it afforded " such an exhilaration
of spirit and such a real joy" as seldom fall to the lot of a
mortal being.
As in the daytime, the visible portion of the earth de
veloped itself in a great circle, hollowed out as a vast
concavity. Occasionally flashes of lightning illumined
portions of the horizon, but these were too distant to
bring to our ears the sound of thunder.
It may be observed, for the better elucidation to the
reader, that the convexity of the earth, being eight inches
208 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WISE
to the mile, limits the area of vision to an observer on its
surface much within that which is spread out to one who
is a mile or two above it. It is a singular anomaly of fact
and appearance that, while the earth is really globular, it
appears to the eye of the aeronaut as a concave. This is
the effect of refraction, caused by the variable density of
the atmosphere, giving the vision a curvilinear direction
corresponding to the angle presented when we place a
stick in the water at any inclination from the perpendicu
lar. Light, whether from the rays of a meridian sun or
the fainter rays as reflected from the higher portions of
the atmosphere, and from the surfaces of the remote stars,
obeys this law, moving, as it does, in the direction of least
resistance. From this it will be seen that the horizon of
the aeronaut always appears as much above its true level
as the diiference between a straight line from his eye to
the true horizon and the amount of curvature caused by
refraction to said line. It is only when he looks straight
down in a plumb line that the object is really where the
eye perceives it. All other objects seen at a point between
his perpendicular and the visible horizon are really below
the point at which he sees them, and hence the concave
appearance of the earth to the aeronaut. . . .
Striking during the night over the bend of a river which
our chart indicated to be the Wabash, and which lay in
our course for a considerable distance, the scene was truly
grand. We were surrounded by stars and milky ways.
Above, below, and all around us the vigils of heaven were
twinkling their diamond-like clusters. One, which for a
moment brought to mind that of the constellation of the
fishes, drew our attention particularly. Upon nearing the
object it revealed itself as a midnight fisherman lifting his
net, and a lively haul it proved to be. We could see, by
the light of his lantern, the fish bouncing about in the
WISE] A BALLOON-VOYAGE. 209
bottom of his boat. We hailed him as we passed over,
and congratulated him upon his good luck. He betrayed
a great deal of amazement, looking this way and that way,
then into the water, and again his eyes were directed
toward the shore. He looked every possible way but up
ward ; and, as we were pleasantly discussing his conster
nation in his hearing, it is no wonder that he felt perplexed
and surprised.
After we left the river we passed over a town, and
could distinctly hear a trialogue between a party of bac
chanals upon the probabilities of their reception at home
at that hour'of the night. Wo hailed them to go home,
and then all was hushed in silence below. No doubt the
maudlin party took the admonition in a serious mood, and
they were in all probability as much surprised as was our
fisherman friend on the river at these mysterious voices.
We followed the course of the Wabash Eiver from Wil-
liamsport to Logansport, Indiana. The water had the
appearance of a dark plate-glass mirror, and the brilliancy
of the starry reflection from its surface, bounded in its out
lines by the banks of the river, gave it the appearance of
a " milky way" far more beautiful than the real one in the
heavens above. Nothing could surpass the loveliness of
this midnight landscape scenery, diversified with water
and prairie, woods and villages, farms and flower-patches.
As the small hours of the night were passing away, we
saw the gray of the morning making a faint appearance
on the eastern horizon. The view at first resembled that
as seen in mid-ocean on a calm summer morning before
sunrise. The sky was cloudless, and the wind upon which
we were riding was one of those peculiar high-barometer
winds that course across our continent from west to east,
a little northeast. These are the carriers, if not the propa
gators, of our cyclones, and they give rise to the torna-
iv. o 18*
210 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WISE
does and hurricanes we experience through the hot sum
mer months. We realized this, much to our discomfort,
as the sequel will show, in effecting our landing on the
pecond day of our voyage.
A little while before the sun made its appearance, and
when the dawn of the morning was changing the night
scene of the voyage to that of day, we passed by the city
of Fort Wayne, leaving it a little to the south. We were
low enough to see several railroads converging toward the
western extremity of Lake Erie. The country around,
as far as the eye could reach distinctly, and that was
over an area of forty or fifty miles in diameter, was filled
with farm-houses, and the fields were well stocked with
horses and cattle. In order to get an earlier view of the
sun, the balloon was lightened of a quantity of ballast
sufficient to raise it four or five thousand feet higher. It
was not many minutes before a scene of the rarest beauty
began to unfold itself in the eastern heavens. Phoebus
was being ushered in, clad in his most gorgeous apparel.
Words will entirely fail to depict the grandeur of the sun
rise. The mind became overwhelmed with the intensity
and brilliancy of the spectacle, as the sun was being quickly
lifted out of the fiery deep by the rapid ascension of our
point of view. We had now approached near enough to
Lake Erie to receive the full force of reflected and refracted
light from its great surface. Various conjectures were
given by our party in explanation of this singular phe
nomenon before we saw the lake. One surmised that the
heavens were on fire, and that the phosphorescent illumi
nation of the bygone night had been the harbinger of the
world's conflagration. Indeed, the heat of this powerful
reflection was smarting our faces. It seemed as though
we were running right into the sun. The horizon appeared
to be bounded by a lake of white-hot metal, and it was
WISE] A BALLOON-VOYAGE. 211
some time before I could find a sufficient explanation for
the wonder before us. I finally suggested tbat it must
be the'illumination of Lake Erie, as we must be approach
ing it rapidly. To this the general assent of the party
was given, especially when I stated that I had seen its
reverse in a sunset scene while over the lake with a bal
loon, although in that case the effect was not nearly so
brilliant.
This warmth of direct and reflected sunbeams soon
began to tell on the balloon ; and, finding it to swell out
rapidly, causing such a sudden unfolding of its great
pleats as to make it sound like ripping open a heavy
canvas, I made a liberal use of the valve. This brought
the air-ship to a lower level, with the sun several degrees
above the horizon, and with it a corresponding expansion
of the lake of fire before us. Now, since balloons are
very sensitive bodies as to atmospheric density and to
heat and cold, and thus very easily disturbed in their
equilibriums, so that in the discharge of a little too much
gas a retrograde motion is given downward, we found
ourselves approaching the earth again, and the sun sink
ing down with us, until its immensely-expanded disk
looked ten times larger than usual, as it was resting a
little above the horizon. In the mean time a bank of
bright purple striated clouds had settled around the god
of the morning, and we were thus relieved from the heat
and reflection incident to a higher altitude. The scenery
below had now become remarkably fine. The mellow,
early sunlight made immensely-elongated shadows of the
woods and isolated trees in the fields, as well as the build
ings and the stacks of the .crops that were garnered by
the husbandmen. It was a glorious morning scene ; and
although something had been whispered about a warm
breakfast, that formality was dispensed with from the
212 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WiSE
idea that the time was too precious, and that each one
might lunch according to his personal convenience. . . .
At a quarter before seven in the morning we passed out
over Lake Erie, with Toledo to the northwest and San-
dusky to the southeast of our course. Before us the lake
was dotted with islands, and its shores presented a ragged
appearance. Heavy clouds were forming to the south
and east of us. Ballast enough was now discharged to
carry us up above the cloud-level. This obscured from
our view the southern shore of the lake. Beyond its
northern margin the land looked inhospitable, so we were
contented to make almost a bee-line down over the middle
of this interesting sheet of water. Its surface was ruffled
with spray, and the waves were heaving on its bosom.
At the rate at which we were now sailing, about sixty
miles an hour, we calculated to reach Buffalo about eleven
o'clock A.M. We could discern but few vessels moving on
the water. Passing nearly over one, the captain hailed
us with his speaking-trumpet, asking where we were from
and whither we were bound. I answered him that we
were from St. Louis, and that we were bo'und for Buffalo
direct, and then as much farther as we could get. He
continued the conversation, but we had so far outstripped
him that it was impossible to make out what he was
uttering, as we rose to a greater height.
Sailing at an altitude of ten thousand feet contracted
our area of visible surface below so much that we thought
it would be more interesting if we would lower the air
ship to within a thousand feet or less of the water's sur
face. So down we came until we nearly touched the
waves. Overhauling a steamboat that was moving in
the same direction with us, we struck up a conversation.
The steam-whistle was sounded, the boat-bell rung, and
a speaking-trumpet conversation ensued. " How do you
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 213
do, captain ? A fine morning for boating." The captain
immediately responded, " Good-morning, my brave fel
lows ; but where in the heavens did you come from ?"
"From St. Louis, sir, last evening." "And pray where
are you going ?" " Going eastward, captain, first to
Buffalo, and then to Europe, if we can." " Good luck to
you !" said the captain : "you are going like thunder."
We were now only about five hundred feet high, and in
half an hour after our colloquy with the captain of the
steamer we beheld his craft dancing in the verge of the
western horizon. He was travelling about twelve miles
per hour, and we at least sixty ; and as we parted, leaving
him behind, it seemed as though he was sailing to the
west, while we were moving eastward.
IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE.
WILLIAM MATHEWS.
[We should be glad to transcribe the whole of this instructive and
valuable essay, had we the requisite space. It will suffice to say
that Mr. Mathews does not preach without practising, and that he
himself possesses a clear, fluent, and attractive style, to which much
of the high popularity of his works is due. The author is a native of
Maine, where he was born in 1818. His principal books are " Getting
On in the World," " The Great Conversers," " Words, their Use and
Abuse," "Hours with Men and Books," " Orator} r and Orators,"
" Literary Style," etc. These are mainly compendiums of very neatly
framed anecdotes. Our selection is from the last-named work.]
WITHIN a few years a fresh interest has been awakened,
among writers and critics, in literary style. It is begin
ning to be felt more keenly than for a long time before,
that, as the value of the materials of a building, whatever
214 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MATHEWS
their cost, depends mainly upon the skill with which they
are put together, so in literary architecture it is the man
ner in which the ideas are fitted together into a symmet
rical and harmonious whole, as well as adorned and em
bellished, that, quite as much as the ideas themselves,
constitutes the worth of an essay, an oration, or a poem.
As the diamond or the emerald even the Kohinoor
itself has little beauty as it lies in the mine, but must
be freed from its incrustations, and cut and polished by
the lapidary, before it is fit to blaze in the coronet of a
queen or to sparkle on the breast of beauty, so thought in
the ore has little use or charm, and sparkles and captivates
only when polished and set in cunning sentences by the
literary artist. But there is another and more potent
reason for the growing estimation of style. As an instru
ment for winning the public attention, for saving the
reader all needless labor, and for keeping a hold on the
grateful memory, its value cannot be easily exaggerated.
A hundred years ago, in the days of stage-coaches and
Eamage presses, when literature did not come to us in
bales, and to be a man of one book was no disgrace, style
might have been regarded as a luxury ; but in this age of
steam-presses and electrotype-printing, with its thousand
distractions from study, and its deluge of new publications
that must be skimmed by all who would keep abreast with
the intelligence of the time, this element of literature is
swiftly acquiring a new utilitarian value. When we con
sider that Germany alone prints fifteen thousand books a
year ; that one library only the National at Paris con
tains one hundred and fifty thousand acres of printed
paper ; that in one ramified science, e.g., chemistry, the
student needs fourteen years barely to overtake knowl
edge as it now stands, while, nevertheless, the two lobes
of the human brain are not a whit larger to-day than in
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 215
the days of Adam ; that, even after deducting all the old
books which the process of " natural selection" and the
" survival of the fittest" has spared us from reading, the
remnant even of literary and other masterpieces, which
cannot be stormed by the most valiant reader, but must
be acquired by slow " sap," is simply appalling ; and,
finalty, that even the labor-saving machinery of peri
odical literature, which was to give us condensations and
essences in place of the bulky originals, is already over
whelming us with an inundation of its own, it is easy to
see that the manner in which a writer communicates his
ideas is hardly less important than the ideas themselves.
But what, it may be asked, do we mean by style? Wo
shall not attempt any technical definition, but simply say
that by it we understand, first of all, such a choice and
arrangement of words as stall convey the author's mean
ing most clearly and exactly, in the logical order of the
ideas ; secondly, such a balance of clause and structural
grace of sentence as shall satisfy the sense of beauty ;
and, lastly, such a propriety, economy, and elegance of
expression as shall combine business-like brevity with
artistic beauty. All these qualities will be found united
in styles of the highest order; and therefore style has
been well defined as an artistic expedient to make reading
easy, and to perpetuate the life of written thought,
Style, in this sense, is, and ever has been, the most vital
element of literary immortality. If we look at the brief
list of books which, among the millions that have sunk
into oblivion, have kept afloat on the stream of time, we
shall find that they have owed their buoyancy to this
quality. More than any other, it is a writer's own prop
erty, and no one, not even time itself, can rob him of it,
or even diminish its value. Facts may be forgotten, learn
ing may grow commonplace, startling truths dwindle into
216 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MATHEWS
mere truisms, but a grand or beautiful style can never
lose its freshness or its charm. It is the felicity and idio
matic naivete of his diction that has raised the little fish
ing-book of Walton, the linen-draper, to the dignity of a
classic, and a similar charm keeps the writings of Addi-
son as green as in the days of Queen Anne. Even works
of transcendent intellectual merit may fail of high success
through lack of this property; while works of second-
and even third-rate value works which swarm with per
nicious errors, with false statements and bad logic may
obtain a passport to futurity through the witchery of
style. The crystal clearness and matchless grace of Pa-
ley's periods, which were the envy of Coleridge, continue
to attract readers, in spite of his antiquated science and
dangerous philosophy; and a similar remark may be
made of Bolingbroke. The racy, sinewy, idiomatic style
of Cobbett, the greatest master of Saxon-English in this
century, compels attention to the arch-radical to-day as it
compelled attention years ago. Men are captivated by
his style who are shocked alike by his opinions and his
egotism and offended by the profusion of italics which,
like ugly finger-posts, disfigure his page and emphasize
till emphasis loses its power. For the pomp and splendor
of his style, " glowing with Oriental color, and rapid as a
charge of Arab horse," even more than for his colossal
erudition, is Gibbon admired ; it is the " ordered march of
his lordly prose, stately as a Eoman legion's," that is the
secret of Macaulay's charm ; and it is the unstudied grace
of Hume's periods which renders him, in spite of his
unfairness and defective erudition, In spite of his toryism
and infidelity, the popular historian of England. . . .
What would De Quincey be without his style? Eob
him of the dazzling fence of his rhetoric, his word-paint
ing and rhythm, strip him of his organ-like fugues, his
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 217
majestic swells and dying falls, leave to him only the
bare, naked ideas of his essays, and he will be De
Quincey no longer. It would be like robbing the rose of
its color and perfume, or taking from an autumnal land
scape its dreamy, hazy atmosphere and its gorgeous dyes.
Take the finest English classic, The Fairy Queen, L'Alle-
gro or II Penseroso, Midsummer Night's Dream, strip
it of music, color, wit, alliteration, the marriage of ex
quisite thoughts to exquisite language, all that belongs to
form as distinguished from the substance, and what will
the residuum be? All the ideas in these works are as old
as creation. They were everywhere in the air, and any
other poet had as good a right to use them as Milton,
Spenser, and Shakespeare. That critical mouser, the Rev.
John Mitford, in his notes to Gray's poems, has shown that
hardly an image, an epithet, or even a line in them origi
nated with the ostensible author. Gray cribbed from
Pope, Pope from Dryden, Dry den from Milton, Milton
from the Elizabethan classics, they from the Latin poets,
the Latin from the Greek, and so on till we come to the
original Prometheus, who stole the fire directly from
heaven. But does this lessen the merit of these authors?
Grant that the finest passages in poetry are to a great
extent but embellished recollections of other men's pro
ductions ; does this detract one jot or tittle from the
poet's fame? The great thinkers of every age do not
differ from the little ones so much in having different
thoughts, as in sifting, classifying, and focalizing the same
thoughts, and, above all, in giving them to the world in
the pearl of exquisite and adequate expression. Give to
two painters the same pigments, and one of them will
produce a " Transfiguration," and the other will exhaust
his genius upon the sign-board of a country tavern ; as
out of the same stones may be reared the most beautiful
iv. K 19
218 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MATHEWS
or the most unsightly of edifices, the Parthenon of
Athens, or an American court-house. . . .
Perhaps no other writer of the day has more powerfully
influenced the English-speaking race than Carlyle. Beyond
all other living men he has, in certain important respects,
shaped and colored the thought of his time. As a his
torian he may be almost said to have revolutionized the
French Eevolution, so different is the picture which other
writers have given us from that which blazes upon us
under the lurid torch-light of his genius. To those who
have read his great prose epic it will be henceforth im
possible to remember the scenes he has described through
any other medium. As Helvellyn and Skiddaw are seen
now only through the glamour of Wordsworth's genius,
as Jura and Mont Blanc are transfigured, even to the
tourist, by the magic of Byron and Coleridge, so to Car-
lyle's readers Danton and Robespierre, Mirabeau and Tin-
ville, will be forever what he has painted them. No other
writer equals the great Scotchman in the Rembrandt-like
lights and shadows of his style. While, as Mr. McCarthy
says, he is endowed with a marvellous power of depicting
stormy scenes and rugged, daring natures, yet " at times
strange, wild, piercing notes of the pathetic are heard
through his fierce bursts of eloquence, like the wail of a
clarion thrilling beneath the blasts of a storm." His
pages abound in pictures of human misery sadder than
poet ever drew, more vivid and startling than artist ever
painted. In his conflict with shams and quackeries he
has dealt yeoman's blows, and made the bankrupt institu
tions of England ring with their own hollowness. What
is the secret of his power? Is it the absolute novelty of
his thoughts? In no great writer of equal power shall
we find such an absolute dearth of new ideas. The gospel
of noble manhood which he so passionately preaches is as
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 219
old as Solomon. Its cardinal ideas have been echoed and
re-echoed through the ages till they have become the
stalest of truisms. That brains are the measure of worth ;
that duty, without reward, is the end of life ; that " work
is worship ;" that a quack is a falsehood incarnate ; that
on a lie nothing can be built ; that the victim of wrong
suffers less than the wrong-doer; that man has a soul
which cannot be satisfied with meats or drinks, fine pal
aces and millions of money, or stars and ribbons ; this is
the one single peal of bells upon which the seer of Chelsea
has rung a succession of changes, with hardly a note of
variation, for over half a century. . . .
Why, to take an opposite illustration, has John Neal, in
spite of his acknowledged genius, been so speedily forgot
ten by the public whose eye he once so dazzled ? why,
but because, holding the absurd theory that a man should
write as he talks, and despising the niceties of skill, he
bestows no artistic finish on his literary gems, but, like
the gorgeous East,
" showers from his lap
Barbaric pearls and gold,"
with all their incrustations " thick upon them" ? With
less prodigality of thought and more patience in execution,
he might have won a broad and enduring fame ; but, as it
is, he is known to but few, and by them viewed as a meteor
in the literary firmament, rather than as a fixed star or
luminous planet. Washington Irving has probably less
genius than Neal ; but by his artistic skill he would make
more of a Scotch pebble than Neal of the crown-jewel of
the Emperor of all the Russias.
That we have not exaggerated the value of style that
it is, in truth, an alchemy which can transmute the basest
metal into gold will appear still more clearly if we com
pare the literatures of different nations. That there are
220 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MATHEWS
national as well as individual stj'les, with contrasts equally
salient or glaring, is known to every scholar. Metaphors
and similes are racy of the soil in which they grow, as
you taste, it is said, the lava in the vines on the slopes of
jEtna. As thinkers, the Germans have to-day no equals on
the globe. In their systems of philosophy the speculative
intellect of our race its power of long, concatenated, ex
haustive thinking seems to have reached its culmination.
Never content with a surface-examination of any subject,
they dig down to the "hard pan," the eternal granite
which underlies all the other strata of truth. As com
pilers of dictionaries, as accumulators of facts, as pro
ducers of thought in the ore, their book-makers have no
peers. The German language, too, must be admitted to
be one of the most powerful instruments of thought and
feeling to which human wit has given birth. But all
these advantages are, to a great extent, neutralized by
the frightful heaviness and incredible clumsiness of the
German literary style. Whether as a providential pro
tection of other nations against the foggy metaphysics
and subtle scepticism of that country, or because to have
given it a genius for artistic composition as well as
thought would have been an invidious partiality, it is plain
that, in the distribution of good things, the advantages of
form were not granted to the Teutons. In Bacon's phrase,
they are " the Herculeses, not the Adonises, of literature."
They are, with a few noble exceptions, the hewers of
wood and drawers of water for all the other literatures of
the world. The writers of other countries, being blessed
more or less with the synthetic and artistic power which
they lack, pillage mercilessly, without acknowledgment,
the storehouses which they have laboriously filled, and,
dressing up the stolen materials in attractive forms, pass
them off as their own property. It is one of the paradoxes
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 221
of literary history, that a people who have done more for
the textual accuracy and interpretation of the Greek and
Roman classics than all the other European nations put
together who have taught the world the classic tongues
with pedagogic authority should have caught so little of
the inspiration, spirit, and style of those eternal models.
The fatigue which the German style inflicts upon the
human brain is even greater than that which their barba
rous Gothic letter, a relic of the fifteenth century, black
ening all the page, inflicts upon the eye. The principal
faults of this style are involution, prolixity, and obscurity.
The sentences are interminable in length, stuffed with
parentheses within parentheses, and as full of folds as a
sleeping boa-constrictor. Of paragraphs, of beauty in the
balancing and structure of periods, and of the art by
which a succession of periods may modify each other, the
German prose- writer has apparently no conception. In
stead of breaking up his " cubic thought" into small and
manageable pieces, he quarries it out in huge, unwieldy
masses, indifferent to its shape, structure, or polish. He
gives you real gold, but it is gold in the ore, mingled with
quartz, dirt, and sand, hardly ever gold polished into
splendor or minted into coin. . . .
In direct contrast to the heavy, dragging German style
is the brisk, vivacious, sparkling style of the French. All
the qualities which the Teutons lack form, method, pro
portion, grace, refinement, the stamp of good society the
Gallic writers have in abundance ; and these qualities are
found not only in the masters, like Pascal, Voltaire, Cou
rier, or Sand, but in the second- and third-class writers, like
Taine and Prevost-Paradol. Search any of the French
writers from Montaigne to Eenan, and you will have to
hunt as long for an obscure sentence as in a German author
for a clear one. Dip where you will into their pages, you
iv. 19*
222 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
find every sentence written as with a sunbeam. They
state their meaning so clearly that not only can you not
mistake it, but you feel that no other proper collocation
of words is conceivable. It is like casting to a statue : the
metal flows into its mould, and is there fixed forever. If
in reading a German book you seem to be jolting over a
craggy mountain-road in one of their lumbering eilwagen,
ironically called " post-haste" chaises, in reading a French
work you seem to be rolling on C springs along a velvety
turf, or on a road that has just been macadamized. The
only drawback to your delight is that it spoils your taste
for other writing : after sipping Chateau-Margaux at its
.most velvety age, the mouth puckers at Ehine wine or
Catawba. This supremacy of the French style is so gen
erally acknowledged that the French have become for
Europe the interpreters of other races to each other.
They are the Jews of the intellectual market, the money
changers and brokers of the wealth of the world. The
great merits of Sir William Hamilton were unknown to
his countrymen till they were revealed by the kindly
pen of Cousin ; and Sydney Smith hardly exaggerated
when he said of Dumont's translation of Bentham that the
great apostle of utilitarianism was washed, dressed, and
forced into clean linen by a Frenchman before he was in
telligible even to English Benthamites. It is sometimes
said that French literature is all style ; that its writers
have labored so exclusively to make the language a perfect
vehicle of wit and wisdom that they have nothing to con
vey. If in a German work the meaning is entangled in
the words, and "you cannot see the woods for the trees,"
in the French work the words themselves are the chief
object of attention. But the critic who says this is surely
not familiar with Pascal, Bossuet, D'Alembert, De Stael,
De Maistre, Villemain. In these, and many other writers
MATHEWS] IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY STYLE. 223
that we might name, there is such a solidity of thought
with an exquisite transparency of style, so subtle an inter
fusion of sound and sense, so perfect an equipoise of mean
ing and melody, as to satisfy alike the artistic taste of the
literary connoisseur and the deeper cravings of the thinker
and the scholar. . . .
To define the charm of style to show why the same
bought when conveyed in one man's language is cold
and commonplace, and when conveyed in another's is, as
Starr King says, " a rifle-shot or a revelation" is impossi
ble. It is easy to see how a magnetic presence, an eagle
eye, a commanding attitude, a telling gesture, a siren
voice, may give to truths when spoken a force or a charm
which they lack in a book. " But how it is," as the same
writer says, " that words locked up in forms, still and stiff
in sentences, will contrive to tip a wink ; how a proposi
tion will insinuate more scepticism than it states ; how a
paragraph will drip with the honey of love ; how a phrase
will trail an infinite suggestion ; how a page can be so
serene or so gusty, so gorgeous or so pallid, so sultry or
BO cool, as to lap you in one intellectual climate or its op
posite, who has fathomed this wonder?" There is a
mystery in style of which we cannot pluck out the heart.
Like that of beauty, music, or a delicious odor, its spell is
subtle and impalpable, and baffles all our attempts to ex
plain it in words. Like that of fine manners, it is inde
finable, yet all-subduing, and is the issue of all the mental
and moral qualities, bearing the same relation to them
that light bears to the sun, or perfume to the flower.
Not even the writer himself can explain the secret of his
art. In the works of all the great masters there are cer
tain elements which are a mystery to themselves. In the
frenzy of creation they instinctively infuse into their pro
ductions that of which they would be utterly puzzled to
224 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESTON
give an account. By a subtle, mysterious gift, an intense
intuition, which pierces beneath all surface-appearances
and goes straight to the core of an object, they lay hold
of the essential life, the inmost heart, of a scene, a person,
or a situation, and paint it to us in a few immortal words.
A line, a phrase, a single burning term or irradiating word,
flashes the scene, the character, upon us, and it lives for
ever in the memory. It is so in sculpture, in painting,
and even in the military art. When Napoleon was asked
by a flatterer of his generalship how he won his military
victories, he could only say that he was fait comme ga.
THE SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS.
H. W. PRESTON.
[One of the most attractive and valuable books upon Proven9al lit
erature is "The Troubadours and Trouveres" of Harriet W. Preston,
from which we select a brief general description of the troubadours and
their times. The era of the troubadours was one in which the con
dition of society and the movement of thought were unlike those of any
other period of human history, and the literature thence resulting had
a very marked character of its own. Miss Preston's work is one of
the best and most interesting expositions of this literature and state
of society. In addition she has written " Aspendale," " Love in the
Nineteenth Century,*' and " Mereio," a translation from Frederick
Mistral.]
IT is not easy to say how much of the interest of the
new Provencal literature is due to the ancient dignity of
its name, and to a kind of reflected lustre which it receives
from the far-away glories of the old. Yet when we come
to look carefully for the connection and resemblance be
tween the two, we shall be surprised to find how slight
PRESTON] THE SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS. 225
these are. Nearly all the modern literatures of Europe
owe as much to the early Provencal poetry as does the
literature of the troubadours' own land. Nay, it has
seemed, until very lately, as if France had been the small
est heir to the rich legacy of modern song, if not com
pletely disinherited. The truth is, that the literature of
the troubadours, childish in spirit but precociously mature
and beautiful in form, perished early by violence and with
out issue. Aliens had already caught the spirit of it, and
imitated its music with more or less success ; but six hun
dred years were to elapse before a school of poetry would
arise in which we might reasonably look for a true family
likeness to this the first untutored outburst of modern
minstrelsy. The likeness may be traced, no doubt, but it
is faint and fleeting. The early Provengal literature
stands before us as something unique, integral, immor
tally youthful, and therefore unconscious of its own range
and limitations, pathetic from the brevity of its course, a
development of art without an exact parallel in the world's
history. . . .
It is possible, although by no means certain, that the first
idea of those terminal rhymes which were destined to play
so important a part in the new poetry may have been de
rived from Oriental compositions, of which they were a con
spicuous ornament. But at all events it was in the cell of
the Christian monk that the seeds of poetic as of all other
culture were kept and fostered, as carefully as the flowers'
of the convent-garden, through the troubled season of the
first Christian millennium. During that most dreary time
of transition, Christianity was slowly spreading among
the half-savage races which had replaced the Eomans and
their colonists in the south of Europe, and adopting and
assimilating to itself certain of the native barbarian ideas.
Prominent among these was that serious, almost super-
iv. p
226 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESTON
stitious, respect for woman which seems a birthright of
the northern nations. It was a notion wholly at vari
ance with the view of classic paganism, but one which
the spirit of Christianity favored. The grand primitive
passion the love of man for woman received a sort of
theoretic consecration, and the virgin mother of Jesus
Christ became one of the chief objects of public worship.
And then in the period of reaction and exhilaration which
followed the close of the tenth century, and the relief from
that harrowing presentiment of the end of the world and
the last judgment which had prevailed almost everywhere
as the first millennial year approached, at the time also
of the final repulse of the Saracens in the southwest,
then, if ever, chivalry, or the adventurous service of God
and womankind, took systematic shape, and the Crusades
were its first outgrowth in action, and the love-poetry of
the troubadours, or minstrels of the south, its first sym
metrical expression in art.
Many volumes have been written on the position and
profession of the troubadour, charming volumes, too,
which are accessible to almost every reader. Yet, when
all is gathered- which can be certainly known, how strange
a phenomenon he remains to our modern eyes! How
much is still left to the imagination ! We know that he
was usually attached to the household of a great seignior
or the court of a reigning sovereign, and was a frequent,
though, as it would seem, voluntary, attendant on their
distant expeditions. We know that it was his metier, or
at any rate a principal part of it, to select some lady as
the object, for the time being, of his formal worship, and
to celebrate her charms and virtues in those melodious
numbers, the secret of whose infinitely variable beauty
he himself never ceased to regard as a kind of miraculous
discovery or revelation. We know that while the singer
PRESTON] THE SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS. 227
was sometimes even of kingly rank, oftener a poor cava
lier who had need to live upon his skill in finding, and
oftener yet a man of humble birth whom genius was read
ily allowed to ennoble, the lady-love was almost always of
exalted station ; frequently, by the operation of the Salic
law, a great heiress in her own right ; and that hence her
hand was certain to have been disposed of for prudential
or political reasons before she had any choice in the mat
ter. There were reasons, therefore, besides total depravity,
why she was regularly a married woman. We know that,
theoretically, chivalric love was a something mystical and
supersensual, but that the courts of love sanctioned much
which the courts of law, even of those days, forbade. We
know that a seignior and a husband could regard with
complacency, not to say pride, the ceremonial devotion of
his vassal to his wife, yet that he was liable to be visited,
when all things appeared most picturesque and prosperous,
by movements of what we cannot help regarding as a
natural jealousy, and impulses to deadly revenge. We
know that in the great majority of cases there came a
" sombre close" to the troubadour's " voluptuous day," and
that his life of amatory adventure and artificially- stimu
lated emotion was apt to end in the shadow of the cloister.
We seem, in fine, to see him as an airy, graceful, insouciant
figure, who sports and sings along a dainty path, skirting
the sheer and lofty verge of the great gulf of human pas
sion ; and the student will probably decide, from his own
knowledge of human nature, in what proportion of cases
he kept his perilous footing upon the flowery heights, and
in what he plunged headlong into the raging deeps below.
So much for the man ; and now a word or two more
about his work. Let it be understood that we are to
speak of the chansons, or love-songs, chiefly. There is
another great body of troubadour literature, coming under
228 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESTON
the general head of sirventes and comprising narrative and
satirical poems, which, though full and overfull of sugges
tions about the manners of the time, have, as a rule, no
great literary merit. The chief wonder of the chansons
is, and must ever be, the contrast between the consum
mate beauty and immense variety of their forms, and the
simplicity, the sameness, and the frequent triviality of
their sentiments. In this respect troubadour poetry is
like Greek sculpture. The technical excellence of it is so
incredible that we cannot help regarding it as something
spontaneous, half unconscious, found, as the troubadours
themselves so strikingly said, rather than learned, which
no care and patience of deliberate effort could ever quite
have attained. Sismondi complains of the monotony of
the troubadour compositions, that they begin by amazing
and end by disappointing the student. But they can dis
appoint, it seems to us, only him who is predetermined
to seek for more than is in them. It is little to say that
they show no depth of thought. They contain hardly any
thought at all. The love of external nature is represented
in them alone by the poet's perennial rapture at the re
turn of spring ; spring, which terminated his winter con
finement and set him free to wander over the sunny land ;
spring, with its mysterious but everlastingly intimate as
sociation with thoughts of love. Of sensuous imagery of
any kind these poems contain very little, which is another
reason for distrusting the theory of Arabian origin and
influence. They are " all compact" of primary emotion,
of sentiment pure and simple ; and, as such, they rank in
the scale of expression between music and ordinary poetry,
partaking almost as much of the nature of the former as
of the latter; which again is one reason why, although
the rules of their language are simple, these lyrics are
often so very obscure, so elusive, rather, and intangible
PRESTON] THE SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS. 229
in their meaning. Their words are like musical notes, not
so much signs of thought as symbols of feeling, which
almost defy an arbitrary interpretation, and must be ren
dered in part by the temperament of the performer.
[We should be glad to give, as a sequel to Miss Preston's charm
ingly-written introduction to her critical remarks upon the troubadours
and their songs, some examples of this mediaeval poetry. But we must
content ourselves with a single poem, which, as paraphrased rather
than translated by our author, is worthy of the pen of a modern poet,
and might well have given the cue to the balcony-scene in Shake
speare's " Romeo and Juliet." It belongs to the class of the aubado,
or morning counterpart of the serenade. It is probably of very early
date, and by an unknown author, and, in Miss Preston's opinion, is
the " most perfect flower of*Proven9al poetry."]
Under the hawthorns of an orchard-lawn,
She laid her head her lover's breast upon,
Silent, until the guard should cry the dawn.
Ah God I Ah God ! Why comes the day so soon ?
I would the night might never have passed by !
So wouldst thoii not have left me, at the cry
Of yonder sentry to the whitening sky.
Ah God I Ah God I Why comes the day so soon ?
One kiss more, sweetheart, ere the melodies
Of early birds from all the fields arise !
One more, without a thought of jealous eyes !
Ah God ! Ah God ! Why comes the day so soon ?
And yet one more under the garden wall j
For now the birds begin their festival,
And the day wakens at the sentry's call.
A.h God ! Ah God ! Why comes the day so soon ?
iv. 20
230 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MELTILLB
'Tis o'er ! He's gone. Oh, mine in life and death !
But the sweet breeze that backward wandereth,
I quaff it, as it were my darling's breath.
Ah G-od ! Ah God ! Why comes the day so soon ?
Fair was the lady, and her fame was wide,
And many knights for her dear favor sighed ;
But leal the heart out of whose depths she cried,
Ah God ! Ah God ! Why comes the day so soon ?
THE DEATH OF THE WHALE.
H. MELVILLE.
[" Moby Dick, the "Whale," from the pen of Herman Melville, is
the source of our present selection, and as an accurate, detailed, and
vivid description of the whale-fishery could not well be surpassed. It
has much value also as a novel, its characters being drawn with
striking force and originality. Mr. Melville is the author of many
other romances, chief among which is " Typee," the earliest and most
vivid description of life in the South Sea Islands. The works here
mentioned were the result of personal observation. The author, who
was born in New York in 1819, made a voyage to the Pacific, in which
he gained his close and exact knowledge of sea-life and of the whale-
fishery. Leaving his ship, he spent several months on one of the
Marquesas Islands, in semi-captivity to the natives. His life there is
described, with imaginative addenda, in the attractively-written chap
ters of "Typee." Among his other works we may name " Omoo,''
"White Jacket," and " Redburn."]
THE next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and,
with nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's crew-
could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a
vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through
MELVILLE] THE DEATH OF THE WHALE. 231
which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call
a lively ground ; that is, it affords fewer glimpses of por
poises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens
of more stirring waters, than those off the Bio de la
Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.
It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and,
with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal
shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an
enchanted air. ~No resolution could withstand it ; in that
dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul
went out of my body ; though my body still .continued to
iway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first
moved it is withdrawn.
Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed
that the seamen at the main and mizzen mast-heads were
already drowsy. So that at last all three of us lifelessly
swung from the spars, and for every swing that we made
there was a nod from below from the slumbering helms
man. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests ; and
across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west,
and the sun over all.
Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed
eyes ; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds ; some
invisible, gracious agency preserved me ; with a shook I
came back to life. And, lo ! close under our lee, not forty
fathoms off, a gigantic sperm whale lay rolling in the
water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy
back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays
like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the
sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory
jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his
pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale,
was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the
sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into
232 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MELVILLB
wakefulness ; and more than a score of voices from all
parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes
from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great
fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into
the air.
" Clear away the boats ! Luff!" cried Ahab. And, obey
ing his own order, he dashed the helm down before the
helmsman could handle the spokes.
The sudden exclamations of the crew must have
alarmed the whale ; and ere the boats were down, majes
tically turning, he swam away to the leeward, but with
such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as
he swam, that, thinking after all he might not as yet be
alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used,
and no man must speak but in whispers. So, seated like
Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly
but silently paddled along ; the calm not admitting of the
noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in
chase, the monster perpendicularly flirted his tail forty
feet into the air, and then sank out of sight like a tower
swallowed up.
" There go flukes !" was the cry, an announcement im
mediately followed by Stubb's producing his match and
igniting his pipe, for now a respite was granted. After
the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale
rose again, and, being now in advance of the smoker's
boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others,
Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was
obvious, now, that the whale had at length become aware
of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore
no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came
loudly into play. And, still puffing at his pipe, Stubb
cheered on his crew to the assault.
Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive
MELYILLE] THE DEATH OF THE WHALE. 233
to his jeopardy, he was going " head out ;" that part ob
liquely projecting from the mad yeast which he brewed.
" Start her, start her, my men ! Don't hurry yourselves ;
take plenty of time but start her ; start her like thunder
claps, that's all," cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke
as he spoke. " Start her, now ; give 'em the long and
strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy start
her, all j but keep cool, keep cool cucumbers is the word
easy, easy only start her like grim death and grinning
devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their
graves, boys that's all. Start her!"
' : Woo-hoo ! Wa-hee !" screamed the Gay-Header in re
ply, raising some old war-whoop to the skies, as every
oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily bounced for
ward with the one tremendous leading stroke which the
eager Indian gave.
But his wild screams were answered by others quite as
wild. " Kee-hee ! Kee-hee !" yelled Daggoo, straining for
wards and backwards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in
his cage.
" Ka-la ! Koo-loo I" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his
lips over a mouthful of grenadier's steak. And thus with
oars and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb,
retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to
the onset, all the w r hile puffing the smoke from his mouth.
Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the
welcome cry was heard " Stand up, Tashtego ! give it
to him!" The harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The
oarsmen backed water ; the same moment something went
hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. It was
the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly
caught two additional turns with it round the loggerhead,
whence, by reason of its increasing rapid circlings, a
hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the
IT. 20*
234 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MELVILLE
steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and
round the loggerhead, so, also, just before reaching that
point, it blisteringly passed through and through both of
Stubb's hands, from which the hand-cloths, or squares of
quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times, had acci
dentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp
two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time
striving to wrest it o'ut of your clutch.
"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub
oarsman (him seated by the tub), who, snatching off his
hat, dashed the sea-water into it. More turns were taken,
so that the line began holding its place. The boat now
flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb
and Tashtego here changed places, stem for stern, a
staggering business, truly, in that rocking commotion.
From the vibrating line extending the entire length of
the upper part of the boat, and from its now being more
tight than a harp-string, you would have thought the
craft had two keels one cleaving the water, the other the
air as the boat churned on through both opposing ele
ments at once. A continual cascade played at the bows,
a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake ; and at the slight
est motion from within, even but of a little finger, the
vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gun
wale into the sea. Thus tiiey rushed, each man with
might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being
tossed to the foam, and the tall form of Tashtego at the
steering-oar crouching almost double, in order to bring
down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifies
seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the
whale somewhat slackened his flight.
" Haul in haul in V cried Stubb to the bowsman ; and,
facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling
the boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed
MELVILLE] THE DEATH OF THE WHALE. 235
on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting
his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into
the flying fish ; at the word of command the boat alter
nately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible
wallow, and then ranging up for another fling.
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster
like brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not
in brine but in blood, which bubbled and seethed for fur
longs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing
upon this crimson pond in the sea sent back its reflection
into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like
red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke
was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and
vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited
headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked
lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it
again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gun
wale, then again and again sent it into the whale.
" Pull up pull up !" he now cried to the bowsman, as
the waning whale relaxed in his wrath. " Pull up ! close
to!" and the boat ranged along the fish's flank. Then,
reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long,
sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully
churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel
after some gold watch that jthe whale might have swal
lowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could
hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the
innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for,
starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called
his " flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood,
overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray,
so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had
much ado blindly to struggle out from that frenzied twi
light into the clear air of the day.
236 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWNE
And now, abating in his flurry, the whale once more
rolled out into view ; surging from side to side ; spasmodi
cally dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp,
cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush
of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red
wine, shot into the frighted air, and, falling back again,
ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. Hm
heart had burst !
" He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.
"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and, withdrawing his
own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over
the water, and for a moment stood thoughtfully eying
the vast corpse he had made.
GERMAN IDEAS ABOUT AMERICA.
J. R. BROWNE.
[One of the most amusing and entertaining of American writers
of travel is John Ross Browne, said to have been born in Ireland in
1817, but whose life was spent in the United States, with the excep
tion of his intervals of travel. His journeys covered a considerable
portion of the earth's surface, one of the earliest being a whaling-
voyage, which is described in his " Etchings of a Whaling Cruise," a
work containing much valuable information about the whaling indus-
try. A subsequent journey to Palestine is humorously described in
his <! Yusef; or, The Journey of a Frangi." Other works are " Cru
soe's Island," "The Land of Thor," and "An American Family in
Germany," from which last we make an amusing selection. He
died in 1875.]
THE crude ideas respecting the United States entertained
in this country, even by persons otherwise intelligent, are
sometimes very amusing. One would suppose tbat the
BROWNE] GERMAN IDEAS ABOUT AMERICA. 237
constant transmission of letters from emigrants to their
relatives would result in a more perfect understanding of
our country and its institutions. In the principal cities
usually visited by Americans this peculiarity is perhaps
not so striking, but throughout the more unenlightened
parts of Germany the simplicity of the people on the sub
ject of "America" as they call the United States is
quite surprising.
Within three or four miles of Frankfort are villages and
districts as far behind the age in point of civilization, and
apparently as primitive in all respects, as if the city of
Frankfort were distant a thousand miles, or never visited.
I will not undertake to say, as some of the American cor
respondents of the Atlantic papers often do in detailing
their experience in Europe, that Americans are supposed
to be a race of Indians ; but this much is true, that they
are supposed to be a very uncivilized race of white men.
Those who appear on this side of the water are most gen
erally taken for English, because they speak that lan
guage ; and when it is discovered that they are Ameri
cans, it is always a matter of surprise that they are so
docile, and many of them even partially civilized. The
Germans prefer the Americans to the English. The latter
are considered self-sufficient, stingy, disagreeable, and un
mannerly ; while the free-and-easy way of the Americans
their prodigal disregard of money, their readiness to
adopt the civilized habits of the country and make them
selves at home wherever they go pleases the worthy
Germans amazingly. They are always disposed to be
kind and sociable to Americans ; will go out of their way
or take any amount of trouble to make them enjoy their
visit, and evidently have some hope that, in the course of
time, those savage traits of character derived from long
experience of savage life and want of culture in civilized
238 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWN*
society will disappear, and the Americans become as
polished a race as the Germans. They consider that the
constant emigration from Germany to the United States
has produced a sensible difference in this respect within
the past ten years ; and if it continues for ten years more,
there can be no doubt, in their opinion, almost every trace
of barbarism will have disappeared. By that time, it is
confidently expected, Sunday afternoon recreations will
be introduced ; gentlemen will take off their hats to one
another in the streets, and quit chewing tobacco; lager-
beer saloons will become places of general resort ; con
ductors of railroads, clerks in public office, and family
servants will wear some honorable badge of distinction ;
children will not be allowed to dress like butterflies, and
women generally will understand their position, and get
out of the way when distinguished officers and civilians
pass along the streets ; wives will show proper deference
to their husbands, sit up for them of nights when they go
to clubs, and not depend upon them as escorts to theatres
and other public places ; old ladies will wear silks, satins,
flashy ribbons, and filigree appropriate to their advanced
age, and young ladies will modestly content themselves
with pudding-bowl hats, black worsted stockings, and
dingy-colored dresses. Music, too. will be cultivated ;
public gardens will be established, where one can pass a
social evening of a Sunday, and where respectable families
can drink their beer, while pretty young girls and innocent
little children swear " Ach Gott!" and " Gott in Himmel!"
upon every trivial occasion, without exciting vulgar com
ment. Housekeepers will abolish carpets and scrub their
floors once a day, instead of saving all the dirt to be
breathed by themselves and their visitors ; big houses
will be built, and families will live sweetly together like
Christians, and not isolate themselves like selfish heathens,
BROWNE] GERMAN IDEAS ABOUT AMERICA. 239
When people talk to one another, they will use becoming
signs and gestures, shrug their shoulders at proper inter
vals, and express themselves with some enthusiasm by
shouting out what they have to say, so that it can be
heard at the reasonable distance of ha4f a mile. Instead
of wearing out their bodies and souls at the counting-house
or in the political arena, grave and sensible men will take
a promenade in the open air every afternoon, with a brood
of little poodles running after them, and ladies will hire
numerous servants to take care of their children, and pay
proper attention themselves to their own lapdogs. In
stead of imposing the heavy labors of the field and public
highway upon men, who have the right to choose their
own occupation, these unpleasant duties will be performed
by able-bodied women, assisted by cows. The best blood-
horses will be used for soldiers and gentlemen to ride
upon, and women, aided by small dogs, will pull the carts
containing milk and vegetables to market ; and all heavy
burdens, such as geese, pigs, apples, and the like, will be
carried on their heads in large baskets. Should a man be
too lazy to walk up a hill, he will get into a wheelbarrow
and smoke his meerschaum comfortably while his good
wife wheels him over the hill.
These improvements in our customs will entitle us to
rank with Germany in point of civilization, and it affords
me great satisfaction to find that sanguine hopes are en
tertained of our capacity for refinement. Great allowance
should be made for our uncouth manners and ignorance of
the polite usages of society. Living among negroes and
Indians, constantly quarrelling about elections, compelled
to defend our individual rights with pistols and bowie-
knives, surrounded by deserts and mountains, almost out,
of the world, as it were, in a new and but partially-ex
plored country, it is remarkable that we are even far
240 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
enough advanced to publish newspapers, and there is much
to commend in the rapidity of our progress. It is true,
there is something shocking and repugnant to humanity
in our disregard of life ; the horrible manner in which
people are burst up in steamboats and mutilated on public
railways ; the ferocious fights that take place in our prin
cipal cities, and the prevalence of lynch law ; the frequency
of murder, and the cruel practice of hanging men by the
neck like dogs, instead of clipping their heads off with a
sword. All these are relics of barbarism, which in some
respects arise from the condition of the country, and in
others from natural recklessness common to all who have
not enjoyed the benefits and restraints of civilization.
The perfect simplicity with which an intelligent German
will sit down with you over a schoppen of beer and give
you his views on all these points is charming. In the
course of his miscellaneous reading he has caught at some
truths, as may be seen from the above synopsis, while a
good many others have escaped him. But it is not so
much his want of correct knowledge that is amusing, as
the entire self-satisfaction with which he compares the
civilization of Germany with the barbarism of America.
It is quite useless to undertake to change his views on
these points. He is no more susceptible of receiving the
impress of new ideas when his mind has once been made
up, than if the old ones were pinned and riveted through
every partition of his brain. A new idea forced in by
power of persuasion would act like a wedge and split his
skull. Politeness often induces him to agree with you
that there is much to be said in our favor, but you can
plainly see that he remains true to his early convictions,
and doesn't believe it. And yet there are no people who
emigrate to the United States and become citizens, more
ready to adapt themselves to the customs of the country.
BROWNE] GERMAN IDEAS ABOUT AMERICA. 241
They retain their own prejudices a long time, it is true,
and never quite get over their love for the Faderland. but
the facility with which they accommodate themselves to
circumstances is remarkable. There is considerable prac
tical philosophy, after all, about these people : it seems to
be a predominating element in their faith never to make,
themselves unhappy when they can reasonably avoid it.
A very general misconception prevails in reference to
the "North" and "South," terms which so frequently
appear in the newspapers of the United States. The
North is supposed to mean North America, and the South,
South America. It is the prevailing impression that in
North America the people are all free ; in South America
most of them are supposed to be slaves. Dates, cocoanuts,
oranges, bananas, and other tropical fruits are the princi
pal articles of food upon which the Southerners are sup
posed to subsist ; and of the Northerners, a considerable
number of them, not residing in the principal cities and
more settled parts of the States, are supposed to procure
a scanty and somewhat precarious livelihood by chasing
buffalo on the prairies, subsisting mainly upon their meat
and selling their skins. A lady of considerable intelligence
remarked to me the other day that she would not go to
" America" for anything in the world. She was afraid of
the Indians. She had read about them in Cooper's novels,
and they seemed to be a very savage sort of people, often
coming upon the houses of the settlers in the dead of
night, and killing men, women, and children. She couldn't
enjoy a moment's peace in such a country. Besides, she
understood the houses were very badly built, and often
tumbled down on the occupants and crushed them to
death. I told her there was reasonable ground for ap
prehension on all these points. The Indians were very bad
in some parts of the country, but it was a pretty large
IV . L q 21
242 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BROWNE
country, and there was plenty of room to keep out of
their way. In New York, Philadelphia, and Washington
they were not considered dangerous. The only dangerous
people there were politicians, especially in Washington,
where the members of Congress frequently carry pistols
and large knives and kill people. On the other point, the
flimsy and imperfect manner in which houses are con
structed, there was too much truth in what she said. It
was scandalous the way in which houses were built there.
I knew whole towns to be built up in a week, and aban
doned by the citizens in another-week. At the great city
of Virginia, in Washoe, many of the inhabitants lived in
houses built of flour-bags. Even in the city of New York,
where people ought to know better, the walls of the
houses were so thin that it was dangerous to lean against
them. Two cases in point occurred within a few years
past, one that of a man who, while sitting in the front
room of a hotel, leaned his chair backward and fell through
the wall, alighting on a lady's back as she was walking on
the pavement below ; the other that of a man who, while
sleeping with his head against the partition between his
own and neighbor's house, was killed by a nail hammered
through the wall by a lodger on the other side, who
wanted something to hang his hat upon. It was quite
true what she said about American houses, as a general
thing, but there were exceptions. The people of Califor
nia, who were farther advanced in the science of archi
tecture than those of any other State in the Union, having
had experience in all kinds of material from potato-bags
to red- wood boards, and from that all the way up to Suisun
marble (the finest in the world), and being likewise in
possession of various improvements derived from the abo
rigines and the learned men of China, built houses very
superior to those of which she had read in the books.
LONGFELLOW] THE FAMINE. 213
This was especially the case in the city of Oakland, where
I myself had erected a residence far surpassing anything
in that particular style of architecture to be found in
Germany. I had seen the villa of the Rothschilds near
Frankfort, the palace of the grand duke at Biebrich, the
king's palace at Wurtzburg, and many other handsome
establishments upon which a great deal of money had
been expended, but they were of very different material
and construction from my villa in Oakland.
Amusing as these impressions of the United States are,
they derive something of piquancy from the fact that
they are not wholly unfounded. Sometimes a home truth
emerges from a mass of error; and it is expressed with
so much simplicity and such entire unconsciousness of
its satirical force that it requires some dexterity to parry
the thrust. I generally get over the difficulty by cover
ing it up with a complication of information in no way
connected with the subject.
THE FAMINE.
HENEY W. LONGFELLOW.
[Whatever be the final decision of critical authorities and arbiters
of taste as to the comparative merit of American poets, Longfellow
will probably live longest in the hearts of the reading community.
His popularity, indeed, is by no means confined to America, and he
can scarcely fail to have an enduring fame among all English-speaking
peoples. For this the tenderness and depth of feeling which he dis
plays, and the transparent clearness of his verse, in which not a shadow
of obscurity rests upon the thoughts, are better elements than breadth
of conception and vigor of handling, when combined, as is often the
case, with lack of simplicity of language and sympathetic warmth.
N"o other poet of our era has the evenness of Longfellow. Though he
244 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LONGFELLOW
may seldom or never rise to the greatest heights, he rarely descends
below a certain lofty level. Many of his shorter poems have becom<?
household words, hoth in America and in England. To his skill in
versification, and the charm of his simple and picturesque diction, is
added an unusual facility in the use of imagery. His wealth of
apposite and original metaphors has seldom been equalled, and the
whole course of his poetry seems to be lit up with a succession of golden
lamps, which brilliantly illuminate its thoughts. The metaphor is
often the life of a poem, and many of Longfellow's verses owe their
vitality mainly to this side-light of illumination.
His longer works consist of " The Spanish Student," " Evangeline,"
"The Golden Legend," "The Song of Hiawatha," "The Courtship
of Miles Standish," the drama of "Michael Angelo," and the prose
works "Hyperion," " Outre-Mer," and " Kavanagh." Of these
"Evangeline" and "Hiawatha" are much the most popular. The
latter, from which we select one of its most eloquent sections, en
deavors, with great skill and beauty, to give in poetic form some of
those Indian legends of which no small store exists among the Ameri
can aborigines. This poem is couched in a peculiar metre, not very
attractive at first reading, but, as is here evidenced, susceptible of
much beauty of handling. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine,
in 1807. He was, when quite young, appointed professor of modern
languages and literature in Bowdoin College. In 1835 he took the
chair of modern languages and belles-lettres at Harvard. This position
he resigned in 1854, when he was succeeded by Lowell. He died at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1882.]
O THE long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter !
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage ;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
LONGFELLOW] THE FAMINE. 245
Yainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
In the snow beheld no footprints,
In the ghastly, gleaming forest
Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Perished there from cold and hunger.
O the famine and the fever !
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever !
O the wailing of the children !
the anguish of the women !
All the earth was sick and famished ;
Hungry was the air around them,
Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them I
Into Hiawatha's wigwam
Came two other guests, as silent
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy ;
Waited not to be invited,
Did not parley at the door-way,
Sat there without word of welcome
In the seat of Laughing Water ;
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow
At the face of Laughing Water.
And the foremost said, " Behold me I
1 am Famine, Bukadawin I"
And the other said, " Behold me !
I am Fever, Ahkosewin !"
And the lovely Minnehaha
Shuddered as they looked upon her.
Shuddered at the words they uttered,
Lay down on her bed in silence,
iv. 21*
246 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LONGFELLOW
Hid her face, but made no answer ;
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they uttered.
Forth into the empty forest
Bushed the maddened Hiawatha ;
In his heart was deadly sorrow,
In his face a stony firmness,
On his brow the sweat of anguish
Started, but it froze and fell not.
Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting,
With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Into the vast and vacant forest
On his snow-shoes strode he forward.
" Gitche Manito, the Mighty !"
Cried he with his face uplifted
In that bitter hour of anguish,
" Give your children food, O father !
Give us food, or we must perish !
Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!"
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant,
Bang that cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of his crying,
Than the echo of the woodlands,
"Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"
All day long roved Hiawatha
In that melancholy forest,
Through the shadow of whose thickets,
In the pleasant days of Summer,
LONGFELLOW] THE FAMINE. ' 247
Of that ne'er-forgotten Summer,
He had brought his young wife homeward
From the land of the Dacotahs ;
When the birds sang in the thickets,
And the streamlets laughed and glistened,
And the air was full of fragrance,
And the lovely Laughing Water
Said, with voice that did not tremble,
" I will follow you, my husband !"
In the wigwam with Nokomis,
With those gloomy guests that watched her,
With the Famine and the Fever,
She was lying, the Beloved,
She the dying Minnehaha.
" Hark 1" she said ; " I hear a rushing,
Hear a roaring and a rushing,
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to me from a distance !"
" ISTo, my child !" said old Nokomis,
" 'Tis the night-wind in the pine-trees 1"
"Look!" she said ; " I see my father
Standing lonely at his door-way,
Beckoning to me from his wigwam
In the land of the Dacotahs !"
"No, my child !" said old Nokomis,
" 'Tis the smoke that waves and beckons !"
"Ah!" said she, "the eyes of Pauguk
Glare upon me in the darkness ;
I can feel his icy fingers
Clasping mine amid the darkness !
Hiawatha ! Hiawatha !"
And the desolate Hiawatha,
Far away amid the forest,
Miles away among the mountains,
248 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [.LONGFELLOW
Heard that sudden cry of anguish,
Heard the voice of Minnehaha
Calling to him in the darkness,
" Hiawatha ! Hiawatha !"
Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
Under snow-encumbered branches,
Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:
"Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Would that I had perished for you,
Would that I were dead as you are !
Wahonowin ! Wahonowin !"
And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly
Booking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
Lying dead and cold before him,
And his bursting heart within him
Uttered such a cry of anguish,
That the forest moaned and shuddered,
That the very star's in heaven
Shook and trembled with his anguish.
Then he sat down, still and speechless,
On the bed of Minnehaha,
At the feet of Laughing Water,
At those willing feet, that never
More would lightly run to meet him,
Never more would lightly follow.
With both hands his face he covered,
Seven long days and nights he sat there,
As if in a swoon he sat there,
Speechless, motionless, unconscious
Of the daylight or the darkness.
LONGFELLOW] THE FAMINE. 249
Then they buried Minnehaha ;
In the snow a grave they made her,
In the forest deep and darksome,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks ;
Clothed her in her richest garments,
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
Covered her with snow, like ermine ;
Thus they buried Minnehaha.
And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,
For her soul upon its journey
To the Islands of the Blessed.
From his door- way Hiawatha
Saw it burning in the forest,
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks ;
From his sleepless bed uprising,
From the bed of Minnehaha,
Stood and watched it at the door- way,
That it might not be extinguished,
Might not leave her in the darkness.
" Farewell," said he, " Minnehaha !
Farewell, O my Laughing Water!
All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you !
Come not back again to labor,
Come not back again to suffer,
Where the Famine and the Fever
Wear the heart and waste the body.
Soon my task will be completed,
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter !"
250 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KANE
INCIDENTS OF ARCTIC TRAVEL.
E. K. KANE.
[Elisha Kent Kane, who is known to the world principally through
his connection with Arctic exploration, was one of the most active of
American travellers. Previous to his Arctic journeys he had visited
China, India, Ceylon, and the Philippines, made an excursion to the
Himalayas, ascended the Nile to Nubia, and explored Greece on foot.
He served in the Mexican war, was surgeon in the first United States
expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, and commanded the second
expedition. The first journey he described in a volume entitled " The
United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin ;"
the second in a highly-interesting work entitled " Arctic Explorations
in the Years 1853, '54, and '55." From the first-named we make a brief
extract, illustrative of some of the discomforts of Arctic life. Dr. Kane
was born in Philadelphia in 1820. He died in Havana in 1857, a victim
to the hardships of his adventurous life.]
I EMPLOYED the dreary intervals of leisure that heralded
our Christmas in tracing some Flemish portraitures of
things about me. The scenes themselves had interest at
the time for the parties who figured in them ; and I believe
that is reason enough, according to the practice of modern
academics, for submitting them to the public eye. I copy
them from my scrap-book, expurgating only a little.
"We bave almost reached tbe solstice; and things are
so quiet tbat I may as well, before I forget it, tell you
something about tbe cold in its sensible effects, and the
way in wbicb as sensible people we met it.
" You will see, by turning to tbe early part of my
journal, that tbe season we now look back upon as tbe
perfection of summer contrast to this outrageous winter
was in fact no summer at all. We bad tbe young ice
forming round us in Baffin's Bay, and were measuring
KANE] INCIDENTS OF ARCTIC TRAVEL. 251
snow-falls, while you were sweating under your grass-
cloth. Yet I remember it as a time of sunny recreation,
when we shot bears upon the floes, and were scrambling
merrily over glaciers and murdering rotges in the bright
glare of our day-midnight. Like a complaining brute, I
thought it cold then, I, who am blistered if I touch a
brass button or a ramrod without a woollen mit.
" The cold came upon us gradually. The first thing that
really struck me was the freezing up of our water-casks,
the drip-candle appearance of the bung-holes, and our in
ability to lay the tin cup down for a five-minutes' pause
without having its contents made solid. Next came the
complete inability to obtain drink without manufacturing
it. For a long time we had collected our water from the
beautiful fresh pools of the icebergs and floes ; now we had
to quarry out the blocks in flinty, glassy lumps, and then
melt it in tins for our daily drink. This was in Wellington
Channel.
" By and by the sludge which we passed through as we
travelled became pancakes and snow-balls. We were glued
up. Yet even as late as the llth of September I collected
a flowering Potentilla from Barlow's Inlet. But now any
thing moist or wet began to strike me as something to be
looked at, a curious, out-of-the-way production, like the
bits of broken ice round a can of mint-julep. Our decks
became dry, and studded with botryoidal lumps of dirty
foot-trodden ice. The rigging had nightly accumulations
of rime, and we learned to be careful about coiled ropes
and iron-work. On the 4th of October we had a mean
temperature below zero.
"By this time our little entering hatchway had be
come so complete a mass of icicles that we had to give it
up and resort to our winter door-way. The opening of
a door was now the signal for a gush of smoke-like vapor;
252 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
every stove-pipe sent out clouds of purple steam ; and a
man's breath looked like the firing of a pistol on a small
scale.
" All our eatables became laughably consolidated, and
after diiferent fashions, requiring no small experience be
fore we learned to manage the peculiarities of their changed
condition. Thus, dried apples became one solid breccial
mass of impacted angularities, a conglomerate of sliced
chalcedony. Dried peaches the same. To get these out
of the barrel, or the barrel out of them, was a matter
impossible. We found, after many trials, that the short
est and best plan was to cut up both fruit and barrel
by repeated blows with a heavy axe, taking the lumps
below to thaw. Saur-kraut resembled mica, or rather
talcose slate. A crow-bar with chiselled edge extracted
the lamince badly; but it was perhaps the best thing we
could resort to.
" Sugar formed a very funny compound. Take q. s. of
cork raspings, and incorporate therewith another q. s. of
liquid gutta-percha or caoutchouc, and allow to harden ;
this extemporaneous formula will give you the brown
sugar of our winter cruise. Extract with the saw ; noth
ing but the saw will suit. Butter and lard, less changed,
require a heavy cold-chisel and mallet. Their fracture is
conchoidal, with haematitic (iron-ore pimpled) surface.
Flour undergoes little change, and molasses can at 28
be half scooped, half cut, by a stiff iron ladle.
" Pork and beef are rare specimens of Florentine mosaic,
emulating the lost art of petrified visceral monstrosities
seen at the medical schools of Bologna and Milan : crow
bar and handspike ! for at 30 the axe can hardly chip
it. A barrel sawed in half, and kept for two days in the
caboose-house at -j-76, was still as refractory as flint a
few inches below the surface. A similar bulk of lamp oil,
KANE] INCIDENTS OF ARCTIC TRAVEL. 253
denuded of the staves, stood like a yellow sandstone roller
for a gravel walk.
" Ices for the dessert come, of course, unbidden, in all
imaginable and unimaginable variety. I have tried my
inventive powers on some of them. A Roman punch, a
good deal stronger than the noblest Roman ever tasted,
forms readily at 20. Some sugared cranberries, with a
little butter and scalding water, and you have an im
promptu strawberry ice. Many a time at those funny
little jams that we call in Philadelphia " parties," where
the lady hostess glides with such nicely regulated indif
ference through the complex machinery she has brought
together, I have thought I noticed her stolen glance of
anxiety at the cooing doves whose icy bosoms were melt
ing into one upon the supper-table before their time. We
order these things better in the Arctic. Such is the " com
position and fierce quality" of our ices that they are
brought in served on the shaft of a hickory broom, a
transfixing rod which we use as a stirrer first and a fork
afterward. So hard is this terminating cylinder of ice
that it might serve as a truncheon to knock down an
ox. The only difficulty is in the processes that follow. It
is the work of time and energy to impress it with the
carving-knife, and you must handle your spoon deftly, or
it fastens to your tongue. One of our mess was tempted
the other day by the crystal transparency of an icicle to
break it in his mouth ; one piece froze to his mouth, and
two others to his lips, and each carried oif the skin : the
thermometer was at 28.
" Thus much for our Arctic grub. I need not say that
our preserved meats would make very fair cannon-balls,
canister-shot."
22
254 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALKER
THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS.
MRS. E. A. WALKER.
[It is remarkable with what impish malignity, if you drop a penny
or a button to the floor, it at once makes its way to some remote corner
of the room, and defies search for an exasperating measure of valuable
time. The placid, sleepy, dull-faced thing seems to overflow with mis
chievous life the instant it leaves the fingers, and when you stoop,
" good, easy soul, full sure" to pick it up at your feet, the chances are
a hundred to one that it has scampered away into some mysterious
nook, whei-w it does its best to hide itself by " protective resemblance."
This is only one phase of the total depravity of the inanimate. It
takes on a thousand forms, and most of us have experienced as full a
share of its vagaries as those which Mrs. Walker so amusingly depicts.
A lady friend relates that on one occasion she was amusing a child with
a small rubber ball, flinging it into the air and letting it rebound on
the floor. At the final upward fling that ball did not visibly descend
again. The room was thoroughly searched for it in vain. The yard,
on which the window looked, was searched with equal thoroughness
and equal uselessness. Days, months, years passed on, house-cleaning
seasons came and went, but the vanished ball has never yet been
found. If it had been snatched by the hand of some invisible afrit in
the air it could not have disappeared in a more mysterious manner.
Instances of this depravity of inanimate things might be innumerably
duplicated. But we must yield the floor to Mrs. Walker.]
I AWOKE very early in life to the consciousness that I
held the doctrine which we are considering.
On a hapless day when I was perhaps five years old, I
was, in my own estimation, intrusted with the family
dignity, when I was deposited for a day at the house
of a lordly Pharisee of the parish, with solemnly-repeated
instructions in table-manners and the like.
One who never analyzed the mysteries of a sensitive
child's heart cannot appreciate the sense of awful respon-
WALKER] DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. 255
sibility which oppressed me during that visit. But all
went faultlessly for a time. I corrected myself instantly
each time I said " Yes, ma'am" to Mr. Simon and " No,
sir" to madam, which was as often as I addressed them ;
I clinched little fists and lips resolutely, that they might
not touch, taste, handle, tempting bijouterie; I even held
in check the spirit of inquiry rampant within me, and
indulged myself with only one question to every three
minutes of time.
At last I found myself at the handsome dinner-table,
triumphantly mounted upon two " Comprehensive Com
mentaries" and a dictionary, fearing no evil from the
viands before me. Least of all did I suspect the vege
tables of guile. But deep in the heart of a bland
mealy-mouthed potato lurked cruel designs upon my fair
reputation.
No sooner had I, in the most approved style oi nursery
good-breeding, applied my fork to its surface, than the
hard-hearted thing executed a wild pirouette before my
astonished eyes, and then flew on impish wings across the
room, dashing out its malicious brains, I am happy to say,
against the parlor door, but leaving me in a half comatose
state, stirred only by vague longings for a lodge with
" proud Koran's troop." whose destination is unmistaka
bly set forth in the " Shorter Catechism."
##*#****#
Time and space would, of course, be inadequate to
the enumeration of all the demonstrations of the truth
of the doctrine of the absolute depravity of things. A
few examples only can be cited.
There is melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that a
great soul has gone mourning before me in the path I am
now pursuing. It was only to-day, in glancing over the
pages of Victor Hugo's great work, I chanced upon the
25G BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALKER
following : " Every one will notice with what skill a coin
let fall upon the ground runs to hide itself, and what art
it has in rendering itself invisible : there are thoughts
that play us the same trick."
The similar tendency of pins and needles is. similarly
understood and execrated, their base secretiveness when
searched for, and their incensing intrusion when off guard.
I know a man whose sense of their malignity is so keen
that, whenever he catches a gleam of their treacherous
lustre on the carpet, he instantly draws his two and a
quarter yards of length into the smallest possible compass,
and shrieks until the domestic police come to the rescue
and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at
this. Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of
just such a little dastard lying in ambush.
So also every wielder of the needle is familiar with the
propensity of the several parts in a garment in the process
of manufacture to turn themselves inside out, and down
side up ; and the same viciousness cleaves like leprosy to
the completed garment so long as a thread remains.
My blood still tingles with a horrible memory illustra
tive of this truth.
Dressing hurriedly and in darkness for a concert one
evening, I appealed to the Dominie, as we passed under the
hall-lamp, for a toilet inspection.
"How do I look, father?"
After the sweeping glance came the candid state
ment,
" Beau-tifully !"
Oh, the blessed glamour which invests a child whose
father views her with a " critic's eye" !
" Yes, of course ; but look carefully, please : how is my
dress ?"
Another examination of apparently severest scrutiny.
WALKER] DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. 257
"All right, dear. That's the new cloak, is it? Never
saw you look better. Come; we shall be late."
Confidingly I went to the hall ; confidingly I entered ;
since the concert-room was crowded with rapt listeners to
the Fifth Symphony, I gingerly, but still confiding^, fol
lowed the author of my days, and the critic of my toilet,
to the very uppermost seat, which I entered, barely nod
ding to my finical ly-fastidious friend G-uy Livingston, who
was seated near us with a stylish-looking stranger, who
bent eyebrows and glass upon me superciliously.
Seated, the Dominie was at once lifted into the midst
of the massive harmonies of the Adagio ; I lingered out
side a moment, in order to settle my garments and that
woman's look. What ! was that a partially-suppressed
titter near me? Ah, she has no soul for music! Ho\\
such ill-timed merriment will jar upon my friend's ex
quisite sensibilities !
Shade of Beethoven ! A hybrid cough and laugh,
smothered decorously, but still recognizable, from the
courtly Guy himself! What can it mean ?
In my perturbation, my eyes fell, and rested upon the
sack, whose newness and glorifying effect had been already
noticed by my lynx-eyed parent.
I here pause to remark that I had intended to request
the compositor to " set up" the coming sentence in explo
sive capitals, by way of emphasis, but forbear, realizing
that it already staggers under the weight of its own sig
nificance.
That sack was wrong side out !
Stern necessity, proverbially known as " the mother of
invention," and practically the step-mother of ministers'
daughters, had made me eke out the silken facings of
the front with cambric linings for the back and sleeves.
Accordingly, in the full blaze of the concert-room I satj
iv. r 22*
258 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALKER
" accoutred as I was," in motley attire, my homely little
economies patent to admiring spectators ; on either shoulder
budding wings composed of unequal parts of sarcenet-
cambric and cotton-batting; and in my heart parricide,
I had almost said, but it was rather the more filial senti
ment of desire to operate for cataract upon my father's
eyes. But a moment's reflection sufficed to transfer my
'ndignation to its proper object, the sinful sack itself,
which, concerting with its kindred darkness, had planned
this cruel assault upon my innocent pride.
A constitutional obtuseness renders me delightfully in
sensible to one fruitful source of provocation among in
animate things. I am so dull as to regard all distinc
tions of " rights" and " lefts" as invidious ; but I have
witnessed the agonizing struggle of many a victim of frac
tious boots, and been thankful that " I am not as other
men are," in ability to comprehend the difference between
my right and left foot. Still, as already intimated, I have
seen wise men driven mad by a thing of leather and waxed
ends.
A little innocent of three years, in all the pride of his
first boots, was aggravated, by the perversity of the right
to thrust itself on the left leg, to the utterance of a con
traband expletive.
When reproved by his horror-stricken mamma, he main
tained a dogged silence.
In order to pierce his apparently indurated conscience,
his censor finally said, solemnly,
" Dugald ! God knows that you said that wicked word."
" Does he ?" cried the baby victim of reral depravity,
in a tone of relief: "then he knows it was a doke"
(Anglice, joke).
But, mind you, the sin-tempting boot intended no
" doke."
WALKER] DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. 250
The toilet, with its multiform details and complicated
machinery, is a demon whose surname is Legion.
Time would fail me to speak of the elusiveness of soap,
the knottiness of strings, the transitory nature of buttons,
the inclination of suspenders to twist, and of hooks to
forsake their lawful eyes and cleave only to the hairs of
their hapless owner's head. (It occurs to me as barely
possible that, in the last case, the hooks may be innocent,
and the sinfulness may lie in capillary attraction.)
And, O my brother or sister in sorrow, has it never
befallen you, when bending all your energies to the
mighty task of doing up your back-hair, to find yourself
gazing inanely at the opaque back of your brush, while
the hand-mirror which had maliciously insinuated itself
into your right hand for this express purpose came down
upon your devoted head with a resonant whack ?
I have alluded, parenthetically, to the possible guilt of
capillary attraction, but I am prepared to maintain against
the attraction of gravitation the charge of total depravity.
Indeed, I should say of it, as did the worthy exhorter of
the Dominie's old parish in regard to slavery, " It's th
wickedest thing in the world, except sin !"
*********
But a peremptory summons from an animated nursery
forbids my lingering longer in this fruitful field. 1 can
only add an instance of corroborating testimony from each
member of the circle originating this essay.
The Dominie loq. " Sha'n't have anything to do with
it! It's a wicked thing! To be sure, I do remember,
when I was a little boy, I used to throw stones at the
chip-basket when it upset the cargo I had just laded, and
it was a great relief to my feelings, too. Besides, you've
tcld stories about me which are anything but true. I
don't remember anything about the sack."
260 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALKER
Lady visitor loq. " The first time I was invited to Mr.
's (the Hon. 's, you know), I was somewhat
anxious, but went home flattering myself I had made a
creditable impression. Imagine my consternation, when
I came to relieve the pocket of my gala-gown, donned for
the occasion, at discovering among its treasures a tea-
napkin, marked gorgeously with the Hon. 's
family crest, which had maliciously crept into its depths
in order to bring me into disgrace ! I have never been
able to bring myself to the point of confession, in spite of
my subsequent intimacy with the family. If it were not
for Joseph's positive assertion to the contrary, I should
be of the opinion that his cup of divination conjured itself
deliberately and sinfully into innocent Benjamin's sack."
Student loq. (Testimony open to criticism.) "Met
pretty girl on the street yesterday. Sure I had on my
* Armstrong;' had when I left home, sure as fate; but
when I went to pull it off, by the crown, of course, to
bow to the pretty girl, I smashed in my beaver ! How it
got there, don't know. Knocked it off. Pretty girl picked
it up and handed it to me. Confounded things, anyway!"
Young divine loq. " While I was in the army, I was in
Washington ' on leave' for two or three days. One night
at a party I became utterly bewildered in an attempt to
converse, after a long desuetude, with a fascinating woman.
I went stumbling on, amazing her more and more, until
finally I covered myself with glory by the categorical
statement that in my opinion General McClellan could
'never get across the peninsula without s, fattle ; I beg
pardon, madam ! what I mean to say is, without a bight.' "
School-girl loq. "When Uncle was President, 1
was at the White House at a state dinner one evening.
Senator came rushing in frantically after we had
been at the table some time. No sooner was he seated
WALKER] DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. 261
than he turned to aunt to apologize for his delay ; and,
being very much heated, and very much embarrassed, he
tugged away desperately at his pocket, and finally suc
ceeded in extracting a huge blue stocking, evidently of
home manufacture, with which he proceeded to wipe his
forehead very energetically and very conspicuously. I
suppose the truth was that the poor man's handkerchiefs
were ' on a strike,' and thrust forward this homespun
stocking to bring him to terms."
School-girl No. 2 loq. u My last term at F., I was ex
pecting a box of ' goodies' from home. So when the mes
sage came, ' An express-package for you, Miss Fannie !' I
invited all my specials to come and assist at the opening.
Instead of the expected box, appeared a misshapen bundle,
done up in yellow wrapping-paper. Four such dejected-
looking damsels were never before seen as we, standing
around the ugly old thing. Finally Alice suggested,
" ' Open it !'
" ' Oh, I know what it is,' I said : ' it is my old thibet,
that mother has made over for me.'
" ' Let's see,' persisted Alice.
" So I opened the package. The first thing I drew out
was too much for me,
" ' What a funny-looking basque !' exclaimed Alice. All
the rest were struck dumb with disappointment.
" No ! not a basque at all, but a man's black satin waist
coat! and next came objects about which there could
be no doubt, a pair of dingy old trousers, and a swallow-
tailed coat! Imagine the chorus of damsels !
' The secret was, that two packages lay in father's office,
one for me, the other for those everlasting freedmen.
John was to forward mine. He had taken up the box to
write the address on it, when the yellow bundle tumbled
off the desk at his feet and scared the wits out of his
262 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOFFMAN
head. So I came in for father's second-hand clothes, and
the Ethiopians had the ' goodies.' "
Eepentant Dominie loq. " I don't approve of it at all,
but then, if you must write the wicked thing, I heard a
good story for you to-day. Dr. found himself in the
pulpit of a Dutch Eeformed church the other Sunday.
You know he is one who prides himself on his adaptation
to places and times. Just at the close of the introductory
services, a black gown lying over the arm of the sofa
caught his eye. He was rising to deliver his sermon,
when it forced itself on his attention again.
"'Sure enough,' thought he, 'Dutch Reformed clergy
men do wear gowns. I might as well put it on.'
" So he solemnly thrust himself into the malicious (as
you would say) garment, and went through the services
as well as he could, considering that his audience seemed
singularly agitated, and indeed on the point of bursting
out into a general laugh, throughout the entire service.
And no wonder! The good Doctor, in his zeal for con
formity, had attired himself in the black cambric duster
in which the pulpit was shrouded during the week-days,
and had been gesticulating his eloquent homilies with his
arms thrust through the holes left for the pulpit-lamps !"
THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR.
C. F. HOFFMAN.
[The subjoined story, with its detailed exactness of probable incident,
is one of that realistic class which almost convince us of their actual
occurrence. We follow the weary circling of the hopeless swimmer
with some such holding of the breath as if we actually gazed upon his
midnight gyrations. Charles Fenno Hoffman, the author, was born in
HOFFMAN] THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. 263
New York in 1806. His first published work was " Winter in the
West." Much of his literary work was in the domain of poetry, and
"as a song-writer," says K. W. Griswold, " no American is compa
rable to him." He wrote one novel, " Greyslaer," and several stories,
of which the one we here give gained great popularity. He died at
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1884.]
You may see some of the best society in New York on
the top of the Distributing Eeservoir, any of these fine
October mornings. There were two or three carriages in
waiting, and half a dozen senatorial-looking mothers with
young children, pacing the parapet, as we basked there the
other day in the sunshine, now watching the pickerel
that glide along the lucid edges of the black pool within,
and now looking off upon the scene of rich and wondrous
variety that spreads along the two rivers on either side.
" They may talk of Alpheus and Arethusa," murmured
an idling sophomore, who had found his way thither
during recitation-hours, " but the Croton in passing over
an arm of the sea at Spuyten-Duyvil, and bursting to sight
again in this truncated pyramid, beats it all hollow. By
George, too, the bay yonder looks as blue as ever the
^Egean Sea to Byron's eye, gazing from the Acropolis!
But the painted foliage on these crags ! the Greeks must
have dreamed of such a vegetable phenomenon in the
midst of their grayish olive-groves, or they never would
have supplied the want of it in their landscape by em
broidering their marble temples with gay colors. Did
you see that pike break, sir?"
" I did not."
"Zounds! his silver fin flashed upon the black Acheron
like a restless soul that hoped yet to mount from the
pool.''
" The place seems suggestive of fancies to you," we
observed in reply to the rattlepate.
^64 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOFFMAN
" It is, indeed, for I have done a good deal of anxious
thinking within a circle of a few yards where that fish
broke just now."
"A singular place for meditation, the middle of the
reservoir!"
"You look incredulous, sir, but it's a fact. A fellow
can never tell, until he is tried, in what situation his
most earnest meditations may be concentrated. I am
boring you, though ?"
"Not at all. But you seem so familiar with the spot,
I wish you could tell me why that ladder leading down
to the water is lashed against the stone-work in yonder
corner?"
" That ladder?" said the young man, brightening at the
question ; " why, the position, perhaps the very existence,
of that ladder, resulted from my meditations in the reser
voir, at which you smiled just now. Shall I tell you all
about them ?"
" Pray do."
" Well, you have seen the notice forbidding any one to
fish in the reservoir. Now, when I read that warning,
the spirit of the thing struck me at once, as inferring
nothing more than that one should not sully the temper
ance potations of our citizens by steeping bait in it, of
any kind ; but you probably know the common way of
taking pike with a slip-noose of delicate wire. I was de
termined to have a touch at the fellows with this kind of
tackle.
"I chose a moonlight night; and an hour before the
edifice was closed to visitors, I secreted myself within
the walls, determined to pass the night on the top. All
went as I could wish it. The night proved cloudy,
but it was only a variable drift of broken clouds which
obscured the moon. I had a walking-cane rod with me
HOFFMAN] THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. zG5
which would reach to the margin of the water, and sev
eral feet beyond if necessary. To this was attached the
wire, about fifteen inches in length.
" I prowled along the parapet for a considerable time,
but not a single fish could I see. The clouds made a
flickering light and shade, that wholly foiled my stead
fast gaze. I was convinced that should they come up
thicker my whole night's adventure would be thrown
away. ' Why should I not descend the sloping wall and
get nearer on a level with the fish ? for thus alone can I
hope to see one.' The question had hardly shaped itself
in my mind before I had one leg over the iron railing.
" If you look around you will see now that there
are some half-dozen weeds growing here and there, amid
the fissures of the solid masonry. In one of the fissures
from whence these spring, I planted a foot, and began my
descent. The reservoir was fuller than it is now, and a few
strides would have carried me to the margin of the water.
Holding on to the cleft above, I felt round with one foot
for a place to plant it below me.
" In that moment the flap of a pound pike made me look
round, and the roots of the weed upon which I partiall t >
depended gave way as I was in the act of turning. Sir,
one's senses are sharpened in deadly peril : as I live now,
I distinctly heard the bells of Trinity chiming midnight,
as I rose to the surface the next instant, immersed in the
stone caldron, where I must swim for my life heaven only
could tell how long!
" I am a capital swimmer ; and this naturally gave me
a degree of self-possession. Falling as I had, I of course
had pitched out some distance from the sloping parapet.
A few strokes brought me to the edge. I really was not
yet certain but that I could clamber up the face of the
wall anywhere. I hoped that I could. I felt certain at
iv. M 23
266 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOFFMAN
least there was some spot where I might get hold with
my hands, even if I did not ultimately ascend it.
" I tried the nearest spot. The inclination of the wall
was so vertical that it did not even rest me to lean against
it. I felt with my hands and with my feet. Surely, I
thought, there must be some fissure like those in which
that ill-omened weed had found a place for its root!
" There was none. My fingers became sore in busying
themselves with the harsh and inhospitable stones. My
feet slipped from the smooth and slimy masonry beneath
the water ; and several times my face came in rude con
tact with the wall, when my foothold gave way on the
instant that I seemed to have found some diminutive
rocky cleet upon which I could stay myself.
" Sir, did you ever see a rat drowned in a half-filled
hogshead? how he swims round, and round, and round,
and, after vainly trying the sides again and again with his
paws, fixes his eyes upon the upper rim as if he would
look himself out of his watery prison.
" I thought of the miserable vermin, thought of him as
I had often watched thus his dying agonies, when a cruel
urchin of eight or ten. Boys are horribly cruel, sir ; boys,
women, and savages. All childlike things are cruel ; cruel
from a want of thought and from perverse ingenuity, al
though by instinct each of these is so tender. You may
not have observed it, but a savage is as tender to his own
young as a boy is to a favorite puppy, the same boy
that will torture a kitten out of existence. I thought,
then, I say, of the rat drowning in a half-filled cask of
water, and lifting his gaze out of the vessel as he grew
more and more desperate, and I flung myself on my
back, and, floating thus, fixed my eyes upon the face of
the moon.
" The moon is well enough, in her way, however you
HOFFMAN] THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. 267
may look at her ; but her appearance is, to say the least
of it, peculiar to a man floating on his back in the centre
of a stone tank, with a dead wall of some fifteen or twenty
feet rising squarely on every side of him" (the young man
smiled bitterly as he said this, and shuddered once or twice
before he went on musingly). " The last time I had noted
the planet with any emotion she was on the wane. Mary
was with me ; I had brought her out here one morning to
look at the view from the top of the Reservoir. She said
little of the scene, but, as we talked of our old childish
loves, I saw that its fresh features were incorporating
themselves with tender memories of the past, and I was
content.
"There was a rich golden haze upon the landscape,
and, as my own spirits rose amid the voluptuous atmos
phere, she pointed to the waning planet, discernible like a
faint gash in the welkin, and wondered how long it would
be before the leaves would fall ! Strange girl ! did she
mean to rebuke my joyous mood, as if we had no right
to be happy while Nature withering in her pomp, and the
sickly moon wasting in the blaze of noontide, were there
to remind us of ' the gone forever' ? ' They will all renew
themselves, dear Mary,' said I, encouragingly ; ' and there
is one that will ever keep tryst alike with thee and Nature
through all seasons, if thou wilt but be true to one of us,
and remain as now a child of Nature.'
"A tear sprang to her eye, and then, searching her
pocket for her card-case, she remembered an engagement
to be present at Miss Lawson's opening of fall bonnets, at
two o'clock !
" And yet, dear, wild, wayward Mary, I thought of her
now. You have probably outlived this sort of thing, sir ;
but I, looking at the moon, as I floated there upturned to
her yellow light, thought of the loved being whose tears
268 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOFFMAN
I knew would flow when she heard of my singular fate,
at once so grotesque, yet melancholy to awfulness.
"And how often we have talked, too, of that Carian
shepherd who spent his damp nights upon the hills, gazing
as I do on the lustrous planet ! Who will revel with her
amid those old superstitions ? Who, from our own un-
legended woods, will evoke their yet undetected haunting
spirits? Who peer with her in prying scrutiny into
Nature's laws, and challenge the whispers of poetry from
the voiceless throat of matter ? Who laugh merrily over
the stupid guess-work of pedants, that never mingled
with the infinitude of Nature through love exhaustless
and all-embracing, as we have ? Poor girl ! she will be
companionless.
"Alas! companionless forever, save in the exciting
stages of some brisk flirtation. She will live hereafter by
feeding other hearts with love's lore she has learned from
me, and then, Pygmalion-like, grow fond of the images
she has herself endowed with semblance of divinity, until
they seem to breathe back the mystery the soul can truly
catch from only one.
" How anxious she will be lest the coroner shall have
discovered any of her notes in my pocket !
" I felt chilly as this last reflection crossed my mind,
partly at thought of the coroner, partly at the idea of
Mary being unwillingly compelled to wear mourning for
me, in case of such a disclosure of our engagement. It is
a provoking thing for a girl of nineteen to have to go into
mourning for a deceased lover at the beginning of her
second winter in the metropolis.
" The water, though, with my motionless position, must
have had something to do with my chilliness. I see, sir,
you think that I tell my story with great levity ; but in
deed, indeed I should grow delirious did I venture to hold
HOFFMAN] THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. 269
steadily to the awfulness of my feelings the greater part
of that night. I think, indeed, I must have been most of
the time hysterical with horror, for the vibrating emo
tions I have recapitulated did pass through my brain even
as I have detailed them.
"But as I now became calm in thought, I summoned up
again some resolution of action.
" I will begin at that corner (said I), and swim around
the whole enclosure. I will swim slowly and again feel
the sides of the tank with my feet. If die I must, let
me perish at least from well-directed though exhausting
effort, not sink from mere bootless weariness in sustaining
myself till the morning shall bring relief.
' The sides of the place seemed to grow higher as i
now kept my watery course beneath them. It was not
altogether a dead pull. I had some variety of emotion in
making my circuit. When I swam in the shadow it looked
to me more cheerful beyond in the moonlight. When I
swam in the moonlight I had the hope of making some
discovery when I should again reach the shadow. I turned
several times on my back to rest just where those wavy
lines would meet. The stars looked viciously bright to
me from the bottom of that well ; there was such a com
pany of them ; they were so glad in their lustrous rev
elry ; and they had such space to move in. I was alone,
sad to despair, in a strange element, prisoned, and a soli
tary gazer upon their mocking chorus. And yet there
was nothing else with which I could hold communion.
" I turned upon my breast and struck out almost fran
tically, once more. The stars were forgotten, the moon,
the very world of which I as yet formed a part, my poor
Mary herself, was forgotten. I thought only of the strong
man there perishing ; of me in my lusty manhood, in the
sharp vigor of my dawning prime, with faculties illimit-
iv. fc3*
270 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOFFMAN
able, with senses all alert, battling there with physical
obstacles which men like myself had brought together for
my undoing. The Eternal could never have willed this
thing ! I could not and I would not perish thus. And 1
grew strong in insolence of self-trust ; and I laughed aloud
as I dashed the sluggish water from side to side.
" Then came an emotion of pity for myself, of wild,
wild regret; of sorrow, oh, infinite, for a fate so desolate,
a doom so dreary, so heart-sickening. You may laugh at
the contradiction if you will, sir, but I felt that I could
sacrifice my own life on the instant, to redeem another
fellow-creature from such a place of horror, from an end
so piteous. My soul and my vital spirit seemed in that
desperate moment to be separating ; while one in parting
grieved over the deplorable fate of the other.
" And then I prayed !
" I prayed, why or wherefore I know not. It was not
from fear. It could not have been in hope. The days of
miracles are past, and there was no natural law by whose
providential interposition I could be saved. / did not
pray : it prayed of itself, my soul within me.
"Was the calmness that I now felt, torpidity? the
torpidity that precedes dissolution to the strong swimmer
who, sinking from exhaustion, must at last add a bubble
to the wave as he suffocates beneath the element which
now denied his mastery? If it were so, how fortunate
was it that my floating rod at that moment attracted my
attention as it dashed through the water by me ! I saw
on the instant that a fish had entangled himself in the
wire noose. The rod quivered, plunged, came again to
the surface, and rippled the water as it shot in arrowy
flight from side to side of the tank. At last, driven to
wards the southeast corner of the reservoir, the small
end seemed to have got foul somewhere. The brazen
HOFFMAN] THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. 271
butt, which, every time the fish sounded, was thrown up
to the moon, now sank by its own weight, showing that
the other end must be fast. But the cornered fish, evi
dently anchored somewhere by that short wire, floundered
several times to the surface before I thought of striking
out to the spot.
" The water is low now, and tolerably clear. You may
see the very ledge there, sir, in yonder corner, on which
the small end of my rod rested when I secured that pike
with my hands. I did not take him from the slip-noose,
however, but, standing upon the ledge, handled the rod
in a workmanlike manner, as I flung that pound pickerel
over the iron railing upon the top of the parapet. The
rod, as I have told you, barely reached from the railing to
the water. It was a heavy, strong bass rod which I had
borrowed in the ' Spirit of the Times' office ; and when I
discovered that the fish at the end of the wire made a
titrong enough knot to prevent me from drawing my
tackle away from the railing around which it twined
itself as I threw, why, as you can at once see, I had but
little difficulty in making my way up the face of the wall
with such assistance. The ladder which attracted your
notice is, as you see, lashed to the iron railing in the iden
tical spot where I thus made my escape ; and for fear of
similar accidents they have placed another one in the cor
responding corner of the other compartment of the tank
ever since my remarkable night's adventure in the reser
voir."
We give the above singular relation verbatim as heard
from the lips of our chance acquaintance, and, although
strongly tempted to " work it up" after the fantastic style
of a famous German namesake, prefer that the reader
should have it in its American simplicity.
272 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
THE MOUND-BUILDERS.
ANONYMOUS.
[It is very desirable that, to the extracts we have given descriptive
of American scenery, and of interesting points in modern American
history, some brief account of the aboriginal civilization of this country
should be appended, that known as the civilization of "The Mound-
Builders." It was not, indeed, a civilization in the modern sense, but
only as compared with the savagery found to exist among the Indians
of the Northern States. There is abundant evidence that at one time
a much more cultivated people occupied this region. This people had
vanished ere the discovery of America by the whites. Yet plentiful
indications of their former existence persist, and the study of these,
and of their far-reaching relations, has given rise to what is almost a
complete branch of science, that of American archaeology. Many able
writers have treated this subject, but somewhat too technically for our
present purpose, and we transcribe instead a portion of an article on
"The Mound-Builders" from the "American Supplement to the En
cyclopaedia Britannica," in which the subject is handled more briefly
and generally. We omit most of the descriptive portions of this
article, but give its historical and theoretical portions in full.]
THE pioneer settlers of the valleys of the Mississippi
and the Ohio failed to discover indications of any human
culture in these regions beyond that of the savage tribes
with whom they contended for the possession of their new
territory. Only when men with aptitude for scientific
research made their way thither was it discovered that
this whole region was thickly covered with the relics of
a more ancient and more civilized race, who had appar
ently been completely supplanted by the modern Indians.
The most apparent of these relics consisted of mounds of
earth, varying greatly in shape, size, and probable pur
pose. This fact, while of interest, was not in itself par
ticularly striking. Earth mounds are found in all parts
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 273
of the world, and seem to have been a general means
adopted by savage and barbarous tribes for the burial and
the commemoration of their leading men. But the mounds
of the United States are by no means confined to purposes
of burial, like those of Asia and of other regions, but are
of greatly-varied design, and in many of their forms have
no counterpart elsewhere upon the earth. While many
of them are sepulchral, others are evidently defensive,
others religious, and of many the design is, and perhaps
will always remain, mysterious. They exist, moreover,
in extraordinary abundance, being found throughout the
whole region from the Rocky Mountains to the Allegha-
nies, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, and to some
small extent beyond these limits. The State of Ohio alone
contains more than ten thousand mounds, besides one thou
sand or fifteen hundred defensive works and enclosures.
They are also very abundant in Illinois, Indiana, and Mis
souri. It is said that within a radius of fifty miles from
the mouth of the Illinois River, in the State of Illinois,
about five thousand of these ancient works exist. They
existed so abundantly on the site of St. Louis as to gain
for that city the name of the " Mound City." If we go
south it is to find them in similar abundance. The Gulf
States are full of them. From Florida to Texas they
everywhere abound of the greatest diversity in size and
shape. Nor are they restricted to the limits here given.
Occasional small examples exist east of the Alleghanies.
West of the Rocky Mountains, and throughout Mexico
and Central America, they are found, though nowhere so
abundantly as in the Mississippi Yalley. These mounds
are usually from six to thirty feet high, and forty to one
hundred in diameter, though some are much larger. To
the vanished race to whose labor they are due has been
given the name of the " Mound-Builders."
IV.
274 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
[We have not space to give in full the extended description of these
mounds which follows, and must very briefly epitomize it. Many of
them consist of defensive earthworks, situated usually on hills and
river-bluffs, and indicating an extensive population in the valleys be
low. There are indications of a continuous line of such fortifications
extending from Western New York into Ohio, while many isolated
ones exist, often of great extent and showing much military skill in
their erection.
Other works are extensive enclosures on the valley levels, forming
very regular circles, squares, and other figures, and containing mounds
supposed to have been used for religious purposes. Of the so-called
" Temple mounds" some are of enormous size, that at Cahokia, Illi
nois, measuring seven hundred by five hundred feet at base, and ninety
feet in perpendicular height. It was probably surmounted by a tem
ple. Other small mounds are supposed to have been used as altars ; but
the most numerous class were used for burial, and in these skeletons
are often found. Perhaps the strangest mounds are those imitating
the shape of animals, which are found numerously in Wisconsin, and
to some extent elsewhere. These are large and crude representations
of a considerable variety of animals, the " Snake mound" of Ohio being
seven hundred feet in length.
The mounds contain very numerous relics of the art of their build
ers, consisting of many articles of pottery, stone pipes of very skilful
manufacture, in imitation of animal forms, stone implements in great
variety, articles of beaten copper, pearls, plates of mica, fragments of
woven fabrics, and other articles, indicative of much industry and a
considerable advance in the simpler arts. With this digest we may
permit our author to resume his narrative.]
The question now arises, Who were the Mound-Builders?
What vestiges of their history, if any, yet exist? These
are questions which archaeologists are not prepared to
answer definitely, though they seem approaching a settled
conclusion. Much study has been given to the skulls
taken from the mounds, in quest of race characteristics.
They vary considerably, but there is nothing to indicate
an essential difference in race from modern Indians. And
the arts of the Mound-Builders have not quite died out in
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 275
the existing Indian tribes. The latter, when discovered,
wei e to some extent agricultural, protected their villages
by stockades and other defensive works, and were expert
in the manufacture of stone implements and in some other
industrial pursuits. But all this is insignificant as com
pared with the varied industries and the magnitude of the
works of the Mound-Builders. These attest a population
very much greater than that of the hunting tribes, and
therefore necessarily in the main agricultural ; and one
possessed of a compact governmental organization and a
developed religious system. Either the power of a despot
over a large body of obedient people, or the influence of a
strong religious sentiment, or perhaps both, were needed
to erect the great earthworks so widely disseminated, and
which were not built without enormous labor, with the
simple means at their command. An Indian of the North,
with his independent spirit and his crude religious ideas,
would laugh to scorn the chief or medicine-man who bade
him perform such labors.
But when we go south, a different state of organization
and different religious ideas appear, and we seem to be
treading closely on the footsteps of the vanished Mound-
Builders. When the Spanish explorers landed in Florida
and made their way to the Mississippi, they found tribes
existing in a very different condition from that of the
tribes of the North. These tribes inhabited well-built and
protected villages, and were skilful agriculturists and pos
sessed of many manufacturing arts, while they still used
the mounds in their vicinity as a base of the chiefs dwell
ing, and perhaps for other purposes. Nor had they quite
lost the art of mound-building, though it is questionable
if the great mounds of the region were the work of their
direct ancestors. Their organization was far in advance
of that of the Northern Indians. In the Creek confeder-
276 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
acy the chief, or Mico, possessed a certain degree of des
potic power. He held his post for life, was a religious as
well as civil dignitary, and was treated with the greatest
homage and respect. Other important officers were the
Great War-Chief and the High-Priest, while the Conjurer
or Medicine-Man answered to the sole religious dignitary
of the Northern tribes. The vague superstitions of the
latter were replaced here by a developed sun-worship,
which was conducted with much ceremony, there being
temples in which a sacred fire was kept up with the great
est assiduity during the year, and relighted once every
year with special ceremony.
When the Spanish explorers reached the region of the
Mississippi they found there tribes who we have consider
able reason to believe were the direct descendants of the
Mound-Builders and retained their arts and organization.
These were the Natchez and other related tribes. They
are now extinct, having been annihilated by the hostility
of the French of Louisiana, but what we are told of them
is of very great interest. Their language, so far as known,
had no affinity with those of the other tribes. Their organ
ization was a more complex and despotic one than that of
the Creeks. Their chief was known as the Sun, and his
power was completely despotic. He had religious as well as
civil authority, and was looked upon as a sacred and direct
descendant of the sun-god. His family were called Suns,
and had special privileges. Beneath them was a nobility,
while the common people were very submissive. The
chiefs' dwellings were on mounds, and the mounds were
also the seat of temples, in which the sacred fire was
guarded with superstitious care by the priesthood. When
these tribes were visited by La Salle, in 1681-82, they are
described as living in large, square, adobe dwellings, with
dome-shaped roofs of canes, regularly grouped around a
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 277
central area. The temple of the sun was adorned with
the figures of three eagles, with heads turned to the east.
Among the Natchez there was an elaborate cultus, with
temples, idols, priests, keepers of sacred things, religious
festivals, and the like, and a vigorous control over the
people through their superstitions. In one town the
Spanish explorers found a large mausoleum, one hundred
paces by forty in extent, which held in large chests the
bodies of defunct chiefs. At its entrance were gigantic
wooden statues, skilfully carved and armed with weapons,
while their attitudes were threatening and their looks
ferocious. Inside were other statues, and in addition to
the chests mentioned were smaller ones containing the
valuables of the tribe. These consisted of valuable furs,
robes of dressed skins and of handsomely-colored feathers,
mats of the inner bark of trees and of a species of grass,
together with a great store of pearls. The natives lived
in comfortable dwellings, and were well clothed in dressed
and painted deer-skins, feather-work clothing, and woven
materials. The woman chief of one town, when she met
De Soto, was seated on cushions in a canoe which was
covered with awnings.
The condition and customs of these tribes are so inter
esting in respect to their probable relation to the Mound-
Builders that one cannot but regret that they did not
retain their pristine organization until visited by more
observant people than the early Spanish explorers. There
are various interesting points in regard to their institu
tions and habits which may be mentioned in this connec
tion. They nowhere formed large governmental communi
ties, but each town or village was regarded as independent,
under its own mico and council. The council met every
day in the central square of the village to consider ques
tions of public interest. Over this meeting the mico
iv. 24
278 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
presided, and was treated with the utmost respect as a
direct representative of the sun, though his power did not
eeem so absolute in the eastern as in the Mississippi region.
He held his post for life, and though the office was elective
it generally remained in the one family, descent being
in the female line. Agriculture was the main vocation
of these tribes, though hunting was actively engaged in.
All the soil was held in common, the only private prop
erty being in habitations and in immediate garden-plots.
And one interesting feature of the industrial situation was
that, while every farmer or hunter had the right to the
product of his own labor, every one was obliged to deposit
a part of his food-product in the public granary, a circular
building of stone and earth erected in some shady place.
This wise provision was intended as a reserve store in case
of want, and for the use of the helpless. The contents of
the granary were under the absolute disposal of the mico.
Capital punishment was administered in the presence of
the council, the criminal being executed by the blow of a
club on the skull.*
The organization of the Southern Indians, as we have
said, reached its ultimate development in the Natchez and
their related tribes. Here the Sun was at once king and
high-priest, and absolute in power, the people being highly
submissive. The distinctions of rank were more conspicu
ous than elsewhere. The great chief every morning per
formed certain religious ceremonies at the door of his
habitation. He acknowledged no superior but the sun,
and the tradition was entertained that he and his family
were the descendants of a man and woman who originally
* It may be stated here that skulls have been found in the Northern
burial-mounds, crushed in this manner, evidently those of victims im
molated at the burial of a deceased chief.
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 279
came down from the sun to the earth. The ruler was not
succeeded by his son, but by the son of his nearest female
relative, who was known as the Woman Chief, and who
also possessed the power of life and death over the people.
So great was the influence over them of their supersti
tions that the extinguishment of the sacred fire in the
temple was deemed the greatest calamity that could pos
sibly befall them. Among the Creeks, and possibly among
the Natchez, it was the custom to extinguish it at a fixed
period every year, and relight it after an interval, this
interval being a period of dread and lamentation by the
people.* The death of the Sun of the Natchez cost the
life of his guards and of many of his subjects, sometimes
more than one hundred persons being sacrificed. Few of
the principal persons died without human sacrifices, the
victims being chosen from their relatives, friends, and ser
vants. Captives taken in war were sacrificed to the sun,
and their skulls displayed on the temples.
We have gone into this description of the manners and
customs of the Southern Indians from the fact that many
archa3ologists are now satisfied that they were the direct
descendants of the Mound-Builders. The governmental
and religious system, and the arts, of these tribes agree
in many respects with the indications which the mounds
reveal, particularly in the traces of human sacrifices per
formed by crushing the skull, and the superstition and
despotism which alone can explain the immensity of the
labors performed. Some of the mounds are so great that
it would take a thousand men months to erect them with
all the aid of the best modern implements. It must have
cost their original builders years of the hardest labor, all
* A very similar custom and sentiment existed among the Aztecs of
Mexico.
280 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
this earth being carried by hand, probably in baskets,
often for a considerable distance, and deposited upon the
mounds.
Historical. The history of the Mound-Builders can only
be conjectural. Possibly, had the early settlers of America
been disposed to archaeological inquiry, traces of this van
ished people might have been found north as well as south.
A. J. Conant, in his " Footprints of Vanished Eaces," says
that the Indian tribes, when first known, had traditions
of a superior race whom they had conquered and en
slaved. Here and there a solitary individual was found
who claimed to be a prophet and the descendant of a long
priestly line, a representative of this superior race. To
these statements no attention was paid, and only a few of
the many traditions which might have been collected are
now extant. It is not improbable that the semi-civiliza
tion of the Mound-Builders originated in the Mississippi
Yalley, possibly in the highly-fertile region of the lower
Mississippi, and that it gradually extended northward, by
a natural process of expansion, to the point of confluence
of the Mississippi and Ohio. From this point the colonists
seem to have followed several channels, keeping to the
rivers, and extending through the valleys of the Ohio,
the Missouri, and other streams, until they finally occu
pied the whole region already indicated. There is reason
to believe that the mouth of the Ohio was the central
point of their domain, from its lack of defensive works,
its abundance of mounds, and the superior character of
its objects of art and industry. Eastward and westward
they extended far towards the bordering mountain-chains,
and northward to Isle Eoyale and the shores of Lake
Superior, where the traces of mining operations are their
most northerly indications. It is conjectured that they
came here only in the summer, on mining expeditions, and
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 281
that they had no regular settlements in this region. The
Mississippi and the Ohio seem to have been their main
arteries of expansion, and the Missouri somewhat less so,
while indications of their occupancy diminish as we pass
from this centre towards the north, east, and west.
It is possible that the reverse movement was in some
what the same lines. If, in their advance, they pushed
back the original inhabitants of the country, these seem
to have held their own in the mountains, and to have
finally retaliated. The many works of defence which
exist indicate a fierce and long-continued era of warfare,
in which it is probable that the soil of the United States
was deeply drenched with human blood, perhaps at the
same period that similar fierce conflicts between barbarism
and civilization were taking place in Europe and Asia.
As the Romans long drove back the German tribes and
possessed their country, and yet were in turn overcome
by these vigorous tribes, so may the Mound-Builders have
outspread and finally been overthrown. Probably they
were conquered piecemeal, as there is no probability that
they composed a single empire, but rather a congeries of
independent tribes, with similar arts and organization.
However that be, they vanished from the land which they
had long inhabited, and it was left in full possession of the
hunting tribes, who were found there as sole inhabitants
at the advent of the whites,- with only the deserted mounds
and their contents in attestation of an earlier and more
interesting people. The Mound-Builders, driven from the
North, and down the Mississippi Yalley to their original
seat in the Gulf States, may have there retained their
manners and customs and partial civilization, with more
or less completeness, till the coming of the whites, and
have constituted the tribes found there by La Salle and
his followers. Once more they were invaded by a power-
IY. 24*
282 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
fill foe, before whose assault the last vestige of their an
cient organization was to disappear, and their most illus
trative tribe, the Natchez, to vanish finally from the earth.
As to the period in which the kingdom of the Mound-
Builders flourished in the North, many conjectures have
been made. There are some indications which point to a
considerable antiquity. Forest trees probably six hundred
years old are found on some of the mounds. Traces of
decaying trees of yet older date exist. Yet after the
abandonment of the mounds a long period must have
elapsed ere forest trees could have taken root in their
clayey soil, and a much longer period ere they could have
been invaded by trees having all the variety of the neigh
boring forests, as was the case when they were discovered.
There are also vegetable accumulations which indicate a
considerable lapse of time. In one ditch these accumu
lations were three feet eight inches deep. The greatly-
decayed condition of the skeletons is another evidence of
antiquity. Still another is the encroachment of streams
upon the abandoned works. The works of the Mound-
Builders are not erected upon the present river terrace,
but upon a higher one, which may indicate that the rivers
have deepened their channels since the date of erection
of the mounds, or perhaps that the purpose of this was
to avoid inundation. If the era of abandonment of these
works was thus remote, that of their erection may have
been much more remote, and the slow growth of the civili
zation of the Mound-Builders from original savagery may
have occupied a vast period, whose duration it would be
idle to conjecture. It will suffice to say that in these
strange remains we have a revelation of a remarkable and
long-continued series of human events upon this portion
of the American continent which, but for them, would be
lost in total oblivion.
ANONYMOUS] THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 283
It is not improbable that the Gulf territory of the
United States may have been the centre of outflow of the
civilization of another region than that of the Mound-
Builders. The migrations of the latter may have taken
place south as well as north, and given rise to the civiliza
tion of Mexico. Or more probably their southward move
ment before the overwhelming incursions of their Northern
foes may have set in train a new movement southward,
the Southern tribes yielding as those of the North were
pushed back upon them, and migrating through the Mexi
can region to the seats of the Nahua and Maya empires.
This conjecture is based not alone on the traditions of a
Northern origin which prevailed in these empires, but on
the close conformity of their organization and their archi
tecture to those we have been considering.
Sun-worship was the early faith of the Aztecs. Their
ruler was at once chief and high-priest. His power was
despotic. The perpetual fire of the temples was guarded
as sedulously as in the North, and its extinguishment
deemed a dire calamity. The land was held in common
and there were public granaries in which a part of ah
products had to be deposited. A governing council shared
the authority of the ruler. Human sacrifice had grown
to frightful dimensions. Other points of community
might be named, but these are the most striking.
In architecture a similar community existed. The tem
ples of Mexico were built upon terraced and truncated
mounds quite similar in general design to those of the
North. In Yucatan these terraced mounds are repeated,
and here they bear enormous and profusely-sculptured
stone edifices. Here, then, we seem to reach the final out
come of that movement towards civilization which began
in the North, and reached its culmination in the American
tropics, in all its changes preserving the finger-marks of
284 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ WILLIS
its origin. This is conjectural only, yet it is a conjecture
based upon striking indications, and it is certainly by no
means improbable that the civilization of North America
originated in the valley of the lower Mississippi and its
adjacent regions, extended northward and left its relics
in the works of the Mound-Builders, and afterwards moved
south before an irresistible force, finding its final seat in
Mexico and Central America, where it may have displaced
or mingled with a more archaic native civilization.
UNWRITTEN MUSIC.
N. P. WILLIS.
MEPHISTOPHELES could hardly have found a more strik
ing amusement for Faust than the passage of three hun
dred miles in the canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson.
As I walked up and down the deck of the packet-boat, I
thought to myself that if it were not for thoughts of
things that come more home to one's " business and bosom"
(particularly " bosom") I could be content to retake my
berth at Schenectady and return to Buffalo for amuse
ment. The Erie canal-boat is a long and very pretty
drawing-room afloat. It has a library, sofas, a tolerable
cook, curtains or Venetian blinds, a civil captain, and no
smell of steam or perceptible motion. It is drawn gener
ally by three horses at a fair trot, and gets you through
about a hundred miles a day, as softly as if you were
witched over the ground by Puck and Mustard-seed. The
company (say fifty people) is such as pleases Heaven ;
though I must say (with my eye all along the shore, col
lecting the various dear friends I have made and left on
WILLIS] UNWRITTEN MUSIC. 285
that long canal), there are few highways on which you
will meet so many lovely and loving fellow-passengers.
On this occasion my star was bankrupt, Job Smith being
my only civilized companion, and I was left to the un
satisfactory society of my own thoughts and the scenery.
Discontented as I may seem to have been, I remember,
through eight or ten years of stirring and thickly-sown
manhood, every moment of that lonely evening. I re
member the progression of the sunset, from the lengthen
ing shadows and the first gold upon the clouds, to the
deepening twilight and the new-sprung star hung over the
wilderness. And I remember what I am going to describe,
a twilight anthem in the forest, as you remember an
air of Rossini's, or a transition in the half-fiendish, half-
heavenly creations of Meyerbeer. I thought time dragged
heavily then, but I wish I had as light a heart and could
feel as vividly now !
The Erie Canal is cut a hundred or two miles through
the heart of the primeval wilderness of America, and the
boat was gliding on silently and swiftly, and never sailed
a lost cloud through the abyss of space on a course more
apparently new and untrodden. The luxuriant soil had
sent up a rank grass that covered the horse-path like
velvet ; the Erie water was clear as a brook in the wind
ing canal ; the old shafts of the gigantic forest spurred
into the sky by thousands ; and the yet unscared eagle
swung off from the dead branch of the pine, and skimmed
the tree-tops for another perch, as if he had grown to
believe that gliding spectre a harmless phenomenon of
nature. The horses drew steadily and unheard at the end
of the long line ; the steersman stood motionless at the
tiller, and I lay on a heap of baggage in the prow, atten
tive to the slightest breathing of nature, but thinking,
with an ache at my heart, of Edith Linsey, to whose feet
286 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ WILLIS
(did I mention it?) I was hastening with a lover's proper
impatience. I might as well have taken another turn in
m^ " fool's paradise."
The gold of the sunset had glided up the dark pine-tops
and disappeared like a ring taken slowly from an Ethiop's
finger; the whippoorwill had chanted the first stave of
his lament ; the bat was abroad, and the screech-owl, like
all bad singers, commenced without waiting to be impor
tuned, though we were listening for the nightingale. The
air, as I said before, had been all day breathless ; but as
the first chill of evening displaced the warm atmosphere
of the departed sun, a slight breeze crisped the mirrored
bosom of the canal, and then commenced the night an
them of the forest, audible, I would fain believe, in its
soothing changes, by the dead tribes whose bones whiten
amid the perishing leaves. First, whisperingly yet ar
ticulately, the suspended and wavering foliage of the
birch was touched by the many-fingered wind, and, like a
faint prelude, the silver-lined leaves rustled in the low
branches ; and, with a moment's pause, when you could
hear the moving of the vulture's claws upon the bark, as
he turned to get his breast to the wind, the increasing
breeze swept into the pine-tops, and drew forth from
their fringe-like and myriad tassels a low monotone like
the refrain of a far-off dirge; and still as it murmured
(seeming to you sometimes like the confused and heart
broken responses of the penitents on a cathedral floor)
the blast strengthened and filled, and the rigid leaves of
the oak, and the swaying fans and chalices of the mag
nolia, and the rich cups of the tulip-trees, stirred and
answered with their different voices like many-toned
harps ; and when the wind was fully abroad, and every
moving thing on the breast of the earth was roused from
its daylight repose, the irregular and capricious blast, like
WILLIS] UNWRITTEN MUSIC. 287
a player on an organ of a thousand stops, lulled and
strengthened by turns, and from the hiss in the rank
grass, low as the whisper of fairies, to the thunder of the
impinging and groaning branches of the larch and the fir,
the anthem went ceaselessly through its changes, and the
harmony (though the owl broke in with his scream, and
though the overblown monarch of the wood came crash
ing to the earth) was still perfect and without a jar. It
is strange that there is no sound of nature out of tune.
The roar of the water-fall comes into this anthem of the
forest like an accompaniment of bassoons, and the oc
casional bark of the wolf, or the scream of a night-bird,
or even the deep-throated croak of the frog, is no more
discordant than the outburst of an octave flute above the
even melody of an orchestra; and it is surprising how
the large rain-drops, pattering on the leaves, and the
small voice of the nightingale (singing, like nothing but
himself, sweetest in the darkness), seems an intensitive
and a low burden to the general anthem of the earth, as
it were, a single voice among instruments.
I had what Wordsworth calls a " couchant ear" in my
youth, and my story will wait, dear reader, while I tell
you of another harmony that I learned to love in the
wilderness.
There will come sometimes in the spring say in May,
or whenever the snow-drops and sulphur butterflies are
tempted out by the first timorous sunshine. there will
come, I say, in that yearning and youth-renewing season,
a warm shower at noon. Our tent shall be pitched on
the skirts of a forest of young pines, and the evergreen
foliage, if foliage it may be called, shall be a daily refresh
ment to our eye while watching, with the west wind upon
our cheeks, the unclothed branches of the elm. The rain
descends softly and warm ; but with the sunset the clouds
288 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WILLIS
break away, and it grows suddenl}' cold enough to freeze.
The next morning you shall come out with me to a hill
side looking upon the south, and lie down with your ear
to the earth. The pine-tassels hold in every four of their
fine fingers a drop of rain frozen like a pearl in a long
ear-ring, sustained in their loose grasp by the rigidity of
the cold. The sun grows warm at ten, and the slight
green fingers begin to relax and yield, and by eleven they
are all dropping their icy pearls upon the dead leaves
with a murmur through the forest like the swarming of
the bees of Hybla. There is not much variety in its
music, but it is a pleasant monotone for thought, and if
you have a restless fever in your bosom (as I had, when 1
learned to love it, for the travel which has corrupted the
heart and the ear that it soothed and satisfied then) you
may lie down with a crooked root under your head in the
skirts of the forest, and thank Heaven for an anodyne to
care. And it is better than the voice of your friend, or
the song of your lady-love, for it exacts no gratitude, and
will not desert you ere the echo dies upon the wind.
Oh, how many of these harmonies there are! how
many that we hear, and how many that are " too constant
to be heard" ! I could go back to my youth, now, with
this thread of recollection, and unsepulture a hoard of
simple and long-buried joys that would bring the blush
upon my cheek to think how my senses are dulled since
sich things could give me pleasure! Is there no "well
of Kanathos" for renewing the youth of the soul? no
St. Hilary's cradle ? no elixir to cast the slough of heart-
sickening and heart-tarnishing custom? Find me an
alchymy for that, with your alembic and crucible, and
you may resolve to dross again your philosopher's stone !
BARNES] LIFE AT THREESCORE AND TEN. 289
LIFE AT THREESCORE AND TEN.
ALBERT BARNES.
[The writer of this interesting description of the feelings, and rela
tions to society, of a septuagenarian, himself lived very little past that
life-era. He was born in 1798, and died in 1870, at the age of seventy-
two. No theological writer of America has attained greater popularity
as an author, his "Notes on the New Testament," comprising eleven
volumes, having reached, at the time of his death, a sale of over a mil
lion volumes. He wrote numerous other works, and was an earnest
advocate of the anti-slavery doctrine long before that doctrine was ac
cepted by the clergy generally. In 1830 he became pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, a position which he held for
more than thirty years.]
A MAN rarely forms any new plans of life at seventy
years of age. He enters no new professions or callings, he
embarks in no new business, he undertakes to write no
new books, he forms no new friendships, alliances, or part
nerships ; he cannot now feel, as he once could, that on
the failure of one plan he may now embark in another
with better promise of success.
Hitherto all along the course of his life he has felt that,
if he became conscious that he had mistaken his calling,
or if he was unsuccessful in that calling, he might em
brace another ; if be was disappointed or failed in one line
of business, be migbt resume that line, or embark in an-
otber, witb vigor and bope ; for be bad youth on bis side,
and be bad, or be tbougbt be bad, many years before bim.
If one friend proved unfaithful, be migbt form other
friendships; if he failed in his chosen profession, the
world was still before him where to choose, and there
were still many paths that might lead to affluence or to
honor ; if he lost one battle, the case was not hopeless, for
iv. N t 25
290 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARNES
he might yet be honored on some other field with victory,
and be crowned with glory.
But usually, when a man reaches the period of " three
score and ten years," all these things lie in the past. His
purposes have all been formed and ended. If he sees new
plans and purposes that seem to him to be desirable or im
portant to be executed ; if there are new fields of honor,
wealth, science, ambition, or benevolence, they are not for
him, they are for a younger and more vigorous generation.
It is true that this feeling may come over a man at any
period of life. In the midst of his way, in the successful
prosecution of his most brilliant purposes, in the glow and
ardor attending the most attractive schemes, the hand of
disease or death may be laid on him, and he may be made
to feel that all his plans are ended, a thought all the more
difficult to bear because he has not been prepared for it by
the gradual whitening of his hairs and the infirmities of
age. . . .
Most men in active life look forward, with fond antici
pation, to a time when the cares of life will be over, and
when they will be released from their responsibilities and
burdens; if not with an absolute desire that such a time
shall come, yet with a feeling that it will be a relief when
it does come. Many an hour of anxiety in the counting-
room ; many an hour of toil in the workshop or on the
farm ; many an hour of weariness on the bench ; many a
burdened hour in the great offices of state, and many an
hour of exhaustion and solicitude in professional life, is
thus relieved by the prospect of rest, of absolute rest,
of entire freedom from responsibility. What merchant
arid professional man, what statesman, does not look for
ward to such a time of repose, and anticipate a season
perhaps a long one of calm tranquillity before life shall
end? and when the time approaches, though the hope
BARNES] LIFE AT THREESCORE AND TEN. 291
often proves fallacious, yet its approach is not unwelcome.
Diocletian and Charles Y. descended from their thrones to
seek repose, the one in private life, the other in a cloister ;
and the aged judge, merchant, or pastor welcomes the
time when he feels that the burden which he has so long
borne may be committed to younger men.
Yet when the time of absolute rest comes, it is different
from what has been anticipated. There is, to the surprise,
perhaps, of all such men, this new, this strange idea, an
idea which they never had before, and which did not enter
their anticipations : that they have now nothing to live for ;
that they have no motive for effort ; that they have no
plan or purpose of life. They seem now to themselves,
perhaps to others, to have no place in the world, no right
in it. Society has no place for them, for it has nothing to
confer on them, and they can no longer make a place for
themselves. General Washington, when the war of Inde
pendence was over, and he had returned to Mount Yernon,
is said to have felt " lost" because he had not an army to
provide for daily ; and Charles Y., so far from finding rest
in the cloister, amused himself, as has been commonly
supposed, in trying to make clocks and watches run to
gether, and, so far from actually withdrawing from the
affairs of state, miserable in his chosen place of retreat,
still busied himself with the affairs of Europe, and
sought in the convent at Yuste to govern his hereditary
dominions which he had professedly resigned to his son,
and as far as possible still to control the empire where he
had so long reigned. The retired merchant, unused to
reading, and unaccustomed to agriculture or the mecnani-
cal arts, having little taste, it may be, for the fine arts or
for social life, finds life a burden and sighs for his old em
ployments and associations, for in his anticipation of this
period he never allowed the idea to enter his mind that he
292 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARNES
should then have really closed all his plans of life ; that
as he had professedly done with the world, so the world
has actually done with him.
How great, therefore, is the contrast of a man of twenty
and one of seventy years ! To those in the former condi
tion the words of Milton in relation to our first parents,
when they went out from Eden into the wide world, may
not be improperly applied :
" The world was all "before them where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide ;"
those in the other case have nothing which they can
choose. There is nothing before them but the one path,
that which leads to the grave, to another world. To
them the path of wealth, of fame, of learning, of ambi
tion, is closed forever. The world has nothing more for
them ; they have nothing more for the world.
I do not mean to say that there can be nothing for an
aged man to do, or that there may not be in some cases a
field of usefulness perhaps a new and large one for him
to occupy. I mean only that this cannot constitute a part
of his plan of life; it cannot be a result of a purpose
formed in his earlier years. His own plans and purposes
of life are ended, and whatever there may be in reserve
for him, it is usually a new field, something which awaits
him beyond the ordinary course of events ; and the tran
sition of his own finished plans to this cannot but be deeply
affecting to his own mind. I do not affirm that a man
may not be useful and happy as long as God shall lengthen
out his days on earth, and I do not deny that there may
be much in the character and services of an ancient man
that should command the respect and secure the gratitude
of mankind. The earlier character and the earlier plans
of every man should be such that he will be useful if his
PAULDING] NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. 293
days extend beyond the ordinary period allotted to our
earthly life. A calm, serene, cheerful old age is always
useful. Consistent and mature piety, gentleness of spirit,
kindness and benevolence, are always useful.
NO USE BEING IN A HURRY.
J. K.
[One of the first of American writers to attain a reputation as a
novelist was James Kirke Paulding, born in New York in 1779. In
combination with Washington Irving, he published, in 1807, a series
of witty and satirical papers, entitled " Salmagundi," which attracted
much attention. His satire of " John Bull and Brother Jonathan" ia
among the most humorous of this class of works in our literature.
He wrote several other works, chief among which is " The Dutchman's
Fireside," a novel which was long greatly admired. It will not well
bear comparison with later achievements in the novelistic field, yet it
is of value as giving an interesting picture of colonial life in New
York'. We select from it a humorous chapter. Mr. Paulding died
in I860.]
MUCH has been sung and written of the charms of the
glorious Hudson, its smiling villages, its noble cities, its
magnificent banks, and its majestic waters. The inimita
ble Knickerbocker, the graphic Cooper, and a thousand
less celebrated writers and tourists have delighted to lux
uriate in descriptions of its rich fields, its flowery meadows,
whispering groves, and cloud-capped mountains, until its
name is become synonymous with all the beautiful and
sublime of nature. Associated as are these beauties with
our earliest recollections and nearest, dearest friends,
entwined as they inseparably are with memorials of the
iv. 25*
294 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAULDINQ
past and anticipations of the future, we too would offer
our humble tribute. But the theme has been exhausted
by hands that snatched the pencil from Nature herself,
and nothing is left for us but to expend our emotions in
silent musings.
Catalina, accompanied by her father, embarked on board
of the good sloop Watervliet, whereof was commander
Captain Baltus Yan Slingerland, a most experienced, de
liberative, and circumspective skipper. -This vessel was
noted for making quick passages, wherein she excelled the
much-vaunted Liverpool packets ; seldom being more than
three weeks in going from Albany to New York, unless
when she chanced to run on the flats, for which, like her
worthy owners, she seemed to have an instinctive prefer
ence. Captain Baltus was a navigator of great sagacity
and courage, having been the first man that ever under
took the dangerous voyage between the two cities without
asking the prayers of the church and making his will.
Moreover, he was so cautious in all his proceedings that
he took nothing for granted, and would never be convinced
that his vessel was near a shoal or a sand-bank until she
was high and dry aground. When properly certified by
ocular demonstration, he became perfectly satisfied, and
set himself to smoking till it pleased the waters to rise
and float him off again. His patience under an accident
of this kind was exemplary ; his pipe was his consolation,
more effectual than all the precepts of philosophy.
It was a fine autumnal morning, calm, still, clear, and
beautiful. The forests, as they nodded or slept quietly on
the borders of the pure river, reflected upon its bosom a
varied carpet, adorned with every shade of every color.
The bright yellow poplar, the still brighter scarlet maple,
the dark-brown oak, and the yet more sombre evergreen
pine and hemlock, together with a thousand various trees
PAULDING] NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. 295
and shrubs, of a thousand varied tints, all mingled in
one rich, inexpressibly rich garment, with which Nature
seemed desirous of hiding her faded beauties and approach
ing decay. The vessel glided slowly with the current,
now and then assisted by a little breeze, that for a moment
rippled the surface and filled the sails, and then died away
again. In this manner they approached the Overslaugh,
a place infamous in all past time for its narrow, crooked
channel, and the sand-banks with which it is infested.
The vigilant Yan Slingerland, in view of possible contin
gencies, replenished his pipe and inserted it in the button
holes of his Dutch pea-jacket, to be ready on an emer
gency.
" Boss," said the ebony Palinurus who presided over the
destinies of the good sloop Watervliet, " boss, don't you
t'ink I'd better put about? I t'ink we're close to the
Overslaugh, now."
Captain Baltus very leisurely walked to the bow of the
vessel, and, after looking about a little, replied, " A leetle
furder, a leetle furder, Brom ; no occasion to pe in zuch a
hurry pefore you are zure of a ting."
Brom kept on his course, grumbling a little in an under
tone, until the sloop came to a sudden stop. The captain
then bestirred himself to let go the anchor.
" No fear, boss : she won't run away."
" Very well," quoth Captain Baltus, " I'm zatisfied now,
berfectly zatisfied. We are certainly on de Overslaugh."
" As clear as mud," answered Brom. The captain then
proceeded to light his pipe, and Brom followed his exam
ple. Every quarter of an hour a sloop would glide past
in perfect safety, warned of the precise situation of the
bar by the position of the Watervliet, and adding to the
vexation of our travellers at being thus left behind. But
Captain Baltus smoked away, now and then ejaculating,
296 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAULDING
" Ay, ay, de more hashte de lesh shpeed j we shall see py
and py."
As the tide ebbed, the vessel, which had grounded on
the extremity of the sand-bank, gradually heeled on one
side, until it was difficult to keep the deck, and Colonel
Yancour suggested the propriety of going on shore until
she righted again.
" Why, where's de uze, den," replied Captain Baltus,
" of daking all tis drouble, boss? We shall pe off in dwo
or dree tays at most. It will pe vull-moon tay after do-
morrow."
" Two or three days !" exclaimed the colonel. " If I
thought so, I would go home and wait for you."
" Why, where's de uze, den, of daking zo much drouble,
golonel? You'd only have to gome pack again."
" But why don't you lighten your vessel, or carry out
an anchor? She seems just on the edge of the bank,
almost ready to slide into the deep water."
" Why, where's de uze of daking zo much drouble, den ?
She'll get off herzelf one of deze days, golonel. You are
well off here, notting to do, and de young woman dare
can knid you a bair of stogings to bass de dime."
" But she can't knit stockings," said the colonel, smiling.
" Not knid stogings ! Py main zoul, den, what is zhe
goot vor ? Den zhe must zmoke a bipe ; dat is de next
pest way of bassing de dime."
" But she don't smoke either, captain."
" Not zmoke, nor knid stogings ? Christus I where was
zhe prought ub, den ? I wouldn't have her vor my wife
iv zhe had a whole zloop vor her vortune. I don't know
what zhe gan do to bass de dime dill next vull-moon, put
go to zleep; dat is de next pest ding to knidding and
zmoking."
Catalina was highly amused at Captain Baltus's enu-
NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. 297
meration of the sum-total of her resources for passing the
time. Fortunately, however, the next rising of the tide
floated them off, and the vessel proceeded gallantly on her
way, with a fine northwest breeze, which carried her on
with almost the speed of a steamboat. In the course of
a few miles they overtook and passed several sloops that
had left the Watervliet aground on the Overslaugh.
" You zee, golonel," said Captain Baltus, complacently,
"you zee: where's de uze of peing in a hurry, den?
Dey have peen at anghor, and we have peen on a zand-
pank. What's de difference, den, golonel ?"
" But it is easier to get up an anchor, captain, than to
get off a sand-bank."
" Well, zubbose it is ; if a man is not in a hurry, what
den ?" replied Captain Baltus.
At the period of which we are writing, a large portion
of the banks of the river, now gemmed with white vil
lages and delightful retreats, was still in a state of nature.
The little settlements were " few and far between," and
some scattered Indians yet lingered in those abodes which
were soon to pass away from them and their posterity
forever. The river alone was in the entire occupation of
the white man; the shores were still, in many places,
inhabited by remnants of the Indian tribes. But they
were not the savages of the free wild woods ; they had in
some degree lost their habits of war and hunting, and
seldom committed hostilities upon the whites, from an
instinctive perception that they were now at their mercy.
Still, though the banks of the river were for the most
part wild, they were not the less grand and beautiful ;
and Catalina, as she sat on the deck in the evening, when
the landscape, bronzed with twilight, presented one un
varied appearance of lonely pomp and majestic repose,
could not resist its holy influence. On the evening of the
298 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAULDING
sixth day the vessel was becalmed in the heart of the
Highlands, just opposite where West Point now rears its
gray stone seminaries, consecrated to science, to patriot
ism, and glory. It was then a solitary rock, where the
eagle made his abode, and from which a lonely Indian some
times looked down on the vessels gliding past far below,
and cursed them as the usurpers of his ancient domain.
The tide ran neither up nor down the river, and there
was not a breath of air stirring. The dusky pilot pro
posed to Captain Baltus to let go the anchor, but the cap
tain saw "no use in being in such a hurry." So the vessel
lay still as a sleeping halcyon upon the unmoving mirror
of the waters. Baltus drew forth his trusty pipe, and the
negro pilot selected a soft plank on the forecastle, on
which he. in a few minutes, found that blessed repose
which is the prize of labor, and which a thousand times
outweighs the suicide luxuries of the lazy glutton, whose
sleep is the struggle, not the relaxation, of nature.
As the golden sun sunk behind the high mountains of
the west, that other lesser glory of the heavens rose in
full, round, silver radiance from out the fleecy foliage of
the forest which crowned them on the east bank of the
river. The vessel seemed embosomed in a little world of
its own, with nothing visible but the shimmering water,
the half-seen twofold range of undulating mountains, one
side all gloom, the other shining bright, and the blue
heavens sparkling with ten thousand ever-during glories
overhead. Catalina wrapped herself in her cloak, and sat
on the quarter-deck alone and abstracted, conscious of the
scene and its enchantments only as they awakened those
mysterious associations of thought and of feeling that
establish the indissoluble union between the Creator and
his works. . . .
At this moment a wild, shrill shriek or howl broke from
PAULDING] ^0 USE BEING IN A HURRY. 299
the shore, echoed among the silent recesses of the moun
tains, and roused Catalina from her delicious revery. In
about a minute it was repeated, and a third time, after a
similar interval.
" Dat is de olt woman," said Captain Baltus, who was
sitting on the hatchway smoking his pipe, something
between sleeping and waking.
" What old woman T asked Catalina.
" Why, de olt Inchan woman, what keeps apout de rock
yust ashore, dare : don't you zee it, glose under dat bine-
dree, dare 1"
" What Indian woman ? and what does she do there,
shrieking T' said the young lady.
" What ! tid you never hear dat zdory t and ton't you
know it's no olt woman after all, put a ghost V
"A ghost!"
" Ay, yes, a spook. I saw it one night when I cot
ashore on de vlats yust apove de rog ; and you may tepent
1 was in a great hurry den for onze in my life, I gan dell
vou. It looked like de very olt Tuyvel, ztanting on de
rog, and whetting a great jack-knife, as dey zay."
" Who say ?" asked Catalina.
" Why, my fader ant grandfader, who are bote teat,
for dat matter ; but dey tolt me de zdory pefore dey tiet.
We zhall have zixteen rainy Zuntays, one after de oder,
and den it will glear up wid a gread znow-zdorm."
" Yes r
" Yez ; as zure as you zid dare. It always habbens after
dat olt woman zhows herself, and sgreams zo, like de very
Tuyvel."
"Do you know the story?" asked Colonel Vancoui,
whose attention had been arrested by the conversation.
"Know it? Why, to be zure I to, golonel. I have
heart it a hundred dimes from my fader and grandfader.
300 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
He was de firzt man dat zailed in a zloop all de way from
Albany to New York."
"We can't have higher authority. Come, captain, I
see your pipe is just filled, tell us the story, and then T
will go to sleep."
The worthy skipper said he was no great hand at tell
ing a story, but he would try, if they would promise not
to hurry him, and accordingly began :
" Onze tere was an olt woman Tuyvel ! dare zhe is
again !" exclaimed Baltus, as a long quaver echoed from
the shore.
" Well, well, never mind her : go on."
" Onze tere was an olt woman " Here another
quaver, apparently from the mast-head, stopped Baltus
again, and made Catalina start.
" Tuyvel I" cried Baltus ; " put if I ton't pelieve zhe is
goming apoard of us !"
" Well, never mind," said the colonel again : " she wants
to hear whether you do her full justice, I suppose. Go on,
" Onze tere was an olt woman," he began, almost in a
whisper; when he was again interrupted by the black
pilot, who came aft with the light and asked Baltus
whether it would not be better to haul down the sails, as
he saw some appearance of wind towards the northeast,
where the clouds had now obscured the moon entirely.
"Ton't pe in zuch a hurry, Brom," quoth the skipper;
" dime enough when de wind gomes."
" Onze tere was an olt woman " At that moment
Brom's light was suddenly extinguished, and Baltus re
ceived a blow in the face that laid him sprawling on the
quarter-deck, at the same instant that a tremendous scream
broke forth from some invisible being that seemed close at
their ears. Baltus roared manfully, and Catalina was not
PATJLDING] NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. 301
a little frightened at these incomprehensible manoeuvres
of the old woman. The colonel, however, insisted that he
should go on, bidding him get up and tell his story.
" Onze tere was an olt woman " But the legend of
honest Baltus, like Corporal Trim's story of "a certain
king of Bohemia," seemed destined never to get beyond
the first sentence. He was again interrupted by a strange,
mysterious scratching and fluttering, accompanied by a
mighty cackling and confusion, in the chicken-coop, which
the provident captain had stored with poultry for the
benefit of the colonel and his daughter.
" Tuyvel ! what's dat ?" cried Captain Baltus, in great
consternation.
"Oh, it's only the old woman robbing your hen-roost."
replied the colonel.
" Den I must loog to it," said Baltus, and, mustering the
courage of desperation, went to see what was the matter.
In a few moments he returned, bringing with him a large
owl, which had, from some freak or other, or perhaps at
tracted by the charms of Baltus's poultry, first lighted on
the mast, and then, either seduced or confused by Brom's
light, darted from thence into the capacious platter-face
of the worthy skipper, as before stated.
"Here is de tuyvel!" exclaimed Baltus.
" And the old woman," said the colonel, laughing.
" But come, captain, I am more anxious than ever to hear
the rest of the story."
" Onze tere was an olt woman " A hollow murmur
among the mountains again suddenly interrupted him.
" There is the old woman again," said the colonel. " 'Tis
de olt Tuyvel!" said Baltus, starting up and calling all
hands to let go the halyards. But, before this could be
accomplished, one of those sudden squalls so common in
the highlands in autumn struck the vessel and threw her
iv. 26
302 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAULDING
almost on her beam ends. The violence of the motion
carried Colonel Yancour and Catalina with it, and had
they not been arrested by the railings of the quarter-deck
they must inevitably have gone overboard. The Water-
vliet was, however, an honest Dutch vessel, of a most
convenient breadth of beam, and it was no easy matter to
capsize her entirely. For a minute or two she lay quiver
ing and struggling with the fury of the squall that roared
among the mountains and whistled through the shrouds,
until, acquiring a little headway, she slowly luffed up in
the wind, righted, and flapped her sails in defiance. The
next minute all was calm again. The cloud passed over,
the moon shone bright, and the waters slept as if they
had never been disturbed. Whereupon Captain Baltus,
like a prudent skipper as he was, ordered all sail to be
lowered, and the anchor to be let go, sagely observing
that it was " high time to look out for squalls."
"Such an accident at sea would have been rather
serious," observed the colonel.
" I ton't know what you dink, golonel," said Baltus,
"put, in my obinion, id ton't make much odts wedder
a man is trownet in te zea or in a river." The colonel
could not well gainsay this, and soon after retired with
his daughter to the cabin.
Bright and early the next morning, Captain Baltus,
having looked round in every direction, east, west, north,
and south, to see if there were any squalls brewing, and
perceiving not a cloud in the sky, cautiously ordered
half the jib and main-sail to be hoisted, to catch the little
land-breeze that just rippled the surface of the river. In
a few hours they emerged from the pass at the foot of the
great Donderberg, and slowly opened upon that beautiful
amphitheatre into which Nature has thrown all her treas
ures and all her beauties. Nothing material occurred
PAULDING] NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. 3Q3
during the rest of the passage. True it is that Skipper
Baltus ran the good sloop Watervliet two or three times
upon the oyster-banks of the since renowned Tappan Bay ;
but this was so common a circumstance that it scarcely
deserved commemoration, nor would I have recorded it
here but for the apprehension that its omission might at a
future period, peradventure, seduce some industrious scribe
to write an entirely new history of these adventures, solely
to rescue such an important matter from oblivion. Suffice
it to say that at the expiration of ten days from the com
mencement of the voyage the good sloop Watervliet
arrived safe at Coenties Slip, where all the Albany sloops
congregated at that time. This extraordinary passage
was much talked of in both cities, and finally found its
way into " The Weekly News-Letter," then the only paper
published in the whole New World, as may be seen by a
copy now, or lately, in the possession of the worthy Mr.
Dustan, of the Narrows. It is further recorded that
some of the vessels which passed the Watervliet as she lay
aground on the Overslaugh did not arrive until nearly a
fortnight after her ; owing, as Captain Baltus observed, " to
deir peing in zuch a hurry." After so famous an exploit
the Watervliet had always a full freight, and as many pas
sengers as she could accommodate ; so that in good time
this adventurous navigator gave up following the water,
and built himself a fine brick house, with the gable end
to the street, and the edges of the roof projecting like the
teeth of a saw, where he sat on his stoop and smoked his
pipe, time out of mind.
304 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HORNADAY
A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA.
W. T. HORNADAY.
[The author of the Half-Hour reading here given, William T.
Hornaday, a "mighty hunter" of the modern era, did not dare the
perils of the tropic wilderness and face the wild beast in its lair from
the ordinary motives of sport. His purpose was a mercantile one, that
of collecting skins and skeletons for Ward's Natural History Museum.
It would have been difficult to select an abler or more enthusiastic
agent for this purpose, and in every chapter of Mr. Hornaday's work,
" Two Years in the Jungle," the true spirit of the daring hunter shows
itself. We select a description of tiger-hunting in general, with a
spirited relation of the. author's first victory over " the monarch of
the jungle."]
ACCORDING to their habits in procuring their food, tigers
are divided by the people of India into three classes.
The least harmful is the " game-killer," who lives in the
hills and dense forests where wild game is abundant, and
leads the life of a bold, honest hunter. He feeds chiefly
upon deer and wild hog, and so long as he remains a game-
killer he is a real blessing to the poor ryots, who have
hard work to protect their crops from the droves of deer
and wild hog which sally forth from the jungle at night
fall to depredate upon them. But the trouble is, there is
no knowing when this striped sportsman will take it into
his head to try his teeth and claws on cattle or men ; in
fact, he is not to be trusted for a moment.
The " cattle-lifter" is a big, fat, lazy thief, too indolent
to pull down fleet-footed wild animals, who prowls around
the villages after nightfall, or the edge of the junglo
where the cattle are herded, and kills a bullock every four
or five days. The annual loss to the cattle-owners whose
herds are thus preyed upon by the cattle-lifter is very
HORNADAY] A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA. 305
great for poor natives to bear, since each tiger destroys in
a year cattle worth at least four hundred dollars.
But even the most greedy cattle-lifter sinks into insig
nificance in the presence of the fierce "man-eater," the
scourge and terror of the timid and defenceless natives.
Until a tiger has once had his fangs in human flesh, he
has an instinctive fear of man, and unless attacked and
brought to bay will nearly always retreat from his pres
ence. But with his first taste of human blood that fear
vanishes forever. His nature changes, and he becomes a
man-eater.
Tigers who prey upon human beings are usually ex-
cattle-lifters, who from long acquaintance with man have
ceased to fear him, and find him the easiest prey to over
come and carry off. A large proportion of the man-eaters
are mangy, superannuated old tigers or tigresses, whose
teeth and claws have become blunt with long use, and
who find it too great an exertion to kill and drag off
bullocks.
The presence of a man-eater causes a perfect reign of
terror in the district which he frequents, which lasts until
he is slain. It is almost invariably the case that the brute
confines his operations to a few square miles of territory,
and perhaps a dozen villages, so that each one becomes a
walking scourge whose form, habits, and footprints be
come thoroughly known to the terrified villagers. At
first, perhaps, he carries off a herdsman instead of a bul
lock, by way of experiment, and soon after an unlucky
wood-cutter at the edge of the jungle shares a similar fate.
Finding that he can easily and with perfect safety kill
men, he gradually becomes bolder, until finally he enters
the villages after nightfall and seizes men, women, and
children from off their own door-steps. No one is safe
save when in his house with the door shut and barred,
iv. M 26*
306 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HORNADA*
The herler no longer dares to take his hungry herd to
graze in the jungle, and for the wood-cutter to go forth to
his task in the forest would be to literally walk into the
jaws of death.
The man-eater may be seen in the evening near a cer
tain village, and before morning carry off a man from
another five miles away. No one can say that he will not
be the next victim. When the people go to sleep at night
the last thing they think of is the man-eater, and he is
first in their thoughts when they awake in the morning.
It is a horrible feeling to live in constant fear of being
suddenly pounced upon by a big, hungry, wild beast that
can carry you off in his jaws and eat you up clean at one
meal.
But, thanks to English sportsmen, improved fire-arms,
and the liberal rewards offered by the government, man-
eating tigers are now rare compared with what their
numbers once were. It is not now possible for a single
tigress to cause the desertion of thirteen villages and
throw out of cultivation fifteen square miles of territory,
as once occurred in Central India ; nor for another to kill
one hundred and twenty-seven person before being laid
low. And yet, in spite of breech-loading rifles and zealous
British sportsmen, poison, and pitfalls, the man-eaters still
devour over eight hundred human beings in India every
year.
The tiger inhabits all India from the Himalayas to Cape
Comorin, and is hunted in three different ways.
The first, the best, and most interesting plan is how-
dah-shooting. In this, the hunter is perched on an ele
phant's back, high up out of harm's way, in a comfortable
square box called a howdah, with his weapons and ammu
nition placed conveniently around him. Of course the
elephant is managed by a mahout, who sits astride his
HORNADAY] A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA. 307
neck with au iron goad in his hand, a very exposed posi
tion, in fact. When it is possible, a large number of ele
phants are mustered for the hunt, to assist in stirring up
the tigers. Now and then a grand party is made up of
four or five English sportsmen and twenty or thirty ele
phants; and perhaps five or six tigers and much other
game may be killed in a week. But this is a very ex
pensive method, and cannot be practised except by the
wealthy or the influential few. This is an eminently safe
method, too, the greatest danger attending it being the
running away of one's elephant and the wreck of the
howdah. Ladies often attend hunts of this kind, which
tends to place this once noble sport upon a level with
lawn tennis and badminton.
Tiger-hunting with elephants is most extensively prac
tised in Central India, where the jungle is in low, scrubby
patches with bare ground between, and in the Terai, a
wide stretch of grassy half-forest skirting the base of the
Himalayas. In Southern India there is little chance to
employ elephants in this way, because of the wide tracts
of- dense jungle and forest in which no tiger can be effectu
ally marked down and " flushed." Elephants can be used
to great advantage, however, in following up a wounded
tiger, a pursuit too dangerous for even the most reckless
sportsman to prosecute safely on foot.
The second and most general plan of tiger-hunting is
called " machan-shooting." A machan is a platform of
poles, fifteen to twenty feet high, erected in the daytime
near a recently-killed bullock, a live bait, or a pool of
water. Usually it is placed in the top of the tree nearest
the spot or object the tiger is expected to visit.
In Central India, where the jungles can be beaten for
tigers, the sportsman builds his machan in the most favor
able position, takes his place upon it, and waits while the
308 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HORNADAY
tigers are actually driven toward him by a grand army of
beaters, from fifty to three hundred native men blowing
horns, beating tom-toms, firing guns, and shouting; and
then, when the tigers come running past his position, he
kills them if he can. When a tiger kills a bullock, the
hunter quietly builds a machan in the top of the nearest
tree, takes up his position in the afternoon, and waits
patiently until the tiger returns to his feast at nightfall ;
then he shoots him, or at least shoots at him, in the dark.
It is very seldom that accidents occur in hunting tigers
by either of the above methods, for usually the sportsman
is not in the least danger.
Shooting on foot is the third method of tiger-hunting,
but it is so dangerous that it is not regularly practised
except as a last resort, and the most reckless hunter never
dares follow it up for any length of time. Nine-tenths of
all the tiger " accidents," as they are called in India, occur
to sportsmen who are shooting on foot. The Collector
of the Coimbatore District acknowledges the superior
dangers and risks of this method by paying a reward of
one hundred rupees for a tiger shot on foot, whereas he
grants only the minimum reward, thirty-five rupees, for a
tiger shot from a machan or poisoned. When a hunter
attacks the tiger in open ground, he must shoot the animal
in the brain or else break his spinal column, for nothing
else is sure to stop his furious charge. A tiger is but a
gigantic cat, endowed with the traditional nine lives, and
even though shot through the heart, the lungs, body, neck,
or shoulders, he often has strength enough to spring upon
the hunter and give him a terrible mauling or a mortal
wound before falling dead. Tigers often become so en
raged by the pain of their wounds that they attack the
hunting elephants with the greatest fury.
The Animallai slope was one vast, unbroken forest, with
HORN AD AY] A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA. 309
such endless cover that successful beating for game was
simply out of the question. There was such an abundance
of it that no men or cattle were ever killed by tigers, and
hence our only chance for finding them at all was to
track them up on foot, or trust to meeting them by
chance. Either plan was risky, but I had enough faith
in the accuracy of my little Maynard rifle, and my own
steadiness, to believe that between us we could floor a
tiger if we ever got a fair chance. In tramping through
the forest I often wished I could come face to face with a
tiger and get just one fair shot. I thought I would like
to be a little above him, if possible, so as to get a better
view of his face and be more certain of hitting the brain.
I spun my theories very finely, and all I asked was a
chance to give them a trial.
"We often tried to follow up the " pugs" we found in the
forest, and it was in this way I finally made the acquaint
ance of " my first tiger." It was during one of my fever-
spells, too, when I was feeling rather low-spirited. I had
been seven weeks in the hills, hunting constantly when
not down with the fever, but had killed neither elephant
nor tiger, and was beginning to think I never would. I
had shot nothing for several days, and consequently there
was no meat in camp. The old women grumbled, the little
children cried for it, and, in fact, I wanted some fresh
venison myself.
On that particular day I had an attack of fever due at
two P.M., but I thought I could stroll out and shoot an
axis deer before it came on. It happened that three of
my men had been sent away on various errands, and there
remained in camp only Pera Yera, my second tracker,
afterwards my head man, Nangen, a very quiet but
courageous young fellow, and a small boy. I took along
these three for general purposes, my little Maynard rifle
310 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HORNADAY
for the deer, and my No. 16 shot-gun, loaded with bird-
shot, for jungle-fowl. Not a very heavy " battery," cer
tainly, when compared with the formidable array of
double rifles from the 4-bore, throwing a four-ounce ball,
down to the double .577 Express rifle as the least deadly
weapon which every genuine English sportsman in India
possesses and carries with him when after big game. It
takes twenty-nine of my Maynard bullets (calibre .40) to
make a pound.
We hunted all the forenoon, and found a herd of axis
deer feeding in a glade, but I had not enough energy to
make a successful stalk, and so that chance was lost. In
fact, I did not care much whether school kept or not.
We strolled through the Government Forest until nearly
noon, when, just as we were about returning to camp, we
heard a fearful growling and roaring a few hundred yards
in advance, which set us instantly on the qui-vive. We
hurried in the direction of the sound, which continued at
intervals for some minutes. I said, " Tiger, Yera ?" and
he replied, "No, sahib, panther. Shall we go for it?"
" Of course ;" and on we went.
Presently we heard trumpeting and branch-breaking
half a mile beyond us, and then Yera said the low roaring,
or growling, noise had been made by the elephants. On
our way toward the elephants, to have a quiet look at
them, we came to a little nullah, and there, in the level,
sandy bed of the stream, was the trail of a large tiger.
The men carefully examined the huge tracks in the wet
sand, compared notes a moment, and declared the trail was
fresh. Then I examined it for myself, looked wise, and
said, " Oh, yes, it is ; very fresh indeed." Yera looked
anxiously about a moment, examined the bore of my
rifle doubtfully, tried to measure it with the end of his
little finger, and finally asked me very seriously whether
HORNADAY] A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA. 311
I would dare to fire at a big tiger witTi that small rifle. I
said, " Yes, certainly ; just show me one and see." I did
not for a moment allow myself to hope for such good luck
as a meeting with the animal that made those huge tracks,
and a shot at him. But without a moment's delay we
Rtarted to follow up the trail.
The little creek ran through perfectly level and very
open forest. Its bed was about eight feet below the level,
forty feet wide, and almost dry. The tiger had gone loaf
ing leisurely along down the bed of the stream, walking
in the shallow water every now and then, crossing from
side to side, and occasionally sticking his claws into the
bank, as if to keep them in practice. Yera led the way,
as usual, I followed close at his heels, and we stole along
as silently as shadows.
We had followed the trail about a mile, when we came
to a clump of bamboos growing in a sharp bend in the
stream. Yera stopped short, grasped me by the arm, and
pointed through the clump. He had the habit of grasping
my arm with one hand, and pointing with the other,
whenever he discovered any game, and I could always tell
the size and ferocity of the animal by the strength of his
grasp. This time he gave my arm such a fierce grip I
knew he must have found a tiger.
Sure enough, there was Old Stripes in all his glory, and
only thirty yards away ! The mid-day sun shone full
upon him, and a more splendid object I never saw in a
forest. His long jet-black stripes seemed to stand out in re
lief, like bands of black velvet, while the black and white
markings upon his head were most beautiful. In size and
height he seemed perfectly immense, and my first thought
was, " Great Ca3sar ! He is as big as an ox !"
When we first saw him, he was walking from us, going
across the bed of the stream. Knowing precisely what T
312 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOENADAY
wanted to do, I took a spare cartridge between my teeth,
raised my rifle, and waited. He reached the other bank,
sniffed it a moment, then turned and paced slowly back.
Just as he reached the middle of the stream, he scented
us, stopped short, raised his head, and looked in our di
rection with a suspicious, angry snarl. Now was my time
to fire. Taking a steady, careful aim at his left eye, I
blazed away, and, without stopping to see the effect of my
shot, reloaded my rifle with all haste. I half expected to
see the great brute come bounding round that clump of
bamboos and upon one of us ; but I thought it might not
be I he would attack, and before he could kill one of my
men I could send a bullet into his brain.
Yera kept an eye upon him every moment, and when I
was again ready I asked him with my eyebrows, " Where
is he ?" He quickly nodded, " He's there still." I looked
again, and, sure enough, he was in the same spot, but turn
ing slowly around and around, with his head held to one
side, as if there was something the matter with his left
eye. When he came around and presented his neck fairly
I fired again, aiming to hit his neck-bone. At that shot
he instantly dropped upon the sand. I quickly shoved in
a fresh cartridge, and, with rifle at full cock and the tiger
carefully covered, we went toward him, slowly and re
spectfully. We were not sure but that he would even then
get up and come at us. But he was done for, and lay there
gasping, kicking, and foaming at the mouth, and in three
minutes more my first tiger lay dead at our feet. He died
without making a sound.
To a hunter, the moment of triumph is when he first
lays his hand upon his game. What exquisite and inde
scribable pleasure it is to handle the cruel teeth and knife-
like claws which were so dangerous but one brief moment
before; to pull open the heavy eyelid; to examine the
HOKNADAY] A TIGER-HUNT IN INDIA. 313
glazing eye which so lately glared fiercely and fearlessly
upon every foe ; to stroke the powerful limbs and glossy
sides while they are still warm; and to handle the feet
which made the huge tracks that you have been following
in doubt and danger!
How shall I express the pride I felt at that moment !
Such a feeling can come but once in a hunter's life, and
when it does come it makes up for oceans of ill luck. The
conditions were all exactly right. I was almost alone, and
entirely unsupported, and had not even one "proper"
weapon for tiger-hunting. We met the tiger fairly, on
foot, and in four minutes from the time we first saw him
he was ours. Furthermore, he was the first tiger I ever
saw loose in the jungle, and we had outwitted him. I
admired my men quite as much as I did myself. They
were totally unarmed, and they had seen me miss spotted
deer at sixty yards ; but, instead of bolting, as I should
have done had I been in their place, they stood right at
my elbow, like plucky men as they were. What if they
had been of the timid sort ? They would never have con
sented to follow the trail of that dangerous beast.
I paced the distance from where we stood to the dead
tiger, and found it to be just thirty yards. My first was
a dead-centre shot, striking him exactly in the left eye,
scarcely nicking the edge of the lid. I had intended that
that bullet should enter his brain, but, owing to the nar
rowness of the brain-cavity, it only fractured the left side
of the cranium. However, it rendered him quite power
less either to fight or run away, and he would have died
very soon from such a terrible wound. In fact, I now
think my second shot was really unnecessary. Owing to
the position of his head, I could no f possibly have placed
a bullet in his forehead so that it would have reached the
brain, but had I been using a regulation " No. 8-bore rifle,"
iv. o 27
314 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GREENE
throwing a two-ounce ball, I could have blown the whole
top of his head off very neatly (!) and utterly ruined
him as a specimen. My second shot struck one of his
neck-vertebrae and cut his spinal cord, killing him instantly,
a favorite shot with me when I can catch an animal at
rest.
He was a splendid specimen every way, just in the
prime of tiger-hood, fat, sleek, and glossy. Up to that
time I could not make myself believe that a tiger can pick
up a man in his mouth and run away with him as easily
as a terrier does with a rat. But when I measured that
great brute, I saw and realized just how it is done.
POEMS OF HUMOR.
The poetic literature of America is somewhat abundantly supplied
with the mirth-provoking element, and, in addition to the versified
fund of the "lords of laughter," such as Lowell, Holmes, and Saxe,
there are many chips of amusement afloat upon the tide of literature,
a few of which we have gathered here. They are perhaps not the
best that could have been found, but they are sufficiently diversified in
style and subject to make, we hope, a sunny rift in the clouds of life.
First comes one of the most popular bits of humorous verse in our
literature, Albert G-. Greene's funny compound of clothing and phi
losophy, entitled
OLD GRIMES.
OLD GRIMES is dead, that good old man ,
We ne'er shall see him more:
He used to wear a long black coat,
All buttoned down before.
POEMS OF HUMOR. 315
His heart was open as the day,
His feelings were all true :
His hair was some inclined to gray,
He wore it in a queue.
Whene'er he heard the voice of pain,
His breast with pity burned :
The large, round head upon his cane
From ivory was turned.
Kind words he ever had for all;
He knew no base design :
His eyes were dark and rather small,
His nose was aquiline.
He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true :
His coat had pocket-holes behind,
His pantaloons were blue.
Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes
He passed securely o'er,
And never wore a pair of boots
For thirty years or more.
But good old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune's frown :
He wore a double-breasted vest ;
The stripes ran up and down.
He modest merit sought to find,
And pay it its desert :
He had no malice in his mind,
No ruffles on his shirt.
316 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [NACK
His neighbors he did not abuse,
Was sociable and gay :
He wore large buckles on his shoes,
And changed them every day.
His knowledge, hid from public gaze,
He did not bring to view,
Nor make a noise town-meeting days.
As many people do.
His worldly goods he never threw
In trust to Fortune's chances,
But lived (as all his brothers do)
In easy circumstances.
Thus, undisturbed by anxious cares,
His peaceful moments ran :
And everybody says he was
A fine old gentleman.
The author of the following poem, James Nack, occupies the anoin
alous position among American poets of having been deaf and dumb
from childhood, in consequence of an accident. We could scarcely
have expected so neat a bit of Anacreontic sentiment from a person so
afflicted.
MARY'S BEE.
As Mary with her lips of roses
Is tripping o'er the flowery mead,
A foolish little bee supposes
The rosy lip a rose indeed,
And so, astonished at his bliss,
He steals the honey of her kiss.
A moment there he wantons ; lightly
He sports away on careless wing;
HAY] POEMS OF HUMOR. 317
But, ah ! why swells that wound unsightly ?
The rascal ! he has left a sting !
She runs to me with weeping eyes,
Sweet images of April skies.
" Be this," said I, " to heedless misses
A warning they should bear in mind :
Too oft a lover steals their kisses,
Then flies, and leaves a sting behind."
" This may be wisdom, to be sure,"
Said Mary, " but I want a cure."
What could I do ? To ease the swelling,
My lips with hers impassioned meet;
And, trust me, from so sweet a dwelling
I found the v*ery poison sweet !
Fond boy ! unconscious of the smart,
I sucked the poison to my heart !
The poem given below, though it may be objectionable to some
readers on account of its freedom and boldness of language, is re
deemed from vulgarity and irreverence by the truth of its sentiment,
and by its pathos, which ill adapts it for the class in which it is usually
placed, that of humorous poems.
LITTLE BREECHES.
I don't go much on religion,
I never ain't had no show ;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets,
And free will, and that sort of thing,
But I b'lieve in God and the angels
Ever sence one night last spring,
iv. 27*
318 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
1 came into town with some turnips,
And my little Gabe come along ;
No four-year-old in the county
Could beat him for pretty and strong,
Peart and chipper and sassy,
Always ready to swear and fight,
And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker,
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.
The snow come down like a blanket
As I passed by Taggart's store j
I went in for a jug of molasses,
And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started,
I heard one little squall,
And hell-to-split over the prairie
Went team, Little Breeches and all.
Hell-to-split over the prairie !
I was almost froze with skeer ;
But we rousted up some torches,
And sarched for 'em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon,
Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat, but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.
And here all hope soured on me
Of my fellow-critters' aid ;
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bone^
Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.
###*###
By this, the torches was played out,
And me and Isrul Parr
NICHOLS] POEMS OF HUMOR. 319
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
That he said was somewhar thar.
We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in, and seen them huddled thar,
So warm and sleepy and white ;
And THAR sot Little Breeches, and chirped,
As peart as ever you see,
" I want a chaw of terbacker,
And that's what's the matter of me."
How did he git thar ? Angels.
He could never bave walked in that storm.
They jest scooped down and toted him
To whar it was soft and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,
And bringing him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business
Than loafing around the Throne.
JOHN HAY.
The above may be fitly followed by a portion of Mrs. K. S. Nichols's
satirical poem entitled
THE PHILOSOPHER TOAD.
Down deep in a hollow, so damp and so cold,
Where oaks are by ivy o'ergrown,
The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould
Lying loose on a ponderous stone.
Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,
A toad has been sitting more years than is known ;
And strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems
The world standing still while he's dreaming his dreams,
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FAWCKTT
Does this wonderful toad, in his cheerful abode
In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone,
By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.
Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit,
Like the toad in his cell in the stone ;
Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit,
And their creeds are with ivy o'ergrown ;
Their streams may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply,
And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky,
Still they hug to their breast every time-honored guest,
And slumber and doze in inglorious rest ;
For no progress they find in the wide sphere of mind,
And the world's standing still with all of their kind,
Contented to dwell deep down in the well,
Or move like a snail in the crust of his shell,
Or live like the toad in his narrow abode
With their souls closely wedged in a thick wall of stone
By the gray weeds of prejudice rankly o'ergrown.
A poet whose muse is not ordinarily given to gay flights has in
the following poem crossed the threshold of humor and furnished us
with a very dainty compound of sentimentality and agriculture.
VESTA.
When skies are starless yet when day is done,
When odors of the freshened sward are sweeter,
When light is dreamy round the sunken sun,
At limit of the grassy lane I meet her.
She steals a gracious hand across the gate ;
My own its timid touch an instant flatters ;
Below the glooming leaves we linger late,
And gossip of a thousand airy matters.
HAUTE] POEMS OF HUMOR. 321
I gladden that the hay is stored with luck ;
I smile to hear the pumpkin-bed is turning ;
I mourn the lameness of her speckled duck ;
I marvel at the triumphs of her churning.
From cow to cabbage, and from horse to hen,
I treat bucolics with my rustic charmer,
At heart the most unpastoral of men,
Converted by this dainty little farmer.
And yet if one soft syllable I chance,
As late below the glooming leaves we linger,
The pretty veto sparkles in her glance,
And cautions in her brown uplifted finger.
O happy trysts at blossom-time of stars !
O moments when the glad blood thrills and quickens !
O all-inviolable gateway-bars !
O Yesta of the milking-pails and chickens !
EDGAR FAWCETT.
Bret Harte's fame with many readers rests upon his poetic rendition
of thfi trickiness of the " Heathen Chinee." This poem certainly lacks
elevation of sentiment and deals with very common people, but it is
incontestably amusing, and for this virtue we forgive all its short
comings.
PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES.
Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
"Which the same I would rise to explain,
iv. v
322 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTE
Ah Sin was his name ;
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply,
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies ;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise ;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand :
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand ;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland
Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve ;
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
COZZENS] POEMS OF HUMOR. 323
Then I looked up at
And he gazed upon me ;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, " Can this be ?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,"
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding
In the game " he did not understand."
In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty -four packs,
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts ;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, that's wax.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.
From "Mr. Sparrowgrass" we borrow the following ditty, funnily
made up of mirth and melancholy.
A BABYLONISH DITTY.
More than several years have faded
Since my heart was first invaded
324 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COZZKNS
By a brown-skinned, gray-eyed siren
On the merry old " South-side,"
Where the mill-flume cataracts glisten,
And the agile blue-fish listen
To the fleet of phantom schooners
Floating on the weedy tide. . . .
There, amid the sandy reaches,
In among the pines and beeches,
Oaks, and various other kinds of
Old primeval forest trees,
Did we wander in the noonlight,
Or beneath the silver moonlight,
While in ledges sighed the sedges
To the salt salubrious breeze.
Oh, I loved her as a sister,
Often, oftentimes I kissed her,
Holding prest against my breast
Her slender, soft, seductive hand ;
Often by my midnight taper
Filled at least a quire of paper
With some graphic ode or sapphic
" To the nymph of Baby-Land."
Oft we saw the dim blue highlands,
Coney, Oak, and other islands
(Motes that dot the dimpled bosom
Of the sunny summer sea),
Or, 'mid polished leaves of lotus,
Wheresoe'er our skiff would float us,
Anywhere, where none could note us,
There we sought alone to be.
CozzENs] POEMS OF HUMOR. 325
So is woman, evanescent,
Shifting with the shifting present,
Changing like the changing tide,
And faithless as the fickle sea ;
Lighter than the wind-blown thistle,
Falser than the fowler's whistle,
Was that coaxing piece of hoaxing
Amy Milton's love for me. . . .
Yes, thou transitory bubble !
Floating on this sea of trouble,
Though the sky be bright above thee,
Soon will sunny days be gone ;
Then, when thou'rt by all forsaken,
Will thy bankrupt heart awaken
To these golden days of olden
Times in happy Babylon !
Thus, till summer was senescent,
And the woods were iridescent,
Dolphin tints and hectic hints
Of what was shortly coming on,
Did I worship Amy Milton ;
Fragile was the faith I built on !
Then we parted, broken-hearted
I, when she left Babylon.
As upon the moveless water
Lies the motionless frigata,
Flings her spars and spidery outlines
Lightly on the lucid plain,
But whene'er the fresh breeze bloweth
To more distant ocean goeth,
iv. 28
326 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BUTLER
Nevermore the old haunt knoweth,
Nevermore returns again.
F. S. COZZENS.
" Nothing to Wear" had an extraordinary popularity in its day, and
has not yet lost its adaptability to certain phases of fashionable society.
From present prospects, indeed, its arrow of satire will not lose its
point for several generations to come. The poem is much too long for
us to quote entire, but we give sufficient of it to serve as an " awful
warning" to the fair McFlimseys of the present day.
NOTHING TO WEAR.
Miss FLORA MCFLIMSEY, of Madison Square,
Has made three separate journeys to Paris,
And her father assures me each time she was there
That she and her friend Mrs. Harris
(Not the lady whose name is so famous in history,
But plain Mrs. H., without romance or mystery)
Spent six consecutive weeks, without stopping,
In one continuous round of shopping,
Shopping alone, and shopping together,
At all hours of the day, and in all sorts of weather,
For all manner of things that a woman can put
On the crown of her head or the sole of her foot,
Or wrap round her shoulders, or fit round her waist,
Or that can be sewed on, or pinned on, or laced,
Or tied on with a string, or stitched on with a bow,
In front or behind, above or below ;
For bonnets, mantillas, capes, collars, and shawls ;
Dresses for breakfasts and dinners and balls ;
Dresses to sit in, and stand in, and walk in ;
Dresses to dance in, to flirt in, and talk in ;
Dresses in which to do nothing at all ;
Dresses for winter, spring, summer, and fall ;
BUTLER] POEMS OF HUMOR. 327
All of them different in color and pattern,
Silk, muslin, and lace, crape, velvet, and satin,
Brocade, and broadcloth, and other material,
Quite as expensive, and much more ethereal ;
In short, for all things that could ever be thought of,
Or milliner, modiste, or tradesman be bought of,
From ten-thousand-francs robes to twenty-sous frills ;
In all quarters of Paris, and in every store.
While McFlimsey in vain stormed, scolded, and swore,
They footed the streets, and he footed the bills.
******* * *
And yet, though scarce three months have passed since
the day
This merchandise went, on twelve carts, up Broadway,
This same Miss McFlimsey, of Madison Square,
The last time we met was in utter despair,
Because she had nothing whatever to wear !
NOTHING TO WEAR! Now, as this is a true ditty,
I do not assert this, you know, is between us
That she's in a state of absolute nudity,
Like Powers' Greek Slave or the Medici Yenus ;
But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare,
When at the same moment she had on a dress
Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less,
And jewelry worth ten times more, I should guess,
That she had not a thing in the wide world to wear.
*********
Since that night, taking pains that it should not be bruited
Abroad in society, I've instituted
A course of inquiry, extensive and thorough,
On this vital subject, and find, to my horror,
That the fair Flora's case is by no means surprising,
But that there exists the greatest distress
328 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BUTLER
In our female community, solely arising
From this unsupplied destitution of dress,
Whose unfortunate victims are filling the air
With the pitiful wail of " Nothing to wear."
:j:fc;ji^JK*^**
O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day
Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway,
From its whirl and its bustle, its fashion and pride,
And the temples of trade which tower on each side,
To the alleys and lanes, where Misfortune and Guilt
Their children have gathered, their city have built ;
Where Hunger and Vice, like twin beasts of prey,
Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair;
Eaise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt,
Pick your delicate way through dampness and dirt,
Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety stair
To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old,
Half starved and half naked, lie crouched from the cold.
See those skeleton limbs, those frost-bitten feet,
All bleeding and bruised by the stones of the street ;
Hear the sharp cry of childhood, the deep groans that
swell
From the poor dying creature who writhes on the floor ;
Hear the curses that sound like the echoes of Hell,
As you sicken and shudder and fly from the door;
Then home to your wardrobes, and say, if you dare,
Spoiled children of Fashion, you've nothing to wear !
And, oh, if perchance there should be a sphere
Where all is made right which so puzzles us here,
Where the glare and the glitter and tinsel of Time
Fade and die in the light of that region sublime
Where the soul, disenchanted of flesh and of sense,
Unscreened by its trappings and shows and pretence,
STILLE] LABOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 329
Must be clothed for the life and the service above,
With purity, truth, faith, meekness, and love,
O daughters of Earth, foolish virgins, beware !
Lest in that upper realm you have nothing to wear !
WILLIAM A. BUTLER.
LABOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHARLES J. STILLE.
[From " Studies in Mediaeval History" we extract a portion of an
interesting review of the conditions of labor in antiquity and in the
Middle Ages, in view of the great prominence to which the modern
labor question has now risen. The author, Charles Janeway Stille,
was born in Philadelphia in 1819. In 1866 he was elected pro
fessor of the English language and literature in the University of
Pennsylvania, and in 1868 he became provost of that institution,
which position he resigned in 1880. He is the author of several his
torical works, of which the one above named is a valuable study, on
the general plan of Guizot's "History of Civilization in Europe," of
the relations of the people of Europe in the mediaeval period, and the
varied steps of development from the commingled Roman civilization
and German barbarism to modern political and social conditions.]
THERE is perhaps no more striking contrast between
modern life and the life of antiquity and of the Middle
Age than that presented by the different social position
and influence of those engaged in trade, and especially in
the industrial and mechanic arts, in the two epochs. At
the present day, and especially in this country, the suc
cessful man of business is king, ruling our society in
nearly all its departments with an authority as unchal
lenged, and often as arbitrary, as that of the most despotic
sovereign who ever sat on a throne. With the natural
disposition of mankind to worship success, those who
iv. 28*
330 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
become rich in this way are looked upon as objects of
imitation and envy. Not only so, but the methods which
they have adopted in becoming rich are considered appro
priate for the attainment of very different ends in life
from mere money-getting. Self-made men, as they are
called, that is, men without any liberal training, who
have thus become rich by their own exertions, are not
only the arbiters of trade and leaders in social influence,
but they are too often the guides in the special develop
ment of religion, of politics, of education, and of benevo
lence, and, in short, determine not merely the ideal to
which society should aspire, but the methods by which it
should be reached.
It may not at once occur to many that this extraordi
nary all-pervading power of wealth, and the social con
sideration which it gives, are among the most modern
developments of modern times. There were, of course,
rich men who were self-made both in antiquity and in the
Middle Age ; but men grown rich by trade do not seem
to have been held in honor in either epoch. Their want
of social consideration and influence is abundantly clear
from the works of the great writers of the time. Cicero,
for instance, in writing to his son, tells him that those
who gained their livelihood by mercantile pursuits, as
well as those who followed the mechanic arts, were inca
pable of any noble sentiment ; while Seneca, who was one
of the two sages of antiquity who, according to St. Thomas
Aquinas, needed only baptism to procure them admission
to the Christian's heaven, speaks of the useful arts of life
as the fitting occupation only of slaves. Such is the uni
form testimony of writers who have described the condi
tion of Europe down to a period as late as that of the
Reformation, and even later.
In this view of life, so strange to us, there was more
STILLE] LABOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 331
reason than appears on the surface. The source of the
contempt felt until modern times for those whose lives
were passed in trade or in industrial labor, as very plainly
appears, was this, that until a period comparatively recent
these pursuits were entirely confined to slaves or to a ser
vile class. The emancipation of labor, then, and its eleva
tion to its condition in our time, when we hear so much
of its dignity, was the emancipation of those who labored
from slavery, and from that taint which in public opinion
in Europe has always affected everything connected with
slave labor. The history of the laboring classes in Europe
is the history of the progress of the larger portion of the
population from slavery to freedom. . . .
In regard to the working classes in the towns, and their
relations to the governing power, there are three things to
be considered separately if we wish to get an accurate idea
of their condition. There is, first, the nature of the gov
ernment of the towns themselves, which at an early period,
comparatively, was withdrawn from the feudal lords and
vested in the local magistrates; secondly, there were the
trade corporations in the towns, one for each principal
branch of industry, whose members were the sole electors
of the town magistrates ; thirdly, there were the glides or
confreries, composed of artisans, usually, but not always nor
necessarily, forming part of the trade corporations. The
medieval life in the towns rested upon this threefold
basis. Out of this city life, and by virtue of the educa
tion and experience he gained there, came that prominent
figure in our time, the modern skilled workman. . . .
What, then, were the ideas, what was the policy, which
guided these town governments in the exercise of their
functions ? The best answer is to be found in this con
sideration, that the political system in the towns was
founded upon citizenship, acquired only by virtue of mem-
332 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STILLB
bership in some one of the trade corporations existing in
them. From the beginning it had some of the features of
an oligarchy. It was when the inhabitants were working
industriously and trying to accumulate property that they
felt most keenly the feudal oppression of their seigneurs
and strove to form these gildes, or corps de metiers, as they
were called in France, for their mutual protection. The
motive of the desire for the freedom of the towns was the
security of their possessions ; and the money to purchase
that freedom from the lords came from the tradesmen,
who wished to insure their property by doing away with
any pretext for arbitrary acts. Hence the first thing
done by these free towns was to adopt measures, after
their own peculiar fashion, to protect the rights of labor.
And these rights were not at all the rights belonging in
common to all workmen, but the particular rights and
privileges of certain workmen formed into trade corpora
tions within the town, not unlike, in many respects, our
modern trade-unions. These rights were claimed and
strenuously defended for centuries against any interfe
rence from outside the town, and were in no way founded
upon any theory of the equality of all workmen, but were
rather regarded in the nature of privileges. The avowed
policy was everywhere to establish monopolies in the
fullest sense of the word, to maintain a discrimination
against those of the non-privileged class, both outside and
inside the town. Their constant efforts, as long as they
remained self-governing, were thus directed to the special
protection of those of the inhabitants who were members
of the trade corporations, and this was done by maintain
ing their exclusive right to work within the town, by
jealously guarding against the intrusion of strangers into
the trades carried on there, and, in short, by every meas
ure which made the labor of those they represented more
STILLE] LABOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 333
profitable. They did not even hesitate to reduce the num
ber of the workmen, so as to make the gains of those who
had the exclusive privilege of work greater.
For all practical purposes, then, the government of the
free towns was merely the government of the trades form
ing their constituency, and their policy was a policy of
trading privilege and monopoly. While this policy, per
haps, was necessary for their own protection against the
lawlessness of the time, and while no doubt it taught the
lesson which is the first to be learned in a popular govern
ment, the habit of mutual aid for mutual protection, yet it
is none the less true that the system was wholly out of
sympathy with that generous recognition of the universal
right of man, as such, to freedom, which is the most char
acteristic and fruitful truth of our own times.
On what may be called the educational side the govern
ment of free cities had some important advantages. Its
policy of the jealous exclusion of strangers from the trades
of the town made it necessary that those trades should be
so organized that their members should produce good
work, and that they should come, with that object in
view, under the strictest discipline. Each of the trade
gildes was provided with an elaborate organization to
effect this purpose. The members were divided, as a gen
eral rule, into three classes, the apprentices, the work
men, and the masters. The apprentices, who were of a
limited number (and usually the sons of the workmen or
of the masters only were admitted to that position), were
most carefully trained and instructed in their particular
art, or mystery, as it was called. No one was allowed to
pass from a lower grade to a higher in the gilde without
the strictest examination, not merely as to his capacity
as a workman, but as to his moral character also. Those
who aspired after this examination to the place of master-
334 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STILLS
workmen in any particular craft were obliged not only, as
I have said, to have passed a long period of severe appren
ticeship, but were also required, before their admission to
the full privilege of a master, to produce a specimen of
their skill in their particular art (called in France a cJief-
d'oeuvre'), which was rigorously criticised and often found
deficient by the examining board, composed of the chiefs
of the company. The result of all this education was to
produce, necessarily, thoroughly skilled workmen in num
bers probably greater than any other system of the organi
zation of labor has been able to do. Again, every piece
of work made by any member of the craft at any time, no
matter what was his grade in the company, was subjected
before it was oifered for sale to a minute and thorough
inspection by officers of the body. One obvious result of
such a system was to maintain among the artisans, mem
bers of the same gilde, a strong feeling of pride in their
work and of attachment to the company which protected
them in it. But it may be readily inferred that this sen
timent was not confined in its influence upon the workman
merely to his special position as such. It no doubt nour
ished in him some of the most important characteristics of
the true citizen, such as love of industry, and personal in
dependence, and city pride ; and all this is to be considered
as a compensating circumstance when we remember how
completely the system was based upon the monopoly and
exclusive privilege of the few.
There was another peculiarity which grew out of the
government of the free cities by means of these trading
corporations, which had an immense influence upon city
life during the Middle Age. Inseparably associated with
each of these trade companies, although not always form
ing part of it, was a charitable organization for the benefit
of its members, called in England a gilde, and in France a
STILLE] LABOR IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 335
confrerie. The principle of these organizations, which was
that of the mutual aid and protection of its members, is
among the oldest and most permanent ideas of the Teu
tonic race, and was in full operation for certain purposes
long before free cities or trade corporations were thought
of. In the days before the invasions societies existed in
Germany and the North of Europe which were called
gildes. They were so called because the word signifies a
feast, given at the common expense of the society^ whose
members partook of it, and at these feasts it was the cus
tom for those present to take an oath to aid and protect
each other. Here we see the first germ of that spirit of
association and of mutual and voluntary helpfulness which
has always distinguished, and to this day distinguishes,
the Teutonic from the Latin races. The aid and protec
tion which these glides were organized to afford were not
of that kind which their successors were called upon to
give. The ancient Germans, of course, had no mechanic
arts and no commercial occupations ; but in the absence
of anything like law or public order in those rude days
they felt the need of seeking by combination with their
comrades that protection for their persons and their prop
erty which their nominal chief could not or would not
give them. The weak, therefore, associated themselves
with the strong to make a common resistance to oppres
sion ; they bound themselves to each other by a solemn
oath ; they chose their leaders, and, when they became
Christians, a patron saint ; they ate and drank together
at certain fixed periods ; and, emboldened by their num
bers, they asserted their power and became in time them
selves the lawless oppressors of others.
Out of this ancient and persistent habit of mutual help
fulness grew what was known in England's Saxon days
as frank-pledge, by which, as I have before explained, a
336 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STILLK
responsibility for the acts and offences of each member of
the society was attached not primarily to himself but to
his family, and especially to the glide, to which he belonged,
and this frank-pledge thus became an important instrument
of social order in those days. Any member could call
upon his gilde brothers for assistance in case of violence
and wrong ; if falsely accused, they appeared in court as
his compurgators ; if poor, they supported, and when dead
they buried him. On the other hand, each member was
responsible to the gilde, as it was to the State, for order
and obedience to the laws. A wrong of brother against
brother was also a wrong against the general body of the
gilde, and was punished in the last resort by expulsion,
which left the offender a lawless man and an outcast. In
its main features this was the organization of the trade
gildes in towns, exclusive monopoly of work, and chari
table aid to suffering comrades. But we must not forget
that while the regulations of the trade corporations were
founded upon the selfishness and cupidity of the citizen
and the artisan, those adopted by the gildes or confreries
were taught by that Divine charity which is the source
of the virtues of the man and the Christian.
The members of the confre'rie concerned themselves about
the happiness of their fellow-members, as the burghers
did about their privileges. When in danger they in
voked the Divine aid, and caused prayers and masses to
be said for the benefit not merely of their own souls, but
for those of their relations, friends, and benefactors also.
Their object was to make of the members of the gilde,
who were also generally of the same trade, one family
united in one faith under the protection of the same saint
and brought into close relations by the enjoyments of a
common social intercourse. No one of the members was
permitted to live in poverty : the two opposite principles
CONWAY] THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 337
of pride in their gilde, and the charity which was its
ruling motive, alike forbade it. Like some of our modern
institutions of charity which are the direct and legitimate
successors of the glides of the Middle Age, such as the
Free-Masons, the Odd-Fellows, and kindred associations,
a good deal of both time and money may have been wasted
in processions, regalia, and the like, while they were carry
ing on some of their work ; and yet we must not forget
that the great motive and object of that work was to aid
those whom sickness or misfortune had made helpless.
When we think of the civilizing power in our days among
workmen of mutual aid societies, we may imagine the in
fluence of organizations with the same .end in view in the
Middle Age. Close union between workers at the same
trade, social enjoyments in common, innocent recreation
for the workman who was almost constantly penned up
in his shop, prayers said in common, a large spirit of
charity and mutual succor from the ills of poverty, such
was the ideal life of workmen belonging to the privileged
gildes in the free cities of the Middle Age. Could it have
been made the real and actual life of such workmen, what
a paradise society would have become I
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
[The writer of the selection given below, well known for his grace
ful and attractive essays and descriptive articles, was born in Virginia
in 1832. He studied theology, and entered the Methodist ministry,
but afterwards became distinguished as a Unitarian pastor and an
active opponent of slavery. In 1863 he became pastor of a Uni
tarian congregation in London, England. Of his works we may men-
IY.P w 29
338 BEST AMERICAN A UTPIORS. [CONWAY
tion "Tracts for To-Day," "The Golden Hour," " The Wandering
Jew," and "Idols and Ideals," from the latter of which our present
extract is taken. No compendium of literature to-day is complete
unless it gives some degree of attention to the subject of evolution,
which for the past quarter of a century has occupied so prominent a
place in scientific literature, and has, in fact, infiltrated all literature
and all thought. Mr. Conway has presented this subject, with its
bearings upon theological opinion, with a clearness, neatness, and
brevity that make his essay particularly suitable for our purpose, as
showing in few words just what advanced thinkers mean by the evolu
tion theory. We therefore extract the most pertinent portions of his
essay.]
WHAT, then, is the Darwinian theory ? It is that all
the organic forms around us, from lowest to highest, have
been evolved the one from the other by means of natural
selection. Natural selection is the obvious law that every
power or trait which better adapts an animal to live amid
its surroundings enables that animal to survive another
which has not the same power or trait. The fit outlives
the unfit. And because they outlive their inferiors, they
will propagate their species more freely. Their offspring
will inherit their advantages, by the laws of heredity
will still further improve upon them; and thus there will
be a cumulative storing up of such advantages established.
Each form less furnished with resources to maintain itself
is crowded out before the increase of forms which are
better supplied with hereditary abilities. A sufficient
accumulation of slight advantages amounts in the end to
a new form or species. An accumulation of specific ad~
vantages will be summed up in a new genus.
And thus, as Emerson has said,
" Striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form."
Now, to the merely scientific mind evolution is simply
CON WAY] THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 339
a scientific generalization. In its light he beholds the
sprouting leaf hardening to a stem, unpacking itself to a
blossom, swelling again to the pulpy leaf called fruit. He
inspects the crustacean egg, sees the trilobite in the em
bryo stretching into a tiny lobster, shortening into a crab,
and says trilobite, lobster, and crab pass from one to the
other in this little egg-world, as the new theory shows
they did in the big world. He will be interested to find
out the intervening steps of improvement between one
form and another, and will fix upon this or that animal
as the one from which a consummate species budded.
But, as I have stated, a truth in any one department of
knowledge is capable of being translated into every other.
We are already familiar with a popular translation of the
Darwinian theory in the phrase which explains it as mean
ing that men are descended from monkeys. And by this
common interpretation many conclude that it implies a
degradation of the human species. But that phrase does
not convey the truth of the theory, any more than if a
rough pediment in the Museum were declared to be the
splendid temple of Diana of Ephesus. For behind each
one of the forms evolving higher, there stretch the endless
lines and processions of the forms which combine to pro
duce it. The ape may appear ugly, seen as he is among
us, detached from his environment, when contrasted with
man ; but he is royal when contrasted with the worm in
the mud. But neither worm nor ape can be truly seen
when detached from the cosmical order and beauty. It
matters little what rude form sheathed the first glory of
a human brain. It does not rob the opal of its beauty
that its matrix was common flint, nor does it dim the
diamond's lustre that it crystallized out of charcoal. The
ape may be the jest of the ignorant, but the thinker will
see behind him the myriad beautiful forms which made
340 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
him possible. What wondrous forests of fern and vine
grew in voiceless ages, clothing the hard primeval rock !
what flowers rich and rare broidered the raiment of the
earth ! What bright insects flashed through their green
bowers, what gorgeous birds lit up the deep solitudes with
torch-like plumage! Through a thousand ages the shining
swimmers darted through pool or air; for unnumbered
generations star-gemmed creatures, lithe and beautiful,
sprung through jungle and forest ; they browse peace
fully on hill and meadow ; they slake their thirst at crys
tal streams ; they pursue their savage loves in wood and
Yale ; with mighty roar, with sweetest melody, they chant
the music by which the world marches onward and up
ward, onward and upward forever ! Millions pass away,
millions advance : from every realm of nature they
come to add their fibre of strength or tint of beauty to
the rising form ; beneath every touch, with every tribute,
it ascends, till at last, lodged for a moment in some
rugged human-like form for combination, the selected
concentrated powers expand into man, the sum of every
creature's best !
The right translation of this theory for us is, then, that
it shows man to be the offspring, not of the ape, but of the
animated universe; the heir of its richest bounties ; the con
summate work of a matchless artist, a figure of which all
preceding forms were but sketches and studies. Admitting
though it is an extreme and questionable concession
that the theory has not yet fortified itself completely by
demonstrations in detail of the connecting links between
the species, yet it has certainly shown such an immense
balance of probabilities in its favor as to command the ad
hesion of the scientific world to a greater extent than the
Newtonian theory of gravitation did within the same time
after its discovery. It may be affirmed that there is not a
CON WAY] THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 341
single "great man of science in the world who does not
maintain that, in one way or another, species were con
tinuously evolved.
But what effect has this system on religion or moral
philosophy? We all know that it has awakened earnest
controversies. There are several ways in which it has
been regarded. One class of religious teachers, seeing
that the verdict of the scientific world in its favor is be
yond appeal, have been assuring us that it can have no
effect upon religion whatever. Dean Stanley, too liberal
and scholarly not to recognize the facts, recently admon
ished an audience that it mattered nothing at all to them
whether it should turn out that man is descended from
the animal world, or lower still, as the Bible said, from
the inanimate dust of the earth, for right would still be
right, and wrong, wrong, and we should still feel that we
are individual souls. What he said was true, but the tone
of his remark was that this is a question quite aside from
the great religious problems of our time. . . .
On the other hand, there are theologians who, in
stead of indulging the dream that the Darwinian theory
will leave religion just where it was before, announce that
it is cutting the faith of man up by the roots. They de
clare that it abolishes God, destroys the hope of immor
tality, and resolves morality itself into a mere mechanic
force. Such phantoms are familiar, but they become more
thin with each reappearance. Our fathers heard that the
pillars of the universe had fallen again and again, when it
only turned out that somebody's little idol had collapsed.
" The giving up of the sun's motion is giving up the foun
dation of religion," said they who burned the book of
Copernicus and the body of Bruno. " The giving up of
witchcraft is giving up the Bible," said Sir Matthew Hale.
We have grown accustomed to such alarms, and can con-
iv. 29*
342 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CONWAT
sider such things with the assured calmness of long ex
perience. . . .
But does the doctrine of natural selection, then, expel
God from the universe ? Does it imply that amid all these
fair worlds, that amid all this beauty, there is no intima
tion of a Divine Being ? By no means. It has simply
broken up an old belief as to the relation of that Being
to the universe. As theology had in the far past narrowed
him to the seven-planet theory, or again fancied that the
sun rose every morning because God waked it up, and de
clared in each case that God was driven from the universe
whenever a law was substituted for his immediate action,
so now we see the infirmity of mind which can see no
God except as prisoned in its crude notion. Darwinism
simply says to the human mind, Once more you havo
been found wrong in your speculations as to God's rela
tion to the universe. Once more you are proved unable
to comprehend the Incomprehensible. Once more you are
taught to abstain from dogmatizing where you cannot
know, and to learn humility.
But still above our crumbled creeds and vanished specu
lations the ancient heavens declare a divine glory ; still
day speaketh unto day, and night unto night showeth
knowledge ; and man may still reverently raise his reason
to contemplate order and beauty in the universe. Out of
decay and death springs the flower with its breath of
love, and over earthly ruin bends the tender sky. There
is nothing whatever in this theory which veils to man a
single expression of wisdom or love shining through the
mystery around him.
Nay, on the contrary, I will maintain that this theory
has added fresh tints of love, brighter beams of reason, to
the universe, by opening our eyes to new aspects of it. It
has illuminated for the first time the dreary track of pain
CONWAY] THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 343
and wrong. The pre-Darwinite might say to the suffer
ing, " I hope and trust your pain is for some good end,"
but the post-Darwinite can say, with confidence, "I know
and see that pain is a beneficial agent. Pain has been the
spur under which the whole world has progressed. To
escape danger, to survive pain, every form has gained its
fleetness, its skill, its power ; the hardships of nature gave
man his arts to conquer it, the cruel elements built his
home, and in the black ink of sin were written the laws
of morality and civilization."
And if this theory for the first time taught man the
sublime uses of evil, none the less has it harmonized nature
with the laws of his reason. For in their best statement
the old pre-Darwinite views of nature made it discordant
with the intellectual history of man. History shows us
a continuous morat, mental, and religious development of
humanity. The theories, the philosophies, the creeds of
mankind have not been distinct and isolated creations;
they have been an unbroken series of religions, schools,
ideas, each growing out of one preceding, giving birth to
another, so that step by step we trace philosophy back
from Huxley to Moses, or religion from Christendom to
Assyria and India. This unbroken evolution of thought
in human history we find repeated in the unfolding intel
lect of every individual being. We do not think one
thing, and then a totally different thing, and feel that
there is no link binding our days and our purposes to
gether into a life that represents an individuality. Yet
we had been long looking out into nature and seeing it as
a set of distinct creations ; one form made, then another.
We may well reverence the great men who have found in
the universe one theme with endless variations. They
have enabled us to hear a grand music such as Plato
dreamed of as the harmony to which the planets moved.
344 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CONWAY
Finding now that his moral and intellectual history have
in their development repeated in higher series the growth
of the physical world that bore him, man takes his own
brain as his stand-point, and from the summit of his own
thought sees the immeasurable thought reflected in nature
as far as his intelligence can reach. Nor has the post-
Darwinite world lost any rational hope held by the pre-
Darwinite, neither for the present nor for the future.
For rational man, emancipated from fables, immortality
has long been a high hope ; and a high hope it will re
main, untouched by the fact of his birth out of the or
ganic world. So far as that hope rested upon the dignity
of the human being, it is increased by a theory which
shows that for millions of ages the forms and forces of
the world were all employed in preparing and working
on the marvel of a human brain. He nlay well argue that
nature will fitly cherish the gem which it costs 83ons to
produce and myriads of busy hands to polish.
And as to this world, the new theory has caused a hope
to dawn over us so dazzling that our eyes can hardly yet
bear it. It has revealed that the force which has built up
from a zoophyte to the wondrous frame of man remains
still in our hands, ready to lay hold on man himself and
build him into a nobler race, to fossilize deformity and
liberate every power, ready to apply the omnipotent
universe for the culture of man and his dwelling-place,
causing social deserts to rejoice and blossom like the rose.
EGQLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 345
SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER.
EDWARD EGGLESTON.
[" The Hoosier School-Master," a vivid portrayal of Western life, by
one " to the manner born," is the source of our present Half-Hour
reading. Edward Eggleston, its author, was born in Indiana in 1837,
and entered the Methodist ministry in his native State. He afterwards
became pastor of " a church without a creed," in Brooklyn, New York.
He has published several other works, but his reputation rests mainly on
the one above named, which came upon the public as a fresh and truth
ful delineation of a phase of American life not before treated by the
pen of the novelist.]
" I 'LOW," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into
her cob pipe after supper on that eventful Wednesday
evening, " I 'low they'll appint the Squire to gin out the
words to-night. They mos' always do, you see, kase he's
the peartest ole man in this deestrick ; and I 'low some of
the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they
would keep up to him. And he uses sech remarkable
smart words. He speaks so polite, too. But laws ! don't
I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey ?
Twenty year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggins,
that air Squire Hawkins was a poar Yankee school-master,
that said ' pail' instid of bucket, and that called a cow a
1 caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard what we
meant by 'low and by right smart. But he's larnt our ways
now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You
would-n know he'd ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay
poar long. Not he. He jest married a right rich gal !
He ! he !" and the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then
at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered.
Nothing was so frightful to him as to be fawned on and
grinned at by this old ogre, whose few lonesome, blackish
346 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGQLESTON
teeth seemed ready to devour him. " He didn't stay poar,
you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on
the pipe, and the lips began to crack like parchment as
each puff of smoke escaped. " He married rich, you see,"
and here another significant look at the young master, and
another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed away reflect
ively. " His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been
through the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as
* asperity' on it a second time. But she couldn't read a
word when she was married, and never could. She warn't
overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law
allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, be
sides, book-larnin' don't do no good to a w r oman. Makes
her stuck up. I never knowed but one gal in my life as
had ciphered into fractions, and she was so dog-on stuck
up that she turned up her nose one night at a apple-peelin'
bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the table
cloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos'
clean, too;-had-n been slep' on more'n wunst or twicet.
But I was goin' fer to say that when Squire Hawkins
married Yirginny Gray he got a heap o' money, or,
what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And
that's better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone
clean through all eddication, and got to the rule of three
itself, that would n buy a feather-bed. Squire Hawkins
jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and traded even,
an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no com
plaints."
And here she looked at Ealph in triumph, her hard face
splintering into the hideous semblance of a smile. And
Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, all-imploring, and all-
confiding look on the young master.
" I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, " I say, wot is all
this 'ere spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack,
EQGLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 347
having bit off an ounce of " pigtail," returned the plug to
his pocket.
As for Balph, he wanted to die. He had a guilty feel
ing that this speech of the old lady's had somehow com
mitted him beyond recall to Mirandy. He did not see
\ isions of breach-of-promise suits ; but he trembled at the
thought of an avenging big brother.
" Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind,
when you git the dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the
bound girl, as she shut and latched the back door. The
Means family had built a new house in front of the old one,
as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an
eruption of shoddy feeling ; but when the new building
was completed they found themselves unable to occupy it
for anything else than a lumber-room, and so, except a
parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to furnish a
little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should
" set up" with her of evenings), the new building was
almost unoccupied, and the family went in and out through
the back door, which, indeed, was the front door also, for,
according to a curious custom, the "front" of the house
was placed toward the south, though the "big road"
(Hoosier for highway} ran along the northwest side, or,
rather, past the northwest corner of it.
When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah
and had latched the door, she muttered, " That gal don't
never show no gratitude fer favors;" to which Bud re
joined that he didn't think she had no great sight to be
pertickler thankful fer. To which Mrs. Means made no
reply, thinking it best, perhaps, not to wake up her duti
ful son on so interesting a theme as her treatment of
Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening to go
to another boarding-place. He should not hear the rest
of the controversy.
348 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGGLESTON
Ealph walked to the school-house with Bill. They
were friends again. For when Hank Banta's ducking
and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet clothes had
brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the
big boys, and had said, " We must take care of one
another, boys. Who will volunteer to take turns sitting
up with Henry ?" He put his own name down, and all
the rest followed.
" William Means and myself will sit up to-night," said
Ralph. And poor Bill had been from that moment the
teacher's friend. He was chosen to be Ralph's companion.
He was Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be
conquered by kindness, and the teacher was made to feel
the bitterness of his resentment long after, as we shall
find. But Bill Means was for the time entirely placated,
and he and Ralph went to spelling-school together.
Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow
dips and white dips, burning, smoking, and flaring. There
was laughing, and talking, and giggling, and simpering,
and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a dress party
is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole County.
It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with
this legend, "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a
blind in Hoopole County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue.
But as there are some in society who love dancing for its
own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were those who
loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the
battle from afar, had come to try their skill in this tour
nament, hoping to freshen the laurels they had won in
their school-days.
"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal
school trustee, " I 'low our friend the Square is jest the
man to boss this 'ere consarn to-night. Ef nobody objects,
I'll appint him. Come, Square, don't be bashful. Walk
EGGLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 349
up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to
his donkey."
There was a general giggle at this, and many of the
young swains took occasion to nudge the girls alongside
them* ostensibly for the purpose of making them see the
joke, but really for the pure pleasure of nudging. The
Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears
so many disguises that they could not select a costume
for him.
The Squire came to the front. Ealph made an inven
tory of the agglomeration which bore the name of Squire
Hawkins, as follows :
1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on
state occasions when its owner was called to figure in his
public capacity. Either the Squire had grown too large
or the coat too small.
2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnoi-
mal, and unexpected apparition conceivable in Flat Creek
district, where the preachers wore no coats in the summer,
and where a black glove was never seen except on the
hands of the Squire.
3. A wig of that dirty, waxy color so common to wigs.
This one showed a continual inclination to slip off the
owner's smooth, bald pate, and the Squire had frequently
to adjust it. As his hair had been red, the wig did not
accord with his face, and the hair ungrayed was sadly dis
cordant with a face shrivelled by age.
4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge
of the jaw and chin. These were dyed a frightful dead
black, such as no natural hair or beard ever had. At
the roots there was a quarter of an inch of white, giving
the whiskers the appearance of having been stuck on.
5. A pair of spectacles with " tortoise-shell rim." Wont
to slip off.
iv. 30
350 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGQLESTON
6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in
color from its natural mate, perpetually getting out of
focus by turning in or out.
7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing
up and down.
8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were
loosely attached.
It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father
begging him to come West, because " mighty mean men got
in office out here." But Ealph concluded that some Yan
kees had taught school in Hoopole County who would not
have held a high place in the educational institutions of
Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New England idioms,
but they were well overlaid by a Western pronunciation.
" Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spec
tacles, and sucking his lips over his white teeth to keep
them in place, "ladies and gentlemen, young men and
maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr. Means fer this honor."
And the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his
head round several inches. Then he adjusted his spec
tacles. Whether he was obliged to Mr. Means for the
honor of being compared to a donkey was not clear. " I
feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a
most happifying sense of the success and futility of all my
endeavors to sarve the people of Flat Crick deestrick, and
the people of Tomkins township, in my weak way and
manner." This burst of eloquence was delivered with a
constrained air and an apparent sense of a danger that ho,
Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and
manner, and of the success and futility (especially the lat
ter) of all attempts at reconstruction. For by this time
the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was
looking away round to the left, while the little blue one
on the right twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The
EGQLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 351
front teeth would drop down, so that the Squire's mouth
was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled through.
" I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interest
ing occasion," twisting his scalp round, " but raley I must
forego any such exertions. It is spelling you want. Spell
ing is the corner-stone, the grand underlying subterfuge,
of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book prepared by
the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley.
I think I may put it ahead of the Bible. For if it wurnt
fer spellin'-books and sich occasions as these, where would
the Bible be, I should like to know ? The man who got
up, who compounded this little work of inextricable valoo
was a benufactor to the whole human race or any other."
Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in
some confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and
felt of his glass eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder,
and Betsey Short rolled from side to side at the point of
death from the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means
and the other old ladies looked the applause they could
not speak.
"I appint Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fei
captings," said the Squire. And the two young men
thus named took a stick and tossed it from hand to hand
to decide which should have the "first ch'ice." One
tossed the stick to the other, who held it fast just where
he happened to catch it. Then the first placed his hand
above the second, and so the hands were alternately
changed to the top. The one who held the stick last
without room for the other to take hold had gained the
lot. This was tried three times. As Larkin held the
stick twice out of three times, he had the choice. He
hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim
Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown
seas, and so he said, " I take the master," while a buzz of
352 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGGLESTON
surprise ran round the room, and the captain of the other
side, as if afraid his opponent would withdraw the choice,
retorted quickly, and with a little smack of exultation
and defiance in his voice, " And /take Jeems Phillips."
And soon all present, except a few of the old folks,
found themselves ranged in opposing hosts, the poor
spellers lagging in, with what grace they could, at the
foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his spelling-
book and began to give out the words to the two captains,
who stood up and spelled against each other. It was not
long until Larkin spelled " really" with one , and had to
sit down in confusion, while a murmur of satisfaction ran
through the ranks of the opposing forces. His own side
bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher
took the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement
made the house very quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of
influence he would suffer if he should be easily spelled
down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the dark
est corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting
in the shadow. It made him tremble. Why should his
evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he turned
his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully
to the words which the Squire did not pronounce very
distinctly, spelling them with extreme deliberation. This
gave him an air of hesitation which disappointed those on
his own side. They wanted him to spell with a dashing
assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had
mentally felt his way through it. After ten minutes of
spelling hard words, Jeems Buchanan, the captain on the
other side, spelled "atrocious" with an s instead of a c,
and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming up
against the teacher. ^This brought the excitement to fever-
heat. For though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely
on trust, and most of the company were disappointed.
EQGLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 353
The champion who now stood up against the school
master was a famous speller.
Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow,
who had never distinguished himself in any other pursuit
than spelling. Except in this one art of spelling, he was
of no account. He could not catch well or bat well in
ball. He could not throw well enough to make his mark
in that famous Western game of bull-pen. He did not
succeed well in any study but that of Webster's Element
ary. But in that he was to use the usual Flat Creek
locution in that he was " a boss." This genius for spell
ing is in some people a sixth sense, a matter of intuition.
Some spellers are born and not made, and their facility re
minds one of the mathematical prodigies that crop out
every now and then to bewilder the world. Bud Means,
foreseeing that Ealph would be pitted against Jim Phillips,
had warned his friend that Jim could " spell like thunder
and lightning," and that it " took a powerful* smart speller''
to beat him, for he knew "a heap of spelling-book." To
have " spelled down the master" is next thing to having
whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and Jim
had "spelled down" the last three masters. He divided
the hero-worship of the district with Bud Means.
For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What
a blessed thing our crooked orthography is ! Without it
there could be no spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered
his opponent's mettle he became more and more cautious.
He was now satisfied that Jim would eventually beat him.
The fellow evidently knew more about the spelling-book
than old Noah Webster himself. As he stood there, with
his dull face and long sharp nose, his hands behind his
back, and his voice spelling infallibly, it seemed to Hart-
eook that his superiority must lie in his nose. Ralph's cau
tiousness answered a double purpose: it enabled him to
iv. x 30*
354 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGGLESTON
tread surely, and it was mistaken by Jim for weakness.
Phillips was now confident that he should carry off the
scalp of the fourth school-master before the even-Ing was
over. He spelled eagerly, confidently, brilliantly. Stoop-
shouldered as he was, he began to straighten up. In the
minds of all the company the odds were in his favor. He
saw this, and became ambitious to distinguish himself by
spelling without giving the matter any thought.
Ealph always believed that he would have been speedily
defeated by Phillips had it not been for two thoughts
which braced him. The sinister shadow of young Dr.
Small sitting in the dark corner by the water-bucket
nerved him. A victory over Phillips was a defeat to one
who wished only ill to the young school-master. The
other thought that kept his pluck alive was the recollec
tion of Bull. He approached a word as Bull approached
the raccoon. He did not take hold until he was sure of
his game. When he took hold, it was with a quiet as
surance of success. As Ealph spelled in this dogged way
for half an hour the hardest words the Squire could find,
the excitement steadily rose in all parts of the house, and
Ealph's friends even ventured to whisper that " maybe
Jim had cotched his match after all !"
But Phillips never doubted of his success.
" Theodolite," said the Squire.
" T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, 1-y-t-e, theodolite,''
spelled the champion.
" Next," said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in hid
excitement.
Ealph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the
conquered champion sat down in confusion. The excite
ment was so great for some minutes that the spelling was
suspended. Everybody in the house had shown sympathy
with one or the other of the combatants, except the silent
EGGLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 355
shadow in the corner. It had not moved during the con
test, and did not show any interest now in^the result.
" Gewhilliky crickets ! Thunder and lightning! Licked
him all to smash I" said Bud, rubbing his hands on his
knees. " That beats my time all holler !"
And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out>
though she was on the defeated side.
Shocky got up and danced with pleasure.
But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of
Mirandy destroyed the last spark of Ralph's pleasure in
his triumph, and sent that awful below-zero feeling all
through him.
" He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to
Mr. Pete Jones. " He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of
'em afore he's through. I know'd he was smart. That's
the reason I tuck him," proceeded Mr. Means.
" Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered
Pete Jones. " No lickin', no larnin', says I."
It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the oppo
site side went down quickly under the hard words which
the Squire gave out. The master had mowed down all but
a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and all had
lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could
be but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spell
ers left. But Ealph Hartsook ran against a stump where
he was least expecting it. It was the Squire's custom,
when one of the smaller scholars or poorer spellers rose to
spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy
words, that they might have some breathing- spell before
being slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two, which
soon settled them. He let them run a little, as a cat does
a doomed mouse. There was now but one person left on
the opposite side, and as she rose in her blue calico dress,
Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack
356 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EGGLESTON
Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and
had never spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen
last as an uncertain quantity. The Squire began with
easy words of two syllables, from that page of Webster so
well known to all who ever thumbed it as " Baker," from
the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled
these words in an absent and uninterested manner. As
everybody knew that she would have to go down as soon
as this preliminary skirmishing was over, everybody be
gan to get ready to go home, and already there was the
buzz of preparation. Young men were timidly asking
girls if " they could see them safe home," which is the ap
proved formula, and were trembling in mortal fear of " the
mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to close
the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass
eye, which had been examining his nose long enough, and
turned over the leaves of the book to the great words at
the place known to spellers as " Incomprehensibility," and
began to give out those " words of eight syllables with
the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned
round, and ceased to whisper, in order to bo in at the
master's final triumph. But, to their surprise, " ole Miss
Meanses' white nigger," as some of them called her, in al
lusion to her slavish life, spelled these great words with as
perfect ease as the master. Still, not doubting the result,
the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the
hard words he could find. The school became utterly
quiet; the excitement was too great for the ordinary
buzz. "Would " Meanses' Hanner" beat the master ? Beat
the master that had laid out Jim Phillips ? Everybody's
sympathy was now turned to Hannah. Kalph noticed
that even Shocky had deserted him, and that his face
grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In
fact, Ealph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid
EGGLESTON] SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER. 357
face of the girl so long oppressed flush and shine with in
terest, as he looked at the rather low but broad and intel
ligent brow and the fresh, white complexion, and saw the
rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under the in
fluence of applause and sympathy, he did not want to beat.
If he had not felt that a victory given would insult her,
he would have missed intentionally. The bull-dog, the
stern, relentless setting of the will, had gone, he knew not
whither. And there had come in its place, as he looked
in that face, a something which he did not understand.
You did not, gentle reader, the first time it came to you.
The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard
words in the book. He again pulled the top of his head
forward. Then he wiped his spectacles and put them on.
Then out of the depths of his pocket he fished up a list
of words just coming into use in those days, words not
in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper attentively
with his blue right eye. His black left eye meanwhile
fixed itself in such a stare on Mirandy Means that she
shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk handkerchief.
" Daguerreotype," sniffled the Squire. It was Ralph's
turn.
" D-a-u, dau "
"Next."
And Hannah spelled it right.
Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could
not be heard, but Shocky shouted, "Hanner beat! my
Hanner spelled down the master!" And Ealph went over
and congratulated her.
And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner.
And then the Squire called them to order, and said, " As
our friend Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her
side, she will have to spell against nearly all on t'other
side. I shall, therefore, take the liberty of procrastinating
358 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTE
the completion of this interesting and exacting contest
until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner may
again carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is
nothing better for us than heathful and kindly simu
lation."
Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted
Mirandy, and Bud went home with somebody else. The
others of the Means family hurried on, while Hannah, the
champion, stayed behind a minute to speak to Shocky
Perhaps it was because Ralph saw that Hannah must go
alone that he suddenly remembered having left something
which was of no consequence, and resolved to go round by
Mr. Means's and get it. Another of Cupid's disguises.
A NEWPORT ROMANCE.
BRET HARTE.
THEY say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me) ;
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.
Her lover was fickle and fine and French :
It was nearly a hundred years ago
When he sailed away from her arms poor wench !-
With the Admiral Eochambeau.
I marvel much what periwigged phrase
Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,
At what golden-laced speech of those modish days
She listened, the mischief take her !
HAETE] A NEWPORT ROMANCE. 359
But she kept the posies of mignonette
That he gave ; and ever as their bloom failed
And faded (though with her tears still wet)
Her youth with their own exhaled.
Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud
Eound spar and spire and tarn and tree,
Her soul went up on that lifted cloud
From this sad old house by the sea.
And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
She walks unbidden from room to room,
And the air is filled, as she passes through,
With a subtle, sad perfume.
The delicate odor of mignonette,
The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story ; yet
Could she think of a sweeter way ?
* * * * * * #
I sit in the sad old house to-night,
Myself a ghost from a farther sea,
And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
In courtesy, visit me.
For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,
And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
And the grand piano is still.
Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two ;
And there is no sound in the sad old house
But the long veranda dripping with dew,
And in the wainscot a mouse.
360 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTB
The light of my study-lamp streams out
From the library door, but has gone astray
In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt
But the Quakeress knows the way.
Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought
With outward watching and inward fret ?
But I swear that the air just now was fraught
With the odor of mignonette !
I open the window, and seem almost
So still lies the ocean to hear the beat
Of its great Gulf artery off the coast,
And to bask in its tropic heat.
In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,
As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss ;
And I wonder now could I fit that air
To the song of this sad old house.
And no odor of mignonette there is,
But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn ;
And mayhap from causes as slight as this
The quaint old legend is born.
But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,
As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast
The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,
Awakens my buried past.
And I think of the passion that shook my youth,
Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,
And am thankful now for the certain truth
That only the sweet remains.
SAVAGE] THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 361
And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,
And I see no face at my library door;
For, now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,
She is viewless for evermore.
But whether she came as a faint perfume,
Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,
She has been with my soul to-night !
THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE.
M. J. SAVAGE.
[Minot J. Savage, one of the most eloquent speakers and agreeable
writers of the Unitarian ministry, and the author of numerous works,
was born in Maine in 1841. He began his pastoral life as a Congrega-
tionalist preacher, but afterwards joined the Unitarian Church, and is
now pastor of the Church of the Unity, in Boston. Among his works
we may name " Christianity the Science of Manhood," " The Keligion
of Evolution," " Morals of Evolution," " The Modern Sphynx," " Be
liefs about the Bible," etc. The extract here given is from " Modern
Unitarianism," embracing the addresses delivered by various divines
at the recent dedication of the new building of the First Unitarian
Church of Philadelphia. That the artificial wall which has been erected
between religion and science must break down before future research
and reasoning there can be no doubt, and any movement in this direc
tion may be welcomed. Both religion and science are based on facts,
and facts cannot be mutually prohibitory, however different be their
provinces. When facts seem to disagree it is really ignorance that is
astray, and the growth of knowledge cannot fail in time to reconcile
completely these seemingly discordant fields of thought and research.]
1. SCIENCE has revealed to us a universe fit to be the
garment of an infinite God.
IV. Q 31
362 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAVAGE
However crude their thought, men have always had
some sort of notion of the world about them, of the gods
or god residing in and controlling the heavens and the
earth ; they have had some notion of their own natures,
and of the relation in which they stood to these external
and superior powers. And their theology has always been
their theory of these relations. All religions, then, root
themselves in, spring out of, and are shaped by some cos
mology, or theory of things. And the religion can be no
grander or more worthy than the cosmology. A grand
religion, then, must be housed in a grand conception of
the universe. For an infinite God there must be an in
finite home.
I need not describe in detail the childish conceptions
which the childhood world entertained concerning its
dwelling-place ; for you are familiar with them. They
were the natural fancies of barbaric people. A little flat
world, with as many fancied centres as there were nations,
with a limited heaven close by, the home of its peculiar
gods : it is only fanciful variations of the same general
plan.
The heaven and earth of Hebrew tradition, which after-
ages consecrated as part of a supposed divine revelation,
was shaped almost precisely after the pattern of a modern
Saratoga trunk. The surface of the earth was its floor ;
and the sun, moon, and stars were attached to the under
side of a concave dome, which would answer to the cover.
Beyond it on all sides was the primeval chaos. Heaven,
the home of God and His angels, was above the dome.
The Church added to this conception a cavernous hell be
neath, a sort of false bottom for this trunk, and thus
completed the structure of the universe as it was popu
larly held, down even to mediaeval times.
The Ptolemaic astronomers imagined all sorts of clumsy
SAVAGE] THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 363
contrivances in their vain attempts to account for the
movements of the heavenly bodies.. Their sky dome was
" With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb."
But so unsatisfactory was the arrangement, after all, that
the acutest human intellects came to regard it as altogether
unworthy of a divine contriver. Prince Alphonso of Cas
tile said that had he been present at the creation he could
have suggested a much better plan.
Thus, Eeligion not only labored under the burden of
such clumsy contrivances, but her official representatives
fought bitterly, and for ages, against a nobler and more
worthy conception. But, against all opposition, Science
persisted ; and at last the walls of space gave way, the
solid dome became the boundless expanse of air, the earth
was seen " dancing about the sun," and our solar system
took its place as one in the ordered maze of countless
galaxies of worlds.
At last, then, we have a universe-house large enough
for a God, the outlines of a temple fit to be the seat of a
worship to match the boundless aspirations of the human
soul. And this, in every part, is the work of Science.
And Science has achieved it not only in spite of instituted
and official Eeligion, but for the sake of Eeligion ; that is,
Science has given to Eeligion a temple, one "that hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
2. But not only has Science revealed to Eeligion an
infinite universe ; it has established beyond question the
fact that it is a universe. It is not a chaos, but an orderly
unity.
With the old conception of the universe, it was easy
enough to believe in two gods or a thousand. No system,
no unity, was discovered ; and the Titanic forces seemed
364 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAVAGE
to be in everlasting conflict. Light fought the darkness,
summer contended with winter; while cloud, wind, light
ning, all appeared to be the gigantic play of separate or
hostile powers. Religion gave in her adhesion to some
one deity, but was never quite sure but that the object
of her worship might be some day dethroned, as Jupiter
dethroned Saturn, by some other supernal king.
But when Newton demonstrated the law of gravitation,
the universe, from dust-grain to Sirius, was seen to be
held in the grasp of one almighty power. Then came
the proof that all the different forces of the universe were
only different manifestations of one eternal force that
never was less or more. And at last the spectroscope
has revealed the wondrous fact that the dust beneath our
feet is of the same material as that of which the glitter
ing suns are made.
It is, indeed, true that Religion declared, ages ago,
"The Lord our God is one Lord!" But, all the same, a
hundred other religions had their " gods many and lords
many ;" and no one was able to do more than assert the
nothingness of all but one. But at last Science has de
monstrated
u One law, one element,"
and has made it reasonable for us to complete the line,
and make it read,
" One God, one law, one element."
It is one force everywhere ; and, if God be at all, He is
now known to be only One.
And this result of knowledge is the magnificent gift to
Eeligion of Science. The glory belongs to Science, and to
Science alone.
3. JSTot only is the infinite oneness demonstrated, but, as
already hinted, though I wish to set the point apart and
SAVAGE] THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 365
mark it off by itself, an infinite order is also revealed ;
and so we find it rational to believe in an infinite
wisdom.
Of course it is but a small part of the universe that has
been explored ; and even that can be said to be but par
tially known. But every step so far taken reveals an in
telligible order. And, since our judgments are based upon
experience, and each new experience reaffirms and deepens
the one impression, the conviction is a cumulative one.
All the known, then, being orderly, we feel an unshaken
confidence that whatever seems chaotic or unwise bears
that appearance to us only because it is not better
known.
Here, again, as in regard to the oneness, though the
religious heart might trust and hope, it is only Science
that has bestowed upon Eeligion the power to demon
strate her magnificent faith.
4. And, once more, this order that Science has revealed
is not a fixed and finished order, so that we may not hope
for anything better than that which is already seen. It
is rather evolution, an orderly progress, the apparent on-
reaching of a purpose ; and so it becomes rational for us
to cherish any grandest hope as being within the scope of
possibility.
Against the old universe, as a fixed and finished piece
of mechanism, wrought by the hand of a supernatural con
triver, certain very grave and insuperable objections could
be brought. It seems to me that on that theory the
serious criticisms of John Stuart Mill, for example, can
not be met. The God of this universe, regarding it as a
finality, Mr. Mill thinks, cannot be both perfectly good
and perfectly powerful at the same time. Either He does
not wish to make things better and, in that case, is not
completely benevolent or else He cannot make them
IT. 31*
366 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAYAGR
better; and so either His wisdom or His power is im
peached.
But the fact of evolution, the establishment of which is
unspeakably the grandest of all the achievements of Sci
ence, completely flanks this whole class of objections, and
so gives to Eeligion a firm basis for her noblest trust.
Since all things are in process, reaching forth toward
some result as yet but dimly seen, it were as illogical to
condemn them for present imperfections as it would be to
judge the quality of an apple that ripens only in October
by tasting its puckery bitterness in July. Such judgment
is as unscientific as it is irreligious. We are, then, scien
tifically justified in singing one verse, at least, of the old
hymn of Cowper,
" His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour :
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."
And, though the old watch-maker type of design may
be discredited, a broader, grander, farther-reaching tele
ology is revealed. Taking in the wider sweep of things ;
considering the growth of a system from star-dust to
planet ; noting the upward trend of life from protozoon to
man, and, within the human range, from animal to soul ;
seeing how,
" Striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form,"
m this larger survey we are taking no unjustifiable liberty
with the facts when we chant our trust in the words of
Tennyson,
" Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs."
Within this generation, then, for the first time in the
SAVAGE] THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 367
history of the world, Religion is able to feel beneath the feet
of her faith in " the eternal goodness" the firm ground of
demonstration. And this is the gift of Science.
5. Still another gift of Science to Religion is nothing
less than what is essentially a spiritualist conception of
the universe. There is a sort of grim irony in the fact
that, while Religion has always been stigmatizing Science
as materialistic, she herself has never been able to demon
strate the opposite of materialism, and has had to wait for
Science to do it for her. For it is Science, at last, that has
dealt materialism its death-blow and made it reasonable
for us to believe that the world is only the bright and
changing garment of the living God. Religion has dis
believed and denounced materialism for ages ; but, all the
while, she has been haunted by it, as by a ghost which all
her conjurations could not lay. But Science has now
demonstrated its utter incompetence as a theory for the
explanation of the universe. A theory is accepted as
valid by as much as it can account for the facts. The
most important, the crucial fact with which we have to
deal is conscious thought; and, in the face of this, mate
rialism has utterly broken down. On this point I wish
to let the great voices of the scientific world be heard for
themselves.
In his address on Scientific Materialism (" Fragments
of Science," p. 120), Mr. Tyndall expresses the opinion
that the materialist has a right to assert an intimate re
lation between thought and certain molecular motions in
the brain. Then he adds, " I do not think he is entitled
to say that his molecular groupings and his molecular
motions explain everything. In reality, they explain
nothing. . . . The problem of the connection of body
and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in
the pre-scientific ages."
368 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAVAGE
Mr. Huxley, in treating of Bishop Berkeley on the Meta
physics of Sensation (" Critiques and Addresses," p. 314),
declares, " If I were obliged to choose between absolute
materialism and absolute idealism, I should feel compelled
to accept the latter alternative."
Instead of quoting long passages on this point from Mr.
Spencer, I choose rather to give Mr. Fiske's summing up
of his general position. He says, "Mr. Spencer has most
conclusively demonstrated that, from the scientific point
of view, the hypothesis of the materialists is not only as
untenable to-day as it ever has been, but must always re
main inferior in philosophic value to the opposing spirit
ualistic hypothesis." (" Cosmic Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
436.)
And his own position Mr. Fiske sums up in these brief
words : " Henceforth we may regard materialism as ruled
out, and relegated to that limbo of crudities to which we,
some time since, consigned the hypothesis of special crea
tions." (" Cosmic Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 445.)
It is no part of my purpose to trace the processes of
scientific reasoning by which this end has been attained.
I only wish to note the fact, and to help honest religious
thinkers to see and be grateful for the gifts of Science.
Materialism, then, is gone by. Henceforth, Religion may
gladly look upon all the fair, the magnificent, the terrible
forms of matter as only veils that, while they conceal, do
still more reveal the features, the outlines, and the move
ments of the Infinite Life that they only clothe and
manifest.
6. As Science holds us by the hand, I think I may
safely say that she leads us one step further into the heart
of this grand mystery.
The form behind and manifested in and through what
we call matter is really spirit, we say. But that is not
SAVAGE] THE DEBT OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 36 H
enough for Religion. To be in the words of Spencer
" ever in presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from
which all things proceed," this is grand and wonderful.
But Religion has dared to hope that this infinite power
was Father and Friend. And now, if Herbert Spencer
may be allowed to speak for her, Science asserts at least
demonstrable kinship between the human soul and this
" Infinite and Eternal Energy." These are Mr. Spencer's
words : " The final outcome of that speculation com
menced by the primitive man is that the Power mani
fested throughout the universe distinguished as material
is the same power which in ourselves wells up under the
form of consciousness." (" Eeligion : A Retrospect and
Prospect.")
And, with more elaboration and in greater detail, the
Rev. F. E. Abbot (" Scientific Theism," p. 209) asserts of
the universe, as the direct teaching and final result of
science, that, " because, as an infinite organism, it thus
manifests infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, or
thought, feeling, and will in their infinite fulness, and be
cause these three constitute the essential manifestations
of personality, it" the universe " must be conceived as
Infinite Person, Absolute Spirit, Creative Source, and
Eternal Home of the derivative finite personalities which
depend upon it, but are no less real than itself."
Thus have the patient feet of Science led the way to
the heights,
"... through nature up to nature's God."
Such and so magnificent are her gifts to Religion.
7. But the catalogue of her services is not yet ended.
Still the work goes on. For it is her spirit and method
that are scattering the clouds of superstition and inhu
man theology, the still lingering remnants of the primeval
370 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAVAGE
darkness that once overhung the whole earth, so helping
Religion to break, like a sun, through the noxious vapors,
and illumine the world.
Those who are committed to the impossible task of
identifying with Eeligion dogmas and customs that can
not bear the light may well be jealous of Science and her
work. For just so certainly as she is of the race of tho
immortals, so certainly they must die. It is the old bat
tle between Apollo and the dragons ; and the issue is not
uncertain. . . . Science can destroy only God's enemies
and ours; for she is the very leader of the divine armies
of light and truth.
8. One more point I wish to set down, not as an achieve
ment, but as a hope, if not a prophecy. I dare to believe
that some day this same Science will discover immortality.
However firmly we may believe, we cannot yet say we
know. I am aware that many have no question, and say
they care for no more proof. But, when any man says,
" I know," the utmost that he can honestly mean is that
he feels a very strong assurance. I, too, believe.
" I cannot think the world shall end in naught,
That the abyss shall be the grave of thought,
" That e'er oblivion's shoreless sea shall roll
O'er love and wonder and the lifeless soul."
Neither have I any prying curiosity as to the details of
that other life. But, in regard to the simple fact, I should
like to feel beneath my feet the solid rock of demonstra
tion. For could we not all bear with bravery and patience
the incidents of a journey that leads to such an issue ?
Now, if this other life be a fact, and if its realities be
not far away, if its activities press close upon us and
mingle themselves with our daily lives, I see nothing un
reasonable in supposing that one day this may be demon-
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 371
strated to the satisfaction of all candid men. Such, at
least, is my hope.
These, then, are some items in the debt of Eeligion to
Science. Religion is man's search after right relations to
God and to his fellow-man. Science, distrusted so long,- is
found to be the unfalleu Lucifer, the light-bearer, God's
very archangel, come to guide Religion into the discovery
of these relations. Let them hereafter work hand in
hand in completing the foundations and rearing the homes
and temples of the city of God, which is the city of a
perfected humanity.
THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
[The selection which we here present to our readers is Irom " The
Marble Faun," in the opinion of many the finest of Hawthorne's
works. "We might readily have selected passages of more dramatic
interest, but no part of the work more fully displays the peculiar fac
ulty of its author than that here taken. The picture of the intense
delight in and close communion with nature which Donatello displays,
and his seeming lack of any powers of thought beyond those of mere
physical enjoyment, form a brilliant realization of the Greek concep
tion of the Faun, and the scene would have been fittingly laid under
the glowing sunshine of Greece, three thousand years ago. Donatello
passes from the antique to the modern world, in the birth of a soul,
through the agency of crime, and thenceforth the purity and simplicity
of his communion with nature are lost, though he grows to nobler
heights.]
DONATELLO, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt
afternoon and morning, set forth to keep the appointment
which Miriam had carelessly tendered him in the grounds
of the Yilla Borghese. . . .
372 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAWTHORNE
The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was
such as arrays itself in the imagination when we read the
beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer
turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees,
than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the
Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-hon
ored were they, seemed to have lived for ages undisturbed,
and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe any more
than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already
passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few
years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's
last assault upon the walls of Borne. As if confident in
the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed attitudes
of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in
ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches
without danger of interfering with other trees, though
other majestic trees grew near enough for dignified so
ciety, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a
more venerable quietude than that which slept among
their sheltering boughs ; never a sweeter sunshine than
that now gladdening the gentle gloom which these leafy
patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and sub
siding lawns.
In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted
their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of
stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the
air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far oif that
you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there
were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge
funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round
about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more
open spots were all abloom, even so early in the season,
with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-
colored, and violets that betrayed themselves by their
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 373
rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet
your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than
the modest little English flower, and therefore of small
account.
These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful
than the finest of English park-scenery, more touching,
more impressive, through the neglect that leaves Nature
so much to her own ways and methods. Since man sel
dom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way
and makes herself at home. There is enough of human
care, it is true, bestowed, long ago and still bestowed, to
prevent wildness from growing into deformity ; and the
result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems
to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the
ancient Faun were other than a mere creation of old
poetry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must have
been in such a scene as this.
In^ the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing
into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy with
water-weeds ; or they tumble like natural cascades from
rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the
quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and
there with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman
inscriptions. Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even
that soft atmosphere, half hide and half reveal themselves,
high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on the
turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite por
ticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths,
either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite
a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than
if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops
of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root them
selves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of
temples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as if
ir. 32
374 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS, [HAWTHORNE
this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds
alighted there.
What a strange idea what a needless labor to con
struct artificial ruins in Eome, the native soil of ruin !
But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in
emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces,
are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have
grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all
is a scene, pensive, lovely, dream-like, enjoyable, and sad,
such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa-
residences in the neighborhood of Rome ; a scene that
must have required generations and ages, during which
growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindly
together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now.
The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is
a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea
of so much beauty thrown away, or only enjoyable at its
half-development, in winter and early spring, and never
to be dwelt amongst, as the home-scenery of any human
being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray
through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks
arm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of
the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its love
liness ; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes
it beyond the scope of man's actual possessions. But
Donatello felt nothing of this dream-like melancholy that
haunts the spot. As he passed among the sunny shadows,
his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker
of the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the
dance of the leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance,
the green freshness, the old sylvan peace and freedom,
were all intermingled in those long breaths which he
drew.
The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Eome, the dead
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 375
atmosphere in which he had wasted so many months, the
hard pavements, the smell of ruin and decaying genera
tions, the chill palaces, the convent-bells, the heavy in
cense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark,
narrow streets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and
women, all the sense of these things rose from the young
man's consciousness like a cloud which had darkened over
him without his knowing how densely.
He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and
was intoxicated as by an exhilarating wine. He ran races
with himself along the gleam and shadow of the wood-
paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough of
an ilex, and, swinging himself by it, alighted far onward,
as if he had flown thither through the air. In a sudden
rapture he embraced the trunk of a sturdy tree, and
seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of affection and
capable of a tender response ; he clasped it closely in his
arms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm feminine
grace of the nymph whom antiquity supposed to dwell
within that rough, encircling rind. Then, in order to
bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which his
kindred instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself
at full length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kiss
ing the violets and daisies, which kissed him back again,
though shyly, in their maiden fashion.
While he \&y there, it was pleasant to see how the green
and blue lizards, who had been basking on some rock or
on a fallen pillar that absorbed the warmth of the sun,
scrupled not to scramble over him with their small feet ;
and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and sang
their little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm ;
they recognized him, it may be, as something akin to
themselves, or else they fancied that he was rooted and
grew there ; for these wild pets of nature dreaded him no
376 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAWTHORNK
more in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil and grass
and flowers had long since covered his dead body, con
verting it back to the sympathies from which human
existence had estranged it.
All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the
blood gush more joyously through our veins with the first
breath of rural air; few could feel it so much as Donatello,
a creature of simple elements, bred in the sweet sylvan
life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the
mouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature
has been shut out for numberless centuries from those
stony-hearted streets, to which he had latterly grown
accustomed ; there is no trace of her, except for what
blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less-
trodden piazzas, or what weeds cluster and tuft them
selves on the cornices of ruins. Therefore his joy was
like that of a child that had gone astray from home and
finds him suddenly in his mother's arms again.
At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her
tryst, he climbed to the tiptop of the tallest tree, and
thence looked about him, swaying to and fro in the gentle
breeze, which was like the respiration of that great, leafy,
living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole cir
cuit of the enchanted ground ; the statues and columns
pointing upward from among the shrubbery, the foun
tains flashing in the sunlight, the paths winding hither
and thither and continually finding out some nook of new
and ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its
marble front incrusted all over with bas reliefs, and statues
in its many niches. It was as beautiful as a fairy palace,
and seemed an abode in which the lord and lady of this
fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each morn
ing to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of
the past night could have depicted. All this he saw, but
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 377
bis first glance had taken in too wide a sweep, and it was
not till his eyes fell almost directly beneath him, that
Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the path that
led across the roots of his very tree.
He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come
close to the trunk, and then suddenly dropped from an
impending bough and alighted at her side. It was as if
the swaying of the branches had let a ray of sunlight
through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the
gloomy meditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up
the pale, dark beauty of her face, while it responded pleas
antly to Donatello's glance.
" I hardly know," said she, smiling, " whether you have
sprouted out of the earth or fallen from the clouds. In
either case you are welcome."
And they walked onward together.
Miriam's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect
on Donatello's spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition
into which they would otherwise have effervesced when
he found himself in her society, not, as heretofore, in the
old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and
in those Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while ; it
being, indeed, seldom Donatello's impulse to express him
self copiously in words. His usual modes of demonstra
tion were by the natural language of gesture, the instinc
tive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious
play of his features, which, within a limited range of
thought and emotion, would speak volumes in a moment.
By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's,
and was reflected back upon himself. He began inevitably,
as it were, to dance along the wood-path, flinging himself
into attitudes of strange comic grace. Often, too, he ran
a little way in advance of his companion, and then stood
to watch her as she approached along the shadowy and
iv. 32*
378 BEST AMERICAN A UTHORS. [HAWTHORNE
sun-fleckered path. With every step she took, he ex
pressed his joy at her nearer and nearer presence by what
might be thought an extravagance of gesticulation, but
which doubtless was the language of the natural man,
though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that
words have been feebly substituted in the place of signs
and symbols. He gave Miriam the idea of a being not
precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and beauti
ful sense, an animal, a creature in a state of development
less than what mankind has attained, yet the more per
fect within itself for that very deficiency. This idea filled
her mobile imagination with agreeable fantasies, which,
after smiling at them herself, she tried to convey to the
young man.
" What are you, my friend ?" she exclaimed, always
keeping in mind his singular resemblance to the Faun of
the Capitol. " If you are, in good truth, that wild and
pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me
known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts,
if anywhere. Knock at the rough rind of this ilex-tree
and summon forth the Dryad ! Ask the water-nymph to
rise dripping from yonder fountain and exchange a moist
pressure of the hand with me ! Do not fear that I shall
shrink even if one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr,
should come capering on his goat-legs out of the haunts
of far antiquity and propose to dance with me among
these lawns! And will not Bacchus, with whom you
consorted so familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,
will he not meet us here, and squeeze rich grapes into
his cup for you and me ?"
Donatello smiled ; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sym
pathy with the mirth that gleamed out of Miriam's deep,
dark eyes. But he did not seem quite to understand her
mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain what kind of
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 370
creature he was. or to inquire with what divine or poetic
kindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared
only to know that Miriam was beautiful, and that she
smiled graciously upon him ; that the present moment
was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the sun
shine, the sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm,
which it enclosed within its small circumference. It was
delightful to see the trust which he reposed in Miriam,
and his pure joy in her propinquity ; he asked nothing,
sought nothing, save to be near the beloved object, and
brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple boon. A
creature of the happy tribes below us sometimes shows
the capacity of this enjoyment ; a man, seldom or
never. . . .
As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt
more and more the influence of his elastic temperament.
Miriam was an impressible and impulsive creature, as un
like herself, in different moods,, as if a melancholy maiden
and a glad one were both bound within the girdle about
her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that
clasped it. Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined
to melancholy, yet fully capable of that high frolic of the
spirits which richly compensates for many gloomy hours ;
if her soul was apt to lurk in the darkness of a cavern,
she could sport madly in the sunshine before the cavern's
mouth. Except the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like
Donatello's, there is no merriment, no wild exhilaration,
comparable to that of melancholy people escaping from
the dark region in which it is their custom to keep them
selves imprisoned.
So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his
own ground. They ran races with each other, side by
side, with shouts and laughter ; they pelted one another
with early flowers, and, gathering them up, twined them
380 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAWTHORNE
with green leaves into garlands for both their heads.
They played together like children, or creatures of im
mortal youth. So much had they flung aside the sombre
habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born to be sportive
forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness instead of
any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far backward into Ar
cadian life, or, further still, into the Golden Age, before
mankind was burdened with sin and sorrow, and before
pleasure had been darkened with those shadows that
bring it into high relief and make it happiness.
"Hark!" cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was
about to bind Miriam's fair hands with flowers and lead
her along in triumph, " there is music somewhere in the
grove 1"
" It is your kinsman Pan, most likely," said Miriam,
" playing on his pipe. Let us go seek him, and make him
puff out his rough cheeks and pipe his merriest air!
Come ; the strain of music will guide us onward like a
gayly-colored thread of silk."
" Or like a chain of flowers," responded Donatello, draw
ing her along by that which he had twined. " This way !
Come!"
As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to
its cadence, extemporizing new steps and attitudes. Each
varying moment had a grace which might have been
worth putting into marble, for the long delight of days to
come, but vanished with the movement that gave it birth,
and was effaced from memory by another. In Miriam's
motion, freely as she flung herself into the frolic of the
hour, there was still an artful beauty; in Donatello's
there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness hand in
hand with grace ; sweet, bewitching, most provocative of
laughter, and yet akin to pathos, so deeply did it touch
the heart. This was the ultimate peculiarity, the final
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 381
touch, distinguishing between the sylvan creature and the
beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only this,
Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a
Faun.
There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played
the sylvan character as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses
of her then, you would have fancied that an oak had sun
dered its rough bark to let her dance freely forth, endowed
with the same spirit in her human form as that which
rustles in the leaves; or that she had emerged through
the pebbly bottom of a fountain, a water-nymph, to play
and sparkle in the sunshine, flinging a quivering light
around her, and suddenly disappearing in a shower of
rainbow drops.
As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in
Miriam there were symptoms that the frolic of her spirits
would at last tire itself out.
" Ah, Donatello," cried she, laughing, as she stopped to
take breath, " you have an unfair advantage over me ! I
am no true creature of the woods ; while you are a real
Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook just now,
methought I had a peep at the pointed ears."
Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns
and satyrs taught us first to do, and seemed to radiate
jollity out of his whole nimble person. Nevertheless,
there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, as if he
dreaded that a moment's pause might break the spell, and
snatch away the sportive companion whom he had waited
for through so many dreary months.
"Dance! dance!" cried he, joyously. "If we take
breath, we shall be as we were yesterday. There, now,
is the music, just beyond this clump of trees. Dance,
Miriam, dance !"
They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which
382 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HAWTHORNE
there are many in that artfully-constructed wilderness),
set round with stone seats, on which the aged moss had
kindly essayed to spread itself instead of cushions. On
one of the stone benches sat the musicians whose strains
had enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved
to be a vagrant band, such as Eome, and all Italy, abounds
with; comprising a harp, a flute, and a violin, which,
though greatly the worse for wear, the performers had
skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable har
mony. It chanced to be a feast-day ; and, instead of play
ing in the sun-scorched piazzas of the city, or beneath the
windows of some unresponsive palace, they had bethought
themselves to try the echoes of these woods ; for, on the
festas of the Church, Eome scatters its merry-makers all
abroad, ripe for the dance or any other pastime.
As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the
trees, the musicians scraped, tinkled, or blew, each ac
cording to his various kind of instrument, more inspiringly
than ever. A dark-cheeked little girl, with bright black
eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tink
ling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. With
out interrupting his brisk though measured movement,
Donatello snatched away this unmelodious contrivance,
and, flourishing it above his head, produced music of in
describable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and
striking the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in
one jovial act.
It might be that there was magic in the sound, or con
tagion, at least, in the spirit which had got possession of
Miriam and himself, for very soon a number of festal
people were drawn to the spot, and struck into the dance,
singly, or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with
jollity. Among them were some of the plebeian damsels
whom we meet bareheaded in the Eoman streets, with
HAWTHORNE] THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. 383
silver stilettos thrust through their glossy hair; the con-
tadinas, too, from the Campagna and the villages, with
their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all
bright hues, such as fairer maidens might not venture to
put on. Then came the modern Roman from Trastevere,
perchance, with his old cloak drawn about him like a
toga, which anon, as his active motion heated him, he
flung aside. Three French soldiers capered freely into
the throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their short swords
dangling at their sides; and three German artists in gray
flaccid hats and flaunting beards ; and one of the Pope's
Swiss guardsmen in the strange motley garb which Michael
Angelo contrived for them. Two young English tourists
(one of them a lord) took contadine partners and dashed
in, as did also a shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who
looked like rustic Pan in person and footed it as merrily
as he. Besides the above there was a herdsman or two
from the Campagna, and a few peasants in sky-bluejackets,
and small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees : haggard
and sallow were these last, poor serfs, having little to eat
and nothing but the malaria to breathe ; but still they
plucked up a momentary spirit and joined hands in
Donatello's dance.
Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back
again within the precincts of this sunny glade, thawing
mankind out of their cold formalities, releasing them
from irksome restraint, mingling them together in such
childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old
bosom of the earth is full) sprang up Ibeneath their foot
steps.
384 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [YERPLANCK
THE LESSONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY.
G. C. VERPLANCK.
[Gulian C. Verplanck, a distinguished writer and scholar in the
older rank of American authorship, was born in New York in 1786.
His first work, published in 1819, was a brilliant satire, called " The
State Triumvirate." To the miscellany called The Talisman, pub
lished by him in conjunction with "W. C. Bryant and K. C. Sands, he
contributed nearly one-half the articles. His other principal works
are "The Early European Friends of America," "Essays on the
Nature and Uses of the Various Evidences of Kevealed Religion,"
and " Discourses and Addresses on Subjects of American History, Art,
and Literature." His superb edition of Shakespeare, published in
1846, is one of the best that has ever been issued. As a writer he had
great clearness and beauty of style. He died in 1870.]
THE study of the history of most other nations fills the
mind with sentiments not unlike those which the Ameri
can traveller feels on entering the venerable and lofty
cathedral of some proud old city of Europe. Its solemn
grandeur, its vastness, its obscurity, strike awe to his
heart. From the richly-painted windows, filled with
sacred emblems and strange antique forms, a dim re
ligious light falls around. A thousand recollections of
romance, and poetry, and legendary story, come throng
ing in upon him. He is surrounded by the tombs of the
mighty dead, rich with the labors of ancient art, and
emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry.
What names does he read upon them ? Those of princes
and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices ;
and of sovereigns at whose death no tears were shed, and
whose memories lived not an hour in the affections of their
people. There, too, he sees other names, long familiar to
him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the
blood-stained soldier of fortune, the orator who was ever
VERPLANCK] LESSONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 385
the ready apologist of tyranny, great scholars who were
the pensioned flatterers of power, and poets who pro
faned the high gift of genius to pamper the vices of a
corrupted court.
Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical
temple of fame reared by the imagination of Chaucer and
decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedi
cated to the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like
the Pantheon of Eome, it stands in calm and severe beauty
amid the ruins of ancient magnificence and " the toys of
modern state." Within, no idle ornament encumbers its
bold simplicity. The pure light of heaven enters from
above and sheds an equal and serene radiance around. As
the eye wanders about its extent, it beholds the unadorned
monuments of brave and good men who have bled or toiled
for their country, or it rests on votive tablets inscribed
with the names of the best benefactors of mankind.
" Hie manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat,
Quique pii vates, et Phcebo digna locuti,
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes,
Quique sui memores, alios fecere merendo."*
Doubtless this is a subject upon which we may be justly
proud. But there is another consideration, which, if it did
not naturally arise of itself, would be pressed upon us by
the taunts of European criticism.
* " Patriots are here, in Freedom's battles slain,
Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain,
Bards, worthy him who breathed the poet's mind,
Founders of arts that dignify mankind,
And lovers of our race, whose labors gave
Their names a memory that defies the grave."
VIRGIL. From the MS. of Bryant.
IV. R z 33
386 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [VERPLANCK
What has this nation done to repay the world for the
benefits we have received from others? We have been
repeatedly told, and sometimes, too, in a tone of affected
impartiality, that the highest praise which can fairly be
given to the American mind is that of possessing an en
lightened selfishness ; that if the philosophy and talents
of this country, with all their effects, were forever swept
into oblivion, the loss would be felt only by ourselves;
and that if to the accuracy of this general charge the
labors of Franklin present an illustrious, it is still but
a solitary, exception.
The answer may be given confidently and triumphantly.
Without abandoning the fame of our eminent men, whom
Europe has been slow and reluctant to honor, we would
reply that the intellectual power of this people has ex
erted itself in conformity to the general system of our
institutions and manners; and, therefore, that for the
proof of its existence and the measure of its force we
must look not so much to the works of prominent indi
viduals as to the great aggregate results ; and if Europe
has hitherto been wilfully blind to the value of our ex
ample and the exploits of our sagacity, courage, invention,
and freedom, the blame must rest with her, and not with
America.
Is it nothing for the universal good of mankind to have
carried into successful operation a system of self-govern
ment, uniting personal liberty, freedom of opinion, and
equality of rights, with national power and dignity, such
as had before existed only in the Utopian dreams of
philosophers? Is it nothing, in moral science, to have
anticipated in sober reality numerous plans of reform in
civil and criminal jurisprudence which are but now re
ceived as plausible theories by the politicians and econo
mists of Europe ? Is it nothing to have been able to call
VERPLANCK] LESSONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 387
forth on every emergency, either in war or peace, a body
of talents always equal to the difficulty ? Is it nothing to
have, in less than a half-century, exceedingly improved
the sciences of political economy, of law, and of medicine,
with all their auxiliary branches, to have enriched human
knowledge by the accumulation of a great mass of useful
facts and observations, and to have augmented the power
and the comforts of civilized man by miracles of mechani
cal invention? Is it nothing to have given the world
examples of disinterested patriotism, of political wisdom,
of public virtue ; of learning, eloquence, and valor, never
exerted save for some praiseworthy end ? It is sufficient
to have briefly suggested these considerations ; every mind
would anticipate me in filling up the details.
No, Land of Liberty! thy children have no cause to
blush for thee. What though the arts have reared few
monuments among us, and scarce a trace of the Muse's
footstep is found in the paths of our forests or along the
banks of our rivers; yet our soil has been consecrated
by the blood of heroes, and by great and holy deeds of
peace. Its wide extent has become one vast temple and
hallowed asylum, sanctified by the prayers and blessings
of the persecuted of every sect and the wretched of all
nations.
Land of Eefuge Land of Benedictions ! Those pray
ers still arise, and they still are heard : " May peace be
within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces !"
" May there be no decay, no leading into captivity, and no
complaining in thy streets !" " May truth flourish out of
the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven 1"
388 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE.
JOHN G. SAXE.
[We give the main portion of this humorous production, one of
the best American poems of mingled fun and pun, of the school of
Hood. The writer, John Godfrey Saxe, born in Yermont in 1816,
is the author of numerous amusing poems, which have attained high
popularity. Among the best-known are "The Rhyme of the Rail,"
" The Money King," and the one we quote! His writings also include
serious poems, of considerable merit, some of his sonnets being said to
he " masterpieces of their kind."]
OH, terribly proud was Miss MacBride,
The very personification of Pride,
As she minced along in Fashion's tide
Adown Broadway on the proper side
When the golden sun was setting ;
There was pride in the head she carried so high,
Pride in her lip, and pride in her eye,
And a world of pride in the very sigh
That her stately bosom was fretting :
A sigh that a pair of elegant feet,
Sandalled in satin, should kiss the street,
The very same that the vulgar greet
In common leather not over " neat,"
For such is the common booting ;
(And Christian tears may well be shed,
That even among our gentlemen bred
The glorious day of Morocco is dead,
And Day and Martin are reigning instead,
On a much inferior footing !)
Oh, terribly proud was Miss MacBride,
Proud of her beauty, and proud of her pride,
SAXE] THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE. 389
And proud of fifty matters beside
That wouldn't have borne dissection ;
Proud of her wit, and proud of her walk,
Proud of her teeth, and proud of her talk,
Proud of " knowing cheese from chalk"
On a very slight inspection.
Proud abroad, and proud at home,
Proud wherever she chanced to come,
When she was glad, and when she was glum ;
Proud as the head of a Saracen
Over the door of a tippling-shop ;
Proud as a duchess, proud as a fop,
" Proud as a boy with a brand-new top,"
Proud beyond comparison. . . .
And yet the pride of Miss MacBride,
Although it had fifty hobbies to ride,
Had really no foundation,
But, like the fabrics that gossips devise,
Those single stories that often arise
And grow till they reach a four-story size,
Was merely a fancy creation.
'Tis a curious fact as ever was known
In human nature, but often shown
Alike in castle and cottage,
That pride, like pigs of a certain breed,
Will manage to live and thrive on " feed"
As poor as a pauper's pottage.
That her wit should never have made her vain,
Was, like her face, sufficiently plain ;
And as to her musical powers,
iv. 33*
390 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Although she sang until she was hoarse,
And issued notes with a banker's force,
They were just such notes as we never endorse
For any acquaintance of ours.
Her birth, indeed, was uncommonly high,
For Miss MacBride first opened her eye
Through a skylight dim, on the light of the sky;
But pride is a curious passion,
And in talking about her wealth and worth
She always forgot to mention her birth
To people of rank and fashion.
Of all the notable things on earth,
The queerest one is pride of birth
Among our "fierce democracie :"
A bridge across a hundred years,
Without a prop to save it from sneers,
Not even a couple of rotten Peers,
A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers,
Is American aristocracy.
English and Irish, French and Spanish,
German, Italian, Dutch, and Danish,
Crossing their veins until they vanish
In one conglomeration ;
So subtle a tangle of blood, indeed,
No modern Harvey will ever succeed
In finding the circulation.
Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,
Your family thread you can't ascend
Without good reason to apprehend
You may find it waxed at the farther end
SAXE] THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE. 391
By some plebeian vocation ;
Or, worse than that, your boasted line
May end in a loop of stronger twine,
That plagued some worthy relation.
But Miss MacBride had something beside
Her lofty birth to nourish her pride ;
For rich was the old paternal MacBride,
According to public rumor,
And he lived " up town," in a splendid square,
And kept his daughter on dainty fare,
And gave her gems that were rich and rare,
And the finest rings and things to wear,
And feathers enough to plume her.
An honest mechanic was John MacBride,
As ever an honest calling plied
Or graced an honest ditty ;
For John had worked, in his early day,
In " pots and pearls," the legends say,
And kept a shop with a rich array
Of things in the soap and candle way,
In the lower part of the city !
No ram avis was honest John
(That's the Latin for " sable swan"),
Though, in one of his fancy flashes,
A wicked wag, who meant to deride,
Called honest John " Old Phoenix MacBride,"
Because he rose from his ashes ! . . .
Alas ! that people who've got their box
Of cash beneath the best of locks,
Secure from all financial shocks,
Should stock their fancy with fancy stocks,
392 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SAXK
And madly rush upon Wall Street rocks,
Without the least apology !
Alas ! that people whose money affairs
Are sound beyond all need of repairs
Should ever tempt the bulls and bears
Of Mammon's fierce zoology !
Old John MacBride, one fatal day,
Became the unresisting prey
Of Fortune's undertakers ;
And, staking his all on a single die,
His foundered bark went high and dry
Among the brokers and breakers.
At his trade again, in the very shop
Where, years before, he let it drop,
He follows his ancient calling,
Cheerily, too, in poverty's spite,
And sleeping quite as sound at night
As when, at Fortune's giddy height,
He used to wake with a dizzy fright
From a dismal dream of falling.
But alas for the haughty Miss MacBride !
'Twas such a shock to her precious pride,
She couldn't recover, although she tried
Her jaded spirits to rally :
'Twas a dreadful change in human affairs,
From a place " up town" to a nook " up stairs,"
From an avenue down to an alley ! . . .
And, to make her cup of woe run over,
Her elegant, ardent, plighted lover
Was the very first to forsake her ;
SEWART)] THE CONDITION OF CHINA. 393
He quite regretted the step, 'twas true,
The lady had pride enough for two,
But that alone would never do
To quiet the butcher and baker !
And now the unhappy Miss MacBride,
The merest ghost of her early pride,
Bewails her lonely position :
Cramped in the very narrowest niche,
Above the poor, and below the rich,
Was ever a worse condition ?
MORAL.
Because you flourish in worldly affairs,
Don't be haughty, and put on airs,
"With insolent pride of station ;
Don't be proud, and turn up your nose
At poorer people in plainer clo'es,
But learn, for the sake of your soul's repose,
That wealth's a bubble, that comes and goes ;
And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows,
Is subject to irritation.
THE CONDITION OF CHINA.
W. H. SBWAED.
[William Henry Seward was born at Florida, Orange County, New
York, in 1801. He was admitted to the bar in 1822, and soon acquired
a high reputation as a lawyer. About 1828 he entered the field of
politics, in which he afterwards became so distinguished. He served
two terms as Governor of New York, and for a long period as United
States Senator from that State. In 1860 he was a candidate for the
394 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Presidency, and from 1861 to 1869 was Secretary of State, under Pres
idents Lincoln and Johnson. After his retirement from political life
he made a tour of the world (1870-71), which he described in " Travels
Around the World," a highly interesting work, full of graphic de
scription and philosophical reflection. The valuable review of the
political and social condition of China, given below, is from this work.
Mr. Seward died at Auburn, New York, in 1872.]
THE Chinese, though not of the Caucasian race, have
all its political, moral, and social capabilities. Long ago,
they reached a higher plane of civilization than most of
the European states attained until a much later period.
The Western nations have since risen above that plane.
The whole world is anxiously inquiring whether China is
to retrieve the advantages she has lost, and if she is to
come within the family of modern civilized states. Mr.
Burlingame's sanguine temperament and charitable dis
position led him to form too favorable an opinion of the
present condition of China. In his anxiety to secure a
more liberal policy on the part of the Western nations
toward the ancient empire, he gave us to understand,
especially in his speeches, that, while China has much to
learn from the Western nations, she is not without some
peculiar institutions which they may advantageously
adopt. This is not quite true. Although China is far
from being a barbarous state, yet every system and insti
tution there is inferior to its corresponding one in the
West. Whether it be the abstract sciences, such as phi
losophy and psychology, or whether it be the practical
forms of natural science, astronomy, geology, geography,
natural history, and chemistry, or the concrete ideas of
government and laws, morals and manners ; whether it be
in the aesthetic arts or mechanics, everything in China is
eifete. Chinese education rejects science ; Chinese indus
try proscribes invention; Chinese morals appeal not to
SEWARD] THE CONDITION OF CHINA. 395
conscience, but to convenience ; Chinese architecture and
navigation eschew all improvements ; Chinese government
maintains itself by extortion and terror ; Chinese religion
is materialistic, not even mystic, much less spiritual. If
we ask how this inferiority has come about, among a
people who have achieved so much in the past, and have
capacities for greater achievement in the future, we must
conclude that, owing to some error in their ancient social
system, the faculty of invention has been arrested in its
exercise and impaired.
China first became known to the Western world by the
discoveries of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. At
that period, and until after the explorations of Yasco de
Gama, China appears to have been not comparatively
great, prosperous, and enlightened, but absolutely so. An
empire extending from the snows of Siberia to the tropics,
and from the Pacific to the mountain sources of the great
rivers of Continental Asia, its population constituted one-
fourth of the human race. Diversified climate and soil
aiforded all the resources of public and private wealth.
Science and art developed those resources. Thus, when
European nations came upon the shores of China, in the
sixteenth century, they found the empire independent and
self-sustaining. The Mantchoos on the north had invaded
the empire and substituted a Tartar dynasty at Peking for
a native dynasty at Nanking, but the conquerors and the
conquered were still Chinese, and the change was a revo
lution and not a subjugation. China, having thus attained
all the objects of national life, came to indulge a sentiment
of supercilious pride, under the influence of which she
isolated herself from all other nations. Her government
from its earliest period was in the hands of a scholastic
and pedantic class, a class which elsewhere has been found
incapable of practical rule. Since the isolation took place,
396 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SEWARD
that class has effectively exercised all the powers of the
state in repressing inquiry and stifling invention, through
fear that change in any direction would result in their
own overthrow. The long isolation of the empire, and
the extirpation of native invention, have ended in re
versing the position of China. From being self-sustain
ing and independent, as she was when found by the Eu
ropean states, she has become imbecile, dependent, and
helpless. Without military science and art, she is at the
mercy of Western nations. Without the science of polit
ical economy, the government is incapable of maintain
ing an adequate system of revenue; and without the sci
ence of Western laws and morals, it is equally incapable
of maintaining an impartial and effective administration
of justice. Having refused to adopt Western arts and
sciences, the government is incapable of establishing and
maintaining a beneficial domestic administration. Insur
rections and revolutions are therefore unavoidable; nor
can the government repress them without the aid of the
Western powers. She pays the European nations for
making the clothing for her people, and the arms with
which they must defend themselves. She imports not
only the precious metals, but coal and iron, instead of
allowing her own mines to be opened. She forbids the
employment of steam and animal power in mechanics,
and so largely excludes her fabrics from foreign markets.
Though China would now willingly leave all the world
alone, other nations cannot afford to leave her alone.
Great Britain must send her cotton fabrics and iron
manufactures. The United States must send her steam-
engines and agricultural implements, and bring away her
coolies. Italy, France, and Belgium must have her silks,
and all the world must have her teas and send her their
religions. All these operations cannot go on without
REWARD] THE CONDITION OF CHINA. 397
steam-engines, stationary as well as marine, Hoe's printing-
press, and the electric telegraph.
Now for the question of the prospects of China. Before
attempting to answer this, it will be best to define intelli
gently the present political condition of China. Certainly
it is no longer an absolutely sovereign and independent
empire, nor has it yet become a protectorate of any other
empire. It is, in short, a state under the constant and
active surveillance of the Western maritime nations. This
surveillance is exercised by their diplomatic representa
tives, and by their naval forces backed by the menace
of military intervention. In determining whether this
precarious condition of China is likely to continue, and
whether its endurance is desirable, it would be well to
consider what are the possible alternatives. There are
only three : first, absolute subjugation by some foreign
state ; second, the establishment of a protectorate by some
foreign state ; third, a complete popular revolution, over
throwing not only the present dynasty, but the present
form of government, and establishing one which shall be
in harmony with the interests of China and the spirit of
the age. The Chinese people, inflated with national pride,
and contempt for Western sciences, arts, religions, morals,
and manners, are not prepared to accept the latter alter
native. The rivalry of the Western nations, with the
fluctuations of the balance of their political powers, ren
ders it dangerous for any foreign state to assume a pro
tectorate. The second alternative is, therefore, out of the
question. We have already expressed the opinion that
mankind have outlived the theory of universal empire ;
and certainly the absolute subjugation of China by any
Western state would be a nearer approach to universal
empire than Greek, or Roman, or Corsican, or Cossack,
ever dreamed of. The exercise of sovereignty in China
iv. 34
398 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SuMNER
by a national dynasty, under the surveillance and protec
tion of the maritime powers, is the condition most favor
able to the country and most desirable. The maintenance
of it seems practicable so far as it depends upon the con
sent of the maritime surveillant powers. But how long
the four hundred millions of people within the empire will
submit to its continuance is a question which baffles all
penetration. The present government favors and does all
it can to maintain it. Prince Kung and Wan-Siang are
progressive and renovating statesmen, but a year or two
hence a new emperor will come to the throne. The literati,
no less bigoted now than heretofore, have an unshaken
prestige among the people, and, for aught any one can
judge, the first decree of the new emperor may be the
appointment of a reactionary ministry, with the decapita
tion of the present advisers of the throne. Let it, then,
be the policy of the Western nations to encourage and
sustain the sagacious reformers of China, and in dealing
with that extraordinary people to practise in all things
justice, moderation, kindness, and sympathy.
THE HORRORS OF WAR.
CHARLES SUMNER.
I NEED not now dwell on the waste and cruelty of war.
These stare us wildly in the face, like lurid meteor-lights,
as we travel the page of history. We see the desolation
and death that pursue its demoniac footsteps. We look
upon sacked towns, upon ravaged territories, upon vio
lated homes; we behold all the sweet charities of life
changed to wormwood and gall. Our soul is penetrated
SUMNER] THE HORRORS OF WAR. 399
by the sharp moan of mothers, sisters, and daughters, of
fathers, brothers, and sons, who, in the bitterness of their
bereavement, refuse to be comforted. Our eyes rest at
last upon one of those fair fields where nature, in her
abundance, spreads her cloth of gold, spacious and apt for
the entertainment of mighty multitudes, or perhaps, from
the curious subtlety of its position, like the carpet in the
Arabian tale, seeming to contract so as to be covered by a
few only, or to dilate so as to receive an innumerable host.
Here, under a bright sun, such as shone at Austerlitz or
Buena Vista, amidst the peaceful harmonies of nature.
on the Sabbath of peace, we behold bands of brothers,
children of a common Father, heirs to a common hap
piness, struggling together in the deadly fight, with the
madness of fallen spirits, seeking with murderous weapons
the lives of brothers who have never injured them or their
kindred. The havoc rages. The ground is soaked with
their commingling blood. The air is rent by their com
mingling cries. Horse and rider are stretched together
on the earth. More revolting than the mangled victims,
than the gashed limbs, than the lifeless trunks, than the
spattering brains, are the lawless passions which sweep,
tempest-like, through the fiendish tumult.
a Nearer comes the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on,
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has
won ?
1 Alas ! alas 1 I know not ; friend and foe together fall ;
O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sister, for them all 1 ; "
Horror-struck, we ask, wherefore this hateful contest ?
The melancholy but truthful answer comes, that this is
the established method of determining justice between
nations !
The scene changes. Far away on the distant pathway
400 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SUMNER
of the ocean two ships approach each other, with white
canvas proudly spread to receive the flying gales. They
are proudly built. All of human art has been lavished
in their graceful proportions and in their well-compacted
Bides, while they look in dimensions like floating happy
islands of the sea. A numerous crew, with costly appli
ances of comfort, hives in their secure shelter. Surely
these two travellers shall meet in joy and friendship ; the
flag at the mast-head shall give the signal of fellowship ;
the happy sailors shall cluster in the rigging, and even on
the yard-arms, to look each other in the face, while the
exhilarating voices of both crews shall mingle in accents
of gladness uncontrollable. It is not so. Not as brothers,
not as friends, not as wayfarers of the common ocean, do
they come together ; but as enemies. The gentle vessels
now bristle fiercely with death-dealing instruments. On
their spacious decks, aloft on all their masts, flashes the
deadly musketry. From their sides spout cataracts of
flame, amidst the pealing thunders of a fatal artillery.
They, who had escaped " the dreadful touch of merchant-
marring rocks," who had sped on their long and solitary
way unharmed by wind or wave, whom the hurricane
had spared, in whose favor storms and seas had inter
mitted their immitigable war, now at last fall by the
hand of each other. The same spectacle of horror greets
us from both ships. On their decks, reddened with blood,
the murders of St. Bartholomew and of the Sicilian Yes-
pers, with the fires of Smithfield, seem to break forth
anew and to concentrate their rage. Each has now be
come a swimming Golgotha. At length these vessels
such pageants of the sea, once so stately, so proudly built,
but now rudely shattered by cannon-balls, with shivered
masts and ragged sails exist only as unmanageable
wrecks, weltering on the uncertain waves, whose tern-
THOMPSON] A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY COURT. 401
porary lull of peace is now their only safety. In amaze
ment at this strange, unnatural contest, away from
country and home, where there is no country or home
to defend, we ask again, wherefore this dismal duel?
Again the melancholy but truthful answer promptly
comes, that this is the established method of determining
justice between nations !
A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY COURT.
D. P. THOMPSON.
[Daniel Pierce Thompson, born in Massachusetts in 1795, was the
author of several popular novels of New England life. These include
" The Money-Diggers," " The Green Mountain Boys," " The Bangers,"
" The Trappers of Lake Umbagog," and " Locke Amsden," a racily-
told story of the experiences of a New England schoolmaster. We ex
tract a scene from this admirable romance, in which one feature of the
older life of America is humorously described. Mr. Thompson died
in 1868.]
IT was late in the season when our hero returned home ;
and, having inadvertently omitted to apprise his friends
of his intention to engage himself as a teacher of some of
the winter schools in the vicinity of his father's residence,
he found, on his arrival, every situation to which his un
doubted qualifications should prompt him to aspire, already
occupied by others. He was therefore compelled, unless
he relinquished his purpose, to listen to the less eligible
offers which came from such smaller and more backward
districts of societies as had not engaged their instructors
for the winter. One of these he was on the point of de
ciding to accept, when he received information of a dis
trict where the master, from some cause or other, had been
IT. aa 34*
402 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOMPSON
dismissed during the first week of his engagement, and
where the committee were now in search of another to
supply his place. The district from which this informa
tion came was situated in one of the mountain towns about
a dozen miles distant, and the particular neighborhood of
its location was known in the vicinity, to a. considerable
extent, by the name of the Horn of the Moon, an appella
tion generally understood to be derived from a peculiar
curvature of a mountain that partially enclosed the place.
Knowing nothing of the causes which had here led to the
recent dismissal of the teacher, nor indeed of the particu
lar character of the school, further than that it was a
large one, and one, probably, which, though in rather a
new part of the country, would yet furnish something like
an adequate remuneration to a good instructor, Locke had
no hesitation in deciding to make an immediate applica
tion for the situation. Accordingly, the next morning he
mounted a horse, and set out for the place in question.
It was a mild December's day ; the ground had not yet
assumed its winter covering, and, the route taken by our
hero becoming soon bordered on either side by wild and
picturesque mountain scenery, upon which he had ever
delighted
" To look from nature up to nature's God,"
the excursion in going was a pleasant one. And, occupied
by the reflections thus occasioned, together with anticipa
tions of happy results from his expected engagement, he
arrived, after a ride of a few hours, at the borders of the
romantic-looking place of which he was in quest.
At this point in his journey he overtook a man on foot,
of whom, after discovering him to belong somewhere in
the neighborhood, he proceeded to make some inquiries
relative to the situation of the school.
THOMPSON] A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY COURT. 403
" Why," replied the man, " as I live out there in the tip
of the Horn, which is, of course, at the outer edge of the
district, I know but little about the school affairs ; but one
thing is certain, they have shipped the master, and want
to get another, I suppose."
" For what cause was the master dismissed ? For lack
of qualifications ?"
" Yes, lack of qualifications for our district. The fellow,
however, had learning enough, as all agreed, but no spunk ;
and the young Bunkers, and some others of the big boys,
mistrusting this, and being a little riled at some things he
had said to them, took it into their heads to train him a
little, which they did ; when he, instead of showing any
grit on the occasion, got frightened and cleared out."
" Why, sir, did his scholars offer him personal violence?"
" Oh, no, not violence. They took him up quite care
fully, bound him on to a plank, as I understood and car
ried him on their shoulders, in a sort of procession, three
times round the school-house, and then, unloosing him,
told him to go at his business again."
"And was all this suffered to take place without any
interference from your committee ?"
" Yes : our committee-man would not interfere in such a
case. A master must fight his own way in our district."
" Who is your committee, sir?"
" Captain Bill Bunker is now. They had a meeting
after the fracas, and chose a new one."
" Is he a man who is capable of ascertaining for himself
the qualifications of a teacher?"
" Oh, yes: at least I had as lief have Bill Bunker's judg
ment of a man who applied for the school as any other in
the district ; and yet he is the only man in the whole dis
trict but what can read and write, I believe."
" Your school committee not able to read and write ?"
404 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOMPSON
"Not a word ; and still he does more business than any
man in this neighborhood. Why, sir, he keeps a sort of
store, sells to A, B, and C, and charges on book in a fash
ion of his own ; and I would as soon trust to his book as
that of any regular merchant in the country ; though, to
be sure, he has got into a jumble, I hear, about some
charges against a man at t'other end of the Horn, and
they are having a court about it to-day at Bunker's house,
I understand."
" Where does he live ?"
" Bight on the road, about a mile ahead. You will see
his name chalked on a sort of a shop-looking building,
which he uses for a store."
The man here turned off from the road, leaving our
hero so much surprised and staggered at what he had just
heard, not only of the general character of the school of
which he had come to propose himself as a teacher, but
of the man who now had the control of it, that he drew
up the reins, stopped his horse in the road, and sat hesi
tating some moments whether he would go back or for
ward. It occurring to him, however, that he could do as he
liked about accepting any offer of the place which might
be made him, and feeling, moreover, some curiosity to see
how a man who could neither read nor write would man
age in capacity of an examining school-committee, he re
solved to go forward and present himself as a candidate
for the school. Accordingly, he rode on, and soon reached
a rough-built but substantial-looking farm-house, with
sundry out-buildings, on one of which he read, as he had
been told he might, the name of the singular occupant.
In the last-named building he at once perceived that there
was a gathering of quite a number of individuals, the
nature of which was explained to him by the hint he had
received from his informant on the road. And, tying his
THOMPSON] A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY COURT. 405
horse, he joined several who were going in, and soon
found himself in the midst of the company assembled in
the low, unfinished room which constituted the interior, as
parties, witnesses, and spectators of a justice's court, the
ceremonies of which were about to be commenced. There
were no counters, counting-room, or desk ; and a few
broad shelves, clumsily put up on one side, afforded the
only indication observable in the interior arrangement of
the room of the use to which it was devoted. On these
shelves were scattered, at intervals, small bunches of hoes,
axes, bed-cords, and such articles as are generally pur
chased by those who purchase little ; while casks of nails,
grindstones, quintals of dried salt fish, and the like, ar
ranged round the room on the floor, made up the rest of
the owner's merchandise, an annual supply of which, it
appeared, he obtained in the cities every winter in ex
change for the products of his farm, ever careful, like a
good political economist, that the balance of trade should
not be against him. The only table and chair in the room
were now occupied by the justice; the heads of casks,
grindstones, or bunches of rakes answering for seats for
the rest of the company. On the left of the justice sat
the defendant, whose composed look and occasional know
ing smile seemed to indicate his confidence in the strength
of his defence as well as a consciousness of possessing
some secret advantage over his opponent. On the other
hand sat Bunker, the plaintiff in the suit. Ascertaining
from the remarks of the by-standers his identity with the
committee-man he had become so curious to see, Locke
fell to noting his appearance closely, and the result was,
upon the whole, a highly favorable prepossession. He
was a remarkably stout, hardy-looking man ; and although
his features were extremely rough and swarthy, they yet
combined to give him an open, honest, and very intelli-
406 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOMPSON
gent countenance. Behind him, as backers, were standing
in a group three or four of his sons, of ages varying from
fifteen to twenty, and of bodily proportions promising
anything but disparagement to the herculean stock from
which they originated. The parties were now called and
sworn ; when Bunker, there being no attorneys employed
to make two-hour speeches on preliminary questions, pro
ceeded at once to the merits of his case. He produced
and spread open his account-book, and then went on to
show his manner of charging, which was wholly by hie
roglyphics, generally designating the debtor by picturing
him out at the top of the page with some peculiarity of
his person or calling. In the present case, the debtor,
who was a cooper, was designated by the rude picture
of a man in the act of hooping a barrel, and the article
charged, there being but one item in the account, was
placed immediately beneath, and represented by a shaded,
circular figure, which the plaintiff said was intended for a
cheese, that had been sold to the defendant some years
before.
" Now, Mr. Justice," said Bunker, after explaining, in a
direct, oif-hand manner, his peculiar method of book-keep
ing, "now, the article here charged the man had, I will,
and do,. swear to it; for here it is in black and white.
And I having demanded my pay, and he having not only
refused it, but denied ever buying the article in question,
I have brought this suit to recover my just due. And
now I wish^to see if he will get up here in court and deny
the charge under oath. If he will, let him j but may the
Lord have mercy on his soul I"
"Well, sir," replied the defendant, promptly rising,
" you shall not be kept from having your wish a minute ;
for I here, under oath, do swear that I never bought or
had a cheese of you in my life."
THOMISON] A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY COURT. 407
"Under the oath of God you declare it, do you?"
sharply asked Bunker.
" I do, sir," firmly answered the other.
" Well, well !" exclaimed the former, with looks of utter
astonishment, " I would not have believed that there was
a man in all of the Horn of the Moon who would dare to
do that."
After the parties had been indulged the usual amount
of sparring for such occasions, the justice interposed, and
suggested that, as the oaths of the parties were at com
plete issue, the evidence of the book itself, which he
seemed to think was entitled to credit, would turn the
scale in favor of the plaintiff, unless the defendant could
produce some rebutting testimony. Upon this hint, the
latter called up two of his neighbors, who testified in his
behalf that he himself always made a sufficient supply of
cheese for his family ; and they were further knowing that
on the year of the alleged purchase, instead of buying, he
actually sold a considerable quantity of the article.
This evidence seemed to settle the question in the mind
of the justice ; and he now soon announced that he felt
bound to give judgment to the defendant for his costs.
" Judged and sworn out of the whole of it, as I am a
sinner!" cried the disconcerted Bunker, after sitting a mo
ment working his rough features in indignant surprise ;
"yes, fairly sworn out of it, and saddled with a bill of
costs to boot ! But I can pay it : so reckon it up, Mr.
Justice, and we will have it all squared on the spot. And,
on the whole, I am not so sure but a dollar or two is well
spent, at any time, in finding out a fellow to be a scoundrel
who has been passing himself off among people for an hon
est man," he added, pulling out his purse, and angrily
dashing the required amount down upon the table.
"Now, Bill Bunker," said the defendant, after very
408 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOMPSON
coolly pocketing his costs, "you have flung out a good
deal of your stuff here, and I have bore it without getting
riled a hair ; for I saw, all the time, that you correct as
folks ginerally think you that you didn't know what
you was about. But now it's all fixed and settled, I am
going jist to convince you that I am not quite the one
that has sworn to a perjury in this 'ere business."
" Well, we will see," rejoined Bunker, eying his opponent
with a look of mingled doubt and defiance.
" Yes, we will see," responded the other, determinedly ;
" we will see if we can't make you eat your own words.
But I want first to tell you where you missed it. When
you dunned me, Bunker, for the pay for a cheese, and I
said I never had one of you, you went off a little too
quick ; you called me a liar, before giving me a chance to
say another word. And then I thought I would let you
take your own course, till you took that name back. If
you had held on a minute, without breaking out so upon
me, I should have told you all how it was, and you would
have got your pay on the spot ; but "
" Pay !" fiercely interrupted Bunker ; " then you admit
you had the cheese, do you ?"
"No, sir, I admit no such thing," quickly rejoined the
former, " for I still say I never had a cheese of you in the
world. But I did have a small grindstone of you at the
time, and at just the price you have charged for your
supposed cheese; and here is your money for it, sir.
Now, Bunker, what do you say to that ?"
" Grindstone cheese cheese grindstone !" exclaimed
the now evidently nonplussed and doubtful Bunker, taking
a few rapid turns about the room, and occasionally stop
ping at the table to scrutinize anew his hieroglyphical
charge; "I must think this matter over again. Grind-
Btone cheese cheese grindstone. Ah! I have it; but
HILLARD] EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 409
may God forgive me for what I have done! It was a
grindstone, but I forgot to make a hole in the middle for
the crank."
Upon this curious development, as will be readily im
agined, the opposing parties were not long in effecting
an amicable and satisfactory adjustment. And in a short
time the company broke up and departed, all obviously
as much gratified as amused at this singular but happy
result of the lawsuit.
EXCURSION TO SORRENTO.
G. S. HILLAKD.
[George Stillman Hillard, the author of our present reading, -was
born at Machias, Maine, in 1808. He was educated at Harvard, where
he graduated in 1828, subsequently studied law, and was admitted to
the Massachusetts bar in 1833. Besides rising to distinction in his
profession, he was noted as an eloquent orator and as a finished and
graceful writer. He was a contributor to the North American Review
and other periodicals, and wrote a number of the American biograph
ical articles in the first edition of the u New American Cyclopaedia."
In 1853 appeared his "Six Months in Italy," a charming record of
travel, which had reached its twenty-fifth edition in 1885, and from
which our selection is made. Mr. Hillard died in 1879.]
ON the morning of March 19th, I left Naples for Sor
rento, making one of a party of five. The cars took us
to Castellamare, a town beautifully situated between the
mountains and the sea, much resorted to by the Neapoli
tans in the heats of summer. A lover of nature could
hardly find a spot of more varied attractions. Before
him spreads the unrivalled bay, dotted with sails and
unfolding a broad canvas, on which the most glowing
iv. s 35
410 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HILLARU
colors and the most vivid lights are dashed, a mirror in
which the crimson and gold of morning, the blue of noon,
and the orange and yellow-green of sunset behold a live
lier image of themselves, a gentle and tideless sea, whose
waves break upon the shore like caresses, and never like
angry blows. Should he ever become weary of waves and
languish for woods, he has only to turn his back upon the
sea and climb the hills for an hour or two, and he will find
himself in the depth of-sylvan and mountain solitudes,
in a region of vines, running streams, deep-shadowed
valleys, and broad-armed oaks, where he will hear the
ring-dove coo, and see the sensitive hare dart across the
forest aisles. A great city is within an hour's reach ; and
the shadow of Vesuvius hangs over the landscape, keep
ing the imagination awake by touches of mystery and
terror.
From Castellamare to Sorrento a noble road has within
a few years past been constructed between the mountains
and the sea, which in many places are so close together
that the width of the road occupies the whole intervening
space. On the right, the traveller looks down a cliff of
some hundred feet or more upon the bay, whose glassy
floor is dappled with patches of green, purple, and blue,
the effect of varying depth, or light and shade, or clusters
of rock overgrown with sea-weed scattered over a sandy
bottom. On the left is a mountain wall, very steep, many
hundred feet high, with huge rocks projecting out of it,
many of them big enough to crush a carriage and its con
tents, or sweep them into the sea. This was no fanciful
imagination ; for, not long before, two or three immense
masses, each as large as a good-sized cottage, had fallen
from the cliff, and were blocking up the road so that it
was impossible to get round or over them. The carriages
came to a full stop here, and the occupants were obliged
HILLARD] EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 411
to scramble over the obstructions, and charter a new con
veyance on the other side. The road combined rare ele
ments of beauty ; for it nowhere pursued a monotonous
straight line, but followed the windings and turnings of
this many-curved shore. Sometimes it was cut through
solid ledges of rock ; sometimes it was carried on bridges,
over deep gorges and chasms, wide at the top and narrow
ing towards the bottom, where a slender stream tripped
down to the sea. The sides of these glens were often
covered with orange- and lemon-trees ; and we could look
down upon their rounded tops, presenting, with their dark-
green foliage, their bright, almost luminous fruit, and their
Bnowy blossoms, the finest combination of colors which
the vegetable kingdom, in the temperate zone at least, can
show. The scenery was in the highest degree grand,
beautiful, and picturesque, with the most animated con
trasts and the most abrupt breaks in the line of sight,
yet never savage or scowling. The mountains on the left
were not bare and scalped, but shadowed with forests, and
thickly overgrown with shrubbery, such wooded heights
as the genius of Greek poetry would have peopled with
bearded satyrs and buskined wood-nymphs and made
vocal with the reeds of Pan and the hounds and horn of
Artemis. All the space near the road was stamped with
the gentle impress of human cultivation. Fruit-trees and
vines were thickly planted ; garden vegetables were grow
ing in favorable exposures ; and houses were nestling in
the hollows or hanging to the sides of the cliff. Over the
whole region there was a smiling expression of wooing
and invitation, to which the sparkling sea murmured a fit
ting accompaniment. No pitiless ice and granite chill or
wound the eye ; no funereal cedars and pines darken the
mind with their Arctic shadows ; but bloom and verdure,
thrown over rounded surfaces, and rich and gay forms of
412 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HILLARD
foliage, mantling gray cliffs or waving from rocky ledges,
give to the face of Nature that mixture of animation and
softness which is equally fitted to soothe a wounded spirit
or restore an overtasked mind. If one could only forget
the existence of such words as " duty" and progress," and
step aside from the rushing stream of onward-moving life,
and be content with being, merely, and not doing, if
these lovely forms could fill all the claims and calls of
one's nature, and all that we ask of sympathy and com
panionship could be found in mountain breezes and break
ing waves, if days passed in communion with nature,
without anxious vigils or ambitious toils, made up the
sum of life, where could a better retreat be found than
along this enchanting coast? Here are the mountains,
and there is the sea. Here is a climate of delicious soft
ness, where no sharp extremes of heat and cold put strife
between man and nature. Here is a smiling and good-
natured population, among whom no question of religion,
politics, science, literature, or humanity is ever discussed,
and the surface of the placid hours is not ruffled by argu
ment or contradiction. Here a man could hang and ripen,
like an orange on the tree, and drop as gently out of life
upon the bosom of the earth. There is a fine couplet of
Yirgil, which is full of that tenderness and sensibility
which form the highest charm of his poetry, as they prob
ably did of his character, and they came to my mind in
driving along this beautiful road :
" Hie gelidi fontes ; hie mollia prata, Lycori ;
Hie nemus ; hie ipso tecum consumerer sevo."
There is something in the musical flow of these lines
which seems to express the movement of a quiet life,
from which day after day loosens and falls, like leaf after
leaf from a tree in a calm day of autumn. But Virgil's
PAYNE] HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 413
air-castle includes a Lycoris ; that is, sympathy, affec
tion, and the heart's daily food. With these, fountains,
meadows, and groves may be dispensed with ; and without
them, they are not much better than a painted panorama
To have something to do and to do it, is the best appoint
ment for us all. Nature, stern and coy, reserves her most
dazzling smiles for those who have earned them by hard
work and cheerful sacrifice. Planted on these shores and
lapped in pleasurable sensations, man would turn into an
indolent dreamer and a soft voluptuary. He is neither a
fig nor an orange ; and he thrives best in the sharp air of
self-denial and on the rocks of toil.
HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT.
The poems which properly fall under the title here given are far
too many for the limited space which we can devote to them. We
must therefore omit many poems of fine quality, while selecting a few
of those which have become " familiar as household words," together
with some others, chosen almost at random out of the abundant store
at our disposal. In most direct consonance with our title is John
Howard Payne's beautiful song, a poem which has almost lost its
American lineage, through its adoption by the whole English-speaking
world.
HOME, SWEET HOME.
'MiD pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home !
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with else
where.
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home !
There's no place like home !
There's no place like home !
iv. 35*
414 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOODWORTH
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain :
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ;
The birds singing gayly that come at my call :
Give me them, with the peace of mind dearer than all.
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home !
There's no place like home !
There's no place like home !
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile !
Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam,
But give, oh, give me the pleasures of home !
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home !
But give, oh, give me
The pleasures of home.
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care ;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there.
No more from that cottage again will I roam :
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home !
There's no place like home !
There's no place like home I
Another poem, instinct with the same home-clinging feeling, and
as fresh and mellow in sentiment as the drip of the pure liquid which it
commemorates, is the " Old Oaken Bucket" of Samuel Wood worth
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view !
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew ;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell j
MORRIS] HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 415
The cot of my father, the dairy -house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure ;
For often, at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing !
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell ;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips !
ISTot a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And now, far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well ;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well.
A no less attractive instance of the sentiment of affection for the
home-scenes of our youthful days we have in George P. Morris's best-
known and most popular song, one which has come particularly into
notice in these days of " societies for the prevention of cruelty" to our
forests.
WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE.
Woodman, spare that tree !
Touch not a single bough :
416 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MORRIS
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot :
There, woodman, let it stand ;
Thy axe shall harm it not.
That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea,
And wouldst thou hew it down ?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke !
Cut not its earth-bound ties ;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies.
When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade ;
In all their gushing joy,
Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here ;
My father pressed my hand :
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand !
My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend !
Here shall the wild bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree ! the storm still brave !
And, woodman, leave the spot :
While I've a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
SPRAGUE] HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 417
One of the most beautiful of American poems of which the home
sentiment is the inspiring theme is " The Family Meeting" of Charles
Sprague, perhaps the finest production of this graceful writer.
We are all here 1
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear.
Each chair is filled we're all at home;
To-night let no cold stranger come ;
It is not often thus around
Our old familiar hearth we're found.
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot ;
For once be every care forgot ;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind Affection rule the hour:
We're all all here.
We're not all here !
Some are away, the dead ones dear
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth.
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in and thinned our little band ;
Some like a night-flash passed away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day :
The quiet graveyard some lie there ;
And cruel Ocean has his share :
We're not all here.
We are all here !
Even they the dead though dead, so dear.
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
. bb
418 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS [BROWNK
How lifelike, through the mist of years,
Each well-remembered face appears !
We see them as in times long past ;
From each to each kind looks are cast ;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old :
We are all here.
We are all here !
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said :
Soon must we join the gathered dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round
Some other circle will be found.
Oh, then, that wisdom may we know
Which yields a life of peace below !
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss,
We're all all here!
A choice gem of American home poetry is that we give below, with
its gleeful opening and its pathetic close. The sunshine and shadow
of many a household, bereft of its passing angel, are here beautifully
depicted.
MEASURING THE BABY.
We measured the riotous baby
Against the cottage-wall :
A lily grew on the threshold,
And the boy was just as tall,
A royal tiger-lily,
With spots of purple and gold,
And a heart like a jewelled chalice,
The fragrant dew to hold.
HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 419
Without, the bluebirds whistled
High up in the old roof-trees,
And to and fro at the window
The red rose rocked her bees ;
And the wee pink fists of the baby
Were never a moment still.
Snatching at shine and shadow
That danced on the lattice-sill.
His eyes were wide as bluebells,
His mouth like a flower unblown ;
Two little bare feet, like funny white mice,
Peeped out from his snowy gown ;
And we thought, with a thrill of rapture
That yet had a touch of pain,
When June rolls around with her roses,
We'll measure the boy again.
Ah me ! in a darkened chamber,
With the sunshine shut away,
Through tears that fell like a bitter rain,
We measured the boy to-day ;
And the little bare feet, that were dimpled
And sweet as a budding rose,
Lay side by side together
In the hush of a long repose 1
Up from the dainty pillow,
White as the risen dawn,
The fair little face lay smiling,
With the light of heav.en thereon ;
And the dear little hands, like rose-leaves
Dropped from a rose, lay still,
Never to snatch at the sunshine
That crept to the shrouded sill I
420 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
We measured the sleeping baby
With ribbons white as snow,
For the shining rosewood casket
That waited him below ;
And out of the darkened chamber
We went with a childless moan :
To the height of the sinless angels
Our little one had grown.
EMMA ALICE BROWNE.
A much more cheerful picture of babyhood may be found in Hol
land's " Cradle Song," the choicest fragment of his once very popular
poem of " Bittersweet." This work, as a rule, cannot be ranked above
a somewhat low level of poetic merit, but its shortcomings are in a
measure redeemed by the beauty of this choice tribute to the kingdom
of babyhood.
CRADLE SONG.
What is the little one thinking about ?
Very wonderful things, no doubt !
Unwritten history !
Unfathomed mystery !
Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles ,as any sphinx!
Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two^ears ;
And he'll never know
Where the summers go :
He need not laugh, for he'll find it so 1
Who can tell what a baby thinks ?
Who can follow the gossamer links
HOLLAND] HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 421
By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,
Into the light of day?
Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony,
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls,
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide !
What does he think of his mother's eyes ?
What does he think of his mother's hair ?
What of the cradle roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air ?
What does he think of his mother's breast,
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight,
Cup of his life, and couch of his rest ?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell
With a tenderness she can never tell,
Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds,
Words she has learned to murmur well ?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep !
I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes, in soft eclipse,
Over his brow, and over his lips,
Out to his little finger-tips !
Softly sinking, down he goes !
Down he goes ! Down he goes !
See ! he is hushed in sweet repose 1
iv. 36
422 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LARCOM
In a more sombre key is the following highly pathetic poem, the
most popular production of a recent poetess of New England.
HANNAH BINDING SHOES.
Poor lone Hannah,
Sitting at the window, binding shoes :
Faded, wrinkled,
Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse.
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree :
Spring and winter,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.
Not a neighbor,
Passing, nod or answer will refuse
To her whisper,
" Is there from the fishers any news ?"
Oh, her heart's adrift, with one
On an endless voyage gone !
Night and morning,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.
Fair young Hannah,
Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes ;
Hale and clever,
For a willing heart and hand he sues.
May-day skies are all aglow,
And the waves are laughing so !
For her wedding
Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.
May is passing ;
'Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon cooes ;
Hannah shudders,
For the mild southwester mischief brews.
OSGOOD] HOME LIFE AND HOME SENTIMENT. 423
Round the rocks of Marblehead,
Outward bound, a schooner sped :
Silent, lonesome,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.
'Tis November :
Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews ;
From Newfoundland
Not a sail returning will she lose,
Whispering hoarsely, " Fishermen,
Have you, have you heard of Ben ?"
Old with watching,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.
Twenty winters
Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views,
Twenty seasons !
Never one has brought her any news.
Still her dim eyes silently
Chase the white sails o'er the sea :
Hopeless, faithful,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.
LUCY LARCOM.
Frances Sargent Osgood's familiar poem of " Labor is Worship'
will serve to close this series of poetical selections.
Pause not to dream of the future before us ;
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ;
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus,
Unintermitting, goes up into heaven !
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing ;
Never the little seed stops in its growing ;
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing,
Till from its nourishing stem it is riven.
424 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OsGOOD
" Labor is worship !" the robin is singing ;
" Labor is worship !" the wild bee is ringing :
Listen! that eloquent whisper, upspringing,
Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart.
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower ;
Prom the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower;
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ;
Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part.
Labor is life ! 'Tis the still water faileth ;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ;
Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth !
Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon.
Labor is glory ! the flying cloud lightens ;
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ;
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens :
Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune.
Labor is rest, from the sorrows that greet us ;
Best from all petty vexations that meet us ;
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us ;
Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill.
Work, and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ;
Work, thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping-willow!
Work with a stout heart and resolute will !
Labor is health ! Lo ! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life-current leaping !
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides !
Labor is wealth, in the sea the pearl groweth ;
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth ;
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ;
Temple and statue the marble block hides.
KRAUTH] ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 425
Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round
thee !
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee!
Look to the pure heaven smiling beyond thee !
Best not content in thy darkness, a clod !
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly !
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly !
Labor ! all labor is noble and holy :
Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.
THE CONTROLLING ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION.
C. P. KRAUTH.
[Charles Porterfield Krauth, an accomplished scholar, and one ol the
Ablest of recent theological writers, was born at Martinsburg, Virginia,
in 1823. He became ordained as a Lutheran divine, and occupied sev
eral pastoral positions. He afterwards edited a religious journal, which
was followed by a professorship in the Lutheran Seminary at Philadel
phia. In 1868 he was made professor of moral and intellectual phi
losophy in the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1873 became vice-
provost of that institution. He died in 1883. Of his several works
"The Conservative Keformation and its Theology" is the most valu
able, and is marked at once by fine scholarship, temperate statement,
and excellent reasoning. We subjoin an extract from its opening
portion.]
THE immediate occasion of the Keformation seemed in
significant enough. Three hundred and fifty-three years
ago, on the 31st of October, immense crowds were pouring
into an ancient city of Germany, bearing in its name,
Wittenberg, the memorial of its founder, Wittekind the
Younger. The weather-beaten and dingy little edifices
of Wittenberg forbade the idea that the beauty of the
iv. 36*
426 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KRAUTH
city or its commercial importance drew the masses to it.
Within that city was an old church, very miserable and
battered, and very venerable and holy, which attracted
these crowds. It was the "Church of All Saints," in
which were shown, to the inexpressible delight of the
faithful, a fragment of Noah's Ark, some soot from the
furnace into which the three young Hebrews were cast,
a piece of wood from the crib of the infant Saviour, some
of St. Christopher's beard, and nineteen thousand other
relics equally genuine and interesting. But over and
above all these allurements, so well adapted to the taste
of the time, His Holiness the Pope had granted indulgence
to all who should visit the church on the first of Novem
ber. Against the door of that church of dubious saints,
and dubious relics, and dubious indulgences, was found
fastened, on that memorable morning, a scroll unrolled.
The writing on it was firm ; the nails which held it were
well driven in ; the sentiments it conveyed were moderate,
yet very decided. The material, parchment, was the same
which long ago had held words of redemption above the
head of the Redeemer. The contents were an amplifica
tion of the old theme of glory, Christ on tbe cross, the
only King. The Magna Charta, which had been buried
beneath the Pope's throne, reappeared on the church door.
The key-note of the Reformation was struck full and
clear at the beginning, Salvation through Christ alone.
It is from the nailing up of these Theses the Reforma
tion takes its date. That act became, in the providence
of God, the starting-point of the work which still goes
on, and shall forever go on, that glorious work in which
the truth was raised to its original purity, and civil and
religious liberty were restored to men. That the Reforma
tion is the spring of modern freedom, is no wild assertion
of its friends. One of the greatest Roman Catholic writers
KRAUTH] ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 427
of recent times, Michelet, in the Introduction to his Life
of Luther, says, " It is not incorrect to say that Luther
has heen the restorer of liberty in modern times. If he
did not create, he at least courageously affixed his signa
ture to that great revolution which rendered the right of
examination lawful in Europe. And if we exercise in all
its plenitude at this day this first and highest privilege
of human intelligence, it is to him we are most indebted
for it ; nor can we think, speak, or write, without being
made conscious, at every step, of the immense benefit of
this intellectual enfranchisement ;" and he concludes with
the remark, " To whom do I owe the power of publishing
what I am now inditing, except to this liberator of modern
thought ?"
#########
The occasions and cause of so wonderful and important
an event as the Reformation have naturally occupied very
largely the thoughts of both its friendu and its foes. On
the part of its enemies the solution of its rapid rise, its
gigantic growth, its overwhelming march, has been found
by some in the rancor of monkish malice, the thing arose
in a squabble between two sets of friars about the farm
ing of the indulgences, a solution as sapient and as com
pletely in harmony with the fact as would be the state
ment that the American Revolution was gotten up by one
George Washington, who, angry that the British govern
ment refused to make him a collector of the tax on tea,
stirred up a happy people to rebellion against a mild and
just rule.
The solution has been found by others in the lust of the
human heart for change, it was begotten in the mere
love of novelty ; men went into the Reformation as they
go into a menagerie, or adopt the new mode, or buy up
some " novelist's last." Another class, among whom the
428 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KRAUTH
brilliant French Jesuit Audin is conspicuous, attribute the
movement mainly to the personal genius and fascinating
audacity of the great leader in the movement. Luther
so charmed the millions with his marvellous speech and
magic style that they were led at his will. On the part
of some, its nominal friends, reasons hardly more adequate
have often been assigned. Confounding the mere aids, or,
at most, the mere occasions, of the Reformation with its
real causes, an undue importance has been attributed in
the production of it to the progress of the arts and sci
ences after the revival of letters. Much stress has been
laid upon the invention of printing, and the discovery of
America, which tended to rouse the minds of men to a
new life. Much has been said of the fermenting political
discontents of the day, the influence of the great Councils
in diminishing the authority of the Pope, and much has
been made, in general, of the causes whose root is either
wholly or in part in the earth. The Eationalist repre
sents the Reformation as a triumph of reason over au
thority. The infidel says that its power was purely nega
tive ; it was a grand subversion ; it was mightier than
Rome, because it believed less than Rome; it prevailed,
not by what it taught, but by what it denied ; and it failed
of universal triumph simply because it did not deny
everything. The insect-minded sectarian allows the Re
formation very little merit except as it prepared the way
for the putting forth, in due time, of the particular twig
of Protestantism on which he crawls, and which he
imagines bears all the fruit and gives all the value to the
tree. As the little green tenants of the rose-bush might
be supposed to argue that the rose was made for the pur
pose of furnishing them a home and food, so these small
speculators find the root of the Reformation in the par
ticular part of Providence which they consent to adopt
4
KKAUTH] ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 429
and patronize. The Reformation, as they take it, origi
nated in the divine plan for furnishing a nursery for sec
tarian aphides.
*#######*
The Word of God kindled the fire of the Eeformation.
That Word lay smouldering under the ashes of centuries j
it broke forth into flame in Luther and the other Re
formers j it rendered them lights which shone and burnt
inextinguishably ; through them it imparted itself to the
nations ; and from the nations it purged away the dross
which had gathered for ages. " The Word of God," says
St. Paul, " is not bound." Through the centuries which
followed the corruption of Christianity, the Word of God
was still in being. In lonely cloisters it was laboriously
copied. Years were sometimes spent in finishing a single
copy of it, in the elaborate but half-barbaric beauty which
suited the taste of those times. Gold and jewels, on the
massive covers, decorated the rich workmanship; costly
pictures were painted as ornaments on its margin ; the
choicest vellum was used for the copies ; the rarest records
of heathen antiquity were sometimes erased to make way
for the nobler treasures of the Oracles of the Most High.
There are single copies of the Word, from that mid-world
of history, which are a store of art, and the possession of
one of which gives a bibliographical renown to the city
in whose library it is preserved.
ISTo interdict was yet laid upon the reading of the Word,
for none was necessary. The scarcity and costliness of
books formed in themselves a barrier more effectual than
the interdict of popes and councils. Many of the great
teachers in the Church of Rome were devoted students
of the Bible. From the earliest writings of the Fathers,
down to the Reformation, there is an unbroken 'line of
witnesses for the right of all believers freely to read the
430 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KRA.UTH
Holy Scriptures. No man thought of putting an artificial
limitation on its perusal ; on the contrary, there are ex
pressions of regret in the mediaeval Catholic writers that,
in the nature of the case, so few could have access to these
precious records.
In communities separate from the Church of Eome, the
truth was maintained by reading and teaching the Holy
Scriptures. The Albigensian and Waldensian martyrs
were martyrs of the Word:
" Those slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even those who kept God's truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones."
The invention of printing, and, hardly less, the inven
tion of paper made from rags, for what would printing
be worth, if we were still confined to so costly a material
for books as parchment ? prepared the way for the dif
fusion of the Scriptures.
The Church of Eome did not apprehend the danger
which lay in that Book. Previous to the Eeformation
there were not only editions of the Scripture in the origi
nals, but the old Church translation into Latin (the Vul
gate) and versions of it into the living languages were
printed. In Spain, whose dark opposition to the Word of
God has since become her reproach and her curse, and in
which no such book as the one of which we are about to
speak has come forth for centuries, in Spain, more than a
hundred years before there was enough Hebrew type in
all England to print three consecutive lines, the first great
POLYGLOT BIBLE, in Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, and Latin,
was issued at Complutum under the direction of Ximenes,
her renowned cardinal and chief minister of state. It
came forth in a form which, in splendor and value, far
KRAUTH] ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 431
surpassed all that the world had yet seen. We may con
sider the Complutensian Polyglot the crown of glory to
the labors of the Middle Ages. It links itself clearly in
historical connection with the GRAND BIBLICAL ERA, the
Eeformation itself, for, though the printing of it was begun
in 1502 and finished in 1517, it was not published till 1522,
and in 1522 the FIRST EDITION OP THE NEW TESTAMENT in
German came from the hand of Luther, fixing the corner
stone of the grand edifice whose foundation had been laid
in the Ninety-five Theses of 1517.
This, then, is the historical result of the facts we have
presented, that the Middle Ages became, in the wonderful
providence of God, the conservators of the Word which
they are charged with suppressing, and were unconsciously
tending toward the sunrise of the truth, which was to
melt away their mists forever.
The earliest efforts of the press were directed to the
multiplication of the copies of the Word of God. The fim
book ever printed was the Bible. Before the first twelve
sheets of this first edition of the Scriptures were printed,
Gutenberg and Faust had incurred an expenditure of four
thousand florins. That Bible was the edition of the Latin
Yulgate commonly known by the name of the " Mazarin
Bible," from the fact that a copy of it which for some
time was the only one known was discovered about the
middle of the eighteenth century in the library of the Col
lege of the Four Nations, founded at Paris by Cardinal
Mazarin. At Mentz and Cologne, the Yulgate translation
of the Holy Scriptures was multiplied in editions of vari
ous sizes. Some of these Latin Bibles had been purchased
for the University Library at Erfurth at a large price, and
were rarely shown even to visitors. One of them was
destined to play a memorable part in the history of man
kind. While it was lying in the still niche of the library,
432 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KRAUTH
there moved about the streets of the city and through the
halls of the University a student of some eighteen years
of age, destined for the law, who already gave evidence
of a genius which might have been a snare to indolence,
but who devoted himself to study with an unquenchable
ardor. Among the dim recesses of the library he was a
daily seeker of knowledge. His was a thirst for truth
which was not satisfied with the prescribed routine. Those
books of which we now think as venerable antiques were
then young and fresh ; the glow of novelty was on much
of which we now speak as the musty and worm-eaten
record of old-time wisdom which we have outgrown.
There the city of Harlem, through Laurentius, and the
city of Mentz, through Faustus, and the city of Strasburg,
through Gutenberg, put in their silent claims for the glory
of being the cradle of the magic art of printing. There
the great masters in jurisprudence and in scholastic phi
losophy challenged, and not in vain, the attention of the
young searcher for knowledge. Some of the most volumi
nous of the jurisconsults he could recite almost word for
word. Occam and Gerson were his favorites among the
scholastics. The masters of the classic world, Cicero,
Yirgil, and Livy, " he read," says a Jesuit author, " not
merely as a student whose aim was to understand them,
but as a superior intellect, which sought to draw from them
instruction, to find in them counsels and maxims for his
after-life. They were to him the flowers whose sweet
odor might be shed upon the path he had to tread, or
might calm the future agitation of his mind and of his
heart." Thus passing from volume to volume, seeking the
solution of the dark problem of human life, which already
gathered heavily upon his deep, earnest soul, he one day
took down a ponderous volume hitherto unnoticed. He
opens it ; the title-page is " Biblia Sacra," the Holy Bible.
KRATJTH] ELEMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 433
He is disappointed. He has heard all this, he thinks, in
the lessons of the Missal, in the texts of the Postils, in the
selections of the Breviary. He imagines that his mother
the Church has incorporated the whole Book of God in
her services. Listlessly he allows the volume to fall open
at another place, in his hand, and carelessly looks down at
the page. What is it that arouses him ? His eye kindles
with amazement and intense interest. He rests the Book
on the pile of the works of Schoolmen and of Fathers
which he had been gathering. He hangs entranced over
it ; his dreamy eyes are fixed on the page ; hour after hour
flies ; the shades of night begin to gather, and he is forced
to lay the volume aside, with the sigh. Oh that this Book
of books might one day be mine !
*#######*
That Book was to Luther, henceforth, the thing of
beauty of his life, the joy of his soul forever.. He read
and re-read, and prayed over its sacred teachings, till the
place of each passage, and all memorable passages in their
places, fixed themselves in his memory. To the study of
it all other study seemed tame. A single passage of it
would ofttimes lie in his thoughts days and nights to
gether. The Bible seemed to fuse itself into his being, to
become a part of his nature. Often in his writings he
does not so much remark upon it, as catch its very pulse
and clothe his own mind in its very garb. He is lifted to
the glory of the reproducer, and himself becomes a sec
ondary prophet and apostle. His soul ceased to be a mere
vessel to hold a little of the living water, and became a
fountain through which it sprang to refresh and gladden
others. As with Luther, so was it with Melanchthon, his
noble co-worker, with Zwingle in Switzerland, at a later
period with Calvin in France, with Tyndale and Cranmer
in England, with Knox in Scotland. The Word of God
iv. T ec 87
434 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KRAUTH
was the fire in their souls which purified them into Chris
tians ; and the man who became a Christian was already
unconsciously a Eeformer.
One of the earliest convictions of Luther was, the
people must have the Bible, and to this end it must be
translated. It is true that, beginning with the Gothic
translation of Ulphilas, in the fourth century, there had
been various translations of the Scriptures into the Ger
manic tongues. About 1466 appeared the first Bible
printed in German. It came from the press of Egge-
steyn, in Strasburg (not, as has been frequently main
tained, from the press of Faust and Schoffer, in 1462).
Between the appearance of this Bible and that of Luther
there were issued in the dialect of Upper Germany some
fourteen editions of the Word of God, besides several in
the dialect of Lower Germany. These were, without
exception, translations of a translation ; they were made
from the Yulgate, and, however they may have differed,
they had a common character which may be expressed in
a word : they were abominable. In a copy of one of
them, in the library of the writer of this article, there is
a picture of the Deluge, in which mermaids are floating
around the ark, arranging their tresses with the aid of
small looking-glasses, with a most amphibious noncha
lance. The rendering is about as true to the idea as the
picture is to nature. There is another of these editions,
remarkable for typographical errors, which represents
Eve, not as a housewife, but as a "kiss-wife," and its
typography is the best part of it. How Luther raised
what seemed a barbarous jargon into a language which in
flexible beauty and power of internal combination has no
parallel but in the Greek, and in massive vigor no superior
but the English, writers of every school, Protf stant and
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 435
Romish alike, have loved to tell. The language of Ger
many has grown since Luther, but it has had no new
creation. He who takes up Luther's Bible grasps a whole
world in his hand, a world which will perish only when
this green earth itself shall pass away.
AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE.
JOH& EST'EN
L u The Virginia Comedians," by the author here named, is as ac
curate and interesting a picture of aristocratic life in the colonial days
of the " Old Dominion" as could well be desired. In addition to its
historical value, it has much merit as a novel, and displays fine powers
of characterization. Mr. Cooke is the author of several other novels,
of Lives of Stonewall Jackson and Kobert E. Lee, and of a History
of Virginia. The selection given below is from the "Virginia Come
dians," in which the bluff soldier, Captain Waters, is a character
worthy the pen of Scott. Mr. Cooke is a native of Virginia, where
he was born in 1830.]
THE races !
That word always produces a strong effect upon men m
the South ; and when the day fixed upon for the James
town races comes, the country is alive for miles around
with persons of all classes and descriptions.
As the hour of noon approaches, the ground swarms
with every species of the genus homo; Williamsburg and
the seafaring village of Jamestown turn out en masse, and
leave all occupations for the exciting turf.
As the day draws on, the crowd becomes more dense.
The splendid chariots of the gentry roll up to the stand,
and group themselves around it, in a position to overlook
436 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CooKE
the race-course, and through the wide windows are seen
the sparkling eyes and powdered locks and diamonds and
gay silk and velvet dresses of those fair dames who lent
such richness and picturesque beauty to the old days dead
now so long ago in the far past. The fine-looking old
planters, too, are decked in their holiday suits, their pow
dered hair is tied into queues behind with neat black rib
bon, and they descend and mingle with their neighbors
and discuss the coming festival.
Gay youths, in rich brilliant dresses, caracole up to the
carriages on fiery steeds, to display their horsemanship,
and exchange complimdlrts with their friends, and make
pretty speeches, which are received by the bright-eyed
damsels with little ogles, arid flirts of their variegated
fans, and rapturous delight.
Meanwhile the crowd grows each moment, as the flood
pours in from the north, the south, the east, the west,
from every point of the compass, and in every species of
vehicle. There are gay parties of the yeomen and their
wives and daughters, in carryalls and wagons filled with
straw, upon which chairs are placed ; there are rollicking
fast men, if we may use the word becoming customary
in our own day, who whirl in in their curricles ; there
are barouches and chairs, spring-wagons and carts, all full,
approaching in every way from a sober walk to a furious
headlong dash, all " going to the races." There are horse
men who lean forward, horsemen who lean back ; furious,
excited horsemen, urging their steeds with whip and spur ;
cool, quiet horsemen, who ride erect and slowly ; there
are, besides, pedestrians of every class and appearance,
old and young, male and female, black and white, all
going to the races.
These latter gather around the booths erected by the
stand, and discuss the various mixtures of Jamaica there
COOKS] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 437
displayed in tempting array; and. near by, all varieties
of edibles are set out and attacked. Ale foams ; healths
(and individuals) are drunk ; bets are made.
The vulgar blacklegs, if we may speak so disrespectfully
of that large and influential class, congregate temporarily
around the tables where a dozen games of chance are ex
hibited ; and here they amuse themselves while awaiting
the great supreme gambling of the race.
The crowd is all in a buzz, which at times rises to a
shout ; it undulates like a stormy sea ; it rolls and mur
murs, and rumbles and laughs : in a word, it has come to
see the races.
The hour at last arrives, and, a horn sounding from the
judges' stand, the horses are led out in their blankets and
head-coverings, and walked up and down before the crowd
by their trainers, who are for the most part old gray-
headed negroes, born and raised, to the best of their recol
lection, on the turf. The riders are noble scions of the
same ancient stock, and average three feet and a half in
height and twenty pounds in weight. They are clad in
ornamental garments, wear little close-fitting caps, and,
while they are waiting, sit huddled up in the grass, suck
ing their thumbs, and talking confidentially about " them
there bosses."
Let us look at the objects of their attention : they are
well worth it.
Mr. Howard enters the bay horse Sir Archy, out of
Flying Dick, by Eoderick.
Mr. James enters Fair Anna, a white mare, dam Yh-
ginia, sire Belgrave.
Captain Waters enters the Arabian horse Selim, de
scended in a direct line, he is informed, from Al-Borak,
who carried the prophet Mahomet up to heaven, though
this pedigree is not vouched for. The said pedigree is
iv 37*
438 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CooKE
open to the inspection of all comers. NOTE That it is
written in Arabic.
There are other entries, but not much attention is paid
to them. The race will be between Sir Archy and Fair
Anna, and perhaps the outlandish horse will not be " dis
tanced."
The horses are stripped, and the excited spectators
gather round them and commence betting. Two to one
is offered on Sir Archy. He takes every eye : he is a
noble animal. His training has been excessive, and the
sinews web his limbs like cords of steel woven into net
work ; he strides like a giant, his eyes blaze, he bites at
his groom.
Fair Anna is a beautiful little creature, as slender and
graceful as a deer, with a coat of milky whiteness ; and
she steps daintily, like a kitten. She is known, however,
and those who have seen her run know that she has ex
traordinary speed and bottom.
The Arabian horse is unknown, and offers few indica
tions of either speed or strength. The ladies say he is
lovely, however, and the old jockeys scan the animal
attentively and discover some unusual points.
But the ladies, for the most part, admire the white mare
above all ; and the young damsels and gentlemen of youth
ful years request their parents to furnish them with some
guineas to bet upon the lovely animal. The old planters,
having for the most part staked large sums on Sir Archy,
decline this request with petulance. Among these juve
niles seized with the gambling mania are Master Willie
Effingham and JMr. Tommy Alston, who espouse different
sides. Tommy admires Fair Anna; Will, Sir Archy.
Having no money beyond a crown or so, they content
themselves with staking that, and Kate is called upon to
hold the stakes, which she does with great good nature.
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 439
"Ah ! you are betting, I think, petite ma'm'selle !" says
a sonorous and good-humored voice.
Kate raises her eyes, and recognizes Captain Ralph, who
rides his roan. She smiles, for the kindly honest voice
of the soldier pleases her, and says,
"Oh, no, sir! I was just holding stakes for Willie and
Mr. Alston."
" Mr. Alston ? Oh pardonnez : I understand."
And the captain laughs, and asks how the betting goes.
" Two to one on Sir Archy," says Kate, quite easily.
" And on Selim ?"
" I'm sure he's the prettiest, and I know he'll win, sir,"
says Kate, " but the bet is on Sir Archy and Fair Anna."
The captain laughs, and rides on : he draws up by Mr.
Lee's chariot.
" Ah ! good-day, my dear mesdames," he says. " How is
the betting, pray ?"
" I have bet largely against Selim, sir," says Henrietta.
"I know he'll be beaten."
" Beaten, say you, my dear madam ?"
" Yes."
"By what? rods?"
" No, sir, by Sir Archy."
"Ah, you think so?" says the captain, pleasantly.
"Well, I do not agree with you, morbleu!"
" He's found his match," says Henrietta, with a mis
chievous sparkle of her brilliant eye.
"So have I," replies the captain, with a look which
makes Miss Henrietta blush.
She endeavors to rally.
" What will you bet, sir ?"
" I ? I will bet you a thousand pounds to a penny that
Selim wins the race. See how infatuated I am ! What
say you, morbleu! madam?"
440 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CooKE
Henrietta smiles satirically.
" Suppose we wager something more valuable, sir," she
says, " something rare !"
"What shall it be?"
" This ringlet against one of your morbleus /"
The captain relishes this pleasantry, and laughs.
"Ah, madam," he says, "the stakes are not even. Sup
pose I stake the contents of this box against the said
ringlet."
And the soldier draws a morocco case from his bosom.
"What is it?" says Henrietta.
" I deny your right to ask," laughs the soldier.
"Unjust!" says Henrietta.
" Why, 'faith ?"
" Because, sir, you know what my stake is, while I do
not know yours."
" How do I know what it is you offer to bet, madam ?"
" Why, it is this ringlet, sir."
And Henrietta twines around her beautiful jewelled
hand a glossy curl which reposes on her cheek.
Captain Ealph laughs, and replies,
"Ma foil I know it is; but I maintain that I am not
enlightened yet : the said ringlet may be a wig, my dear
madam."
Henrietta pouts : Clare smiles. J
" 1 assure you, sir, that I never wear wigs," says the
lady.
" Well, madam, then I will, for the sake of argument
no, for the sake of betting, admit the reality of that ex
quisite curl ; and yet I must be permitted to make a re
quest."
"What is that, sir?"
"That you will let Miss Clare hold my stake, and
promise not to open it, or seek to find what it is."
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 441
Henrietta takes the morocco case, and looks at it
curiously, hesitating.
" "Well," says the captain, laughing, " I see our wager is
at an end, pardy I You refuse my conditions."
" No, sir, I accept."
And Henrietta hands the case to Clare.
" I suppose I may retain the curl until it is won, if
that ever happens, monsieur ?" she says, satirically.
" Ouil ouil" responds the soldier, laughing, "assuredly.
And now what is our bet, pray? I see the judges about
to give the signal to prepare the horses."
" I bet," says Henrietta, " that Sir Archy or Fair Anna
will beat Selim."
" The first heat ?"
"As you choose, sir."
" Well," says Captain Ralph, " I close. Remember,
Ma'm'selle Clare," he adds to her companion, "that
Madam Henrietta and myself have laid a wager of that
morocco case and its contents, against a curl of her hair,
that Sir Archy beats my Arabian the first heat. Do not
forget !"
"The first heat, sir?" says Clare, in her mild voice.
" Yes," replies the captain : " there will be three, I am
informed, three of two miles each. The horse which
wins two out of these three heats of course beats the
field."
Clare nods.
"Prepare the horses!" comes from the judges' stand
opposite.
Captain Ralph leaves the ladies with a gallant bow, and
pushes his way through the swaying and excited crowd
towards the spot where the animals are being saddled.
A tremendous hurly-burly reigns there ; men of all
classes boys, negroes, gentlemen, indented servants all
442 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CooKE
are betting with intense excitement. The dignified
grooms endeavor to keep back the crowd : the owners
of the horses give their orders to the microscopic mon
keys who are to ride. Mr. Howard, a fine-looking, some
what supercilious gentleman, says to his rider,
" Jake, trail on a tight rein the first mile, press gradu
ally on the second, and win the heat by half a length : if
you are an inch before that, I'll murder you, you villain."
" Yes, massa," replies Jake, with a satisfied smile, and
great cheerfulness. " I gwine to do dat very ting, I is."
Mr. James is a solemn-looking Napoleon of the turf,
and impresses upon his rider a whole volume of instruc
tions, with gravity, and a serious and affecting earnest
ness.
" Feel Sir Archy from the word proceed," he says, " and
if it appears, from a calm review of all the circumstances,
that the mare has got the heels of him, come in half a
head before him. If the mare fails to get her speed in the
first brush, refrain from pushing her : it is a matter of no
importance to win this the first heat ; but be sure to come
to me before the second."
" Yes, my massa."
Captain Ealph says to his rider,
" Give me your whip : good ! now take off those spurs.
Yery well : now remember to keep silent: do not speak
to your horse, do not tug at his rein : simply keep him in
the track, and aim to keep the inside. Do not trouble
yourself to win this heat : the rest, I think, is safe. Ee-
member to lean far forward, and if there is danger of
being distanced I permit you to whistle in the horse's
ears. Again, do not push to win this heat. Go !"
The riders are raised by one leg into the saddles : they
gather up the reins : the drum taps : they are off like
lightning.
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 443
The course is a mile in circumference, and they go round
it before the excited crowd can look at them a dozen times.
They whirl past the stand, and push on again.
Sir Archy leads : Fair Anna trails on a hard rein : the
Arabian is two lengths behind ; but he is not running.
They thunder up the quarter-stretch : Sir Archy is
bounding, like some diabolical monster, far before his com
panions, spite of his owner's cries : the Arabian has come
up and locks the mare : they run neck and neck. Sir
Archy whirls past the stand, and wins the heat by a hun
dred yards. The immense crowd utters a shout which
shakes the surrounding forest.
The owner of Sir Archy looks with ominous meaning
at Jake : that youth begins to tremble, and says that he
couldn't hold him. Mr. Howard turns to the horse. Sir
Archy's eyes glare ; he does not sweat at all : his coat is
covered with a dry dusty oil, and he pants dreadfully : he
is over-trained.
Fair Anna is as wet as if she had just swam a river ; the
moisture streams from her : she looks like an ivory statue
in a fountain. The grooms rake the sweat off in foamy
floods : she breathes regularly.
The Arabian's coat is merely glossier : an imperceptible
moisture bathes it, and he is quite still : he does not pant :
his breathing is calm.
The horses are again enveloped in their hoods and
blankets. Captain Ralph returns to the Biverhead car
riage.
" Parbleu ! you've won, my dear madam !" he says ,
"behold, here I am very unhappy!"
Henrietta does not quarrel this time with his French,
but laughs triumphantly.
"A favor?" continues the unfortunate captain, with a,
melancholy air.
444 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CooKE
" Oh, certainly !" cries Henrietta.
" I ask that you will not open the morocco case which
miserable! I have lost, until you return home. Is it-
very hard ?"
"Oh, no, sir; and I promise without hesitation. Give
it to me, Clare."
And she takes the case, puts it in her muff, and smiles.
" Any more betting, sir ?" she says, satirically.
"Who? I?"
" Yes, sir."
" Assuredly !" says the captain. " Do not think, chere
ma'm'selle, that I am very much cast down. I am so far
from that, I assure you, that I am ready to take the field
again."
" Well, sir."
" Then you will bet again, madam?"
" Yes, indeed."
" Bien! I now stake all that is left me in the world,
though not quite. I stake my horse, Selim, against the
curl and the pair of gloves you wear, with the knot of
ribbons at your girdle thrown in, all upon the final
issue."
Henrietta blushes ; for, however common such gallant
proposals were at that day, she cannot misunderstand the
meaning of the soldier's glance, and reddens beneath it.
" That would be unfair, sir," she says.
*' Not so, my dear madam ; for are you not sure to lose ?"
"To lose?"
" Yes, indeed."
"No, sir; I am sure to win."
"Bah! you ladies have such a delicious little confidence
in the things you patronize, that it is really astonishing.
You think Sir Archy will beat Selim ? Pshaw ! you know
nothing about it."
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACECOURSE. 44i3
This piques Madam Henrietta, and she smiles satirically
again as she says,
" Well, sir, I do not want your pretty horse, but, if you
insist, why, I cannot retreat. I shall, at least, have the
pleasure of returning him to ms master."
The captain shakes his head.
" A bet upon such terms is no bet at all, my dearest
madam," he says, " for, I assure you. if I win, you will
return home curlless, gloveless, and ribbonless. All is fair
in war and love."
With which words Captain Ralph darts a martial ogle
at his companion. This piques her more than ever.
"Well, sir," she replies, "if you are determined, have
your desire."
" Good !" cries the captain : " we are just in time
There is the horse. Remember, now, Ma'm'selle Clare,
that we have lain a wager on the final issue. I bet
Selim against a curl, a pair of gloves, and a piece of rib
bon, that the Arabian beats the field ; Miss Henrietta,
that he will not. Void, I do not ask you to hold my
stakes," adds the captain with a laugh as he bows, " for I
think that will be as much as his rider will be able to do."
And, with another gallant bow, the captain rides away
toward the horses.
The boys are again instructed much after the same
fashion : the signal is given in the midst of breathless
suspense, and the horses dart from their places.
They dart around, Sir Archy again leading ; but this
position he does not hold throughout the first mile : he
gradually falls behind, and when they pass the winning-
post he is fifty yards in the rear. His owner tears his
hair, but the crowd do not see him : they flush and shout.
The second mile is between Fair Anna and the Arabian,
and they lock in the middle of it ; but the Arabian gradu-
TV. 38
446 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COOKK
ally takes the lead, and when they flash up to the stand
he is ten yards ahead. Sir Archy is distanced and with
drawn.
It would be impossible to describe the excitement of the
crowd, the tremendous eftect produced upon them by
this reversal of all their hopes and expectations. They
roll about like waves, they shout, they curse, they rumble
and groan like a stormy sea.
The horses are the objects of every one's attention.
Their condition will go far to indicate the final result;
and, Sir Archy being led away and withdrawn, the race
now will be between Fair Anna and the Arabian.
Mr. James looks more solemn than ever, and all eyes
are turned upon him. Captain Waters is not visible : he
is yonder, conversing with the ladies.
But the horses ! Fair Anna pants and breathes heavily :
her coat is drenched more completely than before with
perspiration ; her mouth foams ; she tosses her head : when
the rake is applied to her back a shower falls.
The Arabian is wet all over too : but he breathes regu
larly : his eye is bright and his head calm. He has com
menced running. The first intention of Mr. James is to
give up the race; but his pride will not let him. He
utters an oath, and gives renewed instructions to his
rider. These instructions are to whip and spur, to take
the lead and keep it, from the start.
The moment for the final struggle arrives, and Captain
Ralph merely says, "Kem free!"
The boys mount: the crowd opens: the drum taps, and
the animals are off like lightning.
Fair Anna feels that all her previous reputation is at
stake, and flies like a deer. She passes around the first
mile like a flash of white light: but the Arabian is beside
her. For a quarter of a mile thereafter they run neck
COOKE] AN OLD-TIME VIRGINIA RACE-COURSE. 447
and neck : the rider of Fair Anna lashes and spurs des
perately.
They come to the quarter-stretch in the last mile at
supernatural speed : the spectators rise on their toes and
shout: two shadows pass them like the shadows of dart
ing hawks : the mare barely saves her distance, and the
Arabian has triumphed.
If we could not describe the excitement after the second
heat, what possibility is there that we could convey an
idea of the raging and surging pandemonium which the
crowd now came to resemble ? Furious cries, shouts,
curses, applause, laughter, and the rattle of coin leaving
unwilling hands, are some of the sounds. But here we
must give up : as no mere pen can describe the raging of
a great mass of water lashed by an angry wind into foam
and whistling spray and muttering waves, which rise and
fall and crash incessantly, so we cannot trace the outline
of the wildly-excited crowd.
The captain wipes Selim's neck with his white handker
chief, and the panting animal raises his head and whin
nies.
"See, gentlemen !" says the soldier, laughing, while Mr.
Howard scowls proudly at him, " morbleu ! my horse is
merely a little warm. just come to his speed! Why did
I not stake my whole fortune on him ?"
And, uttering this preposterous jest, the soldier caresses
Selim, who manifests much pleasure thereat; and, send
ing him back to the stable, mounts his horse and goes and
claims his wager from the mortified Henrietta. She takes
off the gloves and hands them to him, with the ribbon-
knot, which she detaches from her girdle with a jerk
betraying no slight ill-humor.
"There, sir! at least I am honest, and pay my just
debts !" she says : " but please leave my curl."
448 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HTGGINSON
The captain folds up the gloves, wraps them in the rib
bon, and places the whole in the pocket of his surtout.
"Leave the curl?" he says, laughing. "Oh, of course!
But I assure you, my dear Ma'm'selle Henrietta, that my
liberality is only for the moment. I shall claim it some
day or other. All is fair in war and love I"
With which words the captain laughs louder than he
was ever known to laugh before.
A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.
T. W. HIGGINSON.
YES, my dear Dolorosus, I commiserate you. I regard
your case, perhaps, with even sadder emotion than that ex
cellent family-physician who has been sounding its depths
these four years with a golden plummet and has never yet
touched bottom. From those generous confidences which,
in common with most of your personal acquaintances, I
daily share, I am satisfied that no description can do jus
tice to your physical disintegration, unless it be the wreck
of matter and the crush of worlds with which Mr. Addi-
son winds up Cato's Soliloquy. So far as I can ascertain,
there is not an organ of your internal structure which is
in its right place at present, or which could perform any
particular service if it were there. In the extensive
library of medical almanacs and circulars which I find
daily deposited by travelling agents at my front door,
among all the agonizing vignettes of diseases which adorn
their covers, and which Irish Bridget daily studies with
inexperienced enjoyment in the front entry, there is no
'case which seems to afford a parallel to yours. I found it
HIGGINSON] A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC. 449
stated in one of these works, the other day, that there is
iron enough in the blood of twenty-four men to make a
broadsword j but I am satisfied that it would be impossible
to extract enough from the veins of yourself and your
whole family to construct a crochet-needle for your eldest
daughter. And I am quite confident that, if all the four
hundred muscles of your present body were twisted to
gether by a rope-maker, they would not furnish that
patient young laborer with a needleful of thread.
You are undoubtedly, as you claim, a martyr to Dys
pepsia ; or, if you prefer any other technical name for
your disease or diseases, I will acquiesce in any, except,
perhaps, the word " Neurology," which I must regard as
foreign to etymological science, if not to medical. Your
case, you think, is hard. I should think it would be. Yet
I am impressed by it, I must admit, as was our adopted
fellow-citizen by the contemplation of Niagara. He, you
remember, when pressed to admire the eternal plunge of
the falling water, could only inquire, with serene acquies
cence in natural laws, "And what's to hinder?" I confess
myself moved to similar reflections by your disease and
its history. My dear Dolorosus, can you acquaint me with
any reason, in the heavens above or on the earth beneath,
why you should not have dyspepsia ?
My thoughts involuntarily wander back to that golden
period, five years ago, when I spent one night and one
day beneath your hospitable roof. I arrived, I remember,
late in the evening. The bedroom to which you kindly
conducted me, after a light but wholesome supper of
doughnuts and cheese, was pleasing in respect to furni
ture, but questionable in regard to physiology. The
house was not more than twenty years old, and the
chamber must therefore have been aired within that
distance of time, but not, I should have judged, more
38*
450 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HIGGINSON
recently. Perhaps its close, oppressive atmosphere could
not have been analyzed into as many separate odors as
Coleridge distinguished in Cologne, but I could easily
identify aromatic vinegar, damp straw, lemons, and dyed
silk gowns. And, as each of the windows was carefully
nailed down, there were no obvious means of obtaining
fresh air, save that ventilator said to be used by an emi
nent lady in railway-cars, the human elbow. The lower
bed was of straw, the upper of feathers, whose extreme
heat kept me awake for a portion of the night, and whose
abundant fluffy exhalations suggested incipient asthma
during another portion. On rising from these rather
unrefreshing slumbers, I performed my morning ablutions
with the aid of some three teacupsful of dusty water,
for the pitcher probably held that quantity, availing
myself, also, of something which hung over an elegant
towel-horse, and which, though I at first took it for a
child's handkerchief, proved on inspection to be " Chamber
Towel No. 1."
I remember, as I entered the breakfast-room, a vague
steam as of frying sausages, which, creeping in from the
neighboring kitchen, obscured in some degree the five
white faces of your wife and children. The breakfast-
table was amply covered, for you were always what is
termed by judicious housewives " a good provider." I
remember how the beefsteak (for the sausages were es
pecially destined for your two youngest Dolorosi, who
were just recovering from the measles, and needed some
thing light and palatable) vanished in large rectangular
masses within your throat, drawn downward in a mael
strom of coffee ; only that the original whirlpool is, I
believe, now proved to have been imaginary ; " that cup
was a ficticn, but this is reality." The resources of the
house also afforded certain very hot biscuits or bread-
HIGGINSON] A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC. 451
cakes, in a high state of saleratus ; indeed, it must have
been from some association with these that certain yellow
streaks in Mr. Buskin's drawing of the rock, at the Athe
naeum, awakened in me such an immediate sense of indi
gestion ; also fried potatoes, baked beans, mince-pie, and
pickles. The children partook of these dainties largely,
but without undue waste of time. They lingered at table
precisely eight minutes before setting out for school ;
though we, absorbed in conversation, remained at least
ten ; after which we instantly hastened to your counting-
room, where you, without a moment's delay, absorbed
yourself in your ledger, while I flirted languidly with the
" Daily Advertiser."
You bent over your desk the whole morning, occasion
ally having anxious consultations with certain sickly men
whom I supposed to be superannuated book-keepers, in
impoverished circumstances, and rather pallid from the
want of nutritious food. One of them, dressed in rusty
black, with a flabby white neck-cloth, I took for an ex-
clergyman ; he was absorbed in the last number of the
" Independent," though I observed, at length, that he was
only studying the list of failures, a department to which,
as it struck me, he himself peculiarly appertained. All
of these, I afterwards ascertained from your office-boy,
were eminent capitalists : something had gone wrong in
the market, not in the meat-market, as I should have
supposed from their appearance, but in the money-mar
ket. I believe that there was some sudden fall in the
price of indigo. I know you looked exceedingly blue as
we walked home to dinner.
Dinner was ready the instant we opened the front door.
I expected as much ; I knew the pale, speechless woman
who sat at the head of your table would make sure of
punctuality, if she died for it. We took our seats without
452 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HIGGINSON
a word. Your eldest girl, Angelina, aged ten, one of those
premature little grown women who have learned from the
cradle that man is born to eat pastry and woman to make
it, postponed her small repast till an indefinite future, and
sat meekly ready to attend upon our wants. Nathaniel, a
thin boy of eight, also partook but slightly, having im
paired his appetite, his mother suspected, by a copious
luncheon of cold baked beans and vinegar on his return
from school. The two youngest (twins) had relapsed to
their couches soon after breakfast, in consequence of excess
of sausage.
You were quite agreeable in conversation, I remember,
after the first onset of appetite was checked. You gave
me your whole theory of the indigo crisis, with minute
details, statistical and geographical, of the financial con
dition and supposed present location of your principal
absconding creditors. This served for what is called, at
public dinners, the intellectual feast; while the carnal
appetite was satisfied with fried pork, more and tougher
beefsteak, strong coffee, cucumbers, potatoes, and a good
deal of gravy. For dessert (at which point Nathaniel
regained his appetite) we had mince-pie, apple-pie, and
lemon-pie, the latter being a structure of a two-story
description, an additional staging of crust being somehow
inserted between upper and under. We lingered long at
that noon meal, fifteen minutes, at the very least; for
you hospitably said that you did not have these little
social festivals very often, owing to frequent illness in
the family, and other causes, and must make the most
of it.
I did not see much of you during that afternoon : it was
a magnificent day. and I said that, being a visitor, I would
look about and see the new buildings. The trutb is, I felt
a sneaking desire to witness the match-game on the Com-
HIQGTNSON] A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC. 453
mon. between the Union Base-Ball Club, No. 1, of Ward
Eleven, and the Excelsiors of Smithville. I remember
that you looked a little dissatisfied, when I came into the
counting-room, and rather shook your head over my nar
rative (perhaps too impassioned) of the events of the
game. " Those young fellows," said you, " may not all be
shiftless, dissipated characters yet, but see what it comes
to ! They ain't content with wasting their time, they
kill it, sir, actually kill it !" When I thought of the manly
figures and handsome eager faces of my friends of the
"Union" and the "Excelsior," the Excelsiors won by
ten tallies, I should say, the return match to come off
at Smithville the next month, and then looked at the
meagre form and wan countenance of their critic, I
thought to myself, " Dolorosus, my boy, you are killing
something besides time, if you only knew it."
However, indigo had risen again, and your spirits also.
As we walked home, you gave me a precise exhibit of your
income and expenditures for the last five years, and a pros
pective sketch of the same for the next ten ; winding up with
an incidental delineation of the importance, to a man of
business, of a good pew in some respectable place of worship.
We found Mrs. D., as usual, ready at the table ; we partook
of pound-cake (or pound-and-a-half, I should say) and sun
dry hot cups of a very Cisatlantic beverage, called by the
Chinese epithet of tea, and went, immediately after, to a
prayer-meeting. The church or chapel was much crowded,
and there was a certain something in the atmosphere which
seemed to disqualify my faculties from comprehending a
single word that was spoken. It certainly was not that the
ventilators were closed, for there were none. The minister
occasionally requested that the windows might be let down
a little, and the deacons invariably closed them again when
he looked the other way. At intervals, females were car
454 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
ried out, in a motionless condition, not, as it appeared,
from conviction of sin, but from faintness. You sat, ab
sorbed in thought, with your eyes closed, and seemed not
to observe them. I remember that you were very much
shocked when I suggested that the breath of an average
sinner exhausted atmospheric air at the rate of a hogs
head an hour, and asked you how much allowance the laws
of the universe made for the lungs of church-members. I
do not recall your precise words, but I remember that I
finally found it expedient, as I was to leave for home in
the early train, to spend that night at a neighboring hotel,
where I indulged, on an excellent mattress, in a slumber so
profound that it seemed next morning as if I ought, as
Dick Swiveller suggested to the single gentleman, to pay
for a double-bedded room.
Well, that is all over now. You have given up busi
ness, from ill health, and exhibit a ripe old age, possibly a
little overripe, at thirty-five. Your dreams of the forth
coming ten years have not been exactly fulfilled ; you have
not precisely retired on a competency, because the com
petency retired from you. Indeed, the suddenness with
which your physician compelled you to close up your
business left it closed rather imperfectly, so that most of
the profits are found to have leaked out. You are econo
mizing rather strictly, just now, in respect to everything
but doctors' bills. The maternal Dolorosa is boarding
somewhere in the country, where the children certainly
will not have more indigestible food than they had at
home, and may get less of it in quantity, to say nothing
of more air and exercise to aid digestion. They are not,
however, in perfect condition. The twins are just getting
up from scarlet fever ; Nathaniel has been advised to leave
school for a time; and something is thought to be the
matter with Angelina's back. Meanwhile, you are haunt-
HIGQINSON] A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC. 455
ing water-cures, experimenting on life-pills, holding private
conferences with medical electricians, and thinking of a
trip to the Bermudas.
You are learning, through all this, the sagest maxims
of resignation, and trying to apply them. "Life is hard,
but short," you say ; " Providence is inscrutable ; we must
submit to its mysterious decrees." Would it not be bet
ter, my dear Dolorosus, to say instead, " Life is noble and
immortal; God is good; we must obey his plain laws, or
accept the beneficent penalties" ? The rise and fall of
health are no more accidental than the rise and fall of
indigo ; and it is the duty of those concerned in either
commodity to keep their eyes open, and learn the business
intelligently. Of the three proverbial desiderata, it is as
easy to be healthy as to be wealthy, and much easier than
to be wise, except so far as health and wisdom mean the
same thing. After health, indeed, the other necessaries
of life are very simple, and easily obtained : with moderate
desires, regular employment, a loving home, correct the
ology, the right politics, and a year's subscription to the
"Atlantic Monthly," I have no doubt that life, in this
planet, may be as happy as in any other of the solar
system, not excepting Neptune and the fifty-five aster
oids. . . .
Who can describe the unspeakable refreshment for an
overworked brain, of laying aside all cares and surrender
ing one's self to simple bodily activity? Laying them
aside ! I retract the expression ; they slip off unnoticed. '
You cannot embark care in your wherry ; there is no room
for the odious freight. Care refuses to sit behind the
horseman, despite the Latin sentence ; you leave it among
your garments when you plunge into the river, it rolls
away from the rolling cricket-ball, the first whirl in the
gymnasium disposes of it, and you are left free, as boys
456 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HTGQINRON
and birds are free. If athletic amusements did nothing
for the body, they would still be medicine for the soul.
Nay, it is Plato who says that exercise will almost cure a
guilty conscience ; and can we be indifferent to this, my
fello w- sinner ?
Why will you persist in urging that you " cannot afford"
these indulgences, as you call them? They are not in
dulgences, they are necessaries. Charge them, in your
private account- book, under the heads of food aud cloth
ing, and as a substitute for your present enormous items
under the head of medicine. O mistaken economist ! can
you afford the cessation of labor and the ceaseless drug
ging and douching of your last few years ? Did not all
your large experience in the retail business teach you the
comparative value of the ounce of prevention and the
pound of cure ? Are not fresh air and cold water to be
had cheap ? and is not good bread less costly than cake
and pies? Is not the gymnasium a more economical in
stitution than the hospital ? and is not a pair of skates a
good investment, if it aids you to elude the grasp of the
apothecary? Is the cow Pepsin, on the whole, a more
frugal hobby to ride than a good saddle-horse ? Besides,
if you insist upon pecuniary economy, do begin by econo
mizing on the exercise which you pay others for taking
in your stead, on the corn and pears which you buy in
the market, instead of removing to a suburban house and
raising them yourself, and in the reluctant silver you
pay the Irishman who splits your wood. Or if, suddenly
reversing your line of argument, you plead that this would
impoverish the Irishman, you can at least treat him as
you do the organ-grinder, and pay him an extra fee to go
on to your next neighbor.
Dolorosus, there is something very noble, if you could
but discover it, in a perfect human body. In spite of all
HIGGINSON] A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC. 457
our bemoaning, the physical structure of man displays its
due power and beauty when we consent to give it a fair
chance. On the cheek of every healthy child that plays
in the street, though clouded by all the dirt that ever in-
crusted a young O'Brien or M'Cafferty, there is a glory
of color such as no artist ever painted. I can take you
to-morrow into a circus or a gymnasium, and show you
limbs and attitudes which are worth more study than the
Apollo or the Antinoiis, because they are life, not marble.
How noble were Horatio Greenough's meditations in pres
ence of the despised circus-rider ! " I worship, when I see
this brittle form borne at full speed on the back of a fiery
horse, yet dancing as on the quiet ground, and smiling in
conscious safety." . . .
Do not think me heartless for what I say, or assume
that, because I happen to be healthy myself, I have no
mercy for ill health in others. There are invalids who
are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless heirs of ancestral
disease, or victims of parental folly or sin, those whose
lives are early blighted by maladies that seem as causeless
as they are cureless, or those with whom the world has
dealt so cruelly that all their delicate nature is like sweet
bells jangled, or those whose powers of life are all ex
hausted by unnoticed labors and unseen cares, or those
prematurely old with duties and dangers, heroes of thought
and action, whose very names evoke the passion and the
pride of a hundred thousand hearts. There is a tottering
feebleness of old age, also, nobler than any prime of
strength ; we all know aged men who are floating on, in
stately serenity, towards their last harbor, like Turner's
Old Temeraire, with quiet tides around them, and the
blessed sunset bathing in loveliness all their dying day.
Let human love do its gracious work upon all these ; let
angelic hands of women wait upon their lightest needs,
iv. u 39
458 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
and every voice of salutation be tuned to such a sweet
ness as if it whispered beside a dying mother's bed.
But you, Dolorosus, you, to whom God gave youth and
health, and who might have kept them, the one long and
the other perchance always, but who never loved them,
nor reverenced them, nor cherished them, only coined them
into money till they were all gone, and even the ill-gotten
treasure fell from your debilitated hands, you, who
shunned the sunshine as if it were sin, and called all in
nocent recreation time wasted, you, who stayed under
ground in your gold-mine, like the sightless fishes of the
Mammoth Cave, till you were as blind and unjoyous as
they, what plea have you to make, what shelter to
claim, except that charity which suffereth long and is
kind? We will strive not to withhold it: while there is
life there is hope. At forty, it is said, every man is a fool
or a physician. We will wait and see which vocation you
select as your own, for the broken remnant of your days.
COLUMBUS AT BARCELONA.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
THE letter of Columbus to the Spanish monarchs had
produced the greatest sensation at court. The event he
announced was considered the most extraordinary of their
prosperous reign, and, following so close upon the con
quest of Granada, was pronounced a signal mark of divine
favor for that triumph achieved in the cause of the true
faith. The sovereigns themselves were for a time daz
zled by this sudden and easy acquisition of a new empire,
of indefinite extent and apparently boundless wealth ; and
IRVING] COLUMBUS AT BARCELONA. 459
their first idea was to secure it beyond the reach of dis
pute. Shortly after his arrival in Seville, Columbus
received a letter from them expressing their great de
light, and requesting him to repair immediately to court,
to concert plans for a second and more extensive expedi
tion. As the summer, the time favorable for a voyage,
was approaching, they desired him to make any arrange
ments at Seville or elsewhere that might hasten the
expedition, and to inform them, by the return of the
courier, what was to be done on their part. This letter
was addressed to him by the title of " Don Christopher
Columbus, our Admiral of the ocean sea, and Viceroy
and Governor of the islands discovered in the Indies ;" at
the same time he was promised still further rewards.
Columbus lost no time in complying with the commands
of the sovereigns. He sent a memorandum of the ships,
men, and munitions requisite, and, having made such dis
positions at Seville as circumstances permitted, set out
for Barcelona, taking with him the six Indians, and the
various curiosities and productions brought from the New
World.
The fame of his discovery had resounded throughout
the nation, and, as his route lay through several of the
finest and most populous provinces of Spain, his journey
appeared like the progress of a sovereign. Wherever he
passed, the country poured forth its inhabitants, who
lined the road and thronged the villages. The streets,
windows, and balconies of the towns were filled with
eager spectators, who rent the air with acclamations.
His journey was continually impeded by the multitude
pressing to gain a sight of him and of the Indians, who
were regarded with as much astonishment as if they had
been natives of another planet. It was impossible to
satisfy the craving curiosity which assailed himself and
460 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
his attendants at every stage with innumerable ques
tions; popular rumor, as usual, had exaggerated the
truth, and had filled the newly-found country with all
kinds of wonders.
About the middle of April Columbus arrived at Bar
celona, where every preparation had been made to give
him a solemn and magnificent reception. The beauty and
serenity of the weather in that genial season and favored
climate contributed to give splendor to this memorable
ceremony. As he drew near the place, many of the more
youthful courtiers and hidalgos, together with a vast con
course of the populace, came forth to meet and welcome
him. His entrance into this noble city has been compared
to one of those triumphs which the Eomans were accus
tomed to decree to conquerors. First were paraded the
Indians, painted according to their savage fashion, and
decorated with their national ornaments of gold; after
these were borne various kinds of live parrots, together
with stuffed birds and animals of unknown species, and
rare plants supposed to be of precious qualities ; while
great care was taken to make a conspicuous display of
Indian coronets, bracelets, and other decorations of gold,
which might give an idea of the wealth of the newly-dis
covered regions. After this followed Columbus on horse
back, surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of Spanish
chivalry. The streets were almost impassable from the
countless multitude; the windows and balconies were
crowded with the fair ; the very roofs were covered with
spectators. It seemed as if the public eye could not be
sated with gazing on these trophies of an unknown world,
or on the remarkable man by whom it had been discov
ered. There was a sublimity in this event that mingled
a solemn feeling with the public joy. It was looked upon
as a vast and signal dispensation of Providence in reward
IRVING] COLUMBUS AT BARCELONA. 461
for the piety of the monarchs ; and the majestic and
venerable appearance of the discoverer, so different from
the youth and buoyancy generally expected from roving
enterprise, seemed in harmony with the grandeur and
dignity of his achievement.
To receive him with suitable pomp and distinction, the
sovereigns had ordered their throne to be placed in public,
\inder a rich canopy of brocade of gold, in a vast and
splendid saloon. Here the king and queen awaited his
arrival, seated in state, with the Prince Juan beside them,
and attended by the dignitaries of their court, and the
principal nobility of Castile, Valencia, Catalonia, and
Aragon, all impatient to behold the man who had con
ferred so incalculable a benefit upon the nation. At
length Columbus entered the hall, surrounded by a bril
liant crowd of cavaliers, among whom, says Las Casas, he
was conspicuous for his stately and commanding person,
which, with his countenance rendered venerable by his
gray hairs, gave him the august appearance of a senator
of Rome. A modest smile lighted up his features, show
ing that he enjoyed the state and glory in which he came ,
and certainly nothing could be more deeply moving to a
mind inflamed by noble ambition, and conscious of having
greatly deserved, than these testimonials of the admira
tion and gratitude of a nation, or rather of a world. As
Columbus approached, the sovereigns rose, as if receiving
a person of the highest rank. Bending his knees, he
offered to kiss their hands ; but there was some hesitation
on their part to permit this act of homage. Raising him
in the most gracious manner, they ordered him to seat
himself in their presence ; a rare honor in this proud and
punctilious court.
At their request, he now gave an account of the most
striking events of his voyage, and a description of the
iv. 39*
462 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [IRVING
islands discovered. He displayed specimens of unknown
birds and other animals ; of rare plants of medicinal and
aromatic virtues ; of native gold in dust, in crude masses,
or labored into barbaric ornaments; and, above all, the
natives of these countries, who were objects of intense
and inexhaustible interest. All these he pronounced mere
harbingers of greater discoveries yet to be made, which
would add realms of incalculable wealth to the dominions
of their majesties, and whole nations of proselytes to the
true faith.
When he had finished, the sovereigns sank on their
knees, and, raising their clasped hands to heaven, their
eyes filled with tears of joy and gratitude, poured forth
thanks and praises to God for so great a providence ; all
present followed their example ; a deep and solemn en
thusiasm pervaded that splendid assembly, and prevented
all common acclamations of triumph. The anthem Te
Deum laudamus, chanted by the choir of the royal chapel,
with the accompaniment of instruments, rose in full body
of sacred harmony, bearing up as it were the feelings and
thoughts of the auditors to heaven, " so that," says the
venerable Las Casas, "it seemed as if in that hour they
communicated with celestial delights." Such was the
solemn and pious manner in which the brilliant court of
Spain celebrated this sublime event ; offering up a grateful
tribute of melody and praise, and giving glory to God for
the discovery of another world.
HALLECK] MARCO BOZZARIS. 463
MARCO BOZZARIS.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
[Fitz-Greene Halleck was born in Connecticut in 1790. On his
mother's side he was descended from John Eliot, the "Apostle of the
Indians. ' ' For many years he was employed as a clerk by John Jacob
Astor. His later years were mainly passed in his native town of
Guilford, where he died in 1867. Mr. Halleck attained a high repu
tation among the older rank of American poets for the grace and
sweetness of his diction, and the occasional vivid energy of his verses.
"We quote the poem of " Marco Bozzaris," whose force and spirit place
it among the finest of martial lyrics. His poetical tribute to the
memory of Burns is a beautiful production. His longest poem,
"Fanny," a satire, was exceedingly popular in its day, and passed
through many editions.]
AT midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power :
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror ;
In dreams, his song of triumph heard ;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring,
Then pressed that monarch's throne a king ;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
464 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HALLECR
On old Platsea's day ;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.
An hour passed on the Turk awoke ;
That bright dream was his last ;
He woke to hear his sentries shriek,
" To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek !"
He woke to die 'midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band :
" Strike till the last armed foe expires ;
Strike for your altars and your fires ;
Strike for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land !"
They fought, like brave men, long and well ;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain ;
. They conquered but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won ;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death,
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
HALLECK] MARCO BOZZARIS. 465
For the first time, her first-born's breath ;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
"With banquet-song, and dance, and wine ;
And thou art terrible the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought
Come, in her crowning hour and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men ;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land ;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris ! with the storied brave,
Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
iv. ee
466 BE ST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HALLBCK
Eest thee there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb.
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone.
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed ;
For thee she rings the birthday bells ;
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells ;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed ;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow ;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh ;
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's,
One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.
CHAINING] SELF-CULTURE. 467
SELF-CULTURE.
WILLIAM ELLEEY CHANNING.
SELF-CULTURE is practical, for it proposes as one of its
chief ends to fit us for action, to make us efficient in what
ever we undertake, to train us to firmness of purpose and
fruitfulness of resource in common life, and especially in
emergencies, in times of difficulty, danger, and trial. But,
passing over this and other topics for which I have no
time, I shall confine myself to two branches of self-culture
which have been almost wholly overlooked in the educa
tion of the people, and which ought not to be so slighted.
In looking at our nature, we discover, among its admi
rable endowments, the sense or perception of Beauty. We
see the germ of this in every human being, and there is no
power which admits greater cultivation ; and why should
it not be cherished in all ? It deserves remark, that the
provision for this principle is infinite in the universe.
There is but a very minute portion of the creation which
we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the
body ; but the whole creation may be used to minister to
the sense of beauty. Beauty is an all-pervading presence.
It unfolds in the numberless flowers of the spring. It
waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades
of grass. It haunts the depths of the earth and sea, and
gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone.
^\nd riot only these minute objects, but the ocean, the
mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising
and setting sun, all overflow with beauty. The universe
is its temple ; and those men who are alive to it cannot
lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed
with it on every side. Now, this beauty is so precious,
the enjoyments it gives are so refined and pure, so con-
468 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CHANNINQ
genial with our tenderest and noblest feelings, and so akin
to worship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of
men as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind
to it as if, instead of this fair earth and glorious sky, they
were tenants of a dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to the
world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment.
Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls
lined with the choicest pictures of Eaphael, and every
spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite work
manship, and tha't I were to learn that neither man,
woman, nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of
art, how should I feel their privation ! how should I want
to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and
feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted
their notice ! But every husbandman is living in sight
of the works of a diviner Artist ; and how much would his
existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines
forth in their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expres
sion ! I have spoken only of the beauty of nature, but
how much of this mysterious charm is found in the ele
gant arts, and especially in literature! The best books
have most beauty. The greatest truths are wronged if
not linked with beauty, and they win their way most
surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their
natural and fit attire. Now, no man receives the true cul
ture of a man, in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is
not cherished ; and I know of no condition in life from
which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the
cheapest and most at hand ; and it seems to me to be most
important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to
give a grossness to the mind. From the diffusion of the
sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for
music in modern Germany, we learn that the people at
large may partake of refined gratifications, which have
CHAINING] SELF-CULTURE. 469
hitherto been, thought to be necessarily restricted to a
few.
What beauty is, is a question which the most pene
trating minds have not satisfactorily answered ; nor, were
I able, is this the place for discussing it. But one thing
I would say ; the beauty of the outward creation is inti
mately related to the lovely, grand, interesting attributes
of the soul. It is the emblem or expression of these.
Matter becomes beautiful to us when it seems to lose its
material aspect, its inertness, finiteness, and grossness, and
by the ethereal lightness of its forms and motions seems
to approach spirit ; when it images to us pure and gentle
affections ; when it spreads out into a vastness which is a
shadow of the Infinite ; or when in more awful shapes and
movements it speaks of the Omnipotent. Thus outward
beauty is akin to something deeper and unseen, is the re
flection of spiritual attributes; and of consequence, the
way to see and feel it more and more keenly is to cultivate
those moral, religious, intellectual, and social principles of
which I have already spoken, and which are the glory of
the spiritual nature ; and I name this, that you may see,
what I am anxious to show, the harmony which subsists
among all branches of human culture, or how each for
wards and is aided by all.
There is another power, which each man should cultivate
according to his ability, but which is very much neglected
in the mass of the people, and that is the power of Utter-
ance. A man was not made to shut up his mind in him
self, but to give it voice and exchange it for other minds.
Speech is one of our grand distinctions from the brute.
Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of
thought within us, as in the power of bringing it out. A
man of more than ordinary intellectual vigor may, for
want of expression, be a cipher, without significance, in
rv. 40
470 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LIPPINCOTT
society. And not only does a man influence others, but he
greatly aids his own intellect by giving distinct and forci
ble utterance to his thoughts. We understand ourselves
better, our conceptions grow clearer, by the very effort to
make them clearer to another. Our social rank, too, de
pends a good deal on our power of utterance. The prin
cipal distinction between what are called gentlemen and
the vulgar lies in this, that the latter are awkward in
manners, and are essentially wanting in propriety, clear
ness, grace, and force of utterance. A. man who cannot
open his lips without breaking a rule of grammar, without
showing in his dialect or brogue or uncouth tones his want
of cultivation, or without darkening his meaning by a con
fused, unskilful mode of communication, cannot take the
place to which perhaps his native good sense entitles him.
To have intercourse with respectable people, we must
speak their language. On this account, I am glad that
grammar and a correct pronunciation are taught in the
common schools of this city. These are not trifles ; nor
are they superfluous to any class of people. They give a
man access to social advantages, on which his improvement
very much depends.
The power of utterance should be included by all in
their plans of self-culture.
THE BATHING OF THE BABY.
SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT.
[The writer who, under the pen-name of " Grace Greenwood," be
came, many years ago, favorably known to the reading public of
America, is Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott, born in Pompey, New York, in
1823, and the author of " Greenwood Leaves," " History of My Pets,"
LIPPINCOTT] THE BATHING OF THE BABY. 471
"Poems," li Kecollections of My Childhood," and many other works,
including biographies, travels, and tales. In 1853 she was married to
Leander K. Lippincott, and became editor of a popular juvenile peri
odical, published in Philadelphia, called The Little Pilgrim. We
quote from " Records of Five Years" a favorable instance of her de
scriptive powers, a cheery word-picture of babyhood at its best which
it would be hard to surpass.]
" ANNIE ! Sophie ! come up quick, and see baby in her
bath-tub!" cries a charming little maiden, running down
the wide stairway of an old country house, and half-way
up the long hall, all in a fluttering cloud of pink lawn, her
soft dimpled cheeks tinged with the same lovely morning
hue. In an instant there is a stir and a gush of light
laughter in the drawing-room, and presently, with a move
ment a little more majestic and elder-sisterly, Annie and
Sophie float noiselessly through the hall and up the soft-
carpeted ascent, as though borne on their respective clouds
of blue and white drapery, and take their way to the nur
sery, where a novel entertainment awaits them. It is the
first morning of the eldest married sister's first visit home,
with her first baby, and the first baby, having slept late
after its journey, is about to take its first bath in the old
house.
" Well, I declare, if here isn't mother, forgetting her
dairy, and Cousin Nellie, too, who must have left poor
JSTed all to himself in the garden, lonely and disconso
late, and I am torn from my books, and Sophie from her
flowers, and all for the sake of seeing a nine-months-
old baby kicking about in a bath-tub ! What simpletons
we are !"
Thus Miss Annie, the proude ladye of the family ; hand
some, haughty, with perilous proclivities toward grand
socialistic theories, transcendentalism, and general strong-
mindedness ; pledged by many a saucy vow to a life of
472 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
single dignity and freedom, given to studies artistic,
aesthetic, philosophic, and ethical } a student of Plato, an
absorber of Emerson, an exalter of her sex, a contemner
of its natural enemies.
" Simpletons, are we ?" cries pretty Elinor Lee, aunt of
the baby on the other side, and " Cousin Nellie" by love's
courtesy, now kneeling close by the bath-tub, and receiv
ing on her sunny braids a liberal baptism from the pure,
plashing hands of babyhood, " simpletons, indeed ! Did
I not once see thee, O Pallas Athene, standing rapt before
a copy of the l Crouching Venus'? and this is a sight a
thousand times more beautiful ; for here we have color,
action, radiant life, and such grace as the divinest sculp
tors of Greece were never able to entrance in marble.
Just look at these white, dimpled shoulders, every dimple
holding a tiny, sparkling drop, these rosy, plashing feet
and hands, this laughing, roguish face, these eyes,
bright and blue and deep as lakes of fairy -land, these ears,
like dainty sea-shells, these locks of gold, dripping dia
monds, and tell me what cherub of Titian, what Cupid
of Greuze, was ever half so lovely. I say, too, that Ea-
phael himself would have jumped at the chance of paint
ing Louise, as she sits there, towel in hand, in all the
serene pride and chastened dignity of young maternity,
of painting her as Madonna."
" Why, Cousin Nellie is getting poetical for once, over a
baby in a bath-tub!"
" Well, Sophie, isn't it a subject to inspire real poets, to
call out and yet humble the genius of painters and sculp
tors? Isn't it an object for the reverence of 'a glorious
human creature,' such a pure and perfect form of physi
cal life, such a starry little soul, fresh from the hands of
God ? If your Plato teaches otherwise, Cousin Annie,
I'm glad I've no acquaintance with that distinguished
. LIPPINCOTT] THE BATHING OF THE BABY. 473
heathen gentleman ; if your Carlyle, with his ' soul above
buttons' and babies, would growl, and your Emerson smile
icily at the sight, away with them !"
" Why, Nellie, you goose, Carlyle is ' a man and a brother,'
in spite of his l Latter-Day Pamphlets,' and no ogre. I
believe he is very well disposed toward babies in general ;
while Emerson is as tender as he is great. Have you for
gotten his ' Threnody,' in which the sob of a mortal's sor
row rises and swells into an immortal's psean? I see that
baby is very lovely ; I think that Louise may well be
proud of her. It's a pity that she must grow up into con
ventionalities and all that, perhaps become some man's
plaything, or slave."
"Oh, don't, sister ! < sufficient for the day is the worri-
ment thereof.' But I think you and Nellie are mistaken
about the pride. I am conscious of no such feeling in re
gard to my little Florence, but only of joy, gratitude,
infinite tenderness and solicitude."
Thus the young mother, for the first time speaking,
but not turning her eyes from the bath-tub.
" Ah. coz, it won't go ! Young mothers are the proudest
of living creatures. The sweetest and saintliest among
you have a sort of subdued exultation, a meek assumption,
an adorable insolence, toward the whole unmarried and
childless world. I have never seen anything like it else
where."
" /have, in a bantam Biddy, parading her first brood in
the hen-yard, or a youthful duck, leading her first little
downy flock to the water."
"Ha, blasphemer! are you there?" cries Miss Nellie,
with a bright smile and a brighter blush. Blasphemer's
other name is a tolerably good one, Edward Norton,
though he is oftenest called " our Ned." He is the sole
male representative of a wealthy old New-England family,
TV. 40*
474 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LIPPIXCOTT
the pride and darling of four pretty sisters, " the only
son of his mother, and she a widow," who adores him,
"a likely youth, just twenty-one," handsome, brilliant,
and standing six feet high in his stockings. Yet, in spite
of all these unfavorable circumstances, he is a very good
sort of a fellow. He is just home from the model college
of the Commonwealth, where he learned to smoke, and, I
blush to say, has a cigar in hand at this moment, just as
he has been summoned from the garden by his pet sister,
Kate, half wild with delight and excitement. "With him
comes a brother, according to the law, and after the spirit,
a young, slender, fair-haired man, but with an inde
scribable something of paternal importance about him.
He is the other proprietor of baby, and steps forward
with a laugh and a "Heh, my little water-nymph, my
Iris !" and, by the bath-tub kneeling, catches a moist kiss
from smiling baby lips, and a sudden wilting shower on
shirt-front and collar, from moister baby hands.
Young collegian pauses on the threshold, essaying the
look lofty and sarcastic, for a moment. Then his eye
rests on Nellie Lee's blushing face, on the red, smiling
lips, the braids of gold, sprinkled w r ith shining drops,
meets those sweet, shy eyes, and a sudden, mysterious
feeling, soft and vague and tender, floods his gay young
heart. He looks at baby again. " Tis a pretty sight,
upon my word ! Let me throw away my cigar before I
come nearer: it is incense too profane for such pure rites.
Now give me a peep at Dian the Less ! How the little
witch revels in the water! A small Undine. Jolly,
isn't it, baby ? Why, Louise, I did not know that Floy
was so lovely, such a perfect little creature. How fair
she is ! Why. her flesh, where it is not rosy, is of the
pure, translucent whiteness of a water-lily."
No response to this tribute, for baby has been in the
LIPPINCOTT] THE BATHING OF THE BABY. 475
water more than long enough, and must be taken out,
willy nilly. Decidedly nilly it proves ; baby proceeds to
demonstrate that she is not altogether cherubic, by kick
ing and screaming lustily, and striking out frantically
with her little dripping hands. But Madonna wraps her
in soft linen, rolls her and pats her, till she grows good
and merry again and laughs through her pretty tears.
But the brief storm has been enough to clear the nur
sery of all save grandmamma and Auntie Kate, who draw
nearer to witness the process of drying and dressing.
Tenderly the mother rubs the dainty, soft skin, till every
dimple gives up its last hidden droplet ; then, with many
a kiss, and smile, and coo, she robes the little form in
fairy-like garments of cambric, lace, flannel, soft as a
moth's wing, and delicate embroidery. The small, rest
less feet are caught and encased in comical little hose, and
shod with Titania's own slippers. Then the light golden
locks are brushed and twined into tendril-like curls, and,
lo ! the beautiful labor of love is finished. Baby is bathed
and dressed for the day.
" Well, she is a beauty ! I don't wonder you and Charles
are proud of her. Oh, Louise, if your father could have
seen her ! She is very like our first baby, the one we lost,
at nearly yes, just about her age." Here grandmamma
goes out, tearful, having sped unconscious her Parthian
shaft; while, with a quick sob, which is neither for the
father long dead nor the sister never known, the young
mother clasps her treasure closer, and murmurs, " Oh, my
darling, my love, my sweetest, sweetest one ! stay with
rne always, always ! Oh, I would that I could guard and
shield you from every pain, every grief, make your sweet
life all beauty, love, and joy !"
Baby hardly understands this burst of sensibility, but
the passionate embrace reminds her of something. Sho
476 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LIPPINCOTT
asks and receives. Like a bee on a lily-flower, she clings
to the fair, sweet breast, murmuring contentedly now and
then. Presently the gurgling draughts grow less eager,
the little hands cease to wander restlessly over the smooth,
unmantled neck. , The little head is thrown back, the
blue eyes look with a satisfied smile into the brooding
mother-face.
Next, her lips all moist with the white nectar, baby is
given, with many an anxious injunction, into the eager
arms of Auntie Kate, wbo, followed by a supernumerary
nurse, bears her in triumph down hall and stairway, and
out into a garden all glorious and odorous with a thousand
roses.
Here, on a shawl, gay-colored and soft, spread on the
grass, under an acacia-tree, the little Queen of Hearts is
deposited at last. Here she rolls and tumbles, and sends
out shrill, sweet peals of laughter, as auntie and nurse
pelt her with rose-buds and clover-tufts. Sometimes an
adventurous spirit seizes her; she creeps energetically
beyond shawl-bounds, her little province of Cashmere,
makes a raid into the tall, inviting grass, clutches ruth
lessly at buttercups, breaks into nunneries of pale pansies,
and decapitates whole families of daisies at a grasp.
Sometimes, tired of predatory incursions, she lies on her
back, and listens in a luxurious, lazy ecstasy to the gush
of the fountain and the song of the robin, or watches
the golden butterflies, coming from and going to nobody
knows where, as though they had suddenly bloomed out
of the sunshine and died away into it again.
Away down the garden, in the woodbine arbor, by the
little brook, sit the young collegian and fair Nellie Lee,
talking very low, but very earnestly, on a subject vastly
interesting to them, doubtless, for they seem to have quite
forgotten baby. Yet her presence in the garden hallowa
LIPPINCOTT] THE BATHING OF THE BABY. 477
the very air for them, gives a new joy and beauty to life,
new sweetness to love.
The golden summer morning wears on. Papa is away
with his fishing-rod; mamma sits at a window overlook
ing the garden, embroidering a dainty little robe, and
under her cunning fingers the love of her heart and a
thousand tender thoughts grow slowly into delicate white
shapes of leaf and flower; grandmamma is about her
household duties, the tears of sad memory wiped from
her eyes, and the light of the Christian's calm hope relit
therein ; Annie is in the library with Plato, but unusual
softness lurks about her mouth, and she looks off her book
now and then, and throws about her a strange, wandering
glance, dreamy and tender to sadness ; her sisters are in
the drawing-room at their music, gay as birds ; the lovers
are we know where ; and baby is still under the acacia
tree. But the white lids are beginning to droop a little
heavily over the sweet blue eyes, and she will soon drop
away into baby dream-land.
All nature blooms, and shines, and sounds gently and
lovingly, to humor her delicate senses ; human love the
richest and tenderest is round about her, within reach of
her imperious little voice. God breathes himself into her
little heart through all things, love, light, food, sunshine,
fragrance, and soft airs. All is well within and without
the child, as all should be for all children under the sun ?
for every sinless, helpless little immortal, the like of whom
Christ the Lord took into his tender arms and blessed,
But how is it, dainty baby Floy, with thousands of thy
brothers and sisters, as lovely and innocent as thou ? Are
there not such, to whom human love and care is denied,
to whom nature seems unkind, of whom God seems for
getful, for whom even Christ's blessing is made of no
avail ?
478 BEST AMERICAN A VTHQRS. [PRESCOTI
THE PALACES AND TEMPLES OF THE INCAS.
W. H. PKESCOTT.
[The story told by the conquerors of Peru of the riches and wonders
of the empire of the Incas reads almost like a fairy-tale, and is diffi
cult to credit in all its details, even under the concurrent testimony
of various eye-witnesses. Prescott's "Conquest of Peru" presents a
gracefully-written and carefully-sifted digest of these narratives, and
from this interesting work we extract a description of the lavish adorn
ments of the temples and palaces of that strange realm. The " story
teller" of the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments" has hardly exceeded
in his imaginative fiction the tale of marvels which is given us here as
sober history.]
THE royal palaces were on a magnificent scale, and, far
from being confined to the capital or a few principal towns,
were scattered over all the provinces of their vast empire.
The buildings were low, but covered a wide extent of
ground. Some of the apartments were spacious, but they
were generally small, and had no communication with one
another, except that tbey opened into a common square or
court. The walls were made of blocks of stone of various
sizes, like those described in the fortress of Cuzco, rough-
hewn, but carefully wrought near the line of junction,
which was scarcely visible to the eye. The roofs were of
wood or rushes, which have perished under the rude touch
of time, that has shown more respect for the walls of the
edifices. The whole seems to have been characterized by
solidity and strength, rather than by any attempt at archi
tectural elegance.
But whatever want of elegance there may have been in
the exterior of the imperial dwellings, it was amply com
pensated by the interior, in which all the opulence of the
Peruvian princes was ostentatiously displayed. The sides
of the apartments were thickly studded with gold and
PRESCOTT] PALACES AND TEMPLES OF THE INCAS. 479
silver ornaments. Niches, prepared in the walls, were
filled with images of animals and plants curiously wrought
of the same costly materials ; and even much of the do
mestic furniture, including the utensils devoted to the
most ordinary menial services, displayed the like wanton
magnificence ! With these gorgeous decorations were
mingled richly-colored stuffs of the delicate manufacture
of the Peruvian wool, which were of so beautiful a tex
ture that the Spanish sovereigns, with all the luxuries
of Europe and Asia at their command, did not disdain to
use them. The royal household consisted of a throng of
menials, supplied by the neighboring towns and villages,
which, as in Mexico, were bound to furnish the monarch
with fuel and other necessaries for the consumption of the
palace.
But the favorite residence of the Incas was at Yucay,
about four leagues distant from the capital. In this de
licious valley, locked up within the friendly arms of the
sierra, which sheltered it from the rude breezes of the
east, and refreshed by gushing fountains and streams of
running water, they built the most beautiful of their pal
aces. Here, when wearied with the dust and toil of the
city, they loved to retreat, and solace themselves with the
society of their favorite concubines, wandering amidst
groves and airy gardens, that shed around their soft, in
toxicating odors and lulled the senses to voluptuous re
pose. Here, too, they loved to indulge in the luxury of
their baths, replenished by streams of crystal water which
were conducted through subterraneous silver channels
into basins of gold. The spacious gardens were stocked
with numerous varieties of plants and flowers that grew
without effort in this temperate region of the tropics, while
parterres of a more extraordinary kind were planted by
their side, glowing with the various forms of vegetable
480 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PKESCOTT
life skilfully imitated in gold and silver! Among them
the Indian corn, the most beautiful of American grains, is
particularly commemorated, and the curious workmanship
is noticed with which the golden ear was half disclosed
amidst the broad leaves of silver, and the light tassel of
the same material that floated gracefully from its top.
If this dazzling picture staggers the faith of the reader,
he may reflect that the Peruvian mountains teemed with
gold ; that the natives understood the art of working the
mines, to a considerable extent ; that none of the ore, as
we shall see hereafter, was converted into coin, and that
the whole of it passed into the hands of the sovereign for
his own exclusive benefit, whether for purposes of utility
or ornament. Certain it is that no fact is better attested
by the Conquerors themselves, who had ample means of
information, and no motive for misstatement. The Italian
poets, in their gorgeous pictures of the gardens of Alcina
and Morgana, came nearer the truth than they imagined.
Our surprise, however, may reasonably be excited when
we consider that the wealth displayed by the Peruvian
princes was only that which each had amassed individu
ally for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from
his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces
were abandoned ; all his treasures, except what were em
ployed in his obsequies, his furniture and apparel, were
suffered to remain as he left them, and his mansions, save
one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to
provide himself with eve^thing new for his royal state.
The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul
of the departed monarch would return after a time to
reanimate his body on earth ; and they wished that he
should find everything to which he had been used in life
prepared for his reception.
* * * * *****
PRESCOTT] PALACES AND TEMPLES OF THE INC AS. 481
The worship of the Sun constituted the peculiar care
of the Incas, and was the object of their lavish expendi
ture. The most ancient of the many temples dedicated
to this divinity was in the island of Titicaca, whence the
royal founders of the Peruvian line were said to have
proceeded. From this circumstance, this sanctuary was
held in peculiar veneration. Everything which belonged
to it, even the broad fields of maize which surrounded the
temple and formed part of its domain, imbibed a portion
of its sanctity. The yearly produce was distributed among
the different public magazines, in small quantities to each,
as something that would sanctify the remainder of the
store. Happy was the man who could secure even an ear
of the blessed harvest for his own granary !
But the most renowned of the Peruvian temples, the
pride of the capital, and the wonder of the empire, was
at Cuzco. where, under the munificence of successive sov
ereigns, it had become so enriched that it received the name
of Coricancha, or " the Place of Gold." It consisted of a
principal building and several chapels and inferior edifices,
covering a large extent of ground in the heart of the city,
and completely encompassed by a wall, which, with the
edifices, was all constructed of stone. The work was of
the kind already described in the other public buildings
of the country, and was so finely executed that a Spaniard
who saw it in its glory assures us he could call to mind
only two edifices in Spain which, for their workmanship,
were at all to be compared with it. Yet this substantial
and, in some respects, magnificent structure was thatched
with straw !
The interior of the temple was the most worthy of ad
miration. It was literally a mine of gold. On the west
ern wall was emblazoned a representation of the deity,
consisting of a human countenance looking forth from
IV ._ v" ff 41
482 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PRESCOTT
amidst innumerable rays of light, which emanated from it
in every direction, in the same manner as the sun is often
personified with us. The figure was engraved on a mas
sive plate of gold of enormous dimensions, thickly pow
dered with emeralds and precious stones. It was so situ
ated in front of the great eastern portal that the rays of
the morning sun fell directly upon it at its rising, lighting
up the whole apartment with an effulgence that seemed
more than natural, and which was reflected back from the
golden ornaments with which the walls and ceiling were
everywhere incrusted. Gold, in the figurative language
of the people, was " the tears wept by the sun," and every
part of the interior of the temple glowed with burnished
plates and studs of the precious metal. The cornices
which surrounded the walls of the sanctuary were of the
same costly material ; and a broad belt or frieze of gold,
let into the stone-work, encompassed the whole exterior
of the edifice.
Adjoining the principal structure were several chapels
of smaller dimensions. One of them was consecrated to
the Moon, the deity held next in reverence, as the mother
of the Incas. Her effigy was delineated in the same man
ner as that of the Sun, on a vast plate that nearly covered
one side of the apartment. But this plate, as well as all
the decorations of the building, was of silver, as suited
to the pale, silvery light of the beautiful planet. There
were three other chapels, one of which was dedicated to
the host of Stars, who formed the bright court of the
Sister of the Sun ; another was consecrated to his dread
ministers of vengeance, the Thunder and the Lightning;
and a third, to the Rainbow, whose many-colored arch
spanned the walls of the edifice with hues almost as radi
ant as its own. There were, besides, several other build
ings, or insulated apartments, for the accommodation of
PRESCOTT] PALACES AND TEMPLES OF THE INC AS. 483
the numerous priests who officiated in the services of the
temple.
All the plate, the ornaments, the utensils of every de
scription appropriated to the uses of religion, were of gold
or silver. Twelve immense vases of the latter metal stood
on the floor of the great saloon, filled with grain of the
Indian corn ; the censers for the perfumes, the ewers
which held the water for sacrifice, the pipes which con
ducted it through subterraneous channels into the build
ings, the reservoirs that received it, even the agricultural
implements used in the gardens of the temple, were all of
the same rich materials. The gardens, like those described
belonging to the royal palaces, sparkled with flowers of
gold and silver, and various imitations of the vegetable
kingdom. Animals, also, were to be found there, among
which the llama, with its golden fleece, was most conspic
uous, executed in the same style, and with a degree of
skill which, in this instance, probably, did not surpass the
excellence of the material.
If the reader sees in this fairy picture only the romantic
coloring of some fabulous El Dorado, he must recall what
has been said before in reference to the palaces of the
Incas, and consider that these " Houses of the Sun," as
they were styled, were the common reservoir into which
flowed all the streams of public and private benefaction
throughout the empire. Some of the statements, through
credulity, and others, in the desire .of exciting admiration,
may be greatly exaggerated ; but in the coincidence of
contemporary testimony it is not easy to determine the
exact line which should mark the measure of our scepti
cism. Certain it is that the glowing picture I have given
is warranted by those who saw these buildings in their
pride, or shortly after they had been despoiled by the
cupidity of their countrymen. Many of the costly articles
484 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PETERSON
were buried by the natives, or thrown into the waters of
the rivers and the lakes ; but enough remained to attest
the unprecedented opulence of these religious establish
ments. Such things as were in their nature portable
were speedily removed, to gratify the craving of the Con
querors, who even tore away the solid cornices and frieze
of gold from the great temple, filling the vacant places
with the cheaper, but since it affords no temptation to
avarice more durable, material of plaster. Yet even
thus shorn of their splendor the venerable edifices still
presented an attraction to the spoiler, who found in their
dilapidated walls an inexhaustible quarry for the erection
of other buildings. On the very ground once crowned by
the gorgeous Coricancha rose the stately church of St.
Dominic, one of the most magnificent structures of the
New World. Fields of maize and lucerne now bloom on
the spot which glowed with the golden gardens of the
temple ; and the friar chants his orisons within the con
secrated precincts once occupied by the Children of the
Sun.
ODE FOR DECORATION-DAY.
HENRY PETERSON.
[Henry Peterson, the author from whom we make our present
selection, is a native of Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1818.
For many years he was editor of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post His published poetical works are " The Modern Job," an
original and thoughtful production, and the tragedy of "Caesar," a
finely-conceived dramatic work. He is also the author of " Pember-
ton," a novel of the Kevolutionary era. The poem we give is a grace-
PETERSON] ODE FOR DECORATION-DAY. 485
fully-written tribute to an occasion of growing interest and importance
to the American people.]
BRING flowers to strew again
With fragrant purple rain
Of lilacs, and of roses white and red,
The dwellings of our dead, our glorious dead !
Let the bells ring a solemn funeral chime,
And wild war-music bring anew the time
When they who sleep beneath
Were full of vigorous breath,
And in their lusty manhood sallied forth,
Holding in strong right hand
The fortunes of the land,
The pride and power and safety of the North !
It seems but yesterday
The long and proud array
But yesterday when ev'n the solid rock
Shook as with earthquake shock,
As North and South, like two huge icebergs, ground
Against each other with convulsive bound,
And the whole world stood still
To view the mighty war,
And hear the thunderous roar,
While sheeted lightnings wrapped each plain and hill.
Alas ! how few came back
From battle and from wrack !
Alas ! how many lie
Beneath a Southern sky,
Who never heard the fearful fight was done,
And all they fought for won !
Sweeter, I think, their sleep,
More peaceful and more deep,
iv. 41*
486 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PETERSON
Could they but know their wounds were not in vain,
Could they but hear the grand triumphal strain,
And see their homes unmarred by hostile tread.
Ah I let us trust it is so with our dead,
That they the thrilling joy of triumph feel,
And in that joy disdain the foeman's steel.
We mourn for all, but each doth think of one
More precious to the heart than aught beside,
Some father, brother, husband, or some son,
Who came not back, or, coming, sank and died :
In him the whole sad list is glorified !
" He fell 'fore Richmond, in the seven long days
When battle raged from morn till blood-dewed eve,
And lies there," one pale, widowed mourner says,
And knows not most to triumph or to grieve.
" My boy fell at Fair Oaks," another sighs ;
" And mine at Gettysburg," his neighbor cries,
And that great name each sad-eyed listener thrills.
I think of one who vanished when the press
Of battle surged along the Wilderness,
And mourned the North upon her thousand hills.
gallant brothers of the generous South,
Foes for a day, and brothers for all time,
1 charge you by the memories of our youth,
By Yorktown's field and Montezuma's clime,
Hold our dead sacred ; let them quietly rest
In your unnumbered vales, where God thought best !
Your vines and flowers learned long since to forgive,
And o'er their graves a 'broidered mantle weave ;
Be you as kind as they are, and the word
Shall reach the Northland with each summer bird,
PETERSON] ODE FOR DECORATION-DAY. 487
And thoughts as sweet as summer shall awake
Responsive to your kindness, and shall make
Our peace the peace of brothers once again,
And banish utterly the days of pain.
And ye, O Northmen, be ye not outdone
In generous thought and deed.
We all do need forgiveness, every one ;
And they that give shall find it in their need.
Spare of your flowers to deck the stranger's grave,
Who died for a lost cause :
A soul more daring, resolute, and brave
Ne'er won a world's applause !
(A brave man's hatred pauses at the tomb.)
For him some Southern home was robed in gloom,
Some wife or mother looked with longing eyes
Through the sad days and nights with tears and sighs,
Hope slowly hardening into gaunt Despair.
Then let your foeman's grave remembrance share .
Pity a higher charm to Yalor lends,
And in the realms of Sorrow all are friends.
Yes, bring fresh flowers and strew the soldier's grave,
Whether he proudly lies
Beneath our Northern skies,
Or where the Southern palms their branches wave I
Let the bells toll and wild war-music swell,
And for one day the thought of all the past
Of all those memories vast
Come back and haunt us with its mighty spell !
Bring flowers, then, once again,
And strew with fragrant rain
Of lilacs, and of roses white and red,
The dwellings of our dead.
488 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HEYWOOD
THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE.
J. C. HEYWOOD.
[The following critical analysis of Hawthorne's characteristics as a
literary artist is from Hey wood's " How they Strike Me, These Authors,'
comprising a portion of the essay on Hawthorne in that volume. It
is of interest from its close research into the method by which the
novelist produces his mystical, and frequently startling, effects.]
IN one respect only the intellectual power of Hawthorne
seems to have been unrestrained by any definable limits.
His vocabulary appears boundless. His thoughts, thor
oughly elaborated, are presented to the reader in their ut
most development ; exquisitely shaped, cleanly cut, sharply
defined, wanting nothing. A reader of very quick intel
ligence may, indeed, find this perfectness of expression
somewhat wearisome. He must passively receive the ex
uberant and wholly matured products of his author, fore
going the charm of that kind of co-operation which goes
forward when the reader's reason and imagination are
called upon in some way to consummate the idea begotten
in his mind by the writer's words. Slower apprehensions
and less fruitful fancies, however, obtain only satisfaction
from Hawthorne's fulness of utterance. In reading all his
writings, you will perceive not more than one or two
words that appear like pets, such, for instance, as "im
mitigable ;" and this rather from its rarity in other places
than from its frequency here. From this mastery of
words, this exquisite taste in diction, joined with a keen
sense of euphony and of dulcet rhythm, comes no small
part of this author's great reputation. His thoughts, his
invention, all the operations of his mind, are confined
within certain limits that can be indicated with sufficient
HEYWOOD] THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE. 489
exactness. One of these boundaries lies outside of the
ordinary range of actual and visible nature. The other
is within the sphere of reality, but only comprises so
much of this as may work, or, as an artist would say,
compose harmoniously, with what he takes from beyond.
Or perhaps it would be more exact to allege that he pro
tracts the actual into the unreal so skilfully that no man
can discern where was the bourn between the two. Thus
he produces effects analogous to caricature. Seizing upon
some salient trait of character, he exaggerates it till it
becomes the one feature on which the eye rests, and is an
index of the whole man. He takes care so to mould or
modify the rest of the figure as to avoid even a suggestion
of monstrosity, and to preserve so much of natural and
logical relation between the parts that the individuality
and consistency of the personage so far as indicated shall
remain complete. Generally the most exaggerated feat
ure is the one most distinguished for ugliness, visible
or invisible to common perceptions. With more than a
portrait-painter's eye he discriminates this taint, which
no one even suspected till it was brought into view by his
firm, delicate, hyperbolic brush. When the figure is com
pleted it is so conventionally consistent as a whole that
you are willing to accept it as the genuine man, and to
reject the other, which has hitherto passed current, as a
counterfeit. In working up this conventional consistency
between what was before manifest and what the painter
has added, idealizing the original after his fashion, Haw
thorne shows his greatest artistic skill. Judging from this
alone, you would say he was a consummate artist. This
part of his work certainly has a kind of resemblance to
that of Bunyan ; so it has to that of Swift and De Foe.
It may well be, however, that some parts of a statue
or of a sculptured group may show the results of exqui-
490 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HEYWOOD
Bite manipulation, while tbe whole thing may present
unshapeliness and incongruities. Whether this author's
productions, considered in their entirety, are master-works
of art will be discussed further on. Plainly enough, a
moral rather than an artistic standard was foremost in his
mind. By this foremost standard the plans of his person
ages were laid out ; from it as a base he measured all the
degrees of divergence while calculating the effect v of fol
lowing the line of each ; by it he determined the fate of
all his characters. For characters he composed, men and
women of a semi-transparent kind, whose true qualities
are visible, however degraded, perverted, or deformed ;
who appear as they are, not as they would seem to be.
Extending beyond what should be fleshly limits, their
essences form a sort of spiritual atmosphere about them
which is but a part, a continuation, of themselves ; some
thing as unsubstantial yet as visible as a penumbra, and
holding its relation to the thicker shadows which they
are. For, in a way, the denser portions of them are like
shades. By making their more material forms appear on
the debatable ground between substance and shadow, the
real is more easily and gradually tempered to the unreal,
and an appearance of homogeneity throughout the whole
being is effected.
But do not think that these characters were made simply
for the artistic pleasure of creating. Impracticable as some
of them may seem, they were designed for a practical end.
They are mirrors. Do you not see yourself, or some part
of yourself, in some one or more of them ? Among the ex
aggerated features which characterize each, can you not
discern your own besetting sin drawn out, perhaps mag
nified ? Do you not observe, as never before, how loath
some is hypocrisy, for instance? Can you not now per
ceive, no matter what your blindness hitherto, how in-
HEY WOOD] THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE. 491
evitably any divergence from the moral law leads to
misery and destruction ? how the first step in a wrong
way is fatally followed by a second and a third, and so
on till there is no turning ? Are you not convinced that
indulgence in devilish passions will make you a kind of
devil ? make you feel like one, act like one, look like one ?
and that in the end you will be disappointed, defeated,
punished like one ? And, lest so much of the lesson b
not effective enough, look how you shall be laughed at in
your calamity, and mocked when your fear cometh. Be
hold Judge Pyncheon, for example. Is he not a worthy
man? Does he not sit in honorable places? Has he not
been blessed with wealth and comforts and the respect of
his kind ? Does he not give alms to beggars, and larger
donations to fashionable charities ? Is he not condescend
ing to inferiors, courteous to equals, reverential to supe
riors ? Has not his smile shone like a noonday sun along
the streets or glowed like a household fire in the drawing-
rooms of his private acquaintance ? Is it not a fact that
" neither clergyman nor legal critic, nor inscriber of tomb
stones, nor historian of general or local politics, would
venture a word against this eminent person's sincerity as
a Christian, or respectability as a man, or integrity as a
judge, or courage and faithfulness as the often-tried rep
resentative of his political party"? But we know him
better than do his townsfolk. We have seen beneath that
heavy and reputable-looking mask of flesh. We have
some knowledge of his inmost thoughts, more than we
shall tell, a part of which we shall insinuate, not over-
clearly, though, so that we may keep something enig
matical always before you. Where is the Judge now?
Within a dingy, darkening room in yonder house with the
seven gables. Why does he stay there so long ? The time
appointed for that most important meeting is at hand.
492 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HEYWOOD
The crowning of his ambition depends upon his presence
there. His friends are waiting. Why does he not come
out ? Why does he sit hour after hour in the huge arm
chair with his watch in his hand? Why gazes he so
steadily in the direction of its dial, though the darkness
long since made it invisible ? Ah ! all this you shall know,
but rather dimly, by and by. Wait till we shall have
llughed at him and mocked him and jeered at him and
reviled him through a whole long chapter of some eigh
teen octavo pages. There is mystery about his delay, at
least such mystery as an author can make by exciting
and not gratifying your curiosity. But while your curi
osity is active you will be attentive ; and while you are
attentive we will preach to you, in our own way, however.
To be sure, our way is somewhat like that of a man whose
enemy is at last in his power, and who can now safely wag
his tongue against him. But the sermon is good for all
that, though Judge Pyncheon has not heard a word of it.
At any rate, he has not replied, or changed his posture, or
made a motion even to wipe away the blood-red stain that
from somewhere has come upon his hitherto immaculate
bosom. You may think there is a kind of savagery in
our treatment of this eminent personage ; that our dis
course, while he is so passively sitting there, better befits
a barbaric triumph than a Christian pulpit or the tribu
nal of a moralist. But and now we will partially lift
the mystery note that, at last, we have got the crim
inal, hypocritical Judge down ; at any rate he is down.
He can be hypocritical no more. He is dead; that is all
there was of it ; dead by a rush of blood and apoplexy.
Is there not reason for a triumph ?
The kind of fictitious mystery wrought about and ex
hibited in the case of Judge Pyncheon is one of Haw
thorne's peculiar and his most characteristic means of ex-
HEYWOOD] THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE. 493
citing his reader's imagination, and his own also. The
method is akin to that with which children terrify them
selves and one another. He wraps a sheet about some
personage, makes him hold it aloft with upstretched arms
to give the appearance of ghostly height, causes him to
gibber and squeak. Does not your hair rise and your flesh
creep a little ? His does. Like a child, for the time being
he half believes in the actuality of the phantom he has
pieced out ; and he wins enough of your credence to make
you wonder at it. Then, like a child, he tears up his
work, perhaps derides it ; for he is not without cynicism,
though it is generally held in check by more generous
feelings. Mr. Higginbotham has he been murdered?
Was it really he that passed the toll-gate just now on
horseback ? He did not stop to shake hands and chat a
little as usual ; he gravely nodded, as one who should say,
" Charge my toll," and went on. " ' I never saw a man
look so yellow and thin as the squire does,' continued the
toll-gatherer. ' Says I to myself, to-night, he's more like
a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.'
The peddler strained his eyes through the twilight, and
could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the vil
lage road. He seemed to recognize the rear of Mr. Hig
ginbotham ; but through the evening shadows, and amid
the dust from the horse's feet, the figure appeared dim
and unsubstantial, as if the shape of the mysterious old
man were faintly moulded of darkness and gray light.
Dominicus shivered." You do not quite shiver. Admit,
however, that you are in doubt. Sceptical, according to
reason, you yet dare not positively assert that this figure
is Mr. Higginbotham himself in a sheet woven of dust and
twilight, and not Mr. Higginbotham's ghost ; especially
since you have been told that, wherever he goes, this
gentleman must always be at home by a certain hour,
iv. 42
494 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
Achieving a kind of effect like that which is produced
by supernatural beings, without the actual use of such ex
istences, is this author's most noticeable specialty. His
method of accomplishing it is ingenious. He contrives to
associate with some character a certain feature or quality,
or to subject a personage to some law which superstition
has made for such unearthly entities, or with which it has
endowed them. A ghost must be home at a given time ;
so must Mr. Higginbotham, though, when the truth is
known, it is but to mind his business. Mephistopheles is
sharp-faced and hump-shouldered ; so is Mr. Chillingworth.
Phantoms are dim and not clearly defined ; so is the Spec
tre of the Catacombs. And so on. To be plain about it,
this manner of treatment produces, not mystery, but misti
ness, seen through which objects appear to have unnatural
size or unnatural parts. Clear the fog away, so that their
outlines can be plainly discerned, and they will assume
normal proportions. Or, if you still choose to consider it
a mystery, it is very different from that which Shake
speare and Bunyan created. When Bunyan wished to
make a giant or a fiend, when Shakespeare wished to bring
up a witch or a ghost, they left no chance for a question
as to what the thing was. In their hands enigma took
shape and individuality : it was dramatic. Hawthorne
makes it only theatric. Something analogous to it, as
employed by him, may be seen in places where melo
dramas are represented. Snug, the Joiner, as instructed
by Bottom, burlesqued it : " If you think I come hither as
a lion, it were pity of my life : no, I am no such thing ; 1
am a man as other men are ; and then, indeed, let him
name his name; and tell them plainly he is Snug, the
Joiner." . . .
The strongest bent of Hawthorne's mind was toward
analysis, not synthesis; to study results, not to operate
HEYWOOD] THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE. 495
causes. Even the semi-supernatural additions which he
applies to some of his characters are used as chemists em
ploy certain agents, the more easily and distinctly to effect
a separation of elements, that the base of each particular
compound may be completely eliminated and examined.
Most of his works were produced by processes similar to
those of analytic chemistry. It would appear that during
his somewhat retired and meditative life he never freed
himself from the strong impressions made upon his mind
when a boy by the legends, traditions, and history of his
native town ; and that his method was to revive these im
pressions in all their force by becoming again a little child
in feeling, after a plan which Macaulay prescribes for great
poets, and then to turn them to account with all the ma
tured skill and intellectual power of an experienced man.
Crude matter gathered by the infant was by the adult
passed through an alembic. The result is a kind of quin
tessence. The Black Man in the forest, the night rides,
cackling and gibbering of the witches, the haunting ter
rors of Gallows Hill, the Indians lurking in the shadows
and in the twilight, the prowling wolves, and especially
that wolf's head nailed to the meeting-house, with the
splashes of blood beneath, at thoughts of which, doubt
less, he had often, when a child, drawn the bedclothes
tight over his head, and many other things, all germi
nated in the favoring soil of his imagination and grew
and brought forth raw material for distillation.
Tracing the course and eifect of some moral poison was
his chief study ; warning mankind against it, his liter
ary business. To demonstrate their truth and make his
warnings more impressive, he brings his subjects and
goes through with his prepared experiments before you.
Hester Prynne is contaminated by crime ; Dimmesdale
is tainted by crime and hypocrisy ; Chillingworth is en-
496 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HKYWOOD
venomed by revenge; Judge Pyncheon, by an inherited
virus, breaking out afresh in him ; Miriam, by some shadow
of wrong-doing, and by a momentary consent to felony;
Zenobia, by some great indiscretion ; Hollingsworth, by
one idea, an overruling purpose which, in the name of
charity, makes him most uncharitable ; the Man of Ada
mant, by bigotry; the Seeker for the Great Carbuncle, by
avarice ; and so on. His conscious duty or his most sub
tle pleasure was to make known and elucidate, in a dusky
way, the workings and fatal results of wickedness, the
kind of necessity which springs from wrong-doing, and its
all-pervading blight. He seems ever ready to cry out,
" Woe is unto me if I preach not this gospel !" " Would
that I had a folio to write," he exclaims, " instead of an
article of a dozen pages ! Then might I exemplify how
an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on
every deed we do, and weaves its consequences into an
iron tissue of necessity." "Ah! now I understand," says
Hilda, " how the sins of generations past have created an
atmosphere of sin for those that follow. While there is a
single guilty person in the universe, each innocent one
must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt." . . .
However veiled in allegory,' or varied in expression by
tones of insinuation, innuendo, or irony, this is the burden
of his thought, the theme of his discourse. Doubtless, the
desire to unfold it in a folio spurred him to write his
longer works, the romances. Throughout them all it is
the underlying motive. Running through and with this,
as a kind of obligato accompaniment, is a secondary theme
that has been treated by many, but rarely with more
subtle effect. It is plainly enough indicated by the Italian
organ-grinder and his puppets :
" The Italian turned a crank ; and, behold! every one of
these small individuals started into the most curious activ-
HEYWOOD] THE METHOD OF HAWTHORNE. 497
ity. The cobbler wrought upon a shoe ; the blacksmith
hammered his iron ; the soldier waved his glittering blade ;
the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan ; the jolly toper
swigged lustily at his bottle ; a scholar opened his book,
with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to
and fro along the page ; the milkmaid energetically drained
her cow ; and a miser counted gold into his strong box,
all at the same turning of a crank. Yes, and, moved
by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on
her lips ! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter,
had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we
mortals, whatever our business or amusement, however
serious, however trifling, all dance to one identical tune,
and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing
finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the
affair was that at the cessation of the music everybody was
petrified, at once, from the most extravagant life into dead
torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the
blacksmith's iron shaped out, nor was there a drop less of
brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in
the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's
strong box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book.
All were precisely in the same condition as before they
made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to
enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise. Saddest
of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the
maiden's granted kiss."
Thus, the limitations of his work are distinctly enough
designated. Largely speaking, he wrought upon and
aimed to illustrate but one subject. He was rather one
sided than many-sided. He was like a dark-lantern,
shining only in one direction, and there not so much to
light up space as to make shadows visible. Clearly and
minutely as his individual thoughts are worded, his deeper
IV . gg 42*
498 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HEYWOOD
meaning is not always obvious. He purposely enshrouds
it, or purposely leaves it enshrouded, in mists, as, for ex
ample, in " The Marble Faun." Whether this quality is
the consequence of design or not, he seems, at any rate,
conscious of it, and in one place, at least, suggests an ex
cuse for it : " ' It is true, I have an idea of the character
you endeavor to describe ; but it is rather by dint of my
own thought than your expression.' ' That is unavoid
able,' observed the sculptor, ' because the characteristics
are all negative.' " This quality may be agreeable, even
fascinating, to some persons ; but most readers prefer not
to be left in the dark and forced to guess as to the mean
ing of an author. . . .
Dumas called himself a dramatic poet; Hawthorne
claimed to be a writer of fiction. Both were about
equally near the truth. Hawthorne invented so much
fiction as should serve to illustrate his doctrines ; and he
invented it for that purpose. It held a secondary rank in
his thoughts and in his affections, though it is probable
that he was not aware of the fact. He was, indeed, not
a dramatic poet, not a novelist, not a historian ; he was
a moralist, a philosophic moralist, calling upon history,
fiction, and poetry to illuminate and enforce his tenets.
As an ingenious moral philosopher and essayist, rendering
his teachings impressive by the use of fables more or less
elaborate, he may well take rank with the most elegant
and accomplished writers of his class.
He is emphatically an American author, even in the
common and narrower sense of that phrase. He has em
bellished the legends, traditions, and early history of his
native State, and given to certain places a classical inter
est. He deserved well of his countrymen, and his name
is worthily held in honor among them.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Absalom, Nathaniel Parker Willis,
iv. 96.
Address, Farewell, George Washing
ton, ii. 416.
Advice to Farmers, Horace Greeley,
iii. 116.
After the Ball, Nora Perry, iii. 253.
Air, Twelve Hundred Miles through
the, John Wise, iv. 202.
Alexander Hamilton, Fisher Ames,
iii. 113.
Alleghanies, The Crest of the, Edward
Strahan, iv. 70.
Alone, When the House is, Mary Kyle
Dallas, iv. 177.
Alps, Approaching the, Cornelius C.
Felton, i. 159.
America, Samuel Francis Smith, iv.
125.
America, German Ideas about, John
Ross Browne, iv. 236.
America the Old World, Louis Agassiz,
i. 16.
American Flag, Ode to the, Joseph
Rodman Drake, iv. 126.
American History, The Lessons of,
Gulian C. Verplanck, iv. 384.
American Literature, Aspects of,
Parke Godwin, i. 9.
American Revolution, The, Jared
Sparks, ii. 302.
Among the Hills, Prelude to, John
Greenleaf WhiUier, ii. 181.
Among the Laurels, Elizabeth Akers
Allen, ii. 138.
Ancestors, Our Debt to our, T. D.
Woolsey, ii. 331.
Ancient Chariot-Race, An, Lewis Wal
lace, i. 405.
Andre (Major), The Fate of, Alex
ander Hamilton, iv. 22.
Anecdotes of Thackeray, James T.
Fields, i. 381.
Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe, i. 119.
Anvil, Why I left the, Elihu Burritt,
ii. 326.
Anywhere, M. E. Clarke, iv. 53.
Approaching the Alps, Cornelius C.
Felton, i. 159.
April, Ralph Waldo Emerson, i. 271.
Arabian Civilization in Spain, The,
John W. Draper, i. 328.
Arabian Poetry, Characteristics of,
Henry Coppee, iii. 148.
Arbutus, The Trailing, Rose Terry
[Cooke], i. 433.
Arcady, A Sojourn in, Abba G. Wool-
son, ii. 207.
Arctic Seas, In the, Isaac I. Hayes,
\. 344.
Arctic Travel, Incidents of, Elisha
Kent Kane, iv. 250.
Art of the Future, The, Charles God
frey Leland, iii. 289.
Artist in Whitewash, An, Samuel L.
Clemens, i. 420.
Ascending Ktaadn, Henry David
Thoreau, ii. 39.
Aspasia's, A Banquet at, Lydia Maria
Child, ii. 380.
Aspects of American Literature, Parke
Godwin, i. 9.
Aspects of Nature, Various, iii. 308.
Astonished Gambler, An, Mary N.
Murfree, iii. 214.
Aunt Quimby, Eliza Leslie, ii. 391.
Aurora, A Siberian, George Kennan,
ii. 196.
Autocrat's Opinions, The, Oliver Wen
dell Holmes, i. 487.
Author- Worship, Henry T. Tucker-
man, ii. 142.
Autumn, Richard Henry Stoddard.
i. 278.
499
500
INDEX OF SUBJECTS,
Autumn, Henry W. Longfellow, i.
280.
Autumn Woodlands, In the, Susan
Warner, iv. 88.
Avengers, The Ride of the, Theodore
Winthrop, i. 143.
B.
Baby, Bathing of the, Sara J. Lip-
pincott, iv. 470.
Baby, Measuring the, Emma Alice
Browne, iv. 418.
Baby Bell, Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
ii. 35.
Babylonish Ditty, A, Frederick S.
Cozzens, iv. 323.
Ball, After the, Nora Perry, iii. 253.
Banner, The Star-Spangled, Francis
S. Key, iv. 122.
Banquet at Aspasia's, A, Lydia Maria
Child, ii. 380.
Barcelona, Columbus at, Washington
Irving, iv. 458.
Basking Soul, The, Anonymous, ii.
223.
Bastille, The Storming of the, John
S. G. Abbott, iii. 206.
Bathing of the Baby, The, Sara J.
Lippincott, iv. 470.
Battle-Hymn of the Republic, Julia
Ward Howe, iv. 124.
Bedott, Hezekiah, Mrs. Frances M.
Whitcher, i. 57.
Bedouins, Love-Song of the, Bayard
Taylor, i. 115.
Bee- Hunt, A, Washington Irving, i.
155.
Befogging a Guide, Samuel L. Clem
ens, i. 425.
Betrothed Anew, Ednund Clarence
Stedman, ii. 219.
Betsey and I are Out, Will Carleton,
i. 319.
Bible and the Iliad, The, Francis
Wayland, iii. 484.
Birds and Thoughts, Richard Henry
Stoddard, iii. 127.
Birds, Our Familiar, Mary Treat, iii.
339.
Black Regiment, The, George H.
Boker, iii. 227.
Blessings and Beans, Boston, Sarah
P. Parton, ii. 445.
Blind Preacher, The, William Wirt,
i. 102.
Blue and the Gray, The, Francis M.
Finch, iv. 130.
Bluebells of New England, The,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, i. 436.
Bluebird, The, Alexander Wilson, ii.
201.
Boating down the Grand Canon, W.
H. Eideing, iii. 422.
Body, Care of the, Mrs. Mary Virginia
Terhune, ii. 467.
Books and Reading, Noah Porter, \
394.
Boston Blessings and Beans, Sarah P.
Parton, ii. 445.
Boston Transcendentalism, Mrs. A. D.
T. Whitney, i. 203.
Boyhood Days, Washington Allston,
ii. 219.
Boyhood, Spring-Time and, Donald
G. Mitchell, ii. 475.
Bozzaris, Marco, Fitz- Greene Halleck,
iv. 463.
Braddock's Defeat, Francis Parkman,
i. 439.
Breeches, Little, John Hay, iv. 317.
Brook, The, William B. Wright, iii.
317.
Brushland, Life in, " John Darby," ii.
292.
Bucket, The Old Oaken, Samuel Wood-
worth, iv. 414.
Burning of a Lake Steamer, Robert
Dale Owen, iv. 1 32.
Business Methods, Modern, C. A. Bar-
tol, iii. 414.
By the Sea-Shore, John White Chad-
wick, iii. 436.
C.
Calaveras, The Sheriff of, Bret Harte,
ii. 170.
Canoe, The White Stone, Henry R.
Schoolcraft, i. 458.
Canon (Grand), Boating down the.
W. H. Eideing, iii. 422.
Cape Horn, A Gale off, Eichard Henry
Dana, iv. 35.
Care of the Body, Mrs. Mary Virginia
Terhune, ii. 467.
Centennial Oration, Henry Armitt
Brown, iv. 170.
Chamber, The Secret, Nathaniel Haw
thorne, iii. 156.
Chambered Nautilus, The, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, iii. 130.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
501
Character of Washington, The, Thomas
Jefferson, i. 140.
Characteristics, Newspaper, Fisher
Ames, iii. 110.
Characteristics of Arabian Poetry,
Henry Coppe, iii. 148.
Chariot-Race, An Ancient, Lewis
Wallace, i. 405.
Charles the Bold, Death of, John Fos
ter Kirk, iii. 390.
Chateaux, My, George William Cur
tis, i. 129.
Child, My, John Pierpont, i. 152.
Children, John Neal, iii. 39.
Children, Vagrant, Theodore Parlcer,
i. 193.
China, The Condition of, William H.
Seward, iv. 393.
Classical Learning, The Importance
of, Joseph Story, i. 379.
Clock of Life, The, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, i. 491.
Closing Year, The, George D. Pren
tice, i. 282.
Coffin, Long Tom, James Fenimore
Cooper, i. 302.
Collegiate Examination, Specimen of
a, Francis Hopkinson, iii. 140.
Columbia, Hail, Joseph Hopkinson,
iv. 120.
Columbus at Barcelona, Washington
Irving, iv. 458.
Combat, An Heroic, Washington Ir
ving, i. 502.
Condition of China, The, William H.
Seward, iv. 393.
Conditions of English Thought, The,
George S. Morris, ii. 255.
Conditions of Language - Variation,
Richard Grant White, i. 493.
Conduct of Life, Resolutions for the,
Jonathan Edwards, ii. 147.
Congo, Life and Scenery on the,
Henry M. Stanley, ii. 244.
Connecticut River, The, Mrs, Lydia i
H. Sigourney, iii. 435.
Constitution, The Revision of the,
John Randolph, iv. 103.
Continents, Obliterated, Alexander
Winchell, iii. 55.
Controlling Elements of the Reforma
tion, Charles Porterfield Krauth,
iv. 425.
Conversion, Squire Paine's, Rose
Terry Cooke, iii. 7.
Coral Grove, The, James G. Percival,
iii. 129.
Courtin', The, James Russell Lowell,
ii. 87.
Court, A New England Country, D.
P. Thompson, iv. 401.
Cradle Song, Josiah Gilbert Holland,
iv. 420.
Crest of the Alleghanies, The, Edward
Strahan, iv. 70.
Crocodiles on the St. John's, William
Bartram, ii. 108.
Culprit Fay, The, Joseph Rodman
Drake, ii. 265.
Culture, Self-, William Ellery Chan-
ning, iv. 467.
D.
Daisy Miller, Henry James, iv. 180.
Dancers of the Nile, The, George Wil
liam Curtis, iii. 348.
Day, A, Robert Kelly Weeks, iii.
310.
Deacon Quirk's Opinions, Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps, ii. 503.
Death and the Future Life, Chauncey
Giles, iii. 321.
Death-Bed, The, James Aldrich, ii.
432.
Death of Charles the Bold, John Fos
ter Kirk, iii. 390.
Death of the Flowers, The, William
Cullen Bryant, i. 438.
Death of Washington, Oration on the,
Henry Lee, iii. 256.
Death of the Whale, The, Herman
Melville, iv. 230.
Debt of Religion to Science, The, Minot
J. Savage, iv. 361.
Declaration of Love, A, William D.
Howells, ii. 284.
Decoration-Day, Ode for, Henry Pe
terson, iv. 484.
Deity, The Idea of, 0. B. Frothing-
ham, i. 449.
Depravity (Total) of Inanimate
Things, Mrs. E. A. Walker, iv.
254.
Development of Poetry in America,
Restricted, Edmund Clarence Sted-
man, iii. 183.
Development of Religious Ideas, D.
G. Brinton, iii. 448.
Dialogue between Truth and Peace,
Roger Williams, i. 341.
502
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Disappointed, The, Ella Wheeler Wil-
cox, iv. 61.
Discomfited Hunters, Charles G. Ab
bott, iii. 20.
Discovery of the Mississippi by Mar-
quette, George Bancroft, iv. 105.
Ditty, A Babylonish, Frederick S.
Cozzens, iv. 323.
Dolce Far Niente, Charles G. Halpine,
ii. 222.
Domestic Life in 1800, Samuel 0.
Goodrich, iii. 277.
Don Quixote, George Ticknor, ii. 339.
Drake, Tribute to Joseph Rodman,
Fitz-Greene Halleck, iv. 60.
Drifting, T. Buchanan Read, iii. 92.
Drift-Wood, River, Sarah 0. Jewett,
iv. 110.
Duelling, Instructions in the Art of,
H. H. Brackenridge, iii. 359.
Duke's Plot, The, John Lothrop Mot
ley, i. 121.
Duluth, Speech on, J. Proctor Knott,
i. 107.
Dyspeptic, Letter to a, T. W. Hig-
ginson, iv. 448.
B.
Earthquake, The Terror of the, Mary
Agues Tincker, iii. 489.
Educated Women, Influence of, Ben
jamin Mush, iii. 95.
Education, The Value of, Horace
Mann, i. 313.
Encounter with a Panther, Charles
Brockden Brown, i. 363.
Energy of Youth, The, Edwin P.
Whipple, i. 174.
English Thought, The Conditions of,
George S. Morris, ii. 255.
Eternal Goodness, The, John Green-
leaf Whittier, iii. 500.
Europe, Pedestrianism in, Bayard
Taylor, iii. 69.
Every-Day Wisdom, Benjamin Frank
lin, i. 46.
Evolution, The Theory of, Moncure
D. Conway, iv. 337.
Excursion to Sorrento, George S. Hil-
lard, iy. 409.
F.
Fall of Niagara, John G. C. Brainard,
iii. 312.
Familiar Birds, Our, Mary Treat, iii.
339.
Family Meeting, The, Charles
Sprague, iv. 417.
Famine, The, Henry W. Longfellow,
iv. 243.
Farewell Address, George Washington,
ii. 416.
Farm, How I came to buy a, Bayard
Taylor, i. 228.
Farmers, Advice to, Horace Greeley,
iii. 116.
Fate of Major Andre", The, Alexander
Hamilton, iv. 22.
Faun (The) and the Nymph, Nathan
iel Hawthorne, iv. 371.
Fay, The Culprit, Joseph Rodman
Drake, ii. 265.
Fern, The Petrified, Mary L. Bolles,
iii. 135.
First Impressions of Japan, James
Brooks, iii. 229.
First Revolution of the Heavens wit
nessed by Man, The, Ormsby M.
Mitchel, i. 53.
Flight of Youth, The, Richard Henry
Stoddard, ii. 431.
Flower- Poems, A Garland of, Various,
i. 429.
Flowers, Henry W. Longfellow, i. 430.
Flowers, The Death of the, William
Cullen Bryant, i. 438.
Forest Nook, A, Alfred B. Street, iii.
308.
Forms of Life, Minute, George P.
Marsh, iii. 443.
Forms of the Ordeal, Primitive, Henry
C. Lea, ii. 90.
Freedom of the Will, The, Jonathan
Edwards, ii. 150.
Free Schools, Joseph Story, i. 380.
Frost, The, Hannah F. Gould, i. 281.
Future, The Art of the, Charles G.
Leland, iii. 289.
Future Life, Death and the, Chauncey
Giles, iii. 321.
G.
Gale off" Cape Horn, A, R. H. Dana,
iv. 35.
Gambler, An Astonished, Mary N,
Murfree, iii. 214.
Gardening, The Pleasures of, Charles
Dudley Warner, i. 198.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
503
Garland of Flower-Poems, A, Various,
i. 429.
German Ideas about America, John
Ross Browne, iv. 236.
Gettysburg Oration, Abraham Lincoln,
ii. 188.
Goodness, The Eternal, John Green-
leaf Whittier, iii. 500.
Good-Nights, Two, Anonymous, iv. 55.
Good Old Times, The, Charles Heber
Clark, iv. 76.
Gorge, The Royal, Ernest Ing er soil, i.
244.
Grand Canon, Boating down the, W.
H. Rideing, iii. 422.
Grass, The Voice of the, Sarah Rob
erts, iii. 128.
Gray, The Blue and the, Francis M.
Finch, iv. 130.
Grove, The Coral, J. G. Percival, iii.
129.
Growing Beyond, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, i. 492.
Guide, Befogging a, Samuel L. Clem
ens, i. 425.
Gulf Stream, The, M. F. Maury, iii.
192.
H.
Hadad and Tamar, Interview of, J.
A. Hillhouse, ii. 307.
Hail Columbia, Joseph Hopkinson, iv.
120.
Hamilton, Alexander, Fisher Ames,
iii. 113.
Hannah Binding Shoes, Lucy Larcom,
iv. 422.
Happiness, Ode to, James Russell
Lowell, ii. 217.
Harem, Light of the, Susan E. Wal
lace, ii. 361.
Harvest, The Lady Riberta's, Mar
garet J. Preston, iii. 273.
Hasty Pudding, The, Joel Barlow, i.
186.
Haunted Palace, The, Edgar Allan
Poe, ii. 435.
Hawthorne, The Method of, J. 0,
Hey wood, iv. 488.
Hayne, Reply to, Daniel Webster, i.
210.
Health, A, Edward Coate Pinkney, i.
117.
Heart, The Side- Door to the, Oliver
Wendell ffolmes, i. 490.
Heat and Light of the Sun, The, C. A.
Young, ii. 375.
Hemlocks, In the, John Burroughs, i.
23.
Herculaneum, Pompeii and, William
D. Hoioells, ii. 7.
Heroic Combat, An, Washington Ir
ving, i. 502.
Hezekiah Bedott, Mrs. Frances M.
Whitcher, i. 57.
Higher Tenants, John J. Piatt, iv. 58.
Hills, The Singer's, Helen Hunt Jack
son, iv. 173.
History, The Lessons of American,
Gulian C. Verplanck, iv. 384.
History of Slavery, Review of the,
George Bancroft, ii. 64.
Home Life and Home Sentiment, Va
rious, iv. 413.
Home, Sweet Home, John Howard,
Payne, iv. 413.
Honeysuckle, The Wild, Philip Fre-
neau, i. 432.
Horrors of War, The, Charles Sumner,
iv. 398.
How Betsey and I made up, Will
Carleton, i. 324.
How I came to Buy a Farm, Bayard
Taylor, i. 228.
Humble-Bee, The, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, iii. 132.
Humor, Poems of, Various, iv. 314.
Hunters, Discomfited, Charles C. Ab
bott, iii. 20.
Hurry, No Use being in a, James K.
Paulding, iv. 293.
Hymn to the Types, A, Charles G.
Halpine, iii. 47.
I.
Idea of Deity, The, 0. B. Frothing-
ham, i. 449.
Idyl, A SouttuSea, Charles Warren
Stoddard, iii. 459.
Idyl, A Summer Day's, Louisa M.
Alcott, i. 178.
Iliad, The Bible and the, Francis
Wayland, iii. 484.
Imperishable Memories, Edward
Everett, i. 358.
Importance of Classical Learning,
Joseph Story, i. 379.
Importance of Literary Style, William
Mathews, iv. 213.
504
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Impressions of Japan, First, James
Brooks, iii. 229.
Impressions of Niagara, Margaret
Fuller Ossoli, ii. 47.'
Inanimate Things, Total Depravity
of, Mrs. E. A. Walker, iv. 254.
Inaugural Address, Second, Abraham
Lincoln, ii. 185.
Incas, The Palaces and Temples of the,
William H. Prescott, iv. 478.
Incidents of Arctic Travel, Elisha
Kent Kane, iv. 250.
India, A Tiger-Hunt in, W. T. Hor-
naday, iv. 304.
Indians, The, Joseph Story, i. 376.
Infancy, The Meaning of, John Fiske,
i. 254.
Influence of Educated Women, Benja
min Rush, iii. 95.
Inside Plum Island, Harriet Prescott
Spojford, iii. 440.
Instructions in the Art of Duelling,
H. H. Brackenridge, iii. 359.
Insubordination, Military, Henry
Clay, i. 463.
Interview of Hadad and Tamar, J. A.
Hillhouse, ii. 307.
In the Arctic Seas, Isaac I. Hayes, i.
344.
In the Autumn Woodlands, Susan
Warner, iv. 88.
In the Depths of the Mine, Mary
Hallock Foote, iii. 299.
In the Hemlocks, John Burroughs, i.
23.
J.
Jack and Gill; A Criticism, Joseph
Dennie, iii. 247.
Japan, First Impressions of, James
Brooks, iii. 229.
Josiah Allen's Wife calls on the Presi
dent, Marietta Holley, ii. 494.
Journey to Palmyra, The, William
Ware, i. 67.
June, Elizabeth Akers [Allen'], i. 273.
June, James Russell Lowell, i. 274.
Keimer's Attempt to found a New
Religion, Mason L. Weems, iii. 237.
Kentucky Belle, Constance F. Wool-
son, i. 73.
King, A, Edgar Fawcett, iv. 51.
Kit Carson's Ride, Joaquin Miller, ii.
346.
Ktaadn, Ascending, Henry David
Thoreau, ii. 39.
L.
Lahor in the Middle Ages, Charles J.
Stille, iv. 329.
Labor is Worship, Frances Sargent
Osgood, iv. 423.
Lady Riberta's Harvest, The, Mar*
garet J. Preston, iii. 273.
La Fayette, Oration on, Charles Sum-
ner, iii. 43.
Land Fever, The, Caroline M. KirJz-
land, i. 31.
Land-Taxation, The Theory of, Henry
George, iv. 63.
Language, The Origin of, W. D. Whit
ney, ii. 272.
Language-Variation, Conditions of,
Richard Grant White, i. 493.
Laurels, Among the, Elizabeth Akers
Allen, ii. 138.
Lawson (Sam), the Village Do-Noth
ing, Harriet Beecher Stowe, ii. 74.
Lawyer, Outwitting a, Josiah Gilbert
Holland, ii. 312.
Lee, Annabel, Edgar Allan Poe, i.
119.
Lessons of American History, The,
Gulian C. Verplanck, iv. 38'4.
Letter, The Purloined, Edgar Allan
Poe, i. 85.
Letter to a Dyspeptic, T. W. Higgin-
son, iv. 448.
Life and its Mysteries, Sarah P. Par-
ton, ii. 449.
Life and Scenery on the Congo, Henry
M. Stanley, ii. 244.
Life at Threescore and Ten, Albert
Barnes, iv. 289.
Life (Home) and Home Sentiment,
Various, iv. 413.
Life in Brushland, " John Darby," ii.
292.
Life in 1800, Domestic, Samuel G.
Goodrich, iii. 277.
Life in Nature, Various, iii. 123.
Life in Philadelphia in 1800, John B.
McMaster, ii. 115.
Life, Minute Forms of, George P.
Marsh, iii. 443.
Life, The Clock of, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, i. 491.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
505
Light of the Harem, The, Susan E.
Wallace, ii. 361.
Lincoln, Robert of, William Cullen
Bryant, Hi. 123.
Lines, Through the, George W. Cable,
ii. 351.
Lines for an Album, to accompany an
Urn, Anonymous, iv. 55.
Literary Style, Importance of, William
Mathews, iv. 213.
Literature, Aspects of American,
Parks Godwin, i. 9.
Literature in America, Progress and
Prospects of, Rufus Wilmot Gris-
wold, ii. 99.
Little Breeches, John Hay, iv. 317.
Long Tom Coffin, James Fenimore
Cooper, i. 302.
Love, A Declaration of, William D.
Howells, ii. 284.
Love of Trees, The, Henry Ward
Beecher, i. 79.
Love-Song from the Persian, Thomas
Bailey Aldrich, i. 117.
Love-Song of the Bedouins, Bayard
Taylor, i. 115.
Love's Young Dream, Various, i. 115.
M.
MacBride, The Proud Miss, John G.
Saxe, iv. 388.
Maiden (The) and the Rattlesnake,
William Gilmore Simms, ii. 163.
Man in the Reservoir, The, Charles
Fenno Hoffman, iv. 262.
Man, The Wants of, John Quincy
Adams, iii. 364.
Man without a Country, The, Edward
Everett Hale, iii. 467.
Marco Bozzaris, Fitz- Greene Halleck,
iv. 463.
Marquette, Discovery of the Missis
sippi by, George Bancroft, iv. 105.
Mary's Bee, James Nack, iv. 316.
Master, Spelling down the, Edward
E<j</le8ton, iv. 345.
May,' Helen Hunt [Jackson], i. 271.
May, James G. Percival, i. 272.
Meaning of Infancy, The, John Fiske,
i. 254.
Measuring the Baby, Emma Alice
Browne, iv. 418.
Mediaeval Armor, Cornelius C. Felt on,
i. 162.
Memories, Imperishable, Edward
Everett, i. 358.
Method of Hawthorne, The, J. C.
Heywood, iv. 488.
Middle Ages, Labor in the, Charles J.
Stille, iv. 329.
Military Insubordination, Henry Clay,
i. 463.
Miller, Daisy, Henry James, iv. 180.
Mill-Pond, The Moon in the, Joel
Chandler Harris, ii. 238.
Mine, In the Depths of the, Mary
Hallock Foote, iii. 299.
Mine-Explosion, A, Frances Hodgson
Burnett, iii. 504.
Minute Forms of Life, George P.
Marsh, iii. 443.
Miss MacBride, The Proud, John G.
Saxe, iv. 388.
Mocking-Bird, The, John James Au-
dubon, i. 285.
Mocking-Bird, To the, Albert Pike f
iii. 125.
Modern Business Methods, C. A. Bar
tol, iii. 414.
Monarch of Tezcuco, The, William H.
Prescott, i. 164.
Moon in the Mill-Pond, The, Joel
Chandler Harris, ii. 238.
Mound-Builders, The, Anonymous, iv-
272.
Mount Washington, Sunrise from,
Enfut Dawes, iii. 316.
Music, My Notion of, Sarah P. Par-
ton, ii. 442.
Music, Unwritten, Nathaniel Parker
Willis, iv. 284.
My Chateaux, George William Curtis,
i. 129.
My Child, John Pierpont, i. 152.
My Notion of Music, Sarah P. Par-
ton, ii. 442.
My Ships at Sea, R. B. Coffin, iii.
441.
My Strawberry, Helen Hunt [Jack-
on], iii. 134.
N.
Nancy Blynn's Lovers, /. T. Trow-
bridye, ii. 18.
Nature, Aspects of, Various, iii. 308.
Nature, Life in, Various, iii. 123.
Nautilus, The Chambered, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, iii. 130.
506
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Nearer Home, Phcebe Gary, ii. 433.
New England, The Sabbath in, G. M.
Sedgwick, iv. 100.
New England Country Court, A, D. P.
Thompson, iv. 401.
New England Weather, Samuel L.
Clemens, iii. 400.
Newport Romance, A, Bret Harte, iv.
358.
New Religion, Keimer's Attempt to
found a, Mason L. Weems, iii. 237.
Newspaper Characteristics, Fisher
Ames, iii. 110.
Niagara, Fall of, John G. C. Brainard,
iii. 312.
Niagara, Impressions of, Margaret
Fuller Ossoli, ii. 47.
Night, A Pretty Time of, Joseph C.
Neal, iii. 330.
Nile, The Dancers of the, George
William Curtis, iii. 348.
Nfmes, Roman Antiquities at, Henry
James, i. 237.
Notch of the White Mountains, The,
Timothy Dwight, ii. 483.
Nothing to Wear, William Archer
Butler, iv. 326.
No Use being in a Hurry, James
Kirke Paulding, iv. 293.
Novel-Writing before Waverley, R.
Shelton Mackenzie, iii. 173.
Nymph, The Faun and the, Nathan
iel Hawthorne, iv. 371.
O.
Obliterated Continents, Alexander
Winchell, iii. 55.
Ocean, Song of the, Anonymous, iii.
438.
Ocklawaha (The) in May, Sidney
Lanier, iv. 190.
Ode for Decoration-Day, Henry Peter
son, iv. 484.
Ode to the American Flag, Joseph
Rodman Drake, iv. 126.
Old Grimes, Albert G. Greene, iv.
314.
Old Oaken Bucket, The, Samuel
Woodworth, iv. 414.
Old Roads and Wood-Paths, Wilson
Flagg, iii. 404.
Old-Time Virginia Race-Course, An,
John Evten Cooke, iv. 435.
Old Virginia, James Parton, i. 261.
On Whitewashing, Francis Hopkin-
son, iii. 144.
Opinions, Deacon Quirk's, Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps, ii. 503.
Oration, Centennial, Henry Armitt
Brown, iv. 170.
Oration on the Death of Washington,
Henry Lee, iii. 256.
Oration on La Fayette, Charles Sum-
ner, iii. 43.
Ordeal, Primitive Forms of the, Henry
C. Lea, ii. 90.
Origin of Language, The, W. D. Whit
ney, ii. 272.
Originality, Quotation and, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, i. 291.
Our Debt to our Ancestors, T. D.
Woolsey, ii. 331.
Our Familiar Birds, Mary Treat, iii.
339.
Outgrown, Julia C. R. Dorr, iv. 56.
Outwitting a Lawyer, J. G. Holland,
ii. 312.
Owl-Critic, The, James T. Fields, ii.
388.
P.
Palace, The Haunted, Edgar Allan
Poe, ii. 435.
Palace- Car, A Ride in a, Helen Hunt
Jackson, i. 467.
Palaces and Temples of the Incas,
William H. Prescott, iv. 478.
Palmyra, The Journey to, William
Ware, i. 67.
Panther, Encounter with a, Charles
Brockden Brown, i. 363.
Paradise Plantation, Louise Seymour
Houghton, iv. 156.
Parisian " Pension," The, John San
derson, iv. 19.
Parties, Political, De Witt Clinton, iii.
51.
Patriotic Songs, Various, iv. 119.
Pedestrianism in Europe, Bayard
Taylor, iii. 69.
Perdita, Anonymous, ii. 433.
Persian, A Love-Song from the,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, i. 117.
Petrified Fern, The, Mary L. Bolles,
iii. 135.
Philadelphia in 1800, Life in, JoTir.
B. McMaster, ii. 115.
Philosopher Toad, The, Mrs. R. S.
Nichols, iv. 319.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
507
Plain Language from Truthful James,
Bret Harte, iv. 321.
Pleasures of Gardening, The, Charles
Dudley Warner, i. 198.
Plot, The Duke's, John Lothrop Mot
ley, i. 121.
Plum Island, Inside, Harriet Prescott
Spofford, iii. 440.
Poe, T. W. Higginson, ii. 57.
Poems of Humor, Various, iv. 314.
Poems of Thought and Sympathy,
Variou^, iv. 49.
Political Parties, De Witt Clinton, iii.
51.
Pompeii and Herculaneum, William
D. Howellt, ii. 7.
Pomp's Religious Experience, Anony
mous, ii. 437.
Preacher, The Blind, William Win,
i. 102.
Pretty Time of Night, A, Joseph C.
Neal, iii. 330.
Primitive Forms of the Ordeal, Henry
C. Lea, ii. 90.
Progress and Prospects of Literature
in America, Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
ii. 99.
Proud Miss MacBride, The, John G.
Saxe, iv. 388.
Pudding, The Hasty, Joel Barlow, i.
186.
Purloined Letter, The, Edgar Allan
Poe, i. 85.
Q.
Quotation and Originality, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, i. 291.
K.
Race-Course, An Old-Time Virginia,
John Esten Cooke, iv. 435.
Rain, The, Anonymous, iii. 320.
Rattlesnake, The Maiden and the,
William Gilmore Simms, ii. 163.
Reading, Books and, Noah Porter, i.
394.
Reception, A Western, Frances C.
Baylor, iii. 80.
Redwood-Tree, Song of the, Walt
Whitman, ii. 489.
Reformation, Controlling Elements of
the, Charles Porterfteld Krauth, iv.
425.
Regiment, The Black, George H.
Bolter, iii. 227.
Released, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, iv.
52.
Religion in its Relations to Litera
ture, William Ellery Channing, iii.
260.
Religious Experience, Jonathan Ed
wards, ii. 146.
Religious Experience, Pomp's, Anony
mous, ii. 437.
Religious Ideas, Development of, D.
G. Brinton, iii. 448.
Reply to Hayne, Daniel Webster, i.
210.
Republic, Battle-Hymn of the, Julia
Ward Howe, iv. 124.
Reservoir, The Man in the, Charles
Fenno Hoffman, iv. 262.
Resignation, Henry W. Longfellow, ii.
431.
Resolutions for the Conduct of Life,
Jonathan Edwards, ii. 147.
Restricted Development of Poetry in
America, Edmund Clarence Sted-
man, iii. 183.
Review of the History of Slavery,
George Bancroft, ii. 64.
Revision of the Constitution, The,
John Randolph, iv. 103.
Revolution, The American, Jared
Sparks, ii. 302.
Revolving Seasons, The, Various, i.
271.
Rhodora, The, Ralph Waldo Emer
son, i. 437.
Rhoecus, James JRussell Lowell, i. 41.
Riberta's Harvest, The Lady, Mar
garet J. Preston, iii. 273.
Ride, A Terrible, A Ibion W. Tourgee,
iii. 100.
Ride in a Palace-Car, A, Helen Hunt
Jackson, i. 467.
Ride of the Avengers, The, Theodore
Winthrop, i. 143.
River Drift- Wood, Sarah 0. Jewett,
iv. 110.
Rivulet, The, William Cullen Bryant,
iii. 433.
Rivulet (The), the River, and the
Ocean, Various, iii. 433.
Roads (Old) and Wood- Paths, Wilson
Flagg, iii. 404.
Robert of Lincoln, William Cullen
Bryant, iii. 123.
Roman Antiquities at Nfmes, Henry
James, i. 237.
508
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Romance, A Newport, Bret Harte, iv.
358.
Royal Gorge, The, Ernest Ingersoll, i.
244.
Royal Seat, A, Eugene Benson, iii.
372.
Ruins of Uxmal, The, Felix L. Os
wald, ii. 451.
Ruse, A Successful, John P. Kennedy,
ii. 226.
S.
Sabbath in New England, The, G.
M. Sedgwick, iv. 100.
Sam Lawson, the Village Do-Nothing,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, ii. 74.
Science, The Debt of Religion to, M.
J. Savage, iv. 361.
Sea-Shore, By the, John White Chad-
wick, iii. 436.
Seasons, The Revolving, Various, i.
271.
Seat, A Royal, Eugene Benson, iii.
372.
Second Inaugural Address, Abraham
Lincoln, ii. 185.
Secret Chamber, The, Nathaniel Haw
thorne, iii. 156.
Seeds and Swine, Frederick S. Coz-
zens, ii. 129.
Self- Culture, William. Ellery Chan-
ning, iv. 467.
Seneca Lake, To, James G. Percival,
iii. 313.
Shadow and Grief, Various, ii. 431.
Shakespeare Ode, Charles Sprague,
iii. 167.
Sheridan's Ride, T. Buchanan Read,
iv. 128.
Sheriff of Calaveras, The, Bret Harte,
ii. 170.
Ships at Sea, My, R. B. Coffin, iii.
Siberia, Winter Life and Scenery in,
George Kennan, ii. 189.
Siberian Aurora, A, George Kennan,
ii. 196.
Side-Door to the Heart, The, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, i. 490.
Singer's Hills, The, Helen Hunt Jack
son, iv. 173.
Sky, The, Richard Henry Stoddard,
iii. 313.
Slavery, Review of the History of,
George Bancroft, ii. 64.
Snow-Storm, The, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, i. 280.
Sojourn in Arcady, A, Abba G. Wool-
son, ii. 207.
Song of the Ocean, Anonymous, iii.
438.
Song of the Redwood-Tree, Walt
Whitman, ii. 489.
Songs of the Troubadours, The, Harriet
W. Preston, iv. 224.
Sonnets, Various, iii. 32.
Sorrento, Excursion to, George S. Hil-
lard, iv. 409.
Soul, The Basking, Anonymous, ii.
223.
Souls, The Times that tried Men's,
Thomas Paine, ii. 152.
South-Sea Idyl, A, Charles Warren
Stoddard, iii. 459.
Spain, The Arabian Civilization in,
John W. Draper, i. 328.
Specimen of a Collegiate Examination,
Francis Hopkinson, iii. 140.
Speech on Duluth, /. Proctor Knott,
i. 107.
Spelling down the Master, Edward
Eggleston, iv. 345.
Spring-Time and Boyhood, Donald G.
Mitchell, ii. 475.
Squire Paine's Conversion, Rose Terry
Cooke, iii. 7.
Star-Spangled Banner, The, Francis
S. Key, iv. 122.
Steamer, Burning of a Lake, Robert
Dale Owen, iv. 132.
Storming of the Bastille, The, John S.
C. Abbott, iii. 206.
Strawberry, My, Helen Hunt [Jack
son}, iii. 134.
Successful Ruse, A, John P. Kennedy,
ii. 226.
Summer, Edith May, i. 276.
Summer, Rose Terry [Cooke}, i. 277.
Summer Day's Idyl, A, Louisa M.
Alcott, i. 178.
Sun, Heat and Light of the, C. A.
Young, ii. 375.
Sunday Morning in Wallencamp, Sal-
lie Pratt McLean, iii. 264.
Sunnyside, A Visit to, James Grant
Wilson, iii. 283.
Sunrise from Mount Washington,
Rufus Dawes, iii. 316.
Sunshine, Anonymous, ii. 224.
Sunshine and Hope, Various, ii. 217.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
509
Sweet Home, JoJin Howard Payne, iv.
413.
Symphony, Sidney Lanier, i. 479.
T.
Tenants, Higher, John J. Piatt, iv. 58.
Terrible Ride, A., Albion W. Tourgee,
iii. 100.
Terror of the Earthquake, The, Mary
Agnes Tincker, iii. 489.
Tezcuco, The Monarch of, William H.
Prescott, i. 164.
Thackeray, Anecdotes of, James T.
Fields, i. 381.
Thanatopsis, William Cullen Bryant,
i. 215.
Thanksgiving, Alice Gary, i. 368.
Theory of Evolution, The, Moncure
D. Gonway, iv. 337.
Theory of Land-Taxation, Henry
George, iv. 63.
Thought, G. P. Cranch, iv. 49.
Thought, Helen Hunt Jackson, iv. 49.
Thought and Sympathy, Poerns of,
Various, iv. 49.
Thoughts, Birds and, Richard Henry
Stoddard, iii. 127.
Threescore and Ten, Life at, Albert
Barnes, iv. 289.
Through the Lines, George W, Cable,
ii. 351.
Tiger-Hunt in India, A, W. T. Horna-
day, iv. 304.
Time, The Use of, James Freeman
Clarke, i. 218.
Times that tried Men's Souls, The,
Thomas Paine, ii. 152.
Times, The Good Old, Charles Heber
Clark, iv. 76.
Toad, The Philosopher, Mrs. R. S.
Nichols, iv. 319.
Toast, The, Mary Kyle Dallas, ii.
221.
Tommy, Mary A. Dodge, ii. 407.
To Seneca Lake, James G. Percival,
iii. 313.
To the Mocking-Bird, Albert Pike,
iii. 125.
Total Depravity of Inanimate Things,
Mrs. E. A. Walker, iv. 254.
Trailing Arbutus, The, Rose Terry
[Cooke], i. 433.
Traitor Discomfited, A, Francis M.
Crawford, iii. 379.
Transcendentalism, Boston, Mrs. A.
D. T. Whitney, i. 203.
Trees, The Love of, Henry Ward
Beecher, i. 79.
Tribute to Joseph Rodman Drake,
Fitz-Greene Halleck, iv. 60.
Troubadours, The Songs of the, Harriet
W. Preston, iv. 224.
Truth and Falsehood, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, i. 489.
Truth and Peace, Dialogue between,
Roger Williams, i. 341.
Truthful James, Plain Language from,
Bret Harte, iv. 321.
Twelve Hundred Miles through the
Air, John Wise, iv. 202.
Twilight, Isaac McLellan, iii. 314.
Two Good-Nights, Anonymous, iv.
55.
Types, A Hymn to the, Charles G.
Halpine, iii. 47.
U.
Understone World, The, Oliver Wen
dell Holmes, i. 487.
Unknown Acquaintances, Sarah P.
Parton, ii. 446.
Unwritten Music, Nathaniel Parker
Willis, iv. 284.
Urn, Lines for an Album, to accompany
an, Anonymous, iv. 55.
Use of Time, The, James Freeman
Clarke, i. 218.
Uxmal, The Ruins of, Felix L. Oswald,
ii. 451.
V.
Vagabonds, The, J. T. Troicbridge y
iii. 480.
Vagrant Children, Theodore Parker,
i. 193.
Value of Education, The, Horace
Mann, i. 313.
Vesta, Edgar Fawcett, iv. 320.
Violet, A, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney,
i. 435.
Violet, The, W. W. Story, i. 434.
Virginia, Old, James Parton, i. 261.
Virginia Race-Course, An Old-Time,
John Esten Cooke, iv. 435.
Visit to Sunnyside, A, James Grant
Wilson, iii. 283.
Voice of the Grass, The, Sarah Rob
erts, iii. 128.
43*
510
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Voiceless, The, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, ii. 434.
W.
Wallencamp, Sunday Morning in,
Sallie Pratt McLean, iii. 264.
Wants of Man, The, John Quincy
Adams, iii. 364.
War, The Horrors of, Charles Sumner,
iv. 398.
Warning, A, John Greenleaf Whittier,
i. 120.
Washington, Theodore Parker, iv. 45.
Washington, Oration on the Death of,
Henry Lee, iii. 256.
Washington Resigns his Commission,
David Ramsay, iii. 137.
Washington, The Character of, Thomas
Jefferson, i. 140.
Waverley, Novel- Writing before, R.
Shelton Mackenzie, iii. 173.
Weather, New England, Samuel L.
Clemens, iii. 400.
Western Reception, A, Frances C.
Baylor, iii. 80.
Whale, The Death of the, Herman
Melville, iv. 230.
When the House is Alone, Mary Kyle
Dallas, iv. 177.
White Mountains, The Notch of the,
Timothy Dwight, ii. 483.
White Stone Canoe, The, Henry R.
Schoolcraft, i. 458.
Whitewash, An Artist in, Samuel L.
Clemens, i. 420.
Whitewashing, On, Francis Hopkin-
aon, iii. 144.
Why I left the Anvil, Elihu Burritt,
ii. 326.
Wild Honeysuckle, The, Philip Fre-
neau, i. 432.
Will, The Freedom of the, Jonathan
Edwards, ii. 150.
Wine-Cup. The, Charles Fenno Hoff
man, ii. 220.
Winter Life and Scenery in Siberia,
George Kennan, ii. 189.
Winter Pleasures, E. H. Rollins, ii.
420.
Wisdom, Every-Day, Benjamin
Franklin, i. 46.
Wisdom, Words of, James A. Garfield,
iv. 148.
Women, Influence of Educated, Ben
jamin Rush, iii. 95.
Woodman, Spare that Tree, George
P. Morris, iv. 415.
Wood- Paths, Old Roads and, Wilson
Flagrj, iii. 404.
Wood-Thrush, The, John James Audu-
bon, i. 288.
Words of Wisdom, James A. Gar field,
iv. 148.
Worship, Labor is, Frances Sargent
Osgood, iv. 423.
Y.
Tear, The Closing, Georqe D. Prentice,
i. 282.
Yosemite Valley, The, Fitzhugh Lud-
low, iv. 7.
Youth, The Energy of, Edwin P.
Whipple, i. 174. "
Youth, The Flight of, Richard Henry
Stoddard, ii. 431.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
A.
ABBOTT, CHARLES C., Discomfited
Hunters, iii. 20.
ABBOTT, JOHN S. C., The Storming of
the Bastille, iii. 206.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, The Wants of
Man, iii. 364.
AGASSIZ, Louis, America the Old
World, i. 16.
AKERS [ALLEN], ELIZABETH, June, i.
273 j Among the Laurels, ii. 138.
ALCOTT, LOUISA M., A Summer Day's
Idyl, i. 178.
ALDRICH, JAMES, The Death-Bed, ii.
432.
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY, A Love-
Song from the Persian, i. 117; The
Bluebells of New England, i. 436 ;
Baby Bell, ii. 35.
ALLSTON, WASHINGTON, Boyhood Days,
ii. 219.
AMES, FISHER, Newspaper Character
istics, iii. 110; Alexander Hamil
ton, iii. 113.
ANONYMOUS, The Basking Soul, ii. 223 ;
Sunshine, ii. 224 ; Perdita, ii. 433 ;
Pomp's Religious Experience, ii.
437 ; The Rain, iii. 320 ; Song of
the Ocean, iii. 438; Two Good-
Nights, iv. 55; Lines for an Album,
to accompany an Urn, iv. 55 ; The
Mound-Builders, iv. 272.
AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES, The Mocking-
Bird, i. 285 ; The Wood-Thrush, i.
288.
B.
BANCROFT, GEORGE, Review of the
History of Slavery, ii. 64; Dis
covery of the Mississippi by Mar-
quette, iv. 105.
BARLOW, JOEL, The Hasty Pudding,
i. 186.
BARNES, ALBERT, Life at Threescore
and Ten, iv. 289.
BARTOL, CYRUS AUGUSTUS, Modern
Business Methods, iii. 414.
BARTRAM, WILLIAM, Crocodiles on the
St. John's, ii. 108.
BAYLOR, FRANCES C., A Western Re
ception, iii. 80.
BEECHKR, HENRY WARD, The Love of
Trees, i. 79.
BENSON, EUGENE, A Royal Seat, iii.
372.
BOKER, GEORGE H., The Black Regi
ment, iii. 227.
BOLLES, MARY L., The Petrified Fern,
iii. 135.
BRACKENRIDGE, HUGH H., Instruc
tions in the Art of Duelling, iii.
359.
BRAINARD, JOHN G. C., The Fall of
Niagara, iii. 312.
BRINTON, DANIEL GARRISON, Develop
ment of Religious Ideas, iii. 448.
BROOKS, JAMES, First Impressions of
Japan, iii. 229.
BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN, Encoun
ter with a Panther, i. 363.
BROWN, HENRY ARMITT, Centennial
Oration, iv. 170.
BROWNE, EMMA ALICE, Measuring the
Baby, iv. 418.
BROWNE, JOHN Ross, German Ideas
about America, iv. 236.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, Thana-
topsis, i. 215; The Death of the
Flowers, i. 438 ; Robert of Lincoln,
iii. 123 ; The Rivulet, iii. 433.
BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON, A Mine-
Explosion, iii. 504.
BURRITT, ELIHU, Why I left the Anvil,
ii. 326.
BURROUGHS, JOHN, In the Hemlocks,
i. 23.
511
512
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
BUTLER, WILLIAM ALLEN, Nothing to
Wear, iv. 326.
C.
CABLE, GEORGE W., Through the
Lines, ii. 351.
CARLETON, WILL, Betsey and I are
Out, i. 319; How Betsey and I made
up, i. 324.
CARY, ALICE, Thanksgiving, i. 368.
CARY, PIICEBE, Nearer Home, ii. 433.
CHADWICK, JOHN WHITE, By the Sea-
Shore, iii. 436. . . , ,
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY, Religion
in its Relation to Literature, iii.
260 ; Self-Culture, iv. 467.
CHILD, LYDIA MARIA, A Banquet at
Aspasia's, ii. 380.
CLARK, CHARLES HEBER, The Good
Old Times, iv. 76.
CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN, The Use of
Time, i. 218.
CLARKE, M. E., Anywhere, iv. 53.
CLAY, HENRY, Military Insubordina
tion, i. 463.
CLEMENS, SAMUEL L., An Artist in
Whitewash, i. 420; Befogging a
Guide, i. 425 ; New England Weath
er, iii. 400.
CLINTON, DE WITT, Political Parties,
iii. 51.
COFFIN, R. B., My Ships at Sea, iii.
441.
CONWAY, MONCURE D., The Theory of
Evolution, iv. 337.
COOKE, JOHN ESTEN, An Old-Time Vir
ginia Race-Course, iv. 435.
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, Long Tom
Coffin, i. 302.
COPPEE, HENRY, Characteristics of
Arabian Poetry, iii. 148.
COZZENS, FREDERICK S., Seeds and
Swine, ii. 129 ; A Babylonish Ditty,
iv. 323.
CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., Thought, iv.
49.
CRAWFORD, FRANCIS MARION, A Trai
tor Discomfited, iii. 379.
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, My Cha
teaux, i. 129 ; The Dancers of the
Nile, iii. 348.
D.
DALLAS, MARY KYLE, The Toast, ii.
221 ; When the House is Alone, iv.
177.
DANA, RICHARD HENRY, A Gale off
Cape Horn, iv. 35.
;< DARBY, JOHN" (JAMES E. GARRET-
SON). Life in Brushland, ii. 292.
DAWES, RUFUS, Sunrise from Mount
Washington, iii. 316.
DENNIE, JOSEPH, Jack and Gill, A
Criticism, iii. 247.
DODGE, MARY A., Tommy, ii. 407.
DORR, JULIA C. R., Outgrown, iv. 56.
DRAKE, JOSEPH RODMAN, The Culprit
Fay, ii. 265 ; Ode to the American
Flag, iv. 126.
DRAPER, JOHN WILLIAM, The Arabian
Civilization in Spain, i. 328.
D WIGHT, TIMOTHY, The Notch of the
White Mountains, ii. 483.
E.
EDWARDS, JONATHAN, Religious Ex
perience, ii. 146; Resolutions for the
Conduct of Life, ii. 147 ; The Free
dom of the Will, ii. 150.
EGGLESTON, EDWARD, Spelling down
the Master, iv. 345.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, April, i.
271 ; The Snow-Storm, i. 280 ; Quo
tation and Originality, i. 291 ; The
Rhodora, i. 437; The Humble-Bee,
iii. 132.
EVERETT, EDWARD, Imperishable
Memories, i. 358.
F.
FAWCETT, EDGAR, A King, iv. 51 ;
Vesta, iv. 320.
FELTON, CORNELIUS CONWAY, Ap
proaching the Alps, i. 159; Medi
aeval Armor, i. 162.
FIELDS, JAMES T., Anecdotes of
Thackeray, i. 381 ; The Owl-Critic,
ii. 388.
FINCH, FRANCIS M., The Blue and the
Gray, iv. 130.
FISKE, JOHN, The Meaning of Infancy,
i. 254.
FLAGG, WILSON, Old Roads and Wood-
Paths, iii. 404.
FOOTE, MARY HALLOCK, In the Depths
of the Mine, iii. 299.
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, Every-Day
Wisdom, i. 46.
FRENEAU, PHILIP, The Wild Honey
suckle, i. 432.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
513
FROTHINGHAM, OCTAVIUS B., The Idea
of Deity, i. 449.
CK
GARFIELD, JAMES A., Words of Wis
dom, iv. 148.
GEORGE, HENRY, The Theory of Land-
Taxation, iv. 63.
GILES, CHAUNCEY, Death and the
Future Life, iii. 321.
GODWIN, PARKE, Aspects of American
Literature, i. 9.
GOODRICH, SAMUEL G., Domestic Life
in 1800, iii. 277.
GOULD, HANNAH F., The Frost, i. 281.
GREELEY, HORACE, Advice to Farm
ers, iii. 116.
GREENE, ALBERT G., Old Grimes, iv.
314.
GRISWOLD, RUPUS WILMOT, The Prog
ress and Prospects of Literature in
America, ii. 99.
H.
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, The Man
without a Country, iii. 467.
HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, Tribute to
Joseph Rodman Drake, iv. 60 ;
Marco Bozzaris, iv. 463.
HALPINE, CHARLES G., Dolce Fa,r
Niente, ii. 222; A Hymn to the
Types, iii. 47.
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, The Fate of
Major Andre, iv. 22.
HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER, The Moon
in the Mill-Pond, ii. 238.
HARTE, FRANCIS BRET, The Sheriff of
Calaveras, ii. 170 ; Plain Language
from Truthful James, iv. 321 ; A
Newport Romance, iv. 358.
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, The Secret
Chamber, iii. 156; The Faun and
the Nymph, iv. 371.
HAY, JOHN, Little Breeches, iv. 317.
HAYES, ISAAC I., In the Arctic Seas,
i. 344.
HEYWOOD, J. C., The Method of Haw
thorne, iv. 488.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH, Poe,
ii. 57 ; A Letter to a Dyspeptic, iv.
448.
HILLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN, Excur
sion to Sorrento, iv. 409.
HILLHOUSE, JAMES A., Interview of
Hadad and Tamar, ii. 307.
IV. hh
HOFFMAN, CHARLES FENNO, The Wine-
Cup, ii. 220 ; The Man in the Res
ervoir, iv. 262.
HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT, Outwitting
a Lawyer, ii. 312 j Cradle Song, iv.
420.
HOLLEY, MARIETTA, Josiah Allen's
Wife calls on the President, ii. 494.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, The Au
tocrat's Opinions, i. 487 ; The Voice
less, ii. 434 ; The Chambered Nauti
lus, iii. 130.
HOPKINSON, FRANCIS, Specimen of a
Collegiate Examination, iii. 140 ; On
-Whitewashing, iii. 144.
HOPKINSON, JOSEPH, Hail, Columbia,
iv. 120.
HORNADAY, WILLIAM T., A Tiger-
Hunt in India, iv. 304.
HOUGHTON, LOUISE SEYMOUR, Paradise
Plantation, iv. 156.
HOWE, JULIA WARD, Battle-Hymn of
the Republic, iv. 124.
HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN, Pompeii
and Herculaneum, ii. 7 ; A Declara
tion of Love, ii. 284.
I.
INGERSOLL, ERNEST, The Royal Gorge,
i. 244.
IRVING, WASHINGTON, A Bee-Hunt, i.
155; An Heroic Combat, i. 502;
Columbus at Barcelona, iv. 458.
J.
JACKSON, HELEN HUNT, May, i. 271 ;
A Ride in a Palace-Car, i. 467 ; My
Strawberry, iii. 134; Thought, iv.
49 ; The Singer's Hills, iv. 173.
JAMES, HENRY, Roman Antiquities
at Nimes, i. 237 ; Daisy Miller, iv.
180.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, The Character of
Washington, i. 140.
JEVVETT, SARAH ORNE, River Drift-
Wood, iv. 110.
K.
KANE, ELISHA KENT, Incidents of Arc
tic Travel, iv. 250.
KENNAN, GEORGE, Winter Life and
Scenery in Siberia, ii. 189; A Sibe
rian Aurora, ii. 196.
KENNEDY, JOHN P., A Successful Ruse,
ii. 226.
514
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
KEY, FRANCIS S., The Star-Spangled
Banner, iv. 122.
KIRK, JOHN FOSTER, Death of Charles
the Bold, iii. 390.
KIRKLAND, CAROLINE M., The Land
Fever, i. 31.
KNOTT, J. PROCTOR, Speech on Duluth,
i. 107.
KRAUTH, CHARLES PORTERFIELD, The
Controlling Elements of the Refor
mation, iv. 425.
LANIER, SIDNEY, Symphony, i. 479;
The Ocklawaha in May, iv. 190.
LARCOBI, LUCY, Hannah Binding
Shoes, iv. 422.
LEA, HENRY CAREY, Primitive Forms
of the Ordeal, ii. 90.
LEX HENRY, Oration on the Death of
Washington, iii. 256.
LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY, The Art
of the Future, iii. 289.
LESLIE, ELIZA, Aunt Quimby, ii. 391.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, Second Inaugural
Address, ii. 185; Gettysburg Ora
tion, ii. 188.
LIPPINCOTT, SARA JANE, The Bathing
of the Baby, iv. 470.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH,
Autumn, i. 280; Flowers, i. 430;
Resignation, ii. 431 ; The Famine,
iv. 243.
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, Rhoecus, i.
41 ; June, i. 274 ; The Courtin', ii.
87; Happiness, ii. 217.
LUDLOW, FITZHUGH, The Yosemite
Valley, iv. 7.
M.
MACKENZIE, ROBERT SHELTON, Novel-
Writing before Waverley, iii. 173.
MANN, HORACE, The Value of Educa
tion, i. 313.
MARSH, GEORGE PERKINS, Minute
Forms of Life, iii. 443.
MATHEWS, WILLIAM, Importance of
Literary Style, iv. 213.
MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE, The
Gulf Stream, iii. 192.
MAY, EDITH, Summer, i. 276.
MCLEAN, SALLIE PRATT, Sunday
Morning in Wallencamp, iii. 264.
MCLELLAN, ISAAC, Twilight, iii. 314.
MCMASTER, JOHN BACH, Life in Phil
adelphia in 1800, ii. 115.
MELVILLE, HERMAN, The Death of the
Whale, iv. 230.
MILLER, JOAQUIN, Kit Carson's Ride,
ii. 346.
MITCHEL, ORMSBY MCKNIGHT, The
First Revolution of the Heave-ns
witnessed by Man, i. 53.
MITCHELL, DONALD G., Spring-Time
and Boyhood, ii. 475.
MORRIS, GEORGE P., Woodman, Spare
that Tree, iv. 415.
MORRIS, GEORGE S., The Conditions
of English Thought, ii. 255.
MOTLEY, JOHN LOTHROP, The Duke's
Plot, i. 121.
MURFREE, MARY NOAILLES, An As
tonished Gambler, iii. 214.
N.
NACK, JAMES, Mary's Bee, iv. 316.
NEAL, JOHN, Children, iii. 39.
NEAL, JOSEPH C., A Pretty Time of
Night, iii. 330.
NICHOLS, MRS. R. S., The Philosopher
Toad, iv. 319.
O.
OSGOOD, FRANCES SARGENT, Labor is
Worship, iv. 423.
OSSOLI, MARGARET FULLER, Impres
sions of Niagara, ii. 47.
OSWALD, FELIX L., The Ruins of
Uxmal, ii. 451.
OWEN, ROBERT DALE, Burning of a
Lake Steamer, iv. 132.
P.
PAINE, THOMAS, The Times that tried
Men's Souls, ii. 152.
PARKER, THEODORE, Vagrant Chil
dren, i. 193; Washington, iv. 45.
PARKMAN, FRANCIS, Braddock's De
feat, i. 439.
PARTON, JAMES, Old Virginia, i. 261.
PARTON, SARAH P. ("FANNY FERN"),
My Notion of Music, ii. 442 ; Boston
Blessings and Beans, ii. 445; Un
known Acquaintances, ii. 446 ; Life
and its Mysteries, ii. 449.
PAULDING, JAMES KIRKE, No Use
being in a Hurry, iv. 293.
PAYNE, JOHN HOWARD, Home, Sweet
Home, iv. 413.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
515
PERCIVAL, JAMES G., May, i. 272;
The Coral Grove, iii. 129; To Seneca
Lake, iii. 313.
PERRY, NORA, After the Ball, iii. 253.
PETERSON, HENRY, Ode for Decoration-
Day, iv. 484.
PHELPS, ELIZABETH STUART, Deacon
Quirk's Opinions, ii. 503.
PIATT, JOHN J., Higher Tenants, iv.
58.
PIERPONT, JOHN, My Child, i. 152.
PIKE, ALBERT, To the Mocking-Bird,
iii. 125.
PINKNEY, EDWARD COATE, A Health,
i. 117.
POE, EDGAR ALLAN, The Purloined
Letter, i. 85; Annabel Lee, i. 119;
The Haunted Palace, ii. 435.
PORTER, NOAH, Books and Reading, i.
394.
PRENTICE, GEORGE D., The Closing
Year, i. 282.
PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLING, The
Monarch of Tezcuco, i. 164; The
Palaces and Temples of the Incas,
iv. 478.
PRESTON, HARRIET W., The Songs of
the Troubadours, iv. 224.
PRESTON, MARGARET JUNKIN, The
Lady Riberta's Harvest, iii. 273.
K.
RAMSAY, DAVID, Washington Resigns
his Commission, iii. 137.
RANDOLPH, JOHN, The Revision of the
Constitution, iv. 103.
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN, Drifting,
iii. 92 ; Sheridan's Ride, iv. 128.
RIDEING, WILLIAM H., Boating down
the Grand Canon, iii. 422.
ROBERTS, SARAH, The Voice of the
Grass, iii. 128.
ROLLINS, ELLEN H., Winter Pleasures,
ii. 420.
RUSH, BENJAMIN, The Influence of
Educated Women, iii. 95; On the
Use of Tobacco, iii. 98.
S.
SANDERSON, JOHN, The Parisian " Pen
sion," iv. 19.
SAVAGE, MINOT J., The Debt of Re
ligion to Science, iv. 361.
SAXE, JOHN GODFREY, The Proud Miss
MacBride, iv. 388.
SCHOOLCRAPT, HENRY RoWE, The
White Stone Canoe, i. 458.
SEDGWICK, CATHERINE MARIA, The
Sabbath in New England, iv. 100.
SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY, The Con
dition of China, iv. 393.
SIGOURNEY, LYDIA HUNTLEY, The Con
necticut River, iii. 435.
SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE, The Maiden
and the Rattlesnake, ii. 163.
SMITH, SAMUEL F., America, iv. 125.
SPARKS, JARED, The American Revo
lution, ii. 302.
SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT, Inside
Plum Island, iii. 440.
SPRAGUE, CHAHLES, Shakespeare Ode,
iii. 167; The Family Meeting, iv.
417.
STANLEY, HENRY M., Life and Scenery
on the Congo, ii. 244.
STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE, Be
trothed Anew, ii. 219; Restricted
Development of Poetry in America,
iii. 183.
STILLE, CHARLES J., Labor in the Mid
dle Ages, iv. 329.
STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN, A South-
Sea Idyl, iii. 459.
STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY, Autumn,
i. 278 ; The Flight of Youth, ii. 431 ;
Birds and Thoughts, iii. 127; The
Sky, iii. 313.
STORY, JOSEPH, The Indians, i. 376 ;
The Importance of Classical Learn
ing, i. 379 ; Free Schools, i. 380.
STORY, WILLIAM W., The Violet, i.
434.
STOWE, HARRIET BEECH ER, Sam Law-
son, the Village Do-Nothing, ii. 74.
STRAHAN, EDWARD, The Crest of the
Alleghanies, iv. 70.
STREET, ALFRED B., A Forest Nook,
iii. 308.
SUMNER, CHARLES, Oration on La
Fayette, iii. 43; The Horrors of
War, iv. 398.
T.
TAYLOR, BAYARD, Love-Song of the
Bedouins, i. 115; How I came to
Buy a Farm, i. 228; Pedestrianism
in Europe, iii. 69.
TERHUNE, MRS. MARY VIRGINIA, Care
of the Body, ii. 467.
516
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
TERRY [COOKE], ROSE, Summer, i. 277 ;
The Trailing Arbutus, i. 433 ; Squire
Paine's Conversion, iii. 7.
THOMPSON, DANIEL PIERCE, A New
England Country Court, iv. 401.
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID, Ascending
Ktaadn, ii. 39.
TICKNOR, GEORGE, Don Quixote, ii.
339.
TINCKER, MARY AGNES, The Terror
of the Earthquake, iii. 489.
TOURGEE, ALBION W., A Terrible Ride,
iii. 100.
TREAT, MARY, Our Familiar Birds,
iii. 339.
TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND, Nancy
Blynn's Lovers, ii. 18 ; The Vaga
bonds, iii. 480.
TUCKERMAN, HENRY T., Author-Wor-
ship, ii. 142.
V.
VARIOUS, Love's Young Dream, i. 115 ;
The Revolving Seasons, i. 271 ; A
Garland of Flower- Poems, i. 429;
Sunshine and Hope, ii. 217 ; Shadow
and Grief, ii. 431; Sonnets, iii. 32;
Life in Nature, iii. 123 ; Aspects of
Nature, iii. 308; The Rivulet, the
River, and the Ocean, iii. 433;
Poems of Thought and Sympathy,
iv. 49; Patriotic Songs, iv. 119;
Poems of Humor, iv. 314; Home
Life and Sentiment, iv. 413.
VERPLANCK, GULIAN C., The Lessons
of American History, iv. 384.
W.
WALKER, MRS. E. A., The Total De
pravity of Inanimate Things, iv.
254.
WALLACE, LEWIS, An Ancient Chariot-
Race, i. 405.
WALLACE, SUSAN E., The Light of the
Harem, ii. 361.
WARE, WILLIAM, The Journey to Pal
myra, i. 67.
WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY, The
Pleasures of Gardening, i. 198.
WARNER, SUSAN, In the Autumn
Woodlands, iv. 88.
WASHINGTON. GEORGE, Farewell Ad
dress, ii. 416.
WAYLAND, FRANCIS, The Bible and
the Iliad, iii. 484.
WEBSTER, DANIEL, Reply to Hayne,
i. 210.
WEEKS, ROBERT KELLY, A Day, iii.
310.
WERMS, MASON L., Keimer's Attempt
to found a New Religion, iii. 237.
WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY, The Energy
of Youth, i. 174.
WHITCHER, MRS. FRANCES M., Heze-
kiah Bedott, i. 57.
WHITE, RICHARD GRANT, Conditions
of Language- Variation, i. 493.
WHITMAN, WALT, Song of the Red
wood-Tree, ii. 489.
WHITNEY, MRS. ADELINE D. T., Bos
ton Transcendentalism, i. 203 ; A
Violet, i. 435 ; Released, iv. 52.
WHITNEY, WILLIAM D., The Origin of
Language, ii. 272.
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF, A Warn
ing, i. 120 ; Prelude to " Among the
Hills," ii. 181 ; The Eternal Good
ness, iii. 500.
WILCOX, ELLA WHEELER, The Disap
pointed, iv. 61.
WILLIAMS, ROGER, Dialogue between
Truth and Peace, i.341.
WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER, Absa
lom, iv. 96; Unwritten Music, iv.
284.
WILSON, ALEXANDER, The Bluebird,
ii. 201.
WILSON, JAMES GRANT, A Visit to
Sunnyside, iii. 283.
WINCHBLL, ALEXANDER, Obliterated
Continents, iii. 55.
WINTHROP, THEODORE, The Ride of
the Avengers, i. 143.
WIRT, WILLIAM, The Blind Preacher,
i. 102.
WISE, JOHN, Twelve Hundred Miles
through the Air, iv. 202.
WOOD WORTH, SAMUEL, The Old Oaken
Bucket, iv. 414.
WOOLSEY, THEODORE D., Our Debt to
our Ancestors, ii. 331.
WOOLSON, ABBA G., A Sojourn in \.r-
cady, ii. 207.
WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE,
Kentucky Belle, i. 73.
WRIGHT, WILLIAM B., The Brook, iii.
317.
Y.
YOUNG, CHARLES A., The Heat and
Light of the Sun, ii. 375.
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FOREIGN CLASSICS
FOR ENGLISH READERS.
Edited by Mrs. Oliphant. i6mo. Extra cloth. Price,
$1.00 per volume.
The purpose of this series is to present in a convenient and attractive form
a synopsis of the lives and works of the great writers of Europe who they
were and what they wrote.
VOLUMES NOW READY.
i. Dante 7. Montaigne 13. Corneille and Racine
a. Voltaire 8. Rabelais 14. Madame de S6vign
3. Paschal 9. Schiller 15. La Fontaine, etc.
4. Petrarch 10 Calderon 16. Tasso
5. Goethe iz. Cervantes 17. Rousseau
6. Moliere 12. St. Simon
OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION.
" No reader of taste can find these anything but delightful works, and well
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ANCIENT CLASSICS
FOR ENGLISH READERS.
A Popular Translation of the Classics. Edited by Rev.
W. Lucas Collins. i6mo. Fine cloth. Price, per
volume, 50 cents.
Complete in sets 0/28 volumes, in cloth boxes, $28.00. Also the 28 volumes
bound in 14. volumes, cloth extra, $12.30.
1. Homer's Iliad n. Pliny 20. Greek Anthology
2. Homer's Odyssey 12. Euripides 21. Livy
3. Herodotus 13. Juvenal 22. Ovid
4. Caesar 14. Aristophanes 23. Catullus, Tibullus,
5. Virgil 15. Hesiod and The- and Propertius
6. Horace ognis 24. Demosthenes
7. ^Eschylus 16. Plautus and Terence 25. Aristotle
8. Xenophon 17. Tacitus 26. Thucydides
9. Cicero 18. Lucian 27. Lucretius
10. Sophocles 19. Plato 28. Pindar
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published. With Illustrations by the author and others. 26 volumes. 8vo.
Vanity Fair, 2 volumes ; Pendennis, 2 volumes ; The Newcomes, 2 vol
umes ; Harry Esmond, i volume ; The Virginians, 2 volumes ; Philip, 2
volumes ; Hogarty Diamond, i volume ; Book of Snobs, i volume ; Christ
mas Books, i volume ; Paris Sketch Book, i volume ; Yelkowplush Papers,
i volume ; Irish Sketch Book, i volume ; Barry Lyndon, i volume ; Round
about Papers, i volume; Four Georges, i volume; Lovell the Widower, i
volume ; Miscellaneous Essays, i volume ; Contributions from Punch, i
volume ; Burlesques, i volume ; Catharine, i volume ; Ballads, i volume.
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In sets : English cloth, $78.00: cloth top, $78.00; three-quarters calf,
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$39-00.
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VALUABLE
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LIPPINCOTT'S GAZETTEER OF THE WORLD.
A complete Pronouncing Gazetteer, or Geographical Dictionary of the
World, containing Notices of over 135,000 Places, with Recent and Authentic
Information respecting the Countries, Islands, Rivers, Mountains, Cities,
Towns, etc., in every portion of the Globe. Thoroughly reconstructed and
greatly enlarged. To which is appended a series of Supplementary Tables,
showing the Populations, etc., of the Principal Cities and Towns of the World,
based upon the most recent Census Returns.
One Volume. Octavo. Library sheep, $12.00.
WORCESTER'S DICTIONARY.
Standard Royal Quarto Dictionary of the English Language. Unabridged.
Profusely Illustrated with Wood-Cuts and Full-page Plates. Enlarged by the
addition of A New Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary of nearly 12,000
personages, and a New Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World, noting and locating
over 20,000 Places. Containing also over 12,500 New Words, recently added,
together with a Table of 5000 Words in General Use, with their Synonymes.
Sheep, marbled edges, $10.00; half Turkey morocco, marbled edges,
$12.00; half Russia, marbled edges, $12.00.
LIPPINCOTT'S DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY.
A Complete Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, con
taining Notices of Eminent Personages of all Ages and Countries, with the
Correct Pronunciation of their Names. By Joseph Thomas, M.D., LL.D.
A New, Thoroughly Revised, and Greatly Enlarged Edition. Royal 8vo.
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CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA.
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Revised and Rewritten. A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, with
Maps and Wood- Engravings. To be completed in ten volumes.
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HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH. A Practical Treatise on
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SHAKESPEARE.
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VOLUME VIII.
AS YOU LIKE IT.
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dix." Manchester (Eng.) Guardian.
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ROMEO AND JULIET,
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A book for every Mechanic and Engineer.
NEW EDITION, ENLARGED AND IMPROVED,
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POCKET-BOOK
OF
MECHANICS
AND
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PRACTICE; AND THKORY.
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EIGHTEENTH EDITION, REVISED, and GREATLY ENLARGED
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ELEMENTS OF MODERN CHEMISTRY.
BY
ADOLPHE WURTZ,
Senator, Professor of Chemistry of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, etc.
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
DR. WM. H. GREENE,
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J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY'S DICTIONARIES
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Rev, EDWAED T. STEVENS, M.A., Oxford,
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Chauvenet's
Series of Mathematics.
BY
WILLIAM CHAUVENET,
Late Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in Washington
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CHAUVENET'S GEOMETRY.
A Treatise on Elementary Geometry, with Appendices containing a Copious
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CHAUVENET'S PLANE AND SPHERICAL
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CHAUVENETS METHOD OF LEAST SQUARES.
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THE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF IRON.
A Complete Account of all the Best-Known Methods
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Iron Ore, Limestone, Slag, Clay, Sand, Coal, Coke,
Furnace and Producer Gases.
BY
ANDREW ALEXANDER BLAIR,
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Metals, J&75: Chief Chemist United States Geological Survey
and Tenth Census, 1880.
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ELEMENTS OF METALLURGY.
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Metals from their Ores.
BY
J, ARTHUR PHILLIPS, F.R.S,, M, Inst, C.E,, F.C.S,, F.G.S,, etc,
Ancien Eleve de 1'Ecole des Mines, Paris. New Edition. Re
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Charles Dickens's Works
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Complete in 30 volumes. Octavo. $2.50 each.
This Edition is printed on a finer paper and in larger type than has been
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Sketches by " Bo*." David Copperfield.
Pickwick Papers. Bleak House.
Oliver Twist. Little Dorrit.
Nicholas Nickleby. A Tale of Two Cities.
Old Curiosity Shop and Reprinted The Uncommercial Traveller.
Pieces. Great Expectations.
Barnaby Rudge and Hard Times. Our Mutual Friend.
Martin Chuzzlewit. Christmas Books.
American Notes and Pictures History of England.
from Italy. Christmas Stories.
Dombey and Son. Edwin Drood and Other Stories.
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LIFE AND WORKS OF
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