UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
.
LOS
LSCH00L
A LIBRARY
OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE •
Vol. VIII.
A LIBRARY OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE
FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT
TO THE PRESENT TIME
\
COMPILED AND EDITED BY
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN AND
ELLEN MACKAY HUTCH INSON
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. VIII
NEW-YORK
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1889,
TJT CHAELES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY.
(All rights reserved.)
G1G4
PS
5*04
53!
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
Utteraturc of tfte Meputltc. $art 3BBK— ttontmitrt.
RICHARD GRANT WHITE. PAGE
Shakespeare the Dramatist 3
War in the Land of Uncle Sam 8
The Englishman's Typical American 13
EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS.
A Terse Statement of the Doctrine of Forces 19
JAMES ELLIOT CABOT.
Emerson in His Study 21
GEORGE SHEPARD BURLEIGH. ^
Mother Margary 24
HENRY MARTYN FIELD.
Travelling on the Desert 26
OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM.
The Transcendeutalist .29
The Spirit of the New Faith .... 32
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
V Drifting 34
Sheridan's Ride . 36
The Closing Scene 37
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL.
Of Books and Berries 39
A Morning at La Roquette 43
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOR.
October 47
Bunker Hill 48
EDWARD EVERETT HALE. «
The Man Without a Country ....*..*.- 48
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
The City of God G1
y[ CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. PAGE
Southern Manners and Slavery 61
JAMES PARTON.
The Second Marriage of Aaron Burr .... 64
The Apotheosis of Voltaire ... 69
ERASTUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH.
The Mayflower 72
Tuloom .... 74
CORNELIUS GEORGE FENNER.
Gulf- Weed .... 76
ABRAM STEVENS HEWITT.
The Equitable Distribution of Wealth 77
RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
Historic Doubts of Riley Hood 80
FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR.
The Virginians of the Valley 87
Little Giffen 88
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGEU.
All Is Each, and Each Is All 89
The Solitude of Occupation 89
MICHAEL HEILPKIN.
Authorship of the Psalms 91
SARAH JANE LIPPINCOTT.
Choose 93
FRANCIS PARKMAN.
New England and New France 95
The Vengeance of Dominique de Gourgues ......... 97
The Coureurs-de-Bois 102
The Heights of Abraham 104
GEORGE HENRY BOKER.
Paolo and Francesca Ill
To England 115
To America 115
Ballad 115
The Black Regiment 116
Dirge for a Soldier ... 118
DAVID ATWOOD WASSON.
Ideal . 119
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
American Literature 120
That Drop ol Nervous Fluid 122
" Hebe Turned to Magdalen " .... 123
Decoration 125
The Monarch of Dreams 126
" Since Cleopatra Died " 134
A Song of Days ; 134
Every Woman's Right 135
Waiting for the Bugle 136
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII. yjj
ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD. PAGE
Mercedes 137
A Summer Night 137
Unreturning . . 138
A Wreck on the White Flat 139
On the Campagna 146
JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON.
Ashby 146
Music in Camp 147
JAMES MATIIEWS LEGARE.
To a Lily 149
ROBERT COLLYER.
Under the Snow 150
JAMES ROBERTS GILMORE.
John Jordan, the Scout 152
AUGUSTINE JOSEPH HICKEY DUGANNE.
Bethel 155
GEORGE HORATIO DERBY.
Musical Review Extraordinary 157
EDWARD POLLOCK.
Olivia 160
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
An American Colonel 162
CAROLINE ATHERTON MASON.
Reconciliation 168
WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.
With Brush in Hand 169
JOHN FOSTER KIRK.
" To the Credit of My Lord of Burgundy " . . ' 172
ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM.
Sea-Weeds , 174
THOMAS STARR KING.
The Business and Glory of Eternity 175
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
The New Livery 177
Spring Song 182
Our Cousin the Curate 182
Egyptian Serenade 187
Wendell Phillips . 187
Ebb and Flow 191
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
The Two Friends 192
At Ease with the Romanys
Hans Breitmaim'j Barty 196
SAMUEL SULLIVAN Cox.
In the Streets of Pera 197
yjjj CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
JOHN GILMARY SHEA. PAGE
A Spanish-American Epic 200
ADELINE BUTTON TRAIN WHITNEY.
Sunlight and Starlight 203
A Violet
ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
The Mammoth . 204
WILLIAM COWPER PRIME.
Evening on Follansbee 206
BAYARD TAYLOR.
A Woman 208
Bedouin Song 209
The Song of the Camp 210
The Quaker Widow 211
Peach-Blossom 213
The Grottoes of Capri 214
America 217
The Combat of Lars and Per 218
Opening Scene of " Prince Deukalion " 219
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
Edmund Spenser .............. 223
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
The Flight of Youth 226
The Divan 226
Birds 227
The Sky Is a Drinking-Cup ..227
The Shadow . . 227
Miserrimus 228
Persia 228
Abraham Lincoln 229
William Shakespeare 234
Adsum 236
\Vandering Along a Waste 237
An Old Song Reversed 238
HENRY CHARLES LEA.
A Spiritual Despotism 239
Civil Law and the Inquisition ............ 244
De Profundis 245
JULIA CAROLINE RIPLEY DORR.
Martha 246
With a Rose from Conway Castle 247
Sleep ... 247
JOSEPH BROWNLEE BROWN.
Thalatta! Thalatta ! 248
WILLIAM MUMFORD BAKER.
A Southerner on South Carolina 248
In a Southern Village in '64 , 250
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.
The Hero of the Commune 253
A Grave in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond 254
Lady Yeardley's Guest 255
There'll Come a Day , 257
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
IX
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER.
Uhland
JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER.
Stonewall Jackson's Way ............ 259
For Charlie's Sake ....... , ...... 261
SAMUEL BOWLES.
A Man's Faith ....... ........ 263
NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS.
Roll, Jordan, Roll .............. 265
Swiug Low, Sweet Chariot ............ 265
In de Mornin' ............... 265
Bright Sparkles in de Churchyard ........... 266
O'er de Crossin' .............. 266
Lay dis Body Down .............. 267
Stars Begin to Fall .............. 267
In dat Great Gittin'-Up Mornin' ........... 267
Savannah Firemen's Song ............ 269
Boat Song ................ 269
Away Down in Simbury ............. 269
Charleston Gals .............. 269
Many Thousand Go .............. 270
GEORGE BRINTON MCCLELLAN.
Foreigners in the Northern Army ........... 271
CAROLINE FRANCES ORNE.
The Letter of Marque ............. 275
JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST.
A Southerner of the Old School ........... 277
HORATIO NELSON POWERS.
My Walk to Church ............. 285
WALTER MITCHELL.
Tacking Ship Off Shore ............. 286
STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER.
Old Folks at Home ...... ' ........ 288
Massa's in de Cold Ground ............. 289
Nelly Ely
My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night ......... .290
LEONARD KIP.
The Story of a Fortune ............ 291
COATES KlNNEY.
Pessim ................ 304
LUCY LARCOM.
Climbing to Rest ............. 305
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.
Cathedral-Building .............. 306
The First Stages of Dante's Genius, Exhibited in the Vita Nuova . . . . 309
WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE.
Antony to Cleopatra ............. ;
Jacqueline ............... 313
x CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
LEWIS WALLACE. PAGE
The Chariot Race 314
ROSE TERRY COOKE.
Blue-Beard's Closet 324
Done For 326
The Deacon's Week 327
Segovia and Madrid 333
WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY.
How Shall We Spell ? , 334
FRANCIS MILES FINCH.
The Blue and the Gray 341
Storm— The King 342
GEORGE PARK FISHER.
Modern Belief and Doubt 344
GUSTAV GOTTHEIL.
Jewish Reserve ; 348
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
The Vagabonds 350
The Fugitive Slave in the North 353
Evening at the Farm 359
POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Union Army Chorus 361
Three'Hundred Thousand More 362
All Quiet Along, the Potomac 362
The Fancy Shot 363
The Battle Cry of Freedom 364
Dixie 365
"Call All" 366
The Soldier Boy .367
The Bonnie Blue Flag 368
"The Brigade Must Not Know, Sir!" 368
When this Cruel War Is Over 369
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 370
JOHN BASCOM.
The Popular Press ... 371
EDWARD ATKINSON.
The Basis of Prosperity for the New South ......... 373
DAVID AMES WELLS.
The Old and the New Ideas in Taxation 376
Wants 3~8
WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN.
John Ruskin 379
GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY.
Jud. Brownin's Account of Rubinstein's Playing 385
FlTZ-jAMES O'BllIEN.
The Skaters 389
From " The Diamond Lens " 391
The Challenge 397
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
ROGER ATKINSON PRYOR. PAOB
The South Loyal 397
OLIVER BELL BUNCE.
Men aud Wotneu at Home ............ 400
GEORGE PERRY.
Siva, Destroyer 405
HIRAM CORSON.
Spirituality a Test of Literature 406
HENRY TIMUOD.
The Cotton Boll 408
HINTON ROWAN HELPER.
A Southerner on Southern Literature Before the War 411
MARTHA JOANNA LAMB.
An Old-Fashion ed Thanksgiving 416
CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE.
The Thousand and Thirty-Seven 418
Sambo's Right to be Kilt 419
PHILANDER DEMING.
Tomplcins 420
GUY HUMPHREYS MCMASTER.
Carmen Bellicosum 432
CARL SCHURZ.
Clay . 433
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL.
With a Decanter of Madeira 436
The " Hot Corner " .437
MURAT HALSTEAD.
To the Young Man at the Door ' .... 440
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
\ What I Know About Gardening 442
The Scholar's Mission 447
A Mountain Tragedy " 449
American Possibilities 456
JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE.
President Johnson and Reconstruction 458
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
Vicksburg 461
A Dream of the South Winds 462
Love's Autumn . . ............ 463
Fate, or God ? .464
A Little While I Fain Would Linger Yet 464
In Harbor 465
DAVID SWING.
Life Immortal 466
FLORUS BEARDSLEY PLIMPTON.
The Two Mariners . 467
•• CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
JL.U
CHARLES NORDHOFF. PAGE
Kiluuea 468
JAMES GOWDY CLARK.
Marion Moore 470
JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
The Fight with the Moonshiners • 471
The Band in the Pines 475
Memories 475
JOHN SWINTON.
Carlyle at his Wife's Grave ... 476
ISAAC EDWARDS CLARKE.
British Policy Opposed to American Industries .... . 478
WILLIAM STEELE SHURTLEFF.
The Way 480
NOAH BROOKS.
Personal Reminiscences of Lincoln . 481
MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE.
An'Old Virginia Ghost Story 487
JOSEPH KIRKLAND.
How the Meanest Man Got so Mean, and How Mean He Got 491
Wreck 498
MARY BARKER DODGE.
The Chimney Nest 506
HELEN FISKE JACKSON.
Spinning 507
The Sheep-Shearing at the Moreno Ranch 509
Habeas Corpus 517
DANIEL COIT OILMAN.
Twelve Points in Respect to University Education 519
A College Training 520
ELBRIDGE JEFFERSON CUTLER.
The Volunteer 522
JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN.
An 'Afternoon in Nantucket 523
JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD.
George Henry Thomas 537
WILLIAM WALLACE HARNEY.
The Moorings 529
The Stab 531
Milking-Time 531
The Bergamot .............. 532
HARRIET MANN MILLER.
" O Wondrous Singers " 533
FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN.
The Death and Character of John Brown 538
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII. xij[
JAMES PHINNEY BAXTER. PAGE
Ebb 543
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.
On the Trapeze 544
MARY LOUISE BOOTH.
New York at the Beginning of the War 547
EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN.
Heroic Conflict of Democracy with Scientific Law 549
Some Political and Social Aspects of the Tariff 551
JOHN ANTROBUS.
The Cowboy 555
AMELIA EDITH BARR.
On a Cliff by Night 557
The Old Piano 563
JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLY.
Divorce 564
PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN.
A Famous Ride 566
WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON.
Albert Sidney Johnston 572
ISAAC ISRAEL HAYES.
A Northern Pet 575
JOEL BENTON.
The Poet 576
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
A Broad Method Commended to Historians 577
After Centuries of War 580
HIRAM EICH.
Jerry an' Me 582
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.
John, an American 584
Thoreau's Flute 590
CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR.
Why the Rev. John Wesley Departed from Savannah 591
JUSTIN WINSOR.
Our Early Diplomacy in Europe 597
HENRY CLAY WORK.
Marching Through Georgia 600
The Year of Jubilee 601
xjv PORTRAITS IN VOLUME VIII.
in tins Volume.
ON STEEL.
FRANCIS PARKMAN . . . FRONTISPIECE.
BAYARD TAYLOR Page 208
MISCELLANEOUS.
RICHARD GRANT WHITE 12
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL 40
EDWARD EVERETT HALE 56
JAMES PARTON ........ ... 70
RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON ......... 86
GEORGE HENRY BOKER ....... . . . .114
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON ......... 126
ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD 144
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 178
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD .......... 226
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE »- 350
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 442
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE .......... 462
HELEN FISKE JACKSON . .... . 508
LITERATURE
OF THE REPUBLIC
PART III — CONTINUED
1835-1860
LAND named of hope !
Our best have hailed the promise of thy growth ,
Surely hath honor's race ground room for both
America and England, side by side,
Yet leaving pride
Sufficient scope.
WILLIAM JAMES LINTON. A. D. 1876.
Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, and those on whom their mantle
has fallen, belong to England as well as to America ; and English writers, as they more and
more realize the vastness of the American public they address, will more and more feel them-
selves to be American as well as English, and will often find in America not only a larger
but a more responsive audience.
JAMES BRYCE. A. D. 1888.
Where forest-glooms the nerve appall,
Where burns the radiant Western fall,
One duty lies on old and young, —
With filial piety to guard,
As on its greenest native sward,
The glory of the English tongue.
That ample speech ! That subtle speech !
Apt for the need of all and each :
Strong to endure, yet prompt to bend
Wherever human feelings tend.
RlCHAKD MlLNES, LORD HOUGHTON. A. D. 186-.
It is on record that when the author of " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " was
about beginning his great work, David Hume wrote a letter to him, urging him not to employ
the French but the English tongue, because, he said, " our establishments in America prom-
ise a superior stability and duration to the English language." How far the promise has
been in part fulfilled we who are living now can tell. But how far it will be more largely and
more completely fulfilled in after times we must leave for after times to tell. I believe, how-
ever, that . . . these two great commonwealths may march on abreast, parents and
guardians of freedom and justice wheresoever their language shall be spoken and their power
shall extend.
JOHN BRIGHT. A. D. 1865.
LITEKATUKE
OF THE REPUBLIC.
PART III. — CONTINUED.
1835-1860.
Mtytt.
BORN in New York, N. Y., 1822. DIED there, 1885.
SHAKESPEARE THE DRAMATIST.
[Life and Genius of Shakespeare. 1865.]
HIS TREATMENT OF CHAEACTER.
in VERY thoughtful reader of Shakespeare must see that his peculiar
-*— J power as a dramatist lies in his treatment of character. The inter-
est which distinguishes his plays, as plays, from all others, is that which
centres in the personages, in their expressions of thought and emotion,
and in their motives and modes of action. This was his dramatic art,
and this it was in which he had neither teacher nor model. For at the
time when he began to write, character, properly so called, was almost,
if not quite, unknown either to English literature or even to that of
the Latin races. In English dramatic literature Marlowe alone had
attempted character, but in a style extremely coarse and rudimentary.
The Italian and French novelists who preceded Shakespeare, including
even Boccaccio himself, interest by mere story, by incident, and senti-
ment. Their personages have no character. They are indeed of differ-
ent kinds, good and bad, lovers, tyrants, intriguers, clowns, and gentle-
4 RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
men, of whom some are grave and others merry. But they are mere
human formulas, not either types or individuals.
It has been much disputed whether Shakespeare's personages are types
or individuals. They are both. Those which are of his own creation
are type individuals. So real are they in their individuality, so sharply
outlined and completely constructed, that the men and women that we
meet seem but shadows compared with them ; and yet each one of them
is so purged of the accidental and non-essential as to become typical,
ideal. He made them so by uniting and harmonizing in them a variety
of traits, all subordinated to, yet not overwhelmed by, one central, dom-
inating trait, and by so modifying and coloring the manifestation of this
trait that of itself it has individuality. Othello and Leontes are both
jealous, and unreasonable in their jealousy, as all the jealous are. But
the men are almost as unlike as Lear and Hamlet ; and their jealousy
differs almost as much as the fierce madness of the old king from the
young prince's weak intellectual disorder. lachimo and lago are both
villains, who would pitilessly ruin a wife's reputation for their selfish
ends ; but the former is a rude and simple villain, who seems to lack the
moral sense ; the la-tter, one who has a keen intellectual perception of
that moral beauty which he neither possesses nor heartily admires.
Shakespeare's personages are thoroughly human, and therefore not em-
bodiments of single traits or simple impulses, but complicated machines;
and the higher their type, the more complex their organization. He
combines in one individual and harmonizes qualities apparently incon-
gruous, his genius revealing to him their affinities. Thus Angelo is no
mere hypocrite, but really a precisian. He is sincere in his austerity, and
has pride, or rather an inordinate secretly enjoyed vanity, in his power to
restrain his strong passions in the face of weak temptation. But he is
intensely selfish, as most precisians are, and there comes a time when his
passions and a great temptation join their forces. Before these his arti-
ficial restraint gives way, and he consciously sets out upon a course of
monstrous crime, which he yet shrinks from whispering in the solitude
of his own chamber. lago, another hypocrite, on the contrary, dallies
with his villany, places it in various lights, and stands off, smiling
admiration upon the honest fellow who is working death and ruin. Yet
lago was a good soldier and a brave man, and had he been promoted
instead of Cassio, would have made the better lieutenant to Othello, for
the very lack of a certain weak amiability which beset Cassio off the
battle-field. His victim, poor Othello, who in his relations toward women
is one of the most delicate and sensitive of men, in the bitterness of his
soul pays his wife's own maid as he leaves the former's bedchamber ; not
either to reward or to offend Emilia, but that he may torment his own
soul by carrying out his supposition to its most revolting consequences.
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 5
It is this complication of motive which causes the characters of
Shakespeare's personages to be read differently bj different people. This
variety of opinion upon them, within certain wide and well-determined
limits, is evidence of the truthfulness of the characters. Not only does
their complex organization give opportunity for a different appreciation
of their working, but, as in real life, the character, nay, the very age, of
those who pass judgment upon them is an element of their reputation.
Not only will two men of equal natural capacity, and equally thoughtful,
form different opinions of them ; but the judgment of the same man will
be modified by his experience. Unlike the personages of the world
around us, some of whom pass from our sight while others come for-
ward, and all change with the lapse of time, those of Shakespeare's
microcosm, by the conditions of their existence, remain the same. But
our view of them is enlarged and modified by advancing years. As we
grow older, we look upon them from a higher point, and the horizon of
our sympathy broadens. We lose little and we gain much. For man-
hood's eye, ranging over its wider scope, finds that the eminences which
were the boy's bounds of admiration do not pass out of sight, but
become parts of a grander and more varied prospect, while distance, in
diminishing their importance, casts upon them the tender light of that
happy memory which ever lingers upon pure and early pleasures. But,
as in real life again, Shakespeare's characters, during their mimic exist-
ence, depend upon and develop each the other. We see how they are
mutually worked upon and moulded. And in this interdependence and
reciprocal influence, more than in mere structure of plot, consists the
unity of Shakespeare's plays as organic wholes. His personages are not
statuesque, with sharp, unchanging outlines. His genius was not severe
and statuesque, as for instance Dante's was. His men and women are
notably flexile ; and not only so, but they seem to have that quality of
flesh and blood which unites changeableness with identity, — as a man's
substance changes, and his soul grows older, year by year, and yet he is
the same person. ....
Shakespeare made souls to his characters : he did not give them his
own. It is now the most commonly recognized truth in regard to him,
that he is a self-oblivious poet. But this is not true of him without
important qualification. In his sonnets, whether they were written in
his own person or another's, he was not oblivious of self. On the con-
trary, his own thoughts, his own feelings, constantly appear. He pours
out his own woes with a freedom in which he equals, but with a manli-
ness in which he far surpasses, Byron. It is as a dramatist that he is
self-oblivious ; and he is so to a degree too absolute, it would seem, for
the ever-conscious people of the world to apprehend. Else we should
not hear, as we continually do hear, an opinion or a course of conduct
g RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
sustained with an air of triumph by the citation of Shakespeare's opin-
ion in its favor. For there is hardly a course of conduct or an opinion
upon a moral question which cannot be thus supported. Shakespeare
disappeared in his personages ; and it is they who speak, and not their
creator. The value, nay, the very meaning of what his creatures say,
must be measured by their characters and the circumstances under which
it is spoken. It is not William Shakespeare who says, even in jest, that
a perfect woman is fit only to " suckle fools and chronicle small beer," —
it is that coarse, jeering villain, lago. Nor is it he who says that " to be
slow in words is woman's only virtue," — it is a cynical clown called
Launce. It was not Shakespeare who called the first Tudor " shallow
Eichmond." We may be sure that no one knew better than he that the
man who became Henry the Seventh was deep, prudent, and far-seeing,
although not greatly wise. It was Richmond's enemy, Richard, who said
that ; and said it not to himself, but to one of his own followers. Let no
one who delights in rich garments complacently think that Shakespeare
commends a habit as costly as the purse can buy. That advice was
given by a shrewd old courtier, at a time when sumptuous apparel was
the recognized sign of a certain social standing.
MORAL INFLUENCE OF HIS PLATS.
Many people have given themselves serious concern as to the moral
influence of Shakespeare's plays ; and critics of great weight, fulfilling
their function, have gone down far and stayed down long in the attempt
to fathom the profound moral purpose which they are sure must be hid-
den in the depths of these mighty compositions. But the direct moral
influence of Shakespeare is nothing ; and we may be sure that he wrote
with no moral purpose. He sought only to present life ; and the world
which he shows us, like that in which we live, teaches us moral lessons
according to our will and our capacity. Johnson, meaning censure of
" his first defect," wrote Shakespeare's highest praise in this respect in
saying of him that " he carries his persons indifferently through right or
wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves
their example to operate by chance." That word " indifferently " is
Shakespeare's eulogy. He gives the means of study, and leads insensi-
bly to reflection. Men resent or turn away from conviction at the lips
of others, which they will receive and lay to heart if they hear it from
the lips of the inward monitor. And even children see through and
despise the shallow device which makes goodness always lead to happi-
ness, and flout the stories which conduct them through artificial paths
to bring them out upon a moral. Man, however gifted, can never teach
more than life and nature ; and among gifted men there has been only
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 7
Shakespeare who could teach as much. The moral unity which distin-
guishes his plays is not, as some, especially among the Germans, would
have it, the result of a moral purpose deliberately planned and well
worked out; but of the fact that those dramatic poems were the spon-
taneous manifestation of one great, symmetrical mind, in complete and
intimate accordance with nature. Shakespeare is able to teach as much
as nature, nay, even more than unmitigated nature does, for two reasons.
One is, that he presents us something which is not nature, but a per-
fect reflex of nature. It is strange, but true as strange, that imitation
generally interests us more than reality. The very reflection of a beau-
tiful landscape in a mirror wins our attention more, nay, seems more
beautiful, than the landscape itself. Seen in a Claude glass it becomes
a picture, a quasi work of art, which we study, over which we muse, and
to which we again and again recur ; while the scene itself, if we see it
often, may become to us an unnoticed part of our daily life, like the
rising of the sun, that daily miracle. And so the mirror which, follow-
ing his own maxim, Shakespeare holds up to nature, is more studied by
us than nature herself, and by means of it nature is better understood.
The phenomena are brought by him within the range of our mutual
vision. Reduced in their dimensions, but kept perfect in proportion
and true in color, they are transferred to and fixed upon his pages ; and
we can take down from our shelves these specimens of thought and pas-
sion, and muse and ponder over them at leisure. This is measurably
true of all imaginative writing ; but it is preeminently true of Shake-
speare's.
But the chief reason of Shakespeare's ability to teach us as much as
nature is a breadth of moral sympathy, a wide intellectual charity, which
makes him as impartial as nature. His mirror tinges the scene which it
reflects with no color of its own. The life-giving rain of his genius falls
equally on the just and the unjust ; and as the sunshine and the shower
develop both tares and wheat according to their kind, so he never seeks
to modify the nature or the seeming of that which he quickens into life ;
and he is never more impartial than when he is most creative. What
viler or more loathsome creature than Parolles was ever spoken into
being ? who is never more disgusting, though he may be more irritating
or ridiculous, than in his interview with Helena on his first appearance.
Yet in this very dialogue, unquotable though it be, what insight, what
wisdom, what practical sense, are developed through this wretch, though
we detest the creature as Helena does, and as Shakespeare meant we
should, for uttering then and there the conclusions of his keen but
degraded judgment ! Yet we look upon this abominable creature with
admiration ; nay, he fascinates us by his exquisite loathsomeness, which
is as proper to him as crawling to a reptile. As Helena herself says in
g RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
the words which Shakespeare furnished her, concentrating in these four
lines all that I have just tried to say, and elevating it into poetry with
that apparently unconscious exercise of supreme mastery over expression
which must make every man who holds a pen despair, —
" These fixed evils sit so fit in him
That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold air. "Withal full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. "
It was this quality of universal sympathy in his mental constitution
which enabled Shakespeare to unite to the knowledge of man and of
truth that knowledge of men and of things which is called knowledge
of the world. He seems to have had this latter knowledge in as great
a degree as that more abstract knowledge which made him a great
dramatic and philosophical poet, and to have been the most perfect
man of the world whose name appears upon the roll of literature. All
that we know of his life shows him in full possession of this great
qualification of the perfect social man, so rarely found in poets ; and
his works are pervaded with its exhibition. Consider well such char-
acters as Angelo, Parolles, Faulconbridge, Polonius, Jacques, Falstaff,
such gentlemen as Bassanio, Mercutio, Prince Henry, Cassio, Antony
(in Julius Ocesar}, and see what knowledge, not only of the human
heart, but of society, of manners, of actual life, in short, to return to the
accepted phrase, what knowledge of the world, these characters display.
It is this knowledge, this tact, which enables him to walk so firmly and
so delicately upon the perilous edge of essential decency, and not fall
into the foul slough below, where the elegant dramatists of the last
century lie wallowing. This he does notably, for instance, in Faulcon-
bridge and Falstaff, — Falstaff, a gentleman by birth and breeding, but
coarse, gross, mean, and selfish, a degraded castaway, yet, with consum-
mate tact and exquisite art never allowed to be vulgar or repulsive, and
whose matchless humor makes his company delightful.
WAR IN THE LAND OF UNCLE SAM.
[The New Gospel of Peace. 1866.]
"VTOW the war in the land of Unculpsalm was in this wise.
-«-^ The people were of one blood, but the land was in many prov-
inces. And the people of the provinces joined themselves together and
cast off the yoke of a stiff-necked king who oppressed them beyond the
great sea. And they said, Let us have no king, but let us choose from
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. g
ourselves a man to rule over us ; and let us no longer be many prov-
inces, but one nation; only in those things which concern not the nation
let the people in each province do what is right in their own eyes.
And let it be written upon parchment and be for a covenant between
us and our children, and our children's children forever — like unto a
law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not.
And they did so. And the Great Covenant became the beginning and
the end of all things unto the men of TJnculpsalm.
And the men of Uncul psalm waxed great and mighty and rich : and
the earth was filled with the fame of their power and their riches; and
their ships covered the sea. And all nations feared them. But they
were men of peace, and went not to war of their own accord ; neither
did they trouble or oppress the men of other nations ; but sought each
man to sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree. And ' there were
no poor men and few that did evil born in that land : except thou go
southward of the border of Masunandicsun.
And this was noised abroad : and it came to pass that the poor and
the down-trodden and the oppressed of other lands left the lands in
which they were born, and went and dwelt in the land of Unculpsalm,
and prospered therein, and no man molested them. And they loved
that land.
Wherefore, the kings and the oppressors of other lands, and they that
devoured the substance of the people, hated the men of Unculpsalm.
Yet, although they were men of peace, they made not war upon them ;
for they were many and mighty. Moreover they were rich and bought
merchandise of other nations, and sent them corn and gold.
Now there were in the land of Unculpsalm Ethiopians, which the men
of Unculpsalm called Niggahs. And their skins were black, and for
hair they had wool, and their shins bent out forward and their heels
thrust out backward ; and their ill savor went up.
Wherefore the forefathers of the men of Unculpsalm had made slaves
of the Niggahs, and bought them and sold them like cattle.
But so it was that when the people of the land of Unculpsalm made
1 There were no poor men and few that did evil torn in that land. This land of
Unculpsalm seems to have been a most singular place. Almost the whole of the poverty,
the ignorance, and the crime to be found in it, except south of the border of Masunan-
dicsun, seems to have come to it from other countries. This is strange enough; but
what is most extraordinary is that the people of that land, the virtue and the intelli-
gence of whose fathers had made it great and happy and powerful, gave to this foreign
element of its population, ignorant, criminal, and without substantial interest in the
country, an equal share of political power, which these foreigners, herding together in
clans or tribes, used in a solid body under the direction of demagogues, so that they held
the balance of power in the land. So foolish a scheme of politics is not elsewhere
recorded in history.
10 RIGHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
themselves into one nation, the men of the North said, We will no
longer buy and sell the Niggahs, but will set them free; neither shall
more be brought from Ethiopia for slaves unto this land.
And the men of the South answered and said, We will buy and sell
our Niggahs ; and moreover we will beat them with stripes, and they
shall be our hewers of wood and drawers of water forever ; and when
our Niggahs flee into your provinces ye shall give them to us, every
man his Niggah ; and after a time there shall no more be brought from
Ethiopia, as ye say. And this shall be a part of the Great Covenant.
And it was a covenant between the men of the North and the men of
the South.
And it came to pass that thereafter the men of the South and the
Dim mi ch rats of the North and the Pahdees gave themselves night and
day to the preservation of this covenant about the Niggahs.
And the Niggahs increased and multiplied till they darkened all the
land of the South. And certain of the men of Unculpsalm who dwelt
in the South took their women for concubines and went in unto them,
and begat of them sons and daughters. And they bought and sold
their sons and daughters, even the fruit of their loins ; and beat them
with stripes, and made them hewers of wood and drawers of water.
For they said, Are not these Niggahs our Niggahs ? Yea, even more
than the other Niggahs? For the other Niggahs we bought, or our
fathers, with money ; but these, are they not flesh of our flesh, and blood
of our blood, and bone of our bone ; and shall we not do what we will
with our own ?
But there arose men in the northern provinces of the land of Uncul-
psalm and in the countries beyond the great sea, iniquitous men, saying,
Man's blood cannot be bought with money ; foolish men, saying, Though
the Niggah's skin be black, and his hair woolly, and his shins like unto
cucumbers, and his heels thrusting out backward, and though he has an
ill savor not to be endured by those who get not children of Niggah
women, yet is he a man ; men of Belial, which said, All things whatso-
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ; for
this is the law and the prophets.
And the slaves were for a reproach throughout all the world unto the
men of the South, and even unto the whole land of Unculpsalm. But
by reason of the Great Covenant and the laws of the provinces, the men
of the North had naught to do in this matter.
But the men of the South which had Niggahs (for there were multi-
tudes which were of the tribe of Meenouites which had no Niggahs, and
they were poor and oppressed) heeded it not; for they were a stiff-
necked generation. And they said, We will not let our Niggahs go
free ; for they are even as our horses and our sheep, our swine and our
1835-60] RICHARD OR ANT WHITE. ]j
oxen ; and we will beat them, and slay them, and sell them, and beget
children of them, and no man shall gainsay us. We stand by the Great
Covenant.
Moreover we are Tshivulree.
Now 1 to be of the Tshivulree was the chief boast among the men of
the South, because it had been a great name upon the earth. For of
olden time he who was of the Tshivulree was bound by an oath to
defend the weak and succor the oppressed, yea, even though he gave
his life for them. But among the men of the South he only was of the
Tshivulree who ate his bread in the sweat of another's face, who robbed
the laborer of his hire, who oppressed the weak, and set his foot upon
the neck of the lowly, and who sold from the mother the fruit of her
womb and the nursling of her bosom. Wherefore the name of Tshivul-
ree stank in the nostrils of all nations.
For they were in the darkness of a false dispensation, and had not
yet learned the mystery of the new gospel of peace.
And when the Tshivulree found within their borders those men of the
North, iniquitous men which said that man's blood cannot be bought,
and men of Belial which said, Do ye unto all men as ye would have all
men do unto you, they seized upon them and beat them with many
stripes, and hanged them upon trees, and roasted them with fire, and
poured hot pitch upon them, and rode them upon sharp beams, very
grievous to bestride, and persecuted them even as it was fitting such
pestilent fellows should be persecuted.
And they said unto the men of the North, Cease ye now to send
among us these men of Belial preaching iniquity, cease also to listen
unto them yourselves, and respect the Great Covenant, or we will
destroy this nation.
Then the men of Unculpsalm which called themselves Dimmichrats,
and the Pahdees, seeing that the Tshivulree of the South had only one
thought, and that was for the Niggah, said, We will join ourselves unto
the Tshivulree, and we will have but one thought with them, even the
Niggah ; and we shall rule the land of Unculpsalm, and we shall divide
the spoil.
And they joined themselves unto the Tshivulree ; and the Tshivulree
of the South, and the men of the North, which called themselves Dim-
michrats, and the Pahdees, ruled the land of Unculpsalm for many
1 This is another of the many passages that refute the notion as to the modern origin
of this book. Indeed, it increases the obscurity that involves that subject. For where,
even in ancient times, and among pagan people, do we read of such cruelty as the sell-
ing of the child away from the mother ? As to the prevalence of such a practice in this
Christian land and among this enlightened people, it is not to be thought of, and indeed
it has always been denied.
12 RICHARD ^ORANT WHITE. [1835-60
years ; and they divided the spoil. And they had but one thought, even
for the Niggah.
Wherefore he was called the everlasting Niggah. ....
And the Tshivulree of the South saw that the men of the North
feared their threats ; and they waxed bolder and said, We will not only
keep our Niggahs in our own provinces, but we will take them into all
the country of Unculpsalm, which is not yet divided into provinces.
And they went roaring up and down the land.
But in process of time it came to pass that the spirit of their fore-
fathers appeared among the men of the North, even the great spirit Bak
Bohn ; and he stiffened up the people mightily.
So that they said unto the men of the South, Hear us, our brethren !
We would live with you in peace, and love you, and respect the Great
Covenant. And the Niggahs in your provinces ye shall keep, and slay,
and sell, they and the children which ye begat of them, into slavery, for
bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yours be the sin, before the Lord,
not ours ; for it is your doing, and we are not answerable for it. And
your Niggahs that flee from your provinces they shall be returned unto
you, according to the Great Covenant. Only take care lest peradven-
ture ye make captives the Niggahs of our provinces which we have
made free men. Ye shall in no wise take a Niggah of them.
Thus shall it be with your Niggahs and in your provinces, and yours
shall be the blame forever. But out of your provinces, into the com-
mon land of Unculpsalm, ye shall not carry your Niggahs except they
be made thereby free. For that land is common, and your laws and the
statutes of your provinces, by which alone ye make bondmen, run not
in that land. And for all that is done in that land we must bear the
blame with you. For that land is common ; and we share whatever is
done therein ; and the power of this nation and the might of its banner
shall no longer be used to oppress the lowly and to fasten the chain upon
the captive. Keep ye then your bondmen within your own provinces.
Then ' the Tshivulree of the South waxed wroth, and foamed in their
'The word here translated "difficulties" had a peculiar signification among this
strange people. It means a certain sort of human sacrifice or blood-shedding, sometimes
accompanied with death, sometimes only with maiming. There was a prelude to it, of
a purely verbal nature, the name of which must needs be translated misunderstanding.
Sometimes a misunderstanding was brought to a close by a libation— in the Phiretah dia-
lect a likkerinup, or, according to some authors— a likkerinround ;— the drink-offering
being poured down the throats of the assembly with expressions of mutual respect in
honor of the event ; but if not, it proceeded to its second stage, which was called diffi-
culty. In this each party to the previous misunderstanding sought to sacrifice the
other, to appease some imaginary deity who was believed to delight in human sacrifices.
The sacrifice was sometimes performed with the knife, sometimes with the shooting-iron.
Strange to say, each party sought to honor this imaginary deity, to whose service he
professed to be devoted, by being the sacrificer rather than the sacrificed. Unless, there-
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. ^3
anger, and the air of the land was filled with their cursings and their
revilings. And certain of them which were men of blood, and which
were possessed of devils, and had difficulties, and slew each other with
knives and shooting-irons, did nothing all their time but rave through
the land about the Niggah.
THE ENGLISHMAN'S TYPICAL AMERICAN.
[The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys. 1884.]
"Tp BELONG- a servant entered, with a card upon a salver, which he
•I— ^ presented to our hostess, who, after glancing at it a moment with a
puzzled look, said, u To my lord.'' On receiving it, his lordship handed
it to me, saying, " Prom your friend. He sent me a letter of introduction
from Tooptoe at Oxford ; said he couldn't come just now himself, and
asked the favor of introducing just for a mornin' visit, an American gen-
tleman, in whom he felt sure I should be interested. It's all right, I
suppose? '' It was simply Humphreys's card, and a line in pencil, " Intro-
ducing the Hon. Washington J. Adams."
"I don't know Mr. Adams," I said; "but I do know that Mansfield
Humphreys would give a card to no one who might not be properly
received by the gentleman to whom it was addressed."
Here Captain Surcingle, whose attention had been arrested, and who
had heard my reply, cried out " 'Mewican? Have him up, Toppin'em, —
have him up ! Those fellows are such fun ! I always go to see the
'Mewican Cousin. Not faw Dundweawy. Can't see what they make
such a doosid fuss about him faw. Does nothin' but talk just like 'fel-
low at the Wag : wegla' muff. Nevah saw such a boa. But Twenchard's
awful fun ; good as goin' to 'Mewica without the boa of goin'."
As the Honorable John began his appeal, his lady cousin stepped
across the terrace to pluck a rose which peered at us over the stone bal-
ustrade, blushing with shame at its beautiful intrusion ; and as she swept
past him, I partly heard and partly saw her say, in an earnest whisper,
" Jack, do be quiet ; and don't be such a goose ! "
She had hardly returned with her flower, when the servant who had
been sent out reappeared, announcing " Mr. Adams " ; and all eyes fol-
fore, one party or the other attained this purpose by concealing his shooting-iron beneath
his raiment, and shooting through it with entire indifference to the cost of his apparel
(in the original, dhamthex pentz), a struggle ensued which had not the peculiar decorum
and solemnity becoming a religious ceremony. It is particularly worthy of notice that
the difficulty and the likkerinup were peculiar to the Phiretahs, and were unknown to the
langkies, and throughout the region north of the border of Masunandicsun, except
among the Pahdees, who were strangers within the gates of Gotham.
14 RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
lowed our host, as he stepped forward to receive the unknown guest.
As unabashed as a comet crossing the orbit of Jupiter on its way to the
sun, the Honorable Washington entered the Priory circle, and advanced
to Lord Toppingham. The Earl offered him his hand. He took it, and
then he shook it, — shook it well ; and to a few of the usual words of
welcome he replied, " I'm very glad to see you, my lord ; most happy
to hev the pleasure of meetin' your lordship " (looking round) " here in
your elegant doughmain and gorjis castle. My friend Mr. Humphreys
told me I'd find everything here fuss class ; an' I hev. Your man help
down stairs wuz a lee tie slow, to be sure; but don't apologize; differ-
ence of institootions, I s'pose. Everything moves a leetle slower here."
As Lord Toppingham led Mr. Adams to our hostess, eyes of wonder,
not unmixed with pleasure, were bent upon him. He was a man of mid-
dle size, neither tall nor slender; but he stooped a little from his hips,
and his head was slightly thrust forward, with an expression of eager-
ness, as he slouched along the terrace. His upper lip was shaved ; but
his sallow face terminated in that adornment known at the West as
" chin-whiskers." His hat, which he kept on, was of felt, with a slightly
conical crown. It rested rather on the back than on the top of his head,
and from it fell a quantity of longish straight brown hair. His splendid
satin scarf was decorated with a large pin, worthy of its position : and
the watch-chain that stretched across his waistcoat would have held a
yacht to its moorings. His outer garment left the beholder in doubt
whether it was an overcoat that he was wearing as a duster, or a duster
doing service as an overcoat. Into the pockets of this he thrust his
hands deep, and moved them back and forth from time to time, giving
the skirts a wing-like action. Having taken Lady Toppingham's hand,
and shaken that too, and assured her of his pleasure in meeting her also,
he put his own back into its appropriate pocket, and, gently flapping his
wings, repeated, " Yes, ma'am ; very happy to hev the pleasure of meet-
in' your ladyship. Hope my call ain't put you out any ; but I s'pose
you're used to seein' a goodie o' company in the surprise way."
" I am always pleased to receive any friend of my lord's or of Dr.
Tooptoe's," said Lady Toppingham, seating herself upon one of the stone
benches of the terrace ; and Lord Toppingham turned as if to lead Mr.
Adams away. But that gentleman immediately sat himself down by her
side, and, crossing his legs, was evidently preparing to make himself
agreeable. A slight shade of reserve with which she had taken her seat
deepened for a moment, and then instantly gave way to a look of good-
natured amusement ; and I saw, to my relief, that she appreciated the
situation. "You've been in our little England before, I suppose, Mr.
Adams ? "
" No, ma'am, I hevn't. My plit'cle dooties as a member of the legis-
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. }£
later of the Empire State hev pervented. Empire State's Noo York, 'z I
s'pose your ladyship knows. Motto, Ex-celsior, an' the risin' sun ; out
of Longfeller's poem, you know."
" I do know Mr. Longfellow's charming poem. We're great admirers
of Mr. Longfellow in England; indeed, we think him quite an English
poet. "
"Wai, ma'am, you're 'baout right there ; xcept in callin' him an Eng-
lish poet. He's a true Muh'kin ; an' he kin beat Tennyson, an' all the
rest of 'em, at writin' po'try, any day, let 'em do their level best. Why,
he's written more vollums of poetry — fuss-class poetry, too — than any
man that ever lived ; more 'n Dr. Holland. Lives in fuss-class style, too,
if he is a poet. Shouldn't wonder if there wa'nt a broker in Wall Street
that lives in higher style'n Longfellow."
At this triumphant utterance Mr. Adams took off his hat, and I feared
he was about to wave it ; but the movement was only one of momentary
relief, perhaps, to his enthusiasm, and he at once restored it to its peril-
ous inclination.
Lord Toppingham now stepped up to create a diversion in favor of his
beleaguered wife, and, standing before the pair, asked Mr. Adams if he
had been in London while Parliament was sitting.
" Wai, yaas, I wuz," replied the legislator, keeping his seat and look-
ing up; " 'n' I went to see it; 'n' to tell the truth 'n' the hull truth, I
wuz dis'pmted. Gladstone's a smart man, but slow, I shed say, mighty
slowr ; ain't learned not to craowd himself, nuther ; bites off more 'n he
kin chaw. 'N' I didn't hear no eloquence ; nobody didn't seem to take
no intrust into what was goin' on. You hev got a powerful han'some
buildin' fur the meetin' of your legislator ; but jess you wait 'n' see the
noo Capitol 't Albany, 'n' you'll sing small, I — tell — you. Yes, siree."
As this conversation went on, some of the other guests had approached,
and there was a little group around our hostess and Mr. Adams, who
now, to the evident horror of some of them, drew from his pocket a
gigantic knife, with a set-spring at the back; indeed, it was a clasp
bowie-knife. Opening it with a tremendous click, he strapped it a little
on his shoe, and then looked doubtfully at the bench on which he sat.
Evidently dissatisfied with the inducement which its stone surface offered,
he drew from one of his capacious pockets a piece of pine wood about as
thick as a heavy broomstick, and began to cut it in a meditative man-
ner.
"Don't git much whittlin' into your effete old monarchies. Even the
benches, when they ain't stun, air oak, that'd turn the edge of any gen-
'leman's knife ; 'n' so I carry suthin' comfortable raound with me." As
he spoke the light shavings curled away from his stick, and rolled upon
the terrace floor.
16
RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
Lady Toppingham was as serene as a harvest moon, and was evidently
much amused with her visitor ; and the rest looked on with an interest
and a satisfaction which were manifest in their countenances.
" Your lordship does suthin' in this way, I reckon. Guess all you
lords air in the lumber line; V I seen some fuss-class trees inter the
vacant lots raound your haouse — castle, I mean. S'pose that's the reason
you don't improve. Much doin' in lumber naow ? "
uNot much," said our host, with a pleasant smile. "I'm more
inclined to keep my trees than to sell them, at present. But let me
make you acquainted with some of my friends. Mr. Grimstone, member
for Hil Chester Towers."
" Haow do you do, Mr. Grimstone ? " said Adams, rising ; and shift-
ing his knife to his left hand, he took the M.P.'s, and shaking it vigor-
ously, said, " Happy to hev the pleasure of meetin' you, sir. Don't know
you personally, but know you very well by reputtation."
As our host looked next at me, I managed to convey to him an
unspoken request not to be introduced, which he respected; but my
friend the captain, stepping forward, was presented, with the added com-
ment that Mr. Adams would find him well up about guns and rifles and
fire-arms of all kinds ; quite an authority, indeed, upon that subject.
"Dew tell? Why, I'm glad to hev the pleasure of meetin' you, sir.
Look a' here! I kin show you suthin' fuss-class in that line," and put-
ting his hand behind him, underneath his coat, he produced a large
pistol, a navy revolver, which he exhibited in a demonstrative way to
the captain, saying, " Naow that's suthin' satisfactory fur a gen'leman to
hev about him ; no little pea-shootin' thing, that you might empty into
a man 'thout troublin' him more 'n so many flea-bites."
The captain looked at it with interest, while some of the other guests
shrank away. After a brief examination, he returned it, saying, " Vewy
fine, vewy fine, indeed ; and I hear you use 'em at vewy long distances,
almost like a wifle."
"Sartin," said Mr. Adams. "Look a' here! See that thar tree yon-
der?" and pointing to one on the other side of the garden, he threw up
his left arm, and took a sight rest on it. Some of the ladies screamed,
and the captain and Lord Toppingham both caught his arm, the latter
exclaiming, " Beg pahdon, don't fire, please ! Somebody might be passin'
in the park."
"Wai, jess's you like, sir. You air to hum, 'n' I ain't. But that 's
the diff'kilty 'ith England. Th'r' ain't no libbuty here. You've allers
got to be thinkin' 'baout somebody else."
The incident certainly created a little unpleasant excitement; yet
after this had subsided, it seemed not to have diminished, but rather to
have increased, the satisfaction with which Mr. Adams was regarded.
1835-60] RICHARD GRANT WHITE. ]_f
The Professor came up, and said, "Our Amerigan vrent is ferry kint
sooch an exhipition of the manners and gustoms of his gountry to gif.
Barehaps he vould a var-tance bareform vor the inztrugzion oond blay-
sure of dthe gompany."
" No, no, Professor Schlamm," said Lady Toppingham, smiling, " we
won't put Mr. Adams to the trouble of a war-dance ; and we've so nar-
rowly escaped one blessure that we may well be willing to forego the
other." As my hostess struck off this little spark, I observed that her
French was not that of the school of Stratford atte Bowe, which con-
tinues much in vogue in England even among ladies of the prioress's
rank.
Adams caught at the name as an introduction. " Is this," he said,
" the celebrated Professor Schlamm ? " and seizing his hand, he shook it
well. "Happy to make your acquaintance, sir. Your fame, sir, is
widely ex-tended over the civil-ized globe. Hev n't hed the pleasure of
meetin' you before, sir, but know you very well by reputtation."
The Professor, who had all the simple vanity of the vainest race in
the world, beamed under the influence of this compliment, so that his
very spectacles seemed to glow with warmth and light.
" You German gen'l'men air fond of our naytional plant," said Adams
blandly. " Hev a cigar? Won't you jine me? " and he produced from
his pocket two or three temptations.
"Dthanks; poot it might not to dthe laties pe acreeable."
"No? Wai, then, here goes fur the ginooine article. I'm 'baout
tuckered aout fur some." Saying this he took from his pocket a brown
plug, cut off a piece, and having shaped and smoothed a little with his
huge knife, he laid it carefully with his fore finger in his cheek. Then,
his knife being out, he took the opportunity to clean his nails ; and hav-
ing scraped the edges until our blood curdled, he returned his weapon,
after a loud click, to his pocket.
A look of distress had come over the face of our hostess when Mr.
Adams produced his plug ; and she called a servant, who, after receiving
an order from her in a low voice, went out. Mr. Adams's supplement-
ary toilet being completed, he slouched away towards the balustrade;
and after looking a few moments across the garden, he turned about,
and, leaning against the stone, he began an expectorative, demonstration.
After he had made two or three violent and very obtrusive efforts of this
kind, which, however, I must confess, did not seem to leave much visi-
ble witness before us, the servant returned hastily with a spittoon, the
fabric and condition of which showed very plainly that it came from no
part of the priory that rejoiced in the presence of Lady Toppingham.
This the footman placed before Mr. Adams, within easy range.
" Nev' mind," said that gentleman, — " nev' mind. Sorry you took the
VOL. VIII.— 2
lg RICHARD GRANT WHITE. [1835-60
trouble, sonny. I don't set up fur style; don't travel onto it. I'm
puffickly willin' to sit down along 'th my fren's, and spit raound sociable.
I know I wear a biled shirt 'n' store clothes, — that's a fact ; but 's a
graceful con-ciliation of and deference to public opinion, considerin' I'm
a member of the legislator of the Empire State."
"Biled? " said Captain Surcingle to me, inquiringly (for we had kept
pretty close together). " Mean boiled? "
"Yes."
"Boil shirts in 'Mewica?"
. "Always."
"Your shirt boiled?"
" N-no ; not exactly. I should have said that all our wealthiest and
most distinguished citizens, members of the legislature and the like, boil
their shirts. I make no such pretensions."
The captain looked at me doubtfully. But our talk and Mr. Adams's
performances were brought to a close by the announcement of luncheon,
and an invitation from our host to the dining-room. This mid-day
repast is quite informal ; but, comparatively unrestrained as it is by
etiquette, rank and precedence are never quite forgotten at it, or on any
other occasion, in England ; and there being no man of rank present,
except our host, and Sir Charles being far down the terrace, talking
hunt and horse with another squire, Mr. Grimstone was moving toward
Lady Toppingham, with the expectation of entering with her, when Mr.
Adams stepped quickly up, and saying, " Wai, I don't keer ef I dew
jine you ; 'low me the pleasure, ma'am," he offered her his arm. She
took it, Mr. Grimstone retreated in disorder, and we all went in some-
what irregularly. As we passed through the hall, and approached the
dining-room, it occurred to Mr. Adams to remove his hat ; and he then
looked about, and up and down, in evident search of a peg on which to
hang it. A servant stepped forward and held out his hand for it. After
a brief hesitation he resigned it, saying, "Ain't ye goin' to give me no
check for that? Haow do I know I'll git it agin? Haowever, it's
Lord Toppingham's haouse, an' he's responsible, I guess. That's good
law, ain't it, your Lordship ? "
" Excellent," said our host, evidently much pleased that Lady Top-
pingham had taken this opportunity to continue on her way to the
dining-room, where we found her with Mr. Grimstone on her right hand,
and a vacant seat on her left, between her and her cousin, to which she
beckoned me ; Mr. Adams, the Professor, and the two authoresses form-
ing a little group near Lord Toppingham.
" I hope," said the M. P. to me, as we settled ourselves at table, " that
you are pleased with your Mr. Washington Adams. I, for one, own
that such a characteristic exhibition of genuine American character and
1835-60] EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS. ig
manners is, if not exactly agreeable, a very entertaining subject of
study."
The taunt itself was less annoying than its being flung at me across
our hostess ; but as I could not tell him so without sharing his breach
of good manners, I was about to let his remark pass, with a silent bow,
when a little look of encouragement in Lady Toppingham's eyes led me
to say, " As to your entertainment, sir, I have no doubt that you might
find as good at home without importing your Helots. As to Mr. Adams
being my Mr. Washington Adams, he is neither kith nor kin of any of
my people, to whom he would be an occasion of as much curious won-
der as he is to any person at this table."
" Oh, that won't do at all. He is one of your legislators, — the Honora-
ble Washington Adams. You Americans are a very strange people;
quite incomprehensible to our poor, simple English understandings." I
did not continue the discussion, which I saw would be as fruitless as,
under the circumstances, it was unpleasant, and indeed almost inadmissi-
ble, notwithstanding the gracious waiver of my hostess.
liiringgton
BORN in Coeymans, N. Y., 1821. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1887.
A TERSE STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF FORCES.
[Introduction to " The Correlation and Conservation of Forces." 1865-1
^1^0 WARD the close of the last century the human mind reached the
-*- great principle of the indestructibility of matter. What the intel-
lectual activity of ages had failed to establish by all the resources of rea-
soning and philosophy, was accomplished by the invention of a mechan-
ical implement, the balance of Lavoisier. When nature was tested in the
chemist's scale plan, it was first found that never an atom is created or
destroyed ; that though matter changes form with protean facility, tra-
versing a thousand cycles of change, vanishing and reappearing inces-
santly, yet it never wears out or lapses into nothing.
The present age will be memorable in the history of science for hav-
ing demonstrated that the same great principle applies also to forces, and
for the establishment of a new philosophy concerning their nature and
relations. Heat, light, electricity, and magnetism are now no longer
regarded as substantive and independent existences — subtile fluids with
peculiar properties, but simply as modes of motion in ordinary matter;
2Q EDWAED LIVINGSTON YOU MANS. [1835-60
forms of energy which are capable of mutual conversion. Heat is a
mode of energy manifested by certain effects. It may be transformed
into electricity, which is another form of force producing different
effects. Or the process may be reversed ; the electricity disappearing
and the heat reappearing. Again, mechanical motion, which is a motion
of masses, may be transformed into heat or electricity, which is held to
be a motion of the atoms of matter, while, by a reverse process, the
motion of atoms, that is, heat or electricity, may be turned back again
into mechanical motion. Thus a portion of the heat generated in a loco-
motive is converted into the motion of the train, while by the applica-
tion of the brakes the motion of the train is changed back again into the
heat of friction.
These mutations are rigidly subject to the laws of quantity. A given
amount of one force produces a definite quantity of another ; so that
power or energy, like matter, can neither be created nor destroyed:
though ever changing form, its total quantity in the universe remains
constant and unalterable. Every manifestation of force must have come
from a preexisting equivalent force, and must give rise to a subsequent
and equal amount of some other force. When, therefore, a force or
effect appears, we are not -at liberty to assume that it was self-originated,
or came from nothing; when it disappears we are forbidden to con-
clude that it is annihilated : we must search and find whence it came
and whither it has gone ; that is, what produced it and what effect
it has itself produced. These relations among the modes of energy
are currently known by the phrases Correlation and Conservation of
Force.
The present condition of the philosophy of forces is perfectly paral-
leled by that of the philosophy of matter toward the close of the last
century. So long as it was admitted that matter in its various changes
may be created or destroyed, chemical progress was impossible. If, in
his processes, a portion of the material disappeared, the chemist had a
ready explanation — the matter was destroyed; his analysis was therefore
worthless. But when he started with the axiom that matter is inde-
structible, all disappearance of material during his operations was
chargeable to their imperfection. He was therefore compelled to
improve them — to account in his result for every thousandth of a
grain with which he commenced ; and as a consequence of this inexora-
ble condition, analytical chemistry advanced to a high perfection, and
its consequences to the world are incalculable. Precisely so with the
analysis of forces. So long as they are considered capable of being cre-
ated and destroyed, the quest for them will be careless and the results
valueless. But the moment they are determined to be indestructible,
the investigator becomes bound to account for them : all problems of
1835-60] JAMES ELLIOT CABOT. 21
power are at once affected, and the science of dynamics enters upon a
new era. ....
The law characterized by Faraday as the highest in physical science
which our faculties permit us to perceive, has a far more extended
sway ; it might well have been proclaimed the highest law of all science
— the most far-reaching principle that adventuring reason has discovered
in the universe. Its stupendous reach spans all orders of existence.
Not only does it govern the movements of the heavenly bodies, but it
presides over the genesis of the constellations ; not only does it control
those radiant floods of power which fill the eternal spaces, bathing,
warming, illumining, and vivifying our planet, but it rules the actions
and relations of men, and regulates the march of terrestrial affairs. Nor
is its dominion limited to physical phenomena; it prevails equally in
the world of mind, controlling all the faculties and processes of thought
and feeling. The star-suns of the remoter galaxies dart their radiations
across the universe ; and although the distances are so profound that hun-
dreds of centuries may have been required to traverse them, the impulses
of force enter the eye, and impressing an atomic change upon the nerve,
give origin to the sense of sight. Star- and nerve-tissue are parts of the
same system — stellar and nervous forces are correlated. Nay, more;
sensation awakens thought and kindles emotion, so that this wondrous
dynamic chain binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind
through measureless amplitudes of space and time.
And if these high realities are but faint and fitful glimpses which sci-
ence has obtained in the dim dawn of discovery, what must be the glo-
ries of the coming day? If indeed they are but " pebbles " gathered
from the shores of the great ocean of truth, what are the mysteries still
hidden in the bosom of the mighty unexplored? And how far tran-
scending all stretch of thought that Unknown and Infinite Cause of all
to which the human spirit turns evermore in solemn and mysterious
worship 1
3!amcg €lliot Cabot
BOBN in Boston, Mass., 1821.
EMERSON IN HIS STUDY.
{A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1887.]
E wide range of Emerson's quotations, and the unhesitating way
in which he sometimes speaks upon subjects of learned investigation,
22 JAMES ELLIOT CABOT. [1835-60
have given impressions not altogether correct concerning the character
of his reading. He had a quick eye for a good sentence, and never for-
got one ; but the quotations, I think, are sometimes all that he cared to
know of the book ; and he would have been partly amused, partly vexed,
to hear himself described as a profound student, of the New Platonists,
or of anything to be learned from books. He was a profound student,—
of impressions, sentiments, experiences ; and was ready to receive them
from any source. But of the disengaged curiosity, the readiness to enter
into and pursue the ideas of others, that makes the student, the man of
letters (or, again, the traveller, the man of the world), he had very little.
He did not even pursue his own. He was ever on the watch for themr
trying to render them without loss into words, but of their farther rela-
tions to each other or to the ideas of other people he was rather incuri-
ous. In his spiritual astronomy or search for stars he was the observer
of single stars as they came into the field of his telescope ; he was riot
making a map of the heavens, or even of a particular region; he had
nothing to do with the results of other observers. Let each look for
himself and report what he sees ; then, if each has been faithful, they
will all agree ; meantime, if any correction be needed, it will be given
by the fresh experience which life fails not to supply if we are heedful
of its teachings. Books were for the scholar's idle times : at such times
Emerson welcomed them for the stimulus they gave him ; " to make my
top spin," as he said; without much choice, but with an inclination
towards memoirs and books abounding in anecdotes, — Plutarch, Mon-
taigne, Spence, Grimm, Saint-Simon, Roederer; books about the first
Napoleon ; latterly I remember his following Yarnhagen von Ense's
voluminous memoirs, as the volumes came out. He read the u Yestiges
of Creation " with much interest, and treasured in his memory from all
kinds of sources many anecdotes and sayings of men of science. In his
youth he seems to have read Berkeley and Hume with attention, also
Coleridge and Lord Bacon ; and he was a reader of English poetry from
his early years. After his time of production began, books occupied
him less ; though at Carlyle's urging, soon after his return from Europe,
he made for once something of a study of Goethe, and read every
volume, even the "Theory of Colors."
He was not what one would call a critical reader. His likings and
dislikings were very distinct and persistent, but he never troubled him-
self to account for them. He could see nothing in Shelley, Aristophanes,
Don Quixote, Miss Austen, Dickens ; he did not often read a novel, even
the famous ones. Dante was " a man to put in a museum, but not in
your house: another Zerah Colburn ; a prodigy of imaginative function,
executive rather than contemplative or wise." French literature he did
not love, though he was a reader of Sainte-Beuve and of George Sand.
1835-60] JAMES ELLIOT CABOT, 23
On a journey he liked to have Martial or a treatise of Cicero in his hand-
bag, partly because he did not read them at home. At home he read no
Latin or Greek, though he retained his knowledge of Greek sufficiently
to be able, in his later years, to compare the old translation of Plutarch's
Morals (a favorite book of his) with the original. Mystical writings —
Swedenborg, Behmen, and the like — came always well recommended to
him, though they did not engage him very deeply. The New Platonists
(in Thomas Taylor's translation) and the Oriental (particularly the Hin-
doo) religious books, the Bhagavat Grita, the Puranas, and Upanishads,
were among his favorites. He often quotes the so-called Chaldaean Ora-
cles, and the like, without troubling himself with any question of their
authenticity ; not caring, he said, " whether they are genuine antiques
or modern counterfeits, as I am only concerned with the good sentences,
and it is indifferent how old a truth is."
He says in his journal in 1837 : " If you elect writing for your task
in life, I believe you must renounce all pretensions to reading." Not as
if learning were hostile to originality, — the power to originate, he says,
is commonly accompanied by assimilating power; he had great regard
for scholarship, and lamented the want of it in this country ; he was
impatient of the " self-made men " whose originality rests on their igno-
rance. But he was thinking merely of his own case: learning, he felt,
was not his affair ; he was occupied with his own problems. " I have
long ago discovered that I have nothing to do with other people's facts.
It is enough for me if I can dispose of my own."
It was a maxim with him that power is not so much shown in talent
or in successful performance as in tone ; the absolute or the victorious
tone, the tone of direct vision, disdaining all definitions. This had a
special attraction for him, in a book or in a person, and may help to
explain some predilections of his. He disliked limitations, and wel-
comed whatever promised to get rid of them, without always inquiring
very closely what was left when they were removed.
On the whole, what is most noteworthy in Emerson's relation to books
is the slightness of his dependence on them. He lived among his books
and was never comfortable away from them, yet they did not much enter
into his life. They were pleasant companions, but not counsellors, —
hardly even intimates. His writings abound in quotations, and he valued
highly the store of sentences laid up in his note-books for use in lectur-
ing. But he quotes, as he himself says, in a way unflattering to his
author; there is little trace of that most nattering kind of quotation
which shows itself in assimilation of the thought. ....
In his writing, the sentence is the natural limit of continuous effort ;
the context and connection was an afterthought.
" In writing my thoughts I seek no order, or harmony, or result. I
24 GEORGE 8HEPARD BURLEIGH. [1835-60
am not careful to see how they comport with other thoughts and other
moods : I trust them for that. Any more than how any one minute of
the year is related to any other remote minute, which yet I know is so
related. The thoughts and the minutes obey their own magnetisms, and
will certainly reveal them in time."
His practice was, when a sentence had taken shape, to write it out in
his journal, and leave it to find its fellows afterwards. These journals,
paged and indexed, were the quarry from which he built his lectures and
essays. When he had a paper to get ready, he took the material col-
lected under the particular heading and added whatever suggested itself
at the moment. The proportion thus added seems to have varied con-
siderably ; it was large in the early time, say to about 1846, and some-
times very small in the later essays.
He was well aware of the unconsecutiveness that came from his way
of writing, and liked it as little as anybody :
(Journal, 1854.) " If Minerva offered me a gift and an option, I would
say, Give me continuity. I am tired of scraps. I do not wish to be a
literary or intellectual chiffonier. Away with this Jew's rag-bag of ends
and tufts of brocade, velvet, and cloth-of-gold, and let me spin some
yards or miles of helpful twine; a clew to lead to one kingly truth; a
cord to bind wholesome and belonging facts."
BORN in Plainfleld, Conn., 1821.
MOTHER MARGARY.
[Poems. 1849. Revised by the Author for this Work. 1888.]
/~\N a bleak ridge, from whose granite edges
^-^ Sloped the rough land to the grisly north,
And whose hemlocks, clinging to the ledges,
Like a thinned banditti straggled forth —
In a crouching, wormy-timbered hamlet
Mother Margary shivered in the cold,
With a tattered robe of faded camlet
On her shoulders — crooked, weak, and old.
Time on her had done his cruel pleasure,
For her face was very dry and thin,
And the records of his growing measure
Lined and cross-lined all her shrivelled skin.
1835-60] GEORGE SHEPARD BURLEIGH. 25
Scanty goods to her had Heaven allotted,
Yet her thanks rose oftener than desire,
While her bony fingers, bent and knotted,
Fed with withered twigs the dying fire.
Raw and dreary were the northern winters;
Winds howled pitiless around her cot,
Or with long sighs made the jarring splinters
Moan the misery she bemoanfed not.
Drifting tempests rattled at her windows,
And hung snow-wreaths round her naked bed ;
While the wind-flaws muttered o'er the cinders
Till the last spark struggled and was dead.
Life had fresher hopes when she was younger,
But their dying wrung out no complaints;
Cold, and penury, neglect, and hunger —
These to Margary were guardian saints.
When she sat, her head was prayer-like bending;
When she rose, it rose not any more ;
Faster seemed her true heart graveward tending
Than her tired feet, weak and travel-sore.
She was mother of the dead and scattered —
Had been mother of the brave and fair ;
But her branches, bough by bough, were scattered
Till her torn heart was left dry and bare.
Yet she knew, though sorely desolated,
When the children of the poor depart,
Their earth-vestures are but sublimated,
So to gather closer in the heart.
With a courage which had never fitted
Words to speak it to the soul it blessed,
She endured, in silence and unpitied,
Woes enough to mar a stouter breast.
There was born such holy trust within her,
That the graves of all who had been dear,
To a region clearer and serener
Raised her spirit from our chilly sphere.
They were footsteps on her Jacob's ladder;
Angels to her were the loves and hopes
Which had left her purified, but sadder ;
And they lured her to the emerald slopes
Of that heaven where anguish never flashes
Her red fire-whip, — happy land, whose flowers
Blossom over the volcanic ashes
Of this blighted, blighting world of ours.
All her power was a love of goodness;
All her wisdom was a mystic faith
26
HENRY MARTTN FIELD. [1835-60
That the rough world's jargoning and rudeness
Turn to music at the gate of death.
So she walked while feeble limbs allowed her,
Knowing well that any stubborn grief
She might meet with could no more than crowd her
To that wall whose opening was relief.
So she lived, an anchoress of sorrow,
Lone and peaceful, on the rocky slope ;
And, when burning trials came, would borrow
New fire of them for the lamp of hope.
When at last her palsied hand, in groping,
Rattled tremulous at the grated tomb,
Heaven flashed round her joys beyond her hoping,
And her young soul gladdened into bloom.
BORN in Stockbridge, Mass., 1822.
TRAVELLING ON THE DESERT.
[On the Desert. 1883.]
WE marched on quite alone, and began to feel more and more the
loneliness of the desert. Not only was there no man in sight,
but not a living thing. The utter absence of life affected us strangely,
as it brought the sense not only of solitude, but of silence. Even while
it was yet broad day, there fell on us a silence as of the night The earth
grew calm and still, as if suddenly the course of nature had stopped, and
all things had ceased to live. Although the Red Sea still gleamed in
the distance, yet as we moved away from it, we could no longer hear the
lapping of its waves ; and there was no sign of life on sea or land, or in
the sky. Not a bird wheeled in the air ; not even an insect's hum broke
the stillness of the desert. Even nature seemed to have hushed her
voice; no murmuring brook made music in our ears; no sough of the
wind in the pines whispered to us in the gloaming. The only sound
that fell on the ear was the steady step of the camel crunching through
the hard crust ; and when we passed through long stretches of soft sand,
even that seemed muffled, as the broad foot, soft and springy as the
tiger's, sank under us almost without a sound. So oppressive was the
stillness that it was a relief to hear the song of the cameleer, though it
had little music in it, for it was always in the minor key, and low and
1835-60] HENRY MARTTN FIELD. 27
feeble, as if he trembled to hear the sound of his own voice in the deep
solitude. It seemed as if we had gone out of the world, and entered the
Halls of Eternal Silence, and were moving on into a mysterious realm,
where the sound of human voices would be heard nevermore.
In studying the geography of the desert, the first lesson to be learned
is to know what is meant by a wady. Destitute as these broad stretches
of barrenness are of springs, or running brooks, yet at times they are
swept by terrific storms, when torrents dash down the mountain side,
and plow deep furrows in the sandy waste. The dry beds which they
leave behind are wadies. These wadies, depressed below the level of the
surrounding plain, are the favorite places for pitching tents, as the banks
on either side furnish a shelter from the winds that sweep over the
desert. Several of these we crossed to-day, in which the half-dried mud
showed that there had been recent rains. Wherever the moisture had
touched, there were signs of vegetation. Dr. Post, who is always on the
lookout for such treasures, found twenty new species of plants in one
day, which he displayed with the delight of a discoverer, pointing out
how nature had provided sustenance for them by furnishing them with
thick leaves or long roots or little warts, which the microscope showed
to be so many minute cells or sacs for water.
Every traveller will have his attention called by his camel, if not by
his guide, to a thorny bush of which the camel is very fond. Nor will
the rider, if he be wise, urge on the poor beast which stops a moment to
crop its leaves, for it is very aromatic, and sends up a fragrant smell into
his face. Another bush which is common is the juniper — more properly
the '' broom " of the desert — under which we often found a shade for our
midday meal.
Twice to-day were we reminded that we were on the track of the
Israelites — once at Ma rah, the spring whose very name tells of its bitter-
ness, and which, however sweetened by Moses, still disappoints the
traveller, for indeed it is almost dried up. We found in it no flowing
water at all ; only digging in the sand, we discovered where a hidden
spring was oozing away. A much larger spring, or group of springs, we
found at Wady Ghurundel, the Elim of the Scriptures, where we camped
for the night. In these desert marches it is always an object to pitch
one's tent near a spring. We were indeed supplied with water, which
we took in at Suez, from the Sweet Water Canal, which brings it from
the Nile. From this were filled the casks, which were slung on the
backs of our camels. These are so precious that when unloaded for the
night, and set up on end, they are kept locked lest the men should
snatch forbidden draughts. Water for themselves they carry in water-
skins. But though we were provided so as to be in no danger of dying
by thirst, yet in the desert there is something refreshing even in the
23 HENRY MABTTN FIELD. [1835-60
sight of flowing water. How could we fail to camp at a spot where
Moses had arrested his march because he found, as he tells us, twelve
springs and seventy palm-trees? Moses is gone, but the springs are still
here. " Men may come and men may go, but they flow on forever.''
The Arab still comes to find water for himself and his camels at the
same spring which quenched the thirst of the Israelites. On the very
spot where the great Hebrew leader pitched his tent, we camped at the
end of our second day's march. In the morning I went down to the
springs, and found them hardly worthy of their ancient fame, or of the
place which they still hold in sacred poetry, where " the shade of Elim's
palm" is the type of almost heavenly rest. Neither in water nor in
shade does Elim approach the Wells of Moses. Instead of a running
brook or bursting fountains, one finds only a sluggish rivulet melting
away in the sand, with a few straggling palms along its brink. Yet
slender as it is, and although the water is somewhat brackish, it may be
the very water of life on the desert The Arabs came from the camp,
and filled their water-skins, which they slung over their shoulders, and
then threw on the backs of their camels. I bent down to the stream to
drink, and though it was not like putting my lips to " the moss-covered
bucket which hung in the well," still there was a pleasure in drinking of
the very springs of which Moses drank more than three thousand years
ago.
But the traveller on the desert must not linger by bubbling streams or
under palm-trees. While we had been here, the camels had been got
ready, and we must up and away. To-day's march brought a change of
scene, as we left behind the flat or rolling sandy plain, and entered into
a region more wild and rugged. We found that this Peninsula was not
an unbroken plain, stretching to the base of Sinai, but that " the wilder-
ness " was a wilderness of mountains, through which one could make his
way only by following the wadies that wound about in every direction,
forming a perfect labyrinth, and that sometimes assumed the character
of mountain defiles. This afternoon we pursued our course along these
river beds till we came into one where a torrent in the course of ages
had cut through successive strata of rock, cleaving them to the base of
the hills, and forming a gorge almost like a canon of the Rocky Mount-
ains. This we followed in all its windings for several hours, till sud-
denly the cliffs opened, and before us lay the Red Sea, beyond which
was a range of mountains, the line of which was broken by peaks shoot-
ing up here and there, like the cliffs of Capri, or the islands of the
Greek Archipelago. It was now five o'clock, and the sun was sinking
in the west, so that every point of that long serrated ridge stood up
sharp and clear against the sky. Here was a scene which no artist could
transfer to canvas. We had before us at once the mountains and the
1835-60] OCTAV1US BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 29
sea, and mountains on both sides of the sea. Enchanted and almost
bewildered by the scene, as we came out upon a wide stretch of beach,
we dismounted to walk, for the greater freedom of motion, and that we
could stop and turn to every point of the horizon. Can I ever forget
that heavenly hour, and how soft was the light on the African mount-
ains ! As the sunset shone across the sea, it lighted up also the Arabian
hills above which there was a soft violet tint in the sky, which gradually
faded away, and was succeeded by an intense blue, while high up in the
heavens hung the moon, only two days to the full. Again we mounted
our camels, and rode on for a mile or two, till, rounding a point, we dis-
covered our tents in a little cove or inlet in the sandy hills, but a few
rods from the shore. The spot seemed made for a camp, as it was shel-
tered from the winds, and the sand was firm and hard, so that the tent
floor was smooth and clean. Here Moses camped by the Red Sea, and
following the illustrious example, we camped, as it were, on the very
shore, where in our waking moments all night long we heard the waters
as they came rippling up the beach.
'Broofeg
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1822.
THE TRANSCENDENTALISM
[Transcendentalism in New England. 1876.]
A GOD of limited power, wisdom, or goodness, is no God, and no other
does Sensationalism offer. Transcendentalism points to the fact
that under the auspices of this philosophy atheism has spread ; and
along with atheism the intellectual demoralization that accompanies the
disappearance of a cardinal idea.
From this grave peril the Transcendental ist found an escape in flight
to the spiritual nature of man, in virtue of which he had an intuitive
knowledge of God as a being, infinite and absolute in power, wisdom,
and goodness ; a direct perception like that which the senses have of
material objects ; a perception that gains in distinctness, clearness, and
positiveness as the faculties through which it is obtained increase in
power and delicacy. To the human mind, by its original constitution,
belongs the firm assurance of God's existence, as a half latent fact of
consciousness, and with it a dim sense of his moral attributes. To
minds capacious and sensitive the truth was disclosed in lofty ranges
30 OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. [1835-60
that lifted the horizon line, in every direction, above the cloudland of
doubt ; to minds cultivated, earnest, devout, aspiring, the revelation
came in bursts of glory. The experiences of inspired men and women
were repeated. The prophet, the seer, the saint, was no longer a favored
person whose sayings and doings were recorded in the Bible, but a liv-
ing person, making manifest the wealth of soul in all human beings.
Communication with the ideal world was again opened through con-
science; and communion with God, close and tender as is anywhere
described by devotees and mystics, was promised to the religious affec-
tions.
The Transcendentalist spoke of God with authority. His God was
not possible, but real; not probable, but certain. In his high confi-
dence he had small respect for the labored reasonings of " Natural Eeli-
gion " ; the argument from design, so carefully elaborated by Paley,
Brougham and the writers of the " Bridgewater Treatises," was interest-
ing and useful as far as it went, but was remanded to an inferior place.
The demonstration from miracle was dismissed with feelings bordering
on contempt, as illogical and childish.
Taking his faith with him into the world of nature and of human life,
the Transcendentalist, sure of the divine wisdom and love, found every-
where joy for mourning, and beauty for ashes. Passing through the
valley of Baca, he saw springs bubbling up from the sand, and making
pools for thirsty souls. Wherever he came, garments of heaviness were
dropped and robes of praise put on. Evil was but the prophecy of
good, wrong the servant of right, pain the precursor of peace, sorrow
the minister to joy. He would acknowledge no exception to the rule of
an absolute justice and an inexorable love. It was certain that all was
well, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. He was, as we have
said, an optimist — not of the indifferent sort that make the maxim
"Whatever is, is right" an excuse for idleness — but of the heroic kind
who, by refreshing their minds with thoughts of the absolute goodness,
keep alive their faith, hope, endeavor, and quicken themselves to efforts
at understanding, interpreting and bringing to the surface the divine
attributes. For himself he had no misgivings, and no alarm at the mis-
givings of others ; believing them due, either to some misunderstanding
that might be corrected, or to some moral defect that could be cured.
Even atheism, of the crudest, coarsest, most stubborn description, had
no terrors for him. It was in his judgment a matter of definition
mainly. Utter atheism was all but inconceivable to him ; the essential
faith in divine things under some form of mental perception being too
deeply planted in human nature to be eradicated or buried.
Taking his belief with him into the world of history, the Transcen-
dentalist discovered the faith in God beneath all errors, delusions, idola-
1835-60] OCTAV1US BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 3}
tries and superstition. He read it into unintelligible scriptures ; he
drew it forth from obsolete symbols ; he dragged it to the light from
the darkness of hateful shrines and the bloody mire of pagan altars.
Mr. Parker meditated a work on the religious history of mankind, in
which the development of the theistic idea was to be traced from its
shadowy beginnings to its full maturity ; and this he meant should
be the crowning work of his life. Sure of his first principle, he had no
hesitation in going into caves and among the ruins of temples. Had
that work been completed, the Transcendentalist's faith in God would
have received its most eloquent statement.
The other cardinal doctrine of religion — the immortality of the soul
— Transcendentalism was proud of having rescued from death in the
same way. The philosophy of sensation could give no assurance of per-
sonal immortality. Here, too, its fundamental axiom, " Nihil in intel-
lectu quod non prius in sensu" was discouraging to belief. For immortal-
ity is not demonstrable to the senses. Experience affords no basis for
conviction, and knowledge cannot on any pretext be claimed.
The preaching of Transcendentalists caused, in all parts of the coun-
try, a revival of interest and of faith in personal immortality ; spiritual-
ized the idea of it ; enlarged the scope of the belief, and ennobled its
character; established an organic connection between the present life
and the future, making them both one in substance ; disabused people of
the coarse notion that the next life was an incident of their experience,
and compelled them to think of it as a normal extension of their being ;
substituted aspiration after spiritual deliverance and perfection, for hope
of happiness and fear of misery ; recalled attention to the nature and
capacity of the soul itself ; in a word, announced the natural immortal-
ity of the soul by virtue of its essential quality. The fanciful reasoning
of Plato's " Phcedon " was supplemented by new readings in psychology,
and strengthened by powerful moral supports ; the highest desires, the
purest feelings, the deepest sympathies, were enlisted in its cause ; death
was made incidental to life; lower life was made subordinate to higher;
and men who were beginning to doubt whether the demand for personal
immortality was entirely honorable in one who utterly trusted in God,
thoroughly appreciated the actual world, and fairly respected his own
dignity, were reassured by a faith which promised felicity on terms that
compromised neither reason nor virtue. The very persons who had let
go the hope of immortality because they could not accept it at the cost
of sacrificing their confidence in God's instant justice, were glad to
recover it as a promise of fulfilment to their dearest desire for spiritual
expansion.
32 OCTAVIUS BROOKS FBOTHINOHAM. [1835-60
THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW FAITH.
[Discourse quoted in " Frothingham and the New Faith." 1876.]
WHAT is the new faith ? What is its peculiarity ? What is its
intellectual ground ? The new faith rests frankly and composedly
upon the doctrine of evolution ; not maintaining the doctrine in any
dogmatic sense ; not pretending to define it with scientific accuracy ;
but accepting it in its broad meaning and lofty significance ; planting
itself upon it as the most probable account of the world's existence.
Instead of believing that the creative power and wisdom interposes to
carry out special plans, and to impart special ideas to the race, it is per-
suaded that from the very beginning — from the veriest beginning — things
have been working themselves gradually out into intelligent forms, into
beautiful shapes, into varied use, loveliness, and power. It contends
that the world of humanity began at the beginning and not at the end.
It therefore discards miracles, rejects everything like supernatural inter-
position, considers as obsolete the popular theory of revelation. It has
no inspired books distinguished in character and contents from the
world's best literatures. It sets up no teachers and prophets as pro-
claiming an infallible word. It, expects no infallible word from any
quarter. It reads no book with absolute or entire reverence such as no
other literature can receive. It sees the work of the supreme will and
wisdom in the ordinary texture of the world, hailing its vital presence
as an influence working toward light, order, righteousness, goodness, per-
fection in individual man and in the social groupings of mankind which
are called societies. Planting itself upon this idea, the spirit that ani-
mates it must be peculiarly its own. It cannot be narrow, dogmatical,
or exclusive; nor can it be negative, scornful, or contemptuous. It
stands beyond the very last attainment in charity. ....
The new faith rises beyond charity to appreciation. It has no con-
tempt ; it has no toleration ; it has no active or passive indifference ; it
has more than negative good will ; it has the warm sentiment of brother-
hood. It can turn to the most abject forms of faith, the forms commonly
regarded as superstition, and recognize their importance, their timeliness,
even their benignity, in the periods when they prevailed. It can do jus-
tice to their intent, their purpose, their being, when faith alone discloses
it It can interpret their significance to their own believers unaware
of their spiritual sense. It has no language of disparagement for men
like Mahomet, Confucius, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Socrates, or any other
renowned teacher, reformer, or saint. It has no words of scorn for men
like Yoltaire, Thomas Paine, d'Holbach, Helvetius, Bolingbroke, the
so-called, the self-styled infidels or atheists of their day. It takes these
1835-60] OCTAVIUS BROOKS FMOTHINOHAM. 33
men at their best — takes their systems by their positive elements, enters
into their state of mind, their purposes and wishes, interprets them from
the inside motives that actuated them, and holds them to account for
what they meant to do and be, presenting them as objects of regard to the
fellow-creatures whom they thought to serve. The new faith takes the
old faiths by one hand and the modern faiths by the other, embraces all
earnest people, and cordially says : Let us be friends ; we are all working
together, thinking, hoping, feeling our way into the realms of truth, con-
spiring to further the welfare of mankind. The new faith, thus taking
every mode of thought at its best, not at its worst, can do justice even to
abhorrent opinions. It says to the atheist : You deny the existence of
God; you take Deity out of the Heavens, leaving none but natural and
human forces in the world ; very well, then put Deity into your hearts.
You say there is no Creator of the Universe ; but there must be creative
power somewhere ; be yourself a creator. Do your utmost to put the
regenerating powers that are within you into the task of making the
material and moral world what it should be. You ridicule the idea of a
Divine Providence ; but somebody must provide ; be a providence your-
self in your own place and after your own fashion — a human providence,
watchful, careful, helpful, kind. Show humanity that man has the capa-
city in himself for supplying his own necessities ; logic compels you to
this ; compels you to look up, not down ; to rank yourself with the
affirmers, not with the deniers ; with the builders, not with the destroy-
ers ; with the worshippers, not the desecrators.
The new faith approaches the materialist in the same spirit. It says
to him : Be consistent with your own creed, and fulfil its positive
requirements. You say there is no spirit in man or out of him ; that
matter is all in all. Very well, spiritualize matter by exalting all its
capabilities. You are bound to develop all the potencies of organiza-
tion ; it is incumbent upon you, as you maintain that there is no super-
natural, superhuman world, to unfold the possibilities of this world.
You are certain that there is no hereafter ; teach men to honor, love,
glorify their existence. Teach them to believe in this life ; believe your-
self that the next life is the nearest life, and the nearest life is the life of
to-day ; show them that you understand the worth of the hours ; make
this life eternal, by packing it full of purposes and deeds that never
perish. ....
When faith shall stand upon a spirit as live, sweet, tender, and encour-
aging as this, at once all heretics will be disarmed. The wars between
the churches will cease ; sectarian hatred must be at an end ; religionist
will no longer clutch religionist by the throat and drag him down. All
true seekers, believers, hopers, aspirers, workers, will be confessed by
one body, one fellowship, one family, contending together zealously to
VOL. vm. — 3
34 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. [1835-60
bring in a new order of things. This is the spirit of the new faith.
Toleration it looks upon as utterly unwarranted. Charity at its best is
exceedingly imperfect. It will accept nothing else than cordial and full
appreciation of every earnest endeavor that is made by any thinker or
worker for humanity.
I3uc^anan
BORN in Chester Co., Perm., 1822. DIED in New York, N. T., 1872.
DRIFTING.
[Poetical Works. 1867.]
MY soul to-day
Is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay ;
My winged boat,
A bird afloat,
Swings round the purple peaks remote: —
Round purple peaks
It sails, and seeks
Blue inlets and their crystal creeks,
"Where high rocks throw,
Through deeps below,
A duplicated golden glow.
Far, vague, and dim,
The mountains swim;
While on Vesuvius' misty brim,
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O'evlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles :
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capii waits,
Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if
My rippling skiff
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff;
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise.
1835-60] THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 35
Under the walls
Where swells and falls
The Bay's deep breast at intervals
At peace I lie,
Blown softly by,
A cloud upon this liquid sky.
The day, so mild,
Is Heaven's own child,
With Earth and Ocean reconciled;
The airs I feel
Around me steal
Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.
Over the rail
My hand I trail
Within the shadow of the sail,
A joy intense,
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Where Summer sings and never dies, —
O'erveiled with vines
She glows and shines
Among her future oil and wines.
Her children, hid
The cliffs amid,
Are gambolling with the gambolling kid ;
Or down the walls,
With tipsy calls,
Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.
The fisher's child,
With tresses wild,
Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips
Sings as she skips,
Or gazes at the far-off ships.
Yon deep bark goes
Where traffic blows,
From lands of sun to lands of snows ;
This happier one,
Its course is run
From lauds of snow to lands of sun.
O happy ship,
To rise and dip,
With the blue crystal at your lip!
THOMAS BUCHANAN BEAD. [1835-60
O happy crew,
My heart with you
Sails, and sails, and sings anew !
No more, no more
The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar:
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise !
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
"TTP from the south, at break of day,
*-' Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted 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.
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 sprang 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.
1835-60] THOMAS BUCHANAN BEAD. 37
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 bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But, lo! he is neariug 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,
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 soldier's 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 CLOSING SCENE.
WITHIN his sober realm of leafless trees
The russet year inhaled the dreamy air;
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The gray barns looking from their lazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder of alternate flails.
THOMAS BUCHANAN BEAD. [1835-60
All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther and the streams sang low ;
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.
The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.
On slumbrous wings the vulture held his flight ;
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint;
And, like a star slow drowning in the light,
The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.
The sentinel-cock upon the hill-side crew —
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,
Silent till some replying warder blew
His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,
By every light wind like a censer swung ;
Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves,
The busy swallows, circling ever near,
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and a plenteous year;
Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast,
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,
To warn the reaper of the rosy east, —
All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.
Alone from out the stubble piped the quail,
And croaked the crow through all the dreamy gloom ;
Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,
Made echo to the distant cottage loom.
There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night;
The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight.
Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,
And where the woodbine shed upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there
Firing the floor with his inverted torch ;
1835-60] DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. 39
Amid all this, the centre of the scene,
The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread,
Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien,
Sat, like a Fate, and watched the flying thread.
She had known Sorrow, — he had walked with her,
Oft supped and broke the bitter ashen crust;
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir
Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.
While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned and she gave her all ;
And twice War bowed to her his sable plume —
Regave the swords to rust upon her wall.
Regave the swords, — but not the hand that drew
And struck for Liberty its dying blow,
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe.
Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon ;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.
At last the thread was snapped — her head was bowed;
Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene, —
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud,
While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene.
d$rant
BORN in Norwich, Conn., 1833.
OF BOOKS AND BERRIES.
[MyFarmofEdgewood. 1868.]
FROM the time when I read of Mistress Doctor Primrose's gooseberry
wine, which the Doctor celebrates in his charming autobiography,
I have entertained a kindly regard for that fruit. But my efforts to
grow it successfully have been sadly baffled. The English climate
alone, I think, will bring it to perfection. I know not how many ven-
tures I have made with Roaring Lion, Brown Bob, Conquerors, and
other stupendous varieties ; but without infinite care, after the first crop,
the mildew will catch and taint them. Our native varieties, — such
40
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. [1835-60
for instance, as the Hough ton Seedling, make a better show, and, with
ordinary care, can be fruited well for a succession of seasons. But it is
not, after all, the stanch old English berry, which pants for the fat
English gardens, for the scent of hawthorn, and fon the lowering fog-
banks of Lancashire.
Garden associations (with those who entertain them) inevitably have
English coloring. Is it strange — when so many old gardens are bloom-
ing through so many old books we know?
No fruit is so thoroughly English in its associations ; and I never see
a plump Eoaring Lion but I think of a burly John Bull, with waistcoat
strained over him like the bursting skin of his gooseberry, and mutter-
ing defiance to all the world. There is, too, another point of resem-
blance ; the fruit is liable to take the mildew when removed from Brit-
ish soil, just as John gets the blues, and wraps himself in a veil of his
own foggy humors, whenever he goes abroad. My experience suggests
that this capricious fruit be planted under the shadow of a north wall,
in soil compact and deep; it should be thoroughly enriched, pruned
severely, watered abundantly, and mulched (if possible) with kelp fresh
from the sea-shore. These conditions and appliances may give a clean
cheek even to the Conquering Hero.
But it is not so much for any piquancy of flavor that I prize the fruit
as because its English bloat is pleasantly suggestive of little tartlets
(smothered in clotted cream) eaten long ago under the lee of Dartmoor
hills — of Lancashire gardens, where prize berries reposed on little scaf-
foldings, or swam in porcelain saucers — and of bristling thickets in Cow-
per's " Wilderness " by Olney.
Is it lonely in my garden of a summer's evening ? Have the little
pattering feet gone their ways — to bed ? Then I people the gooseberry
alley with old Doctor Primrose, and his daughters Sophia and Olivia ;
Squire Burchell comes, and sits upon the bench with me under the arbor,
as I smoke my pipe. How shall we measure our indebtedness to such
pleasant books, that people our solitude so many years after they are
written ! Oliver Goldsmith, I thank you ! Crown Bob, I thank you !
Gooseberries, like the English, are rather indigestible.
Of strawberries I shall not speak as a committee-man, but as a simple
lover of a luscious dish. I am not learned in kinds ; and have even had
the niaiserie in the presence of cultivators to confound Crimson Cone
with Boston Pine, and have blushed to my eyelids when called upon
to name the British Queen in a little collection of only four mammoth
varieties. With strawberries, as with people, I believe in old friends.
The early Scarlet, if a little piquant, is good for the first pickings ; and
the Hovey, with a neighbor bed of Pines, or McAvoy, and Black Prince,
if you please, give good flavor, and a well-rounded dish. The spicy
•
* JJim
1835-60] DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. ^
Alpines should bring up the rear, and, as they send out but few run-
ners, are admirably adapted for borders. The Wilson is a great bearer,
and a fine berry ; but with the tweak of its acidity in my mouth, I can
give its flavor no commendation. Supposing the land to be in good
vegetable-bearing condition, and deeply dug, I know no dressing which
will so delight the strawberry as a heavy coat of dark forest-mould.
They are the children of the wilderness, force them as we will, and their
little fibrous rootlets never forget their longing for the dark, unctuous
odor of mouldering forest leaves.
Three great traveller's dishes of strawberries are in my mind.
The first was at an inn in the quaint Dutch town of Broek : I can see
now the heaped dish of mammoth crimson berries, — the mug of luscious
cream standing sentry, — the round red cheese upon its platter, — the
tidy hostess, with arms akimbo, looking proudly on it all : the leaves
flutter idly at the latticed window, through which I see wide stretches
of level meadow, — broad-armed windmills flapping their sails leisurely,
— cattle lying in lazy groups under the shade of scattered trees ; and
there is no sound to break the June stillness, except the buzzing of the
bees that are feeding upon the blossoms of the linden which overhangs
the inn.
I thought I had never eaten finer berries than the Dutch berries.
The second dish was at the Douglas Hotel in the city of Edinboro' ;
a most respectable British tavern, with a heavy solid sideboard in its
parlor ; heavy solid silver upon its table ; heavy and solid chairs with
cushions of shining mohair ; a heavy and solid figure of a landlord ; and
heavy and solid figures in the reckoning.
The berries were magnificent ; served upon quaint old India china,
with stems upon them, and to be eaten as one might eat a fig, with suc-
cessive bites, and successive dips in the sugar. The Scotch fruit was
acid, I must admit, but the size was monumental. I wonder if the
stout landlord is living yet, and if the little pony that whisked me away
to Salisbury crag is still nibbling his vetches in the meadow by Holy-
rood?
The third dish was in Switzerland, in the month of October. I had
crossed that day the Scheideck from Meyringen, had threaded the val-
ley of Grindelwald, and had just accomplished the first lift of the Wen-
gern Alp — tired and thirsty — when a little peasant girl appeared with a
tray of blue saucers, brimming with Alpine berries — so sweet, so
musky, so remembered, that I never eat one now but the great valley of
Grindelwald, with its sapphire show of glaciers, its guardian peaks, and
its low meadows flashing green, is rolled out before me like a map.
In those old days when we schoolboys were admitted to the garden
of the head-master twice in a season — only twice — to eat our fill of cur-
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. [1835-60
4Z
rants (his maid having gathered a stock for jellies two days before^!
Sought it "most-a-splendid" fruit; but I think far less of it now. My
bushes are burdened with both white and red clusters, but the spurs are
somewhat mossy, and the boughs have a straggling dejected air. With
a little care, severe pruning, due enrichment, and a proper regard to
varieties (Cherry and White Grape being the best), it may be brought to
make a very pretty show as a dessert fruit. But as I never knew it to
be eaten very freely at dessert, however finely it might look, I have not
thought it worth while to push its proportions for a mere show upon the
exhibition tables. The amateurs would smile at those I have ; but I
console myself with reflecting that they smile at a great deal of good-
ness which is not their own. They are full of conceit— I say it charita-
bly. I like to upset their proprieties.
There was one of them, an excellent fellow (if he had not been pomo-
logically starched and jaundiced), who paid me a visit in my garden not
long ago, bringing his little son, who had been educated strictly in the
belief that all fine fruit was made — not to be enjoyed, but for pomolog-
ical consideration.
The dilettante papa was tip-toeing along with a look of serene and
well-bred contempt for my mildewed gooseberries and scrawny currants,
when I broke off a brave bough loaded with Tartarian cherries, and
handed it to the lad, with — " Here, Harry, my boy, — we farmers grow
these things to eat! "
What a grateful look of wonderment in his clear gray eyes !
The broken limb, the heresy of the action, the suddenness of it all,
were too much for my fine friend. I do not think that for an hour he
recovered from the shock to his sensibilities.
Of raspberries, commend me to the Eed Antwerp, and the Brinckle's
Orange, but to insure good fruitage, they should be protected from high
winds, and should be lightly buried, or thoroughly " strawed over " in
winter. The Perpetual, I have found a perpetual nuisance.
The New Eochelle or Lawton blackberry has been despitefully spoken
of by many; first, because the market-fruit is generally bad, being
plucked before it is fully ripened ; and next, because in rieh clayey
grounds, the briers, unless severely cut back, and again back, grow into
a tangled, unapproachable forest, with all the juices exhausted in wood.
But upon a soil moderately rich, a little gravelly and warm, protected
from wind, served with occasional top-dressings and good hoeings, the
Lawton brier bears magnificent burdens.
Even then, if you would enjoy the richness of the fruit, you must not
be hasty to pluck it When the children say with a shout—" The
blackberries are ripe !" I know they are black only, and I can wait,
When the children report— "The birds are eating the berries," I
1835-60J DONALD GhRANT MITCHELL. 43
know I can still wait. But when they say—" The bees are on the ber-
ries," I know they are at full ripeness.
Then, with baskets we sally out ; I taking the middle rank, and the
children the outer spray of boughs. Even now we gather those only
which drop at the touch ; these, in a brimming saucer, with golden Alder-
ney cream, and a soupgon of powdered sugar, are Olympian nectar ; they
melt before the tongue can measure their full roundness, and seem to be
mere bloated bubbles of forest honey.
There is a scratch here and there, which calls from the children a
half-scream ; but a big berry on the lip cures the smart ; and for myself,
if the thorns draggle me, I rather fancy the rough caresses, and repeat
with the garden poet (humming it half aloud) :
" Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines;
Curl me about, ye gadding vines;
And oh ! so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place;
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, 0 brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briers, nail me through."
A MORNING AT LA ROQUETTE.
[Seven Stories. 1864.]
T HAD never witnessed an execution ; had never cared to witness one.
J- But I wished to look once more on the face of Emile Roque.
The executions in Paris take place without public announcement, and
usually at daybreak, upon the square fronting the great prison of La,
Roquette. No order is issued until a late hour on the preceding even-
ing, when the state executioner is directed to have the guillotine brought
at midnight to the prison square, and a corps of soldiery is detailed for
special service (unmentioned) in that quarter of the city. My only chance
of witnessing the scene was in arranging with one of the small wine-mer-
chants, who keep open house in that neighborhood until after midnight,
to dispatch a messenger to me whenever he should see preparations
commenced.
This arrangement I effected ; and on the 22d of March I was roused
from sleep at a little before one in the morning by a bearded man, who
had felt his way up the long flight of stairs to my rooms, and informed
me that the guillotine had arrived before the prison of Koquette.
My thought flashed on the instant to the figure of Emile as I had seen
DONALD GRANT ^MITCHELL. [1835-60
him before the Shepherdesses of Watteau-as I had seen him before the
picture of the Shipwreck. I dressed hurriedly and groped my way
below The night was dark and excessively cold. A little sleet had
fallen' which crumpled under my feet as I made my way toward the
quay' Arrived there, not a cab was to be found at the usual stand ; so
I pushed on across the river, and under the archway of the palace of the
Louvre,— casting my eye toward that wing of the great building where ]
had first seen the face which I was shortly to look on for the last time
on earth. ,
Finding no cabs in the square before the palace, I went on through
the dark streets of St. Anne and Grammont, until I reached the Boule-
vard. A few voitures de remise were opposite the Cafe Foy. I appealed
to the drivers of two of them in vain, and only succeeded by a bribe in
inducing a third to drive me to the Place de la Roquette. It is a long way
from the centre of Paris, under the shadow almost of Pere la Chaise. I
tried to keep some reckoning of the streets through which we passed,
but I could not. Sometimes my eye fell upon what seemed a familiar
corner, but in a moment all was strange again. The lamps appeared to
me to burn dimly ; the houses along the way grew smaller and smaller.
From time to time, I saw a wine-shop still open ; but not a soul was
moving on the streets with the exception of, here and there, a brace of
sergents de ville. At length we seemed to have passed out of the range
even of the city patrol, and I was beginning to entertain very unpleasant
suspicions of the cabman, and of the quarter into which he might be
taking me at that dismal hour of the night, when he drew up his horse
before a little wine-shop, which I soon recognized as the one where I had
left my order for the dispatch of the night's messenger.
I knew now that the guillotine was near.
As I alighted I could see, away to my right, the dim outline of the
prison looming against the night sky, with not a single light in its grat-
ings. The broad square before it was sheeted over with sleet, and the
leafless trees that girdled it round stood ghost-like in the snow. Through
the branches, and not far from the prison gates, I could see, in the gray
light (for it was now hard upon three o'clock), a knot of persons col-
lected around a framework of timber, which I knew must be the guillo-
tine.
I made my way there, the frozen surface crumpling under my steps.
The workmen had just finished their arrangements. Two of the city
police were there, to preserve order, and to prevent too near an approach
of the loiterers from the wine-shops — who may have been, perhaps, at this
hour, a dozen in number.
I could pass near enough to observe fully the construction of the
machine. There was, first, a broad platform, perhaps fifteen feet square,
1835-60] DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. AK
supported by movable trestle-work, and elevated some six or seven feet
from the ground. A flight of plank steps led up to this, broad enough for
three to walk upon abreast Immediately before the centre of these steps,
upon the platform, was stretched what seemed a trough of plank ; and
from the farther end of this trough rose two strong uprights of timber,
perhaps ten feet in height. These were connected at the top by a slight
framework; and immediately below this, by the light of a solitary
street-lamp which flickered near by, I could see the glistening of the
knife. Beside the trough-like box was placed a long willow basket : its
shape explained to me its purpose. At the end of the trough, and
beyond the upright timbers, was placed a tub : with a shudder, I recog-
nized its purpose also.
The prison gates were only a few rods distant from the steps to
the scaffold, and directly opposite them. They were still closed and
dark.
The execution, I learned, was to take place at six. A few loiterers,
mostly in blouses, came up from time to time to join the group about the
scaffold.
By four o'clock there was the sound of tramping feet, one or two quick
words of command, and presently a battalion of the Municipal Guard,
without drum-beat, marched in at the lower extremity of the square,
approached the scaffold, and, having stacked their arms, loitered with the
rest.
Lights now began to appear at the windows of the prison. A new
corps of police came up and cleared a wider space around the guillotine.
A cold gray light stole slowly over the eastern sky.
By five o'clock the battalion of the Guards had formed a hedge of
bayonets from either side of the prison doors, extending beyond and
inclosing the scaffold. A squadron of mounted men had also come upon
the ground, and was drawn up in line, a short distance on one side. Two
officials appeared now upon the scaffold, and gave trial to the knife.
They let slip the cord or chain which held it to its place, and the knife
fell with a quick, sharp clang, that I thought must have reached to ears
within the walls of the prison. Twice more they made their trial, and
twice more I heard the clang.
Meantime people were gathering. Market-women bound for the city
lingered at sight of the unusual spectacle, and a hundred or more soldiers
from a neighboring barrack had now joined the crowd of lookers-on. A
few women from the near houses had brought their children ; and a half-
dozen boys had climbed into the trees for a better view.
At intervals, from the position which I held, I could see the prison
doors open for a moment, and the light of a lantern within, as some
officer passed in or out.
46
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. [1835-60
I remember that I stamped the ground petulantly— it was so cold.
Again and again I looked at my watch.
Fifteen minutes to six !
It was fairly daylight now, though the morning was dark and cloudy,
and a fine, searching rnist was in the air.
A man in blouse placed a bag of sawdust at the foot of the gallows.
The crowd must have now numbered a thousand. An old market-
woman stood next me. She saw me look at my watch, and asked the
hour.
" Eight minutes to six."
" Mon Dieu ; huit minutes encore ! " She was eager for the end.
I could have counted time now by the beating of my heart.
What was Emile Koque doing within those doors? praying? strug-
gling ? was the face of the castaway on him ? I could not separate him
now from that fearful picture; I was straining my vision to catch a
glimpse — not of Emile Koque — but of the living counterpart of that ter-
rible expression which he had wrought — wild, aimless despair.
Two minutes of six.
I saw a hasty rush of men to the parapet that topped the prison wall ;
they leaned there, looking over.
I saw a stir about the prison gates, and both were flung wide open.
There was a suppressed murmur around me — " Le void! Le void! " I
saw him coming forward between two officers ; he wore no coat or waist-
coat, and his shirt was rolled back from his throat ; his arms were pin-
ioned behind him ; his bared neck was exposed to the frosty March air ;
his face was pale — deathly pale, yet it was calm ; I recognized not the
castaway, but the man— Emile Eoque.
There was a moment between the prison gates and the foot of the scaf-
fold ; he kissed the crucifix, which a priest handed him, and mounted
with a firm step. I know not how, but in an instant he seemed to fall,
his head toward the knife — under the knife.
My eyes fell. I heard the old woman beside me say passionately,
" Mon Dieu ! il ne veut pas I "
I looked toward the scaffold; at that supreme moment the brute
instinct in him had rallied for a last struggle. Pinioned as he was, he
lifted up his brawny shoulders and withdrawn his neck from the
fatal opening. Now indeed, his face wore the terrible expression of the
ire. Hate, fear, madness, despair, were blended in his look
But the men mastered him; they thrust him down ; I could see him
writhe vainly. My eyes fell again.
I heard a clang— a thud !
There was a movement in the throng around me. When I looked
next at the scaffold, a man in blouse was sprinkling sawdust here and
1835-60] BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOR. ^
there. Two others were lifting the long willow basket into a covered
cart. I could see now that the guillotine was painted of a dull red color
so that no blood-stains would show.
I moved away with the throng, the sleet crumpling under my feet,
I could eat nothing that day. I could not sleep on the following
night.
The bloodshot eyes and haggard look of the picture which had at the
last — as I felt it would be— been made real in the man, haunted me.
I never go now to the gallery of the Louvre but I shun the painting of
the wrecked Medusa as I would shun a pestilence.
I5enjamm Ifranftlin Cantor*
BOKX in Lowville, N. Y., 1819. DIED in Cleveland, O., 1887.
OCTOBER.
[Old- Time Pictures, and Sheaves of Rhyme. 1874.]
"TTTHEN October comes,
' » And poplars drift their leafage down in flakes of gold below,
And beeches burn like twilight fires that used to tell of snow,
And maples bursting into flame set all the hills a-fire,
And Summer from her evergreens sees Paradise draw nigher —
A thousand sunsets all at once distil like Herinon's dew,
And linger on the waiting woods and stain them through and through,
As if all earth had blossomed out, one grand Corinthian flower,
To crown Time's graceful capital for just one gorgeous hour!
They strike their colors to the king of all the stately throng —
He comes in pomp, OCTOBER ! To him all times belong :
The frost is on his sandals, but the flush is on his cheeks,
September sheaves are in his arms, June voices when he speaks;
The elms lift bravely like a torch within a Grecian hand :
See where they light the Monarch on through all the splendid land !
The sun puts on a human look behind the hazy fold,
The mid-year moon of silver is struck anew in gold,
In honor of the very day that Moses saw of old,
For in the Burning Bush that blazed as quenchless as a sword
The old Lieutenant first beheld October and the Lord !
Ah, then, October, let it be—
I'll claim my dying day fromthee!
EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
BUNKER HILL.
TO the wail of the fife and the snarl of the drum
Those Hedgers and Ditchers of Bunker Hill come,
Down out of the battle with rumble and roll,
Straight across the two ages, right into the soul,
And bringing for captive the Day that they won
With a deed that like Joshua halted the sun.
Like bells in their towers tolled the guns from the town,
Beat that low earthen bulwark so sullen and brown,
As if Titans last night had plowed the one bout
And abandoned the field for a Yankee redoubt ;
But for token of life that the parapet gave
They might as well play on Miles Standish's grave !
Then up the green hill rolled the red of the Georges
And down the green vale rolled the grime of the forges ;
Ten rods from the ridges hung the live surge,
Not a murmur to meet it broke over the verge,
But the click of flint-locks in the furrows along,
And the chirp of a sparrow just singing her song.
In the flash of an eye, as the dead shall be raised,
The dull bastion kindled, the parapet blazed,
And the musketry cracked, glowing hotter and higher,
Like a forest of hemlock, its lashes of fire,
And redder the scarlet and riven the ranks,
And Putnam's guns hung, with a roar on the flanks.
Now the battle grows dumb and the grenadiers wheel,
'Tis the crash of clubbed musket, the thrust of cold steel,
At bay all the way, while the guns held their breath,
Foot to foot, eye to eye, with each other and Death.
Call the roll, Sergeant Time ! Match the day if you can ;
Waterloo was for Britons — Bunker Hill is for man !
Cfcetett f ale,
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1822.
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
[Originally Contributed to The Atlantic Monthly, December, ISW.-The Man Without
a Country, and Other Tales. 1888.]
T SUPPOSE that very few casual readers of the "New York Herald"
L of August 13th observed, in an obscure corner, among the " Deaths "
the announcement, —
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 49
" NOLAN. Died, on board U. S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S., Long,
131° W., on the llth of May, PHILIP NOLAN."
I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-
House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not
choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current
literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in
the " Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader
will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip
Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that
announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to
make it thus: — "Died, May llth, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY."
For it was as " The Man without a Country " that poor Philip Nolan
had generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during
some fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I
dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a fort-
night, in a three years' cruise, who never knew that his name was
" Nolan," or whether the poor wretch had any name at all.
There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature's
story. Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's
administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of
honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in
successive charge. ....
But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any longer. And now the
poor creature is dead, it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his
story, by way of showing young Americans of to-day what it is to be
A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was in the "Legion
of the West," as the Western division of our army was then called.
When Aaron Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New
Orleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he
met, as the Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright young fellow,
at some dinner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him, walked
with him, took him a day or two's voyage in his flatboat, and, in short,
fascinated him. For the next year, barrack-life was very tame to poor
Nolan. He occasionally availed himself of the permission the great
man had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded, stilted letters
the poor boy wrote and rewrote and copied. But never a line did he
have in reply from the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison
sneered at him, because he sacrificed in this unrequited affection for a
politician the time which they devoted to Monongahela, hazard, and
high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre, and poker were still unknown. But
CQ EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
one day Nolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down the river,
not as an attorney seeking a place for his office, but as a disguised con-
queror. He had defeated I know not how many district attorneys ; he
had dined at I know not how many public dinners ; he had been heralded
in I know not how many "Weekly Arguses," and it was rumored that he
had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day
his arrival — to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour
before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out
in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cotton-wood tree, as he said, —
really to seduce him ; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was
enlisted body and soul. From that time, though he did not yet know
it, he lived as A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
What Burr meant to do I know no more than you, dear reader. It is
none of our business just now. Only, when the grand catastrophe came,
and Jefferson and the House of Virginia of that day undertook to break
on the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then House of York, by
the great treason-trial at Richmond, some of the lesser fry in that distant
Mississippi Valley, which was farther from us than Puget's Sound is
to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial stage, and, to
while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for
spectacles, a string of court-martials on the officers there. One and another
of the colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out the list, little Nolan,
against whom, Heaven knows, there was evidence enough, — that he was
sick of the service, had been willing to be false to it, and would have
obeyed any order to march any whither with any one who would follow
him had the order been signed, "By command of His Exc. A. Burr."
The courts dragged on. The big flies escaped,— rightly for all I know.
Nolan was proved guilty enough, as I say ; yet you and I would never
have heard of him, reader, but that, when the president of the court
asked him at the close, whether he wished to say anything to show that
he had always been faithful to the United States, he cried out, in a fit of
frenzy :
" D— n the United States ! I wish I may never hear of the United
States again ! "
I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Mor-
gan, who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had
served through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had
>een risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his mad-
B? * S a D hi8 Part' had gr°wn UP in the West of those days, in the
midst of Spanish plot," « Orleans plot," and all the rest. He had been
educated on a plantation where the finest company was a Spanish officer
French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had
been perfected m commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
51
told me his father once hired an Englishman to be a private tutor for a
winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older
brother, hunting horses in Texas ; and, in a word, to him " United
States " was scarcely a reality. Yet he had been fed by " United States "
for all the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his
faith as a Christian to be true to "United States." It was "United
States " which gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by his side.
Nay, my poor Nolan, it was only because " United States " had picked
you out first as one of her own confidential men of honor that " A. Burr "
cared for you a straw more than for the flatboat-meu who sailed his ark
for him. I do not excuse Nolan ; I only explain to the reader why he
damned his country, and wished he might never hear her name again.
He never did hear her name but once again. From that moment,
September 23d, 1807, till the day he died, May llth, 1863, he never
heard her name again. For that half-century and more he was a man
without a country.
Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared
George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, " God save King
George," Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the court into
his private room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like a
.sheet, to say:
" Prisoner, hear the sentence of the court ! The court decides, sub-
ject to the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of
the United States again."
Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too
solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute.
Even Nolan lost his swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added, —
"Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and
• deliver him to the naval commander there."
The marshal gave his orders and the prisoner was taken out of court.
" Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, '• see that no one mentions the
United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieu-
tenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one shall
mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board ship.
You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here this
evening. The court is adjourned without day."
I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the pro-
ceedings of the court to Washington City, and explained them to Mr.
Jefferson. Certain it is that the President approved them,— certain, that
is, if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature.
Before the Nautilus got round from New Orleans to the Northern
Atlantic coast with the prisoner on board, the sentence had been ap-
proved, and he was a man without a country.
59 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was neces-
sarily followed ever after. Perhaps it was suggested by the necessity of
sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The Secretary of
the Navy— it must have been the first Crowninshield, though he is a
man I do not remember— was requested to put Nolan on board a gov-
ernment vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he should be
only so far confined there as to make it certain that he never saw or
heard of the country. We had few long cruises then, and the navy was
very much out of favor ; and as almost all of this story is traditional, as
I have explained, I do not know certainly what his first cruise was. But
the commander to whom he was intrusted, — perhaps it was Tingey or
Shaw, though I think it was one of the younger men, — we are all old
enough now, — regulated the etiquette and the precautions of the affair,
and according to his scheme they were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan
died. . . . I .
The rule adopted on board the ships on which I have met " the man
without a country " was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No
mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all
talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace
or of war, — cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But
it was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us,
except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not
permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers
he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he
grew shy, though he had favorites : I was one. Then the captain always
asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the
invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him
at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast he ate in his
own state-room, — he always had a state-room, — which was where a sen-
tinel or somebody on the watch could see the door. And whatever else
he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, when the marines or
sailors had any special jollification, they were permitted to invite " Plain-
Buttons," as they called him. Then Nolan was sent with some officer,
and the men were forbidden to speak of home while he was there. I
believe the theory was that the sight of his punishment did them good.
They called him " Plain-Buttons," because, while he always chose to
wear a regulation army uniform, he was not permitted to wear the army
button, for the reason that it bore either the initials or the insignia of
the country he had disowned.
I remember, soon after I joined the navy, I was on shore with some of
the older officers from our ship and from the Brandywine, which we had
met at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo
and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you went on donkeys then),
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
53
some of the gentlemen (we boys called them " Dons," but the phrase was
long since changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some one told the
system which was adopted from the first about his books and other read-
ing. As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, even though the
vessel lay in port for months, his time at the best hung heavy ; and
everybody was permitted to lend him books, if they were not published
in America and made no allusion to it. These were common enough in
the old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked of the United
States as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreign
papers that came into the ship, sooner or later ; only somebody must go
over them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that
alluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, when the back
of what was cut out might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst
of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan
would find a great hole, because on the back of the page of that paper
there had been an advertisement of a packet for New York, or a scrap
from the President's message. I say this was the first time I ever heard
of this plan, which afterwards I had enough and more than enough to
do with. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who was of the party, as
'soon as the allusion to reading was made, told a story of something
which happened at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage; and
it is the only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They had touched at
the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English Admiral, and
the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise, up the Indian Ocean, Phil-
lips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those
days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the
Devil would order, was the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," which they had
all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think
it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there
could be any risk of anything national in that, though Phillips swore old
Shaw had cut out the " Tempest " from Shakespeare before he let Nolan
have it, because he said " the Bermudas ought to be ours, and, by Jove,
should be one day." So Nolan was permitted to join the circle one
afternoon when a lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud.
People do not do such things so often now ; but when I was young we
got rid of a great deal of time so. Well, so it happened that in his turn
Nolan took the book and read to the others ; and he read very well, as I
know. Nobody in the circle knew a line of the poem, only it was all
magic and Border chivalry, and was ten thousand years ago. Poor
Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto, stopped a minute and drank
something, and then began, without a thought of what was coming, —
' Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
"Who never to himself hath said," —
EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
54
It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this for the first
time; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on,
still unconsciously or mechanically, —
" This is my own, my native land! "
Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expected to get
through, I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on,—
" Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand ?—
If such there breathe, go, mark him well,"
By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was any
way to make him turn over two pages ; but he had not quite presence of
mind for that; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggered on, —
" For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim.
Despite these titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self," —
and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, swung
the book into the sea, vanished into his state-room; u And by Jove," said
Phillips, " we did not see him for two months again. And I had to
make up some beggarly story to that English surgeon why I did not
return his Walter Scott to him."
That story shows about the time when Nolan's braggadocio must have
broken down. At first, they said, he took a very high tone, considered
his imprisonment a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and all that ;
but Phillips said that after he came out of his state-room he never was
the same man again. He never read aloud again, unless it was the Bible
or Shakespeare, or something else he was sure of. But it was not that
merely. He never entered in with the other young men exactly as a
companion again. He was always shy afterwards, when I knew him, —
very seldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except to a very few friends.
He lighted up occasionally, — I remember late in his life hearing him
fairly eloquent on something which had been suggested to him bv one
of Flechiers sermons,— but generally he had the nervous, tired look of a
heart- wounded man.
I cannot give any history of him in order; nobody can now; and,
indeed, I am not trying to. These are the traditions, which I sort out,
as I believe them, from the myths which have been told about this man
for forty years. The lies that have been told about him are legion. The
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
55
fellows used to say he was the " Iron Mask " ; and poor George Pons
went to his grave in the belief that this was the author of " Junius," who
was being punished for his celebrated libel on Thomas Jefferson. Pons
was not very strong in the historical line. A happier story than either
of these I have told is of the War. That came along soon after. I have
heard this affair told in three or four ways, — and, indeed, it may have
happened more than once. But which ship it was on I cannot tell.
However, in one, at least, of the great frigate-duels with the English, in
which the navy was really baptized, it happened that a round-shot from
the enemy entered one of our ports square, and took right down the
officer of the gun himself, and almost every man of the gun's crew. Now
you may say what you choose about courage, but that is not a nice thing
to see. But, as the men who were not killed picked themselves up, and
as they and the surgeon's people were carrying off the bodies, there
appeared Nolan, in his shirt-sleeves, with the rammer in his hand, and,
just as if he had been the officer, told them off with authority, — who
should go to the cock -pit with the wounded men, who should stay with
him, — perfectly cheery, and with that way which makes men feel sure
all is right and is going to be right And he finished loading the gun
with his own hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. And there he
stayed, captain of that gun, keeping those fellows in spirits, till the
enemy struck, — sitting on the carriage while the gun was cooling, though
he was exposed all the time, — showing them easier ways to handle
heavy shot, — making the raw hands laugh at their own blunders, — and
when the gun cooled again, getting it loaded and fired twice as often as
any other gun on the ship. The captain walked forward by way of
encouraging the men, and Nolan touched his hat and said :
" I am showing them how we do this in the artillery, sir."
And this is the part of the story where all the legends agree ; and the
Commodore said :
" I see you do, and I thank you, sir ; and I shall never forget this day,
sir, and you never shall, sir."
And after the whole thing was over, and he had the Englishman's
sword, in the midst of the state and ceremony of the quarter-deck, he
said :
" Where is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to come here."
And when Nolan came, the captain said :
" Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day ; you are one of us
to-day : you will be named in the dispatches."
And then the old man took off his own sword of ceremony, and gave
it to Nolan, and made him put it on. The man told me this who saw
it Nolan cried like a baby, and well he might He had not worn a
sword since that infernal day at Fort Adams. But always afterwards
56 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
on occasions of ceremony, he wore that quaint old French sword of the
Commodore's.
The captain did mention -him in the dispatches. It was always said
he asked that he might be pardoned. He wrote a special letter to the
Secretary of War. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, that was
about the time when they began to ignore the whole transaction at
Washington, and when Nolan's imprisonment began to carry itself on
because there was nobody to stop it without any new orders from
home. ....
So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. I know but one fate
more dreadful ; it is the fate reserved for those men who shall have one
day to exile themselves from their country because they have attempted
her ruin, and shall have at the same time to see the prosperity and honor
to which she rises when she has rid herself of them and their iniquities.
The wish of poor Nolan, as we all learned to call him, not because his
punishment was too great, but because his repentance was so clear, was
precisely the wish of every Bragg and Beauregard who broke a soldier's
oath two years ago, and of every Maury and Barren who broke a sailor's.
I do not know how often they have repented. I do know that they have
done all that in them lay that they might have no country, — that all the
honors, associations, memories, and hopes which belong to " country "
might be broken up into little shreds and distributed to the winds. I
know, too, that their punishment, as they vegetate through what is left
of life to them in wretched Boulognes and Leicester Squares, where they
are destined to upbraid each other till they die, will have all the agony
of Nolan's, with the added pang that every one who sees them will see
them to despise and to execrate them. They will have their wish, like him.
For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, and then, like a man,
submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added
to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold.
Accidents would happen; but they never happened from his fault.
Lieutenant Truxton told me that, when Texas was annexed, there was
a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of
Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas out of it,— from the map
of the world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut
out when the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly
enough, that to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had
happened, or, as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had suc-
ceeded. So it was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch happened
at my own table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the " George
Washington" corvette, on the South American station. We were lying
i the La Plata, and some of the officers who had been on shore, and had
just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadven-
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
57
tures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at
table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story
of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own, when he was
catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time
when he must have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good
deal of spirit, — so much so, that the silence which often follows a good
story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himseli
For he asked perfectly unconsciously :
" Pray, what has become of Texas ? After the Mexicans got their
independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward
very fast It is really one of the finest regions on earth ; it is the Italy
of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for
near twenty years."
There were two Texan officers at the table. The reason he had never
heard of Texas was that Texas and her affairs had been painfully cut
out of his newspapers since Austin began his settlements ; so that, while
lie read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite lately, of California,
— this virgin province, in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I
believe, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and Williams, the
two Texas men, looked grimly at each other, and tried not to laugh.
Edward Morris had his attention attracted by the third link in the chain
of the captain's chandelier. Watrous was seized with a convulsion of
sneezing. Nolan himself saw that something was to pay, he did not
know what. And I, as master of the feast, had to say :
u Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back's
curious account of Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome ? "
After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least
twice a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate ;
but he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen
years he aged very fast, as well he might, indeed, but that he was still
the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing
as best he could his self-appointed punishment, — rather less social, per-
haps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious, appar-
ently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of whom
fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow is
dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.
Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print
it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls
of to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from
Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which gives an account
of Nolan's last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this
story.
5g EDWARD EVERETT HALE, [1835-60
Here is the letter: ,<LEVA.T)2' 2' S. @ 181" W.
" DEAK FRED: I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all
over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more
than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you
used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong,
but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching
him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that
Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room, — a thing I never
remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay
there, — the first time the doctor had been in the state-room, — and he said
he should like to see me. 0 dear ! do you remember the mysteries we
boys used to invent about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I
went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling
pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not
help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made
of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above
and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic
eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping
the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw
my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country ! '
And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before
a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and
things;
but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western
boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined
nothing.
" ' 0 Danforth,' he said, ' I know I am dying. I cannot get home.
Surely you will tell me something now ? — Stop ! stop ! Do not speak
till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that
there is not in America,— God bless her, — a more loyal man than L
There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as
I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty -four stars in it now, Dan-
forth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names
are. There has never been one taken away : I thank God for that. I
know by that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Dan-
forth, Danforth,' he sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a
boy s idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one
looks back on it after such a life as mine ! But tell me,— tell me some-
thing,—tell me everything, Danforth, before I die ! '
" Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told
him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy,
who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over
dear, sainted old man, who had years ago "expiated, in his whole
lanhood s life, the madness of a boy's treason ? ' Mr. Nolan,' said I ' I
will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin ? '
the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he press
1835-60] EDWARD EVERETT HALE. CQ
my hand and said, ' God bless you ! ' ' Tell me their names,' he said,
and he pointed to the stars on the flag. ' The last I know is Ohio. My
father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana
and Mississippi, — that was where Fort Adams is, — they make twenty.
But where are your other fourteen ? You have not cut UD anv of thp
i i T i " o ) Jr*7
old ones, I hope I
" Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good
order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw
them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight
about Texas ; told me how his cousin died there ; he had marked a gold
cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at
Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon; that,
he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted
to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. ' And the
men,' said he, laughing, ' brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then
he went back — heavens, how far ! — to ask about the Chesapeake, and
what was done to Barren for surrendering her to the Leopard, and
whether Burr ever tried again, — and he ground his teeth with the only
passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, ' God
forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old
war, — told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the
Java, — asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he
settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour
the history of fifty years.
" How I wished it had been somebody who knew something ! But I
did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him
about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott,
and Jackson ; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and
New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you
think, he asked who was in command of the ' Legion of the West/ I
told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last
news, he was about to establish his headquarters at Yicksburg. Then,
' Where was Yicksburg ? ' I worked that out on the map ; it was about
a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams ; and I thought
Fort Adams must be a ruin now. ' It must be at old Yick's plantation,
at Walnut Hills,' said he : ' well, that is a change ! '
" I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of
half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know
what I told him, — of emigration, and the means of it, — of steamboats,
and railroads, and telegraphs, — of inventions, and books, and literature,
— of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School, — but with the
queerest interruptions that ever you heard. Y~ou see it was Robinson
Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years I
" I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now ; and
when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's
son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy him-
self, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian
like himself, but I could not tell him of what family ; he had worked up
from the ranks. ' Good for him ! ' cried Nolan ; ' I am glad of that. As
60 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. [1835-60
I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keep-
ing up those regular successions in the first families. Then I got talk-
ing about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon
Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the
Exploring Expedition ; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for
the pediment, and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington :
Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the
grandeur of his country and its prosperity ; but I could not make up my
mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion !
" And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew
more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave
him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go
away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian ' Book of Public
Prayer,' which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at
the right place, — and so it did. There was his double red mark down
the page ; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, ' For
ourselves and our country, 0 gracious God, we thank Thee, that, not-
withstanding our manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast
continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,' — and so to the end of that
thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read
the words more familiar to me : ' Most heartily we beseech Thee with
Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United
States, and all others in authority,' — and the rest of the Episcopal col-
lect ' Danforth,' said he, ' I have repeated those prayers night and
morning, it is now fifty -five years.' And then he said he would go to
sleep. He bent me down over him and kissed me ; and he said, ' Look
in my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away.
" But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and
would sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.
" But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had
breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to
his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.
" We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place
where he had marked the text :
'"They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God : for he hath prepared for them a city.'
" On this slip of paper he had written :
" ' Bury me in the sea ; it has been my home, and I love it. But will
not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at
Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear ? Say
on it:
" ' In Memory of
"'PHILIP NOLAN,
" ' Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.
" ' He loved his country as no other man has loved her ; but no man deserved
less at her hands.' "
1835-60] FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. gi
BORN in Salem, Mass., 1823. DIED at North An clover, Mass., 1882.
THE CITY OF GOD.
[Hymns of the Spirit. 1864.]
/^ITY of God, how broad and far
^-^ Outspread thy walls sublime !
The true thy chartered freemen are,
Of every age and clime.
One holy Church^ one army strong,
One steadfast high intent,
One working band, one harvest-song,
One King Omnipotent.
How purely hath thy speech come down
From man's primeval youth ;
How grandly hath thine empire grown
Of Freedom, Love, and Truth!
How gleam thy watchfires through the night,
With never fainting ray !
How rise thy towers, serene and bright,
To meet the dawning day!
In vain the surge's angry shock,
In vain the drifting sands;
Unharmed, upon the Eternal Rock,
The Eternal City stands.
BORN in Hartford, Conn., 1822.
SOUTHERN MANNERS AND SLAVERY.
[The Cotton Kingdom. 1861.]
THERE are undoubted advantages resulting from the effects of sla-
very upon the manners of some persons. Somewhat similar advan-
tages I have thought that I perceived to have resulted in the Free States,
where a family has been educated under favorable influences in a frontier
€9 FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. [1835-60
community. There is boldness, erectness, largeness, confidence, with
the effect of the habitual sense of superiority to most of the community ;
not superiority of wealth, and power from wealth merely, but of a mind
well stocked and refined by such advantages of education as only very
unusual wealth, or very unusual individual energy, rightly directed, can
procure in a scattered and frontier community. When to this is added
the effect of visits to the cultivated society of denser communities ; when
refined and polished manners are grafted on a natural, easy abandon ;
when there is high culture without effeminacy either of body or mind,
as not unfrequently happens, we find a peculiarly respectable and agree-
able sort of men and women. They are the result of frontier training
under the most favorable circumstances. In the class furthest removed
from this on the frontier — people who have grown up without civilized
social restraints or encouragements, and always under what in a well-
conditioned community would be esteemed great privations — happens,
on the other hand, the most disagreeable specimen of mankind that the
world breeds ; men of a sort almost peculiar to America and Australia ;
border ruffians, of whom the " rowdies " of our eastern towns are tame
reflections. Cooper has well described the first class in many instances.
I know of no picture of the latter which represents them as detestable as
I have found them.
The whole South is maintained in a frontier condition by the system
which is apologized for on the ground that it favors good breeding. This
system, at the same time, tends to concentrate wealth in a few hands.
If there is wisdom and great care in the education of a family thus
favored, the result which we see at the North, under the circumstances
I have described, is frequently reproduced. There are many more such
fruits of frontier life at the South than the North, because there is more
frontier life. There is also vastly more of the other sort, and there is
everything between, which degrees of wealth and degrees of good fortune
in education would be expected to occasion. The bad breed of the fron-
tier, at the South, however, is probably far worse than that of the North,
because the frontier condition of the South is everywhere permanent.
The child born to-day on the Northern frontier, in most cases, before it
is ten years old, will be living in a well-organized and tolerably well-
provided community; schools, churches, libraries, lecture and concert
halls, daily mails and printing presses, shops and machines in variety,
having arrived within at least a day's journey of it ; being always within
an influencing distance of it. There are improvements, and communi-
ties loosely and gradually cohering in various parts of the South, but so
Jowly, so feebly, so irregularly, that men's minds and habits are knit
firm quite independently of this class of social influences.
There is one other characteristic of the Southerner, which is far more
1835-60] FREDERICK LA W OLMSTED. gg
decided than the difference of climate merely would warrant, and which
is to be attributed not only to the absence of the ordinary restraints and
means of discipline of more compact communities in his education, but
unquestionably also to the readiness and safety with which, by reason
of slavery, certain passions and impulses may be indulged. Every white
Southerner is a person of importance ; must be treated with deference.
Every wish of the Southerner is imperative; every belief, undoubted;
every hate, vengeful ; every love, fiery. Hence, for instance, the scan-
dalous fiend-like street-fights of the South. If a young man feels
offended with another, he does not incline to a ring and a fair stand-up
set-to, like a young Englishman ; he will not attempt to overcome his
opponent by logic ; he will not be content to vituperate, or to cast ridi-
cule upon him ; he is impelled straightway to strike him down with the
readiest deadly weapon at hand, with as little ceremony and pretence of
fair combat as the loose organization of the people against violence will
allow. He seems crazy for blood. Intensity of personal pride — pride in
anything a man has, or which connects itself with him, is more commonly
evident. Hence intense local pride and prejudice ; hence intense parti-
sanship ; hence rashness and overconfidence ; hence visionary ambition ;
hence assurance in debate; hence assurance in society. As self -apprecia-
tion is equally with deference a part of what we call good breeding, and
as the expression of deference is much more easily reduced to a matter of
manners and forms, in the commonplace intercourse of society, than self-
appreciation, this characteristic quality of the Southerner needs to be
borne in mind in considering the port and manners he commonly has,
and judging from them of the effects of slavery.
It must be also considered that the ordinary occupations and amuse-
ments of people of moderate wealth at the North are seldom resorted to
at the South; that public entertainments of any kind, for instance, are
impracticable to a sparse population ; consequently that where men of
wealth are socially disposed, all intercourse with others is highly valued,
prepared for, and made the most of. Hence, with these, the act of social
intercourse is more highly esteemed, and is much more frequently car-
ried to a nice perfection of manner than it usually is with men otherwise
of corresponding education and habits at the North.
In a Northern community a man who is not greatly occupied with
private business is sure to become interested in social enterprises and to
undertake duties in them which will demand a great deal of time and
strength. School, road, cemetery, asylum, and church corporations;
bridge, ferry, and water companies ; literary, scientific, art, mechanical,
agri cultural and benevolent societies; all these things are managed
chiefly by the unpaid services of gentlemen during hours which they
can spare from their private interests. In the successful operations of
64 JAMES PARTON. [1835-60
such enterprises they find much of the satisfaction of their life. So, too,
our young men, who are not obliged to devote their thoughts chiefly to
business success, are members and managers of reading-rooms, public
libraries, gymnasiums, game-clubs, boat-clubs, ball-clubs, and all sorts
of clubs, Bible classes, debating-societies, military companies ; they are
planting road-side trees, or damming streams for skating-ponds, or rig-
ging diving-boards, or getting up firework displays, or private theatri-
cals ; they are always doing something, not conversing for the entertain-
ment of the moment. Planters, the details of whose business fall into
the hands of overseers, and young men of fortune, at the South, have,
when at home on the plantation, none of these occupations. Their
talents all turn into two channels, politics and sociality ; the very paucity
of society making it the more esteemed and the more carefully used.
Social intercourse at the North is a relaxation from the ordinary bent of
men's talents ; at the South, it is that to which mainly their talents are
bent. Hence, with men who are otherwise on a par, in respect of natural
advantages and education, the Southerner will have a higher standard of
manners than the Northerner, because, with him, social intercourse is
the grand resource to which all other possible occupations of his mind
become subordinate. The Northerner, being troubled by no monotony,
unquestionably too much neglects at present this, the highest and final
art of every type of civilization. In making this comparison, however,
it must not be forgotten that it is made between men who are supposed
to be equal in all respects, except in the possession of this advantage,
and who are equally at leisure from any necessary habitual occupation
for a livelihood.
fames Barton,
BORN in Canterbury, England, 1823.
THE SECOND MARRIAGE OP AARON BURR.
[The Life and Times of Aaron Burr. 1864.]
QTEPHEN JUMEL, one of those efficient, invincible Frenchmen,
^ who redeem the character of their nation, emigrated at an early age
to St Domingo, where he worked his way to the ownership of a share in
a coffee plantation. Warned by a faithful slave, he escaped from his
house on the eve of the great massacre, and saw, from a wood to which
had fled, his buildings burned and his plantation laid waste. For
many days, fed by his negro friend, he wandered up and down the
1835-60] JAMES PARTON.
65
lonely sea-shore, signalling every ship that passed the island. At length,
a boat put off from a vessel and took him on board. At St. Helena^
the first port made by the ship, he stopped, and engaging at once in
some little speculations, gained some money, which he spent in procur-
ing a passage to New York. To that city he had sent from St. Domingo
a quantity of coffee, the proceeds of which he found awaiting his orders
on arriving. Provided thus with a small capital, he embarked in trade,
prospered, became the owner of a dozen ships, controlled the market for
some descriptions of goods, and retired about the year 1812 with what
was then considered a great fortune. A man of sense, he had married a
daughter of New England, a woman as remarkable for energy and talent
as himself.
After Napoleon's downfall and the pacification of Europe, the family
went to Paris, where they resided in splendor for many years, and
where Madame Jumel, by her wit and tact, achieved a distinguished
position in the court society of the place. Of the court itself she was a
favored frequenter.
In the year 1822, M. Jumel lost a considerable part of his fortune, and
madame returned alone to New York, bringing with her a prodigious
quantity of grand furniture and paintings. Eetiring to a seat in the
upper part of Manhattan Island, which she possessed in her own right,
she began with native energy the task of restoring her husband's broken
fortunes. She cultivated her farm ; she looked vigilantly to the remains
of the estate ; she economized. In 1828, when M. Jumel returned to
the United States, they were not as rich as in former days, but their
estate was ample for all rational purposes and enjoyments. In 1832, M.
Jumel, a man of magnificent proportions, very handsome, and perfectly
preserved (a great waltzer at seventy), was thrown from a wagon and
fatally injured. He died in a few days. Madame was then little past
her prime.
There was talk of cholera in the city. Madame Jumel resolved upon
taking a carriage tour in the country. Before setting out, she wished to
take legal advice respecting some real estate, and as Colonel Burr's
reputation in that department was preeminent, to his office in Eeade
street she drove. In other days he had known her well, and though
many an eventful year had passed since he had seen her, he recognized
her at once. He received her in his courtliest manner, complimented
her with admirable tact, listened with soft deference to her statement
He was the ideal man of business— confidential, self-possessed, polite-
giving his client the flattering impression that the faculties of his whole
soul were concentrated upon the affair in hand. She was charmed, yet
feared him. He took the papers, named the day when his opinion
would be ready, and handed her to her carriage with winning grace.
VOL. VIII.— 5
66 JAMES PARTON. [1835-60
At seventy-eight years of age, he was still straight, active, agile, fasci-
nating.
On the appointed day she sent to his office a relative, a student of law,
to receive his opinion. This young gentleman, timid and inexperienced,
had an immense opinion of Burr's talents ; had heard all good and all
evil of him ; supposed him to be, at least, the acutest of possible men.
He went Burr behaved to him in a manner so exquisitely pleasing,
that, to this hour, he has the liveliest recollection of the scene. No
topic was introduced but such as were familiar and interesting to young
men. His manners were such as this age of slangy familiarity cannot
so much as imagine. The young gentleman went home to Madame
Jumel only to extol and glorify him.
Madame and her party began their journey, revisiting Ballston, whither,
in former times, she had been wont to go in a chariot drawn by eight
horses ; visiting Saratoga, then in the beginning of its celebrity, where,
in exactly ten minutes after her arrival, the decisive lady bought a house
and all it contained. Keturning to New York to find that her mansion
had been despoiled by robbers in her absence, she lived for a while in
the city. Colonel Burr called upon the young gentleman who had been
madame's messenger, and, after their acquaintance had ripened, said to
him, " Come into my office ; I can teach you more in a year than you
can learn in ten in an ordinary way." The proposition being submitted
to Madame Jumel, she, anxious for the young man's advancement,
gladly and gratefully consented. He entered the office. Burr kept him
close at his books. He did teach him more in a year than he could
have learned in ten in an ordinary way. Burr lived then in Jersey City.
His office (23 Nassau street) swarmed with applicants for aid, and he
seemed now to have quite lost the power of refusing. In no other
respects, bodily or mental, did he exhibit signs of decrepitude.
Some months passed on without his again meeting Madame Jumel.
At the suggestion of the student, who felt exceedingly grateful to Burr
for the solicitude with which he assisted his studies, Madame Jumel
invited Colonel Burr to dinner. It was a grand banquet, at which he
displayed all the charms of his manner, and shone to conspicuous
advantage. On handing to dinner the giver of the feast, he said : " I
give you my hand, madame ; my heart has long been yours." This was
supposed to be merely a compliment, and was little remarked at the
time. Colonel Burr called upon the lady; called frequently; became
ever warmer in his attentions ; proposed, at length, and was refused. He
still plied his suit, however, and obtained at last, not the lady's consent,
but an undecided No. Improving his advantage on the instant, he said,
in a jocular manner, that he should bring out a clergyman to Port Wash-
ington on a certain day, and there he would once more solicit her hand.
1835-60] JAMES PAR TON.
67
H-e was as good as his "word. At the time appointed, he drove out in
his gig to the lady's country residence, accompanied by Dr. Bogart, the
very clergyman who, just fifty years before, had married him to the
mother of his Theodosia. The lady was embarrassed, and still refused.
But then the scandal! And, after all, why not? Her estate needed a
vigilant guardian, and the old house was lonely. After much hesitation,
she at length consented to be dressed, and to receive her visitors. And
she was married. The ceremony was witnessed only by the members of
Madame Juinel's family, and by the eight servants of the household,
who peered eagerly in at the doors and windows. The ceremony over,
Mrs. Burr ordered supper. Some bins of M. Jumel's wine-cellar, that
had not been opened for half a century, were laid under contribution.
The little party was a very merry one. The parson, in particular, it is
remembered, was in the highest spirits, overflowing with humor and
anecdote. Except for Colonel Burr's great age (which was not appar-
ent), the match seemed not an unwise one. The lurking fear he had
had of being a poor and homeless old man was put to rest. She had a
companion who had been ever agreeable, and her estate a steward than
whom no one living was supposed to be more competent.
As a remarkable circumstance connected with this marriage, it may
be just mentioned that there was a woman in New York who had
aspired to the hand of Colonel Burr, and who, when she heard of his
union with another, wrung her hands and shed tears ! A feeling of that
nature can seldom, since the creation of man, have been excited by the
marriage of a man on the verge of fourscore.
A few days after the wedding, the " happy pair " paid a visit to Con-
necticut, of which State a nephew of Colonel Burr was then governor.
They were received with attention. At Hartford, Burr advised his wife
to sell out her shares in the bridge over the Connecticut at that place,
and invest the proceeds in real estate. She ordered them sold. The
stock was in demand, and the shares brought several thousand dollars.
The purchasers offered to pay her the money, but she said, "No; pay
it to my husband." To him, accordingly, it was paid, and he had it
sewed up in his pocket, a prodigious bulk, and brought it to New York,
and deposited it in his own bank, to his own credit.
Texas was then beginning to attract the tide of emigration which, a
few years later, set so strongly thither. Burr had always taken a great
interest in that country. Persons with whom he had been variously
connected in life had a scheme on foot for settling a large colony of
Germans on a tract of land in Texas. A brig had been chartered, and
the project was in a state of forwardness, when the possession of a sum
of money enabled Burr to buy shares in the enterprise. The greater
part of the money which he had brought from Hartford was invested in
JAMES PARTON. [1835-60
DO
this way. It proved a total loss. The time had not yet come for emi-
gration to Texas. The Germans became discouraged and separated,
and to complete the failure of the scheme, the title of the lands in the
confusion of the times proved defective. Meanwhile madame, who was
a remarkably thrifty woman, with a talent for the management of prop-
erty, wondered that her husband made no allusion to the subject of the
investment ; for the Texas speculation had not been mentioned to her.
She caused him to be questioned on the subject He begged to intimate
to the lady's messenger that it was no affair of hers, and requested him
to remind the lady that she now had a husband to manage her affairs,
and one who would manage them.
Coolness between the husband and wife was the result of this collo-
quy. Then came remonstrances. Then estrangement. Burr got into
the habit of remaining at his office in the city. Then, partial reconcilia-
tion. Full of schemes and speculations to the last, without retaining
any of his former ability to operate successfully, he lost more money,
and more, and mora The patience of the lady was exhausted. She
filed a complaint accusing him of infidelity, and praying that he might
have no more control or authority over her affairs. The accusation is
now known to have been groundless ; nor, indeed, at the time was it
seriously believed. It was used merely as the most convenient legal
mode of depriving him of control over her property. At first, he
answered the complaint vigorously, but afterward, he allowed it to go
by default, and proceedings were carried no further. A few short
weeks of happiness, followed by a few months of alternate estrangement
and reconciliation, and this union, that begun not inauspiciously, was,
in effect, though never in law, dissolved. What is strangest of all is,
that the lady, though she never saw her husband during the last two
years of his life, cherished no ill-will toward him, and shed tears at his
death. To this hour, Madame Jumel thinks and speaks of him with
kindness, attributing what was wrong or unwise in his conduct to the
infirmities of age.
Men of seventy-eight have been married before and since. But, prob-
ably, never has there been another instance of a man of that age win-
ning a lady of fortune and distinction, grieving another by his marriage,
and exciting suspicions of incontinence against himself by his attentions
to a third !
1835-60] JAMES PARTON. gg
THE APOTHEOSIS OF VOLTAIRE.
[Life of Voltaire. 1881.]
~\/TONDAY evening, March 30th, he was to witness " Irene " at the
theatre, after first having attended a session of the Academy. A
crowd of people filled the two streets, at the corner of which the house
of M. de Villette was situated. About four in the afternoon, he came
out of the door, wearing the cloak of fine marten fur also given him by
Catharine II., and took his place in the carriage; the body of which
being blue and covered with stars, a jester in the crowd called it the Car
of the Empyrean, — the only word savoring of satire which reached the
ears of his friends that day. The multitude, which was so dense that
the coachman had great difficulty in getting a passage, gave him cheer
upon cheer, and rushed after the carriage in a tumultuous body. A
young man, a stranger in the city, was thrown by the crowd upon the
shoulders of the patriarch, and got down, covered with powder from his
wig, without having had the pleasure of seeing him. The court of the
Louvre, where the Academy held its sessions, was already filled with
people awaiting his arrival, who received him with cheers and clapping
of hands. Even a crowd in Paris, in those days, had its sense of decorum,
and shouted "Vive Monsieur de Voltaire!'1''
The Academy paid him the honor of gathering in a body to meet him
in their outer hall, — an honor never before conceded to any member, nor
even to foreign princes invited to attend its sessions. Of the Forty,
there were only twenty-one members present, including Voltaire, all the
clergy being absent except two abbes, who, it was said, had nothing of
their profession except its garb, and nothing to expect either from the
court or the church. The patriarch was conducted to the president's
chair, and was elected, without a dissentient voice, to the next three
months' presidency, a distinction usually decided by lot. The essay of
the occasion was a eulogy of Boileau, by D'Alernbert. The essayist
did not deny himself the pleasure of alluding to their fellow-member,
who seemed, by an absence of twenty-eight years, to have become their
guest. In discoursing of the early masters of French poetry, he named
Boileau, Racine, and Voltaire. "I name the last," said he, "although
he is still living ; for why should we refuse ourselves the pleasure of
seeing in advance a great man in the place to which posterity destines
him ? " He concluded an elegant passage by comparing the poetry of
Boileau, correct, strong, and nervous, to the fine statue of The Gladiator;
that of Racine, not less correct, but more marrowy and smooth, to the
Venus de Medici ; and that of Voltaire, easy, graceful, and always noble,
to the Apollo Belvidere. Every allusion to Voltaire in the essay was
70 JAMES PARTON. [1835-60
received with enthusiastic applause, and the poet himself could not con-
ceal his emotion. As soon as the essay was ended the company rose,
and followed him to the hall where they had received him.
After a short visit to the office of D'Alembert, the perpetual secretary
of the Academy, time pressing, he again entered his carriage, which
made its way with increased difficulty to the theatre, where he was met
by the Villettes and other friends, anxious to prevent his being crushed
by the crowd. The moment the carriage stopped, people climbed upon
the box, and even upon the wheels, to get a nearer view. One man, as
Wagniere relates, sprang over the others, upon the step, and asked to be
permitted to kiss the poet's hand. The man seized by mistake the hand
of Madame de Villette, and said, after having kissed it, " By my faith,
that is a very plump hand for a man of eighty-four ! " The women
were as excited as the men. As he passed into the theatre through a
lane of ladies, very narrow and close, fair hands were thrust from it to
snatch hairs from his fur cloak, worn to-day for the first time in public.
Upon his entrance the audience received him with the loudest accla-
mations. He made his way to the second tier, and entered the box
assigned to the gentlemen of the king's chamber, which was directly
opposite to that of the king's brother, the Count d'Artois. Madame
Denis and Belle-et-Bonne were already seated in the box, and the old
man was disposed to hide himself behind them. " To the front ! To
the front ! " cried the parquette ; and he took his seat between the
ladies, in view of a great part of the house. Another cry was distin-
guished: "The crown! The crown!" The actor Brizard, a man of
grand presence, who was to play Leonce, entered the box bearing a laurel
crown, which he placed on the poet's head, the audience applauding
with the utmost enthusiasm. "Ah, Dieu ! " said the patriarch, "you
wish, then, to make me die of glory ! " He drew the crown from his
head with modest haste and handed it to Belle-et-Bonne ; upon which
the crowd shouted to her to put it back. She tried to do so. He was
unwilling to permit it; he resisted; he refused the homage; until, at
length, the Prince de Beauvau, seizing the laurel, fastened it upon the
brow of the poet, who saw that the struggle would be useless.
The scene at this moment has perhaps never been paralleled in a the-
atre. The whole house was upon its feet : the aisles, passages, lobbies,
anterooms, all were crowded to suffocation : and even the actors, dressed
to begin the play, came out in front of the curtain to join in the glorious
tumult. It was observed that several ladies, unable to get a sight of
him from their boxes, had ventured even into the parquette, regardless
of the usage that usually excluded them. Baron Grimm mentions that
he saw people in the parquette under the boxes going down upon their
knees, despairing of getting a sight in any other way. The theatre was
.
J&/L
1835-60] JAMES PARTON.
71
darkened by the dust caused by the movement of the excited multitude.
The delirium lasted more than twenty minutes, and it was only with the
greatest difficulty that silence could be restored and the performance
begun,
As it was the sixth representation of the play, the audience was able
to anticipate the passages most characteristic of the author, which were
applauded more with reference to their Voltairean significance than
their dramatic merit. When the curtain fell upon the fifth act, the
tumult was renewed, and the author was about to utter a few words
expressive of his gratification, when the curtain rose once more, and
revealed to the spectators a striking scene. Upon a pedestal in the mid-
dle of the stage was the bust of the poet, familiar to the public as a
recent addition to the lobby of the theatre. Around it, in a semicircle,
the actors and actresses were ranged, each holding a garland of flowers
and palm. Behind them were a number of persons who had crowded
from the front of the theatre and witnessed the play from the stage, as
of old ; while at the back were posted the guards who had figured in
the piece. This tableau had been hastily arranged, but the effect was
pleasing and picturesque. The audience burst into new acclamations.
Baron Grimm remarked a fact without precedent in the history of the
French theatre, that not one dissentient nor derisive cry was heard amid
the shouts of applause. ''For once," said he, "envy and hate, fanati-
cism and intolerance, dared not murmur, except in secret, and, for the
first time, perhaps, in France, public opinion was seen enjoying with
eclat all its empire." Brizard, still wearing his priestly dress, was the
first to place upon the bust the wreath which he carried in his hand ;
prophetic of the time, now not distant, when the class represented by
Leonce will recognize Voltaire as their deliverer from a false position.
All the company followed his example, to the sound of drums and trum-
pets, often drowned by the cheers of the spectators.
During this scene, the poet, abashed and confounded, had remained in
the back part of his box. When all the crowns had been placed upon
the head of the bust, covering it with flowers and palms, M. de Villette,
in response to the universal demand of the audience, drew him forward
again, and he stood for a moment bending almost to the edge of the box.
Then he rose, his eyes filled with tears, and sat by the side of Belle-et-
Bonne. Madame Vestris, who had played Irene, advanced to the front
of the stage, holding a paper in her hand, from which she read some
lines written for the occasion by the Marquis de Saint- Marc :
" Aux yeux de Paris enchante,
Regois en ce jour un horn mage
Que confirmera d'fige en &ge
Le severe posterite.
79 ERA8TUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH. [1835-60
Non, tu n'as pas besoin d'atteindre au noir rivage,
Pour jouir de 1'honneur de 1'immortalite.
Voltaire, re$ois la couronne
Que Ton vient de te presenter.
II est beau de la meriter,
Quand c'est la France qui la donne! "
These verses, well delivered by the actress, renewed the transports of
the audience, who demanded their repetition. Madame Yestris recited
them again. The curtain fell. A few moments after, it rose again for
the performance of Voltaire's comedy of " Nanine," during which the
bust was visible on one side of the stage. When the curtain fell for
the last time, the author rose, and made his slow descent to the street
between the same compact lines of ladies, all beaming and radiant with
joyous emotion. As soon as he had mounted the carriage, a cry arose
for torches, that the whole crowd might see him. There was so much
difficulty in starting the vehicle that it was proposed to detach the
horses. The coachman, however, at length contrived to begin the jour-
ney homeward, moving at a very slow pace, and followed by a multitude
of excited people, crying "Vive Voltaire!" As soon as he had gained
his own room, he was relieved by a flood of tears. " If I could have
foreseen," said he, "that the people would have committed so many
follies, I would not have gone to the theatre."
OTolcott
BORN in East Windsor, Conn., 1822.
THE MAYFLOWER.
[Putnam's Monthly Magazine. 1854.]
the bleak December bay
•*•-' The ghostly vessel stands away;
Her spars and halyards white with ice,
Under the dark December skies.
A hundred souls, in company,
Have left the vessel pensively—
Have touched the frosty desert there,
And touched it with the knees of prayer.
And now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
1835-60] ERASTUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH.
Neither the desert nor the sea
Imposes rites ; their prayers are free ;
Danger and toil the wild imposes,
And thorns must grow before the roses.
And who are these ? — and what distress
The savage-acred wilderness
On mother, maid, and child, may bring,
Beseems them for a fearful thing ;
For now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
But Carver leads (in heart and health
A hero of the commonwealth)
The axes that the camp requires,
To build the lodge, and heap the fires.
And Stand ish from his warlike store
Arrays his men along the shore —
Distributes weapons resonant,
And dons his harness militant ;
For now the day begins to dip,
The night begins to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower ;
And Rose, his wife, unlocks a chest —
She sees a Book, in vellum drest,
She drops a tear and kisses the tome,
Thinking of England and of home :
Might they — the Pilgrims, there and then
Ordained to do the work of men —
Have seen, in visions of the air,
While pillowed on the breast of prayer
(When now the day began to dip,
The night began to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower),
The Canaan of their wilderness
A boundless empire of success ;
And seen the years of future nights
Jewelled with myriad household lights;
And seen the honey fill the hive ;
And seen a thousand ships arrive ;
And heard the wheels of travel go; ,,'"
It would have cheered a thought of woe,
When now the day began to dip,
The night began to lower
Over the bay, and over the ship
Mayflower.
73
ERASTUS WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH.
TULOOM.
ON the coast of Yucatan,
As untenanted of man
As a castle under ban
By a doom
For the deeds of bloody hours,—
Overgrown with tropic bowers
Stand the teocallis towers
Of Tuloorn.
One of these is fair to sight,
Where it pinnacles a height ;
And the breakers blossom white,
As they boom
And split beneath the walls,
And an ocean murmur falls
Through the melancholy halls
Of Tuloom.
On the summit, as you stand,
All the ocean and the land
Stretch away on either hand,
But the plume
Of the palm is overhead,
And the grass, beneath your tread,
Is the monumental bed
Of Tuloom.
All the grandeur of the woods,
And the greatness of the floods,
And the sky that overbroods,
Dress a tomb,
Where the stucco drops away,
And the bat avoids the day,
In the chambers of decay
In Tuloom.
They are battlements of death :
When the breezes hold their breath,
Down a hundred feet beneath,
In the flume
Of the sea, as still as glass,
You can see the fishes pass
By the promontory mass
Of Tuloom.
Towards the forest is displayed,
On the terrace, a fa9ade
With devices overlaid ;
And the bloom
1835-60] ERA8TU8 WOLCOTT ELLSWORTH.
Of the vine of sculpture, led
O'er the soffit overhead,
Was a fancy of the dead
Of Tuloom.
Here are corridors, and there,
From the terrace, goes a stair;
And the way is broad and fair
To the room
Where the inner altar stands;
And the mortar's tempered sands
Bear the print of human hands,
In Tuloom.
O'er the sunny ocean swell,
The canoas running well
Towards the isle of Cozumel
Cleave the spume;
On they run, and never halt
Where the shimmer, from the salt,
Makes a twinkle in the vault
Of Tuloom.
When the night is wild and dark,
And a roar is in the park,
And the lightning, to its mark,
Cuts the gloom, —
All the region, on the sight,
Rushes upward from the night,
In a thunder- crash of light
O'er Tuloom.
Oh ! could such a flash recall
All the flamens to their hall,
All the idols on the wall,
In the fume
Of the Indian sacrifice —
All the lifted hands and eyes,
All the laughters and the cries
Of Tuloom —
All the kings in feathered pride,
All the people, like a tide,
And the voices of the bride
And the groom ! —
But, alas ! the prickly pear,
And the owlets of the air,
And the lizards, make a lair
Of Tuloom.
75
CORNELIUS GEORGE FENNER. [1835-60
We are tenants on the strand
Of the same mysterious land.
Must the shores that we command
Reassume
Their primeval forest hum,
And the future pilgrim come
Unto monuments as dumb
As Tuloom ?
'Tis a secret of the clime,
And a mystery sublime,
Too obscure, in coming time,
To presume ;
But the snake amid the grass
Hisses at us as we pass,
And we sigh, alas ! alas !
In Tuloom.
1853.
Conteliug dSeorge if cnner,
BORN in Providence, R. I., 1823. DIED in Cincinnati, O., 1847.
GULF-WEED.
[Poems of Many Moods. 1846.]
A WEARY weed, tossed to and fro,
-^J- Drearily drenched in the ocean brine,
Soaring high and sinking low,
Lashed along without will of mine ;
Sport of the spoom of the surging sea,
Flung on the foam afar and anear ;
Mark my manifold mystery, —
Growth and grace in their place appear.
I bear round berries, gray and red,
Rootless and rover though I be ;
My spangled leaves, when nicely spread,
Arboresce as a trunkless tree;
Corals curious coat me o'er,
White and hard in apt array;
'Mid the wild waves' rude uproar,
Gracefully grow I, night and day.
Hearts there are on the sounding shore,
Something whispers soft to me,
Restless and roaming for evermore
Like this weary weed of the sea;
1835-60] ABU A M STEVENS HEWITT.
Bear they yet on each beating breast
The eternal type of the wondrous whole ;
Growth unfolding arnid unrest,
Grace informing with silent soul.
77
f etwtt
BORN in Haverstraw, N. Y., 1822.
THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
[The Mutual Relations of Capital and Labor. 1878.]
WE are brought face to face with the great underlying question
whether property is equitably distributed. What are the facts?
We find society practically divided into four classes. First, the very
rich, who live without labor upon the proceeds of realized property, with
superabundant means which they are free to employ either as capital in
business or to minister to their own desires, whether commendable or
censurable. Second, the great middle class, who know neither poverty
nor great riches, who are as a rule engaged in useful employments, who
have more or less of the comforts and luxuries of life, and who are
above the reach of want. Third, the industrious working classes, who
possess little property, but who gain a decent livelihood for themselves
and their families by their daily labor. They may be said to be poor
only in the sense that they are liable to be reduced to want by sick-
ness or by the chances and changes of business depriving them of the
opportunity to work. Fourth, the paupers, who neither work nor care
to work.
If the first and fourth classes should cease to exist, humanity would
not have cause to shed many tears. The problem, then, which society
finds itself forced to solve, is engaged in solving, is the mode of getting
rid of these two extreme classes without revolution and without injustice.
The relations of the second and third classes would be readily adjusted,
because the transition from one to the other is not only very easy, but
very constant. The ties between them are often the ties of family.
Their interests are identical, and their relations to each other are such as
can be and are substantially regulated by the principles of justice. As
between them, it is scarcely necessary to discuss the limitations of wealth.
But when we come to consider the position of the very rich, we are met
by the self-evident fact that they possess and control an amount of prop-
erty which is far beyond the capacity of any class of human beings of
^g ABBAM STEVENS HEWITT. [1835-60
their limited number to contribute by their own efforts to the sum total
of human wealth. In fact, the present possessors have rarely accumu-
lated the fortunes which they control. The possession of superfluous
riches will not stand the test of human justice ; and in affirming this I
only repeat the conclusions to which the greatest thinkers and the
best men who have ever lived have invariably been driven. But even
if it were not reenforced by such authority, it is in accordance with
the whole spirit and temper of the teachings of Christ himself. He
nowhere condemns the ownership of property. On the contrary, when
he tells us that the poor we shall have always with us, He expressly
recognizes that there will be inequalities in the ownership of property.
He states it as a fact. But He nowhere says that we shall always have
the rich with us, and the spiritual danger of great riches is repeatedly
enforced
The points which I have sought to enforce are, that the great question
now pending is the equitable ownership of property, and that no owner-
ship which does not conform to the principles of justice will be tolerated
by society.
That the present distribution of wealth does not conform to the prin-
ciples of justice.
That distribution has been undergoing a change during the whole
Christian era, and that this change has been to distribute the ownership
more and more over the great mass of society ; in other words, that of
all the wealth of the world there is a larger percentage to-day held by
the majority of mankind than at any previous period in the history of
the world.
That this progress toward a more equitable distribution must result in
the diminution of great fortunes, the improved condition of the poorer
classes, and the consequent extinction of pauperism.
That the conflict between capital and labor, which has assumed such
prominence in our day, resulting in strikes, conciliation, and arbitra-
tion, is a healthful but transitional stage toward a more intimate and
beneficent association of capital and labor through the corporative prin-
ciple.
That in the nature of things it would seem that corporations must
continue to grow and absorb the great bulk of the business of the world,
but that these corporations will be organized upon a distribution of own-
ership among those who are engaged in them, so that in the end the
business of the world will be conducted by men in association with each
other, each being directly interested in the ownership of the enterprise in
which he is engaged.
That the result of the better understanding thus produced will be
such an economy in the work of production as to cheapen commodities
1835-60] ABEAM STEVENS HEWITT.
79
and extend th'eir consumption, whereby the condition of mankind will
be greatly benefited, and the resources which are now utterly wasted in
the strife between capital and labor, resulting in strikes and lockouts,
may be appropriated toward the creation and maintenance of funds to
insure the working classes against the temporary evils which are neces-
sarily produced by the introduction of machinery and the dislocation of
labor from causes over which they have no control ; that societv owes
indemnity in such cases to the industrious poor, and that the principle
of life insurance, adopted already by the British Government, points out
the methods by which such indemnity may be provided, not only with-
out imposing additional burdens upon the producing classes, but that
such a provision will be a measure of positive economy, extinguishing
pauperism and largely reducing the necessity for public charity.
I am not disturbed by the objection which will be made to some of
my positions, that they are at war with the received principles of politi-
cal economy. Political economy deals only with one side of human
experience — the laws of the production and distribution of wealth. It
is founded upon observation, experience, and reason. Just as Christian-
ity has assumed various phases in different ages of the world, so politi-
cal economy will vary in its conclusions with the changes of society.
Christianity, addressing itself to the moral nature of man, is the prime
mover in producing these changes. Political economy must therefore
follow and not lead Christianity, and will conform itself to the conclu-
sions at which society arrives in its progress toward a permanent moral
order. What that moral order will be, no man can pretend to predict,
but that there is a procession toward it all men can see ; and political
economy takes its place among the elements which go to make up that
procession, and its truths, when finally ascertained and settled, will be
found to conform strictly to the higher laws which bind man to his
Maker by the great bond of love.
Finally, there is one consideration which must never be lost sight of.
If during the last hundred years there had been no industrial develop-
ment, the questions which now stir society to its foundations would
never have forced themselves on public attention. It is the marvelous
improvement in the condition of the human race during the present cen-
tury which has brought into prominence and created the necessity of
dealing with the evils which in previous ages passed unnoticed or were
accepted as inevitable. The very growth and abundance of wealth make
the inequalities of its distribution more apparent. The standard of con-
science has been raised with the standard of comfort. The conflicts
between labor and capital are more intense because there is more to con-
tend for. Privilege slowly but surely recedes before the advance of
knowledge. The question " By what right? " penetrates the very heart
EICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. [1835-60
oU
of power, and is no longer answered by the plea of tradition Thus at
length the way is opened for the amelioration of humanity by growth
instead of by revolution, and henceforth society will take no steps back-
ward Moreover, we can see, it may be as " through a glass darkly,'
that the methods by which the possibility of peaceful progress has been
reached are in accordance with a divine order, not to have been predicted,
but to be clearly seen as it develops results, and points the way to new
triumphs of justice.
M
jftalcoim
BOKN in Hancock Co., Ga., 1822.
HISTORIC DOUBTS OF RILEY HOOD.
[Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and Other Georgia Folk. 1887.]
R FRANCIS HOOD, a man of thirty-five, rather small, high-
tempered, and impulsive, was married to a tall wife, who, though
of much mildness of speech, had quite enough of courage for all neces-
sary purposes. What he regarded his chief virtue was veneration
for the aged — a virtue that he professed to fear might die out before
long.
" Childern," he would say, " ain't raised like they used to be. They
think they smarter not only than grown people, but old people, an'
they'll 'spute thar words like they knowed all about it, an' old people
knowed nothin' ; an' they want the hick'ry, that whut they want."
These allusions were understood to have been made to occasional
reports of what had been said by some of the boys in the neighborhood
about certain statements of his grandmother, whom he had ever held in
the very highest reverence. A native of the upper part of North Caro-
lina, whence, after the War of Independence, the family had removed to
Georgia, now a widow of fourscore, she resided with her granddaughter,
Mr. Hood's sister, a mile distant. Ever a great talker, she had grown
more and more fond of discoursing upon noted events that had occurred
in her youth, and her reminiscences had begun lately to be received
with some grains by all except her dutiful grandson. A few of these
even Mr. Hood possibly might have felt himself at liberty to doubt
somewhat if given by another than his grandmother. As it was, he
regarded it? his pious duty to accept and to defend all.
He had never so much as dreamed that his son Riley, now twelve
years old, and with some little schooling, could have the audacity to
1835-60] RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
81
controvert, and to her very face, any narration of the stirring times of
which she spoke, and of some of which she was a part. Therefore few
things could have astonished and disgusted him more than her telling
him one day, while calling at his sister's, of Kiley's having lately left the
house after disputing with her about things that had happened right
where she had lived, and scores on scores of years before Kiley Hood
was born, or ever so much as thought about.
'; I did not, I did not, on my blessed word, gran'ma ; I wouldn't of
believed it of the impident. He'll not do it agin while I'm a-livin'."
Cutting short his visit, he returned home. Incensed as he was, he
intended to be as cool as possible, and he was gratified on entering the
house to find that Mrs. Hood was in the back yard engaged in some out-
door business. In a voice low and unconcerned as he could put it, he
called Riley, who was standing near his mother. Having ordered him
to a seat on the top step of the front piazza, he took a chair, and with
his back to the door thus began, in tones that painfully resisted the con-
straint put upon them with every word :
" Gittin' too smart, my young man, an' a danger of too big for your
breeches. People tells me you so smart you got 'way up 'bove gran'ma,
an' she acknowledge she know nothin' compar'd to you."
Riley, knowing what was safest, answered not, except with looks
partly avoiding, partly penitent, and for the rest suppliant.
"Yes, sir, smarter'n gran'ma, I that all the fambly ben a-lookin' up to
from all— from all generations, sir, exceptin' o' you, sir. Now, sir, I'd be
that proud that they ain't everybody I'd even speak to, ef I could believe
you'd ever live to come anywhars nigh a-bein' as smart a man as your
gran'ma — er as smart a 'oman — that is, as a — whutsonever —
Here, feeling that Riley would laugh if he dared at this confused com-
parison, he grew more incensed and louder. f
"Oh yes, sir; you want to laugh, do you? But you know who's
who now ; an' it ain't gran'ma you can conterdick an' run over, not by
a jugful. Whut you got to say, sir, 'bout takin' up gran'ma 'bout
the Rev'lution War? I want it quick, an' I want it squar', up an'
down."
Riley looked up humbly, and seemed trying to find words adequate
to express his remorse for obstructing transmission of the events of that
historic age.
"Frank."
The sound was low ; for Mrs. Hood's voice, like her husband's, was in
inverse ratio to her size. But it had this peculiarity: the lower it
sounded, the more it meant sometimes to convey. She merely called
her husband's name, and paused in the doorway. He winced. He had
never quarreled with his wife. He loved her too well for that. Then
VOL. VIII.-
82
RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. [1835-60
he knew that she dearly loved his grandmother, always treating her
respectfully and affectionately. He winced ; but this served to enrage
him more towards Eiley, whom Mrs. Hood, as he well knew, had never
upheld in anything approaching insolent behavior. During the remain-
der of this tripartite conference the boy never opened his mouth, Mrs.
Hood spoke only to Mr. Hood, and he only to Eiley. Stiffening himself
yet more, and setting his chair so that his back was squarely towards
the doorway, the accuser proceeded :
" Yes, sir ; lemme hear 'bout your conterdictin' o' gran'ma 'bout the
Rev'lution War, that everybody, exceptin' of you, an' not a-exceptin' o'
your own blessed mothers, acknowledge to her a-knowin' more 'bout
them times than anybody in this whole settlement, er any whar around ;
an' it's left for you, you little — "
"Frank," said his wife, lowly, almost suppliantly, from behind, "it
were only that gran'ma she insisted that Guilford Court-House were in
Virginny, an' Riley — an' the child say he done it polite — he corrected
gran'ma, an' he say that sister Patsy say she think he were right in
a-sayin' it were in North Callina."
Mr. Hood slid himself down somewhat in his chair, threw back his
head, stretched out his legs, letting them rest wide apart on his heels,
and looked scornfully at his son for several moments.
"Riley Hood," he then broke forth, " wuz you thar ? I must supposen
you wuz, an' that you had the layin' off of Old Yirginny, an' North Cal-
lina to boot."
" Oh no, Frank ; Riley, you know, if you'll rec'lect a minute, is thes
twelve year old ; an' this was in the Rev'lution War, before the child
were borned, or, as to that, me an' you uther."
"I'd s'pose then, sir, nobody could never of altered them lines."
" But Jhen, Franky — "
These beginning words were almost inaudible. Now the softer her
words the more difficult, as Mr. Hood knew from experience, to main-
tain a cause to which she was opposed, and he saw the importance of
becoming yet more indignant and magisterial.
"Ho, yes, sir; it's Franky now, is it, sir? you impident— "
;< Oh no, Franky ; by no means. It ain't Riley. The child have too
much respects of his father to call him that, as he know well enough he
better have. It's me, an' I was goin' on to say that when gran'ma— an'
bless her heart, she know how / love her— but when she went to put
Yorktown, whar the British give up, right thar by Danville, an' make
the Jeems River, an' the Staunton, an' the Roanoke all a-empt'in' clos't
to whar she lived an' intoo one another "
" You inconsidible or'nary ! " cried Mr. Hood, in profoundest, angri-
est disgust, "them towns an' them rivers all b'longs to you, don't th°ey,
1835-60] RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
83
sir ? You built 'em, and you run 'em, an' you — the goodness laws of
mercies ! Whut is this generation o' boys a-comin' to? "
With a prudence commendable in the circumstances, he pocketed both
hands, as if in apprehension of their seizing upon and throttling the
audacious monster beneath him.
"Yes, indeed, Franky, an' when gran'ma went on to make Gener'l
Washinton whip Julus Cassar at the Cowpens, an' the child — an' he done
it respeckful — but he told gran'ma that Mr. Cordy say, an' he's a school-
master, you know, that Julus Caesar were dead an' buried before Gener'l
Washinton ever even started to the Cowpens — :
"Aha! aha! aha!" ejaculated Mr. Hood, in rapid sequence, adroitly
changing his method of attack. " I jes' now see whut's ben a-troublin'
your granduous mind. It's gran'ma's lies. Ye are jealous of 'em, is ye,
sir? Want 'em all for yourself, do you, sir? Needn't be a-lookin'
behind me. Look straight at me, sir. Who wuz it denied eatin' them
green May-apples ontwell they swelled you up 'ith the colic, an' you had
to holler an' peach on yourself, an' your ma had to pour a cup-ful o'
castor-oil an' ippercac down you, an' scall you in a tub o' hot water to
boot? Who done that? I think it must of ben gran'ma. Who that
penned up old billy-goat an' the little peach-orchid boar, an' they fit an'
fit ontwell long arfter the sun sot, an' they never did quit twell nary one
could see whar to put in his licks? Couldn't of ben nobody but gran'ma,
as nobody here would own knowin' nothin' about it. Who that tried to
git out o' puilin' White-Face's calf's tail through the auger-hole in Jim
mule's stall, an' were tyin' a knot in it when old Aunt Peggy come on
you, an' you knowed I knowed, nigger as she wuz, she weren't goin' to
tell no lies fer you ner agin you ? / wouldn't be surprisened if old Aunt
Peggy weren't mistakened, an' gran'ma done that too."
" No, Franky ; you whipped the child well for them, an' I were glad you
did, for he deserved all he got. An' it's not that gran'ma want to tell lies,
nor Riley want to make out she do ; for he's obleeged to know, like every-
body know that know gran'ma, that she have ben as straightforwards an'
truth-tellin' woman as ever lived or died, twell now she's old, an' her ric-
lection's a-failin'; an' Riley, which to my certain knowledge actuil dote
on his gran'ma ; but when she went on about Gener'l Greene comin' up
of a suddent on Nepoleon Nebonaparte, why, you see, my dear Franky —
Mr. Hood, who for some time had sat with his hands clasped behind
his head, and hammering with the heel of one foot the toes of the other,
groaned in anguish, rose, rushed down the steps, turned round, and, as
he retreated backward, shouted, in a terrific voice:
" Riley Hood, from now out, gran'ma's lies none o' your business, sir.
She shall tell many as she pleases, sir. An' sir, I give you the hick'ry
ontel you can't squeal, ner squirm, ner — "
g^ RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. [1835-60
" Frank, Frank Hood ! " screamed his wife, pointing towards the gate,
"for gracious sake, look behind you !"
Turning, and seeing his grandma, he wheeled, rushed back to the
house, through the back door, made for the field, and did not return
until dusk.
The reflections of Mr. Hood during the remainder of the day were so
uncomfortable that he became uncommonly fretful towards the hands.
He had left his poor grandma to fight her battle alone ; yet somehow
his recent defeat made him feel conscious that if he had remained he
would have been unable to render to her assistance of any importance.
But he could not but hope that his wife, regarding the great difference
between the age of her assailant and her own, especially in her own
house, would be as forbearing as possible consistently with her evident
resolution to protect her offspring. The points of history in dispute he
knew not precisely how to regard. Being almost without any educa-
tion, he did not feel himself competent to judge, though he must have
some apprehension that his grandma may have mixed Caesar and Bona-
parte rather too much with the thrilling scenes that she had been relat-
ing to Riley. Later he found himself growing sorry for his wife, in
spite of his knowledge of her sufficiency in ordinary contests, and he
began to sympathize with her in a possible first defeat ; for he loved her
with all his heart.
I leave him for a while to his various ruminations.
The old lady, whose approach had been observed so late, aiding her
steps with a cane whose head towered above her own, stood for a
moment at the gate, seemingly much surprised at the loud cries and sin-
gular actions of her grandson. When he had fled, she slowly advanced
up the walk. Like his father, Eiley retreated, but only into the house.
His mother met the visitor half-way.
"What Franky ben a-fussin' so about, Betsy, honey?" asked
grandma. "I heerd him a-hollerin' an' a-bawlin' clean in the lane.
What could of made him bile over so brash ? Any o' the niggers make
him mad ? "
"Come in, gran'ma. Howdye? Glad to see you; that I am, you
dear, precious gran'ma. Now you set right down in that rockin'-cheer.
There, now ; give me your bonnet. Warm this evenin', ain't it ? 'spe-
cial' walkin'. But you do look so well and peert, gran'ma."
" I'm mod'r't', honey, thank the good Lord. But you hain't told me
whut ail Franky, an' I ken but be oneasy what make him mirate 'ith his
woices so heavy, an' run back'ard so rapid."
" Franky, gran'ma, were then a-scoldin' of Riley for denyin' of some—
but which the poor child is sorry enough for it, an' never meant any
1835-60] RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 35
impidence at all ; an' ef I ever see a child that love an' have respects of
his gran'ma, it's him. Kiley ! Kiley ! " she called, " here's gran'ma come
to see us. Weren't that good in her? Come out an' tell her howdye.
But first you open the top drawer of my bureau, an' take out an' fetch
here that new cap you made me make for her ; an' you handle it keerful
precious, an' whatever you do, don't rumple it. Yes, ma'am ; an' ef
you'll believe me, gran'ma, that boy, here this very mornin', thes made
me put down my work, an' go to makin' that cap he have made me
promuss to make for his gran'ma, an' he bought the meturials hisself
out of the store an' paid for 'em out of his own cotton money ; an' he
het the iron for me, an' he set by an' watched me the whole blessed
time I were at it tell I finished. Eiley think a heap of his gran'ma,
Riley do."
The boy soon appeared, holding modestly in his hand the new
cap.
"Why, Godamighty bless the child!" exclaimed the old lady; "I
don't know whut could of got holt o' Franky to be bawlin' that way at
sech a fine boy. Franky ought to be 'shamed o' hisself, an' ef he hadn't
of tuck hisself off so quick I'd of give it to him good fer doin' of it
Come here, my child, an' let gran'ma hug him." Riley accepted the
embrace gratefully. " He's a smart boy, an '11 make a man, ef he lives,
shore's your borned. Why, Betsy, honey, you mayn't know it about
that boy, but he know a'ready right smart :bout the Rev'lution War;
an' whensonever he corne to see gran'ma, gran'ma goin' to make it her
business to p'int out to him more about them awful battleses. Gran'ma
know all about them, because she were borned an' raised right thar whar
they wuz fit, bless the child's heart. An' as for Franky, ef he ain't
afeared to let me lay my eyes on him before I go back home to Patsy's,
you tell him from me that I say I'm older'n him, an' by good rights
I ought to know a good child an' a smart child when I come up 'ith him,
an' — But laws me, Betsy, honey, ain't you ben married long enough
to found out before now what kind o' creeters men folks is? An' that
many's the time they think they got to rip an' t'ar round, an' make out
like they want to break everything in a thousan' small pieces, when a
'oman, ef she'll only jes' keep her temper fer the times a-bein', an' let him
do his bilin' a while by hisself, arfter while, when he's biled over, he'll
swage down an' git cooled all over agin ? Ef you hain't, I tell you that
now, because you young, an' got your life to go through 'ith. It's the
natur' o' the seek o' the nuniversal men people o' the good Lord's yeth,
an' us women has to put up 'ith it the best we ken. They're borned
that way, an' made that way. They don't allays mean nothin' by thar
cavortin', no more'n a horse allays mean by his snortin' — why, bless my
soul, thar's a rhyme— an' bless the child's heart for not a-forgittin' of his
86
RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. [1835-60
old gran'ma ! Ef it don't 'mind me o' the time, an' it war when Gener'l
Greene cum a-ridin' by our house — "
The narration, which there is not space to give, was listened to with
/ deepest attention and respect. When the visitor was gone, Riley said
to his mother. " Well, ma, gran'ma, for me hereafter, she may make as
many histories an' jographies as she want, an' go by 'em wharsonever
they'll take her. She may have the Atlantic Ocean an' the Gulf o' Mex-
ico, both of 'em-, a-ernpt'in' in the Jeems an1 theStaunton all in one place,
'ith the Roanoke flung in to boot, an' I'll not try to hender 'em. She
may even pit Gener'l Washinton an' the old man Noah agin one 'nother
right at the door o' the ark, for me, an' I'll stan' aside an' let 'em fight it
out theirselves, her an' them."
" I think I would, if I were in your place," she answered.
When Mr. Hood came home his face had never worn a more pleasant,
affectionate expression. One would have thought that it would have
taken days and days to work such a change. He was extrem'ely anx-
ious to hear account of the last battle fought by his gran'ma, and he had
come prepared in his mind, like a loyal husband, to lift up, if sorely
wounded, the wife of his bosom, and comfort her to the extent of every
resource he had within him. No allusion for quite a length of time was
made to the visit ; but he was thankful to notice the moderately cheer-
ful responses made by his wife to his most cheerful remarks. He did
not speak a word to Riley, nor seem to be even aware of his presence,
during the whole evening. After the latter had gone to bed, he said,
" Oh, Betsy, my dear, I thought I saw gran'ma comin' as I left for the
field this evenin'."
" Yes, she were here."
He waited for more in vain.
"Gran'ma fetch any news? " he asked, at length.
" No, not new news. She did tell some things not egzactly like I've
heard her before about Gener'l Washinton, Debonaparte, an' them, but
she were mostly took up 'ith the praisin' an' huggin' of Riley, an' the
expressin' her opinions about men persons that flies into vi'lent passion
in their families when no 'casion for it."
When she had told him the whole story, he said, " Well, apun my
soul ! What is a feller to do in sech a case ? "
"Why, they is nothin', Frank, ef you want to know. Nothin'.
Because the' ain't nothin' to do nothin' about. Riley meant no disre-
spects of his gran'ma, an' which you ought to of knew, but he'll never
conterdict gran'ma again, no matter how her riclections gits all mixed
up, because the child don't natchel want to be thes eat up bodacious
alive by his own father about Julus Cassar nor nobody else. I knewed
they weren't no 'casion for sech a harricane, because I knewed gran'ma,
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL
LOS ANGELES. -,CA, '
1835-60] FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR. 07
if she hadn't done forgot a'readj she'd forget all about it soon as she see
that new cap, an' I were glad you weren't here when she let out on you."
He reflected for some time; then, in a friendly tone, said, "I sposen
then gran'ma an' all thinks I ben making a cussed fool o' myself ; an' I
ain't shore in my own rnind but whut I has."
The contradiction that he had hoped for did not come. Yet, when,
after several cordial assurances of self-reproach, she kindly admitted
that he was nobody but a man person, but as such he was in her opinion
as good as the best of them, and to a certainty the dearest little fellow
in this blessed world to her, he kissed her, kicked up his heels, and glo-
ried in the occasion that had led to words that, coming not often, were
the more welcome when they came.
tfrancte £>mri? Cicfenor,
BORN in Baldwin Co., Ga., 1823. DIED near Columbus, Ga., 1874.
THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY.
[Poems of Frank 0. Ticknor, M.D. 1879.]
rpHE knightliest of the knightly race
-*- That, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry
Alight in hearts of gold ;
The kindliest of the kindly band
That, rarely hating ease,
Yet rode with Spotswood round the land,
And Raleigh round the seas ;
Who climbed the blue Virginian hills
Against embattled foes,
And planted there, in valleys fair,
The lily and the rose ;
Whose fragrance lives in many lands,
Whose beauty stars the earth,
And lights the hearths of happy homes
With loveliness and worth.
We thought they slept !— the sons who kept
The names of noble sires,
And slumbered while the darkness crept
Around their vigil fires;
FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR. [1835-GO
oo
But aye the " Golden Horseshoe " knights
Their old Dominion keep,
Whose foes have found enchanted ground,
But not a knight asleep.
LITTLE GIFFEN.
OUT of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire ;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre ! such as you seldom see.
Little Giffen, of Tennessee !
"Take him and welcome! " the surgeons said;
Little the doctor can help the dead!
So we took him ; and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air ;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed —
Utter Lazarus, heel to head !
And we watched the war with abated breath, —
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.
Months of torture, how many such ?
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die,
And didn't. Nay, more ! in death's despite
The crippled skeleton "learned to write."
"Dear mother," at first, of course; and then
" Dear captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer : " Of eighty-and-five,
Giffen and I are left alive."
Word of gloom from the war, one day ;
Johnson pressed at the front, they say.
Little Giffen was up and away ;
A tear — his first — as he bade good-by,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
" I'll write, if spared! " There was news of the fight:
But none of Giffeu. — He did not write.
I sometimes fancy that, were I king
Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I'd give the best on his bended knee,
The whitest soul of my chivalry,
For "Little Giffen," of Tennessee.
1835-60] WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.
EoungefcUle
BORN in Freetowii, Mass., 1822.
ALL IS EACH, AND EACH IS ALL.
[The Poetry of the East. 1856.]
rpHE sullen mountain, and the bee that hums,
-*- A flying joy, about its flowery base,
Each from the same immediate fountain comes,
And both compose one evanescent race.
Proud man, exulting in his strength and thought,
The torpid clod he treads beneath his way,
One parent Artist's skill alike hath wrought,
And they are brothers in their fate to-day.
There is no difference in the texture fine
That's woven through organic rock and grass,
And that which thrills man's heart in every line,
As o'er its web God's weaving fingers pass.
The timid flower that decks the fragrant field,
The daring star that tints the solemn dome,
From one propulsive force to being reeled;
Both keep one law and have a single home.
The river and the leaf, the sun and shade,
The bird and stonj, the shepherds and their flocks,
Are all of one primeval substance made, —
A single key their common secret locks.
Each atom holds the boundless God concrete
Besides whose abstract Being nothing is;
Each mind, each point of dust, is God complete:—
Who knows but this, the magic key is his!
89
THE SOLITUDE OF OCCUPATION.
[The Solitudes of Nature and of Man. 1866.]
TTTHATEVER fills the capacity of the soul, of course, for the time,
VV excludes everything else ; and there thus results an apparent sin-
gleness and separation. Augustine, struggling in the crisis of his con-
version, in the chamber of his friend Alypius, says, "I was alone
q0 WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. [1835-60
even in his presence." This principle is the key to one of the marked
varieties of the isolation in human life. A man with a great mission,
an intense passion for some definite object, is thereby set apart from the
common crowd of associates whose free impulses are ready to respond to
every random appeal. He has no loose energies to spare in reaction on
stray chances or incoherent claims : his whole soul is given to the one
aim and its accompaniments. Sometimes an illusion, fastening in the
mind, appropriates the thoughts and passions as its food, and makes
the man its servant. Others laugh at his absurdity, or turn carelessly
from him as an oddity. Elated with his error, fondling his idol, he
heeds not their scorn or their neglect Lost in his idiosyncratic joy or
anxiety, hugging his peculiar purpose to his breast, he drifts through
the frigid wilderness of society, as essentially alone as a sailor lashed to
a spar on the ocean, ....
All discoverers or schemers of the highest order, all intense idealists
and workers, are in this manner taken possession of by their destined
vocation. And thenceforth they know nothing else. Conversing with
their thoughts, toiling at their plans, devising methods, or imagining the
results of success, they walk up and down, deaf to every foreign solicita-
tion and to every impediment Corne what will, their task engrosses
them, their fate cries out, and all else must give way. Such men are
essentially alone ; though it is an unresting, contentful isolation, unlike
the vacant, asking isolation of unabsorbed men. Its proper type is the
loneliness of a waterfall in the bosom of unreclaimed nature ; or the
loneliness of a beehive in a hollow oak in the heart of the untrodden
forest
We must not overlook, however, the wide difference between a soli-
tude felt as such in pain and pining, which implies unappropriated
powers, and is a condition of misery, and the solitude which is uncon-
scious, wherein the soul is self-sufficing, its occupation leaving nothing
unsupplied for the time, no wish for external sympathy or help. The
latter is one of the happiest forms of life, in spite of its somewhat with-
drawn and melancholy aspect. Apart from social interchanges, it may
appear dreary and monotonous ; but it is not so. ....
In fact, for solid happiness and peace, there are none more favored
than those blessed with a master-passion and a monopolizing work. In
the congenial employment thus secured, the earnestness of their faculties
is called out and dedicated. They thus find for themselves and in them-
selves an independent interest, dignity, and content, together with exemp-
tion from most of the vexatious temptations by which those are beset
whose enjoyment rests on precarious contingencies beyond their own
power. ....
When we think of the astronomer in his secluded tower, in the gloom,
1835-60] MICHAEL HEILPRIN. g-^
hour by hour turning his glass on the unbreathing heaven, peering into
the nebulous oceans, or following the solemn wanderers; when we
notice the lamp of some poor student, burning in his window, his shadow
falling on the tattered curtain where he sits with book and pen, night
after night, " out-watching the Bear and Thrice-great Hermes." we may
fancy that he leads a tedious and depressing life. Ah, no. The august
fellowship of eternal laws, the thought of God, the spirits of the great
dead, kindling ideas and hopes, the lineaments of supersensual beauty,
glorious plans of human improvement, — dispel his weariness, cheer every
drooping faculty, illumine the bleak chamber, and make it populous
with presences of grandeur and joy. The solitude is unreal, for he is
absorbingly busy. He is alone, but not lonely.
When with a great company one listens to fascinating music, gradu-
ally the spell begins to work ; little by little the soft wild melody pene-
trates the affections, — the subtle harmony steals into the inmost cells of
the brain, winds in honeyed coils around every thought, until conscious-
ness is saturated with the charm. We forget all. Distraction ceases,
variety is gone. Spectators, chandeliers, theatre, disappear. The world
recedes and vanishes. The soul is ravished away, captive to a strain,
lost in bewilderment of bliss, its entire being concentrated in a listening
act ; and we are able to believe the old legend of the saint who, caught
up into paradise by overhearing the song of the Blest, on awakening
from his entrancement found that a thousand years had passed while he
was hearkening. Such is the solitude of absorption, when it touches its
climax. He is wise who endeavors to know something of its elevation
and blessedness by giving his soul to those supernal realities which are
worthy to take his absolute allegiance, and swallow him up. Though
such an one lives in solitude, the solitude itself is inexpressibly sociable.
BORN in Piotrkow, Poland, 1823. DIED at Summit, N. J., 1888.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS.
[The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews. 1879.]
DAVID, whatever his vices and crimes may have been, was a great
monarch. He was brave, energetic, warlike. The consolidation
and aggrandizement of his kingdom was his constant aim. He employed
in his service men of ability and vigor, created a powerful army, and in
92 MICHAEL EEILPBIN. [1835-60
Joab possessed a great general. Victory crowned his campaigns. He
conquered the future capital of his country, and vanquished the Philis-
tines, the Syrians, Moab, Edom, and Ammon. He promoted the wor-
ship of Jehovah, patronized prophets and priests, and paved the way for
the erection of the temple of Zion. He founded a dynasty which
reigned upward of four hundred years. When this dynasty decayed,
he naturally became the great kingly hero upon whom the patriotic and
pious looked back with ardent veneration, He became the model king
of history, and by his standard— a partly fictitious standard — the merits
of his successors were measured. His crimes were palliated. His legend-
ary exploits and excellences were epically expanded. Creations of his
successors were ascribed to him. Artistic inventions and literary pro-
ductions of more refined ages than his were attributed to himself or to
the singers and poets of his court. He was then not only a great con-
queror and ruler: he was a poet and musical genius, an organizer of
choirs and inventor of vocal instruments, a composer of hymns and
religious instructor. Psalms in which really God-fearing men, on or
near the tottering throne of Judah, poured out their feelings of adora-
tion, of gratitude and hope, or of repentance, were inscribed with his
name. Each successive generation added to these prayers or psalms of
David, until, when the sacred literary collections of Israel were closed —
centuries after the extinction of the Davidic dynasty — their number
exceeded threescore and ten, according to the superscriptions.
The worthlessness of these superscriptions has been fully established.
Nor was it a difficult task for criticism to do it. Not a single one of
the psalms ascribed to David contains distinct allusions to events in his
life. Hardly any of them agree with his character and disposition as
manifested in the historical sketches of the books of Samuel. The
sentiments and religious views expressed in all of them are those of a
different age. Some refer clearly to times and circumstances other than
his. ....
Yet the traditional image of David created by the main tenor of the
psalms marked with his name, by a few higher traits of him discernible
in the narratives of the books of Samuel, and by the systematic sancti-
fication of his character in Chronicles, has been"so powerful a check in
rightly defining his place in the ethical and literary development of his
nation that even such critics of our times as Ewald, Hitzig, and Schrader
have still accepted his authorship of about a dozen psalms.
Among the very few accepted as Davidic ... is Psalm xviii.,
mainly, it must be supposed, on account of its being also incorporated
• Samuel; for its contents bent neither David's character nor any
situation in his life. The superscription, which states it to have been
sung by David on the day when Jehovah saved him "from all his ene-
1835-60] SARAH JANE LIPPINCOTT. 93
raies and from the hand of Saul," refutes itself, for there was no such
day in the life of the Judean king, whose perils, beginning with Saul's
hostility, ended only with his life ; and the closing words, which speak
of Jehovah's kindness to " David -and his posterity," distinctly enough
point to a later king of the Davidic dynasty as author. E. Meier,
reviewing this and the other psalms claimed for David by Ewald, reaches
the conclusion that there is not a single one in the whole collection
which could "be ascribed to him on good critical grounds. And the
Dutch school of criticism fully indorses this view. "Probably not one
of the psalms is from David's hand," says Kuenen. Oort, in showing the
"impossibility" of reconciling the David of Psalms with the David of
history, remarks, " The superscriptions of the psalms are entirely untrust-
worthy ; and the poems themselves date from periods at which the
Israelites had pondered far more deeply upon the nature of true piety,
and cherished far other thoughts as to phenomena of spiritual life, than
was the case in David's time." " It is highly probable," says Knappert,
" that not one of the seventy -three psalms that bear his name is really
his."
The son of Jesse being thus fairly stripped of his laurels as a psalmist,
we may also presume that the psalm-like song given in the twenty-third
chapter of II. Samuel does not contain "the last words of David," but
words of a more righteous later king, to the beginning of which a
redactor unguardedly prefixed, by way of explanation, "This is the
utterance of David, the son of Jesse."
91ane
BORN in Pompey, N. Y., 1823.
CHOOSE.
MY tender thoughts go forth, beloved,
Upon the pleasant morning hours,
With songs of mated birds, and sighs
From virgin hearts of opening flowers.
Full laden with love's daintiest store,
Each smallest thought should come to thee,
As from the jasmine's hidden cell
Flies home the richly burdened, bee.
My joyous thoughts go forth, beloved,
Upon the golden airs of noon,
SARAH JANE LIPPINCOTT. [1835-60
With languid sweets from roses rare
That flush and faint through ardent June.
With all the swiftness of the streams
That fling out laughter as they run,
With all the brightness of the day,
With all the passion of the sun.
But when along the cloud-hung west
The purple lights grow pale and die —
When waves of sunshine roll no more,
And all one shade the corn-fields lie —
When twilight veils the hills, and gives
A deeper mystery to the sea —
Then, O beloved ! my saddened heart
Yearns through the distance unto thee.
And when the winds come o'er the sands
To sweep my lonely garden through,
To bow the saintly lily's head,
And spill the violet's cup of dew—
And when they higher mount, and beat
The elm's long arms against the eaves,
Troubling the robin in its nest,
And making tumult in the leaves —
Then in the dusk I seem to hear
Strange sounds and whisperings of dread,
And every murmur in the grass
Seems some unfriendly spirit's tread.
I shrink within the shadowed porch,
A nameless fear oppresseth me :
Oh, then my heart, like some lost child,
Calls through the darkness unto thee !
So, dear, of all my life of love,
Choose thou the best and sweetest part:
The glow of day, or gloom of night ;
The pride or terror of my heart ;
The glad, exultant hope that fills
The morning with its joyous strain,
Or twilight's haunted loneliness,
That stretches out its arms in vain.
Would sigh or carol move thee most ?
And were thy tenderest kiss bestowed
On eyes that droop with tears, or lips
With careless laughter overflowed ?
1835-60] FEANCI8 PARKMAN.
So questions, love, the foolish heart
That would thy secret choice divine;
Yet idly questions, knowing well
Thou canst not choose, since all is thine.
1870.
tfrancte
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1823.
NEW ENGLAND AND NEW FRANCE.
[Pioneers of France in the New World. 1865.— Twenty-fifth Edition. Revised. 1886.]
"ATEW FRANCE was all head. Under king, noble, and Jesuit, the
-*-^l lank, lean body would not thrive. Even commerce wore the
sword, decked itself with badges of nobility, aspired to forest seigniories
and hordes of savage retainers.
Along the borders of the sea an adverse power was strengthening and
widening, with slow but steadfast growth, full of blood and muscle, a
body without a head. Each had its strength, each its weakness, each its
own modes of vigorous life : but the one was fruitful, the other barren •
the one instinct with hope, the other darkening with shadows of despair.
By name, local position, and character, one of these communities of
freemen stands forth as the most conspicuous representative of this
antagonism ; — Liberty and Absolutism, New England and New France.
The one was the offspring of a triumphant government; the other, of
an oppressed and fugitive people: the one, an unflinching champion of
the Roman Catholic reaction; the other, a vanguard of the Reform.
Each followed its natural laws of growth, and each came to its natural
results. Vitalized by the principles of its foundation, the Puritan com-
monwealth grew apace. New England was preeminently the land of
material progress. Here the prize was within every man's reach ; patient
industry need never doubt its reward ; nay, in defiance of the four Gos-
pels, assiduity in pursuit of gain was promoted to the rank of a duty,
and thrift and godliness were linked in equivocal wedlock. Politically
she was free; socially she suffered from that subtile and searching
oppression which the dominant opinion of a free community may exer-
cise over the members who compose it As a whole, she grew upon the
gaze of the world, a signal example of expansive energy; but she has
not been fruitful in those salient and striking forms of character which
-often give a dramatic life to the annals of nations far less prosperous.
gg FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
We turn to New France, and all is reversed. Here was a bold attempt
to crush under the exactions of a grasping hierarchy, to stifle under the
curbs and trappings of a feudal monarchy, a people compassed by influ-
ences of the wildest freedom,— whose schools were the forest and the
sea, whose trade was an armed barter with savages, and whose daily life
a lesson of lawless independence. But this fierce spirit had its vent.
The story of New France is from the first a story of war : of war— for
so her founders believed — with the adversary of mankind himself; war
with savage tribes and potent forest commonwealths; war with the
encroaching powers of Heresy and of England. Her brave, unthinking
people were stamped with the soldier's virtues and the soldier's faults;
and in their leaders were displayed, on a grand and novel stage, the
energies, aspirations, and passions which belong to hopes vast and vague,
ill-restricted powers, and stations of command.
The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a
busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather
competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achieve-
ment of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain
attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to
battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by num-
bers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell
at last ; and out of her fall grew revolutions whose influence to this hour
is felt through every nation of the civilized world.
The French dominion is a memory of the past ; and when we evoke
its departed shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange,
romantic guise. Again their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, and the
fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black-robed priest,
mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on
the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us ; an untamed
continent ; vast wastes of forest verdure ; mountains silent in primeval
sleep ; river, lake, and glimmering pool ; wilderness oceans mingling with
the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for Civilization.
Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments
in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique
learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon
and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental
sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of
courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with
their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of toil.
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN. gj
THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES.
[From the Same.]
MORNING came, and the woods were thronged with warriors.
Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token
of mutual confidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, and the
Indians their bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers,
and seated their commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and
cushioned with the gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the
spot of brambles, weeds, and grass ; and, when their task was finished,
the tribesmen took their places, ring within ring, standing, sitting, and
crouching on the ground, — a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array,
waiting with grave visages and intent eyes. Gourgues was about to
speak, when the chief, who, says the narrator, had not learned French
manners, anticipated him, and broke into a vehement harangue, denounc-
ing the cruelty of the Spaniards.
Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one
happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their
corn, ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children ; and
all this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a
French boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort; they had
found him in the woods ; and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill
him, demanded that they should give him up, they had kept him for
his friends.
" Look ! " pursued the chief, " here he is ! " — and he brought forward
a youth of sixteen, named Pierre Debre, who became at once of the
greatest service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language
making him an excellent interpreter.
Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues
did not see fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He thanked
the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in it, and
pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness of his
King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was at
hand ; and, if the Indians had been abused for their love of the French,
the French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his dig-
nity, and leaped up for joy.
" What ! " he cried, " will you fight the Spaniards ? "
"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only to reconnoitre the country
and make friends with you, and then go back to bring more soldiers ;
but, when I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon
them this very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." All around
the ring a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.
VOL. VIII. — 7
gg FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
" But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman ; " you will not
leave us all the honor ? "
" We will go," replied Satouriona, " and die with you, if need be."
" Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you
have your warriors ready to march ? "
The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him
to secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.
"Never fear," was the answer; "we hate them more than you
do."
Then came a distribution of gifts, — knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells,
and beads, — while the warrior rabble crowded to receive them, with
eager faces and outstretched arms. The distribution over, Gourgues
asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve
them. On this, pointing to his shirt, they expressed a peculiar admira-
tion for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at feasts
and councils during life, and in their graves after death. Ofourges com-
plied ; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking about him, flut-
tering in the spoils of his wardrobe.
To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now
sent out three scouts ; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's
nephew, a young brave of great renown.
The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only sur-
viving son and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships,
while the Indians dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamp-
ing, dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in
war-paint, and plumed for battle. The woods rang back .their songs
and yells, as with frantic gesticulation they brandished their war-clubs
and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink,
endowed with mystic virtues against hardship and danger; and Gourgues
himself pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction.
These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies
filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts.
The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous.
Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their
ardor was at fever height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded
to be led at once against the enemy. Francois Bourdelais, with twenty
sailors, was left with the ships, and Gourgues affectionately bade him
farewell.
" If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, " I leave all in
your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,— many
sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,— many messages
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN. 99
left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses ; and then
this valiant band pushed their boats from shore. It was a hare-brained
venture, for, as young Debre had assured them, the Spaniards on the
Eiver of May were four hundred in number, secure beh'ind their ram-
parts.
Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly by
the sombre shores in the shimmering moonlight, to the sound of the mur-
muring surf and the moaning pine trees. In the gray of the morning, they
came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau ; and here a north-
east wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats. Their
Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale delayed
their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed through
the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and pushed into
the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and backpiece. At
his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, with a French pike in his
hand; and the files of arquebusemen and armed sailors followed close
behind. They plunged through swarnps, hewed their way through
brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five
in the afternoon, almost spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a river
or inlet of the sea. not far from the first Spanish fort. Here they found
three hundred Indians waiting for them.
Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He wished to attack at
daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set out to
reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle
on, in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines,
and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An
Indian chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed
look, and offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the
sea. Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march.
The Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through
the forest.
The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on with speed. At
dawn they and their allies met on the bank of a stream, probably Sister
Creek, beyond which, and very near, was the fort. But the tide was in,
and they tried in vain to cross. Greatly vexed,— for he had hoped to
take the enemy asleep,— Gourgues withdrew his soldiers into the forest,
where they were no sooner ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and
they had much ado to keep their gun-matches burning. The light grew
fast. Gourgues plainly saw the fort, the defences of which seemed slight
and unfinished. He even saw the Spaniards at work within. A fever-
ish interval elapsed, till at length the tide was out,— so far, at least,
that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of trees lay
between it and the fort. Behind this friendly screen the passage was
100 FRANCIS PAEKMAN. [1835-60
begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his arque-
buse above his head with one hand, and grasped his sword with the
other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The sharp shells cut their
feet as they waded through. But the farther bank was gained. They
emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, and bleeding, but with
unabated mettle. Gourgues set them in array under cover of the trees.
They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with fear.
Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses through the
boughs. " Look ! " he said, " there are the robbers who have stolen this
land from our king ; there are the murderers who have butchered our
countrymen ! " With voices eager, fierce, but half suppressed, they
demanded to be led on.
Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men,
pushed for the fort gate; he himself, with the main body, for the glacis.
It was near noon ; the Spaniards had just finished their meal, and, says
the narrative, " were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang
in their ears :
" To arms ! to arms ! The French are coming ! the French are com-
ing!"
It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the
rampart and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads
lowered and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them.
He even had time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca
bounded forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and
drove his pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues
was now on the glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate
that the Spaniards were escaping on that side. He turned and led his
men thither at a run. In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were
enclosed between his party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too,
came leaping to the spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down
but a few, reserved by Gourgues for a more inglorious end.
Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore,
cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured
guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been
brought alongshore, and, entering it with eighty soldiers, he pushed for
the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the river,
which is here about three-fourths of a mile wide. Each held his bow
and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic
seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out
of the fort and fled into the forest But the French had already landed ;
and, throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them
with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled ; but flight was
vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them, and war-clubs and arrows
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN.
101
finished the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen, not out
of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.
The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter.
Gourgues and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault
on Fort San Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far
and near, the Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Span-
ish fort till not a soldier could venture out. The garrison, aware of
their danger, though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain
information ; and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian,
ventured within Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at
hanjfl, and by his side walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The
keen-eyed young savage pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was
seized, and, being examined, declared that there were two hundred and
sixty Spaniards in San Mateo, and that they believed the French to be
two thousand, and were so frightened that they did not know what they
were doing.
Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday even-
ing he sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of
the fort. In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and, as the
glittering ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river,
the Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion.
The French took cover in the woods with which the hills below and
behind the fort were densely overgrown. Here, himself unseen, Gourgues
could survey the whole extent of the defences, and he presently de-
scried a strong party of Spaniards issuing from their works, crossing
the ditch, and advancing to reconnoitre. On this, he sent Cazenove,
with a detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees
on the flank of the Spaniards, who, with strange infatuation, continued
their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the
thickets to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the open
ground, a deadly fire blazed in their faces, and, before the smoke cleared,
the French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would
liave fled ; but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were
killed or taken.
When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot,%they could
hope no mercy, and their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of
their enemy. They abandoned the fort in a body, and fled into the
woods most remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited
them ; for a host of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those
hideous war-cries which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched
the manliest cheek. The forest warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked
their long arrears of vengeance, while the French hastened to the spot,
102 FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
and lent their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved
alive; the rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody
atonement for the butchery of Fort Caroline.
But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort,
the trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his
captives, and placed over them the inscription, " Not as to Frenchmen,
but as to Lutherans."
Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.
" Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
before him, " that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against a
king so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished ? 1^ one
of the humblest gentlemen among my king's subjects, have charged
myself with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most
Catholic Kings had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and
extreme cruelty would still have been unpardonable. Now that they
are friends and close allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your
deeds, no punishment sharp enough to requite them. But though you
cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can
honorably inflict, that your example may teach others to observe the
peace and alliance which you have so perfidiously violated."
They were hangecl where the French had hung before them ; and over
them was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of
pine, " Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Eobbers, and Murder-
ers."
Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never
been his intention ; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in
force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind visitation, — to ravage, ruin,
and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to demolish
the fort. % They fell to the work with eagerness, and in less than a day
not one stone was left on another.
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS.
[The Old Regime in Canada. 1874.— Seventeenth Edition. 1886.]
"A/TONTEEAL was their harboring place, and they conducted them-
****• selves much like the crew of a man-of-war paid off after a long
voyage. As long as their beaver-skins lasted, they set no bounds to
their riot. Every house in the place, we are told, was turned into a
drinking -shop. The new-comers were bedizened with a strange mixture
of French and Indian finery; while some of them, with instincts more
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN. 10g
thoroughly savage, stalked about the streets as naked as a Pottawat-
tamie or a Sioux. The clamor of tongues was prodigious, and gambling
and drinking filled the day and the night. When at last they were
sober again, they sought absolution for their sins ; nor could the priests
venture to bear too hard on their unruly penitents, lest they should
break wholly with the church and dispense thenceforth with her sacra-
ments.
Under such leaders as Du Lhut, the coureurs de bois built forts of pal-
isades at various points throughout the West and 'Northwest. They
had a post of this sort at Detroit some time before its permanent settle-
ment, as well as others on Lake Superior and in the valley of the Missis-
sippi. They occupied them as long as it suited their purposes, and then
abandoned them to the next comer. Michillimackinac was, however,
their chief resort ; and thence they would set out, two or three together,
to roam for hundreds of miles through the endless mesh work of inter-
locking lakes and rivers which seams the northern wilderness.
No wonder that a year or two of bush-ranging spoiled them for civili-
zation. Though not a very valuable member of society, and though a
thorn in the side of princes and rulers, the coureur de bois had his uses,
at least from an artistic point of view ; and his strange figure, sometimes
brutally savage, but oftener marked with the lines of a daredevil cour-
age, and a reckless, thoughtless gayety, will always be joined to the
memories of that grand world of woods which the nineteenth century is
fast civilizing out of existence. At least, he is picturesque, and with
his redskin companion serves to animate forest scenery. Perhaps he
could sometimes feel, without knowing that he felt them, the charms of
the savage nature that had adopted him. Eude as he was, her voice
may not always have been meaningless for one who knew her haunts
so well ; deep recesses where, veiled in foliage, some wild shy rivulet
steals with timid music through breathless caves of verdure; gulfs where
feathered crags rise like castle walls, where the noonday sun pierces
with keen rays athwart the torrent, and the mossed arms of fallen pines
cast wavering shadows on the illumined foam ; pools of liquid crystal
turned emerald in the reflected green of impending woods ; rocks on
whose rugged front the gleam of sunlit waters dances in quivering light;
ancient trees hurled headlong by the storm to dam the raging stream
with their forlorn and savage ruin ; or the stern depths of immemorial
forests, dim and silent as a cavern, columned with innumerable trunks,
each like an Atlas upholding its world of leaves, and sweating perpetual
moisture down its dark and channelled rind ; some strong in youth, some
grisly with decrepit age, nightmares of strange distortion, gnarled and
knotted with wens and'goitres ; roots intertwined beneath like serpents
petrified in an agony of contorted strife ; green and glistening mosses
1Q4 FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
carpeting the rough ground, mantling the rocks, turning pulpy stumps
to mounds of verdure, and swathing fallen trunks as, bent in the impo-
tence of rottenness, they lie outstretched over knoll and hollow, like
mouldering reptiles of the primeval world, while around, and on and
through them, springs the young growth that battens on their decay, —
the forest devouring its own dead. Or, to turn from its funereal shade
to the light and life of the open woodland, the sheen of sparkling lakes,
and mountains basking in the glory of the summer noon, flecked by the
shadows of passing clouds that sail on snowy wings across the transpar-
ent azure.
Yet it would be false coloring to paint the half-savage coureur de bois
as a romantic lover of nature. He liked the woods because they eman-
cipated him from restraint. He liked the lounging ease of the camp-fire,
and the license of Indian villages. His life has a dark and ugly side,
which is nowhere drawn more strongly than in a letter written by the
Jesuit Carheil to the intendant Champigny. It was at the time when
some of the outlying forest posts, originally either missions or transient
stations of coureurs de bois, had received regular garrisons. Carheil writes
from Michillimackinac, and describes the state of things around him
like one whom long familiarity with them had stripped of every illusion.
THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM.
[Montcalm and Wolfe. 1884.]
full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current,
steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but
the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one
of the foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John
Eobinson, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University
of Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low
voice, repeated Gray's " Elegy in a Country Churchyard " to the officers
about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his thoughts.
Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to illus-
trate—
" The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
"Gentlemen," he said, as his recital ended, "I would rather have
written those lines than take Quebec." None were there to tell him that
the hero is greater than the poet.
As they neared their destination, the tide bore them in towards the
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN. ^Qg
shore, and the mighty wall of rock and forest towered in darkness on
their left. The dead stillness was suddenly broken by the sharp " Qui
vivef" of a French sentry, invisible in the thick gloom. "France!"
answered a Highland officer of Fraser's regiment from one of the boats
of the light infantry. He had served in Holland, and spoke French
fluently.
" A quel regiment ? "
"De la Reine" replied the Highlander. He knew that a part of that
corps was with Bougainville. The sentry, expecting the convoy of
provisions, was satisfied, and did not ask for the password.
Soon after, the foremost boats were passing the heights of Samos,
when another sentry challenged them, and they could see him through
the darkness running down to the edge of the water, within range of a
pistol-shot. In answer to his questions, the same officer replied, in
French: "Provision-boats. Don't make a noise; the English will hear
us." In fact, the sloop-of-war Hunter was anchored in the stream
not far off. This time, again, the sentry let them pass. In a few
moments they rounded the headland above the Anse du Foulon. There
was no sentry there. The strong current swept the boats of the light
infantry a little below the intended landing-place. They disembarked
on a narrow strand at the foot of heights as steep as a hill covered with
trees can be. The twenty-four volunteers led the way, climbing with
what silence they might, closely followed by a much larger body. When
they reached the top they saw in the dim light a cluster of tents at a short
distance, and immediately made a dash at them. Vergor leaped from
bed and tried to run off, but was shot in the heel and captured. His
men, taken by surprise, made little resistance. One or two were caught,
and the rest fled.
The main body of troops waited in their boats by the edge of the
strand. The heights near by were cleft by a great ravine choked with
forest trees; and in its depths ran a little brook called Ruisseau St.
Denis, which, swollen by the late rains, fell plashing in the stillness over
a rock. Other than this no sound could reach the strained ear of Wolfe
but the gurgle of the tide and the cautious climbing of his advance
parties as they mounted the steeps at some little distance from where he
sat listening. At length from the top came a sound of musket-shots,
followed by loud huzzas, and he knew that his men were masters of the
position. The word was given ; the troops leaped from the boats and
scaled the heights, some here, some there, clutching at trees and bushes,
their muskets slung at their backs. Tradition still points out the place,
near the mouth of the ravine, where the foremost reached the top.
Wolfe said to an officer near him : " You can try it, but I don't think
get up." He himself, however, found strength to drag himself up
VOU
106 FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
with the rest. The narrow slanting path on the face of the heights had
been made impassable by trenches and abattis ; but all obstructions were
soon cleared away, and then the ascent was easy. In the gray of the
morning the longfile of red-coated soldiers moved quickly upward, and
formed in order on the plateau above.
Before many of them had reached the top, cannon were heard close on
the left. It was the battery at Samos firing on the boats in the rear and
the vessels descending from Cap-Kouge. A party was sent to silence it ;
this was soon effected, and the more distant battery at Sillery was next
attacked and taken. As fast as the boats were emptied they returned
for the troops left on board the vessels and for those waiting on the
southern shore under Colonel Burton.
The day broke in clouds and threatening rain. Wolfe's battalions
were drawn up along the crest of the heights. No enemy was in sight,
though a body of Canadians had sallied from the town and moved along
the strand towards the landing-place, whence they were quickly driven
back. He had achieved the most critical part of his enterprise ; yet the
success that he coveted placed him in imminent danger. On one side
was the garrison of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville
was on the other. Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin ; for if he
should be overwhelmed by a combined attack, retreat would be hopeless.
His feelings no man can know ; but it would be safe to say that hesita-
tion or doubt had no part in them.
He went to reconnoitre the ground, and soon came to the Plains of
Abraham, so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot known as Maitre
Abraham, who had owned a piece of land here in the early times of the
colony. The Plains were a tract of grass, tolerably level in most parts,
patched here and there with corn-fields, studded with clumps of bushes,
and forming a part of the high plateau at the eastern end of which
Quebec stood. On the south it was bounded by the declivities along the
St. Lawrence ; on the north, by those along the St. Charles, or rather
along the meadows through which that lazy stream crawled like a writh-
ing snake. At the place that Wolfe chose for his battle-field the plateau
was less than a mile wide.
Thither the troops advanced, marched by files till they reached the
ground, and then wheeled to form their line of battle, which stretched
across the plateau and faced the city. It consisted of six battalions and
the detached grenadiers from Louisbourg, all drawn up in ranks three
deep. Its right wing was near the brink of the heights along the St
Lawrence ; but the left could not reach those along the St. Charles. On
this side a wide space was perforce left open, and there was danger of
being outflanked. To prevent this, Brigadier Townshend was stationed
here with two battalions, drawn up at right angles with the rest, and
1835-60J FRANCIS PARKMAN. -^7
fronting the St. Charles. The battalion of Webb's regiment, under
Colonel Burton, formed the reserve ; the third battalion of Koyal Ameri-
cans was left to guard the landing : and Howe's light infantry occupied
a wood far in the rear. Wolfe, with Monckton and Murray, commanded
the front line, on which the heavy fighting was to fall, and which, when
all the troops had arrived, numbered less than thirty-five hundred men.
Quebec was not a mile distant, but they could not see it ; for a ridge of
broken ground intervened, called Buttes-a-Neveu, about six hundred paces
off. The first division of troops had scarcely come up when, about six
o'clock, this ridge was suddenly thronged with white uniforms. It was
the battalion of Guienne, arrived at the eleventh hour from its camp by
the St. Charles. Some time after, there was hot firing in the rear. It
came from a detachment of Bougainville's command attacking a house
where some of the light infantry were posted. The assailants were
repulsed, and the firing ceased. Light showers fell at intervals, besprink-
ling the troops as they stood patiently waiting the event.
Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the evening the
cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and the boats of the fleet
hovered in the dusk off the Beauport shore, threatening every moment
to land. Troops lined the intrenchments till day, while the general
walked the field that adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning,
accompanied by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez. John-
stone says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night. At
daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town. It was the bat-
tery at Samos firing on the English ships. He had sent an officer to the
quarters of Yaudreuil, which were much nearer Quebec, with orders to
bring him word at once should anything unusual happen. But no word
came, and about six o'clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone.
As they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and more
upon their sight ; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil's house, they
saw across the St. Charles, some two miles away, the red ranks of British
soldiers on the heights beyond.
" This is a serious business," Montcalm said, and sent off Johnstone
at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre and left of the camp.
Those of the right were in motion already, doubtless by the governor's
order. Yaudreuil came out of the house. Montcalm stopped for a few
words with him ; then set spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge
of the St. Charles to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look,
uttering not a word.
The army followed in such order as it might, crossed the bridge in hot
haste, passed under the northern rampart of Quebec, entered at the
palace gate, and pressed on in headlong march along the quaint narrow
streets of the warlike town : troops of Indians in scalp-locks and war-
log FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
paint a savage glitter in their deep-set eves; bands of Canadians whose
all was at stake— faith, country, and home; the colony regulars; the
battalions of old France, a torrent of white uniforms and gleaming
bayonets, La Sarre, Languedoc, Eoussillon, Beam,— victors of Oswego,
William Henry, and Ticonderoga. So they swept on, poured out upon
the plain, some by the gate of St. Louis, and some by that of St John,
and hurried, breathless, to where the banners of Guienne still fluttered
on the ridge.
Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected a detach-
ment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him stretched the
lines of Wolfe: the close ranks of the English infantry, a silent wall
of red, and the wild array of the Highlanders, with their waving
tartans, and bagpipes screaming defiance. Vaudreuil had not come;
but not the less was felt the evil of a divided authority and the jealousy
of the rival chiefs. Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered
to join him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It is
said that the governor had detained them, lest the English should attack
the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and succeeded, the French
might defy them, could they but put Wolfe to rout on the Plains of
Abraham. Neither did the garrison of Quebec come to the aid of Mont-
calm. He sent to Eamesay, its commander, for twenty -five field-pieces
which were on the palace battery. Ramesay would give him only three,
saying that he wanted them for his own defence. There were orders
and counter-orders ; misunderstanding, haste, delay, perplexity.
Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is said that
he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declare that
he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command ; but the
governor was not a man to assume responsibility at such a crisis.
Others say that his impetuosity overcame his better judgment ; and of
this charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles
distant, and some of his troops were much nearer ; a messenger sent by
way of Old Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a half at
most, and a combined attack in front and rear might have been concerted
with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an understanding
with Vaudreuil, his own force might have been strengthened by two or
three thousand additional men from the town and the camp of Beauport ;
but he felt that there was no time to lose, for he imagined that Wolfe
would soon be reinforced, which was impossible, and he believed that
the English were fortifying themselves, which was no less an error. He
has been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all.
In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a
position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he
resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to
1835-60] FRANCIS PARKMAN. -j^g
them in his keen, vehement way. "I remember very well how he
looked," one of the Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his
old age ; " he rode a black or dark bay horse along the front of our
lines, brandishing his sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore
a coat with wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and
showed the white linen of the wristband."
The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite
real, was at least well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Kamesay
plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians
fusilladed them in front and flank. Over all the plain, from behind
bushes and knolls and the edge of corn-fields, puffs of smoke sprang
incessantly from the guns of these hidden marksmen. Skirmishers were
thrown out before the lines to hold them in check, and the soldiers were
ordered to lie on the grass to avoid the shot The firing was liveliest on
the English left, where bauds of sharpshooters got under the edge of the
declivity, among thickets, and behind scattered houses, whence they
killed and wounded a considerable number of Townshend's men. The
light infantry were called up from the rear. The houses were taken and
retaken, and one or more of them was burned.
Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his followers
loved him, is shown by an incident that happened in the course of the
morning. One of his captains was shot through the lungs ; and on recov-
ering consciousness he saw the general standing at his side. Wolfe
pressed his hand, told him not to despair, praised his services, promised
him early promotion, and sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that
officer to keep the promise if he himself should fall.
It was towards ten o'clock when, from the high ground on the right of
the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge
had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars
and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been
dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grape-
shot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them.
In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly,
uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range.
Their ranks, ill ordered at the best, were further confused by a number
of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after
hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload. The British
advanced a few rods ; then halted and stood still. When the French
were within forty paces, the word of command rang out, and a crash of
musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with
remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which haJ suf-
fered least from the enemy's bullets, the simultaneous explosion was
afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot
FRANCIS PARKMAN. [1835-60
Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted
but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was
revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded, the advancing
masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing,
gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose
the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan.
Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet ; some advanced
firing The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and
swift 'as bloodhounds. At the English right, though the attacking
column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems,
bv sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain
for an hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the head of
the Louisbourg grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped
his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and
he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and
sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Hender-
son, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an
officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the
rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he
would have a surgeon. " There's no need," he answered ; " it's all over
with me." A moment after, one of them cried out: "They run; see
how they run!" "Who run?" Wolfe demanded, like a man roused
from sleep. " The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere ! "
" Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned the dying man ; " tell him
to march Webb's regiment down to Charles Kiver, to cut off their retreat
from the bridge." Then, turning on his side, he murmured, " Now, God
be praised, I will die in peace ! " and in a few moments his gallant soul
had fled.
Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne with the tide of fugitives
towards the town. As he approached the walls a shot passed through
his body. He kept his seat ; two soldiers supported him, one on each
side, and led his horse through the St. Louis gate. On the open space
within, among the excited crowd, were several women, drawn, no doubt,
by eagerness to know the result of the fight. One of them recognized
him, saw the streaming blood, and shrieked, " 0 man Dieu / mon Dieu !
k Marquis est tuef" "It's nothing, it's nothing," replied the death-
stricken man; " don't be troubled for me. my good friends." (" Ce riest
rien, ce n'est rien ; ne vous affliyez pas pour moi, mes bonnes
1835-60] GEORGE HENRT BOKER.
-•'•-•
George ^enr?
BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1823.
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA.
[Francesco Da Rimini: A Tragedy.— Plays and Poems. 1856.]
SCENE.— Rimini. The Garden of the, Castle.
PAOLO. Our poem waits.
I have been reading while you talked with Ritta.
How did you get her off ?
FRAN. By some device.
She will not come again.
PAOLO. I hate the girl:
She seems to stand between me and the light.
And now for the romance. Where left we off ?
FRAN. Where Lancelot and Queen Guenevra strayed
Along the forest, in the youth of May.
You marked the figure of the birds that sang
Their melancholy farewell to the sun —
Rich in his loss, their sorrow glorified —
Like gentle mourners o'er a great man's grave.
Was it not there ? No, no; 'twas where they sat
Down on the bank, by one impulsive wish
That neither uttered.
PAOLO. [ Twning over the ~book. ] Here it is. [Reads.]
" So sat
Guenevra and Sir Lancelot " — 'Twere well
To follow them in that. [They sit upon a tank.]
FRAN. I listen: read.
Nay, do not ; I can wait, if you desire.
PAOLO. My dagger frets me; let me take it off. [Rises.]
In thoughts of love, we'll lay our weapons by.
[Lays aside his dagger, and sits again.]
Draw closer : I am weak in voice to-day. [Reads. ]
" So sat Guenevra and Sir Lancelot,
Under the blaze of the descending sun,
But all his cloudy splendors were forgot.
Each bore a thought, the only secret one,
Which each had hidden from the other's heart,
That with sweet mystery well-nigh overrun.
Anon, Sir Lancelot, with gentle start,
Put by the ripples of her golden hair,
Gazing upon her with his lips apart.
He marvelled human thing could be so fair;
Essayed to speak ; but, in the very deed,
His words expired of self-betrayed despair.
Little she helped him, at his direst need.
GEORGE HENRY BOKER [1835-60
Roving her eyes o'er hill, and wood, and sky,
Peering intently at the meanest weed ;
Ay, doing aught but look in Lancelot's eye.
Then, with the small pique of her velvet shoe,
Uprooted she each herb that blossomed nigh;
Or strange wild figures in the dust she drew ;
Until she felt Sir Lancelot's arm around
Her waist, upon her cheek his breath like dew.
While through his fingers timidly he wound
Her shining locks ; and, haply, when he brushed
Her ivory skin, Guenevra nearly swound :
For where he touched, the quivering surface blushed,
Firing her blood with most contagious heat,
Till brow, cheek, neck, and bosom, all were flushed.
Each heart was listening to the other beat.
As twin-born lilies on one golden stalk,
Drooping with Summer, in warm languor meet,
So met their faces. Down the forest walk
Sir Lancelot looked — he looked east, west, north, south —
No soul was nigh, his dearest wish to balk :
She smiled ; he kissed her full upon the mouth."
[Kisses PRANCESCA.]
I'll read no more! [Starts up, dashing down the book.]
FRAN. Paolo !
PAOLO. I am mad !
The torture of unnumbered hours is o'er,
The straining cord has broken, and my heart
Riots in free delirium ! O, Heaven !
I struggled with it, but it mastered me !
I fought against it, but it beat me down !
I prayed, I wept, but Heaven was deaf to me ;
And every tear rolled backward on my heart,
To blight and poison !
FRAN. And dost thou regret ?
PAOLO. The love ? No, no ! I'd dare it all again,
Its direst agonies and meanest fears,
For that one kiss. Away with fond remorse !
Here, on the brink of ruin, we two stand ;
Lock hands with me, and brave the fearful plunge!
Thou canst not name a terror so profound
That I will look or falter from. Be bold!
I know thy love— I knew it long ago —
Trembled and fled from it. But now I clasp
The peril to my breast, and ask of thee
A kindred desperation.
FUAN. [Throwing herself into his arms.] Take me all, —
Body and soul ! The women of our clime
Do never give away but half a heart :
I have not part to give, part to withhold,
In selfish safety. When I saw thee first,
Riding alone amid a thousand men,
1835-60] GEORGE HENRY BOKER.
Sole in the lustre of thy majesty,
And Guido da Polenta said to me,
" Daughter, behold thy husband!" with a bound
My heart went forth to meet thee. He deceived,
He lied to me — ah ! that's the aptest word —
And I believed. Shall I not turn again,
And meet him, craft with craft ? Paolo, love,
Thou'rt dull — thou'rt dying like a feeble fire
Before the sunshine. Was it but a blaze,
A flash of glory, and a long, long night ?
PAOLO. No, darling, no ! You could not bend me back ;
My course is onward; but my heart is sick
With coming fears.
FRAN. Away with them ! Must I
Teach thee to love ? and reinform the ear
Of thy spent passion with some sorcery
To raise the chilly dead ?
PAOLO. Thy lips have not
A sorcery to rouse me as this spell. [Kisses her.]
FRAN. I give thy kisses back to thee again:
And, like a spendthrift, only ask of thee
To take while I can give.
PAOLO. Give, give forever!
Have we not touched the height of human bliss ?
And if the sharp rebound may hurl us back
Among the prostrate, did we not soar once ? —
Taste heavenly nectar, banquet with the gods
On high Olympus ? If they cast us, now,
Amid the furies, shall we not go down
With rich ambrosia clinging to our lips,
And richer memories settled in our hearts ?
Francesca.
FRAN. Love ?
PAOLO. The sun is sinking low
Upon the ashes of his fading pyre,
And gray possesses the eternal blue ;
The evening star is stealing after him,
Fixed, like a beacon, on the prow of night;
The world is shutting up its heavy eye
Upon the stir and bustle of to-day ; —
On what shall it awake ?
FRAN. On love that gives
Joy at all seasons, changes night to day,
Makes sorrow smile, plucks out the barbed dart
Of moaning anguish, pours celestial balm
In all the gaping wounds of earth, and lulls
The nervous fancies of unsheltered fear
Into a slumber sweet as infancy's!
On love that laughs at the impending sword,
And puts aside the shield of caution: cries,
To all its enemies, " Come, strike me now! —
VOL. vm.— 8
GEORGE HENRY BOKER. [1835-60
Now, while I hold my kingdom, while my crown
Of amaranth and myrtle is yet green,
Undimmed, unwithered; for I cannot tell
That I shall e'er be happier ! " Dear Paolo
Would you lapse down from misery to death,
Tottering through sorrow and infirmity ?
Or would you perish at a single blow,
Cut off amid your wildest revelry,
Falling among the wine-cups and the flowers,
And tasting Bacchus when your drowsy sense
First gazed around eternity ? Come, love !
The present whispers joy to us ; we'll hear
The voiceless future when its turn arrives.
PAOLO. Thou art a siren. Sing, forever sing!
Hearing thy voice, I cannot tell what fate
Thou hast provided when the song is o'er; —
But I will venture it.
FRAN. In, in, my love! [Exeunt.]
[PEPE steals from behind the tushes.]
PEPE. O, brother Lanciotto! — O, my stars! —
If this thing lasts, I simply shall go mad !
[Laughs, and rolls on the ground.]
0 Lord ! to thi nk my pretty lady puss
Had tricks like this, and we ne'er know of it !
1 tell you, Lanciotto, you and I
Must have a patent for our foolery !
"She smiled; he kissed her full upon the mouth! " —
There's the beginning, where's the end of it ?
O poesy ! debauch thee only once,
And thou'rt the greatest wanton in the world!
0 cousin Lanciotto — ho, ho, ho! [Laughing.]
Can a man die of laughter ? Here we sat ;
Mistress Francesca so demure and calm ;
Paolo grand, poetical, sublime! —
Eh ! what is this ? Paolo's dagger ? Good !
Here is more proof, sweet cousin Broken-back.
"In thoughts of love, we'll lay our weapons by! "
[Mimicking Paolo.]
That's very pretty ! Here's its counterpart:
In thoughts of hate, we'll pick them up again !
[Takes the dagger.]
Now for my soldier, now for crook-backed Mars !
Ere long all Rimini will be ablaze.
He'll kill me ? Yes : what then ? That's nothing new,
Except to me : I'll bear for custom's sake.
More blood will follow ; like the royal sun,
1 shall go down in purple. Fools for luck ;
The proverb holds like iron. I must run,
Ere laughter smother me. — O, ho, ho, ho!
[Exit, laughing.]
•D.
1835-60] GEORGE HENRY BOEER.
TO ENGLAND.
T" EAR and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale
-Lrf Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame:
The times have changed, the moral is the same.
So like an outcast, dowerless, and pale,
Thy daughter went ; and in a foreign gale
Spread her young banner, till its sway became
A wonder to the nations. Days of shame
Are close upon thee : prophets raise their wail.
"When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand
Points his long spear across the narrow sea,—
"Lo! there is England! " when thy destiny
Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand
Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land, —
God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be !
115
TO AMERICA.
"TTTHAT, cringe to Europe ! Band it all in one,
» ' Stilt its decrepit strength, renew its age,
Wipe out its debts, contract a loan to wage
Its venal battles — and, by yon bright sun,
Our God is false, and liberty undone,
If slaves have power to win your heritage !
Look on your country, God's appointed stage,
Where man's vast mind its boundless course shall ran;
For that it was your stormy coast He spread —
A fear in winter; girded you about
With granite hills, and made you strong and dread.
Let him who fears before the foemen shout,
Or gives an inch before a vein has bled,
Turn on himself, and let the traitor out !
rriHERE was a gay maiden lived down by the mill —
J- Ferry me over the ferry —
Her hair was as bright as the waves of a rill,
When the sun on the brink of his setting stands still,
Her lips were as full as a cherry.
A stranger came galloping over the hill —
Ferry me over the ferry —
GEORGE HENRY BOKER. [1835-60
116
He gave her broad silver and gold for his will:
She glanced at the stranger, she glanced o'er the sill;
The maiden was gentle and merry.
« O ! what would you give for your virtue again ? "—
Ferry me over the ferry—
"O! silver and gold on your lordship I'd rain,
I'd double your pleasure, I'd double my pain,
This moment forever to bury."
THE BLACK REGIMENT.
PORT HUDSON, 27 MAY, 1863.
[Poems of the War. 1864.]
IpvARK as the clouds of even,
-L' Ranked in the western heaven,
Waiting the breath that lifts
All the dread mass, and drifts
Tempest and falling brand
Over a ruined land ; —
So still and orderly,
Arm to arm, knee to knee,
Waiting the great event,
Stands the black regiment.
Down the long dusky line
Teeth gleam and eyeballs shine ;
And the bright bayonet,
Bristling and firmly set,
Flashed with a purpose grand,
Long ere the sharp command
Of the fierce rolling drum
Told them their time had come,
Told them what work was sent
For the black regiment.
"Now," the flag-sergeant cried,
" Though death and hell betide,
Let the whole nation see
If we are fit to be
Free in this land ; or bound
Down, like the whining hound, —
Bound with red stripes of pain
In our old chains again ! "
O, what a shout there went
From the black regiment !
1835-60] GEORGE HENRY BOKER. -, -, 7
" Charge ! " Trump and drum awoke,
Onward the bondmen broke ;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush.
Through the wild battle's crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the guns' mouths they laugh ;
Or at the slippery brands
Leaping with open hands,
Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course;
Trampling with bloody heel
Over the crashing steel,
All their eyes forward bent,
Rushed the black regiment.
" Freedom! " their battle-cry, —
"Freedom! or leave to die! "
Ah ! and they meant the word,
Not as with us 'tis heard,
Not a mere party shout :
They gave their spirits out;
Trusted the end to God,
And on the gory sod
Rolled in triumphant blood.
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe ;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death.
Praying — alas ! in vain ! —
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty !
This was what " freedom " lent
To the black regiment.
Hundreds on hundreds fell;
But they are resting well ;
Scourges and shackles strong
Never shall do them wrong.
O, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true I
Hail them as comrades tried ;
Fight with them side by side;
Never, in field or tent
Scorn the black regiment.
GEORGE HENRY BOKER. [1835-60
DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER.
IN MEMORY OF GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY.
/^LOSE his eyes; his work is done!
v-' What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon, or set of sun,
Hand of man, or kiss of woman ?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow !
What cares he ? he cannot know :
Lay him low !
As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;
Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever.
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow !
What cares he ? he cannot know :
Lay him low!
Fold him in his country's stars,
Roll the drum and fire the volley!
What to him are all our wars,
What but death bemocking folly ?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow 1
What cares he ? he cannot know:
Lay him low !
Leave him to God's watching eye.
Trust him to the hand that made him.
Mortal love weeps idly by :
God alone has power to aid him.
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow !
What cares he ? he cannot know :
Lay him low !
1835-60] DAVID ATWOOD WA880N.
BORN in Brooksville, Me., 1823. DIED at West Medford, Mass., 1887.
IDEAL.
[Poems. 1888.]
A NGELS of Growth, of old in that surprise
-£^- Of your first vision, wild and sweet,
I poured in passionate sighs
My wish unwise
That ye descend my heart to meet —
My heart so slow to rise.
Now thus I pray : Angelic be to hold
In heaven your shining poise afar,
And to my wishes bold
Reply with cold
Sweet invitation, like a star
Fixed in the heavens old.
Did ye descend, what were ye more than I ?
Is't not by this ye are divine-
That, native to the sky,
Ye cannot hie
Downward, and give low hearts the wine
That should reward the high?
Weak, yet in weakness I no more complain
Of your abiding in your places:
Oh, still, howe'er my pain
Wild prayers may rain,
Keep pure on high the perfect graces
That stooping could but stain.
Not to content your lowness, but to lure
And lift us to your angelhood,
Do your surprises pure
Dawn far and sure
Above the tumult of young blood,
And starlike there endure.
Wait there! wait, and invite me while I climb;
For, see, I come ! but slow, but slow !
Yet ever as your chime,
Soft and sublime,
Lifts at my feet, they move, they go
Up the great stair of Time.
1866.
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. [1835-60
I
120
CTenttoott^
BORN in Cambridge, Mass., 1823.
AMERICAN LITERATURE.
[A Plea for Culture.— Atlantic Essays. 1871.]
T is observable that in English books and magazines everything seems
written for some limited circle, — tales for those who can use French
phrases, essays for those who can understand a Latin quotation. But
every American writer must address himself to a vast audience, possess-
ing the greatest quickness and common sense, with but little culture;
and he must command their attention as he can. This has some admira-
ble results; he must put some life into what he writes, or his thirty
million auditors will go to sleep ; he must write clearly, or they will
cease to follow him ; must keep clear of pedantry and unknown tongues,
or they will turn to some one who can address them in English. On
the other hand, these same conditions tempt one to accept a low standard
of execution, to substitute artifice for art, and to disregard the more
permanent verdict of more fastidious tribunals. The richest thought
and the finest literary handling which America has yet produced — as of
Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau — reached at first but a small audi-
ence, and are but very gradually attaining a wider hold. Renan has
said that every man's work is superficial, until he has learned to content
himself with the approbation of a few. This is only one-half the truth ;
but it is the half which Americans find hardest to remember.
Yet American literature, though its full harvest be postponed for
another hundred years, is sure to come to ripeness at last. Our national
development in this direction, though slow, is perfectly healthy. There
are many influences to retard, but none to distort. Even if the more
ideal aims of the artist are treated with indifference, it is a frank indif-
ference ; there is no contempt, no jealousy, no call for petty manoeuvres.
No man is asked to flatter this vast audience ; no man can succeed with
it by flattering ; it simply reserves its attention, and lets one obtain its
ear if he can. When won, it is worth the winning, — generous in its con-
fidence, noble in its rewards. There is abundant cause for strenuous
effort among those who give their lives to the intellectual service of
America, but there is no cause for fear. If we can only avoid incor-
porating superficiality into our institutions, literature will come when all
is ready, and when it comes will be of the best. It is not enough to
make England or France our standard. There is something in the pres-
ent atmosphere of England which seems fatal to purely literary genius :
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH H1QG1NSON.
121
its fruits do not mature and mellow, but grow more and more acid until
they drop. Give Ruskin space enough, and he grows frantic and beats \
the air like Carlyle. Thackeray was tinged with the same bitterness,
but he was the last Englishman who could be said, in any artistic sense,
to have a style ; as Heine was the last German. The French seems the
only prose literature of the present day in which the element of form has
any prominent place ; and literature in France is after all but a favored
slave. This surely leaves a clear field for America.
But it is peculiarly important for us to remember that we can make
no progress through affectation or spasm, but only by accepting the
essential laws of art, which are the same for the whole human race.
Any misconceived patronage — to call anything art merely because it
interests us as being American — must react against us in the end. A
certain point of culture once reached, we become citizens of the world.
Art is higher than nations, older than many centuries ; its code includes
no local or partial provisions. No Paris Exposition is truly universal,
compared with that vast gallery of Time to which nations and ages are
but contributors. So far as circumstances excuse America from being
yet amenable before this high tribunal, she is safe ; but if she enters its
jurisdiction, she must own its laws. Neither man nor nation can develop
by defying traditions, but by first mastering and then remoulding them.
That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces
of the world.
Above all other races and all other times, we should be full of hearty
faith. It is but a few years since we heard it said that the age was dull
and mean, and inspiration gone. A single gun-shot turned meanness to
self-sacrifice, mercenary toil to the vigils of the camp and the transports
of battle. It linked boyish and girlish life to new opportunities, sweeter
self-devotions, more heroic endings ; tied and loosed the threads of exist-
ence in profounder complications. That is all past now ; but its results
can never pass. The nation has found its true grandeur by war; but
must retain it in peace.
Peace too has its infinite resources, after a nation has once become
conscious of itself. It is impossible that human life should ever be
utterly impoverished, and all the currents of American civilization now
tend to its enrichment. This vast development of rudimentary intellect,
this mingling of nationalities, these opportunities of books and travel,
educate in this new race a thousand new susceptibilities. Then comes
Passion, a hand straying freely through all the chords, and thrilling all
with magic. We cannot exclude it, a forbidden guest. It re-creates
itself in each generation, and bids art live. Rouge gagne. If the romance
of life does not assert itself in safe and innocent ways, it finds its outlet
with fatal certainty in guilt; as we see colorless Puritanism touched
.. 20 THOMAS WENTWOETH HIGGINSON. [1835-60
with scarlet splendor through the glass of Hawthorne. Every form of
human life is romantic ; every age may become classic. Lamentations,
doubts, discouragements, all are wasted things. Everything is here,
between these Atlantic and Pacific shores, save only the perfected utter-
ance that comes with years. Between Shakespeare in his cradle and
Shakespeare in Hamlet there was needed but an interval of time, and the
same sublime condition is all that lies between the America of toil and
the America of art
THAT DROP OF NERVOUS FLUID.
[From " The Murder of the Innocents."— Out-Door Papers. 1863.]
Ewe fail (which I do not expect, I assure you), we fail disastrously.
If we succeed, if we bring up our vital and muscular developments
into due proportion with our nervous energy, we shall have a race of
men and women such as the world never saw. Dolorosus, when in the
course of human events you are next invited to give a Fourth-of-July
Oration, grasp at the opportunity, and take for your subject " Health."
Tell your audience, when you rise to the accustomed flowers of rhetoric
as the day wears on, that Health is the central luminary, of which all
the stars that spangle the proud flag of our common country are but
satellites ; and close with a hint to the plumed emblem of our nation
(pointing to the stuffed one which will probably be exhibited on the
platform), that she should not henceforward confine her energies to the
hatching of short-lived eaglets, but endeavor rather to educate a few
full-grown birds.
As I take it, Nature said, some years since, " Thus far the English is
my best race; but we have had Englishmen enough; now for another
turning of the globe, and a further novelty. We need something with a
little more buoyancy than the Englishman ; let us lighten the structure
even at some peril in the process. Put in one drop more of nervous
fluid and make the American." With that drop, a new range of prom-
ise opened on the human race, and a lighter, finer, more highly organ-
ized type of mankind was born. But the promise must be fulfilled
through unequalled dangers. With the new drop came new intoxica-
tion, new ardors, passions, ambitions, hopes, reactions, and despairs, —
more daring, more invention, more disease, more insanity, — forgetful-
ness, at first, of the old, wholesome traditions of living, recklessness of
sin and saleratus, loss of refreshing sleep and of the power of play. To
surmount all this, we have got to fight the good fight, I assure you,
Dolorosus. Nature is yet pledged to produce that finer type, and if
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
123
we miss it, she will leave us to decay, like our predecessors,— whirl
the globe over once more, and choose a new place for a new experi-
ment.
"HEBE TURNED TO MAGDALEN."
[Water-Lilies.— From the Same ]
/CONSIDER the lilies. All over our rural watercourses, at midsum-
^ mer, float these cups of snow. They are Nature's symbols of cool-
ness. They suggest to us the white garments of their Oriental worship-
pers. They come with the white roses, and prepare the way for the
white lilies of the garden. The white doe of Rylstone and Andrew
Marvell's fawn might fitly bathe amid their beauties. Yonder steep
bank slopes down to the lakeside, one solid mass of pale pink laurel,
but, once upon the water, a purer tint prevails. The pink fades into a
lingering flush, and the white creature floats peerless, set in green with-
out and gold within. That bright circle of stamens is the very ring
with which the doges once wedded the Adriatic ; Venice has lost it, but
it dropped into the water-lily's bosom, and there it rests forever. So
perfect in form, so redundant in beauty, so delicate, so spotless, so fra-
grant,— what presumptuous lover ever dared, in his most enamored
hour, to liken his mistress to a water-lily ? No human Blanche or Lil-
ian was ever so fair as that *
After speaking of the various kindred of the water-lily, it would be
wrong to leave our fragrant subject without due mention of its most
magnificent, most lovely relative, at first claimed even as its twin
sister, and classed as a Nymphaea. I once lived near neighbor to a
Victoria Regia. Nothing in the world of vegetable existence has such
a human interest. The charm is not in the mere size of the plant,
which disappoints everybody, as Niagara does, when tried by that
sole standard. The leaves of the Victoria, indeed, attain a diameter
of six feet ; the largest flowers, of twenty-three inches, — four times the
size of the largest of our water-lilies. But it is not the measurements of
the Victoria: it is its life which fascinates. It is not a thing merely of
dimensions, nor merely of beauty, but a creature of vitality and motion.
Those vast leaves expand and change almost visibly. They have been
known to grow half an inch an hour, eight inches a day. Rising one
day from the water, a mere clenched mass of yellow prickles, a leaf is
transformed the next day to a crimson salver, gorgeously tinted on its
upturned rim. Then it spreads into a raft of green, armed with long
thorns, and supported by a framework of ribs and cross-pieces, an inch
,24 THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. [1835-60
thick, and so substantial that the Brazil Indians, while gathering the
seed-vessels, place their young children on the leaves ;—yrupe, or water-
platter, they call the accommodating plant. But even these expanding
leaves are not the glory of the Victoria ; the glory is in the opening of
the flower.
I have sometimes looked in, for a passing moment, at the greenhouse,
its dwelling-place, during the period of flowering, and then stayed for
more than an hour, unable to leave the fascinating scene. After the
strange flower-bud has reared its dark head from the placid tank, mov-
ing it a little, uneasily, like some imprisoned water-creature, it pauses
for a moment in a sort of dumb despair. Then trembling again, and col-
lecting all its powers, it thrusts open, with an indignant jerk, the rough
calyx-leaves, and the beautiful disrobing begins. The firm, white, cen-
tral cone, first so closely infolded, quivers a little, and swiftly, before
your eyes, the first of the hundred petals detaches its delicate edges, and
springs back, opening towards the water, while its white reflection opens
to meet it from below. Many moments of repose follow, — you watch,
—another petal trembles, detaches, springs open, and is still. Then
another, and another, and another. Each movement is so quiet, yet so
decided, so living, so human, that the radiant creature seems a Musidora
of the water, and you almost blush with a sense of guilt, in gazing on
that peerless privacy. As petal by petal slowly opens, there still stands
the central cone of snow, a glacier, an alp, a jungfrau, while each ava-
lanche of whiteness seems the last. Meanwhile a strange rich odor fills
the air, and Nature seems to concentrate all fascinations and claim all
senses for this jubilee of her darling.
So pass the enchanted moments of the evening, till the fair thing
pauses at last, and remains for hours unchanged. In the morning, one
by one, those white petals close again, shutting all their beauty in, and
you watch through the short sleep for the period of waking. Can this
bright transfigured creature appear again, in the same chaste loveliness?
Your fancy can scarcely trust it, fearing some disastrous change ; and
your fancy is too true a prophet. Come again, after the second day's
opening, and you start at the transformation which one hour has secretly
produced. Can this be the virgin Victoria,— this thing of crimson pas-
sion, this pile of pink and yellow, relaxed, expanded, voluptuous, lolling
languidly upon the water, never to rise again ? In this short time every
tint of every petal is transformed ; it is gorgeous in beauty, but it is
14 Hebe turned to Magdalen."
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIOQINSON.
DECORATION.
"MANIBUS DATE LILIA PLENIS."
"TV/TID the flower-wreathed tombs I stand
-r*"*- Bearing lilies in my hand.
Comrades ! in what soldier-grave
Sleeps the bravest of the brave ?
Is it he who sank to rest
With his colors round his breast ?
Friendship makes his tomb a shrine ;
Garlands veil it ; ask not mine.
One low grave, yon trees beneath,
Bears no roses, wears no wreath:
Yet no heart more high and warm
Ever dared the battle-storm ;
Never gleamed a prouder eye
In the front of victory,
Never foot had firmer tread
On the field where hope lay dead,
Than are hid within this tomb,
Where the untended grasses bloom ;
And no stone, with feigned distress,
Mocks the sacred loneliness.
Youth and beauty, dauntless will,
Dreams that life could ne'er fulfil,
Here lie buried ; here in peace
Wrongs and woes have found release.
Turning from my comrades' eyes,
Kneeling where a woman lies,
I strew lilies on the grave
Of the bravest of the brave.
NEWPORT, R. I., Decoration Day, 1873.
125
H1
THOMAS WENTWORTE HIGGINSON. [1835-60
THE MONARCH OP DREAMS.
[The Monarch of Dreams. 1887.]
$d6na 86%£i SOJIGOV avaddsiv.
.2ESCHYLCS : Agamemnon, 891.
'E who forsakes the railways and goes wandering through the hill-
country of New England, must adopt one rule as invariable.
When he comes to a fork in the road, and is assured that both ways
lead to the desired point, he must simply ask which road is the best;
and, on its being pointed out, must at once take the other. Nothing
can be easier than the explanation of this method. The passers-by will
always recommend the new road, which keeps to the valley and avoids
the hills ; but the old road, deserted by the general public, ascends the
steeper grades, and has a monopoly of the wider views.
Turning to the old road, you soon feel that both houses and men are,
in a manner, stranded. They see very little of the world, and are under
no stimulus to keep themselves in repair. You are wholly beyond the
dreary sway of French roofs ; and the caricatures of good Queen Anne's
day are far from you. If any farm-house on the hill-road was really
built within the reign of that much-abused potentate, it is probably a
solid, square mansion of brick, three stories high, blackened with time,
and frowning rather gloomily from some hilltop, — as essentially a part
of the past as an Irish round-tower or a Scotch border -fortress.
It was in such a house that Francis Ayrault had finally taken up his
abode, leaving behind him the old family homestead in a Rhode Island
seaside town. A series of domestic cares and watchiugs had almost
broken him down: nothing debilitates a man of strong nature like the
too prolonged and exclusive exercise of the habit of sympathy. At last,
when the very spot where he was born had been chosen as a site for a
new railway-station, there seemed nothing more to retain him. He
needed utter rest and change ; and there was no one left on earth whom
he profoundly loved, except a little sunbeam of a sister, the child of his
father's second marriage. This little five-year-old girl, of whom he was
sole guardian, had been christened by the quaint name of Hart, after an
ancestor, Hart Ayrault, whose moss-covered tombstone the child had
often explored with her little fingers, to trace the vanishing letters of
her own name.
The two had arrived one morning from the nearest railway station to
take possession of the old brick farm-house. Ayrault had spent the day
in unpacking and in consultations with Cyrus Gerry, — the farmer from
whom he had bought the place, and who was still to conduct all out-
door operations. The child, for her part, had compelled her old nurse
vfahr.
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 127
to follow her through every corner of the buildings. They were at last
seated at an early supper, during which little Hart was too much absorbed
in the novelty of wild red raspberries to notice, even in the most casual
way, her brother's worn and exhausted look.
"Brother Frank," she incidentally remarked, as she began upon her
second saucerful of berries, " I love you ! "
"Thank you, darling," was his mechanical reply to the customary
ebullition. She was silent for a time, absorbed in her pleasing pursuit,
and then continued more specifically, " Brother Frank, you are the kind-
est person in the whole world ! I am so glad we came here ! May we
stay here all winter? It must be lovely in the winter ; and in the barn
there is a little sled with only one runner gone. Brother Frank, I love
you so much, I don't know what I shall do ! I love you a thousand
pounds, and fifteen, and eleven and a half, and more than tongue can
tell besides ! And there are three gray kittens, — only one of them is
almost all white, — and Susan says I may bring them for you to see in
the morning."
Half an hour later, the brilliant eyes were closed in slumber ; the vig-
orous limbs lay in perfect repose ; and the child slept that night in the
little room inside her brother's, on the same bed that she had occupied
ever since she had been left motherless. But her brother lay awake,
absorbed in a project too fantastic to be talked about, yet which had
really done more than anything else to bring him to that lonely
house.
There has belonged to Ehode Islanders, ever since the days of Eoger
Williams, a certain taste for the ideal side of existence. It is the only
State in the American Union where chief justices habitually write
poetry, and prosperous manufacturers print essays on the Freedom
of the Will. Perhaps, moreover, Francis Ayrault held something of
these tendencies from a Huguenot ancestry, crossed with a strain of
Quaker blood. At any rate it was there, and asserted itself at this crisis
of his life. Being in a manner detached from almost all ties, he resolved
to use his opportunity in a direction yet almost unexplored by man.
His earthly joys being prostrate, he had resolved to make a mighty
effort at self-concentration, and to render himself what no human being
had ever yet been — the ruler of his own dreams.
Coming from a race of day-dreamers, Ayrault had inherited an unu-
sual faculty of dreaming also by night ; and, like all persons having an
especial gift, he perhaps overestimated its importance. He easily con-
vinced himself that no exertion of the intellect during wakeful hours
can for an instant be compared with that we employ in dreams. The
finest brain-structures of Shakespeare or Dante, he reasoned, are yet but
such stuff as dreams are made of; and the stupidest rustic, the most
THOMAS WENTWOETH HIOOIN80N. [1835-60
IZo
untrained mind, will sometimes have, could they be but written out,
visions that surpass those of these masters. . . •--,••-
But Ayrault had been vexed, like all others, by the utter incongruity
of successive dreams. This sublime navigation still waited, like that of
balloon voyages, for a rudder. Dreams, he reasoned, plainly try to con-
nect themselves. We all have the frequent experience of half -recogniz-
ing new situations or even whole trains of ideas. We have seen this
view before; reached this point; struck in some way the exquisite
chord of memory. When half-aroused, or sometimes even long after
clear consciousness, we seem to draw a half-drowned image of association
from the deep waters of the mind ; then another, then another, until
dreaming seems inseparably entangled with waking. Again, over nightly
dreams we have at least a certain amount of negative control, sufficient
to bring them to an end. ....
The thought had occurred to him, long since, at what point to apply
his efforts for the control of his dreams. He had been quite fascinated,
some time before, by a large photograph in a shop window, of the well-
known fortress known as Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy. Its steep-
ness, its airy height, its winding and returning stairways, its overhang-
ing towers and machicolations, had struck him as appealing powerfully
to that sense of the vertical, which is, for some reason or other, so pecu-
liarly strong in dreams. We are rarely haunted by visions of plains;
often of mountains. The sensation of uplifting or down-looking is one
of our commonest nightly experiences. It seemed to Ayrault that by
going to sleep with the vivid mental image in his brain of a sharp and
superb altitude like that of Mont Saint Michel, he could avail himself
of this magic, whatever it was, that lay in the vertical line. Casting
himself off into the vast sphere of dreams, with the thread of his fancy
attached to this fine image, he might risk what would next come to him ;
as a spider anchors his web and then floats away on it In the silence
of the first night at the farmhouse, — a stillness broken only by the
answering cadence of two whippoorwills in the neighboring pine- wood,
— Ayrault pondered long over the beautiful details of the photograph,
and then went to sleep.
That night he was held, with the greatest vividness and mastery, in
the grasp of a dream such as he had never before experienced. He
found himself on the side of a green hill, so precipitous that he could
only keep his position by lying at full length, clinging to the short soft
grass, and imbedding his feet in the turf. There were clouds about
him : he could see but a short distance in any direction, nor was any
sign of a human being within sight. He was absolutely alone upon the
dizzy slope, where he hardly dared to look up or down, and where it
took all his concentration of effort to keep a position at all. Yet there
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
129
was a kind of friendliness in the warm earth ; a comfort and fragrance
in the crushed herbage. The vision seemed to continue indefinitely;
but at last he waked and it was clear day. He rose with a bewildered
feeling, and went to little Hart's room. The child lay asleep, her round
face tangled in her brown curls, and one plump, tanned arm stretched
over her eyes. She waked at his step, and broke out into her customary
sweet asseveration, " Brother Frank, I love you ! "
Dismissing the child, he pondered on his first experiment. It had suc-
ceeded, surely, in so far as he had given something like a direction to
his nightly thought. He could not doubt that it was the picture of
Mont Saint Michel which had transported him to the steep hillside.
That day he spent in the most restless anxiety to see if the dream would
come again. Writing down all that he could remember of the previous
night's vision, he studied again the photograph that had so touched his
fancy, and then he closed his eyes. Again he found himself — at some
time between night and morning — on the same high elevation, with the
clouds around him. But this time the vapors lifted, and he could see
that the hill stretched for an immeasurable distance on each side, always
at the same steep slope. Everywhere it was covered with human beings,
— men, women, and children, — all trying to pursue various semblances
of occupations; but all clinging to the short grass. Sometimes, he
thought — but this was not positive — that he saw one of them lose
his hold and glide downwards. For this he cared strangely little ; but
he waked feverish, excited, trembling. At last his effort had suc-
ceeded: he had, by an effort of will, formed a connection between two
dreams. . . ...
On the following night he grasped his dream once more. Again he
found himself on the precipitous slope, this time looking off through
clear air upon that line of detached mountain peaks, Wachusett, Monad-
nock, Moosilauke, which make the southern outposts of New England
hills. In the valley lay pellucid lakes, set in summer beauty, — while he
clung to his perilous hold. Presently there came a change; the moun-
tain sank away softly beneath him, and the grassy slope remained a
plain. The men and women, his former companions, bad risen from
their reclining postures and were variously busy ; some of them even
looked at him, but there was nothing said. Great spaces of time
appeared to pass : suns rose and set. Sometimes one of the crowd would
throw down his implements of labor, turn his face to the westward,
walk swiftly away, and disappear. Yet some one else would take his
place, so that the throng never perceptibly diminished. Ayrault began
to feel rather unimportant in all this gathering, and the sensation was
not agreeable.
On the succeeding night the hillside vanished, never to recur ; but
VOL. VIII. — 9
130
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. [1835-60
the vast plain remained, and the people. Over the wide landscape the
sunbeams shed passing smiles of light, now here, now there. Where
these shone for a moment, faces looked joyous, and Ayrault found, with
surprise, that he could control the distribution of light and shade. This
pleased him ; it lifted him into conscious importance. There was, how-
ever, a singular want of all human relation in the tie between himself
and all these people. He felt as if he had called them into being, which
indeed he had ; and could annihilate them at pleasure, which perhaps
could not be so easily done. Meanwhile, there was a certain hardness
in his state of mind toward them ; indeed, why should a dreamer feel
patience or charity or mercy toward those who exist but in his mind ?
Ayrault at any rate felt none ; the sole thing which disturbed him was
that they sometimes grew a little dim, as if they might vanish arid leave
him unaccompanied. When this happened, he drew with conscious voli-
tion a gleam of light over them, and thereby refreshed their life. They
enhanced his weight in the universe: he would no more have parted
with them than a Highland chief with his clansmen.
For several nights after this he did not dream. Little Hart became ill
and his mind was preoccupied. He had to send for physicians, to give
medicine, to be up with the child at night. . . . Then, with the
rapidity of childish convalescence, she grew well again ; and he found
with joy that he could resume the thread of his dream-life.
Again he was on his boundless plain, with his circle of silent allies
around him. Suddenly they all vanished, and there rose before him, as
if built out of the atmosphere, a vast building, which he entered. It
included all structures in one, — legislative halls where men were assem-
bled by hundreds, waiting for him; libraries, where all the books
belonged to him, and whole alcoves were filled with his own publica-
tions ; galleries of art, where he had painted many of the pictures, and
selected the rest. Doors and corridors led to private apartments ; lines
of obsequious servants stood for him to pass. There seemed no other
proprietor, no guests ; all was for him ; all flattered his individual great-
ness. Suddenly it occurred to him that he was painfully alone. Then
he began to pass eagerly from hall to hall, seeking an equal companion,
but in vain. Wherever he went, there was a trace of some one just van-
ished,— a book laid down, a curtain still waving. Once he fairly came,
he thought, upon the object of his pursuit ; all retreat was cut off, and
he found himself face to face with a mirror that reflected back to him
only his own features. They had never looked to him less attractive.
Ayrault's control of his visions became plainly more complete with
practice, at least as to their early stages. He could lie down to sleep
with almost a perfect certainty that he should begin where he left off.
Beyond this, alas ! he was powerless. Night after night he was in the
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTE HIGGIN80N. jg^
same palace, but always differently occupied, and always pursuing, with
unabated energy, some new vocation. Sometimes the books were at his
command, and he grappled with whole alcoves ; sometimes he ruled a
listening senate in the halls of legislation ; but the peculiarity was, that
there were always menials and subordinates about him, never an equal.
One night, in looking over these obsequious crowds, he made a startling
discovery. They either had originally, or were acquiring, a strange
resemblance to one another, and to some person whom he had somewhere
seen. All the next day, in his waking hours, this thought haunted him.
The next night it flashed upon him that the person whom they all so
closely resembled, with a likeness that now amounted to absolute iden-
tity, was himself.
From the moment of this discovery, these figures multiplied ; they
assumed a mocking, taunting, defiant aspect The thought was almost
more than he could bear, that there was around him a whole world of
innumerable and uncontrollable beings, every one of whom was Francis
Ayrault. As if this were not sufficient, they all began visibly to dupli-
cate themselves before his eyes. The confusion was terrific. Figures
divided themselves into twins, laughing at each other, jeering, running
races, measuring heights, actually playing leap-frog with one another.
Worst of all, each one of these had as much apparent claim to his per-
sonality as he himself possessed. He could no more retain his individ-
ual hold upon his consciousness than the infusorial animalcule in a drop
of water can know to which of its subdivided parts the original indi-
viduality attaches. It became insufferable, and by a mighty effort he
waked.
The next day, after breakfast, old Susan sought an interview with
Ayrault, and taxed him roundly with neglect of little Hart's condition.
Since her former illness she never had been quite the same ; she was
growing pale and thin. As her brother no longer played with her, she
only moped about with her kitten, and talked to herself. It touched
Ayrault's heart. He took pains to be with the child that day, carried
her for a long drive, and went to see her Guinea hen's eggs. That night
he kept her up later than usual, instead of hurrying her off as had
become his wont; he really found himself shrinking from the dream-
world he had with such effort created. The most timid and shy person
can hardly hesitate more about venturing among a crowd of strangers
than Francis Ayrault recoiled, that evening, from the thought of this
mob of intrusive persons, every one of whom reflected his own image.
Gladly would he have undone the past, and swept them all away forever.
But the shrinking was all on one side : the moment he sank to sleep,
they all crowded upon him. laughing, frolicking, claiming detestable
intimacy. No one among strangers ever longed for a friendly face, as
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGQINSON. [1835-60
he amono- these intolerable duplicates, longed for the sight of a stranger.
It 'was worse jet when the images grew smaller and smaller, until they
had shrunk to a pin's length. He found himself trying with all his
strength of will to keep them at their ampler size, with only the effect
that they presently became no larger than the heads of pins. Yet his
own individuality was still so distributed among them that it could not
be distinguished from them ; but he found himself merged in this crowd
of little creatures an eighth of an inch long
Having long since fallen out of the way of action, or at best grown
satisfied to imagine enterprises and leave others to execute them, he
now, more than ever, drifted on from day to day. There had been a
strike at the neighboring manufacturing village, and there was to be a
public meeting, at which he was besought, as a person not identified
with either party, to be present, and throw his influence for peace. It
touched him, and he meant to attend. He even thought of a few things,
which, if said, might do good; then forgot the day of the meeting, and
rode ten miles in another direction. Again, when at the little post-office
one day, he was asked by the postmaster to translate several letters in
the French language, addressed to that official, and coming from an
unknown village in Canada. They proved to contain anxious inquiries
as to the whereabouts of a handsome young French girl, whom Ayrault
had occasionally met driving about in what seemed doubtful company.
His sympathy was thoroughly aroused by the anxiety of the poor par-
ents, from whom the letters came. He answered them himself, promis-
ing to interfere in behalf of the girl ; delayed, day by day, to fulfil the
promise ; and, when he at last looked for her, she was not to be found.
Yet, while his power of efficient action waned, his dream-power increased.
His little people were busier about him than ever, though he controlled
them less and less. He was Gulliver bound and fettered by Lilliputians.
But a more stirring appeal was on its way to him. The storm of the
Civil War began to roll among the hills ; regiments were recruited,
camps were formed. The excitement reached the benumbed energies of
Ayrault. Never, indeed, had he felt such a thrill. The old Hugue-
not pulse beat strongly within him. For days, and even nights, these
thoughts possessed his mind, and his dreams utterly vanished. Then
there was a lull in the excitement; recruiting stopped, and his nightly
habit of confusing visions set in again with dreary monotony. Then
there was a fresh call for troops. An old friend of Ayrault's came to a
neighboring village, and held a noonday meeting in one of the churches
to recruit a company. Ayrault listened with absorbed interest to the
rousing appeal, and, when recruits were called for, was the first to rise.
It turned out that the matter could not be at once consummated, as the
proper papers were not there. Other young men from the neighborhood
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. jgo
followed Ajrault's example, and it was arranged that they should all go
to the city for regular enlistment the next day. All that afternoon was
spent in preparations, and in talking with other eager volunteers, who
seemed to look to Ayrault as their head. It was understood, they told
him, that he would probably be an officer in the company. He felt him-
self a changed being ; he was as if floating in air, and ready to swim off
to some new planet. What had he now to do with that pale dreamer
who had nourished his absurd imaginings until he had barely escaped
being controlled by them? When they crossed his mind it was only to
make him thank God for his escape. He flung wide the windows of his
chamber. He hated the very sight of the scene where his proud vision
had been fulfilled, and he had been Monarch of Dreams. No matter :
he was now free, and the spell was broken. Life, action, duty, honor, a
redeemed nation, lay before him ; all entanglements were cut away.
That evening there went through the little village a summons that
opened the door of every house. A young man galloped out from the
city, waking the echoes of the hills with his somewhat untutored bugle-
notes, as he dashed along. Riding from house to house of those who had
pledged themselves, he told the news. There had been a great defeat ;
reinforcements had been summoned instantly ; and the half-organized
regiment, undrilled, unarmed, not even uniformed, was ordered to pro-
ceed that night to the front, and replace in the forts round Washington
other levies that were a shade less raw. Every man desiring to enlist
must come instantly; yet, as before daybreak the regiment would pass
by special train on the railway that led through the village, those in that
vicinity might join it at the station, and have still a few hours at home.
They were hurried hours for Ayrault, and toward midnight he threw
himself on his bed for a moment's repose, having left strict orders for
his awakening. He gave not one thought to his world of visions ; had
he done so, it would have only been to rejoice that he had eluded them
forever.
Let a man at any moment attempt his best, and his life will still be at
least half made up of the accumulated results of past action. Never had
Ayrault seemed so absolutely safe from the gathered crowd of his own
delusions : never had they come upon him with a power so terrific.
Again he was in those stately halls which his imagination had so labo-
riously built up ; again the mob of unreal beings came around him, each
more himself than he was. Ayrault was beset, encircled, overwhelmed ;
he was in a manner lost in the crowd of himself. ....
In the midst of this tumultuous dreaming, came confused sounds from
without. There was the rolling of railway wheels, the scream of loco-
motive engines, the beating of drums, the cheers of men, the report and
glare of fireworks. Mingled with all, there came the repeated sound of
134
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIQGINSON. [1835-60
knocking at his own door, which he had locked, from mere force of
habit, ere he lay down. The sounds seemed only to rouse into new
tumult the figures of his dream. These suddenly began to increase
steadily in size, even as they had before diminished ; and the waxing
was more fearful than the waning. From being Gulliver among the
Lilliputians, Ayrault was Gulliver in Brobdingnag. Bach image of
himself, before diminutive, became colossal: they blocked his path; he
actually could not find himself, could not tell which was he that should
arouse himself in their vast and endless self-multiplication. He became
vaguely conscious, amidst the bewilderment, that the shouts in the vil-
lage were subsiding, the illuminations growing dark ; and the train with
its young soldiers was again in motion, throbbing and resounding among
the hills, and bearing the lost opportunity of his life away — away — away.
" SINCE CLEOPATRA DIED."
" Since Cleopatra died
I have lived in such dishonor, that the world
Doth wonder at my baseness."
' QINCE Cleopatra died! " Long years are past,
^ In Antony's fancy, since the deed was done.
Love counts its epochs, not from sun to sun,
But by the heart-throb. Mercilessly fast
Time has swept onward since she looked her last
On life, a queen. For him the sands have run
Whole ages through their glass, and kings have won
And lost their empires o'er earth's surface vast
Since Cleopatra died. Ah ! Love and Pain
Make their own measure of all things that be.
No clock's slow ticking marks their deathless strain ;
The life they own is not the life we see ;
Love's single moment is eternity ;
Eternity, a thought in Shakespeare's brain.
A SONG OF DAYS.
r\ RADIANT summer day
^-' Whose air, sweet air, steals on from flower to flower,
Could 'st thou not yield one hour
When the glad heart says "This alone is May" ?
O passionate earthly love
Whose tremulous pulse beats on to life's best boon,
1835-60] THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGOINSON. j.35
Could'st thou not give one noon,
One noon of noons, all other bliss above ?
O solemn human life
Whose nobler longings bid all conflict cease,
Grant but one day's deep peace
Beyond the utmost rumor of all strife.
For if no joy can stay,
Let it at least yield one consummate bloom,
Or else there is no room
To find delight in love or life or May.
1887.
EVERY WOMAN'S RIGHT.
[Common Sense about Women. 1882.]
A S the older arguments against woman suffrage are abandoned, we
«*-*• hear more and more of the final objection, that the majority of
women have not yet expressed themselves on the subject. It is common
for such reasoners to make the remark, that if they knew a given num-
ber of women — say fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred — who honestly
wished to vote, they would favor it. Produce that number of unim-
peachable names, and they say that they have reconsidered the matter,
and must demand more, — perhaps ten thousand. Bring ten thousand,
and the demand again rises. " Prove that the majority of women wish
to vote, and they shall vote." — "Precisely," we say: "give us a chance
to prove it by taking a vote; " and they answer, "By no means."
And, in a certain sense, they are right. It ought not to be settled that
way, — by dealing with woman as a class, and taking the vote. The
agitators do not merely claim the right of suffrage for her as a class :
they claim it for each individual woman, without reference to any other.
Class legislation — as Mary Ann in Bret Harte's " Lothaw " says of Brook
Farm — "is a thing of the past" If there is only one woman in the
nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it. ...
Our community does not refuse permission for women to go unveiled
till it is proved that the majority of women desire it; it does not even
ask that question : if one woman wishes to show her face, it is allowed.
If a woman wishes to travel alone, to walk the streets alone, the police
protects her in that liberty. She is not thrust back into her house with
the reproof, " My dear madam, at this particular moment the overwhelm-
ing majority of women are in-doors : prove that they all wish to come
out, and you shall come." On the contrary, she comes forth at her own
136
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. [1835-60
sweet will : the policeman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves
back with imperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim
for each individual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go
shopping, but to go voting ; not merely to show her face, but to show
her hand.
There will always be many women, as there are many men, who are
indifferent to voting. For a time, perhaps always, there will be a larger
percentage of this indifference among women. But the natural right to
a share in the government under which one lives, and to a voice in mak-
ing the laws under which one may be hanged, — this belongs to each
woman as an individual ; and she is quite right to claim it as she needs
it, even though the majority of her sex still prefer to take their chance
of the penalty, without perplexing themselves about the law. The
demand of every enlightened woman who asks for the ballot — like the
demand of every enlightened slave for freedom — is an individual demand ;
and the question whether they represent the majority of their class has
nothing to do with it. For a republic like ours does not profess to deal
with classes, but with individuals; since "the whole people covenants
with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, for the com-
mon good," as the constitution of Massachusetts says.
WAITING FOR THE BUGLE.
TTTE wait for the bugle ; the night-dews are cold,
* » The limbs of the soldiers feel jaded and old,
The field of our bivouac is windy and bare,
There is lead in our joints, there is frost in our hair.
The future is veiled and its fortunes unknown
As we lie with hushed breath till the bugle is blown.
At the sound of that bugle each comrade shall spring
Like an arrow released from the strain of the string.
The courage, the impulse of youth shall come back
To banish the chill of the drear bivouac,
And sorrows and losses and cares fade away
When that life-giving signal proclaims the new day.
Though the bivouac of age may put ice in our veins,
And no fibre of steel in our sinew remains ;
Though the comrades of yesterday's march are not here,
• And the sunlight seems pale and the branches are sere,
Though the sound of our cheering dies down to a moan,
We shall find our lost youth when the buo-le is blown
1888.
1835-60] ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD.
BORN in Mattapoisett, Mass., 1833.
MERCEDES.
TTNDER a sultry, yellow sky,
*-' On the yellow sand I lie ;
The crinkled vapors smite my brain,
I smoulder in a fiery pain.
Above the crags the condor flies, —
He knows where the red gold lies,
He knows where the diamonds shine :
If I knew, would she be mine ?
Mercedes in her hammock swings, —
In her court a palm-tree flings
Its slender shadow on the ground,
The fountain falls with silver sound.
Her lips are like this cactus cup, —
With my hand I crush it up,
I tear its flaming leaves apart : —
Would that I could tear her heart!
Last night a man was at her gate ;
In the hedge I lay in wait;
I saw Mercedes meet him there,
By the fire-flies in her hair.
I waited till the break of day,
Then I rose and stole away ;
But left my dagger in her gate : —
Now she knows her lover's fate.
A SUMMER NIGHT.
I FEEL the breath of the summer night,
Aromatic fire ;
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
With tender desire.
The white moths flutter about the lamp,
Enamored with light ;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
A song to the night.
1 DO ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD. [1835-60
loo
But I ain alone, and how can I sing
Praises to thee ?
Come, Night ! unveil the beautiful soul
That waiteth for me.
UNRETURNING.
~^TOW all the flowers that ornament the grass,
-»-M Wherever meadows are and placid brooks,
Must fall — the " glory of the grass " must fall.
Year after year I see them sprout and spread —
The golden, glossy, tossing buttercups,
The tall, straight daisies and red clover globes,
The swinging bellwort and the blue-eyed blade,
With nameless plants as perfect in their hues —
Perfect in root and branch, their plan of life,
As if the intention of a soul were there :
I see them flourish as I see them fall 1
But he, who once was growing with the grass,
And blooming with the flowers, my little son,
Fell, withered — dead, nor has revived again !
Perfect and lovely, needful to my sight,
Why comes he not to ornament my days ?
The barren fields forget their barrenness,
The soulless earth mates with these soulless things,
Why should I not obtain my recompense ?
The budding spring should bring, or summer's prime,
At least a vision of the vanished child,
And let his heart commune with mine again,
Though in a dream — his life was but a dream;
Then might I wait with patient cheerfulness —
That cheerfulness which keeps one's tears unshed
And blinds the eyes with pain — the passage slow
Of other seasons, and be still and cold
As the earth is when shrouded in the snow,
Or passive, like it, when the boughs are stripped
In autumn, and the leaves roll everywhere.
And he should go again ; for winter's snows,
And autumn's melancholy voice, in winds,
In waters, and in woods, belong to me —
To me, a faded soul ; for, as I said,
The sense of all his beauty — sweetness — comes
When blossoms are the sweetest; when the sea,
Sparkling and blue, cries to the sun in joy,
Or, silent, pale, and misty waits the night,
Till the moon, pushing through the veiling cloud,
1835-60] ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW 8TODDARD.
Hangs naked in its heaving solitude:
When feathery pines wave up and down the shore,
And the vast deep above holds gentle stars,
And the vast world beneath hides him from me !
139
A WRECK ON THE WHITE FLAT.
[Temple House. A Novel. ISQl.—HepubUshed, 1888.]
the storm raged the next morning, as storm had not raged
»*• for years, Argus remained in the green room, and pored over the
book of plays, so well remembered by Virginia. About noon Mat Sut-
cliffe burst in, with his tarpaulin jammed over his head, and carrying
an immense spy-glass in a canvas case. His tidings did not astonish
Argus. A vessel putting into .the bay the night before had dragged her
anchors and struck on the White Flat ; her flag was flying from the rig-
ging, and there were men there ; it being low water when she struck,
her quarter deck might afford temporary safety, provided the cold did
not increase and freeze the crew to death.
" What is the town doing, Mat ? " asked Roxalana.
"A great many people are out doing nothing. They are on the
wharves, on the top of King's Hill, the hair blowing off their heads, and,
I believe, there's a gang along shore somewhere," he replied.
" No boat can live if put out," said Argus. " How low down the bar
did the vessel drive on? "
"As near to Bass Headland as can be. If the wind would chop
round, somebody might get out there."
" So the sailors must drown," cried Tempe, notwithstanding she had
put her fingers in her ears, not to hear. "I'll shut myself up in the
cellar till it is all over."
"I thought," continued Mat, looking hard at Argus, "it might be
best to look at the shingle below here ; the ice is about gone there. If
we could start under the lee of Bass Headland a boat might slant—'
Argus gave such a shrug and grimace that Mat suddenly stopped, and
without another word abruptly left the room.
" Argus," said Eoxalana, with great composure, " I shall not get you
a mouthful of dinner to-day."
"I trust you will consent to do your share in disposing of the poor
corpses," added Tempe sharply.
For reply, Argus rose, book in hand, opened the shutter of the
window towards the quay, sat down by it, and went on with his
comedy. ....
140
ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD. [1835-60
Mat came in late in the afternoon, with as little ceremony as before,
and said roughly to Argus, "You are wanted."
"I won't go."
" Captain, if we don't get across within twelve hours, every soul on
board that vessel now will be in hell."
" I supposed so."
" She's bilged, and the White Flat begins to hug her. It's flood tide,
and the waves must be washing the main deck ; a few hours of that
work will settle their hash."
" What's doing with the life-boat?"
" The loons have tried to launch her, but there's something wrong, and
they are trying to tinker her up. The will of folks is good enough, but
they can't get out there,— that's the long and short on't. Bill Bayley
swore he'd go out alone ; his cock-boat swamped, first thing, and they
had to throw him a rope. He swore at the man who threw it,— at the
boat, at the bay, — the wreck, — and the Almighty, and then he cried.
I never liked Bill so well."
Mat spit into the fire furiously, and stumped round the room, a shoe
on one foot and a boot on the other, his trousers settling over the hips
in spite of his tight leather belt. He was growing frantic with excite-
ment.
Argus laughed.
Mat made an energetic, beseeching motion towards the door ; he would
have put up his soul for sale for the sake of seeing Argus move with the
intention he wished to inspire him with. Argus turned back his sleeves,
baring a snow-white wrist, and abstractedly felt his pulse and the mus-
cles of his arms.
" Push ahead," he said.
" Aye, aye, sir," Mat shouted, turning very pale, and lurching towards
the door.
" Stop ; where is Eoxalana? "
" Roxalana ! " Mat shouted.
"What is it, Mat?" she answered, coming with a bottle.
"Yes; give us a dram, old girl," continued Mat, utterly oblivious of
the proprieties.
Argus laughed again, and asked for his Mackintosh.
"Now then," said Mat, having swallowed nearly a tumbler of brandy.
Argus drank a little, and poured the rest of the bottle into a flask which
he buttoned inside his coat. Tempe ran down to the door, as they passed
out, and Argus looking back called out:
"Where is your crape veil, Tempe?"
"Where the courage of Kent is, — shut up in a band-box," she
answered.
1835-60] ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD.
141
Roxalana, after gazing at her a moment, took her by the arm, and
dragged her into the green room.
"I believe," she said, in a breathless undertone, "that you are pos-
sessed sometimes. Do you know that your uncle Argus may have gone
for his shroud ? "
" Was that why he inquired for the veil? "
" Could you choose no other moment to express your insensibility ?
Are you never to be anything but a child ? "
" Mother, you must be crazy. You don't mean to say that you are
going to protest against the Gates character, — as / represent it? "
Roxalana said no more, but went her way, feeling a painful excite-
ment. She replenished the fires, hung kettles of water over them, col-
lected blankets, cordials, and liquors, and then went to the kitchen to
bake bread.
Twilight brought Mary Sutcliffe and her youngest boys. Dumping
them in a corner of the kitchen as if they were sacks, and threatening
them with a whipping if they moved, she rolled up her sleeves, and said
that she thought the fathers of families had better stay at home, instead
of risking themselves to save nobody knew who. Another boat had
started since Mat had got under way, and she guessed the wreck would
turn out to be a great cry and little wool ; she did not think there would
be much drowning this time. She wondered if the good folks in Kent
had stirred themselves, — your religious Drakes, and your pious Brandes,
and the rest of the church.
" Hold your tongue, Mary Sutcliffe," ordered Tempe.
Then Mary whimpered, sobbed, and shrieked, declaring she had known
all along she should never set eyes on Mat Sutcliffe again, who was well
enough, considering what he was. And who else would have done what
he was doing ? and she gloried in his spunk. Drying her eyes with her
fat hands, and shaking out her apron, she begged Roxalana to let her
make the bread, and put the house to rights, — in case there were bodies
coming in.
" Do, Mrs. Gates," she pleaded ; " I feel as strong as a giant to-night; I
can wrestle with any amount of work."
" If you will stop whining, Mary, I will accept your services ; for, to
tell the truth, my head is not very clear just now ; I am afraid I may
spoil something."
"Likely as not," replied Mary; "go right into your sitting-room, sit
down in your own chair, and you'll come to. It won't do for you, of all
persons, to be upset, Mrs. Gates."
Roxalana was quite ready to act upon Mary's suggestion. Death was
near, and she felt it. After dark Mary began to walk about,— to the
alley, and into the garden, and report what she saw and heard. She ran
142 ELIZABETH DREW BAESTOW STODDARD. [1835-60
down to the quay once, but came back scared and subdued at the sight
of the angry solitude of the hoarse, black sea, though she shook her
impotent fist at it with indignation.
Roxalana felt a relief when Virginia Brande came down from the
Forge, enveloped in a plaid cloak. She had ventured at last to come by
the path, the moment she heard that Captain Gates was making an
attempt to get to the wreck. Her mother was so frightened and ill
about it, that Chloe and herself were obliged to make representations
of the necessity for help in Kent from every hand and heart, before she
consented to spare her. The Forge was deserted ; her father had gone
into town with the intention of offering a reward to the man who should
first reach the wreck. Mary Sutcliffe, hearing this, cried :
"And I suppose old Drake has offered as much again, — hasn't he?
Wouldn't I like to see Mr. Mat Sutcliffe Esquire handling that reward ?
I wish somebody would pay me for doing my duty. I'd put the money
right into the contribution box at Mr. Brande's church. Oh, yes, don't
I see myself doing it."
"Mary," said Virginia, "you are talking nonsense. Please find some
hair-pins ; mine must have dropped along the path."
She removed the cloak-hood, and her hair tumbled in a mass down her
shoulders ; she could have hid herself in it.
"Goodness me!" cried Mary, "what splendid hair you've got; I
never thought of it before. It is as black as the sky was just now on
the quay."
" Have you been to the quay ? " asked Eoxalana. " Do content your-
self within doors. Where is Tempe ? . . . Tell her that Virginia
Brande is here."
Tempe fell into a fit of weeping and laughing the moment she saw
Virginia, which was ended by a dead faint.
At last the boat was launched. Argus and Mat were afloat ; so much
was gained, and Argus thought the danger was preferable to the labor
they had undergone in getting ready to risk their lives. The gloomy
twilight, spreading from the east, dropped along the shore, while they
were dragging, pushing, and lifting the boat over the shingle, slush, and
into the opposing sea.
" Hell-bent be it ! " said Mat, apostrophizing the waves, " if you say
so. You are not alone, my friends."
Mat seemed a part of the storm ; his spirits were in a wild commotion,
his clothes were torn and soggy with brine, and his hands were gashed
and bloody. Argus had lost his cap, and broken his oar ; he bound his
head with Mat's woolen comforter, jammed his shoulder against the gun-
wale, and used the shortened oar with much composure. They did not
make much headway ; the boat appeared to be riding in all directions
1835-60] ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW 8TODDARD.
143
in the roar and foam of the sea ; darkness pressed upon them, and shut
them between the low-hanging sky and the shaking plain of water. In
the midst of his silent, measured, energetic action the thoughts of Argus
drifted idly back to the trifling events of his life; a new and surprising
charm was added to them ; they were as bright, quiet, and warm as the
golden dust of a summer sunset which touches everything as it van-
ishes.
Mat swore at the top of his voice, that the wind was more nor'ard,
and it would be an even chance about beating back — or not Argus
looked up, and saw a circular break in the clouds, but said nothing.
" By the crucifix," cried Mat, throwing himself forward, " I heard a
yell. Where away are we ? We are shoaling ! "
Argus plunged his hands into the water from the stern sheets ; it felt
like the wrinkled, hideous flesh of a monster, trying to creep away.
" We are under lee, or there is a lull, for the water don't break," he
said.
" If the moon was out we should see the White Flat. I reckon we are
on the tongue of the bar, and the vessel has struck below. Her hull
must be sunk ten feet by this time, and her shrouds and spars are
washed off ; that yell will not be heard again."
" Damn 'em," said Mat savagely, " if they have drowned afore ever we
could reach 'em, I'll take 'em dead, carry every mother's son of 'em to
Kent, and bury 'em against their wills."
The endless, steady-going rockers which slid under them from the bay
outside tossed the boat no longer ; the wind ceased to smite their faces,
but tore overhead and ripped the clouds apart. The moon rolled out,
and to the right they saw the ghastly, narrow crest of the White
Flat A mass of spume on their left which hissed madly proved what
Argus had said, that they were close to the end of the bar. Within
the limits of the moonlight they saw nothing. In the bewildering,
darkling illumination of the shattering water around them they were
alone.
" If she's parted," continued Mat, " something might wash this way ;
her gear at least. I'd like to catch a cabin door, or an article to that
effect ; it might come handy."
Argus did not hear him, for he was overboard. Missing him, Mat
gave way for a moment ; he felt the keel shove resisting sand, and
remained passive, merely muttering, "I'm blasted, but she may drive."
Argus had seen, or thought he had, to the right of the boat, some
object dipping in and out of the water and making towards them. He
met it coming sideways, where the water was just below his breast:
missed a hold of it, struggled for it, the shifting bottom impeding his
footway, and the water battling against his head and arms, till rearing
144 ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDARD. [1835-60
itself up and stranding on the beach, he stumbled and fell beside it
exhausted.
Kaising himself on his hands and knees, he brought his face close to
two persons, a man and a woman, fastened together by the embrace of
death. The woman's face was upturned ; its white oval, wet and glist-
ening, shed a horrid light ; the repeated blows of the murderous waves
had tangled and spread her long hair over her. Tears of rage rushed
into Argus's eyes when he saw that it had been half torn from its roots.
Her arms were round the man's head ; her hands clutched his temples ;
his face was so tightly pressed into her bosom that Argus instinctively
believed he was still alive in a stifled swoon. She was dead. Take her
lover away from that breast of stone, Argus, let him not see those open
lipS_no longer the crimson gates to the fiery hours of his enjoyment,
nor let him feel those poor bruised fingers clenching his brain ; those
delicate stems of the will are powerless to creep round his heart ! May
Satan of the remorseless deep alone be destined to know and remember
the last hour of this woman's passion, despair, and sacrifice !
Argus rose to his feet, wondering why he saw so clearly, and pos-
sessed with an idea which was a mad one, perhaps, but which allied him,
in greatness of soul, to the woman before him. He was still confused,
and had forgotten where Mat and the boat were, but Mat had seen his
dark figure rising against the sky, and was ploughing through the sand
with the intention of remonstrating with Argus, on the impossibility of
ever getting it off again. But when he came up behind him, there was
something in his attitude — a familiar one — which imposed his respect-
ful attention. Mat bent over the bodies silently, and touched them with
his foot.
" She is dead ? " interrogated Argus.
" Never will be more so."
" This man is alive. Lift his head. I am out of breath. The wind
is going down, and we can run him back easy."
" It may raly be called pleasant. There now I have got you, safe enough
from her. God ! She put on shirt and trousers to jump overboard with
him, swapping deaths, and getting nothing to boot. He is limber ; give
me the brandy and let's warm up the bov."
" Here," said Argus, in a suppressed voice, " pour it down, quick.
Have you a lashing ? I should like to put her out of sight ; one of the
ballast stones will do. Help me to carry her to the other side of the bar ;
the deep water will cover her."
Mat pretended to be too busy to hear.
" Crazier than ever," he muttered. " I might have known his damned
crankiness would bile out somewhere."
Argus wrapped the poor girl in his Mackintosh, and staggered towards
1835-60] ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW STODDAMD.
145
the boat carrying her ; there was no help against it, and Mat rose to his
assistance. In a moment or two she was buried in the grave she had so
terribly resisted.
The gale was nearly spent, and Mat ventured to hoist the sail. Argus
tumbled the still insensible man into the boat by the head and heels, and
they ran across the harbor, landing at the quay below the house. Mary
was there before the boat was tied to a spile.
"How are you off for elbow-grease?" cried Mat. "Put the lantern
down, and jump in ; here's a bundle for you to take up to the house.
Capen and I are clean gone, I tell you. I've lost the rims of my ears,
and expect to leave a few toes in these 'ere boots when I pull 'em off.
Come, quick."
Without a word she lifted the man from the bottom of the boat, and,
with Mat's help, clambered up the wharf, and took him into the house.
Tempe ran shrieking when she saw him stretched on the floor before the
fire, in the greenroom. Eoxalana sat rigid, nailed to her chair, incapa-
ble of motion at the sight; Virginia and Mary were collected. Mat
adroitly peeled off a portion of his wet clothes, and told Mary to rub
him like damnation. It was a long time before he gave sign of life.
At the first choking breath Mat poured some brandy over his face and
neck ; he rose galvanically to a sitting posture, and fell back again, to
all appearance dead. But Mat declared he was all right, and went out
to change his own wet clothes for dry ones. Virginia looked up at
Argus, convinced herself that the man was saved.
"Take care of me, if you please," he. said. "I want two bottles of
brandy, and a dry shirt. How are you, Eoxalana? "
At the sound of his voice she turned in her chair. Mat returned with
his arms full of clothes for Argus, and asked her if she would be good
enough to step out with Virginia, and go to bed. There wasn't any use
in praying now, for they were back. Not one of them thought of the
unhappy crew, all lost, except one who laid before them.
" That 'ere Virginia," said Mat, when she and Roxalana had gone, and
he was watching the man's eyelids, "is as mealy a gal as I ever saw in
my life. She's cool, and smooth, and soft. She beat Moll in rubbing.
Hullo ! his eyes are open. Look here, Spaniard, you belong to us.
Drink this, my lad, and let me hold you up. So— all right, young
un. . . . Hark ye — he's off in a regular, natural sleep, ain't he?"
VOL. VIII. — 10
146
JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON. [1835-60
ON THE CAMPAGNA.
STOP on the Appiaii Way,
In the Roman Campagna, —
Stop at iny tomb,
The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
To-day as you see it
Alaric saw it, ages ago,
When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
Sat at the gates of Rome,
Reading his Runic shield.
Odin! thy curse remains!
Beneath these battlements
My bones were stirred with Roman pride,
Though centuries before my Romans died :
Now my bones are dust ; the Goths are dust,
The river-bed is dry where sleeps the king,
My tomb remains!
When Rome commanded the earth
Great were the Metelli:
I was Metellus' wife;
I loved him — and I died.
Then with slow patience built he this memorial:
Each century marks his love.
Pass by on the Appian Way
The tomb of Cecilia Metella ;
Wild shepherds alone seek its shelter,
Wild buffaloes tramp at its base.
Deep is its desolation,
Deep as the shadow of Rome!
C^ompson.
BORN in Richmond, Va., 1833. DIED in New York, N. T., 1873.
ASH BY.
[The Southern Amaranth. Edited by Sallie A. Brock. 1869.]
rpo the brave all homage render;
-*• Weep, ye skies of June !
With a radiance pure and tender,
Shine, O saddened moon;
1835-60] JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON.
" Dead upon the field of glory,"
Hero fit for song and story,
Lies our bold dragoon.
Well they learned, whose hands have slain him,
Braver, knightlier foe
Never fought 'gainst Moor or Payniin
Rode at Templestovve :
With a mien how high and joyous,
'Gainst the hordes that would destroy us
Went he forth, we know.
Nevermore, alas ! shall sabre
Gleam around his crest;
Fought his fight, fulfilled his labor,
Stilled his manly breast ;
All unheard sweet nature's cadence,
Trump of fame and voice of maidens ;
Now he takes his rest.
Earth, that all too soon hath bound him,
Gently wrap his clay!
Linger lovingly around him,
Light of dying day!
Softly fall, ye summer showers ;
Birds and bees, among the flowers
Make the gloom seem gay.
Then, throughout the coming ages, —
When his sword is rust,
And his deeds in classic pages —
Mindful of her trust
Shall Virginia, bending lowly,
Still a ceaseless vigil holy
Keep above his dust.
MUSIC IN CAMP.
rip WO armies covered hill and plain,
J- Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters.
The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure ;
And each dread gun of the elements
Slept in its hid embrasure.
JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON. [1835-60
The breeze so softly blew it made
No forest leaf to quiver,
And the smoke of the random cannonade
Rolled slowly from the river.
And now, where circling hills looked down
With cannon grimly planted,
O'er listless camp and silent town
The golden sunset slanted.
When on the fervid air there came
A strain — now rich, now tender ;
The music seemed itself aflame
With day's departing splendor.
A Federal band, which, eve and morn,
Played measures brave and nimble,
Had just struck up, with flute and horn
And lively clash of cymbal.
Down flocked the soldiers to the banks,
Till, margined by its pebbles,
One wooded shore was blue with " Yanks,"
And one was gray with "Rebels."
Then all was still, and then the band,
With movement light and tricksy,
Made stream and forest, hill aud strand,
Reverberate with "Dixie."
The conscious stream with burnished glow
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,
But thrilled throughout its deepest flow
With yelling of the Rebels.
Again a pause, and then again
The trumpets pealed sonorous,
And "Yankee Doodle" was the strain
To which the shore gave chorus.
The laughing ripple shoreward flew,
To kiss the shining pebbles ;
Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue
Defiance to the Rebels.
And yet once more the bugles sang
Above the stormy riot;
No shout upon the evening rang —
There reigned a holy quiet.
The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood
Poured o'er the glistening pebbles;
1835-60] JAMES MATHEWS LEG ARE.
All silent now the Yankees stood,
And silent stood the Rebels.
No unresponsive soul had heard
That plaintive note's appealing,
So deeply " Home, Sweet Home " had stirred
The hidden founts of feeling.
Or Blue or Gray, the soldier sees,
As by the wand of fairy,
The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees,
The cabin by the prairie.
Or cold or warm, his native skies
Bend in their beauty o'er him ;
Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes,
His loved ones stand before him.
As fades the iris after rain
In April's tearful weather,
The vision vanished, as the strain
And daylight died together.
But memory, waked by music's art,
Expressed in simplest numbers,
Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart,
Made light the Rebel's slumbers.
And fair the form of music shines,
That bright, celestial creature,
Who still, 'mid war's embattled lines,
Gave this one touch of Nature.
fames jflat^etog legate*
BOKN in Charleston, 8. C., 1823. DIED at Aiken, 8. C., 1859.
TO A LILY.
[Orta-Undis, and Other Poems. 1847.]
GO bow thy head in gentle spite,
Thou lily white.
For she, who spies thee waving here,
With thee in beauty can compare
As day with night.
ROBERT COLLTER. [1835-60
Soft are thy leaves and white : Her arms
Boast whiter charms.
Thy stem proue bent with loveliness
Of maiden grace possesseth less ;
Therein she charms.
Thou in thy lake dost see
Thyself:— So she
Beholds her image in her eyes
Reflected. Thus did Venus rise
From out the sea.
Inconsolate, bloom not again,
Thou rival vain
Of her whose charms have thine outdone:
Whose purity might spot the sun,
And make thy leaf a stain.
Robert Collier.
BOBN In Keighley, Yorkshire, England, 1823.
UNDER THE SNOW.
[Treasures New and Old. Edited by Alice L. Williams. 1884.]
TT was Christmas Eve in the year fourteen,
-*- And, as ancient dalesmen used to tell,
The wildest winter they ever had seen,
With the snow lying deep on moor and fell,
When Wagoner John got out his team,
Smiler and Whitefoot, Duke and Gray,
With the light in his eyes of a young man's dream,
As he thought of his wedding on New Year's Day
To Ruth, the maid with the bonnie brown hair,
And eyes of the deepest, sunniest blue,
Modest and winsome, and wondrous fair,
And true to her troth, for her heart was true.
" Thou's surely not going! " shouted mine host;
"Thou'll be lost in the drift, as sure as thou's born;
Thy lass winnot want to wed wi' a ghost,
And that's what thou'll be on Christmas mom.
"It's eleven long miles from Skipton toon
To Blueberg hooses 'e Washburn dale :
1835-60] ROBERT COLLTER.
Thou had better turn back and sit thee doon,
And comfort thy heart wi' a drop o' good ale."
Turn the swallows flying south,
Turn the vines against the sun,
Herds from rivers in the drouth,
Men must dare or nothing 's done.
So what cares the lover for storm or drift,
Or peril of death on the haggard way ?
He sings to himself like a lark in the lift,
And the joy in his heart turns December to May.
But the wind from the north brings a deadly chill
Creeping into his heart, and the drifts are deep,
Where the thick of the storm strikes Blueberg hill.
He is weary and falls in a pleasant sleep,
And dreams he is walking by Washburn side,
Walking with Ruth on a summer's day,
Singing that song to his bonnie bride,
His own wife now forever and aye.
Now read me this riddle, how Ruth should hear
That song of a heart in the clutch of doom
Steal on her ear, distinct and clear
As if her lover was in the room.
And read me this riddle, how Ruth should know,
As she bounds to throw open the heavy door,
That her lover was lost in the drifting snow,
Dying or dead, on the great wild moor.
"Help! help!" "Lost! lost! "
Rings through the night as she rushes away,
Stumbling, blinded and tempest-tossed,
Straight to the drift where her lover lay.
And swift they leap after her into the night,
Into the drifts by Blueberg hill,
Ridsdale and Robinson, each with a light,
To find her there holding him white and still.
"He was dead in the drift, then,"
I hear them say,
As I listen in wonder,
Forgetting to play,
Fifty years syne come Christmas Day.
" Nay, nay, they were wed! " the dalesman cried,
" By Parson Carmalt o' New Year's Day;
Bless ye! Ruth were me great-great grandsire's bride,
And Maister Frankland gave her away."
152
JAMES ROBERTS GILMORE. [1835-60
"But how did she find him under the snow ?"
They cried with a laughter touched with tears.
"Nay, lads," he said softly, "we never can know—
" No, not if we live a hundred years.
"There's a sight o' things gan
To the making o' man."
Then I rushed to my play
With a whoop and away,
Fifty years syne come Christmas Day.
Bobertg dftlmore,
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1823.
JOHN JORDAN, THE SCOUT.
[The Atlantic Monthly. 1865.]
rr^HE dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a
J- bullet, coated with warm lead, and put into the hand of the Ken-
tuckian. He was given a carbine, a brace of revolvers, and the fleetest
horse in his regiment, and, when the moon was down, started on his per-
ilous journey. He was to ride at night, and hide in the woods or in the
houses of loyal men in the daytime.
It was pitch-dark when he set out ; but he knew every inch of the
way, having travelled it often, driving mules to market. He had gone
twenty miles by early dawn, and the house of a friend was only a few
miles beyond him. The man himself was away ; but his wife was at
home, and she would harbor him till nightfall. He pushed on, and
tethered his horse in the timber ; but it was broad day when he rapped
at the door, and was admitted. The good woman gave him breakfast,
and showed him to the guestehamber, where, lying down in his boots,
he was soon in a deep slumber.
The house was a log cabin in the midst of a few acres of deadening —
ground from which trees have been cleared by girdling. Dense woods
were all about it ; but the nearest forest was a quarter of a mile distant,
and should the scout be tracked, it would be hard to get away over this
open space, unless he had warning of the approach of his pursuers.
The woman thought of this, and sent up the road, on a mule, her whole
worldly possessions, an old negro, dark as the night, but faithful as the
sun in the heavens. It was high noon when the mule came back, his
1835-60] JAMES ROBERTS GILMORE. -JCQ
heels striking fire, and his rider's eyes flashing, as if ignited from the
sparks the steel had emitted.
"Dey'm comin', Missus!" he cried,— "not haff a mile away,— twenty
secesh, — ridin' as ef de debil wus arter 'em ! "
She barred the door, and hastened to the guest-chamber.
"Go," she cried, "through the winder,— ter the woods! They'll be
here in a minnit."
" How many is thar ? " asked the scout
" Twenty, — go, — go at once,— or you'll be taken ! "
The scout did not move ; but, fixing his eyes on her face, he said :
" Yes, I yere 'em. Thar's a sorry chance for my life a' ready. But,
Rachel, I've thet about me thet's wuth more'n my life, — thet, may-be, '11
save Kaintuck. If I'm killed, wull ye tuck it ter Gunnel Cranor, at
Paris?"
" Yes, yes, I will. But go ; you've not a minnit to lose, I tell you."
" I know, but will ye swar it, — swar ter tuck this ter Gunnel Cranor
'fore th' Lord thet yeres us? "
" Yes, yes, I will," she said, taking the bullet. But horses' hoofs were
already sounding in the door-yard. " It's too late," cried the woman.
" Oh, why did you stop to parley ? "
"Never mind, Kachel," answered the scout. "Don't tuck on. Tuck
ye keer o' th' dispatch. Valu' it loike yer life, — loike Kaintuck. The
Lord's callin' fur me, and I'm a'ready."
But the scout was mistaken. It was not the Lord, but a dozen devils
at the door-way.
" What does ye want ? " asked the woman, going to the door.
" The man as come from Garfield's camp at sun-up,— John Jordan,
from the head o' Baine," answered a voice from the outside.
" Ye karn't hev him fur th' axin'," said the scout. " Go away, or I'll
send some o' ye whar the weather is warm, I reckon."
"Pshaw!" said another voice, — from his speech one of the chivalry.
" There are twenty of us. We'll spare your life, if you give up the dis-
patch ; if you don't, we'll hang you higher than Haman."
The reader will bear in mind that this was in the beginning of the
war, when swarms of spies infested every Union camp, and treason was
only a gentlemanly pastime, not the serious business it has grown to be
since traitors are no longer dangerous.
"I've nothin' but my life that I'll guv up," answered the scout ; "and
ef ye tuck thet, ye'll hev ter pay the price,— six o' yourn."
" Fire the house ! " shouted one.
"No, don't do that," said another. "I know him,— he's cl'ar grit,—
he'll die in the ashes ; and we won't git the dispatch."
This sort of talk went on for half an hour ; then there was a dead
-JK4 JAMES ROBERTS GILMORE. [1835-60
silence, and the woman went to the loft, whence she could see all that
was passing outside. About a dozen of the horsemen were posted
around the house ; but the remainder, dismounted, had gone to the edge
of the woods, and were felling a well-grown sapling, with the evident
intention of using it as a battering-ram to break down the front door.
The woman, in a low tone, explained the situation ; and the scout said :
" It V my only chance. I must run fur it. Bring me yer red shawl,
Rachel."
She had none, but she had a petticoat of flaming red and yellow.
Handling it as if he knew how such articles can be made to spread, the
scout softly unbarred the door, and, grasping the hand of the woman,
said :
"Good-bye, Rachel. It V a right sorry chance; but I may git
through. Ef I do, I'll come ter night ; ef I don't, git ye the dispatch ter
the Gunnel. Good-bye."
To the right of the house, midway between it and the woods, stood the
barn. That way lay the route of the scout. If he could elude the two
mounted men at the doorway, he might escape the other horsemen ; for
they would have to spring the barn-yard fences, and their horses might
refuse the leap. v But it was foot of man against leg of horse, and " a
right sorry chance."
Suddenly he opened the door, and dashed at the two horses with the
petticoat. They reared, wheeled, and bounded away like lightning just
let out of harness. In the time that it takes to tell it, the scout was over
the first fence, and scaling the second ; but a horse was making the leap
with him. The scout's pistol went off, and the rider's earthly journey
was over. Another followed, and his horse fell mortally wounded. The
rest made the circuit of the barn-yard, and were rods behind when the
scout reached the edge of the forest. Once among those thick laurels,
nor horse nor rider can reach a man, if he lies low, and says his prayer
in a whisper.
The Rebels bore the body of their comrade back to the house, and
said to the woman :
" We'll be revenged for this. We know the route he'll take, and will
have his life before to-morrow ; and you — we'd burn your house over
your head, if you were not the wife of Jack Brown."
Brown was a loyal man, who was serving his country in the ranks of
Marshall. Thereby hangs a tale, but this is not the time to tell it.
Soon the men rode away, taking the poor woman's only wagon as a
hearse for their dead comrade.
Night came, and the owls cried in the woods in a way they had not
cried for a fortnight. " T'whoot ! t'whoot ! " they went, as if they
thought there was music in hooting. The woman listened, put on a
1835-60] AUGUSTINE JOSEPH HICKEY DUGANNE. ice
dark mantle, and followed the sound of their voices. Entering the
woods, she crept in among the bushes, and talked with the owls as if
they had been human.
"They know the road ye'll take," she said; "ye must change yer
route. Here ar' the bullet."
"God bless ye, Each el !" responded the owl, "yeV a true 'ooman!"
— and he hooted louder than before, to deceive pursuers, and keep up
the music.
" Ar' yer nag safe ? " she asked.
"Yes, and good for forty mile afore sun-up."
" Well, here ar' suthin' ter eat : ye'll need it. Good-bye, and God go
wi' ye ! "
" He'll go wi' ye, fur He loves noble wimmin."
Their hands clasped, and then they parted, he to his long ride ; she to
the quiet sleep of those who, out of a true heart, serve their country.
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1823. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1884.
BETHEL.
"TTTE mustered at midnight, in darkness we formed,
' ' And the whisper went round of a fort to be stormed ;
But no drum-beat had called us, no trumpet we heard,
And no voice of command but our colonel's low word —
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
And out, through the mist and the murk of the morn,
From the beaches of Hampton our barges were borne;
And we heard not a sound, save the sweep of the oar,
Till the word of our colonel came up from the shore —
" Column! Forward!"
With hearts bounding bravely and eyes all alight,
As ye dance to soft music, so trod we that night ;
Through the aisles of the greenwood, with vines overarched,
Tossing dew-drops like gems from our feet, as we marched —
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
As ye dance with the damsels to viol and flute,
So we skipped from the shadows and mocked their pursuit ;
But the soft zephyrs chased us, with scents of the moru,
As we passed by the hay-fields and green waving corn —
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
156
A UO USTINE JOSEPH RICKEY D UGANNE. [1835-60
For the leaves were all laden with fragrance of June,
And the flowers and the foliage with sweets were in tune ;
And the air was so calm, and the forest so dumb,
That we heard our own heart-beats like taps of a drum —
" Column! Forward!'1'1
Till the lull of the lowlands was stirred by a breeze,
And the buskins of morn brushed the tops of the trees,
And the glintings of glory that slid from her track
By the sheen of our rifles were gayly flung back —
" Column ! Forward ! "
And the woodlands grew purple with sunshiny mist,
And the blue-crested hill-tops with rose-light were kissed,
And the earth gave her prayers to the sun in perfumes,
Till we marched as through gardens, and trampled on blooms —
" Column! Forward!"
Ay! trampled on blossoms, and seared the sweet breath
Of the greenwood with low-brooding vapors of death ;
O'er the flowers and the corn we were borne like a blast,
And away to the forefront of battle we passed —
" Column ! Forward ! "
For the cannon's hoarse thunder roared out from the glades.
And the sun was like lightning on banners and blades,
When the long line of chanting Zouaves, like a flood,
From the green of the woodlands rolled, crimson as blood —
" Column ! Forward ! "
While the sound of their song, like the surge of the seas,
With the " Star-Spangled Banner" swelled over the leas;
And the sword of Duryea, like a torch, led the way,
Bearing down on the batteries of Bethel that day —
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
Through green-tasseled cornfields our columns were thrown,
And like corn by the red scythe of fire we were mown ;
While the cannon's fierce ploughings new-furrowed the plain,
That our blood might be planted for Liberty's grain —
" Column! Forward!"
Oh ! the fields of fair June have no lack of sweet flowers,
But their rarest and best breathe no fragrance like ours ;
And the sunshine of June, sprinkling gold on the corn,
Hath no harvest that ripeneth like Bethel's red morn —
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
When our heroes, like bridegrooms, with lips and with breath
Drank the first kiss of Danger and clasped her in death ;
And the heart of brave Winthrop grew mute with his lyre,
When the plumes of his genius lay moulting in fire —
"Column! Forward!"
1835-60] GEORGE HORATIO DERBY.
Where he fell shall be sunshine as bright as his name,
And the grass where he slept shall be green as his fame;
For the gold of the pen and the steel of the sword
Write his deeds, in his blood, on the land he adored
' ' Column ! Forward ! "
And the soul of our comrade shall sweeten the air,
And the flowers and the grass-blades his memory upbear;
While the breath of his genius, like music in leaves,
With the corn-tassels whispers, and sings in the sheaves
" Column! Forward!"
1861.
i^oratto
BOKN in Dedham, Mass., 1823. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1861.
MUSICAL REVIEW EXTRAORDINARY.
[Phcenixiana, or, Sketches and Burlesques, by John Phoenix. 1855.]
THE PLAINS. ODE SYMPHONIE PAR JABEZ TARBOX.
r I ^HIS glorious composition was produced at the San Diego Odeon, on
-•- the 31st of June, ult, for the first time in this or any other country,
by a very full orchestra (the performance taking place immediately after
supper), and a chorus, composed of the entire " Sauer Kraut- Verein,"
the "Wee Gates Association," and choice selections from the "Gyas-
cutus " and " Pike-harmonic " societies. The solos were rendered by
Herr Tuden Links, the recitations by Herr Yon Hyden Schnapps, both
performers being assisted by Messrs. John Smith and Joseph' Brown,
who held their coats, fanned them, and furnished water during the more
overpowering passages.
" The Plains " we consider the greatest musical achievement that has
been presented to an enraptured public. Like Waterloo among bat-
tles, Napoleon among warriors, Niagara among falls, and Peck among
senators, this magnificent composition stands among Oratorios, Operas,
Musical Melodramas and performances of Ethiopian Serenaders, peerless
and unrivalled. Ilfrappe toute chose parfaitement froide.
"It does not depend for its success" upon its plot, its theme, its
school or its master, for it has very little if any of them, but upon its
soul-subduing, all-absorbing, high-faluting effect upon the audience,
every member of which it causes to experience the most singular and
exquisite sensations. Its strains at times remind us of those of the old
master of the steamer McKim, who never went to sea without being
-KQ GEORGE HORATIO DERBY. [1835-60
loo
unpleasantly affected,-a straining after effect, he used to term it. Blair
in bis lecture on beauty, and Mill in his treatise on logic (p. 31), have
alluded to the feeling which might be produced in the human mind
by something of this transcen dentally sublime description, but it has
remained for°M. Tarbox, in the production of The Plains, to call this
feeling forth.
The symphonic opens upon the wide and boundless plains in longi-
tude 115° W., latitude 35° 21' 03" K, and about sixty miles from the
west bank of Pitt Kiver. These data are beautifully and clearly
expressed by a long (topographically) drawn note from an E flat clar-
ionet The sandy nature of the soil, sparsely dotted with bunches of
cactus and artemisia, the extended view, flat and unbroken to the hori-
zon, save by the rising smoke in the extreme verge, denoting the vicin-
ity of a Pi Utah village, are represented by the bass drum. A few notes
on the piccolo call the attention to a solitary antelope, picking up mes-
cal beans in the foreground. The sun, having an altitude of 36° 27',
blazes down upon the scene in indescribable majesty. " Gradually the
sounds roll forth in a song " of rejoicing to the God of Day :
" Of thy intensity
And great immensity
Now then we sing;
Beholding in gratitude
Thee in this latitude,
Curious thing " ;
Which swells out into " Hey Jim along, Jim along Josey," then descre-
scendo mas o menos, poco pocita, dies away and dries up.
Suddenly we hear approaching a train from Pike County, consisting
of seven families, with forty-six wagons, each drawn by thirteen oxen;
each family consists of a man in butternut-colored clothing driving the
oxen ; a wife in butternut-colored clothing riding in the wagon, holding
a butternut baby, and seventeen butternut children running promiscu-
ously about the establishment; all are barefooted, dusty, and smell
unpleasantly. (All these circumstances are expressed by pretty rapid
fiddling for some minutes, winding up with a puff from the ophicleide,
played by an intoxicated Teuton with an atrocious breath — it is impos-
sible to misunderstand the description.) Now rises o'er the plains, in
mellifluous accents, the grand Pike County Chorus :
" Oh we'll soon be thar
In the land of gold,
Through the forest old,
O'er the mounting cold,
With spirits bold—
Oh, we come, we come,
And we'll soon be thar.
Gee up Bolly! Whoo up! whoo haw!
1835-60] GEORGE HORATIO DERBY. i eg
The train now encamp. The unpacking of the kettles and mess-pans,
the unyoking of the oxen, the gathering about the various camp-fires'
the frizzling of the pork, are so clearly expressed by the music, that the
most untutored savage could readily comprehend "it. Indeed, so vivid
and lifelike was the representation, that a lady sitting near us involun-
tarily exclaimed aloud, at a certain passage, " Thar, that pork's burning!"
and it was truly interesting to watch the gratified expression of her face
when, by a few notes of the guitar, the pan was removed from the fire,
and the blazing pork extinguished.
This is followed by the beautiful aria :
"O! marm, I want a pancake! "
Followed by that touching recitative:
" Shet up, or I will spank you ! "
To which succeeds a grand crescendo movement, representing the flight
of the child with the pancake, the pursuit of the mother, and the final
arrest and summary punishment of the former, represented by the rapid
and successive strokes of the castanet.
The turning in for the night follows; and the deep and stertorous
breathing of the encampment is well given by the bassoon, while the
sufferings and trials of an unhappy father with an unpleasant infant are
touchingly set forth by the cornet a piston.
Part Second — The night attack of the Pi Utahs ; the fearful cries of
the demoniac Indians; the shrieks of the females and children; the
rapid and effective fire of the rifles ; the stampede of the oxen ; their
recovery and the final repulse ; the Pi Utahs being routed after a loss of
thirty-six killed and wounded, while the Pikes lose but one scalp (from
an old fellow who wore a wig, and lost it in the scuffle), are faithfully
given, and excite the most intense interest in the minds of the hearers;
the emotions of fear, admiration, and delight succeeding each other in their
minds with almost painful rapidity. Then follows the grand chorus:
"Oh! we gin them fits,
The Ingen Utahs,
With our six-shooters—
We gin 'em pertickuler fits."
After which, we have the charming recitative of Herr Tuden Links,
to the infant, which is really one of the most charming gems in the per-
formance :
" Now, dern your skin, can't you be easy ? "
Morning succeeds. The sun rises magnificently (octavo flute) — break-
fast is eaten — in a rapid movement on three sharps ; the oxen are caught
and yoked up — with a small drum and triangle; the watches, purses,
160 EDWARD POLLOCK [1835-60
and other valuables of the conquered Pi Utahs are stored away in a
camp-kettle, to a small movement on the piccolo, and the train moves
on, with the grand chorus :
" We'll soon be thar,
Gee up Bolly ! Whoo up ! whoo haw ! "
The whole concludes with the grand hymn and chorus :
" When we die we'll go to Benton,
Whup ! Whoo haw!
The greatest man that e'er land saw,
Gee!
Who this little airth was sent on
Whup! Whoo haw!
To tell a ' hawk from a hand-saw! '
Gee!"
The immense expense attending the production of this magnificent
work ; the length of time required to prepare the chorus ; the incredible
number of instruments destroyed at each rehearsal, have hitherto pre-
vented M. Tarbox from placing it before the American public, and it has
remained for San Diego to show herself superior to her sister cities of
the Union, in musical taste and appreciation, and in high-souled liberal-
ity, by patronizing this immortal prodigy, and enabling its author to
bring it forth in accordance with his wishes and its capabilities. We
trust every citizen of San Diego and Vallecetos will listen to it ere it is
withdrawn ; and if there yet lingers in San Francisco one spark of musi-
cal fervor, or a remnant of taste for pure harmony, we can only say that
the Southerner sails from that place once a fortnight, and that the pas-
sage money is but forty-five dollars.
$ollocfe,
BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1823. DIED in San Francisco, Cal., 1858.
OLIVIA.
[Poems. 1876.]
"TTTHAT are the long waves singing so mournfully evermore ?
" " What are they singing so mournfully as they weep on the sandy shore ?
" Olivia, oh, Olivia! " — what else can it seem to be ?
"Olivia, lost Olivia, will never return to thee! "
" Olivia, lost Olivia! "—what else can the sad song be ?
"Weep and mourn, she will not return, she cannot return, to thee! "
1835-60] EDWARD POLLOCK jg^
And strange it is when the low winds sigh, and strange when the loud winds
blow,
In the rustle of trees, in the roar of the storm, in the sleepiest streamlet's flow,
Forever, from ocean or river, ariseth the same sad moan, —
" She sleeps; let her sleep; wake her not. It were best she should rest, and
alone."
Forever the same sad requiem comes up from the sorrowful sea,
For the lovely, the lost Olivia, who cannot return to me.
Alas! I fear 'tis not in the air, or the sea, or the trees, — that strain:
I fear 'tis a wrung heart aching, and the throb of a tortured brain ;
And the shivering whisper of startled leaves, and the sob of the waves as they
roll,—
I fear they are only the echo of the song of a suffering soul, —
Are only the passionless echo of the voice that is ever with me:
"The lovely, the lost Olivia will never return to thee! "
I stand in the dim gray morning, where once I stood, to mark,
Gliding away along the bay, like a bird, her white-winged bark;
And when through the Golden Gate the sunset radiance rolled,
And the tall masts melted to thinnest threads in the glowing haze of gold,
I said, ' ' To thine arms I give her, O kind and shining sea,
And in one long moon from this June eve you shall let her return to me."
But the wind from the far spice islands came back, and it sang with a sigh, —
" The ocean is rich with the treasure it has hidden from you and the sky."
And where, amid rocks and green sea-weed, the storm and the tide were at war,
The nightly- sought waste was still vacant when I looked to the cloud and the
star;
And soon the sad wind and dark ocean unceasingly sang unto me,
"The lovely, the lost Olivia will never return to thee! "
Dim and still the landscape lies, but shadowless as heaven,
For the growing morn and the low- west moon on everything shine even ;
The ghosts of the lost have departed, that nothing can ever redeem,
And Nature, in light, sweet slumber, is dreaming her morning dream.
'Tis morn and our Lord has awakened, and the souls of the blessed are free.
Oh, come from the caves of the ocean ! Olivia, return unto me !
What thrills me ? What comes near me ? Do I stand on the sward alone ?
Was that a light wind, or a whisper ? a touch, or the pulse of a tone ?
Olivia ! whose spells from my slumber my broken heart sway and control,
At length bring'st thou death to me, dearest, or rest to my suffering soul ?
No sound but the psalm of the ocean : "Bow down to the solemn decree, —
The lovely, the lost Olivia will never return to thee ! "
And still are the long waves singing so mournfully evermore;
Still are they singing so mournfully as they weep on the sandy shore,—
" Olivia, lost Olivia! " so ever 'tis doomed to be, —
' ' Olivia, lost Olivia will never return to thee ! "
"Olivia, lost Olivia! " — what else could the sad song be ? —
" Weep and mourn, she will not return, — she cannot return to thee! "
VOL. VIII.— 11
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN. [1835-60
Carleton Coffin*
BOKN in Boscawen, N. H., 1823.
AN AMERICAN COLONEL.
{Four Tears of Fighting. 1866.]
TTTHEN the army began a forward movement in pursuit of Bragg,
VV General Gillmore issued an order, known as General Order No.
5, which reads as follows :
"All contrabands, except officers' servants, will be left behind when
the army moves to-morrow morning. Public transportation will in no
case be furnished to officers' servants.
"Commanders of regiments and detachments will see this order
promptly enforced."
Among the regiments of the division was the Twenty-Second "Wiscon-
sin, Colonel Utley, an officer who had no sympathy with slavery. He
had a cool head and a good deal of nerve. He had read the Proclama-
tion of President Lincoln, and made up his mind to do what was right,
recognizing the President as his Commander-in-Chief, and not the State
of Kentucky. There were negroes accompanying his regiment, and he
did not see fit to turn them out. Three days later he received the fol-
lowing note :
October 18th, 1862.
COLONEL : You will at once send to my headquarters the four con-
trabands, John, Abe, George, and Dick, known to belong to good and
loyal citizens. They are in your regiment, or were this morning.
Your obedient servant,
Q. A. GILLMORE, Brigadier-General.
Colonel Utley, instead of sending the men, replied :
" Permit me to say, that I recognize your authority to command me
in all military matters pertaining to the military movements of the army.
I do not look upon this as belonging to that department. I recognize
no authority on the subject of delivering up contrabands save that of the
President of the United States.
" You are, no doubt, conversant with that Proclamation, dated Sept.
22, 1862, and the law of Congress on the subject. In conclusion, I will
say, that I had nothing to do with their coming into camp, and shall
have nothing to do with sending them out."
The note was despatched to division headquarters. Soon after an
officer called upon Colonel Utley.
1835-60] CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN. -j^3
"You are wanted, sir, at General Gillmore's quarters."
Colonel Utley made his appearance before General GHllmore.
"I sent you an order this evening."
" Yes, sir, and I refused to obey it."
" I intend to be obeyed, sir. I shall settle this matter at once. I shall
repeat the order in the morning."
" General, to save you the trouble and folly of such a course, let me
say that I shall not obey it."
The Colonel departed. Morning came, but brought no order for the
delivery of the contrabands to their former owner.
As the regiment passed through Georgetown, a large number of slaves
belonging to citizens of that place fled from their masters, and found
shelter in the army. Some of the officers who had less nerve than Colo-
nel Utley gave them up, or permitted the owners to come and take them.
A Michigan regiment marching through the town had its lines entered
by armed citizens, who forcibly took away their slaves. Colonel Utley
informed the inhabitants that any attempt to take contrabands from his
lines would be resisted.
" Let me say to you, gentlemen," he said to a delegation of the citizens,
" that my men will march with loaded muskets, and if any attempt is
made upon my regiment, I shall sweep your streets with fire, and close
the history of Georgetown. If you seriously intend any such business,
I advise you to remove the women and children."
The regiment marched the next morning with loaded muskets. The
citizens beheld their negroes sheltered and protected by a forest of gleam-
ing bayonets, and wisely concluded not to attempt the recovery of the
uncertain property.
The day after its arrival in Nicholas vi lie, a large, portly gentleman,
lying back in an elegant carriage, rode up to the camp, and making his
appearance before the Colonel, introduced himself as Judge Eobertson,
Chief Justice of the State of Kentucky.
" I am in pursuit of one of my boys, who I understand is in this regi-
ment," he said.
" You mean one of your slaves, I presume ? "
" Yes, sir. Here is an order from the General, which you will see
directs that I may be permitted to enter the lines and get the boy," said
the judge, with great dignity.
" I do not permit any civilian to enter my lines for any such purpose,"
said the Colonel.
The Judge sat down, not greatly astonished, for the reputation of the
Twenty-Second Wisconsin, as an abolition regiment, was well established.
He began to argue the matter. He talked of the compromises of the
Constitution, and proceeded to say :
164 CHARLES GARLETON COFFIN. [1835-60
" I was in Congress, sir, when the Missouri Compromise was adopted,
and voted for it ; but I am opposed to slavery, and I once wrote an essay
on the subject, favoring emancipation."
" Well, sir, all that may be. If you did it from principle, it was com-
mendable ; but your mission here to-day gives the lie to your professions.
I don't permit negro-hunters to go through my regiment ; but I will see
if I can find the boy, and if he is willing to go I will not hinder him."
The Colonel went out and found the negro Joe, a poor, half-starved,
undersized boy, nineteen years old. He told his story. He belonged to
the Judge, who had let him to a brutal Irishman for $50 a year. He
had been kicked and cuffed, starved and whipped, till he could stand it no
longer. He went to the Judge and complained, but had been sent back
only to receive a worse thrashing for daring to complain. At last he
took to the woods, lived on walnuts, green corn, and apples, sleeping
among the corn-shucks and wheat-stacks till the army came. There
were tears in Joe's eyes as he rehearsed his sufferings.
The Colonel went back to the Judge.
" Have you found him ? "
" I have found a little yellow boy, who says that he belongs to a man
in Lexington. Come and see him."
" This man claims you as his property, Joe ; he says that you ran
away and left him," said the Colonel.
"Yes, sah, I belongs to him," said Joe, who told his story again in a
plain, straightforward manner, showing a neck scarred and cut by the
whip.
" You can talk with Joe, sir, if you wish," said the Colonel.
" Have not I always treated you well ? " the Judge asked.
"No, massa, you hasn't," was the square, plump reply.
"How so?"
" When I came to you and told you I couldn't stand it any longer,
you said, ' Go back, you dog ! ' "
" Did not I tell you that I would take you away ? "
" Yes, massa, but you never did it."
The soldiers came round and listened. Joe saw that they were friends.
The Judge stood speechless a moment
"Joe," said the Colonel, "are you willing to go home with your mas-
ter?"
"No, sah, I isn't."
" Judge Robertson, I don't think you can get that boy. If you think
you can, there he is ; try it. I shall have nothing to do with it," said the
Colonel, casting a significant glance around to the soldiers who had
gathered about them.
The Judge saw that he could not lay hands upon Joe. " I'll see
1835-60] CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN. }gg
whether there is any virtue in the laws of Kentucky," he said, with
great emphasis.
" Perhaps, Judge, it will be as well for you to leave the camp. Some
of my men are a little excitable on the subject of slavery."
" You are a set of nigger-stealers," said the Judge, losing his temper.
" Allow me to say, Judge, that it does not become you to call us nig-
ger-stealers. You talk about nigger-stealing — you who live on the sweat
and blood of such creatures as Joe ! Your dwellings, your churches, are
built from the earnings of slaves, beaten out of them by brutal overseers.
You hire little children out to brutes, — yon clothe them in rags, — you
hunt them with hounds, — you chain them down to toil and suffering !
You call us thieves because we have given your Joe food and protec-
tion ! Sir, I would rather be in the place of Joe than in that of his
oppressor! " was the indignant outburst of the Colonel.
" Well, sir, if that is the way you men of the North feel, the Union
never can be saved — never ! You must give up our property."
"Judge, allow me to tell you what sort of Unionism I have found in
Kentucky. I have not seen a half-dozen who did not damn the Presi-
dent. You may put all the pure Unionism in Kentucky in one scale,
and a ten-pound nigger baby in the other, and the Unionism will kick
the beam. Allow me to say, further, that if the perpetuity or restoration
of the Union depends upon my delivering to you with my own hands
that little half-starved dwarf of a slave, the Union may be cast into hell
with all the nations that forget God ! "
" The President's Proclamation is unconstitutional. It has no bearing
on Kentucky. I see that it is your deliberate intention to set at naught
the laws," said the Judge, turning away and walking to General Gill-
more's headquarters.
"You are wanted at the General's headquarters," said an aid, soon
after, to Colonel Utley.
The Colonel obeyed the summons, and found there not only Judge
Robertson, but several fine old Kentucky gentlemen ; also Colonel
Coburn, the commander of the brigade, who agreed with General Gill-
more in the policy then current. Colonel Coburn said:
"The policv of the commanding generals, as I understand it, is sim-
ply this : that persons who have lost slaves have a right to hunt for them
anywhere in the State. If a slave gets inside of the lines of a regiment,
the owner has a right to enter those lines, just as if no regiment was
there, and take away the fugitive at his own pleasure."
"Precisely so. The Proclamation has no force in this State," said
the Judge.
" I regret that I am under the necessity of differing in opinion from
my commanding officers, to whom I am ready at all times to render strict
166 CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN. [1835-60
military obedience, but (the Colonel raised his voice) I reverse the Ken-
tucky policy ! I hold that the regiment stands precisely as though there
were no slavery in Kentucky. We came here as free men, from a free
State, at the call of the President, to uphold a free government. We have
nothing to do with slavery. The Twenty-Second Wisconsin, while I
have the honor to command it, will never be a regiment of nigger-catch-
ers. I will not allow civilians to enter my lines at pleasure ; it is unmili-
tarv. Were I to permit it, Lshould be justly amenable to a court-mar-
tial Were I to do it, spies might enter my lines at all times and
depart at pleasure."
There was silence. But Judge Robertson was loath to go away with-
out his flesh and blood. He made one more effort. " Colonel, I did not
corne to your lines as a spy, but with an order from your General. Are
you willing that I should go and get my boy ? "
The Colonel reflected a moment.
" Yes, sir, and I will remain here. I told you before that I should
have nothing to do with it."
"Do you think that the men will permit me to take him? "
" I have no orders to issue to them in the matter ; they will do just as
they please."
u Will you send the boy into some other regiment? "
This was too much for the Colonel. He could no longer restrain his
indignation. Looking the Judge squarely in the face, he vented his
anger in scathing words.
The Judge departed, and at the next session of the Court, Colonel
Utley was indicted for man-stealing ; but he has not yet been brought to
trial. The case is postponed till the day of Judgment, when a righteous
verdict will be rendered.
The Judge returned to- Lexington, called a public meeting, at which
he made a speech, denouncing the Twenty-Second Wisconsin as an aboli-
tion regiment, and introducing resolutions declaring that the Union
never could be restored if the laws of the State of Kentucky were thus
set at defiance. This from the Judge, while his son was in the Rebel
service, fighting against the Union.
But the matter was not yet over. A few days later, the division con-
taining the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, commanded by General Baird,
vice Gillmore, was ordered down the river. It went to Louisville,
followed by the slave-hunters, who were determined to have their
negroes.
Orders were issued to the colonels not to take any contrabands on
board the boats, and most of them obeyed. Colonel Utley issued no
orders.
A citizen called upon him and said :
1835-60J CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
167
" Colonel, you will have trouble in going through the city unless you
give up the negroes in your lines."
The regiment was then on its march to the wharf.
11 They have taken all the negroes from the ranks of the other regi-
ments, and they intend to take yours."
The Colonel turned to his men and said, quietly, " Fix bayonets."
The regiment moved on through the streets, and reached the Gault
House, where the slaveholders had congregated. A half-dozen approached
the regiment rather cautiously, but one bolder than the rest sprang into
the ranks and seized a negro by the collar.
A dozen bayonets came down around him, some not very gently. He
let go his hold and sprang back again quite as quickly as he entered the
lines.
There was a shaking of fists and muttered curses, but the regiment
passed on to the landing, just as if nothing had happened.
General Granger, who had charge of the transportation, had issued
orders that no negro should be allowed on the boats without free papers.
General Baird saw the negroes on the steamer, and approaching Colo-
nel Utley, said :
" Why, Colonel, how is this ? Have all these negroes free papers ? "
" Perhaps not all, but those who haven't have declared their intentions I "
said the Colonel.
The Twenty-Second took transportation on the steamer Commercial.
The captain of the boat was a Kentuckian, who came to Colonel Utley
in great trepidation, saying: "Colonel, I can't start till those negroes
are put on shore. I shall be held responsible. My boat will be seized
and libeled under the laws of the State."
"I can't help that, sir; the boat is under the control and in the
employ of the government. I am commander on board, and you have
nothing to do but to steam up and go where you are directed. Other-
wise I shall be under the necessity of arresting you."
The captain departed and began his preparations. But now came the
sheriff of Jefferson County with a writ. He wanted the bodies of
George, Abraham, John, and Dick, who were still with the Twenty-
Second. They were the runaway property of a fellow named Hogan,
who a few days before had figured in a convention held at Frankfort,
in which he introduced a series of Secession resolutions.
" I have a writ for your arrest, but I am willing to waive all action on
condition of your giving up the fugitives which you are harboring con-
trary to the peace and dignity of the State," said the sheriff.
" I have other business to attend to just now. I am under orders from
my superiors in command to proceed down the river without any delay,
and must get the boat under way," said the Colonel, bowing politely.
168
CAROLINE ATHERTON MASON. [1835-60
" But, Colonel, you are aware of the consequences of deliberately set-
ting at defiance the laws of a sovereign State," said the sheriff.
" Are you all ready there ? " said the Colonel, not to the sheriff, but
to the officer of the day who had charge of affairs.
"Yes, sir."
"Then cast off."
The game of bluff had been played between the Twenty-Second Wis-
.consin and the State of Kentucky, and Wisconsin had won.
The sheriff jumped ashore. There were hoarse puffs from the steam-
pipes, the great wheels turned in the stream, the Commercial swung from
her moorings, and the soldiers of Wisconsin floated down the broad Ohio
with the stars and stripes waving above them.
Caroline
BORN in Marblehead, Mass., 1833.
RECONCILIATION.
TF thou wert lying, cold and still and white,
-»• In death's embraces, O mine enemy!
I think that if I came and looked on thee
I should forgive; that something in the sight
Of thy still face would conquer me, by right
Of death's sad impotence, and I should see
How pitiful a thing it is to be
At feud with aught that's mortal.
So, to-night,
My soul, unfurling her white flag of peace, —
Forestalling that dread hour when we may meet,
The dead face and the living, — fain would cry
Across the years, " Oh, let our warfare cease!
Life is so short, and hatred is not sweet ;
Let there be peace between us ere we die."
1881.
1835-60] WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.
mtllfam
BORN in Brattleboro, Vt., 1824. DIED at Appledore, Isles of Shoals, N. H., 18TO.
WITH BRUSH IN HAND.
[W. M. Bunt's Talks on Art. Jotted down and Edited by Helen M. Knowlton. First
Series. 1875. Second Series. 1883.]
WHY draw more than you see ? We must sacrifice in drawing as
in everything else.
You thought it needed more work. It needs less. You don't get
mystery because you are too conscientious! When a bird flies through
the air you see no feathers ! Your eye would require more than one
focus : one for the bird, another for the feathers. You are to draw not
reality, but the appearance of reality !
In your sketches keep the first vivid impression ! Add no details
that shall weaken it ! Look first for the big things !
1st. Proportions !
2d. Values — or masses of light and shade.
3d. Details that will not spoil the beginnings !
You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself
that I know and feel more than I express on canvas ; but I know that
it is not so.
This doing things to suit people ! They'll hate you, and you won't
suit them. Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He don't
sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If
the birds should read the newspapers they would all take to changing
their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and
what a farce it would be !
Work as long as you know what to do. Not an instant longer !
Be carefully careless !
Avoid certain petty, trivial details which people call "finish." They
are of the nature of things with which one would confuse a child, deceive
a fly, or amuse an idiot !
The struggle of one color with another produces color.
I tell you it's no joke to paint a portrait ! I wonder that I am not
jYQ WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT. [1835-60
more timid when I begin ! I feel almost certain that I can do it. It
seems very simpla I don't think of the time that is sure to come, when
I almost despair ; when the whole thing seems hopeless. Into the paint-
ing of every picture that is worth anything, there comes, sometime, this
period of despair !
I have disliked pictures so much that I afterwards found were good,
that I want to hint to you that you may, some day, want an outlet from
the opinions you now hold.
The fact is, we must take, in the works of these men, what you call
faults, and ask ourselves if they were not perhaps qualities.
What a time has been made over Michael Angelo's " Moses," with his
horns! Michael Angelo felt that Moses must have horns! To repre-
sent him he must have something more than a man with a full beard,
and you must accept these horns just as you would a word which some
poet had felt the need of, and had coined. As Michael Angelo was the
greatest creator that ever worked in art, hadn't we better decide that
we'll wait fifteen minutes before passing judgment upon him, or upon
what he did ?
The painter knows what is necessary in literature better than the lit-
terateur knows what is needful in painting. Shakespeare could not paint
with brushes as well as I can write a poem. A painter is necessarily a
poet ;. but a poet is not a painter. Emerson can describe a forest in words
better than I can ; but I can make one in paint better than he. If he is
a full man he will understand both ; and if I am a full man I can under-
stand his description as well as my own.
That's where Cambridge is short! Such knowledge counts for no-
thing. They forget the song that painting has sung, and listen only to
Homer. A Greek professor who doesn't know what Greek Art is, isn't
a Greek scholar. I don't know just what Greek was a ruler during a
certain period, but I have some literary science and ensemble. Ignorant
as I am, I know more about Homer than a Greek professor can know
about Pheidias. He might tell me when he was born. Well, a rat was
born about that time.
Emerson says, " It is better to write a poor poem than a good criti-
cism."
True. And I had rather paint a poor picture than write a good criti-
cism. It is the critics that make us so timid. You don't quite dare to
paint as you see and feel. You can't get rid of the thought of what peo-
ple will say of your work. That's why you struggle so hard for form.
1835-60] WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT. -^
But you must not work for that alone. That is what the academies, the
world over, are striving for ; and when they get it, what is it worth ?
Don't mind what your friends say of your work. In the first place,
they all think you're an idiot; in the next place, they expect great
things of you; in the third place, they wouldn't know if you did a good
thing. Until we come to study Art, we are not aware of the ignorance
there is about it. Artists have to create their audiences. They have to
do their own work and educate the public at the same time. Nobody
cared for Corot's pictures at first. He had to teach people how to like
them. The same with Eaphael. His pictures were not understood ; but
he went on painting, and in time he was appreciated.
I like painting on panel for a change from canvas, and on rough can-
vas for a change from smooth. Anything to keep you from a " way " of
doing things. After you have been painting for fun for a while, it's
good to do some hard digging. And the reverse is true as well.
Why are you doing that?
" You told me to, the other day."
"Well, I didn't tell you to do so forever.
If you are determined to paint, you won't mind what kind of things
you use to paint with. I remember when I sketched that ploughing-
scene I had only a butter-box for a palette, a brush or two, and a palette-
knife. For rubbing in a velvet coat, sometimes nothing works better
than the palm of your hand.
Get your mind off of your work for a minute, and then go at it like a
cataract.
Perfect simplicity of expression ! In this country only martyrs attain
to it. Abraham Lincoln had it. John Brown had it. I saw the latter
refuse oysters once at a party, because "he was not hungry." I said to
a friend, — and Brown was not celebrated then, not having been hanged I
— " There's something remarkable about that man ! Did you ever know
a man to refuse oysters at a party because he was not hungry ? " He
did not take champagne, because he was " not thirsty." Held the glass
as you would hold a doll for a baby. Was not going to gorge himself,
— a man with such a destiny and such a work before him !
Here is a photograph of my "Bather," which you may call Youth, or
Summer, going forth, seeming to walk miraculously on the surface of
the water, but supported by a power which has reached firm footing ;
,-9 JOHN FOSTER KIRK. [1835-60
balancing himself gracefully, it may be a long, long time, but never get-
tino- anywhere until he has made his dive into the Unknown.
f was thinking of this subject of Eternity the other night, when I
looked at the moon, and saw, before it, a church-spire, a finger pointing
upward into space. Next the spire, the moon. Beyond the moon, a
fixed star. Next— what? Eternity.
A ripple closes over us.
footer Ifcirfc.
BORN in Frederictcm, N. B., 1834.
" TO THE CREDIT OF MY LORD OF BURGUNDY."
[History of Charles the Bold. 1863-68.]
A CCOUNTS of the battle of Grandson fill but a small space in the
-£^- Swiss chronicles and documents ; but descriptions of the booty are
given with a harrowing minuteness which we do not propose to imitate.
Tents, wagons, stores, cannon, richly-painted banners, — whatever the
routed army might have been expected to leave, — were captured in extra-
ordinary profusion. But all these formed the least valuable portion of
the spoil. Intending to hold his court in Savoy and to dazzle the Italian
powers with his magnificence, the duke had brought with him the para-
phernalia of his chapel and table, habiliments and regalia used on occa-
sions of state. The precious articles which Philip the Good had passed
his life in accumulating, and which the art of Flanders had been
employed in fashioning or embellishing, had become the property of the
poorest and rudest of all races. Among the costliest prizes were an
immense reliquary of sculptured gold inlaid with large gems, embracing
many pieces of statuary, and containing more than eighty distinct objects
pertaining to the history of Christ; the sword of state, its hilt so thickly
studded with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, all of great size, that there
was scarcely space for a hair to be laid between them ; the velvet cap
from the front of which flashed the largest diamond then in Europe, set
in gold, with pendent pearls ; two other diamonds little inferior in value,
with a great number of smaller ones, and various other jewels and pre-
cious stones ; the great seal, of solid gold, weighing a pound ; between
three and four hundredweight of silver and silver-gilt goblets and cups ;
gorgeous tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, dresses of silk, satin, and
cloth of gold, and wagon-loads of silver coin.
STATENORMALSCHOOL.
183*-60] JOHN FOSTER KIRK.'L&S
It has been often related and readily believed that the Swiss, all unused
to luxury and splendor, tossed, tore, and trampled upon this treasure
with the ignorance of savages ; that they mistook diamonds for glass and
gold for copper, cut up tapestries and embroidered robes to patch their
homespun doublets and hose, threw away priceless jewels as worthless
baubles, or parted with them to foreigners for trifling sums. It is true
they were ignorant in such matters ; but their ignorance was of a kind
which led them to put not an under but an over estimate on the value.
Gilt articles were supposed at first to be of solid gold. Jewels which it
was wished to dispose of were rated at prices far beyond what the world
could be induced to give. No private appropriation of the smallest
object was permitted in the camp ; and if any took place, — as was indeed
strongly suspected and as it is natural to suppose, — it could only have
been done with the greatest secrecy, and with little opportunity for sell-
ing or bartering. The keenest search was instituted : every soldier was
put upon his oath ; the authorities continued for a lon^ time afterwards
to prosecute close inquiries. Inventories were drawn up ; skilled apprais-
ers were collected ; the distribution was the work of years, gave rise to
civil commotions, and was attended with punctilious forms, in some
cases with solemn ceremonies.
Nor has the history of that great spoil been suffered to fall into obliv-
ion. Books have been written on the subject. The art of the painter
and engraver has commemorated the workmanship of the jeweller and
embroiderer. The three great diamonds have been traced in their pas-
sage through successive hands from court to court. One now glitters
in the papal tiara ; another is deposited in the treasury of Vienna ; the
third, after returning to India, where it is supposed to have belonged
originally to the Great Mogul, has been recently brought back to Europe,
and now, we believe, awaits a purchaser. Switzerland has preserved
many of the bulkier but not less interesting objects. In its churches,
arsenals, and other public buildings, the Burgundian tapestries, banners,
cannon, and suits of armor, still attract the attention of visitors and the
study of antiquarians.
For our own part, while looking at these trophies or turning over the
leaves of the time-stained lists in which they are enumerated, we have
been reminded of other relics and another inventory. The " little ivory
comb," the "pair of bride's gloves," the "agnus enchased with silver,"
the ''necklace with ten little paternosters of amber," picked up among
the ashes of Dinant and duly entered to the credit of ''my lord of Bur-
gundy " — was there no connection between those memorials of humble
joy, of modest love, of ruined homes, and these remains of fallen pride
and grandeur? Yes, without doubt! though it be one which history,
that tracks the diamond from hand to hand, is incapable of tracing.
ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM. [1833-60
annte Chambers fcetctyum
BORN in Scott Co., Ky., 1824.
SEA-WEEDS.
[Lotos-Flowers. 1877.]
-ppRIEND of the thoughtful mind and gentle heart,
-F Beneath the citron-tree—
Deep calling to my soul's profounder deep —
I hear the Mexique Sea.
White through the night rides in the spectral surf
Along the spectral sands,
And «11 the air vibrates, as if from harps
Touched by phantasmal hands.
Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers
Lean to the yucca's bells,
While with her chrism of dew sad Midnight fills
The milk-white asphodels.
Watching all night — as I have done before —
I count the stars that set,
Each writing on my soul some memory deep
Of pleasure or regret ;
Till, wild with heartbreak, toward the east I turn,
Waiting for dawn of day ;
And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star,
Are faded, all away.
Only within my trembling, trembling hands —
Brought unto me by thee —
I clasp these beautiful and fragile things,
Bright sea-weeds from the sea.
Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skiesr
Pure shine the stars by night,
And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves
In thunder- throated might;
Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps
The murmur of the sea,
So the deep echoing memories of my home
Will not depart from me.
Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things,
As I have seen them cast
1835-60] THOMAS STARR KING,
Like a drowned woman's hair along the sands
When storms were overpast ;
Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore
In battle's storm and blight.
Would they could die, like sea-weed ! Bear with me,
But I must weep to-night.
BORN in New York, N. Y., 1834. DIED in San Francisco, Cal., 1864.
THE BUSINESS AND GLORY OF ETERNITY.
[Sermon on the Future Life. 1854.— Christianity and Humanity. 1877.]
OUR views of the future life are thin and unpractical and impotent
because we do keep off from all speculation about it How poor,
almost barren, has the Christian imagination been in its conceptions, I
will not say of the details, but of the principles and the objects of that
future world ! The imagery of the judgment-seat of Christ, which the
New Testament in one or two instances suggests, has been expanded and
verified by the rhetoric and poetry of the Church, so that it has filled
up all the space into which the eye of the spirit can pierce beyond the
grave, so that a solemn gloom rests over the world to come. Or when
the timid fancy has ventured at all into pictures or conjectures of the
occupations of that sphere, it has not strayed beyond the hints of the
Apocalypse, of the songs of the hundred and forty-four thousand elders,
and the harps and the golden phials full of odors, and the white robes,
and the palms in their hands. The conception of heaven as an immeas-
urable singing-school, and its business a never-ending and monotonous
chant directly in the blaze of God's holiness, has little to attract the
hearty thought of strong men towards it ; and I seriously believe that it
is the poverty of imagination in the Church as to the conditions, the
duties, and the joys of the future world, which accounts in a large meas-
ure for the little care there is about it, — for the undertone of feeling
which I know exists in many breasts, that an eternal life, according to
the modes of presentation in the Church, is not worth having and would
be insufferably tedious.
Now as to the external details, it may do no good, and therefore we
may have no right to speculate— I mean as to where the spiritual world
is, whether we shall have visible organizations or not, and what sized
176 THOMAS STARR KING. [1835-60
beings we shall be. But as to the essential conditions and occupations
of that world, I hold that we have a right to think about it, and that
we ought to, and that very much of the practical power of the future life
over us consists in the kind of speculation we entertain, the quality of
the musings we indulge. If we think of it only now and then as a state
where final retribution shall be executed upon souls for their good or
evil in this life, it will simply affect us now and then with a spasm of
fear, but our inmost reverence will not be stimulated and fed. If we
conceive of it as a vast stretching kingdom of haze off beyond our hori-
zon, where ghosts live, it will have an influence upon our lives about as
great as such an expanse of mist would have upon the orbit of the solid
earth. We must make it in our imagination what the spirit of Chris-
tianity would have us make it, — a world for the exercise of the great
powers of our humanity, and therefore a world more real, more intense,
more vital and moral, than this plane of existence. We must think of
its occupations and business as appealing to and attesting the distin-
guishing faculties of our manhood and womanhood ; then it will be a
reality, a glorious, solemn, and practical reality to us. ...
I have spoken of the great faculties of our nature as passing into the
future to be educated, but I have not ranked them. Of course the high-
est is love, and the order of the future seems most clear and most impres-
sive to my mind when I think that we shall go to our places there accord-
ing to our love rather than our wisdom. It will be part of our business
to become acquainted with God outwardly by the intellect; but the
great law of life will be more fully manifest there than even here, that
our joy shall consist in the quality of our affections, in our sympathy
and our charity. Though we have the gift of prophecy and understand
all mystery and all knowledge, and though we have all faith so that we
could remove mountains, and have not charity, we shall be nothing.
Glorious will it be, no doubt, in that world of substance to be sur-
rounded with the splendors of God's thought, to have the privilege of
free range whithersoever taste may lead through the domains of infinite
art, to enjoy the possibilities of reception from the highest created intel-
lects ; but our bliss, the nectar of the soul, will flow from our consecra-
tion, our openness to the love of God, and our desire of service to his
most needy ones.
For, brethren, let us associate also with the future the business and
the glory of practical service. All degrees of spirits float into that realm
of silence. Ripe and unripe, mildewed, cankered, stunted, as well as
stately and strong and sound, they are garnered for the eternal state by
death. Is Christ, whose life was sympathy and charity upon the earth,
busy in no ministries of instruction and redemption there? Has Paul
no missionary zeal and no heart of pity for the Antiochs and the
1835-60] &EORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. -j^f
Corinths that darken and pollute the eternal spaces ? Has Loyola lost
his ambition to bring the heathen hearts to the knowledge of Jesus ?
Will not the thousands of the merciful who have found it their joy here
to collect the outcasts under healthier influence, to kindle the darkened
mind, to clothe the shivering forms of destitution, to carry comfort to
sick-beds, and cheer into desolate homes, — will not the divine brothers
and sisters of charity, who are the glory of this life, find some call and
some exercise for their Christlike sympathy in that world ; in that world
which is colonized by millions of the heathen and the unfortunate, the
sin-sick, the polluted, and the ignorant, every year? Oh, doubt not,
brethren, that the highest in Heaven are the helpers, the spirits of
charity, the glorified Samaritans who penetrate into all the abysses of
evil with their aid and their hope. Doubt not that there will be ample
opportunities for the exercise of our divinest faculties, and that we are
prepared for its joys just as we are furnished with sympathies, educated
on the earth by the blessings and the cheer they have scattered among
the wastes.
OTtllfam Curtis
BOKN in Providence, R. I., 1824.
THE NEW LIVERY.
[The Potiphar Papers. 1853.]
n^HE Gnus, and Croesuses, and Silkes, and the Settum Downes, have
-I- their coats of arms, and crests, and liveries, and I am not going to be
behind, I tell you. Mr. P. ought to remember that a great many of these
families were famous before they came to this country, and there is
a kind of interest in having on your ring, for instance, the same crest
that your ancestor two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One
day I was quite wrought up about the matter, and I said as much to him.
"Certainly," said he, "certainly; you are quite right. If I had Sir
Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring,
and glory in my relationship, and I hope I should be a better man for
it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that
would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a nourish of
trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that,
either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a
copy of the family escutcheon as a matter of interest and curiosity to
myself, for I'm sure I shouldn't understand it. Do you suppose Mrs.
178
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
Gnu knows what gules argent are? A man may be as proud of his fam-
ily as he chooses, and, if he have noble ancestors, with good reason. But
there is no sense in parading that pride. It is an affectation, the more
foolish that it achieves nothing — no more credit at Stewart's — no more
real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who were Mrs. Gnu's ancestors,
or Mrs. Croesus's, or Mrs. Settum Downe's ? Good, quiet, honest, and
humble people, who did their work, and rest from their labor. Centu-
ries ago, in England, some drops of blood from ' noble ' veins may have
mingled with the blood of their forefathers; or even, the founder of the
family name may be historically famous. What then ? Is Mrs. Gnu's
family ostentation less absurd? Do you understand the meaning of her
crest, and coats of arms, and liveries ? Do you suppose she does herself ?
But in forty-nine cases out of fifty, there is nothing but a similarity of
name upon which to found all this flourish of aristocracy."
My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie. So, when he had
finished that long speech, during which I was looking at the lovely
fashion-plates in Harper, I said :
" What colors do you think I'd better have ? "
He looked at me with that singular expression, and went out sud-
denly, as if he were afraid he might say something.
He had scarcely gone before I heard :
" My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is refreshing as Herrnon's
dew."
I colored a little ; Mr. Cheese says such things so softly. But I said
good morning, and then asked him about liveries, etc.
He raised his hand to his cravat (it was the most snowy lawn, Carrie,
and tied in a splendid bow).
" Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Potiphar ? "
And then he went off into one of those pretty talks, in what Mr. P.
calls " the language of artificial flowers," and wound up by quoting
Scripture — " Servants, obey your masters."
That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that, as he had already
assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so
again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths,
and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and plush,
and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and cords,
and tassels, and hats. Oh ! it was delightful. You can't fancy how
heartily the Eev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite enthu-
siastic, and at last he said, with so much expression: ''Dear Mrs. Poti-
phar, why not have a chasseur ? "
I thought it was some kind of French dish for lunch, so I said:
" I am so sorry, but we haven't any in the house."
" Oh," said he, " but you could hire one, you know."
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. -^9
Then I thought it must be a musical instrument — a panharmom'con,
or something of that kind, so I said in a general way :
" I'm not very, very fond of it."
" But it would be so fine to have him standing on the back of the
carriage, his plumes waving in the wind, and his lace and polished belts
flashing in the sun, as you whirled down Broadway."
Of course I knew then that he was speaking of those military gentle-
men who ride behind carriages, especially upon the continent, as Mar-
garet tells me, and who, in Paris, are very useful to keep the savages
and wild beasts at bay in the Champs Elysees, for you know they are
intended as a guard.
But I knew Mr. P. would be firm about that, so I asked Mr. Cheese
not to kindle my imagination with the chasseur.
We concluded finally to have only one full-sized footman, and a fat
driver.
" The corpulence is essential, dear Mrs. Potiphar," said Mr. Cheese.
" I have been much abroad; I have mingled, I trust, in good, which is
to say, Christian society : and I must say, that few things struck me
more upon my return than that the ladies who drive very handsome
carriages, with footmen, etc., in livery, should permit such thin coach-
men upon the box. I really believe that Mrs. Settum Downe's coach-
man doesn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, which is
ridiculous. A lady might as well hire a footman with insufficient
calves, as a coachman who weighs less than two hundred and ten. That
is the minimum. Besides, I don't observe any wigs upon the coach-
men. Now, if a lady set up her carriage with the family crest and fine
liveries, why, I should like to know, is the wig of the coachman omit-
ted, and his cocked hat also? It is a kind of shabby, half-ashamed
way of doing things — a garbled glory. The cock-hatted, knee-breeched,
paste-buckled, horse-hair- wigged coachman is one of the institutions of
the aristocracy. If we don't have him complete, we somehow make
ourselves ridiculous. If we do have him complete, why, then ? " —
Here Mr. Cheese coughed a little, and patted his mouth with his cam-
bric. But what he said was very true. I should like to come out with
the wig, I mean upon the coachman ; it would so put down the Settum
Downes. But I'm sure old Pot wouldn't have it. He lets me do a great
deal. But there is a line which I feel he won't let me pass. I men-
tioned my fears to Mr. Cheese.
"Well," he said, " Mr. Potiphar may be right I remember an ex-
pression of my carnal days about ' coming it too strong,' which seems to
me to be applicable just here."
After a little more talk, I determined to havered plush breeches, with
a black cord at the side— white stockings— low shoes, with large buckles
-j^gQ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
— a yellow waistcoat, with large buttons — lappels to the pockets — and a
purple coat, very full and fine, bound with gold lace — and the hat
banded with a full gold rosette. Don't you think that would look well
in Hyde Park ? And, darling Carrie, why shouldn't we have in Broad-
way what they have in Hyde Park ?
When Mr. P. came in, I told him all about it. He laughed a good'
deal, and said, " What next ? " So I am not sure he would be so very
hard upon the wig. The next morning I had appointed to see the new
footman, and, as Mr. P. went out he turned and said to me : "Is your
footman coming to-day ? "
" Yes," I answered.
" Well," said he, " don't forget the calves. You know that every-
thing in the matter of livery depends upon the calves."
And he went out laughing silently to himself, with — actually, Carrie —
a tear in his eye.
But it was true, wasn't it ? I remember in all the books and pictures
how much is said about the calves. In advertisements, etc., it is stated
that none but well-developed calves need apply ; at least it is so in Eng-
land, and, if I have a livery, I am not going to stop half way. My duty
was very clear. When Mr. Cheese came in, I said I felt awkward in
asking a servant about his calves, it sounded so queerly. But I con-
fessed that it was necessary.
" Yes, the path of duty is not always smooth, dear Mrs. Potiphar. It
is often thickly strewn with thorns," said he, as he sank back in the
fauteuil, and put down his petit verre of Marasquin.
Just after he had gone, the new footman was announced. I assure
you, although it is ridiculous, I felt quite nervous. But when he came
in, I said calmly :
" Well, James, I am glad you have come."
" Please ma'am, my name is Henry," said he.
I was astonished at his taking me up so, and said decidedly :
" James, the name of my footman is always James. You may call
yourself what you please, I shall always call you James."
The idea of the man's undertaking to arrange my servants' names for
me!
Well, he showed me his references, which were very good, and I was
quite satisfied. But there was the terrible calf business that must be
attended to. I put it off a great while, but I had to begin.
" Well, James ! " and there I stopped.
" Yes, ma'am," said he.
" I wish— yes— ah ! " and there I stopped again.
"Yes, ma'am," said he.
"James, I wish you had come in knee-breeches."
1835-60 J GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. -j^
t; Ma'am? " said he, in great surprise.
"In knee-breeches, James," repeated I.
" What be they, ma'am? What for, ma'am ? " said he, a little fright-
ened, as I thought.
" Oh ! nothing, nothing ; but — but — "
" Yes, ma'am," said James.
" But — but I want to see — to see — "
" What, ma'am ? " said James.
" Your legs," gasped I; and the path was thorny enough, Carrie, I can
tell you. I had a terrible time explaining to him what I meant, and all
about the liveries, etc. Dear me! what a pity these things are not
understood ; and then we should never have this trouble about explana-
tions. However, I couldn't make him agree to wear the livery. He said :
u I'll try to be a good servant, ma'am, but I cannot put on those things
and make a fool of myself. I hope you won't insist, for I am very
anxious to get a place."
Think of his dictating to me ! I told him that I did not permit my
servants to impose conditions upon me (that's one of Mrs. Croesus's say-
ings), that I was willing to pay him good wages and treat him well, but
that my James must wear my livery. He looked very sorry, said that
he should like the place very much — that he was satisfied with the
wages, and was sure he should please me, but he could not put on those
things. We were both determined, and so parted. I think we were
both sorry ; for I should have to go all through the calf-business again,
and he lost a good place.
However, Caroline, dear, I have my livery and my footman, and am
as good as anybody. It's very splendid when I go to Stewart's to have
the red plush, and the purple, and the white calves springing down to
open the door, and to see people look, and say : " I wonder who that is? "
And everybody bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and Mrs.
Gnu is melting with envy on the other side, and Mrs. Croesus goes
about, saying : " Dear little woman, that Mrs. Potiphar, but so weak !
Pity, pity!" And Mrs. Settum Downe says: "Is that the Potiphar
livery ? Ah, yes. Mr. Potiphar's grandfather used to shoe my grand-
father's horses (as if to be useful in the world were a disgrace — as Mr.
P. says), and young Downe, and Boosey, and Timon Croesus, come up
and stand about so gentlemanly, and say : " Well, Mrs. Potiphar, are we
to have no more charming parties this season ? " and Boosey says, in his
droll way : " Let's keep the ball a-rolling ! " That young man is always
ready with a witticism. Then I step out, and James throws open the
door, and the young men raise their hats, and the new crowd says : " I
wonder who that is ! " and the plush, and purple, and calves spring up
behind, and I drive home to dinner.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
A
SPRING SONG.
BIRD sang sweet and strong
In the top of the highest tree :
He said " I pour out my heart in song
For the summer that soon shall be! "
But deep in the shady wood,
Another bird sang " I pour
My heart on the solemn solitude,
For the springs that return no more."
OUR COUSIN THE CURATE.
[Prueandl. 1856.]
TDRUE loves to listen when I speak of the romance of his life, and I
•J- do not wonder. For my part, I find in the best romance only the
story of my love for her, and often as I read to her, whenever I come to
what Titbottom calls " the crying part," if I lift my eyes suddenly, I see
that Prue's eyes are fixed on me with a softer light by reason of their
moisture.
Our cousin the curate loved, while he was yet a boy, Flora, of the
sparkling eyes and the ringing voice. His devotion was absolute. Flora
was flattered, because all the girls, as I said, worshipped him ; but she
was a gay, glancing girl, who had invaded the student's heart with her
audacious brilliancy, and was half surprised that she had subdued it.
Our cousin — for I never think of him as my cousin, only— wasted away
under the fervor of his passion. His life exhaled as incense before her.
He wrote poems to her, and sang them under her window, in the sum-
mer moonlight. He brought her flowers and precious gifts. When he
had nothing else to give, he gave her his love in a homage so eloquent
and beautiful that the worship was like the worship of the wise men.
The gay Flora was proud and superb. She was a girl, and the bravest
and best boy loved her. She was young, and the wisest and truest
youth loved her. TJiey lived together, we all lived together, in the
happy valley of childhood. We looked forward to manhood as island-
poets look across the sea, believing that the whole world beyond is a
blest Araby of spices.
The months went by, and the young love continued. Our cousin and
Flora were only children still, and there was no engagement. The
elders looked upon the intimacy as natural and mutually beneficial. It
would help soften the boy and strengthen the girl ; and they took for
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. jgg
granted that softness and strength were precisely what were wanted. It
is a great pity that men and women forget that they have been children.
Parents are apt to be foreigners to their sons and daughters. Maturity
is the gate of Paradise, which shuts behind us ; and our memories are
gradually weaned from the glories in which our nativity was cradled.
The months went by, the children grew older, and they constantly
loved. Now Prue always smiles at one of my theories ; she is entirely
sceptical of it ; but it is, nevertheless, my opinion, that men love most
passionately, and women most permanently. Men love at first and most
warmly; women love last and longest. This is natural enough; for
nature makes women to be won, and men to win. Men are the active,
positive force, and, therefore, they are more ardent and demonstrative.
I can never get farther than that in my philosophy, when Prue looks
at me, and smiles me into scepticism of my own doctrines. But they
are true, notwithstanding.
My day is rather past for such speculations ; but so long as Aurelia is
unmarried, I am sure I shall indulge myself in them. I have never
made much progress in the philosophy of love; in fact, I can only be
sure of this one cardinal principle, that when you are quite sure two peo-
ple cannot be in love with each other, because there is no earthly reason
why they should be, then you may be very confident that you are
wrong, and that they are in love, for the secret of love is past finding
out. Why our cousin should have loved the gay Flora so ardently was
hard to say ; but that he did so, was not difficult to see.
He went away to college. He wrote the most eloquent and passionate
letters; and when he returned in vacations, he had no eyes, ears, nor
heart for any other being. I rarely saw him, for I was living away from
our early home, and was busy in a store — learning to be book-keeper —
but I heard afterward from himself the whole story.
One day when he came home for the holidays, he found a young
foreigner with Flora — a handsome youth, brilliant and graceful. I have
asked Prue a thousand times why women adore soldiers and foreigners.
She says it is because they love heroism and are romantic. A soldier is
professionally a hero, says Prue, and a foreigner is associated with all
unknown and beautiful regions. I hope there is no worse reason. But
if it be the distance which is romantic, then, by her own rule, the moun-
tain which looked to you so lovely when you saw it upon the horizon,
when you stand upon its rocky and barren side, has transmitted its
romance to its remotest neighbor. I cannot but admire the fancies of
girls which make them poets. They have only to look upon a dull-eyed,
ignorant, exhausted roue, with an impudent moustache, and they sur-
render to Italy, to the tropics, to the splendors of nobility, and a court
life — and —
-, g^ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
"Stop," says Prue, gently ; "you have no right to say 'girls' do so,
because some poor victims have been deluded. Would Aurelia surren-
der to a blear-eyed foreigner in a moustache? "
Prue has such a reasonable way of putting these things !
Our cousin came home and found Flora and the young foreigner con-
versing. The young foreigner had large, soft, black eyes, and the dusky
skin of the tropics. His manner was languid and fascinating, courteous
and reserved. It assumed a natural supremacy, and you felt as if here
were a young prince travelling before he came into possession of his
realm.
It is an old fable that love is blind. But I think there are no eyes so
sharp as those of lovers. I am sure there is not a shade upon Prue's
brow that I do not instantly remark, nor an altered tone in her voice
that I do not instantly observe. Do you suppose Aurelia would not
note the slightest deviation of heart in her lover, if she had one ? Love
is the coldest of critics. To be in love is to live in a crisis, and the very
imminence of uncertainty makes the lover perfectly self-possessed. His
eye constantly scours the horizon. There is no footfall so light that it
does not thunder in his ear. Love is tortured by the tempest the
moment the cloud of a hand's size rises out of the sea. It foretells its
own doom; its agony is past before its sufferings are known.
Our cousin the curate no sooner saw the tropical stranger, and marked
his impression upon Flora, than he felt the end. As the shaft struck his
heart, his smile was sweeter, and his homage even more poetic and rever-
ential. I doubt if Flora understood him or herself. She did not know,
what he instinctively perceived, that she loved him less. But there are
no degrees in love ; when it is less than absolute and supreme, it is
nothing. Our cousin and Flora were not formally engaged, but their
betrothal was understood by all of us as a thing of course. He did not
allude to the stranger; but as day followed day, he saw with every
nerve all that passed. Gradually — so gradually that she scarcely noticed
it — our cousin left Flora more and more with the soft-eyed stranger,
whom he saw she preferred. His treatment of her was so full of tact, he
still walked and talked with her so familiarly, that she was not troubled
by any fear that he saw what she hardly saw herself. Therefore, she was
not obliged to conceal anything from him or from herself ; but all the
soft currents of her heart were setting toward the West Indian. Our
cousin's cheek grew paler, and his soul burned and wasted within him.
His whole future— all his dream of life— had been founded upon his
love. It was a stately palace built upon the sand, and now the sand was
sliding away. I have read somewhere, that love will sacrifice everything
but itself. But our cousin sacrificed his love to the happiness of his
mistress. He ceased to treat her as peculiarly his own. He made no
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. ^gc
claim in word or manner that everybody might not have made. He did
not refrain from seeing her, or speaking of her as of all his other friends ;
and, at length, although no one could say how or when the change had
been made, it was evident and understood that he was no more her lover,
but that both were the best of friends.
He still wrote to her occasionally from college, and his letters were
those of a friend, not of a lover. He could not reproach her. I do not
believe any man is secretly surprised that a woman ceases to love him.
Her love is a heavenly favor won by no desert of his. If it passes, he
can no more complain than a flower when the sunshine leaves it
Before our cousin left college, Flora was married to the tropical
stranger. It was the brightest of June days, and the summer smiled
upon the bride. There were roses in her hand and orange flowers in her
hair, and the village church bell rang out over the peaceful fields. The
warm sunshine lay upon tbe landscape like God's blessing, and Prue and
I, not yet married ourselves, stood at an open window in the old meet-
ing-house, hand in hand, while the young couple spoke their vows.
Prue says that brides are always beautiful, and I, who remember Prue
herself upon her wedding-day — how can I deny it? Truly, the gay
Flora was lovely that summer morning, and the throng was happy in
the old church. But it was very sad to me, although I only suspected
then what now I know. I shed no tears at my own wedding, but I did
at Flora's, although I knew she was marrying a soft-eyed youth whom
she dearly loved, and who, I doubt not, dearly loved her.
Among the group of her nearest friends was our cousin the curate.
When the ceremony was ended, he came to shake her hand with the rest
His face was calm, and his smile sweet, and his manner unconstrained.
Flora did not blush — why should she? — but shook his hand warmly,
and thanked him for his good wishes. Then they all sauntered down
the aisle together ; there were some tears with the smiles ^.mong the
other friends; our cousin handed the bride into her carriage, shook
hands with the husband, closed the door, and Flora drove away.
I have never seen her since; I do not even know if she be living still.
But I shall always remember her as she looked that June morning, hold-
ing roses in her hand, and wreathed with orange flowers. Dear Flora !
it was no fault of hers that she loved one man more than another : she
could not be blamed for not preferring our cousin to the West Indian :
there is no fault in the story, it is only a tragedy.
Our cousin carried all the collegiate honors — but without exciting
jealousy or envy. He was so really the best, that his companions were
anxious he should have the sign of his superiority. He studied hard, he
thought much, and wrote well. There was no evidence of any blight
upon his ambition or career, but after living quietly in the country for
1QR GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
loD
some time, he went to Europe and travelled. When he returned, he
resolved to study law, but presently relinquished it. Then he collected
materials for a history, but suffered them to lie unused. Somehow the
mainspring was gone. He used to come and pass weeks with Prue and
me. His coming made the children happy, for he sat with them, and
talked and played with them all day long, as one of themselves. They
had no quarrels when our cousin the curate was their playmate, and
their laugh was hardly sweeter than his as it rang down from the
nursery. Yet sometimes, as Prue was setting the tea-table, and I sat
musing by the fire, she stopped and turned to me as we heard that sound,
and her eyes filled with tears.
He was interested in all subjects that interested others. His fine per-
ception, his clear sense, his noble imagination, illuminated every ques-
tion. His friends wanted him to go into political life, to write a great
book, to do something worthy of his powers. It was the very thing he
longed to do himself ; but he came and played with the children in the
nursery, and the great deed was undone. Often, in the long winter even-
ings, we talked of the past, while Titbottom sat silent by, and Prue was
busily knitting. He told us the incidents of his early passion — but he
did not moralize about it, nor sigh, nor grow moody. He turned to
Prue, sometimes, and jested gently, and often quoted from the old song
of George Withers, I believe :
' ' If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be ? "
But there was no flippancy in the jesting ; I thought the sweet humor
was no gayer than a flower upon a grava
I am sure Titbottom loved our cousin the curate, for his heart is as
hospitable as the summer heaven. It was beautiful to watch his cour-
tesy toward him, and I do not wonder that Prue considers the deputy
book-keeper the model of a high-bred gentleman. When you see his
poor clothes, and thin, gray hair, his loitering step, and dreamy eye, you
might pass him by as an inefficient man ; but when you hear his voice
always speaking for the noble and generous side, or recounting, in a half-
melancholy chant, the recollections of his youth ; when you know that
his heart beats with the simple emotion of a boy's heart, and that his
courtesy is as delicate as a girl's modesty, you will understand why
Prue declares that she has never seen but one man who reminded her of
our especial favorite, Sir Philip Sidney, and that his name is Titbottom.
At length our cousin went abroad again to Europe. It was many
years ago that we watched him sail away, and when Titbottom, and
Prue, and I, went home to dinner, the grace that was said that day was
a fervent prayer for our cousin the curate. Many an evening afterward,
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. jgf
the children wanted him, and cried themselves to sleep calling upon his
name. Many an evening still, our talk flags into silence as we sit before
the fire, and Prue puts down her knitting and takes my hand, as if she
knew my thoughts, although we do not name his name.
He wrote us letters as he wandered about the world. They were
affectionate letters, full of observation, and thought, and description.
He lingered longest in Italy, but he said his conscience accused him of
yielding to the sirens ; and he declared that his life was running use-
lessly away. At last he came to England. He was charmed with every-
thing, and the climate was even kinder to him than that of Italy. He
went to all the famous places, and saw many of the famous Englishmen,
and wrote that he felt England to be his home. Burying himself in the
ancient gloom of a university town, although past the prime of life, he
studied like an ambitious boy. He said again that his life had been
wine poured upon the ground, and he felt guilty. And so our cousin
became a curate.
EGYPTIAN SERENADE.
SING again the song you sung
When we were together young-
When there were but you and I
Underneath the summer sky.
Sing the song, and o'er and o'er,
Though I know that nevermore
Will it seem the song you sung
When we were together young.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
[From A Eulogy delivered before the Municipal Authorities of Boston, Mass., 18 April,
1884.]
"OHILLIPS stood alone. He was not a Whig nor a Democrat, nor
-JL the graceful panegyrist of an undisputed situation. Both parties
denounced him. He must recruit a new party. Public opinion con-
demned him. He must win public opinion to achieve his purpose. The
tone, the method of the new orator, announced a new spirit. It was not
a heroic story of the last century, nor the contention of contemporary
politics ; it was the unsuspected heroism of a mightier controversy that
1QQ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
loo
breathed and burned in his words. With no party behind him, and
denouncing established order and acknowledged tradition, his speech
was necessarily a popular appeal for a strange and unwelcome cause,
and the condition of its success was that it should both charm and rouse
the hearer, while, under cover of the fascination, the orator unfolded his
argument and urged his plea. This condition the genius of the orator
instinctively perceived, and it determined the character of his discourse.
He faced his audience with a tranquil mien, and a beaming aspect
that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his
quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate
appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy — a
gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely the ear and heart
were charmed. How was it done? — Ah 1 how did Mozart do it, how
Kaphael? The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstasy, of
the sunset's glory — that is the secret of genius and of eloquence. What
was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous
and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with
matchless richness of illustration, with apt allusion, and happy anecdote
and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious
pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor,
the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the
resistless ship. Like an illuminated vase of odors, he glowed with con-
centrated and perfumed fire. The divine energy of his conviction utterly
possessed him, and his
" Pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say his body thought."
Was it Pericles swaying the Athenian multitude? Was it Apollo
breathing the music of the morning from his lips? — No, no ! It was an
American patriot, a modern son of liberty, with a soul as firm and as
true as was ever consecrated to unselfish duty, pleading with the Ameri-
can conscience for the chained and speechless victims of American inhu-
manity. ....
The abolition movement was moral agitation. It was a voice crying
in the wilderness. As an American movement it was reproached for
holding aloof from the American political method. But in the order of
time the moral awakening precedes political action. Politics are founded
in compromise and expediency, and had the abolition leaders paused to
parley with prejudice and interest and personal ambition, in order to
smooth and conciliate and persuade, their duty would have been undone.
When the alarm-bell at night has brought the aroused citizens to the
street, they will organize their action. But the ringer of the bell betrays
his trust when he ceases to startle. To vote was to acknowledge the
1835-60J GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. -ji gg
Constitution. To acknowledge the Constitution was to offer a premium
upon slavery by granting more political power for every slave. It was
to own an obligation to return innocent men to unspeakable degradation,
and to shoot them down if, with a thousandfold greater reason than our
fathers, they resisted oppression. Could Americans do this? Could
honest men do this? Could a great country do this, and not learn,
sooner or later, by ghastly experience, the truth which George Mason
proclaimed — that Providence punishes national sins by national calami-
ties ? The Union, said Wendell Phillips, with a calmness that enchanted
while it appalled — the Union is called the very ark of the American cov-
enant; but has not idolatry of the Union been the chief bulwark of
slavery, and in the words and deeds and spirit of the most vehement
" Union saviours " who denounce agitation, can any hope of emancipa-
tion be descried ? If, then, under the sacred charter of the Union,
Slavery has grown to this stupendous height, throwing the shadow of
death over the land, is not the Union as it exists the foe of Liberty, and
can we honestly affirm that it is the sole surviving hope of freedom in
the world? Long ago the great leaders of our parties hushed their
voices, and whispered that even to speak of slavery was to endanger the
Union. Is not this enough ? Sons of Otis and of A^ams, of Franklin
and of Jay, are we ready for union upon the ruins of freedom ? Delenda
Carthago! Delenda Carthago! . » . .
Doubtless his friends, who knew that well-spring of sweet waters, his
heart, and who, like him, were sealed to the service of emancipation,
sometimes grieved and recoiled amazed from his terrible arraignment.
He knew the penalty of his course. He paid it cheerfully. But history
will record that the orator who, in that supreme exigency of liberty,
pitilessly whipped by name the aiders and abettors of the crime against
humanity, made such complicity in every intelligent community infi-
nitely more arduous, and so served mankind, public virtue, and the State.
But more than this. The avowed and open opponents of the anti-
slavery agitation could not justly complain of his relentless pursuit.
From them he received the blows that in turn he did not spare. But
others, his friends, soldiers of the same army, although in other divisions
and upon a different route, marching against the same foe— did they, too,
feel those shafts of fire? How many a Massachusetts man, whose name
the commonwealth will canonize with his, loyal with his own fidelity to
the common cause, he sometimes taunted as recreant and scourged as
laggard ! How many leaders in other States, statesmen beloved and
revered, who in other ways than his fought the battle of liberty with
firmness in the right, as God gave them to see the right, and who live in
national gratitude and among the great in history forevermore, did ]
those dauntless lips seem sometimes cruelly to malign ! " Blame not
.. p^ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. [1835-60
this plainness of speech," he said ; " I have a hundred friends, as brave
souls as God ever made, whose hearths are not as safe after honored men
make such speeches." He knew that his ruthless words closed to him
homes of friendship and hearts of sympathy. He saw the amazement,
he heard the condemnation ; but, like the great apostle preaching Christ,
he knew only Humanity, and Humanity crucified. Tongue of the
dumb, eyes of the blind, feet of the lame, his voice alone, among the
voices that were everywhere heard and heeded, was sent by God to
challenge every word or look or deed that seemed to him possibly to
palliate oppression or to comfort the oppressor. Divinely commissioned,
he was not, indeed, to do injustice ; but the human heart is very patient
with the hero who, in his strenuous and sublime conflict, if sometimes he
does not clearly see and sometimes harshly judges, yet, in all his unspar-
ing assault, deals never a blow of malice nor of envy nor of personal
gratification — the warrior who grasps at no prizes for which others strive,
and whose unselfish peace no laurels of Miltiades disturb.
But his judgment, always profoundly sincere, was it not sometimes
profoundly mistaken ? No nobler friend of freedom and of man than
Wendell Phillips ever breathed upon this continent, and no man's ser-
vice to freedom surpasses his. But before the war he demanded peace-
ful disunion — yet it was the Union in arms that saved Liberty. During
the war he would have superseded Lincoln — but it was Lincoln who
freed the slaves. He pleaded for Ireland, tortured by centuries of mis-
rule— and while every generous heart followed with sympathy the pathos
and the power of his appeal, the just mind recoiled from the sharp
arraignment of the truest friends in England that Ireland ever had. I
know it all ; but I know also, and history will remember, that the slave
Union which he denounced is dissolved ; that it was the heart and con-
science of the nation, exalted by his moral appeal of agitation, as well as
by the enthusiasm of patriotic war, which held up the hands of Lincoln,
and upon which Lincoln leaned in emancipating the slaves; and that
only by indignant and aggressive appeals like his has the heart of Eng-
land ever opened to Irish wrong. . . .. .-
I am not here to declare that the judgment of "Wendell Phillips was
always sound, nor his estimate of men always just, nor his policy always
approved by the event. He would have scorned such praise. I am not
here to eulogize the mortal, but the immortal. He, too, was a great
American patriot ; and no American life— no, not one — offers to future
generations of his countrymen a more priceless example of inflexible
fidelity to conscience and to public duty ; and no American more truly
than he purged the national name of its shame, and made the American
flag the flag of hope for mankind.
Among her noblest children his native city will cherish him, and
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
191
gratefully recall the unbending Puritan soul that dwelt in a form so
gracious and urbane. The plain house in which he lived — severely
plain, because the welfare of the suffering and the slave were preferred
to book and picture and every fair device of art ; the house to which the
North Star led the trembling fugitive, and which the unfortunate and
the friendless knew ; the radiant figure passing swiftly through these
streets, plain as the house from which it came, regal with a royalty
beyond that of kings ; the ceaseless charity untold ; the strong, sustain-
ing heart of private friendship ; the sacred domestic affection that must
not here be named ; the eloquence which, like the song of Orpheus, will
fade from living memory into a doubtful tale ; that great scene of his
youth in Faneuil Hall ; the surrender of ambition ; the mighty agitation
and the mighty triumph with which his name is forever blended ; the
consecration of a life hidden with God in sympathy with man — these, all
these, will live among your immortal traditions, heroic even in your
heroic story. But not yours alone. As years go by, and only the large
outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide
republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly own
that if with perfect faith, and hope assured, America would still stand
and "bid the distant generations hail," the inspiration of her national
life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing humanity, the
spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish devotion of great powers to
great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell Phillips.
EBB AND FLOW.
I WALKED beside the evening sea,
And dreamed a dream that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore
Said only— " Dreamer, dream no more! "
But still the legions charged the beach ;
Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech ;
But changed was the imperial strain:
It murmured — " Dreamer, dream again! "
I homeward turned from out the gloom, —
That sound I heard not in my room ;
But suddenly a sound, that stirred
Within my very breast, I heard.
It was my heart, that like a sea
Within my breast beat ceaselessly :
But like the waves along the shore,
jt sai(} "Dream oil! " and " Dream no more!
192
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. [1835-60
JLelanD*
BORN in Philadelphia, Perm., 1824.
THE TWO FRIENDS.
[The Music Lesson of Confucius, and Other Poems. 1872.]
I HAVE two friends— two glorious friends— two better could not be,
And every night when midnight tolls they meet to laugh with me.
The first was shot by Carlist thieves— ten years ago in Spain.
The second drowned near Alicante — while I alive remain.
I love to see their dim white forms come floating through the night,
And grieve to see them fade away in early morning light.
The first with gnomes in the Tinder Land is leading a lordly life,
The second has married a mer-rnaiden, a beautiful 'water-wife.
And since I have friends in the Earth and Sea — with a few, I trust, on high,
'Tis a matter of small account to me — the way that I may die.
For whether I sink in the foaming flood, or swing on the triple tree,
Or die in my bed, as a Christian should, is all the same to me.
AT EASE WITH THE ROMANYS.
[The Gypsies. 1882.]
THE American gypsies do not beg, like their English brothers, and
particularly their English sisters. This fact speaks volumes for
their greater prosperity and for the influence which association with a
proud race has on the poorest people. Our friends at Oaklands always
welcomed us as guests. On another occasion when we went there, I
said to my niece, " If we find strangers who do not know us, do not
speak at first in Eomany. Let us astonish them." We came to a tent,
before which sat a very dark, old-fashioned gypsy woman. I paused
before her, and said in English :
" Can you tell a fortune for a young lady ? "
" She don't want her fortune told," replied the old woman suspiciously
and cautiously, or it may be with a view of drawing us on ; " No, I can't
tell fortunes."
1835-60] CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
193
At this the young lady was so astonished that, without thinking of
what she was saying, or in what language, she cried :
" Dordi! Can't tute pen dukkerin? " (Look! Can't you tell fortunes?)
This unaffected outburst had a greater effect than the most deeply
studied theatrical situation could have brought about. The old dame
stared at me and at the lady as if bewildered, and cried :
" In the name of God, what kind of gypsies are you? "
" Oh ! mendui shorn bori chovihani! " cried L., laughing ; " we are a great
witch and a wizard, and if you can't tell me my fortune, I'll tell yours.
Hold out your hand, and cross mine with a dollar, and I'll tell you as
big a lie as you ever penned a galderli Gorgio (a green Gentile)."
" Well," exclaimed the gypsy, " I'll believe that you can tell fortunes
or do anything! Dordi! dordi! but this is wonderful. Yet you're not
the first Romany rani (lady) I ever met. There's one in Delaware : a
boridiri (very great) lady she is, and true Roman v, — -flick o the jib te rin-
Tceni adosta (quick of tongue and fair of face). Well, I am glad to see
you."
"Who is that talking there?" cried a man's voice from within the
tent. He had heard Romany, and he spoke it, and came out expecting
to see familiar faces. His own was a study, as his glance encountered
mine. As soon as he understood that I came as a friend, he gave way
to infinite joy, mingled with sincerest grief that he had not at hand the
means of displaying hospitality to such distinguished Romanys as we
evidently were. He bewailed the absence of strong drink. Would we
have some tea made? Would I accompany him to the next tavern, and
have some beer? All at once a happy thought struck him. He went
into the tent and brought out a piece of tobacco, which I was compelled
to accept Refusal would have been unkind, for it was given from the
very heart. George Borrow tells us that, in Spain, a poor gypsy once
brought him a pomegranate as a first acquaintanceship token. A gypsy
is a gypsy wherever you find him.
These were very nice people. The old dame took a great liking to L.,
and showed it in pleasant manners. The couple were both English, and
liked to talk with me of the old country and the many mutual friends
whom we had left behind. On another visit, L. brought a scarlet silk
handkerchief, which she had bound round her head and tied under her
chin in a very gypsy manner. It excited, as I anticipated, great admi-
ration from "the old dame.
11 Ah kennd tute dikks rinkeni—now you look nice. That's the way a
Romany lady ought to wear it ! Don't she look just as Alfi used to
look? " she cried to her husband. "Just such eyes and hair! "
Here L. took off the diklo, or handkerchief, and passed it round the
gypsy woman's head, and tied it under her chin, saying :
194
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. [1835-60
" I am sure it becomes you much more than it does me. Now you
look nice :
" ' Red and yellow for Romany,
And blue and pink for the Gorgiee.'"
We rose to depart; the old dame offered back to L. her handkerchief,
and, on being told to keep it, was greatly pleased. I saw that the way
in which it was given had won her heart.
" Did you hear what the old woman said while she was telling your
fortune? " asked L., after we had left the tent.
" Now I think of it, I remember that she or you had hold of my
hand, while I was talking with the old man, and he was making merry
with my whiskey. I was turned away, and around so that I never
noticed what you two were saying."
" She penned your dukkerin, and it was wonderful. She said that she
must tell it."
And here L. told me what the old dye had insisted on reading in
my hand. It was simply very remarkable, and embraced an apparent
knowledge of the past, which would make any credulous person believe
in her happy predictions of the future.
"Ah, well," I said, "I suppose the dulck told it to her. She may
be an eye-reader. A hint dropped here and there, unconsciously, the
expression of the face, and a life's practice will make anybody a witch.
And if there ever was a witch's eye, she has it."
" I would like to have her picture," said L., " in that lullo diklo (red
handkerchief). She looked like all the sorceresses of Thessaly and
Egypt in one, and, as Bulwer says of the Witch of Vesuvius, was all
the more terrible for having been beautiful."
Some time after this we went with Britannia Lee, a-gypsying, not
figuratively, but literally, over the river into New Jersey. And our
first greeting, as we touched the ground, was of good omen, and from a
great man, for it was Walt Whitman. It is not often that even a poet
meets with three sincerer admirers than the venerable bard encountered
on this occasion ; so, of course, we stopped and talked, and L. had the
pleasure of being the first to communicate to Bon Gaultier certain pleas-
ant things which had recently been printed of him by a distinguished
English author, which is always an agreeable task. Blessed upon the
mountains, or at the Oamden ferry-boat, or anywhere, are the feet of
anybody who bringeth glad tidings.
"Well, are you going to see gypsies? "
" We are. We three gypsies be. By the abattoir. Au revoir"
And on we went to the place where I had first found gypsies in
America. All was at first so still that it seemed as if no one could be
camped in the spot.
1835-60] CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. JQK
"/Sfe kekno adoi." (There's nobody there.)
" Dordif " cried Britannia, " Dikkava meo tuv te tan te wardo. (I see a
smoke, a tent, a wagon.) I declare, it is m v puro pal, my old friend, W."
And we drew near the tent and greeted its owner, who was equally
.astonished and delighted at seeing such distinguished Romany tdni
ranis, or gypsy young ladies, and brought forth his wife and three really
beautiful children to do the honors. W. was a good specimen of an
American-born gypsy, strong, healthy, clean, and temperate, none the
-worse for wear in out-of-dooring, through tropical summers and terri-
ble winters. Like all American Romanys, he was more straightfor-
ward than most of his race in Europe. All Romanys are polite, but
many of the European kind are most uncomfortably and unconsciously
naive. . ••. ' '.
" I shall never forget the first day you came to my camp," said W. to
Britannia. " Ah, you astonished me then. You might have knocked
me down with a feather. And I didn't know what to say. You came
in a carriage with two other ladies. And you jumped out first, and
walked up to me, and cried, 'Sashan!1 That stunned me, but I
answered, ' Sdshdn.'1 Then I didn't speak Romanes to you, for I didn't
know but what you kept it a secret from the other two ladies, and I
didn't wish to betray you. And when you began to talk it as deep as
any old Romany I ever heard, and pronounced it so rich and beautiful,
I thought I'd never heard the like. I thought you must be a witch."
" Awer me shorn chovihani" (but I am a witch), cried the lady.
" Afukka men j'd adre o tan." (Let us go into the tent.) So we entered,
and sat round the fire, and asked news of all the wanderers of the roads,
and the young ladies, having filled their pockets with sweets, produced
them for the children, and we were as much at home as we had ever
been in any salon ; for it was a familiar scene to us all, though it would,
perhaps, have been a strange one to the reader, had he by chance, walk-
ing that lonely way in the twilight, looked into the tent and asked his
way, and there found two young ladies — bten mises — with their escort,
all very much at their ease, and talking Romany as if they bad never
known any other tongue from the cradle.
"What is the charm of all this?" It is that if one has a soul, and
does not live entirelv reflected from the little thoughts and little ways of
a thousand other little people, it is well to have at all times in his
heart some strong hold of nature. No matter how much we may be
lost in society, dinners, balls, business, we should never forget that
there is an eternal sky with stars over it all, a vast, mysterious earth
with terrible secrets beneath us, seas, mountains, rivers, and forests away
and around ; and that it is from these and what is theirs, and not from
gas-lit, stifling follies, that all strength and true beauty must come. To
jgg CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. [1835-60
this life, odd as he is, the gypsy belongs, and to be sometimes at home
with him by wood and wold takes us for a time from " the world." If I
express myself vaguely and imperfectly, it is only to those who know
not the charm of nature, its ineffable soothing sympathy — its life, its
love. Gvpsies, like children, feel this enchantment as the older grown
do not. To them it is a song without words ; would they be happier if
the world brought them to know it as words without song, without
music or melody? I never read a right old English ballad of sumere
when the leaves are grene or the not-broune maid, with its rustling as of
sprays quivering to the song of the wode-wale, without thinking or feel-
ing deeply how those who wrote them would have been bound to the
Romany. It is ridiculous to say that gypsies are not " educated " to
nature and art, when, in fact, they live it. I sometimes suspect that
aesthetic culture takes more true love of nature out of the soul than it
inspires. One would not say anything of a wild bird or deer being
deficient in a sense of that beauty of which it is a part. There are infi-
nite grades, kinds, or varieties of feeling of nature, and every man is
perfectly satisfied that his is the true one. For my own part, I am not
sure that a rabbit, in the dewy grass, does not feel the beauty of nature
quite as much as Mr. Buskin, and much more than I do.
HANS BEEITMANN'S BARTY.
[Written 1868.— Hans Breitmanri's Ballads. 1871.]
TITANS BREITMANN gife a Barty,
-•— *- Dey had biano-blayin ;
I felled in lofe mit a Merican Frau,
Her name vas Madilda Yane.
She hot Haar as prown ash a pretzel,
Her eyes vas Himmel-plue,
Und ven dey looket indo mein,
Dey shplit mine Heart in dwo.
Hans Breitmann gife a Barty,
I vent dere you'll pe pound !
I valtzet mit Madilda Yane
Und vent shpinnen round und round.
De pooticst Fraulein in de Haus
(She vayed 'pout dwo hoondert pound),
Uud afery dime she gife a yoomp
She makt de vindows sound !
Hans Breitmann gife a Barty,
I dells you, it cost him dear ;
1835-60] SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX.
Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks
Of foost-rate Lager Bier.
Und venefer dey knocks de shpicket in
De Deutschers gifes a sheer.
I dink dat so vine a Barty
Nefer cum to a het dis year.
Hans Breitmann gife a Barty;
Dere all vas Saus und Braus ;
Ven de sooper corned in, de gompany
Did mach deinselfs to Haus ;
Dey ate das Brod und Gensybrust,
De Bratwurst und Braten fein,
Und vash das Abendesseu down
Mit four barrels of Neckarwein.
Hans Breitmann gife a Barty;
We all cot troonk ash bigs.
I set my Mund to a Fass of Bier
Und empdy it oop — mit a schwigs.
Uncl denn I kisst Madilda Yane,
Und she shlog me on de Kop,
Und de gompany fited mit daple-lecks
Dill de cooushtaple made oos shtop.
Hans Breitmann gife a Barty —
Wo ist dot Barty now ?
Wo ist de lofely golden cloud
Dot float on de moundain's prow ?
Wo ist de Himmelstrahlende Stern —
De shtar of de shpirit's Light ?
All goned afay mit de Lager Bier,
Afay — in de Ewigkeit!
Author's latest revision. 1888.
BORN in Zanesville, Ohio, 1834.
IN THE STREETS OF PERA.
[Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey. 1887. J
WHAT with the Maltese goats, who go tinkling by to their pastur-
age, each " with two fair crescents of translucent horn " ; what
with the vocal seller of bread in the early morning ; the mournful cry of
the milkman, which wakes you all too early, and, sad to say, wakes the
SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX. [1835-60
dogs of your neighborhood ; the snail-seller, who howls out in some ter-
rible jargon that he has fat, juicy snails, all alive and kicking; and that
other genius who peals the Turkish words for vegetables from morning
until night — these sounds are only to be heard in all their multifarious
howling in Pera. I except one vegetable from my denunciation. What
is there about asparagus that makes one kindly disposed toward its
raiser and seller? Ah! I have it: his cry, as it is interpreted to me
from the Turkish words, is :
"Little lambs, home raised, just from their milk; little lambs! "
You do not see any little lambs in his basket, neither alive nor dead.
No ; the lambs are the asparagus heads. They are plucked out of the
very mud of the walls that once defended Constantinople through its
historic crises. Why does he call them home-grown ? Because they
have not come from a distance, and therefore they are fresh ! Another
man cries :
"Here are the true sucking-lambs."
He is an artichoke-seller. Was there ever anything so Oriental?
Why does he call his vegetables lambs ? Is it a sign of the early his-
tory of this Ottoman shepherd race ? No : lamb is the choicest term of
endearment among the Orientals. Our Bible shows this. If you should
go so far as to have an affectionate word with a hanoum, she would call
you a lamb, if you did not anticipate her.
Along comes a man with a bundle of green weeds of some kind.
What does he say ?
" Birds don't light on it ; birds don't light on it."
I ask, in my simplicity, Why does he thus advertise this ornitholo-
gical fact ? Birds don't light — on what ?
Oh, he too is selling asparagus! The name suggests such a fairyr
delicate leaf of green sprays, that the tiniest bird would break it down if
it should alight upon its little stalk. This is a part of the vendible
poetry of every-day life in Pera. ....
The butchers have something to do with enlivening the city. They
have their peculiar noises. They go through the streets dangling their
meats on long poles, which they carry upon their shoulders. They
awake the carnivorous rapacity of the dogs. I arise early, sometimes,
and look out of my window on a vacant plaza. I see the butcher bear-
ing his pole covered with lights and livers. I am familiar with the
canine prefecturate, or king-dog, of my neighborhood ; for he frequently
wraps himself affectionately around my legs. That dog is hungry
this morning; it is dawn, and he has light enough to go for a liver.
The tawny, cunning brute arouses his tribe. He moves quietly and
indifferently. What does he care for the butcher or the liver! He
carelessly stands on a little mound of dirt under our hotel window, so as-
1835-60] SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX. -JQQ
to make a closer inspection as the butcher goes by. He sniffs the mor-
sels. A drop of blood falls upon his cold nose. Now who, if he were a
dog, could resist such a temptation? He forgets his loyalty to royalty.
He is an enemy— a belligerent. His dignity descends ; but he ascends.
In one irrepressible moment he strips from the pole a sheep's liver. It
is a game of polo ; but two play at it. In vain the butcher goes to the
rescue of his liver. Still, he believes in Kismet? He does not even
swear. I nearly did, from my tower of observation. The butcher is
bankrupt. The dog and his followers are his assignees. They have the
whole concern. The members of the canine community lick their chops,
after a contented meal. There was no battle that morning. The dogs
in the neighborhood slept well. They even allowed several strange pup-
pies to stray within their autonomous boundaries and to retire unscathed.
Generally speaking, the dogs which stray around the butcher-shops
restrain their appetites. There is a dainty dish which you will see in all
the restaurants of Constantinople, where the furnaces for cooking pro-
trude almost upon the narrow street, and the fire flushes and warms
your face day and night as you go by. This dainty dish is called
" kebab." It consists of morsels of mutton with the fat on them. They
are pierced with a skewer and roasted hot. They are due on demand,
and never protested. It is a succulent dish. It is eaten off the skewer
hot, in the dining-saloon or on the street. It constitutes a great tempta-
tion to the tawny quadruped of the quarter. He seems to be a part pro-
prietor of the establishment, by the interest which he takes in its cook-
ing. From the time the kebab is placed upon the spit, until consumed
by the customer, the dog never takes his eyes off of it. He has the
opportunity, after waiting all day — the dog, I mean, not the customer —
of picking up, many a stray bit of kebab. The kebab is generally
served with a large, flappy, round unleavened cake, and pepper, salt, and
herbs. It looks like a tempting dish, except this, that it is too greasy.
"Put these on the spit and roast them like kebabs." This was said by
a famous Aga of the Janizaries when he ordered the impalement and
roasting of some succulent Bulgarians, whom he dearly loved — I sup-
pose.
JOHN OILMART SHEA. [1835-60
BOKN in New York, N. Y., 1824.
A SPANISH-AMERICAN EPIC.
[The First Epic of our Country. 1886.]
OTJE historians do not quote historical ballads in serious history. In
Spanish literature it is different. There the narrative poem has
always held a recognized position, and works of greater or less merit
have come down to us, some maintaining to this day their early reputa-
tion. A melodious language easily lent itself to poetical numbers ; the
long struggle with the Moors called forth all knightly traits and exalted
ideas, perhaps often to an extravagant point. The soldier, like Man-
rique, solaced his hours of inaction by chanting in verse the deeds of his
ancestors or his commander. When the New World opened to the war-
riors of the peninsula a wide untrodden field for high emprise, strange
in all its natural features, its inhabitants, its grandeur, where all was
redolent of romance, the Spanish knight came with lyre and lance.
Narrative poems were written in many forms, and under every possible
circumstance. Some were perpetuated by the press, but an immense
number still remain in manuscript, and are known to few but the
literary or historic antiquarian. The highest of the poems, the only
one recognized as a classic, is the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla y
Zufiiga, the work of an officer who recounted in metre the wars of the
Spaniards against the unconquerable Indians of southern Chili, a theme
which inspired also the Arauca Dornado of Pedro de Ona, printed at
Lima in 1596, and the Puren Indomito of Alvarez de Toledo, printed
only in our day, but cited as an authority by historians of Chili more
than two hundred and fifty years ago.
Spain thus brought to the New World her soldier narrative poets,
whose rhymed chronicles the historian cannot overlook or despise,
though his literary brother may treat them with scant courtesy.
Although only our southern frontier was embraced in the Spanish
territory, it has its historic poems. I have seen one in print on the over-
throw of the French in Florida by Menendez, probably sung as a ballad
in the streets of Spanish cities ; another of great length, but unpublished
as yet, on the capture of Bishop Altamirano by a French pirate, his ran-
som and the overthrow of the Corsair; a curious poem of the last century
on the seizure of Bishop Morel, at Havanna, by Lord Albemarle, and
his deportation to Florida. But of all, the most curious and by far the
most important is the little volume I hold in my hand :
1835-60] JOHN GILMART SHEA. 9()1
" Historia de la Nueva Mexico. Poema Epico del Capitan Gaspar de
Yillagnl En Alcala de Henares, por Luis Martinez Grade, 1610."—
" The History of New Mexico. An Epic Poem by Captain Gaspar de
Villagra, Published at Alcala de Henares, by Luis Martinez Grade
1610."
Written and printed before Henry Hudson had made widely known
our beautiful harbor as it appeared to his eyes ; before the self-exiled
Separatists in Holland had formed any project of settling in America,
this little work stands in the collection of New Mexico books between
the Koman Eelation of Montoya, 1603, and the Memorial of Benavides
1630.
It is a poem in thirty-four cantos, covering, independent of the prelim-
inary matter, two hundred and eighty-seven leaves. We cannot claim
for it brilliant invention, rich poetical description, or ingenious fancy;
for one of the censors of the work, Master Espinel, while admitting the
correctness of the rhythm, yet, with almost brutal frankness, tells the
plain, unvarnished truth on this score.
" The History of New Mexico, an heroic poem by Captain Gasper de
Villagra, contains nothing against faith and morals, it rather exalts and
elevates it, to behold such a number of souls brought to Catholic truth,
and the crown of Spain, with such immense toil by our Spanish race.
The verse is correct (numeroso — like Pope 'he lisped in numbers'), and
although devoid of inventions and the flowers of poesy (from its being a
consecutive and true history), the variety of such new and extraordinary
events will please and inspire people of all conditions — some to imitate,
others to esteem them, and therefore it is good that it should go into the
hands of all. Madrid, December 9, 1609."
But though the censor thus cruelly disappoints us at the outset, the
nine odes and sonnets to the author and to the commander of the expedi-
tion, including one addressed in their name to the king, show more poeti-
cal invention and richness ; even Espinel there pays compliments in
verse which he avoids in prose, extolling alike the prowess and the
poetry of our Captain.
The poem is dedicated to the king, and addresses him throughout ;
and his Majesty, in the license, styles it "a work which cost you much
labor and care, both from having fought and served us in the discovery,
pacification, and settlement of said New Mexico, the history whereof you
treat, as well as for reducing it to a veritable history, as you have
done."
If, then, we cannot claim for Yillagra's poem a rank among the
classics, it is nevertheless worth study as a poem written here at such an
early period, on events in which the author took part. It is devoted
entirely to an American theme. This would in itself be enough to
202 JOHN GILMART SHEA. [1835-60
invest Villagra s poem with interest to any one given to literary research.
But as an historical work it possesses remarkable value. The harmoni-
ous prose of some writers— like Froude, for example— treats historical
facts with greater poetical license than Villagra allowed himself; and
while the muse of Froude prompts him to garble documents to ensure
poetic effect, our Spanish poet breaks off at times to give us an impor-
tant document in solid prose. He does not make any sacrifices to the
exigency of verse, and apparently suppresses no name, differing in this
from the French poet Thomas, who wrote the poem " Jumonville," in
which Washington plays the part of arch-fiend. The whole poem turns
on his iniquity and its merited retribution ; but as Washington's name
defied the poet's ability to introduce it into French verse, it never once
occurs in the whole poem.
Villagra's poem is all the more important as an historical document,
because it is the only one that covers the whole career of Don Juan de
Onate from the first project of the conquest of New Mexico down to the
revolt of the pueblo of Acoma, and the final reduction and destruction
of that city on the beetling crag. It is the only key to the early history
of New Mexico. Documents of great value have been printed in Mexico
and Spain ; books were printed at an early day containing important
matter relating to that curious cluster of Pueblo Indians before and after
the Spanish conquest ; but a student finds himself groping blindly in his
endeavor to trace the series of events till he reads the poem of Villagra.
Any one who has read the accounts of the conquest of New Mexico,
by Onate, either in works especially devoted to that territory, like those
of Davis or Prince, or works in which the subject is treated incidentally,
must have seen that these writers flounder in a most extraordinary man-
ner as to the very date of Onate's expedition, and betray complete igno-
rance as to its earlier stages. They leave you in a delightful mist of
uncertainty whether the Spanish commander set out in 1591, or in some
year between that and the last year of the century. Yet here was a
work in print, not one of the highest rarity, written by one of the very
conquistadors of New Mexico, an officer who served in the expedition
and proved himself a gallant man at arms — a work in which he gives,
with exact particularity, dates of events, names of officers, priests, and
soldiers, names of Indian chiefs and places, till the verse reminds one of
the second book of the "Iliad," or passages in Shakespeare's historical
plays. It may not be poetry, but we may thank the poet for his poem.
1835-60] ADELINE DUTTON TRAIN WHITNEY. 203
feline Button Ctatn
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1824.
SUNLIGHT AND STARLIGHT.
[Pansies. 1872.]
/^ OD sets some souls in shade, alone ;
^* They have no daylight of their own :
Only in lives of happier ones
They see the shine of distant suns.
God knows. Content thee with thy night,
Thy greater heaven hath grander light.
To-day is close ; the hours are small ;
Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all.
Lose the less joy that doth but blind;
Reach forth a larger bliss to find.
To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres
Rain raptures of a thousand years.
A VIOLET.
/""^ OD does not send us strange flowers every year,
^-^ When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places,
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces.
The violet is here.
It all comes back : the odor, grace, and hue ;
Each sweet relation of its life repeated ;
No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated;
It is the thing we knew.
So after the death-winter it must be.
God will not put strange signs in the heavenly places:
The old love shall look out from the old faces.
Veilchen! I shall have thee!
ALEXANDER W1NCHELL. [1835-60
BORN in North East, Dutchess Co., N. Y., 1834.
THE MAMMOTH.
[Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer. 1881.]
IT is the extinct Siberian elephant which has given us the word
"mammoth." It comes from the Eussian mamant, a name applied
by the native tribes to a huge beast supposed to burrow underground,
and to perish whenever by chance it becomes exposed to the light.
Some, however, think it is derived from the Hebrew behemoth.
It is impossible to refrain from speculating on the nature of the events
which resulted in the burial of entire mammoths in glacier ice. That
the climate in which they had lived was not tropical, like that of Africa
or India, may be regarded as proved by the presence of the fur in which
these animals were clothed. That it was not similar to the existing cli-
mate of northern Siberia is apparent from the consideration that such a
climate would not yield the requisite supply of vegetation to sustain
their existence. More especially would forest vegetation be wanting,
which seems to have been designed as the main reliance for proboscidians.
Northern Siberia must, therefore, have possessed a temperate climate.
If the change to an arctic climate had been gradual, the herds of mam-
moths would probably have slowly migrated southward ; or, if no actual
migration occurred, the extinction of the mammoth population would
have been distributed over many years, and the destruction of individ-
uals would have taken place at temperatures which were still insuffi-
ciently rigorous to preserve their carcasses for a hundred ages. Whole
herds of mammoths must have been overwhelmed by a sudden invasion
of arctic weather. Some secular change produced an unprecedented
precipitation of snow. We may imagine elephantine communities hud-
dled together in the sheltering valleys and in the deep defiles of the riv-
ers, where, on previous occasions, they had found that protection which
carried them safely through wintry storms. But now the snow-fall
found no pause. Like cattle overwhelmed in the gorges of Montana, the
mammoths were rapidly buried. By precipitation and by drifting, fifty
feet of snow, perhaps, accumulated above them. They must perish ; and
with the sudden change in the climate, their shroud of snow would
remain wrapped about them through all the mildness of the ensuing
summer. The fleecy snow would become granular ; it would be neve or
firn, as in the glacier sources of the Alps. It would finally become solid
ice, — compact, clear, and sea-green in its limpid depths. It would be a
1835-60] ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
205
glacier ; and so it would travel down the gorges, down the valleys toward
the frozen ocean, sweeping buried mammoths bodily in its resistless
stream. Thus, in the course of ages, their mummied forms would reach
a latitude more northern than that in which they had been inhumed.
It may even have been the case that living mammoths lingered in the
country which had witnessed the snowy burial of herds of their fellows.
Some must have escaped the first great snow-deluge, and there must
have been a return of sunny days, during which they could seek to
resuscitate their famished bodies ; and spring must have come back at
last, and another hope-inspiring summer — cheering, but short and illu-
sory. And if a secular pause in the severity of the climate ensued, a
few survivors may have lingered for many years. But winter, dire and
permanent, was on the march, and the record which it has left declares
that the mammoth population struggled in vain against the despotism of
frost, and that the empire which was set up has crumbled only under
the attacks of many thousand summers. . ^ . • A
Geological evidences of a great and somewhat sudden change of cli-
mate throughout the north temperate zone, in times geologically recent,
are too familiar to require more than a mere mention. The greater part
of Europe, and all America, to the latitude of 36°, were once buried
beneath sheets of glacier ice. In Europe we have the evidence of the
presence of man while the continental glaciers were flooding the rivers
of France by their rapid dissolution. At the same time the mammoth
was there. While thousands of his fellow-mammoths were lying frozen
and stark in the icy cemeteries of the north, a few of the giants of a for-
mer age had chanced to dwell in latitudes which perpetual snow had not
invaded. These were a part of the game which the primeval inhabitants
of Europe pursued. Of his ivory they made handles for their imple-
ments and weapons. On his ivory they etched figures of the maned and
shaggy proboscidian, of which neither history nor tradition has pre-
served the memory. The bones and teeth of the mammoth are strewed
through all the cavern homes and sequestered haunts of the oldest tribes
who hunted and fought upon the plains and along the valleys of Europe.
The reader will irresistibly inquire, "How many years have elapsed
since Siberian elephants were encased in ice? How many since their
survivors thundered through the forests of England and central Europe
before the chase of the human hunter? To answer these questions we
must ascertain the remoteness of the epochs of continental glaciation,
and of the disappearance of the continental glaciers. These are unsolved (
problems in science. ....
The present writer is of the opinion that the geological events which
have taken place since the epoch of general glaciation do not demand
over ten thousand years ; and he inclines to think that the pluvial epoch
20fi WILLIAM COWPER PRIME. [1835-60
of western Europe may correspond with those cataclysms of Europe and
Western Asia known as the deluges of Ogyges, Deucalion, Noah, and
perhaps of the Great Yu in China.
BOKN in Cambridge, Washington Co., N. Y., 1825.
EVENING ON POLLANSBEE.
[/ Go A-Fishing. 1873.]
THE day had died most gloriously. The "sword of the sun," that
had lain across the forest, was withdrawn and sheathed. There
was a stillness on land and water and in the sky that seemed like the
presence of an invisible majesty. Eastward, the lofty pine trees rested
their green tops in an atmosphere whose massive blue seemed to sustain
and support them. Westward, the rosy tints along the horizon deepened
into crimson around the base of the St. Regis, and faded into black
toward the north.
No sign of life, human or inhuman, was anywhere visible or audible,
except within the little boat where we two floated ; and peace, that peace
that reigns where no man is — that peace that never dwells in the abodes
of men — here held silent and omnipotent sway.
But a change was coming. The first premonition of it was a sound in
the tree-tops — that sighing, soughing of the pines which you have so often
heard. At all times and places it is a strange and a melancholy sound,
but nowhere so much so as in the deep forest. It is at first a heavy, dis-
tant breath, like the deep respiration, or rather the expiration of many
weary men — nay, rather of women, for it is gentle and low. But it
rises into the sound of a great grief, the utterance of innumerable sighs ;
and now sobs interrupt it, and low wails of single sorrow that have no
comparison with other woe, and that will not be appeased by any sym-
pathies.
But while I listened to the wind in the pine trees, the gloom had
increased, and a ripple came stealing over the water. There was a flap-
ping of one of the lily pads as the first waves struck them ; and then, as
the breeze passed over us, I threw two flies on the black ripple. There
was a swift rush — a sharp dash and plunge in the water. Both were
struck at the instant, and then I had work before me that forbade my
listening to the voices of the pines. It took five minutes to kill my fish
1835-60] WILLIAM COWPER PRIME.
207
— two splendid specimens, weighing each a little less than two pounds.
Meantime the rip had increased, and the breeze came fresh and steady.
It was too dark now to see the opposite shore, and the fish rose at every
cast ; and when I had a half dozen of the same sort, and one that lacked
only an ounce of being full four pounds, we pulled up the killeck and
paddled homeward around the wooded point. The moon rose, and the
scene on the lake now became magically beautiful. The mocking laugh
of the loon was the only cause of complaint in that evening of splendor.
Who can sit in the forest in such a night, when earth and air are full of
glory — when the soul of the veriest blockhead must be elevated, and
when a man begins to feel as if there were some doubt whether he is
even a little lower than the angels — who, I say, can sit in such a scene,
and hear that fiendish laugh of the loon, and fail to remember Eden and
the Tempter? Did you ever hear that laugh ? If so, you know what I
mean.
That mocking laugh was in my ears as I reeled in my line, and, lying
back in the bottom of the canoe, looked up at the still and glorious sky.
"Oh that I could live just here forever," I said, "in this still forest
home, by this calm lake, in this undisturbed companionship of earth and
sky. Oh that I could leave the life of labor among men, and rest
serenely here as my sun goes down the sky."
" Ho ! ho ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the loon across the lake, under the great
rock of the old Indian.
Well, the loon was right ; and I was, like a great many other men,
mistaken in fancying a hermit's life — or, what I rather desired, a life in
the country with a few friends — as preferable to life among crowds of
men. There is a certain amount of truth, however, in the idea that man
made cities and God made the country.
Doubtless we human creatures were intended to live upon the prod-
ucts of the soil, and the animal food which our strength or sagacity
would enable us to procure. It was intended that each man should, for
himself and those dependent on him, receive from the soil of the earth
such sustenance and clothing as he could compel it to yield. But we
have invented a system of covering miles square of ground with large
flat stones, or piles of brick and mortar, so as to forbid the product of
any article of nourishment, forbidding grass or grain or flower to spring
up, since we need the space for our intercommunication with each other,
in the ways of traffic and accumulating wealth, while we buy for money,
in what we call markets, the food and clothing we should have procured
for ourselves from our common mother earth. Doubtless all this is a
perversion of the original designs of Providence. The perversion is one
that sprang from the accumulation of wealth by a few, to the exclusion
of the many, which, in time, resulted in the purchase of the land by the
OAQ BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
&0o
few, and the supply of food in return for articles of luxury manufactured
by artisans who were not cultivators of the soil. But who would listen
now to an argument in favor of a return to the nomadic style of life ? I
am not going to give you one, and I am not at all inclined to think it
advisable for every one; but in a still, delicious evening like that, I
might be pardoned for a sigh when I remembered the workman that I
was, and bethought me of the lounger that I might be.
BORN in Kennett Square, Chester Co., Penn., 1825. DIED in Berlin, Germany, 1878.
A WOMAN.
[The Poet's Journal. 1862.— Poetical Works. House/iold Edition. 1883.]
SHE is a woman : therefore, I a man,
In so much as I love her. Could I more,
Then I were more a man. Our natures ran
Together, brimming full, not flooding o'er
The banks of life, and evermore will run
In one full stream until our days are done.
She is a woman, but of spirit brave
To bear the loss of girlhood's giddy dreams ;
The regal mistress, not the yielding slave
Of her ideal, spurning that which seems
For that which is, and, as her fancies fall.
Smiling: the truth of love outweighs them all.
She looks through life, and with a balance just
Weighs men and things, beholding as they are
The lives of others : in the common dust
She finds the fragments of the ruined star:
Proud, with a pride all feminine and sweet,
No path can soil the whiteness of her feet.
The steady candor of her gentle eyes
Strikes dead deceit, laughs vanity away;
She hath no room for petty jealousies,
Where Faith and Love divide their tender sway.
Of either sex she owns the nobler part ;
Man's honest brow and woman's faithful heart.
She is a woman, who, if Love were guide,
Would climb to power, or in obscure content
/
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR.
Sit down : accepting fate with changeless prid<
A reed in calm, in storm a staff unbent :
No pretty plaything, ignorant of life,
But Man's true mother, and his equal wife.
BEDOUIN SONG.
ITpROM the Desert I come to thee
-*- On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry :
I love thee, I love but tliee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold !
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night- winds touch thy brow
"With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old.
And the leaves of the Judgment
Boole unfold !
My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Boole unfold !
1854.
VOL. VIII.— 14
BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
THE SONG OF THE CAMP.
' f~^\ IVE us a song ! " the soldiers cried,
vT The outer trenches guarding.
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
"We storm the forts to-morrow ;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow."
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon :
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang "Annie Laurie."
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, —
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But, as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars !
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory ;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of "Annie Laurie."
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR.
Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing :
The bravest are the tenderest, —
The loving are the daring.
1856.
211
THE QUAKER WIDOW.
rpHEE finds me in the garden, Hannah, — come in! 'Tis kind of thee
-*- To wait until the Friends were gone, who came to comfort me.
The still and quiet company a peace may give, indeed,
But blessed is the single heart that comes to us at need.
Come, sit thee down! Here is the bench where Benjamin would sit
On First-day afternoons in spring, and watch the swallows flit:
He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear the pleasant bees
Go humming round the lilacs and through the apple-trees.
I think he loved the spring : not that he cared for flowers : most men
Think such things foolishness, — but we were first acquainted .then,
One spring: the next he spoke his mind; the third I was his wife,
And in the spring (it happened so) our children entered life.
He was but seventy-five ; I did not think to lay him yet
In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly Meeting first we met.
The Father's mercy shows in this: 'tis better I should be
Picked out to bear the heavy cross — alone in age — than he.
We've lived together fifty years : it seems but one long day,
One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away;
And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet contentment home,
So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come.
I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it was to know
If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I should go;
For father had a deep concern upon his mind that day,
But mother spoke for Benjamin, — she knew what best to say.
Then she was still: they sat awhile: at last she spoke again,
" The Lord incline thee to the right! " and "Thou shalt have him, Jane! '
My father said. I cried. Indeed, 'twas not the least of shocks,
For Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Orthodox.
I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost:
Her husband's of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.
She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a hireling priest—
Ah, dear! the cross was ours: her life's a happy one, at least.
Perhaps she'll wear a plainer dress when she's as old as I,—
Would thee believe it, Hannah ? once /felt temptation nigh!
2-jo BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste;
I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon at the waist.
How strange it seemed to sit with him upon the women's side !
I did not dare to lift my eyes: I felt more fear than pride,
Till, "in the presence of the Lord," he said, and then there came
A holy strength upon my heart, and I could say the same.
I used to blush when he came near, but then I showed no sign ;
With all the meeting looking on, I held his hand in mine.
It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I was his for life :
Thee knows the feeling, Hannah, — thee, too, hast been a wife.
As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so green as ours;
The woods were coming into leaf, the meadows full of flowers;
The neighbors met us in the lane, and every face was kind, —
'Tis strange how lively everything comes back upon my mind.
I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding-dinner spread :
At our own table we were guests, with father at the head,
And Dinah Passrnore helped us both, — 'twas she stood up with me,
And Abner Jones with Benjamin, — and now they're gone, all three !
It is not right to wish for death ; the Lord disposes best.
His Spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them for His rest;
And that He halved our little flock was merciful, I see :
For Benjamin has two in heaven, and two are left with me.
Eusebius never cared to farm, — 'twas not his call, in truth,
And I must rent the dear old place, and go to daughter Ruth.
Thee'll say her ways are not like mine, — young people now-a-days
Have fallen sadly off, I think, from all the good old ways.
But Ruth is still a Friend at heart; she keeps the simple tongue,
The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when she was young;
And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,
That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.
I once heard Jesse Kersey say, a spirit clothed with grace,
And pure, almost, as angels are, may have a homely face.
And dress may be of less account : the Lord will look within :
The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or sin.
Thee mustn't be too hard on Ruth : she's anxious I should go,
And she will do her duty as a daughter should, I know.
'Tis hard to change so late in life, but we must be resigned :
The Lord looks down contentedly upon a willing mind.
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR.
PEACH-BLOSSOM.
hoar-frost freezes
4^! The young grass of the field,
Nor yet have blander breezes
The buds of the oak unsealed :
Not yet pours out the pine
His airy resinous wine ;
But over the southern slope,
In the heat and hurry of hope,
The wands of the peach-tree first
Into rosy beauty burst :
A breath, and the sweet buds ope !
A day, and the orchards bare,
Like maids in haste to be fair,
Lightly themselves adorn
With a scarf the Spring at the door
Has sportively flung before,
Or a stranded cloud of the morn !
What spirit of Persia cometh
And saith to the buds, "Unclose! "
Ere ever the first bee humrneth,
Or woodland wild flower blows ?
What prescient soul in the sod
Garlands each barren rod
With fringes of bloom that speak
Of the baby's tender breast,
And the boy's pure lip unpressed,
And the pink of the maiden's cheek ?
The swift, keen Orient so
Prophesies as of old,
While the apple's blood is cold,
Remembering the snow.
Afar, through the mellow hazes
Where the dreams of June are stayed,
The hills, in their vanishing mazes,
Carry the flush, and fade !
Southward they fall, and reach
To the bay and the ocean beach,
Where the soft, half-Syrian air
Blows from the Chesapeake's
Inlets and coves and creeks
On the fields of Delaware !
And the rosy lakes of flowers,
That here alone are ours,
Spread into seas that pour
Billow and spray of pink
Even to the blue wave's brink,
All down the Eastern Shore !
BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
Pain, Doubt, and Death are over!
Who thinks, to-day, of toil ?
The fields are certain of clover,
The gardens of wine and oil.
What though the sap of the North
Drowsily peereth forth
In the orchards, and still delays ?
The peach and the poet know
Under the chill the glow,
And the token of golden days !
What fool, to-day, would rather
In wintry memories dwell ?
What miser reach to gather
The fruit these boughs foretell ?
No, no ! — the heart has room
For present joy alone,
Light shed and sweetness blown,
For odor and color and bloom !
As the earth in the shining sky,
Our lives in their own bliss lie ;
Whatever is taught or told,
However men moan and sigh,
Love never shall grow cold,
And Life shall never die !
1877.
THE GROTTOES OF CAPRI.
[By-Ways of Europe. 1869.]
I HAVE purposely left tbe Blue Grotto to the last, as for me it was
subordinate in interest to almost all else that I saw. Still it was
part of the inevitable programme. One calm day we had spent in the
trip to Anacapri, and another, at this season, was not to be immediately
expected. Nevertheless, when we arose on the second morning after-
wards, the palm-leaves hung silent, the olives twinkled without motion,
and the southern sea glimmered with the veiled light of a calm. Vesu-
vius had but a single peaceful plume of smoke, the snows of the Apulian
Mountains gleamed rosily behind his cone, and the fair headland of Sor-
rento shone in those soft, elusive, aerial grays which must be the despair
of a painter. It was a day for the Blue Grotto, and so we descended to
the marina.
On the strand, girls with disordered hair and beautiful teeth offered
shells and coral "We found mariners readily, and, after a little hesita-
tion, pushed off in a large boat, leaving a little one to follow. The tra-
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR. 9jg
montana had left a faint swell behind it, but four oars carried us at a
lively speed along the shore. We passed the ruins of the baths of
Tiberius (the Palazzo a' Mare), and then slid into the purple shadows of
the cliffs, which rose in a sheer wall five hundred feet above the water.
Two men sat on a rock, fishing with poles ; and the boats further off the
shore were sinking their nets, the ends of which were buoyed up with
gourds. Pulling along in the shadows, in less than half an hour we saw
the tower of Damecuta shining aloft, above a slope of olives which
descended steeply to the sea. Here, under a rough, round bastion of
masonry, was the entrance to the Blue Grotto.
We were now transshipped to the little shell of a boat which had fol-
lowed us. The swell rolled rather heavily into the mouth of the cave,
and the adventure seemed a little perilous, had the boatmen been less
experienced. We lay flat in the bottom ; the oars were taken in, and
we had just reached the entrance, when a high wave, rolling up, threat-
ened to dash us against the iron portals. " Look out ! " cried the old
man. The young sailor held the boat back with his hands, while the
wave rolled under us into the darkness beyond; then, seizing the
moment, we shot in after it, and were safe under the expanding roof.
At first, all was tolerably dark: I only saw that the water near the
entrance was intensely and luminously blue. Gradually, as the eye
grew accustomed to the obscurity, the irregular vault of the roof became
visible, tinted by a faint reflection from the water. The effect increased
the longer we remained; but the rock nowhere repeated the dazzling
sapphire of the sea. It was rather a blue-gray, very beautiful, but
far from presenting the effect given in the pictures sold at Naples.
The silvery, starry radiance of foam or bubbles on the shining blue
ground was the loveliest phenomenon of the grotto. To dip one's hand
in the sea, and scatter the water, was to create sprays of wonderful, phos-
phorescent blossoms, jewels of the Sirens, flashing and vanishing gar-
lands of the Undines.
A chamber, and the commencement of a gallery leading somewhere, —
probably to the twelfth palace of Tiberius, on the headland of Damecuta,
— were to be distinguished near the rear of the cavern. But rather than
explore further mysteries, we watched our chance and shot out, after a
full-throated wave,' into the flood of white daylight. Keeping on our
course around the island, we passed the point of Damecuta, — making a
chord to the arc of the shore,— to the first battery, beyond which the
Anacapri territory opened fairly to view. From the northern to the north-
western cape the coast sinks, like the side of an amphitheatre, in a succes-
sion of curving terraces, gray with the abundant olive. Two deep, wind-
ing ravines, like the wadies of Arabia, have been worn by the rainfall
of thousands of years, until they have split the shore-wall down to the sea.
2i g BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
Looking up them, we could guess the green banks where the violets and
anemones grew, and the clumps of myrtle that perfumed the sea-breeze.
Broad and grand as was this view, it was far surpassed by the coast
scenery to come. No sooner had we passed the pharos, and turned east-
ward along the southern shore of the island, than every sign of life and
laborious industry ceased. The central mountain-wall, suddenly broken
off as it reached the sea, presented a face of precipice a thousand feet
high, not in a smooth escarpment, as on the northern side, but cut into
pyramids and pinnacles of ever-changing form. Our necks ached with
gazing at the far summits, piercing the keen blue deeps of air. In one
place the vast gable of the mountain was hollowed into arches and grot-
toes, from the eaves of which depended fringes of stalactite ; it resembled
a Titanic cathedral in ruins. Above the orange and dove-colored facets
of the cliff, the jagged topmost crest wore an ashen tint which no longer
suggested the texture of rock. It seemed rather a soft, mealy substance,
which one might crumble between the fingers. The critics of the realis-
tic school would damn the painter who should represent this effect truly.
Under these amazing crags, over a smooth, sunny sea, we sped along
towards a point where the boatman said we should find the Green Grotto.
It lies inside a short, projecting cape of the perpendicular shore, and our
approach to it was denoted by a streak of emerald fire flashing along the
shaded water at the base of the rocks. A few more strokes on the oars
carried us under an arch twenty feet high, which opened into a rocky
cove beyond. The water being shallow, the white bottom shone like
silver ; and the pure green hue of the waves, filled and flooded with the
splendor of the sun, was thrown upon the interior facings of the rocks,
making the cavern gleam like transparent glass. The dance of the
waves, the reflex of the "netted sunbeams," threw ripples of shifting
gold all over this green ground ; and the walls and roof of the cavern, so
magically illuminated, seemed to fluctuate in unison with the tide. It
was a marvelous surprise, making truth of Undine and the Sirens, Pro-
teus and the foam-born Aphrodite. The brightness of the day increased
the illusion, and made the incredible beauty of the cavern all the more
startling, because devoid of gloom and mystery. It was an idyl of the
sea, born of the god-lore of Greece. To the light, lisping whisper of the
waves,— the sound nearest to that of a kiss,— there was added a deep, dim,
subdued undertone of the swell caught in lower arches beyond ; and the
commencement of that fine posthumous sonnet of Keats chimed thence-
forward in my ears :
"It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound."
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR. 217
After this, although the same enormous piles of rock overhung us,
there were no new surprises. The sublimity and the beauty of this
southern coast had reached their climax ; and we turned from it to lean
over the gunwale of the boat, and watch the purple growth of sponges
through the heaving crystal, as we drew into the cove of the piccolo,
marina. There Augusto was waiting our arrival, the .old fisher was
ready with a bench, and we took the upper side of Capri.
My pen lingers on the subject, yet it is time to leave. When the day
of our departure came, I wished for a tramontana, that we might be
detained until the morrow ; but no, it was a mild sirocco, setting directly
towards Sorrento, and Antonio had come over, although, this time, with-
out any prediction of a fine day. At the last fatal and prosaic moment,
when the joys that are over must be paid for, we found Don Michele
and Manfred as honest as they had been kind and attentive. Would we
not come back some time? asked the Don. Certainly we will.
When the sail was set, and our foamy track pointed to the dear isle we
were leaving, I, at least, was conscious of a slight heart-ache. So I turned
once more and cried out, "Addio Capri!'1'1 but the stern Tiberian rocks
did not respond, "Ritornate" and so Capri passed into memory.
AMERICA.
[From the National Ode. Delivered in Independence Square, Philadelphia, 4 July, 1S76.]
TT^ORESEEN in the vision of sages,
-F Foretold when martyrs bled,
She was born of the longing of ages,
By the truth of the noble dead
And the faith of the living fed!
No blood in her lightest veins
Frets at remembered chains,
Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head.
In her form and features still
The unblenching Puritan will
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,
The Quaker truth and sweetness,
And the strength of the danger-girdled race
Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness.
From the homes of all, where her being began,
She took what she gave to Man;
Justice, that knew n-> station,
Belief, as soul decreed.
Free air for aspiration,
Free force for independent deed !
She takes, but to give again,
BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
As the sea returns the rivers in rain ;
And gathers the chosen of her seed
From the hunted of every crown and creed.
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine;
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine ;
Her France pursues some dream divine ;
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine ;
Her Italy waits by the western brine ;
And, broad-based under all,
Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude
As e'er went worldward from the island-wall !
Fused in her candid light,
To one strong race all races here unite :
Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen
Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan;
'Twas glory, once, to be a Roman :
She makes it glory, now, to be a man !
THE COMBAT OF LARS AND PER.
[Lars. A Pastoral of Norway. 1873.]
rpHE two before her, face to face
L Stared at each other: Brita looked at them!
All three were pale ; and she, with faintest voice,
Remembering counsel of the tongues unkind,
Could only breathe: " I know not how to choose.1'
"No need!" said Lars: "I choose for you," said Per.
Then both drew off and threw aside their coats,
Their broidered waistcoats, and the silken scarves
About their necks; but Per growled "All! " and made
His body bare to where the leathern belt
Is clasped between the breast-bone and the hip.
Lars did the same ; then, setting tight the belts,
Both turned a little : the low daylight clad
Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now
Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet
So near the beauty terrible of Death.
All saw the mutual sign, and understood ;
And two stepped forth, two men with grizzled hair
And earnest faces, grasped the hooks of steel
In cither's belt, and drew them breast to breast,
And in the belts made fast each other's hooks.
An utter stillness on the people fell
While this was done : each face was stern and strange,
And Brita, powerless to turn her eyes,
Heard herself cry, and started: "Per, O Per! "
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR.
— 1 9
When those two backward stepped, all saw the flash
Of knives, the lift of arms, the instant clench
Of hands that held and hands that strove to strike:
All heard the sound of quick and hard-drawn breath,
And naught beside ; but sudden red appeared,
Splashed on the white of shoulders and of arm's.
Then, thighs entwined, and all the body's force
Called to the mixed resistance and assault,
They reeled and swayed, let go the guarding clutch,
And struck out madly. Per drew back, and aimed '
A deadly blow, but Lars embraced him close,
Reached o'er his shoulder and from underneath
Thrust upward, while upon his ribs the knife,
Glancing, transfixed the arm. A gasp was heard :
The struggling limbs relaxed ; and both, still bound
Together, fell upon the bloody floor.
Some forward sprang, and loosed, and lifted them
A little ; but the head of Per hung back,
With lips apart and dim blue eyes unshut,
And all the passion and the pain were gone
Forever. "Dead!" a voice exclaimed ; then she,
Like one who stands in darkness, till a blaze
Of blinding lightning paints the whole broad world,
Saw, burst her stony trance, and with a cry
Of love and grief and horror, threw herself
Upon his breast, and kissed his passive mouth,
And loud lamented: "Oh, too late I know
I love thee best, my Per, my sweetheart Per !
Thy will was strong, thy ways were masterful;
I did not guess that love might so command !
Thou wert my ruler : I resisted thee,
But blindly: Oh, come back! — I will obey."
OPENING SCENE OF "PRINCE DEUKALION."
[Prince Deukalion : a Lyrical Drama. 1878.]
SCENE. — A plain, sloping from high mountains towards the sea. At the bases of the
mountains lofty vaulted entrances of caverns. A ruined temple, on a rocky height.
A SHEPHERD, asleep in the shadow of a clump of laurels : the flock scattered over the
plain.
SHEPHERD (awaking).
~AVE I outslept the thunder ? Has the storm
Broken and rolled away ? That leaden weight
Which pressed mine eyelids to reluctant sleep
Falls off: I wake; yet see not anything
BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
As I beheld it. Yonder hang the clouds,
Huge, weary masses, leaning on the hills ;
But here, where starwort grew and hyacinth,
And bees were busy at the bells of thyme,
Stare flinty shards; and mine unsandal'd feet
Bleed as I press them : who hath wrought the change ?
The plain, the sea, the mountains, are the same;
And there, aloft, Demeter's pillared house, —
What!— roofless, now ? Are she and Jove at strife ?
And, see!— this altar to the friendly nymphs
Of field and flock, the holy ones who lift
A poor man's prayer so high the Gods may hear, —
Shivered ? — Hath thunder, then, a double bolt ?
They said some war of Titans was renewed,
But such should not concern us, humble men
Who give our dues of doves and yeanling lambs
And mountain honey. Let the priests in charge,
Who weigh their service with our ignorance,
Resolve the feud ! — 'tis they are answerable,
Not we ; and if impatient Gods make woe,
We should not suffer !
Hark ! — what strain is that, ,
Floating about the copses and the slopes
As in old days, when earth and summer sang ?
Too sad to come from their invisible tongues
That moved all things to joy ; but I will hear.
NYMPHS.
We came when you called us, we linked our dainty being
With the mystery of beauty, in all things fair and brief:
But only he hath seen us, who was happy in the seeing,
And he hath heard, who listened in the gladness of belief.
As a frost that creeps, ere the winds of winter whistle,
And odors die in blossoms that are chilly to the core,
Your doubt hath sent before it the sign of our dismissal;
We pass, ere ye speak it ; we go, and come no more !
SHEPHERD.
If blight they threaten, 'tis already here ;
Yet still, methinks, the sweet and wholesome grass
Will sometime spring, and softer rains wash white
My wethers' fleeces. We, Earth's pensioners,
Expect less bounty when her store is scant;
But while her life, though changed from what it was,
Feeds on the sunshine, we shall also live.
VOICES (from underground).
We won, through martyrdom, the power to aid ;
We met the anguish and were not afraid ;
1835-60] BAYARD TAYLOR. 221
Like One, we bore for you the penal pain.
Behold, your life is but a culprit's chance
To rise, renewed, from out its closing trance ;
And, save its loss, there is not any gain!
SHEPHERD.
What tongues austere are these, that offer help
Of loving lives ? — that promise final good,
Greater than gave the Gods, so theirs be lost ?
Sad is their message, yet its sense allures,
And large the promise, though it leaves us bare.
I would I knew the secret; but, instead,
I shudder with a strange, voluptuous awe,
As when the Pythia spake: 'tis doom disguised, —
Choice offered us when term of choice is past,
And we, obedient unto them that choose,
Are made amenable! Hark,— once again!
NYMPHS.
Our service hath ceased for you, shepherds!
We fade from your days and your dreams,
With the grace that was lithe as a leopard's,
The joy that was swift as a stream's!
To the musical reeds, and the grasses;
To the forest, the copse, and the dell ;
To the mist, and the rainbow that passes;
The vine, and the goblet, — farewell!
Go, drink from the fountains that flow not! —
Our songs and our whispers are dumb:
But the thing ye are doing ye know not,
Nor dream of the thing that shall come !
VOICES.
Flame hath not melted, nor did earthquake rend
The dungeons where we waited for The End,
Which coming not, we issue forth to power.
We quench vain joy with shadows of the grave;
We smite your lovely wantonness, to save ;
We hang Eternity on Life's weak hour!
NYMPHS.
We wait in the breezes,
We hide in the vapors,
And linger in echoes,
Awaiting recall.
VOICES.
The word is spoken, let the judgment fall!
BAYARD TAYLOR. [1835-60
_ au
NYMPHS.
The heart of the lover,
The strings of the psalter,
The shapes in the marble
Our passing deplore :
VOICES.
Truth comes, and vanity shall be no more !
NYMPHS.
Not wholly we vanish ;
The souls of the children,
The faith of the poets
Shall seek us, and find.
VOICES.
Dead are the things the world has left behind.
NYMPHS.
Lost beauty shall haunt you
With tender remorses ;
And out of its exile
The passion return!
VOICES.
The flame shall purify, the fire shall burn !
NYMPHS.
Lift from the rivers
Your silver sandals,
From mists of the mountains
Your floating veils ! —
From musky vineyard,
And copse of laurel,
The ears that listened
For lovers' tales !
Let olives ripen
And die, untended ;
Leave oak and poplar,
And homeless pine !
Take shell and trumpet
From swell of surges,
And feet that glisten
From restful brine !
As the bee when twilight
Has closed the bell,-—
As love from the bosom
When doubts compel,
We go: farewell!
1835-60] FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
SHEPHERD.
The strains dissolve into the hollow air,
Yet something stays,— a sense of distant woe,
As now, this hour, while the green lizards glide
Across the sun-warmed stones, and yonder bird
Prinks with deliberate bill his raffled plumes.
Far off, in other lands, an earthquake heaved
The high-towered cities, and a darkness fell
From twisted clouds that ruin as they pass.
But, lo! — who rises yonder ? — as from sleep
Rising, slow movements of a sluggish grace,
That speak her gentle, though a Titaness,
And strong, though troubled is her breadth of brow,
And eyes of strange, divine obscurity.
She sees me not : I am too mean for sight
Of such a goddess ; yet, methinks, the milk
Of those large breasts might feed me into that
Which once I dreamed I should be, — lord, not slave!
BORN in Boston, Mass., 1825.
EDMUND SPENSER.
[From a Memoir in "The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser." 1855-60.]
r MHE better part of Spenser's life was spent in Ireland, in what must
-*- be regarded as seclusion. Some time was given to business, some
to study. Lodowick Bryskett says lie was "not only perfect in the
Greek tongue, but also very well read in Philosophy, both moral and
natural." Of course he was a scholar, and had a well-stored mind, but
his learning has been greatly overstated. There is nothing in his poetry,
or in the man, which should lead us to think that he regretted the loss
of society. He was a faithful friend to Harvey, and at forty became an
ardent lover ; but it strikes us that his sympathies were contracted, and
his affections not verv active. His acquaintance seems to have lain
among courtiers, scholars, and book-characters. Mankind he may have
understood, for we are assured that he was versed in moral philosophy ;
but men he had not profoundly studied, not even his own heart. There
are few, if any, traces of self-discipline, of a struggle with nature, in all
his writings; which requires explanation in so contemplative a poet
He seems never to have known a great sorrow. The " atmosphere of
mild melancholy " which hangs over his compositions is deceptive. It
224 FRANCIS JAMES CHILD. [1835-60
is in part an illusion produced on the reader by the habitually pensive
attitude of his mind, or by the melody of his verse : we can never be
merry when we hear such sweet music. Some of it is a humorous sad-
ness, nor does it appear in any great degree to have sprung from a rooted
discontent with Ms position and prospects in life, or with himself. His
passions gave him very little trouble. He knew them in a general way,
but not as a man knows his mortal enemy when he has grappled with
him. He could give an outside view of any one of them, but could
not depict the complex as it exists in human hearts. He had not dra-
matic perception or power : his men and women are mere abstractions,
and, roughly speaking, they are all alike. He probably consulted well
for his reputation in suppressing his juvenile comedies, for his comic
vein was extremely thin, and adapted only to satire. His acquaintance
with the material world was as superficial as his knowledge of character.
There is a forest and there is a garden in the Fairy Queen,'and his verse
is thick bestrewn with flowers ; but there are no traces that Nature and
he had often been together. He has his primroses, his daisies and
daffodils, but not the dew-filled primroses of Herrick, the mountain
daisy of Burns, or the golden daffodils of Wordsworth. In connection
with these peculiarities must be noticed the coldness of his temperament
If we admire his tranquil health and uniform vigor, we miss the intense
nervous energy and the fine frenzy of poets compact of more fiery sub-
stance. He often affects enthusiasm, indeed, but seldom feels it. Only
twice has he risen far above his ordinary calm level ; in Mother Hub-
berd's Tale and in his Marriage Song. In the one case, disappointment,
and perhaps insult, had stung him into hearty indignation ; in the other,
his entire being, "liver, brain, and heart," was possessed and stimulated
by the new-born passion of love. Of power he exhibits no lack, — who
has not felt his strength, though wielded with such grace, in the allegory
of Despair? — but it is power for the most part too much diffused to pro-
duce great effects. He has few of those pregnant lines, those quintes-
sential abridgments of thought and feeling, which, once read, stick for-
ever in the memory, and gradually become adopted into the language
itself. Three or four phrases of the sort have a currency in more ele-
gant literature; not one has taken its place among the proverbs of the
people. A similar want of concentration is the fault of his descriptions,
which are often lively and splendid, seldom striking and picturesque.
They do not seize on the characteristic feature of the subject, and con-
sequently make only a vague impression on persons of ordinary imagi-
nation. His pictures are vivid without being sharply defined, and are
adapted less to the focus of common vision than to that of the poetical
eye, which is naturally constituted to correct such a defect.
But if Spenser's imagination was not comprehensive, precise, and bold,
1835-60] FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
225
it was fertile, rich, and various. If he was destitute of profound pas-
sion and warm sympathy with his kind, he manifests a natural gentle-
ness, a noble sentiment, and an exquisite moral purity, which thoroughly
engage our interest and esteem. The most characteristic quality of his
mind is undoubtedly sensibility to beauty. This may account for what-
ever want of originality there may seem to be in his compositions, and
for his dealing so little with real human concerns. Such a susceptibility
would lead him to repose, rather than to action ; to accept readily tra-
ditions of all sorts ; to stand aloof from the harsh and vulgar facts of
actual life ; to linger among the mellow scenes of the past and in the
twilight realms of fancy ; to dream over the ruins of time, obsolete insti-
tutions, and creeds outworn. Most peculiar is the modification which
this faculty, combined with moral purity, gives to his love of woman.
Voluptuous though this be, it is ever controlled and chastened by a pre-
dominant feeling of the beauty of holiness.
Spenser's most extraordinary power is that of language, the power of
conveying impressions by sounds. It is through the ear more than the
eye that he achieves his triumphs, and he makes up by his mastery over
this art for many other deficiencies. The pathos of his verse affects us
when his sentiments do not. In him more than in any other of our poets
do music and sweet poetry agree ; one of the arts is complementary to
the other, and he produces some of the effects of both. No instrument
known before his time was capable of expressing his deep and complex
harmonies, and he invented one which many a genius has since touched
skilfully, but none with the hand of the master, who, through nearly
four thousand stanzas, adapted it to a great variety of subjects and
proved it equal to all. If we consider that a peculiar organization is
necessary for the appreciation of melody, we shall not wonder at the
widely different estimate which is put upon Spenser even by persons of
poetical taste. He has most justly been called "the poet's poet." His-
torically, nothing can be more true. Milton, Dryden, Cowley, Thomson,
Pope, Gray, Southey, Keats, and we know not how many more, formed
or nourished themselves on his strains. It was not so much for the vis-
ions he unveiled to their eyes as for the deep delight his music gave to
ears so finely touched.
VOL. VIII.— 15
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. [1835-60
29 6
BOBN in Hingham, Mass., 1825.
THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH.
\Songs of Summer 1856. The Book of the East. 1871.— Poems. Complete Edition,
1880.]
rpHERE are gains for all our losses,
-*- There are balms for all our pain :
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain :
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,
But it never comes again.
THE DIVAN.
A LITTLE maid of Astrakan,
-^--*- An idol on a silk divan ;
She sits so still, and never speaks,
She holds a cup of mine;
'Tis full of wine, and on her cheeks
Are stains and smears of wine.
Thou little girl of Astrakan,
I join thee on the silk divan :
There is no need to seek the land,
The rich bazaars where rubies shine:
For mines are in that little hand,
And on those little cheeks of thine.
1835-60] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 227
BIRDS.
"DIRDS are singing round my window,
Tunes the sweetest ever heard,
And I hang my cage there daily,
But I never catch a bird.
So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long:
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of Song!
THE SKY IS A DRINKING-CUP.
riHHE sky is a drinkiug-cup,
-•- That was overturned of old,
And it pours in the eyes of men
Its wine of airy gold.
We drink that wine all day,
Till the lust drop is drained up,
And are lighted off to bed
By the jewels in the cup!
THE SHADOW.
rpHERE is but one great sorrow,
-*- All over the wide, wide world ;
But that in turn must come to all —
The Shadow that moves behind the pall,
A flag that never is furled.
Till he in his marching crosses
The threshold of the door,
Usurps a place in the inner room,
Where he broods in the awful hush and gloom,
Till he goes, and comes no more —
Save this there is no sorrow,
Whatever we think we feel ;
But when Death comes all's over:
'Tis a blow that we never recover,
A wound that never will heal.
29 g RICHARD EENRT STODDARD. [1835-60
H]
MISERRIMUS.
"E has passed away
From a world of strife,
Fighting the wars of Time and Life.
The leaves will fall when the winds are loud,
And the snows of winter will weave his shroud :
But he will never, ah, never know
Anything more
Of leaves or snow.
The summer-tide
Of his life was past,
And his hopes were fading, falling fast.
His faults were many, his virtues few,
A tempest with flecks of heaven's blue.
He might have soared to the gates of light,
But he built his nest
With the birds of night.
He glimmered apart
In solemn gloom,
Like a dying lamp in a haunted tomb.
He touched his lute with a magic spell,
But all his melodies breathed of hell,
Raising the Afrits and the Ghouls,
And the pallid ghosts
Of the damned souls.
But he lies in dust,
And the stone is rolled
Over his sepulchre dark and cold.
He has cancelled all he has done, or said,
And gone to the dear and holy Dead.
Let us forget the path he trod,
He has done with us,
He has gone to God.
PERSIA.
arted in the streets of Ispahan.
I stopped my camel at the city gate ;
Why did I stop ? I left my heart behind.
I heard the sighing of thy garden palms,
I saw the roses burning up with love,
I saw thee not: thou wert no longer there.
1835-60] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 229
We parted in the streets of Ispahan.
A moon has passed since that unhappy day:
It seems an age : the days are long as years.
I send thee gifts by every caravan,
I send thee flasks of attar, spices, pearls,
I write thee loving songs on golden scrolls.
I meet the caravans when they return.
" What news ? " I ask. The drivers shake their heads.
We parted in the streets of Ispahan.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
when some great Captain falls
- ' In battle, where his Country calls,
Beyond the struggling lines
That push his dread designs
To doom, by some stray ball struck dead :
Or, in the last charge, at the head
Of his determined men,
Who must be victors then.
Nor as when sink the civic great,
The safer pillars of the State,
Whose calm, mature, wise words
Suppress the need of swords.
With no such tears as e'er were shed
Above the noblest of our dead
Do we to-day deplore
The Man that is no more,
Our sorrow hath a wider scope,
Too strange for fear, too vast for hope,
A wonder, blind and dumb,
That waits — what is to come!
Not more astounded had we been
If Madness, that dark night, unseen,
Had in our chambers crept,
And murdered while we slept!
We woke to find a mourning earth,
Our Lares shivered on the hearth,
The roof-tree fallen, all
That could affright, appall!
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. [1835-60
Such thunderbolts, In other lands,
Have smitten the rod from royal hands,
But spared, with us, till now,
Each laurelled Caesar's brow.
No Caesar he whom we lament,
A Man without a precedent,
Sent, it would seem, to do
His work, and perish, too.
Not by the weary cares of State,
The endless tasks, which will not wait,
Which, often done in vain,
Must yet be done again :
Not in the dark, wild tide of war,
Which rose so high, and rolled so far,
Sweeping from sea to sea
In awful anarchy :
Four fateful years of mortal strife,
Which slowly drained the nation's life,
(Yet for each drop that ran
There sprang an armed man!)
Not then ; but when, by measures meet,
By victory, and by defeat,
By courage, patience, skill,
The people's fixed " We will! "
Had pierced, had crushed Rebellion dead,
Without a hand, without a head,
At last, when all was well,
He fell, O how he fell!
The time, the place, the stealing shape,
The coward shot, the swift escape,
The wife, the widow's scream —
It is a hideous Dream ! l
A dream ? What means this pageant, then ?
These multitudes of solemn men,
Who speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street ?
The flags half-mast that late so high
Flaunted at each new victory ?
(The stars no brightness shed,
But bloody looks the red !)
The black festoons that stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral aisles ?
1835-60] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
(No house too poor to show
The nation's badge of woe.)
The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,
The bells that toll of death and doom,
The rolling of the drums,
The dreadful car that comes ?
Cursed be the hand that fired the shot,
The frenzied brain that hatched the plot,
Thy country's Father slain
By thee, thou worse than Cainl
Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And good hath followed — may it now 1
(God lets bad instruments
Produce the best events.)
But he, the man we mourn to-day,
No tyrant was : so mild a sway
In one such weight who bore
Was never known before.
Cool should he be, of balanced powers,
The ruler of a race like ours,
Impatient, headstrong, wild,
The Man to guide the Child.
And this he was, who most unfit
(So hard the sense of God to hit,)
Did seem to fill his place.
With such a homely face,
Such rustic manners, speech uncouth,
(That somehow blundered out the truth,)
Untried, untrained to bear
The more than kingly care.
Ah ! And his genius put to scorn
The proudest in the purple born,
Whose wisdom never grew
To what, untaught, he knew,
The People, of whom he was one.
No gentleman, like Washington,
(Whose bones, methinks, make room,
To have him in their tomb !)
A laboring man, with horny hands,
Who swung the axe, who tilled his lands,
Who shrank from nothing new,
But did as poor men do.
231
EIGHARD HENRY STODDARD. [1835-60
One of the People ! Born to be
Their curious epitome ;
To share yet rise above
Their shifting hate and love.
Common his mind, (it seemed so then,)
His thoughts the thoughts of other men:
Plain were his words, and poor,
But now they will endure !
No hasty fool, of stubborn will,
But prudent, cautious, pliant still;
Who since his work was good
Would do it as he could.
Doubting, was not ashamed to doubt,
And, lacking prescience, went without :
Often appeared to halt,
And was, of course, at fault ;
Heard all opinions, nothing loath,
And, loving both sides, angered botli :
Was — not like Justice, blind,
But, watchful, clement, kind.
No hero this of Roman mould,
Nor like our stately sires of old :
Perhaps he was not great,
But he preserved the State !
O honest face, which all men knew !
O tender heart, but known to few !
O wonder of the age,
Cut off by tragic rage !
Peace ! Let the long procession come,
For hark, the mournful, muffled drum,
The trumpet's wail afar,
And see, the awful car !
Peace ! Let the sad procession go,
While cannon boom and bells toll slow.
And go, thou sacred car,
Bearing our woe afar!
Go, darkly borne, from State to State,
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait
To honor all they can
The dust of that good man.
Go, grandly borne, with such a train
As greatest kings might die to gain.
1835-60] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 233
The just, the wise, the brave,
Attend thee to the grave.
And you, the soldiers of our wars,
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars,
Salute him once again,
Your late commander — slain !
Yes, let your tears indignant fall,
But leave your muskets on the wall ;
Your country needs you now
Beside the forge — the plough.
(When Justice shall unsheathe her brand,
If Mercy may not stay her hand,
Nor would we have it so,
She must direct the blow.)
And you, amid the master-race,
Who seem so strangely out of place,
Know ye who coineth ? He
Who hath declared ye free.
Bow while the body passes — nay,
Fall on your knees, and weep, and pray!
Weep, weep— I would ye might —
Your poor black faces white!
And, children, you must come in bands,
With garlands in your little hands,
Of blue and white and red,
To strew before the dead.
So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes
The Fallen to his last repose.
Beneath no mighty dome,
But in his modest home;
The churchyard where his children rest,
The quiet spot that suits him best,
There shall his- grave be made,
And there his bones be laid.
And there his countrymen shall come,
With memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers far and near,
For many and many a year.
For many a year and many nn age,
While History on her ample page
The virtues shall enroll
On that Paternal Soul.
234
RICHARD HENRT 8TODDARD. [1835-60
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
APRIL 23, 1564.
SHE sat in her eternal house,
The sovereign mother of mankind;
Before her was the peopled world,
The hollow night behind.
"Below my feet the thunders break,
Above my head the stars rejoice ;
But man, although he babbles much,
Has never found a voice.
" Ten thousand years have come and gone,
And not an hour of any day
But he has dumbly looked to me
The things he could not say.
"It shall be so no more," she said.
And then, revolving in her mind,
She thought: "I will create a child
Shall speak for all his kind."
It was the spring-time of the year,
And lo, where Avon's waters flow,
The child, her darling, came on earth
Three hundred years ago.
There was no portent in the sky,
No cry, like Pan's, along the seas,
Nor hovered round his baby mouth
The swarm of classic bees.
What other children were he was,
If more, 'twas not to mortal ken;
The being likest to mankind
Made him the man of men.
They gossiped, after he was dead,
An idle tale of stealing deer;
One thinks he was a lawyer's clerk;
But nothing now is clear,
Save that he married, in his youth,
A maid, his elder; went to town;
Wrote plays ; made money ; and at last
Came back, and settled down,
A prosperous man, among his kin,
In Stratford, where his bones repose.
1835-GO] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
And this — what can be less ? is all
The world of Shakespeare knows.
It irks us that we know no more,
For where we love we would know all ;
"What would be small in common men
In great is never small.
Their daily habits, how they looked,
The color of their eyes and hair.
Their prayers, their oaths, the wine they drank,
The clothes they used to wear,
Trifles like these declare the men,
And should survive them — nay, they must;
We'll find them somewhere ; if it needs,
We'll rake among their dust !
Not Shakespeare's ! He hath left his curse
On him disturbs it: let it rest,
The mightiest that ever Death
Laid in the earth's dark breast.
Not to himself did he belong,
Nor does his life belong to us ;
Enough he was; give up the search
If he were thus, or thus.
Before he came his life was not,
Nor left he heirs to share his powers ;
The mighty Mother sent him here,
To be her voice and ours.
To be her oracle to man ;
To be what man may be to her;
Between the maker and the made
The best interpreter.
The hearts of all men beat in his,
Alike in pleasure and in pain ;
And he contained their myriad minds,
Mankind in heart and brain.
Shakespeare! What shapes are conjured up
By that one word ! They come and go.
More real, shadows though they be,
Than many a man we know.
Hamlet, the Dane, unhappy Prince
Who most enjoys when suffering most:
His soul is haunted by itself —
There needs no other Ghost.
236
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. [1835-60
The Thane, whose murderous fancy sees
The dagger painted in the air ;
The guilty King, who stands appalled
When Banquo fills his chair.
Lear in the tempest, old and crazed,
"Blow winds. Spit fire, singe my white head ! "
Or, sadder, watching for the breath
Of dear Cordelia — dead !
The much-abused, relentless Jew,
Grave Prospero, in his magic isle,
And she who captived Anthony,
The serpent of old Nile.
Imperial forms, heroic souls,
Greek, Roman, masters of the world,
Kings, queens, the soldier, scholar, priest,
The courtier, sleek and curled ;
He knew and drew all ranks of men,
And did such life to them impart
They grow not old, immortal types,
The lords of Life and Art !
Their sovereign he, as she was his,
The awful Mother of the Race,
Who, hid from all her children's eyes,
Unveiled to him her face ;
Spake to him till her speech was known,
Through him till man had learned it ; then
Enthroned him in her Heavenly House,
The most Supreme of Men !
ADSUM.
DECEMBER 28-24, 1863.
rpHE Angel came by night
•*• (Such angels still come down),
And like a "winter cloud
Passed over London town ;
Along its lonesome streets,
Where Want had ceased to weep,
Until it reached a house
Where a great man lay asleep;
The man of all his time
Who knew the most of ruen,
1835-60] RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 237
The soundest head and heart,
The sharpest, kindest pen.
It paused beside his bed,
And whispered in his ear;
He never turned his head,
But answered, " I am here."
Into the night they went.
At morning, side by side,
They gained the sacred Place
Where the greatest Dead abide.
Where grand, old Homer sits
In godlike state benign ;
Where broods in endless thought
The awful Florentine;
Where sweet Cervantes walks,
A smile on his grave face;
Where gossips quaint Montaigne,
The wisest of his race ;
Where Goethe looks through all
With that calm eye of his ;
Where — little seen but Light —
The only Shakespeare is!
When the new Spirit came,
They asked him, drawing near,
" Art thou become like us ? "
He answered, "I am here."
WANDERING ALONG A WASTE.
"TTTANDERING along a waste
»* Where once a city stood,
I saw a ruined tomb,
And in that tomb an urn :
A sacred, funeral urn,
Without a name, or date,
And in its hollow depth
A little human dust.
" Whose dust is here," I asked
' ' In this forgotten urn ?
And where this waste now lies
What city rose of old ? "
None knows ; its name is lost ;
It was, and is no more.
Gone like a wind that blew
A thousand years ago.
RICHARD HENRY 8TODDAED. [1835-60
Its melancholy end
Will be the end of all;
For as it passed away
The Universe will pass,
Its sole memorial
Some ruined World like ours;
A solitary urn
Full of the dust of men.
AN OLD SONG REVERSED.
THERE are gains for all our losses."
So I said when I was young.
If I sang that song again,
'Twould not be with that refrain,
Which but suits an idle tongue.
Youth has gone, and hope gone with it,
Gone the strong desire for fame.
Laurels are not for the old.
Take them, lads. Give Senex gold,
What's an everlasting name ?
When my life was in its summer
One fair woman liked my looks :
Now that Time has driven his plough
In deep furrows on my brow,
I'm no more in her good books.
" There are gains for all our losses ? "
Grave beside the wintry sea,
Where my child is, and my heart,
For they would not live apart,
What has been your gain to me ?
No, the words I sang were idle,
And will ever so remain :
Death, and Age, and vanished Youth
All declare this bitter truth,
There's a loss for every gain !
1835-60] HENRY CHARLES LEA. 939
A
f enr? Charles
BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1825.
A SPIRITUAL DESPOTISM.
[A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. 1888.]
S the twelfth century drew to a close, the Church was approach-
ing a crisis in its career. The vicissitudes of a hundred and fifty
years, skilfully improved, had rendered it the mistress of Christendom.
History records no such triumph of intellect over brute strength as that
which, in an age of turmoil and battle, was wrested from the fierce war-
riors of the time by priests who had no material force at their command,
and whose power was based alone on the souls and consciences of men.
Over soul and conscience their empire was complete. No Christian
could hope for salvation who was not in all things an obedient son of
the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defence : and,
in a time when faith was a determining factor of conduct, this belief cre-
ated a spiritual despotism which placed all things within reach of him
who could wield it.
This could be accomplished only by a centralized organization such
as that which had gradually developed itself within the ranks of the
hierarchy. The ancient independence of the episcopate was no more.
Step by step the supremacy of the Roman see had been asserted and
enforced, until it enjoyed the universal jurisdiction which enabled it to
bend to its wishes every prelate, under the naked alternative of submis-
sion or expulsion. The papal mandate, just or unjust, reasonable or
unreasonable, was to be received and implicitly obeyed, for there was no
appeal from the representative of St. Peter. In a narrower sphere and
subject to the pope, the bishop held an authority which, at least in the-
ory, was equally absolute, while the humbler minister of the altar was
the instrument by which the decrees of pope and bishop were enforced
among the people : for the destiny of all men lay in the hands which
could administer or withhold the sacraments essential to salvation.
Thus intrusted with responsibility for the fate of mankind, it was nec-
essary that the Church should possess the powers and the machinery
requisite for the due discharge of a trust so unspeakably important.
For the internal regulation of the conscience it had erected the institu-
tion of auricular confession, which by this time had become almost the
exclusive appanage of the priesthood. When this might fail to keep the
believer in the path of righteousness, it could resort to the spiritual
courts which had grown up around every episcopal seat, with an unde-
240 HENRT CHARLES LEA. [1835-60
fined jurisdiction capable almost of unlimited extension. Besides super-
vision over matters of faith and discipline, of marriage, of inheritance,
and of usury, which belonged to them by general consent, there were
comparatively few questions between man and man which could not be
made to include some case of conscience involving the interpellation of
spiritual interference, especially when agreements were customarily con-
firmed with the sanction of the oath ; and the cure of souls implied a
perpetual inquest over the aberrations, positive or possible, of every
member of the flock. It would be difficult to set boundsto the intru-
sion upon the concerns of every man which was thus rendered possible,
or to the influence thence derivable.
Not only did the humblest priest wield a supernatural power which
marked him as one elevated above the common level of humanity, but
his person and possessions were alike inviolable. No matter what
crimes he might commit, secular justice could not take cognizance of
them, and secular officials could not arrest him. He was amenable only
to the tribunals of his own order, which were debarred from inflicting
punishments involving the effusion of blood, and from whose decisions
an appeal to the supreme jurisdiction of distant Rome conferred too
often virtual immunity. The same privilege protected ecclesiastical
property, conferred on the Church by the piety of successive genera-
tions, and covering no small portion of the most fertile lands of Europe.
Moreover, the seignorial rights attaching to those lands often carried
extensive temporal jurisdiction, which gave to their ghostly possessors
the power over life and limb enjoyed by feudal lords.
The line of separation between the laity and the clergy was widened
and deepened by the enforcement of the canon requiring celibacy on the
part of all concerned in the ministry of the altar. Eevived about the
middle of the eleventh century, and enforced after an obstinate struggle
of a hundred years, the compulsory celibacy of the priesthood divided
them from the people, preserved intact the vast acquisitions of the
Church, and furnished it with an innumerable army whose aspirations
and ambition were necessarily restricted within its circle. The man who
entered the service of the Church was no longer a citizen. He owed no
allegiance superior to that assumed in his ordination. He was released
from the distraction of family cares and the seduction of family ties.
The Church was his country and his home, and its interests were his
own. The moral, intellectual, and physical forces which, throughout
the laity, were divided between the claims of patriotism, the selfish
struggle for advancement, the provision for wife and children, were in the
Church consecrated to a common end, in the success of which all might
hope to share, while all were assured of the necessities of existence, and
were relieved of anxiety as to the future.
1835-60] HENRY CHARLES LEA. 241
The Church, moreover, offered the only career open to men of all
ranks and stations. In the sharply-defined class distinctions of the
feudal system, advancement was almost impossible to one not born
within the charmed circle of gentle blood. In the Church, however
much rank and family connections might assist in securing promotion to
high place, yet talent and energy could always make themselves felt
despite lowliness of birth. Urban II. and Adrian IY. sprang from the
humblest origin ; Alexander V. had been a beggar-boy ; Gregory VII.
was the son of a carpenter; Benedict XII. , of a baker; Nicholas V., of
a poor physician ; Sixtus IV., of a peasant; Urban IY. and John XXII.
were sons of cobblers, and Benedict XL and Sixtus Y. of shepherds ; in
fact, the annals of the hierarchy are full of those who rose from the low-
est ranks of society to the most commanding positions. The Church
thus constantly recruited its ranks with fresh blood. Free from the
curse of hereditary descent, through which crowns and coronets fre-
quently lapsed into weak and incapable hands, it called into its service
an indefinite amount of restless vi^ror for which there was no other
sphere of action, and which, when once enlisted, found itself perforce
identified irrevocably with the body which it had joined. The character
of the priest was indelible ; the vows taken at ordination could not be
thrown aside ; the monk, when once admitted to the cloister, could not
abandon his order unless it were to enter another of more rigorous
observance. The Church Militant was thus an army encamped on the
soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most
efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier
panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons
which slew the soul. There was little that could not be dared or done
by the commander of such a force, whose orders were listened to as ora-
cles of God, from Portugal to Palestine and from Sicily to Iceland.
" Princes," says John of Salisbury, " derive their power from the Church,
and are servants of the priesthood." " The least of the priestly order is
worthier than any king," exclaims Honorius of Autun ; "prince and
people are subjected to the clergy, which shines superior as the sun to
the moon." Innocent III. used a more spiritual metaphor when he
declared that the priestly power was as superior to the secular as the
soul of man was to his body ; and he summed up his estimate of his own
position by pronouncing himself to be the Yicar of Christ, the Christ of
the Lord, the God of Pharaoh, placed midway between God and man,
this side of God but beyond man, less than God but greater than man,
who judges all, and is judged by none. That he was supreme over all
the earth — over pagans and infidels as well as over Christians — was
legally proved and universally taught by the medieval doctors. Though
the power thus vaingloriously asserted was fraught with evil in many
VOL. VIII. — 16
242 HENRY CHARLES LEA. [1835-60
ways yet was it none the less a service to humanity that, in those rude
ages, there existed a moral force superior to high descent and martial
prowess, which could remind king and noble that they must obey the
law of God even when uttered by a peasant's son ; as when Urban II. ,
himself a Frenchman of low birth, dared to excommunicate his monarch,
Philip I, for his adultery, thus upholding the moral order and enforc-
ing the sanctions of eternal justice at a time when everything seemed
permissible to the recklessness of power.
Yet, in achieving this supremacy, much had been of necessity sacri-
ficed. The Christian virtues of humility and charity and self-abnegation
had virtually disappeared in the contest which left the spiritual power
dominant over the temporal. The affection of the populations was no
longer attracted by the graces and loveliness of Christianity ; submission
was purchased by the promise of salvation, to be acquired by faith and
obedience, or was extorted by the threat of perdition or by the sharper
terrors of earthly persecution. If the Church, by sundering itself com-
pletely from the laity, had acquired the services of a militia devoted
wholly to itself, it had thereby created an antagonism between itself and
the people. Practically, the whole body of Christians no longer consti-
tuted the Church ; that body was divided into two essentially distinct
classes, the shepherds and the sheep ; and the lambs were often apt to
think, not unreasonably, that they were tended only to be shorn. The
worldly prizes offered to ambition by an ecclesiastical career drew into
the ranks of the Church able men, it is true, but men whose object
was worldly ambition rather than spiritual development. The immuni-
ties and privileges of the Church and the enlargement of its temporal
acquisitions were objects held more at heart than the salvation of souls,
and its high places were filled, for the most part, with men in whom
worldliness was more conspicuous than the humbler virtues.
This was inevitable in the state of society which existed in the early
Middle Ages. While angels would have been required to exercise
becomingly the tremendous powers claimed and acquired by the Church,
the methods by which clerical preferment and promotion were secured
were such as to favor the unscrupulous rather than the deserving. To
understand fully the causes which drove so many thousands into schism
and heresy, leading to wars and persecutions, and the establishment of
the Inquisition, it is necessary to cast a glance at the character of the
men who represented the Church before the people, and at the use which
they made, for good or for evil, of the absolute spiritual despotism which
had become established. In wise and devout hands it might elevate
incalculably the moral and material standards of European civilization ;
in the hands of the selfish and depraved it could become the instrument
of minute and all-pervading oppression, driving whole nations to despair.
1835-60] HENRY CHARLES LEA. 040
As regards the methods of election to the episcopate, there cannot be
said at this period to have been any settled and invariable rule. The
ancient form of election by the clergy, with the acquiescence of the peo-
ple of the diocese, was still preserved in theory, but in practice the elec-
toral body consisted of the cathedral canons; while the confirmation
required of the king, or semi-independent feudal noble, and of the pope,
in a time of unsettled institutions, frequently rendered the election an
empty form, in which the royal or papal power might prevail, according
to the tendencies of time and place. The constantly increasing appeals
to Kome, as to the tribunal of last resort, by disappointed aspirants,
under every imaginable pretext, gave to the Holy See a rapidly -growing
influence, which, in many cases, amounted almost to the power of
appointment; and Innocent II., at the Lateran Council of 1139, applied
the feudal system to the Church by declaring that all ecclesiastical dig-
nities were received and held of the popes like fiefs. Whatever rules,
however, might be laid down, they could not operate in rendering the
elect better than the electors. The stream will not rise above its source,
and a corrupt electing or appointing power is not apt to be restrained
from the selection of fitting representatives of itself by methods, how-
ever ingeniously devised, which have not the inherent ability of self-
enforcement. The oath which cardinals were obliged to take on enter-
ing a conclave — " I call God to witness that I choose him whom I judge
according to God ought to be chosen " — was notoriously inefficacious in
securing the election of pontiffs fitted to serve as the vicegerents of God ;
and so, from the humblest parish priest to the loftiest prelate, all grades
of the hierarchy were likely to be filled by worldly, ambitious, self-seek-
ing, and licentious men. The material to be selected from, moreover,
was of such a character that even the most exacting friends of the Church
had to content themselves when the least worthless was successful. St
Peter Damiani, in asking of Gregory VI. the confirmation of a bishop-
elect of Fossombrone, admits that he is unfit, and that he ought to
undergo penance before undertaking the episcopate, but yet there is
nothing better to be done, for in the whole diocese there was not a single
ecclesiastic worthy of the office ; all were selfishly ambitious, too eager
for preferment to think of rendering themselves worthy of it, inflamed
with desire for power, but utterly careless as to its duties.
Under these circumstances simony, with all its attendant evils, was
almost universal, and those evils made themselves everywhere felt on the
character both of electors and elected. In the fruitless war waged by
Gregory VII. and his successors against this all-pervading vice, the
number of bishops assailed is the surest index of the means which had
been found successful, and of the men who thus were enabled to repre-
sent the apostles. As Innocent III. declared, it was a disease of the
2 . . HENRY CHARLES LEA, [1835-60
Church immedicable by either soothing remedies or fire ; and Peter Can-
tor, who died in the odor of sanctity, relates with approval the story of
a Cardinal Martin, who, on officiating in the Christmas solemnities at the
Koman court, rejected a gift of twenty pounds sent him by the papal
chancellor, for the reason that it was notoriously the product of rapine
and simony. It was related as a supreme instance of the virtue of
Peter, Cardinal of St. Chrysogono, formerly Bishop of Meaux, that he
had, in a single election, refused the dazzling bribe of five hundred
marks of silver. Temporal princes were more ready to turn the power
of confirmation to profitable account, and few imitated the example of
Philip Augustus, who, when the abbacy of St. Denis became vacant, and
the provost, the treasurer, and the cellarer of the abbey each sought him
secretly, and gave him five hundred livres for the succession, quietly
went to the abbey, picked out a simple monk standing in a corner, con-
ferred the dignity on him, and handed him the fifteen hundred livres.
CIVIL LAW AND THE INQUISITION.
[From the Same.]
ON secular jurisprudence the example of the Inquisition worked even
more deplorably. It came at a time when the old order of things
was giving way to the new — when the ancient customs of the barbarians,
the ordeal, the wager of law, the wer-gild, were growing obsolete in the
increasing intelligence of the age, when a new system was springing into
life under the revived study of the Koman law, and when the adminis-
tration of justice by the local feudal lord was becoming swallowed up in
the widening jurisdiction of the crown. The whole judicial system of
the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happi-
ness of future generations depended on the character of the new institu-
tions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the imperial
jurisprudence — the use of torture and the inquisitorial process — should
be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively, adopted, should be divested of the
safeguards which in Rome restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated
in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the
prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may
safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the
Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along with
the Inquisition ; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was
unknown maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various
forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but
1835-60] HENRY CHARLES LEA. 245
wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which characterized the
habitual investigation into crime in other regions.
Of all the curses which the Inquisition brought in its train this, per-
haps, was the greatest — that, until the closing years of the eighteenth
century, throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process,
as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method
of dealing with all who were under accusation ; that the accused was
treated as one having no rights, whose guilt was assumed in advance,
and from whom confession was to be extorted by guile or force. Even
witnesses were treated in the same fashion ; and the prisoner who
acknowledged guilt under torture was tortured again to obtain infor-
mation about any other evil-doers of whom he perchance might have
knowledge. So, also, the crime of " suspicion " was imported from the
Inquisition into ordinary practice, and the accused who could not be
convicted of the crime laid to his door could be punished for being sus-
pected of it, not with the penalty legally provided for the offence, but
with some other, at the fancy and discretion of the judge. It would be
impossible to compute the amount of misery and wrong, inflicted on the
defenceless up to the present century, which may be directly traced to
the arbitrary and unrestricted methods introduced by the Inquisition
and adopted by the jurists who fashioned the criminal jurisprudence of
the Continent. It was a system which might well seem the invention of
demons, and was fitly characterized by Sir John Fortescue as the Road
to Hell.
DE PROFUNDIS.
WE are born, we know not why,
We toil, through want and care ;
Worn out, at last we die,
And go, we know not where.
We suffer, we inflict,
Unknowing what we do:
We gain, to find us tricked;
We lose, to idly rue.
If the soul, impatient, aims
At something higher, better,
The flesh asserts its claims,
And will not loose its fetter.
Nor Hindu sage, nor Greek
Can aid our impotence :
The highest goal they seek
Is dumb indifference.
JULIA CAROLINE RIPLET DORR. [1835-60
The Christian's nobler plan
But palliates the ill:
All man can do for man
Leaves Earth in misery still.
The riddle who can read ?
Who guess the reason why ?
We know but this, indeed,
We are born, we grieve, we diel
3|ulia Caroline IRt
BORN in Charleston, S. C., 1825.
MARTHA.
[Friar Anselmo, and other Poems. 1879.— Afternoon Songs. 1885.]
YEA, Lord ! — Yet some must serve.
Not all with tranquil heart,
Even at thy dear feet,
Wrapped in devotion sweet,
May sit apart.
Yea, Lord ! — Yet some must bear
The burden of the day,
Its labor and its heat,
While others at thy feet
May muse and pray.
Yea, Lord ! — Yet some must do
Life's daily task-work; some,
Who fain would sing, must toil
Amid earth's dust and moil,
While lips are dumb.
Yea, Lord ! — Yet man must earn,
And woman bake the bread ;
And some must watch and wake
Early, for others' sake,
Who pray instead.
Yea, Lord ! — Yet even thou
Hast need of earthly care.
I bring the bread and wine
To thee, O Guest Divine !
Be this my prayer !
1835-60] JULIA CAROLINE RIPLET DORR.
247
WITH A ROSE FROM CONWAY CASTLE.
ON hoary Coaway's battlemeuted height,
O poet-heart, I pluck for thee a rose !
Through arch and court the sweet wind wandering goes :
Round each high tower the rooks in airy flight
Circle and wheel, all bathed in amber light;
Low at my feet the winding river flows ;
Valley and town, entranced in deep repose,
War doth no more appal, nor foes affright.
Thou knowest how softly on the castle walls,
Where mosses creep, and ivies far and free
Fling forth their pennants to the freshening breeze,
Like God's own benison this sunshine falls.
Therefore, O friend, across the sundering seas,
Fair Conway sends this sweet wild rose to thee!
SLEEP.
WHO calls thee "gentle Sleep " ? — O rare coquette,
Who comest crowned with poppies, thou should'st wear
Nettles instead, or thistles, in thy hair;
For thou'rt the veriest elf that ever yet
Made weary mortals sigh and toss and fret!
Thou dost float softly through the drowsy air
Hovering as if to kiss my lips and share
My restless pillow; but ere I can set
My arms to clasp thee, without sign or speech,
Save one swift, mocking smile, thou'rt out of reach.
Yet, some time, thou, or one as like to thee
As sister is to sister, shalt draw near
With such soft lullabies for my dull ear,
That neither life nor love shall waken me !
WILLIAM MUMFORD BAKER. [1835-60
'Brotonlee I3rotmr*
BORN in Charleston, S. C., 1824. DIED in Brooklyn, N. Y., 1888.
THALATTA! THALATTA!
CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND.
I STAND upon the summit of my life:
Behind, the camp, the court, the field, the grove,
The battle and the burden ; vast, afar,
Beyond these weary ways, Behold! the Sea!
The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings,
By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath
Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace.
Palter no question of the horizon dim, —
Cut loose the bark ; such voyage itself is rest,
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,
A widening heaven, a current without care,
Eternity ! — deliverance, promise, course !
Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore.
1866.
OTtlUam
BORN in Washington, D. C., 1835. DIED in South Boston, Mass., 1883.
A SOUTHERNER ON SOUTH CAROLINA.
[Inside: A Chronicle of Secession. 1866.]
while we are upon trie subject, there is one thing in
regard to Columbia I have never yet fully understood," said Mrs.
Bowles, after a while. " Eutledge Bowles has explained it to me over
and over again in his letters — the perpetual revolutions in the College, I
mean. From what Eutledge Bowles writes it has been impossible for
the students to pursue, consistentlv with their own honor, any other
course. It seems strange that the many Faculties of the College cannot
come to understand, any of them, what the youth of South Carolina are,
and what they will not submit to. Strange ! It is a great interruption
to the studies, I fear. I know very little of the institutions out of the
State ; but I fear it is something peculiar to Columbia," said Mrs. Bowles,
though her fear sounded far more like pride.
Yes, in the history, eventful enough, of the College of South Carolina,
1835-60] WILLIAM MUMFORD BAKER. 249
at Columbia, you have, in epitome, the character and history of the State
itself. Self-will, contempt for rightful authority, reckless" disregard of
everything except the selfish abstraction of the hour ! Gallant, generous,
high-toned youth, they yield their own notions to that of their Faculty ?
No, Sir! Eather than that, let the institution be wrecked to its founda-
tion ! Eather than that, let their own education, and consequent suc-
cess in life, perish ! See the same youth when grown a few inches higher
in stature and immeasurably more generous, gallant, high-toned, and all
the rest ; they submit their own ideas to the superior authority of the
General Government? they yield a hair's-breadth from their own heated
view of their own rights and wrongs — imprescriptible rights, infinite
wrongs? By all that elevates the man above the brute and the negro,
never, Mr. Speaker, never ! Eather, Sir, let the General Government be
wrecked till not a spar floats to tell where once it sailed ! Eather perish
the hope of the human race ! Above all, rather, Mr. Speaker, we of
South Carolina lose every negro from our fields, every cent from our
coffers, every city from our soil, every son on the field of battle from our
hearth-stones! Perish the universe and we, Sir, we with it, rather than
it move save as we intend it shall move ! From his birth to his death
never in the ages such a conspiracy as against your South Carolinian.
Nurse, parent, schoolmaster, College Faculty, General Government,
opinion of Christendom, course of God's eternal providence — one early-
begun, universal, incessant combination against him. But not more
magnificent the coalition than the defiance thereof on his part !
Poor Mrs. Bowles ! From its foundation was practical Secession the
incidental but leading part of the Columbia Curriculum, and well was
the lesson learned. The yellow-fever is, they say, a standing affair in
Cuba ; and there lives scarce a man beside the Pedees, the Congaree, the
Edisto, and the Cooper and Ashley but inhaled Secession as his vital
atmosphere. It was too strong even for the Gospel. Heaven defend us,
even in the conventions of religious bodies. It was : Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Moderator, it is painful to us, Sir, it is very painful, but on this point we
cannot yield. No one can regret it more than ourselves, but if brethren
will press this point, there is, Sir, but one course left us — In scecula scecu-
lorumque, aut South Carolina aut nullus.
Sturdy, wrong-headed little State! Look at it on the map there,
altogether unlike North Carolina even on the one side, and Georgia on
the other ; tough, three-sided fragment of mediaeval granite, refusing to
be dissolved or to lose an angle even in the rolling of the great waters of
progress; requiring something besides the silent, serene processes of
nature by which the craggy mountains are being melted slowly down
and the rough globe rounded into shape ; requiring the extra force and
fury as of waters too long and too obstinately dammed back from their
2g Q WILLIAM MUMFORD BAKER. [1835-60
natural and inevitable course. Every soul of us, however, admires the
South Carolinian at last. Only let him be master, and a truer gentle-
man never breathed. The Hardkoppig Piet in him is hidden under the
Bayard, the Cceur de Lion. He is only a hundred years or so out of
place, that is all. There is nothing to laugh at in Don Quixote except
his living a century or two too late. Even then it is with pain that we
smile at the ancient armor, language defiant of the universe, and, most
sorrowful of all, poor old Eosinante which bears him up !
IN A SOUTHERN VILLAGE IN '64.
[From the Same.]
AH, the eagerness with which we clutch a paper from the North !
We get it as a great favor, to be read as rapidly as possible, to be
returned exactly at such an hour to such a place. We button it up in
our breast-pocket, and hurry home, for we dare not be seen with it on
the streets. Arrived at home, we arrest all the household work, turn
the children ignominiously out of the room with terrible threats in case
they come in again, which, by-the-by, they are sure to do a dozen times
during the reading, on pressing emergencies which cannot be postponed
a moment ; and so we carefully unfold and read the precious paper aloud
to wife or sister, to say nothing of all the Union people in the neighbor-
hood cautiously summoned in to hear. The editorials, dispatches, items,
advertisements of hair oil, and the like — with greedy hunger we let no
morsel or crumb of the paper escape us. In spite of all the effort we
made, a dozen readers or two have had the document before us, as
dozens will, eagerly wondering why we cannot remember that others
want the paper as well as ourselves and get through with it, after us. In
consequence of this, the paper is painfully illegible at the folds ; we have,
in the centre of the most interesting articles, to stop and puzzle around
the chasms, often to take a flying leap over them and proceed. The
little scraps of patriotic poetry, here and there, we often memorize even.
And so the paper circulates till it is read, literally read, to shreds.
There was Everett's speech at the Dedication at Gettysburg. Could
the orator have imagined the zest with which his words there spoken
would have been read from soiled and worn-out sheets by thousands at
the South, his soul would have burned with sublimer enthusiasm than
any wakened in him by the audience then visible to his eye. Who of
us forgets the keen enjoyment with which we read our first fairy tales
in childhood's sweet hour— not so keen, so delicious, that gratification as
1835-60] WILLIAM MUMFORD BAKER. 251
the reading, during the war, of all thoroughly American matter oozing
in to us, parched with thirst, from abroad. The circulation through
Somerville of one good paper of the kind did all the Union people for
if one individual thereof read it, every soul did or had it repeated to
him — evident good for weeks to come. Perhaps the shortness of the
allowance — as with food doled out to the wrecked at sea — increased its
value, months often elapsing between the rations. Let us keep secret
the absolute faith even Mr. Ferguson placed in the least assertions of a
Northern paper, his belief herein as absolute and sweeping as was his
unbelief in reference to the Somerville " Star " and all its kind. And, as
men build a mural tablet into the wall of an edifice with due inscription,
permit the insertion here of this profound truth, that in very much every
sense of the word human nature at the North and the South is exactly
the same ; with superficial differences we are at last One people.
The fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson and the victory at Gettysburg
send the Union people of Somerville quite up upon the crest of the ever-
rolling sea, and — Mr. Ellis, Dr. Ginnis, lowest of all — the Secessionists
down into the trough thereof for months to come.
" I tell you, Lamum," Dr. Peel says to the editor of the Somerville
" Star," toiling away cold, pale, steady as ever in his business of lying by
power-press, ever consistent in falsehood whatever news Bill Perkins
brings in his budget — kl I tell you. man, one screw loose in the machin-
ery of the Confederate Government is the way the post-office is managed.
What avails all you say in your paper so long as there is a perpetual
stream of private letters coming in to the contrary? Federal papers,
too, these Union people are constantly getting them ; letters, also, from
friends in the Federal lines — such things provision them, so to speak, to
hold out If a few more of them could be hanged — ! "
But this last remedy has been so thoroughly tried— not actually in
Somerville, as yet, but all around it. There was Mrs. Isaac Smith's
brother, John Jennings. Who did not know him ? Gray-headed with
fiftv years of farming — farming with his own hard hands alone these
days, his boys being in the Confederate service, and he owning no
negroes.
"You see, Mr. Arthur," Mrs. Isaac Smith says to that individual, who
hurries to see her — is she not a member of his church ? — on hearing of
the catastrophe, " they knew John was a Union man. He tried to help
its being known, but he couldn't. Not that he said anything. He made
a point to stay close at home— never opened his lips. But he was my
brother, yon know, and my husband being gone, that was enough.
Every once in a while he'd come down from his place— fifteen miles, you
know, it is from here— to bring me a little butter, or cheese, or wheat,
whatever happened he could spare. Ever since Jim Boldin waylaid and
252 WILLIAM MUMFOED BAKER. [1835-60
shot down his own brother-in-law, Mr. Tanner— they do say Mrs. Tanner,
his sister, who is a bitter Secessionist, actually put her brother Jim up
to it ever since Tanner was found lying dead in the road with a ball
through his head for being a Union man, John has been careful as a man
could be. Letters from Isaac ! How could John get letters from Isaac ?
As God hears me, Sir, John never saw one that I didn't show him.
But you've heard the story ; I have no heart to tell it, hardened as I'm
getting to almost anything. A party of a dozen of them broke into
his house at midnight: said to his daughters, poor things! screaming
around, they only wanted to take him to Somerville to be conscripted.
Sarah, the eldest, knew better ; she clung to him till they tore her off,
some of them holding her to the wall while they tied John's hands. As
they was dragging him out, Sarah she begged and screamed only to be
let give him — her gray -headed old father — one last kiss ; they wouldn't
let her do even that, the man holding her saying things — Can you make
yourself believe, Sir, that such a thing can be true in this Christian
land? " says Mrs. Smith, speaking more slowly, exhausted with weeping
till not a tear is left, emotion itself worn out from exercise so intense
and so long. "Sarah here in the next room could tell you herself.
They dragged that unoffending old man — lived fifteen years in the
neighborhood — out of his house, mounted their horses, and rode off at
full speed, holding the end of the rope. Of course when he couldn't run
he was dragged. Sarah tracked him next day by the bits of his clothes
on the brush till she lost the trail over the rocks. No one but her, and
she not twelve years old, near night she finds her father at last. They
had hung him by the neck from a blackjack, (rod knows whether it
was because they intended it, or because they did not know how to tie
the rope so as to strangle, but he was warm yet when she came upon
him. He had been hanging there in struggle and agony full fifteen
hours. Sarah she had never thought to bring a knife — just think if you
can of that poor young thing working there — "
But here there is loud crying from the next room of the little house —
Sarah has been wakened from her slumber of exhaustion by her aunt,
who has forgotten in her excitement that her niece is asleep there.
" We must get used to it, man ; like things, in all varieties of hellish
wickedness, are taking place every hour," says Mr. Ferguson, to whom
Mr. Arthur has been telling the story. " The National Government will
not or cannot help us. For His own wise purpose the Almighty is leav-
ing us to ourselves."
1835-60] MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.
253
BORN in Philadelphia, Perm.
THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE.
[Cartoons. 1875.— Colonial Ballads, etc. 1887.]
"/JARGON! You— you
^" Snared along with this cursed crew ?
(Only a child, and yet so bold,
Scarcely as much as ten years old !)
Do you hear ? do you know
Why the gendarmes put you there, in the row,
You, with those Commune wretches tall,
With your face to the wall ? "
" Know ? To be sure I know ! why not ?
We're here to be shot ;
And there, by the pillar, 's the very spot,
Fighting for France, my father fell :
Ah, well!
That's just the way /would choose to fall,
With my back to the wall ! "
(" Sacre! Fair, open fight, I say,
Is something right gallant in its way,
And fine for warming the blood ; but who
Wants wolfish work like this to do ?
Bah ! 'tis a butcher's business !) How f
(The boy is beckoning to me now :
I knew that his poor child's heart would fail,
.... Yet his cheek's not pale:)
Quick! say your say, for don't you see,
When the Church-clock yonder tolls out Three,
You're all to be shot ?
.... What f
4 Excuse you one moment ' ? O, ho, ho !
Do you think to fool a gendarme so ? "
' ' But, sir, here's a watch that a friend, one day
(My father's friend), just over the way,
Lent me ; and if you'll let me free,
— It still lacks seven minutes of Three, —
I'll come, on the word of a soldier's son,
Straight back into line, when my errand's done.1
" Ha, h a ! No doubt of it ! Off ! Begone !
(Now, good Saint Denis, speed him on !
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. [1835-60
The work will be easier since Ms saved;
For I hardly see how I could have braved
The ardor of that innocent eye,
As he stood and heard,
While I gave the word,
Dooming him like a dog to die.")
1 ' In time ! Well, thanks, that my desire
Was granted; and now, I am ready: — Fire!
One word ! — that's all !
You'll let me turn my lack to the wall ? "
"Parbleu! Come out of the line, I say,
Come out! (who said that his name was Ney f)
Ha! France will hear of him yet one day! "
A GRAVE IN HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY, RICHMOND.
(J. B. T.)
I READ the marble-lettered name,
And half in bitterness I said :
"As Dante from Ravenna came,
Our poet came from exile — dead."
And yet, had it been asked of him
Where he would rather lay his head,
This spot he would have chosen. Dim
The city's hum drifts o'er his grave,
And green above the hollies wave
Their jagged leaves, as when a boy,
On blissful summer afternoons,
He came to sing the birds his runes,
And tell the river of his joy.
Who dreams that in his wanderings wide,
By stern misfortunes tossed and driven,
His soul's electric strands were riven
From home and country ? Let betide
What might, what would, his boast, his pride,
Was in his stricken mother-land,
That could but bless and bid him go,
Because no crust was in her hand
To stay her children's need. We know
The mystic cable sank too deep
For surface storm or stress to strain,
Or from his answering heart to keep
The spark from flashing back again !
1835-60] MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 255
Think of the thousand mellow rhymes,
The pure idyllic passion-flowers,
Wherewith, in far gone, happier times,
He garlanded this South of ours.
Proven9al-like, he wandered long,
And sang at many a stranger's board,
Yet 'twas Virginia's name that poured
The tenderest pathos through his song.
We owe the Poet praise and tears,
Whose ringing ballad sends the brave,
Bold Stuart riding down the years —
What have we given him ? Just a grave!
LADY YEARDLEY'S GUEST.
1654.
TlpWAS a Saturday night, mid-winter,
-*- And the snow with its sheeted pall
Had covered the stubbled clearings
That girdled the rude-built "Hall,"
But high in the deep-mouthed chimney,
'Mid laughter and shout and din,
The children were piling yule-logs
To welcome the Christmas in.
"Ah, so! We'll be glad to-morrow,"
The mother half-musing said,
As she looked at the eager workers,
And laid on a sunny head
A touch as of benediction, —
" For Heaven is just as near
The father at far Patuxent
As if he were with us here.
"So choose ye the pine and holly,
And shake from their boughs the snow ;
We'll garland the rough-hewn rafters
As they garlanded long ago, —
Or ever Sir George went sailing
Away o'er the wild sea-foam, —
In my beautiful English Sussex,
The happy old walls at home."
She sighed. As she paused, a whisper
Set quickly all eyes astrain :
" See! see!" — and the boy's hand pointed-
"There's a face at the window-pane! "
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON, [1835-60
One instant a ghastly terror
Shot sudden her features o'er;
The next, and she rose unbleuching,
And opened the fast- barred door.
" Who be ye that seek admission ?
Who cometh for food and rest ?
This night is a night above others
To shelter a straying guest."
Deep out of the snowy silence
A guttural answer broke :
"I come from the great Three Rivers,
I am chief of the Roanoke."
Straight in through the frightened children,
Unshrinking, the red man strode,
And loosed on the blazing hearthstone,
From his shoulder, a light-borne load ;
And out of the pile of deer-skins,
With a look as serene and mild
As if it had been his cradle,
Stepped softly a four-year child.
As he chafed at the fire his fingers,
Close pressed to the brawny knee,
The gaze that the silent savage
Bent on him was strange to see ;
And then, with a voice whose yearning
The father could scarcely stem,
He said, to the children pointing,
" I want him to be like them !
' ' They weep for the boy in the wigwam :
I bring him, a moon of days,
To learn of the speaking paper ;
To hear of the wiser ways
Of the people beyond the water ;
To break with the plough the sod ;
To be kind to papoose and woman;
To pray to the white man's God."
"I give thee my hand ! " And the lady
Pressed forward with sudden cheer;
"Thou shalt eat of rny English pudding,
And drink of my Christmas beer. —
My darlings, this night, remember
All strangers are kith and kin, —
This night when the dear Lord's Mother
Could find no room at the inn! "
Next morn from the colony belfry
Pealed gayly the Sunday chime,
1835-60J MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.
And merrily forth tbe people
Flocked, keeping the Christinas time;
And the lady, with bright-eyed children
Behind her, their lips a-smile,
And the chief in his skins and wampum,
Came walking the narrow aisle.
Forthwith from the congregation
Broke fiercely a sullen cry,
"Out! out! with the crafty red-skin !
Have at him ! A spy ! A spy ! "
And quickly from belts leaped daggers,
And swords from their sheaths flashed bare,
And men from their seats defiant
Sprang, ready to slay him there.
But facing the crowd with courage
As calm as a knight of yore,
Stepped bravely the fair-browed woman
The thrust of the steel before ;
And spake with a queenly gesture,
Her hand on the chief's brown breast;
"Ye dare not impeach my honor!
Ye dare not insult my guest ! ''
They dropped, at her word, their weapons,
Half-shamed as the lady smiled,
And told them the red man's story,
And showed them the red man's child ;
And pledged them her broad plantations,
That never would such betray
The trust that a Christian woman
Had shown on a Christmas Day!
257
THERE'LL COME A DAY.
nnHERE'LL come a day when the supremest splendor
-*- Of earth, or sky, or sea,
Whate'er their miracles, sublime or tender,
Will wake no joy in me.
There'll come a day when all the aspiration,
Now with such fervor fraught
As lifts to heights of breathless exaltation,
Will seem a thing of naught.
There'll come a day when riches, honor, glory,
Music and song and art,
Will look like puppets in a worn-out story,
Where each has played his part.
VOL. vin.— 17
WILLIAM ALLEN SUTLER. [1835-60
There'll come a day when human love, the sweetest
Gift that includes the whole
Of God's grand giving — sovereignest, completest—
Shall fail to fill my soul.
There'll come a day — I shall not care how passes
The cloud across my sight,
If only, lark-like, from earth's nested grasses,
I spring to meet its light.
mtlliam alien Outlet.
BOKN in Albany, N. Y., 1825.
UHLAND.
[Poems. 1871.]
IT is the poet Uhland, from whose wreathings
Of rarest harmony I here repeat,
In lower tones and less melodious breathings,
Some simple strains where truth and passion meet.
His is the poetry of sweet expression,
Of clear, unfaltering tune, serene and strong;
Where gentlest thoughts and words, in soft procession,
Move to the even measures of his song.
Delighting ever in his own calm fancies,
He sees much beauty where most men see naught,
Looking at Nature with familiar glances,
And weaving garlands in the groves of Thought.
He sings of Youth, and Hope, and high Endeavor,
He sings of Love (O crown of Poesy) !
Of Fate, and Sorrow, and the Grave, forever
The end of strife, the goal of Destiny.
He sings of Fatherland, the minstrel's glory,
High theme of memory and hope divine,
Twining its fame with gems of antique story,
In Suabian songs and legends of the Rhine;
In ballads breathing many a dim tradition,
Nourished in long belief, or minstrel rhymes,
Fruit of the old Romance, whose gentle mission
Passed from the earth before our wiser times.
1835-60] JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER. 259
Well do they know his name amongst the mountains, mm
And plains, and valleys of his native land ;
Part of their nature are the sparkling fountains
Of his clear thought, with rainbow fancies spanned.
His simple lays oft sings the mother cheerful,
Beside the cradle, in the dim twilight;
His plaintive notes low breathes the maiden tearful
With tender murmurs in the ear of Night.
The hillside swain, the reaper in the meadows,
Carol his ditties through the toilsome day ;
And the lone hunter in the Alpine shadows
Recalls his ballads by some ruin gray.
O precious gift ! O wondrous inspiration !
Of all high deeds, of all harmonious things,
To be the oracle, while a whole nation
Catches the echo from the sounding strings.
Out of the depths of feeling and emotion
Rises the orb of song, serenely bright,
As who beholds, across the tracts of ocean,
The golden sunrise bursting into light.
Wide is its magic world,— divided neither
By continent, nor sea, nor narrow zone;
Who would not wish sometimes to travel thither,
In fancied fortunes to forget his own !
Calmer,
BORN in Baltimore, Md., 1825.
STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY.
[Written at Oakland, Md.. 17 September, 1862, within hearing of the Guns ofAntietam.
—From the Author's revised Manuscript.}
COME, stack arms, men; pile on the rails;
Stir up the camp-fire bright!
No growling if the canteen fails :
We'll make a roaring night.
Here Shenandoah brawls along.
There burly Blue Ridge echoes strong,
To swell the Brigade's rousing song
Of Stonewall Jackson's Way.
JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER. [1835-60
We see him now — the queer slouched hat,
Cocked o'er his eye askew ;
The shrewd, dry smile; the speech so pat,
So calm, so blunt, so true.
The "Blue-light Elder " knows 'em well:
Says he, "That's Banks; he's fond of shell.
Lord save his soul! we'll give him — ; " Well,
That's Stonewall Jackson's Way.
Silence! Ground arms! Kneel all! Caps off !
Old Massa's going to pray.
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff:
Attention ! — it's his way.
Appealing from his native sod,
In forma pauperis to God,
' ' Lay bare Thine arm ! Stretch forth Thy rod :
Amen ! " — That's Stonewall's Way.
He's in the saddle now. Fall in !
Steady ! the whole brigade.
Hill's at the ford, cut off ; we'll win
His way out, ball and blade.
What matter if our shoes are worn ?
What matter if our feet are torn ?
Quick step ! we're with him before morn :
That's Stonewall Jackson's Way.
The sun's bright lances rout the mists
Of morning ; and By George !
Here's Longstreet, struggling in the lists,
Hemmed in an ugly gorge.
Pope and his Dutchmen ! — whipped before.
"Bay'nets and grape! " hear Stonewall roar.
Charge, Stuart! Pay off Ash by 's score,
In Stonewall Jackson's Way.
Ah, Maiden ! wait and watch, and yearn,
For news of Stonewall's band.
Ah, Widow ! read, witli eyes that burn,
That ring upon thy hand.
Ah, Wife ! sew on, pray on, hope on !
Thy life shall not be all forlorn.
The foe had better ne'er been born,
That gets in Stonewall's Way.
1835-60] JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER. 261
FOR CHARLIE'S SAKE.
[FolkSongs. Revised Edition. 1867.]
rpHE night is late, the house is still,
The angels of the hour fulfil
Their tender ministries, and move
From couch to couch, in cares of love.
They drop into thy dreams, sweet wife,
The happiest smile of Charlie's life,
And lay on Baby's lips a kiss
Fresh from his angel-brother's bliss;
And as they pass, they seem to make
A strange, dim hymn, " For Charlie's sake! '
My listening heart takes up the strain,
And gives it to the night again,
Fitted with words of lowly praise,
And patience learned of mournful days,
And memories of the dead child's ways.
His will be done, His will be done!
Who gave, and took away, my son —
In the far land to shine and sing
Before the Beautiful, the King,
Who every day doth Christinas make,
All starred and belled for Charlie's sake.
For Charlie's sake I will arise ;
I will anoint me where he lies,
And change my raiment, and go in
To the Lord's house, leaving my sin
Without, and seat me at His board,
Eat, and be glad, and praise the Lord.
For wherefore should I fast and weep,
And sullen moods of mourning keep ?
I cannot bring him back, nor he,
For any calling, come to me :
The bond the angel Death did sign,
God sealed — for Charlie's sake and mine.
I'm very poor — his slender stone
Marks all the narrow field I own ;
Yet, patient husbandman, I till
With faith and prayers that precious hill,
Sow it with penitential pains,
And, hopeful, wait the latter rains:
Content if, after all, the spot
Yield barely one forget-me-not;
Whether or figs or thistles make
My crop — content, for Charlie's sake.
JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER. [1835-60
I have no houses, build ed well —
Only that little lonesome cell,
Where never romping playmates come,
Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb :
An April burst of girls and boys,
Their rain bo wed cloud of griefs and joys
Born with their songs, gone with their toys,-
Nor ever is its stillness stirred
By purr of cat, or chirp of bird,
Or mother's twilight legend, told
Of Homer's pie or Tiddler's gold,
Or Fairy, hobbling to the door,
Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor,
To bless the good child's gracious eyes,
The good child's wistful charities,
And crippled Changeling's hunch to make
Dance on his crutch, for Good Child's sake.
How is it with the lad ?— Tis well;
Nor would I any miracle
Might stir my sleeper's tranquil trance,
Or plague his painless countenance;
I would not any Seer might place
His staff on my immortal's face,
Or lip to lip, and 'eye to eye,
Charm back his pale mortality :
No, Shunammite ! I would not break
God's quiet. Let them weep who wake.
For Charlie's sake my lot is blest :
No comfort like his mother's breast,
No praise like hers ; no charm exprest
In fairest forms hath half her zest.
For Charlie's sake this bird's carest
That Death left lonely in the nest.
For Charlie's sake my heart is drest,
As for its birthday, in its best.
For Charlie's sake we leave the rest
To Him who gave, and who did take,
And saved us twice— for Charlie's sake.
1835-60] SAMUEL BOWLES. 263
BORN in Springfield, Mass., 1826. DIED there, 1878.
A MAN'S FAITH.
[Life and Times of Samuel Bowles. 1885.]
BLESS you, my dear friend, for opening to me so freely your relig-
ious life and faith. Had I not been gradually recognizing it for the
last two or three months, I should have been astonished to find it is so
great a thing to you. And I am surprised and impressed that yours was
that common experience of revelation and rest by a sudden flash, as it
were. There must be, I suppose, preparation and thought ; but the finish-
ing stroke seems God-given, and fastens itself in a way that must be
wonderfully impressive. As to my own opinions, it would be pretty
difficult to describe them. Perhaps you have done it as nearly as it can
be done — yet I do not wholly recognize it as my condition. All these
things have seemed very much a muddle to me — my mind never could
solve them. I can generally average and condense the intelligent views
and opinions of others on most subjects ; but here the wide divergence
of great and good men, the contradictions of revelation and science, the
variant testimony of all our sources of information, have been too much
for the grasp and condensation of my mind. So I have just put it all
aside — and waited. I have striven to keep my heart and my head free
and unprejudiced, open to all good influences — ready to receive the gift,
but perhaps not reaching out for it — and not reaching out, perhaps,
again, because when I made the effort I felt a sickening feeling of hypoc-
risy, mixed with the apprehension that to go ahead was for me to go
back. And that the faith of the fathers and the testimony of good men
forbade me to do. So I have seemed forced to be content to grow in
goodness in my more practical way, and to leave theories and faith to
time. I try to make my life show the result of Christianity and godli-
ness, if I have not the thing in its theoretical form. Patience, charity,
faith in men, faith in progress, have been lessons that I have been learn-
ing these many years. Purity of life too has been a steadfast aim.
Measured by my fellows, I have been successful — more successful than
many who have firmer foundations, or affect to have. But this con-
sciousness is injurious to me. It is leading me to be content It is per-
haps reconciling me to a little sin. And indeed I do not expect ever to
be perfectly good, or to find any other person so. I do not see how that
is possible with any nature. That is, I mean by goodness, purity of
soul — perfect purity in thought as well as action. Deeds may be com-
264 SAMUEL BOWLES. [1835-60
manded, though that is rare, and I do not know that I ever saw or
expect to see a person who can do it,— but the thought, never, it seems
to me, so long as we are human. Indeed, does God expect or demand it
of us ? We cannot crucify our earthly desires,— that has been tried, and
it was semi-barbarism. They are the elements of growth, of usefulness,
of progress, almost as much as the yearnings of a higher and holier
nature. Strike out from the world the deeds or that portion of them
done through the promptings of what may be called the human side of
our nature — ambition, selfishness, passion, love, hate, etc., — and the
world would stop, retrograde. There is not force enough in the divinity
within us to carry on the machine. Does not God understand this better
than we do? Are we not made as we are with a view to produce the
greatest results ? Let any candid mind, honest but severe, examine the
motives which lead it to the execution of its highest and noblest deeds —
I imagine it will find subtly but not always feebly working there some
elements of selfishness, pride, ambition, desire to appear well, make an
impression, gain the applause of the multitudes or the one. Did you ever
think of that ? I have, and watched myself and others — and sometimes
I have thought there was never an absolutely pure action — pure I mean
of any human element, wholly divine. And why should there be? Can
human beings become divinities — wholly, exclusively ? "When they do
they will cease to be human, and go hence. So I learn patience and
charity, even for myself. All progress, all good, is but an approxima-
tion. The end is never reached, never can be, perhaps never could be, —
but the effort should be continuous and earnest. It should also be intelli-
gent. It should not be self -upbraiding and morbidly dissatisfied with
itself. Praise is said to be useful to others — is it not to ourselves from
ourselves ? Justice is the better word — we should be just and generous
to ourselves. There are some people — are you not one ? — charitable and
loving and generous to everybody else, but hard and severe to them-
selves. This is cruel, wicked. It limits their happiness and their use-
fulness. One of our first duties is to ourselves — to make ourselves
happy. Then we can make others happy, and make them grow, and
grow with them. Of course, indulgence is not always the way to make
ourselves happy — and yet there are some indulgences that we should
permit ourselves. The philosophy of life is understood by but few.
Our humanity makes us oftener blindly practise and illustrate it, than
spread intelligent theories. We practise better than we preach.
1835-60] NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS. 265
anti
SPIRITUALS.
[Negro Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern. By J. J. Trux. Putnam's Monthly. 1855.—
Negro Spirituals. By T. W. Higginson. The Atlantic Monthly. 1867.— Slave Songs
of the frnited States. Edited by W. F. Allen, C. P. Ware, and Lucy McKim Garri-
son. 1867. — Songs of the Slave. By J. M. Brown. Lippincott's Magazine. 1868. —
Jubilee Songs : as sung by the Jubilee Singers, of Fisk University. Edited by T, F.
Seward. 1872.— Cabin and Plantation Songs: as sung by the Hampton Students.
Arranged by T. P. Fenner. 1875.J
M
ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL.
Y brudder sittin' on de tree of life
An' he yearde when Jordan roll.
Roll, Jordan,
Roll, Jordan,
Roll, Jordan, roll!
O march de angel march ;
O my soul arise in Heaven, Lord,
For to yearde when Jordan roll.
Little chil'en, learn to fear de Lord,
And let your days be long.
Roll, Jordan, etc.
O let no false nor spiteful word
Be found upon your tongue.
Roll, Jordan, etc.
SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT.
OH, de good ole chariot swing so low,
I don't want to leave me behind.
O swing low, sweet chariot,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
I don't want to leave me behind.
Oh, de good ole chariot will take us all home,
I don't want to leave me behind.
Swing low, sweet chariot, etc.
IN DE MORNIIT.
"T~N de mornin',
-L In de mornin',
Chil'en ? Yes, my Lord !
NEGEO HYMNS AND SONGS. [1835-60
Don't you hear de trumpet souud ?
If I had a-died when I was young,
I never would had de race for run.
Don't you hear de trumpet sound ?
Oh, Sam and Peter was fishin' in de sea,
And dey drop de net and follow my Lord.
Don't you, etc.
Dere's a silver spade for to dig my grave
And a golden chain for to let me down.
Don't you hear de trumpet sound ?
In de inornin',
In de mornin',
Chil'en? Yes, my Lord!
Don't you hear de trumpet sound ?
BRIGHT SPAEKLES IN DE CHURCHYARD.
(Medley.)
M
1AY de Lord— He will be glad of me—
In de heaven He'll rejoice.
In de heaven, once,
In de heaven, twice,
In de heaven He'll rejoice.
Bright sparkles in de churchyard
Give light unto de tomb ;
Bright summer, spring's over,
Sweet flowers in der bloom.
My mother, once,
My mother, twice,
My mother she'll rejoice.
In de heaven once, etc.
Mother, rock me in de cradle all de day ; —
All de day, etc.
Oh, mother don't yer love yer darlin' child ?
Oh, rock me in de cradle all de day.
Rock me, etc.
You may lay me down to sleep, my mother dear,
Oh, rock me in de cradle all de day.
B
O'ER DE CROSSIN'.
ENDIN' knees achin', Body racked wid pain,
I wish I was a child of God, I'd get home bimeby.
Keep prayin', I do believe
We're a long time waggin' o'er de crossin' ;
1835-60] NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS.
Keep pray in', I do believe
We'll get home to heaven bimeby.
Yonder's my old mudder, Been a waggin' at de hill so long;
It's about time she'll cross over; Get home bimeby.
Keep prayin', I do believe, etc.
Hear dat mournful thunder Roll from door to door,
Callin' home God's children; Get home bimeby.
Little chil'en, I do believe, etc.
See dat forked lightin' Flash from tree to tree,
Callin' home God's chil'en ; Get home bimeby.
True believe, I do believe, etc.
LAY DIS BODY DOWN.
I KNOW moon-rise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down ;
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down.
I walk in de graveyard, I walk troo de graveyard,
To lay dis body down.
I'll lie in de grass and stretch out my arms :
Lay dis body down.
I go to de judgment in de evenin' of de day,
When I lay dis body down ;
And my soul and your soul will meet in de day
When I lay dis body down.
STAES BEGIN TO FALL.
T TINK I hear my brudder say,
-L Call de nation great and small ;
I lookee on de God's right hand
When de stars begin to fall.
Oh, what a mournin', sister, —
Oh, what a mournin', brudder, —
Oh, what a mournin',
When de stars begin to fall !
IN DAT GREAT GITTIN'-UP MORNIN*.
I'M a gwine to tell you bout de comin' ob de Saviour,-
Fare you well, Fare you well,
Dere's a better day a-comin,
When my Lord speaks to his Fader,
NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS. [1835-60
400
Says, Fader, I'm tired o' bearin',
Tired o' bearin' for poor sinners:
O preachers, fold your Bibles ;
Prayer-makers, pray no more,
For de last soul's converted.
In dat great gittin'-up Mornin',
Fare you well, Fare you well.
De Lord spoke to Gabriel :
Say, go look behind de altar,
Take down de silver trumpet,
Go down to de sea-side,
Place one foot on de dry laud,
Place de oder on de sea,
Raise your hand to heaven,
Declare by your Maker,
Dat time shall be no longer,
In dat great gittin'-up Mornin', etc.
Blow your trumpet, Gabriel.
Lord, how loud shall I blow it ?
Blow it right calm and easy,
Do not alarm my people,
Tell dem to come to judgment,
In dat great gittin'-up Mornin', etc.
Gabriel, blow your trumpet.
Lord, how loud shall I blow it ?
Loud as seven peals of thunder,
Wake de sleepin' nations.
Den you see poor sinner risin',
See de dry bones a creepin',
In dat great gittin'-up Mornin', etc.
Den you see de world on fire,
You see de moon a bleedin',
See de stars a falliu',
See de elements meltin',
See de forked lightnin',
Hear de rumblin' thunder.
Earth shall reel and totter,
Hell shall be uncapped,
De dragon shall be loosened.
Fare you well, poor sinner,
In dat great gittin'-up Mornin',
Fare you well, Fare you well.
1835-60] NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS.
MISCELLANEOUS.
SAVANNAH FIEEMEN^S SONG.
TTEAYE away, heave away !
•*-»- I'd rather court a yellow gal than work for Henry Clay.
Heave away, heave away !
Yellow gal, I want to go,
I'd rather court a yellow gal, etc.
Heave away 1
Yellow gal, I want to go.
BOAT SONG.
/^ EN'EL Jackson, mighty man—
^J~ Whaw, my kingdom, fire away ;
He fight on sea, an' he fight on land,
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away.
Gen'el Jackson gain de day —
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away,
He gain de day in Floriday,
Whaw, rny kingdom, fire away.
Gen'el Jackson fine de trail—
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away;
He full um fote wid cotton bale,
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away.
AWAY DOWN IN SUNBUKY.
O
MASS A take dat new bran coat
And hang it on de wall,
Dat darkee take dat same ole coat
And wear 'em to de ball.
Chor. O don't you hear my true lub sing ?
O don't you hear 'em sigh ?
Away down in Sunbury
I'm bound to live and die.
CHAELESTON GALS.
S I walked down the new-cut road,
- I met the tap and I met the toad ;
The toad commenced to whistle and sing,
And the possum cut the pigeon wing.
270
NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS. [1835-60
Hi ho, for Charleston gals !
Charleston gals are the gals for me.
Along come an old man riding by:
Old man, mind, or your horse will die ;
If he dies I'll tan his skin,
And if he lives I'll ride him agin.
As I went a-walkin' down the street,
Up steps Charleston gals to walk with me.
I kep' a walkin' and they kep' a talkin',
I danced with a gal with a hole in her stockin'.
Hi ho! for Charleston gals!
Charleston gals are the gals for me.
MANY THOUSAND GO.
NO more peck o' corn for me,
No more, no more ;
No more peck o' corn for me,
Many tousand go.
No more driver's lash for me,
No more, etc.
No more pint o' salt for me,
No more, etc.
No more hundred lash for me,
No more, etc.
No more mistress' call for me,
No more, etc.
No more auction-block for me,
No more, no more ;
No more auction-block for me,
Many tousand go.
1835-60] GEORGE BR1NTON M'CLELLAN. 271
I3rmton
BOKN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1826. DIED at Orange, N. J., 1885.
FOREIGNERS IN THE NORTHERN ARMY.
[McClellan's Own, Story. 1887.]
OF course I rode everywhere and saw everything. Not an entrench-
ment was commenced unless I had at least approved its site;
many I located myself. Not a camp that I did not examine, not a picket-
line that I did not visit and cross, so that almost every man in the army
saw me at one time or another, and most of them became familiar with
my face. And there was no part of the ground near Washington that I
did not know thoroughly.
The most entertaining of my duties were those which sometimes led
me to Blenker's camp, whither Franklin was always glad to accompanv
me to see the "circus," or '"opera," as he usually called the perform-
ance. As soon as we were sighted, Blenker would have the " officer's
call " blown to assemble his potyglot collection, with their uniform as
varied and brilliant as the colors of the rainbow. Wrapped in his scar-
let-lined cloak, his group of officers ranged around him, he would receive
us with the most formal and polished courtesy. Being a very handsome
and soldierly-looking man himself, and there being many equally so
among his surroundings, the tableau was always very effective, and pre-
sented a striking contrast to the matter-of-fact way in which tilings
were managed in the other divisions.
In a few minutes he would shout, " Ordinanz numero eins I " where-
upon champagne would be brought in great profusion, the bands would
play, sometimes songs be sung. It was said, I know not how truly, that
Blenker had been a non-commissioned officer in the German contingent
serving under King Otho of Greece.
His division was very peculiar. So far as "the pride, pomp, and cir-
cumstance of glorious war" were concerned, it certainly outshone all
the others. Their drill and bearing were also excellent ; for all the offi-
cers, and probably all the men, had served in Europe. I have always
regretted that the division was finally taken from me and sent to Fre-
mont. The officers and men were all strongly attached to me ; I could
control them as no one else could, and they would have done good serv-
ice had they remained in Sumner's corps. The regiments were all for-
eign and mostly of Germans ; but the most remarkable of all was the
Garibaldi regiment. Its colonel, D'Utassy, was a Hungarian, and was
said to have been a rider in Franconi's Circus, and terminated his public
272
GEOR&E BRINTON M'CLELLAN. [1835-60
American career in the Albany Penitentiary. His men were from all
known and unknown lands, from all possible and impossible armies:
Zouaves from Algiers, men of the "Foreign Legion," Zephyrs, Cossacks,
Garibaldians of the deepest dye, English deserters, Sepoys, Turcos, Croats,
Swiss, beer-drinkers from Bavaria, stout men from North Germany, and
no doubt Chinese, Esquimaux, and detachments from the army of the
Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.
Such a mixture was probably never before seen under any flag, unless,
perhaps, in such bands as Hoik's Jagers of the Thirty Years' War, or
the free lances of the middle ages.
I well remember that in returning one night from beyond the picket-
lines I encountered an outpost of the Garibaldians. In reply to their
challenge I tried English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Indian, a
little Russian and Turkish ; all in vain, for nothing at my disposal made
the slightest impression upon them, and I inferred that they were per-
haps gypsies or Esquimaux or Chinese.
Mr. Seward's policy of making ours "a people's war," as he expressed
it, by drumming up officers from all parts of the world, sometimes pro-
duced strange results and brought us rare specimens of the class vul-
garly known as "hard cases." Most of the officers thus obtained had
left their own armies for the armies' good, although there were admi-
rable and honorable exceptions, such as Stahl, Willich, Rosencranz, Ces-
nola, and some others. Few were of the slightest use to us, and I think
the reason why the German regiments so seldom turned out well was
that their officers were so often men without character.
Soon after General Scott retired I received a letter from the Hungarian
Klapka informing me that he had been approached by some of Mr. Sew-
ard's agents to get him into our army, and saying that he thought it best
to come to a direct understanding with myself as to terms, etc. He said
that he would require a bonus of $100,000 in cash and a salary of
$25,000 per annum ; that on his first arrival he would consent to serve
as my chief of staff for a short time until he acquired the language, and
that he would then take my place of general commanding-in-chief. He
failed to state what provision he would make for me, that probably to
depend upon the impression I made upon him.
I immediately took the letter to Mr. Lincoln, who was made very
angry by it, and, taking possession of the letter, said that he would see
that I should not be troubled in that way again.
Cluseret— afterwards Minister of War under the Commune— brought
me a letter of introduction from Garibaldi, recommending him in the
highest terms as a soldier, man of honor, etc. I did not like his appear-
ance and declined his services ; but without my knowledge or consent
Stanton appointed him a colonel on my staff. I still declined to have
1835-60] GEORGE BRINTON 3TCLELLAN, 273
anything to do with him, and he was sent to the Mountain Department,
as chief of staff, I think.
On the recommendation of the Prussian minister I took upon my
staff, as aides-de-camp, two German officers whose subsequent histories
were peculiar and suggestive. One was a member of a very noble fam-
ily, whose father had held high official rank in his native land, the son
having been a lieutenant in the Guard Cavalry. He was one of the
handsomest young fellows I have ever seen, polished to the last degree,
and a splendid soldier. He remained with me during my command,
and always performed difficult and dangerous duties in the best possible
manner. He remained with the army on staff-duty after I was relieved.
Being in Germany when the Austro-Prussian war broke out, I deter-
mined to call upon the War Minister and advise him to recall the officer
in question, as an admirable soldier whose experience in our war would
be valuable; for I had been led to believe that his original separation
from his own army had been caused by some trivial breach of discipline.
Within a few days I learned that he had been dismissed our service.
The last I heard of this poor fellow — for one cannot help feeling sorry
for the waste of such excellent gifts — was that he made his living as
croupier in a gambling-den.
The other was of an old military family ; his father had been a gen-
eral, and I had met his brothers and cousins as officers in the Austrian
army. He also was an admirable and most useful aide in difficult times.
After I left the field he became lieutenant-colonel, and probably colonel,
of a regiment, and did good service. At the close of the war, failing to
be retained, he enlisted in a regular cavalry regiment, hoping to be
examined and promoted to a commission ; but his habits were against
him. At last, in carrying the mail during the winter between the posts
on the plains, his feet were frozen and, I think, amputated. Finally his
family sent for him, and he returned home to die.
Of a different order were the French princes who formed part of my
military family from September 20, 1861, to the close of the Seven Days.
They served as captains, declining any higher rank, though they had
fully earned promotion before the close of their connection with the
army. They served precisely as the other aides, taking their full share
of all duty, whether agreeable or disagreeable, dangerous or the reverse.
They were fine young fellows and good soldiers, and deserved high
credit in every way.
Their uncle, the Prince de Joinville, who accompanied them as a
mentor, held no official position, but our relations were always confiden-
tial and most agreeable. The Due de Chartres had received a military
education at the military school at Turin ; the Comte de Paris had only
received instruction in military matters from his tutors. They had
VOL. VIII.— 18
274
GEORGE BRINTON M'CLELLAN. [1835-60
their separate establishment, being accompanied by a physician and a
captain of chasseurs-d-pied. The latter was an immense man, who could
never, under any circumstances, be persuaded to mount a horse: he
always made the march on foot.
Their little establishment was usually the jolliest in camp, and it was
often a great relief to me, when burdened with care, to listen to the
laughter and gayety that resounded from their tents. They managed
their affairs so well that they were respected and liked by all with
whom they came in contact. The Prince de Joinville sketched admi-
rably and possessed a most keen sense of the ridiculous, so that his
sketch-book was an inexhaustible source of amusement, because every-
thing ludicrous that struck his fancy on the march was sure to find a
place there. He was a man of far more than ordinary ability and of
excellent judgment His deafness was, of course, a disadvantage to
him, but his admirable qualities were so marked that I became warmly
attached to him, as, in fact, I did to all the three, and I have good reason
to know that the feeling was mutual.
Whatever may have been the peculiarities of Louis Philippe during
his later life, it is very certain that in his youth, as the Due de Chartres,
he was a brave, dashing, and excellent soldier. His sons, especially the
Dues d'Orleans, d'Aumale, Montpensier, and the Prince de Joinville,
showed the same characteristics in Algiers and elsewhere ; and I may be
permitted to say that my personal experience with the three members of
the family who served with me was such that there could be no doubt
as to their courage, energy, and military spirit. The course pursued by
the Prince de Joinville and the Due de Chartres during the fatal inva-
sion of France by the Germans was irT perfect harmony with this. Both
sought service, under assumed names, in the darkest and most danger-
ous hours of their country's trial. The due served for some months as
Capt. Eobert le Fort, and under that name, his identity being known to
few if any beyond his closest personal friends, gained promotion and
distinction by his gallantry and intelligence.
1835-60] CAROLINE FRANCES ORNE. 27K
Caroline tfranceg €>rne*
BORN in Cambridge, Mass.
THE LETTER OF MARQUE.
[Morning Songs of American Freedom. 1876.]
TTTE had sailed out a Letter of Marque,
Fourteen guns and forty men;
And a costly freight our gallant barque
Was bearing home again.
We had ranged the seas the whole summer-tide,
Crossed the main, and returned once more;
Our sails were spread, and from the mast-head
The lookout saw the distant shore.
"A saill a sail on the weather bow!
Hand over hand, ten knots an hour! "
" Now God defend it ever should end
That we should fall in the foeman's power! "
'Twas an English frigate came bearing down,
Bearing down before the gale,
Riding the waves that sent their spray
Dashing madly o'er mast and sail.
Every stitch of our canvas set,
Like a frightened bird our good barque flew ;
The wild waves lashed and the foam crests dashed,
As we threaded the billows through.
The night came down on the waters wide, —
"By Heaven's help we'll see home once more,"
Our captain cried, "for nor-nor-west
Lies Cape Cod Light, and the good old shore."
A sudden flash, and a sullen roar '
Booming over the stormy sea,
Showed the frigate close on our track, —
How could we hope her grasp to flee ?
Our angry gunner the stern-chaser fired;
I hardly think they heard the sound,
The billows so wildly roared and raged,
As we forward plunged with furious bound.
"All our prizes safely in
Shall we fall a prize to-night ?
The Shoal of George's lies sou-south-east,
Bearing away from Cape Cod Light."
CAROLINE FRANCES ORNE. [1835-60
Our captain's face grew dark and stem,
Deadly white his closed lips were.
The men looked in each other's eyes, —
Not a look that spoke of fear.
"Hard up!"
Hard up the helm was jammed.
The wary steersman spoke no word.
In the roar of the breakers on either side
Murmurs of wonder died unheard.
Loud and clear rose the captain's voice, —
A bronzed old sea-dog, calm and cool.
He had been in sea-fights oft,
Trained eye and hand in danger's school.
"Heave the lead!"
The lead was hove;
Sharp and short the quick reply ;
Steady rose the captain's voice,
Dark fire glowed his swarthy eye.
Right on the Shoal of George's steered,
Urged with wild, impetuous force,
Lost, if on either side we veered
But a hand's breadth from our course.
On and on our good barque drove,
Leaping like mad from wave to wave
Hissing and roaring 'round her bow,
Hounding her on to a yawning grave.
God ! 'twas a desperate game we played !
White as the combing wave grew each cheek;
Our hearts in that moment dumbly prayed,
For never a word might our blenched lips speak.
On and on the frigate drove,
Right in our track, close bearing down ;
Our captain's face was still and stern,
Every muscle too rigid to frown.
On and on the frigate drove,
Swooping down in her glorious pride ;
Lord of Heaven ! what a shriek was that
Ringing over the waters wide !
Striking swift on the sunken rocks.
Down went the frigate beneath the wave ;
All her crew in an instant sunk,
Gulfed in the closing grave !
We were alone on the rolling sea ;
Man looked to man with a silent pain;
Sternly our captain turned away ;
Our helmsman bore on our course again.
1835-60] JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. 27?
Into the harbor we safely sailed
When the red morn glowed o'er the bay :
The sinking ship, and the wild death-cry,
We shall see, and hear, to our dying-day.
2Hiiliam T&t f oregt
BORN in Humphreysville, now Seymour, Conn., 1826.
A SOUTHERNER OF THE OLD SCHOOL.
[Kate Beaumont. 1872.]
" TTI ! — Yah ! — Ho ! — Mars Pejt !— Grwine ter git up to-day ? "
•Q- This incantation is heard in the bedroom of the Honorable
Peyton Beaumont. It is pronounced by a shining, jolly youngster of a
negro, seated on the bare clean pitch-pine floor, his legs curving out
before him like compasses, a blacking-brush held up to his mouth for
further moistening, and an aristocratic-looking boot drawn over his left
hand like a gauntlet. The incantation is responded to by a savage
grunt from a long bundle on a tousled bed, out of which bundle peeps a
grizzled and ruffled topknot, and some portion of a swarthy face framed
in iron-gray beard and whiskers. After the grunt comes a silence which
is followed in turn by a snore so loud and prolonged that it reminds one
of the long roll of a dram-corps.
The negro resumes his work, whistling the while in a sort of whisper
and bobbing his head in time to the tune. Presently he pauses and
takes a look at the bundle of bedclothes. "Ain't gwine ter wake up
yit; mighty sleepy dis mornin'." More brushing, whistling, and bob-
bing. Then another look. "Done gone fas' asleep agin; guess I'll
catch 'nother hold." There is a small table near him, with a bottle on it
and glasses. Hand goes up ; bottle is uncorked ; liquor is decanted ;
very neatly done indeed. More brushing, whistling, and keeping time,
just to lull the sleeper. Hand seeks the table once more; glass brought
down and emptied; set back in its place; no jingle. Then further
brushing, and the job is finished.
His work done, the negro got up with an " 0 Lorciy ! " walked to the
bedside, dropped the boots with a bang, and shouted, " Hi ! Mars Pey t ! "
" Clear out ! " growled Mars Peyton, and made a lunge with a muscu-
lar hand, so heavy that it might remind one of the paw of an animal.
There was a rapid rectification of the frontier on the part of the darky;
0^Q JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. [1835-60
Z i o
he retreated towards a doorway which led into what was obviously a
dressing-room. At a safe distance from the bed he halted and yelled
anew, " Hi ! Mars Peyt ! "
Mars Peyt disengaged one hand entirely from the bedclothes, seized
the top of a boot and slung it at the top of the negro, who dodged grin-
ning through the door just as the projectile banged against it.
" Hi ! Yah ! Ho ! ho, Mars Peyt ! " he shouted this time with an
intonation of triumph, aware that his toughest morning job was over and
pleased at having accomplished it without barking a shin.
"Now den, Mars Peyt, you dress youself," he continued. "When
you's ready, I'll fix you cocktail."
" Fix it now," huskily growled the lord of the manor. " I'm dressing,
— confound you ! "
Such was the Honorable Peyton Beaumont; something like a big,
wilful, passionate boy ; such at least he was on many occasions. As for
his difficulty in waking up of mornings, we must excuse him on the
ground that he slept badly of nights. Went to bed on brandy ; honestly
believed he should rest the better for it ; after two hours of travelling or
fighting nightmare, woke up; dull pain and increasing heat in the back
of his head ; pillow baking hot, and hot all over ; not another wink till
morning. Then came a short, feverish nap ; then this brushing, whist-
ling, shouting Cato, — who wouldn't throw boots at him ? But Cato was
continued in the office of valet because he was the only negro in the
house who had the impudence to bring about a thorough waking, and
because Mr. Beaumont was determined to be up at a certain hour. He
was not the sort of man to let himself be beaten, not even by his own
physical necessities.
What was he like when he entered the dressing-room in shirt and
trousers, with the streaky redness of soap and water about his sombre
face, and plumped heavily into a high-backed oak arm-chair, to receive
his cocktail and to be shaved by Cato? At first glance he might seem
to be a clean but very savage buccaneer. It would be easy to imagine
such a man grasping at chances for duels and following the scent of a
family feud. His broad, dark red face, overhung by tousled iron-gray
hair and set in a stiff iron-gray beard, had just this one merit, of being
regular in outline and feature. Otherwise it was terrible ; it was nothing
less than alarming. Paches, the Athenian admiral who massacred the gar-
rison of Notium, might well have had such a countenance. In the blood-
shot black eyes (suffused with the yellow of habitual biliousness), in the
stricture of the Grecian mouth, in the cattish tremblings of the finely
turned though hairy nostrils, and in the nervous pointings of the bushy
eyebrows, there was an expression of intense pugnacity, as fiery as
powder and as long-winded as death.
1835-00] JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. 279
In fact, he had all sorts of a temper. It was as sublime as a tiger's
and as ridiculous as a monkey's. His body was marked by the scars of
duels and rencontres, and the life-blood of more than one' human being
was crusted on his soul. At the same time he could snap like a cross
child, break crockery, and kick chairs. Perhaps we ought partly to
excuse his fits of passion on the score of nearly constant and often keen
physical suffering. People, in speaking of his temper, said, "Brandy" ;
but it was mainly brandy in its secondary forms, — broken sleep, an
inflamed alimentary canal, and gout.
Meanwhile he had traits of gentleness which occasionally astonished
the people who were afraid of him. While he could fly at his children
in sudden furies, he was passionately fond of them, supported them
generously, and spoiled them with petting. Barring chance oaths and
kicks which were surprised out of him, he was kind to his negroes, feed-
ing them liberally, and keeping them well clothed. As proud as Luci-
fer and as domineering as Beelzebub, he could be charmingly courteous
to equals and friends.
'• How you find that, Mars Peyt? " asked Cato, when the cocktail had
been hastily clutched and greedily swallowed.
" Devilish thin." Yoice, however, the smoother and face blander for it
" Make you 'nother? "
" Yes." Mellow growl, not exclusively savage, much like that of a
placated tiger.
This comedy, by the way, was played every morning, with a varia-
tion Sundays. Mr. Beaumont, having vague religious notions about
him, and being willing to make a distinction in days, took three cock-
tails on the Sabbath, besides lying in bed later.
The shaving commenced ; the patient bristling occasionally, but grow-
ing milder ; the operator supple, cautious, and talkative, slowly getting
the upper hand.
" Now hold you head still. You jerk that way, an' you'll get a cut.
How you s'pose I can shave when you's slammin' you face round like it
was a do' ? "
" Cato, I really need another cocktail this morning. Had a precious
bad night of it."
" No, you don', now. 'Tain't Sunday to-day. Laws bless you, Mars
Peyt, ho, ho ! you's mos' 'ligious man I knows of, he, he ! befo' breakf us.
You'd jes like t'have Sunday come every day in the week, so's you could
have three cocktails. No you don', no sech thing. 'Tain't good for you.
There, liked to cut you then. Hold you nose roun', dere." (Pushing
the noble Greek proboscis into place with thumb and finger.) " Now,
then, shut up you mouf ; I'se gwine to lather. Them's urn. This yere's
f us-rate soap. Makes a reg'lar swamp o' lather."
2go JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. [1835-60
"Well, hurry up now," growls Mr. Beaumont, a little sore because he
can't have his third cocktail. " Don't stand there all day staring at the
soap-brush."
" What's Mars Vincent up to this mornin' ? " suggests Cato, seeking
to lull the rising storm with the oil of gossip.
" What is he up to ? " demands Peyton Beaumont with a fierce roll of
the eyes :— as much as to say, If anybody is up to anything without my
permission, I'll break his head.
"Flyin' roun' greasin' his pistils an' talkin' softly with Mars Bent
Armitage. Don' like the looks of it."
Mr. Beaumont uttered an inarticulate growl and was clearly anxious
to have the dressing over. At last he was shaved ; his noble beard was
combed and his martial hair brushed upward; he rose with a strong
grip on the arms of his chair and slipped his arm into his extended coat.
He was much improved in appearance from what he had been ; he still
looked fierce, but not uncouth, nor altogether uncourtly. One might
say a gentlemanly Turk, or even a sultan ; for there is something patri-
cian in the expression and port of the man.
In his long, columned piazza, whither he went at once to get a breath
of the morning freshness which came in over his whitening cotton-fields,
he met his eldest son, Vincent. The young gentleman was sauntering
slowly, his hands in the skirt-pockets of his shooting-jacket, a pucker of
thoughtfulness on his brow, and the usual satirical smile rubbed out.
With dark, regular features, just a bit pugnacious in expression, he
resembled his father as a fresh young gamecock resembles an old one
tattered by many a conflict
A pleasant morning greeting was exchanged, the eyes of the parent
softening at the sight of his son, and the latter brightening with an air
of confidence and cordiality. It was strange to see two such combative
creatures look so amiably upon each other. Clearly the family feeling
was very strong among the Beaumonts.
Instead of shouting, " What's this about pistols? " as he had meant to
do, Mr. Beaumont gently asked, "What's the news, Vincent?"
Then came the story of the previous evening's adventure. It was
related to this effect : there had been some ironical sparring between a
Beaumont and a McAlister ; thereupon the McAlister had said, sub-
stantially, " You are no gentleman."
" How came you to go near the clown ? " growled Peyton Beaumont,
his hairy nostrils twitching and his thick eyebrows charging bayonets.
" He approached me, while I was talking to Miss Jennv Devine."
Vincent did not think it the honorable thing to explain that the young
lady was much to blame for the unpleasantness.
"The quarrelsome beasts!" snorted Beaumont. " Always picking a
1835-60] JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. 281
fight with our family. Trying to get themselves into decent company
that way. It's always been so, ever since they came to this district ;
always! We had peace before. Why, Vincent, it's the most unpro^
voked insult that I ever heard of. What had you said? Nothing but
what was— was socially allowable— parliamentary. And he to respond
with a brutality ! No gentleman ! A Beaumont no gentleman ! By
heavens, he deserves to be shot on sight, shot at the first street-corner,
like a nigger-stealer. He doesn't deserve a duel. The code is too good
for him."
"That sort of thing won't do now, at least not among our set."
" It did once. It did in my day. You young fellows are getting so
cursed fastidious. Well, if it won't do, then — "
Mr. Beaumont took a sudden wheel and walked the piazza in grave
excitement. When he returned to face the young man, he said with
undisguisable anxiety : " Well, my boy ! You know the duties of a
gentleman. I don't see that I am permitted to interfere."
"I have put things into the hands of Bentley Armitage," added Vin-
cent;.
"Very good. Do as well as anybody, seeing his brother isn't here.
Come, let us have breakfast."
At the breakfast-table appeared only these two men, and the second
son, Poinsett. There was not a white woman in the house, though we
must not blame Mr. Beaumont for the deficiency, inasmuch as he had
espoused and lost two wives, and had been known to try at least once
for a third. His eldest daughter, Nellie, was married to Eandolph
Armitage, of Brownville District; his only other daughter, Kate, and
his sister, Mrs. Chester, were, as we know, in Charleston.
For some minutes Poinsett, a fat, tranquil, pleasantly spoken, and
talkative fellow of perhaps twenty-five, bore the expense (as the French
say) of the conversation.
" Our feminine population will be home soon, I venture to hope," he
said, among other things. "Then, it is to be cheerfully believed, we
shall come out of our slough of despond. American men, if you will
excuse me for saying so, are as dull and dry as the Devil. They man-
age matters better in France, and on the Continent generally, and even
in England. There, yes, even in England, common prejudice to the
contrary notwithstanding, the genus homo is social. Conversation goes
on in those countries. I don't say but that we Southerners are ahead of
our Northern brethren ; but even we bear traces of two hundred years
in the forest. We do speak ; there is much monologuing, and I perform
my share of it; but as for talking, quick interchange of ideas, fair give
and take, we are on a par with Cooper's noble savage. Let me hope
that I don't wound your patriotism. I admit that I have an immoral
2g2 JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. [1835-60
lack of prejudices. But I want to know if you don't find life here just
a little dull ? "
" Why the deuce don't you go to work, then ? " burst out Peyton
Beaumont. " Here you two fellows are as highly educated as money
can make you. You are a lawyer, graduated at Berlin. Vincent is a
doctor, graduated at Paris. And yet you do nothing ; never either of
you had a case ; don't want one."
" Ah, work ! that is dull too," admitted the smiling, imperturbable
Poinsett "Idleness is dull ; but work is duller. I confess that it is a
sad fact, and painful to me to consider it. So let us change the sub-
ject. Most noble Vincent, you seem to be in the doldrums this morn-
ing."
"He has an affair on his hands," muttered the father of the family.
" Ah ! " said Poinsett, with a slight elevation of the eyebrows, com-
prehending perfectly that a duel was alluded to.
"Another McAlister impertinence," pursued Mr. Beaumont, and pro-
ceeded to tell the story with great savageness.
"Wallace!" exclaimed Poinsett, "I confess that I am the least bit
surprised. I thought Wallace an amiable, soporific creature like myself.
But the spirit of the breed — the oversoul of the McAlisters — is too much
for his individuality. We are drops in a river. I shall fight, too, some
day, though I don't at all crave it. Vincent, if I can do anything for
you, I am entirely at your service."
Vincent's smile was noticeably satirical. He was disagreeably amused
with Poinsett's coolness over another's duel. And he did not believe
that Poinsett could be easily got to fight.
" I suppose that Bent Armitage will do all that is necessary," he said.
" Let us hope that the loading of the pistols will be all that is neces-
sary," replied Poinsett. " Let us hope that Wally will bend his stiff
knees, and confess that we inarch at the head of civilization."
" By heavens, I want him shot," broke in Beaumont the elder. " I
can't understand you young fellows, with your soft notions. I belong
to the old sort. There used to be shooting in my day. Here is
the most unprovoked and brutal outrage that I ever heard of. This
beast calls a Beaumont no gentleman. And here you hope there'll be
an apology, and that end it. I want Vincent to hit him. I want the
fellow shelved ; I don't care if he's killed ; by heavens, I don't."
Mr. Beaumont was in a fit state to break glasses and overturn the
table. His black eyes were bloodshot; his bushy eyebrows were dan-
cing and pointing as if they were going through smallsword exercise ;
there was a dull flame of blood all over his dark cheeks and yellowish
mottled forehead. Vincent, the medical graduate of Paris, surveyed his
father through half-shut eyes, and thought out the diagnosis, "Tempo-
1835-60] JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. 900
rarily insane." There was no audible response to the senior's good old-
fashioned Beaumont burst of
After some minutes of silence, during which Poinsett smilingly poured
himself a second cup of coffee (holding that he could do it better than any
waiter), the father recovered his composure somewhat, and added gravely :
"Of course this is a serious matter. I hope, trust, and believe that Yin-
cent will receive no harm. If he does" (here his eyebrows bristled
again), "I shall take the field myself."
"We will see," smiled Poinsett. "My impression is that my turn
comes in somewhere."
Here Cato, head waiter as well as valet, put in his oar.
" That's so, Mars Poinsett. We all has our turn, fightin' these yere
McAlisters."
" Why, what have you been at, Cato ? " asked the young man. " Chal-
lenging the Judge? Or pulling the wool of his old mauma? "
" No, sah. Yah, yah. I don' go roun' challengin' white folks ;
knows my business better. An' when I pulls wool, I pulls he wool. Jes
had a tackle yesterday with Matt McAlister, the Judge's ole man that
waits on him. Matt he sets out, 'cause he's yaller, an' comes from Vir-
ginny, that he's better than we is, we Souf Carliny niggahs. So every
time I sees him I sasses him. Yesr mornin', I meets him down to the sto'
— Mars Bill Wilkins's sto', don' ye know ? — kinder lookin' roun' for bar'l
o' flour. ' So,' says I, ' Boss,' says I, ' how is things up to your ole
shanty ? ' He's a kinder gray ole fellow, don' ye know ? puttin' on airs
like he was Noah, an' treatin' everybody like they's childern, rollin' his
eyes out o' the corners kinder, an' crossin' his arms jes as the Judge does.
So he looked at me, an', says he, ' Boy, who is you? ' Says I, ' I'm Cato
Beaumont' So says he, 'I thought it mought be some o' that breedinV
Says I, ' I was jes happenin' down here to teach you your manners.'
So says he, ' Boy, my manners was learned befo' you ever heerd they
was sech things.' Then I kinder tripped him, an' he kinder tripped me,
an' then I squared off and fetched back, an' says I —
" Why didn't you hit him ? " roared the Hon. Mr. Beaumont, who had
been listening with great interest. " What did you say another word
for?"
" I was jest gwine to tell you what I said," returned Cato. " But
now, 'fore gracious, you done made me forgit it. I said a heap to him."
" And so there wasn't any fight after all," inferred the smiling Poinsett
" And nobody got hurt Heaven favors the brave."
"It didn't 'zactly come to a wrastle,'' confessed Cato. "But I 'specs
it would, for I was gittin' powerful mad : Only jes as I was thinkin' o'
gwine at him one o' Mars Wilkins's clerks come out, an' says he, ' Boys,
don' make so much noise ' ; an' so I quit"
2g4 JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. [1835-60
Beaumont senior gave forth a mild growl of disapprobation, as deeply
mellow as the anger of waters in caves of the sea-shore. " Cowardly
niggers," was one sound which came from him ; and yet, although he
despised negroes for being cowardly, he did not blame them for it ; he
knew that chivalry, prowess, and the like were properly white man's
business.
Half an hour after breakfast pistol-shots resounded from an oak grove
in the rear of the mansion. Vincent was practising ; had a board five
feet eight inches high planted in the ground; hit the upper part of it
with fascinating accuracy. " Getting my hand in," he remarked to his
father when the latter came out to look on ; and presently the elder
gentleman became interested, and made a few exemplary shots himself.
The two men were in the midst of this cheering recreation when Cato
carne running upon them with frantic gestures and a yell of " Mars
Peyt ! Stage come ! Miss Kate come ! "
" What's that, you rascal ? " roared Beaumont, his grim face suddenly
transformed into the likeness of something half angelic, so honest and
pure and fervent was its joy. Plunging a hairy hand into his pocket,
he drew out a grip of coins, threw them at the negro, and started for the
house on a run which knocked him out of his wind in twenty paces.
Then he halted, and shouted back. " Vincent, hide those pistols. Cato,
if you say a word about this business, I'll skin you."
Then away again, on a plethoric canter, to meet his youngest daugh-
ter, his darling.
In the rear piazza of the house a tall and lovely girl rushed into his
arms with a cry of "Father!" to which he responded with a sound
which was much like a sob of gladness. There were tears of joy shed
by somebody ; it was impossible to say whether they came from Kate's
eyes or from her father's ; but they were dried between their nestling,
caressing cheeks.
" Why, Kate ! what a woman you are ! " exclaimed Beaumont, hold-
ing her back at arm's length to worship her.
Vincent and Poinsett already stood by waiting their turns for an
embrace. It was clear enough that, whatever defects there might be in
this Beaumont breed, the lack of family feeling was not one of them.
Meantime Mrs. Chester and Tom were coming through the house, the
former chattering steadily in a high, joyful soprano, and the latter roar-
ing his lion-cub content in slangy exclamations.
The scene contrasted with the pistol practice of the oak grove some-
what as paradise contrasts with the inferno.
Of the paradise and the inferno, which is to win ?
1835-60] HORATIO NELSON POWERS. 285
BORN in Amenia, N. Y., 1826.
MY WALK TO CHURCH.
[Harper's New Monthly Magazine. 1888.]
TDREATHING the summer-scented air
-*—' Along the bowery mountain way,
Each Lord's-day morning I repair
To serve my church, a mile away.
Below, the glorious river lies —
A bright, broad-breasted, sylvan sea —
And round the sumptuous highlands rise,
Pair as the hills of Galilee.
Young flowers are in my path. I hear
Music of unrecorded tone.
The heart of Beauty beats so near,
Its pulses modulate my own.
The shadow on the meadow's breast
Is not more calm than my repose
As, step by step, I am the guest
Of every living thing that grows.
Ah, something melts along the sky,
And something rises from the ground,
And fills the inner ear and eye
Beyond the sense of sight and sound.
It is not that I strive to see
What Love in lovely shapes has wrought —
Its gracious messages to me
Come, like the gentle dews, unsought.
I merely walk with open heart
Which feels the secret in the sign ;
But, oh, how large and rich my part
In all that makes the feast divine!
Sometimes I hear the happy birds
That sang to Christ beyond the sea,
And softly His consoling words
Blend with their joyous minstrelsy.
Sometimes in royal vesture glow
The lilies that He called so fair,
WALTER MITCHELL. [1835-60
Which never toil nor spin, yet show
The loving Father's tender care.
And then along the fragrant hills
A radiant presence seems to move,
And earth grows fairer as it fills
The very air I breathe with love.
And now I see one perfect face,
And hastening to my church's door,
Find Him within the holy place
Who, all my way, went on before.
BORN in Nantucket, Mass., 1826.
TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE.
rpHE weather-leech of the topsail shivers,
-L The bowlines strain, and the lee-shrouds slacken,
The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
Open one point 011 the weather-bow,
Is the light-house tall on Fire Island Head.
There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
I stand at the wheel, and with eager eye
To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
Till the muttered order of " Full and by! "
Is suddenly changed for " Full for stays! "
The ship bends lower before the breeze,
As her broadside fair to the blast she lays ;
And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
As the pilot calls, " Stand by for stays! "
It is silence all, as each in his place,
With the gathered coil in his hardened hands,
By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
And the light on Fire Island Head draws near,
As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
With the welcome call of " Ready! About!"
1835-60J WALTER MITCHELL. 9 8 7
No time to spare ! It is touch and go ;
And the captain growls, "Down helm! hard down! "
As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
As we meet the shock of the plunging sea ;
And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
As I answer, " Ay, ay, sir! Ha-a-rd a-lee! "
With the swerving leap of a startled steed
The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
And the headland white we have left behind.
The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse,
And belly and tug at the groaning cleats;
The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps:
And thunders the order, " Tacks and sheets! "
'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
Hisses the rain of the rushing squall :
The sails are aback from clew to clew,
And now is the moment for "Mainsail, haul! "
And the heavy yards, like a baby's toy,
By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung:
She holds her way, and I look with joy
For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
" Let go, and haul! " 'Tis the last command.
And the head-sails fill to the blast once more:
Astern and to leeward lies the land,
With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall ?
I steady the helm for the open sea;
The first mate clamors, "Belay, there, all! "
And the captain's breath once more comes free.
And so off shore let the good ship fly ;
Little care I how the gusts may blow,
In my fo'castle bunk, in a jacket dry.
Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
288
STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER. [1835-60
Colling footer,
BORN in Pittsburgh, Penu., 1826. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1864.
OLD FOLKS AT HOME.
[As Written and Set to Music by the Author. 1851.]
WAY down upon de Swanee ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.
All up and down de whole creation
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.
All de world am sad and dreary,
Ebery where I roam ;
Oh ! darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home.
All round de little farm I wandered
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squandered,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playing wid my brudder
Happy was I ;
Oh, take me to my kind old rnudderl
Dere let me live and die.
One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love,
Still sadly to my memory rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humniing
All around de comb ?
When will I hear de banjo tumming,
Down in my good old home ?
All de world am sad and dreary,
Ebery where I roam,
Oh! darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home.
1835-60] STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER. 289
MASSA'S IN DE COLD GROUND.
1) OUND de meadows am a-ringing
-*- ** De darkeys' mournful song,
While de mocking-bird am singing,
Happy as de day am long.
Where de ivy am a-creeping,
O'er de grassy mound,
Dere old niassa am a-sleeping,
Sleeping in de cold, cold ground.
Down in de corn-field
Hear dat mournful sound ;
All de darkeys am a- weeping, —
Massa's in de cold, cold ground.
When de autumn leaves were falling,
When de days were cold,
'Twas hard to hear old massa calling,
Cayse he was so weak and old.
Now, de orange tree am blooming
On de sandy shore,
Now de summer days am coming, —
Massa nebber calls no more.
Massa make de darkeys love him,
Cayse he was so kind ;
Now, dey sadly weep above him,
Mourning cayse he leave dem behind.
I cannot work before to-morrow,
Cayse de tear-drop flow ;
I try to drive away my sorrow,
Pickin on de old banjo.
Down in de corn-field
Hear dat mournful sound :
All de darkeys am a-weeping, —
Massa's in de cold, cold ground.
1852.
NELLY ELY.
NELLY ELY! Nelly Ely! bring de broom along,—
We'll sweep de kitchen clean, my dear, and hab a little song.
Poke de wood, my lady lub, and make de fire burn,
And while I take de banjo down, just gib de mush a turn.
Heigh! Nelly, Ho! Nelly,
Listen, lub, to me ;
I'll sing for you, I'll play for you,
A dulcem melody.
VOL. -van.— 19
STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER. [1835-60
Nelly Ely hab a voice like de turtle dove,—
I hears it in de meadow and I hears it in de grove ;
Nelly Ely hab a heart warm as a cup ob tea,
And bigger dan de sweet potato down in Tennessee.
Nelly Ely shuts her eye when she goes to sleep ;
When she wakens up again her eyeballs gin to peep ;
De way she walks, she lifts her foot, and den she brings it down.
And when it lights der's music dah in dat part ob de town.
Nelly Ely! Nelly Ely! nebber, nebber sigh,—
Nebber bring de tear-drop to de corner ob your eye ;
For de pie is made ob punkins, and de mush is made ob corn,
And der's corn and punkins plenty, lub, lying in de barn.
Heigh! Nelly, Ho! Nelly,
Listen, lub, to me ;
I'll sing for you, I'll play for you,
A dulcem melody. .
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME, GOOD-NIGHT.
rr^HE sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home ;
-*• 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay ;
The corn-top's ripe, and the meadow's in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright ;
By'n'-by hard times comes a-knocking at the door. —
Then my old Kentucky home, good-night !
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh ! weep no more to-day !
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home, far away.
They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
On the meadow, the hill, and the shore ;
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door.
The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
With sorrow, where all was delight ;
The time has come when the darkies have to part. —
Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night !
The head must bow, and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go ;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow.
\
1835-60] LEONARD KIP.
A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, 'twill never be light ;
A few more days till we totter on the road,—
Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home, far away.
1850.
291
Leonard
BORN in New York, N. Y., 1836.
THE STORY OP A FORTUNE.
[From a Tale contributed to The Argonaut. 1879.]
I
HPHE Guyndal house — it was not sufficiently large or important to be
-*- called a place — stood almost in the centre of a small town in Hert-
ford. It was a square brick house, with about an acre and a half about
it. At one side stood the church, and at the other the inn, the resi-
dences of the different townspeople being scattered here and there at
convenient distances, after the manner of most villages. Of all these the
Guyndal house was neither the least nor the greatest, its principal inter-
est being derived from its antiquity. It was built in the time of Charles
the First by one Hugh Guyndal, who was a prominent lawyer of the
Crown. At the Eebellion, he turned so adroitly as to become a leading
lawyer of the Commonwealth, and at the Eestoration, he easily again
made his peace as a Royalist — the more easily, perhaps, as his knowl-
edge of the Crown-lands made his prospective services almost invalu-
able. Up to that time, it was not thought that the family had saved
much money ; and, indeed, it was considered uncommonly fortunate for
them that they had preserved the house and land from confiscation.
Other families which had taken less active part in the civil troubles had
fared much worse and been driven out into the world penniless.
A while later, the place was owned by Giles Guyndal — a lawyer of
some eminence, though not in the Crown employ. Far better than that,
however, his abilities were recognized in the settlement of certain com-
plications arising from the bursting of the South Sea bubble ; and in that
matter he was enabled to shape his policy so successfully as, while pro-
tecting others, to accumulate for himself a large fortune— how large, was
292 LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
not known. Those who had the best means of conjecturing put it at
enormous proportions— alleging that he had used his gains in successful
speculation in government securities during certain continental troubles,
and must thereby have quadrupled his original receipts. The only
demurrer to this conclusion arose from the fact that Giles Guyndal made
no enlargement of his style of living, but continued on in the old house,
practising law as before. "If he is so wealthy," was naturally the cry,
" why does he not retire and purchase a large landed estate and endeavor
to get a baronetcy ? "
The truth was, that Giles Guyndal was as ambitious as could reason-
ably be desired, but not for himself as much as for his family. He was
content with his own style of living, having never been used to any
other ; but he looked far ahead and demanded a different manner of
life for his descendants. He had one child, a son — educated in his own
profession. It seemed the proper thing that John Guyndal should move
out into another sphere, purchase the landed estate and the baronetcy,
and contract some high alliance.
But, upon inheriting the property, John Guyndal in his turn, also, set
at naught the public expectation. He felt that he, no more than his
father, would be likely to enjoy the care of the landed estate — a kind of
property, moreover, that would eat up interest much more rapidly than
it would gather it. Doubtless, too, with his great wealth he could have
made a marriage with some unendowed daughter of a titled line; but he
had the sense to understand that this would lower his wife rather than ele-
vate himself, and he feared lest one who should barter her family pride
for his money might exact the full payment to the last extent of prodi-
gality. Therefore, somewhat to the indignation of the expectant commu-
nity, he married a careful, saving woman in his own station, continued
in the practice of law, and took no measures to become Sir John Guyn-
dal. As to an estate, the only change he made consisted in an exten-
sion in his own house, a wing being thrown out behind in the nature of
a fire-proof deposit for valuable papers — a small brick building with
enormous thickness of walls and strength of triple-plated doors, and into
which building no one beside himself was ever allowed to enter.
It must be held that about this time the family policy began to crys-
tallize into a fixed rule of action. Whether it was written down for the
instruction of succeeding generations, like the supposed will of Peter the
Great, or whether it passed by word of mouth, respected all the same as
an unalterable family duty, cannot be learned. But John Guyndal
dying and leaving two sons, there was still no intimation of desire for
the landed estate or the baronetcy. The youngest son, taking a younger
son's share, went abroad with it— like the Prodigal Son, spent his inher-
itance, but, unlike him, thereupon died without returning The older
1835-60] LEONARD KIP. 293
son, Richard Guyndal, after the manner of his ancestors, continued in
the profession ; after their manner, also, selected a quiet, frugal, pains-
taking woman of his own degree to be his helpmate. And so the line
ran quietly down until the time of one Thomas Guyndal. Unlike his
ancestors, however, he had for sole descendant a daughter. She was a
tall, slim, graceful girl — pleasing in a moderate way without manifesta-
tions of remarkable refinement; somewhat too ruddy in complexion,
bright eyed, yet with thin lips and an expression of unusual firmness in
the corners of her mouth, her whole type of face inclining rather to
thoughtfulness than vivacity— in fine, a well made up embodiment from
the line of careful wives who had preceded her.
So the family went on peacefully and almost unnoticed, until the fall
of 1862. At that date Thomas Guyndal had become a widower, and his
daughter Edith, who had reached the age of eighteen, was his sole com-
panion. The lawyer sat one morning solitary and thoughtful in his office.
For a while turning from inactive meditation, he then drew up to his
table and made some elaborate calculation. Then he unlocked the door
of his adjoining record-room and gazed in for the moment wistfully, as
if wishing to reassure himself still more thoroughly of something about
which he had been not at all doubtful. Then ensued a lengthy exami-
nation of a parchment schedule — then a quick raising of the head, as
with sudden fixed intention; then a word to his daughter, who sat in an
adjoining room, with the intervening door open.
" I must go up to London, Edith."
"Yes, father," was the quiet answer.
This was all ; and, placing the parchment schedule in his breast-
pocket, slowly he wended his way to the railway station. Before long
he was in London, and at once he drove to Lord Palmerston's residence.
The Premier was in town, and, as it happened, at that hour was disen-
gaged. Thomas Guyndal sent in his card and was admitted — more
speedily, perhaps, than he had anticipated. He had never met Lord
Palmerston ; but the name of Guyndal was not unknown to the Premier,
as of one who formerly had been employed in government transactions.
Even at that late date it came up frequently, in examination of official
records. Consequently, his lordship directed that the applicant should
at once be admitted, bade him be seated, and courteously waited for him
to announce his business. And Thomas Guyndal did not make his
lordship wait very long.
" Is it true, my lord," he inquired, " that there is talk about a mar-
riage between his highness the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alex-
andra of Denmark ? "
Lord Palmerston frowned and naturally began to retire within him-
self. For, in truth, it was not at all becoming that a perfect stranger
2Q4 LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
should thus bluntly assail him for information about what, as yet, must
be an official secret.
"I cannot comprehend, sir," he therefore began, "by what claim—"
" Merely this," responded the lawyer. " If the matter has not already
been settled upon, it should not go further, inasmuch as I am able to
offer his royal highness a more favorable alliance — that is to say, should
he feel disposed to consult the interests of the nation at large."
The Premier turned pale with wrath.
" This liberty — " he cried.
"Listen to me for a moment," interrupted Thomas Guyndal, "and
you will discover that if it seems a liberty, it brings its own justification
with it. In now offering my daughter Edith — "
"Your daughter Edith ! " cried the Prime Minister. " Why, the man
must be mad ! This insolence — " And he looked towards the little
hand-bell that now happened to rest upon another table than that before
which he had been sitting. And thus glancing across, he chanced to
observe the lawyer's face more narrowly than before. Surely there were
no signs of insanity there ; merely the tokens of some matter of weighty
moment. He paused irresolutely.
" If your lordship will listen to me for only one minute — "
" Go on ; I will hear you. But be brief."
" As possible. And let me ask you, Lord Palmerston, should not a
royal prince in his alliances have some respect for the welfare of the
nation, as well as for his own pleasure? What is it that this Danish
marriage could bring other than the closer friendship of a state already
friendly and the burden of future entanglements and complications by
reason of it? That is an equivocal blessing, indeed. But on the other
hand, your lordship should know that with the hand of Edith Guyndal
his royal highness will secure for the good and the good-will of the Eng-
lish people— the Mai payment of Great Britain's debt!"
II.
The Premier started, glanced once more towards the bell — was partly
recalled to his equanimity by the calm, sedate, easy expression and man-
ner of the lawyer. What to do with such a man, be he insane or not,
but to hear him out? It would take him only a minute or two, and
then the farce would be over. At the least, it might prove a pleasing
study of eccentric character, and there could be no question but what it
would be possible to have the intruder so closely noted that he should
never again effect an entrance.
"Your lordship," said Thomas Guyndal, composedly drawing the
folded parchment from his pocket, " there is the schedule of the amount
1835-60] LEONARD KIP. 295
of consolidated bonds of Great Britain now in my possession and owner-
ship."
" Surely it cannot be difficult for any one to manufacture a schedule,"
responded the Premier disdainfully. "What about the bonds them-
selves?"
" I am coming to that, my lord, and briefly. In 1720, my ancestor,
Giles Guyndal, so successfully conducted his many speculations that he
became the owner of three million pounds. It was supposed that he
would purchase a county or so, build a castle, apply for a title, and
assume airs of state. He did nothing of the kind, but continued to live
in his accustomed quiet mariner, the avails of legal practice supporting
him. Meanwhile the three millions, invested in bonds, lay idle and at
interest. Can your lordship tell me how long it would take them to
double at four per cent. ? "
" About eighteen years," responded Palmerston, for he had had occa-
sion to work out that sum before.
"Precisely. Then in 1738 my ancestor must have been worth six
million pounds, and in 1756, twelve millions. It is not probable that
up to that period, or indeed, during his lifetime, he had elaborated any
enlarged or magnificent scheme of family ambition. His highest hope
must have been that the family should rise one degree in importance,
after the usual manner where higher birth may accommodate itself with
great wealth. In that comparatively moderate ambition, he died. But
when his son succeeded, there grew up more comprehensiveness of idea,
looking forward to wider aims ; and then, probably, the family destiny
began to be shaped as it has since been directed throughout the whole
line and into my hands. That son, John Guyndal, built as an adjunct
to his house an uncommonly strong vault — the present contents of
which, your lordship, it would give me great pleasure to exhibit to you.
In that vault he deposited almost all the family property, amounting by
that time to upwards of twelve millions of pounds, invested, for greater
convenience, in government bonds. From that date, as by preestab-
lished agreement founded upon family tradition, each descendant has
lived on quietly in the same old house, finding his professional practice
sufficient for all his wants, and allowing the interest on these bonds to
accumulate without being drawn upon to the extent of a penny. This
interest has been continually invested in other bonds. Your lordship
may, at times, have heard some wonderment expressed that during the
past generation so few of these bonds have appeared for sale in the cus-
tomary money markets ; though all the while, as evidence that they are
not lost, the interest upon them has been punctually collected. It was
supposed that the bonds had mostly gone abroad, or, if at home, were
held in possession of capitalists who were too well satisfied with the
296 LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
investment to care that it should be disturbed. The latter supposition
is nearest the truth ; I being the sole capitalist Take your pencil, my
lord, and calculate how much the original three millions would amount
to at compound interest from 1720 to 1862, nearly a century and a half."
Lord Palmerston hurriedly made the calculation, then arose nervously,
and gazed with startled expression at the lawyer.
" Can it be really possible? " he gasped.
" It can be possible ; it actually is so," was the response of Thomas
G-uyndal. " The whole funded debt of Great Britain amounts to about
eight hundred millions of pounds. A portion of this sum, of course,
cannot be reached, being already in hands which are unwilling to change
the investment. But upward of seven hundred millions of pounds in
government bonds now lie drawing interest in my own private safe, and
in addition to them, stocks and bonds of different companies in amount
sufficient to complete the deficiency. Upon the marriage of my daugh-
ter Edith with the Prince of Wales, all these bonds will be surrendered
to the nation, and Great Britain can be proclaimed free of debt."
" You forget, however, that the Royal Marriage Act — "
" It can be annulled by the will of the English people, your lordship,"
responded the lawyer, coolly. In fact, having had time to state his case,
he was becoming every minute more self-possessed ; while the Premier,
fairly staggered with the astonishing revelation of individual wealth and
ambition, was in a whirl of flurry and excitement.
" But the Prince himself ! Nay, more, her Majesty ! Surely they
would never consent to — '
" Perhaps not at first, your lordship— possibly never, if this transac-
tion were to go no further but were to remain a secret between us. But
if it became known that the Prince refused to make one little sacrifice of
pride whereby he could forever lift a weight of burdensome taxation
from off his people's necks, what then would be the instant demand of
the whole nation? And where any longer would be the love of the
people for one who had preferred a high alliance to his subjects' wel-
fare?"
" Go— go ! " cried the Prime Minister, rising. The torrent of thought
was too impetuous for him to bear, and he felt that he must be alone.
" Go ! Of course all this is a mere vagary. You must yourself see
its impropriety. And yet — it is possible that you — that I may wish to
see you again. Leave me your address ; and so— but let me remain
alone now."
The lawyer took his leave, well satisfied that the seed was finding
root ; and the Premier remained alone, pressing his knuckles into his
temples, and striving to gain more collected thought. But before he
could succeed in this, the door opened and gave admission to Lord
1835-60] LEONARD KIP. 397
Rydel and Sir George Rutherven— two members of the Privy Council
They started and hung back for a moment, at seeing how the Premier
raised himself, palefaced and nervously discomposed, to greet them.
" It is nothing," he said, noting their solicitude and forestalling their
inquiries. " A slight headache, a vertigo— no, it is not that, but— listen,
gentlemen, to this. It must of course be a secret between us. You will
see for yourselves how ridiculous, how impossible, indeed— but let me
tell you the whole silly story."
He told the story, laughing at the end as though there had never
been anything so contemptible and foolish. So did the two members of
the Privy Council laugh — and with the same hollow, unreal laugh as
himself. And so they separated, and it might have been anticipated
that nothing further would be heard of the affair.
But it happened that the very next day the two Privy Councillors
dropped in again. They had some little matter of business to talk over
— they intimated — but somehow it did not occupy them long. And
when it was finished, they lingered around in uncertain attitude, and
finally Lord Rydel spoke.
"That queer story of yesterday," he said, 'i that ridiculous story — I
suppose there can be no truth in the statements of that man's wealth.
Do you think so ? "
" It can be ascertained very easily, of course," answered Lord Pal-
merston. "And why should we not find out — just for our own curi-
osity? If it be false, that of course ends the matter. If it be true, why
even then it can make no difference ; but all the same we shall have
found out where our bonds have accumulated — eh? "
" Of a certainty ; that of itself would be worth looking into, my lord."
With that, the Premier touched his bell, wrote a hurried note, and as
a result in less than an hour a confidential clerk of the Treasury made
his appearance. To him the Prime Minister gave further directions of
an elaborate character, and the clerk at once took rail, and sought out
old Thomas Guyndal. He was in his own office, and made no objection
to what was asked of him. Unlocking the great iron door of the safe-
room, he ushered the clerk inside and trustingly left him to his own
devices. In the centre of the room and all around were racks, crowded
with steel-bound boxes. One key. with which the lawyer had furnished
the clerk, unlocked all these boxes ; and the clerk at once opened sev-
eral of them, singling them out at random here and there, as a sampler
would attack chests of tea. In three hours the Treasury clerk returned
to the Premier's residence ; where, as it happened, the two Privy Coun-
cillors still lingered.
" I have this day seen more wealth than ever in my life before," said
the Treasury clerk, half frightened lest it might all be unreal and him-
oft"Q LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
^yo
self losing his wits. "There must be over seven hundred million
pounds in government bonds in that one little place."
Then he departed, having discharged his errand, and the others gazed
inquiringly at each other— each seeking to read the thoughts of the
others.
" It is very strange, as well as ridiculous," Sir George Rutherven at
length observed. " Of course nothing can ever come of it ; and yet — it
is such a marvellous thing that— do you not think that her Majesty
should know about it?"
" And who would dare to tell her ? "
" We will all go, gentlemen," said the Premier ; " and I, as is proper,
will be your spokesman, the rest of you standing by to support me with
your countenance."
With that, the three proceeded at once to Windsor, and sought audi-
ence of her Majesty. What happened there may never definitely be
known, except that at the first suggestion of proffered misalliance,
though any concurrence in it was disowned by the whole Council and
the matter brought to be heard as mere 'matter of curious detail, the
blood of the Tudors nrast have asserted itself fiercely, overpowering the
later absorption of Dutch phlegm ; so that in the end the three visitors
fled rather than retired, and returned to London in terrible discomfiture.
Yet, after all, the seed had been sown and was bearing its fruit.
Daily did the Premier meet the two Privy Councillors and affect to
transact a little important business with them, after which unfailingly
they would recur to the proposition of the old lawyer. At first they
would speak of it with the usual laugh, as a matter to be treated only
with ridicule ; then, as the true sense of it bore down more heavily into
their thoughts, the laugh grew more forced and hollow ; at last, almost
ceased as they began to gain more accurate reading of each other's
minds and recognized the uselessness of further empty pretence. For
all the while, far above any sensitiveness upon the score of base and
unequal blood, hung the tempting bait of payment in full of the
national debt of Great Britain ! Almost total relief, now and evermore,
from anything in the shape of direct taxation ! An incubus upon trade
and commerce lifted and cast away ! A blessing and an immortal fame
upon the rule that by a single sacrifice of caste and prejudice might
consent to procure for its subjects that great boon ; curses and perhaps
revolution itself from a groaning people, which surely would break out
into strong hate if its interests were not respected ! After all, had not
Henry VIIL, the most powerful Tudor of all that line, married his sub-
jects ? And was this Edith Guyndal necessarily of base blood ? Might
it not be sufficiently proven that the line of Guelph could, for good rea-
sons shown, condescend to it? Might not the Herald's College discover
1835-60] LEONARD KIP. 299
that the Guyndals had done some good service in the civil wars,
whereby they could now be enrolled in preparation for higher exalta-
tion ? Suppose that the old lawyer should be made a baronet, pretence
being made of a dormant title, could not some title be given to the
daughter — another and more honorable one be substituted after a little
while, and thereby secure her ennoblement by degrees ?
Certainly the seed seemed bearing fruit, and from being treated as
farcical became constantly more calmly discussed. The payment at one
stroke of the whole national debt ! This was the issue of all discussion.
It became rumored at one time, even among the people, that something,
they knew not what, was interfering to break off or postpone the pro-
jected alliance with Denmark. In fact, at a court reception, the Pre-
mier, filled with the one engrossing subject, had uttered to the Danish
Minister one of those significant remarks that say so little and mean so
much, and which, upon the whole, are looked upon as unfriendly to
whatever negotiation may be in progress. The remark was made with
smiling countenance, and was responded to in like manner, but within
the next two hours there were hurried telegraphings to Copenhagen, and
the funds fell one-half of one per cent
" If her Majesty will not yield at least her consideration to this
scheme," the Premier felt at last bold enough to say, in secret consulta-
tion, " she must be made to yield."
The others sat appalled at the unaccustomed vigor of the remark, but
it was noted, all the same, that it called forth no reply, but was allowed
to stand as the opinion of the rest. And the crisis of the whole affair
slowly drew on.
It came to the destined result one day when, in obedience to a sudden
summons, the lawyer, Thomas Guyndal, called upon the Premier. The
Premier gazed upon him for several minutes in seemingly dreamy
abstraction — possibly with reluctance to utter what he had made up his
mind must sooner or later be said.
"You wished to see me, my lord," the lawyer at length said, becom-
ing impatient.
" Should this matter go through," then said the Prime Minister, very
slowly and deliberately — " and yet I cannot answer that it will — what
security can the nation have that you will perform your portion of the
agreement and release the debt? "
" My lord," was the answer, " long before the announcement of the
marriage I will place all the securities in the hands of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, together with my full renunciation of any claim upon
them. As soon as the marriage has actually taken place, the torch can
be applied to the whole mass of bonds, and in a few minutes England
will stand free of debt."
300 LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
" And you have considered that in thus fostering your ambition you
yourself will lose almost everything? That you will not be lifted
thereby, but that you can thenceforth seldom see your child, excepting
at a distance ? "
li But she, my lord, will one day be Queen of England."
Again the Premier paused.
" I do not know," he muttered ; " I think, however, that it can be
done."
The lawyer gasped, turned pale, half arose from his chair at the
speedy culmination of his plans ; then endeavored to appear as though
it was no unusual assurance that was made, nothing that should unduly
bewilder or excite him; then for a moment struggled for breath, and
wildly clutching at the empty air, fell lifeless beside his chair.
Ill
He was dead before they had time to lift him from the floor. Here,
indeed, was a sad ending to the scene ; and, what might be of important
public moment, many complications might arise to hinder the great end
in view. What perplexities might not now ensue in the shape of col-
lateral or joint heirships, guardianships, and, in fact, any and all manner
of legal formalities and restrictions to obstruct the whole project?
And yet, upon review of the case, it must surely be understood that
Edith Guyndal was her father's sole heir; and though she was under
age, no guardian would dare to withstand the proposed royal alliance.
And, as is usual in almost all human calculation, the only check came
through a consideration which had not in the slightest degree been
anticipated.
For, when a week had passed away, and the old lawyer had been duly
buried, there came to the Premier a slight-built, graceful girl, in deepest
black, and raised her veil. Lord Palmerston had never heretofore seen
her, but some instinct told him that she was Edith Guyndal, and he
arose respectfully ; for might he not be in the presence of his future sov-
ereign ?
" My lord," she said, " what I have to tell you must be in a few
words. Only yesterday, from a paper that he left behind him, I have
learned the lot which my father had destined for me. Let me now say
that I must inflexibly decline it."
II Decline ! Eefuse his Royal Highness ? " gasped the Prime Minister.
" I^am already pledged— have long secretly been so — to one whom I
love," she said. " I cannot, I have no wish to retire from my word.
Let that suffice."
The minister stood thunderstruck.
1885-60] LEONARD KIP, LO ^
" And does he know the full extent of your wealth ? "
" He does not know it now, my lord ; it may be that he shall never
know it," was the response. "Heaven will have to help my thoughts,
what to do, seeing that the money must be too much for one person's
care — certainly for his needs."
"And therefore it may — The Premier spoke hopefully. Might
she not, after all, even while declining a royal bridegroom, be generous
to the nation and relinquish the debt? But the lawyer's daughter
inherited something of the professional acuteness, and was not minded
thus to sacrifice her birthright.
" Whether my husband shall or shall not know," she said, " or what
further I may do, time alone will show. My lord, farewell."
With that she dropped her veil once more over her face, and retired
as softly as she had entered. To her so doing, Lord Palmerston made
no opposition. How, indeed, could he ? Or with what grace could he
press a rejected royal alliance upon her?t He could merely fall back
upon his chair and sigh, and ponder over the mysteries and eccentrici-
ties of human nature, and await results. And truly, it was a mark for
earnest curiosity what the result might be. Would Edith Guyndal con-
clude, after all, to bestow her whole inheritance upon her intended, and
allow him to flash forth into blazing notoriety of such a fortune as man
never yet had owned ! Or would she relent and bestow a portion of it,
at least, upon the nation, making it grateful to her for assisting it in its
necessity ? There was nothing to do, however, but to wait and see.
There was not long to wait. In a few days it became noticeable
that the volume of government bonds for sale at the customary money
exchanges began mysteriously to increase. Inquiry elicited the fact that
these sales were made on account of sundry churches and hospitals
which had received anonymous presentations of these bonds to a heavy
amount. After that, different commercial projects in a failing condition
were discovered to have been aided with large subscriptions, and evi-
dently in a feigned name. For the most part these assistances came too
late, the projects continuing on in their failing career, so that in the end
the amounts applied seemed wasted. But no one came forward to com-
plain ; and the speculative world naturally wondered, not only at the
apparent extent of these losses, but also at the equanimity with which
they seemed to be sustained ; no one who was not in the secret being
able to comprehend that gain or loss in the investment of the bonds was
probably a matter of no solicitude to their owner, the only intent being
their disposal out of reach, as material that it was burdensome to hold.
So for two months ; during which the accumulation of bonds upon
the market was so excessive as for the time materially to reduce their
value, disturb exchanges, and threaten panic. Then came a temporary
oQ2 LEONARD KIP. [1835-60
lull ; but just as the Stock Exchange had concluded that the disturb-
ance was at an end, and that all values were ready to settle down again
and resume their normal condition, the whole community was startled
with the news that upwards of fifty millions of the New Turkish Loan,
which had long lain unheeded upon the market, had been taken at par.
Taken by secret agents and paid for in British consols, the Turkish
stock having been almost immediately thereafter thrown upon the
Exchange and sold at less than one-half its nominal value. In a few
days the same thing happened with the Spanish, the Mexican, and the
Argentine loans : in each case millions of pounds being invested in them
at their par value, and the bonds being almost at once resold at nearly
a total loss. The excitement became intense, extending into every
branch of trade and commerce, not merely in the British islands, but
throughout the whole Continent and India. Vast fortunes were every-
where made and lost in the universal depreciation of all government
securities. In the annals of .the Stock Exchange that year has ever
since been looked back upon with wonderment as "Consols Year."
There was no firm, however securely established, that failed to feel the
effect of the constant vibration in values. It is said that at one time
even the Rothschilds tottered for a whole morning over the abyss of ruin,
and were only saved through the most superhuman exertions, and that
if there had happened to exist a rival house with sufficient capital and a
proper realization of the situation, the Rothschild dynasty would have
fallen to rise no more. And all this while, so secretly were these ruin-
ous loans effected, that no inkling of their agency was ever permitted to
escape, and only Palmerston and his two confidants had the ability to
reveal the slightest glimmer of the truth. Those three gentlemen — the
guardians of a secret that they could never suffer themselves to betray
—were the only persons who knew that the author of the great finan-
cial disturbance was old Thomas Guyndal's daughter; seeking, from
some prudential distrust of the wisdom of him whom she had chosen
for her husband, to reduce into reasonable limits the fortune which
would so soon come to him ; and yet with something of a trader's spirit,
not rising to the magnanimity of a direct gift to the nation, but rather
preferring to squander that vast wealth by going through the empty
form of its constantly repeated sale and reinvestment.
At length, some two years after old Thomas Guyndal's death, his
daughter Edith married the man of her choice. It has been ascertained
that she brought him a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, the
sole remains of her magnificent inheritance. This, however, was more
than he had been led to expect; and the possession of such a sum
by one who had never been accustomed to the use of money, for the
time unsettled him. Almost at once he launched out into extravagant
1835-60] LEONARD KIP. ono
expenditures which absorbed nearly one quarter of the whole sum;
then, partially recovering himself, he entered into wild speculations with
the hope of making good the deficiency. Losing heavily in this, he
became more quarrelsome and took to drinking. Other ill-judged
expenditures followed, then came increased dissipation, recrimination,
jealousies, quarrelling, and ill-treatment of his wife. And so, with giant
steps, the customary road to ruin was travelled ; and, at last, after only
two years longer, ensued poverty and desertion. We will let Basil
Dulapoon, from his written memoir, tell the remainder of the story;
merely correcting his language and phraseology, which, coming from an
uneducated man, are defective in no ordinary degree.
" About that time," he says, " I thought that I would like to know
what had become of Edith Guyndal. I traced her at last to a small
house in a narrow street leading out of the Strand. She had been
deserted by her husband and occupied a small room at the top and rear
of the house, the rent of which she managed to pay by plain sewing.
She was away when I called, having gone across the city to Oxford
street, to solicit orders. Therefore I left and strolled off to the park,
trusting to look her up some other day. But just as I reached the bor-
der of the main drive, I beheld her coming. I had seen her before,
upon the occasion of her calling upon the Prime Minister, and I now
recognized her at once, though she was greatly altered. Her face was
thin, her eyes heavy, her motion slow, her whole appearance that of one
who was in quick decline, and had not many months longer to live.
Her dress was poor, insufficient and patched, and in her arms she held a
roll of material to be made up — an ordinary sized roll, but seemingly a
burden all too heavy for- her. As she came slowly and wearily to the
edge of the drive and would have crossed over, there ensued a sudden
stir of carriages drawing up on either side. With that a policeman
seized her roughly by the shoulder and bade her stand still. The roll
of material fell at her feet, and there lay, as though she lacked the
strength to lift it again. And so, immovably she stood, while for a
moment the two lines of carriages remained drawn up motionless ; and
between them and followed by a ripple of loyal cheers, rolled the open
barouche that bore the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alexandra of
Denmark."
COATE8 KINNEY. [1835-60
304
Coatejs
BORN in Penn Yan, N. Y., 1826.
PESSIM.
[Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real. 1887.]
TO think! to think and never rest from thinking!
To feel this great globe flying through the sky
And reckon by the rising and the sinking
Of stars how long to live, how soon to die !
This, this is life. Is life, then, worth the living ?
This plotting for his freedom by the slave!
This agony of loving and forgiving!
This effort of the coward to be brave !
Our freedom ! We are sin-scourged into being,
And ills of birth enslave us all our days;
No chance of flying and no way of fleeing,
Until the last chance and the end of ways.
We are walled in by darkness — wall behind us,
From whose sprung dungeon-gates Fate dragged us in,
And wall before us, where Fate waits to bind us
And thrust us out through swinging gates of sin.
But what is Fate ? It is a mere breath spoken,
To echo clamoring between the walls
Of darkness — blind phrase uttered to betoken
This blind Unreason which our life enthralls.
Out through abysmal depths of heaven round us
We think our way past orbs of day and night,
Till skies of empty outer darkness bound us
And place and time are fixed pin-points of light ;
But nowhere from the silent planets wheeling,
And nowhere from the thundering hell of suns,
And nowhere in the darkness comes revealing
Itself a Fate that through all being runs.
No ghostly presence, no mysterious voices,
The midnight of these infinite spaces thrill :
And even chaos flies hence and rejoices
To find and feel yon universe's Will.
Thought follows chaos — nay, without the places
And times of matter globed and motion whirled,
Thought chaos is, a spread dead wing in space is,
Drifting for wafture somewhere toward a world.
1835-60] LUCY LARCOM.
305
Such thinkings are not Thought, they are but dreaniings
Of what perchance may be itself but dream ;
Our truths are to the Truth as moonlight's gleamings
In dungeon are to open midnoon's beam.
All worlds of matter, all the world of spirit,
How these are one, eternal, increate —
Soul cannot clutch it, sense come never near it ;
It is unthinkable, and it is Fate!
JLuq? Larcom,
BORN in Beverly, Mass., 1826.
CLIMBING TO REST.
[Poetical Works. 1885.]
STILL must I climb, if I would rest :
The bird soars upward to his nest;
The young leaf on the tree-top high
Cradles itself within the sky.
The streams, that seem to hasten down,
Return in clouds, the hills to crown;
The plant arises from her root,
To rock aloft her flower and fruit.
I cannot in the valley stay :
The great horizons stretch away!
The very cliffs that wall me round
Are ladders unto higher ground.
To work — to rest — for each a time ;
I toil, but I must also climb.
What soul was ever quite at ease
Shut in by earthly boundaries ?
I am not glad till I have known
Life that can lift me from my own :
A loftier level must be won,
A mightier strength to lean upon.
And heaven draws near as I ascend ;
The breeze invites, the stars befriend :
All things are beckoning toward the Best:
I climb to thee, my God, for rest!
VOL. vin.— 20
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. [1835-60
€ltot
BORN in Cambridge, Mass., 1827.
CATHEDRAL-BUILDING.
[Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. I860.]
rpHE best Gothic architecture, wherever it may be found, affords evi-
-L dence that the men who executed it were moved by a true fervor
of religious faith. In building a church, they did not forget that it was
to be the house of God. No portion of their building was too minute,
no portion too obscure, to be perfected with thorough and careful labor.
The work was not let out by contract, or taken up as a profitable job.
The architect of a cathedral might live all his life within the shadow of
its rising walls, and die no richer than when he gave the sketch ; but he
was well repaid by the delight of seeing his design grow from an imagi-
nation to a reality, and by spending his days in the accepted service of
the Lord.
For the building of a cathedral, however, there needs not only a spirit
of religious zeal among the workmen, but a faith no less ardent among
the people for whom the church is designed. The enormous expense of
construction, an expense which for generations must be continued with-
out intermission, is not to be met except by liberal and willing general
contributions. Papal indulgences and the offerings of pilgrims may add
something to the revenues, but the main cost of building must be borne
by the community over whose house-tops the cathedral is to rise and to
extend its benign protection.
Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popular will and the
popular faith. They were the work neither of ecclesiastics nor of feudal
barons. They represent, in a measure, the decline of feudalism, and the
prevalence of the democratic element in society. No sooner did a city
achieve its freedom than its people began to take thought for a cathe-
dral. Of all the arts, architecture is the most quickly responsive to the
instincts and the desires of a people. And in the cathedrals, the popu-
lar beliefs, hopes, fears, fancies, and aspirations found expression, and
were perpetuated in a language intelligible to all. The life of the Mid-
dle Ages is recorded on their walls. When the democratic element was
subdued, as in Cologne by a prince bishop, or in Milan by a succession
of tyrants, the cathedral was left unfinished. When, in the fifteenth
century, all over Europe, the turbulent, but energetic liberties of the
people were suppressed, the building of cathedrals ceased.
The grandeur, beauty, and lavish costliness of the Duomo at Orvieto
1835-60] CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 307
or of any other of the greater cathedrals, implies a persistency and
strength of purpose which could be the result only of the influence over
the souls of men of a deep and abiding emotion. Minor motives may
often have borne a part in the excitement of feeling,— motives of per-
sonal ambition, civic pride, boastfulness, and rivalry; but a work that
requires the combined and voluntary offerings and labor of successive
generations presupposes a condition of the higher spiritual nature which
no motives but those connected with religion are sufficient to support.
It becomes, then, a question of more than merely historic interest, a
question, indeed, touching the very foundation of the spiritual develop-
ment and civilization of modern Europe, to investigate the nature and
origin of that widespread impulse which, for two centuries, led the peo-
ple of different races and widely diverse habits of life and thought, to
the construction of cathedrals, — buildings such as our own age, no less
than those which have immediately preceded it, seems incompetent to
execute, and indifferent to attempt.
It is impossible to fix a precise date for the first signs of vigorous and
vital consciousness which gave token of the birth of a new life out of the
dead remains of the ancient world. The tenth century is often spoken
of as the darkest period of the Dark Ages ; but even in its dull sky
there were some breaks of light, and, very soon after it had passed, the
dawn began to brighten. The epoch of the completion of a thousand
years from the birth of Christ, which had, almost from the first preach-
ing of Christianity, been looked forward to as the time for the destruc-
tion of the world and the advent of the Lord to judge the earth, had
passed without the fulfilment of these ecclesiastical prophecies and popu-
lar anticipations. There can be little doubt that among the mass of men
there was a sense of relief, naturally followed by a certain invigoration
of spirit The eleventh century was one of comparative intellectual
vigor. The twelfth was still more marked by mental activity and force.
The world was fairly awake. Civilization was taking the first steps of
its modern course. The relations of the various classes of society were
changing. A wider liberty of thought and action was established; and
while this led to a fresh exercise of individual power and character, it
conduced also to combine men together in new forms of united effort for
the attainment of common objects and in the pursuit of common inter-
ests.
Corresponding with, but perhaps subsequent by a short interval to the
pervading intellectual movement, was a strong and quickening develop-
ment of the moral sense among men. The periods distinguished in
modern history by a condition of intellectual excitement and fervor have
been usually, perhaps always, followed at a short interval by epochs of
more or less intense moral energy, which has borne a near relation to the
30g CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. [1835-60
nature of the moral elements in the previous intellectual movement
The Renaissance, an intellectual period of pure immorality, was followed
close by the Reformation, whose first characteristic was that of protest
The Elizabethan age, in which the minds of men were full of large
thoughts, and their imaginations rose to the highest flights, led in the
noble sacrifices, the great achievements, the wild vagaries of Puritanism.
The age of Voltaire and the infidels was followed by the first energy, the
infidel morality of the French Revolution. And so at this earlier period,
the general intellectual awakening, characterized as it was by simple
impulses, and regulated in great measure by the teachings of the Church,
produced a strong outbreak of moral earnestness which exhibited itself
in curiously similar forms through the whole of Europe.
The distinguishing feature of this moral revolution was the purely
religious direction which it took. For a time it seemed that the moral
sense of men had become one with their religious instincts and emotions.
Religion lost its' formality, and the religious creed of the times possessed
itself thoroughly of the spirits of men. The separation which commonly
exists between the professed faith of the masses of men and their inti-
mate moral convictions, the separation between faith expressed in words
and faith expressed in actions, was in large measure closed over. The
creed even of the most intelligent was very imperfect. It was based on
material conceptions, and was far from corresponding with the higher
spiritual truths of Christianity. The creed of the ignorant was, for the
most part, a system of irrational and contradictory opinions, in which a
few simple notions of a material heaven and hell held the first rank.
But these notions were believed in as realities. And, moreover, in
accordance with a general law of human nature, the verv materialism of
the common creed afforded nourishment to religious mysticism and the
ecstasies of devotion.
It is at such times as this, when moral energy corresponds with and
supports a condition of spiritual enthusiasm, that the powers of men rise
to their highest level. Personal interests are absorbed in devotion to
great spiritual ideas. Enthusiasm neither submits to the common laws
of reason, nor is bound by the established customs of society. It makes
its abode in the New Jerusalem, and builds for itself mystical mansions
of the spirit. But it must find external expression, and must relieve
itself in action ; for, when the full tide of faith floods the heart, it brings
to the soul a sense of strength above its own, and compels it to its exer-
cise. Thus, at this period, the religious excitement found vent in two
extraordinary and utterly unparalleled expressions— the Crusades and
the Cathedrals. And the depth of the inward feeling was marvellously
manifested by the long succession of exhausting efforts, by the persist-
ence of hope, and by the actual accomplishment of works of the grandest
1835-60] CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. g^g
design, during a course of more than two hundred years. Energy and
enthusiasm had become, as it were, hereditary among men. A real faith
in the Divine government of the earth, trust in the Divine power, zeal in
the service of God, combined with selfish hopes and fears, and with
heathen notions of propitiation, to inspire the various people of Europe
with strength for the most arduous undertakings. Dens vult was the
animating watchword of the times ; the cross was the universal symbol,
— a symbol not merely of sacrifice, but of victory.
Such spiritual conditions as were then exhibited are possible only dur-
ing periods of mental twilight, when the imagination is stronger than
the reason, and shows the objects of this world in fanciful and untrue
proportion. With the advance of civilization and enlightenment, popu-
lar enthusiasm becomes more and more rare, and, as a stimulus to com-
bined and long-continued action, almost wholly ceases. Principles of
one sort or another occupy, but do not supply its place. The works
which it has produced cannot be repeated; for in their production it
counts no cost extravagant, no labor vain, which makes them worthier
offerings of faith, and more perfect expressions of devotion.
THE FIRST STAGES OP DANTE'S GENIUS, EXHIBITED IN THE VITA
NUOVA.
[The New Life of Dante AligMeri. Translated. 1867.]
f"pHERE is yet another tendency of the times, to which Dante, in his
-»- later works, has given the fullest and most characteristic expression,
and which exhibits itself curiously in the Vita Nuova. Corresponding
with the new ardor for the arts, and in sympathy with it, was a newly
awakened and generally diffused ardor for learning, especially for the
various branches of philosophy. Science was leaving the cloister, in
which she had sat in dumb solitude, and coming out into the world.
But the limits and divisions of knowledge were not firmly marked out.
The relations of learning to truth were not clearly understood. The
minds of men were quickened by a new sense of freedom, and stimu-
lated by ardor of imagination. New worlds of undiscovered knowledge
loomed vaguely along the horizon. Fancy invaded the domain of phi-
losophy; and the poets disguised the subtleties of metaphysics under the
garb of verses of love. To be a proper poet was not only to be a writer
of verses, but to be a master of learning. Boccaccio describes Gruido
Cavalcanti as "one of the best logicians in the world, and as a most
excellent natural philosopher," but says nothing of his poetry.
3^Q CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. [1835-60
Dante, more than any other man of his time, exhibited in himself the
general zeal for knowledge. His genius had two distinct and yet often
intermingling parts— the poetic and the scientific. No learning came
amiss to him. He was born a student, as he was born a poet, and had
he never written a single poem, he would still have been famous as the
most profound scholar of his times. Far as he surpassed his contem-
poraries in poetry, he was no less their superior in the depth and the
extent of his knowledge. And this double nature of his genius is plainly
shown in many parts of "The New Life." A youthful incapacity to draw
clearly the line between the part of the student and the part of the poet
is manifest in it. The display of his acquisitions is curiously mingled
with the narrative of his emotions. This is not to be charged against
him as pedantry. His love of learning partook of the nature of passion ;
his judgment was not yet able, if indeed it ever became able, to establish
the division between the abstractions of the intellect and the affections of
the heart. And more than this, his early claim of honor as a poet was
to be justified by his possession and exhibition of the fruits of study.
Moreover, the mind of Dante was of a quality which led him to unite
learning with poetry in a manner peculiar to himself. He was essenti-
ally a mystic. The dark and hidden side of things was not less present
to his imagination than the visible and plain. The range of human
capacity in the comprehension of the spiritual world was not then
marked by as numerous boundary-stones of failure as now define the
way. Impossibilities were sought for with the same confident hope as
realities. The alchemists and the astrologers believed in the attainment
of results as tangible and real as the gains which travellers brought back
from the marvellous and still unachieved East. The mystical properties
of numbers, the influence of the stars, the powers of cordials and elixirs,
the virtues of precious stones, were received as established facts, and
opened long vistas of discovery before the student's eyes. A ring of
mystery surrounded the familiar world, and outside the known lands of
the earth lay a region unknown except to the fancy, from which strange
gales blew and strange clouds floated up. Curiosity and inquiry were
stimulated and made earnest by wonder. Wild, imaginative specula-
tions formed the basis of serious and patient studies. Dante, partaking
to the full in the eager spirit of the times, sharing all the ardor of the
pursuit of knowledge, and with a spiritual insight which led him into
regions of mystery where no others ventured, naturally associated the
knowledge which opened the way for him with the poetic imagination
which cast light upon it. To him science was but another name for
poetry.
Much learning has been expended in the attempt to show that the
doctrine of Love, which is displayed in "The New Life," is derived, more
1835-60] CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.
311
or less directly, from the philosophy of Plato. It has been supposed
that this little autobiographic story, full of the most intimate personal
revelations, and glowing with a sincere passion, was deliberately written
in accordance with a preconceived theory. A certain Platonic form of
expression, often covering ideas very far removed from those of Plato,
was common to the earlier, colder, and less truthful poets. Some strains
of such Platonism, derived from the poems of his predecessors, are per-
haps to be found in this first book of Dante's. But there is nothing to
show that he had intentionally adopted the teachings of the ancient
philosopher. It may well, indeed, be doubted if, at the time of its com-
position, he had read any of Plato's works. Such Platonism as exists in
"The New Life " was of that unconscious kind which is shared by every
youth of thoughtful nature and sensitive temperament, who makes of
his beloved a type and image of divine beauty, and who through the
loveliness of the creature is led up to the perfection of the Creator.
The essential qualities of the Vita Nuova, those which afford direct
illustration of Dante's character, as distinguished from such as may be
called youthful, or merely literary, or biographical, correspond in strik-
ing measure with those of the Divina Commedia. The earthly Beatrice
is exalted to the heavenly in the later poems ; but the entire purity and
intensity of feeling with which she is reverently regarded in the Divina
Commedia are scarcely less characteristic of the earlier work. The
imagination which makes the unseen seen, and the unreal real, belongs
alike to the one and to the other. The Vita Nuova is chiefly occupied
with a series of visions ; the Divina Commedia is one long vision. The
sympathy with the spirit and impulses of the time, which in the first
reveals the youthful impressibility of the poet, in the last discloses itself
in maturer forms, in more personal expressions. In the Vita Nuova it is
a sympathy mastering the natural spirit ; in the Divina Commedia the
sympathy is controlled by the force of established character. The
change is that from him who follows to him who commands. It is the
privilege of men of genius, not only to give more than others to the
world, but also to receive more from it. Sympathy, in its full compre-
hensiveness, is the proof of the strongest individuality. By as much as
Dante or Shakespeare learnt of and entered into the hearts of men, by so
much was his own nature strengthened and made peculiarly his own.
" The New Life " shows the first stages of that genius, the first proofs of
that comprehensive sympathy, which at length find their full manifesta-
tion in the " Divine Comedy." It is like the first blade of spring grass,
rich with the promise of the golden harvest.
WILLIAM RAINES LTTLE. [1835-60
mtlliam
BORN in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1826. FELL at the Battle of Chickamauga, Tenn., 1863.
ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA.
I The Poets and Poetry of the West, Edited by William T. Coggeshall. I860.]
I AM dying, Egypt, dying!
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast;
Let thine arm, oh Queen, support me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
Listen to the great heart secrets
Thou, and thou alone, must hoar.
Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore:
Though no glittering guards surround me,
Prompt to do their master's will,
I must perish like a Roman —
Die the great Triumvir still.
Let not Caesar's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low ;
'Twas no foeman's hand that felled him,
'Twas his own that struck the blow :
His who, pillowed on thy bosom,
Turned aside from glory's ray —
His who, drunk with thy caresses,
• Madly threw a world away.
Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my name at Rome,
Where the noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home —
Seek her; say the gods bear witness —
Altars, augurs, circling wings —
That her blood, with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the thrones of kins-s.
And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian —
Glorious sorceress of the Nile !
Light the path to Stygian darkness,
With the splendor of thy smile ;
Give the Caesar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine ;
1835-60] WILLIAM HAINES LTTLE.
I can scorn the senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.
I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Hark! the insulting foeman's cry;
They are coming — quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah ! no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell ;
Isis and Osiris guard thee—
Cleopatra— Rome— farewell !
JACQUELINE.
A LMOND-EYED Jacqueline beckoned to me,
*i- As our troop rode home from mounting guard,
And I saw Gil Perez's brow grow dark,
While his face seemed longer by half a yard.
What care I for the Spaniard's ire,
His haughty lip and glance of fire ;
What so fit for these Southern lords
As the tempered edges of freemen's swords ?
Say, shall an Alva's merciless bands
Their hands in our noblest blood imbrue,
And then with accursed foreign wiles
Our gentle Northern girls pursue ?
Hail to him who for freedom strikes!
Up with your banners and down with the dykes !
Better be whelmed 'neath ocean waves
Than live like cowards the lives of slaves.
Haughty Gil Perez may then beware,
For we love our blue-eyed Leyden girls,
And would welcome the shock of Toledo blades
Were the prize but a lock of their golden curls.
Hope on, brothers, the day shall come
With flaunting of banner and rolling of drum,
When William the Silent shall rally his men,
And scourge these wolves to their homes again.
LEWIS WALLACE, [1835-60
OUallace,
BORN in Brookville, Franklin Co., Ind., 1827.
THE CHARIOT RACE.
[Ben-Hur. A Tale of the Christ. 1880.]
AT length the recess came to an end.
The trumpeters blew a call at which the absentees rushed back to
their places. At the same time, some attendants appeared in the arena,
and, climbing upon the division wall, went to an entablature near the
second goal at the west end, and placed upon it seven wooden balls ;
then returning to the first goal, upon an entablature there they set up
seven other pieces of wood hewn to represent dolphins.
"What shall they do with the balls and fishes, O sheik?" asked
Balthasar.
" Hast thou never attended a race ? "
" Never before ; and hardly know I why I am here."
" Well, they are to keep the count. At the end of each round run
thou shalt see one ball and one fish taken down."
The preparations were now complete, and presently a trumpeter in
gaudy uniform arose by the editor, ready to blow the signal of com-
mencement promptly at his order. Straightway the stir of the people
and the hum of their conversation died away. Every face near by, and
every face in the lessening perspective, turned to the east, as all eyes
settled upon the gates of the six stalls which shut in the competitors.
The unusual flush upon his face gave proof that even Simonides had
caught the universal excitement. Ilderim pulled his beard fast and
furious.
" Look now for the Roman," said the fair Egyptian to Esther, who
did not hear her, for, with close-drawn veil and beating heart, she sat
watching for Ben-Hur,
The structure containing the stalls, it should be observed, was in form
of the segment of a circle, retired on the right so that its central point
was projected forward, and midway the course, on the starting side of
the first goal. Every stall, consequently, was equally distant from the
starting-line or chalked rope above mentioned.
The trumpet sounded short and sharp ; whereupon the starters, one
for each chariot, leaped down from behind the pillars of the goal, ready
to give assistance if any of the fours proved unmanageable.
Again the trumpet blew, and simultaneously the gate-keepers threw
the stalls open.
1835-60] LEWIS WALLACE.
315
First appeared the mounted attendants of the charioteers, five in all,
Ben-Hur having rejected the service. The chalked line was lowered to
let them pass, then raised again. They were beautifully mounted, yet
scarcely observed as they rode forward ; for all the time the trampling
of eager horses, and the voices of drivers scarcely less eager, were heard
behind in the stalls, so that one might not look away an instant from the
gaping doors.
The chalked line up again, the gate-keepers called their men ; instantly
the ushers on the balcony waved their hands, and shouted with all their
strength, " Down ! down ! "
As well have whistled to stay a storm.
Forth from each stall, like missiles in a volley from so many great
guns, rushed the six fours ; and up the vast assemblage arose, electrified
and irrepressible, and, leaping upon the benches, filled the Circus and
the air above it with yells and screams. This was the time for which
they had so patiently waited ! — this the moment of supreme interest
treasured up in talk and dreams since the proclamation of the games !
" He is come — there — look ! " cried Iras, pointing to Messala.
"I see him," answered Esther, looking at Ben-Hur.
The veil was withdrawn. For an instant the little Jewess was brave.
An idea of the joy there is in doing an heroic deed under the eyes of a
multitude came to her, and she understood ever after how, at such times,
the souls of men, in the frenzy of performance, laugh at death or forget
it utterly.
The competitors were now under view from nearly every part of the
Circus, yet the race was not begun ; they had first to make the chalked
line successfully.
The line was stretched for the purpose of equalizing the start. If it
were dashed upon, discomfiture of man and horses might be apprehended ;
on the other hand, to approach it timidly was to incur the hazard of
being thrown behind in the beginning of the race ; and that was certain
forfeit of the great advantage always striven for — the position next the
division wall on the inner line of the course.
This trial, its perils and consequences, the spectators knew thoroughly ;
and if the opinion of old Nestor, uttered what time he handed the reins
to his son, were true —
" It is not strength, but art, obtained the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise "—
all on the benches might well look for warning of the winner to be now
given, justifying the interest with which they breathlessly watched for
the result.
The arena swam in a dazzle of light ; yet each driver looked first thing
01fi LEWIS WALLACE. [1835-60
31o
for the rope, then for the coveted inner line. So, all six aiming at the
same point and speeding furiously, a collision seemed inevitable ; nor
that merely. What if the editor, at the last moment, dissatisfied with
the start, should withhold the signal to drop the rope ? Or if he should
not give it in time?
The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in width. Quick
the eye, steady the hand, unerring the judgment required. If now one
look away ! or his mind wander ! or a rein slip ! And what attraction
in the ensemble of the thousands over the spreading balcony ! Calculating
upon the natural impulse to give one glance — just one — in sooth of
curiosity or vanity, malice might be there with an artifice; while friend-
ship and love, did they serve the same result, might be as deadly as
malice.
The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is animation. Can
we accept the saying, then these latter days, so tame in pastime and dull
in sports, have scarcely anything to compare to the spectacle offered by
the six contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it ; let him first look
down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of dull-gray
granite walls ; let him then, in this perfect field, see the chariots, light
of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make
them— Messala's rich with ivory and gold ; let him see the drivers, erect
and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion of the cars, their limbs naked,
and fresh and ruddy with the healthful polish of the baths — in their
right hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful to the thought — in
their left hands, held in careful separation, and high, that they may not
interfere with view of the steeds, the reins passing taut from the fore
ends of the carriage-poles ; let him see the fours, chosen for beauty as
well as speed ; let him see them in magnificent action, their masters not
more conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped from
them — their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now distent, now contracted
— limbs too dainty for the sand which they touch but to spurn — limbs
slender, yet with impact crushing as hammers — every muscle of the
rounded bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing, justi-
fying the world in taking from them its ultimate measure of force;
finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses, let the reader see the accom-
panying shadows fly ; and, with such distinctness as the picture comes,
he may share the satisfaction and deeper pleasure of those to whom it
was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy. Every age has its plenty of
sorrows ; Heaven help where there are no pleasures !
The competitors having started each on the shortest line for the posi-
tion next the wall, yielding would be like giving up the race; and who
dared yield? It is not in common nature to change a purpose in mid-
career ; and the cries of encouragement from the balcony were indistin-
1835-60] LEWIS WALLACE. 3-^7
guishable and indescribable : a roar which had the same effect upon all
the drivers.
The fours neared the rope together. Then the trumpeter by the
editor's side blew a signal vigorously. Twenty feet away it was not
heard. Seeing the action, however, the judges dropped the rope, and
not an instant too soon, for the hoof of one of Messala's horses struck
it as it fell. Nothing daunted, the Koman shook out his long lash,
loosed the reins, leaned forward, and, with a triumphant shout, took the
wall.
" Jove with us ! Jove with us ! " yelled all the Roman faction, in a
frenzy of delight.
As Messala turned in, the bronze lion's head at the end of his axle
caught the fore-leg of the Athenian's right-hand trace-mate, flinging the
brute over against its yoke-fellow. Both staggered, struggled, and lost
their headway. The ushers had their will at least in part. The thou-
sands held their breath with horror ; only up where the consul sat was
there shouting.
"Jove with us! " screamed Drusus, frantically.
" He wins ! Jove with us ! " answered his associates, seeing Messala
speed on.
Tablet in hand, Sanballat turned to them ; a crash from the course
below stopped his speech, and he could not but look that way.
Messala having passed, the Corinthian was the only contestant on the
Athenian's right, and to that side the latter tried to turn his broken
four; and then, as ill-fortune would have it, the wheel of the Byzantine,
who was next on the left, struck the tail-piece of his chariot, knocking
his feet from under him. There was a crash, a scream of rage and fear,
and the unfortunate Cleanthes fell under the hoofs of his own steeds; a
terrible sight, against which Esther covered her eyes.
Op swept the Corinthian, on the Byzantine, on the Sidonian.
Sanballat looked for Ben-Hur, and turned again to Drusus and his
coterie.
"A hundred sestertii on the Jew! " he cried.
" Taken ! " answered Drusus.
" Another hundred on the Jew ! " shouted Sanballat.
Nobody appeared to hear him. He called again : the situation below
was too absorbing, and they were too busy shouting, " Messala ! Messala !
Jove with us ! "
When the Jewess ventured to look again, a party of workmen were
removing the horses and broken car ; another party were taking off the
man himself ; and every bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal
with execrations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped her
hands ; Ben-Hur, unhurt^ was to the front, coursing freely forward along
31g LEWIS WALLACE. [1835-60
with the Eoman ! Behind them, in a group, followed the Sidonian, the
Corinthian, and the Byzantine.
The race was on; the souls of the racers were in it; over them bent
the mvriads.
When the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have seen, was on
the extreme left of the six. For a moment, like the others, he was half
blinded by the light in the arena ; yet he managed to catch sight of his
antagonists and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than
an antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The air of passion-
less hauteur characteristic of the fine patrician face was there as of old,
and so was the Italian beauty, which the helmet rather increased ; but
more — it may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy
shadow in which the features were at the moment cast, still the Israelite
thought he saw the soul of the man as through a glass, darkly : cruel,
cunning, desperate ; not so excited as determined — a soul in a tension of
watchfulness and fierce resolve.
In a time not longer than was required to turn to his four again, Ben-
Hur felt his own resolution harden to a like temper. At whatever cost,
at all hazards, he would humble this enemy ! Prize, friends, wagers,
honor — everything that can be thought of as a possible interest in the
race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for life even should
not hold him back. Yet there was no passion, on his part; no blinding
rush of heated blood from heart to brain, and back again ; no impulse to
fling himself upon Fortune : he did not believe in Fortune ; far other-
wise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he settled to the task
never more observant, never more capable. The air about him seemed
aglow with a renewed and perfect transparency.
When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala's rush would,
if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall ; that the
rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt ; and, further, it came to
him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let drop
at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could safely reach
that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more Roman-like than
for the official to lend himself to a countryman who, besides being so
popular, had also so much at stake ? There could be no other account-
ing for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four forward the
instant his competitors were prudentially checking their fours in front
of the obstruction — no other except madness.
It is one thing to see a necessity and another to act upon it Ben-Hur
yielded the wall for the time.
The rope fell, and all the four but his sprang into the course under
urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and, with all the
speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his opponents, the angle
1835-60] LEWIS WALLACE. 31g
of movement being such as to lose the least time and gain the greatest
possible advance. So, while the spectators were shivering at the Athe-
nian's mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were striv-
ing, with such skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in the ruin,
Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck with Messala,
though on the outside. The marvellous skill shown in making the
change thus from the extreme left across to the right without apprecia-
ble loss did not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches : the Circus seemed
to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then Esther clasped
her hands in glad surprise ; then Sanballat, smiling, offered his hundred
sestertii a second time without a taker; and then the Komans began to
doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal, if not a master, and
that in an Israelite !
And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval between
them, the two neared the second goal.
The pedestal of the three pillars there, viewed from the west, was a
stone wall in the form of a half -circle, around which the course and
opposite balcony were bent in exact parallelism. Making this turn was
considered in all respects the most telling test of a charioteer ; it was, in
fact, the very feat in which Orestes failed. As an involuntary admission
of interest on the part of the spectators, a hush fell over all the Circus,
so that for the first time in the race the rattle and clang of the cars
plunging after the tugging steeds were distinctly heard. Then, it would
seem, Messala observed Ben-Hur, and recognized him ; and at once the
audacity of the man flamed out in an astonishing manner.
" Down Eros, up Mars ! " he shouted, whirling his lash with practised
hand — "Down Eros, up Mars!" he repeated, and caught the well-doing
Arabs of Ben-Hur a cut the like of which they had never known.
The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amazement was universal.
The silence deepened; up on the benches behind the consul the boldest
held his breath, waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus: then,
involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls, burst the indig-
nant cry of the people.
The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever been laid
upon them except in love ; they had been nurtured ever so tenderly ;
and as they grew, their confidence in man became a lesson to men beau-
tiful to see. What should such dainty natures do under such indignity
but leap as from death ?
Forward they sprang as with one impulse, and forward leaped the car.
Past question, every experience is serviceable to us. Where got Ben-
Hur the large hand and mighty grip which helped him now so well ?
Where but from the oar with which so long he fought the sea? And
what was this spring of the floor under his feet to the dizzy eccentric
g9Q LEWIS WALLACE. [1835-60
lurch with which in the old time the trembling ship yielded to the beat
of staggering billows, drunk with their power? So he kept his place,
and gave the four free rein, and called to them in soothing voice, trying
merely to guide them round the dangerous turn ; and before the fever of
the people began to abate, he had back the mastery. Nor that only : on
approaching the first goal, he was again side by side with Messala, bear-
ing with him the sympathy and admiration of every one not a Roman.
So clearly was the feeling shown, so vigorous its manifestation, that
Messala, with all his boldness, felt it unsafe to trifle further.
As the cars whirled round the goal, Esther caught sight of Ben-Hur's
face — a little pale, a little higher raised, otherwise calm, even placid.
Immediately a man climbed on the entablature at the west end of the
division wall, and took down one of the conical wooden balls. A dol-
phin on the east entablature was taken down at the same time.
In like manner, the second ball and second dolphin disappeared.
And then the third ball and third dolphin.
Three rounds concluded : still Messala held the inside position ; still
Ben-Hur moved with him side by side ; still the other competitors fol-
lowed as before. The contest began to have the appearance of one of
the double races which became so popular in Rome during the later
Cassarean period — Messala and Ben-Hur in the first, the Corinthian,
Sidonian, and Byzantine in the second. Meantime the ushers succeeded
in returning the multitude to their seats, though the clamor continued
to run the rounds, keeping, as it were, even pace with the rivals in the
course below.
In the fifth round the Sidonian succeeded in getting a place outside
Ben-Hur, but lost it directly.
The sixth round was entered upon without change of relative posi-
tion.
Gradually the speed had been quickened— gradually the blood of the
competitors warmed with the work. Men and beasts seemed to know
alike that the final crisis was near, bringing the time for the winner to
assert himself.
The interest which from the beginning had centred chiefly in the
struggle between the Roman and the Jew, with an intense and general
sympathy for the latter, was fast changing to anxiety on his account.
On all the benches the spectators bent forward motionless, except as
their faces turned following the contestants. Ilderim quitted combing
his beard, and Esther forgot her fears.
" A hundred sestertii on the Jew ! " cried Sanballat to the Romans
under the consul's awning.
There was no reply.
" A talent— or five talents, or ten ; choose ye ! "
1835-60] LEWIS WALLACE.
321
He shook his tablets at them defiantly.
"I will take thy sestertii," answered a Roman youth, preparing to
write.
" Do not so," interposed a friend.
"Why?"
"Messala hath reached his utmost speed. See him lean over his
chariot-rim, the reins loose as flying ribbons. Look then at the Jew."
The first one looked.
"By Hercules!" he replied, his countenance falling. "The dog
throws all his weight on the bits. I see, I see ! If the gods help not our
friend, he will be run away with by the Israelite. No, not yet Look !
Jove with us ! Jove with us ! "
The cry, swelled by every Latin tongue, shook the velaria over the
consul's head.
If it were true that Messala had attained his utmost speed, the effort
was with effect ; slowly but certainly he was beginning to forge ahead.
His horses were running with their heads low down ; from the balcony
their bodies appeared actually to skim the earth ; their nostrils showed
blood-red in expansion ; their eyes seemed straining in their sockets.
Certainly the good steeds were doing their best! How long could they
keep the pace? It was but the commencement of the sixth round. On
they dashed. As they neared the second goal, Ben-Hur turned in
behind the Roman's car.
The joy of the Messala faction reached its bound ; they screamed and
howled, and tossed their colors ; and Sanballat filled his tablets with
wagers of their tendering.
Malluch, in the lower gallery over the Gate of Triumph, found it hard
to keep his cheer. He had cherished the vague hint dropped to him by
Ben-Hur of something to happen in the turning of the western pillars.
It was the fifth round, yet the something had not come; and he had said
to himself, the sixth will bring it; but, lo ! Ben-Hur was hardly hold-
ing a place at the tail of his enemy's car.
Over in the east end, Simonides' party held their peace. The mer-
chant's head was bent low. Ilderim tugged at his beard, and dropped
his brows till there was nothing of his eyes but an occasional sparkle of
light. Esther scarcely breathed. Iras alone appeared glad.
Along the home-stretch — sixth round — Messala leading, next him
Ben-Hur, and so close it was the old story :
" First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds;
With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds;
Close on Eumelus' back they puff the wind,
And seem just mounting on his car behind ;
Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,
And, hovering o'er, their stretching shadow sees."
VOL. vin. — 21
099 LEWIS WALLACE. [1835-60
Thus to the first goal, and round it. Messala, fearful of losing his
place, hugged the stony wall with perilous clasp ; a foot to the left, and
he had been dashed to pieces ; yet, when the turn was finished, no man,
looking at the wheel-tracks of the two cars, could have said, here went
Messala, there the Jew. They left but one trace behind them.
As they whirled by, Esther saw Ben-Hur's face again, and it was
whiter than before.
Simonides, shrewder than Esther, said to Ilderim, the moment the
rivals turned into the course, " I am no judge, good sheik, if Ben-Hur
be not about to execute some design. His face hath that look/'
To which Ilderim answered, " Saw you how clean they were and
fresh ? By the splendor of (rod, friend, they have not been running !
But now watch ! "
One ball and one dolphin remained on the entablatures ; and all the
people drew a long breath, for the beginning of the end was at hand.
First, the Sidonian gave the scourge to his four, and, smarting with
fear and pain, they dashed desperately forward, promising for a brief
time to go to the front. The effort ended in promise. Next, the Byzan-
tine and Corinthian each made the trial with like result, after which they
were practically out of the race. Thereupon, with a readiness perfectly
explicable, all the factions except the Romans joined hope in Ben-Hur,
and openly indulged their feeling.
" Ben-Hur ! Ben-Hur ! " they shouted, and the blent voices of the
many rolled overwhelmingly against the consular stand.
From the benches above him as he passed, the favor descended in
fierce injunctions.
" Speed thee, Jew ! "
" Take the wall now ! "
" On ! loose the Arabs ! Give them rein and scourge ! "
" Let him not have the turn on thee again. Now or never ! "
Over the balustrade they stooped low, stretching their hands implor-
ingly to him.
Either he did not hear, or could not do better, for half-way round
the course and he was still following ; at the second goal even still no
change !
And now, to make the turn, Messala began to draw in his left-hand
steeds, an act which necessarily slackened their speed. His spirit was
high ; more than one altar was richer of his vows ; the Eoman genius
was still president. On the three pillars only six hundred feet away
were fame, increase of fortune, promotions, and a triumph ineffably
sweetened by hate, all in store for him ! That moment Malluch, in the
gallery, saw Ben-Hur lean forward over his Arabs, and give them the
reins. Out flew the many-folded lash in his hand : over the backs of the
1835-60] LEWIS WALLACE. OQQ
startled steeds it writhed and hissed, and hissed and writhed again and
again ; and though it fell not, there were both sting and menace in its
quick report ; and as the man passed thus from quiet to resistless action,
his face suffused, his eyes gleaming, along the reins he seemed to flash
his will ; and instantly not one, but the four as one, answered with a leap
that landed them alongside the Roman's car. Messala, on the perilous
edge of the goal, heard, but dared not look to see what the awakening
portended. From the people he received no sign. Above the noises of
the race there was but one voice, and that was Ben-Hur's. In the old
Aramaic, as the sheik himself, he called to the Arabs.
"On, Atair! On, Rigel ! What, Antares! dost thou linger now?
Good horse — oho, Aldebaran ! I hear them singing in the tents. I hear
the children singing and the women — singing of the stars, of Atair,
Antares, Rigel, Aldebaran, victory ! — and the song will never end. Well
done ! Home to-morrow, under the black tent — home ! On, Antares !
The tribe is waiting for us, and the master is waiting ! 'Tis done ! 'tis
done! Ha, ha ! We have overthrown the proud. The hand that smote
us is in the dust. Ours the glory ! Ha, ha ! — steady ! The work is
done — soho ! Rest ! "
There had never been anything of the kind more simple ; seldom any-
thing so instantaneous.
At the moment chosen for the dash, Messala was moving in a circle
round the goal. To pass him, Ben-Hur had to cross the track, and good
strategy required the movement to be in a forward direction ; that is, on
a like circle limited to the least possible increase. The thousands on the
benches understood it all: they saw the signal given — the magnificent
response ; the four close outside Messala's outer wheel, Ben-Hur's inner
wheel behind the other's car — all this they saw. Then they heard a
crash loud enough to send a thrill through the Circus, and, quicker than
thought, out over the course a spray of shining white and yellow flin-
ders flew. Down on its right side toppled the bed of the Roman's
chariot. There was a rebound as of the axle hitting the hard earth ;
another and another: then the car went to pieces; and Messala, entan-
gled in the reins, pitched forward headlong.
To increase the horror of the sight by making death certain, the Sido-
nian, who had the wall next behind, could not stop or turn out. Into
the wreck full speed he drove ; then over the Roman, and into the latter's
four, all mad with fear. Presently, out of the turmoil, the fighting of
horses, the resound of blows, the murky cloud of dust and sand, he crawled,
in time to see the Corinthian and Byzantine go on down the course after
Ben-Hur, who had not been an instant delayed.
The people arose, and leaped upon the benches, and shouted and
screamed. Those who looked that way caught glimpses of Messala, now
09^ ROSE TERRY COOKE. [1835-60
under the trampling of the fours, now under the abandoned cars. He was
still; they thought him dead ; but far the greater number followed Ben-
Hur in his career. They had not seen the cunning touch of the reins by
which, turning a little to the left, he caught Messala's wheel with the
iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it ; but they had seen the trans-
formation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow of his
spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy of action with which,
by look, word, and gesture, he so suddenly inspired his Arabs. And
such running! It was rather the long leaping of lions in harness; but
for the lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When the
Byzantine and Corinthian were half-way down the course, Ben-Hur
turned the first goal.
And the race was WON !
The consul arose; the people shouted themselves hoarse; the editor
came down from his seat, and crowned the victors.
The fortunate man among the boxers was a low-browed, yellow-haired
Saxon, of such brutalized face as to attract a second look from Ben-Hur,
who recognized a teacher with whom he himself had been a favorite at
Rome. From him the young Jew looked up and beheld Simonides and
his party on the balcony. They waved their hands to him. Esther
kept her seat ; but Iras arose, and gave him a smile and a wave of her
fan — favors not the less intoxicating to him because we know, 0 reader,
they would have fallen to Messala had he been the victor.
The procession was then formed, and, midst the shouting of the multi-
tude which had had its will, passed out of the Gate of Triumph.
And the day was over.
Coofee,
BOKN in West Hartford, Conn., 1827.
BLUE-BEARD'S CLOSET.
[Poems. Collective Edition. 1888.]
TflASTEN the chamber!
Hide the red key ;
Cover the portal,
That eyes may not see.
Get thee to market,
To wedding and prayer;
Labor or revel,
The chamber is there !
1835-60] ROSE TERRY COOKE. 325
In comes a stranger —
' ' Thy pictures how fine,
Titian or Guiclo,
Whose is the sign ? "
Looks he behind them ?
Ah ! have a care !
" Here is a finer."
The chamber is there !
Fair spreads the banquet,
Rich the array;
See the bright torches
Mimicking day ;
When harp and viol
Thrill the soft air,
Conies a light whisper:
The chamber is there !
Marble and painting,
Jasper and gold,
Purple from Tyrus,
Fold upon fold,
Blossoms and jewels,
Thy palace prepare :
Pale grows the monarch ;
The chamber is there !
Once it was open
As shore to the sea;
White were the turrets,
Goodly to see;
All through the casements
Flowed the sweet air;
Now it is darkness ;
The chamber is there !
Silence and horror
Brood on the walls ;
Through every crevice
A little voice calls :
44 Quicken, mad footsteps,
On pavement and stair;
Look not behind thee,
The chamber is there ! "
Out of the gateway,
Through the wide world,
Into the tempest
Beaten and hurled,
Vain is thy wandering,
Sure thy despair,
Flying or staying,
The chamber -is there !
ROSE TERRY COOKE. [1835-60
DONE FOR.
A WEEK ago to-day, when red-haired Sally
Down to the sugar-camp came to see me,
I saw her checked frock coming down the valley,
Far as anybody's eyes could see.
Now I sit before the camp-fire,
And I can't see the pine knots blaze,
Nor Sally's pretty face a-shining,
Though I hear the good words she says.
A week ago to-night I was tired and lonely,
Sally was gone back to Mason's fort,
And the boys by the sugar-kettles left me only ;
They were hunting coons for sport.
By there snakecl a painted Pawnee,
I was asleep before the fire;
He creased my two eyes with his hatchet,
And scalped me to his heart's desire.
There they found me on the dry tussocks lying,
Bloody and cold as a live man could be ;
A hoot-owl on the branches overhead was crying,
Crying murder to the red Pawnee.
They brought me to the camp-fire,
They washed me in the sweet white spring;
But my eyes were full of flashes,
And all night my ears would sing.
I thought I was a hunter on the prairie,
But they saved me for an old blind dog;
When the hunting-grounds are cool and airy,
I shall lie here like a helpless log.
I can't ride the little wiry pony, .
That scrambles over hills high and low;
I can't set my traps for the cony,
Or bring down the black buffalo.
I'm no better than a rusty, bursted rifle,
And I don't see signs of any other trail ;
Here by the camp-fire I lie and stifle,
And hear Jim fill the kettles with his pail.
It's no use groaning. I like Sally,
But a Digger squaw wouldn't have me!
I wish they hadn't found me in the valley, —
It's twice dead not to see!
1835-60] ROSE TERRY COOKE. 39?
THE DEACON'S WEEK.
[The Sphinx's Children and Other People's. 1886.]
rpHE communion service of January was just over in the church at
J- Sugar Hollow, and people were waiting for Mr. Parkes to give out
the hyrnn, but he did not give it out; he laid his book down on the
table, and looked about on his church.
He was a man of simplicity and sincerity, fully in earnest to do his
Lord's work, and do it with all his might, but he did sometimes feel dis-
couraged. His congregation was a mixture of farmers and mechanics,
for Sugar Hollow was cut in two by Sugar Brook, a brawling, noisy
stream that turned the wheel of many a mill and manufactory, yet on
the hills around it there was still a scattered population eating their
bread in the full perception of the primeval curse. So he had to con-
tend with the keen brain and skeptical comment of the men who piqued
themselves on power to hammer at theological problems as well as hot
iron, with the jealousy and repulsion and bitter feeling that have bred
the communistic hordes abroad and at home ; while perhaps he had a
still harder task to awaken the sluggish souls of those who used their
days to struggle with barren hill-side and rocky pasture for mere food
and clothing, and their nights to sleep the dull sleep of physical fatigue
and mental vacuity.
It seemed sometimes to Mr. Parkes that nothing but the trump of
Gabriel could arouse his people from their sins and make them believe
on the Lord and follow His footsteps. To-day — no — a long time before
to-day he had mused and prayed till an idea took shape in his thought,
and now he was to put it in practice ; yet he felt peculiarly responsible
and solemnized as he looked about him and foreboded the success of
his experiment. Then there flashed across him, as words of Scripture
will come back to the habitual Bible-reader, the noble utterance of
Gamaliel concerning Peter and his brethren when they stood before the
council: "If this 'council or this work be of men, it will come to
nought: but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it." So with a sense
of strength the minister spoke.
" My dear friends," he said, " you all know, though I did not give
any notice to that effect, that this week is the Week of Prayer. I have
a mind to ask you to make it for this once a week of practice instead.
I think we may discover some things, some of the things of God, in this
manner, that a succession of prayer-meetings would not perhaps so thor-
oughly reveal to us. Now, when I say this I don't mean to have you go
home and vaguely endeavor to walk straight in the old way ; I want
you to take 'topics,' as they are called, for the prayer-meetings. For
ROSE TERRY COOKE. [1835-60
O40
instance, Monday is prayer for the temperance work. Try all that day
to be temperate in speech, in act, in indulgence of any kind that is hurt-
ful to you. The next day is for Sunday-schools ; go and visit your
scholars, such of you as are teachers, and try to feel that they have liv-
ing souls to save/ Wednesday is a day for fellowship meeting ; we are
cordially invited to attend a union-meeting of this sort at Bantam. Few
of us can go twenty five miles to be with our brethren there; let us
spend that day in cultivating our brethren here ; let us go and see those
who have been cold to us for some reason, heal up our breaches of
friendship, confess our shortcomings one to another, and act as if, in our
Master's words, ' all ye are brethren.'
" Thursday is the day to pray for the family relation ; let us each try
to be to our families on that day in our measure what the Lord is to His
family, the Church, remembering the words : ' Fathers, provoke not
your children to anger ' ; ' Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter
against them.' These are texts rarely commented upon, I have noticed,
in our conference meetings ; we are more apt to speak of the obedience
due from children, and the submission and meekness our wives owe us,
forgetting that duties are always reciprocal.
" Friday, the Church is to be prayed for. Let us then each for him-
self try to act that day just as we think Christ, our great Exemplar,
would have acted in our places. Let us try to prove to ourselves and
the world about us that we have not taken upon us His name lightly or
in vain. Saturday is prayer-day for the heathen and foreign missions.
Brethren, you know and I know that there are heathen at our doors
here ; let every one of you who will, take that day to preach the gospel
to some one who does not hear it anywhere else. Perhaps you will find
work that you know not of lying in your midst. And let us all on Sat-
urday evening meet here again and choose some one brother to relate his
experience of the week. You who are willing to try this method, please
to rise."
Everybody rose except old Amos Tucker, who never stirred, though
his wife pulled at him and whispered to him imploringly. He only
shook his grizzled head and sat immovable.
"Let us sing the doxology," said Mr. Parkes; and it was sung with
full fervor. The new idea had roused the church fully ; it was some-
thing fixed and positive to do; it was the lever-point Archimedes longed
for, and each felt ready and strong to move a world.
Saturday night the church assembled again. The cheerful eagerness was
gone from their faces ; they looked downcast, troubled, weary, as the pas-
tor expected. When the box for ballots was passed about, each one tore
a bit of paper from the sheet placed in the hymn-books for that purpose,
and wrote on it a name. The pastor said, after he had counted them :
1835-60] ROSE TERRT COOKE. 329
': Deacon Emmons, the lot has fallen on you."
'•I am sorry for 't," said the deacon, rising up and taking off his over-
coat. " I haint got the best of records, Mr. Parkes, now I tell ye."
" That isn't what we want," said Mr. Parkes. " We want to know
the whole experience of some one among us, and we know you will not
tell us either more or less than what you did experience."
Deacon Emmons was a short, thick-set man, with a shrewd, kindly
face and gray hair, who kept the village store, and had a well-earned
reputation for honesty.
" Well, brethren," he said, " I dono why I shouldn't tell it. I am
pretty well ashamed of myself, no doubt, but I ought to be, and maybe
I shall profit by what I've found out these six days back. I'll tell you
just as it come. Monday, I looked about me to begin with. I am
amazing fond of coffee, and it aint good for me; the doctor says it aint;
bat dear rne, it does set a man up good, cold mornings, to have a cup of
hot, sweet, tasty drink, and I haven't had the grit to refuse! I knew it
made me what folks call nervous and I call cross before night come ;
and I knew it fetched on spells of low spirits when our folks couldn't
get a word out of me — not a good one, any way ; so I thought I'd try
on that to begin with. I tell you it come hard ! I hankered after that
drink of coffee dreadful ! Seemed as though I couldn't eat my break-
fast without it. I feel to pity a man that loves liquor more'n I ever did
in my life before ; but I feel sure they can stop if they try, for I've
stopped, and I'm a-goin' to stay stopped.
"Well, come to dinner, there was another fight. I do set by pie the
most of anything. I was fetched up on pie, as you may say. Our
folks always had it three times a day, and the doctor he's been talkin'
and talkin' to me about eatin' pie. I have the dyspepsy like every-
thing, and it makes me useless by spells, and onreliable as a weather-
cock. An' Doctor Drake he says there won't nothing help me but to
diet. I was readin' the Bible that morning while I was waiting for
breakfast, for 'twas Monday, and wife was kind of set back with washin'
and all, and I come acrost that part where it says that the bodies of
Christians are temples of the Holy Ghost. Well, thinks I, we'd ought
to take care of 'em if they be, and see that they're kep' clean and pleas-
ant, like the church; and nobody can be clean nor pleasant that has
dyspepsy. But, come to pie, I felt as though I couldn't ! and, lo ye, I
didn't ! I eet a piece right against my conscience ; facin' what I knew
I ought to do, I went and done what I ought not to. I tell ye my con-
science made music of me consider'ble, and I said I wouldn't never sneer
at a drinkin' man no more when he slipped up. I'd feel for him, and
help him, for I see just how it was. So that day's practice giv' out, but
it learnt me a good deal more'n I knew before.
33Q ROSE TERRY COOKE. [1835-60
"I started out next day to^look up my Bible-class. They haven't
really tended up to Sunday-school as they ought to, along back, but I
was busy, here and there, and there didn't seem to be a real chance to
get to it Well, 'twould take the evenin' to tell it all, but I found one
real sick, been a-bed for three weeks, and was so glad to see me that I
felt fair ashamed. Seemed as though I heered the Lord for the first
time sayin': 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye
did it not to Me.' Then another man's old mother says to me before he
come in from the shed, says she : ' He's been a-sayin' that if folks prac-
tised what they preached you'd ha' come round to look him up afore
now, but he reckoned you kinder looked „ down on mill-hands. I'm
awful glad vou come.' Brethering, so was If I tell you, that day's
work done me good. I got a poor opinion of Josiah Emmons, now I
tell ye, but I learnt more about the Lord's wisdom than a month o' Sun-
days ever showed me."
A smile he could not repress passed over Mr. Parkes's earnest faca
The deacon had forgotten all external issues in coming so close to the
heart of things ; but the smile passed as he said :
" Brother Emmons, do you remember what the Master said : 'If any
man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
God or whether I speak of myself ' ? "
"Well, it's so," answered the deacon ; "it's so right along. Why, I
never thought so much of my Bible-class nor took no sech int'rest in
'em as I do to-day — not since I begun to teach. I b'lieve they'll come
more reg'lar now too.
•' Now come fellowship-day. I thought that would be all plain sailin' ;
seemed as though I'd got warmed up till I felt pleasant towardst
everybody, so I went around seein' folks that was neighbors, and 'twas
easy; but when I come home at noon spell, Philury says, says she:
' Square Tucker's black bull is into th' orchard a-tearin' round, and he's
knocked two lengths o' fence down flat ! ' Well, the old Adam riz up then,
you'd 'better b'lieve. That black bull has been a-breakin' into my lots
ever sence we got in th' aftermath, and it's Square Tucker's fence, and
he won't make it bull-strong as he'd oughter, and that orchard was a
young one, just comin' to bear, and all the new wood crisp as cracklin's
with frost. You'd better b'lieve I didn't have much feller- feelin' with
Amos Tucker. I jest put over to his house and spoke pretty free to
him, when he looked up and says, says he: ' Fellowship-meetin' day,
ain't it, Deacon ? ' I'd ruther he'd ha' slapped my face. I felt as though
I should like to slip behind the door. I see pretty distinct what sort of
life I'd been livin' all the years I'd been a professor, when I couldn't
hold on to my tongue and temper one day ! "
"Breth-e-ren," interrupted a slow, harsh voice, somewhat broken with
1835-60] ROSE TEERY GOOKE. 33^
emotion, " Fll tell the rest on't Josiah Emmons come around like a
man an' a Christian right there. He asked me for to forgive him and
not to think 'twas the fault of his religion, because 'twas his'n and
nothin' else. I think more of him to-day than I ever done before. I
was one that wouldn't say I'd practise with the rest of ye. I thought
'twas everlastin' nonsense. I'd ruther go to forty-nine prayer-meetin's
than work at bein' good a week. I b'lieve my hope has been one of
them that perish ; it haint worked, and I leave it behind to-day. I
mean to begin honest, and it was seein' one honest Christian man
fetched me round to't."
Amos Tucker sat down and buried his grizzled head in his rough
hands.
" Bless the Lord ! " said the quavering tones of a still older man from
a far corner of the house, and many a glistening eye gave silent response.
"Go on, Brother Emmons," said the minister.
"Well, when next day come I got up to make the fire, and my boy
Joe had forgot the kindlin's. I'd opened my mouth to give him Jesse,
when it come over me suddin that this was the day of prayer for the
family relation. I thought I wouldn't say nothin'. I jest fetched in
the kindlin's myself, and when the fire burnt up good I called wife.
"'Dear me!' says she. 'I've got such a headache, 'Siah, but I'll
come in a minnit.' I didn't mind that, for women are always havin'
aches, and I was jest a-goin' to say so, when I remembered the tex'
about not bein' bitter against 'em, so I says : ' Philury, you lay a-bed.
I expect Emmy and me can get the vittles to-day.' I declare, she
turned over and gave me sech a look ; why, it struck right in. There
was my wife, that had worked for an' waited on me twenty-odd year,
'most scar't because I spoke kind of feelin' to her. I went out and
fetched in the pail o' water she'd always drawed herself, and then I
milked the cow. When I come in Philury was up fryin' the potatoes,
and the tears a-shinin' on her white face. She didn't say nothin', she's
kinder still, but she hadn't no need to. I felt a leetle meaner'n I did
the day before. But 'twan't nothin' to my condition when I was goin',
towards night, down the sullar stairs for some apples, so's the children
could have a roast, and I heered Joe up in the kitchen say to Emmy :
'I do b'lieve, Em, pa's goin' to die.' 'Why, Josiar Emmons, how you
talk ! ' ' Well, I do ; he's so everlastin' pleasant an' good-natered I can't
but think he's struck with death.'
" I tell ye, brethren, I set right down on them sullar stairs and cried.
I did, reely. Seemed as though the Lord had turned and looked at me
jest as He did at Peter. Why, there was my own children never see
me act real fatherly and pretty in all their lives. I'd growled and
scolded and prayed at 'em, and tried to fetch 'em up jest as the twig is
0^2 ROSE TERRT COOKE. [1835-60
bent the tree's inclined, ye know, but I hadn't never thought that they'd
got right and reason to expect I'd do my part as well as they their'n.
Seemed as though I was findin' out more about Josiah Emmons's short-
comin's than was real agreeable.
" Come around Friday I got back to the store. I'd kind o' left it to
the boys the early part of the week, and things was a little cuterin', but
I did have sense not to tear round and use sharp words so much as com-
mon. I began to think 'twas gettin' easy to practise after five days,
when in come Judge Herrick's wife after some curt'in calico. I had a
han'some piece, all done off with roses an' things, but there was a fault
in the weavin' — every now and then a thin streak. She didn't notice it,
but she was pleased with the figures on't, and said she'd take the whole
piece. Well, jest as I was wrappin' of it up, what Mr. Parkes here said
about tryin' to act jest as the Lord would in our place, come acrost me.
Why, I turned as red as a beet, I know I did. It made me all of a
tremble. There was I, a door-keeper in the tents of my God, as David
says, really cheatin', and cheatin' a woman. I tell ye, brethren, I was
all of a sweat. 'Mis' Herrick,' says I, 'I don't b'lieve you've looked
real close at this goods ; 'taint thorough wove,' says I. So she didn't
take it; but what fetched me was to think how many times I'd done
sech mean, onreliable little things to turn a penny, and all the time
sayin' and prayin' that I wanted to be like Christ. I kep' a-trippin' of
myself up all day jest in the ordinary business, and I was a peg lower
down when night come than I was a Thursday. I'd ruther, as far as
the hard work is concerned, lay a mile of four-foot stone wall than
undertake to do a man's livin' Christian duty for twelve workin' hours;
and the heft of that is, it's because I aint used to it, and I ought to be.
" So this mornin' came around, and I felt a mite more cherk. 'Twas
missionary mornin', and seemed as if 'twas a sight easier to preach than
to practise. I thought I'd begin to old Mis' Vedder's. So I put a Tes-
tament in my pocket and knocked to her door. Says I, ' Good mornin'
ma'am,' and then I stopped. Words seemed to hang, somehow. I
didn't want to pop right out that I'd come over to try'n convert her
folks. I hemmed and swallered a little, and fin'lly I said, says I : ' We
don't see you to meetin' very frequent, Mis' Vedder.'
" ' No, you don't ! ' ses she, as quick as a wink. ' I stay to home and
mind my business.'
' ' Well, we should like to hev you come along with us and do ye
good,' says I, sort of conciliatin'.
;"Look a-here, Deacon!' she snapped, 'I've lived alongside of you
fifteen year, and you knowed I never went to meetin'; we aint a pious
lot, and you knowed it; we're poorer'n death and uglier'n sin. Jim he
drinks and swears, and Malviny dono her letters. She knows a heap
1835-60] ROSE TERRY COOKE. 333
she hadn't ought to, besides. Now what are you a-comin' here to-day
for, I'd like to know, and talkin' so glib about meetin' ? Go to meetin' 1
I'll go or come jest as I darn please, for all you. Now get out o' this ! '
Why, she come at me with a broomstick. There wasn't no need on't ;
what she said was enough. I hadn't never asked her nor her'n to so
much as think of goodness before. Then I went to another place jest
like that — I won't call no more names; and sure enough there was ten
children in rags, the hull on 'em, and the man half drunk. He giv' it to
me too ; and I don't wonder. I'd never lifted a hand to serve nor save
'em before in all these years. I'd said considerable about the heathen in
foreign parts, and give some little for to convert 'em, and I had looked
right over the heads of them that was next door. Seemed as if I could
hear Him say r ' These ought ye to have done, and not have left the
other undone.' I couldn't face another soul to-day, brethren. I come
home, and here I be. I've been searched through and through, and
found wantin'. God be merciful to me a sinner ! "
He dropped into his seat, and bowed his head ; and many another
bent too. It was plain that the deacon's experience was not the only
one among the brethren. Mr. Parkes rose, and prayed as he had never
prayed before; the week of practice had fired his heart too. And it
began a memorable year for the church in Sugar Hollow ; not a year of
excitement or enthusiasm, but one when they heard their Lord saying,
as to Israel of old: "Go forward," and they obeyed his voice. The
Sunday-school flourished, the church services were fully attended, every
good thing was helped on its way, and peace reigned in their homes and
hearts, imperfect, perhaps, as new growths are, but still an offshoot of
the peace past understanding.
And another year they will keep another week of practice, by com-
mon consent
SEGOVIA AND MADRID.
IT sings to me in sunshine,
It whispers all day long,
My heart-ache like an echo
Repeats the wistful song:
Only a quaint old love-lilt,
Wherein my life is hid, —
" My body is in Segovia,
But niy soul is in Madrid! "
I dream, and wake, and wonder,
For dream and day are one,
WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY. [1835-GO
OO'x
Alight with vanished faces,
And days forever done.
They smile and shine around me
As long ago they did ;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid !
Through inland hills and forests
I hear the ocean breeze,
The creak of straining cordage,
The rush of mighty seas,
The lift of angry billows
Through which a swift keel slid ;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.
Oh fair-haired little darlings
Who bore my heart away !
A wide and woful ocean
Between us rolls to-day;
Yet am I close beside you
Though time and space forbid ;
My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.
If I were once in heaven,
There would be no more sea;
My heart would cease to wander,
My sorrows cease to be;
My sad eyes sleep forever,
In dust and daisies hid,
And my body leave Segovia.
— Would my soul forget Madrid ?
mtlltam
BORN in Northampton, Mass., 1827.
HOW SHALL WE SPELL ?
[Oriental and Linguistic Studies. Second Series. 1874.]
DO writers imagine that, the moment we adopt a new mode of spell-
ing, all the literature written in the old is to pass in a twinkling
out of existence and out of memory ? Certainly there are agencies which
might be made use of to avert so bewildering a catastrophe. A Society
1835-60] WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY. 335
for the Preservation of English Etymologies might perhaps be organized,
which should make a provident selection of old-style dictionaries and
grammars, and store them away in a triply fire-proof library, for the
young philologists of future times to be nursed upon until they could
bear stronger food. It might even be found practicable, by ingenious
and careful management, to procure the construction of a dictionary of
the newfangled idiom in which the former spelling of every word should
be set alongside its modern substitute, in order to render possible the
historic comprehension of the latter. Thus, to take an extreme case
or two, the new word 5am (a as in far), by having the explanation
" anciently, psalm " added to it, would be sufficiently insured against any
such shocking suppositions on the part of the future student of English
as that it pointed to Samuel instead of David as author of the sacred
lyrics, or that it was a development out of the mystical letters " S. M."
placed in the singing-books at the head of so many of their number ;
him (hymn] would be, by like means, saved from confusion with the per-
sonal pronoun — and so on. We do not wish to show an unbecoming
levity or disrespect, but it is very hard to answer with anything
approaching to seriousness such arguments as those "we are combating ;
" absurd " and " preposterous," and such impolite epithets, fit them better
than any others we can find in the English vocabulary. They are
extreme examples of the fallacies to which learned men will sometimes
resort in support of a favorite prejudice.
Many, however, who have too much insight and caution to put their
advocacy of the " historic " or Tibetan principle in English orthography
upon the false ground of its indispensableness to etymologic science,
will yet defend it as calculated to lead on the writer or speaker of our
language to inquire into the history of the words he uses, thus favoring
the development of an etymologizing tendency. He who now pro-
nounces sam and him, they think, would be liable, if he also wrote those
syllables phonetically, to just simply accept them as names of the things
they designate, like pig and pen, without giving a thought to their deri-
vation ; whereas, if he knows that they are and must be spelt psalm and
hymn, his natural curiosity to discover the cause of so singular a pheno-
menon mav plunge him into the Greek language, and make a philologist
of him almost before he suspects what he is about ' There is more show
of reason in this argument ; but whether more reason, admits of doubt
The anomalies of our orthography, unfortunately, are far from being
calculated, in the gross, to guide the unlearned to etymological research.
For one of them which is of value in the way of incitement and instruc-
tion, there are many which can only confuse and discourage. In the
first place, there are not a few downright blunders among them. Thus, to
cite a familiar instance or two, the g of sovereign (French souverain, Italian
o^g WILLIAM D WIGHT WHITNEY. [1835-60
sovrano) has no business there, since the word has nothing whatever to
do with reigning; island (from Anglo-Saxon eala,nd) is spelt with an s
out of ignorant imitation of isle (Latin insula), with which it is wholly
unconnected ; in like manner, an I has stumbled into could, in order to
assimilate it in look to its comrades in office, would and should ; women
is for an original wif-men, and its phonetic spelling would be also more
truly historical. Again, another part, and not a small one, seem to the
ordinary speller the merest confusion (and are often, in fact, nothing
better), calculated to lead him to nothing but lamentation over his hard
lot, that he is compelled to master them. Take a series of words like
believer, receiver, weaver, fever, reever, and try how many of the community
are even accessible to proof that their orthographic discordances are
bottomed on anything tangible. There is in some persons, as we well
know, an exquisite etymologic sensibility which can feel and relish a
historical reminiscence wholly imperceptible to men of common mould ;
to which, for instance, the u of honour is a precious and never- to-be-relin-
quished token that the word is derived from the Latin honor not directly,
but through the medium of the French honneur: and we look upon it
with a kind of wondering awe, as we do upon the superhuman delicacy
of organization of the " true princess " in Andersen's story, who felt the
pea so painfully through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds ;
but it is so far beyond us that we cannot pretend to sympathize with it,
or even to covet its possession. If we are to use a suggestive historic
orthography, we should like to have our words remodelled a little in its
favor : if we must retain and value the b of doubt (Latin dubitare), as sign
of its descent, we crave also a p in count (French compter, Latin com-
putare), and at least a b, if not an r also, in priest (Greek presbuteros) ; we
are not content with but one silent letter in alms, as relic of the stately
Greek word eleemosune ; we contemplate with only partial satisfaction
the I of calm and walk, while we miss it in such and which (derivatives
from so-like and who-like). Why, too, should we limit the suggestiveness
of our terms to the latest stages of their history ? Now that the modern
school of linguistic science, with the aid of the Sanskrit and other dis-
tant and barbarous tongues, claims to have penetrated back to the very
earliest roots out of which our language has grown, let us take due account
of its results, and cunningly convert our English spelling into a complete
course of philological training.
We have, however, no intention of taking upon ourselves here the
character of reformers or of proposers of reforms ; only when this and
the other principle are put forward as valuable, we cannot well help
stepping aside a moment to see where we should be led to if, like true
men, we attempted to carry out our principles. As regards the historic
element in English orthography, we think it evident enough that its
1835-60] WILLIAM D WIGHT WHITNEY. 33 tj
worth and interest do not at all lie in its instructing effect upon the gen-
eral public who use the language, but rather in its tendency to call up
pleasing associations in the minds of the learned, of those who are
already more or less familiar with the sources from which our words
come. It is much more an aristocratic luxury than a popular benefit.
To the instrument which is in every one's hands for constant use it adds
a new kind of suggest! veness for those who know what it means, and
gives them the satisfaction of feeling that, though they may not wield the
instrument more successfully than others, there are peculiarities in its
structure which they alone appreciate. Such a satisfaction is a selfish
one, and improperly and wrongly obtained, if bought by a sacrifice of
any measure of convenience or advantage to the great public of speakers
and writers. . .
"Possession is nine points of the law " and " partus sequitur ventrem"
were the true proof-texts and scientific principles on which the master's
right reposed; and so also "whatever is, is right" constitutes the com-
plete ethical code of him who is defending English spelling. Anything
else is mere casuistry, a casting of dust in the eyes of the objector. The
paramount consideration, which really decides every case, is that the
existing orthography must be perpetuated ; if for this and that word any
other apparently supporting considerations of any kind soever can be
found, they may be made the most of — yet without creating a precedent,
or establishing a principle which is to be heeded in any other case, where
it would make in favor of a change. The advocate of " historic " spell-
ing insists as strongly upon retaining the I of could as that of would,
and fights against a p in count not less vehemently than in favor of a b
in doubt; the difference of receive and believe is no more sacred in his eyes
than the sameness of cleave and cleave. Now, we have no quarrel with
any one who plants himself squarely and openly upon the conservative
ground, and declares that our English spelling is, with all its faults and
inconsistencies, good enough for its purpose, that every item of it is con-
secrated by usage and enshrined in predilections, and therefore must
and shall be maintained. What we cannot abide is that he who means
this, and this only, should give himself the airs of one who is defending
important principles, and keeping off from the fabric of English speech
rude hands that would fain mar its beauty and usefulness. Orthographic
purism is, of all kinds of purism, the lowest and the cheapest, as is ver-
bal criticism of all kinds of criticism, and word faith of all kinds of
orthodoxy. As Mephistopheles urges upon the Student, when persuad-
ing him to pin his belief upon the letter —
"Von einem Wort lasst sich kein Iota rauben,"
' every iota of the written word may be fought for ' — and that, too, even
VOL. VTII. — 22
ggg WILLIAM D WIGHT WHITNEY. [1835-60
by the tyro who has well conned his spelling-book, though his knowl-
edge of his native speech end chiefly there. Many a man who could not
put together a single paragraph of nervous, idiomatic English, nor ever
had ideas enough to fill a paragraph of any kind, whose opinion on a
matter of nice phraseology or even of disputed pronunciation would be
of use to no living being, fancies himself entitled to add after his name
"defender of the English language," because he is always strict to
writ6 honour instead of honor, and travelled instead of traveled, and never
misses an opportunity, public or private, to sneer at those who do other-
wise
It is upon practical grounds that our final judgment of the value of
English orthography must mainly rest. The written language is a uni-
versal possession, an instrument of communication for the whole immense
community of English speakers, and anything which impairs its con-
venience and manageableness , as an instrument is such a defect as
demands active measures for removal. Now, no one can question that
the practical use of our tongue is rendered more difficult by the anoma-
lies of its written form. We do not, indeed, easily realize how much of
the learning-time of each rising generation is taken up with mastering
orthographical intricacies ; how much harder it is for us to learn to read
at all, and to read and write readily and correctly, than it would be if
we wrote as we speak. We accomplished the task so long ago, most of
us, that we have forgotten its severity, and decline to see any reason why
others should ask to be relieved from it Teachers, however, know what
it is, as do those who for want of a sufficiently severe early drilling, or
from defect of native capacity, continue all their lives to be inaccurate
spellers. Such may fairly plead that their orthographical sins are to be
imputed, in great part, not to themselves, but to the community, which
has established and sustains an institution so unnecessarily cumbrous.
We may see yet more clearly the nature of the burden it imposes by
considering what it is to foreigners. Our language, from the simplicity
of its grammatical structure, would be one of the easiest in the world to
learn if it were not loaded with its anomalous orthography. As the
matter stands, a stranger may acquire the spoken tongue by training of
the mouth and ear, or the written by help of grammar and dictionarv,
and in either case the other tongue will be nearly as strange to him as if
it belonged to an unknown race. It is doubtless within bounds to say
that the difficulty of his task is thus doubled. And this item must
count for not a little in determining the currency which the English shall
win as a world-language— a destiny for which it seems more decidedly
marked out than any other cultivated speech. In view of what we expect
and wish it to become, we have hardly the right to hand it down to pos-
terity with such a millstone about its neck as its present orthography.
1835-60] WILLIAM D WIGHT WHITNEY.
339
It is, moreover, to be noted that a phonetic spelling, far from contrib-
uting, as its enemies claim, to the alteration and decay of the language,
would exercise an appreciable conserving influence, and make for uni-
formity and fixedness of pronunciation. So loose and indefinite is now
the tie between writing and utterance, that existing differences of utter-
ance hide themselves under cover of an orthography which fits them all
equally well, while others spring up unchecked. No small part of the
conservative force expends itself upon the visible form alone ; whereas,
if the visible and audible form were more strictly accordant, it would
have its effect upon the latter also. The establishment of a phonetic
orthography would imply the establishment and maintenance of a single
authoritative and intelligible standard of pronunciation, the removal of
the more marked differences of usage between the cultivated speakers
of different localities, and the reduction of those of less account ; and it
would hold in check — though nothing can wholly restrain — those slow
and insidious changes which creep unawares into the utterance of every
tongue.
One more thing is worthy of at least a brief reference — namely, that a
consistent spelling would awaken and educate the phonetic sense of the
community. As things are now, the English speaker comes to the study
of a foreign written language, and to the examination of phonetic ques-
tions generally, at a disadvantage when compared with those to whom
other tongues are native. He has been accustomed to regard it as only
natural and proper that any given sound should be written in a variety
of different ways, that any given sign should possess a number of differ-
ent values ; and it requires a special education to give him an inkling of
the truth that every letter of our alphabet had originally, and still pre-
serves in the main, outside of his own language, a single unvarying
sound. His ideas of the relations of the vowels are hopelessly awry ; he
sees nothing strange in the designation of the vowel-sounds of pin and
pine, or of pat and pate, or of pun and pure, as corresponding short and
long, although we might as well assert that dog and cat, or that horse and
cow, or that sun and moon, are corresponding male and female. And he
reads off his Latin and Greek in tones that would have driven frantic
any Roman or Athenian who suspected it to be his own tongue that was
so murdered, with unsuspecting complacency, even flattering himself
that he appreciates their rhythm and melody. It is not the least telling
of the indications he furnishes of a sense for the fitness of things
debauched by a vicious training, that he is capable of regarding a his-
torical spelling as preferable to a phonetic — that is to say, of thinking it
better to write our words as we imagine that some one else pronounced
them a long time ago than as we pronounce them ourselves. A thor-
oughly consistent spelling would be a far more valuable means of philo-
0/(A WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY. [1835-60
O-1U
logical education than such a one as we now follow, were the latter twice
as full as it is of etymological suggestiveness.
We are, then, clearly of opinion that a phonetic orthography is, of
itself, in all respects desirable, and that there is no good reason against
introducing it save the inconvenience of so great a change. Every theo-
retical and practical consideration makes in its favor. At the same time,
our hope of a reform is exceedingly faint. No reform is possible until
the community at large— or at least, the greater body of the learned and
highly educated— shall see clearly that the advantage to be gained
by it "is worth the trouble it will entail ; and whether and when they
will be brought to do so is very doubtful. At present the public
mind is in a most unnaturally sensitive condition upon the subject; it
will listen to no suggestion of a change from any quarter, in any word
or class of words. The great need now is to enlighten it, to show that
its action is the result of a blind prejudice alone, and really founded
on none of the reasons which are usually alleged in its support, that
there is nothing sacred in the written word ; that language is speech,
not spelling; and that practical convenience is the only true test of the
value of an orthographic system. Until this work is accomplished, all
reformers will be likely to meet the fate of Noah Webster, one of the
best-abused men of his generation, and for one of the most creditable
of his deeds, the attempt to amend in a few particulars our English
spelling — an attempt for which (however fragmentary it may have been,
and ill-judged in some of its parts) we ourselves feel inclined to forgive
him many of his false etymologies and defective definitions. We have
read in the story-books that a certain Prince Nosey was condemned by a
malevolent fairy to wear a portentously long nose until he should him-
self be convinced that it was too long, which salutary but unpalatable
truth was kept indefinitely concealed from him by the flattery of his
courtiers. The English-speaking people are in somewhat the same case ;
and though fairy days are now over, and we can no longer hope that our
superfluous nasal inches will drop off the moment we recognize their
superfluity, we know that at any rate we shall not lose them sooner,
because we shall not sooner be willing to set about the work of ridding
ourselves of them. Of course our words would look very oddly to us
now in a phonetic dress ; but that is merely because we are used to them
in another. So our friends the ladies, if they should suddenly appear
before our sight in the head-gear which they are going to wear five years
hence, would shock us and provoke the cut direct ; yet we shall by that
time be looking back to the bonnets of this season as the height of
absurdity. If once brought to the adoption of a consistent orthography,
we should soon begin to regard with aversion our present ideographs
and historiographs, and wonder that we could ever have preferred, or
1835-60] FRANCIS MILES FINCH. 34^
even tolerated them. It is easy now to raise a general laugh against the
man who writes news unuz" ; but so the Englishman can count upon an
admiring and sympathizing audience among his own countrymen when
he turns against the Frenchman that crushing question, " What can you
think of a man who calls a hat a shappo? " — and the appeal is really to
the same narrow prejudice and vulgar ignorance in the one case as in
the other.
francig
BORN in Ithaca, N. Y.? 1837.
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 are the ranks of the dead :
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;
FRANCIS MILES FINCH. [1835-60
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the summer calletli,
On forest and field of grain,
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 auger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead 1
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
STORM— THE KING.
T AM Storm— the King!
-*- I live in a fortress of fire and cloud.
You may hear my batteries, sharp and loud,
In the summer night
When I and my lieges arm for the fight,
And the birches moan,
And the cedars groan,
As they bend beneath the terrible spring
Of Storm— the King!
I am Storm — the King !
My troops are the winds and the hail and the rain :
My foes the lakes and the leaves and the grain,
The obstinate oak
That guards his front to my charge and stroke,
1835-60] FRANCIS MILES FINCH. 343
The ships on the sea,
The blooms on the lea,
And they writhe and break as the war-guns ring
Of Storm— the King !
I am Storm— the King!
My Marshals are four : the swart Simoon,
Sirocco, Tornado, and swift Typhoon.
My realm is the world ;
Whenever a sail is spread or furled,
My wide command
Sweeps sea and land,
And doomed and dead who insult fling
At Storm — the King!
I am Storm — the King!
I drove the sea o'er the Leyden dikes,
And fighting by side of the burgher pikes,
To the walls I bore
The " ark of Delft " from the ocean shore,
O'er vale and mead
With pitiless speed
Till the Spaniard fled from the deluge ring
Of Storm— the King!
I am Storm — the King !
I saw an Armada set sail from Spain
To redden with blood a maiden's reign.
I baffled the host
With blow in the face on the island coast,
And tore proud deck
To splinters and wreck,
And the Saxon poets the praises sing
Of Storm — the King!
I am Storm — the King!
They built them a tower of iron and stone,
And crowned its top with a flashing zone,
And laughed to scorn
The vibrant call of my bugle horn!
I buried it deep
In the sands asleep,
Where the surges rock and the billows swing
Of Storm— the King !
I am Storm— the King!
They hire the heralds of lightning now
To warn that I march from the mountain's brow.
The cowards hide
In the guarded bay or the haven wide:
GEORGE PARK FISHER. [1835-60
But I toss them there
In the whirl of the air
Till they seem but stones from the deadly sling
Of Storm— the King!
I am Storm — the King!
I scour the earth and the sea and the air,
And drag the writhing trees by the hair,
And chase for game
The desert dust and the prairie flame,
The mountain snow,
And the Arctic floe,
And never is folded plume or wing
Of Storm— the King!
BORN in Wrentham, Mass., 1827.
MODERN BELIEF AND DOUBT.
[History of the Christian Church. 1888.]
IT is only when a personal will, a conscious intelligence, are denied
to the Power whose energy pervades all things, that the Christian
revelation is impugned. At the same time, under this blighting fatal-
ism, human responsibility and trial, and the immortal life beyond —
truths which underlie what is most lofty in works of the imagination —
shrivel away. In poetry, as in science, it is not the idea of the imma-
nence of God in the world, but the pantheistic ignoring or rejection of
the complementary truth — the truth of the personality of both God and
man — that clashes with the convictions of a Christian. But Goethe,
influenced though he was, to such a degree, by the atmosphere of
thought in which he grew up, was too great a man to think lightly of
the Christian faith. In one of his last conversations with Eckermann,
he said : " Let mental culture continually increase, let the natural sci-
ences grow, broadening and deepening in their progress, and the human
mind expand as it will, — beyond the elevation and moral culture of
Christianity, as it gleams and shines forth in the gospels, men will never
advance." The "worship of genius," under the notion that men of
exalted powers are exempt from the restraints of morality, was a form
of idolatry too baneful and debasing to gain a foothold where there was
any life in conscience. And yet it followed naturally from the panthe-
1835-60] GEORGE PARK FISHER.
345
istic mode of thought, in which blind power is deified and all its mani-
festations are regarded as equally divine.
In another great literary leader of the recent period, there is witnessed
a wavering between the pantheistic and theistic position. It is Thomas
Carlyle. The apostle of sincerity, his abhorrence of all falsehood
implies at its root a theistic belief. A hero of faith, such as Luther, he
knows how to appreciate. The godliness of Oliver Cromwell is to him
something real and sacred. A passage in a letter of Carlyle, written in
his last days, to his friend Erskine of Linlathen, shows the faith that
was slumbering within him, and which the experience of sorrow woke
to a new life. It was written after the death of his wife :
" ( Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done ' ; what else can we say ? The other
night, in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and
more miserable, these words, that brief and grand prayer, came strangely
into my mind with an altogether new emphasis, as if written and shin-
ing for me in mild, pure splendor, on the black bosom of the night
there ; where I, as it were, read them, word by word, with a sudden
check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure
which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had
I ever formally repeated that prayer — nay, I never felt before how
intensely the voice of man's soul it is ; the inmost aspiration of all that
is high and pious in poor human nature ; right worthy to be recom-
mended with an 'after this manner, pray ye.'"
Profound convictions in relation to fundamental religious truth have
been expressed by men who have stood aloof from existing church
organizations, and have, perhaps, rejected the accepted dogmatic state-
ments of Christianity. Lacordaire, the renowned French preacher, is
said to have been awakened in his youth from the dreams of ambition
by being struck with "the nothingness of irreligion." It is not strange
that such a thought should have power even with many, who from vari-
ous causes fail to attain to an assured faith in the doctrines of the
Church. The abyss of irreligion is felt to be something dreadful to con-
template, whether the yearnings of the individual soul are considered,
or the needs of society. The rise of Socialism, with the attendant con-
flict of labor and capital, and concerted efforts of the working class to
effect revolutionary changes, have impressed thoughtful men with the
dire evil that is involved in the loss of religious trust and hope. In the
generations past, laborers, even when deprived of the comforts of life,
the victims, perhaps, of oppressive social arrangements, have found con-
solation in looking up to God, and in looking forward to compensations
in a future state. In the midst of drudgery, thoughts of religion have
lifted them up and cheered them under heavy burdens. Cut off from
o An GEORGE PARK FISHER. [1835-60
these fountains of strength, they are left with no alternative but to
grasp what they can in the fleeting moments of the present life. On this
subject, a man of genius, Victor Hugo, thus speaks, in a passage which
is translated in " The Contemporary Keview " :
" Let us not forget, and let us teach it to all, that there would be no
dignity in life, that it would not be worth while to live, if annihilation
were to be our lot What is it which alleviates and which sanctifies
toil, which renders men strong, wise, patient, just, at once humble and
aspiring, but the perpetual vision of a better world, whose light shines
through the darkness of the present life? For myself, I believe pro-
foundly in that better world ; and after many struggles, much study, and
numberless trials, this is the supreme conviction of my reason as it is the
supreme consolation of my soul." . . . "There is a misfortune of
our times," he continues, " I could almost say there is but one misfortune
of our times ; it is the tendency to stake all on the present life. The
duty of us all, whoever we may be — legislators and bishops, priests,
authors, and journalists— is to spread abroad, to dispense and to lavish
in every form, the social energy necessary to combat poverty and suffer-
ing, and at the same time to bid every face to be lifted up to heaven,
to direct every soul and mind to a future life where justice shall be
executed. "We must declare with a loud voice that none shall have
suffered uselessly, and that justice shall be rendered to all. Death itself
shall be restitution. As the law of the material universe is equilibrium,
so the law of the moral universe is equity. God will be found at the
end of all."
That the discoveries of modem science have had the effect for the
time, in the case of many, of unsettling their faith in Christian truth, is
an undoubted fact It requires reflection to perceive that the scientific
spirit — the pursuit of an exact, methodized, exhaustive knowledge of
the world in which we live, and of man, its inhabitant — stands in no
contradiction to the spirit of religion. On the other hand, whatever
exhilaration may spring from the enlargement of knowledge, it soon
becomes clear that man cannot live by science alone, but that within
him are capacities and cravings of another kind, with which the soul's
true life and peace are inseparably linked. It is soon perceived that the
essential relations of man to God are not determined by the size of the
globe, compared with other planets, by its relation to the stellar uni-
verse, by its age, or by the time that may have elapsed since man's crea-
tion. The consciousness of man that there is an infinite God above him,
and a moral law within him, is not affected by facts of this nature.
Evolution is perceived to be a term descriptive simply of the supposed
method of nature: of the creative and directive energy by which the
process begins and is carried forward, it contains no explanation. New
1835-60] GEORGE PARK FI8HER. 347
discoveries in natural science, however, as far as they require new inter-
pretations of the Bible, or a modification of traditional ideas respecting
the character and limits of inspiration, may give rise to doubts and per-
plexity. It may be here remarked that not professed Christian teach-
ers alone, but the most authoritative expounders of the new doctrines in
natural science, have pronounced them nowise at variance with the
great argument of design. Among these authorities in science are
found most earnest and sincere believers. One of them was Faraday,
who belonged to the small sect of Sandemanians, who, in the last cen-
tury, separated from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but who
hold to the fundamental truths of the gospel. Another was Clerk Max-
well, a physicist of the highest ability, who found nothing in the doc-
trine of the '• conservation of force " to clash with the evidence of either
natural or revealed religion.
In a period of transition, when old formulas are losing their hold and
new statements of religious truth are not yet matured ; when, also, the
foundations of Christian belief are assailed by historical criticism or by
philosophical speculation, it is inevitable that in many ingenuous minds
faith should be mixed, more or less, with doubt. The bishop, in Brown-
ing's poem, exchanged
" A life of doubt diversified by faith,
For one of faith diversified by doubt. "
Yet under such circumstances there are victories of faith, legitimately
won, which illustrate forcibly the indestructible basis on which the
claims of Christianity to the allegiance of the soul rest. Such examples
in modern times have been not unfrequent in Germany. Some there
are, with so deep a sense of religion, and to whom the gospel shines
with so clear a light, that they are never harassed by skepticism.
Kothe, with a genius for speculation, with a mind open to new truth,
and familiar with the theories and arguments of the skeptical schools,
nevertheless declares that he had felt no doubt of the being of God, and
had never experienced any difficulty in giving credence to miracles. An
interesting record of triumph over doubt, of a faith in Christian verities
that grew in strength from year to year, is furnished in the biography
of Frederick Perthes, the publisher of Gotha, who stood in so intimate
relations with Niebuhr, Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Neander, and many
other distinguished men of the time.
OUSTAV GOTTHEIL. [1835-60
BORN in Pinne, Prussia, 1827.
JEWISH RESERVE.
[From an Article in the North American Review. 1878.— Revised by the Author. 1888. ]
T
HE social coherence of the Jews, which survives in spite of the
acquired civil equality, still puzzles the Gentile observer. To the
theological mind it argues a divine purpose with the chosen, but tem-
porarily rejected, race, and to the philosopher the astounding perti-
nacity of traits of character; to those hostile to the Jews it is a proof of
a secret conspiracy against the welfare of the Christian nations ; and the
most general impression is that pride of race lies at the bottom of the
strange fact. Even Mr. James Freeman Clarke has no other explana-
tion to offer. He says: "Hereditary and ancestral pride separated them
(the Jews), and still separates them, from the rest of mankind."
How singular, indeed, that when the Jew attempts to quit his reserve
and mix freely with his neighbors, he is repelled and unceremoniously
shown back to his own tribe ; and, when he keeps there, he is accused
of hereditary and ancestral pride ! We need not search for an explana-
tion to great depths ; the reasons lie much nearer the surface ; so near,
indeed, that even " he who runs " may see them.
Be it remembered that most of the heads of families are of foreign
birth, and were of mature age when they pitched their tents on this free
soil. They had contracted their social habits, which to abandon they
saw no reason whatever. They readily fell in line for the discharge of
their civic duties ; but their private life, their domestic customs, which
were of the German- Jewish type, they could not all at once change with-
out causing a rent in their most intimate relations. These are far too
precious for such experiments. People whose strongest affections cen-
tre in their homes are naturally tenacious of their manners and usages;
and none should understand this better than those of the Anglo-Saxon
stock, who themselves carry their household gods with them wherever
they go. Besides, recreation after the exacting labors of the day a man
can find nowhere except in places where he may move in perfect ease
and freedom ; and these, again, the society of his equals in tempera-
ment, language, and taste, alone will afford him. The Jews do not dif-
fer in this respect from other foreigners, all of whom show a decided
preference for their own circles.
In the civilized countries of the old world the seclusion of the Jews
has almost entirely disappeared, and it would cease here much sooner
1835-60] GUSTAV GOTTHEIL. 349
but for the ecclesiasticism which enters so largely into the formation of
American society. Christianity, although not legally dominant, is yet
practically so. Where the spirit has departed; the phraseology still
remains. Everywhere the tenets of that faith are assumed as beyond
question, and make conversation often embarrassing to the dissenting
Israelite. No matter how much or how little the Gentile believes of the
dogmas, the assumption of their truth does not inconvenience him ; no
need for him to guard against the charge of supineness and insincerity,
to which, however, the Hebrew lays himself open if he fail to record his
dissent. Nor is it the dogma alone which enjoys that preeminence.
The laws of morality, the motives of kindness, the graces of conduct, are
also marked with the device of the Church. I am not speaking now in
the way of censure ; I simply state facts which are patent to all. But let
the candid reader realize for a moment the feelings with which an Israel-
ite must hear every virtue under heaven — manliness, candor, honor,
humility, love, forbearance, even charity and the sanctities of home,
nay, courtesy itself — a matter in which the coarse Norseman was the
disciple of the polished and courtly Oriental — stamped with a name
that degrades him and makes him appear a graceless intruder into the
circle of the elect — and the problem of Hebrew retirement will lose
much of its mystery. It will then appear why the Hebrew philanthro-
pist does not yet take that personal share in the benevolent labors of his
fellow-citizens which he is most willing and unquestionably able to
bear. Where his money is welcome his faith is proscribed. Dear and
near to his heart as many of the beneficent efforts for the amelioration
of the conditions of the poor are, he can do no more than aid them with
his purse, for he knows that his just sensibilities will not be consulted.
We readily admit that often no insult is intended, but that does not
take the strng from the reproach, pronounced or implied. If long habit
is pleaded as an extenuation, our answer is : The time has surely come
to conquer it. Some think that it is for the Jew himself to remove the
obstacle in his way, abandoning reserve. This may be so, but such
missions do not ordinarily inspire men with the courage to face preju-
dice. We do not for a moment pretend that the Jews are blameless in
that respect, and never indulge in religious arrogance. We have no
excuse for them, beyond this, that the fault is a little less reprehensible
in those who have suffered so much for their faith's sake. It certainly
is for the dominant religion, rather than for that of a small minority, to
lead the way in this timely reform.
If social alienation is undesirable on general grounds, it is especially
so for this reason, that it prevents both Jews and Christians from cor-
recting their views of their respective religions, a thing as yet much
needed on either side. Nothing brings man nearer to man than the
QCQ JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDOE. [1835-60
sacred community of good work; nothing strengthens faith in the
Father more surely than the growing sense of the brotherhood of His
children. Probably unbelief itself will not object to be conquered by
the logic of such facts. If churches and synagogues must needs preach
the same truth under different aspects, and worship God in diverse
tongues, may they not learn to praise Him also in the universal lan-
guage of good deeds on the broad fields of our common humanity?
Meanwhile, we shall do what in us lies to make ourselves known, not
only outwardly, but inwardly too ; we shall let the reader into all the
mysteries of our faith, as far as we ourselves know them. For, after all,
the chief interest which the Hebrew race offers to the eye of the student
is its religion. As the propounders, witnesses, and soldiers of a new
faith, the Jews appeared in history and have steadfastly pursued their
course, from the call of their first father, " the friend of God," in the
plains of ancient Chaldea, to this day, when their presence is felt in so
many lands. Through light and darkness, through victory and defeat,
through glory and shame, their faces remained firmly set toward a goal
which the ancient seers planted on the heights of a redeemed and per-
fected humanity. Their contributions to the intellectual and industrial
achievements of the past were of no mean importance, but they all had
their root in the religious genius which they developed, and it is their
religious mission from which they derive to this day both the right and
the duty to remain outside of the dominant religions.
Cotmtgettfi
BOKN in Ogden, Monroe Co., N. Y., 1827.
THE VAGABONDS.
[The Vagabonds, and Other Poems. 1869.]
TyE are two travellers, Roger and I.
» * Roger's my dog. — Come here, you scamp!
Jump for the gentleman,— mind your eye!
Over the table,— look out for the lamp!
The rogue is growing a little old ;
Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank — and starved — together.
We've learned what comfort is, I tell you !
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,
--^,....
1835-60] JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow !
The paw he holds up there's been frozen),
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle
(This out-door business is bad for strings),
Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle,
And Roger and I set up for kings !
No, thank ye, Sir, — I never drink;
Roger and I are exceedingly moral, —
Aren't we, Roger ? — See him wink ! —
Well, something hot, then, — we won't quarrel.
He's thirsty, too, — see him nod his head ?
What a pity, Sir, that dogs can't talk !
He understands every word that's said,—
And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk.
The truth is, Sir, now I reflect,
I've been so sadly given to grog,
I wonder I've not lost the respect
(Here's to you, Sir!) even of my dog.
But he sticks by, through thick and thin ;
And this old coat, with its empty pockets,
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin,
He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.
There isn't another creature living
Would do it, and prove, througli every disaster,
So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving,
To such a miserable, thankless master!
No, Sir! — see him wag his tail and grin!
By George! it makes my old eyes water!
That is, there's something in this gin
That chokes a fellow. But no matter!
We'll have some music, if you're willing,
And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!)
Shall march a little— Start, you villain!
Paws up! Eyes front! Salute your officer!
'Bout face ! Attention ! Take your rifle !
(Some dogs have arms, you see !) Now hold your
Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle,
To aid a poor old patriot soldier!
March ! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes
When he stands up to hear his sentence.
Now tell us how many drams it takes
To honor a jolly new acquaintance.
Five yelps, — that's five; he's mighty knowing!
The night's before us, fill the glasses!—
Quick, Sir! I'm ill,— my brain is going! —
Some brandy, — thank you, — there!— it passes!
351
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. [1835-60
Why not reform ! That's easily said ;
But I've goue through such wretched treatment,
Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,
And scarce remembering what meat meant,
That my poor stomach's past reform ;
And there are times when, mad with thinking,
I'd sell out heaven for something warm
To prop a horrible inward sinking.
Is there a way to forget to think ?
At your age, Sir, home, fortune, friends,
A dear girl's love,— but I took to drink: —
The same old story ; you know how it ends.
If you could have seen these classic features, —
You needn't laugh, Sir; they were not then
Such a burning libel on God's creatures:
I was one of your handsome men !
If you had seen h&; so fair and young,
Whose head was happy on this breast !
If you could have heard the songs I sung
When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed
That ever I, Sir, should be straying
From door to door, with fiddle and dog,
Ragged and penniless, and playing
To you to-night for a glass of grog !
She's married since, — a parson's wife:
'Twas better for her that we should part, —
Better the soberest, prosiest life
Than a blasted home and a broken heart.
I have seen her ? Once : I was weak and spent
On the dusty road : a carriage stopped :
But little she dreamed, as on she went,
Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped !
YouVe set me talking, Sir; I'm sorry;
It makes me wild to think of the change!
What do you care for a beggar's story ?
is it amusing ? you find it strange ?
I had a mother so proud of me !
'Twas well she died before — Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below ?
Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain ; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing in place of a heart ?
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could,
No doubt, remembering things that were,—
1835-60] JOHN TOWN8END TMOWBRIDGE.
A virtuous kennel, -with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.
I'm better now ; that glass was warming.
You rascal! limber your lazy feet!
We must be fiddling and performing
For supper and bed, or starve in the street. —
Not a very gay life to lead, you think ?
But soon we shall go where lodgings are free,
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink ;
The sooner, the better for Roger and me !
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE IN THE NORTH.
[Neighbor Jackwood. 1857.]
was a cow-path trodden through the snow, leading across the
- meadows, over the bridge and along the banks of the stream. This
path Charlotte took ; passing in her flight scenes which she had first
visited in company with Hector, and which had become linked in her
memory with warm and dear associations. But now how changed, how
cold, how desolate, were they all ! The snow lay heavy and deep on the
interval ; the willows were naked and dark ; the stream was blocked
with ice. Beyond, frowned the inhospitable forest on the mountain side.
The heavens above were leaden, with grayish streaks; and now the slow,
dull, wintry rain began to fall.
Beyond the bridge, the track threw out branches in several directions ;
for here, all winter long, Mr. Dunbury's cattle and sheep had been fod-
dered from the stacks in the valley. But the main path led along the
banks of the creek ; this Charlotte chose, perhaps because among the
willows her flight would be concealed, or it may be that she cherished
some half-formed design of reaching Mr. Jackwood's house.
But the way was rude and difficult for her unaccustomed feet. Since
the thaw, the track had been broken through by sharp hoofs ; water had
settled in the low places ; and often, slipping upon the icy cakes, she fell,
hurting her naked hands, bruising her limbs, and saturating her gar-
ments in the pools. Then, palpitating and breathless from the shock,
she would pause, and glance up and down the wide, white valley, with
fearful looks, as if expecting momently to see her pursuers appear.
A glimpse she caught of Mr. Jackwood's house in the distance inspired
her with courage to keep on. She saw the red-painted kitchen dimly
defined upon the field of snow ; the trees and fences speckling the
ground ; the heavy plume of smoke from the chimney trailing low across
VOL. vin. — 23
054 JOHN TOWNSEND TROWB RIDGE. [1835-60
the plain ; and a vision of hope, and help, and rest, in that humble
home, flitted before her mind. But the path by the willows had now
dwindled to a scarcely-trodden track. At each step, her feet sank down
in the soft, wet snow. Her efforts to proceed cost all her remaining
strength. Only the desperate extremity in which she was sustained her.
But hope and fear alike failed her at last; and, having climbed the
tangled brush of a valley fence, she fell powerless in the snow, upon the
other side.
The short winter's day was drawing to a close. The shades of the
solemn hills shut in the plain. A dreary silence reigned, broken only
by the lowing of cattle, and the faint, sad bleating of sheep in the dis-
tance, the sighing of the wind among the willows, and the melancholy
drip of the rain. Having got a little rest, Charlotte summoned her
energies for a fresh attempt to traverse the snowy track. But now
formidable doubts stood in her way. She had faith in her old friends ;
but would Mr. Jackwood's house, which had twice received her in its
hospitable retreat, be overlooked by her pursuers ? Perhaps already they
were there before her ; and to proceed might be to fall at once into their
hands. In her deep perplexity, she crept under the fence, with a wild
thought of passing the night in that wretched place. But the rain beat
upon her still ; her bruised hands ached from contact with the snow ;
and her feet were drenched and cold.
The approach of footsteps startled her ; but she dared not look around,
nor move ; she lay still as death in her retreat. The sounds drew near,
and presently a dog began to bark, plunging into the snow, close bv
where she lay.
" Come here, Eove ! " cried an authoritative voice.
It was the voice of Abimelech Jackwood, the younger. The dog ran
back, with excited yelps, and jumped upon his arm, then rushed to the
attack again, bristling up, and barking furiously at the object by the
fence. Charlotte spoke: "Rover!" Instantly he sprang towards her,
with a joyous demonstration ; hesitated at half way, and ran back again
to his master; whisked about in the snow ; and finally, having fulfilled
all the requirements of canine etiquette on the occasion, leaped upon her
lap, wagging his tail violently, caressing her with his feet, and licking
her wounded hand.
Abimelech stood at a discreet distance, and cried to Eover to come
there. Charlotte arose to her feet, and called his name.
" Hello ! " cried Bim ; " that you? "
She tottered forward. The boy, not so easily satisfied as the dog,
showed a disposition to retire. But, in a few hurried words, she gave
him to understand that she was no apparition,— that it was indeed Char-
lotte who spoke to him,— and that he was not to fear, but to aid her.
1835-60] JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. 355
" Be je goin' up to the house ? " asked the boy.
" Abimelech, some men are hunting for me ! I would rather die than
have them find me ! And I don't know where to go ! "
" Who be they? " demanded Bim, with forced courage, looking around.
" I'll set Kover onto 'em ! Here ! "
" Where is your father? "
" Up to the house, I guess," replied Bim.
"Will you go for him," said Charlotte, "and tell him I am here, and
tell no one else ? "
" Yes,Tll go ! " cried Birn. " But " — hesitatingly — " hadn't you better
go up to the stack, and wait there? I'd ruther ye would ; I come down
here to fodder the steers and lambs, and father told me not to go and
look at my muskrat-trap, 'cause 'twas goin' to rain. It's righ' down
here ; an' if he knows where I found ye, he'll s'pect I was goin' there."
Charlotte accepted the boy's guidance ; and immediately around the
bend in the creek, they came in sight of the stack. It was a low, gloomy
mass, in the midst of a dark, trodden space, around the edges of which
appeared Abimelech's steers and lambs, feeding on wisps of hay he had
scattered over the snow. The stack was defended by a fence, on one
side of which was a temporary shelter, formed of rails and boards,
thatched with straw!
" If you'd like to hide," observed Bim, " I know a place, — only I don't
want father to find it out, for he tells me not to be makin' holes in the
stack."
"Is it here?"
" I'll show ye ! " and Bim, slipping a couple of rails from their place,
crept through the fence, and began to pull away the hay from the stack.
A dark cavity was exposed. " It's a den I made for me an' Eove ! Once
I had a notion o' runnin' away, an' I was goin' to live here, and have him
bring me my victuals ! It's real slick an' warm in here ! "
The opening was extremely narrow, and the cavity itself was small.
But it was all Charlotte wished for then. She could not have entered a
palace with more grateful emotions.
" Shall I leave ye a breathin'-place ? " asked Abimelech, putting back
the hay. " Hello ! what's that Hover's barkin' at? "
He crept around the stack, leaving Charlotte listening breathlessly in
her hiding-place. In a moment he returned, and whispered hoarsely in
the hay. " There's a man a-comin' with a big hoss-whip ! Say ! is he one
of 'em?'"
Charlotte knew not what she said, if indeed she uttered any reply.
She heard the boy hastily smoothing the hay at the entrance oi her cell ;
then all was still, only the dog barked ; and as she strained her ear to
listen, the straw beneath her rustled with every throb of her heart.
ogg JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE, [1835-60
Having climbed the stack, and thrown down a quantity of hay before
the mouth of the cavity, Bim began to arrange some boards in a manner
to shed rain.
uGit out ! " growled the man with the whip, making a cut at the dog.
" He won't bite ye," cried Bim. " Here, Kove ! "
" Say, boy ! have ye seen anybody pass this way, within half an hour
or so ? "
" Pass which way ? "
"Any way — along by the crick."
"What crick?"
" Answer my question ! "
" I han't ben here half an hour. I shouldn't think," said Bim.
" Look a' here ! " thundered Dickson, " none o' yer trash with me ! I
cut a boy's trouse's-legs right off with this black-snake, t'other day ! He
was a boy about your size, and his trouse's was stouter stuff than yours,
too, I reck'n ! Which way did that gal go ? "
" What gal ? " said Bim, stepping cautiously back upon the stack.
" Let me reach you with this lash, and I'll tickle your recollections !
You'll look paler than that when I draw about a quart of blood out of
ye! I mean that gal that come along about twenty minutes ago."
"If there was any," — Bim looked very candid, but very pale, — "she
must a' come along when I was off arter my traps ; or else I should think
I'd seen her."
" That won't do, boy ! " Dickson cracked his whip savagely. " I'll
give ye jest about a minute 'n' a ha'f to think about it ; then, if ye don't
walk straight up to the scratch, and spit out what ye know, you may
expect to have your clo's cut right off'm your back, and your hide
with 'm!"
Then Charlotte heard a sound as of some one climbing the stack-yard
fence, and a heavy body jumped down upon the ground at the very
entrance to her retreat There was a shaking in the hay which Bim had
thrown before it; Dickson was kicking it open with his foot; he trod it
down by the stack.
Bim looked anxious, but his wits did not desert him. "If ye'll help
me with these 'ere boards, I'll go up to the house with ye, an' see if she's
been by there."
" Where do you live? "
"In that house, up yender."
" What's yer name ? "
" Bim ! "
"What's yer whole name?"
" Bim'lech ! "
" What's yer father's name ? "
1835-60] JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
357
" His name's Bim'lech, too 1 "
"Bim'lech what?"
" Bim'lech Jackwood, of course ! "
" Jackwood, hey ? She used to live to your house, didn't she ? "
" Yes, I guess not ! Who used to? "
"We'll see!" said Dickson. Having during the dialogue struck a
match under his coat and lighted a cigar, he inserted the latter between
his teeth, and, once more measuring out his whip, cracked it at the boy's
ears. '• Time's up ! now, what ye got to say ? "
" If you're goin' to smoke," said Bim, from a safe position, " you better
git over the fence; you'll set the stack afire. Ow ! " as the whip-lash
whistled by his face, "you hadn't better hit me with that! There's
father, an' I'm darned glad ! "
Dickson changed his tactics ; perhaps because he found threats of no
avail ; perhaps because the boy had an adroit way of dodging over the
stack beyond reach of his whip ; or in consequence, it may be, of mis-
givings with regard to the parent Jackwood. He therefore opened
a parley, and offered Bim half a dollar to tell him which way Charlotte
went.
" I guess so ! " said Bim. " You want me to come down an' git it, then
you'll ketch me, an' gi' me a lickin' I know ! " And he made prepara-
tions to slide off the opposite side, in case Dickson attempted to climb
the stack.
But Dickson had a more important matter to attend to. Either the
match he had thrown down after lighting his cigar, or cinders falling in
the hay, had set fire to the heap. The flame, shooting up with a sudden
crackling and glare, was the first warning he received of the danger. He
had left the spot, and was standing by the cattle-shed, when the blaze
caught his eye. He rushed to extinguish it, stamping and trampling,
and calling to the boy to bring snow.
''There an't no fire ! " cried Bim, who thought it a ruse to bring him
down.
" By ! '' said Dickson, " you'll find out whether there's a fire ! "
Already Charlotte had smelt the burning straw. Then, through
chinks in the opening of her cell, she caught fearful glimpses of the
struggling flame and smoke. She heard the alarm, the oaths, the
trample of feet. The stack was burning !
Her first impulse was to cry out and rush from her retreat. But the
certainty of falling into the hands of Dickson paralyzed her tongue and
chained her limbs. Death was nothing; a moment since, she would
have risked a hundred deaths sooner than be taken; but to be burned,
to perish in a slowly consuming mass, to die by torment in a tomb of
fire! the thought was maddening; it filled her with an insensate fear,
3gg JOHN TOWNSEND TRO WB RIDGE. . [1835-60
that caused her for the instant to forget all other danger. With frantic
hands she tore the hay that blocked the opening. But a volume of
smoke, pouring in upon her, changed her purpose. She thrust back the
hay, while at the same time it was trampled and packed from without.
She' heard the simmer of snow upon the flames ; she thought the fire was
being extinguished. She hoped, she prayed, that she might yet be pre-
served.
But now the trampling feet, and snow packed down upon the burning
hay, drove the smoke into the cell. Charlotte was suffocating. The
torture almost forced her to cry out. Oh, that she might have power to
endure yet a little while! She thought of Hector. For his sake she con-
quered her agony. Writhing in torment, she clasped her hands upon
her face to stifle her own cries. Yet a little while! yet a little while \
Oh, yet one moment more !
It could not be. She fought with death itself. It seemed that almost
the last struggle, the last mortal throe, had come. Still Hector filled her
soul. She might have endured aod died ; but, no ! for him she would
risk all things; for him she would suffer on ; for him she would live!
Again she tore the hav from the opening of the cell. But the act was
forestalled. A hand, thrust in, met hers.
" Keep still ! " whispered Bim, at the entrance. " Can ye breathe ? "
She breathed, she lived, she hoped. The fire was extinguished.
Dickson, enraged at the delay, had departed in haste, and the boy was
left alone to trample out the smouldering sparks with snow.
"Hello, boy!" suddenly shouted Dickson, turning back, "fling me
my whip ! "
There was no service Bim would more gladly have performed. Any-
thing rather than that Dickson should return to the stack. He looked
for the whip, but could not find it. The man had thrown it down whilst
extinguishing the fire, and thought it must have become trodden in the
hay. He returned; they looked for it together — Bim keeping at a
respectful distance, and holding himself ready to run the instant the
whip appeared — Dickson growling and swearing. Suddenly, the end of
the lash was discovered hanging off the cattle-shed, close by the stack.
Dickson seized it; Abimelech fled; Charlotte, who had listened all the
time with a fluttering heart, began to breathe again. But at the moment
there was a movement at the mouth of the cell. The hay was opening ;
some object forced its way into her retreat She was shrinking away in
terror, when Eover, scrambling through, leaped into her face, and
expressed his delight by barking playfully, licking her hands, and
thumping the sides of the niche with his animated tail.
Fortunately Dickson had turned again to go, and was at that moment
making long strides across the field. Bim returned to Charlotte just in
1835-60] JOHN TOWNS END TROWBRIDGE.
359
time to bump noses with Eover, who, not liking the smoke, was leaping
out of the hay.
"He's gone!" whispered the boy. "Darn his old whip, I say! Did
ye know he set the stack afire ? "
" Did I know it ! " murmured Charlotte.
" I'm all of a tremble yit ! " said Bim. " I was a little bit scart ; but,
confound his pictur' ! he didn't find ye, after all, did he? That's all I
care for ! "
"And it's all I care for, now! I feel faint! Will you give me a
handful of snow ? "
The boy brought the snow : she pressed it on her forehead, as she lay
panting upon the hay.
" Shall I go up an' tell father, now? "
" If you will ; but be careful, let no one else know —
" I'll keep it from Pheeb, anyway ! She always tells everything.
Say ! shall I leave Kover for company ? "
A faint " no " was the response ; and the excited boy, having thrown
the superfluous hay over the fence, and rearranged that at the mouth of
the cell, leaving only a breathing-place, as he called it, went off whist-
ling, to appear unconcerned. She listened in her retreat ; the sounds
grew faint and fainter, ceasing at last; and she was left alone, in dark-
ness and silence, hemmed in by the low roof and prickly walls of her
cell.
For some minutes she lay still, and prayed. In that simple and child-
like act new strength was given her, and she was enabled to think calmly
of her state. She took care of her feet, removing their wet covering, and
drying them in the warm hay. Then, finding that Abimelech had shut
her in too closely, and that the air of the cell was still poisoned with
smoke, she moved the hay from the opening, and lay down upon it,
where she could look out upon the thickening darkness and listen to
the sighing wind and pattering rain.
EVENING AT THE FARM. 0
OVER the hill the farm-boy goes.
His shadow lengthens along the land,
A giant staff in a giant hand ;
In the poplar tree, above the spring,
The katydid begins to sing;
The early dews are falling; —
Into the stone-heap darts the mink;
The swallows skim the river's brink ;
JOHN TOWNSEND TROW BRIDGE. [1835-60
And home to the woodland fly the crows,
When over the hill the farm-boy goes,
Cheerily calling,
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
Farther, farther, over the hill,
Faintly calling, calling still,
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!"
Into the yard the farmer goes,
With grateful heart, at the close of day :
Harness and chain are hung away;
In the wagon-shed stand yoke and plough,
The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow,
The cooling dews are falling ; —
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat,
The pigs coine grunting to his feet,
And the whinnying mare her master knows,
When into the yard the farmer goes,
His cattle calling, —
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
While still the cow-boy, far away,
Goes seeking those that have gone astray, —
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!"
Now to her task the milkmaid goes.
The cattle come crowding through the gate,
Lowing, pushing, little and great ;
About the trough, by the farm-yard pump,
The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump,
While the pleasant dews are falling ; —
The new milch-heifer is quick and shy,
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye,
And the white stream into the bright pail flows,
When to her task the milkmaid goes,
Soothingly calling,
"So, boss! so, boss! so! so! so!"
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool,
And sits and milks in the twilight cool,
Saying "So! so, boss! so! so! "
To supper at last the farmer goes.
The apples are pared, the paper read,
The stories are told, then all to bed.
Without, the crickets' ceaseless song
Makes shrill the silence all night long ;
The heavy dews are falling.
The housewife's hand has turned the lock ;
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock ;
The household sinks to deep repose,
1835-60] POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR.
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes
Singing, calling, —
"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams,
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams,
Murmuring ' ' So, boss ! so ! "
Rongji anfc l$aUati$ of t^e Cftil
The following lyrics, for various and specific reasons, have been selected for arrange-
ment under one head. Other notable poems of the Civil War will be found elsewhere in
this work,— from the pens of Boker, Brownell, Duganne, Pinch, Halpine, Hayne, Mrs.
Howe, Longfellow, Lowell, Palmer, Randall, Ryan, Stoddard, Thompson, Ticknor,
Whitman, Whittier, F. Willson, Winter, Work, and other writers of the period.
[Lyrics of Loyalty ; Songs of the Soldiers ; Personal and Political Ballads. Edited by
Frank Moore. 1864.— Poetry of the Civil War. Edited by Richard Grant White.
186Q.—The Southern Poems of the War. Collected by Emily V. Mason. 1867.— The
Southern Amaranth. Edited by Sallie A. Brock. 1869.— Songs and Ballads of the
Southern People. 1861-65. Edited by Frank Moore. 1886.— Bugle Echoes. Edited
by Francis F. Browne. 1886. — The Songs of the War. By Brander Matthews, in
The Century Magazine. 1887.— 0w War Songs, North and South. Compiled and
Edited by C. S. Brainard. 1887.]
NORTHERN. I.
AEMY CHOKUS.
TOHN BROWN'S body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
*J John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave ;
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
His soul is marching on !
Glory, halle — hallelujah! Glory, halle — hallelujah!
Glory, halle — hallelujah!
His soul is marching on !
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord ! (thrive)
His soul is marching on !
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back! (thrice)
His soul is marching on!
His pet lambs will meet him on the way ; (thrice)
As they go inarching on !
They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour-apple tree! (thrice)
As they march along!
362 POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1835-60
Now, three rousing cheers for the Union! (thrice)
As we are marching on !
Glory, halle — hallelujah! Glory, halle— hallelujah!
Glory, halle — hallelujah !
Hip, hip, hip, hip, Hurrah!
THE RAXK AND FILE. 1861.
THKEE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE.
WE are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand more,
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;
We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear;
We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before :
We are corning, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand more !
If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry ;
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride;
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour:
We are corning, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand more!
If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast falling into line ;
And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow, against their country's needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door:
We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand more !
You have called us, and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide
To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside;
Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before :
We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand more!
JAMES SLOAN GIBBONS. 1810 .
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC.
" A LL quiet along the Potomac," they say,
f^T" " Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
Tis nothing— a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of the battle ;
Not an officer lost — only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle."
1835-60] POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 333
All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ;
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh of the gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping;
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard, for the army is sleeping.
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack ; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother; may Heaven defend her!
The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night, when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips — when low-murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.
He passes the fountaia, the blasted pine-tree,
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shade of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves ?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing ?
It looked like a rifle . . . "Ha! Mary, good-bye! "
The red life-blood is ebbing and plashing.
All quiet along the Potomac to-night ;
No sound save the rush of the river ;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead —
The picket's off duty forever!
ETHEL LYNN BEERS. 1827-79.
THE FANCY SHOT.
" ~O IFLEMAN, shoot me a fancy shot
-L»> Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette;
Ring me a ball in the glittering spot
That shines on his breast like an amulet! "
364 POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1835-60
" Ah, Captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead ;
There's music around when rny barrel's in tune! "
Crack! went the rifle, the messenger sped,
And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon.
" Now, Rifleman, steal through the bushes and snatch
From your victim some trinket to hansel first blood —
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud."
" Oh, Captain! I staggered, and sunk on my track,
When I gazed on the face of that fallen vidette;
For he looked so like you as he lay on his back
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet.
" But I snatched off the trinket — this locket of gold;
An inch from the centre my lead broke its way,
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."
" Ha! Rifleman, fling me the locket — 'tis she,
My brother's young bride, and the fallen dragoon
Was her husband — Hush ! soldier, 'twas Heaven's decree ;
We must bury him here, by the light of the moon!
" But, hark! the far bugles their warnings unite;
War is a virtue — weakness a sin ;
There's lurking and loping around us to-night ;
Load again, Rifleman, keep your hand in ! "
CHAELES DAWSON SHANLY. 1811-75.
THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM.
"VT^ES, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom ;
We will rally from the hill-side, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
The Union forever, Hurrah ! boys, Hurrah !
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
We are springing to the call of our Brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom,
And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
We will welcome to our numbers the loyal true and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom,
And although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
1835-60] POPULAR SONG 8 AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 355
So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom,
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
The Union forever, Hurrah ! boys, Hurrah !
Down with the traitor, up with the star ;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again.
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
GEOKGE FREDERICK ROOT. 1820 .
SOUTHERN.
DIXIE.
OOUTHRONS, hear your country call you!
1 Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Lo! all the beacon-fires are lighted —
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie !
Advauce the flag of Dixie!
Hurrah ! hurrah !
For Dixie's land we- take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie !
To arms ! To arms !
And conquer peace for Dixie!
To arms! To arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie !
Hear the Northern thunders mutter!
Northern flags in Soutli winds flutter!
Send them back your fierce defiance!
Stamp upon the accursed alliance !
Fear no danger! Shun no labor!
Lift up rifle, pike, and sabre !
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder!
How the South's great heart rejoices
At your cannons' ringing voices !
For faith betrayed, and pledges broken,
Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken.
Strong as lions, swift as eagles,
Back to their kennels hunt these beagles!
Cut the unequal bonds asunder!
Let them hence each other plunder!
366
POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1835-60
Swear upon your country's altar
Never to submit or falter,
' Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed.
Halt not till our Federation
Secures among earth's powers its station!
Then at peace, and crowned with glory,
Hear your children tell the story !
If the loved ones weep in sadness,
Victory soon shall bring tliem gladness,—
To arms!
Exultant pride soon banish sorrow,
Smiles chase tears away to-morrow.
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie !
Hurrah! hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To arms! To arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie!
To arms ! To arms !
And conquer peace for Dixie!
ALBERT PIKE. 1809 .
" CALL ALL."
WHOOP! the Doodles have broken loose,
Roaring round like the very deuce!
Lice of Egypt, a hungry pack, —
After 'em, boys, and drive 'em back.
Bull-dog, terrier, cur, and flee,
Back to the beggarly land of ice;
Worry 'em, bite 'em, scratch and tear
Everybody and everywhere.
Old Kentucky is caved from under,
Tennessee is split asunder,
Alabama awaits attack,
And Georgia bristles up her back.
Old John Brown is dead and gone!
Still his spirit is marching on, —
Lantern-jawed, and legs, my boys,
Long as an ape's from Illinois!
Want a weapon ? Gather a brick,
Club or cudgel, or stone or stick ;
1835-60] POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 357
Anything with a blade or butt
Anything that can cleave or cut.
Anything heavy, or hard, or keen !
Any sort of slaying machine !
Anything with a willing mind,
And the steady arm of a man behind.
Want a weapon ? Why, capture one !
Every Doodle has got a gun,
Belt, and bayonet, bright and new ;
Kill a Doodle, and capture two!
Shoulder to shoulder, son and sire !
All, call all ! to the feast of fire !
Mother and maiden, and child and slave,
A common triumph or a single grave.
ROCKINGHAM, VA., REGISTER. 1861.
THE SOLDIEE BOY.
T GIVE my soldier boy a blade
•*• In fair Damascus fashioned well;
Who first the glittering falchion swayed,
Who first beneath its fury fell,
I know not: but I hope to know
That for no mean or hireling trade,
To guard no feeling base or low,
I give my soldier boy a blade.
Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood
In which its tempering work was done;
As calm, as cool, as clear of mood
Be thou, whene'er it sees the sun;
For country's claim, at honor's call,
For outraged friend, insulted maid,
At mercy's voice to bid it fall,
I give my soldier boy a blade.
The eye which marked its peerless edge,
The hand that weighed its balanced poise,
Anvil and pincers, forge and wedge,
Are gone with all their flame and noise;
And still the gleaming sword remains.
So when in dust I low am laid,
Remember by these heartfelt strains,
I give my soldier boy a blade.
H. M. L.— LYNCHBUBG, 18 May, 1861.
368
POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1835-60
THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG.
WE are a band of brothers, and native to the soil,
Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil ;
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far:
Hurrah for the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!
Hurrah ! hurrah ! for the bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.
As long as the Union was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers, kind were we and just ;
But now when Northern treachery attempts our rights to mar,
We hoist on high the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
First, gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand ;
Then came Alabama, who took her by the hand ;
Next, quickly Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida-
All raised the flag, the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Ye men of valor, gather round the banner of the right ;
Texas and fair Louisiana join us in the fight.
Davis, our loved President, and Stephens, statesmen are;
Now rally round the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
And here's to brave Virginia! the Old Dominion State
With the young Confederacy at length has linked her fate.
Impelled by her example, now other States prepare
To hoist on high the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Then here's to our Confederacy ; strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight, our heritage to save;
And rather than submit to shame, to die we would prefer;
So cheer for the bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Then cheer, boys, cheer, raise the joyous shout,
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have both gone out ;
And let another rousing cheer for Tennessee be given,
The single star of the bonnie Blue Flag has grown to be eleven I
Hurrah! hurrah! for the bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.
HARRY MCCARTHY. First sung at the Varieties Theatre, New Orleans, 1861.
" THE BRIGADE MUST NOT KNOW, SIR ! "
" TTTHO'VE ye got there ? "—"Only a dying brother,
' " Hurt in the front just now."
" Good boy ! he'll do. Somebody tell his mother
Where he was killed, and how."
1835-60] POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 359
"Whom have you there ? " — "A crippled courier, Major,
Shot by mistake, we hear.
He was with Stonewall." — " Cruel work they've made here;
Quick with him to the rear ! "
"Well, who comes next ? " — " Doctor, speak low, speak low, sir;
Don't let the men find out !
It's STONEWALL!" — "God! " — " The brigade must not know, sir,
While there's a foe about! "
Whom have we here — shrouded in martial manner,
Crowned with a martyr's charm ?
A grand dead hero, in a living banner,
Born of his heart and arm :
The heart whereon his cause hung — see how clingeth
That banner to his bier !
The arm wherewith his cause struck — hark ! how ringeth
His trumpet in their rear!
What have we left ? His glorious inspiration,
His prayers in council met.
Living, he laid the first stones of a nation ;
And dead, he builds it yet.
ANONYMOUS. 1863.
NORTHERN. II.
WHEN" THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.
DEAREST love, do you remember
When we last did meet,
How you told me that you loved me,
Kneeling at my feet ?
Oh, how proud you stood before me
In your suit of blue,
When you vowed to me and country
Ever to be true.
Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears, how vain ;
Yet praying
When this cruel war is over,
Praying that we meet again.
When the summer breeze is sighing
Mournfully along,
Or when autumn leaves are falling,
Sadly breathes the song.
VOL. vni. — 24
370 POPULAR SONGS AND BALLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1835-60
Oft in dreams I see you lying
On the battle-plain,
Lonely, wounded, even dying,
Calling, but in vain.
If, amid the din of battle,
Nobly you should fall,
Far away from those who love you,
None to hear you call,
Who would whisper words of comfort ?
Who would soothe your pain ?
Ah, the many cruel fancies
Ever in my brain !
But our country called you, darling,
Angels cheer your way!
While our nation's sons are fighting,
We can only pray.
Nobly strike for God and liberty,
Let all nations see
How we love the starry banner,
Emblem of the free !
Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears, how vain ;
Yet praying
When this cruel war is over,
Praying that we meet again.
CHARLES CARROLL SAWYER. 1833 .
WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME.
WHEN Johnny comes marching home again,
Hurrah! hurrah!
We'll give him a hearty welcome then,
Hurrah ! hurrah !
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies, they will all turn out,
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies, they will all turn out,
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
The old church-bell will peal with joy,
Hurrah! hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy.
Hurrah ! hurrah !
The village lads and lasses say,
With roses they will strew the way ;
1835-60] JOHN BASCOM.
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
Get ready for the jubilee,
Hurrah ! hurrah !
We'll give the hero three times three,
Hurrah! hurrah!
The laurel-wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow ;
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
Let love and friendship on that day,
Hurrah! hurrah !
Their choicest treasures then display,
Hurrah ! hurrah !
And let each one perform some part,
To fill with joy the warrior's heart ;
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies, they will all turn out,
And we'll all feel gay,
When Johnny comes marching home.
PATRICK SARSFIELD GILMORE. 1829 .
BORN in Genoa, N. Y., 1827.
THE POPULAR PRESS.
[Philosophy of English Literature. 1874.]
TT may be said against much that may be urged for the periodical
-*- press, that it is in large part instrumental ; that it is a great whis-
pering-gallery, carrying light things and scandalous things and wicked
things a long way to many ears that might otherwise happily have
missed of them ; that the press is often but the tell-tale mechanism of
disgraceful national gossip, that has nothing whatever to recommend it
Granting freely the truth of this and other accusations, still we must
remember that village gossip is better than family gossip, town gossip
is better than village gossip, state gossip than town gossip and national
gossip than either. Gossip loses something of its banefulness, obscurity,
and petty personality and private hate, at every remove, and the coun-
3^2 JOHN BASCOM. [1835-60
try scandal of a low tavern is as much more concentrate, vicious, and
unclean than that of a news-room or county paper as its range is more
restricted. Simply to get men out of doors, away from the trite, stupid
vulgarity of their cronies, is a great gain. A national interest and the
air of national intelligence make way for national truth, and these for
universal truth.
It may also be urged against the press, that it gives ready circulation
to vice. The accusation is most true. Such, however, is not the natu-
ral fellowship even of news, much less of popular discussion. Pesti-
lence may fly on the wings of morning, but these more often distil the
dewy fragrance of abounding life. Publicity is allied to light, and
favors virtue. Vice, as a rule, has more to gain from concealment than
exposure. It settles as a miasma in dark and secluded places, rather
than on wind-swept slopes under open heavens.
The literary accusation is thought to lie strongly against newspaper
influence, that it debauches language, introducing questionable words
and street phrases, passing them from one grade of literary recognition
to another, till, forgetful of their low extraction, they are able in quiet,
effrontery to usurp good society. Here, too, there is truth in the state-
ment; but the fact expressed by it has also its compensations, and by
no means unimportant ones. Mere formal criticism, a cold conven-
tional pedantry, the literary barrenness that overtakes letters from time
to time, encounter resistance in the somewhat coarse yet vigorous popu-
lar appetite; and language is kept more flexible, lithe, and nervous
than it otherwise would be. The purely literary tendency cannot safely
be left to itself. It is too overwrought and finical. If it is wedded to
creative power, well; but when this is wanting, its place may be sup-
plied in part by the popular impulse, by the homely, changeable, but
always lively service to which language is put in the newspaper world.
As a matter of fact, recent years have been characterized by a large
number of critical works on the English language. Some of our peri-
odicals assiduously cultivate style, and many works of the present
time could be pointed out which show a high popular estimate of
pure, simple composition. It remains to be shown that the language
has really been injured by the freedom and license of the popular
press. Departure at one point from the staidness of ordinary labor
no more incapacitates us to return with relish to it at another than
does the raciness of conversation unfit us for the formalities of sober
speech.
One pronounced tendency, which has been with us through the entire
century, is literary criticism, bold, fearless criticism in all departments.
This is the fruit of the large and varied audience which the press gives
to every leading work. The world's estimate of it, the discrepancies of
1835-60J EDWARD ATKINSON. 373
opinion which it calls forth, are as instant and inevitable as the sym-
pathetic approval or censure, or the divided feeling that runs through
the gathered multitude listening around a political stand. Aside from
systematic and direct criticism, aside from that involved in discussion,
there are many popular writers who, with open, inquiring eye, arraign
topic after topic before them for judgment. Our popular novelists are
often of this character, Dickens, George Eliot, George MacDonald ; and
in more general literature, Carlyle, Euskin, Emerson. Such men are
personified criticism, who search all they see.
The present diffusion of literature, so hopeful a sign to philanthropy,
does, indeed, intensify the struggle for literary life. In the tossing of
the multitudinous waves, much floats for a little that is of slight value,
and works that can ill be spared are occasionally engulfed, over-
whelmed by things more trivial but more buoyant. Composite tenden-
cies, the half-unconscious conjoint movement of many minds, inter-
locked in their life, take the place of individual leadership, and thus the
conditions of progress are removed, more and more, from the hands of
single men. Some pictorial interest, some individual development, may
seem to be lost in this upheaval, this uprising of the masses, this general
diffusion and stir of intellectual life; but an organic, social growth, that
indicates a conquering force at work freely on many minds, is much the
more stable, and, at bottom, much the more stimulating and spiritually
interesting development.
BOHN in Brookline, Mass., 1827.
THE BASIS OP PROSPERITY FOR THE NEW SOUTH.
[Conclusion of an Address before the leading men of Georgia, in anticipation of the Cot-
ton Exposition 0/1881.— Senate Chamber, Atlanta, Qa., 1880.]
I HAVE claimed to be a Republican of Republicans, because, from the
time I came to man's estate, and even before, I had opposed slav-
ery— not only because I thought it morally and politically wrong, but
even more because I considered it the greatest economic blunder under
which a State could suffer.
During one of the last months of the civil war I happened to visit the
camp near Washington, in which the deserters from Petersburg and
Richmond were daily collecting in increasing numbers. I talked with
many of them, and found them to be mostly veteran soldiers who had
374 EDWAJW ATKINSON. [1835-60
fought on the Confederate side from the beginning. At last I asked a
soldier from Louisiana— a vigorous, intelligent-looking man— why he
had surrendered. His black eyes gleamed with subdued passion, as he
replied: "I have just found out what we have been fighting for."-
" What was it? " said I. " Fighting for rich men's niggers, d 'em !
I won't fight for them any longer."
When I heard these words, gentlemen, I saw before me a vision of the
prosperity on which you have just entered in the land of the sunny
South. I knew then that no longer would white and black alike be
kept in the bonds of poverty and ignorance in order that the few might
live in luxury on what they had not earned. It was that man's insight
into the cause of the war that marked its end.
That time of prosperity has come ; and you, gentlemen, are my wit-
nesses that never has the general welfare of the people of Georgia been
as great as in this last year of abundance, and that never before has
there been open to you such an opportunity to accumulate wealth as
now appears in your near future : but this new wealth will be of that
highest type gained by rightful methods, in which each dollar that any
man passes to his own credit on his business ledger will mark a dollar's
worth of service that he has rendered to his fellow-men.
I have claimed also to be a Democrat of Democrats upon the ground
that only those are entitled to the name who fully accept the rule that
every man, be he rich or poor, black or white, has an equal stake in
righteous government. The rich man has no greater claim to influence
merely because he possesses wealth, than the poor man because he
desires to attain it, except so far as in the attainment of his property he
has gained an honest influence over others. The best reason that could
have been assigned for the change of the government of the State of
South Carolina when Wade Hampton was chosen was given me by an
old negro whom I met at the Capitol in Columbia a few months after
the change, of which I asked him the reason: "De reason, boss," said
he, " de reason is dat you can't put ign'ance ober intelligence, and make
it stay."
Gentlemen, when you trust fully in the democratic principle that
every man is entitled to one vote, and when no man fears to have that
vote counted, there will be less danger of the continued control of
ignorance over intelligence than there is when resort is had to any other
method ; and only when such is the rule will free institutions be fully
established
In fact, what is needed now, and what is growing fast, is the sense of
national existence. Where is the leader at whose trumpet-call the great
party of the nation will arise? Look for your analogy in the very art
to which our attention has been devoted. In the kingdom of cotton
1835-60] EDWARD ATKINSON. 375
there is no solid South, no solid North ; but each member of the king,
dom is dependent upon all the rest. The art begins with the field-hand
who first stirs the soil and plants the seed, and ends only when the
finished goods are placed upon the shelves of those who distribute them.
Bach member of the craft depends upon all, and the whole structure of
society, North and South, is twisted into the strand and interwoven in
the web that constitutes the product of the cotton-field and of the cotton-
mill.
So, also, in the art of government, all interests are harmonious. In
the question of good money ; in that of equal and just taxation, whether
under an excise law or a tariff act; in assuring integrity and efficiency
in office ; in peace, order, and industry, — there is no North, no South,
no East, no West : but in both existing parties, and in all sections, there
are different minds, different motives, and different methods proposed to
attain these ends. These are the great questions of the future, on which
the welfare of all depends, without distinction of section, race, or party,
as parties now exist . .
It is one of the plainest facts to one who comes among you simply as
a student of events, and who addresses you with no reference to the
pending election, that your solid South is being rent by forces that will
bring right-minded men of the South into zealous cooperation with like-
minded men of the North ; that your future leaders will be those whose
interests are in the living present, and that your own dead past will bury
its dead. We can see more clearly than you can yourselves that the
color line is fading away; that if any city, county, or State attempts to
deny to any man, black or white, the right to speak, act, and vote as he
pleases, that section is becoming poor. Emigrants shun it, self-respect-
ing white laborers leave it, and its colored laborers remain only until
they can get means to move away.
We see other sections of your Southern land that are more wise,
where the black man is permitted to have the white man's chance;
where schools are maintained and justice is assured; and these sections
are becoming rich and prosperous. For such examples one need not go
beyond Atlanta and Chattanooga. One need only to illustrate the proc-
ess to which I have referred by one of many cases that I could cite
where the negro farmer who had migrated from one State where he was
abused to another where he was trusted, and, in the second year from
that time, received from a banker an advance of one thousand dollars on
the cotton crop that he and his children had made, and used the money
to pay for the land that he had hired.
More potent than prejudice or passion these great forces slowly but
surely work. They may be retarded, but cannot be stopped. Liberty
and justice shall surely govern this fair land.
3^Q DAVID AMES WELLS. [1835-60
" Steadfast in truth and right
This Nation yet shall be;
' Good, great, and joyous, beautiful and free :
This is alone life, joy, empire, and victory.' "
Such is always the imperative law : no man's property is safe, and no
man's welfare is assured, where justice is denied to the poor, or where
crime goes unpunished ; no State can prosper, however rich the land or
varied the resources, where human rights are not respected. If States
cannot or do not govern themselves justly, and accord an equal chance
to all their citizens, their influence in the councils of the nation must be
small indeed. But wherever I have been I find great changes have been
made, and these great forces working, — on all your lines of railroad new
enterprise, thrift, and energy, towns increasing and cities growing; and,
as I have said, the color line is fading in these places, whatever may be
the case in the interior. I trust the progress I have noted where I have
been may be but the symbol of other districts and other States. If it is
not, none know the facts as well as you yourselves, and none can assure
the remedy except yourselves. By your own acts you shall be justified;
and, when the end is reached, what grander chapter in history will ever
have been recorded than that which is being now written?
I had read the Scripture where it is written that men should convert
their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; but
in your neighboring city of Chattanooga I also saw the battery that had
belched forth fire and death converted into a fountain of living water to
nourish the new industry of the new South.
As you convert the darkness of oppression and slavery to liberty and
justice, so shall you be judged by men and by Him who created all the
nations of the earth.
BORN in Springfield, Mass., 1828.
THE OLD AND THE NEW IDEAS IN TAXATION.
[Second Report of the Commissioners to Revise the Laws for the Assessment, etc., of
Taxes in the State of New York. 1872.]
HHHE first attempt made to tax money at interest was instigated
- against money-lenders because they were Jews ; but the Jew was
sufficiently shrewd to charge the full tax over to the Christian borrower,
including a percentage for annoyance and risk ; and now most Christian
1835-60] DAVID AMES WELLS.
377
countries, as the result of early experience, compel or permit the Jew to
enter the money-market, and submit, without let or hindrance, his trans-
actions to the " higher law " of trade and political economy. But a class
yet exist who would persecute a Jew if he is a money-lender, and they
regret that the good old times of roasting him have passed away. They
take delight in applying against him, in taxation, rules of 'evidence
admissible in no court since witches have ceased to be tried and con-
demned. They sigh at the suggestion that all inquisitions shall be
abolished ; they consider oaths, the rack, the iron boot and the thumb-
screw as the visible manifestations of equality. They would tax pri-
marily everything to the lowest atom ; first for national purposes, and
then for State and local purposes, through separate boards of assessors.
They would require every other man to be an assessor or collector, and it
is not probable that the work could then be accomplished with accuracy.
The average consumption of every inhabitant of this State (New York),
annually, is at least $200, or in the aggregate, $800,000,000 ; and this
immense amount would fail to be taxed if the assessment was made at
the end of the year, and not daily, as fast as consumption followed pro-
duction. All this complicated machinery of infinitesimal taxation and
mediaeval inquisition is to be brought into requisition for the purpose of
taxing " money property," which is nothing but a myth. The money-
lender parts with his property to the borrower, who puts it in the form
of new buildings, or other improvements, upon which he pays a tax. Is
not one assessment on the same property sufficient? But if you insist
upon another assessment on the money-lender, it requires no prophetic
power to predict that he will add the tax in his transactions with the
borrower. If a tax of ten per cent, was levied and enforced on every
bill of goods, or note given for goods, the tax would be added to the
price of goods, and how would this form of tax be different from the tax
on the goods ?
" Money property " except in coin is imaginary, and cannot exist
There are rights to property of great value. The right to inherit prop-
erty is valuable; and a mortgage on land is a certificate of right or
interest in the property, but it is not the property. Land under lease is
as much "money property" as a mortgage on the same land; both will
yield an income of money. Labor will command money, and is a valua-
ble power to acquire property, but is not property. If we could make
property by making debts, it cannot be doubted that a national debt
would be a national blessing. Attacking the bugbear of "money prop-
erty " is an assault on all property ; for " money property " is the mere
representative of property. If we tax the representative, the tax must
fall upon the thing represented.
A traveller in the Okefinokee swamp slaps the mosquitoes off his
0^0 DAVID AMES WELLS. [1835-60
o I o
right cheek only to find that they immediately alight upon his left
cheek ; and that when he has driven them from thence, they return and
alight on his nose ; and that all the time he loses blood as a genuine pri-
mary or secondary tax-payer. And so it is with taxation. If we live in
any country not wholly barbarous, we cannot escape it ; and it is the
fate of man to bear his proportion of its burdens in proportion to his
expense, property, and consumption. The main question of interest and
importance in connection with the subject, therefore, is, shall we have an
economical system (and hence a species of labor-saving machine), and a
uniform and' honest system ; or one that is expensive and encourages
dishonesty and is arbitrary and inquisitorial ? In either case the tax-
collector will act the part of the mosquito, and will get blood from all ;
but in an honest and economical system he will get no unnecessary
blood.
WANTS.
[Why We Trade and How We Trade. 1888.]
WANTS have their origin in human nature, and are practically
illimitable. No one ever has all he wants, though pretension
may be made to that effect. In general, every one satisfies his wants
by his own labor ; but no man who is not a savage or a Eobinson Cru-
soe ever attempts to obtain all he wants by his own labor directly, or
from the products of one locality ; and nature evidently never intended
that it should be otherwise. For there is no nation, or country, or com-
munity, nor probably any one man, that is not, by reason of differences
in soil, climate, physical or mental capacities, at advantage or disadvan-
tage as respects some other nation, country, community, or men, in pro-
ducing or doing something useful. It is only a brute, furthermore, as
economists have long recognized, that can find a full satisfaction for its
desires in its immediate surroundings ; while poor indeed must be the
man of civilization that does not lay every quarter of the globe under
contribution every morning for his breakfast. Hence — springing out of
this diversity in the powers of production, and of wants in respect to
locations and individuals — the origin of trade. Hence its necessity and
advantage ; and the man who has not sufficient education to read the
letters of any printed book perceives by instinct, more clearly, as a gen-
eral rule, than the man of civilization, that if he can trade freely, he can
better his condition and increase the sum of his happiness ; for the first
thing the savage, when brought in contact with civilized man, wants to
do, is to exchange ; and the first effort of every new settlement in any
1885-60] WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN. 379
new country, after providing temporary food and shelter, is to open a
road or other means of communication to some other settlement, in
order that they may trade or exchange .the commodities which they can
produce to advantage, for the products which some others can produce
to greater advantage. And, obeying this same natural instinct, the
heart of every man, that has not been filled with prejudice of race or
country, or perverted by talk about the necessity of tariffs and custom-
houses, experiences a pleasurable emotion when it learns that a new road
has been opened, a new railroad constructed, or that the time of crossing
the seas has been greatly shortened ; and if to-day it could be announced
that the problem of aerial navigation had been solved, and that here-
after everybody could go everywhere, with all their goods and chattels, for
one-tenth of the cost and in one-tenth of the time that is now required, one
universal shout of jubilation would arise spontaneously from the whole
civilized world. And why? Simply because everybody would feel
that there would be forthwith a multitude of new wants, an equal mul-
titude of new satisfactions, an increase of business in putting wants and
satisfactions into the relations of equations in which one side would bal-
ance the other, and an increase of comfort and happiness everywhere.
31ame$
BOKN in Schenectady, N. Y., 1838.
JOHN RUSKIN.
[The Century Magazine. 1888.]
T WAS sitting one afternoon with Longfellow, on the porch of the old
* house at Cambridge, when the conversation turned on intellectual
development, and he referred to a curious phenomenon, of which he
instanced several cases, and which he compared to the double stars, of
two minds not personally related but forming a binary system, revolving
simultaneously around each other and around some principle which they
regarded in different lights. I do not remember his instances, but that
which at once came to my mind was the very interesting one of Turner
and Ruskin. The complementary relation of the great writer and the
imaginative painter is one of the most — indeed the most — interesting
that I know in intellectual history : the one a master in all that belongs
to verbal expression, but singularly deficient in the gifts of the artist,
feeble in drawing, with a most inaccurate perception of color and no
3go WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN. [1835-60
power of invention ; the other the most stupendous of idealists, the most
consummate master of color orchestration the world has ever seen, but
so curiously devoid of the gifts of language that he could hardly learn to
write grammatically or coherently, and when he spoke omitting so many
words°that often his utterances, like those of a child, required interpre-
tation by one accustomed to his ways before a stranger could understand
them. Euskin is a man reared and moulded in the straitest Puritan-
ism, abhorring uncleanness of all kinds, generous to extravagance, moved
by the noblest humanitarian impulses, morbidly averse to anything that
partakes of sensuality, and responsive as a young girl to appeals to his
tenderness and compassion. Turner was a miser; churlish; a satyr in
his morals,— not merely a sensualist, but satisfied only by occasional
indulgences in the most degrading debauchery ; and even in his painting
sometimes giving expression to images so filthy that when, after his
death, the trustees came to overhaul his sketches, there were many which
they were obliged to destroy in regard for common decency. It is hardly
possible to conceive of a more complete antithesis than that in the natures
of these two, who turn, and will turn so long as English art and English
letters endure, around the same centre of art and each around the other.
In fact, to the great majority of our race Turner is seen through the eyes
of Luskin, and Ruskin is only known as the eulogist of Turner.
The conjunction leaves both misunderstood by the general mind.
Kuskin looks at the works of the great landscape painter much as the
latter looked at nature, — not for what is in the thing looked at, but for
the sentiments it awakens. The world's art does not present anything
to rival Turner's in its defiance of nature. He used nature when it
pleased him to do so, but when it pleased him better he belied her with
the most reckless audacity. He had absolutely no respect for truth. His
color was the most splendid of impossibilities, and his topography like
the geography of dreams ; yet Ruskin has spent a great deal of his life in
persuading himself and the world that Turner's color was scientifically
correct, and in hunting for the points of view from which he drew his
compositions. Ruskin's conviction that Turner was always doing his
best, if in a mysterious way, to tell the truth about nature, is invincible.
Early in the period of my acquaintance with him we had a vivacious
discussion on this matter in his own house ; and to convince him that
Turner was quite indifferent as to matters of natural phenomena, I called
Ruskin's attention to the view out of the window, which was of the
Surrey hills, a rolling country whose grassy heights were basking in a
glorious summer sunlight and backed by a pure blue sky, requesting
him then to have brought down from the room where it was hung a
drawing by Turner in which a similar effect was treated. The hill in
nature was, as it always will be if covered by vegetation and under the
1835-60] WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN.
381
same circumstances, distinctly darker than the sky; Turner's was
relieved in pale yellow green against a deep blue sky, stippled down to
a delicious aerial profundity. Ruskin gave up the case in point, but
still clung to the general rule. In fact, having begun his system of
art teaching on the hypothesis that Turner's way of seeing nature
was scientifically the most correct that art knew, he had never been
able to abandon it and admit that Turner only sought, as was the case,
chromatic relations which had no more to do with facts of color than
the music of Mendelssohn's " Wedding March " has to do with the
emotions of the occasion on which it is played. His assumption of
Turner's veracity is the corner-stone of his system, and its rejection
would be the demolition of that system.
His art criticism is radically and irretrievably wrong. No art can be
gauged by its fidelity to nature unless we admit in that term the wider
sense which makes nature of the human soul and all that is, — the sense
of music, the perception of beauty, the grasp of imagination, "the light
that never was, on sea or land," as well as that which serves the lens of
the photographer ; and Ruskin's own work, his teaching in his classes,
and his application of his own standards to all great work, show that he
understands the term " fidelity to nature " to mean the adherence to
physical facts, the scientific aspects of nature. Greek art he never has
really sympathized with, nor at heart accepted as supreme, though years
after he took the position he never has avowedly abandoned, he found
that in Greek coinage there were artistic qualities of the highest refine-
ment ; but Watts has told me that he expressed his surprise that the
artist could keep before him so ugly a thing as the Oxford Venus, a cast
of which was in his studio, and that he pronounced the horse an animal
devoid of all beauty. In my opinion he cares nothing for the plastic
qualities of art, or for the human figure, otherwise than as it embodies
humanity and moral dignity. The diverse criticisms he makes on Titian,
Michael Angelo, and Raphael, put side by side with his notes on Holman
Hunt, on George Leslie, and Miss Thompson, in the Royal Academy, and
Miss Alexander's drawings, show his appreciation of figure art to be
absolutely without any criterion of style or motive in figure painting,
if this were not already apparent from his contradictions at different
periods of his life. These are puzzling to the casual reader. When he
says, in the early part of " Modern Painters," that the work of Michael
Angelo in general, the Madonna di San Sisto, and some other works are
at the height of human excellence, and later demolishes poor Buonarotti
like a bad plaster cast, and sets Raphael down as a mere posturer and
dexterous academician, one is at a loss to reconcile his opinions with
any standard. The fact I believe to be that his early art education,
which was in great part due to J. D. Harding, a painter of high execu-
382
WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN. [1835-60
tive powers and keen appreciation of technical abilities in the Italian
painters, was in the vein of orthodox standards ; that while under the
influence of his reverence for his teachers, he accepted the judgment
which they, in common with most artists, have passed on the old mas-
ters ; but that when left to himself, with no kind of sympathy with ideal
figure art, nor, I believe, with any form of figure art as such, but with a
passion for landscape, a curious enthusiasm for what is minute and
intense in execution, and an overweening estimate of his own standards
and opinions, he gradually lost all this vicarious appreciation and
retained of his admiration of old art only what was in accordance with
his own feelings, i. e., the intensity of moral and religious fervor, and,
above all, anything that savored of mysticism, the ascetic and didactic —
especially the art of the schools of religious passion. This was due to
the profound devotional feeling which was the basis of his intellectual
nature. He said to me once that he was a long time in doubt whether
he should give himself to the church or to art. So far as the world is
concerned, I think he took the wrong road. In the church he might not
have been, as his father hoped, a bishop, for his views have been too
individual for church discipline, but I believe he would have produced
a far greater and more beneficial effect on his age. As an art critic he
has been like one writing on the sea-sands — his system and his doctrines
of art are repudiated by every thoughtful artist I know. Art in certain
forms touches him profoundly but only emotionally. Although he drew
earnestly for years, he never seemed to understand style in drawing,
master as he is of style (sui generis) in language; his perception of color
is so deficient that he appears to me unable to recognize the true optical
color of any object ; that is, its color in sunshine as distinguished from
its color in shadow ; and in painting from nature he is always best
pleased with what is most like Turner. .
There is in his character a curious form of individuality so accentu-
ated and so imperious that it produces in him the sense of infallibility.
He speaks of his opinions not as matters of opinion but as positive
knowledge ; yet in personal intercourse I found nothing of the dogma-
tism which is so notable a feature in his writing. He listened to all
objections, and often acknowledged, during discussion, the inconsequence
of his conclusions ; and during the long and vigorous debates which
occupied our evenings he not infrequently admitted error, but on the
next day held the old ground as firmly as ever. His intellect, with all
its power and intensity, is of the purely feminine type. The love of
purity ; the quick, kindly, and unreasoning impulse ; the uncompromis-
ing self-sacrifice when the feeling is on him, and the illogical self-asser-
tion in reaction when it has passed ; the passionate admiration of power ;
the waywardness and often inexplicable fickleness,— all are there. But
1835-60] WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN, ggg
behind all these feminine traits there is the no less feminine quality of
passionate love of justice, flecked, on occasions of personal implication,
with acts of great injustice ; there is a general inexhaustible tenderness,
with occasional instances of absolute cruelty. Any present judgment of
him as a whole is difficult if not impossible, because there are in him
several different individuals, and the perspective in which we now see
them makes of his position, as an art teacher, the dominant element of
his personality; whereas, in my persuasion, his art teaching is in his own
nature and work subordinate to his moral and humanitarian ideals. He
always saw art through a religious medium, and this made him, from
the beginning, strain his system of teaching and criticism to meet the
demand of direct truth to nature, the roots of his enthusiasm and rever-
ence being not in art but in nature and in her beneficial influence on
humanity. . . ..
Of Euskin the writer, aside from the art critic, it is surely superfluous
for me to say anything : for mastery of our language, the greater authori-
ties long ago have given him his place ; the multitude of petty critics
and pinchbeck rhetoricians who pay him the tribute of tawdry imitation
is the ever-present testimony to his power and masterhood. Probably
no prose writer of this century has had so many choice extracts made
from his writings, — passages of gorgeous description, passionate exhorta-
tion, pathetic appeal, or apostolic denunciation ; and certainly no one
has so moulded the style of all the writers of a class as he, for there
scarcely can be found a would-be art critic who does not struggle to fill
his throat with Ruskin's thunders, so that a flood of Raskin — and water
— threatens all taste and all study of art
Description a la Ruskin has become a disease of the literature of the
generation, and your novelist coolly stops you in the crisis of his story
to describe a sunset in two or three pages which, when all is said, com-
pare with Ruskin as a satyr with Hyperion.
Ruskin obstinately bent all his conclusions and observations to his
doctrines — what he wanted to see he saw, nothing else.
He wanted to see truth in Turner's drawings, and he made his truth
accordingly. I can but regard his influence on modern landscape paint-
ing as pernicious from beginning to end, and coinciding as it did with
the advent of a great naturalistic and, therefore, anti-artistic tendency in
all branches of study, it was even more disastrous than it would have
been in ordinary circumstances. ....
But Ruskin's true position is higher than that of art critic in any pos-
sible development. It is as a moralist and a reformer and in his passion-
ate love of humanity (not inconsistent with much bitterness, and even
unmerited, at times, to individual men) that we must recognize him.
His place is in the pulpit, speaking largely and in the unsectarian sense.
3g^ WILLIAM JAMES 8TILLMAN. [1835-60
Truth is multiform, but of one essence, and, such as he sees it, he is
always faithful to it. I have taken large exception to his ideas and
teachings in respect to art because I feel that they are misleading. His
mistakes in art are in some measure due to his fundamental mistake of
measuring it by its moral powers and influence, and the roots of the
error are so deeply involved in his character and mental development
that it can never be uprooted. It is difficult for me (perhaps for any of
his contemporaries) to judge him as a whole, because, besides being his
contemporary and a sufferer by what I now perceive to be the fatal error
of his system, I was for so many years his close personal friend, and
because, while I do not agree with his tenets and am obliged by my own
sense of right to combat many of his teachings, I still retain the personal
affection for him of those years which are dear to memory, and reverence
the man as I know him ; and because I most desire that he should be
judged rightly, — as a man who for moral greatness has few equals in his
day, and who deserves an honor and distinction which he has not
received, and in a selfish and sordid world will not receive, but which I
believe time will give him, — that of being one who gave his whole life
and substance to the furtherance of what he believed to be the true hap-
piness and elevation of his fellow-men. Even were he the sound art
critic so many people take him to be, his real nature rises above that
office as much as humanity rises above art. When we wish to compare
him with men of his kind, it must be with Plato or Savonarola rather
than with Hazlitt or Hamerton. Art cannot be clearly estimated in any
connection with morality, and Buskin could never, any more than Plato
or Savonarola, escape the condition of being in every fibre of his nature
a moralist and not an artist, and as he advanced in life the ethical side
of his nature more and more asserted its mastery, though less and less in
theological terms. ....
He considers himself the pupil of Carlyle — for me he floats in a purer
air than Carlyle ever breathed. As a feminine nature he was captivated
by the robust masculine force of his great countryman, and there was in
the imperial theory of Carlyle. much that chimed with Ruskin's own
ideas of human government. The Chelsean, regretfully looking back to
the day of absolutism and brutal domination of the appointed king, was
in a certain sense a sympathetic reply to Buskin's longings for a firm and
orderly government when he felt the" quicksands of the transitional order
of the day yielding under his feet, but in reality the two regarded Bule
from points as far removed from each other as those of Luther and Vol-
taire. Carlyle's ideal was one of a Boyal Necessity, an incarnate law
indifferent to the crushed in its marchings and rulings,— burly, brutal,
contemptuous of the luckless individual or the overtaken straggler; his
Bule exists not for the sake of humanity, but for that of Order, as if
1835-60] GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY. 335
Order and Eule were called out for their own sake ; he puffs into per-
dition the trivial details of individual men, closing accounts by ignoring
the fractions. Euskin loses sight of no detail, but calls in to the benefit
of his Order and Eule every child and likeness of a child in larger form,
full of a tenderness which is utterly human yet inexhaustible. Carlyle's
ruler is like a Viking's god, his conception utterly pagan; Euskin's is
Christlike; Carlyle's word is like the mace of Charlemagne, Euskin's
like the sword of the Angel Gabriel ; if Euskin is notably egotistical,
Carlyle is utterly selfish ; if Euskin dogmatizes like an Evangelist, Car-
lyle poses as a Prophet ; and the difference, when we come to sum up all
the qualities, moral, intellectual, and literary, seems to me to be in favor
of Euskin. Their ideals are similarly antithetical — Euskin's lying in
a hopeful future, an unattainable Utopia, perhaps, but still a blessed
dream ; Carlyle's in a return to a brutal and barren past, made forever
impossible by the successful assertion of human individuality, and for
whose irrevocability we thank God with all our hearts and in all hope of
human progress. The public estimate has not overrated Euskin, just as
he had not overrated Turner, because the aggregate impression of power
received was adequate to the cause ; but in the one case as in the other
the mistake has been relative, and consisted in misestimating the genius
and attributing the highest value to the wrong item in the aggregate. I
may be mistaken in my estimate of Euskin, but I believe that the future
will exalt him above it rather than depress him below it.
BORN in Buckingham Co., Va., 1828. DIED in Richmond, Va., 1883.
JTJD. BROWNIN'S ACCOUNT OF RUBINSTEIN'S PLAYING.
[Miscellaneous Writings of Dr. George W. Bagby. 1884.]
TUD, they say you heard Eubinstein play, when you were in New
York."
"I did, in the cool."
" Well, tell us about it."
" What ! me ? I might's well tell you about the creation of the world."
" Come, now ; no mock modesty. Go ahead."
"Well, sir, he had the blamedest biggest, catty -cornedest pianner you
ever laid eyes on ; somethin' like a distractid billiard table on three legs.
The lid was heisted, and mighty well it was. If it hadn't been he'd
VOL. vin.— 25
3gQ GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBT. [1835-60
a-tore the intire insides clean out, and scattered 'ern to the four winds of
heaven."
" Played well, did he ? "
" You bet he did; but don't interrup' me. When he first set down he
'peared to keer mighty little 'bout playin', and wished he hadn' come.
He tweedle-leedled a little on the trible, and twoodle-oodle-oodled some
on the base— just foolin' and boxin' the thing's jaws for bein' in his way.
And I says to a man settin' next to me, s'l, ' what sort of fool playin' is
that ? ' And he says, ' Heish ! ' But presently his hands commenced
chasin' one 'nother up and down the keys, like a passel of rats scarn-
perin' through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet, though, and
reminded me of a sugar squirrel turnin' the wheel of a candy cage.
" ' Now,' I says to my neighbor, ' he's showin' off. He thinks he's
a-doin' of it ; but he ain't got no idee, no plan of nuthin'. If he'd play
me up a tune of some kind or other, I'd —
;> But my neighbor says ' Heish ! ' very impatient.
"I was just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that foolish-
ness, when I heard a little bird wakin' up away off in the woods, and
callin' sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and I see that Ruben
was beginnin' to take some interest in his business, and I set down agin.
It was the peep o' day. The light come faint from the east, the breeze
blowed gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the orchard, then
some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin' together.
People begun to stir, and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the
first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms ; a leetle more and it tetcht
the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was broad day ; the sun
fairly blazed ; the birds sang like they'd split their little throats ; all the
leaves was movin', and flashin' diamonds of dew, and the whole wide
world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a
good breakfast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or
woman anywhere. It was a fine mornin'.
"And I says to my neighbor, 'that's music, that is.'
" But he glar'd at me like he'd like to cut my throat.
" Presently the wind turned ; it begun to thicken up, and a kind of
grey mist come over things; I got low-spirited d'rectly. Then a silver
rain began to fall ; I could see the drops touch the ground ; some flashed
up like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled away like round rubies.
It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into
long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver
streams running between golden gravels, and then the streams joined
each other at the bottom of the hill, and made a brook that flowed silent
except that you could kinder see the music, specially when the bushes
on the banks moved as the music went along down the valley. I could
1885-60] GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBT.
387
smell the flowers in the meadow. But the sun didn't shine, nor the
birds sing ; it was a foggy day, but not cold. The most curious thing
was the little white angel boy, like you see in pictures, that run ahead
of the music brook, and led it on, and on, away out of the world, where
no man ever was— I never was, certain. I could see that boy just as
plain as I see you. Then the moonlight come, without any sunset, and
shone on the grave-yards, where some few ghosts lifted their hands and
went over the wall, and between the black sharp-top trees splendid mar-
ble houses rose up, with fine ladies in the lit- up windows, and men
that loved 'em, but could never get a-nigh 'em, and played on guitars
under the trees, and made me that miserable I could a-cried, because I
wanted to love somebody, I don't know who, better than the men with
guitars did. Then the sun went down, it got dark, the wind moaned
and wept like a lost child for its dead mother, and I could a got up then
and there and preached a better sermon than any I ever listened to.
There wasn't a thing in the world left to live for, not a blame thing, and
yet I didn't want the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be mis-
erable than to be happy without being miserable. I couldn't under-
stand it. I hung my head and pulled out my hankerchief, and blowed
my nose loud to keep from cryin'. My eyes is weak anyway ; I didn't
want anybody to be a gazin' at me a snivlin', and it's nobody's business
what I do with my nose. It's mine. But some several glared at me,
mad as Tucker.
" Then, all of a sudden, old Ruben changed his tune. He ripped and
he rar'd, he tipped and tar'd, he pranced and he charged like the grand
entry at a circus. 'Feared to me that all the gas in the house was
turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head, ready to
look any man in the face, and not afeard of nothin'. It was a circus,
and a brass band, and a big ball, all goin' on at the same time. He lit
into them keys like a thousand of brick, he gave 'em no rest, day nor
night; he set every livin' joint in me a-goin', and not bein' able to stand
it no longer, I jumpt spang onto my seat, and jest hollered :
"'Goit, my Rule!'
" Every blamed man, woman, and child in the house riz on me, and
shouted, ' Put him out ! Put him out ! '
"'Put your great-grandmother's grizzly grey greenish cat into the
middle of next month ! ' I says. ' Tech me if you dare ! I paid my
money, and you jest come a-nigh me.'
"With that, some several p'licemen run up, and I had to simmer
down. But I would a fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was
bound to hear Ruby out or die.
" He had changed his tune again. He hopt-light ladies and tip-toed
fine from eend to eend of the key-board. He played soft, and low, and
oog GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBT. [1835-60
solemn. I heard the church bells over the hills. The candles in heaven
was lit, one by one. I saw the stars rise. The great organ of eternity
began to play from the world's end to the world's end, and all the angels
went to prayers. Then the music changed to water, full of feeling that
couldn't be thought, and began to drop— drip, drop, drip, drop— clear
and sweet, like tears of joy fallin' into a lake of glory. It was sweeter
than that. It was as sweet as a sweetheart sweetenin' sweetness with
white sugar, mixt with powdered silver and seed diamonds. It was too
sweet. I tell you the audience cheered. Ruben he kinder bowed, like
he wanted to say, 'Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't inter-
rup' me.'
" He stopt a minute or two, to fetch breath. Then he got mad. He
run his fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeves, he opened
his coat-tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over, and,
sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapt her face, he boxed her
jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears and he scratched her
cheeks, till she farly yelled. He knockt her down and he stompt on
her shameful. She bellowed like a bull, she bleated like a calf, she
howled like a hound, she squealed like a pig, she shrieked like a rat,
and then he wouldn't let her up. He run a quarter-stretch down the
low grounds of the bass, till he got clean into the bowels of the earth,
and you heard thunder galloping after thunder, through the hollows and
caves of perdition ; and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left
till he got away out of the trible into the clouds, whar the notes was
finer than the pints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin'
but the shadders of 'em. And then he wouldn't let the old pianner go.
He for'ard-two'd, he crost over first gentleman, he crost over first lady,
he balanced to pards, he chassade right and left, back to your places, he
all hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, promenade all, in and out, here
and there, back and forth, up and down, perpetual motion, doubled and
twisted and tied and turned and tacked and tangled into forty-'leven
thousand double bow-knots. By jings ! it was a mixtery. And then
he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He fetcht up his right wing, he
fetcht up his left wing, he fetcht up his centre, he fetcht up his reserves.
He fired by file, he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments and by
brigades. He opened his cannon, siege-guns down thar, Napoleons
here, twelve-pounders yonder, big guns, little guns, middle-sized guns,
round shot, shell, shrapnel, grape, canister, mortars, mines and maga-
zines, every livin' battery and bomb a'goin' at the same time. The
house trembled, the lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up,
the ceilin' come down, the sky split, the ground rockt— heavens and
earth, creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, nine-pences, glory, ten-penny
nails, my Mary Ann, hallelujah, Samson in a 'simmon tree, Jeroosal'm,
1835-60] FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN. 339
Tump Tompson in a tumbler-cart, roodle-oodle-oodle-oodle — ruddle-
uddle-uddle-uddle — raddle-addle-addle-addle-addle — riddle-iddle-iddle-
iddle — reetle-eetle-eetle-eetle-eetle-eetle — p-r-r-r-r-r-lang ! per lang ! per-
plang! p-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-lang ! BANG!
"With that bang ! he lifted hisself bodily into the ar', and he come
down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows and his
nose, striking every single solitary key on that pianner at the same time.
The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven
thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi-quivers, and I
know'd no mo'.
"When I come too, I were under ground about twenty foot, in a place
they call Oyster Bay, treatin' a Yankee that I never laid eyes on before,
and never expect to ag'in. Day was a breakin' by the time I got to the
St. Nicholas hotel, and I pledge you my word I didn't know my name.
The man asked me the number of my room, and I told him, ' Hot music
on the half shell for two!' I pintedly did."
BORN in County Limerick, Ireland, 1828. DIED at Cumberland, Md., 1862.
THE SKATERS.
[Poems and Stories. Edited, with a Sketch of the Author, by William Winter. 1881.]
T IKE clouds they scud across the ice,
JLJ His hand holds hers as in a vice;
The moonlight strikes the back-blown hair
Of handsome Madge and Rupert Clare.
The ice resounds beneath the steel;
It groans to feel his spurning heel:
While ever with the following wind
A shadowy skater flits behind.
"Why skate we thus so far from land ?
0 Rupert Clare, let go my hand !
1 cannot see — I cannot hear —
The wind about us moans with fear! "
His hand is stiffer than a vice,
His touch is colder than the ice,
His face is paler than the moon
That paves with light the lone lagoon!
FITZ- JAMES O'BRIEN. [1835-60
« O Rupert Clare, I feel— I trace
A something awful iu your face!
You crush my hand — you sweep me on —
Until my breath and sense are gone ! "
His grasp is stiffer than a vice,
His touch is colder than the ice ;
She only hears the ringing tune
Of skates upon the lone lagoon.
"O Rupert Clare! sweet Rupert Clare!
For heaven's mercy hear my prayer !
I could not help my heart you know !
Poor Willy Gray, — he loves me so! "
His grip is stiffer than a vice,
His lip is bluer than the ice;
While ever thrills the ringing tune
Of skates along the lone lagoon.
" O Rupert Clare! where are your eyes ?
The rotten ice before us lies !
You dastard ! Loose your hold, I say ! —
O God! Where are you, Willy Gray? "
A shriek that seems to split the sky, —
A wilder light in Rupert's eye, —
She cannot — cannot loose that grip ;
His sinewy arm is round her hip!
But like an arrow on the wind
The shadowy skater scuds behind;
The lithe ice rises to the stroke
Of steel-shod heels that seem to smoke.
He hurls himself upon the pair;
He tears his bride from Rupert Clare ;
His fainting Madge, whose moist eyes say,
Ah ! here, at last, is Willy Gray !
The lovers stand with heart to heart, —
" No more," they cry, " no more to part! "
But still along the lone lagoon
The steel skates ring a ghostly tune !
And in the moonlight, pale and cold,
The panting lovers still behold
The self-appointed sacrifice
Skating toward the rotten ice I
1835-60] FITZ- JAMES O'BRIEN. 39 ^
FROM "THE DIAMOND LENS."
ANIMULA.
r~pHE three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night
-A- and day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast galvanic
battery, composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates, — a higher
power I dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means
of this enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I com-
menced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil
and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care
required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, ren-
dered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had yet undergone.
At last the eventful moment came ; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
to be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a
drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its
examination, — a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid evapo-
ration of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of glass under
the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a prism and a
mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to the minute
hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw nothing
save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast luminous abyss.
A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly limitless as
space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with the greatest care,
I depressed the lens a few hairs'-breadths. The wondrous illumination
still continued, but as the lens approached the object a scene of inde-
scribable beauty was unfolded to my view.
I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous
life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse. I
comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I
had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond
the realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous glob-
ule, into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost bound-
less dome filled with a supernatural radiance.
It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and col-
ored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
392 FITZ- JAMES O'BRIEN. [1835-60
appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific defini-
tion, foliated clouds of the highest rarity ; that is, they undulated and
broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendors com-
pared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross com-
pared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long
avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with
prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved
along the fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-
lucent ranks of many-colored drooping silken pennons. What seemed
to be either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues, lustrous and
ever varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills,
no lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen, save
those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness,
with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unreal-
izable by mere imagination.
How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned
to solitude ! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
life, — perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at present
acquainted, but still some living organism. I found my newly discov-
ered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.
While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories. I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more atten-
tively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict the
anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this mysterious
object Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in suspense in
the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an animal endowed
with vitality and motion ? It approached, flitting behind the gauzy,
colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly revealed, then vanish-
ing. At last the violet pennons that trailed nearest to me vibrated ; they
were gently pushed aside, and the form floated out into the broad light.
It was a female human shape. When I say human, I mean it pos-
sessed the outlines of humanity, — but there the analogy ends. Its ador-
able beauty lifted it illimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
Adam.
I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
serene, evade my words. Her long, lustrous hair following her glorious
head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a falling star,
seems to quench my most burning phrases with its splendors. If all the
bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still sing but hoarsely
the wondrous harmonies of outline that enclosed her form.
1835-60] F1TZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.
393
She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those of
some graceful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear,
unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth
with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still atmos-
phere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed suave
and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most spiritual sym-
phony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious flow of lines.
This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply purchased at any price. What
cared I, if I had waded to the portal of this wonder through another's
blood ? I would have given my own to enjoy one such moment of
intoxication and delight.
Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
microscope eagerly, — alas ! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay
beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from prisrn
sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny bead of dew,
this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet Neptune was
not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more to apply my
eye to the microscope.
Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
of the trees — as I must call them — unfolded a long ciliary process, with
which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its summit,
and, sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula. The
sylph took it in her delicate hand and began to eat. My attention was
so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to the task of
determining whether this singular plant was or was not instinct with
volition.
I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound atten-
tion. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight through my
frame ; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes in the
direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have given
to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous ocean,
and float with her through those groves of purple and gold ! While
I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she suddenly
started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the brilliant
ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light pierced through the
opaline forest, and disappeared.
Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still
before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden
«Q . FITZ- JAMES O'BRIEN. [1835-60
disappearance ? Had she a lover or a husband ? Yes, that was the solu-
tion ! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through the
avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled
me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I
battled against the fatal conclusion,— but in vain. It was so. I had no
escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
It is true that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope, she
appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting
aspect of the coarser creatures that live and struggle and die in the
more easily resolvable portions of the water drop, she was fair and deli-
cate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that?
Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a
miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt
all that could make my life lovely.
Could she but see me once ! Could I for one moment pierce the mys-
tical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that
filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life
with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something to
have established even the faintest personal link to bind us together, — to
know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted glades, she
might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the monotony
of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her heart!
But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was cap-
able could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might
feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain
ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and,
even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish
I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to
sleep like a child.
THE SPILLING OF THE CUP.
I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
surrounded by its moderators, burning, when I went to bed the night
before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded
her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders with inno-
cent coquetry. She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in
which she supported herself with ease, and gambolled with the enchant-
ing grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she
sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment
1835-60] FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN. 395
to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened
the lamp-light considerably. By the dim light that remained, I could
see an expression of pain flit across her face. She looked upward sud-
denly, and her brows contracted. I flooded the stage of the microscope
again with a full stream of light, and her whole expression changed.
She sprang forward like some substance deprived of all weight. Her
eyes sparkled and her lips moved. Ah ! if science had only the means
of conducting and reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what
carols of happiness would then have entranced my ears ! what jubilant
hymns to Adonai's would have thrilled the illumined air !
I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled
his mystic world with sylphs, — beautiful beings whose breath of life
was lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
purest light. The Eosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
practically realized.
How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
divine form strengthened my passion, — a passion that was always over-
shadowed by the maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on
her at will, she never, never could behold me !
At length, I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and con-
tinual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I
determined to make some effort to wean myself from it " Come," I
said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on
Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from
female society has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare
her with the beautiful women of your own world, and this false enchant-
ment will vanish/'
I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the adver-
tisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at Niblo's. The
Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most beautiful as
well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly dressed and
went to the theatre.
The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin
were standing on the right toe around the enamelled flower-bank, of
green canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a
flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all stand
on the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She
bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot,
39g FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN. [1835-60
remained poised in air. Heavens ! was this the great enchantress that
had drawn monarchs at her chariot- wheels ? Those heavy muscular
limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile,
those crudely painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms, the
liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula ?
The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The
play of her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
athletic efforts ; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could
bear it no longer ; with an exclamation of disgust that drew every eye
upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's pas-
de-fascination, and abruptly quitted the house.
I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be impossi-
ble. I applied my eye to the lens. Animula was there, — but what
could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely
features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard ;
her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had
faded. She was ill! — ill, and I could not assist her! I believe at that
moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to my human birth-
right, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule,
and permitted to console her from whom fate had forever divided
me.
I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
afflicted the sylph ? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony. The
wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their
hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched
Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to
wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had
not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it ;
for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself.
I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was
still there, — but, great heavens! the water-drop had vanished! The
awful truth burst upon me ; it had evaporated, until it had become so
minute as to be invisible to the naked eye ; I had been gazing on its
last atom, the one that contained Animula, — and she was dying !
I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas !
the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted
away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot
of dim light. Ah ! the sight was horrible : the limbs once so round and
lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes— those eyes that shone
like heaven— being quenched into black dust ; the lustrous golden hair
1835-60] ROGER ATKINSON PRTOR. 397
now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld that final
struggle of the blackening form— and I fainted.
When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying
amid the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body
as it I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for mouths.
They say now that I am mad ; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for
I have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite
me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh
at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I
go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could
talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while
ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of
my lost Animula !
THE CHALLENGE.
A WARRIOR hung his plumed helm
*O- On the rugged trunk of an aged elm ;
" Where is the knight so bold," he cried,
"That dares my haughty crest deride ? "
The wind came by with a sullen howl,
And dashed the helm on the pathway foul,
And shook in scorn each sturdy limb, —
For where was the knight that could fight with him ?
BORN in Dinwiddie Co., Va., 1828.
THE SOUTH LOYAL.
[The Union: A Plea for Reconciliation. Address on Decoration Day, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
30 May, 1877.]
|_3E assured, Southern statesmanship is not so blinded in its proverbial
-C* sagacity as not to see that henceforth the strength and security of
the South are to be found only under the shield of the Union. Against
the perils of foreign invasion it gains in the Union the bulwark of a
mighty prestige and an invincible army. As a guaranty of peace
between its discordant peoples the ever-imminent intervention of the
ono ROGER ATKINSON PRYOR. [1835-60
oyo
Federal arm will operate to deter the unruly and to tranquillize the
timid. Freedom and facility of access to every part of this vast and
opulent land opens to the enterprise of the South a boundless field of
adventure, and imparts to its industrial and commercial energies a quick-
ening impulse of development and fruition. Meanwhile, an expedient
devised to balk the ambition of the white race recoils upon its source,
and by augmenting the political power of the South, enables its aspiring
spirits to play a splendid and superior part on the theatre of Federal
affairs.
If, in contrast with the brilliant future offered to the South in the
Union, you contemplate for a moment the destiny to which it would be
condemned by another civil convulsion, caused by another revolt against
the Federal power ; the havoc and carnage of a war aggravated by a
conflict between races and issuing inevitably in the catastrophe of a
remorseless subjugation, you cannot, on the supposition that the South-
ern people are rational beings, impute to them any other policy or pur-
pose than to cleave to the Union as their only and their all-sufficient
shelter and support. ....
Nor to the restoration of the Union is the Confederate soldier any the
less reconciled by the destruction of slavery. True, the material inter-
ests of the South were essentially implicated in the maintenance of the
system ; but, philosophically, it was the occasion, not the cause, of seces-
sion. For the cause of secession you must look beyond the incident of
the anti-slavery agitation to that irrepressible conflict between the prin-
ciples of State sovereignty and Federal supremacy, which menacing the
Union in the conception as the twin children of the patriarch wrestled
for the mastery in their mother's womb, again endangered its existence
in 1798 on occasion of the Alien and Sedition laws ; and again in 1819
on occasion of the admission of Missouri : and still again in 1833 on
occasion of the protective tariff ; and which, arrested by no concession
and accommodated by no compromise, continued to rage with increas-
ing fury, until, provoking the revolt of the South, it terminated finally
in the absolute and resistless ascendancy of the national power. In
1861 the people of the South resented the intervention of the Federal
Government to restrict the extension of slavery ; but it was the princi-
ple, not the object, of the interference that encountered their opposition ;
and any other usurpation of Federal power on the sovereign rights of
the States would equally have challenged their resistance. Nor, suffer
me to say, was slavery any more the point of your attack than of our
defence ; for, otherwise, in beginning the war the Federal Government
would not have been so scrupulous to proclaim through all its organs,
its purpose not to touch any the least of the securities of slave property.
No, people of the North, impartial history will record that slavery fell
1835-60] ROGER ATKINSON PRYOR. 39 g
not by any effort of man's will, but by the immediate intervention and
act of- the Almighty himself; and, in the anthem of praise ascending to
Heaven for the emancipation of four million human beings, the voice of
the Confederate soldier mingles its note of devout gratulation. The
Divinity that presided over the destinies of the Republic at its' nativity
graciously endowed it with every element of stability save one; and now
that in the exuberance of its bounty the same propitious Providence is
pleased to replace the weakness of slavery by the unconquerable strength
of freedom, we may fondly hope that the existence of our blessed Union
is limited only by the mortality that measures the duration of all human
institutions.
But why argue on speculative grounds to prove the patriotism of the
Confederate soldier, since within these few months he has, by so mem-
orable an illustration, vindicated his fidelity to the Union? You can-
not have forgotten — for the land still trembles with the agitations of the
crisis — that when of late a disputed succession to the Presidency ap-
palled the country with the imminence of civil war: when business
stood still and men held their breath in apprehension of a calamity of
which the very shadow sufficed to eclipse all the joy of the nation : you
cannot but remember, how, obdurate to the entreaties of party, and
impenetrable to the promptings of resentment, and responsive only to
the inspirations of patriotism, the Confederate soldier in Congress spoke
peace to the affrighted land. Your difficulty was his opportunity ; ha
had only to say the word, and the fatal fourth of March would have
passed without the choice of a Federal executive, and the Union have
been involved in the agonies of a dynastic struggle. But, with a sub-
lime magnanimity he spurned the proffered revenge — and yet do you
say the Confederate soldier is false to his allegiance? Pardon me if,
even in this presence, I make bold to protest that he was never faithless
to his trust : to declare that when you thought him treacherous to the
Union, he was only true to his State ; and to tell you that when he
braved all the wrath of your majestic power, it was only in heroic fidelity
to a weak but, with him, an all-commanding cause. If your reproach
be just, and the Confederate soldier were a conscious culprit, then indeed
is reconciliation a folly and a crime ; for if false to you once he may
betray you again; and instead of alluring him to your embrace by these
overtures of fraternity, you should repel him from your presence as a
perfidious outcast. No, patriots of the Union ! The Confederate soldier
offers not to your confidence a conscience stained with the guilt of
recreancy. Veterans of the Union ! he comes not into your compan-
ionship with a confession of criminality; but for the credentials of his
loyalty to the Union he proudly adduces the constancy with which he
clung to the fortunes of his ill-starred Confederacy.
OLIVER BELL BUNCE. [1835-60
400
I3ell
BORN in New York, N. Y., 1828.
MEN AND WOMEN AT HOME.
[Bachelor Bluff : His Opinions, Sentiments, and Disputations. 1882.]
" TACK BUNKER is a whole-souled fellow, who knows when a thing
^J is recherche, and who has the wit to appreciate a bit of bachelor feli-
city. He always breakfasts in his library — this being the name his man
James gives to his book-room — where he has a few books, a few pictures,
and gathers all the little tasteful articles that he owns — a vase or two, a
statuette, a rare print, a bit of china, all of which he tones up with warm
upholstery. I, for my own part, like to eat in my best apartment ; to
partake of my meals under the pleasantest and most enlivening con-
ditions. Eating and drinking is with me a fine art. That 'good diges-
tion may wait on appetite and health on both,' I put my mind in its
sweetest, its calmest, its most contented mood, by means of all the agree-
able surroundings I can command. Hence I looked around Jack Bun-
ker's cozy apartment, tasting all the points. There was a glowing blaze
from bituminous coal in the low, polished grate. On a brass pendant
stood the shining coffee-pot, from which issued low, murmuring music
and delicious odors. The firelight was glancing up on the picture-
frames, and the gilt backs of the books, on the warm-tinted walls and
the ceiling, and on drapery that fell over the doorway, and partly shut
out, partly let in at the windows the bright glances of light from the
morning sun. Then the brilliant white cloth on the table, and the easy-
chairs for host and guest, and a new picture only sent home the day
before, standing on an easel near, and the morning paper warming by
the fire — well, it was a pleasant picture. Jack rubbed his hands, evi-
dently enjoying the air of comfort, brightness, and warmth that filled
the whole space, and delighted with my appreciation of it all ; and sat
himself down in his cozy chair and invited me to mine, and looked
around at the books and the pictures, and hoped I was pleased.
" I am not going to describe the breakfast further. My sole purpose
has been to draw two pictures, in order to show that domestic bliss is
not better understood or oftener realized by Benedicks than bachelors.
But no doubt some one will ask why all these conditions of domestic
happiness are not possible with ' lovely women ' to enhance the bliss of
the scene."
" But think," said young Carriway, who had a weakness for senti-
ment— "think of some beautiful creature sitting by the side of the urn,
1835-60] OLIVER BELL BUNCE.
401
serving your coffee, applauding your pictures, listening to you as you
read a bit of news from the morning journal, perhaps with her hands
in yours, or with her dainty foot on the fender, chatting with you softly
but joyously over many pleasant themes."
"Humph ! " replied Bluff, " it must be admitted that this is a pretty
picture. But what if the ' lovely woman ' comes down to the breakfast-
room frouzy and fierce? What if she appears in a dressing-gown and
curl-papers ? What if she has a chronic fondness for deshabille ? What
if she prove one of those whose nerves never get calm or in accord until
after the morning is well passed? In my bachelor-home, domestic bliss
is mine, beyond doubt ; if I open the door to a ' lovely woman,' there is
no telling what Pandora's box I shall uncover. Besides, it is a convic-
tion of mine that refined and perfect domestic comfort is understood by
men only."
" Heresy ! heresy ! " exclaimed half a dozen voices at once.
" Heresy it may be, but my opinion is well-grounded for all that.
Women are not personally selfish enough to be fastidious in these things.
They are usually neat to circumspection; but it is a cheerless and
aggressive neatness — moral and inflammatory rather than luxurious and
artistic. They are neat because they constitutionally hate dust, not
because neatness is important to their own selfish comfort. Women are
rarely epicureans. They have no keen enjoyment of eating and drink-
ing in dreams and laziness ; they do not understand intellectual repose.
It is not the quiet, the serenity, the atmosphere of home, that they at
heart care about. Give a woman a new ribbon, and she will go without
her dinner. Promise her a ball, and she will sit nightly for a month in a
fireless room, muffled up in a shawl, and never murmur. She is fond of
dress, not of comfort ; of decoration, not of peace ; of excitement, not feli-
citv. And then, moreover, she is too willing to be ill-at-ease ; too easily
satisfied in all those things that pertain to personal comfort, and is far
too much disposed to make the best of everything to enter fully into the
necessity of creating domestic comfort. She likes home because there
she has authority, there she receives her friends and shows her furniture,
there she can give parties, and thereby get invitations to other parties.
When matrimony introduces a man to recherche breakfasts, to perfect
little dinners, to delightful social evenings, to perfectly-appointed parlors,
then I shall believe that true domestic bliss is feminine in conception."
"To my mind," remarked Auger, a grave doctor of laws, "your
notions about domestic bliss are dangerous and revolutionary. They
will be construed into arguments against marriage ; and marriage, you
know, is the great conserver of public morality, and the great promoter
of public welfare."
"But if I once succeed," retorted Bluff, "in showing womankind that
VOL. VIII.— £
402 OLIVER BELL BUNCE. [1835-60
our domestic comfort is not, as society goes, a necessary consequence of
marriage, the whole sex will set at work to make it so."
"No doubt," Auger replied, "if woman had reason to believe that she
did not bestow this boon upon man, she would be sure to seek out the
way to secure for him the felicity she knows so well how to appreciate
for herself."
" Now, there you are wrong," exclaimed Bluff. " Women have no
true appreciation of this domestic felicity, even while they have remained
calm in the assurance that men, hungering for the peace of home, must
come to them for it. They have, with very great egotism, scorned with
a supreme scorn the idea of men being able to have anything orderly,
neat, or tasteful around them without women to supply the conditions.
They have carried this idea so far as to look upon celibacy as not only a
cheerless thing, but as by necessary implication a wicked thing ; and yet
instead of women being, as they suppose, the source of domestic bliss,
they are radically and constitutionally its obstacles and enemies."
" There could be no home without women," exclaimed Carriway, with
great warmth.
" I shall not quote history," replied the Bachelor, coolly. " to show
that domesticity in women has always been enforced ; that in Eastern
countries it is secured by compelled seclusion ; that in all times it has
been the tyranny of man which has subjected her to the boundary of
home: but I will simply give you a reason or two why in the nature of
things women have not the keen sympathy with domestic felicity that
men have — that is, if you care to hear them."
"Goon."
" Men and women, as a consequence of their distinct daily occupations,
have very different aspirations and expectations in regard to matrimony.
How many of our young women, for instance, think of domestic well-
being as the desired end of marriage? Do they not contemplate the
gayeties rather than the serenities which marriage is to assure them ?
Are not their marriage-dreams of balls, of parties, of the opera, of visit-
ing, of travelling? of carriages, dresses, jewels, household splendor? of
social success, and the triumph of position attained? Instead of Lares
and Penates, do they not dream of the dazzle and the dash of life ? And
this is a natural consequence of their peculiar position. Marriage is to
give them their career, and hence within it centre all their ambitions, all
their hopes, all the largeness of their future. But, with man, marriage
is something very different. Men are out in the world, busy in the great
battle of life — absorbed in its contests, filled sometimes with the triumph
of success, and sometimes with the chagrin of defeat. Spurred by the
stern necessity of achieving, they have surrendered all their energies to
the struggle ; they are busy with stratagems and manoeuvres, keenly
1835-60] OLIVER BELL BUNCE.
403
occupied with hopes and anxieties, and sometimes even struggling des-
perately against ruin. This is the life of the man ; and this stirring
career away from home renders home to him necessary as a place of
repose, where he may take off his armor, relax his strained attention, and
surrender himself to perfect rest.
" But home is not this to a woman. It is not her retreat, but her battle-
ground. She does not fly to its shelter as an escape from defeat or for
a temporary lull ; it is her arena, her boundary, her sphere. To a woman
the house is life militant; to a man it is life in repose. She at home
is armed with all her energies ; he at home has thrown down his arms.
She has no other sphere for her activities : ordering her household, sub-
duing its rebellions, directing its affairs, make up her existence. She
bustles, she stirs, she controls, she directs, she exhausts herself in its
demands, and then seeks for recreation and rest elsewhere. 'I am
wearied,' says the husband; 'let me sit by the tire and smoke, and
dream, and rest.' 'I am wearied,' says the wife; 'let me be refreshed
by a visit to my friends, by an evening at the opera, at the theatre, at
the concert.'
" And so we see how a natural and radical antagonism may exist
between man and wife as to the pleasures and the needs of home. Of
course, in a vast majority of cases, these antagonisms are compromised.
Between affectionate couples they never break out into warfare; but
they assuredly exist, and two such distinct sets of ideas must be watched
by both husband and wife if they would not have them the father of
many discontents and much infelicity. Do you not see how woman, by
the very necessities of her existence, must have a different idea of home
than what man has ? "
" This," said Carriway, "is very like arguing that the play of 'Ham-
let' is better with the part of Hamlet omitted. We all know the grace
and charm women give to life; we all think with pleasure of that spot
which woman renders an oasis in the desert of life."
" Yes, my dear sir, we all think of that oasis because we love to con-
template it, because it is so essential to our happiness. We make an
ideal home, and place an ideal woman in it ; but, when the reality comes,
how confoundedly often we are disappointed ! "
" Do you then mean to say, flatly, that celibacy is better than mar-
riage?" asked Auger.
" By no means. What I hope to do is to convince ' lovely woman '
that, if we are to continue to marry her, she must endeavor to work up
to our ideals of domestic felicity. She must try and find an outlet for
her energies, so that at home she can fall into our luxuriousness, our
love of repose, our enjoyment of supreme ease. You see women — I pur-
posely do not use the word ladies— are very busy endeavoring to make
OLIVER BELL BUNCE. [1835-60
404
a world of their 'pent-up Utica.' They sometimes are disposed to have
it brilliant and animated; but too often, in blind servility to one of their
gods, Propriety, make it very cold and orderly. The amount of absolute
cheerlessness a woman can stand is my amazement."
" Cheerlessness ! "
"Yes, cheerlessness," replied the Bachelor, emphatically. "Our
women have an affection for flowers, ribbons, laces, silks, music, pets ;
but are singularly insensible to cheerlessness. They like dark rooms.
They prefer heat from a hole in the wall rather than from a bright blaze.
They ask you to dine under a dim jet of gas. They will shiver through
a cold storm in autumn, rather than light a fire a day earlier than the
almanac permits. A woman may have all the known virtues of her
class ; all the gentleness, humility, grace, domestic virtue, poets have
sung about — and yet, if you should ask for a blaze on the hearth on a
dark, wet, chilly day in September, ten chances to one the request would
be too much for her patience.
" Some women," continued the Bachelor, finding that no one inter-
rupted him, " are slovenly — let us hope not many — I have seen untidy
toilets, though ; but, when a woman is not slovenly, she is often so neat,
trim, precise, methodical, and circumspect, that she excludes all color,
all freedom, all tone from her house. Upon all forms of untidiness such
a woman makes tempestuous warfare. Now, this is utterly destructive
to domestic bliss — an essential element of which is ease and a sense of
completeness. One cannot be content if always under the smell of soap-
suds, or if ceaselessly disturbed by the bustle of administration. The
ultimatum of a woman's household luxury is apt to be the satisfaction of
saying, ' There is not a speck of dust to be seen.' But this negative idea
of home will not do. It is not sufficient to say there is no dust, no dis-
order, no untidiness, no confusion. We must have active ideas at work.
We must have colors and sounds and sights to cheer, to refine, to delight
us. But, you see, to create a paradise of indolence, to fill the mind with
an ecstasy of repose, to render home a heaven of the senses — women are
usually too virtuous to do this. Daintiness in man takes an artistic
form ; in woman it assumes a formidable order, a fearful cleanliness, a
precision of arrangement that freeze us."
" But all this," broke in Carriway, " is no longer the case. There was
a time, no doubt, when your picture would have been strictly true. But
now art has entered the house ; color, banished by Puritan asceticism,
has reasserted itself. Do we not see on every hand the new arts and the
new devices for making home beautiful ? "
"For making home a museum ! " growled the Bachelor. "Yes, there
is now a craze for what is called household art, but it is for the most
part only a new form of cheerlessness, a passion for making the parlor
1835-60] GEORGE PERRT. 4Q5
a, show-room, the splendor of which must not be touched and scarcely
looked upon save by the outside world. It is art for Mrs. Grundv, and
not for the inmates of the house. Mrs. Grundy is the power of powers.
If a woman has only two rooms in the world, one of these is furnished,
garnished, set^ in order, and kept for the approbation of that venerable
lady. Domestic comfort must live elsewhere than in the apartments
devoted to this lady — who exacts of all her devotees velvet carpet that
must not be trod on, damask furniture that must not be sat on, and all
forms of finery that must not be warmed by good, honest fires, lest the
dust alight on them, or opened to the pleasant rays of the sun, lest his
beams fade them. The disorder that sometimes is held up as domestic
comfort I feel no sympathy with ; domestic bliss is to my taste first-
cousin to elegance, and an elegance that enters into one's daily being.
Unless one is a man of wealth it is better to banish set-up conventional
parlors altogether, live and dine in the best apartment, and, seated among
books, pictures, and the best furniture, invoke peace and comfort. Give
us, I emphatically say, in our households color and cheeriness — not cold
art nor cold pretensions of any kind, but warmth, brightness, animation.
Bring in pleasing colors, choice pictures, bric-ct-brac, and what-not; but
let in also the sun ; light the fires ; and have everything for daily use."
" You have omitted one important thing," remarked Carriway.
"What is that?"
''.Love! "
" Ah ! that is something which bachelors, however agreeable they may
make their apartments, must often sigh for. But love flourishes well
when such notions as I have advanced are heeded ; and then, men are
such devotees of the senses, that so fair and delicate a thing as love will
perish if women do not look well to make it a companion of domestic
felicity."
BORN in Richmond, Mass., 1828. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1888.
SIVA, DESTROYER.
[Written shortly before his death.— The Home Journal 1888.]
"TTTHOSE voice shall say him nay ?
W Whose arm shall bar his way ?
Lord of unbounded sway!
Siva, Destroyer.
,AC HIRAM COR80N. [1835-60
40o
Proud kings, whose lightest breath
To men is life or death,
Heeds he your ruth or wrath ?
Siva, Destroyer.
Mother with bleeding breast
Bowed o'er thy bird ling's nest,
Shall thy last woe arrest
Siva, Destroyer?
Maiden with eyes of love
Fixed on the heaven above,
Hast thou a prayer to move
Siva, Destroyer ?
Youth of the lion heart,
Brave for life's noblest art,
Shall fame's fair glory thwart
Siva, Destroyer ?
Earth, in thy sweet array,
Bride of celestial day,
Hast thou one bloom to stay
Siva, Destroyer?
Stars on the dome of night,
Climbing to your far height
Do ye escape his might ? «
Siva, Destroyer.
What voice shall say him nay,
What arm shall bar his way,
Lord of unbounded swayl
Siva, Destroyer.
Corgon,
BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1828.
SPIRITUALITY A TEST OF LITERATURE.
[An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry. 1886.]
T ITBRATURE, in its most restricted art-sense, is an expression in
-*-J letters of the life of the spirit of man cooperating with the intellect.
Without the cooperation of the spiritual man, the intellect produces only
thought ; and pure thought, whatever be the subject with which it deals,
1835-60J HIRAM CORSON. ^
is not regarded as literature, in its strict sense. For example, Euclid's
"Elements," Newton's "Principia," Spinoza's "Ethica," and Kant's
" Critique of the Pure Reason," do not properly belong to literature.
(By the " Spiritual " I would be understood to mean the whole domain
of the emotional, the susceptible or impressible, the sympathetic, the
intuitive ; in short, that mysterious something in the constitution of man
by and through which he holds relationship with the essential spirit of
things, as opposed to the phenomenal of which the senses take cogni-
zance.)
The term literature is sometimes extended in meaning (and it may be
so extended) to include all that has been committed to letters, on all
subjects. There is no objection to such extension in ordinary speech,
no more than there is to that of the signification of the word " beauty "
to what is purely abstract. We speak, for example, of the beauty of a
mathematical demonstration ; but beauty, in its strictest sense, is that
which appeals to the spiritual nature, and must, therefore, be concrete,
personal, not abstract. Art beauty is the embodiment, adequate, effec-
tive embodiment, of cooperative intellect and spirit — "the accommoda-
tion," in Bacon's words, "of the shows of things to the desires of the
mind."
It follows that the relative merit and importance of different periods
of a literature should be determined by the relative degrees of spirit-
uality which these different periods exhibit. The intellectual power of
two or more periods, as exhibited in their literatures, may show no
marked difference, while the spiritual vitality of these same periods may
very distinctly differ. And if it be admitted that literature proper is
the product of cooperative intellect and spirit (the latter being always
an indispensable factor, though there can be no high order of literature
that is not strongly articulated, that is not well freighted, with thought),
it follows that the periods of a literature should be determined by the
ebb and flow of spiritual life which they severally register, rather than
by any other considerations. There are periods which are characterized
by a " blindness of heart," an inactive, quiescent condition of the spirit,
by which the intellect is more or less divorced from the essential, the
eternal, and it directs itself to the shows of things. Such periods may
embody in their literatures a large amount of thought, — thought which
is conversant with the externality of things; but that of itself will not
constitute a noble literature, however perfect the forms in which it may
be embodied, and the general sense of the civilized world, independently
of any theories of literature, will not regard such a literature as noble.
It is made up of what must be, in time, superseded; it has not a suffi-
ciently large element of the essential, the eternal, which can be reached
only through the assimilating life of the spirit. The spirit may be so
408 HENRY TIMROD. [1835-60
" cabined, cribbed, confined " as not to come to any consciousness of
itself; or 'it may be so set free as to go forth and recognize its kinship,
respond to the spiritual world outside of itself, and, by so responding,
know what merely intellectual philosophers call the unknowabk.
f enr? Cimrotu
BORN in Charleston, 8. C., 1839. DIED at Columbia, S. C., 1867.
THE COTTON BOLL.
[The Poems of Henry Timrod. Edited by Paul H. Hayne. 1873.]
WHILE I recline
At ease beneath
This immemorial pine,
Small sphere!
(By dusky fingers brought this morning here
And shown with boastful smiles),
I turn thy cloven sheath,
Through which the soft white fibres peer,
That, with their gossamer bands.
Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands,
And slowly, thread by thread,
Draw forth the folded strands,
Than which the trembling line,
By whose frail help you startled spider fled
Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed,
Is scarce more fine ;
And as the tangled skein
Unravels in my hands,
Betwixt me and the noonday light
A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles
The landscape broadens on my sight,
As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell
Like that which, in the ocean shell,
With mystic sound
Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round,
And turns some city lane
Into the restless main,
With all his capes and isles !
Yonder bird,
Which floats, as if at rest,
In those blue tracts above the thunder, where
No vapors cloud the stainless air,
1835-60] HENRY TIMROD.
And never sound is heard,
Unless at such rare time
When, from the City of the Blest,
Rings down some golden chime,
Sees not from his high place
So vast a cirque of summer space
As widens round me in one mighty field,
Which, rimmed by seas and sands,
Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams
Of gray Atlantic dawns ;
And, broad as realms made up of many lands,
Is lost afar
Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns
Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams
Against the Evening Star!
Andlo!
To the remotest point of sight,
Although I gaze upon no waste of snow,
The endless field is white ;
And the whole landscape glows,
For many a shining league away,
With such accumulated light
As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day!
Nor lack there (for the vision grows,
And the small charm within my hands —
More potent even than the fabled one,
Which oped whatever golden mystery
Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale,
The curious ointment of the Arabian tale —
Beyond all mortal sense
Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see,
Beneath its simple influence,
As if, with Uriel's crown,
I stood in some great temple of the Sun,
And looked, as Uriel, down!)
Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green
With all the common gifts of God.
For temperate airs and torrid sheen
Weave Edens of the sod ;
Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold
Broad rivers wind their devious ways ;
A hundred isles in their embraces fold
A hundred luminous bays ;
And through yon purple haze
Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-crowned
And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps,
An unhewn forest girds them grandly round,
In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps!
Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze
Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth !
Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays
,1A HENRT TIMROD. [1835-60
410
Above it, as to light a favorite hearth !
Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West
See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!
And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast
Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers!
Bear witness with me in my song of praise,
And tell the world that, since the world began,
No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
Or given a home to man :
But these are charms already widely blown!
His be the meed whose pencil's trace
Hath touched our very swamps with grace,
And round whose tuneful way
All Southern laurels bloom ;
The Poet of " The Woodlands," unto whom
Alike are known
The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone,
And the soft west wind's sighs;
But who shall utter all the debt,
O Land wherein all powers are met
That bind a people's heart,
The world doth owe thee at this day,
And which it never can repay,
Yet scarcely deigns to own!
Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing
The source wherefrom doth spring
That mighty commerce which, confined
To the mean channels of no selfish mart,
Goes out to every shore
Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships
That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips
In alien lands ;
Joins with a delicate web remotest strands ;
And gladdening rich and poor,
Doth gild Parisian domes,
Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes,
And only bounds its blessings by mankind !
In offices like these, thy mission lies,
My Country ! and it shall not end
As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend
In blue above thee ; though thy foes be hard
And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard
Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark; make thee great
In white and bloodless state;
And haply, as the years increase-
Still working through its humbler reach
With that large wisdom which the ages teach —
Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace!
As men who labor in that mine
Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed
1835-60] HINTON ROWAN HELPER. 4-.-,
Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead,
Hear the dull booming of the world of brine
Above them, and a mighty muffled roar
Of winds and waters, yet toil calmly on,
And split the rock, and pile the massive ore,
Or carve a niche, or shape the arched roof;
So I, as calmly, weave my woof
Of song, chanting the days to come,
Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air
Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn
Wakes from its starry silence to the hum
Of many gathering armies. Still,
In that we sometimes hear,
Upon the Northern winds, the voice of woe
Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know
The end must crown us, and a few brief years
Dry all our tears,
I may not sing too gladly. To Thy will
Resigned, O Lord ! we cannot all forget
That there is much even Victory must regret.
And, therefore, not too long
From the great burthen of our country's wrong
Delay our just release !
And, if it may be, save
These sacred fields of peace
From stain of patriot or of hostile blood !
Oh, help us, Lord ! to roll the crimson flood
Back on its course, and, while our banners wing
Northward, strike with us! till the Goth shall cling
To his own blasted altar-stones, and crave
Mercy; and we shall grant it, and dictate
The lenient future of his fate
There, where some rotting ships and crumbling quays
Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas.
Botoan
BORN near Mocksville, N. C., 1829.
A SOUTHERNER ON SOUTHERN LITERATURE BEFORE THE WAR.
[The Impending Crisis of the South. 1857.]
QUALITY, rather than quantity, is the true standard of estimation.
The fact, however, matters little for our present purpose ; for the
South, we are sorry to say, is as much behind the North in the former
,^9 HINTON ROWAN HELPER. [1835-60
as in the latter. We do not forget the names of Gayarre, Benton, Simms,
and other eminent citizens of the Slave States, who have by their contri-
butions to American letters conferred honor upon themselves and upon
our common country, when we affirm that those among our authors who
enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation are, with a few honorable exceptions,
natives of the Free North ; and that the names which most brilliantly
illustrate our literature, in its every department, are those which have
grown into greatness under the nurturing influence of free institu-
tions. " Comparisons are odious," it is said ; and we will not unneces-
sarily render them more so, in the present instance, by contrasting,
name by name, the literary men of the South with the literary men of
the North. We do not depreciate the former, nor overestimate the
latter. But let us ask, whence come our geographers, our astronomers,
our chemists, our meteorologists, our ethnologists, and others, who have
made their names illustrious in the domain of the Natural Sciences?
Not from the Slave States, certainly. In the Literature of Law, the
South can furnish no name that can claim peership with those of Story
and of Kent ; in History, none that tower up to the altitude of Bancroft,
Prescott, Hildreth, Motley, and Washington Irving ; in Theology, none
that can challenge favorable comparison with those of Edwards, Dwight,
Channing, Taylor, Bushnell, Tyler, and Wayland; in Fiction, none that
take rank with Cooper and Mrs. Stowe, and but few that may do so
with even the second-class novelists of the North ; in Poetry, none that
can command position with Bryant, Halleck, and Percival, with Whittier,
Longfellow, and Lowell, with Willis, Stoddard, and Taylor, with Holmes,
Saxe, and Burleigh ; and — we might add twenty other Northern names
before we found their Southern peer, with the exception of poor Poe,
who, within a narrow range of subjects, showed himself a poet of consum-
mate art, and occupies a sort of debatable ground between our first- and
second-class writers.
We might extend this comparison to our writers in every department
of letters, from the compiler of school-books to the author of the most
profound ethical treatise, and with precisely the same result. But we
forbear. The task is distasteful to our State pride, and would have
been entirely avoided had not a higher principle urged us to its per-
formance. It remains for us now to enquire —
What has produced this literary pauperism of the South? One single
word, most pregnant in its terrible meanings, answers the question.
That word is — Slavery ! But we have been so long accustomed to the
ugly thing itself, and have become so familiar with its no less ugly
fruits, that the common mind fails to apprehend the connection between
the one as cause and the other as effect ; and it therefore becomes neces-
sary to give a more detailed answer to our interrogatory.
1835-60J HINTON ROWAN HELPER. 4-^3
Obviously, then, the conditions requisite to a flourishing literature are
wanting at the South. These are —
I. Eeaders. The people of the South are not a reading people. Many
of the adult population never learned to read ; still more do not care to
read. We have been impressed, during a temporary sojourn in the
North, with the difference between the middle and laboring classes in
the Free States, and the same classes in the Slave States, in this respect.
Passing along the great routes of travel in the former, or taking our seat
in the comfortable cars that pass up and down the avenues of our great
commercial metropolis, we have not failed to contrast the employment
of our fellow-passengers with that which occupies the attention of the
corresponding classes on our various Southern routes of travel. In the
one case, a large proportion of the passengers seem intent upon master-
ing the contents of the newspaper, or some recently published book.
The merchant, the mechanic, the artisan, the professional man, and even
the common laborer, going to or returning from their daily avocations,
are busy with their morning or evening paper, or engaged in an intelli-
gent discussion of some topic of public interest. This is their leisure
hour, and it is given to the acquisition of such information as may be of
immediate or ultimate use, or to the cultivation of a taste for elegant
literature. In the other case, newspapers and books seem generally
ignored, and noisy discussions of village and State politics, the tobacco
and cotton crops, filibusterism in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Sonora, the price
of negroes generally, and especially of " fine-looking wenches," the beau-
ties of lynch law, the delights of horse-racing, the excitement of street-
fights with bowie-knives and revolvers, the ''manifest destiny" theory
that justifies the stealing of all territory contiguous to our own, and
kindred topics, constitute the warp and woof of conversation. All this
is on a level with the general intelligence of the Slave States. It is true,
these States have their educated men,— the majority of whom owe their
literary culture to the colleges of the North. Not that there are no
Southern colleges — for there are institutions, so called, in a majority of
the Slave States. — Some of them, too, are not deficient in the appoint-
ments requisite to our higher educational institutions; but, as a general
thing, Southern colleges are colleges only in name, and will scarcely take
rank with a third-rate Northern academy, while our academies, with a
few exceptions, are immeasurably inferior to the public schools of New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston. The truth is, there is a vast inert
mass of stupidity and ignorance, too dense for individual effort to
enlighten or remove, in all communities cursed with the institution of
slavery. Disguise the unwelcome truth as we may, slavery is the parent
of ignorance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and of vices,
and every one of these is inevitably hostile to literary culture. The
..., HINTON ROWAN HELPER. [1835-60
masses, if they think of literature at all, think of it only as a costly
luxury, to be monopolized by the few. .
II. Another thing essential to the creation of a literature is Mental
Freedom. How much of that is to be found in the region of Slavery ?
We will not say that there is none; but if it exists, it exists as the
outlawed antagonist of human chattelhood. He who believes that the
despotism of the accursed institution expends its malignant forces upon
the slave, leaving intact the white and (so-called) free population, is the
victim of a most monstrous delusion. One end of the yoke that bows
the African to the dust presses heavily upon the neck of his Anglo-
Saxon master. The entire mind of the South either stultifies itself into
acquiescence with Slavery, succumbs to its authority, or chafes in indig-
nant protest against its monstrous pretensions and outrageous usurpa-
tions. A free press is an institution almost unknown at the South.
Free speech is considered as treason against slavery : and when people
dare neither speak nor print their thoughts, free thought itself is well-
nigh extinguished. All that can be said in defence of human bondage
may be spoken freely; but question either its morality or its policy, and
the terrors of lynch law are at once invoked to put down the pesti-
lent heresy. The legislation of the Slave States for the suppression of
the freedom of speech and the press is disgraceful and cowardly to the
last degree, and can find its parallel only in the meanest and bloodiest
despotisms of the Old World. No institution that could bear the light
would thus sneakingly seek to burrow itself in utter darkness. Look,
too, at the mobbings, lynchings, robberies, social and political proscrip-
tions, and all manner of nameless outrages, to which men in the South
have been subjected, simply upon the suspicion that they were the
enemies of Slavery. We could fill page after page of this volume
with the record of such atrocities. But a simple reference to them is
enough. Our countrymen have not yet forgotten why John C. Under-
wood was, but a few months since, banished from his home in Virginia,
and the accomplished Hedreck driven from his college professorship in
North Carolina. They believed Slavery inimical to the best interest of
the South, and for daring to give expression to this belief in moderate
yet manly language, they were ostracised by the despotic Slave Power,
and compelled to seek a refuge from its vengeance in States where the
principles of freedom are better understood. Pending the last Presiden-
tial election, there were thousands, nay, tens of thousands of voters in
the Slave States, who desired to give their suffrages for the Republi-
can nominee, John C. Fremont, himself a Southron, but a non-slave-
holder. The Constitution of the United States guaranteed to these men
an expression of their preference at the ballot-box. But were they per-
mitted such an expression ? Not at all. They were denounced, threat-
1835-60] HINTON BO WAN HELPER. 4^5
ened, overawed, by the Slave Power, — and it is not too much to say that
there was really no Constitutional election — that is, no such free expres-
sion of political preferences as the Constitution aims to secure in a
majority of the Slave States.
From a multiplicity of facts like these, the inference is unavoidable,
that Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press — no freedom of speech —
no freedom of opinion. To expect that a whole-souled, manly literature
can flourish under such conditions is as absurd as it would be to look
for health amid the pestilential vapors of a dungeon, or for the continu-
ance of animal life without the aid of oxygen.
III. Mental activity — force — enterprise — are requisite to the creation
of literature. Slavery tends to sluggishness — imbecility — inertia Where
free thought is treason, the masses will not long take the trouble of
thinking at all. Desuetude begets incompetence — the dare-not soon
becomes the cannot. The mind thus enslaved necessarily loses its inter-
est in the processes of other minds ; and its tendency is to sink down
into absolute stolidity or sottishness. Our remarks find melancholy con-
firmation in the abject servilism in which multitudes of the non-slave-
holding whites of the South are involved. In them, ambition, pride,
self-respect, hope, seem alike extinct. Their slaveholding fellows are,
in some respects, in a still more unhappy condition — helpless, nerveless,
ignorant, selfish ; yet vainglorious, self -sufficient, and brutal. Are these
the chosen architects who are expected to build up " a purely Southern
literature " ?
The truth is, slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, whatever it
touches. No interest of society escapes the influence of its clinging
curse. It makes Southern religion a stench in the nostrils of Christen-
dom— it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of Eepub-
licanism — it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable
profession of letters. Than the better class of Southern authors them-
selves, none will feel more keenly the truth of our remarks. They write
books, but can find for them neither publishers nor remunerative sales
at the South. The executors of Calhoun seek, for his works, a Northern
publisher. Benton writes history and prepares voluminous compilations,
which are given to the world through a Northern publisher. Simms
writes novels and poems, and they are scattered abroad from the presses
of a Northern publisher. Eighty per cent, of all the copies sold are
probably bought by Northern readers.
When will Southern authors understand their own interests ? When
will the South, as a whole, abandoning its present suicidal policy, enter
upon that career of prosperity, greatness, and true renown to which God
by his word and his providences is calling it?
MARTHA JOANNA LAMB. [1835-60
gioanna Lamb*
BOKN in Plainfield, Mass., 1829.
AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING.
[Magazine of American History. Edited by Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. December, 1886.]
/^vUR party arrived, after a tiresome drive, on the night before the day
{J big with the fate of many fowls. Sent early to bed, we were pre-
pared for Thanksgiving breakfast at the regulation hour, where the
delicious chicken served so bountifully was but the foretaste of what
was to follow as the day progressed. Then came family devotions, each
person present, old and young, participating in the service by reading
two verses of Scripture, and kneeling while the prayer was offered, in
which these words were uttered : " It is both the duty and the privilege
of a Christian people to recognize their obligations to the bountiful
Giver of all good, and to recognize the fresh and continued evidence of
the divine favor and forbearance during the past year." The host, at
this date, was a portly, well-preserved, warm-hearted man, of some four-
score years, whose eye-sight (without the aid of glasses) was perfect, but
who walked with crutches, one foot having been destroyed. He was a
most delightful story-teller, and was ever in his best and happiest humor
with a group of grandchildren clustered about him — one usually occu-
pying the place of honor on his sound knee — listening with bated breath
to the stirring accounts of his exploits in the Kevolutionary army. He
was just fifteen years of age when hostilities began, and his diverting
narrative of how he skipped behind his uncle at the battle of Bunker
Hill, to escape being shot by the enemy, brought him very close to the
heart of his juvenile audience. He grew older and of more consequence
as the war advanced, and was engaged in serious work. Tragic, indeed,
was the story of how he was four days without food in the woods of
Maine, wandering from the Penobscot River, up which his sloop had
been chased by the British, through the wilderness to Boston. All his
varied experiences were, for us, most exciting and bewildering.
The hostess, who as we have seen was his junior by three years, was
exceedingly tall, commanding in appearance, and very grave and earnest
in conversation. She was kind and gentle and lovable, but rarely
laughed with us. When we claimed her attention, she explained to us
the true character of the Thanksgiving festival, and said it ought always
to be regarded as a strictly religious celebration. She told us that it
was originally suggested by the Hebrew feast of tabernacles, and was
not unusual in Europe before the discovery of America ; that such a day
1835-60] MARTHA JOANNA LAMB. ^^
was observed in Leyden, Holland, on the 3d of October, 1575, the first
anniversary of the deliverance of that city from siege; and that her
ancestors who came over in the Mayflower, in 1620, held the first New
England Thanksgiving, within ten months after landing at Plymouth.
Looking into her sweet, deep-blue eyes and animated face while these
words fell from her lips, we could almost, with but slight help of the
imagination, see the far-away light on the Atlantic coast, as Governor
Bradford's four men came back from fowling to rejoice and be thankful
all together. One grandchild, lifted suddenly among the clouds of fancy
with the thrilling idea, ran screaming through the house: "I can touch
the first Thanksgiving in the world ! Our dear grandmother was there
just after she came over in the Mayflower, more than two hundred years
ago, and I can put my hand upon her living hand, and kiss her beauti-
ful white hair ! " 'The check to such an ambitious flight came quickly,
and the severe and well-timed rebuke for inattention and inaccuracy was
singularly effectual. Just then a rollicking rover brought sensational
news from the kitchen, to the effect that a big conflagration had broken
out in the brick oven, that six puddings were filled with plums, and that
" Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth, and Marie Antoinette, with their
heads cut off, were being dressed for dinner ! " We were wisely re-
strained from inquisitive questioning and from individual investigation,
by the order to make ready for church. When the adult visitors were
also equipped, it was found that a part of our juvenile delegation had
moved on in advance, perched hatless and cloak less on the back of a
quaint little white pony some three and a half feet high, belonging to
one of the party. Such boisterous proceedings suggested far too much
levity for the solemn and important occasion, and we were called back
and dismounted, to our infinite regret, and to the apparent dissatisfaction
of the notable pony, with his oval-shaped ears standing up as straight as
church spires, above wicked-looking eyes, for he was never averse to a
frolic. But every trace of mirth and irreverence was subdued before we
reached the sacred edifice, which we entered with as much gravity and
somewhat of the dignity of our elders. This old meeting-house, fash-
ioned after a pattern never much known beyond New England, and long
since obsolete, was a curiosity in its way. Its pews were square-like
boxes, and the family, when seated on all sides of one, queerly resem-
bled a sleigh-riding party — the children and other inconsequential per-
sons being placed with their backs to the minister. The pulpit was
high and straight, and over the head of the preacher was suspended an
immense sounding-board. The deacons had a pew to themselves in front
of the pulpit ; and the choir nearly filled the great galleries extending
across three sides of the building, suggesting to the very young mind
the old picture of Xerxes and his hosts — especially in rising to sing a
VOL. viii.— 27
418
CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE. [1835-60
hymn, with the leader brandishing his enormous tuning-fork. When
the choir stood, the congregation stood also. The Thanksgiving sermon
to which we listened was most impressive. The learned pastor infused
into it the heat of his own enthusiasm, the full measure of his own grati-
tude for blessings received. There was no ambiguity in his expressions,
no confusion in his own thoughts of how much to attempt or how to
discriminate. His style was simple and direct, his speech as spontaneous
as that of an ingenuous, impetuous boy, his piety as transparent as
glass
The mystery of mysteries was the cooking of the Thanksgiving din-
ner. To most of us, at that period, the long crane in the monster fire-
place was a novelty, and the iron kettles of varied shapes and sizes
hanging upon it, with their boiling and stewing contents, of greater
moment than the British Museum has ever been to us since. Steaming
pies, mince, apple, and pumpkin, coming from the brick oven, together
with a regiment of puddings, whetted our appetites marvelously ; and
chickens roasting before the fire in a movable tin bake-oven were de-
clared " done " by a self-appointed committee a dozen times or more
before the banquet hour Arrived. The chicken pie, without which no
New England Thanksgiving could have been complete, we did not dis-
cover until we were served to it at the table. But we had secret advices
from our cheery host that it was baking, with a friendly caution against
indecorous interrogation where so many amateur cooks were concerned ;
and while we waited, with a polite exhibition of excessive patience not
very cordially felt, he charmed us with another invoice of captivating
stories.
C^arleg (Bra^am ^alpine,
BORN in Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, 1829. DIED in New York, N. Y..
THE THOUSAND AND THIRTY-SEVEN.
[Baked Meats of the Funeral. By Private Miles tfReilly. 1866.]
rpHREE years ago, to-day,
- We raised our hands to Heaven,
And, on the rolls of muster,
Our names were thirty-seven ;
There were just a thousand bayonets,
And the swords were thirty-seven,
As we took the oath of service
With our right hands raised to Heaven.
1835-60]
CHARLES GRAHAM HALF IN E.
Oh, 'twas a gallant day,
In memory still adored.
That day of our sun-bright nuptials
With the musket and the sword !
Shrill rang the fifes, the bugles blared,
And beneath a cloudless heaveu
Far flashed a thousand bayonets,
And the swords were thirty-seven.
Of the thousand stalwart bayonets
Two hundred march to-day;
Hundreds lie in Virginia swamps,
And hundreds in Maryland clay;
While other hundreds — less happy — drag
Their mangled limbs around,
And envy the deep, calm, blessed sleep
Of the battle-field's holy ground.
For the swords — one night a week ago,
The remnant, just eleven —
Gathered around a banqueting-board
With seats for thirty-seven.
There were two came in on crutches,
And two had each but a hand,
To pour the wine and raise the cup
As we toasted " Our Flag and Land! "
And the room seemed filled with whispers
As we looked at the vacant seats,
And with choking throats we pushed aside
The rich but uutasted meats ;
Then in silence we brimmed our glasses
As we stood up — just eleven —
And bowed as we drank to the Loved and the Dead
Who had made us Thirty-seven!
419
20 April, 1864.
SAMBO'S RIGHT TO BE KILT.
[Life and Adventures, Songs, etc., of Private Miles O'Reilly. 1864.]
SOME tell us 'tis a burnin' shame
To make the naygers fight ;
An' that the thrade of bein' kilt
Belongs but to the white:
But as for me, upon my sowl !
So liberal are we here,
I'll let Sambo be murthered instead of myself,
On every day in the year.
Q PHILANDER DEMIN&. [1835-60
On every day in the year, boys,
And in every hour of the day;
The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,
An' divil a word I'll say. ,
In battle's wild commotion
I shouldn't at all object
If Sambo's body should stop a ball
That was comin' for me direct ;
And the prod of a Southern bagnet,
So ginerous are we here,
I'll resign, and let Sambo take it.
On every day in the year.
On every day in the year, boys,
And wid none o' your nasty pride,
All my right in a Southern bagnet prod
Wid Sambo I'll divide !
The men who object to Sambo
Should take his place and fight ;
And it's betther to have a nayger's hue
Than a liver that's wake an' white.
Though Sambo's black as the ace of spades,
His finger a tlirigger can pull,
And his eye runs sthraight on the barrel-sights
From undher its thatch of wool.
So hear me all, boys darlin',
Don't think I'm tippin' you chaff,
The right to be kilt we'll divide wid him,
And give him the largest half !
1862.
BORN in Carlisle, Schoharie Co., N. T., 1829.
TOMPKINS.
[Tompkins and Other Folks. 1885.]
CTE was a small, wiry man, about forty years of age, with a bright
~L young face, dark eyes, and iron-gray hair. We were reclining in
a field, under a clump of pines, on a height overlooking Lake Cham-
plain. Near by were the dull-red brick buildings of the University of
Vermont Burlington, blooming with flowers and embowered in trees,
sloped away below us. Beyond the town, the lake, a broad plain of
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMING. ^\
liquid blue, slept in the June sunshine, and in the farther distance tow-
ered the picturesque Adirondacks.
" It is certainly true," said Tompkins, turning upon his side so as to
face me, and propping his head with his hand, while his elbow rested on
the ground. " Don't you remember, I used to insist that they were
peculiar, when we were here in college?"
I remembered it very distinctly, and so informed my old classmate.
" I always said," he continued, " that I could not do my best in New
England, because there is no sentiment in the atmosphere, and the peo-
ple are so peculiar."
"You have been living in Chicago?'1' I remarked inquiringly.
" That has been my residence ever since we were graduated ; that is,
for about seventeen years," he replied.
"You are in business there, I believe?" I questioned.
Tompkins admitted that he was, but did not name the particular line.
"Halloo!" he suddenly called out, rising to his feet, and looking
toward the little brown road near us. I looked in the same direction,
and saw a plainly dressed elderly couple on foot, apparently out for a
walk. Tompkins went hastily toward them, helped the lady over the
fence, the gentleman following, and a moment later I was introduced to
Mr. and Mrs. Pember, of Chicago.
Tompkins gathered some large stones, pulled a board off the fence in
rather a reckless manner, and fixed a seat for the couple where they
could lean against a tree. When they were provided for, I reclined
again, but Tompkins stood before us, talking and gesticulating.
" This," said he, " is the identical place, Mrs. Pember. Here you can
see the beauties I have so often described. Before you are the town and
the lake, and beyond them the mountains of Northern New York ; and
(if you will please to turn your head) that great blue wall behind you,
twenty miles away, is composed of the highest mountains in Vermont.
Ifce mountains in front of you are the Adirondacks, and those behind
you are the Green Mountains. You are at the central point of this
magnificent Champlain Valley ; and you are comfortably seated here
beneath the shade, on this the loveliest day of summer. Dear friends,
I congratulate you," and Tompkins shook hands with Mr. and Mrs.
Pember.
" And there, Timothy," observed the old gentleman, pointing at the
University buildings with his cane, " is actually where you went to col-
lege."
" It was in those memorable and classic halls, as my classmate here
can testify," replied Tompkins. " And here we roamed in ' Academus'
sacred shade,' and a good deal beyond it. We went fishing and boating
during term-time, and made long trips to the mountains in the vaca-
PHILANDER DEMIXG. [1835-60
4^Z
tions. In the mean time this wonderful valley was photographed upon
the white and spotless sensorium of my youthful soul."
"Going, going, going!" cried Mrs. Pember, with a light, rippling
laugh, glancing at me. " That is the way I stop Mr. Tompkins when he
gets too flowery."
Tompkins .looked at me and reddened. " I own up," he remarked, " I
am an auctioneer in Chicago."
I hastened to say that I felt sure he was a good one, and added, in the
kindest way I could, that I had just been wondering how he had become
such a good talker.
" Is it a good deal of a come-down ? " asked Tompkins, with a mix-
ture of frankness and embarrassment.
I replied that the world was not what we had imagined in our college
days, and that the calling of an auctioneer was honorable.
A general conversation followed, in the course of which it appeared
that Tompkins had boarded at the home of the Pembers for several
years. They evidently looked upon him almost as their own son.
They were travelling with him during his summer rest.
"This is a queer world," observed Tompkins, dropping down beside
me, and lying flat on his back, with his hands under his head. " I came
to college from a back neighborhood over in York State, and up to the
day I was graduated, and for a long time afterward, I thought I must be
President of the United States, or a Presbyterian minister, or a great
poet, or something remarkable, and here I am an auctioneer."
Occasional remarks were made by the rest of us for a while, but soon
the talking was mainly done by Tompkins.
Said he, " Since I was graduated, I never was back here but once
before, and that was four years ago next August. I was travelling this
way then, and reached here Saturday evening. I was in the pork busi-
ness at that time, as a clerk, and had to stop off here to see a man for
the firm. I put up at the best hotel, feeling as comfortable and indiffer-
ent as I ever did in my life. There was not the shadow of an idea in
my mind of what was going to happen. On Sunday morning I walked
about town, and it began to come down on me."
" What, the town ? " asked Mrs. Pember.
" No ; the strangest and most unaccountable feeling I ever had in my
life," answered Tompkins. "It was thirteen years since I had said
good-by to college. It had long ago become apparent to me that the
ideas with which I had graduated were visionary and impracticable. I
comprehended that the college professors were not the great men I
had once thought them, and that a college president was merely a
human being. I had been hardened by fighting my way, as a friendless
young man has to do in a great city. As the confidential clerk of a
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMINO. 423
large pork-house in Chicago, I felt equal to the ' next man,' whoever he
might be. If a professor had met me as I got off the cars here Saturday
night, it would have been easy for me to snub him. But Sunday morn-
ing, as familiar objects began to appear in the course of my walk, the
strange feeling of which I have spoken came over me. It was the
feeling of old times. The white clouds, the blue lake, this wonderful
scenery, thrilled me, and called back the college dreams."
As he spoke, my old classmate's voice trembled.
" You may remember that I used to like Horace and Virgil and
Homer," he remarked, sitting up, crossing his feet tailor-fashion, and
looking appealingly at me.
I replied, enthusiastically and truly, that he had been one of our best
lovers of the poets.
"Well," continued Tompkins, "that Sunday morning those things
began to come back to me. It wasn't exactly delightful. My old ambi-
tion to do something great in the world awoke as if from a long sleep.
As I prolonged my walk the old associations grew stronger. When I
came near the college buildings it seemed as if I still belonged here.
The hopes of an ideal career were before me as bright as ever. The
grand things I was going to do, the volumes of poems and other writ-
ings by Tompkins, and his marvellous successes were as clear as day.
In short, the whole thing was conjured up as if it were a picture, just
as it used to be when I- was a student in college, and it was too much
for me."
Tompkins seemed to be getting a little hoarse, and his frank face was
very serious.
"Timothy," suggested Mr. Pember, "may be you could tell us what
that big rock is, out in the lake."
" Why, father, don't you remember ? That is rock Dunder," said
Mrs. Pember.
" I guess it is," said the old gentleman, musingly.
" Well," resumed Tompkins, " as I was saying, on one side were
Homer and Virgil and Horace and Tompkins, and on the other was
pork. I cannot explain it, but somehow there it was. The two pic-
tures, thirteen years apart, were brought so close together that they
touched. It was something I do not pretend to understand. Managing
to get by the college buildings, I came up to this spot where we are now.
You will infer that my eyes watered badly, and to tell the truth they
did. Of course it is all very well," explained Tompkins, uncrossing his
legs, turning upon his side, and propping his head on his hand again, —
"of course it is all very well to rake down the college, and say Alma
Mater doesn't amount to anything. The boys all do it, and they believe
what they say for the first five or six years after they leave here. But
424 PHILANDER DEMING. [1835-60
we may as well understand that if we know how to slight the old lady,
and don't go to see her for a dozen years, she knows how to punish.
She had me across her knee, that Sunday morning, in a way that I
would have thought impossible. After an hour I controlled myself,
and went back to the hotel. I brushed my clothes, and started for
church, with a lump in my throat all the while. My trim business
suit didn't seem so neat and nobby as usual. The two pictures, the one
of the poets and the other of pork, were in my mind. I shied along the
sidewalk in a nervous condition, and reaching the church without being
recognized managed to get a seat near the door. Could I believe my
senses ? I knew that I was changed, probably past all recognition, but
around me I saw the faces of my Burlington friends exactly as they had
been thirteen years before. I did not understand then, as I do now,
that a young man in business in Chicago will become gray-headed in ten
years, though he might have lived a quiet life in Yermont for a quarter
of a century, without changing a hair."
"It is the same with horses," suggested Mr. Pember. u Six years on
a horse-car in New York about uses up an average horse, though he
would have been good for fifteen years on a farm."
" Exactly," said Tompkins. " You can imagine how I felt that Sun-
day, with my hair half whitewashed."
" You know I always said you might have begun coloring your hair,
Timothy," said Mrs. Pember kindly.
'' Yes," replied Tompkins, with an uneasy glance at me ; " but I
didn't do it. There was one thing in the church there, that morning,
that I shall never have a better chance to tell of, and I am going to tell
it now, while you are here."
This last sentence was addressed to me, and my old classmate uttered
the words with a gentleness and a frankness that brought back my best
recollections of him in our college days, when he was " little Tomp-
kins," the warmest-hearted fellow in our class.
" Do you remember Lucy Gary ? " he asked.
I replied that I did, very well indeed ; and the picture of a youthful
face, of Madonna-like beauty, came out with strange distinctness from
the memories of the past, as I said it.
" Well, I saw Lucy there," continued Tompkins, " singing in the choir
in church, looking just as she did in the long-ago days when we used to
serenade her. I am willing to tell you about it."
Tompkins said this in such a confiding manner that I instinctively
moved toward him and took hold of his hand.
" All right, classmate," he said, sitting up, and looking me in the eyes
m (%&eiCUliarly winninS Wa7 that nad won us all when he was in college.
Why, boys ! " exclaimed Mrs. Pember, with her light laugh.
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMING. 425
Tompkins found a large stone, put it against a tree, and sat down on
it, while I reclined at his feet. He said :
" You have asked me, Mrs. Pember, very often, about the people up
here, and now I will tell you about some of them. Do you notice that
mountain away beyond the lake, in behind the others, so that you can
see only the top, which is shaped like a pyramid ? That is old White-
face, and it is more than forty miles from here. It used to be under-
stood that there was nothing whatever over there except woods and
rocks and bears and John Brown. But the truth is, right at the foot of
the mountain, in the valley on this side, there is a little village called
Wilmington, and it is the centre of the world. Lucy Gary and I were
born there. It was not much of a village then, and it is about the same
now. There was no church, and no store, and no hotel, in my time ;
there were only half a dozen dwelling-houses, and a blacksmith shop,
and a man who made shoes. Lucy lived in the house next to ours.
Her father was the man who made shoes. Lucy and I picked berries
and rambled about with Rover, the dog, from the time we were little.
Of course you will naturally think there is something romantic coming,
but there is not. We were just a couple of children playing together;
and we studied together as we grew older. They made a great deal of
studying and schooling over there. They had almost as much respect
for learning then in Wilmington as they have now among the White
Mountains, where they will not allow any waiters at the hotels who can-
not talk Greek.
"It was quite an affair when Lucy and I left Wilmington and came
to Burlington. The departure of two inhabitants was a loss to the town.
It was not equal to the Chicago fire, but it was an important event. I
went to college, and Lucy came over the lake to work in a woollen fac-
tory. There is where she worked," pointing to the beautiful little vil-
lage of Winooski, a mile away behind us, in the green valley of Onion
River.
" And she had to work there for a living, while you went to col-
lege?" asked Mrs. Pember.
" That was it," said Tompkins. " We used to serenade her some-
times, with the rest ; but she seemed to think it was not exactly the
right thing for a poor factory -girl, and so we gave it up. I used to see
her occasionally, but somehow there grew up a distance between us."
" How was that ? " inquired Mrs. Pember.
"Well, to tell the truth," answered Tompkins, "I think my college
ideas had too much to do with it. I did not see it at the time, but it
has come over me lately. When a young chap gets his head full of new
ideas, he is very likely to forget the old ones."
" You did not mean to do wrong, I am sure," said Mrs. Pember.
*26 PHILANDER DEMING. [1835-60
"The excuse I have," continued Tompkins, "is that I had to work
and scrimp and suffer so myself, to get along and pay my way, that I
hardly thought of anything except my studies and how to meet my
expenses. Then there was that dream of doing some great thing
in the world. I taught the district school in Wilmington three months
during my sophomore year to get money to go on with, and I think
that helped to make me ambitious. It was the sincere conviction of the
neighborhood over there that I would be president of the college or of
the United States. I do not think they would have conceded that there
was much difference in the two positions. I felt that I would be dis-
graced if I did not meet their expectations. By one of those coinci-
dences which seemed to follow our fortunes, Lucy made a long visit
home when I was teaching in Wilmington. She was one of my pupils.
She was a quiet little lady, and hardly spoke a loud word, that I remem-
ber, all winter."
" Did you try to talk to her, Timothy? " asked Mrs. Pember.
" I do not claim that I did," answered Tompkins. "I was studying
hard to keep up with my class, and that was the reason. But I wish I
had paid more attention to Lucy Gary that winter. I would not have
you think there was anything particular between Lucy and me. It was
not that"
"We will think just what we please," interrupted Mrs. Pember, in a
serious tone.
" Well," continued the narrator, " it would be absurd to suppose there
was any such thing."
There was a long pause. " You had better tell the rest of the story,
Timothy," said the old gentleman, persuasively.
"Yes, I will," responded Tompkins. "After I came back to college
I got along better than before I had taught. The money I received for
teaching helped me, and another thing aided me. The folks in Wil-
mington found out how a poor young man works to get through college.
Some of us used to live on a dollar a week apiece, and board ourselves
in our rooms, down there in the buildings ; and we were doing the hard-
est kind of studying at the same time. We would often club together,
one doing the cooking for five or six. The cook would get off without
paying. It was one of the most delightful things in the world to see a
tall young man in a calico dressing-gown come out on the green, where
we would be playing foot-ball, and make the motions ot beating an
imaginary gong for dinner. In order to appreciate it, you need to work
hard and play hard and live on the slimmest kind of New England fare.
But there is one thing even better than that. To experience the most
exquisite delight ever known by a Burlington student, you ought to
have an uncle Jason. While I was teaching in Wilmington, my uncle
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMINO. 427
Jason, from North Elba, which was close by, carne there. When he
found out what an important man I was, and how I was fighting my
way, he sympathized wonderfully. He was not on good terms at our
house, but he called at my school, and almost cried over me. He was
not a man of much learning, but he looked upon those who were edu-
cated as a superior order of beings. I was regarded in the neighbor-
hood as a sort of martyr to science, a genius who was working himself
to death. I was the only public man ever produced by the settlement
up to that date. It was part of the religion of the place to look upon
me as something unusual, and uncle Jason shared the general feeling.
I could see, as he sat there in the school-house observing the school,
that he was very proud of me. Before leaving, he called me into the
entry and gave me a two-dollar bill. It was generous, for he was a poor
man, and had his wife and children to support. It brought the tears to
my eyes when he handed me the money, and told me I was the flower of
the family and the pride of the settlement. I felt as if I would rather
die than fail of fulfilling the expectations of my friends. There was
great delight in it, and it was an inexpressible joy to know that my rela-
tives and the neighbors cared so much for me.
" To comprehend this thing fully, Mrs. Pember, you ought to be in
college, and when you are getting hard up, and see no way but to
leave, get letters, as I did from uncle Jason, with five or six dollars at a
time in them. Such a trifle would carry you through to the end of the
term, and save your standing in the class. If you were a Burlington
college boy, while you might be willing to depart this life in an honor-
able manner, you would not be willing to lose your mark and standing
as a student. You would regard the consequences of such a disaster as
very damaging to your character, and certain to remain with you forever.
"I may as well say, while it is on my mind, that I do think this mat-
ter of education is a little overdone in this part of the country. A
young man is not the centre of the universe merely because he is a col-
lege student, or a graduate, and it is not worth while to scare him with
any such idea. The only way he can meet the expectation of his
friends, under such circumstances, is to get run over accidentally by the
cars. That completes his martyrdom, and affords his folks an opportu-
nity to boast of what he would have been if he had lived."
"Tell us more about Lucy," said Mrs. Pember.
"Yes, certainly," replied Tompkins. "Lucy had a wonderful idea of
poetry and writing. It is really alarming to a stranger to see the feel-
ing there is up here in that way. The impression prevails generally
that a writer is superior to all other people on earth. I remember to
have heard that one of our class, a year after we were graduated, started
a newspaper back here about ten miles, on the bank of the Onion Eiver.
49g PHILANDER DEMING. [1835-60
He might just as well have started it under a sage bush out on the
alkali plains. He gave it some queer Greek name, and I heard that the
publication was first semi-weekly, then weekly, and then very weakly
indeed, until it came to a full stop at the end of six months. It would
have been ridiculous anywhere else ; but being an attempt at literature,
I suppose it was looked upon here as respectable."
" And did you use to write poetry ? " queried Mrs. Pember.
" Not to any dangerous extent," replied Tompkins. " I do not deny
that I tried while in college, but I reformed when I went West. I
think uncle Jason always had an idea that it might be better for me to
be Daniel Webster. He stood by me after I left college, and for three
years I continued to get those letters, with five or six dollars at a time in
them. They kept me from actual suffering sometimes, before I got down
off my stilts, and went to work, like an honest man, in the pork business."
" I thought you were going to tell us something about that girl," sug-
gested Mrs. Pember.
" Yes, I was," rejoined Tompkins. " When I saw Lucy here, four
years ago, in the gallery with the singers, I felt as if it would be impos-
sible for me to face her and talk with her. She would not have known
me, for one thing. When I was a brown-haired boy, making poetry
and being a martyr, and doing serenading, and living on codfish and
crackers and soup, I could meet Lucy with a grand air that made her
shudder; but, as I sat there in church, gray and worn, I dreaded to
catch her eye, or have her see me. Although there was not three years'
difference in our ages, yet it seemed to me that I was very old, while
she was still blooming. Then there was the feeling that I had not
become a great poet, or orator, or anything really worth while. On the
contrary, I was just nobody. It seemed like attending my own funeral.
I felt disgraced. Of course it was not all true. I had been a good,
square, honest, hard-working man."
" Yes, you had indeed, Timothy," assented Mrs. Pember, with an
emphatic nod.
"Yes indeed, I had," repeated Tompkins, his chin quivering. "It
was not the thing for a fair-minded man to think so poorly of himself ;
but I was alone, and the old associations and the solemn services were
very impressive. There was Lucy in the choir ; she always could sing
like a nightingale. When I heard her voice again, it overcame me. I
did not hear much of the sermon. I think it was something about
temptation and the suggestions of the evil one ; but I am not sure, for I
had my head down on the back of the pew in front of me most of the
time. I had to fight desperately to control my feelings. One minute I
would think that as soon as the services closed I would rush around and
shake hands with my old acquaintances, and the next minute would be
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMING. 42 9
doing my best to swallow the lump in my throat. It was as tough a
sixty minutes as I ever passed. But finally the services were ended. I
felt that it was plainly my duty to stop in the porch and claim the
recognition of my friends. I did pause, and try for a few seconds to
collect myself; but the lump grew bigger and choked me, while the
tears would flow. Besides that, as the adversary just then, in the mean-
est possible manner, suggested to my soul, there was that pork. I knew
I would have to tell of it if I stopped. But I did not stop ; I retreated.
When I reached my room in the hotel I felt a longing to get out of
town. Fortunately, I could not leave on Sunday. So in the after-
noon I sat with the landlord on his broad front platform, or piazza.
It was not the person who keeps the place now, but one of the oldest
inhabitants, who knew all about the Burlington people. He guessed
that I was a college boy ; he thought he remembered something about
my appearance. I did not mind talking freely with a landlord, for
hotels and boarding-houses had been my home in Chicago. I had
always been a single man, just as I am to this day. This landlord was
a good-hearted old chap, and it was pleasant to talk with him. While
we were sitting there, who should come along the street but Lucy, with
a book in her hand. She was on the opposite sidewalk, and did not
look up. She would not look at a hotel on Sunday. I asked the land-
lord about her, and he told me all there was to tell. She was living in
one end of a little wooden cottage over toward Winooski, another fac-
tory-woman occupying the other part of the house. They made a home
together. The landlord said Lucy was an excellent woman, and might
have married one of the overseers in the factory any time she chose for
years back, but that she preferred a single life.
"When I got back to Chicago I kept thinking about Lucy Gary.
The old times when we used to live in Wilmington came back to my
mind. The truth of it was, I was getting along a little, at last, in Chi-
cago in the way of property, and I found myself all the while planning
how I could have Lucy Gary near me."
"Did you want to marry her, Timothy? " inquired Mrs. Pember.
" It was not that," he replied ; " but I wanted to become acquainted
with her again. I knew she was the best girl I had ever seen. She
always was just as good and pious as anybody could be. We were like
brother and sister, almost, when young ; and when I thought of home
and my folks and old Wilmington and the college days, somehow Lucy
was the centre of it all. In fact, almost everything else was gone. My
folks were scattered, and Lucy and uncle Jason were nearly the only
persons up this way that I could lay claim to. There is a kind of lone-
some streak comes over a man when he has been grinding away in a
great city for a good many years, and comes back to the old places, and
,«Q PHILANDER DEMING. [1835-GO
sees them so fresh and green and quiet, and he can't get over it He
will cling to anything that belongs to old times. I was strongly influ-
enced to write to Lucy, but finally I did not I determined that I
would get all I could for two or three years, and then I would come
here and face things. I would get something comfortable, and would
have a place I could call my own in Chicago. Then, when I had it
fixed, I would come and see uncle Jason and Lucy, and stand the racket
Of course it was nonsense to feel shy, but it seemed to me that I could
not say a word until I had something to brag of. They knew, in a gen-
eral kind of way, that I was in Chicago, dealing in pork, or doing auc-
tioneering or something, and that was as much humiliation as I could
endure. To be sure, it was nothing to be ashamed of, for I had been an
honest, faithful man ; but to come back to my friends empty-handed,
without money or fame, and gray-headed at that, was more than I could
stand. If I had had anything or been anything, just to take the edge off,
I could have managed it. As it was, I looked ahead and worked. If
any man in Chicago has tried and planned and toiled during the last
three years, I am that man. There has been a picture before my mind
of a pleasant home there."
"And have you calculated to marry Lucy Carv ? " inquired Mrs.
Pember, in an eager voice.
" Perhaps it was not just in that way I thought of it," replied the nar-
rator, very seriously. " You know I told you that the landlord said she
preferred a single life."
"Timothy Tompkins," exclaimed the old lady apprehensively, "don't
deny it, — don't ! Think how dreadfully you will feel if you know you
have told a lie ! "
"It is nothing to be ashamed of, Timothy," said Mr. Pember. in a
kind and sympathetic voice.
"If you put it in that way," answered my old classmate, in strangely
mournful tones, " all I can say is, there was never anything between us,
— nothing at all."
"And did you come here this time to see her?" inquired Mrs. Pem-
ber, almost starting from her seat, and with the thrill of a sudden guess
in her voice.
"I suppose it was as much that as anything," replied Tompkins dog-
gedly, looking down, and poking with a short stick in the ground at his
feet
"And that is what has made you act so queer," mused Mrs. Pember.
" Have you seen her? "
" Let him tell the story, Caroline," urged the old gentleman peevishly.
Tompkins looked gloomily out upon the lake and the broad landscape
for a few moments ; and then, resuming his narrative, said •
1835-60] PHILANDER DEMINO. 43 ^
" As I was saying, I have worked hard, and have got a nice little pile.
I am worth thirty-five thousand dollars. When I made up my mind to
come East this summer, the money to pay uncle Jason for what he had
done was all ready. It made me choke to think how long I had let it
run. I figured it up as near as I could — the two hundred that came to
me in college, and the two hundred after that; and I put in the simple
interest at seven per cent, according to the York State law, which
brought the sum total up to nearly nine hundred ; and to fix it all right
I made it an even thousand dollars. Then I bought a new buckskin
bag, and went to a bank in Chicago and got the money all in gold. I
knew that would please uncle Jason. He once talked of going to Cali-
fornia to dig. I suppose he had never seen a pile of the real yellow
coin in his life. I wrote to him that I was to be in Burlington, and that
I would be ever so glad if he would come over and see me. I met him
yesterday afternoon, as he got off the boat, down at the steamboat land-
ing. He knew me, and I knew him, although we were both changed a
good deal. After we had talked a little, and got used to each other, I
took him up to my room in the hotel. I was in a hurry to get at' the
business part of my visit with him first ; for it seemed to me that it
would be better to let him see, to begin with, that I was not exactly
poor, nor such an ungrateful cub as may be he had thought I was. It
was my resolve that before we talked of anything else I would get that
money off my conscience. I knew that then I could hold up my head,
and discuss our neighborhood and old times, and it would be plain sail-
ing for me. I had pictured to my mind a dozen times how uncle Jason
would look with that new yellow buckskin bag crammed with gold on
his knee, steadying it with his hand and talking to me. So when I got
him up to my room, and seated him in a chair, I began the performance.
I got red in the face, and spluttered, and flourished round with the bag
and the gold ; and, to tell the truth, I fully expected to make the old
man's hair rise right up. But it did not work. He got shaky and
trembled, and somehow did not seem to want the money at all, and
finally owned how it was. He said that he had never given me a cent;
it was all Lucy Gary's doing. And she had made him promise, on his
everlasting Bible oath, as he called it, that he would not tell. She had
put him up to the whole thing ; even that first two-dollar bill had come
from her wages."
My old classmate ceased speaking. He was becoming flushed and
excited. He gazed abstractedly at the broad blue mirror of old Cham-
plain, upon which he and I had looked together so often in the days of
our youth.
Mr. Pember sat silently. Mrs. Pember was whimpering behind her
handkerchief.
432
GUT HUMPHREYS M' MASTER. [1835-60
I ventured the inquiry, "Have you seen Lucy yet? "
Tompkins's face quivered ; he was silent.
Mrs. Pember's interest in the question restored her. " Tell us, have
you seen her? " she asked.
'•I heard of it yesterday," Tompkins replied huskily, with an effort.
" Why, Timothy, what is the matter ? " cried Mrs. Pember, rising
from her seat and coming to him, as he bent his head and buried his
face in his hands. The motherly woman took off his soft hat, and
stroking his hair said : " You had better tell ; it will do you good." And
then she put his hat on again, and stood wiping her eyes in sympathy,
while he struggled with himself.
The storm of feeling passed away, and Tompkins, having gained con-
trol of his emotions, slowly lifted his face from his hands, and sat peer-
ing out under his hat-brim, looking apparently at a boat upon the lake.
At last he said, in a calm voice: " She is dead."
It was very still after this announcement. The softest breath of June
scarcely whispered in the pines overhead, and the vast landscape below
seemed strangely at rest in the fervid brightness of the summer noon.
BORN in Clyde, N. Y., 1829. DIED at Bath, N. Y., 1887.
-\
CARMEN BELLICOSUM.
[The Knickerbocker Magazine. 1849.]
TN their ragged regimentals
-L Stood the old Continentals,
Yielding not,
While the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging
Cannon-shot ;
When the files
Of the isles,
From the smoky night-encampment, bore the banner of the rampant
Unicorn ;
And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer,
Through the morn !
Then with eyes to the front all,
And with guns horizontal,
Stood our sires :
1835-60] CARL SCHURZ.
While the balls whistled deadly,
And in streams flashing redly
Blazed the fires :
As the roar
On the shore
Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded acres
Of the plain ;
And louder, louder, louder, cracked the black gunpowder,
Cracking amain !
Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red St. George's
Cannoneers,
And the villainous saltpeter
Rang a fierce, discordant metre
Round our ears:
As the swift
Storm-drift,
With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor
On our flanks.
Then higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fashioned tire
Through the ranks !
Then the bare-headed Colonel
Galloped through the white infernal
Powder-cloud ;
And his broadsword was swinging,
And his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet-loud ;
Then the blue
Bullets flew,
And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the leaden
Rifle -breath ;
And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six-pounder,
Hurling death !
Carl
BOBN in Liblar, near Cologne, Germany, 1829.
CLAY.
[Life of Henry Clay. 1888.]
HIS most potent faculty has left the most imperfect monuments
behind it. He was without question the greatest parliamentary
orator, and one of the greatest popular speakers, America has ever had.
VOL. viii. — 28
CARL SCHURZ. [1835-60
Webster excelled him in breadth of knowledge, in keenness of reasoning,
in weight of argument, and in purity of diction. But Clay possessed in
a far higher degree the true oratorical temperament,— that force of nerv-
ous exaltation which makes the orator feel himself, and appear to others,
a superior being, and almost irresistibly transfuses his thoughts, his pas-
sions, and his will into the mind and heart of the listener. Webster
would instruct and convince and elevate, but Clay would overcome his
audience. There could scarcely be a more striking proof of his power
than the immediate effect we know his speeches to have produced upon
those who heard them, compared with the impression of heavy tameness
we receive when merely reading the printed reports.
In the elements, too, which make a man a leader, Clay was greatly the
superior of Webster, as well as of all other contemporaries, excepting
Andrew Jackson. He had not only in rare development the faculty of
winning the affectionate devotion of men, but his personality imposed
itself without an effort so forcibly upon others that they involuntarily
looked to him for direction, waited for his decisive word before making
up their minds, and not seldom yielded their better judgment to his
will-power.
While this made him a very strong leader, he was not a safe guide.
The rare brightness of his intellect and his fertile fancy served, indeed,
to make himself and others forget his lack of accurate knowledge and
studious thought ; but these brilliant qualities could not compensate for
his deficiency in that prudence and forecast which are required for the
successful direction of political forces. His impulses were vehement,
and his mind not well fitted for the patient analysis of complicated prob-
lems and of difficult political situations. His imagination frequently
ran away with his understanding. His statesmanship had occasionally
something of the oratorical character. Now and then he appeared to
consider it as important whether a conception or a measure would sound
well, as whether, if put into practice, it would work well. He disliked
advice which differed from his preconceived opinions ; ind with his
imperious temper and ardent cornbativeness he was apt, as in the strug-
gle about the United States Bank, to put himself, and to hurry his
party, into positions of great disadvantage. It is a remarkable fact that
during his long career in Congress he was in more or less pronounced
opposition to all administrations, even those of his own party, save that
of Jefferson, under which he served only one short session in the Senate,
and that of John Quincy Adams, of which he was a member.
On the other hand, he never sought to organize or strengthen his fol-
lowing by the arts of the patronage- monger. The thought that a politi-
cal party should be held together by the public plunder, or that the
party leader should be something like a paymaster of a body of hench-
1835-60] CARL SCHUEZ. 435
men at the public expense, or that a party contest should be a mere
scramble for spoils, was entirely foreign to his mind, and far below the
level of his patriotic aspirations.
It has been said that Clay was surrounded by a crowd of jobbers and
speculators eager to turn his internal improvement and tariff policies to
their private advantage. No doubt those policies attracted such persons
to him. But there is no reason for suspecting that he was ever in the
slightest degree pecuniarily interested in any scheme which might have
been advanced by his political position or influence. In no sense was he
a money-maker in politics. His integrity as a public man remained with-
out blemish throughout his long career. He preserved an equally intact
name in the conduct of his private affairs. In money-matters he was
always a man of honor, maintaining the principles- and the pride of a
gentleman. The financial embarrassments which troubled his declining
days were caused, not by reckless extravagance, nor by questionable
speculations, but by the expenses inseparable from high public station
and great renown, and by engagements undertaken for others, especially
his sons. He was a kind husband, and an indulgent father. There is
ample evidence of his warm solicitude as to the welfare of his children,
of his constant readiness to assist them with his counsel, and of his self-
sacrificing liberality in providing for their needs and in aiding them in
their troubles. . .
The desire of so distinguished a political leader to be President was
natural and legitimate. Even had he cherished it less ardently, his fol-
lowers would have more than once pushed him forward. But no one
can study Clay's career without feeling that he would have been a hap-
pier and a greater man if he had never coveted the glittering prize.
When such an ambition becomes chronic, it will be but too apt to unset-
tle the character and darken the existence of those afflicted with it by
confusing their appreciation of all else. As Caesar said that the kind of
death most to be desired was " a sudden one," so the American states-
man may think himself fortunate to whom a nomination for the presi-
dencv comes, if at all, without a long agony of hope and fear. During
a period of thirty years, from the time when he first aspired to be Mon-
roe's successor until 1848, Clay unceasingly hunted the shadow whose
capture would probably have added nothing either to his usefulness or
his fame, but the pursuit of which made his public life singularly rest-
less and unsatisfactory to himself. Nor did he escape from the sus-
picion of having occasionally modified the expression of his opinions
according to supposed exigencies of availability. The peculiar tone of
his speech against the Abolitionists before the campaign of 1840, his
various letters on the annexation of Texas in 1844, and some equivoca-
tions on other subjects during the same period, illustrated the weaken-
436 SILAS WEIR MITCHELL. [1835-60
ing influence of the presidential candidate upon the man ; and even his
oft-quoted word that he would "rather be right than be President" was
spoken at a time when he was more desirous of being President than
sure of being right
Whatever Clay's weaknesses of character and errors in statesmanship
may have been, almost everything he said or did was illumined by a
grand conception of the destinies of his country, a glowing national
spirit, a lofty patriotism. Whether he thundered against British tyranny
on the seas, or urged the recognition of the South American sister
republics, or attacked the high-handed conduct of the military chieftain
in the Florida war, or advocated protection and internal improvements,
or assailed the one-man power and spoils politics in the person of
Andrew Jackson, or entreated for compromise and conciliation regarding
the tariff or slavery ; whether what he advocated was wise or unwise,
right or wrong, — there was always ringing through his words a fervid
plea for his country, a zealous appeal in behalf of the honor and the
future greatness and glory of the Republic, or an anxious warning lest the
Union, and with it the greatness and glory of the American people, be
put in jeopardy. It was a just judgment which he pronounced upon
himself when he wrote : " If any one desires to know the leading and
paramount object of my public life, the preservation of this Union will
furnish him the key."
BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1829.
WITH A DECANTER OP MADEIRA.
[A Masque and other Poems. 1887.]
A DECANTER OF MADEIRA, AGED 86, TO GEORGE BANCROFT, AGED
GREETING :
/TJ.OOD Master, you and I were born
^~* In " Teacup days " of hoop and hood,
And when the silver cue hung down,
And toasts were drunk, and wine was good ;
When kin of mine (a jolly brood)
From sideboards looked, and knew full well
What courage they had given the beau,
How generous made the blushing belle.
1835-60] SILAS WEIR MITCHELL. 437
Ah ine! what gossip could I prate
Of days when doors were locked at dinners!
Believe me, I have kissed the lips
Of many pretty saints— or sinners.
Lip-service have I done, alack !
I don't repent, but come what may,
What ready lips, sir, I have kissed,
Be sure at least I shall not say.
Two honest gentlemen are we, —
I Demi John, whole George are you;
When Nature grew us one in years
She meant to make a generous brew.
She bade me store for festal hours
The sun our south-side vineyard knew;
To sterner tasks she set your life,
To statesman, writer, scholar, grew.
Years eighty-six have come and gone;
At last we meet. Your health to-night.
Take from this board of friendly hearts
The memory of a proud delight.
The days that went have made you wise,
There's wisdom in my rare bouquet.
I'm rather paler than I was ;
And, on my soul, you're growing gray.
I like to think, when Toper Time
Has drained the last of me and you,
Some here shall say, They both were good, —
The wine we drank, the man we knew.
NEWPORT, 3 October, 1886.
THE "HOT CORNER."
[Roland Blake. 1886.]
evening Francis received a hasty order to take three
-*• companies of the provost's guard to the front as reinforcements.
Blake asked leave to join the party, as for the time his duties did not
detain him. Receiving permission, he hastily rejoined his friend,.
A short march through dense woods and mud brought them into a
position indicated by an aid. It was for the time out of danger, and
Blake, despite his experience of war, began to look about him with the
interested curiosity which never left him. Before them rose a little
elevation, from which the ground fell away to the front; behind them,
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL. [1835-60
from a still higher eminence, a number of guns were throwing shells
over our lines into those of the rebels, who were replying in like fashion.
The earth was covered with the early green leaflets, twigs, and branches,
mowed by bullets which flew in constant flight overhead. The whoop
and scream of shells and the howl of solid shot made a chorus wild as
the orchestra of hell, and now and again the increasing fire of small arms
added the whir and whistle of their balls to the tumultuous din of war.
A half hour later an order to advance to the top of the slope carried
them forward under fire. Francis watched his men anxiously as they
fell into line on the summit of the hillock, aware that some of them had
seen but little service. Meanwhile a fragment of a brigade passed by
them, having fallen back in order to renew its ammunition. The
infantry men chaffed the dismounted troopers as they passed.
" Steady 1 " said Francis, with his ever-ready smile, — " steady ! " and
Blake moved along the line, talking to the men, and keenly observant.
Still the leaves and branches dropped as from unseen scythes in air,
and about them the bullets flew, now with a dull thud on the trees and
now with a duller sound on limb or trunk of man. A half-dozen men
dropped in as many minutes, and, as usual, the soldiers began to tend
into groups, with some instinctive sense of obtaining protection by
neighborhood to their fellows.
" Steady ! " said Francis ; " mark time ! Now, again ! That's better ! "
The signs of nervous excitement were visible enough : one man inces-
santly wiped his gun-barrel, another buttoned and unbuttoned his coat,
a third stood, pale and tremulous, looking hastily to left and right,
whilst a tall soldier attracted the attention of Blake by talking volubly.
"Now, steady!" said Blake, facing them and marking time as he
stepped backward. " So ! That will do. Now forward — double quick ! "
They passed the torn abatis and slashes which before dawn lay in
front of the rebel lines and now within our own, and in a few moments
were at the front, behind the breastworks to the left of the murderous
" Angle.'' Kneeling in double rows, they took the places left vacant by
a part of a regiment sent back in turn to replenish its cartridge belts.
The "Hot Corner" to the right and the adjoining lines, which Lee
had lost at dawn, had been furiously contested in repeated charges all
that long day of May. But now for a brief season there was a respite.
The firing ceased a few moments after they reached their station, and
Blake had leisure to observe the effect of the most ferocious struggle of
the war. The lines were straight to left and right, but to the westward
of where he stood was the " Hot Corner," better known as " the Angle."
Its open side looked towards the rebel lines. Originally a well-built
breastwork, it had been continually strengthened as chance allowed, and
was now a mass of earth, tree-trunks, and rails. The woods were dense
1 835-60 J SILAS WEIR MITCHELL. 439
on each side, and in them during the brief pauses in this awful day the
combatants of either side lay close to the disputed barrier. Blake walked
down the lines to the left, crouching low to avoid a shot. Before him
lay a broad clearing, and twelve hundred yards distant. a thick wood,
which sheltered the rebel lines and ran towards and up to the bloody
angle. The smoke lifted slowly, as if reluctantly unveiling the countless
wounded and dead in the open. The dusk was gradually deepening.
For an hour or two there had been no serious assault ; yet those who
had met the gallant Confederates knew but too well their habit of a final
and desperate onset just before nightfall. Officers came and went,
ammunition was distributed, tired men rose from brief repose, new bri-
gades came up, and a relative stillness of grim expectation fell on the
close-set lines behind the torn field-works. Then there was stir and
movement in among the distant woods. Forms of men dimly seen filled
the dark interspaces of the far-away forests across the clearing, and
swarmed out of them until long gray lines, one behind another, in close
formation, told to those who watched them what was coming.
Standing behind Francis's men, glass in hand, Blake awaited the onset.
His friend passed him, smiling as ever. The gray lines grew nearer,
advancing slowly ; the officers well in front, marking time, then pausing
and at last falling into and behind the moving mass. Then they came
faster. Just in front of Blake a single officer, in a gray shirt and with-
out a coat, kept his place before his men. The long gray line, five
hundred yards distant, broke with wild yells into a rush ; a fury of
musketry burst forth at the angle to the left in the denser woods ; officers
cried out, " Keep cool ! Steady ! Hold your fire ! "
Blake dropped his glass. Francis cried out to him, "Get down, you
fool ! " As he crouched he saw the now irregular line, and even the set,
grim faces of the men, — earth has seen no braver.
Then the fury of fire and smoke began, — an inconceivable tumult of
shouts, cries, oaths, the ping-ping of minie and musket-shot, and a dark-
ness of gray death-mists flashing venomous tongues of fire. Through
torn smoke-veils Blake saw the near faces, black and furious. Of the
awful struggle, as men were shot, stabbed, pulled over as prisoners to
either side, beaten down with clubbed muskets, he knew little that he
could recall a day after. There was a pause, confusion, wild shouts,
hurrahs, to left and right, a sense of having won, — he knew not how or
why, — and he found himself leaping down from the top of the breast-
work with an amazed sense of victory, in his left hand an empty revol-
ver, still smoking, in his right a broken musket. He drew a long breath,
and, perfectly exhausted, looked about him. He was unhurt. Around
him were prisoners, dead and wounded soldiers, men afoot tottering,
men on the ground convulsed, and a mere mob of smoke-begrimed
MUEAT HALSTEAD. [1835-60
440
soldiers, with alert officers swiftly moving to and fro, swearing, and
howling orders in an effort to get their people together.
The smoke lifted or blew away, and Blake stared half dazed at the
broken columns melted to a mob on the plain, some staggering, some
crawling away wounded, some in broken groups, the greater mass hud-
dled together and making for the sheltering forest
The fight was over; but not a hundred yards distant the colonel who
had led the immediate attack was seen in the dusky twilight walking
calmly and scornfully away. As he became visible, shots went by him.
Then a soldierly emotion touched some heart as brave as his own ; an
officer leaped on to the breastwork and called out, " Damn it, don't fire !
Three cheers for the Keb!" A wild hurrah rose from the Northern
line. Whether the officer concerned understood it or not were hard to
say, but he wheeled suddenly, faced our breastworks, saluted formally
as if on parade, and again turning, renewed hie walk, while cheer on
cheer thundered along our lines.
Blake raised his field-glass and watched him. Suddenly he saw him
sway, recover himself, and then, doubling up, drop on the ground.
" My God, how pitiful ! " exclaimed the New England man.
It was now getting darker; but Blake noted well where he fell. Vic-
tory is only less confusing than defeat. Threading his way through the
thickly-lying dead and wounded gray and blue, — for thrice the Confed-
erates had been within the captured lines, — he moved slowly along among
perplexing masses of intertangled brigades and regiments in search of
his friend. At last, returning, he found Francis. They shook hands
warmly. Both felt the immense sense of relief which the close of a battle
brings to the bravest.
jfturat
BORN in Paddy's Run, Butler Co., Ohio, 1829.
TO THE YOUNG MAN AT THE DOOR.
{Address on "The Maxims, Markets, and Missions of the Press," delivered before the
Wisconsin Press Association, 23 January, 1889.]
need to guard against ways of exclusiveness— against the
assumption that for some mysterious reason the press has rights
that the people have not ; that there are privileges of the press in which
the masses and the classes do not participate. The claim of privilege is
a senous error. One neither gains nor loses rights in a profession. We
1835-60] MURAT HAL8TEAD. 44}
have the same authority to speak as editors that we have as citizens. If
we use a longer " pole to knock the persimmons," because we have a
larger constituency for our conversational ability, that doesn't affect
rights. It simply increases responsibility. One can say of a merito-
rious man or enterprise, or of a rascally schemer or scheme, as an editor
the same that he could say as a citizen, a tax-payer, a lawyer, minister,
farmer, or blacksmith. It conduces to the better understanding of our
business to know that we are like other folks, and not set apart, bap-
tized, anointed, or otherwise sanctified, for an appointed and exclusive
and unique service.
It is in our line of occupation to buy white paper, impress ink upon
it in such form as may be expressive of the news and our views, and
agreeable to our friends or disagreeable to our foes, and sell the sheet,
when the paper becomes, by the inking thereof, that peculiar manufac-
tured product, a newspaper, for a margin of profit. We should not go
about magnifying our office. We are as gifted and good as anybody, so
far as our natural rights are concerned, and are better or worse according
to our behavior. It is our position to stand on the common ground with
the people, and publish the news, and tell the truth about it as well as
we can; and we shall, through influences certain in their operation, find
the places wherein we belong. No one can escape the logic of his labor.
Communications from young gentlemen in, or fresh from college, or
active in other shops, who propose to go into journalism or newspaper-
dom, and want to know how to do it, are a common experience, for there
is a popular fascination about our employment. There is nothing one
could know — neither faculty to perform nor ability to endure — perfection
of recollection, thoroughness in history, capacity to apply the lessons of
philosophy, comprehension of the law, or cultiavted intuition of the
Gospel — that would not be of service going into newspaperdom. But
it is beyond me to prescribe a course of study. It is easier, when you
have the knack, to do than to tell.
When the Young Man comes to say that he would be willing to under-
take to run a newspaper, — and we know that Young Man as soon as we
see his anxious face at the door, and sympathize with him, for we may
remember to have been at the door instead of the desk, and willing to
undertake the task of the gentleman who sat at the desk and asked what
was wanted — when perhaps the youth at the door had in his pocket an
essay on the Mound-builders that he believed was the news of the day —
and we don't like to speak unkindly to the Young Man. But there are
so many of him. He is so numerous that he is monotonous, and it is
not always fair to utter the commonplaces of encouragement It is well
to ask the Young Man, who is willing to come in and do things, what
he has done (and often he hasn't done anything but have his being).
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
44Z
What is it that he knows how to do better than any one else can do it?
If there be anything, the question settles itself, for one who knows how
to do right well something that is to do, has a trade. The world is
under his feet, and its hardness is firm footing. We must ask what the
Young Man wants to do ; and he comes back with the awful vagueness
that he is willing to do anything ; and that always means nothing at all.
It is the intensity of the current of electricity that makes the carbon
incandescent and illuminating. The vital flame is the mystery that is
immortal in the soul and in the universe.
Who can tell the Young Man how to grasp the magic clew of the
globe that spins with us ? There is no turnpike or railroad that leads
into journalism. There are no vacancies for didactic amateurs. Nobody
is wanted. And yet we are always looking out for Somebody, and once
in awhile he comes. He does not ask for a place, but takes that which
is his. Do not say to the Young Man, there are no possibilities. There
certainly are more than ever before. Young Man, if you want to get
into journalism, break in. Don't ask how. It is the finding of it out
that will educate you to do the essential thing. The Young Man must
enter the newspaper office by main strength and awkwardness, and make
a place for himself.
The machines upon which we impress the sheets we produce for the
market — and we all know how costly they are in their infinite variety
of improvements, for the earnings of the editor are swept away by the
incessant, insatiable requirements of the press-maker — this facile mecha-
nism is not more changeable than The Press itself, in its larger sense —
and the one thing needful, first and last, is Man. With all the changes,
the intelligence of the printer and the personal force of the editor are
indispensable.
BORN in Plainfield, Mass., 1829.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING.
[My Summer in a Garden. 1870.— Seventh Edition. 1888.]
HOEING AS A LUXURY.
IV/TY mind has been turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in
J*L a garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden
too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 443
be something in this : but when I go down the potato-rows, the rays of
the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my
face. I should be grateful for shade. What is a garden for ? The pleas-
ure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am
I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigor of
a few vegetables ? The thing is perfectly absurd. If I were rich, I
think I would have my garden covered with an awning, so that it would
be comfortable to work in it. It might roll up and be removable, as the
great awning of the Roman Coliseum was, — not like the Boston one,
which went off in a high wind. Another very good way to do, and
probably not so expensive as the awning, would be to have four persons
of foreign birth carry a sort of canopy over you as you hoed. And
there might be a person at each end of the row with some cool and
refreshing drink. Agriculture is still in a very barbarous stage. I hope
to live yet to see the day when I can do my gardening, as tragedy is
done, to slow and soothing music, and attended by some of the comforts
I have named. These things come so forcibly into my mind sometimes
as I work that perhaps, when a wandering breeze lifts my straw hat, or
a bird lights on a near currant-bush, and shakes out a full-throated sum-
mer song, I almost expect to find the cooling drink and the hospitable
entertainment at the end of the row. But I never do. There is nothing
to be done but to turn round and hoe back to the other end.
CALVIN.
Let us have peas. I have been a zealous advocate of the birds. I
have rejoiced in their multiplication. I have endured their concerts at
four o'clock in the morning without a murmur. Let them come, I said,
and eat the worms, in order that we, later, may enjoy the foliage and the
fruits of the earth. We have a cat, a magnificent animal, of the sex
which votes (but not a pole-cat), — so large and powerful that, if he were
in the army, he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposi-
tion, the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat,
and a splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation,
but in gathering in rats, mice, flying-squirrels, and also birds. When
he first brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to
convince him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong ; for he
is a reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the
binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no
effect. The killing of birds went on, to my great regret and shame.
The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen
the day before that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the
ground, planted, hoed, bushed them ! The bushes were very fine,—
... CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
seven feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the grow-
ing, the blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that
they had all podded for me ! When I went to pick them I found the
pods all split open, and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are
so fond of the strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left
as many as I planted; I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate
of the cost of the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labor, the
value of the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked
about me on the face of Nature. The wind blew from the south so soft
and treacherous ! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully ! All
Nature seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The
fowls of the air have peas ; but what has man !
I went into the house. I called Calvin. (That is the name of our
cat, given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness.
We never familiarly call him John.) I petted Calvin. I lavished upon
him an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault ; that the
one action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for
my interests. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw
how much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew.
If he had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue),
it would have been, "You need not teach your grandmother to suck
eggs." It was only the round of Nature. The worms eat a noxious
something in the ground. The birds eat the worms. Calvin eats the
birds. We eat — no, we do not eat Calvin. There the chain stops.
When you ascend the scale of being, and come to an animal that is, like
ourselves, inedible, you have arrived at a result where you can rest.
Let us respect the cat. He completes an edible chain.
The pleasure of gardening in these days when the thermometer is at
ninety, is one that I fear I shall not be able to make intelligible to my
readers, many of whom do not appreciate the delight of soaking in the
sunshine. I suppose that the sun, going through a man, as it will on
such a day, takes out of him rheumatism, consumption, and every other
disease, except sudden death— from sunstroke. But, aside from this,
there is an odor from the evergreens, the hedges, the various plants and
vines, that is only expressed and set afloat at a high temperature, which
is delicious; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come at intervals,
which can be heard in the tree-tops, and which is an unobtrusive bene-
diction. I hear a quail or two whistling in the ravine ; and there is a
good deal of fragmentary conversation going on among the birds, even
on the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a
good deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place;
sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watch-
ing my movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and genu-
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 445
ine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where
there is a good view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies
us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know
what we are to have for dinner. He is a connoisseur in the garden;
being fond of almost all the vegetables, except the cucumber,— a dietetic
hint to man. I believe it is also said that the pig will not eat tobacco.
These are important facts. It is singular, however, that those who hold
up the pigs as models to us never hold us up as models to the pigs.
I wish I knew as much about natural history and the habits of ani-
mals as Calvin does. He is the closest observer I ever saw ; and there
are few species of animals on the place that he has not analyzed. I
think that he has, to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got out-
side of every one of them, except the toad. To the toad he is entirely
indifferent ; but I presume he knows that the toad is the most useful
animal in the garden. I think the Agricultural Society ought to offer a
prize for the finest toad. When Polly comes to sit in the shade near
my strawberry-beds, to shell peas, Calvin is always lying near in appar-
ent obliviousness ; but not the slightest unusual sound can be made in
the bushes that he is not alert, and prepared to investigate the cause of
it. It is this habit of observation, so cultivated, which has given him
such a trained mind, and made him so philosophical. It is within the
capacity of even the humblest of us to attain this.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL PLUMBER.
Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose
society is more to be desired for this quality than that of plumb-
ers. They are the most agreeable men I know ; and the boys in the
business begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is
that they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain
became disabled : the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with
the implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There
was a good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was.
I found the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,—
talk by the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly
ingenious ; and their general observations on other subjects were excel-
lent in their way, and could hardly have been better if they had been
made by the job. The work dragged a little,— as it is apt to do by the
hour. The plumbers had occasion to make me several visits. Some-
times they would find, upon arrival, that they had forgotten some indis-
pensable tool ; and one would go back to the shop, a mile and a half,
after it ; and his comrade would await his return with the most exem-
plary patience, and sit down and talk, — always by the hour. I do not
446 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
know but it is a habit to have something wanted at the shop. They
seemed to me very good workmen, and always willing to stop and talk
about the job, or anything else, when I went near them. Nor had they
any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the bane of our American
civilization. To their credit be it said that I never observed anything
of it in them. They can afford to wait. Two of them will sometimes
wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes for a tool. They are pa-
tient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure to meet such men. One
only wishes there was some work he could do for them by the hour.
There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have very nearly solved
the problem of Life : it is to work for other people, never for yourself,
and get your pay by the hour. You then have no anxiety, and little
work. If you do things by the job, you are perpetually driven : the
hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail on the
stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of Pay,
whether you make any effort or not. Working by the hour tends to
make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew a
rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs continually
slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear, or
exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour.
Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the
flight of time seems to his calm mind !
IK PEAISE OF ONIONS.
A garden ought to produce one everything, — just as a business ought
to support a man, and a house ought to keep itself. We had a conven-
tion lately to resolve that the house should keep itself ; but it won't.
There has been a lively time in our garden this summer ; but it seems
to me there is very little show for it. It has been a terrible campaign ;
but where is the indemnity ? Where are all " sass " and Lorraine ? It
is true that we have lived on the country ; but we desire, besides, the
fruits of the war. There are no onions, for one thing. I am quite
ashamed to take people into my garden, and have them notice the
absence of onions. It is very marked. In onion is strength ; and a
garden without it lacks flavor. The onion in its satin wrappings is
among the most beautiful of vegetables ; and it is the only one that
represents the essence of things. It can almost be said to have a soul.
You take off coat after coat and the onion is still there ; and, when the
last one is removed, who dare say that the onion itself is destroyed,
though you can weep over its departed spirit ? If there is any one thing
on this fallen earth that the angels in heaven weep over more than
another, it is the onion.
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 447
I know that there is supposed to be a prejudice against the onion; but
I think there is rather a cowardice in regard to it. I doubt not that all
men and women love the onion ; but few confess their love. Affection
for it is concealed. Good New Englanders are as shy of owning it as
they are of talking about religion. Some people have days on which
they eat onions,— what you might call " retreats," or their " Thursdays."
The act is in the nature of a religious ceremony, an Eleusinian mystery ;
not a breath of it must get abroad. On that day they see no company ;
they deny the kiss of greeting to the dearest friend ; they retire within
themselves, and hold communion with one of the most pungent and
penetrating manifestations of the moral vegetable world. Happy is said
to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time
being, separate from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.
There is a hint here for the reformers. Let them become apostles of the
onion ; let them eat, and preach it to their fellows, and circulate tracts
of it in the form of seeds. In the onion is the hope of universal brother-
hood. If all men will eat onions at all times, they will come into a uni-
versal sympathy. Look at Italy. I hope I am not mistaken as to the
cause of her unity. It was the Eeds who preached the gospel which
made it possible. All the Reds of Europe, all the sworn devotees of the
mystic Mary Ann, eat of the common vegetable. Their oaths are strong
with it. It is the food, also, of the common people of Italy. All the
social atmosphere of that delicious land is laden with it. Its odor is a
practical democracy. In the churches all are alike ; there is one faith,
one smell. The entrance of Victor Emmanuel into Rome is only the
pompous proclamation of a unity which garlic had already accom-
plished ; and yet we, who boast of our democracy, eat onions in secret.
THE SCHOLAR'S MISSION.
[From an Address delivered before the Alumni of Hamilton College. — The Century
Magazine. 1872.]
THE scholar who is cultured by books, reflection, travel, by a refined
society, consorts with his kind, and more and more removes him-
self from the sympathies of common life. I know how almost inevi-
table this is, how almost impossible it is to resist the segregation of
classes according to the affinities of taste. But by what mediation shall
the culture that is now the possession of the few be made to leaven the
world and to elevate and sweeten ordinary life? By books? Yes. By
the newspaper? Yes. By the diffusion of works of art? Yes. But
44g CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
when all is done that can be done by such letters missive from one class
to another, there remains the need of more personal contact, of a human
sympathy,' diffused and living. The world has had enough of charities.
It wants respect and consideration. We desire no longer to be legis-
lated for, it says, we want to be legislated with. Why do you never
come to see me but you bring me something ? asks the sensitive and
poor seamstress. Do you always give some charity to your friends ? I
want companionship, and not cold pieces ; I want to be treated like a
human being who has nerves and feelings, and tears too, and as much
interest in the sunset, and in the birth of Christ, perhaps, as you. And
the mass of uncared-for ignorance and brutality,' finding a voice at
length, bitterly repels the condescensions of charity; you have your
culture, your libraries, your fine houses, your church, your religion, and
your God, too : let us alone, we want none of them. In the bear-pit at
Berne, the occupants, who are the wards of the city, have had meat
thrown to them daily for I know not how long, but they are not tamed
by this charity, and would probably eat up any careless person who fell
into their clutches, without apology.
Do not impute to me Quixotic notions with regard to the duties of
men and women of culture, or think that I undervalue the difficulties in
the way, the fastidiousness on the one side, or the jealousies on the
other. It is by no means easy to an active participant to define the
drift of his own age ; but I seem to see plainly that unless the culture
of the age finds means to diffuse itself, working downward and reconcil-
ing antagonisms by a commonness of thought and feeling and aim in
life, society must more and more separate itself into jarring classes, with
mutual misunderstandings and hatred and war. To suggest remedies is
much more difficult than to see evils ; but the comprehension of dan-
gers is the first step towards mastering them. The problem of our own
time — the reconciliation of the interests of classes — is as yet very illy
defined. This great movement of labor, for instance, does not know
definitely what it wants, and those who are spectators do not know what
their relations are to it. The first thing to be done is for them to try to
understand each other. One class sees that the other has lighter or at
least different labor, opportunities of travel, a more liberal supply of the
luxuries of life, a higher enjoyment and a keener relish of the beautiful,
the immaterial. Looking only at external conditions, it concludes that
all it needs to come into this better place is wealth, and so it organizes
war upon the rich, and it makes demands of freedom from toil and of
compensation which is in no man's power to give it, and which would
not, if granted over and over again, lift it into that condition it desires.
It is a tale in the Gulistan, that a king placed his son with a preceptor,
and said : " This is your son ; educate him in the same manner as your
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 449
own." The preceptor took pains with him for a year, but without suc-
cess, whilst his own sons were completed in learning and accomplish-
ments. The king reproved the preceptor, and said : " You have broken
your promise, and not acted faithfully." He replied: "O king, the
education was the same, but the capacities are different Although sil-
ver and gold are produced from a stone, yet these metals are not to be
found in every stone. The star Canopus shines all over the world, but
the scented leather comes only from Yemen." "'Tis an absolute, and,
as it were, a divine perfection," says Montaigne, "for a man to know
how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason
we do not understand the use of our own ; and go out of ourselves,
because we know not how there to reside."
But nevertheless it becomes a necessity for us to understand the
wishes of those who demand a change of condition, and it is necessary
that they should understand the compensations as well as the limitations
of every condition. The dervish congratulated himself that although
the only monument of his grave would be a brick, he should at the last
day arrive at and enter the gate of Paradise, before the king had got
from under the heavy stones of his costly tomb. Nothing will bring
us into this desirable mutual understanding except sympathy and per-
sonal contact. Laws will not do it; institutions of charity and relief
will not do it.
A MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY.
[In the Wilderness. ISIS.— Tenth Edition. 1888.]
Ij^AKLY on the morning of the 23d of August, 1877, a doe was feed-
-•— ^ ing on Basin Mountain. The night had been warm and showery,
and the morning opened in an undecided way. The wind was southerly :
it is what the deer call a dog-wind, having come to know quite well the
meaning of " a southerly wind and a cloudy sky." The sole companion
of the doe was her only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown coat
was just beginning to be mottled with the beautiful spots which make
this young creature as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its father, had
been that night on a long tramp across the mountain to Clear Pond, and
had not yet returned: he went ostensibly to feed on the succulent lily-
pads there. " He feedeth among the lilies until the day break and the
shadows flee away, and he should be here by this hour ; but he cometh
not," she said, " leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills."
Clear Pond was too far off for the young mother to go with her fawn for
a night's pleasure. It was a fashionable watering-place at this season
VOL. viii. — 29
450 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
among the deer; and the doe may have remembered, not without
uneasiness, the moonlight meetings of a frivolous society there. But the
buck did not come: he was very likely sleeping under one of the ledges
on Tight Nippin. Was he alone? "I charge you, by the roes and
by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not nor awake my love till he
The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the tender leaves of the young
shoots, and turning from time to time to regard her offspring. The
fawn had taken his morning meal, and now lay curled up on a bed of
moss, watching contentedly, with his large, soft brown eyes, every move-
ment of his mother. The great eyes followed her with an alert entreaty :
and, if the mother stepped a pace or two farther away in feeding, the
fawn made a half-movement, as if to rise and follow her. You see, she
was his sole dependence in all the world. But he was quickly reassured
when she turned her gaze on him ; and if, in alarm, he uttered a plain-
tive cry, she bounded to him at once, and, with every demonstration of
affection, licked his mottled skin till it shone again.
It was a pretty picture, — maternal love on the one part, and happy
trust on the other. The doe was a beauty, and would have been so con-
sidered anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day
shone on, — slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristo-
cratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes.
How alert, supple, free, she was ! What untaught grace in every move-
ment ! What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it
to regard her child ! You would have had a companion-picture, if you
had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby kicking about among the dry
pine-needles on a ledge above the Ausable, in the valley below, while its
young mother sat near, with an easel before her, touching in the color of
a reluctant landscape, giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of
the Twin Mountains, and bestowing every third glance upon the laugh-
ing boy,— art in its infancy.
The doe lifted her head a little with a quick motion, and turned her
ear to the south. Had she heard something ? Probably it was only the
south wind in the balsams. There was silence all about in the forest.
If the doe had heard anything, it was one of the distant noises of the
world. There are in the woods occasional meanings, premonitions of
change, which are inaudible to the dull ears of men, but which, I have
no doubt, the forest-folk hear and understand. If the doe's suspicions
were excited for an instant, they were gone as soon. With an affection-
ate glance at her fawn, she continued picking up her breakfast
But suddenly she started, head erect, eyes dilated, a tremor in her
limbs. She took a step ; she turned her head to the south ; she listened
intently. There was a sound,— a distant, prolonged note, bell-toned, per-
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
451
vading the woods, shaking the air in smooth vibrations. It was repeated.
The doe had no doubt now. She shook like the sensitive mimosa when
a footstep approaches. It was the baying of a hound ! It was far off,
at the foot of the mountain. Time enough to fly ; time enough to put
miles between her and the hound, before he should come upon her fresh
trail ; time enough to escape away through the dense forest, and hide in
the recesses of Panther Gorge; yes, time enough. But there was the
fawn. The cry of the hound was repeated, more distinct this time. The
mother instinctively bounded away a few paces. The fawn started up
with an anxious bleat : the doe turned ; she came back ; she couldn't
leave it. She bent over it, and licked it, and seemed to say, " Come, my
child: we are pursued: we must go." She walked away towards the
west, and the little thing skipped after her. It was slow going for the
slender legs, over the fallen logs, and through the rasping bushes. The
doe bounded in advance, and waited : the fawn scrambled after her
slipping and tumbling along, very groggy yet on its legs, and whining a
good deal because its mother kept always moving away from it. The
fawn evidently did not hear the hound: the little innocent would even
have looked sweetly at the dog, and tried to make friends with it, if the
brute had been rushing upon him. By all the means at her command
the doe urged her young one on ; but it was slow work. She might
have been a mile away while they were making a few rods. Whenever
the fawn caught up, he was quite content to frisk about. He wanted
more breakfast, for one thing ; and his mother wouldn't stand still. She
moved on continually; and his weak legs were tangled in the roots of
the narrow deer-path.
Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into a panic of terror, — a
short, sharp yelp, followed by a prolonged howl, caught up and re-
echoed by other bayings along the mountain-side. The doe knew what
that meant. One hound had caught her trail, and the whole pack
responded to the "view-halloo." The danger was certain now: it was
near. She could not crawl on in this way : the dogs would soon be upon
them. She turned again for flight: the fawn, scrambling after her,
tumbled over, and bleated piteouslv. The baying, emphasized now by
the yelp of certainty, came nearer. Plight with the fawn was impossible.
The doe returned and stood by it, head erect, and nostrils distended.
She stood perfectly still, but trembling. Perhaps she was thinking. The
fawn took advantage of the situation, and began to draw his luncheon
ration. The doe seemed to have made up her mind. She let him finish.
The fawn, having taken all he wanted, lay down contentedly, and the
doe licked him for a moment. Then, with the swiftness of a bird, she
dashed away, and in a moment was lost in the forest. She went in the
direction of the hounds.
4g9 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
According to all human calculations, she was going into the jaws of
death. So she was : all human calculations are selfish. She kept straight
on, hearing the baying every moment more distinctly. She descended
the slope of the mountain until she reached the more open forest of hard-
wood. It was freer going here, and the cry of the pack echoed more
resoundingly in the great spaces. She was going due east, when (judg-
ing by the sound, the hounds were not far off, though they were still
hidden by a ridge) she turned short away to the north, and kept on at a
good pace. In five minutes more she heard the sharp, exultant yelp of
discovery, and then the deep-mouthed howl of pursuit. The hounds had
struck her trail where she turned, and the fawn was safe.
The doe was in good running condition, the ground was not bad, and
she felt the exhilaration of the chase. For the moment, fear left her,
and she bounded on with the exaltation of triumph. For a quarter of
an hour she went on at a slapping pace, clearing the moose-bushes with
bound after bound, flying over the fallen logs, pausing neither for brook
nor ravine. The baying of the hounds grew fainter behind her. But
she struck a bad piece of going, a dead-wood slash. It was marvellous
to see her skim over it, leaping among its intricacies, and not breaking
her slender legs. No other living animal could do it. But it was kill-
ing work. She began to pant fearfully ; she lost ground. The baying
of the hounds was nearer. She climbed the hard-wood .hill at a slower
gait ; but, once on more level, free ground, her breath came back to her,
and she stretched away with new courage, and maybe a sort of contempt
of her heavy pursuers.
After running at high speed perhaps half a mile farther, it occurred
to her that it would be safe now to turn to the west, and, by a wide cir-
cuit, seek her fawn. But, at the moment, she heard a sound that chilled
her heart. It was the cry of a hound to the west of her. The crafty
brute had made the circuit of the slash, and cut off her retreat. There
was nothing to do but to keep on ; and on she went, still to the north,
with the noise of the pack behind her. In five minutes more she had
passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and young steers were grazing
there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down the mountain-
slope, were other clearings, broken by patches of woods. Fences inter-
vened ; and a mile or two down lay the valley, the shining Ausable, and
the peaceful farm-houses. That way also her hereditary enemies were.
Not a merciful heart in all that lovely valley. She hesitated : it was
only for an instant. She must cross the Slidebrook Valley if possible
and gain the mountain opposite. She bounded on ; she stopped. What
was that? From the valley ahead came the cry of a searching hound.
All the devils were loose this morning. Every way was closed but one,
and that led straight down the mountain to the cluster of houses. Con-
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 453
spicuous among them was a slender white wooden spire. The doe did
not know that it was the spire of -a Christian chapel. But perhaps she
thought that human pity dwelt there, and would be more merciful than
the teeth of the hounds.
" The hounds are baying on my track:
0 white man! will you send me back?"
In a panic, frightened animals will always flee to human-kind from
the danger of more savage foes. They always make a mistake in doing
so. Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of peace on earth; per-
haps it is a prophecy of the golden age of the future. The business of
this age is murder, — the slaughter of animals, the slaughter of fellow-
men, by the wholesale. Hilarious poets who have never fired a gun
write hunting-songs, — Ti-ra-la: and good bishops write war-songs, —
A.ve the Czar !
The hunted doe went down the " open," clearing the fences splendidly,
flying along the stony path. It was a beautiful sight. But consider
what a shot it was ! If the deer, now, could only have been caught !
No doubt there were tender-hearted people in the valley who would have
spared her life, shut her up in a stable, and petted her. Was there one
who would have let her go back to her waiting fawn? It is the business
of civilization to tame or kill.
The doe went on. She left the saw-mill on John's Brook to her right ;
she turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slidebrook, she saw
a boy standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were not in sight ;
but she could hear them coming down the hill. There was no time for
hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed she cleared the stream,
and, as she touched the bank, heard the " ping " of a rifle-bullet in the air
above her. The cruel sound gave wings to the poor thing. In a moment
more she was in the opening : she leaped into the travelled road. Which
way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay: a man and a boy,
with pitchforks in their hands, were running towards her. She turned
south, and flew along the street. The town was up. Women and chil-
dren ran to the doors and windows ; men snatched their rifles ; shots
were fired ; at the big boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never
have anything to do, came out and cheered; a camp-stool was thrown
from a veranda. Some young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow
saw the flying deer, and popped away at her ; but they were accustomed
to a mark that stood still. It was all so sudden ! There were twenty
people who were just going to shoot her ; when the doe leaped the road-
fence, and went away across a marsh toward the foot-hills. It was a
fearful gauntlet to run. But nobody except the deer considered it in
that light Everybody told what he was just going to do ; everybody
454 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1835-60
who had seen the performance was a kind of hero,— everybody except the
deer. For days and days it was the -subject of conversation; and the
summer boarders kept their guns at hand, expecting another deer would
come to be shot at.
The doe went away to the foot-hills, going now slower, and evidently
fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a
recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the
thin woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pur-
suit. By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues,
came swinging along, keeping the trail, like stupids, and consequently
losing ground when the deer doubled. But, when the doe had got into
the timber, she heard the savage brutes howling across the meadow.
(It is well enough, perhaps, to say that nobody offered to shoot the
dogs.)
The courage of the panting fugitive was not gone : she was game to
the tip of her high-bred ears. But the fearful pace at which she had
just been going told on her. Her legs trembled, and her heart beat like
a trip-hammer. She slowed her speed perforce, but still fled indus-
triously up the right bank of the stream. When she had gone a couple
of miles, and the dogs were evidently gaining again, she crossed the
broad, deep brook, climbed the steep left bank, and fled on in the direc-
tion of the Mount Marcy trail. The fording of the river threw the
hounds off for a time. She knew, by their uncertain yelping up and
down the opposite bank, that she had a little respite : she used it, how-
ever, to push on until the baying was faint in her ears ; and then she
dropped, exhausted, upon the ground.
This rest, brief as it was, saved her life. Roused again by the baying
pack, she leaped forward with better speed, though without that keen
feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the morning. It was still
a race for life; but the odds were in her favor, she thought. She did
not appreciate the dogged persistence of the hounds, nor had any inspi-
ration told her that the race is not to the swift. She was a little con-
fused in her mind where to go ; but an instinct kept her course to the
left, and consequently farther away from her fawn. Going now slower,
and now faster, as the pursuit seemed more distant or nearer, she kept
to the south-west, crossed the stream again, left Panther Gorge on her
right, and ran on by Haystack and Skylight in the direction of the
Upper Ausable Pond. I do not know her exact course through this
maze of mountains, swamps, ravines, and frightful wildernesses. I only
know that the poor thing worked her way along painfully, with sinking
heart and unsteady limbs, lying down " dead beat " at intervals, and then
spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs, until, late in the afternoon,
she staggered down the shoulder of Bartlett, and stood upon the shore of
1835-60J CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 455
the lake. If she could put that piece of water between her and her pur-
suers, she would be safe. Had she strength to swim it?
At her first step into the water she saw a sight that sent her back
with a bound. There was a boat mid-lake : two men were in it. One
was rowing: the other had a gun in his hand. They were looking
towards her : they had seen her. (She did not know that they had
heard the baying of hounds on the mountains, and had been lying in
wait for her an hour.) What should she do ? The hounds were draw-
ing near. No escape that way, even if she could still run. With only
a moment's hesitation she plunged into the lake, and struck obliquely
across. Her tired legs could not propel the tired body rapidly. She
saw the boat headed for her. She turned toward the centre of the lake.
The boat turned. She could hear the rattle of the oar-locks. It was
gaining on her. Then there was a silence. Then there was a splash of
the water just ahead of her, followed by a roar round the lake, the words
" Confound it all ! " and a rattle of the oars again. The doe saw the
boat nearing her. She turned irresolutely to the shore whence she
came : the dogs were lapping the water, and howling there. She turned
again to the centre of the lake.
The brave, pretty creature was quite exhausted now. In a moment
more, with a rush of water, the boat was on her, and the man at the oars
had leaned over and caught her by the tail.
" Knock her on the head with that paddle ! " he shouted to the gentle-
man in the stern.
The gentleman was a gentleman, with a kind, smooth-shaven face, and
might have been a minister of some sort of everlasting gospel. He took
the paddle in his hand. Just then the doe turned her head, and looked
at him with her great, appealing eyes.
" I can't do it ! my soul, I can't do it ! " and he dropped the paddle.
" Oh, let her go ! "
"Let H. go ! " was the only response of the guide as he slung the deer
round, whipped out his hunting-knife, and made a pass that severed her
jugular.
And the gentleman ate that night of the venison.
The buck returned about the middle of the afternoon. The fawn was
bleating piteously, hungry and lonesome. The buck was surprised. He
looked about in the forest. He took a circuit, and came back. His doe
was nowhere to be seen. He looked down at the fawn in a helpless
sort of way. The fawn appealed for his supper. The buck had nothing
whatever to give his child, — nothing but his sympathy. If he said any-
thing, this is what he said: "I'm the head of this family; but, really,
this is a novel case. I've nothing whatever for you. I don't know
456
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [1885-
what to do. I've the feelings of a father ; but you can't live on them.
Let us travel."
The buck walked away : the little one toddled after him. They dis-
appeared in the forest.
AMERICAN POSSIBILITIES.
[The Finer Issues of American Life.— From "The Southern Collegian." 1888.]
IT has lately been my fortune to travel over considerable portions of
the United States. I cannot tell you how my conception of the
extent, the variety, the resources, the power of the country has been
enlarged. The kindling vision I have of its magnitude and possibilities,
of pride in it, might seem to you the language of extravagance. But
what has impressed me more than the magnitude and the almost infinite
resources, and what has given me the most glowing hopes for the future
of the republic is the diversity, the individuality of towns, cities, States,
the independent life and sui generis development of each and all, the local
public spirit, the local public pride, the belief of every citizen that his
city is the handsomest, his State the best ; in short, a pride in his State
as, for one reason or another, the most important in the Federal Union.
There is not only diversity of climate, of production, but of character, of
manners, a free development of life in all conditions, and always some
variety in the working out of principles common to all States in each
State government ; in its institutions of education, of charity, of amuse-
ment, of social life. This variety is the charm of America ; in this vari-
ety is its safety. As to all the rest of the world, says the citizen, there
is the federal capitol ; as to the other States of the Union, here is my
State capitol! This State pride is as strong and assertive in the small-
est State as in the largest, in the newest-born as in any of the origi-
nal thirteen ; as active and as boastful in the new territory as in the
State — it declares itself as something definite in the fresh settlement as
soon as the tents are pitched and the horses coralled, and it is full-blown
while yet the capital is on wheels. Since I have seen and comprehended
this almost extravagant State appreciation, I have seen where resides the
certain check to the inconsiderate spirit of federal centralization. It is
simply wondrous how this local spirit plants itself everywhere with the
spreading republic, each new community crystallizing itself at once
as if it had the traditions of a century, and that it does not weaken,
while at the same time the national spirit grows stronger and more
assertive. It is a vast territory which we occupy, and it may be still
extended; if a spirit of centralization prevailed it would drop to pieces
1835-60] CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 457
of its own weight ; with State autonomy fully and stoutly maintained,
with an opportunity for local ambition and the freest local development,
it has every calculable chance of permanence
If the human race ever had a chance to come to something fine and
noble it is here in America, where deve]opment is so free, so little hin-
dered, and where State communities have had opportunity to evolve so
freely their peculiar character. Something fine, I say, ought to be
expected in the mingling of so many races — great races — differing in
fibre and in temperament, some superior outcome in music, painting,
sculpture, literature, in a clearer philosophy of life, in a better conception
of what man should be. Of course this will not come about — quite the
reverse will come about — if the university is not considered as important
as the factory, and the ability to appreciate the best piece of literature is
not rated so highly as the smartness which can run a ward caucus or
make money by adroit means. The Brooklyn bridge impresses one as
almost as much a wonder as the Great Pyramid, yet neither is as valua-
ble to the world as the Iliad. Socrates would probably stand in a maze
in Chicago to see seven pigs killed in a minute, but doubtless he would
put a few questions as to the great progress in civilization which would
make this achievement seem small compared with the writing of the
Antigone.
It is a hard struggle to keep up the intellectual life when material
forces are so strong and human nature so readily believes that self-indul-
gence is happiness ; but it is not a hopeless struggle, for after all it is a
matter of individual choosing — it is left to every one to decide whether
he will cultivate the intellectual side in his effort to make a place for
himself in the world.
I have sometimes fancied that I could invent a rule by which we can
secure most easily that which we all desire, namely contentment. It is
a clear delusion to suppose we can attain it by endeavoring to get every-
thing within our reach. If we obtain a thousand dollars, we certainly
want another thousand ; if we get a million, the necessity is just as
imperative to get another million ; if we add a piece of land to our pos-
sessions, we must add another piece ; there is no end to the land we
want. I suppose a person never, yet, was satisfied with getting. There
is absolutely no limit in that direction. Do you say it is the same with
knowledge, with self-cultivation, as it is with property ? Very true, but
one pursuit enlarges the man, the other materializes him. And since
contentment is not to be had by getting, suppose we try to attain it from
the other side, by limiting our wants and our desires. It is certainly the
easier way, even if only happiness is our object. I cannot imagine a
man happy with the inordinate hunger of possession. I can imagine^
him fairly happy, relieved from this strain, with limited desires, in a life
45g JAMES GILLESP1E ELAINE. [1835-60
that delights in intellectual pursuits, and enjoys, without envy, books,
friendship, the love and companionship of good women, nature— which
never denies itself to the humblest — and his fair share of a citizen's
responsibilities. Given contentment as the goal, the man, I am sure,
would reach it more certainly in this way than if he let his desire of
acquisition of material things rule him. And, then, consider what a State
of men and women you would have if this spirit predominated, and not
the greed of possession.
Is this Utopian talk, even for a scholar's holiday ? It seems to me the
most practical kind of talk, unless it is true that the body is more real
than the mind, and matter more real than the things of the spirit There
is a great deal of vague talk about progress, about civilization. It is a
natural ambition to want to contribute to the one and to advance the
other. But I fancy that the most good a man can do for the world is
to be good himself, and his greatest contribution to civilization will be
to civilize himself. And in saying this I am not making any vague or
impossible condition.
3iameg dftliegpie Elaine,
BORN in West Brownsville, Penn., 1830.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION.
[Twenty Tears of Congress. 1884-86.]
QUIPPED with these rare endowments, it is not strange that Mr.
Seward made a deep impression upon the mind of the President.
In conflicts of opinion the superior mind, the subtle address, the fixed
purpose, the gentle yet strong will, must in the end prevail. Mr. Seward
gave to the President the most luminous exposition of his own views,
warm, generous, patriotic in tone. He set before him the glory of an
Administration which should completely reestablish the union of the
States, and reunite the hearts of the people, now estranged by civil con-
flict He impressed him with the danger of delay to the Eepublic and
with the discredit which would attach to himself if he should leave to
another President the grateful task of reconciliation. He pictured to
him the National Constellation no longer obscured but with every star
m its orbit, all revolving in harmony, and once more shining with a
brilliancy undimmed by the smallest cloud in the political heavens.
By his arguments and by his eloquence Mr. Seward completed cap-
the President. He effectually persuaded him that a policy of
1835-60] JAMES GILLESPIE ELAINE. 459
anger and bate and vengeance could lead only to evil results • that the
one supreme demand of the country was confidence and repose ; that the
ends of justice could be reached by methods and measures altogether
consistent with mercy. The President was gradually influenced by Mr.
Seward's arguments, though their whole tenor was against his strongest
predilections and against his pronounced and public committals to a
policy directly the reverse of that to which he was now, almost imper-
ceptibly to himself, yielding assent. The man who had in April avowed
himself in favor of " the halter for intelligent, influential traitors," who
passionately declared during the interval between the fall of Eichmond
and the death of Mr. Lincoln that "traitors should be arrested, tried,
convicted and hanged," was now about to proclaim a policy of recon-
struction without attempting the indictment of even one traitor, or issu-
ing a warrant for the arrest of a single participant in the Eebellion aside
from those suspected of personal crime in connection with the noted
conspiracy of assassination.
In this serious struggle with the President, Mr. Seward's influence
was supplemented and enhanced by the timely and artful interposition
of clever men from the South. A large class in that section quickly
perceived the amelioration of the President's feelings, and they used
every judicious effort to forward and develop it. They were ready to
forget all the hard words of Johnson, and to forgive all his harsh acts,
for the great end to be gained to their States and their people by turning
him aside from his proclaimed policy of punishing a great number of
rebels with the utmost severity of the law. Johnson's wrath was evi-
dently appeased by the complaisance shown by leading men of the South.
He was not especially open to flattery, but it was noticed that words of
commendation from his native section seemed peculiarly pleasing to him.
The tendency of his mind under such influences was perhaps not
unnatural. It is the common instinct of mankind to covet in an especial
degree the good will of those among whom the years of childhood and
boyhood are spent. Applause from old friends and neighbors is the
most grateful that ever reaches human ears. When Washington's
renown filled two continents, he was still sensitive respecting his popu-
larity among the freeholders of Virginia. When Bonaparte had king-
doms and empires at his feet, he was jealous of his fame with the
untamed spirits of Corsica, where among the veterans of Paoli he had
received the fiery inspiration of war. The boundless admiration and
gratitude of America never compensated Lafayette for the failure of his
career in France. This instinct had its full sway over Johnson. It was
not in the order of nature that he should esteem his popularity among
Northern men, to whom he was a stranger, as highly as he would esteem
it among the men of the South, with whom he had been associated dur-
,gQ JAMES CHLLESPIE ELAINE. [1835-60
ing the whole of his career. In that section he was born. There he had
acquired the fame which brought him national honors, and after his
public service should end he looked forward to a peaceful close of life in
the beautiful land which had always been his home.
Still another influence wrought powerfully on the President's mind.
He had inherited poverty in a community where during the slave sys-
tem riches were especially envied and honored. He had been reared
in the lower walks of life among a people peculiarly given to arbitrary
social distinctions and to aristocratic pretensions as positive and tena-
cious as they were often ill-founded and unsubstantial. From the ranks
of the rich and the aristocratic in the South, Johnson had always been
excluded. Even when he was governor of his State, or a senator of the
United States, he found himself socially inferior to many whom he
excelled in intellect and character. His sentiments were regarded as
hostile to slavery, and to be hostile to slavery was to fall inevitably
under the ban in any part of the South for the fifty years preceding the
war. His political strength was with the non-slave-holding white popu-
lation of Tennessee which was vastly larger than the slave-holding popu-
lation, the proportion indeed being twenty-seven to one. With these a
" good fellow " ranked all the higher for not possessing the graces or, as
they would term them, the " airs " of society.
As Mr. Johnson grew in public favor and increased in reputation, as
his talents were admitted and his power in debate appreciated, he became
eager to compel recognition from those who had successfully proscribed
him. A man who is born to social equality with the best of his com-
munity, and accustomed in his earlier years to its enjoyment, does not
feel the sting of attempted exclusion, but is rather made pleasantly con-
scious of the prestige which inspires the adverse effort, and can look upon
its bitterness in a spirit of lofty disdain. Wendell Phillips, descended
from a long line of distinguished ancestry, was amused rather than dis-
concerted by the strenuous but futile attempts to ostracize him for the
maintenance of opinions which he lived to see his native city adopt and
enforce. But the feeling is far different in a man who has experienced
only a galling sense of inferiority. To such a one, advancing either in
fortune or in fame, social prominence seems a necessity, without which
other gifts constitute only the aggravations of life.
It was therefore with a sense of exaltation that Johnson beheld as
applicants for his consideration and supplicants for his mercy, many of
those in the South who had never recognized him as a social equal. A
mind of true loftiness would not have been swayed by such a change of
relative positions, but it was inevitable that a mind of Johnson's type,
which if not ignoble was certainly not noble, should yield to its flatter-
ing and seductive influence. In the present attitude of the leading men
1835-60] PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 461
of the South towards him, he saw the one triumph which sweetened his
life, the one requisite which had been needed to complete his happiness.
In securing the good opinion of his native South, he would attain the
goal of his highest ambition, he would conquer the haughty enemy who
during all the years of his public career had been able to fix upon him
the badge of social inferiority.
Hamilton
BORN in Charleston, S. C., 1830. DIED at Copse Hill, Forest Station, Ga., 1886.
VICKSBURG.
[Poems, Complete Edition. 1882.]
TpOR sixty days and upwards,
J^ A storm of shell and shot
Rained round us in a flaming shower,
But still we faltered not.
"If the noble city perish,"
Our grand young leader said,
" Let the only walls the foe shall scale
Be ramparts of the dead ! "
For sixty days and upwards,
The eye of heaven waxed dim;
And e'en throughout God's holy morn,
O'er Christian prayer and hymn,
Arose a hissing tumult,
As if the fiends in air
Strove to engulf the voice of faith
In the shrieks of their despair.
There was wailing in the houses,
There was trembling on the marts,
While the tempest raged and thundered,
'Mid the silent thrill of hearts;
But the Lord, our shield, was with us,
And ere a month had sped,
Our very women walked the streets
With scarce one throb of dread.
And the little children gambolled,
Their faces purely raised,
Just for a wondering moment,
As the huge bombs whirled and blazed
PA UL HAMILTON HA YNE. [1835-60
Then turned with silvery laughter
To the sports which children love,
Thrice- mailed in the sweet, instinctive thought
That the good God watched above.
Yet the hailing bolts fell faster,
From scores of flame-clad ships,
And about us, denser, darker.
Grew the conflict's wild eclipse,
Till a solid cloud closed o'er us,
Like a type of doom and ire,
Whence shot a thousand quivering tongues
Of forked and vengeful fire.
But the unseen hands of angels
Those death-shafts warned aside,
And the dove of heavenly mercy
Ruled o'er the battle tide;
In the houses ceased the wailing,
And through the war-scarred marts
The people strode, with the step of hope,
To the music in their hearts.
A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WINDS.
o
FRESH, how fresh and fail-
Through the crystal gulfs of air,
The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!
And the green earth lapped in bliss,
To the magic of her kiss
Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden-crested calm!
From the distant Tropic strand, mm
Where the billows, bright and bland,
Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint undertune,
From its fields of purpling flowers
Still wet with fragrant showers,
The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.
All heavenly fancies rise
On the perfume of her sighs,
Which steep the inmost spirit, in a language rare and fine,
And a peace more pure than sleep's
Unto dim, half-conscious deeps,
Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.
Those dreams! ah me! the splendor,
So mystical and tender,
Wherewith like soft-heat lightnings they gird their meaning round,
1835-60; PAUL HAMILTON HATNE. 433
And those waters, calling, calling,
With a nameless charm enthralling,
Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!
Touch, touch me not, nor wake me, mm
Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me,
From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars, —
What viewless arms caress me ?
What whispered voices bless me,
With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous stars ?
Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer
Grows the preternatural glimmer
Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of balm ;
For behold ! its spirit flieth,
And its fairy murmur dieth,
And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!
LOVE'S AUTUMN.
T WOULD not lose a single silvery ray
•*• Of those white locks which like a milky way
Streak the dusk midnight of thy raven hair;
I would not lose, O Sweet! the misty shine
Of those half-saddened, thoughtful eyes of thine,
Whence Love looks forth, touched by the shadow of care;
I would not miss the droop of thy dear mouth,
The lips less dewy-red than when the South,
The young South wind of passion, sighed o'er them ;
I would not miss each delicate flower that blows
On thy wan cheeks, soft as September's rose
Blushing but faintly on its faltering stem ;
I would not miss the air of chastened grace
Which, breathed divinely from thy patient face,
Tells of love's watchful anguish, merged in rest ;
Naught would I miss of all thou hast, or art,
O friend supreme ! whose constant, stainless heart
Doth house, unknowing, many an angel guest.
Their presence keeps thy spiritual chambers pure ;
While the flesh fails, strong love grows more and more
Divinely beautiful with perished years.
Thus, at each slow, but surely deepening sign
Of life's decay, we will not, Sweet! repine,
Nor greet its mellowing close with thankless tears.
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. [1835-60
464:
Love's spring was fair, love's summer brave and bland,
But through love's autumn mist I view the land,
The land of deathless summers yet to be ;
There, I behold thee, young again and bright,
In a great flood of rare transfiguring light,
But there as here, thou smilest, Love ! on me !
FATE, OR GOD ?
BEYOND the record of all eldest things,
Beyond the rule and regions of past time,
From out Antiquity's hoary-headed rime,
Looms the dread phantom of a King of kings :
Round His vast brows the glittering circlet clings
Of a thrice royal crown ; behind Him climb,
O'er Atlantean limbs and breast sublime,
The sombre splendors of mysterious wings ;
Deep calms of measureless power, in awful state,
Gird and uphold Him; a miraculous rod,
To heal or smite, arms His infallible hands:
Known in all ages, worshipped in all lands,
Doubt names this half-embodied mystery — Fate,
While Faith, with lowliest reverence, whispers — God !
A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET.
A LITTLE while (my life is almost set !)
-"- I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,
While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet:
A little hour I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger yet,
All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire ;
Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire,
And hope has faded to a vague regret,
A little while I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger there :
Behold ! who knows what strange, mysterious bars
'Twixt souls that love, may rise in other stars ?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair ;
A little while I still would linger here.
1835-60] PAUL HAMILTON HATNE. 455
A little while I yearn to hold thee fast, mm
Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart,
(O pitying Christ! those woeful words, " We part!")
So ere the darkness fall, the light be past,
A little while I fain would hold thee fast.
A little while, when light and twilight meet;
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep;
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet;
A little while, when night and twilight meet.
A little while I fain would linger here;
Behold ! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars ?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:
A little while I still would linger here.
IN HARBOR.
I THINK it is over, over,
I think it is over at last, —
Voices of foemen and lover,
The sweet and the bitter have passed:
Life, like a tempest of ocean
Hath outblown its ultimate blast:
There's but a faint sobbing seaward
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward,
And behold ! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
Those lights in the harbor at last,
The heavenly harbor at last !
I feel it is over! over!
For the winds and the waters surcease ;
Ah, few were the days of the rover
That smiled in the beauty of peace,
And distant and dim was the omen
That hinted redress or release!
From the ravage of life, and its riot,
What marvel I yearn for the quiet
Which bides in the harbor at last, —
For the lights, with their welcoming quiver
That throbs through the sanctified river,
Which girdle the harbor at last,
This heavenly harbor at last ?
VOL. VIII.— 30
DAVID SWING. [1835-60
I know it is over, over,
I know it is over at last !
Down sail ! the sheathed anchor uncover,
For the stress of the voyage has passed:
Life, like a tempest of ocean,
Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast:
There's but a faint sobbing seaward,
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;
And behold ! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
Those lights in the harbor at last,
The heavenly harbor at last !
BORN in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1830.
LIFE IMMORTAL.
[Truths for To-Day. 1874.]
IF it is lawful for the naturalist to give his affections to material forms
and thus, in his prejudice for his world, reach the conclusion, at
last, that mind is only the effervescence of a chemical caldron, it is
equally lawful for you and -me to be prepossessed with the charms of
spirit and to reach the feeling that flesh is only the chariot in which this
angel of life rides in these and upon other shores. It is well known that
the mind shapes its material form. The face of a Webster is nobler, the
forehead higher, the eye brighter, and the brain larger than are those
features or faculties in a Sioux Indian, and it must be so, because in
Webster there is a mind and soul which have for two thousand years
been busy shaping the tabernacle of dust In order to believe well in
a future beyond, it seems essential that one make the assumption of
spirit a starting-point, and then the whole material world becomes its
servant, or its arena, or decoration ; but if, with Huxley and Darwin, we
begin with the assumption of matter, there seems nothing to throw us
over across the dividing ocean, and we must remain on the shore of dust,
and hence death ; for move to and fro as material does from wild rose to
full-leafed rose, from ape to man, it always brings us at last only to
dust. There is no immortal rose, however full-leafed it may become.
Death is its destiny. To get over this tomb of roses and of man it is
essential that a spirit be assumed, a God, an essence differing from the
vital action of the heart or of the roots of the wild flowers.
1835-60] FLORUS BEARDSLET PLIMPTON. 457
*
In this study of man, after we assume that he possesses a spirit, the
text enters with its single thought that God is not a God of dead souls,
but of living ones. There is no manifest reason for supposing a soul
made in such a divine image to be only an ephemeral creature, going
quickly to nothingness, thus making God the father of the dead rather
than of the living. All the reasons for creating such a being as man
remain for continuing his existence. If when the Creator had formed
such a universe as lies around us here, of which our system is as a grain
of sand upon an infinite shore, He finally concluded to make man a race
to inhabit one or more stars of the universe, a race in the divine image,
a human life of a few years would seem wholly unworthy of such a
boundless material realm ; for we cannot master its truths nor taste its
happiness in any threescore year career. Your children have shown
their divine nature, have revealed their intelligence, have spoken a few
words, have rejoiced in a few springtimes, and have gone hence, leaving
you heartbroken over a speechless form. A brief career is thus not in
harmony with the immense universe in which this life begins and of
which man is unquestionably the highest order of beings.
florug OBcarttflc? patmpton,
BORN in Palmyra, Ohio, 1830. DIED in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1886.
THE TWO MARINERS.
[Poems. 1886.]
/COLUMBUS gave a world to light;
\*J Found tropic isles in tropic seas,
Where spice-winds, -wafting melodies
From gorgeous groves of orange trees,
Thrilled the pleased senses with delight.
Nor sooner he these prizes gains
Than ingrates send him back in chains.
In thee, sweet one, my venturous heart —
A mariner o'er untried seas —
Found isles of calm and joy and ease,
More glorious than the Cyclades —
New worlds in which it claimed a part;
Yet thence, where such enchantment reigns,
Thou'st sent the wanderer back in chains.
. CHARLES NORDHOFF. [1835-60
4oo
Charles
BOKN in Erwitte, Westphalia, Prussia, 1830.
KILAUEA.
[Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands. 1874.]
WHAT we saw there on the 3d of March, 1873, was two huge pitsr
caldrons, or lakes, filled with a red, molten, fiery, sulphurous,
raging, roaring, restless mass of matter, to watch whose unceasing tumult
was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life.
What, therefore, Madame Pele will show you hereafter is uncertain.
What we saw was this: two large lakes or caldrons, each nearly circular,
with the lower shelf or bank red-hot, from which the molten lava was
repelled toward the centre without cessation. The surface of these lakes
was of a lustrous and beautiful gray, and this, which was a cooling and
tolerably solid scum, was broken by jagged circles of fire, which appeared
of a vivid rose-color in contrast with the gray. These circles, starting at
the red-hot bank or shore, moved more or less rapidly toward the centre,
where, at intervals of perhaps a minute, the whole mass of lava suddenly
but slowly bulged up, burst the thin crust, and flung aloft a huge, fiery
wave, which sometimes shot as high as thirty feet in the air. Then
ensued a turmoil, accompanied with hissing, and occasionally with a dull
roar as the gases sought to escape, and spray was flung in every direc-
tion ; arid presently the agitation subsided, to begin again in the same
place, or perhaps in another.
Meantime the fiery rings moved forward perpetually toward the cen-
tre, a new one reappearing at the shore before the old was engulfed ;
and not unfrequently the mass of lava was so fiercely driven by some
force from the bank near which we stood, that it was ten or fifteen feet
higher near the centre than at the circumference. Thus somewhat of
the depth was revealed to us, and there seemed something peculiarly
awful to me in the fierce glowing red heat of the shores themselves,
which never cooled with exposure to the air and light.
Thus acted the first of the two lakes. But when, favored by a strong-
breeze, we ventured farther, to the side of the furthermost one, a still
more terrible spectacle greeted us. The mass in this lake was in yet
more violent agitation; but it spent its fury upon the precipitous
southern bank, against which it dashed with a vehemence equal to a
heavy surf breaking against cliffs. It had undermined this lava cliff,
and for a space of perhaps one hundred and fifty feet the lava beat
and surged into glaring, red-hot, cavernous depths, and was repelled with
1835-60] CHARLES NORDHOFF. 4gg
a dull, heavy roar, not exactly like the boom of breakers, because the
lava is so much heavier than water, but with a voice of its own, less
resonant, and, as we who listened thought, full of even more deadly
fury.
It seems a little absurd to couple the word " terrible " with any action
of mere inanimate matter, from which, after all, we stood in no very evi-
dent peril. Yet " terrible " is the only word for it. Grand it was not,
because in all its action and voice it seemed infernal. Though its move-
ment is slow and deliberate, it would scarcely occur to you to call either
the constant impulse from one side toward the other, or the vehement
and vast bulging of the lava wave as it explodes its thin crust or dashes
a fiery mass against the cliff, majestic, for devilish seems a better
word.
Meantime, though we were favored with a cool and strong breeze,
bearing the sulphurous stench of the burning lake away from us, the
heat of the lava on which we stood, at least eighty feet above the pit,
was so great as to be almost unendurable. We stood first upon one foot,
and then on the other, because the soles of our feet seemed to be scorch-
ing through thick shoes. A lady sitting down upon a bundle of shawls
had to rise because the wraps began to scorch; our faces seemed on fire
from the reflection of the heat below ; the guide's tin water-canteen,
lying near my feet, became presently so hot that it burned my fingers
when I took it up ; and at intervals there came up from behind us a
draught of air so hot, and so laden with sulphur, that, even with the
strong wind carrying it rapidly away, it was scarcely endurable. It was
while we were coughing and spluttering at one of these hot blasts, which
came from the numerous fissures in the lava which we had passed over,
that a lady of our party remarked that she had read an excellent descrip-
tion of this place in the New Testament ; and so far as I observed, no
one disagreed with her.
After the lakes came the cones. When the surface of this lava is so
rapidly cooling that the action below is too weak to break it, the gases
forcing their way out break small vents, through which lava is then
ejected. This, cooling rapidly as it comes to the outer air, forms by its
accretions a conical pipe of greater or less circumference, and sometimes
growing twenty or thirty feet high, open at the top, and often with open-
ings also blown out at the sides. There are several of these cones on
the summit bank of the lake, all ruined, as it seemed to me, by some too
violent explosion, which had blown off most of the top, and in one case
the whole of it, leaving then only a wide hole.
Into these holes we looked, and saw a very wonderful and terrible
sight Below us was a stream of lava, rolling and surging and beating
against huge, precipitous, red-hot cliffs, and higher up, suspended from
470 JAMES OOWDT CLARK. [1835-60
other, also red- or white-hot overhanging cliffs, depended huge stalactites,
like masses of fiercely glowing fern leaves waving about in the subter-
raneous wind ; and here we saw how thin was in some such places the
crust over which we walked, and how near the melting-point must be
its under surface. For, as far as we could judge, these little craters or
cones rested upon a crust not thicker than twelve or fourteen inches, and
one fierce blast from below seemed sufficient to melt away the whole
place. Fortunately one cannot stay very long near these openings, for
they exhale a very poisonous breath ; and so we were drawn back to the
more fascinating but less perilous spectacle of the lakes ; and then back
over the rough lava, our minds filled with memories of a spectacle which
is certainly one of the most remarkable our planet affords.
31ameg tiftrtxto? Clarfe*
BORN in Constantly N. Y., 1830.
MARION MOORE.
[Poetry and Song. 1886.]
f~*\ ONE art them, Marion, Marion Moore, —
^-* Gone like the bird in the autumn that singeth,
Gone like the flower by the wayside that springeth,
Gone like the leaf of the ivy that clingeth
Round the lone rock on a storm-beaten shore.
Dear wert thou, Marion, Marion Moore,—
Dear as the tide in my broken heart throbbing;
Dear as the soul o'er thy memory sobbing.
Sorrow my life of its roses is robbing,
Wasting is all the glad beauty of yore.
I will remember thee, Marion Moore, —
I shall remember, alas, to regret thee ;
I will regret when all others forget thee ;
Deep in my breast will the hour that I met thee
Linger and burn till life's fever is o'er.
Gone art thou, Marion, Marion Moore,—
Gone like the breeze o'er the billow that bloweth,
Gone as the rill to the ocean that floweth,
Gone as the day from the gray mountain goeth,
Darkness behind thee, but glory before.
1835-60] JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
Peace to thee, Marion, Marion Moore, —
Peace which the queens of the earth cannot borrow,
Peace from a kingdom that crowned thee with sorrow :
Oh ! to be happy with thee on the morrow,
Who would not fly from this desolate shore ?
Cgten Coofee,
BORN in Winchester, Va., 1830. DIED near Boyce, Clark Co., Va., 1863.
THE FIGHT WITH THE MOONSHINERS.
[The Virginia Bohemians. 1880.]
THE column moved on, and entered the gorge extending up to the
Hogback. The sun was sinking, and the long red rajs pierced the
glades like spears, and fell in vivid crimson on the rocks, covered with
variegated mosses. From in front came the low sigh of the pines in the
depths of the gorge ; from the rear no sound was heard but the meas-
ured hoof-strokes of the troopers.
Bohemia was waiting, and expecting something — you could see that.
Bohemia was in all its last and crowning glory.
Not the glory of the fresh spring mornings, when the violets first come
and the buttercups star the glades and the fields ; nor yet the glory of
the summer days, when the clouds drift on the blue sky, and the green
foliage of the forest is alive with singing birds; nor the autumn glory
of splendid colors and dreamy hours, when the heart dreams of other
hours, and sees the faces that have gone many a year into the dust ; but
the glory of the last moments of the Indian summer — the Nurse of the
Halcyon which cradled the Greek fancy — this had come now, and the
year was bidding farewell to Bohemia, and expiring in a dream of beauty.
There were few leaves clinging to the trees — the winds had swept
them. They lay on the ground, and formed a deep yellow carpet. Here
and there a cedar, forming a perfect cone, stood out like a sentinel from
a background of rocks, and over rock and cedar, and under the great
pines, trailed the autumn creepers with bright crimson berries, glittering
like coral beads in the light of the sunset. That sunset light made the
glory more glorious. It was dashed on rock and tree, and lit up the
gorge with a sombre splendor; the wild pines, the dark depths, the
figures of the troopers, and the sky above. You would have said that
it had come to salute Bohemia for the last time, and that thereafter her
glory would be a dream.
,*9 JOHN ESTEN COOKE. [1835-60
The column was in the gorge, and was advancing over a narrow
bridle-path, when the young lieutenant ordered " Halt! "
"I saw the gleam of a gun-barrel on that height yonder," he said to
the marshal. " As we're about to proceed to business, let us act in a
business-like manner."
He sent forward an advance guard of three men with instructions.
These were to keep a keen lookout on the bluffs above, and if fired upon
return the fire, and fall back upon the column.
" You won't have far to fall back," added the young fellow. " I'll be
close behind you."
The advance-guard went in front, and disappeared around a bend in
the road. The spot was wild beyond expression, and lofty heights
extended like walls on either side as the column proceeded. Beyond
the tops of the trees could be seen the long blue line of the Blue Ridge
on the left; and on the right rose the bristling and threatening crest of
the Hogback.
" I begin to think the moonshiners are going to fight, Mr. Lascelles,"
said the lieutenant, lighting a fresh cigar. " I saw the man with the
gun as plainly as I see you. There are probably some stills in the
vicinity here — it is the very place for them ; and I think the moonshin-
ers, like good patriots, are going to die by their altars and fires ! "
A shot rung out as he spoke, from the direction of the vanguard ; and
then a rattling volley followed, and the men were seen coming back at a
gallop.
"Well," said the lieutenant, coolly, "what's up?"
The report was that they had been fired upon — apparently from a bar-
ricade in the mouth of a small gorge debouching into the main one.
" I think it probable there's a barricade, which is not a bad thing to
fight behind," said the lieutenant, smoking and reflecting. "Well, I'm
going to charge it, as a matter of course. I'll have some saddles emp-
tied, I rather suppose, but that's to be looked for."
"It is unfortunate," said Mr. Lascelles; "it would be better to have
no bloodshed."
" Vastly preferable, I allow, but the devil of the thing is to avoid it.
I'm not speaking for myself ; I'm engaged to a pretty girl, but she'll
have to take her chances for a wedding. This is my business— and
after all, too, it's the business of these good fellows on both sides. So
here's for a charge ! "
"A moment," said Mr. Lascelles; "you ought to summon them to
surrender."
" Useless — but it would be more regular."
"I'll take the summons."
"You!"
1835-60] JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 473
" Certainly, with very great pleasure."
" You'll be shot ! "
"No. They might shoot one of your men in his uniform, but they
will not shoot me. I am in citizen's dress, and will raise my white
handkerchief."
" That is true— but suppose you're shot. You have nothing to do
with this business. I like your face, Mr. Lascelles, though it's rather
mournful. You were cut out for a soldier, but then you are a civilian.
Well, do as you choose."
" I will go, then, and deliver your summons. You will wait? "
" Yes, but be quick. Night is coming."
"If I am not back in ten minutes it will be because they refuse.
Then you can charge."
He put spurs to his horse, and, without troubling himself to display
the white handkerchief, went at a swift gallop forward into the gorge.
The shadows grew deeper as he went, and the overhanging banks
more densely wooded. He was penetrating to the most mysterious
depths of the gorge.
Suddenly a voice called " Halt ! " and he saw the gleam of gun-barrels
behind a barricade of felled trees. He paid no attention to the order,
and reaching the barricade leaped to the ground.
The Lefthander was standing on the top of the barricade, with a car-
bine in his hand. It was he who had ordered "halt," but he did not
raise his weapon. He had recognized Mr. Lascelles, and quietly waited.
Behind him were grouped nearly a dozen rough-looking figures armed
to the teeth ; among these were Daddy Welles, Barney Jones, and Harry
Vance. Under low drooping boughs in rear of the barricade was a rude
door in the rock. Behind this door, which the pine boughs brushed,
was the still.
The barricade itself was constructed of felled trees, and about breast-
high. Behind this the moonshiners were obviously going to fight.
Mr. Lascelles threw his bridle over his horse's neck, and mounted the
barricade.
" They are coming," he said to the Lefthander, " and I have come to
summon you to surrender."
" To surrender? We will not surrender," said the phlegmatic athlete.
" I knew that, and so that's done with. They will charge you in ten
minutes; but there will be time to say what I came to say to you. I
have been to Crow's Nest."
He took the Lefthander by the arm and drew him aside. For some
moments the group of moonshiners saw the two men engaged in low,
earnest talk. Then they saw them grasp hands and come back toward
the group. 9
4*4 JOHN ESTEN COOKE. [1835-60
As they did so the troopers charged the barricade.
A volley met it in the face, and the horses, wild with fright, wheeled
and retreated in disorder.
" Halt ! " the lieutenant's voice was heard shouting, as he whirled his
light sabre. " Form column in rear ! — I'll soon attend to this."
The men stopped, and fell into column again just beyond range of the
fire of the barricade.
" Dismount and deploy skirmishers ! Advance on both flanks and in
front ! I'll be in the centre."
And throwing himself from his horse, he formed the line of skirmish-
ers. Then, at the ringing " Forward " of the game young fellow, the
skirmishers closed in steadily, firing as they did so on the barricade.
All at once the quiet scene was turned into the stage of a tragic
drama. Nature was pitiless and serene; the red crowns were rising
peacefully from the summits of the trees ; a crow was winging his way
toward the sunset on slow wings ; it was a scene to soothe dying eyes, if
the light needs must disappear from them.
In ten minutes it had disappeared from more than one on both sides.
The moonshiners were evidently determined to fight hard, and only
give way when they were forced to do so. The crack of the sharp-
shooters was answered from behind the barricade, and the gorge was
full of smoke and shouts as the assailants closed in.
They did so steadily, like good troops, and at last rushed upon the
barricade. There a hand-to-hand fight followed, and it was a weird
spectacle in the half gloom. In the shadowy gorge the figures were
only half seen as the light faded, ajad the long thunder of the carbines
and shouting rolled through the mountain, awaking lugubrious echoes
in the mysterious depths.
The moonshiners fought desperately, but the fight was of no avail.
They were outnumbered, and, after losing some of their best men, scat-
tered into the mountain. Among those who thus escaped were Daddy
Welles, Barney Jones, and Harry Vance. The parting salutes from
their carbines were heard from the heights as they retreated ; and the
barricade was in possession of the cavalry.
The young lieutenant leaped on the felled trees, and stood there look-
ing around.
"A good work— constructed by soldiers," he said; "and they were
game, too."
He was tying up his arm with a white handkerchief. A bullet had
passed completely through the fleshy part, and it was bleeding.
He leaped down into the barricade. Suddenly he stopped— he had
nearly trodden upon something : it was the body of Mr. Lascelles. A
bullet had passed through his forehead, and he was quite dead. The
1835-60] JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 475
shot had been fired from behind a rock by the man whom he had lashed
that day in the Wye woods — his bitter enemy.
At three paces from the body of Mr. Lascelles lay the Lefthander —
dead. Three other moonshiners were dangerously wounded, and were
leaning against the barricade. They closed their eyes, as though to
avoid seeing the blue uniforms. They were probably troopers of the old
battles of Ashby, and accepted their fate like soldiers, not complaining.
As to the faces of Mr. Lascelles and the Lefthander, they were quite
tranquil. They had died, in fact, with little pain, and perhaps willingly.
Each had muttered the same name as the light faded, and they went
into the darkness. This name was "Mignon."
THE BAND IN THE PINES.
OH, band in the pine-wood cease!
Cease with your splendid call;
The living are brave and noble,
But the dead are bravest of all !
They throng to the martial summons,
To the loud triumphant strain,
And the dear bright eyes of long dead friends
Come to the heart again !
They come with the ringing bugle,
And the deep drums' mellow roar;
Till the soul is faint with longing
For the hands we clasp no more !
Oh, band in the pine-wood cease !
Or the heart will melt with tears,
For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips,
And the voices of old years.
After Pelham died.
MEMORIES.
rr^HE flush of sunset dies
-J- Far on ancestral trees,
On the bright-booted bees,
On cattle-dotting leas ;
And a mist is in my eyes —
For in a stranger land
Halts the quick-running sand,
Shaken by no dear hand!
JOHN SW1NTON. [1835-60
47o
How plain is the flowering grass —
The sunset-flooded door ;
I hear the river's roar
Say clearly "Nevermore."
I see the cloud -shadows pass
Over my mountain meres:
Gone are the rose-bright years,
Drowned in a sea of tears.
BORN in Saltou, Haddington shire, Scotland, 1830.
CARLYLE AT HIS WIFE'S GRAVE.
[John Smnton's Travels. 1880.]
DRIVING through the lovely, fertile, finely-cultured farming lands
of the Lothians, in the south of Scotland, and talking with the
farmers, who are all apprehensive of the impending ruin from the glut
of American grain and beef, and who are struggling under a rent of
twenty to twenty five dollars an acre against the products of the free
soil of our Western plains, we reach the ancient town of Haddington,
the birthplace of John Knox, on the outskirts of which stands the
massive monument to his memory, in the shape of an academy built a
few years ago by the contributions of the whole Presbyterian world.
Wandering around the quiet environs of the place, I am surprised at
suddenly finding myself gazing upon the majestic, venerable, pictur-
esque, ivy-clad ruins of a Gothic cathedral of the twelfth century, built
by that remorseful monarch David I., whose splendid architectural
achievements are yet to be found in so many parts of the land. The
scene is impressive and inviting in the sunshine of this soft summer
day, and the peaceful graveyard around the ruins is rich with the mortal
relics of many generations. The rustic grave-digger is at work with his
spade in a secluded quarter of the grounds, and glad enough, in his
broad Scotch dialect, to welcome a stranger in his lonesome toil. The
walls of the cathedral, with their grand Gothic window spaces, and the
columns of the interior, stand as they were built seven centuries ago, but
nearly all the roof is gone, and the sky is above you as you stand within
the consecrated precincts. " Here," says the grim sexton, " is the grave
of such-an-one, and there is the tombstone of such-another-one, and
yonder is the monument of that great man "—about whom he tells us a
tale of weal or woe as we pass hither and thither among the mounds.
1835-60] JOHN SWINTON. 477
Inside the cathedral walls the grassy sod is- dotted with tombstones,
bearing names almost obliterated by time and tempest, and in an alcove
of the wall itself is the vault with the recumbent marble mailed effigies
of two knights or earls who were honored with a rhyming and drooling
inscription from the royal hand of King James I. With pride the sex-
ton showed the effigies, showing also other titled names that decorate the
spot. " And there," said he, while mooling along, as he pointed out a
flagstone bearing two names, one of which was but a few years old,
"there is Mrs. Carlyle's grave." "The wife of Thomas Carlyle?" I
inquired. " Ay," said he, " ay, ay."
And I saw that it was, and that this was the tombstone glorified by
that immortal epitaph, the finest tribute ever paid to wife or woman, in
which the illustrious literary giant —
Mightiest Titan of ruggedest mind
Frowning majestic on feeble mankind —
after referring to her long years of wise and helpful companionship, says
that, by her death, "the light of his life is clean gone out."
" And Mr. Carlyle," said the sexton, " comes here from London now
and then to see this grave. He is a gaunt, shaggy, weird kind of old
man, looking very old the last time he was here." " He is eighty-six
now," said I. •' Ay," he repeated, " eighty-six, and comes here to this
grave all the way from London." And I told the sexton that Carlyle
was a great man, the greatest man of the age in books, and that his
name was known all over the world; but the sexton thought there were
other great men lying near at hand, though I told him their fame did
not reach beyond the graveyard, and brought him back to talk of Car-
lyle. " Mr. Carlyle himself," said the grave-digger softly, " is to be
brought here to be buried with his wife, ay." " He comes here lonesome
and alone," continued the grave-digger, " when he visits the wife's grave.
His niece keeps him company to the gate, but he leaves her there, and
she stays there for him. The last time he was here I got a sight of him,
and he was bowed down under his white hairs, and he took his way up
by that ruined wall of the old cathedral, and round there and in here by
the gateway, and he tottered up here to this spot"
Softly spake the grave-digger, and paused. Softer still, in the broad
dialect of the Lothians, he proceeded: "And he stood here a while in
the grass, and then he kneeled down and stayed on his knees at the
grave ; then he bent over, and I saw him kiss the ground — ay, he kissed it
again and again, and he kept kneeling, and it was a long time before he
rose and tottered out of the cathedral, and wandered through the grave-
yard to the gate, where his niece stood waiting for him."
I almost shrink from putting on paper these words of the rustic grave-
tt70 ISAAC EDWARDS CLARKE. [1835-60
47o
digger that day ; but is not the scene one for art and poetry? And does
it not show the ragged sham-destroyer of other days, he of the sanguin-
ary blade and the loud artillery, in a finer light than that of any page of
his hundred books?
I
3!0aac CtJtoarfcg Clarfee,
BORN in Deerfield, Mass., 1830.
BRITISH POLICY OPPOSED TO AMERICAN INDUSTRIES.
[Industrial and High Art Education in the United States. 1885.]
T will be advisable for those who wish to preserve their self-respect
as Americans, when considering the relations borne by England to
the industrial development of this country, to remember that England
has always done her utmost to prevent any industrial or political
development of the American people.
In 1776, the colonists were obliged to enter into war with England in
order to begin any industrial development of their own resources.
Twenty-eight years after the close of the Eevolutionary war, they
were forced to go to war with England again to vindicate their right to
sail the seas.
Nearly fifty years later, England eagerly availed herself of the oppor-
tunity afforded by the Southern rebellion to destroy the foreign com-
merce of America; and did it effectually. Most, if not all, of the so-
called Confederate cruisers were built in British ship-vards, and armed
and victualled, if not mainly manned, by British subjects ; while the
colonial ports of Great Britain were as freely opened to those armed
ships whose whole purpose was to destroy the peaceful merchant ships
of the United States as they were to the cruisers of the friendly United
States, although the flag under which they sailed was one unrecognized
by England.
In addition to these consistent acts of continuous hostility, England,
as has already been stated, has succeeded in introducing into American
colleges the text-books written by her professors of political economy,
and American young men are thereby indoctrinated with English free-
trade ideas ; from which it usually takes them from five to twenty-five
years to recover.
In considering these theories it is well to keep one fact in mind, and
that is, that from the first hour of English settlement in America down
to the present time, the active influence of England has been constantly
1835-60] ISAAC EDWARDS CLARKE.
479
exerted to prevent, retard, and destroy the industrial and commercial
development and prosperity of the United States.
No amount of later compliments or courtesies, however unusual or
distinguished, paid to living or deceased Americans, can obliterate these
historical facts, or should be suffered to weaken the memory of them
in the minds of patriotic Americans mindful of their country's welfare ;
because the situation of Great Britain is such that the necessity of self-
preservation compels her to continue in the same course towards this
nation that she has ever adopted.
The historical events just recited may be commended to the considera-
tion of such youthful Americans as find themselves inclined to Anglo-
mania— who affect English costumes and customs, in dress, manners,
and speech, and who would esteem it a compliment to be taken for Eng-
lish ; — " which they never could be, you know ! "
On the other hand, there were certain object lessons set in the main
building of the Centennial Exposition for all to see, which may well
modify the opinions of those who are inclined to Anglophobia and feel
the stirrings of an hereditary resentment against the one consistent and
persistent opponent of the American Eepublic.
Doubtless, in the present era of effusive compliments, the possibility
that Americans could regard any past or present actions of England as
designedly unfriendly would be warmly protested against; but two and
a half centuries of consistent history are not to be obliterated by a few
smooth phrases. England has to-day, and with each passing day, ever
more pressing need to secure and retain customers for her varied manu-
factures ; and therefore it is impossible that any policy which is wise for
her, commercially speaking, can as yet be advantageous to this country.
It may be well for us to adopt similar methods for developing artistic
skill in manufactures and industries to those which England has found
successful ; but Americans should always remember that, owing to the
differences of the situation, the policies of the two countries must also
necessarily differ. The United States must adopt, sooner or later, a con-
tinental policy ; one best adapted to the development of the immense
natural resources of the country, and best fitted to promote the indus-
tries and manufactures of the people.
Although it has seemed proper to thus briefly recite the historical
relations of England to American industries, it is only simple justice to
state that in these latter days, so far from manifesting any disposition to
prevent or retard the movement for developing industrial-art training in
the United States, the educational authorities of England have offered
every aid and every courtesy. ....
Until the millennium dawns, individual nations, just as are the heads
of private families, are charged with the protection of the lives and the
^gQ WILLIAM 8TEELE 8HURTLEFF. [1835-60
promotion of the interests of their own citizens. It is easy to see that
these interests may demand very different conditions on the part of Eng-
land and of the United States ; that what would be most conducive to
the selfish interests of the English-speaking people dwelling in Great
Britain, might be disastrous to the interests of the English-speaking peo-
ple dwelling in these United States. The fine-sounding philanthropy
which urges that American statesmen ought to consider the questions
that arise simply in their universal relations, and not in the narrow view
of how they may affect the interests of the citizens of the United States,
is not only premature but sophistical. Policies urged by England
should be considered under all the light that the events of the past can
give.
mtilfam ^teele
BORN in Newbury Springs, Vt., 1830.
THE WAY.
THIRST, find out Truth, and then,
J-^ Although she strays
From beaten paths of men,
To untrod ways,
Her leading follow straight,
And bide thy fate !
And whether smiles or scorn
Thy passing greet,
Or find'st thou flower or thorn
Beneath thy feet,
Fare on ! nor fear thy fate
At Heaven's gate.
1835-60] NOAH BROOKS.
BORN in Castine, Maine, 1830.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN.
[The Century Magazine. 1878.]
"TOURING- the presidential campaign of 1856 I lived in Northern Illi-
-L^ nois. As one who dabbled a little in politics and a good deal in
journalism, it was necessary for me to follow up some of the more impor-
tant mass-meetings of the Republicans. At one of these great assem-
blies in Ogle County, to which the country people came on horseback,
in farm- wagons, or afoot, from far and near, there were several speakers
of local celebrity. Dr. Egan of Chicago, famous for his racy stories, was
one, and "Joe" Knox of Bureau County, a stump-speaker of renown,
was another attraction. Several other orators were " on the bills " for
this long- advertised " Fremont and Dayton rally," among them being a
Springfield lawyer who had won some reputation as a shrewd, close rea-
soner and a capital speaker on the stump. This was Abraham Lincoln,
popularly known as " Honest Abe Lincoln." In those days he was not
so famous in our part of the State as the two speakers whom I have
named. Possibly he was not so popular among the masses of the peo-
ple ; but his ready wit, his unfailing good-humor, and the candor which
gave him his character for honesty, won for him the admiration and
respect of all who heard him. I remember once meeting a choleric old
Democrat striding away from an open-air meeting where Lincoln was
speaking, striking the earth with his cane as he stumped along and
exclaiming, "He's a dangerous man, sir! a d — d dangerous man! He
makes you believe what he says, in spite of yourself!" It was Lin-
coln's manner. He admitted away his whole case, apparently, and yet,
as his political opponents complained, he usually carried conviction with
him. As he reasoned with his audience, he bent his long form over the
railing of the platform, stooping lower and lower as he pursued his argu-
ment, until, having reached his point, he clinched it (usually with a
question), and then suddenly sprang upright, reminding one of the
springing open of a jack-knife blade.
At the Ogle County meeting to which I refer, Lincoln led off, the
raciest speakers being reserved for the later part of the political enter-
tainment. I am bound to say that Lincoln did not awaken the boister-
ous applause which some of those who followed him did, but his speech
made a more lasting impression. It was talked about for weeks after-
ward in the neighborhood, and it probably changed votes ; for that was
VOL. VIII. — 31
4g2 NOAH BROOKS. [1835-60
the time when Free-soil votes were being made in Northern Illinois. I
had made Lincoln's acquaintance early in that particular day : after he
had spoken, and while some of the others were on the platform, he and
I fell into a chat about political prospects. We crawled under the pen-
dulous branches of a tree, and Lincoln, lying flat on the ground, with
his chin in his hands, talked on, rather gloomily as to the present, but
absolutely confident as to the future. I was dismayed to find that he
did not believe it possible that Fremont could be elected. As if half
pitying my youthful ignorance, but admiring my enthusiasm, he said:
" Don't be discouraged if we don't carry the day this year. We can't
do it, that's certain. We can't carry Pennsylvania ; those old Whigs
down there are too strong for us. But we shall, sooner or later, elect
our president. I feel confident of that."
"Do you think we shall elect a Free-soil president in 1860?" I
asked.
"Well, I don't know. Everything depends on the course of the
Democracy. There's a big anti-slavery element in the Democratic party,
and if we could get hold of that, we might possibly elect our man in
1860. But it's doubtful — very doubtful. Perhaps we shall be able to
fetch it by 1864 ; perhaps not. As I said before, the Free-soil party is
bound to win, in the long run. It may not be in my day ; but it will in
yours, I do really believe."
Of course, at this distance of time, I cannot pretend to give Lincoln's
exact words. When I heard them, the speaker was only one of many
politicians of a limited local reputation. And if it had not been for Lin-
coln's earnestness, and the almost affectionate desire that he manifested
to have me, a young newspaper writer, understand the political situa-
tion, I should not have remembered them for a day. Four years after-
ward, when Lincoln was nominated at Chicago, his dubious speculations
as to the future of his party, as we lay under the trees in Ogle County,
came back to me like a curious echo. If he was so despondent in 1856,
when another man was the nominee, would he not be still more so in
1860, when he, with his "habit of underrating his own powers, was the
candidate?
It was not long before Lincoln heard that I was in Washington, and
sent for me to come and see him. He recollected the little conversation
we had had together, and had not forgotten my name and occupation.
And he recalled with great glee my discomfiture when he had dispelled
certain rosy hopes of Fremont's election, so many years before. It
seemed quite wonderful. But, as I afterward observed, Lincoln's mem-
ory was very retentive. It only needed a word or a suggestion to revive
in his mind an accurate picture of the minutest incidents in his life. A
1835-60] NOAH BROOKS. 4gg
curious instance of this happened at our very first interview. Natu-
rally, we fell to talking of Illinois, and he related several stories of his
early life in that region. Particularly, he remembered his share in the
Black Hawk war, in which he was a captain. He referred to his share
of the campaign lightly, and said that he saw very little fighting. But
he remembered coming on a camp of white scouts, one morning just
as the sun was rising. The Indians had surprised the camp, and had
killed and scalped every man.
"I remember just how those men looked," said Lincoln, "as we rose
up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning
sun was streaming upon them as they lay, heads toward us, on the
ground. And every man had a round red spot on the top of his head,
about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It
was frightful, but it was grotesque, and the red sunlight seemed to
paint everything all over." Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid
picture, and added, somewhat irrelevantly : " I remember that one man
had buckskin breeches on."
One Saturday night, the President asked me if I had any objection to
accompanying him to a photographer's on Sunday. He said that it
was impossible for him to go on any other day, and he would like to
have me see him "set" Next day we went together, and as he was
leaving the house he stopped and said: "Hold on, I have forgotten
Everett ! " Stepping hastily back, he brought with him a folded paper,
which be explained was a printed copy of the oration that Mr. Everett
was to deliver, in a few days, at Gettysburg. It occupied nearly the
whole of two pages of the " Boston Journal," and looked very formida-
ble indeed. As we walked away from the house, Lincoln said: "It was
very kind in Mr. Everett to send me this. I suppose he was afraid I
should say something that he wanted to say. He needn't have been
alarmed. My speech isn't long."
"So it is written, is it, then? " I asked.
"Well, no," was the reply. "It is not exactly written. It is not
finished, anyway. I have written it over, two or three times, and I shall
have to give it another lick before I am satisfied. But it is short, short,
short."
I found, afterward, that the Gettysburg speech was actually written,
and rewritten a great many times. The several draughts and interlinea-
tions of that famous address, if in existence, would be an invaluable
memento of its great author. Lincoln took the copy of Everett's oration
with him to the photographer's, thinking that he might have time to
look it over while waiting for the operator. But he chatted so con-
stantly, and asked so many questions about the art of photography, that
,g , NOAH BROOKS. [1835-60
he scarcely opened it. The folded paper is seen lying on the table, near
the President, in the picture which was made that day.
Early in May, the country was anxiously waiting for news from Chan-
cellorsville. The grand movement had been only partially successful,
but everybody expected to hear that the first repulse was only tempo-
rary, and that the army was pressing on gloriously to Kichmond. One
bright forenoon, in company with an old friend of Lincoln's, I waited in
one of the family rooms of the White House, as the President had asked
us to go to the navy-yard with him to see some experiments in gunnery.
A door opened and Lincoln appeared, holding an open telegram in his
hand. The sight of his face and figure was frightful. He seemed
striken with death. Almost tottering to a chair, he sat down, and then
I mechanically noticed that his face was of the same color as the wall
behind him — not pale, not even sallow, but gray, like ashes. Extend-
ing the dispatch to me, he said, with a sort of far-off voice : "Bead it —
news from the army." The telegram was from General Butterfield, I
think, then chief of staff to Hooker. It was very brief, simply saying
that the army of the Potomac had " safely " recrossed the Rappahan-
nock and was now at its old position on the north bank of that stream.
The President's friend, Dr. Henry, an old man and somewhat impres-
sionable, burst into tears, — not so much, probably, at the news, as on
account of its effect upon Lincoln. The President regarded the old man
for an instant with dry eyes, and said : " What will the country say ?
Oh, what will the country say?" He seemed hungry for consolation
and cheer, and sat a little while talking about the failure. Yet, it did
not seem that he was disappointed. He only thought that the country
would be.
While the talk was going on, the cards of Congressman Hooper and
Professor Agassiz were brought in by a servant " Agassiz ! " exclaimed
the President with great delight ; " I never met him yet, and Hooper
promised to bring him up to-night." I rose to go, when he said : " Don't
go, don't go. Sit down, and let us see what we can pick up that's new
from this great man."
The conversation, however, was not very learned. The President and
the savant seemed like two boys who wanted to ask questions which
appeared commonplace, but were not quite sure of each other. Each
man was simplicity itself. Lincoln asked for the correct pronunciation
and derivation of Agassiz's name, and both men prattled on about curi-
ous proper names in various languages, and odd correspondences between
names of common things in different tongues. Agassiz asked Lincoln if
he ever had engaged in lecturing, in his life. Lincoln gave the outline
1835-60] NOAH BROOKS. 4g5
of a lecture, which he had partly written, to show the origin of inven-
tions, and prove that there is nothing new under the sun. " I think I
can show," said he, "at least, in a fanciful way, that all the modern
inventions were known centuries ago." Agassiz begged that Lincoln
would finish the lecture, some time. Lincoln replied that he had the
manuscript somewhere in his papers, "and," said he, "when I get out of
this place, I'll finish it up, perhaps, and get my friend B to print it
somewhere." When these two visitors had departed, Agassiz and Lin-
coln shaking hands with great warmth, the latter turned to me with a
quizzical smile and said : " Well, I wasn't so badly scared, after all ! were
you? " He had evidently expected to be very much oppressed by the
great man's learning. He admitted that he had cross-examined him on
" things not in the books."
Scripture stories were used by Lincoln to illustrate his argument or to
enforce' a point. Judge E. had been concerned in a certain secret
organization of " radical " Republicans, whose design was to defeat Lin-
coln's renomination. When this futile opposition had died out, the
judge was pressed by his friends for a profitable office. Lincoln
appointed him, and to one who remonstrated against such a display of
magnanimity, he replied : " Well, I suppose Judge E., having been dis-
appointed before, did behave pretty ugly ; but that wouldn't make him
any less fit for this place; and I have Scriptural authority for appoint-
ing him. You remember that when the Lord was on Mount Sinai get-
ting out a commission for Aaron, that same Aaron was at the foot of
the mountain making a false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron
got his commission, you know."
So much has been written about Lincoln's private life and personal
habits, that it seems unnecessary now to add more than a word. He
was simple in all his tastes ; liked old songs and old poetry. He was
always neatly, but not finically, dressed. He disliked gloves, and once I
saw him extract seven or eight pairs of gloves from an overcoat pocket,
where they had accumulated after having been furnished him by Mrs.
Lincoln. Usually, he drank tea and coffee at the table, but he preferred
milk, or cold water. Wine was never on the table at the White House,
except when visitors, other than familiar friends, were present. The
President's glass was always filled, and he usually touched it to his lips.
Sometimes he drank a few swallows, but never a whole glass, probably.
He was cordial and affable, and his simple-hearted manners made a
strong impression upon those who met him for the first time. I have
known impressionable women, touched by his sad face and his gentle
bearing, to go away in tears. Once I found him sitting in his chair so
AQR NOAH BROOKS. [1835-60
48o
collapsed and weary that he did not look up or speak when I addressed
him. He put out his hand, mechanically, as if to shake hands, when I
told' him I had come at his bidding. It was several minutes before he
was aroused enough to say that he "had had a mighty hard day."
Once, too, at a reception in the White House, I joined the long " queue "
of people, shook hands with him, received the usual " Glad to see you,
sir," and passed on. Later in the evening, meeting me, he declared that
he'had not seen me before, and explained his preoccupation of manner
while the people were shaking hands with him by saying that he was
"thinking of a man down South." It afterward came out that "the
man down South" was Sherman. Once, when a visitor used pro-
fane language in his presence, he rose and said: "I thought Senator C.
had sent me a gentleman. I am mistaken. There is the door, and I
wish you good-night" At another time, a delegation from a distant
State waited on him with a written protest against certain appointments.
The paper contained some reflections upon the character of Senator
Baker, Lincoln's old and beloved friend. With great dignity, the Presi-
dent said: "This is my paper which you have given me?" Assured
that it was, he added: "To do with as I please?" "Certainly, Mr.
President." Lincoln stooped to the fire-place behind him, laid it on the
burning coals, turned, and said: "Good day, gentlemen."
After Lincoln had been reflected, he began to consider what he
should do when his second term of office had expired. Mrs. Lincoln
desired to go to Europe for a long tour of pleasure. The President was
disposed to gratify her wish, but he fixed his eyes on California as a
place of permanent residence. He thought that that country offered bet-
ter opportunities for his two boys, one of whom was then in college, than
the older States. He had heard so much of the delightful climate and
the abundant natural productions of California, that he had become pos-
sessed of a strong desire to visit the State, and remain there if he were
satisfied with the results of his observations. " When we leave this
place," he said, one day, " we shall have enough, I think, to take care of
us old people. The boys must look out for themselves. I guess mother
will be satisfied with six months or so in Europe. After that, I should
really like to go to California and take a look at the Pacific coast."
I have thus recalled and set forth some of the incidents in Lincoln's
life as they remain in my mind. To many persons these details, written
without any attempt at symmetrical arrangement, may seem trivial.
But the purpose of this record will have been fulfilled if it shall help
anybody to a better understanding of the character of one of the great-
est and wisest men who ever lived.
1835-60J MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE.
487
Bttgtnta Cettyune*
BOKN in Amelia Co., Va., 183-.
AN OLD VIRGINIA GHOST STORY.
[Judith. By Marion Rarland. 1883.]
"~A/TADAM did a singular thing (for her), yet it was the most sensible
-LV-L step she could have taken. She took us into her confidence.
" ' It was within six months after I came to Selma to live that I had
the first intimation that all was not right with the house,' she said.
4 Colonel Trueheart was not at home, and I had gone to bed rather early
one night, leaving the fire burning as brightly as it does now. I was
not drowsy, but the firelight was too strong to be comfortable to my
eyes, and I shut them, lying quietly at ease among the pillows, my
thoughts busy and far away. There was no sound except the crackling
of the blaze, but suddenly I felt the pressure of two hands on the bed-
clothes covering my feet. They rested there for a moment, were lifted
and laid upon my ankles, moving regularly upward until I felt them lie
more heavily on my chest. I was sure that a robber had found his way
into the house and wanted to convince himself that I was really asleep
before beginning to plunder. My one hope of life was to remain per-
fectly still, to breathe easily, and keep my eyes shut. This I did, the
sense of hearing made more acute by intense excitement, but my reason
singularly steady. When the hands reached m-y chest Something looked
close into my face. There was no breath or audible movement, but I
felt the gaze. Then the pressure was removed — the Presence was gone !
I lay still until I counted deliberately fifty, to assure myself that I was
in full possession of rny senses, and sat up. The fire showed every
object distinctly. I was alone in the chamber. I arose, looked under
the bed and in the wardrobe, but found nobody. The windows and
shutters were bolted fast, the door was locked. Yet, so strong was my
persuasion that the visitation was not a trick of the imagination, that I
sat up for the rest of the night, keeping fire and candle burning.
" ' When Colonel Trueheart returned I told him what had happened.
He laughed heartily, and "hoped the like might occur when he was at
home." Three months later I felt the same pressure in the same order
of movement. It was on a warm night in spring, and through the
lighter coverings I fancied I could discern that the hands were small, the
fingers slight, like those of a child or a little woman. I tried to call the
Colonel, but could not speak until the Presence had stooped, as before,
to look in my face and departed. Colonel Trueheart awoke at my voice,
MARY VIRGINIA TEEHUNE. [1835-60
4oo
was greatly amazed at what I told him, and insisted upon making just
such a tour of the house as you have just instituted, Captain Macon.
This over, he tried to convince me that I had been dreaming, or that the
sensation 'was caused by some obstruction of circulation. I did riot
argue the point, but when, some weeks afterward, I had a similar expe-
rience, asked him seriously if he had ever heard that any one else was
disturbed in this way. He hesitated, tried to put me off, and finally
owned that his first wife had declared to him privately her belief that
the house was haunted ; that she complained of hearing unaccountable
noises at night ; that Things passed and touched her in the halls after
dark ; and once in the daytime, when she was sitting alone in her room,
Something had plucked her by the elbow with such force as almost to
pull her from her chair. She was delicate and nervous, and he had
attached no importance to her fancies.
" ' " If sickly women and superstitious negroes are to be believed, half
the country-houses in Virginia are haunted," he said.
" ' He cautioned me to say nothing on the subject, else " there would
be no such thing as keeping a servant on the premises, and the house
would not sell for the worth of the bricks should it ever come into the
market."
" ' Two years went by without further disturbance. Then it came in
a different form. One night, as I was locking the back door, holding a
candle in my left hand, I heard a slight sound, like a sigh or long
breath, and, looking up, saw a woman moving past and away from me,
just as Betsey has described. She was dressed in a misty yellow-gray
or grayish-yellow gown, as Betsey saw her, but with a white handker-
chief or cap on her head. I had time to notice that she was small of
stature, and that she glided along noiselessly. At the closed Yenetian
blinds she vanished. Colonel Trueheart entered the front door the next
instant, and I made known to him what I had witnessed. He ridiculed
the theory that it was supernatural, evidently suspecting some malicious
or mischievous prank on the part of one of the servants. After a sec-
ond thorough search of the house, he loaded his pistols and put them
under his pillow, ''to be ready," he said, "for the next scare." He
always slept with them under his head afterward.
" ' Again, for months, nothing unusual occurred. Then the pressure
of the hands became frequent. From that time up to the night preced-
ing Colonel Trueheart's death scarcely a fortnight elapsed without my
feeling them. Always beginning at my feet — always ending at my
chest ; always that long felt gaze into my face, then It was gone ! Some-
times I strained my eyes in the darkness to catch some outline or
shadow; again and again I opened them abruptly in the firelight or
moonlight to surprise whatever it might be into revealing Itself. I
1835-60] MART VIRGINIA TERHUNE.
489
never beheld face or snape or any visible token of living thing. Once I
succeeded in arousing the Colonel at the first touch upon my feet. He
struck a light immediately, but although the regular movement contin-
ued up to the fixed gaze, the room was apparently free of everybody
but ourselves. We had a long consultation then. I was hurt and angry
that he remained skeptical as to the reality of the visitations. When all
my assertions failed to convince him that I was not the victim of a
nervous hallucination, I said :
" ' "I shall never allude to this subject again, whatever I may see or
hear."
" ' " I hope you will keep your word," he replied.
" ' Neither of us ever mentioned the matter again to one another.
Sometimes, when my pallor or heavy eyes told that I had not slept well,
he would look at me anxiously, as if longing to question me ; but I was
proud and so was he, and neither would lead the way.
" ' On the night before he died he had retired in his usual health, and
I sat up late writing. My desk stood at one side of the fireplace, my
back being toward that window. About twelve o'clock I was startled
by a rustling behind me, and turned quickly, but saw nothing. Some-
thing swept right by me, with a sound like the waving of silk drapery,
and passed toward the bed. I followed It, looked under the valance,
behind the curtains — all through the room, but found nobody. I said
aloud, to reassure myself, " It must have been the wind ! " and returned
to my desk. In perhaps fifteen minutes I heard the same sound going
by me, as before, toward the bed. In just half an hour more by my
watch, which I had laid on the desk, It came again. Carlo, then hardly
more than a pupp}7, howled and ran behind my chair. I felt then that
I could bear it no longer ; moved toward the bed to awaken my husband.
He was sleeping so soundly that, although I passed the candle close
before his eyes, he did not stir. I thought 1 would wait to hear or see
something more before arousing him. Nothing came. Carlo went
back to his place on the rug, and I sat up all night, listening and watch-
ing.
" ' Colonel Trueheart arose next morning to all appearance perfectly
well. At nine o'clock he had an apoplectic stroke. At twelve he died.
His will, executed two years before, directed that I should continue to
live here and take care of the place for his children. I have done so at
less cost of feeling and health than I anticipated. But once in five
years have I had any reason to believe that the uneasy spirit — if spirit
it was — still walked the premises. One night, in the second year of my
widowhood, as I was coming down stairs, soon after supper, with a light •
in my hand, I heard the sweeping of a gown, the tap of high heels
behind me. On the lower landing I stopped, wheeled short around, held
4QO MART VIRGINIA TERHUNE. [1835-60
up ray light, and looked back. The steps had been close on my track,
but the staircase was empty and now silent.
" ' I had nattered myself that there would never be a return of ghostly
sights or sounds after four years of exemption. Least of all did I dream
that one not connected with the family would be visited by such appari-
tions should they come.1
" This was the story. If Madam guessed at anything else, if she had
any theory as to the cause '' of the visitation, she never intimated it
Captain Macon privately instituted inquiries, at a later period, respect-
ing the past history of the house, but without striking any trail that
promised to unravel the mystery. It had been built by a Trueheart,
and the estate had descended in the direct line to the Colonel. We
pledged our word voluntarily to Madam never to speak of what we had
seen while the truth could affect the value of the property, or cast impu-
tation upon the character of those who had owned it. We kept silent
until Madam had been fifteen years in her grave. Then Captain Macon
rode over one day to show me a paragraph in a Richmond newspaper.
I have it safe upstairs in my reliquary, but I can repeat it, word for
word:
" ' The march of improvement westward has condemned to demolition,
among other fine old mansions, Selma, the ancestral home of the True-
hearts. It passed out of the family at the demise of Mrs. Augusta Har-
rison Trueheart, relict of the late Colonel Elbert Trueheart. In order
to effect an equitable division of the estate, the residence and contiguous
plantation were sold. The extensive grounds have been cut up into
building lots, and the mansion — a noble one in its day, although sadly
neglected of late years — standing directly in the line of the extension of
street, has been bought by the city to be pulled down and
carted away. In grading the sidewalk of the proposed thoroughfare, it
was necessary to dig down six feet below the present level, laying bare
the foundations of the building. At the depth of four feet from the
surface, directly under the windows, and distant scarcely three feet from
the drawing-room, the workmen disinterred the skeleton of a woman of
diminutive stature, which had evidently lain there for years. There
were no signs of a coffin or coffin-plate. A high tortoise-shell comb,
richly wrought, was found by the head. The oldest inhabitant of our
city has no recollection of any interment near this spot, nor would
decent burial have been made so close to the surface. The whole affair
is wrapped in mystery.' "
Another prolonged pause. Then Harry raised both hands to push up
her hair from her forehead, as if the weight oppressed the teeming brain.
" How the storm roars ! " she said. " Heaven have mercy upon the
homeless souls wandering between sky and earth to-night ! Papa told
1835-60] JOSEPH EIEKLAND. 49 ^
me that the secret is a secret still, the tragedy unexplained. Have you
suspicions of your own ? "
" I know nothing beyond what you have heard. But — women who
die natural deaths and have Christian burial do not wear expensive
combs, such as belong to party-dresses, when they are shrouded for the
grave. Nor are they thrust into the ground uncoffined I "
feirfelantu
BORN in Geneva, N. Y., 1830.
HOW THE MEANEST MAN GOT SO MEAN, AND HOW MEAN HE GOT.
[Zury : the Meanest Man in Spring County. 1887.]
TpPHRAIM wanted Zury to marry, but it was with "a sharp eye to
"»-J the main chance." Property and personal service at no wages
might both be secured by a judicious choice. Girls were not plenty,
but at the Peddicombs' there were three of marriageable age. Their
place was only three miles from Prouder's, and they were still the nearest
neighbors. Mrs. Peddicomb had not long survived the birth of her
three daughters. She died (as was and is common among farmers'
wives) at not much over thirty years of age, just when her life ought to
have been in its prime.
She was called a •' Come-gals kind of a woman " by neighbors ; partly
in ridicule of her enthusiasm, and partly in admiration of her energy.
It was told of her that she would get up before light on Monday, " fly
'raound," uncover the fire, hang on the kettle, and call up the ladder to
the loft—
" Come gals ! Dew git up 'n' start in ! To-day's Monday, to-morrow's
Tuesday, 'n' next day's Wednesday ; 'n' then comes Thursday, Friday,
'n' Saturday' — the hull week gone 'n' nothin' done."
The two younger girls had been cared for by the oldest, and so had
retained some girlish freshness and delicacy, but as for Mary (the care-
taker after her mother's death), she was "good-looking" only because
she looked good.
On this marriage-subject Ephraim took occasion to speak to Zury.
" Mary Peddicomb, she's a likely gal."
" Mary ? Why not S'manthy 'n' Flory ? "
" Oh, yes ; they're all right tew. Th' ol' man he's got th' best part of
a section. Some stawk, tew ; 'n' th' haouse 'n' barn's fust rate."
4()9 JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
" Ya-as. Ef th' haouse 'n' barn worn't so good he'd have more stawk
th't 'd pay him right smart better'n th' haouse 'n' barn dooz."
" Peddicomb ain't like t' marry ag'in. Mary she'll have her sheer."
" Any more'n th' others ? "
" Oh, no. All same. But I reck'n Mary she'd be more of a manager.
She kin work! I've watched her ever sence she wuz knee-high to a
hoppy-toad, 'n' /tell ye she kin work ! "
" Ef ye mean more manageable, ye mought's well say so."
"Wai, I dew 'llaow she'd be full 's little likely t' be uppish 's th'
others."
"Ye 'llaow't humbly and humble goes t'gether ? "
" Wai, yes ; 'mongst the wimmin folks, substantially. Nothin' sets
'em so bad up 's bein' ha'ans'm. Spiles 'em fer use abaout the place.
Th'- humbly ones take t' milkin' more willin' like ; 'n' I don't see but
what the caows give daown tew 'em full 's well 's tew the ha'ans'm ones.
'N' then when ther' looks goes the' 're apt t' kick."
" What, the caows ? "
" No the wimmin."
("Humbly" in country parlance is a corruption of "homely," the
opposite of handsome ; plain, ungainly. " Humbly as a hedge fence.")
Zury pondered on this shrewd counsel from time to time, but took no
step toward marrying.
" Eight smart o' things t' think on afore th' '11 be any hurry 'baout
a-gittin' marr'd. Th' feller th't's in an orfle sweat t' marry, he's li'ble t'
be the very feller th't's behindhand with everythin' else. Takes Time
by the forelock 'baout gittin' a wife; 'n' by the fetlock 'baout gittin'
suthin' fer her t' eat."
The boy was wedded to his idols quite as faithfully, if not quite so
sordidly, as was his father. Their dispositions were much alike. No
draft on their powers of endurance and self-denial could be too great.
As to niggardliness, there was a confessed rivalry between them.
Each would tell of the money-making and money-saving exploits of the
other, and of his efforts to surpass them.
"Dad's a screamer t' save money ! D'ye ever see him withe a plaow-
pint ontew a plaow ? Give him a hickory grub, 'n' he kin dew it so
it'll run a good half a day ; 'n' then withe it on agin in noon-spell whilst
th' team's a eatin', 'n' then withe it on agin come night so's t' be ready
fer nex' morn'n', 'n' keep it up fer a week that-a-way, sooner'n pay th'
smith a cent t' rivit it fast."
"Thasso, thasso, Zury. Hickory twigs is cheaper ner iron any
day."
" Ya-as, dad ; but then I kin make a shillin' while ye're a savin' a cent.
Look at it wunst I upped 'n' sold the smith a half an acre, 'n' took a
1835-60] JOSEPH KIRKLAND. 493
mortgage on it, 'n' made him dew all aour repairin' b' way of interest on
the mortgage, 'n' then foreclosed th' mortgage when it come dew, 'n'
gotth' land back, shop 'n' all. Business is business ! "
Ephraim always wanted to buy at the shop where they wrapped up
the purchases with the largest and strongest paper and twine, and the
harnesses on the farm gradually grew to be largely composed of twine.
Zury could buy everything at wholesale, half price, including merchan-
dise, paper, twine, harnesses, and all.
One day Zury came across a poor little boy carrying a poorer little
puppy and crying bitterly.
"What's the matter, sonny?"
" Our folks gimme a dime t' draownd this h'yer purp, 'n' I — I — I —
hate t' dew it."
"Wai, rie' mind, bub; gimme the dime 'n' I'll draownd him fer ye."
Whereupon he took the cash and the pup and walked to the mill-
pond, while the boy ran home. Zury threw the little trembling creature
as far as he could into the pond. A few seconds of wildly waving small
ears, legs, and tail, and then a splash, and then nothing but widening
ripples. But out of one of the ripples is poked a little round object,
which directs itself bravely toward the shore. Nearer and nearer strug-
gles the small black nozzle, sometimes under water, and sometimes on
top, but always nearer.
"Ye mis'able, ornery little fyce, ye! Lemme ketch ye swimmin'
ashore! I'll throw ye furder nex' time."
At last poor little roly-poly drags itself to the land and squats down
at the very water's edge, evidently near to the end of its powers. Zury
picks it up and swings it for a mighty cast, but stops and studies it a
moment.
"Looks fer all the world like a sheep-dawg purp."
Whereupon he slipped it into his pocket and carried it home, where
it grew up to be a fit mate to old Shep, and the ancestress of a line of
sheep dogs which ornament Spring County to this day.
Later, when the same boy, grown older, applied to Zury for one of the
pups, he charged him the full price, fifty cents, took all he had, thirty-
six cents, and his note on interest for the balance, the dog being pledged
as security. The note being unpaid when due, Zury took back the dog.
" Business is business ! "
Years passed, and it came time for the old man to be gathered to his
fathers and the son to reign in his stead. When Ephraim lay on his
death-bed, he whispered to Zury :
"What day's to-day?"
"Tuesday, father."
,q, JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
" I hope I'll live ontel Thursday, V then ye kin hev the fun'r'l Sun-
day, V not lose a day's work with the teams."
He did not die till Saturday night, but Zury had the funeral on Sun-
day all the same, like a dutiful son as he was, bent on carrying out his
father's last request.
After Zury had grown to be a prosperous farmer, Chicago became the
great market for the sale of grain. Teams by the score would start out
from far down the State, and, driving during the day and camping at
night, make the long journey. They would go in pairs or squads so as
to be able to double teams over the bad places. Forty or fifty bushels
could thus be carried in one load, when the chief parts of the roads were
good, and " the ready John " (hard cash) could be got for the grain, at
twenty or thirty cents a bushel for corn or wheat. This sum would
provide a barrel or two of salt, and perhaps a plow and a bundle of dry
goods and knicknacks for the women folks, the arrival of which was a
great event in the lonely farm-houses.
Zury had now working for him (besides Jule, who kept house and
attended to the live stock) a young fellow who became a score of years
afterward private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain in the — th
Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the great war. From his stories, told in
bivouacs and beside camp-fires, to toiling, struggling, suffering '• boys in
blue," these tales are taken almost verbatim. (Some of them have
already found their way into print.)
" Zury always wanted to get onto the road with farmers whose house-
keeping was good, because his own was — well, wuss th'n what we git
down here in Dixie, an' there's no need of that. Well, when they'd halt
for noon-spell, Zury he'd happen along prom iscuous-1 ike, an' most gen-
erally some of 'em would make him stop an' take a bite. He was good
company if he was so near. 'N' then a man's feed warn't counted fer
much, unless it was some store-truck or boughten stuff.
" But one day they jest passed the wink and sot it up on him, and
come noon-spell nobody asked Zury an' me to eat. Zury left me to
take care of both teams while he walked up and down the line of wag-
ins. Everybody who hadn't 'jest eat,' warn't 'quite ready' yet, an' by
the next time he came to those who hadn't been 'quite ready,' they'd
'jest eat.'
''Wai, Zury swallered his disappointment and I swallerd all the
chawed wheat I could git away with, and the first settlement we passed
Zury went and bought a monstrous big bag of sody-crackers, and we eat
them for supper and breakfast. And still we were not happy.
" Next noon-spell Zury said : ' Boys, s'posin' we kinder whack up V
mess together.' Wai, the others'd had enough of their joke, and so they .
all agreed, and chipped in. Ham, pickles, pies,, cakes, honey, eggs,
1835-60] JOSEPH KIRKLAND.
495
apples, and one thing another. Ye see every man's o' woman knew that
when they got together, her housekeep would be compared with every-
body else's; so these long drives were like donation parties, or wed-
dings, or funerals — well fed.
" Of course, Zury's sody-crackers went in with the rest, an' me an'
Zury always ate some anyhow for appearance sake. I could see the fellers
were all makin' fun of Zury's cute dodge of gettin' a dozen good meals
for him an' me at the price of a few pounds of sody-crackers. But then,
they didn't know Zury so well as they thought they did. By an' by
the trip was done an' settlin'-up-time came, when each man was called
on for his share of pasturage, ferriage, an' one thing another. Zury
paid his, but he deducted out twenty-five cents paid for sody-crackers.
Said it was one of the cash outlays for the common good, an' if any of
the rest of 'em spent money an' didn't put it in, more fools they. Busi-
ness is business."
So Zury in the soda-cracker episode came out " top of the heap " as
usual. The top of the heap was his accustomed place, but still he per-
ceived that he was living under one useless disability, and with his
quick adaptation of means to ends and remedies to deficiencies, he sim-
ply— married. In doing this, he was guided by his father's shrewd
words ; counsel which had lain fallow in his memory for years.
Zury's rnarriageability had, of course, not been unobserved in the
household of the three daughters. Peddicomb had remarked what a
good " outin' " the Prouders had made in their purchase of swine from
him, and cherished the same kind of feeling toward them that most of
us experience when some other person has done better in a joint transac-
tion than we did.
" Them Praouders, the' '11 skin outer the land all the' kin skin, 'n'
then sell offen the place all 't anybody'll buy, 'n' then feed t' the hawgs
all a hawg '11 eat, 'n' then give th' rest t' th' dawg, 'n' then what th'
dawg won't tech the' '11 live on theirselves."
"Yew bet," tittered Semantha, the second. "That thar ornery Zury
Praouder he'd let a woman starve t' death ef he could. 'N' o' man
Praouder wuz th' same way, tew. Th' o' woman she wuz near abaout
skin 'n' bone when the' buried her. I seen her in her coffin, 'n' I
know."
" Oh, don't yew be scaret, S'manthy. I hain't saw Zury a-lookin' over
t' your side o' the meetin'-haouse, no gre't," kindly rejoined Flora, the
youngest daughter.
"Who, me? He knows better! Not ef husbands wuz scarcer ner
hen's teeth."
"Six hunderd 'n' forty acres o' good land, all fenced 'n' paid fer; 'n' a
big orchard ; 'n' all well stocked, tew." (He added this with a pang,
496 JOSEPH KIRKLAND, [1835-60
remembering once more the pig-purchase, which by this time had grown
to a mighty drove, spite of many sales.)
"Don't care ef he owned all ou' doors. Th' more the' 've got, th'
more it shows haow stingy the' be."
Then the meek Mary ventured a remark.
"Mebbe ef Zury wuz t' marry a good gal it'd be the makin' on
him."
" Oh, Mary, yew hain't no call t' stan' up fer Zury ! Th' o' man he'd
a ben more in yewr line."
" No, Zury wouldn't want me, ner no other man, I don't expect," she
answered with a laugh — and a sigh.
One Sunday afternoon Zury rode over to Peddicomb's to get a wife.
He tried to decide which girl to ask, but his mind would wander off to
other subjects— crops, live stock, bargains, investments. He didn't
much think that either girl he asked would say no, but if she did, he
could ask the others. When he came near the house he caught sight of
one of the girls, in her Sunday clothes, picking a " posy " in the " front
garding." It was Mary.
" Good-day, Mary. Haow's all the folks? "
"Good-day, Zury — Mr. Praouder, I s'pose I should say. Won't ye
'light? "
" Wai, I guess not. I jes' wanted t' speak abaout a little matter."
" Wai, father he's raoun' some 'ers. Haow's the folks t' your 'us ? "
" All peart : that is t' say th' ain't no one naow ye know, but me 'n'
Jule 'n' Mac. That makes a kind of a bob-tail team, ye know, Mary.
Nobody but Jule t' look out fer things. Not b't what he's a pretty fair
of a nigger as niggers go. He c'd stay raoun' 'n' help some aoutside."
"Whatever is he a-drivin' at? " thought Mary, but she said nothing.
" The's three of you gals to hum. Ye don't none of ye seem t' go off
yit, tho' I sh'd a-thought Flory she'd a-ben picked up afore this, 'n'
S'rnanthy tew fer that matter."
Neither of them saw the unintended slur this rough speech cast upon
poor Mary.
"Don't ye think we'd better git married, Marv ? "
"What, me?"
"Wai, yes." He answered this in a tone where she might have
detected the suggestion, "or one of your sisters," if she had been keen
and critical. But she was neither. She simply rested her work-worn
hand upon the gate-post and her chin upon her hand, and looked dream-
ily off over the prairie. She pondered the novel proposition for some
time, but fortunately not quite long enough to cause Zury to ask if
either of her sisters was at home, as he was quite capable of doing.
She looked up at him, the blood slowly mounting to her face, and
1835-60] JOSEPH KIBKLAND.
497
considered how to say yes. He saw that she meant yes, so he helped
her out a little. He wanted to have it settled and go.
"Wai, Mary, silence gives consent, they say. When shall it be? "
" Oh, yew ain't in no hurry, Zury, I don't expect."
He was about to urge prompt action, but the thought occurred to him
that she must want to get her " things " ready, and the longer she waited
the more " things " she would bring with her. So he said :
" Suit yerself, Mary. I'll drop over 'n' see ye nex' Sunday, 'n' we'll
fix it all up."
Mary had no objection to urge, though possibly in her secret heart she
wished there had been a little more sentiment and romance about it. No
woman likes " to be cheated out of her wooing," but then this might
come later. He called for her with the wagon on the appointed day,
and they drove to the house of a justice of the peace who lived a good
distance away. This was not for the sake of making a wedding trip,
but because this particular justice owed Zury money, as Zury carefully
explained.
And so Mary went to work for Zury very much as Jule did, only it
was for less wages, as Jule got a dollar a month besides his board and
clothes, while Mary did not.
For a year or two or three after marriage (during which two boys
were born to them) Zury found that he had gained, by this investment,
something more than mere profit and economy — that affection and sym-
pathy were realities in life. But gradually the old dominant mania
resumed its course, and involved in its current the weak wife as well as
the strong husband. The general verdict was that both Zury and Mary
were "jest 's near 's they could stick 'n' live." " They'd skin a flea fer
its hide 'n' taller."
" He gin an acre o' graound fer the church 'n' scule-house, 'n' it raised
the value of his hull farm more 'n' a dollar an acre. 'N' when he got
onto the scule-board she 'llaowed she hadn't released her daower right,
'n' put him up t' tax the deestrick fer the price of that same acre o'
ground."
So Zury, claiming the proud position of " the meanest ma-an in Spring
Caounty," would like to hear his claim disputed. If he had a rival he
would like to have him pointed out, and would " try pootty hard but
what he'd match him."
Strange as it may seem, these grasping characteristics did not make
Zury despised or even disliked among his associates. His "meanness"
was not underhanded.
" Th' ain't nothin' mean abaout Zury, mean 's he is. Gimme a man as
sez right aout 'look aout fer yerself,' 'n' I kin git along with him. It's
these h'yer sneakin' fellers th't's one thing afore yer face 'n' another
VOL. via. — 32
498
JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
behind jer back th't I can't abide. Take ye by th' beard with one hand
'n' smite ye under th' fifth rib with t'other! He pays his way 'n' dooz
's he 'grees every time. When he buys 'taters o' me, I'd jest 's live 's
hev him measure 'em 's measure 'em myself with him a-lookin' on. He
knows haow t' trade, 'n' ef yew don't, he don't want ye t' trade with
him, that's all ; ner t' grumble if ye git holt o' the hot eend o' th' poker
arter he's give ye fair notice. Better be shaved with a sharp razor than
a dull one."
On an occasion when the honesty of a more pretentious citizen was
compared with Zury's, to the advantage of the latter, he said :
"Honest? Me? Wai, I. guess so. Fustly, I wouldn't be noth'n'
else, nohaow ; seck'ndly, I kin 'fford t' be, seein' 's haow it takes a full
bag t' stand alone ; thirdly, I can't 'fford t' be noth'n' else, coz honesty
's th' best policy."
He was evidently quoting, unconsciously but by direct inheritance,
the aphorisms of his fellow Pennsylvanian, Dr. Franklin.
In peace as in war strong men love "foemen worthy of their steel."
Men liked to be with Zury and hear his gay, shrewd talk ; to trade with
him, and meet his frankly brutal greed. He enjoyed his popularity, and
liked to do good turns to others when it cost him nothing. When
elected to local posts of trust and confidence he served the public in the
same efficient fashion in which he served himself, and he was therefore
continually elected to school directorships and other like " thank'ee jobs."
WRECK.
[The McVeys. An Episode. 1888.]
T ATE in the afternoon they stopped for wood at a small station not
-L^ far beyond the old ox-killing crossing. They took on as much as
possible, piling it high above the top of the tender.
" Look out for the track-repairers jest this side of the curve, Phil,"
said the telegrapher, as the train pulled out. " I guess they'll have got
through and run the push-car in onto the next siding afore you git
thar; if they haven't they'll have a flag out."
As Phil neared the curve he saw the freshly moved dirt where they
had been at work, and also observed the flagman, evidently relieved
from duty, walking on with his flag rolled up under his arm. This
freed Phil from any anxiety as to the state of the road, although he
thought he noticed that the fellow was unsteady in his gait, as he passed
him.
1835-60] JOSEPH KIRKLAND. 4gg
He rounded the curve at full speed, and saw the distant station, the
switch-target set up all right for the main track.
What else did he see ?
He saw, and took in at a glance, that the push-car, loaded with many
bars of railroad iron, had run off the track between him and the station.
Also that the laborers, insane or drunk, were trying to replace the car
instead of running back to warn him to stop !
Still there was some chance to modify the disaster, — if he whistled for
brakes— he had done it already ; if he reversed his engine— he had done
that too ; and started the sand to miming on the rail — he had opened the
sand-valve ; — there was a bare chance to avert, not wreck, but utter
ruin.
"Brake!" shrieked the whistle. "Brake!" it wailed again; and
again " Brake ! " — " Brake ! " — " Brake ! " And " Brake ! " the echoing
woods replied in despairing chorus.
Sam sprang to his wheel and began his tightening. Then Phil, find-
ing that she was not holding back as she ought, stepped to the side and
looked down. The sand was not running !
" Jump, Sam ! Never mind the brake ! Jump, I say ! "
Sam gave one glance to where Phil stood hanging out of his door, and
thought he was looking for a favorable place to jump. Then he leaped
and looked back — there was Phil back at his lever, rattling the handle
of the sand-valve ! Sam grasped blindly at the passing cars to try to
get back to his post; but then came an awful crash of breaking wood,
iron, and glass, and the four cars spliced themselves into each other as
one long mass and pushed forward a few yards while the engine surged
over on its side, and then all was still except a wild rush of escaping
steam about the prostrate Pioneer.
Sam flew to the front, climbed over the wrecked push-car with its
tangle of rails scattered like gigantic jack-straws, and screamed " Phil !
Phil!! Phil!!!" in wild despair. The engine's wheels, playing back-
ward like lightning, were toward him as she lay, and he rushed around
her front still screaming "Phil! Phil! Phil! Phil!" Then he dashed
through the few scared laborers and threw himself like a madman on
the pile of fire-wood that covered the foot-board where his beloved chief
had stood so often and so long, and where he saw him last.
The sticks as they plunged forward had broken off the safety-valve
hangers, so the valve had blown clear out and nearly freed the boiler
from pressure, in a few seconds ; still, the whole place was one undis-
tinguishable mass of steam and hot water, and wood and fragments of
the cab.
Fast and furious flew the sticks behind him as he dug and burrowed
in the hot and horrible mess. Sometimes he was entirely invisible —
-QQ JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
sometimes his feet might be seen protruding from the place as he grovelled
to find Phil. His worn and shapeless working-shoes sticking out of the
dreadful ruck attracted the attention of some on-looker who seized them
to dra^ him out, but he kicked him away with a shout of " Lemme be ! ''
and a curse.
In perhaps two minutes, which seemed an hour, his voice was heard
again.
" Now, pull me out"
And they dragged with all their might — one man at first— then one at
each foot, then as many as could get hold of him — and slowly, slowly,
he was brought into view.
But what is that thing he has fastened himself to with a grip like the
clasp of death ? A long, heavy, limp bundle of steaming rags — all there
is left of the young Samson, Phil McVey !
Both seemed dead. So tightly was one clasped by the other that they
had to be forced apart, being too heavy to be carried together. They
were taken into the barn-like freight-room of the little station and laid
side by side on the floor until cots could be brought, when they were
separated and one stretched on each.
Sam, though dreadfully scalded about the hands and face, soon recov-
ered from his swoon, and raising himself with difficulty tottered over to
Phil's side. He thrust his hand within his jacket and cried :
" His heart's a-beatin' ! Why don't ye git a doctor, ye hell-hounds !
What ye monkeyin' raound h'yer fer, ye ** ** ** ! I'd like t' kill
every ** ** ** ** of ye!" And he started for the door, 'even in his
maimed condition, but was prevented from going out by the others, who
told him the doctor was at the passenger-cars, but would be up in a
minute; at the same time sending one of their number to hasten his
coming.
Then Sam went back and blew in Phil's mouth, and raised his arms
and pressed his chest alternately, to try to restore respiration. At last
something that sounded like a sob rewarded his efforts, and the breath
seemed to flutter a little of itself.
When the doctor came, after a delay that seemed an age, Sam
explained to him :
" I got his head free 'most as soon as I teched him ; V all the rest of
the time I wuz a-throwin' the wood offen his legs."
The doctor examined Phil carefully, pushed up his eyelids, and
observed the pupils.
" He'll likely come to ! "
" Glory hallelujah, doctor ! Say that agin ! "
" He'll likely come to— but I'd a leetle druther he wouldn't."
" Wha— at? " asked poor Sam, in a faint quaver.
1835-60] JOSEPH KIRKLAND. 501
"Can't live."
The crushed friend went and sat down in his own place and groaned
aloud. Then he went back to where the doctor was at work over Phil.
"I don't believe it! It's a cursed lie ! Phil can't die ! Can't live?
I say he can't die ! If there's a God in heaven, Phil McVey can't die
like this ! "
" Too much cuticle destroyed," said the doctor. And he went on clip-
ping and removing the soaked fabrics, the skin coming with the clothes,
in pale, shriveled patches.
" Bring me some linen — or if the linen and lint's all used up, bring me
some of that cotton batting. I can't save him, but I can let him die
The fresh air on his burns woke Phil up to consciousness.
"What's all this, boys? Oh, I remember! Well, I feel pretty com-
fortable. Doctor, are you doing anything to me? I can't feel you. I
don't feel any pain."
" Sorry for it, my poor boy."
This was Phil's first intimation that all was not well with him.
When the stripping operation was carried far enough, he said :
"Lemme see, doctor."
They raised his head, and he gave one glance down his trunk, which
looked like one of those anatomical colored drawings of the flayed body
of a man ; and he said, with a sigh :
" Oh — it's no use ! "
Then they put the fluffy cotton all over him, wet with some cold oil,
and drew the sheet up to his poor blistered chin, and laid small pieces
of the cotton on such parts of his face as could be covered without
impeding his breathing.
" Now, for you, my man," said the doctor to Sam.
" Me ! I didn't know as I was hurt. Oh, yes ! " (Looking at his
dreadful hands, and feeling his thickened and distorted nose and lips,
and blistered throat.) " But that ain't noth'n'. You jes' 'tend t' him."
"Lay down, boy, and lemme take a little care of you."
" Yes, do, Sam," mumbled Phil, " I sh'll want you to care for mother
and Meg."
So the doctor dressed Sam's injuries, while the salt tears ran down his
cheeks and soaked the wounds underneath the doctor's applications.
As soon as he was free, he staggered to his feet again and went to Phil,
who had seemed to be wanting him, and calling him with his piteous
eyes.
" How did you get hurt, Sam? I saw you jump."
» Wai — the' wuz a leetle wood a-layin' on yer legs ; 'n' I jest — laid it
off like."
JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
OU^j
Then two raw and blistered hands met in a moment's pressure. Phil
could see the whole scene after the wreck and all his friend's self-sacri-
fice
"I wouldn't V jumped, Phil; only I seed ye a-hangin' aout, 'n' I
thort ye wuz a-jumpin'."
Phil only shook his head, and said :
" The sand wouldn't run ! "
" Ye'd orter jumped, Phil ! Oh, I wish't ye'd 'a' jumped, Phil ! "
" And seen my whole train in the ditch ? And maybe burnt up, pas-
sengers and all ? No, Sam. It's better as it is. It's better as it is."
Next, thinking of his lost lady-love, he whispered :
'• Is she hurt, Sam ? "
11 Not a mite ! Smoke-stack and headlight off— safety-valve blowed
out, 'n' one gauge-cock broke off. That's what let the water out on you.
A derrick '11 set her on her legs agin, to-morrer."
" Oh, the Pioneer," said Phil, and the ghost of a wan smile almost
made its appearance on the changed face.
" Doctor, was — were there any of the passengers hurt ? "
" A woman had her arm broke — middle-aged woman with a young
woman daughter."
" Daughter all right ? "
" Yes — she's tendin' tew her mother at the section-house. S'pose ye
heered about the conductor? "
"Jim Sanders? No! what?"
" He was a-settin' brakes when you struck — 'n' he never knowed what
hurt him. Thar he lays in the corner." And he pointed to a shapeless
mass — poor Jim Sanders's body, covered with some empty grain-bags
and staining the rough boards of the floor with a long, dark-red streak
that perhaps shows there to this day.
A deep groan burst from Phil at this news. He thought of gay, good-
natured, simple-hearted, conductor Jim, and tears of pity and regret —
and remorse — forced themselves from the corners of his eyes.
Soon after nightfall arrived the relief-train from Galena, with Zury
Prouder on board. Zury did not know the height, breadth, and depth
of the monstrous loss which had befallen him until he burst into the
freight-room, and sank on his trembling knees at Phil's side. They had
told him that the engineer was killed — afterward that he was only hurt
— but he did not ascertain the truth until he reached the spot.
His Bible furnished the only words he could think of ; the only words
he needed :
" ' Oh, my son Absalom ; would God I had died for thee, O Absalom,
my son, my son ! ' "
When the Galena doctors came in to hold a consultation, he met them
1835-60] JOSEPH KIRK LAND.
at the door, and whispered that if a hundred dollars apiece, or a thou-
sand for that matter, would make any difference to Phil, they could have
it Then he stepped out, and agonized and wrestled with his agony
until they had finished. When they came out, he saw all they had to
say ; it was scarcely necessary for them even to shake their heads to let
him know that there was no hope. Then he called up his manhood, and
entered the chamber of death with a smile.
" Phil, my boy ; we shall all be together before long, where pain and
sorrow and parting are no more."
'• I hope so, Uncle Zury," mumbled the other.
Later the relief-train was ready to run back to Galena with the dead
and such of the living as could be moved without harm. Phil was
neither : but Sam was to go, and the doctors came in to move him
"No. I'll stay with Phil!"
" Better go in, my boy. We can't half care for you here, nor 'tend to
you right. Phil won't need ye.'1
u I don't care for that ; and I don't go, what's more."
They silently nodded to each other and stepped up to the cot, one at
each corner. But before they could lift it, Sam slipped off one side,
staggered to his feet, and seizing a spike-maul which lay there, he raised
it in his bandaged hands, and said, with a curse :
" I'll kill the man that lays a hand on me ! You hear me? "
Old Prouder here interfered, and said :
"Gentlemen, ye mean well, but ye're makin' a mistake. This h'yer
young man 'n' me, we ain't a-goin' on this train ; V we're free men, V
ye can't take us without a warrant"
So they desisted, and Sam rolled heavily on his cot once more, and let
the doctor replace his disordered bandages. Then they all departed,
lugging off Jim Sanders's remains, and leaving only the original country
practitioner in charge. Soon the sound of the departing train was heard
through the evening dews and damps ; and then all was still and lonely
— no one in the room but the doctor, Zury, Sam, and Phil — and Death.
Phil wanted to ask the doctor whether any of the passengers inquired
for him before they all went away on the train ; but while trying to
bring his failing faculties to bear to do so, he fell into a lethargy, during
which the doctor went elsewhere. In a half-hour or so, Phil awoke from
his stupor with a start, and an agonized cry :
"Mother! Mother! MOTHER! How sorry you'll be! Who'll take
care of you and Meg ? Alone in the world ! Alone and poor ! Poor ! "
" Philip, my boy ; is ole Zury Prouder poor? 'Cause if he ain't, they
ain't What's his'n, is their'n."
"I know what you mean, Uncle Zury, but it won't do."
" Philip, I asked your mother to marry me, 'n' she refused, 'n' she was
CA . JOSEPH KIRKLAND. [1835-60
OU4
right, tew. Mebbe she'll change her mind, 'n' dew it yet. But that
don't make a mite o' diff'rence— not a mite. What's mine's her'n, all the
same." Then seeing that Phil shook his head a little, he added :
"I'm a man o' my word, 'n' Sam Sanders here 's a witness."
Phil seemed satisfied, or at least silenced; and soon after fell into
another lethargy, or doze, from which he started as before :
" Mother, Mother, MOTHER ! Alone and poor ! "
"Philip, my dear boy! Do you wanter kill yer old friend? Ye
might's well's talk so! Oh, if I had a lawyer, I'd fix it all so ye couldn't
be so hard on poor ole Zury no more ! I'd deed the whole on it, I would
-'n' joyfly ! "
" Alone and poor," mumbled the sufferer, scarcely knowing what
Prouder had said, or what he himself was saying.
" Oh, my God ! Can't I do noth'n ? My tongue's tied, between the
livin' 'n' the dyin' so I can't say what's in my heart to my boy ! Here,
my son, — look at me a half a minute ! Here in my ole pocket-book's
money 'n' good notes for risin' nine thaousan' dollars, besides trash.
Sam! Say, you Sam! See me give 'n' transfer this h'yer puss'n'l
prop'ty to Philip McYey, t' have 'n' t'hold, to be his'n, live er die, 'n'
mine no longer ! "
" I see you, Uncle Zury," answered Sam.
Even Phil seemed, with the physical possession of this little fortune,
to perceive that his filial anxiety as to the provision for his mother and
sister was no longer reasonable. He clutched the fat wallet on his
breast, and tried to smile at the giver.
" Couldn't ye call me daddy, jes' once, my boy ? "
" Daddy, daddy, ye deserve it if ye keep yer word — an' ye will ! "
'• Mightn't I kiss ye jes' once — son? "
"If ye kin find a place, daddy, that ain't — biled."
And the trembling grizzled lips rested a little while on that pitiful
strip of forehead. Then the poor old soul sank into a heap at the head
of Phil's cot, and was still.
Zury's attention was attracted by the entrance of the doctor, who
called him, and said to him in a low voice:
" That thar young gal whose mother was hurt 's a-comin' in."
"Oh, don't let her," cried Phil, who had been roused by the move-
ment
" I'm coming, Phil ! Don't send me off ! Oh, please— Dear Phil,
don't kill me ! "
"Well— put the lights where they won't shine on me. So! Oh,
Annie!" he murmured, with blistered tongue in shapeless mouth.
The dear girl knelt by him, and soiled her sweet lips in his damp and
grimy hair.
1835-60] JOSEPH EIRKLAND. 505
" I thought you went on the train, Annie ! "
"Oh, Phil!" (reproachfully). "Haven't you learned to know me
yet?"'
She put her arm around his head for the first time in her life.
" Have you forgiven me, Annie ? "
" I've been trying not to, Phil, for almost twenty-four hours ! That
all away, far away, out of sight! I don't care for anything now, but
this ! "
" It was bad, though, wasn't it? "
"Yes; especially seeing that it went on after you knew me."
" Oh, if I'd known you a little sooner ! "
Then he felt her left hand around his head, and reached up a band-
aged and misshapen paw, and grasped the pure, translucent fingers and
lifted them where he could see them once more. Not an imperfection
or blemish except on the forefinger, where were those thousands of
needle-marks. She saw him look at them.
" My hands would have worked for you and yours, Phil, whenever
you came and asked for them."
She had again forgotten her little speech prepared for refusing
him.
"Annie," he whispered, " can't you put the light so I can see you and
you not see me ? There — down on the opposite side of the bed — so ! I
don't want you to carry this picture of me in your memory — looking like
this!"
It was difficult to make out his words, try as hard as he might, with
his failing strength and faculties, to make them understood. Then he
gazed on her face with glazing eyes that seemed to thrust away Death
itself in their longing to keep their hold on that beloved vision. But at
last they slowly closed, and then Annie sank on her knees at his side,
and sobbed and prayed, and prayed and sobbed, till some one came and
begged her to go away. She only asked if her mother wanted her, and
learning that she was still asleep, resumed her kneeling vigil.
Once more Phil, in his delirium, said aloud : " Mother ! MOTHER ! "
and the sound floated out of the open window into the darkness. Just
then an emigrant wagon headed westward passed the station, and from
it might have been heard, if any one had listened, a kind of distorted
echo :
" By God ! "
And the vehicle labored on and disappeared.
While Annie was still kneeling, sobbing, and praying, Phil grew more
CAC MARY BARKER DODGE. [1835-60
Out)
restless and feverish, wakeful and flighty. He would try, in his imper-
fect utterance, to say, "Mother," " Oh, Meg ! " " Mother, mother ! " and
once, in gentle tones :
u Annie ! Oh, Annie ! "
She rose and kissed his forehead, but he did not know her.
Again she was urged to leave the unfit place, but in vain. Then Phil
chanced to say, in a questioning, chiding, expostulatory tone :
"Dollv? Dolly? Why, Dolly !" and then she silently got up and
went away.
Then Zury was alone with the poor fellow in his wanderings ; now
painless, thanks to the merciful provision that ends anguish when death
has become inevitable and imminent. Phil's mind strayed farther and
farther backward into past years as it lost its hold on the present and
future.
" It was not the axe, I tell you ! It was the grindstone."
Zury bent over him and met his unrecognizing gaze.
" Oh, I — I guess you can't understand — of course you can't ! But
mother will understand ! Mother will know ! " and a sweet smile of per-
fect, restful confidence shone about his eyes. " Mother — and Meg !
Meg understands everything ! "
Toward morning all his maundering ceased ; and Zury observed that
the poor head began to roll and turn wearily from side to side. He
roused the tired doctor and called his attention to the new circumstance.
The doctor nodded and said :
" That's about the last."
When day broke Sam Sanders awoke all feverish from a long stupor ;
and then he saw that they had pulled the sheet up over the face of what
had been Phil McVey. And there at the bed's head, in a crushed heap,
crouched poor Zury Prouder, — like a great hulk, wrecked just as it was
entering its longed-for harbor.
BORN in Bridgewater, Bucks Co., Penn.
THE CHIMNEY NEST.
A DAINTY, delicate swallow-feather
-"• Is all that we now in the chimney trace
Of something that days and days together
With twittering bird-notes filled the place.
1835-60] HELEN FISKE JACKSON. 597-
Where are you flying now, swallow, swallow ?
Where are you waking the spaces blue ?
How many little ones follow, follow,
Whose wings to strength in the chimney grew ?
Deep and narrow, and dark and lonely,
The sooty place that you nested in ;
Over you one blue glimmer only, —
Say, were there many to make the din ?
This is certain, that somewhere or other
Up in the chimney is loosely hung
A queer-shaped nest, where a patient mother
Brooded a brood of tender young;
That here, as in many deserted places,
Brimming with life for hours and hours,
We miss with the hum a thousand graces,
Valued the more since no more ours.
Ah ! why do we shut our eyes half blindly,
And close our hearts to some wee things near,
Till He who granted them kindly, kindly
Gathers them back, that we see and hear,
And know, by loss of the same grown dearer,
Naught is so small of his works aud ways,
But, holding it tenderly when 'twas nearer,
Has added a joy to our vanished days ?
So, little, delicate swallow-feather,
Fashioned with care by the Master's hand,
I'll hold you close for your message, whether
Or not the whole I may understand.
ftefec 3i
BORN in Amherst, Mass., 1831. DIED in San Francisco, Cal.
SPINNING.
[Verses. By H. H. 1874]
T IKE a blind spinner in the sun,
-L^ I tread my days ;
I know that all the threads will run
Appointed ways ;
cno HELEN FISEE JACKSON. [1835-60
oUo
I know each day will bring its task,
And, being blind, no more I ask.
I do not know the use or name
Of that I spin;
I only know that some one came,
And laid within
My hand the thread, and said, "Since you
Are blind, but one thing you can do."
Sometimes the threads so rough and fast
And tangled fly,
I know wild storms are sweeping past,
And fear that I
Shall fall; but dare not try to find
A safer place, since I am blind. -
I know not why, but I am sure
That tint and place,
In some great fabric to endure
Past time and race
My threads will have; so from the first,
Though blind, I never felt accurst.
I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung
From one short word
Said over me when I was young, —
So young, I heard
It, knowing not that God's name signed
My brow, and sealed me his, though blind.
But whether this be seal or sign
Within, without,
It matters not. The bond divine
I never doubt.
I know He set me here, and still,
And glad, and blind, I wait His will ;
But listen, listen, day by day,
To hear their tread
Who bear the finished web away,
And cut the thread,
And bring God's message in the sun,
"Thou poor blind spinner, work is done."
* -j
1835-60] HELEN F1SKE JACKSON.
THE SHEEP-SHEARING AT THE MORENO RANCH.
[Ramona. A Story. 1884.]
rpHE room in which Father Salvierderra always slept when at the
-L Senora Moreno's house was the southeast corner room. It had a
window to the south and one to the east When the first glow of dawn
came in the sky, this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father
was always on watch for it, having usually been at prayer for hours. As
the first ray reached the window, he would throw the casement wide
open, and standing there with bared head, strike up the melody of the
sunrise hymn sung in all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful
custom, not yet wholly abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the oldest
member of the family arose, and began singing some hymn familiar to
the household. It was the duty of each person hearing it to immediately
rise, or at least sit up in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments
the whole family would be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out
from the house like the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The
hymns were usually invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the dav,
and the melodies were sweet and simple.
On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides
Father Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wan-
dering about since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the
willow trees by the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the
evening before. He recollected this custom of the sunrise hymn when
he and his band were at the Senora's the last year, and he had chanced
then to learn that the Father slept in the southeast room. From the
spot where he sat, he could see the south window of this room. He
could also see the low eastern horizon, at which a faint luminous line
already showed. The sky was like amber ; a few stars still shone faintly
in the zenith. There was not a sound. It was one of those rare moments
in which one can without difficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the
earth through space. Alessandro knew nothing of this ; he could not
have been made to believe that the earth was moving. He thought the
sun was coming up apace, and the earth was standing still, — a belief just
as grand, just as thrilling, so far as all that goes, as the other: men wor-
shipped the sun long before thev found out that it stood still. Not the
most reverent astronomer, with the mathematics of the heavens at his
tongue's end, could have had more delight in the wondrous phenomenon
of the dawn, than did this simple-minded, unlearned man.
His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly increasing light, to
the windows of the house, yet dark and still. " Which window is hers ?
Will she open it when the song begins ? " he thought " Is it on this
_, Q HELEN FISKE JACKSON. [1835-60
side of the house ? Who can she be ? She was not here last year. Saw
the saints ever so beautiful a creature ! "
At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang
to his feet In the next second Father Salvierderra flung up his south
window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks stream-
ing back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing —
" 0 beautiful -Queen,
Princess of Heaven."
Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined
in the Senora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond
the flowers ; Felipe, from the adjoining room ; Ramona, from hers, the
next ; and Margarita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of
the house.
As the volume of melody swelled, the canaries waked, and the finches
and the linnets in the veranda roof. The tiles of this roof were laid on
bundles of tule reeds, in which the linnets delighted to build their nests.
The roof was alive with them — scores and scores, nay hundreds, tame as
chickens; their tiny shrill twitter was like the tuning of myriads of
violins.
" Singers at dawn
From the heavens above
People all regions ;
Gladly we too sing,"
continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. Then men's
voices joined in — Juan and Luigo, and a dozen more, walking slowly
up from the sheepfolds. The hymn was a favorite one, known to all.
" Come, 0 sinners.
Come, and we will sing
Tender hymns
To our refuge,"
was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn.
Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father, Chief Pablo, had
been the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last
years of its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old
choir music. Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on
parchment. He not only sang well, but was a good player on the violin.
There was not at any of the missions so fine a band of performers on
stringed instruments as at San Luis Rey. Father Peyri was passionately
fond of music, and spared no pains in training all of the neophytes under
his charge who showed any special talent in that direction. Chief Pablo,
after the breaking up of the mission, had settled at Temecula, with a
small band of his Indians, and endeavored, so far as was in his power, to
1835-60] HELEN FISKE JACKSON. frU
keep up the old religious services. The music in the little chapel of the
Temecula Indians was a surprise to all who heard it.
Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for music, and
knew all the old mission music by heart. This hymn to the
" Beautiful Queen,
Princess of Heaven,"
was one of his special favorites ; and as he heard verse after verse rising,
he could not forbear striking in.
At the first notes of this rich new voice, Eamona's voice ceased in
surprise ; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking
in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang
no more.
" What could it have been ? Did I dream it? " thought Earnona, drew
in her head, and began to sing again.
With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich baritone notes.
They seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a
great wave bears a boat. Ramona had never heard such a voice. Felipe
had a good tenor, and she liked to sing with him, or to hear him ; but
this — this was from another world, this sound. Ramona felt every note
of it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain.
When the hymn ended, she listened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra
would strike up a second hymn, as he often did ; but he did not this
morning ; there was too much to be done ; everybody was in a hurry to
be at work : windows shut, doors opened ; the sounds of voices from all
directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The
sun rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place.
Margarita ran and unlocked the chapel door, putting up a heartfelt
thanksgiving to Saint Francis and the Senorita, as she saw the snowy
altar-cloth in its place, looking from that distance, at least, as good as
new.
The Indians and the shepherds, and laborers of all sorts, were coming
towards the chapel. The Senora, with her best black silk handkerchief
bound tight around her forehead, the ends hanging down each side of
her face, making her look like an Assyrian priestess, was descending the
veranda steps, Felipe at her side ; and Father Salvierderra had already
entered the chapel before Ramoua appeared, or Alessandro stirred from
his vantage-post of observation at the willows.
When Ramona came out from the door she bore in her hands a high
silver urn filled with ferns. She had been for many days gathering and
hoarding these. They were hard to find, growing only in one place in a
rocky canon, several miles away.
As she stepped from the veranda to the ground, Alessandro walked
K-, 9 HELEN F1SKE JACKSON. [1835-60
slowly up the garden-walk, facing her. She met his eyes, and, without
knowing why, thought, " That must be the Indian who sang." As she
turned to the right and entered the chapel, Alessandro followed her hur-
riedly, and knelt on the stones close to the chapel door. He would be
near when she came out. As he looked in at the door, he saw her glide
up the aisle, place the ferns on the reading-desk, and then kneel down
by Felipe in front of the altar. Felipe turned towards her, smiling
slightly, with a look as of secret intelligence.
" Ah, Senor Felipe has married. She is his wife," thought Alessandro,
and a strange pain seized him. He did not analyze it; hardly knew
what it meant. He was only twenty-one. He had not thought much
about women. He was a distant, cold boy, his own people of the Teme-
cula village said. It had come, they believed, of learning to read, which
was always bad. Chief Pablo had not done his son any good by trying
to make him like white men. If the Fathers could have stayed, and the
life at the mission have gone on, why, Alessaudro could have had work
to do for the Fathers, as his father had before him. Pablo had been
Father Peyri's right-hand man at the mission ; had kept all the accounts
about the cattle ; paid the wages ; handled thousands of dollars of gold
every month. But that was "in the time of the king"; it was very
different now. The Americans would not let an Indian do anything but
plough and sow and herd cattle. A man need not read and write, to do
that.
Even Pablo sometimes doubted whether he had done wisely in teach-
ing Alessandro all he knew himself. Pablo was, for one of his race, wise
and far-seeing. He perceived the danger threatening his people on all
sides. Father Peyri, before he left the country, had said to him : " Pablo,
your people will be driven like sheep to the slaughter, unless you keep
them together. Knit firm bonds between them ; band them into pueblos ;
make them work ; and above all, keep peace with the whites. It is your
only chance." ....
It was of these things he had been thinking as he walked alone, in
advance of his men, on the previous night, when he first saw Ramona
kneeling at the brook. Between that moment and the present, it seemed
to Alessandro that some strange miracle must have happened to him.
The purposes and the fears had alike gone. A face replaced them ; a
vague wonder, pain, joy, he knew not what, filled him so to overflowing
that he was bewildered. If he had been what the world calls a civilized
man, he would have known instantly, and would have been capable of
weighing, analyzing, and reflecting on his sensations at leisure. But he
was not a civilized man ; he had to bring to bear on his present situation
only simple, primitive, uneducated instincts and impulses. If Ramona
had been a maiden of his own people or race, he would have drawn near
1H35-60J HELEN FISKE JACKSON. 5^3
to her as quickly as iron to the magnet. But now, if he had gone so far
as to even think of her in such a way, she would have been, to his view,
as far removed from him as was the morning star beneath whose radi-
ance he had that morning watched, hoping for sight of her at her win-
dow. He did not, however, go so far as to thus think of her. Even
that would have been impossible. He only knelt on the stones outside
the chapel door, mechanically repeating the prayers with the rest, wait-
ing for her to reappear. He had no doubt, now, that she was Senor
Felipe's wife; all the same he wished to kneel there till she came out,
that he might see her face again. His vista of purpose, fear, hope, had
narrowed now down to that, — just one more sight of her. Ever so civi-
lized, he could hardly have worshipped a woman better. The mass
seemed to him endlessly long. Until near the last, he forgot to sing ;
then, in the closing of the final hymn, he suddenly remembered, and the
clear deep-toned voice pealed out, as before, like the undertone of a great
sea-wave sweeping along.
Ramona heard the first note, and felt again the same thrill. She was
as much a musician born as Alessandro himself. As she rose from her
knees, she whispered to Felipe: ''Felipe, do find out which one of the
Indians it is has that superb voice. I never heard anything like it."
" Oh, that is Alessandro," replied Felipe, " old Pablo's son. He is a
splendid fellow. Don't you recollect his singing two years ago? "
"I was not here," replied Ramona; "you forget."
"Ah, yes, so you were away ; I had forgotten," said Felipe. "Well,
he was here. They made him captain of the shearing-band, though he
was only twenty, and he managed the men splendidly. They saved
nearly all their money to carry home, and I never knew them do such
a thing before. Father Salvierderra was here, which might have had
something to do with it ; but I think it was quite as much Alessandro.
He plays the violin beautifully. T hope he has brought it along. He
plays the old San Luis Rey music. His father was band-master there."
Ramona's eyes kindled with pleasure. " Does your mother like it, to
have him play ? " she asked.
Felipe nodded. " We'll have him up on the veranda to-night,'' he
said.
While this whispered colloquy was going on, the chapel had emptied,
the Indians and Mexicans all hurrying out to set about the day's, work.
Alessandro lingered at the doorway as long as he dared, till he was
sharply called by Juan Canito, looking back : " What are you gaping at
there, you Alessandro ! Hurry, now, and get your men to work. After
waiting till near midsummer for this shearing, we'll make as quick work
of it as we can. Have you got your best shearers here ? "
"Ay, that I have," answered Alessandro; " not a man of them but
VOL. viii. — 33
g-, , HELEN FISKE JACKSON. [1835-60
can shear his hundred in a day. There is not such a band as ours in all
San Diego County ; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either ;
you'll see scarce a scratch on their sides."
" Humph ! " retorted Juan Can. " 'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that
draws blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my
day, and never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always
been famed for good shearers."
Juan's invidious emphasis on the word " Mexicans " did not escape
Alessandro. "And we Indians also," he answered, good-naturedly,
betraying no annoyance; "but as for these Americans, I saw one at
work the other day, that man Lomax, who has settled near Temecula,
and upon my faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not
a shearing. The poor beasts limped off with the blood running."
Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder
to this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority
of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art ; so, much vexed, with
another " humph ! " he walked away ; walked away so fast, that he lost
the sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him
still farther.
At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The
shearing-shed was a huge caricature of a summer-house — a long, narrow
structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and pillars ;
no walls ; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart as was safe, for
the upholding the roof, which was of rough planks loosely laid from
beam to beam. On three sides of this were the sheep-pens filled with
sheep and lambs.
A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to
be cooked and the shearers fed. These were mere temporary affairs,
roofed only by willow boughs with the leaves left on. Near these the
Indians had already arranged their camp ; a hut or two of green boughs
had been built, but for the most part they would sleep rolled up in their
blankets, on the ground. There was a brisk wind, and the gay-colored
wings of the windmill blew furiously round and round, pumping out
into the tank below a stream of water so swift and strong, that as the
men crowded around, wetting and sharpening their knives, they got well
spattered, and had much merriment, pushing and elbowing each other
into the spray.
A high four-posted frame stood close to the shed ; in this, swung from
the four corners, hung one of the great sacking bags in which the fleeces
were to be packed. A big pile of these bags lay on the ground at foot
of the posts. Juan Can eyed them with a chuckle. " We'll fill more
than those before night, Senor Felipe," he said. He was in his element,
Juan Can, at shearing-times. Then came his reward for the somewhat
1835-60] HELEN FISKE JACKSON. K-IK
monotonous and stupid year's work. The world held no better feast for
his eyes than the sight of a long row of big bales of fleece, tied, stamped
with the Moreno brand, ready to be drawn away to the mills. " Now,
there is something substantial," he thought ; " no chance of wool going
amiss in market ! "
If a year's crop were good, Juan's happiness was assured for the next
six months. If it proved poor, he turned devout immediately, and spent
the next six months calling on the saints for better luck, and redoubling
his exertions with the sheep.
On one of the posts of the shed short projecting slats were nailed, like
half-rounds of a ladder. Lightly as a rope-walker Felipe ran up these,
to the roof, and took his stand there, ready to take the fleeces and pack
them in the bag as fast as they should be tossed up from below. Luigo,
with a big leathern wallet fastened in front of him, filled with five-cent
pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty shearers,
running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into the shed, in a
twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees, helpless, immov-
able, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The sheep-shearing had
begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the bleating, baaing,
opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears, flying of fleeces
through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping them down in the
bales ; not a second's intermission, except the hour of rest at noon, from
sunrise till sunset, till the whole eight thousand of the Senora Moreno's
sheep were shorn. It was a dramatic spectacle. As soon as a sheep was
shorn, the shearer ran with the fleece in his hand to Luigo, threw it
down on a table, received his five-cent piece, dropped it in his pocket,
ran to the pen, dragged out another sheep, and in less than five minutes
was back again with a second fleece. The shorn sheep, released, bounded
off into another pen, where, light in the head no doubt from being three
to five pounds lighter on their legs, they trotted round bewilderedly for
a moment, then flung up their heels and capered for joy.
It was warm work. The dust from the fleeces and the trampling feet
filled the air. As the sun rose higher in the sky the sweat poured off
the men's faces ; and Felipe, standing without shelter on the roof, found
out very soon that he had by no means yet got back his full strength
since the fever. Long before noon, except for sheer pride, and for the
recollection of Juan Canito's speech, he would have come down and
yielded his place to the old man. But he was resolved not to give up,
and he worked on, though his face was purple and his head throbbing.
After the bag of fleeces is half full, the packer stands in it, jumping with
his full weight on the wool, as he throws in the fleeces, to compress them
as much as possible. When Felipe began to do this, he found that he
had indeed overrated his strength. As the first cloud of the sickening
-,„ HELEN FISKE JACKSON. [1835-60
010
dust came up, enveloping his head, choking his breath, he turned sud-
denly dizzy, and calling faintly, " Juan, I am ill," sank helpless down in
the wool. He had fainted. At Juan Canito's scream of dismay, a great
hubbub and outcry arose ; all saw instantly what had happened. Felipe's
head was hanging limp over the edge of the bag, Juan in vain endeavor-
ing to get sufficient foothold by his side to lift him. One after another
the men rushed up the ladder, until they were all standing, a helpless,
excited crowd, on the roof, one proposing one thing, one another. Only
Luigo had had the presence of mind to run to the house for help. The
Senora was away from home. She had gone with Father Salvierderra
to a friend's house, a half-day's journey off. But Ramona was there.
Snatching all she could think of in way of restoratives, she came flying
back with Luigo, followed by every servant in the establishment, all
talking, groaning, gesticulating, suggesting, wringing their hands — as
disheartening a Babel as ever made bad matters worse.
Reaching the shed, Ramona looked up to the roof bewildered. " Where
is he?" she cried. The next instant she saw his head, held in Juan
Canito's arms, just above the edge of the wool-bag. She groaned, "Oh,
how will he ever be lifted out ! "
" I will lift him, Senora,'' cried Alessandro. coming to the front. " I
am very strong. Do not be afraid; I will bring him safe down." And
swinging himself down the ladder, he ran swiftly to the camp, and
returned, bringing in his hands blankets. Springing quickly to the roof
again, he knotted the blankets firmly together, and tying them at the
middle around his waist, threw the ends to his men, telling them to hold
him firm. He spoke in the Indian tongue as he was hurriedly doing
this, and Ramona did not at first understand his plan. But when she
saw the Indians move a little back from the edge of the roof, holding
the blankets firm grasped, while Alessandro stepped out on one of the
narrow cross-beams from which the bag swung, she saw what he meant
to do. She held her breath. Felipe was a slender man; Alessandro
was much heavier, and many inches taller. Still, could any man carry
such a burden safely on that narrow beam ! Ramona looked away, and
shut her eyes, through the silence which followed. It was only a few
moments ; but it seemed an eternity before a glad murmur of voices told
her that it was done, and looking up, she saw Felipe lying on the roof,
unconscious, his face white, his eyes shut. At this sight, all the ser-
vants broke out afresh, weeping and wailing, "He is dead! He is
dead ! "
Ramona stood motionless, her eyes fixed on Felipe's face. She, too,
believed him dead ; but her thought was of the Senora.
" He is not dead," cried Juan Canito, who had thrust his hand under
Felipe's shirt. " He is not dead. It is only a faint."
1835-60] HELEN FISKE JACKSON. 5^7
At this the first tears rolled down Ramona's face. She looked pite-
ously at the ladder up and down which she had seen Alessandro run as
if it were an easy indoors staircase. "If I could only get up there!"
she said, looking from one to another. "I think I can;" and she put
one foot on the lower round.
'' Holy Virgin ! " cried Juan Can, seeing her movement. " Senorita !
Senorita ! do not attempt it. It is not too easy for a man. You will
break your neck. He is fast coming to his senses."
Alessandro caught the words. Spite of all the confusion and terror of
the scene, his heart heard the word, "Senorita." Eamona was not the
wife of Felipe, or of any man. Yet Alessandro recollected that he had
addressed her as Senora, and she did not seem surprised. Coming to the
front of the group, he said, bending forward, " Senorita ! " There must
have been something in the tone which made Ramona start. The simple
word could not have done it. "Senorita," said Alessandro, "it will be
nothing to bring Senor Felipe down the ladder. He is, in my arms, no
more than one of the lambs yonder. I will bring him down as soon as
he is recovered. He is better here till then. He will very soon be him-
self again. It was only the heat." Seeing that the expression of anxious
distress did not grow less on Ramona's face, he continued, in a tone
still more earnest, " Will not the Senorita trust me to bring him safe
down?"
Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. "Yes," she said, "I will
trust you. You are Alessandro, are you not ? "
"Yes, Senorita," he answered, greatly surprised, "I am Alessandro."
HABEAS CORPUS.
[Sonnets and Lyrics. 1886.]
MY body, eh ? Friend Death, how now ?
Why all this tedious pomp of writ ?
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and. slow
For half a century, bit by bit.
In faith thou knowest more to-day
Than I do, where it can be found!
This shriveled lump of suffering clay,
To which I now am chained and bound,
Has not of kith or kin a trace
To the good body once I bore;
Look at this shrunken, ghastly face :
Didst ever see that face before ?
c, 0 HELEN F1SKE JACKSON. [1835-60
Olo
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art ;
Thy only fault thy lagging gait,
Mistaken pity in thy heart
For timorous ones that bid thee wait.
Do quickly all thou hast to do,
Nor I nor mine will hindrance make;
I shall be free when thou art through ;
I grudge thee naught that thou must take!
Stay! I have lied; I grudge thee one,
Yes, two I grudge thee at this last, —
Two members which have faithful done
My will and bidding in the past.
I grudge thee this right hand of mine;
I grudge thee this quick-beating heart;
They never gave me coward sign,
Nor played me once a traitor's part.
I see now why in olden days
Men in barbaric love or hate
Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,
Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:
The symbol, sign, and instrument
Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife,
Of fires in which are poured and spent
Their all of love, their all of life.
O feeble, mighty human hand !
0 fragile, dauntless human heart!
The universe holds nothing planned
With such sublime, transcendent art!
Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine
Poor little hand, so feeble now ;
Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,
Its veins so pallid and so slow —
(Unfinished here.)
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;
1 shall be free when thou art through.
Take all there is— take hand and heart;
There must be somewhere work to do.
Her last poem : 7 August, 1885.
1835-60] DANIEL COIT OILMAN.
519
Mantel Coit
BOKN in Norwich, Conn., 1831.
TWELVE POINTS IN RESPECT TO UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
[From his Inaugivral Address at Johns Hopkins University, 22 February, 1876.]
A LL sciences are worthy of promotion ; or in other words, it is useless
-£*- to dispute whether literature or science should receive most atten-
tion, or whether there is any essential difference between the old and the
new education.
2. Eeligion has nothing to fear from science, and science need not be
afraid of religion. Religion claims to interpret the word of God, and
science to reveal the laws of God. The interpreters may blunder, but
truths are immutable, eternal, and never in conflict.
3. Eemote utility is quite as worthy to be thought of as immediate
advantage. Those ventures are not always most sagacious that expect
a return on the morrow. It sometimes pays to send our argosies across
the seas ; to make investments with an eye to slow but sure returns. So
is it always in the promotion of science.
4. As it is impossible for any university to encourage with equal
freedom all branches of learning, a selection must be made by enlight-
ened governors, and that selection must depend on the requirements and
deficiencies of a given people, in a given period. There is no absolute
standard of preference. What is more important at one time or in one
place may be less needed elsewhere and otherwise.
5. Individual students cannot pursue all branches of learning, and
must be allowed to select, under the guidance of those who are appointed
to counsel them. Nor can able professors be governed by routine.
Teachers and pupils must be allowed great freedom in their method of
work. Recitations, lectures, examinations, laboratories, libraries, field-
exercises, travels, are all legitimate means of culture.
6. The best scholars will almost invariably be those who make special
attainments on the foundation of a broad and liberal culture.
7. The best teacliers are usually those who are free, competent, and
willing to make original researches in the library and the laboratory.
8. The best investigators are usually those who have also the respon-
sibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement of colleagues, the
encouragement of pupils, the observation of the public.
9. Universities should bestow their honors with a sparing hand ; their
benefits most freely.
10. A university cannot be created in a day ; it is a slow growth.
-9ft DANIEL COIT OILMAN. [1835-60
The University of Berlin has been quoted as a proof of the contrary.
That was indeed a quick success, but in an old, compact country,
crowded with learned men eager to assemble at the Prussian court. It
was a change of base rather than a sudden development.
11. The object of the university is to develop character— to make
men. It misses its aim if it produces learned pedants, or simple artisans,
or cunning sophists, or pretentious practitioners. Its purport is not so
much to impart knowledge to the pupils as to whet the appetite, exhibit
methods, develop powers, strengthen judgment, and invigorate the intel-
lectual and moral forces. It should prepare for the service of society a
class of students who will be wise, thoughtful, progressive guides in
whatever department of work or thought they may be engaged.
12. Universities easily fall into ruts. Almost every epoch requires a
fresh start.
A COLLEGE TRAINING.
[Address at the Opening of Adalbert College, Cleveland, Ohio, 26 October, 1882.1
SKEPTICS in regard to higher education may point to Shakespeare,
with his little Latin and less Greek ; to Franklin, the philosopher
and statesman, with his homely English and poor French ; to Grote, the
historian of Greece, who had no academic life; to Whittier, Howells, and
Cable, our own gifted contemporaries, and to many more writers who
never went to college ; and I confess that such examples seem at first to
show that colleges are not essential to literary culture. But we must
remember that our institutions are not devised for an oligarchv of intel-
lect, but for a democracy; not for a few royal dignitaries, but for a
throng of faithful workers. In a recent biography of Spinoza you may
meet this pithy saying : " The secret workings of nature which bring it
to pass that an ^Eschylus, a Leonardo, a Faraday, a Kant, or a Spinoza is
born upon earth are as obscure now as they were a thousand years ago " ;
and if this be admitted, surely, colleges are not to be built up and main-
tained for such extraordinary phenomena. We call these men gifted ;
we say they have genius ; we except them from rules. They will win
renown under any circumstances, hindered but not repressed by acting
parts in a theatre like Shakespeare ; or setting type in a printing-house
like Franklin; or managing a bank like Grote ; or learning the trade of
a bookbinder like Faraday. It is neither for the genius nor for the
dunce, but for the great middle class possessing ordinary talents, that we
build colleges ; and it can be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that
for them the opportunities afforded by libraries, teachers, companion-
1835-60] DANIEL CO IT OILMAN. 521
ship, and the systematic recurrence of intellectual tasks are most efficient
means of intellectual culture. Mental discipline may indeed be acquired
in other ways ; the love of letters is not implanted by a college ; the
study of nature may be pursued alone in the open air; but given to each
one in a group of a hundred youths a certain amount of talent, more
than mediocrity and less than genius— that is to say, the average ability
of a boy in our high schools and academies— it will be found in nine
cases out of ten that those who go to college surpass the others during
the course of life, in influence, in learning, in the power to do good, and
in the enjoyment of books, nature, and art. Mental powers may be
developed in other places — the mechanic's institute, the mercantile
library, the winter lyceum, the private study, the gatherings of good
men, in the haunts of business, and in the walks of civil life, but not so
easily, nor so systematically, nor so thoroughly, nor so auspiciously, nor
so pleasantly. With all their defects, colleges are the best agencies
which the world has ever devised for the training of the intellectual
forces of youth. ,
A good college gives training in the arts of expression as well as in
those of observation ; it not only favors the acquisition of knowledge by
its students, but it shows them how to bring forth their knowledge for
the benefit of others. This function of a college has not always been
sufficiently developed. The learning of appointed lessons, the memoriz-
ing of rules and dates, the solution of problems, and the observation or
performance of experiments, all this is undoubtedly good discipline, but
it is not enough. The scholar should be able to express himself clearly,
neatly, and fitly, and there are very few, indeed, who can do this with-
out long and careful practice. I have talked with some of the leading
publishers of American books, regarding the manuscript submitted to
them, and I have spoken with editors of the very best magazines, and
from both these sources, which are doubtless perfectly well informed, I
receive the same impression, that this country is now prolific in writers,
but that the number of trained literary men who can write well, and
make of literature a profession, is very small. There are many who are
eager to print their effusions; there are few who are willing to elaborate
their work, rewriting, rearranging, pruning, condensing, shaping until
the best form possible is attained. It is a mistake to suppose that writ-
ers who win the highest renown are commonly hasty, that they dash off
what they say by a stroke of genius. The biography of Dickens shows
what pains he took to secure even the right proper names; for example,
note his choice of the title " Household Words." Pages of his proof-
sheets which I have seen show how carefully he revised every paragraph.
The very last proofs of " Peveril of the Peak " (owned by President White)
show that a romance of Walter Scott received the master's final touches
eno ELB RIDGE JEFFERSON CUTLER. [1835-60
OAA
just before the printing began. Bret Harte's famous poem on the
Heathen Chinee was corrected and recorrected, and on the ultimate
revision received, I believe, that satirical touch which gave it world-wide
fame: "We are ruined by Chinee cheap labor." Emerson is considered
by many as a sort of oracle, simply opening his mouth to let fall apho-
risms of profound importance, but recent and authentic narratives of his
life show that he forged his sentences like the gold-beater who is prepar-
ing a setting for pearls.
You may think it very trifling for me to speak of penmanship, but I
cannot refrain from telling a story of one of the most illustrious mathe-
maticians of the nineteenth century, whose great treatise lay unnoticed
for nearly three years in the archives of the French Academy, because,
as Legendre himself acknowledged, it was almost illegible, being written
with very faint ink and the characters being badly formed. Eesurgent
from the temporary grave to which its bad penmanship consigned it, this
treatise of Abel's became the point of departure for profound researches,
still in progress fifty years later, by Cay ley and Sylvester in Cambridge
and Baltimore. All this seems to me to indicate that training, imposed
by one's self or by one's teacher, is essential to literary success. Col-
leges provide such training.
3Ieffet#on Cutlet*
BOBN in Holliston, Mass., 1831. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1870.
THE VOLUNTEER.
[War Poems. 1867.]
"A T dawn," he said, "I bid them all farewell,
•"• To go where bugles call and rifles gleam."
And with the restless thought asleep he fell,
And glided into dream.
A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread, —
Through it a level river slowly drawn :
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.
There came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay ;
Blood trickled down the river's reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay.
1835-60] JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN. 5. 23
The morn broke in upon bis solemn dream,
And still, with steady pulse and deepening eye,
"Where bugles call," he said, "and rifles gleam,'
I follow, though I die! "
n^
-*•
3Iane
BORN in Worcester, Mass., 1831.
AN AFTERNOON IN NANTUCKET.
[NantucTcet Scraps. 1883.]
E drowsy hours of early afternoon were devoted to the museum,
collected and exhibited by the public-spirited widow of a sea-cap-
tain named McCleve. An upper room of her comfortable house is
devoted to the curios, although, like attar of roses, or some penetrating
oils, they seem to have saturated the entire mansion, — the good-natured
proprietress occasionally haling a favored guest away from the rest to
look at some quaint picture, piece of china, or bit of furniture in her
own private apartments. The party of twelve or fourteen collected on
this especial afternoon were taken to the upper room and seated around
a small table, as if for a spiritual seance, the hostess arranging precedence
and proximity with an autocratic good humor to which everybody
yielded except the senor, who, standing looking in at the door, was pres-
ently accosted with —
" That gentleman at the door — why — I've seen that face before ! Don't
you tell me it's Sam ! "
" No, I won't, Aunty McCleve, for you'd be sure to contradict me if I
did," replied the senor, coolly ; whereupon Aunty shook him affection-
ately by the hand, assuring him he was the same " sarcy boy " he used
to be, and dragged him most reluctantly to a seat in the magical circle.
" At what period of the entertainment do we pay ? " inquired one of
the persons one meets everywhere, and who may be called the whit-
leather of society. Mrs. McCleve looked at him with an appreciative
eye for a moment, and then quietly replied :
"Well, it isn't often people bring it out quite so plain as that, but I
guess you'd better pay now before you forget it." Whitleather does not
suffer from sarcasm, and the practical man, producing a quarter of a
dollar, held it tight while asking —
" Have you got ten cents change ? "
-9, JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN. [1835-60
"No, brother; but you can keep your quarter till I have," replied
Aunty,' with the quiet gleam stiil in her eye, and the business was soon
adjusted. This over, she placed upon the table a tray containing some
really exquisite carvings in whale's-tooth ivory, comprising a set of nap-
kin-rings, thread-winders, spoons of various sizes, knife-handles, and
several specimens of a utensil peculiar to Nantucket, called a jagging-
knife, used for carving ornamental patterns in pastry, — a species of
embroidery for which Nantucket housewives were once famous, although,
"pity 'tis 'tis true," they have now largely emancipated themselves from
such arts.
As the guests examined these really wonderful products of talent
almost unaided by implements or training, one of the ladies naturally
inquired: "Who did these?" The hostess assumed a sibylline attitude
and tone: " Perhaps, my dear, you can tell us that; and if so, you'll be
the first one I ever met that could." This obscure intimation of course
awakened an interest far deeper than the carvings, in every mind; and
in reply to a shower of questioning the sibyl gave a long and intricate
narration, beginning with the presence on board of her husband's whale-
ship of a mystic youth with the manners and bearing of Porphyrogeni-
tus, and the rating of a common sailor; the delicate suggestion of a dis-
guised lady was also dimly introduced. What succeeds is yet more
wonderful, as Scheherezade always said when obliged to cut short the
story that the Sultan might get up and say his prayers ; but we will not
invade Mrs. McCleve's copyright by telling it, simply advising everv one
to go and listen to it.
" Two, four, six, eight, ten — elev — en ! " counted she at the end, pick-
ing up the napkin rings ; " I don't seem to see that twelfth ring ! " and
she looked hard at the unfortunate who had acquired her dislike in the
first of the interview by an unfeeling allusion to monev.
" Here it is, Aunty," remarked the senor. " I wanted to hear you ask
after it."
"Now, look at here, Sammy, you're too old for such tricks," expostu-
lated the dame, in precisely the tone one admonishes a naughty child ;
and then turning to the company generally she added confidentially :
" I ain't one of them that's given to suspicion, and it ain't a Nantucket
failing; but last summer there was a boy, one of those half-grown crit-
ters, you know, neither beef nor veal, and I just saw him pocket — well, it
was that very knife-handle. I always kept an eye on it since, thinking
it might be off yet. So I waited till I saw he actooally meant it, and
was fixing to go off with it, and then says I :
Well, sonny, going to unload before you start out on a new v'yge?'
So that's all about the carvings ; and these are sharks' teeth,— none of
your Wauwinet sand-sharks that would run away from a puppy -dog no
1835-60] JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN.
525
bigger than that, but a reg'lar man-eater off the West Indies ; and these
very teeth took a man's leg off."
" Horrible! " cried one, while another, one of the persistent souls who
must finish A before they begin B, inquired: " But did the boy give up
the knife-handle ? "
u Why, of course he did, my dear, since that's it," replied the hostess
compassionately ; and then, with the inborn courtesy peculiar to Nan-
tucket folk, turned aside the laugh that followed by hastily displaying
some new marvel. The room was crowded with marine curiosities,
many of them brought home by the deceased captain, many of them pre-
sented to his relict by his comrades or her own friends ; they were
mostly such as we have seen many times in many places, but some few
were sui generis— such as a marriage contract between a Quaker bache-
lor and maid in the early days of the island, with the signatures of half
the settlers appended as witnesses, mutual consent before others being
the only ceremony required by the canon of these Nonsacramentarians.
Then there was Phoebe Ann's comb, a wonderful work of art in tortoise-
shell ; anent which the possessor, Phoebe Ann's sister, delivered a short
original poem, setting forth how ardently Phoebe Ann had desired one
of these immense combs, their price being eight dollars each ; and how,
having engaged it, she set to work to earn it by picking berries for sale ;
but before the pence had grown to the pounds the big comb was out
of fashion, and poor Phoebe Ann's hair, which had been wonderfully
luxuriant, fell off through illness, and what remained was cut short.
Nantucket probity would not, however, be off its bargain for such cause
as this ; and Phcebe Ann paid her money and took her monumental
comb, — more useful in its present connection, perhaps, than it could
have been in any other. The crown and glory of Mrs. McCleve's
museum, however, is a carved wooden vase, twelve or fourteen inches in
height, made from the top of one of the red-cedar posts planted a century
or two since by this lady's ancestor, to inclose a certain parcel of land
belonging to him. Twenty or thirty years ago the fence was to be
renewed, and one of her cousins proposed to her to drive out to the place
and secure a relic of the original island cedar now extinct. She accepted ;
and the section of post, sawed off with great exertion by the cousin, was
turned and carved into its present shape in " Cousin Reuben Macy's shop
on Orange street."
But all this is set forth in an original poem delivered with much
unction by its author, who decisively refuses a copy to any and every-
body, and is even charv of letting any one listen to it more than once.
It is original — in fact, one may say, intensely original — and quite as
well worth listening to as the saga of a royal skald. It begins after this
fashion :
g26 JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN. [1835-60
" This vase, of which we have in contemplation,
Merits, my friends, your careful observation.
Saturday, the busiest day of all,
From Cousin Thomas I received a call."
Some lost couplets record the invitation to drive, and the demur on
account of pies then baking in the oven; but this being overruled by
masculine persuasiveness —
" Across the hall I gayly skipped,
And soon was for the cruise equipped."
Then follows the drive, the arrival, and the attempt to cut the stern old
cedar trunk with a dull saw, —
" Cousin Thomas worked with desperation,
Until he was in a profuse perspiration,"
and finally secured the trophy here exhibited. But these stray couplets
give a very inadequate idea of the poem as delivered by its author ; and
he who visits Nantucket and does not hear it has for the rest of his life
a lost opportunity to lament.
Just at the close of the recital the poetess fixed her eye steadily upon
a figure drooping beside one of the windows, and sternly inquired :
"Is that woman sick? Why don't somebody see to her? "
It was true that the culprit, overcome by the heat of the room, the
excitement of the narrative, and possibly certain ancient and fish-like
odors connected with marine specimens, had fainted a little ; but was
speedily recovered by the usual remedies, prominent among which in
these days is a disinclination to have one's crimps spoiled by the appli-
cation of water ; and the incident was made memorable by the valedic-
tory of the hostess :
" Now if any of you want to come in again while you stay on the
island you can, without paying anything ; and if I don't remember you,
just say, 'I was here the day the woman fainted,' and I shall know it's
all right." And we heard that the experiment was tried and succeeded.
As the party left the house the senor lingered to say: "We are going
up to the old windmill, Aunty. Didn't it belong to your family once ? "
" I should say it did, Sammy. They wanted a windmill and didn't
know how to make one: and they got an off-islander, name of Wilbur,
to make it, and like fools gave him the money beforehand. He went
back to the continent for something— nails maybe, or maybe idees— and
carried the money with him ; some pirate or other got wind of it, and
the first they knew down here, the man was robbed and murdered there
on Cape Cod. That didn't put up a windmill though, and the women
had got most tired grinding their samp and meal in those old stone mor-
1835-60] JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 527
tars, or even a hand-mill ; so some of the folks spoke to my grandfather
Elisha Macy about it, and he thought it over, and finally went to bed
and dreamed just how to build it, and next day got up and built it.
That's the story of that, my dear."
" A regular case of revelation, wasn't it? " suggested the senor with a
twinkle in his eye ; to which the hostess rather sharply replied :
"I don't profess to know much about revealation, and I dont sur-
mise you know much more, Sammy ; but that's how the windmill was
built."
History adds another anecdote of the windmill, worthy to be preserved
for its Nantuckety flavor. Eighty-two years from its marvellous incep-
tion, the mill had grown so old and infirm that its owners concluded to
sell it for lumber if need be. A meeting was called, and Jared Gardner,
the man who was supposed to be wisest in mills of any on the island,
was invited to attend, and succinctly asked by Sylvanus Macy —
"Jared, what will thee give for the mill without the stones?"
"Not one penny, Sylvanus," replied Jared as succinctly; and the
other —
" What will thee give for it as it stands, Jared ? "
" I don't feel to want it at any price, friend," replied Jared indiffer-
ently.
The mill-owners consulted, and presently returned to the charge
with —
"Jared, thee must make us an offer."
" Well, then, twenty dollars for firewood, Sylvanus."
The offer was accepted immediately ; and shrewd Jared did not burn
his mill even to roast a sucking pig, but repaired and used it to his own
and his neighbors' advantage, until the day of his death.
d^arftelti.
BORN in Orange, Ohio, 1831. DIED at Elberon, N. J., 1881.
GEORGE HENRY THOMAS.
[ Works. Edited by Burke A. Hinsdale. 1882.]
HIS career was not only great and complete, but, what is more sig-
nificant, it was in an eminent degree the work of his own hands.
It was not the result of accident or happy chance. I do not deny that
in all human pursuits, and especially in war, results are often determined
52g JAMES ABB AM OARFIELD. [1835-60
by what men call fortune— "that name for the unknown combinations
of infinite power." But this is almost always a modifying rather than
an initial force. Only a weak, a vain, or a desperate man will rely upon
it for success. Thomas's life is a notable illustration of the virtue and
power of hard work; and in the last analysis the power to do hard work
is only another name for talent. Professor Church, one of his instruc-
tors at West Point, says of his student life, that '• he never allowed any-
thin0" to escape a thorough examination, and left nothing behind that he
did not fully comprehend." And so it was in the army. To him a battle
was neither an earthquake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave men and
frantic horses involved in vast explosions of gunpowder. Tt was rather
a calm, rational concentration of force against force. It was a question
of lines and positions — of weight of metal and strength of battalions.
He knew that the elements and forces which bring victory are not
created on the battle-field, but must be patiently elaborated in the quiet
of the carnp, by the perfect organization and outfit of his army. His
remark to a captain of artillery while inspecting a battery is worth
remembering, for it exhibits his theory of success: "Keep everything
in order, for the fate of a battle may turn on a buckle or a 1 inch-pin." He
understood so thoroughly the condition of his army and its equipment
that, when the hour of trial came, he knew how great a pressure it could
stand, and how hard a blow it could strike.
His character was as grand and as simple as a colossal pillar of chis-
elled granite. Every step of his career as a soldier was marked by the
most loyal and unhesitating obedience to law — to the laws of his gov-
ernment and to the commands of his superiors. The obedience which
he rendered to those above him he rigidly required of those under his
command. Plis influence over his troops grew steadily and constantly.
He won his ascendency over them neither by artifice nor by any one act
of special daring, but he gradually filled them with his own spirit, until
their confidence in him knew no bounds. His power as a commander
was developed slowly and silently; not like volcanic land lifted from
the sea by sudden and violent upheaval, but rather like a coral island,
where each increment is a growth — an act of life and work.
A very few of our commanders possessed more force than Thomas —
more genius for planning and executing bold and daring enterprises ;
but, in my judgment, no other was so complete an embodiment and
incarnation of strength — the strength that resists, maintains, and endures.
His power was not that of the cataract, which leaps in fury down the
chasm, but rather that of the river, broad and deep, whose current is
steady, silent, irresistible
His modesty was as real as his courage. When he was in Washing-
ton in 1866, his friends with great difficulty persuaded him to allow him-
1835-60] WILLIAM WALLACE HARNEY. 529
self to be introduced to the House of Representatives. He was escorted
to the Speaker's stand, while the great assembly of representatives and
citizens arose and greeted him with the most enthusiastic marks of affec-
tion and reverence. Mr. Speaker Colfax, in speaking of it afterward,
said : " I noticed, as he stood beside me, that his hand trembled like an
aspen leaf. He could bear the shock of battle, but he shrank before the
storm of applause."
He was not insensible to praise ; and he was quick to feel any wrong
or injustice. While grateful to his country for the honor it conferred
upon him, and while cherishing all expressions of affection on the part
of his friends, he would not accept the smallest token of regard in the
form of a gift. So frank and guileless was his life, so free from any-
thing that approached intrigue, that when, after his death, his private
letters and papers were examined, there was not a scrap among them
that his most confidential friends thought best to destroy. When
Pheidias was asked why he took so much pains to finish up the parts of
his statue that would not be in sight, he said : " These I am finishing for
the gods to look at." In the life and character of General Thomas there
were no secret places of which his friends will ever be ashamed.
But his career is ended. Struck dead at his post of duty, a bereaved
nation bore his honored dust across the continent, and laid it to rest on
the banks of the Hudson, amidst the tears and grief of millions. The
nation stood at his grave as a mourner. No one knew until he was dead
how strong was his hold on the hearts of the American people. Every
citizen felt that a pillar of state had fallen — that a great and true and
pure man had passed from earth.
William Wallace
BORN in Bloomington, Ind., 1831.
THE MOORINGS.
IN A SOUTHERN HAKBOR.
M'
"OORED out in the bay,
And slowly under her keel
The long wave seems to feel —
To crawl and feel its way,
Lest her timbers rip
The smooth photogeny
Of the picture of the ship
In the hollow of the sea.
VOL. viii.— 34
WILLIAM WALLACE HARNEY [1835-60
Only twice a day
The short tide comes and goes,
Crunching under her toes,
In and out of the bay,
Muttering and coughing;
And, lazily enough,
Around her in the offing
The sun and shadows luff.
Around the great white ships,
The burly tugs and ferries,
The fishing smacks and wherries,
And the thirsty sandy slips.
She sees their shadows clear,
By one and two and three,
Appear and disappear
In the hollow of the sea.
Shall she never salt her
Timbers in old traffic,
Down the coast of Afric,
Sailing from Gibraltar,
Round by Mozambique ?
Shall she never speak
Sampan rafts afloat,
The lean-toothed sloop of war,
Or, home-bound, the pilot-boat,
At the break of the harbor bar ?
Or, when the scuds of clouds
Blacken the night with rain,
Feel her canvas strain
From truck to futtock shrouds,
To run the sharp blockade,
With the Federal gun-boats at her,
Bursting a cannonade
In the hiss of the driving water ?
Never: the stir is over
Of war and tempest and gain ;
No more will the quickening strain
Start in the old sea-rover
To the crack of the cannons' snapping,
The shouts of the men, the souse
Of the salt brine barking and flapping
And poppling under her bows.
Never : her rotten brails
Sag down from the yard ;
The mildew is in her sails;
The shell-fish crusts a shard
1835-60] WILLIAM WALLACE HARNEY.
Over her copper legging ;
And, limed in the ooze, she waits,
Like Belisarius begging
At the conquered city's gates.
THE STAB.
/"^vN the road, the lonely road,
V^ Under the cold white moon,
Under the ragged trees he strode ;
He whistled and shifted his weary load
Whistled a foolish tune.
There was a step timed with his own,
A figure that stooped and bowed —
A cold, white blade that gleamed and shone,
Like a splinter of daylight downward thrown —
And the moon went behind a cloud.
But the moon came out so broad and good,
The barn-fowl woke and crowed;
Then roughed his feathers in drowsy mood,
And the brown owl called to his mate in the wood,
That a dead man lay on the road.
T
MILK1NG-TIME.
1HE sun is low and the sky is red ;
Over meadows in rick and mow,
And out of the lush grass overfed,
The cattle are winding slow ;
A milky fragrance about them breathes
As they loiter one by one,
Over the fallow and out of the sheaths
Of the lake-grass in the sun.
And hark, in the distance, the cattle-bells, how musically they steal,
Jo, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal!
From standing in shadowy pools at noon
With the water udder-deep,
In the sleepy rivers of easy June,
With the skies above asleep, —
WILLIAM WALLACE HARNET. [1835-60
Just a leaf astir on orange or oak,
And the palm-flower thirsting in halves, —
They wait for the signs of the falling smoke,
And the evening bleat of the calves.
And hark, in the distance, the cattle-bells, how musically they steal,—
Jo, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal !
O wife, whose wish still lingers and grieves
In the chimes that go and come,
For peace and rest in the twilight eves
When the cattle are loitering home,
How little we knew, in the deepening shades,
How far our ways would lie, —
My own alone in the everglades
And your home there in the sky ;
Nor how I would listen alone to the old familiar peal,—
Jo, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal!
THE BERGAMOT.
"TTTE had no other gift to give,
W But just one withering flower;
We had no other lives to live,
But just that sweet half-hour, —
So small, so sweet, its freight of musk
Made fragrant all life's after-dusk.
For this the summers toiled and spun,
With fairy fingers silken shot,
Till moonlight's milky thread were run,
In the scented, creamy bergamot,
That gave one dear, remembered hour,
The fragrance of the orange-flower.
Through love and parting, this remains,
A memory, like its faint perfume,
More dear than all life's loss and gains
About a withering orange-bloom,
Whose fading leaves of dusky green
Do show how sweet life might have been.
1835-60] HARRIET MANN MILLER.
533
Harriet jftann
BORN in Auburn, N. Y., 1831.
"0 WONDROUS SINGERS."
[In Nesting Time. By Olive Thome Miller. 1888.]
I FEEL considerable reluctance in approaching the subject of my
small thrushes. None but a poet should speak of them — so beauti-
ful, so enchanting in song. Yet I cannot bear to let their lovely lives
pass in silence ; therefore, if they must needs remain unsung, they shall
at least be chronicled.
There were two : one the gray-cheeked thrush, the other the veery or
Wilson's, and they passed a year in my house, filling it with a marvel-
lous rippling music like the sweet babble of a brook over stones; like
the gentle sighing of the wind in pine trees ; like other of nature's
enchanting sounds, which I really must borrow a poet's words to charac-
terize :
'• O liquid and free and tender!
0 wild and loose to my soul !
O wondrous singer."
The gray-cheeked, most charming in every look and motion, uttered
his notes in a free sweep or crescendo, which began low, gathered force
as he went on, and then gradually died out ; all in one long slur, with-
out a defined or staccato note, making a wonderful resemblance to wind-
sounds ; as Emerson expresses it :
" His music was the south- wind's sigh."
The song of the veery was quite different, low, rapid, interspersed
with a louder, wild-sounding cry, or, as aptly described by a listener,
like the gurgling sounds made by blowing through a tube into soft
water, with occasional little explosions. The soft, whispered warble of
a brown thrush added a certain undertone which combined and har-
monized both these, forming with them a rhapsody of a rippling, bub-
bling character impossible to describe, but constantly reminding one of
running streams and gentle waterfalls, and coming nearer to " put my
woods in song " than any other bird-notes whatever. Neither of the per-
formers opened his mouth, so that the trio was very low — a true whisper-
song.
It was somewhat curious that with one exception all the birds in the
room through these months sang whisper-songs also, without opening
the bill. There were six of them, and every one delighted in singing;
p. 34 HARRIET MANN MILLER. [1835-60
the three thrushes, a bluebird, a female orchard oriole, and a Mexican
clarin. To the thrushes, music seemed necessary to life; hour after
hour they stood on their respective perches across the room, puffed out
into balls, "pouring out their souls," and entrancing us not only with
their suggestive melody, but with graceful and poetical movements, and
a beauty of look and bearing that moved one deeply. During the aria
both birds stood motionless, one with wings drooping, and accenting
every note, the other with tail slightly jerking for the same purpose.
In character no less than in song the birds differed ; bright, active, and
high-spirited, the gray-cheeked delighted in the freedom of the room,
feared nothing, came upon the desk freely, and calmly met one's eyes
with his own, brave, free soul that he was, while his vis-a-vis was timid
and shy, could not be induced to leave the shelter of his home though
the door stood open all day. He never resented the intrusion of a neigh-
bor, nor disputed the possession of his own dish.
Almost as interesting as his song was a bewitching dance with which
the gray-cheeked charmed every one fortunate enough to see him. His
chosen hour was the approach of evening, when, with body very erect
and head thrown up in ecstasy, he lifted his wings high above his back,
fluttering them rapidly with a sound like soft patter of summer rain,
while he moved back and forth on his perch with the daintiest of little
steps and hops : now up, now down, now across the cage, with gentle
noise of feet and wings. No music accompanied it, and none was needed
— it was music itself. Not only did he dance away the long hours of
twilight, till so dark he could not be seen, but he greeted the dawn in
the same way ; long before any other bird stirred, before the hideous
morning call of the first sparrow in the street, the soft flutter of his
wings, the light patter of his feet was heard. In the night also, if gas
was lighted, however dimly, dancing began and was continued in the
darkness, long after the light was out and every other feather at rest.
A sudden light stopped the motion, but revealed the dancer agitated,
stirred, with soft dark eyes fixed upon the observer. This dance was
not an attempt or indication of a desire to escape, as I am sure for sev-
eral reasons. I can tell the instant that longing for freedom sets in. It
was a fresh sign of the strange, mysterious emotion with which all
thrushes greet the rising and setting of the sun.
The singular use of the feet by this bird was very peculiar, and not
confined to his dancing hours. While standing on the edge of the bath-
ing-dish, longing, yet dreading to enter the water, on alighting upon an
unaccustomed perch, or venturing on to the desk, many times a day he
took the little steps, lifting first one, then the other foot very slightly,
and bringing it down with a sound without changing his position. It
seemed to be an evidence of excitement, as another bird might exhibit
1835-60] HARRIET MANN MILLER.
535
by a quivering of the wings. The veery was also a dancer, but in a dif-
ferent way. He fanned his wings violently and moved back and forth
across the top of a cage, but always in daylight, and then only on the
rare occasions when, by placing his food outside, he was coaxed from
his cage.
Bathing was, next to singing, the dear delight of the gray-cheek ed's
life, yet no bird ever had more misgivings about taking the fatal plunge.
His first movement on leaving the cage was to go to the bath, around
which he hovered, now this side, now that, one moment on the perch
above, the next on the edge of the dish, plainly longing to be in, yet the
mere approach of the smallest bird in the room drove him away. Not
that he was afraid ; he was not in the least a coward ; he met everybody
and everjTthing with the dignity and bravery of a true thrush. Neither
was it that he was disabled when wet, which makes some birds hesitate ;
he was never at all disordered by his bath, and however long he soaked,
or thoroughly he spattered, his plumage remained in place and he was
perfectly able to fly at once. It appeared simply that he could not make
up his mind to go in. Then, too, it soon became apparent that he
noticed his reflection in the water. He often stood OLL the edge after
bathing, as well as before, looking intently upon the image. Before the
glass he did the same, looking earnestly, and in a low tone "uttering his
thoughts to the ideal bird which he fancied he saw before him." Indeed,
I think this ideal thrush was a great comfort to him.
Once having decided to go into the bath, he enjoyed it exceedingly,
though in an unusual way, fluttering and splashing vigorously for a
moment, then standing motionless up to his body in the water, not shak-
ing or pluming himself, not alarmed, but quietly enjoying the soaking.
After several fits of splashing alternated with soaking, he went to a
perch and shook and plumed himself nearly dry, and just when one
would think he had entirely finished, he returned to the dish, and began
again — hesitating on the brink, coquetting with the " ideal thrush " in
the water, and in fact doing the whole thing over again.
My bird had a genuine thrush's love of quiet and dislike of a crowd,
preferred unfrequented places to alight on, and was quite ingenious in
finding them. The ornamental top of a gas-fixture a few inches below
the ceiling, which was cup-shaped and nearly hid him, was a favorite
place. So was also the loose edge of a hanging card-board map which,
having been long rolled, hung out from the wall like a half-open scroll.
This he liked best, for no other bird ever approached it, and here he
passed much time swinging, as if he enjoyed the motion which he plainly
made efforts to keep up. His plan was to fly across the room and alight
suddenly upon it, when, of course, it swayed up and down with his
weight. The moment it came to a rest, he flew around the room in a
cog HARRIET MANN MILLER. [1835-60
wide circle and came down again heavily, holding on with all his might,
and keeping his balance with wings and tail. He enjoyed it so well that
he often swung for a long time.
Later he found another snug retreat where no bird ever intruded. He
discovered it in this way : one day, on being suddenly startled by an
erratic dash around the room of the brown thrush, which scattered the
smaller birds like leaves before the wind, he brought up under the bed
on the floor. The larger bird had evidently marked the place of his
retreat, for he followed him, and in his mad way rushed under when the
gray-cheeked disappeared. The bedstead was a light iron one, high
from the floor, so that all this was plainly seen. No one being in sight,
the brown thrush came out and turned to his regular business of stir-
ring up the household, while the little thrush was not to be seen, and
perfect silence seemed to indicate that he was not there at all. After
some search, aided by an indiscreet movement on his part, he was found
perched on the framework, between the mattress and the wall. This
narrow retreat, apparently discovered by accident, soon became a favor-
ite retiring place when he did not care for society.
This interesting bird, with all his dignity, had a playful disposition.
Nothing pleased him better than rattling and tearing to bits a newspaper
or the paper strips over a row of books, although he had to stand on the
latter while he worked at it ; and notwithstanding it not only rustled,
but disturbed his footing as well, he was never discouraged. A more
violent jerk than usual sometimes startled him so that he bounded six
or eight inches into the air in his surprise, but he instantly returned to
the play, and never rested till he had picked holes, torn pieces out, and
reduced it to a complete wreck.
All through the long winter this charming thrush, with his two neigh-
bors, delighted the house with his peculiar and matchless music, and
endeared himself by his gentle and lovely disposition. No harsh sound
was ever heard from him ; there was no intrusion upon the rights of
others, and no vulgar quarrels disturbed his serene soul. But as spring
began to stir his blood he changed a little ; he grew somewhat belliger-
ent, refused to let any one alight in his chosen places, and even drove
others away from his side of the room. Now, too, he added to his
already melting song an indescribable trill, something so spiritual, so
charged with the wildness of the woods, that no words — even of a poet
— can do it justice. Now, too, he began to turn longing glances out of
the window, and evidently his heart was no longer with us. So, on the
first perfect day in May he was taken to a secluded nook in a park and
his door set open. His first flight was to a low tree, twenty feet from
the silent spectator, who waited, anxious to see if his year's captivity
had unfitted him for freedom.
1835-60] HARRIET MANN MILLER. 537
Perching on the lowest branch, the thrush instantly crouched in an
attitude of surprise and readiness for anything, which was common with
him, his bill pointed up at an angle of forty-five degrees, head sunk in
the shoulders, and tail standing out stiffly, thus forming a perfectly
straight line from the point of his beak to the tip of his tail. There he
stood, perfectly motionless, apparently not moving so much as an eye-
lid for twenty minutes, trying to realize what had happened to him, and
in the patient, deliberate manner of a thrush to adjust himself to his new
conditions. In the nook were silence and delicious odors of the woods ;
from a thick shrub on one side came the sweet erratic song of a cat-bird,
and at a little distance the rich organ-tones of the wood-thrush. All
these entered the soul of the emancipated bird; he listened, he looked,
and at last he spoke, a low, soft "wee-o." That broke the spell, he
drew himself up, hopped about the tree, flew to a shrub, all the time
posturing and jerking wings and tail in extreme excitement and no
doubt happiness to the tips of his toes. At last he dropped to the
ground and fell to digging and revelling in the soft, loose earth with
enthusiasm. The loving friend looking on was relieved ; this was what
she had waited for, to be assured that he knew where to look for sup-
plies, and though she left his familiar dish full of food where he could
see it in case of accident, she came away feeling that he had not been
incapacitated for a free life by his months with her.
One more glimpse of him made it clear also that he could fly as well
as his wild neighbors, and removed the last anxiety about him. A
wood-thrush, after noticing the stranger for some minutes, finally braved
the human presence and made a rush for the little fellow about half his
size. Whether war or welcome moved him was not evident, for away
they flew across the nook, not more than a foot apart, now sweeping low
over the grass, then mounting higher to pass over the shrubs that defined
it. A hundred feet or more the chase continued, and then the smaller
bird dropped into a low bush, and the larger one passed on.
Then lonely, with empty cage and a happy heart-ache, his friend
turned away and left the beautiful bird to his fate, assured that he was
well able to supply his needs and to protect himself— in a word, to be
free.
-oo FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN. [1835-60
franfclin benjamin ^>anborn*
BOBN in Hampton Falls, N. H., 1831.
THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN BROWN.
[The Life and Letters of John Brown. Edited by F. B. Sanborn. 1885.]
THE prison-life of Brown may be inferred from his letters ; but there
were sayings of his, during the month between his sentence and its
execution, which have been reported by those who talked with him in
his fetters. To Mrs. Spring, of New York, who obtained admission to
his cell November 6, he said : "I do not now reproach myself for my
failure ; I did what I could. I think I cannot better serve the cause I
love so much than to die for it ; and in my death I may do more than in
my life. The sentence they have pronounced against me does not dis-
turb me in the least ; this is not the first time I have looked death in the
face. I sleep as peacefully as an infant ; or if I am wakeful, glorious
thoughts come to me, entertaining my mind. I do not believe I shall
deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in this prison or on the scaffold ;
but I should do so if I denied my principles against slavery. I have
been trained to hardships," added Brown, "but I have one unconquer-
able weakness: I have always been more afraid of going into an evening
party of ladies and gentlemen than of meeting a company of men with
guns." An old Pennsylvania neighbor, Mr. Lowry, was permitted to see
him in prison, and asked him about his Kansas campaigns. " Time and
the honest verdict of posterity," said Brown, "will approve every act of
mine to prevent slavery from being established in Kansas. I never shed
the blood of a fellow-man except in self-defence or in promotion of a
righteous cause." During this conversation Governor Wise was review-
ing the Virginia militia near the prison, and the drums and trumpets
made a great noise. His friend said : " Does this martial music annoy
you?" "Not in the least," said Brown; "it is inspiring. Tell my
friends without that I am cheerful." A son of Governor Wise soon
after accompanied a Virginia colonel to Brown's cell, when the colonel
asked him if he desired the presence of a clergyman to give him "the
consolations of religion." Brown repeated what he had said to the
Methodists — that he did not recognize as Christians any slaveholders or
defenders of slavery, lay or clerical ; adding that he would as soon be
attended to the scaffold by " blacklegs " or robbers of the worst kind as
by slaveholding ministers ; if he had his choice he would rather be fol-
lowed to his "public murder," as he termed his execution, by "bare-
footed, barelegged, ragged slave children and their old gray-headed slave
1835-60] FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN. 539
mother," than by such clergymen. " I should feel much prouder of such
an escort," he said, ''and I wish I could have it." From this saying of
his, several times repeated, no doubt arose the legend, that on his way to
the gallows he took up a little slave-child, kissed it, and gave it back to
its mother's arms. On the same day with this interview, Brown was
again questioned concerning the Pottawatomie executions, and said, as
he uniformly had done since that deed : " I did not kill any of those men,
but I approved of their killing." He expressed pleasure that his body
was ordered by Governor Wise to be delivered to his wife for burial at
North Elba, and requested his jailer to assist Mrs. Brown, not only in
this, but in getting together the remains of his sons and the other farm-
ers of North Elba who had been slain at Harper's Ferry, for burial with
him, expressing the wish that their bodies should be burned, and the
bones and ashes conveyed to his Adirondack home. In regard to his own
rescue from prison, he had previously said: "I doubt if I' ought to
encourage any attempt to save my life. I may be wrong, but I think
that my great object will be nearer its accomplishment by my death than
by my life. I must give some thought to this." Having reflected on it,
he said a few days before his death : " I am sure my sons cannot look
forward to my fate without some effort to rescue me ; but this only in
case I am allowed to remain in prison for some time with no more than
ordinary precautions against escape. No such attempt will be made in
view of the large military force now upon guard." In fact, he had inti-
mated to his friends that he did not wish to be rescued, and it soon
became evident to all, as it was directly revealed to Brown, that his
death, like Samson's, was to be his last and greatest yictory.
I pass over the farewell between Brown and his wife the day before
his death ; it was simple and heroic, in keeping with the character of
both. They supped with the jailer in his own apartment ; and thus,
perhaps for the first time, the condemned man was allowed to leave his
cell, after sentence and before the day of execution. Upon that morn-
ing, December 2, 1859, he was led from his cell to say farewell to his
companions. .'
Meantime the soldiers of Virginia, more than two thousand in num-
ber, were mustered in the field where the gallows had been erected, with
cannon and cavalry, and all the pomp of war. At eleven o'clock Brown
came forth from his prison, walking firmly and cheerfully, and mounted
the wagon which was to carry him to the scaffold. He sat beside his
jailer, and cast his eyes over the town, the soldiery, the near fields, and
the distant hills, behind which rose the mountains of the Blue Ridge.
He glanced at the sun and sky, taking his leave of earth, and said to his
companions : " This is a beautiful country ; I have not cast my eyes over
it before — that is, in this direction." Beaching the scaffold, he ascended
g40 FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN, [1835-60
the steps, and was the first to stand upon it, — erect and calm, and with a
smile on his face. With his pinioned hands he took off his hat, cast it
on the scaffold beside him, and thanked his jailer again for his kindness,
submitting quietly to be closer pinioned and to have the cap drawn over
his eyes and the rope adjusted to his neck. "I can't see, gentlemen,"
said he: "you must lead me;" and he was placed on the drop of the
gallows. "I am ready at any time, — do not keep me waiting," were his
last reported words. No dying speech was permitted to him, nor were
the citizens allowed to approach the scaffold, which was surrounded only
by militia. He desired to make no speech, but only to endure his fate
with dignity and in silence. The ceremonies of his public murder were
duly performed ; and when his body had swung for nearly an hour on
the gibbet, in sight of earth and heaven, for a witness against our nation,
it was lowered to its coffin and delivered to his widow, who received and
accompanied it through shuddering cities to the forest hillside where it
lies buried. The most eloquent lips in America pronounced his funeral
eulogy beside this grave; while in hundreds of cities and villages his
death was sadly commemorated. The Civil War followed hard upon
his execution ; and the place of his capture and death became the fre-
quent battle-ground of the fratricidal armies. Not until freedom was
declared, and the slaves liberated as Brown had planned — by force —
was victory assured to the cause of the country.
I knew John Brown well. He was what all his speeches, letters, and
actions avouch him — a simple, brave, heroic person, incapable of any-
thing selfish or base. But above and beyond these personal qualities, he
was what we may best term an historic character : that is, he had, like
Cromwell, a certain predestined relation to the political crisis of his time,
for which his character fitted him, and which, had he striven against it,
he could not avoid. Like Cromwell and all the great Calvinists, he was
an unquestioning believer in God's foreordi nation and the divine guid-
ance of human affairs. Of course, he could not rank with Cromwell or
with many inferior men in leadership ; but in this God-appointed, inflex-
ible devotion to his object in life he was inferior to no man ; and he rose
in fame far above more gifted persons because of this very fixedness and
simplicity of character. His renown is secure.
A few words may be given to the personal traits of this hero. When
I first saw him, he was in his fifty-seventh year, and, though touched
with age and its infirmities, was still vigorous and active, and of an
aspect which would have made him distinguished anywhere among men
who know how to recognize courage and greatness 'of mind. At that
time he was close-shaven, and no flowing beard, as in later years, soft-
ened the expression of his firm wide mouth and positive chin. That
beard, long and gray, which nearly all his portraits now show, added a
1835-60] FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN.
541
picturesque finish to a face that was in all its features severe and mascu-
line, yet with a latent tenderness. His eyes were those of an eagle
piercing blue-gray in color, not very large, looking out from under brows
" Of dauntless courage and considerate pride,"
and were alternately flashing with energy or drooping and hooded like
the eyes of an eagle. His hair was dark-brown, sprinkled with gray,
short and bristling, and shooting back from a forehead of middle height
and breadth; his nose was aquiline; his ears large; his frame angular;
his voice deep and metallic ; his walk positive and intrepid, though com-
monly slow. His manner was modest, and in a large company diffident;
he was by no means fluent of speech, but his words were always to the
point, and his observations original, direct, and shrewd. His mien was
serious and patient rather than cheerful ; it betokened the " sad, wise
valor " which Herbert praises ; but, though earnest and often anxious, it
was never depressed. In short, he was then, to the eye of insight, what
he afterward seemed to the world — a brave and resolved man, conscious
of a work laid upon him, and confident that he should accomplish it.
His figure was tall, slender, and commanding; his bearing military; and
his garb showed a singular blending of the soldier and the deacon. He
had laid aside in Chicago the torn and faded summer garments which he
wore throughout his Kansas campaign, and I saw him at one of those
rare periods in his life when his clothes were new. He wore a complete
suit of brown broadcloth or kerseymere, cut in the fashion of a dozen
years before, and giving him the air of a respectable deacon in a rural
parish. But instead of a collar he had on a high stock of patent leather,
such as soldiers used to wear, a gray military overcoat with a cape, and
a fur cap. He was, in fact, a Puritan soldier, such as were common in
Cromwell's day, though not often seen since. Yet his heart was averse
to bloodshed, gentle, tender, and devout
It is easy now to perceive the true mission of Brown, and to measure
the force of the avalanche set in motion by him. But to the vision of
genius and the illuminated moral sense this was equally perceptible in
1859-60; and it was declared, in words already cited, by Emerson,
Alcott, and Thoreau. No less clearly and prophetically was it declared
by Yictor Hugo, and by the saintly pastor of Wayland, Edmond Sears.
On the day of Brown's execution, and in the midst of the funeral ser-
vices we were holding at Concord, Mr. Sears, who fyad made the opening
prayer, wrote these lines in the Town Hall, where Brown had twice
addressed the sons of those yeomen who fought at Concord Bridge :
;' Not any spot six feet by two
Will hold a man likethee;
John Brown will tramp the shaking earth
From Blue Eidge to the sea,
g42 FRANKLIN BENJAMIN 8ANBORN. [1835-60
Till the strong angel comes at last
And opes each dungeon door,
And God's Great Charter holds and waves
O'er all his humble poor.
"And then the humble poor will come
In that far-distant day,
And from the felon's nameless grave
They'll brush the leaves away;
And gray old men will point the spot
Beneath the pine-tree shade,
As children ask with streaming eyes
Where old John Brown is laid."
Although the course of events in America did not follow the exact
line anticipated by the French republican, the general result was what
he had foreseen — that the achievement and death of John Brown made
future compromises between slavery and freedom impossible. What he
did in Kansas for a single State, he did in Virginia for the whole nation
— nay, for the whole world.
It has been sometimes asked in what way Brown performed this great
work for the world, since he won no battle, headed no party, repealed no
law, and could not even save his own life from an ignominious penalty.
In this respect he resembled Socrates, whose position in the world's his-
tory is yet fairly established ; and the parallel runs even closer. When
Brown's friends urged upon him the desperate possibilities of a rescue,
he gave no final answer, until at last came this reply, — that he "would
not walk out of the prison if the door was left open." He added, as a
personal reason for this choice, that his relations with Captain Avis, his
jailer, were such that he should hold it a breach of trust to be rescued.
There is an example even higher than that of Socrates, which history
will not fail to hold up, — that Person of whom his slayers said : " He
saved others; himself he cannot save."
Here is touched the secret of Brown's character, — absolute reliance on
the Divine, entire disregard of the present, in view of the promised
future.
1835-60] JAMES PHINNET BAXTER. 543
BOKN in Gorham, Me., 1831.
EBB.
[Idyls of the Year. 1884.]
T STAND at sunset watching
-*• The ebbing of the sea,
Hooded in sorrow, telling
The beads of memory.
"White wings in the distance flutter
And disappear from sight;
A wreck's lank ribs, like spectres,
On the beach stand stark and white.
They move ! Nay, 'tis the seaweed
Just stirred by the evening wind,
With which each slimy timber
Is loathsomely entwined.
Ah, where are the shapes of beauty \
That once entranced my soul,
That sped with favoring breezes
Toward their promised goal ?
I strain my vision seaward —
I see but a misty plain ;
And into the heavens above me
I peer, but all in vain.
I stretch my arms in silence —
I clasp but senseless air ;
I shout and get no answer,
Though I die in my despair.
I list the soft, sweet rustle
Of their silken sails to hear;
They are somewhere, surely somewhere,
In this universal sphere.
But never a sound comes to me,
But the moan of the sea on the shore;
I have learned its utterance plainly,
" No more — no more — no more."
Ah, where are the shapes of beauty
Which once entranced my soul,
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. [1835-60
Which sped with favoring breezes
Toward their promised goal ?
Shattered on reefs of coral, —
Ah, treacherous reefs, so fair! —
Scattered on lonely beaches,
And ledges sharp and bare ;
Foundered in wastes unsounded,
Burnt on some unknown sea, —
They are gone with all their treasures,
Forever lost to me.
Bebecca
BORN in Washington, Penn., 1831.
ON THE TRAPEZE.
["Balacchi Brothers." — Lippincotf s Magazine. 1872.]
A ROPE was suspended from the centre of the dome, the lower end
of which I held, standing in the highest gallery opposite the stage.
Above the stage hung the trapeze on which George and the two posture-
girls were to be. At a certain signal I was to let the rope go, and
George, springing from the trapeze across the full width of the dome,
was to catch it in mid-air, a hundred feet above the heads of the people.
You understand ? The mistake of an instant of time on either his part
or mine, and death was almost certain. The plan we had thought sur-
est was for South to give the word, and then that both should count —
One, Two, Three ! At Three the rope fell and he leaped. We had
practised so often that we thought we counted as one man.
"When the song was over the men hung the rope and trapeze. Jenny
and Lou Slingsby swung themselves up to it, turned a few somersaults,
and then were quiet. They were only meant to give effect to the scene
in their gauzy dresses and spangles. Then South came forward and
told the audience what we meant to do. It was a feat, he said, which
had never been produced before in any theatre, and in which failure
was death. No one but that most daring of all acrobats, Balacchi,
would attempt it. Now, I knew South so well that I saw under all his
confident, bragging tone he was more anxious and doubtful than he had
ever been. He hesitated a moment, and then requested that after we
took our places the audience should preserve absolute silence, and
1835-60J REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. 545
refrain from even the slightest movement until the feat was over. The
merest trifle might distract the attention of the performers and render
their eyes and hold unsteady, he said. He left the stage, and the music
began.
I went round to take my place in the gallery. George had not yet
left his room. As I passed I tapped at the door and called, " Good
luck, old fellow ! "
" That's certain now, Zack," he answered, with a joyous laugh. He
was so exultant, you see, that Susy had come.
But the shadow of death seemed to have crept over me. When I
took my stand in the lofty gallery, and looked down at the brilliant
lights and the great mass of people, who followed my every motion as
one man, and the two glittering, half-naked girls swinging in the dis-
tance, and heard the music rolling up thunders of sound, it was all
ghastly and horrible to me, sir. Some men have such presentiments,
they say : I never had before or since. South remained on the stage
perfectly motionless, in order, I think, to maintain his control over the
audience.
The trumpets sounded a call, and in the middle of a burst of triumph-
ant music George came on the stage. There was a deafening outbreak
of applause, and then a dead silence, but I think every man and woman
felt a thrill of admiration of the noble figure. Poor George ! the new,
tight-fitting dress of purple velvet that he had bought for this night set
off his white skin, and his fine head was bare, with no covering but the
short curls that Susy liked.
It was for Susy ! He gave one quick glance up at her, and a bright,
boyish smile, as if telling her not to be afraid, which all the audience
understood, and answered by an involuntary, long-drawn breath. I
looked at Susy. The girl's colorless face was turned to George, and her
hands were clasped as though she saw him already dead before her ; but
she could be trusted, I saw. She would utter no sound. I bad only
time to glance at her, and then turned to my work. George and I dared
not take our eyes from each other.
There was a single bugle note, and then George swung himself up to
the trapeze. The silence was like death as he steadied himself and
slowly turned so as to front me. As he turned he faced the stage-box
for the first time. He had reached the level of the posture-girls, who
fluttered on either side, and stood on the swaying rod poised on one foot,
his arms folded, when in the breathless stillness there came a sudden
cry and the words, " Oh, Charley ! Charley ! "
Even at the distance where I stood I saw George start and a shiver
pass over his body. He looked wildly about him.
" To me ! to me ! " I shouted.
VOL. vin.— 35
546
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. [1835-60
He fixed his eye on mine and steadied himself. There was a terrible
silent excitement in the people, in the very air.
There was the mistake. We should have stopped then, shaken as he
was, but South, bewildered and terrified, lost control of himself : he gave
the word.
I held the rope loose — held George with my eyes —
One!
I saw his lips move: he was counting with me.
Two!
His eye wandered, turned to the stage-box.
Three !
Like a flash, I saw the white upturned faces below me, the posture-
girls' gestures of horror, the dark springing figure through the air, that
wavered — and fell a shapeless mass on the floor.
There was a moment of deathlike silence, and then a wild outcry —
women fainting, men cursing and crying out in that senseless, helpless
way they have when there is sudden danger. By the time I had reached
the floor they had straightened out his shattered limbs, and two or three
doctors were fighting their way through the great crowd that was surg-
ing about him.
Well, sir, at that moment what did I hear but George's voice above
all the rest, choked and hollow as it was, like a man calling out of the
grave : " The women ! Good God ! don't you see the women ? " he
gasped.
Looking up then, I saw those miserable Slingsbys hanging on to the
trapeze for life. What with the scare and shock, they'd lost what little
sense they had, and there they hung helpless as limp rags high over our
heads.
" Damn the Slingsbys ! " said I. God forgive me ! But I saw this
battered wreck at my feet that had been George. Nobody seemed to
have any mind left Even South stared stupidly up at them and then
back at George. The doctors were making ready to lift him, and half
of the crowd were gaping in horror, and the rest yelling for ladders
or ropes, and scrambling over each other, and there hung the poor
flimsy wretches, their eyes starting out of their heads from horror, and
their lean fingers loosing their hold every minute. But, sir — I couldn't
help it— I turned from them to watch George as the doctors lifted
him.
" It's hardly worth while," whispered one.
But they raised him and, sir — the bodv went one way and the legs
another.
I thought he was dead. I couldn't see that he breathed, when he
opened his eyes and looked up for the Slingsbys. "Put me down," he
1835-60] MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 547
said, and the doctors obeyed him. There was that in his voice that they
had to obey him, though it wasn't but a whisper.
" Ladders are of no use," he said. " Loper ! "
'; Yes, George."
"You can swing yourself up. Do it."
I went. I remember the queer stunned feeling I had: my joints
moved like a machine.
When I had reached the trapeze, he said, as cool as if he were calling
the figures for a Virginia reel: "Support them, you— Loper. Now,
lower the trapeze, men — carefully ! "
It was the only way their lives could be saved, and he was the only
man to see it. He watched us until the girls touched the floor more
dead than alive, and then his head fell back and the life seemed to go
suddenly out of him like the flame out of a candle, leaving only the
dead wick.
Loutee
BORN in Millville, now Yaphank, N. Y., 1831.
NEW YORK AT THE BEGINNING OP THE WAR.
[History of the City of New York. 1859.— Revised Edition. 1880.]
W YORK CITY occupied a peculiar position at the outset of the
conflict. It cannot be denied that her most fervent wish was
peace. By her commercial position, as the great centre of the United
States, she had been brought into constant intercourse with the people
of the insurgent section, and entertained the most friendly feeling for
them as individuals, much as she deprecated their public action. Again,
she foresaw that in case of war she would not only lose heavily, but
would also be obliged to bear the brunt of battle, and to furnish the
money, without which it would be impossible to prosecute the conflict.
It was natural, therefore, that her citizens should be unanimous in
•exhausting their resources to preserve peace, from different motives, it
is true. We speak of New York collectively, but it must not be forgot-
ten that there are two New Yorks : Political New York, by which the
city is usually judged, and which comprises its so-called rulers ; and
Civil New York, made up of its native-born citizens, who, outnumbered
by a foreign majority, honor the law of majorities, obedience to which
they demand from others, pay the taxes that are imposed on them, and
hold the wealth which enables the city to sustain its position as the
54g MART LOUISE BOOTH. [1835-60
western metropolis. Of these, the dominant party, headed by Mayor
Wood, desired peace at any price ; another large class, composed chiefly
of the' men of wealth, were willing to make all possible concessions to
avoid the war, of which they knew that they must pay the cost ; and a
third party believed that compromises enough had been made, and that
the country should brave the issue. Yet all met on the common ground
of the preservation of the Union. Scarcely the shadow of a disposition
was anywhere manifested to interfere with the existing institutions of
the South, which many deplored, but which most regarded as a painful
necessity, beyond the reach of outside interference. Therefore, when,
after Mr. Lincoln's election, menacing events followed thick and fast,
New York at first put forth her efforts to avert the tempest. Floyd's
huge robberv, the withdrawal of the South Carolina senators, the seces-
sion of their State, followed by that of others, and the seizure of the pub-
lic property, caused universal consternation ; yet men still clung to the
belief that the difficulty would be settled. The attempted secession of
the States, indeed, had drawn in a few of the ultra members of the Demo-
cratic party, among whom was the mayor, who, on the 7th of January,
1861, sent a message to the Common Council setting forth the advan-
tages that would accrue to New York should she also secede from the
Union and become a free city. It is just to say, however, that he did
not formally recommend secession. The suggestion was scouted with
indignation. Why, it was asked, should not Manhattanville, Yorkville,
and Harlem secede in turn, and where would be the end ? Four days
after, on the llth of January, the State Legislature passed a series of
resolutions, tendering to the President "whatever aid in men and money
might be required to enable him to enforce the laws and uphold the
authority of the Federal Government," and on the loth instant, Major-
General Sandford offered the services of the whole First Division of the
Militia of New York in support of the United States authority.
New York City, nevertheless, determined to make one more effort to
avert the horrors of war. A memorial in favor of compromise measures
was circulated. On the 18th of January a large meeting of merchants
was held at the Chamber of Commerce, where a similar memorial was
adopted, which was sent to Washington in February, with forty thou-
sand names appended. On the 28th of January an immense Union
meeting was held at the Cooper Institute, when it was resolved to send
three commissioners to the conventions of the people1 of South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, to confer with the
delegates of these States, assembled in convention, in regard to the meas-
ures best calculated to restore the peace and integrity of the Union.
The Crittenden compromise was suggested in these meetings as a basis
of pacification.
1835-60] EDWIN LAWRENCE GODK1N. 549
The uprising that followed the fall of Fort Sumter was unparalleled.
The peaceful attitude of New York had led it to be supposed that she
would cast her fortunes with the South, or at all events stand aloof from
the contest. Never was there a greater mistake. The crisis come, she
nerved her energies to meet it, and from that hour to the close of the
struggle her citizens never faltered nor withheld their blood and treas-
ure. Those who had been most anxious for peace now vied with each
other in asserting their determination to preserve the Union, and the
mayor, who just before had urged the advantages of secession, issued a
proclamation calling on all the citizens to unite in defence of the country.
On the day after the evacuation of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued
a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand men, to serve for three
months, the quota for New York being thirteen thousand. The New
York Legislature instantly responded by passing an act authorizing the
enlistment of thirty thousand men, for two years instead of three months,
and appropriating three million dollars for the war. The State, never-
theless, like the country, was almost defenceless ; its arms had rusted in
the half a century of peace that had gone by, and of its twenty thousand
regular militia, only eight thousand had muskets or rifles fit for service,
while its whole supply of field-pieces amounted to but one hundred and
fifty. Steps were taken to supply the deficiency ; the regiments pre-
pared to march ; the recruiting offices that were everywhere opened were
seen thronged with thousands eager to enlist, and those were envied who
were first accepted. And these volunteers did not come from the dregs
of the people ; the majority were young men of family and fortune, who
held it an honor to serve as private soldiers in their country's cause.
Latorence (0odfein.
BORN in Moyne, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1831.
HEROIC CONFLICT OF DEMOCRACY WITH SCIENTIFIC LAW.
[An American View of Popular Government.— The Nineteenth Century. 1886-1
I BELIEVE the doctrine of the survival of the fittest has, as a matter
of fact, met with even fiercer opposition from the religious well-to-do
middle class and from the clergy than from the unfortunate " multi-
tude." But it is a doctrine which must needs be unpopular— if unpopu-
lar means disagreeable— with all but the very successful, that is, with
the great majority of the human race. The survival of the fittest has
__n EDWIN LAWRENCE OODKIN. [1835-60
oou
ever been and must ever be an odious sight to the unfit or the less fit,
who see that they cannot survive. Sir Henry Maine's reproach, that
they do not accept it cheerfully, reminds one of Frederick the Great's
savage reproof to his flying troops: " Hunde, wollte ihr ewig leben?"
In asking the multitude to take to it kindly, Sir Henry asks something
which has always been beyond human powers. There is no doctrine
with which the race is more familiar in practice than the doctrine that
the strongest must have the best of it, which is really Darwin's doctrine
expressed in terms of politics. The progress of civilization under all
forms of government has consisted simply in making such changes in
the environment of the multitude as will increase the number of the
fittest. That it has been well to strive for this end ; that it has been
well to try to make a country like England a place in which twenty-
eight millions can dwell in comfort on soil which seventy years ago only
supported ten millions in comparative misery, has been for ages the
opinion of the wisest and best men under the old monarchies. Possi-
bly they were wrong. Possibly it ought to have been the policy of
rulers not only to see that the fittest survived, but that their number
was kept down. But is it not asking too much of the multitude to ask
them to take a totally new view of the conditions of man's struggle with
nature? The great aim of the political art has hitherto been to protect
man in some degree from the remorseless working of the laws of the
physical universe, to save him from cold, from heat, from savage beasts,
from the unwillingness of the earth to yield him her fruits and the sea its
fish. All its successes have to some extent increased the number of the
fittest. It has filled West Europe with a population which conservative
observers like Sir Henry Maine two centuries ago would certainly have
declared it incapable of maintaining. Can we possibly expect Democ-
racy to give up the game as soon as it comes into power, and bid the
weaklings of the race prepare for extinction? Emigration, which he
treats as an acceptance of the Darwinian doctrine, is, of course, in real-
ity simply a transfer of the struggle for survival to another arena. The
law of population works everywhere, and with increasing severity, other
things being equal, as the population increases. Sending the unfit to
New Zealand or Dakota is not a whit more scientific than sending them
to till English moors. There is no escape for them anywhere from the
battle with the fittest ; but any abandonment of the effort to protract
their existence and make it more tolerable would mean the stoppage of
civilization itself. Democracy may make mistakes in this work, and
may attempt more than it can accomplish, but energy in the work and
devotion to it is after all what distinguishes a civilized community from
a savage one. There is no more reason why the bulk of the race
should fold its arms in the presence of the theory of population than in
1835-60] EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN. 551
the presence of the great fact of mortality. How many people a given
piece of land will maintain and comfort, whether only the number set-
tled on it by " historical causes " or a larger one, is something which
can be only ascertained by intelligent experiment. All causes, too,
which settle a man on a farm become " historical " after a while ; but
whether it is well for him to remain there is something only to be
learned by experience. The theory of population does not necessarily
prescribe emigration when people begin to find it hard to get a living
off the land on which they were born, or on which they have settled,
but it does prescribe better modes of cultivation and smaller families.
I am not prepared to argue that democratic societies will always
accept the conclusions of science with meekness and submission. One
sees, I admit, in our own time a good deal to warrant the fear that
democratic ignorance will fight unpleasant and inconvenient truths with
the pertinacity with which monarchical and aristocratic ignorance has
always fought them ; and that they will have to owe their triumph in
the future, as they have owed it in the past, not to any particular distri-
bution of the political sovereignty, but to the intellectual impulse which
has carried the race out of the woods and the caves, and given it its
great discoverers and inventors.
SOME POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE TARIFF.
[The New Princeton Review. 1887.]
rpHE problem which protectionists have to solve, touching the rela-
J- tions of the Government to industry in this country, would seem to
be the production of a tariff which nobody will attack— a very difficult
task, we must all admit, if it is to be such a tariff as extreme protection-
ists really desire. As long as there exist, about the amount of protec-
tion needed, the doubt and mystery which we now witness ; as long as
the classes for whose protection the tariff is intended are as numerous
and as clamorous as they now are, it will be impossible to satisfy them
all by any protective tariff whatever. There is only one rule known to
us by which a tariff can really be measured and defended. If the prin-
ciple of raising duties for revenue only were once adopted, every one
would know at a glance how high the tariff ought to be. There might
be disputes about the distribution of its burdens among different com-
modities, but there would be none about the sum it ought to bring in.
If there were in any year a surplus, every one would agree that the tariff
ought to be lowered. If there were a deficit, every one would agree that
_, EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN. [1835-60
OO^
it ought to be raised. We should thus, at least, get rid of the perennial
contention about the weight of the duties, and we should no longer be
dependent for stability on the wisdom of Congress.
Now let me consider another, and, from a social point of view, perhaps
the most important, aspect of the tariff question. Can any one find, in
the work of any American author, or in the speech of any American
orator— I mean, of the free States— prior to the civil war, any intimation
that we should have, fully developed on American soil, within the pres-
ent century, what has long been known in Europe as " the labor ques-
tion"? ... In 1860 nobody here was seriously troubled by the
condition or expectations of the working classes. In fact, Americans
were not in the habit of thinking of working-men as a class at all. An
American citizen who wrought with his hands in any calling was looked
on, like other American citizens, as a man who had his fortunes in his
own keeping, and whose judgment alone decided in what manner they
could be improved. Nobody thought of him as being in a special degree
the protege of the State. In fact, the idea that he had a special and
peculiar claim on State protection was generally treated as a piece of
Gallic folly, over which Anglo-Saxons could well afford to smile. There
was no mention of the free laborer in political platforms at that day,
except as an illustration to Southern slave-holders of the blessings of
which their pride and folly deprived their own society.
"We have changed all this very much. Under the stimulation of the
war tariff, not only has there been an enormous amount of capital
invested in industrial enterprises of various sorts; not only have mills
and furnaces and mines and protected interests of all sorts greatly multi-
plied, but there has appeared in great force, and for the first time on
American soil, the dependent, state-managed laborer of Europe, who
declines to take care of himself in the old American fashion. When he
is out of work, or does not like his work, he looks about, and asks his
fellow-citizens sullenly, if not menacingly, what they are going to do
about it. He has brought with him, too, what is called "the labor
problem," probably the most un-American of all the problems which
American society has to work over to-day. ....
Now, this labor problem, which so many statesmen and philanthro-
pists and economists are trying their teeth on, is every day made more
difficult, every day further removed from solution, by that fatal lesson
of government responsibility for the condition of a particular class of a
community, which every believer in high tariffs, every manufacturer
who depends on the tariff, is compelled to preach. Of all the novelties
which the last twenty-five years have introduced into American politics
and society, decidedly the most dangerous is the practice of telling large
bodies of ignorant and excitable voters at every election that their daily
1835-60] EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN.
553
bread depends not on their own capacity or industry or ingenuity, or on
the capacity or industry or ingenuity of their employers, but on the
good-will of the Legislature, or, worse still, on the good- will of the
Administration. In other words, the "tariff issue," as it is called in
every canvass, is an issue filled with the seeds of social trouble and per-
plexity. ....
The truth is, that the first field ever offered for seeing what the free-
dom of the individual could accomplish, in the art of growing rich and
of diversifying industry, was offered on this continent. It was blessed
with the greatest variety of soil and climate, with the finest ports and
harbors, with the greatest extent of inland navigation, with the richest
supply of minerals, of any country in the world. The population was
singularly daring, hardy, ingenious, and self-reliant, and untrammelled
by feudal tradition. That opportunity has, under the protective system,
been temporarily allowed to slip away. The old European path has
been entered on, under the influence of the old European motives; the
belief that gold is the only wealth ; that, in trading with a foreigner,
unless you sell him more in specie value than he sells you, you lose by
the transaction ; that diversity of industry being necessary to sound
progress, diversity of individual tastes, bent, and capacity cannot be
depended on to produce it ; that manufactures being necessary to make
the nation independent of foreigners in time of war, individual energy
and sagacity cannot be trusted to create them.
The result is that we have, during the last quarter of a century, delib-
erately resorted to the policy of forcing capital into channels into which
it did not naturally flow. We thus have supplied ourselves with manu-
factures on a large scale, but in doing so we have brought society in
most of the large towns, in the East, at least, back to the old European
model, divided largely into two classes, the one great capitalists, the
other day-laborers, living from hand to mouth, and dependent for their
bread and butter on the constant maintenance by the Government of
artificial means of support. Agriculture has in this way been destroyed
in some of the Eastern States, and, what is worse, so has commerce.
Had individuals in America been left to their own devices in the mat-
ter of building up manufactures, it is possible that the gross production
of the country in many branches would have been less than it is now ;
but it is very certain that American society would have been in a
healthier condition, and American industry would have been " taken out
of politics," or, rather, would never have got into it. An agricultural
population, such as that of the Northern States sixty years ago, was sure
not to confine itself to one field of industry exclusively. Enterprise and
activity, love of work and love of trying all kinds of work, were as
marked features of the national character then as they are now. The
554 EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN. [1835-60
American population could boast of much greater superiority over the
European population than it can now. There was sure, therefore, to
have been a constant overflow from the farms of the most quick-witted,
sharp-sighted, and enterprising men of the community, for the creation of
new manufactures. They would have toiled, contrived, invented, copied,
until they had brought into requisition and turned to account— as, in
fact, they did to a considerable extent in colonial days— one by one, all
the resources of the country, all its advantages over other countries in
climate, soil, water-power, in minerals, or mental or moral force. What-
ever manufactures were thus built up, too, would have been built up
forever. They would have needed no hot-house legislation to save them.
They would have flourished as naturally and could have been counted
on with as much certainty as the wheat crop or the corn crop. Instead
of being a constant source of uncertainty and anxiety and legislative
corruption, they would have been one of the mainstays of our social and
political system. American manufactures would then, in short, have
been the legitimate outgrowth of American agriculture. They would
have grown as it grew, in just and true relations to it They would
have absorbed steadily and comfortably its surplus population, and the
American ideas of man's capacity, value, and needs would have reigned
in the regulation of the new industry.
The present state of things is one which no thinking man can contem-
plate without concern. If the protectionist policy is persisted in, the
process of assimilating American society to that of Europe must go on.
The accumulation of capital in the hands of comparatively few individ-
uals and corporations must continue and increase. Larger and larger
masses of the population must every day be reduced to the condition of
day laborers, living from hand to mouth on fixed wages, contracting
more and more the habit of looking on their vote simply as a mode of
raising or lowering their wages, and, what is worse than all, learning to
consider themselves a class apart, with rights and interests opposed to,
or different from, those of the rest of the community.
What, then, is to be done by way of remedy ? Nothing can be done
suddenly; much can be done slowly. We must retrace our steps by
degrees, by taking the duties off raw materials, so as to enable those
manufactures which are nearly able to go alone, to get out of the habit
of dependence on legislation, and to go forth into all the markets of
the world without fear and with a manly heart. We must deprive those
manufactures which are able to go alone already of the protection which
they now receive, as the reward of log-rolling in Congress, in aid of
those still weaker than themselves. And we must finally, if it be possi-
ble, by a persistent progress in the direction of a truly natural state of
things, prepare both laborers and employers for that real independence
1835-60] JOHN ANTROBUS. 555
of foreigners which is the result, simply and solely, of native superior-
ity, either in energy or industry or inventiveness or in natural advan-
BORN in Walsall, Warwickshire, England, 1831. Came to America, 1849.
THE COWBOY.
[Composed while at work upon his Painting, " The Cowboy." 1886.]
" "TTTHAT care I, what cares he,
W "What cares the world of the life we know ?
Little they reck of the shadowless plains,
The shelterless mesa, the sun and the rains,
The wild, free life, as the winds that blow."
With his broad sombrero,
His worn chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds,
Where the wild bull feeds ;
And he laughs, ha, ha! — who cares, who cares!
Ruddy and brown — careless and free —
A king in the saddle — he rides at will
O'er the measureless range where rarely change
The swart gray plains so weird and strange,
Treeless, and streamless, and wondrous still!
With his slouch sombrero,
His torn chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds ;
And he laughs, ha, ha!— who cares, who cares!
He of the towns, he of the East,
Has only a vague, dull thought of him ;
In his far-off dreams the cowboy seems
A mythical thing, a thing he deems
A Hun or a Goth as swart and grim !
With his stained sombrero,
His rough chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds,
Where the wild bull feeds ;
And he laughs, ha, ha!— who cares, who cares!
JOHN ANTROBUS. [1835-60
000
Often alone, his saddle a throne,
He scans like a sheik the numberless herd ;
Where the buffalo-grass and the sage-grass dry
In the hot white glare of a cloudless sky,
And the music of streams is never heard.
With his gay sombrero,
His brown chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds,
Where the wild bull feeds ;
And he laughs, ha, ha!— who cares, who cares!
Swift and strong, and ever alert,
Yet sometimes he rests on the dreary vast;
And his thoughts, like the thoughts of other men,
Go back to his childhood days again,
And to many a loved one in the past.
With his gay sombrero,
His rude chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He rests awhile,
With a tear and a smile,
Then he laughs, ha, ha !— who cares, who cares !
Sometimes his mood from solitude
Hurries him, heedless, off to the town !
Where mirth and wine through the goblet shine,
And treacherous sirens twist and twine
The lasso that often brings him down ;
With his soaked sombrero,
His rent chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He staggers back
On the homeward track,
And shouts to the plains — who cares, who cares !
On his broncho's back he sways and swings,
Yet mad and wild with the city's fume ;
His pace is the pace of the song he sings,
And the ribald oath that maudlin clings
Like the wicked stench of the harlot's room.
With his ragged sombrero,
His torn chapparejos,
His rowel-less spurs,
He dashes amain
Through the trackless rain ;
Reeling and reckless — who cares, who cares!
'Tis over late at the ranchman's gate —
He and his fellows, perhaps a score,
1835-60] AMELIA EDITH BARR. 55 f
Halt in a quarrel o'er night begun,
With a ready blow and a random gun —
There's a dead, dead comrade! nothing more.
With his slouched sombrero,
His dark chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He dashes past,
With face o'ercast,
And growls in his throat — who cares, who cares !
Away on the range there is little change ;
He blinks in the sun, he herds the steers;
But a trail on the wind keeps close behind,
And whispers that stagger and blanch the mind
Through the hum of the solemn noon he hears.
With his dark sombrero,
His stained chapparejos,
His clinking spurs,
He sidles down
Where the grasses brown
May hide his face, while he sobs — who cares!
But what care I, and what cares he —
This is the strain, common at least ;
He is free and vain of his bridle-rein,
Of his spurs, of his gun, of the dull, gray plain ;
He is ever vain of his broncho beast !
With his gray sombrero,
His brown chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds,
Where the wild bull feeds ;
And he laughs, ha, ha! — who cares, who cares!
I3arr*
BORN in Ulverton, Lancashire, England, 1831.
ON A CLIFF BY NIGHT.
[Jan Vedder's Wife. 1885.]
NE night, after another useless effort to see his wife, Jan went to
- Torr's, and found Hoi Skager there. Jan was in a reckless mood,
and the thought of a quarrel was pleasant to him. Skager was inclined
to humor him. They had many old grievances to go over, and neither
O
558
AMELIA EDITH BARE. [1835-60
of them picked their words. At length Jan struck Skager across the
mouth, and Skager instantly drew his knife.
In a moment Torr and others had separated the men. Skager was
persuaded to leave the house, and Jan, partly by force and partly by
entreaty, detained. Skager was to sail at midnight, and Torr was deter-
mined that Jan should not leave the house until that hour was passed.
Long before it, he appeared to have forgotten the quarrel, to be indeed
too intoxicated to remember anything. Torr was satisfied, but his
daughter Suneva was not.
About ten o'clock, Snorro, sitting in the back door of the store, saw
Suneva coming swiftly towards him. Ere he could speak she said :
" Skager and Jan have quarrelled and knives have been drawn. If thou
kriowest where Skager is at anchor, run there, for I tell thee there was
more of murder than liquor in Jan's eyes this night. My father thought
to detain him, but he hath slipped away, and thou may be sure he has
gone to find Skager."
Snorro only said : "Thou art a good woman, Suneva." He thought
he knew Skager's harbor ; but when he got there, neither boat nor man
was to be seen. Skager's other ground was two miles in an opposite
direction under the Troll Eock, and not far from Peter Fae's house.
Snorro hastened there at his utmost speed. He was in time to see Ska-
ger's boat, half a mile out at sea, sailing southward. Snorro's mental
processes were slow. He stood still to consider, and as he mused, the
solemn stillness of the lonely place was broken by a low cry of pain. It
was Jan's voice. Among a thousand voices Snorro would have known
it. In a few moments he had found Jan, prone upon the cliff edge,
bleeding from a wound in his side.
He was still sensible, and he smiled at Snorro, saying slowly : " Thou
must not be sorry. It is best so."
Most fishermen know something of the treatment of a knife- wound ;
Snorro staunched the blood-flow, as well as he was able, and then with
gigantic strides went to Peter Fae's. Margaret sat spinning beside her
baby's cradle, Peter had gone to bed, Thora dozed at the fireside.
The impatience of his knock and voice alarmed the women, but
when Margaret heard it was Snorro's voice, she quickly unfastened the
door.
"Is the store burning?" she asked angrily, "that thou comest in
such hot haste ? "
"Thy husband has been murdered. Take thou water and brandy,
and go as quick as thou canst run to the Troll's Eock. He lies there.
I am going for the doctor."
"Why did thou come here, Michael Snorro? Ever art thou a mes-
senger of ill. I will not go."
1835-60] AMELIA EDITH BARB. 559
" Go thou at once, or I will give thee a name thou wilt shudder to
hear. I will give it to thee at kirk, or market, or wherever I meet
thee."
Snorro fled to the town, almost in uttering the words, and Thora, who
had at once risen to get the water and the brandy, put them into her
daughter's hands. " There is no time now for talking. I will tell thy
father and send him after thee. Shall we have blood on our souls?
All of us?"
" Oh, what shall I do ? What shall I do ? "
"Art thou a woman? I tell thee, haste."
" I dare not -oh, my child ! I will wake father."
" I command thee to go — this moment."
Then, almost in a passion, Margaret went. The office of mercy had
been forced upon her. She had not been permitted to consider her own
or her child's interest. No one had thought of her feelings in the mat-
ter. When she reached Jan's side she was still indignant at the per-
emptory way in which she had been treated.
He felt her there, rather than saw her. " Margaret!" he said feebly,
4 ' Margaret I At last ! "
"Yes," she answered in bitter anger, "at last. Hast thou called me
to see thy shameful end? A name full of disgrace' thou leaves to me
and to thy son."
" Forgive me — I am sorry. Forgive ! "
" I will not forgive thee. No woman injured as I have been can for-
give."
His helplessness did not touch her. Her own wrongs and the wrongs
of her child filled her heart. She was determined that at this hour he
should at least understand their full enormity, and she spoke with all
the rapid bitterness of a slow, cold nature, wrought up to an unnatural
passion. In justifying herself she forgot quite that she had been sent to
succor him until help arrived. She was turning away when Jan, in a
voice full of misery, uttered one word :
" Water ! "
Something womanly in her responded to the pitiful, helpless cry.
She went back, and kneeling by his side, put the bottle to his mouth.
The touch of his head upon her arm stirred her strangely ; ere she let it
slip from her hold, he had fainted.
" Oh Jan ! Jan ! Jan ! My Imsband ! My husband ! Oh Jan, dear,
forgive me ! Jan. I am here ! It is thy Margaret ! I still love thee !
Yes, indeed, I love thee ! — "
But it was too late. There was no response. She looked in horror
and terror at the white face at her feet. Then she fled back to the
house for help. Whether her father liked it or not, Jan must now be
K,A AMELIA EDITH BAKR. [1835-60
ObO
brought there. In that last moment she had forgiven him everything.
All the love of her betrothal had come like a great wave over her heart
" Poor Jan ! Poor Jan ! " she sobbed, as she fled like a deer across the
moor.
Peter had been roused and had reluctantly dressed himself. In such
an hour of extremity he would have to give the wounded man shelter if
he were brought there. But he tarried as long as possible, hoping that
Snorro would remove Jan and take him into the town. To be roused
from sleep to confront such a problem of duty was a very unpleasant
affair, and Peter was sulkily tying his shoe-strings when Margaret,
breathless and sobbing, returned for him.
Her impetuosity and her emotion quite mastered him. She compelled
him to go with her to Jan. But when they reached the Troll Eock Jan
had disappeared. There was nothing there but the blue sailors cap
which he had worn. No human being was in sight. Any party of
relief brought by Snorro could be seen for a mile. Margaret picked up
the cap, and gazed at it in a maze of anguish. Only one thing could
have happened. During her absence consciousness had returned to Jan,
and he, poor soul, remembering her cruel words, and seeing that she had
left him there alone to die, had purposely edged himself over the cliff.
The sea was twenty feet deep below it. She put her hands before her
eyes, and shrieked until the welkin rang with her shrill, piercing cries.
Peter could do nothing with her, she would not listen to him, and finally
she became so frantically hysterical that he was alarmed for her life and
reason, and had little opportunity that night to make any inquiries
about his troublesome son-in-law.
Now, when God will help a man, He hath his own messenger. That
night, Doctor Balloch sat in the open door of his house. This door
was at the end of a little jetty to which his skiff was tied; and the
whole expanse of the beautiful bay was before him. It was covered
with boats, idly drifting about under the exquisite sky. Light ripples
of laughter, and sweet echoes of song upon the waters, drifted toward
him. He had read his evening portion, and he sat watching the flicker-
ing lights of the changing aurora. The portion had been the Nine-
teenth Psalm, and he was wishing that the Sweet Singer of Israel, who
thought the Judean heavens " declared the glory of God," could have
seen the Shetland skies.
Suddenly, and peremptorily, a voice encompassed him — a soft, pene-
trating voice, that came like the wind, he knew not how or whence :
"Take thy boat and go to the Troll Eock." He rose at once and went
to the end of the jetty. The sea, darkly blue, was smooth as glass, the
air clear, the majestic headlands imparting to the scene a solemn cathe-
dral grandeur. He strove to shake off the strange impression, but it
1835-60] AMELIA EDITH BARR.
561
grew stronger and more imperative, and he said softly, as if answering
some one: " I will go."
He returned to the house and called his servant Hamish. Hamish
and he lived alone, and had done so for more than thirty years, and they
thoroughly trusted each other.
" Untie the boat, Hamish. We are going for a row. We will go as
far as Troll Eock."
This rock projected over the sea, which flowed into a large cave under
it ; a cave which had long been a favorite hiding-place for smuggled
cargoes. But when the minister reached it, all was silence. Hamish
looked at his master curiously. What could he mean by resting on his
oars and watching so desolate and dangerous a place ? Very soon both
were aware of a human voice — the confused, passionate echoes of Mar-
garet's above them ; and these had not long ceased when Jan Vedder fell
from the rock into the water.
" This man is to be saved, Hamish ; it is what we have come for."
Hamish quietly slipped into the water, and when Jan, speechless and
insensible, rose to the surface, he caught him with one arm and swam
with him to the boat In another moment he was in the bottom of it,
and when he came to himself, his wound had been dressed, and he was
in the minister's own bed.
"Now, thou wilt do well enough, Jan, only thou must keep quiet
body and mind."
" Tell no one I am here. Thou wilt do that for me ? Yes, thou wilt.
Let them think I am at the bottom of the Troll Eock— for God's sake."
" I will tell no one, Jan. Thou art safe here ; be at perfect rest about
that matter."
Of course the minister thought Jan had committed some crime. It
was natural for every one to suspect Jan of doing wrong. But the fact
that he had been sent so obviously to save him was, in the doctor's
mind, an evidence of the divine interest in the youth which he was glad
to share. He had been appointed his preserver, and already he loved
him. He fully trusted Hamish, but he thought it well to say to him :
"We will speak to no one of our row to the Troll Eock, Hamish."
"Does Hamish ever talk, master? "
" No, thou art a wise man ; but here there is more to guide than I yet
understand."
" Look nor word of mine shall hinder it."
For four days the doctor stayed near Jan, and never left his house.
"I will be quiet and let the news find me," he thought. It came into
the manse kitchen in various forms. Hamish received every version of
the story with that grave shake of the head which fits so admirably
every requirement of sympathy. " It was all a great pity," was his most
VOL. viii. — 86
rg2 AMELIA EDITH BARR. [1835-60
lengthy comment ; but then Hamish never exceeded half a dozen words
on any subject
On the fourth evening, which was Saturday, Peter Fae sent this mes-
sage to the minister : " Wilt thou come down to my store for the good
of°a wretched soul?" It was then getting late, and Peter stood in his
shop-door alone. He pointed to Michael Snorro, who sat in a corner on
some seal-skins in a stupor of grief.
" He hath neither ea.ten nor slept since. It is pitiful. Thou knowest
he never had too much sense — "
" I know very clever men who are fools, besides Michael Snorro. Go
thy ways home. I will do what I can for him — only, it had been kinder
had thou sent for me ere this."
He went to Snorro and sat down beside him. "Thou wilt let me
speak to thee, Snorro. I come in God's name. Is it Jan ? "
" Yes, it is Jan. My Jan, my Jan, my friend ! the only one that ever
loved me. Jan ! Jan ! Jan ! " He said the last words in an intense
whisper. It seemed as if his heart would break with each.
" Is Jan's loss all thy grief, Snorro? "
" Nay, there is more. Hast thou found it out ? "
" I think so. Speak to me."
"I dare not speak it"
" It is as sinful to think it I am thy true friend. I come to com-
fort thee. Speak to me, Snorro."
Then he lifted his face. It was overspread by an expression of the
greatest awe and sorrow :
"It is also my Lord Christ. He hath deceived me. He said to me,
'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.' I asked him
always, every hour, to take care of Jan. If I was packing the eggs, or
loading the boats, or eating my dinner, my heart was always praying.
When Jan was at sea, I asked, ' take care of him '; when he was at Torr's,
I prayed then the more, 'dear Lord Christ, take care of him.' I was
praying for him that night, at the very hour he perished. I can pray no
more now. What shall I do? "
" Art thou sure thou prayed for the right thing ? "
"He said, 'whatsoever.' Well, then, I took him at his word. Oh
yes, I believed every word He said. At the last, I thought, He will
surely save Jan. I will pray till his time comes. He will not deceive a
poor soul like me, for He knows right well that Snorro loves him."
"And so thou thinkest that Christ Jesus who died for thee hath
deceived thee?"
" Well, then, He hath forgotten."
" Nay, nay, Snorro. He never forgets. Behold He has graven thy
name upon his hands. Not on the mountains, for they shall depart;
1835-60] AMELIA EDITH BARR. 553
not on the sun, for it shall grow dark; not on the skies, for they shall
melt with fervent heat ; but cm his own hand, Snorro. Now come with
me, and I will show thee whether Lord Christ heard thee praying or
not, and I will tell thee how He sent me, his servant always, to answer
thy prayer. I tell thee at the end of all this thou shalt surely say :
'There hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which He
promised.' "
Then he lifted Michael's cap and gave it to him, and they locked the
store-door, and in silence they walked together to the manse. For a few
minutes he left Snorro alone in the study. There was a large picture in
it of Christ upon the cross. Michael had never dreamed of such a pic-
ture. When the minister came back he found him standing before it,
with clasped hands and streaming eyes.
" Can thou trust him, Michael ? "
"Unto death, sir."
"Come; tread gently. He sleeps."
Wondering and somewhat awestruck Michael followed the doctor into
the room where Jan lay. One swift look from the bed to the smiling
face of Jan's saviour was all Michael needed. He clasped his hands
above his head, and fell upon his knees, and when the doctor saw the
rapture in his face, he understood the transfiguration, and howvthis
mortal might put on immortality.
THE OLD PIANO.
HOW still and dusky is the long-closed room !
What lingering shadows and what faint perfume
Of Eastern treasures! — sandal wood and scent
With nard and cassia and with roses blent.
Let in the sunshine.
Quaint cabinets are here, boxes and fans,
And hoarded letters full of hopes and plans.
I pass them by. I came once more to see
The old piano, dear to memory,
In past days mine.
Of all sad voices from forgotten years,
Its is the saddest; see what tender tears
Drop on the yellow keys as, soft and slow,
I play some melody of long ago.
How strange it seems !
The thin, weak notes that once were rich and strong
Give only now the shadow of a song —
JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLT. [1835-60
The dying echo of the fuller strain
That I shall never, never hear again,
Unless in dreams.
What hands have touched it! Fingers small and white,
Since stiff and weary with life's toil and fight;
Dear clinging hands that long have been at rest,
Folded serenely on a quiet breast.
Only to think,
O white, sad notes, of all the pleasant days,
The happy songs, the hymns of holy praise,
The dreams of love and youth, that round you cling!
Do they not make each sighing, trembling string
A mighty link ?
All its musicians gone beyond recall.
The beautiful, the loved, where are they all ?
Each told its secrets, touched its keys and wires
To thoughts of many colors and desires,
With whispering fingers.
All are silent now, the farewell said,
The last song sung, the last tear sadly shed;
Yet love has given it many dreams to keep
In this lone room, where only shadows creep
And silence lingers.
The old piano answers to my call,
And from my fingers lets the lost notes fall.
0 soul! that I have loved, with heavenly birth
Wilt thou not keep the memory of earth,
Its smiles and sighs ?
Shall wood and metal and white ivory
Answer the touch of love with melody,
And thou forget ? Dear one, not so.
1 move thee yet (though how I may not know)
Beyond the skies.
fane Cunningham Croty,
BORN in Market Harborough, England, 1831.
DIVORCE.
[For Setter or Worse. By Jennie June. 1875.]
"A/TARRIAGE should be practically indissoluble; if it is not, it is not
L marriage, and has no force, no sacredness, no value. Instead of
creating the family, which is the foundation of society and good govern-
1835-60] JANE CUNNINGHAM CROLT. 555
ment, it creates tribes of wandering, nomadic existences, bound together
by no law of duty, acknowledging no obligation, held by no tender cords
of association, sympathy, or companionship. To reorganize society on
such a basis would be to return to the Fetichistic condition of the race,
to voluntarily relinquish all that has been gained of general moral and
social elevation. Goethe says, "Marriage is the beginning and end of
all culture, and must be indissoluble, because it brings so much happi-
ness, that what small exceptional unhappiness it may bring counts for
nothing in the balance. And what do men mean by talking of unhappi-
ness? Impatience it is, which, from time to time, comes over them, and
then they fancy themselves unhappy. Let them wait till the moment
has gone by, and then they will bless their good fortune that what has
stood so long continues standing. There never can be any adequate
ground for separation."
This last expression, which, with the rest, Goethe has put in the
mouth of a good man, is perhaps too strong ; the law which binds should
have power to unloose, or at least protect from consequences dangerous
to the individual, disastrous to society.
" Free divorce " would destroy marriage ; but compulsory divorce — in
other words, divorce insisted upon and maintained by law when habit-
ual drunkenness or other criminal habits render man or woman brutal,
dangerous, and unfit to undertake the parentage of children — would be
one of the best safeguards of marriage. The flippancy which sneers at
or ridicules the holiest ties may profess to see in this an inducement to
drunkenness, in order to become released from the marriage bond. But
the lips that could utter such a sentiment would know that it was not
true. There are none to whom it is more important, none who feel that
it is so, more than the very poor, to whom it is the link that unites them
with their kind, that makes them sharers in the common humanity. If
the very poor were not husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, they
would be brutes, with hardly a thought, a feeling, or habit, in common
with the rest of the world.
The knowledge that the law took cognizance of the loss of individual
character and self-respect, and interfered summarily to protect individ-
uals and society from dangers and additional burdens, would exercise an
incalculable influence in deterring men and women from the excessive
indulgence of their appetites and passions.
The one cause for which divorces are principally granted is a matter
which is even now settled mainly by the parties themselves, the action
for damages recently entered by a contestant in a celebrated case being
almost the first in which such an appeal has been made to the laws in
this country.
Under a system which gives a wife no right in the income or accumu-
PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN. [1835-60
000
lated property until after her husband's death, a woman cannot apply
for a divorce because she has no money— because marriage has deprived
her of her means of maintenance, and given her children, whom she is
bound to take care of. Its protection, therefore, and championship of
her rights is the merest pretence, as is proved by the fact that to one
who appeals to the law, ten patiently sit down and endure their woes.
It is here, however, in America, where human rights are professedly
held sacred', where social conditions are more favorable than elsewhere
to the highest form of social morality, that marriage should be placed
upon an authoritative and universally acknowledged basis. It is the
extreme of childishness and folly to make a law for one state, touching so
important a matter as this, which underlies all social and governmental
life, to be set aside by simply stepping over the boundaries into another
state. This purely human interest is above sect or party, and should be
treated from the broad standpoint of a universal humanity.
BORN in Albany, N. T., 1831. DIED at Nonquitt, Mass., 1888.
A FAMOUS RIDE.
[Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan. General U. S. Army. 1888.]
WE arrived about dark at Martinsburg, and there found the escort
of three hundred men which I had ordered before leaving Cedar
Creek. We spent that night at Martinsburg, and early next morning
mounted and started up the Valley pike for Winchester, leaving Captain
Sheridan behind to conduct to the army the commissioners whom the
State of New York had sent down to receive the vote of her troops in
the coming Presidential election. Colonel Alexander was a man of
enormous weight, and Colonel Thorn correspondingly light, and as both
were unaccustomed to riding we had to go slowly, losing so much
time, in fact, that we did not reach Winchester till between 3 and 4
o'clock in the afternoon, though the distance is but twenty-eight miles.
As soon as we arrived at Colonel Edwards's headquarters in the town,
where I intended stopping for the night, I sent a courier to the front to
bring me a report of the condition of affairs, and then took Colonel
Alexander out on the heights about Winchester, in order that he might
overlook the country, and make up his mind as to the utility of fortify-
ing there. By the time we had completed our survey it was dark, and
1835-60] PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN. ' 557
just as we reached Colonel Edwards's house on our return, a courier
came in from Cedar Creek, bringing word that everything was all right,
that the enemy was quiet at Fisher's Hill, and that a brigade of Grover's
division was to make a reconnoissance in the morning, the 19th; so
about 10 o'clock I went to bed greatly relieved, and expecting to rejoin
my headquarters at my leisure next day.
Toward 6 o'clock the morning of the 19th, the officer on picket duty
at Winchester came to my room, I being yet in bed, and reported artil-
lery firing from the direction of Cedar Creek. I asked him if the firing
was continuous or only desultory, to which he replied that it was not a
sustained fire, but rather irregular and fitful. I remarked : " It's all
right ; Grover has gone out this morning to make a reconnoissance, and he
is merely feeling the enemy." I tried to go to sleep again, but grew so
restless that I could not, and soon got up and dressed myself. A little
later the picket officer came back and reported that the firing, which
could be distinctly heard from his line on the heights outside of Win-
chester, was still going on. I asked him if it sounded like a battle, and
as he again said that it did not, I still inferred that the cannonading was
caused by Grover's division banging away at the enemy simply to find
out what he was up to. However, I went down-stairs and requested that
breakfast be hurried up, and at the same time ordered the horses to be
saddled and in readiness, for I concluded to go to the front before any
further examinations were made in regard to the defensive line.
We mounted our horses between half-past 8 and 9, and as we were
proceeding up the street which leads directly through Winchester, from
the Logan residence, where Edwards was quartered, to the Valley pike,
I noticed that there were many women at the windows and doors of the
houses, who kept shaking their skirts at us and who were otherwise
markedly insolent in their demeanor, but supposing this conduct to be
instigated by their well-known and perhaps natural prejudices, I ascribed
to it no unusual significance. On reaching the edge of the town I halted
a moment, and there heard quite distinctly the sound of artillery firing
in an unceasing roar. Concluding from this that a battle was in prog-
ress, I now felt confident that the women along the street had received
intelligence from the battle-field by the " grape-vine telegraph," and were
in raptures over some good news, while I as yet was utterly ignorant of
the actual situation. Moving on, I put my head down toward the pom-
mel of my saddle and listened intently, trying to locate and interpret
the sound, continuing in this position till we had crossed Mill Creek,
about half a mile from Winchester. The result of my efforts in the
interval was the conviction that the travel of the sound was increasing
too rapidly to be accounted for by my own rate of motion, and that
therefore my army must be falling back.
zao PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN. [1835-60
OOo
At Mill Creek my escort fell in behind, and we were going ahead at a
regular pace, when, just as we made the crest of the rise beyond the
stream, there burst upon our view the appalling spectacle of a panic-
stricken army — hundreds of slightly wounded men, throngs of others
unhurt but utterly demoralized, and baggage-wagons by the score, all
pressing to the rear in hopeless confusion, telling only too plainly that a
disaster had occurred at the front. On accosting some of the fugitives,
they assured me that the army was broken up, in full retreat, and that
all was lost ; all this with a manner true to that peculiar indifference
that takes possession of panic-stricken men. I was greatly disturbed by
the sight, but at once sent word to Colonel Edwards, commanding the
brigade in Winchester, to stretch his troops across the valley, near Mill
Creek, and stop all fugitives, directing also that the transportation be
passed through and parked on the north side of the town.
As I continued at a walk a few hundred yards farther, thinking all
the time of Longstreet's telegram to Early, "Be ready when I join you,
and we will crush Sheridan," I was fixing in my mind what I should do.
My first thought was to stop the army in the suburbs of Winchester as
it came back, form a new line, and fight there ; but as the situation was
more maturely considered, a better conception prevailed. I was sure the
troops had confidence in me, for heretofore we had been successful ; and
as at other times they had seen me present at the slightest sign of trouble
or distress, I felt that I ought to try now to restore their broken ranks,
or, failing in that, to share their fate because of what they had done
hitherto.
About this time Colonel Wood, my chief commissary, arrived from
the front and gave me fuller intelligence, reporting that everything was
gone, my headquarters captured, and the troops dispersed. When I
heard this I took two of my aides-de-camp, Major George A. Forsyth
and Captain Joseph O'Keefe, and with twenty men from the escort
started for the front, at the same time directing Colonel James W. For-
syth and Colonels Alexander and Thorn to remain behind and do what
they could to stop the runaways.
For a short distance I travelled on the road, but soon found it so
blocked with wagons and wounded men that my progress was impeded,
and I was forced to take to the adjoining fields to make haste. When
most of the wagons and wounded were past I returned to the road, which
was thickly lined with unhurt men, who, having got far enough to the
rear to be out of danger, had halted, without any organization, and
begun cooking coffee, but when they saw me they abandoned their
coffee, threw up their hats, shouldered their muskets, and as I passed
along turned to follow with enthusiasm and cheers. To acknowledge
this exhibition of feeling I took off my hat, and with Forsyth and
1835-60] PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN. 559
O'Keefe rode some distance in advance of my escort, while every mounted
officer who saw me galloped out on either side of the pike to tell the
men at a distance that I had come back. In this way the news was
spread to the stragglers off the road, when they, too, turned their faces
to the front and marched toward the enemy, changing in a moment from
the depths of depression to the extreme of enthusiasm. I already knew
that even in the ordinary condition of mind enthusiasm is a potent ele-
ment with soldiers, but what I saw that day convinced me that if it can
be excited from a state of despondency its power is almost irresistible. I
said nothing except to remark, as I rode among those on the road : " If I
had been with you this morning this disaster would not have happened.
We must face the other way ; we will go back and recover our camp."
My first halt was made just north of Newtown, where I met a chaplain
digging his heels into the sides of his jaded horse, and making for the
rear with all possible >peed. I drew up for an instant, and inquired of
him how matters were going at the front. He replied : " Everything
is lost ; but all will be right when you get there " ; yet notwithstanding
this expression of confidence in me, the parson at once resumed his
breathless pace to the rear. At Newtown I was obliged to make a cir-
cuit to the left, to get round the village. I could not pass through it,
the streets were so crowded, but meeting on this detour Major McKinley,
of Crook's staff, he spread the news of my return through the motley
throng there.
When nearing the Yalley pike, just south of Newtown I saw about
three-fourths of a mile west of the pike a body of troops, which proved
to be Kicketts's and Wheaton's divisions of the Sixth Corps, and then
learned that the Nineteenth Corps had halted a little to the right and
rear of these ; but I did not stop, desiring to get to the extreme front.
Continuing on parallel with the pike, about midway between Newtown
and Middietown I crossed to the west of it, and a little later came up in
rear of Getty's division of the Sixth Corps. When I arrived, this divi-
sion and the cavalry were the only troops in the presence of and resist-
ing the enemy ; they were apparently acting as a rear guard at a point
about three miles north of the line we held at Cedar Creek when the
battle began. General Torbert was the first officer to meet me, saying as
as he rode up, "My God! I am glad you've come." Getty's division,
when I found it, was about a mile north of Middietown, posted on the
reverse slope of some slightly rising ground, holding a barricade made
with fence-rails, and skirmishing slightly with the enemy's pickets.
Jumping my horse over the line of rails, I rode to the crest of the eleva-
tion, and there taking off my hat, the men rose up from behind their
barricade with cheers of recognition. An officer of the Vermont brigade,
Colonel A. S. Tracy, rode out to the front, and joining me, informed me
g^Q PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN, [1835-60
that General Louis A. Grant was in command there, the regular division
commander, General Getty, having taken charge of the Sixth Corps in
place of Ricketts, wounded early in the action, while temporarily com-
manding the corps. I then turned back to the rear of Getty's division,
and as I came behind it, a line of regimental flags rose up out of the
ground, as it seemed, to welcome me. They were mostly the colors of
Crook's troops, who had been stampeded and scattered in the surprise of
the morning. The color-bearers, having withstood the panic, had formed
behind the troops of Getty. The line with the colors was largely com-
posed of officers, among whom I recognized Colonel E. B. Hayes, since
president of the United States, one of the brigade commanders. At the
close of this incident I crossed the little narrow valley, or depression, in
rear of Getty's line, and dismounting on the opposite crest, established
that point as my headquarters. In a few minutes some of my staff
joined me, and the first directions I gave were to have the Nineteenth
Corps and the two divisions of Wright's corps brought to the front, so
thev could be formed on Getty's division, prolonged to the right ; for I
had already decided to attack the enemy from that line as soon as I
could get matters in shape to take the offensive. Crook met me at this
time, and strongly favored my idea of attacking, but said, however, that
most of his troops were gone. General Wright came up a little later,
when I saw that he was wounded, a ball having grazed the point of his
chin so as to draw the blood plentifully.
Wright gave me a hurried account of the day's events, and when told
that we would fight the enemy on the line which Getty and the cavalry
were holding, and that he must go himself and send all his staff to bring
up the troops, he zealously fell in with the scheme ; and it was then
that the Nineteenth Corps and two divisions of the Sixth were ordered
to the front from where they had been halted to the right and rear of
Getty
Between half-past 3 and 4 o'clock, I was ready to assail, and decided
to do so by advancing my infantry line in a swinging movement, so as
to gain the Valley pike with my right between Middletown and the
Belle Grove House; and when the order was passed along, the men
pushed steadily forward with enthusiasm and confidence; General
Early's troops extended some little distance beyond our right, and when
my flank neared the overlapping enemy, he turned on it, with the effect
of causing a momentary confusion, but General McMillan, quickly realiz-
ing the danger, broke the Confederates at the reentering angle by a
counter-charge with his brigade, doing his work so well that the enemy's
flanking troops were cut off from their main body and left to shift for
themselves. Custer, who was just then moving in from the west side of
Middle Marsh Brook, followed McMillan's timely blow with a charge of
1835-60] PHILIP HENRT SHERIDAN.
571
cavalry, but before starting out on it, and while his men were forming,
riding at full speed himself, to throw his arms around my neck. By the
time he had disengaged himself from this embrace, the troops broken by
McMillan had gained some little distance to their rear, but Ouster's
troopers, sweeping across the Middletown meadows and down toward
Cedar Creek, took many of them prisoners before they could reach the
stream ; so I forgave his delay.
My whole line as far as the eye could see was now driving everything
before it, from behind trees, stone walls, and all such sheltering obstacles,
so I rode toward the left to ascertain how matters were getting on there.
As I passed along behind the advancing troops, first General Grover, and
then Colonel Mackenzie, rode up to welcome me. Both were severely
wounded, and I told them to leave the field, but they implored permis-
sion to remain till success was certain. When I reached the Valley
pike Crook had reorganized his men, and as I desired that they should
take part in the fight, for they were the very same troops that had
turned Early's flank at Winchester .and at Fisher's Hill, I ordered them
to be pushed forward; and the alacrity and celerity with which they
moved on Middletown demonstrated that their ill-fortune of the morning
had not sprung from lack of valor.
Meanwhile Lowell's brigade of cavalry, which, it will be remembered,
had been holding on, dismounted, just north of Middletown, ever since
the time I arrived from Winchester, fell to the rear for the purpose of
getting their led horses. A momentary panic was created in the nearest
brigade of infantry by this withdrawal of Lowell, but as soon as his men
were mounted they charged the enemy clear up to the stone walls in the
edge of Middletown. At sight of this the infantry brigade renewed its
attack, and the enemy's right gave way. The accomplished Lowell
received his death-wound in this courageous charge.
All our troops were now moving on the retreating Confederates, and
as I rode to the front Colonel Gibbs, who succeeded Lowell, made ready
for another mounted charge, but I checked him from pressing the
enemy's right, in the hope that the swinging attack from my right
would throw most of the Confederates to the east of the Valley pike, and
hence off their line of retreat through Strasburg to Fisher's Hill. The
eagerness of the men soon frustrated this anticipation, however, the left
insisting on keeping pace with the centre and right, and all pushing
ahead till we regained our old camps at Cedar Creek. Beyond Cedar
Creek, at Strasburg, the pike makes a sharp turn to the west toward
Fisher's Hill, and here Merritt uniting with Custer, they together fell on
the flank of the retreating columns, taking many prisoners, wagons, and
guns, among the prisoners being Major-General Ramseur, who, mortally
wounded, died the next day.
-79 WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON. [183r,-60
"When the news of the victory was received, General Grant directed a
salute of one hundred shotted guns to be fired into Petersburg, and the
President at once thanked the army in an autograph letter. A few
weeks after, he promoted me, and I received notice of this in a special
letter from the Secretary of War, saying, " that for the personal gal-
lantry, military skill, and just confidence in the courage and patriotism
of your troops, displayed by you on the 19th day of October at Cedar
Eun, whereby, under the blessing of Providence, your routed army was
reorganized, a great National disaster averted, and a brilliant victory
achieved over the rebels for the third time in pitched battle within thirty
days, Philip H. Sheridan is appointed a major-general in the United
States Army."
mtlltam
BORN in Louisville, Ky., 1831.
ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.
[The Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston. 1878.]
~\ >TR. JOHNSTON'S appearance at this period of his life is described
j3Cl_ as both commanding and attractive. In some respects the bust of
Alexander Hamilton is the best extant likeness of him — a resemblance
very frequently remarked. His cheek-bones were rather high, and his
nose somewhat irregular, which, with his clear, white-and-red complex-
ion, gave him a very Scotch look. His chin was delicate and hand-
some, his teeth white and regular, and his mouth square and firm. In
the portrait by Bush, taken about this- time, his lips seem rather full ;
but, as he is best remembered, they were somewhat thin and very firmly
set. Brown hair clustered over a noble forehead, and from under heavy
brows his deep-set but clear, steady eyes looked straight at you with a
regard kind and sincere, yet penetrating. With those eyes upon him,
any man would have scrupled to tell a lie. In repose his eyes were as
blue as the sky, but in excitement they flashed to a steel-gray, and
exerted a wonderful power over men. He was six feet and an inch in
height, weighing about 180 pounds, straight as an arrow, with broad,
square shoulders and a massive chest He was strong and active, but
his endurance and vital power seemed the result rather of nervous than
of muscular energy, and drew their exhaustless resources from the mind
more than the body. His bearing was essentially military, and digni-
1835-60] WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON.
573
fied rather than graceful ; and his movements were prompt, but easy and
firm. He was, indeed, in appearance a model for the soldier.
Sidney Johnston's skill in arms was but moderate, for, though his eye
was quick and his hand steady, yet he lacked the dexterity that comes
from predilection and practice. He was not only cautious himself in
handling fire-arms, but often recommended the same carefulness to
others, playfully quoting a saying of John Rowan, the dead -shot of Ken-
tucky, " Never point a pistol at a man unless you intend to shoot him."
He was a graceful and excellent rider, and no man presented a grander
or more martial appearance on horseback. It was remarked of him by
Mr. Jefferson Davis, who saw him at the battle of Monterey, that " in
combat he had the most inspiring presence he ever saw."
Substantially the same remark was many times made by others.
There were in his action a certain vigor and decision, in his manner a
winning frankness and kindness, and in his whole thought and life a
simplicity and directness, that were generally irresistible. His defer-
ence to and dignified sympathy with women, his tenderness to children,
his reverence for old age, and his forbearance with every form of weak-
ness, were genuine and unvarying — habits as well as principles. A sen-
sitive interest and the finest judgment were united in his intercourse
with children. His indulgence seemed unlimited, and yet they rarely
abused it. He observed toward them a careful respect; and many
vounger friends will remember the benign and ennobling influence of
Albert Sidney Johnston on their lives
He was gentle to women and children ; tender to the weak and suffer-
ing, gracious to subordinates and dependents, just and magnanimous to
equals and rivals, respectful to superiors, and tolerant to all men. Not
envious, jealous, or suspicious, yet so high-strung was his spirit that he
could ill-brook personal indignity or insult Such was his self-respect,
however, that he rarely had to check a want of respect in others. It has
been seen with what patience and fortitude, indeed with what serenity,
he bore private griefs and public contumely. His nature, his education,
his philosophy, his religion, had so finely tempered his soul that at last
he had in him no fear, except of doing wrong.
He had no love for and little need of money, and was generous and
liberal in its use. In matters immaterial he was facile ; in things of
import, scrupulous and just ; and his quick intelligence never failed to
perceive the doubtful dividing line.
Naturally of a high, courageous, and resolute spirit, he found it dim-
cult to swerve from a line of action he had marked out ; and the more
so, because his opinions were formed after deliberation. Yet, that his
mental processes were rapid is seen by the decision with which he acted.
He was not proof against the love of glory ; but in him it was trans-
r*4 WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON. [1835-60
muted to a fine ambition to be and to do, not simply to seem. Results
he left to take care of themselves, if only he could do his duty. All
this came from his love of truth, which was with him a passion. He
sought the truth, striving to know it, and to live up to it in greater and
smaller things. Hence, though perceiving that success is the world's
test of merit, he could square his acts by another standard.
As a general, his tactics were skillful, and his strategy was bold and
sagacious. In council, he was enterprising, yet wary ; in assault, auda-
cious, impetuous, and unrelenting ; in disaster, tenacious, resourceful, and
composed. While he knew and regarded all the details of his profes-
sion, his skill in handling large bodies of troops was remarkable; and
he grasped with ease the broadest generalizations of war. Time will
add to his reputation as a general. Above all, his life and character
were self-contained, perfectly consistent, and completed in their rounded
fullness.
He did many great and noble deeds, and won rank, power, and
applause, without tarnish to his modesty and simplicity. He suffered
much in mind, body, and estate, without repining; not only with pa-
tience, but in silence. Like some great tree, which finds in earth, and
air, and storm, and sunshine, nourishment for its growth, he drew sweet-
ness and strength from every element of Nature, and from every dispensa-
tion of Providence. He was a man to be loved, to be reverenced, and
to be emulated.
General Johnston dared to say in the midst of immeasurable disasters :
" The test of merit in my profession, with the people, is success. It is a
hard rule, but I think it right." Perhaps, with still wider scope, success
is the test of merit in a human life. But, even measured by this hard
rule, the most adverse criticism cannot pronounce his life a failure.
Eejecting patronage, standing on merit alone, inflexible in right, and
devoted to duty, a whole people regard him as the very pattern of a
noble citizen, an able leader, a splendid soldier, a great general, and an
upright man. Millions wept for him. The ablest and the best wrote
for him the proud epitaph that on his arm rested the sinking fortunes of
the state. Who will, then, dare to say he did not achieve success ?
1835-60] ISAAC ISRAEL HAYES. 575
BOKN in Chester Co., Penn., 1832. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1881.
A NORTHERN PET.
[The Open Polar Sea. 1867.]
TT is almost a month since we passed the darkest day of the winter,
L and it will be a long time yet before we have light ; but it is time
for us now to have at noontime a faint flush upon the horizon. We
find a new excitement, if such it may be called, in the impatience of
expectation. Meanwhile I pet my fox.
Birdie has become quite tame, and does great credit to her instructor.
She is the most cunning creature that was ever seen, and does not make
a bad substitute for the General. She takes the General's place at my
table, as she has his place in my affections; but she sits in my lap,
where the General never was admitted, and, with her delicate little paws
on the cloth, she makes a picture. Why, she is indeed a perfect little
gourmands, well bred, too, and clever. When she takes the little mor-
sels into her mouth her eyes sparkle with delight, she wipes her lips,
and looks up at me with a coqitetterie that is perfectly irresistible. The
eagerness of appetite is controlled by the proprieties of the table and a
proper self-respect ; and she is satisfied to prolong a feast in which she
finds so much enjoyment. She does not like highly seasoned food;
indeed, she prefers to take it au naturel, so I have a few bits of venison
served for her on a separate plate. She has her own fork ; but she has
not yet advanced sufficiently far in the usages of civilization to handle it
for herself, so I convey the delicate morsels to her mouth. Sometimes
she exhibits too much impatience ; but a gentle rebuke with the fork
on the tip of the nose is quite effective in restoring her patience, and
saving her from indigestion.
Her habits greatly interest me. I have allowed her to run loose in
mv cabin, after a short confinement in a cage had familiarized her with
the place; but she soon found out the "bull's-eye" over my head,
through the cracks around which she could sniff the cool air ; and she
got into the habit of bounding over the shelves, without much regard
for the many valuable and perishable articles which lay thereon. From
this retreat nothing can tempt her but a good dinner ; and as soon as she
sees from her perch the bits of raw venison, she crawls leisurely down,
sneaks gently into my lap, looks up longingly and lovingly into my
face, puts out her little tongue with quick impatience, and barks
bewitchingly if the beginning of the repast is too long delayed.
Kt-a JOEL BENTON. [1835-60
57o
I tried to cure her of this habit of climbing by tying her up with a
chain which Knorr made for me of some iron wire ; but she took it so
much to heart that I had to let her go. Her efforts to free herself were
very amusing, and she well earned her freedom. She tried continually
to break the chain, and, having once succeeded, she seemed determined
not to be baffled in her subsequent attempts. As long as I was watch-
in«- her she would be quiet enough, coiled up in her bed or her tub of
snow ; but the moment my eyes were off her, or she thought me asleep,
she worked hard to effect ^her liberation. First she would draw herself
back as far as she could get, and then suddenly darting forward, would
bring up at the end of her chain with a jerk which sent her reeling on
the floor; then she would pick herself up, panting as if her little heart
would break, shake out her disarranged coat, and try again. But this
she would do with much deliberation. For a moment she would sit
quietly down, cock her head cunningly on one side, follow the chain
with her eye along its whole length to its fastening in the floor, and then
she would walk leisurely to that point, hesitate a moment, and then
make another plunge. All this time she would eye me sharply, and if I
made any movement, she would fall down at once on the floor and pre-
tend sleep.
She is a very neat and cleanly creature. She is everlastingly brush-
ing her clothes, and she bathes very regularly in her bath of snow.
This last is her great delight. She roots up the clean white flakes with
her diminutive nose, rolls and rubs and half buries herself in them,
wipes her face with her soft paws, and when all is over she mounts with
her delicate fingers to the side of the tub, looks around her very know-
ingly, and barks the prettiest little bark that ever was heard. This is
her way of enforcing admiration; and, being now satisfied with her per-
formance, she gives a goodly number of shakes to her sparkling coat,
and then, happy and refreshed, she crawls to her airy bed in the " bull's-
eye " and si
3|oel I3enton.
BORN in Ainenia, N. Y., 1832.
THE POET.
npHE poet's words are winged with fire,
- Forever young is his desire, —
Touched by some charm the gods impart,
Time "writes no wrinkle " on his heart.
1835-60] ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
The messenger and priest of truth,
His thought breathes of immortal youth ;
Though summer hours are far away,
Mid-summer haunts him day by day.
The harsh fates do not chill his soul,—
For him all streams of splendor roll;
Sweet hints come to him from the sky, —
Birds teach him wisdom as they fly.
He gathers good in all he meets,
The fields pour out for him their sweets ;
Life is excess : one sunset's glow
Gives him a bliss no others know.
Beauty to him is Paradise —
He never tires of lustrous eyes ;
Quaffing his joy, the world apart,
Love lives and summers in his heart.
His lands are never bought and sold —
His wealth is more to him than gold :
On the green hills, when life is done,
He sleeps like fair Endymiou.
577
BORN in Homer, N. Y., 1832.
A BEOAD METHOD COMMENDED TO HISTORIANS.
[On Studies in General History and the History of Civilization. 1885.]
T REMEMBEB several years ago hearing a gentleman, temporarily
-L eminent in politics (one of Carlyle's homrnes alors celebres). in a speech
before the authorities of an American university, declare that all history
must be rewritten from an American point of view. This assertion, at
the time, seemed to savor of that vagueness and largeness often noted in
the utterances of the American politician upon his travels, which, in our
vernacular, is happily named " tall talk " ; but as the statement has
recurred to my mind at various periods since, it has seemed to me that
our political friend uttered more wisely than he knew. For is it not
true that we, in this republic, called upon to help build up a new civili-
zation, with a political and social history developing before us of which
the consequences for good or evil are to rank with those which have
VOL. VIH.— 37
^g ANDREW DICKSON WHITE. [1835-60
flowed from the life of Eome and the British Empire,— is it not true
that, for us, the perspective of a vast deal of history is changed ; that
the history which, for the use of various European populations, has
been written with minute attention to details, must be written for us in
a larger and more philosophical way ?
And is it not true that the history so rapidly developing here is
throwing back a new light upon much history already developed?
What legislator cannot see that the history of our American municipali-
ties throws light upon the republics of the Middle Ages, and derives
light from them? What statesman cannot understand far better the
problem of the British government in Ireland in the light of our own
problem in the city of New York? What classical scholar cannot bet-
ter understand Cleou the leather-seller, as we laugh at the gyrations of a
certain American politician now "starring it in the provinces "? What
publicist cannot weigh more justly the immediate pre-revolutionary
period in France as he notes a certain thin, loose humanitarianism of
our day which is making our land the paradise of murderers ? What
historical student cannot more correctly estimate the value of a certain
happy-go-lucky optimism which sees nothing possible but good in the
future, when he recalls the complacent public opinion, voiced by the
Italian historian just before 1789, that henceforth peace was to reign in
Europe, since great wars had become an impossibility? What student
of social science cannot better estimate the most fearful anti-social evil
among us by noting the sterility of marriage in the decline of Kome and
in the eclipse of France ?
In this sense I think that the assertion referred to as to the rewriting
of history from the American point of view contains a great truth ; and
it is this modified view of the evolution of human affairs, of the devel-
opment of man as man, and of man in society, that opens a great field
for American philosophic historians, whether they shall seek to round
the whole circle of human experience, or simply to present some arc of it.
The want of such work can be clearly seen on all sides. Not one of us
reads the current discussions of public affairs in Congress, in the State
Legislatures, or in the newspapers, who does not see that strong and
keen as many of these are, a vast deal of valuable light is shut out by
ignorance of turning-points in the history of human civilization thus far.
Never was this want of broad historical views in leaders of American
opinion more keenly felt than now. Think of the blindness to one of
the greatest things which gives renown to nations, involved in the duty
levied by Congress upon works of art. Think, too, of the blindness to
•one of the main agencies in the destruction of every great republic thus
far, shown in the neglect to pass a constitutional amendment which
.shall free us from the danger of coups d'etat at the counting of the elec-
1835-60] ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
579
toral vote. Think of the cool disregard of the plainest teachings of
general history involved in legislative carelessness or doctrinaire opposi-
tion to measures remedying illiteracy in our Southern States. Never
was this want of broad historical views more evident in our legislation
than now. In the early history of this republic we constantly find that
such men as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, to say nothing of the
lesser lights, drew very largely and effectively from their studies of
human history. In the transition period such men as Calhoun, John
Quincy Adams, Everett, and Webster drew a large part of their strength
from this source. And in the great period through which we have
recently passed the two statesmen who wrought most powerfully to
shape vague hopes into great events — William Henry Seward and
Charles Sumner — were the two of all American statesmen in their time
who drew inspiration and strength from a knowledge of the general his-
tory of mankind. Nothing but this could have kept up Seward's faith
or Sumner's purpose. The absence of this sort of light among our pub-
lic men at present arises doubtless from the necessities of our material
development since the Civil War, and the demand for exact arithmet-
ical demonstration in finance rather than moral demonstration in broad
questions of public policy ; but as we approach the normal state of
things more and more, the need of such general studies must grow
stronger and stronger.
As regards the work of our American universities and colleges in the
historical field, we must allow that it is wofully defective ; but there are
signs, especially among those institutions which are developing out of
the mass of colleges into universities, of a better time coming. They
must indeed yield to the current sweeping through the age. This is an
epoch of historical studies. It is a matter of fact, simple and easily veri-
fied, that whereas in the last century state problems and world prob-
lems were as a rule solved by philosophy, and even historians such as
Voltaire and Gibbon and Robertson were rather considered as philoso-
phers than as historians, in this century such problems are studied most
frequently in the light of history.
Still another encouraging fact is that advanced studies of every sort
are more and more thrown into the historic form. The growth of the his-
torical school in political economy is but one of many examples of this.
More and more it is felt that "the proper study of mankind is man";
more and more clear becomes the idea enforced by Draper, that the
greatest problems of humanity must be approached not so much by the
study of the individual man as by the study of man in general and his-
torically.
K80 ANDREW DICKSON WHITE. [1835-60
AFTER CENTURIES OF WAR,
[ Tlt,e Warfare of Science. 1876.]
YOU have gone over the greater struggles in the long war between
Ecclesiasticism and Science, and have glanced at the lesser fields.
You have seen the conflicts in Physical Geography, as to the form of
the earth ; in Astronomy, as to the place of the earth in the universe,
and the evolution of stellar systems in accordance with law ; in Chemis-
try and Physics ; in Anatomy and Medicine ; in Geology ; in Meteorol-
ogy ; in Cartography ; in the Industrial and Agricultural Sciences ; in
Political Economy and Social Science ; and in Scientific Instruction ;
and each of these, when fully presented, has shown the following
results :
First. In every case, whether the war has been long or short, forcible
or feeble, science has at last gained the victory.
Secondly. In every case, interference with science, in the supposed
interest of religion, has brought dire evils on both.
Thirdly. In every case, while this interference, during its continuance,
has tended to divorce religion from the most vigorous thinking of the
world, and to make it odious to multitudes of the most earnest thinkers,
the triumph of science has led its former conscientious enemies to make
new interpretations and lasting adjustments, which have proved a bless-
ing to religion, ennobling its conceptions and bettering its methods.
And in addition to these points there should be brought out distinctly
a corollary, which is, that science must be studied by its own means and
to its own ends, unmixed with the means and unbiased by the motives
of investigators in other fields, and uncontrolled by consciences unen-
lightened by itself.
The very finger of the Almighty seems to have written the proofs of
this truth on human history. No one can gainsay it. It is decisive, for
it is this : There has never been a scientific theory framed from the use of
Scriptural texts, wholly or partially, which has been made to stand. Such
attempts have only subjected their authors to derision, and Christianity
to suspicion. From Cosmas finding his plan of the universe in the Jew-
ish tabernacle, to Increase Mather sending mastodons' bones to England
as the remains of giants mentioned in Scripture ; from Bellarmin declar-
ing that the sun cannot be the centre of the universe, because such an
idea "vitiates the whole Scriptural plan of salvation," to a recent writer
declaring that an evolution theory cannot be true, because St Paul says
that " all flesh is not the same flesh," the result has always been the
same.
Such facts show that scientific hypotheses will be established or refuted
1835-60] ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
581
by scientific men and scientific methods alone, and that no conscientious
citation of texts, or outcries as to consequences of scientific truths, from
any other quarter, can do anything save retard truth and cause needless
anxiety.
Such facts show, too, that the sacred books of the world were not
given for any such purpose as that to which so many men have endeav-
ored to wrest them — the purpose served by compends of history and
text-books of science.
Is skepticism feared? All history shows that the only skepticism
which does permanent harm is skepticism as to the value and safety of
truth as truth. No skepticism has proved so corrosive to religion, none
so cancerous in the human brain and heart.
Is faith cherished? All history shows that the first article of a saving
faith, for any land or time, is faith that there is a Power in this universe
strong enough to make truth-seeking safe, and good enough to make
truth-telling useful.
May we not, then, hope that the greatest and best men in the Church
— the men standing at centres of thought — will insist with power, more
and more, that religion be no longer tied to so injurious a policy as that
which this warfare reveals ; that searchers for truth, whether in theology
or natural science, work on as friends, sure that, no matter how much at
variance they may at times seem to be, the truths they reach shall
finally be fused into each other? The dominant religious conceptions of
the world will doubtless be greatly modified by science in the future, as
they have been in the past ; and the part of any wisely religious person,
at any centre of influence, is to see that, in his generation, this readjust-
ment of religion to science be made as quietly and speedily as possible.
No one needs fear the result. No matter whether Science shall com-
plete her demonstration that man has been on the earth not merely six
thousand years, or six millions of years ; no matter whether she reveals
new ideas of the Creator or startling relations between his creatures ; no
matter how many more gyves and clamps upon the spirit of Christian-
ity she destroys: the result, when fully thought out, will serve and
strengthen religion not less than science.
What science can do for the world is shown, not by those who have
labored to concoct palatable mixtures of theology and science — men like
Cosmas, and Torrubia, and Burnet, and Whiston — but by men who
have fought the good fight of faith in truth for truth's sake — men like
Koger Bacon, and Vesalius, and Palissy, and Galileo.
What Christianity can do for the world is shown, not by men who
have stood on the high places screaming in wrath at the advance of sci-
ence ; not by men who have retreated in terror into the sacred caves and
refused to look out upon the universe as it is ; but by men who have
gg2 HIRAM RICH. [1835-60
preached and practised the righteousness of the prophets, and the aspira-
tions of the Psalmist, and the blessed Sermon on the Mount, and " the
first great commandment, and the second, which is like unto it," and St.
James's definition of "pure religion and undefiled."
It is shown in the Koman Church, not by Tostatus and Bellarmin,
but by St. Carlo Borromeo, and St. Yincent de Paul, and Fenelon, and
Eugenie de Guerin ; in the Anglican Church, not by Dean Cockburn,
but by Howard, and Jenner, and Wilberforce, and Florence Nightin-
gale ; in the German Church, not by Pastor Knak, but by Pastor Flied-
ner; in the American Church, not by the Mathers, but by such as
Bishop Whatcoat, and Channing, and Muhlenberg, and Father De Smet,
and Samuel May, and Harriet Stowe.
Let the warfare of Science, then, be changed. Let it be a warfare in
which Eeligion and Science shall stand together as allies, not against
each other as enemies. Let the fight be for truth of every kind against
falsehood of every kind ; for justice against injustice ; for right against
wrong; for the living kernel of religion rather than the dead and dried
husks of sect and dogma ; and the great powers, whose warfare has
brought so many sufferings, shall at last join in ministering through
earth God's richest blessings.
BORN In Gloucester, Mass., 1832.
JERRY AN' ME.
[The Atlantic Monthly. 1872.]
"M~O matter bow the chances are,
-*- Nor when the winds may blow,
My Jerry there has left the sea
With all its luck an' woe :
For who would try the sea at all,
Must try it luck or no.
They told him — Lor', men take no care
How words they speak may fall —
They told him blunt, he was too old,
Too slow with oar an' trawl,
An' this is how he left the sea
An' luck an' woe an' all.
1835-60] HIE AM HIGH.
Take any man on sea or land
Out of his beaten way,
If he is young 'twill do, but then,
If he is old an' gray,
A mouth will be a year to him,
Be all to him you may.
He sits by me, but most he walks
The door-yard for a deck,
An' scans the boat a-goin' out
Till she becomes a speck,
Then turns away, his face as wet
As if she were a wreck.
The men who haul the net an' line
Are never rich ; an' you,
My Johnny here, — a grown-up man,
Is man an' baby too,
An' we have naught for rainy days,
An' rainy days are due.
My Jerry, diffident, abroad
Is restless as a brook,
An' when he left the boat an' all,
Home had an empty look ;
But I will win him by an' by
To like the window-nook.
I cannot bring him back again,
The days when we were wed.
But he shall never know — my man —
The lack o' love or bread,
While I can cast a stitch or fill
A needleful o' thread.
God pity me, I'd most forgot
How many yet there be,
Whose goodmen full as old as mine
Are somewhere on the sea,
Who hear the breakin' bar an' think
O' Jerry home an' — me.
-g, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. [1835-60
Loutea jfta? aicott
BORN in Germantown, Penn., 1832. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1888.
JOHN, AN AMERICAN.
[Hospital Sketches. 1869.]
I FOUND a lately emptied bed occupied by a large, fair man, with a
fine face, and the serenest eyes I ever met One of the earlier com-
ers had often spoken of a friend, who had remained behind, that those
apparently worse wounded than himself might reach a shelter first. It
seemed a David and Jonathan sort of friendship. The man fretted for
his mate, and was never tired of praising John— his courage, sobriety,
self-denial, and unfailing kindliness of heart ; always winding up with :
" He's an out an' out fine feller, ma'am ; you see if he aint."
I had some curiosity to behold this piece of excellence, and when he
came, watched him for a night or two, before I made friends with him;
for, to tell the truth, I was a little afraid of the stately looking man,
whose bed had to be lengthened to accommodate his commanding stat-
ure ; who seldom spoke, uttered no complaint, asked no sympathy, but
tranquilly observed what went on about him ; and, as he lay high upon
his pillows, no picture of dying statesman or warrior was ever fuller of
real dignity than this Virginia blacksmith. A most attractive face he
had, framed in brown hair and beard, comely featured and full of vigor,
as yet unsubdued by pain ; thoughtful and often beautifully mild while
watching the afflictions of others, as if entirely forgetful of his own.
His mouth was grave and firm, with plenty of will and courage in its
lines, but a smile could make it as sweet as any woman's ; and his eyes
were child's eyes, looking one fairly in the face, with a clear, straight-
forward glance, which promised well for such as placed their faith in
him. He seemed to cling to life, as if it were rich in duties and delights,
and he had learned the secret of content. The only time I saw his com-
posure disturbed was when my surgeon brought another to examine
John, who scrutinized their faces with an anxious look, asking of the
elder: "Do you think I shall pull through, sir?" "I hope so, my
man." And, as the two passed on, John's eye still followed them, with
an intentness which would have won a truer answer from them, had
they seen it. A momentary shadow flitted over his face ; then came the
usual serenity, as if, in that brief eclipse, he had acknowledged the exist-
ence of some hard possibility, and, asking nothing yet hoping all things,
left the issue in God's hands, with that submission which is true piety.
The next night, as I went my rounds with Dr. P., I happened to ask
1835-GO] LOUISA MAT ALCOTT. ggg
which man in the room probably suffered most ; and, to my great sur-
prise, he glanced at John:
" Every breath he draws is like a stab ; for the ball pierced the left
lung, broke a rib, and did no end of damage here and there ; so the poor
lad can find neither forgetfulness nor ease, because he must lie on his
wounded back or suffocate. It will be a hard struggle, and a long one,
for he possesses great vitality ; but even his temperate life can't save
him ; I wish it could."
"You don't mean he must die, doctor? "
" Bless you, there's not the slightest hope for him ; and you'd better tell
him so before long ; women have a way of doing such things comfortably,
so I leave it to you. He won't last more than a day or two, at furthest."
I could have sat down on the spot and cried heartily, if I had not
learned the wisdom of bottling up one's tears for leisure moments. Such
an end seemed very hard for such a man, when half a dozen worn out,
worthless bodies round him were gathering up the remnants of wasted
lives, to linger on for years perhaps, burdens to others, daily reproaches
to themselves. The army needed men like John, earnest, brave, and
faithful; fighting for liberty and justice with both heart and hand, true
soldiers of the Lord. I could not give him up so soon, or think with
any patience of so excellent a nature robbed of its fulfilment, and blun-
dered into eternity by the rashness or stupidity of those at whose hands
so many lives may be required. It was an easy thing for Dr. P. to
say " Tell him he must die," but a cruelly hard thing to do, and by no
means as " comfortable " as he politely suggested. I had not the heart
to do it then, and privately indulged the hope that some change for
the better might take place, in spite of gloomy prophesies ; so rendering
my task unnecessary.
A few minutes later, as I came in again, with fresh rollers, I saw John
sitting erect, with no one to support him, while the surgeon dressed his
back. I had never hitherto seen it done ; for, having simpler wounds to
attend to, and knowing the fidelity of the attendant, I had left John to
him, thinking it might be more agreeable and safe; for both strength
and experience were needed in his case. I had forgotten that the strong
man might long for the gentle tendance of a woman's hands, the sym-
pathetic magnetism of a woman's presence, as well as the feebler souls
about him. The doctor's words caused me to reproach myself with neg-
lect, not of any real duty perhaps, but of those little cares and kind-
nesses that solace homesick spirits and make the heavy hours pass
easier. John looked lonely and forsaken just then, as he sat with bent
head, hands folded on his' knee, and no outward sign of suffering, till,
looking nearer, I saw great tears roll down and drop upon the floor. It
was a new sight there ; for, though I had seen many suffer, some swore,
586
LOUISA MAT ALCOTT. [1835-60
some groaned, most endured silently, but none wept. Yet it did not
seem weak, only very touching, and straightway my fear vanished, my
heart opened wide and took him in, as, gathering the bent head in my
arms, as freely as if he had been a little child, I said : " Let me help you
bear it, John."
Never, on any human countenance, have I seen so swift and beautiful
a look of gratitude, surprise, and comfort as that which answered me
more eloquently than the whispered —
" Thank you, ma'am ; this is right good ! this is what I wanted ! "
" Then why not ask for it before ? "
" I didn't like to be a trouble ; you seemed so busy, and I could man-
age to get on alone."
" You shall not want it any more, John."
Nor did he: for now I understood the wistful look that sometimes
followed me, as I went out, after a brief pause beside his bed, or merely
a passing nod, while busied with those who seemed to need me more
than he, because more urgent in their demands. Now I knew that to
him, as to so many, I was the poor substitute for mother, wife, or sister,
and in his eyes no stranger, but a friend who hitherto had seemed neg-
lectful ; for, in his modesty, he had never guessed the truth. This was
changed now ; and, through the tedious operation of probing, bathing,
and dressing his wounds, he leaned against me, holding my hand fast,
and, if pain wrung further tears from him, no one saw them fall but me.
When he was laid down again, I hovered about him, in a remorse-
ful state of mind that would not let me rest till I had bathed his face,
brushed his bonny brown hair, set all things smooth about him, and laid
a knot of heath and heliotrope on his clean pillow. While doing this,
he watched me with the satisfied expression I so liked to see; and when
I offered the little nosegay, held it carefully in his great hand, smoothed
a ruffled leaf or two, surveyed and smelt it with an air of genuine
delight, and lay contentedly regarding the glimmer of the sunshine on
the green. Although the manliest man among my forty, he said " Yes,
ma'am " like a little boy ; received suggestions for his comfort with the
quick smile that brightened his whole face; and now and then, as I
stood tidying the table by his bed, I felt him softly touch my gown, as
if to assure himself that I was there. Anything more natural and frank
I never saw, and found this brave John as bashful as brave, yet full of
excellencies and fine aspirations, which, having no power to express
themselves in words, seemed to have bloomed into his character and
made him what he was.
After that night, an hour of each evening that remained to him was
devoted to his ease or pleasure. He could not talk much, for breath
was precious, and he spoke in whispers ; but from occasional con versa-
1835-60] LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 537
tions, I gleaned scraps of private history which only added to the affec-
tion and respect I felt for him. Once he asked me to write a letter, and
as I settled pen and paper, I said, with an irrepressible glimmer of femi-
nine curiosity : " Shall it be addressed to wife, or mother, John ? "
" Neither, ma'am ; I've got no wife, and will write to mother myself
when I get better. Did you think I was married because of this?" he
asked, touching a plain ring he wore, and often turned thoughtfully on
his finger when he lay alone.
" Partly that, but more from a settled sort of look you have ; a look
which young men seldom get until they marry."
" I didn't know that ; but I'm not so very young, ma'am ; thirty in
May, and have been what you might call settled this ten years. Moth-
er's a widow, I'm the oldest child she has, and it wouldn't do for me to
marry until Lizzy has a home of her own, and Jack's learned his trade ;
for we're not rich, and I must be father to the children and husband to
the dear old woman, if I can."
" No doubt but you are both, John ; yet how came you to go to war,
if you felt so ? Wasn't enlisting as bad as marrying? "
" No, ma'am, not as I see it ; for one is helping my neighbor, the other
pleasing myself. I went because I couldn't help it. I didn't want the
glory or the pay ; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept say-
ing the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the
Lord knows ! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was
my duty. Mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady,
and said ' Go ' : so I went."
A short story and a simple one, but the man and the mother were por-
trayed better than pages of fine writing could have done it.
u Do you ever regret that you came, when you lie here suffering so
much ? "
" Never, ma'am ; I haven't helped a great deal, but I've shown I was
willing to give my life, and perhaps I've got to ; but I don't blame any-
body, and if it was to do over again, I'd do it. I'm a little sorry I
wasn't wounded in front ; it looks cowardly to be hit in the back, but
I obeyed orders, and it don't matter in the end, I know."
Poor John ! it did not matter now, except that a shot in front might
have spared the long agony in store for him. He seemed to read the
thought that troubled me, as he spoke so hopefully when there was no
hope, for he suddenly added :
" This is my first battle ; do they think it's going to be my last? "
" I'm afraid they do, John."
It was the hardest question I had ever been called upon to answer;
doubly hard with those clear eyes fixed on mine, forcing a truthful
answer by their own truth. He seemed a little startled at first, pondered
58g LOUISA MAT ALCOTT. [1835-60
over the fateful fact a moment, then shook his head, with a glance at the
broad chest and muscular limbs stretched out before him :
" I'm not afraid, but it's difficult to believe all at once. I'm so strong
it don't seem possible for such a little wound to kill me."
Merry Mercutio's dying words glanced through my memory as he
spoke: '"Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but
'tis enough." And John would have said the same could he have seen
the ominous black holes between his shoulders ; he never had, but, see-
ing the ghastly sights about him, could not believe his own wound more
fatal than these, for all the suffering it caused him.
" Shall I write to your mother, now ? " I asked, thinking that these
sudden tidings might change all plans and purposes. But they did not ;
for the man received the order of the Divine Commander to march with
the same unquestioning obedience with which the soldier had received
that of the human one ; doubtless remembering that the first led him to
life, and the last to death.
" No, ma'am ; to Jack just the same ; he'll break it to her best, and
I'll add a line to her myself when you get done."
So I wrote the letter which he dictated, finding it better than any I
had sent ; for, though here and there a little ungrammatical or inelegant,
each sentence came to me briefly worded, but most expressive ; full of
excellent counsel to the boy, tenderly bequeathing "mother and Lizzie"
to his care, and bidding him good-bye in words the sadder for their sim-
plicity. He added a few lines, with steady hand, and, as I sealed it,
said, with a patient sort of sigh : " I hope the answer will come in time
for me to see it " ; then, turning away his face, laid the flowers against
his lips, as if to hide some quiver of emotion at the thought of such a
sudden sundering of all the dear home ties.
These things had happened two days before ; now John was dying, and
the letter had not come. I had been summoned to many death-beds in my
life, but to none that made my heart ache as it did then, since my mother
called me to watch the departure of a spirit akin to this in its gentleness
and patient strength. As I went in, John stretched out both hands :
" I knew you'd come! I guess I'm moving on, ma'am."
He was ; and so rapidly that, even while he spoke, over his face I saw
the gray veil falling that no human hand can lift. I sat down by him,
wiped the drops from his forehead, stirred the air about him with the
slow wave of a fan, and waited to help him die. He stood in sore need
of help— and I could do so little; for, as the doctor had foretold, the
strong body rebelled against death, and fought every inch of the way,
forcing him to draw each breath with a spasm, and clench his hands
with an imploring look, as if he asked : " How long must I endure this,
and be still!" For hours he suffered dumbly, without a moment's
1835-60] LOUISA MAT ALCOTT. £gg
respite, or a moment's murmuring ; his limbs grew cold, his face damp,
his lips white, and, again and again, he tore the covering off his breast,
as if the lightest weight added to his agony ; yet through it all, his eyes
never lost their perfect serenity, and the man's soul seemed to sit
therein, undaunted by the ills that vexed his flesh.
One by one, the men woke, and round the room appeared a circle of
pale faces and watchful eyes, full of awe and pity; for, though a
stranger, John was beloved by all. Each man there had wondered at
his patience, respected his piety, admired his fortitude, and now lamented
his hard death ; for the influence of an upright nature had made itself
deeply felt, even in one little week. Presently the Jonathan who so
loved this comely David came creeping from his bed for a last look and
word. The kind soul was full of trouble, as the choke in his voice, the
grasp of his hand, betrayed ; but there were no tears, and the farewell of
the friends was the more touching for its brevity.
" Old boy, how are you ? " faltered the one.
" Most through, thank heaven ! " whispered the other.
" Can I say or do anything for you anywheres ? "
" Take my things home, and tell them that I did my best"
"I will! I will!"
"Good-bye, Ned."
" Good-bye, John, good-bye ! "
They kissed each other, tenderly as women, and so parted, for poor
Ned could not stay to see his comrade die. For a little while, there was
no sound in the room but the drip of water, from a stump or two, and
John's distressful gasps, as he slowly breathed his life away. I thought
him nearly gone, and had just laid down the fan, believing its help to be
no longer needed, when suddenly he rose up in his bed, and cried out
with a bitter cry that broke the silence, sharply startling every one with
its agonized appeal :
" For God's sake, give me air ! "
It was the only cry pain or death had wrung from him, the only boon
he had asked ; and none of us could grant it, for all the airs that blew
were useless now. Dan flung up the window. The first red streak of
dawn was warming the gray east, a herald of the coming sun ; John saw
it, and with the love of light which lingers in us to the end, seemed to
read in it a sign of hope of help, for over his whole face there broke
that mysterious expression, brighter than any smile, which often comes
to eyes that look their last. He laid himself gently down ; and, stretch-
ing out his strong right arm, as if to grasp and bring the blessed air to
his lips in a fuller flow, lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness, which
assured us that for him suffering was forever past. He died then ; for,
though the heavy breaths still tore their way up for a little longer, they
rgQ LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. [1835-60
were but the waves of an ebbing tide that beat unfelt against the wreck
which an immortal voyager had deserted with a smile. He never spoke
again, but to the end held my hand close, so close that when he was
asleep at last, I could not draw it away. Dan helped me, warning me
as he did so that it was unsafe for dead and living flesh to lie so long
together; but though my hand was strangely cold and stiff, and four
white marks remained across its back, even when warmth and color had
returned elsewhere, I could not but be glad that, through its touch, the
presence of human sympath}^ perhaps, had lightened that hard hour.
When they had made him ready for the grave, John lay in state for
half an hour, a thing which seldom happened in that busy place ; but a
universal sentiment of reverence and affection seemed to fill the hearts
of all who had known or heard of him ; and when the rumor of his
death went through the house, always astir, many came to see him, and
I felt a tender sort of pride in my lost patient ; for he looked a most
heroic figure, lying there stately and still as the statue of some young
knight asleep upon his tomb. The lovely expression which so often
beautifies dead faces soon replaced the marks of pain, and I longed for
those who loved him best to see him when half an hour's acquaintance
with Death had made them friends. As we stood looking at him, the
ward-master handed me a letter, saying it had been forgotten the night
before. It was John's letter, come just an hour too late to gladden the
eyes that had longed and looked for it so eagerly ! but he had it ; for,
after I had cut some brown locks for his mother, and taken off the ring
to send her, telling how well the talisman had done its work, I kissed
this good son for her sake, and laid the letter in his hand, still folded as
when I drew my own away, feeling that its place was there, and making
myself happy with the thought, that, even in his solitary grave in the
" Government Lot," he would not be without some token of the love
which makes life beautiful and outlives death. Then I left him, glad to
have known so genuine a man, and carrying with me an enduring mem-
ory of the brave Virginia blacksmith, as he lay serenely waiting for the
dawn of that long day which knows no night.
THOREAU'S FLUTE.
[The Atlantic Monthly. 1863.]
, sighing, said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river :
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
1835-60] CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR.
Spring mourns as for untimely frost;
The bluebird chants a requiem;
The willow-blossom waits for him;—
The Genius of the wood is lost. "
Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
"For such as he there is no death ;
His life the eternal life commands ;
Above man's aims his nature rose :
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent,
And turned to poetry Life's prose.
" Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild,
Swallow and aster, lake and pine,
To him grew human or divine,
Fit mates for this large-hearted child.
Such homage Nature ne'er forgets,
And yearly on the coverlid
'Neath which her darling lieth hid
Will write his name in violets.
" To him no vain regrets belong,
Whose soul, that finer instrument,
Gave to the world no poor lament,
But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.
O lonely friend ! he still will be
A potent presence, though unseen,—
Steadfast, sagacious, and serene:
Seek not for him,— he is with thee."
Colcocfe 31one& 3|t»
BORN in Savannah, Ga., 1831.
WHY THE REV. JOHN WESLEY DEPARTED FROM SAVANNAH.
[The History of Georgia. 1883.]
ME. WESLEY enjoyed wonderful health. His constitution seemed
to improve under hardships and labors which would have impaired
the stoutest physical powers. Of the three hundred acres set apart in
Savannah for glebe land he cut off what he deemed sufficient for a good
garden, and there he frequently worked with his own hands. He ate
Kft0 CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR. [1835-60
oy^
moderately, slept little, and left not a moment of his time unemployed.
To the changing seasons, and in all kinds of weather, he exposed him-
self with the utmost indifference. His journeys into South Carolina
were sometimes performed on foot, and with no shelter at night save the
friendly boughs of a tree. His energy, resolution, self-denial, and endur-
ance were at times conspicuous.
The circumstances which brought the usefulness and services of Mr.
Wesley as a clergyman in Savannah to an abrupt and a notorious con-
clusion may be thus briefly narrated. With Mr. Causton, the chief bailiff
and keeper of the public stores, and with the members of his family,
the missionary associated on friendly terms. Miss Sophia Hopkins, a
niece of Mrs. Causton, and a young woman of uncommon personal and
intellectual charms, had been his pupil. He gave her French lessons.
Under his religious ministrations she became a professed convert and
united herself with the church. It would appear that this constant
association with a pretty, fascinating maiden eventually excited tender
emotions in the breast of the youthful and susceptible ecclesiastic. He
was evidently on the eve of declaring his affection when his friend, Mr.
Delamotte, excited his apprehensions by expressing doubts in regard to
the sincerity of Miss Hopkins's religious convictions. He also cautioned
him against cherishing or avowing too fond an attachment for her.
Taking counsel of the Moravian elders, they too advised him not to
contemplate a matrimonial alliance with her. Thus admonished, Mr.
Wesley became more guarded in his conduct and more reserved in his
intercourse. Perceiving the change in his deportment, Miss Hopkins
was piqued, mortified, and angered. Something closely resembling a
rupture ensued ; and, not long afterwards, this charming and coquettish
young lady gave her hand to a Mr. Williamson.
A few months subsequent to her marriage Mr. Wesley " observed
some things which he thought reproveable in her behavior." He men-
tioned them to her. "At this," writes that clergyman in his Journal,
" she appeared extremely angry and said she did not expect such usage
from me." The next day Mrs. Causton made excuses for her niece, and
expressed much regret at what had transpired.
Having, after the lapse of a few weeks, " repelled Mrs. Williamson
from the Holy Communion," Mr. Wesley was arrested under the follow-
ing warrant issued by the recorder :
"GEORGIA. SAVANNAH, s. s.
" To all Constables, Tythingmen, and others whom these may concern:
" You and each of you are hereby required to take the body of John
Wesley, Clerk : and bring him before one of the Bailiffs of the said
Town to answer the complaint of William Williamson and Sophia his
1835-60] CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR. 593
wife, for defaming the said Sophia, and refusing to administer to her the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in a publick Congregation without
cause, by which the said William Williamson is damaged One Thousand
Pounds Sterling. And for so doing this is your Warrant, certifying
what you are to do in the premises.
"Given under my hand and seal the 8th day of Aug: Anno. Dom:
1737.
" TH° CHRISTIE."
By Jones, the constable, he was carried before the recorder and bailiff
Parker. Williamson was there. To the charge that he had defamed
his wife, Mr. Wesley entered a prompt and emphatic denial. As to the
other allegation, he answered that " the giving or refusing the Lord's
Supper being a matter purely ecclesiastical," he would not acknowledge
any power in the magistrate to interrogate him in regard to it. Mr.
Parker informed him that he must appear before the next court to be
"holden for Savannah. Mr. Williamson then said, " Gentlemen, I desire
Mr. Wesley may give bail for his appearance." But Mr. Parker imme-
diately refused the application, with the remark, "Sir, Mr. Wesley's
word is sufficient."
Causton required that the reasons which induced Mr. Wesley to repel
Mrs. Williamson from the Holy Communion should be assigned in open
court. To this demand the clergyman declined to accede. On the
second day after the arrest Mr. Causton visited Mr. Wesley at his house,
and after some sharp words said, " Make an end of this matter. Thou
hadst best. My Niece to be used thus ! I have drawn the sword and I
will never sheathe it till I have satisfaction." "Soon after," so runs
Mr. Wesley's diary, " he added, ' Give the reasons of your repelling her
before the whole congregation.' I answered, 'Sir, if you insist upon it
I will, and so you may be pleased to tell her.' He said, 'Write to her
and tell her so yourself.' I said, ;I will,' and after he went I wrote as
follows :
" To MES. SOPHIA WILLIAMSON :
" At Mr. Causton's request I write once more. The Rules whereby I
proceed are these :
" ' So many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion shall
signify their names to the Curate at least some time the day before."
This you did not do.
"' And if any of these . . . have done any wrong to his Neighbors,.
by word or deed, so that the Congregation be thereby offended, the
Curate shall advertise him that in any wise he presume not to come to
the Lord's Table until he hath openly declared himself to have truly-
VOL. viii. — 38
gg^ CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR. [1835-60
repented.' If you offer yourself at the Lord's Table on Sunday, I will
advertise you (as I have done more than once) wherein you have done
wrong. And when you have openly declared yourself to have truly
repented, I will administer to you the Mysteries of God.
"Aug. 11, 1737. JOHN WESLEY.
"Mr. Delamotte carrying this, Mr. Causton remarked, among other
warm sayings, ' I am the person that am injured. The affront is offered
to me, and I will espouse the cause of my Niece. I am ill-used, and I
will have satisfaction if it is to be had in the world.'
" Which way this satisfaction was to be had, I did not yet conceive.
But on Friday and Saturday it began to appear; Mr. Causton declaring
to many persons that Mr. Wesley had repelled Sophy from the Holy
Communion purely out of revenge, because he had made proposals of
marriage to her which she rejected and married Mr. Williamson."
Having thoroughly espoused the cause of his niece, Mr. Causton set
about stirring up the public mind and endeavored to create a general
sentiment adverse to Mr. Wesley. He even busied himself with the
selection of jurors whose sympathies were in unison with his own. Per-
suaded by him, Mrs. Williamson made an affidavit, full of insinuations,
in which she asserted " that Mr. Wesley had many times proposed mar-
riage to her, all which proposals she had rejected."
When the grand jury was impanelled, it was manifest that Causton
"had much to do with its composition. Forty-four members were pres-
ent, and among them Wesley noted one Frenchman, who did not under-
stand the English language, a Papist, a professed infidel, three Baptists,
sixteen or seventeen Dissenters, and several persons who had quarrelled
with him and openly vowed revenge.
The court being organized on Monday the 22d, Mr. Causton delivered
a long and earnest charge, in which he cautioned the jurymen "to
"beware of spiritual tyranny, and to oppose the new and illegal authority
which was usurped over their consciences." The chief bailiff, uncle by
marriage to the complainant, was playing the double role of judge and
prosecuting attorney. Mrs. Williamson's affidavit having been read,
Causton delivered to the grand jury a paper entitled "A List of Griev-
ances presented by the Grand Jury for Savannah, this — day of Aug.,
1737." It had evidently been prepared under his direction, and was
designed to mould in advance the finding of that body. After holding
this document under advisement for more than a week, and after the
examination of sundry witnesses, the jury on the 1st of September
returned that paper into court. As modified by a majority, it read as
follows :
" That John Wesley, Clerk, hath broken the Laws of the Realm, con-
1835-60] CHARLES GOLCOCK JONES, JR.
595'
trary to the Peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his Crown, and
Dignity ;
" 1. By speaking and writing to Mrs. Williamson against her hus-
band's consent ;
"2. By repelling her from the Holy Communion ;
U3. By not declaring his Adherence to the Church of England;
"4. By dividing the Morning Service on Sundays;
" 5. By refusing to baptize Mr. Parker's child otherwise than by dip-
ping, except the parents would certify it was weak and not able to bear it ;
" 6. By repelling Win. Gough from the Holy Communion ;
" 7. By refusing to read the Burial-service over the body of Nathaniel
Polhill ;
" 8. By calling himself Ordinary of Savannah ;
"9. By refusing to receive Wm. Aglionby as a God-father only
because he was not a communicant ;
" 10. By refusing Jacob Matthews for the same reason, and baptizing
an Indian Trader's Child with only two sponsors."
Nine of these charges being purely ecclesiastical in their character,
Mr. Wesley insisted that the present court could take no cognizance of
them. As to the rest of the indictment, he pleaded not guilty and
demanded an immediate trial. Again and again did he press for a hear-
ing, which was denied upon some frivolous pretext or other, such, for
example, as that "Mr. Williamson has gone out of town." So malevo-
lent was the spirit moving the parties preferring these charges against
Mr. Wesley that with a view to damaging his clerical reputation far and
near they caused the indictment found by a majority of the grand jury
to be published in various newspapers in America. ....
Perceiving that he could obtain neither justice nor even a hearing
from the town court in Savannah, persuaded that there was no possibil-
ity of instructing the Indians, being under no engagement to remain a
day longer in Savannah than he found it convenient, and believing that
his ministry would prove more acceptable in England than in Georgia,
he consulted his friends as to the propriety of his returning home.
They agreed that it was best for him to do so, but not at that time.
On the 3d of November he again appeared in court, and also on the
22d of that month. On the last occasion Mr. Causton exhibited to him
sundry affidavits filed in his case, all of which Wesley pronounced false
and malicious. No trial was, on either date, accorded to him. Upon
conferring a second time with his friends they were of the opinion that
he might now set out immediately for England. The next evening he
called upon Mr. Causton and acquainted him with his purpose to leave
the colony at an early day. He also put up in the public square the fol-
lowing notice: "Whereas John Wesley designs shortly to set out for
5Q6 CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR. [1835-60
England, this is to desire those who have borrowed any books of him
to return them, as soon as they conveniently can, to John Wesley."
There was nothing concealed about this determination ; and he qui-
etly, and with the full knowledge of the community, prepared for his
journey. On the 2d of December, the tide serving about noon, he pro-
posed to bid farewell to Savannah and start for Charlestown, whence he
was to sail for England. " But about ten," says Mr. Wesley, "the Mag-
istrates sent for me and told me I must not go out of the Province, for I
had not answer'd the Allegations laid against me. I replied I have
appeared at six or seven Courts successively in order to answer them,
but I was not suffer'd to do so when I desired it time after time. They
then said, however, I must not go unless I would give security to
answer those allegations at their Court I asked, what security ? After
consulting together about two hours the Eecorder shew'd me a kind
of bond engaging me under a penalty of fifty pounds to appear at
their Court when I should be required. He added, But Mr. William-
son too has desired of us that you should give bail to answer his action.
I then told him plainly, Sir, you use me very ill, and so you do the
Trustees. I will give neither any bond nor any bail at all. You know
your business and I know mine.
" In the afternoon the Magistrates publish 'd an Order requiring all
the Officers and Centinels to prevent my going out of the Province, and
forbidding any person to assist me in doing so. Being now only a pris-
oner at large in a place where I knew by experience every day would
give fresh opportunity to procure evidence of words I never said and
actions I never did, I saw clearly the hour was come for leaving the
place : and, as soon as Evening Prayers were over, about eight o'clock,
the tide then serving, I shook off the dust of my feet and left Georgia,
after having preached the Gospel there (not as I ought, but as I was able)
one year and nearly nine months "
Landing at Purrysburgh the next morning, Mr. Wesley and his com-
panions pursued their journey on foot to Beaufort, whence he proceeded
by boat to Charlestown. Taking passage on board the Samuel, Captain
Percy, he departed from America on the 24th of December, 1737, never
more to revisit the scene of his early labors, conflicts, trials, and disap-
pointments
Whatever shadows and doubts gathered about him in the morning of
his ministerial career were all quickly dispelled by the glorious beams
of the Sun of Eighteousness. Then, in the plenitude of intellectual and
moral power, he proclaimed the glad tidings of salvation to the nations,
gathering about him tens of thousands, founding a sect of strong virtue
and stern religious sentiment, and closing one of the most remarkable
lives in English history with the triumphant cry, " The best of all is,
1885-60] JUSTIN WINSOR. 597
God is with us. He giveth his servants rest. We thank Thee, O Lord!
for these and all Thy mercies. Bless the Church and King, and grant
us truth and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord forever and ever.
The clouds drop fatness. The Lord is with us, the God of Jacob is our
refuge. Farewell/'
BOKN in Boston, Mass., 1831.
OUR EARLY DIPLOMACY IN EUROPE.
[Narrative and Critical History of America. Edited by Justin Winsor. Vol. VII. 1888.]
A N opinion was very promptly formed in England, after the treaty
-£^- of peace, that the bond of union among the States of the new
Kepublic was far from perfect, and that disintegration must ensue. The
British soon perceived that they could secure, as they thought, all the
desired commercial advantages under the enforcement of navigation
laws, which treated as aliens those who were lately subjects. At all
events, any power of retaliation was not to be dreaded as long as the
States remained jealous of one another and of Congress. The English
government, if not the American people, saw the mockery of the action
of Congress, as far, at least, as the relations of the two parts of the now
dissevered empire were concerned, when it commissioned (12 May, 1784)
Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson to make treaties of commerce with Euro-
pean powers. There was more sense than was willingly acknowledged
in the States in the opinions of the British ministry, that a league with-
out power to enforce treaties could hardly hope to negotiate treaties,
when as many diplomatists as there were members of the league, each
commissioned by his respective State, could only in conjunction effect a
negotiation, the results of which could be compulsory upon the parties
in contract. It also served the purpose of the ministry to divide the
interests of the several States as much as possible, and this method of a
distinct recognition of the parts, with no recognition of the whole, was a
ready means to that end.
Congress not long after moved to bring this feeling to an issue, when
it appointed John Adams (25 February, 1785) as minister to England ;
and a few days later it commissioned Jefferson as minister to France,
for Franklin had before this urgently asked to be recalled. The last
official act of that veteran servant of the States had been to affix his
59g JUSTIN WINSOR. [1835-60
signature to a treaty with Prussia, in conjunction with Adams and Jef-
ferson, in which Franklin had succeeded, without any serious opposi-
tion, in embodying his own views respecting the exemption of private
property from capture at sea.
Adams passed over from Paris to London, to present his credentials.
The aged Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was the first to call on
him. The new minister went through a memorable presentation to the
king, and on June 2, 1785, he wrote home an account of it to Jay, in
which we have a record of suave speeches on both sides, about a com-
mon language and the same strains in the blood. This was agreeable ;
and both the king and his former subject bore themselves with reassur-
ing frankness. The royal graciousness did not, however, represent the
prevailing sentiment of the British people. Before he left France,
Adams had written to Gerry that, as he looked about, almost the only
comfort he found was in the fact that, should war again come, the treaty
of 1783 had rendered it possible " to fight without halters about our
necks." When he reached England, the prospect was not more assur-
ing, and he thought he saw a purpose in the English government "to
maintain a determined peace with all Europe, in order that they may
war singly against America, if they should think it necessary." It was
not very long before he wrote to Jay: " It is very apparent that we shall
never have a satisfactory arrangement with this country until Congress
shall be made by the States supreme in matters of foreign commerce
and treaties of commerce, and until Congress shall have exerted that
supremacy with a decent firmness."
Adams, as soon as it was possible, had long interviews with Pitt
respecting the frontier posts, the debts, the navigation acts, and other
differences. Adams pressed the English minister hard, and Pitt was
complacent, but would not talk much. Adams was not fitted to endure
reticence or evasion. " I wished for an answer, be it ever so rough or
unwise," he wrote to Jay. " In short," he again wrote a few days later,
" America has no party at present in her favor. ... I had almost
said the friends of America are reduced to Dr. Price and Dr. Jebb.
. . . Nothing but retaliation, reciprocal prohibitions and imposts,
and putting ourselves in a posture of defence will have any effect" He
also complains that to match the British ministry in their system of
espionage, and get information as readily as they do, was costly beyond
his revenue. At another time he intimated to the ministry that the
retention of the Western posts was likely to encourage the Indians, and
that an Indian war, traceable to a breach of the treaty by England,
would lead to consequences not to be calmly considered ; and further,
he said that if the surrender of the posts was contingent on the pay-
ment of debts to British subjects, it was quite as just that the debts
1835-60] JUSTIN WINSOR.
should not be paid till the posts were surrendered. On November 30,
1785, Adams presented a formal demand for their surrender. Lord Car-
marthen delayed long in his reply to this communication, but only to
revert, when he did respond, to the undeniable fact that certain States
had interposed obstacles to the collection of British debts. The States,
said Adams, must either repeal these laws, or give Congress full power
over commercial regulations, so that a compulsory influence may be
exerted on Great Britain.
Again, Adams called on the Tripolitan ambassador in London, who
unblushingly told him that Tripoli was at war with America because
she attempted to navigate the Mediterranean without paying tribute.
Adams told Jay that a description of this conference might be better for
harlequin than for Congress, though there was civility enough shown on
both sides " in a strange mixture of Italian, lingua Franca, broken
French, and worse English." Adams was in doubt whether this Tripoli-
tan was a consummate politician or a philosopher, as he complacently
called himself.
The Tripolitan mildly intimated that 30,000 guineas might induce his
government to make a treaty which would exempt American shipping
from devastation ; but that it was probable that Tunis, Morocco, and
Algiers would each demand as much or more. So Adams was obliged
to communicate to his impoverished country that a sum of not much
short of two hundred thousand pounds would be necessary to secure the
desired immunity. " The fact cannot be altered, and the truth cannot be
concealed," he adds to Jay. " Never," he said again, " will the slave trade
be abolished while Christian princes abase themselves before the pirati-
cal ensigns of Mahomet." Yet such were the requirements that he wrote
to Bowdoin, of Massachusetts, pressing that two or three hundred thou-
sand guineas spent in this way was cheaper than the cost of a war ; and
then reverting to what Congress had to spare for the purpose, he called it a
sum that would be worse than thrown away. Adams and Jefferson were
not wholly in accord in this matter; for, while Adams reckoned the
costs of a war with the Barbary powers, Jefferson revolted at the abase-
ment of a tribute, and hoped to join with Italy and Portugal in an
expedition against them. This required ships, and Adams knew the
difficulties of getting the States to respond to any naval requisition of
Congress. They were indeed quite content that Portugal should order
her fleet in the Mediterranean to protect American vessels, as she did in
1786. A treaty was finally negotiated with Morocco by Thomas Bar-
clay, under the approval of Adams and Jefferson ; but this was the only
one 'of the African states which entered into treaty stipulations before
the Constitution was put in force.
Jefferson's career m France was characteristic. He lost no oppor-
gQQ HENRT CLAY WORK. [1835-60
tunity to inculcate his principles of free trade. He did his best to buy
American captives out of Algerine prisons. He strolled among the
book-stalls, and notified his friends at home of all the new inventions.
He purloined a little Italian rice and sent it to the Carolina planters for
seed. He published his " Notes on Virginia " in English and French.
He conferred with the political mentors of the coming French Kevolu-
tion, and wrote to Jay to induce the shipment of American flour for
the starving Parisians.
The treaty of commerce which England concluded with France in
1786 was not encouraging. Adams wrote : "France and England are
both endeavoring at this moment to impose on each other. The secret
motive of both is to impose upon the United States. . . . The time
is not far distant when we may see a combination of England and the
House of Bourbon against the United States. It is not in gloomy
moments only, but in the utmost gayety of heart, that I cannot get rid of
the persuasion that the fair plant of liberty in America must be watered
in blood." With these forebodings. Adams had, as early as January,.
1787, expressed a wish to be recalled. He wrote to Jay that "a life
so useless to the public and so insipid to myself, as mine is in Europe,
has become a burden to me as well as to my countrymen." Congress
granted his request, October 5, 1787. Great Britain meanwhile had not
condescended to send any minister or other accredited agent to America.
Clay OTorfc.
BOKN in Middletown, Conn., 1832. DIED in Hartford, Conn., 1884.
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.
T3RING the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song-
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along—
Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the flag tha| makes you free ! "
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.
How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound :
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found !
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground,
While we were marching through Georgia.
1835-60] HENRY CLAY WORK.
Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears.
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.
" Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast! "
So the saucy rebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast.
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,
While we were inarching through Georgia ?
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude — three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,
While we were marching through Georgia.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
• Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!"
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.
SAY, darkeys, hab you seen de massa,
Wid de mouffstash on he face,
Go 'long de road some time dis rnornin',
Like he gvviue too leabe de place ?
He see de smoke way up de ribber
Whar de Lincum gun-boats lay ;
He took he hat and leff berry sudden,
And I 'spose he 's runned away.
De massa run, ha! ha!
De darkey stay, ho! ho!
It mus' be now de kingdum comin'
An' de yar ob Jubilo.
He six foot one way and two foot todder,
An' he weigh six hundred poun' ;
His coat so big lie couldn't pay de tailor,
An' it won't reach half way roun' ;
He drill so much dey calls him cap'n,
An' he git so mighty tan'd
I spec he'll try to fool dem Yankees
For to tink he contraband.
De darkeys got so lonesome libb'n
In de log hut on de hiwn,
Dey move dere tings into massa's parlor
For to keep it while he gone.
602 HENRY CLAY WORK. [1835-60
Dar's wine and cider in de kichin,
And de darkeys dey hab some.
I spec it will all be 'fi seated,
When de Liiicum sojers come.
De oberseer, he makes us .trubble,
An' he dribe us roun' a spell,
We lock him up in de smoke-house cellar,
Wid de key flung in de well.
De whip am lost, de han'-cuff broke,
But de massa hab his pay ;
He big an' ole enough for to know better
Dan to went an' run away.
De massa run, ha! ha!
De darkey stay, ho! ho!
It mus' be now de kingdum comin',
An' de yar ob Jubilo.
END OF VOL. VIII.
INDEX OF AUTHORS, ETC., IN VOL. VIII.
PAGE
ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY 584
ALGER, WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE 89
ANTROBUS, JOHN 555
ATKINSON, EDWARD 373
AUSTIN, JANE GOODWIN 523
BAGBY, GEORGE WILLIAM ; 385
BAKER, WILLIAM MUMFORD 248
BARR, AMELIA EDITH 557
BASCOM, JOHN 371
BAXTER, JAMES PHINNEY 543
BEERS, ETHEL LYNN 362
BENTON, JOEL 576
BLAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE 458
BOKER, GEORGE HENRY Ill
BOOTH, MARY LOUISE 547
BOWLES, SAMUEL . . * 263
BROOKS, NOAH 481
BROWN, JOSEPH BROWNLEE 248
BUNCE, OLIVER BELL 400
BURLEIGH, GEORGE SHEPARD 24
BUTLER, WILLIAM ALLEN 258
CABOT, JAMES ELLIOT 21
CHILD, FRANCIS JAMES 223
CIVIL WAR, POPULAR SONGS AND BAL-
LADS OF THE 361
CLARK, JAMES GOWDY 470
CLARKE, ISAAC EDWARDS 478
COFFIN, CHARLES CARLETON 162
COLLYER, ROBERT 150
COOKE, JOHN ESTEN 471
COOKE, ROSE TERRY 324
CORSON, HIRAM 406
Cox, SAMUEL SULLIVAN 197
CROLY, JANE CUNNINGHAM 564
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM 177
CUTLER, ELBRIDGE JEFFERSON 522
DAVIS, REBECCA HARDING 544
DE FOREST, JOHN WILLIAM 277
DEMING, PHILANDER 420
DERBY, GEORGE HORATIO 157
DODGE, MARY BARKER 506
DORR, JULIA CAROLINE RIPLEY 246
DUGANNE, AUGUSTINE JOSEPH HICKEY. 155
ELLSWORTH, ERASTUS WOLCOTT 72
FENNER, CORNELIUS GEORGE 76
FIELD, HENRY MARTYN 26
FINCH, FRANCIS MILES 341
FISHER, GEORGE PARK 344
FOSTER, STEPHEN COLLINS 288
FROTHINGHAM, OCTAVIUS BROOKS 29
GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM 527
GIBBONS, JAMES SLOAN 362
GILMAN, DANIEL COIT 519
GILMORE, JAMES ROBERTS 152
GILMORE, PATRICK SARSFIELD 370
GODKIN, EDWIN LAWRENCE 549
GOTTHEIL, GUSTAV 348
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT 48
HALPINE, CHARLES GRAHAM 418
HALSTEAD, MURAT 440
BARNEY, WILLIAM WALLACE 529
HAYES, ISAAC ISRAEL 575
HAYNE, PAUL HAMILTON 461
HEILPRIN, MICHAEL 91
HELPER, HINTON ROWAN 411
HEWITT, ABRAM STEVENS 77
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH 120
PIUNT, WILLIAM MORRIS 169
JACKSON, HELEN FISKE 507
JOHNSON, SAMUEL 61
JOHNSTON, RICHARD MALCOLM 80
JOHNSTON, WILLIAM PRESTON 572
JONES, CHARLES COLCOCK, JR 591
KETCHUM, ANNIE CHAMBERS 174
KING, THOMAS STARR 175
KlNNEY, COATES 304
KIP, LEONARD 291
KIRK, JOHN FOSTER 172
KIRKLAND, JOSEPH 491
INDEX OF AUTHORS, ETC., IN VOL. VIII.
LAMB, MARTHA JOANNA 416
LARCOM, LUCY 305
LEA, HENRY CHARLES 239
LEGARE, JAMES MATHEWS 149
LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY 192
LIPPINCOTT, SARAH JANE 93
LYTLE, WILLIAM HAINES 312
MASON, CAROLINE ATHERTON 168
MCCARTHY, HARRY 368
MCCLELLAN, GEORGE BRINTON 271
MCMASTER, GUY HUMPHREYS 432
MILLER, HARRIET MANN 533
MITCHELL, DONALD GRANT 39
MITCHELL, SILAS WEIR 436
MITCHELL, WALTER 286
NEGRO HYMNS AND SONGS 265
NORDHOFF, CHARLES 468
NORTON, CHARLES ELIOT 306
O'BRIEN, FITZ-JAMES 389
OLMSTED, FREDERICK LAW 61
ORXE, CAROLINE FRANCES 275
PALMER, JOHN WILLIAMSON 259
PARKMAN, FRANCIS 95
PARTON, JAMES 64
PERRY, GEORGE 405
PIKE, ALBERT (See also Vol. VI.) 365
PLIMPTON, FLORUS BEARDSLEY 467
POLLOCK, EDWARD 160
POWERS, HORATIO NELSON 285
PRESTON, MARGARET JUNKIN 353
PRIME, WILLIAM COWPER 206
PRYOR, ROGER ATKINSON 397
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN 34
RICH, HIRAM 582
ROOT, GEORGE FREDERICK 364
SANBORN, FRANKLIN BENJAMIN 538
SAWYER, CHARLES CARROLL 369
SCHURZ, CARL 433
SHANLEY, CHARLES DAWSON 363
SHEA, JOHN GILMARY 200
SHERIDAN, PHILIP HENRY 566
SHURTLEFF, WILLIAM STEELE 480
STILLMAN, WILLIAM JAMES 379
STODDARD, ELIZABETH DREW BARSTOW. 137
STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY 226
SWING, DAVID 466
SWINTON, JOHN 470
TAYLOR, BAYARD
TAYLOR, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
TERHUNE, MARY VIRGINIA
THOMPSON, JOHN RANDOLPH
TICKNOR, FRANCIS ORRERY
TIMROD, HENRY
TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND ,
WALLACE, LEWIS
WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY
WASSON, DAVID ATWOOD
WELLS, DAVID AMES
WHITE, ANDREW DICKSON
WHITE, RICHARD GRANT
WHITNEY, ADELINE DUTTON TRAIN.
WHITNEY, WILLIAM DWIGHT ,
WINCHELL, ALEXANDER
WINSOR, JUSTIN
WORK, HENRY CLAY. . .
YOUMANS, EDWARD LIVINGSTON . . .
208
47
487
146
87
408
350
314
442
119
376
577
3
203
334
204
597
600
19
A General Index of Authors and Selections will be found in the Closing Volume.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
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Kingdom Coming, — Marching Through Georgia.
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tures of Private Miles O'Reilly ; John Swinton's Travels.
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