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THE
MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
OTHER TALES.
HV
EDWARD EN % ALE,
AUTHOR OF "IN HIS NAME," "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," "HOW TO DO IT,
'WHAT CAREER," .ETC., ETC.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
r
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, \>y
TICKXOR AND FIELDS,
fn the Clerk's Of.o? of the District Uourt of the District of Massachusetts,
CONTENTS.
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY . 5
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA 48
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY 59
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR ....... 79
THE OLD AND THE XEW, FACE TO FACE .... 101
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET 117
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE 131
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME 172
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC 200
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET 257
CHRISTMAS WATTS IN BOSTON . . .274
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTEY.
FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.
THIS story was written in the summer of 1863, as a contri-
bution, however humble, towards the formation of a just and true
national sentiment, or sentiment of love to the nation. It was
at the time when Mr. Vallandigham had been sent across the
border. It was my wish, indeed, that the story might be printed
before the autumn elections of that year, as my " testimony "
regarding the principles involved in them, but circumstances
delayed its publication till the December number of the Atlantic
appeared.
It is wholly a fiction, "founded on fact." The facts on which
it is founded are these, that Aaron Burr sailed down the Mis-
sissippi River in 1805, again in 1806, and was tried for treason in
1807. The rest, with one exception to be noticed, is all ficti-
tious.
It was my intention that the story should have been published
with no author's name, other than that of Captain Frederic Ing-
ham, U. S. N. Whether writing under his name or my own, I
have taken no liberties with history other than such as every
writer of fiction is privileged to take, indeed, must take, if fic-
tion is to be written at all.
The story having been once published, it passed out of my
hands. From that moment it has gradually acquired different
accessories, for which I am not responsible. Thus I have heard it
said, that at one bureau of the Navy Department they say that
t> THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
Nolan was pardoned, in fact, and returned home to die. At an-
other bureau, I am told, the answer to questions is, that, though
it is true that an officer was kept abroad all his life, his name was
not Nolan. A venerable friend of mine in Boston, who discredits
all tradition, still recollects this " Nolan court-martial." One of
the most accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan's
death in the newspaper, but recollected " that it was in Septem-
ber, and not in August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I be-
lieve in good faith, that Nolan has two widowed sisters residing
in that neighborhood. A correspondent of the Philadelphia
Despatch believed " the article untrue, as the United States cor-
vette 'Levant' was lost at sea nearly three years since, between
San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this uncer-
tainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability
of her turning up after three years in Lat. 2 11' S., Long. 131
W. A writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful histori-
cal paper, explained at length that I had been mistaken all
through ; that Philip Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas ;
that there he was shot in battle, March 21, 1801, and by orders
from Spain every fifth man of his party was to be shot, had they
not died in prison. Fortunately, however, he left his papers and
maps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the Picayune's
correspondent. This friend proposes to publish them, and the
public will then have, it is to he hoped, the true history of Philip
Nolan, the man without a country.
With all these continuations, however, I have nothing to do.
I can only repeat that my Philip Nolan is pure fiction. I cannot
send his scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because I have
it not to send.
I remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, that
in General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls hia " Memoirs,"
is frequent reference to a business partner of his, of the name
of Nolan, who, in the very beginning of this century, was
killed in Texas. Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rather
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 7
a deeper bog than usual, he used to justify himself by say-
ing that he could not explain such or such a charge because
" the papers referring to it were lost when Mr. Xolan was im-
prisoned in Texa<. M Finding this mythical character in the
mythical legends of a mythical time, I took the liberty to give
him a cousin, rather more mythical, whose adventures should be
on the seas. I had the impression that Wilkinson's friend was
named Stephen, and as such I spoke of him in the earlv
editions of this story. But long after this was printed, I found
that the New Orleans paper was right in saying that the Texan
hero was named Philip Nolan.
If I had forgotten him and his name, I can only say that Mr.
Jefferson, who did not forget, him, abandoned him and his,
when the Spanish Government murdered him and imprisoned his
associates for life. I have done my best to repair my fault, and
to recall to memory a brave man, by telling the story of his fate,
in a book called " Philip Nolan's Friends." To the historical
statements in that hook the reader is referred. That the Texan
Philip Nolan played an important, though forgotten, part in our
national history, the reader will understand, when I say that
the terror of the SpanLh Government, excited by his adventures,
governed all their policy regarding Texas and Louisiana also,
till the last territory was no longer their own.
If any reader considers the invention of a cousin too great a
liberty to take in fiction, I venture to remind him that ' 'T ia
sixty years since"; and that I should have the highest authority
in literature even for much greater liberties taken with annals so
far removed from our time.
A Boston paper, in noticing the story of ' My Double." con-
tained in another part of this collection, said it was highly ini-
probdble. I have always agreed with that critic. I confess I
have the same opinion of this story of Philip Nolan. It passes on
ships which had no existence, is vouched for* by officers who never
lived. Its hero is in two or three places at the same time, under
a process wholly impossible under any conceivable administra-
8 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
tion of affairs. When my friend, Mr. W. H. Reed, sent me
from City Point, in Virginia, the record of the death of PHILIP
NOLAN, a negro from Louisiana, who died in the cause of his
country in service in a colored regiment, I felt that he had
done something to atone for the imagined guilt of the imagined
namesake of his unfortunate god-father.
E. E. H.
ROXBURT, MASS., March 20, 1886.
I SUPPOSE that very few casual readers of the New
York Herald of August 13th observed, in an obscure
corner, among the " Deaths," the announcement,
" 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 cur-
rent 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
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 9
under them. I dare say there is many a man who has
taken wine with him once a fortnight, 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. And certainly it speaks
well for the esprit de corps of the profession, and the
personal honor of its members, that to the press this
man's story has been wholly unknown, and, I think,
to the country at large also. I have reason to think,
from some investigations I made in the Naval Archives
when I was attached to the Bureau of Construction,
that every official report relating to him was burned
when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington.
One of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons,
had Nolan in charge at the end of the war ; and when,
on returning from his cruise, he reported at Washing-
ton to one of the Crowninshields, who was in the
Navy Department when he came home, he found
that the Department ignored the whole business.
Whether they really knew nothing about it or whether
it was a "JV0n miricordo" determined on as a piece
of policy, I do not know. But this I do know, that
since 1817, and possibly before, no naval officer has
mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.
l*
10 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
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 din-
ner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him,
walked with him, took him a day or two's voyage in
his flat-boat, 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 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 conqueror. He had defeated I know
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 11
not how many district-attorneys ; he had dined at 1
know not how many public dinners ; he had been her-
alded 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 en-
listed 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 yon,
dear reader. It is none of our business just now. On-
ly, 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 Val-
ley, 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 ser-
vice, had been willing to be false to it, and would
have obeyed any order to march any-whither with
12 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
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 any-
thing 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 Morgan, who was holding the court.
Half the officers who sat in it had served through the
o
Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had
been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly
cursed in his madness. He, on his part, had grown
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 or a French merchant from Or-
leans. His education, such as it was, had been per-
fected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I
think he 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 vears since
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 13
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 No-
lan, 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 flat-boat men 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 23, 1807, till the day he
died, May 11, 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, subject to the approval of the Presi-
dent, 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
ma swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added,
14 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
" 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 Lieutenant Mitch-
ell 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 him-
self took the proceedings 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.
The plan then adopted was substantially the same
which was necessarily 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 Crownin-
shield, though he is a man I do not remember was
requested to put Nolan on board a government vessel
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 15
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.
When I was second officer of the " Intrepid," some
thirty years after, I saw the original paper of instruc-
tions. I have been sorry ever since that I did not
copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this
way :
" WASHINGTON (with a date, whictt
must have been late in 1807).
" SIR, You will receive from Lieutenant Neale
the person of Philip Nolan, late a Lieutenant in the
United States Army.
" This person on his trial by court-martial expressed
with an oath the wish that he might ' never hear of
the United States again.'
" The Court sentenced him to have his wish ful-
filled.
" For the present, the execution of the order is in-
trusted by the President to this Department.
16 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
** You will take the prisoner on board your ship,
and keep him there with such precautions as shall pre-
vent his escape.
*" You will provide him with such quarters, rations,
and clothing as would be proper for an officer of his
late rank, if he were a passenger on your vessel on
the business of his Government.
" The gentlemen on board will make any arrange-
ments agreeable to themselves regarding his society.
He is to be exposed to no indignity of any kind, no*
is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is a
prisoner.
" But under no ircumstances is he ever to hear of
his country or to see any information regarding it,
and you will specially caution all the officers under
your command to take care, that, in the various in-
dulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which
his punishment is involved, shall not be broken.
" It is the intention of the Government that he
shall never again see the country which he has dis-
owned. Before the end of your cruise you will re-
ceive orders which will give effect to this intention.
" Respectfully yours,
" W. SOUTHARD, for the
Secretary of the Navy."
If I had only preserved the whole of this paper,
there would be no break in the beginning of my sketch
of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it were he, handed
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 17
it to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and I
suppose the commander of the Levant has it to-day as
his authority for keeping this man in this mild cus-
tody.
The rule adopted on board the ships on which 1
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 ah 1
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 al-
ways 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 Mon-
day. 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 break-
fast he ate in his own state-room, he always had a
state-room, which was where a sentinel or some-
body on the watch could see the door. And whatever
else he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Some-
times, 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
18 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
of home while he was there. I believe the theory
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 Alexan-
dria. We had leave to make a party and go up to
Cairo and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you
went on donkeys then), 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 reading. 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 Para-
guay. 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
THE MAX WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 19
out might be as innocent as Hesiod. Rifht in the
-.- c*
midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Can-
ning'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
O O
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 T 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 Ocea i, Phillips had
borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which,
in those days, as indeed in these, was qu'te 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
1 >t of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud.
20 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
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,
us I know. Nobody in the circle knew a line oi % 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,"
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 ex-
pected 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 wer> AU beside themselves, wish-
ing there was any way to make him turn over two
pages ; but he had not qu : te presence of mind for
that ; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and stag-
gered on,
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUXTRI. 21
"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, " 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 imprison-
ment 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, 1
remember late in his life hearing him fairly eloquent
on somethincr which had been suggested t o u j m by
V
one of Fle"chier's sermons, but generally he had the
nervous, tired look of a heart-wounded man.
When Captain Shaw was coming home, if, as I
say, it was Shaw, rather to the surprise of every-
22 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
body they made one of the Windward Islands, and lay
off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the of-
ficers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-
soup before they came home. But after several days
the Warren came to the same rendezvous ; they ex-
changed signals ; she sent to Phillips and these home-
ward-bound men letters and papers, and told them she
was outward-bound, perhaps to the Mediterranean,
and took poor Nolan and his traps on the boat back to
try his second cruise. He looked very blank when he
was told to get ready to join her. He had known
enough of the signs of the sky to know that till that
moment he was going " home." But this was a dis-
tinct evidence of something he had not thought of,
perhaps, that there was no going home for him,
even to a prison. And this was the first of some
twenty such transfers, which brought him sooner or
later into half our best vessels, but which kept him
all his life at least some hundred miles from the coun-
try he had hoped he might never hear of again.
It may have been on that second cruise, it was
once when he was up the Mediterranean, that Mrs.
Graff, the celebrated Southern beauty of those days,
danced w r ith him. They had been lying a long time
in the Bay of Naples, and the officers were very inti-
mate in the English fleet, and there had been great
festivities, and our men thought they must give a great
ball on board the ship. How they ever did it on board
the " Warren " I am sure I do not know. Perhaps it
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 23
was not the " Warren," or perhaps ladies did not take
up so much room as they do now. They wanted to
use Nolan's state-room for something, and they hated
to do it without asking him to the ball ; so the captain
said they might ask him, if they would be responsible
that he did not talk with the wrong people, "who
would give him intelligence." So the dance went on,
the finest party that had ever been known, I dare say;
for- 1 never heard of a man-of-war ball that was not.
For ladies they had the family of the American consul,
one or two travellers who had adventured so far, and
a nice bevy of English girls and matrons, perhaps
Lady Hamilton herself.
"Well, different officers relieved each other in stand-
ing and talking with Nolan in a friendly way, so as to
be sure that nobody else spoke to him. The dancing
went on with spirit, and after a while even the fellows
who took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fear
any contretemps. Only when some English lady
Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps called for a set
of "American dances," an odd thing happened.
Everybody then danced contra-dances. The black
band, nothing loath, conferred as to what " American
dances " were, and started off with " Virginia Reel,"
which they followed with " Money-Musk," which, in
its turn in those days, should have been followed by
" The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the leader,
tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about
to say, in true negro state, " ' The Old Thirteen,
24 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
gentlemen and ladies ! " as he had said " * Virginny
Reel,' if you please ! " and " ' Money-Musk,' if you
please I " the captain's boy tapped him on the shoulder,
whispered to him, and he did not announce the name
of the dance ; he merely bowed, began' on the air, and
they all fell to, the officers teaching the English
girls the figure, but not telling them why it had no
name.
But that is not the story I started to tell. As the
dancing went on, Nolan and our fellows all got at ease,
as I said, so much so, that it seemed quite natural
for him to bow to that splendid Mrs. Graff, and say,
" I hope you have not forgotten me, Miss Rutledge.
Shall I have the honor of dancing?"
He did it so quickly, that Fellows, who was by him,
could not hinder him. She laughed and said,
" I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, Mr. Nolan ;
but I will dance all the same," just nodded to Fellows,
as if to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to her, and led
him off to the place where the dance was forming.
Nolan thought he had got his chance. He had
known her at Philadelphia, and at other places had
met her, and this was a Godsend. You could not
talk in contra-dances, as you do in cotillons, or even
ii the pauses of waltzing; but there were chances
for tongues and sounds, as well as for eyes and blushes.
He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius,
and the French ; and then, when they had worked
down, and had that long talking-time at the bottom
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 25
of the set, he said, boldly, a little pale, she said, as
fine told me the story, years after,
" And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff? "
And that splendid creature looked through him.
Jove ! how she must have looked through him !
O
" Home ! ! Mr. Nolan ! ! ! I thought you were the
man who never wanted to hear of home again! "
xnd she walked directly up the deck to her husband,
and left poor Nolan alone, as he always was. He did
not dance again.
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 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 of-
2
26 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
fier 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 cockpit 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 fel-
lows in spirits, till the enemy struck, sitting on the
carriage while the gun was cooling, though he was ex-
posed 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 le-
gends 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."
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 27
And after the whole thing was over, and he had
ihe Englishman's sword, in the midst of the slate 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. Xolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day;
you are one of us to-day ; you will be named in the
despatches."
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 clay at Fort Adams. But
always afterwards on occasions of ceremony, he wor^
that quaint old French sword of the Commodore's.
The captain did mention him in the despatches.
It was always said he asked that he might be par-
doned. 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 thev began to ignore the
* O O
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.
I have heard it said that he was with Porter when
he took possession of the Nukahiwa Islands. Not
this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, Es-
sex Porter, that is, the old Essex Porter, not this
Essex. As an artillery officer, who had seen service
28 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
in the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications,
embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that, than any
of them did ; and he worked with a right good- will in
C5 O
fixing that battery all right. I have always thought
it was a pity Porter did not leave him in command
there with Gamble. That would have settled all the
question about his punishment. We should have kept
the islands, and at this moment we should have one
station in the Pacific Ocean. Our French friends,
too, when they wanted this little watering-place, would
have found it was preoccupied. But Madison and the
Virginians, of course, flung all that away.
All that was near fifty years ago. If Nolan was thirty
then, he must have been near eighty when he died.
He looked sixty when he was forty. But he never
seemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I im-
agine his life, from what I have seen and heard of it,
he must have been in every sea, and yet almost never
on land. He must have known, in a formal way, more
officers in our service than any man living knows.
He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man in
the world lived so methodical a life as he. " You
know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you know
how busy he was." He said it did not do for any one to
try to read all the time, more than to do anything else
all the time ; but that he read just five hours a day.
" Then," he said, " I keep up my note-books, writing
in them at such and such hours from what I have been
reading; and I include in these my scrap-books."
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUXTBY. 29
These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight,
of different subjects. There was one of History, one
of Natural Science, one which he called " Odds and
Ends." But they were not merely books of extracts
from newspapers. They had bits of plants and rib-
bons, shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and
wood, which he had taught the men to cut for him,
and they were beautifully illustrated. He drew ad-
mirably. He had some of the funniest drawings there,
and some of the most pathetic, that I have ever seen in
mv life. I wonder who will have Nolan's scrap-books.
Well, he said his reading and his notes were his pro-
fession, and that they took five hours and two hours
respectively of each day. " Then," said he, " every
man should have a diversion as well as a profession.
My Natural History is my diversion." That took
two hours a day more. The men used to bring him
birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to satisfy
himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small
game. He was the only naturalist I ever met who
knew anything about the habits of the house-fly and the
mosquito. All those people can tell you whether they
are Lepidoptera or Steptopotera ; but as for telling how
you can get rid of them, or how they get away from
you when you strike them, why LinnaBus knew as
little of that as John Foy the idiot did. These nine
hours made Nolan's regular daily " occupation." The
rest of the time he talked or walked. Till he grew
very old, he went aloft a great deal. He always kept
30 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
up his exercisn ; and I never heard that he was ill.
If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nurse
in the world ; and he knew more than half the sur-
geons do. Then if anybody was sick or died, or if
the captain wanted him to, on any other occasion, he
was always ready to read prayers. I have said that
he read beautifully.
My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six
or eight years after the War, on my first voyage after I
was appointed a midshipman. It was in the first days
after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House,
which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of
sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of
the Middle Passage, and something was sometimes done
that way. We were in the South Atlantic on that
business. From the time I joined, I believe I th'xight
Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain, a chaplain with a
blue coat. I never asked about him. Everything in
the ship was strange to me. I knew it was green to
ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a
" Plain-Buttons " on every ship. We had him to
dine in our mess once a week, and the caution was
given that on that day nothing was to be said about
home. But if they had told us not to say anything
about the planet Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy,
I should not have asked why ; there were a great
many things which seemed to me to have as little rea-
son. I first came to understand anything about u the
man without a country " one day when we overhauled
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 31
a dirty little schooner -which had slaves on board. An
officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few
minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one
might be sent him who could speak Portuguese. We
were all looking over the rail when the message came,
and we all wished we could interpret, when the cap-
tain asked Who spoke Portuguese. But none of the
officers did ; and just as the captain was sending for-
ward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped
out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the cap-
tain wished, as he understood the language. The cap-
tain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and
in this boat it was my luck to go.
When we got there, it was such a scene as you sel-
dom soe, and never want to. Nastiness beyond ac-
count, and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness.
There were not a great many of the negroes ; but by
way of making what there were understand that they
were free, Vaughan had had their hand-cuffs and an-
kle-cuffs knocked off, and, for convenience' sake, was
putting them upon the rascals of the schooner's crew.
The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and
swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central
throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him in
every dialect, and patois of a dialect, from the Zulu
click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed.
As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a
hogshead, on which he bad mounted in desperation,
and said :
82 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
" For God's love, is there anybody who can make
these wretches understand something ? The men gave
them rum, and that did not quiet them. I knocked
that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe
him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them to-
gether ; and I '11 be hanged if they understood that as
well as they understood the English."
Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or
two fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out, who, as
it had been found already, had worked for the Portu-
guese on the coast at Fernando Po.
" Tell them they are free," said Vaughan ; " and
tell them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as
we can get rope enough."
Nolan "put" that into Spanish," that is, he ex-
plained it in such Portuguese as the Kroomen could
understand, and they in turn to such of the negroes
as could understand them. Then there was such a
yell of delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dan-
cing, kissing of Nolan's feet, and a general rush made
to the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship of
Vaughan, as the deus ex machina of the occasion.
" Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, " that I
will take them all to Cape Palmas."
This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was
practically as far from the homes of most of them
as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was ; that is, they
would be eternally separated from home there. And
their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. S3
said, " Ah, non Palmos" and began to propose infinite
other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan
was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality,
and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops
stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushed
the men down, and said :
" He says, ' Not Palmas.' He says, * Take us
home, take us to our own country, take us to our own
house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own
women.' He says he has an old father and mother
who will die if they do not see him. And this one
says he left his people all sick, and paddled down to
Fernando to beg the white doctor to come and help
them, and that these devils caught him in the bay just
in sight of home, and that he has never seen anybody
from home since then. And this one says," choked
out Noian, " that he has not heard a word from his
home in six months, while he has been locked up in
an infernal barracoon."
Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while
Nolan struggled through this interpretation. I, who
did not understand anything of the passion involved in
it, saw that the very elements were melting with fer-
vent heat, and that something was to pay somewhere.
Even the negroes themselves stopped howling, as they
saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony
of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he
said :
" Tell them yes, yes, yes ; tell them they shall go
2*
34 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
to the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail
the schooner through the Great White Desert, they
shall go home ! "
And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then
they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub
his nose with theirs.
But he could not stand it long ; and getting Vaughan
to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into
our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and
the men gave way, he said to me : " Youngster, let
that show you what it is to be without a family,
without a home, and without a country. And if you
are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that
shall put a bar between you and your family, your
home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to
take you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick
by your family, boy ; forget you have a self, while
you do everything for them. Think of your home,
boy ; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be
nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you
have to travel from it ; and rush back to it, when you
are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And
for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his
throat, " and for that flag," and he pointed to the
ship, " never dream a dream but of serving her as she
bids you, though the service carry you through a
thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no
matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never
look at another flag, never let a night pass but you
THE MAX WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 35
pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that
behind all these men you have to do with, behind offi-
cers, and government, and people even, there is the
Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong
to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by
Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those
devils there had got hold of her to-day ! "
I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion ,
but I blundered out, that I would, by all that was
holy, and that I had never thought of doing anything
else. He hardly seemed to hear me ; but he did,
almost in a whisper, say : *" O, if anybody had said so
to me when I was of your age ! "
I think it w\s this half-confidence of his, which 1
never abused, for I never told this story till now,
which afterward made us great friends. He was
very kind to me. Often he sat up, or even got up, at
night, to walk tie deck with me, when it was my
watch. He explained to me a great deal of my
mathematics, and T owe to him my taste for mathe-
matics. He lent rao books, and helped me about my
reading. He never alluded so directly to his story
again ; but from one and another officer I have learned,
in thirty years, what I am telling. When we parted
from him in St. Thomas harbor, at the end of our
cruise, I was more scrry than I can tell. I was very
glad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life,
when I thought I had some influence in Washington,
I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged
36 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
But it was like getting a ghost out of prison. They
pretended there was no such man, and never was
such a man. They will say so at the Department
now ! Perhaps they do not know. It will not be the
first thing in the service of which the Department
appears to know nothing !
There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one
of our vessels, when a party of Americans came on
board in the Mediterranean. But this I believe to be
a lie ; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a
tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr,
asking him how he liked to be " without a country."
But it is clear from Burr's life, that nothing of the
sort could have happened ; and I mention this only as
an illustration of the stories which get a-going where
there is the least mystery at bottom.
So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. I
know but one fate more dreadful ; it is the fate re-
served for those men who shall have one day to exile
themselves from their country because they have at-
tempted 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 be-
cause 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
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 37
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 discus-
sion 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 succeeded. So
it was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch hap-
pened at my own table, when, for a short time, I wa?
88 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
in command of the George Washington corvette, on
the South American station. We were lying in 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 misadventures in riding the
o
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 himself.
For he asked perfectly unconsciously:
" Pray, what has become of Texas ? After the Mexi-
cans got their independence, I thought that pi'ovince
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 he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and,
till quite lately, of California, this virgin province,
in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I be-
lieve, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 39
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 sneezinor. Nolan himself saw that some-*
O
thing was to pay, he did not know what. And I, as
master of the feast, had to say,
" 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 be-
came 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, apparently, 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 No-
lans 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
40 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
gives an account of Nolan's last hours. It removes
all my doubts about telling this story.
To understand the first words of the letter, the non-
professional reader should remember that after 1817,
the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge
was one of the greatest delicacy. The government
had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him.
What was a man to do ? Should he let him go ?
What, then, if he were called to account by the De-
partment for violating the order of 1807 ? Should he
keep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated
some day, and should bring an action for false imprison-
ment or kidnapping against every man who had had
him in charge ? I urged and pressed this upon Southard,
and I have reason to think that other officers did the
same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so
often do at Washington, that there were no special or-
ders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment.
That means, " If you succeed, you will be sustained
if you fail, you will be disavowed." Well, as Danforth
says, all that is over now, though I do not know but I
expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence
of the very revelation I am making.
Here is the letter :
"LEVANT, 2 2' S. @ 131 W.
:< DEAR 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.
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 41
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
O*
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. O 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 clasp-
ing the whole globe, which his win^s overshadowed.
O C*
The dear old boy sa%v 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 which he had there to look
upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it,
in large letters : ' Indiana Territory,' * Mississippi Ter-
ritory,' and ' Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fa-
42 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
thers learned such 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
lie had defined nothing.
" ' O 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 I. 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,
Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not
* O
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.
Danforth, 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 something, 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.
1 should have been acting the tyrant all this time over
this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated,
in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy's
treason ? ' Mr. Nolan,' said I, ' I will tell you every-
thing you nsk about. Only, where shall I begin?'
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 43
" O the blessed smile that crept over his white face!
and he pressed 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 Michi-
gan and Indiana and Mississippi, that was where
Fort Adams is, they make twenty. But where
are your other fourteen ? You have not cut up any
of the old ones, I hope ? '
" Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the
pames in as good order as I could, and he bade me
take down his beautiful map and draw them in a.< 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
gra\e 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 Barron
for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whethei
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
44 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
we took the Java, asked about dear old David Por-
ter, 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 Mis-
sissippi, 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 head-quar-
ters at Vioksburg. Then, ' Where was Vicksburg ? '
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 he a ruin now. 'It must
be at old Vick's plantation,' at AYalnut Hills, said he :
' well, that is a change ! '
" I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to con-
dense 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 NaA r al School, but with the queerest
interruptions that ever you heard. You see it waa
Robinson Crnsoe asking all the accumulated questions
of fifty-six years !
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 45
" 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
himself, 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.
4 Good for him ! ' cried Nolan ; ' I am glad of that.
As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our
danger was in keeping up those regular successions in
the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit
to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon
Congressman, Harding ; I told him about the Smith-
sonian, and the Exploring Expedition ; I tol(T him
about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment,
and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washing-
ton : 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 re-
46 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
peated with me, 'For ourselves and our country, O
gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding
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 Presi-
dent of the United States, and all others in authority,'
and the rest of the Episcopal collect. ' 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 a'nd 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 : where-
fore 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
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY 4?
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 lesa at her haixk.' "
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.
FROM THE INGHA1I PAPERS.
[THE Florida, Anglo-Rebel pirate, after inflicting horrible in-
juries on the commerce of America and the good name of Eng-
land, was cut out by Captain Collins, from the bay of Bahia, by
one of those fortunate mistakes in international law which endear
brave men to the nations in whose interest they are committed
When she arrived here the government was obliged to disavow
the act. The question then was, as we had her by mistake,
what we should do with her. At that moment the National
Sailors' Fair was in full blast at Boston, and I offered my
suggestion in answer in the following article, which was published
November 19, 1864, in the "Boatswain's Whistle," a little paper
issued at the fair.
The government did not take the suggestion. Very unfortu-
nately, before the Florida was got ready for sea, she was acci-
dentally sunk in a collision with a tug off Fort Monroe, and the
heirs of the Confederate government or the English bond-hold-
ers must look there for her, if the Brazilian government will
give them permission.
For the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a
despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward
1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years
before it started. It is only a joke which suggests it.]
SPECIAL DESPATCH.
LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLORIDA.
[Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express,
which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 49
ra a spiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to oar publica-
tion-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter i
printed for her information.]
No. 29.
BAHIA, BRAZIL, April 1, 1868.
MY DEAR WIFE : "We are here at last, thank for-
tune ; and I shall surrender the old pirate to-day to
the officers of government. We have been saluted.
are to be feted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight
Commander of the Golden Goose. I never was so
glad as when I saw the lights on the San Esperitu
head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia
or bay.
You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando,
and may have missed 26 and 24, which I gave to out-
ward bound whalemen. I always doubted whether
you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word
of you since you waved your handkerchief from the
window in Springfield Street on the morning of the
1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child,
you will not know me.
Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this
strange cruise ; and when the letters come, you can
fill in the blanks.
The government had determined that the Florida
must be returned to the neutral harbor whence she
came. They had put her in complete repair, and six
months of diplomacy had made the proper apologies
to the Brazilian government. Meanwhile Collins,
who had captured her by mistake, had, by another
50 THE LAST OP THE FLORIDA.
mistake, been made an admiral, and was commanding
a squadron ; and to insure her safe and respectful
delivery, I, who had been waiting service, was un
shelved, and, as you know, bidden to take command.
She was in apple-pie order. The engines had been
cleaned up ; and I thought we could make a quick
thing of it. I was a little dashed when I found the
crew was small ; but I have been glad enough since
that we had no more mouths. No one but myself
knew our destination. The men thought we were to
take despatches to the Gulf squadron.
You remember I had had only verbal orders to take
command, and after we got outside the bay I opene*
my sealed despatches. The gist of them was in these
words :
" You will understand that the honor of this gov
ernment is pledged for the safe delivery of the Florida
to the government of Brazil. You will therefore
hazard nothing to gain speed. The quantity of your
coal has been adjusted with the view to give your
vessel her best trim, and the supply is not large. You
will husband it with care, taking every precaution
to arrive in Bahia safely with your charge, in such
time as your best discretion may suggest to you."
" Your best discretion 1 '' was underscored.
I called Prendergast, and showed him the letter.
Then we called the engineer and asked about the coal.
He had not been into the bunkers, but went and re-
turned with .his face white, through the black grime,
THE LAST OP THE FLORIDA. 51
to report "not four days' consumption." By some
cursed accident, he said, the bunkers had been filled
with barrels of salt-pork and flour !
On this, I ordered a light and went below. There
had been some fatal misunderstanding somewhere.
The vessel was fitted out as for an arctic voyage.
Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar,
sour-krout ; but, clearly enough, not, at the very best,
five days of coal !
And I was to get to Brazil with this old pirate
transformed into a provision ship, " at my best discre-
tion."
" Prendergast," said I, " we will take it easy.
Were you ever in Bahia ? "
" Took flour there in '55, and lay waiting for India-
rubber from July to October. Lost six men by yel-
low-jack."
Prendergast was from the merchant marine. I had
known him since we were children. " Ethan," said
I, " in my best discretion it would be bad to arrive
there before the end of October. Where would you
go?"
I cannot say he took the responsibility. He would
not take it. You know, my dear, of course, that it
was I who suggested Upernavik. From the days of
the old marbled paper Northern Regions, through
the quarto Ross and Parry and Back and the nephew
Ross and Kane and McClure and McClintock, you
know, my dear, what my one assion has been, to
52 THE LAST OP THE FLORIDA.
see those floes and icebergs for myself. Surely you
forgive me, or at least excuse me. Do not you ?
Here was this fast steamer under me. I ought not to
O
be in Bahia before October 25. It was June 1. Of
course we went to Upernavik.
I will not say I regret it now. Yet I will say that
on that decision, cautiously made, though it was " on
my discretion," all our subsequent misfortunes hang.
The Danes were kind to us, the Governor especi-
ally, though I had to carry the poor fellow bad news
about the Duchies and the Danish war, which was all
fresh then. He got up a dance for us, I remember,
and there I wrote No. 1 to you. I could not of course
help when we left him running her up a few de-
grees to the north, just to see whether there is or is
not that passage between Igloolik and Prince Rupert's
Headland (and by the way there is). After we
passed Igloolik, there was such splendid weather, that
I just used up a little coal to drive her along the coast
of King William's Land ; and there, as we waited for
little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as
our luck ordered, a party of natives came on board,
and we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale-
oil. They fell to dancing, and we to laughing,
they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest
woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came
with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the
wheel, which screened binnacle and compass. My
dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.
together as I remember now. We had to apologize ;
the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave
them gingerbread from the cabin, to console them,
and got them off without a fight. But the next morn-
ing when I cast off from the floe, it proved the beg-
gars had stolen the compass card, needle and all.
My dear Mary, there was not another bit of magne-
tized iron in the ship. The government had been very
shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confed-
erate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two com-
passes only the day before for whalebone spears and
skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star
from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of
more importance than you "will think ; it really made
me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons
about the mariners' needle was not quite poetry.
As you shall see, if I ever get through. (Since I
began, I have seen the Consul, and heard the
glorious news from home, and am to be presented
to the port authorities to-morrow.) It was the most
open summer. Mary, ever known there. If I had not
had to be here in October, I would have driven right
through Lancaster Sound, by Baring's Island, and
come out into the Pacific. But here was the honor
of the country, and we merely stole back through the
Straits. It was well enough there, all daylight,
you know. But after we passed Cape Farewell, we
worked her into such fogs, child, as you never saw out
of Hyde Park. Did not I long for that compass-card !
54 THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.
We sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed. For thirty-
seven days I did not get an observation, nor speak a
ship ! October ! It was October before we were
warm. At noon we used to sail where we thought it-
was lightest. At night I used to keep two men up
fDr a lookout, lash the wheel, and let her drift like a
Dutchman. One way as good as another. Mary,
when I saw the sun at last, enough to get any kind of
observation, we were wellnigh three hundred miles
northeast of Iceland ! Talk of fogs to me !
Well, I set her south again, but how long can you
know if you are sailing south, in those places where
the northeast winds and Scotch mists come from !
Thank Heaven, we got south, or we should have frozen
to death. We got into November, and we got into
December. We were as far south as 37 29' ; and
were in 31 17' west on New Year's Day, 1866, when
the second officer wished me a happy new year, con-
gratulated me on the fine weather, said we should get
a good observation, and asked me for the new nautical
O
almanac I You know they are only calculated for five
years. We had two Greenwich ones on board, and
they ran out December 31, 1865. But the govern-
ment had been as stingy in almanacs as in coal and
compasses. They did not mean to keep the Confed-
eracy in almanacs.
That was the beginning of our troubles. I had to
take the old almanac, with Prendergast, and we fig
ured like Cocker, and always kept ahead with a
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 55
month's tables. But somehow, I feel sure we were
right, but something was wrong ; and after a few
weeks the lunars used to come out in the most beastly
way, and we always proved to be on the top of the
Andes or in the Marquesas Islands, or anywhere but
in the Atlantic Ocean. Well then, by good luck, we
spoke the Winged Batavian ; could not speak a
word of Dutch, nor he a word of English ; but he let
Ethan copy his tables, and so we ran for St. Sacra-
ment. I posted 8, 9, and 10 there ; I gave the Dutch-
man 7, which I hope you got, but fear.
Well, this story is running long ; but at St. Sa-
crament we started again, but, as ill-luck would have
it, without a clean bill of health. At that time I could
have run into Bahia with coal of which I had
oought some in a week. But there was fever on
shore, and bad, and I knew we must make pra-
tique when we came into the outer harbor here ; so,
rather than do that, we stretched down the coast, and
met that cyclone I wrote you about, and had to put
into Loando. Understand, this was the first time we
went into Loando. I have learned that wretched
hole well enough since. And it was as we were run-
ning out of Loando, that, in reversing the enoine too
fj O O
suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese
woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of
the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in
on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the
carriage, gave that odious g-r-r-r, which I can hear
56 THE LAST OP THE FLORIDA.
now, and then, dump, down came the whole weight
of the walking-beam, bent rod and carriages all into
three figure 8's, and there we were ! I had as lief
run the boat with a clothes-wringer as with that en-
gine, any day, from then to now.
Well, we tinkered, and the Portuguese dock-yard
people tinkered. We took out this, and they took out
that. It was growing sickly, and I got frightened,
and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board,
and started under such canvas as we had left, not
much after the cyclone, for the North and the
South together had rather rotted the original duck.
Then, as I wrote you in No. 11, it was too late
to get to Bahia before that summer's sickly season,
and I stretched off to cooler regions again, " in my
best discretion." That was the time when we had the
fever so horribly on board; and but for Wilder the
surgeon, and the Falkland Islands, we should be dead,
every man of us, now. But we touched in Queen's
Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own
only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind.
We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks
and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped
her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated
by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and
the once swift Florida would not make four knots an
hour on the wind ; and this was the ship I was to
get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion !
Meanwhile none of these people had any news from
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 57
America. The last paper at the Falkland Islands was
a London Times of 1864, abusing the Yankees. As
for the Portuguese, they were like the people Logan
saw at Vicksburg. " They don't know anything
good! " said he ; " they don't know anything at all !"
It was really more for news than for water I put into
Sta. Lucia, and a pretty mess I made of it there.
We looked so like pirates (as at bottom the old
tub is), that they took all of us who landed to the
guard-house. None of us could speak Sta. Lucia,
whatever that tongue may be, nor understand it.
And it was not till Ethan fired a shell from the 100-
pound Parrott over the town that they let us go. I
hope the dogs sent you my letters. I suppose there
was another infringement of neutrality. But if the
Brazilian government sends this ship to Sta. Lucia, J
shall not command her, that 's all !
Well ! what happened at Loando the second time,
Valencia, and Puntos Pimos, and Nueva Salamanca,
and Loando this last time, you know and will know,
and why we loitered so. At last, thank fortune, here
we are. Actually, Mary, this ship logged on the
average only thirty-two knots a day for the last week
before we got her into port.
Now think of the ingratitude of men ! I have
brought her in here, " according to my best discre-
tion," and do you believe, these hidalgos, or dons, or
senores, or whatever they are, had forgotten she ex-
isted. And when I showed them to her, they said in
3*
58 THE LAST OP THE FLORIDA.
good Portugal that I was a liar. Fortunately the Con-
sul is our old friend Kingsley. He was delighted to
see me ; thought I was at the bottom of the sea.
From him we learned that the Confederacy was blown
sky-high long ago. And from all I can learn, I may
have the Florida back again for my own private yacht
or peculium, unless she goes to Sta. Lucia.
Not I, my friends ! Scrape her, and mend her, and
give her to the marines, and tell them her story ;
but do not intrust her again to my own Polly's own
FREDERIC INGHAM
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
[THIS essay was first published in the Monthly Religious
Magazine. Boston, for October, 1851. One or another professor
of chronology has since taken pains to tell me that it is impos-
sible. But until they satisfy themselves whether Homer ever
lived at all, I shall hold to the note which I wrote to Miss Dry-
asdust's cousin, which I printed originally at the end of the
article, and which will be found there in this collection. The
difficulties in the geography are perhaps worse than those of
chronology.]
A SUMMER bivouac had collected together a little
^
troop of soldiers from Joppa, under the shelter of
a grove, where they had spread their sheep-skins,
tethered their horses, and pitched a single tent. With
the carelessness of soldiers, they were chatting awav
the time till sleep might come, and help them to to-
morrow with its chances ; perhaps of fight, perhaps of
another day of this camp indolence. Below the garden
siope where they were lounging, the rapid torrent of
Kishon ran brawling along. A full moon was risin^
above the rough edge of the Eastern hills, and the
whole scene was alive with the loveliness of an East-
ern landscape.
60 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
As they talked together, the strains of a harp came
borne down the stream by the wind, mingling with
the rippling of the brook.
"The boys were right," said the captain of the
little company. " They asked leave to go up the
stream to spend their evening with the Carmel-men ;
and said that they had there a harper, who would sing
and play for them."
" Singing at night, and fighting in the morning I
It is the true soldier's life," said another.
"Who have they there ?" asked a third.
" One of those Ziklag-men," replied the chief. " He
came into camp a few days ago, seems to be an old
favorite of the king's, and is posted with his men, by
the old tomb on the edge of the hill. If you cross the
brook, he is not far from the Carmel post ; and some
of his young men have made acquaintance there."
" One is not a soldier for nothing. If we make
enemies at sight, we make friends at sight too."
" Echish here says that the harper is a Jew."
"What! a deserter?"
*' I do not know that ; that is the king's lookout.
Their company came up a week ago, were reviewed
the day I was on guard at the outposts, and they had
this post I tell you of assigned to them. So the king
is satisfied ; and, if he is, I am."
" Jew or Gentile, Jehovah's man or Dagon's man,"
said one of the younger soldiers, with a half-irreverent
tone, " I wish we had him here to sing to us."
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. bl
' And to keep us awake," yawned another.
" Or to keep us from thinking of to-morrow," said
a third.
" Can nobody sing here, or play, or tell an old-time
story ? "
There was nobody. The only two soldiers of the
post, who affected musical skill, were the two who
had gone up to the Carmelites' bivouac ; and the little
company of Joppa catching louder notes and louder.
as the bard's inspiration carried him farther ana
farther away crept as far up the stream as the limits
of their station would permit ; and lay, without noise,
to catch, as they best could, the rich tones of the music
as it swept down the valley.
Soothed by the sound, and by the moonlight, and
by the summer breeze, they were just in mood to wel-
come the first interruption which broke the quiet of
the night. It was the approach of one of their com-
pany, who had been detached to Accho a day or two
before ; and who came hurrying in to announce the
speedy arrival of companions, for whom he bespoke
a welcome. Just as they were to leave Accho, he
said, that day, on their return to camp, an Ionian
trading-vessel had entered port. He and his fellow-
soldiers had waited to help her moor, anu had been
chatting with her seamen. They had told them of
the chance of battle to which they were returning :
and two or three of the younger lonians, enchanted al
the relief from the sea's imprisonment, had begged
62 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
them to let them volunteer in company with them.
These men had come tip into the country with the sol-
diers, therefore ; and he who had broken the silence of
the listeners to the distant serenade had hurried on to
tell his comrades that such visitors were on their way.
They soon appeared on foot, but hardly burdened
by the light packs they bore.
A soldier's welcome soon made the Ionian sailors as
much at home with the men of the bivouac, as they
had been through the day with the detachment from
the sea-board. A few minutes were enough to draw
out sheep-skins for them to lie upon, a skin of wine for
their thirst, a bunch of raisins and some oat-cakes for
their hunger ; a few minutes more had told the news
which each party asked from the other; and then
these sons of the sea and these war-bronzed Philistines
were as much at ease with each other as if they had
served under the same sky for years.
" We were listening to music," said the old chief,
" when you came up. Some of our young men have
gone up, indeed, to the picket yonder, to hear the
harper sing, whose voice you catch sometimes, when
we are not speaking."
" You find the Muses in the midst of arms, then,"
said one of the young lonians.
" Muses ? " said the old Philistine, laughing. " That
sounds like you Greeks. Ah ! sir, in our rocks here
we have few enough Muses, but those who carry these
lances, or teach us how to trade with the islands for
tin."
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 63
"That's not quite fair," cried another. "The
youngsters who are gone sing well ; and one of them
has a harp 1 should be glad you should see. He made
it himself from a gnarled olive-root." And he turned
to look for it.
" You '11 not find it in the tent : the boy took it with
him. They hoped the Ziklag minstrel might ask
them to sing, I suppose."
" A harp of olive-wood," said the Ionian, " seems
Muse-born and Pallas-blessed."
And, as he spoke, one of the new-comers of the
Philistines leaned over, and whispered to the chief:
'* He is a bard himself, and we made him promise to
sing to us. I brought his harp with me that he might
cheer up our bivouac. Pray, do you ask him."
The old chief needed no persuasion ; and the eyes
of the whole force brightened as they found they had
a minstrel " of their own " now, when the old man
pressed the young Ionian courteously to let them hear
him : " I told you, sir, that we had no Muses of our
own ; but we welcome all the more those who come
to us from over seas."
Homer smiled ; for it was Homer whom he spoke
to, Homer still in the freshness of his unblinded
youth. He took the harp which the young Philistine
handed to him, thrummed upon its chords, and as he
tuned them said : " I have no harp of olive-wood ; we
cut this out, it was years ago, from an old oleander in
the marshes behind Colophon. What will you hear,
gentlemen ? "
64 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
" The poet chooses for himself," said the courtly
old captain.
" Let me sing you, then, of the Olive Harp " ; and
he struck the chords in a gentle, quieting harmony,
which attuned itself to his own spirit, pleased as he
was to find music and harmony and the olive of peace
in the midst of the rough bivouac, where he had come
up to look for war. But he was destined to be dis-
appointed. Just as his prelude closed, one of the
young soldiers turned upon his elbow, and whispered
contemptuously to his neighbor: "Always olives, al-
ways peace : that 's all your music 's good for ! "
The boy spoke too loud, and Homer caught the dis-
contented tone and words with an ear quicker than
the speaker had given him credit for. He ended the
prelude with a sudden crash on the strings, and said
shortly, " And what is better to sing of than the
olive?"
The more courteous Philistines looked sternly on
the young soldier ; but he had gone too far to be
frightened, and he flashed back : " War is better. My
broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing
to your Ares ; we call him Mars ! "
Homer smiled gravely. " Let it be so," said he ;
and, in a lower tone, to the captain, who was troubled
at the breach of courtesy, he added, "Let the boy
see what war and Mars are for."
He struck another prelude and began. Then was
it that Homer composed his " Hymn to Mars." In
A PIECE OP POSSIBLE HISTORY. 65
wild measure, and impetuous, he swept along through
the list of Mars's titles and attributes ; then his key
changed, and his hearers listened more intently, more
solemnly, as in a graver sti-ain, with slower music, and
an almost awed dignity of voice, the bard went on .
" Helper of mortals, hear !
As thy fires give
The present boldnesses that strive
In youth for honor ;
So would I likewise wish to have the power
To keep off from my head thy bitter hour,
And quench the false fire of my soul's low kind,
By the fit ruling of my highest mind !
Control that sting of wealth
That stirs me on still to the horrid scath
Of hideous battle !
" Do thou, ever blessed ! give me still
Presence of mind to put in act my will,
Whate'er the occasion be ;
And so to live, unforced by any fear,
Beneath those laws of peace, that never are
Affected with pollutions popular
Of unjust injury,
As to bear safe the burden of hard fates,
Of foes inflexive, and inhuman hates ! "
The tones died away ; the company was hushed for
a moment ; and the old chief then said gravely to hi3
petulant follower, " That is what men fight for, boy."
But the boy did not need the counsel. Homer's man-
ner, his voice, the music itself, the spirit of the song,
as much as the words, had overcome him ; and the
boasting soldier was covering his tears with his hands.
66 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
Homer felt at once (the prince of gentlemen he)
that the little outbreak, and the rebuke of it, had
jarred the ease of then* unexpected meeting. How
blessed is the presence of mind with which the musi-
cian of real genius passes from song to song, " what-
e'er the occasion be ! " With the ease of genius he
changed the tone of his melody again, and sang his
own hymn, "To Earth, the Mother of all."
The triumphant strain is one which harmonizes with
every sentiment ; and he commanded instantly the rapt
attention of the circle. So engrossed was he, that he
did not seem to observe, as he sang, an addition to
their company of some soldiers from above in the val-
ley, just as he entered on the passage :
" Happy, then, are they
Whom them, O great in reverence !
Are bent to honor. They shall all things find
In all abundance ! All their pastures yield
Herds in all plenty. All their roofs are filled
With rich possessions.
High happiness and wealth attend them,
While, with laws well-ordered, they
Cities of happy households sway ;
And their sons exult in the pleasure of youth,
And their daughters dance with the flower-decked girls,
Who play among the flowers of summer !
Such are the honors thy full hands divide ;
Mother of Gods and starry Heaven's bride ! " *
A buzz of pleasure and a smile ran round the cir-
cle, in which the new-comers joined. They were the
* After Chapman.
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTOBT. 67
soldiers who had been to hear and join the music at
the Carmel-men's post. The tones of Homer's harp
had tempted them to return; and they had brought
with them the Hebrew minstrel, to whom they had
been listening. It was the outlaw David, of Bethle-
hem Ephrata.
David had listened to Homer more intently than
any one ; and, as the pleased applause subsided, the
eyes of the circle gathered upon him, and the manner
of all showed that they expected him, in minstrel-
fashion, to take up the same strain.
He accepted the implied invitation, played a short
prelude, and taking Homer's suggestion of topic, sang
in parallel with it :
" I Trill sing a new song unto thee, O God !
Upon psaltery and harp will I sing praise to thee.
Thou art He that giveth salvation to kings,
That delivereth David, thy servant, from the sword.
Rid me and save me from those who speak vanity,
Whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood,
That our sons may be as plants in fresh youth ;
That our daughters may be as comer-stones,
The polished stones of our palaces ;
That our garners may be full with all manner of store ;
That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands rn the
way ;
That there may be no cry nor complaint in our streets
Happy is the people that is in such a case ;
Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord ! "
The melody was triumphant; and the enthusiastic
manner yet more so. The Philistines listened delight-
68 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
ed, too careless of religion, they, indeed not to be
catholic in presence of religious enthusiasm ; and Ho-
mer wore the exalted expression which his face seldom
wore. For the first time since his childhood, Homer
felt that he was not alone in the world !
Who shall venture to tell what passed between the
two minstrels, when Homer, leaving his couch, crossed
the circle at once, flung himself on the ground by
David's side, gave him his hand; when they looked
each other in the face, and sank down into the rapid
murmuring of talk, which constant gesture illustrated,
but did not fully explain to the rough men arouna
them? They respected the poets' colloquy for a
while ; but then, eager again to hear one harp or the
other, they persuaded one of the Ionian sailors to
ask Homer again to sing to them.
It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his
head, and turned back to the soldier-poet.
"What should /sing?" he said.
They did not enter into his notion : hearers will not
always. And so, taking his question literally, they re-
plied, " Sing ? Sing us of the snow-storm, the storm
of stones, of which you sang at noon."
Poor Homer! It was easier to do it than to bo
pressed to do it ; and he struck his harp again :
" It was as when, some wintry day, to men
Jove would, in might, his sharp artillery show ;
He wills his winds to sleep, and over plain
And mountains pours, in countless flakes, his snow.
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 69
Deep it conceals the rocky cliffs and hills,
Then covers all the blooming meadows o'er,
All the rich monuments of mortals' skill,
All ports and rocks that break the ocean-shore
Rock, haven, plain, are buried by its fall ;
But the near wave, unchanging, drinks it all.
So while these stony tempests veil the skies,
While this on Greeks, and that on Trojans flies,
The walls unchanged abore the clamor rise." *
The men looked round upon David, whose expres-
sion, as he returned the glance, showed that he had
enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But when they
still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken
invitation ; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the
words were familiar to him :
" He giveth snow like wool ;
He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes ;
He casteth forth his ice like morsels ;
Who can stand before his cold ?
He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them ;
He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow."
" Always this ' He,' " said one of the young soldiers
to another.
" i'es," he replied ; *' and it \vas so in the beginning
of the evening, when we were above there."
" There is a strange difference between the two
men, though the one plays as well as the other, and
the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign accent as
the Jew, and their subjects are the same."
"Yes," said the young Philistine harper; "if the
* After Cowper and Pope. Long after !
70 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
Greek should sing one of the Hebrew's songs, you
would know he had borrowed it, in a moment."
" And so, if it were the other way."
" Of course," said their old captain, joining in thig
conversation. " Homer, if you call him so, sings the
thing made : David sings the maker. Or, rather,
Homer thinks of the thing made : David thinks of the
maker, whatever they sing."
" I was going to say that Homer would sing of
cities ; and David, of the life in them."
" It is not what they say so much, as the way they
look at it. The Greek sees the outside, the beauty
of the thing; the Hebrew "
" Hush ! "
For David and his new friend had been talking too.
Homer had told him of the storm at sea they met a
few days before ; and David, I think, had spoken of a
mountain-tornado, as he met it years before. In the
excitement of his narrative he struck the harp, which
was still in his hand, and sung:
" Then the earth shook and trembled,
The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken,
Because He was wroth ;
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,
And fire out of his mouth devoured ;
It burned with living coal.
He bowed the heavens also, and came dowu,
And darkness was under his feet ;
He rode upon a cherub and did fly,
Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his resting-place,
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. ,1
His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies ;
At the brightness before him his clouds passed by,
Hail-stones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
And the highest gave his voice ;
Hail-stones and coals of fire.
Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them,
And he shot out his lightnings, and discomfited them.
Then the channels of waters were seen,
And the foundations of the world were made known,
At thy rebuke, O Lord !
At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
He sent from above, he took me,
He drew me out of many waters."
" Mine were but a few verses," said Homer. " 1
im more than repaid by yours. Imagine Neptune,
-ir sea-god, looking on a battle :
" There he sat high, retired from the seas ;
There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten ;
There burned with rage at the god-king who slew them.
Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountains,
Quickly descending ;
He bent the forests also as he came down,
And the high cliffs shook under his feet.
Three times he trod upon them,
And with his fourth step reached the home he sought for.
" There was his palace, in the deep waters of the eeas,
Shining with gold, and builded forever.
There he yoked him his swift-footed horses ;
Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden.
He binds them with golden thongs,
He seizes his golden goad,
He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly :
Yea ! he drh cs them forth into the waves I
72 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
And the whales rise under him from the depths,
For they know he is their king ;
And the glad sea is divided into parts,
That his steeds may fly along quickly ;
And his brazen axle passes dry between the waves,
So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians."*
And the poets sank again into talk.
" You see it," said the old Philistine. ' He paints
the picture. David sings the life of the picture."
" Yes : Homer sees what he sings ; David feels his
song."
" Homer's is perfect in its description."
" Yes ; but for life, for the soul of the description,
you need the Hebrew."
" Homer might be blind ; and, with that fancy anc.
word-painting power of his, and his study of every-
thing new, he would paint pictures as he sang, though
unseen."
"Yes," said another; " but David " And he
paused.
" But David ? " asked the chief.
" I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf,
impi'isoned, exiled, sick, or all alone, and that yet he
would never know he was alone ; feeling as he does /
as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord of
his!"
" He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent
from him."
** While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that
* Iliad, vi.
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 73
hard, worrying, slinging work of battle. He must
have seen fight himself."
They were hushed again. For, though they no
longer dared ask the poets to sing to them, so en-
grossed were they in each other's society, the
soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy.
For the poets were constantly arousing each other to
strike a chord, or to sing some snatch of remembered
song. And so it was that Homer, apropos of I do not
know what, sang in a sad tone :
" Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Xow green in youth, now withering on the ground :
Another race the following spring supplies ;
They fall successive, and successive rise.
So generations in their course decay,
So nourish these, when those have passed away."*
David waited for a change in the strain ; but Homei
stopped. The young Hebrew asked him to go on ;
but Homer said that the passage which followed was
mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David
looked surprised that his new friend had not pointed
a moral as he sang ; and said simply, " We sing that
thus :
" As for man, his days are as grass ;
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth;
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord
Is from everlasting to everlasting
Of them that fear him ;
* Iliad, vi POPE.
74 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
And his righteousness
Unto children's children,
To such as keep his covenant,
As remember his commandments to do them 1 "
Homer's face flashed delighted. " I, like yon,
* keep his covenant,' " he cried ; and then without a
lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he sang, in
clear tone :
" Thou bid'st me birds obey ; I scorn their flight,
If on the left they rise, or on the right !
Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own,
Who mortals and immortals rules alone ! "*
" That is more in David's key," said the young
Philistine harper, seeing that the poets had fallen to
talk together again. " But how would it sound in one
of the hymns on one of our feast-days ? "
" Who mortals and immortals rules alone."
" How, indeed ? " cried one of his young compan-
ions. " There would be more sense in what the priests
say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for his
own, Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against
Dagon.
The old captain bent over, that the poets might not
hear him, and whispered : " There it is that the He-
brews have so much more heart than we in such things.
O
Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them,
yet, when I have gone through their whole land with
the caravans, the chances have been that any serious-
* Iliad, xii., after Sotheby.
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE BISTORT. 75
mindeil man spoke of no God but this ' He 1 of
David's."
"What is his name?"
" They do not know themselves, I believe."
" Well, as I said an hour ago, God's man or Da-
gon's man, for those are good name?, enough for
me, I care little ; but I should like to sing as that
young fellow does."
" My boy," said the old man, "have not you heard
him enough to see that it is not he that sings, near as
much as this love of his for a Spirit he does not name?
It is that spirited heart of his that sings."
" You sing like him ? Find his life, boy ; and per-
haps it may sing for you."
" W T e should be more manly men, if he sang to ua
even,' night."
" Or if the other did," said an Ionian sailor.
" Yes," said the chief. " And yet, I think, if your
countryman sang every night to me, he would make
me want the other. Whether David's singing would
send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to
compare them ! As well compare the temple in Ac-
cho with the roar of a whirlwind "
" Or the point of my lance with the flight of an
eagle. The men are in two worlds."
" O, no ! that is saying too much. You said that
one could paint pictures "
" Into which the other puts life. Yes, I did sav
so. We are fortunate that we have them together."
76 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
" For lliis man sings of men quite as well as the
other does ; and to have the other sing of God '
" Why, it completes the song. Between them
they bring the two worlds together."
" He bows the heavens, and comes down," said the
boy of the olive-harp, trying to hum David's air.
" Let us ask them "
And just then there rang along the valley the
sound of a distant conch-shell. The soldiers groaned,
roused up, and each looked for his own side-arms and
his own skin.
But the poets talked on unheeding.
The old chief knocked down a stack of lances ; but
the crash did not rouse them. He was obliged himself
to interrupt their eager converse.
" I am sorry to break in ; but the night-horn has
sounded to rest, and the guard will be round to inspect
the posts. I am sorry to hurry you away, sir," he
said to David.
David thanked him courteously.
" Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest,"
said Homer, with a smile.
" We will all meet to-morrow. And may to-night's
dreams be good omens ! "
" If we dream at all," said Homer again :
" Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,
And asks no omen but his country's cause."
They were all standing together, as he made this
careless reply to the captain ; and one of the young
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 77
men drew him aside, and whispered that David was
in arms against his country.
Homer was troubled that he had spoken as he did.
But the young Jew looked little as if he needed
sympathy. He saw the doubt and regret which hung
over their kindly faces ; told them not to fear for him ;
singing, as he bade them good night, and witn one of
the Carmel-men walked home to his own outpost :
" The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion,
The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear,
He will deliver me."
And he smiled to think how his Carmelite com-
panion would start, if he knew when first he used
those words.
So they parted, as men who should meet on the
morrow.
But God disposes.
David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow
to care for. It seemed to promise him that he must
be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in our eager-
ness to anticipate our conflicts of duty, David waited.
And the Lord delivered him. While they were
singing by the brookside, the proud noblemen of the
Philistine army had forced an interview with their
king ; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, in-
sisted that u this Hebrew " and his men should be sent
away.
With the light of morning the king sent for the
minstrel, and courteously dismissed him, because " the
78 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.
princes of the Philistines have said, k He shall not go
up with us to the battle.' "
So David marched his men to Ziklag.
And David and Homer never met on earth again.
NOTE. This will be a proper place to print the following note,
which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdust
after she had read the MS. of the article above :
" DEAR MADAM : I thank you for your kind suggestion, in return-
ing my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You
inform me, that, 'according to the nomenclatured formulas and ho-
tnophonic analogies of Professor Gouraud, of never-to-be-forgotten
memory, " A NEEDLE is less useful for curing a DEAF HEAD, than
for putting ear-rings into a Miss's lily-ears " ; and that this shows that
the second king of Judah, named David (or Deaf-head) began to
reign in 1055 B.C., and died 1040 B. C.' ; and further, that, according
to the same authority, ' Homer flourished when the Greeks were fond
of his POETRY ' ; which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished
in 914 B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with
David than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to
Phoenicia.
" I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgettmg pro-
fessor ; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer as
his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century or two
might easily slip aside.
" Now, did you look up Clement ? And did you not forget tde
Arundelian Marbles ? For, if you will take the long estimates, you
tv'ill find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the year
1150, and some that it was as 'short ago' as 850. And some set
David as long ago as 1170, and some bring him down to a hundred
and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the short
measures. So the long and short of it is, that you oan keep the two
poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a century which
I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in which to bring them
together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always yours, &c-
" Confess that you forgot the Arundelian Marbles 1 "
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR
[1 AM tempted to include this little burlesque in this collection
imply in memory of the Boston Miscellany, the magazine in
which it was published, which won for itself a brilliant reputation
in its short career. There was not a large staff of writers for
the Miscellany, but many of the names then unknown have
since won distinction. To quote them in the accidental order in
which I find them in the table of contents, where they are ar-
ranged by the alphabetical order of the several papers, the Mis-
cellany contributors were Edward Everett, George Lunt, Nathan
Hale, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, X. P. Willis. W. W. Story, J.
B- Lowell, C. X. Emerson, Alexander H. Everett, Sarah P.
Hale, W. A. Jones, Cornelius Matthews, Mrs. Kirkland, J. W.
Ingraham, H. T. Tuckerman, Evart A. Duyckinck, Francis A.
Durivage, Mrs. J. Webb, Charles F. Powell, Charles W. Storey,
Lucretia P. Hale, Charles F. Briggs, William E. Channing,
Charles Lanman, G. H. Hastings, and Elizabeth B. Barrett, now
Mrs. Browning, some of whose earliest poems were published in
this magazine. These are all the contributors whose names ap-
pear, eAt-epting the writers of a few verses. They furnished
nine tenths of the contents of the magazine. The two Everette,
Lowell, William Story, and my brother, who was the editor, were
the principal contributors. And I am tempted to say that I
think they all put some of their best work upon this magazine.
The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its pub-
lishers had no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of
fashion-plates and other engravings, in the hope of forcing an
80 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
immediate sale upon persons who, caring for fashion-plates, did
not care for the literary character of the enterprise. It gave a
very happy escape-pipe, however, for the high spirits of some of
us who had just lei't college, and, through my brother's kindness,
I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the journal. In
memory of those early days of authorship, I select " The South
American Editor " to publish here. For the benefit of the New
York Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And
lest any should complain that it advocates elopements, 1 beg
to observe, in the seriousness of mature life, that the proposed
elopement did not succeed, and that the parties who proposed it
are represented as having no guardians or keepers but them-
selves. The article was first published in 1842.]
IT is now more than six years since I received the
following letter from an old classmate of mine, Harry
Barry, who had been studying divinity, and was then
a settled minister. It was an answer to a communica-
tion I had sent him the week before.
" TOPSHAM, R. I., January 22, 1836.
" To say the truth, my dear George, your letter star-
tled me a little. To think that I, scarcely six months
settled in the profession, should be admitted so far into
the romance of it as to unite forever two young run-
aways like yourself and Miss Julia What's-her-name
is at least curious. But, to give you your due, you
have made a strong case of it, and as Miss (what is
her name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any
real guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly jus-
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 81
tified in complying with your rather odd request. Yon
see j. make a conscientious matter of it.
4i Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure
to be ready. Jane is of course in my counsels, and
she v.-ill make your little wife feel as much at home as
in her father's parlor. Trust us for secrecy.
" I met her last week "
But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the
story.
The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transac-
tion deserves so high-sounding a name) was, in every
sense of the words, strictly necessary. Julia Went-
worth had resided for years with her grandfather, a
pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection
she had long yielded an obedience which he would
have had no right to extort, and which he was some-
times disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most
ingenuous manner that she should never marry with
his consent any man of less fortune than her own would
be ; and on his consent rested the prospect of her in-
heriting his property.
Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we
cared still less then ; and her own little property and
my own little salary made us esteem ourselves en-
tirely independent of the old gentleman and his
will.
His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was
thundered in her ears at least once a week, so that we
82 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
both knew that I had no need to make court to him ,
indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her
in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, con-
cert, or lecture. He had lately been more domineer-
ing than usual, and I had but little difficulty in per-
suading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry,
to make the arrangement to which he assented in the
letter which I have copied above. The reasoning which
I pressed upon her is obvious. We loved each other,
the old gentleman could not help that; and as he
managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in
the existing state of affairs, we naturally came to the
conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the
better. Our excursion to Topsharn would, we sup-
posed, prove a very disagreeable business to him ; but
we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so,
though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and
granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we out-
voted him.
I have said that I had no fortune to enable me to
come near the old gentleman's beau ideal of a grand-
son-in-law. I was then living on my salary as a South
American editor. Does the reader know what that
is ? The South American editor of a newspaper has
the uncontrolled charge of its South American news.
Read any important commercial paper for a month,
and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear con-
ception of the condition of the various republics (!)
of South America. If you have, it is because that
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 83
journal employs an individual for the sole purpose oi
Betting them in the clearest order before you, and
that individual is its South American editor. The
general-news editor of the paper will keep the run of
all the details of all the histories of all the rest of the
world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he
. he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most
cogent reasons, that any American news office which
has a strong regard for the consistency or truth of its
South American intelligence shall employ some person
competent to take the charge which I held in the es-
tablishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of
which I am speaking. Before that enterprising paper
was sold, I was its " South American man " ; this
being my only employment, excepting that by a special
agreement, in consideration of an addition to my sal-
ary, I was engaged to attend to the news from St.
Domingo, Guatemala, and Mexico.*
* I do not know that this explanation is at all clear. Let me, aa
the mathematicians say, give an instance which will illustrate the im-
portance of this profession. It is now a few months since I received
the following note from a distinguished member of the Cabinet :
"WASHIXGTOX, January , 1M*.
" DEAR SIR : We are in a little trouble about a little thing. There
are now in this city no less than three gentlemen bearing credentials
to government as Charges from the Republic of Oronoco. They are,
of course, accredited from three several home governments. The
President signified, when the first arrived, that he would receive the
Charge' from that government, on the 2d proximo, but none of
n* know who the right Charge is. The newspapers tell nothing satis-
84 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
Monday afternoon, just a fortnight after I received
Harry Barry's letter, in taking my afternoon walk
round the Common, I happened to meet Julia. I al-
ways walked in the same direction when I was alone.
Julia always preferred to go the other way ; it was the
only thing in which we differed. When we were to-
gether I always went her way of course, and liked it
best.
factory about it. I suppose you know : can you write me word be
fore the 2d ?
" The gentlemen arc : Dr. Estrcmadura, accredited from the ' Con-
stitutional Government,' his credentials are dated the 2d of
November ; Don Paulo Vibeira, of the ' Friends of the People,' 5th
of November ; M. Antonio de Vesga, 'Constitution of 1823,' Octo-
ber 27th. They attacli great importance to our decision, each having
scrip to sell. In haste, truly yours."
To this letter I returned the following reply :
"SiR: Onr latest dates from Oronoco are to the 13th ultimo.
The ' Constitution of '23' was then in full power. If, however,
the policy of our government be to recognize the gentlemen whose
principals shall be in office on the 2d proximo, it is a very different
affair.
" You may not be acquainted with the formulas for ascertaining
the duration of any given modern revolution. I now use the follow-
ing, which I find almost exactly correct.
" Multiply the age of the President by the number of statute miles
from the equator, divide by the number of pages in the given Consti-
totion ; the result will be the length of the outbreak, in days. This
formula includes, as you will see, an allowance for the heat of the cli-
mate, the zeal of the leader, and the verbosity of the theorists. The
Constitution of 1823 was reproclaimed on the 25th of October last.
If yon will give the above formula into the hands of any of yoni
dorks, the Calculation from it will show that that government will go
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 85
I had told her, long before, all about Harry's letter,
and the dear girl in this walk, after a little blushing
and sighing, and half faltering and half hesitating and
feeling uncertain, yielded to my last and warmest
persuasions, and agreed to go to Mrs. Pollexfen's ball
that evening, ready to leave it with me in my
buggy sleigh, for a three hours' ride to Topsham,
where we both knew Harry would be waiting for
us. I do not know how she managed to get through
tea that evening with her lion of a grandfather, for
she could not then cover her tearful eyes with a vei]
as she did through the last half of our walk together.
out of power on the 1st of February, at 25 minutes after 1, p. sc. Yonr
choice, on the 2d, most be therefore between Vibeira and Estre-
madura ; here you will have no difficulty. Bobadil (Vibeira's princi-
pal) was on the 13th ultimo confined under sentence of death, at such
a distance from the capital that he cannot possibly escape and get into
power before the 2d of February. The ' Friends of the People,' in
Oronoco, have always moved slowly ; they never got up an insurrection
in less than nineteen days' canvassing ; that was in 1839. Generally
they are even longer. Of course, Estremadura will be your man.
" Believe me, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
" GEORGE HACKMATACK."
The Cabinet had the good sense to act on my advice. My informa-
tion proved nearly correct, the only error being one of seven minutes
in the downfall of the 1823 Constitution. This arose from my making
no allowance for difference of longitude between Piaut, where their
government was established, and Opee, where it was crushed. The
difference of time between those places is six minutes and fifty-three
seconds, as the reader may see on a globe.
Estremadura was, of course, presented to the President, and sold
bis scrip.
86 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
I know that I got through my tea and such like ordi-
nary affairs by skipping them. I made all my arrange-
ments, bade Gage and Streeter be ready with the sleigh
at my lodging? (fortunately only two doors from Mrs.
Pollexfen's) at half-past nine o'clock, and was the
highest spirited of men when, on returning to those
lodgings myself at eight o'clock, I found the following
missives from the Argus office, which had been accu
mulating through the afternoon.
No. l.
" 4 o'clock, P. .
" DEAR SIR : The southern mail, just in, brings
Buenos Ayres papers six days later, by the Medora, at
Baltimore.
" In haste, J. C."
(Mr. C. was the gentleman who opened the news-
papers, and arranged the deaths and marriages; he
always kindly sent for me when I was out of the way.)
No. 2.
" 6 o'clock, r. M.
"DEAR SIR: The U. S. ship Preble is in at
Portsmouth ; latest from Valparaiso. The mail is not
eorted.
"Yours, J. D."
(Mr. D. arranged the ship news for the Argus.)
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 87
No. 3.
" 6 o'clock, p. M.
" DEAR SIR : I boarded, this morning, off Cape
Cod, the Blunderhead, from Carthagena, and have a
week's later papers.
" Truly yours, J. E."
(Mr. E. was the enterprising commodore of our
news-boats.)
No. 4.
" 63 o'clock, p. jr.
" DEAR SIR : I have just opened accidentally the
enclosed letter, from our correspondent at Panama.
You will see that it bears a New Orleans post-mark.
1 hope it may prove exclusive.
" Yours, J. F."
(Mr. F. was general editor of the Argus.)
No. 5.
" 6 o'clock, p. M.
" DEAR SIR : A seaman, who appears to be an in-
telligent man, has arrived this morning at New Bed-
ford, and says he has later news of the rebellion in
Ecuador than any published. The Rosina (his ves-
sel) brought no papers. I bade him call at youi
room at eight o'clock, which he promised to do.
" Truly yours, J. G."
(Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.)
88 TIIE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
No 6.
" 7 o'clock, p. ai.
" DEAR SIR : The papers by the Ville de Lyon,
from Havre, which I have just received, mention the
reported escape of M. Bonpland from Paraguay, the
presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable over-
throw of the government, the possible establishment
of a republic, and a great deal more than I understand
in the least.
" These papers had not come to hand when I wrote
you this afternoon. I have left them on your desk al
the office.
"In haste, J. F."
1 was taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking
little notes. I had spent the afternoon in drilling Sin-
ge! ton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do
in any probable contingency of news of the next forty-
eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wed-
ding tour even longer than that time ; but I felt that
Singleton was entirely unequal to such a storm of in-
telligence as this ; and, as I hurried down to the of-
fice, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that
the cloud had broken before I was out of the way;
for I knew I could do a great deal in an hour, and
I had faith that I might slur over my digest as quickly
as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within tne
time arranged.
I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which
a man may do anything in almost no time. But first,
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 89
I had to go into the conversation-room, and get the
oral news from my sailor; then Mr. H.. from one of
the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with
some Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted
from a skipper, who, with great plausibility, told him
that he knew his vessel had brought no news, for she
never had before. (N. B. In this instance she was the
only vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.)
And tiien I had handed to me by Mr. J., one of the
commercial gentlemen, a private letter from Rio Ja-
neiro, which had been lent him. After these delays,
with full materials, I sprang to work read, read,
read ; wonder, wonder, wonder ; guess, guess, guess ;
scratch, scratch, scratch ; and scribble, scribble, srrib-
ble, make the only transcript I can give of the opera-
tions which followed. At first, several of the other
gentlemen in the room sat around me ; but soon Mr.
C., having settled the deaths and marriages, and the
police and municipal reporters immediately after him,
screwed out their lamps and went home ; then the
editor himself, then the legislative reporters, then the
commercial editors, then the ship-news conductor, and
left me alone.
I envied them that they got through so much earlier
than usual, but scratched on, only interrupted by the
compositors coming in for the pages of my copy as
I finished them ; and finally, having made my Jast
translation from the last Boletin Extraordinary sprafg
up, shouting, "Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at
90 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
my watch. It was half past one!* I thought of
course it had stopped, no; and my last manuscript
page was numbered twenty-eight ! Had I been writ-
ing there five hours? Yes!
Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's
explosions to describe, you will understand how one
may be unconscious of the passage of time.
I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in
all Mr. Wentworth's house ; there was none in any
of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows ; f and the last carriage of
her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up
stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What
should I say, what could I say, to Julia ? Thus pon-
dering, I fell asleep.
If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late
hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure
curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell
which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a
page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and let
ters which had been left for me since morning, and the
newspapers of the day.
I am not writing a novel.
The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and
* Newspaper men of 1868 will be amused to think that half past
one was late in 1836. At that time the "Great "Western Mail" was
due in Boston at 6 P. M., and there was no later news except "local,"
or an occasional horse express.
t The reader will observe the Arcadian habits of 1836, when the Ger-
man was yet vnknown.
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 91
went down to breakfast. As I sat at the littered
table which every one else had left, dreading to attack
my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the morn-
ing papers, and received some little consolation from
them. There was the Argus with its three columns
and a half of " Important from South America,"
while none of the other papers had a square of any
intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the
Argus the day before. I felt a grim smile creeping
over my face as I observed this signal triumph of
our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black
broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there
were any glaring misprints in it. Before I took the
second sip, however, a loud peal at the door-bell an-
nounced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was
brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's hand-
writing.
" DEAR GEORGE : Don't be angry ; it was not
my fault, really it was not. Grandfather came home
just as I was leaving last night, and was so angry,
and said I should not go to the party, and I had to
sit with him all the evening. Do write to me or
let me see you ; do something "
What a load that note took off my mind ! And yet,
what must the poor girl have suffered ! Could the
old man suspect ? Singleton was true to me as steel, I
knew. He could not have whispered, nor Barry ;
92 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOP
out that Jane, Barry's wife. O woman ! woman 1
what newsmongers they are ! Here were Julia and
I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane
Barry might have a good story to tell. What right
had Barry to a wife ? Not four years out of college,
and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had
been fool enough to trust even him with the particu-
lars of my all-important secret ! But here I was again
interrupted, coffee-cup still full, toast still untasted, by
another missive.
" Tuesday morning.
" SIR : I wish to see you this morning. Will you
call upon me, or appoint a time and place where I
may meet you ?
"Yours, JEDEDIAH WENT WORTH."
" Send word by the bearer."
" Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at
eleven o'clock."
The cat was certainly out ; Mrs. Barry had told, or
some one else had, who I did not know and hardly
cared. The scene was to come now, and I was almost
glad of it. Poor Julia ! what a time she must have
had with the old bear !
At eleven o'clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth's
sitting-room. Julia was there, but before I had even
O
spoken to her the old gentleman came bustling across
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. yd
the room, with his "Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose"; and
then followed a formal introduction between me and
her, which both of us bore with the most praiseworthy
fortitude and composure, neither evincing, even by a
glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other
before. Here was another weight off my mind and
Julia's. I had wronged poor Mrs. Barry. The
secret was not out what could he want ? It very
soon appeared.
After a minute's discussion of the weather, the
snow, and the thermometer, the old gentleman drew
up his chair to mine, with " I think, sir, you are con-
nected with the Argus office ? "
" Yes, sir ; I am its South American editor."
" Yes ! " roared the old man, in a sudden rage.
" Sir, I wish South America was sunk in the depths
of the sea ! "
" I am sure I do, sir," replied I, glancing at Julia,
who did not, however, understand me. I had not
fully passed out of my last night's distress.
My sympathizing zeal soothed the old gentleman a
little, and he said more coolly, in an undertone: "Well,
sir, you are well informed, no doubt ; tell me, in strict
secrecv, sir, between you and me, do you do you
place full credit entire confidence in the intelligence
a this morning's paper?"
"Excuse me, sir; what paper do you allude to?
Ah ! the Argus, I see. Certainly, sir ; I have not
the least doubt that it is perfectly correct."
94 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
"No doubt, sir! Do you mean to insult rne ?
Julia, I told you so ; he says there is no doubt it is
true, Tell me again there is some mistake, will
you ? " The poor girl had been trying to soothe him
with the constant remark of uninformed people, that
the newspapers are always in the wrong. He turned
from her, and rose from his chair in a positive rage.
She was half crying. I never saw her more dis-
tressed. What did all this mean ? Were one, two,
or all of us crazy ?
It soon appeared. After pacing the length of the
room once or twice, Wentworth came up to me again,
and, attempting to appear cool, said between his closed
lips : " Do you say you have no doubt that Rio
Janeiro is strictly blockaded ? "
" Not the slightest in the world," said I, trying to
seem unconcerned.
" Not the slightest, sir ? What are you so impudent
and cool about it for ? Do you think you are talking
of the opening of a rose-bud or the death of a mos-
quito? Have you no sympathy with the sufferings
of a fellow-creature ? Why, sir ! ' ; and the old man's
teeth chattered as he spoke, " I have five cargoes of
flour on their way to Rio, and their captains will
Damn it, sir, I shall lose the whole venture."
The secret was out. The old fool had been sending
flour to Rio, knowing as little of the state of affairs
there as a child.
'* And do you really mean, sir," continued the old
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 95
man, " that there is an embargo in force in Monte
Video?"
" Certainly, sir ; but I 'm very sorry for it."
" Sorry for it ! of course you are ; and that all
foreigners are sent out of Buenos Ayres? "
" Undoubtedly, sir. I wish "
" Who does not wish so ? Why, sir, my correspond-
ing friends there are half across the sea by this
time. I wish Rosas was in and that the Indians
have risen near Maranham ? "
" Undoubtedly, sir."
" Undoubtedly ! I tell you, sir, I have two vessels
waitinor for caro-oes of India-rubbers there, under a
O O '
blunder-headed captain, who will do nothing he has
not been bidden to, obey his orders if he breaks his
owners. You smile, sir ? Why, I should have made
thirty thousand dollars this winter, sir, by my India-
rubbers, if we had not had this devilish mild, open
weather, you and Miss Julia there have been prais-
ing so. But next winter must be a severe one, and
with those India-rubbers I should have made But
now those Indians, pshaw! And a revolution in
Chili ? "
" Yes, sir."
" No trade there ! And in Venezuela ? "
" Yes, sir."
" Yes, sir ; yes, sir ; yes, sir ; yes, sir ! Sir, I am
ruined. Say ' Yes, sir,' to that. I have thirteen
ressels at this moment in the South American trade.
96 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
BIT ; say * Yes, sir,' to that. Half of them will be
taken by the piratical scoundrels ; say ' Yes, sir,' to
that. Their insurance will not cover them ; say ' Yes,
sir,' to that. The other half will forfeit their cargoes,
or sell them for next to nothing ; say * Yes, sir,' to
that. I tell you I am a ruined man, and I wish the
South America, and your daily Argus, and you "
Here the old gentleman's old-school breeding got
the better of his rage, and he sank down in his arm-
chair, and, bursting into tears, said : " Excuse me,
air, excuse me, sir, I am too warm."
We all sat for a few moments in silence, but then I
took my share of the conversation. I wish you could
have seen the old man's face light up little by little, as
I showed him that to a person who understood the
politics and condition of the mercurial country with
which he had ignorantly attempted to trade, his condi-
tion was not near so bad as he thought it ; that though
one port was blockaded, another was opened ; that
though one revolution thwarted him, a few weeks
would show another which would favor him ; that the
goods which, as he saw, would be worthless at the
port to which he had sent them, would be valuable
elsewhere ; that the vessels which would fail in secur-
ing the cargoes he had ordered could secure others ;
that the very revolutions and wars which troubled him
would require in some instances large government
purchases, perhaps large contracts for freight, possibly
even for passage, his vessels might be used for trans-
THE SOUTH AMERICAS EDITOR. 97
ports; that the very excitement of some districts
might be made to turn to our advantage ; that, in
short, there were a thousand chances open to him
which skilful agents could readily improve. I re-
minded him that a quick run in a clipper schoonei
could carry directions to half these skippers of his. to
whom, with an infatuation which I could not and
cannot conceive, he had left no discretion, and who
indeed were to be pardoned if they could use none,
seeing the tumult as they did with only half an eye.
I talked to him for half an hour, and went into details
to show that my plans were not impracticable. The old
gentleman grew brighter and brighter, and Julia, as I
saw, whenever I stole a glance across the room, fell
happier and happier. The poor girl had had a hard
time since he had first heard this news whispered the
evening before.
His difficulties were not over, however ; for when I
talked to him of the necessity of sending out one or
two skilful agents immediately to take the personal
superintendence of his complicated affairs, the old man
sighed, and said he had no skilful agents to send.
With his customary suspicion, he had no partners,
and had never intrusted his clerks with any general
insight into his business. Besides, he considered them
all, like his captains, blunder-headed to the last degree.
I believe it was an idea of Julia's, communicated to
me in an eager, entreating glance, which induced me to
propose myself as one of these confidential agents,
n
98 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
and to be responsible for the other. I thought, as 1
spoke, of Singleton, to whom I knew I could explain
my plans in full, and whose mercantile experience
would make him a valuable coadjutor. The old gen-
tleman accepted my offer eagerly. I told him that
twenty-four hours were all I wanted to prepare my-
self. He immediately took measures for the charter of
two little clipper schooners which lay in port then ;
and before two days were past, Singleton and I were
on our voyage to South America. Imagine, if you
can, how these two days were spent. Then, as now,
I could prepare for any journey in twenty minutes, and
of course I had no little time at my disposal for last
words with Mr. and Miss Wentworth. How I won
on the old gentleman's heart in those two days ! How
he praised me to Julia, and then, in as natural affec-
tion, how he praised her to me ! And how Julia and
I smiled through our tears, when, in the last good-bys,
he said he was too old to write or 1'ead any but busi-
ness letters, and charged me and her to keep up a
close correspondence, which on one side should tell all
that I saw and did, and on the other hand remind me
of all at home.
I have neither time nor room to give the details ol
that South American expedition. I have no right to.
There were revolutions accomplished in those days
without any object in the world's eyes ; and, even in
mine, only serving to sell certain cargoes of long
TEE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 99
cloths and flour. The details of those outbreaks now
told would make some patriotic presidents tremble in
their seats ; and I have no right to betray confidence
at whatever rate I purchased it. Usually, indeed, my
feats and Singleton's were only obtaining the best in-
formation and communicating the most speedy instruc-
tions to Mr. Wentworth's vessels, which were made to
move from port to port with a rapidity and intricacy of
movement which none besides us two understood in
the least. It was in that expedition that I travelled
almost alone across the continent. I was, I think, the
first white man who ever passed through the mountain
path of Xamaulipas, now so famous in all the Chilian
picturesque annuals. I was carrying directions for
some vessels which had gone round the Cape ; and
what a time Burrows and Wheatland and I had a
week after, when we rode into the public square of
Valparaiso shouting, " Muera la Constitucion, Viva
Libertad ! " by our own unassisted lungs actually
raising a rebellion, and, which was of more impor-
tance, a prohibition on foreign flour, while Bahamarra
and his army were within a hundred miles of us.
How those vessels came up the harbor, and how we
unloaded them, knowing that at best our revolution
could only last five days ! But as I said, I must bo
careful, or I shall be telling other people's secrets.
The result of that expedition was that those thirteen
vessels all made good outward voyages, and all but
one or two eventually made profitable home voyages.
100 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR.
When I returned home, the old gentleman received
me with open arms. I had rescued, as he said, a large
share of that fortune which he valued so highly. To
say the truth, I felt and feel that he had planned
his voyages so blindly, that, without some wiser head
than his, they would never have restilted in anything.
They were his last, as they were almost his first, South
American ventures. He returned to his old course of
more methodical trading for the few remaining years
of his life. They were, thank Heaven, the only taste of
mercantile business which I ever had. Living as I
did, in the very sunshine of Mr. Wentworth's favor,
I went through the amusing farce of paying my ad-
dresses to Julia in approved form, and in due time re-
ceived the old gentleman's cordial assent to our union,
and his blessing upon it. In six months after my re-
turn, we were married ; the old man as happy as a
king. He would have preferred a little that the cere-
mony should have been performed by Mr. B , his
friend and pastor, but readily assented to my wishes
to call upon a dear and early friend of my own.
Harry Barry came from Topsham and performed
the ceremony, " assisted by Rev. Mr. B."
AEQUS COTTAGE, April 1, 1842.
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO
FACE.
A THUMB-XAIL SKETCH.
[Tni3 essay was published in Sartain's Magazine, in 1852,
as " A Thumb-nail Sketch," having received one of ten premi-
ums which Mr. Sartain offered to encourage young writers. Il
had been written a few years earlier, some time before the studies
of St. Paul's life by Conybeare and Howson, now so well known,
were made public. The chronology of my essay does not precise-
ly agree with that of these distinguished scholars. But I make
no attempt now either to recast the essay or to discuss the deli-
cate and complicated questions which belong to the chronology
of Paul's life or to that of Xero ; for there is no question with
regard to the leading facts. At the end of twenty years I may
again express the wish that some master competent to the great-
est themes might take the trial of Paul as the subject of a pic-
ture.]
Is a Roman audience-chamber, the old civilization
and the new civilization brought out, at the very birth
of the new, their chosen champions.
In that little scene, as in one of Rembrandt's thumb-
nail studios for a great picture, the lights and shades
are as distinct as they will ever be in the largest scene
102 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
of history. The champions were perfect representa-
tives of the parties. And any man, with the soul of
a man, looking on, conld have prophesied the issue of
the great battle from the issue of that contest.
The old civilization of the Roman Empire, just at
that time, had reached a point which, in all those
outward forms which strike the eye, would regard
our times as mean indeed. It had palaces of marble,
where even modern kings would build of brick with
a marble front to catch the eye ; it counted its armies
by thousands, where we count ours by hundreds ; it
surmounted long colonnades with its exquisite statues,
for which modern labor digs deep in ruined cities, be-
cause it cannot equal them from its own genius ; it
had roads, which are almost eternal, and which, for
their purposes, show a luxury of wealth and labor
that our boasted locomotion cannot rival. These are
its works of a larger scale. And if you enter the
palaces, you find pictures of matchless worth, rich
dresses which modern looms cannot rival, and sump-
tuous furniture at which modern times can only won-
der. The outside of the ancient civilization is unequalled
by the outside of ours, and for centuries will be un-
equalled by it. We have not surpassed it there. And
\ve see how it attained this distinction, such as it was.
It came by the constant concentration of power.
Power in few hands is the secret of its display and
glory. And thus that form of civilization attained ha
very climax in the moment of the greatest unity of
THE OLD AND THE NEW, PACE TO PACE. 103
the .Roman Empire. When the Empire nestled into
rest, after the convulsions in which it was born ; when
a generation had passed away of those who had been
Roman citizens ; when a generation arose, which, ex-
cepting one man, the emperor, was a nation of Roman
subjects, then the Empire was at its height of power,
its centralization was complete, the system of its civi-
lization was at the zenith of its success.
At that moment it was that there dawned at Rome
the first tray morninor-liaht of the new civilization.
^* .
At that moment it was that that short scene, in that
one chamber, contrasted the two as clearly as they can
be contrasted even in long centuries.
There is one man, the emperor, who is a precise
type, an exact representative, of the old. That man is
brought face to face with another who is a precise
type, an exact representative, of the new.
Only look at them as they stand there ! The man
who best illustrates the old civilization owes to it the
most careful nurture. From his childhood he has
been its petted darling. Its principal is concentration
under one head. He is that head. When he is a child,
men know he will be emperor of the world. The
wise men of the world teach him ; the poets of the
world flatter him ; the princes of the world bow to
him. He is trained in all elegant accomplishments ;
he is led forward through a graceful, luxurious society.
His bearing is that of an emperor; his face is the face
of fine physical beauty. Imagine for yourself the
104 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
sensual countenance of a young Bacchus, beautiful as
Milton's devils : imagine him clad in splendor before
which even English luxury is mean ; arrayed in
jewels, to which even Eastern pomp is tinsel ; im-
agine an expression of tired hate, of low, brutal lust,
hanging on those exquisite licentious features, and you
have before you the type of Roman civilization. It is
the boy just budding into manhood, whom later times
will name as the lowest embodiment of meanness and
cruelty ! You are looking upon Nero !
Not only is this man an exact type of the ancient civ-
ilization, its central power, its outside beauty, but the
precise time of this sketch of ours is the exact climax
of the moral results of the ancient civilization. We
are to look at Nero just when he has returned to
Rome from a Southern journey.* That journey had
one object, which succeeded. To his after-life it gives
one memory, which never dies. He has travelled to
his beautiful country palace, that he might kill his
mother !
We can picture to ourselves Agrippina, by knowing
that she was Nero's mother, and our picture will not
fail in one feature. She has all the beauty of sense,
all the attraction of passion. Indeed, she is the Em-
press of Rome, because she is queen of beauty <
and of lust. She is most beautiful among the beauti-
ful of Rome ; but what is that beauty of feature in a
state of whose matrons not one is virtuous, of whose
* Anno Chris ti, 60.
THE OLD AND THE NEW. FACE TO FACE. 105
daughters not one is chaste ? It is the beauty of sense
alone, fit adornment of that external grandeur, of that
old society.
In the infancy of her son, this beautiful Ajfrippina
consulted a troop of fortune-tellers as to his fate ; and
they told her that he would live to be Emperor of
Rome, and to kill his mother. With all the ecstasy
of a mother's pride fused so strangely with all the ex-
cess of an ambitious woman's love of power, she cried
in answer, " He may kill me, if only he rules
Rome ! " *
She spoke her own fate in these words.
Here is the account of it by Tacitus. Nero had
made all the preparations ; had arranged a barge, that of
a sudden its deck might fall heavily upon those in the
cabin, and crush them in an instant. He meant thus
to give to the murder which he planned the aspect of an
accident. To this fatal vessel he led Agrippina. He
talked with her affectionately and gravely on the way ;
" and when they parted at the lakeside, with his old
boyish familiarity he pressed her closely to his heart,
either to conceal his purpose, or because the last sight
of a mother, on the eve of death, touched even his
cruel nature, and then bade her farewell."
Just at the point upon the lake where he had
directed, as the Empress sat in her cabin talking with
her attendants, the treacherous deck was L-t fall upon
them all. But the plot failed. She saw dead at her
* Tacit. Annal., xiv. 9
5*
106 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
feet one of her favorites, crushed by the sudden blow,
But she had escaped it. She saw that death awaited
them all upon the vessel. The men around sprang for-
ward, ready to do their master's bidding in a less clumsy
and more certain way. But the Empress, with one of her
attendants, sprang from the treacherous vessel into the
less treacherous waves. And there, this faithful friend
of hers, with a woman's wit and a woman's devotion,
drew on her own head the blows and stabs of the mur-
derers above, by crying, as if in drowning, " Save me,
I am Nero's mother ! " Uttering those words of self-
devotion, she was killed by the murderers above, while
the Empress, in safer silence, buoyed up by fragments
of the wreck, floated to the shore.
Nero had failed thus in secret crime, and yet he
knew that he could not stop here. And the next day
after his mother's deliverance, he sent a soldier to her
palace, with a guard ; and there, where she was de-
serted even by her last attendant, without pretence
of secrecy, they put to death the daughter and the
mother of a Caasar. And Nero only waits to look
with a laugh upon the beauty of the corpse, before he
returns to resume his government at Rome.
That moment was the culminating moment of the
ancient civilization. It is complete in its centralizing
power ; it is complete in its external beauty ; it is
complete in its crime. Beautiful as Eden to the eye,
with luxury, with comfort, with easy indolence to all ;
but dust and ashes beneath the surface ! It is cor-
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO PACE. 107
rnpted at the head ! It is corrupted at the heart 1
There is nothing firm !
This is the moment which I take for our little pic-
ture At this very moment there is announced the
first germ of the new civilization. In the very midst
of this falsehood, there sounds one voice of truth ; in
the very arms of this giant, there plays the baby boy
who is to cleave him to the ground. This Nero slowly
returns to the city. He meets the congratulations of
a senate, which thank him and the gods that he has
murdered his own mother. "With the agony of an undy-
ing conscience torturing him, he strives to avert care by
amusement. He hopes to turn the mob from despising
him by the grandeur of their public entertainments.
He enlarges for them the circus. He calls unheard-of
beasts to be baited and killed for their enjoyment.
The finest actors rant, the sweetest musicians sing,
that Nero may forget his mother, and that his people
may forget him.
At that period, the statesmen who direct the ma-
chinery of affairs inform him that his personal atten-
tion is required one morning for a state trial, to be
argued before the Emperor in person. Must the Em-
peror be there ? May he not waste the hours in the
blandishments of lying courtiers, or the honeyed false-
hoods of a mistress ? If he chooses thus to postpone
the audience, be it so; Seneca, Burrhus, and his other
counsellors will obey. But the time will come when
the worn-out boy will be pleased some morning with
108 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
the almost forgotten majesty of state. The time cornea
one day. Worn out by the dissipation of the week,
fretted by some blunder of his flatterers, he sends for
his wiser counsellors, and bids them lead him to the
audience-chamber, where he will attend to these cases
which need an Emperor's decision. It is at that mo-
ment that we are to look upon him.
He sits there, upon that unequalled throne, his face
sickly pale with boyish debauchery; his young fore-
head worn with the premature sensual wrinkles of
lust ; and his eyes bloodshot with last night's intem-
perance. He sits there, the Emperor-boy, vainly trying
to excite himself, and forget her, in the blazonry of
that pomp, and bids them call in the prisoner.
A soldier enters, at whose side the prisoner has
been chained for years. This soldier is a tried veteran
of the Praetorian cohorts. He was selected, that
from him this criminal could not escape ; and for
that purpose they have been inseparably bound. But,
as he leads that other through the hall, he looks at
him. with a regard and earnestness which say he is no
criminal to him. Long since, the criminal has been
the guardian of his keeper. Long since, the keeper
has cared for the prisoner with all the ardor of a new-
found son's affection.
They load that gray-haired captive forward, and
with his eagle eye he glances keenly round the hull.
That flashing eye has ere now bade monarchs quail ;
and those thin lips have uttered words which shall
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 109
make the world ring till the last moment of the world
shall come. The stately Eastern captive moves uu-
awed through the assembly, till he makes a subject's
salutation to the Emperor-judge who is to hear him.
And when, then, the gray-haired sage kneels before
the sensual boy, you see the prophet of the new
civilization kneel before the monarch of the old! You
see Paul make a subject's formal reverence to Xero ! *
Let me do justice to the court which is to try him.
In that judgment-hall there are not only the pomp of
Rome, and its crime ; we have also the best of its wisdom.
By the dissolute boy, Nero, there stands the prime
minister Seneca, the chief of the philosophers of his
time ; " Seneca the saint," cry the Christians of the
next century. We will own him to be Seneca the
wise, Seneca almost the good. To this sage had been
given the education of the monster who was to rule
the world. This sage had introduced him into power,
had restrained his madness when he could, and with
his colleague had conducted the general administration
of the Empire with the greatest honor, while the boy
was wearing out his life in debauchery in the palace.
Seneca dared say more to Nero, to venture more with
him, than did anv other man. For the vouncr ti^er
- o o
was afraid of his old master long after he had tasted
blood. Yet Seneca's system was a cowardly system.
It was the best of Roman morality and Greek philoso-
phy, and still it was mean. His daring was the brav-
* Anno Christi, 60. See Neander, P. & T., B. iii, ch. x
110 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
est of the men of the old civilization. He is the typo
of their excellences, as is Nero the model of their
power and their adornments. And yet all that Seneca's
daring could venture was to seduce the baby-tyrant
into the least injurious of tyrannies. From the plun-
der of a province he would divert him by the carnage
of the circus. From the murder of a senator he could
lure him by some new lust at home. From the ruin
of the Empire, he could seduce him by diverting him
with the ruin of a noble family. And Seneca did
this with the best of motives. He said he used all
the power in his hands, and he thought he did. He
was one of those men of whom all times have their
share. The bravest of his time, he satisfied himself
with alluring the beardless Emperor by petty crime
from public wrong; he could flatter him to the ex-
pedient. He dared not order him to the right.
But Seneca knew what was right. Seneca also had
a well-trained conscience, which told him of right and
of wrong. Seneca's brother, Gallio, had saved Paul's
life when a Jewish mob would have dragged him to
pieces in Corinth ; and the legend is that Seneca and
Paul had corresponded with each other before they
stool together in Nero's presence, the one as counsel-
lor, the other as the criminal.* "When Paul arose
* This correspondence, as preserved in the collections of fragments,
has too much the aspect of a school-boy exercise to claim much credit,
though high authorities support it as genuine. But the probability
that there was such a correspondence, though now lost, is very strong.
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO PACE. Ill
from that formal salutation, when the apostle of the
new civilization spoke to the tottering monarch of the
old, if there had been one man in that assemblage,
could he have failed to see that that was a turning-
point in the world's history ? Before him in that little
hail, in that little hour, was passing the scene which
for centuries would be acted out upon the larger stage.
Faith on the one side, before expediency and
cruelty on the other ! Paul before Seneca and Nero !
He was ready to address Nero, with the eloquence
and vehemence which for years had been demanding
utterance.
He stood at length before the baby Caesar, to whose
tribunal he had appealed from the provincial court of
a doubting Festus and a trembling Agrippa.
And who shall ask what words the vigorous Chris-
tian spoke to the dastard boy ! Who that knows the
eloquence which rung out on the ears of astonished
Stoics at Athens, which commanded the incense and
the hecatombs of wandering peasants in Asia, which
stilled the gabbling clamor of a wild mob at Jerusa-
lem, who will doubt the tone in which Paul spoke
to Nero ! The boy quailed for the moment before the
man ! The gilded dotard shrunk back from the home
truths of the new, young, vigorous faith: the ruler
of a hundred legions was nothing before the God-
o o
commissioned prisoner.
No ; though at this audience all men forsook Paul,
as he tells us ; though not one of the timid converts
112 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
were there, but the soldier chained at his side, still ho
triumphed over Nero and Nero's minister.
From that audience-hall those three men retire.
The boy, grown old in lust, goes thence to be an hour
alone, to ponder for an hour on this God, this resur-
rection, and this truth, of which the Jew, in such un-
courtly phrase, has harangued him. To be alone, un-
til the spectre of a dying mother rises again to haunt
him, to persecute him and drive him forth to his fol-
lowers and feasters, where he will try to forget Paul
and the Saviour and God, where he would be glad to
banish them forever. He does not banish them for-
ever! Henceforward, whenever that spectre of a
mother comes before him, it must re-echo the words of
God and eternity which Paul has spoken. Whenever
the chained and bleeding captive of the arena bends
suppliant before him, there must return the memory
of the only captive who was never suppliant before
him, and his words of sturdy power !
And Seneca ? Seneca goes home with the morti-
fied feelings of a great man who has detected his own
meanness.
We all know the feeling ; for all God's children
might be great, and it is with miserable mortification
that we detect ourselves in one or another pettiness.
Seneca goes home to say: " This wild Easterner has
rebuked the Emperor as I have so often wanted to re-
buke him. He stood there, as I have wanted to stand,
a man before a brute.
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 113
* ( He said what I ha <*e thought, and have been afraid
to say. Downright, straightforward, he told the Em-
peror truths as to Rome, as to man, and as to his vices,
which I have longed to tell him. He has done what I
am afraid to do. He has dared this, which I have
dallied with, and left undone. What is the mystery of
his power?"
Seneca did not know. Nero did not know. The
* Eastern mystery " was in presence before them, and
they knew it not !
What was the mystery of Paul's power ?
Paul leaves them with the triumph of a man who
has accomplished the hope of long years. Those
solemn words of his, " After that, I must also see
Rome," expressed the longing of years, whose object
now, in part, at least, is gratified. He must see
Rome !
It is God's mission to him that he see Rome and its
Emperor. Paul has seen with the spirit's eye what
we have seen since in history, that he is to be the
living link by which the electric fire of life should
first from religious Asia to quicken this dead,
l.riiMsh Europe. He knows that he is God's messen-
ger to bear this mystery of life eternal from the one
land to the other, and to unfold it there. And to-day
has made real, in fact, this his inward confidence.
To-day has put the seal of fact on that vision of his,
years since, when he first left his Asiatic home. A
prisoner in chains, still he has to-day seen the accom-
114 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.
plishment of the vows, hopes, and resolutions of thai
field of Troy, most truly famous from the night he
spent there. There was another of these hours when
God brings into one spot the acts which shall be the
argument of centuries of history. Paul had come
down there in his long Asiatic journeys, Eastern in
his lineage, Eastern in his temperament, Eastern in
his outward life, and Eastern in his faith, to that
narrow Hellespont, which for long ages has separated
East from West, tore madly up the chains which
would unite them, overwhelmed even love when it
sought to intermarry them, and left their cliffs frown-
ing eternal hate from shore to shore. Paul stood
O
upon the Asian shore and looked across upon the
Western. There were Macedonia and the hills of
Greece, here Troas and the ruins of Ilium. The
names speak war. The blue Hellespont has no voice
but separation, except to Paul. But to Paul, sleep-
ing, it might be, on the tomb of Achilles, that night
the " man of Macedonia " appears, and bids him come
over to avenge Asia, to pay back the debt of Troy.
" Come over and help MS." Give us life, for we
gave you death. Give us help for we gave you ruin.
Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. The
Christian Alexander, he crosses to Macedon with
the words of peace instead of war, the Christian
shepherd of the people, he carries to Greece, from
Troy, the tidings of salvation instead of carnage, of
charity instead of license. And he knows that tc
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 115
Europe it is the beginning of her new civilization, it ig
the dawn of her new warfare, of her new poetry, of
her reisrn of heroes who are immortal.
O
That faith of his, now years old, has this day re-
ceived its crowning victory. This day, when he ha9
faced Nero and Seneca together, may well stand in
his mind as undoing centuries of bloodshed and of
license.
And in this effort, and in that spiritual strength
which had nerved him in planning it and carrying it
through, was the " Asian mystery." Ask what was
the secret of Paul's power as he bearded the baby
Emperor, and abashed the baby Philosopher ? What
did he give the praise to, as he left that scene ? What
was the principle in action there, but faith in the new
life, faith in the God who gave it !
We do not wonder, as Seneca wondered, that such
a man as Paul dared say anything to such a boy as
Nero ! The absolute courage of the new faith was
the motive-power which forced it upon the world.
Here were the sternest of morals driven forward with
the most ultra bravery.
Perfect faith gave perfect courage, to the first wit-
nesses. And there was the "mystery" of their vic-
tories.
And so, in this case, when after a while Seneca
again reminded Nero of his captive, poor Nero did not
dare but meet him again. Yet, when he met him
again in that same judgment-hall, he did not dare
116 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE 10 FACE.
hear him long ; and we may be sure that there were
but few words before, with such affectation of dig-
nity as he could summon, he bade them set the pris-
oner free.
Paul free ! The old had faced the new. Each
had named its champion. And the new conquers I
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
[THIS sketch was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly
for October, 1858, just at the time that the first Atlantic Cable,
whose first prattle had been welcomed by the acclamations of
a continent, gasped its last under the manipulations of De
Sauty. It has since been copied by Mr. Prescott in his valuable
hand-book of the electric telegraph.
The war, which has taught us all so much, has given a brilliant
illustration of the dot and line alphabet, wholly apart from the
electric use of it, which will undoubtedly be often repeated. In
the movements of our troops under General Foster in North
Carolina, Dr. J. B. Upham of Boston, the distinguished medical
director in that department, equally distinguished for the success
with which he has led forward the musical education of New Enw-
O
land, trained a corps of buglers to converse with each other by
long and short bugle-notes, and thus to carry information with
literal accuracy from point to point at any distance within which
the tones of a bugle could be heard. It will readily be seen that
there are many occasions in military affairs when such means of
conversation might prove of inestimable value. Mr. Tuttle, the
astronomer, on duty in the same campaign, made a similar ar-
rangement with long and short flashes of light.]
JUST in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph
vrhich takes its name from the Atlantic Monthly, I
118 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
read in the September number of that journal the rev-
elations of an observer who was surprised to find that
he had the power of reading, as they run, the reve-
lations of the wire. I had the hope that he was about
to explain to the public the more general use of this
instrument, which, with a stupid fatuity, the public
has as yet failed to grasp. Because its signals have
been first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and
afterwards by means of the chemical power of elec-
tricity, the many-headed people refuses to avail it-
self, as it might do very easily, of the same signals for
the simpler transmission of intelligence, whatever the
power employed.
The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and
alphabet. He himself eagerly disclaims any preten-
sion to the original conception of the use of electricity
as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought
of that and suggested it ; but Morse was the first to
give the errand-boy such a written message, that he
could not lose it on the way, nor mistake it when he
arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, as he de-
serves, thanks him for something he did not invent.
For this he probably cares very little ; nor do I care
more. But the public does not thank him for what
he did originate, this invaluable and simple alpha-
bet. Now, as I. use it myself in every detail of life,
and see every hour how the public might use it, if it
chose, I am really sorry for this negligence, both on
the score of his fame, and of general convenience.
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 119
Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that
this curious alphabet reduces all the complex machin-
ery of Cadmus and the rest of the writing-masters to
characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a space,
and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks .
designate the letter A. The marks . . . designate
the letter B. All the other letters are designated in
as simple a manner.
Now I am stripping myself of one of the private
comforts of my life, (but what will one not do for
mankind ?) when I explain that this simple alphabet
need not be confined to electrical signals. Long and
short make it all, and wherever long and short can
be combined, be it in marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-
fits, canes, or children, ideas can be conveyed by this
arrangement of the long and short together. Only last
night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at
a summer party at the Hammersmiths. To my amaze-
ment, my wife, who scarcely can play ' The Fish-
er's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. AVil-
berforce if she could give her the idea of an air in
"The Butcher of Turin." Mrs. Wilberforce had
never heard that opera, indeed, had never heard
of it. My angel-wife was surprised, stood thrum-
ming at the piano, wondered she could not catch
this very odd bit of discordant accord at all, but
checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed
that her long notes and short notes, in their turn-tee,
tee, tee-tee, tee-turn turn, meant, " He 's her brother."
120 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
The conversation on her side turned from " The Butcher
of Turin," and I had just time on the hint thus given
me by Mrs. I. to pass a grateful eulogium on the dis-
tinguished statesman whom Mrs. Wilberforce, with all
a sister's care, had rocked in his baby-cradle, whom,
but for my wife's long and short notes, I should have
clumsily abused among the other statesmen of the day.
You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that
it is not the business simply of " operators " in tele-
graphic dens to know this Morse alphabet, but your
business, and that of every man and woman. If our
school committees understood the times, it would be
taught, even before phonography or physiology, at
school. I believe both these sciences now precede the
old English alphabet.
As I write these words, the bell of the South Con-
gregational strikes dong, dong, dong, dong, dong,
dong, dong, dong, dong. Nobody has unlocked
the church-door. I know that, for I am locked up in
the vestry. The old tin sign, " In case of fire, the
key will be found at the opposite house," has long
since been taken down, and made into the nose of a
water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Twt)-Shoes locked
in. No one except me, and certainly I am not ring-
ing the bell. No ! But, thanks to Dr. Channing'a
Fire Alarm,* the bell is informing the South End that
o
* The Fire Alarm is the invention of Dr. William F. Charming:
" A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That whec in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring ia Notre Dame *
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. llll
there is a fire in District Dong-dong-dong, that i? tc
say. District Xo. o. Before I have explained to you
so far, the ' Eagle " engine, with a good deal of noise,
has parsed the house on its way to that fated district.
An immense improvement this on the old system,
when the engines radiated from their houses in every
possible direction, and the fire was extinguished by
the few machines whose lines of quest happened tc
cross each other at the particular place where the child
Lad been building cob-houses out of lucifer-matches in
a paper warehouse. Yes, it is a very great improve-
ment. All those persons, like you and me, who have
no property in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit
at home at ease ; and little need we think upon the
mud above the knees of those who have property in
that district and are running to look after it. But foi
them the improvement only brings misery. You arrive
wet, hot or cold, or both, at the large District No. 3, to
find that the lucifer-matches were half a mile away
from your store, and that your own private watch-
man, even, had not been waked by the working of tho
distant engines. Wet property holder, as you walk
home, consider this. When you are next in the Com-
mon Council, vote an appropriation for applying
Morse's alphabet of long and short to the bells. Then
they can be made to sound intelligibly. Daung ding
ding, ding, ding daung, daung daung dating,
and so on, will tell you as you wake in the night that it
is Mr. B.'s store which is on fire, and not yours, or that
6
122 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
it is yours and not his. This is not only a conven-
ience to you and a relief to your wife and family, who
will thus be spared your excursions to unavailable and
unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated return,
it will be a great relief to the Fire Department.
How placid the operations of a fire where none attend
except on business! The various engines arrive, but
no throng of distant citizens, men and boys, fearful of
the destruction of their all. They have all roused on
their pillows to learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street
which is in flames. All but the owner of No. 530
Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He alone
has rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who
stands in the uncrowded street with the Chief Engineer,
on the deck of No. 18, as she plays away. His prop-
erty destroyed, the engines retire, he mentions the
amount of his insurance to those persons who repre-
sent the daily press, they all retire to their homes,
and the whole is finished as simply, almost, as was hia
private entry in his day-book the afternoon before.*
This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only
struck long and short, and we had all learned Morse'?
alphabet. Indeed, there is nothing the bells could not
tell, if you would only give them time enough. We
have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the
* I am proud to say that such suggestions have had so much weight,
that in 1868 the alarm strikes the number of the box which first tele-
graphs danger, six-four, six-four, &c., six being the district number,
and four the box number in that district.
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 123
town. But, without attempting tunes, only give tho
bells the Morse alphabet, and every bell in Boston
might chant in monotone the words of " Hail Colum-
bia " at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr.
Barnard should report any day that a discouraged
'prentice-boy had left town for his country home, all
the bells could instantly be set to work to speak articu-
lately, in language regarding which the dullest imagi-
nation need not be at loss,
" Turn again, Higginbottom,
Lord Mayor of Boston ! "
1 have suggested the propriety of introducing this
alphabet into the primary schools. I need not say I
have taught it to my own children, and I have been
gratified to see how rapidly it made head, against
the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools.
Of course it does ; an alphabet of two characters
matched against one of twenty-six, or of forty-odd,
as the very odd one of the phonotypists employ ! On
the Franklin-medal day I went to the Johnson-School
examination. One of the committee asked a nice
girl what was the capital of Brazil. The child looked
tired and pale, and, for an instant, hesitated. But, be-
fore she had time to commit herself, all answering was
rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-
cough which one of my own sons was seized with,
who had gone to the examination with me. Hawm,
hem hem ; hem hem hem ; hem, heui ; hawm,
hem hem ; hem hem hem ; hem, hem, barked
124 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
the poor child, who was at the opposite extreme of the
school-room. The spectators and the committee looked
to see him fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I
confess that I felt no alarm, after I observed that some
of his gasps were long and some very staccato ; nor
did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered her
color, and, as soon as silence was in the least restored,
answered, ''Rio is the capital of Brazil/' as modestly
and properly as if she had been taught it in her cradle.
They are nothing but children, any of them, but
that afternoon, after they had done all the singing
the city needed for its annual entertainment of the
singers, I saw Bob and Mabel start for a long ex-
pedition into West Roxbury, and when he came
back, I know it was a long featherfew, from her
prize school-bouquet, that he pressed in his Greene's
" Analysis," with a short frond of maiden's hair.
I hope nobody will write a letter to " The Atlantic,"
to say that these are very trifling uses. The commu-
nication of useful information is never trifling. It is
as important to save a nice child from mortification on
examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he
is not elected President. If, however, the reader is
distressed, because these illustrations do not seem to
his more benighted observation to belong to the big
How-wow strain of human life, let him consider the
arrangement which ought to have been made years
since, for lee shores, railroad collisions, and that curious
class of maritime accidents where one steamer runs
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 125
into mother under the impression that she is a light
house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a steam-
whistle, which is often heard five miles. It needs
only long and short again. " Stop Comet" for instance,
when you send it down the railroad line, by the wire,
is expressed thus : ... ,
Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the
telegraph station when it comes ! But what if Comet
has gone by ? Much good will your trumpery mes-
sage do then ! If, however, you have the wit to sound
your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus;
Sere sere, sere ; screeee ; sere sere ; sere sere sere sere
sere ; sere sere sere, sere sere ; screeeee screeeee ;
sere ; screeeee ; why, then the whole neighborhood,
for five miles around, will know that Comet must
stop, if only they understand spoken language, and
among others, the engineman of Comet will under-
stand it ; and Comet will not run into that wreck of
worlds which gives the order, with the nucleus of
hot iron and his tail of five hundred tons of coal.
So, of the signals which fog-bells can give, attached
to light-houses. How excellent to have them pi'oclaim
through the darkness, " I am Wall " ! Or of signals
for steamship-engineers. When our friends were on
board the u Arabia " the other day, and she and the
"Europa" pitched into each mother, as if, on that
happy week, all the continents were to kiss and join
hands all round, how great the relief to the passen-
126 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
gers on each, if, through every night of their passage,
collision had been prevented by this simple expedient!
One boat would have screamed, " Europa, Europa,
Europa," from night to morning, and the other,
" Arabia, Arabia, Arabia," and neither would have
been mistaken, as one unfortunately was, for a light-
house.
The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark
distinctions of time can use this alphabet of long-and-
diort, however he may mark them. It is therefore
within the compass of all intelligent beings, except
those who are no longer conscious of the passage ot
time, having exchanged its limitations for the widei
sweep of eternity. The illimitable range of this al
phabet, however, is not half disclosed when this has
been said. Most articulate language addresses itself
to one sense, or at most to two, sight and sound. I
see, as I Avrite, that the particular illustrations I have
given are all of them confined to signals seen or signals
heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the few years
of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted
to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all.
Its message, of course, is heard as well as read. Any
good operator understands the sounds of its ticks upor
the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he sees it
A.S he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound thfc
passing message without striking a light to see it
But this is only what may be said of any written Ian
guage. You can read this article to your wife, or she
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 127
can read it, as she prefers ; that is, she chooses whether
it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-gnd-
short alphabet of Morse and his imitators despises
such narrow range. It addresses whichever of the
five senses the listener chooses. This fact is illustrated
by a curious set of anecdotes, never yet put in print,
I think, of that critical despatch which in one night
announced General Taylor's death to this whole land.
Most of the readers of these lines probably read that
despatch in the morning's paper. The compositors
and editors had read it. To them it was a despatch
to the eye. But half the operators at the stations
Jieard it ticked out, by the register stroke, and knew
it before they wrote it down for the press. To them
it was a despatch to the ear. My good friend Langen-
zunge had not that resource. He had just been prom-
ised, by the General himself (under whom he served
at Palo Alto), the office of Superintendent of the
Rocky Mountain Lines. He was returning from
Washington over the Baltimore and Ohro Railroad, on
a freight-train, when he heard of the President's dan-
ger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready,
and he felt badly about his own office, too. But his
extempore train chose to stop at a forsaken shanty -vil-
lage on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at mid-
night. What does he do, but walk down the line into
the darkness, climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and
applied the two ends to his tongue, to taste, at the fatal
moment, the words, " Died at half past ten." Poor
128 THE DOT AXD LINE ALPHABET.
Langerizunge ! he hardly had nerve to solder the wire
again. Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the
Naguadavick stations with Bain's chemical revolving
disk. This disk is charged with a salt of potash,
whbh, when the electric spark passes through it, is
changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is noise-
lessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the
disk started on that fatal despatch, and Cogs bent over
it to read, his spirit-lamp blew up, as the dear things
will. They were beside themselves in the lonely,
dark office ; but, while the men were fumbling for
matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a
sweet blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from
Dr. Howe at South Boston, bent over the chemical
paper, and smelt out the prussiate of potash, as it formed
itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. Almost
anybody used to reading the blind books can read the
embossed Morse messages with the finger, and so
this message was read at all the midnight way-stations
where no night-work is expected, and where the com-
panies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow
chvle of acquaintance, therefore, there were these
simultaneous instances, where the same message was
sec-n, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So universal is
the dot-a n d-iinc alphabet, for Bain's is on the same
principle as Morse's.
The reader sees, therefore, first, ihat the dot-and-
line alphabet c?.n be employed by any being who has
command of any long and short symbols, be they
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 129
iong and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept
his accounts with, or long and short waves of electrici-
ty, such as these which Valentia is sending across to
the Newfoundland bay, so prophetically and appropri-
ately named " The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope the
reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any
intelligent being who has any one of the five senses
left him, by all rational men, that is, excepting the
few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and
smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's
telegraph is by no means, confined to the small clique
who possess or who understand electrical batteries. It
is not only the torpedo or the Crymnotus electricus that
can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the
sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they
will only note the difference between long spoutings
and snort ones. And they can listen, too. If they
will only note the difference between long and short,
the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin
the smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish,
in his darkness, look fearless on the secrets of a Queen.
Any beast, bird, fish, or insect, which can discriminate
between long and short, may use the telegraph alpha-
bet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which
can hear, smell, taste, feel, or see, may take note of its
signals, if he can understand them. A tired listener
at church, by properly varying his long yawns and his
short ones, may express his opinion of the sermon to
the opposite gallery before the sermon is done. A
6*
130 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.
dumb tobacconist may trade with his customers m an
alphabet of short-sixes and long-nines. A beleaguered
Sevastopol may explain its wants to the relieving army
beyond the line of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its
short Paixhans and its long twenty-fours.
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE
[I HAD some opportunities, which no other writer for the press
had, I believe, of examining the Resolute on her return from
that weird voyage which is the most remarkable in the history
of the navies of the world. And, as I know of no other printed
record of the whole of that voyage than this, which was published
in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June 11, 1856, I reprint it
here. Readers should remember that the English government
abandoned all claim on the vessel ; that the American government
then bought her of the salvors, refitted her completely, and sent
her to England as a present to the Queen. The Queen visited
the ship, and accepted the present in person. The Resolute has
never since been to sea, I do not load the page with authorities ;
but I studied the original reports of the Arctic expeditions care-
fully in preparing the paper, and I believe it to be accurate
throughout.
The voyage from New London to England, when she was thus
returned, is strictly her last voyage. But when this article was
printed its name was correct.]
IT was in early spring in 1852, early on the morn-
ing of the 21st of April, that the stout English dis-
covery ship Resolute, manned by a large crew, com-
manded by a most manly man, Henry Kellett, left ber
132 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
moorings in the great river Thames, a little below the
old town of London, was taken in tow by a fussy
steam -tug, and proudly started as one of a fine English
squadron in the great search of the nations for the lost
Sir John Franklin. It was late in the year 1855, on
the 24th of December, that the same ship, weather-
worn, scantily rigged, without her lighter masts, all in
the trim of a vessel which has had a hard fight with
wind, water, ice, and time, made the light-house of
New London, waited for day and came round to an-
chor in the other river Thames, of New England.
Not one man of the English crew was on board. The
gallant Captain Kellett was not there ; but in his place
an American master, who had shown, in his way, equal
gallantry. The sixty or seventy men with whom she
sailed were all in their homes more than a year ago.
The eleven men with whom she returned had had to
double parts, and to work hard to make good the
places of the sixty. And between the day when the
Englishmen left her, and the day* the Americans found
her, she had spent fifteen months and more alone.
She was girt in by the ice of the Arctic seas. No
man knows where she went, what narrow scapes she
passed through, how low her thermometers marked
cold ; it is a bit of her history which was never
written. Nor what befell her little tender, the " In-
trepid," which was left in her neighborhood, " ready
for occupation," just as she was left. No man will
ever tell of the nip that proved too much for her,
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 133
of the opening of her seams, and her disappearance
beneath the ice. But here is the hardy Resolute,
which, on the loth of May, 1854, her brave command-
er left, as he was ordered, " ready for occupation,"
which the brave Captain Buddington found Septem-
ber 10, 1855, more than a thousand miles from there,
and pronounced still "re^dyfor occupation"; and
of what can be known of her history from Old London
to New London, from Old England's Thames to New
England's Thames, we will try to tell the story ; as it
is written in the letters of her old officers and told by
the lips of her new rescuers.
For Arctic work, if ships are to go into every nook
and lane of ice that will yield at all to wind and steam,
they must be as nearly indestructible as man can make
them. For Arctic work, therefore, and for discovery
work, ships built of the teak wood of Malabar and Java
are considered most precisely fitted. Ships built of
teak are said to be wholly indestructible by time. To
this we owe the fact, which now becomes part of a
strange coincidence, that one of the old Captain Cook's
ships which went round the world with him has been,
till within a few years, a whaling among the American
whalers, revisiting, as a familiar thing, the shores which
she was first to discover. The English admiralty,
eager to fit out for Arctic service a ship of the best
build they could find, bought the two teak-built ships
Baboo and Ptarmigan in 1850, sent them to their own
dock-yards to be refitted, and the Baboo became the
134 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
Assistance, the Ptarmigan became the Resolute, of
their squadrons of Arctic discovery.
Does the reader know that in the desolation of the
Arctic shores the Ptarmigan is the bird most often
found? It is the Arctic grouse or partridge,* and
often have the ptarmigans of Melville Island furnished
sport and even dinners to the hungry officers of the
" Resolute," wholly unconscious that she had ever been
their god-child, and had thrown off their name only to
take that which she now wears.
Early in May, 1850, just at the time we now know-
that brave Sir John Franklin and the remnant of his
crew were dvin of starvation at the mouth of Back's
' ~
River, the " Resolute " sailed first for the Arctic seas,
the flag-ship of Commodore Austin, with whose little
squadron our own De Haven and his men had such
pleasant intercourse near Beechey Island. In the
course of that expedition she wintered off Cornwallis
Island, and in autumn of the next year returned to
England.
~
Whenever a squadron or a man or an army returns
to England, unless in the extreme and exceptional case
of complete victory over obstacle invincible, there is
always dissatisfaction. This is the English way. And
BO there was dissatisfaction when Captain Austin re-
turned with his ships and men. There was also still
a lingering hope that some trace of Franklin might yet
be found, perhaps some of his party. Yet more, .there
* Tetrao lagopus.
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 135
were two of the searching ships which had entered the
Polar seas from Behring's Straits on the west, the
" Enterprise " and " Investigator," which might need
relief before they came through or returned. Arctic
search became a passion by this time, and at once a
new squadron was fitted out to take the seas in the
spring of 1852. This squadron consisted of the " As-
sistance " and " Resolute " again, which had been re-
fitted since their return, of the " Intrepid " and " Pio-
neer," two steamships used as tenders to the " Assist-
ance " and " Resolute " respectively, and of the " Xorth
Star," which had also been in those regions, and now
went as a storeship to the rest of the squadron. To
the command of the whole Sir Edward Belcher was
appointed, an officer who had served in some of the
earlier Arctic expeditions. Officers and men volun-
teered in full numbers for the service, and these five
vessels therefore carried out a body of men who brought
more experience of the Northern seas together than
any expedition which had ever visited them.
Of these, Captain Henry Kellett had command of
the " Resolute," and was second in seniority to Sir
Edward Belcher, who made the "Assistance " the flacr-
' O
ship. It shows what sort of man he was, to say that
for more than ten years he spent onlv part of one in
England, and was the rest of the time in an antipodean
hemisphere or a hyperborean zone. Before brave Sir
John Franklin sailed, Captain Kellett was in the Pa-
cific. Just as he was to return home, he was ordered
136 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
into the Arctic seas to search for Sir John. Three
years successively, in his ship the " Herald," he passed
inside Behring's Straits, and far into the Arctic Ocean.
He discovered " Herald Island," the farthest land
known there. He was one of the last men to see Mc-
Clure in the " Investigator " before she entered the
Polar seas from the northwest. He sent three of his
men on board that ship to meet them all again, as will
be seen, in strange surroundings. After more than
seven years of this Pacific and Arctic life, he returned
to England, in May or June, 1851, and in the next
winter volunteered to try the eastern approach to the
same Arctic seas in our ship, the "Resolute." Some
of his old officers sailed with him.
We know nothing of Captain Kellett but what his
own letters, despatches, and instructions show, as they
are now printed in. enormous parliamentary blue-books,
and what the despatches and letters of his officers and
of his commander show. But these papers present the
picture of a vigorous, hearty man, kind to his crew
and a great favorite with them, brave in whatever trial,
always considerate, generous to his officers, reposing
confidence in their integrity ; a man, in short, of whom
the world will be apt to hear more. His commander,
Sir Edward Belcher, tried by the same standard, ap-
pears a brave and ready man, apt to talk of himself,
not very considerate of his inferiors, confident in his
own opinion ; in short, a man with whom one would
not care to spend three Arctic winters. With him, as
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. Io7
we trace the " Resolute's " fortunes, we shall have
much to do. Of Captain Kellett we shall see some-
thing all along till the day when he sadly left her, as
bidden by Sir Edward Belcher, " ready for occupa-
tion."
With such a captain, and with sixty-odd men, the
" Resolute " cast off her moorings in the gray of the
morning on the 21st of April, 1852, to go in search of
Sir John Franklin. The brave Sir John had died two
years before, but no one knew that, nor whispered it.
The river steam-tug " Monkey " took her in tow, oth-
er steamers took the " Assistance " and the " North
Star"; the "Intrepid" and "Pioneer" got up their
own steam, and to the cheers of the little company
gathered at Greenhithe to see them off, they went down
the Thames. At the Nore, the steamship " Desper-
ate " took the " Resolute " in charge, Sir Edward
Belcher made the signal " Orkneys " as the place of
rendezvous, and in four days she was there, in Strom-
ness outer harbor. Here there was a little shifting of
provisions and coal-bags, those of the men who could
get on shore squandered their spending-money, and
then, on the 28th of April, she and hers bade good
by to British soil. And, though they have welcomed
it again long since, she has not seen it from then till
now.
The " Desperate " steamer took her in tow, she sent
her awn tow-lines to the "North Star," and for three
days in this procession of so wild and weird a name.
138 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
they three forged on westward toward Greenland,
a train which would have startled any old Viking had
he fallen in with it, with a fresh gale blowing all the
time and "a nasty sea." On the fourth day all the
tow-lines broke or were cast off however, Neptune and
the winds claimed their own, and the " Resolute "
tried her own resources. The towing steamers were
sent home in a few days more, and the squadron left
to itself.
We have too much to tell in this short article to be
able to dwell on the details of her visits to the hospi-
table Danes of Greenland, or of her passage through
the ice of Baffin's Bay. But here is one incident,
which, as the event has proved, is part of a singular
coincidence. On the 6th of July all the squadron,
tangled in the ice, joined a fleet of whalers beset in it,
by a temporary opening between the gigantic masses.
Caught at the head of a bight in the ice, with the "As-
sistance" and the "Pioneer," the "Resolute" was,
for the emergency, docked there, and, by the ice clos-
ing behind her, was, for a while, detained. Meanwhile
the rest of the fleet, whalers and discovery ships, passed
on by a little lane of water, the American whaler " Me-
Lellan " leading. This "McLellan" was one of the
ships of the spirited New London merchants, Messrs.
Perkins & Smith, another of whose vessels has now
found the " Resolute " and befriended her in her need
hi those seas. The " McLellan " was their pioneer
vessel there.
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
The " North Star " of the English squadron followed
ilia " McLellan." A long train stretched out behind.
Whalers and government ships, as they happened to
fall into line, a long three quarters of a mile. It
was lovely weather, and, though the long lane closed
up so that they could neither go back nor forward,
nobody apprehended injury till it was announced on
the morning of the 7th that the poor "McLellan" was
nipped in the ice and her crew were deserting her.
Sir Edward Belcher was then in condition to befriend
her, sent his carpenters to examine her, put a few
charges of powder into the ice to relieve the pressure
upon her, and by the end of the day it was agreed
that her injuries could be repaired, and her crew went
on board ao;ain. But there is no saying what ice will
do next. The next morning there was a fresh wind,
the " McLellan " was caught again, and the water
poured into her, a steady stream. She drifted about
unmanageable, now into one ship, now into another,
and the English whalemen began to pour on board, to
help themselves to such plunder as they chose. At
the Captain's request, Sir Edward Belcher put an end
to this, sent sentries on board, and working parties, to
clear her as far as might be, and keep account of what
her stores were and where they went to. In a day or
two more she sank to the water's edge and a friendly
charge or two of powder put her out of the way of harm
to the rest of the fleet. After such a week spent to-
gether it will easily be understood that the New London
140 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
whalemen did not feel strangers on board one of Sil
Edward's vessels when they found her " ready for oc-
cupation " three years and more afterwards.
In this tussle with the ice, the " Resolute " was
nipped once or twice, but she has known harder nips
than that since. As July wore away, she made her
way across Baffin's Bay, and on the 10th of August
made Beechey Island, known now as the head-quar-
ters for years of the searching squadrons, because, as it
happened, the place where the last traces of Franklin's
ships were found, the wintering place of his first
winter. But Captain Kellett was on what is called
the " western search," and he only stayed at Beechey
Island to complete his provisions from the storeships,
and in the few days which this toek, to see for himself
the sad memorials of Franklin's party, and then the
" Resolute " and " Intrepid " were away, through
Barrow's Straits, on the track which Parry ran
along with such success thirty-three years before,
and which no one had followed with as good fortune
as he, until now.
On the 15th of August Captain Kellett was off;
bade good by to the party at Beechey Island, and was
to try his fortune in independent command. He had
not the best of luck at starting;. The reader must re-
C5
member that one great object of these Arctic expedi-
ions was to leave provisions for starving men. For
such a purpose, and for travelling parties of his own
over the ice, Captain Kellett was to leave a depot at
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
Assistance Bay, some thirty miles only from Beeehey
Island. In nearing for that purpose the "Resolute"
grounded, was left with but seven feet of water, the
ice threw her over on her starboard bilge, and she
was almost lost. Not quite lost, however, or we
should not be telling her story. At midnight she was
got off, leaving sixty feet of her false keel behind.
Captain Kellett forged on in her, left a depot here
and another there, and at the end of the short Arc-
tic summer had come as far westward as Sir Edward
Parry came. Here is the most westerly point the
reader will find on most maps far north in America,
the Melville Island of Captain Parry. Captain Kei-
lett's associate, Captain McClintock of the " Intrep-
id," had commanded the only party which had been
here since Parry. In 1851 he came over from Austin's
squadron with a sledge party. So confident is every-
one there that nobody has visited those parts unless
he was sent, that McClintock encouraged his men one
jay by telling them that if they got on well, they
should have an old cart Parry had left thirty-odd years
before, to make a fire of. Sure enough ; they came to
the place, and there was the wreck of the cart just as
Parry left it. They even found the ruts the old cart
left in the ground as if they had not been left a week.
Captain Kellett came into harbor, and with great
spirit he and his officers began to prepare for the ex-
tended searching parties of the next spring. The
" Resolute " and her tender came to anchor off Dealy
142 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTK
Island, arul there she spent the next eleven months of
her life, with great news around her in that time.
There is not much time for travelling in autumn.
The days grow very short and very cold. But what
days there were were spent in sending out carts and
sledges with depots of provisions, which the parties of
the next spring could use. Different officers were
already assigned to different lines of search in spring.
On their journeys they would be gone three months
and more, with a party of some eight men, drag-
ging a sled very like a Yankee w r ood-sled with their
instruments and provisions, over ice and snow. To
extend those searches as much as possible, and to pre-
pare the men for that work when it should come,
advanced depots were now sent forward in the autumn,
under the charge of the gentlemen who would have to
use them in the spring.
One of these parties, the " South line of Mel-
ville Island" party, was under a spirited young officer
Mr. Mecham, who had tried such service in the last
expedition. He had two of " her Majesty's sledges,"
"The Discovery" and " The Fearless," a depot of
twenty days' provision to be used in the spring, and
enough for twenty-five days' present use. All the
sledges had little flags, made by some young lady
friends of Sir Edward Belcher's. Mr. Mecham's bore
an armed hand and sword on a white ground, with the
motto, " Per mare, per terram, per glaciem" Over
niud, land, snow, and ice they carried their depot, and
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 143
were nearly back, when, on the 12th of October, 1852,
Mr. Mechara made the great discovery of the expe-
dition.
On the shore of Melville Island, above Winter Har-
bor, is a great sandstone boulder, ten feet high, seven
or eight broad, and twenty and more long, which is
known to all those who have anything to do with
those regions as " Parry's sandstone," for it stood near
Parry's observatory the winter he spent here, and Mr.
Fisher, his surgeon, cut on a flat face of it this in-
scription :
HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S
SHIPS IIECLA AND GRIPER,
COMMANDED BY
W. E. PARRY AND MR. LIDDOX,
WINTERED IX THE ADJACENT
HARBOR 1819-20.
A. FISHER, SCULPT.
It was a sort of God Terminus put up to mark the
end of that expedition, as the Danish gentlemen tell
us our Dighton rock is the last point of Thorfinn's ex-
pedition to these parts. Nobody came to read Mr.
Fisher's inscription for thirty years and more, a lit-
tle Arctic hare took up her home under the great
rock, and saw the face of man for the first time when,
on the 5th of June, 1851, Mr. McClintock, on his first
expedition this way, had stopped to see whether possi-
bly any of Franklin's men had ever visited it. He
found no signs of them, had not so much time as Mr.
Fishor for stone-cutting, but carved the figures 1851
144 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE EESOLUTE.
on the stone, and left it and the hare. To this stone,
on his way hack to the " Resolute," Mr. Mecham came
again (as we said) on the 12th of October, one
memorable Tuesday morning, having been bidden
to leave a record there. He went on in advance of
his party, meaning to cut 1852 on the stone. On top
of it was a small cairn of stones built by Mr. McClin-
tock the year before. Mecham examined this, and to
his surprise a copper cylinder rolled out from under
a spirit tin. " On opening it, I drew out a roll folded
in a bladder, which, being frozen, broke and crumbled.
From its dilapidated appearance, I thought at the mo-
ment it must be some record of Sir Edward Parry,
and, fearing I might damage it, laid it down with the
intention of lighting the fire to thaw it. My curios-
ity, however, overcame my prudence, and on open
ing it carefully with my knife, I came to a roll of car-
tridge paper with the impression fresh upon the seals.
My astonishment may be conceived on finding it con-
tained an account of the proceedings of H. M. ship ' In-
vestigator ' since parting company with the ' Herald '
[Captain Kellett's old ship] in August, 1850, in Behr-
ing's Straits. Also a chart which disclosed to view not
only the long-sought Northwest Passage, but the
completion of the survey of Banks and Wollaston lands.
Opened and indorsed Commander McClintock's de-
spatch ; found it contained the following additions :
" ' Opened and copied by his old friend and messmate upon this
date, April 28, 1852. ROBERT McCumB
" ' Party all well and return to Investigator to-day.' "
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 145
A great discovery indeed to flash across one in a
minute. The " Investigator " had not been heard
from for more than two years. Here was news of her
not yet six months old. The Northwest Passage had
been dreamed of for three centuries and more. Here
was news of its discovery, news that had been
known to Captain McClure for two years. McClure
and McClintock were lieutenants together in the
** Enterprise" when she was sent after Sir John Frank-
lin in 1848, and wintered together at Port Leopold
the next winter. Now, from different hemispheres,,
they had come so near meeting at this old block of
sandstone. Mr. Mecham bade his mate build a new
cairn, to put the record of the story in, and hurried on
to the "Resolute" with his great news, news of al-
most everybody but Sir John Franklin. Strangely
enough, the other expedition, Captain Collinson's, had
had a party in that neighborhood, between the other
two, under Mr. Parks ; but it was his extreme point
possible, and he could not reach the Sandstone, though
he saw the ruts of McClure's sleigh. This was not
known till long afterwards.
The " Investigator," as it appeared from this despatch
of Captain McClure's, had been frozen up in the Bay of
Mercy of Banks Land : Banks Land having been for
thirty years at once an Ultima Thule and Terra In-
cognita, put down on the maps where Captain Parry
saw it across thirty miles of ice and water in 1819.
Perhaps she was still in that same bay : thesB old
146 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
friends wintering there, while the " Resolute " and
" Intrepid " were lying under Dealy Island, and only
one hundred and seventy miles between. It must have
been tantalizing to all parties to wait the winter through,
and not even get a message across. But until winter
made it too cold and dark to travel, the ice in the strait
was so broken up that it was impossible to attempt to
traverse it, even with a light boat, for the lanes of water.
So the different autumn parties came in, the last on the
last of October, and the officers and men entered on
their winter's work and play, to push off the winter
days as quickly as they could.
The winter was very severe ; and it proved that,
as the " Resolute" lay, they were a good deal exposed
to the wind. But they kept themselves busy, ex-
ercised freely, found game quite abundant within
reasonable distances on shore, whenever the light
served, kept schools for the men, delivered scien-
tific lectures to whoever would listen, established
the theatre for which the ship had been provided at
home, and gave juggler's exhibitions by way of va-
riety. The recent system of travelling in the fall and
spring cuts in materially to the length of the Arctic
winters as Ross, Parry, and Back used to experience
it, and it was only from the 1st of November to the
10th of March that they were left to their own re-
sources. Late in October one of the " Resolute's " men
died, and in December one of the " Intrepid's," but,
excepting these cases, they had little sickness, for
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 147
weeks no one on the sick-list ; indeed, Captain Kellett
says cheerfully that a sufficiency of good provisions,
with plenty of work in the open air, will insure good
health in that climate.
As early in the spring as he dared risk a travelling
party, namely, on the 10th of March, 1853, he sent
what they all called a forlorn hope across to the Bay
of Mercy, to find any traces of the " Investigator " ;
for they scarcely ventured to hope that she was still
there. This start was earlier by thirty-five days than
the early parties had started on the preceding expedi-
tion. But it was every way essential that, if Captain
McClure had wintered in the Bay of Mercy, the mes-
senger should reach him before he sent off any or all
his men, in travelling parties, in the spring. The little
forlorn hope consisted of ten men under the command
of Lieutenant Pirn, an officer who had been with Cap-
tain Kellett in the ' Herald " on the Pacific side, had
spent a winter in the " Plover" up Behring's Straits,
and had been one of the last men whom the " Investiga-
tor " had seen before they put into the Arctic Ocean, to
discover, as it proved, the Northwest Passage.
Here we must stop a moment, to tell what one of
these sledge parties is by whose efforts so much has
been added to our knowledge of Arctic geography, in
journeys which could never have been achieved in
ships or boats. In the work of the " Resolute's ' par-
ties, in this spring of 1852, Commander McClintock
travelled 1,325 miles with his sledge, and Lieutenant
148 1UE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
Mecham 1,163 milos with his, through regions before
wholly unexplored. The sledge, as we have said, is
in general contour not unlike a Yankee wood-sled,
about eleven feet long. The runners are curved at
each end. The sled is fittod with a lio-ht canvas
o
trough, so adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the
stores, &c., can be ferried over any narrow lane of wa-
iter in the ice. There are packed on this sled a tent
for eight or ten men -, five or six pikes, one or more of
which is fitted as an ice-chisel ; two large buffalo-
skins, a water-tight floor-cloth, which contrives
" a double debt to pay,
A floor by night, the sledge's sail by day "
(and it must be remembered that " day " and " night "
in those regions are very equivocal terms). There
are, besides, a cooking-apparatus, of which the fire is
made in spirit or tallow lamps, one or two guns, a
pick and shovel, instruments for observation, panni-
kins, spoons, and a little magazine of such necessaries,
with the extra clothing of the party. Then the pro-
vision, the supply of which measures the length of
the expedition, consists of about a pound of bread and
a pound of pemmican per man per day, six ounces of
pork, and a little preserved potato, rum, lime-juice,
tea, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, or other such creature
comforts. The sled is fitted with two drag-ropes, at
which the men haul. The officer goes ahead to find
the best way among hummocks of ice or masses of
snow. Sometimes on a smooth floe, before the wind,
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 149
the floor-cloth is set for a sail, and she runs oft mer-
rily, perhaps with several of the crew on board, and
the rest running to keep up. But sometimes over
broken ice it is a constant, task to get her on at all.
You hear, " One, two, three, haul," all day long, as she
is worked out of one ice " cradle-hole" over a hummock
into another. Different parties select different hours
for travelling. Captain Kellett finally considered that
the best division of time, when, as usual, they had con-
stant daylight, was to start at four in the afternoon,
travel till ten p. M., breakfast then, tent and rest four
hours ; travel four more, tent, dine, and sleep nine
hours. This secured sleep, when the sun was the
highest and most trying to the eyes. The distances
accomplished with this equipment are truly surprising.
Each man, of course, is dressed as warmly as flan-
nel, woollen cloth, leather, and seal-skin will dress him.
For such long journeying, the study of boots becomes
a science, and our authorities are full of discussions as
to canvas or woollen, or carpet or leather boots, of
strings and of buckles. When the time " to tent "
comes, the pikes are fitted for tent-poles, and the tent
set up, its door to leeward, on the ice or snow. The
floor-cloth is laid for the carpet. At an hour fixed,
all talking must stop. There is just room enough for
the party to lie side by side on the floor-cloth. Each
man gets into a long felt bag, made of heavy felting lit-
erally nearly half an inch thick. He brings this up
wholly over his head, and buttons himself in. He has a
150 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
little hole in it to breathe through. Over the felt is
sometimes a brown holland bag, meant to keep out mois-
ture. The officer lies farthest in the tent, as being
next the wind, the point of hardship and so of honor.
The cook for the day lies next the doorway, as being
first to be called. Side by side the others lie between.
Over them all Mackintosh blankets with the buf-
falo-robes are drawn, by what power this deponent
sayeth not, not knowing. No watch is kept, for
there is little danger of intrusion. Once a whole par-
ty was startled by a white bear smelling at them, who
waked one of their dogs, and a droll time they had of
it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their
sacks. But we remember no other instance where a
sentinel was needed. And occasionally in the journals
the officer notes that he overslept in the morning, and
did not " call the cook" early enough. What a pas-
sion is sleep, to be sure, that one should oversleep
with such comforts round him !
Some thirty or forty parties, thus equipped, set out
from the " Resolute" while she was under Captain Kel-
lett's charge, on various expeditions. As the journey
of Lieutenant Pim to the "Investigator" at Banks
Land was that on which turned the great victory of
her voyage, we will let that stand as a specimen of all.
None of the others, however, were undertaken at so
early a period of the year, and, on the other hand,
several others were much longer, some of them, as
has been said, occupying three months and more.
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 151
Lieutenant Pirn had been appointed in the autumn to
the "Banks Land search," and had carried out hig
depots of provisions when the other officers took theirs.
Captain McClure's chart and despatch made it no
longer necessary to have that coast surveyed, but
made it all the more necessary to have some one go
and see if he was still there. The chances were
against this, as a whole summer had intervened since
he was heard from. Lieutenant Pirn proposed, how-
ever, to travel all round Banks Land, which is an isl-
and about the size and shape of Ireland, in search
of him, Collinson, Franklin, or anybody. Captain
Kellett, however, told him not to attempt this with his
force, but to return to the ship by the route he went.
First he was to go to the Bay of Mercy ; if the " In-
vestigator " was gone, he was to follow any traces of
her, and, if possible, communicate with her or her
consort, the " Enterprise."
Lieutenant Pirn started with a sledge and seven
men, and a dog-sledge with two under Dr. Domville,
the surgeon, who was to bring back the earliest news
fiom the Bay of Mercy to the captain. There was a
relief sledge to go part way and return. For the in-
tense cold of this early season they had even more
careful arrangements than those we have described.
Their tent was doubled. They had extra Mackin-
toshes, and whatever else could be devised. They had
bad luck at starting, broke down one sledge and
had to send back for another; had bad weather, and
152 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
must encamp, once for three clays. " Fortunately,"
says the lieutenant of this encampment, " the temper-
ature arose from fifty-one below zero to thirty-six be-
low, and there remained," while the drift accumu-
lated to such a degree around the tents, that within
them the thermometer was only twenty below, and,
when they cooked,, rose to zero. A pleasant time of
it they must have had there on the ice, for those three
days, in their bags smoking and sleeping ! No won-
der that on the fourth day they found they moved
slowly, so cramped and benumbed were they. This
morning a new sledge came to them from the ship ;
they got out of their bags, packed, and got under way
again. They were still running along shore, but soon
sent back the relief party which had brought the new
sled, and in a few days more set out to cross the strait,
some twenty-five to thirty miles wide, which, when it
is open, as no man has ever seen it, is one of the North-
west Passages discovered by these expeditions.
Horrible work it was ! Foggy and dark, so they
could not choose the road, and, as it happened, lit on
the very worst mass of broken ice in the channel.
Just as they entered on it, one black raven must needs
appear. " Bad luck," said the men. And when Mr.
Pirn shot a musk-ox, their first, and the wounded
creature got away, " So much for the raven," they
croaked again. Only three miles the first day, four
miles the second day, two and a half the third, and
half a mile the fourth ; this was all they gained by
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 163
most laborious hauling over the broken ice, dragging
one sledge at a time, and sometimes carrying forward
the stores separately and going back for the sledges.
T\vo days more gave them eight miles more, but on
the seventh day on this narrow strait, the dragging
being a little better, the great sledge slipped off a
smooth hummock, broke one runner to smash, and
"there they were."
If the two officers had a little bit of a "tiff" out
there on the ice, with the thermometer at eighteen be-
low, only a little dog-sledge to get them anywhere,
their ship a hundred miles off, fourteen days' travel as
they had come, nobody ever knew it ; they kept their
secret from us, it is nobody's business, and it is not to
be wondered at. Certainly they did not agree. The
Doctor, whose sled, the " James Fitzjames," was still
sound, thought they had best leave the stores and all
go back ; but the Lieutenant, who had the command,
did not like to give it up, so he took the dogs and the
" James Fitzjames " and its two men and went on,
leaving the Doctor on the floe, but giving him direc-
tions to go back to land with the wounded sledge and
wait for him to return. And the Doctor did it, like
a spirited fellow, travelling back and forth for what he
could not take in one journey, as the man did in the
story who had a peck of corn, a goose, and a wclf to
get across the river. Over ice, over hummrx'k the
Lieutenant went on his way with his dogs, not a l>?ar
nor a seal nor a hare nor a wolf to feed them with :
7*
151 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
preserved meats, which had been put up with dainty
care for men and women, all he had for the ravenous,
tasteless creatures, who would have been more pleased
with blubber-, came to Banks Land at last, but no game
there ; awful drifts ; shut up in the tent for a whole
day, and he himself so sick he could scarcely stand I
There were but three of them in all ; and the captain
of the sledge not unnaturally asked poor Pirn, when he
was at the worst, " What shall I do, sir, if you die ?"
Not a very comforting question !
He did not die. He got a few hours' sleep, felt
better and started again, but had the discourage-
ment of finding such tokens of an open strait the last
year that he felt sure that the ship he was going to
look for would be gone. One morning, he had been
off for game for the dogs unsuccessfully, and, when he
came back to his men, learned that they had seen sev-
enteen deer. After them goes Pirn ; finds them to
be three hares, magnified by fog and mirage, and their
long ears answering for horns. This same day they
got upon the Bay of Mercy. No ship in sight!
Right across it goes the Lieutenant to look for records ;
when, at two in the afternoon, Robert Hoile sees
something black up the bay. Through the glass the
Lieutenant makes it out to be a ship. They change
their direction at once. Over the ice towards her 1
He leaves the sledge at three and goes on. How far it
seems ! At four he can see people walking about, and a
pile of stones and flag-staff on the beach. Keep on,
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 156
Pirn : snail one never get there ? At five he is within a
hundred yards of her, and no one has seen him. But
just then the very persons see him who ought to !
Pirn beckons, waves his arms as the Esquimaux do in
sign of friendship. Captain McClure and lu's lieuten-
ant Haswell are " taking their exercise," the chief
business of those winters, and at last see him ! Pirn is
black a? Erebus from the smoke of cooking in the
little tent. McClure owns, not to surprise only, but
to a twinge of dismay. " I paused in my advance,'*
says he, ' doubting who or what it could be, a denizen
of this or the other world." But this only lasts a
moment. Pirn speaks. Brave man that" he can.
How his voice must have choked, as if he were in
a dream. " I am Lieutenant Pirn, late of ' Herald.'
Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen
words, Pirn, to be sent in advance over the hundred
yards of floe ! Nothing about the " Resolute,"
that would have confused them. But u Pirn," '"Her-
ald," and " Kellett " were among the last signs of Eng-
land they had seen, all this was intelligible. An ex-
cellent little speech, which the brave man had been
getting ready, perhaps, as one does a telegraphic de-
spatch, for the hours that he had been walking over
the floe to her. Then such shaking hands, such a
greeting. Poor McClure could not speak at first.
One of the men at work got the news on board;
and up through the hatches poured everybody, sick
and well, to see the black stranger, and to hear his
156 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
news from England. It was nearly three years since
they had seen any civilized man but themselves.
The 28th of July, three years before, Commander
McClure had sent his last despatch to the Admiralty.
He had then prophesied just what in three years he
Lad almost accomplished. In the winter of 1850 he
had discovered the Northwest Passage. He had
O
come round into one branch of it, Banks Straits, in
the next summer ; had gladly taken refuge on the
Bay of Mercy in a gale ; and his ship had never left
it since. Let it be said, in passing, that most likely
she is there now. In his last despatches he had told the
Admiralty not to be anxious about him if he did not
arrive home before the autumn of 1854. As it proved,
that autumn he did come with all his men, except those
whom he had sent home before, and those who had
died. When Pirn found them, all the crew but thirty
were under orders for marching, some to Baffin's Bay,
some to the Mackenzie River, on their return to Eno--
O
land. McClure was going to stay with the rest, and
come home with the ship, if they could ; if not, by
siedges to Port Leopold, and so by a steam-launch
which he had seen left there for Franklin in 1849.
But the arrival of Mr. Pirn put an end to all these
plans. We have his long despatch to the Admiralty
explaining them, finished only the day before Pirn ar-
rived. It gives the history of his three years' exile
from the world, an exile crowded full of effective
work, in a record which gives a noble picture of the
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 157
man. The Queen has made him Sir Robert Le Mesu-
rier McClure since, in honor of his great discovery.
Banks Land, or Baring Island, the two names be-
long to the same island, on the shores of which Mc-
Clure and his men had spent most of these two years
or more, is an island on which they were first of civ-
ilized men to land. For people who are not very par-
ticular, the measurement, of it which we gave before,
namely, that it is about the size and shape of Ireland,
is precise enough. There is high land in the interior
probably, as the winds from in shore are cold. The
crew found coal and dwarf willow which they could
burn ; lemmings, ptarmigan, hares, reindeer, and
musk-oxen, which they could eat.
" Farewell to the land where I often have wended
My way o'er its mountains and valleys of snow ;
Farewell to the rocks and the hills I 've ascended,
The bleak arctic homes of the buck and the doe ;
Farewell 10 the deep glens where oft has resounded
The snow-bunting's song, as she carolled her lay
To hillside and plain, by the green sorrel bounded,
Till struck by the blast of a cold winter's day."
There is a bit of description of Banks Land, from
the anthology of that country, which, so far as we
know, consists of two poems by a seaman named Nel-
son, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest
temperature ever observed on this " gem of the sea "
was 53 in midsummer. The lowest was 65 below
zero in January, 1853 ; that day the thermometer did
not rise to 60 below, that month was never warmer
158 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
than 16 below, and the average of the month was
43 below. A pleasant climate to spend three years
in!
One day for talk was all that could be allowed, after
Mr. Pirn's amazing appearance. On the 8th of
April, he and his dogs, and Captain McClure and a
party, were ready to return to our friend the " Reso-
lute." They picked up Dr. Domville on the way ; he
had got the broken sledge mended, and killed five
musk-oxen, against they came along. He went on in
the dog-sledge to tell the news, but McClure and his
men kept pace with them ; and he and Dr. Domville
had the telling of the news together.
It was decided that the " Investigator " should be
abandoned, and the "Intrepid" and "Resolute " made
room for her men. Glad greeting they gave them
too, as British seamen can give. More than half the
crews were away when the " Investigator's " parties
came in, but by July everybody had returned. They
had found islands where the charts had guessed there
was sea, and sea where they had guessed there was
land ; had changed peninsulas into islands and isl-
ands into peninsulas. Away off beyond the seventy
eighth parallel, Mr. McClintock had christened the far-
thest dot of land " Ireland's Eye," as if his native island
were peering off into the unknown there; a great
island, which will be our farthest now, for years to
come, had been named " Prince Patrick's Land," in
honor of the baby prince who was the youngest when
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 359
they left home. Will he not be tempted, when he ia
a man, to take a crew, like another Madoc, and, as
younger sons of queens should, go and settle upon this
tempting god-child ? They had heard from Sir Ed-
ward Belcher's part of the squadron ; they had heard
from England ; had heard of everything but Sir
John Franklin. They had even found an ale-bottle
of Captain Collinson's expedition, but not a stick
nor straw to show where Franklin or his men had
lived or died. Two officers of the "Investigator"
o
were sent home to England this summer by a ship
from Beechey Island, the head-quarters ; and thus
we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the
Northwest Passage.
After their crews were on board again, and the
** Investigator's " sixty stowed away also, the " Reso-
lute " and " Intrepid " had a dreary summer of it.
The ice would not break up. They had hunting-par-
ties on shore and races on the floe ; but the captain
could not send the " Investigators " home as he want-
ed to, in his steam tender. All his. plans were made,
and made on a manly scale, if only the ice would
open. He built a storehouse on the island for Col-
linson's people, or for you, reader, and us, if we
should happen there, and stored it well, and left this
record :
" This is a house which I have named the ' Sailor's
Home,' under the especial patronage of my Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty.
160 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
"Here royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed,
and receive double pay for inhabiting it."
In that house is a little of everything, and a good
deal of victuals and drink ; but nobody hcs been
there since the last of the " Resolute's " men came
away.
At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing
and jumping in bags and wrestling, all hands pres-
ent, as at a sort of " Isthmian games," ended with a
gale, a cracking up of ice, and the " Investigators "
thought they were on their way home, and Kellett
thought he was to have a month of summer yet. But
no ; " there is nothing certain in this navigation
from one hour to the next." The " Resolute " and
" Intrepid " were never really free of ice all that au-
tumn ; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's Straits
till the 12th of November ; and then froze up, without
anchoring, off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred
and forty miles from their harbor of the last winter.
The log-book of that winter is a curious record ; the
ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to
make one day differ from another. Each day has the
first entry for " ship's position " thus : " In the floe off
Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second
entry, thus : " In the same position." Lectures, the-
atricals, schools, &c., whiled away the time ; but there
could be no autumn travelling parties, and not much
hope for discovery in the summer.
Spring came. The captain went over ice in his
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 161
little dog-sled to Beechey Island, and received bis di-
rections to abandon his sbips. It appears that he
would rather have sent most of his men forward, and
with a small crew brought the " Resolute " home
that autumn or the next. But Sir Edward Belcher
considered his orders peremptory " that the safety of
the crews must preclude any idea of extricating the
ships." Both ships were to be abandoned. Two
distant travelling parties were away, one at the "In-
vestigator," one looking for traces of Collinson, which
they found. "Word was left for them, at a proper
point, not to seek the ship again, but to come on to
Beechev Island. And at last, having fitted the
" Intrepid's " engines so that she could be under
steam in two hours, having stored both ships with
equal proportions of provisions, and made both vessels
" ready for occupation," the captain calked down the
hatches, and with all the crew he had not sent on
before, forty-two persons in all, left her Monday,
the 15th of May, 1854, and started with the sledges
for Beechey Island.
Poor old " Resolute " ! All this gay company is gone
who have made her sides split with their laughter.
Here is Harlequin's dress, lying in one of the ward-
rooms, but there is nobody to dance Harlequin's
dances. ; ' Here is a lovely clear day, surely to-day
they will come on deck and take a meridian ! " No,
nobody comes. The sun grows hot on the decks ;
but it is all one, nobody looks at the theimome-
162 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
ter ! " And so the poor ship was left all alone." Such
gay times she has had with all these brave young men
on board ! Such merry winters, such a lightsome
summer ! So much fun, so much nonsense ! So
much science and wisdom, and now it is all so still !
Is the poor " Resolute " conscious of the change ? Does
she miss the races on the ice, the scientific lecture
every Tuesday, the occasional racket and bustle of
the theatre, and the worship of every Sunday ? Has
not she shared the hope of Captain Kellett, of Mc-
Clure, and of the crew, that she may break out well !
She sees the last sledge leave her. The captain drives
off his six dogs, vanishes over the ice, and they are
all gone " Will they not come back again ? " says
the poor ship. And she looks wistfully across the ice
to her little friend the steam tender " Intrepid," and she
sees there is no one there. "Intrepid! Intrepid!
nave they really deserted us ? We have served them so
well, and have they really left us alone ? A great
many were away travelling last year, but they came
home. Will not any of these come home now ? "
No, poor ' ' Resolute " ! Not one of them ever came back
again ! Not one of them meant to. Summer came.
o
August came. No one can tell how soon, but some
day or other this her icy prison broke up, and the
good ship found herself on her own element again ;
shook herself proudly, we cannot doubt, nodded joy-
fully across to the " Intrepid," and was free. But
alas ! there was no master to take latitude and longi-
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 103
tude, no helmsman at the wheel. In clear letters
cast in brass over her helm there are these words,
*' England expects each man to do his duty." But
here is no man to heed the warning, and the rudder
flaps this way and that way, no longer directing her
course, but stupidly swinging to and fro. And she
drifts here and there, drifts out of sight of her little
consort, strands on a bit of ice floe now, and then
is swept off from it, and finds herself, without even
the "Intrepid's " company, alone on these blue seas with
those white shores. But what utter loneliness ! Poor
*' Resolute " ! She longed for freedom, but what is
freedom where there is no law? What is freedom
without a helmsman ! And the " Resolute " looks back
so sadly to the old days when she had a master. And
the short bright summer passes. And again she sees
the sun set from her decks. And now even her top-
masts see it set. And now it does not rise to her
deck. And the next day it does not rise to her top-
mast. Winter and night together ! She has known
them before ! But now it is winter and ni^ht and
o
loneliness all together. This horrid ice closes up round
her again. And there is no one to brino; her into har-
o o
bor, she is out in the open sound. If the ice drifts
west, she must go west. If it goes east, she must go
east. Her seeming freedom is over, and for that
long winter she is chained again. But her heart is
true to old England. And when she can go east, she
is so happy ! and when she must go west, she is so sad I
164 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
Eastward she does go ! Southward she does go I
True to the instinct which sends us all home, she tracks
undirected and without a sail fifteen hundred miles of
that sea, without a beacon, which separates her from
her own. And so goes a dismal year. " Perhaps an-
other spring they will come and find me out, and fix
things below. It is getting dreadfully damp down
there ; and I cannot keep the guns bright and the
floors dry." No, good old " Resolute." May and
June pass off the next year, and nobody comes;
and here you are all alone out in the bay, drifting in
this dismal pack. July and August, the days are
growing shorter again. " "Will nobody come and take
care of me, and cut off these horrid blocks of ice, and
see to these sides of bacon in the hold, and all these
mouldy sails, and this powder, and the bread and the
spirit that I have kept for them so well? It is Sep-
tember, and the sun begins to set again. And here is
another of those awful gales. Will it be my very last ?
I all alone here, who have done so much, and if
they would only take care of me I can do so much
more. Will nobody come ? Nobody? .... What!
Is it ice blink, are my poor old lookouts blind ? Is
not there the ' Intrepid ' ? Dear ' Intrepid,' I will
never look down on you again ! No ! there is no
smoke-stack, it is not the ' Intrepid.' But it is some-
body. Pray see me, good somebody. Are you a
Yankee whaler ? I am glad to see the Yankee whalers.
I remember the Yankee whalers very pleasantly*
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 165
We had a happy summer together once It will
be dreadful if they do not see me ! But this ice, this
wretched ice ! They do see me, I know they see
me, but they cannot get at me. Do not go away, good
Yankees ; pray come and help me. I know I can get
out, if you will help a little But now it is a
whole week and they do not come ! Are there any
Yankees, or am I getting crazy ? I have heard them
talk of crazy old ships, in my young days No I
I am not crazy. They are coming ! they are coming.
Brave Yankees ! over the hummocks, down into the
sludge. Do not give it up for the cold. There is
coal below, and we will have a fire in the Sylvester,
and in the captain's cabin There is a horrid lane
of water. They have not got a Halkett. O, if one
of these boats of mine would only start for them, in-
stead of lying so stupidly on my deck here ! But the
men are not afraid of water ! See them ferry over on
that ice block ! Come on, good friends ! Welcome,
whoever you be, Dane, Dutch, French, or Yankee,
eome on ! come on ! It is coming up a gale, but I
can bear a gale. Up the side, men. I wish I could
let down the gangway alone. But here are all these
blocks of ice piled up, you can scramble over them '
Why do you stop ? Do not be afraid. I will mak
you very comfortable and jolly. Do not stay talking
there. Pray come in. There is port in the captain's
cabin, and a little preserved meat in the pantry.
You must be hungry; pray come in! O, he is com-
1(36 THE LAST VOYAGE OB' THE RESOLUTE.
ing, and now all four are coming. It would be
dreadful if they had gone back ! They are on deck.
Now I shall go home ! How lonely it has been ! "
It was true enough that when Mr. Quail, the brother
of the captain of the " McLellan," whom the " Reso-
lute " had befriended, the mate of the George Henry,
whaler, whose master, Captain Buddington, had dis
covered the " Resolute" in the ice, came to her after a
hard day's journey with his men, the men faltered with
a little superstitious feeling, and hesitated for a minute
about going on board. But the poor lonely ship wooed
them too lovingly, and they climbed over the broken
ice and came on deck. She was lying over on her
larboard side, with a heavy weight of ice holding her
down. Hatches and companion were made fast, as
Captain Kellett had left them. But, knocking open
the companion, groping down stairs to the after cabin
they found their way to the captain's table ; somebody
put his hand on a box of lucifers, struck a light, and
revealed books scattered in confusion, a candle
standing, which he lighted at once, the glasses and
the decanters from which Kellett and his officers
had drunk good by to the vessel. The whalemen
filled them again, and undoubtedly felt less discouraged.
Meanwhile night came on, and a gale arose. So hard
did it blow, that for two days these four were the wholo
crew of the " Resolute," and it was not till the 19th of
September that they returned to their own ship, and
reported what their prize was.
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 167
All these ten days, since Captain Buddington had
first seen her, the vessels had been nearing each other.
On the 19th he boarded her himself; found that in
her hold, on the larboard side, was a good deal of ice ;
or the starboard side there seemed to be water. In
fact, her tanks had burst from the extreme cold ; and
she was full of water, nearly to her lower deck.
Everything that could move from its place had moved ;
everything was wet ; everything that would mould
was mouldy. " A sort of perspiration " settled on the
Learns above. Clothes were wrinsincr wet. The cap-
tain's party made a fire in Captain Kellett's stove, and
soon started a sort of shower from the vapor with
which it filled the air. The " Resolute " has, how-
ever, four fine force-pumps. For three days the cap-
tain and sis men worked fourteen hours a day on one
of these, and had the pleasure of finding that they
freed her of water, that she was tight still. They
cut away upon the masses of ice ; and on the 23d of
September, in the evening, she freed herself from her
encumbrances, and took an even keel. This was off
the west shore of Baffin's Bay, in latitude 67. On
the shortest tack she was twelve hundred miles from
where Captain 'Kellett left her.
There was work enough still to be done. The rud-
der was to be shipped, the rigging to be made taut,
sail to be set ; and it proved, by the way, that the sail
on the yards was much of it still serviceable, while
a suit of new linen sails below were greatly injured b^
168 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
moisture. In a week more they had her ready to
make sail. The pack of ice still drifted with both
ships ; but on the 21st of October, after a long north-
west gale, the " Resolute " was free, more free than
she had been for more than two years.
Her " last voyage " is almost told. Captain Bud-
dington had resolved to bring her home. He had
picked ten men from the " George Henry," leaving her
fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American
coast drawn on a sheet of foolscap, with his lever
watch and a quadrant for his instruments, he squared
off for New London. A rough, hard passage they had
of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of
the tanks ; she was top-heavy and under manned. He
spoke a British whaling bark, and by her sent to
Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners
news that he was coming. They had heavy gales
and head winds, were driven as far down as the Ber-
mudas ; the water left in the ship's tanks was brack-
ish, and it needed all the seasoning which the ship's
chocolate would give to make it drinkable. " For
sixty hours at a time," says the spirited captain, " I
frequently had no sleep " ; but his perseverance was
crowned with success at last, and on the night of the
7 O
23d -24th of December he made the light off the
magnificent harbor from which he sailed ; and on Sun-
day morning, the 24th, dropped anchor in the Thames,
opposite New London, ran up the royal ensign on the
shorn masts of the " Resolute," and the good people
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 169
of the town knew that he and his were safe, and that
one of the victories of peace was won.
As the fine ship lies opposite the piers of that
beautiful town, she attracts visitors from everywhere,
and is, indeed, a very remarkable curiosity. Seals
were at once placed, and very properly, on the cap-
tain's book-cases, lockers, and drawers, and wherever
private property might be injured by wanton curiosity,
and two keepers are on duty on the vessel, till her
destination is decided. But nothing is changed from
what she was when she came into harbor. And, from
stem to stern, every detail of her equipment is a
curiosity, to the sailor or to the landsman. The
candlestick in the cabin is not like a Yankee candle-
stick. The hawse hole for the chain cable is fitted as
has not been seen before. And so of everything be-
tween. There is the aspect of wet over every-
thing now, after months of ventilation ; the rifles,
which were last fired at musk-oxen in Melville Island,
are red with rust, as if they had lain in the bottom of
the sea ; the volume of Shakespeare, which you find
in an officer's berth, has a damp feel, as if you had
been reading it in the open air in a March north-
easter. The old seamen look with most amazement,
perhaps, on the preparations for amusement, the
juggler's cups and balls, or Harlequin's spangled
dress ; the quiet landsman wonders at the gigantic
ice-saws, at the cast-off canvas boots, the long thick
Arctic stockings. It seems almost wrong to go into
8
170 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.
Mr. Hamilton's wardroom, and see how he arranged
his soap-cup and his tooth-brush ; and one does not tell
of it, if he finds on a blank leaf the secret prayer a
sister wrote down for the brother to whom she gave a
prayer-book. There is a good deal of disorder now,
thanks to her sudden abandonment, and perhaps to
her three months' voyage home. A little union-jack
lies over a heap of unmended and unwashed under-
clothes ; when Kellett left the ship, he left his coun-
try's flag over his arm-chair as if to keep possession.
Two officers' swords and a pair of epaulettes were on
the cabin table. Indeed, what is there not there,
which should make an Arctic winter endurable,
make a long night into day, or while long days
away?
The ship is stanch and sound. The " last voyage"
which we have described will not, let us hope, be the
last voyage of her career. But wherever she goes,
under the English flag or under our own, she will
scarcely ever crowd more adventure into one cruise
than into that which sealed the discovery of the North-
west Passage ; which gave new lands to England,
nearest to the pole of all she has ; which spent more
than a year, no man knows where, self-governed
and unguided ; and which, having begun under the
strict regime of the English navy, ended under the re-
markable mutual rules, adopted by common consent,
in the business of American whalemen.
Ls it not worth noting that in' this chivalry of Arc-
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 171
tic adventure, the ships which have been wrecked have
been those of the fight or horror? They are the u Fury,' 7
tbe "Victory," the " Erebus," the " Terror." But the
ships which never failed their crews, which, for all
that man knows, are as sound now as ever, bear the
names of peaceful adventure ; the " Hecla," the " En-
terprise," and " Investigator," the " Assistance " and
" Resolute," the " Pioneer " and " Intrepid," and our
" Advance " and " Rescue " and " Arctic," never
threatened any one, even in their names. And they
never failed the men who commanded them or who
sailed in them.
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME
ONE OF THE INGHAM PAPERS.
\_A. Boston journal, in noticing this story, called it improbable
I think it is. But I think the moral important. It was first
published in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1859.]
IT is not often that I trouble the readers of the
Atlantic Monthly. I should not trouble them now,
but for the importunities of my wife, who " feels
to insist " that a duty to society is unfulfilled, till I
have told why I had to have a double, and how he un-
did me. She is sure, she says, that intelligent persons
cannot understand that pressure upon public servants
which alone drives any man into the employment of a
double. And while I fear she thinks, at the bottom
of her heart, that my fortunes will never be remade,
she has a faint hope that, as another Rasselas, I may
teach a lesson to future publics, from which they may
profit, though we die. Owing to the behavior of my
double, or, if you please, to that public pressure which
compelled me to employ him, I have plenty of leisure
to write this communication.
I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 173
connection. I was settled in the active, wide-awake
town of Naguadavick, on one of the finest water-powers
in Maine. We used to call it a Western town in the
heart of the civilization of New England. A charm-
ing place it was and is. A spirited, brave young par
ish had I ; and it seemed as if we might have all "the
joy of eventful living" to our heart's content.
Alas ! how little we knew on the day of my ordina
tion. and in those halcyon moments of our first house-
keeping ; To be the confidential friend in a hundred
families in the town, cutting the social trifle, as my
friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped
syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is
the foundation," to keep abreast of the thought of
the age in one's study, and to do one's best on Sunday to
interweave that thought with the active life of an ac-
tive town, and to inspirit both and make both infinite
by glimpses of the Eternal Glory, seemed such an ex
quisite forelock into one's life ! Enough to do, and all
so real and so grand ! If this vision could only have
lasted !
The truth is, that this vision was not in itself a de-
lusion, nor, indeed, half bright enough. If one could
only have been left to do his own business, the vision
would have accomplished itself and brought out new
paraheliacal visions, each as bright as the original.
The misery was and is, as we found out, I and Polly,
before long, that besides the vision, and besides the
usual human and finite failures in life (such as break-
174 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
ing the old pitcher that came over in the "May flower,*'
and putting into the fire the Alpenstock with which
her father climbed Mont Blanc), besides these, I say
(imitating the style of Robinson Crusoe), there were
pitchforked in on us a great rowen-heap of hum-
bugs, handed down from some unknown seed-time, in
which we were expected, and I chiefly, to fulfil certain
public functions before the community, of the character
of those fulfilled by the third row of supernumeraries
who stand behind the Sepoys in the spectacle of the
" Cataract of the Ganges." They were the duties,
in a word, which one performs as member of one or
another social class or subdivision, wholly distinct from
what one does as A. by himself A. What invisible
power put these functions on me, it would be very
hard to tell. But such power there was and is. And
I had not been at w r ork a year before I found I was
living two lives, one real and one merely functional,
for two sets of people, one my parish, whom I
loved, and the other a vague public, for whom I -did
not care two straws. All this was in a vague notion,
which everybody had and has, that this second life
would eventually bring out some great results, un-
known at present, to somebody somewhere.
Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan
on the ' Duality of the Brain," hoping that I could
train one side of my head to do these outside jobs, and
the other to do my intimate and real duties. For
Richard Greenough once told me, that, in studying
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 175
for the statue of Franklin, he found that the left side
of the great man's face was philosophic and reflective,
and the right side funny and smiling. If you will go
and look at the bronze statue, you will find he has re-
peated this observation there for posterity. The east-
ern profile is the portrait of the statesman Franklin, the
western of poor Richard. But Dr. Wigan does not go
into these niceties of this subject, and I failed. It was
then that, on my wife's suggestion, I resolved to look
out for a Double.
I was, at first, singularly successful. We happened
to be recreating at Stafford Springs that summer.
We rode out one day, for one of the relaxations of
that watering-place, to the great Monson Poorhouse.
We were passing through one of the large halls, when
my destiny was fulfilled !
He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles.
He was dressed in a green baize roundabout and faded
blue overalls, worn sadly at the knee. But I saw at
once that he was of my height, five feet four and a half.
He had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and
have not I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His
hands were large, and mine. And choicest gift of
Fate in all he had, not u a strawberry-mark on his
left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat over his
right eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow.
Reader, so have I ! My fate was sealed !
A word with Mr. Holley, one of the inspectors, set-
tled the whole thing. It proved that this Dennis
176 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
Shea was a harmless, amiable fellow, of the class known
as shiftless, who had 'sealed his fate by marrying a
dumb wife, who was at that moment ironing in the
laundry. Before I left Stafford, I had hired both for
five years. We had applied to Judge Pynchon, then
the probate judge at Springfield, to change the name
of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had ex-
plained to the Judge, what was the precise truth, that
an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under
this new name, into his family. It never occurred to
him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years
old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we
returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick,
there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress,
myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double,
who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right as I.
O the fun we had the next morning in shaving his
beard to my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine,
and teaching him how to wear and how to take off
gold-bowed spectacles ! Really, they were electro-plate,
and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes
were excellent). Then in four successive afternoons
I taught him four speeches. I had found these would
be quite enough for the supernumerary-Sepoy line of
life, and it was well for me they were ; for though
he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it
was, as our national proverb says, " like pulling teeth "
to teach him. But at the end of the next week he
could say, with quite my easy and frisky air,
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 177
1. " Very well, thank you. And you ? " This for
an answer to casual salutations.
2. " I am very glad you liked it."
3. " There has been so much said, and, on the whole,
so well said, that I will not occupy the time."
4. " I agree, in general, with my friend the other
side of the room."
At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at
great cost for clothing him. But it proved, of course,
at once, that, whenever he was out, I should be at
home. And I went, during the bright period of his
success, to so few of those awful pageants which re-
quire a black dress-coat and what the ungodly call,
after Mr. Dickens, a white choker, that in the happy
retreat of my own dressing-gowns and jackets my days
went by as happily and cheaply as those of another
Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year
when the tailoring cost so little. He lived (Dennis,
not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He
had orders never to show himself at that window.
When he appeared in the front of the house, I retired
to my sanctissiraum and my dressing-gown. In short,
the Dutchman and his wife, in the old weather-box,
had not less to do with each other than he and I. He
made the furnace-fire and split the wood before day-
light ; then he went to sleep again, and slept late ;
then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied
round his head, with his overalls on, and his dress-
coat and spectacles off. If we happened to be inter-
*
178 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
rupted, no one guessed that he was Frederic Ingham
as well as I ; and, in the neighborhood, there grew up
an impression that the minister's Irishman worked day-
times in the factory-village at New Coventry. After
I had given him his orders, I never saw him till the
next day.
I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the
Enlightenment Board. The Enlightenment Board
consists of seventy-four members, of whom sixty-seven
are necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a mem-
ber under the regulations laid down in old Judge
Dudley's will. I became one by being ordained pastor
of a church in Naguadavick. You see you cannot help
yourself, if you would. At this particular time we
had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours
each, wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum.
At the first only eleven men were present ; at the
next, by force of three circulars, twenty-seven ; at the
third, thanks to two days' canvassing by Auchmuty
and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty.
Half the others were in Europe. But without a
quorum we could do nothing. All the rest of us waited
grimly for our four hours, and adjourned without any
action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and
only got fifty-nine together. But on the first appear-
ance of my double, whom I sent on this fatal Mon-
day to the fifth meeting, he was the sixty-seventh
man who entered the room. He was greeted with a
storm of applause ! The poor fellow had missed his
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 179
wav, read the street signs ill through his spectacles
(very ill, in fact, without them), and had not dared
to inquire. He entered the room, finding the pres-
ident and secretary holding to their chairs two judges
of the Supreme Court, who were also members ex
officio, and were begging leave to go away. On his
entrance all was changed. Presto, the by-laws were
suspended, and the Western property was given away.
Nobody stopped to converse with him. He voted, as
I had charged him to do, in every instance, with the
minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, though
a little unpunctual, and Dennis, alias Ingham, re-
turned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how
little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a few of
my parishioners in the street ; but he had his glasses
off, and I am known to be near-sighted. Eventually
he recognized them more readily than I.
I '- set him again " at the exhibition of the New
Coventry Academy ; and here he undertook a " speak-
ing part," as, in my boyish, worldly days, I remem-
ber the bills used to say of Mile. Celeste. We are all
trustees of the Xew Coventry Academy ; and there
has lately been " a good deal of feeling " because the
Sandemanian trustees did not regularly attend the ex-
hibitions. It has been intimated, indeed, that the San-
demanians are leaning towards Free- Will, and that we
have, therefore, neglected these semiannual exhibi-
tions, while there is no doubt that Auchmuty last yeai
went to Commencement at Waterville. Now the head
180 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
master at New Coventry is a real good fellow, who
knows a Sanskrit root when he sees it, and often cracks
etymologies with me, so that, in strictness, I ought to
go to their exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting
through three long July days in that Academy chapel,
following the programme from
TUESDAY MORNING. English Composition. " SUNSHINE." Miss
Jones.
round to
Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from the Opera of "Midshipman
Eagy." Marryat.
coming in at nine, Thursday evening ! Think of this,
reader, for men who know the world is trving to go
backward, and who would give their lives if they could
help it on ! Well ! The double had succeeded so
well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy.
(Shade of Plato, pardon !) He arrived early on
Tuesday, when, indeed, few but mothers and clergy-
men are generally expected, and returned in the even-
ing to us, covered with honors. He had dined at the
right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in high
terms of the repast. The chairman had expressed his
interest in the French conversation. " I am very glad
you liked it," said Dennis ; and the poor chairman,
abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At the
end of the day, the gentlemen present had been called
upon for speeches, the Rev. Frederic Ingham first
as it happened ; upon which Dennis had risen, and
MY DOUBLE. AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 181
had said, " There has been so much said, and, on the
whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time."
The girls were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the
year before, had given them at this occasion a scolding
on impropriety of behavior at lyceum lectures. They
all declared Mr. Ingham was a love, and so hand-
some ! (Dennis is good-looking.) Three of them,
with arms behind the others' waists, followed him up
to the wagon he rode home in ; and a little girl with
a blue sash had been sent to give him a rosebud.
After this debut in speaking, he went to the exhibition
for two days more, to the mutual satisfaction of all
concerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had pro-
nounced the trustees' dinners of a higher grade than
those of the parsonage. When the next term began,
I found six of the Academy girls had obtained per-
mission to come across the river and attend our church.
But this arrangement did not long continue.
After this he went to several Commencements for
me, and ate the dinners provided; he sat through
three of our Quarterly Conventions for me, always
voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above,
of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who
had before been losing caste among my friends, as
holding myself aloof from the associations of the body,
began to rise in everybody's favor. " Ingham 's a
good fellow, always on hand " ; " never talks much,
but does the right thing at the right time " ; " is not
as unpunctual as he used to be, he comes earlv, and
182 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
sits through to the end." " He has got over his old
talkative habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it
once ; and I think Ingham took it kindly," etc., etc.
This voting power of Dennis was particularly valu-
able at the quarterly meetings of the proprietors of the
Naguadavick Ferry. My wife inherited from her father
some shares in that enterprise, which is not yet fully de-
veloped, though it doubtless will become a very valuable
property. The law of Maine then forbade stockholders
to appear by proxy at such meetings. Polly disliked to
go, not being, in fact, a " hens'-rights hen," transferred
her stock to me. I, after going once, disliked it more
than she. But Dennis went to the next meeting, and
liked it very much. He said the arm-chairs were
good, the collation good, and the free rides to stock-
holders pleasant. He was a little frightened when
they first took him upon one of the ferry-boats, but
after two or three quarterly meetings he became quite
brave.
Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. In-
deed, being, as I implied, of that type which is called
shiftless, he was only too happy to be told daily what
to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or in
any way original in his discharge of that duty. He
learned, however, to discriminate between the lines ot
his life, and very much preferred these stockholders'
meetings and trustees' dinners and Commencement
collations to another set of occasions, from which he
used to beg off most piteously. Our excellent broth-
MY DOUBLE, AJsD HOW HE UNDID ME. 183
er, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion at this time that
our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of
mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were
remiss. He said, that, if the Bishop came to preach
at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of the neigh-
borhood were present ; if Dr. Pond came, all the Con-
gregational clergymen turned out to hear "him ; if Dr.
Nichols, all the Unitarians ; and he thought we owed
it to each other, that, whenever there was an occa-
sional service at a Sandemanian church, the other
brethren should all, if possible, attend. " It looked
well," if nothino- more. Now this reallv meant that
*
I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lec-
tures on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that
he did not hear one of mv course on the "Sande-
/
manianism of Anselm." But I felt badly when he
said it ; and afterwards J always made Dennis go to
hear all the brethren preach, when I was not preach-
ing myself. This was what he took exceptions to,
the only thing, as I said, which he ever did except
to. Now came the advantage of his long morning-
nap, and of the green tea with which Polly supplied
the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to be
let off, only from one or two ! I never excepted him,
however. I knew the lectures were of value, and I
thought it best he should be able to keep the connec-
tion.
Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has ob-
served in the outset of this memoir. She risked Den-
184 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME
nis one night under the eyes of her own sex. Gov-
ernor Gorges had always been very kind to us, and,
when he gave his great annual party to the town, asked
us. I confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new
volume of Pfeiffer's " Mystics," which Haliburton had
just sent me from Boston. " But how rude," said
Polly, " not to return the Governor's civility and Mrs.
Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why you are
away ! " Still I demurred, and at last she, with the
wit of Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by
saying that, if I would go in with her, and sustain the
initial conversations with the Governor and the ladies
staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of
the evening. And that was just what we did. She
took Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed
him in fashionable conversation, cautioned him against
the temptations of the supper-table, and at nine in
the evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I
made the grand star-entree with Polly and the pretty
"Walton girls, who were staying with us. We had put
Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses :
and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of
looking at him. He sat in the carriage, at the door,
while we entered. I did the agreeable to Mrs.
Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda ;
I complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in
the great case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia Mining Com-
pany ; I stepped into the dressing-room for a
moment, stepped out for another, walked home
MT DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 185
after a nod with Dennis and tying the horse to a
pump ; and while I walked home, Mr. Frederic Ing-
ham, my double, stepped in through the library into the
Gorges's grand saloon.
Oh ! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at
midnight ! And even here, where I have to teach rny
hands to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave,
she dies of laughing as she recalls it, and says that
single occasion was worth all we have paid for it.
Gallant Eve that she is ! She joined Dennis at the
library-door, and in an instant presented him to Dr.
Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town,
and was talking with her as Dennis came in. " Mr.
Ingham would like to hear what you were tellincr us
J
about your success among the German population."
And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from
Polly, " I 'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Och-
terlony did not observe, and plunged into the tide of
explanation ; Dennis listened like a prime-minister,
and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose,
the same thing. Polly declared it was just like Hali-
burton's Latin conversation with the Hungarian min-
ister, of which he is very fond of telling. " Qucene
git historia Reformation^ in Ungarid ? " quoth Hali-
burton, after some thought. And his confrere replied
gallantly, " In seculo decimo tertio" etc., etc., etc. ;
and from decimo tertio* to the nineteenth century and
* Which means, " In the thirteenth century," my dear little bell
and-coral reader. You hare rightly guessed that the question means
" What is the history of the Reformation in Hungary * "
186 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
a half lasted till the oysters came. So was it that be-
fore Dr. Ochterlony came to the " success," or near it,
Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to
hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a request which he
heard with great joy.
Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as
a lark. Auchmuty came to her " in pity for poor
Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid pundit,
and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so
long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down,
Polly could not resist standing near them. He was a
little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and drink-
ables gave him the same Mercian courage which it
gave Diggory. A little excited then, he attempted
one or two of his speeches to the Judge's lady. But
little he knew how hard it was to get in even a promp-
tu there edgewise. " Very well, I thank you," said
he, after the eating elements were adjusted ; " and
you ? " And then did not he have to hear about the
mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna,
and chamomile-flower, and dodecatheon, till she
changed oysters for salad ; and then about the old
practice and the new, and what her sister said, and
what her sister's friend said, and what the physician
to her sister's friend said, and then what was said by
the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend
of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff ?
There was a moment's pause, as she declined Cham-
pagne. " I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 187
again, which he never should have said but to one
who complimented a sermon. " Oh ! you are so sharp,
Mr. Ingham ! No! I never drink any wine at all,
except sometimes in summer a little currant shrub,
from our own currants, you know. My own moth-
er, that is, I call her my own mother, because, you
know, 1 do not remember," etc., etc., etc. ; till they
came to the candied orange at the end of the feast,
when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say
something, and tried No. 4, "I agree, in general,
with my friend the other side of the room," which
he never should have said but at a public meeting.
But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to un-
derstand, caught him up instantly with " Well, I 'm
sure my husband returns the compliment ; he always
agrees with you, though we do worship with the
Methodists ; but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc.,
etc., till the move up-stairs ; and as Dennis led her
through the hall, he was scarcely understood by any
but. Polly, as he said, "There has been so much said,
and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy
the time."
His great resource the rest of the evening was
standing in the library, carrying on animated conver-
sations with one and another in much the same way.
Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a dis-
covery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your
sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble,
omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your
188 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
words fail you, answers even in public extempore
speech, but better where other talking is going on.
Thus : " We missed you at the Natural History So-
ciety, Ingham." Ingham replies, " I am very gli-
gloglum, that is, that you were mmmmm." By
gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is com-
pelled to supply the answer. " Mrs. Ingham, I hope
your friend Augusta is better." Augusta has not been
ill. Polly cannot think of explaining, however, and
answers, " Thank you, Ma'am ; she is very reara-
son wewahwewoh," in lower and lower tones. And
Mrs. Throckmorton, who forgot the subject of which
she spoke as soon as she asked the question, is quite
satisfied. Dennis could see into the card-room, and
came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play all-
fours. But, of course, she sternly refused. At mid-
night they came home delighted, Polly, as I said,
wild to tell me the story of the victory ; only both the
pretty Walton girls said, " Cousin Frederic, you did
not come near me all the evening."
We always called him Dennis at home, for con-
venience, though his real name was Frederic Ingham,
as I have explained. When the election-day came
round, however, I found that by some accident there
was only one Frederic Ingham's name on the voting-
list ; and as I was quite busy that day in writing some
foreign letters to Halle, I thought I would forego my
privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at. home, telling
Dennis that he might use the record on the voting-list,
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 189
and vote. I gave him a ticket, whicft 1 told him he
might use, if he liked to. That was that very sharp
election in Maine which the readers of the Atlantic so
well remember, and it had been intimated in public
that the ministers would do well not to appear at the
polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self
or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and
this standing in a double queue at town-meeting sev-
eral hours to vote was a bore of the first water ; and so
when I found that there was but one Frederic Ingham
on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at
home and finished the letters (which, indeed, pro-
cured for Fothergill his coveted appointment of Pro-
fessor of Astronomy at Leaven worth), and I gave Den-
nis, as we called him, the chance. Something in the
matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic
Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next
week, Frederic Ingham was chosen to the legislature.
Whether this was I or Dennis I never really knew.
My friends seemed to think it was I ; but I felt that
as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled
to the honor ; so I sent him to Augusta when the time
came, and he took the oaths. And a very valuable
member he made. They appointed him on the Com-
mittee on Parishes ; but I wrote a letter for him, re-
signing, on the ground that he took an interest in our
claim to the stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of
Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never
made any speeches, and always voted with the minor-
190 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
ity, which was what he was sent to do. He made me
and himself a great many good friends, some of whom
I did not afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennia
did my parishioners. On one or two occasions, wheb
there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home ;
but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself.
Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these times,
I watched the proceedings with a good deal of care :
and once was so much excited that I delivered my
somewhat celebrated speech on the Central School-
District question, a speech of which the "State of
Maine " printed some extra copies. I believe there is
no formal rule permitting strangers to speak ; but no
one objected.
Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But
our experience this session led me to think that if, by
some such " general understanding " as the reports
speak of in legislation daily, every member of Congress
might leave a double to sit through those deadly ses-
sions and answer to roll-calls and do the legitimate
party-voting, which appears stereotyped in the regular
list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain de-
cidedly in working-power. As things stand, the sad-
dest State prison I ever visit is that Representatives'
Chamber in Washington. If a man leaves for an
nour, twenty " correspondents " may be howling,
" Where was Mr. Pendergrast when the Oregon bill
passed ? " Ana if poor Pendergrast stays there ! Cer-
tainly the worst use you can make of a man is to pnt
him in prison !
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 191
I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank
have resorted to this expedient long ago. Dumas's
novel of the " Iron Mask " turns on the brutal impris-
onment of Louis the Fourteenth's double. There
seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the
real General Pierce who shed tears when the dele-
gate from Lawrence explained to him the sufferings of
the people there, and only General Pierce's double
who had given the orders for the assault on that town,
which was invaded the next day. My charming
friend, George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a
double, who preaches his afternoon sermons for him.
This is the reason that the theology often varies so
from that of the forenoon. But that double is almost
as charming as the original. Some of the most well-
defined men, who stand out most prominently on the
background of history, are in this way stereoscopic
men, who owe their distinct relief to the slight differ-
ences between the doubles. All this I know. My
present suggestion is simply the great extension of the
system, so that all public machine-work may be done
by it.
But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to
the plunge. Let me stop an instant more, however,
to recall, were it only to myself, that charming year
while all was yet well. After the double had become
a matter of course, for nearly twelve months before he
undid me, what a year it was ! Full of active life, full
of happy love, of the hardest work, of the sweetest
192 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
sleep, and the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspi-
rations and dreams of boyhood ! Dennis went to
every school-committee meeting, and sat through all
those late wranglings which used to keep me up till
midnight and awake till morning. He attended all
the lectures to which foreign exiles sent me tickets
begging me to come for the love of Heaven and of
Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets for
charity concerts which were sent to me. He appeared
everywhere where it was specially desirable that " our
denomination," or " our party," or " our class," or
"our family," or "our street," or "our town," or
" our country," or " our State," should be fully repre-
sented. And I fell back to that charming life which
in boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes he shall
do his own duty and make his own sacrifices, without
being tied up with those of other people. My rusty
Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French,
Italian, Spanish, German, and English began to take
polish. Heavens ! how little I had done with them
while I attended to my public duties ! My calls on my
parishioners became the friendly, frequent, homelike
sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the hard
work of a man goaded to desperation by the sight of
his lists of arrears. And preaching ! what a luxury
preaching was when I had on Sunday the whole re-
sult of an individual, personal week, from which to
speak to a people whom all that week I had been
meeting as hand-to-hand friend ; I, never tired on
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 193
Sunday, and in condition to leave the sermon at home,
if I chose, and preach it extempore, as all men should
do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a
sensible people, like ours, really more attached to
their clergy than they were in the lost days, when the
Mathers and Nortons were noblemen, should choose
to neutralize so much of their ministers' lives, and de-
stroy so much of their early training, by this unde-
fined passion for seeing them in public. It springs
from our balancing of sects. If a spirited Episcopa-
lian takes an interest in the almshouse, and is put on
the Poor Board, every other denomination must have
a minister there, lest the poorhouse be changed into
St. Paul's Cathedral. If a Sandemanian is chosen
president of the Young Men's Library, there must be
a Methodist vice-president and a Baptist secretary.
And if a Universalist Sunday-School Convention col-
lects five hundred delegates, the next Congregational-
o * ~ o
ist Sabbath-School Conference must be as large, " lest
* they ' whoever they may be should think ' we '
whoever we, may be are going down."
Freed from these necessities, that happy year I be-
gan to know my wife by sight. We saw each other
sometimes. In those long mornings, when Dennis
was in the study explaining to map-peddlers that I had
eleven maps of Jerusalem already, and to school-book
agents that I would see them hanged before I would
be bribed to introduce their text-books into the schools,
she and I were at work together, as in those old
194 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
dreamy days, and in these of our log-cabin again.
But all this could not last, and at length poor Den-
nis, my double, overtasked in turn, undid me.
It was thus it happened. There is an excellent
fellow, once a minister, I will call him Isaacs,
who deserves well of the world till he dies, and after,
because he once, in a real exigency, did the right
thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other
man could do it. In the world's great football match,
the ball by chance 1 found him loitering on the outside
of the field ; he closed with it, " camped " it, charged
it home, yes, right through the other side, not
disturbed, not frightened by his own success, and
breathless found himself a great man, as the Great
Delta rang applause. But he did not find himself
a rich man ; and the football has never come in his
way again. From that moment to this moment he
has been of no use, that one can see at all. Still, for
that great act we speak of Isaacs gratefully and re-
member him kindly ; and he forges on, hoping to
meet the football somewhere again. In that vague
hope, he had arranged a " movement " for a general
organization of the human family into Debating-Clubs,
County Societies, State Unions, etc., etc., with a view
of inducing all children to take hold of the handles of
their knives and forks, instead of the metal. Children
have bad habits in that way. The movement, of
course, was absurd ; but we all did our best to forward,
not it, but him. It came time for the annual county-
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 195
meeting on this subject to be held at Naguadavick.
Isaacs came round, good fellow ! to arrange for it,
got the town-hall, got the Governor to preside (the
saint ! he ought to have triplet doubles provided
him by law), and then came to get me to speak.
" No," I said, " I would not speak, if ten Governors
presided. I do not believe in the enterprise. If 1
spoke, it should be to say children should take hold of
the prongs of the forks and the blades of the knives.
I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not speak a
mill." So poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax
Auchmuty to speak, and Delafield. I went out.
Not long after he came back, and told Polly that they
had promised to speak, the Governor would speak,
and he himself would close with the quarterly report,
and some interesting anecdotes regarding Miss Bif-
fin's way of handling her knife and Mr. Nellis's way
of footing his fork. " Now if Mr. Ligham will only
come and sit on the platform, he need not say one
word ; but it will show well in the paper, it will
show that the Sandemanians take as much interest in
the movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians,
and will be a great favor to me." Polly, good soul !
was tempted, and she promised. She knew Mrs. Isaacs
was starving, and the babies, she knew Dennis
was at home, and she promised ! Night came, and
I returned. I heard her story. I was sorry. I
doubted. But Polly had promised to beg me, and I
dared all ! I told Dennis to hold his peace, under all
circumstances, and sent him do-.vn.
196 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
It was not half an hour more before he returned,
wild with excitement, in a perfect Irish fury,
which it was long before I understood. But I knew
at once that he had undone me !
What happened was this. The audience got to-
gether, attracted by Governor Gorges's name. There
were a thousand people. Poor Gorges was late from
Augusta. They became impatient. He came in di-
rect from the train at last, really ignorant of the ob-
ject of the meeting. He opened it in the fewest
possible words, and said other gentlemen were present
who would entertain them better than he. The au-
dience were disappointed, but waited. The Gover-
nor, prompted by Isaacs, said, " The Honorable Mr.
Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten
the knives and forks, and was playing the Ruy Lopez
opening at the chess-club. " The Rev. Mr. Auch-
muty will address you." Auchmuty had promised to
speak late, and was at the school-committee. " I see
Dr. Stearns in the hall; perhaps he will say a word."
Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and not to speak
The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor
looked at Dennis, who was resplendent on the plat-
form ; but Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head,
But the look was enough. A miserable lad, ill-bred,
who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound
well to call for me, and peeped out, " Ingham ! " A
few more wretches " cried, " Ingham ! Ingham ! "
Still Isaacs was firm ; but the Governor, anxious, in-
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 197
deed, to prevent a row, knew I would say some-
thing, and said, " Our friend Mr. Inghara is always
prepared ; and, though we had not relied upon him,
he will say a word perhaps." Applause followed,
which turned Dennis's head. He rose, fluttered, and
tried No. 3 : " There has been so much said, and, on
the whole, so well said, that I will not longer occupy
the time ! " and sat down, looking for his hat ; for
things seemed squally. But the people cried, " Go
on ! go on ! " and some applauded. Dennis, still con-
fused, but flattered by the applause, to which neither
he nor I are used, rose again, and this time tried No.
2 : " I am veiy glad you liked it ! " in a sonorous,
clear delivery. My best friends stared. All the peo-
ple who did not know me personally yelled with de-
light at the aspect of the evening ; the Governor was
beside himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone !
Alas, it was I ! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud
tone, " It 's all an infernal humbug," just as Dennis,
waving his hand, commanded silence, and tried No. 4:
" I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of
the room." The poor Governor doubted his senses
and crossed to stop him, not in time, however
The same gallery-boy shouted, " How 's your moth-
er?" and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his
last shot, No. 1, vainly: " Very well, thank you ; and
you?"
I think I must have been undone already. But
Dennis, like another Lockhard, chose " to make sicker.' ;
198 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME.
The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage, and
sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis,
broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered
himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any per-
son who wished to fight to come down and do so,
stating, that they were all dogs and cowards and the
sons of dogs and cowards, that he would take any
five of them single-handed. " Shure, I have said all
his Riverence and the Misthress bade me say," cried
he, in defiance ; and, seizing the Governor's cane from
his hand, brandished it, quarter-staff fashion, above his
head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only with
the greatest difficulty by the Governor, the City Mar-
shal, who had been called in, and the Superintendent
of my Sunday-School.
The universal impression, of course, was, that the
Rev. Frederic Ingham had lost all command of himself
in some of those haunts of intoxication which for fif-
teen years I have been laboring to destroy. Till this
moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick.
This number of the Atlantic will relieve from it a
hundred friends of mine who have been sadly wounded
by that notion now for years ; but I shall not be likely
ever to show my head there again.
No ! My double has undone me.
We left town at seven the next morning. I came
to No. 9, in the Third Range, and settled on the Min-
ister's Lot. In the new towns in Maine, the first
settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of land.
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 199
I am the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and
little Paulina are my parish. We raise corn enough
to live on in summer. We kill bear's meat enough to
carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily on my
*' Traces of Sandemanianisua in the Sixth and Seventh
Centuries," which I hope to persuade Phillips, Samp-
son, & Co. to publish next year. We are very happy,
but the world thinks we are undone.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
[Tnis story originated in the advertisement of the humbug
which it describes. Some fifteen or twenty years since, when
gift enterprises rose to one of their climaxes, a gift of a large sum
of money, I think $10,000, was offered in New York to the most
successful ticket-holder in some scheme, and one of $ 5,000 to the
second. It was arranged that one of these parties should be a
man and the other a woman ; and the amiable suggestion was
added, on the pa'rt of the undertaker of the enterprise, that if the
gentleman and lady who drew these prizes liked each other
sufficiently well when the distribution was made, they might re-
gard the decision as a match made for them in Heaven, and take
the money as the dowry of the bride. This thoroughly practical,
and, at the same time, thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the
attention of a distinguished story-teller, a dear friend of mine,
who proposed to me that we should each of us write the history
of one of the two successful parties, to be woven together by their
union at the end. The plan, however, lay latent for years,
the gift enterprise of course blew up, and it was not until the
summer of 1862 that I wrote my half of the proposed story, with
the hope of eliciting the other half. My friend's more important
engagements, however, have thus far kept Fausta's detailed biog-
raphy from the light. I sent my half to Mr. Frank Leslie, in
competition for a premium offered by him, as is stated in the
second chapter of the story. And the story found such favor in
the eyes of the judges, that it received one of his second premi-
ums. The first was very properly awarded to Miss Louisa
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 201
Alcott, for a story of great spirit and power. " The Children of
the Public" was printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
for January 24 and January 31, 1863. The moral which it tries
to illustrate, which is, I believe, an important one, was thus com-
mended to the attention of the very large circle of the readers of
that journal, a journal to which I am eager to say I think this
nation has been very largely indebted for the loyalty, the good
sense, and the high tone which seem always to characterize it.
During the war, the pictorial journals had immense influence in
the army, and they used this influence with, an undeviating re-
gard to the true honor of the country.]
CHAPTER I.
THE PORK-BARREL.
" FELIX," said my wife to me, as I came home to-
night, "you will have to go to the pork-barrel."
" Are you quite sure," said I, " quite sure ? ' Woe
to him,' says the oracle, ' who goes to the pork-barrel
before the moment of his need.' '
" And woe to him, say I," replied my brave wife,
" woe and disaster to him ; but the moment of our
need has come. The figures are here, and you shall
see. I have it all in black and in white,''
And so it proved, indeed, that when Miss Sampson,
the nurse, was paid for her month's service, and when
the boys had their winter boots, and when my life-
insurance assessment was provided for, and the new
payment for the insurance on the house, when the
202 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
taxes were settled with the collector (and my wife
had to lay aside double for the war), when the pew-
rent was paid for the year, and the water-rate we
must have to start with, on the 1st of January, one
hundred dollars. This, as we live, would pay, in
cash, the butcher, and the grocer, and the baker, and
all the dealers in things that perish, and would buy
the omnibus tickets, and recompense Bridget till the
1st of April. And at my house, if we can see forwai'd
three months we are satisfied. But, at my house, we
are never satisfied if there is a credit at any store for
us. We are sworn to pay as we go. We owe no
man anything.
So it was that my wife said : " Felix, you will have
to go to the pork-barrel."
This is the story of the pork-barrel.
It happened once, in a little parish in the Green
Mountains, that the deacon reported to Parson
Plunkett, that, as he rode to meeting by Chung-a-
baug Pond, he saw Michael Stowers fishing for
pickerel through a hole in the ice on the Sabbath day.
The parson made note of the complaint, and that after-
noon drove over to the pond in his " one-horse shay."
He made his visit, not unacceptable, on the poor
Stowers household, and then crossed lots to the place
where he saw poor Michael hoeing. He told Michael
that he was charged with Sabbath breaking, and bade
him plead to the charge. And poor Mike, like a man,
plead guilty ; but, in extenuation, he said that there
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 203
was nothing to eat in the house, and rather than see
wife and children faint, he had cut a hole in the ice,
had put in his hook again and again, and yet again,
and coining home had delighted the waiting family
-with an unexpected breakfast. The good parson
made no rebuke, nodded pensive, and drove straight-
way to the deacon's door.
" Deacon," said he, " what meat did you eat for
breakfast yesterday? "
The deacon's family had eaten salt pork, fried.
" And where did you get the pork, Deacon ? "
The Deacon stared, but said he had taken it from
his pork-barrel.
" Yes, Deacon," said the old man; " I supposed so.
I have been to see Brother Stowers, to talk to him
about his Sabbath-breaking ; and, Deacon, I find'the
pond is his pork-barrel."
The story is a favorite with me and with Fausta.
But " woe," says the oracle, " to him who goes to the
pork-barrel before the moment of his need." And to
that " woe " both Fausta and I say " amen." For
we know that there is no fish in our pond for spend-
thrifts or for lazy-bones ; none for people who wear
gold chains or Attleborough jewelry ; none for peopie
who are ashamed of cheap carpets or wooden mantel-
pieces. Not for those who run in debt will the fish
bite ; nor for those who pretend to be richer or better
or wiser than they are. No! But we have found, in
our lives, that in a great democracy there reigns a
204 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
great and gracious sovereign. We have found that thia
sovereign, in a reckless and unconscious way, is, all
the time, making the most profuse provision for all the
citizens. We have found that those who are not too
grand to trust him fare as well as they deserve. We
have found, on the other hand, that those who lick his
feet or flatter his follies fare worst of living men.
O
We find that those who work honestly, and only seek
a man's fair average of life, or a woman's, get that
average, though sometimes by the most singular ex-
periences in the long run. And thus we find that,
when an extraordinary contingency arises in life, as just
now in ours, we have only to go to our pork-barrel,
and the fish rises to our hook or spear.
The sovereign brings this about in all sorts of ways,
but he does not fail, if, without flattering him, you
trust him. Of this sovereign the name is "the
Public." Fausta and I are apt to call ourselves his
children, and so I name this story of our lives,
"THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC."
CHAPTER II.
WHERE IS THE BARREL?
" WHERE is the barrel this time, Fausta ? " said I,
after I had added and subtracted her figures three
times, to be sure she had carried her tens and hun
THE CHILDREN Of THE PUBLIC. 205
dreds rightly. For the units, in such accounts, m
face of Dr. Franklin, I confess I do not care.
"The barrel," said she, "is in FRANK LESLIE'S
OFFICE. Here is the mark ! v and she handed me
FRANK LESLIE'S NEWSPAPER, , with a mark at this
announcement :
$100
for the best Short Tale of from one to two pages of FRAXK LESLIE'S
ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER, to be sent in on or before the 1st of
November, 1862.
" There is another barrel," she said, " with $ 5,000
in it, and another with $ 1,000. But we do not want
$ 5,000 or 8 1,000. There is a little barrel with $ 50
in it. But see here, with all this figuring, I cannot
make it do. I have stopped the gas now, and I have
turned the children's coats, I wish you would see
how well Robert's looks, and I have had a new tile
put in the cook-stove, instead of buying that lovely
n ^w ' Banner.' But all will not do. We must go to
this barrel."
"And what is to be the hook, darling, this time?"
said I.
-' I have been thinking of it all day. 1 hope you
will not hate it, I know you will not like it exactly ;
but why not write down just the whole story oi
what it is to be 'Children of the Public'; how we
came to live here, you know ; how we built the house,
and all about it?"
" How Felix knew Fausta," said I ; " and how
Fausta first met Felix, perhaps ; and when they first
206 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
kissed each other ; and what she said to him when
they did so."
" Tell that, if you dare," said Fausta ; " but per-
haps the oracle says we must not be proud per-
haps you might tell just a little. You know really
almost everybody is named Carter now ; and I do
not believe the neighbors will notice, perhaps they
won't read the paper. And if they do notice it, I
don't care ! There ! "
" It will not be so bad as "
But I never finished the sentence. An imperative
gesture closed my lips physically as well as metaphor-
ically, and I was glad to turn the subject enough to
sit down to tea with the children. After the bread
and butter we agreed what we might and what we
might not tell, and then I wrote what the reader is
now to see.
CHAPTER III.
MY LIFE TO ITS CRISIS.
NEW-YORKERS of to-day see so many- processions,
and live through so many sensations, and hurrah for
so many heroes in every year, that it is only the
oldest of fogies who tells you of the triumphant pro-
cession of steamboats which, in the year 1824, wel-
comed General Lafayette on his arrival from his
tour through the country he had so nobly served.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
But, if the reader wishes to lengthen out this story
he may button th3 next silver-gray friend he. meets,
and ask him to tell of the broken English and broken
French of the Marquis, of Levasseur, and the rest of
them ; of the enthusiasm of the people and the readi-
ness of the visitors, and he will please bear in mind
that of all that am I.
For it so happened that on the morning when, for
want of better lions to show, the mayor and governor
and the rest of them took the Marquis and his sec-
retary, and the rest of them, to see the orphan asylum
in Deering Street, as they passed into the first ward,
after having had "a little refreshment" in the mana-
gers' room, Sally Eaton, the head nurse, dropped the
first courtesy to them, and Sally Eaton, as it happened,
held me screaming in her arms. I had been sent to
the asylum that morning with a paper pinned to my
bib, which said my name was Felix Carter.
" Eet ees verra fine," said the Marquis, smiling
blandly.
" Ravissant ! " said Levasseur, and he dropped a
five-franc piece into Sally Eaton's hand. And so the
procession of exhibiting managers talking bad French,
and of exhibited Frenchmen talkincr bad English,
O JT
passed on ; all but -good old Elkanah Ogden God
bless him! who happened to have come there with
the governor's party, and who loitered a minute to
talk with Sally Eaton about me.
Years afterwards she told me how the old man
208
kissed mo, how his eyes watered when he asked my
story, how she told again of the moment when I was
heard screaming on the doorstep, and how she offered
to go and bring the paper which had been pinned to
my bib. But the old man said it was no matter,
" only we would have called him Marquis," said he,
"if his name was not provided for him. We must
not leave him here," he said; "he shall grow up a
farmer's lad, and not a little cockney." And . so,
instead of going the grand round of infirmaries, kitch-
ens, bakeries, and dormitories with the rest, the good
old soul went back into the managers' room, and
wrote at the moment a letter to John Myers, who
took care of his wild land in St. Lawrence County for
him, to ask him if Mrs. Myers would not bring up
an orphan ,baby by hand for him ; and if, both to-
gether, they would not train this baby till he said
" stop " ; if, on the other hand, he allowed them, in
the yearly account, a hundred dollars each year for the
charge.
Anybody who knows how far a hundred dollars
goes in the backwoods, in St. Lawrence County, will
know that any settler would be glad to take a ward so
recommended. Anybody who knew Betsy Myers as
well as old Elkanah Ogclen did, would know she
would have taken any orphan brought to her door,
even if he were not recommended at all.
So it happened, thanks to Lafavette and the city
council! that I had not been a " Child of the Public "
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 209
a day, l>efore, in its great, clumsy, liberal way, it had
provided for me. I owed my healthy, happy home
of the next fourteen years in the wilderness to those
marvellous habits, which I should else call absurd,
with which we lionize strangers. Because our hos-
pitals and poorhou^s are the largest buildings we
have, wo entertain tne Prince of Wales and Jenny
Lind alike, by showing them crazy people and paupers.
Ea-y enough to laugh at is the display ; but if, dear
Public, it happen, that by such a habit you ventilate
your Bricjewell or your Bedlam, is not the ventilation,
perhaps, a compensation for the absurdity ? I do not
know if Lafayette was any the better for his seeing
the Deering Street Asylum ; but I do know I was.
This is no history of my life. It is only an illus-
tration of one of its principles. I have no anecdotes
of wilderness life to tell, and no sketch of the lovely
rugged traits of John and Betsy Myers, my real
father and mother. I have no quest for the pretended
parents, who threw me away in my babyhood, to re-
cord. They closed accounts with me when they left
me on the asylum steps, and I with them. I grew up
with such schooling as the public gave, ten weeks
in winter always, and ten in summer, till I was big
enough to work on the farm, better periods of schools,
I hold, than on the modern systems. Mr. Ogden I
never saw. Regularly he allowed for me the hundred
a year till I was nine years old, and then suddenly he
died, as the reader perhaps knows. But John Myers
210 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
kept me as his son, none the less. I knew no change
until, when I was fourteen, he thought it time for me
to see the world, and sent me to what, in those days,
was called a " Manual-Labor School."
There was a theory coming up in those days, wholly
unfounded in physiology, that if a man worked five
hours with his hands, he could study better in the
next five. It is all nonsense. Exhaustion is exhaus-
tion ; and if you exhaust a vessel by one stopcock,
nothing is gained or saved by closing that and open-
ing another. The old up-country theory is the true
one. Study ten weeks and chop wood fifteen ; study
ten more and harvest fifteen. But the "Manual-
Labor School " offered itself for really no pay, only
John Myers and I carried over, I remember, a dozen
barrels of potatoes when I went there with my books.
The school was kept at Roscius, and if I would work
in the carpenter's shop and on the school farm five
hours, why they would feed me and teach me all they
knew in what I had of the day beside.
" Felix," said John, as he left me, " I do not sup-
pose this is the best school in the world, unless you
make it so. But I do suppose you can make it so.
If you and I went \vhining about, looking for the best
school in the' world, and for somebody to pay your
way through it, I should die, and you would lose your
voice with whining, and we should not find one after
all. This is what the public happens to provide for
you and me We won't look a gift-horse in the
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 211
mouth. Get on his back, Felix ; groom him well as
you can when you stop, feed him when you can, and
at all events water him well and take care of him
well. My last advice to you, Felix, is to take what
is offerai you, and never complain because nobody
offers more."
Those words are to be cut on my seal-ring, if I
ever have one, and if Dr. Anthon or Professor Web-
ster will put them into short enough Latin for me.
That is the motto of the " Children of the Public."
John Myers died before that term was out. And
my more than mother, Betsy, went back to her friends
in Maine. After the funeral I never saw them more.
How I lived from that moment to what Fausta and I
call the Crisis is nobody's concern. I worked in the
shop at the school, or on the farm. Afterwards I
taught school in neighboring districts. I never bought
a ticket in a lottery or a raffle. But whenever there
was a chance to do an honest stroke of work, I did it.
1 have walked fifteen miles at night to carry an elec-
tion return to the Tribune's agent at Gouverneur. I
have turned out in the snow to break open the road
when the supervisor could not find another man in the
township.
When Sartain started his magazine. I wrote an
O *
essay in competition for his premiums, and the essay
earned its hundred dollars. When the managers of
O
the " Orphan Home," in Baltimore, offered their
prizes for papers on bad boys, I wrote for one of them,
212 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC
and that helped me on four hard months. There was
no luck in those things. I needed the. money, and I
put my hook into the pork-barrel, that is, I trusted
the Public. N I never had but one stroke of luck in my
life. I wanted a new pair of boots badly. I was
going to walk to Albany, to work in the State library
on the history of the Six Nations, which had an in-
terest for me. I did not have a dollar. Just then
there passed Congress the bill dividing the surplus
revenue. The State of New York received two or
three millions, and divided it among the counties.
The county of St. Lawrence divided it among the
townships, and the township of Roscius divided it
among the voters. Two dollars and sixty cents of
Uncle Sam's money came to me, and with that money
on my feet I walked to Albany. That I call luck !
How many fools had to assent in an absurdity before
I could study the history of the Six Nations !
But one instance told in detail is better than a
thousand told in general, for the illustration of a prin-
ciple. So I will detain you no longer from the history
of what Fausta and I call
THE CRISIS.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 213
CHAPTER IV.
THE CRISIS.
I WAS at \vork as a veneerer in a piano-forte fac-
tory at Attica, when some tariff or other was passed
or repealed ; there came a great financial explo-
sion, and our boss, among the rest, failed. He
owed us all six months' wages, and we were all very
poor and very blue. Jonathan Whittemore a real
good fellow, who used to" cover the hammers with
leather came to me the day the shop was closed,
and told me he was going to take the chance to go to
Europe. He was going to the Musical Conservatory
at Leipsic, if he could. He would work his passage
out as a stoker. He would wash himself for three
or four days at Bremen, and then get work, if he
could, with Voightlander or Von Hammer till he
could enter the Conservatory. By way of prepara-
tion for this he wanted me to sell him my Adler's
German Dictionary.
" I Ve nothing to give you for it, Felix, but this
foolish thing, it is one of Burrham's tickets, which
I bought in a frolic the night of our sleigh-ride. I '11
transfer it to you."
I told Jonathan he might have the dictionary and
welcome. He was doing a sensible thing, and he
O O 7
would use it twenty times as much as I should. Aa
214 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
ibr the ticket, he had better keep it. I did not want
it. But I saw he would feel better if I took it, so
he indorsed it to me.
Now the reader must know that this Burrham was
a man who had got hold of one corner of the idea of
what the Public could do for its children. He had
found out that there were a thousand people who
would be glad to make the tour of the mountains
and the lakes every summer if they could do it for
half-price. He found out that the railroad companies
were glad enough to put the price down if they could
be sure of the thousand people. He mediated be-
tween the two, and so "cheap excursions" came into
being. They are one of the gifts the Public gives its
children. Rising from step to step, Burrham had, just
before the great financial crisis, conceived the idea of
a great cheap combination, in which everybody was
to receive a magazine for a year and a cyclopaedia,
both at half-price ; and not only so, but the money
that was gained in the combination was to be given
by lot to two ticket-holders, one a man and one a
woman, for their dowry in marriage. I dare say the
reader remembers the prospectus. It savors too much
of the modern " Gift Enterprise " to be reprinted in
full ; but it had this honest element, that everybody
got more than he could get for his money in retail. I
have my magazine, the old Boston Miscellany, to this
day, and I just now looked out Levasseur's name in
my cyclopaedia ; and, as you will see, I have reason to
know that all the other subscribers got theirs.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. -Id
One of the tickets for these books, for which "Whit-
temore had given five good dollars, was what he gave
to me for my dictionary. And so we parted. I
loitered at Attica, hoping for a place where I could
put in my oar. But my hand was out at teaching,
and in a time when all the world's veneers of different
kinds were ripping off, nobody wanted me to put on
more of my kind, so that my cash ran low. I
would not go in debt, that is a thing I never did.
More honest, I say, to go to the poorhouse, and make
the Public care for its child there, than to borrow what
you cannot pay. But I did not come quite to that, as
you shall see.
I was counting up my money one night, and it
was easily done, when I observed that the date on
this Burrham order was the loth of October, and it
occurred to me that it was not quite a fortnight before
those books were to be delivered. They were to be
delivered at Castle Garden, at New York ; and the
thought struck me that I might go to New York, try my
chance there for work, and at least see the city, which
I had never seen, and get my cyclopaedia and maga-
zine. It was the least offer the Public ever made to
me ; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and the
luast was better than nothing. The plan of so long a
journey was Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it
a good deal. Finally I came to this resolve: I would
start in the morning to walk to the lock-station at
Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that night
216 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
where they would give me my fare for any work I
could do for them, I would go to Albany. If not, I
would walk back to Lockport the next day, and try
my fortune there. This gave me, for my first day's
enterprise, a foot journey of about twenty-five miles.
It was out of the question, with my finances, for me
to think of compassing the train.
Every point of life is a pivot on which turns the
whole action of our after-lives ; and so, indeed, of the
after-lives of the whole world. But we are so pur-
blind that we only see this of certain special enter-
prises and endeavors, which we therefore call critical.
I am sure I see it of that twenty-five miles of fresh
autumnal walking. I was in tiptop spirits. I found
the air all oxygen, and everything " ad right." I did
not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with
the feeling that every nerve and muscle drew, as in
the trades a sailor feels of every rope and sail. And
so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook appeared
where I was to drink ; nor hungry till twelve o'clock
came, when I was to dine. I called myself as I
walked " The Child of Good Fortune," because the
gun was on my right quarter, as the sun should be
when you walk, because the rain of yesterday had
laid the dust for me, and the frost of yesterday had
painted the hills for me, and the northwest wind
cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads
just in time to meet the Clare mont baker and buy my
dinner loaf of him. And when my walk was nearly
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 21 7
done, 1 came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which
is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing
boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all
right I felt myself and called myself" The Child of Good
Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made 'by a loving
Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we
only have wit enough to find it out, as we stroll along.
The last stroke of good fortune which that day had
for me was the solution of my question whether or no
I would go to Babylon. I was to go if any good-na-
tured boatman Avould take me. This is a question, Mr.
Millionnaire, more doubtful to those who have not
drawn their dividends than to those who have. As I
came down the village street at Brockport, I could see
the horses of a boat bound eastward, led alons from
O
level to level at the last lock ; and, in spite of my de-
termination not to hurry, I put myself on the long,
loping trot which the St. Regis Indians taught me,
that I might overhaul this boat before she got under
way at her new speed. I came out on the upper gate
of the last lock just as she passed out from the lower
gate. The horses were just put on, and a reckless boy
gave them their first blow after two hours of rest and
corn. As the heavy boat started off under the new
motion, I saw, and her skipper saw at the same in-
stant, that a long new tow-rope of his, which had lain
coiled on deck, was suddenlv flvincr out to its full
/ O
length. The outer end of it had been carried upon
the lock-side by some chance or blunder, and there
10
218 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
some idle loafer had thrown the looped bight of it
over a hawser-post. The loafers on the lock saw, as I
did, that the rope was running out, and at the call of
the skipper one of them condescended to throw the
loop overboard, but he did it so carelessly that the lazy
rope rolled over into the lock, and the loop caught on
one of the valve-irons of the upper gate. The whole
was the business of an instant, of course. But the
poor skipper saw, what we did not, that the coil of the
rope on deck was foul, and so entangled round his long
tiller, that ten seconds would do one of three things,
they would snap his new rope in two, which was a tri
fle, or they would wrench his tiller-head off the rudder,
which would cost him an hour to mend, or they would
upset those two horses, at this instant on a trot, and
put into the canal the rowdy youngster who had start-
ed them. It was this complex certainty which gave fire
to the double cries which he addressed aft to us on
the lock, and forward to the magnet boy, whose indif-
ferent intelligence at that moment drew him along.
I was stepping upon the gate-head to walk across it.
It took but an instant, not nearly all the ten seconds,
to swing down by my arms into the lock, keeping my-
self hanging by my hands, to catch with my right foot
the bight of the rope and lift it off the treacherous
iron, to kick the whole into the water, and then to
scramble up the wet lock-side again. I got a little
wet, but that was nothing. I ran down the tow-path,
beckoned to the skipper, who sheered his boat up to
the shore, and I jumped on board.
THE CHILDREN OP THE PUBLIC. 219
At that moment, reader, Fausta was sitting in a
yellow chair on the deck of that musty old boat,
crocheting from a pattern in Grodey's Lady^s Book.
I remember it as I remember my breakfast of this
morning. Not that I fell in love with her, nor did I
fall in love with my breakfast ; but I knew she was
there. And that was the first time I ever saw her.
It is many years since, and I have seen her every day
from that evening to this evening. But I had then no
business with her. My affair was with him whom I have
called the skipper, by way of adapting this fresh-water
narrative to ears accustomed to Marryat and Tom
Cringle. I told him that I had to go to New York ;
that I had not time to walk, and had not money to
pay ; that I should like to work my passage to Troy,
if there were any way in which I could ; and to ask
him this I had come on board.
" Waal," said the skipper, " 'taint much that is to
be done, and Zekiel and I calc'late to do most of that ,
and there 's that blamed boy beside "
This adjective " blamed " is the virtuous oath by
which simple people, who are improving their habits,
cure themselves of a stronger epithet, as men take to
flagroot who are abandoning tobacco.
" He ain't good for nothin', as you see," continued
the skipper meditatively, " and you air, anybody can
see that," he added. " Ef you Ve mind to come to
Albany, you can have your vittles, poor enough they
are too; and ef you are willing to ride sometimes, you
220 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
can ride. I guess where there 's rcom for three m the
bunks there 's room for four. 'Taint everybody would
have cast off that blamed hawser-rope as neat as you
did."
From which last remark I inferred, what I learned
as a certainty as we travelled farther, that but for the
timely assistance I had rendered him I should have
plead for my passage in vain.
This was my introduction to Fausta. That is to
say, she heard the whole of the conversation. The
formal introduction, which is omitted iri no circle of
American life to which I have ever been admitted,
took place at tea half an hour after, when Mrs. Grills,
who always voyaged with her husband, brought in
the flapjacks from the kitchen. " Miss Jones," said
Grills, as I came into the meal, leaving Zekiel at the
tiller, " Miss Jones, this is a young man who is going
to Albany. I don't rightly know how to call your
name, sir." I said my name was Carter. Then he
said, " Mr. Carter, this is Miss Jones. Mrs. Grills,
Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter, Mrs. Grills. She is my
wife." And so our partie carrSe was established for
the voyage.
In these days there are few people who know that
a journey on a canal is the pleasantest journey in the
world. A canal has to go through fine scenery. It
cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a
stream. The movement is so easy that, with your
eyes shut, you do not know you move. The route is
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 221
so direct, that when you are once shielded from the
sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read,
you write, or you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on
your flute or your guitar, without one hint of incon-
venience. At a " low bridge " you duck your head
lest you lose your hat, and that .reminder teaches
you that you are human. You are glad to know this,
and you laugh at the memento. For the rest of the
time you journey, if you are " all right " within, in
elysium.
I rode one of those horses perhaps two or three
hours a day. At locks I made myself generally useful.
At night I walked the deck till one o'clock, with my
pipe or without it, to keep guard against the lock-
thieves. The skipper asked me sometimes, after he
found I could " cipher," to disentangle some of the
knots in his bills of lading for him. But all this made
but a little inroad in those lovely autumn days, and
for the eight days that we glided along, there is one
blessed level which is seventy miles long, I spent
most of my time with Fausta. We walked together
on the tow-path to get our appetites for dinner and
for supper. At sunrise I always made a cruise inland,
and collected the gentians and black alder-berries and
colored leaves, with which she dressed Mr>. Grill's
table. She took an interest in my wretched sketch-
book, and though she did not and does not draw well,
she did show me how to spread an even tint, which ]
never knew before. I was working up my French.
222 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
She knew about as much and as little as I did, and
we read Mad. Reybaud's Clementine together, guess-
ing at the hard words, because we had no dictionary.
Dear old Grill offered to talk French at table, and
we tried it for a few days. But it proved he picked
up his pronunciation at St. Catherine's, among the
boatmen there, and he would say shwo for "horses,"
where the book said clievaux. Our talk, on the
other hand, was not Parisian, but it was not
Catherinian, and we subsided into English again.
So sped along these blessed eight days. I told
Fausta thus much of my story, that I was going to
seek my fortune in New York. She, of course, knew
nothing of me but what she saw, and she told me
nothing of her story.
But I was very sorry when we came into the basin
at Troy, for I knew then that in all reason I must
take the steamboat down. And I was veiy glad, I
have seldom in my life been so glad, when I found
that she also was going to New York immediately.
She accepted, very pleasantly, my offer to carry her
trunk to the Isaac Newton for her, and to act as her
escort to the city. For me, my trunk,
" in danger tried,"
Swung in my hand, " nor left my side."
My earthly possessions were few anywhere. I had
left at Attica most of what they were. Through the
voyage I had been man enough to keep on a working-
gear fit for a workman's duty. And old Grills had not
fdE CHILDREN" OF THE PUBLIC. 223
yet grace enough to keep Ins boat still on Sunday
How one remembers little things ! I can remember
each touch of the toilet, as, in that corner of a dark
cuddy where I had shared " Zekiel's " bunk with him.,
I dressed myself with one of my two white shirts, and
with the change of raiment which had been tight
squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was
the best part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I
sold my felt hat to Zekiel, and appeared with a light
travelling-cap. I do not know how Fausta liked my
metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies,
for a day or two after they go through theirs, I felt
decidedly cold.
As Carter, the canal man, I had carried Fausta's
trunk on board. As Mr. Carter, I gave her my arm,
led her to the gangway of the Newton, took her pas-
sage and mine, and afterwards walked and sat through
the splendid moonlight of the first four hours down
the river.
Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast 6*n
the boat. Be it observed that I did not then know
her by any other name. She was to go to an aunt's
house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its
early arrival in New York, she would disturb that
lady by a premature ringing at her bell. I had no
reason for haste, as the reader knows. The distribu-
tion of the cyclopedias was not to take place till the
next day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct
excuse I had to myself for being in New York at all.
224 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not be her
escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it would
be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had
seen where she lived, and I thought she seemed
relieved to know that she should not be wholly a
stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her
aunt would send no one to meet her.
These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our
respective cabins. And when, the next morning, at
that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia trains
and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I
rejoiced that breakfast was not -till seven o'clock, that
I had two hours more of the berth, which was luxury
compared to Zekiel's bunk, I turned upon my other
side and slept on.
Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the
next thirty-six hours. For when I went on .deck, and
sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones that I was
waiting for her, and then took from her the check for
Ker trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in
that treacherous two hours, some pirate from the pier
had stepped on board, had seized the waiting trunk,
left almost alone, while the baggage-master's back was
turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not
return to Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell
had long passed and the breakfast was very cold. 1
did not then tell it to her till I had seen her eat her
breakfast with an appetite much better than mine. I
had already offered up stairs the largest reward to any-
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 225
body who would bring it back which my scanty purse
would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who had sent
for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did
not choose to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed
news. The officer came before breakfast was over,
and called me from table.
On the whole, his business-like way encouraged
one. He had some clews which I had not thought
possible. It was not unlikely that they should pounce
on the trunk before it was broken open. I gave him
a written description of its marks ; and when he civilly
asked if " my lady " would give some description of
any books or other articles within, I readily promised
that I would call with such a description at the police
station. Somewhat encouraged, I returned to Miss
Jones, and, when I led her from the breakfast-table,
told her of her misfortune. I took all shame to my-
self for my own carelessness, to which I attributed the
loss. But I told her all that the officer had said to
me, and that I hoped to bring her the trunk at her
aunt's before the day was over.
Fausta took my news, however, with a start which
frightened me. All her money, but a shilling or two,
was in the trunk. To place money in trunks is a
weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere
seen accounted for. "Worse than this, though, as
appeared after a moment's examination of her travel-
ling sac, her portfolio in the trunk contained the
letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her
JO*
226 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
her address in the city. To this address she had no
other clew but that her aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason,
had married a few years before a merchant named
Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of
whose name and business this was all she knew. They
lived in a numbered street, but whether it was Fourth
Street, or Fifty-fourth, or One Hundred and Twenty-
fourth, or whether it was something between, the
poor child had no idea. She had put up the letter
carefully, but had never thought of the importance of
the address. Besides this aunt, she knew no human
being in New York.
" Child of the Public," I said to myself, "what do
you do now ? " I had appealed to my great patron in
sending for the officer, and on' the whole I felt that
my sovereign had been gracious to me, if not yet
hopeful. But now I must rub my lamp again, and
ask the genie where the unknown Mason lived. The
genie of course suggested the Directory, and I ran for
it to the clerk's office. But as we were toiling down
the pages of " Masons," and had written off thirteen
or fourteen who lived in numbered streets, Fausta
started, looked back at the preface and its date, flung
down her pencil in the only abandonment of dismay in
which I ever saw her, and cried, " First of May I
They were abroad until May. They have been
abroad since the day they were married ! " So that
genie had to put his glories into his pocket, and carry
his Directory back to the office again.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 227
The natural thing to propose was, that I should
find for Miss Jones a respectable boarding-house, and
that she should remain there until her trunk was
found, or till she could write to friends who had this
fatal address, and receive an answer. But here she
hesitated. She hardly liked to explain why, did not
explain wholly. But she did not say that she had
no friends who knew this address. She had but few
relations in the world, and her aunt had communicated
with her alone since she came from Europe. As for
the boarding-house, " I had rather look for work," she
said bravely. " I have never promised to pay money
when I did not know how to obtain it; and that"
and here she took out fifty or sixty cents from her
purse " and that is all now. In respectable board
ing-houses, when people come without luggage, they
are apt to ask for an advance. Or, at least," she added,
with some pride, " I am apt to offer it."
I hastened to ask her to take all my little store ; but
I had to own that I had not two dollars. I was sure,
however, that my overcoat and the dress-suit I wore
would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly up
some spout. I was sure that I should be at work
within a day or two. At all events, I was certain of
the cyclopedia the next day. That should go to old
Gowan's, in Fulton Street it was then, "the moral
centre of the intellectual world," in the hour I got it.
And at this moment, for the first time, the thought
' O
crossed me, " If mine could only be the name drawn,
228 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
so that that foolish $ 5,000 should fall to me." In that
case I felt that Fausta might live in " a respectable
boarding-house " till she died. Of this, of course, I
said nothing, only that she was welcome to my poor
dollar and a half, and that I should receive the next
day some more money that was due me.
" You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, as
proudly as before, " you forget that I cannot borrow
of you any more than of a boarding-house-keeper. 1
never borrow. Please God, I never will. It must
be," she added, " that in a Christian city like this
there is some respectable and fit arrangement made
for travellers who find themselves where I am. What
that provision is I do not know; but I will find out
what it is before this sun goes down."
I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been
fascinated by this lovely girl before, I now bowed in
respect before her dignity and resolution ; and, with
my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of self-re-
Bpect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as
principles of her life, two principles on which I had
always myself tried to live. The half-expressed habits
of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for me as
axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but
right and truth.
I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I ex-
pressed my regret that she would not let me help her,
joined with my certainty that she was in the right
in refusing, and then, in the only stiff speech I ever
made to her, I said :
THE CHILDRMX OF THE PUBLIC. -!2^
" 1 am the * Child of the Public.' If you ever hear
iny story, you will say so too. At the least, I can
claim this, that I have a right to help you in your
quest as to the way in which the public will help you.
Thus far I am clearly the officer in his smte to whom
he has intrusted you. Are you ready, then, to go on
shore?"
Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon,
as if it were the last link holding her to her old safe
world.
" Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain.
As what she ne'er might see again."
Then she looked right through me ; and if there had
been one mean thought in me at that minute, she
would have seen the viper. Then she said, sadly,
" I have perfect confidence in you, though people
would say we were strangers. Let us go."
And we left the boat together. We declined the
invitations of the noisy hackmen, and walked slowly to
Broadway.
We stopped at the station-house for that district,
and to the attentive chief Fausta herself described
those contents of her trunk which she thought would
be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her moth-
er's Bible, at which the chief shook his head ; Bibles,
alas ! brought nothing at the shops ; a soldier's medal,
such as were given as target prizes by the Mont-
gomery regiment ; and a little silver canteen, marked
with the device of the same regiment, seemed to him
230 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
better worthy of note. Her portfolio was wrought
with a cipher, and she explained to him that she was
most eager that this should be recovered. The pocket-
book contained more than one hundred dollars, which
she described, but he shook his head here, and gave
her but little hope of that, if the trunk were once
opened. His chief hope was for this morning.
" And where shall we send to you then, madam?"
said he.
I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the
impression Fausta had made upon the officer, in her
quiet, simple, ladylike dress and manner. For my-
self, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or
bearing, a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have
ruined both of us in our appeal. But, fortunately, I
did not disgrace her, and the man looked at her as if
he expected her to say " Fourteenth Street." What
would she say ?
" That depends upon what the time will be. Mr.
Carter will call at noon, and will let you know."
We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more
she begged my pardon, almost with tears ; but I told
her that if she also had been a " Child of the Public,"
she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her
father's officers. I begged her to use me as her pro-
tector, and not to apologize again. Then we laid out
the plans which we followed out that day.
The officer's manner had reassured her, ana I suc-
ceeded in persuading her that it was certain we should
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 231
have the trunk at noon. How much better to wait, at
least so far, before she entered on any of the enter-
prises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering her-
self a; a nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoevei
would employ her, if only she could thus secure an
honest home till money or till aunt were found. Once
persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I
told her that we must go on, as we did on the canal,
and first we must take our constitutional Avalk for two
hours.
" At least," she said, " our good papa, the Public,
gives us wonderful sights to see, and good walking to
our feet, as a better Father has given us this heavenly
sky and this bracing air."
And with those words the last heaviness of despond-
ency left her face for that day. And we plunged into
the delicious adventure of exploring a new city,
staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling
in print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine
buildings as residents always forget to do, and laying
up, in short, with those streets, nearly all the asso-
ciations which to this day we have with them.
Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course.
1 do not know what she meant to do next ; but at ten
I said, " Time for French, Miss Jones." "Ah oui"
said she, '' metis ou ?" and I had calculated my dis-
tances, and led her at once into Lafayette Place ; and,
in a moment, pushed open the door of the Astor
Library, led her up the main stairway, and said,
232 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
11 This is what the Public provides for his children
when they have to study."
" This is the Astor," said she, delighted. " And
we are all right, as you say, here ? " Then she saw
that our entrance excited no surprise among the few
readers, men and women, who were beginning to as-
semble. .
We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and
began to revel in the luxuries for which we had only
to ask that we might enjoy. I had a little memoran-
dum of books which I had been waiting to see. She
needed none ; but looked for one and another, and yet
another, and between us we kept the attendant well in
motion. A pleasant thing to me to be finding out her
thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was
happy enough to interest her in some of my pet read-
ings ; and, of course, for she was a woman, to get
quick hints which had never dawned on me before. A
very short hour and a half we spent there before I
went to the station-house again. I went very quickly.
I returned to her very slowly.
The trunk was not found. But they were now
quite sure they were on its track. They felt certain
it had been carried from pier to pier and taken back
up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The
particular rascal who was supposed to have it would
certainly stop either at Piermont or at Newburg.
They had telegraphed to both places, and were in
time for both. " The day boat, sir, will bring your
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 233
lady's trunk, and will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, 1
hope," said the officer. But at the same moment, as
he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch had yet
been received from either of the places named. I did
not feel so certain as he did.
But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my
news " Thus far," said she, " the Public serves me
well. I will borrow no trouble by want of faith. **
And 1 as Dante would say and I, to her, " will
you let me remind you, then, that at one we dine j
that Mrs. Grills is now placing the salt-pork upon the
cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing; and,
as this is the only day when I can have the honor of
your company, will you let me show you how a Child
of the Public dines, when his finances are low?"
Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than
before, " I have perfect confidence in you," little
thinking how she started my blood with the words ;
but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand
upon my arm, as we walked down the street together.
If we had been snobs, or even if I had been one,
I should have taken her to Taylor's, and have spent
all the money I had on such a luncheon as neither of
us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am
not a snob of that sort. I show my colors. I led
her into a little cross-street which I had noticed in our
erratic morning pilgrimage. We stopped at a German
baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble table,
and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which
o4 THI CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
1 offered her in fun. We took water instead, and
we had dined, and had paid two cents for our meal,
and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock
struck two.
" And now, Mr. Carter," said she, " I will steal no
more of your day. You did not come to New York
to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or to din-
ner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read
French. I insist on your going to your affairs, and
leaving me to mine. If you will meet me at the
Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank you ;
till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a
merry laugh, " adieu ! "
I knew very well that no harm could happen to her
in two hours of an autumn afternoon. I was not sorry
for her conge, for it gave me an opportunity to follow
my own plans. I stopped at one or two cabinet-
makers, and talked with the "jours " about work,
that I might tell her with truth that I had been in
search of it; then I sedulously began on calling upon
every man I could reach named Mason. O, how
often 1 went through one phase or another of this
colloquy :
" Is Mr. Mason in ? "
" That 's my name, sir."
" Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason whc
returned from Europe last May ? "
" Know no such person, sir."
The reader can imagine how many forms this dia-
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 235
logue could be repeated in, before, as I wrought my
way through a long line of dry-goods cases to a distant
counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No,
madam, I know no such person as you describe"; and
from the recess Fausta emerged and met me. Her
plan for the afternoon had been the same with mine.
We laughed as we detected each other ; then I told
her she had had quite enough of this, that it was time
she should rest, and took her,^f02eiu volens, into the
ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade her wait
there through the twilight, with my copy of Clemen-
tine, till I should return from the police-station. If
the reader has ever waited in such a place for some
one to come and attend to him, he will understand
that nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not
asked for attention.
T\vo hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which
there the Public had provided for her. Then I re-
turned, sadly enough. No tidings of Rowdy Rob,
none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or any-
thing. Still was my district sergeant hopeful, and,
as always, respectful. But I was hopeless this time,
and I knew that the next day Fausta would be plung-
ing into the war with intelligence-houses and adver-
tisements. For the night, I was determined that she
should spend it in my ideal " respectable boarding-
house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one
or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself
where I would take her. Still I thought it wisest that
236 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
we should go after tea; and another cross-street
baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the
Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told
Fausta of the respectable boarding-house, and that she
must go there. She did not say no. But she did say
she would rather not spend the evening there. " There
must be some place open for us," said she. " There !
there is a church-bell I The church is always home.
Let us come there."
So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sex
ron by arriving an hour early. If there were any who
wondered what was the use of that Wednesday-even-
ing service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we
sat, she at one end, I at the other ; and, if the whole
truth be told, each of us fell asleep at once, and slept
till the heavy organ tones taught us that the service
had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled
in then, and the preacher, good soul, he took for his
text, " Doth not God care for the ravens ? " I cannot
describe the ineffable feeling of home that came over
me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never
been in so large a church before. I had never heard
O
so heavy an organ before. Perhaps I had heard bet-
ter preaching, but never any that came to my occa-
sions more. But it was none of these things which
moved me. It was the fact that we were just where
we had a right to be. No impudent waiter could ask
us why we were sitting there, nor any petulant police-
man propose that we should push on. It was God's
house, and, because his, it was his children's.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 237
All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it
proved, upon Fausta also. For when the service was
ended, and I ventured to ask her whether she also
had this sense of home and rest, she assented so
eagerly, that I proposed, though with hesitation, a
notion which had crossed me, that I should leave her
there.
" I cannot think," I said, " of any possible harm
that could come to you before morning."
" Do you know, I had thought of that very same
thing, but I did not dare tell you," she said.
Was not I glad that she had considered me her
keeper ! But I only said, " At the ' respectable
boarding-house ' you might be annoyed by ques-
tions."
" And no one will speak "to me here. I know that
from Goody Two-Shoes."
" I will be here," said I, " at sunrise in the morn-
ing." And so I bade her good by, insisting on leav-
ing in the pew my own great-coat. I knew she might
need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton
closed the door below on the last of the down-stairs
worshippers. He passed along the aisles below, with
his lung poker which screwed down the gas. I saw at
once that he had no intent of exploring the galleries.
i O O
But I loitered outside till I saw him lock the doors
and depart ; and then, happy in the thought that Miss
Jones was in the safest place in Xew York, as com-
fortable as she was the night before, and much more
238 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
comfortable than she had been any night upon the
"anal, I went in search of my own lodging.
" To the respectable boarding-house ? "
Not a bit, reader. I had no shillings for respectable
or disrespectable boarding-houses. I asked the first
policeman where his district station was. I went into
its office, and told the captain that I was green in the
city ; had got no work and no money. In truth, I
had left my purse in Miss Jones's charge, and a five-
cent piece, which I showed the chief, was all I had.
He said no word but to bid me go up two flights and
turn into the first bunk I found. I did so ; and in five
minutes was asleep in a better bed than I had slept in
for nine days.
That was what the Public did for me that night.
I, too, was safe !
I am making this story too long. But with that
night and its anxieties the end has come. At sunrise
I rose and made my easy toilet. I bought and ate my
roll, varying the brand from yesterday's. I bought
another, with a lump of butter, and an orange, for
Fausta. I left my portmanteau at the station, while I
rushed to the sexton's house, told his wife I had left
my gloves in church the night before, as was the
truth, and easily obtained from her the keys. In
a moment I was in the vestibule locked in was
in the gallery, and there found Fausta, just awake, as
she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her
morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, thai
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 23i'
1 should soon appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, nad
visited her. I spread for her a brown paper table-
cloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her
breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her
toilet. How is it that women always make themselves
appear as neat and finished as if there were no conflict,
dust, or wrinkle in the world.
[Here Fausta adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis,
to say that she folded her undersleeves neatly, and her
collar, before she slept, and put them between the
cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning they
had been pressed without a sad-iron.]
She finished her repast. 1 opened the church door
for five minutes. She passed out when she had
enough examined the monuments, and at a respect-
able distance I followed her. We joined each other,
and took our accustomed morning walk ; but then she
resolutely said, " Good by," for the day. She would
find work before night, work and a home. And I
must do the same. Only when I pressed her to iet
me know of her success, she said she would meet me
at the Astor Library just before it closed. No, she
would not take my money. Enough, that for twenty-
four hours she had been my guest. When she had
found her aunt and told her the story, they should
insist on repaying this hospitality. Hospitality, dear
reader, which I had dispensed at the charge of six
cents. Have you ever treated Miranda for a day and
found the charge so low ? When I urged other assist-
240 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
ance she said resolutely, " No." In fact, she had
already made an appointment at two, she said, and she
must not waste the day.
I also had an appointment at two ; for it was at that
hour that Burrham was to distribute the cyclopaedias at
Castle Garden. The Emigrant Commission had not
yet seized it for their own. I spent the morning
in asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and
for work in cabinet-shops. I found neither, and
so wrought my way to the appointed place, where,
Instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to
get one so contemptible in my hand.
Those who remember Jenny Lind's first triumph
night at Castle Garden have some idea of the crowd
as it filled gallery and floor of that immense hall when I
entered. I had given no thought to the machinery of
this folly. I only know that my ticket bade me be
Ihere at two p. M. this day. But as I drew near, the
throng, the bands of policemen, the long queues of
persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair
of ten thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham
was not unwilling to make it as showy, perhaps as
noisy, an affair as was respectable, by way of advertis-
ing future excursions and distributions. I was led to
Feat No. 3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I
?,ame there I found I was very much of a prisoner. I
was late, or rather on the stroke of two. Immediately,
almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and made
a long speech about his liberality, and the public's
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 241
liberality, and everybody's liberality in general, and
the method of the distribution in particular. The
mayor and four or five other well-known and respect-
able gentlemen were kind enough to be present to
guarantee the fairness of the arrangements. At the
Buggesfion of the mayor and the police, the doors
would now be closed, that no persons might interrupt
the ceremony till it was ended. And the distribution
of the cyclopaedias would at once go forward, in the
order in which the lots were drawn, earliest numbers
securing the earliest impressions ; which, as Mr.
Burrham almost regretted to say, were a little better
than the latest. After these had been distributed two
figures would be drawn, one green and one red, to
indicate the fortunate lady and gentleman who would
receive respectively the profits which had arisen from
this method of selling the cyclopaedias, after the ex-
penses of printing and distribution had been covered,
and after the magazines had been ordered.
Great cheering followed this announcement from all
but me. Here I had shut myself up in this humbug
hall, for Heaven knew how long, on the most impor-
tant day of my life. I would have given up willingly
my cyclopaedia and my chance at the " profits," for
the certainty of seeing Fausta at five o'clock. If I
did not see her then, what might befall her, and when
might I see her again. An hour before this certainty
was mv own, now it was only mine by my liberating
f / v
myself from this prison. Still I was encouraged by
11
242 THi; CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
seeing that everything was conducted like clock-work.
From literally a hundred stations they were distribut-
ing the books. We formed ourselves into queues as
we pleased, drew our numbers, and then presented
ourselves at the bureaux, ordered our magazines, and
took our cyclopaedias. It would be done, at that rate,
by half past four. An omnibus might bring me to
the Park, and a Bowery car do the rest in time.
After a vain discussion for the right of exit with one
or two of the attendants, I abandoned myself to this
hope, and began studying my cyclopaedia.
It was sufficiently amusing to see ten thousand peo-
ple resign themselves to the same task, and affect to be
unconcerned about the green and red figures which
were to divide the " profits." I tried to make out who
were as anxious to get out of that tawdry den as I was.
Four o'clock struck, and the distribution was not done.
I began to be very impatient. What if Fausta fell
into trouble ? I knew, or hoped I knew, that she would
struggle to the Astor Library, as to her only place of
rescue and refuge, her asylum. What if I failed
her there ? I who had pretended to be her protector !
" Protector, indeed ! " she would say, if she knew I
was at a theatre witnessing the greatest folly of the
age. And if I did not meet her to-day, when should I
meet her ? If she found her aunt, how should I finrf
her? If she did not find her, good God? that was
worse, where might she not be before twelve hours
were over? Then the fatal trunk! I had told the
THE CHILDREN OP THE PUBLIC. 248
police agent he might send it to the St. Nicholas, be-
cause I had to give him some address. But Fausta
did not know this, and the St. Nicholas people knew
nothing of us. I grew more and more excited, and
when at last my next neighbor told me that it was half
past four, I rose and insisted on leaving my seat.
Two ushers with blue sashes almost held me down ;
they showed me the whole assembly sinking into
quiet. In fact, at that moment Mr. Burrham was
begging every one to be seated. I would not be
seated. I would go to the door. I would go out.
" Go, if you please ! " said the usher next it, contempt-
uously. And I looked, and there was no handle!
Yet this was not a dream. It is the way they arrange
the doors in halls where they choose to keep people
in their places. I could have collared that grinning
blue sash. I did tell him I would wring his precious
neck for him, if he did not let me out. I said I would
sue him. for false imprisonment ; I would have a writ
of habeas corpus.
" Habeas corpus be d d ! " said the officer, with an
irreverent disrespect to the palladium. " If you are
not more civil, sir, I will call the police, of whom we
have plenty. You say you want to go out; you are
keeping everybody in."
And, in fact, at that moment the clear voice of the
mayor was announcing that they would not go on
until there was perfect quiet ; and I felt that I was im
prisoning all these people, not they me.
244 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC
'Child of the Public," said my mcnirning genius,
"are you better than other men?" So I sneaked
back to seat No. 3,671, amid the contemptuous and
reproachful looks and sneers of my more respectable
neighbors, who had sat where they were told to do.
We must be through in a moment, and perhaps Fausta
would be late also. If only the Astor would keep
open after sunset ! How often have I wished that,
since, and for less reasons !
Silence thus restored, Mr. A , the mayor, led
forward his little daughter, blindfolded her, and bade
her put her hand into a green box, from which
she drew out a green ticket. He took it from her,
and read, in his clear voice again, "No. 2,973!" By
this time we all knew where the "two thousands"
sat. Then "nine hundreds" were not far from the
front, so that it was not far that that frightened girl,
dressed all in black, and heavily veiled, had to walk,
who answered to this call. Mr. A met her,
helped her up the stair upon the stage, took from her
her ticket, and read, " Jerusha Stillingfleet, of Yellow
Springs, who, at her death, as it seems, transferred
this right to the bearer."
The disappointed nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine joined in a rapturous cheer, each man and
woman, to show that he or she was not disappointed.
The bearer spoke with Mr. Burrham, in answer to his
questions, and, with a good deal of ostentation, he
opened a check-book, filled a check and passed it to
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 245
her, she signing a receipt as she took it, and transfer-
ring to him her ticket. So far, in dumb show, all was
well. What was more to my purpose, it was rapid, for
we should have been done in five minutes more, but
that some devil tempted some loafer in a gallery to
cry, "Face! face!" Miss Stillingfleet's legatee was
still heavily veiled.
In one horrid minute that whole amphitheatre,
which seemed to me then more cruel than the Coliseum
ever was, rang out with a cry of " Face, face ! " I tried
the counter-cry of "Shame! shame!" but I was in
disgrace among my neighbors, and a counter-cry
never takes as its prototype does, either. At first, on
the stage, they affected not to hear or understand ;
then there was a courtly whisper between Mr. Burr-
ham and the lady ; but Mr. A , the mayor, and
the respectable gentlemen, instantly interfered. It
was evident that she would not unveil, and that they
were prepared to indorse her refusal. In a moment
more she courtesied to the assembly ; the mayor gave
her his arm, and led her out through a side-door.
O, the yell that rose up then ! The whole assembly
stood up, and, as if they had lost some vested right,
hooted and shrieked, " Back ! back ! Face ! face ! "
Mr. A returned, made as if he would speak,
came forward to the very front, and got a moment s
silence.
'It is not in the bond, gentlemen," said he. " The
young lady is unwilling to unveil, and we must nol
compel her."
246
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
" Face ! face ! " was the only answer, and oranges
from up stairs flew about his head and struck upon the
table, an omen only fearful from what it prophesied.
Then there was such a row for five minutes as I hope
I may never see or hear again. People kept their
places fortunately, under a vague impression that they
should forfeit some magic rights if they left those num-
bered seats. But when, for a moment, a file of police-
men appeared in the orchestra, a whole volley of
cyclopaedias fell like rain upon their chief, with a re-
newed cry of " Face ! face ! "
At this juncture, with a good deal of knowledge of
popular feeling, Mr. A led forward his child again.
Frightened to death the poor thing was, and crying;
he tied his handkerchief round her eyes hastily, and
took her to the red box. For a minute the house was
hushed. A cry of " Down ! down ! " and every one
took his place as the child gave the red ticket to her
father. He read it as before, " No. 3,671 ! " I heard
the words as if he did not speak them. All excited
by the delay and the row, by the injustice to the
stranger and the personal injustice of everybody to me,
I did not know, for a dozen seconds, that every one
was looking towards our side of the house, nor was it
till my next neighbor with the watch said, " Go, you
fool," that I was aware that 3.671 was I ! Even then,
as I stepped down the passage and up the steps, my
oniy feeling was, that I should get out of this horrid
trnp, and possibly find Miss Jor.es lingering near the
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 247
Astor, not by any means that I was invited to take
a check for -85,000.
There was not much cheering. Women never mean
to cheer, of course. The men had cheered the green
ticket, but they were mad with the red one. I gave
up my ticket, signed my receipt, and took my check.
shook hands with Mr. A and Mr. Burrham, and
turned to bow to the mob, for mob I must call il
now. But the cheers died away. A few people tried
to go out perhaps, but there was nothing now to re-
tain any in their seats as before, and the generality
rose, pressed down the passages, and howled, " Face !
face ! '' I thought for a moment that I ought to say
something, but they would not hear me, and. after a
moment s pause, mv passion to depart overwhelmed
me. I muttered some apology to the gentlemen, and
left the stage by the stage door.
I had forgotten that to Castle Garden there can be
no back entrance. I came to door after door, which
were all locked. It was growing dark. Evidently
the sun was set, and I knew the library door would be
shut at sunset. The passages were very obscure. All
around me rang this horrid yell of the mob, in which
all that I could discern was the cry, " Face, face ! "
At last, a? I groped round, I came to a practicable
door. I entered a room where the western sunset
glare dazzled me. I was not alone. The veiled lady
in black was there. But the instant she saw me she
sprang towards me, flung herself into my arms, and
cried :
248 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
*' Felix, is it you ? you are indeed my protec-
tor!"
It was Miss Jones ! It was Fausta ! She was the
legatee of Miss Stillingfleet. My first thought was,
" O, if that beggarly usher had let me go ! Will 1
ever, ever think I have better rights than the Public
again ? "
I took her in my arms. I carried her to the sofa.
I could hardly speak for excitement. Then I did say
that I had been wild with terror ; that I had feared I
had lost her, and lost her forever ; that to have lost
that interview would have been worse to me than
death ; for unless she knew that I loved her better
than man ever loved woman, I could not face a lonely
night, and another lonely day.
" My dear, dear child," I said, " you may think me
wild ; but I must say this, it has been pent up too
long."
" Say what you will," she said after a moment, in
which still I held her in my arms ; she was trembling
so that she could not have sat upright alone, " say
what you will, if only you do not tell me to spend an-
other day alone."
And I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her,
and I said, " Never, darling, God helping me, till 1
die ! '
How long we sat there I do not know. Neither of
us spoke again. For one, I looked out on the sunset
and the bay. We had but just time to rearrange our-
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 249
selves in positions more independent, when Mr. A
caine in, this time in alarm, to say :
- " Miss Jones, we must get you out of this place, or
we must hide you somewhere. I believe, before God^
they will storm this passage, and pull the house about
our ears."
He said this, not conscious as he began that I was
there. At that moment, however, I felt as if I could
have met a million men. I started forward and passed
him, saying, " Let me speak to them." I rushed upon
the stage, fairly pushing back two or three bullies who
were already upon it. I sprang upon the table, kick-
ing down the red box as I did so, so that the red
tickets fell on the floor and on the people below. One
stuck in an old man's spectacles in a way which made
the people in the galleries laugh. A laugh is a great
blessing at such a moment. Curiosity is another.
Three loud words spoken like thunder do a good deal
more. And after three words the house was hushed
to hear me. I said :
" Be fair to the girl. She has no father nor mother
She has no brother nor sister. She is alone in the
world, with nobody to help her but the Public and
me ! "
The audacity of the speech brought out a cheer,
and we should have corne off in triumph, when some
rowdy the original " face " man, I suppose -
said,
" And who are you ? "
11*
250 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
If the laugh went against me now 1 was lost, of
course. Fortunately I had no time to think. I said
without thinking,
" I am the Child of the Public, and her betrothed
husband!"
Heavens ! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings,
of satisfaction with a denouement, rang through the
house, and showed that all was well. Burrham
caught the moment, and started his band, this time
successfully, I believe with "See the Conquering
Hero." The doors, of course, had been open long
before. Well-disposed people saw they need stay no
longer ; ill-disposed people dared not stay ; the blue-
coated men with buttons sauntered on the stage in
O
groups, and I suppose the worst rowdies disappeared
as they saw them. I had made my single speech, and
for the moment I was a hero.
1 believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me.
Burrham almost did. They overwhelmed me with
thanks and congratulations. All these I received as
well as I could, somehow I did not feel at all sur-
prised, everything was as it should be. I scarcely
thought of leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise,
the mayor asked me to go home with him to dinner.
Then I remembered that we were not to spend the
rest of our lives in Castle Garden. I blundered out
something about Miss Jones, that she had no escort
except me, and pressed into her room to find her. A
group of gentlemen was around her. Her veil was
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 261
back now. She was very pale, but very lovely. Have
I said that she was beautiful as heaven ? She was
the qneen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiv-
ing their felicitations that the danger was over, and
owning that she had been very much frightened.
" Until," she said, " my friend, Mr. Carter, was for-
tunate enough to guess that I was here. How he did
it," she said, turning to me, " is yet an utter mystery
to me."
She did not know till then that it was I who had
shared with her the profits of the cyclopaedias.
As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some
one to order a carriage. I sent to the ticket-office for
my valise, and we rode to the St. Nicholas. I fairly
laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel door what
would have been my last dollar and a half only two
hours before. I entered Miss Jones's name and my
own. The clerk looked, and said, inquiringly,
" Is it Miss Jones's trunk which came this after-
noon?"
I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble
floor. Rowdy Rob had deserted it, having seen, per-
haps, a detective when he reached Piermont. Tha
trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and
had returned by the day boat of that clay.
Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper
after her. One kiss and " Good night " was all that I
got from her then.
" In the morning," said she, " you shall explain."
252 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
It was not yet seven. I went to my own room and
dressed, and tendered myself at the mayor's just be-
fore his gay party sat down to dine. I met, for the
first time in my life, men whose books I had read, and
whose speeches I had by heart, and women whom I
have since known to honor ; and, in the midst of this
brilliant group, so excited had Mr. A been in
telling the strange story of the day, I was, for the
hour, the lion.
I led Mrs. A to the table ; I made her laugh
very heartily by telling her of the usher's threats to
me, and mine to him, and of the disgrace into which I
fell among the three thousand six hundreds. I had
never been at any such party before. But I found it
was only rather simpler and more quiet than most
parties I had seen, that its good breeding was exactly
that of dear Betsy Myers.
As the party broke up, Mrs. A said to me,
" Mr. Carter, I am sure you are tired, with all this
excitement. You say you are a stranger here. Let
me send round for your trunk to the St. Nicholas, and
you shall spend the night here. I know I can make
you a better bed than they."
I thought as much myself, and assented. In half
an hour more I was in bed in Mrs. A 's " best
room."
" I shall not sleep better," said I to myself, " than
I did last night."
o
That was what the Public did for me that night I
w.os safe again 1
THE CHILDREN OP THE PUBLIC. 253
CHAPTER LAST.
FAUSTA'S STORY.
FAUSTA slept late, poor child. I called for her
before breakfast. I -waited for her after. About
ten she appeared, so radiant, so beautiful, and so kind !
The trunk had revealed a dress I never saw before,
and the sense of rest, and eternal security, and un-
broken love had revealed a charm which was never
there to see before. She was dressed for walking, and,
as she met me, said,
" Time for constitutional, Mr. Millionnaire."
So we walked again, quite up town, almost to the
region of pig-pens and cabbage-gardens which is now
the Central Park. And after just the first gush of my
enthusiasm, Fausta said, veiy seriously:
"I must teach you to be grave. You do not know
whom you are asking to be your wife. Excepting
Mrs. Mason, No. 27 Thirty-fourth Street, sir, there is
no one in the world who is of kin to me, and she does
not care for me one straw, Felix," she said, almost
sadly now. "You call yourself ' Child of the Public.'
I started when you first said so, for that is just what I
am.
" I am twenty-two years old. My father died before I
was born. My mother, a poor woman, disliked by his
relatives and avoided by them, went to li ve in Hoboken
254 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
over there, with me. How she lived, God knows 1
but it happened that of a strange death she died, I in
her arms."
After a pause, the poor girl went on :
" There was a great military review, an encamp-
ment. She was tempted out to see it. Of a sudden
by some mistake, a ramrod was fired from a careless
soldier's gun, and it pierced her through her heart. I
tell you, Felix, it pinned my baby frock into the
wound, so that they could not part me from her till it
was cut away.
" Of course every one was filled with horror. No-
body claimed poor me, the baby. But the battalion,
the Montgomery Battalion, it was, which had, by mis-
chance, killed my mother, adopted me as their child.
I was voted ' Fille du Regiment.' They paid an as-
sessment annually, which the colonel expended for me.
A kind old woman nursed me."
" She was your Betsy Myers," interrupted I.
" And when I was old enough I was sent into Con-
necticut, to the best of schools. This lasted till I was
sixteen. Fortunately for me, perhaps, the Montgom-
ery Battalion then dissolved. I was finding it hard to
answer the colonel's annual letters. I had my living
to earn, it was best I should earn it. I declined a
proposal to go out as a missionary. I had no call. I
answered one of Miss Beecher's appeals for Western
teachers. Most of my life since has been a school-
ma'am's. It has had ups and downs. But I have al-
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 255
ways been proud that the Public was my godfather;
and, as you know," she said, " I have trusted the
Public well. I have never been lonely, wherever I
went. I tried to make myself of use. Where I was
of use I found society. The ministers have been kind
to me. I always offered my services in the Sunday
schools and sewing-rooms. The school committees
O
have been kind to me. They are the Public's high
chamberlains for poor girls. I have written for the
journals. I won one of Sartain's hundred-dollar
prizes "
" And I another," interrupted I.
" When I was very poor, I won the first prize for
an essay on bad boys."
"And I the second," answered I.
"I think I know one bad boy better than he
knows himself," said she. But she went on. "I
watched with this poor Miss Stillingfleet the night she
died. This absurd ' distribution ' had got hold of her,
and she would not be satisfied till she had transferred
that strange ticket, No. 2,973, to me, writing the in-
dorsement which you have heard. I had had a long-
ing to visit New York and Hoboken again. This
ticket seemed to me to beckon me. I had money
enough to come, if I would come cheaply. I wrote
to my father's business partner, and enclosed a note to
his only sister. She is Mrs. Mason. She asked me,
coldly enough, to her house. Old Mr. Grills always
liked me, he offered me escort and passage as far as
256 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.
Troy or Albany. I accepted his proposal, and you
know the rest."
When I told Fausta my story, she declared I made
it up as I went along. When she believed it, as
she does believe it now, she agreed with me in de-
claring that it was not fit that two people thus joined
should ever be parted. Nor have we been, ever !
She made a hurried visit at Mrs. Mason's. She pre-
pared there for her wedding. On the 1st of Novem-
ber we went into that same church which was our first
home in New York; and that dear old raven-man
made us
ONE!
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
BY J. THOMAS DARRAGH (LATE C. C. .).
[This paper was first published in the " Galaxy," in 1866.J
I SEE that an old chum of mine is publishing bits of
confidential Confederate History in Harper's Maga-
odne. It would seem to be time, then, for the pivots
to be disclosed on -which some of the wheelwork of
the last six years has been moving. The science of
history, as I understand it, depends on the timely dis-
closure of such pivots, which are apt to be kept out
of view while things are moving.
I was in the Civil Service at Richmond. Why I
was there, or what I did, is nobody's affair. And I
do not in this paper propose to tell how it happened
that I was in New York in October, 1864, on confi-
dential business. Enough that I was there, and that
it was honest business. That business done, as far as
it could be with the resources intrusted to me, I pre-
pared to return home. And thereby hangs this tale,
and, as it proved, the fate of the Confederacy.
For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to
my family. Very little question was there what these
presents should be, for I had no boys nor brothers.
258 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSE1.
The women of the Confederacy had one want, which
overtopped all others. They could make coffee out
of beans ; pins they had from Columbus ; straw hats
they braided quite well with their own fair hands;
snuff we could get better than you could in " the old
concern." * But we had no hoop-skirts, skeletons,
we used to call them. No ingenuity had made them.
No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Grey-
hound, the Deer, the Flora, the J. C. Cobb, the Va-
runa, and the Fore-and-Aft all took in cargoes of them
for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer and the
Flora were seized by the blockaders, the J. C. Cobb
sunk at sea, the Fore-and-Aft and the Greyhound
were set fire to by their own crews, and the Varuna
(our Varuna) was never heard of. Then the State
of Arkansas offered sixteen townships of swamp land
to the first manufacturer who would exhibit five gross
O
of a home-manufactured article. But no one ever
competed. The first attempts, indeed, were put to an
end, when Schofield crossed the Blue Lick, and de-
stroyed the dams on Yellow Branch. The conse-
quence was, that people's crinoline collapsed faster
than the Confederacy did, of which that brute of a
Grierson said there was never anything of it but the
outside.
Of course, then, I put in the bottom of my new
large trunk in New York, not a " duplex elliptic,"
for none were then made, but a " Belmonte," of
thirty springs, for my wife. I bought, for her more
THE SKELETON Ds THE CLOSET. 259
common wear, a good " Belle-Fontaine." For Sarah
and Susy each, I got two "Dumb-Belles." For Aunt
Eunice and Aunt Clara, maiden sisters of my wife,
who lived with us after Winchester fell the fourth
time, I got the " Scotch Harebell," two of each. For
my own mother I got one "Belle of the Prairies" and
one " Invisible Combination Gossamer." I did not
forget good old Mamma Chloe and Mamma Jane.
For them I got substantial cages, without names.
With these, tied in the shapes of figure eights in the
bottom of my trunk, as I said, I put in an assorted
cargo of dry-goods above, and, favored by a pass, and
Major Mulford's courtesy on the flag-of-truce boat, I
arrived safely at Richmond before the autumn closed.
I was received at home with rapture. But when,
the next morning, I opened my stores, this became
rapture doubly enraptured. Words cannot tell the
silent delight with which old and young, black and
white, surveyed these fairy-like structures, yet unbro-
ken and unmended.
Perennial summer reigned that autumn day in that
reunited family. It reigned the next day, and the
next. It would have reigned till now if the Bel-
montes and the other things would last as long as the j
advertisements declare ; and, what is more, the Con-
federacy would have reigned till now, President Davia
and General Lee ! but for that great misery, which al!
families understand, which culminated in our great
misfortune.
260 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
I was up in the cedar closet one day, looking for an
old parade cap of mine, which I thought, though it
was my third best, might look better than my second
best, which I had worn ever since my best was lost at
the Seven Pines. I say I was standing on the lower
shelf of the cedar closet, when, as I stepped along in
the darkness, my right foot caught in a bit of wire,
my left did not give way in time, and I fell, with a
small wooden hat-box in my hand, full on the floor.
The corner of the hat-box struck me just below the
second frontal sinus, and I fainted away.
When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber;
I had vinegar-on a brown paper on my forehead; the
room was dark, and I found mother sitting by me,
glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and to know
that I knew her. It was some time before I fully un-
derstood what had happened. Then she brought me
a cup of tea, and I, quite refreshed, said I must go to
the office.
" Office, my child ! " said she. " Your leg is bro-
ken above the ankle ; you will not move these six
weeks. Where do you suppose you are ? "
Till then I had no notion that it was five minutes
since I went into the closet. When she told me the
time, five in the afternoon, I groaned in the lowest
depths. For, in my breast pocket in that innocent
coat, which I could now see lying on the window-seat,
.were the duplicate despatches to Mr. Mason, for which,
late the night before, I had got the Secretary's signa-
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 261
ture. They were to go at ten that morning to Wil-
mington, by the Xavy Department's special messenger.
I had taken them to insure care and certainty. I had
worked on them till midnight, and they had not been
signed till near one o'clock. Heavens and earth, and
here it was five o'clock ! The man must be half-way
to Wilmington by this time. I sent the doctor for
tf
Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiest in rush-
ing to the telegraph. But no ! A freshet on the
Chowan River, or a raid by Foster, or something, or
nothing, had smashed the telegraph wire for that night.
And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington the
navy agent was in the offing in the Sea Maid.
" But perhaps the duplicate got through ? " No,
breathless reader, the duplicate did not get through.
The duplicate was taken by Faucon, in the Ino. I
saw it last week in Dr. Lieber's hands, in Washington.
Well, all I know is, that if the duplicate had got
through, the Confederate government would have
had in March a chance at eighty-three thousand two
hundred and eleven muskets, which, as it was, never left
Belgium. So much for my treading into that blessed
piece of wire on the shelf of the cedar closet, up stairs.
" What was the bit of wire ? "
Well, it was not telegraph wire. If it had been, it
would have broken when it was not wanted to.
Don't you know what it was ? Go up in your own
cedar closet, and step about in the dark, and see what
brings up round your ankles. Julia, poor child, cried
262 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
her eyes out about it. When I got well enough to sit
up, and as soon as I could talk and plan with her, she
brought down seven of these old things, antiquated
Belmontes and Simplex Elliptics, and horrors without
a name, and she made a pile of them in the bedroom,
and asked me in the most penitent way what she
should do with them.
" You can't burn them," said she ; " fire won't
touch them. If you bury them in the garden, they
come up at the second raking. If you give them to
the servants, they say, ' Thank-e, missus,' and throw
them in the back passage. If you give them to the poor,
they throw them into the street in front, and do not say,
'Thank-e.' Sarah sent seventeen over to the sword
factory, and the foreman swore at the boy, and told
him he would flog him within an inch of his life if he
brought any more of his sauce there ; and so and
so," sobbed the poor child, " I just rolled up these
wretched things, and laid them in the cedar closet,
hoping, you know, that some day the government
would want something, and would advertise for them.
You know what a good tiling I made out of the bottle
corks."
In fact, she had sold our bottle corks for four thou-
sand two hundred and sixteen dollars of the first issue.
We afterward bought two umbrellas and a corkscrew
with the money.
Well, I did not scold Julia. It was certainly no
fault of hers thai I was walking on the lower shelf of
^HE SKELETON EN" THE CLOSET. 263
her cedar closet. I told her to make a parcel of the
things, and the first time we went to drive I hove the
O *
whole shapeless heap into the river, without saying
mass for them.
But let no man think, or no woman, that this was
the end of troubles. As I look back on that winter,
and on the spring of 1865 (I do not mean the steel
spring), it seems to me only the beginning. I got out
on crutches at last ; I had the office transferred to
my house, so that Lafarge and Hepburn could work
there nights, and communicate with me when I could
not go out ; but mornings I hobbled up to the De-
partment, and sat with the Chief, and took his orders.
Ah me ! shall I soon forget that damp winter morn-
ing, when we all had such hope at the office. One or
two of the ariny fellows looked in at the window as
they ran by, and we knew that they felt well ; and
though I would not ask Old Wick, as we had nick-
named the Chief, what was in the wind, I knew the
time had come, and that the lion meant to break the
net this time. I made an excuse to go home earlier
than usual ; rode down to the house in the Major's
ambulance, I remember ; and hopped in, to surprise
Julia with the good news, only to find that the whole
house was in that quiet uproar which shows that some-
thing bad has happened of a sudden.
"What is it, Chloe?" said I, as the old wench
rushed by me with a bucket of water.
" Poor Mr. George, I 'fraid he 's dead, sah ! "
264 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
And there he really was, dear handsome, bright
George Schaff, the delight of all the nicest girls of
Richmond ; he lay there on Aunt Eunice's bed on the
ground floor, where they had brought him in. He
was not dead, and he did not die. He is making
cotton in Texas now. But he looked mighty near it
then. "The deep cut in his head" was the worst I
then had ever seen, and the blow confused everything.
When McGregor got round, he said it was not hope-
less ; but we were all turned out of the room, and
with one thing and another he -got the boy out of the
swoon, and somehow it proved his head was not broken.
No, but poor George swears to this day it were bet-
ter it had been, if it could only have been broken the
right way and on the right field. For that evening
we heard that everything had gone wrong in the sur-
prise. There we had been waiting for one of those
early fogs, and at last the fog had come. And Jubal
Early had, that morning, pushed out every man he
had, that could stand ; and they lay hid for three mor-
tal hours, within I don't know how near the picket
line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting for the shot which
John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, as
soon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force
on the enemy's line above Turkey Island stretching
across to Nansemond. I am not in the War Depart-
ment, and I forget whether he was to advance en bar-
bette or by echelon of infantry. But he was to advance
somehow, and he knew how ; and when he advanced,
THE SKELETON DV TILE CLOSET. 205
you see, that other man lower down was to rush in,
and as soon as Early heard him lie was to surprise
Powhatan, you see ; and then, if you have understood
me, Grant and Butler and the whole rig of them
would have been cut off from their supplies, would
have had to fight a battle for which they were not pre-
pared, with their right made into a new left, and their
old left unexpectedly advanced at an oblique angle
from their centre, and would not that have been the
end of them ?
Well, that never happened. And the reason it
never happened was, that poor George Schaff, with
the last fatal order for this man whose name I forget
o
(the same who was afterward killed the day before
High Bridge), undertook to save time by cutting
across behind my house, from Franklin to Green Streets.
You know how much time he saved, they waited all
day for that order. George told me afterwards that
the last thing he remembered was kissing his hand to
Julia, who sat at her bedroom window. He said he
thought she might be the last woman he ever saw this
side of heaven. Just after that, it must have been,
his horse that white Messenger colt old Williams bred
went over like a log, and poor George was pitched
fifteen feet head-foremost against a stake there was in
that lot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with
all the women, and had just brought him in when I
got home. And that was the reason that the great
promised combination of December, 1864, never came
off at all.
12
266 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
I walked out in the lot, after McGregor turned me
out of the chamber, to see what they had done with
the horse. There he lay, as dead as old Messenger
himself. His neck was broken. And do you think, I
looked to see what had tripped him. I supposed it
was one of the boys' bandy holes. It was no such
thing. The poor wretch had tangled his hind legs in
one of those infernal hoop-wires that Chloe had thrown
out in the piece when I gave her her new ones.
Though I did not know it then, those fatal scraps of
rusty steel had broken the neck that day of Robert
Lee's army.
That time I made a row about it. I felt too badly
to go into a passion. But before the women went to
bed, they were all in the sitting-room together, I
talked to them like a father. I did not swear. I had
got over that for a while, in that six weeks on my back.
But I did say the old wires were infernal things, and
that the house and premises must be made rid of them.
The aunts laughed, though I was so serious, and
tipped a wink to the girls. The girls wanted to laugh,
but were afraid to. And then it came out that the
aunts had sold their old hoops, tied as tight as they
could tie them, in a great mass of rags. They had
made a fortune by the sale, I am sorry to say it
was in other rags, but the ra^s they got were new in-
stead of old, it was a real Aladdin bargain. The
new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some
as high as fiftv dollars. The rag-man had been in a
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET 267
hurry, and tad not known what made the things so
heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all
was fair with a pedler, and I own I was glad the
thino;.s were well out of Richmond. But when 1
O
said 1 thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah
looked demure, and asked what in the world I would
have them do with the old things. Did I expect them
to walk down to the bridge themselves with great par-
cels to throw into the river, as I had done by Julia's ?
Of course it ended, as such things always do, by my
taking the work on my own shoulders. I told them
to tie up all they had in as small a parcel as they could,
and bring them to me.
Accordingly, the next day, I found a handsome
brown paper parcel, not so very large, considering,
and strangely square, considering, which the minxes
had put together and left on my office table. They
had a great frolic over it. They had not spared red
tape nor red wax. Very official it looked, indeed,
and on the left-hand corner, in Sarah's boldest and
most contorted hand, was written, " Secret service."
We had a great laugh over their success. And, in-
deed, I should have taken it with me the next time I
went down to the Tredegar, but that I happened to
dine one evening with young Norton of our gallant
little navv, and a verv curious thino- he told us.
' .
We were talking about the disappointment of the
combined land attack. I did not tell what upset poor
SchafFs horse ; indeed, I do not think those navy men
268 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
knew the details of the disappointment. O'Brien had
told me, in confidence, what I have written down proba-
bly for the first time now. But we were speaking, in
a general way, of the disappointment. Norton finished
his cigar rather thoughtfully, and then said : " Well,
fellows, it is not worth while to put in the newspapers,
but what do you suppose upset our grand naval attack,
the day the Yankee gunboats skittled down the river
so handsomely ? "
" Why," said Allen, who is Norton's best-beloved
friend, " they say that you ran away from them as fast
as they did from you."
"Do they?" said Norton, grimly. "If you say
that, I '11 break your head for you. Seriously, men,"
continued he, " that was a most extraordinary thing.
You know I was on the ram. But why she stopped
when she stopped I knew as little as this wineglass
does ; and Callender himself knew no more than I.
We had not been hit. We were all right as a trivet for
all we knew, when, skree ! she began blowing off steam,
and we stopped dead, and began to drift down under
those batteries. Callender had to telegraph to the little
Mosquito, or whatever Walter called his boat, and the
spunky little thing ran down and got us out of the
scrape. Walter did it right well ; if he had had a
monitor under him he could not have done better.
Of course we all rushed to the engine-room. What
in thunder were they at there ? All they knew was
they could get no water into her boiler.
THE SKELETON E\ T THE CLOSET. 269
"Now, fellows, this is the end of the story. As
soon as the boilers cooled off they worked all right on
those supply pumps. May I be hanged if they had
not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and
cloth, and, if you will believe me, a wire of some
woman's crinoline. And that French folly of a sham
Empress cut short that day the victory of the Confed-
erate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we
shall have such a chance again ! "
Some of the men thought Norton lied. But I
never was with him when he did not tell the truth. I
did not mention, however, what I had thrown into the
water the last time I had gone over to Manchester.
And I changed my mind about Sarah's " secret-ser-
vice " parcel. It remained on my table.
That was the last dinner our old club had at the
Spotswood, I believe. The spring came on, and the
plot thickened. We did our work in the office as
well as we could ; I can speak for mine, and if other
people but no matter for 'that ! The 3d of April
came, and the fire, and the light wing of Grant's
army. I remember I was glad then that I had moved
the office down to the house, for we were out of the
way there. Everybody had run away from the De-
partment ; and so, when the powers that be took pos-
session, my little sub-bureau was unmolested for some
days. I improved those days as well as I could,
burning carefully what was to be burned, and hiding
carefully what was to be hidden. One thing that
270 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
happened tlion belongs to this story. As I was at
work on the private bureau, it was really a bureau,
as it happened, one I had made Aunt Eunice give up
when I broke my leg, I came, to my horror, on a
neat parcel of coast-survey maps of Georgia, Alabama,
and Florida. They were not the same Maury stole
when he left the National Observatory, but they were
like them. Now I was perfectly sure that on that fa-
tal Sunday of the flight I had sent Lafarge for these,
that the President might use them, if necessary, in his
escape. When I found them, I hopped out and called
for Julia, and asked her if she did not remember his
coming for them. " Certainly," she said, " it was the
first I knew of the danger. Lafarge came, asked for
the key of the office, told me all was up, walked in,
and in a moment was gone."
And here, on the file of April 3d, was Lafarge's
line to me :
" I got the secret-service parcel myself, and have
put it in the President's own hands. I marked it,
' Gulf coast,' as you bade me."
What could Lafarge have given to the President ?
Not the soundings of Hatteras Bar. Not the working-
drawincrs of the first monitor. I had all these under
O
iny hand. Could it be, " Julia, what did. we do with
that stuff of Sarah's that she marked secret service?"
As I live, we had sent the girls' old ^loops to the
President in his flight.
And when the next day we read how he used them,
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 271
and how Pritchard arrested him, we thought if he
had only had the right parcel he would have found
the way to Florida.
That is really the end of this memoir. But I should
not have written it, but for something that happened
just now on the piazza. You must know, some of
us wrecks are up here at the Berkeley baths. My uncle
has a place near here. Here came to-day John Sis-
son, whom I have not seen since Memminger ran and
took the clerks with him. Here we had before, both
the Richards brothers, the great paper men, you
know, who started the Edgerly Works in Prince
George's County, just after the war began. After
dinner, Sisson and they met on .the piazza. Queerly
enough, they had never seen each other before, though
they had used reams of Richards's paper in corre-
spondence with each other, and the treasury had used
tons of it in the printing of bonds and bank-bills. Of
course we all fell to talking of old times, old they
seem now, though it is not a year ago. " Richards,"
said Sisson at last, " what became of that last order of
ours for water-lined, pure linen government-callen-
dered paper of surete ? We never got it, and I nevei
knew why."
" Did you think Kilpatrick got it ? " said Richards,
rather gruffly.
" None of your chaff, Richards. Just tell where
the paper went, for in the loss of that lot of paper, as
it proved, the bottom dropped out of the Treasury
272 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
tub. On that paper was to have been printed OUT
new issue of ten per cent, convertible, you know, and
secur?d on that up-country cotton, which Kirby Smith
had above the Big Raft. I had the printers ready for
near a month waiting for that paper. The plates
were really very handsome. I '11 show you a proof
when we go up stairs. Wholly new they were, made
by some Frenchmen we got, who had worked for the
Bank of France. I was so anxious to have the thing
well done, that I waited three weeks for that paper,
and, by Jove, I waited just too long. We never got
one of the bonds off, and that was why we had no
money in March."
Richards threw his cigar away. I will not say he
swore between his teeth, but he twirled his chair
round, brought it down on all fours, both his elbows
on his knees and his chin in both hands.
" Mr. Sisson," said he, " if the Confederacy had
lived, I would have " died before I ever told what be-
came of that order of yours. But now I have no
secrets, I believe, and I care for nothing. I do not
know now how it happened. We knew it was an
extra nice job. And we had it on an elegant little
new French Fourdrinier, which cost us more than we
shall ever pay. The pretty thing ran like oil the da 7
before. That day, I thought all the devils were in it.
The more power we put on the more the rollers
screamed ; and the less we put on, the more sulkily
the jade stopped. I tried it myself every way ; back
current, I tried ; forward current ; high feed ; low
THE SKELETON C* THE CLOSET. 273
freed , I tried it on old stock, I tried it on new ; and,
Mr. Sisson, I would have made better paper in a cof-
fee-mill ! We drained off every drop of water. We
washed the tubs free from size. Then my brother,
there, worked all night with the machinists, taking
down the frame and the rollers. You would not be-
lieve it, sir, but that little bit of wire," and he took
out of his pocket a piece of this hateful steel, which
poor I knew so well by this time, " that little bit of
wire had passed in from some hoop-skirt, passed the
pickers, passed the screens, through all the troughs,
up and down through what we call the lacerators,
and had got itself wrought in, where, if yon know a
Fourdrinier machine, you may have noticed a brass
ring riveted to the cross-bar, and there this cursed lit-
tle knife for you see it was a knife, by that time
had been cutting to pieces the endless wire web every
time the machine was started. You lost your bonds,
Mr. Sisson, because some Yankee woman cheated one
of my rag-men."
On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice !
She was the reason I got no salary on the 1st of April.
I thought I would warn other women by writing down
tne story.
That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hour-
glass parcels, was the ruin of the Confederate navy,
army, ordnance, and treasury ; and it led to the cap-
ture of the poor President too.
But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my
office did not do its dn*v |
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.
[WnEN my friends of the Boston Daily Advertiser asked ma
last year to contribute to their Christmas number, I was very
glad to recall this scrap of Mr. Ingham's memoirs.
For in most modern Christmas stories I have observed that the
rich wake up of a sudden to befriend the poor, and that the
moral is educed from such compassion. The incidents in this
Btory show, what all life shows, that the poor befriend the rich
as truly as the rich the poor : that, in the Christian life, each
needs all.
I have been asked a dozen times how far the story ig true.
Of course no such series of incidents has ever taken place in this
order in four or five hours. But there is nothing told here which
has not parallels perfectly fair in my experience or in that of any
working minister.]
I ALWAYS give myself a Christmas present.
And on this particular year the present was a carol
party, which is about as good fun, all things con-
senting kindly, as a man can have.
Many things must consent, as will appear. First of
all, there must be good sleighing ; and second, a fine
night for Christmas eve. Ours are not the carollings
CHRISTMAS \VAITS IX BOSTON. 275
of your poor shivering little East Angles or South Mer-
cians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries
which do not know what a sleigh-ride is.
I had asked Harry to have sixteen of the best voices
in the chapel school to be trained to five or six good
carols, without knowing why. We did not care to
disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the
24th of December should break up the spree before it
began. Then I had told Rowland that he must re-
serve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that I
could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed.
Howland is always good about such things, knew what
the sleigh was for, having done the same in other
years, and made the span four horses of his own ac-
cord, because the children would like it better, and
" it would be no difference to him." Sunday night,
as the weather nymphs ordered, the wind hauled
round to the northwest and everything froze hard.
Monday night, things moderated and the snow began
to fall steadily, so steadily ; and so Tuesday night
the Metropolitan people gave up their unequal con
test, all good men and angels rejoicing at their dis-
comfiture, and only a few of the people in the very
lowest Bolgie being ill-natured enough to grieve.
And thus it was, that by Thursday evening was one hard
compact roadway from Copp's Hill to the Bone-burn-
er's Gehenna, fit for good men and angels to ride over,
without jar, without noise, and without fatigue to horse
or man. So it was that when I came down with Ly-
276 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
cidas tu the chapel at seven o'clock, I found Harrj 1
had gathered there his eight pretty girls and his eight
jolly boys, and had them practising for the last time,
" Carol, carol, Christians,
Carol joyfully ;
Carol for the coming
Of Christ's nativity."
I think the children had got inkling of what was
coming, or perhaps Harry had hinted it to their moth-
ers. Certainly they were warmly dressed, and when,
fifteen minutes afterwards, Rowland came round him-
self with the sleigh, he had put in as many rugs and
bear-skins as if he thought the children were to be
taken new-born from their respective cradles. Great
was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses rang be-
neath the chapel windows, and Harry did not get his
last da capo for his last carol. Not much matter in-
deed, for they were perfect enough in it before mid-
night.
Lycidas and I tumbled in on the back seat, each
with a child in his lap to keep us warm ; I flanked
by Sam Perry, and he by John Rich, both of the
mercurial age, and therefore good to do errands.
Harry was in front somewhere flanked in like wise,
and the other children lay in miscellaneously between,
like sardines when you have first opened the box
I had invited Lycidas, because, besides being my best
friend, he is the best fellow in the world, and so de-
serves the best Christmas eve can give him. Under
CHRISTMAS WAITS IX BOSTON. 277
the fiill moon, on the still white snow, with sixteen chil-
dren at the happiest, and with the blessed memories of
the best the world has ever had, there can be nothing
better than two or three such hours.
' ; First, driver, out on Commonwealth Avenue.
That will tone down the horses. Stop on the left af-
ter you have passed Fail-field Street." So we dashed
up to the front of Haliburton's palace, where he was
keeping his first Christinas tide. And the children,
whom Harry had hushed down for a square or two,
broke forth with good full voice under his strong lead
in
'^Shepherd of tender sheep,"
singing with all that unconscious pathos with which
children do sing, and starting the tears in your eyes in
the midst of your gladness. The instant the horses'
bells stopped their voices began. In an instant more
we saw Haliburton and Anna run to the window and
pull up the shades, and in a minute more faces at all
the windows. And so the children sung through
Clement's old hymn. Little did Clement think of bells
and snow, as he taught it in his Sunday school there
in Alexandria. But perhaps to-day, as they pin up the
laurels and the paim in the chapel at Alexandria, they
are humming the words, not thinking of Clement
more than he thought of us. As the children closed
with
" Swell the triumphant song
To Christ, our King,"
278 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
Haliburton came running out, and begged me to bring
them in. But I told him, " No," as soon as I could
hush their shouts of " Merry Christmas " ; that we
had a long journey before us, and must not alight by
the way. And the children broke out with
" Hail to the night,
Hail to the day,"
rather a favorite, quicker and more to the childish
taste perhaps than the other, and with another
" Merry Christmas " we were off again.
Off, the length of Commonwealth Avenue, to where
it crosses the Brookline branch of the Mill-Dam,
dashing along with the gayest of the sleighing-parties
as we came back into town, up Chestnut Street,
through Louisburg Square ; ran the sleigh into a
bank on the slope of Pinckney Street in front of Wal-
ter's house ; and, before they suspected there that
any one had come, the children were singing
" Carol, carol, Christians,
Carol joyfully."
Kisses flung from the window ; kisses flung back
from the street. ^ "Merry Christmas " again with a
good-will, and then one of the girls began,
" When Anna took the baby,
And pressed his lips to hers,"
and all of them fell in so cheerily. O dear me ! it is a
scrap of old Ephrem the Syrian, if they did but know
it I And when, after this, Harry would fain have driven
CHRISTMAS WAITS IX BOSTON. 279
on, because two carols at one house was the rule, how
the little witches begged that they might sing just one
song more there, because Mrs. Alexander had been so
kind to them, when she showed them about the Ger-
man stitches. And then up the hill and over to the
North End. and as far as we could get the horses up
into Moon Court, that they might sing to the Italian
image-man who gave Lucy the boy and dog in plaster,
when she was sick in the spring. For the children
had, you know, the choice of where they would go, and
they select their best friends, and will be more apt to
remember the Italian image-man than Chrysostom
himself, though Chrysostom should have " made a few
remarks " to them seventeen times in the chapel.
Then the Italian image-man heard for the first time in
his life
" Now is the time of Christmas come,"
and
" Jesns in his babes abiding."
And then we came up Hanover Street and stopped
under Mr. Gerry's chapel, where they were dressing
the walls with their evergreens, and gave them
" Hail to the night,
Hail to the day " ,
and so down State Street and stopped at the Ad-
vertiser office, because, when the boys gave then- " Lit-
erary Entertainment," Mr. Hale put in their adver-
tisement for nothing, and up in the old attic there the
compositors were relieved to hear
280 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
"Nor war nor battle sonnd,"
and
"The waiting world was still";
BO that even the leading editor relaxed from his grav-
ity, and the " In-General " man from his more serious
views, and the Daily the next morning wished every-
body a merry Christmas with even more unction, and
resolved that in coming years it- would have a supple-
ment, large enough to contain all the good wishes.
So away again to the houses of confectioners who had
given the children candy, to Miss Simonds's house,
because she had been so good to them in school, to
the palaces of millionnaires who had prayed for these
children with tears if the children only knew it, to
Dr. Frothingham's in Summer Street, I remember,
where we stopped because the Boston Association of
Ministers met here, and out on Dover Street Bridge,
that the poor chair-mender might hear our carols sung
once more before he heard them better sung in an-
other world where nothing needs mending.
" King of glory, kiug of peace ! "
" Hear the song, and see the Star ! "
" Welcome be thon, heavenly King ! "
" Was not Christ our Saviour ? "
and all the others, rung out with order or without
order, breaking the hush directly as the horses' bells
were stilled, thrown into the air with all the glad-
ness of childhood, selected sometimes as Harry
happened to think best for the hearers, but more
CHKISTJ1AS WAITS IN BOSTON. 281
often as the jubilant and uncontrolled enthusiasm of
the children bade them break out in the most joyous,
least studied, and purely lyrical of all. O, we went to
twenty places that night, I suppose ! We went to the
grandest places in Boston, and we went to the mean-
est. Everywhere they wished us a merry Christmas,
and we them. Everywhere a little crowd gathered
round us, and then we dashed away far enough to
gather quite another crowd ; and then back, perhaps,
not sorry to double on our steps if need were, and
leaving every crowd with a happy thought of
" The star, the manger, and the Child ! "
At nine we brought up at my house, D Street, three
doors from the corner, and the children picked their
very best for Polly and my six little girls to hear, and
then for the first time we let them jump out and run
in. Polly had some hot oysters for them, so that the
frolic was crowned with a treat. There was a Christ-
mas cake cut into sixteen pieces, which they took home
to dream upon ; and then hoods and muifs on again,
and by ten o'clock, or a little after, we had all the girls
and all the little ones at their homes. Four of the bif
O
boys, our two flankers and Harry's right and left
hand men, begged that they might stay till the last
moment. They could walk back from the stable, and
" rather walk than not, indeed." To which we as-
sented, having gained parental permission, as we left
younger sisters in their respective homes.
282 CHRIbTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
II.
Lycidas and I both thought, as we went into
these modest houses, to leave the children, to say
they had been good and to wish a " Merry Christmas"
ourselves to fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts,
that the welcome of those homes was perhaps the
best part of it all. Here was the great stout sailor-
boy whom we had not seen since he came back from
sea. He was a mere child when he left our school
years on years ago, for the East, on board Perry's
vessel, and had been round the world. Here was
brave Mrs. Masury. I had not seen her since her
mother died. " Indeed, Mr. Ingham, I got so used to
watching then, that I cannot sleep Avell yet o' nights ;
I wish you knew some poor creature that wanted me
to-night, if it were only in memory of Bethlehem."
"You. take a deal of trouble for the children," said
Campbell, as he crushed my hand in his ; " but you
know they love you, and you know I would do as
much for you and yours," which I knew was true.
" What can I send to your children ? " said Dalton,
who was finishing sword-blades. (Ill wind was Fort
Sumter, but it blew good to poor Dalton, whom it set
up in the world with his sword-factory.) " Here 's an
old-fashioned tape-measure for the girl, and a Sheffield
wimble for the boy. What, there is no boy? Let
one of the girls have it then ; it will count one more
present for her." And so he pressed his brown-
CHKISTMAS WAITS Ds BOSTON. 283
paper parcel into my hand. From every House,
though it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet,
in truth, as if we could have heard the voice of angels
singing in the sky.
I bade Harry good night ; took Lycidas to his
lodgings, and gave his wife my Christmas wishes and
good night ; and, coming down to the sleigh again, gave
way to the feeling which I think you will all under-
stand, that this was not the time to stop, but just the
rime to begin. For the streets were stiller now, and
tue moon brighter than ever, if possible, and the bless-
ings of these simple people and of the grand people,
and of the very angels in heaven, who are not bound
to the misery of using words when they have anything
worth savinfT, all these wishes and blessings were
t/ O'
round me, all the purity of the still winter night,
and I did n't want to lose it all by going to bed to
sleep. So I put the boys all together, where they
could chatter, took one more brisk turn on the two
avenues, and then, passing through Charles Street, I
believe I was even thinking of Cambridge, I noticed
the lights in Woodlmll's house, and, seeing they were
ap, thought I would make Fanny a midnight call.
She came to the door herself. I asked if she were
waiting for Santa Glaus, but saw in a moment that I
must not joke with her. She said she had hoped I
was her husband. In a minute was one of those con-
trasts which make life, life. God puts us into the
world that we may try them and be tried by them.
284 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
Poor Fanny's mother had been blocked up on the
Springfield train as she was coming on to Christmas.
The old lady had been chilled through, and was here
in bed now with pneumonia. Both Fanny's children
had been ailing when she came, and this morning the
doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever. Fanny hadj
not undressed herself since Monday, nor slept, I
thought, in the same time. So while we had been
singing carols and wishing merry Christmas, the poor
child had been waiting, and hoping that her husband
or Edward, both of whom were on the tramp, would
find for her and bring to her the model nurse, who
had not yet appeared. But at midnight this unknown
sister had not arrived, nor had either of the men
returned. When I rang, Fanny had hoped I was one
of them. Professional paragons, dear reader, are shy
of scarlet fever. I told the poor child that it was
better as it was. I wrote a line for Sam Perry to take
to his aunt, Mrs. Masury, in which I simply said:
" Dear mamma, I have found the poor creature who
wants you to-night. Come back in this carriage." I
bade him take a hack at Gates's, where they were all
up waiting for the assembly to be done at Papanti's.
I sent him over to Albany Street ; and really as I sat
there trying to soothe Fanny, it seemed to me less
time than it has taken to dictate this little story about
her, before Mrs. Masury rang gently, and I left them,
having made Fanny promise that she would consecrate
the day, which at that moment was born, by trusting
CHBISTMAS WAITS K BOSTON. 285
God, by going to bed and going to sleep, knowing
that her children were in much better hands than
hers. As I passed out of the hall, the gas-light fell
on a print of Correggio's Adoration, where Woodhull
Lad himself written years befor-,
" Ut appareat iis qui in tenebris et umbra mortis positi sunt."
" Darkness and the shadow of death " indeed, and
what light like the light and comfort such a woman as
mv Marv Masurv brings !
I V /
And so, but for one of the accidents, as we call
them, I should have dropped the boys at the corner
of Dover Street, and gone home with my Christmas
lesson.
But it happened, as we irreverently say, it hap-
pened as we crossed Park Square, so called from
its being an irregular pentagon of which one of the
sides has been taken away, that I recognized a tall
man, plodding across in the snow, head down, round-
shouldered, stooping forward in walking, with his
right shoulder higher than his left; and by these tokens
1 knew Tom Coram, prince among Boston princes.
IN ot Thomas Coram that built the Foundling Hospital,
though he was of Boston too; but he was longer
ago. You must look for him in Addison's contribu-
tion to a supplement to the Spectator, the old Spec-
tator, I mean, not the Thursday Spectator, which is
more recent. Not Thomas Coram, I say, but Tom
Coram, who would build a hospital to-morrow, if you
286 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
showed him- the need, without waiting to die first, and
always helps forward, as a prince should, whatever is
princely, be it a statue at home, a school in Rich-
mond, a newspaper in Florida, a church in Exeter, a
steam-line to Liverpool, or a widow who wants a hun-
dred dollars. I wished him a merry Christinas, and
Mr. Howland, by a fine instinct, drew up the horses
as I spoke. Coram shook hands ; and, as it seldom
happens that I have an empty carriage while he is on
foot, I asked him if I might not see him home. He
was glad to get in. We wrapped him up with spoils
of the bear, the fox, and the bison, turned the horses'
heads again, five hours now since they started on
this entangled errand of theirs, and gave him his
ride. " I was thinking of you at the moment," said
Coram, " thinking of old college times, of the mys-
tery of language as unfolded by the Abb6 Faria to
Edmond Dantes in the depths of the Chateau d'If.
I was wondering if you could teach me Japanese, if I
asked you to a Christmas dinner." I laughed. Japan
was really a novelty then, and I asked him since when
he had been in correspondence with the sealed country.
It seemed that their house at Shanghae had just sent
across there their agents for establishing the first house
in Edomo, in Japan, under the new treaty. Everything
looked promising, and the beginnings were made for
the branch which has since become Dot and Trevilyan
there. Of this he had the first tidings in his letters
by the mail of that afternoon. John Coram, his
CHBISTMAS WAITS DJ BOSTON 287
brother, had written to him, and had said that he
enclosed for his amusement the Japanese bill of par-
ticulars, as it had been drawn out, on which they had
founded their orders for the first assorted cargo ever
to be sent from America to Edomo. Bill of particulars
there was, stretching down the long tissue-paper in
exquisite chirography. But by some freak of the "total
depravity of things," the translated order for the as-
sorted cargo was not there. John Coram, in his care
to fold up the Japanese writing nicely, had left on his
own desk at Shanghae the more intelligible English.
" And so I must wait," said Tom philosophically, " till
the next East India mail for my orders, certain that
seven English houses have had less enthusiastic and
philological correspondents than my brother."
I said I did not see that. That I could not teach
him to speak the Taghalian dialects so well, that he
could read them with facility before Saturday. But I
could do a good deal better. Did he remember writ-
ing a note to old Jack Percival for me five rears a^o?
J
No, he remembered no such thing ; he knew Jack
Percival, but never wrote a note to him in his life.
Did he remember giving me fifty dollars, because I
had taken a delicate boy, whom I was going to send
to sea, and I was not quite satisfied with the govern-
ment outfit ? No, he did not remember that, which
was not strange, for that was a thing he was doing
every day, " "Well, I don't care how much you re-
member, but the boy about whom you wrote to
288 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
Percival, for whose mother's ease of mind you pro-
vided the half- hundred, is back again, strong,
straight, and well : what is more to the point, he had
the whole charge of Perry's commissariat on shore at
Yokohama, was honorably discharged out there, reads
Japanese better than you read English ; and if it
will help you at all, he shall be here at your house at
breakfast." For as I spoke we stopped at Coram's
door. " Ingham," said Coram, "if you were not a
parson, I should say you were romancing." " My
child," said I, " I sometimes write a parable for the
Atlantic ; but the words of my lips are verity, as all
those of the Sandemanians. Go to bed ; do not even
dream of the Taghalian dialects ; be sure that the Japa-
nese interpreter will breakfast with you, and the next
time you are in a scrape send for the nearest minister
George, tell your brother Ezra that Mr. Coram wishes
him to breakfast here to-morrow morning at eight
o'clock ; don't forget the number, Pemberton Square,
you know." " Yes, sir," said George ; and Thomas
Coram laughed, said " Merry Christmas," and we
parted.
It was time we were all in bed, especially these boys.
But glad enough am I as I write these words that the
meeting of Coram set us back that dropped-stitch in
our night's journey. There was one more delay.
We were sweeping by the Old State House, the boys
singing again, " Carol, carol, Christians," as we dashed
along the still streets, when I caught sight of Adams
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 289
Todd, and he recognized me. He had heard us sing-
ing when we were at the Advertiser office. Todd is
an old fellow-apprentice of mine, and he is now, or
rather was that night, chief pressman in the Argus
office. I like the Argus people, it was there that I
was South American Editor, now many years ago,
and they befriend me to this hour. Todd hailed me,
and once more I stopped. " What sent you out
from your warm steam-boiler ? " " Steam-boiler, in-
deed," said Todd. " Two rivets loose, steam-room
full of steam, police frightened, neighborhood in
a row, and we had to put out the fire. She would
have run a week without hurting a fly, only a little
puff in the street sometimes. But there we are, Ing-
ham. We shall lose the early mail as it stands. Sev-
enty-eight tokens to be worked now." They always
talked largely of their edition at the Argus. Saw it
with many eyes, perhaps ; but this time, I am sure,
Todd spoke true. I caught his idea at once. In
younger and more muscular times, Todd and I had
worked the Adams press by that fly-wheel for full
five minutes at a time, as a test of strength ; and in
my mind's eye, I saw that he was printing his paper
at this moment with relays of grinding stevedores.
He said it was so. " But think of it to-night,'" said
he. ' It is Christmas eve, and not an Irishman to
be hired, though one paid him ingots. Not a man
can stand the grind ten minutes." I knew that very
well from old experience, and I thanked him inwardly
13
290 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
for not saying " the deranition grind," with Mantilmi.
" We cannot run the press half the time," said he ;
" and the men we have are giving out now. We
shall lose all our carrier delivery." " Todd," said I,
* is this a night to be talking of ingots, or hiring, or
losing, or gaining ? When will you learn that Love
rules the court, the camp, and the Argus office. And
I wrote on the back of a letter to Campbell : " Come
to the Argus office, No. 2 Dassett's Alley, with seven
men not afraid to work " ; and I gave it to John and
Sam, bade Howland take the boys to Campbell's
house, walked down with Todd to his office, chal-
lenged him to take five minutes at the wheel, in mem-
O
ory of old times, made the tired relays laugh as
they saw us take hold ; and then, when I had cooled
off, and put on my Cardigan, met Campbell, with
his seven sons of Anak, tumbling down the stairs,
wondering what round of mercy the parson had found
for them this time. I started home, knowing I should
now have my Argus with my coffee.
in.
And so I walked home. Better so, perhaps, after
all, than in the lively sleigh, with the tinkling bells.
" It was a calm and silent night !
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea 1
CHBISTMAS WAITS IX BOSTON. 21U
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain ;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mara
Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago ! "
What an eternity it seemed since I started with
those children singing carols. Bethlehem, Nazareth,
Calvary, Rome, Roman senators, Tiberius, Paul,
Nero, Clement, Ephrem, Ambrose, and all the singers,
Vincent de Paul, and all the loving wonder-
workers, Milton and Herbert and all the carol- writers.
Luther and Knox and all the prophets, what a
world of people had been keeping Christmas with
Sam Perry and Lycidas and Harry and me ; and
here were Yokohama and the Japanese, the Daily
Argus and its ten million tokens and their readers,
poor Fanny Woodhull and her sick mother there,
keeping Christmas too ! For a finite world, these are
a good many " waits " to be singing in one poor fel-
low's ears on one Christmas-tide.
" 'T was in the calm and silent night !
The senator of haughty Eome,
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,
From lordly revel, rolling home.
Triumphal arches gleaming swell
His breast, with thoughts of boundless sway.
What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away,
ID the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago !
292 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
" Within that province far away
Went plodding home a weary boor ;
A streak of light before him lay,
Fallen through a half-shut stable door
Across his path. He, passed, for naught
Told what was going on within ;
How keen the stars, his only thought,
The air how calm and cold and thin,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago ! "
** Streak of light " Is there a light in Lycidas's
room ? They not in bed ! That is making a night of
it ! Well, there are few hours of the day or night
when I have not been in Lycidas's room, so I let my-
self in by the night-key he gave me, ran up the stairs,
it is a horrid seven-storied, first-class lodging-house.
For my part, I had as lief live in a steeple. Two
flights I ran up, two steps at a time, I was younger
then than I am now, pushed open the door which
was ajar, and saw such a scene of confusion as I nevei
saw in Mary's over-nice parlor before. Queer I ]
remember the first thing that I saw was wrong was
a great ball of white German worsted on the floor.
Her basket was upset. A great Christmas-tree lay
across the rug, quite too high for the room ; a large
sharp-pointed Spanish clasp-knife was by it, with
which they had been lopping it ; there were two
immense baskets of white papered presents, both up-
set; but what frightened me most was the centre^
table. Three or four handkerchiefs on it, towels,
napkins, I know not what, all brown and red and
CHRISTMAS WATTS IN BOSTON. 293
almost black with blood! I turned, heart-sick, to
look into the bedroom, and I really had a sense of
relief when I saw somebody. Bad enough it was,
however. Lycidas, but just no%v so strong and well,
lav pale and exhausted on the bloody bed, with the
clothing removed from his right thigh and leg, while
over him bent Mary and Morton. I learned after-
wards that poor Lycidas, while trimming the Christ-
mas-tree, and talking merrily with Mary and Morton,
who, by good luck, had brought round his presents
late, and was staying to tie on glass balls and apples,
had given himself a deep and dangerous wound
with the point of the unlucky knife, and had lost a
great deal of blood before the hemorrhage could be
controlled. Just before I entered, the stick tourniquet
which Morton had improvised had slipped in poor
Mary's unpractised hand, at the moment he was about
to secure the bleeding artery, and the blood followed
in such a gush as compelled him to give his whole
attention to stopping its flow. He only knew mv
entrance by the "Ah, Mr. Ingham," of the frightened
Irish crirl, who stood useless behind the head of the bed.
O
" O Fred," said Morton, without looking up, " I
am glad you are here."
u And what can I do for you ? ''
" Some whiskey, first of all."
" There are two bottles," said Mary, who was hold-
ing the candle, " in the cupboard behind his dress-
ing-glass."
294 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
I took Bridget with me, struck a light in the dress-
ing-room (how she blundered about the match), and
found the cupboard door locked ! Key doubtless in
Mary's pocket, probably in pocket of " another
dress." I did not ask. Took my own bunch, willed
tremendously that my account-book drawer key should
govern the lock, and it did. If it had not, I should
have put my fist through the panels. Bottle of bed-
bug poison ; bottle marked " bay rum " ; another bottle
with no mark ; two bottles of Saratoga water. " Set
them all on the floor, Bridget." A tall bottle of
Cologne. Bottle marked in MS. What in the
world is it ? " Bring that candle, Bridget." " " Eau
destille"e. Marron, Montreal." What in the world
did Lycidas bring distilled water from Montreal for?
And then Morton's clear voice in the other room,
" As quick as you can, Fred." " Yes ! in one moment.
Put all these on the floor, Bridget." Here they are
at last. " Bourbon whiskey." " Corkscrew, Bridget."
"Indade, sir, and where is it?" "Where? I
don't know. Run down as quick as you can, and
brin it. His wife cannot leave him." So Bridget
o o
ran, and the first I heard was the rattle as she pitched
down the last six stairs of the first flight headlong.
Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile
am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon
corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other
side.
" Now, Fred," from George within. (We all call
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 295
Morton " George.") " Yes, in one moment," I
replied. Penknife blade breaks off, fork pulls right
out, two crumbs of cork come \vith it. Will that girl
never come ?
I turned round; I found a goblet on the wash-
stand ; I took Lycidas's heavy clothes-brush, and
knocked off the neck of the bottle. Did you ever do
it, reader, with one of those pressed glass bottles they
make now ? It smashed like a Prince Rupert's drop
in my hand, crumbled into seventy pieces, a nasty
smell of whiskey on the floor, and I, holding just
the hard bottom of the thing with two large spikes
running worthless up into the air. But I seized the
goblet, poured into it what was left in the bottom, and
carried it in to Morton as quietly as I could. He bade
me give Lycidas as much as he could swallow ; then
showed me how to substitute my thumb for his, and
compress the great artery. When he was satisfied that
he could trust me, he began his work again, silently ;
just speaking what must be said to that brave Mary,
who seemed to have three hands because he needed
them. When all was secure, he glanced at the
ghastly white face, with beads of perspiration on the
forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse,
and said : " We will have a little more whiskey. No,
Mary, you are overdone already ; let Fred bring it."
The truth was that poor Mary was almost as white as
Lycidas. She would not faint, that was the only
reason she did not, and at the moment I wondered
296 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
that she did not fall. I believe George and 1 were both
O
expecting it, now the excitement was over. He called
her Mary and me Fred, because we were all together
every day of our lives. Bridget, you see, was still
nowhere.
So I retired for my whiskey again, to attack that
other bottle. George whispered quickly as I went,
"Bring enough, bring the bottle." Did he want
the bottle corked? Would that Kelt ever come up
stairs ? I passed tne bell-rope as I went into the
dressing-room, and rang as hard as I could ring. I
took the other bottle, and bit steadily with my teeth
at the cork, only, of course, to wrench the end of it
off. George called me, and I stepped back. " No,"
said he, " bring your whiskey."
Mury had just rolled gently back on the floor. I
went again in despair. But I heard Bridget's step
this time. First flight, first passage ; second flight,
second passage. She ran in in triumph at length,
with a screw-driver I
" No ! " I whispered, " no. The crooked thing
you draw corks with," and I showed her the bottle
ao-ain. " Find one somewhere and don't come back
O
without it." So she vanished for the second time.
" Frederic! " said Morton. I think he never called
me so before. Should I risk the clothes-brush again ?
I opened Lycidas's own drawers, papers, boxes,
everything in order, not a sign of a tool.
" Frederic ! " " Yes," I said. But why did I
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 297
say " Yes " ? " Father of Mercy, tell me what to
do."
And my mazed eyes, dim with tears, did you ever
shed tears from excitement ? fell on an old razor-strop
of those days of shaving, made by C. WHITTAKER,
SHEFFIELD. The " Sheffield "'stood in black let
ters out from the rest like a vision. They make cork
screws in Sheffield too. If this TVhittaker had only
made a corkscrew ! And what is a " Sheffield wim
We?"
Hand in my pocket, brown paper parcel.
" Where are you, Frederic ? " " Yes," said I, for
the last time. Twine off! brown paper off. And ]
learned that the " Sheffield wimble " was one of
those things whose name you never heard before,
which people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a
hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a cork-
screw fold into one handle.
"Yes," said I, again. "Pop," said the cork
" Bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. Bottle
in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I walked in.
George poured half a tumblorful down Lycidas's
throat that time. Nor do I dare say how much he
poured down afterwards. I found that there was need
of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all
uver. I guess Mary had some, too.
This was the turning-point. He was exceedingly
weak, and we sat by him in turn through the night,
giving at short intervals, stimulants and such food as
13*
298 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
he could swallow easily ; for I remember Morton was
very particular not to raise his head more than we
could help. But there was no real danger after this.
As we turned away from the house on Christmas
morning, I to preach and he to visit his patients,
he said to me, " Did you make that whiskey ? "
" No," said I, " but poor Dod Dalton had to furnish
the corkscrew."
And I went down to the chapel to preach. The
sermon had been lying ready at home on my desk,
and Polly had brought it round to me, for there had
been no time for me to go from Lycidas's home to D
Street and to return. There was the text, all as it
was the day before :
" They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his
brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the gold-
smith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the
anvil."
And there were the pat illustrations, as I had fin-
ished them yesterday ; of the comfort Mary Magda-
len gave Joanna, the court lady; and the comfort
the court lady gave Mary Magdalen, after the media-
tor of a new covenant had mediated between them ;
how Simon the Cyrenian, and Joseph of Arima-
thea, and the beggar Bartimeus comforted each other.
gave each other strength, common force, corn-fort^
when the One Life flowed in all their veins ; how
on board the ship the Tent-Maker proved to be Cap-
tain, and the Centurion learned his duty from his
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 299
Prisoner, and how they " All came safe to shore," be-
cause the New Life was there. But as I preached, I
caught Frye's eye. Frye is always critical ; and I
said to myself, " Frye would not take his illustrations
from eighteen hundred years ago." And I saw dear
old Dod Dalton trying to keep awake, and Campbell
hard asleep after trying, and Jane Masury looking
round to see if her mother did not come in ; and Ezra
Sheppard, looking, not so much at me, as at the win-
dow beside me, as if his thoughts were the other side
of the world. And I said to them all, " O, if I could
tell you, my friends, what every twelve hours of my
life tells me, of the way in which woman helps wo-
man, and man helps man, when only the ice is broken,
how we are all rich so soon as we find out that we
are all brothers, and how we are all in want, unless
we can call at any moment for a brother's hand,
then I could make you understand something, in the
lives you lead every day, of what the New Covenant,
the New Commonwealth, the New Kingdom is to be."
But I did not dare tell Dod Dalton what Campbell
had been doing for Todd, nor did I dare tell Camp-
bell by what unconscious arts old Dod had been help-
ing Lycidas. Perhaps the sermon would have been
better had I done so.
But, when we had our tree in the evening at home,
1 did tell all this story to Polly and the bairns, and I
gave Alice her measuring-tape, precious with a spot
of Lycidas's blood, and Bertha her Sheffield wimble
300 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
" Papa," said old Clara, who is the next child, u all
the people gave presents, did not they, as they did
in the picture in your study ? "
" Yes," said I, " though they did not all know they
were giving them."
" Why do they not give such presents every day ? "
said Clara.
" O child," I said, " it is only for thirty-six hours
of the three hundred and sixty-five days, that all peo-
ple remember that they are all brothers and sisters,
and those are the hours that we call, therefore, Christ-
mas eve and Christmas day."
" And when they always remember it," said Bertha,
" it will be Christmas all the time ! What fun ! "
" What fun, to be sure ; but Clara, what is in the
picture ? "
" Why, an old woman has brought eggs to the baby
in the manger, and an old man has brought a sheep.
I suppose they all brought what they had."
" I suppose those who came from Sharon brought
roses," said Bertha. And Alice, who is eleven, and
goes to the Lincoln School, and therefore knows every-
thing, said, " Yes, and the Damascus people brought
Damascus wimbles."
" This is certain," said Polly, " that nobody tried to
give a straw, but the straw, if he really gave it, carried
a blessing."
EDWARD E. MALE'S WRITINGS.
HIS LEVEL BEST. i6mo. 51.25.
" We like Mr. Hale's style. He is fresh, frank, pungent, straight*
forward, and pointed. The first story is the one that gives the book its
title, and it is related in a dignified manner, showing peculiar genius and
humorous talent. The contents are, ' His Level Best,' 'The Brick
Moon,' ' Water Talk,' ' Mouse and Lion," ' The Modern Sinbad,'
* A Tale of a Salamander.' " Philadelphia Exchange.
GONE TO TEXAS; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a
Pullman. i6mo. gi.oo.
" There are few books of travel which combine in a romance of true love
so many touches of the real life of many people, in glimpses of happy
homes, in pictures of scenery and sunset, as the beautiful panorama un-
rolled before us from the windows of this Pullman car. The book is
crisp and bright, and has a pleasant flavor ; and whatever is lovely in the
spirit of its author, or of good report in his name, one may look here and
find promise of both fulfilled." Exchange.
WHAT CAREER? or, The Choice of a Vocation and the
Use of Time. i6mo. 1.25.
" ' What Career? ' is a book which will do anybody good to read ; es-
pecially is it a profitable book for young men to ' read, mark, and in-
wardly digest.' Mr Hale seems to know what young men need, and
here he gives them the result of his large experience and careful obser-
vation. A list of the subjects treated in this little volume will sufficiently
indicate its scope: (i)The Leaders Lead; (2) The Specialties; (3) No-
blesse Oblige ; (4) The Mind's Maximum ; (5) A Theological Seminary;
(6) Character ; (7) Responsibilities of Young Men ; (8) Study Outside
School ; (9) The Training of Men ; (10) Exercise." Watchman.
UPS AND DOWNS. An Every-Day Novel. i6mo.
51.50.
" This book is certainly very enjoyable. It delineates American life so
graphically that we feel as if Mr. Hale must have seen every rood of
ground he describes, and must have known personally every character
he so cleverly depicts. In his hearty fellowship with young people lies
his great power. The story is permeated with a spirit of glad-heartedness
and elasticity which in this hurried, anxious, money-making age it is most
refreshing to meet with in any one out of his teens : and the author's sym-
pathy with, and respect for, 'the little romances of his young friends is
most fraternal." New Church Magazine.
Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, fy tie
Pttblifkert,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
EDWARD E. MALE'S WRITINGS.
THE GOOD TIME COMING; or, Our New Crusade.
Square iSmo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
" It has all the characteristics of its brilliant author, unflagging en
tertainment, helpfulness, suggestive, practical hints, and a contagious
vitality that sets one's blood tingling. Whoever has read ' Ten Times
One is Ten ' will know just what we mean. We predict that the new
volume, as being a more charming story, will have quite as great a parish
of readers. The gist of the book is to show how possible it is for the
best spirits of a community, through wise organization, to form them-
selves into a lever by means of which the whole tone of the social status
may be elevated, and the good and highest happiness of the helpless
many be attained through the self-denying exertions of the powerful
few." Southern Churchman.
THE INGHAM PAPERS. i6mo. $1.25.
" But it is not alone for their wit and ingenuity we prize Mr. Male's
stories, but for the serious thought, the moral, or practical suggestion
underlying all of them. They are not written simply to amuse, but have
a graver purpose. Of the stories in the present volume, the best to out
thinking is ' The Rag Man and Rag Woman.' " Boston Transcript.
HOW TO DO IT. i6mo. $1.00.
" Good sense, very practical suggestions, telling illustrations (in words),
lively fancy, and delightful humor combine to make Mr. Hale's hints
exceedingly taking and stimulating, and we do not see how either sex
can fail, after reading his pages, to know How to Talk, How to Write,
How to Read, How to go into Society, and How to Travel. These, with
Life at School, Life in Vacation, Life Alone, Habits in Church, Life
with Children, Life' with your Elders, Habits of Reading, and Getting
Ready, are the several topics of the more than as many chapters, and
make the volume one which should find its wav to the hands of every
boy and girl. To this end we would like to see it in every Sabbath-school
library in the land." Congregationalist.
CRUSOE IN NEW YORK, and other Stories. i6mo.
$1.00.
" If one desires something unique, full of wit, a veiled sarcasm that
is rich in the extreme, it will all be found in this charming little book.
The air of perfect sincerity with which they are told, the diction, re-
minding one of 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and the ludicrous improbabil-
ity of the tales, give them a power rarely met with in ' short stories.'
There is many a lesson to be learned from the quiet little volume."
Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by tAe
Publishers.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
EDWARD E. HALES WRITINGS.
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, and other
Tales. i6mo. 1.25.
"A collection of those strange, amusing, and fascinating stories, which,
in their simplicity of narrative, minute detail, allusion to passing occur-
rences, and thorough naturalness, make us almost feel that the differ-
ence between truth and fiction is not worth mentioning. Mr. Hale is the
prince of story-tellers; and the marvel is that his practical brain can have
such a vein of frolicsome fancy and quaint humor running through it. It
will pay any one to think while reading these." Universalist Quarterly*
WORKINGMEN'S HOMES. Illustrated. i6mo. $1.00.
" Mr. Hale has a concern, as the Friends say, that laboring men should
have better homes than they usually find in the great cities. He believes
all the great charities of the cities fail to overtake their task, because the
working men are always slipping down to lower degrees of discomfort,
unheahhiness, and vice by the depressing influences surrounding their
homes. He writes racily and earnestly, and with rare literary excellence."
Presbyterian,
TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN : The Possible Reforma-
tion. A new edition, in two parts. Part I. The Story. Part
II. Harry Wadsworth and Wadsworth Clubs. i6mo. $1.00.
HARRY WADSWORTH'S MOTTO.
" To look up and not down ; To look out and not in ; and
To look forward and not back ; To lend a hand.
"The four rules are over my writing-desk and in my heart. Ever)
school boy and girl of age to understand it should have this story, and, 4
I was rich enough, should have it." Extract from a letter by an un-
known correspondent.
MRS. MERRIAM'S SCHOLARS. A Story of tht
" Original Ten." i6mo. 1.00.
" It is almost inevitable that such a book as ' Ten Times One is Ten '
should suggest others in the same line of thought ; and Mr. Hale begins
in ' Mrs. Merriam's Scholars ' to take up a few of what he terms the
* dropped stitches ' of the narrative. The story is exceedingly simple, so
far as concerns its essentials, and carries the reader forward with an inter-
est in its motive which Mr. Hale seldom fails to impart to his writings.
. . . The two already published should be in every Sunday-school library,
and, indeed, wherever they will be likely to fall into the hands of apprecia-
tive readers,"
Sold everywhere. Matted, post-paid, on receipt of price, ty tike
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
EDWARD E. HALE'S WRITINGS.
SEVEN SPANISH CITIES, and the Way to Them.
i6mo. $1.25.
"The Rev. E. E. Hale's 'Spanish Cities' is in the author's most
lively style, full of fun, with touches of romance, glimpses of history, allu-
sions to Oriental literature, earnest talk about religion, consideration of
Spanish politics, and a rapid, running description of everything that
observant eyes could possibly see. Mr. Hale makes Spain more attrac-
tive and more amusing than any other traveller has done, and he lavishes
upon her epigram and wit." Boston Advertiser.
CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY.
Ten Stories. i6mo. 1.25.
" Many an eye has moistened, and many a heart grown kindlier with
Christmas thoughts over 'Daily Bread.' and some of the lesser stars
which now shine in the same galaxy ; and the volume which contains
them will carry on their humane ministry to many a future Christmas
time." Christian Register.
IN HIS NAME. A Story of the Waldenses, Seven Hun-
dred Years ago. Square iSmo. Paper, 30 cents; cloth, $1.00.
" A touching, almost a thrilling, tale is this by E. E. Hale, in its pa-
thetic simplicity and its deep meaning. It is a story of the Waldenses
in the days when Richard Cceur de Lion and his splendid following
wended their way to the Crusades, and when the name of Christ in-
spired men who dwelt in palaces, and men who sheltered themselves in
the forests of France. 'In his Name' was the 'Open Sesame' to the
hearts of such as these, and it is to illustrate the power of this almost
magical phrase that the story is written. That it is charmingly written,
follows from its authorship. There is in fact no little book that we have
seen of late that offers so much of so pleasant reading in such little space,
and conveys so apt and pertinent a lesson of pure religion." N. Y.
Commercial A dvcrtiser.
" The very loveliest Christmas story ever written. It has the ring of an
old Troubadour in it."
A SUMMER VACATION. i6mo. 50 cents.
" After Mr. Hale's return from Europe he preached to his people four
sermons concerning his European experience. At the request of ' some
who heard them,' Mr. Hale has allowed these sermons to be published
with this title. They are full of vigorous thought, wide philanthropy,
and practical suggestions, and will be read with interest by all classes."
Boston Transcript.
Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
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